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novantinuum · 7 months ago

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Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 3

[Part 1] | [Part 2] | [Part 3- You are here!] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

Welcome once again! This is part 3 of my analysis series on the excellent @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. If you haven’t already, please check out the first and second parts- linked above- for more information on what these posts are all about. A lot of this analysis will build on what came previously.

So without further adieu-

Question Four: What is it that makes Onyx finally front as themself? What’s unifying Steven and Jasper, here?

For the whole first six episodes of this comic, Onyx does not have any clear personality of their own- merely existing as a vessel for Steven and Jasper to continuously wrestle for control over. (Like, literally- Steven controls one half of their limbs, and Jasper the other.)

In episode seven, however, this paradigm changes in a very dramatic way.

(Episode 7: Page 12)

Jasper is in the midst of trying to split Onyx by dropping a rock on them when the two realize that they’re crying… but that neither of them are consciously doing so.

(Episode 7: Page 13)

And then it finally happens.

(Episode 7: Page 14)

Take a good, nice look at that speech bubble. For the first time in this whole comic, it’s solid. It’s Onyx’s pink.

After multiple nights of these two taking this fusion for a spin as a mere vessel for their whims, the fusion’s unique sense of self has finally surfaced.

(Episode 7: Page 15)

And in one of the most stunning pages of the comic thus far, what they surface to is this haunting realization- the hollow understanding that they don’t truly want to be themself.

As I hinted towards in the last post, I think it’s vitally important to note the reappearance of the Gem battlefield in this page. It’s the same one we saw in the dream Onyx experienced. Not only that, but I’m fascinated by the cracking pink at the bottom of the wedge with Onyx… it appears very much like the bottom of a cracking diamond, and has that familiar oozing pink dripping from it. These two elements featured together alongside the splitting of Onyx as they realize they “don’t want to be me” paint a very clear picture of what binds everyone together in this fusion.

Everyone here- Jasper, Steven as a whole, and even his component parts- are highly dissatisfied with who they’ve become and the choices they’ve made in the past. Jasper doesn’t wish to be “herself-” at least, not as she is now. Neither does Steven. Neither did Rose, for that instance… with whatever out-of-context whispers of his mother’s memory still exists within his gemstone. Hell, Rose didn’t want to be herself so much that she outright “shattered” the old image of herself to become someone entirely new. That’s what I believe the cracking pink design in this panel represents.

Now, slight tangent… one of the biggest questions I had when I started this comic is what Jasper might stand to gain from a fusion with Steven- and I think the finer details of this particular page give us very clear hints as to what truths she might ultimately face.

(Episode 1: Page 9)

Early on into this storyline, Jasper admits that she does not understand anything Pink Diamond or Steven has done up unto this point. She does not have any context for why Rose made the decisions she has, and thus all her actions as a Diamond seem erratic and unreasonable.

(Episode 2: Page 10)

Specifically, she does not understand why Pink Diamond couldn’t manage to commit to any of the responsibilities she was given. To Jasper, every single choice Pink/Rose made was filled with immense hypocrisy. Wholly unfulfilled.

(Episode 8: Page 9)

Thus, by the end of this, I think one of the big revelations Jasper is going to face will be what makes her and Pink Diamond irrefutably similar. Namely, the self loathing they both intensely felt.

The imagery of that shattering pink wedge at the bottom of Onyx’s frame, flanked by scenes of desolate battlefields right after the corruption blast are just oozing with the fleeting memory of Rose’s self loathing, to me. It is something she held intensely in common with all of them.

Except now… unlike her, who kept her self loathing tightly bottled up… Steven and Jasper are in a position where they just might be able to work out some of their difficult emotions together, as a pair. Because through fusion, mayhaps they’ll grow to understand that they aren’t so different than they originally thought.

Perhaps through fusion… they’ll realize- and Onyx, too- that they aren’t alone in the way they feel at all.

Question Five: Is it possible that both Steven AND Jasper have a point?

The night after Onyx finally surfaces, Steven and Jasper reconvene in the woods.

In the conversation that follows, the two of them showcase very polarizing stances about the nature of fusion as a whole.

(Episode 8: Page 2)

Essentially, Steven believes that their fusion has free will and that it’s Onyx who is either splitting them apart or causing them to not be able to split whatsoever. He paints a comparison between their situation and what he’s witnessed with Sugilite- a fusion Gem who wanted to exist so badly that she essentially forced Garnet and Amethyst to remain fused even when they were entirely worn out from it.

He does briefly touch on the idea of both him and Jasper subconsciously causing it, but when he later clarifies his ideas, his focus swerves more towards Onyx’s role in the matter as a wholly unique third party.

(Episode 8: Page 3)

The thought he heard, I imagine, is Onyx’s “I don’t want to be me?” realization.

(A thought that- while they all share in the sentiment- I doubt either Steven or Jasper have acknowledged on their own, yet.)

(Episode 8: Page 3)

Meanwhile, Jasper’s opinion is that this is complete bunk, and that a fusion is nothing more than the combined whims of the individuals who form it. She sees fusion as something to conquer, an ability to wield. A body to drive.

(Episode 8: Page 5)

Jasper’s stance may seem a bit harsh and narrow-minded- given what we the audience know about fusion’s full nature beyond Homeworld’s rhetoric- but I do think her insistence that fusion is just “the combined power and wills of the Gem making them” brings up an interesting point about how fusion actually works, one that Steven is trying to brush over a little here.

Not only- once stability is reached- is Onyx their own person with their own wants and feelings, but the very person they ARE is strongly influenced by the people who combine to form them and who THEY are. There’s a damn lot about a fusion’s actions and personality that can be traced back to their components, basically. Jasper is half right.

Like, look at Garnet- before her existence as a fusion was revealed to Steven, she acted rather aloof and distant with him… a far cry from the spirited, openly affectionate, confident person she becomes by the end of the show.

In my mind a large part of this can be traced back to what we learn in the s4 episode “Three Gems and a Baby,” where we see Garnet momentarily split in front of baby Steven. Steven is distraught about this, bursting into tears- and while one can’t blame the poor little guy (object permanence issues ahah), I think it brings up old traumas for Ruby and Sapphire. Traumas of rejection… of Homeworld Gems not understanding the point of fusion for them at all, of Gems being scared of them. Thus, Garnet becoming a bit more guarded around Steven before this very important facet of her identity is revealed would make sense to me- it all echoes back to what insecurities and fears Ruby and Sapphire are bringing into this fusion.

So, moving back to this episode of the comic, Steven wants to believe that it’s specifically Onyx who is causing their fusion issues because it relieves him of his duty to look into himself and analyze his own problems. (He doesn’t want to think about himself, because he often doesn’t want to BE himself.)

And Jasper isn’t willing to see Onyx as their own person because she’s too afraid of getting attached to yet another fusion who in her mind- once Steven gets the answers he came to her for- won’t ever exist again.

“Nobody I fuse with ever wants to stay.”

(Episode 8: Page 8)

Jasper is terrified of being abandoned by people, so much that she’s isolated herself in these woods so she never has to become close to anyone and risk that possibility again. Steven shares in this fear, although his way of coping with it is a bit different- by trying to make himself indispensable to others so they’ll have a reason to want him as a continual part of their lives.

And thus these buried emotions have boiled in the pot while fused as Onyx to create a fusion who violently ping-pongs between falling apart and being outright stuck together because paradoxically, the two of them are afraid of being alone while ALSO afraid of the vulnerability that comes from not being alone. Staying as Onyx for too long is scary, because deep down they know damn well they have a lot in common to talk about. And yet, their loneliness and deep need for understanding and connection (Jasper is a quartz, and quartzes are ever so social) compels them to try.

Only time will tell if they manage to push past these deep-seated fears and find a true sense of camaraderie and companionship with each other.

Look out for the next post in this series at 7am PST tomorrow. Farewell!

#su #su future #steven universe #jasper #pink onyx #su meta #pink onyx au #my post stuff

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stillness-in-green · 2 months ago

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Hello, I like your posts and I want to ask you something. I don't think there is any way AFO knew from the start that other people besides him couldn't handle as many quirks as he could, so when he decided to offer someone many quirks, he ended up harming them instead. Do you think the original plan was for this to have been included in AFO's backstory as one of the factors for his villainy, rather than having him evil in the womb (though even him being inherently evil is debatable).

Hiya, and thanks for the kind words!

To answer your question, the tl;dr is that I don't know what Horikoshi was originally thinking for AFO's backstory (but we could compare him over to a certain movie villain if we want to hypothesize about it!) but I don't think you or I or anyone else is obligated to care. Your proposal seems to me like it fits fairly neatly even into canon as we have it, give or take it being "a factor in his villainy," so you should feel free to include it in your headcanons as-is.

Also included below: several paragraphs about why I personally fall on the side of AFO being inherently evil as he's depicted in the canon even though I heartily believe it's a stupid-ass depiction and people should freely elect to ignore it.

Hit the jump.

People sometimes being harmed by multiple quirks came up in the same conversation as the idea that One For All could not be stolen but could be forced on someone, back just after Stain. I don’t know how much we can gather about Horikoshi’s original plans from that, but it must be said that these days I’m pretty cynical about any information in the series being able to withstand close analysis.

For example, I always assumed that All Might knew OFA could be forcibly passed because at some point it had been, because how else could he possibly know? But while that hasn't been strictly disproven, it's certainly the case that none of the vestiges ever act in a way that suggests they never wanted this to begin with and had it forced on them against their will. So could we not as easily say that both the “forcing OFA on the unwilling” and the “too many quirks can harm people” factoids were literally just there as set-up for Shigaraki and Spinner’s respective endings?

On the other hand, that conversation happened all the way back in 2015, with Spinner’s existence only just having been hinted at in a single panel, and we know Horikoshi had a different ending in mind at one point. Maybe back then, he was still thinking in terms of that different ending when he wrote that conversation? We know the original ending eventually got recycled into the second movie, Heroes Rising, which came out four years after the conversation in question. We don’t know exactly how it would have looked if integrated into the story proper, but if you’re wondering about All For One potentially being slated for a more sympathetic origin, it’s worth comparing him to that movie’s ending—or, more specifically, to that movie’s villain, Nine.

For the longest time, I took Nine for a sort of proto-Shigaraki, but that’s because I was working under the assumption that Shigaraki would be the Final Boss, and thus that Nine was “Shigaraki as Final Boss from a time when the Villains were just meant to be scary and alien.” I had not prior to this very post given any serious thought to the idea of Nine as a proto-version of Final Boss All For One.

It does make a certain amount of sense, though! He’s got the multiple quirks, he’s hunting for a specific quirk, he was given surgery by Ujiko, he has an unstable body, he has white hair, he has megalomania…and, most pertinently to your ask, he was even born in the most grinding poverty imaginable with no indication of any parents being in the picture for him. So then, how did Nine react to the circumstances of his birth, and could we extrapolate any of those reactions back onto Canon AFO to see him in a more sympathetic light?

Unfortunately, Nine’s takeaway from his backstory seems to revolve around the idea that he has a great, powerful quirk, so he really ought to be on top of the world, but because of the circumstances of his birth, he isn't—instead he and the rest of his friends are living on the streets or in shitty trashed apartments or being chased by mobs or what-have-you.[1] That sense of specific grievance is much more akin to All For One’s evil than it is the more sympathetic tack taken in the portrayal of the League. The League never wanted to be powerful/famous/rich; they didn’t think that they deserved to be on top of the world but that the circumstances of their lives/the unfairness of the world deprived them of that golden life. Their grudge is a result of their own suffering and how that suffering was ignored by the world around them, not (give or take some elements of Dabi’s story) the sense that they were denied something that was “rightfully” theirs. All For One, though, does have that sense of grievance and denied ego.

