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obsessedwvampbois · 3 years ago

Text

𝐑𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐋 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬

Oh boy so this is gonna make people really mad. I have listened to a total of 52 songs from the Diabolik Lovers franchise (that I could find) and ranked them for the hell of it. For this ranking I will be including all character songs, openings (both anime and game) along with the remixes. I will not be counting solo versions of songs (eg. Gin no bara), soundtrack bgm or the endings themes.

My ranking is based on these things:

how well does the song fit the character/s or game, both in lyrics and aesthetic

the overall production and performance of the song

is the song a bop? would I willingly listen to it again?

Couple of disclaimers: I do not speak Japanese so I will be crediting the translations of each song as I go through them along with any think pieces / essays that I come across. If there is any song I missed, please let me know and I’ll slot it into the rankings, its hard to find one source that has all the songs recorded. Finally, just a reminder because I know I'm gonna make someone mad, this is my list! If you don't like it make your own or ignore mine, I'm only one person and my opinion is not final!

With that in mind, my rankings are below the cut

*Least Best*

These are the songs I will probably never listen to again. I have a few gripes with them that I'll talk about in my explanation.

52. 誓いのカンパネラ (Chikai no Campanella)

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This song is just super underwhelming overall. The guitar is my favourite thing about the song but that's it. There is so much build up for a boring chorus. The lyrics don't have much for me either.

51. 血戦のDies irae (Kessen no Dies irae)

Tsukinami Brothers

~translation~

On the opposite end, this song is so overwhelming. There are so many elements to follow and its hard to keep up. This is the first time I'll bring it up but the volume of the voices is so quiet compared to the backing track, its frustrating. The lyrics is what brings it up a notch as it talks about the day of wrath (dies irae) as the day the founders take over. I was also low key hoping to hear some version of the dies irae song hidden in the background but I couldn't hear any.

50. S.O.S-ΑtoΩ-

Tsukinami Brothers

~translation~

This song just feels so forgettable, I just feel like there isn't much to comment on. There are some interesting lyrics sprinkled out like comparing literal self mutilation to abstinence. Also the actual delivery of 'S ah O ah S ah', I can't take it seriously.

49. Dystopia

Kino

~translation~

This had an interesting start because I hadn't heard anything similar for DL but then after a few lines the tone change was just a nope for me. Again, Kino's voice is super quiet and the constant barrage of all these instruments that don't really gel together its confusing. Overall, it didn't leave much of an impression and I couldn't really visualised DL in the song.

48. 吸愛ラ��リンス (Kyūai Labyrinth)

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

Praise for the saxophone! Props to that because it shines here and is really the only memorable thing besides that final line of the chorus. The song does give the vibe of the Vandead Carnival with its more playful energy though. The lyrics feel really typical, like there are so many times I read lyrics about drinking blood before I get bored.

47. 極限(UNLIMITED) BLOOD -Remix ver.-

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation w/ original ver.~

I don't think I really need to hear EDM/dubstep and Diabolik Lovers again thanks. It feels super dated and the vocoded singing is a little much for my taste. Good source material and the stripped back vocals at some points is quite nice.

46. 愛しきPain (Itoshiki Pein)

Subaru

~translation~

First off please never let me see Subaru near a fedora again thanks. Overall I felt bored with this song, like its nice, but that it. There are similar sounding songs that just hit home similar themes a lot stronger later on. The best part of this song is the spoken word but it feels weird for Subaru to be singing such a slow song.

45. Luv Apple Juice

Ruki & Azusa

~translation~

Yes, I am counting Ruki's spoken word, its my list. Lyrics are a must read with references to Adam, Eve and Eden throughout. Again, the voices are super quiet and with how fast paced the instrumentals are its annoying. The tempo also backfires because these are two of the more 'chill' characters. The last complaint is that the speed of Ruki's speaking compared to Azusa's singing just isn't right.

44. DIE IS CAST

Kou & Yuma

~translation~

This has to be my least favourite opening to a song, the staccato is just really grating to me. The way I'd describe the chorus is loud, the same note over and over again isn't appealing. The lyrics are an interesting read but nothing feels super important. The highlight of the song is the pre-chorus, thanks production!

43. カレイドナイト (Kaleido Night)

Kanato & Subaru

~translation~

This song is just generic, like overall. The sound, the lyrics, the production. There just wasn't must for me to listen to without zoning out.

*Average*

These songs don't leave too much of a lasting impression on me, but I still enjoy them.

42. 苺の罪 (Ichigo no Tsumi) (strawberry sin)

Reiji

~translation~

First of the generic rock songs! I couldn't really find much in the lyrics of note I think the actual performance of the song is my favourite element here.

41. 真夜中の饗宴( MIDNIGHT PLEASURE) -Remix ver.

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation w/ original~

One the best part of the original is that opening section with the steps, it creates some nice anticipation for the coming song. The chorus this time round feels a little low energy after the hype of the pre-chorus. After watching the actual opening with the remix, I kind of wish they had the voice over, the song is so chill the last chorus could have it to make it feel more grandiose.

40. ZERO

Subaru

~translation~

Second generic rock song, this time it actually suits Subaru's brand! The lyrics do have some hints to Subaru as a character which is better. My sustaining thought is that this sounds like an off brand Arcadia.

39. Bloody★Mayim★Mayim

Sakamaki Brothers

~translation~

This has to have one of the strongest hooks for DL. For how many people sing in the song, it's easy to keep track of and the chemistry between them all is in sync. The main issue is that it feels like its missing some element to make it shine, the lyrics aren't in-depth too which brings it down another peg. The bridge/interlude is the best part though as I can visualise some mini story within the song here.

38. ADDICTED (2) PHANTOM

Ayato

~translation~

This song would be so much higher if I felt like it was more memorable cuz the lyrics here really shine. My interpretation is that this is Ayato questioning where his love stops and his sadistic nature to satiate his desires begin, can he separate the two? He both loves and despises the idea of draining his s/o dry. Another gripe with the song is that its not quite Ayato's aesthetic sonically.

37. Kindan no 666 (Three Six)

Kou & Azusa

~translation~

What puts this song so low is the majority of the instrumental, it takes a backseat here when I feel there could be more added. Props to percussion, drums are great though. After watching the MB opening so many times its hard to not see DL. Lyrics match with this one line here describing Kou in a nutshell:

"Sin spread from mouth to mouth, saying 'I’ll be gentle' pulls the trigger on a casual disaster!"

36. Iolite (アイオライト )

Shu

~translation~

I don't know why the producers associate electro-pop with Shu, I can't really see it much. I think they should have gone full glitch-pop instead considering how the song does a deep dive into his mind and thought process. Again, I think the voice is also quiet here but the instrumentals have some great moments, especially the strings.

35. 常夜KNOW UNDERSKIN

Sakamaki

~translation~

Well this gives Sakamaki vibes, nice guitar! Again, I like how it isn't overwhelming despite the amount of people involved. Lyrics aren't super impactful but super catchy.

34. 冷たい血 (Tsumetai Chi)

Ruki

~translation~

You have to read the lyrics while reading this, please! Its surprisingly wholesome and emotional overall. Again, there is the issue of the voice being way to quiet as the instrumentals swallow him whole after the second clock tick. The delivery is really well timed and production does a great job adding elements that works with the lyrics. There is a subtle echo to the voice that feels super enchanting as he comes to terms with the fact that he has fallen in love. Biggest drawback obviously is that this is just spoken word.

33. KISS♥MARK

Shu

~translation~

This song delves into the more perverse side of Shu, but we haven't really reached the level of Laito (we'll get there). The phone feels a little out of character but it suits that narrative. The straight cut out of music for the intermission was a bit abrasive but the transition back to music makes me forget about that with how slick it is. At least its better than a generic rock song.

32. カモフラージュ (Camouflage)

Shu & Laito

~translation~

What a great match up for subject matter, my interpretation is a denial and inability to accept oneself, ultimately using a mask to hide. So please look up the lyrics for some gems. However, after the 'against the blood' nothing really hit that same point sonically, furthermore its not the most aesthetically fitting for the two characters.

*Great*

These songs I actively enjoy, think about and do listen to occasionally and would recommend you check it out too.

31. >REDRUM<-

Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This song is full of anagrams in the lyrics, I mean look at the song title. Its super catchy and is hard to forget about. The bridge is the weakest part of this song but it is made up by the distortion of vocals after the final chorus.

30. Fanatic of Night

Sakamaki Brothers

~translation~

Well time to party, talk about a bop and a half! Its just so fun, even though its to exactly DL to me, but that's Lunatic Parade for you. Shout out to the guitarist and percussion once again.

29. Bad Howling

Shu, Ayato & Kou

~translation~

This is super catchy, its nice to hear Kou in the opening song this time round, it spices things up. Theres some really nice elements played with the vocals as they sing over one another that is really well balanced. The biggest peg down is that I don't get super DL vibes and the lyrics aren't the deepest.

28. I.M.I.T.A.T.I.O.N. G.A.M.E

Kino

~translation~

Overall this song is a little generic and doesn't sound like DL but! There is a lot to love here too. Starting off with the performance, I really like the vibrato in his voice and the decent of notes at the end of the chorus is just, yes. It a nice hook and the lyrics are pretty good too. My only other complaint is that the drums mask some smaller elements in the background of the song which would have been nice to hear more in the forefront.

27. 極限(UNLIMITED) BLOOD

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This is where the rankings get pretty hard cuz I wish this was higher but oh well. the dramatic shift from the opening piano to the song is so abrupt but it gets you pumped. The intermission does a good job of changing things up without cutting tension. The lyrics themselves seem to be from the view of the Adam project during more blood and the unquenchable thirst they get in the story.

26. アルカディア (Arcadia)

Ayato

~translation~

Immediately I get Ayato vibes from this song and the rapping does help too with a nice flow that isn't too jarring from the rest of the song. These lyrics are basically Addicted2Phantom on steroids, I can't see anyone else other than Ayato in them.

25. Kekkyoku Night

Ayato

~translation~

Don't know why but the guitar melody just seems like I had heard it before but I can't put my finger on it. The bass is super slick here and I really enjoy it. The vocal distortion at the start of the verse sets a scene for him to hunt down this person and its a narrative choice. The main issue is that I wish there was a little more pizzaz to the chorus.

24. Kaikan DEATH-TRUCTION

Kanato

~translation~

Spoilers but I have placed both a Kanato's songs pretty high up so this was a little bit of a let down after the other two. The main issues here is that I don't really get too much of Kanato in the song and the yelling before the chorus is a little much. This, to me, is a self reflection from Kanato which is a good switch up from his last two songs. Overall, the song is abrasive in a good way that isn't overwhelming and the 8-bit section is my fave.

23. 血濡れた密会 (BLOODY SABBATH)

Laito

~translation~

Oh boy, look these lyrics up for a good time. This song is about his hook up with a women with the song getting progressively darker as it goes on. Nice psycho reference but I don't know if it does much in the end. Really catchy hook and the escalation of the final chorus is just so good. Also I'm just going to leave this line from the song here:

“You wend all out with the rodeo girl play? So then, let’s grind!!!”

22. 幻日理論-Parhelion Logic

Ayato

~translation~

This song is meant to be kind of an open letter to Cordelia and my word these lyrics are haunting. It fits the vibe of Haunted Dark Bridal so well, super strong overall. I just wish there was a stronger performance vocally.

21. 暴言シンドローム (Seiron Syndrome)

Yuma

~translation~

Yuma, to me has some pretty good observation skills and its really highlighted here. The first line just hits the nail on the head in terms of how rough he is both in and out of the bedroom. This song is the best of the 'generic rock' with production being really smooth despite the high energy, it matches him really well. First line:

The pain of your sprained neck won’t subside

20. 蠱惑のParade (Kowaku no Parade)

Reiji & Kanato

~translation~

We got another catchy banger here! This song just screams 'the two of us are here to hunt you down and we won't stop till we get a taste.' I mean this song is super pleasing aesthetically and great lyrics to boot!

19. KILLYOU,AGAIN

Azusa

~translation~

The strings are an immediate attention grabber and its hold it throughout the whole song. Super catchy, and these lyrics are Azusa, especially this chorus. Id be interested to hear what people think about the second verse in particular cuz there's a lot to read into:

"In a worn out state of mind, no matter how many nights we question it... We’ve idealised too much."

18. SQueeze…

Subaru

~translation~

Okay before anything else, the squeeze at the start is goofy, I can't take it seriously. Anyway, I can't help but tap my foot to this song. Third times the charm, finally hitting Subaru's aesthetic to a T. The voice is a little quiet on the track but what takes over just sounds so good. The contrast of the bell and the guitar is just, yes thank you. The pre-chorus is a nice mix up to the status quo and these lyrics are great too.

17. 愛の檻 (Ai no Ori)

Ayato & Laito

~translation~

The opening is a nice tone setter for a haunting head bopper. These voices work together so well, just like how the sirens work with the strings. The singular violin during the bridge is great, praise to anyone who can do that my god. The string motif climaxes at the final chorus and it creates an awesome song!

16. 月蝕(Eclipse)

Kou, Yuma & Azusa

~translation~

Well we have a nice build up ballad here. The opening is a little out of place but I forget about it as it builds to this final chorus with the tempo getting faster and faster. The stripped back production also ends up aiding the song in the end with its punches and message. Speaking of which; I get the idea this is about watching some either currently or in retrospective how their personality changes after turning into a vampire; a loss of innocence. How fitting for the Mukami's.

“Despising the sunlight that filters through the blinds is only inevitable, I suppose”

*Faves*

This is what I think the best of the best is. It reflects the themes, ideas and characters of Diabolik Lovers in the best way possible. When people ask me what music from the franchise to listen to, I point to these songs.

15. Count off

Kino

~translation~

There is so much to talk about here, this is a mix of singing and spoken piece and it works so well for me. The delivery over this contagious beat I can't help but get hints of a k-pop vibe here. The movement to singing then vocoded voice are interesting and fun. The bridge switch up too is great, my only wish is that the choir hand a little more presence in the final chorus cuz its fun the first times round, it would be a nice call back.

14. A Certain Prophet's Fate [とある預言者の、運命 Toaru Yogensha no Unmei]

Reiji

~translation~

I can visualise a Nutella Kookie moodboard with this opening alone. To me, this is Reiji explain his views on women with allusions to Faust too, not the Ikemen version relax. there are some cool allusions to his mother in the lyrics too. The bass is so cool to listen out for and the guitar nodding to the chorus at the end is a nice way to end. I was just hoping for a little continuation to the opening like Reiji finding this person escaping on horseback.

13. CHAOS☆PARTY

Laito

~translation~

Aaaaaand another innuendo song from Laito, what a surprise! The jazzy, circus-pop vibes are super fun and catchy, I love it. It's like an upgraded version of Bloody Sabbath to me. The distortion on the guitar is also great to listen out for.

"Don’t decide where’s the critical point, grind as you feel it,

Till the moon oh, mockingly"

12. Mr.ButterflyMask

Reiji

~translation~

The opening may be cliche but it works so well, this is such a deep dive into Reiji's psyche; his mother, inferiority complex and village burning to name a few. The actual song is easy to remember which makes it even better here, the descending notes at the end of the chorus is a highlight.

"Burnt black, that awful land mark"

11. 真夜中の饗宴 (MIDNIGHT PLEASURE)

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

The song to start it all, thank god it's such a highlight. I get so hyped from hearing the opening footsteps; mirroring the prologue with You stepping into the mansion for the first time. I feel so nostalgic for this and I'm hyped to play the game every time I hear this. The spoken section is the high point in terms of the HDB aesthetic but these lyrics maaaannn:

"With a scream that shatters the moon itself I’ll give you this extraordinary pain called “love”!"

10. Guilty×Guilty!!!

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

I'm gonna get crucified for putting this above midnight pleasure but my list and this is my fave game op. The only peg down is the lyrics but it makes up so much for the actual sound variation. The unnerving energy from this scifi-y noise, it screams danger with the Tsunami arrival. The variation between the two verses in robs what places it high and the bridge is excellent to boot.

9. Farewell Song

Shu

~translation~

If I had to make one song recommendation outside of DL with this list it is this song here. The lyrics and melody match up the same way and both are strong in their own right. Onto the song, these lyrics really shine wrangling with ideas and the thought process of depression; something that hits close to home for me. With the inclusion of the destructive nature vampires its truely impactful. The sound of the song aids these lyrics too while all sounding like Shu.

Without pause, the drops of a drizzle had begun to weep...

...Comforting the screams of the things you’ve touched"

8. Mr.SADISTIC NIGHT

Shu, Ayato & Subaru

~translation~

This is my favourite opening of all the games and anime and it is the most on theme with the DL franchise, not just the one game. The guitar rifts at the start are just sooooo iconic. The actual line "Mr Sadistic Night" is delivered so well too. I mean the song speaks for itself. I will make the observation though that this song is the epitome of kids unknowingly singing a song with dirty lyrics.

"If I’m so aroused by the snare of your enticing blood

Tonight, as I thrust deep into you, a lust for death awakens from within you!"

7. 悪魔的（Devil's）Spire!!!!

Kou

~translation~

This song is just Kou at his best, I can imagine him singing this at a concert as a debut single. It has all the elements of a catchy pop song with some sinister elements that just reflects his personality. Production has my praise here too. The song seems to be a friends with benefits situation Kou has as he recounts the tale. Also, more innuendos:

"In the deep red velvet sheets, Do you want to taste my forbidden syrup?"

6. Operation X

Tsukinami Brothers

~translation~

Haven't seen these guys in a while! You can tell production had fun adding all these medical sounds in the back like the sirens and heart monitor. The song itself is super catchy too, that bass just hits you at the core! The lyrics look like the Tsukinami's observation of You as she has become entangled with all these vampires and the situation just seems to spiral even more out of control.

"The risk spreads further the deeper you get involved...

...The more you give up, the more that guy mocks you"

5. GRATEFUL★DEAD★MARCH

Kanato

~translation~

Production had fun again, you can tell. It's more upbeat there is still a sinister vibe here. The constant switch ups within the song all flow so well. I feel genuine despair listening to this chorus, like Kanato is mocking or toying with me before going in for the kill. My only complaint is that the slowing down at the end is a bit of a mood killer.

4. 切断★舞踏会 (KIRISAKI CARNIVAL)

Kanato

~translation~

In terms of character aesthetic, this is sheer perfection. There is a narrative within this song that you need to look at the lyrics for the best experience. The sound effects act as a good way to heighten the story as they match the lyrics. One moment to note it both the chorus and pre-chorus as they act as the extreme ends on Kanato's personality and it creates a great dichotomy when placed together.

3. Q.E.D.

laito

~translation~

My favourite solo song, and the one I constantly visit the most. Laito is a complex character and this song does a self reflection in the best way possible.I would also recommend reading this great analysis by everything laito because I can't do a proper analysis justice. For the song itself, the piano is a great mood setter as it acts as if we are approaching Laito as he plays the piano about to go into one of his many monologues to himself. The intercut from the piano to the guitar is abrupt but it works so well as if there are crack in his facade showing through. The change back to the piano is great too and isn't distracting in any way. I also think this is such an emotional performance, like I can feel the sadness and despair along with almost a self deprecating humour to the delivery. Top notch stuff

2. 罠-If You’re Diablo- (Wana -If You’re Diablo-)

Mukami Brothers

~translation~

I want mention first off that the spoken word from Ruki is such an aid here, the pace is slower, more haunting and despair-inducing in tone. The speaking adds a nice break to the vocals. The chorus in particular packs such a punch its kind of nice to lie on the ground and just let the song envelop you. The lyrics give the impression that there is a mutually destructive relationship here with the Mukami's mentioning of betrayal yet they suck the blood of this person. There is also a feeling of hopelessness that the Mukami's know they can never achieve their goal of becoming Adam.

"I'd been resigned to become Adam since who-knows-when...

I continue to hate this fate, my prayers in zero"

1. Gin no Bara

Sakamaki Brothers

~translation~

And we're finally at the end! This song encapsulates everything that Diabolik Lovers is. Vocally, it's really catchy with such a somber vibe, because that's what DL is. It's a dark series but you can see that darkness with each backstory, the actions these characters take and just the overall hopelessness in this one song. The Sakamaki's all singing together packs such a punch too. There are so many gems in these lyrics, to literally acknowledging the pain and suffering their mothers' caused and coming to terms with the actions they have committed as they fall in love.

"The proof remains on your neck while you sleep quietly Even if an eternal curse awaits me beyond those overflowing tears

I now hold this love and pain in my chest"

*SHOUTOUTS*

I want to give a huge shout out to the following people. They have helped immensely with translation and just overall accessibility to the songs because they would be 1000 times more harder to find without them.

Silvermoon249 (Live Journal)

Asyqin98 Creator (YouTube)

S I s o v o l i (Youtube)

DIABOLIK LOVERS (YouTube)

Dialovers otaka (Tumblr)

Starlight voices (Tumblr)

Cannonette (Tumblr) @canonette

The Precious Sugar Chan (Tumblr)

One final note, I would recommend listening to these with headphones because the audio sometimes does that thing where it jumps from ear to ear and it creates the best effect to be more involved in the atmosphere.

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #sakamaki #mukami #ayato sakamaki #sakamaki shu #reiji sakamaki #laito sakamaki #kanato sakamaki #sakamaki subaru #ruki mukami #mukami kou #mukami yuma #mukami azusa #tsukinami shin #carla tsukimami #kino sakamaki

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chibicalzones · 4 years ago

Text

𝐚𝐨𝐛𝐚 𝐣𝐨𝐡𝐬𝐚𝐢 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦

⋆° where you transfer schools and join your new high school’s dance team!

