#I’m not fucking lovable but I also live in a world where love is dying
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I just… I know full well that I’m difficult to love. I know I’m broken and needy and strange. I want so much to be treated with adoration as warm and powerful as the sun. I don’t want to schedule my love life around someone’s actual family life. I don’t want to be a side piece plaything competing with someone’s actual spouse. I want to feel like a legitimate priority in someone’s life for once in my goddamn life.
#this is goggles#fuckin it still rings in my head#my father telling me that I just have to accept that people like me aren’t built to be loved#that the sooner I make peace with that the better off I’ll be#I’m not fucking lovable but I also live in a world where love is dying#it’s being strangled by capitalism#American individualism is a curse upon our culture#I just want to chill out and do crafts and kiss#why is it so difficult?
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Psycho Analysis: Suicide Squad Team A
(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS! Seriously, as soon as you click that read more, you’re gonna be smacked with SPOILERS! Don’t say I didn’t give you ample warning this time!)
The world’s in danger yet again, and Amanda Waller is in need of some expendable forces to take on some dirty jobs in the name of preserving peace. Last time she did this, it seems like she hired the wrong people. Nice guy Will Smith Deadshot? Bland, boring Killer Croc? El Diablo, who became attached to a bunch of reprobates after spending a couple hours with them? The only one who was useful in that squad was Katana. She had their backs, could cut all of them in half with one sword stroke just like mowing the lawn, and her sword traps the souls of its victims. Unfortunately, she was decidedly not expendable, so what is a girlboss like Waller to do?
Easy: Assemble a brand new squad of criminals to do the dirty work. Harley and Boomerang are the only ones she brought back, because let’s be real, they’re the only ones we give a damn about. Filling out the rest of the squad are the stoic, craggy crackshot Savant; the handsome, German spear-thrower Javelin; the alien warrior Mongal; the frothing, psychotic animal Weasel; the confident and all-powerful TDK; and Blackguard, who is literally just a guy. Together, this team gets deployed to Corto Maltese to do what no one else can do, and with skills like theirs, they are absolutely unstoppable!
They all fucking die before the opening credits.
Motivation/Goals: Considering the goal of the squad is to shave time off their prison sentences by going on the mission, it’s ostensibly the reason every single one of these goons accepted the job. Savant and Weasel are pretty well established in this regard; we get to focus on Savant for much of the opening, so we can get a sense of him, and Weasel is stated to have murdered no less than 27 children. So, yeah, they need to do this mission.
The rest, though? Who knows! Why are Mongal, Javelin, and TDK in prison? How did they even get an alien like Mongal? What did they do to land in the position they’d need to go on a suicide mission? Why doesn’t this movie have flashy, intrusive cards explaining everything to us in a throwaway gag in a montage?!
Blackguard, at least, has some other motivation. He sold out the entire squad to the military of Corto Maltese, which is why they’re ambushed. Now, there’s actually some ambiguity here: Did he do this of his own volition, and was this a complete surprise, or is it, as it is heavily implied, all part of Waller’s plan and she let this happen as a diversion for the other team to get in unnoticed?
Honestly, though, it doesn’t matter what their goals are. They’re all dead within five minutes of the movie starting, with one exception.
Performance: So, the reason these guys are even worth talking about is because, despite their minuscule screentime, all of their actors manage to cram in enough humor and characterization that they’re all pretty fun and likable. Michael Rooker is as stony and stoic as ever as Savant (until he hilariously isn’t), Flula Borg’s Javelin is really sweet and charming in his interactions with Harley, and Pete Davidson’s Blackguard is just amazingly douchey and pathetic. Special mention goes to Nathan Fillion’s TDK, who has an utterly endearing and unwavering faith in his astoundingly crappy ability to… detach his arms. It’s honestly kind of beautiful. Then there’s Weasel as portrayed by Sean Gunn, who is just a hilarious crackhead of an animal man.
Final Fate: Literally every single one of them die horribly thanks to Blackguard’s betrayal. He’s the first to go, because as soon as he walks out saying “Hey guys, it’s me, the one who contacted you!” he literally has his face blasted clean off. The rest go soon after. Mongal, in one of the most astounding moments of idiocy I’ve ever seen, leaps on a helicopter despite Rick Flag telling her specifically not to. Her weight and strength send it careening out of control, which leads to it shredding Captain Boomerang to bits before exploding, burning her alive as she painfully screams and writhes in agony. TDK gets his arms shot into Swiss cheese, leading to him bleeding out since even detached they still are part of him. Javelin is also shot, but gets a dying moment with Harley where he passes her Checkov’s Javelin. Finally, after witnessing all of this carnage, Savant completely loses his shit and tries to swim away, leading to Waller blowing his head up.
You may be wondering what happened to Weasel. He appears to drown as soon as the Squad deploys, because despite being actually smart in this movie, Waller forgot to make sure everyone on the Squad could swim. Thankfully, this lovable child-murdering crackhead rodent was just sleeping, and wakes up in the first credit scene.
Best Scene: Obviously, it’s their one and only scene. It’s a magnificent slaughter that puts the X-Force scene from Deadpool 2 to shame.
Final Thoughts & Score: I’ve gotta hand it to James Gunn. Even though these losers are only onscreen for a few minutes, they all get to cram a lot of charm and personality into that time, to the point it’s actually kind of sad seeing them all die. It’s a beautiful mix of comedy and tragedy. Since their screentime is so limited, though, I’m mostly going to be grading them on style, performance, and so on rather than on villainy like normal. They are all bad guys, as they don’t really get a chance to redeem themselves like the other Squad, so I’m still counting them as villains, which means they could potentially score above an 8 (which is the highest score I’m willing to give heel-face turn villains, because they end up being better as characters in general than as villains).
I’m also not going to talk about Boomerang (I’ll talk about him when I review the original Squad) or Harley (because she not only lives, but deserves her own solo Psycho Analysis). Now here we go, from best to worst:
TDK
If you thought anyone but TDK would get top marks, you’re sadly mistaken. Seeing Nathan Fillion proudly wield the insanely lame power to detach his arms to lightly tap soldiers on the head and gently grab their guns is a sight I never knew I needed to see until this movie. The fact he just seems so darn proud about this power that he doesn’t even bother to use in any way that would be remotely useful is honestly really endearing. Frankly, the sheer fact they adapted Arms-Fall-Off Boy in any way is enough for me to give him a 10/10.
Weasel
Weasel is just disgustingly delightful. He’s just a horrible, nasty, ugly little bastard… But he’s kind of adorable? He clearly has no idea where he is at any given time and is just so goddamn freaky that I can’t help but love him. The fact that, despite being a character who in the comics is noteworthy only for dying on his first mission with the Squad, he manages to survive the entire movie is pretty impressive. Hopefully he comes back in the future, but either way he gets an 8/10 from me.
Javelin
Honestly, aside from Boomerang, his death stung the most. He’s just so cute and charming, and he doesn’t even get to fling his javelin at anyone! Thankfully, he passes it on to Harley, and boy does she ever get to use it! He’s so cute, I have to give him an 8/10. I just wish we got more of him.
Savant
Savant is just an absolutely hilarious bait-and-switch. We follow him through the prologue, with everything seeming to point to him as our main character and the Squad leader. He’s stoic, he’s cranky, and he has impeccable aim… and then we get to the beach and he just freaks the hell out and starts screaming and crying and running away like a little bitch. Seeing Michael Rooker act like he’s shitting his pants after playing a badass like Yondu is just the sort of hilarious subversiveness that James Gunn loves to do when you let him loose. The fact that he looks like, to paraphrase the TVTropes YMMV page for the movie, a “cyberpunk Tommy Wiseau” is the icing on this 7/10 cake.
Blackguard
I was prepared to hate this guy just based on how lame Pete Davidson’s costume was, and you know what? I do hate him. But I love to hate him. He’s just an utterly pathetic scoundrel and a coward, true to his name. The fact he is the first to die, as just about everyone predicted, and is killed absolutely gruesomely makes any annoyance he could provide moot, and his freeakout over being seated next to Weasel on the plane is actually kind of funny. I was originally going to give him a 6, but you know what? He can have a low 7/10. He’s like the only member of this particular Squad to actually do anything evil, so I gotta give him props for that.
Mongal
Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not blame James Gunn or actress Mayling Ng. I’m not actually mad at either of them for what they chose to do, because it is ultimately hilarious and sad. It suited the narrative of the film, and I’m not actually, genuinely mad.
With all that out of the way, Mongal is one hell of a stupid cunt. It is one thing to cause your own death with your stupidity, it is something else entirely to cause the death of a beloved character with your poorly planned attack. The fact she didn’t take into account how her weight and strength would effect an airborne helicopter makes one wonder if she is really supposed to be based on a character who can take on Superman and live to tell about it.
Let’s compare her to two similar characters to really show how bad she is. Like Blackguard, she is directly responsible for a death on the beach, Blackguard being responsible for everyone by selling them out and leading them into an ambush (and yes, I’m including him as well), and Mongal killing Boomerang with the chopper. The difference is, Blackguard’s betrayal was deliberate, he meant to sell the team out, he was actively doing something evil there, while Mongal killed Boomerang out of sheer idiocy.
Now, let’s compare her to Zeitgeist from the similar bloody massacre that occurred during X-Force’s deployment in Deadpool 2. Like Mongal, he accidentally kills a teammate. The difference is, in the case of Zeitgeist, he only accidentally melted Peter, it was a freak accident, and ultimately it does get undone by the end. Meanwhile, Mongal made a conscious, stupid decision and ended up killing her squadmate with her own idiocy. She sucks, hardcore. I don’t do this lightly, but I’m giving her a 1/10. Villains just don’t get much stupider than her.
I will giver her this, though: the makeup work on her is good. She’s lowkey kinda hot if I’m being honest. But being hot and having good makeup does not a good villain make.
#Psycho Analysis#The Suicide Squad#Savant#Michael Rooker#Javelin#Flula Borg#TDK#Nathan Fillion#Weasel#Sean Gunn#Mongal#Mayling Ng#Blackguard#Pete Davidson
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Interdimensional Moms: part 1
Intro <-
Yang:So how we doin this? Drawing straws or... well we actually don’t have straws here so-
Weiss:It’s obvious that you wanna go first.
Blake:Extremely obvious.
Ruby:All over your face.
Yang:Hey now, don’t call me out like that! We all have so much to sort out here. I don’t even know where to begin. Differences could start and stop anywhere for all we really know.
Blake:From what it seems, Beacon itself would have one or two minor changes, but the real changes start after the fall. At least, for you three that is.
Weiss:You saying you’re different?
Blake:Unless you three started going on dates with Jaune at Beacon, then yes, I’m different.
RWY:(They’ve been together that long!?)
Yang:Okay, starting from Beacon...nothing really stands out too much. Jaune and I were just friends. *cringes* Back then, a certain faunus caught my eye.
Blake:Ah...right. I guess that tracks in practically every universe.
RW:Oh yeah it does. You two are joined at the hip.
Yang:Haha, really? Glad to hear it. My Blake and I are best buds! Remnant has never seen such a dynamic duo! Can’t say it didn’t take a lot of time effort after a rough patch. We actually dated in my world.
Blake:Same.
Yang:What!? How long?
Blake:I don’t know, it was pretty on again off again.
Yang:Well for me it was after Haven. Both of us had gotten pretty serious. All the growing we’ve done together and apart had brought us closer. However, Adam unintentionally put a wedge between us. His attempt to change and the problems that came with it were-
Yang stopped midway and saw the confused faces of her otherworldly teammates. They were shocked, confused even. Especially Blake, who looked the most shocked of all.
Yang:Umm did I say something odd?
Blake:Adam, he...isn’t dead?
Yang:Oh, well I guess that’s the start of the major changes then. Blake and I fought Adam at Argus. Stabbed him through the chest and watched him fall down rocks into a river.
Ruby:That lines you with my world. Dude died that day. Like any normal person should.
Yang:Well Adam is anything but fucking normal. Man has the craziest luck. A young women, the winter maiden in fact, she saved his life. She’s not exactly normal either. The maiden, Jacquelyn, ended up sticking by him to see if she could change his ways. This naturally meant we’d run into them again. And that’s how things fell apart.
Blake:What do you mean?
Yang:You were fully committed to seeing if Adam could actually change. I wasn’t, so we constantly butted heads in any situation involving him. Then we would fight about things that had nothing to do with at all. Eventually, we broke it off. We remained on decent terms but I was pretty heartbroken about the disconnect. Enter our lovable blonde idiot. Jaune did everything in his power to cheer me up.
Weiss:Sounds like him. Always such a bleeding heart. That boy just can’t help himself. Let me guess, his kindness and concern made you feel all warm and fuzzy?
Yang:Hehe, guilty. It was more of his willingness to laugh at my puns. Jaune’s always been interesting to talk to. He tries to act cool and calm even though he’s terrible at it, then comes clean right after. Before I knew it I was telling him things I hadn’t talked about with people before. I could tell he looked at me like most guys do, but also genuinely wanted to listen to me. Talk about playing unfair; he got defenseless. Suddenly I was smiling again. Anytime with him was time well spent. Then one day, I kissed him.
Ruby:Happily ever after?
Yang:Not even close! Hahaha!
Weiss:Why do you sound proud?
Yang:It’s funny looking back at it to a certain degree. Gods, I was such a brat. More than a few fights are on me. Between Blake, Raven, and other experiences, my insecurities flared up in ugly ways over nothing. It even got us to break up too. I was officially done with dating. My Ruby was out in an uncomfortable position.
Ruby:I bet! I’d never want you two fighting. Especially in my world. Picking between the person I love and my sister!? I don’t know what will happen.
Yang:I kinda do. *sets up* You’d start dating Jaune because you’ve looked at him since Beacon. The two of you would confide in each other and share a special kind of love, but it would be bittersweet. All because your sister still pines for him and never met to make him leave, and Jaune never says it, but he hates how things fell apart. He’s faithful to you and would never do you wrong, a guy to truly cherish. So... you let him go. Watch him walk back to your sister like you asked, because my happiness was worth that much to you.
Ruby:....
Yang: In my world at least. Honestly it’s still the most amazing thing I’ve seen you do. We must’ve cried over that conversation for hours. I felt so guilty and you only smiled, hugging me tight. Jaune and I had a few more stumbles. Nothing serious though. Eventually we moved in together when the world was saved. You and Oscar got together officially which made me happy. Even made our weddings a competition of who’d make dad bawl his eyes out the most. You won by the way; Raven came back into our family and into dad’s arms. Last but not least I had a baby. Yujin Xiao Long, my fucking pride and joy from above.
Weiss:Wow, that’s a lot.
Blake:What am I doing? Did I marry Sun?
Yang:Yep. You and blondes Blake, I tell ya.
Weiss:Hold the phone! Who am I with!?
Yang:Pretty sure you’re technically single. Buuuut, Neo and your have gotten pretty friendly from what I managed to interrogate out of you.
Weiss:That’s, highly unexpected. For a number of reasons.
Yang:Better believe it. Besides Cinder, a few crazies, and Salem, a few people made something of themselves. Dying sucks after all.
Ruby:You have a dead Cinder?
WBY: You don’t?
Ruby:*crosses arms* Hmph, I’ll wait my turn. Yang, you said you’re the only mother from our team. If Blake and I have been married for quite some time then what, we don’t want kids?
The joyful sunshine from Yang slipped into grayer skies. Her smile faded and it increasingly got harder to look at this Ruby without thinking of her own.
Yang:Are you sure that’s something you wanna know? I’ll tell you, but I didn’t want to bring down the mood with the problems where I from.
Blake:Problems? How big of a problem.
Yang:The biggest we’ve faced. It’s...a lot.
Ruby:Well we’ve listened this far. *takes hand* Lay it on us.
Yang:Pfft, oh boy. So...umm...another secret war came up. One that caused us to leave our friends and family for over a decade.
Weiss:A decade!?
Blake:What gets worse after Salem!? Who tries anything after a grimm queen!?
Yang:So a majority of Remnant was still unaware of her, but a fight like that can only be kept under wraps so tightly. Plenty of people still learned fractions of the truth. A few of those people weren’t exactly nice guys. They idolized her efforts and became her followers that wanted to keep her will alive, starting with taking revenge on the people who defeated her. We were so unaware. So caught up in normalcy. They ambushed us, and I mean everyone. We...we didn’t come out unscathed. Ren was crippled badly. Weiss, you almost your brother. Jaune’s family got hit but thankfully lived. The real casualties were aimed to hurt Ruby.
Ruby:Oh, of course. S-So, either you’re about to say I had no time to start a family, or...
Yang:...
Yang:When I tell you the look you made when you learned what happened to Oscar, to Qrow... that’s the moment it felt like my little sister left forever. Till this day you don’t smile like you used to. Very recently, now that it’s finally over, you’ve started looking better, but those ten years were hell. We choose to go out and fight again, avoiding contact with family. I haven’t had a real opportunity to be in my daughters life.
Ruby:How old is she?
