#also. presumably that's what the hero system is for right? to make it so that the law is enforceable even despite quirks?

[yuurei20]

Sorry if this was asked before but do we know why Lilia's dream doesn't seem to follow the same pattern as everyone else's dream? It seems strange for him to be reliving a moment of war in a dream that's suppose to exclude all things deemed bad and does this mean Malleus knew what happened back then? Some of it, like how Lilia actually found Silver, seems like things he wouldn't entirely know either. Why would Lilia's dream be the only one not happy despite Malleus doing this for him?

Hello hello! Thank you for this question! 🦇

This is a most interesting thought, and Silver asks himself the same question! (also, we see on-screen the moment where Lilia's anti-Malleus protection drops and the dream adapts accordingly 👀 more below)

Silver reflects,

I've been thinking about something ever since we entered Father's dream. Malleus's spell is what's showing him all of this, right? So why is it all so horrible? If we take Malleus at his word, his magical slumber is supposed to give people dreams that are perfectly tailored to make the dreamer happy. It would make more sense for Father's dream to be one where fae and humans don't fight. Where Malleus's parents are alive. A dream where Briarland remains a great nation. Malleus also said that he's monitoring our dreams and reigning over them. If he knew we were here, it stands to reason that he'd try to remove us, like he did in Sebek's.

Later, Silver realizes why the Fae-Human war of 400 years in the past is the subject of Lilia's dream:

I've been wondering all this time why Father's dream was filled with so many terrible things. But...now I finally understand. This was the happiest moment in Father's life. All the fighting, the injuries, the losses...all of that suffering lead up to this. The moment that Malleus was born.

As you say this is an interesting paradox, as--according to the rules of the dreams, created by someone who cannot comprehend the concept of happiness derived from pain--Lilia should not be able to feel losses or suffering at all.

Ortho: "I thought Malleus's dream worlds were designed to provide the target with whatever form of pleasure they wanted...but maybe it's more of a system to remove displeasure the target doesn't want. Sadness, anger, and the like.”

And it is possible that you have landed on exactly the explanation: Malleus didn't actually know what happened 400 years ago.

But Malleus presumably doesn't know about the death of human Ortho, or about Vil's struggles with Neige, or about Jamil's and Kalim's and Azul's and Floyd's and Jade's inner turmoils--how could he?--and yet, those details are all personalized to each dreamer beyond Malleus' comprehension.

As Ortho explains, “It's the dreamers themselves whose imaginations form those happy dreams."

Malleus doesn't actually have to know details from the dreamers' personal lives: it is the dreamers themselves who are unknowingly crafting their own prisons. Malleus' influence is the removal of negativity.

So why is Lilia alone different? It is possibly because of: ✨imagination!✨

Ortho realizes that Malleus cannot manifest or defend against what he doesn't know, and Silver guesses that Malleus isn't interfering in Lilia's dream--is unable to set the "no sadness, no pain" regulations--because it takes place before he was born.

Sebek makes a similar connection: "Perhaps there's some reason that Malleus can't monitor Lilia's dream."

Malleus cannot imagine things that took place before his own birth, and he cannot control things that he cannot imagine. He put Lilia to sleep but it was Lilia who made the dream, and it just happened to be a dream that locked Malleus out.

And we even see the exact moment in Lilia's dream where the "pre-Malleus" barriers of Lilia's dream come down: when the dream overrides the reality of the abuse Lilia suffered after saving Malleus' life, replacing it with the senate praising him as a hero, instead.

But this wasn't a one-time exception or from Malleus successfully forcing his way inside, it was because Malleus had finally been born, enabling the "no sadness" rules to be implemented for the very first time, as the only thing keeping him out was Lilia dreaming of events from before his birth.

No birth = no imagination = no rules, yes birth = yes imagination = yes rules? 🐉

And this brings us back to Idia's explanation of what it is that Malleus is doing:

Idia describes Malleus as a "server admin" using copies of himself to handle players committing TOS violations.

The "copies of himself" wording might make it sound as though Malleus Draconia lookalikes exists in every single dream, but it seems that this phrasing wasn't meant to be literal copies of Malleus, like what we saw in Idia's dream. Malleus could not show up in a dream like Jade's, for example, without causing a paradox that would break things down.

But the Malleus-copy in Idia's dream might not have been only Malleus himself. It might have also been human Ortho 👀

Ortho: Unlike with Epel and Rook, the GM is by the dreamers side at all times here. Considering circumstances were much the same with my brother...that might mean even Malleus is wary of housewarden-class mages, and keeps them under tighter surveillance.

The GMs--the Malleus copies--are the characters like Neige for Vil, etc. Idia refers to them as clones, but they are not visually multiple Malleuses.

As Vil and Rook appear in Epel's dream Idia says outright, "The Malleus clone GMs must be on their way to do course-corrections now that the user is deviating from the dream."

Ortho follows with, "it seems to take whatever form makes it easier to keep a target immersed in their dream."

And while Lilia had multiple NPCs in his dream (Baul, Henrick, Maleanor, Knight of Dawn, etc.), there was never a point when one of them tried to convince Lilia to stay asleep, which we have seen happen to every single other dreamer up until this point.

Baul is even surprised by the darkness. Unlike Neige and dream-Kalim/Jamil/Azul/Jade/Floyd, Baul is not self aware.

Lilia's dream maybe did not have any Malleus clones in it, because Malleus could not get in.

Lilia's despair at Maleanor's death and his loss of Egg-sama does summon darkness within his dream, but the darkness of Lilia's dream is curious: when Lilia is dragged into the abyss the darkness it does not take the form of anyone he knows, or even speak to him.

The darkness simply appears and Lilia succumbs to it, much like it responded to Sebek's happiness at the thought of remaining in Lilia's dream forever, and Silver's breakdown with the revelation of his lineage.

The darkness pursues the soldiers constantly throughout all of Lilia's dream, even when nothing particularly terrible or wonderful is happening. Sebek wonders if it is under Malleus' control but he does not actually know, and neither do we!

Maybe the darkness of Lilia's dream was an effect of Malleus trying and failing to force his way into a world beyond his comprehension?

It is possible that, with Malleus' ability to infiltrate Lilia's dream compromised by the limits of his own imagination, Malleus was never able to enforce the rules of the dreamworld, thus turning Lilia--the person he wanted to save--into the one person capable of experiencing pain, loss and sorrow, beyond Malleus' control 🐉 Maybe!

[stillness-in-green]

in an ideal world, how would you have written mha's endgame?

That’s not a question with a short answer, I’m afraid.  There’s a lot I’d do differently, in ways it’s hard to even sum up all of because a lot of what I’ve thought about revolves around things I’d want to do differently with the Heroes (and dating back much farther than the second war, at that) with the changes to the Villain side of things being, I don’t doubt, equally drastic but currently much more vague.  I’ll cover my biggest contention in a general way above the cut, but if you want some of my more specific ideas for how I’d approach changing things, look below the cut!

The most pressing problem is that the story built so many of its themes on a framework of Saving People and then let the endgame dissolve that central idea into an incoherent, mushy slurry of saved and unsaved, alive and dead, smiling and unsmiling, free and imprisoned.  For the story to work under its own established parameters, the kids have to truly save the Villains—not just their souls, but also their lives, and not just the ones the kids personally care about, but all of them.  Nothing less will fulfill the twofold promise the story made to its readers with great specificity: that The Greatest Heroes are those who save everyone and that this is the story of Deku/Class 1-A becoming The Greatest Heroes.

That’s not possible in the Hero System as it currently exists, which is my other big target for the thing that needed to change with the endgame: addressing the problems with the status quo.  Class 1-A has to confront the reality of their failing system and realize it needs drastic change, if it can be salvaged at all.  The kids cannot be hailed in the narration as the group who became, collectively, The Greatest Heroes if they inherit and uphold that selfsame failing system.  Regardless of how positively the story tries to spin things in its epilogue, if society doesn’t treat or conceptualize Villains any differently than it ever did,[1] then none of that society’s long-term problems have been solved.

1: And it doesn’t; the vast majority of the epilogue’s focus is on how the kids’ actions have reduced/are reducing the number of people who become Villains, with little to no focus on how their new-and-improved society deals with Villains themselves—either the already existing ones left over from the war or the future ones who still arise despite society’s best efforts.  An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, but the pound of cure is still important to have—BNHA’s epilogue very pointedly lacks it.

Saving the Villains who are right in front of you, and making sure the people you can’t be there to help still get saved anyway are ideas that are inherently, inseparably connected.  You can’t do one without the other because each of them requires the other to stick. If individual Heroes don’t give a shit about helping those deemed Villains, then Hero Society will follow their lead, and if Hero Society doesn’t give a shit about helping those deemed Villains, then no help individual Heroes offer will be guaranteed once the Heroes have gone.

Toga is the clearest, sharpest example of the problem, in that no help Ochaco offers her means a thing if the larger system to which Toga is remanded doesn't support Ochaco in giving it. Horikoshi's inability to solve this conundrum is presumably why Toga had to die.  The short answer, then, to the question of how I would write the endgame is that whatever I’d come up with has to be a story in which Toga could be saved in the sense that Shimura Nana meant the word—a resolution that would see her both smiling and alive.

As to specifics?  Well, again, I don’t have the details ironed out because a lot of my ideas are unconnected “I didn’t like how canon utilized its set-up and characters; here’s an idea I like better” spitballing, but if you’re interested in what those ideas might be and how I’ve started lassoing them together, hit the jump.

So, I may have, on occasion, made reference to “the fix-it fic(s)” around here.  This is a pair of scenarios I call “Forward Different” and “Backward Different,” with the idea being that both would be canon divergent from the moment Heroes launch their attack in the first war, but the divergences would immediately go in very different directions based on changes to the underlying material.

Forward Different keeps everything established by canon up to that point as-is, but only what’s been explicitly established, so there could be some surprises with things like character motivations or secrets that had not yet been examined.  Backward Different, meanwhile, would have huge differences incorporated into the backstory, stuff that goes at least as far back as the training camp attack, that would not be made immediately apparent to the reader.[2]

2: The hypothetical reader, I should say, since I have no plans to ever write these out in full, my track record with longfic being as woeful as it is.  But I do want to hammer out the plotlines just to have them, share them, and maybe write some excerpts from them when the mood strikes.

I’m not going to share everything I’ve got in mind right now, but there are a few major points I can talk about, and some fun ideas here and there that I’m willing to share.

The single biggest difference between the two timelines is how they treat Deku, Shigaraki, and (to a lesser extent) AFO’s respective relationships to the One For All and All For One quirks.  Basically, I think it’s tremendously unfair that we see two almost totally incompatible versions of Vestige Fuckery in the story and it just so happens that the main character gets the version that makes everything easier for him while the Villain get stuck with the shitty version that make everything harder.[3]  The fix-it fic AU(s) are in large part about equalizing that balance.

3: And god knows I don’t buy that Deku gets the good version because he’s the good guy and he deserves it because Good Karma or whatever, while Shigaraki gets the bad version because he’s the bad guy and has Bad Karma.  You don’t give bad guys or good guys the fruit of the seeds they’ve sown two-thirds of the way into the story.  That stuff’s for the climax, goddamn.

The Backward Different timeline (the one that’s somewhat better developed at this point) is also called Splintered Wills.  In it, Deku and Shigaraki are both dealing with multiple vestiges that have minds and desires of their own who can choose to be helpful or to cause problems.  In effect, it’s giving Shigaraki access to the same potential benefits Canon!Deku enjoys while making Deku deal with the same potential downsides that Canon!AFO (who’s basically working with Deku’s version of the vestige mechanics; his vestiges just all hate his ass) has to deal with.

In Shigaraki’s case, that’s a huge step up from his canon situation, where he gets devoured by one (1) uber-powerful vestige and spends the vast majority of the last two arcs totally out of action.  Instead, he finds that his head is now full of quirk ghosts and, while many of them want no more to do with him than they did AFO (especially the vestiges of civilians and Heroes), plenty of others have no great love for Heroes or their status quo and thus are much more open to helping him.  Maybe they’re willing to hold back more hostile vestiges like AFO's; maybe they have memories or experiences that could be useful.

Shigaraki also pulls away a chunk of OFA the first time he and Deku fight post-surgery.  Specifically, he picks off All Might’s “vestige,” and All Might’s vestige, unspeaking though it is, and technically powerless, has lots of opinions on who he’s more inclined to help when given the choice between his career-long archenemy and his master’s grandchild.

Meanwhile, on Deku’s side of things, Deku’s newfound desire to save Shigaraki Tomura combined with Shigaraki Tomura stealing one of the eight spirits in One For All sends his headspace into a tailspin.  He spends much of the post-war arc with his powers on the fritz, as the OFA vestiges clash and argue and have mixed feelings (or very strong negative ones) about what he and they should do going forward.  He no longer benefits, as his canon self did, from OFA behaving as basically a unified collective; Yoichi can’t win Kudou and Bruce over for him with a sweet line or two.  Indeed, Yoichi doesn’t even want to because Yoichi is inclined to agree with them, though he’s not without sympathy—he never did stop wanting his brother to change, after all.

The other big factor influencing Backward Different/Splintered Wills is that the class size steadily shrank over the course of the backstory.  Aoyama was revealed as the traitor all the way back at the training camp.  Momo’s parents pulled her out of UA after the attack and enrolled her at Shiketsu instead.  At least one student will turn out to have Liberation Army ties that pull them away from the group.[4]

4: Probably Iida, but I’m not firmly decided yet.  MLA!Iida is very near and dear to my heart, though, so he’s definitely going to be in one of these timelines.

Several students aren’t allowed to do active Hero work because, without Aoyama to rally around during the license exam, they failed the first round, not even making the cut for the remedial course.  One transferred out of the Hero course for less dangerous work.  Maybe one gets critically injured during the first war.  Maybe some aren’t willing to buck the system enough to follow where Deku is going.  And so on.

The smaller class size serves two purposes, one character-based and one meta. First, starting big and winnowing down allows the story to actually write the students as distinct people rather than having them melt into an undifferentiated blob of Unified Niceness.  We shouldn’t have had a story with twenty kids who all, ultimately, react the same way to the crises they face!  If modern heroics has a problem with people who are just in it for the fame and money, or people who expected it to be relatively easy work due to the peace All Might established, then we should have seen that reflected in the class, too!