...these are also just my personal headcannons if the volleyboys were a dance team instead in which some may or may not be from personal experiences :D

i was gonna do a fukurodani one first cuz @myhaikyuudump ‘s post triggered smth in me but i’ll probs make this into a series!

warning: mentions of bullying but it’s not explicit

post made by: alex 🍒

— oikawa

he’s been part of the school’s dance team ever since he was a freshman, which not many can do, and now since it’s his last year, the coach granted him the role as dance team captain

he loves being captain if that means he can boast about his team that much more, plus he takes his duties pretty seriously

is literally the type to put “aoba johsai dance team” “ajdt 2020” “dt for life” in every single one of his socials - instagram, twitter, facebook, etc. everyone needs to knows he’s on dance team

as much as he loves his team, they’re more known for and primarily train in hip hop, and he’s part of the handful that is classically trained in ballet

so when competition season rolls around, everyone would be part of the large hip hop dance category that they’re a shoo-in to win, but oikawa and a few others would have to compete in the small categories with 3-5 people in jazz, contemporary, and lyrical. which are usually extremely competitive!

so he’s over the moon to have you part of the team! not only do you blend in with the team so perfectly, he believes that you’re what the team needs to finally win in a category besides hip hop since you’re hands down so talented!

that way, he can spend his time at nationals actually dancing and not just watching almost the entire time

out of all the members, you probably spend the most time with oikawa

you expect just as much because you’re both the in the same dances, which is practically every dance. but you honestly do enjoy his company since you and him have a lot more in common, have a similar childhood, than the rest of the members

oikawa used to dread summer practices and camps but you makes it so much more bearable

would drive you to and from dance practices every day

all the time that he spends with you, he secretly lets you in on the “behind the scenes” action on being an officer and what he does all year long

because he’s 100% sure you’ll be captain your third year as well

is secretly anticipating the national dance pageant so you and him can win Mr. and Ms. Dance together

— iwaizumi

he’s co-captain of the entire team but he’s like the unofficial hip hop team captain because oikawa sometimes can’t handle the energy during hip hop practice and iwai just knows the counts better

he only joined dance team because oikawa dragged him into it but he needed up really liking it by the end

has casually danced and took some classes over summer to fill his time before auditioning and the odds were in his favor

absolutely loves the friends that he’s made through dance team and is definitely the type to still keep in touch with the alumni after they graduate

he always gets a center moment in every single hip hop dance they do through the years whether it be for competition, concerts, rallies, events - people go wild whenever he’s center!

when you did some research on the school and it’s dance program, you did some snooping on the members page and after watching countless dance videos, he’s the first one that you notice

but meeting him in person was quite intimidating the first time. it took you a couple of weeks before you could actually have a conversation with him with just the two of you

since you hang out with oikawa during dance practices and oikawa hangs out with iwaizumi, you end up hanging out with him a lot too. so you eventually ease up to him

you may be comfortable with oikawa more, but iwaizumi is the one that constantly checks up on you

all these years, he’s seen what oikawa has been through and he sees that in you. he really worries for you because he knows how exhausting it is to be a new member and constantly having to work your way up so you can eventually fill the holes once the third years leave

always takes you off campus to eat lunch or go somewhere to eat after school so you’re energized for practice later that day

he’s the first to give you his number and makes it clear that you can text or call him if you ever need anything

— matsukawa

didn’t expect people to know him for dance team but he’s surprised he’s pretty famous around school

known for the tricks and flips that he does during all their routines

actually has really good musicality but whenever he choreographs a piece for the group, he doesn’t know the counts

talks so causally to the coaches as if they were friends but isn’t a kiss up

thinks summer practices are too tiring and offers everyone to go to his place after to cool off

strangely enough, you got along with mattsun faster than you did iwaizumi

when the team started to learn their large hip hop routine for competition back in the summer, you were having such a hard time learning the dance because your body just wasn’t used to moving your body that way

and you didn’t want to bother iwaizumi or oikawa because you knew they’d be too busy looking after the whole team

so during the group’s free time, he would play the music over and over again and practice the dance with you, carefully going through everything section by section

even gives you an extra key to the dance room so you can practice before school

you can always count on him for help on any of the dances you’re in together

yells the loudest whenever you’re on the floor / stage. even when he’s watching from the wings

always tries to make each moment of his last year fun!

— hanamaki

joined the dance team his second year but turns out to be an awesome dancer and makes friends oddly quick

one of the few that auditioned to be part of the smaller group pieces for compeitions and got in

gets a killer turn section and always squeezes in a triple to transition into the floor during improv

despite only dancing for such a short time, agencies have come in contact with him to see if he was interested in signing under their talent agency but he always resigns because that just isn’t for him

all the third years have a solo except for him because he didn’t feel like it was fair that he wasn’t a “third year senior” and that someone else deserves it more

like you!

is amazed at how gorgeous you dance and knows you’ll be gracing the floor with your talent, getting all those gold metals, plaques, and trophies!

he might be a little jealous over you but seeing you being so passionate over the sport makes him work even harder to make himself — and the team — better

absolutely does not and cannot tolerate other people’s bullying towards you. he just doesn’t understand how or why people felt the need to be rude towards you. and have the audacity to voice it out.

one time when he caught a group of dancers from another school talk bad about you, saying nasty things that obviously weren’t true, he snuck behind their back and said in a low voice, “you know those aren’t very nice thing to say” and looks down on them until they run away scared

also deletes any hate comments on the team’s official social pages before you could read any

the very first time you perform your solo, he buys you a bouquet of flowers to give to you afterwards

and then during the end of the year dance concert, he watches you from the wings performing your solo for the last time and he starts to tear up because he’ll definitely never forget this year where he was able to watch you grow

— kindaichi, kunimi, and kyotani

your #1 support group

and fan club!

absolutely loves watching you dance

they all joined the same year you did and they’re all slightly jealous of you because damn, how can someone be good at literally everything

it’s almost upsetting >:( but they love you too much to actually be mad

they just have such a deep appreciation for you and what you bring to the team as a whole even though they don’t show it that often

learns a lot from you

when they first watched you dance contemporary and ballet, that inspired them to practice extra after hours so they could be ready for when they have to audition for dances later on the year

the goal is that the trio will be good enough by the time their third year hits and they’ll be the ones on the floor with you performing all the small dances

ever since you guys first met at orientation, you were all attached to the hip in and outside of dance. basically on the same playing field for next three years in terms of fitting in with the team

you’re not in the same classes but you guys all study together at the library on sundays because that’s your only day off

one time, the team was at a competition the same day as your birthday and they paid the announcer to say something like, “happy birthday to our best friend, dance your heart out!” right before they played the music for your solo

and during their last year, they’ll all gather around in the wings as they watch you perform your senior solo for the last time and silently cry together because they’ll really miss you

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shyneanon · 4 years ago

Note

okay, okay, second time givng a prompt :

*US! Papy and a studying reader*

a friend of mine thinks about this for a long time now XD

Ahhhhh, I see. You’re asking for a friend. Sure.

I’m kidding. This was a really fun prompt, although I guess I changed it to US! Paps and a trying-to-study Reader. I hope you (and your friend) enjoy!

---

“Wow,” was all Papyrus could say as he turned the massive textbook over in his hands. “You’re going to go through all of this?”

You nodded. “Yep. And the first test is Monday.”

“Welp. RIP in pieces.”

He handed you the massive calculus book back and you flopped down on his couch. You’d mentioned the book to him already, but he hadn’t seen it. You’d decided not to take a photo-- he’d needed to see this in person. It was several inches thick.

There was no point in putting it off, you supposed. The test was Monday, and it was the first test. You had no idea what to expect. So you propped yourself up, leaning back against a small pillow, and started to read through the first section the class had gone through. You had already forgotten all of it.

You instantly started to fall asleep.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh? Sorry. I’m trying to study.” You lowered the book a bit to find that Papyrus was now sitting on the couch, leaning back. He raised a brow.

“Study?”

“Yeah.”

He gave you a mock glare, squinting. “You come into my house…”

“Apartment,” you corrected, albeit with a smile.

“C’mon,” he said, “don’t study here.”

“I have to.”

“OK, then let me help.”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Wow,” he said, feigning offense. “OK then. Cool to see that you trust me so much.”

“OK,” you said, “you can help.” You looked at the book. “I’m not sure how, though, considering this is math. It isn’t really about memorizing facts.”

He thought a moment. “Mm… Are there new math terms or something? We could start like it’s vocab. Cuz like, what if they ask you to find something and you don’t even know what it is?”

That made sense. “Sure, we can start with that.” You flipped until you found a list of terms and handed them to Paps. “Give me the definitions first.”

“That’s easier though.”

“Yeah, I’m being lazy.” You smiled. “Like you.”

“Studying isn’t lazy,” he argued before giving you another smile. “But you’re trying, so I’m proud of you.”

You smiled. Dork.

He looked at the book, then made a point of clearing his throat.

Oh no.

“What,” he said, in a British accent, with a high-pitched voice that made him sound like an old woman, “is a function that gives the slope of a--”

You snorted and laughed a little. “Paps, stop.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, still in that ridiculous voice.

“I can’t focus if you’re making dumb voices!”

“Young lady, I will have you know that my voice is quite beautiful, and I do not take your insult lightly.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, still grinning. “Just give me the book back if you’re not actually gonna help me.”

His voice returning to normal, he said, “Nah, I don’t think I’m gonna do that.”

He stood up, and so did you. “Hey,” you said, “give me my book back.”

“Nope,” he said, heading for his kitchen. Oh no, what was he doing? You followed after him, but when you tried to grab at the book he just held it high above your head, far higher than you could reach. If you hadn’t already known that he wasn’t ticklish, you would have attempted to weaponize that, but that attempt would be all for naught.

When you arrived, he immediately started putting the book on top of the high cabinets. No, not in the cabinets. On top of them, in that space between them and the ceiling. He didn’t even need a stool for it, he was so tall. “No!” you cried. “I need that! I paid for that book!”

“Relax, you’ll get it back later.”

“But the test is Monday!”

“Yeah, and right now it’s Friday afternoon.”

“That’s only a few days.” You put your hands on your hips. “This is why I didn’t trust you to help me.”

“But you changed your mind.” He grinned smugly, raising his brows. “Your mistake.”

You pouted at him.

“Now you just look like my brother when he’s disappointed in me.”

The pout turned into a smile. That didn’t really surprise you; there was a reason that Sans liked the two of you hanging out so much.

“C’mon, let’s order pizza and watch a movie.”

You needed to be studying.

But that does sound nice…. And I am hungry….

Before you knew it the two of you were on the couch again, this time eating pizza and watching a cheesy rom-com instead of studying, like you were supposed to….

“Watch this,” he said. “He’s going to tell her that he likes her because she’s literally the only woman who’s ever rejected him.”

Sure enough, the love interest said, “You are the only girl who doesn’t fall at my feet.”

“Narcissist alert,” you said, raising your eyebrows.

“I know, right? It’s frustrating.”

“How often do you watch these kinds of movies?”

“Um… I have the right to remain silent.”

You laughed, then realized something. “OK,” you said, “wait.”

“Yeah?”

“So if that’s why he likes her, then once she kisses him, or has sex with him, or whatever… isn’t that it? Like congrats, you got your conquest in. Right?”

“... Huh. I never thought of that. Good point. I always assumed it was that he likes the girl’s stubbornness?” He winked at you. “He’d probably like you, Ms. I-Have-To-Put-Your-Math-Book-In-An-Unreachable-Spot-To-Get-You-To-Hang-Out-With-Me.” He paused, then said, “That was a mouthful.”

“Well, I will pass,” you said. “He seems like a jerk.”

“Wow, girls like guys who are nice? Who knew?”

You laughed, then smiled at him. “I’m surprised you don’t have a lot of girls after you. You’re really nice, and you’re fun.” Seriously, he was… great boyfriend material…. You coughed a little.

“Well, even if I did, there’s only one girl I’m really interested in.”

Whaaaat? “Ooooooh?” you said, looking over at him with a grin. “You like someone? Who?”

He just looked back at you, raising a brow.

Your face got very hot very fast.

“Wait,” you said quietly, “m… me?”

You saw his face turn orange. “Yup.” He made small jazz hands. “Surpriiiise.”

A giggle escaped you, and he grinned.

“Are you really surprised? I thought it was obvious.”

You shrugged. “I just… wouldn’t expect you to like me.”

He blinked, his smile faltering. “What? Why not?”

“I dunno, I’m not super chill all the time, like you.”

“Well yeah….” He grinned again. “But I’m not sure if dating someone as lazy as me would be a good idea. I like that we’re different.”

Your face got hotter at the mention of dating. What he was saying did make sense. “I like it too.”

He didn’t say anything. Not sure what else to do, you avoided eye contact. You didn’t want to look stupid. Did this mean you were dating now? He hadn’t asked. But neither had you. Should you ask? But then if he thought you were that might seem dumb. And if he didn’t think you were, it would be a weird way of--

You started as you felt his teeth tentatively pressing against your lips. Not wanting him to think your flinch was a negative response, you quickly kissed back-- albeit a bit harder than necessary.

He chuckled, looking surprised and amused. “Wow, I didn’t expect you to get that excited.”

You shoved him lightly, smiling. This time, when he brushed some hair out of your face and cupped your cheek, you leaned in with him so that your lips met in the middle. You hummed softly, and so did he. Testing the waters, you started to wrap your arms around him, and he responded by returning the gesture. You lay your head on his ribcage.

“Welp,” he said, “this was a way better reaction than I was expecting.”

“Did you expect me to slap you or something?”

“No, I was just worried I was gonna make things weird between us. Like you were gonna be like ‘Whaaat no you’re like a brother to me but we can still be friends, but now I feel super weird.’” He shrugged. “Sometimes I think me being chill has an adverse effect. Makes me seem like a sibling or something.”

You snorted. “Says the guy with the sibling who’s always worrying about him.”

“Y’know, that’s a good point.” You could hear the grin in his voice.

Then you felt his teeth press against the top of your head and blushed.

“So,” he said, “are we… are we dating now, or…?”

You snickered. “I was wondering the same thing, to be honest.”

He laughed a little.

Right, you still hadn’t answered.

“Um… I’d say yes.”

“Cool,” he said. “I say yes too.”

Both of you snorted.

“Man,” he said, “we’re dorks.”

“We are,” you agreed.

“You’re a cute dork though.”

Hah… Your face was warm now. “You’re cute too.” You looked up at him and pretended not to notice his blush. “Y’know, I would still be mad at you about you taking my book, but… now we’re dating, so I’m not annoyed at you anymore.”

“Nice, I bailed myself out.”

You giggled again, and he gave you another kiss, this time on the cheek.

“C’mon. Let’s take a nap together.”

Together. You felt warm and fuzzy inside.

“OK,” you said.

#It was good practice writing Stretch too #Since I don't write him often #And I've got that longer harem fic going #fanfic #fanfiction #x reader #reader insert #papyrus x reader #self insert #underswap papyrus #us papyrus #prompt

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thebigqueer · 4 years ago

Text

BILCO FANFIC - “The VSCO Demon”

Summary: Will is possessed with a VSCO demon that will turn him into the one and only Billiam Thabdrew Sksksolace, a VSCO girl.

Word Count: 3513

Note: This is my first writing on Tumblr so everyone sing happy birthday! also its terrible! also I GREATLY APPRECIATE FEEDBACK (but please give it to me gently cuz im a Sensitive Bitch TM) (if you even sound a little mean ill start crying)

ALSO: Credits to my online bff for Nico’s pet hyena, Bambi. (HI I LOVE YOU)

Nico knew something was wrong with Will.

He could tell that there was something always bothering him, hidden deep beneath that sunshiny facade he always seemed to use in front of other people. He was hiding something, and it seemed to be eating at him like a parasite.

Nico’s suspicions began when he first noticed Will’s slight speech slipup. Will and Kayla were discussing the new demigods that were to move in soon, and Kayla let loose the fact that she was a little iffy about one of them. Will’s eyes had widened, showing off the blue of his eyes, and he said, “Anna oop-”

He clamped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. He’d already said it. Nico didn’t know what it meant, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous. (Was it some kind of prophetic power? Did Will just spew some words from a prophecy in a totally different language? Maybe Nico would ask Rachel later.) When Nico confronted him afterwards, Will just turned his head away and said he was going to head to sleep.

It wasn’t only his foreign phrases - it was also the stuff he bought. On their dates to New York City, Will would slink him and Nico away to a store and buy something. Sometimes it would be an oversized T-shirt, other times it would be scrunchies, and one time he even bought a gigantic water bottle. (“It’s called a Hydroflask,” Will told him.)

Will was scary in those moments. His eyes would get big as he eyed all his new items, and his hands would tap furiously on the wooden counters while he waited. Nico wasn’t sure what this meant, but it seemed that Will was going through something. Something terrible.

And the moment they got back, Will would start immediately sobbing. Nico would literally have to hold him from falling face down on the ground because of how hard he would be weeping. He’d cry, “It’s not happening, it’s not happening! I can’t become VSCO!”

All Nico was able to do was watch his golden boyfriend sob in his arms, unable to help, unable to understand.

It wasn’t until a late day in November when Nico found out what his boyfriend was hiding from him. Will had been antsy all breakfast, avoiding Nico’s eyes like it was the coronavirus; Nico knew that he wasn’t the only one who noticed - Kayla and Austin had given him furtive, sympathetic glances. Nico’s heart pounded in his chest, anxiety spiking his pulse and chilling him down to the bone.

Nico couldn’t help but to wonder, Is he going to break up with me?

Safe to say, his breakfast was ruined, and he pulled just a little away from Will. He didn’t miss the awkward looks he got from Kayla and Austin, nor did he miss Will’s slight flinch at the loss of contact between the boys.

After a silent breakfast, when everyone had left to start their daily activities, Nico stood to go. If Will didn’t want to talk to him, then fine. He’d manage that.

But a warm hand clamped on his wrist, begging him to stay. Nico turned his face to Will’s, absorbing his golden features and the heavy vulnerability in those blue eyes. It hit Nico that whatever Will wanted from him, it wasn’t going to be good.

Nico sat back down carefully. Will’s pink lips were turned at the corners and, having a closer look at his face, Nico realized his eyes were puffy and red like he’d been crying.

Upon seeing his boyfriend’s expression, Nico reached out and touched Will’s tan face gingerly, brushing his own pale fingers through his golden locks. “Will,” he whispered, “what’s wrong? You’ve been so… so closed off from me. Is everything okay? And don’t lie this time, please. I’m serious.”

Will opened and closed his mouth, then unlatched his eyes from Nico’s and closed them. He took a deep, shaky breath, as if gearing up for a long and tiring mission. Nico squeezed Will’s right hand - His baby hands, Nico thought ridiculously, all small and cute - and laced them together, squeezing lightly. A “Hey, I’m here for you” squeeze.

Will turned his focus back on Nico, a small smile lacing the corners of his mouth, but not quite eradicating his internalized pain.

“Nico,” he began, “I… I have an issue.” Will’s freckled cheeks bloomed with bright red blotches and he sheepishly looked away again.

Anticipation and anxiety gripped Nico like a vice and his breath hitched. “What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to tamper down his growing unease. He didn’t want to make Will feel more nervous than he already did.

Will swallowed, as if he was trying to keep down the words from ever appearing. Nico brushed his pale thumb over Will’s, hoping it would calm him a bit. A beat passed, and Will said, “I have this… demon inside me. It’s a terrible demon. I was possessed as a kid.”

“What?” asked Nico. “A demon? What do you mean?”

Will sighed shakily, his eyes focused on the floor. “It’s called a VSCO demon.”

“Will…” Nico started, but he wasn’t sure what he would say. I’m sorry? That didn’t seem right, not at this moment. It seemed like Will wasn’t quite looking for pity. Instead, Nico opted to inquire more about this demon: “What exactly does the demon do? How much is it going to impact your life?”

“Well… actually, it’s going to impact my life a lot. Essentially, it’ sgoing to make me a VSCO girl. You know what that is, right? I explained it to you.”

Nico nodded.

Will continued. “First, it’ll start off with more subtle things, like specific hand spasms.” Will demonstrated what he meant by bringing his right hand to his face and then turning to the side, then frowned. “There’s also some expressions that I might repeat a lot. Like… ‘anna oop-’, or ‘oooh, tea, sis!’ or ‘sksksksk.’”

Nico watched Will’s expression as he said each phrase and his heart felt like it was being squished. Will looked like he was trying very hard not to let it take over him, let those stupid terms make him into a new person, but he was so exhausted. Nico touched his boyfriend’s face again. “I’m… sorry, Will. That’s terrible.”

Will nodded, but he didn’t seem to hear Nico. “When it gets worse, you’ll start noticing. I’ll be wearing oversized T-shirts, I think… scrunchies on my wrist, maybe.” He sighed again, but this time a small sob escaped from his lips too. When he looked up, Nico saw he had fresh tears glassing over his eyes. “I’m going to be carrying that stupid Hydro Flask with me forever, Nico. Forever.”

That seemed to do it. In a matter of seconds, the floodgates of Will’s emotions had opened up and he was spilling everywhere. Nico pulled him close, despite not being much of a hugger, and drew small circles on his back. He felt Will’s tears soak through his T-shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he felt so heartbroken by Will’s emotions, he wanted to start crying himself.

But he had to keep it strong, for Will. Nico bit his lip to keep himself from letting out a few tears himself.

After several moments, Will seemed to calm down enough to pull away from Nico, even though tears still ribboned down his cheeks like liquified crystals. He pulled a tissue from his sweatshirt pocket and blew his nose, honking like he was the goosiest of all geese.

“Anyway,” Will continued, sighing heavily. “I have to tell you something else.” He threw the snot-saturated tissue over his shoulder, where some poor sucker would have to pick it up themself and throw it out. Taking a deep breath (Nico swore he was just trying to steal all the oxygen out of the air now, probably trying to photosynthesize or something), Will pulled Nico’s hands to his chest. “When the demon takes over me, Nico, my alter ego will come out. I will not be able to control it. His name… is Billiam Thabdrew Sksksolace.”

Will paused dramatically, letting that name sink in.

“Oh, Will,” Nico said quietly, throwing his arms around his boyfriend. “Is there a cure to this? Can you fix it?”

Will rested his head in the space between Nico’s neck and shoulder. “No,” he answered, his voice muffled. “There isn’t. I just have to live with being a VSCO girl from now on.” Pulling away so that he was mere inches from Nico’s face, he asked: “Would you still love me, Nico? Even after I become… become Billiam?”

“Of course,” Nico exclaimed, not a moment of hesitation. “Of course! You are more than your stupid demon. You can be as much of a VSCO girl as you become, and I will always love you.”

Will’s face crumpled again and he pulled Nico tighter, so close Nico could almost swear his ribs were going to break.

