#2. A ten year old who can control the elements

[feralautisticgremlin]

realism styled art. sorta a commission, sorta not since they're my friends and also cause some of the characters were made by me

[eskewcity]

Eskewcity's Top Ten Games of 2023

Hello!!! I've decided to compile a list of the best games I played this past year. As such, this list is not limited to only 2023 releases (in fact a majority of the games I played are several years old atp). Additionally, I only considered games that I had completed by year's end. This means that fantastic games such as Signalis and The Talos Principle 2 will not be included, though I still highly recommend them.

Finally, I will put my ranking under a read more for the sake of not clogging anyways dash. Hope you all had a good 2023 and maybe can find something that interests you mwah <3

10. Subway Midnight by Bubby Darkstar

Board the train! Run away from a weirdo! Solve some puzzles! Make friends with some ghosts! Try not to become a ghost yourself!

While I am not someone usually willing to gloss over a somewhat lackluster story for the sake of gorgeous visuals, I will give Subway Midnight an exception. Even with a game that largely takes place in a subway car, it was exceptional when it came to its visual design. It has a blend of a cartoonish style for the characters mixed with extremely realistic environments. The gameplay itself was also quite fun, if not tedious in multiple runs and I really enjoyed the variety of characters that players encounter.

9. Broken Reality by Dynamic Media Triad

A humorous adventure set in a 3D parody of the internet. Diverse puzzles, beautiful worlds, friends, experiences, upgrades and more, await those who 'log on'!

Depending on yourself, Broken Reality might either be a headache inducing cacophony of colors or a fun exploration game about the internet and the commercialization of products and each other. For myself, I choose to look at it from the latter perspective. I found the game to put quite humorous and I really enjoyed all the different worlds to explore. Much like Subway Midnight, I would not recommend it much on its story but I think the design and concept certainly carries where that lacks.

8. Hylics by Mason Lindroth

Hylics is a recreational program with light JRPG elements.

At its core, Hylics is a game with a pretty simple concept. Fight your way through the world with the end goal of defeating the big bad, Gibby, King of Moon. However past that, get ready for a confusing and abstract adventure. This accounts for several reasons. For one, the dialogue of Hylics consists of randomly generated sentences that feel almost coherent while maintaining a healthy amount of head scratching. The game was also created through claymation leading to characters and environments whose shapes twists and turn in perplexing patterns. While this may seem to take away from the experience, I found this not to be the case at all. In fact, I would say it enhanced my time playing greatly. I could not stop thinking about Hylics after I played it simply because its weird and purposely lacks focus which makes it all the more memorable.

7. Babbdi by Sirius & Léonard Lemaitre

BABBDI is a short, first person exploration experience with light narrative and platforming elements. Visit the town of BABBDI, a forsaken district in the outer ring of the megalopolis. Meet its inhabitants and discover how to escape.

In Babbdi, your goal is to leave Babbdi. You must search through the city to find a train ticket that can guarantee your escape. However, the ironic part of playing this game was that I did not rush to leave. While being a free-to-play game, it had an incredibly sizable area to explore. The game actively encourages the player to search every inch of city to find its secrets while also reminding the player that their goal is to eventually leave all of this behind. If you have an hour or so to spare and love games focused more on exploration than action, this is definitely one to check out!

6. Who's Lila? by Garage Heathen

A reverse-detective adventure, where you control your character's face

In Who's Lila, you play as a young man named Will who cannot properly control the expressions on his face. As the player, your job is to ensure that he reacts properly to the world around him. The game even starts with a tutorial on how to respond accordingly to a variety of situations. While a seemingly simple concept, this game is not as it may appear. In fact, and without giving much away, Who's Lila requires multiple playthroughs to order to begin to piece together what is truly going on.

5. Hypnospace Outlaw by Tendershoot

Greetings Enforcer, and thank you for enlisting in the Hypnospace Patrol Department! As the world falls into its slumber, Hypnospace becomes a bustling global village. These virtual streets aren't going to police themselves!

Taking place in 1999, Hypnospace Outlaw tasks you as a moderator for a new form of technology which allows users to surf the internet in their sleep. As the player, you're tasked with seeking out policy violations and handing out warnings and even banning users, if necessary. There is so much about this game I can say but I find going in blind is the best. I definitely found some frustrations which some of the puzzles and how obtuse their solutions were but its undeniably one of the most unique games I have ever played.

4. Return of the Obra Dinn by Lucas Pope

Return of the Obra Dinn is a first-person mystery adventure based on exploration and logical deduction.

In Return of the Obra Dinn, is a mystery game where you not only have to determine the fates of one person, but an entire ship's crew. Additionally, you have to determine the names of each individual based on existing records. By going in the past to witness the last moments of each individual, players can be able to slowly work out the mystery of the Obra Dinn. As someone who plays many puzzle games, I found this to be one of the most satisfying I've ever played. I also thought the game just looked gorgeous and was extremely fitting for the vibe it was going with.

3. Papers Please by Lucas Pope

Congratulations. The October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled. For immediate placement, report to the Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint. An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a Class-8 dwelling.

As a border patrol officer, your job is determine the legitimacy of the documents that are brought to you by people wishing to enter the country of Arstotzka. This requires things such checking if their paperwork has expired, if they match their passport photo and if they have the necessary seals for entry. However, what if someone comes to the border fearing for their safety if they are denied, without the correct paperwork? Will you let them in, risking punishment for yourself or deny them, ensuring that you will able to provide for your family at home? Papers Please is a game that will continuously make you question your own ethics under a authoritarian regime. I found this game to be incredibly emotional and made me replay several days simply because I decided against my initial judgments. Certainly one of the most impactful games I played this year.

2. Presentable Liberty by Wertpol

You have been imprisoned without being told why. All you can hear day in day out is the faint ticking of a clock in your cell. That is, until the first of 5 fateful days begins.

Sometimes there are short indie games in the world that fundamentally change you and this is one of them for me. With that in mind, there is not much I want to say about Presentable Liberty since I find its best experienced blind. The short of it is you play as a prisoner as they receive letters from those on the outside. The gameplay is minimal since the player is stuck in their cell for the majority of the game but promise you when I say it does not much that action when its biggest strength comes from its writing. While this game had its short lived success on Youtube, I implore everyone out there to play it and see why I choose to rank it this high on the list.

1. Cry of Fear by Team Psykskallar

Cry of Fear is a psychological single-player and co-op horror game set in a deserted town filled with horrific creatures and nightmarish delusions. You play as a young man desperately searching for answers in the cold Scandinavian night, finding his way through the city as he slowly descends into madness.

Honestly, it's insane it took me so long to play this game especially when loving a piece of media that's a psychological horror featuring a depressed character wandering a city is kind of what I'm known for. However, I finally got around to it and I'm so glad I did. While not the most technically savvy game out there, it is incredible what Team Psykskallar managed to pull off while offering players the opportunity to experience the entire thing for free. Several times throughout playing Cry of Fear I couldn't stop thinking how much better it was than many of the games I've paid for. Like I said, its definitely not the most polished horror game out for sure but damn was I charmed. Even after I completed this game, I immediately had to restart so I could play with director's commentary as I was just that damn interested in learning about as much of this game's development as I could. And its because of how invested I got in playing this game but also its background, that I choose to make it my number 1 pick this year.

(fuck that train level though)

[tempest-toss]

2/2

Here's my 2nd part of the revision of the list, with a few additional Overseers who never got a statue made. List is formatted as Callsign - Fate - And additional info. Some are smaller than others whether it be that they didn't do a lot, or I didn't know them personally

--Four

The Bellhop - Alive (Digitized) - Quite a kind lady, she did what Fourteen does now, helping everywhere with a multitude of tasks. Following an attack by the Neon Nightsticks she was forever preserved in digital code. \

The Bride - Deceased (Betrayed) - Murdered by Mosswood. Sadly was actually engaged to him. Besides that she was the group's therapist \

The Cartographer - Deceased (Crossfire) - One of the founders, she was invested in expanding the area of influence of the Foundation. Passed during the Great Catastrophes. \

The Centurion - Deceased (Old age) - Known for her old age, being the third oldest human on the council. Her name is actually a mistake, as she thought a centurion was a name for an old person, and not a roman person. She kept it because the mistake made her laugh. \

The Chef - Alive (Retired) - A bubbly personality, she practically had the Council wrapped around her fingers from her cooking. Thankfully her warm exterior matched her heart. \

The Conductor - Unknown (Merged) - A fiery personality, he was known to control electricity and move just as fast. Was seemingly absorbed by an elemental, who promptly left. \

The Contained - Alive - Oh, it's me. Yes, I'm still alive, and I'm quite thankful for that. I haven't really delved deep into my past as a Founder, but you can always ask. \

The Family-Man - Alive (Stepped Down) - You might know him as Dr. Wondertainment. Yes, he's still alive and still making toys and sweets for the world to enjoy. I was told to market the sapient gummy bears here as well. \

The Fisherwoman - Deceased (Traitor) - Fake callsign. She betrayed the Foundation and tried to sell off our information. She was caught and eliminated. \

The Forbidden - Alive - It's Shuichi, although you may know him more as the current Two. Wonderfully mischievous, alas he describes the truth to only us, so expect some mistruths from him. \

The Gentleman Ghost - Deceased/Alive - Ah, It's Victor Jekyll! I'm quite fond of him and he is with the polycule. He served mainly as a promise to a prior member only for us to realize that they were holding him as a captive. Their death set him free. \

The Graffiti Artist - Deceased (old Age) - What Ten referred to as "A Punk Ass Bitch". Despite looking like a rebel, she was very wise and through her lens could handle problems differently. \

The Hair Stylist - Deceased (Betrayed) - Killed by Mosswood. Fake Callsign. Despite this she did have the knowledge to create great looks and was able to use this to defuse situations, interestingly enough. \

The Hero - ??? - One of the Founders. It seems every council has someone with bravado, and he was the one. He went missing during the Great Catastrophes, although I feel he's somewhere in the Gallery. \

The Hierophant - Deceased (Traitor) - He acted as a predictor for the Foundation, and I suppose he saw himself being a betrayer because that what he did. He didn't see the cliff crumbling I suppose... \

The Koi Keeper - Alive (Retired) - A passive fellow, he was often seen working in his garden, so he could tend to his titular koi fish. Mentored many a future overseer before setting aside his mantle. \

The Librarian - Deceased (Retired) - One of the archival positions, he ran it for 80 odd years before his eye deteriorated. He passed on the mantle to the current One. \

The Living Catalogue - Deceased (Assassinated) - One of the most well known benefactors, He provided the council with money and new amenities while he oversaw the financials. He was shot in the head by an Insurgent. \

The Mardi Gras Musician - ??? (trapped) - A great friend and good company. He was lively and knew how to make others happy. Following an incident at the swamp site, he wasn't heard from again. \

The Marionette - N/A - Not an overseer but I should mention them. I'm referring to a mannequin-like object that we use for positioning for certain tasks but also reportedly appears in the background of nightmares involving us. \

The Masquerader - N/A - Similar to above, these are automatons who act as defensive protections. They are fairly new, and do lurk behind the walls and behind open doors. \

The Matron - Deceased (old age) - One of the founders. She acted as a de facto leader, and helped the group go from a small club of odd balls to the early steps of the Foundation we have today. \

The Old Ai - Alive - One of the Founders and current member. Unlike most 079s, this one operates a bit more amicably. Key phrase: a bit. It seems that cynicism is a forever constant. \

The Plague-Bearer - Alive - Pestilence embodied, and enemy of 049. Actually a disciple of mine elevated. He took over my duties for a while why I was away after the Great Catastrophes. \

The Railroad - Deceased (Betrayal) - Murdered by Mosswood. He was in charge of obtaining land for the Foundation and maintained a truce with Marshall Carter & Dark Ltd. \

The Record-Keeper - Deceased (Old Age) - One of the Founders. She was the first to hold an archival role. Her legacy can be felt when you step into the archives' halls. I heard rumors that her spirit is still tied to the place, perhaps I'll ask One about it. \

The Reporter - Deceased (Old Age) - A great reporter whose prior knowledge allowed her to be taken in by the Foundation, where she worked up to Overseer status. Also a mechanic, and she created her own son. \

The Satyr - Alive (Stepped Down) - One of my partners. He is a muscbound satyr with a heart of gold. He filled in for Murder while he recovered and maintained duties until I was ready to step back into the Foundation light. \

The Tailor - Deceased (stabbed) - Killed by Mosswood. She was the mother of a Brunshire Student, and created the suits that the Council wears today \

The Train Conductor - Unknown (Merged) - A friendly face, he was a train conductor and single father to a son. Sadly he discovered the Station of Bygone Years, and became (seemingly) a permanent part of it. \

The Traitor - Deceased (old age) - Mentioned him here \

The Wrestler - Alive (Retired) - She was at one point the physically strongest overseer ever, and she matched her brawn with intelligence and a fierce wit. Mother of a Brunshire student. \

Unlisted - ??? - The creator of the Redaction Department and is rumored to still work there. Showed off their skills by wiping most of their info off our records. \

Vertigo - Deceased (Anomalized, shot down) - A shy member of the Council, he was targeted for an attack that sprouted him wings. As he was traveling he was shot down and crashed into a field. \

Western - Deceased (Traitor) - one of our most recent betrayals, he attempted to kill Three, Nine, Dr. Wondertainment and all the Little Misters. He was turned to crystal and then had his head kicked off. \

Whirlwind - Deceased (Absorbed) - Similar situation as The Conductor, as they were also eliminated during that fight. Sometimes you can hear them when the wind blows. \

XT-1585 - Deceased (Non-Functional) - A repurposed robot from the Church of the Broken God. Acted as a predecessor to 073, but ultimately had its core fried. Memory chip was salvaged, however. \

Yesterday's Wishes - Alive (anomalized)- Ah, a lovely man. He came into contact with an expedition he led and became a Slime King. He still shows intelligence, so he's alright, but opted to no longer be a part of the Council \

Zoologist - Alive (Imprisoned) - A POW currently held by an anomalous group. They most likely wanted her for her abilities to control animals.

[astro-vision-au]

Time for some lore on this guy! I'll be going over the lore for both of his components as well as his lore!

So, for starters, yes, Cardinal is comprised of 3 personalities but only 2 people. Cardinal is the result of P-8723 [who I will call PC] and Yellows consciousness working in sync to create Cardinal. If and when they act independently, Cardinal kinda just doesn't exist for a short while until they're both back on the same page.

I'll be going over both of their lore, and by both I mostly mean Yellow bc he's one of my older OC's so he's got a lot of lore going on that translates into Cardinal.

Yellow

Offical cannon

His ref is super old but it's the best I can do JFNENE

Yellow is a species known as a Core, this species were once humans with magical/elemental abilities that cane from the core in their chest. Unfortunately after a mass extintion event where their planet was destroyed their souls were bound to these cores, and they would drift throughout the multiverse for thousands of years, waiting for a host to accidentally stumble across them.

Here are some non cannon pics of him having several other characters as hosts! [Don't mind some of this art is BALLS OLD]

It should come as no surprise to anyone that this mass extinction event was caused by none other then Yellow himself, destroying his entire planet because he was tired of the endless wars that infested his planet, and in his words, "ruined his life". [I even have some old art of it I just found lol. Planet go 💥]

Over the next ten thousand or so years, he would hop from the universe to the universe, world to world, taking hosts and causing pain and suffering in his wake. He enjoys pain in every form, on himself or others, especially himself, as he has a tendency to rip his hosts apart when he's board of them. After all, when you spend most of your existence not feeling anything, pain feels like ecstasy, at least, that's how he sees it.

Yuy

While he has a long rap sheet of causing damage, his most notable and most terrible experiment was known as the Rainbow Core project. Think the cluster from Steven universe, except it's the fragments of shattered cores, hundreds of thousands of fractured consciousness compacted into one core the size of an SUV. Thankfully, the goddess Unity was able to use the Rainbow Core to defeat Yellow along with several other major villains he had teamed up with at the time before sending the Core off deep into space.

Once defeated, Yellow, reduced to his Core form, would be kept in high security storage by Screen for nearly one thousand years. [As of Astro II: 31XX he does not have a role, so while his story isn't over that's as far as it currently goes.]

Joj eua mkz se skyygmk?

Astro-Vision Cannon

His story In Astro vision picks up from the Astro II: 31XX timeline, meaning that when he spawned on Astronia he was still in high security storage, before eventually being moved to the same Facility as PC. From his perspective he had been dormant for a very long time, so he was extremely eager to have a new host. Using what little power he had, he would call out to PC while he was making his escape, and was able to bond to him when PC picked him up.

Under normal circumstances, Yellow would completely take over his host, but PC seemed to be different. For the first time in his long existence, he allowed PC to have some control, and in doing so, they were able to synchronize, an extremely rare phenomenon that has only occurred once before in SF! Mask. This third personality would be known as Cardinal.

PC

PC, aka Puzzles Clone, was the first to be created by Sag5, however Sag5 was unconscious when creating him, and thus, had no idea of his existence for several years.

nk'y yzorr grobk

He would go out into Astronia, immediately causing trouble, running into a group of government agents sent from the mushroom kingdom to explore the new lands. During the struggle, he would get his hand on an explosive, throwing it and severely injuring Swag and giving Chris minor injuries. Swag would lose his arm and right eye.

He was still taken down by Screen, who came just in time to save the remaining agents before disappering. He would be taken to be held in the government facility for several years. In that time, Screen would merge the Unify Army with the government facility, giving Swag a new robotic prosthetic arm and eye. Screen would also transfer the items in secure storage to the facility, including the Yellow Core.

When the day came that Swag dropped his key card in PC's cell, he took his chance to escape, as he was sneaking through the halls, he heard a voice calling to him. Following it, he found the Yellow core, and from there, Cardinal would be born.

Vxuzkiz noy MURJKT ZXKGYAXK

Cardinal

A third personality, born of two mentally unstable masocistic sadists, yeah, what could go wrong? His first moments of life would be spent ripping and tearing his way through guards until he escaped the facility that held him. For a time, he laid low, learning about his abilities and how they worked. But he had a goal. You see, PC specifically was obsessed with one person, a person that Cardinal would also be obsessed with, Sag5, their Creator.

Cardinal worships Sag5 like a God, their obsession is not entirely romantic, but it can be seen that way to many. Cardinal saw everyone and everything as an obstical, especially Mr. Puzzles. At the end of Pt 4, Cardinal would sneak up behind Puzzles, impaleing him through the head, and throwing his body into the gateway before destroying it. [Puzzles did not die, but he was severely injured, he would, however, make a full recovery in pt 5]

Znke'xk utzu sk, O ngbk zu MKZ UAZ GTJ TKBKX IUSK HGIQ

Unfortunately, he wasn't as sneaky as the thought, as Tari would witness this. He decided it was best to prove a point, and show what happens to those who try to get in his way, by ripping off Taris arm, and dragging her back to the Castle.

