#‣ aks ‚ rotten to the core

[muffinmonstah-art]

Tell me why and how SasoSaku. Sell me the ship.

Oh, that’s an interesting challenge. I’ve made a post a few days ago about how freaking weird it is for me that there’s a new audience following me mainly for my western comics’ fanart, but those of them who are also familiar with Naruto and it’s characters, don’t know my SasoSaku headcanons, or don’t care about the ship in general. I have had an established fanbase for so long that followed me for this ship that I guess no one ever asked me “why and how” about the ship. But I think this is the perfect time to introduce new audiences to my vast, long SasoSaku lore. They are the core ship of this account. They are the main topic of the only longfic I own. They have their own month dedicated to them. I’ve made a vow to myself that no matter how tempting it is for me to write my first fanfic in English for other fandoms, I wouldn’t do that until I can translate Definiciones Torcidas to English.

So, welcome to my first essay attempt. Why do I ship SasoSaku, and why it’s so important to me. -Feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me if I fail at explaining myself-

I think I should split this explanation into two main points:

The canon material that every SasoSaku fan quotes to showcase the ship’s potential. And in second place, my personal story/headcanon/established universe for the ship that exists separately from other people’s headcanons.

The canon material

To be honest, this part is kinda boring to me after so many years. The base it’s always the same since these two characters only interacted on one arc of the story. Quick summary for everyone reading this introduction and it’s not familiar with the source material: There’s a two-year timeskip. The main characters got split during said time skip and they have a rescue mission right after they get back together (Three of them get back together, Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi. Sasuke has left their village before the time skip on bad terms. He follows his own path of revenge, and when Gaara’s rescue arc happens, his location is still unknown).

Side Note # 1: I’m very much a Naruto hater. I think after this first arc, the quality of the story does nothing more than go down and down to the very bottom. I’ll try not to fulfill this essay with my complaints and rants about Kishimoto as a writer and his creation, and will try to focus on the task at hand, which is Sasori and Sakura and their canon interactions. But I think my overall critical perspective adds some context to my analysis.

 Back to the story, we are introduced to Sasori as a genius puppet master, the greatest one the Sand Village have ever given to the world. But he is a member of Akatsuki, the terrorist organization that kidnapped Gaara (The Sand Village’s leader - Kazekage - ). In fact, it’s both Sasori and Deidara who are given that kidnap mission. Deidara fights against Gaara and wins. Sasori does nothing during these first events. In fact, Sasori is presented as a mysterious, monster figure that just lies in the background while Deidara kidnaps Gaara. Basic trait of them both: they are artists. Sasori believes art is eternal, that’s why he created tons of puppets that can endure through time. Deidara believes art is ephemeral, that’s why his techniques are based on explosive clay figures of all sizes and forms. He blows things up, he can even blow himself up if the situation requires it. We see them fight a lot about their visions of art. Sasori threatens to kill Deidara a few times.

By the time Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi arrive at the Sand Village to help, they team up with Chiyo, a wise elder who is also Sasori’s grandmother. She has some other background story involving Kakashi’s father, who killed Sasori’s parents in the past but that is never explored. It doesn’t matter. She learns her grandson is a criminal that is behind this terrorist act so she goes with the group to help. 

This is the important part. By the time they track Gaara, they find him already dead. Akatsuki wanted the Racoon beast that was sealed inside Gaara’s body. These things are called bijuus. There’s nine of them. Naruto has the Kyuubi, aka the Nine tails fox beast sealed inside him. Once they extract the bijuu from Gaara, he dies. The encounter happens, the heroes learn they were too late, Naruto is furious. Deidara decides he’s going to take down Naruto so he leaves the scene flying above one of his giant clay birds with Gaara’s body. Naruto follows him, Kakashi goes too. 

So… Chiyo stays with Sakura and they are going to team up and fight against Sasori.

I forgot, Might Guy’s team is also present on this arc. They go as reinforcements to help against the Akatsuki. But they don’t matter. You could cut them and little to zero would change. I don’t think they are well integrated into this arc.

I think the fight is pretty good. 

See, Sakura suffers from being a main female character in a story written by a male writer who has NO CLUE how to write female characters. For that, she’s very unlikable during part one. Superficial, selfish, and with little to no focus on her. Besides of that, much of what she does is related to one of the most nasty romantic subplots I’ve ever read in fiction. Her rivalry with Ino (her ex-best friend) which should serve to create some empathy with the reader and make her a deeper character, achieves the opposite result when we learn early in the series that Ino was her role model, the one that saved her from bullying, and Sakura chose to cut ties with her after she discovered they both had a crush on Sasuke. None of them have had an actual conversation with him, they just think he’s hot. 

But hey, much of this can still be forgiven when we consider Sakura is 12-13 years old in part one, and she is one of the few characters living in the ninja world that has living parents. We are shown through many characters on this series that being a ninja = dying on a mission and that results in many traumatized orphan children left behind. And the last time we saw Sakura before the time skip, she promised to Naruto she was gonna get stronger. I think this arc FINALLY delivers on that regard. Chiyo and Sakura make a fantastic team against Puppet Boy.

She has super-strength now and has medical abilities like her teacher, Tsunade. (Another thing that annoys the shit out of me is… Why does Kakashi ignoring Sakura in favor of Naruto and Sasuke, to the point that she had to learn from another teacher is never brought up in the story? Anyway, moving on.)

Chiyo explains the Sasori we see is not the real one. That’s Hiruko, one of his many puppets. The real one is hidden inside Hiruko. So, they make a plan to take him out of Hiruko:

He’s all cute and young, hasn’t aged a day since he left the Sand Village 20 years ago. (Meaning, Sasori is 35 years old by the time this fight is happening. Sakura is 15).

How can it be? No time for answers. Sasori summons his most lethal weapon: The Third Kazekage.

We are told the Third Kazekage disappeared a long time ago, no one has any idea what happened to him. It’s implied Sasori may have kidnapped him and killed him, turning him into his human puppet. The thing is, Sasori’s real technique and the reason why he is considered an ultimate genius is that he created this grotesque, unique process to turn humans into puppets, preserving the bloodline special powers they had in life. In this case, the Third Kazekage had the natural ability of Iron Sand. Meaning he could create metallic sand and form metallic giant geometrical things to use as weapons. Badass, am I right?

This is when the fight really happens. Sasori mentioned he was Orochimaru’s companion in Akatsuki before Orochi left the organization. Sakura associates Orochimaru with Sasuke, because the latter left the village to gain power and knowledge from Orochi himself.

