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purrincess-chat · 5 years

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In your opinion, what are all the things that ML writers could do to fix the show and make it better?

Oh, Lord, how much time do you have?

I don’t even know how to begin gathering my thoughts for this, so if this ends up being a big incoherent brain dump then, uh, I’m sorry. XD

So, first and foremost I guess, they need to balance their main characters better. Why is all of the plot tied to Adrien? Why does Adrien have a more fleshed out backstory than Marinette? This is supposed to be a girl power show, and yet it revolves more around the boy’s life from the girl’s perspective basically. Marinette really doesn’t have a dog in that fight outside of the fact that she was asked.

Marinette needs some kind of tie into the plot that doesn’t revolve around her love interest which is basically all they are willing to give her in this show. Everything about her has to relate back to the boy somehow, and if girl power is their message, then they are kind of defeating the purpose. Sure, they have episodes that are supposed to depict that the girl doesn’t need the boy, but then when you pile on top of that dozens of other instances where she gets pushed aside in favor of the boy, including words coming out of the creator’s own mouth (or off of his two thumbs onto a screen) then it doesn’t exactly hold the same weight.

If your protagonist doesn’t have a tie into the plot, then why are they the protagonist? Take other shows, for instance: Avatar: the Last Airbender, Aang is the avatar and it’s his destiny to keep the balance in the world, She-ra, Adora was destined to become She-ra, it’s in her blood. But you have Marinette who is Ladybug because….the greater good? Some fairy sprite bug thing asked her to be?

The villain isn’t personal for her, there is no mark of destiny that deems that she must be a hero, she’s just kind of there. Even her family barely gets fleshed out in comparison to Adrien’s. I mean, her parents are just blindly supportive of her meanwhile Adrien’s mom is in a magical coma, his father is cold, distant, and neglectful, which for some reason turns his assistant on and makes her want to sacrifice her fucking health even though Gabriel looks like a dried up soft pretzel. They canceled the special where we were supposed to learn about Marinette’s family, and I think that about sums up my point.

Secondly, I think they need to abandon the idea that Adrien is perfect because it’s not doing his character any favors. Thomas is so far up his ass about Adrien being a perfect example to boys that he has actually looped back around and made Adrien a poor example to boys. He gets away with all of his bad behavior because Thomas just covers his eyes if you call it bad behavior, he refuses to take no for an answer from the girl he likes, he thinks standing up for yourself is being unkind to the other person regardless of how unkind they are being to you, he conveniently turns a blind eye to the abuse of his friends, but god help you if you try to assert yourself against your aggressor because “you should just be nice to them and eventually they’ll change” like um, and maybe they won’t, in the mean time, I don’t want to put up with their bullshit!

By insisting on this perfect image, they prevent Adrien from growing because you can’t improve perfect. I have said it before numerous times, but Adrien reeks of amateur fanfiction author’s self-insert OC. He’s described as being perfect, he’s good at a lot of activities just because, he’s wildly attractive, charming, smooth, can generally do no wrong, everything revolves around him, the narrative is constructed in a way that usually puts him above the everyone else. The fact that more people don’t realize that, especially the creator himself, is laughable.

“But Cat, Chat Noir gets mind-controlled and thrown around and is goofy and-” Okay, but when Chat throws a tantrum about Ladybug not returning his feelings, who apologizes sincerely? Who is painted as being wrong in that situation? When Chloe puts a train full of people in danger just to play hero for a day, who does he scold? And of the two, who does the fandom adore more? Bonus: who do the Chibi specials revolve around and pity?

Thirdly, they need to actually delve into shit more. It’s season 3, they’ve only been greenlit for 2 more seasons, and what plot do we have? Gabriel wants to bring his wife back from her magical coma, Master Fu messed up something in the past that led to two Miraculouses being lost as well as their temple to be destroyed where presumably everyone else but him died making him the last member of that magical society. That’s it. We don’t know how Emilie got to be the way she is. We have suspicions, but nothing explicit in canon yet. Same with Fu. We don’t know what his mistake was, only that he made one. We barely know any lore about the Miraculouses, the origins, how they were made, when they started working with humans, why they were created.

If you want my honest opinion, with how slowly they’re dragging out this Agreste plot, they could have accomplished it in two seasons if they actually made every episode count and mean something. We get like maybe 1-2 minutes of actual plot relevant information once every few episodes, if that, and sometimes that “plot relevant information” is just the villain learning that there’s a guardian. Hang onto your asses, guys, they’re really laying it on thick for us.

