#and he got to be with the one person - though their origins were brutal - they found each other through the fucked

[bardicious]

I'm just so happy that Five got to be soft with someone, and that Lila reciprocated his love. 😭🥺❤️

[aether-bun]

Dating headcanons for dead plate Vince and rody??? (Seperate)

DEAD PLATE BOYFRIENDS!!

Ok. Ok. The chokehold these two have me in is something that needs to be studied actually. Utterly thrilled that I get to write for them. Thank you so much Anon.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Talks of aggression, NSFW if you squint

Reader is gender neutral ♡

VINCENT is subtly affectionate being your boyfriend.

I think it's obvious that Vincent is very cold, inside and out, even if it isn't intentional

Little does the outside world know, however, he's very affectionate with you!

Behind closed doors, he finds small ways to be in contact with you

Knees touching, pinkies grazing, shoulders bumping, the works

It's not that he's afraid or repulsed by full on affection, it's just more comfortable for him to act the way he does. It means he can recharge without being away from you, but without overwhelming himself

I think he's a very big fan of chaste kisses, or at least giving them. Whenever he receives such rushed notes of affection, he refuses to admit it, but it leaves him with a sense of yearning :(

Adores hand kisses holy shit

I like to hc that he has a little lemon tree somewhere that he takes care of with such enthusiasm it's wild

The one thing you can't touch in his apartment is that tree. Hard boundary.

When he comes upstairs after work, he's usually very tired

This means that you both tend to just quietly enjoy each other's presence until he falls asleep in bed

Some days he's REALLY tired.

One of the chefs fucked up a batch so badly that it pushed service back by an additional 40 minutes while he had someone run supplies

It cost him a lot. That chef was brutally torn into and promptly told to never come back. Very unprofessional, but no one would say much about it.

Very exhausting lesson in hiring better employees in Vince's eyes.

That night he just laid down on your thighs and ranted. He doesn't tend to talk much for too long out of personal preference but that night he couldn't shut himself up.

You just gently combed through his hair and listened

The sensations soothed him and he got over the anger fairly well

(now he lays on your thighs some nights just to score some extra nice attention)

Dates are always very lavish, it's his personal favourite thing to spoil you. He always has a hand on you during outings of any kind.

Will pull you closer if anyone stares at you.

Gentle with you, in every possible situation, but firm

He really just doesn't want anyone to hurt you, but on top of that, he couldn't bear the ache he'd feel to see you look at someone else the way you look at him

Slut for calling you "Mine". End of discussion.

RODY is hellbent on giving you the whole world.

Loves loves LOVES cuddles

You cannot get this man off of you he is so clingy

He wants what's best for you and more this man will break limbs for you

I will say you were probably originally going to be a rebound relationship

After Manon, he found you, but it had barely been a month and he was clearly desperate for love

He was honest about Manon and the recent breakup, and in turn, you were honest about your returned feelings for him, but you very firmly said he'd have to move on first

It took a long time. You waited.

When he did get better, you two hit it off! He cared for you and you looked out for him

Your dates are walks through the park, café breakfasts and movie nights

Rody is a big fan of kisses

He kisses you and you can feel his love pouring through them, he deepens the kisses like he's starved, even though you're more than affectionate with each other all the time

Service top or complete bottom. Not because he's dainty bc he definitely isn't. He just loves you so much he wants you to have everything. He lives to serve you at this point let's be so real

Learned how to budget for you!!!! Whoa!!!!!!!!

I think Rody dances with you all the time

Rain or shine, dawn or dusk, happy or sad, he finds it nice to dance with you

It calms him

He gives the BEST MASSAGES IDC

Butterfly kisses and nose kisses are this man's kryptonite. He will cry. He has before.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hey!!!! Sorry for the random hiatus, life killed me a little, but I'm back and raring to go! Dragon Anon, if you're reading this, I am working on your req but I'm making sure I actually know the DLC this time so it's taking a while to get through the content. Bear with me!!!

Sorry if these were a little sloppy, getting back into writing is a lil difficult but I'm working as best I can. I hope you enjoyed, and remember to leave your requests in my inbox!

Ciao for now~

[mssorceressupreme]

Hi! I absolutely adore your writing (also going through a maze runner hyper fixation🤭).

Would you be able to do a fic where reader was thought to have died when they originally escaped the maze but reader got out with Gally. Then Minho and reader reunite when they see Gally again (if this makes any sense).

Thank you!! 🫶🏻

hiii aw thank you love that means a lot 💓💓 omg yesss this is such a lovely prompt!! I love reunions lol especially when one s/o was thought to be dead 😝

——

Into Your Arms

Pairing: Minho x Reader

Summary: the gladers thought you were dead (you were shot instead of chuck), but what happens when you’re reunited at last. Your bond with Minho proves unbreakable as you face the future together.

Warnings: mild violence, mentions of bullet scars

——

You sat in the dimly lit room of your shared safe house in the Last City, your fingers tracing an old scar on your stomach.

It was a constant reminder of the day you had narrowly escaped death, a brutal memento left by a bullet from Gally, who wasn’t in the best state of mind a year back.

The pain of that moment, both physical and emotional, had nearly broken you. Yet, here you were, alive and determined, haunted by thoughts of your friends from the glade. Every night, you wondered if they had survived, if they were out there somewhere, fighting the same fight. If Minho was doing alright.

The last memory you had of your boyfriend was him shedding tears as he cradled you in his arms, before you passed out from the loss of blood. That was when they presumed you were dead. Everything after that was a blur, well, until Lawrence and his crew rescued you and Gally.

A knock on the door broke your reverie. Gally stepped in, his expression serious but tinged with something else—hope. “We spotted something, or rather, some people, and we’re bringing them in soon. You might want to be there when we arrive back.” What did he mean by that?

Though Gally was the person who gave you that scar, you forgave him for it. The both of you looked past that and decided to start fresh when Lawrence brought the two of you to his army. Gally even became a brother figure to you, constantly on the lookout to keep you safe.

Moments later, they returned.

Your heart pounded as you waited for their vans to reveal the mystery guests inside.

No shucking way.

The sight that greeted you made you gasp. As soon as the doors slid open, familiar faces emerged. Your gladers. Thomas, Newt, Frypan—they were all here. Relief and joy surged through you, but a sharp pang of anxiety struck you when you didn’t see Minho.

You stood there blending in with the crowd, not knowing what to say or do.

“Hey Greenie.” Gally greeted Thomas, to which he replied by striking Gally’s jaw. Gasps were heard and our soldiers cocked their guns, aiming at Thomas.

“Woah woah woah—stop, stop!” Newt rushed to the front, preventing Thomas from striking Gally once more.

“He killed Y/N…” Thomas spat, “do you have any idea what that did to Minho!”

“I know, I remember. I was there…but I also remember that he was stung and out of his mind.” Newt defended Gally, hoping to calm Thomas down before a fight escalated.

“I’m actually right here...” You said aloud, pushing past the crowd and making your way to the front. You slowly helped Gally up and stood face-to-face with your fellow gladers.

“Y/N??” They gasped in unison. Thomas and Newt rushed to hug you, Fry followed not long after.

“It’s so good to see you again.” Thomas softly said, squeezing you, “He would be elated to know.” You immediately knew who he was referring to. But where was he?

“H-how?! How is this possible? We watched you die. Both of you.” Newt questioned, glancing from Gally to you.

“No, you left us to die.” Gally retorted, “We were lucky Lawrence found us when he did, if not Y/N wouldn’t have made it.”

“What’re you guys doing here anyway?” You inquired, “and where’s—” Before you even finished your question, Newt read your mind.

“Minho. WCKD has him here, we’re looking for a way in.”

Your heart sank, he was here the whole time and you didn’t know?! “Let’s get him then! Gally?”

Gally nodded, “I can help with that. Follow me.”

——

The hours that followed were a blur of planning and preparation. You donned WCKD soldier suits, your faces hidden behind masks. Each step you guys took inside the compound was a step closer to Minho, but also a step deeper into danger.

The tension was thick enough to cut through it with a knife, every sound amplified, every shadow a potential threat.

As you fought your way through the facility, the adrenaline was mixed with fear. You were fighting to save someone you thought you’d lost forever.

“We’ll wait here.” Gally and you waited outside a tall modern building, WCKD’s headquarters, squatting behind a large pillar.

“Are you sure they’re doing alright inside? Shouldn’t we go in to help them?” I demanded, “I need to know that Minho and the others are safe.”

“Trust me, they’ll find a way out of that building.” As though Gally had predicted the future, a glass window on one of the higher floors smashed, and out jumped three figures.

“That’s our cue!” Gally hastened, both of you got in position and followed the other “WCKD soldiers” as they approached the trio.

“Freeze! Put your hands in the air!” One of them commanded pointing guns at your boys, “Uh uh uh!” He continued, when Thomas reached for the gun in his leg strap.

Gally and you acted quickly, shooting them, one by one the soldiers passed out.

The trio stood there dumbfounded, and finally sighed with relief when Gally revealed his mask first.

“Gally?” Minho’s jaw dropped.

“Minho.”

You followed, revealing yourself next.

Minho froze, eyeing you up and down. He shook his head, tears welled up in his eyes, “Y/N?….”

You nodded, wasting no time running up to him and embracing him. “Minho!” You breathed, your eyes filling with tears, body trembling with relief and emotion.

He held you tightly, his breath ragged in your ear, “You’re alive…?!?” He whispered, disbelief and relief mingling in his voice, “All this time…baby, I thought you were dead.“

You pulled back slightly, tears streaming down your face, and punched him playfully on the shoulder, “You were here all this time, and I didn’t know?”

Minho’s eyes were wide with emotion, his voice cracking. “I thought I lost you forever when you got shot in the glade…by him,” He glared at Gally but couldn’t find a reason to be angry now that you were alive, “I mourned you every day.”

Your heart broke at the raw pain in his voice. You reached up, cupping his face in your hands. “I’m here now, Minho. I’m here.”

He hugged you again, tighter this time, as if afraid you might disappear. “Gally took me under his wing,” you explained softly, feeling Minho tense at the mention of Gally.

Minho’s eyes flickered over to Gally, anger flaring briefly, “You shot her,” he said, his voice hard.

Gally raised his hands defensively, “I was stung and truly didn’t mean to—”

“Thank you.” Minho’s responsed baffled Gally, he was sincere, “Thank you for taking care of her.” Once Minho saw that you were safe and well, forgiving Gally was easier.

Minho’s anger dissipated as quickly as it had flared. He sighed, his shoulders relaxing, “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He said, looking back at you, “that’s all that matters now.”

——

Timeskip to Safe Haven (and Newt survives cause I want him too 😩):

After the festivities of celebrating your first day at the safe haven, Minho guided you to a quiet corner, his eyes never leaving you while the others continued socialising.

“Let me see your wound,” he said gently.

You lifted your shirt slightly, revealing an old scar. Minho’s fingers traced the mark, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I never should’ve left you at the glade,” he whispered, “I should’ve protected you then.”

“You couldn’t have known,” you replied, placing your hand over his, “none of us could have known what would happen.”

He looked up at you, his eyes wet with unshed tears, “When I thought I lost you, I didn’t know how to go on.”

“You don’t have to anymore,” you gently replied, “We’re together now. We’ll face whatever comes next, together.”

He pulled you into his arms, and you rested your head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. For the first time in what felt like eternity, you felt a sense of peace. The nightmares of your separation were over, and you had been given a second chance.

As the night wore on, you talked with Minho, your words a balm for your wounded souls. The two of you shared everything—what you had endured, the fears you faced, and the hope that had kept you going. Each word, each touch, strengthened the bond between you.

The sun began to disappear into the horizon of the sea tinting the sky a beautiful shade of orange, purple and pink.

That was when Minho finally spoke the words you had longed to hear. “I love you,” he said, voice raw with emotion. “I never stopped.”

“I love you too,” you replied, your heart swelling with joy. “I always have.”

You held each other close, the horrors of the past fading in the light of your reunion. You had found each other again, and together, you were ready to face whatever the future held.

[katerinaaqu]

Okay so that people will not think that I am an unecessary hater here are some things that I actually liked or loved about Epic the Musical:

So everyone who knows me, I openly express my dislike on the changes of Epic the Musical (although as I say many times the music is really good, the production very passionate and I congratulate the creator for getting so much love despite the fact that I personally dislike his artistic choice on the matter)

However here's a small list of things that I actually liked very much about the musical (sorry if it gets long!)

The first two sagas:

Honestly the two sagas (Troy and Storm) were masterpieces not only song-wise but also plot-wise. The adaptation remained loose with many things being adapted for modern audiences but it was still generic to the Epic Cycle in general and Odyssey in particular. The pace of the plot was quick like the fall of Troy was, the heroes speak as if they are on the right ("tonight we shall make the Trojans pay") to encourage each other even though then the reality check falls on them. Amazing fast pace songs give their turn to a slow and dramatic one

Odysseus and Astyanax:

More specifically as a sequence on the above I really liked the way the myth was depicted and again very loosely adapted off Iliou Persis version which is the one version we know where Odysseus clearly kills the baby with his own hands by "throwing it off the walls". Even if generally I am more aligned with the version of the myth that has Neoptolemous doing it, the fact that we have the actual protagonist do the brutal act was a very good touch and I love it how he uses only that small and so under-analyzed concept and he created a very beautiful moral dilemma. The setting stone of "monster vs man" was a promising thing too (although I personally got disappointed at the actual execution of it because of the changes in storyline). The way that Odysseus knows it is the logical choice to kill the heir of Troy and it tears him apart inside is not just amazingly executed but also very much IC with Homer's Odysseus.

Full Speed Ahead:

No need for explanations here. The song was great, was keeping in touch with the original Odyssey, spirit of Odysseus on-point and the essence of it great! Although it was way too happy after the darkness of the "Just a Man" one can understand that the tension created should be released and somehow it did point out the coping mechanism of Odysseus at some parts of the Odyssey which also lead to many emotional breakdowns for Odysseus (ironically the most infamous was the one that got him to offend Poseidon in the first place)

Giving Eurylochus and Polites more lines:

Eurylochus is known for questioning the authority of Odysseus and Polites for being his best friend but in general we do not see too much of them in the Odyssey (especially Polites who only appears once as mentioned at Circe's island). Even if making Polites a bubbly token character to balance the whole emotional burden of the war was a bit too overused theme for me I didn't dislike it per se. And it was good that he plays a good balancing role there. Also generally speaking Eurylochus's character development was not bad either (daresay I liked his character development more than Epic!Odysseus! XD) because it starts from a strong but opinionated man to a basic arch-rival figure to the end part.

Which is why I was kinda disappointed that Polites was killed off at Polyphemus's cave because it seemed to me that he was there for the drama (even future scholiasts of the Odyssey do not think that Polites was in the cave at all yet alone killed in it) but again given that Polites is pretty much a clean slate character if that was like the major change of it I wouldn't necessarily mind it.

Warrior of the Mind:

The song was beautiful and it captured Athena's essence very well (minus the very much overused mind vs heart content of hers which is good that it was somehow rectified a bit with God Games given that Athena was never against emotions neither did she try to stop her champions from having them and she doesn't make separation of logic vs emotions. In fact she fires up emotions to her champions many times knowing what a helpful thing emotion is. I think he overplayed the fact that Athena encourages logic to make her "cold logic material" but that wasn't really my issue so much I mean it is just an over-used trope but it is not completely inaccurate).

It was interesting to connect the boar of Parnassus to Athena (which is again a common trope in greek mythology that gods send random tests for whoever is worthy) and how ellegedly Athena and Odysseus meet in this context. Again it has nothing to do with the original Odyssey and yet this loose adaptation of their meeting was an interesting interraction with a lot of potential and emotional connection. I also like how Athena appears more cold in her speech like "change from the way I designed you" or "don't disappoint me" which is basically a genuine trope of Athena's. Like every champion of hers that disappointed her (for example Tydeus) didn't really end up well! Which is a change I adored for the Musical adaptation

About 2.5/3 of "Remember Them"

Okay the part with the dialog with Athena had me cringing a bit but the rest of the song was a masterpiece. Odysseus saying that there is no time to bury or mourn but have time only to save themselves and remember their fallen friends afterwards is EXACTLY what Odysseus would say and encourage his men to work their backs on something to save themselves and get out of their nasty situation. Also the final 45 seconds of it with his name reveal was probably what hyped me and wanted to get into the musical in the first place (before I started disliking the changes) because it was EXACTLY how it would go down! Also the choice for Odysseus's name officially be revealed on that song was incredibly clever and very nicely chosen

So basically I would only remove the dialog with Athena there given how it just didn't do justice in my head to the extremely complicated situation that led to him revealing himself. I also felt that the line "let's grab the sheep and away we go" was a bit too hasty to show their escape given how much complicated it was but I also understand the way to keep the song going and that wouldn't be done by adding a dramatic angst in the middle. That would mean that there should be a song in-between with their escape and that the second half of "remember them" would turn into a reprise of some kind. So yeah I understand that.

How Much Longer:

That song was also amazing and again not an event that happens to Odyssey but something that perfectly aligns with the spirit of it. Having Eurylochus openly disagreeing here and Odysseus taking him to the side to talk to him, the way that Odysseus comes up with a crazy plan before to groppel upon the castle that floats in the sky etc. It was a great foreshadowing on the actual events that follow which again seem to align greatly with the Odyssey and the events of it even if that itself is not linked to the material itself.

