#and also like fucking his wiki can give you information on him too

[anarchypumpkincowboy]

“Dick isn’t the smart Robin, that’s Tim” fuck you fuck you fuck you

[glitter-stained]

My very personal rating of every lazarus pit fanon side effects I've ever read, ranked from favourite to least favourite :

Tapetum lucidum (the thing cats have that makes their eyes gleam in the dark): that's so creepy and cool, eery in a more discreet way than a full-on glow, idk who hced that first but they are a genius

Contaminated blood laced with the lazarus protein: because our blood renews itself pretty often, this implies the existence of either a lazarus organ that continues to pump the lazarus protein in the blood, or, more probably, the contamination of one of the blood producing organs, maybe of the bone marrow, by the Lazarus pit. Like imagine the Lazarus Pit changing you down to the inside of your bone... The implications are so fascinating I'd love to read more about it.

Altered dna: this doesn't make sense, how does the magical healing pit change your dna, I love it so much, tell me more about the magic gatorade that rewrites dna

Accelerated healing/enhancements: what's funnier, that the pit gave Jason metahuman abilities like being able to withstand a meteorite and going toe-to-toe with Deathstroke (the wiki's words, not mine) and it was just never discussed, or that nothing Jason went through gave him these abilities that he really shouldn't have and he still does and it was just never discussed? I don't know but still, that stuff is top-tier

Glowing green eyes: on the one hand, eyes that glow when the person is feeling intense negative emotions (even better it's not just rage, like, imagine having a flashback or nightmare or getting fear toxined and their eyes glow and people think they're about to attack but they just scream that'd be so cool) but on the other hand, I feel like the colour is too limiting. Sure, Ra's or Riddler can fuck with the glowing green but come on, my girl Cass deserves eyes that glow gold (like the gold from the Batgirl suit). Jason deserves to have glowing red eyes. Cicero says that eyes are the reflection of the soul and while I love the idea of the lazarus pit being toxic, contaminating a part of the person's soul, in comics, a character's colour scheme is an essential part of their graphic identity, and I think altering it to the point of giving it a totally different colour is too much for my taste personally. Like, you are still the same person that you were before the bad thing happened. Yes, it changed you irrevocably, but you are still yourself and you should still have the right to your name and to the colour of your soul.

Lazarus Rage/Pit Madness: so I've seen this one criticized pretty often, often because of how unnecessary, and honestly probably damaging, to the understanding of Jason's character after his resurrection. And like, I agree, but also I've found myself to enjoy the fanon version of the Batfam. Like, I don't like that it's murky and confusing sometimes to figure out which is fanon or canon and that that leads people to judging canon actions from a standard of fanon information, and parts of it can be sexist or racist or classist, but the same can be said from canon, you have to be critical with what you consume. Basically to me there are two batfams and I consume both differently and enjoy both, and in the context of fanon I enjoy Pit Madness. The idea of uncontrollable, alien rage is fun, is angsty, and as someone with intense anger issues I'm telling you writing a lazarus rage episode was one of the most cathartic things I've ever written and it felt so good. I also think part of the upset on the subject is a bit undeserved because I see people complain that "the lazarus doesn't work like that because it didn't do that to other people" as if the way the lazarus pit worked made any sense. You're telling me this stuff healed Jason's malnutrition but it didn't fix his trauma? That it healed the Riddler's brain cancer but couldn't be bothered to fuck with Jason's hypertrophied amygdala and the fucked up connections between his amygdala and hippocampus??! Obviously we can't expect dc to know or care about science that much , but I still have the right to be nerdy about it. Jason went into the pit resurrected by God and with brain damage and Ra's said it was a plague and that could make him crazy, I fully believe he could have gotten Pit Madness even if the others hadn't.

Eye-colour change: that's the same thing as the glowing part but without the fun part, really dislike it. I need to be able to listen to I know these eyes/this man is dead from the Count of MonteCristo Musical while making up Under the Red Hood edits in my head please and thank you

Lazarus Pit brings people back to life: I hate it so much dc stop treating life and death so inconsequentially oh my gosh characters fighting life and death situations should not have a source of immortality right in hand I hate that lazarus resin lazarus toxin stuff they have right now and the idea that the pits can bring back to life plays into that idea so I really dislike it. I understand the appeal, it's the basics of coming back wrong with a side of rebirth in the water but instead of being purified it's being poisoned, but I just can't get over how frustrating it is to see a beloved character die and only be able to say I hope he doesn't come back for his own sake and then he comes back. Urgh.

[zizbombs]

Is there a more useless cape in the bay than triumph?

After much soul searching, wiki browsing and pondering, the answer to that question is yes. Yes there is.

Meet exhibit A: Trevor, AKA Chariot.

The worst fucking tinker to ever live.

Outwardly, very similar to Triumph. Complete mouthbreathing fodder.

What really puts Chariot in 'I would rather have greg veder have this power' tier is the fact that he had so much potential.

Chariot is a movement tinker, one who I cannot stress this enough, HAS ACCESS TO TELEPORTATION TINKERTECH.

TELEPORTATION TINKERTECH.

One more time for the people in the back,

TELEPORTATION.

TINKERTECH.

I could cry, really I could.

So first off, you need to understand just how good his power is. He literally made fucking POWER ARMOR that could go 100 mph with fucking dogshit scraps. Fucking power armor. The only other tinkers with power armor was trainwreck (a guy who's specialty is literally working with scraps) and Armsmaster, who's funded by the protectorate. And this guy just fuckin made some shit in his basement with an oven and a blowtorch or something.

He's got an extra dash of that shardstuff for sure. Also for some reason he just has extra insight into tinkertech? Just added on, for shits and giggles. His shard was forking over the shardbucks to give it's host a head start, too fucking bad it landed on literally the worst person in existence to have a tinker power. even fucking leet would be better than this idiot.

Not only that, he was able to copy trickster's power. Yk, trickster, just the guy with one of the most versatile and powerful powers in a street level setting and even beyond some of that, no biggie. fucking trickster.

This guy could scan movers and copy their powers.

In a world where this guy had a single braincell, he would've joined the protectorate, scanned strider's power and worked with dragon to set up fucking portals all around the united states or something.

Instead, we get this fucking brainlet.

I'm assuming he could also make some sort of neurological implant to speed up his thoughts to keep up with his tech, but thats just another failure of this troglodyte.

I still, I'm still laughing at how utterly fucking stupid this shit is, but one of his gadgets that he made.

So get this, he made a jetpack right, or a flight pack whatever. Guess what this dipshit decides to add in his shit. A fucking bomb. Yeah, he added a bomb in something he was carrying on his back. The reason? As far as im concerned, as a fucking escape route.

Yeah, you heard that right.

The MOVEMENT tinker, put a fucking bomb in their movement gear, to ESCAPE.

???

Unless he had some sort of secret 540000 iq plan to do something else with that bomb, but considering this guy's track record I doubt it. Even then that's fucking stupid. Why are you blowing up your gear? 'Oh hey! I got a great idea! Instead of doing literally anything else, how about I put an EXPLOSIVE right next to me in volatile tinkertech! What a great idea!'

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, this guy triggered about a year before canon start. What was he doing in all of that time?

Literally fucking nothing.

All he did was just ride around at 3 am being a little shithead. A year btw, he did that for a year.

Then he eventually got caught by assault (lol) and was forced to talk to Kid Win. In an incredible play, since Chariot was working for coil and decided to become a rat, got DISCOVERED BEFORE HE EVEN SIGNED THE PAPERS. LOL?

This fucking dipshit was like 'Yeah, they'll never see it coming >:)' meanwhile the PRT had a meeting deciding to fucking just feed this guy faulty information. Can you fucking do anything 😭.

He just was taking L after L.

He's like Leet but he doesn't even have the excuse that his shard hates him.

He's literally Legend's long lost cousin.

no goals, no plans

what are you doing man? 😭

Worst fucking spy on the planet.

Literal shithead kid waking people up at 3 am going on joyrides, which would be based if he wasn't so stupid. Such a cool power too, definition of wasted potential. I just agh.

WHY DO YOU GET. LIKE. UNDERSTANDING OF OTHER TINKERS SHIT. JUST TACKED ON. WHY ARE YOU BUILT FOR COLLABS AND YOU DO NOTHING.

Only fucking this guy could take a teleportation tinker spec and be absolute fodder.

Im still laughing at the bomb shit. Why is your first thought as a movement tinker to put a fucking bomb inside of your tech. Like what? Instead of literally making anything else. Are you fucking stupid? Yes you are, you are stupid. Even if it wasn't an escape plan (still can't believe it WORKED as an escape plan.) Like, what are you gonna do, throw your shit at the guy your fighting then stumble away because you blew up all of your shit. This fucking guy.

Anyway, stay tuned for more hating.

[pooks]

time to nag about my headcanon "Percy has Seer powers" and why that is a great idea

first of all, a little clarification; this isn't common knowledge to the younger siblings. only Arthur, Molly, Bill and Charlie knows. they kept this secret after Fabian and Gideon Prewett died

this implies that they died to protect Percy, who was just this tiny toddler who had absolutely no control over what he could See

the result is to keep his Seer powers secret

some background info; Percy's Seer powers is a rare gift that is apparently passed down from the Black side

Cedrella, aka their paternal grandmother, had it and has taught Percy how to use and control it. that's why Percy had a more closer bond to his granny than the rest of the family.

Arthur did not inherit it, but one of his brothers did. unfortunately, his poor brother is dead (it's not Billius, but someone else cause Arthur had three brothers accourding to the wiki) because he rather die than to let himself being caught by Voldemort and used as a tool.

while he doesn't understand Seer powers too well, Arthur respects it and is trying to be supportive for Percy.

also at a later point, Percy had 1 Bad Incident™ involving his Seer powers and it slightly traumatised him enough to not try to use it again

he takes divination in his third year for two reasons; 1, he also want to achieve 12 NEWTS like Bill. 2, he wants to understand his weird future-seeing power.

