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allisondraste · 3 years ago

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Death and Other Things That Should Have Been Fatal

Fandom: Mass Effect

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian

Word Count: 4715

Summary: A follow up to Cockroaches and Other Things That Just Keep Living, Shepard wakes up after destroying the Reapers and copes with the fallout. Thankfully, she doesn't have to do so alone.

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“Shepard?”

The voice was little more than static in her ear, jarring her back into excruciating consciousness, head throbbing, extremities numb. Spears of pain coursed through her chest with each and every breath, and she didn’t know whether it was the several broken ribs or the sight of Anderson's lifeless body slouched next to her. She tore her gaze away from the closest thing she’d ever had to a good father figure, eyes fluttering closed as she attempted to focus only on the person speaking to her.

“Garrus?” His was the first name that rolled off her tongue, the only person in the galaxy she wanted that disembodied voice to be.

“No.” Came the stern reply. There was a long pause as any hope for comfort in her final moments came crashing down around her. Then the voice spoke again. “It’s Hackett.”

A jolt of resentment toward the Admiral coursed through her at his introduction. What more could he possibly want from her? Had she not already done enough, sacrificed enough for just a ghost of a chance to stop the reapers. Surely someone else could take it from there. Why did everything fall on her?

Because someone else would have gotten it wrong.

She shook herself out of her head and back to the present. She would have been mortified under normal circumstances, but she couldn’t bring herself to give a damn now. “I apologize sir, I’m— What do you need me to do?”

“The Crucible is docked, but is not activated,” he explained, “We think there’s something that needs to be done on your end. Is there a trigger? Some sort of terminal?”

His words clung to the air around her, and her eyes locked onto the terminal the Illusive Man had used earlier. It was just a few feet in front of her and still so far away. She tried and failed to bring herself to her feet, legs buckling beneath her and sending her plummeting to the floor. Hot tears burned in her eyes as a new array of pain shot through her body, and she groaned in agony.

“Shepard?”

“I’m here, sir,” she growled, forcing herself up onto an elbow and dragging her body to the terminal, vision beginning to blur at the corners.. Not yet , she pleaded with her consciousness as she reached up toward the terminal, hand sweeping clumsily across the haptic display. Not. Yet. “I’m at the terminal but I… I don’t— I can’t find—”

Her vision went dark, supporting arm trembling and giving out as her consciousness faded. Hackett’s voice called out to her repeatedly, further and further away until it was gone entirely.

She awoke to bright, burning light, buzzing in her ears, sensations anyone else would have associated with death. But Shepard had been dead before, and this was nothing like the last time. She’d never forget that dark, quiet empty.

“Shepard,” shouted a voice, both familiar and foreign, “Wake up.”

“What?” Blood dripped into her eyes from a wound she couldn’t feel. “Where am I?”

She scrubbed her face with the back of her hand, blinking until her vision cleared. Her body screamed in protest as she rose to her knees, louder still as she brought herself to her feet and searched for who—or what— had spoken to her.

“The Citadel,” came the reply, “It is my home.”

She snapped her head in the direction of the voice, it’s owner a glowing, translucent entity in the shape of a ghost. Her heart slammed against her aching ribs, and a name rushed to her mouth before she could stop it. “Kaidan?”

The entity examined her for a moment that felt more like an eternity, long enough for her initial relief to fade, consumed by dread as she awaited its answer.

“No,” it stated in a cold, matter-of-fact way Kaidan could never have managed, “I am the Catalyst.”

Rage ignited in her stomach and chest at the sound of him twisted and distorted by a chorus of synthetic echoes, and she growled. “I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst.”

“The Citadel is part of me,” it explained, then paused, tilting its head in examination of her again, “My appearance disturbs you.”

Shepard let out a derisive snort. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“I apologize,” it said, “I chose a form that I believed would help us communicate. You had fond memories of this one.”

“Too fond.” She looked down, unable to meet its vacant eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Is this one more suitable?” It’s voice shifted registers and when she glanced up Thane stood before her.

Hot tears burned in her eyes but she held them back and shook her head. “No.”

“Perhaps you would prefer this?” This time it’s tone was higher pitched, clipped. Mordin.

“No,” she spat through clenched teeth, “I’d prefer if you’d just pick a nightmare and tell me whether you can help me or not. ”

“Very well,” it said, Kaidan once again as it motioned for her to follow after it toward the beam of light before them. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

She limped after it, listening as it spoke, as it explained its creation, it’s function, the purpose for its very existence. It was nothing the Leviathan had not already revealed to her, but spun in a way that painted the Reapers as innocent pawns simply fulfilling their duty, wiping out entire civilizations to ensure galactic balance, to protect organic life from its own chaos.

Bullshit , she thought as flashes of destruction played behind her eyelids with each laborious blink. She remembered the sinking void in her gut as she fled Earth, watching it burn beneath Reaper hands. She thought of Palaven, the harrowed Turian faces as their military and government collapsed, the anger and disbelief that vibrated in Garrus’ voice and beneath his skin. She recalled Thessia, the most advanced civilization in the galaxy reduced to rubble before her eyes and she, helpless to even salvage one artifact, Liara’s anguished sobs as she trembled in her arms.

The Catalyst and its Reapers were responsible for every lost colony in Batarian space that Shepard had shouldered instead. Every single face on the memorial wall at the Citadel, every orphaned child and refugee, every life touched by this goddamn war, and the lives of those in every cycle that came before— it was all their fault. They had corrupted and indoctrinated some of the greatest minds of her time, broken some of the strongest wills. She wondered what had been said to convince Saren and Benezia. What had the Catalyst become to take hold of The Illusive Man?

The echoes of Sovereign’s boasts of supremacy and Harbinger’s threats of annihilation rang out in her ears as clear as the days they’d been spoken. And this entity, this artificial intelligence with the power and capability to stop it all, expected her to believe they were simply creatures bound to a purpose. The Catalyst truly believed she would help it achieve its pinnacle of evolution.

No, just because it was in a shark’s nature to eat her, did not mean she would allow it to do so. Despite the original intent behind their creations, the Reapers were monsters, and they had to be stopped. The galaxy deserved justice. She took one lumbering step toward the trigger on the right, one step closer to settling things once and for all.

“It will happen again,” the Catalyst called after her, “Machines will be rebuilt, and chaos will continue. Organics and synthetics cannot coexist separately.

“That’s…not true,” she grunted, and took another step, “The geth and the quarians have brokered peace.”

“It will not last.”

“You don’t know that,” she shouted, fists clenched at her sides, “The beauty of chaos is that you can’t know that.”

The entity fell silent, briefly considering what she said, then continued. “Perhaps not; however if you choose to destroy the Reapers, the geth will be destroyed as well. The two will not have the opportunity to disprove your hypothesis.”

A pang of guilt pierced her and she halted in her tracks.“All of them?”

“Yes. The Crucible’s beam is powerful but unfocused. It will be unable to distinguish between Reaper technology and other forms of synthetic life.”

Another pang of guilt as realization dawned on her. That meant EDI would die, too. Someone who was every bit a friend and member of her crew as anyone else, someone who had put herself on the line multiple times to protect Shepard, to make certain she could get the job done. EDI, who confessed just before the battle that she finally felt alive. Now, Shepard was forced to weigh her newfound life and the newfound intelligence of the geth race, against the destruction of the Reapers.

What was it Garrus had called it? Ruthless calculus, that brutal math that awaited anyone who spent enough time at war. Shepard had done plenty of those calculations, had made more than her fair share of difficult decisions, and she’d dealt with the consequences, good and bad.

This time, it was different, more final. And she was entirely alone. The future of the galaxy lay upon her weary back, and she was far past the point of compromise.

Shepard wanted the Reapers to pay for what they had done for millennia, wanted to watch them disintegrate in space as the cheers of her fleet rang out over the comms. She wanted to know with certainty that the war was over.

More than anything, however, and most heavy on her mind, she wanted to survive. It was a potent wave of selfishness that overwhelmed her as she thought of her friends back on the Normandy, of the relationships she’d forged and that had forged her. Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing them again, never hearing their voices. She was sick at the possibility that her last moments with those who had carried her through every storm were hurried and spent in a war torn camp on Earth.

Knowing that they were worried and waiting for her to return, remembering Garrus’ desperate plea that she come back alive, it was more than she needed to motivate her to do so. For the first time in her three decades of life, she had something to go home to. She had given so much of herself to save the galaxy, and she had more than earned the right to live in it.

There was no certainty that destroying the Reapers would ensure her survival, but it was the only choice without the certainty that she would die. She was willing to take her chances. She had to. With a trembling arm she raised her pistol, aimed at the glass case guarding the trigger mechanism, and fired.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as the glass shattered and her vision faded to white. “I’m so sorry.”

Shepard had been dead enough times to know that sound always came first, the discomforting beeping of medical equipment and garbled chatter ringing out in the darkness as her nervous system attempted to orient itself. Smell and taste came next, a package deal. This time the antiseptic and the metallic tang of blood barely masked the rank of burnt flesh.

Then the pain set in, dull but constant and everywhere, numbed only slightly by neural blockers and local anesthetic. She did not need to see her injuries to know how serious they were, how fatal they should have been. Yet there she lay, once again waking up from something that would have killed anyone else.

And she was alone. Again.

She began to panic as her eyes opened to the empty, sterile room, setting off the many monitors she was hooked up to. Her heart pounded violently, each breath she took sharp and shallow as she yanked herself free from the dozens of tubes and IVs constraining her. How long had she been out this time? What covert operation for which secret, extremist organization had found and resurrected her for their benefit? How much more could one galaxy ask of her?

There was a hiss of opening doors and an unfamiliar asari entered the room urgently, arms extended out in front of her. In one breath she reassured Shepard that everything was going to be all right and in the next called for a medical restraint, a sedative. She stepped slowly toward Shepard as one would approach a frightened, feral animal, and two more uniformed aliens entered the room. Shepard stood tall, despite the ache in her bones and glared at the three of them.

“Ma’am, I know you must be very disoriented right now, and I am happy to answer any and all of your questions,” the asari said, holding her hands up, “But you are in no shape to be out of bed. I need you to calm down before you hurt yourself further.”

Shepard glanced from the asari to the two salarians on either side of her. They all wore generic attire that was standard for medical professionals across the galaxy, but their uniforms had no indication of their names or who they worked for. She crossed her arms and winced through the pain as she argued. “How about you start by telling me where I am, then I’ll decide if I want to calm down or not.”

Just as she finished speaking the doors opened again, this time to faces she knew, and the subsequent wave of relief that washed over her nearly knocked her back into the bed on it’s own. On the right stood Dr. Michel, who she remembered helping out on several occasions during the Reaper War. A bit sweet on Garrus, if she remembered correctly. On the left, wearing a smirk and a raised eyebrow, was none other than Miranda Lawson.

“Sit down, Shepard,” Miranda asserted in her trademark tone. She flashed the hint of a smile and continued, “The residents aren’t being paid enough for you to harass them.”

Shepard’s eyes flicked over to the three aliens who’d been tending to her just moments before. They were now speaking nervously with the doctor, who muttered something about tests they needed to run followed by some other medical jargon that Shepard couldn’t decipher. She did as her friend directed and eased herself back down onto her bed, offering a sheepish grin as she did so. “I feel like such an ass.”

“Don’t,” Dr. Michel chimed in as she approached the bed, and began to scan Shepard with her omni-tool, “You have been in a coma for almost a month. It was expected that you would be agitated when you awoke, especially considering everything you’ve been through.”

Shepard’s chest swelled with something like gratitude. A month . She’d only been out for a month, and she had woken up in what she could now tell was Huerta Memorial under the care of a physician she trusted and one of her closest friends. This was nothing like the last time she died. She looked up at Miranda and asked,“Had to put me back together again, I see?”

“I only helped this time,” Miranda explained as she worked to reconnect some of the IVs Shepard had ripped out, “Dr. Michel contacted me a few weeks ago for a consultation about your cybernetic augmentation. I was already on the Citadel, so I came in person to oversee the repairs.”

“Is everything working?”

“Mostly,” Miranda shrugged, “Not quite up to specifications, but your injuries are still healing. With time, you should be fine.”

“And hopefully far away from any more life-threatening battles, yes,” remarked Michel, moving to a terminal near the wall and transferring data collected from her omni-tool scans.

Shepard let out a huff, and let herself recline onto the bed, walls crumbling away at the comforting conversation. She took a breath and let her eyes flutter closed for just a minute, and said, “If I can. If the galaxy will let me.”

“The galaxy’s going to have to,” announced an unmistakable voice from the door, and Shepard bolted upright to face it. To face him .

She hadn’t even heard the door open, and yet there stood her turian, with all that easy confidence he’d always carried himself with and a bouquet of indistinguishable gift shop flowers in each hand. Her pulse jumped, a fact the vitals monitor in the corner was quick to inform her and everyone in the room about. She would never live that one down.

“Garrus!”

“Is that cardiac arrest—“ he motioned toward the screen with one of the bouquets— “Or, uh… are you just happy to see me?”

Shepard just rolled her eyes, unable to stop the grin that twitched at the corners of her mouth as he sauntered up to the bedside.

“I wasn’t sure which you’d like better,” Garrus explained, glancing with uncertainty between the flowers in each hand, “So I got both. There’s also some chocolate and a few books of hanar poetry back at the gift shop if you just absolutely hate the flowers. I can run back down and—“

She laughed and shook her head at him. “They’re perfect.”

“Are you sure?” He examined each bouquet again. “You might need the poetry to bore you back into a coma.”

“I thought that anthology was quite beautiful and romantic, myself,” Michel remarked, amused. She approached Shepard again and administered something that relieved the throbbing pain in her head she’d barely noticed in all the commotion. “There, that should keep you comfortable for a time. I will come and check on you in a few hours ”

“I’ll be going as well,” Miranda said, eyeing Shepard and Garrus knowingly. “Call me if you need anything.”

She turned to follow the doctor out of the room but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and Shepard? I’m glad we got to see each other again “

Shepard nodded. “So am I.”

With that Miranda left the room, the door sliding shut behind her. Shepard turned her gaze up to Garrus who was already looking at her, pale eyes scanning every inch of her face intently. His mandibles twitched and flared in the very specific way they always did when he was agitated or worried. He shook his head, discarded both bundles of flowers onto the nearby bedside table, and sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, staring off at the wall in silence.

“Shepard I— I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up,” he said finally, turning to look at her and placing a hand on her leg, “I’d just gone to get some air…I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured him, reaching for his hand and wondering just how many sleepless hours he’d sat by her bed waiting for her to come to. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, lingering there for several long moments. She brought a hand up to trace the rough ridges of scarring along the right side of his face. His eyes fluttered closed at the touch, and he let out a heavy sigh, as if she’d lifted some invisible weight off of him with just the tips of her fingers.

“You know,” she spoke up, breaking the powerful silence between them, “I think I finally have some scars that’ll give you a run for your credits.”

Garrus laughed, but it was quiet—almost sad— and he pulled back to examine her.

“How bad is it,” she asked, “There aren’t any mirrors in here.”

He laughed again, this time with more enthusiasm. “Hell, Shepard, I don’t know. You always were ugly, so it’s hard for me to say.”

“Okay,” she admitted with a smirk, “I had that one coming.”

The room went quiet again, with the exception of the buzzing and whirring of the equipment around them. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though— nothing had ever been uncomfortable with Garrus— but it was heavy with unspoken pain and unasked questions for which Shepard wasn’t sure she wanted answers.

“How’s everyone else,” she ventured.

“Recovering,” he answered with a sigh, “Joker tried to outrun the blast, but even the Normandy wasn’t quick enough. Crash landed on some human colony world. Everyone made it except—“

“EDI,” she said, name bitter on her tongue. She’d hoped the catalyst had been lying about the Crucible’s effect on synthetic life.

“Yes… how did you—“

This time, she was not able to dam up the wave of emotions that crashed into her. Tears rushed to her eyes, shame and remorse tightening her chest like a vice. She was a soldier, and she knew that sacrifices won wars, but that did not make it any easier.

“It’s a long story,” she said with a sniff, looking away from him and attempting to wipe away the tears before he could see them, as if he hadn’t already.

“Well—” Garrus reached out and grabbed her chin, gently, giving it a tug until she brought her gaze back to him. “It’s a good thing I cleared my afternoon schedule, then. Tell me everything.”

And so she did. With a shaky voice, she recounted everything that happened from the time she called the evac for Garrus and Liara to the moment she was struck by the Crucible’s blast. She told him about The Illusive Man, Anderson, the Catalyst who wore Kaidan’s face, and the impossible choice she was given. He listened to every word, offered her his hand, and didn’t complain as her grip grew tighter and tighter with each devastating revelation.

When she was finished, eyes swollen and head throbbing, she looked at him and said, “I fucked up, Garrus. I had a chance to save EDI and the geth, but I just… couldn’t do it. I was so angry and… scared , and—“

“Shepard,” Garrus interrupted her, laughing and shaking his head.

“What?”

“You’re about the only person I know who could save the whole damn galaxy and feel guilty because you didn’t save it better.”

“My life isn’t worth more than EDI’s was, and it definitely isn’t more important than the entire geth race,” Shepard argued.

Garrus blinked back at her a few times, then responded. “It is to me.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but the words didn’t come, so she clamped it shut and frowned. Her entire argument fell apart in the wake of his blunt confession. How the hell was she supposed to respond to something like that?

“It was selfish,” she finally managed past the lump in her throat, “It was genocide.”

