#he stole from iron man even though he doesn’t exist in this universe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imjeralee · 4 years ago

Text

Comfort in Despair: Chapter 25 - The Exorcist

Leon x F!Reader

Disclaimer: Do not own Pokemon

Summary:

Galar is rich in folklore and tales of the supernatural.

As a Pokemon Researcher who specialises in ghost types, this is a great opportunity for you to investigate and learn more about the paranormal.

Along the way, you meet Leon (in the most awkward way possible) who becomes embroiled in your adventures.

^ Basically this story is about ghosts :/

NOTE: ok so Genshin Impact has consumed my soul and I updated this on Tumblr a bit late sorry!!! There’s several warnings here to be shared with you all:

WARNING 1 - this chapter contains a real exorcism prayer and you should not read this prayer out loud unless you are a catholic priest.

WARNING 2 - I've never used an ouija board and I don’t plan to. You’re welcome to share with me your ouija board stories if you have tried one before but I myself don't know if they're just board games or really a gateway to let things in. Anyway people say exercise with caution so please do so should you ever decide to use one for whatever reason.

WARNING 3 - there is mention of blood, I toned down the exorcism here

Rating: General/Teen

@marydragneell here is the latest update

The Exorcist

…

[Legend of the Void:

(Ezra's version, which introduces concepts such as the merging of two universes to explain the origins of man + pokemon subservience to humans)

Before the concept of time existed, before anything existed, there was Something, and you may as well say this 'something' was a god, a divine being or interdimensional entity, and this entity created a Universe under the right circumstances and conditions, and he would proceed to create humans.

And for a while, the Creator of Man was happy until he saw the evil ways of humanity and he saw this evil run rampant in his world. Regretful and upset, he decided to destroy the very thing he created with a flood.

However, the Creator of Man didn't choose to restore this world. After he destroyed it, he left and found another Universe - a Universe that was similar to his own, except it was inhabited by strange creatures which we know as pokemon. Now they already had a creator, and their creator was called Arceus, who emerged from a void after our Creator did. And our Creator saw that this Universe was just as peaceful and beautiful as his previous one.

He decided to give his creations a second chance so he made humans all over again and placed them in this world. But mankind are a destructive species, the human heart is filled with evil intention and it always will be, and the humans began creating devices to enslave the pokemon race in order to utilise them as tools.

My notes: According to the Church of Circhester, this 'version' is completely unorthodox. It is 'baseless fabrication and blasphemy' and Ezra was condemned as a misanthrope.

Sometimes I wonder where Ezra gets his theories from because this is highly controversial. It's fascinating that to this day and age, scientists are actually still trying to figure who caught the first pokemon, what was the first pokemon caught, and why (ie, how did early humans gain this knowledge, who told them and/or did anyone tell them, what prompted them to capture a pokemon?), and how did they manage to do so in the first place.

Could the discovery of catching pokemon be similar to coincidences that happened throughout history, such as how cavemen discovered fire, how Newton discovered gravity?

(edit: there is a myth that Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. For his transgression, he was to undergo eternal torment as punishment - ie, bound to a rock and have his liver eaten out everyday, only for it to re-grow hence an ongoing cycle. He was freed by the hero, Heracles).

Interestingly enough, flood myth also exists in many cultures albeit with different variations (pls refer to: The Epic of Gilgamesh).

Also, I'm pretty sure Team Plasma advocated that pokemon were oppressed and should be liberated from their trainers but then again they were also being led by a psychopath with his own selfish motives.]

…

A few years ago.

The weather is thunder and lightning, coupled with intense spitting rain.

And he was sure he locked the cemetery gates before he left but now they were hanging loosely from the chain.

Ezra grumbles to himself, eyes narrowing.

It can only mean one thing: an intruder.

The rickety gates squeal on their old hinges as he pushes them open and steps inside. His heavy footsteps plod through the old, withered path of Greyson’s cemetery as he heads for the mausoleum. That’s usually where they are.

Absol trots beside him, her jaws clamped over the tarnished iron handle of an old lantern; she keeps it dangling in front of her, lighting up the path though it’s not much use to him. He lives in a world of darkness, and he's used to it.

It should have been a normal night, which would have been nice because he wanted some peace and quiet for a change considering how busy he had been for the past few weeks. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and he wanted to enjoy a pack of beer and cigarettes.

Not tonight, it seems.

He will tell those pesky young lads to go play elsewhere.

But wait, it’s something else.

Absol has been somewhat agitated the moment they approach the cemetery, but now she cannot stop growling.

“What is it?” he asks, but it doesn’t take too long to figure out what it is. “Goddamnit.”

This is just what he needed.

He delves a hand into his pocket and whips out a thin strip of paper covered in sprawling red symbols. Bringing it to his lips, he murmurs a quick enchantment under his breath before it bursts into flames and a smoky smell permeates the air. A bright, glowing light illuminates the symbols and he promptly tosses it high into the air.

Despite the wind, it flutters limply in the breeze for a second and then the impossible happens; the glowing symbols daintily lift themselves off the surface and float in the sky. They thoroughly increase in size, the symbols imprinting the air before they vanish into wisps of smoke.

The talisman proceeds to burn up and all that is left is a crinkly ball of fire which bursts into long and thin lines of flames that zips effortlessly through the air and stretches all the way past the graveyard’s borders.

“That should do it,” Ezra murmurs before he rubs at his aching hip. “C'mon, let’s go.”

He wanders further into the graveyard with his pokemon, pondering to himself what he might find though he is aware the answer to that is essentially nothing remotely good and along the way, a few ghost pokemon emerge from the tombstones and watch them worriedly.

They’re aware of the disturbance tonight but can do little to stop it, unfortunately as it requires human intervention, and is literally out of this world.

A few Haunters point him to the right direction but he doesn’t need their help because he can sense where this unwanted and hauntingly powerful presence is. He may have lived in darkness for a long time but he can see it as clear as day: a twisting, coiling mass filled with nothing but malice.

It is also not alone for Ezra can also sense another human being; a warm and kind but very tired and exasperated soul, about to be devoured.

He hopes they’re not too late and Absol leaves his side and he can hear her padded paws bounding away from him against the pebbly path; she leaps off the ground and snaps her jaws at this person.

There is a brief howl and something weighty slams over the ground.

Absol has subdued the culprit.

Ezra arrives and his hip is still acting up but nevertheless, he limps over and he sees this little warm and pure soul squirming helplessly on the ground as it is slowly being enveloped by the dark presence.

Whoever it is, they cannot even speak, reduced to a gurgling, rasping mess.

He uses his foot to nudge at this poor, unfortunate individual that is writhing helplessly on the floor of his cemetery though he knocks over this thick, wooden plate of some sorts at the same time and there is the sound of a glass rolling.

An Ouija board.

“Help!” a girl screams. “Oh god! Help- aaaghh!”

Morbid wailing follows as she’s forced to contort under the demon’s influence and a few bones snap and she begins crying but the sound lodges in her mouth and she emits a guttural rasp, her throat rattling violently.

The old ex-priest grabs a talisman from his pocket and smacks it over her forehead which ceases her violent fits for temporary.

“Hey, kid. Sit tight, I’m gonna get it out, you hear me?”

“O-okay!” she squeaks, and though he’s surprised she can even respond, she returns to the incoherent snarling and growling. As he tries to grab her, she makes several routine attempts to bite him.

Avoiding her as much as possible, Ezra bends down and lifts her into his arms with the help of his pokemon who helps nudge her into his arms.

“Steady now,” he says as he carries her into the mausoleum, which isn’t too far ahead.

He hears her croaking and choking, fighting the entity within as he settles her into the huge stone chair inside. Absol closes the door behind them and then trots over with a thick coil of rope which she collects from one corner.

He thanks her and begins strapping the girl carefully and securely into the chair with rope, keeping her wrists and ankles bound as she kicks and flails, hurling curses and obscenities at him, screaming and roaring and shrieking in a feral manner.

His pokemon stands watch as the girl starts slamming the back of her head against the stone, growling raucously.

But Ezra remains calm and lights various rows of candles that line the walls, pulls his silver cross out and clutches it tightly in his old hands and kneels in front of the altar, his weak knees hitting the dirt. Since his vision failed him, he hasn’t moved the statue or the water trough anywhere else.

He chants a prayer under his breath and dips his fingers into the water. God bless him. God save her soul. He does the sign of the cross and then heads over to the duo and blesses his pokemon as well, which she appreciates by purring affectionately.

Grabbing an old brush, he dips it into a bucket of old red paint in the corner and begins painting a sigil on the ground as quickly as he can around the chair.

Once he’s finished, he dumps the brush to the side. He moved to stand in front of the girl who has ceased her wild shrieking in favour of hissing spitefully at him.

“Be silent,” Ezra commands in a loud, booming voice, before he tosses some of the water over her.

And so it begins.

“In nómine Pátris, et Fílii, et Spirítus Sancti. Amen,” Ezra chants with his silver cross in hand which he proceeds to thrust in front of her face, “Exsúrgat Deus et dissipéntur inimíci ejus: et fúgiant qui odérunt eum a fácie ejus. Sicut déficit fumus defíciant; sicut fluit cera a fácie ígnis.”

Outside, the muffled clap of overhead thunder can be heard, the wind howling.

He continues, “Sic péreant peccatóres a fácie Dei-“

“If you think that will stop me, you’re wrong," says a deep voice.

Dabbing his entire hand into the trough of holy water, Ezra steps forward and smears it all over her forehead before he presses the rest of his palm firmly into her face. The demon shrieks and withdraws.

That’s what you get for interrupting me, Ezra thinks to himself but ultimately cannot say aloud: he must continue the exorcism prayer regardless of how long it could take.

“Júdica Dómine nocéntes me; expúgna impugnántes me. Confundántur et revereántur quaeréntes ánimam meam,” he murmurs, “Avertántur retrórsum et confundántur, cogitántes míhi mála. Fíant táamquam púlvis ante fáciem vénti: et Ángelus Dómini coárctans eos.”

The door suddenly flies open and the brutal, icy wind swirls inside, wiping out all the flames of the candles in a split second. Absol glances around in high alert but Ezra remains still. Raindrops batter his back as the door slams in its frame repeatedly.

The walls tremble from several wicked blows as though an unseen assailant is rampaging outside, circling the mausoleum whilst repeatedly slamming a hammer against the stone, yet Ezra remains calm.

“Fiat via illórum ténebrae, et lúbricum: et Ángelus Dómini pérsequens eos. Quóniam grátis abscondérunt míhi intéritum láquei sui: supervácue exprobravérunt ánimam meam.”

Realising the priest is undeterred, the monster unleashes an unearthly howl and a glass shatters somewhere. It’s bellows and roars reverberate throughout the walls and resonates thoroughly in Ezra’s ears.

Since he lost his sight, his hearing amplified; the shrill sounds of nails scraping against the stone and the chaotic tugging of the rope rises to inescapable volumes as the demon furiously struggles against its bonds.

Ezra continues his prayer, “Véniat illi láqueus quem ignórat; et cáptio quam abscóndit, aprehéndat eum: et in láqueum cádat in ipsum-”

He briefly picks up the coppery stench of blood and very soon, a wet substance splatters over his lips and cheeks and eyelids. It laughs, and another splodge hits the side of his ear.

Raising a hand, Ezra wordlessly smothers the blood away with the back of his hand. “Ánima áutem mea exsultábit in Dómino: et delectábitur super salutári suo. Glória Pátri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto.”

Then he presses his cross over the demon’s head, forcing it to shriek uncontrollably. It kicks and screams, quaking fiercely against the restraints. He applies more pressure, the cross is warm under his grip and steadily growing hotter.

To his utmost surprise, the little warm light he had seen earlier is beginning to return and it is fighting back, growing larger and larger as the seconds pass.

“Come on, kid, I know you’re still in there. You can do it!” he yells.

She keeps growling and snarling, foaming at the mouth. Gnashing her teeth repeatedly, she emits a deranged howl, struggling viciously to reach him.

“Come on! Fight it!”

The walls of the mausoleum quake violently, the ground underneath his very feet trembles. Absol starts growling, leaping around in alarm.

Ezra listens to the excruciating sound of cords straining and eventually coming undone; her fist shoots out and her fingers, sharp as claws, stabs into his gut, and twists.

He grunts with pain, but does not let go.

Easing his other hand into his pockets, he pulls out another talisman; it glows faintly from the enchantment which he promptly slaps over her forehead and with a powerful bark of “Relinquo!", a dark shadow shoots out from her body and into the air with a bloodcurdling shriek.

Freed at last, the girl keels over, her head dipped low, blood gushing from her mouth.

And Ezra stumbles backwards, lifting a bleeding hand off his stomach. He sighs heavily before he feels his head growing light, his body weightless, and he promptly collapses over the floor.

…

When he wakes up, he can feel warmth all around.

He is lying on something soft.

A bed.

He has not slept in a bed for a long time.

It smells like lavender and jasmine.

He despises it.

"You're awake!" exclaims a voice.

It's the girl from the cemetery.

Purring sounds can be heard near his bed and he reaches over; a fluffy head affectionately plops itself under his palm and rubs itself against his callused skin. Ezra grunts under his breath, groaning as he shuffles around under the blanket and attempts to reach for her, though his limbs are weary.

“Cassie,” he utters, and Absol climbs onto the bed, sprawling over him. He gently pats her head and strokes her snowy white fur.

The room is silent until he hears the legs of a chair screeching against the floor and the girl does her best to quietly leave the room. She returns in roughly half an hour however, after he’s had a check-up.

By then, he’s exhausted and wants to rest.

He hears the door squeaking open and she pokes her head in, then steps inside the room and closes the door behind her.

“What are you doing here?" he asks tiredly.

"I needed to see that you'd be okay," she says, "I thought you were dead. I'm…I’m really sorry."

"It'll take more than that to kill me."

"Thank you for saving my life."

"As long as I'm around, nothing's gonna happen to you, kid."

"Thank you, sir. Um...Can I ask you a question?"

"About what?"

"About the...demon.”

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything. I want to know if it was the one who took my sister and my father. And if it was, I want to know why it did it and I want to get them back."

“Listen, kid. Don't dabble in stuff you don't understand, especially this."

"I know and I'm so, so sorry. But…can you teach me?"

His unfazed expression doesn't change.

"Please teach me.”

He hears the chair legs squeaking again coupled with a lot of fumbling; she’s flat on the ground before him on her hands and knees. How troublesome, he thinks to himself with a sigh.

"You want to learn how to exorcise demons?" he grunts.

"Yes."

“You?”

“Yeah.”

Utterly astounded, he takes a while to reply and rubs the back of his neck. "Do you hear the kind of stuff that is coming out of your mouth right now?" he growls and she looks up, confused. "You're saying something along the lines of 'I want to destroy a creation of the universe'. Do you know how impossible and crazy that sounds? Do you?"

"A creation of the universe? Are you talking about Arceus? Why would Arceus create something like that…do you mean it’s an undiscovered pokemon of undiscovered type???”

“Hell no. Goddamnit, kid, I mean it came before Arceus.”

“What do you mean, ‘before Arceus’? Arceus came from an egg and before the egg, it was a void of nothingness-“

He sighs heavily. “There was something before Arceus, before the void. You always explain one event as being created by some earlier event, right? So before Arceus, there was some kind of infinite period where time did not exist but during this period, there was something there…do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“…Not really.”

“Exactly. You’re obviously still in shock and speaking nonsense. Go home, kid. Go back to your family.”

Yawning loudly, he pulls the blanket closer over his body and turns round in his warm and cosy bed, his back to her. He’s careful not to lie on his stomach though.

"But I'm serious," she says.

"So am I," he replies.

...

After he’s fully healed and discharged, he returns to the cemetery; the Corviknight taxi drops him off a few metres away and he taps his way across the Wild Area with Absol and his cane.

When he arrives, he realises the girl is also here.

At first, he ignored her and let her be. He did his daily caretaker duties, watering the plants, pulling weeds and sweeping the tombs.

He didn't know what she was doing here - she probably observed his daily regime - and one day she brought some cleaning supplies with her and began assisting him with the upkeep of the cemetery, especially with some of the heavy lifting.

Today, he’s forcibly awoken when he hears her sweeping the area around the mausoleum and shoving dust everywhere and he grumbles sourly under his breath. He had already told her a few times to go home but she keeps coming back. She keeps coming back to clean, to lurk around the graveyard, to help him.

“Stop that,” he snaps at her, “you’re disturbing them, and I already swept it yesterday.”

She stops dusting at some tombstones. “Sorry, I thought-”

Ezra grumbles, scrubbing at his mangy face with a dirty palm. Reaching for a beer by his calf, he grasps blindly for the can and lifts it to his mouth, downing a sip. “Get over here, kid.”

He hears her stepping towards him and he glances up, looking at this annoyingly bright light before him.

“You really wanna learn that badly, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No need to be so formal, my name is Ezra.” With a heavy sigh, he dusts himself down and stands up, using his cane to support himself. “And I am…or was, the pastor of the Church of Circhester. I was also a member of the International Association of Exorcists. Do you understand who and what you’re dealing with?”

“Yes, sir – I mean, Ezra.”

“Now, tell me who you are and why I should teach you.”

He hears this little gasp of awe before she tells him her predicament. She tells him her name, who she is, where she came from, how old she is.

She rambles at some point and he has to occasionally steer her towards the focal details and periodically, she’ll become flustered, especially when speaking about the night when she saw her father and sister devoured by a Dusknoir. Once she’s finished recounting her tale, he nods.

“It was a demon, right?” she says, though she sounds unsure.

“Probably. Didn't your family have any pokemon?"

"...Sableye and Haunter went missing, and Cutiefly and Sinistea were in PC boxes," she says, "Please teach me. I want to learn."

He studies her quietly, then holds his index finger up in the air. “Fine, but I must warn you: my teachings are difficult and I’ve had several idiots coming up to me just like how you did and they’ve all failed-”

“I'm not an idiot and I won’t fail you.”

“-Yeah, let’s see about that, kid.” Holding up two fingers now, “Second, if I’m to teach you, I want you to swear to me you will take no retribution against Dusknoir. I don’t mind if you want to research one or whatever, but do not take your grudge with the pokemon. It’s nothing to do with it.”

“I understand.”

He moves on to hold up three fingers. “Third, that being said, you cannot use what you learned to harm humans or pokemon in any way. You must use it for good. I can tell you have a gift and under my guidance and training, I believe you will reach your full potential.”

“Okay.”

“Four, I will teach you with the utmost effort and I also expect to receive full commitment from yourself. I will not make do with time-wasters or mediocrity. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“And lastly, promise me you will not in either way, attempt to summon entities for any reason. Do not use Ouija boards, do not dabble in sacrifice, do not try to open any portals. Hell, do not attempt any of those things.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“Now, some of my teachings are limited. I can teach you how to protect yourself and protect others. Are you happy with this, knowing that there are limitations as to what I can teach you?”

“Yes, I am.”

Ezra studies her again before he nods to himself.

He’s said quite a lot but he knows she understands. “Good,” he murmurs.

“So…when do we start?”

“We start now.”

He disappears inside the mausoleum and re-emerges with a dirty rucksack; he pulls out a tattered old journal along with an old, portable cassette player which he hands to her.

“Your first task is to read this and listen to the tapes. Learn the symbols, learn the prayers. Come back whenever you’re ready and show me what you got.”

“Got it.”

She comes back in five days, which was a lot earlier than he had expected considering his previous ‘disciples’ either came back in a week or two, and some barely returned in person, opting to hand his book and tape back by leaving it at the gates.

He hears her approaching and sits up whilst Absol sleeps in a corner, and she says, “I finished it.”

“What did you think?”

“It was interesting.“

“...You didn’t think it was disturbing?”

“No.”

There is a brief silence.

“Hm…not sure if that’s a good or bad thing,” he murmurs under his breath.

The tapes were full of recorded exorcisms, consisting of unearthly screaming, howling and shrieking courtesy of the victims.

He says, “Recite Saint Michael’s prayer to me.”

She does so, with almost near-perfect pronunciation.

Ezra listens intently and nods when she’s finished. “Not bad. Now let’s hear Signum Crucis.”

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancta-“

“Sancti,” he corrects her.

“Sancti,” she repeats.

“Not bad. Again.”

She recites the short prayer once more, this time with no errors.

“Gloria Patri,” he grunts out next, grabbing his beer and flipping the lid off.

And they continue going through some prayers until it’s almost sunset and she’s a little exhausted and he’s finished his pack of beer.

“You did well, kid. Come back tomorrow.”

“Really???”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you!!”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll be testing you on the symbols and their meanings. Then there’s a final test.”

“Okay!” she exclaims excitedly, and after exchanging some short words, she bids him farewell and he hears her leaving, her footsteps echoing loudly in the quiet graveyard.

The next day, she returns and passes the symbols assessment with flying colours as he had expected considering how quickly she’d picked up the Latin prayers.

And the next day after that, he teaches her how to use talismans.

As the weeks roll by, he continuously subjects her to tests on latin prayers and symbology. Then he teaches her some blood magic.

Soon, weeks turns to months, and she’s picked up a lot of his teachings in a short period of time, which impresses him greatly.

She begins to accompany him on exorcisms which undoubtedly at the beginning, does disturb her a little but the more she sat in and watched (and sometimes assisted with), the more she began to see such things as a normality and he also allows her to work on her own cases albeit under some guidance.

Before he knows it, he has transformed this little girl into an exorcist.

“Well done, kid. You’ve exceeded all my expectations. I’m proud of you," he says with a nod of his head.

She cheers, but then remembering her tutelage, she bows deeply with gratitude, eyes closed. “Thank you, Ezra. I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for you,” she replies, “what’s the final test?”

“Final test?”

“Yeah, you mentioned it a while ago.”

“….Hm, so I did,” he says, before he gets off the steps, dusting at his palms and weak knees. “Let me show you something. Come on, Absol.”

He motions her to follow him and he heads to two marked graves near a statue of a weeping angel which is covered in a sparse layer of moss.

She joins his side and she scans the names etched on the stone. One name in particular stands out. “Cassie??” she murmurs, before she casts a glance to the pokemon that stands by his side.

Absol looks up, and regards her with its steely blue eyes.

“My wife and daughter,” Ezra murmurs, his white gaze staring emptily into space. “This is a dark path. There will always be death. This is my final warning to you: if you choose to walk this path, be prepared to lose everything. Is this something you can do?”

There is a brief silence until she says, “Yes.”

Ezra hesitates; she observes him for any noticeable reaction but he is immobile, standing stiffly with his hands clasped together in front of him.

“...Very well," he utters. "Come with me.”

“Where to?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

He hasn’t left the cemetery other for reasons than to go to the soup kitchen or to buy his beer and cigarettes, so he asks her to call for a Corviknight taxi since he doesn’t have a Rotom phone.

When the taxi arrives, he asks the driver to take them to the Dusty Bowl and they’re dropped off at the outskirts.

“Why are we here?” she asks, but he ignores her and begins to head for the desolate path.

She trails after him and despite being blind, she’s stunned to see that he seems to be aware a great deal of where he’s going. A sandstorm begins to rage but Ezra is unaffected and continues to wander down the plains, using his cane to avoid any obstacles such as rocks, trees or tall grass. Whilst she tries to cover her eyes, blinking through sand and grit, she helps him along the way of course, but he doesn’t seem to require her assistance at all.

Occasionally, wild pokemon will peek at them from behind the dry and crusty grass but they don’t dare to approach.

She glances around with much wariness as he leads her further and further away from the winding path, the barren wastelands, the dead trees and soon, he has led her into oblivion.

The sandstorm worsens and as she looks left, right and up, she cannot see a single damn thing in front of her; if she did not keep her gaze pinned on the ghostly silhouette of her mentor tottering in front of her a short feet away, she was certain she would have lost her way.

“Ezra, be careful!” she yells above the loud winds and the whirling sands.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, though his voice is hard to hear.

Her nerves begins to eat at her and they’ve been walking for seems like an eternity and she isn’t even sure if they’re still in the Dusty Bowl or the gym challenger’s path anymore, perhaps they’ve moved onto the Giant’s Mirror or the Stony Wilderness, but the sandstorm is endless and she calls after him once more.

“Ezra, where are you taking me?”

“Keep moving, we’re almost there,” he grunts at her in response.

Her question is finally answered when he stops in his path and grows still, holding out his arm.

“Wait.”

She watches him, listening, but nothing happens.

“Okay, come over here.”

There is a bad feeling in her gut as she sidles up to him and to her utmost surprise, the sandstorm begins to subside, revealing a large cenote before them.

Her eyes widen.

He’s standing at the very edge, his foot shoving some rocks and dust into the large pit before them; if he had taken one step further, he would’ve fallen inside. She looks around in shock. The sandstorm had disappeared in a blink of an eye, instead it had been replaced with a lingering misty fog that surrounded them. She knew the Wild Area was erratic but this weather was abnormal to the extreme.

Her shocked gaze strays to the blind man. His glazed eyes are focused in front of him, oblivious to the deep.

“I want you to go in there,” he says.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes,” he mutters. “You can take the stairs.”

He nudges his head to the right where a spiralling ‘staircase’ consisting of huge, mismatched slabs of rocks sticking out from the walls of the pit appear to offer a way down inside.

“Do you wish to turn back?” he asks, sensing her hesitation.

“No.”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

She nods and steps towards the first rock, which is dusty and covered with yellowing grass, and she uses one foot to test out the footing, giving it a few stern prods with her toes. The rock seems stubborn enough and once she deems it safe, she makes her way down.

It’s steep and she carefully tackles each step one by one, having to hold onto some dry vines that dangle and stick out of the edges of the wall until she arrives at the bottom of the pit.

Looking up and around, the sky is painted a strange and ethereal purplish, blue glow… perhaps from the aurora borealis, though she’s never seen it warp into this sort of shade before. Usually it is a streak of colours in the night sky…neither a star can be seen in sight either.

She also realises the pit isn’t as deep as she thought. She’s fairly certain gym challengers would never find this place nor would anyone in the right mind would even want to go in here.

She steps closer towards the middle of the pit, her feet crunching under gravel and stones, and stares at the walls of the pit.

There is an entrance, resembling a zigzagged slit in the wall. It’s big enough for a lone individual to slip inside but that’s just about it. She cannot see what’s inside; it is far too dark.

“Is this a pokemon den?” she asks, gesturing to the entrance.

“No.”

Her mentor’s voice sounded very close; she promptly turns to see Ezra hobbling behind her. “That was quick.”

“Give me a second,” he mutters as he brushes past her and steps towards the large and gaping hole in the wall, stopping just a foot or so away. “Stay there and don’t move, don’t make a sound.”

She goes silent, and she did not dare to peel her eyes away from the cave entrance where a figure is emerging from within.

A withered-looking Lucario with a greying muzzle and dirty golden fur steps outside and into the pit, wielding a wooden staff that is as tall as itself. It's what trainers coin as a 'shiny' pokemon, and these pokemon are extremely rare, especially in the wild. Puzzled, she watches as the pokemon greets her mentor.

Ezra's mouth moves but she cannot hear what he’s saying.

Then he stops and Lucario nods, and the man and pokemon turn to glance at her direction.

She strains to hear what they could possibly be conversing yet there is nothing, not even a pokemon cry, not the slightest rustle of the wind. Nothing.

It is silent.

The silence is suffocating to say the least and eventually, Lucario nods his head after the prolonged period of stillness. The pokemon turns and returns into the cave, disappearing into the darkness.

Placing his cane on the ground in front of him, he balances his palms over the handle. “Lucario has granted you entry.”

“…What?” she asks, a little anxiously.

Inhaling silently, Ezra replies, “There are greater things in our universe, greater than you and me. Even greater than pokemon.”

“What’s going on? What is a Lucario doing all the way out here? Where’s his trainer?”

“He doesn’t have one. This is his home,” Ezra mutters. “Now listen carefully. This is Gossamer Cave. A relic can be found here. A long time ago, I used it to destroy a demon that terrorised my wife and child. However, it is a highly dangerous weapon and you have to be ready to wield it, to understand its power and origins. If this is something you want, then you must go inside and fetch it.”

