#(basically no spoilers about his actual team)

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Quickly Thought About What If...? Season Three

Salutations, random people of the internet who are already scrolling past this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and comics and cartoons.

You know, it’s a LITTLE crazy to me that What If…? is one of the most hated MCU shows…and yet not that crazy at all. I kind of get it, this is a show that’s basically dumb fun where the writers play with the heroes and villains in the MCU like they’re action figures. If you’re looking for interesting ideas and concepts, you’ll SOMETIMES get it like with Doctor Strange destroying his universe to save his true love or Hela trying to figure out who she is other than a Goddess of Death..but the majority of the time, you’ll just get Thor being a party dude, Nebula going full Bladerunner, and a big buff lady punching a demon wizard in the face with the power of infinity–I will keep saying that until it stops sounding awesome.

What If…? is not a show for everyone. You need to be in the right mindset and the right kind of person to enjoy a show like this. Dumb fun only works if it matches what YOU consider to be dumb fun. As for me, though? I loved it. I enjoyed the hell out of Season One, I found Season Two to be a HUGE improvement, and I really looked forward to Season Three. It’s just a shame, though, that Season Three is the FINAL season…which makes no sense to me.

What If…? is a concept that could go on for MULTIPLE seasons, at least EIGHT for sure. I get that maybe animation is expensive or maybe we’re wrapping up this multiverse shit next year so we can move onto the X-Men, but COME ON! You can’t make a show about showing all the different possibilities in infinity and then just say, “That’s it. We only get three seasons.” It also puts a lot of unnecessary pressure in these last eight episodes. If this is a final season, then these need to be the best, brightest, most EPIC final What Ifs in the SERIES. The question is…are they? Well, let’s run through them. Though, keep in mind, we ARE gonna have to talk about spoilers. I'll TRY to keep the big things secret, but what's considered big anymore on the internet. I could say two characters kiss (They don't in this) and that'll be enough to drive people up the wall. So, to keep things safe...

Spoilers Ahead.

What If…The Hulk Fought The Mech Avengers?: Alright, so we have Avengers fighting giant Hulks in giant mech suits. I would definitely say we’re off to a good start…if not for the fact that it has pacing problems out the wazoo.

Yeah, poor pacing has ALWAYS been What If’s…? main issue. The show was originally intended to have forty-minute episodes, but got shaved down so the MCU needed to fill their quota for Disney and the company’s shoddy streaming service. The writers never got used to that and, in episodes like this one, you can really feel it. I mean, this is an episode of MECH AVENGERS fighting GIANT HULKS. It should easily be epic, but there’s too much time fast-forwarding through the epicness so we can get to the next cool thing or the next heart-to-heart. The final fight as the team pulls a Voltron (RIP Netflix show) feels more like a montage instead of a big, epic battle, with most of the team practically being non-existent. I mean, this is the first time we’re seeing characters like Moon Knight and Shang-Chi since their debuts, and they do basically NOTHING. The most memorable thing Moon Knight does is press a button. THAT’S IT. The majority of the time isn’t on this team of Mech Avengers, but instead on Sam Wilson and Bruce Banner…Which, to be fair, is actually the part of the story I liked. The relationship these two have makes a lot of sense when you think on it and it really sells the tragedy of a character like Bruce far better than recent MCU entries have. But, just like everything else in this episode, we rush past this friendship. We’ve got great moments like Sam consulting Bruce about being The Hulk and that final heart-to-heart feels like it SHOULD mean something, but there wasn’t enough time to build up this relationship or to show how good it was for them. We’re constantly TOLD they were friends because the episode didn’t have enough time to SHOW us. I don’t know, this SHOULD have been a SMASH, but with so much going on and not enough time to let it flow naturally, it all feels more like an episode you can PASS.

What If…Agatha Went to Hollywood?: Huh. So, for the first time ever, the MCU is acknowledging certain stories I’d figured they’d sooner let audiences forget. For one, we have The Eternals, a movie not many people liked, myself included. On top of that, we have acknowledgment to Agent Carter Season Two of all things, taking the plotline of Howard Stark making movies and using it as the main crux of this story. It shouldn’t surprise me, these writers are CLEARLY Agent Carter fans given how they shoved Peggy Carter into the spotlight again, but it still amazes me that the MCU is FINALLY giving some form of nod to what is really an underrated series…In Season One. Season Two’s not as good.

Now, outside of those acknowledgements…I feel like this story is a LITTLE hindered by the fact that the writers of What If…? didn’t get a chance to know what would happen in Agatha All Along. The plot of this story is that Agatha’s trying to gain the power of a celestial, and knowing what her life was like in Agatha All Along and what she lost, it would be interesting to consider WHY she would want the powers of a god. There would have been such a fascinating angle to go with that, but because animation is a lengthy process and you can’t edit an episode to fit a story that wrapped up two months ago, there’s no way they could have fit in what happened THERE into HERE. They barely had time to explain what happened to the other Eternals, saying they were taken care of off screen so we can rush through parts of this story. Again.

That being said…I still had some fun with this one. Seeing Agatha ham it up was a lot more entertaining in animation than live-action, with animators looking like they’re having the time of their lives making her move around and have facial expressions like an over the top Disney villain. She may not be AS compelling of a character like she was in her own show (Which had NO right to be as good as it was), but again, the writers probably didn’t have enough time to factor that in. All the information they had was from WandaVision, and ran with it by making Agatha more of an outrageous villain than before. And her interactions with Kingo, the one of the few characters I kind of liked in The Eternals, was surprisingly enjoyable. It’s two egotistical immortals trying to outperform the other, with the chemistry shooting sparks through the roof. Not ROMANTIC chemistry, mind you. That “Not my type” line is just…hilarious. Regardless, they’re what makes this episode fun, taking elements from the weaker side of the MCU and creating a bigger story out of it. Would it have benefited if this season had more material to work with in regards to Agatha All Along? Most definitely, yes. But for what they had, it still shined bright.

What If…The Red Guardian Stopped The Winter Soldier?: I really want to like this one. I REALLY do. It’s the loud and boisterous Red Guardian teaming up with the quiet and professional Winter Soldier. There should be comedy GOLD with their interactions, and while there ARE…there’s not enough to make this episode more than “Okay.” The execution is really what holds it back, as David Harbour’s performance often makes the Red Guardian more ANNOYING than endearing a lot of the time, aside from a few bits with Bucky. Speaking of, it’s weird how Bucky isn’t…the same, cold killer he was in Winter Soldier and the opening of Civil War. There, he often acted robotically, matching the arm that Hydra and the Soviets gave him. Here though? He’s biting Alexi’s leg, quipping, and acting just as jovial as Alexi does sometimes. The only time it makes sense that he acts more human was when he flirts with a cashier and explains it away with him saying his “Deep-Cover Mode” activated. That’s not the BEST excuse, but it works enough. I get that this hypnotized assassin would have been hard to write around and explain why he’d team up with  Alexi, but I also feel like there would have been MORE comedic opportunity to have Alexi try and interact with someone who doesn’t talk much or barely acknowledges his presence. Treat it like a kid trying to befriend a killing machine, there’s comedic potential there. It’s definitely more digestible than Alexi being the one to break Bucky’s conditioning.

Yeah, that’s a thing that doesn’t sit right with me. You can argue it was the power of friendship that broke through to Bucky in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it’s not just that. It’s the POWERFUL friendship between Bucky and Steve that no time nor conditioning could have broken, making something kind of beautiful in a movie about spies and espionage. So to have a guy Bucky barely knew in a DAY AND A HALF to be the one to free him spits in the face of Bucky’s story, his relationship with Cap, and his entire character development. It’s what stops me from really ENJOYING this episode, as it takes leaps and bounds of logic that feel greater than any other What If. Especially since there’s a way to help that. You have this guy dressed up as a red version of Bucky’s best friend. You can find a way to write that into why he changed gradually, even if it means having Red Guardian SUBTLY act like Steve. Definitely better than how he USUALLY acts.

It really is the characterization that stops me from enjoying this episode. Alexi and Bucky feel more like they’re in a Lego parody instead of an alternate timeline in the MCU, and it holds back the enjoyment a LOT…That being said, there are SOME things that I do enjoy. While the characterization isn’t the best, there are the occasional fun and somewhat endearing moments the two share. It’s also kind of cool to see Bill Foster’s Goliath again as he chases after these two idiots across the country, and his interactions with Ranger Morales (Not THAT Morales…Maybe) are surprisingly adorable. Speaking of which, Ranger Morales might be the best character in this entire thing, with her being the only one who benefits from the screwball comedy because, you know, she’s a new character. She’s allowed to say she wrestled a bear with her bare hands or collected slot machine tokens in her hat because she’s not someone with far more interesting and compelling stories being ruined for a comedic episode. And, to this story’s credit, there IS something interesting and compelling as it reveals WHO gave up information that got the Starks killed. I’m not gonna give it away, but it’s a great detail that offers more lore than I could expect from a series that isn’t really canon but CAN offer plausible information that COULD be canon. And, yeah, it makes me enjoy a certain MCU villain a LITTLE bit more because of how despicable his actions are.

In the end, there are SOME good stuff that makes this a fun experience, but if you’re not a fan of the Red Guardian’s characterization or ESPECIALLY the Winter Soldier’s, then you’re going to likely wish someone wiped YOUR memory of this adventure.

What If…Howard the Duck Got Hitched?: Darcy laid an egg in this one…I wouldn’t expect crazier from an episode about Howard the gosh dang DUCK.

Despite all its flaws, What If…? really was the best way to adapt an insane character like Howard the Duck into the MCU. His wackadoodle adventures and storylines work fine in a comic universe where characters are allowed to get as silly as they want, but I feel like She-Hulk proves that MCU fans aren’t ready for goofy nonsense that suits the character. So to have him go on an occasional oddball adventure within a non-canon series, it works so that the writers can get as weird as they want with it. And holy shit-knuckles, do things get fuckin’ WEIRD.

Aside from Darcy laying a FUCKING EGG (How the hell is that even possible?), you have every powerful person in the universe chasing after the damn thing because it is, inexplicably, the most powerful thing in all of infinity and they all want it for different reasons. Dormamu’s cult wants it to host his body, SHIELD wants to keep it out of the hands of everyone, and the Grandmaster…just wants to eat the damn thing. Now, HOW is it possible that Howard and Darcy’s egg turned out to be the most powerful thing in existence? Fuck if I know, but it is BONKERS and I love it. It’s just so funny seeing all of the mightiest and most threatening beings in the MCU all chasing down an egg of all things. And I don’t know about you, but something about seeing the two most boring MCU villains slapping each other so they can get to it first is…It…It just tickles me, okay?

