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immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

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IOTA Reviews: Crocoduel

When you stop and think about it, this episode is really just the world's most intense custody battle.

Let's get into the thirteenth (chronologically the twelfth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Crocoduel

We start off with the band Kitty Section (composed of Luka, his timid sister Juleka, her “best friend” Rose, and Ivan) performing a concert for the super amazing Zoe and all the peons beneath her greatness (Alya, Alix, Nino, and Mylene). Luka notes its been a while since Marinette came to the Liberty. Because I guess even the show wants to forget the events of “Sole Crusher”.

Luka is still upset that Marinette hasn't wanted to be around him since their breakup, so after he walks away, the others scheme to force them to spend time together.

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Yep, even though they promised to back off in “Gang of Secrets”, Marinette's friends are once again trying to meddle in Marinette's personal life as well as Luka's this time. Because it's not like they can understand how hard it is for two exes to remain friends after a breakup and give them their space, right? They plan to invite Marinette to Luka and Juleka's birthday party while reminding the audience that they're twins.

YES. THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TWINS. ASTRUC HAS NEVER SAID OTHERWISE OR CONTRADICTED THIS STATEMENT IN THE PAST.

LUKA WAS NEVER TWO YEARS OLDER THAN JULEKA, JUST LIKE THERE WAS NEVER A WAR IN BA SING SE.

In all seriousness, I do feel like I was a little hard on Astruc for this. Compared to other things he's made canon on Twitter, this is fairly minor, and we only knew Luka was the older brother at first through a tweet. And considering the other retcon we'll see in the very next scene, this isn't as big of a deal as I made it initially.

Alya invites Marinette to the party, but she easily deduces that it's a trap. Alya then tries to convince Marinette to talk to Luka.

Uh... since when? When did Marinette lose all romantic feelings for Luka? The whole point of the breakup in “Truth” was to show that she couldn't pursue a romantic relationship with Luka because of her duties as Ladybug. She never showed any signs of not loving him, which made the breakup all the more tragic. Yeah, “Mr. Pigeon 72” was an excuse for her to go back to loving Adrien because the writers don't know how to write anything else, but it didn't mean she stopped loving Luka. You know, it's almost like the writers want to make sure the audience knows Lukanette will never happen and the sacred Love Square is the only way Marinette will ever feel love for someone else.

Alya still forces Marinette to go, making her ask Juleka if Luka won't be there. Some people have gone down on Marinette for this, but she does later acknowledge how wrong this was to ask, and apologizes to Juleka for trying to force her to do something she didn't want to do. If only Marinette's friends learned the same lesson.

Juleka goes to tell Luka about the party, but hesitates to tell Luka he can't go there. While he knows Juleka is hiding something, Luka is distracted by the sudden arrival of his father who he loves despite abandoning him for his entire life, Jagged Stone. However, Luka and Juleka's mother, the anarchy-loving Anarka isn't happy that much like his sperm when the condom broke, Jagged came in without her permission.

At the day of the party, Marinette panics as soon as she sees Luka, who in turn realizes she didn't want to see him. Rather than comfort Juleka who just ran away crying, the others comfort Luka, preventing him from being akumatized by Shadowmoth, though he still keeps his Akuma around just to be safe. Marinette apologizes to Juleka before Shadowmoth can akumatize her too (even though she got a Magical Charm in “Guiltrip” so it wouldn't work either way). Then Shadowmoth tries to akumatize one of the guests as they find out Jagged (who just arrived) is Luka's father, but since they're dumb teenagers who don't know Jagged was winning awards and being celebrated as a rock icon while Anarka was working two jobs and struggling to make enough money for rent, they think it's awesome. Very confusing day for Shadowmoth, isn't it?

Marinette also finds out Jagged is Juleka's father and finds out Juleka worries Jagged loves Luka more since they share more interests, which she thinks is true when Jagged gives Luka a guitar case and instructs her to not tell his sister. Marinette tries to call out Jagged for neglecting Juleka over Luka even though Jagged was more of a father to his pet crocodile than either of his biological children, but it's obviously a gift for Juleka, the first bass guitar Jagged ever owned, which calms her down. Funny how nobody acknowledges how Jagged practically abandoned his family, isn't it? Sure, it looks like he's trying to make up for it, but he just acts like he's always been Luka and Juleka's dad and they don't have any problems with their father literally never being in their lives until now.

Jagged's gift to Luka is a record of the first record he made in his band with Anarka before they broke up, Crododuel, but Anarka is naturally pissed he wants to give that to Luka. Jagged and Anarka argue over which one was the Yoko Ono in their relationship while they both grab the record, which Shadowmoth uses to akumatize the two as it breaks, turning them back into Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock respectively, Shadowmoth labeling them as Crocoduel.