There are questions buzzing aplenty in her mind. “What does it look like?”

“You’ll know when you see it. My question for you is, do you wish to wield such a weapon? You might not like what you find out.” He mutters, before stepping aside, allowing her entry regardless of her response, regardless if she goes in or not.

She bites down on her lip anxiously but he does not offer any further words, no further advice or warning. She ponders to herself briefly, thinking about her parents, her sister and how they are all depending on her. Although she is nervous, she must cast aside these sinking feelings and surpass. She must be brave when no-one else is, when no-one else can. She must do it for them.

"I'm going in," she declares, and she passes him and enters the cave without further ado.

It’s dark.

She's greeted with the hypnotic splash of water dripping from the ceiling onto the floor and the marauding howl of the wind from outside that echoes and slips through the cave.

Lucario sits on a large rock to the left with the wooden staff balanced over its paws. It’s eyes are closed, deep in meditation. As she passes by, it does not acknowledge her presence.

Expecting Zubats or some other types of cave-dwelling pokemon, she’s stunned to see it is devoid of any other critter except from the aura pokemon.

A linear path lies ahead but she hits a dead-end.

Confused, she pats the wall in front of her, looking up and around. She checks for any cracks, any hidden passages. She checks every nook and cranny and leaves no stone upturned. She raps her knuckles over the walls, hoping for a hollow thud, a secret trap door perhaps?

There is nothing.

Disappointed and perplexed, she returns to the entrance.

“There’s nothing there," she says.

“I see. Then it’s not time yet. You still need more training, kid. You have a long way to go.” Ezra replies, unsurprised.

“I really don’t understand.”

“When you hear it, you will.”

“Hear what?”

“Tell me when you do, okay?”

Frustrated, she says, “Stop being so cryptic! What’s in the cave? What’s this relic?”

“You’ll find out when you’re ready. For now, forget what you saw and focus on your training. Focus on getting better, then you can come back.”

“Fine.”

Slipping his hands into the pockets of his withered coat, he begins to leave. She follows him with a sigh, mostly out of exasperation. Before she leaves however, she tosses a quick glance over her shoulder towards the abyss.

She was expecting to see something, maybe a shadow or a little flicker of light, maybe Lucario would come out again.

However, there is nothing.

...

Present.

You’ve grown quiet.

Leon watches as your brows scrunch with confusion, your expression souring. “What’s wrong?”

“Gossamer Cave,” you utter, before you grab his arm and exclaim loudly, “Gossamer Cave! That's it, Leon!"

Releasing him, you stand up, rush up the stairs and towards the bookshelves; he follows, watching you stop at a random shelf before you speedily skim through the books on the shelf, inspecting the titles quickly.

“Aha,” you murmur under your breath, pulling out a thick and burly red book from its place; it is an atlas of the Wild Area.

You beckon him over as you open the book, unfolding it to its full proportion over the floor. It’s not the most updated map but it’ll do for now.

Leon squats down beside you as you flip through the pages.

“Ezra took me to a place called Gossamer Cave ages ago. I can’t believe I forgot all about it. We took a Corviknight taxi, got off at the Dusty Bowl and we walked for a long time and there was a sandstorm, and then all of a sudden he stopped at a large pit. I’m supposed to tell Ezra when I start hearing things. He was so cryptic I didn’t understand what he meant back then but now I do. I can understand Gengar; I can hear what he says. That’s what Ezra meant. Leon, I’m ready.”

“Ready?” he murmurs, as you finally pinpoint the location on the map and begin scouring the page.

You nod. “I’m ready to face it -- whatever it was that took my family away. I can fight it now. I just need to find Gossamer Cave.”

Leon’s expression is a conflicted one. “When the officials mapped out the Wild Area for the gym challenge, they never found any place called Gossamer Cave.”

“It must be there, I saw it with my own eyes. It was a cenote, but there was this entrance that led to a cave and I went in. It was guarded by a Lucario, and a shiny one too,” you reply, “I need to find it. There’s something there, and it will help me.”

…

Meanwhile, in Greyson’s cemetery, Absol has been biting and tugging at his coat all night, in a vain effort to force him to get up and leave. She has sensed something. However, Ezra merely chills on the steps, drinking his beer and she gives up, having grown rather weary, and has settled to curl up next to him. It’s then his ears pick up the sounds of footsteps a distance away.

The footsteps stop; a lone individual stands a foot away from him.

“Hello, you must be the exorcist of Greyson’s cemetery,” says a distorted, muffled voice. "Remember me?"

The voice is unrecognisable. Ezra inhales deeply, scrunching the beer can under his fist. “…Something I can help you with?”

“Yes,” the voice leers. “You can die right here and now!”

A massive unseen force promptly smashes the steps of the mausoleum in half, sending stone and debris flying into the air; it stands, retracting its claws with a grin as the dust clears away, before peeking left and right.

Ezra has disappeared.

“Where are you,” it hisses with a chuckle as it lifts up rocks and debris, flinging them to the side and digging its claws into the earth, cackling with mirth, “Where are you, exorcist?? Come out, come out, wherever you are. I won't hurt you - much.”

A growl emits from behind and captures its attention; as it turns, it is swiftly knocked off its feet as a white and black blur slams into its body and sends it flying into a cluster of tombstones. Absol lands on her paws with a growl as Ezra appears from behind the fountain, unharmed.

“Good job, Absol,” he murmurs, his eyes narrowing at the entity that struggles to get up. “Percutiet.”

Sending a talisman at its direction, the little paper automatically attaches itself to the entity’s head and administers a painful shock. The entity roars with pain briefly before erupting into a fit of hoarse, mocking laughter.

“I know it’s you, Spiritomb,” Ezra says. "Use Slash.”

Absol’s attack connects with a loud thump and all goes still. Shortly, a harrowing shriek of pain shatters the silence. Ezra recalls the talisman; it disappears into thin air in little wisps and the man sprawled over the tombstones grunts and groans as he sits up, rubbing his injured chest in agony.

“Huh? What…? Where am I? What happened…? Um, what am I doing here…?” he mutters, disoriented.

...

#jeralee #fic #fanfic #reader #reader insert #leon x reader #thank you!#leon x you #leon #dande #pkmn #pokemon #pokemonsword #pokemonshield #pokemonswordandshield #pokemonshieldsword #pokemonshieldandsword #Comfort in Despair #archive of our own

8 notes · View notes

headfullofstories · 4 years ago

Text

Truly Monstrous Luck - part 1

I didn’t think my day could get any worse. I lost my job after I got evicted when my landlord thought my testosterone was fucking heroine, my wallet got stolen - thanks, New York - and that meant my bus card and my money, So I have to walk from Manhattan to my brother's house in The Bronx, in the rain, without an umbrella. I thought this was the worst my day could get. Boy, was I wrong.

I was on 1st Avenue heading towards the Willis Avenue bridge, when I heard footsteps behind me. I didn't think anything of it for the first few minutes - it's New York, a lot of people live here. But these footsteps sounded like someone was wearing tap shoes, crisp and loud and menacing. It made me nervous, sure, but I didn’t think they were dangerous. The only thing of any value I had on me was my phone, this shitty old Motorola Droid X I bought used when I was 13. Even if I did get mugged, I don't think anyone wants a 9 year old smartphone, so the worst that would happen is I would get a little roughed up. Big deal, I've dealt with worse.

But as I crossed 86th Street, the footsteps behind me sped up, and as I crossed in front of an alley I felt a pull from behind me. Then I started to really panic. A thousand horrific thoughts flashed through my head then as I was pulled into the dark alley, but none of them come close to what actually happened.

The person who had been following me was a guy who looked a little older than me, maybe 24. He wore a 3 piece suit with a golden tie and a pair of dress boots, and he held a solid black umbrella. He held me by the throat, pinned against the wall and out of sight of passers-by. I was shocked for a moment, unsure what happened - this guy was really strong. Inhumanly strong. After the shock settled a little, my mind was clouded with fear. Bad things can happen in dark alleyways, and I wasn't about to become another fucking statistic. I pulled at the man's hand, desperately trying to break free. But the man in the suit had an iron grip, keeping me firmly in place, several inches off of the ground. My fight or flight had already kicked in, and I was kicking at this man with all of the force I had, which was admittedly low since I had walked 15 blocks in the rain with a binder on, not a healthy combo. Combined with the pressure on my windpipe, I could barely breathe.

The man laughed as he held me there, weak and pathetic, fighting for dear life and on the verge of tears.

"It's worthless, little boy." He growled, and I saw now he had a pair of long white canines. "There's no escape now."

Oh, fuck no. No no no no, those things aren't real. Monsters don't exist. they shouldn't, at least…

"W-what do you want?" I wheezed, tears pricking at my eyes. I started feeling an overwhelming sense of dread.

"I might kill you. Drain your blood, leave you here for someone to find you." He starts, nodding his head from side to side as if weighing his options. "Or maybe I could turn you. Curse you with eternal life, give you the thirst for blood… which would you prefer?"

"I… I don't wanna die." I whimpered, not fully thinking what I was saying, tears streaming down my face.

"Unfortunately that's not an option, dollface." He smirked. "But I'll give you the next best thing." And with that, he plunged his fangs into my neck.

Up until this point, I had tried to convince myself that this dude was just some fucked up lunatic with coincidentally long teeth. But as soon as he bit me, there was no denying it. This asshole was a vampire, and I was fully about to die. Fuck, what am I gonna tell Justin? I guess nothing, he probably wouldn’t believe me anyways, if I even survive.

I thought that getting bit would hurt a lot more than it did, but it felt a lot like getting a shot - not painless, but unpleasant. I could feel the life being sucked out of me, and the longer it went on the more hazy my consciousness became. I fully lost consciousness after 10 seconds. The last thing I remember is his breath on my neck as my humanity melted away.

I wake up as I feel someone grabbing me around the torso. My vision is hazy and I feel hungry. My mind is hazy, I can’t manage to think of anything but death. I do my best to focus on what’s happening, who’s grabbing me, and slowly my vision clears and I can see that I’m in the arms of a hulking humanoid with green skin and an underbite with two giant protruding from its mouth. I start to panic all over again. What happened after I passed out? How long was I out? I start flailing frantically, trying to escape the clutches of this green-skinned monster. It notices me squirming, and holds me out at arms length by my underarms. Its silver eyes look me up and down, and as it seems to notice the fear in my eyes its own expression softens.

“Wh-who are you?” I manage to say as my mind fills with thoughts of escape, get away, kill whoever stops you and I hold back the urge to bite this thing. “What happened? Am I dead?”

Its eyes fill with a look of hurt and grief. “God, you’re so young. Fucking monsters, doing this to a kid…” Its - their? - voice is gruff, but more in a butch lesbian way than an MMA fighter way. Their face lightens a little, forcibly, eyes still full of grief. “Sorry, where are my manners? My name is Yvonne, I work with a group that’s supposed to stop shit like this from happening to kids like you. Fuck, these assholes get so damn confident on rainy days…"

"Why did you grab me?" I ask slowly, suppressing the overwhelming thoughts of death as much as I can. "Why didn't you just leave me there?"

They take a deep breath and go down to their knees and set me on the ground, still holding onto my sides, so we're eye to eye. "Fledglings like you are often overwhelmed by their desires. I can see the bloodlust in your eyes, kid, and you're doing a hell of a job suppressing them like this. But by the time the sun sets you will have drawn blood, and that has caused a lot of good kids a lot of grief the day after. The group I work for works to prevent things like this - vampirism and lycanthropy and the like - from being spread, but sometimes shit like his happens, someone gets infected, and we have a responsibility to contain those kids, give them resources for dealing with their passive urges, help them get their fix in a way that doesn't put anyone at risk."

"I am dead." I mutter, going limp in Yvonne's arms and start crying. "Fuck, the universe won't give me a break, will it?"

"I'm sorry, baby." Yvonne mutters, pulling me back towards their - her? - chest and holding me in a tight hug. "Shit, 10 minutes and I would've been there, 10 minutes and this wouldn't've happened to you."

"Wh-why do you care about me?" I whimper, curling up in her arms. "I… I'm just some stupid kid."

"Everyone deserves someone who looks out for them, baby." She sighs. "I wouldn't wish what happened to you on my worst enemies. This area is my responsibility, this happened on my streets, I need to make sure you don't think you're alone in this."

"Th-thank you." Is all I can manage, before the thoughts are back at full force and I clutch my head, keeping my head between my legs, my mouth away from Yvonne and my eyes away from any people. I hiss as the thoughts invade my mind like a plague. All I can think about is death, of blood, of killing everyone, of killing this woman who has just shown me overwhelming kindness despite never having met me before. I start crying even harder, trying to make the thoughts go away, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I look up at Yvonne, a look of complete calm settled over her face - I wonder if she works in healthcare? - as she holds a small labelless juicebox.

"Cow blood." She says simply. "Helps with the urges."

I snatch the box out of her hand, poke the seal open with a fingernail, and chug the metallic liquid inside. It feels wrong, but my mind is so clouded with the need to drink that this seems like the greatest thing I've ever consumed. I feel a little dirty after doing it, but the thoughts are quieter.

“Can we leave?” I ask hesitantly. “I want to learn how to deal with this. And I don’t want to be here anymore.”

She nods, and stands up. “We need to get to Belvedere Castle. Do you have a way of getting home from there?”

I shake my head. “My brother lives in Mott Haven… and someone stole my wallet, so my only way of getting there is walking. All I have is my Motorola Droid.”

She nods sympathetically. “Do you want to go to your brother’s house first?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do two subway rides in a row. Plus, I need to figure out… how to tell him.”

She nods again. “You got a name I can call you, baby?”

“Uh, V-Victor.” I respond shakily, everything that’s happened in the past half an hour has me reeling and stressed and convinced that I must’ve just been pushed into oncoming traffic and this is a comatose nightmare, that a monster lady didn’t just have to explain to me that I’m a fucking vampire now. Monsters aren't supposed to be real, they’re not supposed to be able to walk through Manhattan totally unnoticed.

I’m not supposed to be one.

"Well, Victor, you good to walk the mile down to the park?"

I nod. “I… I have a binder on though… I can’t walk very fast.”

She looks confused for a moment, then realization flashes across her face. “That's good to know. We can get you connected to other trans guys at headquarters.”

“Th-there are other guys like me?” I’ve never heard of a trans vampire before.

“Nothing says monsters can’t be queer.” She reasons. “My girlfriend is a lycanthrope.”

I nod, a sense of lingering awe hanging in my mind. There are other people like me. This isn’t as much of a death sentence as I thought it was. It’s just another half an hour of walking to get to Belvedere Castle.

The rain is coming down even harder now, the clouds dark with the threat of thunder. I smile a little at that - I've always loved the sound of thunder. Vampirism isn't gonna fuck that over for me. Nothing can fuck up the pure joy the sound of thunder or sight of lightning gives me.

We head out, and I realize now just how hard it still is to breathe. My throat is burning, my binder is crushingly tight, and on top of that my legs feel like jelly. I do my best to keep pace with Yvonne, which is difficult to do without letting her know anything is wrong.

We get to Park Avenue before I have to pause and catch my breath. I tap Yvonne's arm as I wheeze slightly, leaning on a nearby building as I take as deep of breaths as I can.

"You good, baby?" She asks gently, and I nod in between breaths.

"Fine, just… drained." I mutter, not telling her about how tight my binder is. If she knows she'll make me take it off and that'll be worse than any broken ribs I might get.

"Take your time." She reassures me, leaning against the building and crossing her arms.

I mutter an unintelligible thanks, and take a minute or so to let my heart rate slow down and my lungs return to functioning normally.

"Alright," I sigh as my breathing returns to normal, "I'm good. Let's keep going."

She nods a little hesitantly, but makes no comment. I let out a tiny sigh of relief as we continue towards the park.

Lightning fills the sky by the time we reach Belvedere Castle. I smile wide as the flashes dance through the clouds, high above the highrise buildings of Manhattan. The water in Turtle Pond is constantly shifting under the barrage of the rain, warping the reflections of the trees and the castle above. Yvonne walks around the outside of the building, periodically knocking on stones as she goes, then walking into the castle and disappears as she rounds a corner inside. I trail close behind her, glad to get fully out of the rain. As I turn the corner where Yvonne disappeared, I find myself inside of a real, proper castle, walls lined with sconces fitted with lightbulbs and a giant chandelier hangs from the high ceiling. I run up to follow right at Yvonne’s feet, as the dozen or so people milling about turn to look at us. I can feel the creeping eyes of all of the people around the hall watching me, and I grab onto Yvonne’s shirt like a little kid following his mom. I have never felt less my age than I do at this moment.

“You don’t have to be so nervous, Victor.” She mutters, “Most of them won’t bite you.”

I snort at that, but her comment does little to stop the anxiety welling in my chest. Fuck, today is utter bullshit. It’s not even noon.

Yvonne leads us down a series of hallways, and everywhere we turn there are more people turning to look at me as we pass. I bear my teeth at a few of them out of fear, before remembering that probably has very different implications now that I have horrible vampire fangs. I keep my head down after that. I can still feel all of the eyes on me, but I do my best to ignore it.

“Arthur!” Yvonne yells as she guides us into an office-type room. “We’ve got a new infected!”

A man walks out from a sideroom and glares over at her. “This fucking early?” He hisses, then he sees me poking around from behind Yvonne. His expression shifts from annoyed to sad, and lets out a deep sigh.

“Where?” He grumbles, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“86th and 1st.” She mutters. “He showed a surprising level of self-control right after he woke up. But… I still didn’t get there in time to stop it. The FUCKING train was late and now this kid’s dead.”

“It’s not as much of a death sentence as you think, Yvonne.” Arthur sighs, then looks at me. “What’s your name, son?”

“V-Victor, sir.” I respond quietly. This man is tall, maybe 6’2”, with sharp facial features. His cheekbones are high, and his nose is a little crooked, and his skin is deathly pale. He’s wearing a black leather jacket and a Queen shirt, and he looks like hasn’t slept in a while.

“Well, Victor, I’ve been living like this for 50 years, and I’m perfectly fine… as long as I remember to eat…” he looks at me a little closer, squinting his eyes. “How old are you, kid?”

“Um… I’m twenty…” I squeak, getting a little bit of sensory overload at this point. I pop my knuckles to try and ground myself a little. My binder suddenly feels a lot tighter again.

“Jesus fuckin christ…” he groans, resting his face in his hand. “those bastards love to turn em young, huh?”

I nod a little, then things start to go out of focus. The room is spinning, my vision blacks out, and before I know it I’m on the ground. Fuck this spandex deathtrap.

#original story #spooky monsters n shit #Sad boy has bad luck #please bind safely

4 notes · View notes

khtrinityftw · 5 years ago

Text

Part 8: The Impotence of Xehanort

Ironically, perhaps the worst part of the whole Xehanort Saga turned out to be Xehanort himself. He was way too overutilized by Nomura, and the character was completely destroyed as a result.

Xehanort was introduced in Kingdom Hearts as Ansem, the scientist king of Radiant Garden, whose research into the darkness of peoples' hearts corrupted him and ultimately turned him into the Heartless known as Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, and a Nobody known as Xemnas, the Superior of the In-Between. But in Kingdom Hearts II, it was retconned that he wasn't Ansem at all, but Xehanort, Ansem's top apprentice who stole his identity, with the real Ansem the Wise resurfacing under the name of DiZ.

This was a typical Nomura twist that was done solely to surprise people, and while some give it flak to this very day, I actually think it works really well. Mainly because it doesn't actually change that much about the character: he's still a scientist who lived in Radiant Garden castle and undertook research into darkness that corrupted him and turned him into a Heartless and a Nobody, he still wrote those reports we read in the original game and he still did all of those things we heard and saw him do. Really, the only differences the retcon brought are that his name isn't Ansem and that he's not a king. And those changes are a small price to pay for a much deeper insight into him than the original game ever provided, and a fascinating new character in Ansem the Wise, voiced by Sir Christopher fucking Lee himself. Circling back to Darth Vader, imagine if it was never retconned that he was Luke's father and they just stuck with the story that he killed Luke's father? We'd miss out on one of cinema's most iconic twists and all the rich story potential for the character that twist provided.

Nomura, however, completely failed to take advantage of the rich story potential offered by the character of Xehanort that had been created. After deciding that the Xehanort we knew was a freakish amnesiac hybrid of the Keyblade warriors Terra and Master Xehanort, upon which said character was officially redubbed Terra-Xehanort, Nomura decided to exclusively focus on Master Xehanort as a character and as the series' Big Bad.

But there isn't anything interesting about Master Xehanort. He was just a rip-off of Star Wars' Palpatine who was given Riku's original backstory and motivations and whose plan didn't even make a whole lot of sense. Master Xehanort is only interesting in the context of helping to create Terra-Xehanort, and yet Nomura just kept adding and adding onto him, with each addition only making the character worse and insulting the legacy of the one he had before.

He had Master Xehanort resurrected after the defeat of Ansem and Xemnas...somehow, even though Ansem and Xemnas were Terra-Xehanort's Heartless and Nobody, not his. And he revealed that he masterminded a convoluted plan where Terra-Xehanort turned into Ansem so that he could follow the ludicrous rules of time travel and go to the past to recruit Master Xehanort's teenage self to the cause of evil. When Ansem got back to the present, he was to capture the Seven Princesses of Heart while Xemnas completed his Kingdom Hearts in order to put Xehanort's heart inside the rest of Organization XIII, because it's now revealed that when 7 hearts of light and 13 hearts of darkness clash, the X-Blade is "properly" forged. And even though Ansem and Xemnas were defeated, Young Xehanort used time travel to recruit back-ups for the 13 hearts of darkness anyway, including Ansem and Xemnas themselves, so the heroes are boxed into a corner and everything went according to Xehanort's plan.

The most apparent problem with this story, beyond what an absolute clusterfuck it is, is that Ansem and Xemnas' plans were not written as part of Master Xehanort's plan back in the KH Trinity, and this attempt at rewriting them as such rings false as a result. If Terra-Xehanort became Ansem in order to travel back in time, why write otherwise in his reports? If Ansem just needed to capture the Princesses, why did he leave them behind once they'd unlocked the way to the Heart of All Worlds? Why would he even want to absorb the Heart of All Worlds to begin with? And why did Xemnas carry on with his plan to complete and absorb the Heart of All Men even after the death of both Ansem and many of what were supposed to be the 13 vessels for Xehanort's heart? It makes no fucking sense, because Ansem and Xemnas' plans and motivations were written as their own, not Master Xehanort's.

The next problem is that if you do decide to swallow this bullshit, then what was even the point of what was accomplished in the KH Trinity, or any previous game like BBS for that matter? Everything went according to Master Xehanort's plan; his defeat in BBS, Ansem's in KH and Xemnas' in KH2 only ensured this outcome, everything that the heroes - and by extension, you as a player - did only helped him. Master Xehanort has become one of the biggest villainous Mary Sues in history: there's nothing that can realistically stop him because he's so omnipotent in his planning and is increasingly overpowered; Kingdom Hearts III even claims that he is now "the most powerful Keyblade Master of all", which makes one question why exactly he ever needed to take over Terra's body to begin with beyond the time travel-related excuse of "it's been etched" (the fuck does that even mean!?) It all seems like a cheap tactic to make KH3 the end-all, be-all, and all that does is increase disappointment when it inevitably can't meet those lofty expectations.

But the worst problem here is that for all of the convoluted detail given to his planning, we still know next to nothing about who Xehanort IS as a character. It's impossible when every game keeps adding new and usually contradictory details to his backstory, personality and motivations. Ansem and Xemnas, the two halves of Terra-Xehanort in the KH Trinity, were really pretty vague in the specifics of how their plans operated, but that didn't matter because we understood who they were and where they were coming from as characters. Ansem was an arrogant scientist who justified his god complex with the results of his research that he believed proved him to be in the right for what he aimed to accomplish. Xemnas was an empty husk of a man who justified his god complex as a means to justify his miserable non-existence. And both of them shared the root cause of Terra-Xehanort's own personal insecurity, the fear that unless he does what he does then he'll be just a tiny speck in a vast universe who will never escape from the shadow of his esteemed mentor whose name he stole for himself.

Who exactly is the Xehanort that we have now? Does he want an equal balance of light and dark in the world? Does he want darkness to reign forever? Does he not care what the outcome of the world is and just wants scientific answers? Does he want to rule the world with all of its darkness so that all of its light is protected from the darkness of "the weak"? Does he even want what he thinks he wants or is Luxu and/or the Master of Masters controlling him? Is he fucking possessed? Is he just fucking insane!? The games have presented a case for any one of these options to be true, but it's impossible to peg down which one is. We also don’t know if he’s meant to be a misguided Anti-Villain or a Complete Monster, or what his backstory is when the details on that keep on changing with each game. Nomura clearly has not thought this character through at all.

And that's especially ironic because Nomura has always held a disturbing identification with Xehanort. Even back in the original game, despite its actual writers clearly portraying Ansem as a fool blinded by his own hubris, Nomura thought he was really profound and accurate. It was the same with Xemnas, despite Kazushige Nojima having him outright called a fool within the script. And with Master Xehanort, Nomura took his favoritism to the next level, turning the entire Kingdom Hearts series up to Kingdom Hearts III into a saga based around him. He may have begun by claiming the Dark Seeker Saga was about Sora saving everyone from Xehanort, but he quickly reversed this and made it about Xehanort and his grand plan...all while never coherently defining who the hell Xehanort even is.

I guess that's the ultimate thing Nomura has in common with him: they're both confusing bastards who make everyone around them miserable and ruin perfectly good stories.

#Plinkett-Style #Anti-Series Beyond #Anti-Nomura

12 notes · View notes

sinsbymanka · 5 years ago

Text

Update: Girl with the Arrow Tattoo Chapter 35!

Maria Cadash finds both a home and a title. She’s not a fan of the latter. Varric deals with his actions and their consequences.

Full story at AO3!

Maria stared, breathless, across the stone bridge her hand conjured out of nowhere. The fortress bled into existence, made of nothing but snow and clouds. Glittering magic pulled walls from both mountain and thin air. The stone rearranged itself with a laughing song nobody else but her seemed able to hear.

Well, Nanna always said the stone sang to the dwarves if they listened. Maria never believed her, but now…

As she watched, the great gate at the other side of the bridge rose, iron chains clanking and echoing as it lifted slowly. It seemed like a warm, gentle invitation to come inside. To stay. To rest. She could almost feel curled fingers reaching out to her.

“Great.” Varric muttered under his breath. “Haunted castle in the middle of nowhere. We’re going in there, aren’t we? Fantastic.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Varric?” She asked, daring a smile at him. It felt like the first time she’d smiled in days. A weight lifted from her chest, leaving her lightheaded and almost giddy. She took one trembling, hopeful step onto the bridge, swirling her still bare fingers over the stone walls. She had to be imagining it, but it seemed to greet her with the same joyful anticipation she felt, vibrating under her fingers like a cat who finally found someone to feed it.

“In Kirkwall. With my common sense and good winter coat.” Varric surely meant to sound more grumpy, but he barely contained his own smile in return. It warmed her from the inside out like a cup of coffee. Made her think of his arms holding her, his voice conjuring stories out of thin air.

She tucked that smile away inside her and tried to ignore the greedy clamoring inside her for more.

“There is magic here.” Cassandra’s lanky form melded to Maria’s side, staring up at the glimmering towers in the sun. “More magic than I have ever felt in one place. A building such as this…”

“It reminds me of the Vyrantium Enchanter’s University.” Dorian, at least, seemed just as eager as she was to explore. “The place had seen so much magic, sometimes it did rather odd things. I knew a Magister who swore up and down she once got lost in the cellar for six months because the hallways kept changing.”

“Preposterous.” Vivienne sniffed from beside him. “We would never let our circles become so unruly here.”

“She wants to meet you.” Cole’s slender, bare fingers traced the stone near Maria’s with a tentative, small smile. “She missed the sun. It’s been so long.”