Done For:

Again one more song that I hyped over was "Done For". Harmonies were perfect, the way that the two of them have a duet, which is something that doesn't happen before in order to signify their aligning was amazing and the way Odysseus acts like a cheeky bastard there was something I adored. (Of course got crushed with "Other Ways" hehehe but the build up till there was great. To be fair "Other Ways" till that freaking "I can't!" or the whole "seduce so you can kill him" theme which also kinda ruined it fo4 me, was also a masterpiece to me, like I mention to another post of mine it would be great if the song was to signify their intercourse). The song was a perfect adaptation of the homeric poem for modern audiences (for it doesn't include everything like Odysseus drinking the potion, Circe being terrified and in wonder that her spell doesn't work on him etc) and it keeps the essential part of their interraction making it into a great choreography (with the exceptions of the "I have to protect my nymphs!" thing but again if that was the only change they made on it I wouldn't mind it so much at all in fact it is interesting that the nymph servants of the goddess mentioned in the Odyssey make a cameo here. Would i have liked that we wouldn't get a toned down Circe and instead we got her in her gray glory? Absolutely. But like I said if that was the only thing added here i wouldn't have minded it so much. Unfortunately though it was the whole Circe misadventure that was changed so yeah for me it was potential lost but i hyped at Done For).

Chorus of the Underworld:

Like you know I am one of the exceptions that wasn't impressed by the Underworld Saga and found it brushed off however the idea to add the dead men singing and bringing more guilt to Odysseus was an idea I knew Jorge would go with and he did and it was interesting. Not only the melody of that part was really beautiful and haunting but also the impact was great (I will just choose to ignore the part of "ruthlessness is mercy" and the "klling of cyclops" because of thesame reason that I didn't like the dialog between Athena and Odysseus before the revelation of his name). I also liked the parts of Odysseus's solos but for the rest of it again I think it would be more impactful to me if the original plot was followed more faithfully.

Tiresias song was good, very good actually, as a song but as I mentioned to another post of mine, too vague, too not answering anything.

The rest felt scrapped off. I would love to see at least one or two of the interractions of Odysseus with the dead especially his mother because as I mentioned before it is of outmost importance that Odysseus knew beyond doubt that his mother didn't just die waiting, she died BECAUSE she was waiting. And that has a big difference for me. But again that is just my opinion.

Aphrodite speaking of other types of love:

Gods Games is just a not for me for many reasons but the detail of Aphrodite mentioning a mother's love intead of romantic love was a great touch and amazingly changed from the usual reoccuring pattern of romantic love or passion. It was good that her arguement was based on a mother's love and pain and ironically Aphrodite herself is a mother who has children to protect

The final part of Love in Paradise:

The rest of the song was ak-ok for me (and thank the old gods and the new that at least THIS experience of Odysseus was kept faithful to the original up to one point. I mean the sexual abuse is not touched there directly but given the leap of time and the condition Odysseus is to the final part one can expect that it did happen maybe? I am talkng only on the perspective of the listener since I do not know the background info on it). In my mind it happens and the song just dodges to addrsss it like it happened before but as I said that is only me hearing THIS specific song not any other around it or the background info of it.

But the final part where Odysseus stands at the edge ready to throw himself at the sea to his death is definitely having me "FUCKING FINALLY!" and be so happy that they kept that dark theme at least! Because I simply loved that essence of the myth in the Odyssey and it was something I can absolutely see happening myself and contemplating it as a scene when reading the Odyssey; how Odysseus might possibly make more than one attempt against his life and Calypso stopping him somehow.

The rest of the song was okay as I said before and thankfully it was touching the homeric thing (I lso liked how Jorge chose to get there by having us hear the small portions of other songs as Athena "scans" although as I said the chole concept of "my goodbye" or something just didn't align to me) but the choice was really good but as I said before it was the final part that truly got me! With the final prayer to Athena which again would be something I would SO imagine myself Odysseus would do! In fact I myself imagining him doing it many times over!

That part was probably my favorite so far and is just a few seconds! Which again makes me wish more things were like that...

~*~*~*~

Anyways I believe that concludes it so far. Generally as you know I am not a fan and no I do not have problem seeing this as "different media" or "loose adaptation" or "retelling" or whatever. It just is not my cup of tea and I it doesn't need to be (and the fact that it is so changed beyond recognition of the original is what makes me think of it of yet another average "loosely based on" holywood film material and we have had enough f those already in my opinion of course). I still adore the harmonies the music the singers and such are amazing and the passion is apparent

Is just that I just cannot stand the butchering of the story to the point of literally being easy to replace the characters names and still with the proper background buildup the story can still be told! Because it is not the Odyssey anymore.

HOWEVER

No one said that I disliked every single bit of it. This is a small sample of things that I liked and a small reasoning why. I hope that helps

[ihaechans]

Reminiscing || Mark Lee

PAIRING ▸ Mark Lee x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ best friends to lovers, big fluff

WARNINGS/CONTENT ▸ profanity, sweet Mark, Y/n character development is real, literally just sickening fluff...

SUMMARY ▸Time flies. Especially with best friend and nerdy ride or die Mark Lee. Reminiscing on the rooftop leads to foreign emotions and forgotten memories to rise to the surface, and the obvious tension between you two can no longer be avoided.

WORD COUNT▸1.7k

A/N▸ Head empty.... just boyfriend Mark Lee. (Dead serious this has been in my drafts for 8 months.)

ALSOOO this was originally supposed to be smut but I decided to take it out and make it a cute fluffy story because it’s my first fic back 😭

You couldn’t accept that there could be other men out there named Mark Lee. The idea of someone having a completely different look and persona than the one of your best friend completely baffled you.

In your heart, your Mark was the greatest one. The only one you truly needed to keep going in life as well.

You were always one of the castaways at your school. Unknown. Boring. Friendless. It was always something you were used to.

It wasn’t exactly bad though. You actually quite enjoyed having so much time to focus on your studies since you were never invited to parties or friendly hangouts, but there was always this feeling. A feeling of loneliness and despair.

In complete solitude, you would study from dusk til dawn. Barely even glancing away from your computer screen throughout the day. The only time you would bother to check your phone was to see if your mom had texted you, which you admitted, was kind of humiliating.

No one ever would have thought an accidental text to the wrong number would start the strange friendship between you and Mark Lee, one of the more popular members of one of the biggest frats on campus.

Unknown Number:  Yo Jaeminnnn! Just got your new number man :) It’s mark btw

You: This isn’t Jaemin. Wrong number “Mark”.

Unknown Number: My bad. Why is my name in quotes though? I promise I’m the real Mark dude :(

You: You can be some weirdo trying to get my phone information by pretending to be one of my classmates. Who knows if you’re really Mark?

Unknown Number: I do… because I am the real Mark 🤦‍♂️ who is this anyway so I can save your number?

You: It’s y/n. You shouldn’t need to save my contact anyways. We won’t ever text again after this.

Mark: I like to be friendly with everyone just in case. Maybe you should try it instead of accusing me of being a criminal when you don’t even know me 😁

You: Goodbye Mark. You’re wasting my precious study time and you’re kind of annoying :)

You couldn’t imagine how any of your fellow students looked so relaxed and at ease with the endless piles of work. It was completely mind boggling.

Mark and his friends were those sort of people, and you were always jealous of them. How they continued to stay on top of assignments? You would never know.

“You were such an asshole when we first met.” His presence catches you off guard, but you can recognize that chuckle from anywhere. Silently turning your body to face him, you smile, dismissing his brutally honest comment.

“Well. I never knew having friends could be so…”

He finished your thought for you, “Life changing? Exciting? Eye opening?”

“Mhm.” You hum, mindlessly patting the spot next to you on the balcony, expecting him to plop down in the exact spot any second now.

“I admit, I was a complete bitch for no reason.” You stare at the sunset as you speak, knowing that Mark is simply listening in. “I was jealous of you. You were so effortlessly funny and friendly. Everyone knew and loved you, plus you got exceptionally good grades.”

Honestly, you don’t know why you were admitting to any of this. It made you feel as if you were a terrible person. Hopefully mark didn’t see you that way.

You sigh, “I wanted to be you. It was so unfair how I practically slaved away all day and night while you and your friends were out partying every other day yet still managing to pass. I wanted that to be me.”

You stare at Mark now, waiting to him to respond to such a presumptuous confession.

He was smiling, a smile full of love and kindness. He huffs out a laugh, you should’ve known he could never hate you. He could never hate anyone, no matter how wrong they could treat him.

“Can I admit something too?” He’s staring straight into your eyes now, a serious look taking over his features. “That day, I didn’t know it was your number, but-“ he clears his throat, bracing himself for the things he was about to admit to.

“I was interested in you before we became friends. You seemed pretty chill, but I never approached you since you always seemed like you wanted nothing to do with the human species. You were also really pretty…”

You ignore the butterflies that erupt in your stomach, and hopefully Mark couldn’t see the slight blush that appeared on your face.

He lays down onto his back, laughing with his arms behind his head for support. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t give up on you?” He teases, poking you in the side with his elbow gently.

You smile and hit him on the shoulder playfully, rolling over onto your side to look at him. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t block you as soon as you texted me?”

He laughs even harder now, admitting that he found it funny how you seemed so intimidating over text but in person you were completely different.

“You wouldn’t even remember me if I hadn’t kept texting though,” he responds, ending the sentence with another chuckle.

“Wish I blocked you sooner so I didn’t start warming up to your annoying ass.” You speak with a serious expression, but one glance at Mark is all it takes for a laugh to force its way out, his own laughter causing you to giggle even harder.

“God, I love you Y/n. Seriously. You’re the best friend I could ever ask for.”

There it is. “Best friend”. All hope for you was over. You’ve officially been friend-zoned.

You ponder for a moment, thinking about all that he’s done for you and considering how easily things could’ve been different if you weren’t such a jealous bitch in the beginning.

Your friendship could’ve been so much stronger by now if you had accepted his kindness from the start, and you mentally scold yourself for it.

“Say it back.” He orders, perking up from his relaxed position and scooting closer to your body in between every passing second. “Say it back before it’s too late.”

“Why should I? Admitting I wanted to be you is already embarrassing enough. My embarrassment level is already full for today, tell me again tomorrow and maybe I’ll answer.”

“Alright then,” he tsks, “Guess I’ll just have to tickle you until you admit you love me back.”

Your eyes widen in genuine terror. You absolutely hated getting tickled and promised you would personally file a complaint to the police if Mark ever even thought about tickling you.

“Mark. Stop.”

“Say it back, idiot.”

Hissing through your teeth, you prepare for the worst. You’d rather just tell him you love him back than endure his attacks of merciless tickles and teasing.

Conceding defeat, you blink at him and fight the embarrassing grin that wants to appear on your lips. “I love you too Mark.” Hearing yourself say those words out loud almost has you jumping up and down with embarrassment and sending shivers down your spine.

You take a deep breath, trying to stay in control of your emotions.

He smiles, feeling content with your words. You’ve been friends for so long, and now you’ve finally mustered up the courage to tell him how you feel.

Countless times, he’s told you he loves you, but you’ve never said it back until now. You felt like a brand new person.

There’s a comfortable beat of silence before he speaks up, distrusting the moment of pure silence.

“Isn’t the sunset so pretty?” He murmurs, eyes completely focused on something else.

“Mark. You’re not even looking at the sunset,” you laugh, seeming to be completely clueless at what he was hinting at.

He chuckles at your ignorance before taking your hands into his and looking you in the eye. “Y/n. You’re pretty.” Your breath catches in your throat, “I like you. I thought it would be so obvious by now. I’ve been hinting at it for ages but you’re just so clueless it seems like this is the only way you would ever realize.”

He grins sheepishly, wincing as he awaits your reaction.

The only thing you can do is stare at him wide eyed, jaw almost completely on the floor at the sudden confession. “You like me?”

“Mhm.” He mumbles, scooting even closer to you, his eyes gazing straight at your lips.

He moves forward, cupping your face with his hands so he can finally attempt to kiss you.

Mark had no idea why he was feeling so bold in that moment. This situation could either go extremely terrible or surprisingly well.

He stops before his lips touch yours, giving you a second to push him away if you really needed to. You lightly grasp his side and he smiles before connecting your lips together.

It feels like heaven, almost like you two were meant to be. You wonder why you hadn’t done this sooner, and then remember that you were the one being so blinded by friendship that you dismissed his obvious flirting as teasing all this time.

All of Marks emotions embrace him as he backs away, warmth and comfort echoing between the two of you. Mark is a mess, face red and hands jittering uncontrollably and you find it quite amusing.

“I cant believe I actually just did that…” Mark is so overwhelmed as he retreats, barely able to keep his composure as he nearly fumbles with his words.

Your cheeks flush with the realization that you had just kissed Mark. You struggle to keep a grin from forming on your face. “Me neither…” you mumble, bringing a hand up to your lips, still shocked.

Mark smiles at you with adoration, mustering up the courage to finally say what he’s been holding back for the last few years. “Y/n, will you be my girlfriend?”

He looks into your eyes in anticipation, barely able to contain his eagerness as he awaits for an answer.

“Mark, are you seriously asking me that right now?” You laugh, watching as marks smile fades away slightly in confusion. “How could I ever reject you?”

A sweet smile forms on your face, and the look of confusion soon leaves marks features as you kiss him again, making sure he understands that you are in fact, now his girlfriend.

[crystalgastles]

Information on my Jeff the killer

Read after the flesh after you read this, I apologize for not posting this before the story, the finished and revised first chapter will be out soon along with the second chapter

So, my Jeff is fairly different from the original Jeff the killer. I’ve basically took the bare bones of the character , erased it and started over.

I will put some general head cannons about him below but for people to understand my story and how I see him before they read after the flesh just to get a feel for his personality just because I haven’t gotten around to writing his story down

* grew up in a baptist church community with a distant father and overbearing mother who somehow also didn’t pay enough attention to what happened to her son in that church

* Oldest son, most independent son. More is expected of him.

* Journal’s everything, especially his homicidal ideations. locks that journal in a wooden trinket box

* As he reached his teen years his parents started to try and get him to go to church with them again even after he threw a vase and knocked a box tv over the last time

* In a band during his teen years

* Insane about music, believes his music taste is the end all be all of music tastes

* Picks up roadkill and collects the bones. He likes animals and will never hurt them. Animals don’t care about the things you’ve done

* Guilt is his base emotion, any other emotion he feels is underlined by the heavy pressure of being better

* Dad forced him to get baptized, five grown men had to hold him down when he was 14 just to get him in that water.he still refuses to go swimming

* Attempted to kill liu to save him, because god didn’t love him enough to but Jeff did

* The murder of his mother was swift. It was the only time he ever used a gun and ever will. He didn’t want her to suffer, it wasn’t her fault his father was the man he was

* His fathers was brutal, he recreated the religious trauma inflicted on him, talking in a mock televangelist voice “the devil is inside you son! There is no length I won’t go to get him out now!”

* Had three exorcisms performed on him before the age of ten because of his sleep walking, they gave up when he grew out of it

* Was homeschooled up until middle school, he had a good group of friends who he started his band with in highschool

* Moved from home at 17 and lived at a friends until the police came and made him move back in

* He killed his family at 18

* Dropped out of highschool to play shows in the local scene (he got his smile by cutting it open for shock value on stage)

Misogyny in the church caused him to absolutely despise anyone who is misogynistic, almost never kills women (he does but usually it’s when it is an entire family)

* Doesn’t leave witnesses who can speak, thinks it’s cruel to leave them with the memory

tells victims to sleep because he believes he’s comforting them (if they aren’t targeted that is)

* Killed janes father because he was one of the men who held him down to baptize him and boasted about sending his one and only daughter to conversion therapy

* Him and jane were friends in high school

* Kills out of impulse most of the time, paranoid delusions that someone on the street was at the church he used to be forced to go to and only realizes they didn’t when their wounds are already fatal

Waits for liu to call when he finds a house with a landline, he did this when he moved out with a friend at 17. The phone never rings

* If it does he answers and angrily hangs up when it’s not his brother

* Walked into a house fire he caused because he thought it was hell and that’s where he deserved to go (his chest and hands are covered in burn scars)

* Wears his mothers silver cross even though he doesn’t believe in god, he believes in her though

Jeff is a very unreliable narrator, things are skewed but can remember general things, like my characters face and hair, but the way he treated them and the way they treated him are fuzzy, the way things happened and chunks of memory are missing.

There’s a reason for this but if I told you all now I’d spoil the whole entire story. So you will just have to read after I post my story here and on AO3.

Love ,Alex

[baradorable]

Marvel is about to introduce a villain called the Krakoan, who is an X-Man gone rogue. It's pretty obvious that this villain is actually Hellion. And people are split on that. Some feel that it's out of character for him. Some prefer him as a hero, or don't want him to have his character ruined, ala Nature Girl or Beast.

But who IS Hellion? If you're willing to sit through my long-ass post about him, odds are you already know and love him. But let's pretend that you don't know who he is. I'll talk about where he started, what might have lead him to becoming a villain, and why everybody will be investing in #HellionWasRight stocks in a few months.

And if we're all wrong, and Hellion is not the Krakoan? Well, no one will give a shit about the Krakoan anymore anyway, so no big deal.

First off, what is a "Krakoan?"

We'll get to that. But for now, you just need to know that the X-Men had an island nation called Krakoa. Now it's gone and it's all because no one listened to Hellion, despite him being right about everything that has ever happened.

Who is Hellion?

I'm letting you all know right now: this is blatant Hellion propaganda. Everything I said is coming from a place of heavy, heavy bias. But there will be some objectivity, in that Hellion is objectively perfect.

It's tough to summarize Hellion, because who he is has changed over the years. Though some writers might forget this, he's actually a fairly nuanced mutant who has undergone notable shifts in his character.

Introduced in New Mutants (2003) #2, he basically starts off as Draco Malfoy, if Draco was trying to bang Harry Potter.

Julian Keller, AKA Hellion, was a spoiled rich kid from California with advanced telekinetic abilities. Something that will stick out immediate is that he was hilariously petty. Like he would take any opportunity to insult people he dislikes, often for no reason. Half of his dialogue is him choosing to be a jerk to anyone outside of his social group, starting drama, or otherwise being a generic early 2000's bully archetype.

And it was amazing. Seriously, he had some of the funniest lines in the book.

He was so over the top and crude that he ended up being hilarious. He was classist, exclusionist, and a little sexist. When presented with the option of Bullying Others, and Literally Anything Else, he would choose bullying.

