#actually in theory they started out as a background character in a final fight level that got a similar looking character in an early sf

[phasdraw]

been working on a street fighter oc/sona/whatever :3 the best part of doing fighting game ocs is of course doing costumes and palettes, really channeling my 12 year old self doing skullgirls recolors in ms paint

their entire theming is hippie bc i think a character that hates fighting in a fg is always fun - in concept they would've been a weird character in one weird version of an older game that had a whole gimmick around combos that could actually heal your opponents a little if not executed fully. not regarded well bc they werent really worth learning :p their story wouldve been mostly that they were a physical therapist a lot of the characters went to after getting royally fucked up . hijinks ensue as bitter rivals try to hold it together for the sake of not causing a scene and getting kicked out by the nice lady that unfucks their bones after they get double lariat'd

[circlique]

Color Theory in ATLA: Part 2

Let’s talk colors! ATLA is a colorful show! I’ve already covered color coding at a surface level here if you want to read. But how else does ATLA use color narratively? This post will cover the importance of color in the narrative, which gave us such iconic, visually striking scenes as the last agni kai.

By the way, this is actually a propaganda post for @multicolor-fandom-tournament, where you should totally go vote for ATLA in the final. As much as I love Pokemon, I wanna see someone else win a poll for once. Give ATLA some love. But mostly, it's just an analysis post about Zuko. Anyway, let’s get started.

The biggest use of color in the narrative is long and drawn out, but concludes in the most visually striking scene in the series, the last agni kai between Zuko and Azula. This showdown is foreshadowed at various points throughout the show. Despite red typically being the color of fire and characters associated with it, Azula is strongly associated with the color blue. She is the only character who bends blue fire, and one of the few who can bend lightning, which is also depicted as blue. It’s described as “the cold-blooded fire.”

As Zuko’s character progresses throughout the series, he becomes haunted by the colors red and blue. The first major instance comes after he frees Appa, a selfless act that doesn’t benefit him in any way. It apparently shocks even him so much that he becomes ill and falls into a feverish sleep, where he dreams that he is the Fire Lord sitting upon the throne. Two dragons, one red, one blue, hover nearby. The blue dragon speaks with Azula’s voice and tempts him, telling him to sleep, to rest. The red dragon speaks in Iroh’s voice. It warns him not to listen to the blue dragon and tells Zuko that he must get out of there. The scene begins to crumble, and the blue dragon lunges for him. My personal interpretation of this scene is that the blue dragon represents the royal family—Zuko’s “destiny” to return to the Fire Nation and take the throne. The blue dragon tells him to sleep, to accept his destiny, while the red one encourages him to break free of the cycle perpetuated by the royal family.

This is supported by another scene with two dragons later in the narrative. In the episode The Avatar and the Fire Lord, Zuko goes below the royal palace to the archives where the history of the royal family is stored. The episode covers the history of Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku and the background of Sozin’s imperialistic goals. We learn that Sozin and Roku were once friends, but had a falling out over Sozin’s ambitions. Despite this, Sozin returns to help Roku when the volcano on Roku’s home island erupts.

What does Sozin arrive on but a blue dragon.

The two fight the volcano together, and appear to be winning, but as they try to escape, Roku takes a blast of poisonous air to the face, and falls to his knees, begging Sozin to help him.

Sozin refuses, saying that with Roku gone, his plans will finally be possible. He flies away on his blue dragon, leaving Roku for dead. Roku’s dragon, Fang, who is red and often appears in visions to help the current Avatar, Aang, curls protectively around Roku as the hot ash consumes them.

Iroh then reveals to Zuko that, while Sozin was his great grandfather on his father’s side, so was Avatar Roku, on his mother’s side. If Zuko’s previous fever dream was any indication, he already knows he’s capable of breaking free of the cycle, but has been using his “destiny” as an excuse why he can’t. He’s destined for the throne. He’s destined to continue the cycle. But now Iroh tells him, if Sozin was a part of his destiny, then too, was the Avatar. And now, Zuko must confront the idea that he has a choice, that he always has, and that his destiny to rule and continue the cycle of violence is an idea of his own making.

When Zuko later confronts Ozai in Day of Black Sun, his choice is solidified, not just by his words as he confronts his father, but visually, as he redirects a shot of blue lightning meant to kill him.

The red and blue dragons also get one final appearance before the big showdown. Zuko finds that after joining the Avatar, his firebending is weaker, as it was once fueled by rage and anger and his drive was chasing the Avatar, which he has now lost. When Zuko and Aang go to the Sun Warriors to unlock the secrets of firebending, they must be judged by the two masters. Up until the moment of confrontation, neither Zuko nor Aang realize that “the masters” are two dragons, since the last dragons were thought to have been hunted to extinction by none other than the royal family.

When Zuko and Aang confront the dragons, they are judged for their worthiness. These two visual symbols, which have been haunting Zuko for the past season and a half, accept his change of heart and encircle Zuko and Aang in multicolored flames, colors Zuko has never seen and couldn’t even imagine. Zuko then says:

“I understand.”

This could be interpreted in a variety of ways, but mine is that Zuko still had doubts about whether or not he was doing the right thing until this moment (or else, wouldn’t his firebending still be working?). He wasn’t totally committed yet. When he sees so many colors dancing among the flames, the big “secret” he understands is harmony. His destiny is to bring harmony and balance back to the world, the red and blue dragons, the Avatar and the Fire Lord, working in tandem to accomplish it. He accepts this as his new drive and motivation, allowing him to firebend again.

By the time Zuko and Azula finally meet for their final showdown, the red/blue struggle within Zuko is long established and all but resolved. The only thing that remains is the externalization of the struggle: him, represented by red, vs. Azula, represented by blue. Zuko has accepted his change in destiny and aligned himself with the Avatar. Azula has not, and remains a representation of the royal family, of the status quo.

And then, we get the most visually striking fight in the whole series.

I really don’t know what else to tell you. This scene is so iconic because it’s been built up to with this color symbolism over the past two seasons. It’s satisfying to watch. It’s beautifully animated. 

It ends with Azula getting one last shot of blue lightning, which up until now was believed to be an instant kill shot. The monarchy’s last ditch shot to bring Zuko down with it. But Zuko throws himself in front of Katara, taking it head on. It should have killed him, but Katara saves him. Azula is defeated, Zuko survives, and he lives to bring balance back to a world divided by war.

And when Zuko finally gets his own dragon, what color is it?

Red.

And there you have it, folks! There are some other scenes that could be color analyzed, but this is getting pretty long, so I’m going to end it here. Thanks for reading!

[whatstruthgottodowithit]

The Other Evans Girl [Part Thirty Six]

Fandom: Harry Potter [Marauder's Eral

Pairing: Sirius Black x Original Female

Character, Sirius Black x Daisy Evans, James Potter x Lily Evans

Characters: Sirius Black, Original Female Character, Daisy Evans, Lily Evans, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Alice Fortescue, Frank Longbottom, Marlene McKinnon, Albus Dumbledore, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix LeStrange, Walburga Black, Orion Black, Jasper Thicknesse, Barty Crouch Jr, Mulciber, Walden McNair

Word Count: 7202

Rating: Mature

Summary: Hogwarts is a safe haven, a home for many, but it's often a place where heartache, love and complex emotions dwell and none know that better than the Marauders. Lily Evans just wants to make it out as a successful witch though the oncoming war and the ongoing advances of James Potter threaten that. Daisy Evans, her twin, has other goals. Join the Evans sisters as they make their way through Hogwarts, prepare for war and eventually love.

Tags/ Warnings: Hogwarts, Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Marauder's Era, Teenage Angst, Babies, Weddings, Dating, Crying, Loss of Virginity, First Wizarding War, Love, Kissing, Teenagers, James Potter is a bit of a dick, Hogsmeade, 1970s, Fighting, Loss of Parents, Grief, Babies, Injuries, Gore, Harm, Christmas, The Potter's Mansion // Daisy's Dress // NYE

Lily's Dress // NYE Daisy's Dress // Lily's Ring // Daisy's Ring.

Notes: Okay so l've been working on updating this and l've finally gone through all the chapters already written before I start writing more. It's changed a lot so l've decided it's just better to completely re-upload it.

If you want tagging let me know

LINK TO AO3 // LINK TO PINTEREST // LINK TO ALL PARTS

As January rolled into February excitement started to buzz around the school as Valentine's Day grew nearer. And whilst everyone scrambled to get a date Daisy revelled in the fact that she needn’t worry this year. It wasn’t that she cared much about the holiday, finding the day to be less about loving someone and more about proving you had someone to love, but even so it was a welcomed as it gave her and Sirius chance to debut their new couple status.

And Daisy wasn’t the only one using the day as an excuse to more her relationship to the next level. Since informing Daisy of her intentions Lily had been going over her decision meticulously, planning everything with military precision which is how she came to speak to her sister the Friday night before the big day which coincided with a Hogsmeade weekend.

They were tidying up the attic after a club meeting, the only people left in the room bar the boys though they appeared to have no interest in making the room presentable after they’d spent the night practising how to use and stop the oppungo charm, a spell Frank had taught them that made objects come to life and attack leaving quite the disarray in their wake. As the girls gathered the objects that littered the floor the boys lounged around on the sofas listening to Peter boasting about how he was sure to defeat everyone in the gobstones tournament the following morning. Daisy was listening to him as she placed the last of the books on the shelf where they belonged but once she was done she allowed him to fade into the background, opting to head over to her sister who was straightening the stack of cushions.

‘I’ve put them all away,’ Daisy said as she approached. Lily nodded but didn't say anything, staring into the distance as she fiddled with the closest cushions tassels. Daisy’s eyes narrowed, ‘maybe I can do the cushions next?’ Again Lily gave a nod though she didn’t seem to be listening, well, not properly considering she had the aforementioned cushions in hand. Still Daisy decided to test her theory and said, ‘or I might just put them all at the bottom of the astronomy tower? Fling myself off and see if you’ve actually learnt that slowing charm you were on about?’ ‘Yeah, okay,’ Lily mumbled. ‘Okay so you weren’t listening then,’ Daisy grumbled. ‘What?’ Lily said, looking her sister in the eye, ‘oh sorry.’ ‘It’s alright. What’s up?’ Daisy asked. Lily bit her lip and glanced past her sister to where the boys were sitting still wrapped up in whatever Peter was telling them. ‘I’ve decided,’ she whispered. ‘Decided what?’ Daisy said far too loudly causing her sister to shush her. Sirius looked up at the noise making both twins smile at him weakly. His eyes narrowed but as the girls turned away, ensuring he was out of earshot so he figured there was no point trying to listen. Though it didn’t stop Daisy glancing over her shoulder, guaranteeing they were all consumed in conversation before she gestured for her sister to continue. Lily bit her lip.

‘C’mon then what’ve you decided?’ Daisy asked. Her sister said nothing but shot her a pointed look which got her point across in one. ‘Oh,’ Daisy said quietly. For the past couple of weeks Lily hadn’t mentioned their next milestone which meant that Daisy had been able to forget about it for a bit. Forget about worrying if she was normal or lagging behind. Forget her worries about Sirius getting bored and just enjoy their new relationship. ‘Yeah,’ Lily said nervously, ‘actually I need your help.’ ‘What do you want me to draw you a diagram?’ Daisy snorted, earning a swat on her arm from her twin. ‘Of course not!’ Lily said mortified. ‘Then what?’ Daisy asked genuinely intrigued about what her sister might need from her for this. Lily paused, all the planning and logistics going over and over in her head. After a deep breath she explained, ‘well we’re going to need somewhere for…well we need to make sure we won’t be disturbed.’ ‘And?’ Daisy said. ‘And the easiest place is going to be the boys dormitory obviously,’ Lily said. ‘Still not seeing how this has anything to do with me,’ Daisy said, Lily rolled her eyes wishing her sister would catch on a bit quicker should anyone overhear. Not before she’d had chance to even tell James, something she’d been hoping to do after the meeting. ‘Well, Peter’s going to be at his gobstones thing and you can handle Sirius but-’ ‘You need Remus out of action,’ Daisy said, catching on. ‘Well yeah,’ Lily said, flushing deep crimson. Daisy giggled, making her sister’s face darken even more before she whispered, ‘so will you help me?’

Daisy watched her for a moment. This revelation had put her in quite the tailspin recently but, of course, that had nothing to do with Lily. Her insecurities were hers only she knew that and if her sister was asking for her help she couldn’t refuse.

‘Of course I will.’

✵✵✵

While Daisy dressed for breakfast the following morning she couldn’t help but mull over what excuse she was going to use to get Remus out of the way. Lily had made it quite clear that she was to inform no one, not even Sirius, about what they were up to until after the fact which meant that she wouldn’t even have help when it came to corralling Remus out of the way. She was only snapped out of her thoughts as Lily came flying out the bathroom, relief flooding her features as she noticed her sister sitting on the edge of her bed tying up her boots.

‘Oh good you’re up,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve been up for half an hour,’ Daisy grumbled, ‘and I’ve needed a wee the whole time.’ ‘Sorry,’ Lily said apologetically as she took a seat on her bed, looking at the two cardigans that were laid out on top of it and trying to decide which one might be better. ‘It’s alright,’ Daisy said, watching her closely, ‘I figured you might be a little long in there today.’ ‘I couldn’t decide on what eyeshadow to wear,’ Lily said nervously. Daisy sighed, ‘Lil, I can hand on heart tell you that James Potter does not care about what eyeshadow you’ve got on.’ ‘I know, I know,’ Lily mumbled, resuming her inspection of the cardigans.

Daisy watched her. In her opinion Daisy thought she looked beautiful in an effortless way. Thanks to her foundation her pale complexion was a shade darker which allowed the nude tones of her eyeshadows and lipstick to blend well, making her features shine beautifully. And though her outfit was simple, a skirt and V-neck shirt Daisy was sure Lily had told her was ‘far too low’ to be worn when it had been hers, it stood out given that it was different from the jeans and jumper look her sister usually favoured. And yet despite her effortless beauty Daisy could tell she was nervous.

‘You know you can change your mind right?’ Daisy said making Lily look up, ‘that’s okay.’ ‘I know,’ Lily nodded. ‘No one’s gonna care if you change your mind,’ Daisy said. ‘I know,’ Lily repeated firmly. ‘Are you gonna get rid of that massive weight from your shoulders then?’ Daisy teased and though it was only a little thing, Lily couldn’t help but feel comforted, offering her sister a smile as she said, ‘yeah…I guess I’m just nervous I mean what if it’s…’ ‘Shit?’ Daisy finished earning an eye roll from her sister. ‘I was going to say not what I expected but yeah,’ Lily said. ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter?’ Daisy said, ‘I mean surely the good thing about it is that you can practice and get better.’ ‘Yeah I suppose,’ Lily giggled. ‘I mean it’s right up your street isn’t it?’ Daisy asked. ‘What?’ Lily asked, her brow furrowed. ‘I mean it’s just revision,’ Daisy chuckled, ‘and you’re really good at that.’ ‘Oh shut up you,’ Lily said making Daisy laugh. Lily ignored her, opting to stand up and grab the cardigan she’d finally chosen, an emerald number that looked good against her. Daisy stood too, waiting until she was ready before she said, ‘all set?’ ‘Yep,’ Lily said with a deep breath, ‘let’s go.’