Seriously, they give us breadcrumbs of plot, and they don’t even go into any of the cool shit (like fucking Master Fu and his ancient magical fight club perhaps??) because obviously the villain’s assistant being in love with him despite the fact that he’s married, has a kid, and is doing all of this to resurrect his comatose wife whom he loves and devotes everything to is WAY more interesting and important than all that froufrou magical ass Chinese bullshit, right? Like, this show has all of this Chinese lore and a biracial lead, and they still somehow manage to make it all about white people. but ya know, the French are proud of themselves I guess

Fourth, chunk the status quoyo out the fucking window. I get that this decision may not have been the writing team’s, but in fact a higher up decision, but it’s still a stupid ass decision. For a show that is trying to introduce deeper plot, you cannot progress anything if you constantly have to set everything back to the way it was at the end of the episode, and that much is evident. The relationships are getting stale, characters aren’t developing, plot is moving at a snail’s pace, all because they are so bound by this idea that everything needs to be right in the end to maintain an episodic format. If they wanted to keep the series episodic, they shouldn’t have gone in for all of this lore and backstory that they say exists, but never tell us what it is because that just leaves a lot of people unsatisfied.

Fifth, for the love of god learn how to write dynamic characters. Not everyone needs to be dynamic, but your main cast should probably be. Adrien, I love him to bits, but he is static as all fuck. Which, again, see point number 2. One of the biggest complaints floating around about Stormy Weather 2 is that the characters haven’t changed. With the exception of Marinette, none of the other characters have really learned anything. Adrien hasn’t, Nathalie doesn’t have enough focus to learn shit, Nino and Alya really haven’t, Chloe sure as hell hasn’t, and Gabriel can’t decide if he’s an abusive piece of shit or a sympathetic, heart broken sad man, so I barely count him.

In fact, 3 of those characters’ “development” just revolves around being in love. Nathalie’s “change” is that she for some reason wants to fuck Gabriel (I guess the whole gray-ass pompadour, candy cane aesthetic really does it for her), and then Alya and Nino’s “change” is that they fuck love each other now which them being a couple has basically just become their entire character. They’re barely separate anymore, particularly in Nino’s case more than Alya’s. I’m sure that Chloe’s bit about having changed juxtaposed with flashbacks of her not being nice coupled with how she wasn’t nice in this episode was just for humor because they like to make the point that mean people will never change, but for some reason they still feel the need to teach the protagonist a lesson about being nice to mean people so that they can change, but they don’t do that, they just think that you should keep hoping. :) :) :)

I honestly think that the writers don’t know what “character development” means, and Stormy Weather 2 was just proof of that. All they did was show that the characters have been in a number of different situations, but none of them have really learned anything or grown from those situations, so it’s kind of a weak argument to say that they’ve changed when they’re all intrinsically the same. Except for Marinette because she is constantly the writing teams’ punching bag in all of these morals of the day cause can’t teach shit to perfect boy cause he’s perfect, but of course they don’t reflect on all of the lessons they forced her to learn, what are we, stupid? No, her only importance to the plot is the fact that she loves the boy that the plot really focuses on, so of course her only significant development of character is that she can talk to him sometimes without foaming at the mouth. Not a peep on how she has learned to overcome her jealousy and hotheaded nature, gained confidence in herself, and learned to maturely accept when someone doesn’t return her feelings, a lesson that a lot of us wish good old perfect boy would fucking learn, but he can’t because he’s perfect. :) :) :)

Another part of the problem with characterization in this show, is that often times characters behave in such a way to push the moral of the day rather than giving them established characters. It’s why Alya only questions Marinette’s sources in Chameleon while she just lets Lila claim a bunch of wild shit without batting an eye because she only cares about journalistic integrity when she can use it to beat down her friend so she can learn a lesson about turning the other cheek. :) :) :)

Sixth, pick up a fucking romance novel every once in a while cause hot damn is their relationship progression a heaping pile of hot garbage. Their love drama is so forced and there’s no real development because of the #status quoyo because they must drag this shit on until we’ve all basically lost interest. I’ve seen more people dropping off the love square in the last half season than I’ve ever seen in any other show. Part of that has to do with Adrien becoming a real “nice guy™” but a good chunk of it also has to do with the fact that they don’t really know how to write love drama or romantic tension in a way that makes you care. We all pretty much know that Adrien is never going to figure it out, even if someone grabs him by the shoulders and screams it in his face that Marinette is in love with him, so why should we care? We know that Chat Noir is never going to stop loving Ladybug, but Ladybug is never going to stop loving Adrien so why should we care? We know the show is never going to break the square because they’re endgame so why should we care about the love rivals?

