#(i'm not totally sure where you are in the comic timeline so this is Extreme Bullshit i'm sorry my bad)

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

I'm not opposed to hear your rambling of DP in dungeon meshi

Ayyy someone asked! 

Oh, you’ve activated my trap card.

So, naturally, I cannot find the post because Tumblr ate it off my blog, BUT what they’re referring to is a post about how the Fenton parents could have TOTALLY ended up overshooting when trying to get to the Ghost Zone and ended up in different worlds instead… and thus decided ‘hey free children!’ And surprise adopted (read: kidnapped) both Jazz and Danny from two different realms. 

I actually had a LOT of ideas on how you could do this. But, I ultimately decided that a post-canon approach was best for this little exercise. Not that you COULDN’T add Jazz and Danny, I suppose, but the timeline and the character movements are, for lack of better terms of it, EXTREMELY tight. You can wiggle an OC in there, sure, but for a fully developed character from ANOTHER media, especially one as OP as Danny, it’s far more difficult. 

That’s my way of saying, this absolutely has Dungeon Meshi spoilers if you’ve never read the manga and don’t know how it ends. That’s my only warning. 

So here’s the ideas and eventual story (there’s elements that are general and some that are specific to whatever storyline I ended up with) that I have doubts I will ever write but someone might as well enjoy them. I technically wrote a few scenes in my notes app, but these aren’t those, this is—kind of the whole roadmap? It’s a little funky still though, haha. 

Here goes!

As with the post, Jazz is Barbara Gordon’s twin, and Danny was actually a half foot. And now he’s a halfa halffoot. Lmao. Lol even. 

Before I chose to do a post-canon approach, I considered having the Fentons as a party. Jazz and Danny are basically playing babysitter to their FAR too enthusiastic parents who keep almost or actually dying because they’re exploring the whole immortal dungeon thing. While that is scrapped, some of the ideas I did have came from this, er, phase of development? So I felt it was worth a shoutout. 

Marcille describes magic (well, mana) as coming from ‘The Infinite’, which is also where demons come from. And these demons can do things like grant wishes, ‘feed’ off of emotion, and change people. They also, once sealed into dungeons, do various things inside these dungeons, including making animals that cannot exist without magic for very long but also seem to still require a sort of internal logic. This sounds a LOT like how ghosts work in Danny Phantom, if you take maybe a hint of liberty and a dose of speculation about how lairs likely work. 

Basically, The Infinite = the Ghost Zone, also known as the Infinite Realms. Demons = Ghosts. Dungeons = Lairs. And, most importantly… Ectoplasm = Magic. 

For my own sanity and also for a successful meshing of these two very different universes, I’ve decided to go with the semi-fanon idea that the influences of the people in the living world can create things in the Infinite Realms. Belief creates reality, basically. For example, perhaps Pandora was never alive in the first place, but because people heard and believed her story so much, she became a ghost (realms being, demon, what have you). So, while those in Amity Park might not have initially believed much in ghosts, they saw them, and because people saw Phantom as powerful and either villain or hero-like, Danny and the rest of the ghosts became more like comic book characters than spooky ghosts (somewhat explains how things are still a LITTLE spooky, but seem a bit more heavy on the probably dead people thing at the beginning of the series). 

Similarly, demons became what they are over time as the people of the world influenced them. You could call what demons started as, as ‘proto ghosts’, and that every world that HAS ghosts has them, and the beliefs change them into whatever form and binds them to whatever rules the dimension now holds. 

There should still be some universal ‘laws’, though. For example, ghosts exist in both stories, and so do magic, as do spaces that operate at least SLIGHTLY outside the usual laws that govern the area outside of it (again, lairs and the Ghost Zone, dungeons in general). 

All this to say—when Danny ends up in the Dungeon Meshi world, he ends up being a very unorthodox and extremely powerful mage, but might lose a good percentage of his usual ghost powers. He is not salty about this, no, really, ITS FINE JAZZ.  

This would be less of a problem if there wasn’t a SLIGHT issue about halffoots being known as not being magically inclined… and those that might have had an interest in the past sorta-kinda got taken by the elves. 

Another note is that this isn’t going to be a particularly Fenton parents friendly sort of story, because the whole thing STARTS with them KIDNAPPING CHILDREN and passing them off as their own. I’m sure there are ways to spin it as a happy tale, but uhhhhhhhhhhh. I’m not. 

An additional point that you do NOT have to take from this if you make your own story is, if you’re a big fan of halffoots having tails (which, to fit with the humans-all-have-the-same-bones thing, are made of cartilage), you can have Danny have been docked as a baby by the Fentons. Adjust angst regarding that to your own tastes, but I imagine its probably something that HAD been done in the past for not-great-reasons, and so the social stigma for the parents doing that to their child is messed up—but due to the dangers of dungeoneering, some halffoots may have lost their tails in accidents or just because they were THAT serious. Point is, it’s at minimum a gossip point. 

Anyways, as halffoots are very short, and Danny is one, by age fourteen his teachers are probably going to go ‘uuuuhhhh, I think there’s a problem here?’ But the Fenton parents are oddly reluctant to arrange a doctor’s visit to check for various possible causes of potential dwarfism. Like, they’re already dodgy about doctor visits, but this seems particularly avoidant. 

Both Jazz and Danny might know that they’re adopted, but even if they don’t, they know where all their papers are. So they snoop through them to see if there’s any leads or anything. 

There’s various ways to for them to figure it out—realizing there’s no paper trail about their adoptions or about how delayed the at-home-birth paperwork was—but one that I did contemplate was that the Fentons KEPT the tail they cut off Danny as a baby, claiming it was a ‘lower spine surgery and don’t worry about it champ!’. 

As you might imagine, he’s worried about it. But also, you can nix that plot point if you’re not a fan. (Well, I mean it technically my own story developing here, but—part of this exercise is to see what other people would take away from what I’ve got too.)

More searching through papers and likely a conversation if not confrontation with the parents later, Jazz and Danny learn about the different realms and such. 

Jazz is still worried about Danny’s health. They SEEMED human, but what if they weren’t and they were just lucky to not have gotten super sick? Or what if they’ll live thousands of years or something?? 

Danny is, understandably, a little upset about everything too. So they both pack what they might need, basing their travel kits on what notes they DID have about the world they were heading to (minimal technology, so laptops were a bad idea, but Jazz did pack a bunch of instructional books on How To Make Things), and got the dimensional coordinates to where they needed to go. Or, if you don’t wanna explain HOW those dimensional coordinates are still accurate or how that system might work now that the Ghost Zone was there, because who knew how to navigate that place on a GOOD day, Danny could just ask Frostbite or Clockwork for a quick favor. On that note, Danny should probably have a way home—personally, I gave him the starting ability to make portals, although they’re not YET powerful to get through, which is why he’s concerned that he might actually be unwell on his human side. 

POINT IS. Jazz and Danny arrive, taking the name Nightingale just in case their parents went around calling themselves as Fenton and pissing people off by, oh say, kidnapping their child. 

A quick survey around tells them a bit about the world, with Danny probably very used to being very adaptable on the fly. And also we’ll let him keep invisibility. As a treat. Though it may now be a bit more difficult to do. Jazz is tasked to either help Danny to let him hide behind her presence when needing to actually be invisible, read through the travel journal from the Fentons to find clues to Danny’s birth family, and her own self imposed mission to reinvent running water and water filtration systems. She is not about this no-indoor-plumbing life. 

As it so happens, with the Golden Kingdom beginning to pop up, there’s plenty of spaces and houses in various states of repair that they’re currently REALLY trying to fill up. Jazz files some paperwork about being refugees, and they take a house that’s pretty far into the woods for most of the people looking for a place. The two need the space, as they are keeping literal dimensional secrets. Other than the lengthy walk to town, it’s fine. Plus, it lets Jazz do her plumbing project. 

Once they both have a pretty good grasp on things, Danny C-student Nightingale realizes OH. WHAT IF I’M A HALFFOOT— wait no I’m not going by that. Call me a hobbit instead. In Jazz’s defense, she spent most of her time grasping everything else about the world, or otherwise spent most of her time they spent either camping in the woods or making their new house LIVEABLE that the whole ‘different races’ thing completely sped by her. Plus, where they live might be more Tallman heavy. 

Good to know he’s healthy though! But they’re already here, and they do actually want to find Danny’s family, and… it’s just… been very nice and not stressful. The ghosts hadn’t been bothering Danny nearly as much back home, to the point where he felt pretty comfortable leaving it in Valerie’s capable hands, but this is the most relaxed he’s been in a while. It’s amazing what not living with people who would skin you semi-alive will do for mental health. 

They also realize they maybe need to like… make money. 

Good news is, when they switched dimensions, they automatically became able to speak Common. And, as a compensation for losing some of his other abilities, Danny can have omnilingualism. He also keeps his ice powers, mostly, and he’s pretty sure he kept his Ghostly Wail. 

There ARE reasons why he keeps the powers he does. In short, he’s still part ghost (or, part demon here, but words are just words and in this case, both just mean ‘realms being’), so turning invisible is fine. So is making things cold—and, as he’s also human and able to use magic, he can create ice like other mages do. He also has limited intangibility, but for reasons involving ‘I don’t recall any mages doing it’, he has more trouble with it than usual. As for the Ghostly Wail, its similar to the mandrake cry, and thus something that likely involves magic to do—as a veritable wellspring of magic, as he’s kinda sorta a dungeon master ruled by HIMSELF now, he has plenty to spare. Plus, banshee legends might still exist in Dungeon Meshi. As for the languages thing… it’s me throwing him a bone for taking away his ability to use lasers. I might let him overshadow people, but seeing as that just kills people in Dungeon Meshi, I might not. 

The two siblings begin taking odd jobs in town. The people think it’s a LITTLE odd that a Tallman (Jazz) and a Halffoot (HOBBIT, Danny) are siblings, but they usually just explain that they were both taken in by the same couple. If anyone even slightly insinuates it’s something else, the two both start gagging before they begin lecturing the gossiper. 

While Danny’s skills as an interpreter ARE extremely valuable, they find that with so many new people in this town that, apparently, JUST rose out of the gotdang sea, that there are many people looking for all sorts of odd things, and THAT is something Jazz is more suited for than translating, seeing as the only language that she knows from THIS world is Common. 

In short, she finds out about potions. You know, that thing mentioned like ONCE at the beginning of the Dungeon Meshi series and NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN (afaik). 

Ingredients are a liiiittle hard to come by in markets, but most of them just need magic to grow, right? And Danny can make magic ice that turns into magic water. 

