#WELL I WON'T STAND FOR THAT

[lorethebookworm]

If I had a penny for every time a villain ,who is a terrible and abusive father to his blonde son and is also an awful person who did the worst things "for family", had some kind of redemption towards the end of the fifth season of their show I'd have two pennies , which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice

[demigods-posts]

i've been thinking about that scene in ep 3 when annabeth apologizes to percy before pushing him into the lake. and on the surface, it seems like she's apologizing in advance for her actions. but what if she's actually expressing sympathy toward percy for how his life will change once his father claims him? once he has to suffer through the same torment as thalia did? once he becomes the outcast amongst the group of demigods who understand his struggles but will do little to help him through it?

[imerian]

My (very old) loscar brooch (?) that i just now made doodles for

More pictures under cut

[hajihiko]

argument went too far and fuyu said kill me... la petit mort? 👀 i know thats not what he meant, but i still think its fitting bc of how much tension there is between haji and fuyu haha

listen man either kill me the good way or the bad way but just be done about it capiche

[fiend-shaped]

In the divine cycles universe, students in like 50 years are gonna be so sick of brnine like "wow, huh this person was part of the founding of this terrorist organization and was in fact the first leaders campaign manager. Oh, they also won the olympics and kidnapped the emperor. What's this, their work was instrumental in creating a force akin to magic, which is also named after them? They were part of the mission that destroyed all of the space nukes?? They killed the fucking president???" Like future history class is just gonna have a whole semester called the Captain Brnine Variety Hour

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[maruren]

I mean I'm like 90% sure that Shion tried to seduce Ryoga at least once.

.

.

.

Then he gave up, because Ryoga didn't care.

[stillness-in-green]

sorry, didn't see the answer until today. thank you for that but I mean proving AFO wrong that Tenko is filled with hatred and destroying and no one can accept him. we know thats a lie now but Tenko still dies?

Hey again, anon. So, I went back and tried to fit this follow-up context into your original ask—answered here for anyone who wants to look over it again.  My initial answer was based on you meaning that AFO should have been “proven wrong” in his assertions about human frailty and how, once someone has been rejected by society and become a Villain, there’s no way for them to come back.  Reconsidering your issue (that Deku killing Shigaraki doesn’t prove AFO wrong) with the knowledge that what you meant was him saying Shigaraki is only capable of hating and destroying things…

I guess in the end I don’t think the story believes AFO is wrong about that either? I mean, obviously he was, back when he first told those words to at-the-time-still-Tenko. But now? Not so much, at least in the author's eyes.

Below, if you want to subject yourself to my reasoning again, you can follow along as I talk myself through getting to that quite jaded conclusion.  My apologies if I misunderstand or misrepresent you again anywhere along the way!  Admittedly, based on my experience with the fandom and what names we choose to use in talking about the characters, I suspect we’re coming at them from radically different positions, but my position is the one I’ve got to offer you. Please know that, to whatever extent we might disagree on how much "Shigaraki Tomura" was ever a legitimate persona, we are united in our opinion that Deku should have done more for him if the story was serious about him being the Greatest Hero.

......

So, okay, the biggest issue with asserting that Shigaraki has any kind of moral core or personality independent of his AFO-instilled hatred/destructiveness is that the best arguments for it all revolve around the League and how Shigaraki wants to be their “Hero,” how that’s contiguous with his personality even from when he was “Tenko” because both fit a pattern of reaching out to the outcasts that everyone else around them ignores or mistreats.

I believed that too!  I still do, in fact!  I want to be clear that I think Shigaraki still has legitimate grievances and that his desire to make a world in which Villains will be happier is still, in its own way, noble and true!

But.

But that glorious spread where Tomura says that even if every bit of his hatred is smashed, he’ll still keep going because he has to be a Hero for the Villains that need him?  That spread comes before the montage showing AFO’s involvement in the Shimuras’ lives from before Tenko was even born.  And part of that montage is the absolutely buffoonish reveal that AFO even influenced Tenko’s sense of heroism by leaning on Tomo and Mikkun (the aforementioned outcasts) to encourage him to be a Hero.  I tend to assume that the two of them were from one of Ujiko’s orphanages—I can’t imagine how else AFO would be in a position to give two random children direct orders!—but whatever the case, it means that even Tenko’s draw towards standing up for outcasts is something influenced by All For One.

If you take that away, what else is left?  I could pick a few little traits here and there, but ultimately, what Shigaraki comes back to in the end, in that very last conversation with Deku in the shared mindspace, is destruction.  He pursued it to the end, his last expressed regret is that he couldn’t carry it out, and his final messages to ally and enemy alike revolve around the destruction he sought—telling Spinner he died fighting for it and telling Deku that it’s up to him and his whether any of what he destroyed actually stays destroyed.

