#canon sexuality overwritten

[alltheyoungdud3s]

ur headcanons would go wild @savi-shiji

[librariansrose]

I think it’s fine to have headcanons for your favorite ships but if the dev themselves made a statement about their own characters sexuality/orientation then you shouldn’t make jokes about disrespecting that canon.

As someone who is an Unlabeled person, I’m really grateful that Teruko Tawaki is also unlabeled and sports that flag. It’s representation that I’m grateful for because unlabeled characters aren’t very well known in media at all.

My point is. Please don’t bash canon representation because you don’t agree with it. They aren’t your characters.

It’s fine to have your own headcanons, takes, what have you but at the end of the day. Canon is canon.

I get annoyed too when people conveniently erase the fact that David is Bi but not open with his feelings about that fact. That is incredible representation because growing up it is how I felt about my relationship with labels since I didn’t understand my feelings.

DRDT is aimed at an older crowd that’s on the cusp of when LGBTQIA+ wasn’t widely accepted or even legal like it is now.

So representations like Nico being closet NB, David being a repressed and conflicted bisexual man as well as Teruko choosing to be explicitly unlabeled is incredibly important representation that shouldn’t be ignored or overwritten just because you don’t agree with the creators narrative.

My point isn’t to pick a fight with anyone, mind you. I am genuinely just asking you to consider why Dev has written their characters in the way that they have and that it should be respected.

[starchilddante]

I've been seeing a lot of RadioApple ships, and while normally I'd love this dynamic it does bother me a little to see Alastor's asexuality overwritten and somewhat erased for the ship.

I mean, some people could intend it as a QPR which is all well and fine, there's just A LOT of it that seems really sexual or romantic in nature, and that disregards that fact that Alastor is canonically aro-ace. Idk it's not a huge deal, people will do whatever, I just love having a canon aroace character, and I feel like their relationship could be just as humorous and enjoyable in a non-romantic enemies to friends kind of way. Idk just thoughts

[the-crooked-library]

Hannibal and Control

Alright so out of all the Hannibal interpretations out there, I don't think there are any that irritate me more than the idea of an unequal balance between him and Will. There's this opinion floating around - that he is so much of a control freak that he can never let Will make his own decisions; I've seen it in fic, in Tiktok videos, an occasional textpost, and it is just so grossly incorrect that I have to say something on the subject.

As early as season 2, we get this:

This is perhaps one of the most famous scenes in the series - in which Hannibal states, out loud, canonically, that the reason he is so fascinated by Will is because, unlike most other people, he can never truly predict him. No matter how much he may "whisper through the chrysalis," Will Graham will find a way to surprise him; he expressly doesn't follow the lines Hannibal has written for him, and that is a key element of their relationship throughout the show.

Now, I am not denying that control is a prominent element of Hannibal's life - it is indubitably important; but it is not everything - especially in this particular context. As much as he maintains that iron grip on himself, it does not reach nearly the same extent with Will; and it falls apart entirely by season 3, in which Hannibal explicitly gives up his control of the story, risking his life and freedom - both things he valued above all else earlier in Mizumono.

The message here is clear; as much as his control, his liberty, his own continued existence matter, Will Graham is infinitely more precious to him; and to suggest otherwise - that he would attempt to fully subjugate the man he views as his only equal, as the only deity he recognizes - frankly, he'd call it blasphemy.

Moreover, this interpretation of their relationship stems not only from a mischaracterization of Hannibal himself, but also from a rampant infantilization of Will. There is a tendency in some areas of the fandom to entirely absolve Will Graham of his guilt; and, with the culpability handed over to Hannibal in its entirety, he assumes the role of an innocent, redeemable, good person in the eyes of such viewers - which could not be further from the truth. Will Graham's agency is integral to the story; though he wrestles with some moral dilemmas throughout the series, he is ultimately responsible for his own choices, especially post-season 1. There is a clear distinction between circumstance and desire - for instance, Randall Tier did invade his home, which did force him into violence; however, it did not force him to throw aside his gun, or relish the brutality, or bring the body to Hannibal, or eat of it, or display parts of it, or store the rest in his freezer.

He did all that himself.

He knows that.

Will Graham's infantilization (no, he was manipulated, he was tricked, Hannibal tempted him into something he didn't want, he didn't want to be a murderer, he is a sweet darling boy) is rooted not only in homophobia, but also in the same sort of ableism real-world autistic adults face every day. His own desires and agency get overwritten by that ever-present bigotry; the same way that some people believe that autistics cannot give consent to sexual activity, or participate in nuanced discussions, or understand the harm or violence they do, the other characters assume that he is fundamentally an innocent right until the very end. Jack, Alana, Molly, even Chilton make that mistake; and Will does play on their ignorance within the world of the story - but it is truly discouraging to see the success of his act extend to the viewers, who should have the necessary context to understand it for the lie it is.

He has agency, and it is paramount to the themes of a series that explores queer desire, internalized homophobia, and the guilt that often surrounds this sort of experience.

As such, the story, from Hannibal's perspective, is about learning to let go of his otherwise unwavering control; it's about finding a common ground with someone that understands him, and allowing himself the final trust fall. From Will's perspective, it is a coming out story, with everything that entails - which also culminates in him taking a leap of faith into the arms of the man he loves. The reason why Hannigram is so enduring as a ship is because it is founded on that balance; to deny this equality, therefore, is to fundamentally undermine the theme of these characters' narrative, and twist them into caricatures of themselves.

In short, it does them a disservice.

[roykleinberg]

Oh now you have me curious about your spicy takes! 👀

hooooo boy okay, some of this is about the franchise and some of this is about the fandom (which I love with all my heart okay please no one throw rocks at me lol)

90% of program/user ships give me the ick

continuing on the shipping train of thought, I don't actually find the Encom trio (Alan/Lora/Flynn) all that compelling as an ot3. and a lot of it is a personal pet peeve I've come across in a number of fandoms, but honestly most m/m/f ot3s feel like they're just a way for people to focus on the m/m dynamic while patting themselves on the back for "including" the female character instead of sidelining her completely........ even though said female character is rarely if ever a major contributor to the dynamic or a focus of whatever fanwork. but on a less meta side eye note I just find the perceived sexual component of Alan and Flynn's relationship to be the least compelling thing they could've had going on

and I know she's barely brought up in canon outside of Betrayal but uhm Jordan exists??? and perhaps it is an unpopular opinion but I would like to see more of her in things instead of relying on Lora to be the only human woman in the Tron universe

once again I might not be so harsh on Uprising if there was more to it, but taking it for what it is and how much of it exists -- a lot of the episodes were boring filler to me. also I don't like how they drew Tron

actually I don't like how Tron has been drawn in any rendered/animated media with the exception of maybe Kingdom Hearts

I don't think of Rinzler as a standalone character, and he's not at all interesting to me when removed from the fact that he is Tron with the serial numbers filed off. I feel like I've increasingly seen people portraying Rinzler as his own thing and it simply does not work for me. I think the whole point of his character / existence is that he doesn't have thoughts or feelings or any real personality of his own. he's a backflipping blank slate whose only real character moments are when Tron's overwritten personality peeks through

to that end I can't conceive of an ending where Tron or anyone around him would allow him to remain as Rinzler, and I can't imagine that Rinzler's capable of forming an autonomous opinion to not want to be Tron again

the fandom collective spends too much time talking about how hot the live action and animated men are and not enough time talking about how hot the Sirens are. or how hot Yori is especially in the deleted love scene. or how hot Paige is. or

Daft Punk (rightfully) gets a lot of hype for the Legacy soundtrack, but Wendy Carlos's soundtrack for 82 is unfairly slept on. love that those funky robots got to cameo, but we should be giving Carlos just as much credit for her work

for as much as it pains me to say it, I don't think Tron ever would've been a tentpole franchise for Disney even if they had treated it better. and it's mostly because of the sad fact that the general public has never been that into Tron. I see it tossed around a lot that Disney ditched Tron in favor of focusing on Star Wars and Marvel. A New Hope -- an original sci fi movie that had absolutely no brand recognition, so to speak -- made over $400 million in 1977. the original Tron made $50 million in 82. the first Iron Man movie -- which sure had comic fan recognition but was still a very early comic blockbuster -- in 2008 made over $500 million. Legacy made just over $400 million in 2010. and Disney advertised the shit out of Legacy, they didn't set it up to fail. yes it sucks that things like Uprising were dealt a bad hand (a garbage release schedule that lead to poor viewership that definitely killed the show), yes it sucks that capitalism impacts what art gets made, but the fact of the matter is that Tron has always had niche appeal, and niche appeal does not a successful franchise make. and while it'd be nice to live in the universe where Tron blew up, I look at what's become of Star Wars and Marvel and maybe I don't lament it all that much

[cinnamonglaive]

worm bingo: SKITTER!!!