Unlike the other team Akumas like the Punishers or the Gang of Secrets, Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock care more about fighting each other than working together, and they see getting Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous as a competition to help prove who was right in their argument. It's a pretty interesting gimmick, though I don't get how Shadowmoth thinks this will help him and not ignore Ladybug and Cat Noir while they fight.

Alya provides a distraction to help Marinette transform, and after we get Adrien's single scene to remind the audience he's still a main character, he transforms into Cat Noir. The two heroes give chase, but then Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock decide to take their fight to above the clouds.

Yeah, it's not like you have a form that specifically allows you two to fly, right?

All they had to say was that Marinette was still making more potions for that form, and it would have been better than ignoring the fact that they can fly.

Much like the hotel room during the night Luka and Juleka were conceived, the crossfire from Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock's fight starts to damage the area around them. Ladybug and Cat Noir get Luka and Juleka to safety, and Luka tells them about what's happening, while Ladybug spouts the lesson about people needing to talk even though they don't love each other anymore, reflecting the situation the writers retconned her into learning.

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, a roll of scotch tape, and comes up with an idea that involves Juleka. She takes her away into an alleyway and gives her the Tiger Miraculous. The tiger Kwami, Roarr, demands Juleka show some courage, so Juleka yells in her face. Unfortunately, as much as I want to show this scene, the subs I got don't really match up, so I can't really give some screenshots of it. So I guess you can watch this scene from Full Metal Jacket instead to get the gist of things.

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So Juleka takes the Tiger Miraculous and transforms into Purple Tigress.

I think the suit has a pretty good design. I like the striped pattern with the gold highlights around the black stripes, and think the color scheme is visually pleasing, especially the hair. I wouldn't call it one of my favorite hero suits, but I still like the way it looks.

Cat Noir launches Ladybug and Purple Tigress into the air where they split up to steal both halves of the record, but when they break them, no Akuma comes out. It turns out that since the record was broken while Jagged and Anarka were akumatized, they need to put it together again before breaking it in order to free the Akuma.

Purple Tigresse goes to distract Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock with her power, Collision, which she uses to KNOCK CAPTAIN HARDROCK'S SHIP ABOVE THE CLOUDS, TAKING GUITAR VILLAIN WITH HER.

Why the hell did it take four seasons to break this Miraculous out if it gives the user the ability to go Super Saiyan on the enemy? I think Cat Noir's expression after seeing the power in action says it all.

Cat Noir Cataclysms the record (because a record is just so hard to break without using the power of destruction, isn't it?), Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix everything, Jagged and Anarka somehow weren't killed by their own daughter, the three heroes pound it, and Ladybug gives two Magical Charms to Jagged and Anarka.

Back at the Liberty, Juleka tells the two to forget what caused them to break up and just apologize while they ignore the past, proving the writers really don't get how hard it is to move on from tough events in life. And despite building it up for the entire episode, Marinette and Luka talk in the final thirty seconds of the episode and just agree to be friends, meaning once again, Luka was sidelined in what should have been a focus episode for him.

Aside from the way Jagged and Anarka's relationship was portrayed coupled with the retcons surrounding Luka, this episode was alright in my opinion. Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock are some of my favorite Akumas, so I thought it was nice to see them again, even if we didn't get to see their powers at full potential. I also thought this was a really good episode for Juleka, as I felt like the hero debut really helped her grow as a person and didn't just feel like she was given a Miraculous because the plot said so. She wanted to help her parents, and using the Tiger gave her the courage to symbolically speak out while potentially launching them into the stratosphere.

But the biggest problem to me has to be the way Jagged is portrayed in the episode. Just like with “Truth”, the idea of Jagged being a terrible parent is just swept under the rug and everyone just accepts the fact that Jagged is Luka and Juleka's dad very well. Despite the idea leading to some interesting drama in a show that's no stranger to family drama, they don't really do much with the whole “Jagged abandoning Anarka” thing. Aside from a brief interaction between Luka and Jagged while the former was akumatized into Truth, nobody is really angry at Jagged. Nobody really feels angry at Jagged for what he did, despite the drama being the main focus behind the episode that also had the Lukanette breakup. You would think this would at least lead to some tension between his family, but nothing really comes from it other than an argument that was pretty much played for laughs. But considering this show has a history of teaching kids to love their parents no matter how cruel they are to them, I'm not entirely surprised.

Overall, it's just a decent, albeit forgettable episode. If the writing with Jagged was different, it could have been a lot better in my opinion.

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curestardust · 5 years

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if you want: slice-of-life / realistic portrayal of wlw relationships with no fanservice

We obviously know why I’m here. If something contains wlw, expect me to appear there sooner or later.

Aoi Hana is a pretty special series. Among all the shoujo ai series whose main draw is the fanservice and the fetishization of girl on girl action, Aoi Hana contains none of that. It’s a quite realistic take on the “genre”.

