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dilfdoctordoom · 3 years ago

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On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism

I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021.

I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.

Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.

So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that.

He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.

That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.

On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.

Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.

To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.

There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.

It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.

When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.

[IMAGE ID: A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]

Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.

Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.

When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:

[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]

This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.

Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).

[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]

What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.

But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.

Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.

The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.

Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.

This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.

The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.

He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.

Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.

The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.

We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.

We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).

There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.

It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.

I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run.

Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.

We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.

Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.

#barbara gordon #dick grayson #nightwing #batgirl #tom taylor #tw ableism #okay to rb

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darke15 · 3 years ago

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Saw ur reblog of writers wanting to talk about their writing and I totally agree! If you want, please use this to tell me what u really liked about any of your stories that went over peoples heads or just something you really enjoyed writing. I love hearing about what little bits connect together that I never realised and what the writer thinks about when writing :))

Ahhhhhhhhh a little behind the scenes action, eh? Yes! Okay, let's go!

First off, I just wanna say, I love chatting with y'all about the BS:U it gives me the best worst ideas and I love to know y'all's reactions and what y'all liked cuz then I can write more of it 😉

Second, I'm sorry for taking so long to answer this, I was really excited when I got it and I had to choose between answering or writing TS&TS and then I realized that I've been working on this project for so long, I can't remember all my little easter eggs soooooo....

There are a few things I'm still waiting for one of y'all to pick up on (or at least tell me you caught), so I'm not gonna tell you which chapter everything is in.

Also this is in no particular order:

The most recent was a very brief call to to Thor: Ragnarok in Ch67, Jack calls Wraith movements 'freaky circles' which is a slight ref to Korg in Ragnarok.

Wraith was also kinda an accident...tho, don't tell him that, he'll get mad. I'd been going back and forth on him for a long time before he showed up the first time and then I decided to bring him into the fold.

Originally I was going to have one of two things happen:

1: They all died in the ambush and stayed dead 2: Or, they all faked their death and came back to haunt Ghost in the present as a Hydra!Team and there would be a massive fight between Cap's Quintet (see what i did there) and the Hydra!Alpha team.

Aftermath was supposed to be destroyed with Weston but I fell in love with Boone and Duke so I decided they'd help it carry on

The original Alpha 2 looked completely different than the one we have now

When I was creating the Senator, I kept his name secret because I was flipping back and forth between Turner being the Senator and Commander Weston being the Senator. The ultimate decision-maker was that first flashback in BS:A and when I decided that Turner was married. I didn't want to tear apart another family 😬

On that note, Nea and Nia (& Babar) are probably my fave characters right now

There was a reference to Nomad, one of Steve Roger's comic book monikers

It's not secret that Boone Cavanaugh and her family love black and white movies or that I based Boone's looks slightly off of Lauren Bacall. That being said, Boone quotes the movie Casablanca twice in BS:A

The museum scene in Prague was based off of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Quantum of Solace

Olympus was originally supposed to be located further north but I wanted it to be located in the same state that Turner was from and he's from New Orleans sooooo.....oops

The van scene in 7T7K was based off of a scene from Jack Reacher

All of The Red Room chapter titles are the names of James Bond films and their opening quotes are quotes from their respective movies

The Red Room is also my favorite work, I'm really proud of how it came out and how quickly I was able to get it out. I'm just super proud of it.

I was originally going to have Novak have a bigger role in The Red Room but ultimately decided to keep it closer to Black Widow and more about Natasha.

In S1 of The Soldier & The Spy when Dimitri says he 'knew a spy once' that was supposed to be just a little easter egg but spun out of control when I wrote TRR

I also feel really bad about killing off Dimitri

Rook was based off of Rami Malek's portrayal as Lyutsifer Safin in No Time to Die.

We were supposed to only get like 5 flashback chapters but I got too attached to Alpha 1

I am v proud of my 'branding'. My headers/gifs are my fave thing to do before posting a chapter

Delphine was based off of Sofia Boutella's protrayal of Delphine Laselle in my comfort movie, Atomic Blonde. Manette was based off of Monica Bellucci in Spectre

I was gonna cap TS&TS at one season but now I'll be doing three

I was going to have an Odin cameo in TRR because Dimitri was at the same home he was in butttt....I forgot about him and no one misses him anyway. But, just for those that wanna know, Dimitri didn't like Odin. He may have even chucked a paintbrush at him once or twice...maybe like five times

I think that's all I got for now...well...that's all I can tell you for now

#talk to me goose #anonymous avengers #anonymous avengers ask away #ask me things #ask me literally anything

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chaoartwork · 4 years ago

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Multivoid: Chapter 2

A fanfiction revolving around 2K, Palindrome and the alternate Zims in the aftermath of the Battlevoid arc.

Based on Invader Zim comic issues 46-49.

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“Brother, you silly! That’s not how you play the game!”

“But I’m tired. Can’t we do this later?”

“But brother! If you do, we’ll never play it again! Come on now, sleepyhead! I think someone is going to join!”

———————————————-

A familiar whirring sound can be heard. Palindrome can feel his squeedlyspooch twist and churn sickly the moment he felt his body wake up again. The heavy sensation was there and strong, but his consciousness felt a little stronger than last time. He weakly squinted upon his eyes, trying to process his surroundings again. There was one thing he noticed since his vision has gotten clearer. The Zimvoid. Something’s different about the Zimvoid. It looks so closed in-

Thud!

The whirring sound was replaced with something falling on the ground, sending a moment of vibration that Palindrome felt on the ground his body was motionlessly lying on. He felt Miniwhale wiggle out of Palindrome’s arms, who was embracing him as he was originally resting, and made a squeak of surprise. Who did he see? Could it be he maybe sees....

“2K....” groans, despite feeling nauseous,”2K, is that...?”

“Zim?”

The fish hybrid’s body stiffened by a voice he knew too well. Few seconds of processing what he just heard, his body struggled to softly shift so he can look at what was behind him. It was much brighter where he was looking. A figure about the same size as him was behind the brightness, viewing the figure’s head to be too massive in the hybrid’s viewpoint to even maintain his small body. A human boy walked closer to him, his dark brown open jacket softly flowing a bit by his movement. His entire appearance was no longer hidden from the brightness by the time he approached him, his more reddish pupil eyes widen a bit in soft disbelief.

“Oh my God. My alien tracker was right. You actually came back.”

Palindrome’s breath quickened a bit in order to find the strength to respond again.

“Dib human?”

His Dib crouched down to take a good look at him.

“Yeesh. You look like a pile of poop right now. No literally. What’s up with that filthy water in your bowl? It looks as though you haven’t cleaned that in months.”

Palindrome squeedlyspooch churned again by another wave of heavy sensation,

“Please don’t mention it,” he groaned again.

“Better yet,” he glared angrily, “where have you been? You think I can just monitor your house for 6 months?!”

“It was actually 3 months,” the sick Irken corrected as he was attempting to gain control of his body’s condition.

“Alright fine, it was 3 month, so what?” He crossed his arms, “you better really tell me what’s going on and what exactly you did this time! Why did we all dissipate and then reversed back to normal?!”

Palindrome laid still and tried his best to process.

“....What?” His eyes traced back to his enemy.

“Oh you know exactly what I’m talking about, Zim! You had something to do with that dissipation incident. Did you go somewhere and attempted to fully wipe this whole planet with...whatever that was?!”

“Dib human,” he grunted as he shakily sit up halfway, his arms shaky, “I dont know what you’re talk about. But whatever it is, I didn’t do it. If anything, I want to ask you something. Why are you in the Zimvoid?”

“Zimvoid?” His eyebrow raised

“Yeah, this place is called the Zimvoid. It’s where I have been trapped in this whole time. How were you able to access here?”

His Dib stood still for a long while. Looking at him as if he lost it for whatever reason.

“Zim. I don’t know if the illness is so bad for you that your picturing about your conquered Earth, which won’t happen. But you do realize you’re in your home base, right?”

“My...what?”

His eyes blinked multiple times in order to look about more clearly on where he was. It hurt his eyes, but they strengthened to see his surrounding. His Dib was right. He was not in the Zimvoid this whole time. He was actually in the living room of his home base. He was....back home. Back in his own timeline. Just like he....

“No. No this can’t be right,” he murmured, his heart sinking as he glanced about even more, “this can not be.”

Miniwhale moves next to to the human boy, staring at his master in concern. His enemy’s eyes furrowed.

“Zim-?”

“I was there a split second ago. He was right in front of me, Dib. I could have caught him right there. He....”

“Zim, what are you going on about-?”

“No. It couldn’t have been a dream,” his body started to tremble in disbelief and confusion, his eyes straining from trying to hold back the overwhelming emotion, “The Zimvoid was real, I’m sure of it. 2K was real too! I know he was-!”

“Zim!” His Dib grabbed him and sharply turned him to make him look at him, “Would you snap out of it?! And who is this ‘2K’ you keep mentioning?”

Before he could answer, the heavy sensation rushed across body again. And with the combination of the stress he was now going through, it was enough to cause him to completely loose his appetite. And given the fact his head had been stuck in a bowl filled with water for few months, it made things even worse. He knew that breathing the water was impossible now in this condition.

“Ew gross!” He felt his enemy drop him back on the floor, “what the heck, man!”

“Nya!”

“I know he’s suffocating, what do you want me to do?! Help him?! Because that’s the last thing I want to do!”

“Nya!”

The conversation was starting to blur out as his consciousness began to fade from how much his body was screaming. He can then feel his violently squirming body give in as he is succumb to darkness once again.

————————————————————————-

The first thing Palindrome remembered when regaining consciousness was the great feeling of fresh clean water rushing across his body, followed by his gills sucking in as much of the water as it can content. His eyes flew wide open and let out a gasp, the first thing seeing is the fresh water surrounding his entire body. It took him a moment to process this experience until his ear fins fluttered at the great sensation he hasn’t felt in a long time. He smiled in in overwhelming and relieved glee, letting himself enjoy it.

“Ah!...Fresh water how I miss you....”

“Now will you tell me what exactly is going on?”

He fully snapped out of his trance, turning to realize that he was inside of his huge fish tank that was within his lab. He also notice his body was feeling lighter because of how he was no longer wearing his suit or his helmet. He has fully forgotten how light his body really was. without it, it made his body feel incredibly strong when swimming about. Guess it was also the fact that three months physically training and doing his duties with 2K really paid off.

He then remembered Dib’s voice and swam up to poke his head out of the surface, seeing his enemy and servant standing in front of him. Miniwhale, shortly after Palindrome pokes his head out of the water quickly floated over him and nudge against his chest.

He let his arm wrap around his robot in a cradling position in order to comfort him, already having the idea he must have worried him when he passed out, before looking back up at the human in suspicion.

“You saved me?”

“Please,” the boy crossed his arms, “I never wanted to save you to begin with. Your whale robot wouldn’t shut up about having me save you. Besides, you still haven’t answered all of my questions.”

The fish hybrid remained eyeing him.

“First,” he replied to the human boy, “You have to explain to me what you were talking about back there.”

“Which one?”

“The dissipation incident.”

“Oh come on! Why do I have to be the one to explain first?”

“Cause maybe it might give me a clue on exactly what happened in the Zimvoid.”

“Seriously? You’re going on about this ‘Zimvoid’ again? What even is it?”

“Explain to me about the dissipation incident or I won’t explain to you anything,” Palindrome softly squinted.

The human child glared at him for a while. But he gave in and sighed. He sat down by the ground and began.

“I heard nothing about you for months. I tried to use the alien radar many times to see if you were doing something in another galaxy or something. But no matter how many attempts, the tracker could not find you. It was almost as if...you were no longer present in the universe. I eventually was starting to think I actually won, even though I didn’t feel like I earned it until I really did defeated you in person. But I tried to push that though aside and instead continued on with my life. One early morning, I left home to go to school. It was about the third month since you disappeared and I was starting to think less about even counting the days of your absence. I was walking pass through the city....”

He suddenly went quiet, now showing an expression that he was feeling haunted.

“....I started to feel strange. In fact, it turns out I was not the only one. Everyone were shouting and screaming and...everything just turned into these particles of goo for whatever reason. And so was I. I woke up and a second after started feeling pretty sick. But everything was back to normal as if everything that was dissipating reversed back to their own form. I really don’t know what that was all about, but I was at least strong enough to head back home so me and my family can recover from the aftermath.”

“And did your ‘dad’ of yours say anything about it?”

“Pfft!” He rolled his eyes, “he just said that some sort of pollution in the air might have been the reason we all-“ he finger gestured, “‘hallucinated’. He was at least not as sick as me and Gaz were though.”

“What did your ‘sister’ think.”

“Gaz just wants to pretend it didn’t happen. Just continue on with our lives cause thinking about that incident will just loose our minds. But I obviously couldn’t stop thinking about it. Soon after I recovered though was when I realized my alien tracker was going off for who knows how long in my closet. It gave me a signal that there was an alien on our planet and...”

His Dib looks back at him, his eyes furrowed,

“Well, you know the rest of the story.”

Palindrome blinked and then placed his finger on his chin, his body nearly flinching since it was the first time he touched his own head in months, and pondered.

“Well,” His enemy said a bit impatiently, “any ‘clues’ you might have?”

Palindrome was quiet for a short while before responding,

“So it was not just me and the other Zims...”

Dib’s expression changed into confusion,

“Other Zims?”

“It also happened in my future conquered planet,” he continued.

“Well you’re not going to conquer my planet, that’s for sure,” the human child narrowed.

“And if that’s so,” the Irken hybrid gazed up at the ceiling, “I wonder if it happened throughout our entire universe. If so....Could it have also happened in the other Zims’ timelines?”

“Other Timelines?” His Dib grew confused again.

“But that still wouldn't make sense,” Palindrome furrowed in confusion while still talking to himself, “why did we dissipate? Why did it reverse? Most importantly, why am I back in my own timeline? I mean it’s what I always wanted, but....somethings not right. The only reason could be that something happened to the Zapper.”

The human grew even more confused.

“....Yeah. It has to be the Zapper that did something to us. Something was off about it when I last glanced at it, I’m sure of it. And someone might have triggered it to do this. Maybe the Elder pushed the wrong button. Or maybe....maybe someone else triggered it on purpose. Maybe someone like.....”

His eyes narrowed.

“Zib. It must have been Zib. He must have had something when pressing those buttons that automatically caused the Zapper to-“

“Alright alright ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!” His enemy fully cut him off of his pondering in which caused Palindrome to finally look back at him, “I don’t know what ANY of what you just said makes ANY sense whatsoever! You’re gonna make my skull crack wide open if you don’t tell me what you were talking about and where exactly you have been!”

“Human skulls can do that?” Palindrome was a bit impressed.

“IT WAS AN EXAGGERATION! Just tell me already!!”

The fish hybrid was quiet again. For the first time since he passed out last time, he felt the sadness weigh down in his chest again, his fin lowering at the traumatic thought of what happened the last time he was conscious in the Zimvoid. He softly looked at his Dib.

“Do you really want to know where I disappeared to?”

————————————————-

His Dib tried processing everything he has been telling him, with Miniwhale also listening in awe. About the Irken signal he got. How he crashed into the Zimvoid. A world that was filled with alternate versions of himself. How he met a baby version of himself name 2K and how he joined the Zim Resistance. How he learned the entire function of the Zimvoid. His growing bond for his Resistance partner. How three months after meeting 2K that they eventually stumbled upon an alternate version of a Dib and Gir, which led them on adventure all the way to encountering Number 1, revealing to be a fusion of an alternate Zim and Dib.

They are told of his main scheme and brought nearly all the Zims together to engage in a war against him. But he tells him what happens during the battle. How everyone in the Zimvoid dissipated. And 2K being the very last one he saw in the Zimvoid before watching him disappear as well, along with him blacking out.

“...And that was when I woke up here.”

His Dib was deadly quiet for quite a while. He blinked multiple times and needed to sit down. He rest his palm on his forehead.

“Uh...wow. Wow. Uh...a world full of my greatest enemy. Man. That sounds like something that is my worst nightmare coming true. How was other me able to cope with that place?”

“He was kind of shook about it when we found him and the other Gir. He seemed to cope with it pretty fast. But,” his eyes slanted, “he thought that me, 2K, and the Elder were the less intimidating and feeble version of his Zim. Don’t know what that was all about, but oh well.”

“Well I can’t blame him,” His Dib said unamused, “you do tend to not put enough work into conquering our Earth.”

“Yes I do!” Palindrome responded in annoyance.

“Whatever. Did you ever know what happened to him and that other creepier me.”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I just last saw them sitting by the top of the robot where I last saw 2K.”