Julian was Emma Frost's protege and star pupil, so naturally he shares a lot of that bitchy charisma. When the school was divided into Harry Potter house-style squads, Emma put Julian in charge of his own squad, the Hellions. She also let the Hellions pick their codenames. Guess which codename Julian picked.

Emma advised him to be humble after he and his squad won a school competition. What was the very first thing he did once he got the trophy?

You would hate him so much if he were real. He's every 13 year old boy in 2003. Look at him exposing Elixir's affair to Elixir's girlfriend, solely out of pettiness.

I'd post more, but I already hit the image limit. Which is a shame, because I wanted to share the panel of him making fun of Josh for his parents abandoning him.

Hellion's original creators had this to say about him.

Back when we were working on New X-Men, we had a message board called “The Grind Stone” on the site X-Fan. One of the fans there consistently referred to Julian as “shnasty.” That person defined it as a combination of sexy and nasty. Urban dictionary these days refers to it as shitty, hot and nasty. We think that works for Julian, except when we wrote him he didn’t look like shit - not ever. He just acted like it. Once we left, he got a little more disheveled for a while, and probably better embodied the full modern version of “shnasty.” Either way, we think that’s his secret. He can treat you like shit but then turn around and be a gentleman. He sometimes acts like hot garbage but looks fine doing it.

He's catchy, offensive, brutal and gross, but with youth appeal. And if his character was just that, then bravo. He's hilarious. He wouldn't need depth to be an icon. He'd just be this little gremlin of a being, showing up and delivering devastating one-liners like some proto-Chanel Oberlin. But that's not all to his character. Despite being a supporting character in a book about teen drama, he was actually a complex character.

He's a great leader and strategist. He could lead a team, he was willing to be pragmatic and bend the rules, and his plans helped his team beat out every other student during that aforementioned school competition. It was a team effort, but Hellion knew his friends' strengths and how to get them working well.

He has a natural charisma that draws people to him. He's the big man on campus for a reason. It's best exemplified in New X-Men (2004) #5, where he sees all the other students turning their backs on a mutant called Wither.

Wither had unintentionally killed his father when his death touch power first manifested. The authorities would come bearing down on the school, looking to arrest him and have him face the law for his actions. It was an accident, completely out of his control, and Wither has been wrestling with the guilt ever since. Now there was a chance that he would be thrown in jail for it.

Wither was vulnerable and in pain, but it seemed like so many people were turning against him. Hellion, who had previously been bullying Wither for his powers, saw the scorn, gossiping and scrutiny Wither had been getting from the rest of the student body. And he had to stand up and say something.

He gives a rousing speech to everyone in the cafeteria, pointing out how many of the people who were mocking him had caused others harm with their powers in the past. He derides them for not helping out of of their own, and that any one of them could be next on the chopping block if they let Wither go without a fight. If they're not willing to support each other, they're terrible mutants.

His radical speech gets one person comparing him to Magneto. And that's not entirely wrong.

Hellion and the Hellions (along with another mutant, Wind Dancer) would work together to try and bust Wither out of police custody. It was a stupid plan that would only create more problems for them, and it would ultimately be worse than what actually happened: Wither would face trial, where he would be found innocent in the murder of his father. Wither would be free and no longer be in trouble with the authorities.

But that's the thing with Hellion: he's passionate. He might will think with his heart over his head when it comes to mutant rights. Especially when it comes to those he cares about. He's quick to take the hostile and violent path if he thinks it's right. Despite being an asshole, he's a bleeding heart who will go to the extremes for those he loves.

Wither and Hellion would go on to have a life-long friendship spanning months, as Wither would leave the school, get statutory raped by an immortal vampire witch, become a villain and die shortly after M-Day.

Hellion was always looking down on humans - and why shouldn't he? They're not part of his social group, he's not really one of them. But while he'd call them apemen and flatscans, he didn't believe in killing. In fact, he was opposed to killing even in self-defense.

That last part would change over time. But that's only because this cruel world stole every last bit of innocence and joy out of him.

Or how about the time the villainous Kingmaker offered him and his friends all their wishes, in exchange for working for him? He and his friends would eventually chose to give up their dreams and stop the Kingmaker's plans, because that was the right thing to do. Because the Hellions are heroes.

Over the years, Hellion would mature as a person. There would be less emphasis on him bullying others, and more emphasis on him enduring tragedies, fighting for the sake of others, struggling with anger and abandonment, and be forced to make more radical moves against the world. While he doesn't look that jerkish spark of his (and some writers would roll him back to a generic bully character whenever the plot called for it), he would become a lot more mature than he was at his debut. He was no longer a high school bully, but an anti-hero of young man with a talent for leadership, a lot of charisma, and big heart that got him into trouble.

Since we're on the subject of friends, let's delve more into some of his relationships. A key part of understanding his character is seeing how he treats others.

Hellion and the Hellions

So New Mutants (2003) and its sequel book, New X-Men (2004) primarily focused on the New Mutants squad. Hellion and the Hellions would be so popular that they would get their own mini and eventually become main characters. But the early books were centered around the New Mutants.

The Hellions are antagonists, the Slytherins to their Gryffindors. Except their dynamic is a lot more complicated than you'd think.

The New Mutants are lead by Wind Dancer, who is also Hellion's first love interest. While Wind Dancer has a huge heart and a knack for bringing out the best in others, the team would fall apart over personal drama. Bitterness, resentment and insecurity would bubble for a long time, culminating in the group briefly splitting up. It would take a lot of work getting them to resolve their issues and be friends again.

This is where the Hellions act as foils. Sure, they might antagonize the New Mutants. Hellion might tease some of them. But the group functions way better as a unit, and they don't have the same interpersonal drama as the New Mutants. They're a cohesive team of friends who support each other.

The Hellions got to star in their own mini, and it delivered on the friendship. In the first issue, we see Hellion picking a fight with airport security for his friends' sake. Instead of going for a more peaceful route, he's quick to order his team and bust out their powers. When Dust chases security down to try and reason with them, he's annoyed that she put herself at risk.

The series is peppered with moments between the various Hellions, which is really nice. I recommend it not just for Hellion, but for the whole Hellions squad. Every one of them is a unique character, and I think they deserve love. There's a reason why New X-Men would revolve more and more around the Hellions.

You won't be surprised to know that Hellion doesn't make fun of fellow Hellion, Mercury, when she's feeling some heartache. Without any sense of sarcasm or irony, he sits down with her and has a heart to heart. No ulterior motives, no gotcha - Hellion is there to support his friends.

One fun thing about Hellion is that he's a huge hypocrite. He will regularly insult others outside his group of friends. But he would rarely hurt his friends, and he'd be the first to defend him. This is most evident in New Mutants (2003) #8, Surge's introduction issue. He's quick to accept his friend Anole's strange mutation and chides Elixir for not being as accepting. In the next couple of pages, he insults a homeless girl, tells her she smells bad and refuses to offer any sort of help.

When M-Day happens and Prodigy got depowered, Hellion kicked him while he's down and belittled the guy. He mocked him for being human now. But when he found out that his beloved Wind Dancer is depowered, he tried to comfort her and disregarded everything he previously said about Prodigy. Because Julian holds his friends to a completely different standard than he does others.

He has an incredible amount of loyalty and empathy, but much of that is reserved for his own inner circle. He might be slow to warm up to someone, but once you're in, you're in for the long haul. Unless you really mess up or your name is Josh.

Mutants as a whole are part of that circle, in a way. He won't be friends with every mutant, but he would defend them all with his life. Even though a lot of them don't appreciate his efforts.

Emma Frost

His relationship with Emma is pretty good: she encourages his rowdy behavior because she sees potential in him. He has that same spark, attitude and guile she does. She recognizes that he has the potential to be a great leader, and he does everything he can to meet her expectations. She tends to be lenient on him. She'll bail him out of trouble. When others write him off or turn their backs on him, she's standing with him. But in return, she makes it clear that she expects nothing short of amazing out of him.

Boy, I sure hope nothing ruins this bond.

Prodigy

Speaking of people who don't appreciate Hellion. David Alleyne, AKA Prodigy, was a frequent target of Hellion's bullying. Julian would mock Prodigy for having a lame power [Being able to temporarily absorb skills and thoughts from others around him], and sometimes it would get under David's skin. He really knew how to dig into Prodigy's insecurities and hurt him with them. In turn, Prodigy was always ready to fight back against Hellion and put him in his place whenever he could.

Here's Prodigy's then-girlfriend kissing Hellion, right in front of him.

This is horribly out of context, I just thought it was funny to bring up.

The two would butt heads constantly. Over the years, more tragedies would be thrown at them. They'd mature and function better as a group, but there would always be tension between them, for one reason or another. Both of them are opinionated, and their opinions tend to differ.

Why am I bringing Prodigy up? Prodigy will be a main character in the upcoming NYX book, which is where the Krakoan will debut. The two don't have the most meaningful relationship, but it could easily come into play at some point in the book.

Wind Dancer (Sofia Mantega)

Sofia Mantega was the primary character of New Mutants (2003) and much of New X-Men (2004,) She was the Harry Potter that this Draco Malfoy wants to bang. Sofia was the newcomer to the world of mutants. She was confident, outgoing and stuck to her principals. Despite being very gentle, amiable and friendly, she was strong-willed. She knew how to stand up for herself and others.

Julian and Sofia flirted throughout New Mutants. There was an instant rapport between the two. But that doesn't mean it's all smooth sailings. One of my favorite examples of this comes from issue 3. Julian reached out to Sofia, and she says she liked dancing. As they made plans to go somewhere, Laurie Collins (Wallflower) passed by. While Sofia eagerly makes lunch plans with Laurie, Julian dismissed Laurie and called her a freak.

Sofia responds by hitting Julian's ear with compressed air, making him lose his balance. She and Laurie walked away, leaving him behind.

Sofia knew Julian was a bad boy and a jerk, and she'd stand up to him when she saw him doing something she disapproved of. But she still liked him. She was never afraid to give him a taste of his own medicine, and he loved her for it.

From their first meeting in issue 2, we saw what there were similarities between them. The most obvious would be their powers: they could both fly, and Sofia's power lets her manipulate objects with the same precision as a telekinetic's psychic force.

Like Julian, Sofia was great with people. Unlike Julian, she wasn't one to discriminate. While Julian was quick to brush off and demean Wallflower, Sofia was quick to befriend her.

During class, Julian was quick to tell newcomer David Alleyne (Prodigy) to stay away from Kevin Ford (Wither,) because his powers were dangerous. Meanwhile, when Wallflower worried about how lonely Wither was, Sofia invited him to hang out with them. She dismissed Wither's concerns about his powers. She wasn't afraid to be his friend.

Josh Foley (Elixir), a former Purifier recruit, came to the school after previously turning them down. While Prodigy iwa quick to turn against him, Sofia listened to how Elixir's own family turned against him for being a mutant. She related to him and gave him a second chance.

While Prodigy and Sofia would be co-leader of the New Mutants squad, Sofia was the glue that held them together. However, her caring side did get her into trouble: she followed Julian and the Hellions on a mission to bust Wither out of police custody; she wanted to help, but didn't know what to do and needed some guidance.

Speaking of the Wither incident, it briefly took a toll on Julian and Sofia's relationship. She at first helped the Hellions, but Sofia would ultimately side with her squad and turn against the Hellions, feeling like it was the right thing to do. Julian saw it as a betrayal. It soured their relationship for a bit, though the two would make up in a later arc, when a protective Hellion helped the New Mutants deal with a ghost. He was there for her, even when they were not on speaking terms.

Imo, this was the crux of Julian and Sofia's relationship: they were both popular, charismatic and and good with people. They were passionate about helping those they care about. The difference was that Sofia opens her heart up to more people, while Julian cares more about his inner circle.

The relationship helped to humanize Julian and show that, despite his attitude, there was a lot of good in him. Even if most people couldn't see it. This girl saw that he was a good person and she stuck by him, but she also didn't let him get his way or take advantage of her kindness. And that helped make him a better person.

Conversely, Julian was a fun foil to Sofia. He could give her advice, be there when she needed someone to talk to, and he'd never treat her like he treated her squad. He was a jerk, but he had the purest intentions with her. He was the first student she met at the school, and he was there for her through the good and the bad.

Julian also has a pet name for her: Beautiful. He uses it a few times. And yes, it's important to mention this fact.

It was a very pure, wholesome relationship. Two high school sweethearts who were also on rival teams. Sofia brought the best out of Julian, and Julian bettered himself for her. They butted heads, had their ups and downs, and would let their emotions blind them. But in the end, they loved each other.

Gee, I hope some witch doesn't swoop in and ruin everything with a magic spell.

The two would end up falling out, but they weren't really over each other. After Sofia left the school, we'd see her still dream about being with her friends and kissing Hellion. Meanwhile, Laura would catch Julian muttering Sofia's name in his sleep.

Wolverine/X-23 (Laura Kinney)

"You were dead the second you touched Julian Keller." - Laura, to Lady Deathstrike

When it comes to Laura romances, there are two that are popular with fans: Jubilee/X-23, and Hellion/X-23. Opinions on Laura's other ships tend to range from decent-ish, to mid, to terrible. Hellion/Laura (also known by their combo name, Helix) is, by far, the most popular ship. To this day, 13 years after the pairing was torpedoed, it retains an active fanbase. And they were never officially a couple!

So when Laura first came to Xavier's School of Witchcraft and Mutantry, she wasn't in a good place. She was a former child soldier who was only taught to kill. She was a former teen prostitute who was constantly being abused by others. She had and lost friends. She was forced to kill her own mother. She was barely allowed to feel her own emotions. And right when she meets Wolverine - her father/the man she was cloned from - she's dropped off at a school full of strangers. In the middle of a crisis, where students were being hunted down and killed. Everyone treats her with suspicion and fear, and Emma Frost is doing everything in her power to get her out of the school entirely.

And then there's the school bully. Right off the bat, he was dismissive of her, cracked jokes at her expense, and even teased her a bit. He lets her hang out with his group, but he's not very sympathetic to her trauma. Of course, he wasn't projecting images of her dead mother into her head, so he was better than Emma here.

Things turned around when the students were asked to fight against each other, in order to determine who is strong enough to be on the New X-Men team after M-Day. Emma used this opportunity to try and have X-23 taken out of commission. She wanted Hellion to ensure she got hurt.

Instead, Hellion ended up protecting her. Emma was furious. She picked Surge as team leader over him out of spite, and made it clear that he was very disappointed in Hellion.

Over the course of New X-Men, their relationship would evolve into a close connection. Julian would be protective of her. He would risk his life for her. He pushed his powers to the absolute limits and had Emma break away any mental restraints on them, so he could use them to save her life.

Through her crush on Julian, Laura began to truly experience many of her emotions. All her friends at school helped her process and grow, but the growing romance between these two kids was especially endearing. Despite being partly scared of her, Hellion would stand by her. He'd even go on to call her his best friend. When everyone else treats her with suspicion, or they suspected her of falling back to her violent ways, he was the first one to jump to her defense and see the absolute best in her.

Let's not forget the time Laura was ready to kill her arch-enemy, Karima. She knew Karima was to dangerous to let live, and she told Hellion that they had to kill her. But Hellion declined. He wanted him and Laura to be better than that. Hellion wanted to help break her out of that way of thinking.

Their dynamic sort of shifted as things went on. In that Hellion becomes this sort of damsel in distress who gets horribly injured and needs to be saved by Laura. She even went to Hell with a demon in order to save him. The most notable example of Hellion's Tragic Love Interest-ification is the time Lady Deathstrike shanked Hellion.

Laura totally lost it and beat Lady Deathstrike's ass.

These were two broken people. They suffered so much throughout their short lives. But then they found each other. They were broken together, but they found happiness. They bought out the best in each other, and showed the other that they are more than the tragedies they've endured.

There are a lot more nuances to the relationship, such as Hellion being more accepting of Laura's quirks and insecurities, how some fans interpret their dynamic as a play on traditional gender roles, how Laura was portrayed in their dynamic, how it styles over every other Laura romance. You can ask pretty much any Helix fan about the relationship, and they'll all have different aspects on the pairing. Some I haven't listed or even considered. I'm really just covering the barest essentials.

I just hope no writer comes in and ruins their relationship.

Other Loves: Ships that Pass in the Night

Hellion dated Shark-Girl for a bit, and once flirted with Armor. He also took three of the surviving Stepford Cuckoos to the school dance, at the same time - though he immediately ditched them for Wind Dancer. However, years later, one panel had one of the girls casually mention that they were going on a date with him.

Remember Prodigy's blue-haired girlfriend? She was the homeless girl Hellion had previously bullied. The two would have some animosity over the years, largely due to them being two stubborn, strong-headed individuals. Neither of them liked to take the other's crap, though to be fair, Hellion was usually the one causing trouble. The two would eventually be the New X-Men team together, and they would come to respect and care for each other. While there wasn't an actual romance between them in the main continuity, the two were shown to be married in one future, in the non-canon Battle of the Atom mobile game.

There was also that time he and Diamondback briefly flirted.

Fun fact: Hellion has a thing for powerful women. Women who can take charge, or are outspoken, are in control, or otherwise strong. If they can kill him, he can bed them. While all of his love interests have different personalities, they're all powerful women in one way or another.

Also, Wind Dancer and Shark-Girl are both Latinas. Laura (at the time) and the Cuckoos were also clones, of Wolverine and Emma Frost, respectively. (Well, I SAY clones, but technically none of those characters are clones in the strictest sense. It's a whole thing, but oddly enough they still share that in common.) Point is, the man has a type.

Ready for yet another fun fact: Hellion went on a date with all three Cuckoos at once. At best, Quentin Quire got with only one of them. He managed to officially date that Cuckoo, as opposed to just going on dates. But Quire was also responsible for another one of the others Cuckoos dying, which I feel cancels it out.