“Thank you, Nico. Thank you.”

~~~

It was only a few weeks until the real changes started showing up.

When Nico went into the Apollo cabin in the mornings, sometimes he’d see Will in an oversized T-shirt, waving around a metal straw with his baby hands, exclaiming, “OOOH THAT’S TEA!” whenever one of his siblings said something, or referring to himself as Bill Sksksolace when someone called him Will.

Those spells wouldn’t last long, but it was still discerning.

As the days progressed, it got worse. The spells wouldn’t last in just the morning - they’d appear in the afternoon, in the night time, and at nine in the afternoon. Nico would walk in on a conversation Will was having with another camper, and just when things seemed like they were going smoothly, Will would mutter: “SKSKSKSKSKSKSKSKSKSKSKS.” The camper would look at Will strangely, laugh a little, then leave.

Nico would have to sit with Will and tell him that it was alright, that it’s just part of the course. He’ll be alright.

Despite the fact that things were getting worse, it didn’t bother Nico too much. He already knew it would happen sooner or later, so there was no point anticipating and being scared over it.

And yet, nothing would prepare him for the gut punch of when it really did happen.

It was a morning like any other. The sun shone above the camp in brilliant golden rays, and the wind was windy (as wind is) and just perfect for a November day. Nico was hopeful today; maybe they’d go out to New York City, like old times. Try to get Will’s mind off his doomed fate.

Nico had an inkling something was wrong the moment he knocked on the cabin door. Maybe it was the shift in the wind, maybe it was anxiety, or maybe it was the fact that he heard people shouting, “PUT THAT METAL STRAW DOWN, WILL!” that made him nervous. Nevertheless, he waited outside.

Kayla was the one to open the door. She looked exhausted, like she’d been running after someone all morning. When she realized it was Nico, her expression told Nico everything he needed to know.

Nico stepped in tentatively, nervous about what he would find.

And boy did he have every right to be nervous. Nothing could prepare him for what he was about to find.

Will had transformed. Like, completely transformed.

Gone were his golden curls. In place of them was a messy bun at the top of his head, wrapped with a purple scrunchie. If one scrunchie wasn’t enough, he had literal sleeves of them over his arms, all the way up to his elbow, of all kinds of nauseating and headache-inducing colors. On top of that, a knee-length T-shirt covered him from the shoulders to his thighs, and in his small baby hands was a Hydro Flask with a metal straw sticking out of it, which was currently sticking between his teeth.

Upon seeing Nico, his eyes widened and he offered him a bright smile. “Sksksksk!” Will exclaimed. “Oh my gods, it’s literally Nico!” He rushed towards his boyfriend with his arms wide, and just when Nico thought he was about to get a crushing bear hug, Will surprised him last minute by shoving twenty scrunchies into his hands as well as a metal straw.

Nico looked at the treasure in his hands - Where the everloving fuck did he get so many? thought Nico - then back at Will, and again back at his treasure. Tears pricked at his eyes and his chest constricted, making it harder to breathe. “Will-” he began.

Will looked genuinely confused. “Who’s Will? I’m Billiam Sksksolace. And that’s the tea here today.”

“Right. Billiam.” Even saying the new name hurt him in ways Nico didn’t even think were imaginable. He placed a hand on Will’s - No, Bill’s, Nico reminded himself - cheek, tracing his lover’s freckles. “How are you feeling?”

“Anna oop-” Billiam said. “I feel fine, sksksk. Why?” He raised his eyebrows and leaned in, tilting his head for a second. “Is there tea?”

Nico sobbed, his heart wrenching. Where was Will? “No, not at all.” He kissed Bill’s face. “Not at all.”

20 YEARS LATER…

Nico had successfully gone crazy.

He and Billiam had three kids. Each one blond. Each one young.

Each one just as VSCO as their dad.

It was an endless cycle of “SKSKSKS” and “ANNA OOP-” and they had about fifty thousand metal straws strewn around their house. Their kids didn’t even wear pants anymore, just oversized T-shirts. They didn’t even have the demon - it was a Monkey See, Monkey Do situation.

And Nico was done. He’d even developed a twitch in his eye. From the moment he got up in the morning to the moment he fell asleep at night, his mind swirled with unwanted expressions and metal straws in his eyes and Hydro Flasks on the table and oversized T-shirts strewn across the bed and he was positively done.

There was only one thing left to do.

Nico grabbed the knife from the kitchen drawer. Then he turned to the onions on the cutting board and started chopping with rage. (It was his turn to make dinner tonight, and he hated every moment of it.)

But he had something to look forward to, and he had everything ready.

Bill was home from work now, sitting in the living room and scrolling through Instagram. Nico watched him, thinking about that fatal day several years ago at Camp Half-Blood when everything had gone wrong for him.

Well, Nico would fix that today.

“Bill,” Nico called, gritting his teeth. Calling his beloved William “Bill” still stung him, despite it having been years later. “It’s time for dinner. Call the kids.”

Bill stood from the couch and fixed his messy bun, then called, “Billiam, Jr.! Litpollo! Percy, Jr.! Time for dinner! Sksksk.”

Nico made his way down the hall and opened the garage door, crying out to his pet hyena: “BAMBI! Come on, boy. Time for your yummy chinken dinner.”

Bambi growled and bounded into the building, turning towards the kids that had now come into the dining room. Bill eyed the oversized cat with scrutiny. “Bae, I think we need to tame that thing.”

Nico turned his head to look at his hyena. He shrugged. “Seems fine to me.”

“He’s gnawing on our child’s head.”

Nico eyed his kitty, who had its jaws around their child Litpollo’s head. “No he isn't,” Nico decided. “It’s just licking Litpollo's head. Litpollo just has a really tiny head.”

Bill opened his mouth to protest, but Nico clapped his hands and exclaimed: “Time for dinner!” He offered Bill a dazzling smile. “And I have a surprise for you.”

Bill’s eyes widened and a smile of his own flashed across his face. “Sksksk. I’m excited. Yass queen.”

Nico’s eye twitched. “Yes, time for dinner.”

The family of five (including Bambi the Hyena, it was six) sat at the dinner table. (Yes, Bambi sat at a dinner table. Nico considered that quite domestic of Bambi).

“Now, before we start, I have a little something for Bill.” Nico stood again and pulled out something from his pocket. Bill leaned in to look at it, and realization dawned on him. He hissed and jumped up from his chair.

“Skskskskskkssksksksk!” he exclaimed. “That’s a cross. Why do you have that?” Just being in the presence of it seemed to make him antsy.

Nico offered him a dangerous smile. “Well, you see, Billiam, I became a priest online. I have a certificate and everything.” He tilted his head innocently and, with that smile still plastered onto his face, said, “I am here to eradicate the Demon of VSCO.”

“No,” Bill said shakily, but his voice had changed. It was rougher, scratchier, a voice he wouldn’t have on any other normal day. “No, you can’t. You’ve been going behind my back this entire time? How dare you.”

“I’m here to save you, Bill. Or should I say… William.”

“NO!” Bill screeched, picking up Litpollo and shielding his face with the child. “I REFUSE! SKSKSK!”

Nico only smiled wider, his dark eyes shining with fearsome mirth. Suddenly, the lights flickered on and off and a harsh wind blew across the room. Outside, clouds started gathering like they were ready for a shitshow to happen. Nico rose from the floor, the wind carrying his weight like he was lighter than paper. He held out the cross in front of him, showing it to Bill’s VSCO demon. Bill hissed, and his eyes starting glowing bright yellow, clearly aggravated by the cross. He dropped the child, who squeaked and ran off to eat his dry chinken dinner.

Nico’s own eyes had started glowing, but his were a bright red flash like he was about to shoot lasers. “BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME,” Nico exclaimed, his voice projecting outward and all around the house, “I PRONOUNCE THEE, VSCO DEMON, GONE.”

Nico slammed the cross against Bill’s chest, making steam circle and sizzle around Bill’s chest. The blond cried out in pain, but Nico ignored him.

“BEGONE, THOT!” Nico thundered.

A big bang resonated between them, and Nico and Bill were both thrown across the room. Their children screamed, but all Nico could think about was Bill and whether or not he was back. Despite being disoriented, he sat upright and looked across the room. Billiam was thrown to the kitchen, and his messy bun had come undone. The scrunchies on his wrists were hissing and smoking, but otherwise he looked fine.

Nico stood up slowly, keeping his hand on the wall for balance. “Will?” he said quietly. It was strange using that name after so many years, but it felt good. It felt comfortable.

Bill didn’t answer. Nico’s heart started racing.

He rushed to Bill’s side, checking his pulse and touching his face, making sure was alive. When he decided that he was alright, Nico let out a breath of relief. He shook Bill gently. “Will? Will, please, wake up. Tell me you’re okay.”

For a moment, all was silent. Nico’s children had even stopped screaming, but Nico wasn’t sure where they were or what they were doing. Right now, it was only about Billiam.

Suddenly, Bill started coughing. He sat up a little straighter and coughed into his arm, and Nico patted is back in means of helping his partner. Bill stopped after a few moments, but his focus was only on the kitchen tiles.

Nico’s heart pounded in anticipation. Was Billiam gone? Was Will back? Goosebumps prickled his skin.

“Will?” Nico asked. “Are you okay?”

Bill started laughing. Nico wanted to take this as a good sign, but the laughter seemed eerie. He took Bill’s baby hand in his.

Bill turned to face him, a wide grin on his face. “YOU FOOL!” he exclaimed. “YOU ABSOLUTE BUFFOON! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU JUST DID?”

Nico gasped and threw himself away from Bill, shaking his head. “No,” he whispered. “No. It should have worked! I went onto Wikipedia for the instructions!”

Bill only laughed harder. “YOU DIPSHIT! YOU MULTIPLIED ME!” His eyes danced with his laughter.

“Multiplied?” Nico exclaimed. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” He frowned. “Also, no swearing in front of the kids. Watch your fucking language, asshole.”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!” Bill exclaimed. “MY CHILDREN,” he called, turning his face away from Nico’s. “COME!”

From the dining room, the children’s small feet pitter-pattered across the floor. Rage filled Nico’s chest, and he tackled Bill to the ground. “VSCO DEMON!” he cried. “What did you do to them? If you hurt them-”

“I did no such thing,” Bill said. “I would never hurt them.”

“Then what did you do?”

In creepy unison, all his kids exclaimed: “SKSKSK! I’VE GIVEN THEM ALL A PIECE OF ME! NOW I EXIST IN ALL OF YOUR FAMILY AND LOVED ONES!”

“NOOOOO!” Nico cried. “WHY?”

“Children,” Bill said, “what do we say to Nico?”

“SAVE THE TURTLES!” And they all took off their oversized T-shirts and threw them in his face.

The end. Nico sobbed forever.

#Bilco revolution #bill solace revolution #bill solace #nico di angelo #bilco #AHHAHAHA IM LITERALLY SCREAMING

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excitedlysuffering · 5 years ago

Text

Deidara Headcanons Collection

Oh god I’m like minutes from being too late but HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEI🥺❤️😍

What He Looks For In A S/O~

• He would most likely want someone who was an artist, cuz he needs someone who understands and relates to his passion and will challenge him on perspectives (respectfully, ofc)

• Needs someone who is as active as he is, he could not deal with someone who wanted to stay home all the time

• Dei is a wild child so whether he knows it or not, he’s going to need someone to balance him out with a more calm/logical outlook on life

• But that’s not to say he wants to date a square cause that’s a big fat LIE

• He needs an S/O who’s able to keep with his spontaneous attitude and mood swings

• He’d probably be drawn to the innocence of his S/O, he’s seen and done a lot of hard things in his life so would love to be able to leave the darkness behind around you

• If his S/O was a shinobi he’d be relieved cause they can take care of themselves, but he would also want to accompany you on missions because this boy can WORRY

• If you’re not a shinobi, he wouldn’t mind all that much cause he doesn’t have to be concerned with you getting injured on missions, but he would want to teach you the basics defense combat

• This boy just needs some love with a capital L, tbh

Relationship With Dei Stuff~

• He’s surprisingly empathetic and can pick on your emotions/moods quite easily but that doesn’t mean he always acts on it

• He’s a naturally happy person so negative emotions are a bit hard to deal with

• If you’re just grumpy, he’ll just stay out of your way (a bit) but if you’re really struggling or on suffering through Satan’s Week he’ll try to do his best to comfort you

• (be patient with him)

• Even though he can’t take you out on dates to the city like he wants to, he’ll improvise

• Boi isn’t an artist for no reason

• Ofc he takes you out to see his art and to fly on his creations, but he’s a romantic at heart and loves cheesy cliches

• Watching the sunset on picnics

• If he’s free camping in the forest

• Or just art dates where you guys will find a common project and will work on it together

• Bonus points towards you if you and Sasori can at least tolerate each other

• They might never admit out loud, but they are best friends

• Even if no one could ever tell

• The three of you are around each other a lot so if you and Sasori are always arguing or getting on each other’s nerves your relationship could suffer a little because of it

• LOVES to spoil you. Like just because

• If you and Dei are dating, you two make a great team whether it’s art collabs, missions, or just life in general

• He can be a real sweetheart and is more sensitive than people give him credit for so if you just love on this boy you’ll have him forever

How To Lose/Annoy Him~

• Insulting or just plain not acknowledging his art goes without saying, I would think

• I haven’t seen this mentioned before, but hating on or trying to avoid his mouth hands. Although they’re a huge part of his life they’re also strange so he can be a bit insecure

• Being insensitive about his speech tic (un, yeah, hm) he’s already come to term with them, but he doesn’t need you, or anyone else rubbing it in

• As stated earlier, not being able to get along with Sasori, or him just generally disapproving of you more than he does the average person

• Being overly clingy. Example, when he’s working on his art and you’re all over him, infringing on his special time

• Playing hard to get or trying to make him jealous. Dei is naturally impatient so it makes no sense as to why you’re trying to get a rise out of him. He can pretty blunt and he expects you to just come out and say it if something is bothering you.

• Slightly nsfw, but pulling on his hair. He doesn’t like his hair being ripped out in the slightest

• Being friends with Tobi

Soft Deidara Things~

• Definitely one for matching shirts (i.e His= Art is a bang! Yours= I’m a bang!)

• He loves to just cuddle up with you after a long day, no words he’ll just collapse on you

• PLAY. WITH. HIS. HAIR.

• Brush it, braid it, comb it, whatever, but it’ll soothe the heck outta him

• He really loves to pick out your clothes. Dei is a fashion master and he loves seeing you in clothes he likes

• Will be that one person to sleep crazy to the point of kicking you off the bed. Now you sleep literally on top of him so he’s pretty still

• Loves to wake up before you to look at you like ‘wow she loves me??’

• Can actually cook really well (i mean he did live on his own for a while) and loves having you try new recipes he’s come up with

• Just loves being around you, you’re presence can calm him like no other

Random Dei Facts~

• His love language is a mix of words of affirmation and physical touch

• As much as he likes to go go go, he also appreciates a good nap here or there

• He’s bad at taking care of himself like he’s on the brink of artistic genius and he’ll genuinely forget to eat or sleep

• Has a big thing for music, whether it’s a song or just instrumental he loves the environment it brings

• He doesn’t quite have PTSD, but somethings do trigger him or make him anxious. You just can’t live like he does and not be effected

• That one scene where he’s recruited and is under Itachi’s Sharingan/genjutsu and calls Itachi art and then is repulsed by the thought really makes me think that one of Dei’s biggest fears is thinking/realizing someone’s art is better than his own

• He isn’t religious but is a strong believer in fate, karma, and such things

• Contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t use his hand mouths for anything other than art. Those are his art tools, his partners, and he’d be much too weirded out to use them for anything different

• He’s like a scarily healthy eater. Not necessarily vegetarian/vegan but is a calorie counter and has a very balanced diet

• He loves to do little not so harmless pranks on Itachi as mini revenge. He’s even more ruthless as Itachi begins to lose his eyesight

Little Things~

Favorite:

• Place to kiss- Behind your ear because he loves hugging you from behind and surprising you

• Way to hug- As previously stated, from behind cuz he feels like he’s protecting you and you fit in his arms like a puzzle

• Thing to do with you- Discuss or work on art projects together or in each other’s general vicinity

• Cuddle position- Lotus (you in his lap, facing him, your legs around his waist) cause he just loves to hold you and you can easily mess with his hair

• Type of date- Anything that’s just the two of you spending quality time away from his busy life

This or That-

• More of a summer person, he loves the outdoors, even more now that he has someone to share it with

• Definitely a night person. He gets more done at night but also loves being able to unwind with you

• Likes to cook more than being cooked for, cause he likes treating you

• Is not much of a reader, it can’t hold his attention for long, but occasionally will ask you to read to him if he likes the sound of your voice. He does

Conflict Happenings~

• Passionate and Stubborn Boi™

• If you’re also headstrong, there will be plenty of arguments, usually over small things

• Best case scenario, something says something that makes you both laugh and problem solved or you end up making out (cuz oh my jashin scowling Deidara can step on my NECK)

• Worst case scenario, someone storms out and you don’t talk for a bit

• When he wants he can give a verbal tongue lashing harsh enough to make anyone cower

• Eventually, one of you will cave. You miss each other too much and even art isn’t filling the void

• Apologies are mumbled but heartfelt as to not bruise either of your egos but also cuz you’re both genuinely sorry

• However, if you’re not confrontational, it might actually cause him to mellow out a bit (only around you though)

• He can’t bring himself to have a one-sided argument with you. It makes him feel guilty and does a lot of damage

• Instead, he might actually talk things out, courtesy of self-calming techniques you probably showed him at one point

Modern Dei~

• He’s that one college student that is at every party but still gets great grades??

•!He has a double major for sure, art and chemistry, cause how else is he going to make perfect explosions?

• If he wasn’t recruited to a sports team (I could see him doing gymnastics or wrestling honestly) then you had best believe he’s a serious martial artist

• He’s smart and sells (non-explosive) sculptures for money on the side

• He loves road trips, doesn’t care as much about the destination, he just loves driving places

• A serious ride or die friend, like loyal to a fault, but if you ruin that he won’t make any efforts to restore it

• Incredibly independent and struggles to ask for help even if he’s bad at a particular subject

•’CEO of completing assignments the night before its due and still acing it

• His living space is purely organized chaos like everything has it’s own system even if it looks like a mess

• Wouldn’t mind having a roommate, but he’s also used to living alone so he’s fine either way

• If he did, it’d probably be Sasori, cause he’s one of the only people who could TRULY handle Dei 24/7 (barely)

• Isn’t an overachiever, but just like with art, if someone’s going to see his work, it’s going to be his best work

• Even when his friends drink, he’s not that big on it. Feels like it hinders his inspiration and he gets AWFUL hangovers and can barely handle it

• Modern Dei is a great Dei, cause no matter what our blonde baby is best. Period.

#deidara x reader #deidara #headcanon #naruto scenarios #birthday #fluff #akatsuki

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livlepretre · 4 years ago

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I started watching TVD while season 5 was airing, and I loved it. I was so excited when I caught up, but quickly started losing interest. As a person who despises pregnancy plot lines that should be impossible and make no logical sense in canon, The Originals was always a lost cause for me. I also hated the oocness of the characters. I begrudgingly made my way through season 6 of TVD and honestly couldn’t make it through the first few episodes of season 7. At that point in time, I didn’t like the conflicts, how the show kept breaking its on mythology rules, and how most characters were acting out of character. I think it’s a total shame because I absolutely adore this universe and the characters attached to it. Canon divergent fics like yours allow me to enjoy what could have been. So, did you watch TVD all the way through? Did you watch The Originals? If not, what was the straw that broke the camel’s back and what plot lines and character arcs would you have liked to see on the show/shows? How would you have preferred the show to end? Finally, what kind of thoughts do you have when you hear crazy stuff that happened (ex. Caroline having Ric’s kids and him being in unrequited love with her or Legacies having their characters fight gargoyles, dragons, etc.. throughout Mystic Falls while Damon and Elena’s kids are still in town raising their own kids) Cuz sometimes I read things and I’m like WTF? Who thought this made sense?

Okay, wow, I love that you asked me these questions, because as it turns out I have been bugging my RL friends with my tormented TVD takes for years now. I’m going to put everything under a cut though because this answer promises to be very long.

Edit: This got sort of stupid long. Read at your own risk haha.

So, I think to answer this, I have to address the things I love so much about TVD and why I’m still thinking about it/writing fic for it years and years after it lost me. I’m going to take this chronologically because there’s a lot to unpack.

What I loved

My introduction to TVD was over the summer before season 2 aired; I remember seeing the promotional materials on the CW before I left for college the fall before, and writing it off (which: fair of me, those season 1 promotions were abysmal). But luckily my sister, God bless her, understood me better than I understood myself and made me sit down and marathon the first season with her. I made fun of it pretty hard until the episode where Vicki got turned, and then an episode later got staked, which shut me up and got me paying attention. At some point over the course of the season that show went from haha laugh at it to holding my throat and there are sooo many good reasons for this. I remained hyperfixated throughout seasons 2-4, which I would religiously watch just as soon as I could pirate them.

The thing about TVD was that it was, for several years, a master class in narrative structure. What I mean by this is that it did two things very very very well:

1) one thing always led organically to the next -- the thing that actual kicks off the plot in TVD is Damon coming to town to open the tomb. From that point on, he opens the tomb, which leads to the tomb vamps escaping, which leads to Katherine taking notice, so she comes to Mystic Falls, which leads to others discovering Elena, which leads to Elijah, which leads to Klaus, and the other Originals. Very neatly done, and a wonderful, fast way of constantly shifting the action in believable and organic ways

2) they had this thing where they would announce something cataclysmic, like opening the tomb or sacrificing the main character, or even dropping the veil in season 4/again (?) in season 5, and in most shows, the whole point would be to avert those things-- but TVD has this way of announcing the doom and then forcing us through it.

There were other things-- stakes were high (ha! pun!) -- Vicki could get staked midway through season 1, Jenna could get killed in the sacrifice, and they could sweep the rug out from under you by having the whole premise of what you THOUGHT you understood about the show turn out to be untrue-- the first big instant of this was the certainty that Katherine was actually in the tomb and if the tomb was opened that Damon would save her-- finding out she was never in there at all was mind-boggling. Another really excellent moment I recall was 2x09-- so, the thing is, one of the biggest mysteries in the show up until that point was “Why does Elena look exactly like Katherine?” We knew/suspected she was a descendent, and the term doppelganger was bandied about, but it felt really shocking to have it LITERALLY be used in the mythology (to see your doppelganger is a sign of certain death, which it IS how CREEPY!) and then in 2x09, everything gets turned on its head AGAIN when we discover “it’s not that Elena looks like Katherine, it’s that Elena and Katherine look like someone else”-- the idea that KATHERINE is a doppelganger was earth shattering. This show.