“Hm. Oh well. Whatever happened to them, I just hope they got out of that place alive. Well....I don’t really care too much for that ‘Zib’ though, he was too far gone. Anyways, I’m just so glad I didn’t respond to that signal.”

Palindrome sigh,

“I was guessing that you did.”

His Dib looked at him in surprise,

“How did you know I got the signal?”

“Zib told the other you that he was the only one that responded to the signal. That was when I learned why you did not chase me down while I was heading to the vortex.”

“Oh. I mean, I did see the signal,” his enemy rubbed the back of his head, “but it told me that there was a very violent storm ahead where the signal was coming from. I figured that it would be far too dangerous to come after you at a condition like that. And given how you mysteriously survive everything, I just figured you would turn back or get past the storm somehow.”

“Figures...Mmmph!” Palindrome deeply groaned and hugged himself with one of his arms. Miniwhale felt his master’s other arm around him tighten a bit, making him look up at him in confusion and concern. His Dib noticed and looked back at him,

“Zim?”

“Rggh...it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” he gulped and tried to catch his breath, “...Just having another one.”

The kid just nodded and did nothing else but wait patiently. It took several seconds for the sensation to fully die off again, making the fish hybrid sink almost completely into the water tank in exhaustion, his free arm grabbing onto the ledge. He took easy breaths, with Miniwhale squeaking,

“Nya?”

He tiredly look to notice his servant’s worried expression. He tried giving at least a soft reassuring smile,

“It’s fine, Miniwhale. It’s at least lighter than last time.”

“How long have you been having that?”

“Not sure. Maybe since everyone here woke up?”

“You seem to have it a lot worse though. Do you know why that is?”

“I don’t know, stink face. I’m not in a mood to think about it either. But given it was a long while since the last time I had it, that’s a sign that those sensations won’t last long.”

He calmly breathed out and let himself fully relax,

“I just hope it goes away fast. I can’t stay like this. I need to find 2K. I need to know if he’s ok...along with the others.”

The scuba diver softly narrowed,

“And I don’t care whether you believe my story or not, Dib. I need to find my best friend no matter what.”

Miniwhale frowned,

“....Nya?”

“Yeah, you did not mishear it. He really did matter to me,” his said in a bit sadder tone.

“So...your best friend is yourself,” His Dib processed it a bit.

Palindrome responded by eyeing at him in offense.

Dib noticed, not caring too much on how he felt about that comment.

“Then again,” the human shrugged, “I’m not really too surprised.”

His Dib made a pause and looked away.

“I will hate to say that I do believe in everything you have told me.”

“Heh. Funny,” Palindrome was not convinced, “you always refuse to believe me.”

“Well my incident is one thing that made me do so. But there was another thing that really stood out.”

Dib stood up and walked few steps away from him. Palindrome was confused at where he was going as he watched him stop and look down at something. He bent down and picked it up before turning back to walk towards his enemy again.

“You were wearing this when I found you. Isn’t that part of your story?”

The fish squinted, trying to figure out what he was carrying. His face slowly morphed into a complete stunned and emotional expression when his sight of it became far too familiar to mistaken it. His Dib stopped and handed him what appeared to be a heavy metallic looking collar that gave off the pale reddish and pinkish color. Palindrome hesitated before reaching out and softly taking it from him. He let it get very close to his chest so he can fully look at it from a perfect view.

The collar was now unlocked, with it pried open. This indicated that his Dib was actually able to successfully open it for whatever reason. There was something else that he wanted to see and he softly turned it to see a four digit bar that still reflected from the light. The four digits provided four random numbers, reading out 2|0|0|2.

“When you passed out, Miniwhale and I rushed you to your water tank and took your suit and water helmet off in order for you to breathe the water easily. However, the collar was avoiding the water helmet from being removed. So the only way to do so was forcing open the collar. And that was for me to laser the key hole, which is why the key hole looks completely melted.”

The alien was completely frozen for a long while, staring at the digits. He perked a soft smile for a second before they tensed and he started to choke up, his eyes getting watery. The boy also noticed this and scoffed,

“Oh come on, are you seriously gonna cry over me destroying the collar? The one that you said you were stuck wearing all those months? Because if you turned out to have grown attached to it, it’s just a stupid collar.”

Palindrome softly shook his head and sniffed, letting his arm rub his tearful eyes.

“N-no, no it’s not that. Stupidly enough, I’m actually happy. I knew the whole time that the Zimvoid really did exist. But....”

He emotionally looked back down at the collar, softly smiling again,

“I still needed proof to know I really was right.”

His body hiccuped just a bit before letting his arms wrap around the collar and pressing it to his chest.

“Don’t worry, buddy. I have proof now that you and the others were never a dream. I’ll come find you, I promise.”

Miniwhale stares before smiling at his master’s relief in a response. His Dib just awkwardly gaze,

“...Is no one going to talk about the fact that he’s hugging a collar?”

However, as soon as he said this, an alert went off.

“IRKEN DISTRESS SIGNAL HAS BEEN LOCATED.”

Palindrome’s eyes snapped open by the feeling of deja vu. It also sent chills across his body, but he can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad chill. He and his enemy almost immediately looked at the large computer screen with it showing an internet connection signal and the Irken Empire symbol above it, big blinking letters below reading “IRKEN DISTRESS SIGNAL DETECTED”.

“Wait,” his Dib said, “isn’t that the same signal that I...?”

Palindrome silently stared at the screen. His eyebrows furrowed.

“Computer, get me a back-up suit.”

“Yes, sir.”

A huge tube buried Palindrome’s body before uncovering him to reveal what looks to be his swimming suit, except the suit is black while parts of it remain pink, along with his gloves and shoes, and a new clean helmet filled with water being worn. A small tube came out of Palindrome’s PAK and went up to attach itself from the back of his bowl.

Palindrome gently put the collar down and tried climbing out of the huge water tank. But pushing himself out of the tank cause the heavy sensation to come back, causing him to end up having his body collapse at the edge of the floor. The boy looked,

“You sure you can get over to the controls when you’re this weak?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he grunts and looks up at him, “in fact since you’re so ‘worried’, carry me, filth human.”

“What?! Why me?!” He then point to Palindrome’s robot, “why can’t the whale do it? He has telekinesis!”

“Nya!” Miniwhale answered.

“BUT YOU CARRIED A GIANT TRUCK ONC-!”

He stopped right there. He became unamused.

“Oh. I see what you’re doing there. You’re just saying that so I can be the one to carry him.”

“I said it doesn’t matter! Carry me to the controls!”

“Urgh! Alright fine! Yeesh, you aliens are so lazy and selfish,” he starts walking over to him.

“Oh yeah,” Palindrome mumbled, “I should maybe make a body switching machine so you can know what this really feels like right now.”

“I-“ Dib let out a grunt as he lift him up with both of his arms, “been on this same page too you know.”

“No you don’t since you just stated my condition is the worst one.”

“Yeah yeah sure whatever,” Dib grunted again when making a second short lift. “Yeesh, it was much easier carrying you before you had to wear that stupid suit. When are you ever going to get that thing upgraded to a lighter one.”

“Hey,” Palindrome pointed out as Dib starts waddling over to the controls, “it’s not easy when your body really needs water. Not only for breathing it, but to have an inner layer of the suit that helps keep my scales moisturized so they don’t dry up to the point where they get extremely itchy and then they-“

“Ok, you don’t need to explain your fish issue again. It’s still disgusting no matter how you explain it.”

Palindrome sigh in irritation,

“Just put me down. We’re already by the controls.”

His Dib rolled his eyes and did what he told him. Palindrome however yelped when his legs failed to stand again and it cause him to fall. It took a while after to recover. Shaking, with his teeth clenching by the heavy sensation rippling across his body again, he made his legs use all the strength to stand up a bit and hold unto the controllers. He panted for a short while and looked back at the screen, exhaustingly reaching out and pressing the button. The screen change, showing what appears to be...

Palindrome paused, trying to process what he was seeing so he can make sure his mind wasn’t making it up.

“What is that?” His Dib asked, “it looks like some sort of an abandoned settlement on an asteroid.”

The fish hybrid’s eyes softly traced as he looked at the picture on the screen.

“The Zimvoid.”

“The what?” His Dib asked. But then blinked into realization of what he meant. “Wait. THAT’S the Zimvoid?”

“No doubt about it,” he said and pointed out a very tall device standing on the map version of the Zimvoid, “I know that there is no other planet that holds the Zapper.”

“And this is the one that you said caused everything that happened here on Earth. Especially....”

“I’m certain of it.” Palindrome then squinted. “Along with the certainty of Zib being behind it all.”

“Again, how are you certain that it was Zib? You sure that elderly Zim didn’t accidentally cut the-?”

“Nya!” Miniwhale suddenly pointed out something.

“An email?” Palindrome glanced at his servant in confusion and looked back at the screen. Almost instantly, he took notice on a symbol of an email that appears on the bottom left of the monitor. His eyebrows furrowed.

“Computer, open the email.”

“Yes, sir.”

The email opens up to show a note that is typed in Irken.

“Oh boy,” the human boy scoffed, “more alien writings. Hey fish alien, can you translate what it says?”

The scuba diver went ahead and read it.

“It’s says....’If you really want everything to go back to normal, come see me at the place where you last saw me.’”

“Huh. That’s strange. I wonder who wrote this.”

“Based on what I read and the location, it’s already obvious on who it is. Can’t believe that Roach Human is still alive.”

“Roach Human? What kind of nickname is that?”

“Well since he hates being called ‘Zib’, I might as well give him a much better name. It fits since he’s both cruel, he looks like a human roach, and he’s a Dib.”

“Isn’t he half a Zim too?”

But Palindrome didn’t respond this time and instead quietly stared at the screen.

His Dib slightly tilted his head in confusion.

“Zim?”

The alien hybrid stayed like this for a short while before speaking once more,

“I just don’t understand though. I shouldn’t have received this map. The Zimvoid is from another timeline and I remember when I was trapped there, I could not communicate with my own timeline. How was he able to send me this? Why now?”

“I mean, he did send us a distress signal before, even if it was between two different timelines. It wouldn’t even make sense if it didn’t work for you yet it did for him.”

“The signal he used was far advanced from my own communications. Then again, maybe you could be right. But this signal is different. If the signal is leading me to the Zimvoid, it would have pointed me to Pandora’s Quadrangle. The vortex portal should be there if I’m getting the signal now.”

“The vortex wasn’t there when I checked that place,” His enemy let him know, “and I have never picked up any activity from that place since.”

Palindrome kept on pondering more.

“Hm. That wouldn’t make sense if the vortex really is closed. I wonder...”

He looked back up at the monitor.

“Computer, zoom out the map on how long it takes to get to this signal.”

“Zooming out!”

The map completely changed from the zooming. The enemy duos and Miniwhale looked at the screen.

The entire room was quiet.

“Um....” His Dib finally spoke, “...Zim? Are you sure the map isn’t glitching?”

“No,” he murmured while his eyes remained glued on the screen.

“Are you sure? Like I’m for real, you’re really sure. Did you check if the computer is glitching?”

“Hmph. Well that’s just rude. My scanning is indicating that my glitches are 0%”

“Are you SURE.”

“Ok, you really need to stop repeating that sentence. It’s getting very annoying.”

“Well I won’t tell until you give me proof that you aren’t glitching!”

The boy sharply turned to him.

“Zim! Check his wires or something! After all, this is a glitch, right?”

Palindrome face of disbelief remained in his face. There was absolutely no doubt that the map was just a glitch.

“Oh Tallest, Roach Human, what did you do?”

——————————————————————-

Within an broken throne room, a strange looking creature was fixing his throne until he heard an alert from the other room.

“Huh, that was fast.”

He stopped what he was doing and entered a lighter room, his appearance being a mix a what appears a child that is half human and half Irken. The PAK that was attached to the back of his head remained to softly glow as he approached a huge cracked monitor, which was damaged as a result of the war. It would glitch and flicker for a split second every now and then but regardless, it was still functional.

“Who responded?” He asked his computer.

“Signal was responded by Earth Number 2002, Number 1.”

“Number 2002. Yeah,” he scoffed, “Ofcourse it would be from one of the Resistance leaders. I guess I’ll have to deal with him too if he decides to come. Speaking of that, what is the condition of Earth Number 2000?”

“The altered timeline of Number 2000 remains stable. It does not appear as though it will change any time soon or rather there is no indication yet if it will ever show a sign of shifting back to its original state.”

“Well that’s one good news I guess,” he sighed, “then again, there’s no telling if he will notice the sudden change of his environment if he’s in a state for this long, or for any Zim that is in this state for that matter. Whatever the case, the timelines cannot remain like this. And I will make sure I don’t underestimate any Zim again. Especially that....”

The rage, just remembering that particular Zim, makes him want to kill him without hesitation. The thought of him was enough to make him tightly form his hands into a fist.

Short beeping sounds was suddenly heard from the computer, distracting him. A monitor points to a specific Earth out of the rest of its alternates that live nearby.

“Number 1. I detect another timeline that is having another unknown triggered time anomaly from Number 2004. The timeline’s shift back into its original state is therefore happening momentarily.”

The hybrid species looks at the screen in awe.

“Another one, huh?”

Without a moment to loose, he looked up at the ceiling that has fully broken off and let his spider legs fully come out of his PAK, launching him up there. He launched out of the hole and made a careful landing on the roof of the castle.

With his spider legs sinking back the where it came from and fully standing up again, he looked out at the Zimvoid. The world felt emptier than it ever was. Especially with the vortexes no longer seen from the sky, resulting in not feeling any wind. Along with the destroyed Zapper, who’s lower bottom half was slightly tilted to the left, as the result of powerful impact of the explosion, and the top portion of it being broken off and laying on the ground, several pieces of it splayed out and surrounding around it. Without the bright light of the powerful device, the Zimvoid has plunged into complete darkness, the stars and moon being the only lights left in such a completely dead world.

There were barely any broken ships left, given that they all dissipated along with the Zims and their destroyed Girs’ bodies, resulting in giving him very little resources he needs to start rebuilding his technologies. However, several broken and crashed ships can now be seen laying about the asteroid planet. Crashed ships that he had upgraded and were believed to have dissipated.

Zib looked up at the sky, waiting quietly and patiently. After several seconds of standing there, he suddenly heard a windy eerie-like sound that steadily grew loud. He quickly glanced about the sky until his eyes laid upon what was starting to become more noticeable. Extremely few portions of goo started to softly appear out of thin air in the distance. Then more and more of them appeared, getting bigger and more noticeable. They all started to pull towards each other until they clumped together, morphing into an object that became more recognizable until it became a single particular voot cruiser. It was starting to fly in a very slow motion, almost as if time was in a slow state for this ship in general. But time started to speed up more and more until it was speeding in its natural state.

However, the ship was gliding down, having no passenger inside to steer it, as it was charging almost directly to the top of the castle where Zib was at. He took notice of this and his hair strands, surprisingly, bristled in alarm.

“Oh SHI-!”

He jumped the the other side of the room and covered his head. The ship barely missed the tower, but the wing hit the edge of the roof, causing the wing to break off and make the ship spin out of control. It continued falling in almost a gliding style until it hit the ground and burst into flame, skidding into a stop.

Zib stayed in his position until he was certain that it was safe to uncover his head and shakily get up. He walked steadily walked to the other side of the roof in order to get a good viewpoint on what almost hit him. He stared at the ship for a long while.

“Time shift from Number 2004’s timeline is complete.”

Zib was quiet. But then hummed in interest.

“2004’s timeline changed even quicker than the last one. Actually...each timeline keeps coming back quicker than the previous one.”

Zib stares at it expressionless. Then he smiled.

#multivoid #zimvoid #iz fanfic #zim 2000 #zim 2002 #zib #zib membrane #zim 2k #zim palindrome

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big-bad-shorty-king · 6 years ago

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Danger Days Master Post

Happy March 22nd! I’m running a Danger Days based table top using the Atomic Highway system so I had to do a lot of research to figure out slang and world stuff! You may or may not have remembered me teasing this back in January (which was suppose to be out by the end of Jan but life sucks so lets dance but it’s better late than never!) I did a fuck ton of research for a game right now, so ill turn my hyper-fixation into a helpful guide for anyone hoping to write some fan fiction!

LOCATIONS

So locations are a little weird in this universe, we dont actually know the exact locations of places but we have a general idea about some.

Battery City

Zones (1-6 if during the music videos, 1-7 if set after the videos, Zone 7 was established after the videos and before the comics)

The Dinner - Fab 4 hide out

Wolfblood Beach, likely somewhere in Zone 1 close to Battery City since people are allowed to go there.