1: It is, of course, very easy to also track elements of other Villains to Nine’s crew. Chimera was a victim of heteromorphobia and (Spinner), while Slice was either living the hikkikomori life (Spinner, La Brava) or had trouble controlling her quirk (Toga). Mummy is the vaguest of the three, but given the flashiness of his clothes in the single flashback panel we get of him, I might guess he got drawn towards organized crime, like various of the disenfranchised Shie Hassaikai characters and, one might argue, Twice. So even here, those elements of societal failure are present; they’re just rationalized differently by Nine's crew on their journey from victim to Villain.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily reflect on what Horikoshi would have done with those scenarios in the long term—the movies are historically extremely disinterested in having Villains with a lick of moral nuance that might make Deku & co. hesitant to do anything other than punch them out of commission ASAP. So Nine boiling down to, “I want to take over the world because my godlike quirk means I deserve to, and I only wasn’t already ruling it because the world figured out how to cage allegorical lions,” doesn’t necessarily mean All For One’s story would have been—or was always intended to be—the same!

In the end, though, as I said, I’m pretty cynical about Horikoshi and his “original intentions,” so I think if you want to dream up a more sympathetic backstory for All For One, you should just go for it! I don’t even think it’s entirely out of bounds, canonically speaking. After all, we know that AFO is capable of feelings resembling affection for people he thinks of as “his”—who’s to say he didn’t discover that giving people too many quirks would hurt them when he gave some favored subject one quirk too many and it broke them? Sure, I think that in canon his reaction would be that of a spoiled child who accidentally broke a toy, with any actual sense of guilt willfully buried beneath anger and pique that he can’t have another one just like it. But it’s still plausible!

Heck, you could even add in that his and Ujiko’s Noumu project wasn’t about strengthening the body solely for AFO’s sake, to outrun the quirk singularity, but also so that the people he liked and wanted to keep around could get multiple and/or powerful quirks without going catatonic. It makes sense, even—if the quirk All For One is all that’s necessary for AFO to get all the quirks he wants with no downsides, why would he care about the quirk singularity? It could only have been because he wants to preserve humanity for his rule (because he’s desperately lonely but also desperately controlling).

Really, I’m all for takes on All For One that try to give him any nuance and humanity at all—which brings me to your aside about the debatableness of AFO being intrinsically evil.

(I don't know where you stand on this, anon, so don't take this as aimed at you personally so much as the people I've seen on Twitter who say things like, "Anyone who thinks AFO was born evil missed the whole point Horikoshi was making about Villains being created by society.")

I have all the respect in the world for people who try to argue that Horikoshi didn’t intend AFO to be read as evil in utero, I truly do, and I very much see where they’re coming from. However, in this specific matter, I think they are giving Horikoshi more benefit of the doubt than he deserves. We know good and well that Horikoshi can set up a good juxtaposition between the reality of a character’s situation and the “narrative” the world is enforcing on them, and that juxtaposition is just not there in the depiction of Baby!AFO.

Look at the contrast between the “Who Was Shigaraki Tomura?” program and Spinner’s breakdown about Shigaraki being his friend and hero, or the art of young Himiko just existing and being Himiko as her parents call her a demon, a monster, and a deviant. Conversely, think of the ironic juxtaposition of Edgy!Deku, covered in grime and muck, a terrifying presence but still being extolled by the narrative as a Hero trying to help and save people.

None of that duality is there with Baby!AFO, who is drawn with bulging, creepy, blank eyes and twisted expressions from the exact moment of his birth and constantly throughout his childhood, compared to his younger brother, who’s just drawn like Horikoshi normally draws babies, who gets to be a normal adorable child compared to his obviously-drawn-to-be-unsettling older brother. This accompanies a narrator telling the reader about how AFO was “imbued with hubris and a disrespect for others” from the moment he was born; it constantly describes AFO in ways that ascribe him agency that he as an infant could not possibly have: he “stole” his mother’s quirk just like he “stole” nutrients from his brother.

From the moment of conception, he’s talked about like some kind of alien monster, a horror movie parasite fresh off a meteorite. The text says of the twins’ mother that she couldn’t feel “what had taken up residence in her uterus,” which is just about the most garishly dehumanizing way I can think of to describe a pregnancy! AFO is a “what” instead of a “who,” and he “took up residence” instead of “was conceived.” Seriously, it’s like I’m reading the worst dregs of posts from the old childfree livejournal communities that had their own nasty slang to use for mothers and babies that anyone outside of their community would look at and ask, “Hey, what’s with the fucking gross language you’re using to describes other human beings here?”

There are so many ways that Horikoshi could have—and, I expect, would have!—done differently if what he wanted was to demonstrate that even AFO is a victim of the world he was born into. He could have kept the narration as-is but visually depicted Baby!AFO as just a normal infant who became twisted due to the events of his youth. He could have kept the alienating visuals but had the narration be more sympathetic, telling the reader how AFO was born a little different but still might have grown up okay if he hadn’t had the deck stacked so badly against him from the beginning. He could have just let readers draw their own conclusions and dropped the narrator entirely because there is no one in all of the setting’s history (least of all the usual narrator, Future!Deku) who could actually be a reliable narrator about AFO’s infant years.

Instead of any of that, what we have is Horikoshi indulging the part of him that likes horror with an omniscient narrator lecturing us about how AFO was a greedy parasite of unknown providence in the womb, and art to match. It's only made more clear by how sterling and saintlike Yoichi is despite his only consistent model for human behavior being All Of That.

Listen, I am all about trying to wring the story for any and every excuse I can find to write apologetics for the Villains! I will take an inch from Horikoshi and run a ten-mile marathon with it! I totally support being critical of the story of AFO as we were told it! But I just can’t get behind the read that Horikoshi was challenging us to look beyond the surface with Baby!AFO, and that only readers who misunderstood what he was saying with his Villain plot could possibly think that AFO was written as an Evil Baby. I’m sorry, people who want a non-evil baby! I’m sorry, people who want a Horikoshi who wouldn’t write an evil baby! But canonically speaking, AFO was an Evil Baby. Every element of his story was chosen to hammer that in—the scenario, the writing, the art, the narration, and the fact that only real juxtaposition present in any of it is in Good Baby Yoichi.

Aaaaand that’s all the more reason why Villain-appreciators in this fandom should feel absolutely free to disregard any and all pieces of canon they think are stupid lazy bullshit that Horikoshi ran with because grappling with e.g. “relatable motivations” or “the difficulties of treating antisocial personality disorder when the only medicine you were taught is punching” would make the story too complicated.

Honestly, “AFO didn’t realize his toys could break before he broke one,” is easy to fit into the canon compared to some of the back-breaking twists I’m prepared to undertake with a straight face. Go nuts!

Thanks for the ask!

#bnha #bnha critical #bnha afo #bnha nine #i too wish we had a story that didn't treat some villains as redeemable and some as monsters who can safely be left to rot #but that story died when deku asked muscular three (3) questions about his motivations then immediately gave up on ever doing it again #stillness answers #stillness has salt

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justenjoythegossip · 10 months ago

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PR ANTICS PART 3: an apparent change in the PR tactics, the deletion of the Vogue pic, where do they go from here

The more organic pic at the afterparty

After the pic of them with Mads Mikkelsen came out, I immediately thought that this was the best and most organic moment they gave us.

Still, those pics could have been much more organic, had Chris and Abba actually gone to the Golden Globes Ceremony. Why didn’t Chris present an award? Especially since RDJ and so many of his pals like Margot Robbie were there and were expected to bag trophies. Didn’t he want to? Did he just want to do the bare minimum because he is ashamed? Or was it impossible for him to get an invite to present?

An apparent change in the PR tactics?

I posted my initial reaction about the pic with Mikkelsen. Here is a link if you want to check it out.

Chris was smiling, they were more natural touching and there was no clenched fist visible. It was quite the turnaround from their latest disastrous papwalk in NY only a few days earlier.

First observation, Chris is definitely capable of smiling even when she is close by. Second observation, Chris might have done a very poor job of selling their RS on purpose and it was probably part of the PR strategy from the very beginning.

I am not even talking about the behind the scene video of their first papwalk when Chris dropped Abba’s hand very quickly and her trying to get him to hold her hand again. Here is a link https://www.tumblr.com/rosyrosie-e/704361463430660096?source=share

Was it a random stranger by the way or a plant that posted that video? We don’t know. But what we do know is that main publications fed us those very bad pics of the 2 of them on the stairs. So they definitely wanted us to see that and to draw conclusions from it.

We know why they have purposefully done a terrible job of manufacturing this RS that they initially sold via likes and emojis on Instagram. We know it enabled them to weaponize Chris’ fandom. They even named those 2 opposing rival clans: Team PR and Team Real. Tumblr (which sponsored his panel at the NY con by the way) was the perfect place to have people fight over who is right.

Now that we got those 3 Golden Globes afterparties pics, there seems to be a slight shift in the PR tactics. Of course, it’s still a little early to predict but it’s very possible that we’ll get more natural and organic sightings from now on. We’ll see.

Why the apparent change…

More and more mods have started to see right through the tactics played by some of the noisiest troll accounts and/or plants and have pointed them out. The manufactured discourse is getting old, repetitive and tedious.

As for the general public, they just don’t care about Chris and Abba. The comments regarding their latest papwalk were almost overwhelmingly and excruciatingly bad.

Just Jared (which is one of the publication that pushed them the most and also had inadvertently published an article about the valentine’s drop before it even happened) didn’t even use their names for clickbait when they published the article about Scarlett Christmas party, which is quite telling.

They just don’t register with the general public. So a change seemed quite necessary.

The questions surrounding the deletion of the Vogue pic

The Vogue pic of the 2 of them was deleted by the publication shortly after it was posted. It is still a mystery as to why this happened. Some mods have speculated that the pic was old or fake or unflattering…

What’s interesting is that this is extremely similar to old patterns when we saw influencers posting a pic of Chris before going private. Or when Chris’ friends made their profiles public long enough to leak a picture before going back to private. This is how we got the July 29th pic of Chris playing a golf tournament while Alba was in the Bermuda.

Those pics just like the Vogue pic were not destined to the General public and they weren’t meant to be posted by official publications.

The Vogue pic was destined to the fandom that doesn’t buy that Chris and Abba are a real and legitimate couple. It’s not a coincidence that so many blogs were asked the very same question by anons: after this picture do you still believe they are PR?

And since I don’t think this latest stunt did anything to change anybody’s mind, I guess we can expect more shenanigans with more natural and organic pics of the 2 of them.

Where do they go from here?

Now that the writer strike is over, they can hire someone that can come up with some sort of high concept romantic comedy to write what comes next. Something like…

They had nothing in common. He was Captain America. She was a Nazi sympathizing yacht girl. They even started to resent one another as they had to play one humiliating, ridiculous, cringy scene after the other. His mother thought she was a racist, her best friend and soulmate thought he was a cheap version of Leo but without the talent. But against all odds, they fell in love with one another. They don’t know when it happened. Was it when he drew on her chin and exposed her tonsils? Was it when she posted a shower porn when he started to see underneath her shell? But it happened nonetheless. Deep down they had so much in common. Weed, booze, their love for yoga pants. Go Portugal! Love conquers all.

Of course that movie looks pretty shitty and also it does bear similarities with the romantic comedy that was just released: Anyone but you. But who cares? Hollywood is not known for good content or originality anyway.