Also the way that the show played with audience expectations? Like, in 1x04, the audience expectation would be for Elena to be angry at Stefan and not trust him after Damon (or was it Caroline? It’s been years since I’ve watched) says some stuff intended to set her against Stefan. But instead she figures it out fast and comes back to slap Damon and apologize to Stefan. It was an early sign that the show would jump over the expected hurdles. One of the brilliant things it does too is play with the horror genre. The characters (in the early seasons) were some of the smartest on tv because they were genre savvy, and they thought like a real person would and not like a character so often-- I remember being amazed by how often they jumped over the obvious pitfalls and came to sound conclusions. 2x12 The Descent sticks out to me-- Elena versus the mad dying vampire. Also the entire daggering sequence in 2x16 is God tier, as well as Elena’s bargain with Elijah in 2x11. Hmm and also the way the show would even play with expectations based on the fact that it’s a show? The fact that Katherine and Mason were working together is still one of the greatest plot twists of all time in my opinion, not because of how left field it is or wild or anything, but because it should have been totally obvious but our expectations of season premiers made it totally camouflaged! Like, yes, Mason and Katherine DO show up at the exact same time... in 2x01, which is a season premier, so we as an audience know and expect that new characters will be introduced in that episode. The fact that the show knew that and played us for fools will always go down as a favorite moment for me.

Well. Needless to say there are countless other amazing things. The darkness of the show and its commitment to exploring vampirism as a curse, and oddly a very human one, was mesmerizing. Damon breaking Jeremy’s neck. “I miss being human. I miss it more than anything in the world.” Elena slow moral decay. The shock and horror when Caroline is turned. The relationships between the brothers. The way that the gang can’t ever sit easy with each other-- that Bonnie sees how Damon and Stefan are a poison, how everyone lies to Tyler and it hurts him so he hurts them-- Katherine’s doomed history? Tragic. Beautiful. Amazing.

I remember the fandom was a very different space in those early seasons too. The show was just so dreamy and frightening and dark. It was like a very bad dream you couldn’t wake up from and maybe also didn’t want to. The fics were kind of gloomy and frightening and people were much more willing to explore the monstrous side of the show.

So. The issues that I had.

The very first thing I remember feeling a twinge of unease about was when they put Katherine in the tomb in 2x07 only to take her out again in 2x09. I remember her getting sealed up in that tomb in 2x07 was HORRIFYING but also??? Brilliant? Justice? Amazing? It was taking out a villain when and how they said they were going to do it and I loved it. I didn’t quite like how she kept being an active role in the story, no matter how much I adore Katherine as a character, because it destroyed the impact of her in that tomb at all. If it were me, I would have put her in that tomb and saved her as a character, only to take her out like seasons down the road when the audience may have mostly forgotten about her and she could have been a secret ace.

There were other ultimately minor things in season 2-- the sun and moon curse being a fake, for example-- which at the time ruffled me a bit but I was willing to just brush it off because, well, season 2 of The Vampire Diaries is unspeakably good.

I went into season 3 with the same level of hyperfixation as I had in season 2 (read: immense). And those first 6 episodes were pretty damn near perfect, with 3x05 being like the horrible culmination of everything I, already a klaulena shipper, could ever want.

My first sign that things were going in a weird direction was 3x07, Ghost World. I remember that episode feeling... weaker. Like, what was the point of Lexi having Elena torture Stefan? That didn’t seem to do anything at all. The Other Side stuff is something I pretty much disliked at the time but at this point I’m so used to it that I accept it as a kind of limbo space mostly for vampires (and also witches? but hopefully more pleasant and less of a wasteland of eternal wandering for witches than it is for vampires).

3x08 Ordinary People was an abomination and I still hate it and everything built on it. So, at the end of season 2, Elijah says his family comes from Eastern Europe. A nice, normal answer that makes sense. It also dovetailed really well with Slavic vampire folklore, so there was a great tie in that felt right with the meta-awareness of the show (it was for a while very much so a vampire show about vampire shows, and the diaries were part of that meta level writing). The idea that they were VIKINGS in VIRGINIA in this random WEREWOLF SETTLEMENT gives me such a migraine that I don’t think I can go into it here. I hate it with an unflinching fury. I think I used the “Mikaelson” name once or twice in FE and I hate myself for that more than anything else I’ve ever done in my writing. It makes no sense and betrays the writers as not even having a very vague idea of history and it is like fingers on a chalkboard for me. My fingers, feeling all of that horrible chalky friction. ELIJAH THERE WERE NO WILD HORSES IN AMERICA A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. WHY ARE YOUR NAMES HALF VIKING AND HALF HEBREW EXCEPT FOR THE RANDOM GERMAN NAMES. WHY WHY WHY.

Deep breath.

The other thing I really hated in that episode was Rebekah’s “it’s a protection spell of course.”

Honestly I think that was the actual sword plunging into TVD’s heart and the show just slowly bled out from there and I was so shocked and betrayed by that that it just took me years of trying to stop the hemorrhaging before I finally accepted that it was a mortal wound.

You have to understand that I continued to watch seasons 3 and 4 the way an abandoned dog will wait for its owner to return. I just couldn’t help myself. It had been my favorite favorite show (and sort of still is?)

Well. Why did I hate this protection spell thing so much. TVD had made it very clear in the early seasons of the show that becoming a vampire was BAD. It was a fate worse than death. The whole angst of season 1 relies on us feeling the TRAGEDY when Giuseppe murders his sons and they become vampires. Because vampires in TVD aren’t inhuman, per se; they’re still the same person, they still have their souls, their consciences, their moralities... they’re just also saddled with this insatiable burning thirst for human blood that drives them to commit the very worst deeds, that drives them down these dark paths of horror and soul-scouring guilt as they repeatedly succumb, over and over and over and over again, to their worst impulses, until they finally stop caring and become monsters in truth. Until they forget about the simple warmth of a human connection, of good things like love and friendship and family. TVD made it clear that to be a vampire was to be in hell. It’s why Damon promises Stefan an eternity of misery. It’s why the group responds with HORROR when Caroline is turned in 2x02. It’s why Damon’s confession in 2x12 rips at our hearts, and why the stakes are so high when we wonder whether Elena will be a vampire at the end of season 2. The show is very clear that it’s not actually becoming a vampire that makes us monsters, but the actions we take once we become vampires that make us monsters... but that those actions are also nearly inevitable and precipitous once the transition occurs. It’s really tragic.

I remember the summer before season 3 aired the fan spaces were all abuzz with speculation about “what could Klaus have done that was so bad that not only was the vampire curse inflicted on him, but also on his entire family?” (that was the prevailing theory for how he could be the “first” Original vampire-- he was the one who had actually done whatever the thing was that had precipitated what was OBVIOUSLY a vengeance curse.)

Ordinary People was like LOL! NOPE! Joke’s on you for thinking we were going to actually discuss self-destructive behavior and the human psyche through the metaphorical lens of vampirism ;)

There were definitely other things in season 3 that bugged-- the serial killer thing was hard to follow (and I tend to criticize anything that’s hard to follow for any viewer watching week to week, while also paying close attention... because that means it’s probably not well enough explained), the white oak stake bridge was LOL fine, it did lead to some epic stakings by our boy Matt tag-teaming with Elena and Stefan, and I did enjoy the idea that the whole bloodline dies... anyway, I digress.

The flashbacks started being a problem in season 3. In season 1 & season 2, the flashbacks basically all told a continuous B storyline. In season 1, of course, we have 1864, in that gorgeous blue cast. We get a little additional information of that in season 2, and it’s amazing. But then in season 2, the B story is 1492, in that golden cast, also amazing.

After that the flashbacks that start in season 3 are pretty random. We don’t have stories being told in the past throughout the season, but instead, random one-offs in random colors telling random stories. Not bad, per se, but definitely less affecting and much less cohesive and meaningful.

Here’s the big big big issue with season 3: Klaus.

The whole point of the season was to kill Klaus. It was explicitly stated.

Every other season, once the motivation was stated, the show went through with it: open the tomb, stake the tomb vamps, take down Katherine, find a way to save Elena during the sacrifice, etc.

Now, as everyone knows, I love and adore Klaus. But I also sort of hate him because I think the writers loved him too much and they wrecked the show a bit with him. They wanted to create drama with a “kill Klaus!” arc but there was never that much tension in it because I was certain from 3x12 onward that they never would. (well, I was stunned when he got staked at the end of season 3 and I just sort of whispered, “good” to my empty dorm room at the time-- but that was short-lived). It really really really took the wind out of the show’s sails when they didn’t stake him by season’s end, so the MOST major thing I would have done would have been to kill him off somehow at the end of season 3.

If they didn’t kill him off, they should have devised a way to make peace/have Team Mystic Falls need him and him need them much earlier and much more concretely than they ever did. With the way things played out in actuality, our protagonists failed to do the one thing protagonists MUST do: take defining action. All of their actions in season 3 are completely for nothing, and that makes the whole thing fall apart.

This also brings me around to something that will surprise absolutely no one: I have a lot of problems with the way that klaus x caroline was handled. I think it COULD have been done convincingly, but the writers were lazy/were very clearly just trying to get Klaus a ship because the actor is hot, and so they gave us the horse drawing, and the prom dress, and the ball gown, and frankly, a list of villain decay moments that I just... don’t know what to do with. And the ship pretty much ruined Caroline’s character because the whole point of her was that she was so much deeper and kinder than anyone gave her credit for, even than she gave herself credit for, but the ship was like LOL! NOPE! (I have a lot more on this written elsewhere in my blog) Also my boy Tyler got cut out of a HUGE amount of this show to make room for this ship, which was lousy.

My last thought about season 3 is that this is when the characters-- especially Damon-- started to really decay. Rewatching early seasons of the show is WILD because Damon is WEIRD. He is so other and off-putting-- beautiful, but very very strange-- it’s in the way smolderholder held himself, the way he spoke, all the little things that sent little alarm bells ringing. He was delightfully inhuman.

I vividly remember the stupid chipmunk argument in... 3x16? somewhere around there-- with Stefan in some back alley in Mystic Falls and I was just??? That was the moment I realized that all of those things about Damon’s acting that had appealed to me had vanished. I think the writers were trying to make him more likable/humanize him so he could be the main love interest, but it was very frustrating to me.

Moving on to season 4. I was actually into the sire bond because it was difficult and problematic and felt to me like a chance to explore more complex issues through the “vampire” metaphor the way the show had done in earlier seasons. (I know this storyline is pretty much hated, but my stance is: if you don’t want dark, problematic, uncomfortable, and toxic storylines, don’t watch vampire genre tv shows. That simple!)

I don’t mind the idea of the “cure” and I don’t even mind the Hunter thing/that Jeremy could be a Hunter (although I found the coincidence dumb).

ACTUALLY what I would have liked VERY MUCH would be for Elena to go through most of her season 4 storyline-- becoming a vampire, having Jeremy die and her turning off her emotions, then going on her evil vampire rampage and actually killing and hurting innocents, only THEN for her to have the cure forced on her after like a year of being a vampire. The defining arc of Elena’s character in the early seasons is her moral decay-- Katherine is the warning of what Elena will inevitably become if she continues down the path she’s on-- so it would be fascinating to see her go DOWN that path, very far, and then to have her become human again-- and have her actually have to deal with the horrors she committed. (I have a bit of a theory that vampires have one foot over the veil into the realm of death, and maybe this, if anything, makes it easier for them to forget their humanity/become truly monstrous, but that becoming human again would slam all of that into the front and center again)-- it would be a way for Elena to actually have to confront her story arc-- what path is she going to go down? Is she going to continue her slide into callousness and monstrosity? Or can she turn it around? Must she give up the Salvatores to do that?

I don’t really mind the season 4 Silas content. Will say that once again the inclusion of any of the Originals in season 4 is pretty useless which is frustrating to me, and their place in the TVD narrative in general is an annoying dead-end.

However, I do think that Silas introduces a big shift in TVD: their need for a yearly big bad. As I mentioned above, TVD was always “one thing leading to another” -- starting with Silas, they started introducing yearly Big Bads (Silas, the Travelers, Kai) that were arbitrary and frustrating and were the thing that most broke me out of my suspension of in-universe belief. The idea that the show would need a big bad was a fundamental misunderstanding of the narrative structure of the first 3 seasons by the writers in those later seasons.

You asked what the straw that broke the camel’s back was and I can tell you, it was this:

I laughed myself sick and that was the last time that TVD was appointment television for me. I call this the Party City Greek costume.

I did eventually marathon season 5 well after it was over, and even though a lot all of the ways the show retconned itself drove me insane, it was overall fun just to watch for the drama and the pace.

My biggest problems with season 5...

This was around the time that Bonnie was dead then alive then dead then alive... I can’t actually keep track any more at this point what’s up with our girl

Stelena pretty much disappeared.

I actually think one of the bigger problems in the show was that the show was stronger when it was mostly about Damon, Stefan, and Elena, and at some point they gave more equal screen time to other characters which ended up meaning that I spent a lot of screen time with characters I just didn’t care about (ENZO)

UGH THE DOPPELGANGER STUFF

So, if you’ve read my fics, you know I spend a huge amount of time parsing the mechanics of the doppelganger, how the magic around it might work, what the implications are, etc.

I CAN’T STAND what happened to the doppelganger stuff in season 5! UGH. HOW DOES TOM WHAT’S HIS FACE EXIST? DID STEFAN HAVE A BABY WHEN HE WAS 15?!? Seriously!!! HOW!!!! Because it’s real clear in canon that only DIRECT line descendants create doppelgangers!

ALSO. The Amara thing. Just stop it.

This actually leads to a pretty major issue: TVD had a bad habit of establishing really exquisite doomed histories and then wrecking them with too much information later.

The story of Tatia Petrova is a masterpiece in doomed, tragic, romantic mythology. Teenage girl falls in love with two brothers and so their parents decide to use her as the blood sacrifice for their creepy curse “protection spell” and so they murder her-- you get the image of how terrified she must have been, dragged out of her home in the middle of the night, trapped, maybe dying slowly, how she dies for loving too much, for being just a little too wild, a little too trusting-- and how that curse echoes down the ages. The idea that that act of savagery somehow created the doppelganger line. The Amara thing (as well as the Originals revelation that Elijah killed Tatia) gut the impact of that TVD myth-- which was a strong one in the imaginations of the viewers.

And the idea that vampire doppelganger blood is useful for anything??? I can’t. The WHOLE POINT of season 2 is that Katherine turns herself into a vampire to avoid the sacrifice! We are explicitly told-- you can’t be two things at once, if you become a vampire, you negate your identity as a witch or a doppelganger or whatever-- literally the WHOLE PLOT of season 2 centers on how useless Elena’s blood would be if she were turned! And now Stefan is in on this? NOPE. I’m out.

Anyway, another myth that got wrecked in season 5 was the Katerina Petrova myth. Part of her tragedy is that she never even gets to hold her baby. Is the idea that her baby grows up and has a normal life and Katerina never even gets to find out anything about her. That she completely loses this one thing that might have humanized her. And then of course the great tragedy in England that ultimately destroys her. I really hated meeting Katherine’s daughter, because it reversed the pathos of Katherine’s past and rendered it emotionally inert. And also Nadia sucked.

The Travelers were fun enough but also they made no sense (DOPPELGANGER VAMPIRE BLOOD) but most especially I hated the idea that Katherine was a Traveler just WHY

I got... partway through season 6, although, I couldn’t tell you where exactly I stopped watching for no particular reason.

I remember really enjoying Tyler x Liv and the way that they made Tyler human again, and brought Alaric back, etc at the end of season 5-- it felt like such a fresh reboot to everything and it’s one of the things that TVD does really well.

That Thanksgiving episode sticks out to me as a train wreck though because I realized that the central conflict had absolutely nothing to do with any of the characters I actually cared about, and was instead about the twins... whom I liked, but not really any more than I liked the Martins in season 2, you know?

Also vampire blood being unable to cure cancer sounds arbitrary to me.

As for how I would have preferred the show to end?

Hmm. Well. I think it should have ended sooner-- this “the show is really about these two brothers” is just incorrect. The show was about the two brothers and Elena. It was about that triangulated relationship. I think that even if Elena ended up with one or the other at any given point in the show, the other third point in that triangle should have stuck around-- I’ve always disliked Stefan slinking off in season 5 because it tears apart the foundation of the show.

I have no idea how it should have ended. I guess? the ending? was okay? I’ve never actually seen it.

On to the Originals... so, the magical pregnancy didn’t really bug me because there are plenty of fandoms where vampires can procreate/I guess if Klaus is part werewolf, he has a foot closer back to the mortal coil, and vampire bodies in TVD have heartbeats, are warm, digest food, etc, so it was like, fine, sure.

I would say I watched... some of season 1? and I watched most of season 2? I watched whatever I needed to watch for fic research basically, and have a very confused sense of what happened on that show. I’m always skeptical of anything set in New Orleans though because no one ever seems to leave the French Quarter which is so preposterous because the Quarter is probably smaller than Mystic Falls. But anyway. The tribrid thing has never made sense, but I just sort of rolled with what I’ve heard about the Originals? I really love Marcel and think he was actually the protagonist of the show, whereas Klaus was definitely the antagonist. (I just can’t bring myself to side with Klaus on pretty much anything...)

Okay I think this ties up all of your questions/most of my thoughts except for maybe... what I find absurd.

To answer that: every time I learn something new I am stunned and my jaw drops in a literal guffaw. For example, today reading your ask was the first time that I found out that Ric was unrequited in love with Caroline (although, former student carrying her former teacher’s children also makes me uncomfortable). As far as I know from seasons 7-8, Damon sleeps with someone named Crystal, Caroline somehow magically carries Alaric’s children with their dead witch mom (and apparently Alaric is in love with Caroline while that happens?), Matt might be a cop, Damon and Stefan fight the literal devil and Katherine is their queen, Bonnie and Enzo??, Caroline and Stefan get married, what’s a Jeremy Gilbert, maybe Damon sets Elena’s fake coffin on fire?, Damon kills Tyler (WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE), there are witches who are vampires called Heretics, and also there are Sirens and maybe Mama Salvatore is one. The end. Every time I learn something new it’s the most amazing thing I have ever heard and I can’t imagine how it could be so, but I accept it.

Am I missing anything?

Legacies is so beyond my comprehension that I just have to roll with everything I hear. God Bless Matt Davis for leading that cast.

#anonymous #tvd meta #this got really long

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crimson-snowfall · 5 years ago

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Omg I only have a week break from uni too but I still have work to do that’s due as soon as we come back, my mental health needs more than 1 week to properly function again Can I request how Leo, Theo and comte headcanons on how they would be like with a kid, maybe the mc accidentally got pregnant and whoop now a toddler is In their life

Hi anon I notice a lot of TLC requests (Theo Leo Comte) and I’m starting to wonder if you’re that same anon or if these three just so happens to be a fan favorite. Anyway it’s okay I don’t mind I think it’s just kinda cute, but from now on I’ll endearingly call anons who request these three men the TLC anons.

Anyway I’ve been thinking about how these vampire would be like as a father and I sure am glad someone requested it. I gave names to their children to make this easier to write and as you can probably tell it’s just derived from their dad’s names one way or another except for Comte’s because that’s not his real name but let’s just go along with it

Ikevamp HC request: Theo, Comte, & Leo with a kid

Theo

Theo was incredibly surprised when you gave birth to Theophilus. For a moment, he got a little worried that you had an affair with his brother because the baby literally looks like Vincent; he has his uncle’s hair color and even got the lighter shade of blue of his eyes.

However, as soon as Theo took the baby from your arms so he can inspect him closer, the baby promptly frowned at his father, and that’s all it took to extinguish all doubt. There’s no mistaking it– the boy is definitely his, because there’s no way something from Vincent nor you can make a scowl as mean as that just a few hours after being born.

Personality-wise, Theophilus is just a little Theo who looks like Vincent. But even his father claims that he wasn’t even as mean nor as spoiled as his son when he was his age. He says this in the presence of his older brother, who just laughs it off.

Theo tries to be a doting father to his little Theo, but the boy seems to enjoy tormenting him. He’s declared war against his own father, claiming that he will never let him have you… completely ignoring the fact that you being his mother also means that you are his father’s wife.

Theo finds it ridiculous most of the time but enjoys bickering with his son. However, he tries his best not to give little Theo any reason to cry, because the boy likes to play dirty and would come fake crying to you the moment his father says anything that’s remotely mean.

Your devious son would then proceed to monopolize you for rest of the day under the pretense that he needs protection from daddy who’s been mean to him again.

Sometimes Theo still couldn’t believe his eyes, for never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that someone who’s a spitting image of his dear angelic brother could be so cunning and spoiled. Not to mention that Vincent barely showed any signs of immaturity due to the circumstances of their childhood, so Theo seeing his own son act so childishly by trying to steal you away from him is quite the sight for him.

The only time Theophilus openly shows affection for his father is when Theo offers him a piggyback ride. Little Theo completely forgets his one-sided rivalry with his father and even calls him the best dad in the world, something he would never say out loud under normal circumstances.

Comte

Comte couldn’t remember the last time he cried as he held his newborn daughter in his arms. Colette looks a lot like you, except for her hair color which she clearly inherited from her father.

As someone who’s been spoiled a lot by Comte, you thought you already have a good idea how much he’s going to spoil his daughter, but this doting father takes it to the next level. There are nights you’d have to drag him to bed because he’d go on for several nights without a blink of sleep just from watching his daughter sleep.

Much to your relief, Colette didn’t grew up to be a spoiled brat despite Comte relentlessly spoiling her. Instead, she inherited your modesty, but you could tell that she would grow into a fine young lady since she seems to have inherited her father’s distinct mannerisms that exude nobility.

Comte’s doting nature also made parenthood unbelievably easy for you; a good example would be whenever Colette cries, there’s a guarantee that Comte is already there by her side by the time you get there, wiping her tears and asking her what’s wrong.

One of Comte’s greatest worries though, is that his dear daughter never asked for anything. When you told him that there’s nothing else Colette could possibly ask for since he’s giving her nearly everything already, Comte insists that there must be still something that she might want.

Comte’s doting father case is definitely a hopeless one, and deep down you wish Colette never wishes for anything ridiculous like the moon even as a joke, because who knows what lengths her dear father might go through just for that.