Neon District, either in Zone 1 or in Battery City

Mega Moon's Throttle bar, full of Wave-Head’s, likely somewhere deep into the zones

Hyper-Thrusts, some sort of store, carry “dust mouth”

Fuck You House, concert venu

Route Guano, highway, Kobra Kid and Jet Star are killed here in the album

Zone 55 - Brazil

Mega Moon’s Throttle Bar - Full of wave-heads

The Lobby - Slums of Battery City

The Nest - Ultra V’s hide out

DESTROYA is located here

Mailbox Shrine - Alter to dead

Phoenix Witch guides souls of masks here

Letters reach loved ones

B.L.I Headquaters

Gas n’ Gulp = Dr. D’s - radio station

L.A. Crater

Cherrri’s Home - Artifacts of Fab 4 located here

Gravel Gertle’s Orphanage

Zone 5 Carnival

Zone 3 Crater

The Tube - Battery city, reprograming

Zone 55 - Brazil

Retinal Resorts - BLI owned, “everyone is famous”

Slang

Oh boy is this a long one, let me know if I missed anything

Moterbabies- Kids on the run, survivors

Ghosted - Dead, killed

Bonus track - Look attractive

Crash Queen - Daredevil

Slaughtermatic - Loud, crazy (sound)

Microbursts - Small stuff

Dracs - Draculoids

Crows - S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/

Exterminators - Highest level Dracs/S/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/

Dusted - Killed

Ritalin rats - Drug addicts

Wave-Heads - Radiation addicts

Shiny - Awesome

Clap - Fight

Fire fight - Fight with ray guns

Pig - Scarecrow operatives/poliece

Upthursts - Turn up

Tumbleweed - Person who wanders desert

Zaps - Laser blaster

Zone Rat - Lives in zones

Zonerunner/Zonehopper - Spends time in Zones

Costa Rica - Crazy or bad

Dust Angel - Zone runner

411- Info/update

Getaway Mile - Route Guano

BLI(/ind) - Better Living Industries

Flies - Tiny spy cameras

Carbons - Money

Hit the Red Line - Running away, usually going as fast as a car can go

The Individual - Ray gun

Rubberburner - Goes so fast it destroys tires

Graffiti Bible - Droid holy scripture

Radical tubes - Probably drugs?

Plus - Battery replenisher, addictive

Power Pup - Dog food, killjoys eat this

C.A.T. - Surveillance device, looks like an actual cat

Droids

Have emotions

Can become absolute

Turned to satellites

DESTROYA = God

Graffiti Bible

Types

Blue, 50 Carbons, Loving

Yellow, 150 Carbons, Passive

Orange, 250 Carbons, Aggressive

Purple, 500 Carbons, Fiesty

Green, 750 Carbons, Soothing

Red, 1000 Carbons, Fiery

Supernatural/Religious Figures

DESTROYA - God-like machine

Foretold to free droids in Graffiti Bible

Abandoned experiment by BLI

“Too large to manage”

Phoenix Witch

Representation of death

Zones divided on belief

Is real

Takes care of the dead through offerings of anything “close to the soul,” usually a mask, and guides a dead person to the proper destination (afterlife)

Collects from Mailbox Shrine and battlefields

History

The history is really weird and murky and can kinda change depending on the medium used, i did my best to piece this together in the most coherent way possible

Creation of BL/ind

Great fires of 2012

Rise of Bl/ind

Helium Wars - Texas destroyed

Analog Wars (2014-2015)

Dr. D lost legs

The Girl’s mother is killed

Pig Bomb (2017)

Events of videos (2019)

Events of comics (2029)

Battle of Utah (Unknown when it happened, so it can be placed wherever)

Brands/Logos

Clown logo (we know literally nothing about this)

Skull logo (we know literally nothing about this)

Cosmic Thrust - Sells “zone-tested radical tubes”

Dead Pegasus - Oil company

Electrokat - Likely sells batteries

Supa Stinga Exploders - Explosives

Mousekat - Cartoon from Batter City

Dr. Phizzles’s - Hair dye

Spider - Symbol for Fab 4

Better Living Logo

SCARECROW unit

Better Living Industries

Corporation, evil

Runs Battery City

Came into power bc of Great Fires of 2012

Monochromaticism

Employees

Draculoids

Masks sucks souls out

Lowest ranked - Rayguns

Eliminate threats

S/C/R/E/C/R/O/W/S

Highest ranked (Exterminator)

Eliminate threats

More advanced ray guns

Leader - The Director

Fact News - News program

Slogans

“The Aftermath is secondary”

“Everything is perfect”

“Keep smiling”

Products

Plus - Battery replenisher, addictive

Power Pup - Dog food, killjoys eat this

Air fresheners

Medication of the Month Club

C.A.T. - Surveillance device, looks like an actual cat

BL/ind Vending Machines

Fangs, 8 Carbons

KJ Replica Mask, 4 Carbons

Frankuloid Fun Toy, (Fun Ghoul’s mask but a toy), 10 Carbons

Motivational sticker, 2 Carbons

BLI-Sanctioned Raygun (the individual) - 50 Carbons

Cartoon Animal Stress Head, (Mousekat head), 20 Carbons

Plus, 80 Carbons

Yum-Duck Candies. 5 Carbons

Ammo, ?? Carbons

H20, ?? Carbons

Weapons, Devices & Other Items

Power Glove - Button activated

Used by Kobra Kid

Melee

Modified NES Power Glove

Ray Gun - Lasers

Ranged

White = Draculoids

Colorful = Killjoys

Modified NES Zapper

MP5 - Advanced lasers

Ranged

Used by S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/S

Vend-A-Hack

Hacking device

Known to work on vending machines

Based on original model GBA

Flies - Tiny spy cameras

C.A.T. - Surveillance device

Looks like a cat

Sends messages to BL/ind

PTTP - Portable TV

1979-81 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. - Fab 4′s car,

Boombox

Holo-Phone

Inner-Internet

Dr.Phizzles’s Poison Red - Hair dye

Magazines

Shiny - Robot p()rn

Murder

Modern Exterminator

Blasters and Batteries

Radio Stations

WK’L 109 FMX

Host = Dr. D

JUNKPUNK

Host Benjamin Cyanide

Bands

Mad Gear and the Missile Kid

Massive/Awesome

Cold Dead Hands

BONUS!

Here’s a quick naming table I made for my game, it requires a D-20 to use!

#Danger Days #Killjoys #my chemical romance #MCR #Reference #the black parade #Bullets #three cheers for sweet revenge #MCRmy #Gerard Way #Ray Toro #Frank Iero #Mikey Way #March 22nd #Danger Days Master Post #I SPENT LITERAL MONTHS ON THIS SHIT #March 22

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shellheadtmarc · 6 years ago

Text

| BASIC INFO

MCU-based.

On October 23, 2077, the Great War finally ended. The nukes were launched, the vaults were shut well below their maximum capacity, and civilization as we know it ended in nuclear hellfire.

The Avenger otherwise known as Iron Man, Tony Stark, was in NYC when the bombs dropped. Instead of finding shelter in a vault, or following through with one of the many contingency plans put in place for just that occurrence, he instead tried to do what he could in the aftermath, where a city full of panicky people rioted and looted after so long of rationing and not enough, trying his best to help keep some kind of order, to prevent those left behind after the vaults closed turning on each other in the worst possible way.

The years kept passing, and while some people became ghouls with the exposure to the massive amounts of radiation and FEV present in everything, and most died, tests run by he and JARVIS confirmed his initial suspicions,that the arc reactor was keeping him alive in more ways than one. And in the end, there ended up being nothing for him to do but wait until the worst of the radiation had passed, bide his time, tinker, and keep an eye out for the first of the vaults to start opening.

Two hundred and some change later, the Brotherhood of Steel, on their way to the Commonwealth, crawl past New York in the Prydwen, and Tony, having adapted to wasteland living and doing his best to initiate and oversee rebuilding efforts (and, in the controlled environment of the NYC wasteland, succeeding to a degree), does what any rational, cagey, paranoid wastelander would do: He suits up and follows them into Boston. Any Hindenburg 2.0 like that with an amassment of vertibirds and power armored personnel isn’t knocking on the door to borrow a cup of sugar, and he’s heard enough rumors about factions in both DC and Boston with passing traders that he figures New York will have to look after New York for a little while (or...JARVIS will have to help New York look after New York, same difference), while he goes and pokes his nose in the Commonwealth’s business.

He touches down north of Fort Hagen (around the abandoned chapel) after the Brotherhood of Steel arrive and set up base at Boston’s old airport, and from Fort Hagen he’ll start his own investigations into the BOS, the Railroad, the Minutemen, and the Institute.

| APPEARANCE

Tony’s a far cry from five hundred dollar haircuts and bespoke suits these days; the wasteland is rough, and he’s had to get rough back. Function takes precedence over fashion, and while he still cleans up fairly well, you’ll never see him like that. His typical uniform is no different than the rest of the wasteland’s, ranging from old flannel and threadbare denim to mechanic coveralls and worn tank tops, all of which are thin enough to let his arc reactor shine through them like a beacon.

Physically, his entire silhouette has changed: He’s probably a lot healthier than the average scavver, simply because he is and was born before the war and due to the arc reactor isn’t prone to some of the genetic troubles and illnesses that plague the wasteland. However, due to the nature of living in the wasteland, where fighting for your life is very often literal, his musculature has changed, and he’s leaner than he was before the war. His face, too, especially shows that, as his cheeks have hollowed out considerably, and he looks entirely more gaunt these days.

His hair runs in two directions: Either he’ll take scissors to it himself (and he’s gotten good at giving himself a trim in an approximation of the hairstyles he’d favored before the war, even if they tend to fall flat with no hair product being available these days) when he has the time, or he lets it grow until he can’t stand it any longer. When it’s longer, he has a habit of pinning it back with bobby pins, which works out just fine for him, because he’s never without one if he needs to pick a lock.

More often than not, he can’t be bothered with his trademark laser-precision facial hair, because shaving takes time these days, and clean water is a resource that can’t be wasted on frivolous pursuits when it’s needed for drinking and cooking. Instead, while he sometimes is seen shaping it back up every so often, he tends to let it grow as it will (and he does do his best to tame it, but, again - who has the time to worry about things like developing beard oil and balm when there’s so much else to be done that’s more important?), or he shaves completely and the process starts all over again. Having trademark facial hair is just one of the many quirks he’s had to let go of in the name of survival.

He’s carrying more obvious scars, other than those around the arc reactor. All those blows to the face and years getting his face banged around in the suit have finally taken their toll, and he’s got a scar that runs the curve of his left brow bone and eye socket, as well as an arch over the bridge of his nose and a permanent one from having his lip split open so many multiple times. He’s usually sporting a black eye or fat lip, because he still runs his mouth, and running from a fight is no longer an option. You should see the other guy, honestly.

| FEV ENHANCEMENT

Tony has never been shy about the idea that physical enhancement is as much part of the game of being Iron Man as the suit is. After all, it’s only a suit, and response times can only be so fast, when there’s always going to be a delay between thought and getting the suit to follow that thought. So, much in the vein of the 616 run for Extremis enhancement, Tony’s...Tinkered on himself. Mostly, stumbling across the same strain of FEV developed in the Institute was sheer luck, and it took years for him to decide it was the route he wanted to go, with innumerable simulations and alternatives ran and checked before he made that leap.

To be clear: He’s not a super mutant, much as 616 Tony was not a true Extremis enhancile. He took the structure of FEV, broke it apart, cut out the parts he didn’t want, added parts he did, and put it all back together before using himself as a guinea pig to see if it’d work. And work it has. He’s a little stronger, yes, but not in a way that matters. He heals a little faster. He regrew himself new organs. But much like with Extremis, he forced it to do what he wanted it to do, which was rewire himself from the inside out, and now when he says ‘the suit and I are one’ he means that. Literally. He wires himself directly into it when needed, and the most crucial components of it hide out in the hollows of his bones.

More importantly, however, he’s only reinforced the length of his lifespan, and upped his metabolism, so now he runs on the hot end of the spectrum. He’s a great bed buddy now in the middle of winter.

Another side effect of the FEV use and rewiring himself includes: Low level technomancy. He can literally interface with some machinery within reason and hack it with his brain. Useful, when you’re up against a bunch of haywire robots and want to turn the tide in your favor by hacking a few but can’t stop shooting and ducking behind things long enough to do it the old fashioned way. It’s limited, though, and not something he necessarily makes a lot of use of unless absolutely necessary.

| WASTELAND SPECIAL

The Wasteland Special is the new FEV-based suit. Well. “New” is relative. Years were spent putting together the perfect one size fits all suit suited for the wasteland and its dangers, as well as combining it with Tony’s FEV enhancements so that he has it at a moment’s notice in the chance a super mutant behemoth decides to induct him into the wasteland space program.

It has an assortment of functions, and while it has a connection to JARVIS, unlike his earlier suits it doesn’t require JARVIS to run its systems, as that’s all done with Tony being directly connected to it himself. JARVIS is, for all practical purposes, more a partner in this venture, and tends to watch Tony’s six.

He doesn’t use it often, and that should be heavily stressed. Iron Man, for all practical purposes, is something from the past. What there remains of him existing before the war - which isn’t much - includes some comic illustrations that show the classic Marvel red and gold (that Fallout aesthetic, you know) not anything like what his suits actually looked like. If he does pull out the Wasteland Special, it means things are bad. Or he’s off for a stroll through the Glowing Sea. A or B. It can also be used piecemeal, much like most of the Iron Man suits. Jet boots for this, gauntlets for that, he’ll do that far more often than the whole shebang, because he likes perching on overpasses that no longer connect to Boston’s highway system to feel tall. Or get a layout of the land. It varies with his mood and whims. Traveling alone at night, that’s typically how he likes to camp, anyway.

For relevant visuals on how it works, see the Extremis run in 2008 Invincible Iron Man and the MCU’s Avengers: Infinity War. It’s a long term solution to the problem of lacking resources, since building suits for every function is no longer a possibility. Yes, it’s still red and gold and lights up in a way that pleases him. His hall of armors is looking a bit bare, because outdated and outmoded suits were broken down for components to build it.

| QUIRKS / HABITS / VOCABULARY

First things first: If you expect Disney dialogue options here, you won’t find them. Tony’s around wastelanders; he lives like them, he talks with them, he’s friends with them. These days his dialogue is as peppered with casual profanity as anyone else’s, because it just seeps in without you realizing it. He was never squeaky clean before, but the wasteland is a whole other ballgame in that respect.

While he’s fairly adapted at this point, his habit of making references to things has never stopped. Unfortunately, unless you’re as much of a prewar relic as he is, or are remarkably knowledgeable about the prewar world, they tend to not make a lot of sense. It’s okay, he makes himself laugh and that’s what’s important. Too, he swaps terms for things interchangeably. A brahmin might be a brahmin in one sentence, and he’ll turn around and call it a cow in the next. People eventually stop, usually, trying to correct him, because he says what he says and he’s standing by it. Yes, he knows brahmin are probably significantly different than a cow now. Still tastes like hamburger.

He will not, under any circumstances, eat Fancy Lads. He will starve before he eats one, he will throw them in the Charles; if he ever even picks up a box he finds scavving, it’s because he’s going to trade them when he gets to a settlement. He thinks they’re horrid. Anything else in the wasteland he can mostly choke down as long he doesn’t think about what he’s eating too hard, including things like bug meats.

Realistically, there’s a lot more littering the wasteland that just what’s shown in game. This includes instant coffee, without a doubt, and it means Tony is 100% caffeine-powered 120% of the time. He hoards it. He’ll trade for it. And he only shares it with people he actually cares about, because it’s more valuable than gold at this point.

If he’s traveling with someone by foot he will not travel at night. The arc reactor is something of a curse and a blessing at this point, because while sure, it keeps him alive, it’s bright, and when all your clothes are threadbare there’s nothing short of wasting resources to cover it. It means at night Tony’s chest becomes a glowing target, and not only does it put himself at risk from raiders and super mutants and everything else that lurks in the wasteland, it puts the other person at risk, as well. That’s not something he’s willing to do if it can at all be helped. He has to be pressed for time or have something more important than the safety of two people on his mind to keep going once the sun hits the horizon. Alone, he can and will just...Fly to wherever he needs to go.

There are even less people left in the world he’ll take things from directly. All others must place things on a surface and let him pick it up himself. This actually has practical applications at this point, with how loosey goosey morality is in the wasteland, which is something Tony really never saw coming, but it makes a peeve a blessing. His own morality has had to join that loose interpretation of ‘good’, as well, because there are groups in all wastelands who will shoot first, loot your corpse later, and having a staunch ‘I will not kill’ attitude will leave you dead.

