#But it can take place anywhere in the main story! After the events on Prison Island that is...

[willing-but-not-able]

I'm only making this one because I'm actually writing a story about a group of highschoolers who live in a city where crime is in the very air they breathe (if anyone's curious I might talk about it on my main blog).

So naturally I'm always interested in mafia/organized crime (not doing it btw).

But, those Grand Mafia ads are hilariously stupid and it really makes me wanna have a game that has ridiculous options in a setting like that.

I might not be able to find it, but one if my favorite ads is when the Lv. 10 thug has a choice to help a woman lying beside a trash can or to turn hee in for an x amount reward. He turns her in and after she gets out (or is never put in prison) she finds him and has her men beat the guy up.

These options are so stupid and honestly... I kind of like how stupid they are.

So, what I came up with is more or less what it shows in the fake ad. You start in some random seed with a certain amount of funds, infamy, and allies.

I can't think of a world where this game has just one goal for you to reach, so I feel having the players pick what they want to do would be better.

For ex. Let's say you wanted to become the cities most infamous gang. Your random seed would start you off with some weapons, no allies, and a decent amount of funds.

You can do whatever you want from here.

Wanna attack a big time leader? Go ahead.

Think you can just rob a bank? It wouldn't hurt to try.

Maybe you just wanna sit back and wait for someone to ask for help. Well, there's that option too.

I would imagine the "evil" options being something like stealing the hard work of another NPC.

In the end, however you reach your goal is up to you. It might take a day or it might take a month.

Random events could would also take place and it would range anywhere between getting 1 mill from a heist to you getting ratted out by someone.

I also want to associate some form or risk-reward system or a reckless vs. calculated option. Some options would be safer to pick with a lower payout, but help in the long run, while the risky options have a higher reward output and less advantage long term.

Honestly, it'd also be a nice way to teach people about decision making and how impulsive choices can sometimes backfire hard.

It sounds like players would make the most ridiculous choices and I would love to see something like this lol.

Now I wanna give a typical playthrough in case anything I said doesn't make sense (that's entirely possible)

You start the game, make your character, give them a certain set of stats, and you're dropped into your seed.

From here, you're given a list of goals. Most infamous crime leader, owner of 20 different fancy sports cars, billionaire, private island owner, etc... (Some I thought of are more serious, so I'm not gonna put them, but I'm sure any true crime lovers can take a guess.)

With your goal picked it's up to you to make it happen.

During anything you do, there's a chance for random events to take place that can alter the your success. Almost all decisions you make will happen, but there's a chance (I'd say around 10%) that something unexpected can happen.

So, you keep playing until you meet your goal. Sometimes you can be set back for miles or you can get a huge boost in whatever you choose.

I had a similar idea with those King's choice games, and it would more or less be the same. Especially the ones that say you can pick how to raise your child.

I just imagine you adopt a child thinking your spouse will see you as some Mother Teresa and then you just neglect to raise the child properly and the kid snitches on you making becoming a monarch 20x harder 😭

I'm a big fan of choice based games as well as visual novels, so I'm sure this would be a funny asf game to play.

Check out the Hero Wars one I did also.

But, thanks for reading if you got this far!

[monadoheir]

SHULKIE, ARE YOU OKAY? | Accepting.

send “you okay?” to find my muse sitting alone on a roof at night.

antiqca asked:

“you okay?”

機 | Melia’s voiced surprised the Hom, and Shulk looked over at her direction. He gives her an acknowledging nod, before looking back up at the skies above in Colony 6. “Yeah--thanks for asking, Melia. Truth to be told, I’m a little exhausted, but I’ll be fine.” Especially with how exhausting it was going out and about to gather materials to rebuild Colony 6. It’s a lot of hard work, but the end result will all be worth it.

“With all the travels we’ve taken in this journey, I’ve almost forgotten what it was like to take a break and relax.” So much is happening on Bionis, and the Mechonis, there isn’t a moment to lose. He’s come so far from being indoors most of the time, and missing out on the many discoveries of this world.

[thekingwhowouldhavebeen]

Michael In Prison

Character List: Michael C!Dream C!Sam C!Quackity

Trigger Warning:

Read at your own risk

-Child Abuse -Child Neglect -Depictions of Torture and Abuse

Note before going into this- I saw the-final-sif’s Convict Childcare au and please note that there is no correlation! I created this AU on the Rainy Weather discord server and only found the child care au today! However, it is really amazing and please please go check it out. I binged reading it all day and its so so good!!!

----------------------------

This is an Au where the events that led to Sam getting Michael happened a LOT sooner than planned. In his panic of not having anywhere to place Michael, Quackity comes up with the ‘brilliant’ plan of “Why don’t we put Michael in with Dream?”

Lets get into the Au then :D

-Dream is a Dragon Hybrid, specifically an Albino Ender Dragon. He used to have wings, however Sam cut them off after a month or two in the prison due to them being a ‘security risk’ and the amount of times Sam got hit by them. Now, most of his draconic traits are patches of scales, fanged teeth, horns, sharp nails and his vertical-slit pupils. He can also snarl, growl and purr but cannot breathe fire (well he can, but its a huge risk since it can burn him from the inside). He has a lot of draconic instincts as well, and falls into a more ‘feral’ state as his mental health decreases. 

-Michael is of course a baby zombie Piglin, and technically an ‘enemy’ to End Creatures. He used to be terrified of Ranboo when he first met him, but now he doesn’t have the instinct to be afraid of End-Born Creatures. He was found alone in the Nether Wastes by Tubbo and Ranboo, and loves his parents very much.  He cannot speak, both common and Piglin (he’s completely silent), but knows a few signs such as Food/Hungry, More, Tired and a few similar things just so he can start to communicate with his parents. Tubbo and Ranboo are learning to really understand sign first before they start really teaching Michael. 

-Sam originally had Michael in his base, however stuck between guarding the prison, letting Quackity in and out, potentially having to heal Dream and then having to also take care of a high needs child, found that it was much too difficult to juggle everything. Next he puts Michael in one of the jail cells, but then finds that Michael is not doing well since he is a Piglin and needs social interaction. That's when Quackity comes in and says “Why not shove him in with Dream?”

-Sam says no at first, deciding to put more focus on ‘caring’ for Michael, but finds himself growing increasingly frustrated. Michael is constantly terrified of him, crying a lot and Sam gets headaches every time he enters the cell. Then he thinks “Hey, if anything, Dream will kill Michael and put me out of my damn misery...and properly piss off a lot of the server since Michael is MUCH younger than Tommy”. He doesn’t even consider the idea of Dream actually liking Michael.

-About 3 weeks of Michael alone in the cell, he is then transferred to the main prison cell. 

-He is rightly terrified of Dream at first. He had no idea what to expect of this strange person who smelled of blood and stench, or what this person would want from him. So for the first few days, he’s keeping his distance despite shivering and craving contact. It isn’t until Dream makes the first move, asking him if he wants to come over to him with slightly opened arms that gets Michael to throw himself into his arms and being brought into a tight hug. 

-That’s the start of their bond. Dream is giving Michael most of his food, even if its barely enough to keep Dream functioning. Especially since they only seem to be getting a potato each and Dream is giving Michael half of his own potato. Dream keeps Michael warm, and tries his best to entertain him with stories of adventures when he was younger, or pretending to find shapes within the lava. Sometimes if Dream can find the strength to do so, he will sing Michael lullabies when he’s having trouble sleeping.

-Dream teaches Michael proper sign. Wanting to communicate with the little Piglin more now that he finally has company. He knows sign through both Callahan and a desire to be able to communicate with a lot of people (he knows quite a few languages and learning Spanish through the torture sessions with Quackity). Michael is a quick learner, and seems to take Dream’s teachings really well. 

-Once Michael asks what happened to Dream, but Dream just plays it off like “I got hurt, but I am okay now little one”

-Its about a month until Quackity decides he wants to return. Annoyed that Sam has been keeping him from Dream for so long, and says he can handle a stupid Piglin. Plus its just a kid, what could Michael do?

-So he returns, and immediately when Dream realizes as he hears Quackity’s voice, he tells him “We have a new game now, I want you to close your eyes and face that wall okay bud? Put your hands over your ears and I want you to count all the way to 100, if you mess up, start over okay?”

-Of course, Michael listens. He can hear Dream’s urgency, and does what he says. He keeps going, restarting since he still is so young and can barely get to 20 without messing up. He only stops when he feels Dream’s hand on his shoulder to which he opens his eyes and looks at Dream. There seems to be fresh wounds, and Michael can smell the pain radiating off of him. 

-Dream teaches Michael how to sign his name that day, as well as Ranboo’s and Tubbo’s name. Michael then spells out Dream’s name, before signing ‘family’ with a bright white smile. Dream just pulls him close. 

-Quackity comes back every day. Michael only looked back once, and wakes up with squealing nightmares when he dreams of Dream crying as Quackity sliced across his skin. 

-Dream stopped screaming or making noises. He knows that Michael knows something is wrong, but he refuses to let the kid know the extent. Quackity hates it, and deals his frustration out with more grueling and horrifying methods of torture. All to get Dream to scream. 

-Quackity once tried to target Michael. Grabbing him and bringing the knife to just garner some reaction out of Dream. This resulted with Dream’s hands around Quackity’s throat, his claws digging into his neck as he snarled and threatened “Don’t you EVER touch him again”. Sam had to rip Dream off of him and Michael went running to Dream who wrapped himself around him protectively. 

-Dream sometimes purrs when Michael is having a hard time calming down. Michael usually falls asleep when he does so. 

[writer-panda]

Hit on the groom and what became of it - chapter 2/Take me out maybe (with a sniper rifle)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Miraculous or Batman (and other DC characters). This is just a fanfiction. 

Chapter 1  -|-  Next

--------

As much as Marinette disliked the meeting with the female entourage, when the time came to start working on Adrien’s suit she wanted to scream. She could clearly see that he was uncomfortable with even the gentlest touches. She did her best to make it as non-invasive to him as possible.

They had absolutely no privacy whatsoever. The Bodyguard (Gerard; His name was Gerard) and Nathalie observed their every move. Marinette was half-convinced it wasn’t her who was under watch. 

The professional atmosphere was far cry from her usual working environment. When Uncle Jagged, Clara Nightingale, or even Diana Prince came to her for clothes, it was always very informal. They would joke, gossip, or exchange stories while she worked. Now? Now she was wary of even speaking with Adrien. 

Likewise, the boy refused to meet her eyes or open his mouth. 

At some point, when she was trying to find the right shade of white for the undershirt, she noticed a make-up stain that was not there before. 

“I’m sorry, but I will need to request you remove the makeup. It is staining my materials.” She informed Nathalie and Gerard coldly. It was all she could do to resist calling the police there and there. Sadly, the commissioner was good friends with Gabriel, so it would most likely just end her career and make it worse for Adrien. 

“I was assured it would not leave stains on materials. Please accept our apologies. We will cover the costs of destroyed materials,” Nathalie informed her in an equally cold voice.

“I see…” Marinette’s lips thinned. Inside, she was screaming. But there was nothing she could do. The hit was in place. Soon Adrien would be safe. It would go without a hitch. It had to. 

As the group was leaving, she could’ve sworn the Bodyguard gave her a mournful look. As if he shared her sentiment, but was powerless to stop it. She’d know that look. She saw it in the mirror all too often.

---------

The Wedding (even the narrator started to capitalize it) came faster than Marinette wanted to accept. And there were still no words about the kidnapping. She made sure to specify that they were to take him before he was married or no payment. Did she not make the money enticing enough? Were there already attempts that were stopped without media coverage? Maybe she forgot to check some boxes?

A million scenarios ran through her head as she wandered through the alleyways.

The whole event was happening in Gotham Botanic Garden. Whatever the weak excuse was given to the press, Marinette knew the real reason: it was one of the few places in the world where Gabriel could marry his son to Lila legally without messing with courts. And bribes were said to be cheapest there. 

As the designer for both the bride and the groom, she was invited to the main ceremony. 

Lila was kind enough to even give her a seated place… right next to Chloé Bourgeois.

Marinette had a hard time deciding if it was bigger punishment to her or the mayor’s daughter. Ultimately, the two girls did their best to not look at each other during preparations. At first, that is, because the first chance she got, Chloé to drag the designer to a remote garden gazebo in a secluded corner when she was least expecting it.

“Wha-!” Marinette was about to protest, but the blonde covered her mouth. She seated her on the bench and took the seat on the opposite side. 

“I’ve been friends with Adrien since we were kids.” She announced in the usual ‘I’m-better-than-you’ tone. “I also know that you’re not always an idiot.”

“Gee! Thanks, Chloé… I’m honored with your praise.” Marinette deadpanned, interrupting the heiress. “Now get to the point”. She really hoped her dress wasn’t damaged or she might just turn to murder. 

“Fine. You worked with Adrien on his suit.” She paused, and for a moment, just a brief moment, her mask fell. That was not what Marinette expected. She has never seen Chloé so… so… The designer’s brain lacked the word to describe how her childhood bully looked like. “How is he?” The blonde asked, her voice almost trembling. 

Marinette opened her mouth, but no sound came. 

A moment passed.

“Not good.” She finally admitted. “During the measurements, he winced even at delicate touches. Plus I was called in last week to make some adjustments to his garments. He lost weight between then and now. And he wore makeup on his right arm. On both occasions.”

“Makeup?” Chloé’s eyes widened. 

“Yes. I would’ve probably missed it if I didn’t soak my fabric into makeup removed beforehand.” She thought back fondly to her brilliant idea. 

“They hurt him!?” Chloé burst out after few seconds. “I will show those… those…”

“Believe me, I share the sentiment.” Marinette nodded sagely. She needed plan B and needed it fast. There had to be something… “I slipped him a burner phone on his way out. I doubt they found it. If it gets really bad, he can try calling the police.”

“You are devious sometimes, Dupain-Cheng.” 

“Thanks. I try.” 

“So… they are coercing him into it?”

“I think so. He is resigned to his fate it seems, but he tries to show some rebelliousness. It wasn’t his father’s idea to hire me and Lila would rather walk to the altar naked than wear anything by me.” Marinette cringed. Any interaction she had with the Liar made her feel almost dirty. And forcing politeness was physically painful sometimes. 

“I got that much from the fact he hasn’t reported it yet. That burner phone was a good move, but Adrikins was always too obedient.”

“And I’m sure you had nothing to do with it,” Marinette muttered, but Chloé didn’t hear her. The heiress somehow managed to derail her rant into telling the story of her entire childhood.

Marinette listened only with one ear, filtering the information for something useful. The rest of her consciousness focused on something else. She started to seriously entertain the idea of using Miraculous to get Adrien out. She would need a combination of several powers though. Trixx was the obvious choice. Illusions would be a great asset. Maybe the Tiger, for the Power Up? If Roaar didn’t exaggerate her power, she would be able to put a distance between them and the city before anyone even realized what happened. She would need to time her illusion right though. And there were the American Heroes to watch out for…

If she didn’t use miraculous immediately, she might get a drop on the bodyguard(s) and then make an exit using Kaalki’s power when they were alone. Disable cameras, take out the guards, get in, portal out. It was feasible but still involved too many risks. If anyone connected miraculi to the operation, Ladybug would be in great trouble. She couldn’t endanger Paris like that… not even for her partner and best friend. 

Then, there was the most dangerous plan. Don’t use Miraculi at all. She was confident enough in her skills to enter undetected. Maybe even sneak out. The question was, would Adrien make it. She could sneak him Plagg’s ring. Chat Noir would have no problem leaving any prison. But… there would be the same risk as when any other Miraculi was connected and the whole point was not to use them in the first place. 

“Ugh!” She let out an angry sound that startled Chloé. 

“What’s with you, Dupain-Cheng! Don’t you see I’m opening my heart to you!?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to do something productive.” She snapped at the blonde. 

“Why, I…”

“Silence. Your tale was entirely unhelpful. Let me focus.” 

Gotham. What was in Gotham that could help her? The most corrupt city, famous for its high crime rate, mad villains, and eternal gloominess. Even now she could feel some of it resonate in the air. As if the whole city was one big Akuma. Probably no help from the establishment… The police were more likely to put a bag on her head and deliver her to one of the crime families… 

“What in Gotham can help…” She voiced her musing loudly, causing Chloé to peak up.

“Waynes!” She proclaimed. “That serial adopter would jump at the chance to get another orphan…”

“Adrien isn’t an orphan… Yet.” Marinette grumbled. “But he will be married by then, so I would need to plan a double homicide… Meh. No great loss.” She said without a shadow of care. It was like the thoughts about the murder were completely normal for her. 

Chloé shivered. “Remind me not to get into your way when you’re in that mood.”

In the distance, the orchestra was starting to play, signaling the guests that the ceremony would start soon.

“Ugh! Hawkmoth it!” Marinette raged as she ran to the clearing. She no longer had the time and if she was the only one missing, Lila would make her prime suspect for anything that happened. Blast it. She would get one more chance. Screw the career. She could survive living somewhere in Argentina if it all went to hell. 

-------

Adrien already accepted his fate. His father and Lila made sure that all avenues of further rebellion were closed. He exhausted everything there was. 

To this day, he was grateful for that burner phone from Marinette. He made sure to hide it but always have it somewhere nearby. It became a form of a lifeline for him. A one-off save-your-life ticket. It would only work in short term, but at the rate everything was going, it could potentially save his life…

He missed his life before the mess with The Wedding started. 

Hell! He even missed Plagg’s stinking cheese. He would maim for some camembert.

“Adrien,” Gerard spoke solemnly. There was no need for more words. They both knew what was about to happen and Adrien took just a bit of solace in the fact that he was not entirely alone, even if no one could help him. 

“I’m ready.” He spoke, barely above a whisper.

Before he realized it, the ceremony was undergoing. Lila, in her stunning dress, held the attention on herself like a pro. No one even thought about looking anywhere but at them. The dress was similarly just so… Lila. It made all of her features all the more proponent. Yet, there was just a small, barely noticeable, stitch that said Marinette. A smile ghosted his face. There was some good out of this. He managed to make his friend famous. After today, no one would deny her style. 

“Should anyone present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” The marriage officiant spoke. Adrien didn’t even care what convention the wedding was in. 

The silence swept across the garden. 

No one dared to even breathe loudly.

Adrien lowered his head. Here, the last…

There was a rustle somewhere close to the front. He looked up, a small glimmer of hope appeared in his eyes. 

Marinette was standing there, her backs straightened and one finger held up. “I…”

She felt the gaze of hundreds of guests on her. They were the most influential people in the world of modern business. Waynes. Luthor. Queen. Burgeiose. Agreste… And they all kept staring at her. 

She tried to swipe the hall with a glance, but something attracted her attention. A glint of light somewhere in the distance.

“Watch out!” She shouted, tossing a chair she was sitting on just a moment ago. 

The metal item sailed through the air until it crashed in the middle of the alley.

With an arrow sticking out of it.

For a second (which felt much longer) everyone stared at it.

Then the mass panic started. People got out of their chairs and started trying to get out of there. They trampled one another as each considered themselves to be the most important, hence first to evacuate. It was chaos.

Among the mass of people, Marinette tried her best to make it to the altar. She saw that Gerard and several other hired bodyguards were of similar minds. 

She managed to squeeze through the crowd the fastest, only to find Lila knocked out and Adrien and the Officiant missing. Adrien’s cousin (best man) and Alya (bridesmaid) were both nowhere to be found. They probably ran away. There was still no trace of the Groom. That is until she saw a giant mass of brown mud dragging the boy away. 

The sad thing? Adrien wasn’t really protesting much. 

Gerard was the next to make it through. He noticed Adrien a tad quicker and tried to chase whoever it was that tried to kidnap Adrien, but a fist made of mud slammed into him, sending him flying away. 

“Holy Hawkmoth!” Marinette cursed once more. Okay, so far, it was only a curse for her, but he deserved it. 