“She?” Maria questioned, flipping her eyes up to Cole’s. His were nearly hidden under his jagged blonde hair, but warmth danced within them and he smiled sweetly.

“Skyhold.” He answered. “She was lost, like you.”

The wind kicked up and stole bits of her hair from the bun she’d knotted it in. She swore she heard something like a giggle hidden within it, vanishing quickly across the bridge, shaking the leaves from the trees outside the walls.

That left nothing to do but follow the invisible yearning she’d been using as a compass since Solas told her to strike out north. She let her fingers trace the stones, holding her breath as she strode forward.

Hello, she thought silently. Hello, I’m here. I’m listening.

She felt silly for a moment and silently hoped the blush on her face could be taken for nothing but the cold. Then the wind kissed her cheeks again, a touch as simple and uncomplicated as Bea’s lips on her skin.

She reminded herself, more sternly, it was her imagination run amok. It had to be. But the stone seemed to tremble under her fingers with the same joyful greeting. Maria thought she could almost hear it.

Hello. Welcome home.

They stepped under the ancient gate and Maria’s eyes landed on the first tree rising just inside it, leaves still unfurling, ripples of magic lacing the air as flowers became fruit, reddened before her very eyes, growing full and heavy in the branches.

Apples, just like the ones Nanna and Bea cut up to make into pies and dumplings. A quick, hard pang of hunger laced her, mouth watering. Protein bars were fine, she guessed, if the other option was starving, but these…

They were her favorite. She had no idea how Vivienne could waltz right underneath them without even looking up.

One of them fell with a gentle plop, rolling on the cobblestones directly to her feet like an offering. Maria crouched, cautiously picking it up and turning the bright red flesh in her hands. She could smell it, the bruised flesh releasing a sweet, tart smell.

“Do not eat that.” Cassandra directed immediately. Maria frowned and waved the enticing fruit under the human’s nose as she straightened.

“Seeker, it’s an apple. It smells wonderful.”

“There’s a fairy story that starts this way.” Dorian remarked idyly. “Enchanted fruit. Endless sleep. Who, pray tell, will play our prince charming if you poison yourself?”

“Do I get to choose?” Maria asked, only half paying attention, examining the apple more closely. It certainly looked fine. It looked like a normal apple she’d buy from the store.

“She made it for you because you like them.” Cole insisted quietly. “It’s good.”

“Oh, and who would you choose?” Dorian asked, the words loaded with hidden meaning. Maria very pointedly didn’t look away from the apple in her hands, the skin so shiny she could almost see herself reflected in it.

“You, of course.” She answered with feigned nonchalance. Dorian huffed, pleased in spite of himself. It wasn’t the truth, though, and she feared the witch knew it. If Maria got to choose who’d be kissing her… well, the man who slept chastely beside her to warm her frozen, battered body certainly deserved a reward. Varric Tethras, for all his complaining, had been a solid rock since they’d started moving north. Never far from her side, always easily located in a crowd. They were two moons spinning around each other, caught in their own gravity.

What was it he said? I’m sick of near misses? Maybe he’d gotten it right. Maybe she… maybe she’d been incorrect. If he wanted her, if he really wanted…

“Well, I am the obvious… fasta vass!” As he spoke, Maria brought the fruit to her lips and bit into it thoughtfully. Flavor exploded on her tongue, enough to make her moan in sweet, satisfaction. It was by far the best damn apple she’d ever had, made all the sweeter by her diet of cardboard-like rations for the last three days. Juice dribbled down her chin and she hurried to wipe it away, meeting Dorian and Cassandra’s horrified expressions with a wicked, mischievous grin while she chewed and swallowed. She held the bitten fruit up to them. “Just an apple.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes skyward with a blatant noise of disapproval.

“If you die, it is completely your fault and I want you to know I will undoubtedly be here saying I told you so.” Dorian crossed his arms and glared down at her, but she could see his lips twitching under his mustache. “Survives time travel, a dragon, an avalanche, dies because she ate a blighted apple.”

“Would you like one?” She asked sweetly, fluttering her lashes.

“If you are not dead in thirty minutes, perhaps.” Dorian shook his head and strode off after Vivienne, peering around with a scholar’s delighted gaze.

She laughed and brought the apple back to her lips, tearing off another chunk of the sweet, white flesh and closing her eyes. It tasted like summer, like innocence, warmth, and safety. It tasted like Nanna’s kitchen and home.

She opened them again and found that Cassandra too had moved past her into the massive courtyard. Instead of witch or Seeker at her elbow, she was looking into the darkened amber eyes of an author fixed on her lips like he was taking notes.

She chewed the apple slowly and held the fruit out to Varric instead with an arched eyebrow. He cleared his throat and shook his head, pulled a smirk back to his face. “Sparkler’s right. If you’re still alive in an hour, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Kind of you all to let me be the test case.” Maria chirped, content enough with the situation. If she died now, at least, it would be with real food in her stomach.

“Hey, you’re the one who couldn’t wait.” Varric pointed out, letting his eyes roam the walls around them. He didn’t leave her side, even as Cassandra, Dorian, and Vivienne vanished further into the great space, examining what looked to be some sort of stable house.

Varric ripped his eyes from the walls and back to her, his smile broadening as he caught her examining him. “See something you like, Princess?” He teased smoothly.

He wanted her body, that much was obvious, but if that was it… if that was all, why did he stay here beside her? Why didn’t he stay back with the others where he wouldn’t have to plunge through snow up to both their asses?

He wants more, a younger, softer part of her supplied. He cares about you.

No he doesn’t, a harsher voice scolded. He pities you. He’s just here for a story.

“Trying to decide if I can outrun you when the haunted castle decides it doesn’t like us poking it.” Maria reasoned lightly. “I like my odds, frankly.”

Solas chuckled from behind them, but it was Cole that broke in, concerned. “No! She’s happy we’re here.”

Varric frowned. “You know, for a haunted castle in the middle of nowhere, this kind of reminds me of that first Swords and Shields book. The stable right there could be a dead ringer for the one I described in the city keep.”

He was right. She blinked, taken aback, squinting at it more closely while she chewed another bite of apple.

“If Miss Cadash read your book, perhaps the magic in this place is rearranging itself to show her what she wishes.” Solas placed his own palm on the apple tree, looking up into its branches sadly. “This is an old place. It has missed the footsteps of people, their laughter as they lived their lives.”

“I’m sorry.” Maria nearly choked on the mouthful of apple she was chewing. “You’re saying I made this.”

“No. She did. For you.” Cole stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“This place has a mind of its own, Miss Cadash. You are the one who awakened it, it is you it wishes to please. Whether it is pulling Varric’s… literature as an inspiration to do so, however, I cannot say for sure.” Solas wrinkled his nose when he said the word literature. It was a testament, she thought, to how shocked both her and Varric were that neither of them objected.

“How?” Maria asked incredulously.

“For Andraste’s sake, why?” Varric asked instead, abjectly horrified.

“The mark.” Solas said gently, pointing to the stone high up above them. Maria twirled to follow his pointing finger, eyes landing on the emblazoned sigil of the sun high above their heads, carved into the walls. It matched her hand exactly. “It recognizes your magic.”

“Oh.” Cole breathed softly, looking up, smiling widely. “Yes. You need to see.”

“See what?” Maria asked. She barely got the last word out before Cole wrenched her forward, eager as a puppy, grin broad.

“It’s perfect.” Cole beamed. “A place to keep the darkness out. The nightmares can’t catch you here.”

Maria sputtered in protest, but Cole didn’t listen. He dragged her up the nearest stone stairs, the apple falling uselessly from Maria’s hand while he tugged her into the body of the castle. She paused, momentarily awestruck, to take in the soaring ceilings, the sun etched within the stained glass. Cole let her gawk for only a second before pulling her further in. She caught sight of both Varric and Solas following them.

“There’s an awful lot of stairs here.” Varric huffed as Cole threw open the next door, revealing a plain, shadowy staircase spiraling upwards.

“Yes.” Cole nodded as they piled into the shadowy stairwell. “The stone touches the sky like she does. Like they both do.”

“The stone is quite fine with being on the ground, thank you very…” Varric barely got his foot onto the step behind them before the door slammed shut like an exclamation point. They all turned to stare at it, shocked and in Varric’s case, more than a little dismayed.

“Great.” He said immediately. “We’re all gonna die here.”

“I believe that is unlikely.” Solas didn’t quite laugh again, but his lips carried a hint of amusement. “Perhaps the castle does not take kindly to criticism.”

“She didn’t make it for you.” Cole blurted, shaking his head at Varric pointedly. “It’s for Maria.”

“What’s for Maria?” She asked, redirecting Cole to whatever it was he wanted to show her.

Cole beamed in the dim light, hauling her back up the steps with renewed vigor. When they got to the top he dropped her arm and turned to see her face, beaming at her. “This.”

This.

Tears came unbidden to her eyes and Maria swallowed them, blinking hard. The room was beautiful, carved of rough hewn stone, covered with sparkling wide windows looking out onto the mountains, stained glass casting bits of jewel-like color all over the floor. A crackling fireplace warmed the whole area, a plush red rug looked soft enough to sleep on.

An armchair, overstuffed and slightly weathered, sat just beside the fireplace. It was almost identical to the one from Hercinia, the one she picked out in the thrift shop and helped Fynn carry down the street, laughing the whole time, dizzy with happiness and so full of hope for their future. A quilt was slung over the arm of it, just like the one from Nanna’s house before it grew too old and careworn for use, the one Bea used to wrap herself up in as a child.

The comforter on the low, dwarven bed was the same color blue as the one in her childhood bedroom. A desk in the corner had a neat stack of books with familiar covers, the Hard in Hightown series. Varric scoffed and made his way over to them, picking one up and examining it critically.

Maria couldn’t focus on him though, because to her left, next to the stairwell banister, a piano sat proudly. It looked like a piano that could sit in most schools, neglected by all but enthusiastic music instructors. It was in much better shape than the one she’d bought used in Hercinia, though, all gleaming mahogany and elegant lines. The bench was tucked neatly underneath it, the cover closed, hiding the keys. Maria exhaled a shaky breath when she approached it, half convinced she was dreaming.

There was an arrow. An arrow inscribed on the cover, a match for the one on her wrist. It had her initials on the top and Fynn’s…

One hand grabbed the necklace under her shirt, but the other swept trembling fingers over the carving. From beneath the cover, she swore she heard one trembling note, a key pressed with uncertainty, a question hovering in the air.

Is this okay? Do you like it?

“Why?” She gasped, turning to Solas, wiping her hand across her eyes to hide the tears. She couldn’t conceal her bewilderment. “Why is it like this? Why…”

“Because you have brought it back to life.” Solas smiled weakly. “I suspect it is grateful. Perhaps a bit exuberantly so.”

“She saw you.” Cole answered simply. “And she knows what you are. What you can be.”

They couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Or in this case, a gift castle.

Skyhold threw it’s gates open like it had been waiting for Maria Cadash all her life and it seemed determined to furnish nearly everything they could possibly need. The castle sprouted an infirmary for the sick with rudimentary medical supplies. Food appeared hidden deep beneath the quaint, medieval kitchen, haunches of smoked bacon, frozen beef and chicken, flour, eggs, even barrels of cider. Enough to feed a small army, although cooking it in the great fireplace initially proved an adventure. Cots and beds lined formerly empty rooms, complete with blankets and small plush animals for even smaller hands. Fires lit themselves. Banners featuring Andraste’s flaming eye appeared with no warning. They found clean clothes in armoires and chests, soap in closets. Anything they needed or wanted just… appeared. Like magic.

But, perhaps the most fascinating thing, was that Skyhold learned.

The first night was so dark, even with flickering torches studding the walls, that Varric spent most of the second day helping to set up the portable generator they carried out of Haven. It was enough to power some flood lights in the courtyard and prevent them all from falling down the damnable steps to their doom at night. Particularly with all the kids they had running around. Although, mysteriously, there hadn’t been so much as a scraped knee with any of the children.

Varric never thought Skyhold would look at their flimsy generator, scoff, and decide it could do better. He nearly pissed himself when he woke up the next morning to find the whole castle wired from top to bottom, lights in every room. Cullen damn near lost his mind when that happened. Varric spent most of the third day following Curly through the bowels of the castle as the man swore up and down he’d find the castle’s power source.

Curly would be sorely disappointed. Whatever secrets Skyhold kept, it wasn’t sharing. But the more they settled, the more alive it seemed to be. Varric swore new rooms popped up daily. The more complicated, nuanced, and scarce medical supplies they’d brought seemed to replace themselves. Flowers sprung up in the courtyard and the weather, although it couldn’t be called warm, never grew bitterly cold inside the walls. The kitchen managed to spring some nearly modern appliances, although they still looked more at home in a dated restaurant than a place that had to serve two hundred people, and plumbing showed up immediately after Maria wished for it longingly.

But it was Maria Cadash that blossomed more than anything else.

She danced through Skyhold in a blur of crimson and gold. She sparkled in the winter sun and their universe revolved around her. Everything glowed under her tender care, from the injured soldiers to the children stumbling through the courtyard, coming alive, reaching towards her sunlight.

And when she smiled… Andraste when she smiled.

He wondered how close he’d come to never seeing it again. He wanted nothing more than to spend some solid hours basking in it. See if Skyhold couldn’t conjure up a pack of cards, take her off to some shadowy corner, and reassure himself that she really was as okay as she looked.

But that was just his flimsy excuse and he knew it. What he wanted, what he desired more than anything, wasn’t to lure her into a friendly game of cards. Fuck, it wasn’t even to sweet talk her into the nearest bed so he could finish what he’d started now that they weren’t currently in danger of dying in a dragon’s throat.

He wanted something altogether more precious. He wanted her the way she’d been in the tent the night she stumbled back into his arms. He wanted her without all that armor she carried, soft and sweet in his arms. He wanted her lashes fluttering against her cheekbones as she failed miserably to stay awake listening to, frankly, one of his most shitty stories. He carried that memory of her sleep warmed, sharp edges smoothed by exhaustion, clutched it to his chest jealousy.

He wanted to press his lips surreptitiously to her cheek one more time and whisper his apologies into her ear. He wanted to hear her ask him to stay again. Wanted that sharp lance of vulnerability, the one that broke right through all his defenses and left him more naked that he’d ever been.

Stay.

Ancestors, if she’d ask anything in that tone of voice, he’d do it. He stayed even after she’d fallen back asleep. His palm over the small of his back, her body curled against his, her marked hand on his chest where she hadn’t even realized it had fallen. He counted the freckles on her nose, her cheeks. Memorized the sweep of her lashes and the gentle rise and fall of her breath. He stayed until Bea stirred and asked if she’d woken, but tearing himself away… shit, it’d been harder than it should have been.

But it wasn’t real. She’d been broken, bleeding, battered. Confused and addled. Exhausted to her very bones from attempting to slay an actual dragon. She’d have asked anyone to stay. He wasn’t special. Not to her. How could he be?

She was the sun, after all, and she shined on everyone equally. It hurt to admit it, but Varric could handle painful truths. Maker knew he had practice. When she didn’t seek him out, when she poured her energy into Skyhold, he fell back, easy and casual, and watched her.

He still had a place here, after all. Once they knew the truth… well. He may have to live outside her orbit. But at least she was alive. At least he had that memory of her sleeping in his arms. That was enough. It had to be.

Of course, he was assuming he’d figured out how to get them connected back to the civilized world long enough to reveal his own secrets. Between Maria’s magic hand, a score of witches, and the damn castle itself the magical interference was mind boggling. He needed to call Hawke, needed her help, but reaching her… it seemed impossible.

“I think that concludes the distribution of sleeping quarters for the civilians and refugees.” Josephine clucked, pulling him from his daydreams. “Was there any other business?”

“One, yeah?” Sera yawned and glared at the other woman. “Why do we all gotta keep coming to these meetings?”

Varric stifled his amused laugh into his palm. Sera did about as well as anticipated during these meetings. Meaning, of course, that she’d already drawn some rather colorful pornography all over Bull’s muscled arm after Maria stopped her from carving it into the stone rather emphatically.

Their group sat in an airy room around a massive table that looked to be made of one solid piece of wood. This, Varric thought with no small degree of amusement, was the best of the Inquisition.They ranged from a Tevinter exile to a raving spirit turned boy. Grey Warden to exotic dancer. The Inquisition’s inner circle. A mad little bunch of religious and distinctly irreligious figures. Who’d have thought? If the late Divine could see them now, she’d probably lose her exuberant hat when her head exploded.

In the window seat, Bea made a muted noise of agreement. Maria had her hands in her sister’s hair and smirked while she shook her head in playful exasperation. Bea’s curls looked sleek and shiny again, makeup perfectly applied. Skyhold must have been supplying that shit too.

He couldn’t complain, though. He’d opened a cupboard their second day here and had a razor chucked at his face. Maria, of course, said he was exaggerating about the velocity. But he knew what happened and so did the damn castle.

“There is… one other matter we need to address.” Cassandra straightened from where she bent over the table, sweeping her gaze across the room. “We do not have a leader.”

“Wait.” Maria stopped and pierced Cassandra with her gaze, then looked past her to Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine. “I thought you four were the leaders.”

“We need a leader.” Leliana insisted smoothly. “One person who wields the ultimate authority in precarious situations. An Inquisitor for our Inquisition.”

“How do you propose choosing this leader?” Blackwall asked gruffly. “Should we collect resumes? Interview the candidates?”

“A vote.” Bull suggested, far too casually, flexing the arm Sera was drawing on. It made the mermaid she’d drawn look like her tits were bouncing. “Nice and democratic.”

“From everyone?” Vivienne asked pointedly. “My dear, some of the refugees are so frightened they barely know their own names. Let alone ours.”

“Pft, nobody is votin’ for you.” Sera grumbled. “Little people don’t like shite like you. They know the good names.”

They knew one name, at least. All those refugees knew one name very well.

“So we vote?” Maria asked skeptically, tearing him from his overwhelming feeling of dread. “For everyone?”

“We’ll ask the people if they accept it.” Cullen fingered his gun thoughtfully, peering at Maria with a tight frown like his thoughts had gone the same way as Varric’s. “If they say no - we devise another plan.”

“Alright then.” Maria sighed. Bea was beginning to look a bit nervous, shifting to eye her sister from the corner of her eye.

“I don’t want to vote.” Bea said quickly, shying away. “I don’t actually do anything.”

“That’s most untrue.” Josephine reproved, looking up and frowning. “You have been…”

“I’m not voting.” Bea's tone brooked no argument. Josephine frowned, opened her mouth as if to insist, but Leliana cut in.

“One abstention, then. It will go with the majority, if that is alright Beatrix?”

“That’s fine.” Bea curled her knees up to her chest and frowned.

In the heavy silence, Varric reached for the battered journal in his pocket. The Lovers stuck out like a bookmark and he flipped past it without thinking too hard, grabbing three sheets and ripping them out. He began to tear them into tiny slips. “Anyone got a pen?”

Sera ceased detailing the engorged male genitalia on Bull’s bicep and lifted her pen with a sharp grin. Cassandra plucked it from her hand and Varric passed around the papers. Everyone took only a second to dash a name on their slip, folding it in half and tossing it onto the great table.

“What is with you?” Maria asked as Bea brought her manicured nails to her lips like she’d start chewing them at any second.

Maria, it seemed, was blissfully unaware of where this was going. Bea, of course, was not. Bea heard the way people talked about Maria, knew what they said. And Bea couldn’t vote against her sister, but she couldn’t vote for her either.

The pen came to him and Varric scrawled one word on it before tossing it to Blackwall. Bea couldn’t force herself to do it, but Varric had to.

Princess.

Maria may never forgive him, but it had to be her. She was sane, she was brave. More than all of that, however, she was so overwhelmingly kind. If it wasn’t her, if it came to someone else… Maker forbid, the Seeker…

Maria’s vote joined the others and they all stared, at a loss for what to do next. It was Cullen that reached forward and picked up the first one. He unfolded it and cleared his throat before reading it into the silence. “M Cadash.”

Maria snorted in disbelief. Cullen picked up the second one and read it aloud as well. “Maria.”

Maria’s amusement dropped like a ton of bricks by the time Cullen read the fourth. When Cullen stumbled on the word Princess, cheeks flushing, the lights above them flickered menacingly. Varric couldn’t meet her eyes, even though he felt them searing into him.

In the end, every single vote said Maria except one, solitary piece of paper that had Leliana’s name dashed across it. The silence felt miserably heavy and in the window seat Bea finally sighed her sister’s name. “Ria…”

“Fuck all of you.” Maria snapped, folding her arms across her chest. A snarky part of him almost said that he’d heard worse plans. Almost.

“Interesting diplomatic strategy.” Bull leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest to match her posture and waited. Maria’s sparking eyes turned to him.

“Fuck you in particular.” Maria seethed with a rather ferocious glare. To his credit, Bull did not immediately burst into flames. Lesser men probably would have. Varric felt his chest hair curling and smoking just being in the general vicinity.

“You’ve been calling the shots since you stepped out of the vortex and all these people know it, Boss.” Bull rumbled with an easy shrug.

“I’m not qualified.” Maria spat out.

“Where does one get qualifications to fight pure evil and save the world?” Dorian asked, stroking his mustache. “I certainly never saw it listed as a major.”

“Enough.” Cassandra glared at Dorian and turned her attention to Maria. “The Inquisition needs an Inquisitor. It is your choices that have gotten us to this point. There is no better person to take the mantle.”

“We’re in a magic castle in the middle of nowhere and nobody knows we’re alive.” Maria hissed. “Is this really the track record you want?”

“We’re alive.” Cullen stated in a rather matter-of-fact tone, but he wasn’t brave enough to meet Maria’s eyes. “And we should not be. That, in and of itself, is enough reason to trust you.”

“I can’t do this.” Maria insisted. Varric watched her right hand trace her left wrist, finally recognizing the gesture for what it was, a way to soothe panic. The realization hit him like a punch in the gut.

“You can.” Leliana said softly. “We will help.”

“We need to ask everyone to vote.” Maria lifted her chin defiantly.

“That’s… going to go the same exact way.” Bea whispered from the window seat, staring despondently at the papers. Maria whirled on her sister and pointed at the table like Bea could offer more of an explanation.

“What do you think of this?” Maria demanded.

“Ria…” Bea sighed, rubbing her face with her hand briskly.

“The glass throws rainbows over my skin. The walls. I giggle. Nanna’s fingers lift it high, stands on tiptoes to put it on the shelf. ‘This is where we put precious things, chi shugra. Up high so nobody breaks them.’ Safe. Safe where he can’t touch her ever again.” Cole mumbled.

“Balls.” Bea groaned.

Maria’s expression slammed shut beneath a veneer of ice worse than the flickering flames of her fury. She drew her shoulders back and glared at Bea before twisting away. She nearly shoved Cullen over to get past him to the door, but it swung open before she even reached it. The moment she passed through the threshold, the castle slammed it shut behind her back.

“Balls.” Bea mumbled again, hiding her face in her hands. “For fucks sake Cole.”

“She wanted to know. You wouldn’t tell her.” Cole frowned down at his hands.

“For a damn good reason!” Bea exploded.

“She needed to know.” Cole insisted. “Or it would’ve been a knot.”

Bea couldn’t pass up the opportunity to keep Maria safe. Bea couldn’t shove her sister’s name forward for a job that seemed impossible. Varric got it, he really did.

He wished there was someone else to choose. Anyone else. But there wasn’t. Ancestors forgive them for doing this to her, because it would probably kill her. Like it nearly killed Hawke.

“Does anyone want to take bets on whether the castle just locked us in here?” He asked wearily instead. It seemed easier than facing his own guilt.

Soft, gentle fingers smoothed Maria’s hair back, a simple repetitive motion as a clear, bright voice sang beside her. The melody ached inside Maria’s chest as the fingers continued their patient stroking. “Down in the mines, the mines so low. Hang your head over, hear the song low. Hear the song low, dear, hear the song low…”

“I can’t do this.” Maria whispered, tucking her chin in and looking over her shoulder at the woman peering down at her with such gentle, honest affection. Gray eyes and honey brown hair, a woman with Bea’s elegant features.

“You’ve already come so far, my darling.” She smiled, resting her palm on Maria’s cheek. “It will be okay. I’m here now.”

“You’re gone.” Maria barely remembered her, but this serene image of her pulled from old photographs looked right. “Mom’s gone.”

“Yes.” The woman tapped her fingertips against Maria’s nose, bright and playful, eyes sparkling with mischievous humor. “But I am not. You are mine and I am yours, darling.”

Maria awoke to a gentle breeze on her face, invisible fingers playing in her hair. She lifted her head off the pillow and paused, momentarily disoriented, pleasantly dazed. It took a moment to remember where she was every time she awoke, usually at the crack of dawn. Skyhold.

Safe. She’d been plagued with nightmares after Haven, but here, they ceased. Here…

Well, nothing was easy. She still wore her fear like a collar around her neck. Sometimes, the scent of a fire in the hearth was enough to choke her with panic. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes at night, she pictured Redcliffe crawling with monsters, the behemoth crushing Bea beneath it or Varric bleeding at her feet.

But it was nicer to live with when she woke in the beautiful room at the top of the tower wrapped in an old quilt that smelled like home, somehow. The terror felt more manageable here.

She noted the sun wasn’t coming in the windows right for dawn, but rather the light faded with dusk. Drool and bits of hair stuck to her cheeks. Tears, she thought ruefully. She wondered how fucking awful she looked. A mess, she was sure.

“Cadash?” Cassandra’s brisk voice called from the bottom of her stairs. “Cadash, are you up there?”

“Where the fuck else would I be?” Maria called back down the steps, quickly scrubbing her eyes with the back of her fist. Flakes of eyeliner came off on the back of her palm and she swore, irritated.

“May I come upstairs?” Cassandra yelled again, cautious and wary. Maria paused, discarding the quilt from over her shoulders and flying into the adjoining room. The taps had changed again, she noted distantly. This was the one part of her room that kept changing like Skyhold hadn’t quite determined what kind of bathroom she wanted. At first, it held one ornate washbasin. Then, thank the Stone, it implemented plumbing. The sink was granite today, a matching tub behind her. She turned the warm water on and scrubbed at her ruined makeup.

“If you insist.” Maria grumbled, hopefully loud enough to be heard. She examined her reflection in the mirror with a tight, tense frown.

Inquisitor.

Not if she had anything to say about it.

She brushed a towel across her face and stepped back out into her bedroom to find Cassandra standing, uncertain, by the stairwell. The Seeker’s eyes never stopped roaming, always looking for threats. Once she’d inspected every nook and cranny and found them free of danger, she turned to Maria.

“We attempted to visit you earlier.”

“Who’s we?” Maria asked nonchalantly, sitting on the edge of her bed and folding her arms under her chest, examining her booted feet.

“All of us in turn. The door would not open.” Cassandra made a small noise of dismay. “Solas says there is a… spirit guardian of this place. It answers to you.”

“No it doesn’t.” Maria scoffed and rolled her eyes. “If it did - you’d still be locked out.”

“If it answers to you, even slightly, then that is all the more reason for you to bear the title of Inquisitor. We have the walls to put up a fight if we are attacked again, a place to grow our forces, and Cullen is adamant there would be no retreat. This… war with Corypheus is not the fight we anticipated.”

“It’s not one I bleeding signed up for.” Maria reminded her pointedly. She hadn’t signed up for any of this. She was supposed to close the vortex and leave, free and clear, Bea and Cole in tow.

Cassandra sighed and shook her head. “I know. You… you have asked for none of this. The power inside you… it allowed you to survive the destruction of the conclave. It is something this Corypheus wished to have, and whether or not it is divine providence that you have it now…”

Maria scoffed again and Cassandra met her skeptical gaze. “It matters not to you, I know. The most important thing is that Haven cannot happen again. The most important thing is that we keep this power from him.”

“He said he couldn’t take it. It’s useless to him, so I need to die.” Maria pointed out bluntly. “That’s it. My magic hand doesn’t qualify me to be in charge.”

