#War and Chess

[arcticclimes]

Something something Fitzjames and Hodgson are two of the most dandy-ish characters in The Terror but they're also two of the most dangerous; they've both been to war, both do the greatest damage to Tuunbaq using the weaponry they were trained in by the navy (Hodgson with the cannon and Fitzjames with the congreves), and Hodgson is also the one to kill the Inuit family, directly connecting the violence of imperialism with the gentlemanly facade it likes to use.

[outtamynoggin]

Dick, at a family dinner: -and THEN the cheese in the fondue started spinning like crazy because he used the wrong kind of cheese, HAHAHAHAHA! I mean, it was basically string cheese. And the fondue spinner was going so fast it started levitating off the table!! So now this giant cheese tentacle is just whipping around, slapping people in the face, knocking over wine glasses, and the guy just SCREAMS and dives under the table like-

Batfam: *between laughing and annoyed*

Jason: I refuse to believe this happened. This isn’t fair, how could this happen without me there?!

Tim: PLEASE tell me this happened at a high-profile gala. Please, please, please.

Damian: *arms crossed, looking disgusted* Only you could witness a culinary disaster and recount it like a battle strategy.

Dick, sticking his tongue out at him: You’re just jealous you weren’t there to see it in person, little D.

-

Dick, in his head: The Marcalone family made a deal with the Sarvanos so they’re both going to be at the harbor on the 14th at 1AM. Julian Viscan knows about this deal because his thugs caught wind of it but he decided to stay out because he’s dealing with Bella Cane after she started a riot on his territory so she can get her hands on the shipment. But I can take out both the Marcalones, Saravnos, Viscan AND Eli Smith, the gun dealer, if I move Viscan to interfere with the shipment on the 14th. Cane's also making moves on Smirth's supply chain while troubling Viscan, which means if I pull Viscan into the fray, I can collapse all four of them in one night. But I need to make sure Vsican thinks Smith's going to betray him to do this.

Dick, to the batfam: *gesturing wildly, eyes laughing* So then, the cheese tentacle just SLAPS this guy's glasses right off his face and he screams and then he starts screaming even louder that he's going to start suing EvErYtHiNg-

Dick: If I remember, Viscan's sister works at Smith&Hopkins Inc so if I mess around with the BPD and get them involved with the company, I can control all 4 of them while causing trouble for-

[jaradraws]

bishop takes queen

[eobe]

My first bad batch faces drawing! And hey, my very first one, which is not a frame from the series but an inspiration from the gorgeous artwork by @thora-sniper ✨ Thank you for that 🫶🏼

Chesstime! ♟️ I think Echo might be the ultimate strategist, but I‘m sure that Crosshair distracts his focus successfully with hissing comments so that he has a chance!

This time I got some more confidence with my lining, shadows and lighting and think it‘s great for the fact that I didn‘t draw anything for years (blockades aargh!) until I restarted with Captain Keeli 🙈

What do you think about it? Let me know your thoughts about my artstyle and progression 😀

[rapunziedameron]

You ever gonna go?

[enbysiriusblack]

lily would win a magic fight. james would win a muggle fight. sirius would win a verbal fight. remus would win a speed knitting fight. peter wouldn't win a fight, but would win a war

[redbean-nom]

din djarin, age 10: clone wars refugee child

boba fett, age 11: in federal prison for destroying an entire venator while trying to kill mace windu

[thespoonisvictory]

GOD the Jaime-Cat Dungeon Scene (tm) is so good. We spend chapter after chapter watching Cat in utter conflict with herself, torn in different directions. She wants to find her daughters in King's Landing, to go to Winterfell and parent her sons, to stay with her dying father, to mourn her recently dead husband, to be an advisor to her son and brothers that they actually listen to. She is trying to be a mother, a daughter, a sister, to both nurture and council Robb. But it's too much, she can't do all of it.

Meanwhile, Jaime is locked in a dungeon for the entire book (very wife in the attic of him) and yet scarcely goes a chapter without his name being referred to by one person or another. He's practically present in conversations with Cersei and Tyrion, for how much they evoke his name to try to convince the other of something. Others think of his battle prowess, or want him dead, or share the story of his evil deeds, and Cat isn't excluded from this. He's a symbol more than he's a person, a token, a bargaining chip. Never to be harmed for fear of the Stark daughters' lives, but completely trapped by his own status.