Oliver, his roommate (oh my god they were roommates) finds out by accident and keeps nagging him about the future Quidditch match results. Percy refuses cause that's SPOILERS

and now ONTO THE FUN STUFF

Percy can look far into the future, but he settles for the fun stuff

he occassionally makes references to memes and vines

his siblings doesn't understand them at all

at least until they're all adults with families in the future

and they be like "YOU KNEW"

and Percy just smiles innocently even though he absolutely isn't

Harry and Hermione aren't safe from Percy's Seer Shenanigans either

everytime Hermione is working with a crossword, Percy's eyes flashes green for a moment and when he opens his mouth, Hermione hits him with a pillow cause he was about to reveal the answer

Harry asked Percy once if his Seer powers was why Fudge promoted him. Percy simply smiled and said "yes, that was the reason. but the idiot didn't realized that i tricked him all the time and sent him on a wild goose chase."

aaaaand some Ministry shitshow stuff;

HEADCANON TWO; PERCY MADE LIFE SOUR FOR FUDGE AND THE IDIOT NEVER REALIZED IT

ofc Percy would be petty af once he figured out Fudge only wanted him because of his Seer powers. which means the fucker looked at the classified information in his personell file. Percy is obvs mad about that, but it's too late to tell his family about it and he decides to be an absolute menace about it without being caught

"getting caught means that you weren't smart enough to get an escape plan"

Percy takes full offense of being treated like a tool instead of a human with rights

he burns several draft-ups for the "updated law for underage magic" because they're fucking awful and he knows the bastard wants to ruin Harry's education. that also means he would ruin his baby siblings' educations.

he also burnt the suggestion papers about giving Azkaban prisoners the dementor's kiss without trial.

the law suggestions about banning human rights for werewolves, wizard hybrids and squibs also got BURNT INTO ASHES

Percy: I decide the future now. >:)

Scrimgeour makes an early bird appearence cause Fudge can't find the law suggestions anymore and he was the idiot to not keep copies.

after investigating privately, Scrimgeour finds out that Percy burnt them up and this madlad explains why.

suddenly Scrimgeour fully supports Percy and says his late uncles would be proud. bonus: Scrimgeour simply says to Fudge that he can't find things that may be gone forever, it's sadly "lost media" now.

Percy, getting the idea from the twints, orders dragon fertilizer (it's dragon dung lol) subscription from norway's dragon research center and sanctuary and sends it to Umbridge, using her forged signature

he's careful to not get caught, so he looks into the future (a bit at the time, though)

feel free to add some of your own ideas/suggestions/headcanon about Seer!Percy Weasley :)

[hallowsden]

@f4nd0m-fun here

So, I was on the ship Wiki, and I'm wondering what your Crane ships are?

I stumbled on Scriddler and TwoCrow, and I couldn't help but peek at TwoRiddle, so now I'm thinking about TwoScriddler, and oh no.

I barely know these chars and yet here I am.

Now combine this with John barely speaking with his fam and... you got Danny showing up on his doorstep one day, and Crane may have forgot to tell his buds about it, and you've got a small mess.

Personally, if I had to ship Harvey with someone, it's Gilda or Bruce (or both) (Unless it's Batman Forever version, then definitely TwoRiddle cause HAVE YOU SEEN THEM!?)

But honestly? This made me thinking... (Long ass rant ahead that may or may not make sense. This is written while being sleep deprived)

Jonny boy here ain't the only one who suffered abuse as a child. Both Harvey and Edward have as well. They both have Daddy Issues while Jonathan, depending on how you interpret him or which backstory you use, have granny issues + religious trauma or also Daddy Issues.

That being said, Harvey gives me the "this family ends with me" vibes, especially after he became Two-Face, and may be put off with Danny's presence for a while. He doesn't want to continue the cycle and become his dad. He'd likely would have liked, at the very least, to have been informed about the new addition to their family so he can... Prepare essentially/get used to the idea/plan how to avoid Danny. He's... For the lack of better words, cautious/careful around Danny, as to not accidentally trigger himself by accidentally hurting the kid. Does this make sense?

It'll take a while for Harvey to relax around Danny but for sure, he's gonna be very protective, if because he's Jonny's kid at first. He'll come to adore the kid and while not see him as a son but like... Oh, who's he and Harv kidding, that's his kid now and too hell with a coin, fuck with one of his then you'd get instant death penalty with him as the Executioner.

Harvey is gonna try and teach Danny law, specifically how to use loopholes against the system and evade arrests and such cause what else is gonna try to do to bond with Danny? Man's life had always revolved around law... Though... there are times where he'd go into this sort of story mode, recalling his experiences with Danny. He's soft and distant here but this is his way to fully open up, if that makes sense.

Harv, on the other hand? Teaching Danny how the criminal world works. Kid needs to learn how Gotham works. Can't have him die (er- turn fully ghosts? Yeah, he and Harvey don't understand Danny's halfa nature but they try and are supportive... They can't help but be reminded of themselves actually-) or Jonny's gonna be beyond pissed in a whole new level. Is actually rather strict, makes sure to put ground rules and boundaries with Danny compared to the rest of the parental unit that is Twoscriddler. Someone has to be the strict parent... How he and Harvey are considered the functional parent here is cause they actually practice self-care, well to an extent anyways, compared to his idiot lovers who would go days on end without eating, drinking, or sleeping, if the chance rises.

Harv, though rarely, would go into story mode as well to Danny, but in his perspective. There are many times he and Harvey hate each other but... They lived and went through the same life. Just differently. He mainly does this after something especially happened with Danny, like say, Danny nearly got shot...

Now, Edward on the other hand... Really depends on the version but in my opinion, he'd be indifferent with Danny at first, if a bit surprised. Jonny, with a kid? Now, isn't that interesting. Would definitely grow very fond of Danny very quickly, and if he learns that Danny's good with inventing and such, he is, for sure, gonna nurture those skills.

Eddie boy is gonna drag Danny to his workshop so they can bond over building shit. Also, VIDEO GAMES CAUSE YOU CAN NOT TELL ME OTHERWISE THAT EDDIE'S NOT A GAMER! Gets too competitive, too loud, just overall chaotic fun with Eddie also rambling about shit in the process. Just, the two are fucking gremlins and fueling each other's chaotic streak somehow cause while Eddie is an adult very full of himself, he acts too much like a child when he's relaxed and not trying to maintain his dignified image even though everyone has at least witness his childish streak at least once (this including his tantrums/meltdowns...)

The fun uncle/dad that managed to help Danny feel like a normal kid he wasn't able to be exactly due to living with mad scientists (who wanted to kill him later on even if they didn't know it was him). Eddie boy would also definitely help tutor Danny. Just that he may get impatient or teaches things too fast. Best that Jonny's there helping with tutoring so it's better paced and not going overboard.

But uh- yeah, it's gonna be a bit of mess when Harvey/Harv entered the shared apartment and see a random kid in there (who both resembles Jonny in some ways and also has the right coloration to be considered Wayne bait AND OH BOY-) huddled in blankets. Eddie would likely just walk past Danny, and after a few moments, walks backwards and stare at Danny, processing, before getting Jonny or Harvey, before trying to maybe interrogate? Depends if he slept or was hyperfocused on a project in his workshop.

[Also, @f4nd0m-fun, I swear, you've been fueling my need to create more Uncle Scarecrow content- DO YOU KNOW HOW HYPER AND EXCITED YOU MADE WHEN YOU @ ME!? Well, I think you're gonna see it when I do the reblogs... Just- XD, I'm having too much fun today/last night/lately (wtf is time anymore)]

[bloomingapricots]

The Cunning Cat and Lazy Fox

Updated here first at AO3

Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 (here) | Chapter 4

Chapter 3 | Growing Closer

“Is this all you can remember?” You asked.

“Give me a break, I basically reincarnated,” Shang Huaisang whined. Currently, you are hanging out with Shang Huaisang at a teahouse and reading over the information he remembered of Proud Immortal Demon Way.

“It’s just that your book was not popular enough to warrant a Wiki page, or from what I last looked at. Much less the animals and plants,” You are contemplating mentioning Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-lang. However, it is too early for that as Yue Qi is still Yue Qi and not Yue Qingyuan. “Anyways, how is Mobei-Jun?”

“I’m still gaining his trust,” Shang Huaisang replied.

“Alright, just… don’t take his hits and remind him that you’re a human,” As much as you like teasing Shen Jiu and gaslighting Yue Qi and Liu Mingcheng. You have some pity for Shang Huaisang as he is not only overworked but is also in a constant state of paranoia. Plus you do not like the pain-for-comedy trope either. Bonking Yue Qi the other day was your patience snapping, afterward, you went to sword training to release your rage.

“I will,” Shang Huaisang appreciated your care based on his small smile. You and Shang Huaisang became good friends over a couple of weeks.

“Jiu-er, I made sure you got your own room, it may be small but the door is strong and it has a lock,” You turned your head to look at Shen Jiu who lay right next to you. “So why are you here?”

“Do you not like Jiu-er anymore?” Your prickly junior brother asked. His eyes were wide, wearing a sad look. This damn cat is gaslighting you. You wrapped your arms around Shen Jiu and brought him closer to you where your foreheads touched.

“My dear Jiu-er,” You smiled sweetly. Shen Jiu's eyes widen at suddenly being pulled closer to you and the look in your eyes. You lowered a hand to hold his waist to pinch it.

“Hey!” Shen Jiu pushed you away and rubbed his waist.

“Jiu-er, as much as our martial sibling respects me, many will still talk behind my back. After all, I was not born male,” You pointedly stared at a dresser that held your undergarment. You know that Shen Jiu looked through your room, though you did not mind as you did give him a key to your room. “Hell, Yue-Shixiong asked if we dual cultivated,” You sighed.

“... What. Qi-ge asked that?” Shen Jiu mumbled. Now Shen Jiu actually looked upset.

“I didn’t reply to that and just hit him with my bamboo dizi. Jiu-er, as much as Shizun and the disciples of Qing Jing Peak respect my identity, not everyone does as such, you stick with me this closely” You gestured to yourself and him, in your bed, laid right next to each other. “Is seen as improper so there is a lot of gossip,”

“There is always gossip,” Shen Jiu complained.

“Yeah, that’s true. I guess it's better than your rumored lecherous ways,” You shrugged.

“There was a rumor of me seducing you so I could manipulate you and become the head disciple,” Shen Jiu said.

“Ha, as if, the disciples forgot at the beginning how lazy I was and it wasn’t till a certain incident that got me chosen by Shizun to be head disciple,” You said.

“I have been wondering about that, how did you become the head disciple,” Shen Jiu asked.

“Hm, I’ll tell you some other time,” You rolled over to lay on your back and closed your eyes. “We have a lot of work to do in the morning,”

“A-Duzhe! Tell me!” Shen Jiu whined.

“...I don't think this night is the right night for that tale, Jiu-er.” You turned your head and looked at Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu saw the look in your eyes and decided not to push anymore. He also rolled to lay on his back. You closed your eyes but smiled when you felt Shen Jiu hold your hand. Hand in hand, you and Shen Jiu drifted off to sleep.

—

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” You mentioned last night to Shen Jiu that there will be a lot of work to do in the morning. The morning came and you took Shen Jiu with you on a hunt for a time-sensitive herb that your Shizun wanted to study but it went terribly wrong. Three overly-sized spiders are chasing the two of you. “Jiu-er! To the left,” Shen Jiu turned as you instructed and you followed after him while releasing many talismans that either protected your and Shen Jiu’s back or stuck to the three spiders to slow it down. Did you mention that you have a stupidly large amount of qi? Well, you do and when your Shizun learned about it they scolded you for hiding your potential.

