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buckets-and-trees · 2 months ago

Text

Between the Lines

Characters/Pairings: Ransom Drysdale x curvy female!Reader Word Count: 4.4k Summary: When presented with a deal you can't resist, you agree to to create an illusion so you can achieve your actual dreams.

Content/Warnings: masturbation, slow burn, forced proximity, fake engagement, annoyed/disgusted to lovers

Notes: This takes place after the events of Knives Out. Yes, all of the movie. No exclusions. Dividers by @vesearartistry and @saradika. My humble offering for week seven of my Countdown to Chris-mas. Thank you @stargazingfangirl18 and @biteofcherry for both indulging some of my plot-talking for this fic!

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You sat nervously in the lobby of Blood Like Wine Publishing watching the gears behind the glass display on the elegant clock above the reception desk.

Up until the death of Harlan Thrombey, the publishing house had published his works exclusively with a new murder mystery being produced and translated into dozens of languages each year like clockwork, the gears and cogs a well-tested as the antique clock on display.

With no Harlan, the publishing house had opened to submissions and you and your agent had made it through the initial rounds of querying and contract negotiations.

But now, only a year and a half after the prolific genius’s death and transfer of ownership to his nurse and friend Marta Cabrera, Marta had sold to a new owner - yet to go public in name, and they had asked for a meeting before finalizing the contract.

You tried not to fidget as you gripped the leather armrests of the chair, willing the minutes to pass faster. The lobby was eerily quiet, save for the soft ticking of the clock and the occasional rustle of papers and the soft clacking of the keyboard from the receptionist's desk. The walls were adorned with framed book covers, each one a testament to Harlan Thrombey's literary legacy. You couldn't help but wonder if your own work would ever grace these halls.

As you waited, your mind raced with possibilities. Who was this mysterious new owner? What did they want? Your agent had assured you that this was just a formality, but the knot in your stomach suggested otherwise. You found yourself studying the intricate patterns in the marble floor, tracing the veins of gold and silver that snaked through the stone like the plot twists in one of Thrombey's novels.

Just as the clock struck ten, the elevator dinged, and a tall woman with perfectly coiffed short white hair strode out, her heels clicking authoritatively on the polished marble floor. She paused at the receptionist's desk, speaking in hushed tones before turning her piercing gaze towards you.

"I assume you’re my ten o’clock?" she questioned, her voice sharp and commanding.

You suppressed a gasp and abruptly stood, smoothing your clothes nervously as you approached none other than Linda Drysdale - the legendary daughter of Harlan.

"Yes, that's me.”

She gave you a once-over, then nodded. “Come with me.”

You followed Linda into the elevator, your heart pounding in your chest. The mirrored walls reflected your nervous expression back at you, and you tried to school your features into something more confident. Linda stood beside you, her posture perfect. In contrast to you, she seemed entirely at ease, tapping away at her phone with manicured nails.

When the doors opened, you stepped out into a hallway lined with dark wood paneling and more framed book covers. Linda's office was at the end, a massive space with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a breathtaking view of the city skyline. The room was dominated by an imposing desk made of rich mahogany, its surface neat and organized.

"Please, sit," Linda said, gesturing to one of the leather chairs in front of her desk. As you settled in, she moved to a small bar cart in the corner. "Can I offer you a drink? Perhaps some whiskey? A gin and tonic? Coffee? Tea?"

You shook your head, politely declining. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

Linda shrugged, pouring herself a generous measure of amber liquid into a crystal tumbler. "Suit yourself," she said, returning to her desk and settling into her high-backed leather chair. She took a sip, savoring the whiskey before fixing you with her piercing gaze once more.

"I've read your manuscript," she began, her fingers drumming lightly on the desk's polished surface. "It's intriguing. You have potential, there's no denying that."

Your heart swelled with pride at her words, but you remained silent, sensing there was more to come.

Linda leaned forward, her eyes never leaving yours. "I'm prepared to offer you a book deal. A three-book contract, to be precise. The advance is generous, and the royalties - well, let's just say they're enough to make even my father's ghost smile."

You felt a surge of excitement, but something in Linda's tone made you hesitate. There was a glint in her eye, a slight curl to her lip that suggested there was more to this offer than met the eye.

"However," she continued, swirling the whiskey in her glass, "there is one small condition."

The word hung in the air between you, heavy with implication. You swallowed hard, your mouth suddenly dry. "What kind of condition?" you managed to ask, your voice barely above a whisper.

Linda smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "You see, my father liked to play games. In his will, he left us with one final trick. I don’t know how much of this you heard or followed in the news, but he left us nothing - his cash and assets, our home, and this publishing house all went to Marta Cabrera, his nurse at the time of his death.”

You would have been hard-pressed to have missed the news because it had spilled over into scandal.

“I don’t expect to see the sixty million, and that’s tough, but I can live with that - I’ve made my own fortune, and neither Walt and his family nor my sister-in-law and her daughter need to continue suckling off the teat of dad’s treasury. The house still hurts, but I’ll get it back - I can bide my time. But this? It only took me eighteen months of patience and strategy, working through subsidiaries and intermediaries, to close the deal on getting Blood Like Wine back in the family where it belongs.”

“I will go public with my ownership by the end of the week,” she continued, “but for better and for worse, the acquisition has ended up coinciding with my son’s pending release from prison.”

“Ransom?”

Linda nodded, a flicker of emotion crossing her face before disappearing behind her composed facade. "Yes, Ransom. As you can imagine, his... indiscretions have caused quite a stir in our family and social circles."

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat, unsure where this was leading.

"My son made mistakes, grievous ones. But he's served enough time, and now he needs a chance to redeem himself. That's where you come in."

Your brow furrowed in confusion. "I'm not sure I understand, Mrs. Drysdale. What does this have to do with my book deal?"

"The condition," she explained, her voice taking on a steely edge, "is that you convincingly pose as his sweet-as-a-peach fiancé for two years.”

Your mouth fell open in shock. Ransom Drysdale, the man who had attempted to murder Marta Cabrera and frame her for Harlan's death, and she expected you to agree to this? You stared at Linda in disbelief, and the silence stretched between you, broken only by the soft ticking of an antique clock on the bookshelf behind her.

"I... I don't know what to say," you finally managed, voice a little weak in your shock.

Linda leaned back in her chair, taking another sip of whiskey. "It's quite simple, really. You play the role of Ransom's devoted fiancée, help rehabilitate his image, and in return, you get your book deal. Three books, a substantial advance, and the backing of one of the most prestigious publishing houses in the industry.”

"But... Ransom... he tried to kill someone. He went to prison. How could I possibly-"

"Details," Linda waved her hand dismissively. "The public has a short memory. With the right narrative, we can reshape Ransom's image. A reformed bad boy, humbled by his time in prison, now devoted to his charming fiancée and ready to contribute positively to society. We both know the power of a well-crafted story. People will believe anything."

You felt your head spinning. This was so far beyond what you had expected when you'd nervously entered the building this morning. "And what does Ransom think about this plan?" you asked, grasping for any semblance of normalcy in this surreal situation.

Linda's lips curved into a tight smile. "Ransom will do as he's told if he wants to maintain his lifestyle and eventually inherit his share of the family fortune. He knows the stakes."

You sat there, stunned. The offer was tempting - a three-book deal with Blood Like Wine Publishing was beyond your wildest dreams. But to fake an engagement with a convicted criminal? It seemed insane.

"I understand your hesitation," Linda said, her voice softening slightly. "But consider this: you'd have unprecedented access to our family. Think of the material for your future novels. The inside scoop on one of America's most infamous families. Isn't that what every mystery writer dreams of?"

You had to admit, she had a point. The Thrombey-Drysdale saga was the stuff of legend in literary circles. To be on the inside, to see how they really lived and interacted? That alone could draw readers in if they thought there was any chance you’d pull threads and weave it into your future novels.

And besides, this was your dream: a multi-book deal with a prestigious publisher, the chance to see your work in print, and to potentially become not only a published author but one who with Blood Like Wine’s name and marketing department could be a truly successful author. How could you pass it all up?