“Your mark has power.” Cassandra lowered her shoulders and eyed Maria with a certain mix of apprehension and… respect. “But it is not why you are still standing here.”

She was standing here because of a mine shaft and an unbelievable stroke of luck, but before she could say that, Cassandra plowed on. “Your decisions helped us heal the rift in the world. Your determination led us out of Haven. You are the only one to rival this demon because you are the only one who has faced him and shown the bravery and sacrifice needed to save us. To save us all.”

“I didn’t…” Maria protested.

“I was there.” Cassandra snapped before Maria could finish, running fingers through her short hair. “I know what I saw when I left you. I saw one woman wreathed in flames standing against the darkness and chaos. I saw you. We all did.”

A dismayed bubble of laughter jumped to her throat. “Ancestors, Cassandra. That’s fucking good. Don’t repeat it around Varric, he’ll steal it for his next book.”

Cassandra’s disgusted noise rang across the room, but she jerked her head to the balcony. “Word has leaked that you were asked to lead. I suspect Vivienne, although I have no proof. The people are outside, waiting to congratulate you.”

“Tell them I said no.” Maria commanded weakly. “Tell them everything you said about me at the beginning. I’m a smuggler, I’m a criminal, I’m…”

“Stop.” Cassandra pleaded. “I… I would not say those things about you.”

“They’re true.” Maria argued. “You’ve said them before, just go out there…”

“I should not have!” Cassandra exploded, curling her hands into fists. “If I had known, if I had trusted in the Maker that he would not… but I didn’t. And I was cruel. I will never be able to make amends for it.”

The silence stretched between them. Maria stared at the woman, confused, a bit alarmed. “Cassandra, just tell them I don’t want it. Do that and we’re square, promise.”

“I can.” Cassandra clenched her jaw tightly. “I will, if that is truly what you wish. But I have a better proposition.”

“If this is about faith…” Maria began to roll her eyes skyward. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t listen to Cassandra preach about Andraste or the Maker. If she started, Maria swore...

“My faith.” Cassandra admitted. “Which is not yours. What is yours… What could be yours is a force that would change the world. People are hungry, homeless…”

“You’re making a great case for the world being a piece of shit, Cass. Preaching to the choir.” Maria mumbled, dropping her eyes back to her boots. “Nobody is going to follow me. You’re all…”

“Those people owe their lives to you. They would follow you to the gates of the black city.” Cassandra declared proudly. “If you do not believe me you need only go and peer out. They are thrilled that you would be their Inquisitor.”

“And you?” Maria challenged, glaring at Cassandra. “You really think this is a good idea?”

“It terrifies me.” Cassandra admitted quietly, voice soft and startlingly vulnerable. “To hand over such power to one person. But I have faith in what I have seen you do. If it must be anyone, it must be you.”

Maria pulled her eyes from Cassandra’s again and stared at her domed ceiling, blinking back tears. Cassandra let the silence weigh heavily between them before she sighed. “If I could not convince you with that, I was supposed to add in one more thing. On your sister’s behalf.”

“Great.” Maria huffed. “Wonderful. What does Bea possibly have to add?”

Cassandra waited until Maria looked at her again, then held Maria’s gaze unflinchingly and said the words that shot a bullet right through Maria’s heart. “I was supposed to ask what Fynn Dunhark would have you do.”

Fynn. Fynn. Earnest and brilliant, his shirtsleeves rolled up, elbow on their kitchen table. Expounding on the flaws of capitalism, railing against injustice, pouring his father’s money into charities and whispering against her skin how someone like her should be the one taking the lead, that she’d get things done because she was terrifying and adorable when she was angry and Ancestors he loved her…

He loved her. He loved her and it got him killed. Maria nearly fell back, grief like a sucker punch in her stomach. It should have been Fynn. He could have done this, he could have carried this well. Her father could have. Anyone except her.

“I’m going to fuck this up.” Maria admitted. “I’ve always fucked everything up, Cassandra.”

Every single thing. From not taking her father’s downward spiral seriously, to her failure to save their grandmother, running away with Fynn. From losing Varric in Redcliffe to nearly losing everyone in Haven. Maria rubbed her face with her hands briskly again, the marked one prickling uncomfortably.

“Well.” The Seeker chewed her words for a moment before she gave Maria a weary half smile. “If we truly do awfully, we will all be dead regardless. Cold comfort, perhaps, but at least we won’t have to live with it.”

The humor surprised her and a broken laugh slipped past Maria’s lips. “Ancestors, that’s morbid.”

“I will be with you.” Cassandra swore like some overzealous knight in a fairy tale. The Seeker thrust her hand forward, fiercely determined. “You will not do this alone.”

Maria ran her thumb up and down her left wrist, tracing the arrow there. She promised. She promised Fynn when they left Ostwick together that she’d stay on the straight and narrow, that she’d do better. She’d be better. She’d be the woman he thought she could be. No more darkness, no more shadows, no more lying or stealing or…

“I’m not the Herald of Andraste.” Maria blurted. “I’m not and we can’t say I am. If that’s why you want me to be the Inquisitor…”

“Some people will say it, regardless.” Cassandra frowned. “But we do not have to do so here, if that is your caveat.”

Maria nodded, stopped stroking her tattoo and looked down into her palm. The sun emblazoned there flickered gently.

“The motto of the old Inquisition was ‘Into darkness, unafraid’, Cadash.” Cassandra supplied. “Perhaps you could keep it. Perhaps you could make your own.”

No more darkness, not anymore. She held the sun in her hand, after all. Maria took a deep breath and stood, grasping Cassandra’s hand securely within her own.

The taller woman relaxed immediately, sighing deeply. “They are waiting. Outside. If you can…”

“Now?” She asked, running a hand through her frazzled hair. She looked like shit, although she supposed she had looked worse half dead and frozen.

“Before you reconsider.” Cassandra stated firmly. “Persuading people to do difficult things is… not my strong suit.”

Fair enough. Maria nodded and jerked her chin to the stairs. “After you then, Cass.”

Cassandra nodded and marched down the stairs. Maria took one last deep breath and followed, trailing her hand across the piano’s cover as she passed it. Tears pricked her eyes and she stopped, choking them down. She splayed her palm over top Fynn’s initials and pressed until she felt her marked palm ache, until bits of light shimmered between the gaps of her fingers.

“I’ll try.” She promised to the silence. For Fynn. For Nanna and her father, Bea and Bull. For Cole, Varric, Dorian, Cassandra…

Underneath the cover, the keys trembled again, a half note like a whispered answer.

That’s enough.

Varric's thoughts drifted, again, to Bianca. He’d give his weight in gold to have her staring down this problem. Somehow, he suspected, it would have been solved days ago. Instead, Varric kept banging his head against the issue, quickly losing patience.

Skyhold could give them anything they wanted, apparently, except the fucking internet or a phone signal. No matter how he tried, a connection to the outside world remained out of reach. He almost suspected the castle was doing it just because he was the one asking for it. He even stooped to asking Cole to try and convey what they wanted because the kid seemed to be able to communicate with the damned place, but all it had done was confuse them both and give Varric a raging migraine.

Bianca would have known what to do. She’d laugh, shake her head at his elementary attempts, and…

“Alright Varric, what’s the issue?”

Cue the wave of guilt, although which woman was the wronged party, Varric couldn’t say. He’d as much as told Bianca it was over right before they marched into Redcliffe, before trying to jump Maria’s bones, so…

Yes, he reminded himself acidly, because he’d never said goodbye to Bianca before.

“Well, your Inquisitorialness.” He lapsed into smooth bravado, rocking back on his heels and studiously not meeting the gray eyes he could feel searing into the back of his skull. “Your castle doesn’t believe in wireless connections, wireless networks, or 5g no matter how much I try and talk it up. So, I guess maybe we should consider carrier pigeons.”

“I never cared for birds much.” The wind whistling through the ancient battlement muffled her footsteps, so he was shocked when she dropped down beside him to examine the mess of salvaged guts he had spilled out in front of him. Bits of radios. A battered old laptop. “What do you need?”

“The modern world.” Varric grumbled, trying not to inhale her scent too greedily. He realized with a start they were alone on this far corner of Skyhold’s walls. It was the first time he’d been alone with her since…

“Varric.” She chided softly. He sighed in irritation and tore his hand through his own hair, glaring down at the parts on the ground.

“A receiving dish for the satellite.” Varric rubbed at his stubble and stood, turning his back on the mess behind him and offering his hand to Maria. She took it and pulled herself up, staring up into his face with a tiny frown.

Her eyes were the same color as the sky above them, a soft gray right before snow fell. Her freckles stood out starkly over her cheeks, wisps of red hair tickling her jaw. She still slouched when she stood, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets, eyes blazing forward. If the mantle she’d adopted at their insistence felt too heavy to bear, she didn’t show it.

“A receiving dish?” She questioned. “Does it look like a satellite, but down here?”

“You’ve got it, Princess.” He tipped his lips into a smile for her. “To catch the signal and amplify it.”

“What are they made of?” She asked. “How big does it have to be?”

He shot her a skeptical glance and shrugged ruefully. “Metal, usually something lightweight. I’d want it hooked up to the power grid here, if we could swing it. Boost our signal a bit more. As to how big… in this case, bigger is better. About the size of a pickup truck.”

“You’re not asking for much.” Maria’s lips twitched. Varric fought the urge to touch the corner of them, trace their shape with his thumb.

“What can I say?” Varric grinned, trying to maintain his tenuous control. “I’m a man of simple tastes. Now, of course, if I could get a phone call out, I’d order you the perfect one. Just right for someone of Inquisitorial standing. Have it delivered and installed free of charge.”

Maria sighed and looked out over the mountains. Something in his chest squeezed uncomfortably. “Hey.” He soothed softly, dropping the playfulness for comfort immediately. “It’s gonna be alright. We’ll figure it out.”

When she didn’t look back at him, his arm acted on it’s own accord. He gently placed his palm over her shoulder and squeezed. Varric lowered his voice to a gentle whisper. “Now that we have a minute to breathe…”

“Varric, listen…” She began, tensing under his palm.

“How are you holding up?” He finished. Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. Her eyes flicked to his, stunned, before they quickly swivelled back out into the mountains. Not before Varric saw the shine of emotions in them, the fear, the panic.

“Well.” She managed to sound breezy in spite of all of it. “I’m heading a human religious organization, retrofitting a fairy tale castle, trying to figure out how to kill a demon and his pet dragon before he kills us, and we all almost died this week. Twice.”

She controlled the emotions in her eyes and turned a weak smile back up to him. “I don’t have any idea what I’m doing.”

Her admission, quiet and soft, felt precious. He hadn’t heard her complain since she’d waltzed out past them, a queen before her subjects, to receive their acclamation. The praise came easily. “Well, whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it really well. Nobody could manage it better.”

She scoffed and looked down at her scuffed boots, shrugging his hand from her shoulder. “We haven’t been alone, Varric. Really alone. Not since…”

Not since she fell into his arms. Not since he carried her up the stairs, not since he undressed her and prepared to worship at the altar of her body. It hadn’t been that long ago. Less than a week, really, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

He’d seen an enemy he unleashed rise again. Heard Maria’s agonized screams, watched the mountain bury her and tried to live in a world she no longer inhabited. He’d seen her rise from the ashes like a phoenix, inexplicable and miraculous. He felt… he felt like it had changed him. Somehow. He wasn’t sure if it was for the better. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been this frightened before. Never faced anything so daunting. Corypheus. The Inquisition. Maria’s shining eyes and compassionate heart sacrificed for expediency’s sake.

Things had been simpler, before. Maria watched his face closely, frowning at whatever she saw there. When she opened her mouth again, the words that fell from her lips stung bitterly. “It was just a couple kisses, we can forget about it... if that’s what you want.”

No he couldn’t. Never. Not in a hundred years. He’d take the feel of her body under his to his grave, the last desperate meeting of lips in Haven to the stone itself. It wouldn’t matter if that’s what he actually wanted, because he’d never be able to do it. She was beneath his skin now, regardless, and what he wanted…

Maria’s right hand traced the tattoo under her left sleeve and Varric nearly choked on a surge of blinding, unreasonable jealousy. Fynn Dunhark was dead, Maria Cadash was alive. And Varric…

Varric didn’t deserve her. Other people did. Better people. People who didn’t trade in secrets and lies. People whose friends didn’t destroy entire cities. People who didn’t let monsters out into the world to kill hundreds. People who didn’t put her in danger.

But…

“Hey.” Varric murmured, fought the urge to run his thumb over her cheek. He had to try. He had to, or he’d never forgive himself. “I’ll be whatever you need, Princess. Whatever gets you through this.”

Whatever keeps you safe. Whatever makes you happy. Whatever you need. Varric, of course, wanted her to need him. Wanted it so desperately he could hardly breath around it.

Maria looked away again, back to the mountains. He saw them shining, brilliant and white, in her eyes. He watched something slam shut inside them, watched her throw away a key. His heart sank to the bottom of his stomach. “You’ve been a good friend, Varric. I don’t want to lose that.”

She wouldn’t be his, then. Another woman just beyond his reach, too good for him, too brilliant. Varric burned his fingers on the sun, again. But that wasn’t Maria’s fault. She, at least, wasn’t asking him to play second fiddle to someone else. She owed him nothing, anyway, and he… he owed her so much more. “You won’t. Promise.”

He could grab her, crowd her against the castle wall, kiss her until she didn’t know up or down. He could chase all those thoughts out of her head. He could contrive… But it wouldn’t be real. It wouldn’t be what he wanted.

The tension still simmered between them, but it would get better with time. It had to, anyway. He turned from the mountains, bracing himself to make some excuse about returning to work. The words shriveled and died on his tongue as he looked at what had appeared on the tower above them.

A satellite receiver as large as a Maker-damned pickup truck made of the shiniest metal he’d ever seen, looking like it had been there for ages. It almost seemed like the castle’s middle finger aimed squarely in his direction.

“Holy shit.” He muttered, half laughing in shock. “Look at that.”

“Maybe she just needed you to be a little clearer about what you wanted.” Maria advised, voice cold, the tone completely unfamiliar to him. “Will this get our communications up and running?”

Varric wondered if she’d already begun the process of becoming two different people. The same way he’d watched Hawke become the Champion when the world demanded it. Varric distinctly felt like the pale eyes watching him didn’t belong to his Princess any longer, but a woman isolated on top of a burning pyre.

But then again, she wasn’t his. No part of her was. He wondered how many times he’d have to remind himself before it sunk in.

“Yes.” The word felt like a nail in a coffin. Ending their precious moment of intimacy, extinguishing any chance to plead his case. “I promise. Can I borrow your phone, Inquisitor? It’ll go quicker, yours is the only other one with enough processing power…”

She produced it with razor sharp efficiency, dropping it into his hand. “I’ve got to go check on the wounded. Let me know if you need anything else.”

You, he thought wildly. The thought was barely formed before she was already halfway down the battlements, red hair vanishing down a set of steps. The wind blew sharper, colder without her and Varric shivered.

He stared down at the phone in his hand and retrieved his own, placing them both in his pocket. He needed to climb up that damn tower to get a closer look at that dish, and he had a sneaky suspicion he was going to have to figure out some way to adjust it’s trajectory, but… it would work. It would work, and he could call Hawke and…

Fuck. Fuck.

He knew what he had to do. Knew what he needed to do. He couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to Maria, couldn’t stomach the guilt. They needed Hawke. Hawke, who’d given so much already and gotten so little in return. Just like Maria would, someday. He could already see the writing on the wall.

Anything they could do to protect her. Anything he could do.

“Bianca.” Varric muttered.

“I am already experiencing a weak link with the satellite, but more stable than we have experienced in days. My estimate is the receiving dish needs adjusted to approximately a ninety-five degree angle...”

Excellent. He’d be climbing out a window trying not to fall to his death for sure. “Great. While I’m trying to manage that, I need you to airdrop a copy of your program onto Maria Cadash’s phone.”

“Inadvisable.” Bianca argued immediately, joyful tone vanishing. “Every additional user is a security risk. Maria Cadash has an extensive criminal history and you have only been acquainted…”

Varric laughed. “I know. I want you to do it anyway, baby.”

Varric could almost hear the muted rebellion in his earpiece. “Should I make a note to inform Bianca Davri of the additional user?”

“Absolutely not.” The real Bianca never checked the AI’s permissions. Only used her, really, when she needed the extra processing power. Otherwise, they just got in each other’s way. “Give Cadash the same permissions Hawke has.”

“Hawke has permissions just short of a system administrator…”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.” Varric shoved the door to the tower open and looked up at all the stairs, dismayed.

“File transfer started.” Bianca finally responded, voice clipped and tone short. “Is there anything else?”

“Let me know the second I’ve got a strong enough signal to make a call.” Varric sighed. “There’s one I probably should have made a long time ago.”

In the fade, Solas found that Skyhold hadn’t changed at all from the palace he remembered. Gone were the Inquisitor’s sturdy stone walls, replaced with graceful, smooth marble. The hallways framed courtyards overflowing with vines and flowers. Magic orbs lit the courtyards and gleaming precious stones shimmered in mosaics and portraits.

In the fade, perhaps, he could still call Skyhold the name he had given it long ago. Tarasyl'an Te'las, the place where the sky was held back. He paused in the flowering courtyard and inhaled the blooms that faded so long ago.

“On dhea'lam.” A soft voice called from behind him. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Longer than I wished.” Solas admitted, turning to face the spirit who’d sought him out. She wore another face, one he didn’t know, but one he recognized regardless. The woman shared the Inquisitor’s striking eyes, her sister’s brown hair. The crooked tip of her lips that both women wore so well.

“Her mother?” He guessed softly.

“Yes.” The spirit paused, tipped her head to the side as if listening to a whisper in the wind. “She left this world some time ago. This is how she is remembered.”

“It is not the form you took for me when I was a young man.” He would not be jealous, however. Not when Maria Cadash had so few comforts on her hard journey. If the face of her mother was one…

“When you were a young man, you left me to start a revolution.” The spirit chided. Solas shut his eyes and turned his face to the warm sun.

“Did you find what you wished, da fenlin?” The spirit asked. “When my little wolf grew teeth and claws, did the whole world tremble?”

“I am surprised you recognized me.” Solas didn’t wish to look into those stunning gray eyes, even if they were not framed by the Inquisitor’s red hair. He kept his own firmly closed.

“I did not. Not at first. I only knew your magic, I only knew it was no longer a part of you. I could see nothing past her when she arrived.” The spirit smiled, gentle and proud. “Da’lath’in. What is it you call her again? I do not understand it.”

“Inquisitor.” Solas explained. “It is what the shemlen call her, the title that gives her power.”

“Da’lath’in suits her better.” The spirit protested.

Da’lath’in. Little heart. Yes, Solas could see that. A woman who carried her heart on her sleeve, who showed compassion for the smallest and most helpless.

“You have seen inside her soul, yes?” Solas asked. He feared the answer, but he had to know. “Was she… has the magic changed her?”

“You wish to know her secrets when you will not give her yours?” The spirit asked, incredulous.

“Yes.” He answered with conviction. “I must.”

The spirit sighed, her breath rustling the blooms and trees. “Yes. And no. Your magic will give her strength and courage, but she has her ancestors’ spirit. She comes from warriors, she comes from the Earth. She has always been a soul that would bleed for others. It is in her nature. You know this.”

He did. He felt the oft-broken bones under her skin and allowed his magic to probe the shattered, raw pieces of her soul. He watched her feed the hungry, clothe the poor. He saw her rise from the ashes.

“If she is true, you are wrong.” The spirit murmured.

“Perhaps.” He admitted.

“Will you harm her? Or will you help her?” The spirit asked.

Solas opened his eyes and looked down into the spirit’s open, grave face.

“You would stop me.” He marveled.

“She is mine and I am hers.” The spirit’s eyes crackled with bright energy. “As you know, Fen’Harel.”

“I do not know if Fen’Harel exists any longer.” Solas sighed. “This is not his world.”

The spirit softened. A small hand rested on his elbow, just as it had so often in times long past. Solas ached with the pain of it. His friend, his home, sleeping just as he had. Alone in the darkness, watching as time left them both behind.

“Fen’Harel lit the world on fire.” The spirit said softly. “Perhaps it is Solas who must try to find beauty in the ashes.”

“Is there any beauty left in the world of metal and machines?” Solas asked, unable to keep the bitter venom from rising to the surface.

“How could you ask that?” The spirit tightened her grip on him, voice imploring. “Have you not seen them? Heard the laughter of their children? Listened to their prayers? How can you be so blind?”

The silence over both of them was not as comfortable as it once had been, but it still felt more like home than it had a right to.

“Will you tell her?” Solas finally asked. “My secrets, old friend. Will you confide them to the Inquisitor?”

The spirit sighed once more. “No, da fenlin. I will not. She would not understand, and I know you wish to right this mistake of yours. But you must not harm her.”

“I will not.” Solas swore.

Not if he could help it.

#girl with the arrow tattoo #modern thedas #varric tethras #inquisitor x varric #inquisitor cadash #dragon age inquisition #dragon age #maria cadash #varric romance

3 notes · View notes

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years ago

Text

Spider-Man: Life Story #4 Thoughts

*graons*

Positives out of the way.

Bagley’s art+Bagley’s rendition of Morlun+the armoured looks of some of Tony’s squad.

Okay now onto the negatives.

I think I might’ve figured out what the REAL premise of Life Story is.

‘What if Spider-Man didn’t have the illusion of change and therefore everything was terrible so readers will now just accept the illusion of change forever’.

Seriously that makes the most sense at this point.

The illusion of change isn’t there and so everyone ages and everything falls to shit.

Spider-Man gets divorced, his child dies, his brother dies, etc.

But if that wasn’t the point then Zdarsky continues to make Life Story a total clown show.

He is consistent in only the following regards.

a) Events from Spider-Man history happen randomly differently from how they happened in canon even though that wasn’t how the series was advertised to us

b) Superheroes have a more realistic impact upon the real world except not really, it’s basically as realistic as Zdarsky wants it to be because fuck world building and consistency I guess

c) Real life history is toxically inconsistent within the context of a world of heroes where things are different

d) The story is inconsistent even in and of itself

e) Peter Parker is an irresponsible, dumb asshole

f) Various elements of the story have no intersection with one another. Remember how Flash died in Vietnam and this had...nothing to do with Miles Warren cloning Gwen????

Lets kick off with two things that can be looked at as bad points of the story but arguably forgivable...arguably.

So firstly...Morlun is in this story and then dies!

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm...Wasn’t there not one but TWO massive Spider-Man event crossovers (one as recent as LAST YEAR) which firmly establish that there is in fact just one version of Morlun in the entire Multiverse? This story is royally contradicting that. Now in fairness...that was always bullshit because we have had What Ifs and other alternate universe stories before Spider-Verse clearly depicting more than one Morlun in the multiverse.

Secondly...Civil War....fucking Civil War.

I loathe and despise the original Civil War storyline from 2006. You guys have no idea how much I honestly wish that story never existed.

A big part of that is how it wrecks the verisimilitude of the Marvel universe before and after it. Civil War was unsustainable as a status quo shift long term for the Marvel Universe and it made no sense given it’s established history. It took the realism of superheroes too far and consequently forced writers and readers to wilfully ignore it after it was done so things could go back to normal. If you do a Civil War style story it needs to either be set in an AU or end your universe and that’s it. A change of pace simply cannot work without wrecking everything.

So seeing it again is gross buuuuuuuuut, given Life Story’s mission statement of taking things more realistically and being an AU itself it actually fits better in this story than in 616 Spider-Man. The same can be said of Spider-Man’s identity being unmasked although this too wrecks the idea that this is Spider-Man aging in real time. If it was about that then the ramifications of the unmasking wouldn’t stick around any more than they did in 616, because that had nothing to do with a sliding timeline or whatever.

However the idea of Civil War fitting better in Life Story because it’s more realistic is utterly destroyed when you consider that in this universe where superheroes have a more realistic impact upon the world, where the military has Tony Stark level weaponry, where intangible nuclear missiles are a thing...9/11 still happened...

...I’m going to repeat that.

In a world where there has been near Star Trek level technology since the 1960s...a handful of terrorists with conventional weapons (not even the most high tech weapons and technology available in the real world in 2001!) are able to fool airport security, hijack some planes and destroy the Twin Towers...in New York city...where ALL THE SUPERHEROES LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look...in the Marvel or DC universes 9/11 happened. You can choose to interpret the 9/11 Spider-Man issue as canon or not canon, but it is a fact Spider-Man lives in a world where the 9/11 disaster happened. He didn’t stop it, the Avengers didn’t stop it, the Fantastic Four didn’t stop it.

Even though they definitely could have. Collectively all the superheroes of New York have weapons, technology and resources which would’ve enabled them to have intelligence on the hijackings, possibly before they even happened, probably during the hijackings and definitely as the planes were incoming. And they sure as hell had the ability to avert the disaster.

Are you telling me Al Quaeda could trick or stall or fend off the Avengers! Get the fuck out of here no they couldn’t.

The reason that 9/11 still canonically happened in the Marvel universe is simple. The Marvel universe’s realism doesn’t stretch so far as contorting the real world into something unrecognizable to the world of today. The Marvel universe has always been our world but superheroes are there. Their realistic social, political, economic and philosophical impact though isn’t. It’s why Christianity is still the dominant religion in Marvel’s America even though Thor is a thing. 9/11 being such a globally changing event means that the Marvel universe needed to retain it occurring in order to continue to reflect a relatable world to the readers.

More poignantly, just how during WWII superheroes didn’t simply end the conflict by flying into Germany and killing Hitler, to have had superheroes realistically avert 9/11 as they could have would’ve been deeply insulting and disrespectful to the real life witnesses and victims of the tragedy and their loved ones.

Zdarsky didn’t have that constraint though. He could’ve imposed it on his story had he wanted but just as with so much of the real world history his grossly mishandles (a reminder everything after issue #3 is bullshit because the world should’ve been consumed in nuclear Armageddon) he cherry picks what will and won’t be affected by superheroes existing and whether their effects will be realistically and logical or if they’ll be...whatever he randomly wants.

Case in point superheroes existing means nuclear missiles are intangible now, but superheroes existing doesn’t mean airport security is any different from what it was in 2001!

*head desk*

The ONLY way 9/11 happens in this Marvel universe is if like HYDRA did it instead of Al Quaeda or if the latter had backing from super villains.

But just like with all the altered real world history Zdarsky doesn’t explain anything. He’s lazy as a world builder. Thus we’re left to presume 9/11 happened as it did in the real world even though Tony Stark has already created technology that ended the Cold War by America beating Russia’s ass.

I mean for fuck’s sake, GALACTUS has invaded Earth and New York specifically, you telling me Tony or Reed or Hank Pym or someone hasn’t created at least some sort of alarm system to alert them to incoming threats. WTF was Doctor Strange doing!

Let’s stick to Tony for the moment. So in this issue...he’s the villain. He’s been on the wrong side ever since issue #1 really. This is another case of something bad that is arguably defendable.

See back in Civil War if you were reading Spider-Man you experienced a Tale of Two Tony’s (not my turn of phrase by the way I stole that).

You didn’t need to read Spider-Man to follow the main Civil War book but if you were reading Spider-Man you did need to read the main CW book to follow the story as pivotal events happened in the latter that were then followed up upon in the former. The most famous example would be Spider-Man unmasking which was only built up to in ASM but actually depicted in Civil War #2. However another more relevant example would be how when Spidey decided to switch sides Tony attacked him in ASM and was clearly painted as outright villainous, but then the action continued into the main Civil War book where Tony was written more conflicted and sympathetic, before the action cut back to ASM where he was very much a villain. The characterization wasn’t consistent at all, and the Spider books were not alone in this. Sue Richards’ break up with Reed happened very differently in the pages of Fantastic Four than they did in Civil War.

