#and of course there are like a dozen other characters with the same power origin

[chzdavmpr]

Been rewatching Alien Force, and for a show where the climax of the first main plot is the main character saying "Believing you are superior because of genetics not only destroys others but also yourself" it was an odd choice to retcon* 2/3 main characters into getting their powers from their genetics.

*kevin technically didn't have his powers explained previously so it's not really a contradiction, but it's still a new explanation that makes his powers purely from his genes.

[vroomvroomwee]

Aziraphale's vest

I'd like to take a second and talk about his vest because I think it's a really good metaphor for Aziraphale's internal feelings.

At first glance it's obvious the vest is quite old. Really old in fact if you note the way it's practically disintegrating.

And it got me thinking a bit. The way the white practically bleeds from the edges of the neck, shoulders and buttons, going further and further, one day if he's persistent enough to wear it, it might even take over the entire vest. You could say that that, somehow, mirrors Heavens influence over Aziraphale. Slowly, slowly, biding their time, until it has completely ridden him of any colour. Until it has completely washed him of his identity, of his originality, of his character.

Take a look at his clothing when he's up in Heaven.

Completely and utterly white. Every piece of clothing he's wearing is pure and untarnished white. Upon entering Heaven, against his own accord, it has stripped him of his uniqueness, of anything that might distinguish him from any other angel who blindly follows orders and who's sole purpose is to do Heavens bidding.

Now, he could miracle the white patches on the vest away easily. But he doesn't want to.

The thing is. He likes the imperfect. He likes partaking in human activities and pleasures, like food, music, etc. Likes to indulge himself in earthly things Heaven would label as sinful or "sullying." And as someone who bas been on the receiving end of Heavens ridicule and passive aggression for millenia, as someone who for centuries has been told that he's underperforming and needs to do better, as someone who is all too aware of his own impurity by the standards an angel should hold and of the quite frankly unholy behaviour in performing immoral temptations and directly going against Heavens orders no more than a few times throughout the eras, it's no wonder he finds comfort in the imperfect.

He keeps the deteriorating edges because they are a perfect representation of his own internal feelings and image. After all, there's no rule that says he can't. And a big kudos to the costume department, for the patches perfectly encapsulate his religious trauma. Without it, he would probably be a very different person. He wouldn't be the same Aziraphale we know and love. The same way he likes being old-fashioned with his clothes and how that is a part of who he is, his trauma is a part of him as well, along with Heavens influence that has shaped him into who he is today, whether he likes it or not.

Every part of the vest illustrates Aziraphale's character and internal feelings, which brings me to another point I want to draw attention to, and that is the BACK of the vest.

It's DARK. And I don't think I'm mistaken when I say that most of us didn't expect it to look like that from behind. We all just assumed that it would be the same beige colour as the front, which is in tune with the rest of his attire. After all, seeing him wearing a dozen different outfits all throughout history, all of them some shade of white, it was the logical conclusion.

But no.

It's not white. It's a dark, slightly viridian or a dark blue colour. "Dark blue suggests a more mysterious depth or ominous quality. Power and authority: Dark blue signifies power and responsibility. "

Not what we would have expected that colour at all. Similarly to how one wouldn't expect an angel to perform temptations or be gluttonous, or envious, or slothful, or hedonistic. Not at first glance anyway.

Not unless you look carefully.

Not unless you know him.

The coat almost acts like a cover. The light over the dark. Almost as if it's trying to hide something. The only times we see Aziraphale not wearing the coat is in his bookshop. Which is logical, of course. You wouldn't wear a coat indoors, obviously. Except he DOES. He wears the coat when he and Crowley are drunk, he wears it when he's reading Agnes Nutter, he wears it when Gabriel and Sandalphon pop in, he wears it when he's talking to the Metatron, he wears it when he's listening to Shostakovich, he even wears it at the Ritz where it would be custom to take off your coat while dining. And it's worth noting that during the events happening (at least in the first season), the season is summer. Which would make it quite ridiculous to be wearing so many layers everywhere you go and therefore risk boiling. But he still wears the coat.

The only times he doesn't wear it is in the first episode after the sushi, when he's all ALONE, and in season 2 at the bookshop when Crowley comes back and in 1941.

And there's something oh so personal about that.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the darker part is specifically the back of the vest. There's always been this natural human instinct to protect yourself by never ever turning your back on a foe. And I don't think this is a conscious effort on Aziraphale's part, but rather genius writing, directing and costume design, and anyone who's watched and read Good Omens knows that almost nothing is coincidental.

Note this is probably the first time Aziraphale has called Crowley his friend, seeing how uncertain and doubtful he was to even say the word in this scene and how quick he was to deny their friendship in the Shakespeare scene. And the camera immediately cuts from Crowley to Aziraphale, who is turned away, whose back is turned to Crowley oh so casually without a care in the world. Just before he calls him his friend. His back is turned, and so is the dark part of his vest.

The dark part he only shows in his bookshop, when he's alone and there's no one there. The part that he now only shows to Crowley as well. Crowley who knows him so well and who's been with him through everything. "I won't tell anyone if you won't." And "you said trust me""and you did". Just this small motion of Aziraphale depicts exactly how much trust he has in Crowley not only that he'll keep him safe and protected but to accept him just as he is, to not judge him, to not demean him for his imperfections as an angel. Practically mirroring Crowley's self-protection mechanism that is reflected in his motions to hide his eyes with his sunglasses (there's a wonderful meta on this by @simply-brightly-zee here )

And it might just be clothing, or it might just be genius symbolism, but note how self-aware Aziraphale is of his looks when Gabriel pops up.

The desire to impress is almost unconscious in this scene, and how does he go about doing it? By making sure he looks presentable. Presentable, despite the white patches and the vest that is falling apart, he doesn't even realise it. Therefore, it's clear Aziraphale puts thought into his clothes, whether consciously or unconsciously.

I personally dont think any of this (the coat, the patches, the way he turns his back, when, where and around who he's most comfortable) is a deliberate and intentional act on Aziraphales part but rather creative brilliance from the directors and producers. So him being shown to expose the back of the vest only in scenes with Crowley (and the one in s2 infront of an amnesiac Gabriel with the intelligence and awareness of a squirrel) is a master move on the costume department's part. The symbolusm being so small and imperceptible, but holding so much meaning. This small metaphor shows how much Aziraphale trusts Crowley and how comfortable he is around him. Crowley who knows about Aziraphale's transgressions, sins, unholy behaviours, lack of interest and dedication to his job, and overall "incompetence" as Aziraphale might put it and how he's "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing". Crowley, who will accept him and love him no matter what. Not despite those things, but because of those things.

They have found their "own side".

Edit: Not that important, but I just want to mention how, despite being tattered and falling apart, the vest is still in perfectly good condition. No matter the white seeping in and draining its colour, the vest doesn't have a single seam torn, not a button lost, perfect as the day it was bought. No matter what it's been put through, it's still kicking, whether by miracle or sheer willpower. Very much like the person wearing it.

[caricabubamarica]

Since I’ve discovered Lego Ninjago at the ripe age of seven, the biggest fantasy of mine has always been to be one of the ninja on the team, fighting alongside the core four and dealing with Serpentine and so on. When I was a little girl, the only way I could satisfy the urge was to use my imagination.

So when the Covid 19 hit back in 2020, and I discovered Wattpad for the first time in my life, it was as if I had entered a whole new world based off of the imagination of other people all across the world. I was spending days and nights on it until there was nothing worth reading for me.

Back in 2022, I finally decided to catch up on the show, seeing it pop up on my Netflix account and decided to give it a go. Before so, I had developed a habit of reading dozens of fan fictions about the show I was at the moment hooked onto, so once I finished watching all of the Ninjago seasons, I went through any fan fiction on Wattpad that I could find regarding Ninjago x reader/original character and quickly noticed a pattern that made me grow bored of whatever book I was reading rather quickly.

Every single fan fiction, save for few rare ones, had the main character be an elemental master of darkness/destruction.

Every. Single. One.

Now at first, I thought the issue stemmed from the fact that there was an obvious lack of originality and uniqueness, but it actually originated from the fact that every story had the exact same storyline, and I mean the exact same one.

The main character would be an elemental master of darkness/destruction and because the elemental powers are inherited, the character is obviously the child of Lord Garmadon and a sibling of Lloyd. Of course, let’s not forget that the character has extreme protectiveness over Lloyd and despises their mother with concerning levels of rage. They are always stubborn and a badass character who never does no wrong and is always in the right and somehow knows exactly what is going to happen but still messes up so the plot can continue as it originally does.

They are also, obviously, the fifth ninja who also possesses a golden weapon of their own, which is usually the most useless thing to ever exist. During the Season 2: Legacy of the Green Ninja, they are in most cases turned to the bad side because their power is unbeatable but it is then somehow beatable because the plot obviously has to move on. Not to mention, they are the only ninja who can use their elemental powers without the golden weapons because they are just that good.

I can guarantee that if anyone goes to Wattpad right now and tries to find a longer Ninjago book with the character insert, they would find at least few books who resemble this exact description. Why? Because the idea of a character, other than Garmadon, who is an elemental master of darkness and destruction is a great plot and idea for the character in Ninjago realm, but none of them actually think outside the box when it comes to actually executing it.

For example, when they write the character to be the fifth ninja and the fifth protector of the fifth golden weapon and the prophesied green savior, why don’t they write about the fact that the element of darkness and destruction is the toughest for Lloyd to master because he refuses to become like his father and because the element itself takes a toll on the mind of the one who possesses it?

Or why don’t they write about the fact that the reason the Ninjago realm is not perfect is because the First Spinjitzu Master used the element of destruction to create something, only for it to come back to bite him in the ass?