In the distance, police sirens could’ve been heard, but with how fast the mud was escaping, Adrien would be long gone before the police arrived. Marinette had to do something.

Wait… Why am I trying to stop the kidnapping I ordered? She suddenly questioned herself, freezing in place. 

Two guards rushed past her and started firing at the mass, but the bullets seemed to be about as effective as Parisian police when dealing with Akuma. 

The last Marinette saw of Adrien he was being taken into the sewers.

-----------

After the police arrived, Marinette was of course first to be interrogated. (“Gee… Thanks, Lila”). They wanted to know how she noticed the arrow, did she see the attacker, how did the kidnapper looked like, and dozens of other questions. By the end, she was exhausted. Somewhere after the sixth question, her phone pinged. Luckily, the police didn’t bother with checking it and believed that it was just a worried friend. 

Not the kidnapper trying to contact their employer.

Finally, after the police released her and informed her that no further information was needed, she could contact her Maman.

“Sweety? Are you okay? I’ve seen the news!” Was the first thing that came through

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m perfectly fine. The police held me back for questioning a bit. I’m going back to the hotel and be back in Paris first flight tomorrow, okay?”

“Stay in Gotham! I’m coming to pick you up!” Her mother informed her.

“Wha-!? But there is no need! Seriously Maman! There’s no need to trouble yourself.”

There was a silence on the line for a moment and Marinette could feel that her mother was trying to glare at her through the phone. It worked. 

“Fine… I’m at Wayne Plaza, room 30-14.” She relented, not wanting any more arguments. She would still have several hours to sort the mess with Adrien. What could possibly go wrong?

Trying her best to be careful, Marinette left the site of crime and traveled to the industrial district. The taxi driver couldn’t be bothered less about why she wanted to go there. He just wanted to get paid and leave. 

The only-slightly-creepy aura of the completely silent area full of factories and warehouses served as a perfect background to contacting the kidnapper. Marinette, after making sure she was truly alone, activated the voice-scrambling app on her burner and dialed the number that sent her the text about successful work. Her Maman showed her that, thinking she wanted it for a prank. Or that’s how Marinette presented it anyway.

“Who is this?!” A voice on the other side of the call asked.

Marinette took a deep breath before answering. “I was led to believe you have what I wanted.” She tried her best to channel Chloé into her voice. 

“Ah… Yes… There’s been a… complication.”

“What do you mean ‘complication’?” She hissed into the phone call. 

“Um… I had the package… But then someone stole the stolen package…” Whoever that was informed her. 

“Who?” She demanded. 

“Last I checked, Lawton was the one who had ‘im… But it might’ve changed. But don’t worry, Boss… lady?” They asked. Marinette didn’t give either confirmation or scolding, so they continued. “I’m still in the game.” With that, they hang up. 

“What did I just get myself into…” She moaned. Then, the realization hit her. “What did I just get Adrien into…”

Elsewhere, Adrien was starring into a pair of curious sea-green eyes. 

----------------

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - No Time Like the Past

While I wouldn’t call this the worst episode of the series, there are several others I dislike more, I would call this the most ill conceived story in the show. 

All the other bad episodes have potential but are let down by poor presentation, boring predictability, or sloppy planning. This one however, is fundamentally flawed in it’s very basic premise and so ranks in the bottom of most fans lists. Even people who are far more forgiving of season three and than I am, and are hardcore New Dream stans, still dislike this episode. That’s how bad it is. 

Summary: Rapunzel discovers Old Lady Crowley tossing out Cassandra's things. She is upset and demands that they be left alone. She then has Lance and Eugene help her save all of Cassandra's mementos and personal belongings, but she becomes saddened when Eugene reminds her that Cassandra turned her back on "her". Rapunzel takes a box of her things along with, unknowingly, a mysterious hourglass. As she examines it, she accidentally drops and smashes it and she and Pascal find themselves sent back into the past. They run into a teenage Eugene and Lance who keep calling Rapunzel "Sideburns". Rapunzel realizes that she and Pascal have inhabited the bodies of the Stabbington Brothers and decide to recruit the young thieves in getting the hourglass from the castle back.

Fun Fact! That Dummy is Rapunzel’s Doing 

Minor nitpick here, but Cass had nothing to do with putting Eugene’s face on her sparring dummy. Rapunzel voluntarily did that back in Under Raps. Cas never requested it nor even expressed any joy over receiving said ‘gift’. 

Basically the show is attributing one of Rapunzel’s mistakes/flaws to Cassandra in order to introduce a very nonsensical plot point later. So I need ya’ll to keep that in mind as we go along.  

Lets Talk About the Episode’s Ordering 

We don't have production codes for season three like we did for the previous two seasons. So we can’t know for sure what order everything was originally planned in, but I would argue that this episode should have came before Return of the King. 

For starters this is a “bottle” episode; it takes place mostly in the past and the only present day characters who show up are Eugene, Raps, Lance, and Crowely. As such you could potentially slot this episode in anywhere before Cassandra’s Revenge. You can’t really do that with most of the other episodes so it could have been easily moved around when airing. 

Therefore, I would argue that it should have been the first episode after Rapunzel’s Return for three key reasons. 

It would have given Edmund time to travel to Corona and give Raps time to start up big building projects like fixing Old Corona. In fact she’s already approving building plans for the capitol city at the start of the episode. Which could even explain why she took so long getting to the castle repairs if she was taking care of the stuff that the Saporians messed up else where.  

Rapunzel’s stance over wanting to keep Cassandra’s things makes more sense early on, both in universe and in a meta context. Raps would still have hope if Cass has only been gone for a month or two instead what would now be four or five months down the line. It also makes sense that Crowely wouldn’t wait around for that long. And from a meta standpoint, the audience would still be oblivious to what the heck Cass was up to and could theoretically side with Raps better; or at least empathize with her view point more, even while disagreeing with her. 

Events in this episode better explains Eugene’s decisions in Return of the King and gives the audience more context for certain stuff.  

So Why Is There a Random Magical Time Traveling Hourglass in the Storage Vault?

Slowly but surely the series has abandoned all pretense that there’s any logical world building in the show. Magical things just appear randomly now without any explanation whatsoever. Worse than that, things like the hourglass and map to the cursed tomb are treated as if they were always there, unlike the magical beings that they happened to run into in past seasons. 

The problem with this is a lack of consistency. You can’t have sceptics like Eugene and Varian if magic is so common and wide spread that anyone can run into it at anytime. Not to mention it diminishes the specialness and importance of the sundrop and moonstone if powerful magical items can be so easily found and stirred, undermining important plot points and the tension surrounding them. 

But most frustrating of all, is that this could have been easily fixed by just stating on screen at some point that magic attracts other magic. Meaning it’s only Rapunzel herself who routinely runs into these things and not just everybody and anybody. 

None of This Stuff Holds Any Meaning

Show don’t tell!

At several points through out season three, both Raps and Cass morn over Cassandra’s left behind things. They tell us constantly that these objects hold significant meaning to them, but I, the viewer, have no damn clue as to why. 

We were never shown on screen what was so special about these things other than the fact that it was junk Cass collected. There’s no story attacked to these assortment of objects nor any previous indication that Cassandra valued them beyond their usefulness. As such, any scenes involving her stuff fall emotionally flat. 

Eugene is the One in the Right Here. 

Eugene’s right. 

Any well adjust and mature adult will tell you he’s right. 

If someone doesn’t want a relationship with you, than that’s it. There is nothing you can do but to move on. It sucks, but its life. To ignore that is to ignore someone else’s boundaries and personal autonomy; while also devaluing yourself and you’re own needs. 

In a competent show this would be a set up for Rapunzel to learn something about letting go and taking care of oneself emotionally. 

But this isn’t a competent show. 

But Lobster is for Poor Folk

Food history time!

Lobster, and shellfish in general, have been considered low class food for centuries. Especially around costal areas like Corona. It’s easy to attain, cheap, and not regulated like hunting was in much of Europe. In America, specifically, lobster was fed to prisoners and there’s historical accounts of riots being started over it.  

Heck, less than forty years ago, no one lived on the coast but poor people. That’s why there’s historical communities of black people living on the southeastern islands in the US and why my father grew up in the swamps of Alabama during the 50s and 60s. 

The gentrification of coastal property and seafood, like lobster, is a very recent phenomenon in human history, starting in the late 70s early 80s with the booming tourism industry and increasing globalization.   

So while I understand that the joke here is meant to be reflective of our current understanding of lobster being a status symbol, in universe, it’s the equivalent of Eugene getting excited for chicken nuggets instead of his usual bowl of cereal because the story takes place before the 20th century.  

This means that these kids are so poor that fucking mcdonald’s fast food would be considered a rare treat compared to the slop they usually eat. Yet again what is meant to be a lighthearted joke turns suddenly dark when you stop to think about it for all of two seconds all because the writers are so flippant about their world and characters. 

This Wasn’t Planned Out, So the Timeline Doesn’t Add Up Anymore and Resources are Wasted

Remember the flashback in The Return of Strongbow?

Now I need you to remember that season three is two years later from season one and the movie. Eight years ago then, would be ten years ago now. 

The Eugene and Lance in the bottom picture is suppose to be roughly the same age as the Eugene and Lance in the top picture; give or take a few months. 

I know teenage boys can grow fast, but not that fast. 

Eugene at 16 looks the same as he does at 26. All because the writers were too lazy to preplan things out ahead of time. 

We should have seen the teen models with recasted voices back during that first flashback if they were going to tell this story later. Or the previous plot point should have been less than eight years ago. 

In fact the first flashback no longer makes any sense being so many years ago given Eugene’s engagement and recent breakup with Stalyan, and the later reveal that he was working for the Baron during the original movie. 

Sloppy planning like this not only makes for a confusing timeline but it also wastes limited resources. I like the new models, I like the actors cast for these younger roles, and I do like the concept of seeing more of Eugene’s past. But going through all of that trouble and money for what amounts to one throw away episode is mismanagement of the budget and work schedule.  

Baby Varian Is the Episode’s Only Saving Grace 

I know people are divided on the deign here. Some love it and some hate it, but that’s a personal taste thing. The actual scene itself is golden either way, because it’s such a funny eater egg. Fans on both sides made memes out of this for days. It’s legendary. 

Personally I’m more in the ‘love it’ camp, though I can see the issues people have with the design. My main defense of it is more the fact that we got kid designs for the other OCs in the show and it’s only fair Varian got one as well. The fact that he’s in smaller versions of the S1 clothes doesn’t bother me anymore than when Lance ran around for two seasons in the same outfit, including when he was a kid. 

So if I like it, then why am I talking about it a salt review? 

Cause the most memorable part of an episode shouldn’t be a throw away gag! 

People bring up baby Varian way more than they do about anything else in the episode, and no it’s not just because the character popular. It’s because most would like to forget what comes after this scene. 

Where is Quirin, by the Way?

Why is your six year old son running around the big city unsupervised?

This wouldn’t get talk about as much it wasn’t for the fact that Quirin being neglectful in season one was a motivating factor in his conflict with Varian. A conflict that was suppose to be resolved back in Rapunzel’s Return but we the audience have yet to visually see any difference in behavior since then.  

Quirin’s absence here in the past highlights his absence in the present day and reminds the audience aware that we’ve not been given a satisfying conclusion to one of the most important arcs in the series.  

Lets Talk About Wasted Potential 

Like I said, I like the idea of exploring Eugene’s past. But we should have gotten that back in season two when it was more relevant. Part of why this episode fails is because Eugene has reached the end of his original character development. He’s now on an identity crisis arc which has nothing to do with this episode.  

But you know who still hasn’t finished developing? Rapunzel. 

Rapunzel has lots to still learn and viewing her past through outside eyes could have turned this story into something really special. Especially with the ‘inhabiting another body’ plot point. 

You have no end of options here, 

Have Raps inhabit Cassandra’s body for a day and gain insight into what motivates her. It could have been either before or after they met, both offers up possibilities. 

Have Raps inhabit Eugene’s body and experience what he had to deal with growing up and come to see his point of view. (This could have also worked with the Sabbingtons set up had the writers not been stupid.) 

And my personal favorite, send her back to right after Queen for a Day and have her stuck in either Varian’s or Ruddiger’s bodies. Force her to see what she did to him and have her acknowledge she was wrong. 

And those are just the most obvious choices, there’s other more out of left field things you can do that would still work with good writing. Like exploring Lady Caine’s past, inhabiting Arianna’s body and learning how to be a real queen, get dumped into actual young Gothel and lay out clues to the future Zhan Tiri plot, or possess one of the Brotherhood and experience the final days of the Dark Kingdom; the list just goes on and on and on. 

But I Thought You Didn’t Put Kids in Jail Frederic?

Remember that Raps and Pascal are possessing the Stabbingtons who are still teenagers here. They can’t be much older than Varian. 

This means that Varian isn’t some special case. Teens have received harsh and deadly punishments in the past for non-violent crimes like theft. 

Also teens are called kids still by the majority of the cast. They’re aren’t considered adults with the same rights as someone in say their twenties, yet they can be punished the same as an adult would. Which is horrendous in any time period. 

So in conclusion, Frederic is a fucking liar! 

Tangled the Series can’t decide if it’s in the far past or a reflection of the modern day. As such it winds up supporting the worst of both worlds. Barbaric practices like hanging for minor crimes and prison slave labor are treated as the norm and never called out for the horrific things that they are; treated as a joke even, but we’re suppose to accept that this world also somehow views adolescence through the lens of late 20th century sensibilities even as it forces minors to go through such atrocities. 

Like what are you trying to say show? What is your message on the transition of adolescence to adulthood regarding rights and responsibilities? And don’t tell me ‘it’s not that deep’ because this is suppose to be a coming of age show! That’s the entire premise of the series! 

So How Old Are Stan and Pete Again?

I was always under the impression that Pete was a newbie guard, closer to Cass and Eugene’s age than say Cap or Frederic. That’s why he screws up so much because he’s inexperienced, why he seemed to be the closest thing to a equal colleague Cass had in the guard when she was also just starting out, and why I assumed those braided girls from the movie were his sisters. 

I mean there was nothing on screen previously that would necessarily contradict this reveal, it just doesn’t feel right, that’s all. I guess he could be like 20 here and be 30 in the show. That would make him only a few years older than Eugene, but still doesn’t explain why he’s so useless a decade later. 

I’m fine with Stan being here though. I always thought of him being the older of the two. In fact I headcannon Willow as his mysterious wife that he talked about back in Monty’s episode during season one. (She’s Stan and Pete’s beard, and they’re totally in a open poly relationship. That’s why they’re allowed to stay in the royal guard despite being so incompetent cause they’re technically Ferderic’s in-laws and Rapunzel’s uncles. Just no one ever talks about it cause it’s a minor sandal for a princess to marry lower class and Willow’s hardly ever there.) 

And Why Does Xavier Have All Those Plot McGuffins? 

I know we’ll never get an answer, but at this point Xavier’s exposition fairy powers border upon ridiculousness. It’s just lazy and a waste of character. 

So How Does Time Travel Work In This?

There are three types of time travel stories in fiction. 

First is the ‘Changeable Past, Changeable Future’. You see this in Back to the Future. What you do in the past will change the future, i.e. your present. You may or may not remember that you did it, but be warned you could change things too much and break stuff. Like erasing yourself from existence, or ruining your love life ect. The only way to fix it is to go back in time again and change stuff again. But beware of paradoxes or you may destroy the universe altogether.  

The second is the ‘Alternate Timeline’, where changing things creates new realties and it’s a matter of finding the right reality again. The tv show Sliders is a great example of this. Each new timeline is a different dimension. What you do in one won’t effect your original point of origin, only that particular world. The challenge if often getting home again because the probable diverging timelines are infinite and the changes of getting back are a zillion to one. 

Third is the ‘Closed Time Loop’. No matter what you do nothing will change. The future is inevitable and whatever you do in the past was always meant to happen anyways. Gargoyles handles this really well. You can also have ‘fix points’ where certain important things are set in stone but small things can be changed like in several Doctor Who episodes. Braking a fix point breaks the universe once again, while paradoxes are often the solution rather than the threat. 

So which type of time travel is Tangled dealing with here? 

Scenes like the conversation regarding Pete’s and Stan’s mustache or the ones involving Eugene working on his smolder suggest a closed time loop. Yet the ending to this episode reveals a changed future. Further still the grandfather paradox revolving around the hourglass would make you think an alternate timeline yet, we’ve no indication that anything else changed other then Eugene’s opinions on Cass, and Raps shows no concern about getting back to her original point in time indicating that it actually isn’t another dimension.... so what is it then? 

You don’t have to have a tightly plotted time travel story to have an entertaining piece of media. Endgame is riddled with plot holes and contradicts itself constantly, but what it lacks in coherent plot it makes for with fun characters, emotional story beats, and good pacing that manages to balance the action with the drama while hiding the cracks just enough that you don’t lose immersion. 

Tangled however fails at even this because it gets the character beats so fundamentally wrong.  Like you may dislike where the characters ended up in Endgame, but can’t say that those developments didn’t match the characters’ previous storylines and logical trajectory. Tony finally becomes the selfless hero by committing the ultimate sacrifice, Steve learns self care as a mirror to Tony’s arc as they were always parallels to each other, Bruce learns to accept himself, Thor processes his grief and lets go of the role he was assigned at birth but never truly fit into, and Nat becomes the leader she was destined to be rather than the sidekick.  

What happens to the characters in this episode however makes no sense. 

This is Another Missed Opportunity to Explore Eugene’s Past

The other problem behind the episode is that we don’t actually learn anything new. If you’re going to promise a story focusing on Eugene’s past then I expect to actually glean some new insights. 

We still don’t know why he’s working with Baron or how he fell in/fell out with him, what his relationship with Stalyan is like, how he became so cynical; not just the general basics, like the orphanage, but that point in his life where decided that survival meant giving up his morals and ethics; where did he first learn his better ethics that he originally suppressed (cause it sure as heck wasn’t Rapunzel), and when did he and Lance become separated? 

This are questions that series decides to raise by making allusions to them and building conflicts off of them but never wants to explain the details of where they originated from. It’s super frustrating and wholly unnecessary.  If you didn’t think the story of Eugene’s past worth telling then why did up repeatedly bring it up Chris? 

Why Are You Surprised by This Rapunzel?

Rapunzel you know Eugene’s past. You know what he used to be like. You were literally there in the movie and saw him being an ass before this. You didn’t start to like him until he dropped his guard down in the flooded cave back when you both where about to die. 

You fell in love with him when he showed you his real self and he fell in love with you when you proved that you were accepting of that. You earned each others’ trust. This here; angrily yelling at him and judging him, when you’re already hiding who you really are from him both literally and figuratively, is a breaking of that trust. 

Who the fuck are you any more, Rapunzel? 

Cause you’re not the same character from the movie. You’re not even the same character from season one. But whoever hell you are now, it’s not an improvement I can tell ya that. 

So How Did The Hourglass Go From the Treasury to the Basement Storage, and How Would Raps Know It Was There At This Point and Time?

I’m guessing the implication here is that Crowley put Cass’s stuff in the vault, but like why the fuck would she do that? We’re not talking about a family attic here, but the royal safe. The most heavily guarded room in the castle with the kingdom’s most priceless treasures and antiques. Nothing Cass owned was that valuable.  

Rapunzel Is Full of Shit

Oh let me count the numerous ways in which this whole lecture is stupid. 

Rapunzel left Varian behind. Rapunzel left Varian behind multiple times, including that time he was thrown in jail. She was not a good friend, and no, this is not a case of her learning from her past because not once has she ever admitted that she was wrong to do that. So this scene just makes Raps look like a hypocrite. 

Eugene does not need to relrean a lesson on being a better a person. He did that during the movie and has progressed beyond that point. This ‘lesson’ is a waste of time and a misuse of the characters.