My favorite Hellion ship, you ask? Thank you for asking, reader. And to be honest, I don't know. On paper, the tragic romance of Helix is compelling and dramatic. It's very easy to see why the ship endured nearly 20 years later. It'd be a slam dunk... if Hell-Dancer wasn't so compelling, charming and sweet. For me, these two ships are usually neck and neck.

I'm also partial to Surge/Hellion, and a bit of Hellion/Rockslide. There was also a fake leak going around back in the day, claiming something along the lines of Emma hooking up with Hellion and getting impregnated by him. Fans on Tumblr were going mental over it, even if no one took it seriously. I love that for us. I love that for them. Sometimes you don't want a good romance. Sometimes you want to see nuclear fallout. It's like watching MILF Manor, but it's even more gross. You know it's bad and it's not something you would even enjoy watching. But you still want to see the mess it creates.

The Keller Family

What kind of people would create Hellion? Looking at how their son turned out, they must have done a great job. Only super-parents could have crafted perfection, right?

Actually, no. It turned out that Hellion is perfect, amazing, and the best character in all of fiction, DESPITE them.

We got the first red flag when Parents Week rolled around. Julian manipulated his teacher Northstar into getting him out of work duty. He gave a sob story about how his parents don't want to see him, though as Anole pointed out, his parents really didn't come to see him. Julian casually waved this off, stating that his parents were busy skiing in the Alps.

Hellion was not only bragging about manipulating someone, but he was bragging about his parents blowing off their own son to have fun. He only focused on how they're doing something cool and elitist. At that point in time, they had likely not seen or spoken to their son in months. He was aware how the situation would be seen as unacceptable by others, but was seemingly incapable of recognizing it on a personal level.

In the past, his parents spent 10 thousand dollars on Julian's 12th birthday party. Hellion casually stated that L.A. parties hard to compete with, meaning that this type of excess was normal for people in the area. Considering he mentioned "competing" and his parents would be shown to care about their image, I wouldn't be surprised if all this attention was not just about Julian having a great birthday, but also making the Kellers could look good. Hell, when you get to know his parents more, you could argue that his parents only cared about looking good.

They were powerful and had connections, to the point where Hellion was able to casually call up the Department of Homeland Security to help him out. Hellion clearly got his Trust Fund Baby attitude from.

Hellion's parents would debut in the 2004 mini, New X-Men: Hellions. (That's right. Hellion's Hellions book walked so Krakoa's Hellions book could run.) They were immensely disappointed in their son causing a scene at an airport, using their connections to get out of it, and bringing his friends to their house without telling them.

Julian's father was shown to dislike his son's mutation. He didn't like that his son had to go to the Xavier Institute, and he was glad that his son mutation was easy to hide. While he was angry at his son for using his powers and making a scene, it was clear that he only cared about how it affected the Kellers' image.

Hellion's mother was a little more understanding. She was softer spoken. While she compared him unfavorably to his older brother James, she was fine with her younger child walking his own path. But she also sided with Daddy Hellion, because they worked too hard and didn't want their son to risk their assets.

Hellion's parents had cut Hellion out of the will. The family business and all of their money would go to James. Hellion and his friends were welcome to stay at the house, and Hellion was still family. But no way were they letting their twerp kid make them look bad or endanger their comfy lifestyle.

Then they left Hellion and his friends to go on vacation.

The moment Mama and Daddy Hellion left, Julian enlisted the help of his friends to root through their personal belongings to find something to use against his parents. Despite originally telling his friends that his parents were self-made billionaires, he made his thoughts clear to them once they cut him off. No one could make so much money, so quickly.

We got a rough timeline how things went down: they were making about 30k a year, 18 months before Hellion turned 12. Around that time, their company went international and became incredibly profitable. Considering Hellion was stated to be 16 at this time, this means that they became international moguls and billionaires in less than a decade.

So what was the source of their success? It turned out that they used magic to perform a dark ritual, summoned an evil being known as the Kingmaker, and then formed a sort of Faustian bargain with him for all their wealth and power.

Hellion and the Hellions summoned the Kingmaker, at first not actually thinking it would work. But nah, it worked. Kingmaker would offer all of them their hearts desires. But as we covered earlier, the kids eventually chose to give up on their wishes to stop his evil plans.

Hellion's parents were extremely pissed at Julian for running afoul with their benefactor. Mama Hellion reminded her son that they couldn't protect him from someone as powerful as the Kingmaker. But Hellion dismissed him and pointed out how his parents were the ones who got in bed with a villain, and the Kingmaker would more likely go after them, since Hellion and his friends were strong enough to beat him up.

Yet despite being disinherited, being treated like the family shame for being born a mutant, and finding out his parents teamed up with bad people for their own personal gain, Hellion still wanted to be there for them.

Despite Hellion's loyalty, his family would never return it. In fact, this would be the last thing he would ever say to them. Because they would eventually cut him off completely, sell their house and not even tell him where they moved to. They would abandon their son when he needed them most.

At least the other guardians in Hellion's life weren't letting him down, right?

Abandoned!

We have a character who thrives through his connections with others. But what happens when we take them all away?

Just after the Hellions' big summer blow-out against the Kingmaker, M-Day happened. M-Day - also known as Decimation, which should give you a good idea of what it entailed - saw the Pretender (AKA the Scarlet Witch, AKA the Scarlet Bitch, AKA the Harlot Witch) saying, "Haha no more mutants, eunh 😜" and depowering the vast majority of mutants. Their numbers, previously in the thousands (being in around the millions before the Genosha genocide) were now in the very, very, very low hundreds. Cerebro clocked a 91.4% remaining reduction in the mutant population.

To be fair, Wanda was going through some things at the time, and it's not like she was in the right mindspace after others were taking advantage of her mental breakdown for their own personal gain. She was a victim. But to be unfair, it's also the start of everything going wrong for Hellion.

Xavier's school was absolutely wrecked by this. The vast majority of students were depowered, some of them dying as a consequence.

Among the depowered students was Prodigy, and Hellion was quick to swoop in and make fun of him for it. Including stating that Prodigy didn't belong with them at the school, now that he was human. He assumed Prodigy was ready to abandon the mutants now that he could be "normal."

Unfortunately, Wind Dancer overheard what Hellion said. As it turned out, she'd also been depowered by the Pretender. She turned the situation back around on Julian and asked if she was less "Beautiful" to him now, and not worthy of being loved in his eyes. Angry, Wind Dancer stormed off and stopped talking to Hellion.

Once again, hypocrisy. Julian would think that about Prodigy, and he was ready to make things harder for him. Hellion would never see Sofia as anything less, whether she be human or mutant. The thought wouldn't even occur to him. Julian loved Sofia. He'd never hurt her on purpose. But through his own attitude and carelessness, he ended up hurting her the most.

At that time, Wither was also going through some things. He accidentally mangled his crush's arm with his death power, and that drove her further into the arms of Wither's rival, Elixir. Already heartbroken that over the torment his powers had brought him, Wither became more withdrawn.

Hellion was stuck trying to reach out to both Wither and Wind Dancer, but he couldn't be fully there for both of them at the same time. He was unable to reach out to Wither and stop him from running away from the school. They would not see each other again until Necrosha, half a decade later in real time. By then, Wither would be their enemy.

Sofia also quietly left without telling Julian. The two would never even see or speak to her for over 14 years IRL.

But that wasn't the end of it. Tag, one of the Hellions and Julian's best friend, also felt hurt. Julian was so worried about Wither and especially Sofia, he completely neglected to see Tag's pain. He had also been depowered, and was worried he didn't belong with them anymore. Tag, along with most of the other depowered students, would leave the school. He and many other kids boarded a schoolbus and prepared to leave their old life behind.

And then a missile hit the bus, killing all inside. Hellion and his friends would get injured in the attack, trying and failing to save the other kids. Julian was just about to reach Tag and save him, only for the bus to explode and severely injure Hellion for his troubles.

42 children died in that attack. 15 of them were buried in the X-Men' own backyard because even their families didn't want them.

Well, at least the Marvel universe had a ton of heroes who could help out during these trying times. In fact, here comes Carol Danvers to... Oh no, wait. She's just here to try and get the mutants to help her side in the Civil War event. All the other heroes are too busy fighting each other to protect these kids. That's a shame.

At least the government stepped in with Sentinels, who would stand guard outside the mansion and protect the kids. And by that, I mean that they did absolutely nothing and completely failed at their jobs. Because assassins managed to sneak into the school and kill even more kids.

The remaining X-kids would go on to have several misadventures, including getting themselves involved in X-23's life when her old enemies come knocking, fighting a time-traveling Nimrod robot from the future, fighting alongside the adults to save a mutant messiah baby, and getting kidnapped by a demon (NOT the same demon that would go on to stab Hellion, who had already been stabbed by someone else before. Hellion wasn't even involved with this demon adventure.) I won't go into detail over all the horrible things that happened to Hellion and his friend, but know that a lot happened to them.

The kids were technically under the care of the X-Men, but the X-Men were too busy, were spread too thin, and were fighting the world from all fronts to focus on the kids. So the kid were largely left to defend themselves. This is best exemplified when, after the X-Men failed to protect the kids from several attacks, Surge dismisses their help. "We already know how to die."

One issue was dedicated to the kids trying to find out which among them was the youngest. They believed that the youngest of them would become a target, and therefore more likely to be killed. They singled out the youngest kid, but they truly believed that they were all going to die.

I bring this up because this was what the X-Men tragically considered a good day. At that point, a good day was one where nobody died, nobody was tortured, and nobody's soul was torn apart.

And this isn't me exaggerating. The X-Men were openly remorseful about how they failed these kids. They explicitly stated how the kids had serious emotional and psychological trauma. But despite everything, the X-Men cared for their students. They couldn't always be there for them like they should, but they were still their guardians. They would do anything in their power to make the world a better place for them.

So anyway, Cyclops disbanded the X-Men and shut down the school. The kids they previously failed were now scattered to the wind.

Emma left Hellion. As much as she loved him and wanted to keep him safe, she knew she had to keep him away from the X-Men. He needed to be kept away from the fighting and wars for as long as he could. Maybe now he could find some semblance of a normal life and keep himself safe? At the very least, Angel paid for his hotel and food for the time being.

Anyway, Hellion found out that his parents abandoned him, so he had nowhere to go. He was now homeless and had no support system, putting him in more danger than ever.

Hellion would seek out Magneto (not in hero mode at the time) to team up with him. Magneto calls him arrogant, but desperate to please. He refused to take him in and went on to say this:

"Everything you thought you were is gone, and the only thing you had left, the only thing you held on to so tightly was that you were an X-Man. Your teachers abandoned you. Your friends died. Your heart broke. Your beliefs shattered. The X-Men failed you. So, you find me, their greatest enemy. You love them so much that you want to hurt them. But I won't use you, and I won't kill you."

He says that Cyclops had given Hellion the gift of time. He had a moment of peace and a chance to be away from all the trouble, before war would come for mutants once again. At least for now, Hellion was safe.

Then Hellion was injected with the Legacy Virus (mutant AIDS) and used as a hostage in a wicked supervillain plot. Don't worry about it, it was just a small addition to the tapestry of suffering that is his life.

Hellion Was Right

After the X-Men disassembled and anti-mutant sentiment was on the rise, Hellion took a more radical approach to dealing with issues. He'd openly protest on the street, belittle and even attack mutant bigots and haters. He had enough of the X-Men kowtowing and trying to create peace with people who wanted them dead. No more worrying about the silent majority minority of well-meaning humans, no more trying to police their own or trying to achieve co-existence. Hellion was coming more radicalized.

Hellion's radicalization was bad. He resorted to extremes, violence and anger to hurt anyone who got in his way. His actions, while meant to help mutants, were sabotaging relationships between humans and mutants.

But let's be real: there will never, ever be co-existence between humans and mutants. In real life, the drama, threat and isolation mutants face are a big part of the mutant narrative. Take that away, and the franchise seems a lot less viable.

So Marvel will constantly throw in threats of violence and extinction at mutants. It ramped up to insane degrees by the 2000's, to the point where mutants were facing extinction for over 20 years real time, and things have only been escalating. Society will only grow to hate mutants more and more.

While Hellion's radicalism isn't necessarily right, Xavier's dreams of peace are objectively wrong. If anything, the X-Men are indirectly upholding the status quo. Yeah, they also prevent things from getting worse (Days of Future Past), but much of their strides end up being undone.

Mutants would almost achieve coexistence with mutants via their nation of Krakoa, in that the mutants basically bribed the world into tolerating them and attacking them less. While Krakoa would reach out and help humans with various matters, and the books would rely much less on extinction events for stories, things were nowhere close to perfect.

I'm going to say it: Hellion was right. The X-Men were wrong. Humans can't be reasoned with so easily. They need to force their view onto others. They need to fight humans for their rights. The only reasons why they don't? Aside from status quo, it's because the X-Men and other superheroes would step in and give some speech about peaceful co-existence being the right path, even though it's hard. Not knowing that things will objectively never get better because Marvel civilians are irredeemable.

Hellion wouldn't have helped mutants with his actions. But he couldn't make things any worse at that point, because the world turned against him long before he was even alive. No matter what, mutants were fucked.

But hey, it's not like mutants can live without humans. Coexistence is necessary for their survival. It's not like they have proof that mutants would thrive without the presence of humans. Yet.

Anyway, Hellion protested and Emma & her Dark X-Men arrested them. Emma betrayed the evil fascist government run by Norman Osborn, blah blah blah, it was all cool because Emma helped him. She also punched him in the face and put him through a lot of shit, but let's ignore that. It's island time.

The Hands Job

So the X-Men decided to make an island nation, where they gathered all the stray mutants they could and offered them sanctuary. This time, was Utopia. Next time, it would be Krakoa.

Hellion would return to the field. He'd fight the good fight alongside the X-Men, protecting mutants and humanity because it's the right thing to do. Despite everything that had happened to him, he still believed in the X-Men's cause. Or at the very least, he wanted to protect those he loved.

Anyway, a Nimrod Sentinel ended up blowing off his hands.

It really messed him up. Hellion got metal prosthetic hands to and made due by puppeting them with his telekinesis. He had the option of getting mechanized hands he could control more easily, but since he was deeply traumatized by machines, having little robots at the end of his forearms was the last thing he wanted.

To be fair on Rogue, she reached out to Hellion to try and help him. She'd offer to have him go on a trip with her and others to India, though he'd decline. He wasn't in the mood to have people gawk at his missing body parts. Which, fair.

Also, Hellion got stabbed by a demon-possessed Wolverine and Laura had to save him. It's only worth mentioning because Laura peaced out after this.

He was pretty pissed off that the X-Men could always come back from the dead one way or another, yet they couldn't fix his hands. He lashed out at the mutant messiah, Hope, for doing jack shit when it came to miracles. Really busting her balls.

So the X-Men got involved with rebuilding San Fransisco after the whole... everything that had been happening these last several paragraphs. Rogue decided that Hellion should come along and help them with reconstruction. And let's get something out of the way: the X-Men were sending Hellion on a mission while he is was, self-admitted, still on painkillers following his double-amputation. Rogue meant well; it was meant to be a safe, no-action mission where Hellion could get some fresh air and put his troubles aside. And hell, maybe he could have refused the mission at any time. But like??? This child, trained to be a soldier by the X-Men, just had his hands chopped off and was thrown into work while hopped up on drugs.

Just keep this in mind. Hellion had no business being there, but the X-Men thought it was a good idea.

So Hellion was pissed off, bullied Hope for being a shitty messiah, and wantonly blew up debris, endangering everyone around him. Before he could accidentally hit anyone, Omega Sentinel (some human lady with evil robot programming that makes her turn evil sometimes, whatever who the hell cares) turned evil and started beating up all of the X-Men. Just absolutely wrecking them. They had no chance.

She would turn on Hope and a little human girl in the area. Just as Omega Sentinel was about to kill them, Hellion intervened. A miracle happened, and he got a powerup (implied, but never stated or followed up on, from Hope.) He was strong enough beat the robot lady's ass.

And he did. Repeatedly. He lost his temper and just kept viciously attacking her, all while yelling about his hatred of the machines who ruined his life and took his hands. Omega would return to her senses, but she knew it wouldn't last. She begged Hellion to finish her off. She asked him to kill her, before she could turn against her friends and harm them. She wanted to die human.

And Hellion obliged. Omega Sentinel would be left comatose.

At any rate, he saved Hope's life. Considering she would be integral to the very foundation of Krakoa, Krakoa would not exist if Hellion were not around. Hope was also the key to saving the mutant species multiple times. Mutants would have been doomed to extinction if not for Hellion. Yeah, others saved Hope and had way more of a direct impact in restoring their species. But still.

It was a tragic affair, and as Julian recounted the events of the mission to Cyclops, he was clearly shaken up and unsteady. He insisted that he had no regrets and said that he wasn't going to apologize for what he did. But he was clearly not doing well.

Cyclops was pissed because he felt that Julian's level of violence was unacceptable. Also Omega was still a good person, despite being overwritten at the time. She was a victim in all this, too. Yet Hellion didn't even consider any other option but violence and death.

Though it's not like he actually had the luxury of options, considering Omega was annihilating senior X-Men, he only had a split second to save Hope and the girl from danger, and even his victim supported his actions with her dying breath. Hellion lost his temper and was flippant about his actions, but he did the right thing.

Hellion then delivered this take-down to Cyclops, basically saying how Cyclops is a hypocrite who did shit (including killing people!), but apparently it was okay when he did it? Things aren't all black and white, it's not like Cyclops was some crazy psycho who killed and always got away with it. But like... Hellion was right. Cyclops had a very "ends-justify-the-means" attitude at the time. He was a revolutionary who was fed up with the way mutants had been treated. It's just that Cyclops had main character privilege and Hellion didn't.

So yeah, the X-Men were shitting all over Hellion for saving them, an innocent child and the fucking mutant messiah, because he wasn't sad enough about it.

But wait, it gets better.