Why don’t they give the character the arc of trying to master their elemental power after Lloyd gives each of the ninja a piece of his golden power in Season 3: Rebooted, only for them to go down the wrong path?

Why don’t they write about the inner conflict the child of Lord Garmadon who inherited his elemental powers would have when they see that what others call a gift, in their case it is called a curse? Why don’t they expand on the feelings of envy the child would feel towards Lloyd for being praised and cherished for his destiny while they are looked down on for their own?

There is so many different possibilities to that plot device and yet I have yet to see someone do it properly.

I apologize if this offends anyone but it has been bugging me for three years now and I had to write it down somewhere where I could hear different opinions about it. I am not trying to shame anyone on their work or anything, if that is what you want to write, go for it, I am a nobody with no life who is still hung up on a kids show that aired back in 2011.

Enjoy what you want, love what you want, and take this how you want. Luv ya!

[thepunkmuppet]

thinking about an alternate season 7 wherein instead of every potential slayer being hunted and then activated, every past slayer gets brought back to life. I don’t really like post-chosen content anyway, but when I do read / look at it the whole slayer academy, everyone’s a slayer thing is really stupid to me ngl 💀

previous slayers, though… nikki wood and xin rong interacting with spike, actually finding out about the slayer before buffy, slayers with different backgrounds and situations and personalities, KENDRA?! I just love it so much.

you’d be able to focus on a relatively small cast of slayers, much like the potentials, throughout the season. this would include buffy, faith, kendra, nikki, and some other american slayers from varying time periods with a couple interesting international characters too (maybe a slayer from ancient greece / rome / egypt, or an anglo-saxon one or something). these are all experienced slayers, so no need to focus on training - it would be more about lore, history and their personal character journeys, assimilating them into society (creating some fun bottle episodes, maybe a day out on the town with dawn and a historical slayer) and trying to figure out why they were all brought back. also, if you want to keep the first as the main villain, then it can look like any one of them because they’re all technically dead, which means you can still have that episode with the dead potential revealing herself as the first and all the mistrust that’s threaded throughout the season.

plus with nikki back, there would be no need for the stupid sleeper agent thing with spike or the ridiculous fight between him and robin. all the same ideas (and the flashbacks to spike’s mum) could still be explored, and in a way better way imo.

I reckon the reason they were brought back would probably be the powers that be (tying nicely into angel ofc) trying to defeat the first. and of course the ending would be this huge battle, as all the slayers from around the world come to sunnydale, and maybe to add some drama they would all disappear and die again when the battle’s done as they have fulfilled their purpose (a classic finale knife to the heart that would have everyone sobbing, especially over nikki and kendra).

there’s also the added thing of like,, I appreciate the show was leaning towards a theme of “hope for the future” with the potentials angle, but literally every other aspect of the season is about harkening back to the past. faith, robin, the first taking the form of previous characters, the high school, the slayer origins, etc etc. so I just think this idea would work so much better with the themes of the season, and tie in really nicely.

and the most obvious perk of this concept is kendra! she was forgotten about so quickly, and this season would really give the writers a chance to redeem themselves for the terrible way poc characters have been treated throughout the show (ignoring what they did to robin. FUCK that but that’s another conversation). I think the show really downplayed how much kendra’s death would have affected buffy, and seeing the two of them interact after buffy has changed so much and kendra’s still the same would be amazing. there’s also the interesting concept that, having been brought back from the dead, kendra still be 17, and therefore closer in age to dawn than to buffy, which could make for some really nice interactions between the two of them. also of course the biggest most exciting thing is having buffy, faith and kendra all interact. they all represent places on a spectrum in terms of personality, and I would LOVE to see kendra and faith interact and how much of a unit they would likely become as a trio.

there’s also the theme of buffy feeling (and being) alone in this season that would hopefully go away, as she would now have dozens of people who truly understand her, giving her a proper support system which I would love to see (season 7 scoobies can actually eat shit btw <3)

so. was this born out of my hatred for insufferable kennedy and the annoying potentials? yes absolutely. do I now want them to rewrite and re-film the entire last season 20 years later? yes absolutely I’m so glad you understand

side note wouldn’t it be sick if in the final battle there’s just this one slo-mo shot where buffy stakes a vamp and through the dust she sees the first slayer looking at her from across the battlefield before she disappears amongst the fight. WHAT it would literally be awesome hello?!

also also other side note sorry but Mother(TM) nikki wood would NEVER kick buffy out of her own house. fuck them kids fr

[amaru2020]

Color theory in Mean Girls 2024 (and 2004) and why it matters (long post ahead)

So, like a lot of us, I've seen and fallen down the Mean Girls rabbit hole, and say about the outfits what you will, the costume designs actually did a great job displaying symbolism in characters like Regina and Cady through color alone, let me explain

Random Disclaimer: I'm aware that a lot of what I'm about to talk about was utilized in the original, I'm mostly pulling pictures from the newest version since it's the main focus of this post. There will be mentions of the original, but the newest iteration is my main focus today ^^

Let's start with the film's use of Black

Now, we know in Regina's first appearance in the original, she's first seen wearing pink like the rest of the plastics and doesn't wear black until much later in the film (which I will get to don't worry lol) but what's different with this newest version and what I find interesting, is the decision for Regina's introductory outfit to be entirely black.

now you could be saying, "But Amaru, black is sexy, seductive, of course she'd be wearing it." And you're right! But, black also has some different meanings outside of that, which is power.

The first time Regina walks in, time stops. Everyone's eyes are on her, Cady is in awe, and to sum up the musical number, Regina has complete control over everyone. It's seen again when she sits amongst Karen and Gretchen,, but Regina stands out as the only one wearing such a bold black outfit, signifying her control over the two of them. And not to mention the second she gains even more control over the school by creating an entirely new fashion trend, she's wearing an entirely black dress

Now let's talk about the color, Blue and how it ties in with Black

So, when Regina falls from grace and is shunned from the plastics, notice that it's the first time she wears blue. Blue has about a dozen or more different meanings, but the one I'm gonna focus on now is that Blue can be seen as both a conservative and depressed color

Everyone's eyes are on her in this shot, but this time for a completely different reason than in the beginning, and because we brought up how blue can be conservative, we could read this as Regina not only being upset but not wanting to be perceived.

Let's circle back around to Black and why it's important with Cady

The first time she wears black is when she takes over Regina's role within the plastics and makes the final decision on whether or not Regina can sit with the group. Yes, she's wearing blue, which we will also get to, but also wears a black skirt. It's the color palette she wears for the entire second act.

When she's seen wearing all black, it's at her house party while having reign over the plastics and taking the title of the most popular girl in school. It's also when Aaron calls her a clone of Regina, and Janis confronts her about lying. There she has the realization that she has indeed become Regina.

Remember what we talked about with Regina with Blue? Well, let's apply that same logic to Cady.

During a rewatch I noticed how that during "World Burn" and the scenes that follow, Cady is shot from the waist up, only showing the blue part of her outfit, whenever someone brings up the book, or she thinks Janis and Damian are onto her, or even when they ignore her in the gym, you can only see the blue. (Yes, you could argue the angle was used in other shots, but this felt more deliberate, especially with how much the blue stood out against the otherwise dark color palette of other students and the background) Which from before we established as conservative. meaning that not only does she not want to be perceived by Regina, but as the one who wrote in the Burn Book in the first place.

Okay, let's go back to Regina one more time, and talk about her more prominent black outfit, during "World Burn" and when she releases the book for the school to see and causes a riot. (This is also being applied to the original as well)

Since we've established black is a symbol of power, we can see as more chaos descends on the school (as also seen in the original) Regina is placed in the middle of the crowd, all in black. It shows how she has control over people once again through manipulation. Therefore, showing that she's back on top.

And that's it, everybody! Thank you for coming to my TED talk

Sincerely,

someone who has thought about this waaaaay too much after doing extensive color research for a presentation and does a lot of character design

[zipstick-writes]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Original Characters Additional Tags: Animal Transformation, Case Fic, Season/Series 05, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, probably (i havent figured out the whole plot yet. so), putting the fox in fox mulder, (im turning him into a fox. for silly reasons), Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary: “Five people gone and not a single witness testimony, nor a shred of evidence, that suggests where they might be, who or what might have taken them, or if they were even taken at all. Any theories, Scully?” - Five people in a small rural town in Colorado have gone missing under mysterious circumstances within a week of each other. The local PD suspects a serial kidnapper, but Mulder believes that something more supernatural is at play. Mulder and Scully fly out to investigate, but it's not long before one of them befalls the same fate.

damn im posting a fanfic for the first time in ummmmmm like 4 years? hahaha anyway hi x files fandom

tagging @today-in-fic

“Animal transformations.” 

This is the phrase that greets Dr Dana Scully the second she walks through the door of the glorified storage closet in the basement of the Hoover Building that is the X-Files division of the FBI, on what would otherwise be an unassuming mid-June Monday morning.

“Run that by me again?”

“Animal transformations, Scully.” Says Mulder from beside the projector, and Scully knows from the excited look on his face and the dimmed lights in the room that she is in for one of his world-famous slideshow presentations. “Stories of humans turning into animals exist throughout history and transcend cultural borders. Dozens of stories in Greek myth of gods turning humans into animals, the Norse god Loki becoming wolves, horses, birds, the selkies of Celtic mythology which shed their seal-skins and become human. There’s also the Japanese Kitsune, powerful shapeshifting spirits which take the form of foxes! Not to mention the classic vampires turning into bats and men that become wolves in the light of the full moon.”

“Of course. Werewolves. How could I forget.”