(That’s not to say no one who leaves or fails can ever show up again!  I have specific scenes in mind already for how Aoyama and Momo return to the story as allies, for example, and Shishikura plainly shows in the canon that failing the license exam in the first round doesn’t mean you can’t still find yourself doing Hero work anyway.  But the students’ paths should be ongoing threads that diverge and reconverge throughout the story, not a solid monochrome stripe that runs across the entire story-cloth like someone fell asleep at the sewing machine.)

Secondly, the smaller class size facilitates one of the major changes I have in mind for this timeline, which is that when the class confronts Deku post-first-war, they do it not with the intention of dragging him back to U.A., but of joining him in staying outside.  I have a ton of stuff I want them to see and interact with and be forced to acknowledge and reflect on, and that doesn’t happen if they just go back to school and wait for their next assignment.  Navigating all of that as a group trying to feel their way to a better future against the efforts of both jaded authority figures and Villains who’ve been burned one too many times to trust so easily is just simpler with a smaller, more focused, more strongly characterized group.

So, the Splintered Wills timeline, in summary, goes all-in on OFA being a repository of different people who are allowed to have different opinions and reactions to things, paralleling the dissolving of Team Hero’s united front; Deku & Friends have to struggle and clash, learn when to compromise and when to stand their ground, in order to build their way back up to unity, while Shigaraki is allowed the chance to continue coalition-building and consolidating resources under his own banner mentally in the same way he spent the entire series doing physically.  As Team Hero’s collective grasp on society collapses, Shigaraki’s grows stronger, reversing their positions such that Deku and company have to come back from the actual underdog position they fall into compared to BNHA, where they never 100% fall from the seat of power the way readers are encouraged to believe.

The Forward Different timeline is also called, for now, Creepy OFA.  It goes in the opposite direction by making Deku deal with the same kinds of problems Canon!Shigaraki has to deal with vis a vis being possessed of/by a quirk with a single domineering will of its own.  While Splintered Wills portrays OFA and AFO alike as being full of people, each with their own unique motivations and desires, this story underlines and reunderlines that quirk vestiges are ultimately biological impulses, not people.

OFA is an originally simple force that’s been compounded in complexity and appearance of rationality every time it’s been passed down, but is still ultimately just a quirk, mindless, unreasoning, imprinting its bearer with its own dictates and not caring a bit if the bearer likes or agrees with those dictates.  “OFA must be passed on,” “AFO must be destroyed,” “The bearer must be the Symbol of Peace,” and so on.

Making Deku and Shigaraki have to struggle against this loss of autonomy due to an out-of-control quirk vestige puts them on a similar level of challenge, the better to give them some common ground for understanding.  Whether they have to fight or help each other in the end, they’ll do it as free agents, people who have both had to figure out a way to throw off the weight of the lineages trying to mold them into  a desired shape. The help of their respective friends and allies—and maybe even some of their enemies?—will, of course, be immeasurable with this.

Some ideas I want to incorporate (or have already so started) into one or the other of these timelines include:

I want the PLF to do better no matter what timeline we’re in.  Currently my idea is that in one timeline, they had a well-placed mole somewhere whom Hawks and the HPSC didn’t sniff out, so the PLF knows the raids are coming and have laid traps for the attacking Heroes.  This could still go haywire, of course, ‘cause Heroes are very good at what they do, but it definitely won’t be a total blowout as it was in canon.  Then in the other timeline, the PLF don’t see the attack coming, but are given more license to act like the organized, effective threat they were initially portrayed as—they have sentries and security cameras posted, so while they only get a minute or two’s warning, it’s still better than absolutely nothing, and the outcome is way more chaotic and fraught for both sides, such that the country ends up dotted with PLF holdouts in situations that are part-siege and part-extended hostage negotiation. That gives an opportunity to show at least a partial version of what a PLF takeover might look like in practice, though it remains compromised by the ongoing conflict.    

As part of treating the PLF better, both timelines will have characters revealed to have MLA ties.  As mentioned, MLA!Iida is for sure in one of them; my strongest concept for a second choice is Ochaco having to grapple with the government’s heavy-handedness getting her parents arrested when they barely know anything about what they got themselves into,[5] but really, it could be practically anyone, including parents or mentors.  All I require is that the kids have a reason, any reason, to care about the fates of the tens of thousands of people the government sent them out to mindlessly arrest. 5: This would be a scenario in which I just went with the makes-more-sense-as-canon-anyway idea that being a Hero is the only way to get a quirk-use license so Ochaco is pursuing Heroism because she can’t get permission to use her quirk to help with her parents’ construction business.  She doesn’t wind up MLA herself, but her parents—trying to be supportive but not thrilled that their daughter decided to pursue such a dangerous career for that reason—get handed some dodgy pamphlets, after Uraraka moves out to attend U.A., about a group trying to get the laws changed to be more in-step with the universality of quirks and the principles of bodily autonomy and economic self-determination.    

I think the time between the first war and the last confrontation should be longer, introducing more new characters and developing many characters BNHA showed only in passing.  I have ideas like new heroic types (students or pros) who are brought in from other parts of the country because they have useful quirks for the raids, a heteromorph ex-Hero student who bails on his school when he realizes that the people handling its shelter operations are turning away heteromorphs, someone who catches Nagant’s backstory confession on video and has to decide what to do with the bombshell about black ops extralegal Hero assassins, a support/protest group consisting of people who’ve become jaded about Heroes after things they see on the day of the initial attacks (people like Can’t-Ya-See-kun, the medical staff who tried to defend their beloved Doctor Garaki, people who lost family to the mass arrests and so on), people from branches of the government that aren't specifically associated with law enforcement, etc. Seriously, I want a story that acknowledges that there are people who could possibly be relevant and important to events that we haven’t already met circa the first war because something like The Total Collapse of Society will naturally stir up activity all across the country!  Maybe people who the 1-A kids have never met before could bring valuable input to the table!!  Gosh!!!    

Changes to the traitor plotline.  I mentioned Aoyama being outed circa the training camp for one; I’d like to run with Traitor!Hagakure in the other.  I’m thinking she goes missing during the first war and the students are worried sick about her because no one’s sure what even happened.  Did she run away?  Was she hurt?  Was she killed?  Would anyone even know, if she stayed invisible even as—as a—as a dead body, Bakugou is the only one willing to actually say out loud.  She is, of course, not dead, but the class won’t find that out for a while.    

Changes to how Hawks and Endeavor’s partnership plays out.  I want Endeavor to die during the first war in one story, allowing the rest of the family space to navigate that plot without him even as it pushes Hawks off the deep end, leading to him going rogue such that he gets what was in canon the Lady Nagant fight.[6]  In the other story, Endeavor survives but tries to make better decisions about how to handle Touya, leading his and Hawks’ stellar partnership into rough waters when it comes out that Hawks very much just wants Touya dead. 6: And freeing Lady N to show up elsewhere in some totally different capacity.  There may be ample evidence that her fight was originally intended to be for Hawks, and in that version of the story she probably never existed at all, but I love her potential far too much to erase her completely, even in a timeline that reverts her plot back to Hawks.    

Gran Torino living and having a change of heart about saving Shigaraki in Splintered Wills, but dying and becoming a loss Deku has to weigh against his desire to save Shigaraki in Creepy OFA.  More named and important losses in general, actually, and more time for the characters to react to those losses, be it with grief or with mounting rage.  Students who lose teachers and mentors, Heroes who lose peers and sidekicks, Shishikura losing his father, the League losing Twice, civilians who are allowed to be justly angry about their losses without being drawn like unreasonable screeching harpies for it, and so on.    

The Lady Nagant fight cuing up the way it did in canon only to abruptly end when Deku just straight-up agrees to go with her willingly because finding AFO and Shigaraki is what he wants, so why would he turn his nose up at the opportunity?  This leads to him getting a lot of exposure to Alternate Perspectives via Lady N’s history, Overhaul’s shattered state, and whatever’s going on with the League in this scenario before he eventually escapes or gets rescued with neither him nor AFO/Shigaraki able to make concrete progress on saving Shigaraki/stealing OFA.    

Playing more with All Might’s mental connection to OFA.  In Splintered Wills, Shigaraki gets his vestige, which means he loses the connection to Deku/OFA completely and instead starts having horrible nightmares of rage and death and Decay.  I’m still making up my mind about how things go in Creepy OFA, but I like the idea of All Might having his own mind back after 30+ years of being under OFA’s influence, and having a front row seat for what that influence is starting to do to the teenager he so unthinkingly gave that power to (or, more accurately, gave to that power?).    

Ditching the stupid mech suit in one timeline and letting Toshinori Yagi find ways to be relevant and meaningful without it; alternately, letting him keep the mech suit only to run it square into the rogue AI teeth of the lone free-willed survivor of the U.A. robot uprising, the R2D2-looking PLF advisor in Toga’s chain of command.    

Consequences for Deku’s fucking arms. He developed a kick-based fighting style; he can damn well use it. Also handle his problem with losing his temper by making him fuck up something that can’t get unfucked by having an ally nearby to save him from the consequences of flying off the handle.    

More, and different, interactions between Stain and All Might.  More extended ones, for a start; I want Stain to rescue a heavily injured All Might from the car attack and for them to then spend days together while Toshinori recuperates enough to be moved.    

Better material for Kurogiri and Gigantomachia.  And plenty of other Villains too, really, not just the PLF.  I’d like the Tartarus escapees to be human beings suffering a variety of ills from their extended solitary confinement; I’d like the Shie Hassaikai to make another appearance; I’d like Mustard to be relevant again. Et cetera.    

Let stuff like the quirk erase bullets and quirk singularity have more significant airtime.    

Spinarakiya.  AHEM. My willingness to be self-indulgent about ships I know good and well would never be canon has yet to be determined.

And that's some ideas! I have lots of others, but I don't want to completely turn this ask reply into a dumping ground for the many (many) ideas I have for that dyad of stories. If you read all of these, know that I appreciate you deeply. And thanks for the ask, @friedeggpajamas!

[energy-falcon]

OK, I need to toss this out here.

if the theory was right that the new year Tailstube was set up for the next game and Professor Victoria is going to be involved as an important character I think I got an idea what it might be like.

My feeling is that it’s going to be a sort of Sonic adventure, three with a similar style to sonic adventure one where each character has their own campaign with its own style of gameplay.

We know Prof Victoria is likely going to be a major character, and whether or not she is Maria’s sister or niece or is a robotnik, we can confirm at the very least that she is a historian, if not a full on archeologist based on the title of her book. Combining this with the ancients and the dangling plot threats from Frontiers about them I think the next game is going have something from the past being uncovered, w/ professor Tori being involved.

I also think the game is gonna have an element of travel similar to unleashed, because of the tailstube mentioning a road trip, knuckles and amy both also mentioning wanting to explore the world.

I think bare minimum playable characters are going to be the people who were front and center in this tailstube, as its the first bit of media directly addressing whats coming post-frontiers. As such, the likely playable characters are as follows:

Sonic

Tails

Knuckles

Amy

Rouge

Shadow

Sonic is obviously going to be in this game. Let’s not even joke. I think him and shadow are likely going to play similarly Because they roughed out a pretty decent style w/ frontiers, and refined it with shadow generations. Considering Shadows popularity and the amount of hype surrounding his character, and the fact they have a very good gameplay system for him already they can easily adapt to Sonic, its not that far of a stretch to say they’ll probably gonna make both of them playable. I’m expecting them to do some differences though shadow has chaos control and chaos snap and all his other abilities. Sonic is his usual tool kit maybe with some extra twists to help differentiate the two. (For example, Sonic has Spindash/Dropdash, rolling, & the bounce bracelet, Shadow has Timestop, Chaos Spear, and Stomp). As for their stories, presumably Eggman’s gonna uncover something from history w/ power, and attempt to harness it leading Sonic on his journey to stop him. Meanwhile, shadow is probably gonna be involved because of professor Victoria, either because she’s Maria’s sister, knew Maria’s father, or because She Worked for GUN (she got geralds journal to Commander Towers), which we know was crippled by eggman post forces, and had been slowly building itself back up.

Tails’ whole arc in frontiers was about regaining his confidence and proving himself as a hero, and he ended that game by saying that he wants to go on an adventure of his own. The Tailstube episode specifically ended with him saying he was gonna take it on a road trip, signalling he’s likely gonna have a solo journey. I’m crossing my fingers that we get a mix of on foot gameplay like adventure, one and the cyclone from adventure 2, instead of JUST the cyclone, because as much as I think it’s cool I liked on foot tails better, and it helps make tails more than just the Tech guy. They already had a pretty solid on foot tails. They just need to refine his kit a lot more and fix a couple things.

Amy is kind of tricky but again she had a really solid gameplay set up in frontiers, they just need to make more of her attacks use the hammer instead of the tarot cards, which was my only complaint. She said she was gonna hang out with her friends more in the tailstube so I’m guessing her campaign is about her going on a road trip to visit all her friends. I’m not sure if she’ll be playable because I’m not sure what her campaign would be like but I hope she is.

Knuckles and Rouge are both interesting and are similar to sonic and shadow, as they are both closely associated with the treasure hunt style of gameplay. Knux ends frontiers by planning to branch out from his island, explore the world and treasure hunt and mentions as much in the Tailstube, while Rouge tells tails she wants to expand her gem collection, interestingly with tails asking her about gems of historical value, which could tie into Professor Victoria, who is bare minimum a historian, if not an archeologist. The differences could be neat tho: knuckles is going on more classic treasure hunts to seek information about the ancient mysteries involved in the plot while Rouge’s levels are more like bank heists with some more puzzle elements. Could be some cool variety.

All in All, I don’t know if this is accurate, but I’ve had this in my head for like the past couple days and I just needed to get this out.

[brucewaynehater101]

Was afraid of sending this ask until I recalled the wise words of Junko Kaname

“If you find yourself at a dead end and there’s no other options left, doing something the wrong way might do the most good.”

