#and then the villain pulls Some Bullshit to not only make them seem even more credible than ever

[fantasmalresplendent]

the best/worst villain trope is when an antagonist takes a hard-won truth that the protagonists have discovered, or a vulnerable truth the protagonists were attempting to hide, and uses it to tell the biggest lie. the most manipulative of villains know how to use information that should ruin them and twist the story to bolster their credibility/ruin the protagonists in turn. how do you refute a lie that is 99% true? yes, they're wrong, but how are you going to prove it? who is going to believe you?

[igotanidea]

Taken: Dick Grayson x f!reader x Jason Todd

Summary: he was in love with his brother's girlfriend.

Warning: bit of action,but nothing explicit, somewhat morally grey, angst, pain, hurt no comfort, no happy ending (sorry.....)

A/N: please, don't ask me for part 2, cause I don't think i could take it

***

Being around Dick Grayson was a threat to human life and Y/n Y/l/n was the perfect example of this. She was the youngest one ever to become a cop and as her first post assigned to nowhere else, but the shithole Gotham. The place where most of the officials were bought and on the call of different villains. Luckily, she was one of commissioner Gordon subordinate and that let her keep her objective side and not get bribed.

But that was also how she met Barbara. And once that happened, she was quickly acknowledged to Dick, who seemed to like her after the first glance. Y/n was fierce, never took anyone’s bullshit and knew how to take care of herself. With her quiet confidence, ability to listen, deep caring about people and sense of morality, especially when it came to the abused, Grayson soon found himself falling for her.

Not like he was going to tell her, at least not straight away.

Instead, he started hanging out with her more often and made her met the entire Wayne family causing a little teasing from his siblings and one serious conversation with Bruce who specifically warned him in how much danger he was putting the girl by getting close to the civilian. Dick only retorted something about Batman doing the same to Jim Gordon before rushing out of Bruce’s office. Yet, he was still convincing everyone that he and Y/N were just friends.

And even his vigilante instincts and observation skills didn’t make him see the slight relief on his younger brother’s face every time Dick denied allegations of the situation being otherwise.

But since the first day she got into Manor it was pretty obvious that she would become family friend, regardless of what Bruce may think about it.

Even if she only knew half of the story about Waynes.

***

What finally shifted the dynamics between those two was the moment when Y/n got into some serious trouble while working a work case and stupidly not waiting for her partner to assist her on the field. Her sense of justice and morality simply got the best of her and the girl found herself in the middle of the trap in a heavy crossfire.  Who knew how this would turn if Nightwing didn’t come out of nowhere and, to put it simply, saved her ass.

“Hey!” she yelled slightly agitated, cleaning her cheek from the blood “I was handling it and …..!” she froze the second Nightwing turned towards her and eyed her carefully with the blue orbs…. “No….” The sudden realisation and recognition hit her like a truck.

“Are you all right, sunshine?” he asked taking a few steps towards her, taking her hand in his ”Please tell me you’re not hurt….”

“I…..I….. I’m not.” She stuttered “I think so, at least, but how….why.... what….?”

“Sh.” He silenced her “not here, not now. Meet me at our place in an hour and I’ll explain it all to you, all right? I promise.”

***

And so he did. Explaining everything. Leaving her in absolute shock, but also making her ask whether she could somehow join the team an help them as one of the very few “clean” officers in town. It made Dick wonder but her wide open pleading eyes and pretty face made him relent. And that may have also been what finally pushed him to kiss her. He just couldn’t hold himself anymore, all those emotions held at bay for almost a year finally finding way out. And it just felt so good to not keep it hidden anymore. But it was also terrifying when he pulled out, not sure of her uptake on the situation, ready to apologise and ask for forgiveness. But before he could say anything, she grabbed his neck and pulled him back wanting more and kissing him like there was no tomorrow. And he knew.

She loved him too.

***

For three months they somehow managed to keep their relationship at secret. Even despite her now working with bat and spending even more time at the Manor. But it just couldn’t last forever. Not with all those people around.

"Y/N, can I talk to you for....." Jason started walking into her room without knocking, but the view in front of his eyes made him freeze.

She wasn't alone. She was with Grayson. In a very unambiguous situation. To put it simple - they were kissing and sure as hell wouldn't stop at that if Jason hadn't interrupted them. Dick was already shirtless, hovering over Y/N, his hands on her waist, lips moving over her skin causing little moan to fall from her mouth.

And she fucking enjoyed it.

She enjoyed him.

There was zero room for interpretation, arching back and nails digging into Grayson's back pulling him closer being enough to break Jason's heart.

"Jason!" she hissed pushing Dick away, the cutest blush creeping onto her face as she quickly tried to fix her top "how many times do I have to tell you to knock!"

"Sorry....." he mumbled, not really sure what else to say "Just wanted to......" his gaze landed on the floor, since all of a sudden he became unable to face her.

"Is everything all right, Jace?" her tone became a bit more concerned and he just couldn't take it anymore. But neither she nor Grayson could know that.

"You two are a thing now?" he smirked back to his usual attitude

"We are." Dick nodded, his love sick puppy gaze landing on her face and she reciprocated with the same expression.

"Make sure to keep it quiet then, will you? I really cannot blast the music on full volume to drown you out or I'll go deaf" Jace rolled his eyes and as fast as he could rushed out of her room.

His cheeks were burning, his hands and legs were shaking and there was only one thing on his mind.

He was in love with his brother's girlfriend.

***

Since there was nothing he could do about that feeling he just started to ignore her. Every time he saw her walking towards him, he remembered something important that caused him to escape the room, leaving the girl confused and a bit down. She had no idea what happened to the boy she knew and who was one of her best friends. After all, he was the one closest in age to her and since they shared the love for literature, they used to talk for hours. So she didn’t understand what changed. But when he kept on acting like that for a week she decided it would be best to just leave him alone for the time being. It was Jason after all, he had his moods and phases that came and went. Y/n was pretty sure he would reach to her if he wanted. After all, Jason used to say that she was the only one to really care about him and always support him.

If only the girl knew what was going on inside Jason’s head. That every time he saw her with Dick he was burning inside. Why was she with Grayson? The one who were always there for everyone, helping other people, taking care, making sure everyone was all right and barely having time for his own girl, neglecting her? Jason would never do such thing, he would spend every minute with her, cherishing her, loving her, keeping her close.

If only she was his…..

But she was taken, just because Grayson was the first to act on his feelings while Jason chickened out, hoping, like a silly schoolboy, that she would notice his longing, loving stares from the other side of the room.

***

A few days later, he unwillingly became the witness to one of their conversations. It was the middle of the Saturday and Grayson was duty-free, but apparently he got some serious call from someone in Bludhaven, an old friend (Kory?) and without much thinking, packed his bags and got ready to came for an aid. Once Jason heard what happened, he stopped by the door and peeking through like a maniac, carefully observed the situation unravel.

“I hate leaving you like that….” Dick whispered, wrapping arms around his girl, holding her close on full display for Jason, whose heart was breaking even more, if that was even possible. Todd could swear his heart was beating so rapidly, just because of the thought that she could be touching him, instead of his brother. His fist clenched involuntarily and he barely held himself from rushing inside and breaking that little scene.  

“I know, Dickie.” she hid face in the crook of his neck, pressing herself closer, not wanting to let him go “but you are a hero and people need you, I get that.”

“Say a word I’ll stay with you.’ He kissed the top of her head, caressing her back.

“I couldn’t ask that of you, Richard.” She smiled and looked into his eyes “that would be selfish of me.”

“You deserve to be selfish” Jason though biting on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood .”You deserve love and attention and not a boy who has time for everyone but you…..”

“I love you.’ Dick whispered, pressing his mouth to hers in the gentle kiss, tangling hand in her hair “I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise, all right? And then we’ll do all those things on our list.”

“Love you more. And I hold you to your words, boy wonder.” She unwillingly let him go with a grin, but once he stepped out the door and was out of sight, her shoulders fell and she let out a heavy sigh. She did love him, truly, but sometimes it was tough and exhausting to act strong and not force him to stay with her.

Two hours later Jason found her asleep on the couch with an open book laying nearby. Judging by the force with which she was holding onto her body pillow she was imagining someone else in her embrace. She was imagining Grayson and it made Jason angry.

Grayson fucking left her.

He left that angel. That kind, gentle, compassionate and caring soul. The one who loved him with the love Grayson never deserved. He didn’t deserve her. That idiotic fucker.

If it was Jason to be with her, he would worship the ground she was walking on. She would never have to worry about a single  thing. He would never cause her any pain, nor let a single tear fell from her eyes.

 But she was not his to love and protect. All he could do at the moment was step forward and put a blanket over her so she wouldn’t get cold. Poor boy. And once the warm, soft material landed on her body she stirred in her sleep and smiled softly, causing Jason’s heart to drop even more. 

“I love you.....” he whispered brushing a strand of hair out her face and caressing her cheek, making her lean into the touch. She probably thought it was just a dream, not a reality.  

***

Dick might have been in Bludhaven for a few days, but it didn’t mean that his family wasn’t still patrolling, dealing with villains and getting hurt in the process. And since Y/N was staying at the manor, for safety reasons, of course, she quickly took it upon herself to patch all the wounds that any of the Waynes could endure.

Surprisingly, more often than not, it was Jason who got himself injured (blame the distraction), but her attempts to help him were dismissed in harsh words and by pushing her away. Just to protect himself from doing or saying something stupid he might regret.

“I don’t fucking need your help!’ he hissed, watching her gaze sadden and her whole body to cringe. “I can handle my own shit! Just... get the hell away from me!”

Without a second of hesitation he rushed out the batcave, followed with his family’s eyes.

“What is wrong with him?” Damian scoffed

“I might have an idea....” Tim muttered

“Tell me.” Y/N cut Drake off. “Tell me what this is about Tim. I can’t handle him being so .... hurt. I don’t want him to feel like he’s alone and no one understand him....”

“It’s really not my place...”

“TIMOTHY DRAKE!”

“Stop attacking me! God! How can you look so innocent and act so scary at the same time? “

“I swear if you don’t start talking....” she warned with the most stern voice she could produce

“Just..... I think you should talk to Todd yourself, Y/N.”

“Fine.” The girl shook her head. She was going to clear this shit out.

***

“Jace? May i come in?” the gentle knock on his bedroom door got him by surprise and when she entered, without waiting for the invitation he was sitting shirtless on his bed, trying to stitch the wound and holding an ice pack to his bruised ribs. Once her gaze landed on all of the injuries, he flinched, almost trying to hide himself.

“Go away....” his voice was far more begging and pleading than commanding and strong. He didn’t want her to see him like this. All of a sudden he realised that she would never feel for him the same way she felt for Dick. That with his scarred body and anger issues he never stood a chance.

“Jason.” She never listened and this time was no exception “Come on, stop it. It’s not the first time I will help you get yourself together. I’ve seen all those scars before. It’s all right. Safe place, no judgement. Let me.” Her soft hand reached for the needle and surgical thread and slowly, methodically, trying to cause him as little pain as possible started to stich his wounds. “You’ve been acting strange lately.....” the girl pointed out.

“not much more than usually.” He muttered “I am one hell of a strange person. Dead yet alive.”

“Stop it.” She cut him off, finishing the stitching and putting hand on his arm making him flinch again. “Sorry....” his action stung her. “Sorry, I am out of line, I won’t force you to speak to me if you don’t want. I never should have.....” she moved away, but never managed to get far as his arms wrapped around her pulling her close and his lips met hers.  He just couldn’t hold himself anymore. Not once he felt her touch and care. It was just impossible. She started the fire that no one could contain.

At first he was afraid she would push him away, ready for it even, since after all she had a boyfriend. But much to his surprise and joy, she did no such thing. If anything she kissed him back.

She kissed him back.

Could she.... could she possibly want him?

Jason was not going to wonder about it, instead focusing on satiating his hunger of her. He was starved of her, his mouth brushing over hers with desire, passion, wanting more and more and more. He was completely lost in the moment as he lifted her up, bringing her to his lap, hands sneaking under her shirt, travelling up, up to her shoulder blades, brushing over the clasp of her bra, palms pressing into her back, pulling her closer, closer.

It was so good, so perfect, having her like this, not fighting, not pushing away, but making her melt into him, feeling her body flex, touch him back, mirroring all his actions.

She was the only one for him. The only one he could ever trust, love, care about. He would burn the whole world for her if she ever got hurt. He completely lost his mind for her.

Her,

Her,

Her.

The things were getting so heated so fast, when he switched positions gently lowering her down onto the mattress. Shit. She was so beautiful and touch starved and abandoned by Grayson. And Jason was going to show her what it really meant to love a woman.

“Y/N....” he muttered hovering over her, completely blinded by desire, grabbing her wrist gently and pinning them above her head, kissing her jaw, neck, everywhere he could reach. “Y/N.” he nibbled on her collarbone getting a single, breathy moan, getting so hard for her. To tell the whole truth, he almost felt like crying when her hand tangled in his mop of hair, pressing him closer to her body. He never felt so wanted and needed in his whole life and her action got him completely lost. She accepted him. She agreed to everything he was doing to her, simply following his lead and he just wanted to make her feel so good. He whimpered once the warmth of her affection spread inside his chest and belly, right hand slowly peeling her shirt off, exposing her soft skin to him.

God! He had her. He finally had her.

He was lovesick, his own body acting without any control. He just wanted her to want him, need him, touch him and hold him. But it also made him bold. And reckless.

“You’re so beautiful…..”he whispered, trailing kissed up her stomach and between her breast, making her arch her back and squirm in pleasure. “I love you…..”

“You what?” those words were like a bucket of cold water for her, eyes opening wide as she became aware in a second. “Oh, shit, no, shit, fuck!” the girl hissed, taking him by surprise and breaking free from his grip pushing him away and adjusting her messy look.

“Baby?” he whimpered, confused and hurt

“You cannot love me, we… we can’t do this Jason.”

“But…..”

“I’m in love with your brother!”

“He doesn’t deserve you! He does not take care of you!”

“And what do you know about it? He loves me, Jason. And despite of what you say, he does care. Every fucking day. Even when he’s busy! You’re judging my relationship with him of silly little piece of information, but you don’t know shit about it!”

“So why did you let me kiss you?” he stuttered looking straight into her eyes.

“It was a mistake.” She said coldly, hating herself. She despised herself for those words, but what else was there to do. She couldn’t do this to Dick. She couldn’t do it to Jace. And most importantly, she couldn’t do it to herself. She might as well put a gun to their heads and pull the trigger. No matter what she would do, someone would end up getting hurt. Badly. And she would end up being the unfaithful one. Not fair. She had to cut it right now, even if her body kept screaming at her to let go and let Jason love her. He was so gentle and loving and slow and sensual. Showing that part of him she never knew. So different than his brother when it came to intimacy…..  Fuck!

“How…. How was it a mistake?” he was practically shaking at the moment. He bared his soul to her, hoping she was the one to trust, to take care of his poor, shattered heart. And the look in his eyes almost made her cry as well. But she had to be strong.

“We’re just friends, Jason.” She sighed, barely holding herself “nothing more. There won’t ever be anything more between us” she stood up from the bed.

“Please…..” he begged, grabbing her hand “please, don’t go. Stay with me. Let me…..”

“I’m sorry, Jace. I think we should just forget about what happened.” She yanked herself free and rushed out the door not looking back at him.

“I could never forget. And I won’t stop fighting for you.”

***

She was very well aware that his words were true. That Jason wouldn’t stop. But Y/N also knew that Dick wouldn’t ever relent. It seemed like she got herself in some serious trouble by loving two brothers, each one with different kind of love.

Dick and Jason.

Jason and Dick.

Fuck. Someone was going to end up broken hearted and she just couldn’t choose.

Therefore, she did the only thing that came to her mind.

***

“Hey, do you have Y/N somewhere around? I can’t reach her phone and she’s not responding my texts…..” very disturbed Dick showed up on the other side of the computer screen, reaching Tim.

“Dick…..”

“Is she all right? What happened Tim?”

“She left.”

“What?! What do you mean left?! How could she leave the house full of batman crew?! How could no one notice?!”

“She left you a letter.”

“A letter!? Shit, I deserve better. I’m going to find her! I’m getting back to Gotham right the second and I won’t stop until I search every inch of this city, country or planet!”

“Dick!” Tim yelled interrupting his brother’s monologue

“Why did she leave….?” Grayson’s voice broke. “I thought she loved me…..”

“She did, Dick. She wrote it on the envelope…..”

“I will hear it from her. Come on, Timmy, help me here.”

“Dick….”

“Yes?” Dick looked straight into Tim;s eyes in the camera and he froze. Something was wrong, terribly wrong and his younger brother’s face was screaming bad news “what are you not telling me, Tim?”

“There’s been a car accident and …..”