He’s got something of a traveling handyman vibe in the Commonwealth, where he moves from settlement to settlement because he’s busy collecting info on the various machinations of the different groups present, he’s interested in the state of things, he starts setting up his own settlements to put under Minutemen care once he decides they’re good eggs, and because he’s genuinely curious, and if something needs to be repaired or done while he’s in those settlements, he will. He doesn’t take caps for the work. Tony’s carrying a lot of guilt, about not being able to have much of an influence in stopping the war, and because of that, any money he takes from people he sees as needing it more is blood money. He will, at most, accept slim supplies, like water or food or a stimpak or two; just enough in the way of things to get him to the next place he’s going.

With that, he’s really good at scavenging for what he needs. He had to get that way being on his own in NYC for so long until it was safe enough for people to start trickling back in.

He can always be found with a pocketful of fuses and wire and electrical tape, and various other things he usually has on his person are a small tube of wonderglue, a few pencils and pens, and small pocket-sized grid moleskine missing its bookmark and band (he uses a paperclip as a bookmark and a rubber band to hold it closed, and it’s full of cramped writing because he makes every page count), and other odds and ends.

| AS A COMPANION

Tony does not work via FO4 game mechanics, which sadly needs to be pointed out. He’s got agency and his own shit to do, and while he might roll with someone for a while because it’s nice to have someone to talk to and it’s nice to have someone to watch his back, there are definitely times he splits off to do his own thing. Sometimes he gives warning, sometimes he doesn’t. Regardless of if he does or doesn’t, Tony’s sole purpose isn’t to crawl up the sosu’s ass and stay there. He breaks the trope of his entire existence being centered around them. He came to the Commonwealth with a purpose, and he’s going to complete that purpose. Sometimes that means heading in a different direction than the sosu, and you know, that’s just life, as far as he’s concerned.

He’s also not a companion for every sosu. Institute and BOS aligned people will find him standoffish and...Well. Honestly, kind of mean, once he gets an idea of what those two factions are all about. Siding with the Institute won’t necessarily lock him out as a companion - that’s determined by how canon divergent of a sosu a person is. The same goes for the BOS. However, if at any point the Railroad is wiped out, Tony’s gone. He’s gone, and whoever did it should probably start looking over their shoulder. Expressing sentiments that ghouls, synths, and super mutants deserve death, despite being sentient beings with free will and the ability to reason and form their own opinions will also see him bouncing. He won’t come after you in that case for being an asshole, but he’ll be sure to spread the word.

What. No one ever said Tony Stark wasn’t petty as fuck.

AS A HUGE BIG NEON SIGN FLASHING NOTE: In the event that MacCready was not picked up by the sosu and taken as a companion, and has not been romanced or had his affinity quest completed, Tony is going to directly default to his relationship with @gwinnetts‘s MacCready. This isn’t set in absolute stone, Tony’s not unwooable as a companion, but it’s gotta be hashed out. The reasoning is: If MacCready hasn’t been picked up as a companion by the sosu, Tony will fairly early on in his time in the Commonwealth end up hiring him himself (for information, not as a mercenary) and there is a major rewrite of MacCready’s quest in play there. This can be changed with plotting, but the key word there is that we plot it out. Otherwise Tony and Mac are an item and them’s the breaks.

AS A SECONDARY FLASHY NOTE: If Strong has not been picked up as a companion by the sosu, Tony will also end up going to Trinity Tower to check out the message and will end up taking Strong on and running through his quest for the milk of human kindness with him. In the default, natural course of this verse, Tony and Strong will make their way to Saugus together (sans Mac - Tony makes a home and settlement of the town within Fort Hagen military base, and if someone were to go looking, that’s probably where Mac can be found, if not Fiddler’s Green or wherever else he wants to go, he’s got his own free will and things to do, he and Tony aren’t necessarily attached at the hip) and there Tony’s ends up getting fucked up by the Forged. Strong’s the one that drags his ass out of there, and delivers him to either the Slog or Finch Farm until he can be moved somewhere with better medical facilities. The reason for this is Tony’s a little too slow on the uptake at Saugus and ends up losing an eye and suffering burns to his face (and neck). Eventually he’ll show up with at modified synth-esque replacement that he’ll call a stopgap until he can work up something better. You’ll never lose him in the dark again, between the arc reactor and the new glowy eye.

Tony has a lot to do, so again, he’s not a companion for everyone. Someone that needs to keep their companions close and wants them all in one place will find Tony incredibly frustrating, because he can respect the sosu completely and still not deviate from his own to do list and goals. And if they happen to recognize him (since they’re both prewar relics and he was pretty famous - you might have heard of him?) that shouldn’t come as any surprise whatsoever.

| SETTLEMENTS

Tony, whether he hooks up with the sosu or not, once he allies with the Minutemen will absolutely put any settlements he’s put together under their oversight. It’s a case of he finds a spot that would be good farm land, would be easily defensible, has a lot of resources - something that catches his eye about it - and he’ll spend some time there, getting it set up for habitation and later be the guy you call to get things fixed, but will also put an emphasis on teaching others how to do what he’s doing, because the plan is not to stay in the Commonwealth (he will, he just doesn’t know that yet).

In the main version of this verse, Tony doesn’t touch vanilla settlements unless there are some a sosu hasn’t done anything with. Those he does touch can include:

Croup Manor (pretty non-negotiable if @rahasyamay’s stephen is also in play - stephen lives there) Egret Tours Marina (Either way he’ll poke around there - it ties into his and Mac’s relationship) Finch Farm Greygarden Greentop Nursery Hangman’s Alley Jamaica Plain Murkwater Construction Site Outpost Zimonja Nordhagen Beach (he’ll hang around here anyway to keep an eye on the BOS) Oberland Station Starlight Drive In Taffington Boathouse Abernathy Farm (shared with @gwinnetts’s Zetta if she’s in play) Sunshine Tidings Co-Op (shared with @gwinnetts’s Zetta if she’s in play it’s their vacation home)

Otherwise, he has his own set of settlements, which may include the following:

Fort Hagen (he...literally lives there and it’s where his main lab is) Fiddler’s Green Trailer Estates (actually considered just an extension of Fort Hagen) Natick Power Substation Ryder Rentals Tucker Town (and the overpass - near the rotting mansion) Sanctuary Saloon (tucked in the swamps near Sanctuary) Reeb Marina Norwood Depot (far south a safe distance east from the Glowing Sea) Evan’s Way (near Diamond City) Gunner’s Plaza / GNN Building Wattz Electronics Prospekt Hill Chestnut Hillocks Reservoir Mystic Pines Rest Home Malden (from the Slocum’s Joe HQ, to Medtek, to outside of town) Concord (from the church down the hill, also the large parking lot below the museum into the woods) Andrew Station (to prevent more raiders from moving in) Quincy (shared with @gwinnetts‘s Zetta if she’s in play) South Suffolk Charter School Neponset Park Walden Pond (to keep raiders out) ArcJet (the area surrounding the building) Several piers on the east side of Boston Quincy Lighthouse USS Riptide (to prevent more raiders moving in) Salem (to keep the mirelurks under control)

And anywhere else that catches his eye. To keep this from being twenty miles longer than it already is, each settlement might get its own post, and questions are always welcomed!

| OTHER FACTIONS

Part of Tony’s to-do list in the Commonwealth is checking out the other groups in play, and he forms fairly strong opinions about each one.

Minutemen: He stans. Preston Garvey is an angel and Tony Stark will not even contemplate hearing otherwise. He’s not a joiner, but he does ally himself with them and put the settlements he founds himself under their rounds, and makes himself available to them as needed. Once they get back on their feet, he definitely trusts them to do the right thing, and will advocate they move themselves into a more police force role in the Commonwealth after the main quest endgame. If any Rhodey is in play with a sosu that isn’t interested in being General, will nudge Rhodey gently in that direction. (”Gently”, about as subtle as a bag of hammers, honestly.)

Railroad: They’re doing good work. Again, not a joiner, and their focus is very narrow and they’re going to make themselves obsolete (which is a great endgame, but expanding to be more helpful to the Commonwealth as a whole after endgame is better) and he can and will do tourist work for them as needed. He’s not interested in actually becoming a heavy, or anything of that nature.

Brotherhood of Steel: He doesn’t like the looks of them right off - they’ve got that stupid airship and vertibirds and their power armor and laser weapons - and he likes them even less when he hears about what they’re doing and how they treat non-humans. He’s not outright hostile, not unless they give him a reason to be, but he doesn’t encourage them to hang around his own settlements. He also won’t shed any tears if a sosu sides with the Railroad and destroys them during Rockets’ Red Glare.

Institute: Not a fan. Actually, not a fan is a huge understatement. At first, he’s willing to admit that maybe there’s a little hysteria in the Commonwealth concerning them? But after literally witnessing replacements trying to take place, getting firsthand accounts - in some cases being invited into the Institute itself to make him less of a “problem” (that’s the joke) - and seeing the paranoia and fear concerning them all over the place, plus the treatment of synths like things rather than people, he’s not here for it. It’s why he’s an endgame faction for storming them.

Gunners: His first full day in the Commonwealth he gets jumped by an outpost of Gunners, and that’s what sets him on his path to meeting MacCready. He doesn’t get them - the really are wound too tight - and there’s very little reasoning for them. A person can’t even accidentally stumble across them without getting punched full of holes, and after he learns what happened in Quincy, it’s safe to say he is absolutely not their biggest fan.

Children of Atom: He thinks they’re a little weird, a little misguided, a little kooky, but if they’re not actually hurting anyone - or, you know, brainwashing kids and exposing them to large doses of radiation - and it’s all consenting adults...Well. Live and let live.

Nuka-World Raiders: Yeah, do you even need to ask?

| AS AN ENDGAME FACTION

For the truly intrepid and canon-divergent sosu, Tony can be used as their endgame faction, right by himself. Not that he can take out the Institute on his lonesome with nothing but a suit, that’s just silly. But he does have the Iron Legion, bolstered by a ground force built from reclaimed gen 1 and 2 synths and spare suits of power armor that run on an ai hivemind. This is an option for the sosu who’s managed to convince Tony they aren’t an asshole and are going to do right by the people of the Commonwealth, and who wants to minimize human and gen 3 synth casualties. Tony can be given the designs for the teleportation device and the chip from the courser and get them into the Institute, and he can be the one that the sosu storms the Institute with, if running with any ending other than the Institute’s.

| M.O.E.

MOE is the very first synth Tony rebuilds and reprograms as part of his expansion of the Iron Legion. Originally he was a limited test run - something of a code debugger - but while the ai MOE is using is buggy, it works. He learns, he’s self-aware, and he’s conscious, so Tony’s made the decision to keep him online, because otherwise pulling the plug would feel something like murder, as far as he’s concerned.

MOE mostly hangs out in Fort Hagen - his parameters keep him there after he managed to wander off one day and got attacked by feral ghouls and lost his lower jaw, so to keep him safe, he can travel from Fiddler’s Green all the way up to the radio transmitting dishes past Tony’s house, and no farther. Mostly he can be found tromping between Tony’s house and lab, and he’s a frequent fixture in doing chores such as sweeping and putting away dishes. MOE himself is picking up most of his cues in behavior from Tony, so there are definitely times he mimicks him well enough to be a little unnerving. He’s stubborn, very fixated on doing things himself for himself and learning himself and refusing help when offered it. He’s also a bit tunnel-visioned, getting absorbed in the tasks he determines for himself and can and has barreled people over pulling up rugs to sweep or walking down the street to the lab in the actual fort.

He talks! He’s not a silent robot with no personality. He can and will talk and once started is entirely hard to shut up again. There’s always a million questions once he’s determined someone is trustworthy because he is new, his consciousness is new, and he’s learning.

He can be a bit startling to see at first, with no lower jaw and the fact that Tony never cosmetically altered him to look less murdery, like the rest of the Iron Legion, but he’s a gentle skeleton robot who has particular ideas about the way certain household chores should be done, and can and will go behind Tony and “fix” things if he thinks Tony hasn’t done them correctly.

#⚛ (program: fo4 companion) / here i am the only living boy in new york #long post #long post for ts #// god this got long #// y'all been warned #// one day i'll even write up the settlement posts #// but it will not be this day

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sparda3g · 6 years ago

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One Piece Chapter 827 Review

The joy of Wano Country exploration continues. With the promising setup from the last chapter, this one is more of a cooldown for Strawhats with the absence of Luffy. When you read the chapter’s title, “O-Toko the Kamuro,” it’s certain that a new character will be introduced. While that’s true, it delivered more than that. It brought in amusing moments that the series is well-known for with new interesting theories to think over for a long period of time.

After some of the heavy content as well as buildup from couple of chapters ago, it feels good to sit back, relax, and enjoy the scene with Strawhats hanging out like good times. Case in point, eating Sangoro’s specialty soba. No foodgasm required. Sanji continues to amuse me with his bias outlook. Sanji is very dismissive to guys; only wants to hear praise from women. Besides, it’s like a fanfic come true when seeing Robin as a Geisha; who can blame him.

The part that made me laugh is Franky’s suggestion. He suggests to add alcohol to favor the Samurai, so they can recruit them, which is a really good idea. Sanji on the other hand finds this idea awful. That face is hilarious. Clearly, he is only there to attract the ladies. So much for building up an army. It’s comic relief; it’s not needed to get so serious. The following scene however is the time to shift gear.

Kaki, Kuni, and Suke are part of the Kyoshiro Family, cutting the line to ruin the fun. The short term for them would be douchebags. Sanji keeps it civilized, though tells them to go back in line to wait for their term. Committed to his code of chef I see. Apparently, Sanji has to pay a random fee to those guys for “security” in order to open a shop. Smell that? That’s bull crap. I do like Sanji’s response with confidence that he got this secured. It doesn’t stop them from being douchebags.

They begin to destroy the shop because well, I’m tired being redundant. They even knock a kid’s share. That’s low. It was weird though to see that kid crying yet laughing. I honestly thought Oda has drawn his/her face wrong by accident, like “Oh crap, that kid is supposed to be sad, not laughing!” Sanji’s face however is not wrong; he is pissed and because he’s a chef to the core, that’s a red flag for those guys. Got to like Franky getting hyped for a fight. Sanji has been comical for a while, but now it’s time to show his badass side.

His specialty soba is on the ground, leaving uneaten. When he says, “eat all of it,” he doesn’t joke around. He satisfied me by kicking the crap out of one guy. Serve him right. To make the satisfaction even better, Franky steps in and does a damn suplex on one of the other guys. How damn cool is that? Sanji force-feed the down victim with dirtied soba; as if to say, “Eat it! Eat the damn soba, asshole!” Yes, they most likely caused a stir that will bring in even worse opponents in which, in hindsight, it happens, but the satisfaction is warranted.

It’s time to connect the chapter’s title. It turns out that kid earlier is Toko, a child from the capital, and no, the reaction earlier isn’t an error. It was intentional, though it was still odd to see someone laugh and cry at the same time, and I don’t mean within one emotion. Part of me had a bad flashback to Koala’s past, where she was forced to smile despite the suffering. I wonder if it’s the same, though there’s a small tweak to her. Sanji is a nice guy, aside from his biasness, and gives her another dish of soba. Charming.

Toko’s design is simple, but it’s her expression that stands out a lot. It reminds me of that story with the Joker from Batman series transformed Robin into Junior. She laughs all the time and for some reason, it’s contagious. Everyone begins to laugh along with her. I don’t know if she has a devil fruit and something is up from where she’s from. By the way, the pun from Oda continues with her name. If you add ‘O’ to her name, which would be O-Toko, it reads “male.” Get it? Oda is seriously having too much fun here and I like it.

Toko may be the point of the chapter due to the title, but it’s what she leads to that’s pretty interesting. As the title reads, she’s a Kamuro, a young girl who attends to high-ranking Courtesans, and it’s almost time for them to appear. The aftermath of her departure is funny. Usopp compliments her for being funny, Robin saw her cute, and Sanji breaks the trend by talking about the Courtesan Procession being true. The man has his priority all right.

The old lady appears out of nowhere, who is Robin’s master in Geisha, to tell the tale of one lady, who is the only one chosen so far as one who is called the dream of all men. Her name is Komurasaki and her beauty with charisma can sway men like no others; even those that are from the most sophisticated countries. She is above the Goddess. She is perfection. That is a hell of a overhype statement and I dealt with one fandom earlier. Won’t say whom. That is one beauty that is unheard of. This almost sound like a setup for a hysterical twist. I like how all the guys are very curious.

The interesting development is Robin has been accepted to meet Shogun Orochi. That means the long wait for the face’s reveal is nearly over. Elsewhere, Komurasaki is walking down as the people practically give her a hero’s welcome. I got a good laugh at the reactions surrounding her. She is so beautiful that it blinded a man. My eyes! She is so beautiful that her beauty legitimately knocked out 20 people from blood loss. That’s hilarious. If Sanji sees her, get ready to say your farewells. I seriously wonder if this is one massive troll from Oda.