Seriously, Captain Hardrock didn’t give me a reason to care about Luka or ship him with Marinette. I still stand by my opinion that their chemistry was incredibly forced and inorganic, and it still is, and as much as I love Kagami, I wasn’t convinced that she was interested in Adrien at the end of Riposte either. The only reason we know Luka likes Marinette is because Winny said he “fell in love with her at first sight” on Twitter (which the whole love at first sight trope is bullshit, but that’s a post for another day). Somehow in Frozer Kagami was randomly into Adrien all of a sudden, and no one likes to bat an eye about the fact that she told him to change targets because the girl he likes doesn’t like him back and then at the end of the episode when Adrien admits that he still likes the other girl over Kagami, Kagami is all “well, it’s fine. I’ll wait.” like bitch, again on characterization. A strong and confident character like her would know her worth and would show that boy the door. But of course she would contradict herself because they need her for #love drama later even though we all know it doesn’t matter.

I love the love square, and I live for soft moments between them, but I’m ready for them to turn up the heat and give me some actual drama and tension that doesn’t revolve around Chat being a pouty pissbaby or Marinette fucking up another love confession. Cause when you do that too many times, it stops being interesting. You have to throw us a bone somewhere or else we’re gonna stop caring, and lots of people already have.

Seventh, can we please stop pitting all of the girls against each other while the boys just get to be cool with each other? For a show that promotes itself as being a “girl power” show, there are a metric fuckton of misogynistic undertones to this show. See: why does the plot revolve around the boy even though the girl is the slated protagonist. See: why does the girl learn all the lessons while the boy gets to be right all the time. See: why two teenage girls are “the worst things I can think of” while an actual neglectful father gets to be sympathetic and “do anything for his family” uwu

Seriously, I think making Kagami and Marinette rivals while Luka and Adrien are just chill dudebros is so tired. Girls fighting over boys is tired, especially because we have it not once, not twice, but three fucking times in this show. Chloe and Marinette don’t often fight over Adrien, but in Despair Bear Chloe sure as hell didn’t want them dancing together. Marinette initially follows Lila because she’s hanging off of Adrien, and even at the end of Chameleon, Lila makes it known that she is still gonna try to steal Adrien. Kagami basically tells Marinette that she better stop hesitating or she is gonna steal Adrien away, and we have Backwarder where Marinette is basically plotting to cockblock them even though we had Frozer where she decided she wasn’t going to be jealous of them because Adrien liked her. Again, see: characters behaving in a way that is convenient for the plot of the episode. All of the drama is between girls. All of the women in this show are described as being terrible, the worst things they could think of, never going to stop being mean. Seriously. Chloe and Lila? Worst things Thomas can think of. Audrey is constantly shown intimidating her husband who is extremely corrupt himself, not that anyone bats an eye at that. Nathalie/Mayura was described by Jeremy as “making Hawkmoth look like a baby.” Any time they show a man being problematic, they have to bring in a female to be ten times worse, and the worst part is: they don’t even know they’re doing it. #girl power, am I right?

Eighth, speaking of making people bad, can we stop half-assing redemptions? Honestly, they’re so back and forth on whether or not they’re going to redeem Chloe. First it’s “mean people will never get a miraculous” then dingdong, who’s that? Queen Bee, motherfuckers. Then it’s talk about how they’re not going to redeem Chloe then bam bitch, “why don’t you love me?” But even after that they reset the status quoyo and have her go back to being mean. Even after they give her a second chance to be a hero and do good, she still goes right back to being her nasty self. I think they really highlighted in Stormy Weather 2 how much they haven’t changed her at all, and yet somehow she still gets to play the hero.