“What would you say to four books?”

You blinked, taken aback by Linda's sudden offer. "Four books?" you repeated, your voice barely above a whisper.

Linda nodded, a sly smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Four books. And we'll double the advance. Consider it... hazard pay." She chuckled softly at her own joke.

Your breath caught in your throat. Four books? The offer was even more tempting now, dangling before you like a golden carrot. You found yourself leaning in, drawn into Linda's web despite your better judgment.

"I... I don't know," you stammered, your mind racing. "This is all so sudden. What exactly would be expected of me?"

Linda's smile widened, sensing your wavering resolve. "Nothing too taxing, I assure you. Attend some charity galas, be seen at upscale restaurants, perhaps a carefully orchestrated paparazzi shot or two. We'll craft a beautiful love story for the press - how Ransom found redemption through your unwavering support and love."

You nodded slowly, uncertainty swirling more strongly, gut churning because you were actually considering this. You could do public appearances…

“A year and a half,” you countered.

Linda shook her head firmly. “No, I won’t budge on the time commitment. Two years is a bankable amount of time to make sure we turn enough pages to fully close this chapter. But I’ll give you six books.”

Your heart leapt at that, and even though your gut was uneasy, your brain was shouting that this kind of deal was something you could not refuse. “Six books, and the first two released before the engagement period is over.”

“Deal,” Linda agreed.

You took a deep breath, your mind reeling from the enormity of what you had just agreed to. Six books. A multi-million dollar deal. And all you had to do was pretend to be engaged to a convicted criminal for two years. It seemed surreal, like something out of one of - well not one of Harlan's novels, but whatever romance author was currently trending.

"I think I will have that drink now," you said, your voice sounding distant to your own ears.

Linda's smile widened, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "I find a good whiskey helps smooth over even the most unusual of business deals."

You nodded, watching as she selected a crystal decanter filled with amber liquid. The soft clink of glass on glass filled the room as she poured a generous measure into a tumbler. The rich, peaty aroma of the whiskey wafted towards you, promising warmth and liquid courage.

Linda returned, extending the glass to you. Your fingers wrapped around the cool crystal and your eyes met Linda's. There was a moment of silent understanding between you - a recognition of the Faustian bargain you had just crafted and agreed to.

As you raised the glass to your lips, Linda's voice cut through the silence. "One more thing," she said, her tone casual but her gaze intense. "I'll up the advance to five million if you agree to move in with Ransom."

Your GPS led you to the top of a cul-de-sac in the Brown’s Wood neighborhood of Lincoln, Massachusetts. Beautiful trees and a typical New England landscape ushered you up the drive to the midcentury modern home owned by Hugh Ransom Drysdale. It didn’t scream home, but there was no denying it was a stunning feat of architecture - white walls and black roofing framing a structure of mostly floor-to-ceiling windows.

You sat in your car for a moment, gathering your courage. The enormity of what you had agreed to in Linda’s office had been sinking in all week, but this was it. Five million dollars. Six books. And two years of your life pretending to be engaged to - and now living with - a man who had attempted murder.

Maybe approaching all of this as if it was one big plot so of course it had to all work out was a ridiculous coping strategy, but it’s the one you had adopted.

But when the seven-figure advance had appeared in your bank account, giving you more money than you had earned in your entire life, you didn’t have it in you to back out.

If he murdered you, at least you would have paid off your student loans, credit card debts, provided for your parents’ retirement, and put away enough money in a trust for your nephew’s college fund.

The house loomed before you, a monument to wealth and taste that felt utterly alien. With a deep breath, you grabbed your bags from the passenger seat and made your way to the front door.

Before you could even ring the bell, the door swung open, revealing Ransom Drysdale himself.

He was taller than you expected, his presence filling the doorway. His piercing blue eyes scanned you from head to toe, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "So, you're the lucky lady my mother's picked out for me," he drawled, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

You bristled at his tone but forced a smile. "And you must be the charming ex-convict I've agreed to shackle myself to," you replied, matching his sarcasm with your own. "Can we consider the awkward introductions done now?"

Ransom's smirk widened into a grin, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Oh, I like you already. Come on in, darling," he said, stepping aside to let you in. "Welcome to Hill House Drysdale. Try not to get too attached - I hear it's only a two-year lease."

You stepped into the house, immediately struck by the minimalist decor and open floor plan. The entire back wall was glass, offering a stunning view of the surrounding woods. It was beautiful, but cold - much like its owner, you mused.

The house was a stark contrast to the warmth of the Thrombey mansion you'd seen in news reports. This place was all clean lines, minimalist furniture, and an abundance of glass and steel.

"Nice place," you commented, setting your bags down. "I half expected to see crime scene tape and chalk outlines."

Ransom's laugh was sharp and humorless. "Sorry to disappoint. I save all my murdering for the family estate. This is my sanctuary."

You couldn't help but chuckle bitterly at his dark humor. At least he wasn't trying to pretend this was anything other than what it was - a business arrangement.

"So, where should I put my things?" you asked, gesturing to your bags. Some of your things had been sent off to a storage unit, but the things a moving consultant had determined would come here with you had been packed up and moved earlier in the day.

"The master suite is upstairs," Ransom said, closing the door behind you. "Stay out unless you’re embarking on a conjugal visit.”

You scoffed. “Charming.”

He winked at you, then began to take you through the house. “Other than that, you’re free to roam the house, and I’ll stay out of your space. Living room here,” he gestured around, then walked to the right, and you followed him into a sleek, modern kitchen. “Two Bosch ovens, a six-burner range, your choice of pretty much any appliance in one of these cupboards.”

“You cook?”

It was his turn to scoff. “God, no.”

He walked you through the length of it, coming out on the other end of the living room, and then walking through a dining room with a long black table and another two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows.

Ransom didn’t strike you as one for entertaining dinner parties, making this more of a feature room than anything else.

At the other end, you came to a new wing of the house.

“This is you,” he said simply. “First door office, second is your bedroom and bathroom.”

You hesitated at the transition point from the dining room to the other side of the house.

“What is it?” Ransom asked, turning and putting his hands on his hips impatiently.

“Linda said a contractor would be brought in to install a door and security system.”

“She said could, and you’ve got locks installed, but I own this house, installing a wall and door here is more invasive than I was willing to agree to, and since she’s a real estate mogul she conceded it would altar the property value.”

“I…”

“You can relax. I’m not likely to try to murder you - the memory of the inconvenience of being incarcerated will probably last for twenty-four to thirty-six months, putting you in the clear.”

You frowned.

“They’re nice rooms, state of the art locks, you’ll be fine,” he reiterated, rolling his eyes. “Digital reinforced with an analog component that you’ll have the only keys to.”

He tossed you a keychain with three keys, which you were quick to catch.

“Downstairs there’s another living room that’ll be for you exclusively and a laundry room.”

“So, you’ll be coming through here to do laundry then?” you asked.

“Cute of you to think I do my own laundry.”

Now it was you who had an eye roll to give.

"Speaking of, all your stuff was delivered safe and sound, but I took the liberty of having some clothes delivered for you. Can't have my fiancée looking like a struggling writer when we're out in public."

You bristled at his comment. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

Ransom's eyes raked over you, his gaze lingering a bit too long for comfort. "Let's just say they don't exactly scream 'trophy wife of a reformed bad boy billionaire.'"

You gritted your teeth, reminding yourself of the substantial paycheck waiting for you at the end of this charade. "Fine. When is the first public outing?"

Ransom checked his watch, a sleek, expensive-looking timepiece that probably cost more than your entire wardrobe. "We have a charity gala tomorrow night. My dear mother thought it would be the perfect opportunity to debut our 'relationship' to society."

Your stomach twisted with anxiety. Tomorrow night? That was so soon. You weren't prepared for this.

“Last thing,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s your ring.”

Ransom reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet box. As he opened it, your breath caught in your throat. Nestled inside was a ring that could only be described as breathtaking.