Jazz starts a farm. When Danny starts taking home books and such to translate on a commission basis, mostly in order to avoid another close call about knowing ancient elvish languages that they may or may not be incredibly suspicious about him being able to know, he takes care of a lot of the gardening. 

It’s at this point that Danny finds out he can just take a mandrake that’s in a pot, dunk it in a barrel of water, and harvest that way. It’s still a bit LOUD, but it won’t harm or kill anyone. And, the water now has magic toxins or whatever, which could have uses of their own that Jazz is now experimenting with. 

So, basically, Jazz is out here doing the Dungeon Meshi Cooking Montages except its potions and it’s mildly terrifying. 

Danny is just glad that he’s ALSO legally a halffoot adult and can just go to town to a tavern whenever she’s being too weird. Good news: he can drink alcohol now! Bad news, sort of: it does nothing for him. I mean, go him for never getting drunk, but like, rude. 

Both Danny and Jazz are learning magic, mostly because Danny needs to offset some magic every now and again so it doesn’t build up (ie, his ice) and should at least look like he knows what he’s doing so he doesn’t get caught, and Jazz is learning so they can occasionally depend on her to claim that Danny’s magical whatever is actually HER doing. Plus, it helps with the potions. Most involve magical ingredients, so the maker doesn’t need to be a mage, but still. 

Danny gets a bit homesick about Sam and Tucker, so he makes a magic mirror in an afternoon and contacts them through one of Sam’s compact cases. It had some unique design she made on the back of it, so he’s able to hone in on it. Sam is EXTREMELY jealous that they’re living some kind of cottage witch fantasy, meanwhile Tucker is like ‘they have wHAT kind of meat? And you left me here?!’. 

Yeah. Tucker and Laois would get along, although Senshi would definitely have some words to say about his nutritional needs. 

SPEAKING OF the Dungeon Meshi characters. What, you think I wasn’t going to add them?

Falin likes to take walks through the area. As it so happens, the Nightingale House is about two hours of very casual strolling from the castle. She discovers them one day when she noticed Danny tending to the mandrake farm (there’s likely other magical plants, but I imagine Danny is wary of the more monster-like ones). 

Danny just can NOT keep her name in his head. He keeps calling her Bird Lady. Falin is not upset by this. She’s actually pretty glad to make somewhat friends with Danny and later Jazz, because they’re both pretty nonchalant about the feathers thing. Most are fine, but some are still… Off about her. Also they didn’t participate in the whole eating her thing, which she didn’t MIND but some people avoid her because they think she WOULD be upset. 

Falin is also glad to find that Danny can see ghosts like she can. She promised to keep his little magic secret, though she likely has no idea how powerful he actually IS, and she visits like twice a week. 

At some point, Itsuzumi claimed their front porch as one of her napping spots. Jazz thought they should maybe not have a cat girl sleeping on the doorstep. Danny agreed… by making a hammock. Jazz just accepted her fate and occasionally feeds her. That said, Itsuzumi doesn’t stay in one place as her ‘home’, so it’s a toss up if she’s there. Still, she somehow convinced the postmasters to only deliver mail to the Nightingales, seeing as they don’t mess with her letters and are out of the way enough that she has privacy when she does read them. If she’s there while it’s raining, she’ll take over the couch. 

Like, Itsuzumi doesn’t have keys to the house or anything, and Danny and Jazz are both a bit secretive, but that translates really well to respecting Itsuzumi’s privacy as long as she isn’t bringing huge problems to their doorstep. Danny did once offer to see about making up a guest room that was more or less hers—the house did need repairs, so some of the rooms weren’t quite habitable even if the house itself was fine to live in. Itsuzumi was not a fan of this, as I imagine her the type to not like feeling so tied down, but she did accept a compromise of having a closet space for her to store things. It’s where Danny and Jazz will put her letters when she DOES get them. 

Danny’s need to help people isn’t an obsession, but he IS quite fond of it, so as he does his work but also studies magic Just In Case, he finds a certain affinity for sensing magic, monsters, and breaking curses. The first one he broke was entirely by accident—the client had no idea that the book passages he gave to Danny were cursed. 

It worked out, it was fiiiine, stop worrying so much Jazz. 

While Danny certainly wasn’t advertising the curse breaking part, his previous client was told about it, and suddenly everyone knew that the Nightingales knew a little about curse breaking. They assume it’s Jazz, and Jazz has to learn on the fly how to break simple curses and protect herself until Danny can come actually work his literal magic. Jazz, oddly enough, is the one to figure out how to make protective charms. 

Also, she’s successfully made the first section of her water filtration system. 

Listen, they are very busy. But they’re hoping if they branch out enough, get a big enough system, they can find Danny’s parents. Because all they REALLY had to go on was One—They were halffoots, Two—Danny’s hair came from his mother, and Three—in both Jazz AND Danny’s cases, the Fentons kidnapped a twin. 

It’s this work as a cursebreaker and Jazz’s work as a near miracle worker at potions—her little mad scientist experiments were bearing fruit after all—that Falin brings Laios over to work with. Long story short, Danny’s general attitude about it is ‘fuck that lion guy’ because he recognizes the work of a ghost—er, demon—when he sees it. Sure, the Toudens don’t TELL Danny it was a winged lion, saying after a really long pause that the cursers name was Leo or whatever. But Danny isn’t completely stupid, especially not about something he can PLAINLY see. 

Also, a good note here is that neither Jazz nor Danny have ANY idea who Laios is. Sure, they’d HEARD of the King, but either Danny gave him a nickname, they think Laios is one of those cases where there’s an uptick of people named after a famous person, or it’s just a super common name. Or, heck, it’s entirely possible that Laios has a king monicker and that’s ALL that Jazz and Danny have heard, and they don’t know that the king’s name is Laios. 

Anyways, Danny is like ‘you have two curses from your frankly very petty curser’. And they’re like ‘yeah we know’. 

For the monster repellent curse, Falin points out (possibly on her own but also possibly remembering something Kabru said once) that it’s a pretty useful curse, but that it upsets Laios to have on him. So, Danny thinks ‘What Would Sam Do’ and makes a creepy doll. The idea is to attach the curse to the doll, but for various reasons involving having the curse NEED an amount of magic to stay going, it needs to be, well… fed. As you MIGHT recall from Dungeon Meshi, blood is pretty potent as a magic tool. 

So, anyways, blood sacrifice for the repellent doll curse, preferably either by Laios or someone of his blood. I’m sure this won’t become a plot point for a b rated adventure story several generations later where they need to find the One True Heir to help save the kingdom or whatever. 

As for the hunger curse, it’s a pretty tricky one. Most curses, Danny can kind of just. Push it out using his own magic, or trick it into thinking its done whatever the curse maker wanted it to do. But this curse is very ingrained, as hunger is something very basic to literally everyone, and it’s goal is basically ‘then SUFFER’ and that’s hard to make it understand when Laios is, technically, already and constantly suffering from it. 

So, it needs to be magically purged. Starve out the magic in Laios’s body, starve out the curse. Issue being that it’s EXCEPTIONALLY hard to do that when magic is LITERALLY in the air. 

With a bit of thinking, Danny comes up with a solution, and tells them to set up their creepy doll shrine and see him in three days. Also maybe haggles the price because while he DOES have a way to do this, it’s a bit risky to not only Laios but to the makers of Danny’s curse-breaking method. 

Danny contacts Sam, who contacts Frostbite, who is VERY against this but ultimately agrees so long as Danny is careful. Danny technically has Jazz do most of the next part, so he’s being cautious. 

The Toudens come back, with Laios happily chattering about a small monster he noticed just before they got to the Nightingales—good to know what the range of that is then, though it may have become smaller with the smaller vessel and the lesser amount of regenerating magic supplying it. I’m not looking up the one panel that sorta shows how big the field is right now. 

Danny is like, bundled up and covering his mouth, while Jazz is very careful with the prepared potions. 

Blood blossoms. Basically anti magic, which do not grow in this world naturally and should never do so, and involved Sam needing to travel back in time to grab a few. They explain their caution as Danny being extremely allergic to one of the ingredients and the effects of the potions being dangerous to mages in general by DESIGN. 

In short, Laios has to take these potions for three days—one bottle for each day—and to light a candle anointed with the potion in the forth bottle in a closed space he needs to stay in for the duration and at least an extra two days. There’s also a fifth bottle that he needs to sprinkle into any food or drink he has for that time until after the fifth day. Remember, magic is everywhere in Dungeon Meshi. This is basically him going into a sterile bubble field for a while, but also needing to include sterilizing the things he eats and drinks as well. 

“Don’t keep even a drop,” Danny warns them both very, very seriously. “This stuff shouldn’t exist here, but that is one NASTY curse you’ve got. Anything you’ve got leftover, including the bottles, bring back here.” 

He also tells them that its possible that Laios might never regain magical ability he had previous, or if he DID he had to relearn it. Laios accepts this risk. He wasn’t much for magic anyways. Danny also tells him to maybe make sure the room(s) he uses isn’t his usual bedroom, and again that he needs to stay in them as MUCH AS POSSIBLE, preferably not leaving at ALL, until after his treatment. 

They take his warnings seriously, at least, and they head off, carefully with the contents they just got. 

They actually do as instructed! Kabru did manage to take a drop, though, just to see what would happen. Holm’s undine DISSOLVED is what happened. Kabru did not take any more risks about that because WHAT the hell, WHAT. Laios and Falin also won’t tell him WHERE THEY GOT THIS FROM. At least, not until after they finish the treatment and see if it works. 

It does work though! He gets his normal hunger cues back after a couple of weeks, and Falin happily tells the Nightingales that it worked. Great! Never tell anyone what they did. Also give back the bottles please and thanks (handed off to Sam very carefully—although blood blossoms ARE a magic-and-ecto disruptor, they can be put through portals, such as the mirror phone things that technically also act as portals). 

A little late for total secrecy, but no one that the Toudens didn’t already trust with the numerous secrets they already had, including but not limited to Marcille’s fun necromancy habit. 

… Listen, I know that the curses Laios gets are like, consequences or something, but I didn’t like the hunger curse because of my own traumas and didn’t like the monster avoidance curse cause that just seemed cruel. Which I get was the point but I have OPINIONS on the whole thing, and it ultimately equals up to “Laios didn’t ask for this, and I’m not sure he’s actually happy in the end”. Anyways. 

Because they literally helped heal the king, Laios does invite them over to dinner in the castle. 

“That guy was a KING?!” Danny shouts. 

Jazz is just like. Yeah that fucking tracks. But hey we can ask his help about the parentage thing! 

So, now they’re going to dinner. That’s fun! Maybe! 