“Maybe,” he answered, firmly, “Maybe not. We have no way of knowing that anything the Catalyst told you was true.”

“Why would it lie?”

“I don’t know, maybe to save it’s own ass?” His words were pointed but not directed to her. “It was clearly trying to get in your head, Shepard, using Alenko like that.”

“But—”

“No,” he snapped, “You made the right call, and no one is going to fault you for it except you.”

“ Garrus …” she began, but trailed off when she noticed him looking down at their intertwined fingers, shaking his head and seeming to struggle with his emotions.

When he spoke up, his voice was hoarse. “You’ll forgive me if I say I don’t think you owe anyone—not EDI, not the geth, not the Alliance, not the rest of the galaxy— any more than you’ve already given.”

He paused for a beat, then added in a lighter tone, “Except me. You owe me a long retirement on your fancy Alliance pension.”

Shepard snorted out a laugh, despite everything, and reached up to take his face in her hands. She pulled him closer to her, just so that she could press a kiss against the side of his mouth.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

Just as they pulled apart, the door opened and they both turned to see who had entered. Dr. Michel stood at the threshold smiling at them apologetically. “I am sorry for the interruption, but—”

“Someone tell Garrus to quit hogging the Commander,” complained an all too familiar voice as he pushed past the doctor and into the room. “The rest of us have been waiting just as long as he has.”

“Joker,” Shepard exclaimed, nearly jumping up out of the bed to greet him.

“The one and only,” he said proudly then held up a small plastic crate to show her, “And I brought you something. Basically had to wrestle the Alliance brass for it when they declared you dead.”

“What—,” she asked as she squinted at the box, noticing movement in the corner, “Is that my hamster?”

He sat the container down carefully on the table next to the flowers Garrus had tossed aside, “It’s not two bouquets of useless flowers or anything, but, well…you know.”

“We can’t all be as romantic as you,” Garrus said sarcastically as he stood up and stepped away from the bed, allowing the other man space to approach Shepard.

“Thank you, Joker,” Shepard said with a nod as she sat up in the bed, “And about EDI, I—“

He cut her off with the shake of his head, clearly not ready to discuss it. “Not your fault, Commander.”

Shepard just nodded, sorry, but not wanting to force the issue. Joker puffed his chest out and saluted her, just as more commotion rang out from the door. She darted her eyes across the room again to see the flood of other people pouring in from the hallway.

Ash was the first to rush to the bedside, throwing appropriate Alliance protocol out the window as she threw her arms unceremoniously around Shepard. The embrace was firm, but not so forceful that it caused her aching body any extra pain, and when Ash pulled away, Shepard could see the tears glistening in her eyes. She stiffened up and saluted just as Joker had done, and said “Ma’am.”

Much to Shepard’s surprise, Ash then approached Garrus and embraced him briefly as well, pulling away and then giving him a pat on the arm.

The others followed suit after that, offering words of gratitude that she had saved the galaxy, and relief that she’d managed to pull through. Tali and Liara had followed Ash’s example and hugged her. The others didn’t but greeted her with enthusiasm all the same. Vega mentioned how “epic” it was when the fleet realized she’d made it to the Citadel and got the arms opened while Traynor and Cortez nodded along. Javik, in his typical fashion stood quietly in the corner but nodded at her with a look of admiration she had yet to see from the Prothean. Dr. Chakwas and the crew from engineering squeezed themselves in the now cramped space as well. Chakwas approached the bed and gave Shepard’s hand a firm squeeze.

Humbling was not a strong enough word to describe the experience of seeing everyone who’d been on the Normandy with her in that final journey to Earth gathered around celebrating her survival. They had all meant so much to her, and only now did she realize that she’d meant the same to them.

She’d grown accustomed to being a sole survivor, watching her own back and carrying on alone with each of her mistakes strapped to her shoulders. She was used to blaming herself with the voices of those she lost, of nightmares and flashbacks and consoling herself back to sleep in the middle of the night. She had trained herself to be numb because she could not bear feeling guilty.

Now, she didn’t have to. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she had people who cared about her, people who she trusted, and they had survived. For the first time, she wasn’t alone with her grief and she didn’t have to be numb. She had friends who would hold her together while she sorted herself out, just as she had done for each and every one of them.

“You okay,” Garrus asked as he approached the bedside again, letting a hand tousle her hair gently before falling to her shoulder.

“Yeah.” She nodded and glanced around the room slowly, taking it all in. “I really actually am.”

#mass effect #mass effect legendary edition #garrus vakarian #femshep #shakarian #angst #hurt/comfort #fanfic #my writing

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meggannn · 4 years ago

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guerrilla does something interesting in HZD with aloy and her motivations and how they let her goals differ from the player's goals. most of the time when a main character's driving goals differ from the audience's, it means the writing has misfired and it feels jarring when you shine a spotlight on it. but it definitely works in HZD because guerilla knew what the player's immediate interests would be—they open their game with huge scenic shots of a pre-industrial community contrasted with these enormous robot dinosaurs! they want you to be sucked into the mystery of why things are the way they are—and they also knew going in that they had had to tie the player's interests to aloy's goals as a character (john gonzalez, the narrative director, talks about it a bit in this interview). and over time, the two start to bleed over as aloy starts to care about the old ones and we start to care more about her. i don't know if they'll continue this strategy in HFW, but they've set themselves up in a really unique situation with the contrast of aloy's focus on the present/future and the audience's interest (mostly) in the past.

i've been trying to find a way to articulate the ideas in this post for a while, and i am really tired so forgive me if this gets redundant or some sentences don't make sense lol. spoilers for HZD obv

in HZD, aloy, the motherless outcast, is largely concentrated on finding out the mystery of her origins. i mean hopefully we, the player, are also interested in that because it's a pretty unique set up (it's not possible for someone to not have a birth mother... right?), but i'm willing to bet that most of the audience was overwhelmingly more interested in figuring out what the hell happened to the old ones of this world (us) and why robots are wandering around everywhere, than we were about figuring out what happened to aloy's mom. (i'm aware that is a large assumption, but i think it's a pretty safe one considering the reactions i see when people finish the game usually mention APOLLO in some way, or ask if it's still around or there's a way to bring it back.)

for aloy, the status quo of robots-that-nobody-really-understands wandering around is just a constant of her life, and discovering her mother is her pressing issue. for us, this world's major differences between our world (why did we die off and why are robots now the dominant species on earth) are more fascinating. so guerrilla ties the micro and macro mysteries together so that we are also interested in aloy's journey about her origins: by making the story of her birth and the history of the world woven into the same narrative fabric

aloy even directly says "it (finding out info on the past) isn't why i'm here" and sylens replies sarcastically "of course, what's the whole of human history compared to the search of one girl?" it isn't until after aloy realizes she's a clone, that she doesn't have a traditional birth mother, when she faces the nora and decides to stop HADES because GAIA asked her to, in a sign of extreme maturity and character growth (imo), does her goal of helping GAIA by beating HADES now start to align with the player's goals of trying to "set the world right" (by helping GAIA by beating HADES).

it's interesting because if anything, sylens, the anti-hero and arguable deuteragonist, is the character whose goals most match up with the audience's own throughout HZD: he's the one who is seeking out the knowledge of the old ones, he's the one who mourns losing APOLLO the way we do. aloy doesn't really react to what became of APOLLO at all (when it's revealed what happened to it, her immediate response is sorrow over the alphas' deaths, the more human element compared to sylens's laser focus on info-hunting). sylens is... also a total asshole and might be an anti-villain in the upcoming games (i hope not; i hope he's more of a rogue agent than an actual villain, personally) so it will be interesting if the audience eventually starts feeling torn between aloy's goals (save the world today) and sylens's (recover what can be saved the world of the old ones)

for aloy, APOLLO's absence is not a loss because she's never known a world without the knowledge of the old ones. why does she care about expending energy to hunt for info on our music and art and politics and wars? how does shifting through datapoints about things she doesn't understand and tools/tech she doesn't have access to help the planet today? after discovering GAIA's origins and purpose, i'm sure she'd probably be interested in recovering APOLLO if there is anything left of it to recover—even she's only interested in it to honor samina/elisabet's memory and the effort of PZD—but a lot of the fandom (myself included) keeps hoping and speculating and wondering if APOLLO is still around because APOLLO is the audience, or rather, it's the last scraps of what's left of us. we have an interest in APOLLO but aloy never shows any interest in or sorrow over it besides to vaguely wonder what happened to it. her interests are in the here and now.

when the audience looks at her world, we see what we've lost, and we know APOLLO is a way to get some of it back. for aloy, she's definitely engaged and interested in the old ones' technology and wants to make sure PZD's work is continued and restored and rebuild GAIA, so if APOLLO turns out to be around i'm sure she'd be interested in it, but for now, she's got too many things going on to consider it a priority. and even if she did, it would have to come after she's taken care of the immediate threats of the other chaotic subfunctions; and she would have to justify the time and energy spent on APOLLO to the value it gives her world (a world that doesn't utilize focuses as much as PZD had hoped, and a world whose language has likely changed enough that they might not even understand what they were being told) because she'd have to do it for her world. her world is already here, the old ones' world is gone, and her world the one that needs saving, not the possibility of bringing the old ones' back

so guerrilla has set themselves up with something very interesting here imo where the protag and the audience have mostly aligned but largely separate primary interests and i'm very curious to see how these interests will keep aligning, or not, in the future. personally i think they'll make the main focus of the series discovering and befriending the subfunctions and restoring GAIA, while also wrestling with modern-day politics in an effort to start preparing contemporary groups of people for a more holistic understanding of nature and machines, with the hopes of preparing them for GAIA's return and a future where they 1. take care of the planet and 2. stop attacking machines for parts lol. and i think they'll drag out the mystery of APOLLO possibly still being around until the end (assuming there will be 3 or more games).

personally, when i look at what we've been given so far (everything could change when HFW comes out), i could go either way on if APOLLO is still actually around or not. it would be an interesting (if expected) twist, but i wouldn't want it as wish fulfillment; i wouldn't want it to be used as a cheat that suddenly means ted faro's harm can be negated, or brought back as a HEA in a way that implies knowledge will suddenly be used and spread equally or even easily. also we should consider APOLLO is now an AI of its own! it will have opinions and things and the will to act on them!

discounting the overwhelmingly difficult logistics of introducing APOLLO to a new world that has evolved without its involvement from its inception, if APOLLO comes back in the way the we, the audience, want it to, then spreading several millennia's worth of knowledge to several diverse, warring peoples is full of difficult challenges that you are now suddenly introducing; aloy + GAIA + co. would now be in charge of not only taking care of humans on this spinning ball called earth, but also educating them equally and fairly. it's a huge task to introduce on aloy's already very busy schedule! so frankly i wouldn't be surprised if they wrote APOLLO off and went with an "it sucks but we have to make the most of the world the old ones left us" angle—or, alternatively, have aloy (or sylens!) dedicate the rest of her life traveling and hunting down and/or spreading what remains of APOLLO'S knowledge?

idk! there's a lot to dissect here about what guerrilla is doing and where APOLLO fits in as both a possible ally/villain and a narrative tool to keep us interested (it is a carrot on the stick for the audience)! and i find it all very interesting!!

#horizon zero dawn #horizon stuff #aloy #sylens

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thekingofwinterblog · 3 years ago

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Getter Robo Retospective - Getter Robo Part 1 -Ryoma Nagare

So, Iv’e been wanting to do an overall retrospective of the Getter Robo manga franchise for a while now, and since the Getter Robo Arc is nearing it’s finale as of the time of this writing, and will either give it a definite ending, or be the final nail in the coffin that the series will never be finished before Getter Robo falls into public domain, I thought now might as well be the time to do it.

As such, I’ll be doing an overall analysis over the entire collection of Ken Ishikawa’s Getter Robo manga series, it’s plots, themes, characters, and covers the various ideas this crazy and amazing sci-fi series covers.

Also, this retrospective will NOT cover the various anime adaptations, or the behind the scenes stuff that has gone on with Getter Robo over the years, such as Go Nagai being credited as the writer of the original manga despite only having come up with the overall concept and designs for it(the rest was by Ken Ishikawa), or the way that Ken went back and added in some extra chapters in the original two manga to explain some things and to tie the early manga more closely into what came after.

For the purposes of this retorspective, I will be focusing exclusively on the manga itself, and what it has to offer, without going into anything else.

And of course there is no place better to start, than the beginning.

So, what is the story of the original Getter Robo Manga?

Well, the overall plot of the original manga is about the conflict between two sides of a conflict, as laid out rather well in it’s prologue chapter.

The first is our protagonists, the Saotome Institute of Japan, who’s leader and namesake has invented the titular giant mecha, the Getter Robo.

Powered by a revolutionary newly discovered form of energy called “Getter Energy”, this enormous metal behemoth is a fighting machine unlike any other.

This war machine was originally supposed to be used for space exploration, but due to necessity, it has instead been reworked into a fighting machine.

It’s only weakness is that it requires 3 different living pilots to operate it to draw upon its full strength.

Opposing the Saotome Institute, is the forces of the Dinosaur Empire

An empire of humanoid Sentient Dinosaurs that long ago was forced to flee the Earth’s surface after it was bombarded with a strange kind of energy from space that was deadly to their kind, their only way to survive being to use their incredible technology to hide on the only place on Earth where the rays couldn’t reach them. The Earth’s very core.

Now, after millions of years underground, and the rays that forced them beneath the earth to begin with having seemingly ceased, they have finally returned to reclaim the earth’s surface for their own. At it’s disposal, it has incredible technology, and giant cyborg dinosaur monster in it’s quest to wipe out the newcomers, the human race, to achieve total dominance over the Earth.

If you think this premise sounds very generic, and you’ve seen it in some form or another in countless other Mecha series, you are not wrong. Ancient evil group attacking the protagonists, and only the new giant robot can stop it, probably the biggest stock plot in mecha overall, having been done in everything from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Megas XLR in some form or another. The set pieces and details are different, but the overall plot is the same.

However, where Getter Robo fits into this, is that it was one of the first giant robot manga there was, and many, many of the tropes and ideas it pioneered would be used and imitated by its successors.

In fact, I would argue that Getter is the second most influential mecha series in history, only second after it’s big cousin, Mazinger Z.

However, we are not here to detail how it influenced the manga industry, but how Getter holds up on it’s own, and in this regard, despite having a plot that has been overused time, and time again by it’s successors, this isn’t really that much of a problem for Getter Robo. Because like any good Mecha series, Getter’s biggest strength is it’s cast of characters.

Starting off in chapter 1, we are introduced to the first of the Robot’s giant pilots.

Ryoma Nagare.

Each of the pilots of Getter Robo is given an introductory mini-arc to set them up, and Ryoma’s is easily the best of the 3.

We are introduced to the main character of most of the franchise at a very unusual spot to open a main character, especially for a Shonen protagonist.

At the end of a revenge story.

To put it bluntly, Ryoma does not start off this series as a particularly likeable, nor good person, as his introductory scene is him crashing a perfectly legal martial arts tournament and beating the everloving shit out of it’s referee, it’s participants, and the judges who arranged it.

His reasons for doing all of this?

Revenge for his old man.

As it turns out, Ryoma had a massive beef with the arrangers for this contest, as his father, Ichigan Nagare was a pro karate champion back in the day, whose reputation was purposely destroyed by those arrangers.

Now he’s come to take revenge by utterly crushing their disciples on national television, to hammer in the point that his father’s martial arts was superior to theirs for all the world to see.

During this whole thing, we also get a very good look into how Ryoma thinks at this point in time.

When the arranger tries to appeal to the “Sacredness” of the Sport to get him to stand down, Ryoma laughs in his face, proclaiming that there is nothing sacred about combat at all. The only thing that matters is who emerges as the victor.

This is backed up by how he doesn’t show the least bit of compassion or honor to the first of the contestants he defeats, easily smashing him to the ground then gloating over him after having demonstrated the sheer difference in the combat prowess between the two of them.

He is very blunt about the fact that he believes that one should pursue strength for strenght’s sake alone, and never stop until you have crushed anyone who stands before you. Always train to get stronger, and always seek out those who can challenge you and beat them too.

Might makes right.

This is a REALLY good introduction for showcasing Ryoma as a character. How he thinks, his immense near superhuman strength, his ruthlessness, his pride in his own strength.

It also ties in directly into the themes of this series, as this kind of thinking is essentially Evolution itself boiled down to it’s bare core. The survival of the strongest. What is the point of Evolution after all, if not this? Those with the traits to survive and thrive will do so, while those who cannot, will be crushed by those who can, who in turn will pass down what made them successful to begin with.

Of course that is not what the actual message of this series is, but it is a concept that this series is rather blunt about, and it’s not a coincidence that the most prominent of all the main characters of this series began his journey while believing wholeheartedly into that ideal.

All in all this scene is just great, and it sets up Ryoma really well, as well as making it clear that this is a boy who has a lot of growing to do as a person.

And so, having achieved his life’s work that he’s trained for for years and years, Ryoma nagare quietly leaves the arena, leaving behind a dozen bruised, battered and broken men on the ground.

Of course this display of power has not gone unnoticed, as in the audience were two men from the Saotome Institute who came here hoping to find someone strong enough to pilot their giant robot.

As it happened, they just found one that fit the bill rather spectacularly.

Then in the next scene we are showcased Ryoma’s home.

Ryoma Nagare, a fighting genius that at the tender age of 16-17 smashed the greatest karate practitioners in Japan with ease while being outnumbered a dozen to one, lives in a ramshackle part of town, in a rundown old building that has broken windows, a leaking roof, and can at best be called a ramshackle cottage.