Leo

You give Leo a son who takes after him a lot. He was silently wishing that you would give him a cute little daughter who takes after you, but your son is a proof of your love for each other so he cherishes him deeply as well.

Lionel likes his father a lot, and soon as he could walk and communicate, the boy is virtually inseparable from his dad. Leo is now rarely seen laying around anywhere the mansion since his son has basically locked him up in the library with him.

You often find both of them passed out in the library chairs every now and then though, stacks of books covering a wide array of subjects on the table. At some point you genuinely wondered if it’s about time you move in with them there.

Unsurprisingly, Leo is insanely lenient with his son. Lionel has inherited some of your sense and is not that much of a problematic child as you would’ve expected him to be if he had completely taken after his father, but sometimes it is Leo’s wild suggestions that puts both of them in rather awkward and/or dangerous situations.

Leo also tends to cover up for his son on the rare occasions the boy actually causes mischief by himself. At some point, Lionel asked his father if he’s what people would call a masochist.

“Cucciolo, you’ll only understand me once you find yourself a woman as wonderful as your mother.”

In case you’re wondering, I just looked up a list of Italian terms of endearment and just went along with “cucciolo” because with the rate of cara mias we get with Leo I highly doubt that he’s gonna call his son with his proper name either.

Btw my ask box is now closed (lol u could tell anyway cuz it’s gone). I got a ton of requests this vacation and uni starts again next week welp I didn’t even get the chance to watch an anime ;w; I’ll be opening it again once I’ve posted all the current requests in my inbox… and perhaps I’ll be updating the guidelines as well with regards to the schedule, university schedule is such a pain, and at the rate requests are flooding me soon it will be a several month’s wait before people actually get their requests. I might also start posting some status updates (more particularly on the publication schedule) of requests on my main blog @crimson-snowfluff … yea just maybe idk yet but I’ll try to let you know somehow.

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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remember when devin grayson wrote about green arrow flirting with teenager dick grayson and then bruce and dick have an incestuous relationship............................

Listen, I have no idea what this ask says, I just see a string of random letters followed by dot dot dot.

In completely unrelated matters, the only dynamic between Dick and Ollie I abide by is one where the nicest thing Dick’s ever said to Ollie is something like “hey why does your face look like you killed a squirrel and glued it to your chin, is that what you were going for or do people just not like you and so nobody ever told you til now that that’s what it looks like.”

And even there, that’s still just the best Dick could manage (or was willing to even aim for) after Bruce gave Dick a totally and one hundred percent genuine and sincere Talking To about how he needed to be more polite to Ollie. Cuz the way I envision it, all that’s after Dick initially opened with something like, idk, “hey wanna hear a funny joke, it goes “what do you call a known Errol Flynn fanboy who thinks putting on a domino mask when he fights crime with a bow and arrow like, magically makes his goatee invisible? A dumbass who doesn’t get how secret identities work, that’s what. Get it, its you, you’re the joke.”

LOL for the record, I don’t actually hate Ollie and have no really strong opinions on him one way or another, it usually just depends on how he’s being written in whatever story or issue I’m reading with him. Its just canon that Ollie is like, one of the few people that Dick just openly can not stand, pretty much, with this stretching back far enough that personally, I like to headcanon it goes all the way back to even before Ollie took Roy in and has absolutely nothing to do with Roy whatsoever.

Idk, its just really fucking funny to me to picture that like, for whatever reason, ten year old Dick Grayson decided upon meeting the Justice League that they were all awesome except for Oliver Queen. Dick doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care why, he just knows that like, “I do not care for that Oliver Queen guy, not one bit, and no, I am not open to constructive criticism on this matter, UGH BRUCE STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY AND BE NICER TO HIM, I SAID HE WAS A BUTTFACE AND I MEANT IT, WHERE’S THE CONFUSION.”

Because see, while Ollie is not Actually The Worst, he IS one of the League heroes who is prideful and petty enough to like, absolutely take offense to someone hating his guts for no discernible reason, while considering this more than reason enough to hate their guts right back. Even if that particular someone happens to have both miles and years left to go before they hit either puberty or the top side of five feet tall, and thus in the meanwhile, Ollie must literally lower himself in every sense of the word in order to return fire at his pint-sized and prepubescent critic.

Like, if Dick for whatever reason decided he just doesn’t like Superman or the Flash and he’s not gonna and you can’t make him, then I mean, Clark or Barry or someone else along those lines would just be like, oh, okay, that’s fair I guess. No, its totally fine Bruce, the adorable little human incarnation of glitter, cotton candy and all things Cute and Precious and Wee that you just took in is allowed to hate me if he wants to, its absolutely *wheezing sob* not a big deal. I’m a big boy, I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf with him. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be wallowing in my room for the next 84 years, trying to figure out if I was some kind of monstrous puppy-kicker in a previous lifetime and that’s why my fate here in this one is to be despised by a ten year old with the superpower of Absolute Preciousness. Its my punishment, clearly, for being just the worst kind of monster to ever exist, the only kind that could actually be hated by someone like your adorable little Fun-Sized sidekick of joy and sunshine and l-l-laughter......no, don’t look at me, I’m hideous! *bursts into tears and scurries away to hide from the light*

But see now, Ollie, on the other hand, like.....he’s not a monster but he’s not about to let even some paragon of preciousness go around painting him as one. Why the fuck does he spend so much money on publicists if he’s just gonna roll over belly-side up the first time one of the people bad-mouthing him just happens to be like, a toddler instead of the usual TMZ?

So Ollie’s not about to admit that he’s actually miffed and even a little bit wounded that this cherub who seems to like even most supervillains more than he likes Ollie, just like, can not seem to be in his presence longer than sixty seconds before drawing his weapons and stabbing Ollie with words that hurt, dammit, because he has feelings too, y’know, he spent a lot of money on pricey therapists figuring out that yes, those are feelings he’s feeling and he can even name some of them.....

Like, he’s not quite on board with actually ACKNOWLEDGING that hey this stings, and that he really just wants to know what the hell this kid’s deal is and why don’t you like me, tiny human, what did I ever even do to you??? But all of that is like......Advanced Level Therapy stuff that he hasn’t quite gotten around to finishing yet at this point in time. Like yeah he’s already dropped a mint on the A-list of the head-shrinking world by now, but apparently he was supposed to keep coming back or something like that, they all keep making a really big deal about that for some reason, and look, he’s been busy. So he really just hasn’t had the time to finish up the course on How To Make Peace With the Fact That Sometimes Tiny Humans Don’t Like Me Even Though I’m A Fucking Delight, Dammit.

But even if the why of this kid getting under his skin so much eludes him for the nonce, Ollie is perfectly clear on one thing: he doesn’t typically go around making enemies of the twelve and under set, but if you prick him, he doth in fact bleed, you little prick. So if this knee-high nightmare is gonna keep coming at me and trying to start shit, then I am more than willing to throw down, is basically Ollie’s take here.

“He wants to dance? Then c’mon, let’s do this thing. We can dance if he wants to. I’ve got the time,” Ollie says to himself and any other nearby Justice Leaguer who might be looking at him with that swiftly-becoming-familiar expression of mingled judgment, pity, exasperation and something a bit more ambiguous but which probably lands somewhere in the ballpark of “We honestly don’t know what to make of all of this but we’re all a little concerned This Is Not A Good Look, Bro. And also, we would like to formally request by way of this petition with all 200+ signatures of Leaguers and auxiliary members and support staff: please don’t escalate this into something where Batman might actually kill you, because that’s definitely not gonna make any of this less awkward for the rest of us, and uh....not to be indelicate here, but all those times we’ve all said things like no Ollie, we don’t think Bruce is a better fighter than you and we absolutely agree with you, you could totally maybe take him in a fair fight if you had your bow and arrows on you and he had the flu probably.....like. Umm. How to put this....Okay, soooooo....here’s the thing. There may, perhaps, ever so slightly be a possibility slash definite hardcore certainty that there were fib-like qualities to those conversations. A little bit. Oh hey, look at the time, we gotta run, there’s a fire somewhere, hopefully. Lol wait whoops did we say hopefully, that’s so weird like where did that even come from. We definitely meant to say probably. There’s a fire somewhere, probably."

But look, at the end of the day, the thing is, Headcanon Ollie is not like, proud of any of this, but he’s not unproud of it either. He is hashtag justified and he wouold appreciate some validation of that Ugly Truth, even if it might go against the grain and not ever exactly be a POPULAR opinion with the “please don’t tell the ten year old that nuh uh, his face looks like a hairy butthole, nobody wins there, that is not the victory you are looking for” crowd.

Honestly though, at this point Ollie’s list of Big Asks is quite small. Miniscule, even. All he wants, all he really really wants, is for someone, anyone, to join him in grasping the one essential corn kernel at the heart of this whole clusterfuck. The thing that nobody but Ollie seems to get and that Ollie’s pretty sure would be enough to allow him to die happily, if he could just manage to find one other person to sign on to the one single extremely obvious observation he keeps trying to point out to everyone, with a whole lot of nada to show for it:

Because see, the one thing about all of this that drives Ollie just absolutely up a wall, is that for some reason he can’t seem to get anyone to understand that like.....this whoooooole ridiculous mess, just like, even in terms of its very existence in the first place?

None of it is Ollie’s fault.

Dick started it!

Mere moments after frustratedly trying to convey this to Dinah for the umpteenth million bajillionth time:

“Okay, could you at least say something?” Ollie asked exasperatedly. “Anything? Seriously, I would take you counting to ten in Cantonese as an acceptable response at this point.”

“I’m just trying to decide which concerns me more,” Dinah said at last. Several epochs and the equivalent of the entire Jurassic Period later. But whatever, its not like Ollie was holding his breath at this point or anything. “The fact that you are genuinely trying to find and occupy the moral high ground in your feud with....a ten year old. Or that you actually think you’ve found it. That this is it, this is what that looks like. ‘The ten year old started it.’”

That was apparently all Dinah had to say. She fell silent again, and said silence lingered through a recreation of now the entire Cretaceous Period, before continuing into a revival of the whole Paleozoic Era from start to torturous finish.

“Well?” Ollie said with a patience that belied the urgency of the many pressing matters he had to attend to. Like the vanquishing of a ten year old archnemesis most foul.

Dinah just continued to frown pensively.

“Hang on, I’m still deciding.”

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astrologista · 4 years ago

Text

jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!!

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands.

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up.

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth.

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

#a death in the family #death in the family #ditf #it was cool to see the different ideas they had to offer finally?#for what it was #it was kind of a collection of shorts and half spun ideas #plus i think about this shit like every day #so i cant help but be interested #someone come and talk to me about this #i really want to know #what ppl thought #spoilers #ditf spoilers #death in the family spoilers

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real-jaune-isms · 4 years ago

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RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 4 Review/Remix

A pretty good episode this time, and only 30% pain and despair so things are looking up! But when it goes mean it goes real strong with the mean. Lots to think about here, and boy oh boy do I wonder what we’ll see next week!

For a nice touch of levity, we open on Robyn telling a funny story about a time Joanna lost a fight to try and pass the time. Maybe she’s trying to cheer Qrow up too, but as someone who gets very bored at work pretty often I get the appeal of talking just to keep sane. She sees Qrow is too lost in his brooding about Clover’s pin to listen to the story, and Jacques is too busy fussing over a fly buzzing around his head (the Pence jokes write themselves). Tough crowd indeed, though her joke about Ironwood needing to pay for cell block entertainment does get a smile and a chuckle from the sad old bird. She takes this chance to apologize, possibly again and we’re just seeing this conversation now, for what happened with Clover. Many would argue it is really her fault for getting trigger happy back in the airship when Qrow was the one under arrest, but that’s an argument not worth having because the blame soup was being stirred by way too many cooks to make a clear verdict. Qrow, however, blames himself for deciding to team up with Tyrian, which was certainly a bad move. It was a heat of the moment thing, and he makes it clear he really would have preferred working with Clover to re-detain Tyrian again, but Clover just wouldn’t let up on his arrest orders. The real pain though, he admits, is that he had really started to let his guard down around this guy and thought her could actually make a partnership work again without his Semblance tossing 1,000 monkey wrenches into the mix. Feels like a fairy tale dream, vanishing like a rose petal on the wind, like every other friend. I of course added the part about rose petals, because you know he meant Summer and the unity of STRQ she probably represents in his mind. Robyn knows a thing or two about having a Semblance that impairs your relationships. Not many people like being around someone they can’t keep anything private from, and she can call out and mistruthing with a touch of the hand. Qrow has to admit he hadn’t considered someone else having that kind of personal trouble like he does, but their conversation is ended by Harriet coming in to toss Watts back in his cell. She’s pissy at Qrow and says he shouldn’t have Clover’s pin, but he retorts he has no reason not to have it since he’s not Clover’s killer. She still has a hard time believing that since Harbinger was the murder weapon, but Robyn finally raises a very good point. Miss Hill is a literal walking polygraph and all they would need to do to prove Qrow’s innocence is let her out of her cell and take her hand. But they won’t do that because they don’t want to prove what’s really true here, they want to cling to a convenient story so they don’t have to admit what really happened. Cuz if they put those glasses back on and face the facts, that means reevaluating what side their on if Clover died because he refused to help detain a serial killer before arresting a former colleague and that’s the real problem. Hare had already threatened that if she was gonna open the cell she wouldn’t use her hands for a friendly shake, and the dig at her allegiances and her ignorance towards Ironwood’s sins almost riles her up to the point of taking Robyn’s bait. But Marrow calls her back down to sensibility and she leaves in a huff. Robyn lays back and sighs at how there was almost something exciting happening.

Cutting to an actually exciting scene, Yang Jaune and Ren are outside the city chasing the Hound through a mountainous canyon on their bikes. It can fly while they have to navigate the rocks, and their bikes aren’t handling the cold terribly well. Yang laments that none of them can fly, but that inspires Jaune to pull out his shield and get closer to Ren. He’s gonna get his teammate up there, and Ren immediately understands how. Leaping off his bike and onto Jaune’s shield, he’s launched through the air by the burst of Gravity Dust in the crest and uses his grapple line blade to wrap around the Hound’s leg... and get dragged through the air like Curious George at the end of a bunch of balloons. Still, he’s weighing it down some and can climb up the line to get in close... when he’s not getting swung around against the cliffside. To further slow it down, he shoots his other line around a big rock that gets dragged behind them for about 5 seconds before the Hound flies higher up and the line comes loose. Ren gets knocked around even more while Yang finds an inclined path that gives her enough height to start shooting at the Grimm. It handles this fairly well, by dropping Oscar from its mouth into its hands and flying ahead of her with a loud roar. Apparently one of its Grimm for all Seasons abilities is to call for backup, because dozens of Centinels suddenly burrow up out of the rocks and ground around them and several Teryx swoop in above. Navigating becomes that much more difficult for the blondes, especially when one Centinel spits acid and hits the thruster of Jaune’s bike. He thinks fast and leaps off his bike to launch off another Grimm in front of him and flip onto a rocky overpass where he almost loses his balance and falls back down. Luckily Yang instead zooms by and pulls him onto her bike where they continue their pursuit. She does a great job of bobbing and weaving around the insects, but a Teryx lands in their path. Jaune tosses his shield grenade in front of a large rock and they drive onto it to tilt it into a ramp, launching over the avian foe into a spin between two more big bugs. They bump on a rock, but the Grimm cannot touch them with Yang’s driving. Unfortunately, they have a far more dangerous problem: They’re heading towards the edge of a massive cliff. Yang tries to make a quick turn but instead flips the bike over and launches both of them off to go tumbling off the precipice. Jaune tries to plant his sword in the ground as an anchor, but he doesn’t keep hold of it with their momentum and they both fall with a very believable scream. Big props to Miles and Barbara for this and the dramatic performances soon to come. Ren comes swooping in for a massive save and grapples Jaune’s sword with one weapon and the poor guy’s leg with the other. Jaune grabbed Yang by the hand so she’s fine too, but an incoming Teryx might soon negate it all. Luckily, Ren instead negates all their emotions with his Semblance and the Teryx passes them by. Less lucky, Ren being here means he’s not hanging from the Hound. He let it get away with Oscar to save his friends, and you know he’s kicking himself for it.

Shifting scenes from that tense gloom, we see Weiss decided the safest place to take Nora for the time being is her own damn mansion. Whitley answers the door and is about to try and berate Weiss for this but she is having none of it. She holds him at swordpoint and insists that they are coming inside. Whitley is very against the idea of harboring fugitives after the hit the Schnee family’s reputation has taken in the wake of its patriarch’s arrest for war crimes, and Blake is quite frustrated that this is what he chooses to complain about. The staff is all gone, Willow has retreated to her room and assumable to the bottle, you gotta admit Whitley probably feels more alone now than ever and is... coping in less than ideal ways. Weiss still seemingly carries a chip on her shoulder of wanting to prove that she is doing something actually important and she made the right move by leaving home to be a Huntress, so she insists that Whitley has no right to nag them because they are saving the Kingdom here. At least, that’s what my 2 semesters of psychology classes would tell me. Ruby plays intermediary between the Schneeblings and lays down their very minimal terms. Let them stay here a little while so Nora can rest and recover, and then they will leave him to his sulking and riches. Whitley begrudgingly accepts and asks what he has to do, and Weiss seems to relish this chance to tell him to go to his room. Finally flexing her big sister authority without Papa around to veto her in favor of his adoring son. But like Willow said last Volume, Whitley has been stuck in this house just like Weiss and Winter, and they could certainly try to treat him with a bit more fairness and sympathy. I’m sure it hurt him a little inside to have yet another authority figure bossing him around without a care for his desires. Still, he’s not giving much reason to make us sympathize so I say wait a little bit to see if he’s got any softer moments to come. Weiss directs May on where to carry Nora, and Blake checks on Ruby while they have this quieter moment. Possibly because she wants the chance to talk to her too, Blake suggests Ruby should try calling Yang to make sure things are okay, both between the sisters and in general. But that’s just it. She did it 35 minutes ago. Okay not really, but I wanted to toss a Watchmen joke in. Still, as much as Ruby worries how that half of the team is doing, she’s already trying to call them and it’s not going through.

We fade back to our three battered teens as Yang collects what scattered pieces she can from her bike, the only one they still have. But like I said, it crashed into a rock after they tumbled off and it’s in no condition to run anymore. So Jaune is trying to call for help and transport back to Mantle, but either Ironwood shut down all communication in the lower districts or they’re just so far out in the tundra that a signal just won’t reach. The latter would make sense, and explain why Ruby couldn’t reach Yang. Giving up on the call, the three instead trudge through the snow in the light of the setting sun back more or less the way they came. Jaune is dragging the bike along while Ren leads the way to an outpost he saw while getting dragged by the Hound. Yang notes how low their auras have been drained due to protecting them from the cold this long, and like a kid on a car trip asks how much longer it will be. Ren has no immediate answer so she asks again and he gives a snippy “I don’t know”. She can tell there’s something more bugging him and tries to coax it out of him after sensing the hostility in his explanation that he only got a glimpse of their intended destination before he had to abandon Oscar in favor of saving them. He refuses to discuss his deeper feelings because he thinks it’ll just waste time. This riles Yang up and she demands to know what his deal is, to which he insists she not worry about it. The argument keeps escalating from there. Things aren’t going smoothly enough for Ren? No, they’re not going smoothly at all, but boohoo Ren, that’s part of the job as a Huntsman. He doesn’t think it’s a job they should have at all, they weren’t ready for it or to make the incredibly damming decisions they’ve had to since taking that position. Sure, they had a few lucky breaks and near miss successes, but then they entered this losing streak that they can’t seem to recover from because the losses are too drastic and every choice they’ve made has been the wrong one. Yang refuses to accept such pessimism and insists that even if they haven’t done everything perfectly they still had to do something because inaction would have made things worse. But how could they be worse than they are now, Ren demands to know as they freeze to death out here. Salem has the Lamp and Oscar, and they have nothing but the cold winds. They may not have an army but they have the Maiden, Yang tries to counter, but because they haven’t let her to open the vault for Ironwood all of Atlas is just a buffet waiting to be chowed down on and it will all be their fault when that happens. Yang rightfully asks him if he seriously thinks letting Ironwood try and float Atlas away to safety will work out for him or for the people of Mantle he’s abandoning, but he argues that they shouldn’t even be the ones asked to make that call. He’s trying to spit the hard truths no one else wanted to face, but this is way too harsh and mean, especially for Ren. What are these hard truths, you ask? That Ruby is still too young to be a leader, that he himself is an orphan from a town that doesn’t exist anymore (which I guess shows how unimportant he is for someone thrust into this decision making role), and that Jaune, who by the way has been trying in vain to get the two to cut the shit and quiet down this whole time, cheated his way into Beacon. A damn low blow there, bro. Bringing back the deep wound from Volume 1. And you can tell he regrets it immediately, but to say that would mean backing down from his point. Jaune doesn’t even address the personal callout and just says alright, you don’t think we should have the job, good for you. I’m still gonna keep walking and get out of the cold because like it or not we were given a goddamn job to do. Maybe not in those words, but the meaning was there. Ren and Yang silently let him take the lead, probably feeling the hot wash of shame distracting them from the arctic chill. Yang still takes one last dig at Ren though by asking if it’s his goal to push everyone away, implying he’s being an asshole and not even Nora is sticking by him. Well... in so many words anyway.