Smg4 and Smg3 would attempt to fight Cardinal to protect Tari and the others, only for Screen to step in and protect them. Cardinal would get the upper hand, grabbing her Screen and ripping it from her face, causing her to bleed out and pass from her injuries. [Dw Screen is capable of responding, death to her is just an inconvenience]

After that, Cardinal would make his retreat. And I can't say much after that, as pt 5 and 6 are still under development!

IKGYK EUAX OTZKXLKXKTIK GBGZGX UL ZNK YZGXY

Overall

Cardinal is a massive threat to everyone around him, and will be the main antagonist of pt 5 and probably pt 6 as well. the only person spared from his wrath is Sag5, who doesn't exactly reciprocate his feelings, not that he really cares. Words can not describe how truly evil he is. He kills for the fun of it all and really has no other motive than his own selfish desires. Yet somehow, ppl want this man smh smh.

If there's anything else you want to know don't be afraid to ask!

Vrkgyk lotj nos

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Yep, that's right! Puzzles had some things to attend to with his kiddo, so Cardinal will be taking over puzzles spot in the sexyman contest by @alelathedragon! Sorry for any confusion or inconvenience for some people! Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be on the sidelines, still around helping out with the contest!

Yes yes, I know this is bound to ruffle a few feathers but let's be real, we all know I'm the favorite, recent asks have proven that, I'm sure this is pleasant news for everyone! As for my competition, I hope you don't mind, I know you were looking forward to an easy victory with my predecessor, but I'm not going down as easily... see you soon.

[formally-illogical]

When you get this respond with five things that make you happy!!! Then send to the last ten people you got notifications from (anon) :)

Oooo lovely, I certainly will. It being part of a chain doesn't remove authenticity to me, thank you very much anonymous friend.

1. Reconnecting with old friends

I never stop loving my friends, and something about bringing them back into my life feels so right.

This has happened a couple times lately, and it feels like a beacon of hope in an otherwise fairly pessimistic personal outlook.

2. Formal logic

This may be obvious given my username, but I'm a fan of formal logic. I have developed a taste for second-order logic, which is subject to godels incompleteness theorem, meaning it's either incomplete(there are things true but not provable) or inconsistent(not actually a valid form of logic). I am not adept at the more modern proofs, but it is a plaything that honestly has more control over me than I have over it. I've been in the process of writing a proof assistant based on emulating formal logic and using pathfinding to make shortest possible proofs for a billion years with fairly good success so far.

3. Programming

I've been programming since I was like 12, started out on Lua because of computercraft, then use love2d for a while, then kept playing with languages till the combo of C and python stuck with me. I love C, but I try not to be too pushy about abandoning oop anymore

4. Time alone

I don't get this very much right now because of private circumstances but when I do it is just golden. Just as it's easy to forget how much of our psyche relies on being near others, than it is to forger how much of it relies on being away from others, it can drive you mad. I am mad. I have been driven. No further elaboration will be given, I love you.

5. Argument(affectionate)

In my group of friends we have a particular kind of argument, it's not really an argument in the sense of a "fight". We get animated from time to time, but we all know that our feelings about each other are 100% unchanged. It's a conversation with the end goal of removing ignorance from both parties by excising any faults each party finds in the others belief, and hopefully this description highlights how both(all) people involved are on the same team: the truth-seekers. There is also a synthetic element.. Perhaps it's right to say that destruction is the common part but construction is the essential part.

I love those kinds of arguments. I love talking philosophy with people. Those who say it's useless are very wrong.

Bonus: Time travel

It's been a fixation of mine forever. I could talk about my "solution" to a certain kind of paradox but it'd make this already pretty boring post worse.

Essentially, most of my fantasies involve time travel, and if a fiction I'm watching uses it extensively I'll like it a lot more than if it did not have time travel.

[make-mine-movie]

Peter Pan (1953)

Peter Pan is a coming-of-age story somewhat reminiscent of Pinocchio. It is the third film of the Silver Age, released in 1953.  Peter Pan has since received a 77% from Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest percentage for this time period thus far.

Peter Pan is an exceptionally significant movie in both Disney history and in the modern Disney media sphere, having a multitude of attractions and shows themed after it, such as the ride Peter Pan’s Flight and Tinkerbell’s performance during the evening fireworks in Walt Disney World. Songs like “You Can Fly! You Can Fly! You Can Fly!” and “Following the Leader,” along with choice lyrics from “Main Title (The Second Star to the Right)” are also exceptionally notable in pop culture despite being just over seventy years old. The backgrounds of Neverland and overall setting are remarkable, and the general artstyle void of particular character design choices is likable. However, this is where Peter Pan’s positive attributes stop. Beginning with the most significant problem Peter Pan has: its overt anti-Indigenous racism. The characters repeatedly use three slurs against Indigenous people and continuously mock them and attempt to kidnap them. Additionally, the design of the Indigenous people themselves is exceptionally problematic as their skin is literally red, reminiscent of one of the common racist stereotypes and bigoted terminology surrounding Indigenous people and their skin tones. Beyond the racism, Peter Pan also features repeated accounts of sexism, most of which are against Wendy. George Darling has a lesser opinion of the women in his family, including punishing Wendy for not being mature or maternal enough despite being a pre-teen. Tinkerbell (and the Mermaids) also exhibits some instances of internalized misogyny which she projects onto Wendy, mostly out of jealousy concerning Peter. The most guilty culprit is Peter though. He makes remarks that “girls talk too much” and repeatedly patronizes Wendy on account that she is a girl. He, similar to her father, also forces her into a maternal position against her will. The racist and sexist elements of Peter Pan combine when portraying the Indigenous women of the film. Only two are shown, and only one has a name, Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily, who is supposed to be viewed as desirable through Peter’s eyes, is the only light-skinned and normally-proportioned Indigenous character in the whole movie. The other woman, who is only referred to as the slur that specifically targets Indigenous women, reinforces gender roles when she tells Wendy that “[women] don’t dance, [women] gather firewood.” Beyond Peter Pan’s bigotry, the protagonist of this film is exceptionally unlikeable. Peter is selfish and misogynistic - both a bully and a player. He utilizes all of the women in his life to boost his ego, controls the lives of everyone around him, and literally taunts the man whose hand he cut off. Peter arguably has no positive qualities.

In conclusion, Peter Pan not only features an annoying protagonist, but it is a bigoted film that has no positive attributes or influences. This is an upsetting continuation into the Silver Age, following wondrous movies such as Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. Overall, Peter Pan receives 2 out of 10 stars, the worst score thus far, even lower than that of Pinnochio. Peter Pan lost a point for each racist slur used as well as the general racism of the film, misogyny, and Peter’s horrid personality. Additional points were lost as the music is not great, and despite fitting the film, will not be receiving points as at least two of the songs are explicitly racist. Peter Pan also does not pass the Bechdel Test.

Summary of the film under the cut.

Peter Pan opens up on the Darling family. The heads of the family are George Darling and his wife Mary. They have three children, Wendy, John, and Michael, and a dog that doubles as their nursemaid, Nana. George and Mary are getting ready for a party, while Nana is tending to the children. John and Michael are playing “Peter Pan,” a game in which one of them is Peter Pan and the other is Captain hook; they are play-fighting. George is upset because he is having difficulty finding aspects of his outfit, particularly his cufflinks and shirt front. He discovers his shirt front in the nursery where the boys are playing, and becomes enraged when he sees they drew a treasure map on it. In his ignorant ranting he continuously messes up Nana’s organization. John and Michael, and later Wendy, try to explain the story and importance of Peter Pan, but George does not want to hear them out. Mary tries to come to her children’s defense, but George determines that the best solution is to expel Wendy from the nursery permanently after that night. He then proceeds to stumble over Nana and all of the toys strewn about the room, which only makes him angrier. He thinks his family is going to comfort him, but rather they all go to the aid of Nana. With his newfound anger, George decides to retract Nana’s nursemaid status and banish her outside in the doghouse despite her doing nothing wrong. Then Mary and George go to the party, leaving the kids home alone that night. Later in the evening, a young boy and a magical fairy enter the nursery through the window. He starts exploring the room, and the fairy, named Tinkerbell, goes into one of the dresser drawers. She gets stuck when she cannot fit through the keyhole. Wendy notices that there is someone in the room and wakes up. It is Peter Pan and he is looking for his shadow. Apparently Nana had gotten a hold of his shadow, and Wendy took it from Nana and put it in a locked drawer to keep it safe. She opened the drawer, inadvertently freeing Tinkerbell, and returned Peter’s shadow to him. He tries sticking it back on with soap, but Wendy assures him that it would be better to sew it on. She explains to him how excited she and her brothers are to hear from him since the incident with their parents, but he informs her that “girls talk too much,” and she stops recanting the prior experiences. With his shadow back, Peter starts to excitedly run about the room. Wendy wakes up her brothers, who are thrilled to see Peter Pan. They tell him about George forcing Wendy to grow up, which he is completely taken aback by. He wants to take them away to Neverland so that they do not have to, but first has to figure out how to get them to fly there. He concludes that if they think of something happy they should be able to fly. When that does not work right away, he adds that pixie dust from Tinkerbell will help them to fly. It does, and the three children, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbell fly out of the room and around London. Michael even sprinkles a little pixie dust on Nana to get her to float, despite the fact that she is still tied to the ground outside. The quintet fly to Neverland, “The Second Star to the Right” and a magical island inhabited by a wide variety of interesting residents. The camera pans over to Captain Hook’s pirates, who want to go out to sea, but the Captain is so obsessed with getting revenge on Peter Pan that he stays in Neverland. This scene also introduces Tick-Tock, a crocodile that ate Captain Hook’s hand after Peter Pan cut it off, and now follows Hook everywhere trying to eat the rest of him. Mr. Smee, Captain Hook’s first mate, is trying to give him a shave as a distraction from plotting to get revenge on Peter. Just then, after some shenanigans with Tick-Tock, Hook notices Peter and the others have landed on a cloud above the ship. Captain Hook orders the other pirates to shoot cannonballs at them, and Peter decides to distract the Captain while Tinkerbell leads Wendy and the others to the safety of the island. However, Tinkerbell is jealous of all of the attention Wendy is getting from Peter and abandons her. She flies to the Lost Boys and tells them there is a bird they need to shoot out of the sky. They follow her orders, which she tells them are actually Peter’s orders, and through a multitude of weapons at Wendy. Wendy almost crashes as a result, but Peter saves her in the knick of time. Discovering Tinkerbell’s intentions, he banishes her. He tells the Lost Boys that Wendy is actually their “new mother” who will take care of them and read them stories. By now John and Michael have landed on the island as well. Peter instructs them to capture members of the Indigenous tribe while he shows Wendy the island. John leads the Lost Boys and his younger brother across the island to try and find the Indigenous people. Meanwhile, Peter brings Wendy to see the Mermaids, who become jealous of her presence much like Tinkerbell was, and try to drown her. Peter then notices that Captain Hook and Mr. Smee have kidnapped the Chief’s, leader of the Indigenous tribe, daughter, Tiger Lily. Peter and Wendy follow them to Skull Rock, where they try to drown Tiger Lily with the incoming tide if she does not tell them where Peter’s hideout is. Peter tries to show off how much he can mess with Hook by mimicking his voice and commanding Mr. Smee to release Tiger Lily. Peter and Hook fight, but Tick-Tock interrupts and drives Hook away. Peter and Wendy are then able to save Tiger Lily. This is important considering the Indigenous people found the Lost Boys, John, and Michael first. They captured them, and the Chief is threatening to burn them at the stake if Tiger Lily is not returned, for they believe Peter kidnapped her. Peter returns Tiger Lily to her home, and in order to celebrate Peter, the Lost Boys, and the siblings dance around the fire, singing with the Indigenous people. However, because she is a woman, Wendy is commanded to get firewood rather than participate in the activities. She becomes jealous of Tiger Lily flirting with Peter, upset that she is being ordered to work rather than have fun, and leaves. She tries to convince her brothers to leave. Captain Hook is working on a new plan to kill Peter Pan which involves taking advantage of Tinkerbell’s jealousy by convincing her that they will move Peter’s attention away from Wendy without hurting Peter. Tinkerbell reveals the location of Peter’s hiding spot, and Captain Hook promises that he will not “lay a hand or a hook on Peter.” He uses this loophole to put a bomb disguised as a present in Hangman’s Tree, Peter and the Lost Boys’ base. Tinkerbell realizes the trick and takes the “present” out of Peter’s hands right before it blows up. The Tree is ruined and Tinkerbell is injured, but the two manage to escape. They cannot find the siblings and the Lost Boys, and then realize they have been kidnapped by the pirates as a ransom. Captain Hook begins to force the hostages to walk the plank, starting with Wendy. She jumps off the end of the board, but Peter Pan secretly catches her. He then returns her to the boat, surprising Captain Hook and challenging him to a fight. Peter Pan wins the fight, sending Hook’s crew out onto a lifeboat and Hook scurrying into the sea. He proceeds to be chased by Tick-Tock while Mr. Smee and the others desperately try to keep up with him. Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, Wendy, John, and Michael abscond Captain Hook’s ship, the Jolly Roger. Tinkerbell covers the ship in pixie dust, and they sail back to London. Peter Pan leaves Wendy, John, and Michael in their nursery, despite the fact that he wants Wendy to stay in Neverland with him. Mary and George come home to discover their children asleep, Wendy not in her bed but in the windowsill. The clouds are shaped like the Jolly Roger.

[asparklerwhowrites]

writing tragedy

tragedy, as a genre, is one of my favourites. does this make me a masochist? maybe. anyways. even if you arent writing a tragedy per se, elements of this can be present in your wip if you want to give it a more adult tone.

#1. not all deaths are meaningful

in media, especially modern media, all character deaths are characterized as either “pointless” or “meaningful”. tragedy deviates from that because in a tragedy - not all the deaths have to mean something. not every character who dies, dies in the lap of their most loved one. situations can backslide and change very quickly, and very realistically - people die. its heartbreaking, its horrifying, but it depicts a story with a lot of realism; thus making it absolutely heart-wrenching.

#2. the main character’s literally fatal flaw

the main character must have a flaw that they absolutely cannot control. they need to have a trait that can entirely snowball into a situation that leads to them absolutely wrecking the plot and everything that’s happened so far. for example, in seraph of the end, yuu’s ambition to save mika and his family over the rest of the world leads to a great deal of conflict. don’t make the character’s fatal flaw ‘just for show’ let it have real, terrifying consequences.

#3. the plot’s sorrowful events

the plot has to be BRUTAL in a tragedy-heavy story. it can start slow, and slowly snowball into the climax - but it should hurt. a tragedy story plot can leave the protagonist hopeful or happy by the end, but only if they have accepted their tragedy and decided to move forward which hits the hardest, imo. 

#4. read other books that are tragedy heavy!

Books like Bridge to Terabithia (ten year old me is still scarred), The Song of Achilles, A Thousand Splendid Suns and If I Stay are classic “sad” books. They use a lot of tropes and ideas from tragedies - naturally, classics like Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth are “dramatic” tragedies that play more into the genre, so there’s something to learn from all of them!

[babyspacebatclone]

Hum.

Toy hoarding is definitely an age appropriate behavior for 3 year olds, where the possessing of items is the most important thing. Elements of quantity (having the most) and quality (possessing toys desired by others) both contribute to the feeling of power this provides, in my experience.

This may be a symptom of just plain hoarding, however.

Do you know if there is a history of family instability for this child? Thinking into my most typical toy hoarders at my own daycare center, there seems to me to be a correlation between the desire to control objects - and other people’s access to them - and exposure to instability in their home life.

A temporary solution to suggest is to have a place for the collection to exist: a specific box where his found items can be kept (since he continues to accumulate them). He is allowed to have two items out of the box, and if more are found he needs to make a choice of what he is keeping.

This is going to be difficult at first, obviously.

One thing I have found to counteract normal toy hoarding is to have children pick toys out of the center in turns. For example, with small counting toys I’ll out them all in the center, and then separate out all the red ones. “Who wants red? Ok, Jake and Kim want red, I’ll give them three each and put the rest in the middle. Who wants blue?”

You can modify this to aid with selecting the items to use for transitions.

“Ok, we have four things in the middle. [Mark] is going to pick one, then Ms [BabyBat] picks one. Ok, which of these two items do you want for your second? All right, Ms [BabyBat] is putting hers over here. After nap, we can pick new things from the box.”

Since 3 is pretty young for mastering “pick 2,” but also the perfect time to build the skill!!

I would also offer using a token economy to keep the pile of things manageable, and move to more hygienic transitional objects. Allow the child to “trade” in 5 pieces of actual trash for a larger but still simple item to keep in the box. On the other hand, putting in too much trash means the better stuff needs to come out, and can’t be selected “until there’s room in the box.”

This is just spitballing, though, I haven’t encountered someone being this persistent about specific items, including rocks. They’ll be obsessed with a specific item, but forget about that obsession in ten minutes and go back to normal play.

Attachment to random objects

Dear people of Tumblr

I work with a three yo boy. He has always become very emotionally attached to things he finds. It can be a toy, a rock, a cup - anything. Sometimes it's even several things at once. He clings onto these things, but rarely plays with them. He naturally becomes upset when he has to part with them to eat, sleep etc.

The things are chosen very much at random and sometimes he gathers more things during the day until he can't carry anymore.

These objects seem to offer him comfort during transitions which made me think that he needed transitional objects. However, we have tried to keep it to one or two specific objects, but he always finds more and randomness of them baffles me.

These objects don't seem to offer much comfort either. He often needs a pacifier for that.

I have several reasons to think that he might be neurodivergent or something of the sort, but my suspicions are ignored by my colleague who explains these behaviors away. Not this one though. However, I can't find any sources about this particular issue.

Transitional objects are common and healthy. This is something else.

Can anyone help?