There are two more interesting developments and one of which involves with speculations. The first one is the Kyoshiro Family next move. Kyoshiro received the report about Sanji kicking his men’s ass. He doesn’t have time to deal with him as he is invited to Shogun Orochi’s Banquet. Instead, he will have Queen to send assassins to take care of this matter. Supposedly, they’re known to cause a huge stir, but he doesn’t care. Looks like Sanji and others now have a new trouble ahead.

The next development is interesting as we catch a shadow of what supposed to be Orochi. It looks like he too is a Dragon, though with multiple heads. I wonder if Oda will have us looking at that form and save the human form later. For that matter, what’s the story behind that form? The developments in this chapter point towards to the reveal, so we can expect more of him very soon.

Another interesting speculation is the identity of Komurasaki. She appears to be a nice person based on how she treats Tomo. With that said could she be Momonosuke’s sister? It’s clear that her character was emphasized heavily throughout the chapter. Why the importance? Also, we don’t get to see her face; same goes for the sister. I know they have a different name, but since her family name is taboo, she must have gone through a drastic change of persona. Maybe she is needed to grow up rather than skipping 20 years in order to fulfill the prophecy her mother foreseen. After all, she attracted the one and only Orochi, the sworn enemy of Oden. Perhaps Tomo reminds her of her old self. These are all speculations and it’s exciting to think of more.

This was an amusing and interesting chapter. It has good comedy, fun moments with satisfying results, and plenty of interesting developments. Clearly, the next big focus is on Orochi and with the setup like this along with other tidbits from earlier chapters, I’m excited to learn more. Unfortunately, there’s a break and what’s worse, there’s a longer break on the horizon. It’s the holiday season after all. We got a long time to speculate. Next time, expect more twists and turns.

#one piece #chapter 827 #review #spoilers

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mizz-miscellaneous · 3 years ago

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just gonna be entirely normal about this and copy-paste some v good tags here, bolding sections that hit me in the chest:

from @aroace-jason-todd, who brought up sheila before this was reblogged with the original comic:

#THANK YOU#jasons smart#like really fucking smart#and everyone ignores this just bcus he wanted to save his mom#and she fucking betrayed him???#she straight up told him the joker was gone#he was 15 and his mom told him everything was gonna be alright#why wouldnt he have believed her??#joker could easily left with the convoy#he didnt go into the building until she told him to#how was it reckless for him stand outside the fucking building#its so fucking annoying

from @fortanuvasyama:

#what really sucks is that Bruce watches the warehouse blow up#and IMMEDIATELY goes 'i warned you i begged you but you never listen!!!' as he starts looking for jason#like wtf bruce???#it breaks my heart every time#DC started the 'bad robin' excuse before bruce even found jason's corpse#bruce wayne#batman#jason todd#robin 2

from @autisticredhood:

#what is worse: the pain of being called reckless and thats why you died (as a CHILD) or having to tell ppl that you werent reckless your#birth mother sold you out#ha ha im having a great time and im so normal about this 🥲

and once more, sorry i'm dragging your tags to the light kicking and screaming because parallels:

#EXACTLY!!#putting this in the tags bc i dont want to derail a canon-based post w my headcanons#not to be on my mother son duo agenda but the Power of talia being the one jason tells the story of his death to. a story of ppl going#WHY would you go into the warehouse & jason not answering but talia has also asked the same thing from the start except she phrases it as#/how/ did you end up in the warehouse. a want to understand rather than judgement. but still its too painful for jason. and then and then#and THEN talia takes care of jason after his throat is slit by the batarang & when jay gets his voice back he (unprompted) says 'it was my#mom' and then starts telling the story#like. SCREAM. i have. so many thoughts on dealing w jay's grief#also ik sheila doesnt hold out her hand for jason to take but i do like the idea of it bc the symbolism of it to canon of talia holding#jasons hand when shes taking him to the pit and also helping him escape. led to death vs led to healing

from @fantastic-nonsense:

#thinking about how literally not even bruce knows about Sheila#like...he knows that Jason FOUND her#and he knows he LEFT Jason there while he ran off to chase down the truck (while telling him to take no action until he got back)#but he actually has no idea how Jason got inside that warehouse#about how Sheila manipulated him and told him it was safe#or that Sheila was actively working with the Joker and not just being massively blackmailed#sooooooooooo much about how the events of DitF are treated in the aftermath is fucked up#but there is this big in-universe info gap that REALLY hurts because it's basically impossible for Bruce to actually know what happened#(and so he's left to make his own conclusions...because neither Jason nor Sheila are alive to tell him differently)#which like...okay that's a contributing factor BUT ALSO#Bruce blamed *himself* for years because of that gap and then later writers started victim-blaming Jason for his own death...sick#anyway every bit of this meta is ON POINT thanks y'all#jason todd#jason todd meta#bruce wayne#bruce wayne meta

... does bruce know that sheila was jason's bio-mom? i can't remember sorry

from @onehaleofanadventure:

#jason todd#dc started the bad robin story from the very beginning with Jason#it was an inevitability with the street rat angle#and the poll to kill him#it was never about him being reckless#just him not being Dick Grayson

from @emilfish:

#it hurts so much to think about how much jason is blamed for his violent death#like a CHILD was BETRAYED by a person he was supposed to be able to trust#my biggest complaint in most adaptions is that his death is simplified into him getting killed because he went after the joker#when the whole point of his death was that he was trying to help his mother and she intentionally sold him out to save herself.#and when the woman who watched him get horribly tortured was in danger? he still tried to save her.#he died trying to help a person most people probably wouldnt want to save and dc has the fucking nerve to call him reckless and cruel#sorry for the rant i just have so many feelings about jasons death and the fact that his memory was tainted for years in universe and irl#dc

“Jason was reckless because he didn’t wait for backup before going to Sheila” is such a stupid take. He didn’t have backup. Batman had to chase after the truck because that was life or death. Jason had to save Sheila because he knows the Joker wouldn’t just let her live. Jason didn’t care about stopping the Joker as much as he did saving Sheila, hence why he went to talk to her outside of the warehouse instead of going in to kick Joker’s ass.

If this decision qualifies “recklessness” to be a defining train of Jason’s, then I hope you all understand that every Bat is now reckless by nature. That’s what you’re saying. Because all of them (provided we give them all parents that have no training & are just average people) would have done the same thing, especially at that age. Any of them, and I’ll stand by that. Especially Bruce or Dick or Tim. Someone said that us saying Jason isn’t reckless, as proven by this choice, is fans seeing everything in black & white, is or isn’t. But if that’s the stand you’re going to take, be prepared to explain to me why technically reckless decisions made by other Bats don’t qualify them as reckless (no, “they didn’t die” is not a valid answer when we all that Jason would have found a way out if Starlin didn’t hate him).

Every character makes stupid decisions sometimes, they would be boring as hell if they stuck to a prescribed list of traits. That doesn’t mean that every decision is an accurate measure of any character’s tendency for any one trait, especially when there was more than just “recklessness” involved in that decision. The situation itself had other factors besides just Jason “not thinking something through”. Why is it that people only say fans are thinking in black and white when it comes to people saying that [insert something that makes Jason seem like The Bad Robin] isn’t all his character is? Regardless, reducing characters to singular traits based on one decision, despite every interpretation of Jason (pre & post-crisis) before Starlin contradicting that?

More to the point, every Bat has to be reckless. Half the shit they walk into is guaranteed to kill them! Even planning gives them less than a fair chance! They have to take risks, and they do, all the time. Jason’s not the only one to have ever made a reckless decision (because yes, it was reckless of him, but it was his only option because he knew Joker’s unstable & Sheila was in immediate danger). Everyone’s so stuck on labelling everyone with one word traits, and basing that off singular incidents. Characters don’t work like that. Not dynamic ones, at least.

#jason todd #batmeta #jason todd's death #sheila haywood #bruce wayne #tags passed peer review

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vendettacanons · 4 years ago

Text

Wilson’s Heart Headcanons

// I dug back through that old blog at 4am for these-

Given the time period, I don’t think it would be too far of a stretch to say that Wilson probably likes swing music. He rarely dances but I can see him being the kind to enjoy it and move his feet to it on occasion, and he’s not bad at it either! He might also low-key enjoy electroswing if he was in a modern au/lived long enough to see it become a thing

It wouldn’t be surprising if, after everything he’s been through and after all he’s seen, Wilson is uninterested in seeing anymore bodies. He went to war and watched his friends die beside him, he’s lost his wife, he saw people be maimed and slaughtered in the hospital. As far as Wilson is concerned, he’s seen enough bodies to last him a lifetime.

As time progresses, Wilson tries to keep up with trends and learn about new things like advancements in technologies. He’s fascinated by new machines and new breakthroughs that people discover and often enjoys taking a hands-on approach to said methods. He likes giving the newest music at least a listen before judging it and likes reading the latest books. He loves learning about newly proven theories and debunked myths. Overall, Wilson just enjoys expanding his knowledge and understanding of the world.

Wilson doesn’t really mind the weather. If it’s cold, he tends to generate a decent amount of body heat to keep himself warm. If it’s hot, it’s pretty easy for him to cool down. He doesn’t mind the rain and actually likes the feeling of it on his skin, or the sound of it pattering gently against a window. He has an issue with lightning and thunder due to his PTSD however (same goes for fireworks). Wilson’s favorite season is probably fall because by that point, everything is just the right temperature and the air always smells nice. Plus he thinks it’s an ideal time of the year to go on walks and he likes the way the environment looks during the autumn season.

Wilson adores physical contact and being held. He and Evelyn loved cuddling and dancing together and physical contact is very important to him. He’s not excessively touchy, but he does value touch and sees it as a sign of trust and deep compassion. After his wife passed away, he sort of drew into himself. Physically, he wanted to be comforted throughout the ordeal, but emotionally, he couldn’t handle the thought of being touched. He’s since recovered and is in a somewhat better place and while he does still very much appreciate and enjoy physical contact, he’s less inclined to make an attempt to engage in it anymore unless the situation prompts him to do so.

Wilson was always a good sport about the water growing up. He and his brother would often go swimming when the weather got really hot and he was a very strong swimmer that loved diving and doing cannonballs. The one issue he had with the water is that he always wanted to go in swimming pools, but never into the ocean. He eventually came to realize that the fear was because when he was very small, he feared the deep water. The one time he ventured in and stayed just a little past the shallow end, he accidentally stepped on a skate and almost drowned after losing his balance. Since then, he’s taken to avoiding the ocean for swimming and he’s disgusted by the idea of swimming with fish around. He’s also quite picky with what kind of fish he’ll eat as a result.

While Wilson never took to drinking heavily or smoked excessively, his use of cigarettes did pick up a fair amount following the death of his wife. Paired with the trauma he received during the war, Wilson became a serious recluse. He began retracting from the outside world. His brother was the most worried of all about this because he knew Wilson better than anyone and knew Wilson wasn’t handling the death of his wife well at all, but for a period of time, he didn’t know how to help. He didn’t know where Wilson was, Wilson was barely writing to him, and he was seriously concerned he was going to lose his brother along with his sister-in-law. Eventually, Wilson found a way to claw himself out of his pit of despair himself. He decided to just work more hours to help distract himself, picked up social contact again, and lightened up on the cigarettes. He’ll even go out on occasion to enjoy himself. Despite getting a bit better, things were never the same with him though. He still felt very disconnected from the world around him and he still felt a constant ache from where his wife used to be in his heart. He felt sad, tired, and lonely very frequently, and while he adored physical contact (and still really does), eventually that too became a rarity for him and he couldn’t feel the same pleasure now as he had from it before. He often pondered why he bothered going through life each day but he was still determined and sensible enough not to give up because he knew he still William and his sister-in-law and niece that loved him and needed him. Wilson has gotten better since reconnecting with his brother and talking about all this, but the death of his wife and the lingering effects of her passing still loom over him like a dark cloud some days.

Aside from the fact that one-third of Wilson’s vocabulary appears to be swears and snarky comments, Wilson’s way of speaking very clearly sets him apart from others. He’s often known for calling people bastards, both playfully and with derogatory intent. He calls people who are clearly younger than him kiddo, he refers to Elsa as “lady” when she grates on his nerves, and call Kurt a punk when he’s acting out of line. When Wilson’s nervous, he tends to stutter a lot. He babbles and the panic is evident from the fact that his voice raises an octave when he’s freaked out by something. When he’s startled, he curses and temeprorarily loses his nerve before he recovers it and shows anger to mask the shock.

Wilson is Bisexual, but he’s very much in the closet. Not just in the closet, but hiding behind the clothes and the shoe rack and the shoeboxes of old comic books and toys in the closet. And he’s only somewhat aware of it. Being that the game takes place during the mid-1900s, when homosexuality was generally seen as a massive no-no and could be met with threats, harassment, and even physical violence or death, Wilson is very much quiet about his preferences. During his teenage and early adult years, while he said he was never interested in dating and wanted to focus on finding a job and work before looking into a relationship, he did find himself looking more at men than women. Generally, he found men more appealing and it sometimes found his way into his and William’s conversations. William never really picked up on it though and figured that Wilson was just intimidated by competition. Eventually, when he met Evelyn, he realized that he did have an attraction to women. But after the draft, he began to feel confused and conflicted, because even though he was married (and even though he never felt compelled to cheat on her), he still found himself finding men attractive. For the longest time he told himself it was just because he missed Evelyn so much and he was surrounded by men, but a part of him knew that and he was in denial and he did find himself attracted to both sexes, not just one. After returning home to find her dead, Wilson’s heart (heh) sort of shut down entirely as he tried to cope with the circumstances. He still finds himself looking at both men and women, but he hasn’t really thought about getting into a relationship because he still feels like he’s grappling with the aftermath of Evelyn’s death, and because knows the risk he could be taking if he ends up with a man, or even coming. So far, no one knows yet. Not even William.

Despite that fact that it has been years, Wilson is still struggling to cope with his wife’s loss. He loved her with all his heart, even if at times his heart and his mind felt confusion. Evelyn was the world to him, the perfect wife, and it broke his heart when he was drafted and had to leave her and their unborn child. He was absolutely devastated when he heard she’d passed on and has never fully recovered or gotten closure. He still visits her grave frequently and writes letters to her, talking about what’s on his mind and what he’s going through. He still has all of these letters saved somewhere too, highlighting some of the best moments that he wished she was there for, and some of his worst. The reason he’s struggling so much to move on is because he hasn’t reached out to anyone to talk about it and hasn’t seeked any professional help either. As time has gone on, he’s been able to resist a lot of the darker thoughts that linger in his head as a result of being a widower; self-harm, suicidal thoughts or tendencies. He’s been strong and reminded himself that as much as he loved Evelyn, there are more people than just her that love him, care about him, and are depending on him. Similarly (and because he is essentially an extension of Wilson), Boris feels strongly about Evelyn in away. How he goes about expressing this often clashes with how he torments Wilson and varies based on his mood. If he’s trying to “empathize” with Wilson on s good day, he’ll often sit in silence with him and look through the paintings of them and the very old photos. He’s not in any of them but he feels the same despair and sadness that Wilson does to a degree and he understands many of the thoughts Wilson has. Though he doesn’t do anything to comfort him. If it’s a bad day, Boris will do what he was meant to do. Torment Wilson. And he can, will, and has used Evelyn’s death against him. He’ll threaten to mess with the photos, or mess with them outright, and say things like Wilson is to blame for her death, remind him that she died without him being able to say goodbye, and constantly hang the fact that he doesn’t know the truth about her and their unborn child’s death (that last one never fazes him because doesn’t know the truth, he was never told what really happened surrounding the circumstances around her death.) Boris mentally breaks him down and laughs about it. And he’s left some nasty permanent scars on Wilson as a result of his heinous words, both mental and physical.

Wilson has received a lot of nicknames, some of which he likes more than others. Bobbie happened to be what his brother called him growing up, and it was his wife’s favorite nickname for him. William still calls him Bobbie from time to time, not nearly as often anymore because Robert’s made it clear that he prefers to be called Wilson after hearing it for so long. He doesn’t like it when other people he doesn’t know/barely knows calls him Bobbie or give him nicknames at all.

Because Wilson lives by himself now, it’s safe to assume that he cooks his own meals from scratch and he’s damn good at it. His favorite thing to eat is biscuits with mashed potatoes and gravy (and maybe some beef or pork on the side) and apple pie with some ice cream for dessert. Evelyn used to invite him to come and cook with her, and he has his mother’s old cookbooks. After decades of it, he’s become an excellent chef. He can’t make up his own recipes, but he does add little twists to the ones he does read and they come out great.