It’s a rather brutal contrast to the sight of the prestigious, well made and maintained karate tournament building we were just in.

Inside we find the sight of something else rather unusual for a Shonen protagonist. Having now achieved his goals, and avenged his father’s memory, Ryoma is slowly starting to come to the realization that this has all been one giant waste of time. He hasn’t actually earned anything on this journey. His father is dead, he’s still poor, and his only belongings is this shitty building and the clothes on his back.

As we learn here, Ryoma has spent his entire life being trained in martial arts, to insane degrees even for an adult man, much less for a child. All for the purpose of one day doing what he did today, and avenging his father’s memory.

This scene really hammers in the fact that for all his ridiculous strength, Ryoma is a child, and he has a child’s way of looking at things.

He thinks back fondly on being pitted against stray dogs in death matches, and he reveals here that in his mind, this was all about “Redeeming” martial arts somehow, as if this display would really change anything in the grand scheme of things within the sport.

It wasn’t of course. This was all about revenge. Everything Ryoma ever trained for was for this moment, this moment of what should have been absolute and total triumph as he achieved a truly spectacular victory and proved his father’s fighting style the best in all the land and he has proven that he himself is the strongest fighter in all Japan.

Instead he is coming to the realization that so many people that wasted their lives on vengeance have come to over the years. That it was all a giant waste of time.

Revenge is a suckers game.

Having achieved his goals, Ryoma has found them to be completely empty, and has nowhere to go. This is a really fascinating way to open up a character arc, as usually a character that learns the lesson that David Xanatos knew so well, happens either at the end, or somewhere later down their line. Ryoma however, learns it in the very first chapter, and now has to find something else to live for.

However, his soul searching is then interrupted by a few gentlemen from the Saotome institute.

Who immediately tries to kill him.

Now before I discuss the next part, I wanna praise this overall scene, because it really works great within the context of this chapter.

Ryoma has been introduced as a massive asshole, who firmly believes in the mantra of Might makes right, and he doesn’t feel any regret at having brutalized a dozen of innocent people, just the fact that he realizes that there was no real satisfaction to be had from it. Now the other shoe drops, and HE is attacked in his own home, completely unprovoked for reasons that frankly he has no personal involvement in on his own side. While this attack does have an in universe reason behind it, it main purpose is that it serves as a nice cathartic moment for the reader, as while he’s never going to legally punished for what just happened at the tournament, he is punished by the narrative for his actions, which is something i’ve seen far, far too many stories do over the years fail to do with asshole protagonists.

It also serves to put Ryoma’s current belief in Might Makes Right to the test. After all, aren’t these men doing exactly what he said that those who practice martial arts should do? Seek out those stronger than them, then crush them.

All of this makes it a shame that it is horribly undercut by the one, genuine stain on the original manga. Namely that one of the attackers is this guy.

And it’s at this moment you realise, oh yeah, this was made in 1970’s Japan. The unfortunate fact is that Mangaka of this period generally based their depiction of black people on early American comics(Which had plenty of this kind of artwork), and Ken Ishikawa was unfortunately not an exception to this rule.

He would THANKFULLY not repeat anything like this later down the line(his depiction of black people is far more natural and realistic in later manga), but hot damn is it both uncomfortable and distracting to read the pages with this guy. And it’s a real shame too, because frankly, not only is the following fight scene very good as a narrative punishment for Ryoma, but it’s just a good fight scene in general.

Unlike the Tournament fight, which was mainly a beatdown to establish Ryoma’s ridiculous strength, this is an actual fight, which showcases Ishikawa’s ability to draw energetic, exciting fight scenes where action flows very naturally.

It also shows that for the kind of ridiculous strength Ryoma possess, he isn’t some superhuman, as early in the brawls he’s heavily wounded by the rather mundanity of taking a throwing knife to the shoulder. This is in general something that makes action if Getter Robo stand out from other shonen series too. When characters, or Robots for that matter, takes hits, they rarely shrug them off with no problem, instead taking real, genuine damage that doesn't just instantly go away. They might power through them, but that isn’t the same as them disappearing into the ether.

In any case, the battle ends up outside the house when Ryoma is thrown through the wall.

He’s then forced to do the classic, catch the blade between the palms of his hands trope, which is depicted much more believable than most cases I’ve seen, as despite succeeding, it still left him bleeding from those palms.

Ryoma then redirects the blade into the big guy who is attacking him from behind, killing him. I really love how the artwork sells that this is a desperate move on Ryoma’s part. He is genuinely fighting for his life here, and he’s pulling out every trick he has to to win despite his wounds.

He then follows that up by ripping the blade out, and throwing it at the knife thrower guy. I also like that after doing so, he immediately falls flat on his ass, in a rather realistic manner(he is fighting in the rain after all, so the ground is undoubtedly pretty slippery.), while also showcasing the force of the throw. My only main complaint is that for this one panel Ken forgot to include the wound and the knife on his shoulder, as I think it would really sell just how desperate Ryoma is here if we’re visually reminded in the moment that, oh yeah, he’s powering through and using the arm whose shoulder has a knife in it to to throw this thing.

Thankfully, that missed opportunity for visual grittiness is more than made up for by the next part.

Having now effectively won the battle(I think the swordsman broke his foot in the fall, at least that’s how it looks), Ryoma suddenly realises that, holy shit, he just killed someone. The contrast between here and how he looked as he challenged the tournament fighters couldn’t be more different. The cooky, arrogant youth is completely gone, and you're reminded that Ryoma is just a kid. A kid who just had to kill someone. The bravado is completely gone, leaving only a kid who is tired, confused, in pain, and probably pretty scared.

He is then approached by the man who just had 3 grown ass men jump and attack him, Dr. Saotome.

Wounded, and mentally exchausted as he is, he is in no position to argue as Saotome declares that Ryoma is what he’s been looking for, and as one of his men rips the knife out of his shoulder, Ryoma screams before losing consciousness from the pain. Afterwards he is dragged into a car, and bandaged up.

Then as they're driving, the’re attacked by a giant flying dinosaur that grabs unto the car and flies away with it, Ryoma and Saotome barely managing to get out in time, alongside one of Saotome’s unlucky goons who breaks his neck in the fall.

And so ends Chapter one of Getter Robo.

All in all, other than the horribly racist black guy, this is a really good first chapter, that sets up Ryoma Nagare really, really well, showcasing his way of thinking, his origin, and where he needs to grow, while also showcasing his ludicrous strength, and that he is fully capable of going balls to the wall to win a fight, which will be showcased many, many times in this series. It also ends on a reminder of the fact that oh yeah, this is a series about one side vs dinosaurs, as Ryoma gets his first introduction into the enemy he will be fighting time, and again in this manga. It also gives a distinct first impression of just how ruthless Saotome is, as he is perfectly willing to send 3 dangerous goons on a teenager just to test his prowess in battle, which is absolutely going to come into play in future chapters.

All in all, it’s a good start. Not an amazing beginning, but certainly a good introduction to our first main character.

#Getter robo #getter robo retrospective #ryoma nagare #character study #getter robo manga #dr. saotome

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apriki · 5 years ago

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Every Argument About Star Wars Since 2015

We Need to Talk About Kylo

Kylo Ren never did a thing wrong in his life

Kylo Ren is a poster boy for the alt-right

Kylo’s narrative is about abuse

Kylo’s narrative is about how society offers constant concessions for straight white men

Kylo Ren is going to be redeemed

I will murder my own cat if Kylo Ren gets redeemed

His name is Ben Solo and you will use it

Why are you calling him Ben Solo like it's a pet name

Adam Driver is beautiful

Adam Driver is like one of the gargoyles from the Hunchback of Notre Dame

Han and Leia were bad parents

Han and Leia were amazing parents. Did you ever consider that Ben Solo had bad vibes? Or was simply unpleasant to be around?

Kylo overreacted to his uncle trying to murder him

Kylo’s choices were his own and he joined the space fascists so fuck you

I hate the mask

Kylo Ren is Aldi brand Darth Vader

Kylo Ren was made for fanboys

Kylo Ren was made for fangirls

The crossguard lightsaber is stupid

Kylo Ren is the villain and you can’t like the villain

Have you watched Star Wars?

Kylo killed Han Solo so he can’t be redeemed

Well Vader killed Obi Wan and he was redeemed

Yeah but I was emotionally attached to Han Solo so fuck you

Adam Driver is 6′3′

Ship Wars

Poe and Finn belong together

Finn and Rose belong together

Finn and the new girl belong together

Finn and Rey belong together

Rey is a lesbian

Poe is gay

Rose hitting Finn over the head was abuse

Kylo and Hux are in love

Keri Russell’s character was shoehorned in to stop Poe and Finn’s love story

Trio, Trio, Trio

Rey/Finn/Kylo is the true sequel trio

Rey/Finn/Poe is the true sequel trio

Poe was meant to be killed off

Kylo/Hux/Phasma is the true sequel trio

Just... Reylo

Reylo is abusive

Reylo can’t be abusive because they’re not in an established relationship

Kylo violated Rey’s mind in the interrogation scene

Rey violated Kylo’s mind right back

Lucasfilm isn’t brave enough to do Reylo

Lucasfilm isn’t stupid enough to do Reylo

Reylo are brother and sister

Reylo are cousins

Reylo is twilight fanfiction

Reylo is phantom of the opera fanfiction

Rian Johnson has a Reylo Agenda

Women who like Reylo are endorsing violent toxic relationships

Women who like Reylo were right all along

Reylo is the best Star Wars love story

I’ll end a friendship over Reylo

DNRey

Rey is a Skywalker

Rey is a Solo

Rey is a Kenobi

Rey is nobody

Rey is a Knight of Ren

Sheev Palps fucks

Rey’s father is Darth Maul

Rey’s father is Jar Jar Binks

Rey’s mother is Keri Russell

Rey’s mother is the lady from Rogue One

Rey’s mother is Daenerys Targaryen from Solo

Any brunette white woman in Star Wars is Rey’s mother

There are only brunette white women in Star Wars

Rey is a miracle messiah baby like Anakin

Don’t be stupid, girls can’t have magic powers out of nowhere

But think of the Children!

Rey is positive representation for young girls

Why does she just have to be representation for girls

Reylo is bad representation for young girls

Everything in Star Wars has to have a moral core because it is made for children

Rey is a Mary Sue

If Luke can magically destroy the death star in a one in a million shot with little to no training, Rey can use a fucking lightsaber

The Jar Jar Saga

Don’t talk about the fucking prequels

Anakin murdered a bunch of kids but he’s still better than Kylo Ren

Anakin force choked his wife you ghoul

The Franchise Awakens

The Force Awakens was good fun

The Force Awakens was nostalgia pandering bullshit

The Last Brain Cell

The Last Jedi is the greatest blockbuster in the last twenty years

The Last Jedi was SJW pandering bullshit

The Canto Bight storyline was an important anticapitalist plot that showed how no one can be neutral in war

The Canto Bight storyline was a waste of time

Space Monaco pretty

You can’t have an anticapitalist storyline in a Disney film

The kid with the broom is the future of Star Wars

I don’t get the purpose of the kid with the broom

Is the kid with the broom a Skywalker now?

ForceSkype is stupid

ForceSkype is abusive. Kylo didn’t ask if he could force connect to Rey’s mind

Poe was right

Admiral Holdo was right

Leia can’t fucking fly in space

You can’t say that Leia cannot theoretically fly in space

Old Man Luke is Not My Luke

Old Man Luke is a logical progression of Original Luke and you’re just angry about it because you’re getting old too

Rose is the best new addition to Star Wars

Rose is the worst new addition to Star Wars

Why did they change Rey’s space buns?

Are you seriously complaining about Rey’s space buns

I hate the porgs

The Rise of Skywalker

D̸͓͕͔̠̿̈̿̕͝Ö̵̟̰͖́Ṉ̴̾'̷̣͙̇̍̍̚T̸̬͑̓ ̸͙̤̳͕̆̄̎͘T̴̨̖̥̚͝͝ͅA̵̛̲̩͘ͅL̵̨̲̫̲̚K̷̛͚͔̐̌̕ ̸̣͚̈́̐T̸̫̠͕̞̝͗̓̿͝O̸͈̱̮̦̹̍͘ ̵͉̣̤͆͛́Ḿ̶̢̡̡͓͈̅̅́̉Ë̶͎͇̱̌̓̑̆ ̷̹̙̾Ă̶̠B̷̡̫̩͋̋Ȍ̴̦̦̪͈̓̋Ȕ̶̬̤͎̹̎̅T̸̢͖͉̬̬͗̄̑̈́͝ ̸̨͓̜̝͒ͅR̵̡̯̖̲͍̾͗͛͆Į̴͇̺͍̰̓Ş̶̢͓̦̂̉̎É̴̪͙͉̩͒̈̄͐ͅ ̷͈̹͐̏͊̕͘O̷̡͕̜͕̒̚͠ͅF̸̡͇̣͇̖̔̿͗ ̴͚͚͓̗̍ͅŠ̶͍͚̬͈̾̚̕͝Ḳ̴̐͛Y̵̛̠͉̼̻̿͂̈́̈W̴͕̄͘A̴͈̹͉̞͉͐L̶̲̓̒́̅͝K̷͈̒Ḙ̸̛̪̎̓̀̊R̶̯̆̍̈́

Droids?

Why did C-3PO have a red arm

I can’t believe they shelved R2D2 for BB-8 so they could sell toys

Do droids have rights?

Droids are sentient and represent a slave class in the Star Wars universe

Droids have free will and are choosing to help humans

How does everyone understand droid beeps?

How Does Everyone Speak Wookie?

Is Wookie the lingua franca of the galaxy

Like Boats Beating Back Into the Past

Force Awakens was too nostalgic

The Last Jedi wasn’t nostalgic at all and it ruined what I loved about Star Wars when I was a bébé

The Rise of Skywalker was too nostalgic

Star Wars shouldn’t be nostalgic

Star Wars needs to be nostalgic but not too much but just enough

The sequels are about the original trio

The sequels shouldn’t be about the original trio

Cassian Andor should Call Me

Rogue One was amazing

Rogue One was terrible

Rogue One is the only good Star Wars movie

That Vader scene was dope

Yeah, the Vader scene was pretty dope

Why is there only one woman in Rogue One

Why do Star Wars movies always look radically different from their trailers?

Is That Ansel Elgort?

Fuck Solo

Darth Maul, though

The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian will save Star Wars

i hate Disney+

But... Baby Yoda... Capitalism won again

I don’t think it’s always Pedro Pascal under the mask

I’ve devised a system of body language interpretation to figure out when it is Pedro Pascal under the mask

Baby Yoda is a balm for my soul

If the Mandalorian is a Western, Baby Yoda is a native child that has been stolen

Don’t call it Baby Yoda. We do not know its species and Yoda died decades ago

Baby Yoda

Everyone Ruined Star Wars

Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars

JJ Abrams ruined Star Wars

Chris Terrio ruined Star Wars

Kathleen Kennedy ruined Star Wars

The Disney machine ruined Star Wars

George Lucas ruined Star Wars

Star Wars ruined the internet

Star Wars ruined pop culture

Maybe Star Wars was always bad?

#star wars #*

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mymelancholiesblues · 4 years ago

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No, Mia isn’t "low-tier" compared to Ada (morally speaking, or w/e) – a measured answer?/essay

So, a couple of Ada haters tried to put up a false symmetry between both of these characters there on twitter, and it inspired me to put my own thoughts down in a more articulate essay as to why that's (Ada's somehow being morally worse than Mia) not sustained by canon in Resident Evil.

standing there, killing time

can't commit to anything but a crime

all the good girls go to hell

'cause even God herself has enemies

and once the water starts to rise

and heaven's out of sight

she'll want the Devil on her team. ⁕

First things first: let us debunk the false symmetry that they tried to establish between these two characters with extremely distinct archetypes – and worse, the following replies to this false symmetry and its poor arguments trying to validate it, pointing out that, in fact, no, character B (that would be Ada, btw) – which is so evidently and ridiculously different from character A (and that would be Mia) – is, in fact, WAY WORSE than character A, and then proceeding to assert some unsupported propositions about misogyny in Resident Evil (which, tbh, definitely IS a recurring problem in the franchise, but that in this case particularly, little or does not apply AT ALL) and how Ada contributes to "the perpetration of a biological cold war".

Starting with what differentiates Mia from Ada grotesquely: we know NOTHING of Ada's true alliances in RE's world. Mia, however, canonically worked for a group that participated in the importation and exportation as well as the manufacturing, testing and marketing of biological weapons: "The Connections", a CRIMINAL SYNDICATE which, amongst other things, was also involved in money laundering, assassinations as well as weapons and drug trafficking. I don't care at all about Mia, so I don't intend to waste much of my time going on about her role in the plot, but people should've already realized by just that much how infinitely dishonest is to try to put these two characters as "similar" ones, or argue that Ada is somehow worse.

Another detail that shouldn't escape anyone's attention too, are the origins and nationalities of both – and yes, I intend to briefly bring up racism against eastern-Asian looking characters (a silent plague that takes form by each passing day in all fiction fandoms) and anti-China xenophobia, but for now, hold this tea there just before I drop it: Mia is canonically American, and previously a Texas-state resident; meanwhile, we have no confirmation of Ada's nationality except for her pretty evident Chinese ancestry. But, as I said, hold it there for a while.

i) espionage — the job

red so silent

wait a minute

or just a little while.

what are you looking for? ⁕

At all times that Ada's "job" was brought up in this franchise, in ALL of her cameos, she has NEVER been called a mercenary in the original Japanese. She's always referred to as a SPY. Even in RE2R, the most recent title in which she's featured in, the original text of the game makes a point of labelling her as a SPY (and not a mercenary) in the dialogue that transpires between Annette and Leon.