[blondcs]

decided i wanted a younger char and my brain is too small for 2 so here’s jenny, an oldie but a goodie. there’s a tldr at the bottom and here’s her (new) pinterest

◜     *     :     scarlett   leithold     .     cis     woman     &     she     /     her     .     les     patineurs     ,     op.     183     by     émile     waldteufel     .     ━━     the     legend     surrounding     london’s     l’academiae     furorum     would     not     be     complete     without     jennifer     cohen     .     the     academy’s     twenty     four     year     old     corps     de     ballet     has     been     with     furore     for     ten     years     ,     oft     described     as     meddlesome     ,     provocative     ,     capricious     ,     insecure     &     has     proved     utterly     indispensable     to     the     company.     in     passing     ,     they’ve     come     to     be     associated     with     a     fresh     clean     scent     that     clings     to     your     hair     after     a     shower    &          fizzling      laughter     upon     realizing     they     aren’t     laughing     with     you     ,     desperately     wiping     at     smudged     red     lipstick     knowing     full     well     you     won’t     get     it     back     to     perfect     ,     pleasure     as     a     performance     -     something     to     be     earned     ,     the     habitual     search     for     mirrors     /     catching     your     reflection     and     adjusting     your     posture     until     your     collar     bones     can     hold     water     and     your     jaw     might     snap.    ,     the     shame     of     needing     attention     and     the     guilt     once     you’ve     gotten     it     .     whether     this     will     be     their     final     curtain     call     is     anyone’s     guess     &     the     company’s     worst     nightmare     .

jenny was supposed to be a glue baby, a misguided hope by a young mother and a bored father that she could be the thing that would keep them together. obviously, she put more strain on the already tense relationship and they divorced by the time she was three. she was juggled between her mother and her revolving door of boyfriends in new jersey and her father and his new wife in nyc where getting the attention she wanted was a constant feat. 

her step mother planned to get her into the arts anyway, but jenny’s penchant for the spotlight made her the perfect candidate to follow in her footsteps—she immediately planned for her stepdaughter to eventually train with the very ballet company to which she belonged

jenny loved the idea of being a ballerina and while she wasn’t exactly a natural at first she had the build for it and was graceful and easily bribed with rewards to put in the work necessary. if nothing else, she loved the recitals and the way everyone fawned over her performances. 

by eight she was living in nyc with her father full time, taking dance classes three times a week and by fourteen with her stepmother’s connections she was being shipped off to london’s l’academiae furorum to study under some of the best. 

in the absence of her doting stage parents and with the new stress of company life, she got the itch again, that desperate need for attention, validation, acceptance, whatever it was. 

when she wasn’t dancing she was diving headfirst into the social scene at her new school–chatting up a storm in class, getting invited to parties, getting noticed by boys and in turn, noticing them–and she quickly realized that attention really wasn’t that hard to come by.

it was an awakening. she started styling her hair in the morning, lowering her necklines and trying her hand at flirting, even in the studio. and even the tiniest encouragements fueled her fire, pushing her deeper and deeper. once she got a taste of desire she found out just how addictive it could be. she began thriving on those heated exchanges, hungry kisses, sex, didn’t matter who, didn’t matter where. she would do anything for the rush, the intimacy, the reputation. 

they were meant to be professionals during ballet classes and rehearsals, especially as apprentices, but with everyone’s hormones surging and bodies changing, she couldn’t help but let that part of her life encroach, sifting her way through the boys in the company like a checklist. 

there was a desperation in it. sometimes she felt completely out of control. the minute she didn’t have stretching, barre, center, across the floor, rehearsals to occupy her mind the craving set in. and then guilt. or regret. a comedown that made her long for the high all over again. 

despite the element of competition, her age class was close, if only given how much time they had to spend together. but she was prone to pushing them away with her decisions, crossing the same lines over and over, as if declaring herself the black sheep before they could do it for her. 

part of her thought the personal drama would keep her from being promoted to the corps de ballet but it came when she was twenty, whether by merit or by connections. it didn’t really matter. from there, she got to see more of the corporate side of the company. she was invited to fundraising galas and exclusive cocktail parties where she was expected to entertain the furore’s biggest donors, which she did with a smile.

for a while, some of the drive was knocked out of her. she was content with the attention she got as a corps dancer and was happy to let the company all but whore her out, but the restlessness has set in again. she’s looking for another promotion and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it. as long as it’s not too much work. 

personality

jenny is ~insecure~ and most of her life revolves around seeking acceptance and validation. sex has become the go to for immediate gratification 

never says no, very flimsy boundaries, people pleaser 

would never miss an event–is going around after rehearsals saying “are you going tonight” just to make sure there’s not some sort of outing planned that she wasn’t invited to

she is extremely flirtatious verging on abrasive and would almost never turn down a hookup (if she turns you down, you should reflect)

she’s loves having a good time and lives for pleasure. works hard but def plays harder 

a huge gossip. she’s nosy and likes knowing everyone’s business, but she also likes the power of being the first to break that news. knows when to keep a secret though. kinda

runs a little short-tempered and defensive. if you hit a sore spot she’ll strike below the belt. 

sometimes grapples with feeling out of control. can be prone to starting petty arguments or stirring up trouble or testing boundaries as a result 

selfish, inconsiderate, self destructive

really wants to be one of the cool kids but is terrified of the rejection. oscillates between ostracizing herself before they can and letting them make her the butt of the joke

tldr;

the least popular of the popular girls. 24 year old cancer originally from nj, usa who got her start in nyc then, through her stepmom’s connections, was shipped off to furore at 14. there she got a taste for the wilder things. currently in the corps de ballet but is not above fucking her way up to soloist. great for a fun time, working on the rest.

Feel free to message me for plots! I’m open to and eager for anything you think might work for our characters! Otherwise, I love exploring chemistry and seeing what happens!

[cielrouge]

YA SFF Books by Asian Authors

Ash by Malinda Lo: In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King’s Huntress whom she loves.

Along the Indigo by Elsie Chapman: Marsden yearns to take her sister and escape Glory, a town famous for seedy businesses, but her friendship with Jude yields secrets that may chain them to the Indigo River forever.

Alpha Goddess by Amalie Howard:  In this sci-fi retelling of Ramayana, Sera is a Hindu goddess incarnate and must battle between her good and evil sides in order to save the world from becoming hell on earth.

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1) by Susan Ee: It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her 17-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel, Raffe. 

The Archer at Dawn (The Tiger at Midnight #2) by Swati Teerdhala: Set in an Indian & Hindu-inspired world, long-held secrets will force Kunal and Esha to reconsider their loyalties—to their country and to each other.

The Athena Protocol by Shamim Sarif: After being fired from the Athena Protocol, an organization of female spies who enact vigilante justice, Jessie Archer investigates a human trafficking case in Belgrade, while her former teammates have been tasked with bringing her down.

Blood of a Thousand Stars (Empress of a Thousand Skies #2) by Rhoda Belleza: Rhee risks her crown to negotiate peace terms with villainous media star Nero, while framed assassin Aly plots revenge and Kara seeks technology that will erase her royal past.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco: Tea’s gift for death magic means that she is a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community, but when an older bone witch trains her to become an asha - one who can wield elemental magic - Tea will have to overcome her obstacles and make a powerful choice in the face of danger as dark forces approach.

The Bronzed Beasts (The Gilded Wolves #3) by Roshani Chokshi: With only ten days until Laila expires, the crew will face plague pits and deadly masquerades, unearthly songs, and the shining steps of a temple whose powers might offer divinity itself, but at a price they may not be willing to pay.

The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi: An epic YA fantasy about a girl with a special power to communicate with magical beasts and the warring kingdom only she can save.

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh: In 19th century New Orleans where vampires hide in plain sight, half-Asian Celine Rosseau, a dressmaker from Paris, becomes embroiled in a murder mystery, connected to the glamorous supernatural cohort, known as the Court of Lions, and catching the eye of their mysterious, charismatic leader, Sèbastien Saint Germain.

Broken Web (Shamanborn #2) by Lori M. Lee: With Queen Meilyr bent on destroying the magical kingdoms, Sirscha becomes caught between a war in the east and the Soulless in the west.

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad: Set in the city of Noor, along the Silk Road which has become a refuge for those of all faiths, Fatima becomes embroiled in a war between two clans of powerful djinn who threaten to destroy her peace in different ways, forcing her to make unlikely alliances to survive.

Caster by Elsie Chapman: In this Chinese-inspired, magical Fight Club, Earth is already at the brink of environmental disaster due to the magic overuse. And 16-year-old spell caster Aza Wu must navigate through an illegal, underground battle magic tournament, while evading local gangs and police scouts to save her family from ruin.

Catalyst by Lydia Kang: Zelia Benten has lost her father, the love of her life, and any future she might have imagined for herself. Now she, her sister, and the band of illegal genetic outcasts they’ve come to call their family are forced to run when the safety of their foster home is compromised.

A Clash of Steel (A Treasure Island Remix) by C.B. Lee: Set in 1820s China, Xiah joins Anh and her motley crew in pursuit of the hidden treasure of the legendary Dragon Fleet.

Chainbreaker (Timekeeper #2) by Tara Sim: In 1876, someone is destroying the clock towers that control India’s time. Teenage mechanics Danny Hart and half-white, half-Indian Daphne Richards as they travel to Agra to investigate a series of clock tower bombings.

The Chariot at Dusk (Tiger at Midnight #3) by Swati Teerdhala: In the final book of this epic fantasy trilogy, the lands’ fate, their people’s livelihoods, and the bond that sustains their world all depend on what Kunal and Esha can offer—to the gods and to each other.

Champion (Legend #3) by Marie Lu: June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic--and each other--and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. Just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic's border cities.

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye: Love, spies, and adventure abound as apprentice warriors Sora and Daemon unravel a complex web of magic and secrets that might tear them—and the entire kingdom—apart forever.

Control by Lydia Kang: In 2150, when genetic manipulation has been outlawed, seventeen-year-old Zelia must rescue her kidnapped sister with the help of a band of outcasts with mutated genes.

Court of Lions (Mirage #2) by Somaiya Daud: After being swept up into the brutal Vathek court, Amani, the ordinary girl forced to serve as the half-Vathek princess Maram’s body double, is desperate to continue helping the rebellion But can she bear to remain separated, forever, from Maram's fiancé, Idris? 

Cross Fire (Exo #2) by Fonda Lee: When the peaceful alien-run government withdraws from Earth, it seems that the terrorist group Sapience is going to get the "free" Earth it wanted; but Donovan Reyes, member of the security forces, and once a prisoner of Sapience, realizes that freedom comes with a price. 

The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye: Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia. The Tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side.And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the Tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death. 

The Crown’s Fate (The Crown’s Game #2) by Evelyn Skye: Vika struggles with dangers in her new role as the Imperial Enchanter while Pasha faces disputes about his legitimacy and Nikolai considers how far he is willing to go to return to the world.

A Crown of Wishes (Star-Touched Queen #2) by Roshani Chokshi:  Gauri, princess of Bharata, has been captured by her kingdom's enemies and faces a future of exile and scorn--she has nothing left to lose. But Vikram, the notoriously cunning prince of a neighboring land, promises her freedom in exchange for her partnership on his team to win the Tournament of Wishes.

The Damned (The Beautiful #2) by Renée Ahdieh: Sébastien Saint Germain is now cursed and forever changed. The price of loving Celine Rousseau was costly. But as Bastien and Celine begin to uncover the danger around them, they learn their love could tear them apart.

Dark Goddess (Alpha Goddess #2) by Amalie Howard:  In this Indian-inspired fantasy, a girl who is the avatar of the goddess Lakshmi must work to prevent the apocalypse at the hands of demons. 

Dark Goddess (Templar Chronicles #2) by Sarwat Chadda: Billi SanGreal, a teenaged member of the Knights Templar, must prevent a young girl, who is being hunted by werewolves because of the dangerous powers she possesses, from falling into the hands of the ancient Russian witch, Baba Yaga.

Daughter of Dusk (Midnight Thief #2) by Livia Blackburne: After learning the truth about her bloodlines, Kyra can’t help but feel like a monster. As tensions rise within Forge’s Council, and a vicious Demon Rider attacks continue in surrounding villages, Kyra knows she must do something to save her city. 

Descendant of the Crane by Joan He: In this Chinese-inspired fantasy, Princess Hesina of Yan is thrust into power when her beloved father is murdered, and she’s determined to find his killer–whatever the cost.

The Devil’s Kiss (Templar Chronicles #1) by Sarwat Chadda: 15-year-old Billi SanGreal has grown up knowing that being a member of the Knights Templar puts her in danger, but if she is to save London from catastrophe she must make sacrifices greater than she imagined.

The Devil’s Thief (The Last Magician #2) by Lisa Maxwell: Esta and Harte set off on a cross-country chase through time to steal back the elemental stones they need to save the future of magic.

Divided (Dualed #2) by Elsie Chapman:  When the Board goes after West Grayer for refusing to kill her next target, West must uncover the truth of the past to survive.

Dove Arising by Karen Bao: On a lunar colony, 15-old Phaet Theta does the unthinkable and joins the Militia when her mother is imprisoned by the Moon's oppressive government. 

Dove Exiled (Dove Chronicles #2) by Karen Bao: Phaet’s past catches up with her when the Lunar Bases attack the community and reveal that Phaet is a fugitive. She’s torn between staying on Earth with Wes—whom she’s just discovered her feelings for—and stowing away on a Moon-bound ship to rescue her siblings.

Dove Alight (Dove Chronicles #3) by Karen Bao: Shy, introverted Phaet Theta has gone from being a top student to an interplanetary fugitive to the reluctant but fierce leader of a revolution. But as the death tolls rise, the cost of the war weighs heavily on Phaet. Phaet started this war because she lost someone she loved. Will she have to lose another to end it?

Eclipse the Stars by Maura Milan: Criminal mastermind and unrivaled pilot Ia Ccha and her allies make unpredictable choices as they fight to keep darkness from eclipsing the skies.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir: Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan, Laia, fighting for her family and a soldier, Elias, fighting for his freedom.

Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean: During a once-in-a-generation competition to find the new empress, Mari, who hides a terrible secret, Taro, the prince who would denounce the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human outcast, will decide the fate of Honoku.

Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza: Two sisters, Rhee and Kara—sole survivors of a murdered royal lineage - must reunite from opposite ends of the galaxy to salvage what’s left of their family dynasty and save the universe from a greater threat.

End of Days (Penryn & The End of Days #3) by Susan Ee: After a daring escape, Penryn and Raffe are on the run, but a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all. When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?

The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee: 15-year-old Genie Lo wonders if she’s qualified enough to gain admission to an Ivy League school, then becomes powerful enough to break through the gates of Heaven with her fists.

The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden #2) by Julie Kagawa: Cast out of Eden and separated from the boy she dared to love, Allison Sekemoto will follow the call of blood to save her creator, Kanin, from the psychotic vampire Sarren. But when the trail leads to Allie's birthplace in New Covington, what Allie finds there will change the world forever--and possibly end human and vampire existence.

The Ever Cruel Kingdom (The Never Tilting World #2) by Rin Chupeco: To break the cycle of sacrifice, twins Haidee and Odessa need answers that lie beyond the seven gates of the underworld, within the Cruel Kingdom itself. The shadows of the underworld may hunger to tear them apart, but these two sisters are determined to heal their world—together.

Exo by Fonda Lee: For a century now, Earth has been a peaceful colony of an alien race, and Donovan Reyes is a loyal member of the security forces, while his father is the Prime Liaison–but when a routine search and seizure goes bad Donovan finds himself a captive of the human revolutionary group, Sapience, terrorists who seem to prefer war to alien rule, and killing Donovan just might be the incident they are looking for.

Fair Coin by E.C. Myers: When evil versions of himself and best friend Nate appear one day, teenaged Ephraim embarks on a dangerous odyssey through parallel worlds to make things right.

Firestarter (Timekeeper #3) by Tara Sim: Colton, Daphne, and the others must choose between those striving to take down the world’s clock towers so that time can run freely, and terrorists trying to bring back the lost god of time.

Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) by Kendare Blake: In this conclusion to the Three Dark Crowns series, three dark sisters will rise to fight as the secrets of Fennbirn’s history are laid bare. Allegiances will shift. Bonds will be tested, and some broken forever.

Flame in the Mist by Renee Adhieh: The daughter of a prominent samurai, Mariko is promised to Minamoto Raiden. But en route to the imperial city of Inako, Mariko narrowly escapes a bloody ambush by the Black Clan. Dressed as a peasant boy, Mariko sets out to infiltrate the ranks of this gang. But she’s quickly captured and taken to the Black Clan’s secret hideout, where she meets their leader, the rebel ronin Takeda Ranmaru. 

For A Muse of Fire by Heidi Heilig: 16-year-old shadow puppeteer Jetta Chantray performs with her family’s traveling troupe, the Ros Nai. But as rebellion seethes and as Jetta meets a young smuggler, she will face truths and decisions that she never imagined—and safety will never seem so far away.

Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee: Sirscha Ashwyn, while training to become the queen’s next royal spy, discovers she’s a rare and powerful lightwender and is summoned to the realm of the Spider King, where her newly awakened abilities are needed to cull the bloodthirsty Dead Wood.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao: A reimagining of the evil queen from Snow White based on Asian mythology in which 18-year-old Xifeng must unleash a jealous god on the world and set free the viciousness of her own soul in order to become Empress.

The Forever Song (Blood of Eden #3) by Julie Kagawa: Allie will embrace her cold vampire side to hunt down and end Sarren. But Sarren has left many surprises for Allie and her companions as his trail leads straight to the one place they must protect at any cost -- the last vampire-free zone on Earth.

Fury of the Phoenix (Kingdom of Xia #2) by Cindy Pon: When Ai Ling leaves her home and family to accompany Chen Yong on his quest to find his father, haunted by the ancient evil she thought she had banished to the underworld, she must use her growing supernatural powers to save Chen Yong from the curses that follow her.

Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee: A teenage girl must keep her ability to manipulate the threads of time a secret, but when her brother goes missing, she risks getting caught up in a revolution in order to save him.

Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta: Eris Shindanai and Sona Steelcrest, two girls on opposite sides of a war fought with Windups, giant mechanizes weapons, discover they’re fighting for a common purpose–and falling for each other.

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi: Paris, 1889: Treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier, Séverin Montagnet-Alarie gets the chance of a lifetime when the all-powerful society, the Order of Babel, seeks him out for help in exchange for a priceless treasure: his true inheritance.

The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig: From modern-day New York City to nineteenth-century Hawaii to places of myth and legend, 16-year-old Nix has sailed across the globe and through centuries aboard her time-traveling father’s ship. But when he gambles with her very existence, it all may be about to end.

The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco: Okiku has wandered the world for centuries, but when she meets Tark she knows the moody teen with the series of intricate tattoos is not a monster and needs to be freed from the demonic malevolence that clings to him.

The Girl King by Mimi Yu: Sisters Lu and Min become unwitting rivals in a war to claim the title of Emperor.

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust: As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Princess Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan: When Lei, seventeen, is stolen from her home to become one of nine Paper Girls, the Demon King's concubines, she proves to be more fire than paper.

Girls of Storm and Shadow (Girls of Paper and Fire #2) by Natasha Ngan: After escaping the Hidden Palace, Lei and her warrior love Wren must travel the kingdom to gain support from the far-flung rebel clans.

Girls of Fate and Fury (Girls of Paper and Fire #3) by Natasha Ngan: The last Lei saw of the girl she loved, Wren, was fighting an army of soldiers in a furious battle to the death. With the two girls torn apart and each in terrorizing peril, will they find each other again or have their destinies diverged forever.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh: A feminist retelling of the Korean folktale The Tale of Shim Cheong, set in a town where every year a girl is sacrificed to the sea to stop torrential rains, but when a brave teen girl dives in herself to protect a loved one, she discovers a spirit kingdom in need of saving.

The Great Destroyers by Caroline Tung Richmond: set in alt-history, 1960s America where WWI & WII were fought with giant mechs, biracial Chinese American teen Jo Linden is Team USA’s most unlikely pick in the annual Pax Games, an Olympic-style competition that pits mecha pilots against each other.