Robert knows how to play piano. He took lessons when he was younger, along with guitar and the drums but he strongly preferred piano to either of the others. Guitar strings used to hurt his fingertips too much and he felt a little bored playing the drums, which William picked up instead. So he spent hours practicing on a piano his father bought for him and used to practice playing songs and singing with William. The two never enrolled in a class or choir, but after years and years of doing it, they built up their own skills over time.

The two brothers used to put on “neighborhood shows” with their parents being their biggest supporters. They both remember people encouraging them to pursue music, including their parents since they loved to sit around the radio all the time and listen to the songs that played. For a brief while in their teens, the two had worked with Thomas Baker (their neighbor) and another kid and formed a small band. They continued it throughout high school and into college before originally breaking up when their other member tried to get serious about it, while the three original members insisted they played just for fun. Wilson does occasionally play piano now and then and has the curious habit of humming or singing to himself, especially when he thinks no one is around. He can’t play often or for long on account of his developing arthritis (that he has yet to find out about).

None of Wilson’s clocks or watches has a six on them. Back then, the number six was considered an unlucky or cursed number, and therefore people would often leave it out of things like elevator floors, clocks, watches, and other numeric lists.

Wilson has a terrible tendency to feed animals. Stray dogs, raccoons, cats, opposums, squirrels, deer, bears, bunnies, birds. If he sees an animal and he has food, he will give the animals scraps to eat. This has led to things following him home on more than one occasion, much to his dismay. Currently, he has some resident cardinals, bunnies, a lizard, and a big possum taking residence in his backyard that he feeds fairly often. On the bright side, Wilson is rather knowledgeable on what animals can and cannot eat and will feed them accordingly. He’s not aiming to tame them, but he will admit that knowing that they’re there provides him some sense of company.

Wilson has a lot of phrases and a lot of ways he says things pretty often. Here’s a few the more notable ones.

“ I’m getting myself a creemee cone, you want one? ““ Can I get bowwow with extra red and sauerkraut ? ““ I could kiss you right now. ““ Another one bites the dust. ““ Pass me the clicker. ““ I’m at the rotary now. “ - referring to traffic circles“ Shit, I have to make a uey (pronounced you-we)/ take a jug handle “ - referring to making a U-turn“ Must be a full moon. ““ Looks like its leaf peeper season. ““ Just because a cat has her kittens in the oven don’t make them biscuits ““ Looks like the shoe is on the other foot ““ Shove that in your windpipe and smoke it ““ I’m done ““ I’m going on a packie run, you want anything? ““ The kid’s got moxie ““ This hits the spot! ““ I’m stuffed ““ I’m beat ““ Ain’t that the cat’s meow/ pajamas? ““ I’m zozzled. ““ This is the bee’s knees? ““ What a fucking loon. “

After leaving home with William, Wilson and his brother lived in New York. They owned a pretty big house and lived together with their wives in that house. After their parents death, William agreed to let Wilson be the sole heir of their parent’s house, their childhood home, and the land left behind. After Evelyn’s death, Wilson decided to move back into their parent’s home where he still lives all by himself. And he still knows every inch of their land like the back of his hand, including the grass fields behind their house, the woodlands beyond that, the creek where he and William used to play, and where their old treehouse is.

There’s a part of Wilson’s house on the bottom floor that’s completely clear of furniture. It’s between the living room and kitchen, and the floor is well worn and scuffed despite their being no furniture present in the space, and it makes the house feel larger than it actually is. The reason for it being so barren is because Wilson and his wife would often turn up the radio and spend time dancing together in the space. They made it for themselves, and Wilson can’t bring himself to try and move anything around to fill it up. Sometimes, he turns in the radio and tries to dance all by himself in the space but he’s never actually finished a song on his own.

Robert, for obvious reasons, is put off by loud noises. It’s the most clear cut result of his PTSD, but sounds like pots and pans suddenly being dropped, fireworks going off, thunder at close range, or other generally loud and very sudden noises spook him badly and can leave him with a nasty case of the shakes. On rare occasions, it can sometimes send him in a downward spiral and leave him hiding in the closet clutching his teddy bear.

Despite all his previous hopes and desires to build a family, Wilson’s age has all but prevented that from happening. Being old has essentially eliminated his chances of finding someone, and he’s hesitant about even trying because he likes to take his time developing a relationship with someone before becoming romantically involves. And of course, time is not on his side. That aside, he’s basically given up on having a child of his own. His chances of conceiving even if he did have a partner are incredibly low, and he’d rather not have a child that he might not be around to see grow up. Not to mention adoption isn’t exactly an option given the time period he’s set in. Though if an orphan showed up at his door Kurt, he’d take them in in a heartbeat.

One of Wilson’s childhood nicknames was Bobblehead. His father was the one who christened him with it. It kept in line with the theme of his nickname Bob, but it initially came from the fact that Wilson was born with a big head (as opposed to William who was born with a big body). The nickname only followed him as he got older and ended up becoming the brainiac child of his family.

Throughout his entire life, Wilson has taken on and fit the role of leader pretty nicely. He’s the man in charge, the boss, the one who leads the pack, the one who protects them all. But the position has had its drawbacks.When he was a young boy, being the oldest, it was natural that Wilson’s parents pushed him to try everything. They wanted to give him as many opportunities as possible and pushed him to work hard, which of course, led him to being one of the top students in his school. He was the genius kid, the creative kid, the innovator. Above all, his mother repeatedly reminded him that he, as the older child, was supposed to be more responsible and “set a good example for his younger brother William”. To his credit, Wilson was the best older brother and followed that advice to the letter. He convinced William to get into sports, which became his passion. He helped him whenever he struggled, kept him on the straight and narrow when he threatened to stray, and was a positive example in his brother’s life. He supported him, he loved him so much, that he would give his life for him. But that also meant he was held to exceedingly high expectations. Everything he did right raised the bar for him each time, and it would crush him when he couldn’t exceed the expectations he was given and prove himself to be the most successful child he could be. Disappointment and failure was physically painful for him, and he was always trying to prove he was a good example for William and for others. In the military, Wilson ended up working his way up to head of the 42nd infantry unit. He was admired for his logistical thinking, his coordination, his strategizing, and the way he could bring his squadron together to do what they had to do. He embraced the title wholeheartedly and grew into the mold of the leader and the protector. But again, that meant he was constantly under pressure. His every move was monitored and it made him an anxious perfectionist because he knew one wrong move could get him or his battalion killed, and he couldn’t bear the thought of his polished reputation being tarnished because of some small but critical oversight. With Evelyn, he was always worried about being the best protector. He lovingly embraced the title as the household defender and breadwinner, but he was also anxious that anything he did wrong might threaten that title and make him seem less like of a man or less like the strong, protective, good example that everyone recognized him as. Nowadays, Wilson is too old and too tired to be worried about other people’s judgements. He’s a grumpy old man that feels like he did all he needed to do to get the approval of others at the time, and lives with the pride of knowing he did a lot of things right. And even if he didn’t, even if he wasn’t perfect, he’s too old and sad to care anymore. His reasons for being a good example have moved on, and he stands by himself now. He’s a lonely, solitary man that doesn’t have anyone left to be a good role model for or protect. The anxiety is gone. But the regrets of letting the judgement of others stop him from doing things he thought might be fun still haunts him.

Robert knows how to write in cursive and his signature is simply R. Wilson. He picked up cursive early on in his life while learning how to write. He sometimes has the habit of taking shorthand notes in cursive or starting in print and fading into cursive as he write faster, which can be difficult for others just looking at it to read sometimes.

The Real Reason Wilson Was Hospitalized (TW for mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation)

Throughout the game, Wilson shows that he has a strong love for the horror genre. He enjoys the scary side of entertainment. The grotesque engrosses him, the intimidating intrigues his interest, the frightening fascinates him. He has a particular affinity for comic books given they’re what he grew up with, and he loves books about monsters and mystery, but given his time and the era of the game, he’s seen his fair share of movies. His favorites are definitely Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man.// That being said, Wilson is less keen on romance. He’s willing to watch it to get romantic ideas of to please a friend/partner, but it’s not his cup of tea. He’s much less fond of the sci-fi genre and tries to stay away from it when possible. He loves superhero comic books as well and has a pretty big collection of them he has stashed away.

Whether it’s because he is linked to Wilson or because he simply spends so much time around him, Boris has picked up certain habits that Wilson has. For example, if Wilson is reading the newspaper, Boris will read the newspaper. If Wilson is sitting in a room listening to the radio/watching tv, expect Boris to be in the same room. If Wilson is working on puzzles, Boris is likely hanging off of his back watching him (and maybe eventrying to help). If Wilson is in the kitchen cooking for himself, Boris tends to sit on the countertop kicking his little legs and watching (and occasionally fucking with the food or helping prepare it, depending on what kind of mood he’s in). By technicality, Boris doesn’t need to eat. But he can, and he does, and is often a nuisance about it. He likes to steal snacks from Wilson, will often mess with the meals being prepared whenever Wilson is trying to cook, and will pick off of Wilson’s plate if it’s left unattended. Sometimes, he won’t even try to be subtle about it— he’ll jump up into Wilson’s face and snatch the food off of his plate/out of his mouth. Wilson has learned to appease him by making him a plate of his own from time to time. He shares a lot of Wilson’s favorites, including orange juice, grilled cheese sandwiches, strawberries, milk, and cookies.

Sweets are something Boris is a particular fan of. Ice cream is at the top of his list, cookies and cotton candy being a close second and thirds. Sometimes he’ll be up at 2 or 3 AM making himself a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce and cookie bits sprinkled on it. Wilson himself has a bit of a sweet tooth, but it’s nothing compared to how much Boris enjoys sugar.

Boris has a habit of sticking his claws in his mouth or licking them excessively after he eats. He has no fingers so the claws double as both weapons and a means of staying dexterous. They’re a still very sharp though, so whatever he’s grabbing tends to get caught on the edges. He’ll spend a while licking things off of his claws until they’re completely clean, and that often means he’ll put his paws in his mouth and just start sucking on his claws until they’re completely clean. He’s careful never to cut his mouth but it still looks ridiculous. Similarly, Wilson has a tendency to chew on his nails. He never bites them and only very rarely breaks them, but he has a habit of chewing on his nails when he’s very very nervous. However, he also does it because, like Boris, he sometimes gets food on or under them and he nibbles on them to get the food out. He’s less about napkins and more into sucking the leftovers off his fingers then wiping.

At times, Boris can only be compared to a child. As intelligent and manipulative and dangerous and vindictive as he is, Boris displays attributes at times that one can only describe as being childish. He is easily motivated to act based on the idea of reward. He often enjoys being gently held and treated like a toy and is amicable with children given that they respect him. Boris has the habit of grabbing people’s legs, climbing onto their backs, and peeking over their shoulders in a way that is cute displays a sense of childlike curiosity. Case in point, when he’s not being a microbastard, Boris is tolerable and can be regarded as being akin to a small child. You can talk to him (not like a child, but as an adult), ask him to do things (which are more likely to get done if you offer him some sort of treat), you can hold him/his paw and guide him around, etc. The only issue is, if you’re going to regard him as a small child, don’t be open about towards him. He tends to get offended when he’s compared to a toddler and he may get aggressive/throw a tantrum.

Unlike his person, Boris has a distinct dislike for water. If he’s wet, his fabric essentially soaks up and holds water for long periods of time, making him heavier and slowing him down. It is not only difficult but painful to him to try and wring it out of his limbs, and sitting in the sun isn’t an option. If he tries to sun dry, his fabric will temporarily shrink— so much so that it will burst his seams which can lead to detached limbs or gaping “wounds” where his stuffing will pour from (or he’ll bleed) and he will start freaking out. (The shrinking does revert over time with normal stretching, but it still hurts). Being that he is a teddy bear and that he moves around often, he often picks up everything he’s around (dust, dirt, pollen, lint, etc). Smells also get trapped in his fabric, which means that naturally, if he gets wet, he’ll also be incredibly smelly and he does not like that. Despite his spite, Boris needs to be cleaned. And he and Wilson are both aware of this. Boris tries to put it off as much as possible because Wilson’s way of cleaning him is to throw him in the washer with a few Tidepods and let him ride the 90 mph spin cycle, then toss him in the dryer to tumble around for a bit without shrinking. As one can imagine, Boris is not fond of this treatment at all. He much prefers to be gently wiped down with a soapy wash cloth and rinsed by hand, blow dried, and lint rolled, all of which he usually does by himself (since Wilson sure as hell won’t). On very rare occasion, he will open himself up and try to wash his stuffing/give himself a scent pack of some sort to try and freshen himself up but he always loses his nerve. He can’t stomach the sight of his own stuffing. He also brushes his teeth very often and takes excellent care of his claws.

Being an extension of Wilson, whatever happens to Wilson will happen to Boris. If Wilson is injured, it will carry over to the bear. The only exception to this is when Boris harms Wilson himself. He has immunity from injuries he deals himself, but otherwise, anything that harms Wilson will reflect on him. Hence why in the game, since Wilson has a cut with a bandage over his left eye, Boris also has an open stitch wound with a bandage covering it. It is very rare for the pain to carry over unless it’s extreme. On the other hand, if Boris is harmed, it will not carry over to Wilson. He can be harmed in manners that cause him to bleed or require him to restuff and stitch up open injuries he receives, but said injuries will not carry over to Wilson. Meaning there is absolutely no risk in dealing damage to him, aside from the fact it’ll majorly piss him off and make him want revenge later on. Similarly, Boris can read Wilson’s thoughts at any given time, though this requires a lot of concentration and he usually doesn’t have the patience for it. While he can usually tell how Wilson is feeling and what he’s thinking, Wilson cannot do the same for him, making it that much harder for him to predict Boris’ behavior and protect himself from the little bastard.

Boris has exceptionally good vision. In darkness and low light, he can perceive things at a much greater distance and with much greater clarity than a human can. In extended periods of darkness, this ability seems even further enhanced. The main drawback is that Boris has a sensitivity to light. He can adapt to it over a short amount of time, but sudden exposure will temporarily blind him to the point of daze. Hence, when he moves around brightly lit areas, the lights around him tend to flicker and dull in his presence, a side effect he seems to have on his environment. Another drawback, perhaps more to the people around him than himself is the fact that his eyes tend to glow in the dark. If he’s completely shrouded in it, his eyes are still visible. When a light is shone directly into them at certain angles or under these conditions, his tapetums tend to glow greenish-blue as well.

Lucy’s teeth continuously grow to stay sharp for when she bites into people. Biting and chewing on things help keep them from getting excessively long. However, the longer she goes without a meal, the longer they grow in preparation for the next bite, until they are virtually unusable due to length. Thankfully, she comes equipped with a way of handling this. If her teeth are damaged (cracked, broken, have cavities, etc), they will simply fall and new ones will grow in to replace the old ones. By manually breaking off her overgrown tusks teeth, Lucy can trigger the release of the old roots and the growth of new teeth to eat again. As one would imagine, this is extremely painful because all of her teeth have nerves (and if she waits too long to replace her teeth, she can develop quicks and nerve growth more towards the point of the tooth).

Evelyn’s spirit was disturbed by the hospital hauntings due to being buried nearby. She’s in no way malicious, but like Boris, she finds it difficult to return to where she came from now that she knows Wilson is still around. So she watches over him as he continues living on without her. She’s not exactly strong enough to send objects flying or cause illusions on the regular- again, she’s not an angry poltergeist, and she can’t always be around. But she can move small things around now and then and warm up a room by entering it for brief periods of time. Her spirit can be stronger but only in bursts, which she reserves exclusively for protecting him when the situation calls for it.

Evelyn can appear in people’s dreams. It requires relatively little effort on her part and it’s about the only time she can verbally communicate with people and actually talk to them. How vividly she is seen in the dream depends on how attached to person she is and if they’ve previously made contact with her before (Ouija boards, foggy mirror messages, warmth bursts, etc). Despite the temptation of it, she always refrains from entering Wilson’s dreams because she knows it wouldn’t impede his progress in recovering from her death.

Over the years, monsters have not been the only thing Vin has studied extensively. He’s learned that humans are sometimes the facilitators or “protectors” that like to shelter the beasts that he enjoys hunting. As such, he’s delved deep into the psychology of people, their words, and their actions. Paired with his intuition and unstoppable determination for his cause, Vin is as much a danger to some people as he is to the beings he primarily targets. He’s not ruthless, but he knows when someone’s trying to bullshit him, and he is not above threats, blackmail, or ransom when it comes to achieving his goals.

