Faithful Hearts

She strikes me as one of those writers who never reads. Marina's supposed to be an avid reader too, but everything she mentions having read before exists in the form of a Disney movie...

 

Didn't Marina once mention Peter Pan being a book from her childhood? It's not a book though, it's a play.

 

She's like one of those Harry Potter fans that claims to be well read, except instead of Harry Potter being the only book she'll ever read, it's these.

 

...I still have that drawing.

 

Okay, I have to be straight with you. I've been putting this off because chapter six is so incredibly boring. I can't even come up with an interesting riff, it's just... Even with my love of Disney and soft spot for mary sues, I had more fun going through Redesigning Eva than the damn Winnie the Pooh arc of Faithful Hearts.

Chapter six! Marina meets the Pooh cast and does nothing!

Can we have a nightmare attack now?

Heeeeeey, that's right! Don't Pooh and Piglet both own guns? Can we please have them do something interesting with them?

Spoiler

The answer is no.

For the record, this is the only reason these chapters exist. The content of the shit that I'm skipping is a description of Piglet's house and Goofy talking about how he hit his head on the ceiling. Also Piglet isn't home today.

Plot? Probably not so I'm going to make one up.

That was nice. Whelp, back to Marina's adventures through a story that is bores even small children.

You know, right after a nightmare attack, Goofy mentions that he heard something and then disappeared.

BTW I completely skipped over a scene where Donald swings from a vine while playing with Roo and lands on Gopher. It added nothing. Also adding nothing is the scene where they meet Rabbit. They talk about scarecrows and how Pooh is always "borrowing" honey.

Oh, there's Goofy. Looks like he found himself some breakfast.

What owl describes is either a nightmare or a human corpse. AND THEY'RE GOING TO WASTE MORE TIME WITH-- fuck it I don't care.

Just a heads up: The only noteworthy thing that happens in Chapter Seven is that they leave the damn book.

 

I'll do the next two chapters because things are actually happening again.

Chapter 8: TAKEN

The passionate heat of Silver having taken Captain Ward-- Nah I'm just kidding. They died in the 100-acre-wood and are in hell now.

There's that proof reading again. I'm so mad that all the interesting shit was happening while we were stuck in the Pooh book with the Three Stooges. That being said, the fuck were you doing, Mickey?

Marina rushes back in to save the book with Pooh in it, but TBH it would have been better to just let it burn.

See? Mickey agrees with me.

The plot is back on, and we're back into our usual swing of
>Thing happens
>Entire Disney cast reacts like

I know the general opinion here is that Donald Duck is the most rational person in this fic, but... uh... I forgot where I was going with this...

I like dramatic characters that wait for everyone else to finish reacting to something to start weeping dramatically for asspats. It's fun to fuck with them and ruin their moment in D&D. ...It's not really fun to read though. That being said, Christ, Marina! You're thirty something, you should know better than to cry over your problems instead of fixing them-- wait nevermind. Pirates in the woods and all that.

In better works, this type of news is usually followed with "But how? We fucked up so bad!" with said character claiming to have seen some bullshit good trait in them. But nah, they just passed by fucking up and we're leaving it at that.

WHY!?

"King Mickey in all his kingly wisdom laughed at Leota's answer. 'Aha! Very funny, Madame Leota! Now, if you'd listen to me for just a moment, you'll see I have a kingdom to run and people to protect. So you're going to tell us what we need to know you old bitch, or I'll use you as a cannonball in the next Nightmare invasion!'"

Nah wait he's more of a pushover than that.

"Her attention was caught by him."
We've already established that Marina is sad that she fucked up Merlin's gone. I guess Pluto just didn't get his chance to react to things.

 

Who wants to bet that the Magic Kingdom has it's own Edward Snowden that once told the population the truth and had to flee the country because of what Mickey would have done to him?

You could have established that earlier. Inb4 Merlin escapes on his own because he's fucking Merlin.

Ooooh we're about to go into Robert wangsting. Honestly, I am not a fan of the Robert backstory and never was. He adds nothing, he only makes Marina's naivety more jarring. I think I actually preferred virgin!Marina, which says a lot.

One of the few times I'll side with Marina. Leota is really annoying. Even still...