Hellion Was Right: Omega Sentinel

Hey, remember how everyone shat on Hellion for killing Omega Sentinel? How he refused to apologize for doing what needed to be done, when no one else would? Yeah, the X-Men really chewed him out for being so cool with killing for the sake of protecting innocent lives.

Anyway, Karima would come back as a major antagonist in the Krakoa era, after a future, fully-roboticized version of herself would travel to the past, take over her body and dedicate her life to ending the mutants and humanity. Something she nearly succeeded in, when she helped create the terrorist organization known as Orchis.

Rogue especially took this hard. She crapped all over Hellion for attacking Omega Sentinel in a fit of rage while she was down. She would later assault him over it.

Here's Rogue in 2024, after the X-Men finally defeated Omega Sentinel.

Hellion's only mistake was not finishing the job.

But despite all this, Hellion had morals. He would spend some time debating if he felt sorry for what he did to Omega Sentinel. Which goes against him confidentally telling Cyclops that he wasn't sorry about it. Coupled with this, Rogue going on to say that Hellion felt guilty and wanted to atone, and later stories showing him wrestling with the incident and verbally trying to justify his actions to himself, it's implied that Hellion did, in fact, feel guilty after all.

Also, Hellion would not talk to his friends and classmates about what had happened. After his battle with Omega Sentinel, he briefly passed by his friends. He didn't reach out to them, they didn't acknowledge him. Later, fellow classmate Blindfold would straight-up call Hellion a monster. Hellion was all alone.

Fractured But Whole

Before we continue, let's circle back to Hellion getting a power-up earlier. I said it was implied to be from Hope, performing some sort of miracle. But either she gave him a permanent power-up, or Hellion just unlocked his own natural talent. Because the same run later showed Hellion using his powers to remove an explosion out of someone's body, showing he can mentally manipulate heat and energy on a cellular level. Yeah, fellow X-Man Rachel used her telepathy to spot him, but for those keeping count: Hellion could move energy through people without harming them, move at subsonic speeds, create force barriers, shoot telekinetic blasts, control heat and energy, and work on a cellular level at minimum. Laura once told Julian to create a telekinetic bubble inside of a villain's brain or heart to kill them. Hellion was against this on principal, but he doesn't say he can't do it. Considering he could weave his energy into someone's body and remove a fucking explosion, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that Hellion could bubble some jerk's brain.

Now keep this all in mind. The X-Men had one of the most powerful telekinetics alive. He was hurt, vulnerable, and becoming increasingly isolated due to the mistreatment and trauma he had been enduring. Which was largely made worse by the X-Men just being inconsiderate assholes. And despite everything that had happened, despite his growing cynicism with the world and his disillusionment with the X-Men, he still worked to be a hero. Surely this is the type of mutant the X-Men would want to nurture, help and encourage.

Anyway, Hellion was probation unless they needed to use his powers for missions.

Okay, Cyclops and friends were a bust. They treated Hellion like shit and degraded him when he needed help. Maybe he could find help from somewhere else?

So Cyclops and Wolverine broke up over (among other things) the ethics of raising child soldiers and letting these kids kill. Cyclops is pro child soldier, and Wolverine was against it. You'd think this might be in response to them letting down their students and helplessly watching as they got gunned down. But they go back to using them once this event is over, so it's kind of pointless when you think about it.

Hellion choose to side with Wolverine during the Schism. He joined the school Wolverine has built. He was still a brash bully, but he was supporting the more idealistic and good-natured path of righteousness Wolverine is offering. Despite Wolverine treating him like shit and his daughter breaking his heart, he believed in what Wolverine has to say.

Wolverine was suspicious of him and threw him into a special class with other troublesome kids, so Spider-Man could spy on them and see which one might be a traitor. Still better than being with Cyclops though. And Hellion even got to go on crime-fighting adventures with Spider-Man, protecting New York!

But then this was ignored and never acknowledged again. Hellion would never talk to Spider-Man again and this whole thing might as well not have happened.

Hellion would become a shut-in. Trapped in his smelly room, he pretty much cut off all contact with everybody. He made it clear to a belligerent, antagonistic Wolverine that he didn't want to be there anymore. But he couldn't leave, since people saw him as a threat and would come after him the second he stepped out. Wolverine takes the opportunity to antagonize the disabled child soldier war hero with PTSD, whose life he helped demolish. Wolverine even said that he didn't give a damn about Julian's troubles, and was only getting involved because people were complaining about Hellion being a ticking time bomb.

One day, Laura came to visit him. Julian was quick to forgive her for leaving him on read for several months after he became an amputee and had his life destroyed. And to be fair, she was going through a lot of stuff on her own, which Hellion recognizes. He did briefly lash out at her in his anger, but quickly corrected himself and apologized. He also grabbed her arm when she tried to leave him without an explanation again - uncool, but he at least checked himself and let go when she told him to.

Gambit got involved to try and protect Laura... by threatening to blow off Hellion's arms and legs, to match his missing hands. Hellion was being an asshole, but keep in mind Hellion is a child soldier who had his arms blown off in the line of duty, and has spent the last few months being mistreated by pretty much every X-Man he has come across.

Hellion was also jealous of Gambit, but also worried that he was a groomer who was trying to put the moves on Laura. He was wrong, of course. But maybe he heard about a certain student named Foxx (aka Mystique,) who tried to frame Gambit a banging one of his students.

Hellion stalked Laura asked around and located Laura at the Baxter Building, where she would be spending the night babysitting Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman's two kids. They would get attacked and abducted by the Collector, leading to this whole adventure. It was a thing. Julian helped save her and the kids from dying in the cold recesses of space. Also Julian made fun of the Collector to his face multiple times.

But while this was going down, Hellion showed his insecurities to Laura. He knew she had her own issues, but he didn't know the extent of what she'd been going through. She didn't talk to him about them, and he would have liked that. He felt abandoned, and wondered if him being disabled now was one of the things driving her away from him. But she assured him that she didn't abandon him, and kept watch over him when he was injured and recovering.

When all is said and done, Laura was ready to part ways with Julian. But he didn't want to go without talking things out. He still loved her and wanted to be with her. But she didn't feel the same way and rejected him. Julian lashed out and accused her of being an unfeeling machine - something that would hurt her. She still cared for him, but her feelings for him had changed as the two of them had changed.

This whole debacle is very controversial with fans. Who was right? Who was wrong? How justified were either of them? Was Julian abusive? Was Laura unnecessarily cruel? Generally, people will agree that they both messed up. But who was more in the wrong usually depends on which character you stan more. Hellion's behavior near the end is never really justified, though many people at least understand where he's coming from.

Despite being a Hellion stan, I lean more towards Laura. Despite their mutual feelings for each other, she wasn't obligated to put her feelings aside to take care of him. Her life was also falling apart and she had her own struggles. Yes, she could have handled the situation better. But I don't blame her for focusing on her own life when she was drowning. And it's not like this girl, raised from birth as a tool and still coming to terms with her own humanity, pain and emotions, was capable of dealing with him in the best way, even though she wanted to.

But I can't be mad at Hellion because he suffered way more these last couple of months, didn't have the support Laura would come to have, and, oh yeah, he had his hands blown off by an evil robot. That didn't entitle him to lash out at her the ways he did, but he absolutely didn't deserve to be brushed off. Which is what Laura did, even if it was unintentional.

It was a failure to communicate. They both wanted different things. They had their own issues and that kept them from being there for each other. They were hurt by other people and situations, those warped them and made it harder for them to reconnect. Ultimately, the Laura and Julian we were seeing now, were not the same people they were when they met and fell in love.

I see the vision, but it still feels kind of abrupt and it looks like largely happened just to write out the romance, while not really doing anything to address their issues. It's a story about them growing apart, but not really making it feel like they grew apart. It just looks like Laura is avoiding Hellion even after he explains that her how her behavior also hurt him, but only Hellion's behavior is treated as heinous. And to be fair, grabbing onto someone the way he did, lashing out at them and poking at their insecurities around their humanities, is arguably worse than anything she did to him. But shutting yourself off from someone without explanation, ignoring them when they're begging for help, not showing much concern for their suffering and ignoring multiple pleas to be honest about their problems, is also pretty nasty.

Again, Laura wasn't obligated to deal with his baggage. And it's not like she was in the right headspace to help. But she was involved with Hellion's life and problems, and he was with hers. To ignore this connection was very insulting. Neither of these traumatized, PTSD-ridden child soldiers handled this complex emotional situation well.

So I get it. But the story was written in a way that downplayed Laura's faults and felt like it had to force the issue in order to make it work.

Anyway, Laura would get into a poorly-received, crappy romance with a time-traveling teen Angel from the past. She would also spend hundreds of years in a Vault with Synch as her only companion, where they'd fall in love under dubious circumstances, largely off-screen. She'd forget all this and Synch would accept this, then get back together with another version of Laura, who is also the "real" Laura, and an old MILF. But most fans don't care about old Laura or accept her as the "official" Laura, and she ends up dying, living inside of Synch's head and then dying again. So this whole paragraph means nothing.

But at least we would get a couple shots of Hellion looking at Laura through some bushes like a creeper, just to twist the knife and make sure that the ship was properly killed.

The Fart Cloud

Remember that time the Inhumans unleashed a stupid fart cloud onto Earth in the hopes of activating latent Inhuman genes in some humans? But the fart cloud was poisonous to mutant and started killing them? The X-Men had to hide their numbers in a Hell dimension for safety.

So Julian was poisoned by one of those clouds, and the X-Men totally failed to find and save him when he went looking for their help. Thanks again, X-Men. You're always there when Hellion needs you.

Hellion would visit the Inhumans on their Earth turf. Now dying from the cloud, he was determined to be a martyr. Let the Inhumans witness a person they'd harmed with their actions.

His powers wrecked New Attilan as he lost control over them, endangering everyone around them. Luckily, an Inhuman named Synapse was able to turn off his powers and stop him.

Synapse argued to the ruler of the Inhumans, Medusa, to help Hellion despite the damage he caused. Medusa didn't need convincing though; they were not going to persecute the infirm, and they were going to help this poor, suffering mutant as best as they could. He was going to get the best medical care and they would work tirelessly to see him recover.

Yes. The Inhumans who nearly gassed him to death treated him better than the X-Men. Hellion would be so grateful for their help, he would volunteer at their hospital as an orderly.

Not much would happen to Hellion after this. Despite being told (by everyone) that he was a dangerous mess they didn't want to deal with, Hellion... never really did anything beyond sometimes teasing classmates sometime, briefly date Shark-Girl, and help the X-Men whenever they asked. Many of his cameos consisted of him being in the background, having been beaten up by whatever villain the X-Men were facing.

Also, another fun fact: The X-Disassembled event saw the adults chiding the students as young, inexperienced kids who should stay out of real missions. Which was disrespectful to the kids who rose to the challenge when the X-Men failed them. But at least they weren't interested in using them as child soldiers.

Except one of the adults telling them this was Jean, who has their fellow student Laura as a member on her team. AND she had Laura's 12 year old sister, too. Hellion was notably absent from the majority of this conflict, since his very existence would undermine the adults' message entirely.

Also the school got blown up. It got blown up quite a few times while Hellion was a student. It got blown up so many times, the kids were cracking jokes about it. Surprisingly, none of those explosions were caused by him.

But just because Hellion wasn't active, doesn't mean he wasn't still pulling out Ws.

Hellion Was Right: Etc.

Hellion was right about a lot of things, but I can't sit here and list every single one of them in great detail. So here's a bulletpoint list of his other truths.

During the Utopia era, he knew that humans would eventually round up mutants and put them in camps. We know that happens in a few bad futures. This would also happen during the fall of Krakoa.

He knew the Brood were irredeemable monsters and hated Broo on sight. And in the end? Their only "redemption" was the X-Men to use them as weapons against the terrorist organization, Orchis. They could never truly be saved.

He ended up siding with Wolverine during the Schism, despite him and Logan hating each other. Guess who won the Schism in the end?

Right away, Hellion knew Wind Dancer was a catch. He also had a thing with Laura, dated Shark-Girl, and in an AU he married Surge. The man just can't stop picking Best Girls. He has a supernatural sense that allows him to figure out which girls are superior.

Remember that school competition, and Hellion bragged about how none of the other squads could ever hope to win it again? Shortly after Hellion and his squad won it, the school was hit by the mass depowering event known as M-Day. The majority of students were depowered and many were subsequently massacred by anti-mutant terrorists. Even when the school recovered, they never had these school-wide competitions again. So yeah, no other students would get to win that trophy.

Hellion had been open about his dislike of robots, after they took his hands. Who was behind Orchis? Omega Sentinel. Not only that, the group was primarily run by robots, and they wanted to wipe out all organic life - especially mutants, but they had plans to kill all organic life to preserve themselves. Humans would be their next target, after they finished killing off mutants.

Hellion thought it was weird how Wolverine kept picking up teenage girls as his sidekicks. He joked that Wolverine was a perv, of course Wolverine isn't a predator, he has no ill intentions with those girls, and some of them just dropped into his lap. But it's still pretty sus, even if no one else wants to point it out.

Northstar thought Hellion was making a mistake, picking Emma as his advisor over him. He thought Hellion needed the discipline. Considering Hellion thrived under Emma, she stood up for him when no one else did, and Northstar abandoned him just as the others did anyway... Yeah, Hellion made the right choice in picking Emma.

New Edit: I just saw this post. So you know how Hellion thought mutants should ignore past incidents and accidents, because they need to look out for each other and humans wouldn't judge them fairly? And then the X-Men were all, "NO, we need to listen to human laws!" Yeah, so anyway, the X-Men would basically say the same thing Hellion did, in the Krakoa era. Except now they had the power to enforce their will.

Hellion hated Quentin Quire and beat him up. No explanation needed.

The Gays Love Hellion (And Hellion Loves Them)

So weirdly enough, Hellion has a big LGTV fanbase. Which is weird, because he's from Academy X, not Fraternity X. Why would gay fans gravitate towards a straight, cis, masculine jock who regularly dominates others an- Oh.

Well, it goes beyond that. The X-Men in general have a huge queer audience. But Hellion has multiple factors working in his favor: he's sarcastic and has great quips, he takes after Emma Frost, he's canonically ripped, and he's had his moments of fanservice.

Most importantly, there was that one arc where he was on a beach for a mission. He thought the mission was casual, so he was the only one in swimwear, and nobody told him because they wanted to see him in short-shorts. He's smart, but that scene would go on to imprint himbo energy into the minds of many readers.

Also, he spent the entirety of the Age of X event with his tits out.

I don't find Hellion sexy at all, personally. He's not my type. But he IS a sex bomb. I can see the appeal regardless.

I'm iffy on the femme-y himbo depiction among fans. It's amusing, but I feel like it tends to paint a shallow picture of an otherwise manly, cool, intelligent and tragic character. But Hellion is perfect even if he's a himbo, he's perfect no matter what. I stan the alternate universe black Hellion who was like 5 years old and only appeared in the background of one panel, who may or may not be Hellion at all. He had metal hands, so I like to think he's meant to be Julian Keller.

Krakoa

So the mutants formed a mutant nation, an island paradise called Krakoa. It was this whole thing, it was great, I loved it. I recommend reading House of X/Powers of X if you haven't already. But the tl;dr is that mutants were able to resurrect the dead and give depowered mutants their powers back.

Hellion was given a sanctuary in paradise. The X-Men who had abandoned him had finally given him protection and safety. He had every single one of his deceased friends back, and they were there with him. The days of M-Day were a bad memory, there would be no school attacks, and he wouldn't have to live in fear of M-Pox. If he wanted to, he could die and come back with his hands, fully restored through the Resurrection Protocols.

You know who else came back? Wind Dancer. After fourteen real-life years, the two were finally reunited.

Hellion had regained almost everything he'd lost. All of his suffering was worth it, because he finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. All the work he put into helping the X-Men, saving Hope and working tirelessly to protect others has paid off.

But if this post has taught you anything, it's that Hellion isn't allowed happiness.

Krakoa would fall through the machinations of an evil organization called Orchis. Lead by such villains as Omega Sentinel and Nimrod, Orchis would frame Krakoa for crimes in biological warfare and sabotage, wanton murder of humans, and plots of world domination. The whole world stood back and did nothing as the mutants were attacked, scattered across the world and hunted 'till near-extinction. Many people even cheered Orchis on. Some governments even assisted them in making life more difficult for mutants. Mutants were rounded up, jailed, put under inhumane conditions, forcibly injected with "cures," and even murdered.

Where was Hellion during all of this? Well, he was in another dimension. Xavier had sent mutants through portals, per Orchis' demands. They wanted Xavier to telepathically force every mutant off the planet, or Orchis would use biological warfare to wipe out millions of humans. Wanting to spare humans, Xavier forced the majority of mutants through portals, which would end up leading them to the White Hot Room. The strugglers were left to deal with Orchis.

Hellion either went through those portals, or he had been killed during the Orchis genocide and gone through the Resurrection Protocols in the White Hot Room. He'd be there for several months, struggling to survive in a desert with 200,000 other mutants.

Hellion and most other named mutants would return to Earth, thanks to the X-Men. But also the X-Men and the ruling leaders of Krakoa were kind of to blame, since they failed to strike down Orchis earlier, despite them being a known threat. They tried some things, sure. But the plot basically forbade them from making any real progress against them until now. So yeah, the adults let Hellion down again. If they stopped playing by the rules and killed Omega Sentinel, they'd be happier.

Also, Krakoa would still exist beyond this point. Or rather, a splinter of the island nation would exist in the White Hot Room. It was shown that, without any humans or other groups coming down on them, they could thrive and grow as a healthy, enlightened and thriving nation. Mutants had the option of giving up life on their home planet to go to the White Hot Room's and have sanctuary, or stay in the trenches and spend their lives under constant threat of humans, aliens, demons and robots.

Look at Hellion at the start of his journey, and look at him now. He lost his friends, his loves, his wealth, his family, his identity as a leader, and any confidence he had from his body. The only thing he has left is his telekinesis.