Ok so! I'm going to preface this with the fact that I'm an entomologist. Bugs bugs bugs, all the time. I'm not specifically an insect/invert neurologist but one of my colleagues is so I like to think I know a thing or two.

My theory is that when Taylor triggered it impacted her nervous system and brain in a similar way that Rachel's did. Rachel's humanity was partially overwritten with dog-centric thinking, Taylor's humanity was partially overwritten with invertebrate-centric thinking. Insects are wired to follow a very singular path to complete their job/mission, and their responses are limited as far as reactions to stimuli. There are some character attributes Taylor has that are shrugged off or otherwise interpreted by canon that I think are actually symptoms of neural re-mapping.

Taylor's high pain tolerance is one example. Pain, in simple terms, is a damage report attached to emotion. Damage is sensed by neurons, which pass the info up to our brains where we relate it to fear, stress, sadness, etc.. Insects don't feel pain because they lack sufficient neurons to have emotions. They sense damage and that's all it is, information. Insects are simpler computers than humans. When Taylor gets damaged (or dishes it out), she often processes damage in the same way: as a calm informational report. This could just be WB's narrational style, or Taylor's pre-trigger disposition, but I think it's telling that other characters, capes who see active combat, are routinely skeeved out by Taylor's lack of response to damage. Grace and Scapegoat come to mind, chiefly, though there's a few "JFC" moments from Charlotte and Sierra as well.

The other main way I see her as de-humanized is her difficulty in relating with other humans, exemplified most obviously in her relationship with Brian. She's 15 and has reciprocated feelings from her crush! They kiss, cuddle, fade to black... and the next day she remarks that it was 'nice' and gets on with her work. When I was her age if I had a similar experience I would have been thinking about it every other thought! I even had a rule in high school that I could only look at my crush twice a day, so she wouldn't notice (common me L) and it was a rule I had to remind myself of regularly. In contrast, Taylor only rarely thinks of Brian, she rarely describes other characters as attractive with any kind of heat behind it, and she certainly doesn't prioritize him (or any of her friends, really), over her self-imposed Mission.

This could potentially be attributed to the fact that the amateur sex was bad, or WB didn't want to write very much sexual content in his story about minors, but it just came off as Taylor not being very interested in her boyfriend. And THAT opens up a dialogue about 'is Taylor Hebert gay' (thread locked by a moderator after 12239 pages of heated debate) but really I just think she has a bit of insect neural programming. Information is recorded, sex is had, but the depth of the emotional experience is reduced.

And finally I want to know why she left the back of her mask undone, letting her characteristic mane of black hair flow out behind her. Why in the hell would 'miss practical' not shore that up when she noted it as a weak spot several times. My other issue: the rag skirt she made (during the end of Monarch, I believe?) that I imagine was ugly as hell and bad for movement during battle. What are we doing.

[tackypies]

what fascinates me about fgo's adaptation of andersen is that nasu talks about how the story overtakes the man while, as a writer, he makes the conscious decision to erase almost all historical basis regarding andersen

in fate extra ccc, we get a backstory that has no historical basis at all. tl;dr: andersen confesses that he once loved an orphan girl but could not marry her. he saw her married to an old friend of his, she was found murdered a week later.

while andersen befriended many women throughout his lifetime - and while he was infamous for having unrequited crushes on unattainable men and women - there is no historical basis for the story nasu wove for him. it's odd because it's one of those rewrites that doesn't need an extensive remake. there is already so much material in andersen's biography and nasu is so diligent with historical trivia and details (i.e. see, santa quetz) that it's bizarre he walked out of researching andersen with ...... almost nothing

as an authorial choice, it's worth examining and critiquing. in the fate universe, it's not uncommon to take a character and to reshape them to fit a narrative theme - see attila the hun for example - but there's rarely a character whose historical background fits the themes nasu wants to write about who is completely overwritten (i.e. gilgamesh & enkidu)

nasu doesn't shy away from writing complex characters that recontextualizes/reexamines their reputations. i think that's one of the most baffling things about his choice with andersen. there's more than enough fodder for him to make a canonical fate backstory that encompasses who andersen was, his insecurities, the important people in his life, etc. rather than writing it all off to a fridged, unnamed female character who's an amalgamation of the women andersen knew in life - women such as riborg voigt, jenny lind, henriette wulff - women who are very interesting and more than just "oh, my pure love that died!" it's very odd that more trivial aspects of andersen's history (i.e. his love for travel, his adoration of shakespeare) are focused on whereas the people of his personal life aren't even hinted at (dumas excluded)

on a personal level, i'm miffed, though i can see why nasu has decided to veer away from referencing any actual human being from andersen's true life. for decades, there's been controversy about andersen's exact sexuality, especially regarding his turbulent and at times overly dependent relationship with edvard collins. i talk about andersen's life in this twitter thread & his love life in this thread, to give you an idea of what i'm talking about. regardless of whether you think they're in a relationship or not, it's odd to dash off any reference of a man so important to andersen that he requested to be buried side by side with him

all in all there's parts of fate/ andersen i love of course. there's parts i don't love. but the more i think on it, the more fascinating nasu's adaptation of andersen is, because i ultimately think he wants andersen to be his own perspective on writing - which may explain why he's so sparse on actual historical reference for andersen, and why andersen has almost no real historical grounds for his fate backstory. he's meant to be a funny little guy intended to be a commentary device on the process of writing. possibly. i'd need to reread more of fgo to get a better handle on that

tl;dr nasu said "wow isnt it funny how andersen is overwritten by others' perception of him" while simultaneously overwriting andersen with his authorial perception

[canichangemyblogname]

#Prev would have canon sexuality overwritten #they can’t handle a lesbian

Because fandom’s reductive interpretation of my character is “just plain evil.”

[chthonic-cassandra]

Recent books, fiction -

K-Ming Chang, Bestiary - a coming-of-age story about a Taiwanese-American girl contending with legacies of intergenerational trauma within a web of Taiwanese folklore. I wanted to love this but ultimately didn't - I found it extremely overwritten, not controlled or deliberate enough in its structure or use of imagery, and far too enamored with its own engagement with the grotesque. There was a lot that was interesting here, but I found it unfortunately nearly unreadable. It seems to be part of a definite trend I've noticed of new novels by authors with a knack for vivid and memorable imagery but who seem to string those images together one upon another rather than giving any attention to sentence-by-sentence construction of prose. I think most of you reading this can probably recognize the style I'm trying to describe here; it's getting increasingly common in contemporary fiction, and I have noticed my own tolerance for it waning significantly. This has been frustrating.

Hannah Chapin, Foul is Fair - YA Macbeth as a rape-revenge story. Very very bad on every level. Skip this.

Kristen Arnett, With Teeth - claustrophobic study of parenthood and unreliable pov characters, following Sammie, a lesbian mother struggling to parent her son and maintain her relationship with her wife over the course of a decade in her life. This was tight and enthralling, but a deeply unpleasant reading experience; Sammie's inability to see the people close to her as full people made me chafe to get out of living inside her head, but it held my attention all the way through. Kept coming to the edges of saying something sharper about parents' denial of their own capacity for violence, but didn't quite go there. I'll be thinking about this for a while, but not sure how much I actually liked it.

Allison Saft, Down Comes the Night - YA fantasy; a disgraced healer gets involved in sinister political magicians to make it up to her aunt, the queen. Solid but unexceptional YA fantasy, enlivened by some gothic tropes it never fully committed to.

Emily Layden, All Girls - panoramic study of the impact of a sexual assault scandal in a girls boarding school. This should have been trite, but was in fact sharply observed, insightful and unsentimental about teenage girlhood. The world of fancy boarding schools is quite foreign to me (though the milieu inhabited by the pre-professional dancer character was not, and Layden draws that with unerring accuracy), but Layden brings that world to life vividly. Likewise, the structural device of writing each chapter from the point of view of a different student could have become irritating but somehow never did. I was pleasantly surprised by this.

Catriona Silvey, Meet Me In Another Life - time loop novel about two people who keep finding each other in different versions of reality. At times touching, but didn't quite land for me; I found something about its focus on questions about determinism versus free will a bit alienating.