When the two got down to breakfast the table was almost full, with only Marlene missing.

‘Morning,’ the girls said as they took a seat, Lily sliding in beside James whilst Daisy took a seat next to Sirius, slipping her hand into his under the table. ‘Morning,’ Sirius said, squeezing her hand before he let it go so that she could butter her toast, his hand resting on her thigh instead which made her just as nervous as her sister had been not ten minutes ago. Yet as Daisy glanced at her sister she found her nerves almost gone, or at least masked, as she stirred her cup of tea and said as casually as possible, ‘so what’s everyone doing today?’ ‘Well, I’ve got my gobstones tournament,’ Peter said, spooning cornflakes into his mouth. ‘And we’re doing something that is not that,’ Sirius chuckled, making Daisy and James smile. ‘Me and Frank are headed into Hogsmeade,’ Alice said, nudging Frank’s arm making him look up from the book he was reading, offering a mumbled, ‘oh yeah,’ before burying his nose back in his book. ‘What about you Remus?’ Lily asked, striving not to look at the only boy who hadn’t offered an answer. Daisy glanced at Remus, who didn’t seem to realise he was under interrogation rather than making chitchat and offered a very tired, ‘dunno. Might do some studying in the library. I’m not fit for much today.’

At his response Lily’s face paled, her calm and cool demeanour vanishing due to the spanner in the works, as she looked towards James. Daisy figured by now he was up to speed on the decisions Lily had made but he seemed not to realise the current dilemma, too busy crunching his way through his toast, until there was a distinct thudding under the table where Daisy had walloped him in the shin. He grunted looking at Daisy who pleaded at him with her eyes. Fortunately the theatrics seemed to work as he straightened up, flicking the toast crumbs from his fingers as he suggested, ‘don’t you fancy heading into the village? I mean a brisk walk might do you good.’ ‘Yeah,’ Daisy said, jumping on the idea, ‘Sirius and I were gonna have lunch in the three broomsticks.’ ‘We were?’ Sirius asked, his brows knitting together. ‘I thought I’d told you,’ Daisy lied, keeping her gaze away from him as she was sure he’d know she was fibbing. ‘Oh I’d love to go to the pub today,’ Peter said, his mouth full of cereal. ‘Yeah but if you don’t go to the gobstones tournament they’ll be down to just what? Three other people?’ James chuckled. ‘Very funny,’ Peter grumbled. Daisy ignored them and instead leant into Remus, her head on his shoulder as she looked up at his tired face with pleading behind her eyes as she said, ‘what do you say Moony?’

Remus looked at her, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed her and then his friends who were also hanging on his decision. Well, apart from Sirius, who seemed to have the same suspicion he did.

‘Alright,’ he said carefully. ‘Yay,’ Daisy said, squeezing his arm before she went back to her breakfast, content that at least one part of the plan was over and done with. ‘Three Broomsticks it is then,’ Sirius said sharing a suspicious look with Remus that neither his girlfriend nor their friends spotted.

✵✵ ✵

It was Baltic. The wind whipped through Hogsmeade attacking anyone who dared stand out in it which unfortunately for Sirius, meant him. He was trudging through the snow, next to his best mate, watching as his girlfriend walked a fraction ahead of them babbling away with a nervous energy. When she had suggested they come to the village he had supposed it wouldn’t be that bad but that was because he’d imagined cuddling up with her in the Three Broomsticks or risking a quick snog in the changing rooms of Madam Malkins. Not this.

Remus seemed to be on the same wavelength. Though he was only mid cycle he was dog tired and all he had wanted to do was spend the day in the library. Away from all the couples, away from all the in your face, nauseating love. Yet Daisy had piqued his interest. There was something a foot, he was sure of it. Not only from the way Daisy was acting, not letting them have a moment of rest, but because Lily and James had somehow managed to escape this trip.

‘Dais, how much longer are we gonna do this trek for?’ Sirius grumbled, willing his teeth not to chatter as he spoke even though he was bundled in jeans and a leather jacket, a thin jumper underneath which was doing nothing to protect him from the cold. ‘Yeah, we’ll be at John O’Groats at this rate,’ Remus groaned. ‘Oh come on it’s nice to be out of the castle,’ Daisy said airily. At her dismissal the boys shared a look the pair of them slowing down until they were stopped in the middle of the track, watching her walk ahead. Daisy carried on walking only turning after moment when she realised the squelch of mud underfoot had gotten significantly quieter. When she did she found the boys watching her suspiciously.

‘Come on you two,’ she said, but they didn’t budge. Daisy sighed, ‘what’s the matter?’ ‘What’s going on?’ Remus asked, cutting the chase. ‘What?’ Daisy asked, trying to remain cool as she feigned ignorance. ‘Oh come on Dais,’ Sirius smirked, ‘do you think we don’t know you’re up to something?’ ‘What would I be up to?’ she asked testily, folding her arms across her chest. ‘I’m not sure,’ Sirius said, walking up beside her and throwing his arm around her shoulder, ‘but it’s definitely something.’ ‘I resent the accusation,’ Daisy said, her arms still crossed. ‘Yeah?’ Remus said. ‘Yeah,’ she replied. Remus watched her, a theory bubbling in his brain, one he decided to test right then and there. ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘I doubt you want to spend time with people who would accuse you of such things. Come on Pads, let’s head back to the castle.’ ‘Alright,’ Sirius agreed as Remus turned on his heel and headed back towards the village. But Sirius’ arm hadn’t even left her shoulder before she shouted, ‘no!’ ‘Busted,’ Sirius chuckled as Remus turned around with a smug smile on his face. Daisy still didn’t want to admit defeat and said, ‘I mean…why don’t we just head back to the pub?’ ‘Oh we can but you’re going to tell us what’s going on,’ Sirius said as they walked towards Remus who fell into step with them as they trudged back the way they came, their footprints the only ones mud slickened track as they were the only people mad enough to come out in this weather. ‘Fine,’ Daisy sighed, ‘but you’re buying me a butter beer first.’

Once they were back in the Three Broomsticks, tucked away in the back corner, the boys sat opposite her watching Daisy as she sipped her drink oblivious to awaiting an explanation.

‘So,’ Sirius said leaning in on folded arms as the pair of them watched her expectantly. ‘So,’ Daisy mumbled as if she didn’t know what he was waiting for. ‘So are you going to tell us why you brought us on this wild goose chase?’ Sirius asked. ‘It’s a long story,’ Daisy said, her gaze on the beer mat she was fiddling with. ‘We’ve got time,’ Remus said. Daisy looked up and sighed, her fingers ceasing the dance they were doing over soggy cardboard, ‘well first of all it wasn’t my idea. It was-’ ‘James and Lily’s,’ the boys said in unison. ‘So they’re not as subtle as they think they are,’ Daisy smirked. ‘They’re not the only ones,’ Remus teased making her blush. ‘Oh I’m sure Pete has no idea what’s going on,’ Sirius chuckled. ‘Maybe but he wasn’t the problem,’ Daisy explained. ‘Problem?’ Remus asked. ‘Yeah,’ she said sheepishly, ‘they sorta needed to be alone.’ ‘Well they could’ve just found somewhere private. Like the astronomy tower eh Dais?’ Sirius said nudging her and causing the strawberry tinge on her cheeks to darken. She tried to ignore it as she explained, ‘well yeah but they-’ ‘Didn’t want to get caught,’ Remus said. Sirius looked at him curiously, an expression that grew deeper as Daisy said, ‘yeah.’ ‘Hang on, am I missing something?’ Sirius asked. ‘Surely you can figure it out mate,’ Remus said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Figure it out? The two of them wanted us out the castle so they could be alone and oh, oh,’ Sirius said, ‘well in Prongs.’ ‘Sirius!’ Daisy chastised. ‘What? He’s the one shagging your sister not me,’ Sirius chuckled though he winced as she thumped him on the arm, ‘ow!’ ‘She's right mate whatever they get up to behind closed doors and all that,’ Remus said. ‘Oi, I wasn’t the one talking about it with my sister,’ Sirius reasoned smugly. ‘That’s different, we're girls,’ Daisy said. ‘Like James won’t tell us everything later,’ Remus said. ‘Yeah I suppose you’re right. I doubt there’ll be anyone left in our year that doesn’t know by tonight,’ Daisy reasoned, hoping Lily would forgive her spilling the secret if it helped keep the boys out of the castle. ‘Yeah because they’ll all be wondering why James internally combusted,’ Sirius joked, making them all laugh.

However as the laughter died down Remus looked at the pair of them, suddenly feeling very much like a third wheel, and cleared his throat, ‘so, now that I know to avoid the dorm like the plague am I okay to be released from being babysat?’ ‘Moony, I wasn’t babysitting you,’ Daisy said guiltily. ‘No I know,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but I’ve got stuff to do and I’m sure the pair of you wouldn’t mind being left alone right?’ ‘Oh feel free to bugger off on my account,’ Sirius smirked, earning him a dig in the ribs from Daisy. ‘Don't be daft,’ Daisy said, ‘you can stay with us if you want. We like having you around.’ ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I think the library is calling. See you two later?’ ‘Yeah see you mate,’ Sirius said.

Daisy wanted to protest but she could see he was determined to leave them and so nodded offering him a hug before he headed out of the pub. However her guilt about making him feel as though he was an imposition wasn’t her main worry because if she was being honest she didn’t want to be alone with Sirius. Because when they were alone her worries started to creep back in. Even more so now he knew what his friends were up to this afternoon.

‘So,’ Sirius said once he was gone, ‘what now?’

✵✵✵

Unfortunately for Daisy Sirius seemed thrilled at the idea of being alone and since there was no chance of them being disturbed as all their friends were occupied, he suggested they head back to the castle and up to the attic out of the way. She couldn’t disagree. They’d been up there a couple of hours, listening to music which eventually turned into talking over the music and to her surprise, Daisy’s nerves seemed to disappear once it was just them. She was sitting on the sofa, her legs across his with her back against the arm, babbling away about her muggle studies essay.

Sirius didn’t know how the conversation had gone from talking about Led Zeppelin to muggle studies because in all honesty he hadn’t been listening. He was too busy staring at her, too busy looking at how her eyes lit up a little when she got in the swing of talking. Too busy noticing just how much she used her hands when she spoke. Too busy looking at her lips, which were chapped from the cold outside but still begging for him to kiss them. So, as she spiralled through her conversation Sirius watched until she paused, noticing him ogling her.

‘What?’ she said nervously. ‘Nothing,’ he said, his fingers drumming against her leg, ‘I just love watching you talk.’ ‘Oh,’ she mused, ‘you mean you weren’t listening to a word I was saying right?’ ‘Oh definitely not,’ Sirius said with a wide smile. ‘Figures,’ she replied, watching him for a second. He looked good today, though of course she always thought that, but his grey eyes seemed lighter and his hair tousled from where he had pushed it out of his face when walking through the cold. As she watched him his hand came to her cheek, catching her chin in between his thumb and forefinger as he leaned in and placed a kiss on her lips.

Daisy melted into it, wrapping her arms around his neck as she deepened it. Without thinking she swung her legs off him, climbing onto his lap as her fingers knotted in his hair, making him groan. The noise alone was enough to make a tingling sensation form in Daisy’s lower stomach and it only worsened as he moved his hands to her hips, fingers dancing under the hem of her shirt.

That should’ve been enough to snap her back to reality but to her surprise, Daisy didn’t stop. All the worries she’d been having refusing to surface. As she moved her hips causing friction between them Sirius grunted, pulling his mouth from hers so that he could kiss down her neck, his fingers going further up her shirt. That was when she felt it. Sirius, hard against her thigh. And just like that she stopped, her hands dropping to his shoulders as she steadied herself. Sirius didn’t seem to notice for a moment but when he felt her go still he pulled back, a little breathless.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said, looking at her with confusion. ‘Nothing,’ she lied, going back to kiss him but Sirius tilted his face so her kisses dotted along his jaw. ‘Dais,’ he said. His hands hadn’t moved from her hips but he gripped them a little differently forcing her to stop. She looked down at him nervously finding expectant worried eyes looking back at her. With a sigh she slipped off his lap and sat next to him. ‘Is everything okay?’ he said quietly, ‘I didn’t hurt you did I?’ ‘What?’ she replied, ‘no, of course you didn’t.’ ‘Then what is it?’ he asked nervously. ‘It’s nothing…I just…you were…’ she started, a blush creeping back onto her face as she nervously fiddled with the fringe on a cushion behind him. ‘I was?’ Sirius asked, his brows knitted together again. ‘A little…excited,’ she said, glancing quickly at his lap and then back at his face. ‘Oh,’ he said, not a touch of embarrassment on his face as he added, ‘well yeah.’

Daisy wanted the ground to swallow her up. She didn’t know why she was suddenly so embarrassed, after all it was Sirius for god’s sake, but she couldn’t stop herself from dropping her gaze. When she did Sirius’ bemusement turned to worry as he placed a hand on her knee, ‘Dais?’ ‘I know I’m being silly,’ she said looking up to find him watching her with concern. ‘Silly about what?’ Sirius asked, confused. ‘Well, since Lil told me about…y’know, I’ve been panicking because I’m not Lil. I mean we’re two different people right? We’re not going to, I mean it’s not that I don’t want to, I just, we just,’ she babbled. ‘Sweetheart you’re gonna have to catch me up because I’m not getting-’ ‘I don’t want to have sex with you,’ Daisy blurted out, the pair of them going quiet for a moment before Sirius offered an, ‘oh.’ ‘No,’ she started anxiously, ‘I don’t mean it like that.’ ‘Well can you tell me what you do mean? Cos I’m still a little lost here,’ he said with a smile which reassured her. ‘Since Lil told me about her and James I’ve been worrying…because I’m not there yet,’ she explained, biting her lip. ‘Well that’s okay,’ he said, squeezing her knee. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to eventually,’ Daisy said, ‘I’m just not…’ ‘Ready to jump my bones?’ he laughed. ‘Yeah,’ she said quietly, ‘you don’t mind do you?’ ‘Why would I mind?’ he asked. ‘Well you’re a bloke,’ she pointed out. ‘Okay, so, I’m not going to pretend I haven’t thought about it,’ he chuckled, ‘but if you’re not ready I’m not going to demand it happens today. Or this week. I’m happy for you to lead.’ ‘But, what about…’ she said, dropping her voice again. Sirius watched her expectantly, urging for her to elaborate, ‘I mean you’re not exactly a novice when it comes to girls. I thought you’d be all for it.’ ‘Dais, you should know by now that you can’t trust everything the Hogwarts rumour mill puts out,’ he said. He moved his arm onto the back of the couch now, leaning in so their heads were almost touching. ‘But you’ve dated so many girls,’ she said confused. ‘Dated yeah,’ he said, ‘slept with no.’ ‘A-And Mar?’ she asked though she didn’t know why. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know what her boyfriend and her best friend had got up to in the time they were together. ‘Messed around I’ll admit but we never went all the way,’ he said, dropping his volume a little as he said, ‘I’ve never slept with anyone.’ ‘No?’ Daisy said hope evident in her voice. Sirius rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve been busy moping after you for the past year and a half,’ he smirked, ‘believe it or not no one fancies a lad who's busy pining for his best friend.’ ‘I do,’ she chuckled, leaning in and giving him a peck on the lips. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘because even if we aren’t shagging there’s no way I wanna stop kissing you.’