It's the North-American translation and correspondent localization that now and then falls for the equivocal use of this other term. This distinction is important since espionage NECESSARILY implies operating in an organized service for, perhaps a country, or a political cause, or a class/group, or a corporation, or whatever. While a mercenary is someone who's acting per their self financial interests, indiscriminately selling their specialized "labour" and skills to anyone who'll offer more.

Ada's not a mercenary, she's a spy. But Mia, in addition to being hired to a canonically criminal company, was also the handler personally assigned to Eveline. I don't care how exactly Mia got in that predicament but the fact is: Mia was canonically employed by a company that profited over illicit activities and directly watched as a family was destroyed and toyed with by this new killing machine (Eve). Yet, we can't state for sure that we know to whom or to what Ada is truly affiliated with.

ii) sources — check them

who's a heretic now?

am I making sense?

how can you make it stick?

and I'm on a trial

waiting 'til the beat comes out. ⁕

This fandom should put a little more thought into which translation and localization of the game texts, dialogues and files they are using to support their arguments. I know that in some cases the United States people have a bit of an inclination to think of themselves as the owners of the planet and deem English as the only language that matters in this world, but let's not forget that RE is a Japanese franchise (wow, insane, right?!). Therefore, the most valid script, with the greatest amount of details, and highest credibility, is the Japanese original. Throughout these years, there have been several errors in translation and localization of the Japanese original to North-American English. And, believe me, curiously enough, plenty of those concern Ada, since she's often mentioned or referred to in a very vague way – without the use of pronouns or adjectives or adverbs that could help in indicating gender. This ended up causing those details and mentions to her to get overlooked, even though in the Japanese text it was a clear reference to her character (per observation of context).

iii) the good guys — one of

head in the dust

feet in the fire

labour on that midnight wire

listening for that angel choir

you got nowhere to run

careful son, you got dreamers plans

but it gets hard to stand. ⁕

Yes, as much as haters try to minimize it, it is SIGNIFICANT that Ada saved so many important characters and stood for unquestionably heroic actions in so many moments - like stopping everything she was doing so she could help completely random Chinese civilians with the helicopter she managed to pilot in that chaos in China (yeah, I know you haters love to forget about this, but it happened, it's there in canon, and no, it wasn't her direct OR indirect responsibility what was going on in China: REPLAY RE6 and for the love of GOD, never again argue that what she did was somehow "the equivalent of evacuating a city after selling a WMD to destroy that same city". It's a case of pure intellectual dishonesty to say such a thing. It's canon that Carla was the one who caused what happens in China, PLEASE, PLAY RE6).

Furthermore, Ada shows compassion on some occasions even for characters who are directly putting her in harms ways, like Annette (in RE2 OG, right after - in order to defend herself - she slaps Annette leading her to lose balance and collapse over the sewers fences, Ada makes an effort in trying to pull Annette back and prevent her from falling) and Carla.

Replay RE4 and pay attention to it, pay attention to her solo campaign: getting involved with Leon's journey in Spain hasn't brought any real benefit to her mission or herself: Ada deviates from her main path several times due to worrying about him and trying to help him and almost ends up dead in several of these occasions over her insistence in doing so: by saving him from Bitores Mendez, by helping him and Ashley against Sadler, by confronting Krauser and stopping him.

It's so lazy to only read/listen to a file in which she says in English that "Leon might be useful to her plans" (this is way more nuanced in the Japanese original of Ada's Report), and ignore everything that was SHOWN in the game: every effort she made to ensure that Leon could rescue Ashley, remove the parasite from his and her bodies, and escape from that hell-island.

The jet-ski she left for their escape was ALREADY there before she was captured by Sadler (or you think she arranged it while she was caught?). Leon having to intervene and save her from Sadler WASN'T her plan. It WASN'T her plan to take the sample from Leon's hands. She wanted to help him get out of there with Ashley and she guaranteed he could do so, she wanted to get the sample by herself and escape too while sending that hell to kingdom's come. But, because she chose to help Leon rescue Ashley right in front of Sadler, she ends up captured.

On her end, Mia never did anything minimally compared to that, and all of her "selflessness" or self-sacrificing actions involved a much, MUCH smaller scope than Ada's: wanting to help her husband and HERSELF is not at all comparable to saving a few dozens of unknown Chinese civilians. So no, they aren't "cut from the same cloth". They don't come from the same place, nor do they share the same intentions or goals, and their contributions to the RE storyline are quite different.

iv) unknown true purpose (shades of grey)

lining up in the background

waiting for the crowd shot to be seen

in the shadow of the big screen

everybody begs to be redeemed. ⁕

In databooks, Ada is recurrently described as "a Chinese spy with extraordinary physical abilities, vigorous health and composed mind and spirit, capable of coping with grim situations and handling even the most difficult requests without losing composure". If we are paying attention to the storytelling ingame, however, we know that this isn't always the case: Ada did let her mask of unswerving emotional and physical strength fall and showed a very fragile side under strenuous circumstances a couple of times already.

Also, in these databooks, they often point out that "she has her own 'true purpose' and has FREQUENTLY betrayed organizations and clients to achieve it". Huh, we can AGAIN, by this only, see how completely different she's from Mia, who personally watched an entire family being driven to insanity by Eveline's hand.

Furthermore, in these databooks, it's often said that "this true purpose is still obscure and whether she truly cared for anyone or simply used her charms to manipulate people that crossed paths with her isn't ever clear". If people are willing to be open-minded and exercise their text comprehension skills, though, they'll see that in multiple occasions of emotional confrontation it has been established time and time again that yes, Ada DOES care. She wasn't capable of shooting Leon and there has been a couple of other times that failing to choose a cool, sociopathic calculation and pragmatical demeanour over empathy and humanity towards others has put her in harms ways: nonetheless she still chose it.

v) positive impact

I'm gonna break the cycle

I'm gonna shake up the system

I'm gonna destroy my ego. ⁕

To this point, RE's plot systematically leads us to believe that Ada has been covertly acting behind the scenes of multiple biological incidents COLLECTING INFORMATION (the job of a spy, who would've thought! lmao), that is valuable to numerous organizations, companies, groups and different contexts, but at the same time of allegedly offering to handle this knowledge for the right price to the big players involved with bioterrorism and clandestine trading of bioweapons, she's also working to sabotage said players.

This is evident throughout the franchise: she intended to hurt Umbrella's business. She outwitted and deceived Wesker multiple times. She even undermined Simmons, someone who was in a position of power in the US government and actively using that position to lead bioterrorist ventures on the parallel side.

There's no concrete evidence or hint as to what she does with the information she collects, and for all purposes and effects, I can presume that she's gathering this knowledge to assist in the discovery of countermeasures and vaccination studies. I might as well argue that she is a Chinese spy who is working against European and North-American capitalism and the imperialism that creates such monsters like the biochemical and bioweapons industry and that her real objective is to dismantle the market for bioweapons and bioterror supported mainly by the USA (see: Simmons and The Family).

That is, as long as it is unclear what her true purpose is, I have the freedom to surmise whatever the heck I want and that all of what she's been doing was for the sake of the greater "good" - and I'll even have canon moments to support this reasoning as it's clear that she regularly sabotages her customers (customers that are unquestionably established as playing for the "evil" side, with perverse intentions) - throughout the franchise. She did this on RE2, RE4, RE6 and Damnation. It's there, transparent in canon, people just choose to ignore it.

She laughs in the face of whoever she's talking to by the end of Damnation, saying she doesn't intend to deliver the Plaga; she scoffs at Simmons; she betrays Wesker and kills Krauser. She had been sabotaging Wesker for so long, that he sent Krauser to be the main agent in the mission in Spain, and Ada was just a "side effect" that he didn't have in control and had to keep an eye on, so he ordered Krauser to keep tabs on her. It's not a mutually beneficial dynamic. Ada doesn't want Wesker to succeed, she despises him; this is clear in the games in which they interact. There are even files that indicate that she was trying to double-cross and get in the way of his plans for at least 2 years before Spain, and he was constantly catching up with her. See here and here.

On her end, Mia was employed by and consciously working for a criminal syndicate.

vi) a (secretly) helping hand

oh, I'm a master pretender

just felt more alone

the further I'd go

but I'll stick around

I'll be your master defender

yeah, I'll stick around. ⁕

Ada approached characters such as John Clemens and Luis Sera, and both had a canonical intention to, in addition to putting an end to their connections with the criminal companies and organizations they've been working for, also expose and denounce them for their crimes. It's in this context that Ada comes into contact with them. And why is that?

Check John's background: he had made up his mind about disclosing Umbrella's crimes to the public. Check Luis' background: Ada went to Spain to assist in his extradition since he feared for his own life if he resolved to turn his back on the cult of Los Illuminados, and also dreaded the consequences of the liberation of Las Plagas on an international scale.

Keep in mind that Ada handed over to Wesker a USELESS Plaga sample. Wesker only got the sample currently circulating in the underground market because he went after Krauser's body. We don't know what Ada did with the master Plaga sample she obtained. We only know from Ada's Report and the Plaga Recovery file that she didn't deliver it to Wesker, and he needed to go out for a plan B to get it.

Even the G-Virus sample that fell into the hands of the clandestine business, it's possible to argue that Ada's involvement in it was flimsy, since Simmons CANONICALLY made over a thousand laboratory tests in Sherry, and, as we know, he was a leading figure in bioterrorism and bioweapons trading with the aid of his position in the US government.

But, guess what, Ada clearly is a non-white character with obvious Chinese heritage and Mia is white, so of course, OF COURSE, someone can so nonchalantly affirm that Ada, this "vile bitch", is somehow WORSE than Mia. The same Mia who watched the Bakers being destroyed. Right.

Also: trying to validate one's point by claiming anything related to the misogyny present in RE franchise, while IN THE SAME BREATH AND TWEET reducing Ada's entire character arc to that of "a sociopathic bitch cured by the magic dick of her love interest" is supposed to be a joke, right? No, really. Joke.

conclusion and a word against misogyny

we are waiting on a telegram to

give us news of the fall

I am sorry to report

dear Paris is burning after all

we have taken to the streets

in open rejoice, revolting

we are dancing a black waltz

fair Paris is burning after all. ⁕

To any Ada fan that has been reading this so far: PLEASE, I ask to consider refraining to use the "oh yes, Ada did some bad shit, bUT" take to defend the character because that isn't sustained by canon in RE, lmao. She didn't do anything evil that had an indisputable bad impact on the plot and other characters arcs. For one, I myself do love some villains, but that isn't the case with Ada.

She did do some unconventional shit yes, since she's a morally GRAY character and an anti-heroine, but by the end of the day, each and every action of hers had a positive impact on the journey of other characters and main plot. Just pay attention to it.

Like idk man, Black Widow, Elektra Natchios, Scarlet Witch and Black Cat from Marvel, Catwoman from DC, Yennefer from The Witcher (some pop culture examples that come to mind).

Saying that this is an "extremely selfish prototypal bad bitch except when it comes to the magical redeeming dick of her love interest" it's a grotesque reduction of a complex female character, and, in its attempt to critique the misogyny present in RE's franchise an expression of misogyny in itself.

Remember: Ada has actions and impact on the franchise ASIDE and IN ADDITION to her romantic involvement with Leon.

#Resident Evil #Ada Wong #Leon x Ada #Ada x Leon #Aeon #Leon Kennedy #[mine]#[meta]#//#Aeon fandom

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confusedgoldenflower · 3 years ago

Text

There is No Glorious Purpose

DISCLAIMER: This is a Loki Show re-write which means I do not own the original show but some direct quotes will be used, it will not align perfectly with the cannon of the original show, and it will also be written the way I think it should have gone seeing as it was 2012 Loki who just went through Thor 1, Thanos' clutches and Avengers 1.

This is not a Loki/Sylvie or Loki-cest fic.

If you don't like, then please hit that back button and have a nice day. You don't have to agree with me, but I do expect common human decency.

For anyone remaining, please enjoy!

Chapter 1: Blue Time and Space

“Friend, I think there’s been a mistake; I am Loki of Asgard and you will regret this. I am burdened with glorious purpose, I stand at the right hand of Thanos.” The words were bitter in his mouth but then again, so was the bile that he dry-heaved up during his reconditioning.

“Yeah, yeah, come on.” B-15 waved it off, at least the letters on the helmet was the only thing pertaining to the person’s identity after they came through the yellow, rectangular prism. He watched her closely as they neared, fists clenched and fully aware of how far away the Tesseract had ended up. The cerebral recalibration the Hulk so kindly dealt him did nothing to deter him from his secret goal.

“What infinity stone conjured that?”

B-15 stopped, their own subordinates armed but waiting for their leader’s response. Then she laughed.

“No, no, it’s from the TemPad.”

“Pardon?”

“You’ll see soon enough, now, come on, I don’t wanna have to give the whole spiel again.” B-15 came at him. The baton-like weapon she wielded hurt. But he was Asguardian. He also had use of his magic now with the restraints in ruins. Twin daggers parried the baton thereafter. He came close to overwhelming her more than a few times but her subordinates always stepped in.

“Agh!” It was humiliating to be overpowered by not only a simple blow to his back but also to admit it.

B-15 smiled down at him, “let’s go, and reset th-.”

“Don’t touch that!” The soldier picking up the Tesseract and staring at it like a confused child paid him no mind.

“Ok, Variant, let’s go.” B-15 slapped something on his neck, his body involuntarily jumped the opposite way. He was dragged out of the sand and towards another yellow rectangular prism. Another soldier grabbed something that resembled an old Midguardian lantern. They passed behind him and he could not manage to twist his neck enough to watch them. Then yellow.

He involuntarily gasped at the non-consensual setting change, pain flaring in a memory. A shriveled stomach flipped. But… His brows furrowed as he soundlessly analysed himself and his sadir in respect to the surroundings. I can’t feel him… I can’t hear him.

The two soldiers carrying him wasted no time in dragging him across the floor of the large room. It too reminded him of past Midguardian styles…. But he didn’t miss the Tesseract being turned to the man behind the desk.

“Where is this? Where are you taking me?”

B-15 laughed from in front of him, “your trial, Variant.”

“Why, and what is that anyway?”

Next thing he knew, he was pushed into a room with a robot, “hello?” It said something before lasering his clothes off. He gaped in horror as his fine Aguardian leather was destroyed and he was left there in the nude. The robot smiled at him in some sort of sadistic glee as his scars and healing wounds were flaunted like war-torn cadavers against his unusually pale skin. The floor disappeared.

He landed. He folded. He panted.

“Please sign this.”

His head whipped up to the man he could barely see over the stack of paperwork on the desk. A gulp, a deep breath and Loki was the vision of regal honor. Silently, he noted that he had somehow been clothed and thanked whatever power granted him that.

“What is this?”

The man looked at him with an exhausted droll stare, “everything you have ever said.” He grabbed a paper off the printer and laid it on top. Loki nodded slightly, then signed. The world blurred.

“Please step through.”

“Pardon?” The room was slow to come into focus.

“Jotnar, please step through.” Jotnar? He hadn’t noticed his glamour having failed him. The sedir he had so ardently loved and utilized and developed was a small, twisted ball in his center. He was locked in a cage.

“Wha--how…?”

“Magic is no good in the TVA, now please, step through.”

A red-eyed stare remained on the agent as Loki stepped through the unconnected threshold. Nothing happened. Another bout of vertigo and he was being told and none-too-kindly to take a number.

“For what, what is all this?” His blue hands gesticulated some as he addressed the man.

“Take. A. Number.”

Loki grit his teeth but he stepped to the small machine attached to the stakes cordoning off where the line was. He stepped into that small, simple maze. It was another large room stylized after the later American, Midguardian twentieth century. Even scrapers looked better as they drifted in the expanse of space. He slowly meandered up towards the window behind a very loud human.

“My dad is on the board of Goldman Sachs! One call and your whole job is privatized! What even is the ticket for, huh--aaaahhhhhggg!” Said human leapt out of his skin and screamed when he caught sight of the large blue alien. Red eyes merely gazed down at him without much agency.

“Howdy, welcome to the Time Variance Authority,” the bulbous screens lit up and an American, Midguardian southern drawl spoke happily through the speakers. Loki turned his attention to the screens as something finally began explaining things though his entire being made the unanimous decision that he did not like the talking orange clock.

“I'm Miss Minutes, and it's my job to catch you up before you stand trial for your crimes. So let's not waste another minute. Settle in, sharpen your pencils, and check this out. Long ago, there was a vast multiversal war. Countless unique timelines battled each other for supremacy, nearly resulting in the total destruction of...well, everything. But then, the all-knowing Time-Keepers emerged, bringing peace by reorganizing the multiverse into a single timeline, the Sacred Timeline. Now, the Time-Keepers protect and preserve the proper flow of time for everyone and everything. But sometimes, people like you veer off the path the Time-Keepers created. We call those Variants. Maybe you started an uprising, or were just late for work. Whatever it was, stepping off your path created a nexus event, which, left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another multiversal war. But, don't worry, to make sure that doesn't happen, the Time-Keepers created the TVA and all its incredible workers. The TVA has stepped in to fix your mistake and set time back on its predetermined path. Now that your actions have left you without a place on the timeline, you must stand trial for your offenses. So sit tight, and we'll get you in front of a judge in no time. Just make sure you have your ticket, and you'll be seen by the next available attendant. For all time.”