So this makes it all the more satisfying to see Cat, in a fit of rage and grief, go downwards to question him at last, after hundreds of pages of this evocation of his name. She's tired of the lack of movement, of the posturing of the men around her, of all that she has lost and had to shrug off to keep going. And what does he tell her? That there are too many vows, too many promises that conflict. He says that honor is too much, that he could never have kept all the plates spinning. That it's too much!!

After a whole year of endless loss and fear and feeling completely alone, one visit to this symbol of a person and he completely and transparently spells out her entire deal, so much of her internal anguish. And then he looks at her and says that there are no men like him, that no one else would get it. like oh my god. george!!!

[iphigeniacomplex]

breaking my silence on chess the musical to say that i would literally not give a fuck about this show if i thought it was good or fully successful at what it is saying. SORRY! i love how messy she is. i love how since 1984 and continuing to this very day people with entirely different perceptions of and opinions on the musical have attempted in their own ways to "make it good" by creating all these different versions with like notably different plots, characterization, and song order, and i love how fucking bad the vast majority of these are despite it all. i hope people keep trying to fix chess the musical forever and until the end of time. i hope no one ever figures it out. i want every currently living theatre director in existence to make their own version and for all these versions to come out on broadway at the same time, making that year's musical season entirely comprised of various different versions of the cold war chess musical by tim rice and half of abba. i want not only our greatest minds but also our middlest-of-the-road and worst minds to come up with their own conclusions as to why chess does not entirely work in its original form or any subsequent forms like to really think about it and yes i do want someone to dedicate their entire life to perfecting chess by releasing version after version after version until they die peacefully but still, as always, in the grips of obsession. i want marriages to be broken up. i want mental states to be shattered. i dream of this world

[wardensantoineandevka]

I can't draw, so I gotta communicate it this way but I'm just going to imagine this is how it was going to go

[witchscarykid]

homestuck fandom love all of you and i need you to listen closely when i say this ok jot it down in the notepad in your heart and take it with you

you guys do know wayward vagabond is a grown ass man right

[kyberinthevoid]

If I had a nickel for every time I loved a sci fi character mostly known for his competent suave adult leader self but who had a backstory lesser known to fans involving a short stint on a war torn planet trying to keep children alive while only himself a teenager I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but holy shit how do I have two

[spacedace]

Reluctant War AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol

Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.

Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3

---

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.

She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.

It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.

Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.

It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.

Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.

Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.

Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.

The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.

She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.

Then she got to work.

The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.

It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.

Things had been going smoothly.

For a time at least.

Until Phantom.

He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.

And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.

An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.

It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.

It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.

Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.

She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.

She had time.

Until she didn’t.

Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.

If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.

He was King Infinite.

He was an Ancient.

He was getting on her last damn nerves.

Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.

Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.

But no.

No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.

Phantom knew what they were there to do.

They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.

Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.

There could be no peace.

The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.

Amanda Waller was not.

The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.

By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.

The weapons labs.

The artifact.

The girl.

All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.

The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.

It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.

She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.

She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.

Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.

---

Part Four

[nonbinarylesbianherb]

Gonna punch otto that it took him so long to realise he’s on the wrong side but he’s already ruined alicent’s (and many others) lives so I’ll be damned if he doesn’t stick by his damn choice

[eobe]

Echo en detail! ✨ Brooding over a chess game with his annoying brother Crosshair, who loves to hiss distracting comments only to have a chance to remain a few moves more against this ultimate strategist ARC trooper!

My first bad batch faces drawing! And hey, my very first one, which is not a frame from the series but an inspiration from the gorgeous artwork by @thora-sniper ✨ Thank you 🫶🏼

This time I got some more confidence with my lining, shadows and lighting and think it‘s great for the fact that I didn‘t draw anything for years (blockades aargh!) until I restarted with Captain Keeli 🙈

What do you think about it? Let me know your thoughts about my artstyle and progression 😀

Crosshair en detail ✨ By the way, he knows that you‘re watching him trying to sidetrick, cheat and else only to bother his brother Echo and he doesn‘t care 🙄 But maybe he tries to hide a little smirk.

[vaguely-concerned]

you know what I think I was kind of cooking with caterina/johanna hezenkoss as a concept actually. it's giving gilf andruil/ghilan'nain narrative echoes and also if hezenkoss teaches caterina to become a lich/become basically immortal by other and probably even more immoral means lucanis won't have to be first talon anymore and can focus on what he likes about the job (i.e. the actually killing people part not the admin work). everybody wins (*glados voice* ...except the ones who are dead. BUT THERE'S NO SENSE CRYING OVER EVERY MISTAKE --) . here's how toxic yuri can still save the day and also make it worse