This is relevant to Life Story because the Tony in this book is very much the Tony of ASM era Civil War, the villain on the side of the law and the fact that Zdarsky planted the seeds for this back in issue #1 is I will admit commendable. Too bad it took until issue #4 for him and Peter to interact but whatever. I also confess that seeing the polar opposite of the Iron Dad relationship gives me life at the moment.

However given how Zdarsky’s convoluted M.O. with this book seems to be to reflect a wider real time aging Marvel Universe and not just Spider-Man’s story this characterization is fundamentally broken. Because Iron Man...was totally out of character in Civil War. Even in the main series where he was written more sympathetic he was out of character and in ASM it was truly ridiculous. So Zdarsky is again being inconsistent and terrible at characterization. He’s even being awful in how the story tries to remix elements from the 2000s era Spider-Man regarding Tony (and other stuff we’ll get to).

If you are going to factor in Peter’s unmasking and Iron Man into this story shouldn’t the once friendly relationship they had or his Avengers membership play a factor? I mean Spidey being an Avenger was such a huge deal in the 2000s that when Marvel made variant covers for his 50th anniversary showcasing something from every decade of Spidey his being an Avenger was used to represent the 2000s.

Getting back to the Civil War elements though, something mind boggling is that Iron Fist is on the pro-registration side when he was very much NOT in the real Civil War event. Making this matter worse is his best friend Luke Cage being on the anti-registration side. Even without giving anyone any lines Zdarsky srews up characterization. Compounding this is Iron Man’s claims that young heroes fell in line with the registration act...what?

Let’s ignore how bowing to the government isn’t typically what teens like to do...you telling me that the opinions of most teenage heroes was to sign up with the government? Bullshit, even in the original story their views were more mixed. There is also the implication that somehow...9/11 was the thing that prompted the SHRA...hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow??????????????????????????????

Finally Tony tells Peter he could be arrested for not registering with the government that he was a hero because...his spider sense is like insider trading.

I need to explain how stupid this is.

To begin with the SHRA wasn’t enforced when Peter was running Parker Industries so he was literally not breaking the law. If a law is passed that wearing a watch is illegal you can’t go to prison because prior to that law’s passage you wore a watch.

Secondly...no....no the Spider Sense is really not like insider trading at all. Let’s presume it could warn him about dangerous business deals...that’s not insider trading at all, that’s literally Peter having better business instincts than everyone else. That’s not cheating or illegal it’s just having a natural advantage over other people.

Thirdly...Captain America is leading a resistance group....again.

This is the dumbest damn idea in the original Civil War story and for some reason even though Zdarsky wants this series to be ‘more realistic’ he replicates that stupidity.

Captain America’s plan in the original Civil War boiled down to going on the run, recruiting other superheroes, attacking the registered heroes and then....somehow this would repeal a law designed to keep heroes in check.

Let’s say that this is a more realistic world and the Registration act is totally reasonable. Putting aside how framing it as a bad thing does not then make any damn sense, Captain America’s method for fixing the problem is utterly nonsensical, especially for a guy who could be president by merely running for office. He’s Captain America for God’s sake he’d win and could repeal the law from within!

The final problem with this plotline in the issue is how it really has NOTHING to do with the other plotline, and how t weirdly hijacks the issue and becomes the main plotline when initially the book presented something else as the main thrust of the story; not the first time Zdarsky has basically superglued two plotlines together even though they have little-nothing to do with one another

That thing of course was Morlun. This opens up a whole other can of stupid we need to talk about.

So first of all Morlun shows up in 2006 not 2001, further fucking up the idea this is Spider-Man aging in real time. Morlun DID appear in a 2006 story of course, the Other, but that was his return not his debut. Why is Morlun debuting 5 years later than he should be? Because Zdarsky wants to include the most famous villain who debuted in the 2000s but actually wants to make the story about Civil War which did happen in 2006 that’s why.

Speaking of Morlun, I might be wrong here but...a fucking tree? That’s how he dies? I’m not even complaining he doesn’t come back in a clone body, I’m talking strictly about how a tree stabs him like he’s Mystique in Dark Phoenix. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m preeeetty sure he could survive that unless Life Story’s Morlun is pathetically weaker than his mainstream counterpart.*

More egregiously is Peter’s handling of Morlun. He explains Ezekiel showed up to warn him about Morlun’s coming.

In the original story these two events happened close together, Morlun appeared shortly after Ezekiel’s warning. Let’s say we let Zdarsky slide on the timeframe and even the fact that Morlun actually was looking for Ezekiel not Peter...why did Peter do nothing about this warning.

In the original story Ezekiel offers Peter a bunker to hide out in. Presumably he did the same in Life Story. But instead of taking advantage of this or warning Ben Reilly or his potentially spider empowered children Peter...ignores him?

WHY?!

Peter didn’t disbelieve Ezekiel, he just rejected his offer of sanctuary because he had responsibilities to live up to. In this story Peter has even bigger responsibilities and a family potentially at risk and he just...did nothing?

And low and behold his elderly wife and daughter have to flee for their lives whilst he dicks around in New York and his brother and son straight up DIE.

That’s 3/3 relatives named Ben who are dead because he was a selfish dickhead!

And before we dive into Peter’s character I just want to take a moment and lament how piss poorly Mary Jane has been treated this whole story.

Issue #1: She is little more than a background character

Issue #2: She is totally out of character, and just drunkenly yells unreasonably at Peter then gets unreasonably yelled at by him

Issue #3: She gets shit on by Peter, inadvertently Aunt May and is left being pregnant and giving birth to twins with a senile old health hazard for company, then gets yelled at for suggesting getting her health, then is tasked with going out alone in a dark and stormy night to potentially kill her super powered husband

Issue #4: She shows up at the end and just welcomes him back as her husband and the father of her kids no questions asked apparently

Issue #5: We continue to never get a word about how she feels about their general lives, of Peter and her reconciliation, of their children. She just waits and worries in front of the TV or runs away from Morlun. How the Hell does her daughter get more agency in this one issue than she has pretty much this whole series?

Anyway back to Peter....yeah this is not Peter Parker.

You know how Peter Parker is all about with great power there comes great responsibility....well Life Story Peter Parker totally isn’t.

He abandons his company, employees and superhero duties to an untrained, underprepared, equally old clone of himself who has to quickly learn how to pretend to be him, how to run a company and fight more experienced super villains whilst fending off a corporate takeover by the secretary of defence for the United States of America. And then he gets murdered by an indestructible (except to wood) mystic vampire that Peter neglected to mention to him.

Ben Reilly DIED directly because Peter was an idiot.

And selfish, don’t forget that. He moved his family out into the woods in a secluded area so that he wouldn’t interact with too many people and thus not feel the need to intervene. Let’s ignore how he was able to resist this urge in Spider-Girl for a moment. You are telling me Peter Parker abandoned his great responsibility by finding basically doing the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes and yelling “lalalalalala If I can’t see or hear anyone in trouble I can’t be responsible for not helping them lalalala”

FUCK OFF ZDARSKY!

This is toxically against the entire premise of the character at this point and getting older wouldn’t change that. Apparently all it took to snap him out of this funk was Ben Reilly dying and a pep talk from his friggin teenage daughter!

All in all this is another beautifully drawn shit show of an issue in a string of beautifully drawn shit show issues.

*Oh and let’s not forget that Morlun just...knows where the fuck Peter lives. That isn’t one of his powers. He needs to make contact with his target in order to track them down anywhere they go. He can’t just generally sniff them out. It doesn’t even make sense if he was tracking his kids.

Not to mention this story claims you can hurt Morlun when he’s feeding. But that’s not his weakness. Radiation is something he’s vulnerable to. If you can just kill him or the Inheritors by attacking when they are feeding then Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon wouldn’t have been as dangerous it’s not that difficult to kill them.

#Spider-Man #chip zdarsky #mark bagley #Peter Parker #Ben Reilly #Iron Man #Tony Stark #Morlun #Ezekiel Sims #Civil War #Civil War 2006 #Marvel Civil War #avengers #Captain America

17 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 5 years ago

Text

Avengers: Endgame - The History of Captain America's Climactic Moment

https://ift.tt/34k8at8

Remember in Avengers: Endgame when Captain America picked up Thor's hammer? We sure do! Here are other times he did that!

facebook

twitter

tumblr

This article consists of nothing but massive Avengers: Endgame spoilers. You’ve been warned. We have a completely spoiler free review right here.

Ever since Thanos showed up in the mid-credits of the first Avengers movie, there was one scenario that most comic book fans knew was going to one day happen: Captain America was going to at one point lift Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and bash Thanos’ stupid face with it. Until Hela broke Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok. Then we all went, “Oh, never mind, I guess,” and thought about what could have been.

Well, time travel is funny like that. It gives you a mulligan. Avengers: Endgame gives us one of the most triumphant moments in superhero movie history, when Captain America is able to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and use it to beat the ever-lovin' crap out of Thanos for a few minutes. Not only can Captain America lift Thor's hammer, he's able to call down the lightning just as Thor would. It's a huge, cathartic, and historic moment in the history of the MCU, but it's something long familiar to Marvel Comics fans.

How Can Captain America Lift Thor's Hammer?

Simple: Steve Rogers is worthy. The inscription on Mjolnir reads "Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you aren't worthy, you can't lift Thor's hammer, no matter how hard you try. It's why Thor, at a low point in his life, is so relieved to find that he can still call and hold Mjolnir when he travels back to the events of Thor: The Dark World.

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, we got the slightest hint of what was to come when Cap was able to slightly budge the hammer when trying to pick it up. Thor's reaction shot there was priceless, and teases the moment in Endgame when Steve finally gets to call down the lightning. Of course, the big payoff in Age of Ultron was that Vision (not Cap) was able to wield it near the end of the movie as a way of proving his fidelity, but many of us knew that there was more to it, including Thor, who exclaims "I knew it!" when Cap gets his big moment with the hammer.

read more - Which Avengers: Endgame Deaths are Permanent?

There is comic book precedent to Cap picking up Mjolnir. While not the first non-Thor character to pull that off in Marvel canon (that would be the delightful Beta Ray Bill), he’s had a couple moments where he’s been able to prove his worthy worth and cracked some heads with the uru metal.

Here’s some American history with a mix of Asgardian shop class.

THE ORIGINAL

The Mighty Thor #390 (1988)

Around this time, Steve Rogers had lost the right to be Captain America and just fought crime as "The Captain." This meant dressing exactly as Captain America, but in a black costume with red and white stripes on the front. Thor stopped by Avengers HQ, saw this guy with head wings and a shield and went, “I never saw you before in my life! Who are you?!” Then he threw Mjolnir at him in mid-sentence before realizing that it had to be Steve Rogers because of how fast he could dodge the attack.

I swear, Thor must scream, “STRANGER DANGER!” whenever Jane Foster gets a haircut.

Cap later explained his whole status quo, as well as his current feud with Iron Man (that happens a lot). So the government considered him an enemy and he was at odds with Iron Man for ideological reasons. Same as it ever was. While Thor mused over all this, one of his villains, the god Seth, sent an army after him. Cap, of course, helped out his stupid, stupid friend.

read more: Avengers: Endgame - Complete Marvel Universe Easter Eggs and MCU Reference Guide

Thor dropped his hammer after being tackled by generic grunt Grog. Grog tried to lift Mjolnir, but couldn’t budge it. Instead, he started torturing Thor with a laser. Cap didn’t quite understand the whole “worthy” gimmick at the time and figured it was just really heavy. Even though Grog, a brick shithouse of a miniboss, couldn’t do it, Cap decided it was worth trying.

Wouldn’t you know it, The Captain picked it up and wiped the floor with the dogpiling goon squad. He tossed it back to Thor, who proceeded to finish off the bad guys.

Afterwards, Thor admitted that while he had no idea what was really going on with Steve and Tony’s current argument, he sided with Steve due to his ability to pick up the hammer. Cap nodded, rushed into a Quinjet, and flew off to go break Tony Stark's nose several times over.

2099 PROBLEMS

2099: Manifest Destiny (1998)

Even though it's been brought back a few times since, 2099 was one of Marvel's big fixtures in the 90s. It was how 90s comics felt the future would be like. The story was that the heroes had long gone missing and there were no surviving records of what happened. Either way, Thor was worshipped as a religious figure and many awaited his return.

When serial-pointer Miguel O'Hara got powers and became the new Spider-Man of the era, someone pointed out that he was the first of many who would take up the mantle of a long-forgotten hero. This would continue until the coming of Thor 2099, who would deliver them all. Sure enough, we got Ghost Rider 2099, Hulk 2099, Punisher 2099, X-Men 2099, etc. After a few years, the line of comics lost its luster and they wrote it off with this one-shot where they found Captain America's frozen body.

read more - Avengers: Endgame Sidelines the Captain America/Bucky Relationship

As Steve got accustomed to this new world, Miguel gave him Donald Blake's walking stick. With a little reluctance, Steve accepted the gift and struck it to the ground, transforming it into Mjolnir and transforming himself into a gaudy Cap/Thor hybrid. He and Miguel started a new Avengers team, but on a space mission, things went haywire and it looked like Captain America was going to be knocked into deep space. His last act was to throw Mjolnir to Miguel, who caught the weapon and turned out to be just as worthy.

Yes, in a wonderful twist, Spider-Man 2099 wasn't just the herald of Thor 2099. He WAS Thor 2099!

With this power and the slow aging that came with it, Miguel turned the galaxy into a utopia. By the time he was done with his duty in 3099, they discovered Captain America's frozen body yet again. The poor guy just couldn't catch a break, but at least he got the hammer back.

THE HELLSCAPE OF APOCALYPSE

What If? Featuring X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (2007)

Age of Apocalypse was a pretty big deal in the '90s and the world it depicted was a nasty one. At least it had Magneto’s X-Men to make some kind of difference to offset Apocalypse’s evil. Naturally, Marvel’s What If series had a couple of takes on the big event. One had its continuity move forward and show how that Earth would have handled the coming of Galactus. One had Legion succeed in killing Magneto in the past, showing a world where Charles Xavier could better fight for a world where mutants were accepted.

Then there was this ridiculous one-shot where Rick Remender came up with the idea of Legion accidentally killing both Magneto and Xavier. The event had terrible repercussions, leading to governments to discover the existence of mutants earlier and going straight for the persecution. Apocalypse made his big appearance and the world got weirder than in normal Age of Apocalypse continuity. For one, Apocalypse’s army included a nest of Peter Parker clones connected by a big Venom symbiote blob.

read more - Avengers: Endgame Ending Explained

The resistance team included the likes of Nate Grey, Molecule Man, Wolverine, Colossus, Thing (with robot arm), Doctor Voodoo (introduced a year or so before Brother Voodoo was the Sorcerer Supreme in canon), Captain Britain in Mach I Iron Man armor, and the leader Captain America. With no real context given, he wielded Mjolnir throughout the story and constantly fought maskless.

The whole issue was mainly these Defenders jumping from one spot to another, facing different threats and gradually losing members. Towards the end, Nate Grey killed Apocalypse, stole his armor, killed Molecule Man, and opened up a portal to the past so they could prevent the deaths of Xavier and Magneto. Fearing that Grey would become a tyrant as bad as Apocalypse himself, Cap killed him via Mjolnir and allowed the portal to close.

He and Wolverine were the only survivors of the adventure.

WAR OF THE WORTHY

Fear Itself (2011)

Fear Itself was a Captain America/Thor crossover idea that Marvel decided to turn into a full-on event. It was...there. The tie-ins were better than the main plot, honestly.

Watch everything Marvel and more with a FREE Disney+ TRIAL, right here!

The Red Skull’s daughter Sin came across a mystical hammer that transformed her into the deity Skadi. She helped unleash forgotten Asgardian god The Serpent, who in turn created seven hammers that would possess and empower those worthy of unleashing fear. They were Hulk, Juggernaut, Thing, Titania, Absorbing Man, Grey Gargoyle, and Attuma. Then Nazis in mechs started swarming Washington DC and the whole thing was a big mess.

read more: What's Next for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in MCU Phase 4?

Around this time, Bucky Barnes was Captain America and the story partly existed to have Bucky fake his death and move the Cap identity back to Steve Rogers (and you thought Endgame treated the Bucky/Steve relationship poorly?). A lot of good it did for him, as The Serpent was able to shatter the shield with his bare hands.

To turn the tide, Tony Stark and Odin made some special weapons for the superheroes to wield. As for Cap, he simply found Mjolnir lying around on the battlefield and used it to go to town on Skadi. They hyped all this magic weapon stuff up like crazy in the adverts, but the whole thing was really background noise. The fight just kind of ended after Odin pulled away all the hammers and Skadi went back to being Sin.

THE MIRROR MATCH

Secret Empire (2017)

And then there’s this load. Nick Spencer did a lengthy story about Steve Rogers revealing he was really an agent of Hydra all along. Marvel was really adamant that it was really Steve Rogers and that he wasn’t being mind-controlled. Also, the company insisted that Captain America wasn’t a Nazi because Hydra weren’t Nazis. TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING. Because, you see...look over there!

Hydra Cap then turned out to be a version of Steve Rogers created by a little girl with reality-warping powers (sure), who was manipulated by Red Skull. Cap ended up taking over the US and shockingly beat up opposing superheroes via wielding Mjolnir. That too seemed to be a product of the reality-warping as the inscription/rules of the hammer were different and you had to be a bulky Hydra asshole to pick it up.

read more: Full MCU Marvel Movie Release Calendar

By the end of the event, the little girl conjured the original version of Captain America to beat up his please-don’t-call-the-Nazi-a-Nazi doppelganger. When Hydra Cap went for the hammer out of desperation, it had already reverted back to normal and he wasn’t worthy enough to pick it up. Regular Cap picked it up and walloped his douchebag counterpart.

"Your ass will never be America's ass." (not actual dialogue)

Yeah, everyone knew that the status quo would return in the end, but the whole Hydra Cap business was as well-timed and tactful as showing off your chainsaw and hockey mask to your son, in the middle of the night, when Sideshow Bob is trying to kill him. It also killed the end of Gerry Duggan’s otherwise legendary Deadpool run, which I can never forgive.

HONORABLE MENTION

There’s only been five comic scenarios where we’ve seen Captain America wielding Mjolnir, so let’s just move those goalposts a little and talk about times when superheroes have kicked ass with the shield AND the hammer at the same time.

First up is Crusader from an issue of What If based on the original Secret Wars that showed what would have happened had all the heroes and villains been stranded on Battleworld for 25 years. While some died in that time, others got busy and we got a new generation of heroes and villains. One of which was Sarah Rogers, daughter of Cap and Rogue.

read more: Marvel Movies Watch Order - An MCU Timeline Guide

No, the comic doesn’t answer the question of how that conception worked.

Even though her boyfriend Bravado was the son of Thor and Enchantress, it was Crusader who ended up being able to pick up the hammer and turn the tide against Vincent Von Doom. She also had stolen her dad’s shield from his closet when he wasn't looking, but that’s less impressive.

Then there’s Superman. The miniseries JLA/Avengers was the final crossover between Marvel and DC and it finished with a bang. Leading both hero teams into battle, Superman was entrusted with Captain America’s shield. During a pivotal moment, in order to break into the villain Krona’s stronghold, Thor threw Mjolnir to Superman. Superman caught it and smashed his way in.

read more: Does Steve Rogers Still Have a Place in the MCU?

Later on, after the dust had cleared, Superman found himself no longer able to lift it. As Thor put it, Odin may be strict, but he knows when to cut you slack when times are desperate.

I have to imagine we’ll be seeing more Cap/Mjolnir moments going forward. Marvel really seems to enjoy having comics imitate movies that imitate comics. God, remember when Spider-Man 3 came out and comic Spider-Man just happened to start wearing black again?

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and when Captain America throws his mighty hammer, all those who attempt to...stammer that hammer must clamor...? Read his other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

facebook

twitter

tumblr

Feature

Books

Gavin Jasper

Nov 25, 2019

Marvel

Avengers: Endgame

Captain America

Disney+

from Books https://ift.tt/2Dbqjxl

#aion-rsa #Books

2 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 6 years ago

Text

I saw Endgame

And overall I liked it, although I think I liked Infinity War more. I really want to make a long post detailing all my feelings in a coherent way, but I’m not sure I’m in the headspace to do it now, and I can’t do it at a later date because the memories won’t be as fresh, so I’m just going to make a list that might be all over the place beneath the cut (with TREMENDOUS SPOILERS, obviously).

Things I Loved:

Peter was the catalyst for Tony deciding to help with the time machine business. This isn’t specifically stated, it’s not said out loud, but it didn’t have to be. Tony turned Steve and the others down. He flat out refused to help them. But when he caught sight of that photo of him and Peter? When he remembered just who he had lost? That was when he decided to see if he could find a way to make time travel work. Peter was his motivation. I think that for the most part he was repressing his grief over Peter (and more on that in a bit), but he couldn’t repress it entirely, not when a photo of Peter being so exuberant and happy was staring him right in the face. If there was any glimmer of hope at getting Peter back, Tony was going to take it. Yeah, he cared about the trillions of others, too---but Peter was the catalyst, Peter was the reason he was willing to take the risk, and I loved that.

THE REUNION HUG. Honestly, this should have been first on my list, but I’m not going to erase the above paragraph. GOD, if I don’t get ten million gifsets of both that hug, and also how it’s development from the “this is not a hug, we’re not there yet” scene in Homecoming, I’m going to lose my mind. Fuck, the fact that Tony couldn’t even speak, the fact that he just pulled Peter into his arms and hugged him so tightly, hugged him tighter when Peter said “this feels nice” was just everything to me. I could watch that for ten hours. Also, Peter’s rambling preceding the hug was fucking adorable. “Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty and then I must have passed out or something because I woke up and you were gone, but Dr Strange was there and he said five years had passed and we had to go---” NO WONDER TONY HUGGED THE BUHJEEZUS OUT OF HIM. HE HASN’T HEARD THAT RAMBLING FOR FIVE YEARS, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HE MISSED HIS BOY? NO WORDS NEEDED TO BE SAID THERE. THAT HUG SAID IT ALL.

Peter in general, honestly. Tom Holland didn’t get to do very much in this movie, for obvious reasons, but he stole every single goddamn scene he was in. The reunion rambling, everything he said while he had the gauntlet and was trying to get it to the van, THE FACT THAT HE GOT A MOMENT WITH PEPPER WHERE SHE SAVED HIM, his scream when he was on Valkyrie’s pegasus, and of course the heartbroken sobbing when Tony died. I do wish that Tony had been more coherent at that point, that he’d been able to tell Peter that he was proud of him, and I also kind of wish that Peter hadn’t called him “Tony” because I’m going to be real with you, I like how he calls him “Mr Stark.” But everything else about it was perfect, including the bit where Rhodey had to pull Peter away because Peter was just falling to pieces. (And note, I mean as perfect as it can get given that Tony died, but you know.)

The fear in Thanos’ eyes when he headbutted Carol and she didn’t even FLINCH. I do have some issues with Carol’s (lack of) involvement in this movie, which I’ll get to later, but while it was unrealistic that Thanos got the jump on her at any point (please), the fact that she didn’t flinch when he headbutted her and just the TRUE FEAR IN HIS EYES KJFDSKFJDS. GOD. I love Carol so much. Oh Captain, My Captain.

Morgan requesting a cheeseburger, just like her daddy, and Happy saying he’ll get her all the cheeseburgers she wants. I don’t even have anything to add onto this. It just made me cry even more than I already was.

Loki stealing the Tesseract (AGAIN) as a way to bring him back. Apparently Loki is going to be in a new TV show streaming on Disney’s service (whether it’s the same one Sam and Bucky are going to have, I’m not sure), so this was a clever way to ensure that Loki can make a comeback in the future without having to have found a way to revive him, and only him, from Infinity War. Of course, this also means that the Loki we see in the TV show or whatever won’t have any of the character development post-Avengers, which is . . . eh . . . but it’s better than having him be permanently dead, I guess. (Also, did anyone tell Thor this happened? No? Someone might want to fill him in so he can be cautious when picking up snakes for the foreseeable future.)

Thor getting Mjolnir back, and then dual wielding. Though the dual wielding was more temporary than I would have liked (more on that in a bit, too), I love dual wielding so I was happy to see him doing it, and also I love Mjolnir (a.k.a. “mya-mya”) so I was happy to see that back, too. It put a definite smile on my face.

Valkyrie being the new Queen of Asgard. No offense to Thor, because I get that he was going through a lot, but he was also being a terrible king, particularly since I don’t think he ever really wanted to be king, anyway. Like he accepted the duty because he felt he had to, not because he wanted to, and so I think it’s good that he’s going to get out there and see new parts of the universe (and hopefully clean himself up some, and also not actually answer to Quill because I mean, come on). That said, Valkyrie was the one keeping everything in order, and she deserves to be queen. I love her. I’m so happy for her.

All the ladies coming forward to back up Carol. I mean, Carol doesn’t really need backup, but I looooved seeing all the ladies assemble ready to beat some fucking ass. The MCU has such powerful women and a good number of them, too, and I love that that was highlighted in that moment of this film. It was a great moment.

Nebula’s character development. She’s had such an arc despite being in so few movies and I love it. I loved how invested she was in the paper football game she played with Tony. I love how she took care of him, even in gentle ways such as moving him off the floor and onto a chair. I love how she killed her past self in order to save Gamora without a second of hesitation, as well as how she talked Gamora into turning against Thanos long before it happened in the timeline we know. (On that note, I’m fine with how they’re keeping Gamora in the picture, and I laughed at her “whomst” expression when Quill approached her jkdlsfds.) Nebula had a great arc and I loved it, although I can’t believe she didn’t warn Natasha and Clint about how they’d have to get the Soul Stone. Like, she knew. Why didn’t she say anything?

Sam getting a private goodbye with Steve, and having the shield passed onto him. I’m okay with the fact that Steve did get a happy ending. I always shipped him with Peggy and I think that, overall, he was just not happy in our time period, even if he had some moments of happiness, so I think that being able to go back in time and live the life he actually wanted was a good ending for him. But I’m also glad that Sam got that private goodbye, as well as the shield, because Sam goddamn deserved that after everything he’s been through and everything he gave to Steve’s cause. Sam doesn’t get enough respect in-universe or out of it, so I was glad to see him get this. On that note, I also like the fact that Bucky knew before Steve even left that Steve wasn’t coming back, and that he was the one to draw Sam away and point him to where he needed to be.

There’s probably more that deserves to be in this list, but these are the only things I can think of right now. More can always be added later, especially if / when I see the movie a second time.

Things I’m Okay With:

Tony’s death. I know this sounds like a weird thing to be okay with, but hear me out. Obviously, my preference would be for Tony to be alive, and still making appearances in future movies, such as Far From Home. But the thing is, we already know that he’s not going to be in Far From Home. He’s not in any of the trailers, it’s been confirmed again and again that he’s not in that movie. We know that Peter is still involved with Stark Industries and the Stark family, but Tony himself is not around. And fam, the only way that makes sense from a character standpoint is if Tony is dead. Tony retiring from being Iron Man wouldn’t necessitate him taking himself out of Peter’s life. He just wouldn’t do that, not after he already lived five years without him because of the snap. So if Tony were alive, but he just decided, “I’ve got my own kid now, I don’t need Peter anymore”? That would be so disgustingly out of character I’d drop all future movies in . . . well, a snap. So in that sense, I’m okay with Tony dying since RDJ didn’t want to do any future movies, and if he’s not doing future movies and isn’t going to be in Peter’s life anymore, then the only way that makes sense without assassinating his character is to assassinate him. It’s sad and I cried, but at least this doesn’t destroy Iron Dad & Spider-Son, which, as selfish as this may sound, is what’s most important to me. I can live with this, especially since fanfic exists for this very reason.