The Heartforger (Bone Witch #2) by Rin Chupeco: With a thirst for vengeance, a band of terrifying daeva at her command, and her resurrected lover Kalen by her side, dark asha Tea is ready to face her adversaries.

A House of Rage and Sorrow (Celestial Trilogy #2) by Sangu Mandanna: As gods, beasts, and kingdoms choose sides, Alexi seeks out a weapon more devastating than even Titania. The House of Rey is at war. And the entire galaxy will bleed before the end.

Huntress by Malinda Lo: 17-year-olds Kaede and Taisin are called to go on a dangerous and unprecedented journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen, in an effort to restore the balance of nature in the human world.

Ignite the Stars by Maura Milan: When outlaw Ia Ccha is captured by the Olympus Commonwealth and revealed to be a 16-year-old girl, they force her to serve them by joining the Commonwealth's military academy where new acquaintances cause Ia to question her own alliances.

The Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden #1) by Julie Kagawa: Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city, until she too becomes an immortal vampire. Forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls, she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend -- a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

Inferno (Talon #5) by Julie Kagawa: Ember Hill has learned a shocking truth about herself: she is the blood of the Elder Wyrm, the ancient dragon who leads Talon and who is on the verge of world domination. With the stakes rising and the Elder Wyrm declaring war, time is running out for the rogues and any dragon not allied with Talon. The final battle approaches. And if Talon is victorious, the world will burn.

The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman: Japanese American teen Nami Miyamoto finds herself in a limitless world where the human consciousness goes after death, where she battles an AI entity posing as a queen that has hacked its way into the afterlife.

Isle of Blood and Stone by Makiia Lucier: Mysterious maps from opposite ends of the sea cast doubt on the whereabouts of two princes, presumed dead.

Jade Fire Gold by June C.L. Tan: A debut fantasy inspired by Chinese mythology, in which peasant girl Anh, cursed with the power to steal souls enters a tenuous alliance with exiled prince Altan, bent on taking back the dragon throne, and save the empire from a cult of dangerous priests.

Journey to the Heart of the Abyss (Light in the Abyss #2) by London Shah: Leyla McQueen has finally reunited with her father after breaking him out of Broadmoor, the illegal government prison—but his freedom comes at a terrible cost. As Leyla celebrates his return, she must grapple with the pain of losing Ari. Now labeled the nation’s number one enemy, Leyla must risk illegal travel through unchartered waters for the truth behind her father’s arrest.

Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena: Set in a world inspired by medieval India, the story tells of a girl, Gul, with a star-shaped birthmark who is prophesied to be the downfall of a tyrant king, the warrior women who come to her aid, and the boy she falls in love with.

The Keeper of the Night by Kylie Lee Baker: set in 1890s Japan, half-British reaper, half-Japanese Shinigami Ren Scarborough flees London and enters the Japanese underworld under the service of Izanami, the goddess of death.

King (Dragon King Chronicles #3) by Ellen Oh: Girl warrior, demon slayer, Tiger spirit of the Yellow Eyes - Kira is ready for her final quest! She must save her cousin, the boy fated to be the future king, uncover the third lost treasure, and face innumerable enemies in order to fulfill the famed prophecy.

A Kingdom for the Stage (For A Muse of Fire #2) by Heidi Heilig: The rebels are eager to use Le Trépas’s and necromancer Jetta’s combined magic against the invading colonists. Soon Jetta will face the choice between saving all of Chakrana or becoming like her father, and she isn’t sure which she’ll choose.

Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix (Rise of the Empress #2) by Julie C. Dao: Princess Jade has grown up in exile while her stepmother, the ruthless Xifeng, rules Feng Lu. Ready to reclaim her place, Jade embarks on a quest to raise the Dragon Lords and defeat Xifeng and the Serpent God once and for all.

Legend by Marie Lu: In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, 15-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.

Legion (Talon #4) by Julie Kagawa: The legions are about to be unleashed, and no human, rogue dragon or former dragon slayer can stand against the coming horde in book 4 out of the Talon series.

The Library of Fates by Aditi Khorana: Amrita must unravel the mysteries of her past to save her kingdom, but in doing so, she herself might come unraveled.

The Light At the Bottom of the World by London Shah: Set in a future where the Earth is underwater, Leyla McQueen must navigate the treacherous abyss to find her missing father, but discovers a world drowning in lies.

Live in Infamy by Caroline Tung Richmond: 80 years since the Axis won World War II, and America was divided between the victors: the Nazis in the East and Imperial Japan in the West; but now resistance is growing in the Eastern territories and 16-year-old Chinese American Ren Cabot finds himself drawn into a resistance group. 

The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna: 15-year-old Eva is the clone of a girl living far, far away on another continent--and when this 'other' dies, Eva must step in and take over her life.

The Infinite (Gates of Thread and Stone #2) by Lori M. Lee: Kai always believed the only danger to the city came from within. Now, with a rebel force threatening the fragile government, the walls have become more of a prison than ever. To make matters worse, as Avan explores his new identity as an Infinite, Kai struggles to remind him what it means to be human. 

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao: blending Chinese history and mecha science, Wu Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. Features a poly F/M/M main romance.

The Iron Will of Genie Lo (Epic Crush of Genie Lo #2) by F.C. Yee: Along with a few other contenders for the throne,  heaven-appointed guardian Genie and her friends embark on a Heavenly quest to an in-between world.

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen: An intergenerational story of a mother and son struggling to relate to each other—the mother an immigrant to America who wants to make a home for her family in an unfamiliar country; the son Tiế  trying to figure out the best way to come out to his parents. Through telling each other fairy tales, they’re able to find common ground.

The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas: When her ailing father is conscripted to fight invaders from the north, Mulan dresses as a man to take his place in the army, but an old enemy and an attraction for her troop's commander complicate her mission.

The Memory Keepers by Natasha Ngan: Seven is a thief with a difference - he steals downloadable memories from banks and memoriums to sell onto London’s black market. But one night, as Seven is breaking into a private memorium in a wealthy part of London, he is caught in the act by one of its residents; Alba, the teenage daughter of London’s most famous criminal prosecutor. 

The Memory Key by Liana Liu: In the not-so-distant future, everyone is implanted with a memory key to stave off a virulent form of Alzeimer's. Lora Mint fears her memories of her deceased mother are fading, but when her memory key is damaged she has perfect recall--of everything-- which brings her mother's memory vividly back--but may also drive Lora mad. 

The Mermaid, The Witch, and The Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall: A desperate orphan turned pirate, Flora, and a rebellious imperial daughter, Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, find a connection on the high seas abroad the Dove, in a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic.

The Midnight Star (Young Elites #3) by Marie Lu:  Adelina is forced to revisit old wounds when a new danger appears, putting not only Adelina at risk, but every Elite. In order to save herself and preserve her empire, Adelina and her Roses must join the Daggers on a perilous quest—though this uneasy alliance may prove to be the real danger.

The Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne: Kyra, a highly skilled 17-year-old thief, joins a guild of assassins with questionable motives. Tristam, a young knight, fights against the vicious Demon Riders that are ravaging the city. 

Mirage by Somaiya Daud: In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, 18-year-old Amani is forced to work as a body double for the princess who is hated by her conquered people.

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco: In  a world ruled by goddesses that has been split in two—one half existing in perpetual scorching Day, the other in freezing Night—twins separated at birth Odessa and Haidee embark on a quest across the great divide and rule a reunited world.

Mooncakes by Wendy Xu & Suzanne Walker: Teen witch Nova Huang runs into her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. 

Moribito, Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi: The wandering warrior Balsa is hired to protect Prince Chagum from both a mysterious monster and the prince's father, the Mikado.

Moribito II, Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi: The wandering female bodyguard Balsa returns to her native country of Kanbal, where she uncovers a conspiracy to frame her mentor and herself.

Night of the Dragon (Shadow of the Fox #3) by Julie Kagawa: As darkness rises and chaos reigns,  fierce kitsune shapeshifter Yumeko and her shadowy protector Kage Tatsumi, will face down the greatest evil of all.

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee: Resigned to a life without superpowers in a world full of them, Jess takes a paid internship where she helps a heinous supervillain and works with her longtime crush Abby, but stumbles on a massive plot.

Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2) by C.B. Lee: After discovering a massive cover-up by the Heroes’ League of Heroes, shapeshifter Bells Broussard and his friends Jess, Emma, and Abby set off on a secret mission to find the Resistance.

Not Your Backup by C.B. Lee (Sidekick Squad #3): As the Resistance moves to challenge the corrupt League of Heroes, Emma Robledo realizes where her place is in this fight: at the front.

On This Unworthy Scaffold (Shadow Players #3) by Heidi Heilig: Jetta’s home is spiraling into civil war.Le Trépas—the deadly necromancer—has used his blood magic to wrest control of the country. Meanwhile, Jetta’s love interest, brother, and friend are intent on infiltrating the palace to stop the Boy King and find Le Trépas to put an end to the unleashed chaos.

The Only Thing to Fear by Caroline Tung Richmond: After 70 years since Hitler's armies won the war, 16-year-old Zara St. James lives in the Shenandoah hills, part of the Eastern American Territories, under the rule of the Nazis--but a resistance movement is growing. 

The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He: In a near future when life is harsh outside of Earth’s last unpolluted place, Cee tries to leave an abandoned island while her sister, STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara, seeks escape from the science and home she once trusted.

One Dark Throne (Three Dark Crowns #2) by Kendare Blake: Preparing for the queens' sixteenth birthday celebration and navigating the fallout of the Quickening, sisters Arsinoe, Katharine, and Mirabella reassess their strategic paths to the throne using new understandings of their powers and destinies.

Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights #2) by Chloe Gong: In 1927, Shanghai tethers on the edge of revolution. After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on the warpath. Then a new monstrous danger emerges in the city, and while secrets keep them apart, Juliette must secure Roma’s cooperation if they are to end this threat.

Prodigy (Legend #2) by Marie Lu: June and Day make their way to Las Vegas where they join the rebel Patriot group and become involved in an assassination plot against the Elector in hopes of saving the Republic.

Quantum Coin (Fair Coin #2) by E.C. Myers: Ephraim, Jena, and Zoe embark on a mission across multiple worlds to learn what's going wrong and how to stop it. They will have to draw on every resource available and trust in alternate versions of themselves and their friends, before it's too late for all of them.

Ravage the Dark (Scavenge the Stars #2) by Tara Sim: After escaping the city of Moray, Amaya and Cayo head to the port city of Baleine to find the mysterious Benefactor and put a stop to the counterfeit currency that is spreading Ash Fever throughout the kingdoms.

The Reader by Traci Chee:  Set in a world where reading is unheard-of, Sefia makes use of a mysterious object to track down who kidnapped her aunt Nin and what really happened the night her father was murdered.

A Reaper At the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes #3) by Sabaa Tahir: Beyond the Empire and within it, the threat of war looms ever larger as the Blood Shrike, Helene Aquilla, Laia of Serra, and Elias Veturius all face increasing dangers.

Rebel (Legend #4) by Marie Lu: Brothers Eden and Daniel Wing struggle to accept who they’ve each become since their time in the Republic, but a new danger creeps into the distance that’s grown between them. Eden soon finds himself drawn so far into Ross City’s dark side, even his legendary brother can’t save him. At least not on his own.

Rebelwing by Andrea Tang: At a prestigious prep school, scholastic student Prudence Wu, who smuggles censored media in a futuristic North America divided by culture wars and becomes an unlikely revolutionary, after being imprinted by Rebelwing, a sentient cybernetic dragon.

Renegade Flight (Rebelwing #2) by Andrea Tang: Pilot-in-training Viola Park, a probationary student at GAN Academy, enters a mech combat tournament that becomes a fight for the future of Peacekeepers everywhere.

Rising Like a Storm (The Wrath of Ambar #2) by Tanaz Bhathena: Gul and Cavas must unite their magical forces―and hold onto their growing romance―to save their kingdom from tyranny.

The Righteous (The Beautiful #3) by Renée Ahdieh: Pippa Montrose is tired of losing everything she loves. When her best friend Celine disappears under mysterious circumstances, Pippa resolves to find her, even if the journey takes her into the dangerous world of the fae, where she might find more than she bargained for in the charismatic Arjun Desai.

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee: The never-before-told backstory of Avatar Kyoshi, from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice who is still feared and admired centuries after she became the Avatar.

Rogue (Talon #2) by Julie Kagawa: Unable to forget the human boy who saved her from a Talon assassin, Ember is determined to save him from execution with the help of rebel dragon Cobalt and his crew of rogues.

Rogue Heart (Rebel Seoul #2) by Axie Oh: Two years after the Battle of Neo Seoul, telepath Ama must use her telepathic abilities to infiltrate the base of the Alliance’s new war commander, Alex Kim, her first love who betrayed her.

The Rose and the Dagger (Wrath and the Dawn #2) by Renee Adhieh: Unsure who to trust, Shahrzad takes matters into her own hands to try and break the curse and reunite with her one true love.

The Rose Society (Young Elites #2) by Marie Lu: Adelina Amouteru’s heart has suffered at the hands of both family and friends, turning her down the bitter path of revenge. Now known and feared as the White Wolf, she and her sister flee Kenettra to find other Young Elites in the hopes of building her own army of allies. Her goal: to strike down the Inquisition Axis.

Ruse (Want #2) by Cindy Pon: In near-future Shanghai where society is divided between the fabulously wealthy business elite and the masses they exploit, Jason Zhou must play a dangerous cat and mouse game with the ruthless CEO of an all powerful corporation which has an ever-growing choke hold on the polluted metropolis.

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim: In the city-state of Moray, Amaya, orphaned by a powerful merchant’s greed and condemned to seven years aboard a debtor’s ship, returns to seek revenge only to encounter the merchant’s son in this gender-swapped retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo.

Serpentine by Cindy Pon: Although 16-year-old Skybright feels lucky to be the handmaid and companion to the daughter of a wealthy family, she is hiding a secret that threatens to destroy her position and her closest relationships.

Sacrifice (Serpertine #2) by Cindy Pon: When Zhen Ni discovers that her new husband, the strange and brutish Master Hou, may not be all he seems, Skybright and Stone must travel through the terrifying underworld to save her.

Seven Deadly Shadows by Courtney Alameda & Valynne Maetani: Set in contemporary Japan, Shinto temple priestess Kira Fujikawa, must seek the aid of seven ruthless shinigami, in order to protect Kyoto from an ancient evil.

Shatter the Sky by Rebecca Kim Wells: Maren, desperate to save her kidnapped girlfriend Kaia, plans to steal one of the emperor’s dragons and storm the Aurati stronghold, but her success depends on becoming an apprentice to the mysterious dragon trainer, which proves to be a dangerous venture.

Talon by Julie Kagawa: In a world in which near-extinct dragons pass as humans to grow their numbers secretly, siblings Ember and Dante Hill prepare for destined positions in the world of Talon only to be hunted by a dragon-slaying soldier.

The Ship Beyond Time (Girl From Everywhere #2) by Heidi Heilig: Nix has escaped her past, but when the person she loves most is at risk, even the daughter of a time traveler may not be able to outrun her fate—no matter where she goes.

The Shadow Mission (The Athena Protocol #2) by Shamim Sharif: Jessie Archer faced down death to prove her dedication to Athena, the elite organization of female spies she works for. Now she’s back on the team, in time to head to Pakistan to take down the man whose actions spurred Athena’s founders to create the secretive squad. 

The Shadow of Kyoshi (Kyoshi #2) by F.C. Yee: Kyoshi’s place as the true Avatar has finally been cemented. With her mentors gone, Kyoshi voyages across the Four Nations, struggling to keep the peace. But while her reputation grows, a mysterious threat emerges from the Spirit World. To stop it, Kyoshi, Rangi, and their reluctant allies must join forces.

Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa: Demons have burned the temple Yumeko was raised in to the ground, killing everyone within, including the master who trained her to both use and hide her kitsune shapeshifting powers. Yumeko escapes with the temple’s greatest treasure—one part of the ancient scroll. Fate thrusts her into the path of a mysterious samurai, Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan. Yumeko knows he seeks what she has…and is under orders to kill anything and anyone who stands between him and the scroll.

Shadow Girl by Liana Liu: When Mei arrives at the beautiful home on Arrow Island, she can't help feeling relieved. She's happy to spend the summer tutoring a rich man's daughter if it means a break from her normal life. Yet she can't shake her fear that there is danger lurking in the shadows of this beautiful house, a darkness that could destroy the family inside and out...and Mei along with them. 

Shadowsong (Wintersong #2) by S. Jae-Jones: Liesl is working toward furthering both her brother’s and her own musical careers. But when troubling signs arise that the barrier between worlds is crumbling, Liesl must return to the Underground to unravel the mystery of life, death, and the Goblin King—who he was, who he is, and who he will be.

Smoke in the Sun (A Flame in the Mist #2) by Renee Ahdieh: After Okami is captured in the Jukai forest, Mariko has no choice—to rescue him, she tricks her brother, Kenshin, and betrothed, Raiden, into thinking she was being held by the Black Clan against her will. But each secret Mariko unfurls gives way to the next, ensnaring her and Okami in a political scheme that threatens their honor, their love and very the safety of the empire.

Sisters of the Snake by Sasha & Sarena Nanua: an Indian-inspired fantasy where twins separated at birth—one now a princess, the other a street thief— must switch places in a bid to stop a catastrophic war that threatens to tear their kingdom apart.

Silver Phoenix (Kingdom of Xia #1) by Cindy Pon: With her father long overdue from his journey and a lecherous merchant blackmailing her into marriage, 17-year-old Ai Ling becomes aware of a strange power within her as she goes in search of her parent.

The Silvered Serpents (The Gilded Wolves #2) by Roshani Chokshi: Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but at a terrible cost. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris, and into icy heart of Russia.

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim: The Wild Swans meets East Asian fantasy where an exiled princess, Shiori, must unweave the curse that turned her brothers into cranes, assisted by her spurned betrothed, a mercurial dragon, and a paper bird brought to life by her own magic.

A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) by Sabaa Tahir: Laia of Serra is now allied with the Blood Shrike, Helen Aquilla. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory–or to an unimaginable doom.

Skyhunter by Marie Lu: Robbed of her voice and home, Talin Kanami knows firsthand the brutality of the Federation. Their cruelty forced her and her mother to seek asylum in Mara. When a mysterious prisoner is brought from the front, Talin senses there’s more to him than meets the eye. 

The Shadow Glass (Bone Witch #3) by Rin Chupeco: Bone witch Tea’s dark magic eats away at her, but she must save the one she loves most, even while her life—and the kingdoms—are on the brink of destruction.

Song of the Abyss (Towers of Wind #2) by Makiia Lucier: When menacing raiders attack her ship, navigator Reyna must use every resource at her disposal, including placing her trust in a handsome prince from a rival kingdom.