“A-Duzhe! Where are we heading?” Shen Jiu yelled.

“To the cave tunnel that is only average people's size!” You yelled back.

“Alright!” Shen Jiu replied. As you defended your backs, Shen Jiu took the lead to find the cave tunnel you mentioned. He was quick to spot it as the two of you approached the mountain. “A-Duzhe! I can see the cave!”

“Okay!” You pulled out some talismans that glow brightly. “Jiu-er, lighting them up now!” You warned. Shen Jiu grabbed your hand as the spiders paused because of the lights and the two of you ran for your life towards the cave. Once deep enough the two of you stop running to catch a breath. “So much exercising,”

“...” As you were busy catching your breath, Shen Jiu was glaring at you as he caught his breath.

“Jiu-er?” You questioned when you turned to check on Shen Jiu.

“Since when did Shixiong have so much power?” Shen Jiu asked.

“What? Oh,” You remembered the aforementioned stupidly large amount of qi that is kind of an open secret of the mountain sect and how you recklessly used up a lot of talismans in front of Shen Jiu.

“Shixiong is truly lazy,” Shen Jiu pouted. As you come to learn, when Shen Jiu calls you senior brother and not your name with endearment, he is slightly annoyed or mad at you.

“My Shidi should know his Shixiong is not that attached to his position of head disciple and Shizun has chosen this Shixiong because of his achievement from the incident,” You explained. “Besides, this Shixiong got terribly scolded and lectured already by Shizun.”

“Shixiong has a lot of secrets,” Shen Jiu said.

“Shidi will learn all in time,” You replied.

—

“A-Duzhe, where does this tunnel lead to?” Shen Jiu asked after you dotted on him some more and started walking to the other side of the cave.

“Just a town, I think it’s called Peony Village because these soft pink peonies naturally grow there no matter what,” You explained. “Doesn’t it sound romantic, Jiu-er?” You teased him.

“Shixiong,” Shen Jiu gave you a blank stare. “Does Shizun not need us back soon?”

“We have the herbs in the time-frozen Qiankun pouch,” you shrugged and looked at the sky. “Plus I don’t think we have the energy to fly back before night falls,”

“I’ll trust A-Duzhe for now then,” Shen Jiu huffed. You grinned as the two of you entered Peony Village. Like its namesake, the village is overflown with soft pink peony bushes. The villagers were pleasant and welcoming as they placed peony flower crowns on your head and Shen Jiu’s head. Shen Jiu looked away from you as you and the village girls giggled at his flustered face. He grabbed your arm and dragged you to find a brothel. “Let’s go!”

“Haha Alright, alright, Shidi!” You laughed.

“There is a big banquet in front of the village chief’s home later, this one hopes the two Gongzi will appear,” Waved a nice auntie.

“Sure,” You yelled back and waved. As you and Shen Jiu found a brothel that was willing to room and board the two of you for the night, you asked Shen Jiu out on a date tomorrow.

“As Jiu-er heard, there is a banquet later tonight, shall we go together,” You asked.

“Why would this one go with such a shameless Shixiong?” Shen Jiu teased.

“Your Shixiong will get his Shidi’s food for him, so he doesn’t have to get up from his seat,” You smiled and leaned on Shen Jiu.

“Very well, this one will go with A-Duzhe,” Shen Jiu huffed.

“Will Jiu-er also like to view the peonies with me in the morning?” You asked.

“Is A-Duzhe trying to take up all my time?” Shen Jiu asked.

“A-Duzhe wants to have lots of memories with Jiu-er,” You replied.

“... Very well,” Shen Jiu agreed. You smiled brightly as you hugged Shen Jiu and forced him to lie on the bed.

“A-Duzhe!” Shen Jiu yelped but all you did was laugh.

��

Each time you went out and brought Shen Jiu with you, you conveniently went to photogenic and fun locations. You totally did not bribe your Shizun by allowing him to call upon you to play your dizi. Did you ever mention that you are a good dizi player? You are an incredible dizi player but you rarely play anymore and have to be bribed to play. Anyway, you had many fun “impulsive” dates with Shen Jiu and you can see that Shen Jiu softens over time. You also saw over time that Shen Jiu was willing to go out with not only his senior and junior sisters but his junior brothers too. No luck on his senior brothers though.

[appleciderp]

Task Force 141 Age Guesstimates (WITH sources)

TL;DR

Price is the oldest at around 38

Ghost is a close second at around 36

Soap and Gaz are roughly 25-27

↓ All information on how the fuck I got to those numbers below ↓

Ignore the fact that the bio's in-game are absolute trash. For some reason, I cannot access anything past the random cut-offs.

Oh, the info after the in-game screenshot but before the verdict is legit random other info that I found. More specifically actor's age and previous game info if it isn't clear with the current info we have. That you can choose to make your own decisions if you want to ignore my verdicts!

Price: Easy start. His page says 1985.

But his current in-game bio says the exact same info as this Activision link that's from 2019. So I'm assuming they just haven't updated it from 2019, since it would cut 3 years off his age.

Barry Sloane is 41 (1981) No previous canonical birthyear and I didn't go actively searching for much more information

Verdict: Pretty solid 1985 for the dilf.

Gaz: We already have conflicting information; on his page, it says he was born in 1990, yet the timeline says he was born in 1996, neither of which has a proper source. So he would be turning anywhere from 27-33 this year. He joined in 2008 (according to his page and in-game bio shown), needing to be at least 16, so technically the youngest possible is 1992.

But, the same source from Activision that I used for Price says he joined in 2014, if he enlisted at 16, would make him a 1998 baby. Which directly opposes his current bio, which, as said previously, states that he joined in 2008.

I am settling on Activision's ORIGINAL bio being canon, as his in-game bio says he joined in 2008 and at the end of the paragraph says "rounding out a decade in service" which would only bring him to 2018, which would be 4 years prior to the Release of MW2 2022. Whereas 2014 would be near his decade in service next year. It makes more sense to round 1 year under vs 4 years+ over.

Elliot Knight is 32 (1990; probably the cause of his birthyear is listed as 1990) No previous canonical birthyear and I didn't go actively searching for much more information.

Considering Price is only turning 38, I personally prefer scrapping the 1990-1992 date for optimal father-son dynamic.

Verdict: 1996-1998, he'll be turning 25-27 this year.

Soap: This boy's gonna be a doozie.

According to his official page, he was born in 1996 or earlier. It also said that he tried joining the SAS at 16, but was caught that he was too young; which directly contradicts his current in-game bio, which says that he lied about his age and got in.

Considering the information on his page doesn't have any source linking back to it, we will consider he joined the SAS at 16 (which is wild and would have to make him forge a birth certificate) So if we take 2014 (keep in mind I have no clue where they whipped that year out of) minus 16, makes his birth year potentially 1998.

Neil Ellice is clearly ageless as his age isn't listed anywhere online. Previous canonical information hints that he is younger than Gaz, as Gaz had already completed Selection when he joined. According to the old MW timeline, he was born in 1980 (no sources listed) making him 31-36 during the original MW.

Considering the position and name change (all new information is Johnny, not John) I'm just going to discard that information though.

Also, he canonically punched a cop. not important, but I feel like people should know.

Verdict: Legit the only information (even if it's contradicted) we get is <1996 or 1998, so I've gotta go with that. Turning 25-27+ this year. Roughly the same age as Gaz.

more info on why I picked the younger range is in Ghost's info.

Ghost: I struggled with Soap, now onto the one with ~redacted~ information

His current in-game bio cuts off before any actual dates or anything is said. Literally "Ghost lives with a redacted past and an..."

The wiki bio is equally as uneventful, giving us no information about him joining the military or his childhood. At least it wasn't full of information from before the reboot.

Al Mazrah is his first mention in the Reboot timeline, he's not even listed in the section pertaining to Ghobrani's assassination.

So I'm going to be pulling information out of the army straight up. FBI agent watching this, I fucking hate the military IRL <3 If I get one email or text asking to join I'm gonna waste your time asking 2000 questions.

The average age of the UK military is 30 a paid account is required to see the graph, but the information is listed just under it, meaning an officer would probably be above the average.

According to the UK Army, after joining it takes about 20 years to reach Lieutenant. If he joined at 16, he would be ~36y/o, add 2-3 years to go from Lieutenant to Captain, and you've got Price's age.

(~12 years of Service for Sergeants, which makes Soap & Gaz's mid-20s work, especially with them being really fucking good. ~23 years to become a Captain, which again roughly fits with Price being a young Officer)

Samuel Roukin is 42 (1980) this man looks too good for his age omg. The only canonical age-related thing is that he joined the military after 9/11. If we assume he was 16 at joining, it would make him born in 1985. Which fits with the mid-30s right now, but would place him mid-20s in the original timeline.

Verdict: ~1987, making him mid-30s. Younger if you want to make him match the quick rank-ups of the rest of the 141.

[centi-pedve]

been scouring the regretevator wiki cause i was curious (terrible wiki btw i am so sorry. one page has a citation that just links to some discord bullshit which people who are not in the server obviously cant see) anyways i am getting a terrible impression of the creator(?) and i would be interested in your thoughts on this business if youd be willing to share :3

oh goodness gracious... well we do have Some thoughts and we dunno if they match your own concerns since, we purposefully don't go out looking for whatever the creator has said but yeah even from a distance it's. Not looking good. (Already mentioned some of these before but for the sake of putting it in one place we'll be redundant)

definitely has his own takes on certain characters, headcanons, and the like. it was silly at first but as time went on and the more effort he put into pushing negativity over certain things the less fun it became. we think, if you want people to dislike a character, you try and make them dislikeable within the context of the story and then let people form those opinions. rather than being weird about the fact that there are still people who do like the character and punishing them by denying them the most basic things or even involving them in the story at all because Doesn't Deserve It. yes this is primarily about unple/asant

related but... too much of a reliance on telling stories with twitter or other unofficial platforms. did we learn nothing from the dumbledore is gay tweet. like a huge amount of information on the wiki that is very important to understanding the characters are just is NOT in the game, like if you played the game fully you'd still need to rely on the wiki to be able to participate in fandom. honestly a large part of that is why we're so biased towards certain characters! unple/asant and infe/cted are the only characters with lore and trivia and such that we've bothered to go on the wiki for and memorize. we've played the game for hours and hours but that doesnt mean much lol. once again, unple/asant especially, it literally DOESN'T TALK or participate in ANY of the active dynamic story because Doesn't Deserve It but there's still things to know about unple/asant and people who like the game just want something!! like dunno the overuse of social media in storytelling just makes it so much more unfun, we don't like how information is released and the fact that we need to rely on external material that... is sometimes taken back because the creator has gone on record Just Saying Shit. favorite example vv

Which is really funny considering it has 1 piece of dialogue on the game. So it can physically speak, and is also not "mewing 24/7" by result of having that dialogue (pretty sure the creator was just encouraged to say that without giving a fuck but, whatever). but the things that happen in game are second to the creator's twitter feed AMIRIGHTFELLAS

3. the,. the ableism. we've heard people tried to bring it up with the creator in the past and they were ignored so we feel comfortable mentioning it lol. bi/ve is a stereotype of someone who suffers from paranoia really, we mean we love her but... lol... and we will say it again pe/st should not canonically have npd or aspd. like omggg the evil character that robs people has two pds negatively stereotyped as belonging to evil people we're sure there was no bias in this decision. maybe we'd be less bothered if people didn't treat it as so serious and pretend to be cluster b allies like "you have to give him some understanding cuz he has aspd and npd 🥺" like no because he's evil, also maybe it wouldn't hurt to care about real people with those pds instead of a caricature. also the half-hearted throwing around of the word "mute" for unple/asant has been pointed out as ableist by a lot of people.

tldr uhhh wuhgghh NOT A PERSONAL ATTACK nobody get us (: nobody talk us...