Yang:Sixteen soon. Left her when she was four so you know. *tearing up* I missed everything. Just about anyways. Ironically it was Raven and Adam that helped her through the years with Jaune and Dad. Eventually we came back and ooohh boy was Yujin not thrilled in the slightest. Hehehe. Her right hook is really strong. I only had about a week with her before things got complicated again. *wipes eyes* But it’s okay. We left on good term. Something I definitely don’t feel like I deserve.
Blake:I can’t believe a thing like that would be possible.
Yang:Cults are a huge problem in Remnant now. You’re definitely aware of that. You actually oversee a little group from the shadows to deal with them in secret. An idea you got from experience. Adam works for you and everything. Hate to admit, but he’s become the guy you wanted him to be. Even has a family. I’m grateful to him. He personally kept my girl safe.
Blake:To think I’d hear you say that. Now I know this isn’t my world.
Yang:Don’t get me wrong, I still will hit him if given the chance. My life hasn’t been charmed and sacrifices too great were happening way too many times but it finally has gotten to a point where everyone feels like we’re taking steps towards a better future.
Weiss:Moving forward?
Yang:Yes, I was trying to avoid the phrase but yes Weiss, we’re moving forward. Still... *looks at Ruby*....
Ruby:W-What?
Yang:It’s unreal seeing you like this. My Ruby has become so strong and endured but hasn’t really picked herself up completely. All her tragedy stemmed from the loss of Oscar and Qrow; her last talk with Oscar was fight about kids too. That’s the entire reason she went off alone in the first place. Looking at you I can’t help but question my own choices. If...I just let her stay with Jaune, then maybe-
Ruby:Nope.
Yang:Huh?
Ruby:Look, if I know anything about your world, then it’s gonna be me and I can tell you without a doubt your Ruby doesn’t blame or would consider her own happiness without you. She loved you enough to take the chance to find love again. You really think there’s anything you could’ve done differently at that point. That girl is as stubborn as they come! *smiles* So buck up cowgirl. You deserve it.
A sense of warmth came over Yang as she heard those words. This other Ruby smiled at her with the same love as her own; completely caring about Yang’s feeling before her own. Yang felt so...unburdened. She couldn’t help but cry a little, laughing softly as she did. Who would’ve thought love could transcend worlds? It was so vindicating, therapeutic even.
Yang:Ruby, you’re something else entirely, you know that?
Ruby:It’s my curse. All I ever wanted was normal knees but the world said “no, special eyes!”
Yang:Well I guess I should thank the world then?
Weiss:You said your Ruby is getting better? That’s good. Still, it must be pretty weird looking at Jaune. Can’t imagine how lonely it must feel losing a love twice.
Blake:It never numbs.
Yang:Geez you two, lighten up. We can’t all be depressed. Ruby also didn’t lose Jaune. Actually....there may or may not have been an interesting...arrangement for a brief period of time.
Ruby:Ehhh what?
Yang:Hehehe well, hahaha, ummmm a decade is a very long time without feeling any kind of pleasure in a bleak situation. And you know me, I have to share things with you all my life.
Ruby:OH MY GOD!!!
Blake:*grinning* Yooooo! You loaned out Jaune!?
Weiss:That’s....accurate; in a lot of ways.
Ruby:That’s so scandalous! How could you!?
Yang:I didn’t force it! I gave the option, you said no, then you changed your mind because things got real stressful. Like come on, a decade of death and loneliness.
Ruby:Sigh...yeah. I can see it. Still, it’s so filthy. He’s a married man. What, so I’d just look at you and say “Yang I’m gonna sleep with Jaune, don’t come in the room.”
Yang:....
Ruby:What?
Yang:....Nothing.
Ruby:Bullshit! What is it!?
Yang:*scratches head* Well, I was lonely too, and a week is only so long-
Weiss:Oh so it was a group thing!!?
Ruby:WHAT!?
Yang:Only sometimes!
Ruby:SOMETIMES!?
Blake:HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! THAT IS AMAZING!
Ruby:Why are you laughing!?
Blake:Because that’s just so extreme, and not, all at the same time. I could totally see that happening.
Weiss:Same. Dang, Jaune slept with sisters. That’s dangerously close to being like your dad.
Ruby:That’s different!
Blake:Is it though?
Yang:Eh, I don’t see the problem. We’re all grown and make choices. Plus I’m the one who guided you through awkward teenage changes. It not like we didn’t share a room for years.
Ruby:That doesn’t make it okay.
Yang:Eh debatable.
Ruby:*red* It isn’t though! How could I do something so bold!? So taboo!?
Weiss:It isn’t like you’re the one who did it. Just a version of you.
Ruby:Not better!
Yang:Awwww it’s okay Ruby. Let’s hug it out. Hehehe *opens arms*
Ruby:Don’t touch me!
Weiss and Blake laugh until their sides hurt as Ruby tries escaping the bear hug that terrorized her. Yang’s world found interesting for sure. Weiss finally decides to help Ruby out.
Weiss:Got a picture of Yujin?
Yang’s eyes lit up and pulled out her scroll. Her team huddled around her and collectively cooed like that parents they are at the sight of a blonde young girl with gorgeous blue eyes with a black combat school graduation cap and gown and a certificate proudly raised up high. If it wasn’t for those eyes and shoulders length hair, they might’ve mistaken her for Yang.
Yang:She’s going to Beacon early because she’s fucking awesome like her mom.
Ruby:I think you mean her aunt?
Yang:I know what I said.
Weiss:I bet she’s just as hardheaded.
Blake:What do you think your kid is up to right now?
Yang: Well...*smiles*
xxxx
The girl in question sat at a work bench with oil on her face and her hands busy tinkering with gauntlets. She looked over at blueprints in a journal. If they were right, then she was definitely doing something wrong. How her mother made something so complex was crazy!
Yujin:Come on Yujin. You can fix a car, making gauntlets into a sword that don’t break should be easy!
Footsteps came up from behind her and a plate stacked with sandwiches. She looked up and smiled at her dad that gave her a wink, then kissed her forehead.
Jaune:Haveing fun, you grease monkey.
Yujin:Jokes on you, I like monkeys. Just a few more attempts and I’ll have the coolest weapon in Remnant. That entrance exam is as good as aced.
Jaune:Not if you don’t have a landing strategy. Tomorrow we’re going on a trip.
Yujin:Does it happen to be near a cliff?
Jaune:Who can say? Rule one of being a huntsman, be prepared for everything.
He ruffled her hair and left, laughing evilly. Yujin could tell he’s been waiting for this day. She pulled out her scroll and searched through a collection of videos labeled “mom” and found a super early one. She hit play and watched her mother give a peace sign to the camera as trees increasingly got closer from below.
Yang:Beacon rules!!!! Wooohooo!
The camera flipped and focused on a familiar blonde flailing through the air like a doll in the distance.
Yang:Oof, hate to be that guy! Wait, that’s vomit boy! Hahah, hope he survives. He owes me shoes. Poor dude. I guess he needs more training in flirting and landing. Wait, eugh I think he barfed again! Hahaha!
Jaune:Stop watching that one!!!!
Yujin:Hahaha but it’s the best one. The ending is priceless.
Jaune: *walks back down*
Yang:Well if he survives this I guess I can off him at least I can offer him mints and company. Fake it to ya make Jaune. Between me and Ruby, at least you’ll look like a player. Heh, nah, I don’t think I can support a bunny onesie.
Yujin and Jaune:*grinning* And then she did! *high-fives* Arc charm, baby!
#rwby#rwby au#jaune arc#ruby rose#weiss schnee#yang xiao long#blake belladonna#rwby dragonslayer#yujin xiao long#rwby lasting embers
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My Favorite Fic Tropes Ever
AKA the things I stay up late at night searching for on AO3 lol
To be added on whenever
Fandoms mentioned/talked about (Jojo's Bizarre Adventures, Undertale, Hollow Knight, Red vs Blue, Harry Potter, A Hat in Time, MLP:FIM, Fallout, Metalocalypse, Team Fortress 2, Pokemon, Mass Effect, Half Life / Half Life VR. Transformers. My fandoms are smoll lol.
1. When the most gentle idiot himbo character goes completely serious and outright fucks up the villain because they crossed an arbitrary line that exists in said gentle idiot's head. (Caboose is considered a joke but he ripped apart an entire army of texas bots by himself because he thought they were 'taxes')
2. When the annoying but lovable character gets seriously sick or injured to the point of nearly dying and it forces the gang to realize how much said character means to them and how much they would miss them if they were to die. Cue gang taking care of them through recovery and treating them better once they survive. (The Reds and Blues make fun of Caboose all the time...but they would change their tune in a hurry if something were to happen to him.)
3. When you figure out the horrible backstory of a character through listening to them ramble in their fever dreams/intense painkiller/blood loss induced hallucinations. (Giorno Giovanna is secretive but the gang figure out his fucked up childhood when he gets sick and starts rambling)
4. When everyone lives and nobody dies because I'm a fucking weenie and I cry easy so I like happy endings and fix it fics. (Quirrel and Tiso live goddamnit!)
5. When a shitty character gets called out for the shitty things they do in a piece of media when said media gives them 'the greater good' treatment. (Like srsly, fuck you Dumbledore. You let Harry stay in abusive household you dick. >:()
6. One person collects found family/friends like pokemon cards and lives with them all because they love them (Ghost has SO MANY FRIENDS crammed into Dirtmouth now lol.)
7. 'I have known this person for only a day, but if anything happens to them I will kill EVERYONE and then myself. Also "This Is MY KID NOW" (Bruno Bucciarati lets be real he is mom. We all also love Dadmaster Mato lets be real.)
8. Plausible backgrounds for characters that have little to no background known about them. (I stan the 'Caboose is a SPARTAN' theory until the day I die.)
9. The kids of Royals being MUCH BETTER than their shitty parents. (Looks at my Hollow Knight AU and sweats)
10. Baleful Polymorph. Give me someone that gets turned into a monster and can shapeshift and but give them friends. Bonus for critter instincts and behaviors but are untimely, a cinnamon roll. (That AHIT coffee shop au yes)
11. When someone gets lost in their head via panic attacks/ptsd/dissociation and does not recognize their pal/love and said person has to convince the other that they will be okay and that they are safe. (EVERY SINGLE FANDOM HAS THIS)
12. Supernatural AU. As in vampires and werewolves and ghosts and other creepy crawlies all being pals together. (Team Fortress 2 but all the mercs are different kind of monsters and supernatural beasties.)
13. The gang tries to celebrate/get through an actual holiday with varied results. (Everyone in Undertale in ONE HOUSE TRYING TO MAKE IT THROUGH A HOLIDAY.)
14. Lets Have Some Platonic Love And Affection Up In Here. (plz)
15. Behind the Scenes Aus where the characters are actors and there are outtakes while trying to 'film' the dramatic scenes. (Cause it helps soften the blow of canon character deaths and the like, my poor heart.)
16. Where Fridge Horror is explored and addressed in a relatively fluffy and unassuming show (My Little Pony: FIM. For real Luna on the moon for 1000 YEARS. ALONE.)
17. Worlds where I can easily self insert myself in and daydream/write about my own adventures and role playing purposes (Fallout and Pokemon for realzies)
18. Exploring the bad guy and their thought processes, or a bad guy that isn't really a bad guy and has always been on the fence, and not has to make a choice to take that step over the point of no return or make an effort to turn around and make a new life for themselves. (Transformers because there are probably Decepticons that Don't Want To Be Here.)
19. Everyone Now Has to Be Domestic cause someone needs to cook dinner and I burn water (Half Life VR)
20. Uh Oh! The team used to be just a team but now they are family and if you hurt one of our family members we will boil you alive (Metalocalypse)
21. Give me an excuse to flex on my love of (x) (Entomology and Hollow Knight for me lol)
Probably reblog more later but I wonder if these are some of your guy's favorites too!
#tropes#keetah writes#just some favorite tropes#look i just think hurt/comfort is neat#i only like angst with a happy ending#my heart is very weak and if I read sad stuff it aggravates my depression#so I can't get TOO dark#i have so many bookmarks on AO3 oh lawd#*laughs in asexual*
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the bakarina anime is done! it’s just a drop in the ocean that is the otome isekai genre so these are some recs + what you need to know about them. i just listed most of my favs otherwise it’d be too long :p
in no particular order. includes some non-isekai ones too. needless to say most of these aren’t completed yet
my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom
using this to plug that there’s more bakarina content in the form of light novels, manga and 3 spin-offs
an observation record of my fiancee - a self-proclaimed villainess
told in the pov of prince cecil, whose fiancee bertia straight up tells him she’s a villainess of an otome game from her past life
if you ever wonder what jeord from bakarina might be thinking half the time, this is probably close. cecil is the same kind of prince who initially finds things bored and predictable until they met the mc
the things cecil would get up to for bertia? hoo boy
also the way the mangaka draws hair is addicting to look at
the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress
the title speaks for itself~ after remembering an otome game she played in her past life, cecil (previously cecilia) is now the one capturing the hearts of the academy ladies instead
it’s fairly new so there’s not much of it yet :c but it’s pretty interesting
the original otome game had a whole rpg combat system going on and i’m hyped to see how it’s gonna lead the story
the Angelique vibes are strong in this one
the villainess wants to marry a commoner
isabella used to play an otome game in a past life, but she was really only interested in a side character named ursch. and then one day she finds him in her mansion garden
her past life self is such a mood - i too have 100% otome games in hopes of side characters getting hidden routes but alas
definitely deserves the ‘video game’ tag. isabella can see status screens and character stats/skills etc, and all the gacha rewards and grinding transferred over after her reincarnation. she’s the isekai female protag we’ve always wanted
seriously the main ship is too op for their own good aha
deathbound duke’s daughter
in a past life, erika only managed to finish 2.5/7 scenarios of an otome game thanks to an unlucky encounter with knife-kun. with the different flags of her impending doom approaching, she takes things into her own hands years before the game events start
very fantasy-oriented (the most on this list) and pretty action-packed, once you get past the game exposition in the first 3? chapters
the world building is brilliant, from the hafan mages to the aurelian alchemists, and there’s beasts and wands and spells and dnd stuff sprinkled in
the cast has quite interesting dynamics and interwoven plotlines, and they’re all dorky in their way :>
beware of the villainess
melissa remembers a novel from her past life and desperately tries to cut off contact with the male leads, but they still make her life hell & she rages
she’s just so done with everyone and you can’t help but relate to her
definitely the funniest on this list XD melissa and her reactions takes the cake but even the shit characters are hilarious in their own way
there’s also a lot of parodies to memes etc & best of all, there’s cussing. all the shits and fucks. a whole lot of it
it’s great
death is the only ending for the villainess
penelope wakes up as the villainess from a game she’d been playing in her past life, only right now it's on the hardest difficulty where death is literally everywhere. thus she tries, well, not dying
what’s cool about this is that penelope has access to the original game system. she can see menus, choice options etc. the male leads even have affection percentages floating above their heads :> which is always cool to see (and what i’m a sucker for)
but it’s definitely one of the darker ones on this list. iirc there’s depictions of violence, abuse, drugs and then some. just a fair warning
the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin
upon realizing that she’s the villainess from a past-life otome game, mary decides to stay as one. chaos ensues
i love this manga so much, everyone is so quirky and there’s something to laugh about on almost every page. the story almost feels self-aware of itself and just lets the characters do whatever. like ride bikes
addie is so cute ;o;
it’s definitely something everyone should experience
i’m a villainess daughter so i’m going to keep the last boss
one of the finished ones!
post-annulment, aileen pulls a Lisa Tepes and asks the demon king claude to marry her. he refuses. hijinks ensues
mostly on the fantasy side, as it builds on the world of the monsters
the cast is pretty fun! aileen’s smart, funny and pretty competent in her own right. plus she and claude are positively adorable together
milady just wants to relax
post-annulment, ronia decides to open a cafe in the countryside. it later becomes the frequent hangout of a beastmen mercenary group, who are intensely feared by the townsfolk
well... beastmen. that’s all you need to know /wink
okay, that aside, it’s just as chill as the title suggests. ronia slowly makes friends she can trust, and the beastmen find a second home in the only cafe that’s willing to accept them. it’s pretty wholesome
the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food
despite actively trying to change her ‘villainess from a past-life otome game’ fate since childhood, elizabeth gets annulled, her noble title stripped, and is sent to a church in a neighboring kingdom. she enjoys it more than expected, despite the appearance of the ever watchful leonid
there’s plenty of 21st-century food like sandwiches, cotton candy leonid’s muscles <3
the entire cast is lovable, and can chris get an f for all the heart attacks leonid keep giving him
seduce the villain’s father
yereninovica (or just yerenica) realizes that she’s in the world of a novel she read in her past life, but as the aunt of said novel’s mc. after thwarting a kidnapping that’s basically the mc’s origin story, she takes it upon herself to also prevent the tragic death of emperor belgoat
a bit different since it switches the roles around (side character x side character) and goes into the “parent generation” of the original work
there’s also an interesting bit where the world seems to recognize her as a hijacker, and where that takes her, we’ll see in due time :o:
plus the way yeni habitually calls him ‘father’ cracks me up every time
transferred to another world but i’m the savior of an otome game
after a ritual gone wrong, “yamada tarou” (fake name) is stuck in the world of an otome game. the only way back is with a magical ring, normally obtained after becoming the lover of one of the male leads. he of course says no i’m going adventuring but the game doesn’t like that
it’s absolutely hilarious - the leads treat our mc like a heroine, and there’s a lot of otome tropes that are called out on/parodied. like the seiyuus’ names oh my god
tarou’s reactions are great and his appraisal skill is the funniest thing alive
endo and kobayashi’s live commentary on the villainess
in modern japan, endo and kobayashi start their playthrough of an otome game, which becomes a bit glitchy and odd. they discover that siegward, a male lead in the game, can hear what they’re saying. they use this chance to finally give lisolette a happier ending
much of the story’s focus is on the characters slowly warming up to lisolette, and a bit on endo/kobayashi’s irl relationship. despite being the primary drive of the story, lisolette herself hardly moves the plot - if you know what i mean
regardless it’s undeniably adorable
tearmoon empire
no isekai, more of time travel? chronoskimming?