Song of the Crimson Flower by Julie C. Dao: After cruelly rejecting Bao, the poor physician’s apprentice who loves her, Lan, a wealthy nobleman’s daughter, regrets her actions. After learning that Bao’s soul has been trapped inside a flute by a witch, Lan vows to make amends and help break the spell.

Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) by Julie Kagawa: As the paths of Yumeko and the possessed Tatsumi cross once again, the entire empire will be thrown into chaos.

A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna: In this sci-fi retelling of the  Mahabrahata, Esmae learns that the King of Wychstar is offering the unbeatable warship Titania to the winner of his competition and she sees her chance to return home and help her brother win back his kingdom.

The Speaker (Sea of Ink and Gold #2) by Traci Chee: Having barely escaped the clutches of the Guard, Sefia and Archer are back on the run, slipping into the safety of the forest to tend to their wounds and plan their next move.

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim: 17-year-old Maia Tamarin poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor, and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars, with help from the mysterious court magician, Edan.

Spell Starter (Caster #2) by Elsie Chapman: Yes, Aza Wu now has magic back, but now she’s in the employ of the gang leader, St. Willow. Who soon decides that having Aza as a fighter is much more lucrative than as a fixer.

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar: Inspired by Hindu mythology, half-mortal, half-star Sheetal enters a celestial competition to save her human father’s life.

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi:  Treated with scorn and fear in her father's kingdom because of a formidable horoscope, 16-year-old Maya commits herself to her education only to land in an arranged marriage that culminates in her sudden elevation to the throne, a situation that is threatened by dark secrets and Otherworldly magic.

Star-Touched Stories by Roshani Choski:Three lush and adventurous stories in the Star-Touched world.

Steelstriker (Skyhunter #2) by Marie Lu: After the fall of Mara, and with the fate of a broken world hanging in the balance, Talin and Red must reunite the Strikers and find their way back to one another.

Storm the Earth (Shatter the Sky #2) by Rebecca Kim Wells: Maren and her girlfriend Kaia set out to rescue Sev  in Zafed, and free the dragons from the corrupt emperor.

The Storyteller (Sea of Ink and Gold #3) by Traci Chee: Sefia is determined to keep Archer out of the Guard’s clutches and their plans for war between the Five Kingdoms. As Sefia and Archer watch Kelanna start to crumble to the Guard’s will, they will have to choose between their love and joining a war that just might tear them apart.

Stronger Than A Bronze Dragon by Mary Fan: In this steampunk fantasy set in Qing dynasty-inspired China, warrior girl Anlei teams up with a thief to save her village from shadow spirits, but after arriving at the Courts of Hell, a discovery challenges everything they know about who the real enemy is.

The Suffering (Girl From the Well #2) by Rin Chupeco: When an old friend disappears in Aokigahara, Japan's infamous 'suicide forest,' Tark and the ghostly Okiku must resolve their differences and return to find her. In a strange village inside Aokigahara, old ghosts and an ancient evil lie waiting. 

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong: In 1920s Shanghai, starcrossed heirs to rival gangs, Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov, must work together to face a monster that hunts the city streets before the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War.

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake: A fantasy about triplet sisters separated at birth, where one of the sisters will grow up to be queen of their magical island, but in order to ascend to the throne she must hone her magic for a dark purpose: assassinating her other two sisters before they kill her first.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman: 15 bestselling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate.

A Thousand Fires by Shannon Price: In modern-day San Francisco where three gangs rule the city streets, half-Filipina teen Valerie Simons enters the Red Bridge Wars to seek vengeance for her younger brother’s death, but soon finds herself torn between old love and new loyalty.

The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala: In ancient India, soldier Kunal hunts the “Viper,” rebel girl Esha accused of killing his General, embarking on a dangerous cat and mouse game and where both must decide—loyalty to their old lives or to a love that’s made them dream of new ones.

Timekeeper by Tara Sim: set in an alternate Victorian era where clock towers control time, about a teen clock mechanic who is assigned to repair a damaged tower and finds himself falling in forbidden love with the boy he mistakes for his apprentice, but is actually the tower’s clock spirit, and whose life is threatened by a mysterious attacker planting bombs in clock towers across England.

A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) by Sabaa Tahir: Laia and Elias fight their way north to liberate Laia’s brother from the horrors of Kauf Prison. Hunted by Empire soldiers, manipulated by the Commandant, and haunted by their pasts, Laia and Elias must outfox their enemies and confront the treacherousness of their own hearts.

Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3) by Kendare Blake: A victorious Katharine sits on the throne, Mirabella and Arsinoe are in hiding, and an unexpected renegade is about to wage a war of her own. The crown has been won, but these queens are far from done.

Unravel the Dusk (The Blood of Stars #2) by Elizabeth Lim: With a war brewing, master tailor Maia Tamarin will stop at nothing to find her love Edan, protect her family, and bring lasting peace to her country.

Vicious Spirits (Gumiho #2) by Kat Cho: With the support of Somin and Junu, Miyoung and Jihoon might just have a shot at normalcy. But Miyoung is getting sicker by the day and her friends don’t know how to save her. With few options remaining, Junu has an idea but it might require the ultimate sacrifice and, let’s be honest, Junu isn’t known for his “generosity.”

Want by Cindy Pon: Set in a teeming, pollution choked Taipei which follows a group of teens living on the seedy fringes of a highly divided society that works only for the elite as they decide to risk everything to take down the powerful company which controls the city. 

Warcross by Marie Lu: When teenage coder Emika Chen hacks her way into the opening tournament of the Warcross Championships, she glitches herself into the game as well as a sinister plot with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire. 

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We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya #2) by Hafsah Faizal: When Zafria, the Hunter, and Nasir, the Prince of Death both embark on a quest to uncover a lost magic artifact, they encounter an ancient evil long thought destroyed - and discover that the prize they seek may be even more dangerous this time.

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When Night Breaks (Kingdom of Hearts #2) by Janella Angeles: The competition has come to a disastrous end, and Daron Demarco’s fall from grace is now front page news. But little matters to him beyond Kallia, the contestant he fell for. With time running out, Kallia must embrace her role in a darker destiny.

Wicked Fox by Kat Cho: After 18-year-old Miyoung Gu, a nine-tailed fox surviving in modern-day Seoul by eating the souls of evil men, kills a murderous goblin to save Jihoon, she is forced to choose between her immortal life and his.

Wildcard (Warcross #2) by Marie Lu: Emika Chen barely made it out of the Warcross Championships alive. Knowing the truth behind Hideo's new NeuroLink algorithm, she is determined to put a stop to his plans. 

The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad: A a multi-perspective feminist narrative about a fierce band of magic-wielding girls—the Wild Ones—who have collectively survived unspeakable things, and together are determined to save other girls from the cruelties and tragedies they’ve had to endure in their own past lives.

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones: After her sister is kidnapped by the Goblin King, Liesl journeys to the Underground and is faced with an impossible decision when she finds herself captivated by the strange world and its mysterious ruler.

Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco: A girl descended from Filipina mythological heroine Maria Makiling, finds herself caught up in a war between two fairy tale kingdoms, where the fate of Avalon is at stake.

Windborn by Mary Fan: With magicians hot on their trail, air nymph Kiri and magician’s apprentice Darien embark on a treacherous journey through dangerous lands to freedom.

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The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Adhieh: In this reimagining of The Arabian Nights, Shahrzad plans to avenge the death of her dearest friend by volunteering to marry the murderous boy-king of Khorasan but discovers not all is as it seems within the palace.

Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee: As 17-year-old Carr 'the Raptor' Luka rises to fame in the weightless combat sport of zeroboxing, he learns a devastating secret that jeopardizes not only his future in the sport, but interplanetary relations.

[moonlit-imagines]

Heirloom (Part 2)

Din Djarin x Fett!reader

warnings:

a/n: lmk if you’re interested in a part 3!

prompt:

part 1

It’d been five years since you’d seen anything but sand, but you did pretty well out there, all things considered. Bounty hunting was in your blood, but this Mandalorian bounty hunter wasn’t interested in anything of the sort at the moment.

So you went from planet to planet, doing favors and tracking down people to assist Mando and the Child on your journey. You couldn’t complain much, he did save you from a lifetime of boredom and despair.

So you helped a frog woman, met more Mandalorians, clashed with a Jedi, and were finally led somewhere useful to conclude the Child’s journey.

“That’s the place, right?” You asked Din as the Razorcrest approached a planet said to have a Jedi “seeing stone.” Grogu sat on your lap, curiously peering up at you and grabbing your thumb.

“Yeah,” he answered with a hint of disappointment in his voice, you couldn’t ignore that, “this is where Ahsoka told us to go. And it might be where our journey with Grogu ends.” You frowned and looked down at the young creature, who was now hugging your arm.

“Don’t worry, little buddy. I could never forget about you.” You scratched the top of his head and kept him steady during the landing. It was a beautiful planet, you admired the scenery as soon as you stepped off the ship. “I could stay here forever, Mando. How about you?”

“Hand him over.” Din instructed with his arms out, waiting for you to give him his pride and joy. You honestly didn’t want to, the kid was growing on you.

“Fine. I should probably get my armor on anyways. Never know what we might run into.” Grogu reached out for Mando as you handed him off, but he decided to walk ahead of you as you got ready. “Hey, come on! At least let me get the breastplate on!” You called out, carefully running up behind him.

“You seem to have it under control.” He shrugged as the two of you began to climb the mountain.

“At least try to be courteous.” You groaned, straightening out your beaten Beskar armor. “Right, Grogu?” The child cooed at the sound of his name. “See? He agrees with me.”

“He just likes hearing his name, we’ve been over this.” Mando told you, watching your helmet envelop your head.

“Feels good to be in my element.” You told him, nearing the final destination. “Not that it ever was, it was just supposed to be.”

“Yeah, well, after Grogu finds his people, I’ll teach you what your father couldn’t. Deal?” Mando offered officially, leaving your beaming smile hidden by your helmet.

“Deal.” You reached your hand out to shake on it, and although it was brief, it did happen. Now you’d reached the stone, which didn’t seem like much. “I guess just,” Mando set Grogu onto the center platform, “yeah, that.”

After a few empty moments, the stone had activated like something you’d never seen before. It was Forcefield protecting the child from any sudden danger.

“Wasn’t expecting that, were you?” You asked Mando while crossing your arms.

“I don’t know what I was expecting.” He admitted, intently supervising his little one. That is, until a ship entered the atmosphere. One unfamiliar to him, but a distant memory to you.

“Holy banthas.” You muttered, removing your helmet in disbelief as Mando began to panic.

“Stay here and protect Grogu.” He instructed as you ran off to the ship’s landing site. “Y/N?! Hey, stop!” You couldn’t stop if you tried. There were two possibilities here. You thought it was too good to be true, but maybe you’d score a ship that was rightfully yours. To be discovered. “Fett, get back over here!”

“I have to get to that ship! This is personal!” You shouted back to him, picking up the pace. It wasn’t long before he discovered he couldn’t do anything at the stone, he might as well help you, the other kid he decided to take under his wing. Mando was really trying to keep up with you, but you were too eager to quit.

The glare of the sun blocked your view of who stepped off the platform, but you’d recognize that voice anywhere.

“If it isn’t my only child, I knew we’d meet again someday.” Boba greeted, causing you to drop your guard and run straight for him.

“I thought you were dead,” you told him as he engulfed you in a hug, but things took a slight turn when you smacked him in the chest, leaving him puzzled, “where the hell did you go?! I was stranded on Tatooine for five kriffing years!”

“Don’t use that tone with me, kiddo.” Your father warned you while Mando awkwardly stood to the side to watch your family drama play out. “I got into some trouble on that sand planet, I couldn’t rope you into it.”

“So you thought that it’d be better for me to become an orphan at ten?” You argued, in a heated rage over the sudden realization that you didn’t have to be scrounging for food and shelter for years on your own.

“I managed just fine when the Jedi killed my father.” Boba and you stood off face-to-face, practically growling at each other.

“Circumstances were different, bounty hunters had your back.” What kind of father would leave his kid to fend for themself when he’d gone through the same thing before?

“What do you call that guy over there?” Your father pointed to Din.

“Just met him a few days back, that doesn’t change the fact that I was alone.” You were about to go on, but a less familiar face came from Slave I to warn you of something, you cut her off just before she could start. “And who the hell is that?”

“Fennec Shand, I owe your dad my life.” She introduced herself with nothing but that, “and I’d cool it for a minute. We’ve got Imps incoming.” The woman pointed skyward at Imperial ships.

“The kid!” Mando gasped, taking off before you tried to do the same.

“Fennec, help the Mandalorian.” Boba instructed, gripping onto his formerly owned armor. “I believe this belongs to me.”

“You’re joking, right?” He sternly stared you down, to which you loudly groaned and tossed him the helmet before removing the various other pieces. “Guess you just don’t care if I get shot, huh?”

“You’re a Fett, you’ll manage.” He assured while finally being able to put his armor back on after all these years. You dismissed yourself promptly to back up Mando against the swarming stormtroopers that you couldn’t wait to knock down. You were never too fond of the Empire.

“Where’s your armor, y/n?” Mando asked, throwing himself in front of you before the blasterfire hit. He saved your life is what he did.

“My old man just robbed me, let’s hope that what you taught me stuck or else I’m not making it off this planet!” You explained, ducking under his arm to take down a few troopers.

“I won’t let that happen, y/n. Not on my watch.” Mando and you continued to fight side by side, providing each other with all the assistance you needed as it rained blasterfire.

“Think the Child is okay?” You questioned while activating a grenade and chucking it towards a horde of hostiles.

“As long as he’s in that Forcefield, he should be safe!” Mando told you as he thinned out the crowd. It wasn’t long before Boba launched a rocket at the airborne cruisers, taking down two birds with one stone. “Nice shot.”

“I was aiming for the other one.” Your father admitted, a triumphant moment swiftly crushed as the Razorcrest was blown to pieces. You yelped at the sight, covering your mouth as you looked to Din.

“Grogu!” You exclaimed while backtracking to the Child, Boba took to his ship while the rest of you went to retrieve him. Just a few seconds too late, dark troopers had kidnapped him and stripped Din of everything he had within the minute. Now, your father tried his best to help, but what could he do when he wasn’t allowed to shoot?

Boba returned to the ground and watched as Mando sorted through the wreckage of his ship.

“I was ashamed.” He said while the two of you were aside.

“Huh?” You gave your father an odd look as you cocked your brow.

“You watched me suffer defeat in such a humiliating way. A malfunctioning jetpack was not the way I imagined I’d go.” Boba admitted, removing his helmet to give you a heartfelt look. “But I knew you could handle yourself out there because you’re a Fett. That doesn’t make it right, but I hope that I can.”

“Oh...I guess we’ll see.” You looked over to Mando, who just found the Beskar spear in the rubble. “At least you can try and one-up your last death, right?” You and your dad chuckled as Mando approached.

It was here that your father explained that he owed the Mandalorian a debt for caring for you, one he’d repay by getting the Child back.

Now, all was not forgiven. Deep down, you would always feel abandoned and betrayed by your father, but maybe the future held something better for you. Just take it one step at a time.

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @lotsoffandomrecs // @captainshazamerica // @ravenmoore14 // @thisetaernallove // @ofthedewthesunlight // @gabile18 // @sweetjedi //

[sullustangin]

Fearful Avoidant Attachment and the Single Spy

Caveat:  I’m not a counselor of any sort, and I’m applying labels to fictional characters.  Don’t take this too seriously.

This post has been kicking around in different forms in my prompt document for awhile.  I will start posting my Yavin fic this weekend.  A major element of this fic will be the dynamic between Theron and the playable character/love interest.  Their interactions will be informed by how I view his attachments. I’ve put some of this into the fic series already.

“Attachment” in the Star Wars universe is the idea, according to George Lucas, that Jedi should love everyone but not get attached.  “Attached” in this context is possession, greed, being willing to do things for individuals rather than the greater good, and ultimately the fear of loss.  Attachment is a negative concept in Jedi philosophy.

However, I would argue that while this philosophy is in the back of Theron’s head, Jedi attachment concepts are not what makes Theron’s personal life messy.  It’s the personal context surrounding that teaching and his life events that shape this.  So let’s look at real life attachment theory. 

In its most basic form, attachment theory is the idea that children need to develop a positive relationship with a caregiver to turn out ok. If the child is neglected, then they will have problems forming healthy attachments to others.   There’s a lot of caveats to this theory.  Some put the threshold of ‘must have positive relationship by x age’ to age 2 or age 5.  Others state that this is problematic, because if a child loses their caregiver and passes into the hands of a less affectionate or downright abusive caregiver, then their positive attachment formation by age x doesn’t count for much.

There are several different types of attachment that a person can have.  A secure attachment is what most healthy relationships are rooted in. People feel safe and secure within themselves and within the relationship. Jedi can be attached in this fashion, even if they don’t call it this; the Jedi have orderly boundaries and a clear understanding of what their associations entail. They have care systems for younglings and padawans, which were like pre-modern apprenticeships.   They are secure within themselves as Jedi and in their relationships outside the order.  They are at peace.

An insecure attachment has a flaw in it; something is wrong in how the person relates to themselves and others in relationships, platonic, romantic or otherwise.  One type is dismissive or avoidant; the attachments are actively avoided, so the person is often isolated and rejects others and their friendly overtures.  Another type is anxious or preoccupied; people tend to get very clingy or possessive with anyone they latch onto, which can cause the relationship to self-destruct (hi, Anakin).

Then there is fearful avoidant attachment, the label I think fits Theron Shan, our favorite high-quality spy and absolute emotional disaster.  In theory, Theron tries to avoid deep emotional attachments because he’s scared of being left behind or not having those attachments reciprocated. At the same time, he desperately wants those attachments and relationships, but the potential of failure makes him avoid or even sabotage the relationship.  That results in an on-going war between Theron and his feelings. To quote Psychalive, “the person [he wants] to go to for safety is the same person [he is] frightened to be close to. As a result, [he has] no organized strategy for getting [his] needs met by others.”

Why does Theron have attachment issues?

Some accuse Satele Shan or Jace Malcom of being “bad parents.”  There’s a problem with this premise: although there is a biological relationship, neither Satele nor Jace had a parent-child relationship with Theron. Jace didn’t even know Theron existed until the child was 26, so he couldn’t act in any capacity.  Satele gave Theron up to be raised by someone else; she opted out of the role of mother and did not talk to him as mother-and-son until Theron was 26.  There isn’t an abusive or neglectful relationship here because there isn’t a relationship, period.  Much like romantic relationships, it’s better to have no relationship than a bad one. Jace and Satele didn’t raise Theron.  They were strangers to him until he was an adult.  They were never his caretakers.  Who did Theron have attachments to?