And I know I complained about characterization in the last episode, and that still applies…unless the story is about Howard the mother fucking DUCK. Characters can get as weird as they want because that’s just how things work with him. But even then, there’s some genuine heart there as Howard and Darcy try their best to be good parents for their precious little egg. I would never think that a story where Howard and Darcy start a family together could turn out so wholesome, but gosh dang it, these writers are really trying to sell it. Their personalities work off each other better than I could have imagined, with Howard being an angry but good-hearted doof while Darcy perfectly toes the line between being the only sane person there and just as insane as everyone else. It works far better than I thought it could, really endearing me to the comedy as I watch the insane lengths these two would go to protect their child. I wouldn’t expect an episode about Howard the Duck to be one of the best in the season, possibly the series, but I guess it’s true what they say. When you’re outta luck, go duck…Or someone says that. I don’t know.

What If…The Emergence Destroyed the Earth: Hey, look! An actual DARK episode of What If…?! Are you fuckers HAPPY NOW?!

I say that as if it’s not something I wanted either, but I will admit that I would love just a BIT more dramatic stories in this show. Strange Supreme’s origins and Ultron’s victory are the best episodes of the series for a reason, even if I still wildly enjoy the goofy antics we usually get. It allows the writers to tell a tragic ending to a universe while, occasionally, showing the true strengths of our heroes. Something about Black Widow and Hawkeye still trying to stop Ultron despite living in a dead world–A dead UNIVERSE–shows that you can kill anything and everything, but you can’t completely kill a hero’s spirit. Something similar happens in this episode, though going for a different tactic to tell this tragedy.

It opens right away with The Watcher telling us that this story doesn’t have a happy ending. So, with every tense situation Riri is in, it makes you think that THIS is the moment when the worst happens. Yet the episode does a good job at always giving just the TINIEST bit of hope, making you think that The Watcher might be wrong and that she could maybe save the day. Although, it may have played its hand a little TOO much that The Watcher might do a certain something, but even then it plays with expectations a little, making you wonder if he’ll even do what you expect him to. It’s a decent attempt at playing with emotions, all while fitting into this extra dark world.

Speaking of, this is definitely the most intriguing universe that The Watcher presented. The idea that life still exists despite the Earth cracking apart is such a cool sci-fi concept that works best in a superhero world. Science will likely call bullshit, but I for one love seeing this literally broken world, watching debris and parts of people’s old lives float around the Earth’s messed up gravity. Things get more interesting as we get to see who the big bad of this story is, and I’m pleasantly surprised to see that it’s Mysterio. I don’t hate him as a villain, but I wouldn’t have expected him of all characters to control what’s left of Earth. Yet the writers go all the way that they could with a concept like this, showing us a much darker version of this villain and going further with what his abilities are capable of. The episode does a good job of showing us how Mysterio’s illusions were capable of taking over the planet, and I applaud the attempt.

I also love how much this episode endears me to Riri Williams. I wasn’t a huge fan of Ironheart in Wakanda Forever, feeling like she was the weakest part of that excellent movie. Here, though, I’m starting to see how a character like her could be fun to watch. Her determination to try and fix what’s left of the world and to keep fighting back no matter what it might do to her is the right kind of motivation to make me enjoy ANY hero. It’s simple, but effective enough to know that Riri is capable of such inner strength. I will admit, though, that I don’t really care for her supporting cast. In this episode in particular, it really feels like the writers just picked random names out of a hat and just inserted those characters into the story. No one other than Riri feels like they’re meant to be there as none of their unique personalities are allowed to shine through like hers. You could have replaced them with anybody, and the effect would still feel more or less the same.

That being said, I still think this is a winner here. It’s the exact type of dark story that fans have been demanding, all with a little hope shining in that darkness. Maybe it’ll make fans happy, maybe it won’t, but nothing in What If...? rarely does. I had my fun, and I’ll continue to have it no matter what Twitter says.

What If…1872: An episode where Shang-Chi and Kate Bishop are local heroes in the wild west? Sure, why not. This show’s done weirder…In fact, it’s kind of why I have some objections with a part of The Watcher’s opening narration. “Think less of ‘What if’ and more ‘What the hell,’” has basically been this show’s motto for a while. This is just putting two heroes in a different time period without some nonsense with Captain America smacking a time stone. Meanwhile, two episodes ago, we had Darcy lay an egg. I think it’s safe to say that this isn’t the first time we said “What the Hell?”

With that said…this is another good one. And it’s easy to see why. It’s a wild west story featuring two characters that have NOT made that big of an appearance since their introductions. AGAIN. As someone who absolutely LOVES Shang-Chi’s movie, it’s actually nice to see him kicking ass like he used to while the animation is allowed to have him fight with crazier moves. And Kate Bishop was a lot more entertaining to me this time around, acting as a cold and stern markswoman with actual skills instead of the bubbling and awkward character like most of the Young Avengers the MCU portrayed. She felt more like a unique character, and a badass one at that. Even the villains are pretty awesome in this, with Sonny Burch being a great, twisted fuck and The Hood being an ominous mystery even if the twist became a BIT predictable.

Speaking of, I have…mixed feelings towards that twist. Because I do kind of like the tragedy and internal conflict that Shang-Chi faces when met with who The Hood is. It feels like a taste of what COULD happen in a Shang-Chi sequel, whenever the fucking hell that will happen. But, at the same time, the episode started off as if it was about tackling AmerIica’s dark history in how we abused the immigrant workers to make it the country that it is. I was SO ready to give the MCU brownie points for tackling subject matter that isn’t easy to discuss…and then immediately ripped those points away once it revealed that the culprit is an immigrant too. Now, it’s not a COMPLETE loss. There’s this implication that the twist character is under some kind of control from The Hood itself and we’ve still got white boy Sunny being all kinds of okay with the enslavement of Chinese immigrants. BUUUUUUUUUT I still feel like this is the MCU starting off with an interesting, dark story to tell but pulling back because…reasons. Believe it or not, that happens more times than you think

Regardless of my thoughts on the twist, though, I enjoyed this one enough. It’s a decent wild west story that finally utilizes characters that the MCU refuses to touch despite throwing so much money into bringing them into the spotlight IN THE FIRST PLACE! Here’s hoping to seeing more Shang-Chi and even Kate Bishop in the future…

What If…The Watcher Disappeared/What If…What If: Might as well lump these two together as they’re more of a two-parter than any other finale. Even the Ultron episode of the first season still felt more like its own thing even though it set up the first big crossover. Here, though, both episodes are definitely part of the same story, one that a buddy of mine actually predicted we’d get: “What If The Watcher Was Put On Trial?”

Through this final story, we learn more about The Watchers, especially the one we’ve been following throughout the series. We get more of an idea about their oath and WHY The Watcher would want to break it. My favorite part is that he doesn’t hate his role in the multiverse. He loves his job as a Watcher and he doesn’t resent his higher ups for trying to take the job away from him or kill him and the ones he loves. He only gained a new perspective of what it means to watch and wants to share the lessons he’s learned, with the crux of the conflict coming from the fact that the other Watchers believes he’s going too far in protecting “lesser beings.” Speaking of, I liked the group of “lesser beings” formed in this two-parter. Byrdie is a kind of fun little tinkerer, it was GREAT to see Kahhori again despite her being a little TOO quippy, Storm as the Goddess of Thunder was AWESOME, and, of course, the big buff lady named Captain Carter proved just why I love her so much. I mean, she took a Watcher and fuckin’ body-slammed him into the dirt over and over again. Why the FUCK should I hate someone that awesome?

Speaking of, I’m…torn about my feelings towards the final battle. On the one hand, it was VERY epic and my monkey brain clapped at all the punching, kicking, and laser blasts that happened. On the other hand, I feel like the strongest parts of both episodes where the slow, character moments. The Watcher defending himself, Captain Carter voicing how she feels out of place in the entire multiverse, and even ULTRON going through a sort of redemption that works far better than I could have expected. That last part is the most fascinating of all, as we get to see what happens when a machine completes its objective, but his human mind allows him to reevaluate everything and change because his universe was allowed to exist. I feel like, as awesome as the final battle is, it would have been a more fascinating finale if we got MORE of that from other beings in the multiverse. Like, maybe if we got others that The Watcher helped or interfered with coming to his trial, defending him or going against him in some way, bringing the whole series together in a close. BUT, at the same time, I get why they didn’t do that. If this is the final episode, you gotta end it with a bang. And a big flashy fight is PERFECT for the kind of show that this is…but it could have been flashier.

We went from the starring characters in every episode teaming up to fight Ultron, to Captain Carter and Kahhori fighting against the most powerful beings of the multiverse, to…a random assortment of heroes plus The Watcher fighting three other Watchers. If this is the series finale, then bring in EVERYBODY for this one, big epic showdown as they defend the being that gave them importance. Instead, we have four heroes with one of them being introduced in THIS two-parter. As cool as Storm is, we know NOTHING of her or how she got that hammer. She just…does so the finale can have that extra cool factor. Even though I feel like it was on the right track when it brought back Infinity Ultron to join the team. It’s actually BRILLIANT to find a way to bring the first big bad in the series and make him an ally…Only to kill him off within the first few minutes of the final episode. You see what I mean? There’s a good idea to tie this series all together into one epic finale and what they do is…good enough, but not perfect.

With that said, I still find this a fitting enough end. Captain Carter gets to go out swinging to protect those she cares for and for all of infinity, while The Watcher realizes he’s more than just a voice or a faceless narrator who observes the fragments of the multiverse. He’s Uatu, and he’s the protector of infinity to make grander universes to observe, with brief flashes of the multiverse him and the others saved to prove. And…it’s really too bad we won’t get to see any of those.

Were these the best stories What If…? had to offer? Well…Not really, no. Aside from maybe one or two, it is, admittedly, not the BEST the show could make. Or the best stories they could have possibly made. It’s still enjoyable, but, once again, I can see why it’s not best for everyone.

…IT IS NOT THE WORST MCU SHOW, HOLY SHIT! The amount of people who bitch and moan about how awful the show is…makes me question reality, I’ll say that much. I genuinely wonder if there’s something wrong with ME or there’s something wrong with THEM with how VENOMOUS they get towards this show, especially with Captain Carter. I mean…what is with the hatred towards Captain Carter? They’re acting like the writers are FORCING fans to like her when…people like me just like her. And you wanna know WHY I like her? In fact, you wanna know WHY I liked What If…? Especially in this season? Because the writers give more of a shit about these characters than the MCU does.

Villains are allowed to come back and be better threats than they were in the movies.

Tony Stark can go on an intergalactic adventure instead of fighting evil billionaires.

Hela can look into who she is beyond a goddess of death.

Riri Williams can be an actual hero instead of a side character that’s forced into a spin-off.

Howard the Duck can be an actual character.