Or… they could put an end to everybody’s misery and wrap it up. But who knows for how long they are going to keep milking this disaster movie in the making?

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pedroshotwifey · 1 year ago

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Favorite Bounty Chapter 4

Series masterlist

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader

Chapter W/C: 7.3k

Chapter tags/warings: angst, ouchy, no use of y/n, reader being a horny cuss, canon-typical violence, PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE

Summary: All it takes is a beskar-covered bounty hunter and his little green child to transform your life completely. Settling into life on the Razor Crest is easy enough, but what happens once the tension between you and the Mandalorian gets to be too much? Will you be able to handle the conflict that keeps getting thrown your way?

A/N: Hey, I'm going to go ahead and put it out there that these first few chapters will not be the best. Favorite Bounty was the first thing I ever wrote, so please keep that in mind. I have gone through and edited the small things so there is a bit of improvement from when it was originally posted to ao3. After chapter 4 is out, every chapter after that will be brand new and will have better grammar/writing. Thanks for reading! :)

***

The first thought in your head, when you woke, was that it was fucking cold.

The second, coming in right after the first is that you are alone in Mandos empty bunk — that hit you like a ton of bricks. Ignoring the chill racking over your body, you look around the dark cot, trying — and failing — to spot a gleam of Beskar. The tears that suddenly well up in your eyes are involuntary, and you shake your head, trying to will them away quickly so you can pretend like it never happened.

You really shouldn't be disappointed, but you can't help but feel upset, and the freezing temperature is not doing much to help your case. To be honest, you don't know whether to focus your anger on Mando for not being able to decide how he feels, or at yourself, for convincing yourself the man can choose a side. Turns out, you are both fools.

You find that you are able to get the tears to stop almost as soon as they came, though that might be because they turned to fucking ice on your cheeks. The cold makes you want to bundle up in the thin blanket wrapped around your shoulders and hide in the bunk all day to conserve body heat, but you know that's not an option. At the very least, you are going to have to find Helmet Head to ask him when he plans on fixing that particular issue. Fuck.

You take a deep breath and close your eyes to try to calm the sudden buzz inside of you. Whether it stems from anxiety, anger, or disappointment, well, that's anyone's guess. Kriff, it’s probably some twisted combination of all three. Before Mando, nobody had ever caused you to have to think like this, to have to rack through your brain for answers on how you are feeling.

Sighing, you sit up, tugging the blanket further around you as you start to pry the bunk door open. The damned thing is about a million times harder to open than it used to be now that the control panel is busted and the edges are iced shut. Soft curses slip out through your grinding teeth as your muscles strain to pull the hunk of metal up and open.

You are actually starting to warm up from all the movement by the time it flies open, surprisingly just giving away all at once, causing you to lose your footing and be knocked onto your back. You mutter another curse as you stare at the sliding door that now rests in place on the ceiling. Maybe you should just leave it open so it can mold there instead, fuck whatever Mando has to say about it.

You only lay there for a few seconds before you lift yourself back up to get out of this icebox, and when you do, you suddenly forget about the cold, because the heat that rises to your cheeks is enough to melt you almost completely. As you peer out of the opening and into the hull, you lock your gaze on Mando, who is standing right outside. He probably heard your pathetic attempts to get the door open and took pity on you by lifting it himself. That would explain why it just unjammed so suddenly. You can feel your face growing red with embarrassment.

Neither of you say a thing as you stare at each other, the silent battle only broken when Mando turns around and starts to walk away. You can hear a voice in your head screaming to stop him, but you find yourself unable to act on the command, glued to the spot where you still sit on the bunk. You thought at the very least that he would have the decency to say hello to you, but you've landed yourself all the way back at square one. Complete fucking strangers.

You aren't sure how much of this back-and-forth you are going to be able to take. For a second, you consider the possibility that The Mandalorian may quite literally be two different people, and you almost laugh at how silly that thought is. Your brain is trying to make excuses in any way possible to rule out the truth — that Mando is genuinely just an asshole. What kind of guy decides it is any kind of okay to flirt with you when he’s bored and then cast you away as soon as he gets his fill? All of a sudden, a new line of thought brings itself to light, one that you wish would have stayed away. What if it was you?

What if you're the reason he decides not to acknowledge you? What if he finds you annoying, or clingy, or rude? What if he doesn't find you attractive? What if he thinks that you went too far last night? What if he thought of you as no more than stress relief? What if he regrets keeping you on his ship in the first place? You try to shake the ideas from your head, but they just keep coming, pulling you down until you feel like you can't escape them.

You close your eyes in concentration, trying to push the thoughts away. You decide at this moment that you aren't going to let that bastard get to you. No matter what, you won't let him see how he makes you feel. It takes you a second, but once you feel like you will be able to keep a level head, you push yourself out of the bunk. Your shaking resumes as soon as your bare feet hit the cold durasteel floor of the hull.

****

You find Mando up in the cockpit, laying on his back with his helm set under the dash, seemingly working with some wiring. He has one leg kicked straight out and the other is bent with his boot flat on the ground. You can see the child sitting on his torso, his back resting on Mando’s bent knee, distracting himself with a small metal ball. If you weren't so determined to be upset right now, you would probably smile at the domestic sight.

Before you move any further, the child peeks his head around Mando’s thigh and catches you standing in the doorway. The shiny ball falls forgotten onto the floor as the kid coos excitedly and pushes himself up to half-waddle, half-run to you. He throws his tiny arms in the air and extends his fingers, wiggling them up at you expectantly. Okay, now you’re smiling. You at least manage to hold in a laugh out of spite as you respond to the kid's grabby hands and pick him up, settling him on your hip.

When you look back up you see that Mando has pushed himself out from under the dash and is now sitting up against it, watching you interact with the kid. You will yourself not to blush when you find yourself at a loss for words. On the way up here, you had planned out a conversation so that it wouldn't be awkward when you inevitably had to talk to him — clearly, that didn't work out how you had hoped it would.

“Hey,” you say, averting your eyes back to the kid. Really, that's the best you’ve got? The Mandalorian just nods back at you and sets the tool that was previously in his hand down. You watch him as he gets up and walks over to you, stopping somehow both closer and farther away than you would like. There is a moment of silence before you look back at him, tilting your head so that you can stare into his visor.

He says nothing as you stare, but he shifts in a way that suggests he is getting ready to speak. You’ve noticed that he does that a lot — gives away when he wants to say something. When he does so, you usually find yourself trying to predict what he’s going to say, and you’re quite good at your little game, if you do say so yourself. However, this time, you have no idea what might come out of his mouth. It may be selfish, but you find yourself hoping that whatever is said, is in the form of an apology. Actually, you would take a simple hello, maybe a good morning, possibly a question of how you slept — any form of fucking acknowledgment will do.

You want to slap yourself for thinking like that, for lowering your standards to the dirt below your feet in hopes that this man might make up his mind and take you for his own. Maybe it's the fact that you’ve been without company for so long, or maybe it’s that you simply had missed general intimacy, but whatever it may be, you’ve realized that you miss belonging to someone, and them belonging to you in return. You swallow down a lump in your throat as you try not to let your feelings show in your expression. The last thing you need is for the Mandalorian to see how pathetic you are when you feel alone.

“I have to leave again,” the Mandaorian tells you as he stops shifting. Now, you do feel your face fall, and you can’t even find it in you to care. His voice seems colder than usual, and it feels like an extra punch to the gut. He almost sounds pained to have to talk to you, and you suddenly feel the urge to throw up. You messed up that bad, huh?

“What do you mean, why do you have to leave?” you try not to sound panicked as you question him.

“The town that I went out to find yesterday was deserted. They had close to nothing in terms of food, let alone fuel,” he pauses as he searches your expression, waiting for you to butt back in again, but you stay silent. “I should have better luck with this one, but it is farther away,” he finishes. By the way he says it, you have a feeling you aren't going to like the answer to your next line of question.

“How far?” you ask him, your voice quieter now. He looks at you, and then at the ground before answering, like he doesn't want to have to look you in the eye anymore.

“About two days there, and two back if I choose not to stop and rest.” He turns around and starts to collect his tools into a bag, leaving you with a worried expression. How does he suppose you’re supposed to refrain from freezing to death while he goes out again? And to add to that, how does he expect to stay warm outside for so long? You swear the man just doesn’t fucking think sometimes.

“Mando,” you say when you are able to form a coherent thought in the fog of your mind. It comes out a little harsher than you intended, and you see the Mandalorian flinch ever so slightly in response, but you do nothing to correct your tone. “How in kriff do you expect any of us to not freeze our fucking asses off while-”

“I have a backup generator,” he says simply, cutting you off. You continue to gape at him, waiting until he turns back around to face you before you roll your eyes and put your free hand on your hip. At this point, you don't even care if you seem childish — he really plans on leaving you and the child on the Crest with this supposed “backup generator” that is probably older than the ship itself, in the middle of this icebox planet while he runs off to some town that probably doesn’t even kriffing exist. Great, just fucking great.

“You’ll be fine,” he says with a finality that makes you flinch. Yea, you probably deserve that. He keeps talking as he resumes his cleanup. “There should be enough food to last you and the kid at least a week, and I'll be back before then no matter what.” You just watch him with slanted eyes as he continues to answer all of your unspoken concerns. The air of confidence in his voice as he speaks is so apparent that it makes you want to punch that stupid bucket right off his stupid head.

“The generator should last just as long, if not longer, and the kid tends to want to sleep more when he’s cold, so you won’t have to worry about him causing too much trouble,” he finishes up his cleaning and walks back to you, stopping just as close as last time. “You’ll be fine.” Again, he says it in a tone that makes you wish you had never confronted him in the first place. You have nothing more to say to him, so you nod and turn on your heel, taking the child down to the kitchenette for his breakfast. You notice as you leave how silent the kid had been during the whole interaction between you and Mando, as if he could sense the tension between the two of you, and it almost makes you laugh… almost.

****

Less than two hours later, Mando is walking back down the ramp of the crest after setting up the generator — which is doing little to warm the ship, much to your chagrin. There were no words spoken since you left the cockpit other than Mando telling you to shut the ramp behind him and to stay on the ship. You had simply nodded and followed to watch his descent back into the snowy abyss. So now you’re a prisoner? Great.

Once you could no longer see the gleam of beskar through the flurries, you did as he asked and made your way back to your own makeshift cot for some much-needed alone time. The kid is asleep in his pram, and with Mando gone, the Crest is almost eerily silent, save for the quiet buzz of the generator coming from somewhere above you. You are thankful for the strange comfort that it brings, the soft hum just enough to lull you to sleep. As your eyelids slip close, you register the fact that you probably shouldn’t be sleeping this much, but at the moment, you can't find it in you to care.

****

You are only able to sleep for about an hour before you are woken by the kid. His soft coos and yawns make their way to your cot and you can't help but smile as you get up and go lift him out of his pram. You can immediately tell that he's hungry, his big eyes boring into yours, begging you for food as if he hadn't eaten for days. You tuck him into the crease of your arm as you make your way to the kitchenette.

“Oh, you poor thing,” you play into his game. “I bet you must be starving.” He looks up at you and gives you a pitiful nod, and you have to bite your lip to hold back your smile. After you set the kid down, you turn to the cabinet and reach for the top shelf, struggling to reach the desired package as you stand on your tip-toes. Eventually, you are able to maneuver your fingers enough to grab onto it and pull it down. Your nose scrunches as you read the label; Carrots and Frog. The child seems to have the opposite reaction, suddenly squirming in his seat and reaching out for the box.