“Precisely, Scully. Werewolves.” Mulder has a self-satisfied grin on his face, and he continues: “The phenomenon also appears in literature. I take it you’re familiar with the works of Shakespeare?”

“In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Bottom is turned into a donkey?”

“Right. And in Kafka’s Metamorphosis,” Mulder continues, flipping to a slide of an illustration depicting a giant insect lying on its back in a tiny bedroom, “when Gregor Samsa becomes a beetle because of the overwhelming stress from the demands of his employer and his family. Humanity is obsessed with shapeshifting, has been for millenia.”

“While it is endlessly enlightening to learn about the common threads that unite our species’ storytellers throughout time, Mulder,” Scully says in a flat voice with an exaggerated sigh, “what exactly is the point of all this?”

“The point, Scully,” He replies immediately, drawing out his pause for several moments for dramatic effect, “Is that tales of human-to-animal transformations exist all across the world, and have existed for just about as long as humans have. And these stories have to have started somewhere.”

Oh boy, here we go, Scully thinks. Couldn’t he have waited until I’d had some coffee? It’s barely 8 o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, Mulder, please, don’t tell me you’re suggesting-”

“Lightalley, Colorado is a small mountain town about two hours west of Denver by car. It’s known for picturesque views of the landscape, popular hiking trails, and, most recently,” he says, and flips one slide further to a missing persons poster, then another, and then three more, “several disappearances under mysterious circumstances.

“Freya Pennington, 33, was last seen eight days ago, on the 14th, in the backyard of her own home. Her fiancé, George, says she was there one moment and gone the next, and he reports hearing no sound to indicate that she was in distress even though he was in the kitchen facing the yard when she disappeared. Harley Williams, 27, is a recently qualified medical doctor. He lives alone, and his disappearance was only reported to the Lightalley Police Department when he didn’t show up to work at the local hospital on Tuesday. Edward Irwin, 49, and his daughter Ellie, 17, are tourists from New York who were last seen on Thursday leaving their hotel and heading in the direction of a hiking trail. Sydney McIntosh, 21, works at a bar and was last seen by her boss, Daniel Meyers, leaving her work at 1 o’clock on Friday morning at the end of her shift. Crime scene technicians have examined the locations of their last known sightings thoroughly and turned up nothing. No blood, no weapons, no DNA samples, not even the victims’ possessions. None of the victims have connections to one another, and none of the disappearances happened within two miles of each other.

“Five people gone and not a single witness testimony, nor a shred of evidence, that suggests where they might be, who or what might have taken them, or if they were even taken at all. Any theories, Scully?”

“Well, it could be that they left of their own volition, however this many people disappearing in this short a timespan makes that rather unlikely. Perhaps there is a serial kidnapper at work here, but given that the first victim’s partner was at the scene and didn’t see or hear anything, that could be discounted as well, or in the case of a kidnapper the first disappearance may be unrelated to the rest. I really couldn’t tell one way or the other without speaking to the local PD. But I’m guessing you had your own theory ready before I even walked in the door, didn’t you?”

“You know me, Scully, always prepared.” He replies, smiling. “While it is true that Lightalley PD’s forensics team didn’t find anything that suggested a struggle, indicating that kidnappings were unlikely, that doesn’t mean they didn’t find anything. At each location, there have been footprints leading away.”

“Footprints belonging to who?”

“Not who, Scully, what. Animal tracks, in every case leading away from the crime scene, but not towards it. As if they simply came into being right then and there.”

“Animal tracks.”

“Absolutely, Scully. Victim #1, a rabbit. Victim #2, an elk. Victims #3 and #4, coyotes, two sets of tracks alongside each other. And victim #5, some sort of large bird, perhaps a raven, which end a few yards away from the bar, implying takeoff.”

“Mulder, please don’t tell me you believe these people were somehow transformed into animals.” She says, halfheartedly glaring at him. When he responds with a shrug of his shoulders and a mischievous grin, she just lets out a resigned sigh. “Alright, what time do we leave?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” is Mulder’s reply as he hands her a plane ticket. “We leave at seven tonight. See you there, Scully.”

Scully’s just glad the packing means she gets the rest of the day off.

[sleepingdeath-light]

child reader getting turned to stone hcs ; dragon cookies

requested by ; shinydrakeon15 (10/09/22)

fandom(s) ; cookie run

fandom masterlist(s) ; hub | specific

character(s) ; ananas dragon cookie, longan dragon cookie, lotus dragon cookie, lychee dragon cookie, pitaya dragon cookie

outline ; “Could I ask for the dragon cookies with a child reader that got turned to stone by longan since they’re a cookie? If you wanna add longan as well that’s fine with me”

warning(s) ; child getting turn to stone, grief, some other general angst

none of the dragons could say what had caused their attachment to you, but they certainly had their theories — lotus dragon cookie believed it was something to do with biology (the need to protect their young), lychee dragon cookie thought it was just a matter of you being adorable, ananas dragon cookie blamed pride (the need to prove themselves as powerful by protecting something as fragile as a mortal child), and pitaya dragon cookie didn’t care enough about underlying reasons to hypothesise about any

not that any of that affected how they treated you, of course, because at the end of the day you were their child and they all adored you in kind regardless of your origins

pitaya dragon cookie’s time with you was spent being playful and adventurous — flying with you in their arms, play fighting with you (and sometimes even letting you win), tossing you up in the air and carrying you under their arm, and just generally doing whatever they can to have you positively shrieking with laughter

lychee dragon cookie is by far the most affectionate member of your new family — smothering you with hugs and kisses whenever you visit their island, bragging about how you’re ‘the most adorable child in the world’ to anyone who will listen, happily resting with you curled up in their arms even when they’re actually quite busy, and generally being a very doting parental figure who loves you more than anything else

lotus dragon cookie does whatever they can to ensure you are set up for a successful life as you grow up: hiring the best tutors for each subject from across the world to ensure that you only get the highest quality of education mortals can offer, using their servants to make sure you keep on top of your studies between sessions of lounging and play, offering their own insights into subjects like history and biology when asked, offering dozens of rewards and incentives for every success, and just generally being an incredibly supportive figure in your life despite coming across as a bit overbearing at times

ananas dragon cookie, meanwhile, instills a strong sense of pride within you and never misses an opportunity to spoil you rotten and show you how much better you are than other mortals: covering you in jewellery and fancy clothes, buying you any toy you ask for the moment you mention it to them, paying for grand outings to fun places around the world, making sure you have as many enjoyable experiences as possible as you grow up, and encouraging you to look down on others whenever you come across them (the other dragons also share that view, they’re just a bit more subtle about it around you)

really you were set to grow up loved and educated and understood in your found family of dragons… until longan dragon cookie found you

until they saw you all on your own, a tiny fragile mortal in the realm of the silver dragon

until they decided to deal with you in the way that they deemed the most appropriate for such an ‘offence’

until you were turned to stone before you could even blink; the eternal child frozen before you even had the time to scream, expression contorted with the beginnings of a terror you never truly got to experience or perceive

until your life came to a sudden, bitter, cold end — just another statue amongst the hundreds that adorned their lair

… your family never was the same after that unforgivable offence, after losing you because of some stupid oversight that led them to bring you with them to that meeting (because, surely, between the four of them they should have been able to keep you safe… should)

they blame themselves, blame each other, and of course are all furious with longan — which leads to them all burning their bridges and going in their own directions to grieve

lotus and lychee have support systems in their followers and, whilst they never truly get over their loss, they are able to live with it afterwards as the centuries go on

ananas returns to their isolation and becomes much more volatile and violent to any mortals that try and approach their lair, grief turning to anger as they relive that day over and over again — they are the one that took what remained of you after the fact and they keep on talking to it in the hopes of bringing you back one day

pitaya leaves everything behind and starts a new life in another kingdom, abandoning their draconic body and becoming an adventurer to avoid their grief — and they do so very well until they run into hollyberry cookie and her companions and end up face to face with a young hatchling that needs to be cared for

a child, so like you and yet so very unlike you at the same time, that forces them to finally face their grief and it breaks them — they are distant in their help with snapdragon cookie but they do offer advice when asked, but it doesn’t hurt any less when they see them and see your excitable face in their own

it hurts, but they will live on no matter how impossible that seems to them in the present

none of them outgrow your loss and they all grieve you and the life you should have had, but that grief manifests differently for each of your family members: pitaya leaves their old life behind, ananas festers in their grief and refuses to leave the past in the past, lotus adapts their grief and grows from it by doing things in your honour, and lychee becomes more isolated and reliant on those under their control to fill the void you left — all different, all separate, all grieving

except for longan, of course, who feels nothing for the life they took for they didn’t know or care to know of the impact that life would have despite how short it had been

you were loved

you are loved

you will always be loved

even if that love changes and grows in your absence

[uispeccoll]

Shaft and the Era of Blaxploitation

Last year, Special Collections and Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries acquired items to form a new collection: the Black Film and Television Collection. In honor of Black History Month, we’re shining a spotlight on a different item from this collection each week.

In last week’s post, we discussed the lobby card for Oscar Micheaux’s 1938 film Swing, starring Cora Green. Our next spotlight is on original materials from the 1971 film Shaft, which includes the script used in the production in the movie, which was a defining entry in the Blaxploitation genre.

What is “Blaxploitation?”

We’ll start with the obvious: the word itself blends “Black” and “exploitation” and was coined by Beverly Hills-Hollywood NAACP president Junius Griffin in 1972 and wasn’t in the context of praise.

Blaxploitation movies are made by black filmmakers with black actors for black audiences. They portray strong black characters who were the heroes and leads. During the mid- to early 1970s, more than 200 movies of the genre were made, in subgenres such as horror, westerns, comedy, drama, and action.