Side note, Jazz has now invented showers and indoor baths. She’s still working on a heating and cooling mechanism but at least all the water is clean. She’s still working on getting faucets for sinks, such as in the kitchen. 

Don’t ask how they have time for this, by the way. The gardening, their actual jobs of potion making and translations, Jazz’s plumbing project, Danny’s (and slightly Jazz’s) magic training, and the biological family search. To be fair, they probably have very few leads on that last one, so extending their social net is kind of their only plan. 

They get dressed up fairly nicely and go to the king’s castle for dinner because apparently Danny just cannot stop impressing royalty both dead AND ALIVE as it turns out. 

There, they meet the whole Touden party. Itsuzumi is there. Both parties are very surprised, but good to know, but also what. W h a t. 

Senshi likes hearing about how similar potion making and cooking is, and he and Jazz seem to be getting along pretty well! Chilchuck, meanwhile, is like. Why does this kid—sorry, young halffoot adult—look so gotdang familiar. Regardless, he offers to help teach him a few things about halffoot culture, seeing as Danny was apparently raised as a Tallman. 

“Yeah, we didn’t even know about other races! We just thought Danny was a little weird,” Jazz said. 

“That must have been really isolated,” Marcille replied. 

Oh, she didn’t even know the half of it. 

Of course, someone questions how Danny was so good with languages if their ‘isolated little village’ never said that any race other than Tallmen existed, to which Danny just kind of says he had a knack for it and was bored, so. Languages. They kind of just start following patterns after a certain point. And he and Jazz HAD been traveling for a while. 

Dinner goes well, with just one odd report about scratching in one of the mirror halls by the guards that Danny juuuust manages to hear before he and Jazz go out the doors. 

That’s probably nothing! 

A bit more time passes, with Senshi visiting Jazz and helping her learn ACTUAL cooking in exchange for those sweet sweet mandrakes and the water harvesting method while Danny gets lessons from Chilchuck and, ironically, another halffoot named Dandan about Halffoot culture. Luckily, Danny just so happened to know the halffoot language equivalent of Common, but they teach him a bit more about the language anyways. 

This is also when he learns that Halffoots tend to have twins, but also that it’s not terribly uncommon for one of the twins to die. Happened to both Dandan’s ex wife and to Chilchuck and also so, so many other halffoots. That just made Danny’s search even harder. Yikes. 

By week two, Danny is very tired of CONSTANTLY hearing the term halffoot, and so has requested Tucker get him a copy of the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy to send through mirror-mail so that Danny can then translate THAT into Common and go publish. Maybe if he has a book or two to sell, he can make a passive income so he can concentrate on things other than translating YET ANOTHER tax form because the local government all wants Common—understandable—but not everyone can READ Common. 

This may be a time to give Danny a misadventure with some orcs that paint him as a fucking weirdo but ultimately friendly. 

Jazz gets the idea that hey, if the whole halffoots have lots of twins thing is true,  meaning that she and Danny are going to have a TIME of it trying to find HIS parents, maybe she and Danny should invent, like genetic testing with magic and or potions or whatever. It’s not like they don’t have an understanding of genetics, if what Kabru’s (adopted) mother teaches him is any indicator, but genetic testing it relatively modern by our own standards. 

So they start developing that. Falin still visits, mentioning how there seems to be a scratching that just won’t stop in the castle, but its always in the same hall of mirrors so at least its localized. Just, really weird. Everyone else thinks its ghosts, but Falin has checked so many times now and there just isn’t one. But Laios is doing fine, he’s very thankful, and Danny is like hahaha don’t mention it! No really, don’t! You already paid me! We had dinner! We’re friends now! Ahaha!

Should it be the case that Halffoots (-HOBBITS!) have tails, Chilchuck still has his, though it’s a liiiittle shorter than it should be, and he’s the sort thats proud about how long his wife and daughters’ tails are. He’s reconnecting with his family! Slowly but surely! In case you CAN’T tell, I actually like happy endings here. Despite the everything else I put in a story, ha. Anyways, as such, he’s a little offput by Danny’s parents since Danny admitted that they’re the ones who cut it off of him, and that even then they never told Danny that he wasn’t a Tallman despite having to have had at LEAST a clue that he wasn’t one. Shouldn’t the orphanage or however they got their kids from know? Don’t tell him that both Jazz AND Danny were just left on their doorsteps. 

“Definitely not that one, aha…” Danny quickly changes the topic. “So I wrote this story—or, well, its like this story that was SUPER popular where we’re from—“

Chilchuck also explains how Danny’s name is just SO weird to most of the other halffoots. Like, it’s not OUT there, per se, but definitely reads as Tallman. Even admitting its fully Daniel does not help. This is also when Chilchuck explains that part of the infant mortality rate, halffoots don’t get their names until their fourth month of life. 

Jazz made some liberties and changes to the Hobbit to fit in a little better with Dungeon Meshi and it’s whole world, but otherwise it’s mostly the same story. Chilchuck and Dandan get free copies as they’re helping Danny so much, especially with getting Danny used to other people like him (mostly). They’re both pretty impressed with it, though Danny insists that it wasn’t exactly his own writing. But, hey, the actual author was dead and he doubts any copies are going to come from his old hometown any time soon so like, might as well! 

Also, copyright law is probably far different in Dungeon Meshi than here, ha. I declare it—legally in the clear! 

Danny has a mission with this and that’s getting people to use the word Hobbit dammit! 

Surprisingly, despite not showing up in it, the gnomish community quite like it. And so do dwarves, and elves, and halffoots, and it becomes pretty popular. 

It’s The Hobbit. This is not an unexpected result. Thank you Chilchuck for helping with the printing rights and contracts for getting the book published. (And we can guess that the printing press DOES exist in Dungeon Meshi, since we can see the books they have—though there may be other obstacles about getting your hands on a book, we can see by the amount they have and how gimmicky Laios’ monster book is that printing a book itself is likely a done and solved issue in some way or another). 

Danny is extremely glad he did not put his own name as the pen name for that mess. 

While all that drama is happening, including the fact that Chilchuck’s wife—I have named her Brightmerry—is now a very avid fan and would love to meet Danny, Danny and Jazz have just about perfected their genetics test. Laios and Falin know about the test, although not WHY they’re doing it. Despite some concerns that the magic and chimeraism that probably STILL affects both, though Laios’s maybe got purged during the magic curse breaking thing, it certainly was unpleasant enough for him that he’d BELIEVE that he got part of him ripped out, they still seem to test just fine as siblings. Still, they need more tests. 

But it’s not like they know an entire family, do they? 

Danny complains about this issue to Dandan, in part to see if Dandan knew anyone that MIGHT be willing to help. 

As it so happens, Dandan volunteers Chilchuck. Chilchuck only agrees to drag his family into it because he generally trusts Danny and Jazz even if they ARE kind of weird and make incidental inventions at their house that they should REALLY sell, because WHAT do you MEAN you have a hot water shower?! He also knows that both Brightmerry and Fullertom would like to meet Danny because of the book he totally did not steal from another dimension to make a profit. Might as well drag the rest. Plus, they assure that the test itself won’t hurt, and will even demonstrate with themselves and with the Toudens what a false and what a positive result will look like. 

So, they arrange a date to do so at the castle. Kabru is pretty interested in the experiment, truthfully, because it seems neat! Not at all because of his own issues with his hometown involving his eye color! Why do you ask! 

Off they go, and the best space to do this in due to some preparation and magic circle nonsense is the same room Laios did his whole magic purge, which was the mirror hall. It’s small but open, with no windows except for a small one in an attached restroom area. Sure, there’s some creepy scratching going on from time to time, but no one has gotten hurt or recorded anything else odd. 

The magic genetics test involves having the participants positioned equally around a magic circle in little circles of their own, having a small cup of a potion that gives off a lot of steam or vapor—entirely harmless-, and pricking a drop of blood into the potion. What happens with a positive is that the vapor takes on a color and follows a trail through the magic circle, and the colors and how strong the connection between the vapor trails between two people tell how related they are. In a negative or, when two parents are in the circle, the vapor trails will not have ‘matching’ or similar colors, and the trails will not actually meet up with each other. 

It’s still a work in progress, but it should tell at least siblings. Luckily, Chilchuck did manage to get all three of his daughters and his wife along, with Dandan being invited as another variable to test with. 

Danny and Jazz go first, showing how their trails don’t meet up. And there’s not a particular meaning to what color a vapor trail is to a person—it can change and vary for each test, it’s only consistent when it’s a ‘positive’. 

Than Laios and Falin. Fittingly enough, their trails are fairly strong, with just a few different trails fraying off, and slightly different shades of green-ish yellow coming from their potion cups. 

The Chilchuck Family then take a turn, and they can observe the trails. Sure enough, Chilchuck and Brightmerry don’t have any connection, but seem to match and meet with each of their daughters’ trails, who also connect to each other in a web of vapor. They decide that maybe more than three is hard to read. 

They agree to do a couple of combinations and tests, which Jazz and Danny are like ‘sorry for all the finger pricks!’ But they DID bring a bunch of sterilized needles at least. And Falin is happy to heal them in the meantime—using the space as an anti magic purge room seems to not have left an affect on the magic now in the space. 

Dandan joins a few times so they can record how he doesn’t match at all. Laios then mentions why Danny isn’t doing that when they explain he’s adopted and therefore for all he knows, he’s distantly related. 

Which prompts them to have him test with Dandan and Chilchuck. 

He doesn’t match Dandan. 

But he does match Chilchuck. 

This does not change when he repeats the experiment. 

They then switch out Chilchuck for Brightmerry. 

… And he matches to Brightmerry. 

SEVERAL different trials later involving all the halffoots there confirms it. 

Somehow. Someway. 

He is Chilchuck and Brightmerry’s child. 

Are you surprised? Probably not that was a twist coming a mile away not going to lie. 

Anyways, the story THEY give is that he’s Puckpatti’s twin. They’d been napping outside while with one of Chilchuck’s brothers, when something or another distracted said brother for, at most, two minutes. But then Puckpatti’s twin was gone. He was stolen, although they hadn’t actually KNOWN what had happened, when he was three months. It’s why Puckpatti’s name was, well. Puckpatti. Puck was supposed to be her twin’s name, and they considering having her be Pattipuck, but Puckpatti worked better. It wasn’t particularly odd for twins where only one survived to carry the other twin’s name as either their first or second name. This is also why her usually nickname is Patti instead of Puck. 

Danny and Jazz explain that… yeah, they were taken in. As in kidnapped. Hadn’t wanted the pity points but saying they were adopted felt kiiiiinda wrong. 

Now, this would be a very touching family reunion scene. 

Except now that mirror scratching has started up. 

And its loud. 

And—Oh would you look at that. 