The workers responded to the screen, “always.”

Out of one dark order and into another, Loki thought and forced down rising bile.

“--Hey, I asked for a ticket and he didn’t give me one! I--ahhhh!....” The loud human was hit with the shining, golden end of one of those batons and literally melted into nothingness. Loki clutched the ticket between his fingers tighter.

“Next.”

He stepped up to the window and offered up the small scrap of paper. The next while found him bound in chains yet again. He knew a Midguardian courtroom when he saw one, and the one he was shoved into was more like a morgue.

“Next case, please,” the judge said from her elevated chair, heads above anyone else, but below three ugly “modern art” heads. How could it be that he could even miss Thanos’ disgusting chin?

“Laufeyson. Variant L1130, AKA Loki Laufeyson, is charged with sequence violation 7-20-89. How do you plead?” She continued. Laufeyson, how preposterous, it sparked an itch to kill the Jotnar king again.

“Madam,” he began with all his silver tongue, “a god does not plead.”

“Are you guilty or not guilty, sir?” She was completely unfazed by his appearance, much like her underlings.

He thought for a moment, “guilty of some offense against this Sacred Timeline of yours? Absolutely not. You must have the wrong culprit.”

A brow raised at him, “oh, really? And who should we have?”

“The Avengers, I suspect. I came into possession of the Tesseract because they traveled through time--undoubtedly in some desperate play to avoid my ascent as God Ki--....” He couldn’t feel Thanos anymore, so what was the point? Wasn’t… he… free?

“That’s quite an accusation.”

“The cologne of two Iron Morta--er, Tony Starks is quite difficult to miss. They are your Time Criminals.” He opened his mouth again to bargain; to survive but….

“We’re not here to talk about the Avengers.”

“No?”

“No. That was supposed to happen, you escaping was not.”

“Pardon? According to whom?”

“The Time Keepers.”

“Ah… the three faces behind you, I presume? Do they happen to be open for conference?”

“No, they’re quite busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Dictating the proper flow of time.”

“So then, what do you do, Madam?”

“Dictate the proper flow of time according to their dictations. How do you plead?”

The silver tongue was heavy. His back sent shocks of pain through him especially after the re-injuring the soldiers dealt. Chains often found their way around his wrists and never had it hurt so much as in the last year. He closed his eyes. He may have been able to assemble those Midguardian fools the way he had intended, the time traveling proved that, but what else was left for him? Just more fire, and lies, and deceit. I had so wanted to see Asguard again.

“The court finds you guilty, and I sentence you to be reset. Next case, please!”

“I raise an objection!” Loki opened his eyes at the interruption as the judge sighs.

“You may approach the bench.”

“Hey, there, blue-raspberry.” The older human man made a shy sort of wave motion at Loki as he passed with a folder under his arm.

“If you're thinking what I think you are, it's a bad idea,” the judge addressed the man.

“Okay, I'm just chasing a hunch.”

“Anything goes sideways, it's on you.”

“Okay. I feel like I'm always looking up to you. I like it. It's appropriate.” Loki knew when he was witnessing groveling. Norns knew he had to do it enough times in his life just to save his brother’s skin.

“Who are you?” He asked after the judge permitted Loki’s custody to the newcomer. Said agent was walking Loki around some halls. Vertigo viscously hit when he tried to remember every twist and turn.

“Oh, I’m Agent Mobius, by the way,” Mobius cheerily said as he shuffled the two into an elevator.

“And you’re not taking me someplace to ‘reset’ me?”

“No, no, no, that was the place you just were. Ravon--I mean Judge Renslayer can be pretty brutal, but I’m just taking you some place to talk.”

“To talk?” His brow raised.

Mobius looked up at his blue stature without a care in the world, “yeah, and we know you love to talk. Talkie-talkie.” A hand mimed a moving mouth. His brows lowered into a slight scowl.

“We seem to have different understandings of my persons.”

“Well, I am an expert on Lokis.”

“... Loki-s?”

“Yeah. You’ll catch up.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Hard to tell, time moves differently here in the TVA.”

He was led out again and followed the human past several large openings in the wall of the narrow hallway that lead down into double-doored rooms. One, he couldn’t help but step towards. Then found himself outside of the elevator again.

“Ope, can’t do that, sorry.”

He stared at Mobius who was now several yards away, “magic and time works differently here.”

“Oh, it’s not magic,” Mobius held up a small device in his fingers, “it’s science.”

“Magic is science.” Loki stated plainly as he walked towards what he assumed Mobius was indicating as the destination, back straight.

“Haha, ok, Loki.” The agent opened the door for him. He nodded in thanks as was polite.

“Let’s get you comfortable,” Mobius stripped him of his chains and cuffs, “have a seat.”

Slowly, he did as asked. He could have wept as his back was finally rested.

“Not big on trust, are you?” Mobius asked as he snapped a sodapop can open. He rejected a second that was offered to him by the agent.

“Well?”

“Trust is a twisted road.”

“Haha, nice one, let’s make that one into a button.” Mobius began fiddling with a machine on the table they sat at in the middle of the darkened room.

“If the TVA overseas all of time and space, then how have I never heard of you before?”

“‘Cause you never needed to. You’ve always lived within your set path; the story you’re meant to play a part in.”

“I live within the path and story of my choosing,” Loki responded bitterly on impulse.

Mobius laughed again, “well, there’s the lie, Loki, it’s not your story.” Mobius looked him in the eye as the machine projected an image onto the blank wall.

“So I think we could start with a little cooperation, hm? I specialize in the pursuit of dangerous variants--particularly dangerous ones unlike you. I’ve got some questions for you, and if you answer them honestly, then maybe I can give you something you want. You wanna get outta here right? So, we’ll start there. Should you get out, what will you do?”

Would Thanos know? Of course Thanos would know…. Of course Thanos would come after him for deserting….

“Take over Midguard, AKA Earth?” Mobius interrupted the silence, “finish what you started maybe? Be king?”

The simple answer slipped off his tongue, “I was born to be a king.”

“Happily ever after then? A nice feather in your cap?”

“Then the Nine Realms. Then all of space.”

“Ooooh, ‘Loki, King of Space,’ haven’t heard that one before.”

“Mock me if you dare.”

Mobius chuckled again, “I’m not. Honestly, I’m a fan; your biggest. I guess I’m just curious why someone with such range would settle for just ruling whether it be Presidential or Kingly.”

“... The first and most oppressive lie was that of freedom, and someone will always be above while masses lie below.”

“How does that one go?” Mobius had his nose in his paperwork.

“For nearly every living thing, choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. There's a fork in every road, yet the wrong path always taken.”

“Good. Yeah. You said ‘nearly every living thing,’ so I'm guessing you don't fall into that category?”

“All of us fall into some category.”

“Oh, riddles. Love that. Anyway, a sampling of your greatest hits.”

The machine whirled and he was met again with the annoying Midguardian heroes and his brother after they bested him in New York, “if it’s all the same to you… I’ll have that drink now.”

“That just happened,” he declared.

“It's funny, for someone born to rule, you sure do lose a lot. You might even say it's in your nature.”

“The last person who said that to me did not live long enough to regret it.”

“Phil Coulson?” The clip played and Thor’s “no!” rang out.

“Didn’t the Avengers come together to literally avenge him by defeating you?”

Loki kept his face schooled diplomatically blank against the small bit of triumph he felt rising. Yes, they had come together, a force to be reckoned with especially after Loki’s clever engineering of their test-run.

“Little solace for a dead man,” he said instead.

“Do you enjoy hurting people? Making them feel small? Making them feel afraid? Making them feel little?” Mobius looked at him with an expression all too familiar from a certain one-eyed Aesir.

“Your little games won’t work on me.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I think--.”

“I know what I am.”

“A murderer?”

“A liberator.” The memory of the Other’s lightning bolt sent a shock wave through his system. He was removed from them, but he could always be put back.

“Of eyeballs maybe,” Mobius scoffed and played the clip.

“Just look at that smile, you’re enjoying it.”

Yet another clip rolled and a wealthy crowd’s screams of horror rang out. He was the center of attention. No one in that moment had attention above him… but that blue still glinted in his emerald eyes.

“Did you enjoy hurting them?”

“I don’t have to play this game; I’m a god, you dull creature.”

“Of mischief? Right… I really see that shining through.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would.”

Mobius sighed, “let’s talk about your escapes.”

“You're really good at doing awful things, and then just getting away. This is one of my favorites.”

A plane’s PA system from the 1970’s dinged, “from the flight deck, Captain William A. Scott, Northwest Orient Airlines 305, on schedule to land in Seattle. Flight time today, approximately….”

The projection showed him from an outsider’s perspective on a plane, well dressed with his hair slicked back and shades covering his eyes. His past self spoke to the flight attendant.

“Bourbon and soda?”

“Thank you,” past Loki gladly accepted the drink.

“Absolutely. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”

“I suppose we'll find out, won't we?” A note was handed off to her and she chuckled only in social politeness. A clear misunderstanding between them.

“Uh, Miss?”

“Yes, Mr. Cooper?”

“You might want to take a look at that note,” past Loki leaned forward and whispered, looking the woman in the eye over his sunglasses, “I have a bomb.” Her smile dropped. The scene skipped to when he had emptied the plane of all other passengers and was back in the air strapping a parachute to himself.

“Oh, this is the good part,” Mobius whispered.

“See you again someday,” past Loki says, still politely as he accepts the bag of $200,00 USD from the unnerved flight attendant. He had often wondered how she had recovered from the stupid, oafish ploy; he did his best not to harm anyone but he understood how it could have been quite the scare.

Past Loki turned and walked toward the tail of the plane, “brother, Heimdall, you better be ready.” He mumbleed before jumping out and getting collected by the Bifrost.

“I can't believe you were D.B. Cooper. Come on!” Mobius moved in his seat in a way reminiscent of an excited toddler.

“I was young, and I lost a bet to Thor. Where was the TVA when I was meddling with these affairs of men?”

“We were right there with you, just surfing that Sacred Timeline. So anyway, escapes… and a little psychobabble. What is it you think you’re really running from?”

He held Mobius’ stare. Time Keeper’s approval or lackthereof seemed utterly arbitrary, and the agent’s “fan-ing” of him lacking.

“Enough of this nonsense--.” Loki moved to stand but was hit yet again by vertigo and back in the chair.

“Back in your cage. See? I can play the heavy keys too.” Mobius tapped a finger on his own neck.

“What is it that you actually want?”

“I want you to be honest about why you do what you do.”

“This,” Loki motioned a blue arm towards the projection, “means you have seen my life, yes?”

“Yup. Back and forward, and variant and not. I’ve seen it all.”

“Then you must already know.”

“All I seek is a deeper understanding of the fearsome God of Mischief. What makes Loki tick?”

“Yet you have seen my life and all variations of it.”

“I wanna hear it from the ol’ horse’s mouth.”

“The satisfaction of my own ends,” he finally settled. “Is this your psychobabble? You, the great arbiters of power in the universe.”

Mobius nodded, “yup, we are!”

“Yet my path, my story and my actions are not my own? A semblance of free will belongs to every creature.”

“Hahaha, good one buddy. Look, this one’ll fire you up.” Loki stamped out the pain he had only otherwise felt when he was dropped from the Rainbow Bridge. He stamped down it all. And oh, it was easy. Simple. It was his simpler state of being.

The projection changed to Stuttgart and the projection-surrounded square of kneeling people, “the bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power….”

“Precisely. I was... I am on the verge of acquiring everything I am owed, and when I do, it will be because I did it. Not because it was supposed to happen. Or because you or the Time Variance Authority permitted me to. Honestly, you are pathetic. You are an irrelevance. A detour. A footnote to my ascent.”

Mobius giggled and scoffed, “you done? You’re gonna start taking things seriously.”

His body tensed. But all that happened was a twist of a wrist and the projection changing. He was faced with himself, bound and chained in Asguardian restraints with his glamor intact and cheekily knocking his ankles together to fill the hall of the All Father with the ringing of the metal clanging together.

“If you hadn't picked up the Tesseract, you would have been taken to a cell on Asgard.” Mobius informed him.

“Loki,” a familiar honey voice said in the ringing silence.

This future Loki addressed the woman in beautiful clothes, “hello, Mother. Have I made you proud?”

Her face stayed grave as he continued with undetected fake cheerfulness, “please, don't make this worse.”

“This is the future?” Loki asked.

“Yup, like you mighta picked up, the TVA doesn’t just know your past, we know your whole life as it’s meant to be. Think of it as comforting.” Loki grimaced at that. Comfort? He did not know such a thing. The scene skipped and he recognised the dungeons.

“And am I not your mother?” A projection of his mother asked.

Future Loki chuckled bitterly, “no, you’re not.” Loki felt the need to claw off the blue skin.

“Hmm,” his mother responded, “always so perceptive to everyone but yourself.”

“And then the Dark Elves attack the palace, and you think you send them to Thor.” Mobius chimed again.

“You might wanna take the stairs to the left.” Future Loki says as most other prisoners are set free.

“But instead, you send them….” The image skips again and it’s to Frigga in the grasp of the hellish looking Dark Elf.

“I will never tell.” She declares before she is brutally stabbed and fades. Loki jumps up but only goes through the projection. He can’t help her. No, no, no, no. Another tick. Just another trick like all those in the last year! He would never do such a thing. He loved her.

“You lead them right to her.”

But why would he do that? He was spiteful but-.... No, the elf. Think, Loki, think! Ah, yes, the Aether must have been helping them and changed them to that form. But why Asgard? Why Frigga?!

“You’re lying,” he pants, “what led to this!? Where is she!? Do you have her?!”

“It is true. That's the proper flow of time, and it happens again and again and again because it's supposed to, because it has to! The TVA makes sure of it. And you did this to your own mother, Loki! What kind of monster does that?”

“I’m not a monster!” He shrieks, voice cracking. A chair slams into the wall. He does his best to compose himself but his breathing and heart rates are all still erratic.

“What led to this?” He motioned to the agent then the world blurs to the projected image of her dead face. Fresh pain spikes his back.

“Oops, sorry, only loops you, not the furniture. Now, why don’t you tell me, do you enjoy hurting people? Do you enjoy killing? Were you about to kill me like you killed your mother?”

He fixed red eyes on the blond nuisance, “I wouldn’t hurt her!” The stinging tears obstruct his vision, but he’s too prideful to wipe his eyes--or the society he had been raised by was.

The human met his hateful gaze, “you weren't born to be king, Loki. You were born to cause pain and suffering and death. That's how it is, that's how it was, that's how it will be. All so that others can achieve their best versions of themselves.”

Loki’s grimace was translated through his conflicted heart into an almost silent sobbing scream. A chitauri screeched as the projection showed the Midguardian protection force he had pissed off enough to coalesce.

But he wouldn’t do that to her… he wouldn’t… he couldn’t….

“What are you doing?” Loki barely registers the voice as B-15.

“My job. Is it yours to interrupt?” Mobius responds as Loki is still frozen staring at the wall, not even seeing the projection anymore.

“We have a situation.”

“Gah, there's always a situation. Don't go anywhere. And it was just getting good. Spirited!”

The doors closed.

Mother, I need to find her!

Escaping the room was easier than expected and the maze did nothing to deter his frantic heart.

“Hey,” he ducked down behind the desk the agent from earlier was manning.

“Hey, I know you. You’re the criminal with the blue box.”

“Shh,” he dragged the other down, “what’s your name?”

“Casey.”

“Give me the Tesseract back or I’ll gut you like a fish, Casey.”

“What’s a fish?”

“H-how do you not know what a fish is?”

“I’ve lived my entire life behind a desk, and I’d like to know what I’m being threatened with before I comply.”

“Do you not eat--death, Casey, violent and painful death.”

“Okay, okay, I comply, I comply, jeez.”

Casey leaned forward and pulled open a drawer of a moveable table, “this it?”

“Wha… Infinity Stones?” The stones, mostly green Time and red Aether or Reality, were jumbled together in the small space.

“Oh, actually, we get a lot of those. Yeah, some of the guys use them as paper weights.”

“The greatest power in the universe and you have them carelessly thrown about?”

“Well, we actually are outside of the universe AKA the Sacred Timeline. Pretty neat, right?” Casey’s musings as he stood up and presented another bulbous screen hanging from the ceiling were ignored as Loki closed his blue hand around the Tesseract. It was dim. So, so dim and dull and…. Lifeless. His jaw hung open.

An elevator dinged, “oh, you almost hit me, that’s so messed up!” Loki clicked the button and returned to the small room. Slowly, he pulled himself off of the floor, set the Tesseract down on the table and twisted the dial.

“Your birthright was to die!...” Future Odin gave future bound Loki a sadistic smile, “as a child, cast out into a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now to hate me.”

“If I had not fully asked for true mercy, I’d just say swing it. It’s not that I don’t love our little talks, it’s just, I don’t love them.” He found himself muttering along with his near-future self.

“Frigga is the only reason you are still alive and you will never see her again. You will spend the rest of your years in the dungeon.” He moved back with his shackled projection. That was too far, even for Odin. A flash of a red cape and eyepatched face looking down and telling him “no” passed in front of his eyes. His finger rolled on the dial.

“I love you, my sons. Remember this place. Home….” Future Odin told both Thor and him as he disappeared into energy from the cliff Loki was fairly sure belonged to Midguard. A breath caught. What… how… could it be?