The Villainous Path

Little hellions, kids feeling rebellious Embarrassed, their parents still listen to X-Men

So now we have a better picture of Hellion. He's a person with a big heart and a huge sense of loyalty, but he's been constantly let down by people around him. He's been kicked while he's been down, treated like a monster, and had the people he loves most walk out on him. His own insecurities, ego and attitude have held him back. And just when everything seemed to be turning around, just when he had everything he had lost... his home is taken away from him and he's left alone all over again.

You can see why Hellion wouldn't want anything to do with the X-Men after all of this. They took him in, but they treated him like shit and failed him constantly. He was constantly pointing out the truth, but they punished him for it and insisted that he was wrong.

But you can also see why he would have a grudge against a world who supported his peoples' genocide and the destruction of his nation. The same world that largely stood by and ignored his plight during those 2 other genocides he directly endured, and several others he would have been witness to.

Marvel's also on a sliding timescale, where their time passes much slower than ours. So bear in mind, he has probably been active in-universe for 2 to 4 years. 5, if you want to be generous. Everything you have read has been happening non-stop in a very short span of time.

Almost everyone around Hellion is terrible. He literally cannot count on anyone to help him out, because they are either grossly incompetent, unequipped to deal with things, or outright trying to kill him.

If everyone just listened to him, everything would have been fine... Or humans, machines and other heroes would have wiped them off the planet, and things would be even worse. But I choose to believe that Hellion had the right of way. After all, he'd been right about everything else.

Hellion proved himself to be a real hero, despite everyone doubting him. But he has also done things you wouldn't see most traditional heroes do, because he's cynical and willing to do harsher things if it means helping others. At the very least, he's firmly an anti-hero.

There is precedence for having him taking on an antagonistic role and going against traditional heroes. The context was always him doing what he thought was best.

So he could easily work as an anti-villain or antagonist; someone who will take the role of the heel, but still be sympathetic and have the capacity to be redeemed.

Right now, many fans are worried that that Hellion won't be portrayed sympathetically. That he'll be suddenly and drastically changed into a villain, solely there to cause trouble, do despicable things and be defeated. To be a strawman of what he once was. And to be fair, that's a fair worry; we recently saw a mutant, Nature Girl, go from a mild-mannered student supporting character, to a genocidal villain at the drop of a hat. Her character was irrevocably warped to facilitate a story. Anyone who liked her original characterization would be turned off by this change.

Or how about Benjamin Percy's take on Beast? The loveable furball was now a vile, manipulative, genocidal villain who would torture his friends for his own gain.

There was room for these characters to become darker figures - let's not forget how Nature Girl had a small story dedicated to her being painfully aware of the torture Christmas trees go through before they're tossed aside by humans, unaware of the pain they have caused. But these characters went from A, to B to Z. Things jumped wildly and they became extreme caricatures that barely resembled their original selves. And even if Beast did some questionable things in the past, no way would he naturally fall as far as he did under Percy's pen, much less so abruptly.

There's also worry that the Krakoan will be used as a strawman against Krakoa. He'd be used to portray the worst aspects of Krakoan culture and somehow prove to the audience that no, Krakoa was actually really bad and you should be glad that it's gone.

The Krakoan is specifically twisting the dream of Krakoa to rule the masses. I'm not paying too much attention to these, since preview blurbs are known to be inaccurate at times. But at the very least, they make it clear that what he's doing is not meant (out-of-universe, at least) to be an accurate representation of Krakoa. He's an in-universe example of Krakoa being misused and represented.

Despite this, if the Krakoan is Julian, I think he will be respected a bit. One of the writers of NYX, Jackson Lanzing, was asked about Hellion. He had this to say.

I think that's a pretty fair take on him. Lanzing acknowledged that he's not some simple character. Hellion has the potential to be a big player for mutants - for good or for ill - and that stems from him being somewhere in the middle of the Xavier-Magneto spectrum. He has some desire for peace and co-existence, but he's also not shying away from the reality he faces. If they're writing him, I fully expect them to portray this depth and nuance, even if it's on a small level.

They acknowledged his ties to David and Laura. The latter is important because there's a lot they could mine here beyond their romance. Hellion was there to show Laura a life outside of the darkness. He wanted her to be a better person and break free from her past as an assassin. While the writers might focus on the duo's romance, they should at least be aware that it's built on a foundation of seeing past the bad side of someone, and getting to the real, good person underneath.

Further, both writers are now on record as being big fans of Hellion. They not only like him a lot, but they clearly have a grasp on his character. I doubt they'd do something that would destroy his potential for future stories.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Hellion's villain era. I could be wrong and the writers could totally flub it. But for now, things are pointing towards him being treated with respect.

And if not? Well, he'll probably be right anyway. He's the new Cyclops/Magneto. As the saying goes, they were right. And Hellion has already proven that he has been right this whole time. If Hellion is reduced to some baby-eating monster, I would defend him. That baby was probably racist and had evil vibes.

From the Ashes

That's telekinesis, Kyle. How 'bout the power to move you?

The new relaunch will see other books release alongside NYX. And yes, they're going to be notably less popular because they don't have Hellion in them. But with Hellion's new role, who says he can't be a key figure in the world of mutants going forward?

Exceptional X-Men will feature Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost mentoring three new mutants. They'll be protecting these kids and guiding them through a world that hates and fears them, ensuring that they grow up to be heroes. Meanwhile NYX's main villain is likely one of their previous kids they trained, who they failed, mistreated and abandoned several times, who was explicitly stated to be unstable after his experiences on the field and under their care.

These kids are fucked. Hellion needs to come in and save them from the X-Men, before Kitty Pryde ruins their lives with her "help."

X-Men will feature Cyclops and his band of heroes (plus Quentin Quire), acting openly and proudly as mutants. They won't return to their evolutionary era, but they will still but heads with the government and are in a place that might put them in opposition with the mainstream opinion. From the looks of it, they will fight for their rights and do what they feel is right, even if it makes humans uncomfortable, because they need to be heard and- Oh wait. Hasn't Hellion been doing all of this from the get-go? Hmm.

Don't worry, I'm sure Cyclops will tell the Krakoan that his methods are super wrong and go too far, and that the X-Men are fighting for their rights the right way. Hurting innocent people to promote your cause is wrong! Then Cyclops and his team will get a few more innocent children killed before moving on to their next project.

What about Uncanny X-Men? Rogue's leading that team, and Gambit and Wolverine are on it. All three of them owe Hellion an apology. Jubilee's also there. She always busted Hellion's balls for how he handled his relationship with Laura... when she wasn't ogling his ass on the beach. Which was fair, but maybe she could apologize for not being a little sympathetic after his hands got blown off by an evil robot while fighting for their cause.

X-Factor will apparently pit the titular team against an underground mutant revolution, lead by Polaris. Hey, you think the Krakoan might want to get involved with that down the line?

Wolverine has a solo book. He can use the 5000 issues he'll get to beg Hellion for forgiveness. That's almost enough time to make up for how he treated Julian.

Dazzler's getting a mini. And guess who's going to be part of her crew? Hellion's exes, Wind Dancer and Shark-Girl. Wonder how they'd feel about him breaking bad?

And Now?

We wait see what comes next. We hope for the best, expect the worst, but know that this book will be the best of the From the Ashes era, simply because Hellion is gracing us with his presence.

I recommend reading more Hellion stories when you can. This post only touches on the basics. There are a lot of things I had to cut out. There are a lot of things that I missed, or didn't include because I they weren't as important to be as they might be to you. You might read things completely differently, even though I am objectively right because Hellion is perfect and could never do wrong. I might have purposely skewed things to favor Hellion because this post is Hellion propaganda. But whatever the case, you absolutely should follow my boy.

I had a whole section about Hellion's telekinesis. He's a telekinetic in a world filled with telekinetics who ALSO have telepathy and other powers. But he was able to stand out with how he varied in its use - he could create energy blasts and projectiles, fly at subsonic speeds, make things combust on a molecular level, and blast through just about anything. I cut it because I hit the image limit and didn't have enough space to show them, and they need to be shown because his powers are visually distinct. It was either keep them and cut out the tiddy pic, or keep the tiddy pic and cut out the displays of power. And I think I made the right choice.

[soupbabe]

Ooo okay so I just finished reading your character list.

Can you do Micheal Myers x gn!killer!flirty reader? Maybe general HCs on how their dynamic would be or something

You don't have to do this btw! I am very much satisfied with your tasty writing

Michael Myers x Flirty! Killer! Reader

I don't know which Michael you wanted but I'm staying safe and going with the original 😅

Tagging: @slaasherslut, @the-pinstriped-hood, @devil-doll13, @bugginbeetlew

- Y'know what's a fun thought

- You meeting Michael when you got admitted to Smith's Grove

- Imagine being escorted to a room next to his, the only time he saw you was when you winked at him through a small window on his door

- He definitely thought about that interaction with you more than any other time an onlooker tried to poke and pry to get his attention

- He heard from the doctors that you were demented like him, a person so sick that they'd kill their own family

- Dare I say that he was interested in what you were like

- Safe to say that he brought you with him when he broke out

- He can and will show up to your room, not say anything, pick you up, and leave with you despite any protests

- Not like you would anyways

- "You're a bit forward, aren't you? I like that"

- A lot of your words go over his head

- Give him a lil nudge nudge wink wink and he's just staring down at you with a blank stare

- Get more touchy and he's just confused and shrugs you off

- Though don't be mistaken, he likes your company

- For some reason he doesn't mind your voice and if you get lucky, he'll even listen to your plans (which is a milestone on its own- Michael listens to no one)

- But he really likes to see, is your brutality

- You covered in blood makes him feel funny /j

- After hanging around Michael, you start to notice little behaviors that means he likes you

- Sometimes he just gets really close, like he just puts his hand on your shoulder and breathes down your neck

- Other times, mostly after a kill, he'll take a handkerchief from his pocket and give you it so you can wipe blood off of you

- Tease him about his intense staring, especially when you're covered in blood, and he'll soo be in denial about it

- Will leave you behind or lock you out of the Myer's house or something so you won't bother him for the rest of the night

- And omg omg I'm thinking about jealous Michael

- Imagine flirting with a future victim and you get your kill stolen by the boogeyman

- It's a lot more brutal, one of those kills that are only identifiable by dental records

- It's absolutely aggravating at first, but once you catch on you're becoming a menace to Michael

- "There's nothing to be jealous of Mikey, you already know my heart belongs to you and you only~"

- Sleeping outside for a week for that

- He can't recover from that

[colinmorgan-beautifulsmile]

Colin Morgan has an exclusive brand new in-depth interview with Radio Times

In brand new thriller Dead Shot – which arrived on Sky Cinema and NOW last week – former Merlin star Colin Morgan stars as Irish paramilitary Michael, who is on the verge of retirement when his pregnant wife is brutally murdered by a British army soldier.

Based on an original screenplay by Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett and directed by brothers Tom and Charles Guard, it's a harrowing film that takes place during the height of the Troubles in 1975, following Michael as he embarks on a revenge mission that sends him to the heart of IRA operations in London.

When Morgan first got his hands on the "page-turning" script, he was struck by a number of things, not least the contradictions inherent in his character, and he was especially won over by a certain ambiguity regarding who the audience should be rooting for.

"As a Northern Irish guy, you think I'd be biased to one side, but it's absolutely seeing both sides of this tale and this drama," he tells RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview. "And so it says quite a lot that I was kind of on both camps, I think that's quite an achievement.

"Contradictions are the main thing I look for," he adds. "You see somebody in a cause that some men were drawn into in the late '60s and early '70s in Northern Ireland, particularly in the border counties. And I'm wondering, if I was born around that time would I have been any different? Might the times have dictated what I needed to do to survive as a man?

"Those are the things that are compelling to me... he wants to be a dad, he wants to survive his future. At the very beginning of the film it feels like he's just about to begin the rest of his life, he's left the cause behind, and it just gets taken away from him in a second."

In preparing for the film, it helped a great deal that Morgan himself grew up in Armagh, the same town that Michael is from. Despite growing up in a different era, the star was very much able to draw on his own personal experiences when it came to getting a handle on the character.

"One thing I said to the Guard brothers before I started was I'm gonna bring everything I bring to the character from my point of view, but also the stuff of just being someone who grew up in Armagh," he says.

"You get that for free, because that's the complication of living in a place like that, even though I grew up in the tail end of things – it is just part of your culture and in your blood. You see all those things growing up, and they're just in my own kind of memory bank. So while I didn't go through the times, I was certainly surrounded by adults who did."

Dead Shot isn't Morgan's first project in recent years to be set against the backdrop of the Troubles. In 2021, he had a key role in Sir Kenneth Branagh's Oscar-winning coming-of-age film Belfast, and the actor has clearly found it an immensely rewarding experience to see audiences drawn in by these stories. 

"Particularly with Belfast, there's something kind of amazing about seeing something that's such a part of you reach the world and resonate with people in a universal way," he says. "When you see your story, or you hear your accent, there's just something about you that connects with that.

"And then when you hear other people the world over do that as well, you can't help but feel a sense of pride that your identity is being recognised."

In addition to the knowledge of the conflict he had accumulated while growing up in Northern Ireland, Morgan did plenty of research into the Troubles to prepare for his role in Belfast. He says this came in handy once again for the new film, but stresses that Dead Shot itself is not necessarily "concerned about trying to educate people about the times in Northern Ireland".

"Not every film that deals with the Northern Irish issue has to go into all those details," he says. "That's what I thought was refreshing about this. But it's important as an actor just to be familiar with those things, whatever period that – it's always worth doing, and I always do it."

One of the most intriguing aspects of the film is the complexity regarding Michael's adversary Tempest, played by Aml Ameen. Although by no means portrayed in a straight-forwardly sympathetic light, the character is not presented as an out-and-out villain either – but rather a vulnerable person who has been thrown into a horrible circumstance by odious bosses. Meanwhile, the fact that Tempest is a Black man living in a time when racism was commonplace undoubtedly adds to this complexity.

"One of the things I said to the directors right from the start was that there was a lot more that bound these two guys than divided them," Morgan says of the relationship between Michael and Tempest. "They're both in London, which was a place at the time that had [signs saying], 'No dogs, no Blacks, no Irish'.

"So these are actually both very outsider characters who were treated differently – when an Irish man went to London in those times there was complete shunning of them as well. So they're guys who know what it is to be shunned, rejected, and treated as the other. And the fact that they find themselves caught in this tragedy against each other, it's a shame in a way.

"The sad thing about that particular time in Northern Ireland was that so much division between religions and nationality prevented so much integration," he adds. "And it's still unfortunately very present in Northern Ireland to this day – it's getting less so, but it's hard to think it'll ever go away.

"It's terrible to think that people connecting on a human level is prevented by something like a label or identity or nationality, whatever it is. Your best friend could have been the one that was serving in the army except you were just on the other end of the lines."

Although the film is set primarily in London, the shoot itself actually took place in Glasgow – with a number of London buses and other identifying features brought in to help transform the Scottish city into something resembling the UK capital. This was an interesting experience for Morgan, especially considering he has his own history with the city.

"I actually went to drama school in Glasgow, I went to the Royal Scottish [Conservatoire]," he says. "And the odd thing was that I hadn't really been there since I graduated and I found myself staying in an apartment that was right opposite the apartment I stayed in in my second year at drama school.

"It was this weird kind of full circle moment of suddenly there I was, like 15/20 years later. I could practically still see through the window of that apartment and see the 20-year-old me wondering, 'Oh, I wonder if this whole acting thing will ever work?'"

Of course, it wasn't long after graduating before Morgan's acting career very much did work. Following a number of early roles on stage and screen, including the Doctor Who episode Midnight, his big breakthrough came in 2008 when he was cast as the title character of BBC One's fantasy series Merlin – a show that went on to run for five highly successful seasons.

The series has retained a cult following since it ended in 2012, and some fans have long clamoured for some sort of reunion or reboot. But although Morgan thinks back fondly on his time on the show, returning to the role doesn't appear to be something he's considering any time soon.

"I think most actors are more about progression and moving forward and don't often look back," he explains. "Even on stage, sometimes plays I've done have wanted to remount and come back again, and I often found I don't take up those opportunities because I've wrung the towel dry and I've rinsed what I could out of it.

"That's certainly what I've tried to do with every project, it's like I invest every 110% into it so hopefully by the end of it, I feel like I've done all I could. And certainly on projects like Merlin, I felt like yeah, we definitely did that together as a team and it's certainly [something I] look back on and feel very proud of the work that I and everyone did."

On the subject of moving forward, Morgan has a number of other imminent projects in the pipeline. He has a key role alongside Jessica Lange, Ed Harris and Ben Foster in a new film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's classic play Long Day’s Journey Into Night; he will star opposite Emma Appleton in the upcoming Paramount Plus legal thriller The Killing Kind; and he is currently filming a project which he can't yet disclose. The keys to the roles he's been looking for in recent times, he says, are variety and collaboration.

"I look for things I haven't done before, I look for challenges, I look for versatility, I look for passionate people," he explains. "I think more so than anything, what seems to be top of my list now is collaborators – people who have this kind of notion of bringing you into the fold and wanting to work with you not just to deliver the acting goods, but to know what you feel about the scripts and the story and have your input.

"And that's my background. My first jobs were all new writing in theatre and working with writers and developing and progressing and shaping things together. And that's what I thrive on more than anything in the world.

"That seems to be what people are wanting these days, I think the landscape has changed. People are really wanting multidisciplinary actors, and that's worth knowing for anybody wanting to come into the business: don't just be thinking about the acting, think about 360 degrees of everything."

[shepherds-of-haven]

in a high school/anime slice of life au, what would the ros do for valentines day? and i don't mean what would they do for a date, i mean who's making homemade chocolates for their crush and confessing on the day of, who's ignoring the whole thing, who's returning the favor on white day??

Ooh, interesting question!