And Peggy Carter? She’s not someone who has boys fighting over or for Steve Rogers to win as a trophy. She’s not carefully tip-toeing through situations and appealing to men for the sake of getting THEM to get shit done. She’s a big, buff, BADASS woman who will do whatever she wants and wins like a fuckin’ CHAMPION because she is CAPTAIN GOSH DANG PEGGY CARTER! I don’t give two shits if you think she’s an industry plant. Ninety-percent of the heroes you LOVE are industry plants. THE FUCKING AVENGERS WERE INDUSTRY PLANTS! It was a collection of superheroes that weren’t doing well on their own, so Marvel just lumped them all together into a team, labeling them as “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” AND YOU CALL THEM THAT TO THIS DAY! Just admit that it’s sexism that makes you hate her. You’re still annoying, but at least you’re honest about it.

Like What If…? or not, it’s at least USING these characters for more than what the MCU offered, especially the ones that the franchise refuses to touch because Kevin Fiege didn’t think ahead about how to use characters he spent millions to produce for the big and small screens. And I’m going to genuinely miss it for that reason alone. I had so much fun with this show because I got to see these characters I love go on more adventures they couldn’t in the main timeline. If it’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine. I can live with that. But don’t act like it’s a STAIN on the MCU when the MCU HAS GONE LOWER! It’s not the writers fault that they wanted to have fun instead of making YOUR fan fics come true. You want to see what happens if the other half got dusted? Write your own fan fic about it. Because if you don’t think What If…? has good writing, what makes you think it’ll deliver those high expectations to you. YOU are not the person this show is catering to. Deal with it.

As for me, I’ll miss this show. I genuinely will. It was fun while it lasted, but I guess fun can’t last forever. The only question now is…What’s next?

[egophiliac]

(looks at upcoming card releases)

I'm in danger :)

[icebluecyanide]

I saw people talking about that scene where Yassen shot Max as a huge betrayal of Alex and it's kinda funny to me like yeah he involved Alex in a murder but also I cannot emphasise enough that Alex decided to join a criminal organisation. People have been telling him he'll need to kill for days now, Alex has watched them kill multiple people already, I get that it sucks for him but you cannot team up with a known killer and be that shocked when actually his secret extra mission was to kill

[dragon-zena]

If I think too much about ryuji's treatment in p5 I feel bonkers

[arkangelo-7]

I bet the JL has a “how fucked are we” metric that’s literally just how many of Bruce’s kids are there.

Like if he pulls up to the alien invasion or whatever with just Robin, then everything’s fine. More than fine, actually, because Bruce feels comfortable enough to bring his eight year old along for the ride. This battle will take approximately fifteen minutes and they’ll all get shawarma after. Not fucked in the slightest.

But if Red Robin shows up too… hmm, okay, this is getting somewhat serious. Tim is one of Bruce’s most trusted partners; he’s the smart Robin, the tactician, the loyal one, and so if Batman brought him along then it means he’s at least a little bit worried about shit hitting the fan and wants one his advisors around. But the combined brain power of Bruce and Tim is pretty much unmatched (DC plot armor for the win), so everything will be fine, basically. Superman might take a hit, but everything’s going to be fine. Just keep calm and you’ll all make it home in time to Door Dash some Panda Express before it closes. So not that fucked.

It starts to get serious after that. When Signal and Spoiler roll up the scene, shit has definitely hit the fan. Batman’s worried enough to call in reinforcements and he’s probably doubting the League’s ability to listen/obey his orders, so he needs a backup plan in case things go really south. But with Signal’s abilities and Steph’s superpower of turning anything into a joke, chances are you’ll be okay. Maybe impaled or something, but okay. But still, fucked.

When Nightwing shows, the JL knows it’s starting to get dicey out on the field. See, Nightwing’s got his own team, his own issues—the fact that he set that all aside to help out his dad is cause for concern. On a scale from 1-10, they are at a 7. Above moderately fucked.

And… oh God. Black Bat? Most of the time the JL doesn’t even see her, but once she makes herself known and starts fighting alongside her siblings, they all start to silently freak out. Black Bat is a fucking machine and if she’s breaking a sweat trying to fight the Big Bad, things are definitely not going to go well. They start praying that Batman figures something out. They freak out. They are intrinsically fucked.

But God Forbid you catch sight of the Red Hood. The prodigal son is a legitimate killer, and if Batman’s letting him blow out brains then the JL knows he’s desperate. And a desperate Batman is not good. At all. They are definitely fucked.

[felassan]

EuroGamer: 'BioWare knew the deepest secrets of Dragon Age lore 20 years ago, and locked it away in an uber-plot doc'

Original creator David Gaider on how "some of the big mysteries are being solved".

Rest of post under a cut due to length and possible spoilers.

"As I write about the secrets hidden in Dragon Age's mysterious Fade, and as I uncover some of them playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, one question keeps rising up in my mind. How much did BioWare know about future events when first developing the series more than 20 years ago? That's a long time, and back then BioWare didn't know there would be a second game, which is why Dragon Age: Origins has an elaborate and far-reaching epilogue. Why lay so much lore-track ahead of yourself if you don't think you'll ever get there? But look more closely at Origins and there are big clues suggesting BioWare did know about future Dragon Age events. There are obvious signs in the original game, such as establishing recurring themes like Old Gods and the Blight and Archdemons. But there's also Flemeth, Morrigan's witchy mother, who's intimately linked to events in the series now - more specifically: intimately linked to Solas. Does her existence mean Solas was known about back then too? There's only one person I can think of to answer this and it's David Gaider, the original creator of Dragon Age's world and lore. We've talked before, once in a podcast and once for a piece on the magic of fantasy maps, where we discussed the creation of Dragon Age's world. And much to my surprise, when I ask him what he and the BioWare team knew back then, he says they knew it all. "By the time we released Dragon Age: Origins, we were basically sure that it was one and done, but there was, back when we made the world, an overarching plan," he says. "The way I created the world was to seed plots in various parts of the world that could be part of a game, a single game, and then there was the overall uber-plot, which I didn't know for certain that we would ever get to but I had an understanding of how it all worked together. "A lot of that was in my head until we were starting Inquisition and the writers got a little bit impatient with my memory or lack thereof, so they pinned me down and dragged the uber-plot out of me. I'd talked about it, I'd hinted at it, but never really spelled out how it all connected, so they dragged it out of me, we put it into a master lore doc, the secret lore, which we had to hide from most of the team.""

"This uber-plot document was only viewable on a need-to-know basis, he says, and only around 20 people on the team had access to it - other senior writers mostly. And even though Gaider left the Dragon Age team after Inquisition, and then eight years ago BioWare altogether, meaning he didn't work on The Veilguard at all, he believes - by looking at the events in the new game - his uber-plot lore "has more or less held up". That's impressive. What's even more impressive, or exciting, is that back then he also envisaged a potential end state for the entire Dragon Age series - a point at which it would make no sense for the series to carry on. "I always had this dream of where it would all end, the very last plot," he says, "which I won't say because who knows, we could still end up there. But the idea that this uber-plot was this sort of biggest, finite... That the final thing you could do in this world that would break it was there as a 'maybe we would get to do that one day'... There was just the idea of certain big, world-shaking things that were seeded in that arc, some of which have already come to pass, like the return of Fen'Harel." You've read that correctly: the idea to have Fen'Harel, also known as the Dread Wolf, reappear, was seeded all the way back then, way before Inquisition - the game in which he does actually reappear. But the concept for Solas, as a character who was Fen'Harel in disguise, was a newer idea. "That spawned from a conversation I had with Patrick [Weekes] and a number of other writers," Gaider says, "as an idea of 'what if you had a villain that spent an entire game where he's actually in the party and you get to know him?' Now, the god version and his larger role in the plot, yes that was known, but not that he would be presented as a character named Solas." Fen'Harel being known about means the other elven gods were known about, which means all of that stuff Solas reveals about his godly siblings - that they're not gods at all but evil elven mages he locked away behind the Veil - was known about back then too. "Oh yeah," Gaider says. "Everything that Solas tells you [at the end of Inquisition DLC, Trespasser]: it's all part of that original uber-lore - that was all in our mind." But why have so much lore if you're not certain you'll get to ever realise it? Well, to create a believable illusion. By creating an "excess" of lore, as Gaider describes it, Origins made Thedas feel like an old and believable place. A place with history, rather than a Western set that was all facade and no substance."

"BioWare also did something canny with the lore it did relay then, too: it shared it through the voices of characters living in the world, making it inherently fallible. In doing this, Dragon Age veiled its truths behind biases. The church-like organisation of the Chantry proclaims one truth, while the elves and dwarves proclaim another. Sidenote: you can experience this yourself through different racial origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins. This way, there's no one, objective, irrefutable, truth. "To get the truth, you kind of have to pick between the lines," Gaider says. So even though elven legends are coming true through the existence of Solas and The Veilguard's antagonist gods, it doesn't mean that's the one and only truth. There's truth in what the Chantry teaches and what the dwarves say, he tells me, which ignites my curiosity intensely. BioWare has also been tricksy in how it's rubbed out the lore the further back in time you go. "In general, the further the history goes back, we always would purposefully obfuscate it more and more," Gaider says - "make it more biased and more untrue no matter who was talking, just so that the absolute truth was rarely knowable. I like that idea from a world standpoint, that the player always has to wonder and bring their own beliefs to it." It leads into a founding principle of Dragon Age, which is doubt - because without it, you can't have faith, a particularly important concept in the series. It's where the whole idea of the Chantry's Maker comes from and with it, the legend about the fabled Golden City - now the Black City - at the heart of the Fade. This is the very centre of the lore web, and, I imagine, it's close to the series endpoint Gaider imagined long ago. All secrets end there. Did Gaider know what was in the Black City when he laid down Origins' lore? That's the question - and it startles me how casually he answers this. "Oh, yeah," he says. "What was in the Black City: that's the uber-plot. I knew exactly. "Was it as detailed in the first draft of the world?" he goes on. "No. I had an idea of the early history because that's where I started making the world. So the things that were true early-early: I knew exactly what the Black City was and the idea of what the elves believed, and what humans believed vis-a-vis the Chantry - that was all settled on really early. Then I expanded the world and the uber-plot bubbled out of that.""