This reframes Rapunzel as being in the right during her argument with older Eugene at the beginning of the episode, even though she’s not. In fact this is such a counterintuitive plot point that it boggles the mind. Who structures a narrative this way? Why so blatantly point out how the main character is wrong if not to have her learn something? Why frame the story to make the person who’s personal conflict isn’t even the episode’s focus, into the one who needs to learn something? Especially if that something is already a lesson that they’ve learned on screen beforehand.

And why, oh good heavens why, would you teach children such a toxic message? Like on the surface it sounds like something you’d hear in a children's show, but the context of it is justifying harmful behavior where you selfishly ignore other people’s wishes and boundaries just to satisfy you’re own personal desires.  

And finally, Eugene and Lance do not work as a parallel to Raps and Cass. Cassandra is an adult who left of own free will. Lance is a teenager who was arrested due to Rapunzel’s own actions. Eugene isn’t the one who is responsible here, its Rapunzel. Who also left them both behind in her carelessness. Secondly, Eugene’s decisions are spurned by years of trauma and a healthy fear of dying, while Rapunzel’s is wrapped up in her own need to always be right and to keep her immature and fanciful outlook of the world intact. As harsh as it seems, what Eugene did was based off a predetermine agreement and presumably Lance would have acted the same way or been pressured to act the same way by Eugene. In short, Eugene’s cynical world view as a teen is not the source of his disagreement with Rapunzel but an adult perspective back by common sense and a respect of others choices. It makes no sense for present day Eugene to ‘learn’ anything from this misadventure that he didn’t already know and for Rapunzel to not learn anything that would actually tie the parallel together. 

Locking Another Teen Inside a Jail Cell With Another Adult as a Joke, Does Not Erase the Inappropriateness of Varian’s Story

The episode tries to add another joke about Shorty sneaking into the prison without the guard knowing, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact someone had to have tossed Lance in there with him on purpose. Otherwise Lance wouldn’t have assumed Shorty was a fellow prisoner if he or the guard that locked him up saw Shorty sneak in before then. 

Furthermore Lance’s nonchalant response suggests this is not an out of the ordinary occurrence. Nor do any of the other guard comment upon the irregularly of teens being jailed with an adult. Now add in the fact that the show fails to clarify that previous ‘cellmate’ line from Rapunzel’s Return and now gives us more confirmation that Varian was underfed and malnourished for a year with that gruel joke and you have a horrifying picture. 

Shorty might be non-threating, but that doesn’t mean Andrew, a known attempted murderer and manipulator, is too. Nor any other adult who previously was housed with a teen before then. This is still very much not okay and no amount of ‘jokes’ will suddenly make it right.  

Raps, Who is an Adult, Just Physically Threatened Two Teenaged Boys and It’s Played as a Joke.... 

How many times do I have to say it? Humor does not fix bad writing. I’m not laughing when a heroine at age 20, threatens a couple of kids for merely annoying her. Especially when said heroine has a history of abusing children; because let me repeat once again, neglect is abuse!

This is a Lie

No you wont. 

Rapunzel never tells Eugene what happens on screen. I suspect that if she ever did, they would no longer be together, because what she wound up doing here was a violation of trust and boundaries in the worst possible way.  

And This is Now a Time Paradox 

A Grandfather Paradox to be specific. How can Rapunzel be here in the past to break the hourglass if the hourglass that sent her here is broken? 

In a competent series this would be the point of a future conflict and not the actual resolution. It’s not a closed time loop because of the paradox and the changes we’ll see in the future. 

So either she’s in an alternate timeline/dimension and just doesn’t gives a shit; leaving the real Eugene, Lance, Cass, ect. to go on without her; or she’s just broke the universe and everything is slowly unraveling around her; galaxies are dying as she whines about being dumped, people in the future are being eased from existence, and God is cursing her name for ruining his creation, all the while she carries on oblivious to the destruction in her wake, as usual. 

That’s it. Those are you’re only two options now. Is everyone from here on a fake copy or is Rapunzel the damned destroyer of worlds? You decide. 

So This Confirms That the Stabbingtons are Indeed “Family”

Another reason why I place this before Return of the King; it explains why Eugene considers the Stabbingtons ‘family’. Though if it was Rapunzel he actually bonded with and not the real Sideburns, then how much of his feelings are real and how much of them were fabricated by her? How much agency did this episode steal from him?

So What Exactly Did We All Change?

Well the dummy no longer has Eugene’s face, but Cass’s painting of the three of them still has him ripped out of the photo, soo... Keeping in mind that Raps painted the dummy anyways and considering that Moonandra tries to kill him later on; I’m going to guess that Cass’s feelings weren’t actually altered. If anything their relationship might actually be worse now, cause Cassandra keeps acting like she’s never had friends and Eugene has taken up Rapunzel’s blind devotion. 

All that development in season one is just, poof, gone. Also it’s quite possible that the first movie as well has now it has been erased from existence as Eugene got his needed character development eight years too early. How the hell that’s suppose to work, I don’t know. 

Outside of the that we get no confirmation how anybody else was effected, even though a more brainwashed Eugene running around would undoubtedly have caused a butterfly effect. Don’t expect that to be explored anytime soon. 

Though, it would explain why he’s suddenly such a doormat in season three, if this was the second episode as theorized. 

No! This is the Wrong Lesson!!!

Let me explain narrative promises. 

Everyone, on some basic fundamental level, understands how stories work. We hear them recounted to us over and over again from the day we're born to the day we die. It’s integral to how we communicate as human beings. Everyone knows innately how to tell a story even if that person couldn’t tell you how stories or structured or what certain literary terms mean, but they do it every day just through speaking. And while most audiences can’t always pin point what upsets them about a story they can for sure notice when things are off and not satisfying to experience. 

Now that doesn’t mean that everyone can write an awarding winning novel, that study of a craft isn’t important, nor that every amateurish critique thrown at any given media is valid. But it does mean that people have come to expect certain storytelling practices and can pick up on narrative cues. We’ve familiarized ourselves with the language of film, novels, comics, ect, into order to comprehend what’s going on. 

Rules of writing are just following that established language so that the audience can keep up. You can break these rules, sure, but unless you know what you’re doing and have a good narrative reason to do so, then you can easily lose you’re audience. And if you’re making money off said audience that’s something you want to avoid. 

A narrative promise is a cue; a set up that lets the audience know that ‘hey this is important, pay attention to this cause it’ll come back into play later’. Now that the audience has been alerted to the plot point they expect fulfillment of the promise. If you break that promise, either through poor set up, lack of follow through, or by breaking an established convention of writing for no other reason then because you just wanted to, your audience is going to walk away unsatisfied. 

The argument at the beginning of the episode was a narrative promise. It was a cue that set up the interpersonal conflict of the main character. For add context, I know that this is a coming of age story. Convention would dictate that the protagonist would resolve this conflict by learning they were wrong. 

That’s not what happened here. 

Convention was subverted. It wasn’t the protagonist who grew and change, it was the person they were in conflict with who did. And it wasn’t subverted because of any greater narrative reason, or future pay off, or even as effort to be shallowly ‘clever’; it was subverted because the author just didn’t want to hold the main character accountable for anything. Because said character has now become his avatar for his wish fulfillment fantasy and having the main character admit fault would be to admit fault in ones own self. Rapunzel doesn’t feel like Rapunzel this season because she’s just Chris in a wig. 

The episode broke a narrative promise to the audience; both within the episode and in the greater premise of the story, because of ego. 

I don’t claim this episode is bad just because of personal taste nor because I find it morally repulsive (even though both those things are true), I call it bad because it exhibits bad writing. Plain and simple. 

Way To Undermine The Entire Point of the Original Movie, Show

Speaking of breaking narrative promises.... 

TTS is suppose to be a squeal to the original movie. It’s even in the title of the show; both of them. In one fell swoop, the series has managed to sabotage it’s very reason for existing, as it erases Eugene’s motivation and the inciting incident that kick started the film. 

 Way to fucking go. 

To further twist the knife, it diminishes the duel protagonist of said film in order to prop up a series original character, who isn't even present in the episode itself. 

I don’t mind Cassandra’s existence. I don’t even mind her being the new deuteragonist and one of the main villains; even though she wouldn’t have been my first pick to fulfill those roles given her lack of set up. But I do fucking mind it if she upstages other characters and/or derails their character arcs in the process. 

This is the Death of New Dream 

I was still in denial when this episode first aired. I honestly believed that this and The Return of the King was build up to a third “betrayal” where Eugene finally became fed up with Rapunzel’s bullshit and joined forces with Zhan Tiri. I thought the end of the series would have Rapunzel apologize to everyone she did wrong, Varian, Cass, and Eugene, in order to break ZT’s hold on them, and that true love’s kiss would reunite the sundrop and the moonstone and that would just tie everything together into a neat little bow and give us a truly daring character study of a Disney hero. 

Oh dear merciful heavens, was I ever wrong.  

How did we go from season one’s challenging and mature storyline, complete with Disney’s first real anti-villian, to this?! 

What the hell happened!? 

Rapunzel not only disrespects Eugene’s opinions, violates his privacy and trust as she manipulates him as a teen, and then brainwashes him to think like her (even if accidentally), but doesn’t even have good grace to tell him. She instead has the audacity to look all happy and self congratulatory because she got want she wanted. She, and the show at large, doesn’t care what evil thing she does to get the desired outcome Rapunzel wants. 

Rapunzel in this show is a spoiled brat. And the image of her and her now lobotomized boyfriend staring dead eyed at a picture of the creator’s previous waifu OC with plastic smiles on their faces, sums up this series perfectly. 

Conclusion 

This isn’t even the worst episode of the series guys. I don’t know if it would even make it onto a bottom five list. That’s how much crap I have to wade through when it comes to this show. This is however the most damaging episode to the franchise as a whole. 

Not even the most hardcore of New Dream fans want to acknowledge the existence of that final scene, and Rapunzel stans won’t defend her beyond, ’well she didn’t mean too, it’s the writing that’s bad.’ Yeah, the writing is bad, that’s why the character can’t and shouldn’t be defended, not here and not in other badly written episodes where she also does bad things and never makes up for it. 

Anyways I’m finally caught up to where I left off, before the move, though sadly I don't think I’ll get this series done by the end of the month like I had originally hoped. But if you would like to help out I have a ko-fi you can drop a tip into if ya want. 

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[nevernotwriting]

You, Me, and Yancy | Chapter 14: Black Tie Required

Read me on AO3!

Previous chapter

The next morning, you woke up early to the sound of effortful noises coming from your living room. You peeked your head around the corner, pleasantly surprised by what you saw.

Yancy was doing push-ups, his face concentrated on the rug below him with a single loose strand of hair dangling in front of his forehead. For the first time since last night, you were hit with the realisation that this was actually real. He was free, and he was here with you.

Yancy must have been thinking along the same lines; he startled when he looked up and saw you leaning against the doorway. He got to his feet and let out a small laugh.

“Sorry, force o’ habit in the mornings.”

“No need to apologise, I was enjoying the show.”

You could hardly believe the words that just came out of your mouth. Where the hell did that come from? You were mentally kicking yourself when Yancy broke out into a grin, glancing at the floor and sweeping his hair back into place with one hand.

“Nice to know I’m appreciated.”

You laughed with him, skipping back to your room to get ready for the day. You knew it was going to be a long and eventful one; hopefully, Yancy would help you get your job back, and be allowed to join the heist team. You grimaced as you imagined Mark’s reaction, but scoffed at yourself as you stepped into your jeans.

He left you in prison, who cares what he thinks?

Your heart tugged, knowing it wasn’t as simple as that, but you pushed past the feeling and grabbed a shirt and a jacket. You made a mental note to take Yancy to the store later so he could get some kit of his own.

A soft beeping noise from the kitchen made your ears perk up.

“Uh… Zero?”

You made your way down the hall. “Yeah?”

As you entered the kitchen, Yancy turned to you with a panicked look on his face.

“I think I broke youses coffee machine.”

“Nah,” you laughed, turning the machine off at the socket. “It does that all the time, don’t worry about it. It’s kinda busted. We can get some coffee at HQ instead, it’s pretty good there. And later we can go and get you some more clothes, if you want?”

Yancy didn’t seem to be listening to you. His gaze clouded over as if he were staring at something a thousand miles away.

“Yancy? You okay?”

He shook himself out of his daydream with a soft frown. “Yeah, I uh… sorry. Just… it’s been a while, since I’ve been…” He gestured to your surroundings. “Anywhere but a prison cell. I gots to admit, it’s startin’ to sink in and… I’m a little nervous.”

You put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry. You’re gonna do great. And if it makes you feel any better, you’re technically still gonna be surrounded by criminals when we get to HQ.”

Yancy laughed. “True enough.”

“Besides, I’ll protect you,” you joked.

Yancy looked you up and down with a raised eyebrow, sending a stir through your body. “Yous is a lot tougher than you look, I’ll give you that.”

“Uh… thanks, I think?”

Yancy chuckled, placing a hand over yours with a gentle squeeze. “Yous gotta learn to take a compliment.”

He moved past you. You stayed frozen in your spot, his words springing a not-so-distant memory to the forefront of your mind, one filled with rooftops and sunrises.

“Awh come on Zero, just take the compliment.”

You grumbled, stomping to the front door and grabbing some shoes. Yancy re-emerged moments later, looking slightly less nervous as he stood tall and puffed out his chest.

“Ready?”

“Yeah. Let’s go, Z.”

Yancy stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide as he realised what he’d said. You merely chuckled, unlocking the front door.

“Not heard thatone before.”

You stood at the entrance to HQ, taking a deep breath in. There was only a set of double doors and a few footsteps separating you from whatever was coming next. Yancy grabbed your hand and squeezed it.

“C’mon, yous got this.”

With one last grateful glance in his direction, you opened the door and walked inside.

All eyes were on you and Yancy as you entered the main office, making a nervous lump rise in your throat. Shrike and Gareth looked up from their desks. Jasmine almost dropped her coffee as she twizzled round in her seat, and even Vakarian looked vaguely surprised as he stopped dead in his tracks. From the far end of the room, Mark’s eyes flickered with a sliver of delight at your return, but it disappeared when they landed on Yancy.

Every inch of you filled with anxiety as the very last person you wanted to see rounded the corner; Shark. She stared at everyone in the room, then at you, her eyes briefly flicking to Yancy. She broke the silence with a simple snap of her fingers.

“Mark. Zero. My office. Now.”

Mark got to his feet with a sharp inhale. You glanced at Yancy, your anxiety lessening slightly as he gave you a confident nod. You trailed a short distance behind Shark, taking solace as you left the main office and the watchful eye of your fellow criminals. Mark caught up to you and touched your arm, speaking in a confused whisper.

“What’s hedoing here?” He pointed behind him towards Yancy, who was following behind from a short distance.

You pulled your arm away from him. “Mind your own business.”

Shortly ahead, Shark was stood by her office door with her arms folded. Her eyes were still as cold as ever as you entered. Mark followed you, but Yancy was stopped in his tracks by Shark’s firm words.

“You. Wait here for now.”

She slammed the door shut after her, and you wiped your palms on your thighs. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Mark trying to give you a reassuring look, but you fixated on Shark’s desk as she stood on the other side of it. Her expression was unreadable, but it sent a chill down your spine.

“So,” she began at last. “You’re alive. And you made it back from your little prison vacation.”

Her expression changed, and the look on her face made you want to leap across the desk and strangle her right then and there. Something in your body language must have given you away, because Mark turned his head towards you with a look of caution.

“Yeah,” you said, swallowing your anger. “I’m alive and mostly unharmed.”

“From what Mark told me, you had quite the adventure on your first heist.” She smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “How are you?”

The question caught you off guard; so she did care, at least a bit. You swallowed before answering. “I’m fine.”

“And the artefact?”

Mark cleared his throat. “Like I said, ma’am-”

“Quiet, Mark. I wanna hear Zero’s side of the story.”

Mark’s face turned red and he averted his eyes to the floor. You took in a deep breath.

“It’s gone. Prison Warden confiscated it.”

Shark sighed, cursing under her breath. She turned around, staring at the wall as tension continued to plague the room.

“Well, your stories match, so consider yourselves lucky.”

You dared a glance at Mark. He gave you a small nod, his face saying a thousand words he could not utter in front of your boss.

“But tell me this.” The previous brief flicker of humanity disappeared as she turned round and slammed her hands on the desk. The sound made you jump. “You got yourself shot, landed not only yourself but my best thief in prison, andyou lost the damn thing we’ve been working towards for god knows how fucking long.” More rage filled every word as spit flecked the corners of her mouth.

“Why the hell should I give you another chance?”

Heart hammering, you decided it was time to play your trump card. You crossed the room and stood next to the door.

“Because I brought someone who knows what he’s doing.”

You opened the door. Yancy turned in surprise, and you beckoned him in.

“Ma’am,” you began with a clear of your throat. “This is Yancy. He was an inmate at Happy Trails Penitentiary. He helped me escape that place, and… I think he’ll be a valuable asset to the team.”

Yancy stood in the doorway, arms folded and lips in a tight line. He stepped inside and you shut the door after him, not missing the glare Mark shot in his direction. Shark stood up straight, assessing him. Yancy didn’t falter.

Silence. Eventually, Shark hummed.

“What d’you get locked up for?” She asked.

“Does it matter?” Yancy replied.

Your stomach dropped. Shark let out a small, high-pitched laugh and raised her eyebrows. “You’ve got some nerve. I like it. How long were you locked up for?”

“Ten years.”

“Why leave now?”

Yancy stopped, glancing at you briefly. “I gots somethin’ worth fightin’ for.”

A smile started to emerge on your face, but it stopped when Mark let out a scoff.

“Please,” he muttered. You shot him a death glare.

Shark smirked. “I’m sensing some tension here. Will the two of you working together be a problem?”

Mark and Yancy turned their heads and stared at one another. You turned to Mark with pleading eyes. He looked back at you, his eyes softening as he let out a defeated sigh.

“No, ma’am,” he mumbled.

You turned to Yancy. He straightened his back.

“I guarantee Iwon’t cause no trouble, ma’am,” he responded, one eyebrow raised with a daring side glance. “Yous want somethin’ done, I get it done. No questions asked. And I ain’t afraid to get my hands dirty.”

Shark pursed her lips, eyes darting between the three of you. Just as she opened her mouth to speak again, Yancy interrupted her.

“But with all due respect, I have one condition.”

“And what would that be?”

“Let Z off the hook.”

You held your breath, not daring to take your eyes away from Shark. After what felt like an eternity, she rolled her eyes and nodded.

“All right, fine. Consider yourself lucky, Zero. But I’m warning you, all three of you are on probation until you prove yourselves. Have I made myself clear?”

A series of nods and yesses filled the room, and a weight lifted from your shoulders.

He actually pulled it off.

“Good.” Shark picked up a folder from her desk and flicked through it. “I want the three of you working together for a new assignment. We’ve got some open plans still waiting to be set in motion…”

Yancy looked at you and smiled, giving you a wink. You smiled back, heart fluttering. You really owed him for this one.

A knock sounded at the door. Shark looked up from her folder. “Come in.”

The door opened and Shrike entered, a surprising spring in her step. She presented a piece of paper to Shark.

“Boss, you’re not gonna believe this,” she breathed. “Y’know that museum in Yorba Linda you wanted us to look into the other day?”

“The Nixon library?”

Shrike nodded enthusiastically. “They’re having an open artwork exhibit at the end of this week. The whole place is gonna be filled with priceless paintings, and Jazz just worked some of her magic and snagged three tickets.”

Shark nodded, still scanning the paper. “Good work. What’s the catch?”

“It’s just a small one. Black tie required.”

Shark looked up at last, locking eyes with you. You gulped, already knowing what she was going to say.

“Well, looks like we’ve found a job for you three.”

You, Mark, and Yancy glanced between each other.

“We’ll do our best, ma’am,” Mark said.

“You’d better,” Shark replied, straight back to her cold demeanour. She turned to Shrike, who had been carefully observing Yancy with interest.

“Shrike, take these three to the conference room and give ‘em the lowdown. Zero, I want you and Yancy in the gymnasium straight after. Make sure he knows how to use our gear.”