Plus I'm anonymous. I've got nothing to fear

Platonic Omegaverse AU based on "Back and There Again" by wolfsrainrules and your fic "Words Unspoken" on ao3 —WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!

toss in "Three Robins walk into a tower" by Law_10 plus the fic where Tim gets Surgeoned wings

Also there's some unreliable narration later in this ask which evolved into a fic lol

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Setup; Tim gaslights and lies to himself about Batman's abusive treatment towards him until he's forced by Jack to stop being Robin

When Stephanie comes along, he helps by giving her notes and recordings from his time as Robin, making up for where Batman lacks in training her himself

This leads to Stephanie learning and calling out just how bad his tenure as Robin was, being more distant with the Batfamily + professional-ish w/ Bruce

They try to spend as little time possible with the Bats for their own sakes from them on because the other would worry for them

While Tim doesn't have as much time as Barbara, he does presume an Oracle-like role for Stephanie to help her out

Stephanie also becomes quick friends with the Teen Titans. She's got Tim's seal of approval

Janet Drake dies. Tim is grieving and now he's stuck with Jack so he copes Batman style on the computer—

ooh nooooo. deadpanning??? that's just how I grieve, officer. I can't believe someone would kill my daaaad! who could have done such a thing? Oh you already have him detained and you're even imprisoning him in a whole 'nother state that isn't a revolving door! Thank you officer! You're my hero

Tim set things up so Cluemaster and Jack were unknowingly in the same area and Cluemaster accidentally killed Jack

But nobody is gonna figure that out. It's not like he did the deed!

And who else could advocate for the villain being jailed for life after killing a millionaire away from the New Jersey State itself than the new star of a CEO for Drake Industries, Edward Drake? The fact he works remotely from home and is insanely reclusive is totally irrelevant!

In unrelated news? Tim and Steph have become best friends who flip flip between who they have sleepovers with

Whoop! Suddenly there's two Robins running around often at the same time and they are manaces! Menaces to society I tell you!

Together they train to become the best Robin duo there ever was!

Oh no, I made this a "it gets better before it gets worse before it gets better fic" FUCK ME

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Titans Tower isn't crack like Three Robins. In fact all the Robins are screaming and crying at each other

"You stole my name!"

"You stole it from Richard first, how about you apologize for taking away the very name his own parents gave him!"

"It's not just about Robin but my place in the family dammit!"

"Why would you not come back already! The family misses you! We aren't even daughter and son! We're just unpaid interns at best! We could never take your place. they think you're dead but the spot is open for you if you ever come back! We never replaced you! We're here until you return!"

"Batman's a crazy kid beater Tim!" Steph's right but even with a support system, abuse does a number on ya

Alas, Jason is not seeing reason and while he gets bruised up and does it back, the two Robins at least didn't get beat as much as Jason wanted. Small mercies

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

When Jason finally comes back into the fray, it's smoother than he expected. Weirdly enough, he hardly saw his Replacements in the Manor, but given he wants as little to do with them as possible? Small mercies

When Damian comes into the fray and tries to prove himself in the form of attacking both Robins? Proof that there's lots of cult deprogramming to do; but for Jason?

It's nice having demon brat around again. Dami understands what growing up in the League was like and the Replacements spend even less time around him when in the Manor. Any instances where they would usually be asked to interact face to face are done through voicemails or emails instead

Man, Tim must really be living up to Eddie Drake's image if he only sees him and Stephanie as Robins on the field now

Meh, for all he knows they're prancing around with the other bats

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

It's his 16th Birthday

Stephanie is first and only to know

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Whenever Red Robin laments getting Spoiler's image tarnished in the super scene for good when it just could have just been his alone, she hounds him for it

As she does when he looks back to his time of cloning, thinking about their mutual lack of spleens instead of the dead

it's progress

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

The Core Five of Young Justice sit together in silence. Typing together contingencies for when Batman enacts the third test and beyond

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

"Demon brat," says Todd, ruffling Damian's hair

"Dami," says Grayson, trapping him in arms

"Son," says Father, says Pennyworth

The Replacements Father owes life debts to say "Robin," and nothing else until the public is upon them. Then they say "Wayne"

"Damian" when it is professional and polite West etiquette 

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

It wouldn't be the first time a villain---Dynamics Master---came from another dimension

The second time they were fixated on biology

Or the third time their targets were Bats

Least of all a new permanent divide between Batman and his proteges came

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Jason hasn't let go since they got out

Neither the pups Replacements with each other

"Unhand me Todd!" Damian. His puppy fussed.

'Responsibility' Jason corrected himself. He kept him close to his chest

Didn't matter what Dami had to say. His scent betrayed him; distressed-puppy-scared-omega-help-please

Emoting through smell. Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it was just him and Damian

Jason didn't even realize when he started purring and rubbing his wrist against Damian's hair. Probably another "Dynamic" thing the villain raved about

Something about not wanting to be stuck in a world full of people unlike theirs, since this was the norm in their own

Damian yipped—his hearted melted, good god these Dynamics can't pick if their truth serums for thought or straight up liars themselves—as he buried his nose in the kid's hair, inhaling the smell of puppy-pack-omega-here-safe-and—

His nose scrunched with distress refusing to part from Damian

That wasn't right, it wasn't parting from him either

In fact it's been a chore to not gaze at the PUPS! Replacements the other side of the room

Replacements who would have long since left the room without a goodbye since all their checkups and duties were done for the day

Replacements who's gazes flicked between them and each other

And wore bandages over their wrists and necks

'Scent-blockers' he recalls the villain saying

Jason bared his teeth at them for a warning to— to— he had a pact to protect

Red Robin and Spoiler jumped to their feet and ran out the room, forgoing closing the doors, not once letting the other's hand go

. . .

For some reason, he and Damian's scents felt worse than ever before

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Brown and Drake don't say his name anymore

that is if he ever sees them at all outside of Robin

They don't appear in high society either. Father said they made a scene about faking responsibilities, injuries, and sickness to get out of dealing with elites forever

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

"That villain really did a number on you, didn't he Dami?" 

"I remain unshaken!" Damian announced, wrapping fresh scent-blockers around his wrists

When the Manor's doors opened to reveal Jason—wearing blockers himself—Damian was already running towards him, not locking back at Dick until he spoke again

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Another alien invasion—one needing all hands on deck—done with. All that was left

And barking a warning at the Replacements to not get up in his personal space

"Man, not even their teammates want them," he swore he caught a rookie hero say off-handedly, "and they're still allowed in Young Justice?"

But practically everyone was here catching their bearings, so in case he misheard it

"Hey, hey! I heard you talking about Spoiler and Red, right?"

The rookie turned to him, "You mean the nutcases?"

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

'Ever-constant despair' Cassandra had to say about the pups Replacements when Jason's hand started hovering over his phone

Alfred had commented on a trend from before the villain where they barely appreciated their meals without the other with them, otherwise they deigned for quick, efficient meals

afterwards it became impossible to get them to eat anything at all without the other with them

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

For the first time, Jason felt unfulfilled from Dick's octopus hugs. He was slowly and painfully spenting less time cuddling Damian now and he still didn't feel as hollow.

He grumbled in a way that came with being an 'Omega' and Dick didn't vocalize back. He didn't smell anything but chemicals from Richard— everyone actually

Jason felt hollow

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Once when Jason met up with Damian after the kid changed his blockers

He whiffed Misery

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

It was during a drug bust that things really went downhill. That Jason realized he couldn't do this anymore

It was the usual. Drop in. Stop the operation. Pack things up; just with the added downside of his stronger sense of smell making drugs stink like never before—even through his helmet

Spoiler—who came in on a short notice—seemed to have the same problems, coughing like there was no tomorrow.

He could almost swear to hearing keens of all things in between her fit as she shook violently in a way he hardly saw her do

Unmasking wouldn't be an option until the Cave, so she seemed to settle for placing a hand on the bandages on her throat

He placed a hand, on a crate for support. The drugs smelled awful, sure, but to render him dizzy? It was strong, but not that much

It was then that she noticed the blood on her hand which came from blood splattered on the bandages earlier

"Shit— do you mind if I swap out my blockers quick Red Hood?" She wiped down her glove for as much blood she could

"I'm not your boss Replacement."

She scrambled to grasp for her pockets and used her now less-bloodied glove to unwrap the bloodied bandages

'Great' he wanted to spit out 'I can smell you through my helmet and your costumes.'

Instead he got hammered with the puppy-alpha scent of pup-in-danger-not-safe-omega-hates-me-help-save-me

Jason wasn't even sure he could keep himself still, but he did it. It didn't matter if his brain was rewired or scent glands got grafted onto him, he was the master of his own body—!

He can't do this anymore, he can't—

nobody one else for sure

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Jason was going insane

He entered the cave to see Batman on the Batcomputer, but that wasn't what he was focused on, unwilling as it was

Stephanie might as well be clinging to Tim's shoulders for life, looking at the screen of the laptop he typed on

The two had forgone their blockers, forcing their scents to mix and mingle in the air, drowning the place in together-alone-pups-alpha-omega-miserable-together as he picked up bits of a discussion between about about 'dynamics' and a 'syringe' together

Tearing through his skull however was their frequent keens of miserable-pack-hates-us-we're-not-safe-here

Unseen by them was Damian, stiff if not for the movement of breathing and the gazes of oh god that was longing

Jason used all of his willpower to not tear off either of their blockers and he took Damian's hand

Try as he might, he couldn't resist keening in response to his pups. His response making the others stop barely made him feel better

Jason was going insane

He has to put an end to this

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

With even Barbara having to go offworld, Batman entrusted Tim with keeping charge of Gotham

After Batman left, he couldn't be faster in delegating some of the job to Jason, shakey as his limbs were

The back of Jason's brain tingles with deja vu seeing the sorry sight that is Timothy

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

A hospital in Gotham admitted a new patient

Days later, word hit the streets that Joker was good as dead, a vegetable for life, if only for the bare minimum brain activity and heartbeats keeping him going

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

'For once,' Jason thought as he stocked up his chosen safehouse to hunker down in, 'The Bat was right but too late in not entrusting me with unclipped wings'

He would do anything to make Gotham more peaceful than it's ever been for this string of months. Even pull every favor he had to get it done

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

"Pack everything you want to keep more than anything in your suitcase pup. nothing for keeping face, we're going to be alone"

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

"Steph! Red Hood betrayed us, it was a false alarm. Alert the on-world Bats and—!" Scent withdrawal was a nasty, nasty thing if a hug and an older omega's scent was all it took to knock the pup out

Omega-protector-here-you're-safe-now-pup wafted through the air yet unable to purge the misery-alone-unsafe clinging to them both

Jason would rectify that soon

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Stephanie had been on her wits end and her mind frayed alongside Tim's in ways everyone and thing else would envy

Today that thread of sanity snapped. She had no pack—she can't trust anyone—Tim needs her!

The Drake Manor acquired a broken window, which the super-computer stored in it's secret bunker promptly noted for repair. no girl or boy would see it for a time

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Deep in the Batcave, Cassandra gazed at the syringe full of fluid

A syringe which would be innocuous if not for it being locked in a suitcase that needed a mix of Tim and Steph's Dynamic vocals and pheromones to activate

Something achieved only after intense trial and error, prediction of randomly timed password lockouts, and guesswork on what clips of the two making sufficient audio were Dynamic vocals, and which of their items retained enough pheromones to trick the technology it was fresh from their wrists

Included with the syringe were documents of its nature

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Danger!-unsafe-unwanted-pack-where-are-you-please-don't-kill-me flooded the room after Tim caught sight of Damian and Jason

The omega chuffed, pack-omega-here-pup-you're-pack

An omega-puppy's keen, i-don't-get-it-confused-you-hate-me

A puppy's yip, omega-is-safe-protector-pack-scared-unsafe?

"You're safe pup," Jason crooned, combing his fingers through the teen's hair, "You belong to my pack and so will Stephanie, nobody, not even we'll hurt you."

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

All the desperation in the world couldn't get Stephanie to escape a Red Hood who'd spent the last months studying their battle tactics endlessly

And even more months packless meant a new pup in the roster led to him purging the air of anything but his scent of precious-pups-you're-my-pack-i-love-you

Tucking his new pup in the nest, he did a round of checking on the safehouse's security, then his nest, making sure the pack was sleeping comfortably. He scented them again for good measure

Exhaustion wore on his bones. Wrapping his arms around Stephanie as Tim did Damian

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Something was coming, Jason shot up, longlearned in trusting his gut, and as the only grown pack member? It fell onto him to protect them all

He froze at the approaching scent of a beta-pup, another pup, but how?

He heard the mechanisms of the front door unlocking and locking again, and waited for what was coming

The scent drew his gaze to Cassandra's eyes, Cassandra who was waffing lonely-packless-beta-pup-i-want-my-pack-confused

No matter, Jason made room in the nest for a fourth pup, and chuffed for her to come in

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Jason has maybe a year left of three of his pups being pups according to their Dynamics until they're full-fledged adults

All those months before they stewed in misery because he let their pride and societal expectations trump it all

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

"The syringe" is all Cassandra has to say about her sudden dynamic

As Tim confesses, those three Young Justice members had wanted to do something about Stephanie and him withering away

The solution? Reverse engineer their own biology to craft a more autonomous means of gaining a dynamic

Jason huffs that he and Dami weren't their first pick

That being said, he isn't saying no to three more pups

. • ° · ☽ 【×��� ☾ · ° • .

Word rapidly spreads that the Batman's baby birds were spirited away by Red Hood

Even quicker is their meta status of the same vein

Asking strangers "Would you rather get caught doing child-involved crimes by Red Hood, or laying a scratch on his pups?" becomes a viral sensation much like Man vs. Bear

Rogues throw their hands up once Wonder Girl, Superboy, and Impulse join the fray of Red Hood's adoptees

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

When the Bats return back to Earth, they find those who stayed have not only cut contact with the rest of the world outside of Gotham and Young Justice, but have dragged Young Justice to join in on pushing their new isolationist policities to their absolute limits

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

When Batman discovers photos of the Joker's mauled and unrecognizable body have gone viral on Twitter, he's dissapointed at his own surprise as how easy finding the details were

All he had to worry was verification, which was simple enough

When the hospital's data shows that it was done with claws and teeth, unrecognizable pheromones matching just one boy he knows

Jason grins at him, omega canines on display

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

Is it Batman's business if his pups hand over a syringe and their favorite hoodies to a precious little light down two parents to Joker Gas?

Jason thinks not

. • ° · ☽ 【×】 ☾ · ° • .