The way I’d describe this anime would be to say that it’s about “Fumi’s first love”. Our main cast consists of Fumi, a very timid and gentle girl who moves back to her hometown where she meets Akira (Aa-chan) with whom she used to be friends with as kids. Despite the expected premise, Aoi Hana isn’t a love story between these two. Fumi meets a girl called Sugimoto on her first day in her new school. They eventually start dating. The series is basically about Fumi’s personal growth throughout this relationship with multiple characters and their interjecting love interests keeping things even more interesting. I’d also like to mention that while wlw relationships are the focal point of the anime, Fumi is the only lesbian in the bunch. Two other main characters are bisexuals and we aren’t really given anything to figure out Aa-chan’s.

With the complicated relationship “drama” you’d expect Aoi Hana to be pretty spicy but it’s a slice-of-life through and through. The story advances at a very slow pace and focuses quite a bit on side-characters’ relationships, friendships and just general school life.

The technical side perfectly mirrors the anime’s pacing and general atmoshpere. The OST contains a lot of piano and various musical instruments and the OP/ED are both slow and soothing. The animation is very smooth and the art direction is quite interesting with the backgrounds only being drawn as if they were just sketched. The character designs are simple but distinct.

However, there’s a reason I said that this is about “Fumi’s FIRST love” as this is just a small piece of the actual story. The manga was unfinished at the time of this production and thus they decided to leave the ending SOMEWHAT open-ended. Not in a bad way as most of the story threads have been wrapped up but they left room for a potential sequel which I’d love to see so bad!”

Sidenote: compared to my review my score may seem low and that is because I may have appreciated how the series was handled, I’m really not a sucker for SOL and the pacing was way too slow for me personally. [7/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: boobs and asses tbh / okay-ish beach volleyball matches

Harukana Recieve is a sports anime mixed with some slice-of-life. Which sport? Beach volleyball. And as I found out from watching this, that is apparently very different from normal volleyball.

The story starts out with Haruka, who moves in with her cousin Kanata. Now living near the ocean, Haruka obviously takes a trip down to check it out where she meets 2 girls playing beach volleyball. Later it turns out that Kanata has certain connections to the pair. This is the start of how Haruka gets her first taste of the sport which later leads to her pairing up with Kanata. A bit later we meet another pair, the Thomas twins, who get the other 2 to join the beach volleyball club at school.

Honestly, Harukana Recieve was quite boring to me. The slice-of-life between the matches felt really slow. They did give some character bulding moments to our characters, however this being a sports anime I think the same could’ve been achieved during or after some exciting matches. And while the anime tries to give some depth to our cast, for quite some time I could only think of them as the tropes they represent...cause of the fanservice.

I looked at a few pages of the manga and was surprised to see that the characters don’t look like they came out of a hentai which means that making their boobs 3 times the size of what they were in the manga was a conscious choice. The creators most likely thought that the story couldn’t carry the anime and instead they filled the empty spots with a lot of eyecandy. Boob jiggles, close up shots of their asses and of course weirdly small swimsuits, everything a salivating virgin would want and more!

Shortly about beach volleyball from what the anime told me: a team consists of 2 people. A pair can only touch the ball 3 times while it’s in their court before needing to send it over the net. This part was initially what I thought made the matches quite boring to watch as it really doesn’t offer much variety. The tactics were the exact same for a long while. Recieve the ball, second person goes up to the net and passes up the ball to be hit over, first person jumps up and hits ball over. Repeat. However, I took a look at some actual real life beach volleyball matches and I realized the problem. The camera work. In real life, the passing of the ball is incredibly fast paced. You barely have time to think, the ball is just flying all over the place. In the anime however, they often pan on the ball while it’s in the air or even slow down the camera after a hit, making the matches feel much more sluggish than they actually would be. This is made worse by the fact that they barely use any wider shots, mostly just close ups from a lot of weird angles, making it hard to discern how big the court actually is and following the ball’s trajectory is almost impossible, as sometimes the ball looks like it got launched into the stratosphere and then we pan to literally a few meters from the person who hit it.

Obviously, the lack of tactics used in the matches could be attributed to the fact that Haruka is new and she is slowly progressing. Which is realistic, but doesn’t make it any less boring.

The final 3 episodes more or less consist of one match, which is the most exciting part of the whole thing. It still has the problems I pointed out above but as the 2 pairs are both more or less experienced, the fooling around is finally over and replaced by some actual tactical playing. It helps that the match also carries much more emotional weight than the ones before.