“NO!!” sudden scream came from behind and both Dick and Tim saw Jason falling to his knees onto the floor, clutching his head desperately, acting completely out of his mind “No,no,no,no,no.” he sobbed. “no….. this is all my fault, this is all because of me…..”

“No.” Dick became pale, sudden realisation of what Tim meant finding a way to his brain.

***

She wanted to be fair to both of them. That was why she left not one, but two letters, explaining why she couldn’t stay and destroy whatever frail relationship Dick and Jace managed to build. She also asked them not to look for her and in a haze, unnoticed, left the manor, planning to stay with her friends in Central City.

What she didn’t expect was that truck, speeding and running into the crossroad on the red light…..

And then,

breaks sqealing

glass breaking

darkness.   

[eclipsejynx]

Refuge.

Flashback.

I know it's probably weird for me to post this stuff, but I had no idea, and I found a few writing prompts I wanted to try! Supervillain, Hero, and Villain will be considered their real names. If you wanna replace the names, use your imagination!

TW - Swearing, heavy bleeding and wounds, mentions of abuse(?)

Summary - Hero and Supervillain got into a huge fight that injured Hero fatally. No one would help them, so they only knew one other place to go to seek refuge; Villain.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Fighting villains was Hero’s specialty.

It never mattered how strong they were, how quick they were, if they had any powers to aid them, they always found a way.

At least, until now.

The area was destroyed, most people have fled the scene. The unlucky ones were crushed by the debris in action. The two responsible for the commotion were Hero and Supervillain.

Supervillain clearly had the upper hand, barely scathed. Hero, however, couldn’t say the same. In fact, they could say the opposite. They could feel their blood trickle down their thigh and through their suit. Their vision felt blurry, the ash and dust stinging their eyes with a burning sensation. Bruises and wounds were covering them, head to toe. Honestly, the bruises were the least concerning part.

“Is the all mighty Hero already feeling weak? We’ve only danced for a few hours.” Supervillain mocked Hero who was currently straining to get up, but crumbled on the rubble. “Thought you would’ve had a bit more fight in you compared to the others. Such a shame, really. I had high hopes for you. Then again…” They walked towards Hero who desperately tried to crawl away. Supervillain grasped their face and forced Hero to look at them. “You’re all the same. A pathetic, selfish ‘hero’ who favors fame. So much for the goody-two-shoes bullshit. You’re really just some hoax carrying a title, huh? You’re just a coward,” Supervillain taunted, spitting venom to Hero.

Hero’s eyes were slowly closing, and Supervillain smirked. “Going to sleep I see. Well, I guess I’ll just leave you here, bleeding while you lay on the floor like a dog. A shame our dance ended so soon. I hoped to spend more time with you.” There was nothing but Hero’s raspy breaths in response. “F-..Fuck you, Supervillain.” They finally muttered, before their body fell limp as they collapsed on the floor. Supervillain seemed both disappointed and amused. “Such a pity. Even your final words are unoriginal.” After one last glance, Supervillain trotted away without a care in the world, leaving Hero to rot.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Slowly, Hero’s limbs started to move. It wasn't a drastic movement, but enough to tell they were alive. They looked up at the sight in front of them.

Paramedics were surrounding the area, gathering everyone who was injured.

Of course, except for Hero.

They grunted in pain as they rolled themself upside, gasping for air. Their fingers gently traced the giant wound on their abdomen, bleeding through their suit. They winced and pulled it away. It hurt too much to touch. They tried their best to regain their senses and focused on the world around them. They could only stare up at the sky, seeing it a light gray. They could faintly hear their own ragged breathing, but it was blocked out by the agonizing ringing in their head. Their body felt numb. Helped with the pain, at least. They couldn’t taste much except for their own blood. Confused, they gently tapped their head. However, they instantly regretted it and moaned in pain. With teary eyes, they looked at their fingers, a crimson red coating the tips. “Blood,” they thought. Guess the injuries were worse than they thought. Coughing, they turned on their side and looked around, trying to make out any familiar figures through the ash. Most of the ambulances and other heroes were there, but they were busy helping more vulnerable victims. And Hero didn’t want to be a bother, did they?

That’s what a selfish hero did.

They tried using their shaky arms to prop themself up, but they collapsed the second they were a couple inches off the ground. They started to tear up, the water mixing with blood. They muttered swears and tried again, but it hurt even more. The stinging sensation was too much for them to handle. They hated feeling this weak, this hopeless, this pathetic.

“Hero! Get up already!” Right before Hero’s eyes could be shut, they perked up at their name. Looking around, they tried their best to make out who called them. Their captain was approaching, looking a bit angry. “What are you laying on the ground for?” Hero tried to make a response, but all that came out was coughing and muttering. Captain sighed. “We don’t have time for this, Hero. Too many civilians need help. Once you’re done with your… overreacting, get your ass up and help.” Captain walked away to a few injured people and helped them get to their family members. All Hero did was cry harder, wishing someone could help. Anyone. They wanted to curl up into a ball and sob for the rest of their shitty life.

They tried again and again to get up, just a little. Their body was getting used to the aching pain in their limbs. After countless attempts, they were finally standing on their two shaky legs. They looked down at their body, seeing how bad they actually looked. There wasn’t a place without blood or a giant bruise. Supervillain wasn’t fucking around.

At this point, most of the paramedics already left. Captain, of course, left without warning Hero. The rest of the heroes left with them, probably tending to their own injuries. Only a few civilians were here, probably looking for lost valuables and pets.

Hero sighed, thinking where they could go.

Well, there was always…

No. They’ll find somewhere else.

HQ was out of the list. Captain made it clear they were mad, and Hero didn’t want it aimed at themself. A hospital? No way. Supervillain’s taunting really got the best of them. And the hospitals were probably full anyway. They sighed, but regretted it. They fell into a coughing fit, seeing as they coughed up blood. “Shit.”

They swallowed their saliva and internally groaned. They had no choice.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Hero was limping while walking the trails of the forest, leaving a blood trail behind them. The trees towered over like a giant shadow. Birds crowed as they hopped from one branch to the other. Hero’s footsteps crunched in the dead grass, its color a faded green. The path was the same as always, every flower wilted. They knew this trail like the back of their hand.

Inside, they wished they didn’t.

They didn’t know how long they'd walked. A few hours at most. They blocked out the ominous figures lurking in the shadows, and the faint clicking noise in the distance. Night was falling down on the Earth. They had to hurry up.

In the distance, they found a ginormous tree. It was probably the only healthy vegetation alive in the forest. Its radiance was alluring compared to the dead logs and eerie trees. Its leaves were fresh, transitioning to yellow with the coming autumn. Hero couldn’t help but smile, no matter how much it hurt. Their stagger was now a slow walk, now finding motivation to continue. As they approached it, they saw how much hadn’t changed. The fresh apples on the tree were a bright red, looking fresh to take a bite out of. They panted, looking around frantically for…

There.

A house was in the distance. It was more of a cottage, looking homey and cozy. Yet, Hero knew better than to judge appearances. Staggering towards it, they found themself at the porch, blood still dripping from the stomach and leg, staining the “Welcome” mat. They knocked a few times while impatiently waiting. Their stomach was filled with emotions while footsteps from the otherside approached the door. It was like their breathing stopped when they saw the face in front of them.

“H-Hero..?” Villain murmured, their expression showing shock. They observed the broken one’s bruised and bloodied body.

“Hey… Villain.” Hero smiled, though they immediately had a coughing fit, blood dripping from their mouth. “I didn’t know where to go, okay?”

“Who the fuck did this—”

“You already know who.”

Villain’s breathing hitched. Supervillain was not one to be taken lightly, especially in battle. “S-so… mind letting me crash here for a while?” Hero asked, letting out a soft laugh. Though, both knew there was nothing funny about the situation. Hero was lucky to escape with their life. “You… you don’t have to say yes if you don’t want-”

Sighing, Villain walked next to them and put Hero’s arm around their shoulder. “Let’s get you inside, idiot.” Hero was shocked at this ‘hospitality,’ but was grateful. They limped inside with the help of Villain. Villain carefully set Hero on the couch. “Stay here, and I’ll get something for the bleeding.” They sprinted to the kitchen while Hero’s body relaxed against the soft cushions. Though, they felt bad for staining it with their oozing blood. They could hear the frantic search for medical equiptment, along with the shouts of swearing. They couldn’t help but giggle.

Villain came back, a mountain of stuff in their arms. They dropped it all on the table and looked at Hero’s bleeding abdomen. They grabbed the white bandages and looked at Hero.

“I’m gonna need you to stop relaxing on the couch for a second. I can’t wrap the bandages around your stomach if you don’t.”

Hero complied, lifted their upper-body. Villain approached and gently started, the white cloth instantly being stained a bright red. Muttering curses, Villain tied them around and looked Hero up and down. They eyed Hero’s head.

“Surprised you didn’t get a concussion,” they said.

“Honestly, so am I.”

“What else did we expect from Supervillain?” They grabbed the bandages again started to carefully wrap them around Hero’s head. “A fucking psycho that plays war like a game.”

“Rude to say about your boss,” Hero warned. “You know what happened last time when you tried your chances.” Villain faltered, stealing a glance towards Hero.

“We don’t talk about that, and you know it.” They glared. “And to be clear, it wasn’t my fault. Supervillain was just… they were just angry, okay?” Villain made it sound like nothing was wrong, that everything was fine, but Hero knew what was behind that mask.

It was dead silent, even the birds outside kept quiet. Hero looked like a mummy, most of their body covered in blood-soaked bandages. “This should… it should stop the bleeding from getting worse.” Villain said, avoiding eye contact. Hero felt like they should’ve said something, anything, like an apology for being inconsiderate, but the tension was already in the room, and it would be hard to get it out. They muttered a simple thanks. Villain went to the kitchen and returned with a cup of water.

“There’s some painkillers on the table. Take them when you feel like you can swallow. The blood will probably stop you, so I’d wait for a while.” They set the cup on the table next to the medication pile. “I’ll be back later to check up on you and replace your bandages, okay?” Hero didn’t reply. They were lost in thought.

“Hey, Hero.” Villain snapped in front of their face, taking Hero out of their trance. “Did you hear what I said?” They sounded annoyed.

“S-sorry, Villain.”

Villain sighed. “The water’s for the painkillers, and I’ll come back to replace your ban–”

“Wait, you’re leaving?”

“I’ve got my own life to deal with too, y’know.” Villain said matter-of-factly. Hero muttered something, not going unnoticed by Villain. “Wanna say something to me, Hero?” They leaned down and their faces were only a couple inches away from each other.

“It’s nothing… I just wanted to say thank you…”

Villain knew damn well that wasn’t what they said, but they’d leave it at that. “Well, I gotta go now. See ya later, I guess.” They started to walk away, but Hero quickly spoke up.

“You mean the life Supervillain controls?”

Villain stopped abruptly, their eyes widened. The tension in the room grew thick. “Shut up, Hero. You don’t know what you’re–”

“I do know what I’m talking about!” Hero screamed, hurting their vocal cords. “We both know what happened that night! Fucking Supervillain hurt you! You would’ve died it I wasn’t there! Worst of all? You know it, yet you act like nothing happened!”

“Shut up already! You’re the one that’s injured here! I can fucking kill you and you couldn’t do shit about it!”

“But you won’t,” Hero argued. “You let me in here, you helped my wounds, all because you know what Supervillain’s capable of.” Villain turned around, face red from anger. “And you know that if you let me die, you’ll be just as bad as them.”

“I don’t need you shoving it down my goddamn throat, okay?!” Tears threatened to fall from Villan’s glistening eyes. “I don’t need you reminding me that I would be dead if you weren’t there! That I relied on you! It would’ve been better if you didn't ‘save me’ from Supervillain!” Hero paused, their breathing rapid.

“Y-you don’t mean that–”

“I mean every word!” Villain quickly approached, Hero flinching when they grabbed their head. Villain forced them closer. “The only reason I’m here right now is because of your pathetic attempt to save me! You just put me in deeper shit!” Their breathing was raspy and frantic. “Supervillain’s suspicious that I’m a double agent, and having you here is just going to prove his point!”

“What would you want me to do?! Leave you there?!”

Villain shut up again, not sure how to respond. To be fair, they were too exhausted on that day to even recall what happened. “I-... I-I don’t know.” Villain started to tear up, attempting to wipe the tears away. “I don’t know.” Their voice was cracked as they started to sob. “I-I’m so sorry–” They hiccuped, collapsing to their knees in front of Hero. The pity in Hero’s eyes was enough to make them weep.

“I didn’t mean– oh fuck, Villain,” Hero cursed, seeing Villain’s frail form seem so broken. Hero tried to reach out, but Villain slapped the hand away and got up, running away. The cottage was two stories, so they sprinted up the stairs. Hero was about to call their name, but a loud slam was heard, shaking the house. All that was left was Hero staring where Villain once sat, thinking about what had happened.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Sorry if it ended up worse than the others- I didn't reread this for any mistakes, and I just wanted a little filler post. I hope you like it!

[tildeathiwillwrite]

Merry Whumpmas 2023 Day 28: Scars

Week 4 of this bullshit. Only 3 more days left to go! Enjoy.

This is a direct continuation of Day 6: No Where to Go.

Hero x Villain Masterpost

TW: painkillers, anesthesia mention, death mention, surgery, burn scars, mentioned abuse

Hero awoke slowly, their thoughts moving sluggishly through their tired mind. Their eyelids were heavier than bricks, but they forced them open, unease and uncertainty roiling in their stomach. The harsh lights overhead hurt their eyes, and they squinted, trying to filter out the brightness and make out their surroundings.

“Oh, you’re awake now.”

Hero turned their head, finding Villain leaning over them. They realized they were sprawled on a flat, uncomfortable surface. Villain’s head was bowed, their concentration intent upon Hero’s side. Hero tried to see what they were looking at, but they couldn’t raise their head.

“Sorry, I guess I didn’t sedate you enough,” Villain mumbled, reaching for something out of sight. “You were already unconscious, so I had to estimate. I think I gave you enough analgesics though. Does it hurt?”

Hero realized with a sudden jolt of fear that they couldn’t move anything but their eyes and head. Were their arms tied down? They couldn’t feel any restraints… “N… no…” they whispered through numb lips.

Villain nodded, distracted. Their hand returned, now clutching a pair of tweezers with gloved hands. The gloves were splattered with blood. “That’s good. Let me know if that changes. It’s not gonna be fun once they wear off.”

Hero swallowed, eyes darting about the room. The walls were exposed brick, and the only lighting appeared to be the one directly overhead, illuminating Villain’s work. Whatever that work was. Was the blood on their hands Hero’s? The only exit appeared to be a door to Hero’s right, behind Villain.

Metal clicked on metal, and Hero’s eyes darted back as Villain exhaled in relief. “Got the bullet out. Now I just gotta stitch you up and give you some more analgesics and maybe some anesthesia.”

Their words sounded almost foreign to Hero. The only thing they understood through the hazy fog was that Villain… seemed to be helping them? “O… okay….”

Villain worked in silence for a few minutes. Hero still couldn’t see what they were doing, so they gazed at Villain instead. Sometime between when Hero had passed out in that dark alley and when they’d woken up in this room, Villain had removed their mask. Their hair had been hastily pulled back, and Hero could clearly see their profile.

They looked normal enough at first, but as Hero’s eyes adjusted to the harsh lighting, they noticed the long, dark scar snaking down Villain’s face. It was old, blending in with their skin tone, but unmistakably a burn scar.

As if in response, the skin on Hero’s upper back tingled, where one of their allies had grazed them during a training session. They’d been drilling reflexes by launching small fireballs at Hero nonstop until they got hit. Once they did, the ally chastised Hero and ordered them to go to the medical bay. They didn’t even help Hero to their feet.

The incident had been almost a month and a half ago, and the burn still wasn’t fully healed. The affected skin itched constantly, especially when Hero tried to sleep. But Hero’s team leader refused to give them anything besides a small amount of aloe on the grounds of ‘building pain tolerance.'

It was all bullshit, as Hero later learned when they broached the idea of taking a break from the team for a little while. None of their ‘allies’ had responded well.

Hero closed their eyes. They didn’t know how long they were trapped in the team headquarters before escaping and fleeing to Villain’s section of the city. They barely remembered most of it, and they didn’t want to. But thinking of it brought images of Whumper, of them beating and belittling Hero for their weakness.

But Whumper was dead now.

Villain had shot them.

Villain had saved Hero.

As if in response to Hero’s thoughts, Villain spoke. “Alright,” they said softly, “I’m done.”

Hero opened their eyes. Villain massaged the sides of their temples, bloody gloves removed. “You’re one stubborn person, Hero,” they said, mouth cracking into an exhausted grin.

“Uh… tha… thank you….”

A look of concern crossed Villain’s face. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, both from the gunshot and…” they gestured to the various cuts and bruises all over Hero’s body. “Honestly, it’s a miracle you woke up at all. I patched up the worst of it, but you’re gonna be recovering for a while.”