[vyladromeave]

all of them >:)

jkjk

17 and 27?

17. any headcanons you're attached to?

BOY DO I HAVE SOME HEADCANONS IM ATTACHED TO. First off this post is required reading. its over a year old and its all stuff i stand by pretty strongly in regards to vylad. lets just start there.

ok hmmmmmmm see now this is hard for me because you could ask me about any specific like character or location or concept within mcd and i could give you headcanons for them immediately i have too many options. here's what I'm going to do I'm going to open the aphmau wiki and randomize a page on the mcd characters section and whatever I land on is what I'm going to talk about here i go.

I GOT KENMUR OK ITS KENMUR TIME. Well first off he's bi4bi and t4t with emmalyn so jot that down. Emmalyn is more on the history and literature side of things, but Kenmur is much more on the science side, he likes reverse-engineering things and he likes understanding how things work. He doesn't usually get as visibly excited over findings as Emmalyn does, but they are still very much equal in nerdiness.

Despite him going to the Irene Dimension, we don't get a lot of his thoughts about the weird stuff that happens to/around him in canon. I think he'd be very interested in Irene's Dimension, not necessarily because it's Irene's, but because it's a weird weird place with weird rules about how you enter and leave and how time flows while you're there and that's fascinating to him. He would've loved talking about the process of Zoey's portal activation with her if she wasn't so cagey about it.

I'm not big on the whole "Sasha was his fiancee thing" but I do like the idea of them being friends :) And I ESPECIALLY like the idea of him trying to figure out how to cope with the fact that a lot of the people he knew and grew up with turned into Shadowknights. Sasha, Laurance, even Hayden's guard, these were people he knew who all just died around him, some of which becoming much worse people for it. Shadowknights are so poorly understood that nobody (not even Shadowknights!) seems to really understand how it works or why it happens, and that frustrates him deeply. I think he'd be very interested in studying Shadowknights, but also feels very weird about asking Laurance to essentially be his lab rat. So he just quietly makes notes whenever he notices something weird and moves on. World's First Shadowknight Scholar!

27. what's something really interesting that you wished canon decided to explore more? alternatively, what's something interesting that you wished the fandom acknowledged more?

this question is fun because its actually two questions in one which means i get to spend more time talking heehee. there's pleeeenty of stuff in canon, not to go Kenmur-mode but we still barely have anything on how Shadowknights actually work aside from "you died oh noooo now you have to kill someone." This is not helped by how much conflicting information we get.

We ALSO also don't get a lot on how the magicks system works??? Oh everyone has magicks but not really but also kinda but you have to find it and some abilities are passive (Kiki can talk to animals all the time) but also most are active (KC animates dolls, gets tired when she uses it too much, its a big ordeal she has to work up to) and also some are so well-documented that there are entire categories for them (WHAT THE HELL IS BARRIER MAGICKS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THATS JUST A WELL-KNOWN THING. EVERYONE ELSE HAS UNIQUE ABILITIES AND THEN THERES JUST "BARRIER MAGICKS" WHAT DOES THIS MEAN) and also maybe magicks are passed on by blood but also maybe not and also theres WITCHES now fuck you. And they hate magicks users for noooo reason despite "magick" being incredibly poorly defined at best. What is a curse? How do potions work??? Cursed Objects???? Cursed AMULETS????? WHY????????????? At least they tried to explain things about Shadowknights, when it came to magicks they just fucking gave up. I know its like this because they just used magicks as the macguffin of the week and had no plans on actually developing how it works, but i would literally kill to see plans on how they intended for this to work.

Interesting things Fandom should acknowledge is also fun. There are many. There are so many. I think the politics side of mcd is VERY interesting and very rarely looked at by fans, which is shocking to me considering how central it is to mcd's plot. Because despite the title of "Lord" there IS no active monarchy in Ru'aun, and that's BECAUSE of Irene (which was incredibly based of her), which changes the definition of Lord entirely. ITS REALLY NEAT!! O'khasis has a council!! Who the fucks on it? I don't know!!! But they have a council!!! Isn't that exciting?? This is not a joke I mean this so genuinely. Do you ever wonder if maybe the High Priest is on that council and thats why Zane got the job. Do you ever wonder if there's a reason someone so young and literally THE SON OF THE LORD got put into a position so early? Do you think having that extra vote on Garte's side helped things crumble at a quicker rate than it had been previously?? I do. I wonder these things. And you should too. please.

And SPEAKING of Irene being incredibly based, she did in fact do some things that are incredibly based!!! I know most people like to write her as a Secretly Malevolent God™, which like fair whatever I like to give her some evils too, but I really wish people would take more of a look at what was established about her in S1. There is a reason she is worshipped so widely by the people of Ru'aun and it's because she Literally Is a hero of the people. I think people are generally blinded by how she was portrayed in MCD S3 and in Mystreet that they forget that she was a person for a very long time before she lost it. Go back and look at some of the earlier Irene lore!!! I promise its much more complex and fun than "oooo your goddess is secretly evil and was never good and there is no hope or joy in the world ooooo."

(ask prompts from here!)

[littlewestern]

Guadalcanal looks a little like the 1940s-era superhero Sparky Watts, as created by Boody Rogers. Idk if this was intentional or not but they seem to have a similar "can-do" personality bordering on the absurd in different ways

I'd never heard of this character! But it's the right time period so I was excited to look him up.

...My god, it's uncanny.

There's a few things going on here, and it's a fun opportunity to talk about the design process, which I'm always happy to explore.

So when I first started working on Guadalcanal, I was immediately drawn to the little detail that he had one gun for defense purposes. It's almost silly, right? This big, imposing aircraft carrier who can't really defend himself at all and has to rely on the destroyer escort, but still carries around a tiny ladypistol "just in case". For that reason, my primary visual inspiration is, no joke:

Doctor The Meme himself from Gundam X. The wiki tells me his name is 'Techcs Farzenberg' which is an absolutely top-tier white-people-in-anime name.

Gonna be honest, I'm mad I didn't look up more pics of this guy before. Now This Is Fucking Character Design.

But he's a little old, right? And that hair just won't do. And I like how serious the glasses make him look, but I need a little more charm. A big boat needs to be the kind of character little boats will want to follow and defend. So we have a basic idea (as silly as it is) but we need to fill out the details.

I'm big on drawing design inspiration from old photos. Not only is this a great way to draw period-accurate outfits, but it also helps with designing more realistic faces. I find that when I draw inspiration from photos and real people, my characters feel more realistic, like people you could actually meet somewhere instead of just lines on a page. So I googled up "wwii navy men stock images" and clicked around.

Oh yeah, this is great stuff. His glasses dovetail nicely with our bespectacled non-combatant idea, and this lad's hair is much more indicative of the time period we're trying to portray. From this guy I pulled the hairstyle and reaffirmed that my decision to give Guadalcanal glasses was the right one. This guy just looks so approachable, and I want that for my character as well. If this is your great-grandpa, congrats, he lives in my head rent-free.

Now to put the finishing touches on him. I bulked him up a lot to give that air of importance and authority, and softened his facial features out to make him even more friendly-looking. His face - particularly his nose and mouth - are heavily inspired by an ex-boyfriend of mine (who I won't show here for obvious reasons lol). I think most designers can't help but draw inspiration from the people around them, so we might as well lean into it. I love the way my lived experiences can be reflected in my work. Now we can put it all together!

The one on the left was the first-pass design and the one on the right was a redraw after some tweaks and a bit of practice. You can tell I struggled with the hair and just phoned it in, but that's what first-passes are for. There's a reason I never posted the first design, lol. The second one I prettied him up a bit and broadened all of his features, focusing on his nose and the ratio of negative space around his eyes and mouth. I think this gives him a more mature look without aging him too much, since we still want him to look young enough to excuse his youthful arrogance. I figured out the hair as well, which was helpful!

"But why does he look so much like Sparky, then?" You might ask. This is a fun example of 'convergent evolution' - where two artists come up with the same result based on different approaches! A thing that's important to note about Sparky is that he was originally designed as a send-up or parody of superhero comics of the time. This informs a lot of decisions about his design.

Sparky has superhuman strength, speed, and toughness. Sound familiar?

But of course, you don't want to step on a copyright holder's toes. And you want comic book buyers to know they're buying a Sparky Watts comic and not a Superman one. Being a parody gives the artist a lot of outs here, ways to make Sparky visually distinct while still poking fun at the types of superheroes the audience is more familiar with.

Where Superman sheds his Clark Kent glasses that make him unassuming and approachable, Sparky keeps them on all the time. Superman has tousled black hair and a costume with his symbol on the front, where Sparky has neatly-parted blonde hair and a normal collegiate outfit that distinguishes him only by way of saying that he's completely ordinary. You can see, then, how they arrived at his design. By making him *different from Superman* they made him the same as Guadalcanal. That's okay, they didn't know. ;^)

Thanks for the ask!

[karlachismylife]

I'm absolutely obsessed with your writing dude and I'm really excited to see all those ideas you talked about, your writing is so detailed and accurate to character, I struggle to stay in character. Like learning how a character acts so I can make what I'm writing about believable lol, I'm not sure how to practice either, do you have any tips?

You comrades really decided to blow up my brain with positive validation today, I'm literally feeling like an overly excited pup who got all the treats and bellyrubs and praise. Or maybe it's all that chocolate I ate, not sure. In other words THANK YOU??? *cue me crying every time I see someone on tumblr complain about people making characters OOC cuz I think it's about me*

So, as you can see, I am most definitely not someone who's confident in my capabilities of staying in character. Also, I have never, NEVER studied writing in any shape or form - I enjoyed my literature classes a lot, sure, but there is zero grams of purposeful theory studying in my gorilla head and I'm pretty damn sure it shows. Everything I write is super intuitive, and I can count on one hand how many times I made conscious desicions to adopt something for my writing style or smth. And it still was just "oh hey I like that thingy, want that in my text", no theory behind it.