This little interaction right here picked many people’s interest back in the day. Including me. Sakura’s goal is not just to defeat him. She wants him to tell her what he knows about Orochimaru. Yeah, she’s thinking about Sasuke but finally having her interacting with other characters beside the nasty crush is fresh for her. Finally we got her on a serious and committed mode, and the Sasuke thing is not even romantic here, because the main theme of the arc is her promise to Naruto about being stronger and useful. It’s to give closure to her little arc.

The fierceness in the way she talks here is just something we didn’t get to see to this point. Kishimoto just did not use her for anything else than a pairing fodder and crybaby for so long that it’s gratifying to see this warrior face of her without the other two annoying boys around. It’s great that a character like Sasori makes her be the best version of herself she has been so far, and without even trying. It’s also hilarious how he ignores her in a bored way and throws kunais at her.

Chiyo stops his attack by summoning Sasori’s parents puppets. They’re not human puppets. Sasori created these puppets back when he was a child to not feel lonely.

Side Note # 2: We’re not shown anything more than this about Sasori’s background. Everything else is speculation, including if he was a baby when his parents died, or if he was already old enough to understand what happened. 

Moving on.

Side Note #3: The way he grabs Sakura with robes to keep her trapped on a poisonous cloud while Chiyo tries to pull her back with her chakra threads looks hot to me, lmao.

“Oh, how can you say that when he’s trying to kill her?”

Number one, he does not care about her. He doesn’t know her. He just fights her because of circumstances. He’s just being practical. Number two, it’s only used to make her look badass one second later:

She makes an explosion of her own to dissipate the poisonous cloud and free herself.

Look at his face though. He is impressed. They’re enemies, he is 20 years older than her. He has tons of experience in combat. And him complimenting her skills continues to happen during this fight.

Side Note # 4: Even if I like this fight and personally consider this arc to be the end of the series, lmao, I have a problem with THIS

He makes iron spikes to crush them both separately, TWICE. Until they cannot use the chakra shields from the puppets to protect themselves. The shields get useless after one use because the iron sand invades them from the inside by contact. So… why doesn’t he use the same technique a third time? Just throw spikes at them again. 

But he can’t do that because he would have won. The end.

So what does Kishimoto do instead?

He makes Sasori create geometrical giant things for Sakura to crash with no problem. For no reason. Why? Why does he change his strategy so suddenly? Because is plot convenient.

Dumb. Makes me angry. Moving on.

The cave crashes because of the constant hitting, so they are now fighting in the daylight. Sasori creates a giant web of iron sand, that covers everything so they cannot escape. Sakura gets hit, Chiyo ends up trapped under a rock and it turns out, the iron sand was poisoned too this whole time. Sakura falls on the ground, Sasori laughs, feeling like he already won. He commands the Third Kazekage to give her the killing blow and…

She used an antidote she crafted during her time on the Sand Village, while she was curing useless Kankuro from Sasori’s poison, and faked being about to die so she could be close to the puppet to crash it.

I didn’t mention it, but this doesn’t come out of nowhere. Kankuro, Gaara’s older brother, tries to fight Sasori first to rescue his baby brother. Sasori kicks his ass and leaves him to die from his poison. Sakura cures him when she arrives to the village and keeps some antidote with her the whole time.

SHE DESTROYED HIS MAGNUM OPUS AND LOOK AT HIM. HE IS JUST IMPRESSED LMAO.

This is the moment we learn why he looks so young. He has turned himself into a human puppet, with the exception of one compact living tissue he keeps on his chest.

I’m gonna speed up from now on. The fight is still good. He uses 100 more puppets he controls with chakra threads from his chest. Chiyo uses 10 puppets, one with each finger of her hands. Sakura uses her punches. In the end it seems they could trap Sasori inside one of Chiyo’s chakra special tools but it was just his body. The living tissue escaped and migrated to another body at the last moment. He uses the confusion to try and stab his grandma from the back, but Sakura saves her by putting herself on the line of the blow.

I think it is hot how he is just that careless and continues to mess with her, like he isn’t almost out of resources at this point. Again, they’re fighting a fair duel. Everyone is giving their best and this whole scene is just to portray Sakura in a heroic way.

He continues to be impressed with her skills. Nothing to add, it’s just great.

Speeding up to the resolution of the encounter.

Chiyo and Sakura are both fighting against Sasori’s poison by this point. There’s just one antidote. Chiyo gives it to Sakura and Sasori laughs at his grandma for this.

Look, if there’s one spiteful, resentful reaction from Sasori during this fight it’s not against Sakura, but against Chiyo. We’re not shown their history together. We just know Chiyo raised him after his parents’ death and taught him to be a puppet master just like her. He created a lot of puppets while he lived in the Sand Village and, at 15 years old, he left. We know his mind became twisted enough that he started turning humans into puppets so I think it’s easy to assume Chiyo was a terrible parental figure and failed to keep him from following a dark path. And I like Chiyo, she’s easily the best female character Kishimoto ever created.

When Sasori tries to make the killing blow against Sakura, Chiyo uses Mom and Dad to stab him on his living tissue. 

Sasori now is about to die. Chiyo does not have an antidote, so she’s also agonizing. This is when a bullshit plot convenient moment happens. Despite having an antidote for Sasori’s poison, Sakura is about to die from the blood loss. She falls to the ground and Chiyo cures her with a forbidden technique she has been developing over the last years to turn inanimate puppets into living beings. She tells Sasori she planned to use it to give life to Mom and Dad as a gift for him. You’re still a terrible caretaker, but this is cute. 

Chiyo explains the price for reviving someone with that technique is to lose her life, but since Sakura is just unconscious, this is not enough to kill her. The reason for this technique to exist is to revive Gaara at the end of the arc, a happy ending for everyone except grandma Chiyo. It 's not subtle.

His indifference towards life moves her, makes her angry. Makes her care. He’s about to die, she knows that. But she still cares enough to have an emotional reaction to his words. To question his views in life. This makes me frustrated to no end. Why put an effort on making these characters have some type of exchange about their views on life if this is not going to matter? This had potential.

I must repeat myself. This is personal to Sakura, she is angry but she is almost trying to understand why he thinks that way. It’s alien to her but she has empathy. Sasori just answers honestly, like he doesn’t understand the human aspect of the question. It’s one of the last times the dilemma between Ninjas are tools vs Ninjas are more than tools makes itself present in this story. Like many other themes, it gets abandoned eventually because the writing of this series is dumb, and this interaction, while interesting, does not mean anything in the long run… 

BUT SO MUCH POTENTIAL. To me it looks like Sakura would have tried to make him change his mind or show him what she learned back in the Land of Waves on the Zabuza arc, that ninjas are more than tools. 