The center stone was a flawless oval-cut diamond, easily 3 carats, that seemed to capture and refract every bit of light in the room. It was held in place by a delicate setting adorned with two smaller diamonds on either side. Each facet of the ring sparkled with an intensity that was almost hypnotic.

"This," Ransom said, his voice uncharacteristically warm, "is a family heirloom. It belonged to my great-grandmother, passed down through the generations. My mother insisted I give it to you."

He carefully removed the ring from its velvet nest and held it out.

You reached for it, holding it delicately and studying it more closely.

“And I am going to insist that you wear it continually,” he added, tone back to its normal bite, “none of this on and off business. We’re engaged and there’s no reason to risk a slip up forgetting to put it on before you leave the house.”

The weight of it in your hand felt significant, both physically and metaphorically. This wasn't just any engagement ring - it was a piece of Thrombey family history.

"It's... stunning," you managed, your voice barely above a whisper.

Ransom's expression softened for a moment, a flicker of something - pride? nostalgia? - passing across his face. "It is, isn't it?" he said, his sarcastic tone momentarily abandoned again. "My great-grandfather proposed with that ring after returning from the war. It's seen its fair share of family drama."

You couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I bet it has."

Ransom cleared his throat, his mask of indifference sliding back into place. "Well, go on then. Put it on.”

"Are you sure about this?" you asked cautiously. "Shouldn't a family heirloom go to someone real?"

Ransom's expression hardened slightly. "I’m hardly that sentimental. This arrangement is real enough for my mother, and it's real enough for me. Besides," he added with a sardonic smile, "you're as close to family as I'm likely to get these days."

With a deep breath, you slipped it onto your left ring finger. The final symbol of the elaborate charade you had chosen to undertake.

It was near midnight, and you were worn out and nearly ready to collapse into your bed. The movers had done most of the work, but you still had had some unpacking to take care of and moved the furniture around in your bedroom and the room that would be your office. After giving you the engagement ring, Ransom had left you alone the rest of the day.

You padded quietly through the dining room that connected the two halves of the house to the kitchen to fill up your water bottle before bed.

The house was eerily quiet as you made your way through the darkened rooms. Moonlight filtered through the expansive windows, casting long shadows across the polished floors. You tried to move silently, not wanting to disturb the stillness of the night or alert Ransom to your presence.

As you entered the kitchen, the cool tile against your bare feet sent a small shiver up your spine. You fumbled for a moment, searching for the light switch, but decided against it. Your eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and the soft glow from the windows was enough to navigate by.

You had just placed your water bottle under the refrigerator's filtered, letting the cool water splash into your bottle, when another sound caught your attention.

At first, it was barely perceptible - a faint, rhythmic creaking from upstairs. You froze, straining your ears. The sound grew clearer: a low, guttural groan, followed by the unmistakable sound of skin moving over skin.

Frozen in place, your cheeks flushed hot as realization dawned. Ransom was fisting his cock and unabashedly enjoying it.

Part of you wanted to flee back to your room immediately, but you were paralyzed, afraid any sound of movement might alert him to your presence.

Your breath caught in your throat as Ransom's moans intensified, echoing through the quiet house. The rhythmic creaking of his bed frame quickened, punctuated by deep, guttural groans that sent shivers down your spine. You stood frozen in the kitchen, your water bottle forgotten as you listened, captivated against your will.

Your body betrayed you, responding to the primal sounds drifting down from above. Heat bloomed in your core, your skin tingling with unwanted arousal. You could almost picture him - his muscular body taut with tension, head thrown back in ecstasy, those piercing blue eyes half-lidded with pleasure. Your imagination filled in the details - the flex of his biceps as he stroked himself, the sheen of sweat on his chest, the way his abs would clench with each thrust into his fist.

You pressed your thighs together, trying to quell the ache building between them.

"Fuck," Ransom's voice drifted down, rough with need.

The raw intensity in his voice sent a jolt through you. Your breath quickened, matching the frantic pace of his movements above. You knew you should leave, retreat to the safety of your room, but your feet remained rooted to the spot.

The sounds grew more urgent, building to a crescendo. Ransom's groans became deeper, more primal. You could hear the desperation in his voice, the need for release. Your own body thrummed with sympathetic tension, your nipples hardening beneath your thin sleep shirt.

Suddenly, Ransom let out a long, guttural moan. The sound of it vibrated through you, igniting every nerve ending. You imagined him arching off the bed, his body taut as a bowstring as he found his release.

The house fell silent once more, save for the pounding of your heart in your ears.

Realizing you were still clutching your water bottle, you turned and tip-toed back to your room as quickly as possible.

You slipped quietly back into your room, closing and locking the door behind you with trembling hands. Your heart was still racing, your body flushed with unwanted arousal. You leaned against the door, trying to steady your breathing.

What had just happened? You'd come to get water and ended up an unwitting eavesdropper to your fake fiancé's private moment. The memory of Ransom's deep groans echoed in your mind, sending another shiver through you.

You shook your head, trying to clear the vivid mental images. This was ridiculous. Ransom was arrogant, infuriating, and had literally tried to murder someone. You shouldn't be affected by him like this.

And yet, the memory of his moans lingered, making your skin tingle and your core ache with need.

When you crawled into bed, you brought a book with you instead of your vibrator, refusing to sate the lust that had been kindled because you didn’t want to risk thinking of him. If you couldn’t resist him the first night living under the same roof, there would be no hope for you to make it two years.

And so you read until your eyes drooped and you were finally succumbed to sleep.

HAPPY KNIVES OUT NOVEMBER! It seemed like an appropriate point during the Countdown to Chris-mas to finally buckle down and write my first Ransom fic!

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#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #slow burn #chris evans characters #aspen wrote something #female reader #countdown to chris-mas

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soleminisanction · 4 months ago

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Once again got a bee in my bonnet to spend a night doing obscure fandom research to make a point, so. For all those people who keep making the annoying, "Tim keeps '''stealing'' other peoples' names" comments -- have a table.

EDIT: Updated version with some mistakes corrected.

Everyone with a check mark has used that codename at some point in DC's 80+ year continuity -- Elseworlds and alternate dimensions/timelines count, adaptations (movies, video games, cartoons, etc.) don't unless they've got comic book tie-ins, and neither do in-universe dream sequences/illusions/fantasies/other narrative elements that are objectively "not real" within the boundaries of the fiction.

A purple marker indicates an element that only applies in Elseworlds or alternate timelines. Yellow is for the originator of the legacy title. Star symbol is for borderline cases/extenuating circumstances/it's open to interpretation (with some further elaboration below).

The "other" column is just there to account for people who've held lesser or non-legacy titles, like Renegade, Wingman, Arkham Knight, Drake, Redbird, Talon, Deadman, Black Bat, Orphan and Catwoman.

Point being: the people who have actually gone through the most legacy titles in this family are Dick, Babs and Jason, tied with 5 each (again, not counting "other;" if we counted those separately Dick would've had by far the most). Tim is tied with Steph AND Helena Wayne, so unless you're whining about them "stealing other peoples' names" you're just wrong, and they're all only one higher than Damian, Carrie and Bruce.

This is a legacy family that passes their codenames up and down the inheritance line. It's what they do. It's not a legitimate criticism to level at one character and not the others. Please get over it.

---

Further elaboration on some of the lesser known/niche cases:

- Bruce uses the Robin ID in Superman & Batman: Generations, as well as the pre-Crisis Detective Comics #226 story.

- In the second half of Thrillkiller ‘62, Babs cuts her hair and dons the Robin costume worn by her deceased partner Dick to get revenge on his killer; however the only name ever used for her in the series is Batgirl

- Cassandra was a member of the Robins orphan gang from Dark Knights of Steel.

- Duke was a member of the We Are Robins gang, as well as the aforementioned DKS orphan gang, and has appeared as Robin in a couple of Elseworlds, including I believe a White Knight spin-off.

- Cass was Batwoman in one of the versions of the Titans Tomorrow, as was Bette Kane, depending on changes to the timeline.