It skipped forward again, “Loki, I thought the world of you, I thought we were going to fight side by side forever.” Future Thor with shorn hair and different clothes regarded future Loki--actually regarded him. Had he died? What sort of trickery could this be? He gulped around the hope in his throat.

“Maybe you're not so bad after all, brother. Maybe not…. Thank you. If you were here, I might even give you a hug.” An eyepatched Thor smiled at his future, blue leather clad self as a glass liquor stopper was thrown.

His future self caught it, “I’m here.” He smiled at the sight, that’s all I ever wanted… to be your equal, brother. He sniffled.

His life skipped forward again, “undying? You should choose your words more carefully.” Blue features immediately smoothed out and drooped in horror at the site of the purple titan. A golden gauntlet endued with infinity stones closed around his neck. His future self writhed in the air.

“You will… never… be a… god!” He flinched at the cracking of his own neck, his future self’s body falling limp instantly. No! He wouldn’t let himself die to him! He watched helplessly as his future self’s body was dropped while Thor screamed. The power stone’s magic broke up the spaceship as Thor wept over him. Purple enveloped the screen and then “END FILE.”

“Hah… hah… hah… hehehehe,” his lungs spasmed.

“Glorious purpose,” Loki sneered to no one. He collapsed gripping the Tesseract.

“Loki?... Nowhere left to run.”

“I know. Will you be ‘resetting’ or otherwise doing away with me now?” He stared into the dull blue depths of the Space Stone’s container rather than bothering to look up at the human. There wasn’t an answer.

“I am tired, Mobius.”

Knees popped as the other slowly knelt by him, “listen, I can’t offer you salvation, but maybe I can offer you something better. A fugitive Variant’s been killing our minutemen.”

“So why me?”

“The Variant we’re hunting is, well, you.”

He lifted his head, “pardon?”

#Loki #loki series #loki show #loki spoilers #Loki Show Rewrite #loki series rewrite project #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #Cannon non-compliant

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inthiswhisper · 4 years ago

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on dean’s perception of cas’s feelings in 7x21.

hello, it only felt natural to analyze 7x21 with 6x20 in mind because both were written / directed by ben edlund and i haven’t known peace since this man entered my life.

what’s been eating away at me from 6x20 is this exchange—

dean: cas, we can fix this.

cas: dean, it’s not broken.

—after dean realized cas betrayed him. obviously, dean was giving cas a chance to correct his mistake despite cas not seeing it as a mistake. however, “broken” indicated cas wasn’t just talking about the situation. he was speaking about himself — an angel’s operating system, loyalty to heaven, and obligation to prioritize it. none of that was “broken” to cas because it was ingrained in him.

so, when dean gave him another opportunity to change his mind—

cas: you’re the one who taught me that freedom and free will—

dean: just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want.

cas: i know what i'm doing, dean.

dean: i'm not gonna logic you, okay? i'm asking you not to. that's it.

cas: i don’t understand.

dean: next to sam, you and bobby are the closest things i have to family, so if i am asking you not to do something, you gotta trust me.

cas: or what? you can’t [stop me], dean. you’re just a man. i’m an angel.

—dean tried to appeal to cas’s emotions. cas was moved, but he favored his own plan again. dean wanted to believe cas was more human than angel, like anna. but he’s not human, he’s meant to be a machine, which fate basically calls cas in 6x17 — a war machine. angels are preoccupied by the bigger picture, even if they’ve rebelled, like anna again when she tried to kill sam. cas was aware of “family” and “love” — he even said so — but the nuances of love didn’t affect him like dean. cas couldn’t yet choose family over duty. embracing free will through dean was easy because defeating fate aligned with his mission. he just happened to stumble upon friendship / family along the way. so, regardless, the mission overrode his humanity. cas wanted to choose dean, but he knew he should protect heaven.

this brings me to cas’s behavior throughout 7x21. three separate bits of dialogue stand out to me—

cas: we weren’t sure at first which monkeys were gonna make it. i was backing the neanderthals, but in the end, it was you – the homo sapiens sapiens.

cas: we were assigned to watch the earth. often, it was boring.

sam: you’re in our corner, right, cas?

cas: no, i don’t fight anymore. i watch the bees.

—and they touch on cas’s original relationship with humanity. he never interfered, only looked from the outside at the Great Plan / Natural Order run its course. it wasn’t until cas saved dean that he even entertained his doubts—

hester: the very touch of you corrupts. when castiel first laid a hand on you in hell, he was lost.

—because that’s when the first domino fell. that’s when he truly bonded with humanity. i don’t believe the “corruption” line refers to queerness, by the way. i think it simply means dean convinced cas to continue doubting. he kept caring, because of dean, which to angels meant having a “broken” system. dean was the reason cas fell—

hester: you have fallen in every way imaginable.

—as an angel against god’s mission, and then just happened to fall in love with him too. but the issue in 7x21 is the default setting angels have. anna got punished for straying, cas himself got reprimanded, and hester even uses cas’s pursuit of free will to mock him—

hester: you wanted free will. now i’m making the choices.

—by almost destroying him. (side note: the beauty in that moment is a demon saving an angel, which was clearly unnatural and leaned heavily into going against the natural order.)

so, when sam and cas have this interaction—

sam: it says we need to start with the blood of a fallen angel.

cas: well, you know me. i’m always happy to bleed for the winchesters.

—cas is referring to the consequences of choosing free will because of them and the first time cas truly rebelled, using his own blood to create the sigil and help them stop zachariah.

but cas bleeding for them again doesn’t change the fact that, like in 6x20 when his default was to protect heaven, cas’s default in 7x21 was originally to regress and not interfere. dean’s issue is that, either way, cas has a non-human default he falls back on. an “operating system” dean wishes was more human than angel.

it was clear earlier, during a game of sorry!, when cas believed consequences of messing with the natural order could not be escaped. death warned dean about this and dean even believed in it before getting cas back. now that cas was back, dean believed in him and wanted cas to help correct his mistakes—

dean: i want you to button up your coat and help us take down leviathans.

cas: i’m sorry, i think you have to go back to [the] start [of the game].

dean: this is important. i think metatron could stop a lot of bad.

cas: we live in a “sorry” universe. it’s engineered to create conflict. why should i prosper from your misfortune? but these are the rules. i didn’t make ‘em.

dean: you made some of them — when you tried to become god.

—but dean had to fight for cas to do it here as much as he did in 6x20. cas either believed in doing the most (godstiel) or playing by the rules of the game (as angels should), where actions had consequences. he tried to fix problems as god, but was guilt-ridden when he learned about the people he hurt. dean could only throw the entire sorry! board game away—

dean: forget the game, cas.

cas: i’m sorry, dean.

dean: no. you’re playing sorry.

—and beg cas to feel instead of fall into a routine of apology or non-interference with no real resolution. cas wouldn’t, so—

dean: the angels — they don’t care. i think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. seems like when they try, it just... breaks them apart.

—dean was later convinced (and continues to be convinced) that no matter how hard he tried to humanize cas, the result would not be what dean wanted. despite what was said in 4x10—

dean: you’re some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?

cas: as a matter of fact, we are.

—the capacity to love and experience emotion is there, but too much will ultimately destroy him. even during this exchange, cas implied to sam—

cas: what do you mean “better”?

—that there was nothing broken to fix, or to make better. guilt over what cas did was so overwhelming that sam’s trauma from hell alleviated his pain. in cas’s eyes, to “fix” him would be to “break” him again. obviously he’ll get better, but i’m interested in how this push and pull continues regarding dean’s struggle with cas’s humanization, or lack there of.

i’ve heard jensen say in panels and interviews that dean believes the way cas understands human emotion is different than how dean does. i see why he believes that, but i also think it’s less about “having the equipment” and more about cas learning to feel without self-destructing, like how dean has self-destructive habits as a result of feeling his own emotions.

externally fighting fate with free will is deeply embedded in them and it’s easy for both to do because they’re soldiers. when push comes to shove, they can take it. now, they’re learning something harder — to internally fight. to overcome the instinct to suppress or cast aside feelings by opening up to another form of free will, love, without a fear of consequence. like i said, cas didn’t see dean as family on purpose — he, like dean, saw hope and followed it, then happened to stumble upon something more. i think they’re both navigating what that means and pushing the other to continue fighting for the external, but coming to terms with the internal. it’s only when they lose each other that either man begins to unravel, regress, and / or lose his way, so their fight is as much about each other as it is about heaven / the world. the latter is simply chosen out of instinct, duty, or as a mask for the former — what they really want. what neither thinks they can have.

#no one has to read this #i just couldn’t continue watching ‘til i made this post #supernatural #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #spn liveblog #tms #6x20 #7x21

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lyriquette · 4 years ago

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RWBY farming au

Conceived in the Frosen Steel server, a RWBY farming / hydroponics AU. I’ll probably use some of the ideas in this for Rising Snow. Mostly background with scattered pieces of actual fic. - lilac

If people don’t mind this format, I’ll probably post similar world-building AUs in the future.

Featuring: Penny Polendina, Oscar Pine, Whitley Schnee.

Because of the freezing cold and the years of industrialization in Mantle, Mantle/Atlas soil is incredibly poor for growing plants. Most food product is imported from Vale, and in turn Atlas supports Vale in terms of sharing their technology. It's why the two Kingdoms are more modern in appearance than the other two kingdoms, not to mention that they were originally good allies during the Great War.

In this AU, Watts develops his murder machines first and ends up winning whatever contract Atlas was offering. The Penny Project is later realized by Pietro, and Pietro later resigns as he picks up on the increasing militarization in Atlas as if General Ironwood was preparing something big - and he wanted his daughter not to be involved.

Pietro decides to move down to the Crater in Mantle to facilitate that. That way no one would know about Penny. He then creates a small shop to help repair electronics and create prosthetics for the unfortunate. It’s through this change in locale that Penny learns how bad things are down at Mantle.

The main reason is food. Though Atlas and Mantle do have greenhouses, they're only able to supply food for a small amount of people - and it's usually just to the rich who want to eat fresh produce up in Atlas. The rest of the food is imported and thus expensive. In a way, food is a means to keep Mantle underneath Atlas's thumb because if its citizens don't work, they can't eat. If they quit, someone else would gladly take that job just to feed themselves and their family. Thus, a cycle of control is created where people simply can't break free of the poor conditions nor could they really complain, because to them it's happening everywhere.

The SDC is the main actor in that, given their non-essential businesses are everywhere. If they decide to forcibly close down those businesses, many many people would be out of a job and likely die. Whether the government would act or not is a coin flip - the SDC needs Mantle for labor, but Atlas could run effectively without it - they have robots for labor, the rich for funding, and a military arm in the form of Atlas Academy.

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

Most of the Faunus who lived in the Crater did not trust Penny and Pietro at first, but given Pietro's generosity and Penny's kind demeanor, they slowly warm up to them. The White Fang within Atlas is more of a community hub that supports each other because they can't afford to be militant; attacks of SDC buildings end up having extremely bad repercussions on Mantle Faunus which includes unofficial anti-Faunus hiring policies or firings - the whim of the SDC can easily kill a couple thousand of them from that alone.

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

Penny initially started this project, not because she wanted to change the world, but because her father had been getting more sick lately, getting thinner, and starting to get sores in his gums and bleeding more easily. She later on would learn that these were signs of malnutrition - scurvy - things that those living more centrally in Mantle or up in Atlas didn't get but was a problem now because of where they lived. Though buying vitamin supplements did help, it didn't quite replace actual food - and nutrients were often better absorbed and palated in the form of food, especially when it came to the nonessential but still important minerals.

However, she knew that things simply did not grow in Mantle. And the things that did grow were usually hardy weeds turned poisonous due to absorbing heavy metals from the ground. It was all too common to see a desperate man or woman just collapse shaking from eating too many wild weeds because they couldn't eat anything else. Maybe one day, they could plant enough weeds to help improve Mantle's soil quality, but it didn't help her dad now.

She's heard of hydroponics before. It wasn't exactly a secret; however, the science was in its infancy stages. Part of it was because people in the food importing business did not want others to grow cheap, domestic food - greenhouses were already bad enough for them. However, the main reason was that people didn't quite know what made plants succeed in growing and creating produce (farmers were the least likely people to work in permanently cold Solitas) - usually the plants failed to germinate, died drooping (overwatering), or end up growing but don't create produce (never bore fruit). Even though there was limited success, the yield would be extremely poor, and the amount of time and energy could've just be used to create another greenhouse instead.

But this was okay for Penny cause all she really had was time and energy. And it wasn't like she was selling food. She just wanted to grow produce, so her dad could eat healthier.

Her dad supported her efforts by getting the short experiment logs of the initial hydroponics projects at Atlas. And it became clear to Penny that there were many holes in that research with the main factor being that there was not an actual farmer to help with the research. And with the arrogance of Atlasian scientists (Watts being the archetypical example), who would bring a down-to-earth farmer who knew nothing of science and the like? Lacking expertise and knowing that the entirety of Atlas would be of no help, Penny sought the CCT for assistance.

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

Oscar didn't particularly like farming. He wanted to become a Hunter, but his aunt wouldn't let him. Too dangerous, she said. He might end up mixing with the darker elements of Mistral because of it, not to mention the fact he’d be fighting the Grimm on a regular basis. Better to be a farmer in central Mistral with a nice stable income like how his parents and their parents and their parents' parents lived.

Still, he never complained out loud. After going to school in the morning, he helped worked the fields in the afternoon, the same as the other farmhands like his uncle and his cousins. He was living under their roof, and he knew it was hard to provide for a thirteen-year old who was just starting his growth spurt. He probably ate more than his aunt and his baby cousins combined now. And their family generously paid for his living conditions without forcing him into anything he didn't want to do.

As of late, he's been a bit happier with his lot in life. Using the CCT, someone from Solitas had contacted him in regard to farming - about how they wanted to grow things in Mantle and potentially revolutionize the lives of people there. But they couldn't due to the soil being bad. In what way, he didn't particularly know. They discussed the issue with each other through voice-chat, talking about their very different lives and even the possibility of something called hydroponics - honestly, it felt like finding a kindred spirit. And he looked forward to the days he could talk things out with his new friend.

"Hey, wait. Check this out," Oscar said as he checked the CCT forums, "Your thread got replied too."

"Really?" said a bewildered voice on the other line.

"Yeah, a Penny123 is asking about farming in Mantle too. Even mentioned hydroponics."

"...Let's try bringing this Penny in."

"You sure, Whitley?"

"Yeah. As much as I want us to keep the credit, it's not like we're going anywhere right now. Maybe this person will have new ideas."

==========

So a duo became a trio. And Whitley was right. What Penny brought to the table was the scientific expertise. She might not know how hydroponics actually worked, but she did have the means to analyze the soil content (retrofitting some of her sensors for more specialized purposes) and simply put - she was a scientist. On the other hand, Oscar had the farming expertise - he knew what soils worked well with which crop, the habits of each plant he grew, he knew what plants liked more water and which ones preferred less, and what a plant should like when it was growing well.

Whitley was the odd duck in the group. First of all, he wasn't quite doing it for altruism's sake. He was doing it because he disliked his family - and really hated the Schnee Dust Company, seeing that it's responsible for his mother's drinking, his parents' loveless marriage, Winter abandoning the rest of the family for Ironwood and the Hunters/Huntresses, and Weiss's likely plans to abandon ship on him too (he's angry at her for that, but after having Oscar to confide in, it wasn't as bad as being left alone and isolated completely.)

He's also responsible for making sure that his two partners weren't murdered in their sleep. Going this route infringes upon the interests of several major corporations including the SDC and the food import companies. Seeds and food products coming from and going to Solitas were tracked very closely. Penny is also given some chilling news from Whitley: people have tried building greenhouses at the Crater before, and all of them were destroyed without a perpetrator to be found.

The danger was serious enough that Oscar was also planning to move to Solitas to not implicate his aunt and uncle when he and Whitley finally started the project in earnest. With Penny around, Oscar potentially had a place to stay (Oscar also was like "i can do heavy lifting, the dishes, cooking, farming, etc" as part of his self-advertisement).

Even Whitley acknowledges that he himself might not be safe. One wrong move on his part - and well, if his father was able to endure nearly a decade of loveless marriage just to take over the SDC, there's no telling what he'll do when he realizes he's working against his interests.

Penny needs some time to think. She now knows that her tiny project of letting her father eat better is connected to the livelihoods of so many and also brings a lot of danger along with it. Not just to herself but to her father - her dad would also be a target if things go south. With her partners’ agreement (since it's inevitable Pietro would get wind of things since the project will be occurring in his house), Penny talks to her dad about the hydroponics / farming project. He's worried for her but understands what she wants to do - she's filled with purpose now and wants to help the people out. As much as he's scared for her and doesn't want her to do this, he can't help but feel a bit of pride about his daughter growing up. Still, he makes her promise that as soon as things start looking bad, they'll stop. They'll quit and not look back. He asks to speak to the other two, not quite realizing they're a pair of thirteen-year olds, and extracts the same promise for their sake.

------

As plans for moving and gathering soil samples are being made, Pietro starts building Floating Array.

Penny begins dragging several abandoned shipping containers to the "backyard" of their store, saying her dad needed some raw material for experimentation when in reality it's gonna be where the heart of their project is.

Weiss starts getting worried about her younger, now constantly sneaking around and speaking to the scroll in hushed tones. She overhears part of his conversation - about how he'd get in a lot of trouble for a certain course of action (directly smuggling goods in using his authority) - and worries that he's getting bullied.