You laugh as you pour about half of the package out into a bowl, heating it up before setting it in front of the kid. “Here you go, honey,” you give him a knowing look. “I’ll have to talk with your daddy,” you laugh again as he immediately lifts the bowl to his mouth and starts to slurp it down, some of the broth trailing down his little chin. “Clearly, he’s neglecting you,” your tone is playful as you sit down next to him and wait for him to finish. As you sit in silence and watch the kid slurp up his meal, you realize how much you have come to care for him. If anything ever happened, you would break you to have to leave him.

You frown as you think about that even being a possibility. You know that Mando has been acting a little differently lately, and your stomach drops as the thought again comes to mind that he is sick of you. Surprisingly, it doesn't bother you in the sense that it makes you insecure, but instead, you find yourself panicked at the thought of being kicked off the ship. If he makes you leave, you would likely never see the little womp rat again. You realize that you have become way too comfortable living on the Crest, to the point where you consider it home. You quickly shake that thought off before it can consume your thoughts and further ruin your day.

After the kid finishes up his breakfast you introduce him to hide and seek, which he likes a little too much. You end up playing the game nonstop until dinner time rolls around. He ran out of new places to hide after about an hour, so it was pretty much just a guessing game between the same handful of spots. You drew it out of course, but it was repetitive enough to wear you out more than it would have if you had a bigger space to work with. The kid finds it absolutely amazing that you keep finding him, and the toothy smile he rewards you with each time is enough to keep you playing.

He only stops to eat dinner that night after you promise you can pick the game up first thing the next morning — which you do, of course. This ends up being the routine for the entirety of the time Mando is gone, and by that time you almost find yourself regretting telling the child about it. You know deep down that you’ll do anything to keep him happy though, so of course that's a lie.

Well, until you can’t find him, at least. Of course, it’s on the day that Mando is scheduled to return that the kid finally finds somewhere new to hide. You had checked all of the usual spots with no results — twice. You didn’t panic at first, using the logic that he was probably just moving around at the same time as you. But after about an hour and a half without so much as a giggle, you start to worry. There's no way he could have gotten off of the ship without the ramp alerting you, and you’re pretty sure he can’t fit inside the walls — but that doesn’t stop you from unscrewing a few panels just in case.

You waste another thirty minutes like that, looking in places you never would have thought he could reach. Even though the Crest is still cooler than usual, you find yourself sweating when you realize you honestly have no idea where he could be. Mando should be back likely within the next few hours, and he’s going to come back to his missing child. He’s going to fucking kill you. He trusts you with one kriffing thing and you somehow screw it up. How do you manage to lose a whole ass child?

Just as you’re about to go up to the cockpit and com for Mando — which is probably a bad idea in retrospect — you hear a soft pang come from behind you. You spin on your heel and walk slowly towards where it came from, trying to open your ears in search of another.

“Kid?” You call out softly and get a coo in response. The relief that washes over you is as if someone dumped a bucket of water on you. You call for him a few more times, inching toward his responding sounds every time he giggles or bangs against something. You feel like a kriffing idiot when you end up at the door or Mando’s bunk. You never even thought to check here. You made a habit of keeping out of there when he’s out, and you didn’t realize the kid had enough strength to open the still-broken door on his own.

You quickly spring into action, putting all your weight into lifting the door and sliding it back, watching as big eyes are slowly revealed to the hull. He doesn’t seem to have hurt himself, but you do notice that there are quite a few drawers and cabinets open. The kid had clearly been digging around, likely looking for something else to play with. You sigh as you take in the small mess he made, knowing you’re going to have to clean it before Mando gets back. For now, though, you need to get the child to bed.

“Oh, honey,” you tell him as you climb into the bunk. “We can’t be in here, sweetie, this is your daddy’s space and I don't think he would appreciate us looking through his things.” You lean down to scoop the kid up, ignoring his adorable babbles of protest. He always gets extra grumpy this time of day, though that's usually a good sign. If he’s grumpy, he’s worn out, and if he’s worn out, he’s tired — making your job of getting him to sleep much easier. You giggle and plant a kiss on his wrinkly little head. “Oh, don’t be mad at me, little man,” you say, stroking one of his comically large ears. “It’s your bedtime anyway.”

Before you leave, you let yourself glance around Mando’s room — the kid isn’t the only one curious about the Mandalorian, and you didn’t get a chance to look around since it was so dark when you had been inside it. You’re almost surprised to see little trinkets linking the shelves above the cot and small signs of wear and tear on the cabinets that tell you the room has been lived in. It's like you had expected everything in the bunk to be completely sterile and unpersonalized — much like the shiny armor he dons 99% of the time. You don’t know why you thought that, it’s kind of a silly assumption. Mando may be a warrior, but he is still a man after all. You shake your head and flip the light off as you retreat back to the hull with the child starting to fall asleep in your arms. Now that you're sure the door won't freeze again, you slide it back down into place.

You only take a few steps into the hull before you hear the kid snoring. He shifts in your arms and you make a point to move as carefully and quietly as you can towards his pram. Thank the maker for the way too hard-core hide-and-seek sessions, this might be the quickest you’ve ever been able to put him to bed. Normally, you have to sit for him for a minute and hum softly or tell him a story before he starts to drift off. Opening the pram, you gently unravel the snoring kid from your arms before placing him into the crib, covering him with a blanket up to his tiny chin. He looks so peaceful that you have the urge to stand there and watch him for a minute, but that plan is surrendered as a shrill pinging noise makes its way through the Crest.

You initially jump as the sound breaks the silence, but quickly calm yourself as you recognize that it’s not a noise the Crest would make. At least you know that there's nothing wrong with the ship itself, but what he actually kriff could that be otherwise? You hit the button to close the kid’s pram before you start to follow the noise. It takes you a moment, but eventually, it starts to get a little louder when you begin retracing your steps to Mando’s cot. For some reason, it almost sounds like the pings are picking up speed with every step you take, each noise coming in faster than the last.

The rapid beeping brings you to a stop in front of Mando’s closed bunk, and you hesitate before lifting the door again. The blaring noise seems to get ten times louder by the time you get rid of the barrier to the room. You push yourself onto the cot and immediately spot the source — a small round object laying by the head of it near where the kid had been rifling through the top drawer. The trinket looked to be too flat to have much wiring involved, so you ruled out the possibility of it being a bomb, Plus, why in Mustafar would Mando ever keep something like that where the kid could reach it — he’s far too careful to do something like that. You know he has a weapons locker, if he ever had a need for an explosive, he would keep it there with his blasters.

You quickly snatch it up and examine it, trying to find some kind of a button. The noise is almost ear-splittingly loud now and the small red light coming from it is blinking in rapid succession. When you can’t find a way to turn it off, you start to panic. Mando told you that the kid’s pram is soundproof, but he didn’t tell you how much it could withstand before sound started to leak through. The last thing you need right now is to have the child crying on your hip as you fumble with the ridiculously loud object. The thought to set it on the ground and crush it beneath your boot crosses your mind, but you shove that idea aside when you think about the fact that it – whatever it may be — belongs to Mando.

You, for one, don’t want to damage any of his property, and, for two, don’t want him to think that it was you snooping through his things when he discovers that it’s missing. Your second idea is to find something to smother it with to dull the sound. Your makeshift cot jumps to mind, the blankets you had stacked on top of each other should work perfectly. You quickly scramble out of the bunk and run over to the corner of the hull where you had set up your space. In your rush to gather the various blankets and sheets, you knock the screaming object out of your grasp, swearing as it hits the ground with a loud thud. But after that — nothing. The kriffing thing finally shut up. You laugh with relief as the usual quiet of the Crest returns, and after a minute your ears slowly stop ringing. The silence is almost biting after having that thing going off for the past five minutes, if not for the generator still working its magic on the floor above you, there would be no sound left at all.

Exasperated after your long day and from the rush of that whole ordeal, you lean back against the wall behind you and let yourself slide down to the floor. You sit staring at the durasteel between your legs for a moment, allowing yourself to bask in the feeling that comes from finally having a moment to yourself. When you look up again, you come face to face with, well, you. You bite back a shout as you slam yourself further into the wall at your back. You are almost nose to nose with what looks to be a holographic picture of your face and upper body. Your confusion only intensifies when you look at the bottom of the holograph, the end tapering into a point that seems to be coming out of the small device from Mando’s room. You quickly scramble to your feet, standing so you can look at the back and sides of the image, which are — as expected — a perfect still of you. You look maybe a few years younger, but there is no mistaking who it was.

Stopping at the back, you reach your hand out and watch, bewildered, as it passes through the back of your head. The questions start to flood your mind, each one causing you to grow more perplexed as you search for an answer. First off, why the fuck did the Mandalorian have a holograph of you hidden in a drawer in his bunk? Second, why did it have to be so kriffing noisy? And why did it get louder and — flashier? — the closer you came to it? You circled the image one more time before you stopped and everything suddenly clicked. You are frozen in place as millions of emotions flood you at once. The anger that pulses through your veins seems to warm your entire body, overwhelming and completely taking over your confusion. The dominant emotion, however, had to be the betrayal that rushes into you and settles hard in your gut. Sure, you might not have known Mando for very long, but you trusted him enough to think that he wouldn’t cause you any harm, or rather, bring you to it.

The object that lay below you is a bounty puck. Your bounty puck.

You feel the blood drain from your face as it really hits you what this means. You need to get out of here, away from Mando. You can feel the panic setting in and you have to make an effort to keep calm when you realize that’s not going to happen anytime soon. You wouldn’t have a chance on your own on this planet, and since Mando is still out, you wouldn’t dare leave the kid — you would let any bounty hunter turn you in before you ever left the child without a guardian. There’s nowhere to run right now, as soon as Mando gets back, you have no doubt that’s exactly what he will do. He’ll set the course to Nevarro and hand you over for some credits.

It’s smart on his part, you’ll give him that. He lets you aboard his ship and quickly earns your trust, letting you watch his kid and have free roam while he picks up a few more bounties. You made it so fucking easy too — so completely oblivious, even throwing in a quick sexual release for him. How could you be so kriffing stupid? It's not your brightest move, trusting a bounty hunter, but he never gave you any reason to mistrust him. Tears begin to blur your vision and you shake your head in an attempt to will them away, but you only succeed in allowing them to fall. No. You can’t cry right now, there's no time. You need to take action before it’s too late. Mando should be back soon and by the time he gets here, you will have to be able to look and act presentable. If he suspects that you know why you’re really here he will probably lock you in carbonite, and if that happens you’ll have no chance at all. Wiping your tears, you take a deep breath and sit back down, staring into your own unmoving eyes as you start to think up a plan.

****

It takes a few hours, but you eventually decide on what you think is the best course of action to ensure your freedom — and survival. The only way you’re possibly going to get out of this situation is to act like everything is normal until Mando lands on a planet with a spaceport. Even if that means waiting for Nevarro, which you know is probably your best bet. As soon as he turns his back, you’ll run for it and hope he doesn’t notice your absence long enough for you to take a ship off-world. As much as you hate it, you will need to know that Mando is on the Crest. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you left the kid behind without knowing if he is being looked after or not. Your heart clenches at the thought of leaving him behind at all, but you can’t just stay around and allow yourself to be sold off to whoever seemed to have wanted you enough to put a bounty on your head in the first place.

You try to think about who might have done such a thing, but you come up empty-handed. You’ve always been a good citizen, never stolen or gotten into a fight. There's not a single reason anybody should be after you, but that’s almost the scariest part. If Mando succeeds in turning you in, what would happen to you? You shudder as you think about living out the rest of your life in a cell or as a slave, likely being beaten and starved.