Carol’s lack of presence in the movie. This is very nearly a “Thing I Didn’t Like,” but I’m putting it here because I understand it. Thing is, Carol is too strong for Thanos. Carol could atomize Thanos if she was allowed to do so. And forget Thanos; Carol could take out literally every member of his army in a second if she was allowed to do so. The thing is, that also takes all stakes out of the movie, as well as negates the need for Tony to make the heroic sacrifice he did. And while they did weaken her a little and let Thanos overpower her for a second (unrealistic tbh), they couldn’t weaken her enough to conceivably have her not end that battle, and as such they just took her out of the movie entirely, for the most part, with the excuse that “other planets need me and they don’t have you.” And like, again, I get it. Carol is too OP. If she stuck around the movie would have been a lot shorter. But at the same time it bummed me out because she’s my favorite hero, so I did want to see her doing more things than what she was allowed to do.

The lack of quantity of Iron Dad & Spider-Son. Don’t get me wrong, quality wise it was almost perfect. The only way it could have been more perfect would be if Tony had managed to tell Peter that he was proud of him while he was dying (especially since Peter apologized to Tony, meaning that Peter blames himself for Tony’s death), and if, when telling Steve that they had to keep what they’d gained in the past five years at all costs, Tony had explained his reasoning as, “I already lost one kid. I’m not gonna lose another.” My entire year would have been made had Tony said that line. The literal entire thing. But while the quality was great, I do wish that we could have felt Peter’s presence more in Tony’s life. Like, again, Peter was the catalyst for Tony getting involved at all, and that was great, but I just wanted . . . more. There was a lot going on in this movie, and I get that, and there’s also the fact that I got the feeling that Tony repressed what happened with Peter hard over the past five years, that he had to repress it or else he wouldn’t have been able to function. Like part of me was surprised that no one brought up Peter when they were trying to get Tony to help with the time machine, but at the same time I also think that Steve at the least knew they’d get hit if they did that. But I felt a lot of repression going on, repression that was ripped off once Tony caught sight of that picture, but at the same time once that repression was ended I kind of wish the floodgates had opened. I wish that Tony would have had the line about not wanting to lose another kid. I wish that when thinking about time traveling back to New York, there would have been a moment when Tony would think about returning to New York during a time when Peter Parker was still alive. I wish that Tony would have made mention after Bruce’s snap about Peter being stuck in space, or that he would have told Peter at the end that he was proud of him, or that Peter would have been present during the final message hologram, and so on and so forth. I’m okay with what little we got because it was excellent, there was a lot going on, and also Tony was repressing (with the floodgates truly opening once Peter was babbling in front of him again), but since this was our absolute last chance to get Iron Dad & Spider-Son with both of them alive, I really do wish we had gotten more. I’m okay with it, but I’m still kind of sad.

Bruce being Hulk physically all the time now. This is also almost a “didn’t like,” because it’s just . . . weird . . . but I’m also okay with it, I guess. He reminded me of Beast from X-Men, and I didn’t really see a reason for him to be like this, especially since we’re just told how he got to that point, rather than shown. It was just kind of . . . weird. It could have been done better.

Thor traveling with the Guardians. I kind of hope this is just a temporary thing, because as I mentioned, I don’t very much like the idea of him answering to Quill, and I also feel like he’s less of a team player and more of a solo artist. I’m okay with it for now because at least he’s not dead or wallowing anymore, and also it means that Valkyrie gets to be Queen of New Asgard, but I really hope it’s just temporary because he deserves more than to be just another crew member on that ship.

Again, more could probably go here, but this is what I’ve got for now.

Things I Didn’t Like:

Steve wielding Mjolnir. I get that this was a callback to Age of Ultron, and specifically the scene where they all tried to wield Mjolnir and couldn’t, but it did tremble a bit under Steve’s grasp, but I didn’t like it. I don’t hate Steve, by any means, but particularly after all that shit in Civil War I don’t think he’s worthy, and it also doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that he just magically knows how to flawlessly use Mjolnir with no practice or training. Sure, Thor picked it up quickly, but Thor is also an Asgardian. It doesn’t make sense that Steve, a human, would know how. And also, Thor’s “I knew it!” was strange, considering he seemed anxious about the possibility of Steve being able to wield Mjolnir in Age of Ultron. Like it was just . . . I didn’t like it. Especially since it cut so much into Thor’s dual wielding time. On that note . . .

Thor. Just . . . Thor all around. Aside from how his “let himself go” look was his look for the entire movie, I felt like his portrayal in this movie was really . . . shallow, flat, and lacked all of the emotional weight he carried in Infinity War. Like in Infinity War he was raw with grief, he’d just lost everyone, and you could feel that in every action he took. And yeah, he felt that he failed at the end of that movie, even though he did kill Thanos, so it makes sense that he’d need time to process that grief. But five years of processing led him to lose all the emotional weight he had originally. Like, we were supposed to get the feeling that this was Thor grieving, but it just didn’t feel that way. Moreover, it felt like they were trying to bring in Ragnarok flavored humor with him, but it didn’t work because it didn’t fit the tone of the movie. I usually love Thor, he’s always been one of my faves, but I just was not vibing with him in this movie. The dual wielding was cool, as was his excitement to get Mjonir back, but the rest of it? Bleh.

Natasha’s death. I mean, I get it on some level. I get that she didn’t have a family to go back to, whereas Clint did. I get that Scarlett Johansson probably didn’t want to do any more MCU movies / her contract was up. But that doesn’t make me feel any more okay that yet another woman was fridged so that Clint could have some manpain. It doesn’t make feel any more okay that a character who actually routinely did things and contributed in these movies (Nat) was sacrificed for one who pretty much never does anything ever (Clint). To be fair, far more male characters were removed from the cast in this movie than female ones, but that doesn’t make this jive with me any more. I was totally rooting for Clint to bite it instead. Like let him do something for once in these movies, ffs.

Harley being present at Tony’s funeral. Look, I’m going to be honest: Harley had no reason to be there. I get that he was in Iron Man 3 and that he was like the prototype for the Iron Dad we’d all come to love, but that’s the thing: He was the prototype, he was like foreshadowing. From a narrative perspective, Harley’s purpose was to foreshadow how Tony was with kids, so that when he met Peter in Civil War and came to bond with him over the course of the following films, we’d be able to see where that paternal side of Tony came from. There’s a reason why Harley was not seen or mentioned after Iron Man 3, and it’s because his narrative purpose was fulfilled, and therefore Tony presumably didn’t have any further contact with him after that. And I mean, no offense to those who liked Harley or his role in Iron Man 3, but the Tony & Harley relationship was not the one that was developed over the course of the following movies. Again, he wasn’t shown, nor was he even mentioned. Instead, it was Tony & Peter in Civil War, Homecoming, and Infinity War. Harley might as well have not even existed. The only reason I even recognized him was because I knew ahead of time that he was going to be in the film. My best friend (who I saw the movie with) didn’t even recognize him and was wondering who tf he was. So to that end, I just . . . I don’t think it was necessary for him to be there. Like it felt more like a move for us, the audience, of them saying “see, Tony impacted all these people, everyone who was important at some point in his life is there.” But it didn’t even really work that way because the funeral was so small and private. So it just seemed really random for Harley to be there, when he hasn’t been relevant at all since Iron Man 3. And I know it’s not that big a deal and I honestly wouldn’t care, except every time I see something about “Morgan and her big brother Harley” or “Tony’s three kids” I can’t help but roll my eyes because, no. There was nothing post-Iron Man 3 that would lead us to believe that Tony considered Harley to be like a son to him. The fact that Harley was standing awkwardly way in the back at the funeral, instead of up front where Peter and Morgan were, says it all. If Harley had been present in movies following Iron Man 3 and we actually saw his relationship with Tony on-screen, okay, fine. But that’s clearly not the case, and wasn’t even in the case in this movie (like he was clearly not around for those five years!) so it just . . . I don’t know. It felt really unnecessary to me. I’m not a fan. (And I know some people are like, “He’s going to pick up the mantle from Tony, he’s going to be Iron Lad!” which gets a very hard no from me, for two reasons: 1.) If anyone is picking up the torch from Tony, it’s Peter. Peter has been Tony’s protégé for the past several movies, Peter is the one that the Russos have specifically said had a father-son relationship with Tony, Peter is the one that Tony made tech for and trained, the one who was sobbing by his side when he died. If anyone is picking up the torch from Tony, it’s Peter. 2.) If it’s not Peter, it’s Tony’s biological daughter Morgan. Yes, she’s too young now, but give her some time and she’d make a fantastic Iron Lady, or even Ironheart if they don’t want to introduce Riri. Morgan has far more reason to pick up that mantle than Harley does, just like Peter. Send Harley back to Tennessee where he belongs and stop acting like he’s super mega important when he clearly wasn’t important enough to even get name dropped after his initial appearance in any of the movies before this one. Jesus.)

Thanos going from “you drew blood from me, I respect that” to “you keep resisting me so I’m going to enjoy killing you.” Like, it just made him seem so petty? I feel like it would have made more sense for him to make the jump to “I’ll kill EVERYONE and make a WHOLE NEW UNIVERSE this time” if his rationale was “I can’t have anyone around trying to undo what I do.” It would have felt more in line with his characterization from Infinity War. I get it, Thanos is a sociopath, no one is arguing with that. But he wasn’t a petty sociopath in Infinity War, so it feels a bit disappointing to me that they made him such a petty, smug bastard in Endgame. I liked him more when he was acting like a Well-Intentioned (In His Mind) Extremist than a Petty Purple Bitch.

And once again, there could possibly be more here, but this is all I can think of for now.

All in all, I did like it, just not as much as I liked Infinity War, and that probably has to do with (as I said) the fact that Infinity War had more Iron Dad & Spider-Son content / interactions, and that’s my favorite relationship in the whole MCU, so obviously I’m going to prefer the movies where that’s a bigger focus. But I did like Endgame well enough all the same, and I can’t wait for Far From Home this summer. And on that note, some wishes for it:

The reason why Peter doesn’t have the Iron Spider suit in Far From Home is because it hurts too badly to wear / he doesn’t feel like he deserves it after what happened to Tony. I want to see his grief over Tony’s death brought up.

An AI / hologram message that Tony made for Peter at some point.

May to not date Happy, but instead to bond with Pepper, and for them to eventually find love again in each other’s arms and get married so that Peter and Morgan can be official stepsiblings. (Like Peter is Morgan’s big brother anyway, but this would make it Official™.) Happy can date someone else. (Also I know that May is Peter’s aunt and not his mom, technically, but come on. She might as well be his mom.)

But that’s it for now. Time to go nurse the pain with some fics (including potentially a couple of my own.)

#mcu #endgame #avengers endgame #irondad and spiderson #mcu spoilers #avengers spoilers #endgame spoilers #avengers endgame spoilers #avengers 4 spoilers #irondad & spiderson

13 notes · View notes

dtissagirl · 6 years ago

Text

I fought the war but the war won

Warning: all the spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.

OF COURSE I have no doubt Natasha would sacrifice herself for the world in a heartbeat.

And between her and Clint, it's obvious her thinking is he can have a future with his ~family~, and she's obviously been insanely isolated these last five years, and filled with regret, and sacrificing herself for her found family [and saving the universe in the process] is worth it for her.

But my problem is I don't acknowledge the existence of Clint's family because that's a dumbass story idea from the worst movie ever GO AWAY LINDA CARDELLINI.

And watching Nat and Clint back together made my heart ache because those two belong together -- romantically if you prefer it so, but mainly together as in partners that work insanely well together in a fictional narrative. They have had this lived-in chemistry from the first Avengers, and I didn't realize how much I had missed it until this movie.

[Fuck Joss Whedon with a cactus forever.]

[Someone make me that Black Widow movie and show me Budapest. I DESERVE IT.]

...

And then the scene with all the dudes in the lake angry-mourning Nat looks REALLY REALLY BAD because the only thing that emotionally rings out of that scene is HOLY SHIT THEY FUCKING KILLED THE ONLY WOMAN OH MY GOD PLEASE END ALL MEN WRITING SUPERHERO STORIES BECAUSE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW HORRIBLE THE OPTICS ARE WHEN THEY FUCKING KILL THE ONLY ORIGINAL WOMAN AVENGER IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE MOVIE THAT'S SUPPOSED TO CELEBRATE THEIR LEGACY. HOLY FUCK.

...

Holy motherfucking shitballs what they did to Thor was a supreme case of extreme fatphobia. So fucking embarrassing. And they could have done the exact same depression/PTSD shit without a fat suit. Fatness is NOT a character flaw, and for this movie to think it's okay to portray it as such, and for most people in the audience to not even realize how horrible this is... well, that's the fatphobic world we live in everyday wherein thin people don't realize how fucking horrible they are about fatness ALL THE TIME. Ugh.

And hey, I think Hemsworth is a comedic genius at this point, and I'm super glad Hollywood at large has realized he can run circles of funny and comic timing around everybody else [THANKS, GHOSTBUSTERS!], but the fat suit soured it forever in this movie.

...

Look, I know at this point Goop is a hazardous danger to women's health at large, and call me a hypocrite for separating actor and character this particular time when I usually don't, but I love and adore and cherish Pepper Potts with all my heart.

SHE is the reason I'm so connected to the MCU. My hook wasn't any of the superheroes, it was Pepper in the first Iron Man movie. She's the glue that has made me engage with this universe so deeply for the last ten years. All the fanart, all the fic, all the fanworks ever I've created or consumed in the last decade, it has been all about how much I adore Pepper.

And to see her in the Rescue armor in the final battle, I just. I wasn't expecting it. I hadn't even thought it was ever gonna happen, but THIS was the true culmination of the past ten years for me. From now on, I can say it without a doubt every single time someone asks me who's my favorite Avenger. It's Pepper Potts.

[I also kept thinking about my friend S. She would have been so fucking ecstatic about this. It hit me right in the face when Pepper showed up in battle -- I so dearly wish S were here to see this.]

...

Okay, so, disclaimer: I don't have a horse in the Steve Rogers 'shipping infinity wars. I crack 'ship Steve with Maria Hill forever and ever because they would make the prettiest babies on the planet and I don't even like babies. The only part of Ultron that I acknowledge is Maria wearing Steve's jacket at the party. It's the ONLY thing that happened in that movie, NOTHING ELSE DID.

And I don't even blame Steve in any of this mess, to be honest.

The problem here is structural. The narrative went OUT OF THIS WAY to establish HOW time-travel works in this universe. They even got all gloat-y about how every movie ever made was wrong about the ~quantum physics~ of it. They even had bald Tilda Swinton MAKE A POWER POINT PRESENTATION about the rules of time travel.

They set up ONE very specific rule -- changing the past doesn't alter one's own future, it creates a separate timeline of events. O-kay. Pretty simple rule.

...And then Old!Cap who looks scarily like Joe Biden broke that one rule.

Because he did. He went back in time and put all the stones in their proper place in the timeline[1]... and *after that* he went back to the 40s to live happily ever after with Peggy[2], THUS ***CHANGING THE PAST*** and *****CREATING AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE*****.

So there's no. fucking. possible. way. he could have grown old in the original timeline.

And like. They could have fixed that by having Joe Biden Old!Cap legit come back IN THE TIME TRAVEL SUIT IN THE QUANTUM PLATFORM. THAT WOULD HAVE FIXED THIS PROBLEM. But they didn't, so they broke their own story.

And the consequence of this fuck up is... Steve a horrible person. [And even writing that makes me sad because he isn't? He wouldn't ever?] But by breaking their story and their own time-travel rules, it fucks up Steve so badly I wanna cry. So what, he lived a whole life in this same timeline, and did nothing to change anything? Did he marry the future DIRECTOR OF SHIELD and never told her about Hydra? About Bucky? Did he open a newspaper one day and read that Howard and Maria Stark died in a car accident and went, oops? Did he pretend he was sick when his wife told him she was going to the funeral of her lifelong friend?

Do you see how badly it looks? It's bad. The Steve I know and love doesn't deserve this. Please go punch the Russos in the face, Cap.

Notes:

[1] HOW did Steve even put the stones in jewel form back in their proper places in the timeline when they stole the Tesseract in cube form, the mind stone with the scepter, the whatever stone that was they got from Star Lord that was inside an orb... HOW do you even put the soul stone back, like, does Cap go to Vormir and goes, oh hey, RED SKULL MY OLD BUDDY, MY OLE TIME FELLA, here's your soul stone back? Does he get Natasha back for the stone? Isn't it a soul for a soul? Does it work in reverse too?

[2] Hey, so if Steve lived happily ever after with Peggy in this timeline did he erase her future kids? This is Barry Allen levels of fuckupdness, Steve. Gah. And also -- I would pay actual monies to watch time-traveler Steve explain to Peggy that after he went to her funeral he kissed her niece. This is why I 'ship Steve with Maria Hill, man. No complications. Only pretty.

Also: STEVE ROGERS ERASED THE ENTIRETY OF THE AGENT CARTER TV SHOW. That's pretty unforgivable, man. They even had TV show Jarvis right there in this movie driving Tony's dad around in the 70s to make THIS BETRAYAL hurt more.

...

Four hours after I watched the movie I remembered Tony died and started ugly crying again. I'm glad he had those five years of a good life, I'm so glad he had a kid -- that kid, so obviously HIS kid it hurt, I'm so glad Pepper and Rhodey and Peter were there with him in his last moments. I'm glad he got the proper hero death. It still hurts like a son of a bitch.

...

Professor Hulk is a forever delight and he and I need to become besties so we can talk about quantum physics and eat hulkish amounts of breakfast foods every day.

...

I find Thanos to be a complete bore, so every time he sat and started monologuing I stopped paying attention because I DESERVE TO NOT have to listen to giant purple incels pretending they ~know best~ about anything.

But I did appreciate that there was a difference in tone. This was 2014 Thanos, before he went full on cray cray with the monologuing, so he spoke less [bless], and he went full nihilist I AM GOING TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE instead of only half of it ~for balance~ or whatever. Because Infinity Wars tried to make it like Thanos wanting to kill 50% of the universe had some sort of ~logic~ behind it, and that was way too close to ~both sides~ shit, and, no, son. Him wanting to destroy EVERYTHING put him in the right proper category of batshit crazy bananapants deranged, and that's where he should have been ALL ALONG, no ~he has a point~ arguments ever valid, he doesn't, he never did, shut the fuck up.

...

I actually really really enjoyed the pacing of this movie. Granted, I'm not stupid and I took a muscle relaxant beforehand so that I could sit still for one hundred and eighty two fucking minutes, but I honestly didn't feel it drag at all at any time [and I felt all the other Avengers movies drag at some point or another].

I appreciated it so much that the set up for the final battle took waaaaay longer than the final battle. [I know people go ga-ga for battle scenes, but eh. I prefer my superheroes as pretty people who talk really fast, and battles make them stop talking.]

My favorite sequence was the revisiting of the previous movies. I loved every single piece of it, and I know in my heart that I'm gonna rewatch those sequences over and over and over again for the rest of forever. THE CAP 2 ELEVATOR SCENE REENACTMENT BUT NOT REALLY OH MY GOD THAT WAS GLORIOUS.

Also Loki stealing the Tesseract [again!] was aces. Sure it was to set up extra time-travel shenanigans, but still. Loki and the Tesseract belong together. Please let this be the premise of the Disney+ series.

...

Even though battle sequences aren't really my thing, I would like to express my DEEP ABIDING LOVE for the part when all the women got together to help Peter move the Big Glove of Kitsch towards the van. My packed theater clapped so hard. I cried.

...

HOW DOES PETER PARKER GO BACK TO SCHOOL FIVE YEARS LATER AND HIS BUDDY IS STILL THERE DID HIS BUDDY FLUNK HIGH SCHOOL FIVE YEARS IN A ROW? WHAT?

...

Also Cap and the Hammer, the actual true love story of this movie. Thor's little "I knew it". I knew it too, buddy.

...

I'm gonna need Marvel to release the behind the scenes footage of the filming of Tony's funeral. I hope the cast had an actual party right there, all somberly dressed in black and everything.

...

After a full season of 22 episodes of television in a movie screen, this was a pretty great finale. Congrats on making the most expensive tv show of all time, Marvel. Excelsior!

#mcu #marvel cinematic universe #avengers #avengers endgame #endgame #movie #spoilers

3 notes · View notes

amandajoyce118 · 6 years ago

Text

Iron Fist Season 2 Easter Eggs And References

I actually managed to squeeze in watching the second season of Iron Fist in less than a month. Maybe I’ll be able to catch up on all of the other TV I’ve been behind on. Who knows? As usual, I haven’t explained who characters are if we’ve already met them, and I’ve tried to stick to comic book and MCU related Easter eggs, not the broader pop culture ones.

I will say, I found the first season of the show to drag, and not particularly compelling. The second season is much better. I actually don’t hate the Meachums this time around, for example, and I didn’t find Danny as annoying. Colleen is still the best.

If you haven’t yet watched the season, there are, obviously, spoilers. I’ve broken the Easter eggs down by episode so you can read one episode at a time if you want to avoid being spoiled, but you want to read as you watch.

Enjoy!

S2E01 “The Fury Of Iron Fist”

The episode title

The title is actually the title of Iron Fist’s first appearance in an issue of Marvel Premiere. Marvel Premiere was more of an anthology series. It was used to introduce a lot of characters in short story arcs to see how they did with the audience. Some of them stuck, others are now lost to time. (Funnily enough, when I first started watching the show, the episode titles were not showing up in the right order. Thanks, Netflix.)

Danny’s yellow mask

Yes, it’s yellow, a nod to his comic book costume. It also reminded me though that he promised Matt Murdock to take care of the city. Danny wasn’t huge on masks before, but Matt was.

Golden Tigers

This gang was actually in the comics, though in the comics, they were a little more conspicuous. They basically wore robes and tiger masks.

WJPBTV

The news footage that Danny watches and Colleen observes over his shoulder? That’s courtesy of the unofficial Marvel news network of the TV arm of the franchise. It was last seen in Luke Cage, I believe.

Mr. Yang

Mr. Yang not only appeared in the first season, but I think he also got a mention in season two of Luke Cage when Mariah was attempting to get all the gangs to work together.

“Old truces are being thrown to the wind.”

This is a bit of a theme in the Marvel Netflix world right now. Just like Luke Cage going after gangsters in Harlem, Danny Rand and company taking out the Hand here left a power scramble going on and old rules are no longer in play.

Oak Creek, Wisconsin

Oak Creek isn’t big in the comics, but since Mary said she’s from Wisconsin, I thought you might like to know of a few other characters from the same state. Phil Coulson is, for one. So are the Great Lakes Avengers. Funnily enough, the first time Wisconsin appeared in a Marvel Comic was in an issue of Captain America.

Mary

Speaking of Mary, she is a comic book character, but I think I’ll wait until that’s revealed in show in case anyone is taking this episode by episode.

The Silver Lotus

This restaurant actually exists in the comics. Usually the restaurants for the Netflix shows don’t. This one was a spot where Jean Grey, Storm, Colleen Wing, and Misty Knight grabbed some food. In case you didn’t know, Jean and Colleen actually were roommates for a while in the comics.

When Davos and Danny are talking on either side of a doorway, the number of the door reads 47. It’s probably a coincidence, but it made me wonder if there was any significance to the number since it was right in the middle of the shot. No Iron Fist solo series has ever made it to that number. Marvel Premiere, the comic where Iron Fist first appeared did, and it’s original issue 47 featured the first time Scott Lang put on an Ant-Man suit. Item 47 was also an MCU one shot featuring SHIELD Agents Sitwell and Blake after a couple who stole alien technology. That’s all I’ve got.

S2E02 “The City’s Not For Burning”

The episode title

Just like the first episode, this one is also named after a comic book. I guess that’s a thing this season. This title comes from Iron Fist #3. Though that comic book took place in London, it as a lot of the same ideas of the episode. In it, the city was seeing a lot of violence, though it was Danny and Misty who were teaming up there instead of Danny and Colleen.

Coffee A Go Go

Actual coffee houses have this name in reality, but it’s also a location from the comics. Hank and Bobby (AKA Beast and IceMan of the X-Men) used to double date with their girlfriends there. It was eventually turned into a sushi place instead.

Mary in the mirror

If you’re not familiar with this comic book character, the whole bathroom mirror thing is a huge clue to her identity.

Masks

The masks worn when Davos and Danny fight for the honor of facing the dragon are probably one of the closest things we’ve seen to the Iron Fist and Steel Serpent comic book costumes. They also employ the green and yellow color scheme.

The bowl

The priceless piece that Joy and Davos are after reminds me a lot of the candy dish that was in Joy’s office (I think?) in the first season. Same colors, in the Iron Fist scheme of course, but even similar in size and pattern.

Davos loses

Though Davos actually fought Danny’s father in the comics, the match basically went down the same way. When he loses, it’s actually his father up there on the panel watching who declares Danny the winner.

S2E03 “The Deadly Secret...”

The episode title

This episode gets its title from Power Man and Iron Fist #99. In that issue, Colleen and Misty team up for one story while Danny and Luke team up for another. Unfortunately, Misty gets kidnapped while they’re looking for an artifact, so Colleen is forced to ask the guys for help. They also find all of the films at their movie theater office stolen, Luke’s friend DW missing, and their foes Comanche and Shades out of prison. Whew. That’s a packed issue compared to this episode.

Cafe Bustelo

I just think it’s funny that this particular coffee brand hasn’t shown up (that I remember) on the show before. You know where this brand is popular? Luke Cage. I feel like these two shows have borrowed a lot from one another in their sophomore seasons.

“Someone called Walker.”

Yet another clue to Mary’s comic book backstory. Some might have thought this was a nod to Trish Walker if they didn’t know better, which would actually be very interesting if the shows decided to tie those two together. But no. I’ll wait for a full reveal to give the character details though. And isn’t it funny how we all thought Joy’s PI mention in season one was Jessica Jones? Apparently not. Instead, it’s Mary Walker.

Mrs. Yang’s hairpin

As far as I know, the Yangs aren’t comic book characters, but I love her use of her hairpin as a weapon. It’s a comic book trope that all of the femme fatales had deadly hairpins back in the day. It’s a classic.

S2E04 “Target: Iron Fist”

The episode title

This is the title of Iron Fist #3 from the 70s. In it, Misty takes center stage. She’s determined to take down a drug kingpin. It’s a storyline that was a little early for Marvel. Most of Marvel’s drug related arcs happened in the 80s instead. (It also featured Iron Fist facing off against a villain named Boomerang, if you’re interested in the Danny side of things.)

“I lost it back there, didn’t I? I blew our shot at peace.”

Oh, look. Another thing that was happening in Luke Cage. Luke taking things a step too far when all he wanted was peaceful streets. Were these writers hanging out before filming started or something?

Misty Knight

We all remember Misty from Luke Cage and The Defenders, right? Colleen saved Misty’s life when her arm was chopped off. Danny’s company paid for and developed Misty’s prosthetic, and now she’s in town for a visit.

Crane Sisters

Madame Gao was the show’s equivalent of the Crane Mother. The Crane Sisters appear to be the equivalent of the Crane Daughters. In their case, they were women who were the Mother’s actual daughters (she gave birth to thousands over the years according to the comics, but it seems more likely they’re from the same “Heavenly City” as her for the show). They actually gave their chi to another when they believed the Iron Fist was in the wrong for killing the Crane Champion. We kind of get a weird version of that here with them giving Davos his power.

The Steel Serpent

The symbol on Davos’ chest isn’t the dragon like Danny’s. Maybe it’s because he stole his powers. Maybe it’s just because it’s a nod to his comic book character. He’s the Steel Serpent in the comics. The same symbol was used on heroin in the Netflix corner of the MCU before.

Davos also stole Danny’s power in the comics, but it wasn’t quite the same way. He basically just stole it via the power of chi. This way looks more complicated.

S2E05 “Heart of the Dragon”

The episode title

This one comes from Marvel Premiere #16, which actually has a lot of nice thematic tie ins to this episode. In the comic, Iron Fist gets attacked by thugs as soon as he first arrives in New York. He also discovers there’s a mercenary named Scythe after him and that Scythe was paid for by the Meachums. He also spends a lot of time in the issue remembering just how Danny Rand became the Iron Fist. The difference here is that we’re seeing things more from the point of view of Davos this time around.