Oscar tells his family that his friend found him a job working as an engineer's assistance in Solitas, and he'd like to stay there for a year. His place of employment has already paid for the transcontinental ticket.

#rwby #rwby fic #rwby au #penny polendina #whitley schnee #oscar pine #farming au #lilac writes #throws my au at the universe

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thelordofdarkreunion · 4 years ago

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Magnificent Scoundrels- Grand Tour

I decided to write about Thomas Drake and his crew for this one. As usual, I do not own any other characters except Drake and his crew. Enjoy the story.

“I am not a good person, but I am an honest one.”

-Thomas Drake

“You said you wanted to take a tour of my ship, so, here we are.” Drake gave an elaborate, formal bow. “Welcome aboard the Apocalypse. You all have your engineers with you?” He looked around the group of, who did, indeed have all their engineers with them. “Good. Everyone is invited, and if you are able to replicate anything you see here from memory, then I think it’s yours, fairly won.” Which cut right into the heart of why everyone had their engineers here.

Drake turned into the hangar bay, beginning the tour. “The Apocalypse is an Apricus Industries 745-class light cruiser, heavily modified by us, of course. Originally named the Summer’s Light, it was renamed something more appropriate for a warship after me and my merry band of maniacs stole it during the Jerrick War. It was, uh, well, upgraded, as I said before, and now includes reinforced shielding on the hull, better engines, best in class, as a matter of fact, heavy railgun batteries, more point defense batteries, and nuclear launch tubes, of which I am particularly proud of. Unique amongst most capital sized ships from my home galaxy, it can enter atmosphere, a fact that I have come to appreciate in my line of work. Now, this,” he waved vaguely at their surroundings, “is the hangar bay. We only need a couple of shuttles, so for the most part, it’s open and used by the armsmen for training. Speaking of which,” he nodded in the direction of a group wearing a collection of military-looking uniforms watching two of their number spar, “those are the armsmen.” Drake gave a sharp whistle, and the armsmen stopped what they were doing. Three of their number walked over to the Scoundrels, while the rest milled around, apparently taking a break from what they were doing.

Drake gave the classic back-and-forth gesture that has accompanied introductions since the dawn of time as he called out the three individuals. “Derrick Saul, commander of 1st Squad.” The armsman furthest to the left, a deeply sunburn man with hair cut so short he may as well have been bald, gave them a polite nod. “Jean Garang, commander of 2nd Squad.” The armsman in the middle, a tall woman with exceptionally dark-hued skin and short cut black hair also gave a nodd. “And Rilgaldis, commander of 3rd Squad.” A massive reptilian alien, well over seven feet tall, gave them a salute. “Scoundrels, Saul, Garang, and Rilgaldis. Rilgaldis, Garang, and Saul, the Scoundrels.” Drake gave a moment’s pause. “Well then, now introductions have been made. Why don’t you three tell my glorious compatriots exactly where you come from and why you’re galavanting across the galaxy with an unstable mercenary?” Drake’s joking manner broke the formal and somewhat strained atmosphere. The Scoundrels relaxed, and Saul grinned.

“Fine. I’ll go first. Born on Europa, joined the 317th Federal Expeditionary Division. I’m here because, well, you pay more than the Federal Army, Captain.”

“Same thing with me. Born in Sudan, joined the Army, got put in the 5th Guards. Drake pays more than the Federation,” said Garang.

“And you, Rilgaldis?”

“Born into the Dracus Army, left, joined the Imperial Foreign Legion, left, joined you because you pay better,” said Rilgaldis.

“Yes. The three leaders of my armsmen. Matter of fact, it’s a wonder you two,” he indicated Saul and Garang, “get along as well as you do.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” asked Kirk. Saul and Garang grinned at each other.

“You see, we are on opposite sides of one of humanity's oldest questions. Matter of fact, Garang, let’s settle this once and for all. You all seem like you know what you’re talking about.” The Scoundrels looked at each other, hesitant about what the question would bring. “So, here we go, and I know that you’ll all agree with me: 9 milimetre Parabellum or .45 ACP?”

“What?” replied Vir. The other Scoundrels seemed to be equally bemused by the question.

“Are you not a soldier or a weapons enthusiast? Don’t pick up guns like the rest of us?”

“I was a pilot, now an Admiral.”

“Oh dear me, the flyboys have their heads so high in the clouds they don’t know the answer to life’s greatest mystery. Any of the rest of you? No? Bullets don’t exist where you come from or something?” Kirk, Shepard, and Cain shook their heads to the negative.

“.50 cal.” Master Chief added his input. Saul whistled.

“Jesus Christ. Although,” Saul walked up and compared his height to the Chief’s, “if anyone can handle a .50 calibre handgun on the regular, it would be the two meter guy made entirely of muscle.”

“Wonderful. Now that we have that out of the way, onwards!” exclaimed Drake. The rest of the Scoundrels followed, threading their way out of the hangar and through the winding grey passages of the starship. Most were neat, clean, and paneled with easily cleanable grey metal, although one particular passageway they crossed was under repair, the panelling ripped away to expose a myriad of interconnecting pipes and wires. A mixed group of aliens and humans, all wearing grey jumpsuits, were hard at work, fiddling with various tangles of sparking wires. A short woman jumped from atop a ladder where she had been perched, examining the ceiling, and offered Drake a vague salute.

“We’re almost done, Captain. Wiring in this sector should be back up in no time.” She seemed to notice the group following him for the first time, and gave them a cheery wave. “Tor Herald. In charge of...well...nothing in particular. We,” this was accompanied by a wave encompassing the various workers, “are unofficially known throughout the ship as the ne’re-doers. Unspecialized specialists, jacks of all trades, masters of none, we’re the crew that keeps the Apocalypse running. This ain’t a military vessel, so we’re just on as regular crew members. Nothing to do with most of the money and explosions that seem to follow the Captain around.” One of the wires in the background started to spark alarmingly. “Ah, shit. Love to talk, got to fix this.” She ran to the problem, an odd-shaped tool in hand.

“Best keep going, then,” said Drake. He gave the group a ‘follow me’ motion, and led them deeper through the halls. “I get crew members from all over the place. Most of the armsmen and specialists are ex-military, but the crew...I have from all over the place. Which I said before. Don’t really know how else to put it. Got crew members from Earth, Vorketh, Aequalitas, Narcan, Delstrovic, and everywhere in between. Now,” he turned and gestured to a section of more pleasant looking and open hallways, “as your esteemed colleague Jack Cooper can attest, these are the crew quarters. They are located throughout the ship, so vital personnel can sleep next to their stations, but the bulk of them are in this area.” He led them past the crew quarters to a pair of large sliding glass doors. “And this is what we call the weapons room. All our personal weapons are created, reparied, and tested here.” It was a brightly lit room covered in stark white plastic, but what drew everyone’s attention were it’s two occupants, who, although fiddling with various bits and pieces, seemed to be in the middle of a fierce argument.

“You see, the problem with your theory is, at the very heart of the matter, you’ve got it wrong. The purpose of a government is to help its people by any means it finds necessary,” said a short, lean, black-haired man in the midst of inserting a new power core into a plasma gun.

“No, the purpose of a government is to protect its people’s rights and protect them from foriegn invasion. Otherwise, it should leave them alone,” replied a muscular, brown-haired man of medium height as he tightened the bolts on a massive machine gun.

“Ah, but the thing is, the government can help people. And at the basic level, why would you not help people? You’re a Christian, and it is at the core of your philosophy to help others,” countered the black-haired man.

“Individually. It is our duty to individually help other people. You’re a student of history, and you know what happens. If the government helps people in the way you’re suggesting, then it gains control over them, and thus should it turn bad, the common people are helpless.” The Scoundrels filed into the room behind Drake as the two argued, apparently oblivious to their presence.

“The core problem with you is that you’re just an ignorant, uneducated farm boy who’s clinging to a dying philosophy,” sneered the black-haired man.

“And you are a stuck up city student who has absolutely no idea how the real world works,” shot back the brown-haired man with a vengeance.

“You’re a stupid moron who follows people who will plunge the world into despotism.” At this, the brown-haired man threw down his wrench and cracked his knuckles.

“I’d be very, very, careful if I were you,” he warned. The tension in the air was almost like a physical being. Several of the Scoundrels standing behind Drake tugged on their collars as if to escape from an oppressive heat. Kirk stepped forward as if to mediate, but Drake held out a hand to forestall him.

“Or what? What are you going to do?” replied the black haired man snidely.

“This.” And before anyone could react, the brown haired man stepped forward, wrapped his arms around the shorter man, and pulled him close into a passionate kiss. They broke apart, and upon seeing the shocked faces of their various watchers, both started howling with laughter.

“Oh, you should have seen your faces,” said the taller of the pair in between wheezes. The other man was clutching his midsection and had tears streaming down his face. He made some sort of strangled gasping noise and grabbed the edge of a counter for support.

“We got ‘em!” He broke down into hysterics again. “We got you!” Drake merely rolled his eyes.

“Everyone, meet Mark,” he nodded towards the brown haired man, “and Oliver,” this was accompanied by a wave to the black haired man, “Danis-Holden, two of my three weapons specialists.” The two, still trying not to laugh, stood up straighter and nodded as they were introduced. Noting the still bemused faces of the Scoundrels, Drake sighed. “So, you guys want to tell them who you are, where you’re from, why you’re with me and what was going on here?”

“Sure!” replied Mark cheerfully. “So, I was born on Enlalda, a colony world on the edge of Federal Space. It’s an agrarian planet, and most people there moved from the center of Federal space because of religious persecution. Like ninety-ish percent of the population are old school Evangelical Christian conservatives. I was born and raised on a farm; grew up as a...well, old school Evangelical Christian conservative. Always liked to tinker with things, got really good at repairing vehicles and the various guns you’ll find all farmers have on colony worlds. But, I always thought there was more to life than just farming. I wanted adventure. I wanted to do something with my life. So, one day a mercenary starship shows up,” he paused his narrative for a moment and looked queringly at Drake, “wasn’t that the Helidon job?” Drake rubbed his forehead.

“Oh. Yeah, it was. Now that was a weird operation. But I digress. Please continue.”

“Yep. So, as I was saying, the Captain here showed up near where I was. I heard he was looking for a weapons specialist, and I had some experience in that area, so I decided to offer my services, and you accepted, and I joined the crew. And that’s where I met this idiot.” He gestured at Oliver.

“Damn straight. But before we get into that, I have to tell you my story,” replied Oliver. “I was born on Tyvander. Metropolitan planet near the center of Federal space. I grew up in a middle class family near one of the bigger cities, Menvander. Like a lot of people, I went to college there: majored in political science, minored in specialized engineering. Unlike some planets, Tyvander isn't super rich or famous, and there is no specialized educational infrastructure there, so if you want to go to college, you pay for it. As it turns out, being a political science major does not pay the bills, so when the Apocalypse showed up looking for a weapon’s specialist, which I was qualified for because of my technical skills and engineering expertise. So I joined up, and my debts and old, boring life didn’t follow. The University of Menvander is not going to hunt you down if you declare bankruptcy and go galavanting across the galaxy with a group of mercenaries,” he finished.

“I’ll pick it up from here,” said Mark. “How shall I put this…” he stopped to consider for a moment. “Oliver was already aboard as a weapons specialist when I got here. We worked together, got to know each other, and, as it turns out, the phrase ‘opposites attract’ is a very true one. I always had the feeling that I was, well...gay, but, considering where I grew up, I never told anyone. Didn’t really bother me. I was perfectly fine doing what I was doing, and never saw anyone who peaked my interest. ‘Till I met him, of course.”

“I’ve always been a hardcore liberal, been gay, and known I was gay. Got here, met him, got married,” said Oliver.

“Wait, how did that work?” interrupted Shepard. “You guys are all mercenaries who don’t really have legal residence anywhere, so…”

“Ah, yes. We had a ceremony on the ship. Was one hell of a party, actually,” replied Drake. “Legally though…” he pursed his lips in thought. “We’re all registered as Guild citizens for legal and infiltration purposes, so that might count...but for the most part, no legal or religious ceremony. Doesn’t really matter though, all things considered,” he said with a shrug.

“Yep. So now we spend all day repairing and creating weapons while bickering about politics,” interjected Oliver. “It’s fun, actually. Still don’t know why you support that outdated philosophy and religion when it doesn’t allow for homosexuality. Which, you are.”

“Just because one part of a philosophy is wrong, doesn’t mean all parts of it are wrong. Plus, you’re a hardcore liberal who supports the right to bear arms. Like, all forms of weapons,” replied Mark.

“Eh, good point. Goes with the job, I guess.” They grinned at each other.

“Deviant freaks?

“Deviant freaks!”

“Goddamn right?”

“Goddamn right!” They gave each other high fives then went back to their work. Drake sighed.

“Okay. Let’s continue.” They passed through the weapons room and into more of the winding grey hallways. Drake spoke up as he walked. “I should have probably told you, but everyone on this ship, myself included, is kind of nuts. You see, being a mercenary means you kill people for money. It does not attract the most...uh...stable of individuals. Stable people stay near where they were born and go to college, or to some other form of school, or join the military. Stable people do not go running around the galaxy and get into all sorts of weird things with me.” He turned back to the Scoundrels and suddenly grinned. “And by that logic, none of you are stable! Welcome to the club!” He turned another corner and walked into an enclosed room covered with constricting panels of all sorts of strange dials, knobs, and buttons. The area was lit by yellow bulbs enclosed in metal cages, and the floor itself was made of metal grating, allowing one to see a series of tunnels underneath it. The entire room was pervaded by a low, incessant humming noise. “Now, this is the engine room. It’s a lot bigger than it looks, but we need all the panels to keep the reactor functional, so it seems rather enclosed. The engineers should be somewhere around here.” He sighed again and gave a whistle. “Oi! Where are all of you guys?” Without warning, a grey-jumpsuited woman slid from a small rectangular access hatch beneath one of the larger panels.

“Right here, sir! Fixing the 5130’s.” She had a round, cheerful face framed with wispy brown hair. She grinned up at the Scoundrels. “Well, well, well. Looks like we have visitors, everyone!”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said a muffled, echoey voice that seemed to emanate from the ceiling. “I would come down to introduce myself, but I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“Visiters?” A blond haired man poked his head from behind another panel. “Pleasure to meet you. Engineer First Class Boweman, at your service.”

“Engineer Baily,” said the woman, who had at this point gone back into the hatch.

“Engineer Khatri,” came the muffled voice.

“K’rik Vhle’krik,” said someone else. A large, brown insectoid alien turned the corner. It looked like a cross between a centipede and a lobster, and stood on six hind legs, with eight more waving in the air in front of it. Its back was protected by a large brown exoskeleton, and its eyes were mounted on two stalks on its head. Cain tensed, his hand going to his sword. Drake noticed the movement, but said nothing of it and instead made introductions.

“Scoundrels, my engineering crew. Engineering crew, the Scoundrels.” He turned and addressed the ceiling. “Are you busy at the moment?”

“A bit,” the alien replied in an odd, unnaturally exaggerated American accent. “We’re trying to reroute the cooling systems of the 5130’s.”

“Well then, I shall leave you to it,” said Drake in response. “Moving on.” The group walked through the engine room and through another hallway beyond. “I would introduce everyone, but the cooling systems are very important in making sure everything goes un-exploded.”

They passed into a large room covered with science equipment and what looked like the shell of a large bomb sitting in the middle of the room. A woman with frazzled brown hair, wearing a welder’s face mask and a leather apron and gloves was standing over a strange device, pouring a red liquid into a stainless steel beaker. She finished what she was doing, flipped up the mask and smiled at the newcomers.

“Jennifer Muelka. Ordnance and explosives expert.”

“The remaining third of my weapons specialists,” interjected Drake. “Brilliant at all forms of making things go boom. A little too brilliant sometimes.” She smiled sheepishly.

“I do try my best to be careful.”

“So, I’m interested. Why are you here?” asked Shepard.

“Oh that’s easy,” she replied with a laugh. “No one else will let me do what I do here. I create all sorts of nasty things. Plasma, napalm...nukes, on occasion.”

“You...you, a mercenary, have nukes on this ship?” asked Vir.

“Yes. No one’s complained, because if I do use them, I use them correctly. I am very proud to say that the number of innocent civilians we have killed with nuclear weapons remains zero.”

“That’s...kinda reassuring?”

“Hey, if you’re hiring me, you get the best of the best,” said Drake. Leaving Muelka to her work, they moved on. THey walked through one long, spacious, and brightly-lit hallway before they reached a gleaming set of double doors. “Now this is the bridge. It’s located at the center of the ship to prevent anyone from targeting and destroying it.” The doors slid open, revealing a large, spacious room lined with all sorts of computers. The area seemed to be further divided into subsections, each with a semi-circular area accompanied with a chair. Large windows adorned the entire length of the bridge, and upon noticing this, Kirk frowned.

“You said we were at the center of the ship. So what are those ‘windows’?”

“Computer screens, showing the space surrounding the ship. Wouldn’t be a proper bridge if you couldn’t see outside, would it?”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

“Now then.” Drake rubbed his hands together. “I would like to introduce you to the two most important people on the ship. Sarah Ordelphine and Eric Richter.” He gestured to a lithe woman of medium height with short cut black hair and a man wearing a grey jumpsuit. He too was of medium height, and his hair was brown, straight and cut short to the scalp. A large scar ran across his forehead, the relic of some forgotten fight. They both nodded curtly at the Scoundrels. “Ordelphine is my chief navigator and pilots the ship, and Richter is my second in command. So, why did you guys join with me?”