Chiyo stops the yelling by telling her Sasori is this way because of the traditions and culture of the Sand Village. So, these ninja villages are fascist places that brainwash their citizens to make them heartless tools that serve the interest of feudal lords and rich warlords. Sasori is not a deviant, it’s a product of the system… Another topic that will never be addressed again. Pathetic.

This is the last thing we see that can make us see the potential on the ship. Sasori is the one to bring up the information about Orochimaru to Sakura. He says “I'll do something pointless for you” just as earlier he was mocking the emotional impulse of Sakura as “Women like to do useless things.” The phrasing is curious.

And like that, he gives her information as a gift. Just because he felt like it. He had to be moved by what she did or said in any way to make this decision. Even if he only respected her as a worthy rival. It 's great.

As a last information before we jump to Deidara, Kakashi and Naruto, Chiyo says this: "Sasori saw my last attack... but... Somehow, he couldn't avoid it. It gave him a small opening..."

Sasori chose to die. I don’t know why Kishimoto did this other than to show Sasori as hyper-competent until the end. Even after all these years I’m still not sure if I like this or not. I guess this proves he really wasn’t that interested in remaining on Akatsuki and finishing his task. 

So this is the canon material. I think I covered most of it. But as I said before, this is just the base of everything. With the years, I have built my own thing from this. So I’m not your devoted fan that continues to revisit this fight over and over again. Far from it. For me it’s just the starting point.

Side Note #5: I stopped caring about this series from this point on. Starting with the next arc, I consider Sakura to be nothing more than a disappointing piece of filler, and sometimes just a plot device to showcase her male comrades as more competent or more virtuous/evil when Kishimoto needs it. She has very underwhelming “shining” moments from here and there, but she is not a main character anymore. She doesn’t have another arc or motivation after this either. What a perfect point to deviate from canon and build my own thing, right?

My personal story/headcanon/established universe for the ship

Now I can dive into the juicy part.

Back in the 2012’s, my boyfriend and I were going through a tough time in our relationship. He moved to the capital city, in another province to start university. I started university too. We were so young, so full of doubts and fear.  It’s natural to feel intimidated and anxious when you move apart from your loved ones for your studies. Being together long distance was the only option for us, really. We had been together since we were in school, in the same class and we were very close. Still the fear of a break up was latent because long distance relationships are hard as hell. Statistics say the majority of long distance affairs do not last.

I came up with the idea of writing a story together when we had our Skype weekly reunions. To pass the time, to have something to entertain ourselves and not miss each other even more than we already did. I already was a SasoSaku shipper so I said “let’s write a SasoSaku fic together, you write Sasori, I write Sakura and we take turns to write the rest of the characters according to what the story needs”. He accepted and like that, Definiciones Torcidas was born.

The fic is in Spanish, our mother language, but back in 2017’s SasoSaku month, I made a short fan-comic in English that serves as the prologue for our fic. You can check it out here.

The premise of the fic was basically this: “What happens if Sakura, following an irrational impulse, does not let Sasori die at the end of the fight?” and more important than that, “What if we try to exploit the age difference between them to develop every single one of their dynamics and interactions?” 

That was the start, and we took the project very seriously. We wrote Sakura as an inexperienced girl who had little to no experience on making difficult decisions and seeing the complexity of the world. There’s little to nothing explored about her in canon to know her views on anything, but we worked with the pro Konoha propaganda the author seems to spoon feed us constantly as a start. Konoha does terrible fucked up shit like murdering children from a clan to avoid a coup and using other villages with little to no military force as war zones for money and power. But still they’re depicted as the good guys. Sakura starts the story by being a Konoha brainwashed tool on her speech and actions.

Sasori and Sakura have a second encounter in the wilderness around Konoha’s territory after she saved his life, and canonically after she and her team came back from Orochimaru’s hideout and Sasuke walked off again. During that brief encounter, Sasori just asks what she wanted from him and she cannot answer. She gets nervous and defensive pretty fast. Sasori demands to know if someone else gave her the order of sparing his life but does not believe her words when she tells him that’s not true. It’s a tense start. Sakura leaves telling him to piss off and use his second chance in life to not start trouble, knowing he is not part of Akatsuki anymore. Sasori is very frustrated by his new status as a fugitive from the nations and Akatsuki, he even threatens to make some public terrorist attempt to make the public know he is alive, out of desperation because the irrationality of Sakura’s actions do not make sense in his mind. 

Sakura does not believe him, because that would alert Akatsuki that he is alive. But still, she leaves feeling terrible because she believes Sasori is mentally unstable.

She keeps what she did a secret, and cannot stop thinking about how her actions may put Konoha in danger. She ends up making up her mind that she needs to find him before he leaves the territory, and finish him for good.

My boyfriend put a lot of effort by crafting Sasori’s mind and views as pragmatic and not resistant to changes. He decided Akatsuki was not a safe option for him anymore, so he left. He has no weaponry, no way to contact his spies, no purpose in life, but he can recover. Start again. Evolve as an artist. He just sees Sakura’s resistance to listen to him as stupid and a waste of potential. He also leaves feeling frustrated. A few days later, when Sakura finds him again, by following the clues he left behind while trying to create a poison arsenal again (cut herbs, a dead opened snake, etc), he is not that surprised about hearing she comes to finish him again.

It was a fun combat to write. Sakura is out of focus, she tries to hit but she really does not show the templance and cold mind she demonstrated in their first fight. Sasori messes with her constantly. He says she is a stupid brat, she could accept his offer of an alliance or working together at Konoha’s back. But Sakura is fully committed to prove herself she’s loyal to Konoha. Nothing else matters. His mind games are starting to affect her, though. She becomes more aimless, more distracted, more confused. Sasori does not waste the chance he had created and uses his poison and the cutting blades on his disposal to make her lose the fight. The intention is very clear, he wants to see the broken will in her eyes. Something that reads as “I should have accepted his offer”. In the deep of his mind, he is resentful because he couldn't have an eternal, unbreakable will. In their first fight, he could have won but he had a weak mind and instead chose to die in the last second. He wants to prove she is not different from him. That people are all the same, they all show their will is not unbreakable at the doors of death. Only eternity matters.

But that doesn't happen. Sakura spits on his face and tells him to go to hell. She tries to hit him one last time but she’s really hard on drugs by that point, so she fails. Sasori is really, really impressed by the end. He won, but still it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right because he just saw an eternal will being showcased in front of his eyes. And according to his definitions… that’s art… that’s beautiful.

Sakura opens her eyes, hours later. She finds out she is bandaged and there’s no more poison nor drugs on her body. She was treated, by who? She sits on the ground and she sees Sasori watching her. He answers coldly that indeed, he saved her.