Additionally, now we have them trying to make Gabriel sympathetic? Boo fucking hoo my wife is in a coma so I terrorize the fucking city on a daily basis, pity me! Also I neglect my son, verbally abuse him from time to time, and I don’t even let him see his friends or feel any happiness, and even though my superpower revolves around feeling people’s negative emotions, I never seem to care about my own son’s unhappiness, but hey, I’m doing it for his mommy, so that makes me better than the 14 year old girl. :D

Shit or get off the pot, Zag. Either you’re going to redeem these characters, or you’re going to leave them the way they are. Make up your damn mind.

Ninth, be diverse in more than name only. For a show that prides itself on its biracial female lead and its ties to Chinese culture, uhh, they spend a lot of time focusing on not those things. I said it before, but they focus all of their plot attention on rich ass white people drama more than the vastly more interesting Chinese lore they have going on. Their black characters were paired together just cause, and their only real important quality now is that they love each other. Their ship is basically their character now, and we barely have a reason to root for them outside of the fact that they’re canon. They have such shallow relationship development that my feet wouldn’t get wet if I stood in a puddle of it. Can we have more on them, please?

This show is diverse only on the surface. They use diversity as decoration then fill everything else with less interesting shit, and even then they get a lot of shit wrong. It drives one of my Asian friends nuts that Sabine’s neckline is facing the wrong direction. (for those unaware of what I mean, it should look like a y. hers is backwards) They use diversity to pat themselves on the back and say they are diverse, but they have no intention of doing anything meaningful with it. It’s just a gold sticker they wanted to give themselves to draw in an eastern market. It’s cheap, and several of us see through that shit.

And last, but certainly not least: Shut the absolute fuck up on Twitter. Just shut the fuck up. Every time Thomas opens his mouth, he just pisses off more people or makes everything more convoluted. Shut the fuck up. Please.

Now, I know a host of you are going to be like “buhhh, it’s a kid’s show, go outside, hur dur, I’m so smart and mature,” but like, honestly that’s a weak argument. Yes, Thomas’s audience is young now and they may not be able to see all of this shit, but when they get older and decide to go back and watch one of their favorite childhood cartoons, all of that shit is gonna come out. They’re not gonna be so naive forever, especially if our generation is raising them, and just because they can’t see all of this shit now, doesn’t mean that it’s not still there just because they don’t notice? That doesn’t make it any less problematic. One thing I love about several shows I used to watch as a kid is that they aged well. When I go back and watch them now as an adult, I find things that I missed as a kid that I appreciate now as an adult. I can’t say that the same is going to happen with Miraculous, especially in this day and age.

Additionally, kids learn a lot through media. I never believed that I was any less than the boys growing up because I consumed a lot of media that taught me that, and going back and watching it over now, I still get that from those shows. Clearly, if you apply two ounces of logic to this show, it falls apart, and that’s not because it’s a kid’s show, it’s because it’s bad writing. I can always see what they are going for, but they always miss just a little bit. sometimes a lot

A lot of us complain because we are concerned with the message being spread to the next generation because those kids are going to grow up one day and be influenced by what they are consuming now. If we teach our girls that the perfect boy is going to chase after us no matter what we say to them and if we teach our boys that in order to be the perfect boy we have to continually chase after the girl until she says yes, how are those kids going to approach relationships? That mentality is actually something that we are trying to combat in the world. That mentality is why rape is so prevalent because we teach boys that they are entitled to a woman’s affection if they’re “nice” to them, and if she doesn’t give it to them, then she is wrong.

Media has an impact on kids, whether we like to admit it or not. Yes, parents can still teach them, but sometimes things get into your subconscious and it can determine how you see yourself and the world. Lots of kids engage in make-believe play where they put themselves in that character’s shoes and play pretend. I just think it’s important to give them the right things to look up to.

#ml salt #ml spoilers #meta #miraculous ladybug

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jq37 · 5 years

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okay so I meant to send this on anon and I think I might have accidentally done so off but then I tried to cancel it and idk if it worked?? anyways! the point is, I’m the anon who doesn’t have dropout rn so! what’s the tea on the new ep? what did I miss? :)

**spoilers for arcade ambush**

Now, I know I use the word wild a lot, but don’t let that take away from the fact that this episode was truly wild.

Biz had such an interesting power set. He has the wings so he can fly, he has all the weird mesmerization type powers (I was picturing that old bager, badger, badger, mushroom video when he was multiplying himself to trip up Fig). Fighting him is like being stuck in Toon Town but in the worst possible way. Then there were the game cabinets sucking people into them and the ghosts possessing people and forcing them to flee. It was really a brutal fight.