I accidentally made a fic

How did this happen? Oh well then

Extra Notes

This was just meant to be a Jason & Damian & Damian thing but then Stephanie and Young Justice and Cass snuck into the nest

And this transforming into a fanfic that was semi-jason-centric wasn't on my bingo but lol

Also rip if you dunno wtf the omegaverse is lmao

Even if Joker is out of the game, Jason couldn't prevent his inventions from getting out there and being reverse engineered and being distributed, hence how Duke's parents still took the L

Now a little Jason think piece

In Canon, he's arguably just as guilty as Bruce for Joker's crimes and victims after he doesn't kill him then and there

Arguably because he cares more about Bruce than the victims and collateral of Joker's deeds

Jason in a position where more than ever, he sees family and community as his world, to the point it's need to live on a psychological level? Threats cannot be allowed to exist

Or at least be able to do anything meaningful for as long as they still live

Joker is at the top of that list. And if Jason can come back from the dead? So could he. What to do?

You only need a beating heart & brain activity to live, and Batman won't let him his long time nemesis die, even as a mercy

I'd present more questions and ideas that didn't get into the final product and do another round of editting but my computers gonna die now lol

Go crazy, go stupid about my ask everybody

Alright! I do in fact know what the omegaverse is. I don't particularly like it for a variety of reasons, but some of the concepts are cool. If I wanted to have similar enough dynamics, I typically read shifter AUs. They have the pack bonding, the scent shit, the different instincts, etc. without the stuff I don't particularly like (depending on how it's written, ofc).

The stuff I loved about this fic/AU:

Fixed Tim and Steph's dynamic in a way I didn't know I needed. Fuck yes to them supporting each other through their Robin years instead of being pitted against each other.

Steph and YJ bonding

Steph and Tim continuing to support each other even through the BruceQuest

Steph and Tim bonding over how fucked up Bruce was to them during their Robin years

The hc/au that Tim becomes an Oracle-like support to Steph's Robin

The hc (kind of canon-ish) that Jason and Damian met in the League

Jason adopting everyone including Cass and YJ and Duke

I am curious about Dick and where he is in all of this. Also, it wasn't quite clear to me who was affected by the omegaverse stuff. Everyone who was adopted by Jason was, but is there anyone else besides that villain?

Two notes you made at the end that were impactful:

Jason is complicit in Joker's murders after he doesn't kill the Joker

I think that is dependent on Jason's characterization. If, how it's often portrayed in canon/media, he cares more about Bruce's actions/reactions than justice, then this is true. On the other hand, Jason may be unable to kill the Joker due to a vicious concoction of trauma, fear, Bruce, and circumstances. It would be understandable (and a great angst/conflict point) if Joker is the only person Jason is unable to kill. He wants to, by everything he is does he want to, but he can't. If anyone wants me to expand, send an ask.

"Batman won't let his long time nemesis die, even as a mercy"

This is the type of Dark Bruce I want to see. My gods, I would kill to see a fic where Bruce views murder as a mercy, too permanent, and too forgiving. This Bruce wants to force villains, rogues, heroes, civilians, etc. to work for their redemption. If they die, how are they going to make amends? What good is atonement if the only one to witness it is God and the dead? What good is forgiveness given by those unaffected?

I'm not saying this is an okay or decent mindset (hence why it's Dark Bruce). I'm just saying it would be cool to explore a Bruce who refuses to kill for entirely different reasons. Instead of it being too far, him being worried about never stopping, or him not agreeing morally, I would fuck with a fic where he doesn't kill so he can make people pay for as long as he wants.

[woodchipp]

1) "Kel would probably feel betrayed that his friend lied to him about the suicide of his other friend, but he has no right to feel that since he's also done bad things!" I don't think you understand how callous this sounds

2) None of the bad things Kel did are comparable to KILLING A PERSON AND LYING ABOUT IT. BE SO FUCKING FOR REAL RIGHT NOW

3) "we see during the Omori fight that Sunny is afraid of hurting his friends more than he already did" well, let's take a look at the excerpt of Omori's speech this is likely referring to, then, shall we?

"...and when they see the truth, they'll hate you as much as you hate yourself. If they know the truth, you'll never be able to regain their trust."

Sunny doesn't give a shit about whether he'd hurt his friends with his confession or not. He's only concerned about the possibility that they would hate him for killing Mari.

4) "and when Kel finally tried opening up to Hero" Kel was trying to help him, not vent to him. He specifically mentions he told Hero how much everyone misses him, how concerned everyone is and how much Mari wouldn't want to see him like this, the last of which is (presumably) what set him off.

Play the game.

5) "has realized the importance of maintaining relationships" would you be willing to maintain a relationship with someone who had no trouble lying to you about their lack of involvement in someone else's death?

1)

"She nearly kills Basil on accident in a direct parallel way to Sunny, which would contribute to her understanding what Sunny went through."

Or she would hate Sunny even more because at least she had the balls to try and own up to what she did immediately. It rang hollow and she picked the worst possible time to apologize to Basil, but she did make an effort to change right upon recognizing how much of an asshole she was. Sunny's immediate response to his crime, on the other hand, was to stay cooped up in his house for 4 years because he's a coward who'd rather let everyone believe he's innocent than be honest with the people he loves.

("But he couldn't even remember the truth!" Yeah, because he's been consciously suppressing it via Omori each time it surfaced.)

2)

"She would understand the isolation that Sunny felt and the inability to open up to others about what happened."

No, that's not how it works. She wouldn't be able to relate to Sunny's isolation precisely because she had the Hooligans as a support system (however eccentric they might've been), and her inability to open up to anyone about Mari's suicide is not comparable to Sunny's choice not to admit he's a murderer. Be so fucking for real right now.

1) Again, this entire argument hinges on the misconception Kel was venting to Hero. He was trying to motivate the latter. Play the game.

2) "But while he was able to tell Kel he was sorry, Sunny never had that chance and I think Hero would understand that." Or he'd be too busy struggling to process the fact Mari's brother - and someone he considered a close friend - was perfectly willing to lie to him about her death to think about that. But I guess the "they're traumatized children" defense applies only to the murderer and his accomplice :)

3) "Hero also abandoned everyone in the same way Sunny did and he vowed to not make that mistake again." Hero shut down because he was in genuine pain. Sunny chose not to tell anyone because he was a coward. Be so fucking for real right now.

4) "To assume that he would walk that back and abandon Sunny when Sunny needs him the most" Note that Hero's feelings are not accounted for. Sunny needs him the most, and that's all that matters. Hero is only allowed to be The Dad.

5) "I believe he would empathize with Sunny for not being able to confront Mari’s death until everyone came back together." That's not how it works. Hero wasn't able to accept the fact Mari killed herself. Sunny didn't want to face the fact he killed her. Be so fucking for real right now.

1) "I think Basil is the most likely person to forgive Sunny on account of the sheer amount of guilt that he feels" That isn't forgiveness. That is feeling like you're not allowed to be angry.

2)

"the love he has for Sunny and the love he has for his friends and their memories together would allow for him to understand why Sunny did the things he did."

What is there to understand? What is there to understand when your best friend kills someone you saw as a close friend, then defaces your most precious belonging and leaves you to deal with the cover-up's aftermath by yourself, then comes out three days before he's due to leave the town, then walks out on you in the middle of your mental breakdown as you beg him to stay and then decides to ruin all your efforts to keep him safe when you aren't even awake?

Basil's "love for his friends and their memories together" wouldn't matter. He may still love his friends, but they sure won't love him after what he did anymore. Things will never go back to the way they were before.

Oh, but Sunny smiled at him in the secret ending, so everything's going to be just peachy, right? :)

"I'm sorry, please forgive me" man I fucking love victim-blaming

[easy-a-b10g]

Chapter Two: What it takes to be a hero

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

Hello here are your crumbs sorry my life is falling apart I probably won't write anymore I've really lost my passion for it I'm so sorry y'all this is kinda edited but again not really, it also seems really rushed imo but the episodes are so short there really isn't much more I can wright 😭😭 -A

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

With Izuku missing and Nova injured, it takes all her strength to make it to the Hero's to find help, only to be thrown into something much bigger than herself. 

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

Waking up was a slow start.

The ringing in her ears came first, loud, harsh, obnoxious ringing. Everything around her felt muted, like her surroundings were closing in on her she tries to move but to no avail. It's dark, pitch dark she can't see a thing, or feel, the only feeling is suffocation. 

Breathe she can't seem to get herself to breathe. It's like shes drowning lungs, eyes and ears all burning with the feeling. Water surrounds her like a silent killer, waiting and watching like a predator about to pounce.

get up

There was something itching in the back of her mind, something important, something she couldn't quite place. Think. Think. But thinking only bought on more pain. 

Pain.

Get up

Why is she feeling pain? Where is it coming from?What happened? What's happening? Where is she! How'd this happen!?

Get Up

Search, thinking, feeling, for anything to try and find a source of salvation from this torture.

Suddenly it all stops.

GET UP

The water drains and the panic subsides, and she can finally breathe. The burning suffocating feeling in her lungs disappeared but the fear remained it was still dark, so so dark. 

All that remains is a harsh riveting pain. One that begins at the base of her spine spreading and shooting through all her nerves. 

GET UP NOW.

Her eyes snap open in and instant sunlight streaming directly into them. Shutting them just as quickly as she had opened them, she tries to think, but she can't. Her head hurts, her back hurts, everything hurt. 

She tried to move but no dice, the pain just keeps getting worse with her movements. She was able to peek her eyes open slightly to try and check her surroundings. All she could see was a pedestrian crossing sign above her head.

Pedestrian crossing??

In that split second it all came rushing back to her, School, kacchan, Izuku,   walking home, the sludge monster, Izuku, getting hit, the sludge monster...

Izuku. 

Where is izuku.  

More importantly.

Where is the villain.

What the hell happened.

She has no idea how long she has been lying there, she's hoping it hasn't been long, it's still daylight out so It couldn't have been too long, right?

It takes at least 10 minutes before Nova finds the courage to move again. Pain shoots through her entire nervous system as she moves about but she manages to get herself into an up right position. 

Looking around slowly she assessed her surroundings. It dawns on her that she's still where she was when she presumably got knocked out. Her head hurts something fierce and her throat burns like hell, why she doesn't know. She's scared and confused and worst of all, Izuku is nowhere to be found. This frightens Nova more than the idea of being passed out on the side of the road.

She slowly tries to stand up but she immediately regrets it, stumbling as a sharp pain flares up her left leg, forcing her back to the ground. Her head is spinning and her ears are ringing, she sits and collects herself for a moment, taking deep calculated breaths.

Opening her eyes she carefully looks around once more for any sign of izuku, a bunch of Izukus things are on the ground scattered in different places around her. Things she knows for a fact that Izuku would never voluntary leave behind if he had the choice. 

His backpack for one was a limited edition All Might golden age backpack that Izuku saved up for, for two years. There was no way in hell he'd leave that behind. Nor would he voluntarily leave his hero trading cards, he has been collecting t since he was at least 6 years old.

Nova spends a moment trying to get herself to stand back up despite the pain and when she does her leg starts to throb just as much as it did before. But she can't worry about that, she has to find Izuku. She pushed through the pain and slowly limped to all of Izukus belongings and picked them up one by one. She looked around for any more clues on what could have happened and the only thing she sees is the flipped over manhole cover in which she assumed is where the villain came from, or escape into. 

From what she can remember she tried to shove Izuku out of the way of that.....thing, then she was hit in the chest by it and then ....waking up on the side of the road. Nova couldn't stop thinking about all the possibilities of what could be happening to him right now. She was trying not to freak herself out,  she decided the best thing she could do was go home to Inko or no maybe a police station or- 

*BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*

Nova nearly jumped out of her own skin. The noise was so loud she thought something had dropped or crashed not even 10 feet from her. The noise made her notice the ringing in her ears as is got worse by the volume, she probably has a concussion, the explosion made the ground beneath her feet shake violently. Nova started spinning around to the best of her ability trying to look everywhere and anywhere, trying to find the source of the sound or anything in relation to it, and when she finally turned to her left she saw a plume of black smoke billowing into the sky from a distance.

Bingo.

If she's going to get help anywhere it's there. She knows heros and police officers alike will show up no matter what the commotion is, and she could get the help to find Izuku in no time. Even though her leg was on fire she forced herself to walk on it hoping to get there quick because deep down she was freaking the fuck out. 

Her journey was slow and painful, since school and work were out there weren't maybe people walking around. The people that did see her gave her odd looks but they all kept to themselves mostly, one by one passing her as if she didn't exist. 

Novas head feel like it's splitting in two, there is no way she doesn't have a concussion of some sort. The villain had sent her flying pretty far from where she and Izuku originally stood and he hit her quite hard if her leg had anything to say about it. The strength of the villain surprised Nova as he seemed to be made of nothing but liquid she had noted from the brief glance she got of him. If the situation where any different Izuku would already be analyzing and writing in his notes about the villains quirk. 

Nova trudged one for at least 30 minutes before she was able to make it to the cloud of smoke, it was billowing up from the Tatooin Shopping District and said smoke was billowing into the sky worse then before. Looking up from her spot behind the crowd Nova could see why.

There were heros, police, and firefighters, everywhere, yelling and shouting orders at each other and at the near by civilians. Everyone was yelling and screaming in panic, trying to flee the terrible scene. The sounds of glass shattering and wood burning could be heard loud and clear. Fire raged everywhere, licking up the walls of the Shopping District destroying anything and everything in it's path. 

*BOOM*. *BOOM* *BOOOOM* 

Nova had no time to think before some heros came billowing right towards her. She tried to grab one of their attentions, she tried to flag them down and let them know this isn't the only terrible situation happening right now. But in that moment they didn't care about her they cared about the fire, about the people, about the visible threat in front of them, they all ran past her without a second glance before the bigger of the three heros speaks up. 

"Look, it's taken someone hostage, how dare you pray on a child!" The hero threw himself into the fray to try and stop the villain.

A child, could it be Izuku? 

Please don't let it be Izuku. 

Nova shoves herself to the front of the crowd to try and get a better look. But the view she got was not one she would ever hope for. 

The seemingly liquid sludge monster that had attacked Nova and Izuku was here causing a rampage, he must have got himself cornered to try and go on like this. The villain kept moving, the sludge that is his (body, quirk??)  looked like it encasing what one the heros said was a child. 

"Ha! Stay back, or I'll snap his neck!"