mia wakes up 10 years in the past after being sentenced to death. now afraid of guillotine-kun, she strives to solve the issues in her kingdom that had previously led to her doom
a bit similar to bakarina in terms of concept: avoid death flags, unknowingly recruits the people she meets into her little saintess cult. the misinterpretation is very strong, and in brilliantly funny ways
it has really fun narration ngl especially in the light novel
of course, i’ll claim palimony!
to prepare for her annulment, yulia starts scheming recording her fiance’s meetups with the heroine to use as evidence. if you’re gonna lose a suitor, might as well get some money out of it, right? along the way she gets involved with rudonik, one of the male leads
no reincarnation. rather than an otome game, the villainess story comes from a book written by a side character, and the “heroine” just decided to play it out in real life
the cast together is a riot, and it’s entertaining to watch yulia only think in profits and every connection she can make to achieve it
the villainess’ slow prison life began with her broken engagement
no isekai, just a plain old villainess
post-annulment, rachel is sentenced to imprisonment. which she enjoys and is thoroughly, hilariously prepared for
everyone’s a little afraid of rachel and for good reason. it’s better to find out yourself through the LN or manga, but let’s just say that even the king doesn’t want to deal with her XD
the holy grail of eris
now this one is interesting, putting the villainess trope into a mystery ghost story. that said, no isekai either
our innocent heroine constance attends a party and encounters scarlet, an executed villainess from ten years ago. a body possession and some public embarrassment later, they decide to team up to solve the mystery that might be behind scarlet’s death
i mean, ghost villainess? sign me up
+ some honorable mentions
i favor the villainess (the heroine goes for the villainess- girls? girls? yes)
a bellicose lady got reincarnated (a delinquent reincarnates as a heroine; what a concept :o unfortunately there’s not a lot of english content for it yet)
it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game (i like that the mc actively makes it so that game can’t ever happen the way it should; plus, yanderes are always interesting to study)
inso’s law (modern isekai, and quite cute!)
the reincarnated young lady aims to be an adventurer / holy guardian tiger (similar to deathbound duke’s daughter in that there’s more of a focus on the fantasy aspect)
expecting to fall into ruin, i aim to become a blacksmith (so far the only one with a shounen tag that i like; its main charm is probably the cast and their interactions with each other eliza best girl)
since i’ve reincarnated as the villainess’ father i’ll shower my wife and daughter with love (big big wholesome vibes)
level 99 villainous daughter (severely op lady who takes no shit from the people looking down at her, and regularly thinks about blowing up the academy within the first 4 chapters? hell yeah)
may i please just ask one last thing? (post-annulment, the mc literally punches everyone in the room; it’s great)
this is getting long now oops
edit: i also made a visual-friendly personally-tagged-by-me bookshelf here!
#masterpost#otome isekai reviews#rip tags i'll just stick to the english titles#my next life as a villainess#an observation record of my fiancee - a self proclaimed villainess#the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress#the villainess wants to marry a commoner#deathbound duke's daughter#beware of the villainess#death is the only ending for the villainess#the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin#i'm a villainess daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss#milady just wants to relax#the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food#seduce the villain's father#transferred to another world but i'm the savior of an otome game#endo and kobayashi's live commentary on the villainess#tearmoon empire#of course i'll claim palimony!#the villainess' slow prison life#the holy grail of eris#i favor the villainess#a bellicose lady got reincarnated#it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game#inso's law#holy guardian tiger#expecting to fall into ruin i aim to become a blacksmith#since i've reincarnated as the villainess' father i'll shower my wife and daughter with love#level 99 villainess daughter#may i please just ask one last thing
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Pros and Cons of all the TF shows I watched [updated: Unicron Trilogy and BW Neo]
Update info: Whyever the hell I wrote this and why people care about my opinion is beyond my current understanding, but @chaoticgirl23 asked for the Unicron Trilogy I hadn't watched back then, so- Also decided to write down if I actually like the show or not xD
(also I removed wfc, because I cant really judge after all with the show not being finished)
My personal opinions + stuff that can be dubbed controversial and problematic, so beware for racism and sexism! But also beware of my idiotic attempts at humour
G1 (loved the show with all my heart)
Pros:
- The original show
- big cast of loveable characters
- Really awesome human side characters
- Very clever and witty dialogue
- fucking batshit insane
- Rodimus Prime is babe
Cons:
- apart from Arcee, female autobots being treated like a subspecies and only appearing in like one episode (3 if you are generous)
- Motherfucking country called “Carbombya”
- Some human characters are actually shit (those boys from B.O.T)
- Rodimus fucks as a human and not as a robot
- Everything animated by AKOM
- Galvatron’s portrayal as a person with brain-damage reads as ableistic (Personally I still love his G1 version more than the others I’ve seen)
- The “You’re only truly disabled if you lose your courage” line from Chip, it was explained to me that it’s ableistic as well
Headmasters (loved the show)
Pros:
- exciting plot
- characters die, fuck yeah
- Planets get destroyed, fuck yeah
- <3 ~ Power of Friendship ~ <3
- Sixshot is babe
Cons:
- Everything about Cyclonus and Wheelie
- Rodimus fucks off after episode 10 and never comes back
- Arcee going from warrior to secretary
- If you come from IDW I have to break it to you that Chromedome is straight
SuperGod Masterforce (loved the show with all my heart)
Pros:
- A darker and more serious storyline if you’re into that
- Lots of character arcs and well-written characters in general
- Decepticons having a more family like dynamic
- Decepticons with a level of depth to them
- Redemption much
- Ginrai is babe
Cons:
- This show’s focus is on the humans so if you don’t like human TF characters, this aint for you
- The character Cab has a level of racist stereotyping - he comes from a fictional country in Oceania called Karin and the depiction of that country is everyone living in wood homes and having no electricity. (The show plays in the future so that makes it worse) Cab himself gets introduced as a Tarzan kinda dude who can talk with animals.
While I found Cab himself not bad as a character, the problem with how his background is written sure is stupid and insulting. There isn’t a lot of focus on his country in the show however, but it’s still there
- There is a scene in which the boys Shuta and Cab spy on girls during swim class (they get called out and apologize for it though and the “fanservice” scene itself is really damn modest and tame)
Victory (loved the show)
Pros:
- Similiar fun tone as G1
- lovable cast of idiots
- Exciting episode plots
- Leozack is babe
Cons:
- The only two prominent female characters are love interests and nothing else (which is drop in quality when compared to Masterforce, which had Minerva as a fleshed out autobot with agency and Mega as an interesting female villain)
- Leozack never punches Deszaras in the face
- Fucking retcons the destruction of Mars in Headmasters
Beast Wars (loved with all my heart)
Pros:
- Really compelling story and characters!!!
- Well written dialogue
- Wonderful character animation
- Dinobot is HONOUR and babe. Also I’m crying
- Megatron and his bullshit
Cons:
- Megatron and his bullshit
- That stupid love triangle subplot in season 3
- Some major plotline not being fully developed (the Vok plotline)
Beast Wars II (liked the show)
Pros:
- The Predacons in general
- Lio Convoy (the Optimus of the show) having a son
- Galvatron is babe and so is Starscream
Cons:
- Maximals are lame apart from Lio Convoy and the arc with his son Lio Junior
- A lot of uninteresting characters an episodes
- The Jointrons as racist mexican stereotypes
- Only female robot is part of a love triangle (even more annoying than the love triangle in Beast Wars)
Beast Wars Neo (liked the show)
Pros:
- Big Convoy being a lone wolf turned teacher was a really sweet story to follow <3 How he and his team learnt to trust each other over the course of the show was really nice!
- Unicron in this show was a delight
- D-Navi was always fun
- Magmatron was a rather nice Decepticon leader
- Heinrad is babe
Cons:
- No girls (Boo!)
Beast Machines (very conflicted, tend to dislike)
Pros:
- Plays entirely on Cybertron
- Explores themes of technology and organic life forms and really tries to be something different and deep
- The last episode is really nice
- Jetstorm is babe
Cons:
- No fun allowed - the maximals are really frustrating because we only ever see them being angry and fighting and a lot of them only show us their worst sides
- The maximal character models are HIDEOUS
- You may not actually like the philosophical aspect of the show, especially when you think too long about it and realise it’s kinda shit
Robots in Disguise 2001/ Car Robots (liked the show)
Pros:
- New continuity! New story, new take!
- Funny and lighthearted
- Cute characters
- Sky-Byte/Gel-Shark is babe
- Ultra Magnus/God Magnus is a fucking jerk and I love it
Cons:
- Sideburn/Speedbreaker’s gag about loving red sport cars and chasing after them - it’s played as a joke all the time but I can see that stuff making people uncomfortable when they see the female driver trying to get away from him and his catcalling (Apart from that I do like him a lot though)
Armada/Micron Densetsu (disliked the show)
Pros:
- Lots of feels between Megatron and Optimus
- Starscream's arc
- The ending arc
- Jetfire was babe
Cons:
- The pacing was unbearable
- Half the time the characters didn't act like people and I was confused about almost every conflict, action and point they made. It's not a great story when I watch episode and need an hour to figure what the hell the story even was
- The parts I liked in concept are not helped by how unnatural and weird the characters acted at times. I liked the ending, but how they got there was so weird that I just can't enjoy it
Energon/Superlink (loved the show)
Pros:
- Megatron/Galvatron - Everything about him
- The japanese voice acting was fantastic!
- Really nice death scenes (I love death scenes btw)
- Mirage/Shockfleet being in love with Megatron
- Bringing back old names apart from Megatron and Optimus
- Rodimus being an equal to Optimus was a nice touch
- The few scenes it was 2D animated
- Jetfire/Skyfire is babe
Cons:
- Animation
- The "for the toys" thing kinda ruined some characters, where instead of getting the toys as completely new characters, they killed old ones and brought them back with a new model. It did suck story-telling wise (and me, loving death scenes, get annoyed when a death scene gets ruined by bringing the character back). So you got all these character arcs that feel like the just stopped
Cybertron/Galaxy Force (loved the show with all my heart)
Pros:
- Love the setting and world with all the different colonies and how they were explored ~
- Optimus Prime, this one is my favourite version of him!
- Vector Prime, they should bring him back
- All the different leaders
- The friendship between the characters- this show has my favourite set of Autobots from all TF media
- This also has my favourite Mega&Star dynamic
- Starscream himself is so well done here!
- Jetfire/Dreadlock was babe
Cons:
- Megatron was lacklustre. When it came to him and his dynamics with other characters (apart from Starscream), he was hardly written as a person with feelings. He never reacts to anything happening within the ranks of Decepticons and it is really disappointing, because there was a lot of potential! (with Flame Convoy and Chromia specifically)
Animated (loved the show)
Pros:
- Character writing, plot and themes!
- Lighthearted tone but enough scenes that dig a little deeper
- Really nice and smooth animation
- Optimus is baby
Cons:
- The chins
- No 4th season
Prime (loved the show)
Pros:
- Best friggin fight scenes and animation in general
- Really exciting plot
- Ratchet is babe
Cons:
- Predacon Rising exists
- Characters dying for budget reasons (Just don’t hire celebrities when you cannot pay them for more?)
Robots in Disguise 2015 (it's okay)
Pros:
- ...the Stunticons are babe
Cons:
- characters never developing and learning the same shit over and over again
- almost no interesting villains
- even the interesting ones being shoved aside a lot
- no real built-up for the climax
- lots of filler and not enough time spent on the actual plot of a corrupt Cybertron goverment
Prime Wars Trilogy (loved the show with all my heart)
Pros:
- Megatron, everything about him, he’s babe
- I really like the soundtrack
Cons:
- Bad storytelling, both narrative and visual
- Horrible or mediocre voice acting
- Static and bad facial expressions
- Static and bad character animation
- Feels like no one involved in the production had any idea how to tell a story
Cyberverse (meh)
Pros:
- Really cute as fuck
- Big cast
- Astrotrain is babe
Cons:
- No time for character arcs, they just jump from set up to conclusion with nothing in-between
- Unfocused plot that jumps from one idea to another
- Megatron broke my heart and I hate him
#transformers#tfa#tfp#g1#beast wars#bwii#prime wars trilogy#cyberverse#headmasters#masterforce#victory#beast machines#rid01#rid15#bey's shit#transformer posting
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Hi there! Love your blog, do you know any longer parkner fics? Like basically 10k+? Or even 6k haha I’m just dying for a longer parkner fic lately♥️
Please read triggers and take care of yourself. Don’t forget to leave comments and kudos!
He Made Me Who I Am
When Harley Keener was eleven, Iron Man showed up and changed his life.
Then he left, and Harley's life became exponentially worse.
Verisimilitude of a Dream
“Are you okay?” said someone standing next to him. He took the offered hand and stood up into the most beautiful brown eyes.
Everything to win
Flashes of fire. Echoes of screams.
A young amnesiac goes on a journey to discover the person he was before and to rebuild a broken world.
~an Anastasia AU~
making a home
There’s no Harley Keener shaped hole in New York waiting for his arrival, no place meant for him to settle in, but he doesn’t let that stop him. He makes room for himself, somewhere in between the halls of Midtown and Tony Stark’s lab, nestled neatly next to Peter Parker, and he claims that space as his own, because there’s no where else that Harley would rather be.
finding a reason
If there's one thing to be sure of, it's that Harley Keener will always resent his father for leaving. Even now, after William Keener's passing, and even when faced with the reality that while William left Harley and Abbie, he never stopped being a dad. The three strangers that share some physical trails with Harley and Abbie are proof of that.
And Peter? Well, Peter's just here for Harley, but maybe he can help pick up the broken pieces of this family before they go back to New York.
The Proposal
When Chief scientific officer of Stark Industries, Peter Parker, finds out that he is going to be deported in less than a month, he makes the ridiculous claim that he is engaged to his lab assistant, Harley Keener. Follow the two as they try to keep up the ruse and slowly fall for each other.
(For the sake of this fic, that second after credits scene didn't happen)
hold me (like the night sky holds the moon)
“You didn’t answer me,” he says. “Why should I dance with you, Stark?”
“Well—” Peter fumbles for a moment, then settles on, “Why not?”
Harley squints at him, but ultimately lets out a laugh. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Why not?”
-
OR: peter benjamin parker-stark and harley james keener meet at a party. and then they meet again. and again. and again.
Facts of Life
or, It Starts at a Funeral.
...
A love story told in snippets:
In which Harley isn't good at feelings - and Peter is too damn lovable to deny.
its flaws that bring out beauty
And even though he smiles and laughs with him, there’s always a hint of sadness hiding behind those beautiful doe eyes.
Harley meets Peter at a bus stop and decides he's a nice person. He doesn't know what Peter goes home to.
Or I still can't write summaries.
*Abusive scenes in some chapters. Please don't read if you're not comfortable.
Dream of Me
When Harley Keener was five years old, his “dad” went to Seven-Eleven to get scratchers, and he must have won, because he never came back. When Harley Keener was eleven years old, a faerie had broken into his garage, introduced himself as “The Mechanic” enlisted his help in fixing his magic-mechanical armor, and left Harley with an unwavering belief in the supernatural.
Now Harley’s seventeen, his mom just got a new boyfriend, said boyfriend fucking /sucks/, and Harley’s standing in the woods with a bag, about to step into a faerie circle, hoping to Hell that this works.
for all the things my eyes have seen, the best by far is you
Peter has always been terrified of losing his soulmate. Harley was terrified to meet them in the first place. It takes getting to know each other for those fears to finally fall away.
Soulmate au where you and your soulmate each have half of a quote written on your skin. You can have multiple soulmates, platonic or romantic.
Stable Core
Living in such a small town, Peter only had two big fears: 1) he would never make it out of Rose Hill and 2) his aunt would figure out he liked boys just as much as he liked girls.
Harley loved the city, there was always something going on. But maybe he was biased, he’d been raised there after all.