(Sidenote, are we to believe that the ghosts that he raised were nerds who died in arcade? Morbid, if true. Also it would have to be a different arcade since that one was new.)

Anyway, this def was an ep full of frustration. They were constantly getting frightened and forced to run or trapped in games or whatever. It’s a good think Ally casted Guardian of Faith before the fight because they were, once again, a life saver. I was a little surprised the arcade game fights were one and done Box of Doom rolls but I guess there was a lot going on.

“Well I’ll just shoot him.” Riz getting a nat 1 trying to shoot Biz point blank was so painful.

Riz: Hey guys, Biz is a bad guy./Adaine: Yeah, no duh!

Everyone making the most mediocre rolls to check out the prizes in the prize cabinet. And Brennan just getting more and more like, “Come on y’all.” I wanted someone to pick up the sneakers. I felt like they were gonna be some kind of stealth bonus item.

Gorgug got a nat 20 charisma! My boy!

Oh, side note, they updated Adaine’s mini with her boss new jacket which is super dope.

Fig and Kristen actively antagonizing the corn god who’s saving their ass.

“Fucking nerd.” Adaine, who has been pretty savage the past few episodes.

Fabian who has never been denied anything in his life looking at the million credit sword: I’d like it.

Trevon

Everyone being furious at Riz being stuck in the game but also impressed by the design of the set.

Gorgug calling his parents mid-fight! Which seems wild but actually is the SMARTEST THING ANY OF THESE LITERAL CHILDREN HAVE EVER DONE.

I feel like Brennan def read up on his philosophy quotes after the last fight because he was back in business this ep.

Cleric is an underrated class y’all. Ally is really rocking it.

What a bad time for Adaine to finally fail a panic attack roll. She’s had a really long run without them though.

I love that Lou always curses as Fabian by saying, “Christ,” completely ignoring that doesn’t make sense in this world, but like. That is what Fabian would say, you know?

Fabian getting stuck in DDR instead of Punch Out is personally offensive to him.

“Hell yeah I take a disengage”

Sidenote: Divination is a really cool ability.

Ugh, Riz. What a terrible time to fail an investigate check. HE GOT PALIMSESTED.

Aww at Lou giving Murph the, “Hang in there, buddy,” shoulder rub after that happened.

Gorgug getting trapped in whack a gnome is MESSED UP. Also, the fact that whack a gnome is a game that exists in a world where gnomes also exist is SUPER MESSED UP.

Adaine: Fuck, I’m fucked!

PROTECT YOUR WIZARD BETTER.

Fabian having to have a dance off in the middle of the fight.

The girls getting downloaded periodically throughout the fight was so freaking ominous.

“I’m under the influence of two ghosts.”

Fabian and Adaine both terrified and running into each other and yelling like freaking Scooby Doo.

OK, while Fig was possessed, Brennan made her read a card that said “Wow. A lot of strong feelings to process here.” And I am told (but can’t confirm) that that’s a line that was said in ep 1? Maybe by the guidance counselor? And then it’s not resolved in this episode. So that seems important.

Emily upon hearing that Riz is stuck in the crystal: Piss in it.

“Do you have any clue about how to get out of here, I mean, clearly you don’t.”

What would Fabian do without that bike, man?

I love that Emily uses Kristen’s full name for no apparent reason half the time.

Kristen channeling the power of friendship to turn undead.

Gorgug is a bottomless pit of HP.

Ally: Is it good to get in the game?/Literally everyone else: NO.

“A tasty walk?”

The philosophers going, “Verily,” to Fig’s base playing and then her moonwalking away.

Siobhan immediately irl cringing at being called a lovely lady by Biz.

HELLISH REBUKE. HELL YEAH FIG. HELL YEAH EMILY.

Penny’s scene with Riz in the palimpsest was like legitimately touching.

But again, Murph gets the nat 20 at the most story appropriate time! Just like last week.

OK, so the girls’ downloads are getting sent to the AV room in Aguefort. Not necessarily suspicious considering that Biz is involved, but interesting to note.

Gorgug pulling an Odysseus and cranking his tunes to ignore the games.

Also his, “Sup nerd?” to Biz.