Mirror portal. 

Can you guess who pop through? 

It’s the Fentons! Say Hello to Jack and Maddie. 

It’s a whole confrontation scene, which BASICALLY goes with Maddie and Jack absolutely NOT realizing anything they did wrong, insisting they SAVED Danny, that there were two and it was fine, and BESIDES, JAZZ wanted a little sibling and when ASKED she asked for a brother, so really, its her fault. 

Jazz gets a guilt complex! Chilchuck tells the Fentons that thats NOT HOW THIS SITUATION WORKED, SHE WAS TWO! 

Jazz also has a horrifying memory of when she was four and Danny was two, and asking if they’d like a younger sibling, and that they’d have to agree, but Jazz said yes and Danny said NO and was this why there were only two of them?!?

Danny disowns them, pointedly saying that cutting off a baby’s tail is kind of MESSED UP DON’T YOU THINK.  And they go, well if you’re going to be ungrateful—and he gets like, hella hurt. 

More arguing and fighting, and Danny just kind of lays there and lets himself heal before propping himself back up like. Did. Did you think that would work. You have a magic science workshop that I regularly cleaned did you NOT THINk. THAT WOULD NOT HAVE AN AFFECT. 

The Fentons go ‘oh, he’s a ghost’ and disown him right back, though not in so many words. Whichever members of the Dungeon Meshi group you imagine are there right now take it as ‘he’s a MAGE?!’ 

Danny tricks the Fentons back through the mirror portal and shatter it. From what he guesses, the magic purging done to Laios let there be a slight thinning in the natural magical-ecto-whatever barrier that protected this world from another one. The Fentons didn’t know where the kids went, but might have figured out they went to another world, but couldn’t locate the notes to locate the Dungeon Meshi world. So, instead, they tracked Danny and Jazz themselves. With all the blood testing Danny did in the same room with a thinning veil, that meant they were finally able to break through by using him as an ‘anchor’ to follow through the mirrors. 

Universal constants, remember? Both magic mirrors AND portals are things in both worlds. 

Danny takes this time to go ‘well, they already know anyways’, and uses the opportunity and also all his blood now on the floor to make some quick magic barrier things with Jazz’s help. She’s better at protection sigils, after all, but he’s the more magically powerful. Together, they sort of ‘lock’ the dungeon meshi world. Or, more accurately, they lock out a certain scientific couple. And, because three is a stronger number for magic, they also block out Vlad. Three birds, one stone. 

THEN Danny passes out, you know, like a champion. 

Once awake and reunited with everyone, things begin to simmer down. Sure, Danny was just exposed as a powerful mage to the King, but the king is just like ‘Eh, won’t mention it, I don’t know anything I’m barely sure how I became king most days and I was THERE’. Marcille probably finds out, either because she was there or she’s just really good at finding out things she absolutely should not, also possible interest from a long time over Jazz and Danny and their whole deal. But she’s also just like NEAT. Translate these texts for me and we’re even. 

Danny is not convinced about her smile but goes with it regardless. 

Chilchuck and family are cautiously open to Danny. Of course they’re glad to have him home, but also—he’s lived his entire life ELSEWHERE, so while Chilchuck knows the most about him, he’s still a stranger. 

A few cute fluffy bits about learning about his siblings and his mother and father. Notably—Chilchuck is APPALLED that any child of his doesn’t know how to properly lock pick. Even Fullertom, the MOST disinterested in his line of work, is well aware of how to do it. Brightmerry is fond of reading, and Danny has lots of stories she’s never heard of going through his head. He insists they’re just local stories he’s heard of here and there, but she’s like. Suspicious of it. Not enough to cause him to stop telling her them, though. He also learns of the interests of his sisters, and is also like WHAT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M STILL THE BABY. 

The three girls are also fond of Jazz, surprisingly enough. Like, I’d hardly call them besties, but they get along pretty well. Especially when teasing Danny. Jazz tells them of the occasions she’d dress Danny up as a princess when they were little, and next thing Chilchuck knows, he’s walking in to see his son—not resisting being dolled up, because he loves his sisters already, but also very clearly hoping for an out. 

“Have fun,” he says and leaves immediately before his daughters can drag him into it too. 

Jazz has completed her indoor plumbing project! They no longer have a latrine and cesspit! They have proper toilets AND a filtration system for both incoming AND outgoing water, and along the way she’s made a waterwheel for electricity to power the filtration system AND the heating and cooling systems. They’re ALMOST modern at the Nightingale house! 

From here, things are a bit more loose. 

Danny makes gifts for his family for some kind of festive holiday. For Chilchuck, he gets a wood carving for the night each of his children were born, as well as his own birthday and Brightmerry’s. Since Meijack and Fullertom are twins, as are Puckpatti and Danny, this means four carvings. Each carving is technically a thin piece of darkly painted wood with holes drilled through, but when a light is shined onto the correct side, such as a candle or Jazz’s next project involving lightbulbs, it projects out the night sky. 

Danny consulted a LOT of astrological charts for this thing, but due to how close their dimensions are, the stars were mostly the same between the two. It’s not a universal constant, but the closer two dimensions are, the more similarities there are. 

After all, the Fentons were trying to slip BETWEEN dimensions, which is kind of like sewing but only going through to BETWEEN two pieces of fabric, even if the fabrics are already rubbing against each other. In other words, precision was needed, and there was no point in aiming for a FAR dimension for this, that was more likely to end in failure. 

An alternate for Chilchuck is that Danny finds alcohol in the Infinite Realms to give him, if you want Danny to have more free access to the Realms. Just warns him to only drink it if he WANTS to be completely sloshed, and to maybe not do that at home, haha. 

Anyways, for Brightmerry, he gives her not the next one, but the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, translated and edited for the Dungeon Meshi world. He assures his father they’ll get a copy for print later, but this was the first edition and it was for Brightmerry. 

Meijack got an armband for easily hold and quick access to her most common picklock tools. Kind of like a bracer or that sliding blade thing from Assassins Creed. 

Fullertom, Danny gave her a bunch of blue ribbons and accessories. Jazz had to point out for him that this meant he was supportive of her desire for marriage—Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Usually a tradition reserved for the marriage, but anyways. 

As for Puckpatti, he makes her a magic compass. No matter where she is, she can always ask her to point it where she wants to go. North, South, the next town, home, to a specific person, so on. The first thing she has it point to is to Danny. It’s a much more touching moment than I am capable of writing right this second. 

Uhhhh a plot point I hadn’t integrated yet was that Danny absolutely cannot cook with meat. It was started in the ‘they met during canon dungeon adventure times’ but I hadn’t translated it fully yet. Basically, when Danny tries to cook with meat, it comes alive—like the turkey or the hot dogs in canon, and SOMEWHAT like the familiars do. Of course, it’d be really weird to be able to do that without even trying, and possibly mildly illegal, so they just have Danny not cook meat. Then a draft came to be where Danny was like ‘fine I’ll just SHOW YOU’ to Senshi, and if it was in the dungeon, then he’d use them against a monster, and if it was during post canon, it’d be against his parents. Then the point of WHY all or most of them were together during the Fenton’s break in changed from the dinner party to the genetics test, and there was no reason for Danny to have been cooking. 

Danny finds and introduces Fullertom to a dwarf that she starts dating. Chilchuck isn’t sure if he should be concerned or impressed with the portfolio Danny pulls out when Chilchuck asks about the dwarf and what Danny knows about him. 

Another plot point for why Jazz and Danny were staying so long, outside of finding Danny’s birth family since we have now figured out he WAS developing normally and the whole portal thing was just sorta because of how tricky that power is, is that Princess Dora wanted Danny to find a good host for the Necklace of Aragon so that her brother could no longer claim it. It would, predictably, eventually go to Laios. Also, I am starting to realize I am more partial to Laios than the other characters, whoops. Anyways, I hadn’t figured out if I could or even SHOULD integrate that into the plot. 

Payment for the blood blossoms were going to include five of Fallin’s feathers. They’re magically powerful, and three of them were going to be used for each name that was ‘blocked’ from the Dungeon Meshi world. So one feather for Jack, one for Maddie, and one for Vlad. I haven’t decided if I’d keep that or not, but I also wasn’t sure what to do with the other two feathers, and just asking for three and that HAPPENS to work out, the number being considered magic aside, felt a bit off and too convenient. 

Danny would eventually take on a new name in honor of his birth family. Danbright Chils. Dan is him, obviously, and since he’d be taking Chils for Chilchuck, he decided to take Bright for Brightmerry. (I actually debated between Bright or Bridge. So either Brightmerry and Danbright or Bridgemerry and Danbridge. This is directly because of Danny’s ‘be the bridge’ thing.)

Things are just starting to settle… 

Then, Sidney of all people shows up in Danny’s magic communication mirror. And we get information that due to Jazz and Danny’s mild meddling with the magic-ecto-whatever barriers, that Jazz’s twin has become aware of the fact she once had a twin—basically, Inspector Gordon kind of ‘felt reminded of [Jazz]’ and told Barbara about it. And since Barbara is part of the superheroes club, she was able to find out that not only was her twin alive, but in an entirely different dimension entirely. 

Annnnd that’s all I got. 

It’s a lot! Don’t expect me to publish it! Have a nice day! 

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Storm 2 (May 2006)

Eric Jerome Dickey/David Yardin

We don't exactly learn more in this issue about the death of Storm's parents than we did when it was first revealed, in the outstanding flashback sequence of X-Men 102, but I think the way it's positioned here, in 2006, as against then in 1976 is kind of interesting.

The 1976 story is rooted in a very specific piece of history, and is explained that way. That doesn't change here - we can see that it's the same incident, but the written framing doesn't identify the time or place, and you realise now reading it that this is extremely a 2006 comic, and that this whole incident has been reframed by the War on Terror.

This is one of those cases where the so-called "sliding timeline" of the Marvel universe works beautifully, to create a moment that's both rooted in canon and organically relevant to the story as it's being told. Although, that relevance comes from the fact that the Middle East has been being continuously bombed by the West for 80 years, so, yeah.

That said, it is of course still key that this happens in Egypt - and not, say, Iraq, or Palestine - because that makes it still an African story (arbitrary as that distinction is in some ways, yadda yadda - you know what I mean). The rest of this issue, and of this series, returns to a much vaguer and less interesting depiction of sub-Saharan Africa, but it seemed worth picking up on the early pages of this issue and what they do with their setting and their era.

The politics of the rest of this issue are...less subtle, but actually I quite like how hard it keeps hitting us over the head with this stuff, because, sure, why not.

I said last time that the baddies aren't very interesting, and they're not, they're disposable pieces for the story: but the sheer joy the writing takes in making them totally hateable is quite fun.