So here are some

Juju's Tips on How To Maybe Stay In Character (Based On Guesses And Prayers To Gorilla Totem)

Simplify. Before everyone starts rightfully throwing rotten tomatoes at me, lemme explain: of course you won't go far if you actually take a character and shrink him down to a single trait. This is actually a very dangerous advice if applied half-assed, because this is how we get Bucky Barnes and those fucking plums (I hope this wasn't a Russian-fandom thing only). While it is good for memes and fandom to take one such thing and exaggerate, it's hurtful to the overall character image in fandom and your writing. Characters, while not fully-fledged people, are still multidimensional!

Why would I give such a shitty tip then, you ask? Well because it's a tip for your start. Take your character and try to put him in a few main boxes. Is he an unapologetically Scottish ADHD puppy with a sprinkle of violent tendencies? Is she a ruthless Mexican mastermind with ambitions that are worth more than any loyalty or morals to her? Or maybe a kind-hearted slightly shy talented tiefling blacksmith with a huge nerdy streak? An awkward Liverpool drummer guy who gets teased for his big nose and constantly gets in some kind of trouble? I bet you recognized at least some of them. This is the wrapper of your character (along with their appearance), this is what will almost always signal people that it's this lil guy. If you can at least keep inside that broad border, then you're already doing not that bad. Some stories don't even require more! Especially if it's comedy: comedy will want you to push into these things (as well as some smaller traits you can exaggerate to an absurd size), use them to paint a caricature or maybe play off of them with something opposite. But then again, maybe don't ask how to write comedy a person who cackles from pee jokes.

Next step is: know your character factually. As in, research their backstory, read their wiki, try to get and memorize as much information from their mother media as possible. Information can come from miscellaneous sources too! For example, I still beat myself up about the fact that in one of my earlier posts about domestic fluffy headcanons on Karlach x Soap I managed to make TWO factual mistakes just because I didn't check out Neil's tiktok first. If I did, I would've never said that Soap prefers showers and tea to baths and coffee. Luckily, I fixed it quickly, but yeah, it does help to see maybe what the actor/director/writer/creator mentioned in interviews or something. Fan pages are good too, but they might get flooded with popular headcanons (Soap's ADHD as an example) or lean too hard into that simplified image from previous step.

THEN is one of my favourite parts: learn your character like an artist would. Note their little mannerisms (Price's little hip movement? Iconic. Price is honestly STUFFED with Nik's cock these little mannerisms, courtesy one bery talented and well-versed in his craft actor. this shit makes characters alive, immediately recognizable, easy to parody. Or - Karlach's nose wrinkle that I love so much. Or - Bradd Pitt's character constant snacking on fastfood in Ocean's Eleven.), their habits, their quirks. If it's a character without visual, from a book, it might be even easier cuz such things would be brought up at least several times by the author. Sorry for a self plug, but my head is too empty for any other thing, but one of my characters in a biopunk story was constantly scratching her head.

This leads up to a thing you can finally write yourself: change them. Not just willy-nilly of course, but once you gather these three supporting beams (simplified wrapper, trivia knowledge and personal mannerisms/quirks), you can change them purposefully. That constant head scratching? Actually used it to show that woman's transition from hostile environment where she was oppressed to somewhere she felt accepted (people were forcing her to stop it and it worsened the habit VS no one chastised her for it and it became tame and unharmful to her). If Price constantly shoulder slaps his found family, what would it mean if he doesn't? Karlach wrinkling her nose out of anger in battle VS because she's laughing her tail off with friends? More obvious would be of course putting the characters against something like their important biography things (anything from the LONG list of abuse and torture Ghost went through, Karlach's past in Zariel army, Nikolai's Soviet upbringing etc). This is how you use already ready to go information to make a character look organic in any situation you put them in, be it bubble bath fluff or sci-fi porn au with snail tentacle aliens or fandom crossover or the most glass-chewing angst ever. Take something recognizable in hat character and either double down on it or change it - depending on whether you wanna show that they're in their element or the opposite.

Another very important thing (some might say it's actually more important than previous) is to build up off what we know. Since there's only so much a piece of media and even the creator themselve can tell us about a character, we should be ready to guess. It's rare that we're given some direct and extensive motivation for any character deeds unless we're in their head constantly (like in Dostoyevskiy's "Crime and Punishment" f.e.), and the less we're given, the more blank space we should try to fill in. If we know character's biography, we should try and draw conclusions on how their past influenced them. Ghost's trauma is the brightest example. OR the ADHD headcanon on Soap: we're given his actions, explosiveness and impulsiveness, his mannerisms and more or less type, and from that we build up that headcanon. It's not stated anywhere, but this is one of possible reasons behind him being portrayed the way he is.

In other ways, use logic, common sense and honestly - personal experience, I think it's one of the easiest things to make characters to feel alive, and alive characters always read as more "staying in character" than maybe very factually correct, but lifeless depictions - that's my lifehack btw (might be controversial). Try to deduct what lies underneath those mannerisms, think what consquencess would have character's past, simply imagine what reactions to a situation you could deem possible - one of them will be suitable for the character, I promise.

And it's already very loosely tied into all this, but since I mentioned personal experience and general believability - go do people watching. Notice their mannerisms, habits, quirks, reactions, experiences. Watch how shit's portrayed in movies, if anything; this will also help you to learn how to convey something deeper through small details (using allegories, metaphors, colour language and all that impressive shit).

Okay that's a whole load of yapping (probably more than you needed), but that's not all! Cuz there's also practice! And the only way to practice any writing is to write. Lemme give you homework :)

Grab those prompt/reactions lists and write away. What's their reaction to seeing a fat ol' spider right there on the toilet seat when they go for a midnight piss? Favourite dessert? Fill out the NSFW alphabet for them (dunno about y'all, but I always end up with some deep psychological portrait instead of masturbating material with those).

A little more advanced excersise in my opinion: try to write down a certain number of headcanons with no given theme. The trick is, you would have to justify them more or less (no, it's not oblgatory for headcanons in general, you can just have them for fun, but for this excersise you should). I say - Soap is SHIT at buying groceries. Why? Because he's easily distracted by flashy wrappers and shit. Why? Because he has ADHD. Why? Because [yada yada all the things I see in him from my own ADHD experience]. Unravel that chain, it doesn't have to be two-step thing, see, here I have sseveral steps between what we have (some of his traits like fidgeting, impatience, impulsiveness etc) and the headcanon (he's shit at buying groceries).

A couple more miscellaneous tips cuz I remembered them too late to build into the whole structure I have here (you can't see it but it's there):

The way characters speak is important, and it's not just accents. How much does this character swear? Do they mix languages? Do they prefer long or short sentences? Do they have a rich vocabulary, do they use slang, do they stutter, take long pauses, switch themes every five seconds? This is one of the "quirks" you should look into a lot.

Their relationships with other characters, the way your character views others and the way others view them are important. It might tell you a lot about how the character behaves with different people and in different situations.

All the other means of characterisation, including even the environment we see them, also will help to understand, dissect and thus adopt the character.

Use music, mate! I struggle with assigning exact songs to characters, I'm more of a "one song - one text" gorilla, but a lot of people have no such problems and you might very much benefit from it. Maybe the actor that plays the character has a playlist somewhere available?

Empathy and acting. These are my actual main instruments, but I put them in the very end, because I have no idea how to explain them or how to practise them. But the ability to put yourself in someone's shoes is everything. I am zero logic 100% emotions in my art, I will feel shit first, try to justify it second. I bet there are actually analyzing and logical processes going on inside my head when I do this, but it happens without my awareness. I just think "what if their partner gets horrible withdrawal after climax?" and then I'm like "well shit Ghost would freeze, and Soap would panic like a puppy, and SoapGaz would use humor, and Price would take extremely patronizing role on, and..." and then I'm like yeah that tracks cuz yada yada, good job Juju.

And my final advice is: you don't have to always stay in character. AND you don't always have to justify going OOC. It's art, it's fun, it's for your own enjoyment. These characters aren't real people, they cannot and never will have full-fledged personalities, that's not how media works, at some point complexity of a character stops making them deep and interesting and makes them bland and overly complicated. If you really wanna write Soap screaming like a girl at the sight of a caterpillar, or make all four of thesse guys into wearing frilly lacy panties, or say that Karlach is addicted to eucalyptus gum, or- I really don't know what to say here cuz all these don't seem too out there for me... OH OH HERE; if you wanna make Ghost bang a punk anarchist (and I do), you can. No one's gonna arrest you for going OOC and I promise, there still will be people who enjoy it. Some people won't care you went out of character, some people won't think you did. Some people will yell at you regardless (I think. luckily, I haven't been yelled at once yet, and I am very very happy about it. but I still take general and vague fandom-yelling posts personally so yeah).

Have fun. Do art. Enjoy yourself. Put love into it. Put strong emotions into it. But mainly love.

I have never encountered a fanfic that would be so horribly OOC that I couldn't read it. But I have seen works with so little love in them that nothing felt genuine and authentic, no matter how accurate it seemed. So yeah, love is all you need ✌🏼❤️🦍

[spammreviews]

_____________

I would like to say that this is not a ranking of the characters based on morals. This is based on how good I think they are as characters. This is obviously extraordinarily subjective, however, I enjoy ranking and sorting. 

There are three factors I generally considered for this ranking. 

The first is how well written I think the characters are. Do they have dimensions, do they serve their purpose within the story, do they stand out from the very large crowd of faces within this story, et cetera. This one is less important if they are a very minor character. 

The second is how fun I think they are. The point of some of these characters is to get a chuckle, and if they did that, then they succeed as characters.

The third is vibes. Sometimes, I just vibe with characters.

Art Credits to 

The_Mico

https://m.facebook.com/198918470118215/photos/a.232323176777744/465124813497578/?type=3

Amok https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/File:Visenya.jpg

Riot Art Therite

https://riotarttherite.tumblr.com/

The Three Hares

Rae Lavergne

Weak Aside

https://www.tumblr.com/weakaside

Paolo Puggioni

Image of Nettles by Rlyeha https://www.deviantart.com/rlyeha/art/Nettles-885635180

Special Thanks to

A Wiki of Ice and Fire

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Main_Page

and

A Search of Ice and Fire

___________

Without further ado, the list. This is a ranking of all characters from best to worst, with 398 being the worst and 1 being the best.

_____________________

F Tier:

398. Xaro Xhoan Daxos-

Xaro is like a weird homophobic stereotype. One could compare him to Varys, but Varys is a character and he has dimensions. There are moments where we are surprised by Varys. Varys has a boring room. Varys went out of his way to save Gendry. Varys has a fucked up backstory. Despite all of Varys’ silliness he never feels cartoony. He’s an actual capable and intelligent person who’s motivations are mysterious and intriguing. Et cetera, et cetera.