✵✵✵

When Daisy finally crept back to the dormitory it was gone one am. Her eyes were heavy and aching but and she wanted nothing more than to climb into bed but as she made her way over to it she heard Lily call her name and looked to find her sitting up in bed, her eyes anxious and wide.

‘What are you doing back so late?’ she said as Daisy walked towards her bed. ‘I was with Sirius,’ Daisy said simply. ‘Oh, right, yeah of course,’ Lily muttered. ‘Were you waiting up for me?’ Daisy asked. ‘No, of course not, I was reading…’ Lily said nervously. ‘Lil?’ Daisy pressed, causing wide anxious green eyes to find hers. ‘Maybe,’ Lily said meekly. Daisy chuckled and climbed into bed beside her sister, pulling the covers over both of them as she sunk into her so that her head was resting on Lily’s shoulder. Neither spoke for a moment.

‘So,’ Daisy said, ‘what’s the matter?’ ‘Nothing,’ Lily said. ‘But?’ Daisy replied. ‘I guess I just wanted to offload. About today,’ Lily said sheepishly. Daisy pulled back and held back a smirk as she watched a red tinge creep across her sister’s face. She supposed she should’ve seen this coming; it was just like Lily to need to dissect everything and Daisy swore she never did anything without strenuous preplanning and rigorous evaluating afterwards. ‘Why what was today? Something special?’ Daisy teased earning a glare from her twin, ‘alright, alright, come on how was it?’ ‘Okay,’ Lily said quietly. Daisy frowned. ‘Okay bad or okay good?’ she asked with worry. ‘Just…okay,’ Lily said. ‘Wow, let’s hope James can’t hear you from here I don’t think his ego would ever recover,’ Daisy said nudging her sister. When she received nothing back she frowned again and asked, ‘Lil, are you sure you’re okay?’ ‘Yeah, it’s just I thought I’d feel different you know? Like I’d be a whole new woman but I don’t feel any different. I mean planned for everything and it wasn’t like I planned. Actually it was a bit awkward… maybe there’s something wrong with me,’ Lily said sadly. Daisy sighed and put her arm around her shoulder, allowing Lily to wrap her arms around her. ‘Nothing’s wrong with you,’ Daisy said. ‘I just feel like he was expecting something more,’ Lily mumbled into the fabric of Daisy’s shirt. ‘I’m sure he was just happy to be there,’ Daisy chuckled. When her sister said nothing she paused before asking quietly, ‘were you expecting more?’ ‘No,’ Lily said pulling back from the embrace, ‘I guess I just thought I’d be more prepared or less nervous. And I didn’t think he would be nervous but he was actually more nervous than me.’ ‘It was both your first time,’ Daisy reasoned. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right,’ Lily said. ‘Besides you don’t have to do it again if you don’t want to not right away at least,’ Daisy added. To her surprise her sister scoffed, rolling her eyes as she said, ‘what and have Sirius tease us mercilessly no thank you.’ ‘Sirius wouldn’t do that,’ Daisy said, a tiny bit miffed at her sister’s words. ‘Right, like Hogwarts Casanova wouldn’t tease his best mate,’ Lily said. ‘He’s not a casanova!’ Daisy retorted, ‘and if you must know Sirius hasn’t yet.’ ‘Oh,’ Lily said with surprise, ‘I thought…’ ‘Me too,’ Daisy said, her irritation melting away as she saw a true look of regret on her sister’s face. At that she decided to be honest, after all Lily had bared her soul to her, wasn’t like she couldn’t do the same.

‘And if I’m being honest it was freaking me out,’ Daisy admitted, ‘more than you were freaking out I’d reckon.’ ‘Really?’ Lily asked. Daisy nodded. ‘Yeah, I mean I thought he had and then you and James were ready and I wasn’t, I’m still not. So you’re not the only one who thought there was something wrong with them,’ Daisy said. Lily smiled sadly and nestled back into her sister as she said, ‘oh Dais you shouldn’t be worried about that. We’re all ready in our own time.’ ‘I know,’ Daisy nodded, ‘I was just worried because I thought Sirius would be you know.’ ‘Have you told him about it?’ Lily asked. ‘Yeah, I told him today. He was actually really sweet about it. That’s when he told me about, well, his reputation being a little exaggerated. I mean if you tell anyone he’ll probably kill me and you,’ Daisy warned. ‘I’ll keep it to myself don’t worry,’ Lily said with a smile. ‘Good,’ Daisy said falling quiet. The pair of them sat there for a moment cuddled into one another, as they had done so many times before.

Eventually, Daisy said, ‘Lil?’ ‘Mmm?’ Lily asked, moving her head just a touch to indicate she was listening. ‘Do you regret it?’ Daisy asked. ‘No,’ Lily said quietly, her voice growing steadier as she said, ‘no, I don’t think I do.’ ‘I guess that’s a good thing. I mean, even if it wasn’t quite what you expected,’ Daisy replied. ‘Yeah,’ Lily said, ‘and I wouldn’t worry you know…if you’re not ready to.’ ‘I’m not, not anymore. Sirius made me realise I was being silly,’ Daisy said. ‘We really did pick two good ones didn’t we,’ Lily said. ‘Oh god,’ Daisy groaned. ‘What?’ Lily replied. ‘You’re going soft,’ Daisy teased. ‘I am not!’ Lily protested. ‘Yes, you are!’ Daisy giggled, ‘just for the love of God do not say that around them. They may be good men but they’re big-headed boys first of all.’

After that, they burst into giggles, albeit very hushed, so much so that Daisy was laughing so hard she could feel it in her ribs until finally the laughter subsided and they fell back into quiet.

‘I should probably get into bed,’ Daisy said with a sigh. Lily looked at her and nodded. The blonde climbed out of bed and padded across the short distance to her own bunk. She stripped off her clothes and shoved on the pyjamas she had been wearing yesterday before she climbed into her own bed and covered up, ready to settle down to sleep but as she lay there she heard her sister whisper, ‘night Dais.’ ‘Night Lil,’ Daisy replied quietly. ‘Dais,’ Lily said, forcing Daisy to roll onto her elbow so that she could look at her only to find her twin posed similarly on her own bed, waiting for her. ‘Yes Lil?’ Daisy asked. ‘I’m glad I waited up for you,’ Lily said, ‘you’re a good sister you know that?’ ‘You too,’ Daisy said. ‘Love you,’ Lily smiled. ‘Love you too,’ Daisy replied before she fell back into bed and allowed sleep to pull her under.

✵✵✵

After unloading all her worries onto her sister’s listening ears Lily seemed to relax and though everyone knew what they had been up to that day, well bar Peter, there was no teasing or ribbing as Lily expected. Though Sirius did tell Daisy that James had been beside himself when he’d gotten back to the dorm, apparently proud as punch and seemingly not having noticed any of the awkwardness Daisy had told her about. Daisy had rolled her eyes but kept quiet. Typical, she reasoned. Whilst the girls were in knots about every aspect of their relationships the boys were oblivious, go figure.

Fortunately for Daisy it wasn’t just her sister’s mood that had improved but her relationship too. Since Daisy had been honest with him about her feelings things seemed to be less pressured. She felt like they were on the same page which admittedly was one that included being very handsy. The only night they hadn’t spent tucked away together was defence club night and that was only because they physically couldn’t be and having missed one another’s touch the following morning they came down to breakfast hand in hand. Since this was the first time they’d been open about their relationship there were a few lingering looks but Daisy found she didn’t care.

As she slotted onto the bench Sirius sat down beside her. Lily and James were across from them but they were the only ones there. Daisy knew Alice was in the library helping Frank with some revision and she had seen Marlene bolt from the dormitory first thing to meet Pierre but she expected the boys to be there.

‘Where is everyone?’ Daisy asked as she poured herself a bowl of cornflakes. ‘Pete’s got some gobstones meeting,’ James said, ‘and Moony’s not feeling too good.’ ‘Is he alright?’ Daisy asked with a frown, wondering why Sirius hadn’t mentioned it on their way down to breakfast. ‘He’s fine. Just tired,’ James said. ‘Is he missing the day?’ Lily asked with concern probably more about his attendance record than his well-being. ‘Nah, he said he’d be up later,’ James said as he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve earning a grimace from Lily that he ignored. ‘Maybe we should tell McGonagall,’ Lily said worriedly. ‘Tell me what?’ a nasal voice said from behind them forcing them to whip around where they found McGonagall standing behind James and Lily, unnoticed by all in the depths of conversation. ‘That Remus isn’t feeling well Professor,’ James said. ‘Is that so?’ McGonagall said, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed for a moment, the lack of trust for anything the boys said evident in her tone. ‘He said he thinks he’s going to have to miss a couple of lessons,’ Lily reiterated, ‘we just thought we should tell you so you know he’s not just skipping.’ ‘Okay, well thank you, Miss Evans,’ McGonagall said with a kind smile. James turned back to his breakfast rolling his eyes which made Sirius and Daisy hide a laugh. James was not one to be outdone, even if it was Lily who was doing the outdoing.

‘Mr Black?’ McGonagall said cutting their hushed laughter off. ‘Yes, Professor?’ Sirius said after a beat, a smile still dancing on his lips. ‘I have a letter for you,’ she said handing him an envelope, ‘and I want to see you in my office after school.’

 ‘Am I-’ Sirius said but it was no use because she was gone, flying up the aisle and out of the great hall, watched by all until she disappeared, making three confused faces look to him. Having no clue what it could be Sirius shrugged and quickly opened the letter.

‘What is it?’ Daisy asked trying to peek as he scanned through the parchment. ‘It’s from my uncle,’ Sirius said. ‘Your uncle?’ James said confused. ‘Yeah,’ Sirius said, still scanning the letter, ‘he’s dead.’ ‘Oh Sirius I’m sorry,’ Lily said. ‘Don’t be,’ Sirius snorted but as Lily frowned he changed tact, ‘don’t worry he wasn’t horrible or anything. I mean coming from my family he could’ve been a lot worse but I didn’t really know him or anything. We only met like twice.’ ‘So why the letter?’ Daisy asked curiously. ‘It’s from his estate people,’ Sirius said, ‘he’s mentioned me in his will.’ ‘Seriously?!’ James said yanking the paper from him which earned him a disapproving elbow from Lily though she didn’t stop herself from reading the letter over his shoulder.

Dear Master Black, I am writing this letter on behalf of my client Alphard Perseus Black whom I regret to inform you has passed away. For this I offer my sincerest condolences.

Before his passing, he made me the executor of his will and therefore it is my job to inform you that he has named you as a beneficiary in his final will and testament.

In order to fulfil his wishes I hereby invite you to a reading of his will. As I understand you are currently underage and a school student therefore I ask you to respond with the cooperation of your appointed guardian.

I expect to hear from you soon.

Yours Sincerely J. M. Thicknesse

‘Bloody hell mate,’ James said handing it back. ‘What do you think he’s left you?’ Lily said. ‘I dunno,’ Sirius said, ‘I don’t really know him and my mother hated him so…’ ‘You don’t think they’ll be there do you?’ Daisy said quietly, throwing a worried glance towards the Slytherin table. ‘I don’t know,’ Sirius murmured, his eyes following her path to where his brother was sitting in quiet conversation with Barty Crouch oblivious to being ogled, ‘Regulus doesn’t seem to have gotten the same memo.’ ‘Maybe you’re the only person he liked,’ James chuckled. ‘Maybe,’ Sirius smirked. ‘I’ll tell you one thing though,’ James said pointing his milky spoon towards his friend, ‘you better hope he left you something decent if you have to go through a meeting with Minnie to get it.’

✵✵✵

Daisy paced outside the wooden door. Sirius had been in McGonagall’s office for over half an hour and she was going stir-crazy just thinking about what she might be telling him. After all they’d spent all day speculating about what this will would bring and now she had no one to speculate with she was at the end of her tether. She needed to know or at least know the next phase. Eventually, she heard movement coming towards her and the door clicked open allowing Sirius to step out. He closed it quietly behind him but as Daisy went to jump in he shook his head.

‘Not here,’ he said shaking his head which made her nod and quickly follow him down the corridor until they reached an empty classroom.

After doing a quick sweep of the corridor to make sure no one was about they ducked inside and closed the door behind them. Daisy took a seat on an empty table as Sirius came to stand between her legs, his hands on her thighs as she asked, ‘what did she say?’ ‘Well, the meeting’s next Friday at two,’ he said simply. ‘And?’ Daisy pressed wondering how he could spend near half an hour in there and come out with as little as that. ‘And this Thicknesse guy will tell me everything when I get there,’ Sirius shrugged. ‘She doesn’t know what he’s left you?’ Daisy asked. ‘No but I don’t think she’s allowed to know though not through lack of trying,’ Sirius chuckled, ‘she let slip that she got the letter last week and she’d been needling this poor bloke for as many details as she could get.’ ‘He must be the real deal if he didn’t cave to Minnie,’ Daisy giggled. ‘Yeah,’ Sirius smiled.

Suddenly a thought popped into Daisy’s head and she dropped her gaze as she mumbled, ‘does she know if your brother’s invited?’ ‘Yeah,’ Sirius said making her look up with worry, ‘I mean she knows. He’s not, none of them are. She told him it was a delicate situation and that I’d need a separate appointment.’ ‘Well, I suppose that’s good,’ Daisy said. ‘Yeah but that doesn’t mean they’re not involved in the will,’ Sirius said. ‘Yeah but you don’t care what he’s left you right? I mean they can have whatever they want right?’ Daisy reasoned though she was still just as nervous as he was about. Worrying on his behalf that he’d have to see them, that he’d be forced to interact with them. ‘But if he’s left it to more than one of us I might have to see them. Like if it’s something big it’ll be all official and that,’ Sirius mumbled. ‘Well we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Daisy said leaning up to press a tender kiss on his lips which fortunately seemed to soothe both of them, Sirius’ grateful smile turning mischievous as he said, ‘that’s the other thing.’ ‘What?’ Daisy asked ‘Well I asked McGonagall what was going to happen about the appointment…’ ‘And?’ Daisy asked hesitantly. ‘She said I could go without her,’ Sirius stated. ‘She let you have a day off school? Unsupervised?!’ Daisy gaped, ‘is she okay?’ ‘Well she said I had to go with someone sensible,’ Sirius said. ‘So?’ Daisy said biting her lip. ‘So how would you like to accompany me to hear about some dead bloke’s stuff?’ Sirius chuckled. ‘Oh Mr Black you are such a romantic,’ Daisy chuckled. ‘Hey if you don’t want to I can always ask Remus,’ Sirius chuckled leaning in to kiss her. As he pulled her to him her arms wrapped around his neck, forcing him to take it deeper which only caused a flutter between her legs as he stood between them kissing her passionately. When he pulled back and she saw his face the feeling got deeper. His grey eyes were sparkling in the low lamplight and his lips were more prominent from kissing her. It made her heart thud, as did the smile that played out on his lips as he murmured, ‘I love you y’know.’ ‘I love you too,’ Daisy said with a smile. ‘It’s a good job I knew that before I come into all my money huh?’ Sirius chuckled. ‘Oh definitely,’ Daisy giggled.