His

He said HIS neck

Oh God, Oh God Oh God Oh god, Izuku!

But that thought was soon squashed by the desperate hollar of none other than Katsuki Bakugou.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

YOU PICKED THE WRONG GUY TO MESS WITH!

IM GONNA SEND YOU BACK TO WHATEVER SEWER YOU CRAWLED OUT OF!

LET ME GOOOOOOOOOO!"

Bakugou was growling and snarling like and animal caught in a trap thrashing and squirming trying his best to get free. 

The child thought to be Izuku is actually Bakugou. How did this happen? Where's Izuku? How did Bakugou get attacked? Is Izuku ok?  All these thoughts and more circulate in her mind. She can't seem to slow it down. Bakugous screaming and usage of his quirk wasn't making matters any better. His explosions breaking glass and setting fire to the surrounding area. 

It looked like the heros were having hell of a time trying to rein this villain, on the account of his sludge body, nobody seemed to posses the right quirk in order to stop him. But it's only a matter of time before he could seriously injure Bakugou or one of the heros.

Through all the noise Nova could hear the villain conversing with Bakugou "Man I really hit the jackpot, with a quirk like yours under my control, I can take All Might down with one punch." The villain was laughing and cackling like he had just said the funniest joke on earth. 

More and more heros are arriving on the scene, heros like Mt Lady and Kamui Woods, who only show up to realize how useless their powers are for the current situation. 

Bakugous quirk was throwing the whole district up into flames without him realizing or caring. He may have been defending himself but his explosions were making matters worse, an they aren't calculated their random and spontaneous at this point he's just trying to escape not to fight. 

By now a large crowd had accumulated in front of the scene and Nova has forgotten her original plan. She is frozen in fear, all she can do is stand and stare at the helpless Katsuki Bakugou as he fights for his life right in front of her eyes. The crowd is getting restless. "Why hasn't anybody captured this guy yet?" "What's taking so long?" "Why are they just standing around do something for Christ sake!" 

Bakugous movement were becoming slow and sluggish, he's been struggling for the last 5 minutes against this sludge, Nova can't imagine she'd last even half that time suffocating under all that sludge. Bakugou tries to turn his head away from the monster and when he opens his eyes Nova heart drops. 

Katsuki Bakugou the bully, Katsuki Bakugou the strong outstanding student, Katsuki Bakugou the student so sure in his abilities he's been bragging for weeks about getting into the best hero school Japan has to offer, was standing before her with a look of defeat and something else something that screamed 'help me please, I'm scared'.

Her body moved before she could think, disregarding the pain that flared through her entire body Nova did nothing but trudge forward. Putting one foot in front of the other she sprinted toward him. Why...she doesn't know Bakugou has never been nice to her always calling names and throwing punches why should she care what happens to the town bully. But she moves regardless. 

"No you idiots! Stop, your going to get yourselfs killed!" Nova could here the heros yelling and screaming but she didn't listen all she did was continue on.

Idiots....plural??

"Are you nuts what are you doing here?!" 

Turning her entire body Nova visablly deflates, standing before her is none other than Izuku Midoryia, unruly hair, bright eyes, and same old freckles shes been starring at for the past 10 years of her life.

Before she can quip back Izuku shoves Nova off to the side before shot putting his hero notebook into the villains face hitting him square in the eye. This stunned the villain, only temperaly allowing Bakugou to breathe. "What the hell? Why are you two here?" Bakugou screamed in frustration Nova had no answer so Izuku answered for them both. " I don't know. My legs just started moving." At this point both Nova and Izuku are clawing helpessly at the villain in hopes to get a grip on Bakugou.

With Izuku confession Nova found her own voice " Just because I hate you doesn't mean you deserve to die fuck face what kinda hero would turn a blind eye to their enemys pain, I'm not just going to stand around and watch you die!" 

Bakugou doesn't respond to them only screaming at the villain to get the fuck off of him. The sludge villain raises his hand once more to strike and its not in slow motion,  shes been told near death experiences slow down time and how your life flashes before your eyes. The latter may be true but the former certainly was not everything is sped up ten fold. The villains hand comes down in an instant and in that second Nova manages to pivot on her feet to grab izuku shoving him to the ground, throwing her body over him like a shield, bracing for impact. 

Nova eyes are squeezed shut and all she can hear his Izuku soft wines and whimpers. He smells like burnt mint and eucalyptus a nasty combination from the normally clean smelling Omega. As time goes on and the blow never comes Nova finally removes her head from Izukus shoulder thought still keeping Izuku down in case something happens. What she doesn't expect is for the Number one hero her and Izukus idol, to be standing right in front of them, seemingly having protected them from the villains mighty blow. 

"I really am pathetic, I told you the traits that make a great champion, but I see now I wasn't living up to my own ideal. Pros are always risking their lives! That's the true test of a hero!" 

What he was talking about Nova had no idea but all might had effectively gotten a hold onto Bakugou as he made his little speech. 

"DAMN YOU ALL MIGHT!" the sludge villain screams in deafeat as all might yells out his infamous, 

                                  DDDDEEEEETTTTTRRRRRROOOOOOIIIIIIIITTTTT

SSSSSSSSMMMMMAAAAAAAAASSASSHHHHHH

It takes one mighty blow from the hero to send the sludge monster flying, breaking up the villain into multiple tiny fragments the force of the punch not allowing him to pull himself together. With his other hand he held Bakugou, Izuku, and Nova back so they also didn't scatter into the wind. 

All Might kneeled on the ground first in the air in honor and a silence fell over the the crowd behind him. Before the exclamations of surprise started breaking through. "Woah what was that" , " Hey is that water, wait is that rain?" "Rain, it, it can't be." "Don't tell me all that wind just now was...?" " Look at the clouds they're moving!" 

* Holy crap he just changed the fucking weather* Nova stared at the hero in amazement and wonder as water started falling from the sky. All Might stands up with a proud smirk on his face. The crowd goes absolutely wild men and woman alike hollering in surprise and awe. "He changed the weather with a single punch like it was nothing!" Said one Pedestrian" , "All Might saved the day again, he amazing!" Said another. All Might raises his fist in triumph and the crowd roars in approval and it seems like All Might is enjoying the attention. 

Novas attention although was stolen from the amazing hero when Izuku tugged on her sleeve. Turning to face him his reaction was not one she had been expecting. She expected tears, many many tears, and snot looots of snot. But what she found was a face full of excitement and wonder one full of determination and drive.

As the heros collected all the scattered mounds of sludge and the villain went into police custody where he belonged, Nova and Izuku were getting chewed out by the heros, big time.

" You morons, do you have a death wish?" Yelled Kamui Woods 

" There was absolutely no reason for you two to put yourselves in danger like that!" Deatharms screamed 

This when on for sometime but Bakugou was getting quite the opposite. Bakugou was praised for his bravery in such a situation. He was receiving compliments left and right even gaining sidekick offers from some wannabe heros. 

When the heros finally decided to stop yelling at them they had to make statements on what happened and get checked for injuries. The pain she has felt before dulled to a slow ache as time went on and the paramedics couldn't see nor feel any injuries so she was sent on her way, against their better judgement Nova was not going to go to the hospital, the bill would absolutely kill her even if it wouldn't be much she needs all the money she can get right now and a hospital bill certainly wont fit into the budget. 

After about and hour or so they were finally free to go. Within the last hour Nova finally figured out what had happened to Izuku when she passed out. Apparently  the sludge villain has popped up out of the manhole cover hence why it was flipped. Turns out the villain was using the sewage lines under the city to traverse from place to place. After he knocked Nova unconscious he had tried to steal her body just like he tried to do to Bakugou, but when the villain was nearly done All Might himself had popped up out of the sewers following his trail and had blown away the sludge villain  for the 1st time around and when All Might tried to leave to take the villain to the police apparently Izuku had a better idea. 

"I still can't believe you left me unconscious on the side of the road to ask All Might a freaking question!" Nova fumed as she and Izuku finally made the trek home " I mean I understand why you did it it All Might for Christ sake, but for real Izuku I was unconscious, I could have been seriously injured." Izuku sulked like a child being scolded. Nova has been apart of many villain attacks in her city, either just really bad luck or the universe must really hate her. Either way villan attacks were a common thing for her but it did sadden her that she wasn't a priority in the situation given the circumstances but she's used to it. 

"Nova I'm so so so sorry I never should have tried to stop him if I didn't Kacchan and all those innocent people wouldn't have been attacked and those businesses wouldn't have been burned down and this is all my fault I'm so sorry.  I'm so so sorry I'm such a terrible person." 

(note: I am aware Izuku Midoryia would never leave a defenceless unconscious woman on the side of the road just to talk to All Might but this is just for plot purposes 😋)

" Izuku, Izuku, IZUKU!' 

His rambling finally stop as his mouth snaps shut with an audible clink of his teeth. " You had an opportunity to talk to All Might of all people and took it." Izukus eyes filled with unshed tears, " It's ok really Izuku if you think about it I was only out for 10 or so minutes anway so it not like I was in any real danger." The words sting because anything could have happened to her in those 10 minutes, another villain could have shown up, or a drunk alpha with nasty intentions could have taken advantage of her, she's actually very lucky. "I'm ok now are I?" The question does little to sooth Izuku so she pulls out her last resort.    Humor.   "Alright if you really want to make it up to me, you'll just have to be my human shield when the apocalypse inevitably starts. "  

Izuku blinks one, twice, and then he snorts loudly and obnoxious, "This is not the time and place Nova." Thought as the words come out Izuku can't help but try to hide his smile. " Well hey I say it's fair and square." Izuku raises his brow " Fair? If we're doing Fair then I should be your shield for 10 minutes max!" Nova and Izuku stop walking and they only stare at each other, before they burst out into obnoxious laughter. 

"I wish I could have apologized to All Might for making him drop that villain, if it weren't for me Kacchan wouldn't have another reason to hate me, I guess I can always just say something on his website when I get home." Izuku speaks with a dejected tone, and Nova doesn't know what to say to that because he's right it is his fault if he wasn't so selfish he wouldn't have grabbed onto All Might as he tried to spring away and the villain would have never attacked another person. 

Coming to the forked path of Okiqa road Nova and Izuku stop. "Seriously though are you ok whatever that villain was doing looked like it really hurt, are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?" Nova has a nasty thought pop up before she squashes it down with a cough *Where was the concern when I was unconscious?*

"Yeah I'm all good zu, nothing a good night's rest won't fix!" She tried to stay cheerful but at this point her facade was slipping. "Well I guess I'll see you tomorrow!" "But..." Before Izuku could utter another word Nova starts down the left side of the forked path while Izuku slowly ebbs into the right one keeping and eye on Nova until she is out of sight. 

Novas walk is silence except for the constant buzzing of cicadas, the low songs from the birds of the night, as well as the sound of her feet dragging against the gravel road  

And then she hears it, loud obnoxious huffing and stomping making its way towards her. Looking up to find it source she comes face to face with Bakugou Katsuki who is no doubt on his way home from the whole fiasco himself. "Hey, we need to fucking talk!" Bakugou stands and pants heavily like he'd just ran a marathon. "Listen I would never ask for two weaklings like you to help me, don't think you can look down on me especially that deku."

Nova scoffed and rolled her eyes " Yeah cause being saved by All Might himself is totally handling it, but continue." 

Bakugou seethes, " HUH? THE HELL DID YOU SAY, I WAS FINE ON NY OWN GOD DAMMIT YOU TWO DIDNT DO JACK GOT THAT! I WAS FINE BY MYSELF!" 

" YOU GOD DAMN HERO WANNA BES WOULDN'T EVEN MAKE IT AS RENT A COPS!" Bakugou iS huffing from his outburst and is shaking with pure anger. "You didn't help me, you did nothing, because you are nothing, don't forget that, I don't owe you anything!" And with that final statement he pushed past Nova like she didn't exists and continues to stomp and huff as he walks away. Leaving Nova confused and slightly hurt, she understands she didn't do much, but hell she did more than what most the heros did combined, so fuck him and his temper tantrum. 

Nova didn't need his bullshit, she didn't need it at all.

All she needed now was a bath and a goddamn nap.  

[sapphic-agent]

There's one thing I wanna ask Hori about the narrative that I'm surprised isn't talked about more.

Why weren't any of the characters allowed to question their society and heroes function as a whole?

Because when kids start off with hating heroes (Kota and those brats from the second movie), they're treated to be in the wrong and has to see how great heroes can be.

Which given the context that this is a society that turns a blind eye to it's corruption and how the minority suffers, it just comes across as putting rose tinted glasses on them to keep them away from the truly bad stuff.

Like, I get it with Kota, because his hatred of heroes stems from watching his parents die and believing they chose work over him, and that this hatred could grow into a problem later to where he might end up as a villain.

But at the same time, how come this didn't let Izuku to think about the society that shunned and berated him for being born different from everyone? How come no one else stop and think that this society is on the path to collapsing on itself if nothing is done?

In a story like this, characters should be allowed to question things around them and wonder if there's anything they can do make it more bearable for others, to seek out the change they wanna see so others wouldn't have to suffer like they did.

Kota is a great example, but I raise you Stain and the LOV.

Stain made sense. He went about it in entirely the wrong way, but he was right about false heroes and how much of a problem they were. But he's a murderous psychopath so we're supposed to take his words as out of touch rambling because he attacked Ingenium who was one of the good heroes.

(We're also given no proof. He says heroes are corrupt but we aren't shown why he thinks that and we don't see it beyond Endeavor. Even more reason not to take what he's saying seriously)

Hori could have really sold this by making Tensei perhaps not so virtuous. Maybe he had or started with good intentions but ended up contributing to toxic hero society in some way and Iida was blind to it because he was the big brother he admired. That would have made Tenya's character development hit harder in my opinion. Having Tensei confess this to Tenya would have made the Stain arc even better.

Which brings us to the LOV.

I feel like Hori forgot that Dabi and Toga also joined the LOV because of Stain, not just Spinner. They, on some level, absorbed his words and wanted what he did even if they were also fueled by other motives.

That's why a lot of Dabi's later character doesn't make a whole lot of sense. For those who knew he was Touya, it was implied that he was abused similarly to Shoto and was angry at Endeavor's treatment of his children. And then was inspired by Stain to call out his father as a false hero and take down the system that (indirectly) destroyed his family.