Promotion to Captain

This was flirted with in season two of Luke Cage. Misty was getting the offer for the job, but she didn’t seem to keen on it. She still doesn’t. But at least, we now know vaguely where we are in the timeline.

Colleen’s investigative instincts

Misty remarks that Colleen has good instincts when it comes to investigating Mary. Coincidentally (or not, since this is an Easter egg list), Misty and Colleen ran their own private investigative firm called Daughters of the Dragon. Still want to see Netflix make that the focus of a series.

616

A possible suspect with abilities gets this very fitting police code. Why? Because 616 is the designation given to the main universe in Marvel comics. Every Marvel TV series must give a nod to 616 at least once. It’s just a rule.

Mary Walker

They have definitely changed up Mary’s comic book backstory for the show, and probably for the better. In the comics, she’s a prostitute who is accidentally thrown out a window. When that happens, it awakens her “Typhoid Mary” personality, who essentially wants vengeance on all men ever. She starts with three distinct personas; the villain, Mary the meek, and Walker the stable peacemaker. As Typhoid Mary, she works for a few supervillains over the years. As Mary, she dates Matt Murdock. Her Dissociative Identity Disorder creates such distinct breaks in her personas that he can’t even tell that they’re the same people.

S2E06 “The Dragon Dies At Dawn”

The episode title

This comes from Iron Fist #9. In it, Danny ends up facing off against some members of the Golden Tigers, gets poisoned, and then finds out the guy he’s been fighting for the antidote isn’t the bad guy at all. Oh, and he’s framed for murder. Whew.

The Steel Serpent

Okay, I already talked about the tattoo, but it gets a comic book shout out here because the Crane sisters specifically say they used steel needles and Davos called it a serpent instead of a snake.

42 Baxter

Probably a coincidence, but when Mary calls the ambulance to 42 Baxter, I thought of the Fantastic Four with their Baxter Building on 42nd Street.

S2E07 “Morning of the Mindstorm”

The episode title

This title actually references Marvel Premiere #25. That issue was the last of the Marvel Premiere titles before Iron Fist got his own comic book series instead of being featured in the anthology. In it, Colleen was kidnapped and Iron Fist teamed up with Scarfe (who we see was Misty’s partner in season one of Luke Cage) to find her. The bad guy was Angar The Screamer who actually appeared in an old episode of Agents of SHIELD, so fun MCU connections in that particular comic.

The man with bullet-proof skin

Obviously, that’s Luke Cage. I like how the detectives think they’ve only got one person with abilities in each precinct’s jurisdiction. I have a feeling there are a lot more than that what with terrigen in the water in the MCU and all.

Red Fist vs Yellow Fist

In the comics, when Davos stole his power, Davos also had a glowing red fist.

A Tibetan antiquity

In addition to this being a nod to just where K’un L’un was in the comics, this also provides a nod to some of the other more mystical aspects of the MCU. The bowl might have been found somewhere near Tibet, but that’s also where the Ancient One is from in the comics (though that is certainly left murky in the MCU). Outside of Tibet somewhere, if I remember right, is also where Jiaying hid her village of Inhumans.

Professor Erskine

No, this isn’t the same Erskine that developed the super soldier serum for Captain America. He must come from a family of academics though. In the comics, Ernst Erskine was actually a writer and adventurer. He used the alias Lucky Pierre and he wrote about a much older Iron Fist than Danny.

Sokovia

Mary in Green Bay might be backstory we never get, but hey, she was in Sokovia, a major place in the MCU. Back when she was a soldier, she was captured and held there. When? We don’t know. But I do wonder if it was during the war torn days that saw Wanda want revenge on Tony, or if Mary’s too young for that, and she was captured by Hydra or something right before everything with Ultron went down.

Sensei Colleen

Not an Easter egg, but I think Colleen deciding to become Danny’s Sensei, break up with him, and not hold back while she trains him is my favorite scene in the show. I love her.

S2E08 “Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance”

The episode title

Named after issue #17 of Marvel Premiere, the only thing the two really have in common is Danny seeking vengeance. In the comic, this was only his third appearance, so he was setting out to take on Harold Meachum. Meachum had set elaborate traps for Danny so the Iron Fist couldn’t get to him. (He had 10 years to make sure he was ready, after all.) In the end, Danny ended up facing off against a guy who had been trapped in Meachum’s office building for 10 years who vowed to kill him, because, why not? His name was Triple-Iron, and I think that he only appeared in the two issues of their fight, never to be seen again.

More than two Marys

So far in the show, we’ve seen Mary and Walker. In the comics, her most deadly personality is Typhoid Mary (or Bloody Mary, some people label them as different personalities in the comics, but I think they’re the same?), which is likely going to end up being the person who saved her in Sokovia that she doesn’t know about. Interestingly, in the comics there’s also technically a fourth person called Mutant Zero. This version of Mary was part of the Initiative and was initially unstable, kept in check by the team leader, before becoming a full fledged fourth personality of hers that abandoned the team.

S2E09 “War Without End”

The episode title

Funnily enough, this is a pretty common title in sci-fi series. This episode shares its title with an episode of Babylon 5 and an issue of the old Transformers comic. Less famously, it’s also a title of a Power Man and Iron Fist comic - issue #83. The issue actually focuses on Luke Cage because Iron Fist is beaten unconscious. Think of it as an ally having to save him because he can’t use his powers, yes?

Turk

It feels like it wouldn’t be an episode of Marvel on Netflix without Turk. I guess he gave up his legit business in Luke Cage, and went back to selling weapons.

The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay

This is actually a character from the comics. Wu Ao-Shi was the first female Iron Fist, and yes, a pirate queen. She wasn’t just a fairy tale. I think we see where this is going, yes?

S2E10 “A Duel of Iron”

The episode title

This is actually the title of Iron Fist #1, and though the title suggests a battle between multiple Iron Fist powers, like we saw in the show, that’s not what goes down in the comics. Instead, Misty and Danny team up to save Colleen, not unlike the show, but Misty suspects that Stark Industries has something to do with Colleen’s disappearance, so that’s where they head. As you can imagine, it’s more of a misunderstanding, but Iron Fist and Iron Man do get into a brief fight before uniting.

The Mamas and the Papas

Mary singing “Monday Monday” while waiting to take aim at Davos is almost straight out of the comics. She sang it on the page during a fight scripted by Brian Michael Bendis, who is also the man behind the creation of Jessica Jones. (I’ve seen some people speculate that because the Mamas and the Papas were known for their four part harmonies that Mary might actually have four separate identities, not just the three we know about. I think that’s reaching, and that it’s just a nod to the comics, but anything is possible.)

Colleen’s fist is white

I like that each of the people sporting the Fist gets a different color scheme. Danny, of course, has yellow because of his comic book aesthetic, and Davos had red to show he’s a bad guy. Colleen gets white because white is her signature color in the comics, but white is also often associated with “pure” power, bright light, and all that, so maybe Danny’s right in the end and it was her destiny to be the Iron Fist after all.

(Also, Colleen has never been the Iron Fist in the comics that I know of, but she has shared Danny’s power on occasion when him using his power to heal her changed her. While she doesn’t have the Fist itself in the comics, she does have mastery over her chi.)

Misty’s arm bling

Misty makes a joke about blinging out her arm in the show, but in the comics, she did have a gold one.

KnightWing

No, this is not a Titans reference to poke the DC stick. Instead, this moniker coming up while Colleen and Misty talk career paths is a nod to NightWing Investigations, the name of the private investigative firm owned by the Daughters of the Dragon.

Orson Randall

The mysterious “employer” that Danny and Ward steal some property from? Yeah, he’s the World War I era Iron Fist. It looks like he’s still alive and kicking, and that his weapon of choice still holds onto his chi or something? Those two guns Danny sports that allow his fists to glow were what Orson liked to use in the comics. Just like Colleen channeling her power into her kitana, he could do it with his guns, and Wu Ao-Shi could do it with arrows. Fancy.

That’s all I’ve got for the second season of Iron Fist. I’ll be back for Daredevil season three next month!

#iron fist #iron fist season 2 #iron fist easter eggs #iron fist spoilers #marvel easter eggs #marvel comics #mcu #marvel on netflix

3 notes · View notes

davidmann95 · 7 years ago

Note

What are your thoughts on Infinity War and do you think the portrayal of Thanos is gonna make it harder for DC to do Darkseid in a future move due to comparisons?

Extended disconnected musings below the cut because world-shaking spoilers fucking obviously, but for the section of my audience that hasn’t seen it yet but is fine with simply seeing my immediate reaction and placement of it: it’s so very good, y’all. Hype as modern blockbuster filmmaking gets. Not a top-5 MCU flick (which is a credit to the MCU, not in any way a ding against this), but if you only count the Avengers movies that actually have “Avengers” in the title, this is definitely the best of that lot.

* I had been, while not concerned per say, very curious how the Captain America team would handle this - the writers might have been there from the beginning and done some pretty bombastic pulpy action in the first Cap movie, but the Russo Brothers had been entirely on the grounded side of the franchise, even doing the relatively grounded Avengers movie in Civil War - given this would be the most cosmic and superheroey of the bunch, and they acquitted themselves magnificently in every way imaginable. It’s big, it’s funny, it’s ballsy, it’s engaging, it’s fun, it’s weighty as hell, it’s emotional, it’s the gold standard of this sort of thing. I have no idea what they’ll do if they ever stop doing Avengers movies, because at this point the sky is the absolute limit for them.

* I know people have already inevitably been complaining about this being dependent on previous movies for continuity and character, to which I say

1. Fuck you, this is the sequel to a once-in-a-generation filmmaking blockbuster that completely changed the game, of course you’re going to know who the goddamn Avengers are, most especially if you’re going to see this movie. Don’t act like you’re that cool. You’re not that fuckin’ cool.

2. This may not have been a movie of character development, but it’s by no means a movie short on character. It’s very much in the vein of Grant Morrison’s JLA, in that it banks on familiarity and iconography not to change our understanding of these characters, but to do the most conspicuously *them* moments possible. Captain America might be a minor presence, but he’s Captain America as heck in this, and so forth.

3. This only banks on you having seen the first Avengers. Banner is our entrypoint character because he himself doesn’t know what’s going on so the Avengers breakup can be recapped in broad terms, the initial conflict you don’t really have to know about Ragnarok to understand (they could’ve been fleeing Thanos destroying Asgard for all a casual viewer would know), Spider-Man’s role is obvious even aside from him being a cultural icon, Panther is Cap’s secret ally the rest of the team barely knows about so and Wakanda are broadly understood, and the Guardians and Strange are reintroduced. Strange you immediately know all you need: Wong defers to him so he’s clearly a big deal, but he’s also still telling him things about magic - even if jokingly - so clearly Strange is not the most seasoned veteran and hasn’t been in this hidden mystic world forever. The Guardians are space bozos, and based on Star-Lord’s manchild nature and 80s nostalgia and lack of familiarity with the Avengers you can guess he hasn’t been to Earth in a long time even if he clearly hails from there.

* Thanos was…good? Though I would have yelled “BULLSHIT!” at my monitor when I saw Starlin declared Thanos in an interview to be exactly as he had always envisioned him had I seen this at the time, because this is very much from the Slade-in-Teen-Titans “scrap everything, and it’ll wind up better because there’s nowhere to go but up” school of villainous improvement. But seriously, while surely people will write eye-rolling thinkpieces on his nature and goals, he’s a proper vile bastard of the sort we haven’t quite gotten in these movies before that more than justifies his place after 6 years of buildup, with humanity to spare keeping him from being a caricature; it should avoid Darkseid comparisons quite deftly (and vice-versa), even if none of what made this work can translate back into the comics. And as much as the sidekick baddies might have been traditional uncanny-valley CG, this guy might be the most amazing effect I’ve ever seen in a blockbuster: I totally bought this was a real flesh-and-blood living being existing in recognizable 3-dimensional space whenever they zoomed in on his expressions. And more importantly, they acknowledged he has a nutsack for a chin.

* Speaking of effects, that’s how you do a fuckin’ magic fight!

* And speaking of villains: SKULL. What a payoff, and I sure hope he stays and fills the role Mephisto did in the original Infinity Gauntlet as Thanos’s right hand man, because I want to see him face down with Steve as Captain America one more time. In a very different movie/s, I could have seen him seizing the Gauntlet and promising Thanos he too will wipe out half the universe, but much less indiscriminately, with the great tyrant dying with the ultimate monstrosity his endeavor has brought about evident to him at last. And then you’d have the ultimate Nazi as the final boss, since not only are he and Cap enemies, but he battled Iron Man’s dad, was well-versed in Asgardian mythology and stole one of Odin’s treasures, and is like Hulk a failed Super Soldier. What we got should be pretty good too though. Fingers crossed he at least sticks around to menace Bucky and Sam once one of them takes over as Cap.

* Outside the villain, boy, who would have expected Thor would basically be the closest thing to a main character of this movie? I guess Marvel rightly expected Ragnarok would be fire, and knowing that he’ll now be the major remaining original Avenger, are trying to build him up in double-quick time. And with only half of Asgard gone, they can keep the setup Waititi provided after this (even if I wish they hadn’t brought back his eye. I’m not worried for him personally though; his godly constitution should be more than capable of resisting mere alien raccoon ass germs). And given Ultron was the Iron Man-centric flick and Civil War was literally a Captain America movie, it feels fair they gave this to the third member of the core trio. By contrast, I’m not sure whether Black Panther was too late for them to account properly for him, or they did know, and that’s why the final action was set in Wakanda even though it’s relatively irrelevant.

* The characters getting to bounce off each other was much of the heart of this, and while Downey vs. Cumberbatch was totally reasonable - I wish Strange and Spidey had more time together as promised as fellow Ditko creations, but doing Sherlock vs. Holmes makes sense, with “Do you concur, Doctor?” almost feeling deliberately evocative - I never would have expected Thor and Star-Lord to be the standout comedic pairing. And yet, as Drax put it, it entirely makes sense: “He is not a dude. You are a dude. He is a man.”

* What most leapt out at me as signalling this is the post-Trump movie relative to Civil War’s summer 2016 blockbuster? There, the question of whether or not the government can be trusted is the inciting incident that drives everything. Here, that the government is actively working against the right thing is so plain that Rhodes - who had previously said his critical injuries were more than worth standing up for the Accords, so passionately did he believe in all they stood for - immediately, casually acknowledges that the entire thing is fucked and bails with no fanfare, and that’s the end of it.

* I’d expected this to be an all-out invasion flick and so had been disappointed no Defenders or whatnot would at least cameo, but as it really turned out I’m not surprised there wasn’t a place for Daredevil to stick his horns in. And despite assurances, no Hawkeye! I’m sure as many as 5 or 6 people were quite disappointed.

* Betting pool on who’s actually dead? Obviously everyone vanished will be okay, but the others? Gamorra looks pretty stiffed, but she seems a safe bet to return. Vision’s end felt gruesomely final, but they put so much effort into implying he might be able to survive without the stone, and now they have a seminal story to draw on for a potential solo movie of his. Loki, I think, is most likely to remain in the ground. A last-minute return and final prank against Thanos wouldn’t be out of place for him by any means, but his character has come full circle, and I think it’s more likely that if he returns it’ll be as Kid Loki.

* Speaking of the vanishing, I really appreciate the thought that clearly went into who was taken off the board. The castoffs either really had nothing to do with the Thanos conflict, even and indeed especially if they were big for maximum shock value (Black Panther, Spider-Man, White Wolf, Falcon, Mantis), or DID have something to do with Thanos but whose arcs in terms of physical confrontations with him reached their logical climaxes (Star-Lord vented regarding their shared relationship to Gamorra, Drax tried and failed as he was always going to because that one-sided hate he wanted fulfilled isn’t as much at the core of his character as Gamorra’s relationship with Thanos is). Or in Strange’s specific case, the enigmatic type with an ace up his sleeve who could logically leave a final mystery and hope for others to have to rely on. And as a whole, it means the final OG Avengers movie ISN’T going to be an even bigger crossover movie than this the way we thought. This, for the MCU’s 10th anniversary, was the big crossover movie. The last Avengers movie as we’ve known it up to that point is mostly just going to be the founders (plus Captain Marvel, a mandatory Wakandan representative or two, and Rhody since he’s the other hero who was introduced in Phase One) getting one last hurrah. And it makes sense to go with that smaller cast, because they’ll want space to really zero in on Steve and Tony before they go, and since going at Thanos head-on is no longer an option, there’s not really going to be an opportunity for the same kind of massive super-war we got in here anyway, because then he’d simply de-create them.

* Steve and Tony are going to die, and going into pure fanfic, I think I know how it’ll happen. Steve will get the Gauntlet, and it’ll kill him to use it, but in an homage to the climax of Kree-Skrull War, he’ll use his last breath to not only revive everyone, but bring together an army of superheroes to defeat a depowered Thanos once and for all (Gamora or maybe Nebula almost certainly striking the final blow), raising his returned shield high, exchanging a last look with Bucky, and finally crying out “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!” And Tony? Tony is going to knowingly walk to death in a doomed fight against Thanos as a distraction to give Steve that chance, becoming the guy who lays down on the wire and lets someone else crawl over him. It not only reaffirms his partnership with Steve and the idea behind the original Avengers just as both die, but brings his character arc totally full circle: he faces down the embodiment of his nightmares, and after having lived as the ultimate egotist, he dies as the man who sacrifices himself so someone else can secure the win. And Thanos was I believe introduced in an Iron Man comic, so that aspect’s pretty appropriate too.

* Jackson finally almost got to say motherfucker in one of these! And that’s the second Marvel movie with a character nearly saying fuck. Take the leap Disney, I believe in you. And much as that last shot in the stinger was neat, and much as this alternative would have been literally impossible, how much cooler would it have been if that screen had shown a “4″?

* My #4 title prediction? Avengers: The End. There was a big Thanos story by Starlin titled Marvel: The End where he destroys everything but ultimately turns it back, and that’d be both ominous enough to fit the warning that we should be scared of this title, and spiritually truthful. And since the Spider-Man movie right afterwards will according to Feige mark the start of the new MCU, they can title that Spider-Man: Brand New Day in accordance with said new beginning.

* Post-all this? It’ll be awhile yet before the Fantastic Four and X-Men come on stage, so ‘Phase 4′ will basically have to stall until they can bring in Doom to be the true final boss before the inevitable reboot a decade or so down the line. Spider-Man’s the new lead (hence the Iron Spider armor, which in Homecoming seemed deliberately to be overly gaudy as Tony’s vision of a Spidey remade in his image but now seems an indicating as his leading man status, the red/yellow/blue color scheme marking him as Peak Superhero) along with Panther, Captain Marvel, and likely Thor as the old standby. The Avengers likely disband for a bit due to losing the core and break up into different teams - your Ultimates, Champions, Young Avengers, etc. - before coming back together in New Avengers, managing to make the Avengers movie after the next one an event by making it about the reformation. Osborn leading the Cabal’s the big bad; he’s the leading man’s leading villain, he has the pedigree thanks to Dark Reign while still being able to put on a Goblin suit at the end, he lets them do the inevitable “all the bad guys get together to fight the Avengers” story, and while it might not work as well as it would have post-BvS pre-Justice League, using Sentry/the Void - a compromised, frightening, unsure, ‘realistic’ Superman figure - as his muscle and the true threat would be hella charged at the moment in a way I could see the MCU being cocky enough to go for, even if they never outright do Avengers V Squadron Supreme.

That’s what I got. As the god of thunder would say, farewell and good luck, morons.

#Avengers: Infinity War #Avengers #MCU #fanfic #Opinion

39 notes · View notes

thebibliomancer · 6 years ago

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #198: Better Red Than Ronin!

August, 1980

I know what saying the title is alluding to but it doesn’t make any sense! Red Ronin is both red and Ronin! And also the cover mispells it as Ronan!

Ronan is a different guy! He has a hammer!

Anyway, while living here in Jersey fighting villains from afar, you gotta find first gear in your giant robot car and you and I and chicks dig giant robots, across the state lines in New York they have a much different opinion.

They just do not like giant robots stomping around.

Which is unfortunate because that is what they have to deal with now.

Last time: Most pertinent is that a Dr. Cowan stole Red Ronin after he finished rebuilding it for Stark International so that he could start WORLD WAR III. Less pertinent is that Beast wrangled Wonder Man into a blind double date with him that went disastrously.

Which is why the story picks up again not from Red Ronin but with Beast and Simon “Wonder” Williams staggering around after they got incredibly drunk to deal with how bad the date was.

And dangit, drunk Beast is going to make it up to Simon ohyessir he’s going to give him the best entirely platonic friend present a guy could give another guy: sunrise over Manhattan!

But like I mentioned. Beast is drunk and took Simon to the west side of Manhattan, which you may recall is not the side the sun comes up on.

Womp womp.

Although the west side of Manhattan still has a great view of the Hudson, the Jersey coast, and a giant robot (gasp, so giant robots do come from Jersey!).

And just when they’re reeling with that unlikelihood, giant grabber claws come from the sky and abduct them.

An alien abduction by way of giant claw machine in addition to a giant robot? Comic, you’re on fire today!

Except no. Its just the Avengers. Although lets not brush past the idea that the Avenger have giant grabber claws on their Quinjets without just absorbing it for a second.

Put it in the idea pile with ‘SHIELD commissioned a GIANT ROBOT to fight GODZILLA’

So Beast and Wonder Man are brought on-board with Iron Man explaining that since this was an emergency, they had Jocasta use her super duper do-whatever-the-plot-wants cybernetic senses to track down Beast’s mutant energy.

I would expect it to be more of a thing that Jocasta has a mutant tracker. You’d think Beast would have Thoughts about that what with all the trouble with Sentinels he’s experienced. But I guess he’s too drunk from drinking and nauseous from the sudden ride into the air.

Anyway, Jocasta also brought Wonder Man’s non-costume costume for him to change into, which is very considerate.

She didn’t bring anything for Beast because Beast just strips down into his underwear to become a superhero. In some places, that would be considered exhibitionism and socially awkward but with Beast it makes him a hero.

It helps that he’s covered head to toe in hair though.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Red Ronin stomps through a Harlem River landfill alarming and disturbing the caretaker and also his dog Brutus.

Inside Red Ronin’s head, Dr. Cowan chastises Red Ronin for nearly stepping on the caretaker’s house but then remembers that he’s the one driving. Or at least the one directing Red Ronin with the cybernetic helmet.

This is the last person we want driving a giant robot really.

Also, for a man trying to start World War III he’s really adverse to causing walking around casualties.

But then... says a caption box to indicate that in the same scene a new action was occurring.

The Avengers attack Red Ronin!

Ineffectually!

Captain America legitimately tries to hit the giant robot with his shield. And maybe the rhyme should be updated because when it was said that when Cap throws his mighty shield, all who oppose his shield must yield, it probably didn’t take into account giant robots.

So Vision decides to do that thing he always does, become intangible so he can stick himself inside of something and then increase his density to disrupt the thing’s molecular structure.

He usually does it by sticking his hand in someone’s chest and it hurts like the dickens. I don’t know what it would do to a giant robot that presumably doesn’t have a nervous system that can feel pain, per se.

Not that it matters because in the grand tradition of stuff existing just to prevent Vision from instantly winning every battle by himself forever, Red Ronin has a photonic field protecting its surface for some reason.

For protection reasons I guess but why it exists aside to thwart Vision at this moment, I’m not sure. Photon is light so maybe its for resisting lasers?

Although Iron Man says that the photonic field is new so maybe Cowan added it just in case of Vision.

Also, the way that Vision described the attack is not the way it usually works. He says he’s going to “resume my normal mass” when usually he just slightly increases density.

Completely resuming his normal mass while inside of something is what causes explosions. Was the insinuation that he tried to jam his entire body into the robot’s leg and blow himself up?

Because that would have disrupted Ronin’s molecular structure. Via explosion.

Meanwhile, the non-flying Avengers Jocasta, Beast, and Wonder Man have landed to try punching Red Ronin’s ankles.

Their strategy could use work, honestly.

But Beast does manage to find a service hatch on Red Ronin’s heel. Wonder Man busts it open BRAKAM and tries to walk inside robot foot but there was a security system attached to the hatch.

Which makes sense. To prevent this exact scenario. Although Red Ronin was designed to fight giant robots so you’d think that this exact scenario wouldn’t come up very often. But lets just assume this is another Dr. Cowan modification.

Someone should have kept an eye on that guy.

Anyway, I’m not sure what form the sentry system takes but there are a lot of circular starburst sort of light flares and now Wonder Man is unconscious.

Jocasta mentions that she can deactivate the system with her eyebeams. Which I was going to make fun of as just another power from the do-anything robot but it looks like she deactivates the system by melting it. And she showed eyebeams before this so you get a pass, Jocasta.

Oh, and its not like she waited until Wonder Man got injured to mention the security system. She was mid-mentioning that her cybernetic senses detected it when Wonder Man rushed in.

He’s very bad about that.

So Beast and Jocasta just leave him unconscious on the ground and head inside the foot.

Although actually Beast protests just leaving Wonder Man unconscious here but Jocasta tells him There’s No Time.

But he was already holding Wonder Man so I don’t know why he didn’t just go inside the foot while carrying him except by the time that Jocasta tells him there’s no time, the foot is lifting up to take a quarter mile step so at that point there’s no time.

So I guess hesitation is just a bad idea when fighting a giant robot.

Beast says that maybe Wonder Man was lucky to be left behind because I can’t imagine a quarter mile ride inside a robot foot is comfortable. People were not meant to ride in the foot. That’s what the head is for.

Meanwhile, up in the sky, SHIELD’s anti-Godzilla aircraft Behemoth arrives to join the fight.

...

SHIELD commissioned an anti-Godzilla giant robot and an anti-Godzilla aircraft...

What is this world even?

Not only that but this cover suggests that Behemoth’s big blocky shape is because it is also a Godzilla cat carrier.

AMAZING.

SIMPLY. AMAZING.

How is it that SHIELD has been fighting giant monsters with giant robots and putting a radioactive dinosaur dragon in a giant cat carrier all along and this hasn’t come up even once in Avengers?

I mean. I guess giant monsters have been part of the Marvel universe since day 1 in Fantastic Four #1. In-universe Godzilla may be the King of Monsters but its just day to day life that SHIELD would be dealing with that and not something worth mentioning.

Its like ‘oh Atlantis invaded and that’s why I’m late to work’ ‘dammit Jerry, you can’t keep making that excuse!’

THIS IS JUST LIFE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE

And then the Marvel public are like ‘well the constant invasions by aliens, fish people, and giant monsters are one thing but god forbid there be a mutant.’

Go lick a stump, Marvel public.

Anyway, Behemoth ineffectually blasts a Red Ronin which looks more confused than affronted, as much as that’s possible for an expressionless robot, and then Nick Fury, having done exactly as much no damage as the Avengers tells them that he’s taking control of this situation.

But at least he offers useful tactical advice for the Avengers to go for Ronin’s head.

Why didn’t they think of that though? Why didn’t Stark tell them to think of that? His company rebuilt the thing!

Given the startling new insight of maybe attacking the head because that’s where the pilot is sitting, Cap sends Yellowjacket and Wasp to fly into Red Ronin’s eyeholes - which are holes and not covered up by windows or even screens - try to find a way to stop Red Ronin and also try not to hurt the pilot.

So obviously the first thing that Yellowjacket and Wasp do once they fly into the eyeholes which are really holes (maybe for ventilation??) is shoot Cowan in his soul patch.

In fairness, he did just try to destroy the Behemoth with Red Ronin’s laser blade.

In not fairness, why do Yellowjacket and Wasp always go full on Leeroy Jenkins? The advantage of their powerset should be one of stealth and surprise and they always fly right at someone’s face and shoot them in the face.

It stings but maybe its not a good opening gambit.

For example, maybe they could have tried pulling some wires or done something to sabotage Red Ronin.

Instead they shoot Cowan in the face and tell him to surrender or else they’ll shoot him in the face again.

At least this gives him an excuse to exposit about his backstory and motivation.