It’s pure irony that now, Sakura is the one that demands answers and Sasori is cold honesty by saying he couldn’t let her die because she carries beauty with her. He does not give it more importance than that. “I allowed beauty to exist. The end.”

Sakura feels disgusted, she cannot understand those motives. She tells him he should have let her die, so she shouldn’t have to face her defeat with her village. Sasori just laughs and says if she wants to die, she can try by herself, he’s just not going to help with that. He considers himself to be an outsider of the system by this point, a player that uses the system in his favor. So he cannot stop mocking her for her nationalism.

Sakura starts crying and tries to step up to hit him but she falls against his chest. She cannot make herself look him into the eye. She 's furious, humiliated. Sasori does not do anything other than lean to her ear and say “This is why I let you live”. 

So he leaves her to cry and defeat. He believes he did the right thing. He’s at peace with his personal values… for the most part. From this moment there’s gonna be what he describes to be a “losing piece” inside his mind, that he cannot name nor accommodate. He’s going to meditate a lot, and try to find himself again on his artistic path.

During her loneliness in that remote forest, Sakura realizes she woke up in a smoother place than the dirty ground. She goes back to her waking point and discovers Sasori’s black travel tunic. He just left her another clue to find him with one of Kakashi’s ninja hounds. They’re gonna meet again. And the chaos of their interactions and getting to change each other’s perspective on things has just begun. The story is +60 chapters so it’s a slowburn construction of their relationship.

We started publishing it in 2013 on ff.net and not only we put a lot of effort and hours of our lives into crafting that story. But the publication process also coincided with a turbulent time in our relationship. We had to adapt to being apart for most part of the year. Seeing each other on vacations, dealing with communication issues while we were apart from each other, emotional problems and tough shit. We were still growing into mature adults. We had many childish behaviors that were hurting ourselves and each other. So, while Sasori and Sakura’s relationship progressed on paper, our relationship grew and matured in real life. We ended up putting so much of our experiences, thoughts, fears, learnings on these two characters, that, even if they are fictional creations separated from us and that have their own arcs on their own fictional universe, have become like a reflection of our relationship. 

Sasori ends up calling Sakura by her first name in chapter 17 for the first time. They are having a heated argument for the 10th time about how Sakura does not trust him to not go into a murderous rampage while trying to understand what’s different about himself, when she suddenly says “How can I believe you see me as a person, when you have never called me by my name? I have a name, you know?”

He shuts up, tries to cool down a second, and says “Sakura Haruno… that’s your name.”

She starts trusting him a little more after that.

My partner also wanted to add his piece to this essay. Quoting his message from last night:

“If I were to explain it in a short version.

We wrote a fic in which we contrasted a young Sakura with little experience in the real world, who lived her entire life being fed only by pro-konoha propaganda and we made her share time with a supposedly dead Sasori, who is without any ally but who has a lot of experience about the world. There’s not a romantic context between them initially.

We made Sakura learn from the grays of morality and reality, and from there we progressed the characters over a long time in-universe to the point where Sasori is giving space in his existence to things other than his art (because he can't practice it anymore) and Sakura is becoming a Root spy (because the Konoha tale is no longer bought by her).

And from there, the ship happens.”

Side Note #6: My boyfriend and I are working together on a BruDick fan-comic. So the BruDick fans, and DC fandom are going to have a first hand grasp of our cooperative work in English!

[purpleofheart27]

A rewrite of my Auradon Prep series is posted ! And the list of my series in order

Auradon Prep Handbook [A guide to my version of how I think the school runs ! ]

Auradon Prep pre-Descendants [A story about how it was before Ben proclamation]

Rotten To The Core [A rewrite of Descendants one a darker version]

Set it off [The aftermath of Rotten to the core. Which have the auradons realizing just what they done when they didn’t take the VK out of the isle when they were first heard about them.]

Be Our Guest [Pre-Descendants two where the rotten core four tries to live in auradon and get used to things ]

Believe [ Auradon People tries to live with the realization of what they did pre-descendants two]

Ways to be wicked [A rewrite of Descendants two]

What’s my name [ The Sea three (Uma,Harry & Gil) point of view of what happened during the first movie and before the second movie ]

The middle towards the end [A fic about what happens after descendants two but before descendants three]

A new sets of kids [ A new group of VK’s come to auradon ]

Good to be Bad [a rewrite of Descendants three]

The Aftermath [The aftermath of descendants three]

Beginning [ A fic about the kids as they get married and starts to have Kids]

New Generation [ The kids of AKs and VKs ]

Write The Book Story Of Our Lives [A watching their life’s fic ]

Side story

Bal Journey through Parenthood [A bal fic about their journey through parenthood]

Jay and Lonnie Journey through parenthood

Devie Journey through Parenthood

Jane and Carlos journey through parenthood

Harry and Uma journey through Parenthood

Audrey and Gil journey through Parenthood

Chad and Claude Journey Through Parenthood

These are just some of the sides stories which would be a parenthood journey leading up to my New Generation fic.

[gamecn]

@rcdiostcrs​ plotted for a starter!

while the move to auradon had mostly been pulled off without a hitch, there were still some aspects of this lovelier life that took river by surprise. some things the advice of the vks who came before him could not prepare him for. namely the stares that tended to come from the aks. in classes. in the hallways. in the dining hall.

the core four - no longer the rotten four since leaving the isle - had enough on their plates without worrying about how he was settling in. he applied the same philosophy to uma, harry, and gil. besides, their focus and undivided attention should be on those who needed it more. those who were having more trouble adjusting as well as the younger vks. river was old enough. he could figure out solutions on his own.

so, he kept to himself more often than not. if crewmates were available, he would gladly stick with them. and zephyr was great about coming to visit, bringing takeout from various spots. a practice which helped river avoid the dining hall during times where he would likely be sitting alone.

he makes a beeline for his dorm room after class lets out like he has always done since starting to attend auradon prep. river switches his stuff from hand to hand while he retrieves his key, but the object eventually fumbles out of his hands and to the floor. “quiverin’ krakens,” river swears under his breath.

[twooruguitas-archived]

Tag dump

[descendantofthesparrow]

D3 redesigns - the new vks

last one, the new vks~!!!

we start with the original Canon one, Celia~!!

every single one of Celias outfits felt like a costume to me (minus her janes party, i liked hat one) so she got a full overhaul on her outfits, her jacket that she wears almost the whole movie got changed from a clusterfuck pattern jacket to a pinstripe one.  with some witchcore fashion and skull themed accessories, Celia was redesigned~ 

now onto the others, next Ginny Gothel

she was also pretty much just witchy witchcore fashion with some mother Gothel vibes sprinkled in, i got nothing much else to say other than im really happy with how she turned out.