To me, that suggests that the manga does believe that Shigaraki Tomura was, ultimately, an existence that could only destroy, and the fact that some of what he targeted deserved to be destroyed doesn’t negate the fact that he was still ultimately defined by the destructiveness that AFO meticulously crafted him to embody.  Even Deku seems to think that, in the end!

Like, really working through the timeline here?  Deku did want to believe that the Crying Child indicated that Shigaraki had some drive other than destructiveness at his core.  One of the (vanishingly rare) times he actually spoke to Shigaraki during their fight was his refutation of Shigaraki’s claims that he’d successfully devoured The Crying Child and thus transcended his humanity.

Running on the desperate certainty that Shigaraki was wrong/lying, Deku smashes his way into Shigaraki’s core and metaphorically uproots his hatred and psychically holds his hands, and Shigaraki still says that even so, the Villains still need him…  And if it ended there, maybe we could say that AFO was “wrong” in the sense you describe—that while the method Shigaraki uses to Be A Hero For Villains is warped by AFO’s influence, his desire to be that Hero is genuinely his own.  But then we get That Reveal, and even the parts of Tenko that seemed to predate AFO are revealed to be just another aspect of AFO’s machinations—Tenko’s heroism, his sense of injustice, even his very existence, all are indelibly stamped with AFO’s mark.

After that reveal, Deku never again pushes back against claims that Shigaraki can only destroy.  He never pushes back on AFO’s claims of authorship of Shigaraki’s life; he never tries to encourage Shigaraki by insisting that his bonds to the League are real regardless of how AFO raised him.  Heck, he never even suggests Shigaraki still has the chance to figure out who Tenko could be as long as he can break AFO's hold and reject his teaching. No, Deku just…accepts AFO's premise, apparently.

And so I come back to the same conclusion I did before: Deku is angry at All For One, but he does not disagree with All For One.

I genuinely think that, as far as the narrative is concerned, the tragedy of Shigaraki’s ending is thus:

Anyone Shimura Tenko was or could have been was overwritten by All For One’s grooming long ago.  Maybe this could have been prevented if things had gone differently—if Nana had beaten AFO, if someone like Deku had been there to intervene the day of the tragedy, if someone on the street had reached out to him before AFO—but as it stands, Shigaraki Tomura is too far gone to save.[See Note]  Deku can end the monster that was behind it all and try to honor the victims that Shigaraki’s actions brought to light by changing the world that created them for the better, but he cannot save Shimura Tenko because Shimura Tenko was lost long before he and Midoriya Izuku ever met.

(Note: One of those "Maybe If..."s the story dangles is Spinner taking some ill-defined step to help his friend, but my opinions are that disingenuous suggestion are just a long string of profanity. Suffice to say, if Shigaraki could still have been "saved" all the way up to the start of the second war, then the Heroes bear way more responsibility for failing to do so than Spinner ever could, and Deku is even more of a fuckwit for not arguing with AFO's assertions that Tomura is nothing but what AFO made of him.)

Of course we wanted more than that.  Of course we wanted Deku to do more than that!  We spent all that time watching Shigaraki grow and bond with the League—why, if the only reason for that growth and those bonds was to prepare him as a vessel for AFO?  We watched Deku resolve to try to save and/or understand Shigaraki’s heart no matter what—why, if everything in that heart was written in someone else’s hand?

The story told us that the best heroes always manage to both win and save, and that we were reading the story of how Deku becomes the best hero—why, if the story was only going to conclude that Shigaraki’s death at Deku’s hand was inevitable because the harm All For One did was impossible for either of them to overcome?

And to me, at least, that’s why Shigaraki’s death and Deku’s role in it feel so wrong: not for the in-universe reason that Deku and Shigaraki don’t disprove/disavow AFO’s claims, but for the meta reason that My Hero Academia lied to us and wasted our goddamn time.  It spent over two hundred chapters building up Shigaraki Tomura—as a villain, yes, but also as a victim, a friend, an enemy, an ally, someone who existed in the world he was rebelling against—only to then turn around and spend its remaining two hundred chapters tearing him back down to nothing and then telling us that’s all he ever was anyway.

All For One killed that crying child a long time ago, and all Deku can do is wipe away his tears and then wave him goodbye. 

By punching him to death.

It’s hard to imagine a bleaker outcome for the “Tenko” that started Horikoshi’s whole career as a mangaka, but I guess that’s what happens when your chosen career brutalizes you so badly that you come to define a Hero as someone who helps people endure their suffering instead of saving them from it.

...…

...Uh.  So, this got pretty bleak itself in the end.  Sorry, anon, everyone.  I write that way to get my point across, and I’m no little bit bitter about the whole thing myself, but ultimately, I just want to remind everyone that the story is over.  I’m not going to try to turn this whole thing into a positivity post all the way at the end, but just embrace that much: your obligation to care about the things Horikoshi wrote—to the extent that that obligation ever existed—is fulfilled.  If you hate the ending, well, so do I.  But now and forever, we and everyone else can go and do what-the-hell-ever we want to do with the characters and world that Horikoshi left us.