But no, he wants to kill Shoto, doesn't give a shit about Rei or Fuyumi, and almost got Natsu (the brother he was close to and presumably cared about) killed. And all to get back at Endeavor and make him suffer. Dabi's motives were a major let down and it reduces him to a one-dimensional villain, one who only wants to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. There's no hint of the influence Stain apparently had on him.

Toga is the same. She, presumably, admired Stain because of the similarities in their quirks. It's implied she joined the LOV to be with people like her (which is why she- as Camie- asks Izuku what kind of hero he wants to be, she's trying to see if he's one of those people). Who were outcasts and wanted to be able to do what they wanted with no persecution from others. She wanted to be free, even if she had a warped perception about what that meant. But over time, Horikoshi made her a creepy, predatory yandere type (seriously, what the fuck was the point of having her grope Uraraka??) with no depth to her actions.

Both Dabi and Toga never mention Stain or his ideals again. They're just psychopaths who need to be stopped. It dehumanizes them and uses mental illness for further antagonize them.

Spinner is the only one who still attempts to embody Stain's ideals. But of course, he never gets any focus. He's a "coward" who never stands up the the LOV (except when he stopped Magne from killing Izuku) even though he feels guilty about what they do. So most of the time, he isn't portrayed in a way that makes us stop and think. It's all too easy for the audience to dismiss or forget about him.

Anyone who (rightfully) questions or criticizes or openly despises the corrupt society in this universe is portrayed in a negative light. Even if what they're saying is technically right, we throw it away because they're doing something bad.

Really, there's only one character who's the exception. I'm, of course, talking about Lady Nagant.

Listen, me and Hori got beef all day everyday. BUT Nagant is one of the most exceptional characters I've ever seen in anime.

What I love about her is that she's someone who genuinely started out with good intentions and wanted to do the right thing but was torn down by society. It destroyed her from the inside out. The actions she took aren't even that extreme, they make sense considering everything she went through. Her problems with society aren't inane or hypocritical ramblings, she's 100% correct in her assessments because she was an unwilling participant in the corruption.

The problem with Nagant, however, is that she's with us for such a short amount of time that we don't get to take a deep dive here. We don't get to dissect why, exactly, society is so corrupt or find a solution to it.

It sucks because Hori was SO CLOSE to hitting the mark with Nagant. I think introducing her- or someone similar to her (missed opportunity with Hawks)- a lot sooner would have really improved the story

[weepylucifer]

people are?? saying good things about my cody characterization on ao3?? aaaaaa 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

and the thing is basically i've decided to just TAKE the popular fanon where cody basically exists to take care of obi-wan and decided to riff on it like, if there was a person who primarily existed to take care of others, how would he feel about it? why would he live this way? what if he snapped one day and decided enough is enough he's going to put himself first for once, only to then discover he barely knows how to do that? what if he immediately dove into a relationship with the next fixer-upper project person (darth fucking maul, he of the 3645637829 mental illnesses) just because that's what feels familiar to him in a world unmoored, but was aware of it the whole way down?

i mean, even folks who decide he has to have more going on than obi-wan usually just add a second character trait where he's always taking care of his brothers. which is already BETTER than just "the brown guy exists to serve his white love interest" but it still makes cody the guy who only is there to support others and has very little inner life except for "the competent and helpful guy/brain cell holder" (he's kinda feminine coded that way lmfao)

it reminds me of that one tweet where this lady went to another woman's funeral and realized with horror that all the eulogies were only about how this woman always did things for others and put her own needs second, and nothing about her character, whether she was funny or smart or what. that's how people like fanon!obi-wan or the fanon command batch would speak at cody's funeral fr

and then i thought about politics and diplomacy bc i love that shit, and how cody exists in such a weird in-between-space as a clone, barely considered a person, but one of the most powerful clones. and i was inspired by the star wars propaganda art book where it's shown how clone wars propaganda by the republic centered the clones so much (bc for several reasons it couldn't be the jedi) and how that sparked not only support for clones but also inadvertently shone an increasing spotlight on how weird and bad the clones' situation was; these men being grown extra fast, knowing nothing but war, more and more being churned out and thrown into the meat grinder to prolong palpatine's war. i was thinking cody would presumably have been a poster boy, would have a public persona as a clone you can recognize (his distinctive armor and scar), as a dutiful war hero, with his straight-edge, sparkling clean personality. he'd presumably have to talk to propagandists and press, attend galas to drum up war bond sales and bolster the GAR's public image. his life would have to be a tightrope walk, always carefully saying the right things to the right people to juggle the needs of his men, obi-wan, clones in general, and keeping the senate happy and paying lip-service to some idea of loyalty to the republic. and like obi-wan is the negotiator bc that's just his specialization as a jedi, cody would have to be a negotiator out of need, and he'd be trapped doing this, bc he can't resign from the army and fuck off, this is the life he's locked into. he's the slightly more powerful slave negotiating with the overseers on behalf of all the other slaves, who look to him to... not even lead them to freedom, just to make their situation more bearable

in practice this would look like making sure the third systems army is well-supplied, gets r&r sometimes, and casualties are kept as low as possible. it would look like constantly bothering a disaffected senate and pleading with a public who's starting to get tired of clones for sufficient budget, sufficient gear, actual healthcare for the wounded instead of just decommissioning, etc. and then order 66 happens, and it's revealed to cody that the clones (or jedi) as people were never the priority. that all along, while he was running himself ragged to run this army efficiently, it was all happening for the benefit of one man who actively gets off on their suffering. who wouldn't snap?

[quidfree]

hear me out…. todobaku as villains???

im going to disappoint you anon bc i am not a like... dark & twisted fantasy villain au person. as per quidfree canon what keeps me going is good characterisation and so you will find no undercut tattoo-laden bad boys here.

if you want my two cents on what todobaku villain au would most likely look like though it's under the cut

todoroki:

this one is easy right? touya exists. shouto already has his villain backstory: his dad is a bigshot hero uplifted by society and also an abusive bastard in private. his motivations in hero-oriented society are obvious.

i think shouto probably distinguishes himself from touya in a number of ways, one of which being style of villainy. touya was a lot more unstable emotionally (?tied to his quirk self-harm stuff) and undiscerning in his resentment (see: woman hater) even before he ran away. i think shouto would be a more classic anti-hero type villain, less quick to cause chaos and death to unrelated civilians or high schoolers. they would have an uneasy relationship if and when shouto figured out who dabi was- i think he would retain his empathy for his siblings and mother, but he would disagree with touya’s choices.

i see him as a loner villain, not likely to join the league. early UA shouto appeared to have literally never spoken to another person in ten years, so if he around that age veered off the expected path and went MIA, i think the whole ice prince thing would solidify pretty definitely. and that’s the kind of personality he’d have too- icy, controlled superiority over a core of red-hot rage. no quips here. though some dramatics. he hides it but shouto always has flair.

shouto is a practical guy first and foremost. i think he’d just wear something similar to his plumber fit. maybe something akin to a balaklava to mask his identity, but maybe not, if he wants to make his father aware of his actions. i do think touya-style he might go for a hairdye, but in his case it’d probably be bleach, as a sort of obvious reclaiming of rei’s heritage and rejection of enji’s.

overall as villains go if we are keeping to a world close to canon shouto is probably one of the more morally upright people you will encounter. very scary motherfucker but pretty targeted enemies, so unless you’re involved in maintaining the hero justice system at some pivotal level you’re probably safe. if you are though? rip i guess. prepare to have your home frozen, your limbs stuck to the ground, and an icepick summarily driven through your skull by a teenager.

bakugou

katsuki is tough because for him it very much depends on setting, and at a basic level when you’re looking at. katsuki fundamentally is not a fuck the system guy- he’s a guy the system loves, and he’s interested in winning it, not destroying it, at least until character development kicks his ass. so really if you want to go early canon for both of them, villain bakugou is just hero bakugou. a katsuki from the start of bnha left to continue on his presumed arc uninterrupted, no deku or kidnapping or war to force him to question himself. arrogant and cruel and uncaring of what heroism is meant to be about. saving big numbers, sure, or at least defeating big ones, but when your defeats involve death or as good as, hard to draw the line.

similarly, in a universe where for some reason heroes have lost their relevance and villains reign, teen katsuki would have very easily risen in that direction, with similar traits.

who would his targets be? whoever’s in his way, pretty much. even in a more anti-hero slant, villain’s goons would not be safe. and anyone who tried to recruit / hire / ally him would inevitably face some kind of betrayal bc katsuki simply got sick of orders and believes he can handle the fall-out.

in terms of looks, katsuki is more style conscious than shouto is, but as lord explosion murder doesn’t necessarily look very heroic i think he wouldn’t look that different. maybe more of the black and winter-suit vibes.

for as insufferable as he would be, he would also be horrifying, yes. i mean, the guy is a starter kit terrorist. even if he was in tantrum ego mode he could level a street. collateral would be nasty if katsuki didn’t care to contain himself.

todobaku villain interaction ???

if we’re going with the above sort of setting? would not stand each other. for bakugou it’s obvious stuff (think sports fest and general canon), but todoroki genuinely would not tolerate villain bakugou at all, given the obvious alarm bells of similarity to endeavor. it’s not his focus but if bakugou died he would not be displeased.

as in any universe they could be begrudgingly forced into cooperation and then be privately disgusted by how well they worked together after the initial predictable faux pas. all of their other villain colleagues are like “can’t we just call that guy in for an assist again” and theyre like *breathing exercises* no.

they are both despite appearances and villainy-amplified dramatics fairly pragmatic so theyd probably not actively seek to cross each other unless they seemed to be getting in the way of their respective goals. they can recognise that this would be getting into it w an unnecessarily big distraction/threat. but i can imagine the “keep out of this” warnings would be fairly inventive. todoroki negligently thwarts one of bakugou’s plots and bakugou turns his entire hideout to rubble. a bunch of todoroki’s contacts are collateral during one of bakugou’s attacks and bakugou wakes up to find all of his security died of hypothermia overnight. lest we forget they both have petty streaks.

hero x villain interaction would be. very funny and very bad. hero todoroki would be So Tired of villain bakugou bc of how frustrating it is that hes actually hard to stop and villain bakugou in turn would resent him immensely. hero bakugou dealing w villain todoroki? that would be (psychologically bizarre) fun. i think for some reason that would be the closest we get to a bakugou w ‘doodling hearts against their own volition’ crush energy. but theyd get along a lot better than the reverse, mainly bc hero bakugou is like a decent person and villain todoroki respects moral integrity. in both duos in a lighter setting the villain of the two might start getting a mild kick out of messing w the hero despite their focus on other things just bc 1) it gives villain todoroki the mildest of entertainment to look forward to every blue moon given he doesn’t necessarily wish bakugou any active harm 2) villain bakugou feels he’s owed some todoroki suffering considering how annoying he personally finds him.

that’s my two cents on it anyways. idk what everyone else has in mind!

[centralcitylibrary]

A World Without Sonic the Hedgehog

This document talks about the following entries:

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

SegaSonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog CD

Knuckles' Chaotix

Sonic Adventure

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Heroes

Shadow the Hedgehog

Sonic Prime

The beginning of a videogame is important.

You need to make a good impression so as to encourage those just trying the game (or just trying it at an associate’s place) to commit to a purchase.

But you also need to teach those same players how to play the game, a hurdle that’s extra tough when accounting for those who have never picked up a controller before.

Older games usually had to dedicate their entire first levels into being subtle tutorials, teaching everything important without halting the flow of the game (it helps that back then it was normalised to print the game’s control scheme in a small booklet that came with the game).

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 was no different, if you passed the game to someone who had never played videogames before ever, you’re most likely going to see one thing first of all.

The player learns how to move left or right, and then walks straight into the first robot (a Motobug) and die.

That’s fine, obviously, that’s why the Motobug is even there in the first place, with rings just prior, so the player learns how to jump before they can continue with the game and see what it has to offer for them.

But I can’t help but wonder…

What if that was Sonic’s fate?

We may never truly know, but here's what I think would happen, in...

A World Without Sonic the Hedgehog

Era 0: the… Where’s the Timeline?

Wait, what?

Ah, right. With no Sonic, Shadow and Silver would never travel back in time to stop Mephiles and Iblis from escaping, creating the fiery post-apocalypse followed by the complete erasure of time itself as Solaris forms and destroys all.

But then Sonic never would’ve died against the Motobug to begin with, since that future never even comes to be, so how would we be able to say this happens for sure when the cause and effect are only possible due to a stable time loop of unknown origin?

Let’s… for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume this is in a timeline where 06 was already undone, shall we? We want to actually have a timeline, afterall.

Era 1: Classic Games

Our inciting incident, Sonic learns what’s happening on South Island, the animals being trapped and turned into robots by his long-time nemesis, Eggman, and runs off to help… directly into that first Motobug.

Eggman’s bounty system, which he had in place long enough that civilian trains he secretly made before this time period were using them, would mean that motobug would get any one “wish” it desired granted, within Dr. Eggman’s realistic capabilities. Likely nothing would come of this, but it is possible that it requests to, like, become Eggman’s strongest robot or something.

Eggman gets his hands on the 6 Chaos Emeralds hiding out amongst the island (given he achieves this even when Sonic stops him, as evidenced by the bad ending of Sonic 1), and from there gains the power needed to take over the world.

As for the supporting cast:

Mighty and Ray probably still get captured, and may or may not escape from Eggman Island. Presumably they do, given the game can be beaten solo or with a team of two as-is. They’re likely Eggman’s biggest obstacles going forward, just by virtue of Eggman’s rapid expansion.

With Eggman in charge, the fate of the world would likely have a resemblance to the Bad Futures of Sonic CD, the world in Sonic Forces, and New Yoke City in Sonic Prime.

But what about the 7th Chaos Emerald? We see at the end of Sonic Origin’s Sonic 1 that the 7th joined up with the other 6 when flying to South Island, but with them never making the trip where was it in the first place? Would it fly off somewhere? And if not to Westside Island, then to where?

It’s not a stretch to say Eggman will eventually be able to find it, especially since Tails is able to make an emerald radar by the time 3&K come around, and Eggman develops his own emerald radar by Sonic Adventure 2.

Amy Rose, whether due to some unconfirmed burgeoning clairvoyance or just fortune telling being an accurate method of telling the future in this continuity, would not get the same warning of a hero saving her on Little Planet, and as such would have no reason to go. Now, would Eggman grab the Time Stones?