Claudine Frollo

i tried to give her a pretty conservative fashion style, at least at the start, when shes fully under her adopted fathers, Judge Claude Frollo, grip. and as time in Auradon goes on and she makes friends with Ginny and Colin hearts, both of whom are unashamed and proud of who they are and how they dress, begins to loosen up and pull away from her fathers close minded teachings.

Colin Hearts 

the descendant of the queen of hearts if you couldn't tell. they really don't give a fuck about how they dress as long as they feel fab as fuck, weather it be pants or a dress they dont care. their btd dress is a little costumey but eh, dresses like that are aloud to be like that sue me.

Diego Devil 

Carlos cousin, so i wanted to give him a similar vibe to him but minus the white/black being his main color and switching it to red being his main color, so its Red, black, and white. instead of Carlos’ white, black, and red.  in the books hes the leader of a band called the rotten apples so i wanted to give him a rock band leader vibe. hes just older than Carlos at 18 (as of D3 rewrite) 

and the finale~ Hadie~ the oldest vk on the isle~ 

at 23 hes going to dress a bit older than everyone else, so while he still has that “young” vibe to him you can tell hes older. i tried to give him a punk rock vibe that Hades has in D3 except i actually looked up punk rock fashion lol. the gold colored necklace in janes party is a pomegranate is his mothers symbol of Marriage to Hades. yes his mom is Persephone deal with it, he was born before he and hades were shipped off to the isle so his mom can be Persephone 

so thats it! thats everyone~!!! hoped yall liked it!

Aks Sea 3+reader Pirates & Dizzy Core four

[myteenagelifewithteenstuffsblog]

Who do you like most, VK's or AK's

Tell me in comments,and who is your favorite AK or VK

[vilevanity]

       ‣ tags  ‚   relationships

[daggery]

Can I ask for Carlos De VIl, for that character ask?

send me a character and i’ll answer with the below!

also for @hersilentlanguage​ <3

first impression: it was something like, good dancer, funny scenes, i could already tell that he’s the character who fandom tends to be all “aww he’s my pure soft cinnamon roll :((” about and i was right. MISCHIEVOUS. and again FUNNY although to be fair the entirety of d1 is hilarious. good aesthetic and color scheme

impression now: like the rest of the rotten four he grew a looooot on me (i’ve probably mentioned this before but the sea three were actually my instantly-fall-in-love characters for descendants so even though i mostly talk abt the core four now i still have a big soft spot for sea3.) back to carlos I LOVE HIM DEARLY he’s caring and blunt and determined and judgmental and soft and smart and uncertain and mean and funny he’s so funny. i love that he’s into stem and i love that he loves dogs and i love that he loves chocolate and think he deserves THE WORLD even though he probably wouldn’t really want it he’d just want to be at home poking at his latest contraption gadget building project he’s working on so instead i will simply think about jay or mal or evie giving him little metal parts or jewelry or handmade clothing or kisses bc i love him and them

favorite moment: to list just a few: the part when he plops down on the lawn and is like come on!! sit down!! sit Dooown. and then immediately goes :I ok now what. WHATEVER was going on in ways to be wicked i’ve said this before but i support everything and anything that wtbw!carlos does. his entire thing there was just. off the charts insane amazing incredible. d1 museum scene “you’re welcome 🙄” and NUMBER ONE FAVORITE MOMENTS are his judgment faces. holy shit.

idea for a story: he builds a booby trap for the gang’s hideout while everybody is out, but he doesn’t tell the others because this is just another one of his many new side projects. cue one of the core four coming home earlier than expected and obliviously walking straight into the partly-finished booby trap and setting it off and probably having a near-death experience, however the trap does not work as expected because carlos had messed up a little. the person who nearly died is like WTF (not because it was a near death experience bc there are plenty of those to go around on the isle, wtf because the hideout is supposed to be a safe spot so this is totally unexpected). carlos is like omfg you almost died that was NOT supposed to happen im sorry and also a omg thanks for walking into the trap!!! that was rly helpful, now i know where there’s a problem in it so i can fix it! and there’s a in-hindsight LMAOOOO did you see the LOOK ON YOUR FACEEEEEE element to it. whats the point of writing a carlos fic where he isnt at least a little mean.. at least a little taste of it

unpopular opinion: carlos is a nerd but he doesn’t follow rules when he doesn’t care for them and the pros of breaking the rules outweighs the cons, meaning he doesn’t do his homework when he thinks it’s stupid and a useless waste of his time because he’ll rather work on his own actually useful projects. *insert [carlos never does his homework in one class because the teacher only assigns busywork but then he turned in his 100% correct extra credit assignment because the teacher had actually made the extra credit difficult and interesting] situation*. also he’s not an all-rounder the way evie is.. he doesn’t have much lasting interest in like. the humanities.

also carlos is equal parts soft and mean! i stand by this! sometimes i feel like interpretations of him lean too much one way or another but he is both! just because his arc is about overcoming his fears doesnt mean he’s not mean himself and just because he’s a vk and not an ak doesn’t mean that he can’t be soft. (also the way he treats chad vs the way he treats jane in scenes that are literally back to back in d2 is objectively hilarious it KILLS me. wonderful stuff)

favorite relationship: rotten four!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!!!!!

favorite a headcanon: he held his own on the isle. he joined the rotten four for protection but it’s not really something he desperately needed (although maybe somebody could write a scenario where the situation dramatically changed and he needed to find allies suddenly). of course he’s safer with them because safety in numbers and all but i don’t care for interpretations where it’s like he’s so Innocent and Naive where he needs people to protect him. he joined because he wanted to. also he was the third one to join the gang!! in my head for most scenarios it’s mal and jay together first, and evie and carlos as friends, and then jay and carlos get close so carlos joins them, and evie joins last. collects books on the isle. he finds a book and evie finds a book and then they get together and play rock paper scissors and the winner gets to pick which book they want to read first. and then a week later they swap books. sometimes instead of playing rock paper scissors, they have a contest to see who can steal the most shit off mal before she notices or something like that. once jay convinced evie to let him stand in for her because he just wanted another excuse to wrestle with carlos and evie was like aw you’re adorable<3okay and carlos was like no???what a waste of time??i want my fucking book??? but evie's already left and jay's doing the *points two fingers at his own eyes and then points them at carlos and then back and forth and so on because I'm Looking At You* gesture because he knows it annoys carlos. so carlos’s like fucking fine. FINE. (carlos wins.) if carvie find a history book saying dumb things about the vks or something they tear the offending pages out and ball them up and throw them mal’s and jay’s heads for fun.