“Right, uh, yes ma’am,” you agreed, snapping out of your anxious thoughts. You couldn’t afford to screw this one up. A black-tie evening could be fun though… right?

As you followed Shrike down the corridor, she turned to Yancy, giving him the same long stare that Shark had given him.

“So you’re Yancy, I take it?” She asked.

“Yep.”

She glanced at Mark, who was trailing just shortly behind you. “Are you related to Mark?”

Yancy blinked. “What? No.”

Shrike shrugged. “You look kinda similar is all.”

Mark groaned. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Bang.Bang.

You stared at the farthest dummy ahead of you, two new bullet holes gracing its chest. Yancy lowered his gun and frowned, sighing through his nostrils. A strange sensation ran through your stomach, a mixture of intimidation and admiration.

“My aim’s not as good as it used to be,” Yancy sighed, glancing at you and clicking the safety on. “Guess I’s a bit rusty.”

You raised your eyebrows at him. “You call that rusty? And here I thought I was meant to be teaching you,” you laughed.

Yancy grinned, a hint of pink gracing his cheeks. “Well, we’s got time. I’m sure there’s plenty more you can teach me, Z.”

His smile turned into a sultry smirk that rooted you to the spot. It was only when he broke your eye contact to put the gun down that you snapped back into reality and followed him, returning your own gun to its rightful place.

“Come on then, maybe we can try the grappling hook next?” You suggested, that strange sensation still working its way through you as you grabbed two grappling guns and turned to Yancy. The feeling intensified as Yancy approached you, waiting until he was only inches away to gently place his hands over yours and lower the grappling guns down. His eyes bore into yours, and your cheeks were on fire as he briefly looked down at your lips before clearing his throat.

“There’s just… somethin’ I wanna say first.” His eyes flickered down again.

You nodded, your throat too dry to form words.

Yancy looked to the side and frowned briefly. “You and Mark… I know yous said about that date you had planned, back when we were in prison.” His eyes grew cold as he stared into nothingness. Still you waited, patient but eager to hear what he wanted to say so badly that it required standing mere inches from you.

“It’s just… I can tell he’s still sweet on yous,” Yancy continued, looking at you at last. His eyes softened for a brief moment. “But I’s gotta be honest, Z. I don’t want no love triangles.”

You blinked as you processed his words. So that’s what was on his mind. You smiled a little and shook your head, moving one of your hands on top of his.

“If you’re trying to figure out if I’m available, there’s no need. Mark left me in prison, and… that kinda put a damper on things.” You gave a humorous smile, but Yancy still didn’t look convinced as he stared back at you, unmoving.

“There’s not gonna be a love triangle, I promise,” you tried again, squeezing his hand. “We’re all adults. We’ll handle this next heist maturely, I’m sure of it.”

After what felt like an eternity, Yancy nodded and smiled genuinely, and you let out a breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding.

“All right, Z. Thanks.”

“No problem,” you beamed back at him. “Now come on, the sooner we get you trained up, the sooner we can leave before all the stores close. We gotta make sure we fit in at this black-tie evening.” You ghosted your hands away from his, brandishing your grappling gun and striding towards the wall with cheerful steps.

Yancy scoffed behind you. “I dunno if someone like me will ever fit in at a place like that, but it’s worth a shot.”

Next chapter

[viviae]

can you like. tell me a little about dragon age. seeing your posts about it has got me interested in playing but i have little to no clue what it actually is

Boy can I explain nonny <3 This is a bit long so strap in and im sorry

Dragon Age is (currently) a three game series composed of Dragon Age: Origins (PS3, Xbox 360/Xbox One, PC), Dragon Age: II (PS3, Xbox 360/Xbox One, PC), and Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS4, Xbox One, PC) and its really unique because of its selling point that your actions impact the games as you progress. Like if you kill one character in one game they’ll stay dead through the rest of the series which makes you feel lived in the story and that your actions matter. Dragon Age is also an RPG so a roleplaying game kind of along the same lines of DnD where you get to make and play your own character. And yes there are romances and you can be gay.

The First Game of the series is Dragon Age: Origins where you choose from a selection of six unique (technically seven) origins or backgrounds for your character. You can be anywhere from a human noble or a Dalish elf, the unique elven culture in Dragon Age of nomadic clans dedicating to reclaiming their past. But eventually, from the events in your origin, you wind up a member of a secretive and elite order known as the Grey Wardens whose duty is to protect the world from the Blight.

The Blight is this spread of a horrible disease known as the Taint but is characterized by the presence of Darkspawn, a kind of zombie like creature who exists only to destroy the world. Grey Wardens take the heavy duty of protecting the world from the Blight, which have nearly wiped all of humanity multiple times, at all costs. And currently the country of Ferelden is under going a blight and due to events you wind up the only Grey Warden with your companion Alistair to save the world and reunite Ferelden which had fallen under a civil war.

Along Origins you meet many interesting characters. Alistair is your friendly co-warden who has a mysterious parentage that he hides under his happy go lucky attitude. In contrast to Alistair is the witch Morrigan who is your favorite goth swamp queen who would insult you and you thank her. In addition you meet your chaotic bi rogues Zevran and Leliana. Leliana is a nun who is on the run and hiding from a dark past and she is suspiciously good at murder. And Zevran is not at all hiding his aptitude for murder as an Assassin for hire who tried and failed to kill you but who can ignore that charming bastard?

Dragon Age II follows a much smaller story of a Ferelden refuge who had escaped from the Blight to the city of Kirkwall named Hawke. Unlike in origins where you get to pick your background 2 limits you to Hawke but fear not, Hawke is a loveable bastard and you can still customize them. Throughout DA2 you get to experience all the delights Kirkwall has to offer: Demons, crime, corrupt cops, and fighting your way to survive in this city and make a name for yourself.

Where Origins sets the stage for the world DA2 you are the actor in that play - literally the game is divided into 3 acts that take place over a span of 7 years. DA2′s main conflict is the argument of Mages vs Templars, as in DA’s lore while there are those who are born with magic they are forced to live in prisons policed by the Templar order and the church. You explore the more political arguments of; are the Templars right in their fears of magic as Kirkwall is filled to the brim with corrupt mages or do Mages deserve the chance to live and prove themselves freely from their prisons.

Your romancable companions in DA2 are all bisexuals as the true theme of DA2 is: be gay do crime. You have the foils of Anders: the runaway mage who fled from the prisons the mages are housed in and is determined to bring mages to freedom, and Fenris: the runaway escaped slave who curses magic for only inflicting pain and suffering in his life and wants his warnings to be heard about the dangers magic bring. In addition you also have Merrill, your cute but terrifying Dalish mage who would probably murder you with a cute smile and then go oops. And of course, my pirate wife Isabela, who lives a life free from commitment and is dedicated to the idea everyone should have a good time no matter the cost. Also while not romancable Hawke’s bff Varric deserves every ounce of praise he gets as never before has the energy of “two idiots sharing a braincell” ever been so well adapted.

Then finally we reach Inquisition. After the events of DA2 it triggers a full on war between the Mages and Templars that is destroying the land and causing severe damage that neither side can handle anymore. Desperate for an end to the conflict the Divine (err... fantasy pope) calls for a meeting on both sides... only for the entire thing to literally explode. Killing everyone present and causing a hole in the sky which now means demons are raining like cats and dogs you are the only one to survive. In Inquisition you can once again return to pick between unique backgrounds like in Origins but you don’t get to play through those backgrounds sadly.

You now possess something on your left hand which gives you the ability to patch up the hole in the sky that is pissing demons and due to being the only survivor everyone is incredibly confused about you. Eventually the Inquisition is formed around you, the character they are calling the Herald of Andraste (Andraste is fantasy Jesus) due to your ability to seal the holes. The mystery unfolds as over the course of the game you learn what caused the explosion, how you are connected, and what exactly the mark on your hand is.

DAI has the largest numbers of romance options so I’m gonna give a quick bullet point list for them all

Iron Bull (Pansexual, All Races): A Qunari (think Tiefling but big and beefy) mercenary who is far more clever than he lets on, as well as being the rope top dom of your dreams. Literally! Bull’s romance is a really healthy bdsm relationship if you are interested its very well done

Josephine (Bisexual, All Races): Your loveable ambassador and advisor for the inquisition. She is a workaholic noble who is a tried and true classic romance. Sweep her off her feet and duel for her hand all while navigating the nobility

Dorian (Gay, All Races): The flamboyant pariah rock star mage, he demands attention whenever he walks into the room. Although he wants to be all talk and no emotions make no mistake he is making puppy eyes at you the entire time and gets deeply offended if you say he is. Also not going to lie Dorian is the best piece of gay male rep in gaming history.

Cassandra (Male-only, all Races): Your stern warrior wife who is all serious no funny business... expect she is a bleeding heart romantic who reads horrible smut for fun. You wish to COURT HER?? I mean... if you want 👉👈 she won’t say no...

Blackwall (Female-only, All Races): Your weird dilf who wants desperately to prove himself every step of the way and help people. He is a constable for the Grey Wardens, but all the details on him seem murky... Ah well I’m sure its nothing, the Grey Wardens are a secretive order after all.

Sera (Lesbian, All Races): My wild child, monster chugging, beer guzzling, arrow shooting lesbian. Sera is here for a fun time and not a serious one, she’ll always make sure to keep you humble and ensure you aren’t getting to big for your breeches. 

Cullen (Female-Only, Human and Elf only): Cullen’s the Inquisition’s commander who oohh boy is steeped in a lot of trauma. Cullen’s actually a character you get to know through out the series and see just all the horrible nonsense he’s been through. But he is your tragic self loathing... he isn’t princely but he is your adorkable charming

Solas (Female-Only, Elf Only): The humble apostate who joins the Inquisition out of curiosity of the breech, he is an expert on what the hell is going on with that hole in the sky. However, he holds a wisdom that goes far deeper than your typical apostate. Smooth talking and refined he carries a heavy cloud over him.

I left out a lot and all the nonsense with books and what have you but this is the easiest overview of the series I can offer. It’s main selling points is the deep story and characters throughout the games. And of course who doesn’t love the ability to make and roleplay your own character as a bonus? The games are bit of a flawed gem and Origins in my ugly child but they are truly a delight if you are interested

[kikithegeek]

An Amateur Review of Ridley Pearson’s Super Sons

Please be aware: This will contain some spoilers for the Super Sons graphic novels written by Ridley Pearson. If you do not wish to be spoiled on plot or character development, please stop reading this and come back once you’ve read through the books yourselves. Otherwise, enjoy this amateur review.

INTRODUCTION

As someone who grew up reading comics from Marvel, DC, IDW, and Archie, it was always fun when legacy characters were introduced or focused on. Characters that were students or the children of characters that my parents grew up with always felt nice to me, and even relatable when they were introduced or shown to be growing up in a similar or the same time period as my friends and I. Taking this into account, it’s no wonder that by the time I was in high school, some of my favorite comics involved Damian Wayne/Robin and Jonathan Kent/Superboy. Yes, I was definitely older than them by the time their series came in, but some of the problems they faced, even the small ones, seemed familiar to my own. Problems such as Jon’s reluctance of moving away from Hamilton County to Metropolis where he’d be leaving behind people he’s known for years into what is essentially a foreign environment for him, or both characters having to live up to the examples their parents have set; something I’m sure many of us can relate to as children are always compared to their parents or successful family members. The growing friendship between them was always a highlight no matter what type of adventure they were on.

In 2019, Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez released the first book in their 3-part series starring Jon and Damian in a sort of rebooted universe. Fan feedback at the time was mixed, with some fans unhappy and others just happy they were getting more content featuring their favorite duo. Personally, I wasn’t paying attention all that much; I was in the middle of college and my focus had drifted away from comic books that year to focus on my studies, but with the recent pandemic and more time to read I’ve fallen back into the rabbit hole of super heroes and villains. I remember there being an outcry against the books when the previews began to be released, but after they did release and finished their run, I didn’t hear anything. No one really actively talked about what the books were about and most of what I heard seemed to come from people who read a handful of pages, if at all, and then never finished it. So, I decided to put my two cents in and read them. I’ll be looking at them as someone who has been a fan of their main-like counterparts for years, and as someone who also acknowledges that this isn’t canon to it and is an alternate universe (or alternate Earth in the cases of the DC comics multiverse), if anything to look at it from a neutral perspective.  

It should be noted that this isn’t the first time I’ve read through Ridley Pearson’s work. In middle school and even through high school, I couldn’t get enough of Kingdom Keepers and Peter and the Starcatcher, even getting tickets to see the touring cast of the latter’s theater adaptation when they came to my state. I’ve read a few interviews on his work with the Super Sons before going into the books themselves, and he doesn’t neglect to say that this series isn’t connected to the normal DC canon (whatever that is these days; any comic book reader knows that reboots, especially for DC in the last decade, usually happen quite a bit). Okay, that’s probably a given, and it makes things easier considering the main target demographic are kids aged 10-14. There’s a lot of content to go over when it comes to everything connected to Damian and Jon, even more so for Batman and Superman, so this makes it less difficult for kids who don’t have much experience with DC outside of the occasional tv show and movie to get into it.

But what about the story itself?

THE STORY

(The majority of the story spoilers are beyond this point since I summarize the books. This is your last spoiler warning.)

The story itself takes place in an alternate future. America is called Coleumbria and the global climate crisis has gotten to the point where it’s a race to find a way to stop the rising temperatures and constant flooding. While Batman and Superman spearhead the projects set to stabilize and then reverse the Earth’s temperature, their sons are moved from Metropolis to a city called Wyndemer with other refugees looking to find somewhere safe from the floods. This causes tensions in the city to heighten as refugees, called “flood runners”, are harassed by locals. Without going too in-depth into the books (otherwise, we’d be here all day), I’m going to summarize them. Certain characters and events might be omitted, but hey, at least it gives you a reason to read them even if I tell you what they’re about.

The first book introduces us to this crisis and shows us how this world’s Jon (who still goes by Superboy in this) and Damian (who is going by Batkid) meet. While there’s some animosity between them at first, with Jon having a not-too-hidden bias against Bruce Wayne, the two eventually start to work together when they realize their individual investigations are connected. Jon and his classmate, Tilly, have been looking into a mysterious illness that’s hospitalized Jon’s mother among many others, and Damian has been investigating sabotages against Wayne Tech dams. They also meet a girl named Candace who is trying to uncover a mystery that’s plagued her since her mom’s passing. After finding clues at a food company called Sage Foods, the group is attacked and manages to escape after Jon is told their attackers were sent by a woman named Arvyc. After finding out that Candace and Damian had set Jon up earlier in the book to be attacked by a few gang members, the group have a short fight before they go to the train station to stop Arvyc’s gang.

The second book opens with the boys helping Candace make it to a boat while escaping a group of girls called The Four Fingers. While they didn’t have as much of a presence in the previous book, had been shown as adversaries of Candace’s. Continuing into their investigations into the virus, Jon and Tilly learn that it was man-made as Candace’s visions lead her toward Coleumbria’s capital. The Four Fingers, meanwhile, are adamant about finding Candace, so they’ve taken to stalking her friends, until they realize they’re “dead ends”, so they choose to follow their own leads. It is revealed that The Four Fingers and Candace all have powers that connects them to certain species of animals; with Candace, she has a connection to birds and she states her grandmother was the same. Tilly comes up with her own vigilante persona, Puppet Girl, and stays behind in Wyndemer as Damian and Jon leave to go to Cinapolis to find the virus’s source. However, the boys get captured and Tilly decides she needs to help them. Candace in the meantime has found an anointing oil her mother had left clues for her to find, which is the key to the throne of Landis, the country she and The Four Fingers come from. It ends with the Super Sons and Tilly saving Candace and helping her get on a boat back to Landis while Arvyc escapes from prison.

The third and final book opens with Jon, Damian, and Tilly trying to track Arvyc down and it’s obvious that they’ve been at this for some time now, but they soon become the hunted. Candace makes it back to Landis and finds one of the rebels her mom had led before she was arrested. As Candace continues on her journey, Jon, Damian, and Tilly are sent by Batman to a LexCorp lab to retrieve a virus sample, only to find it isn’t there. They decide to go to Landis since The Four Fingers were heading there with the virus (and Candace had gone with intentions to stop them), but Tilly needs to stay behind again. The boys and Candace continue their respective journeys through Landis, however a man who’s been pulling the strings from the shadows for the last two books, Sir Reale, has decided to send Arvyc after them along with Talia. Talia and Arvyc attack the boys who manage to outsmart them for the moment, and are reunited with Candace who has been tracking the virus with two warriors named Kizuka and Archer. Tilly, back in Coleumbia, is sent out to retrieve Damian and Jon by Bruce’s assistant, Patience. After meeting up with Tilly, the group find a lab where The Four Fingers have been preparing vials of the virus in order to release it via bombs, and a battle ensues where they learn that sunlight can kill the virus and that Talia is Damian’s mother. Learning that they couldn’t stop all of the shipments, the group gathers the people of the local town to help them in storming the factory. They succeed in killing the remaining virus, save for a vial to be used to create a cure. With Superman’s mission a success and Batman working on a cure, the book ends with Candace being crowned the new Empress of Landis, Jon’s mother waking up, and Batman making Damian Robin.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE STORY

All in all, the story was okay. Personally, I felt like it was rushed in some places, such as how we’re brought from one character or scene to the next with little to no transition or breathing space. The endings were also kind of abrupt, which I feel really brought down the ending for the final book. We don’t really linger on whether or not Superman’s efforts to reverse global worming worked or have a moment where Jon and his dad are able to reunite with Lois. I was also disappointed to see they didn’t go anywhere with the whole “Talia is revealed to be Damian’s mother he had never met before and barely knew anything about” sub plot they had going in book three. People who know me know that the League of Assassins and any character associated with them are among my favorite villains in the Batman mythos, and to see it be brought in only for it to not have anything done with it was disappointing. Heck, you could have taken Talia out of it and the story would have been the same minus Damian being momentarily shaken before getting back to business. At the very least, an ending scene where Bruce confirms she’s his mother would have been nice enough closure for it. This might have been due to there being a page limit (each book was roughly 151 pages long) which lead to things being cut out, but it’s still disappointing nonetheless, especially since I did find myself enjoying parts that had pacing problems.

Pacing and unresolved plotlines aside, some of the things I did enjoy though involved Candace’s story arc. She’s one of the characters made for this series, and watching her figure out her past and come into her own with her powers was really enjoyable. I also felt like small snippets of character interactions between the boys, Candace, and Tilly were really well written. They actually felt like kids.

THE CHARACTERS

Since there are a lot of characters in this series, I’m only going to focus on the four main characters since we’re with them the entire time.

Jonathan Kent is probably the one out of him and Damian who’s the closest to his original counterpart, and I don’t just mean in looks. While he doesn’t have as many powers as he’s come to have in the main DC canon, he does have some of the powers he has early on in his appearances, such as super speed, super hearing, x-ray vision, super strength, and being able to jump high/far. He’s a bit older here though, 12 instead of 10 making him closer to Damian’s age and allowing him to go to the same school as him and Tilly. He holds his dad’s lessons close and seems to be apprehensive about seriously hurting people, mainly in the beginning. Being older though, he’s a bit more mature than his counterpart was before he was aged up, and I feel that this version of Jon is a good blend between the two.

Damian Wayne on the other hand was given the most changes in terms of backstory and how he acts, which goes hand-in-hand. In the original continuity, he was raised by Talia and the League of Assassins, making him spoiled and a literal killer in the body of a child. Here, he was raised by Bruce (how or why, I don’t know. Talia wasn’t brought up until book 3 so I can only assume she gave him to Bruce as a baby and they agreed to never tell him for whatever reason) and Bruce refuses to let him be Robin, leaving Damian to become Batkid (which is a good reference to past incarnations of Batman’s son in older Elseworlds stories). He’s still arrogant and looks for a fight more than he should, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to kill. Beat up a guy who is already out of the fight, yes, but not kill. One thing people who’ve read the books will notice is I’ve been calling him Damian. Well, that’s out of habit; in this series he is pretty adamant about everyone calling him Ian. Why? Again, I don’t know, and part of me is bothered by it because we never find out why he hates his name. I can only assume Pearson had things planned that would explain this a bit more but had to cut them out due to page constraints.