OR:
A reverse AU in which Peter was raised in Tennessee and Harley in Queens, and how they find each other regardless and learn to accept themselves for all that they are (also iron dad).
the whom it may concern
a parkner pen pal au
(no endgame spoilers, i'm just gonna pretend it never happened)
Don’t Freak Out
Getting kidnapped isn’t usually the best way to start your summer (especially your last summer before college) but honestly? It kinda worked out.
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I finally watched all of MCU
in release order because IT MAKES SENSE!!!!
special thanks to @littlegingrnut who watched ALL OF THEM with me. She’s the best.
Idk if anyone cares at all, but I feel like sharing, so here’s some thoughts and reactions, enjoy:
Phase 1:
Iron man
okay but like how was Tony such a jerk in the beginning only to become like the most lovable character ever??
YINSEN DID NOT NEED TO DIE :((
did not like the antagonist what was that
I mean he’s not bad I just didn’t like him that much
I wanna get myself a jarvis tho
all in all, really enjoyed it
got me really excited to watch more
The Incredible Hulk
didn't watch cuz aly said not necessary
we just skimmed over the important parts
oh and watched the end credits scene
Iron man 2
this was really great
okay but like I love Ivan Vanko hes such a great antagonist
I LOVE TONY
HE’S SO GREAT
THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND EVERYTHING GOSH AAH
oh damn ~Natasha Romanoff~
ma’am-
Pepper as a powerful business lady? YES
just... really great shit right here
Thor
Mmmmmm I don't see the hype about Loki??
his two faced-ness is annoying me
also Thor? I didn't love him at first,, he's a bit cliché
STELLAN SKARSGÅRD YES SWEDISH REP
okay but Thor is a good boi actually,,, I take it back he’s pretty great
Oh nooo Loki - yeah lol as if he actually died
YO WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT END CREDITS SCENE that got me all like WTF and shit
also told ya Loki didn’t die
Captain America: The First Avenger
okay full disclosure, I actually watched this one time before bc I started watching them in chronological order but never got any further than this
it made so much more sense this time
I liked it so much better this time
because THE RELEASE ORDER MAKES SO MUCH SENSE
anyway
this was good !!
I'm gay for Peggy omg
and Steve is such a good boi
DID BUCKY REALLY HAVE TO DIE
all in all not my favourite tho, not too memorable tbh
"I had a date" 😭
The Avengers
ohhh man
ALL OF THEM TOGETHER? UGH YES
Oh hello Dr. Banner nice to see u
Loki bro pls chill
OKAY HULK HELLO
NATASHANATASHANATASHA AAAHH I'M GAY
still don't get the Loki hype tbh. maybe a lil bit but idk
THOR OKAY I LOVE THOR NOW
TONY WHAT THE FUCK NO NO NO TONY DON'T
oh okay he's good
I love them all so much oh gosh
I MADE IT THROUGH PHASE ONE WOHOOOO
***
Phase 2
Iron man 3
this movie changed me
aly can confirm - I was very much not okay after seeing this
literally had anxiety through all of it
I mean I LOVED it
but like
the ptsd :(((
although I do love that they showed that, just made me love Tony even more
just... showing the ugly parts - love that shit
but also like noooo tony bby :((((
HARLEY!!!! IS SO GREAT !!! AND ALY SAID HE COMES BACK AT ONE POINT!! YAY
just.... Tony Stark man.
great antagonist, love the whole mandarin thing
EXTREMIS? NO THANK U that honestly gives me like zombie ish vibes or smth I don’t like it
but like it was great
OH PEPPER JUST BECAME 10x HOTTER DAMN SHE JUST GETS MORE AND MORE ATTRACTIVE EACH MOVIE HUH
PEPPER ALMOST DYING? NOPE
THE PAIN IN TONY'S FACE? NOPE
all in all loved this so much and I am still not really okay
Thor: The Dark World
I see why people think this is the worst Thor movie.
DON’T GET ME WRONG IT WAS GREAT
but like,,, meh? the big end fight was so anti-climactic? not epic at all like what the fuck
I LOVE DARCY
but she's clearly gay so stop makin her fool around with the intern
but like Thor is such a soft boi and I love him
again, Loki's two-faced-ness – aRH
but,,,, I get the Loki hype now
I'm aboard the train
I love Loki
oh oh oh the part in his prison cell when Thor comes to talk to him and is all like "enough tricks" and then his cell is all torn up and he's all torn up and AH BABY 😭
Thor just needs cuddles
Aaaaand this is where I accidentally got the worst possible spoiler. :)))
I wanted to watch some wholesome Tony Stark content before bed and so I searched youtube for "Iron Man" and clicked on a video I thought looked nice and wholesome. I accidentally read the top comment and then proceeded to break down and freak out to Aly and Hanna on Aly’s live, and they comforted me and stuff <3
Aly then told me that “hey remember that I told you that the little boy in Iron Man 3 comes back at one point? Yeah that’s at the funeral”
STUPIDLY, I then watched the death scene on YouTube, went to bed crying, and of course, dreaming about it. I will never be okay again and I will never be ready for Endgame thank you and goodbye.
anywAY,,,,,
Captain America: Winter Soldier
*SO MUCH SCREAMING*
I thought that Bucky didn’t deserve to die - and he didn’t - but like,,, DYING WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER THAN THIS
the ~bromance~
nat and steve I mean, so good
I AM NOT OKAY I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS MOVIE BUT IT WAS AMAZING
Natasha tho mmmmmhhf
I was rly confused while watching but like everything came together at the end and it was so nice and damn this is one of my favorites so far
Sam is great I want more of Sam
Guardians of the Galaxy
multiple people had told me that they thought I’d really like this movie
honestly? I didn’t
it was kinda meh?
like I found it very predictable and cliché and not in a delightful way
idk if it’s just that I know that Chris Pratt is a dick but I don’t like Peter
I rly like Gamora and Nebula, but like I’m a lesbian, so I don’t think anyone’s surprised that I like the traumatized warrior gals
but like in general I’m kinda disappointed
I only gasped like twice, and it was barely gasp-worthy moments
Avengers: Age of Ultron
All of them together just makes me so happy, they’re so cute with each other AH
loved Ultron as the antagonist. that was great.
but,,,, I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t really get to see any regret from Tony bc he created Ultron
THE TWINS ARE FANTASTIC
whatever’s going on with Bruce and Nat, I don’t like it
TOO MANY moments that reminded me of the spoiler that I refuse to speak. Did not enjoy
everyone just needs to be hugged why doesn’t anybody HUG THEM????
not happy about Jarvis dying :((( even tho he technically didn’t die but like HE’S NOT JARVIS ANYMORE IS HE
and then Tony just replaces him with this Friday just like that??? no i’m not okay with that
in a ranking scenario this one falls in like the top of the middle range? Like it’s not one of the favorites, but it’s still up there.
I FUCKING DID IT AGAIN ARGH
I was just reading about new MCU projects that are coming up and THERE WAS A SPOILER WARNING, but STUPID AS I AM I DISREGARDED that and kept on reading. I was just skimming through the text and I read “Loki who dies” and stopped right there, because AAHH FUCKING SHIT
I was on a call with Aly as this happened and so I told her that I had given myself a spoiler again and that it was about Loki, and she was all like I can’t remember anything that happens to Loki hmm, and so I thought YAY it’s okay, they just meant one of the times when he fake died!!! so I went on to keep reading, but before I could read anything else Aly stopped me, remembering. She told me it would be gut-wrenching and terrible and I’m just-
So disappointed in myself.
Ant-Man
it was an enjoyable movie, but like,,, a little meh?
I feel kinda the same as I did with GOTG
but I like each of them better than the other for different reasons? idk???
the plot wasn’t very thick, like I could have gone away to pee without pausing and probably not miss too much
I didn’t really get invested in the story or the characters
but it was enjoyable for sure
Sam!!! Hello!!!!
Again, like with GOTG, I found it kinda cliché, but in a more delightful way this time
WE MADE IT THROUGH PHASE 2 AND PASSED THE HALF-WAY POINT WOHOOOOO
***
Phase 3
Captain America: Civil War
I constantly needed to be hugged while watching this
in the end I was fine, like I’ve been way less okay after some of the other movies, but during? needed hugs and cuddles
I love that they were fighting each other it was just... umff you know
but also like,,, LOVE EACH OTHER
Wanda and Vision? no thanks I HATE IT
Steve and Sharon?? NO THANKS I HATE IT
literally that’s just weird on SO many levels
and that kiss was-- ugh I hated it.
SPIDER BOY !!!!! UGH I LOVE HIM ALREADY
Black Panther heLLOOO
ALL THE STUCKY THOOO
Tony and Steve fighting in the end got me :(
Doctor Strange
This one falls at the bottom of my list
It was the shortest movie but it felt SO LONG because I was so bored through all of it
it just never got me hooked, I didn’t get invested in the story at all.
there weren’t even any characters that I liked enough to want to see more
sure another infinity stone and getting to know doctor strange and shit, I get why you kinda need to watch it
but I doubt I’ll watch it again
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
just like with the first one, kinda meh
I didn’t really get into it until the last half hour or so
the music really carried this movie tho
and baby groot !!!
I love Nebula so much, such a great character
Yondu dying was really great, it did a lot for his character
I still don’t really like Peter Quill
I feel like it was barely contributing to the infinity saga, the only thing that’s somewhat connected is that Nebula wants to kill Thanos, and the only reason I know that’s connected is because of spoilers
because I’m not really supposed to know the significance of Thanos at this point
but then again, maybe I’ll feel differently when I’ve finished all the movies
Spiderman: Homecoming
SPIDEY BOY !!!!!!!!!
THIS IS A FAVORITE
I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVED THIS MOVIE
THE TONY/PETER INTERACTIONS WERE SO GREAT
PETER IS A BABY AND HE’S SO GREAT AND AAAAAHH
HE’S ON MY LIST BTW
AND LIKE,,, CAN WE TALK ABOUT HIS FIGHTING SOUNDS COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE’S???? Like steve and thor and shit are all like huOH heeeUH oAH ya know?? and then peter’s over here like eeh heh mmmMHF
HE’S JUST REALLY GREAT AND AAH I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO MUCH
LITERALLY SMILED THROUGH ALMOST ALL OF IT
except when things were going bad and during the fight scenes and shit and when he was in big danger and stuffs
BUT LIKE AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
SO GOOD
OH OH OH AND STEVE’S LITTLE EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS WERE SO CUTE AH
hehehheheh and the end credits tho heheheheh
ANYWAY I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO SO SO SOO MUCH
Thor: Ragnarok
ANOTHER FAVORITE AAAAH
ALL THE BROTHERLY MOMENTS THO
Kinda mad that we didn’t get a hug there in the end but oh well
Thor is so sassy and goofy in this one I love it
ugghhhhh I love Loki so much
Hela has so much Maleficent vibes
Heimdall yESSS !!!
all the Thor/Hulk interactions were so PRECIOUS AAH
this was just such a great movie with great character development for both Thor and Loki and ughhhh IT WAS SO GOOD
“get help” was fucking ICONIC
VALKYRIE THO
oof not excited for infinity war :((
Black Panther
this one falls somewhere in the middle for me
like it was good, but it’s not up there
my main issue with it is that it didn’t really feel so much like a superhero movie, it was more just like... family drama
but Shuri tho, love her
and all the awesome ladies fighting!!! yes!!!!
BUCKY!!!
Avengers: Infinity War
I am not okay
I will never be okay again
I thought Loki dying was gonna be the worst part - and honestly, knowing about it beforehand made it less painful actually
but NO NO NO
THE LAST 15 MINUTES IS JUST A CRYFEST HUH
REAL NICE THANK YOU
oh gosh I can’t even think
I told y’all I didn’t like Peter Quill and well, HE DESERVED WHAT HE GOT
oh gosh nope
I’ve been feeling guilty that all of y’all had to wait a full year for endgame but AT LEAST THEN YOU HAD TIME TO BE OKAY AGAIN BEFORE ENDGAME
fucking shit what have I gotten myself into
Ant-Man and the Wasp
I liked this one better than the first ant-man
It’s still not up there but it was good
idk it could just be bc I know the characters more this time or because I kind of had pretty low expectations but I liked this more
oh also maybe I was just happy that I didn’t have to see like all my favorite characters die like I did yesterday :(((
still not okay
anyway, ant-man and the wasp
I really liked Ava, really great character honestly
I liked Hope a whole lot more this time around
still don’t really like her and Scott together, especially after her mother like talked through him and shit. I feel like if I was Hope and my mother talked to me through my love interest, I would feel pretty weird about it all
but maybe that’s just me idk
oh but what I do like about scott and hope is all of hank’s comments about them
he’s funny hehehe
also Luis! great dude
okay but Bill FOSTER???? as in JANE FOSTER?? SEEMINGLY HAVING NO CONNECTION AT ALL???
there’s too many double names in this whole ass franchise and I’m upset
two Peters, two Eriks, two Fosters.... like I know that’s what real life is like, people have the same names, but THIS IS FICTION
YOU CAN AVOID THE CONFUSION
that wasn’t totally related to this movie specifically but this was the third strike dudes, I couldn’t just ignore it anymore.
oh oh oh and I did not appreciate the mid credits scene, I DON’T NEED REMINDERS OF THAT PAIN THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Captain Marvel
this one falls somewhere in the middle for me
like it was good, and I enjoyed it a lot, but it just wasn’t really anything that left me all like woooaaaah omg AH you know???
I really liked how it connected back to previous movies like with Ronan and the Kree people from GOTG and the tesseract and all that jazz
where can I get myself a flerken tho I want one
I appreciate that no one turned into dust, that was nice
my main problem with this movie is that HER POWERS MAKE NO SENSE
like in the beginning it was kinda okay. I didn’t understand her powers, but at least they felt reasonable
then we got to the end and all of a sudden she’s flying and glowing and strong enough to stop and redirect a fuckin missile, and then she’s FLYING INTO BOMBS AND COMING OUT THE OTHER END COMPLETELY UNSCATHED??
OH AND THEN SHE FLIES INTO FUCKIN SPACE WITHOUT A HELMET OR ANYTHING AND SHE CAN BREATHE JUST FINE???
it just makes no sense, it’s completely unreasonable and it makes her too perfect to me. Too unbeatable. I don’t like it.
but all in all a good movie, loved seeing young Fury and shit
Avengers: Endgame I WILL NEVER BE READY
As I thought, I wasn’t ready
But, I actually think that knowing about Tony beforehand made it a bit easier
I still wish I hadn’t known
and I still bawled like a baby
but like,,, I think I would have been way worse off if I hadn’t known
I’m just so sad now
I really need a hug
and even though I just cried more than I’ve done all year I need to cry some more I think
I’m glad everyone who got dusted came back, although I kinda knew they would
well, I would have been fine with Quill staying dusted tbh. I really don’t like that guy
NATASHA WAS NOT ALLOWED TO DIE, I WILL NOT BE OKAY WITH THIS :(
oh gosh yeah I know I have more thoughts about this movie that I wanna say but I need to be more okay first oh man
okay hi again, it’s the next day and I’m still sad but here are some more thoughts:
I hated the whole Bruce/Hulk think. All the good parts about each side of his character were just erased.
I don’t even see the purpose of it.
Okay I kinda knew that Steve was gonna go back to the 40s, but I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT SO SHH
anyway, I didn’t like Steve staying in the 40s, and here’s why:
he knew that this was the single one out of 14 million times they won against Thanos, so he knew that changing anything at all would fuck it up
but at the same time, I find it hard to believe that Steve could be aware that Tony and Nat dies and not want to do anything about it
even though he knows he can’t
so wouldn’t it have been easier to just go back to the present after he returned all the stones? So he wouldn’t have to live with that dilemma?
ALSO, I WILL NOT ACCEPT that after everything he did to get Bucky back, he just leaves him. Just like that.
Literally the only reason this makes sense is as a setup for the Falcon and The Winter Soldier Disney+ series.
But I still don’t like it
Spiderman: Far From Home
This was nice, I needed this.
I didn’t like it as much as homecoming, but I didn’t expect to considering how much I loved hoco
it was really nice to see some more Peter Parker bc i love him but also like,,, most of it was traumatized spidey boy :((( and that was sad :(
He’s literally just a child and he’s already so damaged and it’s big big sad
the high school vibes were immaculate
not that I’ve actually been to high school in the US but like,,, it felt like a high school movie okok
Okay but like May’s character really did a full 180? I don’t really understand where that all came from, but uhhhh okay then
Okay, Quentin Beck.
before we realized he was bad, I already didn’t like him, cuz it seemed like he was gonna start to become a new father figure for Peter and I WAS NOT COOL WITH THAT
but then I understood that that wasn’t happening so it’s all good
he’s a pretty cool antagonist. not a fave, but pretty cool.
OH OH FLASH IS SO GAY FOR SPIDERMAN THO RIGHT
he actually got some real nice character development that I had not expected, that was nice
all in all, great movie, I love my spidey boy.
pretty sad that I’m done tho... :(
but also like, I watched all of them (except incredible hulk) in 34 days. That’s kinda impressive, right?