What still isn't very interesting is the plot, which I'm not recapping in much detail, but know that by the end of this issue, the man of the hour has shown up.

[shannonsketches]

What are your thoughts about Ganondorf and his relationship with his people (OoT timelines)? I personally think he started out with the intent to bring them a better home in Hyrule or at least stop Hyrule's constant attacks on them due to the gerudos refusing to give up their sovereignity by joining them like all the other races were forced to do during the height of the wars. (The racism against them in the game is pretty extreme so I think they were at war and taking shots at each other since the beginning of said wars, which I believe were 100 years long? Probably longer due to the thing I'm mentioning). So that was why he first went after the Triforce, hoping it'd grant him the wish to take Hyrule and end all his people's suffering. Instead he was left with just Power and had to make do while trying to get Wisdom and Courage. Then went totally batshit along the way due to all the pressure of having to defend himself, his people, and deal with all that new power for 7 years. Also sorry for this block of text.

I'm not gonna draw this one because I need to warn you in advance that I was working on an OoT Gan backstory comic for like ten years prior to even Skyward Sword's release, so my view on this is skewed HEAVILY toward OoT and I haven't done a ton of work headcanoning re: TotK's information, but, generally, YEAH. So, the way I wrote Ganondorf is not totally unlike TotK, the biggest difference is that obviously in TotK Ganondorf is not only alive during the civil war but an active leader during said war. In OoT I headcanoned him much younger, and that he was born into an immediately post-war Gerudo Valley that was torn up and freshly having lost a civil war, in which Twinrova was leading a diplomatic olive branch effort toward Hyrule to maintain peace (and of course set up a chess game for the new Gerudo king). So my headcanon is that he was raised very strictly by Twinrova (god I'm so sad Smackjeeves went down, I had comic pages from back in the day up that display it haha), and was initially very isolated from his people, and for a long time knew more about Hylian culture than his own (which is part of why his costuming is so different than anything else we see in Gerudo Valley and is more Hylian in terms of armor and patterning overall, save for the few pieces of Gerudo patterning, which reflect Twinrova more than anything). So as he gets older and gets more involved with his people and has to keep coming back to this desert after experiencing the climates in the fields and town and really being able to change Nothing, he gets frustrated with the realization that he's essentially a king in decoration only, despite being a "Divine" king in birth, and that's where his bitterness toward the gods starts festering. They don't listen, and he feels helpless, but ah, there is an ancient story about a way to fix that, isn't there? So he gets obsessed, and his people fall to the wayside, and he's back to focusing primarily on Hyrule. The triforce becomes the only thing he really cares about, and sure, he tells himself it's for his people, and believes it's true, but deep down it's about him, and it's about control, and revenge -- not just against Hyrule, not just for the war, but against the gods themselves, for the situation they've saddled him with. And the triforce requires a perfect bearer, yes? He's balanced, he's powerful, he's smart, he's brave, he's got this. Except he's ANGRY. He's So Angry. And so the triforce Splits, and it leaves him with what he really wants.

Power.

And the corruption bleeds out of the sacred realm and all throughout Hyrule, and it's hilarious. Now they all get to suffer like the Gerudo have suffered. Unless they play ball with their new King and let him complete this triforce. And why not? He just wants to rule the world, and he can't possibly do a worse job than the last guy. That guy buried 90% of the Sheikah and then called himself a peacekeeper.

Ganondorf just wants to give the Gerudo a place to live where people won't die every night choking on sand. And be in charge. A man can want two things.

The downside, of course, is -- yeah, he's got broken god matter leaking into his body for seven years straight while he's hunting down this fucking flute that a little girl ran away with, and the guy who has it turns out to be in a godcoma the whole time, and now that he's up he's jumping back and forth and changing reality, which is really fucked up to live through when you're already outside your goddamn mind because there's a literal monster living under your skin doing its goddamn best to dominate what's left of your conscious mind. But despite that!! Despite all that!! Gerudo Valley is STILL the safest place you can be in all of Hyrule. Despite the monsters and the ghosts and the death pineapples, you can have Impa's protections and get murdered by chickens and the ghost of a prisoner of war in the well, OR, you can chill in Gerudo Valley and get paid to shoot arrows. So tl;dr: Ganondorf fucking loves his people, and yes, wanted to rule initially to give them a better lot in life. But he is not an affectionate man, and he is selfish and young and angry and desperate and can see Exactly, Precisely how to solve the problem. And that's hard to be cool about when you're a leader and your people are actively dying. So he's on his own, unless he wants to start another war, which we simply do not have the resources for. If you don't listen to the manga, which I don't, Ganondorf took over Hyrule without the Gerudo. He did it with himself and some good old fashioned necromancy and used Hyrule's soldiers against it, which I always liked to think meant he didn't want his people involved if he failed (which, I mean, in TP he was the only one executed,so he must've taken responsibility solo, because his people would've died protecting him, they worshipped him). I do enjoy that he lets you know though. Every single dungeon there's Gerudo blocks. He said 'don't fuck with me child I'll bury you like the dunes I came here from'

[drawnaghht]

there is a tag for it on AO3 tho! it's "Leonardo (TMNT) x Yuichi Usagi" (I'll link it in the replies since tumblr seems to eat links sometimes).

I think your post is really clear and sounds polite so I don't see any problem with discussing the whole "ship name" topic in this way. I just wanted to write a reblog-reply bc I think it's something to think about more + talking abt it might help things along. Tho I'm sure thing'll sort themselves out eventually, as fandom tags usually go. Sorry in advance for my extremely lengthy reply! I tried to structure it so it would be easier to read. But as goes the fandom saying, "I've been rotating this in my brain" ( or: this has been on a spin-cycle in my head for a bit of time now and I have more thoughts about it)

I agree! both ships are great and it's nice that people like it and there is more fic and art of different kinds online of either now. But the mischaracterization and mis-tagging is really confusing in general.

I'll put this post under a readmore out of courtesy for everyone else reading my blog bc unfortunately I find a lot of ways to be extra wordy ^^;

The great thing about AO3 is that it has general/common tags for both characters and ships. When a tag becomes more used, it will become a "main tag", so it will be suggested in the filter sidebar if you search it there, for example. Annoying for smaller fandoms where there are <16 fics total and none of the character tags are recognized by the system, but with both TMNT in general and Rise of the TMNT, that isn't a problem. So tags like a newer relationship combo (Leo x Yuichi) become a suggested/common tag if many people use it (I don't know the rules of this exactly, but it's just something I've noticed/read about re:AO3 tags).

When just searching through the tags, I see that there's quite a few fic which tag both ships? and that's confusing because which version of the character are you going to use then? or even if there are a few which have both featured (multi-fic, AUs, multiple timelines etc), so yes, just excluding one character would probably not exclude all these fic with confusing tags (i tried for a few moments and it doesn't seem to work like that - both relationship tags remain ^^;)

So yes, a bit of a problem if people want to read fic of just one, but find that both tags have been used, they pick a fic and maybe they just don’t find that it caters to either ship. I suppose this is sort of a bigger fandom problem. My experience with fandom is mostly seeing recommendations from friends and writing fic with friends, but I’ve always mostly had rarepairs, so going into AO3 I already prepare myself for not finding anything catering to my tastes (and so I write my own fic).

So in my mind I'm looking at this from a different angle (I mostly post fanart on tumbrl and twitter, i try to treat these platforms as archives even if not meant for that). What's confusing for me is when people tag both characters in fanart when only one is present. Or lets say, they tag both, but clearly the look/design is inspired by one character in particular. Lots of earlier posts before the Samurai Rabbit show came out were simply fans’ own versions of Rise!Miyamoto, but later fanart started incorporating more elements from Yuichi (the hair, the clothes). But why did people still tag it as both? Or why do fans still do this? I’m a fan of both the comic and the Usagi show and I like it when I don’t see too many repeating arts in the tags, mainly because then it’s easier to find new posts, so the multiple tagging system becomes annoying because that's not what i'm looking for ^^;

The ship names I can kind of let pass on account of the Yuichi/Leo ship being still relatively new, and people still learning how to tag properly on tumblr. So I want to trust that people will get used to their own separate tag which they'll use more than the other now. I get it, leosagi is an older ship name, easier to say/use if you already knew smth about TMNT before Rise. But it’s still sorta annoying cuz sometimes you wanna see the 03 leosagi ship - what are you supposed to do when the tag is only full of arts about the newer one? lol tagging both just makes it confusing and makes it feel like the newer tags are obsolete by default - but the leosagi tag is still abt the Leo/Miyamoto Usagi ship, so it’s just a lot of tag clogging still. I think after ppl started posting abt the difference in the two ships more, there’s been less posts/twts abt either ship in general, it’s like fans are busy + just have other interests (which is normal) but it could also just be that ppl are thinking abt how to tag stuff now (but haven’t checked anymore bc busy myself too + tired of fandom stuff in general)

In other fandoms I've seen people put things on vote if there are too many ship tags (like YugiOh! or Pokemon fandoms) because the fandom is big and everyone used different nicknames throughout that media's history. Or there's different names for the same ship, bc there are different flavours for that ship, making each feel separate for the searcher (miraculous ladybug comes to mind and YGO as well, with multiple "versions" of the "same" character), which is a valid way to tag ships if people like being more specific. Makes things easier to find when googling and/or using a websites custom search! I ship both Leosagi and Yuichi/Leo so I very much like to separate the two so I don't have to go through 40 pages of one tag just to find one post ^^;; I did not really know in the beginning either that there were separate tags at all. So I think for a while, maybe that's been the main reason for the confusion in the fandom.

I'm not sure I'd want to vote bc the Leochi/Leoichi tags are confusing for me. Which one to use? so I'm the annoying person who made their own tag bc I think the Yuchi Usagi x Rise!Leo crossover ship is unique and feels like it needs it's own searchable keyword to make things simpler. so i made up "yuinardo" for that. But AO3 doesn't really need tags like that. this sort of tagging or "ship smoosh" sort of name is more usable on tumblr or sites like youtube/twitter which dont seem to have a very good tagging system. But the main problem still seems to be here that for fanfic, people will write Rise!Leo and make up their own Usagi based either Miyamoto Usagi (the og) or his descendant Yuichi (from the cartoon). And I honestly haven't browsed with this in mind as much myself, but I have noticed that people for example tag it as "general TMNT" without specifying if it is 2003 or 2018. Now that's confusing. There's no way to filter these sorts of fic then either and a reader wouldn't know which Usagi they're reading until they read it OR unless it's tagged properly. i can't really think of a solution for that other than - create the general atmosphere in fandom that it's better to tag correctly vs over-tag or tag in-correctly. That's all I can really think of for that because well, fandom feels like it should be inclusive as a space. but it also could do with better organization sometimes.