Rather than trying to dispel stereotypes, movies like Shaft reinforce them. And while the movies were popular with audiences, that approach did create some critics, like Junius Griffin and other NAACP members.

Exploiting a lurid loophole

The Hays Code ruled Hollywood from 1934 to 1968, enforcing a strict set of moral standards for films. But filmmakers tend to be creative people, and “exploitation films” were the loophole they chose. If they depicted these offensive (and entertaining) subjects under the guise of a cautionary tale, they could get away with including them.

Over the years, court cases and boundary-breakers chipped away at the Hays Code. In 1968—the same year most history textbooks mark as the end of the Civil Rights Movement because it coincides with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) scrapped the Code in favor of the film rating system. It was into these unique circumstances that a new genre—Blaxploitation—was born.

John Shaft’s world

Shaft is an adaptation of Ernest Tidyman’s 1970 detective novel, directed by Gordon Parks. Opening on an urban panorama overlaid with a funk soundtrack, the movie stars Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, a stylish and suave private detective in New York who is approached by the boss of a Harlem organized crime family (Moses Gunn) in search of his kidnapped daughter (Sherri Brewer). In the course of his mission, Shaft dispatches mafiosos, teams up with activists in the Black Power Movement, and delivers enough one-liners to cement his legacy as one of the iconic characters of 20th century film.

Even a brief glimpse at the original movie script’s pages (like the one shown above) showcase the swagger and bombast of the protagonist, who would go on to anchor multiple sequels. The movie’s iconic theme song, written and recorded by Isaac Hayes, has been sampled and reused dozens of times since the movie’s release, and the film itself has been preserved by the Library of Congress. It provides one of the early blueprints for the Blaxploitation genre, which continued to flourish throughout the 1970s.

It’s well worth noting that while Shaft’s director, stars, and core audience were Black, its writers were both white men. This information certainly complicates how many viewers receive the film’s representation of Black characters—and those complications became the focus of blaxploitation’s most vocal detractors.

Blaxploitation may have had its heyday in the 1970s, but it’s never truly ended. The genre was carried into the 21st century by the generation of filmmakers it inspired, including John Singleton, Spike Lee, and the Hughes Brothers.

Our next entry will be a look at Cheryl Dunye’s 1997 film The Watermelon Woman, and the growing influence of Black women in the film industry.

---Natalee Dawson, Communication Coordinator at UIowa Libraries with assistance from Anne Bassett, Liz Riordan, and Jerome Kirby

[autumnalwalker]

Hi Sage

Your characters go to a hat shop because for plot reasons they need fancy/silly hats to survive a Situation. What do each of them get?

Oh, this is a fun one! Going to imagine that the Situation is the hypothetical “Attend a fancy party to infiltrate the host’s mansion and discretely liberate something/someone from the host,” episode plot that I’ve been wanting to do as an excuse to put everyone in fancy outfits but haven’t figured out a good place to insert into the timeline yet.

Ashan: He’s long made a point of not wearing a hat as part of his wizard ensemble as a means of stylistic divergence from his mentor whom he otherwise dresses like. Alas, Sullivan has talked him into wearing a suit instead of robes for once in his life (still the same white color scheme), but he doesn’t know how to not Be A Wizard at all times, so he goes all in and compensates for lack of wizardly robes with a pointy hat with a brim half as wide as he is tall. He justifies his selection by pointing out that keeping his face semi-obscured will be beneficial if they’re going to be doing activity that they may not want traced back to them.

Lacuna: Originally planned to go for something tastefully low-key, but after seeing Ashan make his selection goes for the most gothic witch hat she can find. Alterations will need to be though as by this point she finally has a handle on transmutation magic and intends to show up to the party with cat ears. The milliner is both an eccentric and a mage (perhaps a redundant combination of descriptors) and by the time they’re done with the “alterations” the hat Lacuna picked out for herself is no longer so much a hat as it is one of those hat-shaped fascinators that stick to the side of your head.

Eris: After being assured multiple times that violence is going to be actively avoided on this mission, she’s excited to get to wear something other than red for once. Rather than a true hat, she goes with a hooded veil that matches the dress that’s been commissioned for her for the occasion. Taken together with the teal/blue color scheme, the effect whenever she moves is something like watching a swirling pillar of water glide across the room, as if she were some sort of waterfall spirit rather than a human garbed in probably-enchanted cloth. I’ve got the visual comparison between cloth rippling over muscles with water flowing over rocks stuck in my head.

Sullivan: He already has a hat and outfit, so he’s just here to foot the bill and provide commentary on everyone else’s fashion sense. When he gets home he’ll go pull his old tiara out of storage. Not the one he had as a kid - he pawned that one off ages ago when he first ran away from his parents’ castle with Road - but the one his wife, Carnette, gave him as a gag gift after she found out he was technically probably still royalty. Given that he married the most powerful sorceress across multiple worlds, even a joke gift from her is enchanted (probably literally) to hell and back. It’s a gaudy eyesore, made worse by the knowledge that all of the jewels and precious metals used in its construction are completely real and worth more than the most people would ever even dream of making in a dozen lifetimes. He finds it hilarious, and the pleasure he takes in watching people try desperately to keep a straight face and pretend it’s not ugly borders on sadistic. This also, of course, utterly ruins the point of everyone else’s selection of headgear that at least partially obscures their faces, and he absolutely knew it would but said nothing while watching the others pick their hats.

Road: Will be pretending to be a servant/caterer/house staff/etc. to sneak in and thereby avoids the need to purchase a hat. In a pinch though, they can just have their shapeshifting symbiote jacket turn into an outfit with a hat, in which case they would probably just copy the look of one of the other guests’ hats.

[nottheangel-raphael]

Raphael knew that he'd win this one for a multitude of reasons both he and Cairo knew. There was no "fixing" someone like Aurelius without it coming to bite either of their asses. Magic could do a lot but it couldn't permanently and fundamentally change someone's character –– evil would always be evil. He stood before the machine, eyes shifting into their black and red demonic form as he stared it down, observing the aura of magic around the metal prison. He remained cool as a cucumber as the whirs and mechanical shifts changed with the power status. His upper lips curled over his teeth when the full form of Aurelius Hathor was revealed inside the open thing, a dozen wires and tubes connected to that dark olive skin. He waited patiently like a predator about to strike as those eyes fluttered open and the aura returned once again around the strigoi's form, signifying return of power back to its waking wielder.

That was when Raph cast his curse, black energy shooting from his fingertips and striking Aurelius in the chest. The tendrils wavered and swelled between the two hybrids as the younger ghoul drained Aurelius of his power and energy to weaken him and amplify his own for what he'd do next. His death needed to be believable and in line with the other reports, which meant killing him here and transferring his ashes would be an issue if witnesses caught them, which Raph wanted to avoid at all costs even if he did have the power to change what they thought they saw. Best to stick with the plan most likely to be a success without that nonsense.

"Sleep," he commanded the strigoi once he'd siphoned the last drop of his magic. Raph possessed zero interest in conversing with his near-mirror image he held no love or respect for. His negation spell wouldn't last forever as Aurelius would inevitably recover from it, which meant he needed to work quickly. He conjured a portal that revealed a rich study and the splitting image of Aurelius standing on the other side that Raphael called through. The man was a loyal servant of Raph's that he'd transformed post-death as a strigoi and transmuted into the Egyptian councilman complete with falsified memories about his few months absence. He and Cairo needed more than just completing the councilman's work and having record that he was still alive when surely there would be staff in Aurelius' home wondering where he was. He drew up a chair and ordered his Aurelius clone to sit so that he could fill in the original strigoi on what he'd missed in real time.

This part proved to be a little more time intensive as there was no room for error. Aurelius' negated magic depleted him of any mental defenses while he slept and Raphael's servant willingly opened his mind up to his creator to view his memories living as the Egyptian councilman in detail. Every single one was re-crafted with the same vivid detail in Aurelius' mind with his expertise in memory magic and enchantment, replacing the ones dreamt in that virtual world Cairo trapped him in like none of the last year or this precise moment in Lucien's lab ever happened. As far as the Egyptian strigoi would be concerned, he'd been in his home country since he left Krovs Castle. It took him a little less than an hour to complete this stage effectively, Raph beyond confident that Aurelius would suspect nothing amiss with his mind once they dropped him off.

Of course he wasn't done yet. Now he needed to implant the command deep into Aurelius' subconscious to imitate the other councilmen murders around the world lately. Raphael could see the strigoi's power returning slowly but he'd still sleep for as long as the ghoul's will and own strength outmatched him. He closed the distance between himself and the older man, his pride powering his indomitable will behind his magical instruction. "Two days from now when the clock strikes noon, you will discreetly remove the enchantment on your sun ring and walk outside in broad daylight. No matter how much it burns, you'll stay there." The hypnotic command would activate at that exact trigger at the time he said. With no defense against it at this moment, Aurelius' fate would be set in stone at Raph's will. As the councilman slowly began to stir awake, Raphael summoned another portal and dropped the real Aurelius back into his home and sealed it. Now all they had to do was wait.

He dismissed the servant to enjoy the last of his time now that he'd completed his master's orders and he too left the lab. The last loose end now would be Cairo, whom the ghoul wasn't sure he could trust to keep his mouth shut long enough before Aurelius died. The medium seemed to forget his initial order of no longer feeding his other father he'd imprisoned like Raph had asked weeks ago and this emotional connection to a man who gave zero shits about Cairo would likely be an issue too. He'd not even broken a sweat with all his effort working on Aurelius just then and still had enough energy if he needed to use his power against his son. He silently appeared in a mist of shadows behind Cairo in the other room, not a hair out of place or drop of blood on him. "It is done," he announced. "Ready to head back?"