ALSO THERE’S NO MORE SPOILER DANGER YAY !!!
and finally, here is my ranking of the movies based on how much I liked them:
0. The Incredible Hulk ( didn’t watch )
SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING
Thor: Ragnarok
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Iron Man 3
Avengers
Captain America: Civil War
Spiderman: Far From Home
Iron Man
Avengers: Infinity War
Thor
Avengers: Endgame
Iron Man 2
Thor: The Dark World
Captain Marvel
Black Panther
Captain America: The First Avenger
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Ant-Man
Guardians of the Galaxy
Doctor Strange
#i did it guys#aw man#i'm a little bit lost now tbh#like what do i do now#ooc#mcu#marvel cinematic universe#infinity saga
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alpha/beta are carol/daryl foils: an analysis no one asked for; twd s10 spoilers, obviously
hoo boy. okay, so i’ve been intending to write this for days, but i had to let it marinate, and also i haven’t been sleeping and couldn’t concentrate long enough to write it down, but whatever, i digress. “we are the end of the world” was something, wasn’t it?? it is so weird to have a plotline in twd that’s like...good? and SO refreshing to have a villain who isn’t a macho, rapey, white dude. i personally believe that all showrunners should be women from now on. oh, i’m digressing again, my apologies.
here’s the actual content, under the cut bc it’s a fucking novel:
so, from alpha’s very first episode, when i saw her shaving her head, i literally thought, “oh, so she’s carol’s foil and they’re going to have an inevitable showdown, huh?” guess who was right? this bitch. but what i didn’t catch right away was how beta is also daryl’s foil, and how the main focus of this season is alpha/beta vs carol/daryl.
let’s take it apart individually first, yeah?
carol vs. alpha:
like i said, the scene that made me instantly aware of what they were setting up was when alpha shaved her head. carol’s hair was a big thing in season 9, and the fact that we had just had henry talking about carol growing her hair out long, juxtaposed with alpha shaving hers off, is what set the alarm bells off for me. i have said over and over that i don’t believe kang does anything unintentionally, and girl loves her symbolism, so those two opposing scenes was a taste of what she was setting up.
carol and alpha are both near-indestructible forces who also happen to be mother’s suffering the loss of their children at the hand of the other. (carol isn’t directly responsible for lydia, but she’s included with “the others” that took lydia from alpha, so i think alpha still sees her as part of it.)
carol and alpha both have transformed themselves to fit within the confines of the world they currently live in, while recognizing that their children weren’t meant for it, even within their own grief. let us refer to figures a and b (lol) below.
figure a:
here in “the grove” we have creepy girl who i hate and am terrified of asking carol if sophia died because she was weak, and carol straight up is like, “yes.” she doesn’t even sugarcoat it. she accepted that her daughter wasn’t going to survive from the jump, because “there wasn’t a mean bone in her body.”
figure b:
here we see alpha losing her goddamn shit, because she’s having a come-to-jesus moment with beta about losing lydia, because she can’t have lydia and be the alpha at the same time, because lydia “is not like” her.
conclusion: carol and alpha both mourn for their daughters, but have accepted that to be the people they need to be in the apocalypse, their children needed to die (or in lydia’s case, be dead metaphorically). in short, carol and alpha are two sides of the same coin. they’ve both found ways to survive, except one is for the good guys, and the other is for the bad guys, and now they’re head-to-head, and it is d e l i c i o u s.
moving on.
daryl vs beta:
idk why the parallels didn’t occur to me when they had daryl fighting beta. i blame henry, he was distracting me by being a delightful idiot (rip my dumb bitch), but that seed was planted in season 9, too. go kang for continuity. who knew twd could do that? anyway.
the big thing that compares daryl and beta is who they were before they found carol and alpha respectively. we obviously don’t know a whole lot of details about beta’s life, but we have enough to extrapolate and compare, and extrapolate and compare we shall.
alright, so we got our favorite lovable, filthy redneck, who grew up abused and isolated, and then here comes the apocalypse, and the only person he has left is his brother, and that’s what defines him until he loses him, both when rick chained him to a roof, and then again, after a brief relapse, when merle sacrificed himself.
next we have beta, who again, our info is limited, but he does not become “beta” until after whoever that walker alpha puts down is gone. judging by the size, approximate age, and the closeness beta had to him, i’m betting on, you guessed it, his brother.
observe:
figure a:
figure b:
these are both turning points for these men, where they Fully Become the dudes that we know. daryl couldn’t be the daryl we know and love until merle was gone for good, and whatever his actual name is couldn’t become beta until smiley face shirt guy was smooshed.
(side note: how fucking rank does that t-shirt have to be by now? at least the mask dries out, but do you think that t-shirt is just like, melded into beta’s skin at this point? gross.)
so time for the fun part.
alpha/beta and caryl in season 10:
season 10 finds both duos in similar circumstances, by which i mean, alpha and carol are losing their minds, and beta and daryl are like, “uhhhh, you ok?” the men are these women’s confidants, their person, the one they trust and love above all others. carol saved daryl and brought him into a community, and alpha did the same thing with beta. you want more visual aides? well, sure thing, scout!
figure a:
we’re carylers, we already know carol’s the reason daryl has the confidence and self-esteem to become part of the group, but juxtapose this with the following pic, which i will label
figure b (again):
and you will see that alpha sees something in beta that no one else does. she sees this lonely, talented man, who’s adrift and in solitude, and she essentially calls dibs. sound familiar? inorite?
so daryl and beta are now loyal to a fault to their women, and this season already has them being wary of how they’re acting. yes, i have more pictures. i like taking screenshots, okay?
figure a:
one of the first scenes we get with caryl is daryl asking carol if she’s still thinking about alpha, and if she is Dwelling, which is interesting, because...
figure b:
...that’s exactly the same thing we get with alpha and beta. the first scene in “we are the end of the world” with the two of them in present day is him questioning her motives, and then later on he’s like, “fuck, are you Dwelling?”
and both women immediately are like:
and neither dude knows wtf to do about this, because they’re used to the women being the strong ones. carol’s whole, “you’ve got to feel it, but not me, i’m good repressing, conceal don’t feel” thing, mixed with alpha’s, “we’re living like the dead and the dead don’t feel emotions so obviously I Am Fine” motto is what their boys are used to, but suddenly carol is hallucinating dead children, and alpha is making shrines, and our poor dudes are like, “plz stop???” esp bc they know these women are FUCKING TERRIFYING, and should never be left to their own devices if they’re being crazy crackers.
ergo, both men are clinging to the hope that they can bring the women back from the brink. my last visual aides, yes i know, how sad:
figure a:
figure b:
both scenes have these dudes reaching out to their women and essentially expressing, in their own way, “i’m worried about you, can you plz stay within eyesight at all times, ilu,” bc neither daryl nor beta is equipped to have a nice long sit down conversation about feelings, and obviously carol and alpha wouldn’t bother to entertain it in the first place, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. they tried.
will it work? unlikely! because after that showdown at the end of both eps 1 and 2, these bitches ain’t about to stop for nothing. they just straight up made enemies for life, and they’re going straight harry potter with this shit, neither can live while the other survives, someone has to die, and while beta and daryl are not super on board with this whole “being bonkers and bent on revenge” thing, you better bet your ass that they’re going to make sure their woman is the winner, which means they automatically are paired up against one another as well.
so in a nutshell: we could have just stuck goatees on mmb and norman reedus, cast them as alpha and beta, and called them mirror!verse caryl (star trek reference, yay/nay?), because they’re mother fucking foils setting up for the mother fucking fight of the century, and oh my god, can you feel it in your bones how exciting it is that it’s not going to be a rick + negan dick measuring contest again? i am So Hype.
and ofc, as a hardcore caryl shipper, i obviously have to throw in that alpha and beta are totally in love (which is esp fun, bc whisperers aren’t supposed to feel love, uh oh, vulcan violation, yes i made another star trek reference, bite me), and if they are paralleling caryl, well...extrapolate from the evidence.
i love kang, you guys. i love how she tells a story. i love that she knows how to tell a story. this show is good again, and idk how she did it, but damnit, she did.
thus endeth my pointless critical analysis. forgive me. i was an english major and have absolutely no other use for my degree.
i’m ashamed too.
that’s all. tomorrow is the early release of the caryl episode, i mean the new episode. looking forward to dying a valiant death with the lot of you. until then, friends.
deuces,
-diz
addendum: i was editing this, and was trying to think if there’s a parallel to the bracelet scene, and the only thing i could think of that alpha gives beta is his mask. she encourages him to take the face of his brother(?), and that keeps him grounded, which is interesting, bc my prediction for the bracelet is that it’s going to end up being a grounding device for carol when she’s dissociating. i don’t have a solid conclusion drawn there, but i thought i’d mention it before posting, just to plant the seed.
k, done 4 real, bye
#alpha/beta#do they have a ship name?#bc i'm worried it's gonna get tagged in that weird kink stuff#gdi#whatever#moving on#caryl#carol peletier#daryl dixon#twd s10 spoilers#twd#dunlap tp
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WHAT’S GOOD, PARTY PEOPLE ? the name’s mads : twenty - four summers young, in love with cj from dawn of the dead (2004), mortal enemies with amc’s the walking dead and so very excited to be here. thus, without further ado, below the cut you’ll find the basics—the general gist—about my horrible, poorly written bastard children.
trigger warnings for : cancer, death, kidnapping, abuse and assault !!
APOLSKIS, JULIAN — twenty-four, comic store clerk.
BASICS : born in seattle, julian moved to fort elms when he was a whooping eleven years old. why, you don’t ask. well, because he got diagnosed with a gnarly case osteosarcoma and his father took ONE LOOK at that hospital bill and vanished into thin air, that’s why ! so, mommy dearest took her kids and skipped town as well. for less horrible reasons, of course. since then, his cancer has came and went and came back again. until finally it went for the last time, taking his leg with it as it did. he’s cancer free now ! three years and counting. we do love that for him … depressing facts aside, he’s in a punk rock band because we gotta Stick It To The Man. they suck but he’s decent on the drums and that’s all that matters. him. yeah, he’s a bit of a prick. a lovable prick. loves to play the devil’s advocate and hates talking about his feelings because ~ romantic trauma ~. but other than that, a decent guy, alright ! put some respect to his name.
WANTED CONNECTIONS …
ex - girlfriend : bringer of trauma … she was his second ever girlfriend and their relationship was good, okay ! lasted almost two years. and then, without warning, she dumped him, THROUGH A NOTE. left without a word and that was that. a big bitch move, i’d say.
mother : the best mom there is ! worked three jobs to support her family after the deadbeat left, and is overall the best person juli knows and will ever know. she’s a second generation polish immigrant and very insistent on julian retaining his jewish heritage. pops was christian, so … gross.
father : not much to say about this bastard except he hasn’t spoken to his own children in thirteen years. not as much as a birthday card ! who knows where he is now. we’d like for him to be dead in a ditch but odds are he has a new family. i’d love for julian to knock him out, please hit me up for that.
hospital buddies : like i said, he spent most of his childhood in a hospital. so he must’ve made at least one friend there. they can be a teenager, they can be a senior citizen — as long as their friendship was thrust onto julian by sheer proximity and boredom. he’s obviously well now but i’d like for him to have a sliver of his past life close.
DIMEO, BRANDON — thirty-five, mall cop.
BASICS : very italian. a walking italian stereotype, really. his family is huge and he’s close with them all. too close. i’m talking yearly hunting trips, weekly family dinners, and a mother who still does his laundry. which means, yes, he’s a momma’s boy. a bit of a scrub, if you will. flopped out of the police academy in his early twenties, as he’d almost done high school, and settled for acting cop at the local mall. he’s a bit of a dumbass, and by a bit i mean a lot. unintelligent to the point where he can’t do basic math. emotionally unintelligent to the point where he can’t have a long - term relationship. we do love that. also a big fan of the charlie’s angels television series, AS HE SHOULD BE. he’d be an angel of charlie’s if he could be …
WANTED CONNECTIONS …
ex - girlfriend : i’m talking first and only. probably didn’t get together until his mid - late twenties, and didn’t last that long either. probably had issues with his weird relationship with his mother, probably didn’t appreciate that he couldn’t clean his own house, probably wanted a man and not a little boy. she definitely dumped him. oh, well.
family : he has A LOT. two parents ( i was gonna say obvi but is it obvi, i don’t think so. check yourself @ me ) and three brothers … but he’s the baby of the family, physically and mentally. i feel for his mother. i’d love for him to have a kid cousin, though. like one girl ( except his mommy ) he treats well. it’d be cute, shut up.
friends with benefits : pretty self - explanatory. no strings attached, no commitment, no expectations … it’s all poor donnie here can muster in life. so do give it to him, please and thank.
broskis : he needs friends ! who aren’t other mall cops ( sorry egg take it up with HR ) … maybe dudes he’s known since high school, his OG home - boys. either to enable his antics or to call him out on his shit. i’ll take anything for brodawg over here.
KINNEY, SAWYER — twenty-two, vet student.
BASICS : god’s favorite. just kidding … i don’t think her love for him is much reciprocated. first dropped off as an infant @ the local church’s doorstep, then adopted. all is well ! no, her adoptive parents die in a car crash thirteen years later. she was there, too. sole survivor … even her baby brother passing away in the accident. shit’s tough, my dudes. she still has her older siblings, but who cares about them. was diagnosed with epilepsy shortly after ( she hates it, thanks ) and now lives with a disorder to remind her even more of the event. BIG YIKE LET’S MOVE ON … she’s a ray of sunshine ! loves animals and soccer to death. a social butterfly with no concept of personal space. insistent on not minding her business, plagued by a constant need to be liked by EVERYONE. book smart, emotionally intelligent … yet a whole dumbass. we love to see it.
WANTED CONNECTIONS …
cousins : fun tidbit, after her parent’s death she moved in with her uncle and his children. so, give me those very children ! her siblings are both older than herself and i’m dying for some same - aged partners in crime here. who played soccer with her after school ? who tried beer with her for the very first time ? i am WAITING.
soccer pals : captain of the local girl’s soccer team, since seventeen baby, sawyer’s in dire need of her soccer pals. y’all ever see the netflix original girls with balls ? yeah, me neither, but that could still be them versus the zombies. they’re all so close and athletic i NEED them to team up against the undead.
toxic church friends : i’m not calling christianity toxic … i’m calling white church going pinterest loving bitches toxic. i just think it’d be neat for her to have people from that part of her life really pushing this ~ religious agenda ~ onto her further. you know, shaming everything that she does. WHY NOT ! can’t think of a single reason why not, actually.
someone to get under : look … last year she got DUMPED by her boyfriend. it was rude as hell ! you don’t need to know his reason, okay … she did no wrong, mind your business … either way, give me SOMEONE ELSE for her to focus on so she can finally get over that skinny motherfucker. it doesn’t have to be reciprocated AT ALL, homies. she can thirst from afar … as long as her attention is redirected from ex - boyfriend to wow - possible - boyfriend. ja feel me ? cool.
OSWALT, KEVIN — twenty-one, waitress.
BASICS : born in fort elms as rowan blake, this teensy bitch had a good life going. two parents, three older siblings, one cool ass dog… you get the gist. but all things must come to an end, no ? so, when rowan here was five years old, she was approached by a teenage girl by the name ryan, and booboo the fool as she was, rowan followed this older, much cooler girl right into a stranger’s car… and then rowan was no more ! she spent the next year thirteen years of her life as kevin oswalt, living with her new sister and new mother — creepily nicknamed mama. to say her life with the oswalt’s was good would be… well, it’d be a lie. because kevin wasn’t the first kid they ‘napped, and neither was she the last. lets just say that house was a shit - fest and we should be glad she managed to run away at the tender age of seventeen. by sheer luck, she wound up back in fort elms and by even more luck, she managed to get an education and graduate. unrealistic ? take it up with 2016 me. other than that super fun backstory, kevin’s baby. she likes books ( always has, though it was her only form of entertainment for a good chunk of her life there ) and she likes french fries. she’s still discovering the world around her, even if she has been out and about for about four - ish years now. so if she’s a BIT NAIVE, then excuse her…
WANTED CONNECTIONS …
ex - boyfriend : not to go into too many details but kev’s introduction to the dating scene was less than ideal… barely legal and kept under wraps for A YEAR. it sucked, okay. not a good first experience, IN MY OPINION. kevin has another but she’s stupid. EITHER WAY, that left her kinda fucked - up when it comes to relationships. so, when she started dating her other ex circa summer 2017, she was pretty not - that - into - him. sorry we can’t all be over our 30 year old boyfriends… she never even said those three little words and them bitches dated for a year. TRAGIQUE.
brother : tragically, throughout the years, kevin’s brother is the single family member not picked up and that’s just… fucked, if you ask me. either way — his name is marcus blake but you can change his first to whatever ! he’s the sibling she was closest to as a wee bairn, alright. and i need him here… even if he wouldn’t know her as his sister anymore, but seeing as kev has managed to weasel her way into the blake family through mother and sisters REGARDLESS if anybody remembers or not, i’d say they’d cross paths anyway. oh, and he’s in a band… which isn’t to say juli’s, i mean it could be, but that’s not what i’m saying… anyways, that’s all.
bad influence : kevin’s too nice. and i don’t like it. so, please, pretty please, give me a plot of pure mayhem. somebody less outwardly chaotic than pippa but more scheming, and maybe capable of convincing kevin to grow a spine. think penelope and josie in legacies… but not gay. i mean, it COULD be gay. i’m not saying it HAS to be gay… mind your business.
victim by proxy : okay, hear me out… the oswalts are crazy people, and although kevin would like to be excluded from that narrative, she simply cannot. so, consider giving me somebody with some sort of connection to the kiddos missing ( alternatively : to the man she shanked… girls, ya gotta read her bio, i’m not exposing her further :see_no_evil: ) so kevin’s guilt can just SKYROCKET. that’s fun, right ? make friends with some poor bitch who’s little bro went missing, knowing full well what happened… sickening, kev, get help.