Well this ended up being hella long...if you just wanna look at boobs and asses go ahead tbh. If you want the beach volleyball part just watch the last 3 episodes. If you’re not interestested in either, then... [5/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: beautiful presentation and nature scenes / some insight into diving / iyashikei (healing slice-of-life anime) / peculiar charm

Amanchu! is a special case for me. I see it mentioned a lot that one of the most exciting points of the anime is that it’s made by the creator of Aria, which I’ve obviously heard of but haven’t seen yet. And while this would work great towards me not comparing it to a prior work of the mangaka, I still made a mistake by having preconceptions about what this anime would be like.

My vague memory of the plot was that it was going to be about a diving club. Great! Basically another sports anime, which I’m fine with. However that wasn’t quite the case.

In the beginning, we’re introduced to Futaba (Teko) who moves into a new town, away from her dear friends. She is very shy and timid. Then at her new school she happens to meet a peculiar girl named Hikari (Pikari) who quickly befirends her and makes her join the diving club with her. The overarching plot of the anime is Teko’s change from a shy little girl into a much more mature young woman thtough Pikari, the diving club and the sport itself.

That is, in the first half of the anime and then the last episode. However, there’s a pretty big chunk of Amanchu! where the diving barely gets mentioned in favour of some slice-of-life and character building episodes, some of which focus on the side characters; the other 2 members of the diving club, a twin sister and brother and the club manager who’s their teacher. Unfortunately, most of these episodes fell flat for me as they really aren’t...very interesting characters!

While my lack of enjoyment in most of Amanchu! could be chalked up to me being a bit sick of slice-of-life stuff thus making it hard to get invested in what was happening, there’s something else that can be a huge turn off for people which is the “comedy”. Whenever something that demands a reaction happens the characters’ heads turn into a circle and their faces kinda turn into an emoji (for examples look up ‘Amanchu faces’). All of them have a specific “emoji face”. This looks cute of course but the anime uses it SO OFTEN you sometimes feel like you see their normal faces less than their emoji faces. Characters also have certain “ticks” like Pikari constantly saying “upyo!”, Teko making this high pitched “eeeeeehhh??” and the twin sister kicking her brother in the back at basically every occasion. The “funny sibling abuse” trope I hate anyway but your opinion of these things I just listed could make or break the series. It could either annoy you to hell and back making it basically unbearable to watch or you can find it incredibly charming and entertaining.

If you’re on of those many people who find it charming then Amanchu! will be a great iyashikei (healing anime) for you. The presentation is absolutely gorgeous with soft linework and a vivid but inintrusive colour palette. The background music consists of some very nice instrumental tracks. Of course, the anme shines especially during the diving and underwater moments while the slice-of-life episodes bring up some less serious but everyday questions. The enjoyment of small moments is a big part of Amanchu!.

This anime wasn’t really for me but I’m still giving it a quite weak 7 as I don’t think it deserves to be listed with some of my 6 rated anime that are objectively much worse. [7/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

#dusty reviews #Sweet Blue Flowers #Aoi Hana #Harukana Receive #Amanchu!#Amanchu #pls dont kill me amanchu fans #also glad that i could get this out before my hospital stay

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blacknovelist · 7 years

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Hie, if you are still taking asks for your AWESOME ageswap BNHA AU, I have an ask that I would like to see your novel length answers for: What do you think would happen and Canon!All Might & Ageswap!Deku's reactions would be in the combined world if a villain somehow managed to kidnap Canon!Deku & Ageswap!Toshinori? And the kidnapper managed to snatch Canon!Shouto and Ageswap!Engi as well? I can imagine that between the two, only Ageswap!Shouto would join the others them.

BUDDY, MY PAL, FRIEND, ANON, LIGHT OF MY LIFE……… ageswap is absolutely 1000% of the time always a thing (In general, BNHA AU’s are, haha) and I’m so glad you asked because in general I’ll take any excuse to take things and just go

I can’t believe you came here wanting me to talk for ten years gghlsnfiskfj

I’ve been looking for things to overthink and analyze lately and u, my friend, are officially an enabler of my awful rambling tendencies. You, every other anon and person that’s ever asked me about anything and also @guardianlioness, because naturally she’s my partner in crime for Ageswap and the moment I showed her your ask we absolutely ran with it.

(–> As context for anyone jumping into the Ageswap bandwagon, here’s the tag. Generally speaking the way the Ageswap meets Canon thing works is that Ageswap 1-A gets mysteriously transported into canon and end up having to stick around while they figure out how to send Ageswap 1-A and whoever came along, like Inko and some Ageswap teachers, back to their universe again.

There’s actually also an AU of an AU in which, through means unrelated to our favourite class, both universes get fused together, which is the Ultimate Combo Verse and was 100% mostly lioness’s idea and it’s frankly just great. Basically, everything is the same, everyone exists as both kids and adults at the same time. During this fusion process, Ageswap 1-A ends up needing to stay with canon 1-A. That’s relevant because Lionesss suggested that this whole situation take place while Ageswap is staying with canon, but mostly tangentially bc it can work out without that anyway. I just wanted to mention it.)