We get another change of scenery with a dramatic violin stroke like something out of a murder mystery movie. Oscar is regaining consciousness, and he hears Ozpin try to reassure him to stay calm and that it’s gonna be okay. When he looks up, however, he sees Salem leaning in a shadowy doorframe staring at a smoky apparition in her hand and welcoming back her long lost Ozma. Judging by the childlike laughter and general shape of her smoke display, I think she was manifesting a memory of her and Oz’s dead daughters to try and reminisce about the days when they were still lovers. Oscar realizes he’s being held in the air from the Hound’s mouth and tries to struggle free as Salem notes how young and weak this new vessel is. She’s not even acknowledging Oscar, just talking through him to Ozma. It’s been what may have truly been centuries or even a millennium since they’ve last met, and dear Oz has nothing to say to his wife? Oscar does his best Ozpin impression to try and fake it till he makes it, but Salem knows her man better than anyone and sees through it to grab him by the face and call his bluff. But he really is still a separate person from Oz, so maybe he can be more cooperative to her requests than that old wizard. She still wants to know where the Relic of Choice is, since Oz clearly must have used an extra layer of deception to hide it opposed to the others, and she wants Oscar to reveal the trick. But that’s not a memory he has access to, and he tells her plainly that he doesn’t know. She believes him, knows Oz would hold that one close to the chest longest of all, so she asks an easier question. How does she go about asking the Lamp questions? She gets the standard coverup answer, the Lamp is out of questions so it’s futile to even try, but she refuses to believe that one. Instead she blasts the poor kid with an evil magic rainbow laser and lets him scream himself hoarse for a bit. His chest has scorch marks, or at least his clothes do, and he fearfully tries to pull away from her “loving” touch. Lying so easily about these things, he truly was reincarnated into a like-minded soul... but sooner or later one of the two in this battered body will break and Salem will learn what she wishes to know. He tries to insist he won’t tell her anything, but that’s why she has backup. Hazel comes in to literally gut punch this 14 year old until he coughs up his guts or the truth, whichever comes first. And he justifies it all by saying this is revenge for his defeat at Haven and from the still unforgiven death of his sister.

Salem doesn’t stay to watch the savage beating, instead walking the halls of Monstra with her lovely new pet. Cinder has been waiting in this hallway for a chance to speak with her Mistress, but is distracted by her immediate discomfort in the face of the Hound. Salem claims it is an experiment that she is quite happy with the results of thus far, and wants Cinder to get on with whatever point she had so she can get out of the way. Cinder wants to search for Penny, she thinks she can make up for the past blunder and claim the Winter powers for herself. But Salem just laughs at this. “She thinks, she wants!” It’s like hearing a cockroach tell you about its hopes and dreams. Mommy Salami does not give a fuck what Cinder wants to do, she has done nothing to earn Salem caring about that. Cinder, to her credit, does not take this dismissal lying down and tries to argue that they are doing nothing to further their plans when Cinder could be achieving a great victory for her Mistress by securing their way into the Atlas vault. Salem does not slow her pace, and says when it is time to act she will tell Miss Fall what she needs her to do. Cinder tries to argue, and is met by the snarling maw of the Hound turning on its heels to send her shrinking back. Salem has been pretty damn patient with this bratty girl, but she will not repeat herself again. You are not going the the ball, Cinderella, you are staying here and doing what your godmother tells you to because if you don’t you will learn just how easily you can be replaced and forgotten. Cinder gives up her case and assumes the position of submission, which is to say taking a knee and repeating her self-depreciating mantra that without Salem she is nothing. This satisfies Salem and she walks away with her dog in tow, leaving Neo to glare at Cinder as if wondering who is really the domesticated little pet in this place.

Cut to Cinder immediately rebelling against her given orders and heading for the airship insisting she just wants to go check on something and then they’ll come right back before anyone knows they left. Neo just floats along behind her because like hell she’s staying in the Satan whale when it’s this bitch’s fault she’s here at all. We get the last unseen shot from the trailer as Cinder looks out over Atlas and rationalizes that Salem doesn’t know Team RWBY like she does, she wouldn’t understand how determined they would be to try and save the world, and so it falls to her to check out Amity Colosseum again and see if they’re up to something. Neo seems annoyed and disinterested at Cinder’s petty little scheme, but they’re both caught off guard by Emerald arriving behind them and offering to tag along to help. She’s been getting better with her Semblance and asserts that she would be very useful. Poor misguided lass, searching so desperately for acknowledgement and praise you’re never gonna get... Cinder seems pissed that she was eavesdropping, but she’s not gonna turn down the assist. Time for an evil girls’ night out~

Back on the ground, night has fallen as JRY have found the outpost at last. Jaune hits a heater to get it running and prevent their freezing to death as Ren broods out the window and Yang is outside working on her bike. The leader takes this time to address the tension with his teammate. Yes, he did make a bad decision and cheat his way into the Academy. But when he found himself in that bad situation he realized he needed help and he asked for it. He turned his situation around and got better, became the strong person he is now. Holding onto this ideal that being strong means doing everything on your own? That was literally the issue Jaune faced in his mini character arc back in Volume 1, and he came out of it humbled and ready to accept support from his team. From Pyrrha. But she’s not here anymore, and Jaune is. Nora is, team RWBY is here for Ren. So Ren needs to understand that he can let them in, because the more he hides from how he feels the worse it’s gonna feel and hurt him inside. Ren goes outside to sulk under a streetlight, but Yang has come inside now to say that she’s found the part she needs to fix the bike so with a little more tinkering they can get it working and ride back into the city once they’ve got some R&R. Yang does take the time to say she’s sorry Ren said what he did because of her argument with him, but Jaune dismisses it for the time being as all three of them being under a hellish amount of stress. He’s been where Ren was before, he knows how much it hurts. Yang turns back to the tool bench to work on the thruster, but she’s got some inner turmoil of her own to vent about. She wants to know if Jaune thinks “She” thinks less of Yang for making the choice she did and staying to help Mantle instead of going to help fix Amity. Playing the pronoun game like this can be tricky, and Jaune fairly assumes she means Ruby since the two of them did have the verbal disagreement before splitting off, and Yang did question her leader’s decision making and leadership. He assures Yang that her sister will always love and believe in her even if they have squabbles like this. But it would seem Vomit Boy lost the pronoun game, and Yang was not actually asking about Ruby. Judging by the purple cannister she’s wrenching into the battered thruster, she was asking if Blake would think less of her because of these recent actions.

A lot of people seem rather torn about this choice in priorities for Yang, but allow me to explain why I think it’s not that bad of a writing decision. If there is one thing that has been consistent in this Volume it has been the confidence of other characters that Yang and Ruby will endure this clash of ideals and remain loving sisters. Usually these sentiments have been given by characters who are siblings themselves and know the strength of that bond, like Weiss and now Jaune. We’ve never actually heard either sister personally express any anguish or regrets over that argument, but we can assume they’re both still a little sour about it. But they have been there for each other to a depth that few siblings have, as evident by Yang’s story in Volume 2 about how she had to step up in raising Ruby in a lot of ways after Tai went into grieving for Summer. They’ve been each other’s best friend and closest confidant for so long, I truly believe their bond is clad in iron and they know it too. Meanwhile, a lot of Yang’s recovery arc in Volumes 4 and 5 was dealing with being abandoned by Blake in a time of need and it continued into 6 as learning to accept her back into her life and find a way to make their partnership work again. Shipping or not, they do have a strong bond that has been renewed by dealing with their combined trauma and killing Adam. And when that happened they both promised they would stick together and back each other up, but now Yang has been the one to decide she wants to split paths and do something else. She has good reason to worry this might have upset Blake, and we the audience know Blake is worried about how she’s doing. So, when faced with a color that reminds her of her partner, it makes some sense that Yang would try and get an outside perspective of if she’s fractured their bond. And if you ship them, that more magnifies the interpersonal concerns than really changes the problems.

Regardless, Jaune realizes this is a problem he’s not quite equipped to deal with and decides he’s going to get some rest in one of the beds in the outpost. He gets the strong feeling he’s gonna need it cuz it feels like things will only get worse before they get any better. As we pan out past Ren, whom Yang promises she won’t let brood himself to death out in the snow, we see cracks start to form out on the ice. That can only bode poorly for these poor kids. Many folks think this is a frozen over lake with some scary aquatic Grimm waiting in the depths like a megalodon Grimm shark or the sulfur fish Grimm that apparently were the winners of a fan design contest this past year. Personally, I’m taking a note from the opening and saying it might be a cloister of Apathy since their gross grabby hands wrapped around Team RWBY when they fell through the ice at the end of the intro. But we will have to wait and see. Thanks for reading, hope to see you and your notes soon!~

Edit: this came out a week late and we did indeed see what it really was. Boy were we not ready for the truth...

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saintheartwing · 5 years ago

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So is Aliana “Problematic”?

https://lily-orchard.tumblr.com/post/617643726637088768/i-wanna-check-in-on-something-because-i-like-to

Okay. Okay. You know...I brought this up several times on her story...but I have been essentially ignored. There is only one real, genuine, actual problem with Aliana. Only one.

She’s always, always, ALWAYS right, just like Rey, over Leia and the Republic and is never, EVER genuinely opposed in a way that makes it clear her position is the wrong one. Her decisions, even if they’re outright murder of other people who are unarmed and unaware like when she made a bunch of rich people on Canto Bight commit suicide and said it was “Just for fun”, are ALWAYS presented as the moral choice. Even if it’s outright murder, it’s the right choice.

And when I pointed out that that kind of behavior was pretty disturbing and messed up, and that she could have solved the problem they posed to the galaxy by just mind-controlling them to give up all their money to a charity, and that this wasn’t just a matter of “You shouldn’t be like the villains you’re fighting”, but that behaving in a more moral way makes people (her allies like Poe and Finn and the others) trust you more because they know you to stick to a high moral standard, her response was pretty flippant.

“You have an extremely shallow view of "the line" if someone being armed is all that matters to you. Violence comes in more forms than mere physical injury. If the rich in Star Wars are anything like the rich in the real world, they have more blood on their hands than even the deadliest Sith Lord. Acts of willful negligence (like not providing adequate and affordable healthcare and not paying wages someone can live on) are very much acts of violence because it gets people killed.If you can't see beyond the existence of a weapon, that is a problem with you and you alone. And that's the point of the protagonist being a Sith Lord. She does not think in your narrow terms. She isn't concerned about "looking like the good guy" to sheltered people. Grow up.”

Okay one, her friends aren’t “sheltered people”, even Poe was visibly disturbed by what she did and he’s not sheltered. And acts of willful negligence, as I said in a reply, do NOT always cause people harm or get them killed, forcibly making them leap off a balcony to their deaths absolutely does.

You call it “narrow terms”, I call it “not acting like a bad guy and pretending like what you did wasn’t morally iffy because it was”. And the fact that Lily Orchard thinks this kind of thing is JUST FINE is my issue. She has NO problem whatsoever. And you know, if we were talking about killing a disarmed, helpless Snoke...fine. If we were talking about destroying the Emperor in his sleep...fine. They have powers, and they’re responsible for active genocide. But these were just rich assholes and she casually makes them leap off a cliff.

With all due respect, WHAT is to stop Aliana from just walking into the Republic Senate Room and just TAKING OVER because she feels like it, because LITERALLY NOBODY ELSE CAN STAND UP TO HER. And because she hasn’t shown she has high moral standards, I don’t put such a thing PAST her. I absolutely believe she WOULD just casually decide to take over the Republic just because she thinks the Republic isn’t doing enough for its citizens. That’s totally in-character for her.

And don’t you gimme that bullshit about how ultimately killing those rich people would serve “the greater good”. No, making them give up all their money and changing their ways would have done that, and she HAD the power to do that. Instead, she immediately took the violent route. The DARK route. And the worst part of all, HAS SUFFERED NO CONSEQUENCES OR CALL OUTS FOR HER DARK, EVIL ACTIONS, and ALWAYS...ALWAYS...is right. Even when she’s doing something clearly wrong, the story treats her, and so do you, Lily, as right.

THAT is my problem with Aliana. Just...for ONCE...can a bad thing she does actually be treated, in-story, as a genuine bad thing and have her actually be called out on it and have her and Rey suffer some real CONSEQUENCES for what they do?

UPDATE:

Someone brought up the whole “But Aliana didn’t tell Rey she was a Sith” thing.

Lying is bad, but the problem is the story itself doesn’t really treat being a Sith as an inherently bad thing at all, so it’s lying about something that the author is ultimately saying doesn’t matter. And we, the audience, might say “it doesn’t matter” in general either because we’ve seen SOME Sith in Star Wars stories who are, deep down, genuinely good people, just fighting for the wrong side, or just couldn’t be labeled as “Jedi” because of their beliefs, even if their actions are good for the most part and they don’t really behave in immoral ways.

Lying about being a Sith ultimately only hurts Rey, and while it’s kinda bad, it only does some emotional damage that got fairly easily apologized for. The constant “Aliana is always right over Leia” stuff, the casual dismissal of ANY of the Republic’s concerns, the whole “casual murder” thing Aliana keeps doing...stuff like that is very clearly problematic at best and horrifying at worst, especially...again...the whole casual murder stuff I brought up.

But Lily was more willing to have Aliana get criticized for lying to Rey than have Aliana criticized for murdering defenseless rich folks on Canto Bight. I mean good gravy, I don’t like Jeff Bezos but I wouldn’t launch him off a cliff just cuz I think he should donate more to charity or pay his workers more. That’s murder.

So to make it blunt, here it is. Lying is not a “dark, evil thing”. Murder IS. Lying is KINDA bad, but it’s not a “dark evil thing”. After all, you can lie to your kids about whether a shot is gonna really hurt, you’re just trying not to get them upset. If your wife is pregnant and fat, you’re not gonna tell her, because you don’t want to hurt her feelings. If your boyfriend or girlfriend or the like has a zit on their chin or some acne, most people just go “Aw, it’s not a big deal, you can barely see it” because it’s not really a big deal. Even if you really could see it, you still lie for the sake of their feelings and because ultimately, it doesn’t hurt anyone. So lying isn’t inherently an evil thing.

Murder is though. No matter who it’s done to. And killing people who can’t fight back at all, and are defenseless...that’s murder. And Aliana’s done it quite a lot.

THAT is my big problem.

Just have SOMEONE call her out for that. Have SOME consequences for that kind of behavior. That is ALL I ask. I mean, it’s her story, she doesn’t have to listen to me, but her tumblr blog did do a public ask of “is Aliana problematic” and that is the ONE aspect of Aliana that’s really problematic, her casual willingness to murder and the story’s failure to really treat such cold-hearted behavior as a bad thing, to acknowledge it as bad at all.

#lily orchard #the sith resurgence #Star Wars #fanfiction

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teatitty · 5 years ago

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Rogues Lore

First of all I want to thank @schweeeppess for letting me spam her with Rogues lore 2 months ago cuz it made this post so much easier to type out when I can just copy-paste everything and then edit it to be more cohesive lmao

Second this is under a read more because it is A Lot

Leonard Snart AKA Captain Cold

He grew up with a super abusive father and his only refuge was when he would hang out with his grandfather in his grandfather's ice truck. When the grandfather died, he grew tired of his dad's abuse and set out to start a criminal career and moved to central.

(He's the one who started the rogues!)

He found blueprints for a "cold gun" which he ended up making from scratch (it’s also canon that he knows the gun so well he can remake it out of scraps in about 30 seconds to a minute) and had three main rules in his group: No Killing, No Harm To Women Or Children and No Drug Use. His cold gun is capable of interfering with the speedforce cuz it can reach “absolute zero” which is even colder then Mr Freeze's tech.

He's also the only cold-based villain capable of mastering this temp. In New Earth he was described as an "adversary" but in Prime Earth (same backstory as before mind you) he's described as being a straight villain whose only rule in the group is "no killing" (which seems to be a pretty flexible rule these days cuz DC has made him more, well, down with killing). He's also much younger here then he was in NE.

In Flash 2016 #17 we see another upgraded version of his gun that's capable of separating the Flash from the speedforce directly and, in doing so, causing Barry excrutiating pain. Generally, he and Barry had more respect for eachother in NE, to the point that Len even considered him family. In PE, though they have teamed up now and again, Len is far more hostile towards Barry, sometimes even being written in a way that suggests he wouldn’t mind if Barry died.

Sam scudder AKA Mirror Master (the first one!)

He was a simple convict who just really wanted to learn how to get inside a mirror's reflection. He practiced in a hall of mirrors and, once he succeeded, became Mirror Master. He was a frequent foe for Barry and, during Crisis on Infinite Earths, died around the same time Barry did.

He was the one who discovered the "mirror world". At one point he got himself trapped there and hated that the mirror world could just get him whatever he wanted instead of him stealing it so he got Barry to bust him out. He could also use mirror's to mind control ppl (dont ask) and this intrigued Barry.

On PE he's dating Lisa Snart (Len's younger sister) and is the only Mirror Master to exist. In N52 he, Len, Lisa, Mick and Marco all got fused with their weapons for a while and given meta-human abilities which I. hate because it took away what made them all so cool (I'm fine with Marco tho and you'll find out why in a minute) he's also a really big attention seeker lol

Hartley Rathaway AKA Pied Piper

Alright most of Hartley's info is from NE so: he was born deaf to wealthy parents who got him very high-tech hearing implants. He became obssessed with sounds and started experimenting with sonic technology. Bored of his rich life (and sometimes it's implied he had ableist and/or homophobic parents too) he took to a life of crime after learning how to hypnotize people through music (Pied Piper ayyy).

He was the first person to ever successfully break out of Iron Heights and did so because he befriended the rats there and used them to help himself escape, adding more to his whole Pied Piper thing. After Barry died he gave up crime and started working to help the poor and underprivelaged (I'm not saying he quit specifically bc of Barry's death buuuuuut most of the Rogues did so).

He struck up a close friendship with Wally and came out as openly gay! On PE all that we know for certain is that he's a "reformed vigilante" who's the conductor for the Central City orchestra. He used to share an apartment with Barry (yes for real) before he moved in with his bf, David Singh (also Barry's director in the CCPD). Lisa was the one who convinced him to come out to the Rogues, and they were all chill with being gay, their problem came when he started dating David who is, you know, a cop.

He has a pet rat called Moon (cute, right?). Also in pre-N52 canon (cant remember if it was NE specifically or older) Hartley once had a nervous breakdown after Barry arrested him so Barry took him to get help at a mental health hospital :')

(Some artists draw him blonde, some brunette and others go more for reddish-brown it’s kinda confusing)

Marco/Mark Mardon AKA Weather Wizard

On NE he's a two bit criminal called Mark Mardon (he's also white and yes thats important to note) but one day, after escaping from a cop van, he ran to find his brother, Clyde, who was a scientist only to discover his bro had died of a heart attack (however, there's implications that he actually murdered his brother and simply blocked out the memory).

He then found Clyde's notes on how to create a wand to control the weather and made it for himself. The worst he ever did on NE was imprison a town in winter and after Barry's death he went into semi-retirement (told you the Rogues all did this)

On PE however! He and Clyde are Latino and are the heirs to a huge cartel! Clyde takes over the cartel and Marco wants nothing to do with that life. After their father dies, Marco runs away and eventually becomes Weather Wizard.

He comes back when he hears his brother has been murdered and gets accused of the crime. He finds out it was Clyde's wife, Elsa, who orchestrated the whole thing and, in a fit of grief and anger, kills her with lightning. He also tries to kill himself at the same time but it doesn’t work. After her death, he curls up into a ball and starts crying because he feels like he hasnt got any family left but then Lisa shows up and is like "yo the rogues are still here for you bitch"

His emotions affect the weather in this continuity and I’m a weak bitch for that but that’s 100% my bias for Ororo Munroe showing itself lol

James Jesse AKA Trickster (the first one!)

James Jesse was born to the Flying Jesses, famous circus performers. He, however, was afraid of heights, and preferred reading stories of Western criminal Jesse James.

He invented air-walking shoes to get rid of his acrophobia, and this led to his fame as an aerialist at the circus. Buuut he wanted more excitement in life and became a conman instead! He had a lot of wacky gadgets like exploding teddy bears and, after Barry's death, moved from Central to Hollywood and started working in special effects.

Like Hartley, he even attended Barry's funeral. He once beat the devil, Neron, at his own game and eventually started using his skills for good, collecting weapons of incarcerated villains so they couldnt fall into the wrong hands. He eventually died protecting Hartley during Final Crisis. Deadshot was the one who got him.

On Prime Earth his parents were straight up neglectful and, instead of creating his own boots, he stole them from STAR labs instead. This version of him is also WAY more fucked up and murdery then NE to the point us long-term Rogues fans got really upset at how much DC had changed him

On NE his real name is “Giovanni Giuseppe” (swear this is, like, the only italian name DC knows) and on PE the Flying Jesse's were a deliberate rip off of the Flying Graysons

George “Digger” Harkness AKA Captain Boomerang

The illegitimate son of an American toy-maker, W.W. Wiggins, and an Australian woman, Betty Harkness, George Harkness was raised in poverty in the small town of Kurrumburra, Australia. His stepfather, Ian Harkness, hated the boy and made his life miserable. (Like canonically Ian was an abusive alcoholic and even abused Betty who was too ill to defend herself or George. The reason George goes by "Digger" is cuz that's what his mom used to call him before she died; it's aussie slang for "soldier")

In school, Harkness crafted a boomerang. He discovered he had great skill with the aboriginal weapon and often used it for mischief with his best friend, Mick Wentworth. He further honed his skills while spending some time hiding from the law in the Australian bush.

When Digger was eighteen, he and Wentworth robbed a general store and were able to make their escape with the aid of Digger’s boomerang. However, this incident caused Digger’s stepfather to kick him out of the house.

His mother gave him a plane ticket to Central City and told him to get in touch with Wiggins. Wiggins had been searching for a spokesman for W.W. Wiggins Game Company's latest product, a toy boomerang. Under the alias "George Green", Digger auditioned for and got the job. Wiggins outfitted him with a costume and gave him the name "Captain Boomerang."

Ridiculed by the audience, he took to a life of crime instead.