Meanwhile, Xaro Xhoan Daxos has no surprises. He’s just…ridiculously one noted, and that note teeters on the edge of being kind of homophobic with a few weird lines which I hope were not George’s intention.

All of this would be fine if he only had a few chapters, but he appears in two books. Two! 

Everything Xaro says and does is so basic. He’s got simple and un-unique strategies because of his simple and un-unique motivations. Half of his lines and actions feel the same. His purpose within not just the story, but within individual chapters and conversations, never changes. I’m getting really angry right now.

I get that we are supposed to hate Xaro, but the hatred I feel with him is not a fun hatred. I do not love to hate Xaro. I simply hate him. He annoys me. The way he talks is so fucking annoying, with this stupid eloquence wich makes simple sentences turn into paragraphs. It reminds me of papers I read in college. “I have crossed long leagues and stormy seas to help you once again.” “A pretty metal, but fickle as a woman. Gold, now…gold is sincere.” Shut the fuck up. He also talks about how hot Dany is every other second. I get the point that the traits of Dany which are valued are her appearance, so even someone who’s not attracted to women is going to act pervy, but it’s still annoying.

Xaro is also ridiculously condescending. It’s purposefully infuriating, but it’s so cartoony  and on the nose it’s not even a funny kind of infuriating. Perhaps he might go higher if he died a terrible death, but for now he’ll go here.

He also adds nothing to the story. He has two conversations with Dany in Dance. The first one lasts for pages, and it’s only purpose is to give us a bunch of information. The second one’s purpose is to piss Xaro off so he can declare war.

In conclusion, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is too ridiculous to be taken seriously, and too annoying to be taken comedically.

397. Yezzan zo Qaggaz- 

It’s really hard to tell apart one Ferengi-esque Ghiscari from another (I think the enslaved people aren’t Ghiscari, but I’m not sure). They’re all ugly, cruel, ridiculously decadent, and greedy. It’s bland, it’s repetitive, and it’s almost, dare I say…lazy. The world of Mereen feels so drab in comparison to the world of Westeros because everyone there basically just acts basically the same. At least with the Ferengi, we were introduced to sympathetic and complex ones, and we learned about the nuances of their society and all that jazz. The Ghiscari are not afforded that same privilege. The exception is Hizdar Zo Loraq, who will be discussed later. 

I’m obviously not saying that George should have introduced us to a nice, sympathetic slaver. Please do not misconstrue my meaning. I’m saying that George could have introduced us to a slaver who’s personality stands out, or a Ghiscari who wasn’t a slaver or something. You can make a character complex and interesting while still having them be completely irredeemable in every way. This is ASOIAF, after all, and this story has lots of characters who are atrocious people but who still have interesting internal psychologies. Hell, sometimes adding complexity or whatever to a character can make them more hateable, as we will later see. I know the Ghiscari suck, but there’s no slaver who provokes the same degree of anger in me that Joff or Ramsay does, and I’ll explain why later.

These are all evil, irredeemable human-shaped pieces of shit, but at least Joff and Ramsay are characters. Ramsay isn’t even that complex…he’s mostly just sadistic for no reason, but his sadistic cruelty is still interesting because he is a character with traits beyond “evil”.  He’s a specific kind of evil, and there’s a reason he’s that kind of evil, and that specific kind of evil comes in a variety of ways. Grazdan and Yezzan and Kraznys are just evil. 

Once again, I am not saying that George should have made a slaver sympathetic. I want to emphasize that. He could have, at the very least, given one of them an interesting quirk, like one of them is a big fan of card games or whatever and the other slavers are really annoyed because he always wants to play. I don’t know. I’m not a critically acclaimed writer of dozens of fantasy and sci fi novels.

Obviously, George making the slavers all greedy and decadent makes a clear point, but there are ways to portray greed and decadence interestingly, as we see elsewhere in this story. With the Ghiscari, George just ramps up the traits to extreme levels, making the slavers too cartoony to be seen as a realistic threat. I’m not against this series being a bit silly, but the slavers feel beyond parody, and this hurts his criticism of the systems of Slaver's Bay, as the story focuses less on how the system doesn’t work, and instead simply shows that the people who benefit from it are annoying and gross. Now, the story can focus on how a system is fundamentally flawed and also show how the people who benefit from it suck, because this story does do that, but not with Slaver’s Bay. 

It’s also definitely possible to show oppressive forces as being ridiculously stupid and annoying while still having them feel real. Outside of ASOIAF, Quentyn Tarantino does this very well with Django Unchained and Inglorious Bastards. Within ASOIAF, well…we’ll see.

In conclusion, the character of Yezzan is extremely lazy writing.

396. Grazdan Mo Eraz (not pictured)- 

It’s really hard to tell apart one Ferengi-esque Ghiscari from another.

Much has been written about how ASOIAF is not just a psychological story (meaning that the plot is driven by the character’s internal psychologies) but also a sociological story (meaning the plot is driven by the world around the characters). Dany’s story definitely succeeds on a psychological level as Dany’s character is well thought out. However, it only occasionally succeeds as a sociological story, in my opinion at least. 

This is because the society Dany interacts with in Storm and Dance doesn’t really feel like a society. We never see what daily life is like in Mereen, or see a diversity of thoughts and opinions within the citizens of Astapor. Everyone feels like a part of one big homogenous blob. A society is made up of individual people, with all of these individual people having their own psychologies. In a sense, sociological stories are psychological stories- but with the psychology of thousands or even millions of people. What is the internal psychology of Grazdan Mo Eraz? Why has his society made him think and act this way? The answer is, he has none. He’s just another bad guy. 

With much of the plot in Westeros, we see that these characters have ideologies which are a result of the world they're in, no matter how minor these characters are. For example, the two knights Brienne meets in her first chapter in Feast are clearly influenced by these ideals of knighthood and chivalry and gender, and these are very minor characters. Even the most displaceable of characters, such as Euron, are clearly influenced by their society's values.

We never get this with anyone in Slaver’s Bay.

395. Kraznys mo Nakloz-  

It’s really hard to tell apart one Ferengi-esque Ghiscari from another. These three slavers are equal in value to me, as they are extraordinarily similar characters, with their only differences being different versions of sucking. One is harsh, one is jolly, and one is mocking. These are very common types of assholes within ASOIAF. I get them mixed up in my mind all the time.

I have one more issue with the Wise Masters of Yunkai and the Good Masters of Astapor. George wrote a fat character who suffered extreme amounts of abuse and bullying because of his weight and has to learn to love himself. However, he also wrote a bunch of characters who are fat to show that they’re rich. This trope isn't even subverted in any way, like with Wyman Manderly. The Wise Masters are fat, and it seems like we’re supposed to be disgusted by the fact that they’re fat because it means they’re decadent and gross. With Wyman, his weight is cleverly used against us, as we assume he’s just a bit player who only cares about himself, but then it turns out that he’s an extreme badass who uses his obesity as a shield. Even with Illyrio, we get the idea that he is more than what he seems to be, and he also serves as a reference to the “jolly fat guy” trope from Shakespeare. However, with the wise masters, they’re just overweight. We are supposed to think it’s funny that Kraznys “has bigger breasts than Dany”. I suppose maybe it’s actually to show Dany’s immaturity, and that she’s negatively influenced by beauty standards, but that’s not something which is really explored. With Cersei, we get her trusting hot people who betray her and disliking “ugly” people who are actually trying to help her. 

That doesn’t seem to be a big part of Dany’s character. Kraznys is what he seems to be and nothing much more than that.

394.Doreah- 

She was not much of a character

And ohhh…she had no personality

And I got this crazy feeling

I’m gonna ah ah put her low

And oh she was so boring

I didn’t care when she died

And I got this crazy feeling

George didn’t care either

As Dany only thinks of her once afterwards

You may ask what’s her name

And I’ll whisper her name

I’ll whisper her name

And her name is D-O-R-E-A-H 

DOREAH! D-O-R-E-A-H

And oh, I’m gonna tell the world

She was Dany’s handmaiden

No, not Jiqui or Iqui

The only difference is that she was blonde

And the way she was described

Was very creepy

DOREAH! D-O-R-E-A-H!

Oh, what’s the point?

What’s the point of her?

Quentyn died for someone’s sins, but not mine.

392 and 393. Irri and Jiqui-

I have forgotten the existence of Irri and Jiqui. They are Dany’s Dothraki “friends”. I feel like George screwed up by making all of Dany’s friends (other than Missandei) uninteresting, and also making most of the Dothraki she encounters lacking in any depth. Jon has a large treasure trove of kooky characters for him to bounce off of. Some of these characters are wildlings, who are displayed as having a wide variety of character types. 

Meanwhile, there are two flavors of Dothraki we meet: fierce men and fragile women. This fill-in-the-blanks approach to character writing is super boring, sticking out extraordinarily from the rest of the series. I don’t care about Jhogo because he is the same as Aggo who is the same as Rakharo. I don’t care about Irri because she’s the same as Irri who is just a non-Lysene Doreah.

Irri and Jiqui are not characters. That requires character traits, which they lack.

391. Reznak Mo Reznak- 

Reznak Mo Reznak is just…too goofy. His whole evil manipulator schtick feels like something from a C-tier Disney movie, and there simply isn’t anything done to make him in any way interesting or memorable. And, with many of these other lower tier characters, one could argue that they work well as set dressing, but Reznak’s set is already dressed fine. We get the idea that Mereen is a pit of vipers, and we get that there are all these people giving Danny bad advice. He adds nothing but another voice, and as voices go, his is the most annoying.

390. Aegon IV- 

Aegon IV feels like an AI generated list of things you don’t want a medieval king to be.

389. Alliser Thorne- 

Purposefully asshole characters are old hat. Sure, Alliser Thorne was created in the 1990s, but uhhh…whatever. Alliser does feel a tad bit tropey, which makes him kind of annoying. He’s also not evil in a fun way, just a jerk. I also don’t like Rast, but I didn’t get an image of him, so I’d also put him here.

I suppose one could say that we need two dimensional jerks like this in this part of Jon’s story, and I suppose that is true. However…I still don’t like him.

I’ve seen a lot of war movies, and there are tough drill instructors who are just as dimensional as Alliser yet still manage to be more interesting. Just look at Heavy Metal Jacket.

Also, like what is Alliser’s deal? He has no motives beyond just hating everyone for no real reason.

388. Jaehaerys II- 

Jaehaerys II is easily the most boring Targ king. Maybe he had a personality, but I can’t say for certain.