Kristen absolutely crushed this fight y’all. She basically got out without a scratch.

Siobhan saying sick like Brennan is hilarious to me.

Gorgug being so mad at Biz’s pronunciation of meme.

“Hot topic nerds hate AV club nerds.”

Nothing bothers Emily more than not being able to take an action.

The gang actively mocking and taping Biz as he tries to mesmerize them.

Aww man Murph failing that roll before Penny was downloaded. Heartbreaking.

Everyone visibly recoiling every time Biz talked.

Zac reminding Brennan about advantage and then him picking up every dice he owns. “LIE NEXT TIME DUDE!” He has a cool ass shock of white hair now though. Like, not good but kinda rad.

I feel like Ally has gotten really comfortable with the game mechanics as we’ve gone on.

Kristen hugging Gorgug to protect him is such an adorable image.

“I’m still full health because God exists!”

Shoutout to the SFX guys. They were especially on point this ep.

“Can I just use mage hand to plug the machine out?”

Kristen as Fig getting is her ass kicked by the doppelganger Figs: KISS ONE OF THEM.

The guardian that killed Biz throwing down his cig like a true French philosopher.

FABIAN.

Kristen was the MVP of the fight but Fabian was the MVP of the episode y’all. Like I said, all that promo yelling was either gonna be a TPK or the raddest thing ever and it was option 2!

Shoutout to Siobahn for getting Lou that advantage roll because that saved his ass.

Lou just pretending to get up and leave because game over y’all.

Brennan starting to just narrate assuming failure.

Zac being like, “Well at least try.”

Lou doing them 1 by 1 for the drama of it all, just like Fabian would want it.

Getting a ten first, exactly half of what he needed.

Then the absolute CHAOS that erupted from the table at the 20. By this point, I was pretty sure he was gonna get it because that shot from the trailer hadn’t happened yet and it was near the end of the episode but DAMN it was satisfying. Moments like this are what MAKE RPGs.

Being showered with gold coins sounds extremely painful but that’s beside the point here.

Fabian coming back and lying that he was fighting ghosts outside and everyone totally buying and being like thanks for having our backs man.

I love how much Fig loves her two dad situation now.

Emily and Ally evil mischievous smiling at each other when Emily requests to kill Biz.

Everyone Else: NO.

Brennan: He’s dead, bruh.

Ally like Grinch smiles when Brennan announces that Biz is dead.

“Would she be able to casually get him out of a palimpsest?”

“I still have these handcuffs.”/”Where’d you get those?”/”Uh, nevermind.”

Every time this group has to interrogate someone they escalate all the way immediately.

But MAN Riz was doing some serious drug cartel interrogation on Biz, shooting off fingers and stuff!

Adaine REFUSING to feel bad about bullying Biz (she’s right and she should say it).

“If I were to have a morsel such as yourself stuck in a palimpsest–” IMMEDIATELY slapped by every party member. Bro, you GOTTA stop perving on Adaine IN FRONT OF HER.

Brennan full on RPing unconsious Biz.

“I’m not a bad guy.”/”YES YOU ARE!”

“Fucking Aelwen again!” Same, girl.

OK, so Biz has false memories of coming up with this idea, but what does that mean exactly? Was he manipulated Inception style or actually forced? Because I come up with bad ideas every day. Doesn’t mean I act on them.

“Blow your fuking nose!”

“You see his dick glows for a second.”

Nice of Adaine to ask for permission to do her brain jitsu, even though she didn’t have to and she had all the extenuating circumstances in the world to just break in.

Biz speaking to Penelope on the regular. Hmm.

Siobhan/Adane’s look when Biz says, “I’m cool too.”

So his memory was cut out the day before the Hudol party. Interesting.

Adaine getting a clear threat on her family’s life: THEY CAN BURN MY FUCKING HOUSE DOWN I DON’T GIVE A SHIT.

AND THEN IT ENDS THERE

So two things:

1) Siobhan keeps getting KILLER end lines.

2) I threw a lot of plot info at the bottom without analyzing it because I’m going to look at that and the promo in another post (prob tomorrow) so stay tuned!

#fantasy high #asks #anon #spoilers #Anonymous

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cescalr · 6 years

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In Another Universe - ‘Shot 3 Preview

Cafes, Coffees, and Contract Killing. The Usual Sunday, Y'know.