SIRIUS BLACK/SERIES TAGS

@maeisafangirl

@mysteriouslydelicateface

@caitlin1996

@imthebadguyyy

[itsbenedict]

get star seeker sequel adventure thing up and running and through the first case

get datasouls combat toy complete up to the first miniboss combat

catch up on TFJ recap logs

become an accredited AWS Certified Solutions Architect and get that raise my boss has been talking about for ages

get an adjustable standing desk and under-desk elliptical thingy, and otherwise get an ergonomic workstation set up

fix the light situation in the bathroom

get through The Sekimeiya and really go to town on that mystery until it’s solved

also finally play Disco Elysium

finish TFTBN character portraits

get a beatrice portrait for my poster wall

run some TPIVW games

badger the condo association landlady until she does something about the junk clogging up that basement storage room i’m supposed to own, and clean unused bulky stuff out of my house

clearly this waitlist thing isn’t working out so take some steps to see an actual doctor for the first time in like three years (and maybe get a cancer screening, or do something about that closed sinus)

get through the remaining 7 WaniKani levels

So, June! As predicted, wedding travel stuff ate up a bunch of that second week, and getting the art done took the full two weeks. I did not successfully launch the thing in June, even though I technically could tonight- I'm traveling to visit my grandparents through the 4th and it'd be a bad time to launch it when I'm away, but I should be able to get it running next month no problem.

I finished all 60 levels of WaniKani! I'm going to keep up with reviews, but I need to get serious about the next steps of language learning next.

I've continued working on that Fire Emblem engine- units now move, engage in combat, die, end their turns, and change phases when their team is done. you can zoom in and out, inspect unit statuses, and control the game with mouse, keyboard, or a controller. I still need to implement some basic features like inventory management and trading, and some more advanced stuff like Shove and Rescue, and there's a few UI things to work out (I need an x2 indicator for double attacks), but after that... the big next step is configurability. Lots of stuff is hard-coded spaghetti, which I need to tear apart and make modular- the objective here is a tool for other people to use, not a game, so I need to focus on making it as clean and extensible as possible. This isn't my strong suit. It'll be tough.

I played some games in June:

I beat Zelda, which was very fun but kind of showed how skeletal it all was towards the end- a lot of the cool new stuff was frontloaded, and it became clear how much was being shamelessly recycled to pad things out as I progressed. Very impressive technical achievement, the mid-game twist was super cool, but it didn't really come together in the end except for a spectacular final boss fight.

At the wedding, my cousin showed me an Etrian Odyssey knockoff called Labyrinth of Galleria which looked cool, so I got the first game in the series (Labyrinth of Refrain), which is so far... mechanically, very fun and polished (save awful inventory management and weapon drops) and comparable to mainline EO, with a lot of depth and teambuilding options. Unfortunately, it's anime horny in all the most Fucking Terrible ways, with sexual assault and child abuse played for comedy and possibly the least likeable protagonist in the history of anything. Not sure if I'll stick with it.

I started Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, a direct sequel to Stay Night, which is thus far very interesting- it's doing a weird thing with how it handles which of FSN's multiple endings it follows from, and there's lots of confusing what the fuck moments and interesting uses of characters. It's structured like a fanservice omake compilation on the surface, but there's, like, a secret plot in the background that I have loads of theories about.

...so that's June. First half of the year. How am I doing? What's left?

Datasouls combat toy

Actually launch Star Seeker Justice/Arcana and finish case 1

Get the elliptical, whoops, forgot about that

Catch up on recap logs (currently blocked for Reasons)

Play The Sekimeiya

Get a Beatrice portrait

The storage room is cleared out but I need to communicate with the building guy vis-a-vis not accidentally clearing out my stuff

run some The Price Is Very Wrong, which I keep dragging my feet on

That's eight things to do in six months, but one's almost done, two more are half-done, and three of them are pretty easy. I'm on track to do most of it- I think for July, since Trails into Reverie is coming out this month and some work stuff is ramping up, I'll take an easy one- on top of the Star Seeker launch I spent June prepping, I'll just do some shopping and try and get that portrait and elliptical.

[roy-dcm2]

DBZ Wrath of the Dragon Reaction

I had never seen Wrath of the Dragon.

For the longest time, I knew this one only by the Japanese name, “Exploding Dragon Fist.” Japan has a tendency to give away spoilers right in the title. I imagine they changed it because it sounds like the name of a porno. “Wrath of the Dragon,” meanwhile, kinda sounds like a generic action film name (like naming everything “Evolution,”) but thinking of it like the tail end of DBZ, then “Wrath of the Dragon” is a fitting name.

Honestly, Movie 13, is definitely one of the best DBZ movies. I love it. We start with Saiyaman 1&2 (and boy do the movies love to use them [it’s even in Battle of Gods]), and this is one of the few times, the initial plot lands squarely into Gohan’s lap. The red guy, Hoi, specifically seeks him out to use the Dragonballs to open up the music box. Oddly enough, once Tapion is free, Gohan shuffles into the background. Then we get some nice character building for Trunks, where he latches on to Tapion, as an older brother figure. Bulma tries to help by building a pod for Tapion to sleep in (is this the first time she does something in a movie?) There’s the final battle, including the brief moment when Tapion asks Trunks to kill him. That is such a nice touch. Finally, there’s the last tousle, where Goku pulls out all the stops and Superman’s the thing.

[Have no fear for I am here!]

It’s really awesome. Everybody gets to do something. This is one of the few times they actually fight in a city. The only glaring flaw I noticed was it seemed like they were completely oblivious to all the destruction the monster was doing, especially during the first half of the movie. Only Gohan and Videl would show up, and then when it was destroying the Western Capital, they didn’t notice until it had crashed into their wall. But, really, it’s just one drawback from a fantastic plot.

Finally, crazy theory… Maybe Tapion (and his brother) are Kais. Sure, you see similar people in their home planet “Konats,” but you could chalk that up to an animation error... maybe those extras should have been drawn in shadows, because they got to great length to show Tapion and his brother as separate from the rest.

Also, what’s the deal with the sword? This is supposed to be Future Trunks sword, but… how does Future Trunks get the sword? Three things… 1. “Future Gohan” found either Hoi, or Tapion. If he found Hoi, then “Future Trunks” Sword might actually be from Tapion’s little bother, Minotia, who also had a similar sword (and Hoi just had that sword and never used it). Or, “Future Gohan” freed Tapion, and did follow up on killing Tapion to prevent Hildegarn from being freed (their timeline had enough problems without a Majin Buu level threat). 2. At some point, Future Trunks actually travels back in time 1000 years to give his sword to Tapion, who gives it to little Trunks. 3. It doesn’t matter how Future Trunks gets it, because this is little Trunks receiving it, and we’re going to be watching him going forward.

[I used to have a set of playing cards with this picture in the back.]

9/10 Getting more time with the characters and seeing how they react to new situations exemplifies why shonen movies still have a place in Fandom.

[crazy-shapes]

ST Vol 2 SPOILERS

I just finished Vol 2, so here are some thoughts.

- The Vecna scream when the Demodogs and Demogorgon got set on fire was so fucking funny

-Why do they continue to do Will so dirty 💀 He got so many cringe-y, over dramatic lines.

-I thought Will pretending that El had asked for the painting to help her and Mike’s relationship was actually really interesting. . . but Will sobbing while Mike was oblivious was so hilarious and sad.

- the lipstick on Robin’s teeth while she was making sandwiches and talking to Vickie was so distracting

-Why did they have to kill Eddie!?!?!? It was so unnecessary. It felt like they did it just for the drama. He wasn’t even posthumously proven innocent. Gutted.

-The scenes with Lucas and Max in the Creel House were top tier. Caleb was right when he said that Sadie was the best actor. They both did amazing.

-Getting to see Lucas and Erica be siblings was really nice.

-Watching Johnathan awkwardly standing in the background of 90% of the reunions while everyone else hugged killed me.

- Jason got let off too easy. Sure, he got ripped in half and disintegrated, but that wasn’t enough.

- the very serious montage of the groups getting ready to fight Vecna with cut scenes of Argyle making a pizza 💀

- the Cali crew returning to Hawkins and dramatically getting out of the van, acting like they fucking did anything.

- the Mike and Hopper Moment was sweet, I’ll give ‘em that.

- The Will and Johnathan heart to heart was sweet too. . . . . But also anytime someone spoke to Will for more than five seconds he started crying. Like, can someone please get him help? I get it, his entire personality is apparently Sad™️ and Gay™️ but it’s getting ridiculous at this point.

- Joyce and Hopper!!!! Finally.

- I like these new Russian friends and was incredibly surprised when neither of them died. . . But I’m sure they’ll be done for in S5. Or just won’t be in S5.

- The parallels of Henry’s Mind Flayer drawing and Will’s!!!

- I loved all of your theories for why Karen had her own poster. Haha.

- Max’s monologue about Billy was actually really good and made sense to their narrative. I see that the Billy apologists aren’t liking it too much tho.

- I’m all for Steve and Nancy ok, but it got too much for me to handle without eye rolling.

- Why were there so many weird filler conversations? They seemed out of place and like they were just trying to throw little character facts out to the audience.

-Why does Mike always look so confused?

- Robin and Vickie are gonna be endgame.

- Robin slow mo throwing the Molotov cocktail and then Nancy firing the shotgun into Vecna was fucking next level.

- Dustin screaming for Eddie as Eddie cut the sheet and moved the mattress so Dustin couldn’t come back in after him. So good.

- Does Argyle not have a family he needs to contact?

- El saying Goodbye to Brenner instead of answering him was Boss AF.

-I loved that Vecna showed Nancy his entire life story and what he was planning to do to Hawkins and was like “go and tell the young girl who I’m creepily obsessed with cause she beat me in a fight once that I’m gonna destroy the world in a tantrum.” And Nancy just said ‘Nah.’

Ok that’s it for now. I’ll shitpost more later.

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

Here’s the final part of the “Raph is a system” theory compilation post! It’s the last of what I can scrape up from canon; while I still have ideas on how it might loop back into character interactions and plot and so on, they’re much more speculative in nature. (Part 1 is here) (Part 2 is here) (You’re reading Part 3)

---

"Red” is the alter with the least screen time, so it took a while for me to connect the dots on when and why he formed.

His shadowed face, the dramatic background music when he speaks, and his seriousness are reminiscent of the “brooding on rooftops in the rain while gloomily staring off into the distance” thing that Raphs throughout the franchise will do sometimes. That’s easy to poke fun at on a superficial level because most of us look back on our edgy phases with self-deprecation, but it’s a lot less funny in the context of the life he lives. Being a normal human teenager in normal human society is a fucking nightmare; being a mutant teenager who has no idea what to expect in terms of development or lifespan, only five people he can safely interact with ever, and a very limited future hiding from everyone else for as long as he lives has got to be just awful.

RR’s few lines in “Pizza Puffs” tell us a lot. “It’s the only way they’ll learn” and “this is for their own good” suggest that he formed when the turtles started exploring more of the sewers and going aboveground, and Being The Leader became more of a responsibility. A thousand new ways for them to get in trouble meant a thousand new ways Raph would have to bail them out, and that got old fast- especially since they didn’t have April’s knowledge to help them in the beginning. I doubt they met her the very first time they left the sewers. The wiki says April knew the boys for five years as of “Mystic Mayhem”, so they would have been nearly eight at the time, perhaps the mental equivalent of a ten- or eleven-year-old human.

A while back I sifted through all the eps with Raph in them in the vague hopes that “Pizza Puffs” wasn’t the only episode featuring RR... and lo and behold, I found something! The shadowed face and dramatic background music are also present in “Minotaur Maze”!

“I can’t do it. I got no mystic mojo. I’m useless.”

“Hey, that’s not true, brother. You just gotta believe in yourself, and know this: If I die in this maze, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

(I know that’s only two data points, but y’all canonically cannot scoff at me.) RR shows up when HR is no longer able to tolerate the bullshit at hand. “I’m not going to baby you Leo, get your shit together before your ego kills us all” was a reasonable response to nearly being shish-kebab’d.

“Pizza Puffs”, on the other hand... LDM pulled through in the end, but that RR got HR to stay behind added an unnecessary level of risk. Getting his brothers to learn a lesson should have waited until after the giant mutant cannibal had been dealt with and they were no longer poisoned.

This hands-off “figure it out on your own” approach probably came from Splinter. I swear to Pizza Supreme In The Sky I’m not trying to shit-talk him, but his lack of involvement with his sons was a major flaw. Before all that character development he was terrible at things like “emotional support” and “life lessons”, leaving Raph without the blueprints to deal with a lot of problems. HR would respond by rushing in and figuring things out as he went, but sometimes RR would have to say “No, we’re maxed out and can’t deal with this, we’ve gotta step back”. As we’ve seen in other iterations, when Raph is maxed out and doesn’t step back...

...he goes too far. Plenty of folks have commented on how rarely the Rise turtles smack each other around compared to other versions; it’s telling that RR spoke up just a moment after HR smacked Mikey in “Pizza Puffs”.

Raph is much bigger and stronger than his brothers this time around, meaning such an outburst would have a much higher risk of Genuine Grievous Injury. And while his size and strength also mean a measure of gentleness has been baked into him since day one, there would still be times HR would feel himself boiling over and RR would head off somewhere quiet for fear of the above situation; which was potentially alluded to in “Hot Soup: The Game”.

“You went out on your own when you were his age.”

The context of “Man vs. Sewer” suggests Raph isn’t going to go off on his own without very good reason- such as cooling down before he does something he regrets. That this detail shows up in Casey’s debut episode suggests it is how they will properly meet and bond, since befriending Casey and doing vigilante shit with him is what usually gives Raph a way to blow off steam while having someone nearby to keep him in check. But that probably won’t happen until partway through season 3, since I doubt we can cram the rest of Casey’s redemption arc into the movie alongside the invasion and time travel trauma shenanigans and leader drama. So in the meantime RR will continue to brood on rooftops in bad weather and listen to Ephemerality songs and monologue to himself because he knows nobody’s going to hear him over the incessant background noise that makes up the cities above and below.

I was a bit stumped about how that meeting would take place- the events of the finale (and possibly also the movie) would no doubt have both the human and yokai populations on high alert, making it dangerous for RR to slip away for some peace and quiet. But the events of the finale also gave us some insight on Raph’s powers; he has a way to leave without actually leaving!

Hardlight Clone Jutsu, baby!

So whenever HR finds himself in a particularly sour mood, a wisp of power winds its way up through the open-air portion of the lair and forms into a clone aboveground. HR doesn’t have to leave for a while to cool down before coming back and dealing with the situation calmly, because RR is already on a rooftop somewhere dissipating those bad feelings by listening to the rain and/or yeeting trash cans.

But mutants can’t freely walk the streets of New York, and the Hidden City Police probably still have it out for Raph. And someone, hero or villain, will eventually realize that Raph has a gloomy stray clone running around and ask questions that can’t be answered without cracking open the can of worms that is This Whole Situation. RR needs to get creative. That we’ve seen clones have both full color and the basic red/white palette suggests their color could be altered in other ways; and that the holo-form grew extra arms in the lair fight vs. the Shredder suggests their shape could also be changed further.