@cairorenaud

Cairo wished it were that simple, but he didn't have the abilities Raphael did. There was no way he could make Aurelius do anything. Getting him into the machine itself was feet in its own right. He'd used magic, manipulation, all the things his parents had taught him so sure he was doing the right thing for the right reasons. Aurelius had made clear his intentions the last time they spoke. He'd not shared that with Raphael, but Raphael seemed to know Aurelius far better than Cairo as it stood or maybe his willingness to give the strigoi another chance was by design.

Hesitation was there as he looked at his father in the machine knowing by turning it off it was going to be the last time. He wasn't an expert in divination yet so his visions weren't as clear not able to see every detail or outcome, but they were finite enough and he was familiar and practiced with the magic to know it was the last. The guilt was heavy in him as he looked up to Raphael who hid his impatience well, though Cairo knew it was there and understood they didn't have eternity to do this. This also wasn't something Raphael could do. He had to shut it off. He had to kill his father to save the rest of his family. It wasn't just Lucien Aurelius would make an example of for Cairo's actions.

"Okay." He finally said and moved towards the separate room. It took him a long time to figure out the mechanics of it, thank god for his degree in computer science and working on more than one space station. How Lucien built these kinds of things was beyond him, likely subcontracting things out with the use of his company or he assumed since he had yet to be acknowledged by him yet. Running through the sequence of steps soon enough the pod powered down much as Cairo did. He stayed where he was, head bowed, eyes closed, not willing to watch the exchange happening in the other room.

[shiny-jr]

YES DO IT

Feed us this loser's simp who is committing mass genocide 😇😇

Also what do you think about those who hate him? Personally I don't really like it, because their reasoning are only because he was referenced to Frollo who is a racist character. Rollo and Frollo are not the same character, yet he was so badly hated despite being the greatest side character with powerful background and impact on the fandom that everyone now wholeheartedly agree to want him as permanent character.

So, I should first establish that I haven't seen the whole event yet. So there won't be too many spoilers, if any at all, and that I obviously won't be mentioning the things I don't even know about yet. I'll be putting my answer below the cut just in case, and because it's kind of a long response.

I've actually seen a lot of debate on this. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with Frollo as a villain, and rightfully so, because he's a very realistic villain. Out of all of Disney's villains, Frollo is one of the most realistic and probably darkest one out there. But if people choose to dislike Rollo because he reminds them of Frollo, well, to each their own. But I think it should be mentioned that people have to remember, Rollo isn't Frollo.

Of course, as mentioned above, I don't know how much Rollo will resemble the original villain he's based off of in the end by his words or actions, because I haven't gotten that far into the event. If it is because of his actions in the event (that I will see later), I don't understand. Because if that's the case, wouldn't most players hate the dorm leaders plus Jamil? They've done horrible things in their chapters. Riddle nearly killed Ace. Leona nearly killed Ruggie and was willing to risk the wellbeing of a whole stadium of people. Azul stole and tormented and used dozens of other students and was ready to make mc practically homeless. Jamil probably had the intention to either seriously hurt or even kill Kalim and co, while keeping the rest of the dorm under his hypnosis. Vil was ready to kill Neige and those who tried to stop him. Idia assisted/allowed the kidnap of his classmates, destruction of his school, and tried to unleash countless overblot beasts that would wreck havoc all across the globe. And we know Malleus is somehow gonna top all that when his time comes.

Me personally, I think the reason I've gotten so attached to Rollo, is exactly because he's based off Frollo. I'm not saying I enjoy his character because of the actions of who he's based off of, but because Frollo is a very memorable villain to me. You see, I was raised in a very religious background (I am not religious anymore) that even extended to the school I attended when I was young. At that school, I was at the after school program nearly everyday. And during that program, at a certain time they'd play movies for us kids to watch. Since it was a religious school, they regulated what was shown, so we were only usually shown old disney movies or movies with religious themes. The two most popular were, I believe, The Prince of Egypt and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Which I guess is why I've immediately liked Rollo, because he reminds me of those days. But I digress. This is getting long, so I'll just end it here.

[wkemeup]

The Offer

summary: Zemo offers to sell the Winter Soldier in exchange for information. pairing: bucky x reader word count: 3k warnings: vaguely implied unwanted sexual contact a/n: this is based around the Madripoor scene in TFATWS ep 3, particularly Zemo’s suggestion of “he will do anything you want.”

“You must maintain your cover,” Zemo’s voice rang in your ear, drowning out the heavy bass of loudspeakers from the club down the hall. “If you break character, they will know... and they will kill us.”

You held your breath; arms folded tight across your chest, nails digging into the exposed skin on your biceps. It did little to ease the strain within your muscle as you watched Bucky standing guard at the edge of the room, his eyes overcast in a cold, emotionless haze. Ready for command. Empty of the needs and desire that made him human. Portraying the shadow from his past he was so desperate to escape.

Slowly, you shifted your weight on heels sharp enough to pierce skin. The clothes Zemo had dressed you in were unforgiving, exposing every dip and curve on your body, though you supposed that was his intention. You were meant assume the role of a wealthy arms dealer known only as Lilith, a woman whose reputation for the bedrooms of Madripoor outweighed even that of the weapons at her disposal. An affinity for the finer things in life, Zemo had snickered to himself. Sex, drugs, and power.

Bucky’s eyes shifted to the floor near your feet. You could tell he was watching you from his peripherals though his expression remained vacant. It was shocking to see him like this again, worse that he seemed to fall back into the role of the Winter Soldier so easily – like he’d never truly believed he could put his past to rest at all.

Zemo paced at the center of the room, discussing terms while Selby lounged on the couch. Her brazen comfort in a room of powerful agents on the dark market told you she had more leverage than any of you anticipated. You felt for the slight weight of the gun strapped at your thigh, keeping careful watch of the guards stationed just outside the door. The four of you were easily outnumbered and outgunned, even with Bucky throwing himself back to the Winter Soldier.

Sam caught your eye across the room, his face stern enough to communicate his uncertainty. He didn’t trust Zemo anymore than you did. The man was responsible for dozens of deaths, including the King of Wakanda, and he’d done the Avengers no favors by planting a seed of war between the most powerful people on the planet. You tried not to follow Sam's gaze when his eyes flickered to Bucky, a softening in his brow to see months of progress virtually erased within seconds.

“What’s the offer?” Selby’s voice broke through the haze. You hadn’t realized how focused you’d been on Bucky until you began to notice the music thumping through the walls and the scent of stale beer lining the floors – a disorienting state amongst precious stole artifacts and original paintings.

Zemo stood from his chair, crossing the room. He picked up a relic from the center table, admiring the shiny copper edges as he tossed it in the air. It nearly slipped from his grip and he shuttered out an apologetic wince at Selby before placing it back on the table. You rolled your eyes.

Adjusting the fur lined collar of his jacket, Zemo circled the edges of the room. He came to a pause over Bucky’s shoulder, gaze slowly trailing down his frame, tracing over the lines on Bucky's face as if he were studying for imperfections. A sinister smirk curled at his lips before he turned back to Selby.

“Tell us what you know about the super soldier serum,” Zemo bargained, waiting for her interest to peak before he continued. She shifted in her seat; a brow raised. His lips curved in a devious grin enough to make your stomach twist. “And we’ll give you him. Along with the code words to control him, of course.”

Bucky didn’t so much as flinch, his stare maintaining the same emptiness you saw the day on the bridge when he’d been muzzled by his captors and made to be a weapon. Nothing in his expression gave way to whatever was going through his mind and part of you wondered if he’d allowed himself so far into this role again, that he’d embraced the cold arms of the numbness it carried. It was easier than allowing himself to feel any of the rage that was rapidly boiling under your skin, you supposed.

But then, Zemo’s knuckles grazed at Bucky’s cheek. Lingering over unshaven stubble, a shadow along his jaw. A delicate touch though it seemed to burn as if steam could rise from the contact alone.

Zemo turned, grinning at Selby. “He will do anything you want.”

It was so impossibly subtle, you weren’t sure anyone else had noticed, but Bucky’s jaw clenched. The muscle shifted the shadows on his face, his breathing coming to a stop as his chest no longer carried the steady rise and fall under layers of leather and Kevlar. Zemo’s hand moved along Bucky’s jaw, fingers dangerously close to his lips, and you felt for the outline of the gun strapped to your thigh.

"Anything?" Selby inquired. Her tone was even though her eyes widened just enough, the dark of her pupils expanding as she glanced over Bucky's frame.

"When he is properly activated, the Soldier is incredibly–" Zemo paused, tapping the edge of Bucky's chin, "–eager to please. There's nothing else inside that brain of his except his mission. What that mission is, is entirely up to whoever recites the triggers."

“Fascinating,” Selby grinned as she slowly stood from her perch.

You followed her stride with every agonizing step towards Bucky. Just as she crossed in front of The Smiling Tiger, Sam’s gaze met yours. He narrowed his eyes, the slight shake in his head barely noticeable. He must have seen you reach for your gun – an instinct to protect Bucky from the demons of his past, a tangible weapon you hadn't been able to use against the monsters in his sleep. It took every ounce of your strength to relax away from the comforting metal.

You watched as Selby’s eyes roamed over Bucky – hungry, and like a vulture, she licked her lips. As she began to circle his frame, gaze trailing down from his shoulders, to his thighs, down to his feet, never once daring to meet his eyes, you found yourself inching closer. Bucky’s hand curled into a fist so tight his nails broke skin in his right hand, blood prickling at his palm. And still—his expression remained stoic, unfeeling. A paralyzing thought crossed your mind and you questioned if this dance was a familiar one – the art of being sold to another human being.