So like…. there’s several ways and reasons for all our kids to be brought into trouble like this, and it means there’s like, thousands of ways for this scenario to play out (with a billion little details to change)and god i love it. We figure in this case, it would be while they’re all in one universe, as opposed to some situation where a baddie is going cross-dimensional to kidnap everyone separately or something. The way it’s been settled is, someone probably used the Quirk Trigger drugs on them to make the boys’ powers go out of control, so that it would be easier to kidnap them. It would take a lot of planning, and just getting a hold of the drugs would use up a great deal of resources probably!

It would also be the easiest part of the entire situation.

Listen, if anyone decided it would be a good idea to take these kids? There’s at least like, 40 reasons why that’s a terrible idea and most/all those reasons are not above working with each other and in various configurations to create even more reasons why it’s a terrible idea. Buildings leveled, oceans split, mountains shattered… there’s few things more dangerous than a dad on a mission, let alone the group of dads we have going on here (going by adoption and blood technically it’s the Dad Trifecta, but obviously canon Aizawa is also in on this so it’s actually the Dad Quartet).

Basically, this whole thing is the apocalypse upon us, my dude.

That’s not even getting into the 1-A’s. Worse still, that’s not even counting Inko Midoriya. That right there is the destruction of the universe as we know it.

The rest under a cut becauseeeeeee who knows how long I’m going to go on about this? I sure don’t.

To be more specific to the nature of your ask because I’m a terrible terrible person who loves going on about things that you didn’t actually ask about, we’ll start with our Dad for All’s. Ageswap Izuku is a mad strategist, even though at this point in the shared timeline both he and canon Toshinori would be retired from the world of heroics, and against these guys? The plans he comes up with are absolutely ruthless. He’s got no time for things like mercy when his alternate self and his nephew and the young version of one of his best friends and even his own son have been taken. Any semblance of pity has been launched all the way to goddamn andromeda at this point, it’s not coming home any time soon.

The plan itself absolutely includes copious amounts of explosions, stealth, sneaking around, lots of research, possibly punching a man or two into the stratosphere, freezing things, burning things, shattering a few eardrums, finding the boys, making sure they’re okay, wrecking the place, and making several people regret being born and coming up with this idea in the first place, at a minimum. Not necessarily in that order (need to make sure everyone who cannot fight is out of danger first, after all)

For a moment, as canon Toshinori watches and helps plan, he wonders (in a good way) what kind of monster he’s creating with canon Izuku if this is what his pro-counterpart is like.

As for canon Toshinori? Well. He’s not so much a strategist or planner as Ageswap Izuku is, but this is his universe, his home turf. He’s got the advantage of connections with people, like canon Naomasa, the police department on a whole, and his hero agency. If there’s so much as a whisper as to where their boys are and why they’ve been taken, someone along the grapevine is gonna hear it and pass it along. Plus, of course, he helps Ageswap Izuku when he can!

Also, you know who we’re talking about here. Of course retirement and mortal wounds aren’t going to stop these dumb old men from going out into the field and bringing their boys home. (“Oh, punching this would be bad for my health? I’ll kick their asses instead”)

Ageswap Todoroki, of course, has a hand in planning everything. Besides, who else is gonna freeze and burn the shit Izuku asks him to, right? He’s more familiar with how Ageswap Izuku tends to plan and strategize in general, which helps. He’s good at keeping a level head, which provides a handy perspective for everyone.

Canon Aizawa is like Toshinori in that he’s got a homefield advantage, but also, he’s far more familiar with the underground/underworld workings of the villain-hero scene, so while Toshinori has got contacts, Aizawa has the means to contact people as well as going out into the field to gather intel himself. As well, he’s familiar with what they need to look out for as far as clues and research go, which is vital to Ageswap Izuku’s planning and also the finding of the boys in itself.

Overall, though, I think Ageswap Todoroki and canon Aizawa are the ones to help keep a lot of the calm among the adults directly involved, reminding them not to get overly frustrated and that they’re going to find the boys no matter what - not to say the kids aren’t doing their part not to freak out over things they can’t do shit about yet, and also not to imply that there isn’t anyone else involved as far as teachers and pro heroes go. And that’s also not to say they’re not absolutely fucking livid and furious about this situation and that they’re not among the first ones on scene to start wrecking shit, because of course they are.

No one touches their boys.