Tilly is one of the characters made for this series, taking the name Puppet Girl as her secret idenity. She’s Jon’s friend and classmate, and is a computer expert, allowing for her to help the team from home until they need her to fly one of Bruce’s machines to them. She hangs around Jon a lot due to going to the same school and because both of them are interning for the Daily Planet. In all honesty, she reminds me of Kathy from before it’s revealed she has powers and is actually an alien since she acts as Jon’s best friend who isn’t Damian, as well as a girl who Jon might have a crush on or vice versa. The blond hair and the purple-pink outfit scheme doesn’t help.

Candace is our final main character and the second character made for this series. We meet her in the books before we meet Jon and Damian, and her story plays a huge role in the overall plot. Candace has been following a string of clues her mother left her shortly before her death, and we learn as the comic goes on that she’s meant to be the next Empress of her home country, Landis, but was forced to flee to Coleumbria when her family was usurped by a general. Over time, she unlocks her power to communicate and control birds, and later to control the weather. I found myself enjoying her story just as much, if not more than the plots that surrounded the title characters, which helps since her story is intertwined with theirs. If I had to compare her to an existing character in the DC canon, I’d say Wonder Woman due to her super human abilities and her being royalty.

THE ART

The art is also good, definitely better than what I can do. However, a complaint I do have is that the characters feel stiff and rigid. It might be the art style, but something felt off at times, mainly with the posing. Again, it’s still better than what I can do, but I feel like it could have been better. I did like how the backgrounds were vibrant and you could tell where the characters were just from a look, and the art is more detailed in general compared to other young reader graphic novels DC has been putting out. Art is pretty subjective, so I’m not going to go into this too much and a lot of these are my own opinions.

The art has come into debate as well, though not for the reasons I mentioned above. When previews for the first book started to be released, a lot of people were critical toward Candace and Damian, particularly toward their skin color. In the preview images, Candace was shown to have a blue-ish-gray tint (you can probably see why this didn’t go over well) and Damian was shown to be paler than Jon (Damian is shown in the original DC canon to be half Arabic and even though he was sometimes shown to have pale skin like Bruce’s, he was also shown to have a tanner complexion due to his mother’s side. Most fan interpretations as a result more often than not have him with tanned skin). After fan outcry, this was fixed with Candace getting a more natural skin tone and Damian’s being brought down to a darker shade than Jon’s. With Damian’s it’s more apparent in the second and third books since in the first one I did notices there were a few panels where his skin tone would be lighter than in others which makes me wonder if it was a last-minute recolor for the first book’s release.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I’d say it’s okay. It’s not great, it’s not bad; just okay. I honestly think that if Pearson and Gonzalez hadn’t been given a page limit then it could have been better since the pacing wouldn’t be as big of an issue and they would have been able to get through all of the mini arcs they had set up. They obviously wanted to tell a bigger story but were only given so much room to work with.

It’s obviously not for everyone, and it’s definitely not the Super Sons people like me have grown up with, but that’s okay. Some of the kids I used to babysit who fall into the range of “I’ve never really read DC comics and only ever saw a cartoon episode on TV” read these books too and they liked it. Same thing for the few kids who did have prior experience with the Super Sons. What dragged them in was the climate crisis and (for the ones who read them after the world went into a lockdown) the fact the characters were trying to find a cure for a virus that was similar to the flu. Yeah, and these were written way before 2020, so that’s actually an achievement on Pearson’s part.

You don’t have to like them; heck, I didn’t really have any interest in them because of the backlash from people like me until my friends started asking me to make this review. But maybe give them a chance. Find a kid in your family or friend group and see if they’d be interested, maybe you can read it together once the craziness of the last year’s calmed down.

[tomeandflickcorner]

Falcon And Winter Soldier Episode 5- My Thoughts

Oh boy,  this one might be a bit longer than usual.  There’s a lot to go through in this episode. As always, spoilers under the cut.

It immediately picks up after Walker brutally murdered Nico in that crowded square. We see he’s taken off running, and ends up in some deserted warehouse of some kind.  For a moment, you almost think he’s starting to grasp the gravity of what he’s done, but he’s then plagued by memories of his time with Hoskins, which only leads to him further slipping into insanity and convincing himself that he did what was necessary. That’s when Bucky and Sam enter the scene.  They quickly figure out that Walker’s off his rocker.  Particularly when Walker tries to justify his actions by claiming that Nico was the one who killed Hoskins, even though it was clear that Karli was the one who killed him. They do their best to try and help him realize that revenge is not the same as justice, but Walker isn’t willing to listen.  Sam, slipping into councilor mode, attempts to calm him down. Unfortunately, if his words were having any affect on Walker, it all went downhill fast when Sam told Walker to hand the Shield over to them. Because Walker firmly believed the Shield was his rightful property, so he was not about to willingly give it up.  So Bucky and Sam have no choice but to take the Shield back by force.  At one point during this fight, Bucky gets momentarily dazed upon getting thrown into some sort of circuit breaker box, which also seems to briefly cause his vibranium arm to short-circuit.  Of course, Sam can’t really hold his own against a crazed Super Soldier one-on-one for long, and Walker eventually has him pinned to the ground.  He even destroys Sam’s Falcon wings.  But just before Walker could actually kill Sam- yeah, he was actually about to kill Sam there!- Bucky recovers and rejoins the fight.  Together, Sam and Bucky manage to pry the Shield away from Walker’s tight grip.  Though they have to break his arm in the process. But even then, Walker isn’t backing down.  Because he still firmly believes HE is Captain America.  It takes a pretty awesome combo move from Bucky and Sam to take Walker down. Because not even a Super Soldier can withstand getting swung into a jet-packed fueled blow from the Shield.  With Walker defeated, Bucky pretty much places the Shield at Sam’s feet, effectivly giving it to him once again, before walking off without a word.

So, after that pretty epic battle, the episode allows the characters, and the viewing audience, a chance to catch their breaths. Karli and the Flag Smashers have pretty much gone underground, making it impossible for anyone to locate them. Not that the government doesn’t try, as they conduct raids to all the GRC facilities that housed them, and even arrest the people that offered them shelter.  But still, no sign of Karli anywhere.  So Bucky and Sam decide there’s not much more they can do, particularly since they’ve been benched by the government officials.  Even so, Sam still wants to do what he can in seeing this whole thing to the end. So he asks his friend and associate, Joaquín Torres (who we haven’t seen since Episode 2), to keep him posted. Although, Sam also leaves his broken wingsuit with Joaquín. Which is probably a reference to the fact that Joaquín took up the mantle of Falcon after Sam in the comics.

Of course, there’s still the loose end of Zemo.  Bucky manages to track him down in Sokovia, at the memorial that was put up in honor of everyone who died there during the events of Age of Ultron.  Which does make sense, since Zemo’s wife and children were among the casualties.

Now, I gotta pause for a moment to talk about something here.  During the Previously On segment for this episode, we got reminded of a scene from a previous episode, in which Zemo seemed to be trying to shame Sam and Bucky for not ever visiting the memorial themselves.  Maybe it’s me, but that seems kinda unfair.  For starters, Bucky and Sam weren’t even involved during the events of Age Of Ultron.  With Sam, I don’t think he was officially an Avenger at that point.  He was part of the reserve team, if anything.  And Bucky was in Romania, trying to reacquaint himself with his true identity while hiding from both the CIA and what was left of Hydra. Even if that wasn’t the case, when exactly were they supposed to visit the memorial?  As of the events of Civil War, Sam was on the run as a fugitive alongside Steve and Natasha.  And Bucky was in Wakanda, either in cryofreeze or going through mental rehabilitation.  And then they both got dusted at the end of Infinity War, meaning they were erased from existence for the next five years.  So when exactly could they have visited the Sokovia Memorial to pay their respects? Of course, I do get what the episode was trying to say, since the Avengers didn’t really do much in offering Sokovia any sort of relief efforts.  (Though you could also argue that Tony should have been the one to handle that, considering the whole situation with Ultron was his own fault.  And goodness knows he had the monetary means to do something, with him being the billionaire and all. But I guess that’s all semantics.)

Anyway, Zemo tells Bucky that the only way they can hope to stop Karli now is by killing her, but Bucky tells him they’re going to try to do things their own way.  At this point, Bucky aims a gun at Zemo’s head.  But it’s soon revealed that Bucky had previously made sure the gun was already empty when he shows that he’d removed the bullets beforehand. Which I guess was his way of showing Zemo that he was wrong about him.  And that Bucky, despite being an enhanced individual (something that Zemo clearly hates), still chose to spare his life.  At this point, the Dora Milaje show up, with the intention of bringing Zemo to the Raft, that prison we last saw in Civil War.  Before Zemo is escorted off, he tells Bucky he took the liberty of crossing his name out of Bucky’s book, and that he doesn’t blame Bucky for doing what he thought was right.  Wow, how magnanimous of him, right?  Shame he couldn’t have extended this same level of courtesy towards the rest of the Avengers.

Still, I guess this means we’ve seen the last of Zemo.  At least for now.  Eh, good riddance, I say.  I personally hope we never see him again,  While I do sympathize that he lost his family, I still don’t like him in the slightest.  On the other hand, I did like that Ayo indicated that Bucky is at least partially forgiven for helping break Zemo out of jail.  Sure, she does tell him that he should still stay away from Wakanda for the time being, but she is calling him White Wolf again. Which indicates that their friendship wasn’t broken beyond repair.  Before they part ways, however, Bucky tells Ayo that he has one more favor to ask of her.

Here, the episode begins to focus on Sam as he begins to head back home to Louisiana.  But first, he makes a detour back to Baltimore, in order to sit down and really talk with Isaiah. Which enables us to really learn exactly what happened with him in the 1950s.  Turns out, he didn’t get injected with the Super Serum knowingly  He and a few other Black men were essentially used as guinea pigs, in which they were told they were being given tuberculosis shots or something when it was actually an experimental recreation of the Super Serum.  But it seems that, for some reason, the other Black test subjects begin displaying some manner of unfortunate side effects to the Serum, which suggested it wasn’t stabilizing with them.  Only Isaiah was able to successfully transition into a true Super Soldier like Steve Rogers.  So when the other Black test subjects were captured behind enemy lines (because this was the time of the Korean War), the US government were simply planning to drop bombs on the POW camps, in order to prevent word of their little experiment from getting out.  When Isaiah found out what they were planning, he took it upon himself to get those men out of there, in a similar manner to what Steve did in the first Captain America movie.  Except he was rewarded for his bravery by being locked up like a criminal, with the US government conducting experiments on him to try and figure out why the Super Serum worked with him and not the other test subjects.  They even told Isaiah’s wife that he was dead while making sure he never received any of the letters she’s sent him.  In the end, Isaiah only escaped because this nameless nurse took pity on him and helped him escape by essentially faking his death.  This backstory really is sad and tragic, especially when you realize it’s partially based on an actual historical event.  Just try looking up the Tuskegee Experiment sometime.  It’s really messed up.  Anyway, Isaiah finishes his sad story by telling Sam that, regardless of what he might believe, the world hasn’t changed that much.  And that not only will the world never accept a Black man as Captain America, no self-respecting Black man would even attempt to take up the mantle because of how America has always treated men like them.

With that advice still weighing on his mind, Sam returns home to rejoin his sister, Sarah, and his two nephews, AJ and Cass.  So now we’re getting back to the subplot from the first episode, involving the failing family-run fishing business.  It seems Sarah is still thinking it’s time to throw in the towel and simply sell their family’s fishing boat.  The main issue with that is, because it’s all run down and in need of serious repair, nobody would even consider buying it.  Fortunately, Sam has an idea.  Remembering how their parents, who apparently died some time ago, had been long-standing pillars in the community and had often offered aid to their neighbors, Sam makes a few phone calls and gets the whole community to come pitch in and help repair the old fishing boat, thereby repaying the previous kindness of Sam and Sarah’s late parents.  One of the neighbors even comes by with a brand new engine for the fishing boat. But then, just as Sam is wondering how they’re going to manage getting the heavy-looking boat engine off the back of the truck, Bucky appears out of nowhere, using his Super Soldier strength to effortlessly lift the motor up over his shoulders.

Bucky explains his presence away, stating he’s only there to drop off a crate for Sam, which clearly came from the Wakandans.  It’s implied the contents of the crate have something to do with the favor he asked of Ayo.  But then, Bucky ends up sticking around to help Sam fix up the fishing boat.  Cue a boat repairing montage, complete with a song playing over the whole sequence.  Bit bizarre we’re getting something like this in the penultimate episode, but it’s still pretty enjoyable.  Particularly since we get to see Bucky and Sam actually bonding as themselves.  And yes, there does seem to be vague implications that there might eventually be something between Bucky and Sarah.  Although, I don’t know if I necessarily ship it.  At least not yet.  I’d need to see more of them interacting with each other besides just seeing Bucky saying ‘hi’ to her a few times before I make up my mind.  Granted it would be an interesting thing to explore of course.  Particularly since, to my knowledge, it would be the first biracial couple featured in the MCU.  Unless you count Peter Quill and Gamora, of course.  (And that brief thing that was going on between Peggy and Jason Wilkes in the woefully short-lived Agent Carter series.)  At present, though, I think Bucky’s obvious affection towards Sam’s family seems more tied to his own memories of his life before WW2.  When he wakes up the next morning on the couch (because Sam invited him to crash at the house instead of finding a hotel room somewhere), a genuine smile appears on his face when he catches AJ and Cass playing around with the Shield in the living room.  Those of you who have read Bucky’s bio in the MCU wiki might remember that Bucky was the oldest child of four, so seeing AJ and Cass might be reminding him of how he used to play with his younger sisters.  And interestingly enough, Sam’s sister’s name is Sarah.  Which was also the name of Steve Roger’s mother, which is probably making Bucky feel even more nostalgia.  (Side note- Bucky was actually sleeping on the couch.  Which is a step up from where we first saw him in the first episode, where he was sleeping on the cold, hard floor.  This is probably an indication that Bucky is starting to heal.)

Anyway, we then see Bucky helping train Sam in throwing the Shield around.  They even set up an obstacle course of sorts, with mats being tied to a few of the surrounding trees.  They briefly discuss the lingering issue of the Flag Smashers.  There’s still no sign of Karli, but Sam promises to give Bucky a call when he gets a new lead, and Bucky promises that he’ll come back to assist Sam at that time.  However, the main focus of the scene involves Bucky finally apologizing to Sam for giving him a hard time over the Shield in the first place, with him acknowledging how he and Steve didn’t really grasp what it might feel like to a Black man to be given the Shield.  We also get an indication that Steve and Bucky did discuss Steve’s plans of retiring by staying in the past to live a life with Peggy after returning the Infinity Stones ahead of time. It was vaguely suggested in a read-between-the-lines sort of way at the end of Endgame, but it’s nice they confirmed that Steve didn’t just up and decide to do that on the fly.  Bucky then starts opening up to Sam, admitting to him that the reason why he was so angry about the Shield in the first place was that, to him, the Shield felt like his last connection he had to Steve, who was the closest thing he had to a family.  And that feeling has intensified now that Steve is gone.  (Can we please get some clarification on what they mean by ‘gone,’ by the way?  Did Steve actually pass away from old age offscreen?  Up until now, it’s something they’ve only vaguely inferred to.  Like maybe, maybe, maybe.  But if that’s what happened, I wish they’d quit tiptoeing around the issue and just tell us straight out.)  Anyway, it’s really cool that Bucky is talking to Sam about all of this.  It does show that he truly does trust Sam.  Especially more than he does that crappy therapist they forced on him. Just saying, Bucky was still denying to her that he was having nightmares, despite apparently having sessions with her for six months.  But he freely admits to Sam that he is still having nightmares after only a week or so of them working together.  If that doesn’t illustrate how poorly Bucky’s relationship with his government issued therapist was going, I don’t know what does.  

As if getting how big a deal this is, for Bucky to open up to him like this, Sam once again slips into counselor mode.  He tells Bucky that he shouldn’t put so much concern onto what Steve thought of him, because Bucky can’t let what others think of him determine his own self-value. Or something to that effect.  He also advises Bucky to stop taking the easy way out in regards of alleviating his guilt over what he did as the Winter Soldier. Up until now, Bucky was only going after past Hydra agents to bring them to justice in an effort to make himself feel better.  But if Bucky really wants to gain peace of mind, he should instead focus on helping the victims feel better.  Which probably means that Bucky is going to go back and see that old man, Yori, from Episode 1 again and help him find closure by telling him the truth about what happened to his dead son. I admit, I’m really nervous about watching that scene unfold.  Yeah, Yori does deserve the truth, but I’m scared about how he might take it.  It would be understandable if he ends up blaming Bucky, sure.  But at the same time, it’s kinda been rubbing me the wrong way how this show seems to be acting like Bucky is a reformed assassin who has to atone for what he’s done.  No, that was what Natasha was.  Bucky, on the other hand, was the world’s longest serving POW. Someone who was tortured and brainwashed by evil Nazi scientists who stripped him of his free will and autonomy.  (And, if we consider the implications that Episode 3 gave us, we can also add sexual abuse to the list of things Hydra did to him.)  Yeah, it’s only natural Bucky feels bad for what Hydra made him do.  But that just indicates he’s naturally a good man with a good heart.  I’m not exactly a fan of the idea that he should be made to feel like he should atone for anything he did.  Because he was as much of a victim in all of that as the people Hydra sent him after.  Still, if trying to make up for what Hydra forced him to do is what Bucky needs to do in order to forgive himself, then I guess I can support that.  Do what you have to do to find closure for yourself, buddy.

Anyway, after Bucky leaves, Sam and Sarah continue to finish repairs on the fishing boat in preparation for selling it.  But just before Sam is going to paint over the names of their parents, which is printed on the side of the boat, Sarah stops him. It seems she’s changed her mind about selling the boat, considering the boat is part of their family legacy. Which is something that Sam is relieved to hear, as he didn’t want to see the boat getting sold off, either.  The siblings begin having a heart-to-heart, with Sarah telling Sam that, even though she’s always given him a hard time about the matter, she’d never thought he was running away from things whenever he went off to save the world and whatnot.  She also tells him that she knows he’s been dwelling on what Isaiah said to him, but helps Sam make a decision involving the Shield.  While Isaiah had good reasons for believing the way he did, Sam ultimately decides that the pain Isaiah went through would be in vain if nobody continued to fight for the future.  And so, Sam decides that he’s now willing to accept the mantle of Captain America.  Which leads to another montage.  This time of Sam going through a self-training session with the Shied, with his nephews, AJ and Cass, helping out.  The training montage ends with us seeing that Sam has become a pro at throwing and catching the Shield.

Of course, just when you start to think this episode is feeling like the series finale, with everything wrapping up and setting the stage for a future adventure, we get the reminder that there is still one more episode to go.  It seems that Karli has been pushed over the edge after the death of Nico, as well as seeing all the GRC facilities raided and cleared out of refugees.  And she is now out for revenge.  Specifically, she plans to rally up what remains of her followers and attack the GRC headquarters, as they plan to vote on the Patch Act, which would force millions of people to relocate to their home states. To achieve this goal, Karli manage to join forces with Batroc, who had previously appeared at the beginning of Episode 1.  Strangely enough, an earlier scene does suggest Batroc was actually hired to team up with Karli and the Flag Smashers by Sharon Carter, which only further indicates that Sharon is a bit shady.  What exactly is Sharon up to?  Is she a bad guy now?  That would kinda stink, since she is Peggy Carter’s great niece or something.  Talk about besmirching your family name.  