Selby paused as she faced him; examining the features on his face as if he were something other than human – a prize to be won, a possession to own, a trophy to show off.

“And he’s still in working condition? After all these years?” she inquired toward Zemo, standing so dangerously close to Bucky. His stare focused straight ahead, far beyond the wall across the room as if he could burn holes into the plaster.

"He's quite impressive," Selby murmured. Slowly, her hand reached towards his face.

Your grip was around her wrist before anyone realized you’d crossed the room. She flinched, startled by the vice-like hold wrapped around her wrist and a pained sort of whine escaped. She flexed her fingers and still, you held your ground.

“Is there a problem, Lilith?” Selby smirked, curiosity glaring as her eyes flickered between you and Bucky. You said nothing and yet, her lips parted in understanding. “Oh, I see. You control him. Don’t you, dear? He belongs to you.”

You tasted bile on your tongue – the very thought of owning Bucky as if his agency was not even in question made you sick to your stomach. Your grip tightened on Selby’s wrist and you would have broken it clean in two if you had the strength for it. But one look at Zemo and the cautious gaze upon his face, and you forced yourself to swallow back the venom in your mouth. You didn’t allow the disgust to touch your features or the shame to burn hot into your neck. Lilith would not be fazed by the selling of a weapon—even if that weapon were a man with heart so heavy, so full and so kind, he could hardly carry its burden on his own.

“Make your deal, Selby,” you hissed in an accident belonging to the weapons dealer you portrayed, “then, you can play with your toy. Until we have our intel, hands off the product.”

You released Selby’s wrist and she stepped back a few paces. She slid her left hand over the red marks forming over her skim, gingerly massaging at the area and still – the grin did not falter from her cheeks. Impressed, intrigued. She seemed inclined to ask you more about your bond to the Winter Soldier when you stepped in front of Bucky, blocking her view as she unabashedly stared down her hopeful new possession. Sam and Zemo exchanged a glance, though their expressions did not carry the weight their eyes did.

Behind you, you could hear Bucky exhale a heavy a breath, could practically feel as his fists released to be out of the woman’s eye line. It was short lived, of course, as all things in Madripoor were. A gunshot pierced through the window and lodged itself into Selby’s head.

***

You woke with a sudden start, the sticky smell of stale beer still on your skin as you jolted up on an unfamiliar bed. The room was vaguely a blur thanks to the pounding ache in the back of your head, but you could see enough to know it was not a place you recognized. To your left, the bed was untouched; sheets perfectly pressed as if they’d never been laid in at all. Glancing down, you saw you were still wearing the dress from the club, makeup smeared over your face and onto the pillows. You brushed at your cheeks to remove the mascara stains.

At the end of the bed, laid a fresh pair of clothes. Blue jeans and a black pullover. You sighed, pressing a hand over the soft fabric and bringing it to your face. It smelled of lavender and vanilla – fresh and inviting compared to the sweaty stale air of the night club.

The night before was mostly a blur. You didn’t remember much after Selby was killed; only Bucky’s hands on your waist, pulling you back towards the door as you tried to locate the shooter. You’d kicked off your heels and sprinted next to him in your bare feet – a man who could challenge the speed of moving vehicles and he was running in line with you and Sam while gunshots reined from every direction. Self-preservation was not a concept in Bucky’s vocabulary.

Your feet were bloodied by the time you caught your breath again and within the impossibly small moment you took to pause, an assailant had knocked you out from behind. Cold darkness. Instantaneously. After that, you could only catch vague memories of Bucky lifting you into his arms and Sharon Carter’s voice. But you hadn’t seen Sharon in years. Not since the aftermath of Vienna. The theory didn’t make much sense.

You felt along the dresser for your gun, only to find it empty. With a tired groan, you swung your legs over the edge of the bed, hoping you could find Bucky or Sam before you found trouble. Your feet were wrapped in bandages carrying a slight pink color on the soles – courteous of Zemo’s ridiculous heels you’d left behind the chaos and the mile worth of pavement you’d run barefoot on.

The chill of the hardwood floors was a relief on the undersides of your feet, but you hadn’t accounted for the dizziness from your concussion to take over once you stood. The room went dark and you began to sway, trying to feel for the bed behind you, when suddenly you hard footsteps rushing into the room.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing out of bed?” Bucky’s arms wrapped at your waist, holding you steady. He guided you back to the bed, helping you to sit on the edge as you regained your vision. He sat down beside you, keeping a hand on your arm to help ground you as you focused on the permanence of the room, the sturdiness of solid ground.

“What happened?” you sighed, pressing your palms to your eyes. Your head was still ringing from the blow you took the night before. When you finally allowed yourself to adjust to the sunlight in the room, you turned to face Bucky. He was dressed in a plan black t-shirt and jeans; his Winter Soldier attire hung in the corner of the room.

“Sharon happened,” Bucky chuckled with a short shake of his head. You thought you might be surprised at his answer, and somehow, you weren’t at all. Bucky softened, his fingers brushing at the hem of your dress. “You should change into something more comfortable. Sharon left some clothes for you but um... you were pretty out of it last night and I didn’t want to... um...”

“Thank you, Bucky.” You smiled at him as you placed your hand on top of his. You squeezed at his fingers, curling under his palm against your thigh. For a moment, you nearly lost yourself in the sunlit reflection of blue within his eyes – the delicate intricacies of a complex man. So impossibly sweet and kind in the daylight; cold as stone in the night under the guise of the Winter Soldier.

Bucky helped you to stand, giving you time to adjust to the sting of healing wounds on the soles of your feet. He turned his back to give you privacy, though he kept close enough that you could grab hold of his shoulder for support. He pushed the clothes down the bed for you to reach easily.

Slowly, ignoring the ache in your body, you slid the zipper down your spine, letting the dress fall to a heap at your feet. You tried not to notice how Bucky’s shoulders tightened at the sound, his stance a little less balanced at the fallen fabric. Gingerly, you dressed yourself in the jeans and pullover Sharon had provided for you, trying to stifle a wince as you shifted on your feet. Bucky’s head tilted at your whimper, his instinct fighting to turn to you, to help you, but he held himself still.

When you were done, you reached for the necklace at your bedside, one you hadn’t worn on the mission but you carried it with you wherever you went – the last token you had of a distant life before the Avengers. Sam had kept it in his pocket in Madripoor.

“Would you mind?” you called softly, tapping a hand against Bucky’s shoulder. He turned cautiously, almost timid in his movements, and you smiled at him as he held his hand out. The delicate gold chain dropped into his palm – a beautiful contrast to the black metal, in mirror to the detailing work along his shoulder.

Before you could turn your back to him, Bucky stepped closer. He held each side of the necklace in his hands and brought them around the back of your neck. This close, you could smell the bar soap he’d used that morning, you could see the lines of scruff along his jaw he hadn’t been able to shave.

When he clasped the chain, he stepped back slowly, but only enough to admire his work. He brushed your hair away from your collar, a ghosted smile on his lips at he touched the pendent at the center. This wonderful, beautiful man who learned to find comfort in touch again, who sought you out when it felt impossible to reclaim that part of him. Memory of the night before etched into your mind and you swallowed back the lump in your throat.

“Bucky?”

He smiled a little wider, focused on tracing his fingers along your jaw, brushing away your hair. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to talk about last night?”

Bucky paused, his touch upon you skin turning near to stone before he pulled away. The smile he’d worn slowly faded from his lips, the cold rush of reality piercing through the tender moment, and you hated yourself for being the cause of such pain. Bucky sighed, sinking down onto the bed, his hands gripped tight to the edge of the mattress.

“Not sure there’s much to say, doll,” Bucky exhaled.

You sat beside him, close enough for your thigh to brush in line with his. He looked down at the little space between you, his eyes fluttered closed at the contact – the grounding sensation of welcomed touch.

“You're not him anymore, Bucky,” you said softly, setting your hand over his own. “No one is ever going to control you or... or own you again, okay? They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to... not anymore. You’re free. You know that, don’t you?”

Bucky nodded, though it was slow, almost aching. He squeezed at your hand, pushing out a pained smile as he looked at you. “I do.”

You reached towards him with your free hand, cupping the side of his cheek where Zemo had touched him the night before. You traced your thumb over his jaw line, tingling over the short hairs on his skin. So beautiful and lovely after decades suffering under the hands of cruel men.

“You know I’d kill anyone who tried, right?”

Bucky chuckled at that and you were grateful to see the lines by his eyes again, the smile pushing bright into his cheeks. “Yeah, sweetheart. I know that, too.”

He leaned forward a pressed a kiss to your temple. Short and lingering and not nearly long enough. But it was welcomed and warm and enough.

—

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

[bigskydreaming]

Honestly though, for the most part I’m still just always gonna sigh at future MCU movies with mutants, because they’ll be relatively condensed to just team ensembles given how big the MCU already is, and it just makes me go rawr about how WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALLLLLLL.