So what will he choose to look like, if not his body?

Obviously he’ll use a red and black color palette because it slaps, leaning more towards black since I compared him to Batman back in Part 1. A low-detail design makes it hard to identify him, giving onlookers the impression that they just couldn't see him well in the dark. Mentally filing down his spikes and decreasing the curve of his shell are easy enough, but it takes him a while to figure out five fingers instead of three, and there’s not much he can do about his voice other than lowering the pitch so he just opts to not talk much within earshot of others. A cape further disguises his silhouette and again, it slaps. The impression of a mask means he doesn’t need a face and it lets peoples’ assumptions work for him. Humans are more likely to think he’s human than a Very Human-Shaped Mutant, and yokai come in so many shapes as is that he could be anything from a witch to a dehydrated googlyschmootz.

(You know how it is with franchises. Old patterns repeating in new ways.)

New York City never sleeps, and I doubt the Hidden City does either. He’ll run into Casey eventually, but in the interim he stumbles across and intervenes in some attempted purse-snatchings and kidnappings and the like. Most of the would-be victims use his arrival as their chance to escape, but one of them is too frozen with fear to move until their attackers are chased off into the dark. He escorts them home, and it’s only once they’re at their doorstep that they work up the courage to ask him who he is.

It’s... a difficult question, in more ways than one. “Raph” is out of the question. “Red” isn’t quite right, and neither is “Angel”- they’re a tad too identifying still, and the R.A.P.H. thing was HR’s idea anyway. So he shrugs, and melts away into the shadows.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m Nobody.”

[sineala]

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

[ilikekidsshows]

So I have been binging through your posts and I am loving all of the analysis on ML. I read another blog that did analysis on Luka and Kagami as Love Rivals, how they held up and how the fandom treated them. I wanted to get your takes on how they hold up in a meta perspective (If that made sense)

I’m guessing you're asking for my storytelling analysis of Kagami's and Luka's respective roles as rivals. I have a bigger analysis on the Marinette & Kagami arc coming up (and I do mean BIG), but I wasn't planning on covering this angle in it, so I might as well.

Okay, so, first off we'll need to define what a rival should be. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "rival" can mean "someone striving to reach or obtain something that only one can possess", "striving for competitive advantage", "companion/associate" (this one is out of use) or "equal/peer". This is actually very close to what a rival in a narrative context also means. A narrative rival should be a threat to their counterpart in some skill or pursuit, they must want the same thing. A narrative rival should have some kind of association with their counterpart, they need to be connected and have a reason to become rivals. A narrative rival should be their counterpart's foil, meaning they must be equals in some ways.

Since the show introduces Kagami first, let's start with her. The interesting thing about Kagami is that she starts as Adrien's rival. She wants a spot on D'Argencourt's fencing team, something she can only obtain by defeating Adrien. She also wants to prove she's the best fencer by defeating Paris' best fencers, including Adrien. So, there's the goal that puts her directly in opposition with Adrien specifically. The association between Kagami and Adrien comes from wanting to have (and later having) the same fencing teacher.

They're foils because they have very similar family backgrounds, they're children of a workaholic single parent who restricts all of their activities. However, while Kagami's outward appearance is harsh and cold, Adrien's is soft and warm, Adrien has also already started breaking out of his father's control by the time he meets Kagami.

But Kagami's ultimate role on the show is to be Marinette's rival. Their rivalship launches in 'Frozer', where we get actual confirmation that Kagami is interested in Adrien romantically, just like Marinette is. This is the goal where only one can triumph. Their association is weaker, though, since Marinette and Kagami don't start having any type of shared social circle outside of Adrien. But, once Marinette and Kagami become friends, this friendship becomes their association.

Then comes the foiling. I talked in my episode wrap-up of 'Ikari Gozen' how the color schemes in Marinette and Kagami's designs create both parallels and similarities. However, they have other similarities and contrast points as well. Marinette and Kagami are both anxious in new social relationships and put a lot of effort and planning into impressing someone. We see this in all of Marinette's "win Adrien over" schemes and also in Kagami's approach to befriending Marinette in 'Ikari Gozen'. They're both very talented in their chosen fields and put their all into their pursuits, fashion and fencing respectively.

However, they also have stark differences in their outward emotional appearance, Marinette expresses her in-the-moment emotions with ease, while Kagami struggles with this, saying almost everything with the same severity.  However, they’re opposite in their in-depth emotions, since Marinette can’t make sense of hers (since she doesn’t self-reflect) while Kagami is bold even with those. Marinette has a large circle of friends, while Kagami only had Adrien and didn't even have his phone number for a large part of their acquaintanceship. Marinette has a warm, loving home, while Kagami's probably, like Adrien's, cold and lacking in expressions of love.

Even Ryuko's design is a clear nod to Marinette's with the dominant colors being red and black. While Marinette wasn't an instant expert in her powers, she's an incredibly competent superhero these days, and Kagami matched her in fighting ability as well as the ability to use their respective powers effectively. However, while Ladybug is a planner and approaches most situations with careful deliberation, Ryuko is hasty and reckless, blowing her secret identity immediately.

So, how about Luka, then? Marinette and Luka's relationship is mostly characterized by Luka doing Marinette various favors, so there isn't any rivalry going on there, but there doesn't have to be, since he's meant to be Adrien's rival, so we'll focus on that instead.

Common pursuit? They both like Marinette but neither of them is actively pursuing her, though, I guess Luka kinda is since he did confess in ‘Silencer’ and has been composing her a song in the season three finale, but outside of a few startled looks in 'Frozer', Adrien doesn't seem to be feeling too challenged, most likely because Marinette isn't something he realizes he wants. In fact, Luka’s involvement seems to be making him less likely to realize any feelings he has for Marinette.

How about music? They play in the same band in completely different, highly vital roles. There's no competition there either, especially since Adrien is a member only part-time. Maybe as superheroes? Adrien wasn't the right guy for the Snake Miraculous in 'Desperada' while Luka was, but his importance as Cat Noir was also emphasized in that episode, so it was more about Marinette's misjudgement than any competing going on between the boys. So there's no actual threat from Luka to Adrien.

Associations? Well, they're both very close friends of Marinette who care about her romantically (either knowingly or not), they play in the same band (Adrien part-time) and they're also friends, considering how Luka was there right next to Nino silently supporting him when they were trying to cheer Adrien up in 'Félix'. I'd say they're pretty strongly associated at this point, even though the show understates it a bit because everything about Luka is presented in a pretty low-key way.

What about foiling? As I covered in my wrap-up of 'Frozer', Luka is basically "Adrien but more readily available to Marinette". They have very similar, outwardly mellow personalities, they're kind and selfless to a fault and they're both musical (though I'm not sure if Marinette had gotten to hear Adrien play before 'Love Hunter'). They’re also both reasonably astute emotionally, although with some weak points (Luka has a hard time holding up a conversation according to ‘Captain Hardrock’ while Adrien can’t read Marinette’s cues).

The contrast comes in how the story seems to be implying that, with Luka, what you see is what you get, while Adrien is actually internally much more of a chaotic goofball and not nearly as put together as it might first seem. Luka can also read Marinette's emotions with ease, since he's constantly turning them into music, while Adrien struggles with them so much he genuinely thought Marinette hated him in 'Puppeteer 2'. Luka and Adrien are also contrasted in their single parents; Gabriel is overly controlling while Anarka seemingly raises her kids in anarchy.

So, to sum up my conclusions:

Kagami's character is very much built around the rival archetype, both in her early relationship with Adrien and in her later relationship with Marinette. She ticks all three boxes for rivalship and is very much a love rival. In fact, she’s enough of a rival for both our main leads!

Luka, however, is missing the first, most primary aspect of being a rival; he doesn't challenge Adrien in any way. As it stands, Luka is Adrien's foil, but not his rival. So he can’t be a love rival. His role is not to challenge anything, but to be The Other Option. More an object of comparison than an actor in the romance drama.

Bonus: so what is Luka? Simply put, Luka exists for Marinette. This is obvious in the way almost everything he does on screen revolves around Marinette in some way. I've so far come up with two theories for what the purpose of Luka's function towards Marinette's character might be.

1) I've previously talked about how Luka is the "easy" alternative to Adrien in my episode wrap-up for 'Silencer'. While it's not Adrien's fault, from Marinette's perspective, he's kind of a hassle to try to get with. His father and busy schedule get in the way of many of Marinette's attempts to win him over, as does Marinette’s own nervousness. However, Luka is already in love with Marinette at first sight, with no effort required from Marinette to win him over, he's always ready to drop everything to do Marinette a favor. The point is that Luka being so similar to Adrien in their best traits while also lacking any of the circumstantial things that make Adrien a "hassle" means that if Marinette rejects Luka for Adrien, we'll know she truly loves Adrien for Adrien, since she could get the same surface-level stuff from Luka more easily but chooses not to.

2) My reverse love square hypothetical post also covered the option that temporarily dating Luka could be a way to break Marinette out of her anxiety when it comes to thinking of Adrien in a romantic way. She's too emotionally invested in Adrien, while not really that  invested in Luka. Luka is so mellow and giving, Marinette can easily date him and then break up with him without hurting him to get over her romance-based anxiety so that she can pursue Adrien anew.

[pepperonitimeline]

There is an interesting emphasis on timelines in Steven Universe

but like. Why?

Hypothesis: Steven Universe is made up of multiple timelines, but shown in an order that makes the events seem linear. read part 2 here!

I'm not the first person to speculate this at all. A lot of this stuff has been pointed out by @dogcopter​ @arrozbrillante​ @stevenutheories and many others on various platforms!

I just gathered the most conspicuous "evidence" into 1 post. If you’re interested in SU theory and analysis you should check out their blogs. :o) This was as short as I could make it..

And a big thank you to @love-takes-work for her podcast summaries!!! 

So, most ostensibly there’s Garnet, who can see multiple futures. In Pool Hopping she begins to call her visions timelines specifically.

Garnet: In this timeline, we do the opposite of that. Hey, you! Have a pizza!

Steven: Hey, Vidalia's house is around here. Let's bring her the last pie.

Garnet: Now, that would be nice. She must be upset that her son was taken into space by those Homeworld Gems. (referring to the events of I Am My Mom)

Steven: You mean Onion? He isn't in space. He's right over there. *points*

Garnet: Sorry, I-I must be thinking of a different timeline.

-

Garnet: My bad. I was sure we were in the pepperoni timeline.

-

Garnet: It's important to keep in mind that all these horrible things did happen to you in alternate timelines. Safety is fun.

In Steven and The Stevens:

Yeah

It was confirmed on the podcast that the Steven we see from that episode on is a different Steven than the one from episodes 1-21. In “The Fantasy of Steven Universe” Sugar explains:

"I think, early on, we knew for sure what we wanted to do was to create episodes that feel self-contained but give you a new piece of information or change the characters fundamentally. So, Steven and the Stevens, is tight but Steven does change fundamentally after having that experience. He's not the same- in THAT case he's LITERALLY not the same character..."

It’s muffled because they're all laughing but right after they say this Matt Burnett goes “He died.” 

Link to the episode

Love-takes-work also has a text summary of the episode

But something I haven't seen discussed very much is the time travel chase scene. Granted it’s very blink-and-you’ll miss it, there are some Stevens who witness the other Steven’s fighting but that don’t end up in the Sea Shrine at the end.

Way back in 2015 @stevenutheories already did the math as to how many alternate timelines may have stemmed from the time shenanigans: 3 to 5. Not counting the original one who is definitively gone. 

Technically quantum mechanics don’t work like that and those Stevens should have been Thanos’d too. I’m not going to pretend I understand physics, that is just what I’ve been told by someone who does. But then again the magic time thingy wasn’t bound by rules of real-life physics in the first place… so ??

Let’s cross-examine SATS’ accompanying KBCW post.

“At any given moment, if you asked me what I was thinking about, the answer would be one of two things: katana swords, or THE POSSIBILITY OF ALTERNATE TIMELINES RUNNING PARALLEL TO OUR OWN!

Proving the existence of these timelines can be pretty tricky, even for a seasoned paranormal investigator such as myself.  An inter-temporal incursion caused by the momentary weakening of the time-space continuum doesn’t really photograph well.  And all the cross dimensional time travelers I know don’t want to go on the record about their experiences.  Frankly, the only thing I can submit as evidence of alternate timelines is the fact that THEY ARE PROBABLY JUST SO COOL AND AWESOME THAT THEY HAVE TO BE REAL.

Think about it!  What about a universe where that asteroid missed Earth and we had DINOSAURS for pets instead of dogs?  Or a universe where someone was like “Hey, zeppelins are way cooler than planes, let’s just do that!”  Or a universe where AN ALTERNATE VERSION OF ME CAN GROW A FULL BEARD?!  What an amazing life that Ronaldo must have… in THIS stupid reality I have a really hard time getting my moustache to connect to the rest of my facial hair and it’s incredibly frustrating.”

KBCW and Ronaldo’s commentary in general are usually half-right. Like the “Polymorphic Sentient Rocks are aliens who want to hollow out the earth… to make it lighter so they can transport it back to their star system” thing.

I can't help but think the "Dinosaurs for pets instead of dogs" is a reference to the live action Super Mario Bros. movie- where the meteor that killed the dinosaurs sent them to a parallel universe instead, causing mammals to go instinct in said universe. (Don’t know about the zeppelins.)

And then, and THEN there’s Keep Beach City Safe, KBCW’s more obscure rival blog run by (most likely) Onion under the pseudonym "The Observer". Apparently he’s planted cameras all over town to record Steven’s adventures. There's also a "Recruiter" and second mystery narrator calling themselves "Marco Díez", it's a whole thing,

Assuming it’s real, here’s one of the posts I think are the most relevant.

“I have been on zero gem hunts over the years, and what i have learned over the years is: always be prepared for anything, and everything. Connie’s already knows that and this her first mission. I, wasn’t so fortunate on my first mission. It was a crisp Autumn morning, - with notes of cinnamon in the air. I was the mountains, the air temperature, humidity and level elevation levels, were perfect.

Then, I noticed the creature, it was charging me. I tried to evade the gem monster, but it just kept on coming, and coming! There was no escape! And then- Wait! I just remembered. I never been on a gem hunt! So where did I get that story from?”

This was posted on August 1st alongside Gem Hunt… and the day after the Greg The Babysitter post, which was deleted earlier this year, right after people started interacting with it again.

Being a Babysitter is hard, especially if your Greg Universe. This guy, in the picture above me. Wait did I just become self aware? Hey, I did! Haha, I always knew I was more to me than just a narrator. Actually this is the first time I thought about, Because I'm self aware baby! Woohoo, yeah! Wait, what was I talking about? Ah yes, Gregory. So this Greg guy,Has to Babysit this cool baby, because he owes her for letting him mooch off her. And Greg, is like totally irresponsible, he some how lets the baby climb a Ferris Wheel. How does that even happen? This dude is so not getting payed. And what's up with his hair!?!