- Babs is Batwoman in the Batman ‘66 comics and in the 1980 story “The Secret Origin of Bruce (Superman) Wayne”

- Earth-3 Steph is Batwoman in Young Justice 2019.

- Helena Wayne is Batwoman in the possible future story Last Rites

- Tim is a member of the Batgirls vigilante/little league baseball team in the DC Bombshells universe, as is Cullen Row. Some call them the “Batboys” instead. I call those people cowards.

- Helena Bertinelli wore the costume that would later become Cass’s signature Batgirl look during No Man’s Land. However, she was more often referred to as “The Bat” and her Batgirl status is up to individual interpretation.

- Dick didn’t originate the Nightwing name, it started with Clark in the Silver Age.

- Steph has never been Nightwing. The panel where she appears in the costume is a Black Mercy illusion that happens only in her own mind. It’s a dream sequence.

- Barbara was Nightwing in the Smallville Season 11 comics.

- Terry was briefly Nightwing in volume 4 of Batman Beyond.

- Damian briefly became Nightwing after accidentally killing Dick in the Injustice series.

- Dick is Oracle in the “Eight Wonders of the World” version of Earth 2 (aka the Black Superman dimension)

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theperfectquestion · 3 months ago

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TWENTY YEARS TO MIDNIGHT

The Venture Brothers starts out as a show that makes fun of the past, but lasted long enough to be one that truly understands it.

So I rewatched The Venture Brothers in one big splurge over the course of two weeks, from Turtle Bay to Baboon Heart.

One of the most charming things about the show is a product of its lengthy creation process and the fact that it was written almost entirely by just two people. The story nearly has a tight continuity, so if you take it at its word then all the events of the story take place over a period of two and a half years, while the actual show was made over a period of twenty years.

The outcome of this curious time dilation is that we follow the Venture Brothers, Hank and Dean, through those difficult years between 16 and 18, but we also follow the writers, Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, through the difficult years between their twenties and their forties. The show begins irreverent, contrarian and cruel and changes, cell by cell, into something wiser and more profound.

The treatment of Rusty Venture, former boy adventurer and long-suffering heir to the poisonous Venture legacy, is a fascinating thread to follow. In the very first episode he steals his son's kidneys like a ghoul, and his various addictions and neuroses are firmly treated as quirky objects of pity. I don't know much about the personal lives of the writers, but I imagine a certain amount of tragedy would have found them over the course of twenty years. A certain empathy for Rusty's position kicks in around the second season and develops strongly throughout the years. By the time the writers have reached the age that Rusty is when he is introduced, there are delicate attempts to reach out to the poor man, to understand and maybe counteract some of his own personal tragedy, though careful not to smother the comedy that such a character brings to the table.

But the thread I enjoyed following the most was that trailing behind Action Johnny. If you have ever heard of The Venture Brothers, you already know that the show began as a parody and deconstruction of the 1960s Hanna Barbara cartoon Jonny Quest, which was itself an attempted relaunch of the Edisonade craze of the 1910s, riding on the coattails of the far more successful and popular Tintin and Uncle Scrooge comics.

Jonny Quest was the son of a world famous scientist and adventurer, Doctor Quest, who led an extraordinary jet setting life where he accompanied his father to exotic places to experience exciting, often racist, science-themed thrills instead of going to school. He was watched over by his lantern-jawed bodyguard, Race Bannon, and joined with his adopted brother, Hadji.

The Venture Brothers stole this set-up entirely, and Rusty's backstory is a carbon copy of Jonny's. We are first told that this is something more than a swipe early on in the first season of The Venture Brothers when Race Bannon appears, as himself, as a secret agent belonging to the same organisation as the Venture family bodyguard, Brock Samson. It's a clever shorthand for saying that boy adventurers are not singular in this world, they are a type, one which occupies a distinct social strata along with their bodyguards, enemies and other supporting cast members.

The way that we are told this fact, in the seventh episode of the first season, is peak 2004 adult swim: beloved cartoon character Rave Bannon drops out of the sky, lands in front of one of our characters, dies, then shits himself. This was vaguely subversive at the time, but twenty years of Robot Chicken and the like have rendered it a tired, hoary gag. Venture Brothers itself has proved that this moment is at least a wasted opportunity. There was undoubtedly more comedy and interest to be mined from having Race Bannon around as an older counterpart to Brock Samson. But there was fun to be had with squandering opportunities and biting the hand that feeds for writers in their twenties in 2004.

When Jonny Quest himself appears in 2006's season two episode, Twenty Years to Midnight, things aren't much different. Jonny is found haunting the bathyscaphe from the cartoon, injecting heroin, waving an antique pistol and ranting about his father. He has a teardrop tattoo and missing teeth. He is discovered by Rusty's brother, the overachieving but naïve Jonas Junior. It's a much better gag in execution than the Race Bannon one, despite being essentially the same beat, but there is some pathos thanks to Brendan Small's delivery. Jonny is left alive, unlike Race, but the capper to this scene is somehow more humilating and tragic than when Race's corpse shat himself: Jonny is brought on side by Jonas Junior who, pressed for time and not as accustomed to being threatened and menaced as Rusty is, is unable to apply superscience to this situation and simply offers Jonny a supply of heroin.

The entertainment industry's relationship to its back catalogue of intellectual property has changed a lot in the last two decades. Characters like Jonny and Race were embarrassing curios in Ted Turner's garage in 2006. Why not dust them off and kill them in a cartoon to make college kids giggle? Why not give them a crippling drug habit and have them collapse to their knees, bellowing, "I'm in real pain!" But within ten years the media behemoths realised they could spin their old straw into gold, and instead of selling sheink rays at a yard sale, so to speak, they were putting the Flintstones in ads for Halifax bank.

So the Venture Brothers show renamed their tragic, adult Jonny Quest to 'Action Johnny' and in doing so was forced to consider him as a character rather than a skit. And the colossal strength at the heart of the Venture Brothers is in taking ridiculous things like boy adventurers seriously. Jonny Quest was allowed to become a valuable (?) piece of IP, forever a child, forever innocent and marketable, while Action Johnny could live his life unfettered by the parent company's fears.

Action Johnny appears two years later in Season 3, sober but shaky, doing a favour to Rusty by running a seminar for his ill-fated summer camp. He undercuts the spirit of the event by warning the children of the long term effects of adventures on the psyche and unravels into rants about his father. It's a solid bit by itself, especially when contrasted with a neighbouring table from the Pirate Captain (who, despite being an important recurring character, the show refuses to give a name) about the joys of being part of the 'rubber mask set.' Though the world of the Venture Brothers is nominally organised through a bureaucracy of licenced 'protagonists' and 'antagonists,' the biggest tension on screen is between the characters who chose the life, like the Pirate Captain, and those who had the life forced upon them, like Action Johnny. It just so happens that the former tend to end up as tortured, resentful good guys and the latter wind up as joyful, carefree villains.

Bringing that point home in the same episode is the appearance of Doctor Z as the summer camp's headliner. Doctor Z is the final borrowed character Jonny Quest, and one who the writers clearly take the brightest shine to, probably because he has the funniest voice to imitate. Doctor Z also represents the goals of show's resplendent second half - having deconstructed the boy adventurer genre in the early seasons, the Venture Bros very carefully puts the pieces back together into something wholly new.

And so Doctor Zin, the generic yellow peril villain of Jonny Quest, becomes Doctor Z, the retired and contented former archfiend of the Venture Bros. Doctor Z is treated by the other characters as something like a national treasure, a beloved old star who made the game his own. The joke of Doctor Z is that he seems genuinely bemused that his lifetime of villainy seems to have had a lasting negative effect on people. When he appears at Rusty's summer camp, all theatre and terror, he is delighted to meet his old foe Action Johnny, while Johnny is thrown into a whirlwind of trauma at the sight of Z, one that will drag him down into further troubles.