ROSILIO, ODETTE — thirty-five, florist.
BASICS : flaky defined. dropped out of high school, dropped out of california, dropped out of her own wedding … i mean, the list goes on. originally from mexicali, mexico odette moved to chino, california at the ripe age of five. her mother then proceeded to lose custody six years later. * that one vine vc * WAY TO GO, PAUL ! in and out of foster care since, eventually choosing to stay out for the remainder of her teens. until she got herself knocked up ( not by choice but ait ) and was forced to move back in with mommy … but hey, it all turned out fine in the end ! and when her daughter was four years old, she dipped forever. she’s since been living all over the states, only moving to fort elms five - ish years ago. and has indeed stayed put since. even if she did manage to pull a runaway bride. a bit of a bitch move, but at least she’s consistent. ish. because she’s not a bitch, okay, she’s simply … out of fucks to offer the world. can i get an amen.
WANTED CONNECTIONS …
ex - fiancé : like i said … left at the altar, that’s gotta knock you down a peg. or two. but she didn’t mean to stomp on his balls like that. in fact, they were very much in love at one point. dated for about two years until marriage was brought up and well, cold feet took over. and there’s no coming back from being a no show at your own wedding, is there. so that was that. marriage over before it even started. they didn’t get much of closure but that’s life for you.
mother : a horrible mother, plain and simple. she was in and out of jail when odette was in her custody, mostly due to drug related charges which was … not cute, girlie was like eight years old. though who knows, maybe she’s cleaned up her act, and maybe she’s ready to get back in her daughter’s life. or maybe she’s just looking for money … either way, get miss marisa to washington !
employees : i want … snotty teens, or early twenties bitches that she’ll have to manage. she’s had it with her own daughter, why not add more children for her to boss around. that, or somebody at work who she doesn’t wanna clock. an ally amongst the flowers.
chino friends : odette did indeed spend her early to mid teens on the streets and she must’ve made some friends along the way except for kai ( here’s your one mention of the simp @ salem ) … either some bad influences or some good ones. y’all ever seen the movie thirteen ? exactly like that. give me some blasts from the past to bring out the old odette.
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Quarantine NOT Anime Reviews!
So obviously I’ve been watching a lot of anime but I’ve ALSO been watching a lot of live action stuff, mostly on Netflix with my mom and sister. So here’s some reviews of stuff we’ve seen.
Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (on Freeform/Hulu): Fucking hilarious and has some of the best, realest autistic characters I’ve ever seen. If it doesn’t get renewed I’ll be fucking pissed.
Motherland: Fort Salem (on Freeform/Hulu): this one’s not done airing yet but I am already a full fan! What if there really were witches in Salem, and they made a deal to work in the United States military? This leads us to a world where the American military, and subsequently most militaries, are witch-based, but some witches aren’t exactly hot on the idea that their bodies are basically state property from the time they turn 18, and as such have created a terrorist group known as the Spree to fight this. Our heroines are three young witches who have answered the call: Abigail Bellweather, the descendant of a long line of powerful and decorated witch soldiers who is determined to prove her own ability; Tally Craven, the optimistic, wide-eyed descendant of a dying line exempt from the draft who answers the call anyway out of a genuine desire to help others; and Raelle Collar, who is dealing with her grief over the fairly recent death of her mother, a prominent military healer, but starts to warm up to fellow recruit Scylla Ramshorn, the daughter of conscientious objectors who hides a dark secret: she is a member of the Spree. You can tell a lot of thought was put into the world and the alternate history (the show even has its own conlang), the magic system is unique and interesting, and I’m super invested in the characters and their relationships. I really hope this one gets renewed as well, as the creator has said he’s got enough ideas for four or five seasons at least, and I’m really interested in how they’ll play out!
The Half of It (movie, Netflix): You’ve probably already heard about this Love, Simon-esque story of a Chinese-American girl finding herself and her sexuality in a rural town while trying to act as wingman for a dumb but kind and lovable jock, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a single film and you DEFINITELY have the time, so give it a watch.
Never Have I Ever (Netflix): ohhhhhhhhhhhh my god y’all have GOTTA give this one a watch! It is one of the funniest fucking things I’ve seen in AGES! The story of a desperately awkward Indian-American teen dealing with grief over the death of her father while trying to become cool and get laid somehow provides all the laughs you need right now, and some feels as well. My sister and I both CANNOT decide if we want Devi to end up with Ben or Paxton, because they’re both very flawed people, but also good and they clearly both really like and care about Devi! I cannot WAIT for the hopefully inevitable season 2!
Sex Education (Netflix): Holy shit this show. Asa Butterfield’s mom, Agent Scully, is a well-known sex therapist, and this (as well as other things) has led him to simultaneously have a plethora of knowledge about sex while having a weird relationship with it personally. After he ends up giving good advice to the school bully regarding performance issues, he and the trailer caravan trash school slut Maeve decide to open up their own secret sex therapy clinic to give advice to the student body. The show tackles nearly every sex and relationship related subject one could imagine, from gay kids uncertain about how to go about it to vaginismus to asexuality to realizing you’re pan or bi to sexual assault, all with a central theme of the importance of open and honest communication. It also touches on other aspects of life like race, religion, class, drugs, abusive families, divorce, disability, the whole gamut. I’m eagerly awaiting the confirmed but definitely postponed production of season 3 and I’m curious to see what else the show will touch on as it goes.
Outer Banks (Netflix): A show that could, in some senses, be described as “what if Riverdale was actually GOOD?” Set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, we follow a group of poor teens (Pogues) and their struggles against the rich kids of a neighboring island (Kooks) as the Pogues try to find a lost treasure of a fuckton of gold with the help of one good Kook. In most ways it’s a typical teen drama with 25 year olds saying they’re 16 and silly relationship drama and little subtlety, but the central mystery really ties it all together and the second half is actually nail-bitingly intense as things go from treasure hunt mystery to "oh shit I’ve been framed for murder and the cops are all after me” and the season ends setting up for more, so I really hope Netflix chooses to renew because I HAVE to know what happens to all our heroes after this!
Felicity: Felicity is an ancient show created by JJ Abrams?????? about a boring girl who moves to New York to go to college and find herself and shit. My mom is making me and my sister watch it because it is one of her favorites of all time and I am just not digging it. We are watching it on DVD so I don’t know where it’s streaming but also I don’t care because I don’t really recommend it.
Expect more reviews as I watch more stuff!
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U.S.S INDIANAPOLIS: MEN OF COURAGE
Nick Cage mixed with WW2 and sharks. What can possible go wrong?
Answer: Everything
Nick Cage has just an attraction to me. I have known him for so long since I was little, I can’t tell if he is a good actor or if it was nostalgia. All I know is if there is a Nick Cage film, it is going to have that Nick Cage charm. And BOY HOWDY, this movie has it.
Let’s go with backstory first.
This movie is based on the incredible and horrific events that happened to the U.S.S Indianapolis, a Naval Ship during World War 2. It was sent on a secret and dangerous mission to deliver parts for the construction of the Atomic Bomb. However, on their way back a Japanese Submarine sunk it with a torpedo, leaving the survivors stranded alone in the middle of the ocean for 4 days filled surrounded by sharks who would attack the dead, injured, and living. Out of the almost 12,000 sailors aboard, only 300 would survive, making this the worst naval tragedy in U.S. Navy history.
And they made this movie.
Not going to lie, I was stupidly judgy through this movie. I mean, I tried goddammit, to watch and enjoy it straight. But I couldn’t help it. I care about this history. I’m fasinated by this bit of history, the horror and pain the sailors when through. This is THE Greatest Shark Attack in history. I was judgy because I wanted this movie to respect the event and tragedy that had happened, to do the survivors justice. And they tried.
God did they tried.
The problem is that they didn’t do it well.
Let me start with the good things about this movie.
1) Nick Cage was pretty Good
He plays Captain Charles B. McVay of the Indianapolis. There is still a bit of hokiness that comes from Nick Cage being Nick Cage. One is him talking to himself while writing a letter to his wife in the weirdest way possible. Another is the fact that his sunglasses makes it look like his eyes are closer to his forehead. But he does the role well I think. He makes sure to show that Captain McVay cared for his men, put their safety ahead of his own, did everything he can to help. I thought he did a good job.
2) They were respectful in the representation of the Japanese Submarine Crew.
The movie could have just not even show the submarine until the ship sinks, but no, we actually get to see the crew. We see the Captain Hashimoto dealing with the struggles of fighting their side of the war. How he cares for his crew, and how they will lay down their lives for the fight. The ship was sunk by Kaiten Torpedoes, basically an underwater version of Kamakazi pilots. They were manned torpedoes, so you see the men loading themselves in to be launched. So while the main focus is on the Indianapolis, it is nice they tried to be empathetic to the Japanese crew as well.
3) The side-characters were interesting enough.
With a historical story like this, the best way is show the movie is to let the audience see all the possible people that were serving on the ship. You see two best friends fall in love with the same girl. Two guys who were enemies and in jail together. A guy with a gambling addiction. The lovable engineers that you see up above. The brand new green commander who is a bit of a dick. My favorite one is the writer sailor. He writes what he sees and tries to bolster people up with his stories. Like, there is a lot of characters so even if you don’t like one plot-line, there are others you can enjoy. They may act goofy/overly dramatic at times, but the actors did a good job for you to root for them.
With that out of the way, things I didn’t like.
A) The cgi was too basic and shit in places
I wish, I WISH I can find a better picture to show what I mean. When we were watching, even my sister were going back and forth on whether it was good or not. Everything that was cgi was just weirdly too smooth. Like really look at it. It looks more like graphics for a video game. Which, is passable. But you can’t have passable for a movie. This movie came out in 2016! We have the technology for a hell of a lot better images than template models. At that was the better cgi. Because when the cgi is bad, it is glaringly obvious bad.
B) The Editing Kills Me.
They have a weird sense of pacing in this movie. When you hit the middle part of the movie, it’s fine. Decent moments of the sailors goofing around, hving drmatic romance, fights, struggles. But there are some parts of the movie where someone in the editing room was like “Oh shit, the people watching this won’t understand. Quickly! Put out that exposition as fast as you can!!”
An Example: the first 3 minutes of the movie. Minute 1: BATTLE! Ok, good, see our historical men in action. Minute 2: We are in a war council room where the Indianapolis has been chosen for a secret mission. “You mean the atomic BOMB?!” -> Basically the line used. And this was BEFORE meeting ANY of our main cast. So it felt like the movie was putting more emphasis on the ship rather than the sailors.
It also didn’t help the movie Felt like it ended when the survivors were rescued, but didn’t Actually end for another 20-30 minutes longer. I appreciate them going in for historical accuracy of showing the actual aftermath to Captain McVay, but by that point I was so done and bored that I didn’t really care.
Plus they keep using the same periscope tracking shot 7 times! Seven! In the same scene. TWICE!! When the Japanese were firing in daytime, we see the same daylight periscope 7 times before launch. Then when they fired a torpedo at night, LET’S DO THE SAME THING since it went so well the first time.
B) The ship sinks titanic style, the fuck is that??
Not going to lie, while I am facinated by the Indianapolis, I do not know everything about what exactly happened. One of them was how the ship sank. But I am pretty sure the ship did not sink in the Exact Same Way as the Titanic. Where one side is lifted up, then got cracked in the middle, and so it was split into two parts. It was, it was bad. Because this tied in to the whole repeating shots thing, because I saw the same man holding onto a pole trying not to drop 5 different times. The Same Exact Scene. No difference. And I’m sure he fell in the exact same way as in the Titanic Movie shots.
(Note:The jail cell sailors during this part were very good, but I still have No Idea how the hell they got out. Let me know if you figured it out)
C) The Sharks were S H I T!
This is basically where the whole meat of the story should have taken place, nd it was AWFUL! Trash! They were stupidly inaccurate, trying to go for Jaws Chomp factor instead of being anywhere near historical. The sharks were all Great Whites, which wasn’t a thing. Because the sharks that historically attacked were Oceanic Whitetips.
But ok, you could get pass. The sharks look similar enough at first glance so it would be an honest mistake. Except that sailors were specifically talking bout “Great White Sharks” with colored pictures of great whites, (which think about that for a minute) so that was bullshit. in making the audience think Great White.
But ok, so what, who cares, the sharks still does it’s things right? Why should we care if they got the type wrong or not?
^Because of Shit like This!! This movie decided to try and shittily mimic Jaws and the Jaws ripoffs by having crappy cgi sharks launch itself out of no where to stupidly chops on the nearest sailors. God you could make a drinking game out of it. Take a shot for every shark you see. Which won’t kill you, because there were NOT ENOUGH SHARKS!!
^The sharks should have been like this. The sailors literally should have been like waist deep in sharks. There were a lot of fucking sharks. And yet! There weren’t any. The sharks only decided to freaking rocket launch themselves out of the water when it’s time for a jump scare, on any old person they can fine. And maybe the reason they decide to throw themselves to the nearest pound of flesh instead of going for the closest dead body is because
D ) THERE WERE BARELY ANY SURVIVORS!!!
Seriously! When the ship sank there were 800 sailors left in the water, We only see 60. TOTAL! Not even random background sailors. It was just Nick Cage’s group, then a separate group of 30 people, and random boats here and there. God how could they have fucked this up! I don’t know if it was just, not in the budged to hire more people or what, but you can still get somebody. Show the survivors dammit!
It pisses me off because this could have easily solved their shark problem. Because if there were more people, you can see the sharks eat/take the dead bodies. Then when there is a ton more sharks, see them go after the injured and dying. Like, having screams constantly while sharks pick people off left and right, even if it is just background characters, would build so much more tension than just “guys have a good laugh, talk, and support each other, send the shark for the jumpscare.”
I will give the movie this though: While I feel like the majority of the ending was unneeded, I do respect that they have little end-cards for what happened to the character’s historical counterparts, as well as come footage of some of the survivors describing the experience.
Overall: Don’t watch it. If you wanted to watch it for the actual historical event, watch something else. They made note of smaller historical facts while completely screwing up the actual main event with the sharks. You can find better documentaries Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here. The last one has a clip of the special that I I saw originally and while you do have to pay to see it (Here), it is very well done.