[cuppa-chai-chatter]

AAAAA okay these films WHACKED the mini-hyperfixation button!!! here we go

SO Cecelia Condit (the director of both Possibly In Michigan AND Beneath The Skin) based both short films off her real life experiences??? I watched an interview with her and went wiki diving and WOWZA

uhhh TW for like. murder? and a suicide attempt.

so from what I can find online, Cecelia dated a guy for about four years. His name was Ira Einhorn, but in her video Beneath The Skin she calls him Ike. Before she dated him, he had an ex girlfriend named Holly Maddux. They had split it off not long before Ike got with Cecelia, but in her video she says it was pretty mutual. So Ike and Cecelia date for about two years, at which point Ike tells Holly that if she doesn't come get her things from his house he'll throw them out. So Holly comes from New York to get her things and isn't seen after that. Ike is investigated for obvious reasons, but police don't have enough evidence to search further.

Two years later, an investigator hired by Holly's family finds out the people living under Ike's apartment have been complaining about a "rotting smell coming from the closet ceiling". Presumably he brings this to the police, because not long after that Ike's house is searched and they find a trunk in his closet that has the decapitated and partially mummified remains of Holly. Cecelia says that the head was shoved so far down into the chest cavity that it was originally thought to be missing.

Cecelia says in an interview that her art projects (in particular PIM) really helped her heal and move on from things, which makes me think the scenes of Sharon dreaming of being a corpse is probably a representation of survivor's guilt (though that's just my personal, non-professional thoughts) because Cecelia goes into how she wasn't mad about Ike killing Holly, but how she was mad about what Ike did or didn't do to her. Even though I've never personally experienced survivor's guilt, my long term SPIN about psychology has given me enough information that it's awful and takes a long time to heal.

Anyway, Ike (aka the Unicorn Killer because Einhorn means unicorn in German) skipped bail and was a fugitive for 17 years. He lived in Europe, married, and was finally extradited to the USA in 2001 after a lengthy and complicated extradition process. He tried to kill himself at one point to avoid jail. He just recently died in jail in 2020.

Cecelia says in her video how the blankets that Ike would give her when she'd stay over laid on the chest that Holly's body was in. The only reason she couldn't smell the corpse was because she was on medications at the time that took away her sense of smell.

Despite that all being extremely fucked up, it puts Possibly in Michigan in a whole new light. A lot of the strange symbolism suddenly makes a lot more sense and I'm glad Cecelia has found healing through her films.

Also, some more light hearted funfacts.

Cecelia only got permission to film in the mall before opening time by sitting in the mall office and refusing to leave before she got permission.

The guy who plays the Prince Charming was a friend of one of the actresses. Cecelia mentioned they'd need a knife and he pulled one out of his boot. Cecelia jokingly said "oh, do you have a gun too?". He did.

According to one comment on YouTube, Cecelia is down with the idea of Sharon and Janice being in a wlw relationship. I haven't checked this for myself because there's a bajillion comments and it's 3:30 AM.

Cecelia named Arthur that because it sounds like "Art Her" and she wanted to represent that art is sometimes used against women to put them down. She is also the person who wears the creepy mask in the mall scenes!

[xenoblademisadventures]

I'm bored. Gonna give two hot takes for every Xenoblade game. One uncommon criticism and one uncommon praise.

Xenoblade 1

Criticism

Shulk's character arc was bad. Like, what was he on about? Firstly, the revenge quest. It doesn't really tackle the ideas of revenge. Instead he just goes "oh shit my gf isn't dead time to be a pacifist." And with Egil, we've got Shulk going "we must spare him" while quite literally every other character, plot point, etc. is saying some variation of "we tried" or "no." And then he has no issue with slaying Zanza and his henchmen. He also has this thing about learning to see more than just what's in front of him, but that's really only something he tells Alvis once in Ose Tower. It's not something you can clearly see develope over the course of the game.

Praise

I really liked the camera in Xenoblade 1. You can see the cameraman going nuts whenever Alvis is on screen, especially when he gives Shulk that pep talk in Space. You can also see it with the fight against the mechon on Bionis Leg. The camera was just on point almost every scene. I think the credit goes to the storyboard artists, I'm not entirely sure. But they did an incredible job.

Xenoblade X

Criticism

The combat system was really bad. Like, I felt like there were two grounds for the combat. Either you have no clue what's happening or you snap the game in half. This is a multifaceted issue that comes down to a mix between the combat itself, unhelpful tutorials, and the UI failing to emphasize relevant information. But, what I mean here is that even if the game explained its combat system to the player proper, it's got too many type attributes, which usually just results in you switching out gear to match the resistances and weaknesses between fight, it also means I have to look up something's attributes on the wiki before I can properly plan out my build, which isn't an issue in the other games; the buffs attached to the dual guns are too powerful compared to everything else, so it just makes them overpowered, but they're also fun status effects, so it just makes every other gun feel bad to play; Overdrive is needlessly complicated and you can pretty much only either break the game or find the mechanic to be useless depending on whether you've looked up external guides; TP being regained through auto attacks would be a good system if the amount of TP gain wasn't fucking pitiful; also the TP arts are way too powerful like True Stream Edge and Ghost Factory are pretty much all you need to 1v1 most of the shit in the game; there's not much need for utilizing party members, post-game the avatar character can 1v1 everything, and even ignoring that, there aren't any real systems in place to make the presence of your allies feel known; and there's a bunch of other shit. It's definitely the worst combat system in the series by far.

Praise

I really like how X progresses its penalties for death. You start off with full party wipes only sending you back a few minutes. A lot of your deaths in this game will be caused by an overlevelled enemy spotting you, and the level design does an incredible job at accommodating this and turning that into a core part of the gameplay loop. So, about halfway through the game, you get access to these giant mechs. The mechs let you move faster and they're really fucking strong in combat. Like, if you haven't played X, imagine if you could use Ouroboros Form indefinitely. The catch is that if your mech dies, it doesn't respawn. You have to go get it repaired. A little inconvenient, but nothing unmanageable. If your mech gets destroyed too many times, your character's insurance stops paying for the repairs. The mechs are really fucking expensive. So, you probably can't afford the repairs, especially if you haven't been stockpiling an ungodly amount of money before chapter 6. Furthermore, threat assessment gets a lot more fucky once you get mechs because larger enemies have better stats than smaller enemies, so you get cases where level 40 enemies are weaker than level 30 enemies. So, you can't just see number big run away. But the game eases you into this. For one, you only get one mech immediately, which will probably go on the player character. So, you can learn to dismount whenever your mech might die. Then you start getting the ability to have the AI control the mechs. There's a command to tell specific party members to mount or dismount their mechs. So, the AI won't screw you if you're quick enough. Then you get access to the ability to make the mechs fly. There's two new major factors here. Firstly, that's a whole new axis to get spotted from. You might get sniped by an enemy way above or way below you. Second, you can't really dismount when you're in the fucking stratosphere, so you don't have that safety net. The game teaches the player how to keep an eye out for big enemies, so it doesn't feel unfair by the time you get to the point where a level 80 mech plucks your level 40 ass out of the sky. And I really like how the increased stakes are a natural progression to your power-ups. It's a really good system and it adds a great spice to the exploration.

Xenoblade 2

Criticism

So, this us something that I haven't complained about before, but it's a massive bugbear for me. I really hate that 2 and 3 removed the player's ability to tell what detection type the enemies are. Like, sneaking around dangerous enemies to explore areas early is some of the most fun I've had with these games. Like, the out of combat interactions with enemies in X may as well be the glue holding the gameplay together. One of my most memorable moments in Xenoblade 3 was stealing Riki's Biter from the level 90 area at level 30. And this is an even more annoying decision for 2 and 3 specifically because those games reuse a lot of enemies from 1, which does show enemy aggro types. So I just happened to have that information memorized, which let me avoid the enemies anyways. But there's no reason someone who hasn't played 1 or X would know that different enemies have different aggro types. I think the removal of this information also limits options for level design. Like, the Territorial Deathape was a lot more memorable in 1 compared to every other game. And the reason for that is because the deathape is kind of off to the side in the other games, but it will sneak up and ambush you in 1. Like, in X, the monkey was off to the side, but it has a billion other enemies that function same as Rotbart. It's just that the deathape happened to not be one of those enemies. While in 2 and 3, I think the more underwhelming deathapes can be largely attributed to them having much more predictable movement patterns. And part of the reason for that is that you can tell at a glance exactly how to avoid Rotbart in 1, but you don't get that option in 2 and 3. I think 2 and 3 both have been leaning more towards not making overpowered enemies randomly aggro onto the player. And I think they're worse off for it.

Praise

This is the first Xenoblade game where Monolith did a good job with the UI. For those who weren't around for 1 and X, the UIs were impressively bad and it wasn't really a question. 1 covered way too much space with useless information while X just completely failed to emphasize important details. Meanwhile, 2 did a great job at making information compact and emphasizing what the player needed to know.

Xenoblade 3

Criticism

N was a poorly written villain. His backstory was great, but everything else about him sucked. This applies to every other tragic villain in the game. They're expected to garner sympathy off the premise of "they're important to the protagonists," but they're presented the same way as any no bars evil villain, which is just a huge disconnect. Like, I can't really get behind N as an antagonist because I can't see a world where Noah does an evil laugh. Like, I can be sold that he'd join Moebius, but I can't buy him acting the way N's presented. As with Joran, I think he became a lot less interesting as a plot point once he's revealed to be an antagonist, which hurt Lanz's character arc a lot. Crys is potentially interesting, but omg please stop monologuing what the fuck. But yeah, that's why I think N is a pretty shit antagonist. He just doesn't sell the "was Noah" part.

Praise

This is going to sound strange, but the way the game handles swimming is so much better in my opinion. First of all, the sound effects are better. In every other game, my autistic ass would get really bothered by the swimming sound effects, but not here. Second, the fact that swimming doesn't cancel combat is great. It was really annoying falling or being knocking into water and having the character decide "no more fighting." It was most noticeable in X because you could jump and sprint during combat and thus had a better chance of falling into water (and falling into water cancelled Overdrive), but I also felt it in 1 and 2. Also, I appreciate that the game's tutorial makes you fight and swim, just to say "hey you can do that now btw" to returning players. I also really like the wave effects Erythia Sea. Those were really cool.

[spurious]

⭐️⭐️!

(fic writer commentary asks)

me: getting this ask and going back and forth for three hours about whether it's too much to just go off on a fucking dissertation about O I Think We Should Be Brethren

actually, you know what, fuck it, we ball!!!! i'm extremely proud of this story and i can allow myself to talk about it.

For the moment I'm just going to talk about chapter one, because I started writing my thoughts and it got.........................................long, but if anyone's actually interested in the following two chapters I am fully willing to get into those as well.

ALRIGHT BUCKLE UP.

Walt Whitman's Live Oak, With Moss #4 reads, in its entirety, as follows:

This moment as I sit alone, yearning and            pensive, it seems to me there are other           men, in other lands, yearning and            pensive.  It seems to me I can look over and behold            them, in Germany, France, Spain—Or           far away in China, India, in           Russia—talking other dialects,  And it seems to me if I could know those            men I should love them as I love           men in my own lands;  It seems to me they are as wise, beautiful,            benevolent, as any in my own lands;  O I think we should be brethren—I            think I should be happy with            them.