Doctor Z will become more of a feature than Action Johnny over the following years as the show becomes more interested in its older cast members - the ones whose personalities shaped the world, and who have sunny memories of the days that were so painful to Rusty and Johnny. He is part of a larger rehabilitation arc on the meta level, where characters with reprehensible aspects to them are held up for the audience to inspect so that they may find some empathy with them. Sargent Hatred is the poster child of this era, who is a repentant paedophile who joins the main cast as the Venture Brothers' new bodyguard. He's a whole other topic, but Doctor Z has the same function as Hatred, but on a metatextual level. His ancestor, Doctor Zin, is a hideous racial stereotype of the sort that makes modern revivals of the adventure genre so unpalatable. In its first deconstructionist half, the Venture Brothers show would simply wave Doctor Z around as shock tactic - 'look how racist Jonny Quest was, and by extension the company that made it and, logically, its audience!' and then maybe give him a violent and undignified death to wash their hands of the whole matter. But the reconstructivist Venture Brothers show embraces Doctor Z, and takes him beyond his tawdry origins to become an integral part of its story.

In 2009, Action Johnny helps Rusty to articulate this in the episode 'Self-Medication' from Season 4. Johnny and Rusty are in the same therapy group for former boy adventurers, a premise that would later be stolen wholesale by the She-Hulk show. A trail of tenuous clues leads the group to Doctor Z's house in the middle of the night. Johnny forces a confrontation with Z, accusing him of murdering their therapist to perpetuate the spiral he has been in since he saw Z take the stage back at Rusty's day camp. Doctor Z immediately groks the situation and invites the former boy adventurers into his home for tea with his beloved wife, who proudly proclaims herself to be his beard. Doctor Z is proud of what he has done in life, and so has the ability to put the past behind him. Sat between Z and Johhny, who is unable to move on, Rusty realises that he has more in common with the antagonist in the room than the protagonist. Rusty has many such insights throughout the length of the show and they lead him to an interesting end point where he seizes the nettle and becomes a parental figure to the whole weird superscience community.

The final encounter between Action Johnny and Doctor Z takes place nine years (!) later in our timeline - 2018's 'The Terminus Mandate.' Doctor Z is retiring from active villany and, according to the ceremony-obsessed fraternity of organised supervillans, that means he must menace his archenemy one last time. Action Johnny's father is long gone, so Johnny inherits that dubious honour.

It's the first time that we see Doctor Z not being fully committed to the bit. Johnny is resident at a posh rehab clinic and Doctor Z is conflicted between genuinely wanting to see Johnny again but unsure of how to interact with him in a way that doesn't cause actual, lasting harm. Doctor Z even brings a prop from a Jonny Quest cartoon as a gift, in a sequence lovingly reanimated to translate Jonny Quest's vocabulary into the Venture Brothers' language. The sequence chosen is virulently racist, almost too racist to be believed: a mask of the god Anubis lands on top of Johnny's dog, and Doctor Z's Egyptian henchmen suddenly believe that the mask is a vengeful god come to punish them and so abandon the young Doctor, giving the advantage to Johnny's team. In the lobby of the rehab centre, in the late to evening, Doctor Z struggles to articulate why the Anubis mask means so much to him and Johnny cringes at the memory while enjoying the act of reminiscing. He offers to go and run and hide, so that Z can find him, and they both discover they are delighted by the idea.

It's a touching, uncomfortable and deeply weird scene that, to me, is the pinnacle of The Venture Brothers as a creative endeavour. Behind it is a group of people who have been mulling over the implications of Jonny Quest as a short-lived but impactful cultural phenomenon for most of their adult lives. They have been mining the absurdity, the legacy, the implications, the pathos and the bathos of those 26 half-hours of cartoon and found incredible treasures. It starts with finding a silly old thing in the attic that you want to ridicule and it ends, twenty years later, with you acknowledging the attachment one has formed to that silly old thing, and how it has informed your life, for better or worse, in ways you can't deny.

#venture bros #rusty venture #jonny quest #hank venture #dean venture #action johnny #hanna barbera #jackson publick #doc hammer #adult swim

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its-not-a-pen · 3 months ago

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eunuch rating system: part 2 electric boogaloo! part 1 based on the original post by @welcometothejianghu wherein i continue to rate REAL historical chinese eunuchs! this is a non-exhaustive list and there's honestly no metric to it. i just pick the guys i like.

Han Dynasty (yes, again. the Han was like 400 years long lol) Cao Teng was a pretty normal guy whose biggest claim to fame is his extremely infamous grandson, Cao Cao. Because of this, Cao Teng is the only enunch in chinese history to get a royal title; Emperor Gao of Wei, which was granted posthumerously through Cao Cao’s grandson Cao Rui.

Cao Teng was a good judge of character who promoted a bunch of famous people, one of whom was a guy who had even tried to impeach him previously. After 30 years of service, he retired, got married, and adopted a son.

i decided to put him on the list because the common perception of the eunuch is a "mutilated" man living a lonely, unfulfilled life. What is often left out is they are highly motivated people who excel at their jobs, exert a lot of influence, and are able to have families and leave a legacy.

the majority of eunuchs came from poor families, and serving at the palace gave them an opportunity to obtain wealth, status and an education they would otherwise never have access to. it does require an unimaginably painful sacrifice, but that shouldn't be the only thing that defines them.

Cao Teng's hard work benefited his entire clan and lifted them out of poverty. But there was a complex interplay between him being a venerable ancestor, and someone marked by the stigma of castration. I imagine there was something bittersweet here for Cao Teng, knowing that he had done so much for his family, but they would rather he didn't exist.

Cao Cao was able to become a prime minister because of the wealth, connections, and education earned by his grandfather. At the same time, he appeared to resent him. The source of his ancestory was a sore spot which was repeatedly brought up by his political enemies to discredit him, something he never commented directly on or attempted to defend.

ming dynasty

MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE FOR THE COOLEST PERSON IN THE MING DYNASTY!!!! actually scratch that, MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE FOR THE COOLEST PERSON IN CHINESE HISTORY, PERIOD.

Zheng He was born Ma He to muslims living in Yunan, which was ruled by Mongols at the time. He was captured by the Ming army between the age of 10-14, castrated, and given to the young Yongle Emperor as a servant. Incredibly enough, he was like "no hard feelings mate" and went on to work in EVERY SINGLE JOB. and kick absolute ass in ALL OF THEM. he started out as a soldier on the northern frontier (the toughest place to serve, that was where all the border conflicts were) and fought in several campaigns with the future emperor, distinguishing himself and earning the emperor's trust.

I originally had him drawn in a more stereotypically "heroic" pose, by all accounts he was a tough guy who "walked like a tiger", and while the main purpose of the Ming voyages were diplomatic, he didn't shy away from violence. (he fought PIRATES. like a fucking shonen protagonist). in the end i decided to go with a picture that showcases less celebrated but equally important leadership qualities like curiosity, patience and discipline. I also want to point out that he wasn't the only eunuch on the trip, around half of the commanding officers were also eunuchs. He wasn't an exception to the rule but rather the face of a largely ignored majority; complicated people who were making the most of a difficult job.

Notes: the giraffe he brought back didn't have a name (at least not on record), but the Ming thought it was a qilin (kinda like a chinese unicorn) and i thought that would be an adorable name for a giraffe.

Ming Dynasty

i feel like we've had too much nuance, so lets finish this list off with a properly corrupt and scheming enunch! Wei Zhongxian castrated himself at age 21 to escape his gambling debts, and it unleashed his potiential like Rock Lee removing his leg weights. once inside the palace, he started out as a minor kitchen hand but managed to hustle his way to being the right hand of the emperor, who was an indifferent ruler that prefered woodworking to running a country. for this reason, I decided to make him a ventriloquist dummy.

Wei Zhongxian then proceeded to go on an extravagant and over-compensating ego trip. actually, it was more like a 40-year-long, olympic worthy, ego-long jump. things came to a terrible end when he tried to stage a coup (it failed and he decided not to hang around the capital, and go hang on some rafters instead). by then, decades of corruption had weakened the Ming, the emperor's only son got exploded in horrible incident that also wiped out most of the Ming Dynasty munitions--and what's this? here comes the Qing Dynasty with a steel chair!!!! notes: I decided to make Wei Zhongxian's design a human version of my cat, because he is also an incredibly devious but rather low-wisdom individial.