Theron was raised by a Jedi named Ngani Zho, who had been Satele Shan’s master when she was a padawan. After Satele gave birth in a cave on some planet, Zho took the child and raised him as his own son.  This was irregular, honestly.  Jedi younglings that express some sort of control over the Force are typically put into a creche at the Jedi Temple; we’ve seen this in the Star Wars prequel films.  Guss Tuno references this in SWTOR, as he was chagrinned to be in class with a bunch of five-year-olds in bathrobes.  Theron was raised by Zho directly and they were constantly traveling, based upon comments we read in The Lost Suns comic and in the novel Annihilation. Theron never entered the creche because he never manifested signs he was Force-sensitive – not even a little like Guss.

Zho traveled with Theron until the boy was an adolescent. Then, Theron was told by Zho to travel to the Jedi Temple at Haashimut to receive more training; he could do no more for him.  The trip through a desert nearly killed the boy.  When Theron had recovered, it fell to Master Till’in to tell him he would not be a Jedi.  Ever.  

Instead of telling Theron or notifying Satele about the boy’s lack of Force aptitude, Zho sent him onward and then disappeared.  There is no indication that Zho told anyone where he was going or why.  When Theron met Zho again at age 23, the Master’s mind was scrambled and confused; he couldn’t give any answers to Theron about anything.  Was there a mission he had been set on?  Or did he just wander off on his own?

For storytelling purposes, it’s convenient to pair Zho’s departure with the aftermath of the Treaty of Coruscant.  In the year Theron turned 13 (3653 BBY), the Great Galactic War ended with the Treaty of Coruscant, wherein the Sith Empire enforced demands on the Republic.  The Sith won. Zho leaving could be tied to this (through a mission or quixotic urge), but the source material isn’t clear on the timing.  

Theron’s life suddenly became very uncertain.  His entire life had been built up to becoming a Jedi.  To some extent, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, Theron probably felt like he was a failure.  We know he tried to fix this; in The Lost Suns, he acknowledged pursuing access to the Force through the Matukai Force tradition – being an ascetic. In Annihilation, he recalled and took particular umbrage at the “arrogance” of the Jedi – those that made him feel like any other path was second (or third or less)-best. This diminished over time, but the revelation about his lack of Force Sensitivity probably left Theron feeling very insecure about himself and who he was as an adolescent/young teen.

In terms of his relationships, Zho was gone with no forwarding address.  The man Theron called his father was no longer reachable, and for another ten years, there would be no closure as to what happened to him.  Zho had actively endangered Theron by sending him through a desert to Haashimut.  Did he gamble that the boy’s Force Sensitivity would manifest in a life-threatening crisis or something?  Who knows? Theron never went into the Jedi creche, so he didn’t have close peers or friends beyond pen pals at best.  Theron had not spoken to his bio parents at all to this point, and he probably didn’t know many (if any) non-Force Sensitive kids.  With his expulsion from Jedi society, Theron’s entire relationship network was gone.

This is important to understand -- Theron had been raised to not have attachments that would lead to selfishness or fear of loss, but he was raised to be able to love and care for others.  He lived in a structure that fostered good psychological attachments (secure attachments) to the order and to his fellow sentients without possessiveness or jealousy. Theron knew his mother gave him up. He knew one day Zho would give his care over to another Master.  He knew one day, he would leave the Temple to go out into the galaxy.   Theron knew how the galaxy worked and his role in it...

..and then it was torn away from him.  No more masters, no more knowledge of what came next, no way to ever work with his mother as a Jedi.  His life to that point had been an illusion -- he was never able to access the Force, and Zho knew it.  This left Theron as insecurely attached, as nothing that he anticipated for his life would ever happen, and he knew nobody that would accompany him into this new life. 

External to all this, the Republic Theron was raised to serve was on the losing end of war.  How the galaxy worked, as far as Theron knew to that point, was going to change.  After Till’in told Theron the truth, all we know is that he spent some time in Haashimut before going elsewhere. We the viewer have no idea what happened to Theron from adolescence until he was 16, when he entered SIS per Annihilation.  This may be a canon math/timing error, or it could be reasonable; Theron might have been able to get permission to join a government organization at 16.  If Theron was in foster care or a ward of the state or something else, whoever was involved didn’t make an impact worthy of mention thus far in SWTOR canon.

Theron described Zho in The Lost Suns as “never reliable.”  That was a 23-year-old looking back.  Yet, he referred to him as his father in Annihilation three years later, and even eight years later in SWTOR: KotFE, he mentions that “Master Zho would be proud.”  This seems contradictory.  Additionally, in both The Lost Suns and Annihilation, SIS Director Marcus Trant expressed concern about Theron and his issues.  Theron was a workaholic.  Being a workaholic is actually a sign of having attachment issues; a person attaches themselves to work, not people   Theron expressed desires to run away, go on vacation, and do new stuff… but he never did these things – couldn’t get away from the job.

Attachment theory states that a child has difficulty with attachments if they are abused or somehow neglected by their caretaker. The desert march definitely strikes me as falling into one of those categories, but again, Zho’s logic isn’t readily offered up to the viewer, nor are many details about Theron’s life as a traveling youngling.  That all said, Zho’s traumatic departure probably caused attachment issues that had no other herald.

Why do the labels “fearful” and “avoidant” fit Theron?

Theron Shan as the player met him in Forged Alliance SWTOR was a professional.  Flirting was ignored, mildly acknowledged, or, rarely, fully reciprocated. There was no physical contact between Theron and his asset. This doesn’t seem off or irregular until his romance is compared to that of Lana Beniko. She didn’t have the same issues expressing affection for her asset on Imp side; she touched their face and gave them a hug by the time the spies went under deep cover after Rakata Prime. Even if the player did not romance Lana, Lana herself was keen to make a team and bust open the conspiracy; she wasn’t as willing to go it alone.  

Avoidant people tend to refrain from contact, and they like being independent.  They don’t do well in teams.  Sound familiar?  Fearful avoidants also have the concern that they will fail their partner or that their partner will fail them.  If the player was Imp side, Theron was a jerk well into the Rishi storyline.  Eventually, Theron did come around.  His dialogue and follow-up letter reflect the fact that he actually did want these connections and attachments.  He enjoyed the time he had with the player.  

This is particularly pronounced if Theron was romanced by the player on Rishi and Yavin; first physical contact occurred on Rishi with a kiss.  If the player was Pubside, the fade-to-black and his comments on Yavin indicate they had sex.  Those episodes of affection, paired with the Pub post-Yavin letter and dialogue, really emphasize the connection that was formed.  Interestingly, Theron did not get a fade-to-black with the Imperial player. One might argue that he knew they were going to leave him, and so he couldn’t –wouldn’t—get attached.

…. And then Ziost happened. Theron refused to ask for help. He didn’t want to depend on that attachment.  He was distant on Ziost, regardless of how far the relationship went, and if Pubside, he declined a drink afterwards.

Whatever transpired between Ziost and the Eternal Fleet Incident, it’s clear that a romanced Theron and the player never defined their relationship.  There were certain boundaries that never were crossed.  He’d “like to think” the player is dreaming of him, but he didn’t want to presume.  Even after Theron got into a romantic relationship on Odessen, he still struggled with his ability to be attached, as evidence by his letters and expressions of affection and concern throughout the KotFE/KotET expansions.  

One might argue that the traitor element of the Nathema Conspiracy was partially caused by Theron’s attachment issues: his independent streak, his inability to ask for help, his lack of faith in others to do the job right (not telling anyone the truth), his lack of faith in himself (his willingness to understand why the player might dump/exile him). If romanced, he gave one of his Holonet messages the subject line “I love you,” but even then, he did not clue the player into his self-made mission.  Certainly, the Nathema Conspiracy happens because of Theron’s desperate desire to save the galaxy and the player at any cost – including the relationship itself and his life.

For those who let Theron live, the attachment issues have faded as Theron has gotten engaged/married and/or reformed a relationship with his bio parents… or the writers have moved on from Lana and Theron as companions.  Regardless, we have to keep in mind that Theron is closing in on 40, and he has grown as a character since he first appeared in Star Wars media at age 23 (baby and adolescent only in flashbacks).  His issues with his relationships, the Jedi, the Republic, and his bio parents have changed over the course of 17 years.  In the last story patch, people who have romanced Theron received letters from both Theron and his mother about how good the player is for him, and it’s very satisfying to see how far he has come.

How does this label of ‘fearful avoidant’ manifest in your fanworks?

Since not everyone is into fic, I’ll drop this behind a cut. 

Basically, my version of Theron wants love but is terrified of all the feelings and closeness that come with it.  When people get close, he draws away, but still wants them to be close.  Theron has had good relationships, but if it gets too serious, he runs.  That’s the case for his last major relationship prior to my oc; his Mirialan girlfriend was drawing a tattoo to mark their relationship, and she wanted him to meet the parents. Theron noped out of there pretty hard by taking a long mission off Coruscant and sort of forgetting to tell her.  There are several times where he takes a big step with Eva (my oc)– disclosure, physical intimacy, caring for her or letting her care for him – and then he just doesn’t contact her for the next few days.  He dives into work to avoid her.  Toward the end of their initial relationship, that will turn into weeks and months.  He is freaked out when he does things with her that are intimate, sexual or not.  He has a lot of fear that he will be left again, so he leaves first. 

Theron also sets up a lot of rules and boundaries that the partner has to dance around to get in.  After 300,000 words, I just completed a slow burn with the Rishi kiss, because Theron wouldn’t get involved with Eva until after the op to expose the conspiracy was over.  There will be more rules once they get to Yavin.  

When I was doing research on this, I read a clinical study that found that people with avoidant attachment issues are particularly fastidious about safe sex.  They don’t want attachments to their lovers in the form of a disease or a child.  Anxious attachments tend to eschew this and take the risk so they can be bound to someone. This is part of why I gave Theron a male birth control implant, but there will also be reference to his back-up (condoms) and back-up back-up (PreP) to ensure there aren’t any adverse consequences for him.

Theron is often alone, but that doesn’t make him lonely by default.  In part, that might be due to his avoidance of attachments.  Dude can pick up people at a bar and get laid. Theron isn’t adverse to sex, just intimacy.  He can find someone to hook up, but that doesn’t mean there is anything beyond sex attached to it.  Theron can and does get dates, and he can have relationships ... but that doesn’t mean he can make a healthy connection to the other person.  I think his issues are more emotional/internal than they are caused by not getting enough physical contact or affection from others.  People want to love him.  People reach out to him to be friends or have a relationship.  He just doesn’t want it; he avoids it.  I imagine that this is partly the case with Jace and his SIS coworkers.

The last fearful avoidant feature I’ll give Theron in my series is the tendency to idealize relationships after they’re dead and over. When the relationship is no longer available, it is held up and made glorious, partially to enable the person not to pursue a different relationship; it’ll never be as good, so why try?  This also calls in the tendency for fearful avoidants to fear not only screwing up the relationship themselves, but that others won’t live up to their expectations. Theron is a mess after the Eternal Fleet incident and never moves on from Eva.  It’s reasonable when he thinks she’s alive, but for a good two years, he thinks she’s dead… and he can’t.  With anyone else.

Unlike the game, I eventually send Theron to a therapist to deal with the fearful avoidant attachment issues.  I figure if I’m going to give a fictional character a real-world label, I need to give him a real-world solution that might work.

[fightabear]

so some time ago, someone asked me to do meta about a scene in Injustice and i wanted to revisit that scene with the scene from Year Zero in mind. and then i ended up getting deeply into injustice damian, his relationship with his two awful dads, and it’s kind of a mini character essay?

so! here’s a warning for: tyrannical totalitariam regimes, child abuse, abusive fathers, emotional manipulation, evil superman, character death & also random he-man. please note that this is entirely about injustice and its characters, which are not a reflection on their mainstream counterparts.

there’s tension between damian and bruce from the get-go in injustice, and we’re never really told why. if we take cues from the game (though that entire scene doesn’t make sense) then it’s because bruce didn’t save jason, which fits in with my reordered robin theory in which tim and jason were switched, and jason has only recently died.

now, we don’t know whether jason is running around as red hood right now or not. but i’m inclined to say he isn’t, as his injustice 2 ending makes a big deal of him becoming red hood. and damian is close with jason in injustice 2, close enough that jason listens when damian tells him that he’s a lot more than bruce thinks he is and drops the shitty batman costume. close enough that during the (extremely weird, extremely out of alignment with the comic) scene in injustice 2 where damian betrays bruce for clark, jason is the name damian throws at him with the most vehemence. regardless of the robin ordeer, bruce’s failure to save jason is seems to be an incredibly sore point between them.

so it’s interesting that bruce is already counting damian out before injustice even starts. he’s comparing damian to jason - someone who he apparently no longer considers part of his legacy. 

the kicker is: damian in injustice is actually probably the most morally centered version of himself. he shows open compassion and care for other people more often than he does in most of the mainstream runs. damian’s sense of right and wrong is solid, but what he wants is to break the cycle that gotham is trapped in. which from his perspective, is something bruce doesn’t seem to want to do.

injustice’s version of bruce is someone who truly believes that the ends justify the means - which means he’s apt to do some heinous things to people until they see his side of things. he seems to view people questioning as an act of betrayal, so instead of ever explaining himself he resorts to things like installing viruses in cyborg, kidnapping hawkgirl and replacing her, beating allies within an inch of their life - all of it is fine to him so long as they’re not dead. 

but it’s not fine to damian.  damian is constantly horrified at the lengths bruce will go to.

damian is afraid of his father. 

so, this is about a specific scene.  let’s get to that scene. its just important to note the difference between them, and emphasize that he’s not going with any intent to fight. if he was going to do that, he wouldn’t be doing this:

or respond like this:

or this:

he’s there to make amends, or at least try to. he still loves his father and he wants to be forgiven, and this is something that will carry on ten years later in injustice 2. damian made the choice to oppose bruce’s controlling nature but damian didn’t choose to abandon him and the bat family permanently. that choice was made for him. damian wants to come home. 

and he’s terrified of his father. i cannot stress that enough. bruce at this point has already shown that he knows how to hurt his closest friends if they oppose him.

damian is a highly trained fighter, but he’s also a  thirteen year old boy who knows he can’t overpower a man twice his size and weight.

and bruce?

bruce’s entire argument really hinges on ‘you, my thirteen year old son, didn’t take my side in this argument’. because, i have to put this in bold, the league was not executing the criminals they were removing from arkham. they were just transferring them to a more secure facility. something which is actually sorely needed, especially given what has just happened to metropolis. arkham isn’t fit to house them. and as far as damian sees it, bruce doesn’t like it because it’s removing an element of his control.

now, bruce isn’t wrong about how things will escalate. 

but damian’s not wrong about his motivation here.  i think there’s a conversation to be had about how bruce’s methods in trying to stop the regime actually drove it to further and further extremes. bruce never tries to talk to clark - or anyone, really. he just starts playing mind games to make them do what he wants.

it harkens back to the conversation bruce and dick have in the batplane. that bruce doesn’t talk to people, he doesn’t explain himself. he’s either right or you’re wrong and he won’t explain his stance. there is never room for debate. he’ll just stop talking and leave until you agree.  there is no option where he sits and listens to an open and honest dialogue, no scenario where he entertains that he might be in the wrong or maybe things aren’t black and white.

and that’s why injustice bruce is not a good guy. 

even on prime earth, damian had to bend over backwards to prove to bruce that he wasn’t a monster. it was damian who spent months digging through the sewers for martha’s pearls. damian who had to prove he was capable of loving titus. damian who constantly had to show that he was capable of empathy and thinking of others - bruce did none of the heavy lifting in that father-son relationship, he made damian climb the entire hill and still continues to put little effort into it.

and injustice bruce is even less empathetic and expressive than prime bruce.  

which is why you get a confrontation like this:

this goes beyond dick’s accident and ties back into what clark said about bruce not tending to his son’s who are grieving because they lost friends in metropolis.  damian’s fed up with never meeting bruce’s expectations. but more than that, he’s fed up with his feelings coming second to bruce’s. 

bruce has already made a judgement on who and what damian is. damian has the potential to be dangerous and requires work to fix, and so he’s not interested in getting to know him beyond that. he tells dick that he’s “worried about  damian being seduced by darkness” but never talks to damian himself with him about it.

but clark has looked at damian and and decided that damian is good. damian has problems, clark can admit that and does, but damian is good. like bruce himself.

and ultimately why when dick dies, clark is the one that reaches out to him because he sees damian for what he is: grieving child who just made a terrible mistake. it was an accident. damian didn’t mean for this to happen. meanwhile, bruce feels as though he was proven right. damian was dangerous and now his real son is dead. bruce will later admit, once he stops trying to manipulate damian, that damian was dead to him the moment dick died.

going back to year zero for a minute, they subtly show that damian is doing his best to be like bruce. baby damian idolizes his father. so i imagine a lot of bruce’s own feelings towards damian stem from self-hatred. from bruce seeing himself in his son and not liking the reflection it forces him to confront. injustice bruce projects a great deal of his own insecurities and shortcomings onto his youngest. damian is his worst what-if.

even though damian doesn’t deal with his grief the way bruce does. there are similarities, he puts his feelings into his fists and hits. just like bruce. but unlike bruce, and most likely because of dick, he does try to communicate. come injustice 2 he even talks about his feelings.

that doesn’t justify any of the violent outbursts. and he has a lot of them. he has significant issues with controlling his anger and struggles with lashing out, verbally and physically. it both worsens and improves as he gets older.

damian knows that he’s more than his grief, his loss, his anger. he’s also compassionate and capable of incredible feats of kindness. we see that in the flashback chapter in injustice 2. people aren’t pawns for damian, they aren’t a means to assuage his own guilt and validate himself as a good person. he wants to be good for those people.

damian’s relationship with heroism isn’t built on an intrinsic need for control or power, nor is it a means of validating his self worth.

people just need him. they’re suffering.  and he wants to be there for them.

but again, we’re not there yet.

so, alfred reaches out to touch damian. damian asks him repeatedly to let go. when alfred doesn’t, damian tries throwing him off, not realizing how much strength he now possesses.

damian  has a thing about being touched when he’s wound up tightly. it almost always ends with him lashing out at someone. which, tying back into why he felt comfortable coming back here, probably goes into his expectation that he’s going to get the lights knocked out of him. because again, damian did not go to the cave to fight or hurt anyone. the pill is entirely for his own defense.

from what we know of damian’s childhood in both prime and injustice, violence is the expected retaliation for misbehavior. toeing out of line is grounds for getting the shit beaten out of you, and while things should be different here....

from how bruce reacts he’s not wrong to expect it.  note that bruce dodesn’t run to alfred to see if he’s okay, he goes after damian for hurting him. it’s damian who runs to alfred after he’s thrown bruce away from him.  

( granted, yes, he threw bruce into the penny and it almost crushes alfred )

damian apologizes and he means it.  alfred’s first question is to ask for bruce.  