Hero blinked, the memory of their team leader fresh in their mind. “Are… are we… safe… here…?”

Villain glanced over their shoulder to the door. A beat of silence passed before they answered. “Yeah, pretty sure. We’re in one of my safe houses right now, no one saw us come in. And the only one who saw you come to me is now dead in an alley which—” they grimaced— “isn’t going to bode well for me whether or not your former team connects the dots.”

“...I’m… I’m sorry I…”

Villain held up their hands, scowling. “Do not apologize. You needed help, you still need help, and I promise you: I’m not gonna let those assholes lay a finger on you. Understand?”

Hero nodded to the best of their ability. Their movement was still limited, but they had begun to regain sensation in their fingers and toes. They wiggled them experimentally. It was like moving someone else’s hand.

The motion caught Villain’s eye, and they smacked the side of their head. “Right. Analgesics. I’ll be right back, you do not want the painkillers to wear off anytime soon.”

Hero watched them leave. They slowly exhaled, trying to calm their racing nerves.

They were safe.

Villain had promised.

Everything would be okay.

Part 1 | Part 3

[thefandomenchantress]

A new Disventure Camp episode came out today!! I figured now would be a good time to list some of my thoughts. Not only on this episode in particular, but also on Hunter's whole situation.

I mostly liked Ashley this episode, which is good since it was her last, but there's this one point in the episode that bothered me a lot, that being how she blows up at Jake and Ally for not getting along...And then just immediately forgives Jake the next scene when he gets sad?

I don't care if they make up, that's not what I'm getting at, but I really wish Jake would've apologized and said something like: "I'm sorry, Ashley, you're always so supportive and I just keep messing things up. I--I should've blown up at Ally like that-" and then have Ashley forgive him. As it is, I got some severe whiplash by how it seemed like Ashley was having a falling out with Jake and Ally, genuinely being mad at them, only for that to just be forgotten a few minutes later. I understand that Ashley is a forgiving person, but it seems too extreme even for her to just forgive him without him doing anything but complain about Tom being close. That's just what I think, though.

I really liked the rest of the episode, besides that small nitpick. I was worried I wouldn't like Gabby as much if she became evil and a legitimate threat, since I liked her more cartoony demeanor. Luckily, my worry was misplaced, because Gabby is just as silly as ever, even if she is trying to be evil. She literally said she was going to make a costume with a cape and mask to be evil in like she's a Scooby-doo villain or something, I love her so much. Then again, Yul did say she was a "Tumblr girl" so maybe it makes sense that I like her haha. While Gabby is a threat now, the writers don't try to make you take her super seriously, which I appreciated. Non-serious villains are always my favorites.

Sadly, I got Ashley's elimination partially spoiled for me (someone replied to a comment I made on the YouTube trailer for the episode, saying something along the lines of, 'yeah she goes home :)' to someone else in the replies who speculated she would. The downside of your comment becoming popular I guess). But I still liked it and genuinely considered that the person might've been lying when the elimination ceremony started. That was a pretty good subversion of expectations, I really thought Aiden was a goner.

I've never been a big fan of Jake, and while I'm not desperate for him to go home...I'm kind of over him, if I'm being honest. I know he's supposed to be flawed and partially unlikeable, but personally I just can't deal with all his bullshit, it stresses me out. I've never been too invested in TomJake, so all that nonsense this season hasn't been too fun for me, I'll be honest. I understand why people like it, but it's just not for me, I suppose. At this point I'm thankful James got out early, so that at least there's no drama between him and Aiden (yet). Most of the relationships this season are going downhill, haha. Except for Ally and Tess (please bring the polycule back I miss it it's one of the only polycule representations I've ever seen in media PLEASE--).

(Now starting the Hunter section. if you don't want to hear my insane ramblings about him, turn back.)

...I don't know when I'm going to make another post about Disventure Camp so I'm gonna vent about Hunter here, too. He was technically mentioned this episode, so it's totally relevant that I talk about him, right? Right.

Hunter was my favorite in season 2. I honestly don't know why, since he's pretty bland all things considered. Usually, I like the zany characters. I think it was him repeatedly failing to befriend Tess that pulled me in, since I can never resist a...Boyfailure? I think that's the internet term for it.

But this season I was just...NOT into his characterization. And as far as I've seen, I'm in the minority with that opinion, since I've seen a lot of people say they like him more now. The main line of reasoning I've seen is, "He was boring in season 2, and I liked him better in All-Stars because they gave him flaws."

And...I don't agree. I'm fine with them 3-dimentionaliszing his character, I agree that he was pretty flat before in terms of characterization. Actually, I'd love if they gave him some flaws! What if they highlight how bad he is at making connections/alliances with anyone other than Ally and Tess? They kind of do this by making Fiore be on his team and showing how his strategy of "win challenges to stay in the game" completely falls apart when he can't win challenges. And I thought that was all fine and good.

The thing I don't like is how they decided one of his main flaws should be being a not-good boyfriend. Which just doesn't feel right to me? His whole thing in season two was offering emotional support to Ally and Tess, and now they spin it so that he isn't paying proper attention to Ally or what she says, not grabbing her Switch, not listening to her when she talks about her games, etc.. I'm fine with Ally and Hunter having relationship troubles, but...I don't know, I guess I'm just a little mad they took his compassion away. He just seems a lot angrier and more mean-spirited this go around. He's not fun to watch. I think I have a good example to prove what I mean.

In the Secret-revealing episode of season 2, one of Ally's secrets is that she yelled at a group of children until they cried because they were using cheats in a game she was playing, and her excuse for doing so is that she was stressed. The writers bashing Ally aside, Hunter says something like, "Do you always yell at children when you're stressed?" in response, showing that even though he hasn't met those children who were doing something wrong, he doesn't think lashing out at them was okay.

...Meanwhile season 3 Hunter is yelling and lashing out at Fiore, a child, the whole time he's in the game. I know it's not exactly the same, Fiore is a bit of a demon-child, and Hunter was, ironically, stressed, but still. He seems so much more competitive and not as nice as he used to be. Being chill used to be his default, but now it's a sort of aggressiveness that just doesn't mesh with the original Hunter in my mind.

...I recently read that something happened behind the scenes that helped create this change in characterization, but as someone who wasn't aware of that when the first episodes aired and became upset when he was changed, I really would've liked to at least have an in-universe explanation instead of this just happening. Because until I read that information, I thought they changed him just because they thought the audience didn't like him much in season two. In short, I thought it was a needless retcon and became upset when there was no explanation for the change. If the behind-the-scenes stuff was a big enough deal that they wanted to change him like this without in-universe explanation...I might've preferred them just not using him at all. Then again, the season's not over. So I guess it's a little unfair of me to assume anything yet.

Anyways, that's all just my opinion. Feel free to share your thoughts or tell me why you think I'm being too dramatic about Hunter, haha. I feel like I'm one of very few season-two-Hunter enjoyers, so I'm not expecting that to be a super popular take. I'm just mopey that he changed, I guess.

[chaifootsteps]

Stolas' biggest issue in terms of writing is that he's like 3 entirely different dudes. You've got the horrible, horny, racist monster. The silly, goofy dad who's trying his best. And the poor, helpless victim of circumstance. In each scene he's in he's only ever one of these things, and it's jarring.

I'm not saying a character can't have contradictory traits, if done by someone who knows what they're doing it can be used to great effect, HOWEVER it just straight up DOES NOT WORK here. The guy jumps between entirely different personas depending on what they need for a scene and not because there's any sort of internal consistency in the way he behaves.

The irritating part is that I actually LIKE aspects of Stolas but I can't LIKE the character because each of his appearances undermines every other appearance. I can't like him as a villain because they uwu soft-boy'd him in season 2, and I can't like him when he acts silly because he pulled a fucking quid pro quo sexual assault in season 1 and there's no throughline between them. It's just 'don't worry he nicey now :)'

Even if it was fixed Stolitz still sucks though, those two bastards have ZERO chemistry. No amount of retconned in childhood-friends bullshit is going to fix the fact that they don't fit together on any level. Stolas would serve the narrative way better as like... a sponsor for IMP, but that would mean they'd have to focus on the PREMISE FOR THEIR TV SHOW instead of manufactured angst.

I could love cold, manipulative, sexual predator Stolas and I could love soft, all loving victim of circumstance Stolas, and I could love any of the other Stolases Stolas has been written as. But it's too much to ask me to agree that they're all exactly the same character, and that it all makes sense. That's like saying the sky's green.

I legitimately don't know whether Stolas is even fixable at this point, but if he is, it would take some writing magic and more importantly, some writing discipline that Vivzie just doesn't seem willing or capable of pulling off.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Cul-de-Sacs are Bad Writing

Ok, I have to be honest with y'all here. I didn't QUITE throw this book at the wall, but I WANTED TO. I don't know what HAPPENED with this book. ACOTAR was aggressively fine, if poorly paced and plotted, and ACOMAF was actually fun to read and enjoyable. Then we get to ACOWAR and the pacing and plotting problems are back with a goddamn vengeance, there are chapter cul-de-sacs that go nowhere and add nothing to the story or the character arcs, and SJM has this GODDAMN INFURIATING HABIT of just...picking up words that have specific meanings in specific contexts, going "that sounds cool" and dropping them places that make my extremely well-read, allusion-alert brain tweak in some extremely painful places because you can't just...APPROPRIATE WORDS LIKE "SERAPHIM" AND "MYRMIDONS" WITHOUT MEANINGFULLY RECONTEXTUALIZING THEM!!!! Not to mention that SJM murders the stakes of this book in their cradle. I swear to cauldron, this book was actually inexcusably bad. So let's talk A Court of Wings and Ruin.

So this is both your SPOILER WARNING and your heads up that this will be a RANT REVIEW. If you loved this book, this is not the review for you. Do not come crying to me that you weren't warned if you read past this point. This is also a CONTENT WARNING because there will be mentions and discussions of sexual assault because every SJM villain is also a rapist for SOME REASON.

I don't even know where to start with this book. I suppose...I suppose we could start with a few of the things I didn't hate. Oh, and the one thing I actually did like. That seems like a good way to begin.

The one thing about this book that I actually genuinely enjoyed was getting the foundation for Nessian. I was actually interested in Nesta's emotional journey because she had some goddamn agency in it. Like yes, she was yote into the cauldron against her will, but she never let go of her agency and she MADE it give her something in return. Like, yes girl, tell me more. Explore that. Dig in. And also, yes, I too am interested in the man-bunned jock who, when he is adulting, is a general and baddest bat boy on the battlefield. I enjoy their evolution from schoolyard hair pulling and insult slinging to actual partnership on and off the battlefield. I almost get a "he fell first, she fell harder" vibe from them, but their dynamics aren't fully cooked yet so don't quote me on that. Nessian was the best part of this book for me.

I also appreciated the setup and payoff of Nesta getting to absolutely annihilate the King of Hybern. There was something deeply satisfying about her taking his head off slowly and brutally for what he did to her and Elain. That was a great moment, even if the broader scene was in a part of the book where the stakes had long been dead and buried and the Nessian stakes in particular felt a little...hollow...as a result. Still loved the visceral, hands-on revenge murder for Nesta. Why yes, I did major in early modern drama and yes, I do have a thing for revenge tragedies. What gave me away?

Finally, can we PLEASE give Nesta the goddamn credit she deserves for single-handedly saving the High Lords alliance meeting? Because Feyre fucking blew it. She fireballed and everyone was about to bail and Nesta single-handedly saved the damn meeting through sheer force of personality. Girl understood the stakes and was the only one in the room who managed to get past the petty political and emotional bullshit and keep that big picture in mind. Nesta is a queen in her own right and frankly? She's a better Rhys than Rhys is in terms of actually trying to create a better world.

Sadly, we must now move on from the things I liked to the things I didn't hate. And there were actually a few, although they're more moments and little pieces of themes and character than actual themes and character arcs, because this book does actual themes and character arcs TERRIBLY. But. I didn't actually hate Amren getting to be high fae at the end of the book. Amren's whole deal was that she had to choose to be someone else to get out of the prison, and in the years she has BEEN Amren, I think she discovered that she really likes being Amren. The fact that she gets to be high fae Amren at the end of the book, that she gets to be the person she chose and likes? I can't not get behind that. The way we got there was inexcusably monster ex machina and SJM leaned WAY too hard on resurrections (Not even joking, when I was reading this, I live-reacted at my sister going "WTF AMREN!!" and her response was literally "give it five minutes, she'll be back".) in this book, but the core of "Amren gets to be the person she chose and liked" was good. I didn't hate that.

This might seem petty, but another thing I didn't hate was Feyre constantly crashing into trees, walls, and the ground while learning to fly. Some of these moments were genuinely comedic, some of them were nice little arrogance takedowns, and sometimes it was really just nice to see Feyre hit a hard surface at speed because lord knows I wanted to fling objects at her more than a few times this book. The pitfalls of learning to fly also felt real, grounded, and appropriately frustrating, so I didn't hate those scenes.

I also can't say I hated Feyre systematically dismantling both Ianthe's and Tamlin's credibility in the Spring Court. Was it shortsighted and ultimately counter to the larger goals of the book? God yes. Was it petty AF? Hell yes. Was it really straining the credibility of Feyre as "the people's hero"? YOU FUCKING BET YOUR ASS IT WAS. But all of that said...my God it was satisfying to watch Feyre show back up to the Spring Court and take it apart piece by piece. It's wildly unfair to Tamlin, but SJM seems to have appointed this poor 20-something with generational and personal trauma, leadership responsibility, no experience and no help as the series punching bag, and I can't fix that. All I can do is enjoy the petty assholery of Feyre taking his entire world apart (and shooting herself in the foot as she does so). (I was less enamored of Feyre beating Ianthe's hands into pulp instead of killing her. I am aware it was for plot reasons, but that was possibly the dumbest decision she could have made.) So while the early chapters of the book were objectively a Tamlin character assassination, those early chapters paced decently well and were fun in a petty, set-it-on-fire-to-watch-it-burn kind of way.

Another thing I super did not hate was Lucien. Lucien has always been an interesting character, and he shows himself to be capable of critical thought in this book, which we love to see! Then of course SJM writes him out for 85% of the book, so there's not a lot of time and space to love him.

Ooh, I also liked Bryaxis. Cool idea, great vibes, and I'm very much here for Feyre STILL NOT BEING ABLE TO INTERNALIZE NOT MAKING DEALS WITH FAE OR ELDRITCH HORRORS. Like...girl. You were warned multiple times, but now you have shadow kitty wanting pets. Did not hate anything about that.

Which...I think rather takes us to the end of the things I didn't hate about this book. Yikes, that is a short list. So if you're a Feysand stan or adored this book and somehow made it this far, I am going to respectfully suggest bailing now. I did not enjoy the rest of this book, and I'm going to explain why. If you're cool with that, we love to have you. If not, we will catch you next time.

For everyone who is still here, let's dive into ALL THE THINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK THAT WERE INEXCUSABLY BAD. And we're going to have to start with Rhysand, because dear god, what the hell happened. (And yes, I ended that sentence with a period. That sentence doesn't deserve a question mark.)

I thoroughly enjoyed cocky asshole Under-the-Mountain Rhys. He was a dick, he knew it, but he also had a sense of...idk, almost fair play that worked for him. I also am a big proponent of if you're going to write a cocky asshole, they better ENJOY that shit. "Hello Feyre, darling" was an A+ moment. It was the epitome of cocky asshole who knows he's a cocky asshole and enjoys it. I was tentatively on board with secret feminist Rhys in ACOMAF, but then we get to this book, and I just straight-up could not with traumatized bat bitch who was willing to completely toss his ideals out the window and retraumatize his found family for...reasons. In no particular order, these are the things I took issue with where Rhys was concerned:

Repeatedly traumatizing Mor and then INVALIDATING her very reasonable responses to him full-on not giving a fuck if the Darkbringer legion raped and pillaged their way across a battlefield, bringing Eris Vanserra into a meeting without warning her, opening Velaris to the night court, and invalidating her (heavily implied to be) sexual trauma and abuse by saying he'd have worked with Amarantha so she should work with whoever he tells her to. Like...holy shit Rhys, you say you're over here to help women recover and heal from these kinds of traumas, so WHAT THE HELL IS MOR TO YOU? All of this was shitty and Mor lets him off the hook way, way too easily. I'm not going to, though. Rhys was actively playing "my trauma was worse than yours" with Mor and that's a SHITTY thing to do to literal family--both blood and chosen.

Rhys letting Feyre off the hook for invading Lucien's mind. Let's be super real here: Feyre has been kind of a bad friend to Lucien from minute one. She has no boundaries, no ethics, and is possibly the worst person to have her particular set of powers. But it's not like she's getting EFFECTIVE HELP AND GUIDANCE from the one other person with that particular skill. She apologized to RHYS about it and he accepted the apology and told her she wouldn't cross the line again. Like...Sir. That was LUCIEN'S APOLOGY to either accept or reject, and I no longer love that you don't have ethics around this power use either. Shaky magical ethics are NOT GOOD. Adhere to them or don't, as is appropriate for a character, but like...have them well-established and strong. (It is possible I read Arrows of the Queen at too formative an age, but y'know, magical ethics are a thing I think about!)