Anyway, right when the Flag Smasher’s attack on GRC headquarters is about to begin, Sam gets a tip off from Joaquín, who had been keeping his ear to the grapevine in terms of the Flag Smasher’s movements. Apparently, the Flag Smashers coordinate their attacks via this coded cellphone signal, which  Joaquín had figured out how to hack into.  And he notifies Sam that the coded cellphone signal is now showing up in New York City.  Sam seems to figure out what the Flag Smashers are about to do when he sees a news report on the TV about the GRC voting on the Patch Act that evening.  Deciding to go and do something about it, he opens up that Wakandan crate Bucky had dropped off.  The episode ends before we can see what exactly was inside the crate, though.  They’re clearly saving that reveal for the final episode.  Although, my boyfriend, who is also my viewing partner for this show, is a bit of an expert on what went on in the Marvel comics.  (He even worked in a comic book/gaming store before we met.)  It seems that, in the comics, Sam Wilson did end up getting a pair of Falcon wings that utilized hologram technology of some kind.  So he’s theorizing that’s what it is.  Still, we have to wait until next Friday to know for sure.  Either way, it looks like this next episode will decide what happens with Karli and the Flag Smashers.  I honestly don’t see how it’s possible to resolve things with Karli peacefully, though.  She seems too far gone at this point.  But I’m sure Sam will still try to talk her down, which only deepens my respect for him.  And who knows?  Maybe Sam will succeed, with Karli going the Coalhouse Walker route- agreeing to stand down in exchange for the promise of a fair trial, which would allow her to state her case.  (Of course, I hope they don’t do things exactly how it went down in Ragtime.  Because in that story, they pretty much promise Coalhouse that he’ll receive a fair trial, but the moment he surrenders himself, the police immediately open fire and shoot him dead.  Which is not even remotely cool.)

Oh, and then there’s still the matter of Walker.  Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.  Because even though Sam and Bucky effectivly took him down AND he received a dishonorable discharge by the US government, he still refuses to believe he did anything wrong.  He’s convinced that he still deserves to be Captain America.  While a small part of me does pity him, he really is displaying what appears to be a fragile White male ego.  He even goes up to Hoskin’s grieving parents and sister and lies to them about how Nico was the one who killed their son, and that they should take comfort in the fact that justice was served.  There’s also a mid-credits scene where we see he’s trying to make his own version of the Shield.  Doubt its made of vibranium, of course.  I Gotta say, I’m seeing a lot of parallels between Walker and Karli right now.  Both of them have convinced themselves that they are 100% in the right, and everything they do is completely justified.  Which naturally makes them both very dangerous. However, I’m mostly concerned by this mysterious woman.  Contessa, or whatever it was she called herself.  She approached Walker after his trial to tell him that he didn’t do anything wrong before giving him what appears to be a blank business card.  (I’m guessing there’s some sort of secret decoded message on this business card that Walker will decipher later on.)  I have no idea who this woman is supposed to be or what her goal is.  I’m guessing she’s someone comic book experts would recognize, but my boyfriend/viewing partner, who is familiar with the comics, didn’t seem to recognize her name, either.  So it’s a big mystery at this point.

Before I wrap up my thoughts for this week’s episode, there is something partially unrelated I should mention.  For those of you who haven’t heard, Sebastian Stan’s latest movie, Monday, recently came out.  And it seems that this movie includes Sebastian and his female co-star in a full-frontal nudity scene.  From what I’ve heard, there have been some select individuals who have seen fit to criticize Sebastian’s appearance in this scene, because he wasn’t in perfect shape or something like that.  If you were one of those select individuals who decided to body shame Sebastian after watching this movie?  Grow up!  Bodies come in all shapes and sizes.  And to expect a male actor to have a completely chiseled physique at all times is extremely unrealistic, particularly when they’re portraying an ordinary person.  The fact that people were acting like this is even more disgusting when you consider the fact that Sebastian Stan apparently already has some body issues.  The fact that he was still willing to film this full-frontal scene despite those issues just illustrates his passion and dedication to his skill as an actor and the message this movie was meant to convey.  He did not deserve to have his body objectified the way it was. Nobody does.  So once again, this is me condemning the behavior of those select ‘fans.’ 

[theonceoverthinker]

Signs Clover Might Come Back

So if you’ve been reading this little blog for any amount of time since the end of the last year, you’d know I’ve had RWBY, Fair Game, and Clover Ebi on the brain. And if you’d been reading it for any amount of time since late January, then you’d know that both I and a lot of other people really, really, really hated the ultimate handling of each of those things following the release of 7X12.

But I’m not here to go off about that episode today (Though I still have PLENTY more to say on that front).

No, I’m here to look forward towards the upcoming volume with something a bit more optimistic (Given some of those quotes from the 7X12 commentary that have recently come to light and the possibility of a V8 trailer tomorrow, we could all use that right about now).

Volume 8 is about a month away, and with it, a large amount of the Fair Game/Clover Ebi community as well as myself are hoping Clover will be resurrected as a result of something we call the Staff of Creation Theory. 

Look, I probably don’t have to explain this to anyone reading this post, but just in case, the tldr of the theory is that the Staff of Creation will cease holding Atlas up and since it’s able to create, it just might be able to bring back the deceased as a form of recreation (I.E. Clover). I’ve made a theory or two about how it could work in the context of straight up execution, but again, that’s not what I’m here to talk about.

So -- incredibly long intro aside -- what AM I here to talk about?

Well, as the title states I want to talk about the signs that we can look for in V8 prior to any resurrection that can reasonably suggest that Clover might come back.

My overall thoughts on whether Clover will actually come back or not basically come down to a coin flip at this point. Trace amounts of evidence both in some of the animation from V7 and implications of comments heard here and there give off a real sense that he just might be revived after all, but then again, the writers have done little lately to inspire a lot of faith in me, and a large amount of my distrust with RT is that we had a lot more to go on that 7X12 wasn’t going to be...well, 7X12 before 7X12 was 7X12.

(Jenna, come on, you said you weren’t going to rant about it...)

MOVING ON!

Anyway, I compiled a brief list of realistic ideas that could happen in the context of Volume 8 (And its marketing, merch, etc.) before the theoretical resurrection as a means of foreshadowing it, as well as a brief explanation as to my reasonings for believing them to be meaningful and possible executions they could take in their implementations. Anything is on the table here, so now that this incredibly long intro that somehow got even longer is done, let’s get going!

List under the cut!

1. Clover appearing ANYWHERE in the V8 intro. Simply put, dead people tend to not show up in the RWBY intros following their passing. Maybe their graves will show up, as they have with Summer, but that’s about it. But even outside of that trend, Clover appearing in Volume 8′s intro would put some nice power in the theory’s corner. I don’t even think he necessarily has to be in it himself (though I absolutely want him to). Giving any amount of significant screen time to the pin would (while not as good for us as actually showing off Clover himself) still be a point in our favor of Clover’s importance to the characters. I could see this happening in two ways. First, if it’s not Clover appearing, but the pin, we could have Qrow looking at or wearing the pin and then the camera doing a closeup of it (Hopefully without the blood). Second, if it IS Clover appearing (And if he does appear in the intro, I’d say his chances of returning will be up significantly since they’re bothering to animate not just the pin, but Clover’s face/entire body), Clover could be dragged away from Qrow in sort of an abstract nightmare-ish thing akin to the visual of Qrow drinking in V6 directly. In both cases, they’d be followed by a transition to something relevant to his resurrection would be the real money ticket.

Transitions...

Now, the specifics of this as it pertains to Clover will be explained in the next point, but what you need to know right now is that transitions are incredibly important. Simply put, the sequences of events, especially as they exist in and pertain to large ensemble casts like the one we have in RWBY because so many things are happening simultaneously, are important. They have the ability to convey narrative insights; story beats can be glimpsed off of them and themes can be established or deconstructed by the order of plot and story points. 

What are those things that it would be really good to transition to after mentioning/showing Clover/Clover’s pin?

I am SO glad you asked, because I’m about to get to it!

2. Any mention of the sentiment of “dead is dead” in the context of Clover’s death followed by a transition to something that calls that very idea into question. Here we go. 

I’m of the mindset that we could be witnessing some very nice foreshadowing of a Clover revival if during a mention of Clover, something that’s said by someone (Qrow, Ironwood, Robyn, the Ace Ops) that’s akin to “there’s no way he can come back” or “dead is dead” is IMMEDIATELY followed by one the following things: The Staff of Creation itself or just the door to the staff’s vault, Penny or Ozpin (Formerly dead characters now resurrected, Penny being the current Winter Maiden and the only one able to access the staff) doing pretty much anything, or the base of the floating city and the blue magic under it. ANY of these things (And probably one or two others because I’m only one man here) carry with them a heaping helping of foreshadowing, the universe itself telling us not to count our chickens before they hatch. I can see this happening via a hard cut or a fade between the character mentioning Clover (Or Clover’s pin) and the aforementioned element.

The reason why I place such emphasis on these transitions is because without them, bringing up Clover or Clover’s mortality (or present lack thereof) only has a narrative function of quelling any hopes of him being revived, a proverbial twisting of the knife, if you will.

3. ”No hetero”-ing the Jailbirds ship/separating them as quickly as possible. A worrying point for many of us has been the possibility that with Clover absent and killed off in a way that seemingly showed that Clover and Qrow were too opposite each other to make it work, that Qrow and Robyn (Now off to prison together) could possibly become a thing. I think doing something to ensure audiences right off the bat that that’s not a concern anyone needs to have will do a little something to show that RT at least listened to the clear dislike the ship received from the get go (No offense intended if you do ship it, but it is what it is and both components of Jailbirds are shipped far more with other characters, and for good reason). Moreover, getting rid of the chance of Jailbirds off the bat might show that Qrow’s romantic future is still up in the air, possibly for a revived Clover to come back and be a part of. This can be done in a number of ways -- canonizing Springthyme, getting Robyn and Qrow out of jail and separated ASAP, canonizing Qrow’s romantic love for Clover, etc. The quicker this is done, the more I’d be willing to believe we could see Clover’s return.

4. Not just Marrow being shown contemplating deflecting from Ironwood. This one’s a little hard to explain, so follow me.

Prior to Clover’s death, Neath Oum made a Tweet that pointed out how odd it was that there were five Ace Ops in a world geared towards the number four (Four people on a team, Maidens, relics, kingdoms, etc). If this sentiment is to remain true with a Clover revival, something’s got to give to even out the inherently weird setup of the Ace Ops’ odd number (Pun intended). 

Look, if Clover’s coming back, then they’re not gonna make him a villain because it wouldn't make sense (Even with the garbage logic of 7X12). So that means that they have to make a big change regarding either just Clover or all of the other Ace Ops.

This can happen a number of ways. Clover can come back and take the place of the (possibly) deceased Summer Rose on STRQ (Best case scenario imho because it leaves the Ace Ops open to a redemption), another Ace Op can die (I REALLY don’t want it to be this), or Clover can back and deflects...but not alone, and that last point is the only one with real potential foreshadowing from the Ace Ops. 

Obviously, Marrow’s the one Ace Op everyone thinks will turn against Ironwood, especially with the reveal of Clover’s death to the Ace Ops now an inevitability. He’s going to have a reaction to that, and probably the biggest of his team’s. However, here’s the thing: If just Marrow deflects, that makes one member by himself (Or two if Clover comes back and joins with him) and a team of three. That absolutely doesn’t work with that sentiment of four being the central number of the show, either (Unless even more characters are thrown into the mix and...no...just no…). So if Marrow leaves the Ace Ops, I don’t think it will be alone.

Once again, there’s a couple of ways this could go. One of the remaining could be actually villainized to make space for Clover back on the main team (Harriet would be my most likely prediction because of that exchange she and Marrow had about killing team RWBY), or (ideally) all of them could deflect and create a hybrid of my first and third idea: Clover goes off to join Qrow, Raven, and Tai while Marrow, Elm, Harriet, and Vine stay as the Ace Ops (Maybe under a new team name).

The signs to look out for of this happening are bigger reactions from the non-Marrow Ace Ops than they’ve shown in the series up to this point (With the exception of 7X12), the Ace Ops mourning together and even growing closer during that mourning, or statements of doubt from the rest of the team regarding Ironwood’s plan or just Ironwood’s leadership as well.

5. Any marketing regarding Qrow mourning Clover. Why market a setup to something that doesn’t have a payoff? If Clover’s as unimportant as he was claimed to be, then showing Qrow mourn wouldn’t have a point, after all, right? So why do it? Perhaps because there’s something on its way. I’m just saying, if you see the official RWBY Twitter make a post of Qrow forlornly looking at Clover’s pin or putting on the pin, or a tweet that quotes the kind of “dead is dead” line I mentioned back in point 2, there might be more to it than the surface might have us believe. I’m not telling you to expect anything because as I said, my hope is not especially high right now either, but I will say that that could be a real sign.

6. Ace Ops merchandise with all five of them. A few months ago, a shirt of all five of the Ace Ops popped up on the RT shop. This set off an alarm bell or two in my head because why sell a shirt of a team that ended the previous volume with one member dead and the other four of them cast off to the side as basically secondary villains? I know people like the Ace Ops, but it was still a really weird merch choice. It was especially jarring because in that same wave of merch, the team ORNJ shirt was revealed, and that was effectively a spoiler since that team hadn’t officially formed yet (Just implied, but other teams like RNJR were given their team name on screen). However, I acknowledge that that could all just be a fluke. BUT, if we see more of this kind of thing during V8...you never know, right? 

7. Tyrian bringing up Clover a LOT. I can’t fully explain this one, but while Tyrian seemed to realize Clover’s importance to Qrow, him bragging about it a lot prior to or during his and Qrow’s inevitable next showdown would be a really solid potential mark in the Clover comes back column (If he’s not already back by the time this happens, of course).

So there you go -- a few signs that might be present if we really are going to get Clover back. Maybe getting all of these ideas together is just a means of working out my senses of hope and doubt as V8 grows closer -- it absolutely is (Especially after reading some of those commentary quotes -- YIKES). Maybe this will help someone who feels the same way I do cope as well. Whatever this was, I hope it makes things easier. 

[dragonrajafanfiction]

The Crane Team (Formally Justice) Part 2:  Equal Under the Law

This short story follows the MC (Now named Yoko Uesugi) and Crow in the creation of the Crane Team. In Book V, there is a team in the Executive Board that is composed of both Hydra and former Devil Clan members called the Crane Team. This immediately impressed me because these people were killing each other months before the events of Dragon Raja V and now they’re working together. How did this team come together? Well, that’s what this story is about.

Months ago this floor was a tightly secured ‘Access Only’ floor. The only way to get through to it was if you knew the special code, had the correct key card and strict ‘need to be there’. 

No one who didn’t need to be there was there. It was the living area of the most dangerous person in the world, Erii Uesugi. Her body had been deteriorating and without regular injections of a special serum made from the blood of dead slave fetuses she would have gone mad with raging dragonblood and destroyed Tokyo. So the area had looked like a sterile hospital full of medical equipment and monitoring machines.

But that was all cleared out to make room for Yoko and Erii. Now it just looked like a regular spacious two bedroom apartment. There was a study full of books and a gaming area full of games. There was even an air hockey table to play on. There was a full kitchen of bright white cabinets, a large silver fridge and professional grade black stove. 

Erii was quite adept at making bentos.

At this moment, she was carefully using a paring knife and crafting roses out of pickled radish and settling them next to bird shaped rice cakes. She would start working on the bentos the night before, pickling all the vegetables and deciding on the shapes and the flavor profile. Yoko made sure to take photos of the bentos and post them online to the Nightwatcher Forum. Those were some of her most popular posts. When she had time, she would post videos of Erii’s delicate white hands crafting the temaki or onigiri.

But in those posts, Lu Mingfei was strangely silent. Yoko had thought this man loved Erii but perhaps his feelings were mostly performance after all. Yoko felt bad for Erii but men were like that sometimes. They get caught up in a moment but once they were back to their regular routine, they would forget their feelings.

Erii closes the bento into a large black wooden box and ties it with a red ribbon then presents it to her with a deep bow. Yoko bowed to accept this gracious bento gift. “I’ll be back home soon if things go well.” Yoko says. “Will Erii be studying today?”

Erii’s soft crimson eyes blink at Yoko and she nods. She writes on her notepad. “Ganbatte.”

“Itte kimasu…” Yoko bows one more time and makes her way out.

As soon as she steps out onto the hall, Yoko is flanked by two armed guards in dark trench coats. Even though this place looked like a regular residential floor, it was still a high security area. The reason was simple. Yoko was wearing long sleeves and black gloves, with black stockings under her black skirt. Yoko was covered head to toe because her skin was covered in scales.

Yoko’s eyes were black because of her black colored contact lenses. Without the contacts, the bright red-gold of a dragon king flowed from her eyes. The weight of the authority and majesty in those eyes would fall on everyone. Yet Yoko was not a dragon and she was not a dead slave. She rested somewhere in-between. Her humanity was a smaller percentage than should be possible for a Hybrid without losing their sanity to their dragon side. But the White King’s blood had the element of Spirit which restrained the inherent violence in a dragon’s blood. That’s the only reason why Yoko could still behave as a human.

Unfortunately, if anyone else found out what a creature was living in Genji Heavy Industries they would be appalled. Few people knew Yoko’s true condition and those that did kept her carefully guarded. 

Yoko stepped into the elevator and the floor rose to one of the main office floors. Besides her bento box, Yoko carried a satchel full of reports. The purpose of her job today was to address the injustices going on in the prison systems regarding the Devil Clan. So she was headed to meet up with Hayato Miyamoto, the lead of the Hydra’s legal department.

The legal department was expansive on the 25th floor of the building. They ran the largest and most prestigious law firm in Japan, courted and sometimes bribed judges, and made sure that the organization stayed above board as much as it could as a Yakuza organization. When it came to purchasing property, paying taxes, and trading goods, the legal department made sure to make even the most illicit transactions look clean.

The legal department was full of racks of books and reference works. They were so crammed on this floor, that the bookcases had to be on a track system. When there was no space needed between bookcases, they would contract and stack together so as to make the most use of the space. There were also long wooden tables with elegant lamps with green glass shades. People sat and typed on their laptops. There were also separate cubicles where people spoke on the phones.

Executive Board members rarely came to this floor. When the paralegals and secretaries saw the dark trench coats and heavy pistols of her escorts, they couldn’t help but stop and stare. Yoko feels out of place on this plush carpet, walking through like she was being escorted to court herself.

The door ahead opens to a main office. It was carved with rising koi fish.

Hayato Miyaomoto is a thin man in his early 40s in a grey pinstriped straight suit with tortoiseshell glasses in front of sharp black eyes. The escorts stay outside. Hayato leans over the desk in a bow and Yoko returns it. 

“Please sit down, Ms. Uesugi.”

“Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.”

Hayato sits across from her in his thick leather office chair behind a heavy wood desk. He frowns deeply. “No need to thank me. I don’t have much choice. Clan Chief Sakurai Nanami pushed me into this audience.”

Yoko dips her head a bit. “Then, I won’t waste time on niceties. Several months ago, the evidence of crimes of the Devil Clan were leaked to legal departments around the country. Once the evidence was in front of the judge over half the Devil Clan was thrown into prison. However, many of the procedures were hasty and without proper discretion.”

Mr. Miyamoto frowned. “This is irrelevant. So long as the evidence was not falsified, there is no need for discretion.”

Yoko glances up at him. “If it were anywhere else, I would agree. However, this is Japan. In Japan, the police have far more discretion than in other places. Once the evidence is in front of a judge, it should have already passed through the local authorities. However, in many cases, this step was skipped. Many crimes that never would have made it to the level of the courts were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and many of the defendants did not have time or resources to even gather a legal defense.”