#chinese history #ming dynasty #han dyansty #zheng he #wei zhongxian #cao teng #enunchs

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bandtrees · 6 months ago

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this has always been one of my favorite lines in this scene it’s so striking to me. i think debating over callum’s level of lucidity and what can or cannot “fix” him is deeply antithecal to what the story is trying to express with him - but the idea that callum is still there and still a person who does have the capacity to love mingus, just not in a way she can ever comprehend or accept, because she can't comprehend or accept anything outside her narrow worldview, is sooooo good.

there is no way of actually knowing if callum is proud of mingus, much less recognizes her at all - but it's added to by the fact there's only so much of that she would accept even if he could. ultimately, she wants validation and power, his prestige, from him, she wants a supportive parental figure she never had - there's only so much of that callum is able to provide even in a world where her stint to fix his memory actually worked. he's like a hundred. he never even MET her. to say nothing of all he's missed in the past fifty-odd years. to say nothing of how his age may have messed with his mind deteriorating even without the pre-existing brain damage.

and mingus' phrasing here implies he doesn't even look at her when she visits - which brings me to the visit that radicalized her: the one after her surgery, where he was watching gingi out the window.

obviously, callum watching gingi is mostly for the thematics of it all, how similar the two of them are in ways mingus refuses to recognize, but theres also the thought of... callum's been sitting alone in that room for over half his life, barely lucid if at all. of course he's going to be drawn to a brightly-colored thing making noises and knocking stuff over outside. if he can't respond to stimuli of the people around him he's at the very least going to latch onto something more visually interesting than Brown Wall and Brown Figure.

but it's not like mingus can think of it like that, because she's internalized so much about her grandfather and built up such a specific, personalized vision of him - she doesn't see him as an elderly man with (a fictional equivalent to) dementia, she sees him as President Callum Crown™, the man she personally has to please and live up to the legacy of and make proud, disregarding the fact that's not something he has the mental capacity to even do - because she's so obsessed with validation and complete control that the only way she can get it is by either subjugating others and forcing it out of them (what she does with her townsfolk), or just completely projecting on someone who, for her purposes, is basically a blank slate.

which is maddening to her in its own way, see how crazy she drives herself trying to restore callum's memory in the first place - but also, would she be happy even if callum could see her for who she is? post-game, when she's working on herself, that's an irrelevant question as she's pushed past that need, but as we know her? absolutely not.

i love the ch3 standoff between norm and mingus as a show of "Okay guys let’s see who can dehumanize this disabled guy harder (via pedestal-putting) and justify themselves for it better" and why i think it is so important that it’s gingi who reads the postcard and ultimately speaks for callum instead of either of them, or even the narrator. they can’t read, and they struggle to, but they manage to get it right even when people are telling them to stop. and the fact they’re able to do it at all, are given the chance to do so, and are ultimately the one to wind down this conflict shows that the world of dialtown, while not perfect, really is how callum would have wanted it.

both gingi and callum are some of the most altruistic and human characters ever, and the crux of their parallels is that they are denied this by close-minded people because they happen to Behave Strangely. it's why seeing mingus act the way she does hits so hard - she loves her paw-paw, yes, but if she were to see him in a vacuum, a one-limbed man who can hardly think, much less speak for himself: or even his younger self, who was struggling to make ends meet with his odd inventions...

...well, the feeling norm's imagining here would probably be mutual. mingus' relationship with bigotry is a very fascinating one, she's very close-minded but views certain oddities (ie her flesh-head) as having earned their place and thus being fine - she's a freak too, by her own admission, but she's doing it for a just and wider purpose, so it's fine. which is, ironically, the ideology callum forced upon himself.

callum was obsessed with helping people, pushing himself to do more and more, because it was the only way he ever found respect. if he didn't help people and have grand visions for the world and make himself "useful" to society at large, then what would he be, if not a freak?

mingus and her paw-paw are very similar people, from their well-intentioned extremism, to their stubbornness and paranoia, to their inability to view themselves as anything more than a vessel for that grand cause they believe in (callum in the dialup, mingus in restoring her paw-paw's memory) - which is funny, because if mingus was able to view callum, and herself, as a flawed human person, she would come to understand how similar they really are.

#babbles #dialtown #dialtown spoilers #mayor mingus #mayor mingus crown #callum crown #phonegingi #dialtown a phone dating sim #long posts #ableism tw #least surprising analysis post ever from the tttaac guy #started this. got embarrassed abt it. put it in my drafts. got really emotional about callum. returned to it. bon appetit

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applestorms · 4 months ago

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i love near so goddamn much. i finally read the c-kira and a-kira post-canon one shots all the way through last night and AAAAAAAAA my heart. nate river 🫵🫵🫵

c-kira in particular hits me hard bc you can really see that he's still reeling from the events of the main story. it’s a very specific era of near that’s so horribly awkward and insecure about his place in the world, about his role as L, and has so very few people left behind to support him-- really just lidner, rester, and gevanni. so much of that story is about near struggling to figure out who he is and who he wants to be in the wake of Everything, scrambling around in the shadows of all these false gods and blown up egos, trying to grow up and be a Person in the smoking remains of all these people who killed themselves with their own hubris. i mean, just look at this page:

LOOK AT THIS. near is almost shockingly expressive in this story, his grief and regret is fucking Palpable in a way that you very rarely see with a guy like him. it really gets to me that this is the story where near actually opens up about his mixed feelings surrounding the original L, about the interview he held where he picked near & mello out to be his two successors, and all while hiding himself within these massive card towers that you only see to be these giant L's at the end-- a kid barely out of his teens already getting dwarfed by the enormity of the history he is expected to continue and represent. the winner of the game who's only prize is the legacy he now holds on his shoulders, the grief he is cursed with as the only one left behind. this kid barely has anyone now, never even got the chance to truly, fully know what he lost in the first place, these all-powerful figures that have dictated every inch of his life from the moment he stepped foot in that damn house.

and i mean, goodness. what did we expect? i can talk all i want about the cinematic parallels of light & L as opposites, but look at near & mello in literally every piece of official art-- near truly loses his other half when mello dies, and you can just Feel the discomfort, the deep-seated, underlying imbalance in his soul through this shit.

a-kira near, on the other hand, has had the time to grow a bit more at ease with himself, but he still gets to me in a slightly different way. i cannot emphasize enough how utterly fucking perfect the decision to make his hair longer is-- for so simple of a detail, it really sums up so much about his character. this version of an older near feels like a guy who's been stuck outside of time for ages, barely even noticing the constant shifts of the outer world as he holes himself up in his room, hardly aware of the way that his own body stretches and grows and changes with each passing day. doing his job, all just for a bit of entertainment. there is still that distinctly privileged, childish part of him that hides in his forts of toys and makes whatever demands he pleases, but it's more smoothed over, more exhausted, more Done.

he's packed away the grief by this point. dealt with it properly? not necessarily. but the wound isn't as raw now so he can set it aside to be ignored or looked over more easily, focus on the things that he wants to. blow up his toys when they don't meet his standards.

i strikes me as important that near's view on the new kira's shifts so much over the course of even just these two little stories. in the c-kira story, near is so Quick to shit on the new guy as fast as possible, literally snarking him into submission with the fear of his presence alone until he writes his own name down. we never see this "cheap" kira, this pathetic fake that couldn't possibly stand up to the original. (projecting a little there, nate?) he's barely more than a panel or two of hands, and then he disappears from the story forever.

in a-kira though, you get something a little more desperate, a little more hungry-- near really fucking wants to meet this new guy, purely for the sake of talking to him, and is a lot quicker to respect him & the depth of how well he's thought through this plan. at first it seems like he's intrigued by the idea of finally finding yet another equal, someone to match his freak after years of standing on his own, and knowing DN you're inclined to trust that the mind games will eventually happen. but, in the end...

he loses. and doesn't he seem so happy about it?

minoru really is the perfect match for near in a way-- a new, passive kira, uninterested in the bullshittery of killing and shinigami and evil murder diaries, to reflect and match the tired, new L who was done with his job before he even started doing it. RIP minoru dying due to shinigami bullshit, but i'm genuinely happy that this is the ending near gets, the chance to finally lose at something without having to pay the price of human lives for it. winning has almost never been a truly positive thing for near-- his winning wammy's house only gave him the many pressures & stresses of a job as L, his winning against light only gave him a dead mello and a notebook to quietly burn, hell, all of this shit happening at all is what made mello resent him so much in the first place.

but now he can lose. and i think he's all the better for it.

near is immature, yes, he bossy and snarky and blows up his toys without giving a fuck what anyone else has to say-- but he doesn't get ahead of himself in the way that light and L and the others did, a trait which ultimately lets him win but also leaves him behind to shoulder the grief of a generation. but now he can lose, he can let the fate of the world fall of his shoulders for just a moment, and everything is still going to be okay. it's good to see him getting older. it's good to see that you can still move on and grow, even when it seems like the legacies of the past are locking you away in a cage. i'm glad these manga exist, and i'm glad near can still make it out alive.