(For those not familiar, in Japan (and therefore in slice-of-life anime), Valentine's Day is typically when girls give chocolate/sweets either as giri chocolate (obligation/courtesy gifts) or honmei (gifts intended to be received as a romantic gesture), and on White Day one month later, boys are supposed to repay or return the gifts they received on Valentine's Day back to the girls, sometimes with the thought that their 'return gift' should be 2-3x the value of the original.)

As for how the characters would react if they were in this kind of slice-of-life high school anime AU...

Blade: he would be so indifferent to these holidays lol I'm not even completely sure he would be aware they existed? He'd certainly reject any gifts he received from people he didn't know, and he'd "return" the gesture on White Day with the absolute bare minimum (like a little store-bought bag of chocolates) because his mom forced him to or something

Trouble: "oh damn, I love chocolate! Thanks!" :D

*completely oblivious that this gesture could be anything but friendly, inadvertently and ruthlessly crushing the hopes of several admirers*

He'd attempt to bake his own chocolates at home for White Day, but they'd end up looking so nasty and mutilated-looking, like

They'd actually taste decent, though!!

Tallys: she would bake elegant little cookies or brownies purely as courtesy or giri gifts for all of her friends, of all genders, but she might secretly slip in something special (like a heart-shaped cookie) into the bag of the person she secretly had a crush on! No one would ever know, though!

Shery: she would make the CUTEST cookies and chocolates in little pastel-wrapped baggies for all of her girlfriends 🥹 She'll give some to the boys too, but it's more like a "oh I just had so many left over, please enjoy 🥰" because it's the female friendships in high school she'd treasure the most, and she wouldn't want any boys to get the wrong idea!! These gifts would be so perfect that they'd be the envy of all who saw them!

Riel: he wouldn't pay any attention to the holiday whatsoever (until he got a box of chocolates from some hopeful first-year and brutally rejected them out-of-hand so as not to waste anyone's time...) He gives off an intimidating aura, but would actually really appreciate receiving little candies and sweets and things as giri choco from people like Tallys or Shery because he LOVES sugar, so he would use these as fuel for his late-night cram sessions! 👓 For White Day, he'd buy them expensive, thoughtfully-chosen white-gold jewelry, because Riel Syndran ALWAYS surpasses expectations!!! If you give him a gift he'll return it six-fold, not just two or three times in value!!!

Chase: realistically, he'd probably be swamped with gifts on Valentine's Day and bombarded with all kinds of confessions, and he'd probably indiscriminately accept each and every one of them with a big grin and an easygoing demeanor that would just make more and more people feel like it's safe to confess to him because he seems so receptive to it! Realistically, though, he could be ambling down the hall loaded up with flowers and chocolate and see someone like crying in a nook because they got rejected (like by Blade or Riel lol), and he'd stop to have a chat with them and would probably hand them a bouquet of flowers, like "Here, I don't need it! Cheer up!" --Inadvertently winning himself yet another heart. I think he would sincerely appreciate and enjoy the gestures, but the materials themselves wouldn't, like, mean anything to him specifically, if that makes any sense. Ironically he'd probably treasure even giri chocolate from close friends way more than romantic honmei from near-strangers, and his reaction to the gifts from friends would be markedly different and more excitable (usually for trolling purposes, but also sincere enthusiasm). Like getting chocolate from a random admirer would be like "Oh, thanks so much, I appreciate it! :)" whereas getting some chocolate from Briony or Trouble or Blade would be really dramatic and embarrassing, like "REALLY??? YOU MADE THIS FOR ME??? 🥹🥹 I DIDN'T KNOW YOU LOVED ME SO MUCH 🥹🥹 Ahhhh I knew you had a soft spot for me~~~ I'm so happy right now~~~ 🥰❤️"

For White Day, I feel like he'd just pretend he "forgot" about the holiday to dodge having to show favoritism to any one admirer/suitor, lol, so none of his romantic pursuers would get anything--but somehow he'd get away with it due to his 'lovable scamp' reputation! He'd probably treat his friends to dinner or something to repay them for their giri chocolate, though!

Red: Like Chase, he would politely accept each and every Valentine's Day gift offered to him, regardless of its implicit meaning, which inevitably would lead to all sorts of messy romantic entanglements and misunderstandings that Pan and Neon would give him hell over. "Why the hell did you accept chocolate from that girl if she said she likes you??" "Well, she made it herself, it seemed rude to just reject it..." "BUT NOW SHE THINKS YOU'RE DATING, AND SO DOES THE OTHER ONE WHO GAVE YOU CHOCOLATE" "yeah I'll probably have to clarify at some point..." "SOME POINT"

He's very conscientious about returning the gesture on White Day, though he tries to be as "neutral" about it as possible (i.e. getting everyone the same generic gift en masse) so as to avoid the situations he got himself into last month! (coward)

Ayla: YAWN, Valentine's Day is just a capitalist holiday designed to sell candy and sugar!! She's not the biggest fan of sweets, so she's whatever about this holiday and White Day. You're definitely not going to catch her dead preparing or giving anyone stupid chocolates... What a waste of time!! So cringey!!

But she is curiously a bit more clingy towards her gal pals on this day and is like "can't we just go to dinner/have a sleepover, just us, and forget about all this? 😒"--leading to some to suspect that it all might make her feel a bit insecure, worrying that her precious friends are going to get into relationships or fall in love or receive admirer's chocolate and and leave her behind!!

Briony: THIS IS HER FAVORITE THING EVER, she's so excited about this holiday!!! She might be the only one in the entire group who would consider using Valentine's Day as a way of expressing her feelings or confessing her crush to the object of her affections by making them a special gift... it would look a good deal shabbier and more homemade than Shery or Tallys or Lavinet's offerings--she couldn't temper the chocolate to make it shiny, so it looks a bit dull and claggy--but the heart is definitely there!! Whether or not she actually has a crush on anyone, though, she's going to go all-out and make as many gifts for her friends and classmates to show her appreciation and love towards them as well! She'd be the classroom's little Valentine's Day fairy, floating around and trying to spread Valentine's cheer!

"Riel, aren't you going to wear a heart pin on your lapel, the class rep passed them out so we could celebrate--"

"No"

"But--"

"Purposefully make a hole in my blazer? Are you insane? The colors don't even match"

"But it's Valentine's Day! 🥺"

Lavinet: huhuhu, this holiday is her time to bask in the attention, because she inevitably gets a lot of gifts and chocolates from admirers every year! 😎 However, she'll only buy expensive, elegant chocolates for her friends (she won't make them herself) and then she'll wait and see what the object of her affection does on that day. She doesn't want to chase too hard or obviously!!! If the crush does something nice for her (even though Valentine's Day is traditionally when she should offer a gift), then she might whip out a very sleek, wrapped gift and carelessly say something like, "I saw this and thought of you! (AKA Don't read too much into it!)" But, of course, him being the only person to receive such a gift from her would be a sign in and of itself...

If he doesn't do anything worthy of her gift that day, she keeps it for herself and eats it without ever telling anyone it existed in the first place LOL

Halek: he probably skips school that day because he overslept and just decided the day was a lost cause, so he successfully dodges both Valentine's Day and White Day. 😂 If he doesn't, he makes the most badass, haute-couture, gastro-molecular confections and treats, is eager to show them off to as many of his friends and classmates as possible, then overthinks it because someone (Naolin) is like "Are you sure you want to give that to so-and-so, the level of attention and detail you put into that might give them the wrong idea of your intentions..." So then he ends up only giving it to, like, Trouble, who as the safest option is like "DUDE THIS IS SICK" and then scarfs it down without appreciating the artistry of it 😭😭 Meanwhile Chase is still like "do... do you have a crush on Trouble??" Red: "yeah there were gelee pearls on top of that handmade profiterole, he definitely does"

[mamuzzy]

MAMUZZY READS HARD CONTACT: Prologue

I said I would write about Prologue + Chapter 1 in one single post, but then I ended up actually having more topics to talk about in this chapter. :) It was quite a new information for me that Hard Contact (2004) came out earlier than the game itself (2005 which is also the year of the Revenge of the Sith) which means...

Hard Contact Prologue is actually the first entry of not just Darman but the Delta Squad too!

What you will find here - First glimpses of Darman - First appearance of the Delta Squad - Comparing the events of the book to the game - Commando Squad culture: Names - First differences spotted between Kal Skirata's and Walon Vau's training method

The prologue is using 1st POV in present tense while the rest of the book uses 3rd Past tense. Prologues being in this format actually became a tradition throughout the series, we see different character's povs in the beginning of each book.

I actually have personal preferences for 1st person compared to 3rd person, so I didn't find this disturbing and honestly, it really helped me to get immersed and invested in right away in the character.

This is the first appearance of Darman (RC-1136), member of the Theta Squad and we see the partial events of the Battle of Geonosis through his eyes. The chapter was short, you don't really get the details about their mission objectives, on the other hand it was a really good presentation of a soldier who only has the current task in front of him, and nothing else and using first person view was actually a good choice for this effect.

Also, the memories of the game's first level and Battlefront (classic!) geonosian mission emerged from the depth of my mind, making me reminded why I ragequit all those years ago. :D It was brutal, it was chaotic and unforgiving.

I really liked this starting sentence. Raw, no-nonsense like Darman himself.

If your are not sure about how much bomb you need, use a lot. :DDD And this P for plenty is also a returning common saying throughout the series. Later we actually get to know that Darman is the demolition expert of the team.

The events of the books and the game differ from each other, but Darman is mentioned, so does their mission objective:

Delta Squad's original mission was killing Sun Fac, chief-advisor of Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of Geonosis, and then they were tasked to finish what the Theta squad couldn't. The game is implicating that Darman's squad was already wiped out by this time.

In the books, they are actually communicating, Darman's squad is just about to break in to the Foundry and the Deltas waited for Theta to detonate. Though he wasn't named, Boss is on the other side of the line:

First conversation between clone babus and they are already bickering. :D I love them so much. Interestingly all the Clone demomen are enthusiastically loves to rearrange architechture (as Boss would say), like Scorch or Wrecker, so compared to them, Darman is actually pretty chill even under the pressure of time and an annoying Delta on his back. :D /affectionate

Because I replayed the first mission of the game just for the sole reason I got myself those quotes, while playing and rewatching the captured video, I realized something: Boss rarely called the team members by their choosen/given names or numbers. Scorch calls him Boss, Sev refered him as 'Eight, Fixer calls him Sir which is already giving away some crumbs about their personality too. But Boss always says Deltas. Clone advisors also refer them as Deltas, or Boss as Delta Lead.

But also referring the other squad as Theta, while Darman calls him Delta.

It really got me thinking about this chapter-starting quote later in the books:

It really got me the thinking that Clone Commandos are not particularly taking pride in individuality or at least it's not the priority.

As four-people they are squad. Alone, they are nothing. If you think about it, the Commando squad are highly elite soldiers and their purpose was together team being basicly a four-men-army and do the jobs a regular trooper can't. They were trained to act together, work together, think together, and encouraged to look after each other. Refering them as a whole is not considered as an insult to their individuality.

Meaning, there is no "I", there is no "you", there is only "we" and "us" as a whole.

I want to talk about this topic in the chapter 1 further because in there there is actually mentioning what is the difference between a Clone Commando and a regular trooper, but regarding names it is already an interesting discovery.

But there is already a difference between Delta and Theta. Though you won't know it from this chapter, but Delta is trained by Walon Vau while Thetas are Kal Skirata's trainees and they are known to had entirely different views on how clone cadets should be trained and handled.

Darman refers the member of the Delta Squad as Delta, but his own squadmates by their names even in the narrative, that's why we know the other Thetas are called Taler, Vin and Jay.

This is implicating a less hierarchical structure within their squad and the only way you know that Taler is the sergeant because he gives the shots. Darman also didn't refer Taler as sergeant.

Out of curiosity I checked if wookiepedia has something more about them, and I was able to find their designation numbers:

- RC-1133, Clone Commando Sergeant Taler - RC-1134, Vin - RC-1135, Jay - RC-1136, Darman (SQUADBABYSQUADBABYSQUADBABYSQU-)

Speaking of designation numbers, Boss's number (1138) is actually an easter egg, a constantly recurring number in the Star Wars universe.

Chapter 1 will have another heartbreaking relevation about the names, so I will continue this there.

As for the rest of the chapter? Darman stays behind with E-Web and watches the rest of the Theta die. :'))))

I hope you enjoyed the first entry of my blogging! ^^

I really didn't think I could actually gather content for the prologue but when I saw on the wiki that Darman's name mentioned in the game, I really got inspired to include the game content as well!

Thinking about collecting and mentioning instances of when Dave Filoni smuggled aspects from Repcomm into the TCW or Bad Batch too.

[jujutsutrash]

My apologies for delivering something without smut right in October, instead of kinktober (unless body swapping is your kink) let's call this one kenjakutober. I dunno, this weirdo has been in my mind a lot recently, maybe because he was my second fav behind gojo, and oh, well, gojo got boxed for good. Guess Kenny wins.

Kenjaku x Reader. 1.2k (tw: death, and Kenjaku's flavor of body swapping)

Honestly, the whole experience since meeting you was something Kenjaku could describe as unique. not, by any means, bad, but definetly unexpected - though, not unwelcome. you were a powerful sorcerer, in fact, too powerful for your time. it had been a couple hundred years since the Heian era, and in this age of blades and samurais, jujutsu had been losing its strength. that made you a stranger in your time.

At first he'd seen in you a good tool to aid in his plans, a source of power that could prove itself useful. you were a sorcerer with strength but no actual purpose, and he could give you one - although, it would be his. you took to the job without hesitancy, wanting to escape the fate decided to you by your clan. an arranged marriage, a waste of your life on someone who'd certainly resent how much more powerful than him you were.

Now he clearly understood that what you saw on the deal he offered was a chance at freedom, to live your life unchained by anyone. it seemed a worthy shot, even if you could tell his motives seemed not to be fully on the clear. but you didn't care, figuring it better to be involved in something possibly bad than to be involved in nothing at all. better the evil you don't know than the one you do - better to take this leap than be chained to domestic servitude, wasting away your existence doing nothing interesting.

To be quite fair, he found that thinking admirable. maybe that was why Kenjaku started to grow found of you. In these new times, few were the people willing to take the gamble, willing to get their hands a little bloody to live life how they wanted to. oh, you truly were like a treasure from a time long gone. brave and powerful, curious and unafraid, unshaken by the things he did and the ones he had you do. and above all lustful for a life that's not mediocre. lustful for a life that would be better than just good enough. to achieve things, to see things, to experience more.

You were almost like kindred spirits. and overtime that was probably how he let you work your way under his skin. one day he just found himself desiring you, and soon enough he was working his way under your clothes. You were beautiful - that had been undeniable since day one, but hadn't really had any importance until this sudden shift. what Kenjaku originally wanted from you was your ability to work. but then things changed, he wanted that and something more - an useful setup, really, two birds with one stone and all that.

It was a convenient situation. on one hand you completed every task and job given with almost brutal precision. on the other you were an entertaining company and a good source of pleasure. it was fun. just a satisfying circumstance. or at least that was the case in the beginning.

Without even noticing Kenjaku started growing to like you - feelings he never really expected to have. that that he actively shunned them, he still had his priorities straight and the sentiment existed in the background, a fun little side task. it was just surprising to see it happen anyway, something to take note off. it was good knowing life could still surprise him at least, even after a couple hundred years around.

it was good, something fun to stave off the boredom and monotony. not only a warm body on cold nights but one that willingly came to him - even after having known exactly what he was. a normal person would have been afraid, but not you. he could appreciate how you put your need to have what you desired over even any sense of self preservation. you were definetly an interesting company - it explained how he came to feel for you.

Though, no good thing can last forever. well, not so much a rule for Kenjaku, but one for almost everybody else - you included. your end came at the hands of a curse, one that he managed to exterminate himself, but then it was already too late. he found you laying dead in a pool of your own blood, body covered in smaller wounds, clear sings that you didn't go down easy. though, he had realized that earlier, the curse was powerful but he found it in terrible shape. you fell, but you fought to the bitter end, that too was admirable.

So Kenjaku did the only respectable thing he could think of doing.

His first thought when he found your body was to turn you into a cursed object, so he could revive you at a later point. it would be useful, but somehow it felt lacking. though, as he looked at your bloody form for longer, a thought crept into his head. you had a great cursed technique, a powerful body, and there was a curiosity in him, a wondering that wouldn't cease. what would it be like to occupy that body?

The idea just seemed right. and as he looked down, witnessing your cold hands warming up, it felt right too. looking at the mirror for the first time after switching bodies always seemed a little odd, but this time it didn't, not quite so much. things just seemed to sit right as he moved to brush a strand of hair away, watching as your soft hand reach out to pull the hair back, leaving clear the still fresh scar across your forehead. Well, Kenjaku's forehead now.

The wound was so fresh that liquid still pooled around the points where the stitches connected the two parts of the skull. what would you have thought? you probably wouldn't have minded, you were never quite so squeamish. and it just felt right. Kenjaku's soul seemed to just sit right in this body - no longer you, but still yours in ways kenjaku knew so well. one last gift from the grave, a body that fit so easily.

Looking at the mirror again, warm hands reached to adjust the soft locks of hair just like you did it. oh, yes, that looked perfect, gazing at the reflection, Kenjaku could almost believe it was you. but she was a different person, although a related one, this time around. one that, having full access to your memories and experiences now she could be sure, was certainly part of what made you, well, you.

It was strange, seeing her own life in third person. but that was a good strange, a interesting experience for sure, getting to go through all these years again, but from a new perspective. to feel everything as you felt it - from pleasure to pain, oh, and love, of course. It was different, interesting, something Kenjaku wasn't sure if she'd be able to do again any time soon. yeah, taking your body was the right choice. it was powerful, beautiful, and most definetly a remarkable experience. what a great way to end something good.