Hayato watched as Yoko pulled out a thick file. She opened it up and pulled out a mugshot of a young man who looked no more than 16. “This is Shouta. Shouta was prosecuted for pickpocketing in a mall. CCTV evidence was sent to a judge. He was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. In a similar case with a Hydra man of similar age, the police let him go with a warning and informed his parents. The purpose of these arrests had nothing to do with the crime, Mr. Miyamoto. It had everything to do with shutting down the Devil Clan. It was not done with any regard to the lives it would destroy in the process.”

She pushed the photo forward. “I’m not asking you to break the law or ignore it. I’m asking for the cases to be reviewed through the lens of Hydra justice. We cannot allow there to be two separate legal systems, one for Hydra and one for Devils. If someone can be released from prison as a Hydra, they should be released as a Devil.”

Hayato glanced down at the paper. Shouta’s last name was Miyamoto. Hayato sighed deeply. “How many cases do you want me to review?”

“457.”

“What?!” Hayato looked to be about to spit curses.

“Those are the ones I have managed to gather.” Yoko’s eyes narrowed. She understood his reluctance. After all, Devils were barely people in the eyes of the Executive board. They just wanted to get them out of the way and suppress the plot to resurrect the Light King. There was no thought to the future consequences. The fact that the legal department would have to back track and work with the courts to undo this massive injustice was certainly unforeseen. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have the staff…” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m afraid that’s going to be an issue on your end. Every day these people remain in jail, there is less and less of a willingness for reconciliation. If the Devils and the Hydras can’t be treated equally under the law then all we have left is a return to vigilantism. The clock is ticking.”

“Vigilantism…” The man’s eyes turned cold.

Yoko faces his stare with a direct challenge. “Would you argue that the rush to violence against the entirety of the Devil Clan wasn’t vigilantism? All it took was a cursory association with the Devil Clan to receive a death threat! If staff is truly an issue, I’ll request the Clan Chief for a budget and I will hire a staff to handle the paperwork. However, it has always been the challenge of the legal department to deal with the messes of the Executive Branch. This is no exception.”

“You come here and speak so boldly…” Hayato shook his head in dismay.

“I have to be bold because there is simply no time to waste. Without systemic support, these feeble talks between the Hydra and the Devil Clan will break down under the weight of their frustration.”

Hayato thumbed through the profiles, each one with a hybrid in prison. “Very well.”

“Good. Every one of those people has an anxious relative waiting for news. So I will require weekly updates on each case.”

Hayato gritted his teeth so hard, Yoko could hear them crack.

“They have no trust in the system. Once this first batch is successfully resolved, the constant need for updates between reports will slow down. But this will be a long journey. But in the end, a united Japan Branch will be worth it. The dragons will take advantage of infighting again if we let them.”

“We?” Hayato looked at Yoko over his glasses.

“Yes. Even though I was once the wife of Ruri Kazama, I am a member of the Japan Branch. Officially. I consider you my partner in this.”

[myownsuperintendent]

2019 Fic Masterpost

Here’s an updated masterpost of my fic, divided into my usual fairly arbitrary categories (plus a new one, crossover).  I didn’t write a ton this year, but those fics are in bold.

AU (Canon Divergent):

“Always Something New”–On William’s prom night, Scully tells Mulder a story from her own.  Rated T.

“Better Late Than Never”– Mulder is plotting a surprise for Scully.  Rated G.  Set in Season 8.  (Birthday gift for @xv12.)

“A Day Out”– Scully, Mulder, and Emily spend a day at the beach.  Rated G.  Very fluffy.

“Family”–Along with their three children, Mulder and Scully celebrate Scully’s sixtieth birthday.  Post-series AU.  Rated G.  112% fluff.

“In My Dreams”– She knows it’s not going to go anywhere–but Monica can’t help having feelings for Dana Scully.  Rated G.  Set during Seasons 8 and 9 and post-IWTB.  Largely canon compliant but ignores Season 10.

“Marry Me”--Mulder and Scully decide to get married.  Season 8 AU. Rated T.

“Nightmare”– Mulder tries to console Emily, who is worried about the incipient arrival of her new sibling. AU, set in the Season Eight era.   Rated G.

“No Secrets”– After he’s returned from his abduction, Mulder and Scully have a talk about their relationship.  Rated G.  Set in Season 8.

“Support System”–It’s Dana’s decision, but Monica wants to at least give her the space to make it.  Rated G.  Set in Season 9.

“A Tale of Two Nosebleeds”– Even family life can sometimes lead to accidents. Set in a universe in which all three of Scully’s kids lived.  Rated G.  Fluff, but warning for blood.

“Tell Me”--In prison, Mulder wants to hear about William.  AU in which Scully did not give up William, set during "The Truth." Rated G.

“Time and Again”– 1973 and 2010–two boys look out for their younger sisters.  Rated G.

“Stomach Flu”--Emily brings home the stomach flu from kindergarten.  Soon Scully catches it too--or does she? Rated G.

“Visions and Voyages”– When danger threatens, the Mulder-Scully family goes on the run together. AU set in the Season 9 era.  Rated G.

“You Know Your Mama Was Born To Die”– After the invasion, a woman and her son try to make their way in Washington, D.C.  Rated T.

…

Crossover:

“Take Me To Your Leader” (part two here)--It's 2037, and Leslie Knope has just been sworn in as President of the United States, only to find her inaugural address followed by an alien invasion.  For help, she and Ben call on two experts--retired FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully--and the four team up to defeat the alien threat. Parks and Recreation crossover. Rated T.

...

Episode Specific:

“Across the Country”– During “Anasazi,” Scully drives across the country with an unconscious Mulder in the back seat.  Rated G.

“In the Open”–After the events of “Small Potatoes,” Mulder and Scully reflect.  Rated G.

“It’s the Job”– During “4-D,” Reyes and Scully discuss being a woman in the FBI.  Rated T.  References to sexual violence.

“Wild Romance”–It’ll be sixty years next week, but she still remembers that strange night in 1939.  Rated G.  Set (sixty years) post-“Triangle.”

…

Humorous:

“Fugue for Fish”–Mulder’s fish become enamored with Scully’s tattoo.  Rated G.  Crack pairing.

“Lipstick on Your Collar”– The FBI has many cases to solve.  One of the biggest mysteries is the status of the relationship between Agents Mulder and Scully–and like in any case, it’s important to have evidence before jumping to conclusions.  Rated G.  

“Nose Implants Just Have That Richer Feel”–Some aliens are perfectly content using neck implants, but some are nostalgic for the past.  Rated G.

“Yes, Dana, There is a Santa Claus”– Mulder believes in a lot of strange things–but when he suggests that Santa Claus is the culprit for a series of strange murders, Scully doesn’t know what to think.  The case, along with the stresses of the season and her unconfessed feelings for her partner, makes for a very complicated Christmas.  Rated T.  Casefile.

…

Part of a Series:

1960s AU: “How to Expand Your Mind”– In 1966, college student Dana Scully makes a new acquaintance–Fox Mulder–in the process of tracking down her sister among New York’s hippie scene.  Rated T.   “While She Was Somewhere Being Free”–More than anything, Samantha doesn’t want to be trapped again.  Rated T. “I Can’t Go Back There Anymore”– When Diana Fowley returns to New York’s hippie scene after selling out and moving away, Melissa Scully is happy to have her best friend back. But the complications Diana brings into the burgeoning relationship between Melissa’s sister Dana and Fox Mulder force Melissa to examine her own feelings for Diana.  Rated T. “Summers of Love”– During the summers of 1966, 1967, and 1968, Mulder and Scully, spending time apart, communicate and build their relationship by letter. Rated M. “The First Few Friends I Had”–Diana arrives in New York, ready to live a new life.  Set prior to the other fics in the series.  Rated T. “Old and New”--When Monica meets John Doggett, she wants to know him better, even though he's different from most of her friends.  Their relationship, however, brings many complications. Rated G. “Reunions”--After summers spent apart, Mulder and Scully reunite. Rated M. “Five Times Someone Walked in on Starchild and Byers (and One Time They Walked in on Someone Else”--Byers and Susanne have a fraught but passionate relationship, as their friends witness at first hand. Rated M.

A Different Place series (“Herrenvolk” AU): “A Different Place”– Herrenvolk AU. When Mulder successfully brings one of the Samantha clones back from the farm with him, she must learn to adapt to a different life.  Rated G. “No-Fail Chicken Soup”– Samantha just wants to help Scully, but it’s not as easy as she hopes.  Rated G.  Cancer arc. “Real Ghosts”– Samantha doesn’t care for Halloween, but she finds that it has its attractions. Set in 2000.  Rated G. “Five Times Samantha Was Different (And One Time It Didn’t Matter)”--Even as she adapts to a new life, there’s a lot that’s strange to Samantha. Rated G.

See the USA series (post-season 9 AU): “See the USA”– Life as a family on the run brings some joys and some challenges for Mulder, Scully, and William.  Rated T. “Here Now”–On their third night on the run, Mulder spends some time with his son.  Set prior to “See the USA.”  Rated G.

Signs Series (Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language AU): “Signs”–On Martha’s Vineyard in the nineteenth century, deafness is common.  But for the Mulder family, interaction with the world on the mainland poses new challenges.  Rated G. “Communications”– In this installment, after a broken arm lands him in the hospital, Mulder meets a nurse who knows sign language and perhaps can help him on his quest to find his sister.  Rated G.

Welcome series (based on Season 11 Emily casting rumors): “Welcome”– In Wyoming, they spend the first morning with Emily.  Rated G. “Conversations”–Emily tries to come to terms with the presence of Scully and Mulder in her life.  Rated G. “At the House”– Some months after the events of “Conversations,” Mulder, Scully, Emily, and William return to the unremarkable house and continue to build their relationships.  Rated G. “Moving”– With the help of Mulder and Scully, William moves into his dorm room.  Rated G. “Next Year”--In the year following their reunion as a family, Mulder, Scully, Emily, and William navigate their relationships. Rated T.

…

Post Season Eleven:

“Baby Books”–Scully has a baby book for each of her children.  Set from seasons 5 to post season 11.  Rated G.

“Camping Trip”--Scully takes her daughter on a Girl Scout camping trip. Rated G.

“Looking Forward”–Scully tries to cope with her feelings as she and Mulder prepare for the new baby.  Rated T.

“Renewal”– After Scully has a difficult birth with her third child, Jackson comes back to the Unremarkable House to help care for his sister.  Rated G.   Warning for childbirth complications.

“Return”–On a walk with their daughter, Mulder and Scully meet their son.  Rated G.

“Snow Globe”– After their daughter is born, Mulder and Scully receive an unexpected gift. Post-season 11.  Rated G.

“Two Evenings”–Mulder and Scully’s grown daughter spends one evening with her brother and another with her parents.  Rated G.

…

Set Within Canon:

“Dirty Talk”–Mulder loves the way Scully talks.  Rated T.

“Eligible”– Charlie tries to help his sister out during her break-up. Set between IWTB and the revival.  Rated T.

“Five Times Scully Talked To William (And One Time They Talked To Each Other)”–There were moments when she was able to talk to her son.  Rated G.  Set in Seasons 8 and 9 and post-Season 10.

“Mappable Territory”–When Scully travels, she thinks of her father.  Rated G.

“Missed You”--Mulder and Scully are happy to be together again.  Set in late season 11. Rated M.

“Now I‘m Sane (But I Would Rather Be Gaga)”– Scully wants to get back out there after the breakup, but it’s not that easy.  Rated G.  Scully/other with past MSR.

“Slow”--Mulder and Scully decide to take their reunion slow, but that doesn’t last too long. Rated M.

“Take Two”–Along with Mulder, Scully takes a second vacation to Maine.  Set post-IWTB, pre-revival.  Rated T.

“Three Scully Children Who Went Incommunicado (And One Who Didn’t)”–It’s not that they don’t care about their family.  But there were reasons they had to get away.  Rated T.

…

Smutty:

“After All These Years”– Mulder and Scully have been together for a long time now, but sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Rated M.  Set mid-Season 10.

“Dining Etiquette”–Is it ever okay to eat in bed?  Rated M.  

“If At First You Don’t Succeed”– After long anticipation, Mulder and Scully’s first time together doesn’t go exactly as planned.  As they work a case together, they find this getting in the way of their relationship and must figure out how to navigate this new stage.  Rated M.  Set during “Syzygy.”

“Just Be”– After “Paper Clip,” Mulder and Scully try to make a moment away from grief.  Rated M.

“Massachusetts After Midnight”– After an irritating case, Mulder and Scully make the best of their night. The post-“Teso dos Bichos” smut you’ve always wanted.  The Massachusetts entry in the “A Map of Us” challenge.  Rated M.

“Refuge”– When they’re in bed together, they can put her illness out of their minds–at least for a little while.  Rated M.  Cancer arc.

“Six Ways to Warm Up a Cold Basement”– It’s February, and the heat in the X Files office is broken.  Mulder and Scully try to find ways to deal with the problem.  Rated M.  My first fic in the fandom!

“You’re the Only One I Trust (To Slap My Ass)”– Sharing one’s sexual desires with a partner can take a lot of trust. Fortunately, Mulder and Scully have plenty of that. Rated E.

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One:  Storybrooke, Maine

Chapter 7:  Games

He took the sword back to his shop. He put it into a nice case, something to assure it couldn't be so easily stolen again, and then he sat in the back and waited. He waited, and he stared. He waited, and he pulled out the potion he'd mixed for himself. He waited and pondered whether or not he should take it. He waited and concluded that whether or not he should take it depended on what happened next.

He wasn't magical here, he couldn't use a mirror or a cauldron to see what was happening, and he couldn't use a crystal ball to see what had happened, and he couldn't use the Seer to see what would happen. Here, he had to use his own intellect. He had to go with what he knew. With Snow White and David awake, the future was uncertain. Until he was certain this problem was fixed, he couldn't put himself under again. And he was confident that he would know when and if it was.

Regina. She was paranoid. He'd heard Snow say that she was on to them in the forest. If they got away or took the potion and stayed, he felt certain that she'd come to him either way. There was no need to watch the news for answers; she'd bring it right to him. He was confident…but that didn't mean that waiting for that moment was any better. By the time he finally heard the bell to his store chime, he was ready to jump out of his own skin. He wanted to sigh with relief when he saw it was Regina, but instead, he kept a straight face. He didn't want her to know that he was awake. For this encounter, he had to be sure he wore the mask of Mr. Gold and not Rumpelstiltskin.

"Well…I thought you'd at least have the sense to hide out in your cabin."

"Excuse me?" he asked innocently enough. Fortunately, he'd played Mr. Gold for so long it barely took a thought to summon him forth.

"Don't play dumb with me!" Regina yelled, striding toward him. "You know everything about this town, cursed or not, and I refuse to believe you haven't a clue what's been going on today! This sort of thing reeks of you!"

"Madam Mayor…" he chuckled to himself. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me, but considering my work here, I think you'll find I'm quite ignorant of whatever event you are speaking of. Tell me…what have I missed?"

She stared him down, her eyes looking for a lie, but he was older than her and had been lying since before she was born. She'd find nothing in his stare. "A John Doe escaped from the hospital this morning," she spat out quickly. "He'd been in a coma for as long as the doctors can remember. We've been searching for him all day!"

"Well, that is a lovely story of recovery, but it seems to me that he might be in search of his family and not a pawnbroker. I do hope you find him, though."

"We have," she answered. "Mary Margaret located him in the woods. By then, he'd fallen back into a coma. We only just barely got him back to the hospital in time to save his life."

His heartbeat raced. Found in the woods…they hadn't gone through with it. They were still here, David was still in a coma and Snow…Mary Margaret...

"Ah…then it seems to me you should be speaking to his doctors or better yet Ms. Blanchard to see if he revealed a name before she found him."

"Enough with the lies!" Regina yelled, fumbling for something in her pocket. She stepped up close to show it to him. It was a vial. It was the vial! It was the vial he'd put the potion into. It was empty. Snow and David had taken it. All was as it should be…nearly.

"That's mine!" he breathed, faking surprise as he plucked it from her fingers. "That's part of my collection, but it's been in the back. It's not for sale until I can have it cleaned. How did you get it?"

Regina scoffed. "Like you don't know."

He didn't have to play the part, something deep in his chest, Mr. Gold, he suspected, didn't like the disrespect she was showing. It was easy enough to work with.

"Madam Mayor, I assure you this vial is part of my alchemical collection from the 1560s. It's worth…hundreds of dollars, even without the rest of the collection. I wouldn't let it out of my sight."

"Then how did it end up outside, today, of all days."

"I have no idea. I was here all day."

"All day."

"Except…"

"Except?"

"When I left for lunch."

Regina smiled like a cat who had just captured a very tasty mouse. "Granny's was closed today," she pointed out. "Everyone was searching, including her."

"Which is why I had to eat lunch at home," he explained easily. "I wasn't sure why she was closed, so I just went home, made myself a sandwich, spent perhaps a bit too much time reading the paper. He must have stopped in then."

She crossed her arms in front of her in frustration. That was good. When she'd first walked in here, she was convinced he had his memories, and now she was starting to doubt herself. It was all a lie, but lying was second nature not only to him...but to Gold as well. Mr. Gold knew as well as he did that the best way to get away with a lie was to be confident in it, to believe the lie was the truth. He really was himself and Gold. How fortunate and startling all at once.

"Did you forget to lock your shop?" Regina questioned, trying to find holes in his story. There would be none.

"I never forget to lock the shop."

"Did your shop appear broken into?"

"Not to my eyes, but then, I'm not a detective, Regina. We'd need your bedmate for that."

"What are you talking about?" Her arms fell, and her face dropped at that particular comment. That was exactly what he'd wanted to happen.

"I think we both know what I'm talking about, Regina. You and your sheriff...quite the lone wolf that one, I doubt he'll ever really settle down."

He smiled as Regina watched him carefully. Now that she was starting to believe him, he had to admit he'd thrown that quip about him being a lone wolf in just for the fun of it. And he was about to have some more. There was no magic in this world for him to use, not on his own. But Storybrooke was a town made of magic that had been carefully woven together like firm strands of thread into fabric long before they'd arrived. That's why he was so certain what he was about to say would work, even if he didn't have his powers at the moment.

"Now, the day's nearly done, and I have work to do," he explained, pocketing the vial. "So if there's nothing else you have to report to me, Madam Mayor, then you'll excuse me…please."

He smirked perhaps a little bit more than he wanted to on that, but it was impossible not to as Regina's eyes went round as saucers, and she looked like she'd been slapped. He liked this. He enjoyed this game of keeping her in a state of confusion over what he knew and didn't know. But sadly, as she turned on her heel and left, he acknowledged that it was the last time he'd play the game for a while.

Things were as they should be. He'd been holding off on taking that potion for himself until he knew for certain they were right. Now he knew. And yes, he could stay awake as he was now. He could continue to keep Regina in a constant state of "is he or isn't he"…but eighteen years was an awfully long time to wait, an awfully long time to play a game that would only be mildly interesting. Years ago, he'd seen what happened as Regina cracked. The only one in the town with memories made it a prison. Having false memories, being under the Curse…it was easy compared to that. It really was just like living in a dream. It was lonely, the world always would be without Belle or Baelfire, but he'd rather live the next eighteen years of his life in a lonely dream than counting down the days until Emma's birthday. He'd rather grow angry and irate every day at the sight of the broken down library across the street than be reminded of Belle when he looked at it. He'd rather Baelfire's old ball just be a ball rather than a memory of his son.

There was no question in his mind. He was going to put himself under again. And in eighteen years, he'd wake up, and he'd meet the Savior, get her to break the Curse, and play the game with Regina all over again. But until then…

He put the empty vial back in his black bag and put it away, as it had been, then he wandered back out to the place he'd been when David burst in…no, he couldn't do it this way. David had burst in nearly first thing that morning. It was afternoon now. What would Gold think when so much time had passed? It wouldn't be the first time Mr. Gold had worked through lunch, but the missing hours were too much. He sighed as he got down onto the floor. He had memories of David with the sword. Now the sword was in a different place. He'd let Mr. Gold think that he'd been assaulted and knocked out and was only just now waking up; ironic when he was about to go to sleep and re-enter the dream. He only hoped that Gold did nothing to make Regina even more suspicious of what had happened today.