#death note #astronaut rambles #near #nate river #NATE RIVERRR #a-kira #c-kira #'short little post' i need to stop lying to myself. do your fucking homework apples

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empressofthewind · 2 months ago

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i know i talk about this a lot but i really cannot emphasise enough just how insane this makes me. like Christ. they really designed two characters with perfectly complementary skillsets who had the potential to achieve unprecedented greatness together and then never followed through with that at all. like yeah they're two halves of a whole and together they're the pinnacle of intelligence but oh sorry one of them is actually dead. here's his corpse and here's his full name written in the book of death. there's no ambiguity at all. he's dead and gone and the other half has to spend the rest of his life carrying a legacy that he was literally designed to be incapable of fulfilling on his own. What The Fuck

#meronia #what the fuck!!!!!

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bookie-bookdust · 5 days ago

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Hogwarts Legacy characters trying to break you out of detention (unhinged edition) 😈

Aw shucks!!!! Detention again. You can only push Hobhouse down the stairs so many times before the professors start believing him. Here's how your favs would try to break you out.

Sebastian Sallow: He's literally sitting next to you, babe. Why do you think you're here? Cellmates 4 lyfe <3<3<3

Ominis Gaunt: He's sleeping soundly knowing you're paying for your crimes, loser.

Poppy Sweeting: You're slowly nodding off at your desk. It's been hours and detention is nowhere near finished, and FUCKING HIGHWING KICKS IN THE DOOR AND POPPY IS RIDING HER. CAW CAW MOTHERFUCKER. LET'S FLY.

Garreth Weasley: He's actually busy in the hospital wing because he tested a new potion on himself, and for some reason he has feathers now. Idk either.

Natty Onai: Never showed up. Her mother foresaw the whole thing in a crystal ball or something idk.

Leander Prewett: Still stuck in the ceiling under the Levioso charm Hecate casted on the first day of school. No one's noticed.

Amit Thakkar: He stays up all night drafting the most eloquently worded letter to submit to the professors pleading your case. Except by the time he finishes it, you've already served your detention.

Anne Sallow: Literally has no idea who you are. You've met twice, and the second time you were assisting her brother with murder???

Professor Fig: This motherfucker don't care about you. He didn't know where you were half the time when you were out killing yourself. You think he knows you're in detention????

Deek: Deek thinks you should be proud of all the potions you've brewed. (I don't think he's capable of saying anything else tbh)

Bonus!!!

Solomon Sallow: He's dead. He can't help you (and wouldn't anyway)✨

okAY byE!!!!

#hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow #ominis gaunt #i ain't tagging all these damn character names #I accidentally gave myself minor food poisoning somehow #starting 2025 stronggggg

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zundely · 9 months ago

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Having more dragon age thoughts- this time about my dwarves, and partially about Varric.

So, hot take to lead with- Oghren is actually a much better and more insightful character to criticse dwarven cast system and culture then Varric. The best dwarven companion we ever got is obviously Sigrun but I feel like this one is pretty much self-explanatory, so I feel much more compelled to talk through our two lovely dwarven gentleman.

First thing I want to say is that, while I usually feel need to say that I do not hold anything against Varric as a character, his disdain for dwarven culture is something that bothers me a little. Especially since he is one of 3 dwarven companions we get across whole 3 games, and by far the most popular one. He is actually pretty similar to Sera at times in a way he views his own heretige but the games refuse to address it. Which is a shame because I think his view on the culture he was basically excommunicated from before he was even born should be a bigger deal then some quips about beards and getting antsy any time he steps near a thaig. Like Varric clearly has some very very complicated feelings about all things dwarven- something that no so subtly is a mirror of his very very complicated feelings on his brother who was much more of a 'real dwarf'. It feels like in an attempt to distance himself from what his brother represented Varric also felt a need to distance himself from anything too dwarven. But at the same time we see that it's something he never really let's go off- he is moved by his ancestor's fate in Legacy dlc questline, he keeps up with dwarven politics, he will get a bit miffed at mere mention of him not looking your standard dwarf.

However since dwarven culture doesn't come up half as much as elven one in later games we never really get to do anything with Varric's internalized issues. It's just sort of becomes a running joke that he is "not like other dwarves, that guy he HATES deep roads and he doesn't have a beard". And while that in itself is fine, not all characters have to focus on their relationship with their culture it becomes an issue when Varric is the only companion representative of said culture through 2 out of 3 games. It means the game has much less opportunities to present us with fun lore in an organic fashion because Varric is too busy making sure we know he hates it here. Like why I am more tempted to take Iron Bull to a dwarven ruins the Varric.

Oghren was ultimately a much better point of reference for dwarves because he is a product of this environment and he is surprisingly insightful and self-aware about it. And despite the multitude of ways in which Orzammar failed him he still cares about it. He still takes a lot of pride in his heretige even if all it really brought him is being rejected for becoming the thing it wanted him to be- a killing machine.

And now I am stuck on one hand wishing that there will be SOMETHING done with Varric's not feeling dwarfy enough- on the other however if Varric will be the only dwarven companion in DA:D I am going to scream. I am sorry all the Varric fans, he is either coming back in an advisor style role or I do not want to see him . It sometimes feels like the writers are not comfortable with writing dwarves and they use the 'least dwarfy dwarf' Varric as a get out of jail card and I just want something new.

#varric critical #i think #dragon age #rambles #I am honestly a tad terryfied to post it in case people will take it as an attack on their fav #And it's not... mostly at least #I just miss the edge dwarves had in Origns #da2 #Like a lot of post DA2 Varric I like the potential but the way he is actually writen feels underwhelming #dragon age dwarves

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kaeyachi · 20 days ago

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HOW WE CAN USE KAEYA'S CHARACTER VOICELINES TO PREDICT THE PLOT OF GENSHIN IMPACT:

Really long lore post! Grab a small serving of popcorn, maybe.

So, do you all remember my post about how frequent Kaeya mentions fate ? And how suspicious it is, especially with the current plotlines in Genshin?

Other than that suspicious thing he's got going, there are several voicelines from him that are incredibly interesting to go back to as well, especially with all the current facts we have.

Just to name a few, we have him talking about his grandfather fighting a hydra before we even went to Liyue, and in a short animation posted in Genshin's YT account a year before the Albedo quest, he tells Klee to be careful at night because monsters walk around looking like a knight to trick people.

But for now, I will focus on a certain group of his EN voicelines- More about Kaeya".

ALL "More about Kaeya" voicelines could have been AND can still be used to predict the plot of genshin- very fitting for someone who keeps despairing about fate. Here is how:

First, with the 2 voicelines have already been officially addressed in Archon Quests by other Khaenri'ahns:

"Khaenri'ah? You sure know a lot! The legacy of Khaenri'ah is long gone. The sinners are all that's left, and they're not worth mentioning."