Maybe.

But also maybe not. If he thinks the Chaos Emeralds are that much better he might just decide there’s no point, like when he left the Master Emerald behind because he was so impressed with the Phantom Ruby.

Given the Chaos Emeralds are also capable of time travel, it’s really a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

Tails, without Sonic to save him from bullies, would likely go on to develop vaguely similar to Nine from Sonic Prime (given that his mindset was born as a direct result of never being saved from bullies). Now that's not to say that he'll wind up exactly the same, the whole point of the Shatterverse is that they're different versions of the same cast, afterall.

Knuckles… would remain on his floating island, defending the Master Emerald from Eggman. At least until Newtrogic High Zone appears out of the ocean suddenly, then he’ll investigate that. Knuckles’ Chaotix is most likely the game that’s closest to playing out how it’s presented, with the only difference being that there’s no Metal Sonic and Eggman had plenty of time to prepare an emerald powered army, but conversely caught off-guard by so many people able to fight him all at once.

But beyond that, there's not much involvement Knuckles would have - afterall, Eggman's main benefit is the Chaos Emeralds, but the Master Emerald is capable of neutralising the Chaos Emeralds, and it's unlikely Eggman wants to push his luck unless he finds a good enough opening.

Say...

You remember that big dragon in Sonic Superstars, right? The one that just gets freed from no discernible cause? Yeah that probably still happens, causes problems too. But like, I don’t even know what it’s doing in the main timeline, there’s no way I can predict what it’ll do in this timeline. Just going to ignore it, pretend Eggman captures it somehow (like he planned to).

Era 2: the Adventure Games

Sonic Adventure… just wouldn’t happen. There’s no reason for it when Eggman’s already taking over the world with minimal resistance. As a result, Chaos and Tikal never get freed from the Master Emerald.

Big, given that he lives in a jungle, likely wouldn’t be bothered by Eggman’s takeover until it starts tearing apart his home. Gamma, if he exists, would never find reason to question his existence (and those birds will likely stay trapped).

Sonic Shuffle… might happen? It’s hard to say, but it’s within the realm of possibility. Nothing about Amy or Knuckles are fundamentally different that would lead them to decline, Big would probably still show up (if Gamma’s presence is given an in-universe explanation then it’s likely Big’s presence is within the realm of canon too).

And since the power of dreams can bring people back within Maginaryworld, and Sonic is already a world famous celebrity, it’s entirely plausible that he’d be present to help out, though I doubt he could just go back to Earth (given Gamma never went back either). Uh… Eggman ironically wouldn’t be present, not because he wouldn’t want to get the Precioustone, but because he wouldn’t be able to follow Sonic due to his death (not that I really understand how he managed to achieve that in the first place...). Tails is the only real outlier here, and likely wouldn’t end up in Maginaryworld.

Sonic Adventure 2 doesn’t happen… except for Knuckles and Rouge clashing. Unlike before, their fight over the Master Emerald would likely happen right away, given Eggman would not happen to be in the area.

Cream and Vanilla would get kidnapped for unspecified reasons, and then after that… Heroes wouldn’t happen, as there’s no Metal Sonic.

And already things aren’t looking great, are they? Eggman’s taken over the world, Tails has become a cynical, self-centered hermit, most of the cast are either fighting against Eggman’s emerald-boosted forces or just trying to protect themselves, and the nature and beauty of the planet is slowly getting torn apart.

Yeah, well, now the Black Arms arrive. Strong enough to overpower both GUN and the Eggman Empire, in a timeline where only one of those exist now, and who have the motivation to awaken Shadow – someone who wants revenge on humanity – and is as powerful as SA2 Sonic would’ve been, without a Sonic to necessitate Eggman making bigger and stronger robots, they'll be more than a match for Eggman.

And Eggman has all 7 Chaos Emeralds gathered together. This is the fate of humanity without Sonic, kept aboard the Black Comet as food for the rest of their lives. Even if Shadow tried to stop Black Doom (due to wanting to outright destroy the planet), he’ll just end up getting mind controlled due to his genetic relation with Black Doom.

Some miscellaneous events that would not be effect by this:

Blaze’s universe would be rather peaceful, with no Eggman Nega from the future to cause problems. But also Blaze would forever be in the mindset of being cursed to be alone and needing to do things by herself.

Erazor Djinn would not be able to find the 7 World Rings without someone not native to his world to collect them (assuming his book world doesn't get destroyed upon the physical book's destruction).

Merlina’s spell to summon “a hero from another world” either wouldn’t work or would bring in… someone else. So she’d either die from King Arthur or there would be too many unknown variables to even try and predict what will happen (again assuming the world's existence isn't reliant on the physical book).

The Wisps never get captured en masse? Yay?

Time Eater chilling in the void.

Dodon Pa will have to find his racers elsewhere.

All in all, it’s quite a good thing that the future of Sonic’s world wasn’t dependent on the very first time you played a Sonic the Hedgehog game, because that first run would have almost certainly ended in an apocalypse.

[yusuke-of-valla]

OK one of those characters on the book 9 poster HAS to be Frigg and I'm betting it's probably the woman standing next to (presumably) Odin/Alfaðor. I do wonder who those people standing next to Baldr are though? There's two of them I think.

This is earlier than I thought Asgarður would be, I'm wondering if book 10 (wow. That's. A year away. Wow.) will be Ragnarok, then? Cause I kinda doubt what Loki's been doing in the background with actually matter much this book even if she is showing up- and I'm even starting to question if she'll end up actually being an antagonist in the end, but there's no way she and Thor won't be involved in that somehow. At the same time, though... they kinda killed off Surtr? The cause of Ragnarok? I guess Muspell's probably their replacement for him mythology-wise... then again I could be overthinking this because this game has never been 100% accurate to Norse Mythology

Yeah I think they can figure out a way to do Ragnarok but I also feel that the EOS type deal.

Fire Emblem Heroes is like how tv shows needed to be in the early 2000s. You needed to know your start and your end but you had an ever-expanding middle to fill in if you got renewed (rip Lost idk how you expected that to work my dudes)

So like I fully believe they've had the finale prepped they're just saving it

I didn't notice there were two people behind Baldr but it does appear to be one person and then a shorter person with the same kind of halo as Baldr, make of that what you will

My guess is they're related to Rune somehow, at least I'm betting the short one is Also a child and this related to Rune.

(Also FUCKING TRAGIC Baldr has a wife but she's Nanna)

I wonder if they're Rindr and Vali? Rindr had Vali with Odin and then Vali killed Hodr for killing Baldr

Alternatively the feather combined with the other lady at Odin's side makes me think these could ALSO be Huginn and Munnin but that's a stretch.

I think Loki tricks Hodr into killing Baldr though, that seems a... very Loki thing to do, plus with all the Justice system ass stuff a frame job is about right. But even then I'd be shocked if we got more complicated than that.

Well ok. Rune being a part of Odin somehow seems right because that also seems to fit Odin's vibes and how FEH would structure a twist, but other than that

Given Freyja's lack of connection to Folkvangr and Njordr's lack of connection to Noatun, I'd be SHOCKED if Baldr had anything to do with Breidblik beyond like generally Breidablik being related to Asgard

Though yeah I expect Frigg to make an appearance and be royally pissed with Baldr bites it, and I think that secretary looking lady is as good a bet as any

[thetalentedmrwulf]

Abstracting Money in PF2E

Percolating something in my brain about Pathfinder 2e to abstract money / treasure. I like big damn hero / big damn villain stories, and if we're going to spend a session shopping, I'd prefer if it was because we had to find merchants that had what we needed and gossip about rumors than balance a ledger.

Prototype in my head is as follows -

Pathfinder 2e attaches Levels to most things - settlements, items, et al. Item levels give DMs a decent idea where in the power scale something is, settlement level indicates power level acquirable in that place, generally speaking. Items tagged Uncommon or Rare are harder yet to find even than that and may even be questing foci.

Further, because the game has proficiency equal your level + a bonus equal to how proficient you are (Trained +2, Expert +4, Master +6, Legendary +8), it also has pretty standardized difficulty rolls. The correct difficulty for a Level 10 problem is easy to chart or calculate, whichever you prefer, with stock modifiers for tweaking up or down if its relatively easy or hard in that instance.

So.... just use Level and a money stat to get what you need. First, we abstract money. Make the stat "Coin" (just because stealing from Blades in the Dark is fun.) Quantity of Coin for a task should map right to the Encounter builder - Trivial gives a Meager Reward, Low gives a Modest Reward, Moderate gives a Major Reward, Severe gives an Excellent Reward, Extreme gives an Epic Reward. This isn't an exact science like the encounter builder is; this should be based on the priority a person requesting a problem be solved views it as. Use the already existing "Make a Request" action to haggle over money or request tangible assistance since it already uses the built-in disposition system. Keep in mind, each party member gets one of these when completed. Then, for social, exploration, or combat encounters as relevant, hand out smaller Rewards from 1-3 as the quest progresses.

Now, when you need to buy an item, use the default level difficulty chart / math for any item you need. If the item is more than 4 levels lower than your level, presume you can purchase as many as are reasonably available. Then, as long as you have any "Reward" in hand, you can roll to buy something, adding the bonus of the Reward your risking. Each level of Reward gives you a +1, +2, +4, +6, or +8 depending on the level. Get a Critical Success, you get the Item for a great deal, you can buy a second Item of equal value and the Reward goes down a level. Get a regular success, and it's the same as a Critical, buy you only successfully purchase one item. Get a failure, and you purchase the item, but your Reward goes down by two. If you can't decrease this Reward by two, you owe the merchant a favor in return. If you Critically Fail, the item is harder to come by than you imagined and you're going to have to pull some strings to get it at all, potentially taking a job or quest. On getting the result, I think the player can always choose to walk away from getting the item if the price is too steep.

If you really want to lean into the idea of Uncommon, Rare, and say, Legendary items of certain levels being tough to acquire, make it so services or items rendered REQUIRE a certain level of Reward to make the roll. The important part of this system is you NEVER fail to acquire the item. It's just more expensive than you intended or more roundabout.

Feats that already modify getting a better price can be retrofit or new ones can be created that let you also add Cha, Int or Wis, or use a Skill in place of the Reward to haggle a better deal. I also think this could tie into Crafting nicely with the system that already exists.

That's all for now!

[kyogre-blue]

Wuwa act 1-V ongoing.

The game warned me that the next section is gonna be long, so I was decided to leave it for tomorrow (probably).

Anyway, this section introduces the Black Shores group and some Rover answers (small answers). We also get to see mystery opening cutscene girl again for a moment. Still pretty! So pretty!

Black Shores: To make sure you don't think this shady organization is like the other shady organization you just dealt with (Fractsidus, the actual apocalyptic cult), they make it really clear that, Camellya aside, these are the Silly People. Unfortunately, I think Encore's voice acting is probably the worst of the EN dub so far? The EN dub in general suffers from fairly poor voice direction (flat delivery on some characters, one sentence and the next having completely different emotions and intonations, etc), but Encore is just... she's meant to be a cutesy little girl, but man. They did not manage it at all. I'm sure she sounds adorable in JP tho. Regardless, she and Aalto are just max silliness. Oh, Aalto had this to say about his boss:

Rover stuff: One of the reasons everyone Knows about Rover and how cool we are is apparently because we have appeared previously (to presumably help fight disasters). The previous time Rover "descended," they were a member of Black Shores. So it's possible the ancient hero who helped found Huanglong was also Rover, though it's not entirely confirmed.

Mystery Girl: The mad scientist referred to her like this:

A "future being hailing from our past" who must reach the real Gate that can change the world... Well, it'll be explained later.

I stopped after beating the mechanical monstrosity, when Aalto reactivates the Lament detection system and runs out in a panic. You can tell I'm getting kind of invested here because I spun around in a circle for a while going "oh no, this is gonna be bad, what's happening up there" (before chickening out for the night). I'm not actually scared, of course, but there's some real sense of anticipation about what might happen next.

I think it's because they have done way more about answering questions than I had genshin-expected. Yeah, we obviously still don't know the majority of things, but I have a fairly clear understanding of the world state just from what the actual story tells you and we're even slowly being told about Rover's deal(tm). So whatever happens next might actually be A Thing With Relevance.

That aside, we've been seeing some playable characters in small roles, which is nice. We saw Jianxin before she peaced out, Verina for a bit, and now Encore. Since Lingyang introduces himself in his character quest, he probably isn't in the main story (government subsidy conspiracy intensifies). So that just leaves Sephiroth clone Calcharo of the standard 5 star characters. Curious to see what his deal is! He's pretty edgy, it'll be fun. (There's obviously also a ton of 4 stars, but there's so many that I don't see how they could fit them in anyway, so it's not a big deal.)

I think Act VI is the last part of the currently available story (Chapter 1: Huanglong 1?)... It'll probably be about Jiyan, since Jue had a vision of us meeting him. I actually thought that would be our next destination, but I guess we decided to do the Black Shores stuff first, since the front line is supposed to be so dangerous. Twitter and a storyteller insert narration have promised me that Jiyan might have something something with another guy steeped in tragedy (Geshu Lin).

Oh, one more thing. While the "side quest"s" parts of the main story aren't exactly all gripping, they do seem to generally have their purpose. Even the stupid mangosteen token was setting up the Jiyan stuff, since we otherwise don't see him for so long and the front line ties into the Threnobian and Lament danger. But what was the point of the sugar candy vaccine?? That has to tie into something, right? But what??

Goddammit, I can't believe I'm developing expectations here...

[lazyscience]

Full disclosure, I haven't read the Nimona comic so this could be an artifact of the Netflix adaptation/having to cut a lot of content to fit into a standard animated movie runtime. But while I'm super happy to see not only MLM representation in a kids' movie but treated as normal in its world, so that it can be a story about a relationship and not an Afterschool Special about Homophobia, I don't love Ballister and Goldenloin as a couple.

I don't like that Ballister is back with Goldenloin at the end of the movie like nothing happened. It's not that I want a bury-your-gays ending or that Ballister doesn't deserve a happy ending - but where is Goldenloin's character development? What has Goldenloin done to earn Ballister's trust back and demonstrate he's sorry - he maimed him and got his child killed (as far as either of them knew)?