“I was and am the best capital ship pilot in the galaxy. The Federal Navy and all of the corporations I was with before didn’t recognize that. You did and still do, Captain,” replied Ordelphine.

“Damn right. You’d think we were in a fighter, with some of the maneuvers you can do. And you, Richter?”

“I didn’t have anything to do at the time. Joined you. Never had a reason to look back.”

“Fair enough.” Drake spun around the room with a theatrical gesture. “And so, the grand tour of the Apocalypse. Met some new and interesting people. I hope you enjoyed it.”

Hope you liked it. The scene with Mark and Oliver might have been a little awkward or weird, but I am firmly of the opinion that most people are trying their best, and you can still like, love, or get along with them if you disagree politically. If you have any comments, criticisms, questions, or requests, feel free to contact me. And remember to sit back and enjoy your day!

#magnificent scoundrels #thomas drake #crossover #ultimate crossover #sci-fi #writing #story #humans are weird

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autumn-foxfire · 3 years ago

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I always end up thinking it comes back to Shoto *needed* a abusive father who also abused and coerced his mom whom he bought to pop out kids, separated the family, practised eugenics, talked trash about the whole family year after year and turned his brother into a murdering villain. While being a selfish, power hungry No 2 hero who is greedy, uses money and abuses power and is known for his violent heroics and generally disliked. He is next in line to AFO for doing every unimaginable bad but in terms of family abuse.

He could have been a quirkless top cop, he could have been a disabled ex-hero and had the same story. It was important he was what he was just an asshole corrupt top hero. Also to show he was running away from hurting his body and from responsibility by torturing his bought family to suffer in his place.

It was never about Endeavor. His story is like an afterthought to give substance to Shoto's story and bolster him and later, the rest of Todofam's stories. Pro Hero Arc's objective was to set Endeavor up as the symbol of downfall of hero society after All Might era. It was foreshadowed after Kamino Arc by Jin Bubaigawara's comments no less. And Twice being someone Hawks replaced for admiring as the ideal for the man's virtues unlike the sins of a man who was more fake than All Might's true inspiration on a TV. And this downfall was pinned on Endeavor as his personal failure as if to say he isn't the victim folks, move along. It is said as if to make it seem unfair but when it concerns Endeavor the plot always flips to show that wasn't the case it really was his fault. It kind of is. His arrogance, his delusional view of himself, his average competence in comparison to true heroes and his weak hero motivation(I'm No. 1 instead of altruism), etc were clearly depicted. And contrasted with All Might who did his best and was not the one in the wrong in the system. And the Commission who were evil ar dead.

Endeavor's character is frequently contradictory or inconsistent and modt of what he says or thinks is contradicted and depicted as his misunderstandings or sugarcoated delusions. In fact it won't be surprising if Endeavor commented on Toya having only a fire quirk and Rei nervously suggesting having another child to be the Ice sidekick to Toya but Endeavor only believed in one body to be the only hero and mistook Fuyumi's role as the cheerleader. To make every interaction or connection negative than it appears does seem the current purpose of plot.

But what never makes sense from a real person point of view is why marriage and child at 20. Very few people think I'll have a child and spend years grooming it to replace me while I'm being impatient right now. People can say 20 is adult enough all they want but thats two years after graduating from UA high school and its unusual unlike in the States. Didn't he have parents? They also practiced quirk marriage doesn't feel like a good enough answer.

He could have experimented on himself like Danzo from Naruto, he could have had a child with a woman he gets rid permanently- a clone with genetic modifications like in Star Wars or a child throgh a surrogate. Instead he needed the free nanny, cook, cleaner and housekeeper that came with a marriage to look after the child while he was away doing heroics. That is what is pointed out recently was Rei's sole role according to Endeavor.

AFO and his cronies could have been hidden in plain sight as miraculous doctors. Quirks can be updated once without suspicion(Deku never raised red flags?) AFO can give and take quirks. Endeavor was desperate enough to commit a legal seeming unethical practice so if Dr Kyudai Garaki ran a legal experimental scene where he lured in people who searched enough to find him, then why not Endeavor?

But I feel if that was the type of plot then it will be explained how Endeavor's body was not suited to holding cooling quirk or extra quirk would shorten his lifespan. Since Shoto is the real character who has to exist with his mother of a origin. And most likely is the scenario that Endeavor forced Rei to undergo dangerous treatment for pregnancy in one of Kyudai Garaki's machines. Its typical shonen plot btw torturing the mom to have a extra special child.

As told through Rei, Endeavor's character is one who runs away from responsibility and pushes it onto people instead of doing anything himself or troubling himself to suffer at all and shows no remorse afterwards or makes no noticeable effort to do sone action to sepict the same. His endeavoring is only that- a show of endeavour, no substance. In terms of plot having a child makes sense but think of him as a real consistent human character, it no longer is. Rei's assessment contradicts what she excused during the Pro Hero Arc. If he only runs away why would she be so deluded to think he is trying to face his past and not just giving her flowers because he got what he wanted completely at last. It doesn't explain anything about his character beyond being empty words to explain why he should be given a chance. And currently the family really doesn't need him they needed Dabi to be saved and it was said in the raws Shoto stated he did not feel "saved" by having to lend a hand to Endeavor.

I do agree that a major aspect of Enji's character is to provide greater context for both his sons, one who is a main character and one who is a main villain, as well as used to highlight the flaws present in hero society but I disagree with that being all he's supposed to be, at least not anymore.

Hori has gone through great lengths to try and flesh out his character beyond what he originally wrote though it was kind of awkward at the time when he started to do so because he had already dug Enji into such a horrible hole, slowly retconning aspects of the Todoroki family past (such as him "buying" Rei to be his brood mare) in a way that wasn't jarring (by making the family unreliable narrators which is something one would expect) but sadly he couldn't change the image he had already built for Enji for the most part.

I also agree that because Hori had began to flesh out Enji more, there has been more contradictions in his story when you start to pick it apart (such as how he's supposed to be the most stubborn character and yet gave up before he should have), but these issues are really only something a reader that likes to analyse the story will notice, not that of a casual reader (which I guess Hori should be thankful for). I'm not sure if Hori planned to make Enji into a more likable character from the beginning or if he changed plans midstory (...which to be honest, the way his story is written does appear to be the later), but because of the drastic change, it has left us feeling a bit of whiplash.

I do disagree with your last sentences though, Enji is important to the family and important to saving Dabi (kinda). Unlike Shouto, who is trying to break free from Enji and because of that he doesn't need his father, Dabi is desperate for his father's attention which has evolved into hatred and spite. It needs to be Enji that reaches out to him (and I wonder if this is why he decided to have Enji begin to reform as well, to be in a place where he'd actually try to save his son? Hmmm...).

Enji is an interesting character but a lot of his writing has a lot to be desired at times, is what I'm trying to say T-T

#bnha #bnha manga spoilers #bnha critical #thanks for the ask!!

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feminist-propaganda · 4 years ago

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The Star Wars Saga Is A Meditation On Single Motherhood

It recently dawned on me that the entire story line of the Star Wars saga is built on the lives, loves and tribulations of 3 generations of single mothers. There are monsters to slay and aliens to find and planets to explore, yes, but if you think about the powerful message in the movies, you’ll come to realize it was mostly a reflection on the status of single mothers, the outcomes of their offspring, and the conflict that lives forever in their descendants.

Each trilogy, once reframed, becomes the story of one woman, who finds herself in a situation that is as old as time. She is with child, but the person who planted the seed in her is not by her side.

Shmi Skywalker or The Good Single Mother

In the Phantom Menace, Jedi Knight Qui Gon Jin meets Anakin Skywalker, a slave boy with a talent for repairing machines. The Jedi knight is impressed with the child’s abilities. He’s knowledgeable, intuitive, and most importantly he’s also kind and thoughtful. When a sand storm threatens the group of travelers, Anakin takes them to his own home and offers them shelter.

We meet Shmi Skywalker, who in many ways is the archetype of the good single mother. She is not just quiet. She has completely erased herself. She has no personality, apart from being Anakin’s caretaker. She expresses no needs, no desires, no dreams. She simply loves Anakin, and when she sees an opportunity for him to leave the desert planet ruled by the Huts, she doesn’t stand in his way.

In a now famous scene, Qui Gon asks her about the child’s origins and Shmi famously responds “There was no father”. The line continues: “I carried him. I gave birth. I raised him. I can’t explain what happened”.

The immaculate conception myth refers to the idea in Christianity that Mary, much like Shmi, was impregnated by some magical force, a holy spirit. Both are parabols: images we use to discuss painful topics. Single motherhood has probably always been a part of the human experience. Jared Diamond explains in “Why Is Sex Fun?” that in terms of evolution, it is more rewarding for human males to be “super spreaders “ rather than “good fathers “ . The “good father” gene does not pass down to future generations, because in effect, not sticking around to raise the child is a better strategy for a human man to pass on his genes to the next generation. Not convinced? Just count how many women have been impregnated by a rapper like Future (8 last time I checked). If you’re not into hip-hop, you can think of the offspring of the Mongol Genghis Khan

The purpose of the parabol is to provide an image, to extract ourselves from the technicalities of onr person’s story and to instead talk about all single mothers at once. Indeed, single mothers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are widowed, some are abandoned, others are lied to, and some run away from abusive environments.

Shmi raises her son the best she can, and her love for him is unconditional. She doesn’t bat an eye when he is freed while she is to continue her life as a slave. She doesn’t even seem to mind when Anakin leaves the planet and never returns to free her, even after he marries into some serious money.

But the story of Star Wars tells us that Shmi’s relationship to Anakin, because it was so fusional, because it was all that he had, led to his undoing. In Episode 2, when he senses she is in danger, he jeopardizes his mission to protect Padme to go rescue her. When he eventually finds her, he is so upset about her ultimate death that he commits mass murder, targeting the Tuskan riders of the sea of Dunes.

When Yoda first lays eyes on Anakin, he senses Anakin’s pain, he is just a child whose been ripped away from the only human that’s ever cared for him deeply. The turmoil inside the boy is palpable, and Yoda advises against training him.

Padme Amidala or The Bad Single Mother

Anakin develops feelings for Padme, and in Episode 2 the pair decide to secretly get married in the lake district of Padme’s home planet Naboo. Their relationship is very intense. Both share a strong sense of civic duty: Padme was elected queen of the Naboo when she was just 14 & Anakin is a keeper of the peace. They care deeply about issues such as how the galaxy must be governed, how much action needs to be taken versus when diplomacy must be prioritized.

Their strong sense of service has made them lonely young people. They’re far away from their families, surrounded by advisors, servants and droids - not friends.

They jump into their relationship with an eagerness that suggests it is their original caretakers they crave for.

Padme becomes pregnant while the Clone Wars are raging, and immediately Anakin begins to experience trouble with his sleeping. He imagines Padme is dying in childbirth, and the visions haunt him during the day. His fear that she will die ultimately leads to his decision to join the Dark side of the force. Senator Palpatine has manipulated him into believing that Sith Lords have discovered the power to prevent death itself.

Just like his mother before him, we need to look at Anakin’s story in terms of symbolism. It isn’t really about his specific experience with fatherhood : it’s about the universal conflict that men feel towards their own offspring. Even the way it is announced to him, in the Senate chambers, barely hidden from the rest of the Coruscant elite, implies some sort of entrapment. The columns around them seem to be like a cage that is closing in on his life. He is in the middle of the Wars - he should be celebrating his victory over General Grivious, but instead he is stuck with his wife and he has to absorb her anxiety & reassure her.

Anakin makes a weird, forced smile and says : “This is a happy moment.” But neither Padme nor the audience believe him. Nothing about him feels happy, he isn’t relaxed: he is tense.

At the end of Episode 3, Anakin attempts to kill Padme when she condemns the mass murders he’s committed against the younglings in the Jedi temple. Hr uses for the first time his “strangling” trick, which becomes his signature move in the original trilogy.

Palpatine makes Anakin believe that he’s killed Padme, but the truth is somewhat more nuanced. She dies of heartbreak shortly after giving birth to twins. For anyone who thought this was corny, it’s actually been proven by the scientific community that heartbreak reduces your life expectation (it diminishes the size of the telomeres in your body cells, which is the molecule that helps replicate your DNA).

As Lisa Feldman Barret wrote in How Emotions Are Made:

Emotional harm can shorten your life. Inside your body, you have little packets of genetic material that sit on the ends of your chromosomes like protective caps. They’re called telomeres. All living things have telomeres—humans, fruit flies, amoebas, even the plants in your garden. Every time one of your cells divides, its telomeres get a little shorter (although they can be repaired by an enzyme called telomerase). So generally their size slowly decreases, and at some point, when they are too short, you die. This is normal aging. But guess what else causes your telomeres to get smaller? Stress does. Children who experience early adversity have shorter telomeres. In other words, emotional harm can do more serious damage, last longer, and cause more future harm than breaking a bone

More severe cases involve patients actually dying of a broken heart, the myocardia just collapses under the weight of the sadness the human feels.

The original trilogy should be re-viewed with all of this new information we have. In the 80s, when Empire Strikes Back came out, the “I am your father” line became instantly iconic. But the plot twist was more like an “Oh My gosh!” moment rather than a profound reflection on fatherhood. The audience sympathized with Luke not because his father had been absent and negligent, but because his father’s job was to serve a fachist leader. It was the actions of Darth Vader as a political servant that were questioned, not his refusal to nurture a smaller being.

Padme is the opposite of Shmi. She is the archetype of the “bad” single mother. The bad single mother is the single mother who can’t deal with the situation and checks out of it. She collapses under the weight that she feels on her shoulders. She can't get over the heartbreak, she can’t find the will to live.

Society tends to punish the Padme’s just as much as it praises the Shmis. Television programs like “Teen Mom” are set up to shame the young deviants into adopting the correct behavior. The purpose of the show is to judge these young women into becoming self-sacrificing mothers.

Leia Organa - The Non-single Single Mother

Leia Organa is Anakin Skywalker’s daughter. She is raised by an adoptive frailly on Alderaan after she’s separated at birth from her brother Luke. Much like her mother, she becomes a dedicated public servant, a trusted leader and a beloved public figure.

She is raised by a wealthy family in the central galactic systems. The Organas teach her the ways of the elite political class. As an adult she serves the cause of the Rebels, and when she meets Han Solo in Episode 4, the mediocre smuggler fascinates her.

In the now famous scene from Hoth in Episode 5, Leia declares her love for Han Solo right as he’s about to be frozen in carbonite. The ultimate bad boy responds his chilling, because realistic “I know”.

Han is nothing compared to Leia. He drives a broken down ship, doesn’t have any morals or even a simple code of conduct, much less a cause that he’s dedicated his life to. He has nothing to offer her, and is definitely not in her league. But still, in Episode 6, the pair become an official item.

The last Trilogy was an opportunity to explore Leia’s experience with motherhood. By now we know that Leia’s grandmother was a “Good single mother”, she completely sacrificed herself to protect her son & more importantly she never questioned her status of sole caretaker (remember the “there was no father“ line). We also know that Leia’s mother was a public servant, and a passionate woman who allowed herself to fall deeply in love with a sensitive young man with a non existing support system. Leia’s mother was the “bad” single mother: driven only by her career (Queen of the Naboo, later a Senator of the Old Republic) she did not step up to the task when her destiny revealed itself to her.

Leia seems to share her mother’s taste in reckless young men with a lot of attitude and no emotional security to offer. It’s the excitement she craves, not the tranquility.

Her fate will be the same as her foremothers. She has a child with Han, but when she sends him away to be trained by Luke, she loses them both.

Their dialogue in Episode 7 goes like this:

Han Solo : Listen to me, will you? I know every time you... Every time you look at me you're reminded of him.

Leia : You think I want to forget him? I want him back.

Han Solo : There's nothing more we could have done. There's too much Vader in him.

Leia : That's why I wanted him to train with Luke. I just never should have sent him away. That's when I lost him. That's when I lost you both.

The last trilogy develops Leia’s character in a way that allows her to be something else than just a single mother. She loses her husband, she even loses her son to the dark side: but she never loses herself. Leia doesn’t allow her condition to define her. She becomes a leader of the Resistance even if it means going after her son’s New order.

In Episode 9, Leia even destroys her son to protect Rey - the symbolism is that she’s overcome her role as a mother, she’s rejected the notion that she must sacrifice everything for her son even if it goes against her own self interest (like Shmi). She also rejects the idea that her partner abandoning her is the end of her. It isn’t. Unlike her mother, she finds the will to live, and to lead the next generation of freedom fighters and peace keepers.

The saga ends on a hopeful note for all of us single mothers out there. It comes with a message for us : we don’t need to choose between the austere Shmi and the weak Padme. We can instead decide that this “single mom” problem is kind of like beauty : it lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Single moms don’t need to think of themselves as failures, they don’t need to live in modest conditions, they don’t need to beg society's forgiveness for merely existing. They don’t need to be ashamed.

Single moms don’t need to erase their brains and their lives, and sink into an ocean of denial either. They don't need to be obsessed with their careers or caught up in romantic entanglements that are only going to exhaust them.

Single moms can just decide that they’re women, with beautiful, inspiring personalities and kind, loving hearts. Mothers are first and foremost, the leaders of the young, the protectors of the realm and the makers of the future. It’s not that it doesn’t matter that they’re alone. It’s that they don’t have to be alone at all.

#single mom #star wars #padme amidala #leia organa #shmi skywalker

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