And If you want to watch a “so bad it’s good movie” then maybe it fits the bill, but I just honestly don’t think it’s worth it. The editing and pacing will give you whiplash. The CGI takes you out of the zone. Nick Cage tried his best, but not even his enjoyable presence could save the film. They make for a great movie to rag on, but having it be on an actual historic event like this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth
#dafukblog#dafuking films#uss indianapolis#uss indianapolis: men of courage#men of courage#shark#sharks#navy#week 4 movie
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@gcldess asked: a lot of questions i’m gonna break down 1 by 1.
p.s i loooooveeee jackee w my whole-ass heart.
under the cut bc it’s LONG
does ching remember her mother, or just things she heard from her dad?
ching has very distant memories of her mother. her face, her perfume, her voice. if she tries to remember her mom she can very distinctly remember these things, and they make her feel very small and vulnerable. chang doesn’t talk much about her unless ching asks, and ching stopped asking around the time pucca’s parents went missing. ching will always have a piece of her heart missing that her mother took with her, but it becomes much smaller the older she gets and the closer she grows to her friends.
how does she deal with won's death?
not very well at first. she knew it was coming because won was getting old. she got fairly sick and ching just knew it was over. she fought for won as hard as she could with vet visits and medicines and anything she could do. won was her closest confidant and best friend after her mother left and before she was very close with abyo and pucca. her five stages look like this:
denial: lasts all the way through the first vet visit. when the vet announces that yes there’s nothing much they can do for won, she breaks down in the room right there, holding won close to her chest and crying. abyo or pucca went with her, and whoever it was just sits next to her and let’s her cry.pucca hates seeing ching cry, so she’d probably try to cheer her up, but it’s not very successful. abyo would also try and cheer her up, but he’d ultimately fail, too. garu would probably just let her cry, and when she was okay and ready to leave he’d make sure she got home okay.
anger: she’s in the dojo attacking anything for a week. if she’s not spending time with won during her last few weeks, she’s trying to kill something.any of their typical enemies attack? ching slices through them like nothing. her best friend is dying there’s nothing she can do to fix it so get the fuck out of her way. tobe probably picks up on it pretty quickly and avoids attacking when either of the girls are around.
bargaining: it doesn’t last long. she pleads with everyone she can think of that could save him, but even master soo can’t meddle in death.
depression: it’s so bad she can’t get out of bed. she and won just stay in bed for days. won is sick but trying to comfort ching until the end. it’s only when ching realizes this that she is able to pick herself up out of bed every day. she may not do much more than get up and get dressed and other usual hygiene things, but she gets. out. of. bed. and sometimes that’s all you can ask for.
acceptance: she thinks she’s accepted it before won finally passes, but she doesn’t actually seem to accept it until won’s tiny casket has been buried behind the dojo. there’s a small ceremony, with all they’re family. ching says a few words about how much won had always meant to her, and how she’s sad to see her go, but is glad she’s no longer in pain. she has the other chickens by now, and they knew won too, so their all grieving. garu doesn’t break his vow of silence very often but i can see this being one of the exceptions.(@honrr) having her other chickens does help her move on. having other creatures to live for, things to accomplish, goals to meet, helps her feel better. she spends more time tending to her flower garden, painting and photographing and enjoying her more artistic hobbies. she grows, she copes, and she never forgets. she has a plaque made that hangs in the living room. “In Honor of Won, The Greatest Chicken Best Friend a Girl Could Have.” The other chickens can’t read so they can’t be offended.
who does ching hate more, tobe, dada, or ring ring, and why?
ching will always tell you she doesn’t feel hate, but it’s not true. she hates bugs. but she doesn’t truly hate any of these people. she hates parts of their personalities, but she sees the potential for goodness in all of them. she knows tobe is capable of love, and ring ring and dada too, for that matter. ching believes that if someone is capable of loving their capable of growing.
she hates that tobe can’t just leave garu alone. she doesn’t know what their feud is over, but she finds it so annoying that it’s so constant.
she hates the way dada treats pucca. how pucca is always so kind and forgiving of him, but he stabs her in the back and helps kidnap her uncles! so right now dada is in first place for most hated.
she hates who ring ring has become. how manipulative and mean she is. part of her can’t believe they were ever friends with her, and another part wonders where they all went wrong. ching sees a lot of her own insecurities in ring ring, and she genuinely pities her. ring ring is a reminder to her that she can’t bottle up and hide all the things she doesn’t like about herself. she has to be open about them. it’s not always easy, but she tries hard every day to take the steps necessary to not feel spiteful to her best friend in the world.
so it’s probably dada. she sees true potential for good in tobe, and just pities ring eing, but dada has seriously traumatized pucca, and that does not fly with ching.
what is ching's favorite movie?
she honestly rly likes old kung fu movies that abyo makes her watch, they’re her guilty pleasure. she’ll put up a fight on movie night but it’s all for show. her favorite is the original karate kid. ching doesn’t have one all-time favorite. she has certain movies that are top-tier, and karate kid is always hovering in the top five.she;s also a sucker for cheesy chick flicks from the late ‘90′s early 2000′s
when does she first realize she has feelings for abyo?
oh man. that’s.
so at first it’s like. “this is a dude i’ve known my whole life, i think he’s cute, we’re kids”. that kinda crush. where you like them bc you’ve known each other forever and everyone thinks you’ll get together anyways. ching glides along with this no problem. she doesn’t realize it goes deeper until abyo starts getting rly flirty (in-show) and she realizes that the anger it makes her feel is really jealousy. she’s 11 so she doesn’t think on it too hard. just continues with the “he’s my boyfriend” and getting frustrated at him for flirting so much. she also takes a lot of cues from pucca because she’s never seen a functional relationship. she knew pucca’s parents, but they were just her best friends parents, they never felt like an example of a relationship to her. so pucca’s constant pursuit spurs ching’s. ching is not as outgoing with her affection as pucca is and she has impulse control. so when it hits her like “wow these are real feelings.’ would be like high school age. u know. when ur figuring all that shit out in the first place. she takes a good long think about her feelings more in general, and she notices how often abyo made her feel this or that, more than pucca or garu or won or anyone. abyo is always right there. and that’s when it kinda clicks for her that abyo’s like her person. he’s an idiot. but he’s loyal and lovable and kind. he cares about her.
is she ever jealous of pucca?
it’s not super often, but it does pop up. pucca is sooga village’s “it” girl. she’s cute and sweet and popluar (for good and obvious reasons). and ching is nothing but happy and supportive of her best friend. but there are definitely times when she finds herself envying her. even just slightly. like how everyone is automatically drawn to her, how she barely speaks loud enough to hear and captures everyone’s attention. how pucca is so powerful and strong and perfect that it only makes ching all the more aware of her own insecurities. she doesn’t want to hold it against pucca. she knows she isn’t perfect and that she has her own traumas to face. also that time pucca accidentally kissed abyo she was momentarily like “girl what are u doing” until pucca threw an acorn at him.
is there a villain she respects or feels pity for?
she has respect and pity for the vagabonds. she respects that they’re willing to do what they need to to stay alive and feed themselves. she pities them that it means a life of crime. she pities all of them to an extent, but it’s more like compassion than pity. except ring ring, she truly pities ring ring. like she’ll momentarily pity any villain that’s in pucca’s way, but it wears off once they’re dealt with. dada isn’t technically a villain but she pities him too. after her incident with doga’s sock she wonders if that’s why doga is actually evil, and not because she wants to be. she really doesn’t like tobe, but literally only because he’s always bugging her friends. if he’d leave them alone she’d probably find a way to get along with him.
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this oklahoma fucks
my thoughts on the oklahoma revival (6/8/19 matinee) under the cut!
this show. i was absolutely blown away. i see a lot of shows (one glance at my theater page will tell you that much...) and at this point it’s rare that i see something which i feel in my gut from start to finish how incredible it is, but, wow, oklahoma lives up to the hype. it’s 2 hours and 45 minutes plus a 15 minute intermission, and i swear i didn’t stop grinning or giggling for that entire 3 hours.
it’s also sometimes a rarity now for me to go into a show blind. i certainly was familiar with oklahoma before today -- i knew the basic storyline, i’d even heard some of the songs from this cast, and hell, the musical’s almost a century old (it basically founded the modern broadway musical!) -- but i didn’t know it very intimately going in. from the moment i entered that theater, though, i was enraptured.
the show has a comfortable feel to it, with its old-timey wild-west drawling dialect and a loveable-as-always rogers & hammerstein score, but it’s reimagined in a way that makes it feel both completely new and completely familiar at once. it’s an intimate theatrical experience, one i haven’t really felt since great comet took its final bows. i’ve always been a fan of intimate and innovative productions but this show really excelled. playing in the round is the perfect way to welcome an audience into your world on a personal level, but oklahoma takes it a step further. there isn’t even a shift in lighting from the beginning of the show; it looks the same from the momeny you walk in and sit down through the first two numbers. it’s a small detail but it really works wonders in creating a world that the audience feels a welcome part in from the get-go. and that’s not even mentioning the tables onstage, the crockpots full of chili, the table of yet-to-be-made cornbread (all of which gets to be enjoyed by the audience during intermission!). and the string band right there on stage! with pedal steel and mandolin and banjo! what better way to welcome your audience into your world than to incorporate real elements of americana: a barnyard hoedown, a cultural centerpiece in american mythos and identity. (plus, i’m always a sucker for country twang in my music and a band onstage. pit musicians never get enough love!)
and man oh man, the cast. they are all phenomenal. my selected and personal commendations go out to mary testa, whose aunt eller COMMANDED the room and oozed a lovable familial flavor; ali stroker, for her charming, bubbly, and completely endearing brand of wildness in her portrayal of ado annie; patrick vaill, for his deeply chilling performance as jud; rebecca naomi jones, for the surprisingly deep layers of thought and emotion she brings to her laurey; and to damon daunno, for his downright enchanting vocal performance, southern drawl, and ass-waggling swagger all the way to the drama of his more serious scenes, like in “poor jud is dead” and the wedding (dudes got raaaaange. just sayin.). i need a cast album immediately!
it needs to be mentioned how much personality and charm put into every aspect of each actor’s performances. the choreography was just wonderful, from the corn-shucking “many a new day” to curly and will prancing around the stage slapping their thighs (there’s a lot of chaps and a lot of ass wiggling in this show. make your peace with that right away.) to the delightful hoedown-style group dancing in “farmer and the cowman”. i’m absolutely delighted at how seamlessly integrated the wheelchair-bound ali stroker is in every aspect of choreography -- it’s skillful, it’s full of personality, it’s unique and fun to watch. really the only choreography (and really the only scene in general) that i failed to fully appreciate was the dream ballet: as cool as it was, i personally am just Not A Dancer in any shape or form and such an interpretive, almost contextless solo dance kind of flew over my head. i still appreciate the artistry and skill involved in it but i’m sure there are other people out there who got a lot more out of that scene than i did.
to take a moment to appreciate the more technical aspects of the show: firstly, i was impressed by the subtlety employed in the sound design. i’m pretty sure all the actors were all wearing body mics (pretty much standard practice nowadays), though they were either very hard or downright impossible to spy. (nice job to the costume and hair departments for concealing those even from audiences so close!) my theory is that the mics were placed higher up on the actors’ heads, effectively concealing them in their hair and distancing the mic from their mouths -- thereby lessening their ability to pic up the actor’s voices. in a huge, proscenium-style theater, that’d be a problem, but here, in a theater and a show where intimacy is the name of the game, that works. you still heard the actors’ voices from where they were onstage, not just pumped in from speakers (if they were at all!). effects were used sparingly but to great effect: i noticed even in the opening number the reverb effect used only at the ends of certain words or lines to evoke the echoing of a voice over the prairie, which i thought was a very nice touch. and in addition to body mics there were handheld and stage mics, which indeed functioned as handheld and stage mics, with a clear auditory difference between when the actors used them and when they didn’t. again, this built up the believability and intimacy of the world, as well as contributing another layer of coolness to certain scenes (like “poor jud is dead”, which is done almost entirely in the dark and almost entirely on one handheld mic between curly and jud. the upped volume and closeness evoked using the handheld mic brought the entire audience in that much closer into that small and intimate space of the smokehouse and heightened the tension masterfully.)
and, oh my god, the lighting. the biggest snub of the tonys this year is oklahoma not even getting a NOMINATION (atw turn on your location i just wanna talk). i mentioned before those house lights not changing from when you enter the theater through the first few numbers but when they do -- when curly and laurey lock eyes and really consider each other -- there’s a sudden and unexpected shift, going from the bright full house lights to dark everywhere, with the stage lit completely in a dreamlike green. and just as quickly as it came it goes, snapping back to those full house lights again. what a simple but very strong way to convey a message! the show also makes really great use of directional lighting, projection, and colored ambient lighting, with the latter i find particularly notable in the late part of the barn party scene when laurey has her encounters with jud and curly (with these interactions lit a cool and creepy red, mostly by the colored fairy lights strung from the ceiling among the streamers). also an effective surprise is this show’s use of blackouts, its use of complete darkness. i’ve seen a lot of shows but i’ve NEVER seen a show use a blackout like this before.
for example, in the scene leading up to “poor jud is dead”, when curly goes to talk to jud in the smokehouse, the lights suddenly cut out, entirely, like we’ve stepped into a dark and sordid little corner of the world, jud’s domain. the whole beginning of this scene is played ENTIRELY in the dark, with naught but the sound of the two men’s conversation to tell us what’s going on. it’s creepy as hell and so effective. and then, as curly sings, a projector comes on, shining onto the back wall of the theater, an extreme black-and-white closeup, first of jud, then of curly, and of the two of them together, literally being broadcast from a camera held right up then and there. and after the song, after the projection fades away, we get a single spotlight, a pinpoint of light streaming from above; it shines onto the table directly between the two men, illuminating that patch of space, casting an eerie glow on the scene. and then, finally, the end, when auntie eller walks in, and the lights fade up just a bit, like would realistically happen if someone cracked open the door in a dark room. everything about the lighting in this scene plays up the creepiness of jud, the unpredictability of his madness, it plays with the suspicion and nerves of the audience by literally depriving them of information in the form of visuals. it plays similarly to jud’s and laurey’s encounter in act ii, when the lights cut to complete black again as he kisses her. we can’t see them, but we hear everything: kissing. metal clinking. footsteps, retreating. and then, those red party lights fade in, just enough to see laurey retreat to the opposite end of the stage, just enough to see jud’s unbuckled belt and confused, angry expression.
yeah, this oklahoma doesn’t pull its punches when it comes to jud. they make it crystal fucking clear who he is and what he’s trying to do. the lights, the sound, the whole production works to this end. and it doesn’t pull its punches with its finale, either. those of you familiar with the original show know that jud shows up to the wedding with a knife, and after a skirmish with curly, ends up falling on it and dying. this oklahoma did something else: jud shows up, asking only for a kiss from the bride and to give a gift to the groom. inside the box he brings is a shiny pistol, thrust into curly’s hand and trained on jud, standing open and ready for death, a forced assisted suicide. and after several long, tense, silent seconds, curly pulls the trigger. (i actually wasn’t even sure if they were going to go that far, but, yeah, they did that.) and the blood that splatters both on jud’s shirt and on the faces and white wedding outfits of laurey and curly is copious, and raw. it stays there for the rest of the show, a reminder. the finale ultimo is no longer a happy, triumphant reprise of the title number. it’s sung, powerfully and communally, by everyone with dead-fucking-straight faces.
this isn’t your grandmother’s oklahoma, that’s for sure.
what it is is a fantastic new staging of one of the biggest, most familiar classic pieces of american theater ever written. it’s simultaneously a back-to-its-roots retelling and a refreshing new take of classic material. it manages to be fresh and nostalgic, old and contemporary, mythologized and contemporary all at once. it’s not quite a masterpiece, but it’s damn near close to it.
in short, i haven’t seen a show this good in a long time. if you get the chance, you should too. it’s not one you’ll want to miss.
#sasha reviews#sasha speaks#i wanna talk about me#oklahoma#broadway#THIS TURNED OUT SO FUCKING LONG LMAO ENJOY IF YOU ACTUALLY READ ALL OF IT#i had so much to say!! i had so many thoughts!! this didnt even cover everything!!#but the stuff i left out wasnt as relevant to a review#ALSO UH. SPOILERS FOR OKLAHOMA#if anyones into that#either if you care about spoiling the plot of a 75+ year old musical or this production specifically#big spoilers#i didnt even get to mention it because i didnt know where to fit it in but !! will + ado annie + ali are so fucking funny they have#some of the best interactions in this show#laurie and curly are so soft#will + ado annie + ali hakim are all completely fucking over the top all the time#and its a great foil to the drama wit hjud without being Too Much#i didnt even get to talk about all great lighting cues in this#GIVE THIS SHOW ITS RIGHTFULLY DESERVED TONY ATW YOU COWARDS#and there were some hilarious little details in the acting that i didnt get to mention either#like when will just fuckin laid down on a table and when ado annie took too much of a liking to ali hakim#he just sat right fuckin up with a crock pot between his legs and lifted up the lid and wafted the fucking steam around his crotch#god. the assless chaps he and curly wear emphasize the crotch and the ass so fucking much#theres a lot of cute and just-this-side-of-racy little touches to the acting that add to the charm and humor of everything#and. god.#i love this fucking show. alright.#oklahoma!#ok19
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Odwain! The goodest.
Wow, featuring one of the more flattering drawings I’ve done of Odwain. Like last time, I’ll post all these guys separately and then do all the headshots in a masterpost. In the meantime buckle up for...a lot. (Thank you for giving me my favorite character.)
Full Name: Odwain Novak. In Ben Yit’gab, the Bennai language, his first name would be Oediwen, and it’s what his dad called him. His mother calls him Oddy and he does not like it.
Gender and Sexuality: Male and Bisexual
Pronouns: He/him
Ethnicity/Species: Odwain is a Ben-Aleth, a Human-Bennai hybrid, also called a mosshead if you’re in coarse company. His human mother Blanche Novak is mixed race. Odwain’s maternal grandfather came directly from Earth, Poland specifically, during one of the several accidental migrations of humans coming from Earth to The Road. His maternal grandmother is from a previous wave who were already settled on The Road by that time, but the family can trace her ancestry back to West Africa. Odwain’s father, Ashatov Novak, was a full-blooded Bennai, a plant-based halfling race. Ashatov took his wife’s last name.
Birthplace and Birthdate: Thinking about this trips me out man. Odwain was born in 1946, sometime in the summer, probably July or August, in Septor Secundis, a coastal, metropolitan city and the seat of The Road’s government. He’s 27 during his first adventure and right now, in Godslaughter, he is 69 (what the FUCK). He will live maybe 20 or 30 years longer than your average human, and is in better physical shape than a human would be at 69. He’s more like late 40’s or early 50’s.