The Director isn't the only one responsible for the sickness of their society; it's well-meaning but unquestioning privileged like Goldenloin who shore up the rot of the structure. Goldenloin, who saw the shock and horror on Ballister's face at the death of the queen but still maimed him, worked to arrest him and didn't push to see him and get his side of the story in custody, unthinkingly trusting in the fairness of a system they both already knew didn't treat commoners like Ballister the same way. Goldenloin who although he saw Ballister's swapped sword in the Director's office still wanted so badly to believe in the rightness of his system that he fought for the Director's point of view even as he saw with his own eyes how willing she was to lie and manipulate. Goldenloin, who in the epilogue smiles and points out particularly poignant drawings as if it wasn't him working as hard as he could to poison Ballister against Nimona that set off the final confrontation. that wasn't the Director, buddy. That was all you.

We get to see ONE internal freakout of his, one that he clearly hadn't resolved because he still did what the Director wanted him to do, not questioning at all the need to split people up into monsters and protectors against monsters (and JEALOUS, of a child? Of his lover universally reviled and hunted, having ONE person who was still supporting him?) He had to see the Director getting ready for a whole-ass mass murder out of SPITE to finally say "oh, yeah, you're NOT actually well-meaning but misguided, are you" - soooo much more benefit of the doubt than he gave the man he said he loved?

And after events HE helped to set in motion, when Ballister is in shock and mourning for his presumed-dead child he just ...gets to be there? I mean, even asshole Thodd got a more lasting injury and appears to be more aware of the role he played and how much thinking and work he has to do at the end (at least he looks ashamed of himself). but Goldenloin we're just supposed to be fine with, because when he's not being asked to put his career and life actually on the line he talks a good game about commoners being able to be heroes and "maybe we were wrong!" We only see him actually stand up for that once, with significantly fewer permanent consequences!

When we see Ballister backsliding on his ability to see the corruption in the system and lash out at Nimona, we ALSO see him realizing he was wrong and fighting to make amends. Ready to put Nimona before anyone else to make things right. Nimona fights, to put right the fact that her lashing out in her own rage and pain caught the people in the city between her and the Director, even though they're not innocents, considered her a monster worthy of death long before she did anything to threaten them. Do we ever see Goldenloin do anything to help Ballister that doesn't also help himself keep his own status and self-image intact?

No. No, we do not.

Goldenloin must be accurate, that must be some pretty fine D to get that much amnesia. I would have been much happier with them being together if I had seen any evidence at all that Goldenloin realized any of his culpability in events. As it stands, I feel like he's the epitome of Nice Liberal who thinks the problems are the people who are frothing bigots and doesn't realize the part he plays in allowing bigotry to continue.

I'm with Nimona. Arm-chopping is not a love language. team #GetBallisterABetterBoyfriend2K23

[shrinkthisviolet]

Jesse Wells and/or Ahsoka Tano for the blorbo bingo

Jesse my love!! I’ve talked about her here, but…this is a character I love more for what she could’ve been rather than what she is. Because what we do get…isn’t much, and it largely serves to make her more of a paragon of virtue than a fully-realized person.

She’s largely introduced via flashbacks and Harry as a teenage girl in college (presumably having skipped a few years), kidnapped by Zoom to get to Harry. We see that she has a loving and supportive but also strained relationship with Harry, and we hear (especially later, in s4) that her mother met an unspecified tragic fate—poor E2 Wells matriarch, she’s the ultimate fridged victim. She’s only ever brought up to further Harry’s arc in some way (we don’t even know her name!), while Jesse’s grief about her is very glossed-over. This can be forgiven as Jesse possibly being too young to remember her, but that in itself carries its own grief that’s never addressed. Did she go to therapy for that? (We’ll get back to this in a second.)

Her arc in s3…*sigh* underutilized potential to the max. Let’s start with the obvious: she’s a speedster now! Never mind that it took ages to manifest (no dark matter in her system in s2?? How??), that’s a minor problem. I don’t even mind Harry being overprotective—it’s a bit of a regression for him and Jesse, but this is a big change (and him giving her the suit is a great culmination to that). What makes no sense is how Jesse is so excited about it, without reservation. This is a young woman who was held hostage by a speedster for months! You’re telling me she gets superspeed and is ecstatic about it, with no reservations?

Her and Wally…well, I’ve talked about that here. Not much more to say about that tbh. I don’t like them together romantically and never will, they were better as friends.

Now on to s4…Jesse isn’t present much here, and admittedly the moment of Harry sharing his memories of his wife/Jesse’s mom with Jesse is very sweet. However, what I don’t appreciate is Harry & Jesse yet again having the same issue of miscommunication…yes, I know father-daughter dynamics can be complicated and not always linear, but!! They dealt with this already!! s2: “I promise to be the father you deserve” and s3: “you’ve always been my hero. Now, I just have to let you be one for everyone else.” Those were supposed to be the resolution moments!! Sure, parents and kids will always butt heads, but why are we back to where we were in s2/s3?? Nothing changed!

For that matter, I’ve never totally liked how Jesse is portrayed as always being in the right. I love her, I really do, but…she has a temper, she jumps to conclusions, she’s very rigid with morality, she runs away from her problems, etc. And these could’ve been such fascinating flaws to explore!! The only problem is, I don’t think they were intentional. Jesse always comes to the right conclusions, she always correctly berates Harry for his choices, she’s validated for running away while her kidnapper is still on the loose and could be anywhere, etc.

And let me be clear, I do get why she ran away. I get why she had that crisis, I really do. Her dad killed someone to keep Zoom from killing her, and that's a heavy thing. What I have a problem with is that the follow-up was...lacking.

Like, her freaking about it initially makes total sense, but the lack of follow-up is what bugs me. Sure, they talk about it, but…without context. I mean…remember, Turtle was abusive, sexist, and gross…and although this isn’t why Harry killed him, I’ve always been uncomfortable with the show framing Turtle as a poor, innocent victim. Same for some parts of the fandom treating Harry as an unabashed murderer for this when a) Turtle was a monster and b) Harry was doing it to further Zoom’s goals! Remember him? The guy who had Jesse hostage at the time, who would’ve definitely killed her if Harry hadn’t done as he asked? But no, it’s just Harry being overprotective again! 🤦‍♀️

And listen, I’m not saying he isn’t. It does seem like he’s a helicopter parent, and Jesse running away without telling him further proves this…but that makes this a vicious cycle. One that both of them contribute to, but that’s never discussed. This talk acts like Harry killing Turtle to keep Zoom from killing Jesse is the same thing as him being an overprotective parent. But that’s a) not an equal comparison and b) missing the root problem! They’re stuck in a cycle of Harry trying to shelter Jesse and her trying to break free—that’s what has to change, from both sides, but that s2 talk missed that mark.

And from what the later seasons show, it seems like it felt lacking to Harry and Jesse too, since they kept running through the same cycles until they finally connected in s4. Funnily enough, that happened when Harry did tell her and show her everything, when she got context for how he was acting! That's when they really connected!

(Before Harry got his memory screwed with, and then they both died two seasons later, but…hey, they’re presumably revived now. Hopefully things are better.)

It’s like the show was afraid to have her be wrong. Mostly because she’s never shown to do anything wrong—her choices are always validated and never examined. And it’s a shame because she has similarities to Harry: her bluntness, her tendency to run from difficult problems (or push them away, like when she kicked her dad off of Team Quick between s3 and s4), her quick temper (albeit hers isn’t as bad as Harry’s, but she’s still easily ticked off). It could’ve been so interesting to explore that…but no.

Oh, and let’s get back to that note from earlier: why doesn’t she seem to have any lingering grief over her mom? Even if you make the argument that maybe she was too young to remember her mom…would she not still feel a void there? Something missing from her life? Harry’s great, but he can’t be Mom and Dad. That’s a type of grief…and maybe Jesse doesn’t think about it, maybe she pushes it away, maybe she lashes out at Harry because you’re supposed to be the adult, damn it, you’re supposed to be better!

Maybe when he breaks down in front of her and shows her those memories, she realizes how alike they really are. But alas, the show didn’t want to explore that.

I know I’m putting way more thought into a side-character teenage girl than these mostly-guy-and-definitely-not-teenage writers did 😅 but I can’t help it, I wanted more for her. And that’s why I started writing my AU in the first place tbh—not just because I got an OC idea, but also to flesh out Jesse herself. Show some of her negative qualities, her similarities to her dad…and how amazing and wonderful she is, even with those flaws, especially as she grows and overcomes them 💞

(Oh also, there was no good place to put this, but…since the s4 memory-sharing scene used Tess’s voice for Jesse’s mom…her mom’s name in my headcanon is Tess Chambers, aligning with Jesse’s full name of Jesse Chambers Wells

This is also the rule I used to name Morgan: Jesse Morgan Wells, middle name taken from her mother, Tess Morgan.)

As for Ahsoka…I don’t know enough about her yet 😅 gotta finish TCW and get through Rebels!

send me a character, and I’ll fill out the bingo!

[katatonicimpression]

Hmm OK I'm about to just direct bitch about something I read in a tag and I'm aware that that's unkind but it's such a weird take to me, I feel like I need to express my thoughts

So, this is what they said:

This feels so strange to me. Broadly:

This isn't boring neutral coworker stuff, it's direct antagonism and also they kind of aren't friends?

They're relationship is antagonistic right now specifically because of whats happened in other series - so, not a lack of continuity but the opposite

The fandom point is bizarre in a number of ways

So Number 1, what we've been seeing between Sam and T'Challa in this series so far (since issue 1 let's be clear) is T'Challa being a dick to Sam unprompted. He's condescending to him and generally being prickly, and Sam clearly bothered by it. This is actually kind of fun to read, in particular T'Challa's insistence on calling him "Sam" only - it's interesting, T'Challa is intensely bothered by this one guy in a way that is kind of more intimate than their early encounters.

And, yeah, I don't think they've ever been friends necessarily. They've worked together a lot of times. They seem to like each other. Sam seems to really look up to and respect T'Challa, and T'Challa seems charmed by and impressed by Sam. But they weren't close by any means - they don't hang out outside of work etc. What we're seeing here is that same dynamic turned a little dark, purely because T'Challa is being a dick.

Also, unless something goes horribly wrong here on the writing side of things, it's clear that this antagonism is a plot thread that's been set up, currently expanded upon and will be resolved in the series. It's there on purpose and hopefully will end with them closer than before... and if not that, it will at least end with them putting this shit behind them (again, so long as the writing doesn't completely collapse behind the scenes which does happen in comics a lot lol)

Number 2, I agree that they seem to have forgotten that T'Challa made Sam's original wings, and actually also made his current get up, or at least the shield. I'd love for them to talk about that.

That said, I think you could bring it up in a way that compliments the current drama. Sam is indebted to tchalla, it's part of why he respects him so much, but also might make him pull his punches when the guy is being a dick... or does he? Maybe t'challa thinks he ought to, but maybe Sam doesn't care.

So, currently in canon, Wakanda is experimenting with a more democratic system, and T'Challa is having a personal crisis. He's still being the Black Panther, but in a more secretive, quasi-exiled way, and he's having difficulties reconciling his identity as his nations hero with not being their leader - he feels untethered. His current series (by eve ewing) is about this and it's good, I recommend. But, in short, he's more grumpy than usual because he's having the least relatable personal crisis of all time.

In symbol of truth, tchalla picks a fight with Sam (instead of just talking about how Sam mostly accidentally broke some wakandan laws). Sam is there in jeans and a t-shirt ((no suit, no wings, no shield) and wins.

This is, presumably, humiliating for t'challa, and he is canonically very pissy about it. You could imagine that the fact that he made Sam's gear could add to this dynamic. Sam wasn't reverent to him, didn't perform gratitude and then had the audacity to prove that he didn't really need his help anyway.

But yes, this is why T'Challa feels this way, its why he's acting like this. This is absolutely continuous with current canon. It's not an inconsistency. It just makes sense in universe.

Now, if you'd rather they just didn't write this drama because you'd rather they dropped this thread and just portrayed them as friends, then say that. Like, that's a completely valid opinion idk why you wouldn't just say it instead of acting like it's inconsistent writing when it isn't.

Number 3 is where I am confused. So, no one cares what anyone says on tumblr, that's a freebie. For twitter, yes sometimes writers do listen to fans in ways that end up not working out but is this person seriously suggesting that some writer would deliberately make a series worse to appease fans of other series? Think about that for a second. No one is sitting at a desk going "aha! I'll make the series bad, that'll show em!".

Not that I actually think the series is bad but you get my point.

So, the Fantastic Four are literally family. X-teams tend to be a mixture of family, found family and coworkers. This is true for avengers teams to, although they often have a greater percentage of coworkers who don't really know each other. This is because the x-men more often live together, and are often formed out of necessity because the humans are trying to kill them. The avengers are more often literally co-workers; a bunch of individual heroes, with separate lives, often living planets away from each other, individually recruited to a constructed team. Like, that's fine. That's not anti-avenger propaganda from fantastic four fans, it's just the literal canon situation a lot of the time.

This particular team has two people who used to be married to each other, then a bunch of people with varying degrees of familiarity and friendship. Two of them are currently having drama, and it's arguably the most emotional they've ever been about each other. This sounds like a good thing to me! This kind of storyline is what takes two characters from coworkers to something more meaningful, you know?

It's a particularly weird complaint to bring up with Sam. In the MCU, Sam is very much an avenger, was in the team for years and a pivotal part of it. In the comics, he comes and goes, joined to replace hawkeye then quit, led them for a bit in the 2010s (but that was mostly a different team) then quit again.. etc.. He seems to have a difficult relationship with the concept, and is only occasionally actually friends with these people (Steve, Jane). Honestly, it feels ooc when he's portrayed as friendly with some of them. But I mention it because he's a weird character to focus on to make this point.

Anyway, the series has gone out of its way to portray closeness between tony and carol, who do actually have a deeper friendship than many of the others here. But for most of these dynamics, the groundwork is there, but if you want them to be portrayed as close friends or a found family or whatever, then that actually needs to be developed in, you know, storylines. You can't just dump them on a team and say "they're besties now".

You might, in fact, want to write something where the current situations that the characters are in, and their recent interactions, affect the way they treat each other. Idk. Maybe even with some cattiness and antagonistic banter? And then maybe let that play out? Idk it's just a thought