His story is pretty much the same on PE. The only diff being there was no childhood friend and Digger made boomerangs in an attempt to impress his absentee father. Also he has a habit of making up fake stories about himself lmao

The only one's he really doesnt stab in the back are the Rogues and Harley Quinn but everyone else? fair game. In Flash: Rebirth he and Barry even exchange favours for info and it’s implied this is a regular thing for them

Roscoe Dillon AKA The Top

He technically appears on PE but he's one of Thawne's acolytes so lets just. Skip that and focus on NE instead

Literally his whole thing is that he was obssessed with spinning tops as a kid and taught himself how to spin fast enough to deflect bullets. He became a criminal, tried to blackmail the entire world once, and was Lisa's first boyfriend!

He was also her ice-skating coach and taught her how to spin super well like himself! He has a very confusing characterization tho cuz sometimes he was written to be all about revenge and killing but other times he was just like the other rogues; a blue-collar criminal who stole things because he liked to.

He died eventually which I'm not going to try to explain cuz it's...yeah. There's also this whole thing where he could possess people after his death but this was in the silver age and that shit just happened sometimes so whatever

In short: Roscoe has a really cool concept to him but nobody really knew how to write him so he ended up all over the place

He also has a Spinning Top shaped satellite in space where he stores all his loot (dont ask)

Mick Rory AKA Heatwave

Mick Rory has pyromania! Very severely! He was born on a farm outside of Central and, as a child, was very fascinated with fire. This turned into an obssession and he ended up burning his house down. So fascinated by the flames, however, he never ran to get help, watching his whole house burn down (and killing his parents inside) and he ended up living with his uncle after this.

On a schooltrip, his schoolmate stuck him in a meat locker as a prank where he gained Cryophobia (fear of the cold) so in retaliation Mick locked the boy in his house and set the thing on fire (again, pyromania). He ran away again and ended up becoming a fire-eater for a circus. That didn't last long either because, surprise!, he burned the place down.

Desperate to find a way to help his obssession, he happened to see the Rogues operating in Central and decided to take up villainy. At first he and Len got into a few altercations with eachother due to Mick's fear of the cold but eventually they settled their differences and Len officially brought him into the Rogues.

Mick kinda relies on them to keep his pyromania in check basically. There was a time where he was, briefly, reformed and gained a close friendship with Barry (even being roommates with him. By then he'd already known Barry's real identity for a few years) and used his pyro knowledge to become a fire-fighter consultant. At one point he even worked for the FBI

His backstory is practically the same on PE the only difference being that he never expressed regret for burning down his house, and actually says he wishes he’d burned down the whole neighbourhood instead

Lisa Snart AKA Golden Glider

When I say her NE version is leagues above PE I mean it.

Like Len, she suffered abuse under their father and escaped it by becoming a figure skater under the name Lisa Star for the Futura Ice Show! Her fame came from her very fast spins, a trick she was taught by Roscoe. When Roscoe died while fighting Barry (brain complications though there’s more to it, but again I’m not going to get into that) Lisa turned to villainy, blaming Barry for her lover's death.

Her attempts on Barry and Iris' lives were always foiled. She used a pair of ice skates that created their own ice flow, and had many gadgets that caused hypnotism. She also stole Len's gun once but retooled it into a twirling Baton.

When Barry died she renounced her feud with him and attempted to go straight again with her brother. They created a company that recovered lost or stolen items. Eventually she returned back to a life of crime, went through three boyfriends, all using the name Chillblaine (she named them that iirc), until the fourth Blaine killed her. Len got revenge on that one

On PE, however, Lisa had a brain tumor (it got cured later) and was a tag-a-long villain for her brother and her boyfriend, Sam Scudder. This version of her never became a skater and is instead murderous just for...the sake of it. She also has this thing about wanting to be the leader of the Rogues instead of Len, and when she's in charge of them for a while the Rogues’ morals change and killing is suddenly fine so. Whatever. NE Lisa is the best (also her whole outfit? Stunning)

Roy G. Bivolo AKA Rainbow Raider (not technically a Rogue anymore but he was a member for a while)

He appeard on PE as Chroma but gets murdered by Grodd so we only have NE canon to use (they did my mans dirty)

He was a wonderful painter from an early age but was born colourblind. His father, an optometrist, was determined to create a device that would let him see in full colour. Toy didnt get the device until after his father's death but unfortunately the device didnt let him see colour.

Instead, the goggles could project beams of light that could become solid objects, make him invisible, blind his opponents, or affect the emotions of his targets. Angry that he couldnt pursue an artistic career. he decided to become a thief and primarily stole famous artwork. He was eventually killed by Amunet Black

Evan McCulloch AKA Mirror Master (second one)

Evan was born to rich parents Louis and Carol Erikson who gave him up for adoption because they were too young to be responsible parents. He ended up at the McCulloch orphanage.

At age 8 he was molested by one of the older boys there and, in self-defence, ended up drowning the him. At 16 he left the orphanage, taking on the name of the woman who raised him and moves to Glasgow (he’s scottish btw)

He found that it was super difficult to hold down a job but, needing to make ends meet and constantly breaking the law anyway, he turned to a life of crime and became a hitman and then a professional assassin.

One day he got hired to kill his birth father but was unaware of who his target was until after he took the shot. Grief-stricken, he attended the funeral and tried to work up the nerve to approach his birth mother. By the time he had, she'd committed suicide and he turned himself in for his crimes.

Either the Scottish or US government gave him Sam's old Mirror Master gear and hired him to be a mercenary.

His first job was scaring Animal Man into stopping his activism, but he failed because of Animal Man’s wife. Refusing to actually kill the wife and children (thanks to his own morals) he gets fired and helps Animal Man seek revenge.

He continues to work as a criminal and supervillain-for-hire, even working out of costume as a mercernary in Britain.

Eventually he found his way to Central City and joined the Rogues, taking over as Sam Scudders official successor. There was a time where he had a Cocaine Addiction which caused friction between him and Capt Cold because of Len’s rule against drug use.

Throughout all of this, Evan made sure to donate a portion of all the money he ever got to the McCulloch Orphanage

Axel Walker AKA Trickster (second one)

On PE, Axel was recruited by the Rogues early on in his career. He messed up during a heist and they kicked him out (they'd never do that but w/e)

He worked for Mob Rule as a henchman for a bit then went freelance when MB was arrested. He saved Cold's life cuz he felt he still owed Cold a debt. When Grodd took over Central, Axel tried to join his side but Grodd tore his arm off from the bicep (ouch) and left him to die on the street. Axel got himself a cool sleek robot arm and returned to crime anyway. He got accused of murder, Barry cleared his name, but he still got sent to Iron Heights for other charges.

The Rogues, hearing about this, went to bust him out and were like "okay fine u can hang with us" and he stayed with them from then on

In NE canon, while Jesse was working with the FBI, Axel stole all his gear and ended up working for Penguin in Gotham. Penguin gets attacked by Tarantula, Axel fails to stop her and a few days later he gets caught by Robin (Tim) for causing trouble in Gotham.

He moves on to work with Amunet Black, but after her defeat is offered to join the “new Rogues” by Capt Cold and accepts the offer. Some stuff happens, he fights the OG Trickster who leaves him in a dumpster and tells him never to pick up the gear again, then Axel answers an ad from some college students asking for a trained hero to teach them some things, he has dinner with them and then kills them all. Neat.

When Jesse died, Axel redonned the Trickster gear and started operating his own crew out of an old Rogues hideout. When the Rogues returned to Central, Axel found out they were gonna retire and go underground. He rejoined them to help them get revenge on Inertia for manipulating them into killing Bart Allen, and he stayed with the group henceforth.

Evan explained to him that joining the Rogues wasn’t a matter of him wanting to be one, but why he needed to be one

In short: Axel is a punk kid who wants to fit in with the big boys and the Rogues are the only ones who really gave him a chance, acting like his older siblings. It’s worth noting that canon never mentions any relatives for him so, as far as we know, crime is all he’s ever known

And that’s all of them!

#random facts #the rogues #this took. so long to do #good luck reading it all lmao!#god i'm tired #i love them a whole lot can you tell?#tw: abuse mention #tw: drug addiction mention #tw: assault mention

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prorevenge · 6 years ago

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My hippie math teacher was real garbage.

So some background: as a kid, I’ve always been pretty good at math. It was always my best subject, I’d catch onto concepts easily, but I hated it. Not because math was hard or anything, but because no matter how much I hoped, my math teacher would always be the type that would be like “Use the formula I gave you or it’s wrong.” Now, see, my mind works in what others call “a super weird way.” Every time I was taught a new concept in math, I wouldn’t use the formula that the teacher gave us because I’d have a hard time remembering it and I thought it was too time consuming and expanded. Instead, I’d come up with a more efficient, step skipping formula that worked just as well.

Other students would ask me how I do the math so fast, and when I shared the formula with them, they found it much easier and did it just as fast.

So rewind to 7th grade. I was like, 12 or something at the time. I had finally got a good teacher that allowed freedom for multiple formulas because “math is math.” We had her for about a few months, and I really liked her teaching. She got into a freak car accident and took her leave, and from what other staff members told me, she was “lucky to even survive.” I never knew how bad the crash really was, but from what I was told, she cheated death. Staff said she was supposed to come back in a few months, and until then, we would have a long-term substitute.

Before I knew about the accident, I walk to class over in the way corner of my school. At the time, I remember having a class right before that was on the opposite corner of school, so I’d often be late if I walked too slow. So, I turn the corner of the building and notice there’s no students waiting outside, meaning the teacher had already opened the door. Unusual, but I checked the time, and I was earlier than normal. So, I knocked on the door. I waited and waited for someone to open the door, because usually it’s the nearest student to the door who opens it. I knock. And knock. It’s about a few minutes of constant knocking until someone opens the door, but he’s looming above me.

When I look up, it’s a new teacher, long hair and a beard, kind of looks like Jesus. Yes, he was a hipster. He opened the door right after the late bell and said “you’re late.” I explained to him I had been knocking the past few minutes and nobody answered the door, to which he responds “That’s because I told them not to. You should have been here when I opened the door to begin with.” I wanted to explain I had a far away class and I couldn’t be considered late since the late bell didn’t ring, but he didn’t take any of it. I had to go to detention that day.

So, let’s call this teacher Mr. Hippie for convenience. I sat next to my friend, lets nick him Bro, and ask what’s the deal with this guy. Bro tells me that I’ve already made a bad impression, told him to elaborate, to which he explains the whole accident long term sub thing.

So to summarize the first part of his teaching, he didn’t actually teach us anything. Instead, we did completely pointless activities that have nothing to do with math. One of these activities was a class game where we had to tell each other a list of jokes and whoever got the most laughs got the most points and won the game.

So we read these jokes that we’ve been given, and it’s a list of inappropriate jokes. They were all pretty racist, sexist, etc which we already knew he was extremely prejudiced based on his everyday, passing language towards us (some include “girls have good handwriting because they waste their time practicing their letters” and “the only guys that climb mount everest are white dudes because they’re the dumbest people out there” and “girls wouldn’t get raped if they just stop overestimating their strength” whatever that one even means). I can’t think of all the jokes off the top of my head, but here’s some I remember:

Why are religious Jamaicans obese? Because at church they chant “Praise the Lard.” What’s Miley Cyrus’ favorite food? Roast twerky. Why can’t the Kardashian’s swim? Because they have more plastic in their butts than in the whole ocean.

I objected against playing this stupid game because of all the offensive jokes in it, some of which I related to and was offended by. He sent me out of class that day. Bro got sent out eventually as well, because instead of using the offensive jokes, he said a stupid knock knock joke that made the class laugh out of pure stupidity. “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Pizza delivery guy. I burned your pizza because it had pineapple on it. Bad move, cuz.”

At some point when we actually started learning math, Hippie was a douche, He did the same old same old docking me points for not using his formula thing. We were doing white board problems, to which he forced me to do the most complex ones. When I did them correctly and showed my work, he’d think I was wrong until he checked his calculator. Bad move. So, instead, he erases my work off the board in front of literally the whole class, and says to me dead in the eye: “You didn’t show your work.” So, I said, “Alright, I’ll show my work.” So I did. Again. And he erased it. By that point, I was fed up with his bull, so I just left it at that.

When we took tests, we would grade the papers as a class. He would tell us the answers, to which he’d screw up on middle school level questions. Every time I got a different answer, I would ask him to do it on the board, and that would prove he was wrong and I was right. He hated me more for asking questions.

Every time I “technically” got a question wrong, he would call me an idiot, slow, stupid, etc. etc. and even passed a few “maybe if you were a guy you’d be more useful.” I tried telling this to the teachers, but they weren’t having it. I tried waiting until he would finally leave, but info came out that our teacher wasn’t coming back, so we’d have him even longer. So naturally, I did some digging.

Bro and I searched his full name up online and found an admittedly hidden link to his Instagram account, which I won’t leak, but it was golden. He posed himself literally as Jesus, with several sexual and racial posts and memes. He had solid evidence of smoking weed and vaping off campus too, and it looked like he was also becoming the path to an antivaxxer at some point. Some posts included things like “You can’t cure cancer, yet you take away our medicine?” Followed by a picture of weed or something of that sort.

Though it wasn’t exactly what I wanted him fired for, I brought it up with the counselor. She said they’d look into it. While it was followed up by several other students, I was walking home one day when I saw Hippie with a big bag of what looked like posters as he threw it in his trunk and drove off. We came back one day to a brand new, female teacher. Posters that Hippie put up were gone, just like the ones he threw in his trunk the other day. She explained to us the old teacher had been fired for suspicious online activities, and will likely have a hard time ever getting a new job. Since then, the Hippie’s name had been removed from the account, but it’s still up and running by him.

We had that new teacher for the rest of the school year, which wasn’t exactly long, but she did teach us math and threw us a big party on the last day of school, though she still didn’t approve of alternate formulas. Sorry this was quite a long one, fellas, but I thought it was worth sharing.

TL;DR: Got a math teacher fired for his inappropriate Insta after he made sexual jokes and racial slurs and straight up insulted me for months.

(source) story by (/u/TheAcidicFire)

#prorevenge #by /u/TheAcidicFire #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.11

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as the Kaito rescue operation fell rather, uh, flat, Maki was totally not planning to murder Kokichi on sight, everyone decided Kaito was definitely dead except for Shuichi, Maki was even more sure Kaito was dead and also that him ever killing anyone was completely impossible, Kaito was very not dead and very a murderer inside the Exisal and had to have felt awful to hear his friends’ reactions to all this, and Shuichi was desperately clinging to a currently-baseless hope of Kaito being alive somehow rather than face the painful apparent truth, but at least this was better than Maki letting her despair win and twist her into thinking it’s okay to sacrifice all of her friends just to kill Kokichi and “defeat despair”.

Now, we’re here at the “Investigation Start”, which is to say, the moment the awesome music kicks in! I’ve always liked Danganronpa’s thing of having a metal remix of the investigation music for case 5 and onwards, since it hammers home that things have really gotten serious now – but it’s never felt more appropriate than this investigation here where Kaito may or may not be dead. Damn right the terrifying possibility of losing your best friend – and the feeling of desperately wanting not to – should be given that much importance.

It’s also incredibly appropriate that this version of the music is titled Hope Searching! The regular one is called Despair Searching, which makes a lot of sense when we’re searching for proof that one of our friends is a murderer. But this time, Shuichi’s not primarily thinking about the investigation in terms of finding the murderer. He’s searching for proof that his best friend is still alive. Damn right that’s hope.

And okay, since I insist on nitpicking the meaning of the word, technically he is not searching for hope – finding Kaito alive would be finding relief, as there’d be no need to hope for it any more if he’s right there. It is the act of searching for a positive outcome to this situation in and of itself that is hope. So it’s still a fitting title, as long as it’s parsed as “hope” being a modifier to describe the “searching”, rather than being about searching for hope.

Shuichi: (There’s a sleeve sticking out of the press. It’s… definitely… Kaito’s coat sleeve. In that case… the victim must be…) “…”

I love how hesitant Shuichi is to even voice the idea in his inner monologue. His detective’s instinct is trying to tell him that obviously Kaito’s sleeve being visible means he should assume Kaito is under there, but Shuichi Saihara is digging his heels in and refusing to go along with this.

Shuichi: “…I don’t want to see a crushed body, no matter who it is… but I have to do it. I… have to know.” (I made up my mind, took a breath, and pressed the button.)

Damn, Shuichi is showing some serious freaking courage here to be able to do this. Even if he was pretty sure it wasn’t Kaito under there, there’s still plenty of reason for him to never want to see it – but the thing is, he subconsciously does think it’s Kaito, so that’d be what he’s expecting to see, even if he can’t admit it to himself. It’s incredible that he can do this anyway.

Shuichi: (In that case… we won’t be able to check the body. I’m honestly a little relieved, but I shouldn’t say that out loud.)

Shuichi, literally nobody would blame you for being relieved about this! I’m also incredibly relieved that it is a vital plot point of this case that we never see the body, yeesh.

(I wonder if Shuichi is actually feeling guilty about his relief because he subconsciously expects it to be Kaito and so he’s thinking of this as an excuse to keep running away from the truth for longer.)

Shuichi: (In addition to the control buttons, there’s an ‘Emergency Stop’ button.) […] “Well… if the culprit were planning this murder, they’d have no use for it.”

Yep, that’s definitely never going to be relevant to this crime at all. (To be fair, the culprit never pressed that button.)

For some reason, you have to examine the sleeve again after trying and failing to raise the press in order to get Shuichi to notice the hole in it. I’ve seen a lot of people miss this and then not be allowed to leave the hangar yet and be quite annoyed when they realised what they were missing.

Shuichi: “It looks like… the left sleeve sticking out of the hydraulic press.”

When first-time-me first saw the body discovery cutscene, I immediately assumed that the sleeve hanging down was the sleeve of Kaito’s that always hangs loose – in other words, his right sleeve, and he was (hypothetically, definitely hypothetically) face down in the press. That image got so stuck in my mind that I somehow managed to skim right over the part where Shuichi says here it’s his left sleeve and keep thinking of it wrong until the trial.

It’s honestly a little surprising to me that Shuichi can even tell it’s the left sleeve just by looking at it. Granted, there are buttons on the cuff that would be opposite on each sleeve, but speaking as a fanartist who has drawn Kaito countless times, I can vouch that I never freaking remember which way around the buttons are supposed to go and have to check again every time. Maybe Shuichi can only tell because he has his own jacket sleeves with buttons on to compare it to.

…Wait. Waaaait. My I-have-checked-the-buttons-on-Kaito’s-sleeve-way-too-many-times senses were tingling, so I went and checked yet again to make sure and…

…they’re not even the right way around in this shot of his sleeve if it’s supposed to be the left one! The game’s artists can’t even remember which way around the damn buttons go! Even though I didn’t consciously know this, that may well be why I was instinctively so sure it was the right sleeve at first – because I was right to be!

I have to question, considering that Kokichi was lying on top of the jacket, how the blood that went everywhere didn’t also get all over the jacket sleeve. It should have soaked it to the point of completely obscuring the smaller stain of Kaito’s blood around the arrow hole, you’d think.

Regardless of which sleeve it is, the fact that there is a bloodstained arrow hole in it proves that Kaito was wearing it at some point prior to it dangling outside the press. First-time-me who’d convinced herself it was the right sleeve still didn’t budge at this and I instead somehow decided he must have inexplicably been wearing his jacket differently to how he always does when he was shot, then apparently switched back to wearing it normally before being in the press.

The swipe pattern bloodstain is entirely staged to give the impression that they fought in the bathroom and then the victor dragged the injured/dead loser into the press to crush him. Since that’s not actually what happened, I have to question how there’s no signs of bloodstains from where they actually got injured, all three shots of which happened in the hangar. Perhaps it’s simply because puncture wounds bleed most when the weapon is removed, and Kokichi’s arrows were removed in the bathroom after the antidote shenanigans – but Kaito pulled his arrow out while still in the hangar.

Himiko: “The way you are now… you might start accusing people cuz you can’t believe Kaito’s death…”

Apparently Himiko took Maki’s words seriously about how Shuichi is acting like Kaito in Gonta’s trial and is now thinking Shuichi might accuse someone with no basis just to run away from the truth. I’m sure that red Exisal in the corner would really like to tell her that there’s no way Shuichi would ever do that.

Himiko: “I don’t wanna hear your excuses! Or anything else! Just don’t talk to me!”

Himiko’s acting like this because she’s afraid of being suspected after having given the crossbow to Kaito, but she sure is just making herself look much more suspicious by doing so than if she’d just relax a bit about this.

Shuichi: (The red Exisal is completely still…)

Himiko: “Shuichi, it’s dangerous there… If you go near that thing, you might get torn apart.”

Nope. Not ever. In fact, if anything else happened to be trying to kill Shuichi right now, the vicinity of that red Exisal is probably the single safest place he could stand.

Shuichi: “Ah, but… I suppose that if Kokichi was alive, he could move it at any time by remote…” […] (That is *if* Kokichi is alive…)

Shuichi is very quick to stress to himself that it’s definitely just an “if”. Definitely.

Shuichi: “So this is how it looks on the inside, huh?”

As a Kaito fanartist, I would also like to personally thank the open green Exisal in this hangar for providing practically the only decent reference image for what the inside of an Exisal cockpit looks like. There should be plenty of Kaito fanartists who feel the same way, because Kaito fanartists should have plenty of reason to want to know what an Exisal cockpit looks like… but I might be the only one who does, and that makes me very sad.

(What I’m saying is, more Exisal Kaito fanart, dammit.)

Monokuma shows up as Shuichi is examining the Exisal to talk about the electronic lock on the cockpit that only the Monokubs could unlock. Which on the one hand is him providing relevant information that Shuichi can’t get just by looking at it… but on the other hand, I think he just wants an excuse to be here.

Monokuma: “Of course I want attention! I’m the mascot for cryin’ out loud!”