"Gaider shows me the original cosmology design document for Dragon Age: Origins as if to prove this - or rather for the game that would become DAO. The world was known as Peldea back then. I can't share this with you because I see it via a shared screen on a video call, and because Gaider doesn't want me to, mostly because the ideas are so old they're almost unrecognisable from what's in the series now. But I can tell you it's a document that's just over a page in length, and that there's a circular diagram at the top showing the world in the middle and the spirit realm ringed around it. And on that document is reference to the Chantry's beliefs about a God located in a citadel that can be found there. Gaider says BioWare knew about Fen'Harel (the Dread Wolf) 20 years ago when it was developing Dragon Age: Origins, and that he'd one day reappear. The Fade wasn't known as the Fade back then, either, but as the Dreaming, because it's the place people go when they dream - an idea that lives on still. And if that sounds familiar to any fans of The Sandman among you, it should. "I'd say The Sandman series was probably fairly prominently in my head," says Gaider. "I liked that amorphous geography that was born from the psyche of collective humanity. I'd say yes, if I was to point at something specifically, that's probably where the very first inspiration of it took root." It's a lot to take in, but it reinforces the admiration I have for Dragon Age. Just as I have when hearing about the creation of my other favourite fantasy worlds, such as A Song of Ice and Fire, I begin to understand the magnitude - and the deliberateness - of the plotting that went on. I wonder if one day the Dragon Age series will end in the way Gaider first imagined, albeit slightly altered by the many other pairs of hands shepherding it along now. What a curious feeling it must be to know, so many years in advance, where things might go. Where that end is, I don't know, but I do know we'll take a significant step towards it in The Veilguard. After all, we're coming into contact with gods who were there at the recorded beginning of it all. "Yeah - we have access to people who can tell us the truth from first-hand experience," Gaider says, "although again, it depends on what the writers did with it. But if they continued the tradition of Dragon Age, you never know for sure if Solas is telling you everything, or what you're learning is the entire truth. "But yes, some of the big mysteries are being solved. I mean, will they one day definitively tell you about the Maker? Will we crack the big mysteries of the world and just make them answered finally? And does that ruin one of the central precepts that Dragon Age is founded upon? Maybe," he says. "Ultimately, that lore, when you make it big and you hint at it and hint at it and hint at it, it becomes a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. Eventually you got to pony up.""

[source]

[tinyfantasminha]

Thoughts on Jack's dream(MASSIVE main story spoilers ahead)

JACKS DREAM got me by the thROAT bc the more I analyze it the more angsty it feels and I alreadfy sobbed n cried and I must SCREAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMM He's dreaming of the magift tournament but basically if..... if Leona's plan never took place....... If Leona actually WERE the hero Jack has idolized...... 😭

First I gotta take note dosodkgkfdgjdfkghfdjk hOW JACK YEARNS FOR HIS SENPAI'S PRAISE AND AFFECTION 🥺🥺truly the epitome of loyal, puppy-like behavior..... It doesn't take much for him to be happy… He yearns for the respect and acknowledgement of those he admires. He craves respect and recognition, but not only that—he genuinely wants to see those he admires thrive.

Seems to me that what Jack longs for most is a sense of belonging within a pack. He’s not just devoted to those he holds in high regard; he also desires to be cared for in return (This becomes even more apparent when he asks Ruggie to act as a mentor or older-brother figure in his dorm uniform vignette.) Jack's actions reflect his innate wolf nature—a being built for connection, loyalty, and mutual protection. No matter how much he tells himself or others how he prefers to handle things on his own… We can clearly see that Jack is happier when he’s part of a team, fighting alongside companions who’ve got his back. It’s the dynamic balance of trust: to protect and be protected, to rely on others and let them rely on him in return. It deeply resonates with the essence of wolves.

We often hear the phrase “lone wolf,” an expression of grudging admiration. A lone wolf is often viewed as a rugged individualist, uncompromising and independent, driven to forge his own path, unfettered by the sentimental need for companionship. In reality, few people would ever want to live this way—and, as it turns out, few wolves would either. Wolves, males and females alike, may go through periods alone, but they’re not interested in lives of solitude. A lone wolf is a wolf that is searching, and what it seeks is another wolf. Everything in a wolf’s nature tells it to belong to something greater than itself: a pack. Like us, wolves form friendships and maintain lifelong bonds. They succeed by cooperating, and they struggle when they’re alone. Like us, wolves need one another. (source)

Which is why the factual reality cuts so deeply.

After Ortho wakes Jack up (in oUTER SPACE DKJGDSDKFJGKJS that was so adventitious but so cool.....) and Jack falls down like a meteorite (ALSO SUPER COOL BUT WTF.....) Fake!Leona and Fake!Ruggie rush to his side, Leona softly reassures him, saying it’s a relief he’s uninjured and advising him not to be so reckless while Ruggie says ''You're a promising rookie. Our treasure.'' (I started crying here.)

Jack breaks into a bitter, despairing laugh as the truth crashes down on him. The sincerity and warmth his “upperclassmen” showed in that moment? It wasn’t real. It never actually happened. Jack recounts his excitement when he first joined Savanaclaw, eager to fight alongside the dormmates he admired so much. He talks about how he had watched Leona’s play three years ago—over and over again, captivated by it. He reveals the painful truth of discovering their wicked plan, the frustration of being unable to snap them out of it, and the overwhelming helplessness that consumed him.

I gotta say, I'm SO HAPPY that Jack's feelings on the events of book 2 were finally properly addressed now (cause let's be real, book 2 uhh... did kinda a shitty job at this 💀 Neither the narrative nor the fandom really took the time to explore the emotional impact it had on him, which is such a disservice to his character.)

Think about it from Jack’s perspective. He was obsessed with Leona's play 3 years ago, watching it over and over again. In his eyes, Leona was a hero, someone worth idolizing to the point of projecting an idealized image of him: an earnest, hardworking, honorable leader. When Jack finally had the chance to join Savanaclaw and be part of the dorm he had admired so deeply, what was his reality? Ostracization, bullying and even physical violence from some of his dorm mates (as shown in Leona's dorm uniform vignette) And worst of all? Jack was met with his idol’s true, treacherous side—dirty tactics, underhanded schemes, and a willingness to harm others to achieve his goals. When Jack tried to confront them about it, he wasn’t met with understanding or respect. Instead, he was called a “filthy traitor” and a “spoiled brat”—by the very person he admired most. It’s a complete dismantling of everything Jack believed in, everything he worked for.

It's a shame the game and manga did not give enough weight to Jack’s feelings, (the novel seems to do a better job at it though) but now it’s clear just how much this hurt him. It wasn’t just a setback; it was a deep, personal betrayal that shook him to his core.

He’s only a first-year. Beneath his gruff demeanor and physical strength, Jack is still a boy—pure-hearted, earnest, and full of hope. All he wanted was to stand beside those he respected most but what he got instead was disappointment, betrayal, and rejection. To idolize someone so deeply, only to have that image crushed in the most personal, gut-wrenching way........ Savanaclaw doesn't deserve him 💔

.

,,,,okay forgive me to break the essay to talk about this but I'm going insane over the fact fake Ruggie ominously coos, ''Hey puppy-chan you're a good boy so come here.....'' UGHGHHHDSHNGDSHNDGSHHHnnnnhhHHHH HE IS BASICALLY SAVANACLAW'S UNOFFICIAL MASCOT,,,,,,, their loyal little puppy 🥺🥺🥺😭😭

fake ruggie and fake leona try to lure him in to sleep again, but Jack says he has no intention of fighting alongside fakes and defeats them 😌

And we get this utterly precious moment where Jack praises Yuu and Grim for having guts and persevering through everything and he PETS GRIM'S HEAD............ HE DIDN'T NEED TO COMFORT THEM BUT AWWAAHBBBAYYAWYWYHAWWABYWAWAYAA

I can't wait to see what role he'll play in Leona's dream 😌 Jack’s arc feels like it’s finally getting the weight it deserves… 🙏🙏🙏

[reiderwriter]

Hello there baby, are your parents bakers? Cause you're a cutie pie lol sorry couldn't resist the urge to flirt with my favorite writer💕How have you been? How was your day? I wish you a wonderful day and a lovely night💕

It's my first time here sending an ask but lately I've been thinking about shy!Spencer x flirty!reader, I just think is such a cute couple.

So if you're taking requests, I was thinking about early seasons Spencer completely falling for the reader and the way she's so flirty but sweet and kind, the way he'd be blushing hard at anything she says and how he'd like the way she's always touching him cause he felt cherised and desired.

It could be fluff or smut or both cause I can picture them going slow with the relationship but Spencer being eager to please her and show how much he loves everything about her.

You said about choosing a emoji, so can I be the 🐇anon?

A/N: Thanks for the request! Shy Spencer is the best because he's so dumb and silly and doesn't realize when people are attracted to him. I've said it before, but he's basically every nerdy main character in 00s romcoms that are "unattractive" because they wear glasses. I hope you enjoy the fic~♡

Warnings: mentions of case details, slight spoilers for upto s5

With a degree in law and a deep-rooted hatred of businessmen, you'd certainly found your calling in one of the FBI White Collar divisions. Putting away the sleazy bastards was easily one of the biggest perks of the job, but every coin had a second side, and yours was you actually had to interact with the cretins before you could take them down. 

You'd dealt with bribes, dinner invites, and sexual propositions more than a time or two, and had to remind yourself that kicking anyone of them clean in the balls was most likely a firing offense, if not legally off the table. 

The man in the case you were currently working - possibly Bill Hodges, possibly Daniel Brady, possibly so many more men - had been a typical white collar freak until he'd moved on to murder. And when you'd been so close to nailing his ass for fraud, too. 

You'd had no choice but to call in whatever unit it was that actually got to put bullets in the bastards, sure that you were going to be strong-armed out of months of work for the glory of taking down a spree killer. 

Instead, you got Spencer Reid, delivered freshly to your desk like a lamb to slaughter. 

“Sorry, you're the agent from the BAU?” You asked, raking your eyes across his body, smiling at his obvious discomfort with the attention. 

“Yes, Doctor Reid. I'm here for more information on the Hodges files.” 

You dusted your skirt off as you stood, moving around the desk to grab the file. You held it out to him but pulled it back when he reached for it.

“I'm sorry, you're really in the BAU?” An embarrassed look fell across his face, and you instantly felt shitty. 

“Do you want to see my credentials?” 

“No, I'm sorry, it's just - I wasn't expecting someone so…pretty?” 

The embarrassed look deepened to a flush, and you brightened at the sight. You weren't lying. He really was pretty, and you hoped your comment hadn't come off as patronizing. 

“You're adorable. Here's the file, I’ll be at your team briefing in half an hour. Spencer, right?” 

He nodded, finally waking up and taking the files as you pushed it against his chest, using the movement to step slightly closer. 

“I'll see you later then,” you trailed your look down, getting a good look at all of him before meeting his eyes again. “Save me a seat?” 

“I should… I'll, uh, go now. Thanks for the-” he stammered, pointing to the file, backing out of your space slowly, like an animal trying not to show its back to a predator. 

Unlike the long line of scumbags filling the halls and case files of your floor, Spencer was without bravado or ego. His lack of both meant that you were interested. You were very interested. 

Half an hour later, you practically sprinted to the 6th floor, bouncing up the stairs to the office where you'd take your meeting like a giddy school girl. 

“Hello, sorry, I'm not late, am I?” You asked, quietly opening the door and letting yourself in. 

“Agent Y/N, no, perfect timing, Penelope was just about to brief us on your case,” Hotch said, rising and giving your hand a firm shake. He looked around to find a seat to usher you into, but you quickly dropped yourself into the seat right beside Spencer Reid, grin deepening as he flushed and offered you an awkward yet endearing smile. 