A sudden noise sounds through the ship for the second time tonight, thankfully not coming from the puck this time. It sounds like the com in the cockpit has been activated, likely Mando calling to tell you he’s close. You freeze up as you think about having to be around him and be normal. Sure, it scares you that he has you right where he wanted you, an easy target. The sting of betrayal, however, easily surpasses the fear. You think back to less than a week ago when you had been so hurt over the fact that he had been ignoring you, and it almost makes you laugh as you think about how fucking pitiful that was compared to how you feel now. This man has caused you nothing but harm and yet you still have a scrap of hope that he’s not who you think he is, that he really didn’t mean any of it. Even though you have the evidence right in front of you, you want to believe that he is a good person.

You may be naive, but you can’t deny the nagging part of your brain that wants you to confront him. You won’t of course, you can’t risk your life over the pathetic part of you that wishes this is all just a misunderstanding. When the ringing in the cockpit picks up again, you stand and walk over to the ladder, climbing until you reach the top floor. Taking a deep breath, you situate yourself in the pilot’s chair, only hesitating a moment before answering the call. A holovid of Mando’s helmet comes into view and you straighten in your seat, your mouth clamped shut, not trusting yourself not to say something stupid that will give you away. Fortunately, you don't have to wait long before he starts talking.

“I have the fuel,” he says, his voice a bit ragged from hiking through the snow non-stop. A stupid part of you feels a pang of worry at the sound of it, wishing you could provide him water to ease his sore throat. You curse yourself and choose to nod instead of verbally responding, knowing that his vambrace is projecting a clear picture of you in front of him. The tension begins to build up the longer you sit on call with him, and you pray to the make that it will be over soon. How in Mustafar do you expect to face this man in person? “I should be back in less than ten minutes, I need you to open up the ramp.” Again, you choose to nod. Thankfully, he doesn’t say any longer than that and ends the call. You don’t realize you had been holding in a breath until it forces itself out of your lungs as soon as his helm is out of sight.

You get right to work with what he asked you to do because that’s what you would do if you didn’t know you were a prisoner, definitely not because you wanted to be helpful. You quickly clamber back down to the hull and rush to the ramp. You had to tie knots with rope in six different places to ensure there was no way for it to come open from the outside since the locking mechanism is still busted after the pirates. You undo the first five without a thought — and then you get to the last one and realize something. The bounty puck is still sitting where you left it, out in the open for anybody to see. Panicked, you leave the last knot secure and bolt to your disheveled cot. You scoop it up and slam your palm over the top, hoping that the holograph will go away — it does, thank the maker. Now you just need to put it back in place before Mando gets back. Of course, though, not everything can go your way.

Halfway to Mando’s bunk, you hear your name called from behind you. Your blood turns to ice in your veins and you freeze into place, expecting to feel Mando come up behind you, unable to get yourself to move. You are still stuck on the spot when you hear your name called again, and that seems to snap you out of your trance. It sounds like Mando is on the ship, he must have pulled the ramp down and snapped the last knot. Thankfully, you seem to come to your senses when you realize that he hasn’t caught you yet, and you make a mad dash to his bunk. It feels like your heart is beating in your throat as you climb in and find the drawer that had been left open. You haphazardly toss the puck in, praying it won’t go off again as you slam the drawer shut and scramble back to the edge of the bunk.

Without looking where you’re going, you throw yourself out of the doorway expecting to feel your feet touch the floor of the hull. What you don't expect is to hit what feels like a brick wall blocking your path. Your eyes widen as you immediately realize that the brick wall you ran into is Mando’s chest plate. It seems like a century goes by before you see him step aside to allow you to climb out of the small room. For now, you decide you will keep your composure. You’re not sure if Mando knew what you were doing or not, but if it’s the latter, you intend to keep it that way. Your ears are ringing with apprehension by the time you plant your feet on the ground and look up at Mando.

“I-i was just,” your mouth starts anxiously blabbing before you can stop it. You feel your face turn red as you find yourself at a loss for words. Mando says nothing but tilts his helmet as if urging you to continue. “I was just looking for the kid's ball,” the lie falls off your tongue fairly smoothly. There is no reason for you to be in Mando’s bunk right now, and you need to cover your tracks however you can. He still doesn’t say anything and you shift your feet, unsure of what to do now.

“You know, t-the little metal one he’s always playing with,” clearly continuing to explain yourself was the wrong move because you’re greeted with silence once again. “Right, well I didn’t find it, obviously, so I'm just going to, uh, go back to my cot,” you point your thumb over your shoulder to the rumpled pile of blankets. Nothing, again. “Okay, um, goodnight, Mando,” you’re sweating by the time you turn to go back to your cot. Smooth. Nice going, fucknut.

That was fucking rough, but it could have been worse. You take it as a sign that Mando is likely still oblivious to the fact that you know about the puck. Your shoulders sag in relief when you hear the sound of his bunk door shutting into place. Fuck that was close. You unfurl your blankets and set them back into place like you were getting ready to go to sleep, though you know there will be one of those until you reach Nevarro. Sure, you might not have much of a chance against Mando, but it increases at least a little bit if you’re awake if he decides the middle of the night would be a good time to cuff you and toss you in carbonite. You shiver at the thought. When the blankets are all in place, you lay down on top of them and turn to face the wall. This way, Mando will assume you’re asleep as per usual, and you will be able to hear if he tries to sneak up on you. A few minutes later, you hear Mando come out of his bunk and mumble something about ‘fueling up’ before exiting the Crest once again.

About ten minutes after that, you feel a gust of cold wind as Mando comes back inside. You listen as he makes his way up the ladder and then turns the generator off in favor of the actual heat. It gets warmer almost immediately, and it makes it a little easier to relax. Before you know it, you feel the Crest being suspended into the air and then a slight dip in temperature, letting you know that you’re finally back in hyperspace. You allow yourself to cry as you get settled in.

****

When Mando finally comes back down from the cockpit the sound of him jumping off the last rung startles you. You hadn’t realized you had almost fallen asleep, but you’re glad the sound snapped you out of it before it was too late. When he starts walking, his footsteps sound like they're coming your way, and you turn around to face him. His pace falters when you move, clearly not expecting it — which is exactly what you had hoped for. He stops a few feet from where you lay, and you look up at him, your heart racing. You sit up slowly and glance at his hands to make sure they’re empty. When you look back up at his helmet, you notice that his body language seems different.

Maybe this is it, he knows that you know, and he’s going to lock you away. You probably left something out of place in the bunk and gave yourself away, that’s the end of that. You’ll wake up in a cell, alone for the rest of your life. You try to quell the panic that swells in your chest and remain calm. Maybe he doesn’t really know and he just came to tell you something insignificant. Fuck, he wouldn’t do that. You’re screwed. You want to trust him so badly, but you know you can’t. You need to hold your ground whatever happens.

He takes another step toward you and you lean back a bit, subconsciously trying to stay as far away from him as possible — though half of you still wants to fling yourself into his arms. You wait for him to say something, averting your gaze as you fiddle with a frayed edge on one of your blankets, but he never does. Assuming he’s waiting for eye contact, you look back up, but he only looks at you for a few seconds before nodding once and turning around. You watch in stunned silence until he disappears back into his bunk.

****

The three days it took to get to Nevarro went by surprisingly fast. You had managed somehow to avoid Mando pretty much the entire time, though that might have something to do with the fact that he stayed locked in his bunk for most of the trip. If you didn’t know any better, you would say that he was trying to avoid you just as much as you were trying to avoid him, but that doesn’t make any sense when you think about it. If anything, he should be trying to keep a better eye on you, with you being his bounty and all. You honestly have no idea why you’re still roaming the ship. If it were you, you would have locked the bounty up at the first opportunity you got. It seems like it would be so much easier to know that the target is secured. Whatever, you aren’t tied up or frozen in carbonite, so nobody’s going to hear you complain.

At least this way you get to play with the kid. You haven’t let him out of your sight since he had gotten into Mando’s bunk and revealed the puck. This way, you get to spend as much time as you can with him before you have to inevitably say goodbye — and you can be sure that he won’t dig up the puck again. You figure if Mando figured out that you knew about it, he would have you in cuffs before you could blink. So far though, you haven’t given him a good reason, or opportunity for that matter, to do so. You have been pretty good about that, at the very least. You had kept up your plan of not sleeping surprisingly well. You go to your cot every night like you would normally, but instead of resting your eyes, you would think of something to keep your brain busy.

Most of the time you would use the time to continue plotting your escape. The safest way to do things, little improvements, how you would get off-world, where you would go when you did, things like that. Sometimes, when you got bored of that, you would think about a memory from your childhood or make up a story in your head. Once you even let yourself indulge in imagining a fantasy where Mando had you locked in cuffs under different circumstances.

That was when you really realized how exhausted you were. How could you still be attracted to the man who is planning on turning you in? Ignorantly, that's how. You keep scolding yourself for the way your stomach flutters every time you see him but it never seems to help. It's almost like your heart hasn’t caught up with the situation at hand. You keep unintentionally holding on to the scrap of hope that this is all just some misunderstanding. Unfortunately, the rational part of you knows that it’s not. You want to hate that part but you listen to it nonetheless.

You’re lying on your cot when you feel the Crest touch down on Nevarro. Upon feeling the jolt, you scramble to your feet and begin checking your belongings. You had collected a good amount of stuff since boarding the Crest, but you only had room for a few articles of clothing and a couple of ration packs. You quickly stuff the clothes into your bag and run to the kitchenette to grab a few packs, determined to get it all done before Mando comes back down from the cockpit. You don’t look at what you're grabbing as you put them into your sack, only making sure that you leave enough for it not to look suspicious if Mando decides to check the stash before leaving.

You’re back on your cot, thank the maker, by the time he comes back down to the hull. Your heart is pounding and you can barely hear through the rush in your ears, but you manage to look calm — as calm as you can anyway. It seems good enough for Mando because he ignores you, as usual, and goes to his cot to retrieve the kid. Once he is out of sight, you look at the ramp, wondering if you should chance it now. If you opened it, it would be loud enough to alert Mando and there is no way he won’t catch you if he realizes what you’re doing so soon. You don’t get much of a chance to consider it anyway because he’s back out in the hull before you can properly plan an out.

“I’m going to go meet with Karga.” You nod at him, watching as he hands the kit a piece of dried Bantha meat. “I need you to stay on the ship while I’m gone, there will be a crew coming to retrieve the bounties from the carbonite chambers, but nobody else should bother you.” You nod again, slightly confused by the fact that he’s practically giving you a warning. “I need to hear you say it, it’s important that you understand that you have to stay here.”

“Okay, Mando, I’ll stay on the ship.” You hope to the maker that your voice sounds convincing enough for him to leave it alone. It does. Mando nods before pressing a button on his vambrace to open the ramp. He doesn’t spare you a last glance as he walks down the gangway and closes it behind him. The breath of relief you let out when you’re left alone is almost loud enough to make you jump. You only wait until you can be sure Mando is far enough away from the ship to not be able to hear you open the ramp before you slip away.

**** Thank you for reading!!

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the-epic-hiram-lows · 3 months ago

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Archie time! I will do this even though the board itself was mysteriously removed from the post (should I re-upload it, or keep it as an esoteric limited edition item?) Haters are fuming. For extra context, you might want to see the boneless version, which shows the original photos without color edits but still cropped.

As always, commentary is L-R, top to bottom.

This idea came so easily and so vividly to me that I almost feel like I can't take credit for it. It took surprisingly little time to find a good font as well. As for the meaning of it, I think it's pretty much what it says on the literal tin. Archie is often bruised, literally and figuratively, throughout the series. More often than not, the situations that bruise him were never his situations in the first place. He has a huge martyr complex- both a cause and effect of his need for psychic bandages.