Summary:

What it says on the tin. Desmond Miles works for an organisation that uses Coffee shops as a front. He's been trained to do so since he was little - put a bit of poison in a drink here, get someone's number there and then murder them in their sleep. There's a blond guy that frequents the Starbuck's down the street that seems like he might be useful - if, of course, the other organisation (which, coincidentally, runs a chain of coffee shops; what is with secret organisations that kill people and caffeinated beverages and little cakes?) doesn't get him first.

(He's cute, too, but that's only a bonus. Really, Desmond insists, it both has nothing to do with anything and hardly even registers on his radar.)

(Lucy - a girl who works at the Starbucks and one he can't quite tell if works for them or for /Them/ - calls his bluff. But then, what does she know?)

(Too much.)

Notes:

The assassins are a smaller coffee shop/cafe chain, and the Templars are Starbucks. Obviously.

(lol.)

Desmond spends most of his ays standing behind a counter, memorising faces and orders and checking people for small crosses, hoping that he's not mistaking simple Christians (or goths, or other people who wear them ironically, or people who believe in vampires... or literally anyone, because it's not just Christians that wear crosses) for Them.

If he figures out a person really is one of Them, well, then his real job kicks in.

Desmond smiles at a girl - cropped brown hair with a blonde streak, grey eyes that might be flecked with blue if he squinted slightly (but he won't, because that's not generally very attractive), a nice jawline and high cheekbones - and thinks, what a shame.

A pretty face like that shouldn't be wasted on a Templar.

(On someone within the organisation that killed his mother.)

Desmond introduces himself to the girl, who blushes faintly and smiles, easy, flirts right back. It's almost too easy - but then, she could always not be a Templar.

That wouldn't explain why she glows red when he focuses, though. Maybe she's just a run of the mill serial killer. Maybe she has a personal grudge because there's a lot of time he doesn't remember from that short stint 'on the run'.

You can't run from them. You most certainly can't run from Them. So Desmond came back because at least here, there's no chance They'll try to kill him on his home turf. They're the only ones stupid enough to shop at their enemies store, after all.

Either way, she's red in his vision. So either she's one of Them, or she needs to die anyway. Hell, she could be a rapist, he hadn't thought of that - and if that's the case, then she'd definitely need to go.

"So, Hanna," He says, "What brings you here today?" after their little bit of small talk - she's from out of town, like most of the Templars. Supposedly, Hanna's here to visit family - she's got a temporary job at the Starbucks, and that's all the confirmation he needs, really. You don't get a job if you're only visiting for a couple days.

(To clarify; another assassin would need more. He doesn't even need this much, really - the red of his second sight is more convincing to the higher-ups than even the best of investigation. But Desmond needs more confirmation than that, for peace of mind.)

She smiles again, practically throws her dimples at him, and leans forward. Her top has a low neckline - because of course - and Desmond lets his eyes stray. Her smile shrinks, more of a smirk, and the dimples are gone. Hanna says something entirely unimportant because now he knows she'll accept him writing his number - the one he uses for this sort of job, for the phone they keep elsewhere in case of tracking - and he nods, and she smiles, leans back. Desmond gets Hanna her drink personally, then writes her name on the cup - underneath, he scrawls his number, fast but careful, and then hands it over.

She smiles to him behind her cup, then nods and sashays out of the store. Rebecca, who's manning the register, snorts.

Rebecca's their cashier. Unofficially, because the organisation can't afford to be official, she's their technician and backup support on missions and... the other thing. She also does a lot of inventing in their spare time, alongside Layla Hassan, who, coincidentally, invented the other thing.

(Layla's a turncoat from the Templars. It's always nice when that happens, given how... uncertain a specific blonde woman's loyalties are.)

The Other Thing, the thing that Layla invented, is what Desmond spends a lot of his time using when he's not working or - well. Working.

(Fortunately for them, even though she invented it for the Templars, back when she'd been wholly agreeing with them - and mostly unaware of their true nature - she hadn't been quite as good as she is now. Meaning, their Thing is better than Their Thing.)

"Templars," Desmond agrees.

"Always swayed by your charms," Rebecca laughs slightly.

"I suppose my face helps," He grins a little, eyes wandering around the crowd. They're not as big a chain as Starbucks, but they're getting there. About ninety-percent the size of Costa, now.