#you’re a natural : headcanon #‘’ i’ve been after your kind for a long time ‘’ // vin #‘’ just wilson is fine ‘’ // wilson #‘’ i never liked stuffed animals ‘’ // boris #‘’ my dearest ‘’ // evelyn #‘’ second chances are glorious are they not ? ‘’ // lucy #‘’ get the short end of it ‘’ // wh #tw violence #tw gore mention #tw blood mention #tw suicidal ideation #tw suicide mention #tw homophobia mention #// <- this game took place in the 40s-50s

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 7 years ago

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Fuck Chip Zdarsky

So instead of writing the characters honestly based upon their experiences he's just going to arbitrarily write them however. Yeah...bullshit. First of all no actually it's not iron clad certain that they would be in a mental institution if they felt all that had happened to them. The point is they're superheroes. And really when you get right down to it superhero's are more defined by their superhuman inner strenth than anything else. But even if we say that we shouldn't take the weight of their history into account and more go by the cliffnotes version of it the way he wrote them was still dishonest for numerous reasons. Peter was a jerkass about MJ's relationships, their interactions were dishonest to how they'd interacted in literally the last story we'd seen them in together and even if you go by the most cursory of readings of their relationship: - Known each other for 10 years - Came together following Gwen's death - Were effectively married for a minimum of five years -Lived through Kraven's Last Hunt and Venom and Norman Osborn - Lived through other crises - Were very deeply in love for a long, long, long time Their casualness in the FCBD story was utterly dishonest to all of that even if you are not counting every single story they ever appeared in together. I've said it before and I will say it again. You CANNOT simply treat that specific relationship like any given casual romantic relationship or marriage like it's a breakup from Dawson's Creek or something. The nature of the relationship was simply never like that. And frankly if you attitude is ignore it and skip over the realism and ramifications of things just for the sake of getting things onto the page he doesn't have any business writing Spider-Man. I mean sure accellerate some stuff...if the situation is dire. After Kraven's Last Hunt, the Clone Saga and Mackie's run Peter and MJ were note strictly speaking written realistically in the aftermaths of those events. But at the same time all of those events were following massive destablizing sea changes in the editorial and/or an incredibly broken base within the readership wherein getting things simply working and moving forward was necesarry for the actual survival of the series. KLH followed the wedding and Hobgoblin debacle and the dark shit from PAD's Spec run. It was NECESARRY to plough forward into regular Spider-Man stuff that was more upbeat. The same times 1000 goes for the Clone Saga and Mackie's run. In Zdarsky's case the series was NEVER in such dire straits and at the end of the day HE chose to include Mary Jane in the first place. He chose to include her when he didn't have to and then falsly and dishonestly said oh by the way off panel they got over all this shit that if we were being good writers and honest with the readers (especially since as comic book publishers we can make mini-series and web comics and basically have little time constraints the way movies and TV does) we should by rights have shown you. Yeah, yeah, you gotta joke not to cry...except that isn't how either of them have conssistently acted int he past regarding their relationships. And it isn't a universal rule. Idiots. As for the other stuff mentioned. He's like Frank Miller. He can talk eloquently about the intricacies of comic books but can't pull them off in practice. I mean he says he studied what made a good Spider-Man story but if he really understood anything from that study he'd have never had Spider-Man date a woman in public AS Spider-Man or made a team up book. The mental instituion thing is again fucking stupid because it is excusing shitty writing. Why was Spider-Man able to be kept relatively speaking in character from the 1960s-1990s (accidents happened of course, see O'Neil's run) but oh now fuck it? That's not how good comic book writing works. You can't handwave shit like that. Putting aside again how actually Spider-Man has an in-universe inner strength and bolsted by his connections to other people so he wouldn't actually be in a mental institution, how fucking insulting to say "Well No. Prize this OOC thing by saying he's crazy." Your superhero lead should not be 'crazy' in that way jackass. As for Spider-Man screwing up....fuck you Zdarsky seriously. Spider-Man can screw up AND learn from his mistakes because he is human. People at age 50 aren't somehow more perfect than they were when they were younger. They don't make certain screw ups and mistakes sure, but they also aren't devoid of them. Having Spider-Man deliberately screw up and ignoring his history is a repugnant way of handling the character and one David Michelinie was rejecting in the 1990s. If you look at Michelinie's run he actually tried his best to have Spider-Man acknowledge and fix stuff like his web shooters running out of fluid, have him go to the FF or the Avengers for help, had him use his intellect to solve crimes and defeat bad guys like when he investigated the Shocker and had him try and make his photos better by only making the camera activate when he passed by it. It was a Spider-Man who was flawed as a person but had still learned from his mistakes. Shit, Tom DeFalco was having 40 year old Peter Parker and Mary Jane make missteps in Spider-Girl. Conway was doing that in RYV. Cap AND Superman have done that despite their long histories. And that has happened whilst acknowledging them growing as people and learning from their pasts. What he is suggesting is basically maintaining the status quo of the characters come Hell or high water. the characters can NEVER really grow or change even though that was literally one of the foundation stones of the fucking Marvel universe. Flawed characters yes, but also realism, progression and change. Hence Ben Grimm at the end of Stan Lee's run might not have been perfect but he had evolved a shitton from the guy he was in FF #1 I also fail to see why Peter should be the smartest person in the MU or most respected. in terms of raw intellect Richards and Stark and Banner and Pym are better than himwithout question. And why should he in or out of the costume be more respected? Jameson saw to the latter surely. And now we know why Zdarsky is so beleoved within Marvel. He fits in with their bullshit agenda of 'readers don't know what they want'. Fuck them. Readers know their own minds. They want a married happy Spider-Man and the stories from that era bear out that that isn't reductive. Shit RENEW YOUR VOWS a book on the stands RIGHT NOW bears that out. My God it even contradicts Zdarsky's own bullshit earlier in the interview that KLH works and that generally the story should be upbeat and happy. Not to mention Zdarsky said before starting Spec that he was drawing upon stuff from his childhood which included 1990s comics when Spider-Man was married. I don't even know what he's talking about with the X-Men. Claremont didn't give readers what they wanted right before he left editorial was dictating things which is WHY he left. But you know FYI....X-Men was never more popular than back then. Never. Yes with his history Peter Parker can never strictly speaking be the everyman. But her'es the dirty little secret. The everyman thing was always relative. Because shockingly the every man was the child of a single parent because they accidentally got their Dad killed and now had the be the rbeadwinner of the family. When you write superheore stories you find the BALANCE between respecting their histories, what is realistic, what the genre demands and what their core concept is. You don't throw one thing under the bus for the others. You don't say that you are going to ignore most of his history because he is supposed to be the everyman. Equally you don't say I'm going to ignore the everyman thing because I want to do something new or because this one thing in his history can be taken to this place that undermines that. That's Slott's problem with the Parker Industries stuff. He's fucked over the core concept of Spider-Man because he's saying realistically Peter could become a businessman. Meanwhile Zdarsky is saying he won't have Peter and MJ act beleivably to their histories because to do so would also fuck over their concepts. (even though he just got done handwaving his OOC writing on the grounds that they'd be in mental institutions). We're caught between a rock and a hardplace with these two morons because neither of them can figure out the correct balance the way guys like DeFalco, DeMatteis, Stern or Conway could. They go all or nothing instead of understanding that you DO treat these things realistically and beleivably up to a point but also adhere tot eh concept up to a point. But niether of them understands where those points should be drawn. He says you can't dwell on the past of the characters because there would be no stories...except haven't multiple writers in the past actually GENERATED stories out of that? Isn't one of Slott's (for some reason) acclaimed stories literally a big dream sequence where Peter (bewilderingly) dwells on Marla Jameson's death along with EVERYONE who's ever died in Spider-Man's whole history? You can acknowledge the past without dwelling on it to the point where it holds you back. Again, writers of the past managed to do this. And no, 25 years of history in the 1980s should by rights have presented EXACTLY the same constictions Zdarsky is bulshitting about with his Mental Institution falsehood. Just about the only things I agree about with this nonsense is the idea of letting characters age. Everything else disgusts me. Again, you find the BALANCE between the concepts, the realism, the history, the genre demands, etc. Again, again actually most of these people wouldn't necesarilly be in mental instittutions. Consider how a 19th century middle aged man would maybe crack from exposure to our modern world as it would be so overwhelmingly alien to him. But to a modern middle aged man it isn't because he's grow up and gotten used to it. The smae is true of the Marvel universe. having dealt with superhero shit since literally the 1940s in-universe the residents of the MU likely built up a certain mental tolerence for the sort of shit they typically deal with. Hence numerous deaths and resurrections are by and large probably not going to send them off the deep end. Because the Marvel Universe is KIND of like our world but not an exact facimilie. Even if that explanation doesn't work for you the fact is that you still have to find the balance. okay they can't be totally realistic because they would be in mental institutions, that doesn't mean you ignore the realistic ramifications completely. You still HAVE to address them and address them on panel whilst not going too far. In the clone saga they couldn't spend months or years showing the depths of Peter and MJ recovering from Ben Reilly and their child's deaths. But they didn't just skip it either. They did an issue acknowleding those emotions and having them ready to move on and get their lives back to normal whilst still showing them have moments of pain and loss and also going to therepy. You have the ramifcations go as far as you can without breaking the concept or the genre necessities. But equally if the genre necessities say the show must go on come hell or high water and that invovles a complete destruction and selling out of who the characters' are then the show doesn't deserve to go on. E.g. had Paul McGann's Doctor Who movie done well they were essentially going to ignore the past and remake old Doctor Who stories set in America whilst the Doctor searched for his father who'd fathered him with a human woman and had had the Master with another woman, making the Master the Doctor's half brother. That stuff so aggressively doesn't make sense within the established narrative and so aggressively fucks over so many core concepts of Doctor Who that the 'show must go on' mantra of storytelling ceases to be an excuse because that show doesn't deserve to go on duee to eviscerating certain fundamentals. If in major storylines peter and Mary Jane lived through traumatic events acknowledged as traumatic that drew them closer together and that too was an acknowledged part of the story IN-UNIVERSE then you DO NOT GET TO IGNORE THAT! How much (if at all) you get to ignore it if it was in minor storylines or if it would be realistic despite not being acknowledged in universe should not matter at that point. You DO NOT GET to play it in a way that ignores that stuff!

#chip zdarsky #mjwatsonedit #MJ Watson #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #spider-man #peter parker #Doctor Who

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traincat · 8 years ago

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Hi! Just wanted to let you know that your comic recs are all I need in this world. Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into making them! Also, I know you love Johnny whump just as much as I love your writing. Could you possibly... idk... write a tiny little h/c thing with Johnny and the rest of the FF? That would make my month, and it was my birthday this month so that's saying something. You don't have to if you don't want to. Thanks again for being my #1 Johnny source!

You’re so welcome! I’m happy you like them -- and happy belated birthday! I hope you have a fabulous month.

At first, there was a lot of crying. It was allhe’d dreamed about for a year, all he’d wished and hoped and prayed for. Hewrapped his arms around his sister’s shoulders and begged her not to let go –not that she could have, with Reed’s arms triple-looped around them. Add Ben’shuge arms over Reed’s and all the children milling around and Johnny couldn’thave gone anywhere if he’d wanted to.

It was perfect. The best he’d felt in forever.

It didn’t last.

“Where were you?” he’d asked Sue, later afterthe chaos had faded a little, when he could get a moment with just her,sequestered in the kitchen. “What happened?”

She’d told him everything – Battleworld and theaftermath, Franklin and the Molecule Man, Reed and Valeria and the FutureFoundation and all their amazing ideas for worlds. Whole worlds.

“Why didn’t you take me and Ben with you,though?” he asked, trying to shake off the betrayal prickling just under hisskin. “There has to be a reason, right, sis? Why you couldn’t take us?”

Sue’s face was shadowed by guilt.

“When I thought about you, burning up there inthe sky…” she said, hands clenching around her mug. “It wasn’t me, but it was,and I put you up there. And I didn’t want you to have to suffer anymore. Iwanted you to be able to live your life.”

He stared at her for a long moment, unable tospeak.

“Are you serious?” he said when he regainedenough composure, when his ears stopped sounding like there was fire roaring inthem. “You left me here – because you didn’t want me to suffer?”

He stood up so quickly his chair toppled to thefloor; Sue startled.

“Johnny?” she said, staring up at him.

“What do you think I’ve been doing down here,Sue?” he demanded, and then he’d had to leave by the window because he couldn’tspend one minute more not exploding, a twisted-up supernova of anger andbetrayal and self-pity.

He holed up with Peter and refused to answercalls or see them or talk about it, more or less. It worked out pretty well forhis purposes: Peter let him drape himself all over him and felt bad enough tolet Johnny pick the television channel and made generally sympathetic noiseswhen he wasn’t telling Johnny to call his family.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Peter kept saying. “Allyear you’ve been missing them like a part of yourself and now that they’re back,you’re living on my couch, eating my food, pretending there’s no life outsidethis apartment.”

“’Your food’ is takeout I bully you intoordering,” Johnny shot back, pointedly ignoring all the other words that hadcome out of Peter’s mouth. Peter sighed and threw his hands in the air and letJohnny bully him into ordering Thai food because Peter was easy like that.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was ignoring all hisfamily. He saw the kids. It wasn’t their fault he’d been left.

“You would’ve been bored, Uncle Johnny,” Valsaid one afternoon while Franklin was busy messing around with Peter’sridiculous and underused entertainment center. She’d wanted his attention allthe time since they’d been back, which with Val mostly meant she acted like shewas doing him a favor by asking him to fancy braid her hair. “Rebuildinguniverses really is a lot of math. You can ask Mom.”

“You can ask me,” Franklin mumbled, somewhattestily. Universe rebuilding seemed to have sprung him straight into the moodyteen years.

Did it occur to your parents that Iwould rather have been space sunning myself on a rock with my family thanstruggling on this planet alone? he almost said, but that was tooheavy a topic for the kids. Besides, Val was four, and already worse than herdad about making decisions for other people.

“One braid or two?” he asked instead.

“I feel like a kidnapper,” Peter said when he gotback from dropping the kids off. “And then, several hours later, I feel like areverse kidnapper.”

“That’s not a thing,” Johnny said, lying flaton his back on the couch.

“It’s a thing when I say it’s a thing,�� Petersaid, bracing himself against the back of the couch. “Sue –”

Johnny cut him off with a loud groan; Peter,predictably, was undeterred.

“Your sister,” he continued,loudly, “who loves you, asked me to pass along that, again,she loves you. And she wants to see you. And I, personally, think you shouldsee her.”

“You see her,” Johnny shot back. His head hurtand he didn’t feel like coming up with an actual rebuttal that Peter would doubtlesslyhave already prepared an argument for. There were downsides to knowing eachother as long as they had.

“I have seen her, that’s the problem. Hey,”Peter said, eyebrows knit together in a frown. “I love you, you know that, andI want what’s best for you. And I’m pretty sure we both know that’s yourfamily.”

Johnny rolled over and buried his face in thecouch cushions before he said something he’d regret.

“Hey, visitor to see you,” Peter announcedafter about two weeks, the elevator doors dinging open. “I tried to stop him, buthe’s one of the dozen people in our social circle who can actually beat me atarm wrestling. And also I didn’t really try to stop him.”

Ben stood behind him, larger than life.

Johnny swallowed, unable to say anything backat all.

“Well, I’ll be downstairs,” Peter said, jerkinga thumb over his shoulder. “Break things and start a huge brawl if you needanything.”

He fled too fast for Johnny to even glare athim, back in the elevator. Ben waited until the doors had dinged shut again tosay, “Hey, kid.”

He cast a look around the apartment, rockybrows raising.

“This what the bug’s done with the place?” heharrumphed, crossing his massive arms. “Well, guess we can’t all have AuntPetunia’s bashful nephew’s sense o’ style.”

It was too much – Ben, here in this buildingwith so much of their history written in it, with the same old jokes Johnny hadbeen hearing over half his life.

“What are you doing here, Ben?” he asked. “You’remad at me.”

“Sure,” said Ben, nodding. “Going on nearlysixteen years now, ever since ya fell out of that tree onto my head when youwuz fourteen.”

“You left,” Johnny said,hands balled into fists.

“Not the first time,” Ben said.

“It was different this time,” Johnny said,lighting up a little, hair and shoulders and hands. “You didn’t come back!”

“Alright,” Ben said. “So I was mad at ya. I wasmad at Suzie and Stretch, too. I was angry at the world, and you took the bruntof that, ‘cause you were there. But I don’t want to be mad at you no more. AndI don’t think you want to be mad, either.”

He wasn’t wrong. Johnny had never been good atgrudges, always burning through his anger hot and fast. And he wanted to gohome. He wanted to be happy. He did.