Canon Endeavor, though… mind you, of course he’s gonna be involved - someone dares to kidnap his boy, he’ll teach them to think twice. His experience and connections mean that they can’t really say he can’t be involved, so he too does his part. I don’t know if this would be before or after Lifetimes or some other in-verse variant of it though, and that’s admittedly important bc in AU context it would also be relevant to whether or not he’s trying to change or not, you know? Regardless, he’d probably not be very involved in the planning itself, outside of offering small bits of his thoughts and things - he can’t get a read on Ageswap Deku, but he’s aware that Deku is/was the number one of his world, and gets that he’s deserving of respect, to some degree, so he’s cordial to them all on a whole (though canon Toshinori tries not to be around when he’s around and vice versa).

Though, also, since I imagine this mess would be something they might want to keep out of the public eye, there’s also only so much canon Endeavor can do openly, too. He probably does a lot of red herring things and calls his work relating to finding the boys by some other name, and I guess in that stream he’d help by just, making sure no one finds out abt the kidnapping by keeping the press and media distracted by whatever he’s doing (and by doing it very, very far away from where and what the others are doing. It rubs him wrong, but he’s still doing his hero work so hell. Fine. He’s the only one that can do this anyway, so of course they’d come to him about it. Or, that’s what he tells his ego because he can’t argue with them about it).

As far as the rescue mission itself goes, everyone gets deployed. And by “everyone”, I mean both 1-A’s, possibly the Inko’s (because I’m sure we all remember this very serious and official ageswap post), their teacher-parents, several other teachers, the Naomasa’s (because of course ageswap Nao is in on it), and canon Endeavor.

And by “rescue mission”, I mean “UA and Nedzu decided that it would be good experience for their heroes in training to go on this unofficial mission for a kidnapping that has not been disclosed to the public At All to avoid any sort of big legal fuss and here are a few teachers/pros to supervise pls don’t kill anyone :)” because, you know, everyone knows better than to get between “everyone” and their mission to save the boys.

(When everyone comes home mostly safe and sound the world collectively breathes a sigh of relief, because it looks like the end has been saved for another day.

also because a mountain range or five haven’t been wiped off the map in some fit of fury and rage or anything like that.)

#Ageswap AU #BNHA #Boku no hero academia #MHA #My Hero Academia #Anonymous #Novelist answers #....i just realized the pun on my internet name and the length of all my answers #It's an answer of Novel length! ghj;lsf;jsljfk oh my gosh (i'm sorry)#anyway there's some probably irrelevant stuff here but your question is answered therefore I will count that as a win!#im so filled with love and affection thank u anon!! i'll clock in wordcount later but i think this is the novel-length answer u wanted #ive been thinking of kingsman too much lately all I can think of is a rescue involving uch bamf-ing and explosions and neat slowmo shots hah #im very glad!! You like the au and think it's awesome!!! I agree it's super awesome i'm so glad

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jenmedsbookreviews · 4 years

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Now you may have seen a bit of buzz on social media in the past week and a bit. Why? Well because the lovely Karen Sullivan of Orenda Books has announced the dates and host bookshops for this years series of Orenda Roadshows. I for one am very excited as I love this time of year, and I know a number of my fellow booklovers and Orenda-shippers are equally as bouncy as me.

Orenda Roadshow Birmingham in 2019

So what is an Orenda Roadshow I hear (some of) you ask? This is the nationwide celebration of all things Orenda where you will find the largest number of authors in any one place, outside of a bog standard festival, talking about their books, sharing the book love and spending time with their readers. It is both informative and entertaining. Fun and a place for serious book purchasing. There is also the chance you may be able to pick up some not yet released titles as the authors prepare for their upcoming launches. You just don’t know.

To give you an idea what to expect, over the next few weekends I’m going to be resharing my round up of the last three years worth of Orenda Roadshows. Before I do though, here is the list of this years venues and the bookshops you need to stalk on Twitter and Facebook to keep abreast of the bookings opening.

24th February: Waterstones Glasgow 25th February: Drake the Bookshop, Stockton on Tees 26th February: Linghams Booksellers, Heswall 27th February: The Bookcase, Lowdham 28th February: Griffin Books, Penarth

Tickets are already on sale for Heswall and Glasgow so don’t delay. Book today. For those of you who are still undecided, let me tempt you some more with what happened at my first ever Orenda Roadshow in Liverpool, way back in 2017…

My Bookish Night Out Orenda Roadshow 2017

So Tuesday I decided to cash in a little annual leave and took the afternoon off to head off to Liverpool with my sister. Our destination? Waterstones at Liverpool One and the Orenda Books International Crime Fiction Roadshow.