I also think it's interesting how many people combine versions or elements of both Miyamoto and Yuichi Usagi for their Rise fics. Tho it implies that basically fans either got inspired by the 03 ship or different parts of the comics and decided to combine them for fun, or they made a new character/story up for their own version/AU. but also this makes it feel like fic authors don't look further into either series/comics or any versions in cartoons. ^^; I call this phase "people don't do research" bc I don't see that curiosity from fans for a lot for newer shows in general. So for example, I genuinely like the Usagi Chronicles show and it's making me want to continue reading/looking up the og comic more. But I also like learning more about how the show itself was made and what concept art looked like or how the actors felt about their roles etc - this gives something like "extra value" in my mind to the show but also helps me see the characters and world a different way. I don't see it so much as "bad" for a fandom, it's just a bit sad for me as a fan bc there's always so much to find about a show that's interesting or can be used in fanworks as inspiration. Usagi Yojimbo is a really cool comicbook series and Miyamoto Usagi is a very neat and unique character. And it's a bit weird seeing ppl treat the character like he's just part of the TMNT verse Doesn't happen as much anymore but I imagine with fanfic it must be different. I suppose the 2003 show sort of imprinted its own younger version of Usagi onto the TMNT fandom in a large way and we can still feel that influence on fanworks to this day haha 😂

I think this is how I first encountered the "Rise version of Usagi" in the wild too, before finding the Samurai Rabbit series and seeing there was a new Usagi character+ og series as well. I knew about the 03 version, knew about the comic, then saw a bit of 12 and eventually saw ROTTMNT. I forgot the Usagi series was in development and thought, "huh, people are making their own versions of Usagi for Rise. Cool!"

As long as things are respectful re: other fans, I think that ignoring of original texts can also be fine for the sake of creativity within fandom, but it makes things confusing later or in the case of a more organized place like AO3, because these fans don't seem to actually know which character is which ^^; It makes things confusing to tag+find. And I guess in the case of some of the multi-tagged AO3 fic, it just makes it feel like the authors are switching out one character for the other, but not changing anything to make the character fit into their new role.

And again, OC versions can be fun and interesting too, but then those should not be tagged with either Miyamoto or Yuichi character tags as that is confusing as hell for the future reader.

Like that, it's interesting to think that so many are not sure what to tag it either and so, both leosagi and leoichi/leochi get used. As mentioned before by other fans, and mentioned in RabNerd28's video "Why do we all ship Leosagi", the most likely reason is that people remembered '02 Leosagi, then thought Leosagi was an umbrella term for all Leo/Usagi ships, (2012 show didn't really have as asimilar relationship to 03) or that it would be cute to continue the "tradition" of Leo/Usagi crossovers, since Rise missed out on it.

+ We also have the whole aspect of social media having become a bigger part of our lives over the last 15 years. It's become more commonplace for anyone trying to "reach" a larger audience to tag with "all tags" on media platforms that use tags. This was a thing on blogging site for a while too (tag clouds became a big thing for a short while). And in fandoms, it's become even more common, bc now we're sort of used to seeing it, so depending on the person and how their internet experience is, they might think more tags = more reach inside the nebulous social media algorhitm. But this becomes a bit weird for both blogging sites like tumblr or fanfic archives like AO3 because these don't have "algorhitms" like many social media platforms have become known for ^^;

Personally, I think on Tumblr, it would be simple for the Yuichi x Leo shippers to switch over to either leoichi or leochi since both are fairly popular tags and the fans using it wouldn't lose out on that "reach" - if ppl already know that it's the ship tag for Leo/Yuichi, they'll keep tracking that instead. As already hashed about it in other ppl's posts, it doesn't really make sense to use multiple tags if they don't count for those characters. Overall I think it's just up to the fandom in general to decide what people want to call a ship, and that's I usually just read what the OP of a post has tagged it and decide from there what it goes on my own blog.

I think AO3 on the other hand makes things simpler because there will always be a common ship tag using both common names for the character (so Leonardo (TMNT)/Miyamoto Usagi for example) and then people can use their own custom tags for flavour/exclulding from search (Future!Leonardo for character or Future!Rise Leosagi for specificity) and this makes things easier to filter in/out depending on interest. I also like that it has easier sorting options compared to say, FF.Net or tumblr itself (only "top" and "latest" options and you can sort thru post type). But yes, it becomes a bit hard to sort through fanart/fic when ppl tag a different ship under an older ship's tags ^^; I like both 2003 leosagi and the various versions of rise!leosagi and leochi/leoichi, but it's way too much work to use that many tags for one ship lol, especially when there's multiple "versions" or "flavors" of the same crossover ship idea. I'm not gonna find anything like that! And that's why now on my own blog I just keep the leosagi nickname for the 2003 ship, yuinardo tag for the show/show crossover ship and the rest for any variations.

Sorry if this sounds rambly, it's just been on my mind since january, rotating as a disctraction and I thought maybe trying to reply to this would help continue the conversation in a more constructive or positive way. English is not my native language either so please ask if anything sounded confusing ^^;

Annywayy, it's late and I wrote enough I think, but I'll probably mull it in my head in later posts too and have new thoughts haha :'D

I know the leoichi and leosagi problem has been talked and everything but I feel we should talk about the problem that exits in AO3 too and it's the tagging, again.

It has been stated that Yuichi and Miyamoto aren't the same character, one it's descendant of the other, so it confuses me why Yuichi is the Usagi that appears in the Leonardo/Miyamoto Usagi tag, as it sould be Miyamoto and Leonardo/Yuichi Usagi sould have it's own AO3 tag. It confuses a lot of people bc someone wants to read something with Miyamoto and Leo and has to browse through a thousand fics that have Yuichi instead.

And someone could say "Just exclude the Yuichi Usagi tag and it's done" but it isn't the point, Yuichi is a separate character so he sould have his own tag with Leo, hence avoid the mischaracterization and confusion of both characters as I have seen lately. Don't get me wrong, I love both ships, both are so cute and wholesome but they aren't the same ship.

I don't want to cause a ship war nor attack the leoichi shippers. I want to find a middle ground for both shippers as any other so we can both enjoy our ships in peace.✨💕

[Pd: English is not my first language so if there's any mistake here let me know ^^"]

[fromshore-archive-blog]

Meta about Maya and her views on Tony, post IM3? (I'm egotistical, love me)

send  me  meta  topics  meme !   /     always  accepting , but   especially  right  now !    WARNING :  it  might  take  me  a  week  to  do  because  it  gets  so  fucking  long ,    but  i  love  these  more  than  life  itself .

this  became  a  seven  part  essay  with  mcu  and  comic  references ;     i  would  apologize except ,  to  quote  littleostentatiouspersonally ,     “BRIEF  IS  FOR  PEOPLE  WITHOUT  FEELINGS”

PART  I  :    BERN ,   BABY ,   BERN .

okay ,     so  i  can’t  really  talk  about  maya’s  feelings  about  tony  post - im3  without  talking  about  maya’s  feelings  about  tony  pre  and  during  im3 .      specifically ,    we  need  to  talk  about  bern .

i  just  want  to  put  out ,   plain  and  open  and  simple ,     that  TONY  DIDN’T  BREAK  MAYA’S  HEART  BECAUSE  THEY  HAD  A  ONE  NIGHT  STAND .      i’m  sorry ,    but  maya’s  a  big  girl   and  tony  was  a  big  playboy  and  i  refuse  to  insult  her  self - worth  and  competence  like  that .

TONY  BREAKS  MAYA’S  HEART  BECAUSE  HE ,  FOR  HALF  A  SECOND ,   GAVE  HER  THE  TIME  OF  DAY .  .  .     and  then  they  had  a  one  night  stand .    i  talked  about  this  in  my  meta  about  killian  linked  HERE    (  and  this  is  going  to  be  a  running  theme  here ,   me  referencing  al ,    because  her  relationship  to  these  two  men   is  so  inherently  intertwined  )    ———  in  2000 ,   all  maya  really  wanted  and  needed  was  to  be  taken  seriously .     to  get  the  respect  she  felt  she  deserved .

one  night  stands ,    maya  could  do .     if  he’d  taken  her  up  to  the  room ,    fucked  her ,    left  in  the  morning  before  she  woke  up ,    that  would  have  been  fine .        but  he  didn’t .      they  talked  about  research  and  things  that  mattered .    she  showed  him  her  plant .     he  called  her  brilliant .      and  she  wasn’t  naive  enough  to  fully  believe  she  was  special ,   per  se   ——  remember ,    she  anticipates  the  caveat  behind  that  compliment  ——  but  that  sure  as  hell  doesn’t  mean  that  she  was  intellectually  or  emotionally  prepared  to  be  disregarded  in  the  way  he  disregards  her .        i’m  not  sure  anyone  could  be ,    especially  given  that  she  was  in  her  early  twenties  at  the  time  ;       canon  would  mark  her  as  21 ,     but  by  MY  timeline  she’s  23  and  on  the  verge  of  finishing  her  doctorate .       yes ,   that’s  right ,     maya  hasn’t  completed  her  doctorate  in  that  moment ——  remember ,    al ,    who  has  openly  been  following  her  and  her  career ,     refers  to  her  as   “ms  hansen”    after  all .        and  that ,     that  moment  when  he  leads  her  on  enough  to  get  her  hopes  up  only  to  let  her  own   ——–    that’s  what  breaks  her  heart  and  wounds  her  pride   and  sends  her  straight  to  aldrich  killian .

this  distinction  matters  because  maya  hansen  lives  life  very   HERSELF  AGAINST  THE  WORLD .     and  in  bern ,    when  tony  did  that  with  her ,    he  made  himself  a  part  of  the  world  that  she  was  up  against .       i’m  a  massive  fall   out  boy  fan ,    and  their  song ,     “ this  ain’t  a  scene ,   it’s  an  arms  race ”  ——–   maya  buys  into  that  concept  extremely  deeply.     disregarding  the  like ,    literal  weapons / arms  race  she  eventually  becomes  involved  in ,    when  she  starts  out  ,    it’s  all   about  the  intellectual  one .      the  weapons  are  connection  and  money  and  status  and  esteem  and  respect .     and  people  who  want  to  be  anywhere  in  the  industry  have  to  win  the  war ,   or  at  least  be  a  very  well - known  soldier .     tony ,   whether  he  realized  it  or  not ,     fired  the  first  shot  in  their battle ,    wielding  these  weapons  in  models  bigger  and  more  advanced  than  she  possessed  by  miles .        the  morning  after ,    maya  knew  she  needed  to  win  the  war .