Rhys's self-sacrifice obsession. This is one of those "your mileage may vary" things, but it absolutely did not work for me as a reader. I am too steeped in the "Dying for people is easy, it lets you off the hook" mentality to appreciate Rhys over here constantly going "If there is a price, I will pay it with my life." It also made fixing the cauldron REALLY fucking frustrating for me, because they had the five minutes to get the rest of the inner circle over there (or literally any of the other high lords or people with magic) to help. There was also an opportunity for a found family save, with Rhys going for the sacrifice play and the fam going "Hell no." But no, we had to LIE TO OUR WIFE and DIE. For all of about five minutes before we do a Twilight where "OH-EM-GEE FEYRE NOW YOU TRULY UNDERSTAND HOW I FELT UNDER THE MOUNTAIN" because apparently empathy isn't something Feyre is capable of...? I keep getting told not to try to logic this book, but some of this just defies even vibe reading, you guys.

I found Rhys a STRUGGLE and deeply unsympathetic this book despite a tragic backstory that should have done a lot of heavy lifting. Like, he's had some genuinely harrowing and traumatizing experiences. But then he invalidates other people's trauma and is super willing to INFLICT it on people. And he's not even got the courtesy to ENJOY it, so then I'm just over here drowning in angsty man pain that is in no small part of his own making...like there were moments I genuinely went "Did Rhys and Harry Dresden go to the same school of man pain?" I lack patience for this kind of non-self-reflective nonsense these days. I understand being protective of family and wanting your family to be ok, but Rhys gets smothery and toxic in ways that I am not here for.

Since a fair amount of my issues with Rhys are how he treats Mor, I think that makes for a decent segue into my issues with how Mor is handled. These come in two somewhat intertwined branches. The first is Mor's treatment of Nesta. The second is how SJM handles Mor's sexuality.

I'm going to say right here and right now, these books were DYING for LGBTQIA+ representation. These books are SO heteronormative, and adding representation would have been lovely...except that I would argue that the rep was handled poorly, leaned into harmful stereotypes, and poked holes in both Mor's characterization and the narrative structure of the book. I'm not here to disbelieve Mor when she says she prefers women, but finds pleasure with both men and women. I believe Mor. What I do think is that SJM coded Mor as straight for two and a half books, and that last-second pivot does a couple of things.

First, it calls Morrigan into question as a reliable narrator out of absolutely nowhere. Nowhere in ACOTAR or ACOMAF do we get a sense that Mor is an unreliable narrator. She has her perspective and biases, as any character does, but nowhere do we get the sense that she is hiding anything or lying. The inner circle TRUSTS her, that is established and shown. To suddenly have her go "Yeah, I've been lying to Cassian and Azriel for 500 years, and every time Azriel gets too clingy I sleep with a man where he can see to remind him to back off" is deeply toxic and this is sort of...never addressed? Not to mention that until this point, I had read Mor's leaning into open sexuality as a way to take agency and control after what her family did to her, and the reveal that she's bi kind of changes that into the "promiscuous bisexual who is often toxic" stereotype, which like...HATE THAT for Mor. The writing directly undercut something I was reading as strength and made it stereotype-y and toxic, and I hate that. And the book doesn't even address it! I could see a plotline in which Mor recognizing and addressing this toxicity and evolving herself and her relationships with the inner circle to a point where she is out, happy, healthy, and supported, and her boys are just happy she trusts them enough to be her whole self with them, but the book doesn't do that. It just reiterates stereotypes and keeps Mor with one foot in the closet and one foot out of it. LET MORRIGAN BE HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND HER WHOLE SELF!!!

And for the love of god have her stop actively being nasty and aggressive at Nesta over Nesta's interest in Cassian. That was uncalled for on every possible level. Before we get the bi reveal, it was the tired, toxic, girls fighting over a man thing. Afterward, it's another really ugly layer of Mor trying to keep Cassian trapped as a permanent buffer between her and Azriel. Literally nothing about this dynamic is good, but again, the book just kind of...presents it and does nothing with it. And I really don't love that because the potential for strong communication and growth in the inner circle dynamics was THERE and it was INTERESTING and then it was SQUANDERED in favor of the Feysand show. And it's not like there are any other characters to give another perspective on this--we just have Helion who also falls into that bisexual stereotype. So I would have loved some more representation here, but the representation we got was...not ideal.

I also have a bit of a bone to pick with the Illyrian wings. They got SO SET UP as delicate and difficult to fix if you fuck them up. But then all three of our bat boys have them absolutely shredded in this book and like...it's not fun but it's also not given the weight I'd have expected from how they were built up in ACOMAF.

We cannot talk about this book without also talking a little bit about the bigass High Lords Alliance Meeting. This thing got SO HYPED in the first half of this book. Like it was constantly being talked about, planned, and reiterated in terms of its importance. I was expecting an actual discussion about politics and alliances and the practicalities of working together to defeat Hybern. And in SJM's defense...we do get a little bit of that. But MOSTLY what we get is high-school level sniping, aggravated assault, and FEYRE FUCKING FIREBALLS BERON. Which pretty much could have torpedoed the meeting except for Nesta. NGL y'all, I was SO LET DOWN by this whole series of chapters. But at least these chapters had actual effects on the story...unlike the next bunch of scenes and chapters.

The latter half of this book, and particularly once the war gets going properly, this book is FULL TO THE GODDAMN BRIM of cul-de-sac scenes and chapters that go nowhere and affect the status quo not at all. Big standout examples of this include Elain getting kidnapped by Hybern and Rhys being dead for like five minutes.

Elain getting kidnapped by Hybern was literally just payoff for Feyre's flying lessons. Which didn't end up mattering anywhere else. Az and Feyre do a quickie side quest to rescue Elain and some random girl and Az gets his wings shredded, but it's ok, they have healers and he can *checks notes* MAGICALLY PATCH WOUNDS LONG ENOUGH TO GET BACK. Sure. Whatever. At this point I didn't even care, nothing mattered and there were no stakes. They get Elain back. It's fine.

Rhys was dead for less than ten minutes. Holly Goddamn Short could have brought him back easier than she brought Butler back. And it's not like we genuinely thought that Rhys was going to die after all that, this isn't that kind of book. Literally I'm so pissed off though, because SJM full-on did the whole, "Now you know what I went through when you died under the mountain, Feyre" thing. Like...is empathy not one of her skills? Or is Rhys so insecure that he can't imagine empathy without a 1:1 experience relationship? I hated this so much because it was dumb, it isn't how EMOTIONS work, and frankly? Why didn't Rhys want to SPARE her that experience? Because it sounded like it sucked.

I also need to address the Jurian/Mirayam/Drakon/Seraphim thing. It was underdeveloped as hell, doesn't come to a satisfying ending, and "OOPSIE POOPSIE OUR SHIELDS DON'T HAVE FRIEND FILTERS" so they were exactly where they were meant to be the whole damn time was fucking infuriating. This either needed development or to be left in draft, and at this point I don't care which.

Finally, the end of this book just felt limp. We half-assedly attempted to get everyone to renegotiate the treaty, and then went back to Velaris and broke out the good stuff. It is possibly the limpest ending I've read in a longass time.

This book didn't need to be this long. There was too much padding and not enough development, and a lot of it was just infuriating. The Mirror of Ouroboros was super underdeveloped, the character dynamics got driven into the ground, and the writing was deeply problematic on a bunch of technical levels. I have NOT forgiven the use of "twisted" or "Seraphim" or "Myrmidon" wildly out of context. These terms do not just...decouple from their connotations and contexts because SJM think they sound cool and yeet them at a book. The truly infuriating thing was the squandered potential after ACOMAF, because I genuinely enjoyed that book. I can't say the same of ACOWAR.

[jedi-enthusiast]

My Thoughts on Episode 2

I have now moved into my dorm and gotten more used to college life, so here is the post about Ahsoka episode 2 as promised---keep in mind, though, just like episode one these are just my thoughts upon first watching it. They may change or I may go into further detail on them in the future.

----------

Once again, the scenes just feel...so utterly hollow and flat.

There's no emotion exchanged when Sabine and Ahsoka talk---neither Ahsoka nor Sabine ever actually seem worried- (whether it's about Sabine or the map) -nor do they ever seem stubborn, defensive, irritated/angry, or anything else that you would expect.

Again, it's all just hollow.

----------

I'm gonna be honest, the villains are the singular interesting part of this show for me right now.

----------

LOTH CAT!!!

----------

So, even though other people have literally died by getting a lightsaber to the gut, Sabine is perfectly fine to be sitting up and working on a droid and moving around like...a day or so afterwards?

The fuck?

Even if her surviving is possible- (since other people have pointed out that it is, when taking other things into account) -she shouldn’t be all fine and dandy and moving around! That shit should hurt!

----------

Also, I've seen so many people point to Ahsoka telling Sabine- "no, you've done enough." -when Sabine says she can help as this badass line and saying- "yes, let Ahsoka be angry!" -but, ignoring the fact that there was no emotion whatsoever when she said that...

...how is it badass or "sticking it to Sabine" when she literally goes back to Sabine for the help she offered like an hour later?

----------

Again, Sabine should not be moving like that after getting stabbed with a lightsaber.

----------

"Yes, let's put this whole hospital full of people in danger because we can't be bothered to relocate, because of a timeline that we have not been very clear about---a timeline that may or may not have consequences, because we also haven't been very clear about why the timeline is the way it is or what will happen if it's not followed."

Wow, this show is just...really trying to make me not like or root for these characters at all.

I'm just...wow.

----------

I've said it once and I'll say it again, the villains are the only interesting part of this show right now.

Also, I fucking loved Baylan mentioning Jedi younglings and that little snippet of Jedi culture---the fairytales they were taught.

Although I do think it's fucking nuts that the Darksider, the villains, are giving us more insight into Jedi culture than the actual fucking "Jedi" of the show.

----------

CHOPPER!!!

----------

Someone else explained it better in another post- (I'll reblog and add it here once I actually find it again) -but the guy that's playing the "businessman who's only loyal to his investors- (aka he does things for greed)" -is an actor, who I think is Jewish if I'm remembering correctly, who is known for playing pretty much only Jewish characters...

...I don't think I need to explain how making his character one who does things only for greed is antisemitic.

----------

Again with the Sabine as a Jedi thing???

Non-Force-sensitives can't become Jedi---being a Jedi is being apart of a culture that is specifically centered around Force sensitivity!!!

And Sabine already has a culture, she's Mandalorian for fuck's sake!

Just-

I'm sorry, this whole fucking thing pisses me off---she better turn out to be Force-sensitive and Dave is just retconning that, because otherwise I'm going to lose my goddamn mind.

----------

"I heard your repairs were complete."

Except they shouldn't be because she literally got stabbed with a fucking lightsaber, it should take longer than just about a day to heal---with or without a bacta tank.

----------

I swear to fucking god-

Not this bullshit again.

Please, please, I'm begging, just retcon Sabine to be a little bit Force-sensitive and don't pull some "non-Force-sensitive Jedi can be a thing" bullshit. Please-

----------

"I'm a general, nothing's classified to me."

That's not how that works.

----------

CHOPPER AGAIN!!!

----------

I love Chopper so much istg, I'm at least glad my favorite homicidal droid is back in action <3

----------

LOTH CAT AGAIN!!!

----------

Ok, this scene is reminding me of it specifically, but why hasn't Sabine been wearing her armor? We literally never see her without it in Rebels and being Mandalorian is a huge facet of her identity, why has she not been wearing it?

Once again, I assume this'll be explained later, so I'm trying to hold back my judgement, but if it's not explained later then...honestly it's just confusing.

----------

Wow, so not only was the Jewish actor cast to play someone whose motivation is greed, but they also made him a bad guy...just...wow.

----------

*long sigh at Ahsoka calling Sabine "padawan"*

----------

Oh hey, the big evil bad guy station kinda fucks ngl

----------

I'm gonna be honest, Baylan---again, the bad guy---honestly shows more emotion at there being "so few Jedi left" than Ahsoka---who's supposed to be the good guy, and who's apparently just decided to take up the Jedi mantle again---does.

Also, isn't this show set before the Sequels?

So how are there "so few Jedi left" if Luke is building a new Order that's apparently successful enough to have Order 66 2.0 in the Sequels?

[ikemenomegas]

Itachi Uchiha x Reader

Fear is the mind killer (1)

cw: navel gazey fake sherlock holms bullshit, set in the omegaverse although that's largely irrelevant to plot, alpha!reader, this oc suffers from a good amount of justified paranoia, also warning for attempts to be realistic about the whole child-soldier thing

A better member of the village would have put it all behind them, the whole sordid affair of one of the village's founding clans, a noble clan, being all but wiped out in a night.

It was an act of madness, of power, sometimes seen in the shinobi world. In a single night, the entire clan, fair and shrewd, cruel and arrogant, kind and dedicated, had been made martyrs.

Everyone except the eldest son of the clan head, who was now a villain, and the youngest son of the same, who was now a victim.

If anyone else was stunned into denial and disbelief they, like you, kept their silence. If this was the work of an enemy then it was one that was strong enough only the highest ranking members of the village would know much about it. If it was, more terrifying, the work of a supposed friend to the village, then there was something rotten in the roots of Konoha's great tree.

If it was truly madness, part of you didn't wonder if maybe the village deserved its grief. Itachi had had friends, or at least people who considered themselves his friends. He was an ANBU, one who waded into the dark. Those around him should have never let things get this far.

There was no funeral, which would have been the choice of the last village-bound Uchiha.

Still for there to be no public memorial for a founding clan was strange.

It would have been Uchiha Sasuke's choice, but you wished someone had counseled him to make a different one, even if it would dredge up painful memories. The completely silent and echoing absence of a whole clan in the village was resounding.

The knowledge of who had done it - the jounin and chunin were all whispering about it, it was impossible to keep secret and the village had given up trying almost before it had began - felt like the aftermath of a punch pulled right before it hit your nose.

You suspected you weren't alone in feeling like the massacre being just the Uchiha had been a near miss.

Your mind craved distraction from its own grief, and for better or worse, any information about the event was placed into some box in your mind like sweeping up the shattered remains of a vase. And like broken porcelain, it rattled when you walked with it.

It rattled when villagers fell suddenly silent at odd moments in their own conversations, whether what conversation you heard had seemed to hint at ill will or sympathy towards the Uchiha.

It rattled when you realized it was the forty-ninth day after the massacre and while your steps had taken you past the village's largest temple, your fear of being watched - you had after all been one of the friends (or at least acquaintances) of now traitor Uchiha Itachi - kept you from going inside.

It rattled whenever you caught sight of the other clan heads, distant and alone or with a cohort of vassal clan members and trusted guards, and wondered what they made of the event. What did they think of the lack of response from the village? What did they make of the power vacuum?

You walked back to your apartment in silence after leaving your teammates each day, the back of your neck prickling.

Most jounin sensei preached against fear. It froze the senses or focused them without the benefit of incorporating other information. Your sensei was a beta woman from no clan lineage in particular who had taken one look at your team, fresh out of the academy, in the middle of a village still somewhat resentful of how it was still rebuilding itself after being trampled on by a hundred meter chakra monster, and told you all that fear, like pain, meant something was wrong.

Sometimes it could be ignored or fought through to be dealt with in the future. Sometimes it was telling you something important about yourself or your environment.

As fear was in the mind, however, it liked to be more difficult to deal with than pain. It was the shinobi's responsibility, she counseled, to discern when your body was being reasonably ridiculous about it (like when your teammate put a thorny beetle down the back of your collar), or when it could put you in danger.

Such as would be the case for one trapped in a potent genjutsu. Or one of likely a number being watched for their response in the aftermath of a local upheaval.

Everyone seemed to be watching with bated breath to see if anyone else would do something. You had no idea what would happen if someone decided to break rank. The enemy on the other side of the field was entirely obscured.

Or at least they were trying to be.

You went to training and returned home day by day with only the varied and mindless sort of wandering someone both surprised and grieving might do.

The pieces rattled around as you sifted through them, thoughtlessly tracing the edges.

There was a formation among many others that your sensei had laid before your team. Shinobi had many ways of laying traps for their enemies, and for those they were not sure yet were enemies.

Nagano Botan was a branch member of the Akimichi family and blessed with the corresponding large build and large chakra reserves. He was the center of a strategy in your team that involved his intentionally neglecting to suppress his chakra if you suspected yourselves being monitored. The enormity of his natural power effectively drowned out the other chakra signatures in close proximity so that a typical sensor who wasn't sure what they were looking for could underestimate your team's number or miss a position.