[inafieldofstarflowers]

There are so many reasons that I love Star Wars, but I think that the biggest one is the centrality of hope in the story. Obviously, you have that at center stage in A New Hope, as the rebellion is having a breakthrough, and I think it’s a pretty clear thread through the original trilogy as a whole: Luke and Leia and Han enter the rebellion and all of them bring a determination to cause change which is, ultimately, as much a cause of hope as the information about a weak point in the Death Star was.

And the prequel materials are, to me, a beautifully tragic picture of how the galaxy got to a point of such desperation for hope. Throughout the prequel trilogy, as well as in Clone Wars, you see the decline of hope in the galaxy as they get sucked into a war, and we, the audience, get the extra kick of the dramatic irony: that Palpatine is playing both sides, that all the violence and death and loss are pointless, totally avoidable. And yet, especially in Clone Wars, everyone is working SO hard to not only hold onto hope, but also to provide it—the jedi, the clones, and even the handful of upright politicians.

And, of course, RotS ends on the lowest of points, a place without hope: the jedi order is destroyed, the clones lose their sense of identity, and the senate falls. The horror of this moment is not subtle: it is brutal and repeatedly shown, because it MATTERS. It is not just an event, it is something personal—we have Ahsoka and Rex burying brothers we know the names of, Bly shooting Aayla, the wolfpack firing on Plo, Jaro Tapal and Depa Billaba giving their lives to get their padawans—who are children— to safety. And at the heart of it all is the very person who was proclaimed the chosen one, cutting down children and playing a role in his wife’s death and giving into his darkest side. For me, Obi-wan’s confrontation of Anakin embodies this more than anything else: he cannot fathom how things have come to this point. And so RotS ends with a lack of hope that is nearly all-encompassing, though we can hold onto Luke and Leia, who we KNOW will grow up to save the galaxy.

Which brings us to the time in between—and, in particular, to Obi-wan Kenobi, Rebels, Andor, and Rogue One. For me, the whole Obi-wan show was about Obi-wan being reminded that hope existed in the galaxy, not just through Leia, but through all the ordinary people who stepped up and were working to make things better. And that is EXACTLY what Rebels and Andor and Rogue One are about, on an even grander scale. They show that, even in a galaxy in which hope seemed so impossible, there are people willing to fight for it. The prequels era has such a focus on the people who are fighting and doing the protecting of the galaxy, and the rebellion era shows the people who had been under their protection stepping into their shoes, refusing to give up as lost the goal they fought for just because they are now gone.

The message of Star Wars is HOPE, enduring even in the face of nearly incomprehensible and utterly senseless tragedy, and that’s such an enormously beautiful message.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Choices

One of the things I've noticed in the last little while, playing Veilguard and not being worried about spoilers, is that there are a fair few entitled players out there, at least when it comes to Bioware games. (You guys are fine; it's mostly what I'm seeing on Reddit.) Now, I'm not enamoured with all of Bioware's decisions when making this game, and things could have used some work, but I am happy to change my mind from my original assessment of "not worth it", and most of all, I'm not going to say that the game is objectively bad just because it isn't the game I made up in my head. Even if I had played it despite all the pain to end up hating it, I would have said "It's just not for me" and chalked it up as an expensive life lesson. But these people seem to think that "bad" translates to "not what I personally want".

There are going to be a lot of posts like this, I feel, so I'll handle one complaint from the Reddit brigade at a time - namely, what they did with the build-up to and results of at least one difficult choice. And here's a read-more just in case; there are spoilers but it's for Act 1 so you might find it worthwhile reading.

Specifically, Minrathous vs Treviso. The results because ... well. The build-up to? According to the Reddit crowd, that's down to the Antivan Crows and Tevinter's attitudes towards slavery.

We'll start with the Crows. When these people said they wanted "dark", they apparently meant, "We want to know all about everything Zevran told us about how the Crows behave - how they buy children and torture them and kill them, or let their peers kill them, in order to become Crows! This is hero-washing the Crows into freedom fighters!" And in the next breath they'll complain about an absence of Zevran. Two things, though. The first? It's been decades. My assumption at the point where the Crows behave more like a mob family than anything Zevran described is that ... look, after Zevran left the Hero of Ferelden, he basically became a vengeful ghost dealing with the worst elements of the Crows. It got so bad the Crows sent Nucio after him in DA2, and we know what happened to Nuncio in DA2. I personally figured that the less brutal Talons took things in hand to keep the Crows as a going concern. But of course, the Reddit folks complain about "Why don't we ever see or hear about Zevran?!?" and I'm like, "Guys, seriously - would you, as the head of a guild of assassins who more or less run a country at this point, go around telling some total stranger (or, if you picked the Crows as your background, some fledgeling) that you were ever brutal trainers at all? And if you did, would you then tell them that one man disrupted that guild so badly that you had to change your policies?" Lucanis suggests that there's still some nasty shit going on in the interests of training an assassin, but ... again, we are playing Some Guy. I doubt they're going to even so much as leave bits of paper with, "The last Some Guy we had who went on a world-saving mission at the end of a contract basically tore us full of so many holes that we had to go away and think about our choices". And that's not even counting having to change at least some policies when the Antaam blew into town because they were having enough problems as it was.

And then Tevinter. That one's shorter. They wanted to hear about the blood magic and the slavery. They wanted to see the slavery. Which ... like, okay, much like the thing with tortured young people in the name of making a better assassin, this gives me a bit of the ick, but they want their dark and gritty (and there might be some prurient interest there but I don't kinkshame) so whatever. Point is, not only have they had the Lyrium Ghost on their asses for like a decade, but they've had Dorian fucking Pavus working on them via the Shadow Dragons from within. I figure at the very least the jackasses who are into the slavery have had to be less conspicuous unless they wanted an elf who can phase through people and/or a Magister who faced down the end of the world and won on their asses.

Anyway, what you see of Minrathous is enough. Shadow Dragons notwithstanding (sorry, Matt Mercer as the Viper, and trusting Dorian to get the hell out of there), my personal view on Tevinter is, "Let it burn". Aaaaaaaaaand because I picked the place with the group that actually seems to have taken steps to rehabilitate itself, not to mention the one with no standing army ... Minrathous did.

And that's the other bit of bitching we get from the Reddit group. Like, "We sent the other three to Minrathous! Couldn't they do anything?!?" Since the dragon was only actually sent down to ground level where they could be attacked to fetch that fucking lyrium dagger, no, the technically unnamed Veilguard couldn't do shit all. Minrathous' own defenses had a better chance, but if they decided not to clean house of the Venatori in their ranks until it was too late, that's on them. And when and if the day comes that I choose Minrathous (and I might; I have a few pragmatic Rooks who really don't want to give the Venatori a better foothold and see the Antaam as a lesser threat), I know damn well the other three couldn't do anything for Treviso for the same reason.

Also the bitching about, "Why does the faction that got its city destroyed blame us?!?" A few reasons, honestly. First, it's generally not the entire faction - it's the one whiner that most of these factions seem to have (and who I'm fairly sure are some kind of traitor in at least one case but never mind). Hell, the Viper gets Blighted and all he says is, "I can buy myself some time, and it's not Rook's fault; it is what it is". (I do <3 Matt Mercer and he's probably about the only reason I regret letting Minrathous burn. That and the dog the Viper has nearby. I hope pupper got out.) Second, people say things when they're grieving and upset. People blame themselves for everything bad that happens around them, and they know that's not healthy and certainly not comfortable, so they sling that blame on the nearest available target. And third of all ... every. Single. Faction blames you for knocking a statue into a giant ritual with no idea what the fuck was going to happen when you did. Would they have made a different or better choice? Probably not. Harding's arrow would have done nothing at that point, not with Solas that strong, so just assassinating him before he could complete it was not an option. Varric was never going to talk him around, so strangers were hardly likely to do the same. It was disrupt the ritual or let it happen. But the faction leaders weren't there to see any of it; they just know that something different would have happened if Rook hadn't done what Rook did. In their hearts, they have to believe it was better, because they can't even contemplate "worse" than this.

(Would it have actually been better? Solas seems to think so, and talks about his "army of spirits to minimise the damage" he was about to do, but Solas is Solas - not even just "he's Fen'harel"; he's fucking Solas and wasn't up-front with us at any point in Inquisition, even the last. I can trust Solas about as far as I can throw the entirety of blighted Minrathous.)

Anyway, point is, I am still reading the Reddit posts and the various complaints, just because I want other opinions, but that's to build a framework by which I can judge what actually happens in the game. Like I said, the problem is that people had ten years to make up the game they wanted inside their heads, no matter how difficult or outright impossible that game would be to create. The imagination can do things that modern technology cannot. These people are unwilling not only to accept the game we were given because it's not the game they personally want, but also to use the spaces this game gives you to make that game in your own imagination. I can headcanon for days. We all can. We've all had to. Romance lacking? We had Sebastian and we sure as hell made that work. Bits of plot make no sense? We fanfic about it. None of the people complaining seem to want to do that ... if they're able to. I recognise that we are imaginative people and really awesome at what we do and not everyone can do what we do. But I honestly think it's mostly that they don't want to. They want the game they want, done to their exact specifications, and they want it handed to them on a plate with no room for wiggle room or nuance or speculation. And then they accuse the plot of having no nuance because we're not being forced to consort with child-abusing murderers.

I'm still enjoying it, anyway. You can pet the adorable young griffon. That alone sells me.

[moron-rights]

So I finished BG3 (Good Tav Playthrough, Astarion Romance) Spoiler End Thoughts And Some Critique

SPOILERS,Great SPOILERS for parts of the romance and playthrough. Mind Ye, my thoughts are incredibly scattered...

This is mostly about *how* the game ended. And let me clarify before you get too far that I LOVED playing this game and the music and combat and companions were perfectly charming

*

*

*

but.... what.... the... ending?

I spent about 94 hours on this playthrough, regular origin, romancing Astarion, skimping largely through act one but completing almost every quest available in act 2 and 3, and save scrubbing where glitches (though minor) took hold. Ultimately, I robbed Raphael and freed Orpheus and destroyed the brain. I adored act one (put 336 hours into EA already) and act two felt like a very seamless and natural extension. Act three felt disjointed but it also seemed like the purpose of the act was to showcase companion quests (which are all vastly different), so I just went with it. Even though the Oathbreaker guy bugged and never showed up to my camp once I started act 3 (Boo).

I finished all the quests and pushed all companions toward a good trajectory. I had romanced Astarion starting in Act 1 and influenced him so much that he autonomously made good decisions (ie, warned his siblings what their fate would be, set the spawns free, wanted to destroy the tadpole and mentioned guiding the spawn to control themselves). Got the grave scene, it was wholesome. Finished the other companion quests, which -except for Wyll's (I saved his father and broke the pact and learned who the Guardian really was)- felt a little bland after the sheer emotional impact, acting, and animation of Astarion's deny ascension finale. Who knew watching a man brutally stab his abuser and then emptily sob while covered in blood could be something so personal?

After I cleaned all my quests up, I went ahead and started "act 3.5" so to speak. Once I went to confront the brain, there were no more major companion-specific cutscenes or unique dialogues or romance interactions, save for Lae'zel and Karlach. I freed Orpheus and convinced him to become a mindflayer. (I am aware of the alternative route where Karlach volunteers to become the mindflayer but I did not have her in my party for that). I was sure there would be at least one more cutscene or lengthy dialogue -- particularly for the romance-- at the very end, so I took out the Netherbrain, completed the game, hit the ending post-battle chat. I was... disappointed.

A few companions had one or two sentences to say on the docks. Astarion started to burn in the sun and he panicked and ran away, and then I got a one-line response from Lae'zel that boiled down to "I suppose that's the last of the sun Astarion will ever see." Karlach's engine failed and my Wyll autonomously offered to take her to the Hells with him and she autonomously accepted. And then I got a narrator epi. telling me about how the people reclaimed their city. Then my credits rolled.

I learned through save snooping that If you let Wyll take Karlach to hell with him, it locks you out of the ending romance dialogues.

So, I reloaded to persuade Wyll to let Karlach die so I could get my romanced Astarion dialogue. I told him I'd go with him to the Underdark to help him guide the spawns (seemed natural, I rolled Drow), and he was happy to have Tav by his side. Then hard cut to credits again. No mini cutscene of Tav going off with him, no end cards, no epilogue text. I was stunned, especially because the ending romance dialogue was just them standing and having a back-and-forth conversation, and it was so brief. No animated interactions between the two. Or... anyone. Just a conversation in a room with wooden walls.

I watched all the way through the credits, hoping I'd get closure for the other companions maybe, but there was none of that either. Gale's crown blew up and fell into the ocean (so it feels his personal quest was rendered completely irrelevant no matter which way you swayed him), and who knows what happened to Halsin or Shadowheart under un-romanced circumstances (or Jaheira and Minsc for that matter).

It felt so odd and out of place to have an abrupt ending with limited choice, animation and dialogue when the rest of the game so faithfully respects player choice and commits to animating even the sillier actions. One playthrough easily has the capacity for 90+ hours of content but still manages to push you into about 3 recongisably different endings for a standard Tav (arguably 4 or 5 if Urge). Post the final boss, it 100% feels like cutscenes and dialogues are missing or glitched... which may still be a possibility (only 4% of players have finished the game as of date) but is unlikely. Ending romance dialogues across all companions seem to indicate that it follows after a party, which we do not get to see. All dialogue options for ending romances, at least in Astarion's, mostly led to the same responses with a few variants in wording, which might have been fine except for the lack of companion epilogue elements.

I don't know how to say this other than I'm bummed. I don't need a happy ending, just an ending that feels complete. I enjoyed playing the game so much, the companions were perfectly charming, the world was delightful and I had fun with combat and then the end just sorta... happened. I don't think I'd play through as a customized character again. Maybe once for the Urge, as what you choose to do with yourself seems a bit more concrete. And I have no desire to roll the origins. Replaying as any of the ones I frequently had in my party just seems odd to me. Especially for the ones I took down opposite paths. Selunite Shadowheart and Unascended Astarion are stuck in my head, but they feel like endings that would only come naturally if a Tav were around.

Some people keep saying it feels like it's set up for DLC, and it really-really does, but Swen has repeatedly stated that DLC for this game is incredibly unlikely, due to how DnD rules work when you get to level 20. But now that's all I want. It would've been all the more easy to accept how it is now if I had just some epilogue flavour. Or maybe something like ME3 extended cut DLC. Or just a little more conversation.

tl;dr, game was great until act 3. my choices with the final boss and all dialogue options after the encounter were disappointingly limited. no ending narration or cinematics or epilogue cards to give closure on your companions or romances. I loved everything until then, and wished there was more.

[d-issent]

do nOT THROW SOULS

I think it’s pretty whacky that Madoka Magica was brought up recently, when Stanley pulling a PMMM episode 6 on Smudger was what started the series of unfortunate events on the Mid Sodor that eventually lead to its closure, and even later down the line, the effort to get some justice for the engines who fell victim to humanity’s lack of care way back when.

I’ve said before that Smudger was a prototype/test build that got sold for a decent price to Mid Sodor under the guise of him being a proper build, and the issues of his shoddy build didn’t become evident until later on. But I can’t remember if I’ve touched on what Stanley did before.

Stanley is, for all intents and purposes, the big catalyst of the conflict that started on Mid Sodor. For some weird reason, even though their numbers were still scarce, humans still decided to go to war with each other, but because they were few in number, engines like Stanley were built to assist with the war effort! Hence uh, Gun.

Needless to say our boy saw some crazy and upsetting shit during whatever war this was, and then he was sent off to work on the Mid Sodor without any consideration for what kinda mental state he was in. Crazy thing about giving robots sentience is that you kinda have to make sure they’re okay? Y’know? In any case, Stanley’s not okay. And as you could imagine it probably didn’t take this big, loud-mouth American loco to start spouting off to everyone else on Mid Sodor (Duke n Smudger and a couple others who will remain nameless) about how evil humans are and how unfairly some of their fellow engines are treated by them.

Duke doesn’t want to hear any of this of course because uhhh human based, My Grace is an outstanding man yadda yadda. Smudger’s keen to sit on the fence and try and keep the peace between the two uhhhh until the PMMM episode 6 shit happens.

I’ve mentioned before how that lil black box/chip you see on our friend there is Him. That’s his whole being, that’s anything and everything he’s ever done and said, that’s his personality, that’s his lil weirdo quirks, that’s eeeeeverything, and usually for a proper model, that’s stored inside of their bodywork so it’s protected. Smudger was most likely designed with his temporary build in mind, so that black box can be removed easily and destroyed or transferred into another prototype build to see how quickly that one breaks. It’s pretty brutal and I don’t imagine whoever built him meant for him to form any kind of personality, but he did anyway because,,, well, he’s Smudger.

(There is probably a reason but I’m too stoopid to think of it rn.)

All of this eventually comes into play when Stanley is yet again frothing at the mouth over humanity’s careless treatment of them, and the disagreement reaches a boiling point when he - having probably seen other test models like Smudger keel over and fall apart during the war effort, grabs hold of his chip aaaaand YOINK. And what does that do?

Womp womp:

Stanley is undoubtedly a dick for using Smudger as an example to prove a point (mostly to Duke) and he does apologise later down the line, but the damage is done, and while it doesn’t do much to Duke, that ordeal radically alters Smudger’s perception of the railway and their human manager. I think? At some point during the original plot of Dissent, he and Stanley try to just hightail it out of the railway to spread the word? But they got caught before they had the chance, and that paired with their poor performance on the railway lead to their decommission.

Aaaaand said decommission lead to the slow and eventual downfall of Mid Sodor and most things surrounding it. It didn’t do a whole lot at the time besides Duke repressing everything and mixing Smudger and Stanley together in his head to make into a story to scare Stuart and Falcon. But by the time Smudger is recovered and Stanley (now Bertram) skulks his way onto the Skarloey Railway, there is a proper effort with activists and engines who felt mistreated by humans, to seek out some form of justice.

And to think that all of this bs started because Stanley was a fan of Madoka Magica. Wild.