he  had  sealed  the  deal ,   too ,   by  leaving   that  formula  scrawled  on  the  nametag    behind .     because  #1 when the  hell  did  he  come  up  with that ?     in  his  dreams ?    in  his  hungover  state  when  he  rolled  over  for  his  pants ?     or  did  the  numbers  fall  into  his  head  to  the  rhythm  of  their  fucking ?     again  with  the  fucking  mixed  signals !        this   wasn’t  some  game  or  riddle  to  her ;     all  she  wanted  was  for  him  to  give  it  to  her  straight ——-  whatever  “IT”  might  have  been .       and ,   apparently ,   he  didn’t  respect  her  enough  to  do  that ,     and  that  pissed  her  off .       he’s  the  one  who  made  it  personal  by  not  keeping  it  strictly  professional .

i  think    it’s  quite  clear  that  her  hang - up  with  him  is  intellectual  even  in  canon ,   just  by  nature  of  the  way  she  approaches  him  at  the  mansion  during  im3 .      compare  her  tone  when  pepper  refers  to  her   as  tony’s  “ex girlfriend”   to  when  pepper  refers  to  her  as  a  “botanist”  ;     spoiler  alert :    she  sounds  a  hell  of  a  lot  more  offended  about  the  oversimplification  of  the  latter  than  the  hyperbole  of  the  former .      

 this  is  the  point  where  i  could  very  easily  launch  into  rambling  about  the  total  validity  of  maya  and  tony  as  a  romantic / sexual  ship  under  certain  circumstance ,    but  i’m  going  to  keep  the  grittier  details  of  that  for  another  post   (  if  there’s  interest  in  me  writing  it ,    ofc  !!!  )      there  will  undoubtedly  be  some  mention  of  it ,    but  yeah ,    if  you  want  the  full  Discourse  about  that ,   that  will  be  another  meta .    but  my  point  here  has  been  to  SMASH  any  illusion  that  maya  was  upset  because  she  managed  to  fall  for  him  in  one  night  and  he  didn’t  stick  around .    it  goes  deeper  than  that .

PART  II :     SHE  COULD’VE  CURED  CANCER  INSTEAD  OF  BECOMING  THE  NEW  ONE .

i  now  want  to  talk  about  a  dynamic  between  them ,   as  seen  from  maya’s  perspective ,   that  has  permeated  their  interactions  from  the  beginning .

maya  has  worked  very  hard  to  get  as  far  in  life  as  she  has  in  this  life .     and ,   yeah ,    she’s  proud  of   what  she’s  accomplished .      but  notice  that  distinction  there ——–  she’s  proud  of  what  she’s  accomplished ,    not  necessarily  the  aforementioned  hard  work .     maya  isn’t  one  of  those  people  who  cares  about  the  journey ,    only  the  destination .      she  contrasts  perfectly  what  @analyticallyminded​   has  written  about  her  portrayal  of  jemma  simmons ,     who  feels  like  she  must  work  hard  and  earn  what  she  has  in  order  to  be  deserving  ;       MAYA  WOULD   BE  PERFECTLY  HAPPY  TO  BE  HANDED  THINGS  IN  LIFE  BECAUSE  SHE  KNOWS  SHE  WOULD  CONTINUE  TO  WORK  JUST  AS  HARD  REGARDLESS ,     AND  THEREFORE ,   SHE  WOULD  GO  EVEN  FARTHER .      

this  is  one  of  the  reasons  tony  irks  her .      he  was  born  with  a  silver  spoon  in  his  mouth  such  as  others  can  only  dream  of .      he  had  money  and  connections   and  influence  handed  right  to  him  before  he  knew  how  to  uncurl  his  fists  ;       her  palms ,    on  the  other  hand ,     were  wide  open  and  empty .      and ,    yeah ,    sitting  here  as  outsiders  looking  in ,    you  and  i    (  and  tony  )     could  give  a  list  of  a  million  reasons  why  that  is  a  vast ,   vast  oversimplification ,     why  he  had  unique  obstacles  to  overcome  that  she’s  never  had  to  deal  with  or  even  ever  considered .

but  maya  has  always ,    always ,    seen  ambition  as  exceedingly  simple  . 

there’s  that  exchange  from  iron  man  extremis   when  tony  and  maya  are  talking  to  sal  kennedy   —————

sal :     you  [ maya ]      have  intellect  and  power ,    but  it’s  not  enough .     it’s  like  there’s   a  damn  across  your  life .      her  problem  is  that  she’s  a  woman .     there’s  a  glass  ceiling .     it  could  take  her  another  five ,    ten  years  to  get  to  where    you  [ tony ]     are  now .           /        and  what  would  you  do  when  you  got  to  tony’s  position ?

maya :       four  years  of  engineering  and  i  could  cure  cancer .

sal :      there  you  go .       and  what  do  you  think  of  at  night ,     tony ?

tony :     .  .  .   making  a  better  iron  man   suit .

where  tony ,    as  she  sees  it ,    fucks  around  with  different  phases  of  his  life ,     MAYA  HAS  ONLY  EVER  CHASED  ONE  THING ,    sought  to  ride  it  to  its  climactic  end ,    to  see  it  all  the  way  through  to  her  success .     as  far  as  she’s  concerned ,    roles  reversed ,   she  literally  would  have  cured  cancer  by  now .     (   or ,    mun   addition ,    would  have  set  the  world   on  the  path  towards  mutually  assured  destruction .    but  even  then ,   at  least ,    no one  would  be  around  to  call  her  on  her  fault .   )      but  think  about  it :   tony  had  his  moral  crisis  and  pulled  out  of  the  arms  race ,    making  his  time  and  energy  and  resources  and  money  dedicated  there  moot  .           tony  dedicated  significant  time  and  energy  resources  and  money  to  the  avengers ,   a  project  from  which  he  was  originally  excluded  and  contemporarily  cannot  claim  sole  credit  for .                as  collateral  for  both  of  those  things ,    tony  has  now  poured  more  time  and  energy  and  resources  and  money  into  humanitarian  efforts  and  clean - up  projects  to  undo  the  damage .             not  to  mention  all  of  the  time  and  energy  and  resources  and  money  that  he’s  squandered  tinkering  on  suits  and  other  projects  to  cope  with  his  mental  health  issues .

do  you  see  the  pattern  there ——  lots  of  time  and  energy  and  resources  and  money  UTTERLY  WASTED .      were  maya  hansen  in  his  position ,     all  of  that  would  have  gone  into  her  primary  research .      nothing  would   have  been  spent  on  a  mid - career  crisis  or  feeding  projects  that  do  anything  besides  propel  her  forward

MAYA  HANSEN  AND  TONY  STARK  ARE  SO  FUNDAMENTALLY  SIMILAR .     but  that  only  seeks  to  make  the  areas  where  they  are  so  fundamentally  different  all  the  more  glaring .      privilege  and  what  they’ve  done  with  it ?    one  of  those  biggest  and  most  fundamental  differences .

to  her ,      tony  stark  had  what  every  little  budding  scientist  playing  with  their  chemistry  set  dreams  about ,     and  he  completely  and  utterly  failed  to  live  up  to  that  potential .     ever  since  bern ,    she’s  been  resenting  him  for  that .     and  after  im3 ,    she  still  hasn’t  stopped .

PART  III  :   FUCKING  FINALLY ,    I’M  SOLIDLY  TALKING  ABOUT  POST - IM3  LIKE  ORIGINALLY  ASKED !

post -  im3 ,    maya  is  aware  that  she  has  lost  all  footing  to  ever  call  him  out  on  his  misuse  of  his  privilege ,      his  total  misstep  in  how  he  has  navigated  the  war   .    #1    because  he  has  ammunition  too  solid  to  fire  back  at  her .      with  his  much  more  awake  conscience ,    he’d  call  her  on  the  fact  that  she  went   ALL  THE  WAY  IN  THE  WRONG  DIRECTION .      and  she  knows   they’ll  never  agree  on  the  justification  of  why  that  as  .  .  .    not  necessarily  okay ,    but  an  acceptable  and  logical  course  of  reason .     why  that  doesn’t  make  her  any  worse  a  person  than  him .     why ,   in  some  ways ,   it  might  make  her  a  better  one .  .  .

and   #2  because  what  little  shot  she  has  at  a  second  chance  at  it  all ,   she  has  because  of  HIM .     i  sound  like  a broken  record  saying  some  of  this  shit ,    but  maya  shouldn’t  be  allowed  to  walk  around  after  what  she  did .     on  the  scale  she  did it ,   too .      without  the  pull  of  someone  like  tony  stark ,    she’d  still  be  rotting  away  in  a  jail  cell .       she  can’t  get  too  mouthy  with  him ,    especially  since ,    at  least  at  present ,    she   refuses  to  humble  herself  by  thanking  him .       if  anything ,   she  feels  as  though  she’s  finally   getting  the  sort  of  easy  break  that  he’s  been  catching   his  whole  life   ;      she  somehow  doubts  he  ever  went  around  thanking  the  people  or  things  that  made  those  possible  for  him .  

PART  IV :    WHO  STILL  HAS  A  SOUL !

the   other  big  thing  that  still  fills  maya  with  rage  when  she  thinks  about  tony  is  that  little  speech  he  gives  her  at  the  end  of  iron  man  3 .    let’s  just  pull  out  the  transcript ,    shall  we ?

tony :     you  used  to  have  a  moral  psychology .     you  used  to  have  ideals .     you  wanted  to  help  people .    now  look  at  you .    i  get  to  wake  up  every  morning  with  someone  who  still  has  their  soul .  

okay ,    listen ,     this  is  the  last  real  conversation  she  has  before  she  dies  and  then  gets  hospitalized  and  then  gets  tried  and  then  goes  to  jail .      so  these  are  words  that  echo  in  her  mind  during  her  time  in  prison .      and ,   while  undoubtedly  not  the  way  he  hoped  they  would  settle ,    all  they  do  is  really  fill  her  with  alternating  anger  and  annoyance .

 how  fucking  dare  he  make  that  judgement  call  about  her  knowing  as  little  about  her  journey  as  he  does ?     there’s  that  quote   DO  NOT  JUDGE  MY  STORY  BY  THE  CHAPTER  YOU  WALKED   IN  ON ;     literally ,    should  have  just  @’ed  tony  stark  on  that  one .        he  doesn’t  know  her .    hell ,   that’s  evident  from   his  assertion  that  she  wanted  to  help  people  ——–  she  wanted  to ,   but  again ,    that  was  secondary  to  her  being  GREAT .      she  still  has  her  ideals ;     they’re  just  not  pretty  or  good  ones .

maya  hansen  is  an  awful  person .      BUT  THE  THING  ABOUT  BEING  AN  AWFUL  PERSON ?     YOU  STILL  HAVE  TO  BE  A  PERSON  TO  BE  ONE .       maya  has  dragged  her  soul  through  the  mud  and  dirt ,    stomped  on  it  a  few  times ,     but  she  still  has  it .     it’s  capable  of  being  cleaned  up ,    if  she  wants  to .    she  still  has  it ,    she  still  owns  it .      and  he’s  on  NO  MORAL  HIGH  GROUND   to  be  lecturing  her  on  it .