As I noted earlier in this series, I told myself that using photos of the actual source material was cheating. After breaking that rule with Jughead, I wanted to double down on this (which I successfully did on Veronica's, whose board I started before Archie's,) but had to fold here. Aside from the fact it is nearly impossible to find a photo that looks like these four, how do you Archie Andrews from Riverdale? You cannot do so meaningfully. I chose this specific photo for three reasons. Firstly, of course, that it fit the color palette. Secondly, it looks like a memory. Thirdly, the way Archie is breaking the fourth wall of the photo. He is present in the moment but acknowledging the people off-screen looking back. While this is textually more of a Jughead thing, Archie is Riverdale. This is a subtle representation of the thin veil between Riverdale the universe and Riverdale the product. Its increasingly meta nature. In terms of composition, I didn't crop faces out, which would normally be my instinct. It didn't feel right. Archie wouldn't obscure the faces of his friends. They are everything to him- one of the reasons the picture is in the center row.

I originally found this quote doing research for Veronica's board. I thought it was very interesting from an 'abusive father intentionally makes himself vital to child to feed his narcissism' type of way, but at second glance I read it as mournful. This was almost certainly what the creator intended, but the context in which I found it confused my perspective. This is, of course, a tribute to Fred. A summary of Archie's psyche would be incomplete without one.

When I saw this pin, I thought 'Archie!' The original photo was lackluster, so I spent 2-3 hours photoshopping this pin onto a Riverdale varsity jacket. I eventually reached photorealism, where someone would easily accept there is a pin on that jacket, but at that point it didn't catch the eye. I had to sacrifice some realism for the sake of the mood board. After another hour or so, it is exactly Fine. In the end, nobody mentioned the jacket either way. Maybe that means I did a good enough job that no one consciously noticed it. Maybe it means I did all that for nothing. Who's to say? Either way, this pin is a bit off when you consider my intentions of representing Archie's psyche. This is something Archie hears, but doesn't say. I kind of justified it to myself by saying he would wear this as a way to laugh at those who think he is a fawn who should stay out of danger, but... I don't know. Maybe the fourth wall gets one panel as a treat? The more I think about it, the more I think I wasted that photoshop time on something that betrays my thesis statement.

Not my best work!

Firstly, let's call it like it is- this is, for the most part, a filler image. However, within that, I did have reasoning! Though it isn't ever alluded to through dialogue or camera work, Archie does have quite the thing for Converses. He often wears them throughout the series, and seems to have a good amount of variety in his collection. But, beyond that, Converses have been a staple of the American teen for generations. Archie, as we often state, is a representation of Americana. Though Converses are often seen in modernish counter culture, they also have a sincere athletic-but-not-an-athlete charm.

The first image I had for Archie, saved days (even weeks) before I committed to making a mood board for him. This is, again, less about his brain and more about him as an abstract. I will kick myself about that later. Actually, pretend I never stated this was supposed to be a psychological study. Pretend I said it was mostly focused on his psyche, but not entirely. Thanks. Anyway, this is embodies season one Archie. Pre-pilot Archie, even. Considering the fact Archie turned 16 during his affair with Grundy, the text stings even more.

Nothing I say about this picture will be as well-worded as @hauntingattheblackberrypatch's brilliantly apt observations on it, but nevertheless I persist. I immediately fell in love with the symbolism. In so many ways, and for some many reasons, Archie fights with his heart. When we examine physical fights Archie gets in, they are often matters of the heart. He is never violent without deeply emotional violation. He often uses his physicality on someone else's behalf- his way of showing he cares. Instead of a sleeve, Archie wears his heart on his boxing glove. There are probably dozens of layers to this sentiment that range from the fully literal interpretation I gave to an entirely psychological one, several steps removed from Archie's conscious thoughts. I think the visual provides enough for the viewer to pick and choose their metaphors, and they would probably be correct in their interpretation. If you saw the boneless board, you might have noticed I swapped the background of this photo. The plain background made me focus too much on the first and not enough on the heart, so to speak. It felt too cold. I wanted warmth, texture, and sentiment. I went with a photo of yellow flowers. Though they don't really read as flowers, the effect is there.

A view from inside the diner. Another fond memory. Or, if you choose, a stock photo chosen for its generic Americana charm. (It's both.)

Broad notes now! Like I said in the original post, I did this board instead of sleeping. I finished it about five minutes before my alarm went off and I had to get out of bed.

I wasn't 100% positive about the color scheme I'd end up with going in, but I knew I wanted Americana and primary colors, and I knew Archie's board would be less muted. I wanted it to feel like nostalgia in its least cynical form.

#asks #my edits #directors commentary #abuse mention #csa mention

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swearyshera · 2 years ago

Note

Weird thing to focus on but thank you for not putting a 4th wall break in this scene. I saw someone a while ago say Sweary Entrapta might play off how quickly the apology came in canon with something like "Yeah I forgive you. We've gotta stay on message." Basically some kind of nudge or jab at how easily Canon Entrapta lets Catra off the hook because plot. I was worried cuz it'd be very easy for it to come off as the sort of spiteful "take that" *I'd* write in towards a part of the series I didn't like if I were abridging it like this, and generally me knowing i would write something a particular way is how I know that way would be awful. This feels much more mature and satisfying while deviating from the intention of canon hardly at all. Wonderful work.

Interestingly, the last two panels changed several times. Originally, Entrapta had said "You can't change what you did, but you can change this moment and the next one. And if you ever need help with that, there's a ship full of people out there". Which I liked as a general line, but it just didn't feel quite right as an Entrapta line - it seemed a little too 'motivational poster' and not quite right.

The second version, which almost made it up, did have a fourth wall break of sorts. Entrapta said something like "One of the key messages on this blog is that you can always try to be better, and if you want to try, we're all here to help." Which isn't quite the same as the type of jab-at-the-original you mentioned, but it did still have that feel of 'this is undercutting the scene' that bugged me for about a day after I wrote that.

The final version you saw was a very late edit, I think it was about three or four hours before the post went up. And I think it's a nice mirror to how Glimmer reacted to an apology - whereas Glimmer wouldn't accept it but still wanted to move forward, Entrapta did accept it and she did so as part of moving forward. I guess there's one more person to apologise to, but we won't see how Scorpia takes it until the very end.

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spyxfamilysmol · 1 year ago

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Identity reveal! Blog mod is anime only! Kind of.

Why the bullet-in-butt date then, I hear you ask. That's because it's the only manga chapter I've read that hasn't been adapted yet, courtesy of it being as early as in the third volume. I read the manga and watched the anime pretty much side-by-side, I came by this chapter, and from the first page I was like, wait this hasn't happened in the anime yet. From the second page I was like, no come on I gotta read this.

But since then I've been staying away from spoilers, kicking and screaming all throughout. Making this blog has been a relief from the months of no content for my stubborn ass.

Because of that, there won't be any panels from chapters past chapter 38, the last one that was animated. There's about 200 posts in the queue, scheduled to post four times a day up until the end of August, but I thought I could say this now to prepare y'all for the sudden way the posts will stop coming.

After that, the blog will go on hiatus until a few episodes from the second season have aired. I like shuffling the posts and the order they come out in, so I want more than one chapter to work with. It's also likely that the first episode of season two will be the bullet-in-butt date, screenshots from which have already appeared here, so that will probably move my re-emergence one week further.

If you're wondering if I'm that other very stubborn anime-only but very passionate fan you might have heard about... yes. I'm @piracytheorist. Hi.

I'm sorry :D There's enough content in the blog to last almost two months, and I'll be back after that, I promise, I ain't quitting y'all. Thank you for engaging and giving worth to this little blog <3

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thelunarfairy · 1 year ago

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Hii again1!!1 xd Goodnight, since I'm typing this at night.. And we have the same timezones so- Uhh Good morning? You'll probably read it tomorrow... It's midnight rn so-- alrr i'll get to the point now...

I said this before in one of my posts, but I wanted to hear ur thoughts about it so- (if u want to talk about it ofc xd)

About the hand that appears misteriously in chapter 101... I've been thinking about chapter 106 and while reading your last post about it...

"A voice beckons from the darkness" (What chapter is this, by the way? I completely forgot about it- I just stole that image from your last post lol)

"But whatever you do, you mustn't respond."

Those 2 phrases parallels those 2 panels so much- I don't know if it's just a coincidence or really something to take in, but it's just something that I noticed while reading your post xd

The hand that appears to Kou reminds me of the Twins' hand to be completely honest (fingers that seems a lil' bit more larger than the others), while the hand that appears to Nene reminds me of hers (delicate fingers) xD But then again, just like u said; it might just be Aida's style of drawing the girls' and boys' hands.

Ohwell-

Have a good night, afternoon, or day! <3

Hello again :DDD how are you? hahaha you got it right I only read it this morning

"A voice beckons from the darkness, but whatever you do, you mustn't respond."

Wow you made an amazing association here, I really liked this because it makes total sense! The hand appeared out of complete nothingness and disappeared in the same way. Yashiro answered her and this voice came bringing a bad omen (even the title of chapter 101 is called an omen, this is the chapter in which the hand appears), an accident that happened and which apparently could happen again.

If this was the consequence of her responding (the accident) then it could happen again. I've been thinking about what kind of accident it would be. In the other post I talked about the big clock that broke, but I stopped to think about something today.

I thought about the possibility of this accident being directly related to the twins' deaths, but it didn't seem to make much sense.

Apparently, the twins were 12 years old at the time of the flashback festival, as they are in the first year of middle school (in Japan the first year class is made up of 12 year old students) but Yugi doesn't live long enough to the next festival as they die at the age of 13, shortly after July 22nd before the summer holidays. Amane does not kill Tsukasa anywhere near the school festival. So this could rule out the hypothesis

But what if this accident was responsible for making Amane decide to kill Tsukasa? The festival is directly linked to the twins and Tsukasa told Nene that he would show her more about Amane when he reappeared to her. So he will show it to her during the festival because it is related to Amane's past.

Have you ever thought how crazy it would be if Tsukasa was ordering Amane to fix the clock just to show Nene about Hanako's past? XD (just a joke)

Now I have this in my head, is the accident related to the motivation or the death of the twins? (there are thousands of other hypotheses, omg) hahahaha

Yes the mysterious hand resembles Amane's when she pokes Yashiro, but it later resembles a girl's in the second panel, so it remains mysterious.

Note. The chapter where Hanako's hand appears before Amane tries to make Kou faint is 50

I hope you liked it, thanks for the ask! ;)

#jibaku shounen hanako kun #hanako kun #hanakokun #jshk #toilet bound hanako kun #amane yugi #jshk spoilers #tbhk #yugi twins #aidairo #jshk hanako #jibaku shoujo hanako kun #jibaku shonen hanako kun fanart #hanako anime #yugi amane #yugi tsukasa #tsukasa yugi

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detailtilted · 8 months ago

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Next Enhanced Video In Process - CHICON 2008

WARNING: Heavy camera flashes below.

I thought I'd post an update in case anyone's curious. After finishing Comic-Con 2008, I moved on to CHICON 2008. The videos for the main panels are decent and they're upscaling nicely, but you'll all hate the quality of the Breakfast video. I'm doing that one first.

I made some improvements to the originals which are explained and shown below, but I couldn't upscale them. Jared came out ok, probably because he was closer to the camera, but even the most light-handed approach distorted Jensen's features too much.