He didn’t know why it had to be so hard.

“Why are you here?” he asked, breath hitching alittle.

“’Cause we’re a family, Matchstick,” Ben said. “Andwe don’t work right without you. Just like we didn’t work right without them.”

Johnny collapsed back onto the sofa, stringscut, flames extinguished. He buried his face in his hands, then pushed them upinto his hair.

“They made the decision for us,” he said. “Itwasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.”

The floor creaked as Ben got down on his kneesin front of him. “I know. Same ol’Stretch-o, making decisions for everyone. But they did it because they love us,John. They wanted us to have our own lives, not be stuck waiting for them.”

Johnny inhaled shakily, swiping at his eyeswith the heel of his hand. “I’m so sick of other people making my decisions forme.”

“Yeah?” Ben said. “Who jumped into the NegativeZone after I’d already made up my mind?”

“That was different,” Johnny said, shaking hishead. That was when he’d gone away from them, not the other way around. “I wassaving your life.”

“What do you think they thought they were doin’,huh?” Ben asked, softly.

“I don’t know how we can go back to what wewere,” Johnny admitted, eyes blurring.

“So maybe we don’t go back,” Ben said. Therehad always been something so naked about Ben’s blue eyes – Johnny could alwaystell how he felt by looking at them. He swallowed, hard, at the unshakablestrength there. “We go forward. Together.”

He flung his arms around Ben’s neck,practically falling off the sofa and onto him. Ben’s big hand covered his back,rocky thumb brushing feather-light at the base of his neck.

“S��okay, kid,” he said as Johnny buried hisface against Ben’s throat. “S’all gonna be okay now.”

“Why am I here again?” Peter said as theywalked through Central Park.

“Moral support,” Johnny said.

“And here I was, remembering that nice coupleof months we were practically the Fantastic Five,” Peter said with a mockinglittle sigh.

“You wish.”

“Does this mean I have to give up the BaxterBuilding after all?” Peter asked, and Johnny whipped around to face him. Peterheld his hands up in front of him. “Kidding, kidding. Hey, I see them.”

He pointed up ahead, to where a huge blanketwas spread out. Dragon Man anchored one corner of it, and Ben another, and halfthe children were thronging Sue while she passed out sandwiches. She looked upand caught his eye and broke into the biggest smile.

Tentatively, he smiled back.

“Go,” Peter said, nudging him. He gestured overto where Alex seemed to be trying to lead the Moloids in a game of soccer. “Isee a gaggle of nerds trying to figure out sports and I’m going to go make itworse.”

“So much for the moral support,” Johnny said asPeter dumped his jacket on him and took off at a sprint.

Reed came over to Johnny before Johnny couldmove towards the blanket, and one long arm pulled him into a hug. It tookJohnny a second, but then he returned it, arms slung easily around Reed – Reed whohad always, for better or worse, made him feel like it was all going to bealright.

“We’re very glad you decided to join us,” Reedsaid, squeezing lightly. “We did miss you, Johnny.”

“Yeah, I know,” Johnny said, and let Reed leadhim down towards the others. “I missed you, too.”

#myfic #*replies #Anonymous

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segadores-y-soldados · 8 years ago

Text

Soldier: 76 Fact Sheet, References, and Some Analyses

Alright, so this is a list of facts, ideas, and analyses based on: 1) current issues or hypothesized trajectories for history, 2) confirmed Soldier: 76 lore and personal history, and 3) confirmed Overwatch timeline stuff. Note that all of these can change since Blizzard basically says “fuck it” and changes their lore every three months. Some of these are analysis-based; stuff that is hypothesized/headcanon/food-for-thought status will be denoted as such. Some NSFW language and swearing is included. Also some political and social hypotheses and interpretations.

Main article: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/19809396/

Other resources:

Reaper Art Assets

Reaper References

Reaper and Soldier: American Cultural References

Here we go:

Indiana:

This is by no means an exhaustive list of stuff about Indiana, but these are basically quick soundbites for people who want a jumping off point.

Bloomington, Indiana currently has a population of about 90k in the city proper, and about 180k in the metropolitan area. It’s not a massive city by any means, but it’s not some small country town either.

Bloomington is a “college town”: it has the most populated public university in the state.

This means that just under half of the population is roughly young, college-educated adults and students.

“Bloomington is a regional economic center anchored by Indiana University and home to a diverse business community involved in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, technology, health care, and the arts. Bloomington's concentration of employment in the life sciences is six times greater than the U.S. average, and employment in the technology sector has grown by over 80 percent in recent years.” - Wikipedia

In heavy contrast to this, Indiana is currently the meth capital of the U.S. Indiana is also currently facing a massive heroin and HIV epidemic.

And I’m not talking that “glamorized Breaking Bad” shit.

Things could’ve stood a chance of improving before the U.S.’s new Vice President and former governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, royally fucked over many of the state’s social structures and services.

Read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/53c313/mike_pence_says_his_role_model_for_vice_president/d7rxk07/

Read this too: http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/01/indiana-opiod-problem

Let me reiterate: Mike Pence fucked up Indiana so hard there’s a fucking HIV epidemic in parts of the state. He bullied a female elected official out of office. He cut funding for fucking preschools. He destroyed Indiana’s energy system.

Now imagine being Jack Morrison, born probably in the next year to 7 years, living in the aftermath of this.

Watching business cut positions, watching people pursue higher education in your home city, but knowing that every other person in your school has a family member who got ruined by meth or HIV or struggled to make ends’ meet. Roughly 40% of the people in your home city are young adult students attending the largest public university in your state. The city is predominantly politically liberal. Your state is struggling. Your country elected the man who helped devastate it into the White House. You grow up in the aftermath of a Pence governorship and a Trump presidency.

“On the rare occasions when I cross paths with other living souls, they describe young Morrison in different ways. He was a rambunctious youth. A humble, salt-of-the-earth farmer's son. But these people all agree on one thing: Morrison was never destined to live out his days in the land of rolling plains and deep blue skies. At eighteen, Morrison packed his bags and joined the military. He had planned to serve a brief stint in the armed forces and then return home to the family farm, but his work ethic and courage caught the eye of the military brass.”

Military:

Canon: Jack Morrison joined the military at 18 years old and was eventually brought into the Supersoldier Enhancement Program.

There, he met Gabriel Reyes and the two became best friends.

Analysis: I have a hard time believing that Reyes would’ve been friends with Morrison if he’d been a huge jerk or ultra politically conservative.

Gabriel Reyes grew up in LA, which is by and large liberal within the metropolitan area.

This may be unknown to many people, but California is EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE outside of the majority cities. Even within the majority cities, you are likely to encounter people who are NOT liberal on a regular basis. The odds of Gabriel having never met “a conservative individual” are literally less than zero.

However, the odds of Jack being “politically and/or social conservative” are also pretty damn low. Naive possibly, but Jack “being shocked” over crime, drug problems, gang violence, cultural differences, or urban lifestyle stuff is less likely than I think many in the fandom realize.

So it’s not exactly an age-old tale of “young, naive, wide-eyed man from the Midwest meets a hardened, sarcastic, street-smart man from the urban jungle,” although that is what Overwatch lore wants to portray it as. When you dig a little deeper, things get more complex.

Omnic Crisis:

Jack was probably the only member of the First Strike team to double as a medic. This is evidenced by him carrying Biotic Fields as both Soldier: 76 and Strike-Commander Morrison.

Ana’s Biotic Rifle was not invented until sometime later, after Angela Ziegler (Mercy) had joined Overwatch. We know this because of the released blueprints of the Biotic Rifle with notes by both Torbjörn and Angela (the blueprints are addressed to “J. Morrison” and “G. Reyes”), in which Angela expresses concerns about the “weaponization” of her biotechnology.

We also know from concept art and the first “Ana” comic that Ana functioned primarily as a regular sniper before the development of the Biotic Rifle.

This means that Jack probably performed most of the healing in the field and during battles for the majority of the Omnic Crisis.

Analysis: this may be one of the reasons why the United Nations considered Morrison to be the “heart and soul” of the First Strike team: “Leadership of Overwatch fell to Reyes, but Morrison would have a greater impact on the group in the long term. He brought out the best in the people around him and helped mold Overwatch's diverse (and sometimes conflicting) agents into a cohesive fighting force. In unity, they found the strength to defeat the robots and end the Omnic Crisis.”

Hypothesis: this may provide a lore-based reason for why Solder: 76 always announces the deployment of his Biotic Fields to his teammates in-game.

Overwatch:

Hypothesis/Speculation: I find it INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE that Gabriel Reyes would continue to work for an organization - more specifically, to under Jack Morrison - for another twenty years if he truly hated it. I take this bit of “canon lore” with a massive pinch of salt.

Timeline: It is very likely that the first major playable character hired by Jack after he became Strike-Commander is Mei-ling Zhou, probably for her breakthroughs in climatology.

Jack almost certainly approved of the “hiring” of other playable characters like Jesse McCree and Genji Shimada, even with all the problems and issues surrounding them.

Jack probably recruited Angela Ziegler (Mercy) to be the head of the medical sciences division at Overwatch.

Jack probably saved, rescued, or assisted Winston after his escape from the moon colony.

Jack almost certainly had a familial relationship with Fareeha Amari, given their in-game interactions and the Ana Origins video.

Jack and the other early members of Overwatch canonically participated in Halloween parties where they all dressed in costumes.

It is implied by the same Halloween comic that Gabriel Reyes designed the uniforms for Overwatch, probably including Jack’s Strike-Commander uniform.

Canon: Jack liked Old Western films.

Probable Canon: Jack has been to many different places around the globe - all the known Watchpoints, and likely all the U.N. Headquarters as well. As Strike-Commander of Overwatch, he may have spent a considerable amount of time in New York City, which is where the main U.N. Headquarters are located.

“Strike Commander Morrison envisioned a bright new future for humanity. Under his leadership, Overwatch served as a global peacekeeping force and an engine for innovation, making advances in scientific fields as varied as space exploration and medical research. But even as Overwatch grew in power, Morrison stayed dedicated to the people around him. He trained new agents, instilling in them Overwatch's noble goals and ideals. At Morrison's memorial service, Reinhardt Wilhelm, one of the group's original members, said, "He devoted everything he was to Overwatch. He was our moral compass. Our inspiration. Our friend."”

Analysis: Jack Morrison was dedicated to helping develop the betterment and progress of humanity through medicine, technology, and the sciences.

Contrary to what Reaper says in the “Old Soldiers” comic, Jack did not actually deliberately leave Ana in the field. In the “Ana” comic, Ana chooses to turn off her comms and chooses to continue pursuing the enemy sniper. The last thing Jack says to her is “Everyone, move! Ana, you too! Evac’s on its way! Wheels up in two! Now beat feet! Disengage, Ana! That’s an order -” (emphasis from comic).

Given all the controversies around Reaper and how long he has “existed,” it is important to point out that Gabriel/Reaper blames Jack for a very specific event, probably the event where he became Reaper (although when specifically this event occurs is...well, debatable, I guess). This is described in the Old Soldiers comic through direct dialogue from Reaper. Ana removes Reaper’s mask and asks “what happened to you…?” (probably about whatever his current appearance is), and Reaper replies: “He did this to me, Ana. They left me to become this thing. They left you to die. They left me to suffer… ...Never forget that.” (emphasis from comic itself).

Food for Thought: there is no mention of the promotion or anything related to it in the Old Soldiers comic, which implies that perhaps the decision was actually not as big an issue between Jack and Gabriel as stated (or as other people thought?). In fact, there’s no mention of the promotion in any of Jack or Gabriel’s lines, dialogue, or character interactions. At best, Gabriel throws some shade through lines like “Finally, some recognition.” but neither character actually mentions the issue directly, nor do any of the others.

Hypothesis: it is entirely possible that the “problems over the promotion” have been largely dropped from the “lore,” and Old Soldiers more closely represents “the new direction” Blizzard is moving towards with regards to the Jack-Gabriel rivalry, split, fall-out, fight, battle, whatever you want to call it.

Post-Fall/Soldier: 76:

Canon: Soldier considers “a part of himself” to have died in the Swiss Base explosion (Origin video). It is not stated what “part of him” that is - take it as you will.

Canon: Soldier does not consider himself a “vigilante”: “Truth is...I’m just a soldier.”

Canon: Soldier: 76 is canonically anti-corporation. This is evidenced by his personal investigation into LumériCo, as well as him breaking, entering, and vandalizing corporations and financial institutions in the U.S.: “A masked vigilante whom authorities have named "Soldier: 76" is considered the prime suspect in these incidents. In addition to bombing corporate offices and financial institutions in the United States, this individual has breached a number of former Overwatch bases. Soldier: 76 has stolen valuable technologies from these sites, including experimental weaponry, causing untold damages in the process.”

Analysis/Hypothesis: Given the current state of Indiana and U.S. national politics, the above bullet point is not particularly surprising.

Canon: Soldier: 76 is anti-gang or anti-crime-organization. Just...watch Hero again or something. But also consider that Soldier has the line “Reyes should’ve cleaned up the Deadlock Gang a long time ago,” said with mild frustration that the Deadlock Gang still exists.

Canon: Soldier: 76 does not want Overwatch restored. This is demonstrated by his Gibraltar lines, and his new interaction with Winston. He considers Winston’s actions “illegal” and “breaking the law” - “same as me.”

Canon: Soldier: 76 does have many memories of Gibraltar - “they weren’t all bad.”

Canon: Soldier: 76 feels “terrible” for all the scientists of Overwatch (Ecopoint Antarctica specifically). He has a new interaction with Mei, where he says that the frontlines of the battlefield are no place for a scientist. Mei teases him as a retort, saying, “I guess it’s a good thing I have you to watch my back.”

Analysis/Hypothesis: Mei recognizes who Soldier: 76 is and is referencing the fact that Jack hired her, and watched over her progress.

Canon: Soldier: 76 has numerous voicelines about activating a Biotic Field, all of which are directed at his teammates. He never activates a Biotic Field for himself (although as a Soldier main I can tell you that I absolutely activate Biotic Field for myself 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time is for the tank. On extremely rare occasions, I have activated Biotic Fields for friendly DPS or Defense units who stay close to me or ask for healing from me).

Canon: the worst “insults” that Soldier has ever said about Reaper is that he’s a “bad guy” and “kind of a jerk” (on the flipside, Reaper’s sitting at a solid “boy scout” as his only insult for Soldier).

Canon: Reaper addresses Soldier by the name of “Jack” in Old Soldiers. The only other character to do this is Ana (on the flipside, the only two characters to call Reaper by the name “Gabriel/Gabe” are Ana and Sombra).

Alternate (?) Canon - Junkenstein’s Revenge: Immortal: 76 “does not care for the nobility” but is siding with the lord of the castle to take down “a common foe - The Reaper.” He tells Hanzo that The Reaper is “the worst kind” of monster there is - “a wicked man.”

Alternate (?) Canon - Junkenstein’s Revenge: Immortal: 76’s faith is in science and alchemy as “the things that keep him alive.” In an interaction with McCree, McCree states that “pumping someone full of chemicals and electricity and whatnot” makes the individual “not a man, but a monster.” This is a reference to Junkenstein’s Monster, but also to Jack and Gabriel “in the main canon,” who were “pumped full of chemicals” in SEP.

Alternate (?) Canon - Junkenstein’s Revenge: Ana describes that Immortal: 76 “attracts strange companions” - “just as it has always been.” This is yet another reference to Jack assembling Overwatch’s diverse crew during its peacetime era.

Interpretation: While some of Soldier’s interactions can be seen as patronizing, I believe it’s more likely that he is strongly concerned for characters like D.Va, Tracer, and McCree. As shown with the Mei interaction, he comes across as gruff or harsh, but well-meaning. His other interactions with Ana and even Reaper to an extent show that Soldier is extremely tired, jaded, and possibly depressed from the wars he has waged - both physical and political/social - and that he likely does not want to see young people get drawn into similar situations.

Hopefully people keep finding these little essays and fact sheets useful. I’m less familiar with the Midwest than the West Coast, but I figured it was useful to throw down some pointers for people who may not know where to start. I also hope that condensing a lot of the “lore” around Jack Morrison/Soldier: 76 helps people get hone in on some key characteristics and ideas about him.

#soldier 76 #jack morrison #my essays #my writing #references #resources #I know people have liked the other ones #sorry this one gets so political #but I've seen people trying to make Jack into some ultra conservative asshole #or some bitter patronizing jackass #and it's frustrating to me because canonically #Jack isn't like that at all #the man helped lead the world to peace #he valued diversity and unique viewpoints above all else #he prioritized hiring doctors and scientists and visionaries before anything else #let the old man rest #let him be happy

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