[that-descendants-fangirl]

Only One Without - Part 1

Chapter 1 of my first Descendants fic on this blog! And I’m sooo excited!! I chose not to post it onto my main because I felt it didn’t have its place there.

A huge, huge thank you to @hoodpane for the prompt she posted which can be found here.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, onto the fic... :D

***

Time and life was precious as Auradon’s VK team knew it. Those kids now known as the Core Four had moved to live there thanks to King Ben allowing them, much to Audrey’s disgust.

It’d been so hard to settle down into the beautiful land of AKs. And Mal had tried to spell Ben once to make him fall for her and break up with Audrey. Turned out that his love for her was real, he wasn’t faking anything, so when the spell broke, nothing had been a lie.

They’d all seen it happen in reality, but the one VK who was kept in the dark and watched it unfold from the side lines, was Jay.

Jay, son of Jafar.

The one known to be a master thief (very much taking that human trait off his dad) as well as a champion in Auradon Prep’s athletics team.

Jay was one of these people who was proud of his own accomplishments and always felt that, when he did something to help and support someone else, he was doing the right thing. Sure, he missed his rotten past on the isle a little. Though Auradon was so much better. Nothing could – and ever would – beat it.

That was in the past.

The past was written out.

Been.

And gone.

Now in the current time, all the VKs were successful in their own ways. Mal was an artist, getting a decent amount of money a week for her exceptional level of skill with a paintbrush and pencil. She’d developed these skills almost naturally as her time in Auradon expanded. Half naturally, half the time was spent doodling in her notebook during Fairy Godmother’s magic lessons. Mal never forced it. It came on its own.

Then there was Evie – a professional fashion designer who’d opened her own clothing line called ‘Evies4Hearts’. Her main colours were blue and red, with hints of black and white. Jay had never seen someone as successful as her. Evie spent almost all day in her studio designing, sewing, crafting and sewing together new items to put up for sale. The stuff she could make within a day or two was amazing. Racks and hangers of dresses, jackets, skirts and boots lay everywhere in her studio.

After Evie was Carlos. Carlos’s life dream was to become a vet. He already had Dude the Dog to perform mild tests on. It was never anything poisonous or toxic. Carlos loved Dude, and Dude loved him back. He’d told his mum on a video call once that he was the perfect size for a pet and that hers was stuffed. Of course Cruella De Vil had been shocked at her son’s response. Carlos was now taking extra lessons in animal medics and vet training. Nothing was going to stop him from loving animals – especially cute dogs.

And there was Jay.

But there was Jay.

Jay who didn’t know what to do with his life. Or future. He had no idea if he wanted to proceed with athletics or working with children. He was torn. A feeling or scenario he’d never have to deal with before. Usually the answer was easy, simple, right in front of him. Not this time. Jay loved both things: athletics bought so much adrenaline into him and gave him a sense of pride for Auradon. Helping and working with children was just a kind thing to do. Some of them in the land needed extra for whatever reason.

What was Jay to do?

He’d tried asking Carlos, his best friend, about it. But he’d just said to go with what he felt the most comfortable with.

Well, that didn’t help.

Because Jay was comfortable with both!

Damn, this was going to be a hard choice.

And now here he was. Sitting in his dorm room, with Carlos (who was studying for an upcoming medics exam), and worrying over his life problem.

“What can I do?” he asked again for what felt like the millionth time. “What can I choose? I love both things,”

“I can’t really help you with that,” Carlos shrugged obnoxiously, “I’m me. You’re you. I know what I want in life, so it’s up to you to decide what you want. Simple as,”

“But I can’t! That’s my problem,”

“You can always try both at once,”

“Already did that. Ended in an epic fail. AKA, me in great pain on the football field because I nearly sprained my wrist.”

“Ouch,” Carlos grimaced from where he sat on his bed. “Must’ve hurt,”

“It did! Carlos… I don’t know what to do with myself…”

“Oh Jay,”

Carlos put his textbook and laptop to one side and got up to sit on the edge of Jay’s bed.

“As much as I want to do something for you, I can’t. My life is set. I have a route; I have a plan. I know what I want to do. So do Mal and Evie. You’re the only one without. You can do it. It’s all about belief.”

Suddenly Carlos yawned.

Jay looked at the clock on the wall.

9:15 PM.

“It’s late. We need to sleep.”

As Carlos left Jay’s bedside, Jay took the moment alone to think about it all. What would he choose? Or worse! Would he just scrap it all and abandon Auradon to escape to the isle again?

So many questions and not enough time.

“Goodnight.” Carlos smiled at Jay before turning all the lights off.

Jay forced a smile back as sunk down into the soft mattress of his bed to try and relax. As he lay there, he could feel his panic rising. What if all his friends left him alone? What if he never found his future and was left to crumble into nothing?

But Carlos was right.

He really was the only one without.

TBC

[sparrowmoth]

hi!! youve recently made a post about rotten ot4 headcanons, and i was wondering if you could expand on the Carvie plushie army? thanks if you do!

Oh, certainly! What an excellent ask. I would love to expand this. Thanks for asking! (Here’s the link to the post this ask refers to, if anyone wants to see those btw.) ♥

So, my first thought with the plushie army was just that Carlos and Evie decide they don’t care if plushies are considered “childish” because, hey, they grew up on the Isle without the chance to even have a childhood, so why shouldn’t they indulge in something harmless like collecting plushies? They’re soft and good for cuddling and they tend to pick up the scent of Evie’s perfume, which Carlos finds particularly comforting when she’s not around. What’s not to love, right?

Now, if you want a more sweet and sour take on it, my thought is that when the Core Four first arrive in Auradon, someone starts leaving stuffed dogs on Carlos’ desk in Goodness Class. He’s confused about it at first, but they’re cute plushies, and Fairy Godmother tells him delightedly that it’s something people do when they have a crush—they leave flowers or chocolate or plushies. AKs like Lonnie and Doug also confirm that’s the case.

Well, suffice to say that Evie finds out it isn’t all so innocent. Carlos is being bullied—he just doesn’t know it yet. And she’s determined that he’s never going to find out about this. She enlists Jay and Mal’s help to get the message across (in a non-violent way; they don’t have to be violent, after all, since their reputations are “scary” enough at this point in time). The students at fault agree they’ll stop, and they do. Immediately.

Just one problem: Carlos had started to genuinely look forward to receiving the little dog plushies. They’re cute and, well, Evie realizes he’s been collecting them when they stop fitting in his locker and he brings a pile of them back to the dorm room. He seems sad when he realizes that whoever was giving them has stopped.