So here it is, another story, told by Greg, about his past self. I wonder how many times I started a paragraph with the word so. And when he was telling this story, we got some clues that could finally tell use when all of this started. We know about the gems and what happened  thousands of years ago, but we don't know about the hems and  what happened thousands of years ago. They wee being very vague about the whole thing. Almost intentionally, well it was obsessively intentional.

?

There are subtle inconsistencies in Beach City's layout. ("The Observer" points this out, too.)

Remember Danny’s? In Bubble Buddies and Joking Victim, there’s a shop named Danny’s Salt Water Taffy.

Then in Watermelon Steven it’s gone.

As for a prop: Chaaaaps used to just be Chips

That’s from Monster Buddies, the episode right after Steven and The Stevens.

It's just as likely someone on the show simply thought the background/chips looked a little too busy or whatever. But re-doing stuff costs a lot of time and money, yknow? Neither of which is the animation industry very generous about. Did you know even props have model sheets?

Of course it could just be another brand of chips. Maybe Utz got involved somehow.

Lastly I want to highlight a quote from a Rebecca Sugar interview regarding SU ending.

“The story is continuing off screen and I do know what happens next, at least in certain timelines, for the characters,” Sugar says. “But I would have to decide how and when I’d want to dig into that, or if it’s best to give them their privacy.”

yeah so like what the fuck

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “Covention”

I didn’t think I’d have a harder time doing these reviews on my days off than on a workday, but errands and all that. I had no expectations going into this episode at the time since “covention” is a fake made up word. But I heard Amity was going to be in it, so I got excited. The spice of life returns. It’s been a hot minute. Let’s see how the episode holds up.

The episode starts with one of my favorite cold openings. Super funny and gives a good shot at those books that have that pretentious flowery language. Seriously who says “thou” and “hast” anymore. Lame. Luz tossing King into the portal right when it closes was my favorite bit. Was Eda really going to go to the human world just for that? 

Also I didn’t notice until someone pointed it out but I guess they’re using Azura and Hecate as some kinda parallel to Luz and Amity. Hope Amity doesn’t find out that she’s not the Azura character. Does that mean that Eda is that old ass lady and King is that little fox dog thing? That’s not cool, man. Be nice.

So much can be read into it, but that’s for another blog post for another time.

And of course, dumb-dumb me had to wait until the word was said out loud to realize that it was a play on the words “coven” and “convention.” So basically it’s a con episode. Cov episode? Whatever. Big brain hurt.

Relationships are a give and take and sometimes you gotta give in. Sorry, Eda.

I don’t know about you guys, but I never really had a lot of fun going to cons. The only part I really liked was meeting my favorite voice actors and watching indie wrestling. All the food, merch, and art was always overpriced and from shows I don’t watch. I don’t join video game tournaments because those people take the games way too seriously. Plus the area that I live in isn’t known for being big on nerd culture so the cons are never that impressive. I met Steve Blum last time and went to one and you can only go down from there so I don’t think I’ll be going to another one any time soon.

I caught this first time I saw it on TV. Luz and Willow arm in arm. Maybe in another life I would be shipping Luz & Willow. Maybe maybe. Also, Skara in the background. I think her design is really cute. Maybe she’ll get an episode in season two. Maybe maybe.

More lore and more worldbuilding which people really seemed to want and we got it. Eda explains that while covens seem like cool groups to belong to, they also strip you of all the other kind of magic you can do. Why? My theory was (and is) that about fifty years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together and tried to figure out a way to control people. Really keep them in line. They knew that people were basically stupid and would believe anything you told them, so they announced that this one guy could talk to the titan that the Isles were based of off. This one guys says that only he could talk to the titan and hear what the titan was saying and that only he could do all kinds of magic. Everyone else is doing it wrong and only he’s doing it right. With no proof or evidence, but trust him he’s on the level. The Boiling Isles was just doing fine before him, but now all of a sudden, we’re all doing it wrong. Let that be a lesson to you, kids. If anyone tells you anything like that, it’s bullshit.

Also the nine covens. Why nine? Why not group the bard and illusionary covens together into the music video coven? Why does potions get its own coven? How much school do you really have to take to learn to mix shit together and stir? Wouldn’t the plant magic coven know something about using plants to make potions? Why does the construction coven get it’s own coven? Couldn’t you use any kind of magic to build things? Is the construction coven the blue collar coven? Beast keeping gets it’s own coven? Like the bitch at the plant coven needs to switch covens to be told to feed her dog? My theory, the nine covens was really a marketing decision. Ten sounds too official. They knew that if it was too neat and tidy, they’d know something was up. Would they though? I don’t think so. 

Any group that has their own stormtroopers is automatically evil. Even more proof that the coven system is bullshit.

“Distraction spell!”

This moment made me laugh so damn hard. The crap that Eda pulls is one of the highlights of the show for me.

Luz and Eda go check out The Emperor’s Coven panel in the main hall, and we’re introduced to another major character. Enter Lilith, Eda’s older sister. And I swear to you guys, I was so confused this entire time on who was the older and who was the younger sister until the season finale. Seriously, I kept getting mixed messages. I mean, I know now but give me a break here.

I think Lilith is a good character and a great foil to Eda. The fun part is that since they are sisters, Eda knows exactly how to push her buttons and drag Lilith down to her level. It’s always fun to see a stoic character break. 

My finger points.

Amity shows up which automatically makes this episode better. Luz properly introduces herself and we get more back-and-forth. Amity being a real bitch here is more to mislead us for the last act of the episode, but when I first saw it I thought it was more confirmation that Amity was going to be the Draco Malfoy-clone of the series. Glad I was wrong.

We get more of Luz trying to make life play out like her favorite stories and challenges Amity to a witch’s duel. A thing she read in Azura that she has no clue whether or not is a thing in The Boiling Isles. There’s an equal chance that Amity could have just shaken her head and be like, “The fuck is a witch’s duel? That sounds like something you just made up.”

Also Amity should have caught that Azura reference from the start, but then that kinda would have spoiled Lost in Language, huh?

Again, Luz needs to learn that life does not play out like it does in her favorite stories. Challenging your rival to a duel is cool on paper but a big “Yeah no” IRL. Especially since she knows no real offensive spells, no defensive spells, is a weak nerd who has probably never been in a real fight in her life and has no fighting spirit. Trust me guys I learned the hard way. Life is not a shonen anime. You can’t settle anything by fighting. 

I love mentor/mentee stories especially when they have a rival mentor/mentee pair. Too bad Dana has already said that Amity and Lilith were not close at all. It was more a relationship of convenience. But then again that would help witch whole foil angle. Lilith and Amity just use each other to get ahead while Eda and Luz do actually build a familial bond. 

The duel goes...exactly the way I thought it would. Honestly. The cheating, the whole fight just breaking down, even Lilith and Eda doing an actual witch’s fight. Totally saw it coming. What I didn’t see coming was the bad ass animation they used for the Lilith/Eda fight and...

The Amity scene. The big reveal that Amity is not a Draco Malfoy clone (I only saw the first four movies). She’s just a girl who thinks people should follow the rules, hates cheaters and is under a lot of pressure to succeed. Only someone as empathic as Luz and try to keep building that bridge and try to make things right with Amity, but that’s a whole other episode.

.

And the episode ends with another great lesson I really like. “Will I ever be a true witch?” “I don’t know. What’s a true witch?” There are always expectations and pressure put upon you to be a true something. Others will want you to conform into a label for one reason or another. But all those expectations and labels are just illusions. It reminds me of a Bruce Lee quote. When an interviewer asked Bruce if he considers himself Chinese or American, he answers that he considers himself, “a human being.”

Labels can be fun because it makes it easier for the brain to organize things, but when people put too much stock into these labels problems arise. Think of labels as a boat to get you across the river. Once you cross the river you leave the boat behind. You don’t carry the boat with you. That’s just dumb.

“Witch please”

FINAL SCORE: 5 - Loved it.

Hot take, Amity makes every episode better. More funny jokes, more worldbuilding, more Amity and hints at the main villain of the show. Lilith was a great addition and the episode hints at the main plot. Probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a con. And speaking of more Amity...

[mc-critical]

I was curious since you were just talking about Suleyman sisters. Which one is your favourite and what would you change in their storylines? (Me: I would Sah being in love with Ibrahim and her and Hürrem being enemies, because I truly someone from the imperial family liked Hürrem)

I honestly love all of them. Even though they all share a similar purpose in the narrative on the outset (that is, being antagonists to Hürrem), they have distinct motivations and personalities that always succeed to make them so interesting to analyze.

Despite of that, I have to say that my favourite is Hatice. She's the one who felt most fleshed out, with the widest arrays of personality and relationships and I sympathize with her in nearly every level. While I know that S03 Hatice could turn people off and I could understand why in theory (good flanderization is still flanderization after all and her "Heel Face Turn" could feel underwhelming after Hü's huge E63 victory and it lowkey makes for kind of a soft reset of the show's status-quo, but not only I haven't seen this actually being used in arguments against her, but this is solely a writing problem that didn't even originate from her and wasn't totally fixed until the end.), I felt this was the most logical step in her arc and her development made complete sense, no matter how flanderizing it was and how tragic it ended up being. [poor Hatice :(] I have analyzed her character and why I love her so much as well in more detail here.

The one thing I would change is, again, her spending more time with Osman and Huricihan. The need of having kids was set up as a very important part of her character from the beggining and Osman and Huricihan's birth could've felt as a new wave of hope after the devastating child losses. It felt like they were the start of an entirely new chapter of her life where she could enjoy the company of her kids the way she so wanted to, but the birth of Huricihan and Osman ended up being only the finale of Hatice's worries over her children, a satisfying end to these arcs of hers where she could finally find happiness at last and with this it was over. It wasn't built on at all and this whole angle of Hatice's character was seemingly dropped just like that. While I get that her storyline was very densely packed and they may not have had time, they could've given us a few scenes at the very least, especially in S03B where they would play part in empowering even more Hatice's tragic arc, being a reminder of Ibrahim. Not to mention that Huricihan would've been a much better character if that set-up existed.

I adore Şah Sultan, as well and I actually enjoy her dynamic with Hatice even more than her dynamic with Hürrem, because it tells us much more about who she is. It was so enjoyable to watch these two sisters confront each other on not so few instances, while still loving each other. I love how Şah's ambition contrasts so well with her genuine care for the people she loves (like Hatice and Esmahan) and how her pragmatism could actually get in the way of that care, while we could still see that the two coexist in her regardless. It makes her motivation so interesting to figure out in a way we haven't seen before or after with any other character. Her love for Ibrahim.. while yes, I get that it may seem a little weird, putting so much stuff in their past into another context that could draw the line between "this makes sense" and "how exactly did that happen?", it explains why Şah may have this deep seated resentment to Hatice, it is a nicely used plot-device to drive conflict between them (the conflict set-up in their past that is outside of their clash of ideals and philosophies in the present and near future) and her and Lütfi later. It makes her more interesting, too, because it shows her ability to let go of her feelings when she sees is necessary. Her approach is also very interesting and unique (at least at first) and while I find most of her scenes with Hürrem generic, she was a formidable and effective antagonist. I also find interesting that in rewatch, you do see that out of her and Hatice, it's Şah who is more elitist, interestingly enough. (because while Hatice mostly pulls rank out of ignorance or when she's challanged outright, Şah pulls rank not only in confrontation, but in casual conversations with people around her, as well - E87 is a perfect example of this. She also views the dynasty as something even more valuable that shouldn't ever be touched - her not wanting to fight Mihrimah in the end, even though I'm sure she could've outsmarted her if she truly wanted to, she wanted the most out of anyone in S03B for the dynasty members to have each other's backs and support each other no matter what and she was as ready as Hatice to stand behind what the dynasty represents, but not on a more personal level like Hatice, rather on standing behind its laws and traditions, like Ayşe Hafsa.)

What I would change with her, is that intrigue of hers that succeeded to have Hürrem be exiled for the third time. There's nothing wrong with the intrigue neither writing-wise, nor with Şah's character in it, and I kinda appreciate Hürrem's overspending there as a parallel to Mahidevran's overspending in S02, showing that they're not so different after all in a bunch of cases. But otherwise, the whole thing felt like pointless filler that only repeats some aspect of previous storylines. Yet another harem riot, though not as large in scale, and that almost contrived exile, which served nothing in the end (except for showing how Hürrem has gained a decent network of political allies, but that was shown before the exile, too). I would probably make it a far more complex, but still to the point intrigue, the outcome of which sure wouldn't be another exile for an episode. This also wouldn't have been the ending culmination of Şah's careful plans against Hürrem, either. (Ayaz Pasha's death afterwards was relatively quickly planned in comparison! Like.. c'mon..)

Fatma is my least favourite sister of the sisters, but she certainly has her moments. I love her debut and I love how fun loving she is, I sorta wish we saw even more of that. I actually don't recall a moment where Fatma ever pulled rank on someone in the way Hatice in E26 did and Şah so casually does and if there truly isn't any moment like that, then I love her even more for it. What is even more interesting is how her motivation is a promise made to Mustafa (even though this whole motivation is kinda strange writing-wise, since she's an entirely new character and the devotion to Mustafa could look like something the writers only came up with in the heat of the moment for S04A's bad use of flashbacks and to make yet another antagonist for Hürrem... Fatma could've been next to Mustafa when he was a child in Manisa and she liked him as a child, who knows? That coupled with Mahidevran probably reminding him of Fatma's existence, as well.) and how far she's going to go to fulfill it, even after his death. It all showed a side of hers that is willing to put the dynasty members in intrigue (the way she put Selim and Bayezid against one another and even when she played that game on Mihrimah), an interesting contrast with the other sisters, who would do anything but, at least not so consciously. (I'm referring to Şah's very first scheme against Hürrem, in E85-6) I love how she scolded Mihrimah in E121 and I love how they showed her sorrow for Mustafa's death. (that little scene where she said: "I failed.." was so touching, honestly... It shows how devoted she was to it all) Her relationship with Kara Ahmet is also pretty great.

What I would change with her, is her part in the menopause plot. The episode itself is such a weird and tonal mess, but Fatma there was at her worst and I don't agree with her making fun of Hürrem like this. I get the purpose of the episode and scene, but it still sits wrong with me and since that was our first episode with Fatma, it rendered her a little petty for me when I was first watching. I wouldn't have had Fatma tell it out loud for everyone to hear, I would've probably made her show Hürrem she knew in a confrontation similar to Hürrem and Mahidevran's (hey, a part of their formula could work for once!) between both of them during the entertainment. I would have also given her a little more balanced screentime. In some episodes it was very fine, but in others, it felt like she was more shoved into the background.

About Hürrem having at least one dynasty member to like Hürrem - I agree, it would be a breath of fresh air, to say the least, there should've been this kind of variety. If there is one I would make a friend of Hürrem's (at the most part), that would be Beyhan.