Back then, before the interlude quest from update 4.7 was ever released, I actually just assumed this was just the teachings of Kaeya's father to him, because Clothar had mentioned back in update 3.5 that "salvation for a sinner can only come from a sinner". We probably assumed at the time that being a sinner included ALL Khaenri'ahns.

It turns out that Kaeya had told us who the sinners are- The Legacy of Khaenri'ah: the group of characters that put their nation under Celestia's terrifying gaze for their work. They are called the Legacy not only for their power and influence, but also because they are what made Khaenri'ah the cursed nation that it is today. This is the sinners' legacy.

Meanwhile, Clothar told us what these sinners are doing - finding out how to give their cursed nation "salvation." This is why Vedrfolnir (Dainsleif's brother and one of the said sinners) had inspired Clothar to form the Abyss Order. This could be taken as our twin agreeing with the sinners' plans.

These Alberich men and their subtle and confusing lore drops, I swear...

Technically, I guess we can say that this was a lesson from Kaeya's father, but now it was clear that his father was talking about an actual group that can be called "The Sinners of Khaenri'ah".

But that brings up a question... why did Kaeya try to divert the focus from said group? Why are they "not worth mentioning"? Especially with the fact that our twin is actively working with them? Was this meant to guide us away from that trail? Or perhaps this is a subtle foreshadowing that the plot of these sinners would fail in all their attempts/plans?

"Is the Abyss Order causing you trouble? If there's anything bothering you, you know you can talk to me."

Either way, this actually confirms that Kaeya knows of the Khaenri'ahn/Abyss Order plot in general. Like, come on now, he already spoke of half truths when questioned by Dainsleif! He didn't know what the full weight of carrying an Alberich surname is, but he did mention that what Dainsleif told him finally answered questions- questions he wouldn't have had if he was told nothing. He is really proving Diluc's assessment of him- you can really only trust half of what he says at best.

This one right here actually predicted/foretold what update 3.5 will contain. There was a reason why this is what we got for "About Kaeya". This wasn't just about him as a knight, it was because his ancestor, Clothar, involved in the Abyss Order's creation. This is part of his family history.

This, however, makes me curious as to what his personal relation to the Abyss Order actually is. Do we take this voiceline as him just being a knight that recognizes our problems with the Abyss Order after what happened with Dvalin? Or do we take this as special treatment from a descendant of its founder who is reluctantly watching over his birthright? This is not the only concern regarding this. If he really is loosely working with the Abyss Order, this means that this entire time, he may have been in cahoots with our twin! Suddenly, the intel he gave us during the prologue is less truthful than it originally was, huh? The information is real, but how he really got it is being put into question...

It seems like both of the dialogue made me think that he has been in contact with our twin in some way this entire time. Very interesting...(at the very least, it would make Kaeya get a laugh at Amber posting missing posters in the most random of places)

Also...it was actually in the surname too lmao. Alberich means "ruler of supernatural beings" after all. (technically, this would have referred to elves, but there doesn't seem to be a clear connection from the Alberich clan to the elven race yet...but one can only dream of elven Kaeya)

Now onto the voicelines that will for sure tell us about what comes next (and what might possibly happen):

" The title of Cavalry Captain is nothing to grt excited about. Now that I think about it, the Grand Master took all the cavalry from Mondstadt, so there's none for me to captain..."

It's the age old question of "Why did Varka take the cavalry, but not their captain?"

It's a funny thing to think about, but it really does raise the question as to why Varka did so, because it's really REALLY weird to not take the captain. The simplest answer is that Kaeya's intel network is far more important than taking him away on an expedition, and gathering intel is hard when the head of it isn't starionary, but we also have to consider the fact that Varka would have an idea about Khaenri'ah in the first place.

Perhaps bringing Kaeya around what seems to be a search for answers and solutions isn't the best idea? What if all this searching is connected with Khaenri'ah? Learning more about how the nation was destroyed would probably be beneficial for the Grand Master to know to protect his nation, after all...

But what if it doesn't involve Khaenri'ah at all? Well, we still have the alternative of Varka wanting Kaeya to be by Jean's side. Kaeya is efficient with his work, but he is also the first to hammer in the idea of self care.

Kaeya has shown several instances of caring for Jean in secret (just like he does for so many others, actually). The first being in Jean's story quest where he planned a party for her. Another is Jean calling him out and thanking him for doing the backlogged KoF paperwork in secret. Finally, he convinced Jean to go with him, Albedo and Klee in Simulanka.

Kaeya is also the 2nd in command if Jean is out of commission AND the one who seems to be doing negotiations. Varka knew that Jean needed support, and Kaeya is the best support anyone could ask for as an official Knight.

As for the last idea, Kaeya could have rejected the offer of joining the expedition himself and offered his entire cavalry to go in his stead. It could be for various reasons, ranging from wanting to stay for Jean and Diluc to being afraid of going against his father's orders of Kaeya needing to stay in Mondstadt. The Grand Master's expedition is taking too long compared to Kaeya's short negotiations meetings in Sumeru and quick vacations in Liyue, Veluriyam, and Simulanka.

But one thing is clear- this situation will definitely be addressed someday, and I'm sure it goes deeper than Varka simply wanting to take the cavalry away from their captain.

"There are a total of ten captains within the Knights of Favonius. But truth be told, not all of them have what it takes to be leaders."

There are 5 captains stationed in Mondstadt- Jean, Kaeya, Albedo, Eula, and Hertha. The other 5 went with Varka.

Kaeya doesn't seem to have any problems with the ones that stayed with him in Mond...so does this mean that this is a setup for upcoming conflict within the Knights of Favonius? Is there a captain or 2 that would cause concerns?

Also, I'm not sure if this is a translation error, but " not all of them have what it takes-" sounds like he doesn't count. If it isn't an error, I could also connect a theory on that.

What if Kaeya isn't the official cavalry captain? What if they are just saying that as his public role because they can't expose the real one- intel. Suddenly, Varka leaving him would make even more sense because the cavalry isn't his to captain, and this could also confuse their enemies' information. This has been a long standing theory in the fandom, but I wonder if this would actually hold up well and accurately based off of Kaeya's lines.

"My eye? My eye is fine. There's nothing unusual about hiding one's body parts from view. It's the same reason I wear pants... or any other item of clothing, for that matter."

Just gotta put it out there, but his eye is definitely not fine ✌️

Technically, this was already explained as him having a scar, but also, did we consider the idea that he could be lying again? Also, we should consider that Kaeya is really good at telling half truths, and a good actor to add.

Also, I kinda hope his hidden eye will be revealed as gold for a specific reason. From the source material, Alberich stole the gold of the Rhine river (yes, from Rhinedottirs) to create a ring. What better place than in an eye? The current model for his skin has it the same color as his visible one, but placeholders exist.

There actually isn't much to say about this one because we don't even know if there really is anything wrong in the first place. We could hypothesize that it's a spying eye, a curse-containing eye, the eye of King Irmin, or the eye that could see beyond the fake sky, but that is as far as we could go with it.

But the odd voiceline from Paimon regarding that eye sure did fuel a ton of those theories. We don't know where Paimon really came from, and all we know of her is that she is part of Teyvat that has a connection with Celestia, so her mentioning that Kaeya is hiding a "big secret" in regards to that eye is sure to send alarm bells to any theorist.

So yeah, that's about it for now. Kaeya definitely has way more voicelines to be concerned about, but the way these specific ones ended up playing out in the released lore is very interesting to me.

Also, I just found out that my dot connecting regarding the travelers were proven by the damn XBOX wings of all things... and you know what? I'll take it. A win is a win *eyes my other theories warily*

If you are still here after my long somewhat delulu theories, then congratulations! Have a Cookie:

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Fresh from the oven!

#MERRY CHRISTMAS KAEYANATION #here have this as my christmas present to yall #kaeya theory #kaeya #kaeya alberich #gi kaeya #genshin impact #genshin impact theory #have to tag the game coz kaeya is predicting game plot lmao #if it werent for canon events in my life this would have been posted a week or 2 ago i aint even kidding #what a wild year...WDYM THERES 6 DAYS LEFT?!

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