Evie decides right then and there that she’s going to buy him every dog plushie on the planet, and when Jay and Mal realize what’s going on, they get on board with the idea. The three of them give Carlos so many plushies that he doesn’t even know what to do with them until one day he hears about a toy fundraiser for the Isle kids who have just come over to Auradon and won’t have anything under the tree for Christmas.

Carlos talks with Evie and they decide to donate most of the plushie collection he’s amassed to the kids.

That inspires them to start collecting plushies throughout the year and donating them to various charities and hospitals or even just randomly if the opportunity comes up. They put up posters around the school asking for plushie donations and the rich kids show up with garbage bags full, so it seems they always have an army taking over the bed, between the ones they’re sorting and their personal collection.

Jay and Mal think it’s super cute, even if sometimes they lose their partners beneath the mound of fluff. ;)

[nocturna-iv]

I'm in love with your VK!Ben. I want a whole fic about him and Harry growing up the island and how they later meet AK!Uma. But I also want them in your fictober. I want everything. But I also want your VK!Ben with Evie or AK!Evie. Because I miss Evie and Uma's friendship!!!!!!! AK!Evie and AK!Uma sounds good too.

About VK!Ben, You can have both! I love your idea of AK!Evie and AK!Uma. I miss my girls.

And I'm definitely planning a Bumarry with VK!Ben and AK!Uma.

All this time I have been thinking that it would be different if Ben had grown up on the island.

My interpretation of Ben is that he has a lot of repressed desires. He's all affection and love. But Auradon contains his most wild and interesting side. This is why he is so fascinated with VKs, who are so free.

Now imagine a Ben who grew up on the island, where his urges and desires can easily be satisfied and he won't be judged for it. Our Ben is a leader and one who cares about his people. VK!Ben too. Eventually, he would have grown up on the island wanting to free the people. He would have become the charismatic leader that the island needs but at the cost of repressing other parts of him that would be seen as weaknesses.

His longing for affection, for tenderness, for someone to take the lead.

Sometimes Ben thinks that he is never satisfied. He longs for love, affection, but also someone to defeat him. Which is strange coming from a VK.

And in his plan to contact the outside and liberate the island, he begins to send messages on the boats with supplies going in and out of the island. And he starts getting messages back. A certain princess of the sea discovered his harmless messages and they begin to send messages between the two of them. Uma. Her name is Uma. Ben finds a secret friend and a fascinating ally from the other side of the barrier.

I even found the kind of song that would replace Rotten to the Core, because in this case the story would be told from the point of view of Ben and his gang as leaders of the VK.

Maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense now (like the Underworld reference). Because I promise it makes sense in the future.

So, yeah, I'm making some plot ideas with this. But, VK!Ben is so much fun to work. Please, send any request you have.

[a-human-washed-ashore]

O berneli.

Finisheris, kurio man šiandienai trūko tai kitas vyras su tavo maike per snapa. Ignoruok mane. Sakyk, kad tu negali kalbėt ir tada bėk kitur. Thank god tas pakrovėjas buvo empty aš atsiūsčiau jai video kaip valgau medieną.

And with this mes galim pradėt ramią versiją neurozės.

Įsivaizduok nervuotis dėl tokių dalykų. Aš žinojau ką aš pradedu. Viskas yra tiesiog saldi kančia. Saldumas ateina iš vilties nepasiekti naują "žėmiausia". Tai kaip ištyrinėti naują gyliausią tašką jūroje. Baisu. Vandens spaudimas gyvybei pavojingas. Tačiau...I can't hide the excitement. Pajausti kažką naujo. Naujam protiniam krabui užiimti savo smegenis ir širdį. Ak. Geismai. Kokių šlykščių ir kokių druskingų plūduriuoja.

Viskas ko aš išties norėjau tai ištiesti ranką, o ne tvarstyti namuose ją. Sulaužytą. Įsileidau per arti. Veiksmai. Klaidingi. Pasėkmingi. Ak tos pora tylių savaičių. Kiek daug jūs emocijų lėmėte. Kas jeigu kas jeigu kas jeigu. Suuu-kaaasi~.

It's nothing but life.

Šis mėnuo tikrai juokingas. Visiems tbh. Lyg naujas mėnulis išaušęs.

Tellin' you, it's the stars. I swear.

Einu pasimokinsiu lyrikas dainos.

Skambėjau horrible. At least passionate.

ł

Ah well. Gi visko būna ^^

Prisiprašiau šito su savo rotten to the core brain.

[truth-from-lies-in-fiction]

One or the Other: Descendants

Descendants choose one or the other:

core four or sea three // movies or books // vks or aks // rotten to the core or ways to be wicked // the isle or auradon // angst or fluff // strawberries or chocolate // castles or cottages // dragons or sea monsters // blue or gold // 90s disney or 2000s disney // if only or once upon a time // leather or formal wear // villains or heroes // sunshine or cloudy skies // fashion or painting // sports or pets // pirates or magic // hades or maleficent // tourney or r.o.a.r // fairies or genies // happy endings or sad endings // crowns of gold or crowns of thorns // jerseys or dresses // dizzy or celia

+ each core four pairing, if you’re so inclined

Mal or Evie // Jay or Carlos // Mal or Jay // Carlos or Evie // Mal or Carlos // Jay or Evie

[eviesmyspiritanimal]

Descendants Alphabet

A - Apple

B - Beast

C - Carlos

D - Dragon

E - Evie

F - Fairest of Them All

G - Good

H - Hook

I - Irritable

J - Jay

K - King

L - Lonnie

M - Mal

N - Nasty

O - Odd

P - Perfect Pink Princesses

Q - Queen of Mean

R - Rotten to the Core

S - Space Between

T - Tourney

U - Uma

V - Vizier

W - Wand

X - Xenophobia from AKs

Y - Yell

Z - Zevon

Well, that got creative fast. 😂 Inspired by the Descendants 3 D to S video with Sofia Carson, Dove Cameron, Booboo Stewart, Thomas Doherty, and China Anne McClain. I was super disappointed when they only covered the letters of Descendants, because for some reason my weird brain thought that they were doing the alphabet from D to S. So I made my own alphabet for Descendants. 😊😎

[stetervault]

So you re-blogged a post with Peter and the caption 'Rotten To The Core' and now all I can think of is a Descendants AU where the Hales banished all the 'Villains' from BH Isle. And years later Princess Laura decides to 'Save' four children from the Lost. And while Scott, Villain McCall's son is poster perfect for the 'rehabilitation' (aka Cute, Naive, Gullible to Propaganda) the Queen's resented brother Peter is far more concerned with clever, cunning Stiles whose resentment is deeply hidden.

cAN YoU noT DO yoU HAvE ANy idEA HoW MAnY WipS i haVE

But fuck I could get behind this plunny. I can’t say I follow Descendants that closely but I do know the general plotline, and I would def love an AU of it for Steter. And nobody talks about it but back on the Isle, Stiles would be the one who has blackmail on everyone, secrets he uses against those who cross him, and debts owed to him by people who needed favours from him. He wouldn’t outright rule the Isle - how tedious - but even the VKs at the top of the Isle hiearchy know better than to go against him. It’s usually fine; they leave him to his own devices, and Stiles isn’t often interested in the power struggles between the other kids.