“”hawkgirl”” intervenes to try to end this fight before it can escalate further.

damian deduces that this isn’t hawkgirl and blows some stuff up.  bruce calls after him probably - not to have a serious heart to heart with him about what just happened, or what happened in arkham, but to try to manipulate him into taking bruce’s side or in the very least stop his ruse from being uncovered.

this is a theme moving forward. bruce will dangle forgiveness in front of damian, but only when it benefits him and can be used to control him. eventually he’ll stop and will use the guilt he knows damian feels to wound him.

and here’s the second theme it introduces: damian is scared shitless of his father. he’s not afraid of bruce’s violence, as after this he charges straight for him time and time again, but he is utterly terrified of the lengths bruce will go to get his way.

this is also where he takes dick’s suit. i think this was his way of telling bruce that he didn’t deserve to use dick’s memory the way he uses his parent’s death - as justification for what he does.  this comes up in injustice 2 later down the road, damian will bring up that bruce uses his pain to justify how he brutalizes the people around him. damian does the same thing -- but we also see damian grappling with his conscience about it. he wants to be better. he doesn’t want to be all his violence and loss.

back to the topic at hand, damian doesn’t do anything with dick’s suit. unlike bruce, damian doesn’t wear his grief and guilt in plain sight. he puts it in a box and doesn’t look at it, he covers the wounds with anger and as he gets older, develops a death wish and basically begins seeking a noble death in order to make up for what he’s done. it isn’t until dick passes the mantle to him in an attempt to steer him back on the right path that he even looks at it again.

damian isn’t the one that ended his relationship with bruce. bruce did. damian is very willing to reconcile if bruce genuinely wants it, but bruce doesn’t bother with damian outside of combat or when he needs something. damian actually keeps up visits with alfred, he gets him birthday presents, they meet up often and despite their opposing viewpoints, they get along just fine. damian even listens to what alfred says. he still loves his family.

damian himself is a mess. this line resonates because damian, too, is afraid. afraid of bruce, afraid of being what bruce thinks he is. there’s only so far he can bury it under the anger.

by the next issue of year one, after the confrontation at the manor, damian’s discarded any notion that bruce is a good person or justified in anything he does. everything he says on this page is true.

he’s not wrong. he’s more than bruce has even given him credit for being. injustice bruce sorts people into boxes impossible to climb out.  damian made his attempt at reconciliation and instead, found out that bruce has kidnapped and replaced one of his friends to spy on all the rest. in that split second when bruce came at at him, he saw the disgust and anger in his eyes. he’s seen how bruce sees him and wholeheartedly rejects it. 

he doesn’t want to be bruce. he will not be bruce.

batman was supposed to be better than the league. it was supposed to be a new way. instead he just found a new, different means to brutalize and control, and a new way someone justifies causing harm. and he doesn’t want it.

this isn’t to say that damian is a saint. he’s a very flawed, very broken person. he went from one abusive parental situation, to another, to another, and has the damage to show for it. he’s got bad habits from all of them, many of which he isn’t aware of or doesn’t think are a problem. 

but unlike his two dads, damian doesn’t close himself off to what he’s feeling completely, nor does he decide to rush towards external solutions for his pain. he’s, again, very aware that something is wrong. he doesn’t hold to his convictions the same way bruce or clark do, he questions.  he’s deeply unhappy with who he is and what he’s doing. 

but damian is seeking answers using a very limited toolset, and there’s a very limited pool of people he can ask that won’t give him a biased answer or try to manipulate him for their own means. one of the people he confides in does just that.

the other gives him the honest truth.

his relationship with selina is fraught and she’s often one of the very nastiest people towards him, but it’s because of that  he ends up opening up to her. she isn’t going to bullshit him and just say what he wants to hear.

and this is what makes damian different from them. both of them.

because he stops, because he questions, he’s still connected to reality. to his own humanity.

injustice’s bruce is a bruce that has quietly let his humanity die. he’s completely given over to the cold logic of batman and the idea that whatever he does to the people around him, no matter how morally dubious, is justified so long as it means protecting lives. he might not kill, but he really stops just short of that. he just doubles down on his beliefs and takes anyone who doesn’t agree with him as a traitor. he will go out of his way to rationalize how a largely guilty person is innocent (harleen) and how a largely innocent person is guilty (damian). and so he uses damian’s “betrayal” - ie, damian standing with clark instead of him - as justification for icing him out. that way he can ignore all the people who have reminded him time and time again that it was an accident.  

bruce also can’t stand that damian won’t do what he says. bruce will ignore damian unless it benefits him. bruce will go on to frequently weaponize how badly damian wants forgiveness against him. there are multiple instances where he says “just do as i say and i’ll forgive you, son.”

and then in the next breath, he’ll tell damian that he “can’t forgive the deaths”, all the while he has harleen as his new sidekick.   it’s fine that harleen helped with the scheme to blow up metropolis, killed jimmy olsen, and countless others. it’s not fine that damian did something he did all the time to dick - something dick himself shrugged off, because the expectation for this behavior was that dick would catch the baton - and it ended in tragedy.

because harleen listens to him and damian doesn’t. bruce cuts damian neatly out of his life and only really cares about him again when he’s a corpse.

damian, meanwhile, never stops trying to earn bruce’s forgiveness. in the canonical bad end (or well a comic offshoot of the canon ending) damian essentially dies begging bruce to forgive him, admitting that he always cared. he launches an absolutely insane rescue mission to save his father from clark’s torture and it costs him his life.

( but it’s worth mentioning - it takes damian showing bruce an image of kara for bruce to acknowledge him. )

even before this, damian was looking out for bruce in other ways. he was the reason selina got involved with the regime. because he offered her the chance to join and save bruce. damian’s anger towards bruce is less that he wants him dead, and more that bruce won’t stop unless he’s killed.

and damian is willing to kill him if bruce poses a threat to his ‘new’ family. he’s not going to watch bruce hurt the people he loves.

but his new father sucks just as much as his old one.

talia and bruce were more obviously abusive parents. they were controlling and sometimes asserted that control and obedience using physical violence and intimidation. in obvious ways you can point to and see abuse. 

damian doesn’t recognize clark is using him until he sees clark discard kara, who should be everything to clark and is someone important to damian. before that, he has inklings that they’ve gone too far, but clark has been such a paragon of good that when he tells damian not to worry about it, he doesn’t. he hides all his darkness behind that  smile and tells damian he’s good and worthy of people loving him, that they’re saving people and they won’t let another metropolis happen. clark talks to him and still (seems to) accept him even when they disagree.

damian misses clark’s equally as abusive tendencies because they hidden under the guise of a fatherly concern. 

clark is manipulating him into divulging more than he wants to. a boundary damian set is being broken without damian even realizing it.  damian’s uneasy. his body language goes from very easy and relaxed to overtly uncomfortable and almost submissive. it’s also very subtle but clark actually rises higher off the ground to intimidate and loom over him.

damian, who has only known bruce’s stormy silences in moments of disagreement, doesn’t recognize this for what it is.  clark doesn’t take the slight out on him. clark doesn’t stop talking to him because he dared to question.

instead, he loops an arm around damian and praises him, rewards him for being honest and makes it seem like this is an open dialogue and not an interrogation. which it is. i wouldn’t call it gaslighting, but i would call it lovebombing. damian doesn’t realize that there was anything off about the encounter, or if he does, he’ll tell himself he’s just being paranoid.

after all. this ended amicably, not with him standing alone wondering what he did wrong, or being thrown across the room. clark basically stops just shy of ruffling his hair and calling him sport. 

he was rewarded for honesty. and so any discomfort he felt was imagined.

 i think a thing that a lot of fans miss is that injustice’s damian is a forthright person. he doesn’t lie or deceive much, and later on it will bother him that he’s keeping secrets from kara for ‘the greater good’. he loathes that bruce does it and works hard to not fall into that trap. he wants to be honest. he’s glad when he’s rewarded for that honesty. 

because injustice’s damian doesn’t want to be batman. he wants to be superman. he wants to be good.

but injustice’s superman is not a good man. 

clark keep secrets, many terrible secrets, and often hurts people and justifies it to himself. he just hides it far better than bruce does.  clark is even more controlling and cruel, but he leans harder into his humanity and emotions to hide it. it’s easier to see bruce being cold and calculating and miss the way clark subtly uses what you want to get what he wants out of you. and you never really see it coming when he lashes out. he’ll apologize for it, of course, and if you’re not dead you’ll forgive him, because it’s clark. he didn’t mean it. right?

bruce manipulates overtly and grandly using intimidation, clark manipulates subtly using emotion. damian only recognizes one of these things when they happen.

so clark gives damian what he wants - a parent who loves him, someone he can talk to and even show a little vulnerability with - and then uses that against him. 

the worst thing -  the very worst thing - is that bruce and clark love damian. he knows this. both seem to genuinely consider him their son. and he knows this.

in injustice vs motu, bruce snaps fully into awareness just as diana snaps damian’s neck. he’s awake just in time to watch his son die.    and when clark is brought onto the scene, clark falls to his knees and mourns damian and laments his role in driving him to this.

but they weaponize this parent-child bond he wants against him and each other. frankly, neither of them were very interested in him for who he was. nor for helping him be better and master his anger. damian’s body isn’t even cold before bruce uses it against clark, failing to acknowledge his own part in damian’s all too early demise.

he’s another chess piece on their board. one clark can use to wound bruce. one bruce can use to wound clark.

the person damian is when away from both of their influence is a more complete damian. he’s the very best of both of them.

the damian here is still curt and sometimes rude, but he laughs and bonds with the people around him. he values people’s freedom and seems to strive for honesty and communication. meaning no one is in his war to reclaim the world doesn’t want to be, and he makes no move without everyone knowing.

when he recruits adam,  he tells them their story and what they’ve gone through and gives adam the choice to join them or stay in eternia.

anyway, all of this is to say that even all these years later, i continue to be so sad about injustice damian wayne. 

edit:

now, there’s actually one other thing i want to bring up because i totally forgot about it.

so. issue 8 of injustice 2.  

if we’re going with the idea of the reordered robin theory, which is what makes the most sense to me considering jason’s age and the friction between bruce and damian, this before jason dies. and if i’m wrong and the robins don’t have a different order, then this is before some enormous event that broke the slowly building trust.

there’s none of the undercurrent of hostility and distrust that shows up in year 0, which is immediately before year 1. we’re not given a timeframe for when this occurs, either, it’s just happier times.

but what’s really hard to ignore is that the dynamic between bruce and damian is completely different here. maybe tom taylor’s just settled more into writing the two of them, but i don’t think so. year zero comes after this. 

he even acknowledges damian’s anger earlier in the chapter. but it’s less of a condemnation of his character and more a concern that he might not be ready to be on his own. alfred is the one advocating for caution, asking if he’s ready, bruce is the one saying yes, he is.

it’s a complete reversal.

and his trust is rewarded with a night of damian abandoning the “”mission”” he was given (get home from the furthest point of gotham in three hours) to help everyone along the way. which was the real goal all along, it was a test to see if damian’s compassion would win out over his want to win. and it does. bruce is proud of him.

so... what happened between them? what caused that shift? 

i’m kind of worried we’re never going to know. like, i’m so glad that tom taylor is dc’s new golden boy and they’re just letting him build a million different aus. i buy every book he writes. 

but also i’m dying because IJ2 was clearly planned to go on a lot longer than it did and i have questions that i know netherrealm doesn’t care about answering.

[gthreepio]

i’ve been thinking about the future of the mcu and realized there’s a LOT that i didn’t know/didn’t remember in terms of where things are going so i figured i’d sum it up incase anyone else was in the same boat!! 

quick recap of (unresolved) mid-credit scenes:

doctor strange: mordo (a sorcerer that is one of strange’s mentors, who by the end of the movie becomes disillusioned with magic/the ancient one and quits) confronts pangborn (the paraplegic who healed himself with the mystic arts, who tells strange about mystic arts in the first place) and steals his magic because according to mordo, there are “too many sorcerers." of note, this guy is typically a villain in the comics but hasn’t been thus far...

gotg2: ayesha (leader of the sovereign, a golden skinned alien race obsessed with genetic purity), after spending most of the movie chasing the guardians for stealing some stuff, is revealed to have created an artificial being named “adam” which is presumably, adam warlock. (other stuff that is less relevant: kraglin appears to take up yondu’s mantle; the ravagers regroup and several old and obscure comic book characters are introduced [charlie-27, aleta, martinex, mainframe]; the watchers are watching things.) 

far from home: j jonah jameson basically tells the whole world spider-man’s secret identity, and frames him for what happened with mysterio....making him public enemy #1. ALSO, turns out nick fury and maria hill in the movie were ACTUALLY the two skrulls from captain marvel (talos and soren) attempting to do their job, while the real fury (and presumably hill) is ... up in space on some spaceship!!!

wandavision: monica (who we can assume is photon) is called by “an old friend of [her] mother’s,” up in space, which presumably means fury, talos, or carol. ALSO, wanda sits in the middle of nowhere reading the darkhold and hears the voices of her children who.. by all accounts, should not exist. 

aaaaand what we know about future movies (i’m not even going into the tv series.....): 

black widow: 

takes place after civil war

nat confronts a “dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past,” likely has to do with taskmaster who has apparently taken over the red room where nat was trained as an assassin

prominent new characters: yelena belova, who will take over the mantle of black widow after this; alexei shostakov aka red guardian, an ollllld marvel hero analogous to captain america except for the soviet union.

tony stark will make an appearance... SOBS

shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings:

shang-chi has never been seen in the mcu before, but he is, essentially, a superhero that is a master martial artist, and in some adaptations can also create duplicate (fake) versions of himself to confuse opponents

main villain will be the the mandarin who we have *sort of* seen before... he is the leader of a terrorist organization called “ten rings” whose main goal is to destroy world peace. brief history -- in iron man 1: one ten rings cell kidnaps tony stark and tries to force him to make weapons (he of course, makes his suit instead). stark and ten rings become enemies and fight a bunch. nat and nick fury fight them too. in iron man 3, the villain aldrich killian hires a dude to pretend to be the mandarin and claim responsibility for a bunch of stuff, but its not the ten rings or the mandarin at all. this makes the mandarin v mad and he has a dude kidnap the faker to punish him. they also briefly show up in ant-man, when a ten rings agent tries to buy the yellowjacket suit that darren cross is selling. BUT IN SHANG-CHI....... looks like we are FINALLY going to see the real mandarin after over a decade!! 

the villain razor fist will also show up, he is lesser known... he has no superhuman powers but he has surgically replaced his hands (1 or 2, depending on the version) with a steel blade, and is highly skilled at hand to hand combat.

besides the presence of these characters, the only bit of plot we know is “shang-chi is drawn into the ten rings organization and forced to confront his past.” so... yeah. we don’t know much at all.

eternals: 

quick explanation: the eternals are an immortal alien race who have been secretly living on earth for thousands of years. they were created by the celestials, who are most prominently in gotg2. 

more entirely new characters!!! their names are: thena, who can form any weapon out of cosmic energy; gilgamesh, who can make a super strong exoskeleton out of cosmic energy; ikaris, who has superhuman strength, flies, and can project cosmic energy out his eyes; kingo, who can shoot cosmic energy projectiles from his hands; makkari, who creates sonic booms, has super speed, and is deaf; phastos, who has enhanced intelligence, and is also gay (and married with a kid!); ajak, who has healing powers; sprite, who can project illusions; sersi, who can manipulate matter; druig, who can mind control; and dane whitman (black knight), a human with a mystical sword. 

regarding the plot... it seems the eternals have kind of dispersed, but have to come together again to fight the deviants, who are their “evil counterparts” (also created by the celestials, though i’m unclear on why). thena and gilgamesh have apparently been in exile, unclear why; sersi, who is posing as a museum curator, has apparently been in love with ikaris for centuries and it seems as if their love story may be central to the film; and kingo is a bollywood film star in his spare time. aaaaand that’s pretty much all we know.

directed by chloé zhao of nomadland fame! 

spider-man no way home: 

based on the post-credits scene in far from home, peter parker will now be known as spider-man to everyone. unclear if he’s going to be seen as a bad guy due to mysterio framing him, but i guess we’ll see! 

jamie foxx is electro, and alfred molina is doctor octopus; which is VERY interesting considering they played these roles in other spider-man franchises, once again stirring up excitement for possible multiverse. 

there have been *multiple* reports that andrew garfield, kirsten dunst, tobey maguire, and emma stone will be in the movie but tom holland has repeatedly denied this... so... who knows. 

there are also rumors that matt murdock / daredevil (from netflix) will be in several scenes! not confirmed though. 