However, one thing I improved were the flashes. The original videos are nuts. Flashes have been bad on other videos too, but I think the lighting in the room made them stand out worse here. I was afraid they'd give someone a seizure or something so I found a way to reduce them. I probably won't do this again on other videos because I used a free trial that expired and I've already put way too much money into software for this pet project. I don't think it'd work as reliably on the less dramatically flashy videos anyway, but I may reconsider the purchase if I encounter more videos like this down the road.

I also tried to do some color corrections, but it's erratic. Suppressing the flashes doesn't change the real life effect they had on the lighting in the room. Maybe that's why the color correction settings I applied didn't have consistent results throughout the video. I separated out some longer segments of drastically different colors and fixed them independently, but there was just too much fluctuation. Individually analyzing and correcting all 37,440 frames is way beyond the scope of this project (and my patience) and would probably require more lifetimes than I have.

Anyway, I wanted to post a short comparison video so people can see the difference. I think when people just see the enhanced video by itself they'll be like, "this sucks!" I was hoping people might not hate it as much if they've seen how it originally looked. I think the "enhanced" version, once I publish it, will be the best version that's been posted to date, even if it's still crappy.

This video has three 30-second samples:

Original version of Breakfast video.

My modified version.

Sample of upscaled main J2 panel to prove it will get better again after the Breakfast video. (No flashes removed. You can see them, but I think they're less painful.)

I've also made other adjustments that aren't seen in that sample:

The best-quality video has interruptions because the video taker also took pictures. This caused the frame to freeze and the sound to cut out. When possible, I edited in an alternate lower-quality video at those moments. I also edited in the alternate video to cover brief segments missing in the main videos.

The only other video that has the 1st two minutes is one where the video taker was scared to be too obvious about what they were doing and so recorded their legs and random non-J2 objects instead. 😂 But it was still helpful, because I substituted that video's audio in for the sections that cut out on the primary video due to the picture taking. We'll still have a few freeze frames in the first two minutes, but at least we can hear what was going on.

Speaking of hearing, there were some truly ear-shattering screams when Jared and Jensen first came out. I lowered the volume a little in those moments to save your ears some trauma.

This breakfast video will be the next one I release, but my video releases will be increasingly slow. I have something going on in real life that's eating up most of my spare time and will probably continue to do so off and on for most of this year. Nothing bad, just very time-consuming. This is a shorter video though, and I'm already well into the work on it, so hopefully it won't take too long.

#enhanced edition con video development #more DetailTilted rambling

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sapphicsobstory · 3 months ago

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I rewrote the MHA ending in my head

Okay so, I posted this first on Reddit. Idk why, I'm mostly a lurker and I'm not aware of how anything works, but I wanted to put this on Tumblr cuz this is MY HELLSCAPE AND I DECIDE WHAT GOES HERE.

I don't think I have many MHA fans as my mutuals, but hopefully this reaches people who might want to see this.

________________________

Now, I should start by saying, I could be completely tweaking here, I have no clue how to end stories usually. And this entire idea came to me when I woke up at 05:30 AM. But what I'm going for in this scenario is to change as little about the final chapter to try to reconcile what is and what could be.

So, if you hate the ending, tell me if this is better. If you like the ending, tell me if this is even slightly more preferable.

The first thing I would change overall is the inconsistency about Deku losing his powers that early on in the story. The embers would have only gone out maybe a month or two prior to when this picks up.

Also, Dai's personal scenes don't need changing as this is an unfamiliar character, so we don't really know anything about them.

Keep everything up to the discussion with Aizawa the same as it is, except one small change. On page 6 (only including storyboarded pages), instead of using "Uravity" in his narration, Deku uses "Uraraka-san", but uses everyone else's hero names.

In his discussion with Aizawa, after they talk about Bakugo and Todoroki:

AIZAWA: Do you feel lonely?

DEKU (instead of having a muted expression, Deku looks conflicted): Well, yes. But years ago when you were talking to Fuwa-senpai, I thought to myself... "Even if I go back to being Quirkless, all I have done would not be in vain (mirroring Mirio's words from the Overhaul fight). My experience could still be handy to encourage other people." I think that's pretty cool in a way. Do you think I'm cool Sensei? (Maybe in this panel make him do the All Might Face)

AIZAWA: (one panel of silence or (...) as he evaluates the words of his student) I wish you were stricter with your students. That's important you know?

Nothing else changes about the scene, because giving a non-compliment would be very much Aizawa's style, and I think Deku's reaction to that could be made funnier with a more defeated but funny expression without making the scene seem heavy. Basically, I'm trying to lighten the mood of the scene as it doesn't fit well in context, and I feel like Deku needs to be either better at hiding his loneliness and sadness, and/or effectively a little more goofy as a teacher to get it across the page that he's not in a 9 to 5, day-in day-out kinda job, but actually finds his own way to enjoy it.

I don't want to change much about Deku's interaction with Dai, except maybe put in a couple of more humourous panels. Like, Deku saves the kid and Dai just freaking drags his face across the pavement trying to get there, and just doesn't move for a couple of seconds. Maybe we could redo the Gran Torino bit of "HE'S DEAD" followed by Dai immediately sitting up and saying "I'm fine", and Deku shrieking "HE'S ALIVE".

Also the smile Deku gives Dai at the end of their interaction, I would have made it a little brighter. Instead of the normal smile, maybe have his eyes crease like when he does a smile when he fights All Might in the final exam. This to show that Deku still does understand that a hero's job doesn't end on the battlefield (Not very attached to this change, ngl). And then he narrates what he narrates about encouraging others, and blah blah. But the scene doesn't cut to UA building immediately.

Then the chapter doesn't end there. Here's where I want to extend the chapter to give us a little more of what we thoroughly deserved: Uraraka.

Deku returns to his place of residence (house/apartment) and finds Urakaka standing there with a trolley/sitting on her trolley, depending on which one looks better in drawn form. She's not in her hero uniform, but we could depict her wearing Deku merch, depends on the level of tootache that shounen writers would be okay with. He's little surprised to see her, but not that much.

DEKU: Urakaka-san, I didn't expect you back so soon! (He could call her by name, but it fits Deku and Ochako's character more that they still use their childhood monikers for each other)

OCHAKO: Tadaima! Thought I'd surprise you! Although I forgot to pack my keys when I left.

DEKU: Okaeri! Good thing I'm home early then.

(Scene cuts to later they're both in their home, preferably having coffee/hot chocolate on the couch)

OCHAKO: Deku-kun... I'm sorry I couldn't be here when the embers--

DEKU: You don't need to apologise about it Uraraka-san! There was no way we could have known when it was going to happen. I knew I was running on low for a while, but it's not exactly science, you know!

OCHAKO: Still! I know you told me to not cut my tour short, but you needed me here.

DEKU: (While looking thoughtful) Uraraka-san, did I ever tell you what part of One For All made it the strongest quirk?

[My brain really REALLY wanted to enter a dirty joke here about Uraraka saying she liked Black Whip the most for obvious reasons, but that's obviously never going to happen in a shounen manga.]

OCHAKO: No. What made it strong?

DEKU: Every user that I talked to inside of One For All told me their quirk was weak, or that its power had been bolstered by it, or that the stockpiling power inside One For All was what made it so strong over the years.

[Scene cuts to the different OFA owners inside of Deku's soulspace]

DEKU: I've come to realise that that's exactly what humans do. We stockpile all the experiences and skills that we develop, to have it passed down to the next generation. The collection of everything we've sweat for, bled for... All the emotions that we've felt... Those are passed on to next person in line. That's how our strength as a society grows. That's how our lineage as a species grows. And that's how our hopes and dreams turn into reality.

(Turns towards Ochako)

DEKU: I believe in what I'm doing. Even if with the reduced hero capacity makes it so that I can't do hero work again, that's fine with me. I want to pass on every experience I had to my students. Every day I spent living my dream as the greatest hero, with all of you... All of those memories... I wish to pass on all of it. From One [Panel of Deku's face] to All [Panel of Deku's UA Class].

OCHAKO: And that's exactly why, you're my greatest hero. [HAND-HOLDING INITIATED. YES I KNOW THIS IS CORNY AND CRINGE, NO I DO NOT APOLOGISE.]

OCHAKO: But... I didn't tell you yet why I am home early.

And then we can have All Might burst into their home from the front door instead of the setting being at the airport with his whole "I am here" shtick. OCHAKO smiles as she seems to be aware what this interruption is for. We do lose the funny but awesome bit about All Might crushing "END" to pieces, but it's worth it. And the scene continues as is, for most part.

I just want more panels drawn with characters that are mentioned in the conversation.

TOSHINORI: It was created by a friend from the US [panel of Dave and Melissa] along with young Hatsume [panel of Hatsume] and funded by the Class A, and young Bakugo at the heart of it!

TOSHINORI: The secret's out! Your body still moves on its own, right?

And we cut out the next line about how this is an "earned" power. Instead of that;

TOSHINORI: It's time kid! Clench your buttocks, and remember the old school motto! (No need to say it here, fans would fill in the blanks themselves, making them relate more to this part of the chapter).

HAWKS: (change the panel to make it seem like he's giving an interview) Do we have more "time to kill" than before? Heh. In a way. It's more so that we have more time to do the things we want to do to make lives better. Both ours, and for those who we protect. (Ik it comes off feeling like a little bit bootlicky when compared to what real life people say about Cops and such, I want to rewrite these few lines later). A landslide at Starwar highway is messing with the traffic. Requesting help from heroes!

[Huge panel of all our Class A heroes run out together, Toru with them, visible but turning invisible along with her clothes. We can explain later in an omake about how her clothes are made with her hair like Mirio.]

This is the story of how all of us will keep reaching our hands out forever.

THE END

So, yeah. I know it's long af and they would have to put in a few more pages to fit it. But idk I feel like this would not only justify Deku's current job, it would give us the IzuOcha we deserved (that I'm sure was cut out coz editors don't like to take away from other shippers so that they can keep selling merch), and it would correct some, if not all, character writing inconsistencies. And we COULD cut out the specialized suit thing coz many people want to see Batman Deku, but realistically I wanted to change as little as possible while adding some stuff. Plus the world does canonically say that only the best of the best are becoming heroes. So I think a retired pro-hero (who is also a war hero) trying to use ingenuity and skill to get by vs a retired pro-hero that wears a suit the cost of which is equal to a small country's GDP and few of the top heroes even contributed to that cost... It would be harder for the government to ask Deku to not do hero work in the second scenario.

Tell me what you think!

#my hero academia #mha #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #bnha ending #chapter 430 #izuocha #mha deku

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ingravinoveritas · 1 year ago

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So I have question and I thought maybe you would have insights. I'm not British or American, so maybe things work differently than I understand. Michael's new drama on BBC Best Interests had started this week. I was surprised there was no interview with Michael about it from what I've seen. Usually when a TV show go on air there are at least some articles or talk shows with the main actors, so why he is so silent? He also didn't post anything about it or good omens s2, which also made me a bit worried. I know he's directing a series now but I expected he would at least post something about them. I don't want to be pessimistic but I'm preparing myself for a letdown with GO s2 promoting. Neil already said something about the fact that second seasons don't get the same level of events if I remember correctly, and he wouldn't be able to promote it due to the strike, and I was really excited about all the new Michael and David content we will get but what if there will be nothing almost? Is it a possibility? If best interests isn't being promoted by him maybe GO will not be promoted too? That will break my heart a little.

(Also I saw one episode of BI and I thought it was interesting, moving and Michael and the actor who played his wife were incredible. It is such a different character for him, his range is truelly incredible).