I hope we do.  I’ll be rooting for us!

[sergle]

i had someone tell me chiro wasnt real and wasn't doing anything for me in the same breath they told me to try cbd oil 🫢

SCREAAMMMMM I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me to just go align my chakras instead. also god I love being told by other people that it isn't Doing Anything to me. like DAMN THAT'S CRAZY... Ig when I've fucked my neck so badly that I can't turn my head to the right, and I'm able to finally get range of motion back again only after getting a chiro adjustment, that must be like a sugar pill thing or something. Or when I have a tension migraine that won't go away for days and days but dissipates after an adjustment. Or when being bedridden with back pain was a common occurrence before I started going to a chiro regularly and now I can go on walks and hikes without my lower back seizing up. Or how my carpal tunnel improved when she started loosening up my wrists. But I guess it doesn't "do anything". I must be fully imagining it. It must just be some woo-woo mind shit. I should probably just smoke some weed and that will physically heal my entire body. I should probably just drive to oklahoma city and pay some extra for a PT to tell me to do some of the exact same stretches my chiro advises me to do, and advise some of the exact same habit changes my chiro has mentioned, and to perform some of the exact same adjustments, but call them "manual therapy" instead. Oh, PTs don't do "adjustments", they simply put their hands on you and manipulate your muscles/joints to alleviate pain, loosen you up, and feel for small misalignments. Which is fucking exactly what a chiropractor does.

[waitineedaname]

ough... tgcf volume 6....

[prismatoxic]

somehow managed to be fine with the most popular laios ship (i actually enjoy it, tbh, labru is very good), but i absolutely do not like any of the popular chilchuck ships except chilaios

i'm 100% a multishipper but my other chilchuck ships are like. chilbell. chilbru. childan. me and the 5 other people into those are eating tablescraps

[messylesb]

my wish is to report every single man's acc when they follow me. i have a fucking MEN DNI on my profile and you STILL follow me, why???? GO TRIP ON A WIRE AND KNOCK YOUR HEAD ON A LIGHT POLE BUT GET OUT OF HERE

[anastacialy]

alright as much as everyone (including me) has been nitpicking and critiquing season three of bridgerton i have to hand them one thing and that's no other season has made me this insane

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you ship helena bertinelli with anyone? if yes, then which characters and why? what's your favorite helena ship? do you have any helena rarepairs? (i know you've talked about helena/steph and you're so right about it, it's a very interesting ship)

!!!! i have so many ships for my best girl ever yes oh my god thank you for asking.

my top pairing is probably Vic Sage/the Question. Vic is the basic answer, but man. i love them so much. no couple has matched each other's freak like that have. Justice League Unlimited is a great adaptation of Helena in general, but it also did a great adaptation of Helena and Vic's relationship. how he just dedicates himself to helping her with no expected return, but also wants to make sure she doesn't go too far in a hunt for vengeance that never ends for her. i think a lot of characters often want to change Helena or expect things out of her for their own needs, like the Batfam and the BoP. but Vic is one of the few people who just wants her to be better for her own good. when he tries to stop her from killing it's not because of his morals, it's because he doesn't want this crusade to consume her. and i just. man i think about them a lot. Helena rlly likes weird little men who give themselves wholly to her.

Zinda Blake/Lady Blackhawk is also a top ship for me. tbh i just like Zinda. but i do love how Helena and Zinda interact, being the more rough and tumble members of the BoP. they're both outsiders, in different ways. Helena is an outsider of the Batfam and Zinda is literally from a different time and an outsider to the current world. their friendship is so genuine and i think if Babs and Dinah can have. whatever homoerotic nonsense going on during BoP, then Zinda and Helena deserve some homoerotic nonsense too. as a treat.

if we're willing to count New-52 Helena, then i enjoy Helena/Dick/Tiger. i think Helena and Dick being a past relationship is really important in pre-Flashpoint for Helena's development, though i don't ship them as a serious couple beyond a fling. but in the New-52, i think this throuple be fun. Helena and Tiger respect each other as two very driven, no-nonsense agents and then well. they both clearly have some kind of thing for Dick. so it's fun finding the balance of how they could all work together romantically.