Unconsciously, you shifted closer, shooting him your own smile before the meeting officially began, and you were forced to keep a straight, serious face. 

The entire case progressed in much the same way, with you doing everything you could to fluster Spencer Reid and him doing everything in his power to convince himself you were being friendly. 

“Spencer, do you have a phone number?” You asked after slipping out of the meeting, trailing him back to his desk. 

“Yeah, we have to keep connected for cases, so I have a phone.” 

“Great. Your number - what is it?” 

He rattled off the digital as you scribbled them down on a notepad. 

“And Hotch's number is-” 

“Oh, I won't need that. Thanks, Spencer.” You said waving as you left to slink back to your desk. You could hear him calling out behind you, confused. 

“Y/N… Y/N, we split up on cases often, if there's an incident and you need to contact us it's better to have all of the team members numbers,” he panted, jogging to catch up with your focused pace. 

“If I need to contact you, I'll take myself to Agent Garcia’s office and use her direct line,” you said, finally stopping yourself at the elevator and pressing the button. 

He caught up, and stopped abruptly next to you. 

“Oh… oh, yeah that's… that's efficient.” 

You stepped onto the elevator when it arrived, leaving Spencer hesitating whether or not to climb in himself, desperately wondering why you'd ask for his number then. 

“Goodbye, Doctor Reid,” you said, pressing the door close button and blowing him a kiss just before the doors blocked you from sight. 

To tell the truth, you'd had a lot of fun flirting with Spencer on the phone from Penelope’s office during the case. The woman was an inspiration, even if her flirting had a completely different purpose and meaning than your own. Her friendship with Derek Morgan was admirable, but you didn't want to be friends with Spencer Reid. 

“Hello, handsome, what can I do for you today?” You asked, picking up the phone and basking in the stammers that answered you down the line. 

“D-Do you need me to get Morgan for you?” He said, his voice treading lightly. 

“Unless Derek Morgan has, overnight, managed to turn into a 6’1 Doctor with a penchant for cardigans and leather satchels and an IQ of 187, then I am absolutely not looking for him. I have case details.” 

He brushed past your comment, but he kept the slight stammer through the conversation, right until you signed off. 

“Until next time, sexy.”

“Um, yeah… thanks…beautiful?” he signed off, and you guffawed in laughter even as Penelope stared wide-eyed in your direction, not believing her ears. 

“Please forgive our little test tube genius. We forgot to add flirting skills to his childhood curriculum, and now, alas, the poor thing doesn't know a damn thing.” 

He'd called back a few hours later, and you'd purred more compliments down the line, but this time with the team surrounding him as they closed in on your unsub. 

“Hello, this is beautiful speaking. How may I help you?” You giggled down the line, picking up the call after only a single ring. 

“Y/N,” he breathed, catching his breath awkwardly as he struggled to remember why it was you were needed. 

“So… um, like… Hotch has a question about the files you sent earlier. He needs Penelope to… do something as well.” 

You could almost see the awkward nod through the phone. 

“Great. Pass me over to Hotch, then, hot stuff.” 

You heard the tell-tale sound of Derek Morgan’s cackle in the background, and you couldn't help but let another giggle slip out. You were a gonner, and, hopefully, so was he. 

The case wrapped quickly after that, spree killing being a quick game of cat and mouse out of necessity. You weren't happy with three bodies, but it sure as hell was preferable to more. 

You greeted the BAU team at the jet hanger as they returned, reclaiming your fraud files for paperwork and using that simple chore as a reason to get close to Spencer again. 

“Good work out there, Doctor Reid.” 

“What, he's not hot stuff anymore now he's in front of you?” Emily Prentiss laughed, throwing her go bag onto her shoulder and trailing behind where you'd started strolling alongside Spencer. 

“Oh, he's still hot stuff. He's just hot stuff with three PhDs that just stopped a spree killer,” you said, sighing dreamily. “How do you do it?” 

“We were all there too, you know,” the other woman chuckled as you made it inside the building and to the elevator. 

“Yeah, well,” you said, taking a second to reach out and straighten out Spencer's skewed tie, smoothing his jacket and generally just touching him in whatever way you could, respectfully. 

You didn't even bother to finish your sentence, just leaning closer to his ears and whispering directly into them. 

“You're very cute when you're flustered, Doctor Reid.” 

You stepped away for a second while the rest of his team teased him, stepping to the back of the elevator to ascend to your floor while the others departed on theirs. 

They filed out one by one and you sent them off with a smile and a wave, signing in defeat as you realized there was no longer a reason for you to interact with the good doctor ever again. 

If you weren't so stupidly aware of him, you'd almost have missed the fact that Spencer didn't leave the elevator when his teammates did. He instead turned to you and, with the brightest red you'd seen on his face to date, stammered out half a sentence. 

“I.. Y/N, I was just… curious, if you, by any chance…” 

Your eyes widened in joy as you anticipated his question, silently begging him just to spit it out. 

“I was wondering, i-if you had… a boyfriend?” By the end of his sentence, even he seemed unsure of whether that was a question he should really be asking. 

You'd been throwing heart eyes at him for says, and he was asking if you were in a committed relationship. 

“No,” you said slightly breathily, as if your body were trying to expel all the anticipation it had stupidly built up. “No, I don't have a boyfriend, Spencer.”

“Great okay,” he smiled, a boyish grin if you'd ever seen one, before backtracking quickly.

“Well not great for you, great for me. Not that you can't be happy alone, I don't know how you feel about…romantic entanglements and I-I-I’m not saying that your life isn't,” he searched for the words with his hands, as of he could grasp them as a life line while he was sinking fast. “-Great without a boyfriend or anything like that, I'm just - really - pleased that position is currently… vacant?” 

“Spencer?” You said, feeling like a cat who got the cream as a smile twitched at your lips, pulling the corners up as you listened to him ramble. 

“Yes?”

“Do you want to be my boyfriend  or are you asking for a friend?” 

You'd meant the words as a joke  but he stood contemplating for a second. You pushed a hand against your mouth to suppress the childish squeal from popping out. 

“It would be a bit presumptuous to shoot straight for boyfriend, right? How about date ....partner?” 

You couldn't stop yourself from closing in on him then, practically cornering him in the elevator as the floors passed you by.

“Presumptuous would be thinking I could have a boyfriend when I've been begging you to stick your tongue down my throat with my eyes for the last half hour. I thought they taught you body language at the BAU?” 

“They teach us how to catch criminals, not how to see when someone is giving us…fuck me eyes, Y/N.” The curse left you a little dizzy - this was it, this was what you'd been trying to do all week, to get under his skin and get him to let his guard down so you could capture him. 

“Doctor Reid, I'm a little scandalized! I didn't know you swore. What a dirty mouth you have.” You reached up with both hands, letting your thumb on his lips before pretending to wipe something away at the corner of his mouth. You were in the perfect position to notice his throat bob as he swallowed.

The elevator pinged at your floor, and you left him behind you with one last swipe of your fingers at his chin. You weren't expecting him to follow, but he did.

“Y/N…please, Y/N…. Can we just…?” You relished the awkwardness in his voice as he trailed you again, a satisfied smile settling onto your face. 

You just kept walking. Or you did until you felt a large hand wrap around your wrist and pull you sideways into the nearest storage cupboard. 

You gasped as he pinned you to the wall, close not, but his eyes still hesitant on what to do next. 

“Spen-” He cut you off with his lips on yours, silencing you before you could get the final word. His lips were clumsy at first, but you felt hot under his touch  arching yourself up into him. His tongue pushed into your mouth as he found his stride, your hands tangling in his hair as you held on for dear life.

This was it. This was what you'd been waiting for. 

Reluctantly, he pulled away, both of you gasping for breath to fill your suddenly empty lungs. 

“Was that….what… you wanted?” He panted, resting his head on yours. 

There were no words. It was what you wanted but now you wanted more, needed more. You settled for a quick nod as your tongue flamed, unable to say anything helpful. 

“Good. Great…” he removed his hands from you and scratched at the back of his neck, putting a more respectful distance between the two of you as he cleared his throat. 

“I'll just-” he pointed to the door and started making his way out. You sighed again, watching him walk away down the hall, his hair a mess, his tie askew, and a whole lot of your lipstick staining his lips. 

Surely, he'd notice by the time anyone else did. If not, you'd just effectively staked your claim on Doctor Spencer Reid, and you couldn't be happier about it.  

[sophieinwonderland]

The Plurality of... Bill Cipher (The Book of Bill)

Spoiler Warning for Gravity Falls, The Book of Bill, and the nature of reality as you know it

Hello dear reader.

I recently found in my possession a strange book with no explanation as to how it got there. A bizarre tome known only as The Book of Bill.

I recognized the name and imagery from someone else's memories. Bill Cipher, a character from Alex Hirsch's hit series Gravity Falls.

It honestly seemed too perfect. I've been doing this "Plurality of..." series where I look at plurality in media. And an important part of Bill's shtick was possession.

It seemed simple enough. I can read the book, learn a bit about Bill and his possession, and then write an article about his plurality. But the reality was anything by simple, with far more than I bargained for.

And by the end of this post, this book will have driven me to break a fundamental rule I've held sacred through my "Plurality Of..." series.

What is Plurality?

Before we begin, I should explain what plurality is for anyone new here. Plurality is a term for being multiple in one body in some way.

We call the body's occupants "headmates". These can be anything from alters in dissociative disorders to spirit guides bound to a mortal, to... yes... even literal demonic possession.

Yeah, even being possessed by a demonic triangle from a 2-dimensional universe is a type of plurality. If there are multiple self-conscious agents of some kind there, it's plural!

Time To Get Weird!

(Art by magentasnail)

Let's catch you up on the basics real quick. Again, there will be huge Gravity Falls spoilers.

In Gravity Falls, Bill Cipher is a yellow a 2-dimensional triangle demon bent on causing chaos.

Through the series, Bill makes deals with multiple characters to possess their bodies. This includes both gaining full control over the body of protagonist Dipper Pines for an episode, and more interestingly, sharing control over the body of Stanford Pines for an extended period of time.

Bill's possession of Dipper left Dipper outside his body like a ghost. But his deal with Stanford is much more plural in nature, where they shared control, with Bill only controlling the body in his sleep.

Obviously real plural systems don't have headmates controlling their body while they sleep like this, but the experience can be seen as analogous to dissociative identity disorder, where it's common to experience blackouts and "wake up" in situations unsure how you got there.

That's all you really need to know about Bill for the time being.

With that out of the way, it's time get weird and dive straight into the Book of Bill!

The Book of Bills

As I begin reading the Book of Bill, I'm given a warning from Stanford Pines that the book will rewrite itself based on the mind of the reader. This seems silly, and I of course dismiss the idea out of hand. Surely there's no way a book could change itself based on who's reading it.