There’s a lot of laughter when word gets around that Stiles has been chosen as one of the four VKs picked for rehab. Money and personal trinkets are waved around as they all start betting on everything from how many AKs will be reduced to tears by the end of Stiles’ first day, to how long it’ll be before the palace goes up in flames.

But Stiles? Stiles… doesn’t mind this turn of events. The Isle was getting boring anyway. If the heroes are going to voluntarily let him out into the rest of Auradon, they’ll only have themselves to blame when things get a bit… chaotic.

Misc Notes:

1) Who would be Stiles’ villain parent? I kind of want to say Hades yes, because of all the Descendants 3 trailers, but also he was my fav character in Hercules, Stiles could def get his penchant for trickery there. Not necessarily evil but self-serving and sarcastic with a love of plots and pandemonium.

But Maleficent could work too if we’re doing direct parallels to the series. She was considered the most dangerous and evil villain parent I think? Could be interesting to see a Stiles who avoids his overbearing mother who’s still trying to relive her glory days and plotting revenge and only sees Stiles as a means to an end, especially after he’s picked to go to Auradon Prep.

2) So then, Erica is definitely the daughter of the Evil Queen in Snow White. Because:

3) Scott gets to be Cruella De Vil’s kid obviously. He’s terrified of her and hates the way she treats dogs.

4) Boyd gets to be an AK. Which AK, idk. Erica tries everything to get on his nerves the first few weeks after she gets stuck with him as her “guide” at the school but Boyd just takes everything in stride. He also doesn’t put up with any AKs who try to give Erica grief. He thinks she’s not so bad once you’re allowed past her armour.

5) Allison’s the fourth VK. She’s Jafar’s kid. Street-smart and theft-savvy. Don’t pick a fight with her.

6) Obviously, as the winner of the most cliche match ever, Lydia is the daughter of Ariel. I kind of want to make her the daughter of Aladdin and Jasmine just for the Allydia drama but Ariel’s too good to pass up.

7) Lmao does this make Talia Belle? The Beast might fit her more. Peter’s her brother who was afflicted with a portion of the same curse just because they share the same blood, and on one hand, his curse doesn’t have a time limit, but unlike Talia, he never found someone to love him so he’s still cursed, and after so many years, he doesn’t even care anymore, even if the fact that he’s always part-wolf-beast is a large reason why most people avoid him.

8) Maybe the first time Peter meets Stiles is when he walks in on Phillip and Aurora’s annoying bratling Jennifer - the one who’s constantly trying to cozy up to his nephew - running away in tears. Behind her, Stiles watches her go with a smile, and then he turns and catches sight of Peter.

It’s the start of a beautiful and terrifying relationship.

And… yeah. IVE RAMBLED LONG ENOUGH. IM PUTTING THIS ON MY TO-WRITE LIST. GOD KNOWS WHEN I’LL GET TO IT BUT I LIKE IT VERY MUCH.

[setsailslash]

jayjay(jay) challenge

written for the jayjaychallenge by @fade-works (also for @rogues8 who encouraged this among my near daily shrieking) featuring: fem!jay/ak!jay/rhato!jay because why stop at one or even two jasons when you can have three.

Jay doesn’t like what she sees.

Because all she sees are broken versions of herself eroded down to just pain and revenge, a nasty rusting edge along every seam. Like that is all they could be, like that is all they’ll ever amount to.

She didn’t go through the things that she did and do the things that she does to end up back on that first step. Their Bruce is not her Bryce. Whether their first step is the same as hers, she hasn’t gotten this far just to go back to the start to retrace her steps. She has refused that reality once and she will do it again.

She will not change even for them.

Jay breathes out through her teeth in a long slow seethe, drawing their attention right back to her.

Even when she’s in a room with versions of who is essentially her in this universe and another one if their confusion with each other is any indication at all, she is still the odd one out. Jay knows there is probably a few things that she can read into from that alone but she also knows there are bigger badder issues right here right now that she probably shouldn’t try shooting her way through.

He calls himself Jason, and the other, well, she’ll settle for calling him J for the time being. They are both her, alternate selves and all that.

Universe hopping and falling between alternate realities are nothing new. A run of the mill happenstance. But Jay finds that there are constants that hold true in varying degrees of truthfulness in every single one.

If there is one thing more heartbreaking than the Jason Todd of this universe, of course it would be the Jason Todd of another.

Jay might not like this but she loves that she is not the one at the bottom of the barrel. Rotten apples might not fall far from the tree but hers is hardly the first one to rot to the core.

“So boys,” she starts, peeling back her domino mask to blink her blue-green eyes at theirs, “how’re we gonna do this?”

Jason looks a good mix of caution and concerned. J looks just about ready to throw the first punch. Jay doesn’t blame him.

She tries another way, the way that never works, the one that has her attempting a smile of the genuine kind.

“Stop that.” Jason tells her.

And J follows right after with: “It looks painful.”

“It is.” She answers them both with a grimace that looks no different than her try for a smile. She stops at that because they can talk about trauma, and Jay is sure that there is more than enough of that between the three of them to talk about until their worlds realign themselves to take them home. But really.

She knows herself, and by extension, she knows them too.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.” Jay tells them, the delivery of her words are mean but the way her mouth curves is deliberate. She confirms their hunch without saying the exact words, gives them an opportunity to say no to what could be delivered in every manner that is both crass and explicit.

Because there is nothing subtle to the way she drops her gaze, down to the holsters pulled taut across Jason’s thighs to drag upwards. Slow and appreciative at the sharp cut of J’s waist coloured in black and gray and red camouflage beneath the extensive armour of his suit. Up and up, across the bright red bat of Red Hood’s chest then over the symbol of the Arkham Knight.

Jay doesn’t smile when she catches the hard swallow at J’s throat or the slow rising flush to Jason’s cheeks. She doesn’t have to.

She sees the way they are looking right back at her.

They know exactly what she means.