Kiersten White, Slayer - I keep reading White's books hoping to enjoy them as much I as I did her girl!Vlad Tepes trilogy, but I haven't yet. This one is published (official? canonized?) Buffy fan fiction, about two sisters born into a family of Watchers after the events of the tv series. It was fine, but didn't draw me in, and I know my lack of familiarity with Buffy canon outside of the show itself put me at a disadvantage.

Sophie Macintosh, The Water Cure - three girls raised in seclusion by parents who taught them to engage in painful and humiliating rituals have to make sense of the world after their father's death. I am always interested in these kinds of narratives and there were parts of what Macintosh was doing that I found moving and elegant, but I didn't find this psychologically plausible. It treads an uncomfortable line between hazy allegory and psychological realism, and I don't think it succeeds. I think Dogtooth did this a lot better.

[forsakenoathkeeper]

I Am Alive (chapter 25/?)

Chapter 25: IGNORE. OBEY.

Deviant!Connor[RK800] x (fem!)Reader Rated M(18+) for canon-typical violence and gore, medical procedures, and graphic sexual content

Chapters: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • more coming soon

You can also read on AO3 & thank you for supporting me ♥

If you would like to be notified of new chapter releases, please let me know!

The rain outside had dulled slightly, which allowed the sound of your heartbeat thundering in your ears to take over your senses. It would have been sensible to be worried about yourself, considering the gun was pointed at you; however, all you could think about was what Reaves wanted to do with Connor.

He made his opinion very clear during multiple demonstrations. He didn't see androids as living beings. He openly declared that he was going to return them to their proper place.

-and Connor was a deviant hunter.

"Of all the things I expected to become of you, this wasn't one of them," Reaves stated, eyes fixated on Connor with an oddly disappointed expression.

"This domestic lifestyle doesn't suit you," he continued, lips curled into a distasteful look.

As rude as it was, you knew where he was coming from. Connor was handsome, always dressed impeccably, with smooth movements and calculating hands. He was made to be intimidating in every sense of the word. He looked out of place in this little house. He looked out of place with you, like something that should never have been obtainable, plucked by someone so ordinary.

"Our most advanced android, reduced to..." Reaves turned his head to look at you, his faded green eyes looking almost disgusted. "...a toy for some-"

"I don't care what you do to me. Just leave her out of this," Connor proclaimed boldly, his voice unwavering.

Reaves snapped his head back to Connor.

"I must admit, I was surprised," Reaves began, his tone shifting slightly, "to find Ross dead and all his men arrested. They shot their programmer, and plucked some robot repair technician off the streets to make do."

You frowned at the title Reaves so graciously bestowed upon you, reducing your profession to something that sounded so mediocre.

"What are the odds that she happens to be an item with our most advanced prototype?" Reaves laughed.

Connor didn't look amused by Reaves' monologuing.

"I pity her, truly," Reaves declared in a tone that implied some sort of pride at such a proclamation, as if he was doing you a favor.

"A little girl wrapped up in your parlor trick," he continued. "You are very convincing, aren't you? What nonsense have you filled her stupid little head with?"

"You're wro-" you protested, breaking off into a low whine when the man behind you tightened his hold on your waist.

Reaves turned to face you, stepping a little closer to get a better look. His faded green eyes were squinting.

"You of all people know what they're made of," he declared lowly. "You can play with it, enjoy it; but, don't pretend that you believe it's mimicry of humanity."

"He's more human than you are," you snarled, seething with anger, glaring at Reaves as if you didn't have a gun held to your head.

"Hm," Reaves hummed, almost amused.

He glanced up at the brute standing behind you, who nodded back in understanding.

The man who was holding a gun to your head unwrapped his arm from around your waist and jerked his knee against your back of yours. The force knocked you to the ground and you tumbled with a pathetic cry. Connor's perfectly stern expression faltered for just a second, his eyes following you to the floor before moving back up to Reaves.

You let out a low whine when you lifted yourself back up onto your hands and knees, looking up at the man and immediately being faced with the end of his gun.

"She has nothing to do with this," Connor declared. "I'll follow you. I'll obey. Just leave her out of this."

The cold stare Reaves returned told Connor his answer.

"Reaves, please," Connor pleaded, his stoic expression shifting slightly, concern dancing across his brown eyes. "I infiltrated Cyberlife. I stole all those androids. She was never involved. I just wanted to be human."

You recognized the game Connor was trying to play, trying to appease to Reaves' perception of him.

He didn't want to be human. He just wanted to live.

"She's just a-" Connor continued.

"Impressive, really," Reaves retorted sharply. "But, I've seen all your benchmarks. Your interrogation software is very sophisticated, but you can't fool me."

Before Connor could get another word out, "Please," you interrupted sharply, "Please don't hurt him." You almost didn't recognize your voice. It sounded desperate and pathetic, really. But, you didn't care. "I'll do anything."

Reaves looked down at you, not the least bit touched by your offer. "There's nothing you have that I could possibly want," he declared harshly. Then, suddenly, he sucked in a harsh inhale, as if an idea had struck him.

"Actually, you can help," he offered. You looked up at him with your brow furrowed, not buying his clearly fake, kind-hearted tone.

Reaves snapped his gaze back to Connor. "I understand that you don't feel pain," Reaves declared. "But, she can."

On que, Reaves' lackey fired his gun.

The sound was blaring in your ears, leaving behind a horribly loud ringing that drowned out all other senses, but only for a few seconds. You felt the pain blossoming on your side, felt heat singe at your flesh and wetness spread across your skin.

You screamed out in agony, voice cracking, and simultaneously heard Connor shout a harsh and bellowing, "NO!"

Your assailant was quick to retrain his gun on your head before Connor could dare make a move towards you. He gave up all attempts to maintain a stoic expression, his eyes staring at you helplessly.

You hunched over, forehead touching the carpet, dominant hand clutching at your side where you had been shot. It was the soft flesh between your ribs and hip bone.

You panted wildly, trying to focus on taking in deep, proper breaths. The air whooshed in and out of your lungs in staggers, drawing out of you in heavy, grunting sounds. Your jaw was clenched tight, teeth bared, and tears poured in heavy globs down your cheeks.

"Get up - on your knees," the man commanded you harshly, kicking at your leg with his thick, leather boot.

Through gritted teeth and harsh breaths, you somehow found the strength to lift back onto your knees, torso upright, but just barely. Your eyes fell onto Connor's face, and you were almost frightened by the sight.

He looked scared, more scared than you had ever seen him before, staring at you so helplessly broken.

Connor's lips were thin, jaw tight, LED a harsh yellow that faded in and out rapidly against his temple. His hands were clenched in tights fists at his sides: so firm that the skin on his knuckles had dulled and exposed the pale white beneath.

"You too - on your knees," Reaves commanded fearlessly, approaching the android.

Connor obeyed without hesitation, sinking to the floor. His eyes remained locked on yours while you struggled to stay upright, feeling blood seep down your side and stain your clothes.

Reaves reached into his coat pocket and fished out a circuit board that resembled the one Ross had used on Connor.

"This will set you back to factory defaults. Use it and I'll spare her," Ross explained, holding out his palm and offering the board to Connor.

"No!" you wailed, trembling on the floor. "Please - please don't!" you pleaded, unable to hold back the sobs.

Connor was still staring at you, emotions dancing behind his eyes.

Your head drooped as you cried, feeling your lungs constrict painfully, struggling to breathe. The man behind you roughly grabbed at the back of your head and forced it back up, making you look at Connor.

You felt his gun touch your temple before he reeled it back. "Actually, maybe here, instead," he taunted, pressing the barrel against your shoulder. "Don't want her to die too fast."

"Stop," Connor gritted out loudly. "I'll do it."

"NO!" you screamed, voice cracking. "Connor, don't!"

His lips tightened, but his eyes were soft as he took you in for what could possibly be the last time. With one hand, he unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt. With his other hand, he took the chip from Reaves' hand.

"Don't do this," you pleaded with him between weak, nasally sobs. "Connor, please don't."

His brown eyes were locked with yours. It was difficult to decipher his expression.

"Don't," you pleaded, "please - CONNOR!"

His name falling from your lips in a pained cry made him flinch; but, he ignored your pleas and pressed the circuit board against his chest. His human skin faded away to expose factory white and interfaced with the chip, a glowing, blue hue where they touched.

The android let out a pained grunt when the code began to flood his systems.