Now, if you’re a follower of the blog (poor folks) you’ll probably have an inkling that I’m somewhat of a fan of Orenda Books’ authors. I’ve got to be honest; I haven’t read a duff book yet that Karen has backed and released. I was absolutely thrilled to see that she was going on tour with some of her crack team of writers, many of whom I’d already read and reviewed. Like – well 7.5 out of the 8 if I’m being honest, and it was only 0.5 of one because I have started the book but haven’t quite finished it yet. (This was true then – I’ve read 82 books now – they’re all fabulous)

It was a brilliant night, with the wonderful Karen Sullivan (@OrendaBooks) introducing her authors. They told us a little bit about their books as well as reading short excerpts from all eight novels, before answering a few questions about who inspires their work, where their ideas come from and, in the case of Steph Broadribb, giving us a little insight into the training she did as a Bounty Hunter as part of her research for her sensational debut, Deep Down Dead. There was also some debate over whether there was any pressure on authors to write ‘noir’ which led to an emphatic no from all parties and the agreement that they write what they want to read first, rather than being confined by genre expectations.

If you aren’t aware of the eight fabulous authors who were at the event (shame on you) then here is a little bit about each of their superb books which, in the words of Antti Tuomainen, are all ‘really good’ and are all ‘really cheap’. Trust me, you had to be there but this guy has a totally wicked sense of humour.

Thomas Enger – Reading from Cursed

Follow on Twitter: @EngerThomas

What secret would you kill to protect?

When Hedda Hellberg fails to return from a retreat in Italy, where she has been grieving for her recently dead father, her husband discovers that his wife’s life is tangled in mystery. Hedda never left Oslo, the retreat has no record of her and, what’s more, she appears to be connected to the death of an old man, gunned down on the first day of the hunting season in the depths of the Swedish forests.

Henning Juul becomes involved in the case when his ex-wife joins in the search for the missing woman, and the estranged pair find themselves enmeshed both in the murky secrets of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, and in the painful truths surrounding the death of their own son.

With the loss of his son to deal with, as well as threats to his own life and to that of his ex-wife, Juul is prepared to risk everything to uncover a sinister maze of secrets that ultimately leads to the dark heart of European history.

Although this is book 4 in the series, you can read this as a standalone (though why would you want to). I really enjoyed Cursed, so much so that I went out to buy the first three before I’d made it even half way through. You can purchase Cursed here and also get a taste of what’s in store for you by reading my review, here.

Louise Beech reading from The Mountain In My Shoe

Follow on Twitter: @LouiseWriter

A missing boy. A missing book. A missing husband. A woman who must find them all to find herself.

On the night Bernadette finally has the courage to tell her domineering husband that she��s leaving, he doesn’t come home. Neither does Conor, the little boy she’s befriended for the past five years. Also missing is his lifebook, the only thing that holds the answers. With the help of Conor’s foster mum, Bernadette must face her own past, her husband’s secrets and a future she never dared imagine in order to find them all.

Exquisitely written and deeply touching, The Mountain in My Shoe is both a gripping psychological thriller and a powerful and emotive examination of the meaning of family … and just how far we’re willing to go for the people we love.

It was fantastic finally getting to meet Louise Beech although it was perhaps mildly disturbing that by the end of the night her ‘boobs’ seemed to be everywhere… 😉 You can purchase the brilliant The Mountain In My Shoe here and read my review here.

Steph Broadribb reading from Deep Down Dead

Follow on Twitter: @crimethrillgirl

Lori Anderson is as tough as they come, managing to keep her career as a fearless Florida bounty hunter separate from her role as single mother to nine-year-old Dakota, who suffers from leukaemia. But when the hospital bills start to rack up, she has no choice but to take her daughter along on a job that will make her a fast buck. And that’s when things start to go wrong.

The fugitive she’s assigned to haul back to court is none other than JT, Lori’s former mentor – the man who taught her everything she knows … the man who also knows the secrets of her murky past. Not only is JT fighting a child exploitation racket operating out of one of Florida’s biggest theme parks, Winter Wonderland, a place where ‘bad things never happen’, but he’s also mixed up with the powerful Miami Mob. With two fearsome foes on their tails, just three days to get JT back to Florida, and her daughter to protect, Lori has her work cut out for her. When they’re ambushed at a gas station, the stakes go from high to stratospheric, and things become personal.

What can you say about the woman who knows how to use a Taser? Why she’s fabulous of course. Completely fabulous. Actually, bounty hunter training aside, she really is pretty cool, an absolute fabulous blogger and has released one of the best debut novels I’ve ever read. You can purchase a copy here and read my review here.

Antti Tuomainen reading from The Mine

Follow on Twitter: @antti_tuomainen

A hitman. A journalist. A family torn apart. Can he uncover the truth before it’s too late?

In the dead of winter, investigative reporter Janne Vuori sets out to uncover the truth about a mining company, whose illegal activities have created an environmental disaster in a small town in Northern Finland. When the company’s executives begin to die in a string of mysterious accidents, and Janne’s personal life starts to unravel, past meets present in a catastrophic series of events that could cost him his life. A traumatic story of family, a study in corruption, and a shocking reminder that secrets from the past can return to haunt us, with deadly results … The Mine is a gripping, beautifully written, terrifying and explosive thriller by the King of Helsinki Noir.