Laying on the floor, he gripped the potion tight, summoned up images of Belle and Bae, his two favorite people in the world, then closed his eyes and swallowed the potion. His last act was to toss the vial far away from him so that Mr. Gold would never suspect-

Something shattered far away. He was on the floor, laying on his left side, his cane still in his hand. How had he gotten to the floor? He sat up slowly and looked around. His eyes landed on the windows, the shadows outside…that wasn't the way it had looked before…before…

His last memory was the man he had told to get out of his shop, heading for the door. He must have gone, but…he'd grabbed a sword and…

His eyes went to the umbrella stand. No sword. No strange man. He must have…he must have come after him. The man had been angry or frustrated; it was hard to remember. But he'd been crazy; he remembered that much. After he turned to leave…they must have had some kind of altercation. Maybe he'd hit him? He didn't feel sore anywhere, but he preferred to think that over the scenario where he fainted like some kind of damsel. If he'd hit him, it would have knocked him out for several hours; that would have been why the shadows resembled later afternoon rather than early morning.

He listened carefully, suddenly wondering if the man could be in the back. Perhaps that was the sound of glass breaking he'd heard. But there were no sounds from anywhere. He was alone. Truly alone. He used his cane to get to his feet and shuffled into the back to find what had fallen and broken. He had to call the police and report an incident; the sooner, the better.

He had work to do.

[whitherliliesbloom]

💚🍑 for Illya and the squad. Or just Illya, whichever is easier uwu

[ Jumbo Ask Game! - Closed!]

CUTE YOU ASSUME I WOULDN’T JUMP AT THE CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT MY OTHER CHILDREN IF PROMPTED

💚 Talk about some of the traumatic events in your OC’s life. These events can be ones that have happened to them or a loved one. These events can be minor or major.

Answered here! 

I think E’lija’s first real traumatic moment is when he’d watch the garleans pretty much slaughter half of his countrymen while he was a really young kid. Granted, I don’t think he was in front lines, and the adults of his tribe must have protected him and made sure he was okay. But still, to have your nation suddenly be taken by a hostile force is scary. From then on, he kind of grew up in a really stifling, oppressive environment. He was one of the first to join the secret rebellion force as a teenager, though at the time it was more of a group that worked to smuggle goods just so they could survive.. they weren’t really powerful enough to fight back after all. And it’s all downhill from there.

Sigfred hasn’t actually gone through anything traumatic, at least not pre-ARR. He’s seen some shit while he was a new adventurer, sure.. But not anything that would exactly scar him for life. And while he’s definitely one of the most headstrong members of the group, he’s not immune to the effects of having your allies and friends die one after another. 

I mean.. this one is pretty obvious. Losing his entire family in a single night due to the imperial invasion. Any village men he knew were either killed or taken away as a prisoner. He still has severe survivor’s guilt to this day. 

🍑 Where is your OC’s favourite place to relax or calm down? Recount a story of their time spent in this place! What makes it so special to them?

Anywhere quiet, peaceful and most likely somewhere out in nature. She likes listening to the sound of the wind and leaves rustling, and the scent of flowers especially calms her. Back during ARR period, she’d often excuse herself to take strolls around the black shroud when she needed to take a break from her training in the conjurer’s guild and let out some stress. That’s when she’d meet an injured sparrow and take her in. Illya’s affinity with nature is, in big part because of her natural love for plants and wildlife..but there’s something of a abnormal aspect to it in which her soul is just so naturally in-tuned with her surroundings. 

He likes anywhere he can people watch. Climbing up high in trees, sitting at taverns and watching people come and go. He likes to observe and that’s also how he sort of trains himself to focus for long periods of time - a skill handy for the team’s sniper. He can tell you many stories of the weird and bizarre things he’s seen while people watching.. and would also brag about the times he’d jump in to save someone in distress. He’d managed to save a young maiden who was being chased by the Ixali in the black shroud, and well.. they had a fling for a night. The woman became absolutely smitten with him, but being E’lija.. not trusting of romantic intent yet, he left and it hurt her. 

He doesn’t really have any particular place that he likes to relax. Anywhere that he could prop his feet up and just be by himself is fine as is. He’s not particularly picky. He spends his down time either exercising, polishing and mending his equipment or.. and you wouldn’t believe this, practice his sewing. Big, strong tank main who is a blacksmith is learning how to sew? Unbelievable. 

Dark places. In a huge part, it is because he’s playing the role of an evil tyrant lord as part of his chuunibyou act.. But he isn’t particularly fond of extreme bright light. He is slightly claustrophobic, though.. so dark and small caverns don’t work well. You’d likely just find him in an inn room with the lights turned off and windows covered. 

[snarksandsarcasm]

Master Of Shadows

Course of Events

I could list the events of the game in as-is fashion, but I want to give a coherent course of events that answers questions instead. See, Clone-Styx works his way through the game with several daytime changes but Styx’s interrogation in the cell is likely to take one or two short sessions. Therefore, I don’t think their telepathic communication is always real-time. Other characters actions and reactions are also not always self-explanatory, hence the liberties in the timeline below. 

Styx has spend some time in the tower already, making deals with Ozkan and various other people. He has created himself a laboratory to work on elves and study the Amber more. He comes up with a complex plan to attain the Heart of the Tree, which is what the player goes through in the game.

Day 1 - Reminiscences 1, 2, 3

Evening. Styx creates Clone-Styx. He disappears from sight and allows C-Styx to start his journey, giving him directions disguised as “memories” inside C-Styx’s aching head.

C-Styx recovers his dagger and makes his way through the distillery to the city section. He meets Ozkan and follows his instructions to reach the entrance to the sewers and his new hideout. C-Styx doesn’t know what was before he regained consciousness but with a clear goal in view he doesn’t question it. Life is now, after all.

Day 2 - Akenash Atrium 1, 2, 3, 4 - Master Key 1

Morning. C-Styx leaves for his first mission: he needs to secure an airship to leave the tower after his work is done. The game tells us he edits the flight departure schedule, but it seems more likely that he just checked out the flight times as such. After all, he has no clue WHEN he will be done with all this and just needs reassurance of when and where ships are meant to depart.

He proceeds to the Library to find detailed maps of Akenash that may show a good way towards the Heart of the Tree.

After locating those maps, drawn in Amber on the walls of the library and burned into C-Styx’s mind, he returns back to the hideout via the Incinerator.

Evening. Styx allows himself to be captured. He is stripped of his weapons and brought to prison, Cell No5 where he remains until his interrogation.

C-Styx heads out to the docks. He hides in a chest meant for overnight delivery to  Barimen’s private apartment, where he hopes to find the key, opening the path to the Tree.

Day 3 - Master Key 2, 3, 4 - Deliverance 1, 2, 3, 4 - The Creator 1, 2, 3, - The Architect 1, 2, 3, 4

Morning. While they had been notified late the evening before, only now Barimen and his son Aaron have the time and nerve to go interrogate the strange creature found. 

After some hours of chest rest, C-Styx finds his way into the secret office of Barimen’s. In the governor’s convenient absence, he takes the key, but also finds out about the spy-system. He then moves through the servant quarters and delivery entrance back to the sewers.

Back in Cell No5, Barimen becomes suspicious of Styx and his story. He thought it was all a joke but somehow Styx is too detailed with his plan. He leaves to check the state of his secret office. He will also invite the elf ambassador to question him about Styx. Aaron remains and continues the interrogation. Without his father’s consent Aaron makes the decision to have the bridge destroyed and leaves to arrange that. So neither Barimen nor Aaron are in the prison as C-Styx makes his way there.

Evening. From the sewers, C-Styx makes his way towards the prison to free a ‘friend’. He starts his journey from the sewers entrance in the city to the large elevator, which leads down into the prison.

The first section of the prison is the low-security area. Guards who are caught consuming and dealing distilled Amber are taken here. As described in another post, I think Akenash did partly serve as a prison camp where convicts will work and serve their sentence without means of escape.

Below that section are the Amber laboratories of the Inquisition and human scientists. At the end of this section we are introduced to captured orcs abused as guard dogs.

The high-security section leads right to Cell No5. C-Styx walks into Styx taking care of the torturer. Confusion follows and it is revealed that C-Styx is a mere clone without his own will following orders. He got Styx the key (now useless) while Barimen and Aaron were distracted but now it is time to die. Styx stabs C-Styx and leaves him for dead. 

Styx moves back through the prison complex. He creates plenty of copies for distraction and taking care of the orcs. Yet he is slow in his movement.

C-Styx recovers enough to move again fairly quickly. He leaves Cell No5 and again, looks first for his dagger. On his way out, he meets a dying clone like himself, that had enough self-conscience to question his being and mortality. 

In the laboratory he catches up with Styx, who has a little private chat with Aaron, as he returns from the bridge’s destruction. C-Styx sees what Styx can read in Aaron’s mind after raw Amber was poured over his face: Queberus is alive and kept inside Akenash, working on distilling Amber for Aaron. He will know another way to the Heart apart from the bridge.

C-Styx decides to antagonise Styx completely and be his own master, not a slave. He plans to find Querberus before Styx does just out of spite. Following Styx behind, C-Styx makes his way past yet another conscious clone back to his hideout.

Ozkan’s collaboration with Styx has been exposed and C-Styx kills him (optional at this point but Ozkan will die either way in the end).

Querberus whereabouts are not 100% clear, so C-Styx plans to search the sewers. If the architect is held there, some people will know about it. As he leaves, Akenash guards raid the area. C-Styx can choose to get rid of them or leave unseen. 

C-Styx starts his search in one area of the sewers but runs into a trap. He corrects his path and finds Querberus in another section, from where he frees him and leads him back to his hideout.

Styx now contacts him telepathically and asks his clone to bring Querberus to his nearby laboratory. C-Styx however doesn’t follow and goes to find Styx on his own. 

C-Styx attempts to kill Styx there but Styx can feel the attack and evades near automatically. He then attempts to kill C-Styx again, but is driven out of his laboratory by an approaching elf, unable to finish his task.

Day 4 - Conflagration 1, 2, 3, 4, Renaissance 1, 2, 3

C-Styx survives and is brought back to the hideout by the elf. They agree on a plan: stabilize the political situation, make C-Styx an independent Amber creature and stop Styx.

Daytime. First, C-Styx has to help the elf ambassador to stabilize the political situation. He travels through the incinerator shortcut to reach the library. In the library he finds a forged letter calling for the elves to attack, as well as documents and records about Amber deliveries and disappearing prisoners. C-Styx hands them to the elf ambassador who then goes to the agreed upon meeting with Barimen to discuss the urgent matters.

When Barimen arrives, he gets straight to the matter of Styx and his clones. We don’t know whether Barimen knows (and approves) of the bridges destruction or his son’s disfigurement. Styx suddenly appears and kills Barimen before the elf can explain the situation. C-Styx now helps the elf ambassador to leave the area quickly and quietly.

Unknown to the player, C-Styx and the elf decided to bring Querberus to a safe space some time prior. It seems they have agreed to meet somewhere in the Akenash Atrium, since neither elf nor C-Styx have had time to accompany Querberus to anywhere particular. When C-Styx reaches him in that spot, ready to bring him to the escape airship, Styx has just mortally wounded him. 

Querberus tells C-Styx with his dying breath how to reach the Heart of the Tree. Styx took quite a gamble when he wounded Querberus lethally. What if the old man had not told C-Styx about the connection via the spy system?

Angered, C-Styx and the ambassador return to the hideout.

Aaron has recovered enough. He considers the elf ambassador to be the murderer of his father and he imposes strict rules on the elves. For now they are being locked into their area of work.

This causes the elf ambassador to ask one more favour of C-Styx. Free his kin on the way to the cocoon, that would make him the independent Amber creature he needs to be to kill Styx. 

Evening. C-Styx leaves the hideout to go to the distillery. He starts at the city where he witnesses Aaron leaving Akenash to legitimise his place as new Governor of Akenash with the emperor. Aaron will return to find the tower gone.

C-Styx enters the distillery, where he steals a key and frees the elves. They turn against him and lock him into the area with the cocoon. The elves don’t fully trust their ambassador due to his prolonged exposure to normal humans and diplomatics. Rightfully as we discover later. C-Styx doesn’t save the Tree or the tower.

C-Styx enters the cocoon and remains there for a few moments. Oddly enough, C-Styx is free to leave, afterwards. There has been some fighting, dead elves and dead humans and orcs. Possibly in their confusion the humans managed to unlock the area again. C-Styx makes his way past the few elves towards Barimen’s apartment.

From there, he follows the main duct of the spy system to the Heart of the Tree.

C-Styx and Styx face each other. Styx summons his clones to distract C-Styx while he is trying to free the Heart from it’s magical confinement - and fails. C-Styx gets hold of the Heart and does everything to oppose his creator. Not allowing him the possession of the Heart by destroying it, ruining 200 years of planning. He also won’t allow Styx to be the owner over his life and ends it himself, by throwing himself into the Amber lake below the Heart. The emerging rakash rip a furious Styx apart. The tower crumbles and falls in the very early hours of morning.

At Ground Zero more rakash emerge, among them former C-Styx, who is now reborn as the one and only Styx.

[somniumoflight]

Crossover Idea #8 – Bendy and the Ink Machine/Monsters vs Aliens (Movie)

The Studio’s Inky denizens manage to escape Joey’s control and eventually attract the attention of Area Fifty-Something

Okay, so, this is an idea I’ve had percolating in my head off-and-on for a while now, and my little sister loved it when I recounted it, so it can’t be all bad, right?  The main idea for this crossover basically goes like this:

Henry has been stuck in a loop of sorts inside the Studio’s walls for a very long time, being forced to follow the “script” of Joey’s story.  However, after going through the studio hundreds of times, Henry finally decides enough is enough, and starts snatching some of Joey’s old notes and books at the beginning of every loop in order to look through them and find a solution to the whole “loop” problem. He eventually finds one: Joey actually kept his old notes from when he was creating the Ink Machine, and among his notes are spells that are being used to help him control the Studio, as well as notes that imply Joey is using the Machine to stay alive.  Henry uses these notes to take control of the Ink Machine after several loops, killing Joey in the process, but is turned into an ink version of himself on top of that, and as such can’t exactly return to normal human life without people noticing he’s literally made of ink now.  Now that he’s basically stuck here in the Studio for the foreseeable future, Henry decides that if he’s stuck here, he’s at least going to make the place less hellish for everyone, and runs off to do just that.

Fast forward a significant period of time – Henry has been working on fixing up all the people living in the Studio, from the Searchers to the Butcher gangs, to Alice when she emerges from the ink again, to Sammy and Norman and all the other former employees – and even the Ink Demon, to an extent, though not until after several months of the demon still being an enemy and trying to kill him at every turn.  The ink people are all doing sort of alright now, but they could be doing better and frankly, the Studio’s a little cramped for all the souls and fragmented souls and warped toons that Joey created in the Ink to be given actual bodies – not to mention there’s just too many bad memories here.  However, thanks to some experimenting, Henry and Co. now know that, apart from Henry, they can’t really survive outside the Studio, and as such literally cannot go anywhere.

This is when Area 5? (I can’t believe that’s canonically what the facility/organization is called like damn XD) finally hears reports of ink monsters in the old Studio, thanks to someone who ventured into the studio fleeing in terror after being chased by a territorial Ink Demon, and after some tense encounters they come to an agreement – the Toons will come to Area 5? willingly so long as they are allowed to use the Machine to build a new “Studio” underneath the facility, and have some sort of access to the surface.

Details for this Crossover:

Area 5? isn’t just a prison for the monsters, it’s also a base of sorts – the General will sometimes send the monsters out to deal with other monsters that appear elsewhere in the world, if they’re too dangerous to deal with as a human.  The monsters still don’t get out much, though.

After Henry got drafted and left the Studio, he served in the Military for several years, during that time he met General Monger, who was scouting for talented officers who might be able to handle working in the newly formed Area 5?.  He ended up working as a “monster handler” aka one of the humans that kept an eye on the monsters in the facility and while out on missions.

He sort of accidentally became friends with the four monsters there (So, Link, BOB, Dr. Cockroach, and the Invisible Man, who is dead by canon time out of old age I think), and may or may not have drawn cartoons for them.

He eventually was discharged from the facility thanks to suffering a crippling injury during one of their abroad missions, which is eventually “healed” when he turns into ink.

Anyway yeah, the canon events happen, and Henry eventually takes over the Studio by taking control of the Ink Machine the same way Joey did, and it comes with some nifty abilities.

Henry can literally manipulate the Studio around him just by thinking.  If he wants a pipe to stop leaking?  It stops.  If he wants to get somewhere quickly?  A new hall will appear around the next corner or behind the next door he opens that leads directly to where he wants to go, and is somehow quicker to traverse than normal passageways.  If he wants the Ink Machine to spit out a new ink creature in a specific form?  It will do that.

He can communicate directly with people through the ink, if he concentrates hard enough, though it can be difficult to get his messages across sometimes because of how many voices there are in the ink.  Also, he can hear and talk to the voices in the ink, which… isn’t fun.

Henry can also manipulate the ink of already existing Toons, Searchers, Lost Ones, etc, fixing up injuries, deformities, and even eventually adding new limbs (in the case of the Ink Demon, when he finally stops trying to kill Henry – the demon’s okay with his scary look, but he wants to be able to walk faster outside of Beast form, and wants a tail, damn it!)

Literally every ink creature except the Ink Demon ends up on his side after that.  The demon’s too pissed off to really consider any kind of alliance at first because taking control of the Studio directly lets Henry literally run circles around the former apex predator of the Studio, and he doesn’t appreciate being made a fool out of.  (He comes around eventually, though, mostly because Henry eventually decides that when he says he’ll help everyone, he’ll help everyone, damn it, and doesn’t take no for an answer.)

By the time that Area 5?’s people turn up, Henry’s basically the unofficial leader of most of the ink monsters, with only a few exceptions, those being the Demon and “Alice” Angel/Susie, who prefer doing their own thing even if they’ve agreed to stop hurting other people now… mostly…

The first squad of Area 5?’ers get the scare of their life when they first enter the Studio, because they get ambushed by the Ink Demon (who’s coming around to the name Bendy, but only when it’s Henry calling him that, and nobody else) and nearly die because this demon is not at all happy that more people are intruding on his Studio.  They all get out alive, mostly because Henry manages to get there in time to stop the demon from killing anyone.

General Monger nearly gets the scare of his life too when he comes to negotiate, but for a different reason – because not ONCE has the facility had to deal with an entire mini-civilization of monsters instead of just one or two before!  He’s almost relieved when the group agrees to come quietly, provided they’re allowed a lot of room to expand the place at the facility and above-ground areas so people can see the sun and stuff. Makes things much easier, and they loose a lot less men that way too.

So the ink monsters all get moved to Area 5? a few years before canon by basically having the Ink Machine uprooted and then placed in the facility, in one of the spare containment units used for Insectasaurus when his original cell has problems.

Henry is delighted to be able to talk to his old monster buddies again, and once they realize this is the same handler of theirs that used to draw them cartoons, only monsterfied, they’re also delighted for various reasons – though also a little unnerved because occult bullshit is new for them – most monsters are created via Mad Science! after all.

The Toons all adjust to living at the facility and basically make themselves a new Studio/Town that expands outwards via Toon physics.  Apart from a few accidents where some of the soldiers get turned into ink creatures themselves, everything goes swimmingly.

Then the events of the movie happen, and while Henry and Co. aren’t too helpful against the giant robot that I cannot remember the name of for the life of me, they’re sure helpful against Galaxhar.

Imagine, if you would, that wannabe alien overlord looking up from a monologue, and suddenly coming eyes-to-grin with the menacing figure of the Ink Demon, and then screaming and running like the little coward he is, because that’s what he do when faced with overwhelming odds against him, haha.

Damn, now I want to draw Bendy and the Ink Machine characters XD