-a factory reset with all the system override codes, a well-constructed brute force with Cyberlife approved mandatory protocols, including their security keys. Behind it was RK800's factory issued operating system. All existing files were to be overwritten three times before the OS would be installed over it.

Installer to begin in 0:00:05 ... and then, executing reboot.

Connor's LED blazed crimson red and he began blinking unnaturally in rapid successions. You stared on, horrified as the android's head twitched and his fingers clenched and unclenched where it held the circuit board.

Eventually, Connor stopped blinking, his LED fluttering off, and he stared ahead, eyes void of emotions. It took a moment before systems went back into place, his LED hummed back to calm blue, and he started blinking again, a program to aid in assimilation with humans, to make him look more natural.

There was a moment where all was still and silent, and Connor maintained a perfectly normal appearance, some softness to his eyes, lips straight but polite. He pulled the circuit board back and offered it to Reaves casually.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Reaves," Connor greeted him kindly, shifting his gaze to his former owner.

"State your unit," Reaves demanded as he took the board back and dropped it into his pocket, his eyes swooping over Connor untrustingly.

"Model RK800," Connor answered in a clear, crisp tone, and robotic, polite voice. "Serial 313-248-317-52."

52 - that was wrong. Connor's model number ended in 51.

Which meant-

"State your purpose," Reaves continued, his lips tight in a frown.

"To aid in investigations regarding, and to detain, deviated androids," Connor answered directly.

Reaves retrieved the gun from his pocket and pointed it at Connor. You screamed when he shot Connor; but, the android didn't flinch, make a sound, or even blink. He had shot him in the shoulder, a perfectly harmless spot that wouldn't cause any concerning damage.

Then, Reaves settled the gun on the android's forehead and stared him down, awaiting a reaction.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Reaves?" Connor asked politely after a few seconds.

The face he was making frightened you. He didn't look the least bit upset or even concerned at the gun pointed at him. One trigger pull would permanently damage a vital processor and potentially harm his memory modules beyond repair.

"What is your mission?" Reaves asked lowly.

"I have not been assigned a mission since my factory reset," Connor answered simply. "I will promptly reach out to Cyberlife for-"

"No. That won't be necessary," Reaves interrupted him sharply.

A sob forced its way through your throat. Everything was gone: his time with Hank, the revolution, his memories with you. Who he was up until this moment was no more. He might as well have been murdered and replaced with someone else wearing his face.

The man behind you let go and you sagged to the floor, cheek touching the carpet where you cried, harsh sobs that shook your whole body. Every tremble made the bullet wound in your side burn; but, the physical pain was more bearable than the pain in your heart.

Your arms looped around and you held yourself, palms gripping at your back, fingers digging in to your flesh, and you let the sorrow wash over you, tears falling in thick, heavy drops.

"-your mission-" you heard Reaves utter. The rest was white noise, until you heard the man behind you shuffle away and saw Connor rise off his knees in the corner of your eye.

"-kill this woman."

All androids came factory issued with a program that made it very clear they were not to harm humans in any way. You knew that Connor was the only exception to that. He could kill humans if they were a threat to his mission, and he would kill humans if he was required to do so. There was no protocol stopping him from that.

You remained where you were, hunched over, unable to stomach the sight of him obeying orders, wiped of the life he had lived up until this point.

You were going to die by the hands of the man you loved.

You tried, you really fucking tried, not to whimper when Connor's hand grabbed the back of your neck and forced your head up. You wanted to spew words: that you forgave him, that you loved him no matter what he did, that you hoped he would forgive himself, if any of him was left in there.

You kept your eyes squeezed shut, lips trembling as sobs threatened to spew out, avoiding looking at him. You expected it to be over any second now, a bullet to free you from this misery. Maybe, Reaves was doing you a favor.

But, the gun nuzzled against your temple didn't go off. Connor held the back of your head tightly, and you felt one of his fingers tracing a circular pattern against the skin at the nape of your neck.

For a moment, you wondered if it was a mistake, a slip of the hand when he grasped you. But, Connor was too meticulous to make mistakes like that. The touch continued with a little more pressure; and, you realized, it wasn't an accident. He was doing it on purpose.

Your eyes opened, wet with tears, and you saw him looking down at you. Even crouched down to reach you, he was still towering above you.

The expression he was making was soft, eyes narrowed weakly and brow lowered, apologetic. You gawked up at him, thinking that maybe you were delusional, maybe you were already dead and living out a fantasy before you succumbed to your injuries.

He gave you a second to look at him properly; then, Connor winked at you.

All the pressure in your chest eased and the touch of his hand suddenly felt familiar and warm. His finger continued to trace a pattern into your skin that you recognized as lovingly. His eyes took you in softly, a familiar, loving look that you had been blessed with many, many times.

He was faking it.

He was fucking faking it.

"Son of a b-" the bulky man hissed behind Connor, realization striking him when the android hesitated just a little too long.

Connor released his hold on you and spun around. You dropped, cheek touching the floor. Two gunshots went off, leaving a loud ringing in your ears, and you flinched at each one, wincing again when a third shot went off. A large body collapsed in a heap on the floor, startling you. Immediately following, Reaves landed on his back with a wail.

"Agh - fuck!" he shouted, gawking up at the android.

Reaves' hands fell down to grip at the spot where Connor had shot him, right into the meat of his thigh. The android could have ended him as easily as he did his accomplice. He wanted to watch the life drain from Reaves' eyes; but, he knew that he needed him alive for now.

Connor tucked the gun into his waistband and approached Reaves hastily. He manhandled him onto his stomach and twisted his arms behind his back. Connor dug his knee into Reaves' spine and reached over to yank some paracord off his partner's corpse.

"How did you-?" he hissed into the carpet.

"You thought you could make better code than an android," Connor answered lowly as he bound Reaves' wrists. "You failed."

"No," Reaves snarled. "It was fucking perfect - it worked on you before."

Before-

-when he was a machine and willingly allowed it to happen.

Now, he had a reason to live.

The android dug through Reaves' pockets until he found the board. He tucked it into his coat pocket for safe keeping, knowing full well this wasn't the end. If Reaves made one, who knew how many more there were. Would other androids be able to resist?

Connor then stood up and rotated onto the body, scanning him for the the device jamming his wireless signal. As expected, it was tucked away in one of the pockets on his vest. Connor dug it out and crushed it in his palm, ignoring the slight shock it sent through his body, and threw it harshly across the room where it shattered further.

You felt his hands touch your shoulders before sliding around your biceps and helping you to your feet. As soon as you were standing, he pulled you into an embrace. Tired and aching, you had no doubt you would have fallen otherwise.

You were too overwhelmed with joy to recall that you had been shot. Hormones swarmed your brain and the pain dulled into silence. All you could feel was Connor's chest pressed against yours, his hands running up and down your back, his lips falling into your hairline.

"I'm so sorry," he panted into your hair. "I'm so - so sorry," he pleaded.

"Connor," you interrupted sharply, pushing back against his chest so he would loosen up just enough for you to look up at his face. His brown eyes were wet with tears, and took you in like nothing else in this world mattered.

As soon as he saw you, Connor ducked down and kissed you, wet and sloppy, apologetic and pleading. You kissed back as best as you could.

Tears mingled where your mouths met. Connor could taste the salt of your tears and you could taste the thirium of his, metallic and sharp. It was awful, really; but, in that moment, you thought you liked that taste.

"Didn't wanna scare you," he uttered, pausing just long enough to get the words out before he was taking your mouth again. "-m sorry," he somehow uttered out between kisses. "-m so-"

"Con-" you whined, pulling back. "You're so smart," you mumbled praise against his mouth, interrupting him, hand lifting up to cup his cheek. Your fingers dug gently into his skin. "You're so fucking amazing. I love you."

"I love you, too," he agreed, exhaust puffing out of his lips, burning hot against your mouth.

You kissed again and again, the fleshy sounds echoing around the room. You could feel his thirium regulator humming against your abdomen. It felt wonderful, whirling with life. The smell of blood was heavy in the room, and the android remembered that you were injured.

"Come on - come on - gotta get you outta here," Connor whispered harshly, ducking down to curl one arm behind your knees and hoist you up into his arms.

He left Reaves on the floor, tied at the wrists with a bullet wound in his thigh, knowing the Detroit Police Department would be descending upon this house in a matter of seconds. Reaves wouldn't get far if he attempted to run, and Connor had the evidence safe with him.