Like, I think a lot about just how damn MUCH Fox wasted the X-Men in all the years they had access to them. Their movies were so generic and confined, IMO, when like.....they had literally every opportunity to make their own version of the MCU, just as broad and containing just as many subgenres. The X-Men mythos is really that expansive. They could have built up an X-Men team, solo movie by solo movie, and then bringing them all together. I fucking DEFY anyone to say that there's something inherent in the characters of Tony Stark, Peter Quill, and Scott Lang that makes it possible to build entire franchises around them, but that the same isn't true for a good dozen different X-Men. Like just off the top of my head, the possibilities for solo movies for individual X-characters based just on their own unique backgrounds and niches: 1) Psylocke - before she was an X-Man, she was literally a supermodel slash spy. If you can't make 'female James Bond with psychic powers' work, you're not trying. 2) Gambit - everything about him and his character and his origins screams HEIST CAPER HEIST CAPER HEIST CAPER. Ocean's Eleven with Gambit recruiting a team of mutant criminals to steal something from Madripoor, while dodging assassination attempts from his ex-wife's relatives, etc etc. 3) Storm - you could easily make a movie with an epic fantasy tone around her, from her childhood as a thief in Cairo hunted by the mysterious and otherworldly Shadow King to her days being worshipped as a goddess in the Serengeti and now more than capable and ready to fight the Shadow King for the souls of her people. 4) Cable - Terminator style movie centered around the emotional core of Cable going back in time to save the world by saving his own parents from his twisted mirror self, Stryfe. If you don't want to mix clones and time travel streamline things by making Stryfe just a literal other version of Cable like they're each other's road not taken diverging from the same moment in time when Scott and Jean sent baby Nathan into the future to save him. 5) Magik - young girl kidnapped by demon sorcerer who over the course of years leeches her soul and innocence to empower his dark magics, all while she bides her time and learns from watching him, ultimately rising up to overthrow him by claiming the power he tried to steal from her and wielding his own spells against him. 'Nuff said. 6) Longshot - its 2022, how has nobody ever tried to capitalize on the character who was created to star in gladiator combat and rebellions that were real life to him while just being entertainment to others. He's literally The Hunger Games but with superpowers. 7) Bishop - if the Cable pitch doesn't work for studio execs, you've got Bishop waiting in the wings, ready to pop in and out of the timestream in pursuit of assholes from the future seeking to Kang the Conqueror their way to world domination. 8) Dani Moonstar - remix Dani's powers of illusions drawn from the psyche just enough that an accident with them draws her INTO the realms of myth and fantasy she usually pulls FROM. She discovers that everything is real somewhere, even places like Asgard, and now she has to find (or create) a Yellow Brick Road to lead her back home, crossing through battlefields of Valkyries, demon landscapes and more along the way. Alternatively, young mutant and aspiring pop star Lila Cheney accidentally teleports herself across the galaxy and has to find her way home, only to stumble into galactic superstardom via Guardians of the Galaxy style antics. Etc, etc. You could do something like Sage, Emma Frost or Monet St. Croix infiltrating the Hellfire Club at a young age and trying to navigate its complicated politics without losing her soul. Or family drama writ large as young mutants Chamber, Blink or even Nightcrawler, any of them possibilities for being abandoned at birth as obvious mutants, seek answers about their origins only to be plunged into operatic Wagnerian (pun intended) antics via their supervillain parent/ancestor Apocalypse or Azazel. Space adventures with any of the Summers kids learning honey, your parents were kidnapped by aliens. More epic fantasy possibilities with someone like Magma discovering their entire civilization is just a cruel immortal's toy and taking on Selene to save her people from her eternal manipulations. The possibilities were endless, and Fox was like, lol, nah, what if we just used the same handful of characters and also some robots to just like.....make pew pew noises at each others with their lasers. Like, love that energy, Fox. Good hustle out there.

[anenomie]

Any more details about your alien species?

Yea!! Thanks for asking! I don't talk about my stories too much on here (I have some drawings posted in the original characters tag of my art blog @cricketdrawings but a lot of em are old since I haven't had time/energy to draw for one reason or another recently- but they're there if you'd like to see em!) But, I love talking about them!

The throckmortons are a vaguely humanoid species. Their bodies are made of spongy muscle and cartiledge, and their veins produce blood through a type of photosynthesis- the energy of which is used to move the blood through their bodies. They have no outward features- meaning no faces or genitalia, and do not otherwise eat or produce waste. All of their communication is made by projections which are, of course, also powered by light. Their solar system is made up of dozens of small planets which all revolve closely around their very huge single sun. It is the only star in their galaxy, and the immediate space around it is very dark. Their sun is lethal to gaze upon at a certain distance, and the closer you are to it, the more danger you're in. (One of my other OCs is drastically affected by this.)

Their projections on their own when communicating to one of their species are images indecipherable to any other sentient being. When they choose to, though, they can turn their projections onto their own bodies, and for humans in particular in my story they tend to project features onto themselves in a way that we could understand, in the forms of faces and simple symbols. (They tend to look down upon human intelligence and think of us as primitive.) Since their projections are normally much larger than their own bodies, though- and span across the space around them to intermingle with other throckmortons' projections, which can be both tangible and almost telepathic in nature when made intangible- the projections they use to communicate with us can look a little... uncanny, and unfitting for their bodies. When their projections are given mass, the power harnesed from the light around them and their own circulation fuels the strength and weight behind whatever they manifest.

They are also capable of producing sound through their projections, but any sound they produce has to be mimicked, unlike anything else they conjure which can be from their imagination. So, when choosing to speak, they mirror the voices of those around them.

These are all pretty old, like over a year I think, but here they are! Their designs remain essentially the same though. I might make some addendums in the future, including different types of limbs. They're basically the most mysterious of all my original species, and tend to make the least sense when communicating with anyone else. Not all of them are unkind or aloof though, I have one throckmortonan OC named Edda Ode who is just a huge, sad, sweetheart. I'll add a pic of him if I can find one or I'll make one myself sometime.

Hope you enjoyed learning about them!

[maxwell-grant]

Any thoughts on Darkman, the Liam Neeson movie? I heard it was originally going to be a Shadow movie.

I love Darkman very much, but I've realized recently that this love comes with some pretty bittersweet feelings at the story behind it.

Michael Uslan: I was going to produce a Shadow feature film with Sam Raimi, but Sam got consumed by back-to-back movies and we ran out of time. We were headed in a good, period piece direction and managed to do so without relying on yet another bout with Shiwan Khan. I later had another major director passionate to do The Shadow, but a person at the company wanted to do a modern day TV series instead, which ultimately did not go... - comment saved from a post in The Shadow Knows Facebook group

For those of you who only now got into The Shadow or don't remember, for much of the early 00s, when The Shadow basically had no current projects and Conde Nast was taking down webpages and fan content left and right, the only things that kept this "fandom" alive were occasional fanfics (many of which are gone now), and the dim light in the horizon that was the rumors that Sam Raimi was finally going to make his Shadow film. Dig back on The Wayback Machine for Shadow web page and you're gonna see this as consistently the only thing they had to look forward to in regards to the character. These rumors floated around for over a decade, at one point Tarantino was even supposed to direct it, but he confirmed in 2013 that it wasn't going to happen. At least, not with him at the helm.

The project has been dead for a while now, and Conde Nast seems to be shuffling around plans for the character, and I deleted my Facebook months ago so I haven't kept up with any news, although it seems the James Patterson novel wasn't received too well, so I'm not sure what other plans they have in the pipeline.

Back in the 1970s, after the release of Richard Donner's Superman and in line with The Shadow's pop culture resurgence, thanks to the paperback reprints and the 70s DC run, there were plans to make a Shadow feature film, and there were quite a handful of scripts being tossed around for the following years (Will Murray states most of them were horrible), several names attached to the project at one point or another. The plans died down a bit following Gibson's death and only really picked up again after the 90s, and of course we all know that the 1994 movie came out with spectacularly bad timing. From what I recall, it seems Sam Raimi wanted to make his Shadow film in the 80s, was unable to secure the rights, and then just made his own version, which would go on to be his first major motion picture.

Even after making Darkman, Sam Raimi still wanted to make The Shadow. I guess that's ultimately the bittersweet part for me. I imagine the current state of Shadow media would be significantly better if Sam Raimi, who was a fan of the character and the pulp version (and even knows of The Shadow's connection to Houdini and stage magic), got to make his Shadow film, years before Blood & Judgment, years before Burton's Batman made it impossible for a Shadow film not to be compared to it, in a time period where it wouldn't have had to compete with The Lion King and The Mask for box office. And second, I have been drawing up my plans for Shadow projects for, what, 5 years now? And I have just barely got my foot off the door as a filmmaker. Sam Raimi had a decade-long career as a cult filmmaker before he got turned down, and decades later, after becoming a household name in charge of Marvel's biggest icon, the project still fell through. It doesn't exactly get my hopes up, y'know.

I love Darkman, it's the best Shadow film that doesn't technically star the real Shadow, and it works pretty well on it's own regardless of that association, but I do get pretty sad looking at it from the outside, because I just can't help but think on what it could have been.

In some aspects I do think the film benefits from not being about The Shadow proper, because it means Raimi got the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted. The character of Darkman already existed separately from Sam Raimi's plans for a Shadow film, already carrying off the Phantom / Universal Monster influence, and what Raimi did was basically combine the two ideas together.

He took the basic iconography of The Shadow, a terrifying urban crimefighter in coat and slouch hat, and add in other Shadow traits like his mastery of disguise, his disfigurement, and that wonderful scene where he's invisibly running circles around a panicky triggerman while laughing maniacally, a moment which definitely feels like Raimi taking a second to indulge himself to do what you can call The Classic Shadow Scene with a character he's, for the most part, succesfully convinced us (and Conde Nast's lawyers, most importantly) isn't supposed to be The Shadow.

But then he filters these through his own influences and style to make him a new character, so instead of a mysterious mastermind with lots of resources and a enigmatic background, instead he's a disfigured and psychotic scientist with a vengeance against those who made him that way. He's like Night Raven, in the sense that he's built off traits that The Shadow has, but develops them differently to the point he stands on his own as a character. It's The Shadow combined with The Phantom of the Opera, filtered through a 1930s Universal Horror lens, played for greater tragedy and a dash of Evil Dead 2 wackyness.