Lol your dead husband doesn't want to deal with your angst #reked

 

Chapter 9: What to do Next

I've been kind of looking forward to this one, because it seems to be less about Marina and more of getting down to the plot and what the "serious" characters are up to. It'll be a neat chance to pick apart the actual story without constantly criticizing our favorite Seadrift.

We start with Minnie and Mickey discussing their worries while watching the fireworks.

You know, I think it's possible for Minnie to state that she's worried and apprehensive without all the exposition. I think we've already heard that Silver is 'rumored to have saved that boy's life' five times already, all of them ignoring the fact that it was Silver's fault that Jim was in danger to begin with.

And by taking care of everything and finding out what's going on, Mickey actually means making Marina and Co. do it and having Silver babysit. Oh, er. Sorry, spoiler.

You know, only the characters that are supposed to be plot relevant had any reaction to any of the shit that went down that night. It gives the scene a feeling of emptiness when guests are mentioned but never actually do anything. It's like everyone is playing pretend, not just Marina.

Mickey kept talking about "not wanting to cause a panic" but there was a nightmare attack where everyone could see and the chandelier fell and a cyborg ruffian crashed the ball right in the middle of everything. There would have been a panic, and word would have spread around town by now.

"Unless..." the wheels in Mickey's head slowly started to turn, and the lights finally flickered on. "...He gave them the orders in advance!"

See that guys? Mickey didn't even have to question Silver. It's not like how he knew anything could possibly be important.

I personally would have gone with "I'll let you go on one condition." Now you have a dirty pirate staying in your house, disturbing your imaginary guests.

Hooooly shit. "I killed him so he agreed to tell me his plan!" That isn't convoluted, it's believable. Trust me on this.

"You're good at dodging chandeliers and made Marina's panties wet. I mean, sure you failed to notify me in time to save my wizard friend, but hey, I want you on my payroll anyways! Just don't tell Minnie it's because you make my panties wet too."

I thought he already "turned privateer for Queen and Empire".

 

Captain Ward agreed to not tell anyone about "this". He wasn't entirely sure what "this" was so he just decided not to speak of anything about the day's events. So when Silver came strolling out of the dungeons, Donald and Goofy beat the shit out of him.

Marina decides to cheer herself up from Robert rejecting her earlier to trying to find the hot new guy's car in the parking lot.

Minnie, remember how you were concerned about Marina's well-being earlier? She's being obsessive. Again.

Honestly, this doesn't feel like an appropriate response to your friend being kidnapped by demonic shadow monsters. Minnie shouldn't be trying to comfort her mopey obsessive woman-servant, she should be sending the "bookish, well-read" Marina to the library for answers. Actually, she shouldn't even have to send her. If Marina REALLY felt guilty, she should be actively trying to fix it herself. Instead she's looking for Silver's ship that he didn't hide well enough.

Well developed characters don't need other characters to answer this for them.

I'd like to hear what effort Marina made for herself to be happy again. Grief and loss isn't something that can be hugged and cuddled away.

No wonder Marina is so naive and stupid. Minnie gives the worst advice ever. It does NOT take a new romance or another man to make you happy again. It takes finding yourself and what makes you happy whether you have other people or not. Marina could have been going on her own adventures, finding herself, gaining life experiences, and she had the royal family to back her up so it wouldn't even be hard for her. Instead they all just shrugged and encouraged her to go play make-believe in the woods.

Mickey doesn't have to be researching by himself. He can't be retaining new information very well into the late hours of the night. Nobody cares about his dream so I'm skipping it.

This is roleplay shit. It doesn't belong in a narrative.

Only three? That level of exhaustion doesn't start getting to most people unless they've been up for more than 24 hours. Also Minnie is disappointed that she didn't get sex.

No. It was a dream, they're not prophetic. I don't care if it's part of the plot or not, it's a stupid trope and I'm going to disregard it. It's not like it will pay off in the next forty chapters anyway.

Mickey's a fucking king. He shouldn't be doing anything by himself, he has a kingdom to rule and people to do it for him.

 

A problem that could be solved by giving her a normal fucking sword. Or a gun.

"Haha, bitch you don't even know. I've been lacing this shit with speed!"

He didn't tell you shit and hasn't proven himself trustworthy in any way. Mickey should be impeached.