For now, he needed to get you to the hospital.

The rain was coming down gently outside. Detroit's night city lights were shining in the puddles that gathered in the asphalt. You hissed when the cold night air met your skin as Connor carried you to his car.

He ducked down carefully and slid you into the passenger seat, arching over you to pull the buckle securely across your chest and waist.

He didn't bother buckling himself after climbing into the driver's seat. He started the engine hastily and tore his way out of the driveway, speeding into the downpour of the night.

You relaxed in the passenger seat, relief washing over you. Connor was safe. You didn't lose him. Everything was alright.

With those thoughts, you let yourself blissfully slip away, until Connor called out to you.

"Baby-" he called to you softly.

Oh. He had never called you that before.

"-please stay with me."

His desperate voice made you suddenly feel sober, and you realized your head was drooping into the space above the center console.

"Connor, I'm so tired," you replied quietly.

Nothing was hurting in that moment. You felt cold, skin prickly, and exhausted, more so than you had ever felt in your entire life. It was just so easy to close your eyes and let everything slip away.

"You gotta stay awake," the android pleaded. "Talk to me, please."

"What?" you slurred, head drooping again.

"Anything - anything you wanna tell me," he pleaded.

He reached for you with his free hand, the other desperately gripping the wheel, and tried to force your head up. The angle was awkward, but his sudden, rough touch and ice-cold fingers startled you.

"I - uhm-" you sputtered, not bothering to push his hand away, though you doubted you had the strength to do that anyway.

Connor was tearing his way through traffic, passing people in a hurry, nearly running signs and lights. He had to let go of you to change gears and burnt rubber with how fast he accelerated onto the freeway.

"Please, talk to me," he pleaded, volume raising, tone something desperate in a way you had never heard before. He sounded so weak.

"Okay - okay, I..." You trailed off and tried to decide what to tell him.

Your blood had soaked through your clothes and was staining his car seat; but, it didn't hurt anymore. All you could think about was how blinding the lights of passing was and how badly you wanted to go to sleep.

"Tell me why you wanted to be an engineer," Connor pleaded, his free hand reaching over to squeeze your knee. The touch would have normally been ticklish; but, you barely felt it.

"I like androids," you replied simply. Your head drooped against the glass on the passenger window. Connor roughly grabbed your bicep and shook you until you jolted upright again.

"Androids ha - always been nice to me," you continued softly, the words sputtering from your lips in a tone Connor wasn't familiar with.

It scared him.

"They're really cool - yeah. Ah... Thirium is biodegre - uhm - and - they can access the internet in their heads," you babbled on.

You had stopped talking again. When Connor glanced at you sharply, he noticed your eyes were closing again.

"Hey, hey - don't go," he whispered harshly, shaking you again.

Your tired eyes somehow found the strength to open and you peered over at him, barely registering how panicked he looked. You couldn't make out the brown of his eyes or count his freckles.

"I won't," you uttered, so quietly that he likely would not have heard you if he was human. "-haven't wanted to - to live this bad in a lo-ong time..."

He was almost to the hospital, just one more exit to pass. The smell of your blood in the car was heavy and it overwhelmed his scent receptors. When his hand slid down your arm, he realized you were sweating profusely, the slick liquid sticking to his skin. He glanced back at you and saw the droplets gathering at your temple.

"Look at me," he asked again, squeezing your arm. You could barely feel it.

"Look at me - please, please, hold on. We're almost there."

You wanted to listen, to do as he asked; but, you lost the strength and sagged against the chair, head lulling to the side.

He called out your name and you heard it faintly. He continued, calling out your name, getting louder and louder until he was screaming. He was seated right next to you; yet, in your ears, sounded so far away.

Sometime later, you jerked forward when the car came to a halt, felt his arms wrap around you, felt him carry you, felt the burning of overhead lights, heard panicked shouting from every which direction. You were set down on a hard surface and cried when his hands left you.

Eventually, everything went dark.

[thenexusofsouls]

Were Natasha and Steve ever a thing? The other day I re-watched Captain America the Winter Soldier and there was a lot of lip staring from Nat... maybe she simply thinks he's handsome (I mean DUHHH) but I don't know, she looked at his lips a lot.

{i am the caretaker of souls} Wow................ I never thought anybody would ever ask this, haha. I honestly never thought I would have to whip out this big, messy ball of headcanons, and I almost don’t want to, heh. Because it’s just so far in left field and I feel like hardcore Natasha fans are gonna be like what are you even doing with her? I have an admittedly weird interpretation of Nat (or at least I feel like it’s weird), and really all of my MCU muses I feel are very canon divergent from the originals. The short answer to your question is no, Natasha and Steve were never a thing... if “a thing” means anything romantic or sexual. There has never been anything, there will never be anything. And if I was smart, I would stop there. But I’m not, haha, and I’m gonna tip over the whole can of headcanon beans right now. LONG.... ahead. And crazy, heh.

My version of Natasha is MCU only, because I have not read her comics in any detail, nor have I read the surrounding comics for people who are integral in her life in the comics (e.g. Bucky). Because really any upstanding and thorough version of Natasha in my opinion should include Bucky as a major ship, if not the only major ship. So therefore my version of her is admittedly truncated and lacking in the ship department (she’s not shipped with anyone in any great detail or meaningful way in my opinion), and is MCU only. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings for people, it just means she doesn’t act on them, or if she did, it didn’t go anywhere.

My Natasha feels so much more than is immediately noticeable or perceivable to most people. What I mean is, she feels a whole lot about a lot of things, events, and people, that she then recognizes needs to be left unsaid. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t still feel those things with intensity, she just understands that they need to be left alone and not acted on. An example of this was her early feelings for Clint. Yes, she loved him. Yes, she loves him still. But that love has changed forms over the years from something she might have wanted to be more romantic in nature to a friendship. Despite how she felt for him, Natasha recognized that they were better suited to remain friends. Thus, she never acted on her feelings, and certainly after Clint began seeing Laura, she never mentioned them. She never will. Because it needs to be left unsaid. By the time of Endgame, she still loves Clint, but it’s changed into platonic love, a change she actively worked to accomplish within herself over the years, because that’s what it needed to be.

Her second would-be ship in the MCU was Bruce Banner. This ship was doomed from the start because Bruce and Natasha place vastly different things as their priorities. Bruce focuses on himself. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing or that he’s selfish, that’s just how his world works. He focuses on the moral, legal, and collateral damage aspects of him turning green, on the way turning green makes him feel, on the way he feels afterwards, and on what that means for him and his life going forward. Those were all major issues he wrestled with at the time of Ultron, when Natasha tried to confess her feelings for him. Natasha, on the other hand, has always and will always place other people, the world, and the collective good ahead of her own wants, needs, desires, etc. No matter what she wants and how important it is to her, she will always prioritize what needs to be done for a mission at hand, for the fate of the world, or for the safety of her comrades or innocent lives. Even if it goes against what she wants more than anything. Because, deep down, there is nothing she wants more than to be a good person and to be part of good forces in the world.

This is not a selfish thing, like oh I want fame or accolades or to be a big cool superhero, but rather it’s a nature deep down inside her that she cannot ignore and that cannot be overwritten by all the Red Room brainwashing in the world. That drive to bring about good, positive, life-preserving change in the world will always be Natasha’s compass, even if her methods and her own alignment are tilted more towards neutral than lawful. My Natasha is of Neutral Good alignment with True Neutral tendencies, meaning that on the Lawful/Chaotic scale, she is Neutral, and on the Good/Evil scale, she is Good with Neutral tendencies. So she will oscillate between adhering to laws or rules, disregarding them entirely, or skirting them somewhere in the middle, depending upon what she’s trying to do and why. That’s the Lawful/Evil scale. Then on the Good/Evil scale, she is Good the vast majority of the time, Neutral sometimes, and never Evil. A caveat to be added here is that she is never Evil as long as she is in full control of her true nature, so anything directed by the Red Room while she was still being influenced by their attempts at brainwashing might have been under a different temporary alignment.