It also had the secondary effect of intimidation. There was less likelihood of an attack from those without enough information if they thought they were outclassed to begin with.

This plan didn't work all the time, but it worked often enough on simple protection missions where the enemy were hill bandits or mountain bandits or simply cowards that the technique was taught to genin.

Sometimes the best defense was a distraction. It aligned at least with the philosophy of those whose job it was to be a constant and possible threat, lurking in the dark.

You frowned to yourself. ANBU was about as deep as the shadows got but there hadn't been any other announced defections from the village in the same week or even month.

There had been very ostensibly nothing else happening at all.

Not that you would know what was happening, you thought sourly, pulling your mind back to the exercise at hand.

Your other teammate, Kuniko, was on a hidden branch practicing throwing senbon through leaves that you sent spiraling into the air

She was very good with them and it had become one of your favorite things to see a fall of steel needles coming down like rain from a direction that your enemies hadn't anticipated. She was however working on precision and you were working on control and cultivating a second chakra nature, so this resulted in you sending leaves spiraling the wrong way in relation to the ground and trying to will your chakra to split them before Kuniko could pin them through with her throwing needles.

By tally, she was winning and it seemed more and more likely that you were going end up buying her the wagered plate of sakuramochi.

It was one of the less physically demanding but mentally taxing exercises your team had in its training repertoire and you and Kuniko, who was experimenting with adjusting throwing angles with chakra threads as well, took scheduled breaks to let Botan ply the two of you with snacks and meditate in order to recenter your control and focus.

They were talking, each pressing Arakawa-sensei with questions about their individual training, while you twirled a leaf between your fingers. You were comfortable, nestled between the roots of a tree with your back pressed to its warm trunk. You were trying to sense the layers of the leaf and direct your chakra to split it that way, rather than along the main vein.

It was perhaps a tad too complicated, certainly too complicated to be useful in the field right now, but you were feeling a bit mischievous and bifurcating Kuniko's target in a way that appeared to duplicate it was tempting.

You rolled the stem between your fingers, careful to maintain the chakra-cycling breath that was the base root of this particular meditation. The leaf's top side was shiny, glossy and very green, the other less vibrant and soft, spongy. You brought it to your nose and pulled in the green growing scent. The underside prickled your skin, not as soft as you had imagined.

Kuniko was laughing at something but somehow that sound suddenly made you wary, like there was something at just that same frequency you couldn't hear.

You were careful. This feeling was not unfamiliar since the massacre. The sudden and unprovoked sense of panic, of missing something. Intentionally, you avoided catching Arakawa-sensei's eye. She would help you if it was unreasoned panic, but you felt like this was one of those thing she had mentioned.

One of those times when fear meant that something was wrong and that something important was right there, just beyond articulation, and it needed to be brought into the realm of thought before it could be dealt with.

What kind of threats were simply too deep to be acknowledged?

The kind that lived at your very back.

Kuniko called your name to begin again and you used the tree to support you when you stood and picked carefully over the grass when you walked over.

It was now time for a rotation. Botan was to practice tree walking, standing upside down or sideways in order to avoid detection, so fluid that not even a leaf would fall from the trees above. Kuniko was to try burning the leaves that did fall before you could catch them in your hand. At the same time, you were each trying to tag Botan out before he got to one of you, without being seen.

You fought back a scowl, because there was already an answer. Like a sliver of porcelain found under the wardrobe or stabbed into your palm. A shiver passed over your back when Arakawa-sensei popped up behind the two of you on the ground, a sinister warning to get out there and get started in her eyes, but the shiver stayed for different reasons.

For one, the kind of wind that promised a chill storm had kicked up, helping Botan to hide within the noise. For another, you quite literally felt like you would jump at your own shadow if the forest hadn't already swallowed it.

What kind of shadow was deeper than ANBU?

You didn't know, but you were certain that Uchiha Itachi had a good idea.

A/n: This is the promised start to a short series that is about Itachi's Alpha's decision to go find Itachi, and their thought process in discerning what was going on behind the scenes of the Uchiha massacre. It is incredibly navel gazey and doesn't have much to do with the omegaverse apart from being set in that realm. As writer and readers I think we understand that despite the shinobi practice of treating academy graduates as adults, this does not mean that genin and advanced ranks are making completely rational/unemotional decisions. Itachi's decisions, which are focused on here, were incredibly emotional. Despite being saddled with an adult's burden and expected to make an adult's decisions, after watching and rewatching the relevant scenes of his conversations with the elders, as well as his confessions to Sasuke and others later on, I have come to a greater appreciation of the writing for those scenes(whether this is confirmation bias or truly present I don't know). Itachi's decision regarding the massacre is made based on fear, anger, desperation, love, and watching him makes his youth more obvious, even behind the reputation of his being an ANBU captain and the clan heir. The mc in this is an unreliable narrator partly due to their own age, as well as what I imagine would be incredibly stressful circumstances post-massacre. In part 1, they don't love Itachi. Yet. They just remember him. If you've had such similar experience regarding persistent thoughts about someone before, you may recognize the experience of the object of mc's thoughts becoming a kind of obsession as they replay scenes and ideas over and over. They also know that although Itachi was at a level far beyond his own peers, he was also part of their age group, which is a bit like watching one of the gifted kids go to all the advanced classes but still know they're in the same literature class as you or something. So I don't think they, starting off as a genin when this happens, has quite the understanding of ANBU to really believe that Itachi is behaving like an ANBU or jounin veteran would. Everything in this will come from the mc's point of view and they are not always aware of the assumptions they are making at every step, despite doing their best to reason things out. Importantly, they are being coached by Itachi's "voice". Some assumptions they eventually will have to admit came into being because they didn't want a friend and someone they looked up to be a murderer and leave it at that. Sometimes the things we want to be true about ourselves and other people give us blinders. Shinobi are taught to be unfeeling and told that the highest honor would be to be a perfect tool, easily molded. But we see how that works out over and over again, with Itachi, with Obito, with Kakashi, with Sasuke, with Rin, with Tsunade and so on. And we see how individual thinking or great problem solving abilities, often in the children deemed prodigies by the villages (including many of the series' missing nin), sometimes going hand in hand with a nearly curse-level ability to empathize, buts up against the shinobi ideal. After all, empathy with your enemies would make you a fantastic strategist, but only if you can also stop thinking of other people as people. For better or worse, this mc becomes aware that they are "not a good shinobi" early on, and this transforms into an internalization of a "ninja way" that is not quite in lockstep with the village policies.

[kaiwewi]

Oooooooo part three of choice misfits please?

Choice Misfits #3

[Masterlist: Choice Misfits] [Part 1] [Part 2]

Synopsis: Sidekick wants Former Villain to be their mentor. Superhero and Hero try their best to change the kid's mind.

Former Villain coughed and sputtered, half-choking on the remnants of the gummy worm they’d been chewing. About a dozen other gummy worms tumbled from their hand and dropped onto the table.

Wheezing, they gaped at Sidekick. “You … what?”

There was no way Sidekick had actually said—

“I want you,” the kid repeated, “to be my mentor.”

Yeah, no. Ridiculous. Outrageous. They must have misheard that, again, somehow. Clearly, no upcoming hero would ever want a former villain as their mentor. Sidekick didn’t even like them. There was no way the kid would ever want them as their mentor.

Besides, the other heroes would never allow it.

Oh. It was a prank, wasn’t it? It had to be. And the whole team was in on it. They’d all start laughing, any moment now.

“Okay, yeah, funny.” They forced a chuckle. “Good prank. Almost fell for it.”

Superhero also started chuckling, reluctantly followed by a bunch of other heroes. No one seemed genuinely amused though, and the blatantly artificial laughter died a couple seconds later when Sidekick’s expression remained serious.

The kid patiently cocked their head to the side and crossed their arms.

Ah, fuck.

Superhero’s interview-ready smile returned full-force. The twitching muscle in her cheek only made it look even more fake than usually. “Sidekick, could we talk for a moment?” When the kid didn’t move, she added, “In private?”

“Why can’t we talk here?”

She stared the kid down, to no effect, then dropped the smile. “All right. Fine. I’d like you to reconsider.”

“Why?”

“Former Villain can’t be your mentor.”

Exactly! Not gonna happen. It was ludicrous. They couldn’t mentor some kid, and most definitely not this brat.

“Why not?” Sidekick asked and now they were the one smiling rather sweetly. “You said I could pick any member of the team.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Are they not part of the team?”

“They- yes, of course they are, but—”

“But you don’t trust them.”

“I did not say that. I—”

“You said everyone on the team is like family. Was that a lie? Or is this the kind of family where you can’t trust each other and exclude everyone you don’t like? – Because that’s not the kind of team I want to be a part of.”

Silence. Superhero seemed at a complete loss for words.

Hah, wow. Sidekick had destroyed her.

Someone should take a picture; that face she was pulling should be a meme: Superhero.exe has stopped working …

Hero neatly took over then, with another bullshit excuse. “Kiddo, it’s not that we don’t trust Former Villain. They simply aren’t qualified to mentor, yet. They’re still new. They’ve only joined 13 months ago. You'll have to pick someone else.”

Sidekick’s eyes fixed on him like a cat’s would on a fat rat. “Someone like Other Hero? When did she join the team again?”

About 11 months ago.

Damn, the kid was good …

Under other circumstances, watching Hero and Superhero losing an argument against a teenager would have been a moment to savour. If only Sidekick wasn’t so keen on becoming the next bothersome chore on their already tight schedule.

Hero nodded. “True, Other Hero is new here too. But the time on the team is irrelevant. She has worked on another team before and already has leadership experience.”

“I see,” the kid said, and for a moment everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But the smile on their face didn’t falter. “Then Former Villain should make a great mentor. They used to lead a group—”

“A crime ring. That's not the same thing. I’d hardly call leading a small criminal organisation valuable life experience.”

Okay, rude. They shot Hero a dark look.

“I was an excellent team leader,” they grumbled, “and you know it.”

And why the hell were they backing the kid up?! – This wasn’t the time to pick a fight with Hero. They should be on his side! But their erstwhile nemesis (now least favourite co-worker) was practically fuming, which, admittedly, made for a way too satisfying sight.

Urgh, they should get their stupid priorities straight ...

“Shush,” Hero hissed. “You’re not helping.”

“Because you’re discrediting me.”

“I’m only trying to keep kiddo over here” – he thrust a thumb in Sidekick’s general direction – “from making a huge mistake.”

“Oh? A mistake, am I?”

“Yes. The worst mistake anyone could make. Ever. So please shut up and let me handle this.”

Superhero stepped between the two of them. “No, you’ll both shut up.” She heaved a long-suffering sigh, then addressed Sidekick again. “Why does it have to be Former Villain? Why not pick Hero? He also has 2 powers. He’s even got another trainee you could team up with. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

Sidekick walked past her and Hero, strolled over, and snatched the discarded bag of gummy worms from their table.

“No, it does not sound like fun,” the kid said, mouth half full with stolen candy. “I want a mentor of my own. Hero has a sidekick already. You have a sidekick already. Former Villain has free time, experience, and 2 powers.”

They scoffed. Free time? Yeah, right. Lately, their schedule hardly afforded them the odd extra hours they needed to pursue their hobbies.

Superhero hummed. “I’m sure arrangements could be made with the other trainees—”

“So, you'd drop your other sidekick for me? Then how can I trust that you won’t replace me, too, the second a more promising recruit turns up?”

“That’s highly unlikely.”

“Because of my powers. Yeah. That’s why you want me to join, why any team would take me in.”

Superhero squared her shoulders. “Our team has an exceptional record. Our program has the highest success rates in the region, and—”

“Any team would take me in,” Sidekick repeated, sneering. “Apparently, having multiple powers outweighs any other aspect of a person’s identity or history.” The kid darted a quick glance their way, a little less scathing. “Even when the person used to be a villain.”

Bull’s eye!

How was the kid this astute? Part of them wanted to cheer and applaud. Their powers truly had been the main reason the Agency had given them a chance in the first place. It seemed even a former villain was more potential asset than risk if they came with two powers.

“Here’s the deal,” Sidekick said, and didn’t appear at all intimidated by the scowls on the heroes’ faces. “I will not reconsider. I want Former Villain. If I can’t have them, I’m leaving. Your choice.”

———

For my other stories, visit my [MASTERLIST] ♥

[duhragonball]

JoJolion Ch. 71-76

This is the "Ozone Baby's Pressure" arc, but there's also a flashback to Yasuho's childhood hair clip. What dark secret could it possibly hold?

If you guessed "It's another Rock Animal," then congratulations, I guess.

To be fair, Rock Animals are still a new-ish concept, since we've been dealing with Rock Humans all this time, until Ryo Shimosato brought a Rock Animal to the last arc. Now that they've both been defeated, Yasuho realizes that she's encountered a similar creature before, and she tells Rai Mamezuku about this hair clip she bought when she was 13. She thought it would make her look cute for when her dad came to see her. Her parents were divorced, you see, so she takes these weekend visits very seriously.

Unfortunately, the clip was actually a weird parasite that somehow made her see all these terrible misfortunes. First she thinks all her friends hate her for forgetting a classmate's birthday, then she starts having terrible dandruff and flaky skin, then she thinks she's lost her hair clip when it seems to have been hidden in her hair the whole time. Then she sees her father, who tells her he won't be visiting her anymore because he wants to spend that time with his new girlfriend.

I'm not clear on how much of these things were truly real. Her "father" is clearly shown to be an illusion or dream produced by the creature. The dandruff and flaky skin might have been genuine, since Yasuho went to the pharmacy to get salves for it, and they seemed to have an effect, but I don't know. The same with her getting hate messages from her classmates. The Rock Animal couldn't have been responsible for that, but I don't know for sure that it could make her see that sort of thing. My guess is that it just triggers anxieties in Yasuho's brain, and her mind fills in the details from her own doubts and insecurities. I assume that whatever was going on here, the Rock Animal was feeding on this in some way.

Yasuho became so despondent that she attempted suicide, but she was saved by none other than Dr. Holly Kira.

Then Holly says some cryptic stuff about Yasuho needing to keep an eye out for what's important in her life. If she only looks inward, she may not be able to see it. What could this possibly mean?

Well, as soon as she leaves, her son Yoshikage steps in to apologize for anything weird she might have said earlier. According to him, this is Holly's last day practicing medicine, and it's pretty clear that her mind is beginning to experience the symptoms of her disease. Kira also apologizes for stepping on Yasuho's hair clip. I'm guessing this is a pure coincidence, since Kira doesn't know about Rock Humans or Rock Animals either, but he inadvertently saved Yasuho from the source of her troubles.

The point of all of this is that Yasuho had forgotten Holly and Yoshikage before all this JoJolion stuff started, but she now realizes why she pulled Josuke up from the hole he was in. She hesitated at first, worrying more about the dangers of touching a nude stranger, but she remembered Holly's words. "I grabbed onto his wrists, but the one who was pulled up was me." Yasuho declares that her motives are the same as Josuke's and so she's as much a part of this case as the rest of them.

This convinces Rai that she's not a liability to their cause. Yasuho knows what's at stake, and she understands the priorities here. She had already earned his respect for helping Josuke figure out how to defeat Ryo, but now he's convinced that she won't be in the way.

Meanwhile... whatever this bullshit is. The Higashikata Family sucks. The biggest gripe I have with JoJolion is how the story keeps trying to play this family off as basically good and worth saving, but then we see them doing vapid shit like talking about whether fish sausages are getting smaller. Jobin is actively a villain in this thing, Joshuu and Daiya are creeps, and Hato is barely even in the story at all. If they all died at the end, it wouldn't bother me at all. Josuke could attend their funeral and then go off to start a new life with Yasuho.

By now, Jobin has buried Poor Tom's Stand, Ozone Baby, in the family orchard. Poor Tom is a Rock Human who contacted Jobin and proposed this plan to keep Josuke and his father from getting the Rocacaca Fruit. But why? Well, we get this flashback to when Jobin and Norisuke went to a baseball game together, and Jobin can't enjoy it because he wanted better seats. He thinks the stadium should have arranged this for him, just like that restaurant they went to the other day. Norisuke doesn't get it, since all you have to do is make reservations ahead of time. Jobin thinks that's bullshit. Their fruit parlor is a big friggin' deal--at least the way he sees it-- and their contributions to society ought to be acknowledged with special treatment.

So I think it's pretty clear that Jobin is an self-entitled sonovabitch. He already gets to eat at fancy restaurants and take in ball games, but that's not good enough for him. He wants to do those things whenever he wants. Like, just walk up to the stadium and get a great seat automatically. Or just have a table at the restaurant always on standby for when he shows up. And if he can't get those things, then that must mean the fruit parlor has lost its power and influence in the community.