I would have given her more screentime, especially in S01-2, she could be there to advice and support her sisters even more and for them to calm down from the games and intrigues. She wouldn't play such a big role in the story, aside from an arc or two that would be different from working against Hürrem. Her and Hürrem would be usually on good terms, since her emotional maturity would let her understand at least a bit of her side of the story and wouldn't be so quick to accuse her. (as she wasn't when she learned of how Hatice learned about Nigar and Ibrahim) Beyhan can't be fully on board with her, of course, because moments where Hürrem tramples on Hatice's happiness directly or indirectly could put them at odds, but I feel Beyhan's personality and shtick would be the best suited for a friendship with Hürrem of sorts. Since she still wouldn't be part of the throne war, Hürrem would have no reasons to act against her personally, either. (now, S03B could be a problem, but then we could... have her return to her castle permanetly?) It would've been epic if Şah had only her dynamic with Hatice in the story, but I don't think that alone would be enough for the writers, because they sure were searching for someone to replace Ibrahim as a more prominent antagonist until S04's switch of focus and enrichment of storylines. 

[of-daisies-and-dandelions]

OMG THE LAST ONE, HE SURE IS THE BEST BOY. The jobs option 👉👈 I love it?? What's ur main job for him? And please I'd love to know the story behind him, go ahead and throw everything you've thought!! I adore how ffxiv can make me adore different mcs and yours might be one of the faves I've ever saw hahah big handsome wol vibes, I love it!! ALSO YES. Let's talk about our ocs because I'm also a viera supremacist (female, but still) ♡

gosh you are making me blush!!! ;-;

My main jobs for him currently are Dark Knight, Reaper and Bard. You are so right about how the FF community just keeps making these amazing, beautiful and interesting characters and hearing everyone's stories and backgrounds and personalities for their wols is so nice!

His story is under the cut because it's embarassingly long :')

His story basically starts with another WOL, who I've played since ARR to about level 83 of Endwalker, Mia. A miqote Bard, White Mage and Paladin. She truly was the epitome of a Warrior of Light, kind, caring, would give her all for anyone who needed her, even though she was absolutely riddled with doubts and fears, something which sadly festered over time, Shadowbringers truly was the moment where she broke, not only because of the incredible strain on her physical health, but also her mind (suddenly starting to get flashes from past lives and reliving old wounds, losing new old friends all over again, etc. you know how Shadowbringers is). That led to her growing weaker and weaker up to Endwalker, and shortly after Zenos takes control of the Wol's body, she canonically dies, killed by a blasphemy, while she was out in the field, kind of losing her mind with old memories and aching body from all the light she carried.

At the same time, Cain, who is originally from a different shard, is fed up with his miserable life in the forest with his brothers, who were always awful to him, and finally snaps and leaves, runs away, and as he runs, fast as he can, tears in his eyes, trying to escape his life that he didnt want to live anymore, Hydaelyn, sensing what is about to happen, opens a portal with the last of her strength and transports him to the Source. He runs out of a snowy forest just in time to see Mia being cut down. He runs over to see what is happening, and finds Azem's crystal in her hand, glowing.

Cain communicates with Mia and Ardbert in a little forest clearing inside his mind, where he meets her for the first time and allows her to pass into him. Thus, the two shards of Azem, Mia and Ardbert, are reunited with a third, who is, of course, none other than Cain.

Because they are all technically the same person, they are compatible. However, that is only in theory, because no matter how much people wish for that to be the case, Cain is a person of its own. He carries Mia and Ardbert's memories, feelings, but that is all.

My Azem's shards are based on animals, therefore, Mia was based on a fox, Ardbert is a wolf and Cain is a wild hare. Sometimes, Cain and other people that knew Mia can swear they see a little fox dart in the corner of their eyes, but when they look, there is nothing there.

Azem and all their shards share certain similiarities as well, like not fitting in where they were born and having to carve their own way trough life, amongst other things.

Both her and Ardbert still play a role in the story, interacting with people in their dreams (though that happens so, so rarely, I wanted their death to be actually meaningful, and not be like oh, they are still kicking!!! hahaha), and generally keeping an eye on the people they love as animal spirits. I wanted them to be a comforting presence, in a way.

Cain is immediately thrust into absolute shitstorm, because he had absolutely no time to adjust or get used to his new powers, memories and responsibilities, immediately has to fight Zodiark, which triggers the literal apocalypse, so he's one day on the job and the world is already ending!!! Im sure that's not going to be a major trauma or anything.

He struggles to find his place in Endwalker, and especially post Endwalker. He wanders, trying to find a reason to do this besides his childish dreams of wanting to be a hero, be important, be able to change something. To actually find a reason to continue fighting and understand his place in all of this.

It is in his wanderings, still wielding the bow, which was Mia's preffered weapon, that he learns how to wield a scythe and a greatsword. He learns how to derive strength from his and all the other shards' darkness that he carries, therefore becoming something of an opposite to Mia. Where Mia was the literal embodiment of a Warrior of Light, Cain becomes her mirror and basically acts as a Warrior of Darkness.

That is the main gist of it all. I dont know if this isn't the most cringe thing you have ever read :') I try with all of my characters and stories to make it magical and kind of whimsical in a way, I like to play with the lore and rules given by the world and working with it in a way that still sounds believable, despite obviously having to squint a little.

Thank you so, so much for reading all this mumbo jumbo, I had an exhausting few days and I truly wanted to sit with this and write it with actual class, but I think that would never get done at this rate, so I just wanted to hurl it out of my head and hope it is at least slightly comprehensible hahaha.

Would you like to tell me about your bunny? I would love, LOVE to read anything you have! Thank you for your patience with getting this ask answered ;-; I hope you are doing great and keeping healthy!

P.S. Heres a lil somethin' :D

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #106: Jeanne d’Arc (Alter)

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the burning dragon witch of France, Jeanne d’Arc (Alter)! Jalter’s pretty good- Fire, more fire, and bullying dragons into serving you- solid kit!

Check out Jalter’s build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: We’re really testing that “All Dogs Go to Heaven” theory, huh?

Race and Background

Like I said with Mash, Homunculus isn’t really a race in D&D, so we’ll have to keep things simple. While you are a magically made copy, you’re a copy of a Human, so we’ll have to stick with that. This gives you +1 to all abilities. Make up the Magic Doppelganger background (or just use Haunted One) for Arcana and Religion proficiencies. You’re made of magic, and you have to know about God in order to spit in His face. 

Ability Scores

If that custom background wasn’t weird enough, we’re also using the Point Buy system for this build, because we need a lot of stuff right away. You were made by an evil wizard, so a little bit of minmaxing is probably fine. Unfortunately, we have to keep Intelligence at 8- I’d like to make it higher, but we need the points for other abilities. You don’t really go on a self-improvement kick until you’re a berserker anyway. After that, set Dexterity and Wisdom to 12- they’re needed for multiclassing. You can fight (and presumably dance) in a dress, and you can still pick people out in your Grondement du Haine, so they can’t be that bad. Set Constitution to 13 for some toughness-you’re a frontline fighter, and your Avenger class makes absorbing peoples’ hatred (read: their attacks) a bit easier. That leaves us just enough points to bring your Strength and Charisma up to 14. You have one of the highest attack stats in the game, and you’re damn scary when you want to be-and you always want to be scary.

Class Levels

1. Barbarian 1: Avengers are good at hitting things and taking hits, and so are barbarians! When you pick up the class, you get proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two barbarian skills- Intimidation and Athletics. You’re strong and scary. (Pretty sure we said that already.)

Either way, barbarians can Rage as a bonus action, gaining extra attack damage, advantage on strength saves and checks, and resistance to the physical attack types. In exchange you can’t cast or concentrate on spells, and it ends early if you don’t attack or get attacked by something in a round.

You also get Unarmored Defense, giving you an AC based on your dexterity and constitution. I’d highly recommend not using that because yours is pretty bad, but it’s available if you really need to fight in a ballgown. Sometimes showing up the Ice Bitch Queen is worth the pain.

2. Sorcerer 1: A Jalter just wouldn’t be a Jalter without plenty of fire and draconic imagery, and that’s why you’re a Draconic Bloodline sorcerer. A black dragon would be more on brand, but we have to go with a Red Dragon Ancestor for the fire damage. This also lets you read and write draconic, and more importantly, your proficiency bonus is doubled for charisma checks against dragons. You may not have magical control over them yet, but you can probably keep the younger ones in line already.

Your Draconic Resilience gives you an extra hp per sorcerer level, as well as an AC of 13 + your dexterity modifier. That’s still not great, but it’s much better than what you had going before.

Finally, sorcerers can cast Spells using their Charisma as the casting ability. Control Flames, Green-Flame Blade, and Burning Hands should give you more than enough fire to start with. Friends will make it even easier to control dragons, while False Life will give you just a touch of healing. NP bars don’t exist in this game, so we had to represent your Self-Restoration somehow.

3. Barbarian 2: Hitting things with sticks powers up a lot faster though, so let’s stick with that for now. Second level barbarians can make Reckless Attacks, giving themselves advantage, but also giving enemies advantage against them. Your Danger Sense also gives you advantage on dexterity saves you can see coming. You don’t really care where your spells hit-this will help keep you out of your own fireballs.

4. Barbarian 3: You might have figured out where this was going with all that fire talk, but your subclass here’s the Storm Herald! When you rage (and as a bonus action each turn afterwards), you can use your Storm Aura to deal extra damage to enemies. The desert aura deals a bit of fire damage to all creatures within range save free! A perfect option for those fidgety monks and archers. You also gain Primal Knowledge, giving you proficiency in Animal Handling. I mean, for a given definition of “Animal”, I guess that works.

5. Ranger 1: You didn’t think we were done making this build weird, were you? I promise this will make more sense in a bit. For now though, you get Perception proficiency, as well as the ability to mark a Favored Foe with your bonus action. For a minute afterwards (or as long as you keep up concentration) you can add an extra 1d4 damage to any damage done to it once per turn. Also, while it does use your concentration, it technically isn’t a spell, so maybe it works with rage? (I’d rule it does, but I’m not your DM.)

A less complicated feature you get is Deft Explorer, specifically the Canny feature, which doubles your proficiency bonus in a single skill. Power up your Intimidation to become even scarier to everyone, but especially dragons. A +14 to intimidate means you can really turn heads, even at level 5.

6. Barbarian 4: We’re about to jump back into sorcerer now, but it might be a good idea to be skilled at casting spells before we do that. Use your Ability Score Improvement to nab the War Caster feat for advantage on concentration saves, the ability to cast cantrips as opportunity attacks, and most importantly, the ability to cast spells with full hands. Now you can upgrade to a proper flagpole pike!

7. Sorcerer 2: It’s been a while, but now that we’re back you’ve become a Font of Magic, giving you Sorcery Points that you can spend on metamagic (later) or more spell slots (right now). You also get another first level spell. Shield’s useful at least, but we’ll get something more “you” at a later level.

8. Sorcerer 3: Now that you’re level three, you get that Metamagic thing we just talked about. Casting an Empowered Spell will let you re-roll damage dice to make sure everything hurts as much as possible, while a Heightened Spell will make it harder for a target to resist. Trust me, you do not want a dragon breaking out of Charm Monster.

Speaking of spells, you get second level ones now, like Dragon’s Breath, which will let you turn anything you want into a smaller, less cool dragon. Other flavors are available, but why would you not pick fire breath?

9. Ranger 2: Bouncing around even more, you get a Fighting Style. Rangers don’t get any styles for big weapons, so we’re just grabbing Defense for an extra point of AC while wearing armor. You can go without, but you have a look to maintain, you know? 

You also get another set of Spells that use Wisdom to cast. Your wisdom isn’t that powerful, but luckily Searing Smite and Absorb Elements don’t use it, so you’re set! I guess good things really do happen to bad people!

10. Sorcerer 4: We’ve had way too many odd numbers for way too long, it’s time we did something about it. Use this ASI to round up your Strength and Charisma for stronger hits and stronger spells.

You also get even more spells- Blade Ward gives you some defense without having to rage, and Aganazzar’s Scorcher got you covered on the offensive side. There’s a bit of a theme here, if you haven’t noticed.

11. Barbarian 5: It took us a while, but you finally get an Extra Attack for each attack action. You also get Fast Movement, adding 10 feet to your walking movement. It’s about time you got a little violent.

12. Barbarian 6: Our last level of barbarian unleashes your Storm Soul. The desert soul gives you resistance to fire damage, and you can also ignore extreme heat, which is super useful given how much black you wear. You can also set objects on fire by touching them.

13. Ranger 3: Now that we’re finally getting to this subclass, it’s time we justified this multiclass. You get Primeval Awareness to help you track down and “convince” dragons to help you, but if your DM is really uncooperative, you can also summon a dragon thanks to your subclass. (We know, we went ranger to make a build less situational. We think we just saw hell freeze over. 

Surprisingly, there are still subclasses left in UA after Tasha’s blew through. The Drakewarden lets you cast Thaumaturgy thanks to your Draconic Gift. You can also summon a Drake Companion as an action once per long rest (or by spending a spell slot) You have to use your bonus action to command it, but it can always use its reaction to infuse weapon attacks with its element of choice. (Do I even have to say we’re picking fire?)

You also learn Entangle this level. Your Grondement du Haine leaves a lot of spears all over the place-it’d be pretty hard to pick your way through those.

14. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers get third level spells, but they also get Magical Guidance, letting you spend 1 sorcery point to re-roll a failed ability check. I’d save those for something you’re really good at, like intimidation.

You also learn Erupting Earth at this level, in case you wanted to actually do damage with your noble phantasm. Sadly your spears are a bit dull, but bludgeoning damage is still better than no damage at all.

15. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level dragon sorcerers get an Elemental Affinity, adding their charisma to fire spells. You can also spend sorcery points to resist fire damage, but you’re already good on that front.

Speaking of things that aren’t really needed, you can cast Fear this level. You already have Expertise/Super Expertise in intimidation, but sometimes you just need magic.

16. Sorcerer 7: Seventh level sorcerers can cast 4th level spells, and you can finally cast Charm Monster to take control of a dragon of a dragon for up to an hour. We can also finally replace Shield with Wall of Fire to really set the scene for your dramatic confrontation with that goody-two-shoes you share a face with.

17. Ranger 4: Use your last ASI (they go by so fast, don’t they?) to become an Elemental Adept in fire. This means every die you roll for fire damage will always count as at least a 2. Also, your spells now ignore fire resistance! Just your spells though, your rage is out of luck.

18. Ranger 5: Your Extra Attack doesn’t do anything this level, but you do learn how to cast Spike Growth, for those times you want to sit back and let your enemies throw themselves on your spears.

19. Ranger 6: Your Favored Foe bumps up to a d6, and you become Roving! This adds 5 feet to your movement, and you can climb or swim at the same speed. Now nothing will be able to escape your wrath!

20. Ranger 7: Your capstone ability gives you a Bond of Fang and Scale, allowing your drake to fly and deal more damage with its bite. You also gain resistance to whatever damage type your drake deals, which can help your survivability against themed enemies (like you).

You can also cast Lesser Restoration this level. Memory correction is a little vague-status correction is a bit easier to implement.

Pros:

You’re good at burning things, and yes we count people in there. You can deal a lot of fire damage through rages, dragons, and spells. You also have multiple ways to make that fire even more dangerous, and can spread it at a touch. Great for property damage!

It can be pretty hard to escape you, thanks to your buffed movement speed and the ability to swim and climb faster than most people. Worst comes to worst, you also have a dragon you can sicc on people.