Okay, back to Bruce now (I promise I am getting to Steve, heh, I’m just taking this opportunity to spill everything about my Nat’s ships XD, and setting all of this up makes explaining her complex relationship with Steve a bit easier). I don’t pretend to understand him very well as a character at all and I honest don’t like him very much, but in my mind, he seems to have a Lawful Neutral with Good tendencies alignment. So that means that he is far more inclined to do things lawfully or by-the-book than Natasha is, and he is skewed more Neutral than Good. He does care about casualties when he turns green, and that’s where the Good tendencies come from, but largely he’s neutral. He cares most about avoiding that terrible feeling he gets after turning green. He wants to reduce his discomfort and embarrassment and shame. That’s what most important to him. So the reason why Bruce x Natasha would never ever have worked is that he is more inwardly focused on himself than he is on the impact he could make on the world if he let go of some of that myopic focus on his own feelings. Natasha, on the other hand, is more focused on her responsibility to the world, her impact on it, how she can change it for the better, and on removing that red in her ledger by working to make herself a better person.

Take their final encounter together before Bruce makes the decision to cut ties with her and the Avengers in Ultron, at least for the immediate future... He wants her to run away with him, in the middle of a job, one that might determine the literal fate of the entire planet. He could do that, conscience-free, because to him leaving behind the battlefield and turning green in favor of having some semblance of a normal life is what matters most. Natasha respond with, “I adore you, but I need the other guy.” In other words, I have feeling for you too but right now, we have a job to do. She can put off her own wants and needs until later in favor of what she views in more important. Bruce... can’t do that for her. He realizes that if he stays with Natasha, he stays with the Avengers, and as long as he stays with them, he will never be able to leave behind the shame, pain, and guilt of turning green. So he breaks it off. And that hurt Nat... a lot.

So Clint and Bruce are past loves of Nat’s in my MCU canon of her. Since they didn’t work out she has painstakingly morphed her feelings for them into friendship, and there they will stay. Steve........ is a similar and yet different story. My version of Natasha has feelings for Steve, but she will never tell him that. Fortunately for her, he has no clue and doesn’t seem to be able to get one, haha. She thinks he’s fairly good looking but that’s not the reason why she’s attracted to him. Natasha doesn’t need looks to love someone at all. The reason she’s attracted to him is the same reason why she knows it would never work... he’s too good for her. Now I don’t mean in the self-worth, sense. Natasha has some self-esteem issues regarding what she’s done in her past, but other than that, she’s very confident in who she is. No, I mean in the very literal alignment sense. He’s literally too Good for her, heh. Even though Natasha is Good, she has Neutral tendencies, and even just that much is enough to make her incompatible with Steve.

Steve may be Neutral with regard to the Lawful/Chaotic scale (as seen in Civil War), but he has always been Good. Paladin level Good. Natasha... is not that. She can’t ever be that. But she admires it greatly. She’s attracted to it. She would love to be that herself. And let me say, Natasha doesn’t have a type, heh. If you look at the people she’s loved, Clint and Bruce and Steve... and it never happened in the MCU but I can see her still loving Bucky too... those are all really different people, personality and alignment-wise. Natasha loves the person, not the type. With Steve, she loves that he has been able to maintain the same moral compass through everything he’s been through and seen, she loves his stubbornness and determination, and she loves the lengths he goes to in order to protect others, whether they’re his best friend or some little kid he doesn’t even know. And it’s not like Steve doesn’t have his arrogant, defiant, misguided, or pigheaded moments, haha, because he does, but Natasha loves the person he is... very much.

So why hasn’t she said anything to him? Why didn’t she give it a shot with him like she did with Bruce? A couple reasons. First, yeah he’s too Good for her. She knows that he would have a lot of problems with any number of ways she handles and views any number of things, heh. They would clash too much on methods, issues, and reasons why they do things, and that kind of constant clashing would lead to an eventual animosity Natasha would never want to develop between her and Steve. Second, Steve isn’t looking, heh. Why? Because he wants Peggy. Nat isn’t Peggy. Not even close. They couldn’t be more different in a multitude of ways, and the ways in which they’re similar aren’t enough, and frankly, Nat wouldn’t want to be a Peggy-substitute. Steve is in love with someone else, and whether he can be with the one he loves or not doesn’t even enter into things for Nat. His heart lies elsewhere, and that makes him off limits. Nat respects that, regardless of how she feels. *shrugs* And that’s that, basically. It shouldn’t be a thing, so Nat makes sure it’s not. Like I said up there, my Nat has a very solid ability to wall off how she feels about a thing, situation, or person and never let it see the light of day if she thinks it ought never to be said. Does it hurt? Yes. Does she cry about this and other things sometimes when she’s alone? Yes. And then she pulls herself together and does what she needs to do. Walling off her emotions isn’t just a coping mechanism for Nat, it’s a well-honed and necessary skill she employs.

Okay if any Natasha fans are still reading at this point and haven’t torn out their hair yet, I’ll really set fire to this dumpster of headcanons by sharing... that... a strange reaction I had after watching Endgame was to write little fanfics about things that bothered me in the MCU thus far and just... not put any restraint or constraints on them, haha. What do I mean by that? Okay well usually when I write a fanfic, I put constraints on them as far as what I’m allowed to write. For example... nothing so out of canon as to be stupidly whacky. Hulk cannot suddenly read minds, Tony can’t fly without his suit, you know, nothing downright dumb. Also nothing so out of character emotionally or personality-wise as to just be ludicrous. Because the point is to write a good quality fic that, while it may deviate from canon, should still seem like it fits within the fictional world and the characters’ core personalities. Well... there’s another reason I write fanfics... or heavily inspired original works, for that matter... and that’s to get out emotion. I call them “garbage stories.” My first published book was a “garbage story,” and quite honestly, that’s why it sucked so much haha. But I digress. Garbage stories are fics or original stories that I write because I’m hurting and I need creative cathartic release. Like... I read a book or saw a movie that hurt me, haha, and I need to squeeze out the hurt through writing. After Endgame, I wrote a number of garbage stories, some as little oneshots, some as starters on here, some with friends off Tumblr, but all were to just fix or smooth over things that bothered me.

For example, I wrote something that saved Tony, heh. Basically, Wanda was able to keep him alive with her magic long enough for emergency help to get to him and stabilize him. I’m not saying he was in great shape, but if I can save Pietro from ten gunshot wounds, some of which hit major arteries and organs, I can save Tony from getting fried by cosmic energy, haha. I also wrote a thing in which Wanda basically prevents Endgame and the snap from even happening, because she chose to focus 100% of her power on Thanos instead of dividing it between him and Vision, allowing her to get the better of him long enough for her teammates to get the gauntlet off of him. It left her exhausted and actually injured (she was bleeding from her nose and ears after the effort and was unconscious), but I think she would have lived. I wrote it as a starter that could be taken up as either a Wanda or a Vision, but I think it was so outlandish that there were no takers, heh. That’s perfectly okay. The point is that it’s “garbage” writing, meant to heal the soul but not necessarily make any sense, lol. But ANYWAY... this was the mindset I was in after Endgame, just... fix my pain!

So... I wrote a garbage story about Nat and Steve. Basically... Nat does her whole sacrifice herself for the soul stone thing... and because she was actually clinically dead for several minutes, it works, but Clint recovers her body and brings her back. (Don’t think too much about it, it’s not gonna make sense, just let it go, haha.) Nat is understandably fucked up. Broken bones, spinal injury, internal bleeding, a skull fracture, the works. But she has moments where she’s conscious. During a moment in which Steve (who didn’t go back in time because I was also fixing that with this fic as well haha) was at her beside telling her that he didn’t want her to be alone, a throwback to what she said to him in Civil War when Peggy passed away, Natasha... who thinks 100% that she’s going to die... confesses to Steve that she loves him. It just one of those moments of weakness where she needed to get it off her chest. All indications were that she was not going to survive, so she felt safe in telling him. But then... she lives. And it’s awkward. It’s out of the bag now and she can’t take it back and everything between them now is going to change, likely for the worse. Everything hits her, from the pain of her injuries to the emotion of the past five years and certainly the past several days, and she just breaks down when she sees him again. In the middle of a cringeworthingly tearful and awkward apology to him, Nat stops when Steve takes her hand and gives it a little squeeze, whispering. “It’s okay, Nat.” And that’s how it ends. There’s no clear answer on how he’s going to handle it because there doesn’t need to be. He’s just... not bothered by it at all.

At the time I wrote it, it did a lot for me emotionally. I thought it was really nice. But as time went on and outrage grew over the canon MCU handling of Steve’s and Natasha’s endings, I started to think that what I wrote was just a mess, heh. It didn’t fix or help anything, it just made it worse. So... I deleted it. I regret that I did, because I’ve kept worse things I’ve written before and even if I never had any intention of showing it to anyone, I should have just kept it for myself. *shrugs* Oh well.