Jobin has ideas to "restore" the fruit parlor's standing, but these involve importing other products that have nothing to do with the core business, like dressings, oils, and less-expensive processed fruit. Norisuke flatly refuses, since the whole point of their business is to sell premium fruit, the kind that people give as gifts. If you dilute your wares with cheaper or unrelated products, then it weakens the brand. Put simply: "A fruit shop doesn't need to be powerful." Jobin's ideas are only to boost his own ego, not their business.

Norisuke leaves Jobin to stew in his own bitterness. Did he just leave the game, or is he only getting up to take a whiz? This is how much I despise baseball: When I went to games, the piss breaks were something to look forward to, because I could get up and do something anything else. Baseball stadiums are boring, wretched places where fun goes to die, and the fact that Jobin turned to the dark side because he can't attend baseball games harder is probably the thing I hate about him the most.

Like... does he even care about the games anymore? He seems way more annoyed about not having a better seat. Maybe the problem here is that Jobin's in his mid 20's or so in this flashback, and he's lost interest in baseball, but he can't quite bring himself to admit it. This is where nostalgia-fueled bitterness stems from. The game didn't change, you changed. The novelty and wonder of it is lost to time, and rather than recognize that, you try to find some way to get back that old feeling you had as a child. "Well, I'd enjoy this more if I only had better seats". That kind of thing.

Jobin's frustration here is embodied by his like "How is that fun? That's no Summer Vacation!" And I'm like... what does summer vacation have to do with not having to pre-order ballgame tickets? Jobin's like a big dumb kid, that's his whole motivation, so he's always trying to have as much fun and be as carefree as possible. The whole point of summer vacation is that you don't have to go to school, and you have the whole day to do whatever you want. Maybe Jobin's problem is that he's had that luxury for so long that he no longer knows how to enjoy it. Or maybe he's just gotten old enough that the charm of "summer vacation" no longer exists. I mean, I'm 47 and I sure don't give a shit. I'm taking a day off from work as I write this and it's great, but it's not some funderful experience like it would be for a little boy. I think Jobin wants more than a day off, he wants to recapture the way a day off must have felt when he was a kid. And it doesn't really work that way.

Anyway, this was the day he first met Yotsuyu Yagiyama, and presumably this was how Jobin got involved with the Rock Humans' Rocacaca smuggling business. He saw this as a way to improve the standing of the Higashikata family, although it's still not clear just how he expected this to work.

In the present-day, Rai and Josuke are on the Higashikata property, where Rai points out the branch to Josuke and applies some moth larvae that will improve the branch's health. They'll wait a few days to harvest the fruit, I guess, and that'll be that. Yasuho isn't with them, but that's just because she's gone home to investigate the Rock Animal that used to be her hair clip. Rai tells Josuke that she kept the pieces after Kira stepped on it, and she thinks analyzing the remains will give her some insight into how silicon-based organisms work.

I don't think this ever gets paid off later in the story. I'm pretty sure we don't see Yasuho show up with a computer printout and she breathlessly tells Josuke that the Rock Humans are vulnerable to Dijon mustard. Part of the problem here is that the characters kind of already know everything they need to know from the last seven Rock Humans they've defeated. Their main power lies in their Stand abilities, and fighting Rock Human with a Stand really isn't any different from fighting any other Stand Battle. Poison, fire, drowning, getting hit by a bus... all of these things will kill a Rock Human or a Rock Animal, so what more needs to be established?

I could see Yasuho wanting to confirm that the hair clip really was a Rock Animal, since all she has right now are suspicions, but it's been dead for six years. What difference would it make now?

So I think this was just a way to write Yasuho out of this next leg of the story. Before, she would get pushed aside by circumstance, or because other characters didn't want her involved, but now she's fully committed to seeing this through, so the only way to keep her away from whatever Josuke is doing is to have her pursue a different lead. That's a good thing, but this lead is pretty much a dead end.

I think the idea here is that no one saw Josuke and Rai on the orchard because Jobin was burying Ozone Baby in the orchard at the same time, and he had turned off the security cameras as a precaution. If he'd just refused Poor Tom's proposal, he might have been able to find the branch when the cameras caught Josuke and Rai fooling around with it.

As it is, Tsurugi saw Jobin anyway, and he wasn't even trying to spy on him or anything. He just wants to know if his dad did anything bad, since he knows Jobin was once in league with Yotsuyu Yagiyami.

Jobin tries to justify his actions as being for the good of the family, but he doesn't really explain what he's done, probably because he doesn't really know himself. I mean, the Rock Human smugglers probably made him a nice offer, but he had no idea what the consequences of that would be, and they've already tried to attack the family twice. As for Ozone Baby, Poor Tom assured Jobin that its ability would keep everyone away from the orchard, but Jobin didn't know how it would do this, or what its effective range would be.

Turns out, Ozone Baby affects the atmospheric pressure within a 100 meter radius. If you're indoors, the pressure gradually increases until it becomes deadly. Outdoors, the pressure is decreased, so if you go outside, you experience decompression, which will kill you that way.

This is kind of a bullshit ability, but not anywhere near as bullshit as Urban Guerilla, which only instakills people when it's convenient to the plot. Ozone Baby's problem is kind of a baseline issue with JoJo, where characters will experience some effect like fire or cold temperatures or rapid aging, and the effects are depicted as drastic and intense, but the characters will still be able to cope with it like it's some gradual problem, and they have time to endure it while they seek out a solution.

I mean, it makes sense that the pressure changes would hurt the characters, and you can just take it for granted that the pressure change is just enough to be dangerous without being immediately lethal. But Jobin's bleeding from his eyes, so things look much, much worse.

Jobin uses Speed King to heat bleach, which produces oxygen bubbles for Tsurugi to breathe. I don't understand why that's helpful, since Tsurugi experienced rapid decompression when the door was open. Also, the pressure inside the garage is increasing, so he's got that much more oxygen to breathe.

I'm nitpicking, but what makes this arc much better than the Urban Guerilla fight is that the Stand abilities are secondary to the story of Jobin's folly. In his desire to keep Josuke away from the branch, he teamed up with the Rock Humans one more time, and once again his family is put in deadly danger. Poor Tom's Stand will keep everyone out of the orchard, but it'll also kill everyone who's already there, including everyone in the Higashikata house. Tom's plan is to wipe out everyone in one stroke, so that way he can search for the branch at his leisure.

At this point, Tsurugi is genuinely trying to understand whose side his dad is on. Jobin assures him that all he wants to do is to get the Rocacaca and cure Tsurugi. If that was his true objective, though, then why wouldn't he just cut a deal with Josuke? Oh, wait, I just realized, that'd be like pre-ordering tickets to a ballgame. Jobin doesn't want to share the Rocacaca fruit with Josuke or anyone else.

Anyway, he convinces his son to team up with him, but they can't leave the garage, and Poor Tom must be miles away waiting for his Stand to finish them all off. So Jobin resolves to defeat Poor Tom without leaving the garage. He does this by combing his heat powers with Tsurugi's origami powers, and they set the orchard on fire. Then he calls Poor Tom to tell him, so he'll have to come to the orchard to save the branch.

This probably says a lot about Jobin's character, where he keeps digging himself into a hole and his only solution is to dig deeper. For all of his high talk about doing whatever it takes for the Higashikata Family's prestige, his big plan is to burn down their property. And just like Poor Tom's Stand, the fire isn't going to magically spare the house.

So where are Josuke and Rai in all of this. Well they were inside the bunker near the mansion when Ozone Baby's power kicked in, and when the fire starts, Josuke decides his only choice is to go retrieve the branch before it burns. That might give away its location to the enemy, but it's the only way to save it. He can't leave the bunker, though, because the pressure differential, but he reasons that if he surrounds himself with a Soft and Wet soap bubble, that will maintain his "indoor" pressure while he steps outside. Rai agrees with his logic, but insists on being the one to secure the branch, since he's better qualified to protect it from further harm.

But along the way, he spots Poor Tom, who's just arrived to dig up his Stand so that the fire department can put out the fire before the branch burns up. Rai siezes him and the branch, but...

Tom reveals that he can control his Stand more directly now that he's dug it up and holding it. That means he can increase the pressure inside Rai's bubble, and kill him before Rai can break his neck. See, this is what I'm talking about. Rai is literally being crushed to death by the pressure, but he's still alive and conscious.

But Josuke counters by launching bubbles containing yew berries. These are extremely toxic, and Josuke knows this because apparently Rai was telling him about this earlier. Apparently the orchard has yew trees, and Rai is relieved to find that Kira and Kujo didn't graft the Rocaca branch onto one of those trees, since it would lead to the fruit becoming toxic as well.

Why do the Higashikatas have poisonous fruits on their orchard? Well, Rai pointed out that their leaves and branches are used in Shinto rituals, so maybe it has something to do with this. Remember, Norisuke's business model is about selling fruit as gifts, not necessarily as food.

Anyway, once the bubbles are close enough, Josuke lets them pop, and the explosive decompression sprays the toxic contents into Tom's mouth.

But Poor Tom manages to defeat Rai before he can succumb to the poison. He does this by using the sheath of a knife, which he closes around Rai's cords, and that makes them "inside", which allows Ozone Baby to apply even more pressure. I guess it kind of makes sense that Rai could survive this, since his powers allow him to turn his whole body into wires, which is sort of like Jolyne Kujo's power to turn into string. I mean, how do you crush a rope?

Tom grabs the branch, but he still has to get away from Josuke (and the fire), so he can get medical attention for the yew juice he swallowed. Josuke launches this series of bubbles, one inside the other like a nesting doll, and that worries Tom because it must be some cool new application of Soft and Wet's powers.

Ultimately, Tom gets desperate enough to cancel his Stand's effects. I think the idea here was that Josuke's multiple layers of bubbles would allow it to get closer to Tom and still withstand the pressure changes, so Tom canceled Ozone Baby to keep the bubble away. But it turns out it was just a bluff. Josuke continues to advance toward him, and Tom tries to make a break for the nearest ambulance, which has arrived along with the fire trucks.

Tom believes that his allies are aboard the ambulance, because they know about his ability and they wisely kept he windows closed when they pulled in. That seems kind of specious, since most people would keep the windows closed while driving. I mean, for the air conditioning, if nothing else.

It doesn't really matter, because he gets shot before he can make it.

Well, at least I think he got shot. The thing is, it looks like someone would have had to shoot him from inside the orchard, and that seems unlikely. This might be another Stand that hasn't been introduced yet, but we're getting close to the end, and there aren't many Stands left for that. We'll see.

Anyway, a pair of shadowy figures are inside the ambulance, and they were Tom's comrades, and they do grab the branch before they drive away, but it turns out it's not the right one. How the hell did Tom screw that up? And what happened to the real Locacaca branch?

Jobin and Tsurugi have it. Jobin's plan was to use the fire to draw Poor Tom out and cancel his Stand ability, but it also forced Josuke and Rai to reveal the branch's location. Soon after, Tsurugi used his Paper Moon King power to confuse them all so they wouldn't be able to tell the real branch from a phony.

As we see in this flashback, Tsurugi was able to send origami cranes into the orchard, where they managed to touch Josuke and Tom without their noticing. The Stand took effect and made them both mistake a common pear branch for the Locacaca branch.

Presumably, once Ozone Baby was disabled, Jobin could just stroll onto the grounds and claim his prize. Tom is dead, and while Josuke and Rai survived, neither of them know what became of the real Locacaca branch, which gives Jobin the inside track. All he has to do now is graft it to a cactus (?) and keep it hidden from everyone else until it's time to harvest. Jobin convinces Tsurugi that he can't tell anyone about this, not even Norisuke, whom Jobin considers too weak to succeed in this venture.

So... Jobin wins? If it seems unlikely, that's because it is. The remaining Rock Humans are frustrated, and Josuke is despondent over his failure, but it won't take them long to realize who tricked them. Jobin's plan, much like his other schemes and goals, are too short-sighted to pan out. For all he gripes about his father's weakness, Jobin's hubris will be his downfall. I mean, he thinks he can just grow this graft in a flower pot for two weeks, in his house, with no one else finding out about it? This stupid mansion has been infiltrated three times already. They still haven't exposed Kyo Nijimura, as far as I can tell. It's all just wishful thinking. Jobin wants to believe he's a big deal, but he just doesn't have what it takes.

[itsthemysterykids]

Can we get more bnha au?

Coraline has been wanting to be a hero ever since she got her “weak quirk” to create illusions

Quirkest Rando: Oh, you can’t be a hero. Try being a magician.

Coraline: I WILL SPITE EVERYONE!

Norman wants to be a hero just to show everyone that “villainous quirks” don’t exist. A ghost quirk is fucking awesome!

His best friend is Neil, a boy with a “heroic quirk” to make as many shields as he wants… Only to lose a lot of energy when he makes too many

They’re everyone’s problem at school and like to screw people over when they saw quirkist bullshit by making illusions of students doing embarrassing stuff and making a teacher’s coffee mug float away

Then while walking past the school lab, Wybie literally crashes into them thanks to another explosion

He’s an eccentric inventor aiming for UA’s support course even with his “heroic quirk”, [Censored by the Future CEO of Blacksmith Industries], but he keeps the hero course as an option, too

Wybie designs all sort of support equipment for them to strengthen their quirks and doesn’t skip out on any add-ons

Then it’s their last year of junior high, they’ve been training for months and are finally ready for the Hero Course Entrance Exam

Coraline uses her illusions to throw off the robots and have them destroy each other, Neil makes shields to protect some students and even throws some at the robots, Norman possesses one, and Wybie pulls a cannon out of nowhere and starts firing at the robots

Then comes the Zero Pointer and everyone is freaking the fuck out

Panicked when he sees the Zero Pointer about to crush one of the students, Norman sends a surge of energy all throughout the entrance exam location, destroying nearly every single robot and leaving many of the potential students dazed or confused… Then he passes out

Fortunately, the School’s Nurse, Aizawa-Yamada Eri is there to fix everyone up with her quirk, but no one can ever forget what the hell Norman just did

… Also, after taking the Exam, Wybie takes the Support Course’s Entrance Exam… So, yeah

A week passes and they all get their letters. Like best friends, they open them together and see holograms of the #8 Pro Hero, Convince. He welcomes them all into the Hero Course. And while he did get into the Support Course, Wybie chooses the Hero Course

Fast forward and it’s the first day of school, yay! They get to class and meet their new classmates, Lili Zanotto, Kubo, Dipper and Mabel Pines, Dib and Gaz Membrane who all got in on a recommendation, Raz Aquato, Eggs Trubshaw, Winnie Portley-Rind, Agatha Prenderghast, Kat Elliot, and Raúl Cocolotl

Their teacher is the #5 Pro Hero, Intel, and Dipper and Mabel’s great uncle

After orientation, Intel takes them out to the training field for some warmups. (Don’t worry, no one’s getting expelled, he’s just analyzing them and their quirks to see how far ahead they are with training)

Lili has pretty good control over her quirk and makes all sorts of plants to hinder her opponents, but she relies too much on them

Raz keeps getting his legs tangled when he stretches too far, so they’ll need to work on that

He’s guessing Kat has some sort of future vision since she always seems to know what someone is going to do before they do it

Raúl’s ink is good for traveling, almost reminding him of Pinky

Winnie’s quirk powers up her overall abilities, which will be good when in battle, but there is always room for improvement

Eggs’ burrowing quirk requires some good upper body strength, so until they can come up with a workout plan, arm braces will be needed

Coraline’s ability to create illusions seems to leave her with strained eyes, so that’s something to tell the Design Department about. Other than that, she has an amazing imagination

At first, Ford guessed Wybie was creating weapons from his lipids like Creati, but found out [Censored by Future Pro Hero, Blacksmith] Anyway, his hero uniform will need zippers

Norman and Agatha seem to have the same power, but are on very different levels, most likely due to their families suppressing their quirks… He’ll call CPS later

Dipper’s quirk was excellent during the “definitely not hide and seek” portion of the training as he was able to find everyone in under a minute, so he’ll be an excellent rescue hero

Mabel has obviously been practicing since she’s no longer getting tangled in her yarn anymore

He’s making a note to have Neil keep energy bars in his utility belt in the events he wears himself out when creating too many shields

He was… Not too terrified of Gaz or her teleportation, levitation, and pyrokinesis… He doesn’t want to question how she has a 3-in-1 quirk, and it’s best to leave it at that

Dib’s durability quirk is certainly one of the best he’s seen so far. He punched a wall without so much as a scratch on his fist. If no damage is to come to his uniform, he’ll need one made from his DNA

Kubo's quirk relies on him playing music, and while his whistling is good, he can’t keep it up forever, so an instrument is needed for his uniform, along with lots of paper

Once the school day is over, Mabel suggests that all of them should hang out and get to know each other better. Lili and Gaz would rather face a villain than do that, but Mabel is very good at convincing people… By that, I mean she ties people up in her yarn and drags them everywhere

Dib, being the conspiracy theorist he is believed that Norman and Agatha are distant relatives, hence their similar quirks, but they reject the idea every time he brings it up. And it’s not just them.