and ofc. it's a crime to mention Helena ships and not mention Renee Montoya/the Question. every time they interact it's really fucking gay. it's so gay that Kate Kane, Renee's own ex, assumed Helena and Renee were gay. i cannot be convinced against this ship. i genuinely think this ship should be canon. i mean. DC did tease us with this moment from an alternate universe and it's lived rent for me since. fucking criminal for us to only get one panel of what we could have if DC let Helena be a fruit in the main universe. being in love with Helena Bertinelli should be a right of passage for the Question mantle, i personally believe. if you asked me like. genuinely who i want to see Helena date in the current comics, Renee is my top pick. (i would say Vic but he's fucking dead and the New-52 butchered him so rip my mans-)

lois lane (2019) #10

besides those ships, just about every ship for Helena probably falls into the category of rarepair. like you said i've talked about my love for Helena/Steph before bc god. i think it should be a thing more people ship. once i finish the fic i'm writing about them i will convince others to like it.

i also think Helena/Cass could be fun. in a *lot* of ways Helena and Cass are narrative parallels to each other. Helena was a victim of her family being murdered at about the same age Cass was forced to be a murderer. Helena grows up to believe in lethal justice because of this, and Cass grows up to be staunchly against it. Cass' Batgirl suit was made *by* Helena. they both want to be protectors of the most vulnerable people. they balance each other out in a lot of ways and i think they should kiss about it.

also probably a rarepair, i think Helena/Lady Shiva is fun. their fight during Birds of Prey (2010) had... questionable moments for Helena's characterization, but i do love so much that Helena knocks Shiva off her feet and gains a deep respect from Shiva. like. Shiva gives her a nickname and shows her admiration. i would like to see fanfic where Shiva continues to be weirdly admirable of Helena and bothering her non-stop. they could be a fun fucked up toxic yuri moment. this is just. so gay to me.

birds of prey (2010) #6

my most rare Helena pair would probably be Helena Wayne, actually. but specifically Helena Wayne of JSA (2022). ever since, for some reason, it was made canon that the current Helena Wayne was named after Helena Bertinelli and took the name Huntress to honor her i *cannot* stop thinking about them meeting. because in-universe it makes *no* fucking sense for Bruce to name his kid after *Helena Bertinelli*, someone he's regularly at odds with and doesn't like. it's clearly an awkward explanation to try to make the whole two Huntress situation make sense. (it's almost as bad as Helena Wayne in the New-52 using Helena Bertinelli as an alias.) but because it's such an odd choice, i do think it could be fun for Helena Wayne, when she's back in time to see Bruce, to find Helena Bertinelli to get to know the woman she was named after and Helena Bertinelli just being. baffled by the idea of *Batman* naming his kid after her. it could be a fun fucked up moment.

my other super rarepair is Kara Zor-L/Power Girl. they had like. one meaningful interaction of JSA Classified and it's been PLAGUING me. something about when Power Girl doesn't remember her past and she's seeking a friend, she instinctively goes to find Huntress? but it's wrong bc this isn't *her* Huntress and neither of them understand why Power Girl would seek Helena out? god it's so good. i'm always a big fan of ships where one person in the ship is *so* obviously using the other person as a replacement for someone they lost and they both know it. it's such a doomed angsty thing where you could play with Helena actually really liking Kara, but knowing that she's just a replacement for Kara's Helena Wayne. good fucked up shit man.

and lastly: i really ship her with Dawn Granger/Dove. there's no canon basis for this, they didn't have a ton of interactions even when they were both on the BoP. but there's a very kind innocence to Dawn that contrasts Helena's violence really well. and i do love a ship with a corruption kink vibe to it. let Helena corrupt Dawn. i could write such fucked up porn about these two.

[frecht]

i tried reading this story my friend and i wrote to some of my roommates and i knowwww no one will ever find it as funny as molly and i do just because. they didn't write it. they havent spent 10 years rereading it. they arent going to notice the tiny jokes like how "just as i got to the highest point of my reverie" shows up in every chapter. but like it goes so completely off the rails that i'd imagine it's hard not to go HUH???? at every couple of sentences but like none of them were paying attention at all even though i'd said multiple times i really wanted to share this bc i've been remembering it and getting a lot of joy out of it lately and throughout the third chapter (arguably the most insane) i got like maybe 3 reactions (we were all physically in the same room and i was not quiet or anything) because they were all doing other things. one of them was doing hw but the other two weren't and i know it's kinda dumb but it did make me a little annoyed. kind of a lot annoyed actually. now that i think about it. i don't really talk a lot about the things i like unprompted because it's usually lots of little things (like i love books and i mostly read standalones so talking books with me is often talking lots of different books and i understand that it's harder to follow than a conversation about one tv show for example) and i don't have a lot of interests in common with most of them but this was something that i care about and i just wish that theyd like. at least made an effort to listen like i know it's a really dumb story (that's kind of the point) and it's really weird and insane in some rather unpalatable ways (i can direct you to where we posted it on wattpad this year if you would like to read it) but like if they didnt want me to keep reading id have rather they said that or if they did id have rather they kept listening. and either would be better than just the nothing that i got. i texted my best friend who i wrote it with abt this as well but they're not a quick text replier and i don't like talking over text anyway so i have to get it out here.

[einaudis]

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