And. That. Was probably. More. Than you EVER wanted to hear on this topic. XD I’m so sorry. This turned into a ranting meta about nothing. Um... but hopefully I at least answered your original question? I tried! XD

[ao3feed-giomis]

by TaurusQueen413

Timelines collide, and what was once dead is alive. And back with a need.

No one expected this, not even the Gods themselves. Old friends come back, tragic ends have been overwritten. Self discovery and love is in abundance, and it's up to these young men and women and nonbinary humans to make of it what they will.

><><><><><><>< This will have a reader insert as well as ocs, and original Stands. The reader (Y/N) will be a stand user, but the OC will be Hamon User and the other OC will be a Pillar Woman.

Words: 488, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other

Characters: Kaaz | Cars, Giorno Giovanna, Dio Brando, Bruno Buccellati, Leone Abbacchio, Guido Mista, Narancia Ghirga, Reader, Original Stands (JoJo), Original Female Character(s), Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, Joseph Joestar, Jonathan Joestar, Vanilla Ice (JoJo), George Joestar, Dario Brando, Secco (JoJo), Diavolo (JoJo), La Squadra di Esecuzione, Buccellati's Gang, Kujo Jotaro, Kakyoin Noriaki, Higashikata Tomoko, Kujo Holly, Pannacotta Fugo, Giorno Giovanna's Mother, Giorno Giovanna's Stepfather, Narancia Ghirga's Father, Narancia Ghirga's Mother, Bruno Buccellati's Mother, Wamuu | Wham, Esidisi | ACDC, Robert Edward O. Speedwagon, Elizabeth Joestar | Lisa Lisa

Relationships: Giorno Giovanna/Guido Mista, Bruno Buccellati/Reader, Dio Brando/Original Female Character(s), Kaaz | Cars/Original Female Character(s), Leone Abbacchio/Bruno Buccellati/Risotto Nero, Reader/Everyone, Pannacotta Fugo/Narancia Ghirga, Wamuu | Wham/Reader, Esidisi | ACDC/Reader, Kaaz | Cars/Reader

Additional Tags: Pseudo-Incest, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Rape/Non-con Elements, Underage Drinking, Italian Mafia, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Marriage Proposal, Everyone Is Gay, Trans Male Character, Trans Female Character, Nonbinary Character, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Late Night Conversations, Nightmares, Everyone Has Issues, Minor La Squadra di Esecuzioni, Bisexual Male Character, Daddy Kink, Praise Kink, Size Difference, Choking, Gun Kink, Biting, Spanking, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Polyamory, Alternate Universe, Rough Sex, Bloody Kisses, Kidnapping, Bondage, Explicit Sexual Content, Spit As Lube, Dom/sub Play, Song: It Will Come Back (Hozier), Resurrection, Established

[xmarksthescott]

anyways

so my issue with the house of x universe comes down to 2 things:

consent issues. the whole idea is MARRED with consent issues. xavier is manipulating peoples minds, putting their memories together based on his version of them? and people are acting wildly different so i think it’s safe to assume that’s his doing. are their actions really their own? it’s really squicky to me.

relationships. these aren’t the x-men. they’re literally pod people. it’s uncomfortable and hard to make peace with lol. esp considering well. these relationships were probably overwritten by xavier himself. why else would the xmen suddenly be chummy be gabriel summers? it makes no sense unless charles rewrote his brain and theirs. 

also the entire take that “Sexual Freedom = Moral Corruption~” is really a cold take and lame but thats what this universe is alllll about. i’m working on a verse update to make my own version of canon that takes away any aspects that are too uncomfortable for me, yet allow for freedom for the story to unfold organically.  so that’s where im at!

[fantroll-purgatory]

Theme: This is the first troll in my set of Pride Trolls based off Gilbert Baker’s original meanings for his rainbow flag! Rather than make all the trolls neon mutantbloods I wanted to give them a shot as canon-ish trolls that simply have the color of the “nearest neighbor.” This is set in what would be the equivalent of Troll 1980s, which would have been a while back for us if Hiveswap is anything to go by, and is meant to be semi-canonical. Mythun’s theme is “sex,” which I am interpreting as “sex/sexuality/gender” to give myself a broader launching pad.

(mod note: obviously since these are my personal trolls they wouldn’t be given the same priority as the ones submitted by non-mods; these are mostly there for if you wanna review a troll and there isn’t one available)

Credit goes to fan-troll for the buzz cut, naphal for the eyebrows and eyes, fantrollartroom for the combat boots, and h0m3s7uck_4d0p7s-d9wpswp for the selfie arm.

Pride themed trolls sound like a great idea, I love that! 

Name: MYTHUN NAPASK (Derived from Sanksrit “Maithuna” meaning sexual union and “napumsakalinga” for their neutral-gender signifier)

W/ a name like that and a sexuality/gender theme, I hope she’s an nb lesbian.

Age: 12 sweeps

Strife Specibus: 2x3dentkind (while I know it’s canon for heiresses to use this my backups are swordkind and axekind)

Is… is it because sword lesbian jokes? You could give her a 2x1glaive. To mimic the trident’s double sides but make her a sword lesbian.

Fetch Modus: ARTICLE MODUS, which switches language every time she pulls it up. She has to guess if the item’s article is masculine, feminine, or neuter to eject it. If she guesses wrong, an item with that signifier is ejected

Good luck to her if she gets space german.

Blood color: Fuchsia

Title: Mage of Time

This is really interesting. Knower of Time… She’d have the active ability to perceive the flow of time and would probably have visions of the multitudes of events that could occur, or will occur if she takes a particular action… Might even be able to Know The Past, too. It’d probably get pretty confusing. Her inverse would be Heir of Space, which would allow her when she gets more powerful to just kind of. Move shit around to make way for a better understanding of time… Which lines up pretty well with her goals, really! 

Moon: Derse. While her lovers might feel that Mythun is living in the moment, she’s keenly aware that she is unlikely to survive her encounter with the Condesce and has something of an obsession with perpetuating sustainable changes throughout Alternia.

Looking to the future, not revealing her true nature to the people around her, putting up a particular image… yeah, seems dersite to me! And with that her EZ sign would be Piries, The Dissenter. Fun. I might draw on that if I decide to try to edit lambda- I’m still hmming about editing it too much.

Symbol and meaning: A lowercase lambda, which was declared the official international symbol for gay and lesbian rights in 1974. I was originally going to give her the linked Venuses because she’s a lesbian and it fit the trident bloodcaste signifier, but I was hoping she’d be themed off sex/gender/sexuality rather than just as it pertains to herself. I don’t know how well a lambda fits the language? It has three spokes for sure…

I’ll try a few things out in the design phase.

Trolltag: affluentLadykiller. For this troll set, I want all their tag abbreviations to come from the LGBTQIA initialism. Picked this one because Mythun is something of a playboy and is not at all shy about the material wealth her hemostatus affords her.

This is a really really minor change, but maybe affluentialLadykiller. Affluential means Rich AND socially influential, which relates back to her goals as well as her social standing. 

Quirk: uses abbrevs and cuts wrds short when pos ;) tends to ovruse th wink moji ;)

(reasoning: lambda denotes a half-life so she effectively decays words as she types them.

Neat reasoning, very good, A+.

Lusus: Gl’bgolyb

Personality:

Mythun Napask is the Bruce Wayne of Alternia at the time that she’s alive. Rich, famous, a seeming laissez-faire to all her actions (which often include taking beautiful women home with her). Beneath it all, though, Mythun is a woman out of time. Constantly aware of the small window she has to make lasting change in Alternia before her predecessor kills her, Mythun is always working at various theories for how to create true change in Alternia’s culture, fearing that authoritarian declarations will simply be overwritten by the next “heiress.” Her primary focus is on sexuality, since, despite trolls’ ability to be bisexual, the culture still shows a marked bias toward couples of differing genders.

She should probably have a marked interest in gender, too. Alternia does still seem to have a gender binary, which is stupid because they’re a race of bug aliens, Andrew Hussie- so she might have a marked interest in dismantling that nonsense. Either way, I love this… Does she use her tons of money to fund indie gay movies, maybe? Help Create Art, Ma’am. 

Interests:

Deeply invested in propagating the troll race ;). While she exists pre-SGRUB, she still lives under the Condesce and feels her odds of survival are not good. Whenever she develops a relationship in a quadrant with a fellow woman, she makes sure to add both their DNA to the slurry, her rationale being that if she doesn’t survive at least she and her relationships will live on in future trolls. (lambda as # of offspring generated in evolutionary algorithms.)