Hello, Anon! Again, apologies for being a bit delayed in answering this, but I appreciate you writing in to me.

So yes, Michael's show Best Interests did air a few weeks ago (I've seen almost all of the episodes and am hoping to write a review of it as I make my way through all my Anons). I can tell you that he actually did do some interviews for it--this one here in the Guardian, and this one in the Telegraph, and there might have been others that I've missed, though @invisibleicewands would probably know for sure.

I think there are a couple of things that happened with these interviews, which is that any promotion to BI unfortunately got overshadowed by the clickbait headline on the Telegraph article that ultimately led to a few clashes on Twitter between Michael and Laurence Fox (Billie Piper's ex, of all people?) about Michael's comments related to non-Welsh actors playing Welsh roles. So that, along with Michael continuously working on The Way (the series he was directing) nonstop is what I think kept him off of social media up until now.

(I will say, though, that it is curiously worth noting that Michael didn't do any kind of promotion for Staged 3, and all of that seemed to fall to Georgia and AL to repeatedly post about on their socials instead...)

As for GO 2, yes, it is true that the Writers' strike and possible impending SAG strike have thrown multiple wrenches into the proceedings (for instance, the GO 2 panel that was to have taken place at SDCC has been cancelled, as has the signing that was scheduled there). But there have already been snippets from an interview with Michael and David in SFX magazine floating around (along with another article in Radio Times that has invoked the ire of much of the fandom). Also, with any luck, you've been on Twitter today, because our Michael seems to have returned to form with a vengeance. His header photo is now one of the GO 2 photos of Aziraphale and Crowley:

And he's been tweeting up a gloriously chaotic storm this evening, after months and months of silence (and probably being locked up in Neil's basement):

My guess is that whatever kept Michael from talking before now--probably an NDA, per the contract he signed for the second season--has expired, and now he's coming out swinging. I've previously talked about the kinds of things Michael tweeted when the first season came out, but if you weren't here for that, it was basically a level of feral that he seemed to strive to surpass with every successive tweet. Given how much has happened since then, I think we are in for fandom-breaking tweets the likes of which probably go far beyond what any of us have imagined.

And--perhaps best of all--we do have one confirmed talk show appearance with Michael and David, on the One Show on BBC 2 tomorrow! (I've gotten an intriguing Anon about that as well, which I will be answering shortly.) So take heart, Anon, for all is undoubtedly not lost. It's likely that these interviews were planned well in advance, which means there could also be more interviews still to come. This press tour may not have the breadth and scope of the first season, but if Michael and David together, it's more than guaranteed to be something special.

I hope this has lifted your spirits some, Anon. Thank you for writing in! xx

#anonymous #reply post #michael sheen #welsh seduction machine #good omens 2 #best interests #the go 2 press tour is going to be a ride #i cannot wait for the flirting #michael and david are back together #you love to see it #ineffable lovers #discourse

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natsubeatsrock · 17 days ago

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Takeaways from Mashima Panel at NYCC '24

Much has been said about Mashima's third trip to NYCC. The stars have aligned for me to make it to the panel with him. I've been going to Comic-Con for years at the Big Apple. I wasn't able to make it to his second trip right after FT ended. Of course, it wasn't as if I missed anything special or potentially controversial.

However, I was already going to Comic-Con this year when Crunchyroll announced they would be hosting a creator panel with Mashima on the Main Stage. I made sure to register my spot for the panel the moment it was available to me.

So, how was it?

Overall, it was an interesting panel. The focus was heavily on Fairy Tail’s sequel. I get that Fairy Tail is easily Mashima's most popular work. He even admitted that it's his favorite for connecting him with people around the world. Still, it's weird to focus on only Fairy Tail. EZ just ended this year, he's been publishing Dead Rock, and he's designing the art for yet another game. Then again, Crunchyroll is streaming the sequel to the anime, so they've got reasons for this.

My biggest complaint would be the moderator. He is a fan of Rave, but his knowledge of Fairy Tail felt lacking. He had to be corrected by fans on the pronunciation of character names. This wouldn't be as big a deal if his company wasn't streaming the show. I don't know if it's a lack of professionalism, but I expected better from Crunchyroll.

Make no mistake, this was the highlight of my con experience. It felt like the whole event was building to this and it didn't disappoint. We got to sit closer to the front than other panels. The only rule was no video of the event. Hopefully, the Crunchyroll ninjas don't come after this post.

I wasn't expecting Mashima to be a big Ichiya fan. I get that you feel for different characters at different times. Given plenty of things, it wasn't the most shocking thing to hear he's Mashima's current favorite. Still, I wouldn't have thought he'd like Ichiya as much as he seemed to. He even said he'd try to get him on the cover of the next game.

I saw several people at the venue writing down the responses for every question asked for him. When I started making this post, I didn't intend to do that. It's not a matter of not caring about Mashima's input. I didn't need to write about every question. There were two questions about the ships. (Will the ships get more development and who should Cana end up with?)

However, I would be remiss to not mention my favorite questions from the panel. Keep in mind, the answers and questions aren't exactly what was said. However, I've tried to keep everything as accurate as possible.

First, the question that has been getting the most buzz.

What inspired friendship as a major theme in Fairy Tail?

It came from my loneliness. I have no friends.

Yeah. I don't blame anyone for getting this out before other questions.

Some people have noted that Mashima has talked about his friends in creating Fairy Tail. I happen to believe one of two things are at work. For one, it's possible this is more exaggeration than not. He has colleagues and some of his former assistants have become successful mangaka. To that point, he's mentioned how motion sickness was inspired by a friend of his. While he might not be extremely close with people, he might have more people around him than he's led on.

The second opinion is slightly more tragic. It's possible that, in creating so many series, he's been further isolated from the friends he's had. He's been a mangaka for close to 25 years. For perspective, SpongeBob also turns 25 this year. (I went to their panel before the Mashima Panel.) I don't think it's impossible to be lost in his work. Even with his famed work schedule and light-hearted mood with assistants, it wouldn't shock me to find out his social life has suffered.

Either way, this puts the emphasis on friendship in a new light. Since Fairy Tail ended, I've noted that the series is about the relationships inside the guild and how valuable they are. No wonder Mashima writes this as both an incredible motivating force and near-infinite power source. If you don't have that in your life as much as you want, you might feel better writing in your work. Writers have written their wishes and desires in their works forever. Mashima's far from the first, and he definitely won't be the last.

Now, let's get to my question.

That's right. I got to ask a question. If you went to the panel, I was the second question in the Silk cosplay. I made sure to emphasize my love for Natsu and Lucy's friendship. (Ironically, this was right before the questions about ships.) Of course , I also thanked him for his work. I can't say that my life would be better without his works, despite my complaints.

Are there any characters you wish you could have done more with across your works?

Master Zero (Brain from Oracion Seis) in Fairy Tail

I tried to lead Mashima towards taking about Lisanna or the Black Airs from Monster Soul, but this isn't a bad alternative. Funny how the anime gave him the connection to Ultear, which I noted years back. However, we didn't see much of him after losing to Jellal in Tartarus. There's no real telling what he might be up to now.

Does that mean he might show up during the sequel? I doubt it. I'm not quite caught up, but the Strongest Team is in a spot where I doubt he can be a factor. I say that and God Serena came back into the picture. Who knows?

Do you have advice for artists?

Grow in empathy for the world around you.

Creator panels at conventions are always good sources for encouragement for budding creatives. This is no exception.

This reminds me of Mashima's position not to truly resurrect characters. Questionable applications aside, that's an easy way to show value of life. Once a life is truly lost, they don't just come back. {Insert FMA spoilers here}

There's plenty of things to be inspired by. Mashima has mentioned inspiration for Fairy Tail coming from anywhere. He could be going about his day and an idea would come for Fairy Tail. Personally, my favorite creative ideas come from the hearing or seeing something and adding my own spin to it.

It's helpful to go outside and engage the world around you.

Gray has resorted to using Iced Shell multiple times throughout the series. When will the poor boy stop?

Eventually.

To Gray's credit, he's been better about wanting to die since the main series ended. It pains me to admit that Gruvia is an important source for this. Still, if he's not going to try some new kind of Iced Shell, Gruvia might not be the worst outcome possible.

Now, if Mashima writes the ship differently…

Will Romeo get more development?

If he's popular with fans.

This is similar to what I've said about minor characters over the years. That said, I believe you know what to do if you're a Romeo fan.

Is there anything you find hard to draw consistently?

One of Erza's armor, which he forgets every time.

This is another question Mashima has answered in the past. It's not like I blame him for this one. It's worth mentioning that he's never had issues with the Fairy Tail anime. Speaking of which…

Will we ever see the Rave Master anime return?

Mashima is more interested in animating his newer works, but maybe in the future.

It's sad to hear, but it makes sense. Right now, EZ’s third season is in development, along with the sequel. Dead Rock will probably get animated eventually. I get not pushing for another shot at Rave.

Then again, you never know. There are always surprising announcements for old and new anime. Maybe some producer and director are hellbent on revisiting Rave as an anime and we’ll find out about it. Perhaps Crunchyroll or Netflix will be willing to bankroll the production of an updated Rave Master. Time will tell.

Why Western influence for Lucy's magic instead of more Eastern spirits?

Mashima is a fan of Saint Seiya. In that show, there are powers based on the Zodiac signs. He was disappointed to see how his sign Taurus was treated in the show. He wanted to make weaker signs from there strong in my series.

Mashima really emphasized his love for Dragon Ball, but this was a cooler revelation. Saint Seiya has a legendary status among older anime. Seeing that it influenced one of the coolest forms of magic is interesting to hear. Maybe I'll have to get into Saint Seiya to compare the spirits.

By the way, the last question came from a Lucy cosplayer who wanted to know if the spirits were based on personal interpretations of the signs. She was disappointed by Cancer, and Mashima joked that it specifically was intentional. At least I hope it was a joke.

As a Capricorn, I love the spirit and wish it was used more. I still wish the Star Dress was a pantsuit.

One more question.

When did you get the idea to make the sequel?

It wasn't my original plan, but I was convinced to do it.

To the surprise of no one paying attention, Mashima didn't originally plan to write the sequel. It seemed obvious to me that Mashima wasn't planning to continue Fairy Tail after it ended. All indications were that he wanted to end the series and work on what would be EZ. The Century Quest didn't seem like something we needed clarification on. If you read the posts I made between the series ending and the sequel being announced, I figured we were done with more Fairy Tail. Dragon Cry would come out and we'd get the last season of the anime. Then, we'd be done with the series.

However, I couldn't have imagined what the sequel has become. It's outlasted EZ and might even outlast Dead Rock. The scope of even the first couple arcs blew the series more open than expected going into the sequel.

For all the hate it gets, Fairy Tail is objectively a successful franchise. It's one of the most well-recognized anime in the world and has sold millions of copies worldwide. Considering Fairy Tail's success as a franchise, it makes sense that the Kodansha suits would want more of the series.

That said, having more of Fairy Tail isn't the worst thing ever. It cleared up much of the loose ends left by the main series. Much of what we've seen is satisfying fan service. (The good kind of fan service.) Jellal’s close to joining Fairy Tail. The Gajevy twins are on the way. The return to Edolas was worth the wait. Even Irene’s happy ending was nicer than I expected. There are plenty of other things I don't like, but other fans have enjoyed. People like seeing the Edolas kids and Gruvia development.

At the very least, Nalu still isn't canon.

In Conclusion:

When is Mashima coming back to the Big Apple?

#fairy tail #hiro mashima #nycc 2024 #yes i'm late by multiple weeks #life has been busy #haters will say this is fake

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