…Because he also shows up, completely gratuitously, when you talk to Tsumugi. Which makes a lot of sense when you realise that an Electrobomb was used recently in order to break in here, meaning that Monokuma can’t watch the investigation without physically being here and seeing it himself. He’s not going to admit that, hence his usual nonsense as an excuse for showing up, but he definitely wants to see as much of the investigation as he can, especially since he still needs to figure out for himself who actually did it.

Monokuma: “And yet, I’ve appeared fewer times than that Plain Jane Tsumugi over there.”

I like how he complains about getting less attention than the mastermind he’s beholden to.

Monokuma: “It’d be false advertising if I didn’t appear as often as I can, y’know?”

Monokuma, you are not subtle! If you were more subtle then maybe Kokichi wouldn’t have figured you out and you wouldn’t even be in this mess!

(Kaito is probably hearing this and thinking “damn, maybe Kokichi really did have a point about this”, now that he’s aware of the possibility of an audience and can evaluate Monokuma’s words and actions in that light.)

Tsumugi: “A-Advertising? What advertising?”

If you have a problem with him dropping hints like that, you should have programmed him not to, Tsumugi.

Shuichi: “…Ignore it. Let’s just focus on the investigation.”

No, Shuichi, don’t ignore it! It’s actually kind of relevant to this particular investigation!

Upon examining the bathroom door, Shuichi doesn’t quite immediately head inside.

Shuichi: (This is the place where Kaito was imprisoned. Kaito might have left some kinda clue here—) “Ah, no… he didn’t ‘leave’ anything… He might not be dead…”

Much as I love the denial from Shuichi that the writing is going for here, the wording doesn’t quite work for it like it should. “Kaito left some kind of clue” implies more to me that he left it deliberately and therefore most likely isn’t dead. (Which, as it turns out, is exactly what he did!) Maybe this worked better in Japanese, but even in English, “left behind” might be a slightly better way to imply the suggestion that it was done without intent and he’s no longer here.

Also, Shuichi spoke that last part out loud, and the bathroom door is close to the red Exisal, so even if he was speaking pretty quietly under his breath… Kaito probably heard that. He must be feeling such a mix of emotions at hearing Shuichi stubbornly deny that he’s dead like this – on the one hand he’d be happy that Shuichi wants him to be alive and proud that he’s potentially going to figure out the real truth, but on the other hand, Shuichi is clearly so afraid of the alternative, and the plan that Kaito’s going to give it his all to pull off will involve convincing Shuichi that he really is dead and making that fear seem to come true.

Before I start examining any of the actual evidence in the bathroom, let me go off on a tangent: there’s still no toilet paper in here. There wasn’t when Shuichi was last here at the beginning of the chapter, either, but obviously Kaito would have needed some – for more than one reason, given all the blood he was coughing up. So probably the reason that it’s not here any more is that he took the remainder of it with him into the Exisal to keep catching all the blood he was going to keep coughing up while in there. This is definitely a thing that I’m supposed to conclude and not just the game developers not having thought about this at all.

Since Kaito was locked up, it would have been Kokichi who provided him with the toilet paper after shutting him in there. So, please imagine: Kokichi showing up at the bathroom door to awkwardly, wordlessly hand Kaito a roll of toilet paper, which, given what happened with Gonta, makes Kaito just kind of stare at him for a moment like “is this a fucking joke”. (It’s actually not, though, because Kokichi wouldn’t want to remind himself of the murders that were totally not his doing.)

{Later addendum edit: Uhhh, never mind, scratch that, turns out there actually is toilet paper in the bathroom: a whole stack of it here by the sink. I didn’t notice it for a long time because it kinda blends in, and because I was looking for toilet paper on the actual toilet paper dispenser, which is indeed empty.

This stack is here both during the investigation and also during the first time Shuichi explores the hangar in the Daily Life, so unfortunately this removes any real possibility of my silly hypothetical scenario I presented here. Which is a shame. I liked that idea.

(It also slightly lessens the chance of Kaito having some of it with him in the Exisal to catch all the blood he’d be coughing up? But, I mean, he didn’t need to take the whole pile, so this one could still be true.)}

Shuichi: (A body discovery announcement… means the mastermind is still alive… But… I still… don’t believe… That Kaito… is dead.)

There’s a monitor in the bathroom, which you don’t need to investigate, but if you do you get some more delightfully forced denial from Shuichi.

The antidote bottle appears to be labelled “Poison”, but the blood obscures the rest of the label, which really reads “Strike-9 Poison Antidote”. This is a much cleverer trick in Japanese – the word “antidote” in Japanese is the word for “poison” but with a prefix, and that’s the part which is obscured by blood. Imagine if the English word for it were “antipoison”. It’s probably a little easier for a Japanese player to guess that perhaps this was in fact an antidote bottle.

It’s never made clear whether or not the label being obscured by blood to make it look like a bottle of poison was deliberate in order to confuse things further, but it probably was, since the blood ending up on it in this particular way by accident is pretty unlikely.

I commented on the swipe pattern bloodstain earlier, and the bloodstain in the bathroom is also way too neatly patterned, as if there was just one single injury sustained there and then the victim was dragged out. Apparently they managed to fabricate this after the fact, but I feel like there should have been more blood in more places in the bathroom given what actually happened, and that Kokichi’s two arrows were removed in here. Even if they wiped up some of the extra blood, there should still be traces that Shuichi should be able to spot.

Outside the hangar, Keebo is feeling better, which doesn’t actually make sense if you think about it, since the Electrobomb was triggered out here and so this should be the epicentre of the effect making him feel sick.

Keebo: “So what I experienced was akin to an allergic reaction such as hay fever… So it could have affected a human the same way! Being a robot had nothing to do with it!”

Thinking of it as essentially an allergic reaction is a neat way of putting it that makes it equivalent to something humans experience. He doesn’t need to insist that it’s not because he’s a robot – obviously robots would be allergic to different things than humans because their bodies work differently, but it doesn’t mean their allergies don’t still matter!

Keebo recounts how he witnessed Himiko sneaking into the hangar carrying the crossbow case, shortly before he headed there himself to try and negotiate with Kokichi. Which means that Shuichi, Himiko, Keebo and Maki all entered the hangar on their own initiative yesterday to try and be helpful in some way (even if Maki’s idea of “helpful” was very questionable), despite that this wasn’t part of the plan they’d agreed on. The only person who did nothing of the sort is Tsumugi – and it’s quite telling that she’s the odd one out here. She didn’t care about doing something extra to try and help, and she knew Maki would be trying to kill Kokichi and didn’t want to get in the way of that.

Monokuma: “Oh, at the time, the Exisals were on auto-pilot and directed to only observe me.”

You’d think that Shuichi would be able to figure out that they were never really “protecting” him based on the way Monokuma words this here.

Shuichi: “…Why are you telling me all of this? This puts the person controlling you at a disadvantage.”

Monokuma: “But we’re not talking about that… We’re talking about this.”

Shuichi of course thinks Kokichi is the mastermind and therefore that it’s odd for Monokuma to reveal information about what Kokichi did. Monokuma’s response drops a really big hint that Kokichi isn’t actually the mastermind, but it seems to go over Shuichi’s head.

Monokuma: “The person who shared that info with me didn’t seem interested in sharing it with you guys… So you share it instead! That way, it’ll be fair to all participants!”

Meanwhile, here, Monokuma is supposedly referring to Maki, as will be brought up later in the trial. Which is kind of awkward, since I highly doubt this (and we still seem to be talking about the fact that the Exisals were observing him here) is something Maki ever stopped to tell Monokuma. I guess when he’s saying “shared the info”, he doesn’t necessarily mean directly, and it’s simply the fact that Maki hijacking one of the Exisals didn’t cause the others to attack her that let Monokuma realise what was up.

Or Monokuma is simply using Maki’s secrecy as a flimsy excuse to give this information to Shuichi, because really he wants to try and hint at what Kokichi’s real plan was so that Shuichi can figure things out for him in the trial.

‘Exisals Protecting Monokuma’ has been added to the Truth Bullets section of your Monopad.

That’s quite pointedly not what Monokuma just told us, but okay.

Now to briefly head to Maki’s and Shuichi’s labs. Although going to Maki’s is practically unnecessary, since all it’s for is to confirm that there’s one less crossbow case there, which should already be evident from the crossbow in the bathroom.

Shuichi: (I feel as though there are less weapons here than I remember…)

That’s because of Kaito’s Heroic Plan that never actually happened. His pile of weapons is probably still in the gym, alone and forgotten about.

Shuichi: (Case files, lined up for me to read. There’s nothing off about them. They don’t seem to be related.)

What if you just… took a break to read them anyway. Just one? Just the first one? No? You might find it quite enlightening.

None of the other bottles of antidote have the word “Poison” on the label, making it a little bit of a stretch that the Strike-9 one did. Possibly it’s because the full name of that poison is literally “Strike-9 Poison” (the poison bottle on the shelf does say precisely that), but that also makes it harder for players of the localisation to realise the bottle in the hangar might be for an antidote.

Shuichi: (According to the labels, each bottle is only one dose.)

It sure is convenient that these antidotes for completely different poisons happen to all work such that one dose is exactly the same amount and exactly enough to fill one of these bottles, and that the Strike-9 antidote therefore obviously also works that way. Buuuut the plot point of there only being one single dose of antidote is very important and fun, so I don’t actually mind.

Shuichi: (…None of these antidotes are for the Strike-9 poison. They’re all for different poisons. What could that mean?)

Obviously this means the bottle in the hangar is the Strike-9 antidote. But there’s also the question of why some of the other antidotes are even out on the desk in the first place. The game never explicitly explains what this means, but it’s a delightful detail. Consider how Maki was very careful to put the poison bottle back once she’d used it to prepare her arrows, such that Shuichi only noticed it’d been used because it had slightly less in it. But the antidotes? Apparently she just haphazardly grabbed a handful in her haste to find the right one among them, and then afterwards, she didn’t even have the presence of mind to remember she’d left the other ones lying around and put them back to hide the evidence. It’s great how what’s seemingly just there to give the player the information they need to know also serves as a subtle sign of the huge difference in Maki’s state of mind before and after shooting Kaito.

Shuichi: (I didn’t find any evidence to suggest Kaito isn’t dead… On the contrary, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest *Kokichi* isn’t dead. […] Which means… the victim must be…) “No, it’s too soon to be thinking like that. If I investigate a little more, I’ll find something.”

I love how Shuichi desperately tells himself that if he hasn’t found any evidence of Kaito being alive yet, it must be that he hasn’t investigated hard enough and definitely not just that maybe Kaito really isn’t alive after all.

Shuichi: (Perhaps I missed something… I should check again.)

Yes, definitely. That’s definitely all it is, and he’s totally going to find some magical piece of evidence proving Kaito’s survival despite everything if he just looks harder.

So Shuichi returns to the hangar, where Keebo wants to show him something he found in the bathroom… but you can put that off and instead re-investigate everything in the hangar. If you do so, you get the usual text summarising what he deduced when he first investigated the thing, but then also…

Shuichi: “That’s all that stands out to me right now. But I should keep looking.”

[the screen fades to black]

(…)

[the screen fades back in]

Shuichi: (It’s no use. There are no clues here.)

…he does this, for every single item of note that he investigated previously… except for the hydraulic press and the sleeve. Shuichi is so desperate to find even the slightest bit of evidence he might have overlooked that could prove Kaito is alive – but deep down he doesn’t believe it at all, because he can’t bear to look too closely at the press for fear of finding incontrovertible proof that Kaito really is dead. (Which is ironic given that the arrow hole in the sleeve is the main thing suggesting that maybe it’s not really Kaito under there.)

It is also quite amusing that one of the things Shuichi can stubbornly re-investigate in this way is the red Exisal. That actually would give him precisely the miraculous, undeniable proof of Kaito being alive that he so desperately wants, if only he really did manage to investigate it as thoroughly as he could.

Maki is back in the hangar, but she won’t even look at Shuichi.

Maki: “…”

Shuichi: (Maki… Why is it so easy for you to believe Kaito is dead?)

Shuichi cannot understand how someone who is also Kaito’s friend isn’t just as desperate to deny that as he is!

Once you enter the bathroom, Keebo invites Shuichi to investigate Kokichi’s clothes that just turned up in the toilet… but you can still ignore that and re-investigate everything else. This time it makes a lot less sense that Shuichi would do that when massive evidence that might possibly prove Kokichi is dead is right there, but it’s still a thing; Shuichi does the same stubborn lengthy re-inspection of most things in here, which even somehow includes the bathroom window. Yes, Shuichi, that is definitely going to be secretly hiding a clue to Kaito being alive.

As I finally actually investigate the clothes…

Keebo: “Is something the matter? Please, investigate!”

Shuichi: “Ah! O-Okay!” (The Ultimate Detective can’t stop here! This *has* to be an important clue…)

Come on, Shuichi, you’re willing to stare at a window frame for three minutes in the hope that it might tell you Kaito is alive; you should not be hesitating about these having been found in the toilet if you really are that desperate.

Shuichi: (It could mean that he was attacked. In that case… There’s a chance… Kokichi was the one crushed in the hydraulic press!) “Ah, Keebo, thank you! Thank you! This is a very important clue!”

Aww, Shuichi! He’s elated to find proof that maybe his best friend isn’t dead! He was so desperate to find some and he did!

Except… he really, really didn’t. If Shuichi were looking at this objectively and not with the mindset of someone desperate to find even the slightest indication of Kaito’s survival or Kokichi’s death, he’d realise this straight away. Because, sure, it proves Kokichi was injured – but if Kokichi was the victim, why wouldn’t the culprit just leave his clothes on him when they crushed him? That’d be a much better way to hide any evidence of a struggle.

What this really should be taken as evidence of is that Kokichi is very much still alive, and he wanted to hide the evidence that he was injured. That’s clearly precisely why Kokichi took his clothes off before being killed and told Kaito to flush them – to make it look like Kokichi wanted to get rid of them, while having it so that the evidence would eventually be found to make Shuichi (and Monokuma) come to the conclusion that he did that and is therefore still alive.

Keebo: “Oh, I’m happy I was able to help, but I must decline shaking that hand of yours.”

Another testament to Keebo’s humanity – he seems to have a human’s instinctive aversion to germs, despite the fact that they’re not a problem for him personally.

(Also Shuichi was so happy that he just up and tried to shake Keebo’s hand, that’s adorable.)

Shuichi: (But if Kokichi was the one crushed in the hydraulic press… Where did Kaito go? Why not show himself?)

That’s still the million-dollar question, isn’t it, Shuichi. He knows just as well that it’s not remotely like Kaito to hide at a time like this. And the fact that he’s only even asking himself this question now is another sign that he wasn’t nearly as sure that Kaito might be alive as he was trying to be.

Tsumugi: “I wonder where he went off to…”

Shuichi: (Did he disappear? He can’t still be in the hangar…)

In this conversation they’re assuming it’s Kokichi, not Kaito, but whoever the survivor is, there is one place in the hangar he could still be that hasn’t occurred to Shuichi.

(And Shuichi totally could check that place, if only it occurred to him as a possibility. There are still four fully-charged Electrohammers lying presumably somewhere near the entrance after everyone dropped them in shock upon seeing the body. Using one of them on that red Exisal would have cut this whole trial very awkwardly short.)

Tsumugi: “Kokichi’s been manipulating us all from the start… I can’t believe someone like that could be killed by Kaito…”

Shuichi: “…”

Tsumugi: “Ah! Of course, I don’t mean to compliment Kokichi or make fun of Kaito or anything!”

I mean, for not having meant to do that, you sure were making Kaito sound kind of pathetic, Tsumugi. Why would he not hypothetically be able to kill Kokichi just because Kokichi has been manipulative?

Monokuma: “It’s time for the class trial, where hope and despair meet head-on!”

Welp, now that we’ve opened up the connection to the original Danganronpas, Monokuma is going to be throwing those words around like confetti.

Monokuma: “Everyone needs to be there, got it!? Anyone who’s absent will be swiftly and permanently punished!”

Monokuma has to know that the survivor is inside the red Exisal, even if he doesn’t have a clue who it is. He didn’t see anyone leave the hangar last night, and there’s only one place in the hangar he could be hiding.

You really don’t need to threaten him to get him to come, though, Monokuma. He has no intention of running away from this.

Monokuma: “I wonder what kinda despair awaits you this time!”

Yeah, you definitely do wonder, don’t you.

Tsumugi: “This isn’t everyone… right?”

Shuichi: “…Kaito and Kokichi aren’t here.”

I think you mean “or”, Shuichi. You have at least managed to accept that one of them is definitely dead.

Maki: “As the mastermind of the killing game, he’s waiting for us to arrive.”

Shuichi: “… We… don’t know that yet. There’s still a chance Kaito is alive.”

Maki: “…Cut it out. Do you want to die?”

Maki still cannot bear to hear Shuichi talk like Kaito might be alive when she knows he isn’t.

Maki: “This is a battle between hope and despair. If I show any weakness like you are… then I know I’ll lose to despair.”

Maki, you’re already in despair! You’re losing to it right now! Shuichi is winning against it because he’s still managing to hope that Kaito might be alive!

This is still Maki being brainwashed by the wrong meanings of those words and the idea that “despair” is a person who can be defeated, specifically Kokichi. That “defeating despair” is such a necessary outcome that it’s even worth sacrificing all of her friends to do. The “weakness” she’s afraid of showing is the thought that she might hesitate to sacrifice them and in doing so let despair “win”, just because Kokichi will live and Kaito will have died for nothing.

Maki: “Six of us will participate, and one of us will die after this class trial… Then only five will be left. Only… five…”

She means this the other way around: one will survive, and five will die. She’s trying to psych herself up for making this sacrifice by telling herself that she’ll be killing only five more people, trying to make it seem like a tiny number compared to the countless people she’s already killed, trying to think of it as just a number and not four of her friends. She’s trying to tell herself it’ll be worth it.

Maki: “But we can’t lose to despair. Even if we have no future, we need to win.”

If we have no future, we have nothing to hope for and we’ve already lost to despair! Danganronpa 2’s thing of insisting that the “future” was somehow an entirely different concept to “hope” was also very silly and misunderstanding the words, considering that their whole concept of the future was simply something that the characters were hoping for.

Maki: “That is… the whole point of this class trial.”

Guhhh. It is to her, and it shouldn’t be.

(But the real point of this whole class trial is so that somebody can have his final chance to make a difference and be a hero.)

Maki: “I will defeat Kokichi, no matter what I have to sacrifice.”

Maki Roll! It’s not worth it! Even if Kokichi really was the thoroughly evil mastermind he claimed to be, it still wouldn’t be! She’s been so completely taken in by the bullshit from the Flashback Light and then broken by her despair over killing Kaito and it’s heartbreaking. You don’t really want this at all, Maki.

Shuichi: (No matter what she has to sacrifice? Are you sure about that, Maki? Is that what you call ‘hope’?)

Right, Shuichi!? It’s not hope, is it!?

Shuichi: (I wonder what Kaito would say at a time like this. What would he say to us? If it was Kaito…)

The first thing he’d say is that he believes in you, of course! That’s still true, even if Kaito really is gone. It’s adorable (and a little heartbreaking) that Shuichi depends on his support so much that he’s just instinctively trying to turn to Kaito for help even though he’s not there.

Kaito would also have a lot of emphatic things to say to Maki about her current state of mind, things which should be able to get through to her and stop her from doing this. But of course Maki has not and cannot let herself consider what Kaito would be saying to her right now and what he would want for her. Thinking about how much he’s done for her and how grateful she was to him just hurts too much when she repaid it all by killing him.

Shuichi: (We had lost the will to live, knowing what we know about the outside world. But somehow… despite that despair, we had found a new reason to live.)

Yeah. Somehow.

Shuichi: (To win the battle between hope and despair.)

The way he talks about it like it’s a “battle” is probably one of the best ways to illustrate the issue with the meanings that the Flashback Light has been giving those words for them. They’ve essentially just become equivalent to “good” and “evil”, and therefore obviously the good guys just need to defeat the bad guys, right?

Shuichi: (We don’t know what hope means to us anymore.)

You sure don’t, but not for the reason you appear to be thinking of here, Shuichi.

Shuichi: (What is hope…? A burden you bear?)

In a way, it kind of is. Holding onto the hope for something you desperately want to be true, but not being certain of it (because as soon as it becomes certain then it’s not hope any more, just relief and happiness) comes with the constant terror that it’ll never happen after all and you’ll end up back in despair. The fact that Shuichi is thinking of it this way suggests that he knows this very well himself – after all, he’s been feeling like this for this entire investigation.

But also, if we’re talking about “hope” as being the thing you inspire others to feel, like they’re all supposed to have done as students of Hope’s Peak… then maybe that’s a burden too. You have to live up to your image of greatness in order to inspire people, right? That pressure to do that is one hell of a burden, and you can’t share it with anyone because if they knew you were struggling then you wouldn’t be able to inspire them any more!

(Why yes I totally did just make this about Kaito’s issues; what did you expect me to do when Shuichi invoked the word “burden” like that.)

The courtroom décor this time is a deliberate throwback to the very first trial from Danganronpa 1. Which just goes to show that everyone really is a bunch of mindlessly nostalgic genwunners, because that was one of the weakest trials in the series!

Monokuma: “Ahh, a battle like this takes me back. After all, hope and despair are natural enemies.”

Are you sure you’re talking about hope and despair, Monokuma, or do you just mean good and evil as well?

Monokuma: “Yes, this truly is a magnificent theme. Puhuhu… Only esteemed works of fiction have themes as magnificent as this.”

Geez, you were obvious about this being made for entertainment, but you were never this obvious about it being fiction, not even when Kokichi was still alive to pick up on your hints.

(Also, turns out truth versus lies is a much more fun theme than hope versus despair, so, eh, not really, Monokuma.)

Maki: “Anyway… where’s Kokichi? Why isn’t he here?”

Maki was probably still hoping she could just murder him to death here with her knife right away to avoid having to go through with the sacrifice. Even though she was most likely also imagining he’d be expecting that and would have some way to protect himself.

Keebo: “Kokichi can twist and violate the rules all he likes, but we’ll never give up!” […]

Monokuma: “Oh, for the love of… No rules have been violated on my watch, y’know?”

Yeah, definitely none, not even in the first trial. And you sure won’t violate any this trial either, will you?

Shuichi: (Was the one who died… Kaito or Kokichi? I can’t say for certain… but I still believe. …Kaito wouldn’t die so easily. I… don’t know why I believe that so strongly…)

Because Kaito is stubborn and indomitable and ridiculous, and it doesn’t seem right that he could just up and die such a sudden, meaningless death, does it? It wouldn’t be a good story befitting of a hero like him at all to just die like that, right?

Shuichi: (But I will fight to prove it.)

He’s not here to survive, or to find the truth, like in every previous class trial. He just wants to prove his best friend is still alive.

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