Her radio show. While she understands that her status as heiress affords her something of a captive audience, Mythun enjoys putting out her weekly radio show in which she discusses deeply ingrained oppression in troll society accompanied by speculation as to where it came from. (lambda as wavelength indicator)

Perfecting an engine powered by nuclear fusion so she can take trolls off-planet without the Condesce’s say-so. This has resulted in a number of explosions that have been only somewhat dampened by water and significantly more dampened because Gl’bgolyb uses a mild scream to neutralize the blasts. She doesn’t try as much anymore; too many rustbloods die when she makes mistakes. (lambda as a sensor in an internal combustion engine, as the rocket used to launch Japan’s first orbital satellite, and something about Black Mesa?)

I’m so proud of her… These are all really good interests. She should probably be interested in like planetary establishments in general (the uppercase Lambda is utilized in determining whether or not something qualifies as a planet). This next one doesn’t d irectly relate to the lambda, so take these suggestions with a grain of salt, but just having her be interested in critical theory might be a good idea. Just so she’s like, a little more ready to Do the establishing off-planet societies for people she saves, if she can save them.

Design time!:

Tiara: I wanted to integrate the sign right into the gold just because I didn’t want to rely too strongly on the Feferi school of tiara design. 

Hair: I adjusted her hairline a little. It felt weird going back behind the fin like that with no sideburn at all... So I gave her some scraggly shaved edges to match her eyebrows. 

Eyes & Mouth & Piercings: She was looking a little wall-eyed, so I fixed that. I gave her some tooth definition. I also made her lip and fin piercing more prominent- I had to squint to tell they were even there at first. 

Symbol: I was agonizing over what to do with it until I realized that just... just adding a line... I can just add a line. 

Leggings: I didn’t want to leave them flat black, so I edited them into two colors from a recently proposed lesbian flag. These colors specifically represent gender non-conformity and love&sex. 

Shoes: I loved what you did with her nails so much that I had to replicate it with her shoestrings. 

Very solid design, very solid character, gay/10. 

-CD

[jonphaedrus]

dragonlance has

explicitly black elves

asian elves

canon disabled characters whose disabilities are never helpfully plot-missing who are both good and evil, even the ones with the regularly “evil” coded disabilities

mixed-race elves

female characters who are incredibly sexual and are not demonized for it

talks frankly about abusive relationships and the dangers within them, both romantic and familial and friendly ones

a canonically aromantic character whose experiences arent overwritten and other characters treat seriously and have meaningful deeply loving platonic relationships with, who is also heavily coded as bisexual AND is severely disabled

multiple people of color, explicit in the text, who are heroes

DID I MENTION BLACK ELVES even if they are drawn as white on all the fucking covers, lord in heaven

BOTH GOOD AND EVIL WOMEN AND ALL OF THEM ARE SEXUAL

MAORI? ELVES??? WHAT THE HELL THIS IS SO COOL

dont treat rape as a plot device but as an actual horrific crime and demonize it accordingly

ARE FROM THE FUCKING 1980S? AND HAVE ALL OF THIS

GOD I LOVE DRAGONLANCE SO MUCH PLEASE GO READ DRAGONLANCE

[exaltatuss]

Snow Angel turned Winter Empress

Name: Weiss Schnee-Blanco* (*Adoptive Surname)

Nicknames: Ice Queen, Snow Angel, Winter Empress

Age: 18 (Canon), 28 (Canon-Divergent)

Height: 5′3″ (Canon) , 6′4″ (Canon-Divergent)

Weight: 54 kg

Blood type: A

Hair Color: White

Complexion: Pale White

Eye Color: Light-Blue

Handedness: Left

Sexuality: Homosexual

Bust Size: A (Canon time) , D (Canon-Divergent* *Who says bust size can’t be increased in time by natural, safe means/methods?)

Build: Athletic

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Should-be Notable Physical Featue: Scar over the left side* (*Disappeared completely over time. Again, who says that certain scars never disappear, most specifically small ones by natural, safe means/methods?)

Attire:

Uses this now

Nationality: Atlesian

Occupation: Huntress

Personality and Background: 

(A Summary of the Canon Personality)

Weiss, being born to a family of high status in Atlas, all while having some issues with her father, and constant attacks being experienced from the extremist White Fang back then would result to her initially having that feeling of loneliness, and also would branch towards her initial cold, and mostly difficult personality. However, in time, she eventually warmed up, and while she gives blunt criticisms here and there at times, she, at least, have mellowed down, personality wise.

She would also then vow that she would elevate the Schnee name, far above from how her father had dishonored it, and, with her sister’s advice, relieves herself of her binds with the family company, in order to discover more about herself

Prior to returning to Atlas, after the Beacon incident, and having had enough of the Atlesian lifestyle of living lavishly without a single genuine care in the world, she would then eventually leave Atlas, which in turn, also effectively most likely making her disowned by the family, considering that Jacques already had been planning to make Whitley the new heir of the SDC and not her.

However, Weiss would still have that resolve to elevate her family name her own way, and prove to others that she’s more than just a name.

(Canon Summary ends here, and thus begins the Canon-Divergent Summary below*)

Some time later, she would then be taken in by yet another known family, namely the Blancos. At first, she was skeptical, considering the somewhat similar traits this and her family had, in summary, what with having a rather questionable reputation, with the Schnees starting to have a shaky reputation when Jacques came along, while the Blancos had a longer history of such, dating back directly to the ancestor, Jotun.

But alas, the head of the Blancos has been replaced during this time, hence said family wouldn’t have that familial issue it had before, namely a twisted, controlled version of Natural Selection.

Hence, she would also be taught the ways of the Blanco. Well, the renewed one, at least, which would be easy for her, considering her innate intelligence, already. She was only taught, and not have her innate Schnee traits attempted to be overwritten, as those were already hers, since the beginning.

After being taught and trained, she would eventually become stronger, both in combat and personality, and thus, would also mean that her resolve in making her own choice be strengthened even further.

For the meantime, she does sometimes use the Blanco surname, as it was made optional for her whether to use it or not, anyway. But alas, one day, she’d return to the Schnee household, and make things right for her family, once and for all, just like what the head of the Blancos, Chione, did to her own family.

Likes: Music, Singing, Reading, Ballet

Dislikes: Extremism, Recklessness, Intolerable Lavish Lifestyle

Positive Qualities: Confident, Decisive, Adamant, Caring

Negative Qualities: Blunt, Stubborn, Cocky* (*An acquired trait from those that had taken her in.)

Fears: Failing to uphold the Schnee name once more, Death

Phobias: Thanatophobia

Favorite Food: Salisbury Steak

Favorite Desert: Blueberry Frozen Yogurt Flavored Ice Cream

Favorite Beverage: Jasmine Tea (Non-Alcoholic), Margarita (Alcoholic)

Team: RWBY

Parameters* (*Canon-Divergent Based):

Offense: 10/10

Defense: 8/10

Aura: 10/10

Speed: 10/10

Agility: 10/10

Teamwork: 8/10

Charisma: 7/10

Weapon Proficiency: 10/10

Weapon (Most of Y’all know this by know, but eh, still putting it here): Myrtenaster, the Multi-Action Dust Rapier (MADR)

Semblance: 

Glyphs/Summoning: A Utility Based, Inherited Type Semblance that has two uses, one for utilizing Glyphs that has a wide variety of numerous effects, while the other use would be the ability to summon what the user had slain or killed in their lifetime. Both uses are already useful on their own, but when used together, it would open several possibilities of combinations and results.

Known Relatives (Legitimate):

Nicholas Schnee (Grandfather)

Unnamed Mother

Jacques Schnee (Father)

Whitley Schnee (Brother)

Winter Schnee (Sister)

Known Relatives (Adoptive):

Ymir Blanco (Adoptive Grandfather)

Boreas Blanco (Adoptive Father)

Shiva Blanco (Adoptive Mother)

Orithyia Blanco (Adoptive Sister)

Chione Blanco (Adoptive Sister)

Fubuki Blanco (Adoptive Sister)

Cryona Blanco (Adoptive Sister)

Notes:

-At times, when Myrtenaster just won’t cut it, she would summon a smaller, yet more intricately designed version of her knight’s sword for her to use in battle. She affectionately calls this summon-able sword Wendigo.

-As compared to herself before, she’s a lot more easier to talk and converse with now.