So my initial notes for this were the sort of vague idea of exploring my headcanon of John being gay, and wanting to sort of chart some of his experiences with finding/looking for/failing to achieve a queer community? And how that would intersect with his having, you know. Joined the military, traveled to exotic locations, met interesting people, and killed them (as they used to say). This is also how I ended up starting to read that fascinating book about gay us military history, because I really just had no frame of reference for what John's experiences might've been like.

Anyway, I wrote the first paragraph or so one night when I couldn't sleep and was just laying in bed mentally writing lines (honestly good job to me for not thinking I'd remember in the morning and then...not lmao).

Initially I just started writing, thinking about this kind of...handful of formative queer experiences that John might've had, and then after a while it became evident that this was gonna be...kind of long...so I made a separate note attempting to diagram out the different biographical beats I wanted to hit (thanks stargate wiki and also so many information websites about the US air force). So I just sort of ending up writing my way through these different points of John's life, through the twin lenses of loving flying and loving men, and all of his understanding of the tension that existed there; all of which leads him to learn that his feelings need to be sort of ruthlessly compartmentalized for, essentially, his own safety.

Also while writing the first chapter of this fic I had a week or so where I just vivid-dreamed about airplanes and flying? Literally never happened to me before but ok

I think one of my favorite bits in the early section of the first chapter is John driving down to Edwards just hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the test flights. There’s something just really pure and sweet about it to me, and it sticks out as an impactful moment even though nothing really happens.

The section beginning with In Asia, John learns a few more things. is where I really think I started to hit a stride in terms of the overall voice of the story, the sort of barren sadness of it all, mixed with that quiet desperate little spark of hope.

Writing directly about John's relationship with Nancy in a story where he's explicitly, textually gay was an interesting exercise. My read on the whole situation is that he did care for her, and that he thought, to some degree or another, that he could make it work--that maybe friendship would be enough, that he could give her what she needed, and anyway, what the hell else was he going to do? Live his truth?

So the bit with Nancy is where I ended up getting into the sort of recurring motif of marriage vows (the playlist for this fic being called "till death" and all that). In terms of writing the breakup, I tried to use the small amount of screentime we get of Nancy, where she just seems sort of...sad, for John, like that he's like this? And idk, she probably could've, would've been angry, but she strikes me as this very in-control woman who would have planned out this conversation beforehand, not really wanting it to devolve into a whole..."scene", or whatever (since I tend to imagine Nancy is of a similar WASPy stock to John, iykwim). And John, I think, would just go along, because like, that's how he ended up in the marriage in the first place, for one thing, but again, I believe he cared for her and he'd, like. Want her to be happy?

The divorce is fast, and John finds out that, for all that the brass loves a family man, there's plenty of room in the chain of command for an unattached loner who doesn't care if he dies.

This is just a line I like. Like, John knows exactly what his value to the military is, I think.

So anyway, then I proceeded to give myself several million feelings about John and Holland? Honestly from Phantoms I immediately read the relationship as a romantic one, at least on John's end. Like yes it's a showing of his usual Sheppardian recklessness when someone important to him is in danger, but...I just think he's in love, it makes sense to me that he would've had this just absolutely fucking devastating experience? That he would've fallen in love with this sort-of-mostly-straight guy and convinced himself he could live on these little scraps of affection, and then it ends with the person he loves just fucking. Dying? That's how you end up depressed in Antarctica!!!

I spent a lot of time reading transcripts and rewatching snatches of episodes while writing this (mostly ch2, but) and when I got to this bit of Phantoms I just fucking lost it:

HOLLAND (weakly): Sheppard, when we get out of here, I'll make sure I say something really nice at your court martial. SHEPPARD (smiling): Yeah. Come visit me in Leavenworth, huh? HOLLAND: No. It's way too depressing. SHEPPARD: Yeah.

And it's EVEN FUCKING WORSE in the actual episode than it is in text. Like it seems as though Holland's trying to make a joke when he says no, but John just...takes it? Like yeah, of course, you wouldn't want to do that for me. About this guy he's sacrificing his career and his life for? He just goes, yep sure wouldn't expect you to put yourself out even a little bit? IT IS JUST DEVASTATING. AWFUL. Fucking horrible and absolutely perfect angst content for me and my fic lmao. god. I cannot believe how sad that exchange is.

Soooooo you know. I think John went into that rescue thinking he would either save Holland and get a court martial, or he would die. And I think for quite a while afterward, he believes that he should've died in that desert, and everything afterward is extra innings he didn't really deserve.

[bakugouisabitch]

Ziggy, why are you so sure about TKB being right all the time and that his people were demonized by the “classist royalty”? I haven’t read the manga, but as I’ve seen, we seem to have no clue about Bakura being right and the Kul Elna people being demonized due to being low class. Who knows, maybe they were truly evil and deserved it? Can you please explain? 😕

Hello!

Sorry for replying this late. I’m gonna add some manga panels (read right to left) to explain better.

tw: slaughtering ? 

The answer is simple: because no one is just evil.

Let’s start by saying first and foremost: massacring an entire village, whether it’s mainly composed of criminals or not, is always wrong and unjustifiable. Period.

This is also the reason why Atem is so shocked when he finds out about it and why Akhenaden (and also his Pharaoh brother Akhenamkhanen) kept it a secret in the first place. Cause it’s bad. Period.

Now let’s go back to the narrative:

Forget everything you ever saw in the anime (both sub and dub) because Memory World/Season 5 just doesn’t make sense there - and most events were changed/removed from how they were in the manga to make the “good guys” appear better (to name a few examples: the soldiers sent by Akhenaden being somehow brainwashed to do the massacre, Diabound being sealed in some random hidden tablet underground and not coming directly from TKB’s soul, the golden duel disks you have to wear to summon the KAs instead of just using the Items, Thief King being the whole time possessed by Yami Bakura that in the anime is literally just Zorc so he doesn’t care abt his revenge, Atem saying a bunch of few more sympathetic lines he never said in canon, all if not most lines from TKB being completely removed, etc.) All these things don’t make sense if you follow the manga narrative and in fact, they don’t happen.

Akhenden does the massacre because in order to create the Millennium Items 99 human sacrifices were required. He could have chosen anyone. Volunteers, some form of “martyrs” ready to die to protect their Pharaoh, the fuck do I know... but what he did was a clear massacre aimed at a poor village “of thieves” that the palace people always despised because of their history: 

Kul Elna.

Transcript:

Akhenaden: “Hear Me! We ride for the village of Kul Elna in the Valley of The Kings!”

Soldier 1: “Kul Elna Village...?! The place called the ‘‘Village of Thieves’’?”

Solder 2: “There’s nothing there but grave robbers! They were descended from the Royal tomb builders, but they went bad. Why are we going there...?”

The village of Kul Elna seems to be based on the real-life ancient city “Deir el-Medina” since it was a city of “grave robbers descended from Royal tomb builders”, just like Kul Elna.

It’s even mentioned in the wiki:

Here is an interesting article about grave robbers in Deir el-Medina, and it’s said that the city was literally called, like, “a city of robbers” for how organised and common it was for them to rob the royal graves in the Valley of the Kings. It was a city that has been originally created by the Royals to house the artisans and tomb builders that laboured for the Royals near the Valley of the Kings. It also makes sense (and it’s also written in the article) how these thieves knew best how to rob the tombs because they build them themselves.

Extracts from the article:

“Tomb Robbers were usually the very workers who constructed them were able to plan their thefts so as to bypass the main security features to gain access to the tomb itself.”

“...inflation and delay of rations made it extremely harder for the villagers to live, leaving them to rob the tombs they once built to keep themselves and their family alive.”

Akhenaden targeted that village on purpose. He specifically targeted Kul Elna BECAUSE THEY WERE GRAVE ROBBERS and it was convenient to kill them. They were “just grave robbers” and were thereby not loyal to the Pharaoh. If you think about the fact that robbing a Royal tomb used to be one of the biggest capital crimes back then, it also explains it. So Akhenaden’s thoughts on the matter were practically “killing two birds with one stone”.

In the anime the guards/soldiers were in someway “hypnotised” to follow Akhenaden’s order which is bullshit and how the hell can he perform such magic all of a sudden duh? . In the manga they enjoyed doing the massacre completely lucid:

Transcript:

Soldier: “Heh heh... you thieves... As punishment for robbing graves... you bastards will become a part of the treasure!”

99 people were sacrificed and used in the ritual (as seen above in the panel: they’ve been melted with gold), but many more were killed and left to die.

As you can see, bodies were left to rot among the ruins, even if they weren’t used for the sacrifice. Akhenaden made sure to exterminate any living proof of the village - also to keep it a secret and let it be forgotten in history.

But one kid survived:

Bakura.

Whether it’s cause he hid well, or maybe his mother made sure that he was well protected, or maybe he happened to have been in the right place at the right time - we don’t know. But destiny wanted him to be alive. To live and tell the tale and to finally take his well-deserved revenge.

Everyone else but him died. Other kids, just like him, died too. How in the world were they all “just evil”???How could an innocent kid like him even be evil, to begin with??? And Bakura is the only character through the whole story that speaks out about it:

Transcript: “Out of lust for power, your Royal Family used Shadow Alchemy to create the seven Millennium Items! There was only a small price... the lives of every man, woman and child in this village!”

Transcript: “That’s what I want! To get revenge for the dark past you tried to hide... the birth of the Millennium Items!!”

Transcript: “‘‘Freedom? Peace?’’ Don’t make me laugh... The Millennium Items are made of good and evil... they’re like a double-edged sword.”

Of course, he believes in the good of the items as well, considering they are literally made out of his innocent people.

Through his whole journey, he grew stronger and he informed himself. He knew what he was talking about. And they removed EVERYTHING he says in the manga from the anime because....... honestly I don’t know why ?? but I believe it’s cause he just slapped too hard with his statements and would have made everyone understand that the villain of the story turns out to be the actual victim of the situation.

But ig that’s too deep for Konami standards  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Transcript: “The rich and powerful love to talk about “justice!” The right to punish those you fear... to kill those you hate... and call it execution, not murder! Is that really justice? Or is it evil? What you really fear is your enemy’s idea of justice!”

I say Bakura was right because there is nothing that can excuse such an atrocious act. There’s no justice in seeing the slaughter of everything you ever knew and all the people you ever loved for the sake of creating weapons used against people like that and just sit back and do nothing about it. 

Bakura was alive for a reason. He stayed alive for a very long time. Even after his death as Thief King Bakura, his soul clung to stay alive as Yami Bakura, at the cost of fusing with a demon, for over 3000 years. And he made sure to give them hell. :))