Guilty Pleasures: A lot, probably - Odwain has just a bit of hedonistic streak just because he feels miserable so much of the time that he needs to feel good somehow. He smokes cigarettes for much of his life (but eventually quits), is a casual cannabis smoker and binge eats really truly terrible junk food (and has a bit of a gut because of it, but because he’s kind of lanky otherwise, he’s just kind of gourd-shaped). He likes beer, but doesn’t drink hard liqour all that often because he gets astronomically bad hangovers. Despite having a generally weak stomach, Odwain really likes frightfully spicy food, and his kids’ obligatory dad-gifts for him are probably hot sauces. When he’s not pounding down garbage, his favorite kind of cuisine is Thai. Not a guilty pleasure per say, but he also loves all things that have to do with insects, and when he and Rusty have a house together, Odwain takes up gardening as a hobby and plants an expansive garden of flora that are attractive to bees. (A Nice Thing: Odwain plants this garden when Rusty is pregnant because he found his love of insects through his father’s garden as a child, and wanted to give his kids the same opportunity) Odwain also maintains an apiary from the time that he’s living in a warehouse in the desert, to when he’s living with a partner and beyond. When he learns how to make Hot Honey it’s over for all of us. He has a modest collection of novelty bee-themed things that he’s amassed over the years, but he is not guilty about asserting his love of bees/wasps, like, at all. He’s also a little kinky but I’m not going into that.
Phobias: All of Odwain’s fears are existential - what if I push everyone away, existing in society is anxiety inducing, what if I’m just a bad person and my existence is making everything more difficult for functional people, etc. Though he’s kind of a sad fellow and has ideated suicide, and came very, VERY close to trying to kill himself after he dropped out of college, he also fears growing old and dying. I think death is more digestible to him if it’s on his own terms, but even then, I think what coaxed him off the edge was fear. If anything ever happened to his chosen romantic partner or any of his kids, he’d be besides himself, and is kind of one severe trauma and emotional breakdown away from becoming a bee-themed supervillian.
What They Would Be Famous For: Odwain is notable at a certain point in his career for being a pioneer in AI programming, and also for designing, building and patenting an invention called the Hercules Rig, which is basically a beetle-wing inspired jetpack. You can see it here. He holds the patent very closely and only allows it to be reproduced for recreation, construction, emergency rescue operations, etc. Odwain has taken a very firm stance on not allowing the military or any paramilitary organization to get their hands on it, though it has not stopped them from making shitty knock-offs that he is constantly suing people about.
What They Would Get Arrested For: Breaking and entering. Exploding something he shouldn’t. Buying illegal hazardous materials. Doing something petty that bites him in the ass.
OC You Ship Them With: To be honest there are not a lot of other characters besides Rusty that I ship him with. Bitter college rivals, thrown back together as late twenty-somethings, becoming better people together and learning to express empathy and vulnerability…it’s good. The only other character that I really go yeah, that’s the good stuff, is Jake’s character Finnick, who is kind of Odwain’s weird BFF and fellow mad scientist type. I don’t think they’d have a super stable relationship, and I think it would most likely be a “we yelled at each other and had weird sex enough that we like each other now” kind of scenario. But I do think they would come to love each other and have each other’s back to the death. Him and Hemlock, my dirty swamp witch who’s only picture was devoured during the great tumblr purge, also make a pretty fun couple for similar reasons. Iona too, but I think they are too explosive of personalities to ever find a stable middle ground. I also think he would find certain people attractive (August, Hare, Ganzrig, Ifechi the man I have spoken of but once, Jonquil in certain scenarios) but may not put himself out there to pursue them.
Neither of us have ever posted any art of her but here’s a few headshots of Finnick I did awhile ago, because she really is my favorite romantic partner for Odwain aside from Rusty, and is the only other one that’s really relevant in our games.
OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Odwain is fairly physically fragile and to be honest I think that most people could kill him as long as they could get their hands on him - he’s very dexterous and has a lot of gadgets that let him get the upper hand, keep enemies at a distance or escape. He has a ranged fighting/add-spawn build so he is mostly out of direct harm unless he’s reeled in somehow. But uh, Odwain IS dead right now in Godslaughter, he died fighting an eldritch deity named Dreamer who sucked him into a nightmare dimension and flayed his soul out of his body. It’s ok though, as long as the party beats Dio, he’ll be fine. I didn’t cry you’re the one who’s crying.
Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Ok, so, first off HAHA Odwain canonically likes Transformers and collects them, which are a thing in circulation after the last human migration from earth in the 90’s. Imagine. Imagine your grown ass father with a genius level IQ and multiple patents collecting plastic robots. Him and Finnick have transformers sonas - ANYWAY, that aside, he doesn’t really read for pleasure, just information, and generally just puts on cable while he works for white noise (and in later years, whatever The Road’s TV streaming service is). Most of the media he consumes is incidental to him, but will get interested in strange things that pique his interest. He probably thinks true crime docs are neat and enjoys pulpy sci-fi stuff that he can complain about. Any documentary about bugs. He’d like Mystery Science Theatre if they had it around. He enjoys things that are the fun, good kind of “bad” and has a fairly high threshold for disturbing imagery.
Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Odwain is that guy who makes 20 minute long youtube videos lampooning movies for “not making sense”. If there’s anything that breaks his suspension of disbelief, his attention and tolerance disintegrates, even if it’s just one of those things that needs to happen to move the plot along. It doesn’t really matter what genre it is, though he is most hard on sci-fi and fantasy. There is a tipping point for him, however, where he starts enjoying the thrill of blasting something and circles back around to enjoying it.
Talents and/or Powers: Odwain is only a little bitty bit magical, and only because Bennai are the most magical race on The Road. He has latent magical ability that allows him to sense magical signatures and incorporate magic into technology, and maybe cast a low level spell if he tries really hard. If he was in a high fantasy setting, he’d be an enchanter. His staff (the big lightbulb thing I draw him with sometimes), the Hercules Rig, his Wasp Suite (robotic wasps with an AI and different spells loaded into them) and any other devilish, bug-based weapons and utility objects do his work for him.
Why Someone Might Love Them: Odwain’s a bit of a tough walnut to crack because I think that he shines in moments of sincerity and vulnerability, but he has to, well, get there. He’s capable of very great, thoughtful acts of selflessness and compassion, and deeply desires meaningful relationships with other people, but he gets insecure about how he expresses himself and can clam up. He’s passionate, emotional and expressive, but has been put down for being so, and was probably a very brilliant, curious child who was beaten down into a somber adult. I actually think that, at some point in his childhood, he was not entirely unlike Whitty in the way that he was eager to share things with people and explore the world around him, which is why Odwain feels very protective of his grandson. I think the most lovable thing about him is that when he’s at his best, nothing can stop him - he’s extremely intelligent, diligent, creative and innovative. He truly, deeply loves making things, and making them better, and when he’s not in a crash, creates prolifically. What he loves, he loves deeply and without compromise, which makes Rusty, a person that could also be said of, a good match for him. I also think his cattiness makes him very witty, he’s a genuinely funny guy who can engage in some really goofy shenanigans when he’s feeling up for it.
Why Someone Might Hate Them: Oh, lots of reasons. Odwain is an acquired taste to many, or just not to many’s taste at all. He is very petty, blunt and catty, and as a young man is extremely bitter and negative. You’d be very hard pressed to get a positive statement about anything out of him between the ages of 16-25. He’s very confrontational, can become very loud and intense if it’s something that he feels is important, and is not afraid to cut people out of his life if he feels that they aren’t good for him. Sometimes, he will end relationships/friendships prematurely because of this. Being such, he is heavily prone to self-inflicted isolation. He has no childhood friends, and only kept in touch with one person from college. He just cuts and runs. Odwain’s self-loathing runs very deep, which makes it hard for him to accept, or ask for, emotional support or affection. And that can be hard on the people around him who care about him. His executive dysfunction can also be abysmal, making it seem like perhaps he is messy or lazy, but he’s just kind of a mess himself, hah.
A weird non-psychological one but I think is enough to get someone’s hackles up is that Odwain doesn’t like animals very much unless they are insects, invertebrates, etc. He finds mammals loud, messy and needy, and that “I’m the only one in my house that is allowed to be all of those things”.
How They Change: As Odwain ages and gains a stable support network of friends, his edges soften and he learns how to ask for help more effectively. He also learns how to better choose his battles, and how to exercise the compassion that he knows he has, but has been too insecure to utilize. He manages his mental health better, but is never entirely free of it, because you never really are. Most importantly, I think, he learns how to forgive the people who deserve forgiveness, and give people second chances, accepting that people can change. Which means the same can be said for him, too.
Why You Love Them: I’ve talked about this before, somewhere, I’m sure. Odwain is one of those characters that has a very big slice of my personality, and has a lot of my more negative traits, though they are ones we’re both working on. My first session with Odwain was a scene where Odwain’s dad died after being ill for a very long time, and as it happens, it was on father’s day, on the first or second father’s day after MY dad died, after several brutal months fighting with the cancer that eventually killed him. I had to put down the dice, so to speak, and for a short time, thought that Odwain might actually be a character that I scrapped completely. He came too close to something very painful and personal. I don’t remember how, exactly, but the solution to this problem of mine was that if he’s getting close to me on his own, then I might as well just let him in on everything. I can genuinely say that doing that has changed the way that I empathize with my characters and how I make them, and that there is something I share with Odwain that I don’t have with many of my other characters. Also, I like bees.
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That was... literally the worst living story patch I’ve ever played.
Naturally, spoilers. And if you can’t tell from the title: I have a very negative opinion of the latest living world story patch. EXTREMELY NEGATIVE, in fact. If you choose to read on past the read more, you need to expect both spoilers and heavy negativity - because in my opinion the way ArenaNet have treated their characters this patch has been fucking disgusting to the extreme and it absolutely destroys the climax of the patch. Worthless fucking garbage.
I’m going to sum up my problem with this patch in a simple sentence, to begin.
Characters are not given the time to be characters. ArenaNet presents us with cool ideas for these characters, but takes no time at all to explore these ideas, and this means that when Aurene dies, I don’t fucking care.
My favourite - my favourite - character, and her death feels empty, hollow and meaningless even more so than Eir’s death did. I was furious with how they treated Eir in Heart of Thorns, but how they’ve treated Aurene has me spitting feathers and I just legitimately spent fifteen minutes ranting the ear off of my partner because these writers are only getting worse as time goes on and it’s destroying any love I had left for the GW2 shitscram of a story.
“But what do you mean?” you ask. “What do you mean characters don’t get time to be characters?”
Allow me to give you a hypothetical situation:
This latest living story patch doesn’t end on fighting Kralk. It doesn’t end on Aurene being fruitlessly fucking murdered for no good reason and it doesn’t end on a bullshit cliffhanger. It also doesn’t involve an instance where characters become fearful of Aurene for all of ten seconds, and then immediately flip-flop back to totally trusting her and the Commander after some harsh words. No. No, none of that. Instead, picture this:
Aurene is given an extra few instances where she just gets to be a character. She gets to be afraid of death. She gets to be afraid of failure. She gets to struggle with the weight of her fated task on screen. We see her sulking. We see her feeling sad, lonely and isolated, the only offspring of Glint left after her brother’s slaughter at the hands of Balthazar (to save the Commander, no less) and not even able to talk to the characters like the Commander or Taimi because of her very nature. We’re not just told of her fears, we’re shown them. Aurene is allowed to just be.
And then we go into the trials. We see more of her struggle, her initial reluctance to work together because she’s the Scion and she has to be strong for everybody! She has to become strong enough to avoid the fate she saw in her visions! We don’t just do some arbitrary, asinine bullshit in the trials; perhaps we save Aurene from herself in a more impactful way when she is shown the Branded version of herself. Something meaningful. Something that shows Aurene and our Commander truly connecting, forming a bond instead of us just giving her a little pat on the head and saying “Hey, it sucks that you only saw horrific visions of you dying a painful, terrible death but we’re here with you :) “
Then we go into the Forge, and in the Auditorium we are attacked by the Brand from the Rift. Aurene displays her new, growing power, and characters are allowed to be afraid of her.
Rytlock is allowed to be distrustful of her because he is very much a distrusting sort. He becomes somewhat distrustful because Aurene is a dragon and nobody can really know how she feels, and Aurene can’t verbally tell him. He’s distrustful because Aurene is immature and has been afraid. He’s distrustful because he has been burned by Kralk once before and he lost Glint, and he is fearful of the idea of losing a second good dragon. Rytlock is allowed to be a character.
Canach is allowed to feel some manner of distrust when he sees Caithe enter her partnership with Aurene. He’s allowed to be suspect of yet another dragon that can turn Sylvari into minions, and perhaps he doesn’t immediately believe that Caithe is entirely herself. Canach is allowed to remember the horrors of Mordremoth and the feeling of having a dragon inside your own head and he is allowed to squint in suspicion at what he sees because it isn’t like he has any other experience of dragons! Canach is allowed to be a character.
And imagine another entire instance letting them feel that way. Instead of the bullshit thirty second scolding that seems to totally change their mind. Imagine an entire instance where you have to try and regain the confidence of these people, people who have LEGITIMATE REASONS FOR BEING UNCERTAIN and who SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD THOSE LEGITIMATE FEELINGS HANDWAVED AWAY. Imagine a small but whole instance of these characters getting to feel that way, of having to be reasoned with because they have valid fears and concerns that deserved to be recognised. Instead of ArenaNet just giving you the idea that these characters have feelings, only to magically make them disappear less than one minute after they voice those feelings, and for those fears to never be brought up again.
And imagine after that, an instance of having to console Aurene! Of Aurene feeling hurt and broken because even when she tried to communicate with her friends, the only family she has left who has turned on her, and the Commander and Caithe having to tell Aurene that it’s okay. They’ll come around. They’re still a family. Imagine Aurene being allowed to actually try and prove herself to these people to win their confidence back. Imagine Caithe and Aurene actually being allowed to explore the idea of Caithe becoming “Aurene’s Voice” and talking to these uncertain characters. Imagine Aurene being allowed to express herself!
And now imagine Aurene’s death, after that. Now imagine, after the extra time being taken to look at these characters and their fears, their uncertainties, their hopes, their dreams, their desires to achieve a better result for Aurene than they managed for Glint, imagine how much Aurene’s death means.
It would have meant so much more. It would have been so much more impactful. To have come so close and to be met with failure, and beyond that, to have been shown Aurene in a personal way, to have been shown how hard she had to fight to overcome what she saw in her visions and how frightened it made her, to have been shown Aurene winning the trust of the only surviving family she had left, and then to have her snatched away when we thought we were on the cusp of winning.
What ArenaNet did to Aurene this patch was fucking disgusting and I am appalled. The writing for this living story has been getting worse and worse and worse. Characters aren’t allowed to feel like characters anymore. They’re killed on a whim, they have their emotions handwaved away like it means fucking nothing, and it hurts me because this game is better than this. It has done better than this.
I remember an entire instance, a whole story step, devoted to Trahearne and the Pale Tree. When Trahearne was at his lowest, we had a story step where he visits the Pale Tree, and she shows a vision of Orr to our not-Commander-at-the-time and to Trahearne, to try and encourage him. We get an entire story step devoted to Trahearne admitting his fears, telling us how he does not feel ready for this destiny that’s been given to him, how he doesn’t think he can do it. Of course there was some fighting in that story step, but even though Trahearne was not well received overall, those story steps FUCKING MATTERED.
This game used to let characters breathe. It used to let them think and feel and it used to give their emotions validity and meaning. It used to be able to treat the characters it had with respect, to give them the time they deserved so that when things happened to them, it was impactful. Why were we so angry at Eir’s death? Because a character that we had come to love, a character that ArenaNet had given the time to be a character with fears and hurts and had given a small but notable arc in trying to heal from the death of Snaff and the abuse of Zojja and a character that ArenaNet had cared enough about to explore and let exist and grow in the world got killed without a second thought, for no reason. She was killed as a plot device to turn Braham into an asshole - where Braham had not been given as much care and love as Eir had.
This game used to do better by the cast of characters it had, and I cared about what happened to them. In another world where it still did that, Aurene’s death this patch would have had me sobbing. I was moved by Trahearne’s sacrifice at the end of HoT. I was genuinely upset and sad. I wished I could have done more to save him. And the crazy thing is that I still like Aurene more than I like Trahearne - and yet her death didn’t make me shed a singular tear. A character I adored the concept of, who I thought had been done so well up until this point, horrifically killed defending my own character and I felt... nothing. Empty, hollow and angry that she had been so mistreated by the writers.
Fuck you, ArenaNet.
All of these characters deserve more time than you give them. You used to give your characters time, and as a result, they felt believable and lovable and I cared about what happened to them.
#Felidae rants#GW2 spoilers#spoilers#GW2#Living Story spoilers#All or Nothing#this was a bullshit stupid patch#IT'S A RANT#negative opinion incoming#what happened to the writing of this fucking game
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