MJ is still his girlfriend and i hope it stays that way!! 

doctor strange will be featured in the movie, taking on the mentor role now that tony stark is gone :( this will be interesting as i.. haven’t really seen them interact much before. because of this inclusion some people speculate that the film may draw inspo from some comic storylines where peter’s secret identity is restored with magic. 

doctor strange in the multiverse of madness: 

scarlet witch is essentially co-starring!!! it’s going to be really interesting to see if they bring vision or the twins into this at all, though i’m not counting on it. 

seems like mordo will be the main villain -- recall the ds1 post credits scene where he is apparently running around trying to steal people’s magic.

america chavez will make her debut!!!!!! i have no idea how this plays into anything but i am so excited!! 

regarding the plot, all we really know is that strange has been researching the time stone, mordo messes with him, and this results in him accidentally unleashing “unspeakable evil.” presumably there will also be heavy involvement of the multiverse, and who knows what kind of craziness that will bring!! 

initially was going to be directed by scott derrickson who did ds1; however he stepped down to being just EP due to “creative differences.” i am presuming this is because derrickson really wanted to make this more gothic and horror than disney was comfortable with. i REALLY hope they keep some of those elements though and don’t erase the idea entirely! anyway, it will be directed by sam raimi now (of evil dead and spiderman 2002 fame). 

the film also reportedly ties in with the loki series (will loki show up!?) and spiderman 3 (which is obvious enough, given that strange is in that movie and those curious electro and doctor octopus castings...)

thor: love and thunder

directed by taika waititi again, hell yeah!!! and he has stated, the film will be “so over the top now in the very best way" and would make ragnarok look like a "run of the mill, very safe film" .... so.... oh god

so many great returning players!!! including.... valkyrie (now the king of new asgard), jane foster, lady sif, korg, star-lord, mantis, drax, nebula, and kraglin (takes up yondu’s mantle after he dies in gotg2)

in this movie, thor isn’t thor anymore.... it’s JANE!!! she gets cancer :( and is undergoing treatment while simultaneously being thor. i’m a little nervous how this will be handled, but i’m excited. (it’s based off an amazing comic series by jason aaron) 

the big bad: gorr the god butcher, played by christian bale! the gist of it is, this dude HATES gods because nobody helped when his family was dying and in need. his weapon is “all-black the necrosword,” forged from the head of a celestial, and allows the user to create wings and fly at extreme speeds. honestly, he sounds cool as fuck. 

valkyrie is going to be made canonically bisexual!!! 

it will explore more of korg’s backstory, and also include... space sharks!?!?! an alien race from the comics.

taika has called the script “very romantic” so take that as you will 

black panther 2

will again be directed by ryan coogler

not much is known at this point, does not have an official name

t’challa will NOT be recast (which i’m happy about) so..... honestly no idea what to expect for this one. i think we can probably expect shuri to have an expanded role. all we know so far is they will be “exploring the world of wakanda.” not clear to me how this is different from the upcoming wakanda D+ series. 

tenoch huerta has reportedly been cast as a villain, but no one has any idea who. there’s also rumors that donald glover is in “informal talks” to play a role. note all of this is unconfirmed.

captain marvel 2

will be directed by nia da costa (candyman!) and written by megan mcdonnell, who is one of wandavision’s best writers! 

will take place in the present day 

will feature kamala khan / ms. marvel, monica rambeau / photon!!! this will be so interesting.... kamala is a huge fan of carol’s in the comics, she is her mentor/idol. the ms. marvel series will also resportedly lead into cm2. and monica, well, monica knew her when she was a little kid. wandavision implies that there’s some bad blood between carol and monica though, not sure why. maybe because carol left and never came back? (until endgame) 

post-credits scene of wandavision appears to tie into this, having monica go up into space at the reqeust of her “mom’s old friend.” again, not clear who that is. this could also be a tie in to secret invasion though, so we’ll see. or both.

zawe ashton has been cast as an unknown villain... a lot of people are actually speculating that she may play rogue? which would be fascinating, as there’s a comic arc where rogue steals her powers and memories. BUT there’s still no confirmation that X-men exist in the MCU so for now i remain skeptical.

they are looking to cast a ‘john boyega’ or ‘michael b jordan’ type which makes me wonder if they are going to create a new character, a “younger” war machine to be her love interest? (note: carol and rhodey are a huge thing in comics!) carol obviously does not look her age but her and don cheadle.... that just doesn’t work. which is why i wonder.

ant-man and the wasp: quantumania 

in addition to scott and hope, pretty much all the major players are returning including: luis, hank pym, janet van dyne

cassie lang has been recast with an actress 5 years older, which is really making me wonder if they are going to make her stinger in this movie! (aka one of the main young avengers)

the villain: kang the conqueror! this dude time travels. original name nate richards. in the comics, kang travels back in time to rescue his younger self (nate) from an attack that would help shape him towards a life of villainy. kang also gives him some fancy armor. his younger self actually is like, what the fuck dude? and renounces his destiny, becoming a hero. and he makes his armor look like iron man, calling himself iron lad. who is a young avenger. which also makes me wonder about cassie lang.

otherwise not much is known! 

guardians of the galaxy vol. 3

james gunn is returning, i’m mixed about this...he really does *get* the guardians though. 

based on the gotg2 post credits scene, i think we can assume adam warlock will be a HUGE part of this. there are multiple versions of him, some villainous and some heroic, but no idea how this is gonna turn out.

no word yet on whether thor will be involved, or if those ravagers they introduced will be involved. 

fantastic four 

will be directed by the spiderman guy, john watts.

otherwise we know literally nothing.

aaaaand that’s the roundup! 

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

TEN OUTTA TEN 1010

Welp, its happened. I’m into No Straight Roads, and the boys with the K-Bop in their step has got me hooked.

So I’m gonna celebrate (for the moment) with lots of gathered info I’ve found, seen, or heard speculated, regarding the Top Boy Band of Vinyl City... 1010. [Possible OCs to come later]

Some of this stuff might be common knowledge, some is already on the wiki, but hey, no shame in having a consolidated list.

But for now...

The Names of 1010 were deciphered by out of universe fans. They are Rin (White), Haym (Yellow), Eloni (Green), Purlhew (Blue) and Zimelu (Red).

An old placeholder model for 1010 had Black Hair and different tron lines.

1010 in binary is... literally just 10.

Eloni does not get fan letters; He’s the “Funny Band member”, and Funny Band Members don’t get fan letters.

1010 wears Sailor uniforms (The US Navy would call them Dress Blues, so think... Popeye. But no hat.) In fact, their flying limo is a god damn Tron-lined Battleship. Even the Cannons dance to the music.

They’re a parody on K-Bop bands or Boy Bands to the West. And while they’re listed as Funky, they’re technically Synthpop. (Haha, Synth)

In the background of their fight, when the Battleship Limo stops for pictures, you can see that there is a set of pictures of 1010. Rin the White has a Fuschia or Purple Background, while all the others have a background matching their aesthetic colors.

1010 have common powers... ... Firing Lasors. ... Levitation (Or small time Flight; as they rush to the side to meet the Cameras) ... “Taking to the Sky”, or just really powerful jumping. ... Being powered by Cheers. ... There’s a reason I left Shield off in a moment.

1010 are both outrageously tall (Mayday only comes to their waist when they stand up properly), and outrageously heavy (did you hear them walk backward in their intro cutscene? How heavy are these guys!?)

It could whatever kind of AI they have, but they are waaaay insynch, almost preemptively. Perhaps 1010 are directly linked to each other?

In most of their appearances outside of battle, they all have the same colored eyes as their aesthetic colors. But in Battle, they all have White eyes. Mind that in their Show Stopper picture, they’re back to having their aesthetic eyes again. Take that as you will.

1010 has associated attacks, when you’re in the Phase facing the Factory and Neon J. ... Yellow has Missiles or Splash Damage explosions. No literally, the yellow droid is the missle. ... Green has Bombs. HIS HAIR IS A BOMB. ... Red has Saws. He-He literally uses Red Droid as the Saw. ... Blue has some sort of Staffs or Whirlwind strike. They are staffs made of Purl-Hew. ... Because of his Picture’s Purple Background, White’s likely isn’t an attack but is, in fact, the Shields that occured early in the battle. Which is probably why they’re never deployed, because how the hell can you make a shield out of Rin Bots.

It was pointed out in one of the many Youtube Comment Sections that 1010′s hairstyles match their respective attacks in some form or fashion. ... Zimelu’s Mohawk indicates his associated Saws. ... Haym’s hair looks like a missile. ... Eloni’s hair looks line a Grenade Pin. ... Purlhew’s flat top hair could indicate the fact that he’s literally used as a Staff End. So basically he’s Blue. That’s his attack. [Hah] ... Rin’s the sexy one. Look, for a Band of Robots with fancy hairdos and attacks, he’s not considered remarkable.

As they are a parody of Boy Bands across the World, they may follow the boy band “archtypes” ... Rin is the Leader, and the Heartthrob (He doesn’t have a weird hairstyle, and he does the most flirting / talking; as well as the most promoted) ... Eloni, as already established, is the Funny Guy, or the Comedian. ... Purl-Hew is the Cool Guy, (consider his Sunglasses) ... Zimelu is the Bad Boy (Mohawk, his ANGRY EYES AARGH) ... Haym’s is apparently considered a Pompadour. Maybe he is also a Bad Boy? Consider his name, he may be the Smart Guy. ... There is no known “Shy Guy” or “Cute Guy (Technically, the Second Heartthrob, but isn’t a threat to first Heartthrob’s position). So, go forth and create.

Fun Consideration on my part. Since Names can have meaning in No Straight Roads and meaning in personal names... ... Rin is a japanese name, and boy can it mean a lot of stuff depending on the Kanji (Some of the meanings are “Dignified” “Compassion” “Cold”). He’s probably coolly impassionate off stage. ... Purl-Hew is apparently a pun on Pearl Hue (cos I guess blue Pearls). Perhaps he likes puns. ... Zimelu is an ooold fortress in Lativa apparently. Perhaps he has a warish personality. Or I guess knows very Niche military history. (Perhaps, in-universe, it was the name of a base Neon J served at?) ... Haym is the name shared by a few people, but in the themes of music, its probably Nicola Francesco Haym (Italian Poet, Opera Librettist, Composer, Manager, Editor and Numismatist (That’s uh, a guy who studies Currency)). Perhaps our Haym is quite the Nerd. ... the name Eloni means Lofty. Which can me “Of Imposing Height” (They all are), “Noble or Exalted Nature” (Possibly?) “Proud, Aloof or Self-Important” (They all are that too, yes), or in regard to Lofty Wool “Thick and Resilient” (I mean, if you look at those thighs-- Ahem). So basically Eloni’s name defines all the group... Wow, poor fella. No wonder he’s the Comedian, he’d have to pull anything to get noticed (when its not about his hair) [THE DUDE DABS]

If Battledroids all have background memories to be more efficient in combat... Does 1010 have backup memories from Neon J?

Metro Division shows other kinds of Robots, and the progression of 1010′s Mark Models (1 looks like your typical Sailor, 2 looks a bit like our 1010 but more droid, jointed and blocky, and our 1010 is currently mark 3... There are 4 known Types of Droid, so a 4th Mark may be on the way)

Neon J, Manager and Creator, is a Vetren of Vinyl City’s Navy (It only has a Navy); and his District is literally a Theme Park mashed with a Ship Yard.

Neon is the 10th element of the Periodic Table, and J is the 10th letter. Dude loves his 10s.

Considering how he replaces the bots in battle, or even outright uses them as weapons... Perhaps his “Troops” are not the Bot bodies, but the AI possibly hosted inside? 1010 has more personality out of battle after all, and Neon is seen fervently protecting 1010 when their eyes share their hair color. (As their eyes are only white in battle...) Hm, mayhaps the HC is, that when their Eyes have color, the AI is truely present.

Neon is a Cyborg, note that his body appears to be the same kind of droid as 1010′s, with a Radar head. His brain is apparently in his radar, and as we saw post-battle, that head was smashed to hell. Perhaps the reason he was reminiscing so much and though that BBJ was really after him, was because of some serious onset head or brain trauma.

Apparently, Vinyl City has or has had Border Wars. This could be a reference to the Korean DMZ Conflicts (As 1010 does distinctly include Korean K-Pop, and South Korean men do have to serve 2 years in the military forces by law), but there have been hundreds of different Border Wars throughout the world. [ I wonder what war Vinyl City was in. Perhaps against the Artist Capital of the World, Canvas City ] [ Oh take me down to the Canvas City, where the grass is green and the pics are pretty--]

Neon’s passion is Dancing.

Neon J and DJ Subatomic Supernova do seem to be in a lot of pictures together. No wonder everybody ships them.

Neon J used to make toys, as seen by the collectibles you can get. Done by hand too. Though if each toy found is a stage in his life... I wonder who the doll with the violin is.

Think maybe Neon J has direct control over 1010? I mean they share the same voice, they have a passion for poses and dancing, he does directly command them...

Are Cyborg parts cheap? Or was Neon J someone important enough in the Vinyl City Navy to actually become a cyborg? Military doesn’t do expensive prosthetic surgeries for random grunts without reason.

Okay, regarding what the Azkar faction is. Its probably suppose to be Askar. Azkar is a type of Islamic Prayer. Askar is actually Arabic for Army. So it’d be The “Army Faction” (which makes more sense for a nation city-state that only has a Navy)

The place he called “Kewan” is not a real world place. Its either Persian for “Saturn” (What, is he... Is he a SAILOR SCOUT!?) or Kurdish for Mountains (He does mention mountains).

Possibly more as information arises.

[thecrimsonjaguar]

A Short List of Adventure Time AUs

So I got a google doc of adventure time aus I’ve made over the past two or three years. Here are some of my favorites (and also the ones I came back to and edited)

If you’ve got ideas for an au or ideas to add onto the preexisting ones I’ve got here, please tell me! I’m always up for some au discussion. 

1.) Jermaine AU: Jermaine comes to live at the treehouse after his house blows up. This, unlike canon, happens rather early in season 3. The rest of the series mainly stays the same, except this time there's three brothers instead of two. He's a kinda anxious dude with demon hunting expertise and a painting hobby. He sometimes wonders if he made Dad disappointed by letting all his work explode. Finn and Jake help him out, and he helps them. Despite this, Jermaine is the only one with a brain, and Finn and Jake share exactly one (1) braincell that they trade every so often. Jermaine is tired. (Jermaine is the only one who tries to clean regularly, and he's also the one to keep Neptr, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a few others company. He's a bit of real wisdom the early series Finn and Jake needed.

2.) Melted Ice AU: Mid season two, IK is hit with something that de-ages him. He turns six. Maybe this mystery de-aging thing blows up the top of the ice mountain, who knows. Maybe he wakes up in the snow, with no memory of how he got there or why. No memory of the last one thousand years. Finn and Jake don't know about his backstory since that happens in season three. Simon is carried by a snowman out of the ice kingdom where he breaks down in the plains. Finn, of course, finds him and is ecstatic to meet another human. Completely missing the fact that this small child is, in fact, the Ice King, Finn declares to help this boy no matter what. That promise soon becomes difficult when people hear about the second human in Ooo, and whatever effect that's keeping him young starts to wear off. (Marceline comes to visit and has a heart attack)

3.) Adventure Falls AU: AT x GF baybee!! Seventeen year old Stanley Pines hops on the Stan O' War and sets sail when he's kicked out. Unfortunately, that boat is nowhere near sea worthy, and all it takes for him to go overboard is one sudden (magical) storm. But, miraculously, Stan doesn't die. He washes up on Ooo, the island of misfits. Where there's daddy issues galore and punching things and getting gold is a legitimate career. He's found on the shore by none other than Finn, who asks if he's okay and if a dungeon adventure would soothe his worries. Stan accepts, because that sounds awesome, and they maybe date. For the next ten years, Stanley is a professional hero. He travels with Finn, he lives in a tower with tons of gold, he's respected, adored, and has made a family for himself. Ooo has a habit of forcing traumatic therapy onto to people, so Stan gets (read: is forced) to work his issues out. And then, somehow, he gets a postcard from his brother.

4.) Young Pups AU: Jake's kids grow up fast- but not that fast. He stays with lady for a few episodes being Dad and when the Pups are old enough, go visit Finn and Jermaine. Also Jermaine is there when the pups are born that always bothered me in canon like what the fuck. This whole AU results in Jake the Dad being a better father than in canon, because he actually has time to make mistakes and learn from them. He sometimes shapeshifts into one of those baby carriers but suited for five kids instead of one. Finn and Jermaine fight for best uncle privileges. Finn is considerably more awesome but Jermaine's got magic junk and juicy stories about Jake. So far the votes are: FINN: Jake Jr, T.V.  JERMAINE: Kim Kil Whan, Charlie. Viola remains undecided.

4.) Evilgreen AU: Evergreen was evil. His idea to make the crown to stop the comet was actually a cover story to take control of all the elements and freeze everything. Of course the same thing happens here as it did in canon, Gunther gets the crown and wishes to *be* evergreen. This is bad. Very bad, so bad in fact, that things get FUnKy. A couple eons later, Simon gets the crown as per canon, and then things start to slide downhill. Since the crown is significantly worse, Simon tries to get rid of it. No amount of magic pull is going to get him to put on the eldritch hat. It teleports back. When things go to shit, the crown tells him he's got two options: He can either live, or he can live unwillingly. This all coalesces in super angst and mild horror as Simon has to fight off evil urges and somehow keep both he and Marceline safe. Things start looking up, though, when he summons Hunson Abadeer.

5.) Nightmare Therapy AU: Simon, now himself post canon, has some funky nightmares. Problem is: he's due for a visit from the cosmic owl due to some mystical bureaucratic bs. If that were to happen, Simon's dreams of Golb and Orgalorg and the world ending and everyone dying and maze would come true, without the veil of metaphoric junk dreams are known for (also due to bureaucratic bs). So, Simon gets a dream therapist. An OC, probably, that would fight off his nightmares when they came and talk to him about his issues.

6.) High School AU: Except they're all still magic and crap. Finn's a jock that's part of the LDnD club(Literally Dungeons and Dragons), Jake's got a job at a pancake place and hosts the Card Wars clubs on Wednesdays, Jermaine's in college and their parents were still detectives/demon hunters. PB is preppy/nerdy girl with weird fucking family and is absolutely a mad scientist. Marceline is still a demon/vamp (vampire biker gang, they all died, deaths pending) and her uncle is Simon. Simon is a history teacher whose ex wife might be an eldritch abomination (the students wonder, but there are no answers)((simon says cryptic things every so often that are the subject of much ridicule, but he's a nice guy)). Ooo High has all of the AT characters in some shape or form. Tree trunks is the lunchlady, Mr Pig is a janitor. Lemongrab is just there. LSP(Q?) is a teacher because that's hilarious. Hunson is dead along with Marceline's mom because fuck hunson. Magic Man is a hobo that snuck onto campus and can't be chased off (his brother is the superintendent, Glob). there's a lot more but that's for a different word doc.

7.) Back to the Future AU: So PB fucks around with time travel, right? For science. She gets sent back in time a thousand years, before the war. Now, she's a pink lady who can shoot jelly beans from her hands, of course needs to lay low. And of course she needs to get home, but she's in a Futurama situation where she only has one type of time machine; the one that can go into the past. Not to mention her own time machine got busted on her way there, so she's double screwed. But, she remembers something. There is an individual (two, actually) that knows about time travel in this time period. She knows him, and he's likely to help her if she plays her card right. She needs to find Simon and get back to her own time, preferably without dooming herself in the process. (perhaps she tries to steal the notes Simon has, and Simon's completely oblivious, except Betty can smell trouble from a mile away and immediately notices some pink woman trying to steal books and she goes ham. Perhaps she goes ham in such a way that Simon doesn't notice. Perhaps this goes on for seven acts.)

8.) Bread and Butter AU: Bella Noche during the episode Betty creates a huge black cube that engulfs all of Wizard City. This box acts as a cage and prevents Wizards from escaping the magic purge. Simon is unable to bring Betty back from the past, and he's fading fast. In a desperate attempt to stop things from escalating, Simon chugs a bottle of anti-magic like a fucking god. He gets through the cube that surrounds Bella Noche and knocks their lights out. He passes out, and when he comes to, the anti-magic he consumed as merged with him. This is because of a simple rule: Magic sticks to magic, anti-magic sticks to anti-magic. And since humans have always had just a little bit of anti -magic present within them, humans and anti-magic go together like bread and butter (badumtish) ((I have actually written a fanfic about this, you can find it here))

9.) Swapped AU: Through various shenanigans Ice King's and Magic Man's powers gets swapped. These shenanigans somehow land them in space as well. This happens before Magic Man's trial. The swapping of their powers results in Simon getting his memory back. It also gives Magic Man the Ice Crown, unfortunately for him though, it seems to hate him. Simon's glad to back, but quickly realizes one issue: He's still crazy. So the pair try to make it back to Ooo. MM needs his powers to swap himself with some other shmuck so he doesn't croak when his trial comes, but Simon's made it clear he isn't giving his powers up without a fight. The pair starts off rocky, neither trusting the other, but space trouble forces them to work together. Simon's a nice enough guy he wouldn't leave someone to die and MM really needs Simon alive so it works out. A weird friendship forms, and they learn get along. Just a couple of crazy space wizards. Then the crown is destroyed. MM is freed from the crown's control, and he's freed from magic. He gets his sanity back, just in time for his trial.

that’s all I’ve got for now!