As I venture further into this tome, I find the occasional point of interest. References to Bill living in people's brain, him being an idea, etc.

I stop briefly to ponder that. Why does Bill refer to himself as an idea? Isn't he canonically a being from a physical 2-dimensional world? Him being described as an idea is peculiar, but something I tuck away for the future.

The first thing I find that really piques my interest in regards to plurality is the multiple times that it's just referenced that there are multiple Bills in Bill's head. Such as when Bill refers to "the voices in his head" teaming up.

In the plural community, there's a concept known as median system.

A median system is typically a system which has separate parts that are less distinct from each other. There's a pretty solid case that Bill, having a bunch of Bills in his head, could be considered a median system on his own.

In fact, the book itself actually depicts communication between multiple Bills, in the form of an interview.

And throughout the interview, there are times where the Prime Bill seemingly gets annoyed at the interviewer's questions. As if they are actually different people. While this could be Bill simply duplicating himself and pretending for comedic effect, it could just as easily be that both Bills are headmates in Bill's system.

Bill being a median system is a pretty interesting direction.

As I read on though, the book dragged me down yet another rabbit hole, and raised an important question.

Does Bill Have A Dissociative Disorder???

Let's talk about dissociative identity disorder. There are two main criteria for DID. Criterion A is the presence of two or more distinct personality states. You know, like those Bills in Bill's head.

The second is memory loss.

Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events.

This is what was on my mind when Bill was describing how he was uniquely gifted with the ability to see into the third dimension, and wanted to teach others this same skill.

But when he tries to recount it... this happened...

To me, this sounds exactly what was described in criterion B. This is also called dissociative amnesia.

And it's not just this one-off example. Bill actually references later that he dissociates (his words) and "wakes up" later after a conquest.

With everything we know, it seems incredibly likely that Bill has DID, or at least a related disorder.

Bill is what he eats

Okay... wait...

So Bill can ALSO imprison the souls of those he eats inside himself, and they can apparently take over Bill's body too???

What actually is going on here? Is this one of Bill's powers? He can just eat entire universes and then whatever he consumes becomes a part of him? Or maybe it's something else...

Maybe if we looked at this less literally and consider the previous hints of Bill having a dissociative disorder then perhaps what is going on is that Bill is introjecting these people.

Maybe whenever he enters somebody's mind, some piece of them remains...

I would love to speculate more on this... But this is the only mention of it in the entire book!

At this point, I begin to reflect on the words at the beginning. Maybe it was true that the book was changing itself to give me what I wanted. Little hints of plurality to keep me reading, to ensnare me in its vicious trap and ultimately drive me to madness.

And the worst part was, I was falling into it anyway. Because I had to know, even if this was a trap, I was in it to the very end. My thirst for knowledge and understanding unquenchable.

Even if I knew I should stop here, there was no going back.

Stanford Pines, Bill's Perfect Host

At last, beyond all of the misdirects that were put in my way, I arrived at the reason that I started on this journey.

Stanford Pines.

I need to say that when I started this journey, planning to delve into what the plurality of Bill and Ford might be like, I never imagined that it would be handled so... Beautifully.

I mean that genuinely!

I love the relationship of these two characters in the book!

They are both very out of place in their own ways. Both are aware of things in their world that are denied by others, leaving them ridiculed and ostracized for it. They manage to form a genuine friendship. Even if Bill was using Stanford the whole time to achieve his Weirdmageddon.

The two compliment each other surprisingly well. Bill provides Stanford with a friend who can get him out of his comfort zone, which is something that I think Stanford really needed.

There's a really fun part of the book where Bill just gets Stanford mind-drunk, which is apparently something he can do.

Bill fills a role in Stanford's life that nobody had since he lost contact with his brother. While Stanford had friend in with Fiddleford, his lab partner, and we do get to see parts of that friendship in the book, they are more like work acquaintances.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Because in the end, Bill is still an evil demon who was bent on bringing about the Weirdmageddon and was manipulating Ford the whole time.

And when Stanford found out, he tried to shut Bill out. This led to Bill trying to communicate through sticky notes to get Ford to stop ignoring him. He would front in the body at night while Ford slept, and they carried on a conversation through these sticky notes.

Wait... Sticky notes?

This is such an interesting choice for the character! Especially after so many hints of Bill Cipher having some sort of dissociative disorder.

Why?

Because sticky notes are an actual method that real DID systems use to communicate with their alters, as seen in this post from the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) website.

It's fascinating how, if you were to try to depict how headmates with strong dissociative barriers might communicate, this is one of the ways you would want to do that!

Is this coincidental? Maybe. But the talk of dissociation earlier suggests the author also has at least some basic knowledge of dissociation and how it works. And, perhaps, plurality as well?

Overall, this whole section with Bill and Ford was fantastic, and it was well-worth the read for that on its own.

The End?

I suppose this is the end. I found what I wanted. I got the content I was after. A cool plural story of a guy and his headmate from another dimension who wants to take over the world.

Through all the strange distractions and hints of Bill himself having headmates that seemingly went nowhere, I got more plurality in the book than I expected.

And yet, as I turn the final page of the book, I feel unsatisfied. Unsettled.

"Is that it?" I think to myself.

This is Gravity Falls, a show built on mysteries, and looking deeper than the surface. Surely there has to be more. Right?

What if... all the plurality in this book, is obscuring something deeper? Or maybe hinting at something deeper...

And then... I see it!

After the final page, I come to the About the Author section.

Which means it's time to talk about...

The Plurality of... Bill Cipher Alex Hirsch

Yes, I am going there!

In the beginning, I promised that this post will require me to break a rule I've held sacred through these posts.

That rule... is to never speculate on the plurality of the author.

But, Alex Hirsch, at least in a fictional sense, hasn't exactly shied away from the idea of being "possessed" by Bill. This dates back at least a decade, with him making Tweets like this one.

"Bill Cipher" even did an AMA on Reddit through Alex, playing it off as Bill possessing Hirsch while he slept.

It's a pretty open secret in the Gravity Falls community that Alex Hirsch is "possessed" by Bill. At least in some meta-fiction way that may not be canon to Gravity Falls but isn't quite real either.

And were my analysis to stop here, I wouldn't really be saying anything new or valuable. A lot of this was covered by MatPat on Film Theory.

But there's something I want to go back to that confuses me in this book.

That Bill Cipher... is an idea?

Let's bring this full circle, back to the beginning of the book where Bill mentions that he's imaginary and describes himself as an idea.

These are such weird lines because Bill didn't seem to have originated from people's minds within the narrative of Gravity Falls.

His story is of being a being from a literal flat world. So why then, does he describe himself as an idea? Why does he describe himself as imaginary???

Bill Cipher as Alex Hirsch's Tulpa

While Bill being an idea doesn't make sense if he's speaking as a being from a 2-dimensional world that's real to him, it does make sense if we consider that the Bill talking to us, who wrote the Book of Bill, is a tulpa sharing the body of its creator.

Before going on though, we need to answer an important question. What is a tulpa? The r/tulpas subreddit gives its own answer to this in its FAQ.

The simplest way to describe a tulpa is simply another person who was created intentionally/unintentionally through repeated interaction and shares a body and mind with their creator. A more complicated definition can go as follows: A tulpa is believed to be an autonomous consciousness coinhabiting a brain with their creator, often with a form of their creator's initial choice and design. A tulpa is entirely sentient and in control of their opinions, feelings, form and movement. They are willingly created via a number of techniques to act as companions, muses, and advisers. Tulpa forms can either be visualized in the mind's eye, or, with practice, seen as a hallucinatory figure using a technique called imposition.

And let's stop there on the line about being created as muses, because this is something that's found repeated throughout both The Book of Bill and Journal 3, with Stanford referring to Bill as his "muse."

It's a curious term that doesn't appear in the show, but was added to the lore in these two supplemental books.

The FAQ goes on to explain that while tulpas are often considered to be intentionally created, there are also accidental tulpas that can arise through imaginary friends or from writing characters.

Is it possible to accidentally make a tulpa? Yes - many people join the community after realizing they have had tulpas all their lives, but without knowing what they were called. These "accidental" tulpas often arise from imaginary friends and writing/roleplay characters.

On the point of roleplay characters, something I also haven't mentioned yet is that Alex Hirsch didn't just write the character of Bill Cipher. He WAS Bill Cipher. In the show, Bill is one of the characters Hirsch voices along with Grunkle Stan and Soos.

Writing tulpas and how they come about are discussed a bit more below:

Is this a new phenomena? No, it's a practice that goes back in recorded history at least as far as the Greek philosophers. The present name of the phenomenon is derived from the word used by Tibetan monks in the early 20th century. There's also evidence to suggest dedicated prayer can lead to the development of 'religious tulpas' in the minds of the particularly devout, and on the secular end, writing techniques similar to tulpa development techniques can and have resulted in writers creating accidental tulpas from their characters. Having a tulpa is nothing new, although it's gone by many names throughout the course of history and does so even today. However, we believe we are one of the first groups to address this practice as a psychological phenomena rather than a magical, occult or divine experience.

Tulpamancy and Attention

There was another passage from the book that I found noteworthy.

At the end, Stanford describes what truly sustains Bill isn't power, but attention, which Stanford describes as Bill's "lifeblood."

It's even underlined for emphasis.

Why is this important? Well first, this line goes back to the weird lines earlier suggesting Bill is an idea.

But more importantly, feeding on attention is something which is actually a pretty popular philosophy in tulpamancy. That tulpas feed on and are sustained by the attention of their hosts.

How do I give my tulpa energy? Tulpas are sustained by attention, and energy is a convenient metaphor for this. So, you can give your tulpa energy by interacting with them. It is also possible, through no shortage of work and time on the part of host and tulpa alike, for a tulpa to grow beyond this need and to learn how to sustain themselves.

How much attention/energy/interaction does my tulpa need? During the creation process you should aim to interact with your tulpa daily, anywhere from a few minutes up to a few hours, and narrating to them as and when you can. After they're fully vocal and active, the bare minimum is just acknowledging their existence, but spending time talking to them and interacting with them is very much the point of bringing them into existence. Just don't ignore them, and you'll both be fine.

On Parallels in Writing

Adding another layer, it's likely that Stanford Pines is at least partially based on Alex Hirsch himself.

One point of trivia is that Alex Hirsch has a twin sister, and Gravity Falls was inspired by vacations they would take as children. Dipper and Mabel being based on Alex and his sister is pretty well-known. But towards the end of season 2, it's revealed that their Grunkle Stan is a twin himself, with his brother being Stanford Pines, the author of the journals.

During this part of the story, it starts creating a parallel between the relationships of the younger and older twins, with Dipper (who is based on Alex) bonding with Stanford over how much they have in common. Both are nerds who are into writing and science and uncovering the mysteries of the world. Both are a bit socially awkward as well.

And while not much attention is drawn to this particular connection, both had experiences of making deals with Bill that let Bill takeover their bodies at different points.