You’re pretty terrifying, especially towards dragons. Beyond having direct control over them, you can also intimidate them with advantage, a third die from sorcery, and a +27 to the roll. Barring an act of god, you can probably get most dragons to stand down, if not obey you outright.

Cons:

You have some power in your corner, but it’s all focused on fire, one of the most immune-to damage types in the game. When it’s good it’s great, but when it’s bad it’s awful. At least you can swap out your dragon damage each summon if you really need to.

Speaking of, your drake’s pretty weak, with only 40 HP at level 20. It’s probably best for you to think of it as a limited use feature than a companion, because it is absolutely not sticking around.

Really there’s a lot of multiclassing problems to go over here. Beyond the classic “spells and raging” thing, there’s also a severe lack of ASIs, several overlapping abilities, both your rage and drake using up all your bonus actions, and an overall lack of focus. You might not be great at doing any one thing, but nobody will have the nerve to criticize you.

[makeste]

Thank you responding to the AFO Vestige question. Assuming everything you said is true then the question that comes to my mind is why did AFO and the Dr waste so much time preparing Tomura and making sure he was worthy. They would had succeeded more completely if they just did the operation as quickly as possible. Also do you think that Tomura rejected AFO because he thought it was an illusion that he did not want to submit to, or because he rejects AFO in his enirtey? Have a good day.

I’m actually going to turn this question around and take it one step further. if AFO’s plan was to transfer his quirk all along, why didn’t he do it fifteen years ago? specifically, why did he choose the child Shimura Tenko as his vessel, rather than the already-grown Shimura Kotarou?

you see, this isn’t confirmed yet, but I suspect that the primary reason AFO decided to transfer his soul into a new body is because that’s essentially what his brother has been doing for the past nine generations, and AFO has hypothesized that that’s why his brother’s quirk has gotten stronger and stronger, to the point of him actually being able to put up a fight against him now. and so he applies the same logic to his own quirk, and figures that if it worked for his brother, it should work for him as well. we know that AFO believes his transfer into Tomura will enable him to finally steal OFA, but we don’t really know why he’s so confident of that. it wouldn’t surprise me if this is the reason why.

anyway, so if that’s the case, it would mean he’s had this plan for some time now, likely even before he was injured by All Might. this whole plan is basically based off of Quirk Singularity theory, and Ujiko confessed to Mic that he’s the one who originally came up with that concept -- right before he met AFO.

so it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that when AFO met Ujiko and heard his theories, that’s when he finally put two and two together that his brother’s quirk was becoming progressively stronger with each subsequent generation, while his own quirk -- powerful, but stuck at the comparatively weaker first-generation level -- was stagnating. it then stands to reason that this is when he first started putting the plan together to transfer his quirk into another body. not seven years ago, when All Might injured him, but decades before that. decades before All Might was even born.

after all, this is when he first started experimenting with the Noumu as well, researching how to prep another human’s body to be able to withstand multiple quirks. because it wouldn’t be enough to simply transfer his powers and be done with it; if Ujiko’s theories on the Singularity were correct, the transferred quirk would be exponentially more powerful, and so the new vessel would need to be able to withstand that. everything we know about the Noumu makes so much sense in hindsight if we look at it in the context of AFO researching how to create the perfect new vessel for his transferred, and upgraded, quirk.

but here’s the thing: if it is true that AFO started putting this plan into works years before he sustained his debilitating injury at All Might’s hands (and that does seem to be the case; Ujiko even said that AFO “foresaw his downfall”, which I interpret to mean that he knew he would eventually be outclassed by OFA if Quirk Singularity kept doing its thing), it’s all the more reason for me to believe that he fully intends to possess his “successor’s” body, rather than just going along for the ride. a healthy AFO would have absolutely no incentive to transfer his powers unless he was sure he would survive the process. that’s basically just suicide otherwise, and at the time he would have had no reason to desire that.

anyway. so if that’s true, it would also mean that when AFO tracked down Shimura Kotarou fifteen years ago, he likely already possessed the technology to transfer his quirk into Kotarou’s body if he wanted. this would have been only a year or so before Shirakumo’s death, and Kurogiri is an extremely advanced Noumu, indicating that their research had already progressed pretty far by this point. Kotarou is arguably just as good of a potential vessel as his son, and has the same devastating blood ties to Nana that AFO wants to use to torment All Might. he’s also fully grown, and AFO wouldn’t have to wait another 10-15 years in order for him to be old enough to possess. so why not??

and I think the answer to this question is the same as the answer to the other question of “why did he wait so long to transfer his quirk to Tomura”: because they weren’t ready yet. because AFO needed a perfect vessel, and the technology wasn’t read yet. they hadn’t reached a point where they knew the transfer would be safe. they hadn’t reached the point where they could reliably ensure that the new body would be able to withstand the quirk (hell, we’re seeing some problems with that now). they hadn’t yet gathered all the quirks they wanted, such as the regeneration quirk. they needed more time. and so AFO chose to kill Kotarou -- or rather, have Tenko kill him -- and take Tenko under his wing instead.

again, Tenko was “adopted” by AFO more than fifteen years ago -- before AFO was injured by All Might. and yet he went ahead with his plans to raise Tenko as his perfect little All Might-hating heir anyway. this means that whatever AFO’s ultimate plan is with Tenko, it’s something that was concocted before he was injured. or in other words, before he would have had any incentive to willingly sacrifice himself in favor of ~selflessly~ turning the reins over to his heir. he was putting in the time to raise Tomura up as his successor before he had any reason to. if all he wanted was a new body, he could have just locked the kid up for a decade or so until the transfer process was finally ready to go. so it must be more than that.

so I have a few stray thoughts/theories on this. first things first, AFO just really likes to fuck with people. remember that he in essence created OFA to begin with because it wasn’t enough for him to simply defeat his bro; he wanted to subjugate him. he wanted that decisive victory over him, mental as well as physical. for him, the psychological aspect of the victory is just as important. and so I think that part of him putting Tenko through all of this torment and raising him up into the perfect homicidal pawn was purely just to torture All Might and Nana and all the rest of the OFA users, because AFO is just kind of fucked up like that you guys.

second, is that as we’ve seen with OFA, even when one of the souls does have predominant control, it doesn’t mean the other souls just disappear completely. they’re still there in the background, and they’re still capable of influencing the user’s body, and possibly even wresting control. hell, we’re seeing this happen right now. if AFO can possess Tomura’s body, it’s reasonable to assume that if the situation were reversed and AFO had control, Tomura could still try to fight back as well. and so presumably, it would be much more desirable if Tomura was inclined to be cooperative with AFO, much as the OFA vestiges all get along with Deku. if you’re gonna invite a roommate to come share space in your brain -- possibly for the rest of all eternity -- better get one you’re sure you can live with, right?

and there are a bunch of other reasons I can think of; I’m just gonna list the rest of them real quick so we can wrap this up:

Ujiko says in chapter 222 that Tomura is “weak” and needs to prove himself. it could be that this was his way of setting up Tomura to “train” with Machia for a few months so as to gain the physical and mental fortitude to be able to withstand the four-month Noumufication process.

it could also be that he wanted Tomura to amass a loyal following in much the same way that AFO had before him, as a lot of AFO’s power came from the number of people who were loyal to him and/or feared him.

lastly, it could just be AFO playing the long game once again, seeing as his ultimate goal is to steal OFA back from its current bearer. OFA, which contains his brother’s soul along with all of the other bearers’ souls. (why he thinks this would be a good idea is beyond me btw, but that’s another topic for another post lmao.) and at that point Tomura’s soul will be reunited with Nana’s. except he can’t even allow them that little bit of peace, because he’s such a spiteful, miserable fuck. so he’s made it so that if they are reunited, either Tomura will hate Nana, or else alternatively he’ll be so torn over all of the evil shit he’s done that he still won’t be able to reconcile with her even if he wants to. but the point is, either way, AFO wins! because everyone is miserable except for him. :’)

anyway, so this is all conjecture; it’s possible there’s some other reason I haven’t thought of, and it’s also possible that I’m wrong about all of this, of course. my read of AFO’s character is that he’s too selfish to ever step back and let someone else have all the glory while all he can do is watch. everything about AFO -- his quirk, his name even -- is defined by selfishness, in stark contrast to OFA and its users’ selflessness. and so I’ve always believed that AFO would be the final villain somehow, so as a result my theories are all colored by this belief. but it’s possible I’ve misread the character or Horikoshi’s intentions, and that Tomura is in fact the final villain, in which case it remains to be seen exactly what is going on with AFO and all his psychic bullshit then lol.

but if not, then this is my best guess. and as for why Tomura rejected AFO, he said it himself; he believes he’s outgrown AFO and now wants to surpass him. AFO and Ujiko’s plans to make him self-actualized worked a little too well, maybe. or maybe not, and this is still playing into AFO’s hands in some other way I haven’t figured out yet. I honestly don’t know for sure. but I am fairly certain that by the time this arc ends, we’ll have a much better idea.

[libralita]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Suzanne Collins

Summary: Ambition will fuel him. Competition will drive him. But power has its price. It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined—every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

Rating: ★★★★★

Review:

So, this is a bit of a “disclaimer” or more of an interesting fact: I’ve technically never read The Hunger Games Trilogy. I had to read the first book for my English class, and it was a time where I hated being told what to read so I used SparkNotes. We also watched the first film in that class but that doesn’t really matter because A) that was like 8 or 9 years ago and B) it was for my class so you can bet I wasn’t playing attention. So, for all intents and purposes, I have not read the Hunger Games. Now you may be asking why I decided read this…seemingly controversial book rather than the much beloved original trilogy. Cuz my friend said I should, the audiobook sample intrigued me, and when are you going to see a review of this book from someone who hasn’t read the original trilogy?

Before I go into spoilers with this book, I just want to say as someone who has at best a surface level understanding of the Hunger Games trilogy, I think people are being a little bit harsh about this book. This book made me completely understand why Coriolanus Snow went down the path that he did while also not glamourizing it or making excuses for it. I genuinely felt bad for this young man who has delt with so many hardship that no one would should suffer through. However, he still does horrible things and the book recognizes that he does horrible things. It is a fascinating character study with a bit of background on how the Hunger Games came to be. Perhaps my opinion will change once I read The Hunger Games trilogy (which I intend to do) however at this point I think this was an amazing book and you should give it a fair shake. Now, onto spoilers.

The only flaw I found with this book was it was a bit too on the nose with a couple of things. First some of the names. Gaul. Satyria. Highbottom. I know that Collins started off as a middle grade writer and these feel like very middle grade character names. They just describe the characters a little too perfectly. In YA, it’s more popular to make characters where their names’ meanings give an insight into their character. Not a huge problem but a bit silly.

Second, I’m a little conflicted on the political talk. On the one hand, holy shit a YA book that talks about political theory? In an intelligent way? That’s not just screaming about real world politics? Oh my! On the other hand, it’s a little too on the nose. Gaul having Coryo write about the Social Contract and then this conversation:

“‘I do. Unless there’s law, someone enforcing it, I think we might as well be animals,’ he said with more assurance. ‘Like it or not, the Capitol is the only thing keeping anyone safe.’ ‘Hm. So they keep me safe. And what do I give up for that?’ she asked.”—Page 434

Hobbes would swoon over Coryo. It wasn’t bad just on the nose. And to a degree, I get it, I’m working on getting my masters in political science and I’ve read Hobbes and Rousseau whereas most the intended audience probably hasn’t. So, I call this a nitpick for me

Other than this book being a little too on the nose, I found very little fault in this. Maybe the Post-Games story line was a little less interesting but it still wasn’t bad by any means.  This book is a character study of Coriolanus Snow, so I’d like to talk about him and his dissent. While reading this, my friend asked me if I hadn’t known that Coryo would one day become President Snow, if I could see it coming. And, while it’s hard to tell exactly, I think Collins manages to balance both Coryo being sympathetic and showing how he could become the person that he is in the trilogy. There are three…phases or Coryo’s life that really illustrate how he becomes President Snow. First is his life during the War. Second, is his life During the 10th Hunger Games. Then his life Post-Games. Collins does a wonderful job of portraying what it was like for Coryo during the war. The horrors he had witness of enjoying the life of luxury at an early age and then his world crashing around him. Of his family dying. Of the struggles to survive. Of him witnessing his friends’ parents restore to something horrible like cannibalism. It’s brought up a lot because it’s something that scarred him.

Now his During-Games life/the first half of this book. Coryo and the people around him are clearly dealing with the PTSD of growing up in a war zone. He’s essentially starving through most of this section during the book and on the verge of losing of what little he’s held onto since the War ended. I feel really bad for him. There was a part of me during this section where I hoped along side him that Lucy Gray would win the Hunger Games, he could go to University and continue his relationship with her. Maybe they could have changed Panem for the better. And while in this section he was no pure angel, you could see Gaul and Highbottom pushing him to become a worse person. You could also see the red flags that become worse in the Post-Games section.

There are two major red flags I picked up on during this read through. First, is his relationship with Lucy Gray. He’s very possessive of her and he gets very jealous when she sings about another guy during The Hunger Games. This made the relationship slightly uncomfortable for me…though let’s be honest if Sejanus was pining after Lucy Gray he would be acting no different from any other YA love interest (shots fired.) He actually reminded me a lot of Jace from The Mortal Instruments. The second red flag is his treatment of Sejanus. In a meta sense Sejanus is your typical hero and the fact that Coryo is using him (and really anyone besides maybe his family?) is a giant red flag to me as a reader. He doesn’t like Sejanus or Mrs. Plinth. He just wants to use them. Which is really sad but shows that is eventually dissent into Post-Hunger Games Coryo is foreshadowed.

Now, let’s talk about Post-Games. I took a break once the Games ended because I was a little unmotivated to keep reading. I didn’t know if I would like Coryo leaving the Capital. I liked seeing the political maneuvering of the Games and his dynamics with his classmates. However, watching his dissent was great. His relationship with Lucy Gray went from slightly concerning to full blown toxic. His possessiveness of her really amped up. Coryo also isn’t really happy to see Sejanus because it’s a friendly face, it’s because there’s someone to recognize his status and for someone he can use. Again, another moment of possibility of where Coryo could have let Sejanus and maybe Lucy Gray escape and he could have gone off to become an officer. Work his way up and become the President. However, he didn’t take that path.

It was so heartbreaking to see Sejanus die, there was still a glimmer of Coryo’s humanity where he genuinely felt guilty but you could see his self-preserving nature showing its ugly head. And then his journey is cemented when he can’t handle being out with Lucy Gray so he may or may not have killed her, then he goes back where his family pictures are ruined and his mother’s powder is mush. The only thing left his is father’s compass.

Speaking of his father, one final character I’ll mention is Dean Highbottom. I wish we got a little bit more of him because his view of Coryo is interesting. It seemed like Collins gave a very subtle story about how Highbottom was worried that Coryo would turn out like his father. But Highbottom ended up created the monster he wanted to prevent. If he had shown Coryo compassion and understanding, he might have turned out differently. This ended up getting Highbottom killed which was a great way to end the book. Sad but great.

Overall, I think this is a great story. I loved seeing all the different roads Coryo could have taken and how things could have turned out differently. I am planning on buying the Hunger Games trilogy so it’ll be interesting to see how this changes things for me.