Dib: Wybie… Are you Creati’s secret love child, or something.

Wybie: … What?

This gets a few of them interested since they don’t know how his quirk works, and he’s not saying anything, no matter how much they bribe him

Then comes the day that they all (especially Mabel) have been waiting for… THEIR HERO UNIFORMS!

Coraline comes equipped with goggles for when her eyes get too strained, Wybie’s uniform has zippers and thermals, Dipper has a camera built into his costume, Lili has spray bottles for her plants to keep them around longer, Raz’s suit can stretch all across the country if one were to try, Norman’s is made from his hair so it becomes intangible with him, Mabel’s utility belt is made of an endless yarn so she always has some on her, Neil’s utility belt comes equipped with energy pills, Raúl’s boots are similar to Pinky’s so he can travel easier, Kat’s come with eye contacts so no one can tell when she’s using her quirk, Eggs has his arm braces, Winnie has those gauntlets she’s been begging for, Dib’s got his DNA suit, Gaz’s is something out of nightmares, Kubo’s comes equipped with a durable shamisen and water-proof origami paper, and Agatha’s is similar to Norman’s, but in lighter colors

In short, they look badass

Intel has them test out the features of their suits during another Battle simulation in case any changes are needed

This next simulation is a Heroes vs Villains exercise where they will get into groups of two, either hero or villain, and face off against another group of two, also either a hero or villain

And to make things harder, he has them pair up with people they don’t know

Heroes:

Lili/Kat

Wybie/Kubo

Dipper/Gaz

Norman/Eggs

Villains:

Coraline/Mabel

Agatha/Raúl

Raz/Neil

Winnie/Dib

It goes well as you can expect it to go for fifteen year-olds

Long story short… Explosion

… Well, enough of that, because let’s see them act like normal teenagers at the mall!

Norman: For most of my life, everyone always told me I had a villainous quirk, that all I’m good for is hurting people just because I accidentally possessed a classmate when I was five. So, that’s why I want to be a hero, to show everyone there’s no such thing as “villain” quirks.

Agatha: Amen.

Coraline: Respect. So, Kat, is Sir Nighteye like an inspiration for you?

Kat: *Sipping her smoothie* … Eh, not really. I just wanna freak villains out and show them their futures if they continue down their path.

Wybie: Well, you won’t cause a ton of collateral damage that way, so that’s good. You can make them surrender just by showing them their graves or mutilated bodies.

Kat: Exactly.

Students: …

Lili: … Well, on that dark note, Mabel. Not not curious, but why do you want to be a hero?

Mabel: Well, almost everyone else in the family is a hero, so Dipper and I thought it’d be cool to keep the legacy going. The Wonder Twin Duo, Yarn Queen and Expert Tracker!

Dipper: I did not agree to that name!

Mabel: But you love it!

Winnie: Also not not curious, Wybie. How does your quirk work?

Wybie: Look, it’s embarrassing, so let’s leave it at that.

Dib: I’m legally classified as a bulldozer, so I doubt you have anything to worry about.

Wybie: … I sweat metal, and I use it to create different weapons.

Dib: Boy, you nasty! *Gaz hits him over the head*

Gaz: I think that’s pretty cool

Fast-Forward a bit, and it’s time to pick hero names! Names will be approved by the Quick Hero, Sister Hightail

Coraline’s The Illusion Hero: Illusia

Wybie: The Creation Hero: Blacksmith

Dipper: The Sight Hero: Expert Tracker

Mabel: The Knitting Hero: Yarn Queen

Norman: The Ghostly Hero: Phantom

Neil: The Protective Hero: Shelter

Agatha: The Haunting Hero: Poltergeist

Kat: The Clairvoyant Hero: Hell Maiden

Raúl: The Creative Hero: Ink Blot

Dib: The Durable Hero: Unbreakable

Gaz: The Multi-Hero: Kraken

Raz: The Stretching Hero: Elasti-Guy

Lili: The Garden Hero: Ivy

Eggs: The Burrowing Hero: Excavator

Winnie: The Power-Up Hero: 1-UP

Kubo: The Origami Hero: Two-String

Then it comes up to the day where they face actual villains… AND THEY AREN’T READY FOR THIS!

They’re up against the Cipher League, a team who has pledged their allegiance to the greatest villain of all time, Cipher

Of course, they’re panicking, but one inspirational speech for Norman later, and they’re kicking ass

Kat: … Pyronica’s coming to you on your left.

Lili: *Sprays Pyronica with her bottles until her flames go out* Anything else?

Kay: Nah, the others are going after our classmates. Just keep spraying her down.

—

Dipper: *Keeping a lookout for Hectorgon* We need some kind of- *Hears a zipping sound and turns to see a broadsword coming out of Wybie’s arm* … Uh…

Wybie: I’d prefer if you didn’t watch.

—

Coraline: *Creating an illusion so she, Raúl, and Eggs can slip by Paci-Fire* Eggs, when I give the signal, you tunnel us outta hero. Then Raúl, block the entrance so he can’t get through.

After a ton of trauma, and their homeroom teacher would have been dead if not for Norman, it comes down to the week they’ve all be waiting for… The week of the Sports Festival!

Class 1-A is training until it hurts, not just to win, but to keep their spots in the class in case someone from Gen-Ed is gunning for it

Then it’s the day of the Sports Festival. Pro Heroes have come to watch, scout the students for potential interns, and just to have some quality entertainment. Yeah, nothing like watching powered kids battle.

First, is the Obstacle Race where hundreds of students put aside friendships and destroy each other for gold!

Lili, Raz, Wybie, Eggs, Raúl, Winnie, Dib, and Gaz are ahead, Norman and Agatha possess some faster-looking students to get ahead, Coraline creates illusions of obstacles to hinder the other students, after using her future vision, Kat hitches a ride on the fastest student, Kubo is creating eagles to fly him to the finish line by whistling, and Dipper and Mabel are hitching a ride on Mabel’s yarn snake

In First, Gaz, using her teleportation

In Second, Lili using her vines

In Third, Eggs burrowing himself to the finish

And, I won’t bore you with the rest, because now it’s time for THE SUDDEN DEATH- Whoops. I mean, CALVARY BATTLE!

And since Gaz won first… She’s the one everyone will be gunning for. She’s so terrified

Teams are formed, temporary enemies are made, and… BEGIN THE SUDDEN DEATH ROUND!

It’s chaos, but Gaz is scraping by. Fortunately, she has Raz’s stretching powers to snatch the headbands, Neil’s shield to block off any opponents, and Kat to predict any attacks

Coraline creates three illusions of her team (Raúl, Mabel, Dipper) to throw her opponents off, and manages to snatch a Gen-Ed student’s headband worth fifteen points

And the principal made it clear, ‘Malicious Intent’ is not allowed. Well, flower petal cannons aren’t malicious, now are they?

Lili/Wybie: *High five as they shoot flower petals in their opponents faces* Team Flowersmith for the win!

In the end, Coraline’s team comes out on top!

And it all comes down to the final event! The One on One Fighting Tournament! Our finalists are Gaz, Raz, Neil, Kat, Coraline, Raúl, Mabel, Dipper, Wybie, Lili, Norman, Kubo, Sam Manson, Tulip Olsen, Mirabel Madrigal, and Marco Diaz (Gotta have more characters)

First Round:

Norman Babcock vs Sam Manson: Sam’s shadow travel powers are not ideal for this setting, but she manages by pulling sneak attacks on Norman using the small shadows of the debris caused by his attacks. Unfortunately, he gets the better of her with his powers and comes out on top

Coraline Jones vs Mirabel Madrigal: Mirabel’s Quirk is one she calls Gift, a quirk that allows her to borrow the quirks of others for up to fifteen minutes. For this, she borrowed her sisters superstrength and ability to grow any plant. While she was thrown off by Coraline’s illusions a few times, she triumphed using Jacaranda’s signature Cactus Punch

Wyborne Lovat vs Neil Downe: Can Wybie’s numerous weapons defeat Neil’s shield? Let’s see! Having known Neil for years, Wybie knows that by his fifth shield, he’ll start to tire out, giving him a chance to strike. While Neil does surprise him by making a sixth and seventh shield, Wybie takes this moment to knock him out of the ring using a battering ram

Tulip Olsen vs Lili Zanotto: Tulip’s quirk allowed her to create clones of herself by looking in a mirror, and she just so happens to have a compact on her. Taking inspiration from Jacaranda, Lili delivers a powerful Cactus Punch, shattering the mirror clones and then pulling Tulip out of the ring using her vines

Gaz Membrane vs Raz Aquato: The acrobat vs the multi-quirk user! Gaz is able to throw Raz off using her teleportation and pyrokinesis, resulting in the boy turning into a tangled mess and resulting in her victory

Marco Diaz va Mabel Pines: Marco’s quirk allows him to turn his body parts into limbs based off of monsters from different mythologies. For this battle, he chose to give himself tentacle arms to fend off against Mabel’s yarn snake along with large butterfly wings to evade her attacks. The battle ends with him using a set of devil horns to have the snake unravel and using the wind created from his wings to blow Mabel out of the ring

Kubo vs Kat Elliot: Kat holds off against Kubo’s origami offense for up to thirty minutes by predicting their moves. Kubo, meanwhile, is running out of breath from whistling so much, but manages. Eventually, the referee calls for a draw, and we’ll come back to them later

Dipper Pines vs Raúl Cocolotl: Dipper’s quirk isn’t considered suited for battle, but with enough training, he’ll be able to predict people’s movements. But for right now, he’s fighting quirkless against Raúl’s ink, which often causes him to slip if he steps on it. But, grabbing a handful of the ink, Dipper throws it in Raúl’s face and blinds him before pushing him out of the ring. Resulting in his win

Tie Breaker: Arm Wrestling Match

Kubo vs Kat Elliot… Kat wins

Quarter-Final Round

Norman Babcock vs Mirabel Madrigal: Things are heating up when former Pro Hero, Miracle comes to watch the Sports Festival. Mirabel is giving it everything she’s got against Norman, using all of her family’s quirks, weather control, shapeshifting, super strength, creating plants, etc. Norman can see she’s suffering from a burnout and warns her against wielding so many quirks at once, but she yells at him to shut up. She needs to win this so that her Abuela, Miracle will finally be proud of her and not see her Quirk as something useless since she has to rely on others’ quirks. She doesn’t have a quirk to call her own, believing that makes her a failure in her family’s eyes, so she’s determined to win. Unbeknownst to Mirabel, she starts glowing a bright gold, gold translucent butterfly wings appear on her back, and a sudden energy bursts from her hands and knocks Norman out of the ring

Wybie Lovat vs Lili Zanotto: Lili creates oak trees to deflect against Wybie’s tungsten shuriken, but then he gets all badass and creates a chainsaw to cut through every single one of her defenses until she’s backed out of the ring

Gaz Membrane vs Marco Diaz: Gaz uses her levitation to evade Marco when he grows another pair of wings, and uses her pyrokinesis to throw fireballs at him so he’s forced to dodge until he doesn’t see her coming and she’s throwing him out of the ring and into the stands

Kat Elliot vs Dipper Pines: Like with Kubo, Kat is able to easily dodge Dipper’s attacks and they fight quirkless the entire time, impressing quite a few underground heroes. It’s Kat who wins when she knocks Dipper out cold

Semi-Final Round

Mirabel Madrigal vs Wybie Lovat: Wybie is out from the moment Mirabel uses her sister’s super strength to throw him into the stands. Fortunately, Uravity catches him

Gaz Membrane vs Kat Elliot: Kat’s still untouchable and dodges all of Gaz’s fire attacks and knows just where she’ll pop up with her teleportation. Though, she’s not prepared for the ring of fire, Kat knows Gaz can be unpredictable and prepares for any sort of outcome until finally, they’re near the edge of the arena and Kat flips Gaz over her shoulder and out of the arena

Final Round:

Kat Elliot vs Mirabel Madrigal: Mirabel’s stocked up on an assortment of quirks, but Kat remains in the ring and does everything she can to dodge Mirabel’s attacks and even tries to knock some sense into her

Kat: Why the hell do you care what some old lady thinks?! This is your quirk! She doesn’t tell you if it’s useless or not! Look at you! You’re in the final round of the Sports Festival! This YOUR quirk, Mirabel! Not Miracle’s, not Jacaranda’s, not Miss Gossip’s, yours! And don’t let anyone tell you what it’s good for!

Suddenly, the glowing returns, and Mirabel’s wings appear again. Like before, she blasts Kat out of the arena, resulting in her winning the Sports Festival

… Well, that’s all I got. Anyone wanna add on?

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 26: Whitebridge

All right people who haven't read the entire Wheel of Time series, it's time for you to make a choice. You can escape downriver in a nice boat and stay away from all the nasty spoilers, or you can cross this bridge and get hit upside the head with whatever bullshit I randomly throw in here. It could be from any point in the series, so if you're avoiding that kind of nonsense, make your aquatic escape now.

This chapter has Thom's harp yet again. As before, it's about the influence he'll have on the boys. This chapter it also refers to his supposed sacrifice to save them. Regardless, just like last time, he's the only thing keeping them alive.

“I suppose I should thank you,” Thom Merrilin muttered finally, “for teaching me how true the old saying is. Teach him how you will, a pig will never play the flute.” The sailor burst out laughing, and Mat raised the flute as if to throw it at him.

Of course, just because he's the thin barricade between them and death doesn't mean he likes them or that they're remotely grateful. Even Rand doesn't really want to learn, he's just doing this for their cover story, though he will have more of an appreciation for these skills as the story goes on.

Mat looked up, still frowning. “What if they are dead?” he said softly. “We have to accept facts, right?”

There's a sad parallel in Perrin awkwardly trying to assure Egwene that the others aren't dead and Mat here trying to pull Rand into the doubt and despair that the dagger generates.

So it will all turn out like one of Thom’s stories? The heroes find the treasure and defeat the villain and live happily ever after? Some of his stories don’t end that way. Sometimes even heroes die. Are you a hero, Rand al’Thor? Are you a hero, sheepherder?

All of this does end up happening. Y'all find the various plot coupons and get rich in the process, the Dark One is sealed away, and despite the looming Seanchan Outriggers it does seem like when that drama is over you all will retire happily, except Egwene who dies.

The White Bridge arched high over the wide waters, twice as high as the Spray’s mast and more, and from end to end it gleamed milky white in the sunlight, gathering the light until it seemed to glow. Spidery piers of the same stuff plunged into the strong currents, appearing too frail to support the weight and width of the bridge. It looked all of one piece, as if it had been carved from a single stone or molded by a giant’s hand, broad and tall, leaping the river with an airy grace that almost made the eye forget its size.

Thom thinks that the bridge is from the Age of Legends, but I personally think it's marginally newer; one of the first major structures assembled in the immediate aftermath. It seems very unlikely to me that two major rivers would have survived the totality of the Breaking intact, and we already know that the Erinin's northern half didn't change significantly after Lews's suicide. Thus, the odds of this river not having moved seem significantly lower - especially since the Two Rivers were recently part of an ocean! The White Bridge, to me, represents the last gasp of a dying art, an Aes Sedai work possible to perform without mixed-gender circles but too difficult to keep up all the same.

“We made it, Thom,” he said, then forced a laugh. “And no mutiny.”

I wouldn't say that until I was off the ship myself, but what do I know?

“You’ve slept on watch for the last time on my vessel! Or on any vessel, if I have my way of it. Choose your own side—the dock or the river—but off my vessel now!”

I wonder if Domon and Egeanin will ever discuss how one of the things they have in common is a complete disdain for Gelb.

“Aye, well, as to that. . . .” The captain produced a leather purse from his coat pocket and tossed it to Thom. It clinked when Thom caught it. “Your fares back, and a bit more besides. The damage was no so bad as I thought, and you’ve worked your way and more with your tales and your harp.

So that's Rand's ta'veren, I expect. Or Mat's, since it's kind of lucky. Like Domon's a good guy and all, and this is definitely the kind of thing he'd at least consider for other gleemen, but not go so far as to return their fares and extra. Definitely offer it to sweeten the pot to stay, but not just toss it upfront.

So much for not being noticed, Rand thought, dismayed. By sundown it would be all over Whitebridge that there was a gleeman in town.

I'm a wee bit surprised that gleemen are big deals in Whitebridge, but I guess that for quite a lot of people it's the effective end of the road. And with the winter not ending properly, he's probably the first one of the season. Just another little way all the details of the world add up to ensure that Rand is constantly fucked at any given moment.

“An innkeeper will be able to tell us if they’re here, or if they’ve passed through. The right innkeeper. Innkeepers have all the news and gossip. If they aren’t here. . . .”He looked back and forth from Rand to Mat. “We have to talk, we three.”

It's like Thom wants to be forced to fake his death at an inopportune time! Be more genre savvy, gleeman!