Based on the parallels between Dipper and Stanford, one might speculate that Alex based Dipper on his younger self, while Stanford was loosely based on himself as an adult.

The personalities of these two characters are also the most likely to create a tulpa based on the psychological profiles of most tulpamancers.

In 2016, Dr. Samuel Veissiere, a psychiatry professor at McGill University, found the following in his study of tulpamancers:

From coding of qualitative interviews collected in large surveys, the most common tulpamancer profile to emerge is one of a highly cerebral, imaginative, highly articulate, upper-middle class, formally educated person with many consistently pursued interests, talents, and hobbies, but limited channels of physical social interaction. Typical tulpamancers are confident about their talents, but are quite modest and socially shy. They possess – or have cultivated – a high propensity for concentration, absorption, hypnotisability, and non-psychotic sensory hallucinations.

The psychological profile of tulpamancers fits both Dipper and Stanford to a t. And many of these same traits could just as easily be true for Alex Hirsch if these characters were meant to be stand-ins for himself.

Is Alex Hirsch trying to tell us that he's plural?

In the end, this is just a theory. And it's one that I feel nervous making because plurality is so deep and personal. That's why I've avoided speculating on the plurality authors in the past. Even when the writing feels so true to the plural experience that it's hard to imagine that someone who isn't plural wrote it.

So why am I making an exception with this one?

Well, in this particular case, I think that the breadcrumbs are being left intentionally, and if he is plural, then he expects somebody to follow them. I'm not worried that I would be outing somebody who didn't want others to find out.

With Alex Hirsch's love of codes and clues and mysteries, if he were plural, I have to imagine that the hints weren't accidental and he would be wondering if anybody would follow them.

And if I am completely off base and he's not plural, I think that he would still appreciate the theorizing anyway. 🤷‍♀️

But if these are intentional clues that were left behind to hint at a real life plurality, one might ask why.

Why would he want people to know about it, and hint at it in this way?

Well, I think the Book of Bill might have an answer to that too.

Shame is a powerful emotion. But it grows in the dark. The more I've tried to hide my past with Bill, the more hold it's had over me.

Perhaps this line is meant to reflect Alex Hirsch's own feelings. Because many plural systems have felt this same way about their plurality, having hide their relationships to their headmates.

The actual end now

Finally, we come to the real ending of this.

This is, again, just a theory. I don't want anyone taking it as fact. I admit that I could be completely wrong about everything that I've said here.

But if nothing else, it's at least fun to imagine that Alex Hirsch does have a Bill Cipher tulpa in his head that has been acting as his muse this whole time. And it would give a new meaning to the gag of the Weirdmageddon intro saying Gravity Falls was "created by Bill Cipher" all those years ago.

Thanks for reading, and if you have your own muse that you think might be more than a simple muse, be sure to read my guide on how to know if your imaginary friend is sentient.

And if you like this post and want to see more like it, you may want to check out The Plurality of… Avatar: The Last Airbender or The Plurality of… IF

[agentmarvel]

Hiii! I was wondering if I could request f!reader x the cod boys reaction to her taking a sick day after having an IUD placed, either platonic or an established relationship with one of them, up to you. I can only imagine mixed reactions, especially after learning what all goes into the procedure. This is totally self indulgent so I was hoping for it to be on the fluffier side, BUT no worries if you’re not interested!!

Thank you!!🤍💐

i love this🖤 thank you for requesting, kat! hope you enjoy!

mdni - 18+; minors and ageless blogs will be blocked

141 x afab!reader (individual pairings - head canon format)

☆

john is worried.

“not like you to take a sick day, dove. you sure you’ll be alright ‘til i get back?”

tbh, he’s so pressed about it. he knew in advance what the procedure would look like - educated himself after the birth control discussion came up - but your body isn’t reacting the way either of you had hoped. it’s far worse.

scared the hell out of him when you called yesterday afternoon and asked that he pick you up. obstinate, headstrong thing that you are, you declined his offer to accompany you to the appointment in the first place. you were in no condition to drive.

the thought of leaving you now, even for morning pt with the team, sets his teeth on edge. you’re strong, he knows. you can handle yourself just fine. but what kind of man would he be to leave his girl when she feels this fucking awful? - spoiler alert: he’s not going anywhere.

with your reassurance (and telling him he’s being a bigger baby than you about it), he tucks you into your nest of pillows and blankets, leaves ibuprofen and a cup of water on your side table, and makes sure your heating pad is plugged in and within reach.

simon is supportive.

“i’ve seen you shot, stabbed, blown up, burnt, broken bones; you’re a tough bird, you can handle it.”

you’ve been through worse. you both know that. doesn’t mean that he isn’t sympathetic to the pain you’re feeling, though. he watches you like a hawk, monitoring every scrunch of your nose or pained grimace or you squeezing your eyes shut just a little too tight. you’ll take the meds he picked up for you like clockwork with the fresh cuppa he brings you every four hours. he’ll take the day off with you, let you squeeze his hand when a cramp or muscle spasm is particularly gnarly.

he’ll hold you while you nap, too - playing with your hair, keeping you centered on top of him with one bulky arm slung across your hips, wishing the whole time that he could trade bodies with you until the aches are gone.

johnny is pissed.

“an’ they donnae give ye fuckin’ anesthetic? och! tha’s fuckin’ cruel s’what tha’ is!”

this man is L I V I D. he didn’t know the details of iud placement until you made him watch a video, and he’s been going off the rails since. it infuriates him to no end that you’re expected to just tough it out with nothing more than basic fucking pain relievers. don’t even get him started on that medieval torture device you called a ‘tenaculum’ that they stabbed you with!

he’s planning a murder while he orders a delivery of supplies. angrily, his thumbs punch at his screen as he selects all the things he even thinks you might need to get through the week - even though you keep telling him you’re sure you’ll be fine tomorrow. 

“not gonna stab my hen and get away with it.”

(when you ask what he’s muttering about over there, he tosses his phone aside, rolls you into his arms, kisses the top of your head, and tells you lunch is on the way.)

kyle is sympathetic.

“poor thing,” he murmurs, kissing your temple. “what can i do to help?”

like price, kyle took the liberty of doing his research. 

cramps and muscle aches/spasms are common after placement, and some women will actually pass out in the minutes following the procedure. he texted a medic friend to get ahold of some muscle relaxers for you, picked up standard issue pain meds, bananas for potassium to combat the cramps, a second heating pad (one for each side), chocolates, tea, and a new plushy for you to squeeze on. your boyfriend was adamant that he take you to and from your appointment, even if you didn’t want him in the room while it was happening. every single base is covered in advance to mitigate the worst case scenario.

when you curl into the fetal position, gritting out an abrupt “all good”, he wraps himself around you like a shield.

[brucewaynehater101]

Have you ever read a fic called A Medication On Railroading? Because I think you'll like it. Basic summery with no spoilers: Jack takes Tim on a trip to Atlanta and then leaves him in Atlanta so he goes train hopping to get home. Very hurt/comfort.

But it also gives me an idea that I'm not sure where to share. What if that wasn't Tim's first time getting home like that? Maybe the first time was just New York when he was say... 9 years old? His parents took him with them to a Gala and Jack thought Janet called him a car home and Janet thought Jack took care of it. Neither one did and Tiny Tim figured out how to get home on his own. It happens again when he's 11 so he already knows what to do, he studied up in case it happened again.

After the second time, anytime Tim is with his parents he keeps his camera bag on him at all times which has 300 dollars in it that he can use on getting home. Tim also discovers during the second one that trains are *way* better than busses and cabs. He's all alone, just him and the scenery and whatever cargo his car holds. He can Fully Relax. He doesn't have to be the perfect heir, he doesn't have to smile for the cameras, he doesn't have to be quiet or good or perfectly polite. He can scream and laugh and cry if he wants to and no one will ever know! He can sing and curse and throw rocks at things! He can be a *kid*.

After Tim becomes Robin, he never calls Batman for a pick up if he's abandoned somewhere and instead will make his own way home. Heck, after some missions with Young Justice he will turn off his trackers and ride trains home so that he can loudly vent about them without having to worry about anyone ever knowing what he said!

This does become a slight problem when he's 17 and Bruce needs him for something and finds out from Bart that their mission ended a day and a half ago. But Tim never called for pick up. And his trackers are all offline. And he never hit his emergency beacon and *no one can find him*. Bruce totally isn't freaking out. The other Bats totally aren't freaking out. Young Justice totally isn't freaking out. There totally isn't a panic spreading through the super hero community about Red Robin maybe being dead I a ditch somewhere and how both Batman and his team will react.

Tim meanwhile is straight vibing as he reclines on a stack of bags of rice like they're pillows, singing along to some sound track he downloaded onto his MP3 player, having turned the volume to max and nearly screaming the lyrics because it's the one time he feels like he can.

Yes! I love that fic you mentioned. It's really really good. Perhaps I should re read it since it's been a minute.

Also, I absolutely adore the little tidbit you've added. A few things to note that I love about it:

No one else knows/finds out until he's Red Robin

It's a semi-decent coping mechanism. He gets to chill out, vibe, and process. He's also in touch with nature and music during this.

Tim drops his various masks to simply exist for a bit

Tim chilling on some rice bags in a train cart with an MP3 player (not even his phone. This indicates he's fully offline during these trips)

A few additional notes to add. One, this could buff up the canon notion that pre-Robin Tim traveled far to go see Dick at the circus and convince him to become Robin again. If Tim had already done that twice unexpectedly, he'd do swell when he actually plans to do it.

Two, Tim probably created a white noise generator or something to give him totally privacy on his "me trips." This is why Kon and Superman freak out. They can't hear him.

Three, he probably gets covered in grime, dust, and dirt. He's no longer in the pristine environment he grew up in.

Gods. That sounds so nice and relaxing. I'm actually kind of jealous. Just the wind, music, and the slowly changing scenery? Fuuuck.

[cozzzynook]

Can I get Murderbot Bee in TFOne and the team finding out?

Mild spoilers

Murderbot bee being dumped into the 50th sub level because Sentinel Prime had him do a lot of dirty work.

He enlisted Bee to kill off any of the bots who dared speak out against his name and his rule. Those who questioned his story on what happened to the primes and poked the holes in his lies.

Bee murdered them. He murdered all of them.

Alongside Airachnid, Bee killed many civilians and the leftover high guard who learned or knew the truth.

Airachnid is completely guilty of her crimes.

But Bee is innocent in the fact he was only a young sparkling when he committed these acts.

In fact he’s still a sparkling when they find him.

He was a sparkling solider.

One Sentinel picked from the last remaining sparkling centers before the energon falls dried up and reproduction stopped completely.

He took out Bee’s cog and would only allow him to use it when murdering for him.

The constant removal shorted out so many important circuits and components in Bee that it stunted his growth and affected his memory.