I absolutely loved reading this and it was brilliant listening to Antti reading the book in his native tongue. Have no idea what he said; in truth it could have been the local Chinese takeaway menu he was reading from, but it sounded good and the book is fabulous in any language. 😉 You can purchase The Mine here and read my review here.

Michael J Malone reading from A Suitable Lie

Follow on Twitter: @michaelJmalone1

Andy Boyd thinks he is the luckiest man alive. Widowed with a young child, after his wife dies in childbirth, he is certain that he will never again experience true love. Then he meets Anna.

Feisty, fun and beautiful, she’s his perfect match… And she loves his son, too. When Andy ends up in the hospital on his wedding night, he receives his first clue that Anna is not all that she seems. He ignores it; a dangerous mistake that could cost him everything.

A brave, deeply moving psychological thriller which marks a stunning departure for one of Scotland’s top crime writers.

For a read that turns the whole subject of domestic violence on its head while providing a truly emotionally engaging read, then look no further than this little beauty. You can purchase A Suitable Lie here and read my review here.

Kati Hiekkapelto reading from The Exiled

Follow on Twitter: @HiekkapeltoKati

Murder. Corruption. Dark secrets. A titanic wave of refugees. Can Anna solve a terrifying case that’s become personal?

Anna Fekete returns to the Balkan village of her birth for a relaxing summer holiday. But when her purse is stolen and the thief is found dead on the banks of the river, Anna is pulled into a murder case. Her investigation leads straight to her own family, to closely guarded secrets concealing a horrendous travesty of justice that threatens them all. As layer after layer of corruption, deceit and guilt are revealed, Anna is caught up in the refugee crisis spreading like wildfire across Europe. How long will it take before everything explodes?

This is book 3 in the Anna Fekete series but again it can be read as a standalone. This taps into the socio-economic issues affecting Europe as a whole, with a really emotive look at prejudice and the refugee crisis as Anna returns to her home village for a summer holiday. It’s a simply brilliant book and well worth a look – and with her love of punk, Kati has the best taste in neck wear ever. I know someone who would love her studded collar! You can purchase The Exiled here and read my review here.

Matt Johnson reading from Deadly Game

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Johnson_UK

Reeling from the attempts on his life and that of his family, Police Inspector Robert Finlay returns to work to discover that any hope of a peaceful existence has been dashed. Assigned to investigate the Eastern European sex-slave industry just as a key witness is murdered. Finlay, along with his new partner Nina Brasov, finds himself facing a ruthless criminal gang, determined to keep control of the traffic of people into the UK.

Now I have only just listened to the audio book of Wicked Game, the first in the Robert Finlay series, on my recent trip to Edinburgh, so my review is going to be posted this weekend. Have to say though that I loved it. It tapped into everything I like about the action and thriller genre while displaying the emotion and authenticity that can only come from the author’s personal experiences. And Mr Johnson is a really nice chap too – such a pleasure to speak to him. In the meantime you can order Deadly Game here and perhaps pick up Wicked Game while you’re at it. Read my review of Deadly Game and Wicked Game if you’d like a taster

Matt Wesolowski reading from Six Stories

Follow on Twitter: @ConcreteKraken

1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip, and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.

2017. Enter elusive investigative journalist Scott King, whose podcast examinations of complicated cases have rivalled the success of Serial, with his concealed identity making him a cult internet figure. In a series of six interviews, King attempts to work out how the dynamics of a group of idle teenagers conspired with the sinister legends surrounding the fell to result in Jeffries’ mysterious death. And who’s to blame… As every interview unveils a new revelation, you’ll be forced to work out for yourself how Tom Jeffries died, and who is telling the truth. A chilling, unpredictable and startling thriller, Six Stories is also a classic murder mystery with a modern twist, and a devastating ending.

One of Karen’s newest finds, Matt Wesolowski’s novel, Six Stories is currently available in e-book format with the paperback due for release on 15th March. You can purchase/preorder the book here and you read my thoughts on the book here.

It was an absolutely brilliant night and both Mandie and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Well worth the 160 mile round trip and braving the small rain shower to attend. And I may have purchased the odd one or two (or eight) books (again). After all, it’s the new internal grafitti that adds value and I never ever read any of my signed books…

Now tell me you don’t want to go to one of these roadshows this year. I do hope to see a few of you there. I’m going to be at all five, roving reporter stylee for our year of Orenda feature. Cannot wait. (My sincere apologies to all of the authors who will be sick of the sight of me by then end of the week …)

Have a brilliant weekend everyone.

Jen

Orenda Roadshows 2020 - A Preview @OrendaBooks #AYearOfOrenda Now you may have seen a bit of buzz on social media in the past week and a bit.

#Orenda Books #Orenda Roadshow

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