(   there’s  also  the  point  that  he  could  have  been  an  active  character  in  those  chapters  if  he  wanted  to  be .    that  he  has  only  ever  thumbed  through  her  pages  with  little  more  than  he  gave  her  clit ?     oh  boy .   )   

additionally ,   his  saying     “i  get  to  wake  up  every  morning  with  someone   who  still has  a  soul”   as  opposed  to  something  like     “i  get  to  wake  up   every   morning   and  still  have  a  soul”   is  SO  FUCKED  UP .      if  a  parallel  should  be  drawn  between   her  and  another  person in  this  scenario ,    it  should  be  HIMSELF ,      not  pepper .

[    there’s  an  entire  section  about  semiotic  squares  that  i  started  to  put  right  in  here ,    but  that  i  am  going  to  save  for  another  post  because  it’s  basically  this  whole   Thing .      semiotic  squares  are  one  of  the  concentrations  that  i’ve  chosen  for  my  independent  research  with  my  lit  degree ,    and  so  i  could  literally  write  you  a  masters  thesis  length  analysis .    that  deserves  its  own  post .     the  tl;dr  of  it  all ,    though  ——-  there’s  a  fundamental  reason  that  in  the  years  between  bern  and  malibu ,     maya’s  being  merges  with  a  character  like  aldrich  killian ,     while  tony’s   merges  with  one  like  pepper  potts .     the  first  pair  picked  a  target  and  barrelled  straight  for  it ,    disregarding  the  ruin  it  brought  to  them  and  everyone  around  them ,     but  looked  in  mirrors  and  still  liked  what  they  saw .     the  other  two  changed  directions  and  burned  bridges  in  favor  of  greener  pastures ,    but  all  that  driving  cost  them  lots  of  gas  money  and  a  hellish  whiplash .     the  four  of  them  square  one  another  out  perfectly .  .  .    but  i  digress /     stay  tuned  for  a  full  post  about  all  this  nonsense     ]

but  also ,    him  choosing  to  juxtapose  herself  and pepper ,     thus  comparing  sexual  partner  to  romantic / sexual  partner ,      suggests  that   he  still  views  her  in  a  sexual  light .       which  is  fine ,    or  whatever ,    again  bc  validity  of  their  chemistry    EXCEPT  THAT  IN  THIS  VERY ,    VERY  HEIGHTENED  MOMENT ,     the  climax  of  this  movie   and  the  moment  her  entire  career  has   been  building  up  to  ——-  the  confrontation  with  tony   stark  she’s  been  dying  to  have  ——–   HE ,    BY  NATURE  OF  THE  COMPARISON  HE  CHOOSES  TO  DRAW ,  SIMPLIFIES  HER  TO  A  PAST  FLING .       after  everything  they’ve  been  through  and  all  going  through ,    that’s  still  the  underlying  lens  through  which  he  views  her ?      calling  her  a  piece  of  shit  scumbag  would  have  been  more  respectful .

(  mun  note  again :    i  fucking  hate  the  pacing  of  that  scene  anyway  ;      it  escalates  wayyyy  too quickly  and  gets  rushed  in  the  end  by  kilian’s  entrance ,    and  i’d  love  to  know  if   any  other  versions  of  it  existed  previously  in  the  development  of  the  movie .      but  it’s  what  we’ve  got  to  work  with .     and  again ,   these  attitudes  are  maya’s  biased  viewpoint .    ) 

she  stews   in  that  the  entire  time  she’s  in  prison .     and  it’s  because .  .  . 

PART V :    BITE  YOUR  TONGUE ;    IT’S  SERPENTINE .

that’s  never ,    ever  how  maya  has  viewed  tony  stark .      she’s  always  admired  his  work   and   respected  his  person .      even  while  decrying  his  work   and  criticizing  his  person    (   as  seen  above  ) ,      she  still fundamentally  held  him  in  the  same  high  esteem  that  she  would  anyone  else  with  the  kind  of  proven  brilliance  and  know - how   he  did .      more  than  that ,    she  had  a  name tag  from  bern   2000  that  proved  it   that ,     whether  she  wanted  to  or  not ,    she  needed  him .     she  needed  that  advice  that   ( she  thought )   he  had  to  give .

and  bottom  line   because  of  that  respect   MAYA  HANSEN  PRE - IM3  WOULD  HAVE  BEEN  HARD  PRESSED  TO  WALK  UP  TO  TONY  AND  PREACH  AT  HIM .      though  she  of  course  over  the  years  developed  her  very  strong  opinions  on  the  way  he  was  living  his  life ,    and  simultaneously  and  independently  chose  to  live   hers  in  such  a  way  that  she  became  one  of  his  “demons” ,     she ,    from  a  purely  moral  standpoint ,    stayed  in  her  fucking  lane .        as  discussed  above ,    when  it  counted ,   he  didn’t .     

consequently ,     there’s  a  lot  on  her  end  of  the  relationship  that  is  going  unsaid .     and  now ,   maya  post - im3  is  caught  in  the  worst ,   most  complicated  predicament  of  her  entire  relationship  with  tony  stark .

now  that  tony  officially has  tried  to  mark  himself  as  morally  superior ,    SHE  NOW  HAS  LICENSE  AND  WILL  TO  RETALIATE  AND  LAY  BARE  ALL  OF  HER   ISSUES  WITH  HIM .     and ,   god ,    sometimes  she  wants  to .     there’s  shit  he’s  done  all  throughout  the  entire  twenty - first  century  that  she’d  love  to  bring  back  to  the  surface .      there’s  one  GIANT  finger  pointing  at  her ,    but  waaaay  more  than  four  little  ones  pointing  back  at  him .     and  maya  has  a  temper  and  a  vicious  way  with  words .    at  times ,   she’d   kill to  unleash  everything  she’s  got .

but ,    as  i  mentioned  earlier ,    SHE  CAN’T  SAY  SHIT  TO  THE  PERSON  WHO  BAILED  HER  OUT  OF  THE  SLAMMER .     she  finally  has  the  will ,    but  she  doesn’t  have  the  way .

she  looks  at  him  and  she  wants  to  scream .     she  wants  to  lay  out  in  front  of  him  exactly  how  she  feels .    THANKS  FOR  BAILING  ME  OUT  AND  ALL ,    BUT  YOU  REALIZE  YOU  DESERVE  TO  BE  THERE  WITH  ME ,   RIGHT ????  

PART  VI :    THE  EYES  ARE  THE  WINDOWS  TO  THE  SOUL .

so  the  gut  reaction  of  tony  fans    (   and  some  tony  portrayals ,   though  i’m  trying   to  keep  this  answer  generalized   to  the  tony  stark  character  rather  than  a  specific  one  )     is  going  to  be  that  there’s  nothing  she  could   say  that  he  hasn’t  said  to  himself .

here’s  the  thing  though :     MAYA  DOESN’T  GIVE  A  SHIT  ABOUT  HIS  GUILTY  CONSCIENCE  ;   his  having  one  does  nothing  to  change  the  feelings  she  has  towards  him  one  way  or  another .

in  general ,    maya  has  very  little  regard  for  consciences .    even  her  own .    what  good  does  it  do  if  what  she’s  done  keeps  her  up  at  night ?     she’s  done  it  regardless .            /                 flipside  of  that :     him  being  wracked  by  guilt  for  what  he’s  done / caused   doesn’t  do  shit .     she  doesn’t  have  any  sympathy  for  someone  hiding  behind  they’re  self  hate  ;      it’s  a  cop - out  and  an  excuse  and  it  makes  her  blood  boil .

a  part  of  this ,   too ,    is  that  maya  is  very  ableist .    i  think  this  goes  without  saying  given that  extremis  was  largely   tested  on  disabled  people ,    who  she  clearly  didn’t  respect .     i’ve  written  headcanons  before  on  her  biological  uncle  that  i’ve  made  up  who  she  sort  of  disregarded  because  of  the  traits  that  he  portrayed  because  of  his  ptsd .      she  would  NOT  INITIALLY  BE  UNDERSTANDING  OF  THE  ROLE  TONY’S  ANXIETY / DEPRESSION / PTSD    HAS  PLAYED  IN  HIS  CHARACTER  ARC  AND  LIFE ;      i  emphasize  initially because  a  big  part  of  the  reason  that  she  doesn’t  understand  is  that  she  doesn’t  care to .     if ,   in  rp  land ,   she  began  to  care  about  tony  or  another  mentally  ill  character ,    some  of  this  could  change .     (  it  already has  progressed  some  because  i  have  an  extensive  backstory  of  her  and  my  own  erik  selvig  muse .    but  that’s  also  a  meta  for  another  time .   )

PART  VII :    POT  AND  KETTLE .

at  the  end  of  the  day ,   TONY  AND  MAYA  ARE  JUST  SITTING  ON  TOP  OF  A  STOVE  ARGUING  OVER  WHO  IS  A  DARKER  SHADE .     they’re  both  fucking  black ,    but  both  of  them  are  grey  on  the  inside .     tony’s  whistle  went  off  first  but  maya’s  then  went  off  louder  but  now   THEY  CAN’T  EVEN  TALK  ABOUT  WHAT   HAPPENED  BECAUSE  THEY’RE  BOTH  JUST  FUCKING  KITCHEN  APPLIANCES .    

SO  IN  SUMMARY ,     i  know  that  i  wrote  a  lot  about  maya / tony  in  general  and  a  lot  less  about  maya / tony  post - im3     than  you  might  have  been  expecting .    it’s  because  maya ,   largely ,    still  feels  the  same way  towards  tony  that  she  has  always  felt  ;      the  big  difference  is  that   now  she  is  going  to  be  forced  to  face  those  feelings  up  close .     (   or  closer  than  before ,    as  both  of  my  main  tony  partners  have ,   thus  far ,    still  kept  her  at  arms’  length .    or  football  fields’  length.    understandably .    )

everything  ahead  is  unknown  territory  that  i  look  forward  to  exploring  in  the  world  of  rp .    that  is ,    after  all ,   why  we’re  all  here   :)