(Of course, Starbucks is way, way bigger than it lets on, given the whole Templar nature of it all.)

"And there he goes..." Rebecca says, conspiratorily, as she follows someone with her eyes that's walking down the street outside.

Blonde. Blue eyes, Desmond thinks, from what he can see. Desmond hasn't found out the guy's name yet, given he seems addicted to the shit they sell at Starbucks and hasn't looked twice at this place since the day he showed up in town.

As they've dubbed him, the 'definitely-not-a-templar Starbucks Blonde Guy', is walking down the street towards his usual haunt.

(They had to add 'guy' to the moniker because they've already got one of those in female form. That's always been the issue with Lucy, as far as Desmond knows. He hadn't met her before he left, and she'd been planted before he got back. Desmond talks to her now, obviously - 'old friends', or so the cover says. He has to visit her at work occasionally, to prove that, and it's a little dangerous, but he doesn't mind it, because - despite the wariness - he does genuinely enjoy her company.)

(... there might be other motives, too. Motives that might also be blonde haired, motives that might have blue eyes.)

"And there he goes," Desmond echoes. Rebecca glances at him, but Desmond waits until Blonde Guy has moved out of his line of sight before he looks to her.

"Y'know, I'm glad you came back when you did," Rebecca says. "We'd have killed the idiot otherwise."

"Hey now," Desmond says. "Liking terrible coffee does not an idiot make."

Rebecca rolls her eyes. "Just tasteless, then." She replies.

"For all we know, he could hate it, and they really have put addictive shit in their flavoured water." Desmond points out. "True," Rebecca sighs. "If only I could get a sample..."

"I'm not buying that shit," Desmond says. "Get Lucy to do it."

"She refuses." Rebecca looks vaguely annoyed, vaguely worried. That's kind of her whole thing, regarding Lucy.

"Of course she does," Desmond says. "'I can't tell you everything. It would blow my cover. I can't get a coffee or two for friends. It'd blow my cover.'" He half-quotes, half-mimics.

"Yep." Rebecca sighs. "And if she can't figure out a good cover for getting her poor uni roommate some caffeine, what can she do?"

The mood sobers. They care for Lucy - of course, they do. She's one of theirs. She's also a close friend. That's what matters more; that's what makes this worse. Desmond's just glad he didn't know her Before. Rebecca sometimes crashes at his or Shawn's or Layla's because of it, and the tiredness on her face when she does suggests a recent argument. One she never wins, of course. And one that always hurts.

Another customer comes up to the counter. Desmond plasters a smile on his face, tilts his head and focuses. Bright blue - friend. Desmond nods to him, holds out his hand, and the other shakes it, nods back. Assassin, Desmond knows. He pockets the note as he asks for the man's order, treating him like an old family friend, as they're instructed to whenever someone from another branch shows up.

The man looks to be a few years his senior, and he speaks with a Russian accent. Definitely not a local branch, then, but Desmond can't remember if they still have one in Russia. The Templars have a pretty strict hold, there.

Regardless - it'd be rude to ask.

The man leaves with his straight black Americano and ginger biscuits, and then Desmond taps Rebecca on the shoulder three times before moving away, into the back. Two people appear after Rebecca types something into her register - Shawn's visiting (he usually stays at the uni campus, working in the library and keeping Templar hands off the valuable and dangerous materials kept there under various forms of physical and computerised security) so he takes over Rebecca at the till, and Emily - a non-assassin that works here because they need that diversity, in case the Templars get suspicious - takes over Desmond's place at the counter.

Rebecca follows him into the back, and then they look at the note.

Clay Kaczmarek might be useful. Son of Harold Kaczmarek, descendant of a few different assassins. Now that's definitely useful - the descendent thing.

The picture attached makes things complicated, though. Blonde. Blue-eyed; younger, but still, the spitting image of Not-A-Templar-Starbucks-Addicted-Blonde-Guy.

Rebecca shares a sigh with him, adds her own quiet "crap" to the mix.

Yep. That about sums it up. Still - at least Desmond now knows why the guy glows gold in his other sight.

#Mine. all mine | My Post #.txt | Text Post #fic preview #fanfiction #claysmond #au #coffee shop au #assassin's creed #rebecca crane #desmond miles #clay kaczmarek #lucy stillman #shawn hastings #layla hassan #modern day AU thing eh #assassin's creed fanfiction

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