Rand wondered idly if all innkeepers were fat and losing their hair.

Only the good ones. I'll have to go into the hospitality business if I ever start losing my hair.

“Straight on from the bridge,” Thom said, “is the road to Caemlyn. Anyone passing through Whitebridge comes through this square, unless they’re going by river, and we know your friends aren’t doing that. If there is no word of them here, it doesn’t exist. Let me do the talking. This has to be done carefully.”

More good mentor points for Thom for continuing to explain why he does what he does so that the boys can learn.

Aes Sedai had been involved in taking Logain, of course. Bartim spat on the floor when he said that, and again when he said they were taking the false Dragon north to Tar Valon. Bartim was a decent man, he said, a respectable man, and Aes Sedai could all go back to the Blight where they came from and take Tar Valon with them, as far as he was concerned.

It's incredible how even the Red Ajah, whose purpose should be the most popular thing on the planet, manage to have PR this terrible. "Yeah they saved humanity from a madman who was going to plunge our society into a war the scale of which hasn't been seen for a thousand years, but fuck those witches amirite? Hope they all die miserably."

“They’ll be taking him there to show to Queen Morgase.” The innkeeper touched his forehead respectfully. “I’ve never seen the Queen. Man ought to see his own Queen, don’t you think?”

Queen oughta tour her queendom on occasion! (Funny foreshadowing though.)

“Why, the hunt for the Horn, of course,” Bartim exclaimed. “Didn’t I say that? The Illianers are calling on everybody as will swear their lives to the hunt to gather in Illian. Can you imagine that? Swearing your life to a legend? I suppose they’ll find some fools. There’s always fools around. This fellow claimed the end of the world is coming. The last battle with the Dark One.”

It's a rare thing when a guy proclaiming the end of the world is right, but that dude was. The Hunt is another thing that seemed to fall to the wayside; we meet many people that joined this hunt, but Illian's association with the Horn is never important. The Horn itself obviously matters though.

Thom still seemed to be a thousand miles away, so Rand said, “We’re looking for some friends who were coming this way. From the west. Have there been many strangers passing through in the last week or two?”

Rand loses points for being a bad student and ignoring instructions. This directly sets off the sequence of events that leads to Thom having to ditch them, so it's a triple penalty.

About a week ago, as near as I can say, a weaselly fellow came over the bridge. Crazy, everybody thought. Always talking to himself, never stopped moving even when he was standing still. Asked about the same people . . . some of them.

Hi, Padan Fain! Shame you don't think about him, Rand.

“He was crazy, but the other one. . . .” Bartim’s eyes shifted uneasily, and his tongue ran over his lips as if he could not find enough spit to moisten them. “Next day . . . next day the other one came for the first time.” He fell silent.

And this foreshadows that Fain's got off the Darkfriend script. If he was still working for Ba'alzamon, they wouldn't have sent a Fade afterward - and frankly, he would have been kept sane enough to ask discretely and in a way that wouldn't stand out. Luckily for everyone in Whitebridge, I don't think Fain was radioactive evil yet, so hopefully no one got any bad doses of Shadar Logoth.

“I think I’d remember if I ever met anyone like that,” Thom said after a minute.

"I hate Aes Sedai," says man who knows how to dissemble better than most Aes Sedai.

“And he’ll be back,” Thom said, leaning across the table and lowering his voice. “I say we sneak back to the boat and take Captain Domon up on his offer. The hunt will center on the road to Caemlyn while we’re on our way to Illian, a thousand miles from where the Myrddraal expect us.”

Really, the thing that makes the Hunt's fading into obscurity and Illian's connection being so irrelevant so surprising to me is the sheer number of people who try to convince Rand to go there early: Bayle, Thom, Moiraine. Maybe Lanfear? It feels like it should be a way bigger deal than it ends up being.

Thom seemed to understand. The gleeman’s face softened. “Even those dreams, lad. They are still just dreams, aren’t they? For the Light’s sake, Mat, talk to him. I know you don’t want to go to Tar Valon, at least.”

Another good Thom quality is how he understands Rand's emotions better and validates them. Way too many of his mentors don't understand him at all, or do understand what he's feeling and antagonize him for it.

Domon isn’t sailing until tomorrow morning. At best he’ll have Trollocs chasing him all the way to Illian. Well, he’s half expecting it for some reason, but that won’t do us any good.

Shame they didn't think to pull at that thread a little more. It's good set-up for the next book though.

Mat shrugged. He eyed each of them, then shrugged again. “I’m just on edge. I can’t seem to get rid of it. Every time we stop for a breath, they’re there, hunting us. I feel like somebody’s staring at the back of my head all the time. What are we going to do?”

I wonder if somebody who was just an idiot treasure hunter without numerous enemies would have taken a little longer to fall under the dagger's spell. Or if Shadar Logoth only tried to pull on Mat in the first place because he was already feeling that paranoia when they entered the city.

“My brother’s only son, my only living kin. He got in trouble with the Aes Sedai, but I was too busy with . . . other things. I don’t know what I could have done, but when I finally tried, it was too late. Owyn died a few years later. You could say Aes Sedai killed him.”

What could you have done Thom, except either kill him yourself or enable him to kill everyone he loved? Dude lasted three years without getting gentled; it was really only a matter of time. Oh well, at least Thom's hatred of the Aes Sedai has more justification than the vast majority of the setting's.

“We’ll walk out of here one at a time, just close enough to keep each other in sight. Shouldn’t be remembered especially, that way. Can’t you slouch?” he added to Rand. “That height of yours is as bad as a banner.”

So in this chapter, our heroes have discussed:

The Horn of Valere

Bayle Domon's mysterious motivations AKA one of the seven seals

Ways Rand stand out, like banners

Guess what three things they find in the Eye of the World!

The Fade was just as startled. Its leisurely pace faltered in mid-stride. Its hand swept toward the hilt of the black sword hanging at its waist, but the gleeman’s long legs covered the distance quickly. Thom crashed into the Myrddraal before the black blade was half drawn, and both went down in a thrashing heap. The few people still in the square fled. “RUN!” The air in the square flashed an eye-searing blue, and Thom began to scream, but even in the middle of the scream he managed a word. “RUN!” Rand obeyed. The gleeman’s screams pursued him.

Thom's such a badass. Goodbye for this book, Thom. It's rare when I'm glad that there's a fake-out death, but I'm glad here. For now. When we get to the mustache pulling I reserve the right to change my mind. Anyway though, Thom is too good a mentor for Rand which is why the narrative works double and triple time to ensure that he never gets a chance to benefit from the man's full attention. Dude would have found a way to off Cadsuane mid-slapping Rand in the face, which would have made Rand laugh and saved the world six books early, saving us the readers from quite a lot of misery along the way.

“You think Egwene and Moiraine and the rest are dead, too. If they’re dead, why are the Myrddraal still hunting them? Answer me that?” Mat dropped to his knees in the dust beside him. “All right. Maybe they are alive. But Thom—You saw! Blood and ashes, Rand, the same thing can happen to us.”

Rand and Mat are very lucky to have confirmation of their friends' survival, really. The hope will certainly help Rand keep going as things rapidly go to shit on the road. And Mat clearly learned nothing from Thom since he's not genre savvy enough to understand that if you don't see a body, they're probably still alive.

And that's another chapter! Next time, we're back with Perrin and Egwene. Sadly, Perrin will neither learn from his mentor nor will Elyas be dramatically faking his death.

[owlbeers]

Shadow and Bone season two thoughts

I tweeted a little as I watched, but I realised I wanted to put together my thoughts more longform, so here we go. In general: I liked it still but not as much as S1, I had Thoughts.

Spoilers for all of the season after the read more.

Idk maybe its the fact that they started referencing events from Crooked Kingdom - a source I care about a lot and um more than some of the other books - that I started to get pickier but I did.

To quickly get the Mal, Alina, Darkling, Nikolai plot of it all. I liked all the new casting (Nikolai took a little to grow on me, but Tolya and Tamar were great the whole way through). Generally I was fairly unmoved by it all, but this plot really isn't why I am watching the show. Genya gave me some feelings. Zoe Wannamaker is great. I preferred Ben Barnes' villain moments more in S1 but the end in the desert did make me feel a little bit.

I'll deal with the !!! end separately.

So, the Crows. I wasn't sure what I expected them to do - knowing that they wouldn't do The Ice Court - but idk I was a little surprised they mined Crooked Kingdom the way they did because in my mind it so clearly needs the events of SOC for emotional reasons for CK events to work, but I think they ... sort of pulled it off. Sort of.

I mean, they rushed the fuck out of it. I know they wanted to reunite the plots but I wanted more out of Kaz's revenge and yes we got a lot of investigation of Kaz's trauma but I wanted a bit more set-up for all the Crows. The cane fight was very good though. Freddy was great in the confrontation scene - so good - but I admit I missed the quiet of the book church scene and that only Inej saw it. Inej not being there, it being surrounded by lots of people ... it felt different.

The Kanej: they hinted at book stuff but it all just felt a little watered down. Yes we got the bandages scene but only nods to it because they're not really there yet emotionally, and yes he tried to get her out and got her freedom but I didn't really see the point in having that weird fight in the middle. Yes, he is pushing her away but it just seemed odd. The hallucination scene was feelings-y but kinda confusing in why they had that for Inej, but the recovery form it was nicely done with the softness in Kaz's eyes before the !!! sets in. However the final ep "I will have you without armour" scene was pretty great. And his looks when he saw her walk back with Alina and the sword! I love them.

Wesper: I liked Jack's Wylan from the get go and I thought him and Kit had good chemistry. Even with the plot changes I found them very cute and charming.

Also the bit where Jesper lists off how Kaz couldn't imagine doing this without him, and Kaz said yes all of that - but not the unlimited tab. I love me some Kaz and Jesper friendship.

Nina with the Crows was great. She doesn't take Kaz's bullshit and I loved the "there is five of us" moment at the end.

Matthias: welp sorry Calahan you had shit all to do. I did assume they were gonna get him out this season but uh guess that is for the Ice Court spinoff.

The end: haha they sure changed a lot there. A lot. Are they setting up something for S&B S3 and also SOC?? Now with Dark Alina in charge of Ravka and King of Scars Nikolai stuff?? Mal going away with Tolya, Tamar and Inej?? I liked that Inej is getting a pirate slave hunter moment (but I still need that Kanej boat scene. I need it). I guess they'll find a way to get her back? Will she get caught?? So many questions. So random.

I don't care about Mal x Alina really but uh if I did and that ending happened and I was expecting the R&R ending. Well.

Are they going to do a Tolya and Inej moment? I have mixed feelings.

Anyway in conclusion: I love the Crows! Some things were good! The actors were all great! But eh some choices I'm not sure about it. I need the Ice Court story though. Please Netflix.

Yes I have read book scenes and I might go hunt down some of my Kanej fic faves ...

[kariachi]

Me: Wow, I have already managed to work myself into a lather over not only both the actions and inaction of the Plumbers during the Rooter’s Arc, but also the age-old attempts by UA to be dark and edgy without having any actual substance or lasting effects

My Brain: If they wanted to hit on more ‘mature’ topics they could’ve made The Flamekeepers’ Circle touch on cult recruitment tactics and homelessness- the first being understandable given the villains are literally a cult, and the second nicely tying into character backstories rather than just having a major character suddenly join a cult. Have Kevin grab the cousins to go investigate these people, either because they’ve been loitering around the city’s homeless shelters and soup kitchens or because they’re working on opening some and his ‘bullshit’ meter is going fucking haywire about it. You can even still have the ‘someone gets pissed at Ben for laughing at the representative’ bit, just make it Kevin getting pissed because he’s taking this Very Seriously and for a moment there it feels like Ben isn’t. Not only do you get to hit on serious topics, not only does it not have to take over the episode to do it, but you also get some added character depth from Kevin (to have noticed and come to such strong opinions about the situation clearly he’s keeping an eye out for these places at least). You could even specifically bring in Kevin’s backstory for newer viewers- I can 100% see him leaving particularly rough parts of his backstory out when telling Gwen about it, have her be surprised at just how serious he’s taking the concern that somebody might be taking advantage of people and Ben (for once the one of them who knows more about Kevin) quietly pulling her aside and mentioning that the guy was living in an abandoned subway station when they first met him.

It would have built on prior characters, touched on ‘dark’ topics like they seemed to want for that series, and both had substance and showed the lasting effects of the sort’ve shit these kids have been through.

[jheselbraum]

Part of why the writing of steven universe is one reason for the common fan interpretation of Rose (that she is, somehow, an irredeemable monster despite the concept of irredeemable monsters being in complete opposition to the show's thesis) is that Rose haunts the narrative so fucking much that it feels like the show... forgot? To include more stuff about the other diamonds being evil? We're shown them doing horrible things a number of times (the biggest being the corruption blast, of course) but each of them only really gets one arc where they do one truly awful thing. White's only directly shown during the final arc of the series, of course, and thus only gets that final arc to show off how truly heinous she is (and boy howdy does she pull out all the stops trying to do this), but we only see Yellow being evil during the cluster arc, we don't really get much more on her aside from that and we don't see her making either it or the other gem experiments. We only see her invading other planets once in the show and even then it's from a distance in the form of a surrealist flashback that focuses more on and tells us more about Pink (as an aside, the entire concept of colonization in the show is often relegated to flashbacks or simply not shown. Gem Colonization, like Rose herself, haunts the narrative but it does it in such a way that looking back its ties and symbolism regarding real world colonization isn't as strong as it is in some other shows, and is arguably barely there at all. It's got the trappings of classic b-movie alien invasion but in a less directly and culturally disruptive way. Human culture largely developed the same as it did in the real world, albeit with a few name changes, whereas in a show like The Owl House even though the dominant culture of the show isn't a human one we'd be familiar with, even casual watchers can tell that witch culture is something that's been deeply disrupted by Belos in a way that perfectly encapsulates the effects of colonialism on the cultures it tries to erase. Belos is also never openly mentioned as a colonizer despite literally being a colonist, and yet he's a much stronger metaphor for a fascist, colonialist, overlord than the diamonds ever were. The colonization metaphor in Steven Universe leans very heavily on a couple of Jasper's lines and the word colonization itself. While Steven Universe very much feels like it was going to have political undertones at some point, particularly in the early Peridot arcs, the story seems to pivot and dive head first into "homeworld isn't the government, homeworld is your parents" somewhere around the 3rd or 4th season. This pivot into the eventual metaphor for the diamonds works better with the central thesis of the show but contributed if not directly caused a lot of fandom bullshit because people were expecting the diamonds to be full on space nazis and not your homophobic grandma).

Blue's big villain moment is her kidnapping Greg. We see her threatening to shatter Ruby in a distant flashback, a grudge that Garnet holds throughout the rest of the show and brings up several times but it honestly comes off as a way to remind the audience that we're supposed to think Blue is a tyrant and not a giant homophobic sad sack too upset over the loss of the gemdaughter she neglected and mistreated to do much. Narratively speaking, she's not presented as being as threatening as Yellow, who herself doesn't get much time to be threatening on screen. And while both Yellow and Blue remain villains until the last episode, throughout the entire Diamond Days arc they're arguably at least trying to help Steven get through the princess gauntlet. Their villainy is distant, and much of what we do see outside their big reveal arcs was directed at Pink.

Meanwhile, most of the other rogues filling out the SU roster are either corrupted gems with little to no agency in the narrative, Lapis and Peridot, or gems who have some bone to pick with Rose and have decided to ruin Steven's day about it. What do we have on Pink? Well she bubbled Bismuth, cracked Volleyball's eye with her trauma beam, left Spinel in the garden, didn't tell Garnet she used to be Pink, didn't tell Greg she used to be Pink (but notably almost did), commanded Pearl not to tell anyone she used to be Pink, started a war, Rose intimately haunts the narrative and she kind of has to in order for that climax where White takes Steven's gem out in a failed attempt at bringing her back to really hit right but like. We got an entire movie where the plot was "Hey Rose fucked up here's a brand new villain that everyone can project themselves onto." Her mistakes are deeply interpersonal ones, not vague science fiction concepts like Yellow, and they're not overshadowed by just how sad she is all the time like Blue, and they're not saved for the very end like White. And that deeply human, interpersonal, relatable evil the other diamonds commit? It's abusing Pink.

I'm going to be generous here and blame part of this on the fact that the show was cut short (I brought up TOH earlier in this post but I'm gonna do it again to mention that what they were able to do with their shortened show is an absolute miracle, most shows can't pull off a near-perfect finale like that at all, let alone on such a strict time schedule. S3 of TOH still felt complete while giving us little bites of what could've been here and there. The last arc of SU felt like they were ticking off boxes in some places, and I'm glad that Future and the movie were able to happen because while the finale would've been serviceable I really think the story needed those last bits for Steven's sake) but god, how this show balanced Rose against the diamonds really distorted things and honestly as much as I love this show it really weakens the overall writing for me.