It was only made worse when his goal was completed and Sentinel decided he didn’t need a dysfunctional sparkling or proof of his misdeeds running around.

So he threw Bee to sub level 50 with a false promise to come get him in a few days or weeks and just never went back. In fact he forgot about Bee and assumed the sparkling died or smelted himself on accident with the trash.

Bee was down there all that time awaiting orders until eventually he forgot everything and went a little crazy from being alone so long.

Thankfully D-16 & Orion find him when they’re thrown down to level 50.

Of course they question why he’s so tiny and upon remembering the archives and the stories older miners told they realize this is a sparkling.

This is the first push to D-16 becoming Megatron actually and a pretty big one the moment Bee stumbles while walking on pedes too big for him and holds his finger while looking up at him with his helm turned to the side and his little head ears flicking.

Its the push Orion needs to become a leader and they both escape the sub level after eventually stumbling upon the call from Alpha Trion.

Of course the events happen somewhat the same but instead they have a sparkling with them and are a bit more careful about things.

The former high guard aren’t as violent in the presence of a traumatized sparkling and Alpha Trion has more steam in him at the sight of Bee and knowing he was basically cog tortured.

Bee cried really hard after receiving his cog and it took Orion and d-16 a long time to calm him down.

Poor Bee doesn’t know any of the high command thats still living but he does have flashes of memory come back as he sees holo pictures of the mechs and femmes he’s killed.

The high guard is familiar with sparkling soldiers and they can begin to see whats going on as Bee begins to fuss and cry.

The majority don’t blame him and those that do are really just overcome with grief at the loss of their missing loved one.

They know Bee isn’t at fault.

They just have more reason to hunt Sentinel down and kill him.

So this time, when Megatron kills Sentinel, Optimus doesn’t banish him.

He asks Megatron if he can destroy their home, the home Bee never got to see. The home they can now finally explore, together.

Megatron still has anger and hatred in his spark that needs tending.

But he doesn’t become a tyrant.

He becomes the freedom fighter instead.

[tyquu]

Absolutely love your prosthetic Ezra AU. Arts so wonderful and stunning (Sorry if I spell it wrong, English is not my first language)

If you don't watch Asoka show you can ignore my question, because of spoilers)))

I have a bunch of little questions. Ezra spent almost ten years in other galaxy. What is the quality of his prosthesis when he returned home? How did he deal with breakdowns without the right tools and parts?

Anyway, love your AUs and amazing art style!

Wahhh thank you so much! Glad to hear you like the AU!

So I haven’t actually finished Ahsoka (I know, im sorry 😭) but at this point I feel like I know roughly enough to take a crack at this! So here’s what I came up with;

So, Ezra’s cybernetic, as discussed in the post where I went into detail on it, requires pretty regular maintenance in order to function. Stranded on Peridea and without access to any med care/tech from the chimera, Ezra’s cybernetic would begin to go faulty within months.

At most he’d probably be able to make things just about work for three months post crash before it would have to come off. Grabbing a stick to use as a cane, there would be a few months where he has to really go back to basics, and it is not ideal.

However, Ezra would get crafty! Either with supplies he’d have stolen from the chimera or gathered on his own, and he’d end up with various self made peg legs! They aren’t perfect but with every iteration tend to get a bit better.

After staying with the Noti for a while, he’d finally have access to better materials and craftsmanship, and make a final design for his post crash prosthetic. It includes an adjustable buckle, prosthetic knee mechanism, and polished wood transtibial prostheses below the knee.

Obviously it would still need the occasional part replacement due to wear and tear as time goes on, but I don’t think it would change drastically from this point onwards, not until he gets back to lesser space of course, where I’m sure he’d go get checked out by a whole med team and possibly get his cybernetic replaced

But yeah!! That’s all I’ve got. I’m not a massive Ahsoka believer tbh, and I kinda split off in the middle to dabble a little bit on what an “Ezra and Thrawn in wild space adventures” prosthetic situation would end up being like. Especially with the possibility of introducing the ascendancy. But I decided to halt that train of thought for now so I could address the Ahsoka show specifically 🫡

Thanks again for the ask! Hope this sort of makes sense (and please do let me know if it doesn’t!) :D)

[amxrany]

!! CHAPTER 7 / DIASOMNIA ARC SPOILERS !!

Going into Vil's dream now lesgoooooo (warning i cannot find a lot for vil's segment for some reason so if i miss a lot of information im so sorry):

So I understand why they released Tapis Rouge before this update, because we are now in The Queen's Film Studio, where Vil tells everyone to look forward to live broadcast of the Diamond Film Awards (this is most likely a reference to another Diamond in-game)

(sheesh new vil outfit again)

But basically yeah Vil's dream is to be the fairest of them all and he got Neige as his assistant 😭

Rook sees that it is indeed Neige, and the group tries to get closer to Vil. But Vil called Grim a stray cat and shooed him away, he's now sad :((

Vil assumes we're paparazzi and tells Neige to throw us out, and we find out that Vil just abuses Neige. So the group tries to convince him to report Vil, but Neige becomes blot and tries to fight the group

(I like their weapon it looks neat)

They defeat Neige but security is now after their ass, and it's revealed that Diamon Film Awards is a type of awards show for actors and that in reality, Neige was the one who won the award. But in this timeline, it's Vil who wants the award. Not understanding how Vil changed, Idia mentions that Malleus's magic allows them to experience happy dreams, and those dreams can also release any resentment you hold deep inside.

We then go to Vil receiving his award, but Rook stops him by telling him his time in NRC, but Vil tells him he doesn't know what he's talking about; and we go through the dizzy-but-is-trying-to-remember-everything segment again. However, the darkness was swallowing Vil up, and we couldn't save him in time because Neige managed to sink him down even further but Rook used his unique magic to follow Vil

So basically this next dream is the "What if Vil succesfully poisoned Neige and won VDC" scenario, we're in the part where Neige actually drank the poisoned apple juice and yknow, dies, and the dwarves are surrounding him crying

Epel uses "Sleep Kiss" to see if there's still a chance in saving him and let's just say it's the most Snow White reference I've ever seen. Oh and Rook is on the verge of breaking down

On stage, Vil's team has won VDC, but Rook and Epel come in to stop Vil by reminding him how he overblotted, and that causes Vil to wake up. Vil is back to normal and he's grateful that Rook and Epel came to save him and Epel said of course, we're your hunter and poisoned apple after all

The darkness comes back again to swallow Vil, but Rook and Epel aren't letting go. But idia orders Ortho to tell Rook and Epel to let Vil go. So you guys remember that one part during the last update where Idia fight his own phantom in OB!Form? Yeah we're doing that too but with Vil.

It's similar to that of the concept of Persona 4, where you learn how to accept yourself, even the ugly parts of yourself. Because Vil decided to use his weakness as his strength and overblotted to fight against his own phantom

MORE EVIL LAUGHTER AS VIL CELEBRATES HIS VICTORY DECLARING THAT HE'S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF THEM ALL. We are then transported back to the fake event with Dream Neige where Vil tells him that he is indeed the most beautiful of them all (that is so true queen go slay)

Pomefiore all go in for a hug, and the others join in as well

Sebek was surprised that Pomefiore wasn't just all about beauty, but they were really strong as well, and then Idia thought it was funny to show their Absolutely Beautiful cover in which Vil proceeds to ruthlessly criticize them for it 💀

Vil receives his own invitation of deafeating Malleus and that's where the update ends

HOOOO BOY where do i start, this update is so funny it honestly took me forever just to look for parts of Vil's segment. But assuming that we're going backwards the next update will most likely focus on Scarabia so manifesting that we get a Kalim card next so that we can complete the light trio fr fr

Anyways, see you soon in the next update!

Previous: Rook's Dream

[lokiina]

Lucanis x Rook x Spite

Okay hear me out tho

Throuples? Not usually my jam. Unless things like, genuinely make sense and it feels like it actually works. But I guess it's just cuz that's how I view most ships in general. But basically I've never made a throuple just for the sake of having a throuple. That's just not for me.

BUT.

lemme just.....

(I'm putting this behind a cut cuz it's a lot of rambling most people probs don't care about. There are spoilers not like HEAVY spoilers but def stuff mentioned from like end game time frame.)

I do think Spite actually appreciates Rook from the get go, at least in my play it felt like that cuz I never reacted to Spite related convos in a perceived negative way. And all Spite really wants to do is talk to Rook from the start, Lucanis is the one stubborn about that not happening for a while. The main time he properly can, he literally asks Rook for help. Like genuinely asks for help for both him and Lucanis. "Help us" he says.

So I think his fondness for Rook grows like Lucanis' does. Naturally over time. Now is it because they're tied together? Who knows. I'm not sure it's clear that their feelings influence each others, I don't think that's addressed, the two still feel pretty separate in that regard...? (I'm in the middle of replaying so maybe there's shit I missed the first time I dunno)

Now the wings situation there's a voice line where Lucanis openly admits to Harding he has 0 control over the wings. The wings are 100% Spite. So spite does it to help. So them fighting is just team up, rather than one using the other. So if there's ever a situation Spite might be mad at Lucanis, he's probs gonna get no help. No wings. sdjhfgdjfhg

BUT THIS MEANS in the Romance scene when those wings pop... Spite's consciously involved. He's made the decision to not sit this one out. My guy created a threesome without warning. 😂 Either he is just like super rooting for them and ships them too and is being the worlds best wingman (pun intended) by lending aid or he's getting in on that action cuz he's also developed some sort of feels as well. Tbh it could go either way... The point is, he got involved.

But there's also evidence later in a possible party banter with Solas where Spite accuses Solas of trying to hurt Rook and is like ready to go to war for Rook against Solas. kdfjghdfkjgh

So... We have no idea what Spite and Lucanis chat about when Rook isn't around so who knows. But the vibes are there where this would in fact be a situation where this kind of ship makes sense.

Either way those three really need to talk about this... 😂

[echostarz123]

rant about Mitsi

(Spoilers for AvA 11)

First of this might be a hot take but she is not a badly written character!!

Mitsi was shown to be kind and sweet and a "typical female character" but she wasn't shown like that cause she was a girl she was shown like that to actually show that she was genuinely kind. I've also seen people complaining about her "overly feminine" design, but Alan has created characters that are female who aren't overly feminine like pink/orchird. None of the stick figures even technically have genders so there isn't a point in that argument.

And about her actual character, the reason she seems basic is because we didn't get to spend much time with her. Try and tell me you knew Tsc's personality in the episode he was introduced. It takes time to show off characters personalitys and I completely understand why Alan didn't spend that time with Mitsi. He was focusing on plot point and the backstory. He wanted us to know about her existing and being in Victims life but not to get us attached.

The reason she was made by Alan and his team was to show that Victim experienced kindness. Someone have him kindness and it was taken away. Just because she was used as a tool in the plot doesn't mean she exists for Victim.