He hides away in trashed up ruins and bickers with a cat, he has fits of rage that make him endanger innocents, he has a doomed love affair, and sometimes he gets so batshit he gives us hilarious moments like "TAKE THE FUCKING ELEPHANT" and "SEE THE DANCING FREAK! PAY - FIVE - BUCKS! TO SEE THE DANCING FREAK!". Moments that really show why he was such a good fit for Spider-Man despite the liberties he took with the source material.

I think the big thing that helps to make Darkman works as a property in it's own right is also that, ultimately, these influences are ultimately at the forefront of it, and the core of it works on it's own. Darkman is a believable, engaging character in his own right, one who tells a story that would be more at odds with The Shadow proper. 

In some aspects, Darkman tries to be The Shadow, he is forced to become The Shadow by literally picking the clothes off a dumpster after he escapes the hospital, and it's a miserable, wretched existence, in a way rather befitting his status as a legally safe knock-off. He is a creature of nightmare who lost his face and takes on a dozen others to fight crime by turning terror against them, except he is still just a man in the end, and no man was ever supposed to live like this.

Raimi was also inspired by the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s because "they made me fear the hideous nature of the hero and at the same time drew me to him. I went back to that idea of the man who is noble and turns into a monster".

He originally wrote a 30-page short story, titled "The Darkman", and then developed into a 40-page treatment. At this point, according to Raimi, "it became the story of a man who had lost his face and had to take on other faces, a man who battled criminals using this power"

A non-superpowered man who, here, is a hideous thing who fights crime. As he became that hideous thing, it became more like The Phantom of the Opera, the creature who wants the girl but who was too much of a beast to have her

I decided to explore a man's soul. In the beginning, a sympathetic, sincere man. In the middle, a vengeful man committing heinous acts against his enemies. And in the end, a man full of self-hatred for what he's become, who must drift off into the night, into a world apart from everyone he knows and all the things he loves.

For the role, Raimi was looking for someone who could suggest "a monster with the soul of a man"

It's the fact that Darkman is ultimately played for vulnerability and tragedy that really sets him apart. While I wouldn't go far enough to say The Shadow is a man with the soul of a monster, still, the difference in presentation is still there when it comes to these two. The Shadow is The Other, Darkman is You. Darkman is the victim of extraordinary circumstance that affects his life, The Shadow is the extraordinary circumstance that affects the lives of others. People react to The Shadow, Darkman reacts to people (and rather poorly).

One is the man who takes off his skin (or yours, staring back at you) to reveal the weird creature of the night ready to prowl and pounce and cackle at those who think they hold power over it's domain, and the other is the monster who falls apart bit by bit until you are left staring at the broken man within who has no choice but to be something he was never supposed to be.

The Shadow is The Master of Darkness. Darkman weaponizes the dark, but in the end, he's still just a man, lost within it. Not everyone can be The Shadow, and you would most likely turn into Darkman if you tried.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Ok, Hades gameplay reaction time!

(Because I have been terrible this quarantine year about posting thoughts about stories I've been invested in, and I'm really enjoying this game, and I'm playing basically blind and I have theories, and what is tumblr for if not recording those things to look back on later.)

I love this specific kind of fantasy/speculative fiction, that straddles the line between 'allegory clearly designed to explore a real-world issue' and 'the themes of this reflect real-world issues but also everything is times one million for drama and setting's sake'. I love it so much. Because, look, this is a story about a teenager/young adult trying to gather up the skills and resources and help he needs to escape his controlling, possessive, emotionally abusive father's house. That's it. Strip away all of the trappings, and that's what the story is about. By comparison, I think about Star Wars. (I love Star Wars too.) That's also a story about a dysfunctional fucked-up family dynamic. But that family is fucked up because dad went on a magic-corruption-induced killing spree, and his twin children were separated at birth to be raised in seclusion with the intention of someday taking him down, and look, that's cool, but it's definitely not how people actually are. All of the dysfunction in that family is an outgrowth of the fantastical setting, which means it is fantastical dysfunction. It can occasionally mirror or remind us of real-life interactions, but it's a fantasy. Which is great and fun to watch and very comforting and so on, but I don't necessarily want that in every story, and I love Hades because it is not that, at all. When you extend out the basic 'kid trying to escape his toxic home environment', Hades is the story of Zagreus trying to get out with the help of his dad's estranged, complicated, wealthy and powerful family, who are absolutely part of the reason why dad is Like That in the first place, and may not be any more reliable in the long run but who he needs right now. And his stepmom and teacher, who love him enough to help him leave, unconditionally and supportively (ask me how many feelings I have about 'look, Hades can't hurt me for helping you, don't worry about me, I am going to take care of you and that means helping you get out of this house' coming from an adult authority figure, ask me). And his dad's employees, who like him but also have to fear the old man's wrath, and walk that line in different places the best they can. And stepmom's long-estranged parent, because this is a story about families and how they split apart and come back together. And all of that is so real, so grounded in actual, concrete, this-is-how-humans-work family dynamics. But it's also individual. The story works so well because Hades isn't just a silhouette of the controlling asshole father; he is clearly The Way He Is for reasons, complicated ones, good and bad alike. The Way He Is has details, particularities, paperwork, a dog he pretends not to love and rely on. He is specific. Nyx and Achilles are specific, not just generic kind stepmom here to be a trope inversion and cardboard cutout teacher. Nyx has backstory and personality of her own, Achilles has a complex history, opinions, a missing lover, and they BOTH have very particular relationships with Hades that aren't just boilerplate script. Yes, there's abstraction there, you meet these characters in brief visual novel-esque three-line conversations over the course of dozens of escape runs, of course there's abstraction--but there's the very real sense that all of these people have nuance, have good and bad days, that they've made choices to be who they are, even if we don't know what those choices are yet. And, like Star Wars, some of the ways in which this story is so specific rely entirely on the fact of the otherworldly setting! I've seen stories that go the other way, that try to use their setting entirely as window dressing, and they end up feeling so flat I can't even remember them right now because they don't let the environment lend complexity and nuance to their characters at all. The environment these characters live in matters. The absolute control Hades exerts over his surroundings is a divine power. The fact that everyone Zag runs into, for or against him, is either immortal or immortally dead, changes how the react to

one another and to the situation at hand. The shape of his attempted escapes (gauntlet combat with a variety of legendary weapons) might be an allegorical construct of the genre, true, but it doesn't work in any sort of real-world setting where there exists the possibility of authority figures above or aside from Hades and his extended fucked-up family. That's part of why the family is so fucked-up in the first place. But these changes still fit well within the realm of, 'yeah, if you took this extremely real-life dynamic and added these factors to it, I can envision people doing this thing'. I can envision these specific people doing this thing. They add to the specificity of these characters. Letting them be influenced by their unreal surroundings makes them more real. So hell yes for good storytelling!!!!

I'm still relatively early in the game (by which I mean I'm like thirty runs in but only just got past Meg for the third time, because I am not good at this game, although in my defense it's only the seventh video game and second button-mashing game I have ever played in my life so there's that), but I'm starting to develop suspicions about Persephone. Because, look, outside of Persephone's absence from the underworld, this story knows its Greek mythology, uses it, revels in it. And there is some kind of mystery still shrouding Persephone leaving in the first place. She left a goodbye to Cerberus in her letter but not to her own son. Nyx has warned Zagreus multiple times not to let the Olympians know she's his mother. He literally never even knew she existed. That's complicated! Add to that, Persephone left--the exact thing we are trying and failing to do again and again and again. She left with one note, which means either she managed a one-shot speedrun out of the entire realm or she had some other way to leave, because if she'd washed up in the Styx pool to plod back to her room and try again, she wouldn't've needed to leave the note in the first place. And, you know, she's Persephone. Really quite famous for leaving the Underworld! Also quite famous for being forced back. So. I'm wondering if Zagreus, so conspicuously absent from her goodbye, has something to do with it after all. Six pomegranate seeds condemned Persephone to six months, half a year, half her life. I wonder if a child that's half of her her constitutes a fitting trade instead. Which, of course Hades would be even more resentful and dismissive and cruel to the kid he got in place of the wife he loved (who he chased away by being cold in the first place). Of course Persephone would have difficulty saying goodbye to her son in those circumstances. It would make sense. The tricky thing here is how the Olympians fit into it, because I also suspect the rift between Hades and Zeus sprang from Persephone's departure. And yet, if the Olympians never knew Zagreus existed, let alone that he's Persephone's son--how can he count as payment into the deal in their eyes? So in that case, what does Zeus think is the justification for Persephone leaving, after the pomegranate thing? Or are we just not doing the pomegranate thing at all? It would be a shame to lose it entirely, out of a story that really seems to enjoy the myths it's playing with. And there should be something complex here, something more than simply 'mom fucked off and left because dad sucked and now I'm following her because same'. It feels more complex than that. 'Mom and dad had a baby to try and save their marriage, it didn't work, but when mom left she had to leave me behind because otherwise dad would have gotten the cops and her extended family involved' feels more right, while still just as grounded in reality as the story has been so far.

I sort of want to write some meta about how each of the six legendary weapons corresponds to their original divine wielder, but I haven't unlocked all of their codex entries yet (look I am very bad with ranged weapons in this game ok, I am working on it), and I still need to think about the details. Aside from, of course, fuck yes of course Hestia's the one with the railgun. Leave drama and elegance and traditional weaponry to her brothers and sister (Demeter, who knows how to get her hands dirty, gets a pass). Hestia is out here to get shit done. With a grenade launcher.