To make a long story short, he’s a child of the 50s and all of the Cold War paranoia scarred him bad. His parents bought a fallout shelter with the last of their money and talked daily about the imminent nuclear holocaust.

Dr. Cowan: “B-but shelters and plans didn’t stop the Cold War, o-or the ‘police actions’ its anxieties brought about! And those anxieties grew, f-feeding on the racial hatred a-and political perfidies of the 1960s -- spanning the decades with the horrors of energy depletion, mass starvation, escalating street crime, a-and now, the single strongest motivating force in the entire world is fear... fear... F-F-FEAR!”

So obviously what he’s going to do is use a giant robot to attack Russia and cause World War III so all of mankind will be united in a common cause and there won’t be any fear anymore!

It all makes sense! Only to him!

He’s like a less lucid version of Ozymandias from Watchmen.

But I guess its like that thing where you’re dreading something so much that the dread is worse than the thing and you just want the thing to happen so you don’t have to deal with the dread anymore? Except applied to nuclear war.

But when Wasp dares to suggest that maybe his plan is stupid and that he’s irrational, Cowan activates a giant fan that blows Yellowjacket and the Wasp back out of Red Ronin’s eyeholes.

... Okay this would be stupid except the purpose of the fan was in case he was attacked by tear gas and it was just smart thinking that led Cowan to realize it would work on tiny intruders too.

Which raises another question.

Why didn’t Wasp and Yellowjacket take on their normal size? He’s one dude, strapped into a chair. And Yellowjacket and Wasp are pretty fit. They could take him.

I guess the Doylistic reason is that if they had, there would have been a different booby trap to prevent them from derailing the story by being smart. But in-universe?

Yellowjacket and Wasp really need to think about how they use their power is all I’m saying.

And then Red Ronin continues its northeasterly walk.

Meanwhile, the hospital because lets continue this terrible plotline shall we?

As you may recall or may have put out of mind Scarlet Wanda took some time off from the Avengers to think over her life vis a vis whether she wanted kids, Carol “Marvel” Danvers showed up to tell her that kids are dumb and stereotypical and punching supervillains is the way to go and then was struck down by the gods of sexist irony when she became mysteriously pregnant.

And I say mysteriously because Ms Marvel reveals here that there’s no possible father but also, she’s progressed from three months pregnant last night to six months pregnant this morning when she should be no months pregnant.

Wanda tries to tell her that they’ll get the best specialists in the world on her case (the best specialists in mysterious accelerated pregnancy??) but Ms Marvel interrupts her to reveal her secret identity of... CAROL DANVERS!

Because remember its a thing where some Avengers still have a secret identity for some reason so this is a big moment of Carol confiding in Wanda.

Scarlet Witch: “B-but, Ms. Marvel, the Avengers’ charter specifically guarantees anonymity to its members! You don’t have to --”

Carol Danvers: “I know. But I want to. It isn’t ‘Ms Marvel’ who’s found herself six months pregnant in less than twenty-four hours. It’s Carol Danvers. And to be painfully honest -- Carol Danvers is scared.”

Scarlet Witch: “Don’t worry... Carol. You’re an Avenger, and that makes you a very special person, with very special friends. Friends who’ll stand by you -- no matter what.”

Carol Danvers: “Thank you, Wanda. That helps. A lot...”

Let the record state that I bitterly laughed at that exchange.

Anyway, back at the giant robot plot, the giant robot looms over Yonkers, interrupting a family cookout.

Joey: “Dad! Dad! I-I just seen the boogy man! H-he’s big, an’ he’s red, an’ --”

Dad: “Look, son, how many times have I told you not to make up stories?”

And then the shadow of Red Ronin falls over him and instead of burgers he eats his worrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds.

Inside the giant robot, Cowan talks to Red Ronin about how they’d better move to a less populated area. And alas that they can’t just use the propulsion boots to take to the air but he’s saving fuel for the flight to Russia.

So I guess he’s going to... walk across the entire United States and then take off from the west coast??

So the propulsion boots have fuel that needs to be conserved but what the heck is the rest of the robot running on?

Iron Man flies in and repulsors Red Ronin in the face to little effect, not having learned from the previous time he had repulsored Red Ronin to little effect.

And then gets hit with Ronin’s laser blade.

Luckily, Iron Man has built limited laser resistance into his armor but even still, the blade nearly scorched him. His armor is either steaming or smoking.

Since Red Ronin is headed towards Long Island Sound (I know nothing of New York geography) and there’s nothing between Yonkers and that but parkland, they can pull out the big guns and then hit Red Ronin with those big guns.

So Behemoth shoots its big guns at Red Ronin.... to minimal effect.

So Red Ronin shoots its finger gun at Behemoth and causes extensive damage.

Maybe Japan will lend you another giant robot to fight the rampaging one you already have. I hear there have been promising strides made with the EVA program.

With nothing that they can throw at Red Ronin working, Cap calls all the Avengers onto the Behemoth to finally talk strategy.

Captain America: “Nick, I have a plan -- one that might be our last hope. The only drawback is that there’s a good chance that none of us will live through it!”

Nick Fury: “Ah, what the heck, there ain’t nothin’ good on TV tonight anyway.”

You two have a weird way about talking about almost certain death.

Anyway, I was wrong about Red Ronin’s flight plans. Apparently Cowan plans to take off from Long Island Sound. And I guess fly over Europe? Walk across Europe?

But as he prepares to launch, Nick Fury and the Behemoth puts Cap’s suicidal plan into motion by... attacking Red Ronin ineffectually.

In fairness, this is a distraction. Distraction phase one, in fact.

It gets Cowan’s attention and his dander up. He switches Red Ronin to DESTROY mode which is an actual thing on the cybernetic helmet’s wire tubes. He hits a button and a readout pops up that says DESTROY.

Where the person wearing the helmet, presumably the only planned occupant of the robot, cannot read it.

This robot is weirdly designed.

I blame Dr. Cowan.

The distraction worked because it made Red Ronin pause standing in the water. And Cap yells at the Behemoth to “close the circuit!”

Onboard the Behemoth, Iron Man has been hooked into the Behemoth’s electrical system, channeling the ship’s entire electrical power save for the minimum needed to keep from crashing through his armor.

Obviously you can only spend most of your power once so the technician tells Iron Man to make it a good one.

“The SHIELD techno scrambles to shelter; the golden Avenger stands -- and, taking a deep breath, cybernetically triggers the micro-circuitry that runs the length of his metal mesh armor -- focusing and releasing the awesome energies at his command in a single, brilliant burst!”

“And for an instant, the sky over the Long Island Sound shrieks, echoing a banshee-wail of wonder at the spectacle of a holocaust unleashed -- as the towering figure of Red Ronin jerks spasmodically, twisting and writhing in electric agony, smouldering, tumbling, and then -- in the dark bowels of the hovering and crippled Behemoth... dangling from useless cables beneath a straining lift foil... silence. Sprawled in a smoke and spark-filled control center... silence.”

For a brief moment it seemed it worked.

Red Ronin was knocked flat on his back by the attack.

But then the giant robot starts to move again. It stands up and begins to head straight for Queens.

I guess any robot built to fight Godzilla needs to be a sturdy son of a gun but damn. Hit with an electrical attack that big and still up and walking.

Although there wasn’t no effect like has been the case up until now.

The electrical shock knocked out Dr. Cowan and damaged the cybernetic control helmet.

Locking in the last instructions Red Ronin had been given.

DESTROY.

That readout not so good for the pilot but very good for a dramatic panel reveal.

And now an EPILOGUE. Which isn’t really an epilogue so much as a cliffhanger for next month’s issue. Or Friday’s post about next month’s issue.

At Cross Technological Enterprises, Security Chief Hawkeye is playing poker with some of the guards. With real money. Like, dimes and quarters.

But this is so dull that when a perimeter alarm goes off, Hawkeye goes to check it out himself rather than send one of his guys.

He figures its just some light vandalism and graffiti but after a quick recon of the CTE grounds he doesn’t see any breaks in the security fences and there’s no graffiti on the storage building, the machinery, or even on these giant red columns that he doesn’t remember being there before.

Wait a second.

And he swings around to get a giant robot upskirt.

And also how does a giant robot sneak onto the grounds of CTE without leaving any damage? Giant footprint or something? And how does one as hawk eyed as Hawkeye not see a giant robot until he’s right under it??

Anyway, it cliffhangs. Hawkeye is going to be involved in the last issue of the Red Ronin saga. Good news for Hawkeye fans.

Also something to look forward to: remember how Beast and Jocasta climbed aboard robot foot and we haven’t heard from them since? Not even when the whole robot was electrocuted which you think would have involved them? Well I can’t wait to see what they’re up to.

Follow @essential-avengers because when you think ‘person summarizing Avengers issues front to back with minimal insight or humor’ think Essential Avengers. Your one shop stop for that thing I just said.

#Avengers #Red Ronin #yum #Essential Avengers #Iron Man #Beast #Jocasta #the Wasp #Yellowjacket #Captain America #the Vision #Scarlet Witch #Carol Danvers #Ms Marvel #Wonder Man #Essential marvel liveblogging #the avengers fighting a giant robot is pretty delightful #but it could be more delightful #Ultimate Iron Megazord anyone?

5 notes · View notes

undertheinfluencerd · 3 years ago

Link

https://ift.tt/2WVkVMd #

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Some surprising MCU characters are coming together for a fighting tournament in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The second movie in Phase 4 of the MCU has expanded the worldbuilding of the franchise with Wenwu’s leadership of the Ten Rings throughout the centuries, the paradisiacal realm of Ta-Lo, and the underground perils of Macau’s fighting tournament. Taking place after the events of Avengers: Endgame, the plot of Shang-Chi and its two post-credits scenes also give more feature some unexpected Marvel characters.

While most of the competitors in the tournament have signed up to survive rows of deadly fighters a la Mortal Kombat, Bloodsport, and Enter the Dragon, Shang-Chi only wants to find his sister Xialing. But since the titular hero becomes an internet sensation after fighting Razor Fist and his henchmen on a moving bus, Shang-Chi quickly becomes part of the main event. Before facing off against his sister and being ambushed by Wenwu and Death Dealer, Shang-Chi is able to witness other unlucky fighters putting their lives on the line.

Related: Every MCU Easter Egg In Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

Shang-Chi’s participation offers an exciting spectacle made even more thrilling by guest appearances from various unexpected MCU characters. The movie shows very little of the brutal, no-holds-barred event, but it does establish just how skilled Shang-Chi must be to be considered for the main battle, given how other participants are allowed to use their superpowers. Besides the sumo wrestler and the poor soul he crushes against the window while Shang-Chi enters the ring, here’s every character present in the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings tournament.

In Marvel Comics, Shang-Chi spent his childhood and early adulthood improving his body and mastering multiple forms of Chinese martial arts at the behest of his father, Fu Manchu. Because of his isolation from society, all of Shang-Chi’s time was devoted to his training, thus allowing him to become Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu. With hand-to-hand combat skills that put him on par with Captain America himself, Shang-Chi is without question one of the most formidable fighters in the Marvel Universe, as proven by his victories over super-powered heroes like Wolverine and Spider-Man.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings incorporates the titular character’s comic book origin and martial arts prowess, albeit without the racist stereotype of Fu Manchu, fortunately. Instead, it’s Iron Man’s comic book archnemesis – Wenwu a.k.a. the Mandarin – who transforms him into a human weapon. The grueling training Shang-Chi is forced to go through during his childhood pays off when his defeat of Razor Fist earns him a spot in the tournament, raising the expectations of every fighter and spectator present. However, Shang-Chi’s skills aren’t enough to earn him a victory against his sister Xialing.

The biggest surprise appearance in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is Abomination. Played by Tim Roth in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, Emil Blonsky had been missing from the MCU ever since he was beaten into unconsciousness by the Green Goliath. For years, his whereabouts had been unknown. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the character, with many thinking that Marvel had abandoned one of the Hulk’s greatest enemies. The second Shang-Chi trailer then delivered a welcome surprise by teasing a cage fight between Abomination and Doctor Strange‘s Wong — a battle that, although still brief in the movie, teased an exciting future for both characters.

Related: Shang-Chi Confirms The MCU Timeline Is Completely Broken Post-Endgame

As promotional material for the movie had suggested, Abomination does have the upper hand over the sorcerer due to his sheer strength. But once Wong gets fed up, he shifts toward a more aggressive stance and uses a well-timed portal to hit Abomination with his own fist, knocking him out. The aftermath of the fight suggests that Wong and Abomination have developed a friendly bond after many similar battles, and the fact that Wong reprimands Abomination for getting too carried away suggests they arranged the results of the fight. The last fans see of this unlikely couple is Wong opening a portal to Blonsky’s maximum-security cell, which means that Abomination is only taking a break from his imprisonment during the events of the movie. It’s possible that he will be officially pardoned in She-Hulk, where Tim Roth is confirmed to return in a bigger role.

Abomination isn’t the only major MCU character who made a surprising cameo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. When Shang-Chi was filming, a photo that showed Benedict Wong (Wong) together with Simu Liu (Shang-Chi) was shared online. Indeed, Wong completely humiliated Abomination in the tournament, though he didn’t achieve it without receiving a couple of bruises himself. Wong seems to be helping Abomination receive a breath of fresh air once in a while, and as for why Wong is participating in an underground championship, it could be that he’s gathering money to maintain the Sanctum Sanctorum or to travel to wherever he’s going in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer.

Shang-Chi ends up signing up for the tournament while looking for his estranged sister Xialing, who happens to be the one in charge. Not only does she own the tournament but she also masters the art of one-on-one combat, which helps her defeat Shang-Chi without breaking a sweat. As Xialing later reveals, she built the tournament from the ground up out of spite, given that Wenwu doesn’t allow women to hold positions of power in the Ten Rings. Since the post-credits scene of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings reveals that Xialing has taken over Wenwu as the leader of the Ten Rings, the future of Macau’s fighting tournament is unknown. Perhaps someone like Sharon Carter a.k.a. the Power Broker will take advantage of it to expand her empire, or perhaps Valentina Allegra de Fontaine or whoever she works for will keep it running so she can find more recruits for her new team of anti-heroes.

One of the first fighters Shang-Chi and Katy see when they’re introduced to Xialing’s underground fighting tournament is a Black Widow. Although it was always known that many girls had gone through the Red Room, the only Black Widow to have appeared onscreen until the end of the Infinity Saga had been Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff. Taking place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, Black Widow featured Natasha breaking other Widows free from General Dreykov’s command. Without anyone to answer to, these highly skilled spies are bound to appear in the MCU more often. Life could be tough for them, as they don’t have a fairly regular civilian life like Melina Vostokoff, Yelena Belova, and Natasha Romanoff, so it’s reasonable to see one Black Widow competing in the fighting tournament, presumably to sustain herself.

Related: Why Shang-Chi’s Avengers Cameo Looks Different From Endgame

The Black Widow’s opponent in the low-rank fighting pits is a man with camo pants and a glowing body. The burning red glow that seeps through his bones is the exact same seen in the Extremis test subjects from Iron Man 3, where Aldrich Killian — who stole the “Mandarin” moniker from Wenwu and hired Trevor Slattery to imitate him — used Maya Hansen’s technology to enhance his healing factor and become extremely powerful. The Extremis soldier in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings doesn’t showcase the fire-breathing abilities usually seen in these characters, and he seems to be losing the fight against the Black Widow. Given that the Extremis-powered people seen in Iron Man 3 had the tendency to blow up in a cloud of fire, it’s likely that the virus has been stabilized, perhaps with the side effect of removing the fire-breathing skill. Nevertheless, the fact that Extremis still exists after the death of Aldrich Killian suggests that AIM may still be out there somewhere.

Next: How Marvel Retconned Its Iron Man 3 Mandarin Controversy

#marvel #avengers #marvelcomics #spiderman #mcu #ironman #comics #captainamerica #thor #avengersendgame #marvelstudios #xmen #dc #marveluniverse #art #cosplay #tomholland #hulk #disney #comicbooks #dccomics #peterparker #tonystark #blackwidow #marvellegends #endgame #deadpool #marvelcinematicuniverse #loki #bhfyp

The post Shang-Chi: Every Character In The Ten Rings Tournament appeared first on undertheinfluencerd.net.

#entertainment, screenrant #tumblr #aesthetic #like #love #tumblrgirl #follow #instagram #photography #instagood #likeforlikes #s #likes #art #cute #o #girl #followforfollowback #a #tumblrboy #grunge #fashion #photooftheday #tiktok #l #photo #sad #k #frases #f #bhfyp

#Undertheinfluencerd

1 note · View note

fictionerd · 6 years ago

Text

GOOD. TO. SEE. YOU. FRIENDS!!!

Here we are! The first post of Summer Season 2018 and we’ll be covering Planet With. This series is released on Sundays and can be watched on Crunchyroll.

Okay, so let’s cover what we learn from the first two episodes of Planet With.

In episode one we’re introduced to Souya, a young amnesiac who dreams of horrifying giant draconic creature attacking a city and some one flying off to confront it. See it’s shit like this that causes dragons to have a bad reputation. Seriously I can’t believe these assholes who go around burning whatever the hell they want just because they can breath fire. If it weren’t for them dimensional travel wouldn’t be such a daunting prospect for me. I never know when some one is going to have a traumatic flashback and attack me all because some scaley clown got it into their head to “burninate” something.

Sorry, I’m digressing again. After waking up from his ptsdream Souya prepares to have a normal breakfast with his perfectly normal housemates of a large cat-person and green-haired maid.

Oh wait... My bad. See I’m used to hanging out with a Teddy-Bear whisperer with the ability to access the life’s memory of a version of herself in any given universe, an elf who ONLY exists in the metaverse of the Akashic Record, and most recently a shadow-monster who spent three months pretending to be Swole-Bear. There was also that time I tried to hang out with a copy of a video game character, but we’re not considering that canon anymore. At least not entirely for legal reasons. Oh! There’s also the British man who tears holes in dimensions to fight against “unfair fates” who I’m apparently hosting a podcast with now? My point being that to me the above image is perfectly normal. To most anyone else this is probably at least a three on the Sir Memery WTF chart.

After finishing his veggie breakfast Souya sets off for school complaining about wanting to eat some meat where he bumps into his class rep whose name he has forgotten. You’d think this is just an excuse to set up Tsundere vibes with her, but no it’s far FAR worse than that. See her name is: Kagaratamaha? [wrong buzzer] Hakatamagara? [wrong buzzer] Ta-ka-ma-ga-ha-ra? [Correct Tone]

So Nickname Pending is worried about Souya and how he doesn’t make friends at his new school. This is because she knows what it’s like to be the new kid, and has apparently never watched an anime in her life so she doesn’t quite grasp the concept of “Leave the mysterious blue-haired transfer alone”.

Side Note: This character’s introduction marks the first time I’ve ever gotten a Japanese pun without some one explaining it to me. So allow me to ruin it for you all by explaining it. She offers Souya some of her Hamburger Steak to which he replies with tears of join “Megane-sama” which she mishears as “Megami-sama” and sheepishly replies that she doesn’t think she’s a goddess before immediately realizing what he’d actually said. This leads into the reveal of her actual name which I refuse to ever use the entirety of again because I honestly don’t think the joke is that funny.

Later that day Souya’s shounen receptors begin to tingle as he picks up on the impending conflict of the story. A UFO is sighted offshore headed towards the city. When the air-force is deployed to deal with the object (Picture in header) they find themselves the victim of some strange joyous delusion and leave the object alone. it’s only when seven strange people, apparently psychics of some kind, utilize their powers to confront it is it stopped. We see one of these people enter the object through a “Weak Point” and have his own delusion.

See, his mother was killed in a fire when he was a little boy causing him to become a firefighter. The UFO hits his brain with a delusion of child him being held back from the blaze by a firefighter only for that firefighter to turn out to be adult him. Adult Firefighter Psychic dude runs into the fire, saves his mom, and the two of them walk through the cherry blossoms as he sorts through all the pent up regrets he has about not being able to save her when he was a kid. Only after we’ve conveniently gotten to know this character’s defining trauma does his squad get through to him and break the delusion, then he uses his Psychic Golem Powers to wreck the hell out of the UFO causing it and copies of it that had appeared around the world to disappear all at once. The same can be said for the Psychics who all blast off to separate places to avoid the fate of E.T. one presumes

While all this was going on Souya got a call from Ginko (That’s green-haired maid lady for those not following the series who also don’t care about spoilers). She tells Souya that he has to defeat “it”, but contrary to what everyone in the audience thinks it turns out that “it” refers to one of the Psychics and not the UFO thing. After Ex-Firefighter current world-saver exits the bushes onto a highway he encounters Souya the cat-man and Ginko. Souya is sporting a mask and being basically lead by the nose at the behest of Catman and Ginko. Now hold onto your seats because this is where shit gets REALLY weird.

Catman swallows Souya turning into a mech in the process that Souya is now piloting. They get into a fight with Firefighter dude who summons up his psychic golem thing. After fumbling around at Ginko’s direction Souya manages to pilot the Catmech to victory over Psychic Fireman and retrieves a vial of star-shaped dust that is the “source of his power”. At which point I’m lead to believe that Souya recovered his memories because he shouts at Firefighter to tell his friends that Souya is going to kick their collective asses. This is presumably because he believes them to be behind his ptsdream.

After the credits roll we see a scene where a guy I can only describe a scruffy Alder from Pokemon Gen 5 says ominously that Firefighter dude had been taken out.

So, before even watching episode two I can already hands-down predict that this guy is the Draconic asshole from Souya’s ptsdream. Not sure how everything fits together but my working theory is that Souya’s from another planet that Earth governments or some shadowy organization somehow invaded and stole something from. Souya is a sleeper agent and the “Peas” balloon things are meant to lure out those in possession of the Stolen Macguffin or whatever.

There we have Episode One. Please excuse me now while I go watch Episode Two. Well... I mean you can just keep reading by the time this goes up but... BRB!

[Approximately 30min later]

Well my theory from about two paragraphs ago is up in smoke as soon as the opening scenes of this episode roll in and further dashed upon the rocks by Ginko later in the episode. All things in their proper order.

So Torai (That’s firefighter-guy’s name btw) makes his report to dragon-man about his encounter with Soya and company. The other six Psychic warriors all make jabs at him as though he died even when he’s sitting right there in an example of a gag that is legit funny unlike Tara’s name from last episode. While we’re talking about the exposition meeting may I just say that I feel BETRAYED!

See Dragon CEO guy is as nerdy as I AM! He’s the one who found out that the enemy force is called Nebula. He called the giant abominations “Nebula Weapons” gives Soya and Company the name Nebula Soldiers, and what does he call the Psychic Golems his crew uses to fight? Psychokinetic Mega-God Photon Armor. If I didn’t know better I’d think my pops made him from the same mold as me no less. Oh, and their little world-saving club? It’s the Citizens' Safety Center Special Defense Section: "Grand Paladin". I’m in tears, people, this is a Draconid after my own heart.

So, the “Grand Paladin” peeps implement the buddy system in case they run into Soya again. Meanwhile Soya’s having a sulk because apparently Ginko and “Sensei” dragged him to Earth to be their soldier. He goes out on a walk in Iron Clogs (I’m guessing this is a joke I’m not getting). On the run he meets up with Torai who just happens to have purchased a bunch of meat buns from a convenience store. They have a conversation because Torai is a nice guy (that’s a legit nice guy not the version that’s been turned into a derogatory term by certain groups online). See Torai, while out looking for his attacker couldn’t help noticing what he thought was a middle-schooler sitting on a random bench crying and came over to see if there was anything he could do to help.

He gives Soya a bun they chat for a bit with Soya desperately trying both not to give away who he really is as well as to eat the bun because dammit he just wants some MEAT for once! All of a sudden the evacuation alarm is sounded because this wonderful abomination has appeared off shore.

Nebula really needs to consult a different artist about their designs. I personally recommend @dashfox1artwork.

Robin: Shamelessly plugging your internet friends are we dragon-boy?

Fic: If you’re not going to show up and fight keep your mouth shut Shadow-bear. I’m just doing my part to show that not all Dragons are assholes. Robin: Whatever you say.

So, the six remaining Psycho-God pilots attack the Ugly Bacon Idol and the pink-haired girl of the team, Miu, is the one to enter the core. The hallucination she sees is of her beating her friend Harumi (Pilot of the Bear-armor) at apparently a Judo competition. We find out that Miu has always just wanted to be strong, and we also learn that she IS strong being able to break through the illusion of the Nebula Weapon with relative ease and destroy the thing. It’s at this point that I should mention that a message has flashed before each of the characters who take one of these things out. In Miu’s case the message was “It’s okay to be weak”. For Torai in episode one the message was “I forgive you” presumably preying on his regrets about his mom.

After Piggy McHideous is dispatched the group separates into its pairs and as we expected Soya and Co target the pair with a member who just fought a battle, but let’s back up for a second because there’s some exposition from Ginko during the fight with the Baconator that needs addressing.

She reveals to Soya that Nebula is indeed the name of the group they work for, but there are multiple faction. Ginko and “Sensei” are with the “Pacifist Faction” whereas the Monuments to terrible design sense that have been popping up in the harbor belong to the “Sealing Faction”. Basically think of this as political parties. One wants to prevent humanity from rising up against them one day by brutally suppressing their ability to advance and keep them in a state of complacency, while the other just wants to take away any dangerous toys that humanity might come up with and hope that they can “guide” humanity onto the path of “Love” rather than “Power”.

Hmmm one group bent on maintaining their personal status quo at the cost of anyone else and another that wants to control precisely what power the general populace has access to in order to “guide” them on the “right path”? I wonder where I’ve heard that one before?

Sorry about that. The Writer is coming through me a little strongly there. Point is that Ginko is using Soya to enact social and ideological control... I MEAN to take away the magical stardust that allows the Psycho-God Pilots to do their thing... yeah. Back to the proper progress of the episode: Soya once again pilots his cat-mecha-sensei to fight against Miu and Harumi. It is a pretty fun fight, but all things must go as has been foretold. So after being on the ropes for most of the conflict Soya turns everything around at the last second with a miracle uppercut against the Bunny-god armor. As Miu is falling back to Earth Ginko appears and grabs the stardust vial away from her. Apparently Ginko can just Mary Poppins herself to wherever she pleases? They all land and Ginko’s like “That’s all for today”, but Soya’s having none of it. He’s ready to take the fight to Bear-mech too when all the other Psycho-Pilots show up including CEO Dragonface to say “Checkmate”, and that’s where our story concludes for now.

Y��know I’m coming more and more around to the opinion that we should be routing for “Grand Paladin” here rather than the lady influencing Soya or the massive, faceless organization that wants to turn us all into Proles from 1984. I mean, yeah, they do have the snake-eyed dude. They meet in what appears to be some sort of board room, and the writing seems to indicate that they’re the “Antagonists” if not the villains, but so far they don’t seem to be anything but a collection of well-intentioned if somewhat zany people. Even the big CEO-type with the intimidating presence, as was discussed earlier, is a lovable and hammy goofball.

I love any series that makes its antagonists human. Granted cartoonish villainy and even edgelordiness has its place in stories, but when you can make your antagonists and especially your villains feel human and relatable it just rings home that nobody is the villain in their own story. Everyone has reasons for what they do. They may not have excuses or justifications, but they all have reasons.

For instance, I have a reason for breaking my own rules here by reading my political views into the story.

[pauses for dramatic effect]

Yes, yes I’m sure you’re all very shocked at this revelation. I mean I was so subtle about it (/s). My reason is that when I went back and really thought about what the “Sealing” and “Pacifist” factions of Nebula stood for I (and this is really the nerd behind The Nerd speaking) couldn’t help but see parallels to some of the more distasteful extremes of Conservative and Liberal politics at work. Both sides seek to impose their morality upon others. While one does so by attempting to keep people complacent with the status quo, the other does it by appealing to the rebellious nature inherent in people and channeling it into “causes”.They use guilt and peer pressure to convince people that their way of thinking is correct and I absolutely cannot stand seeing it happen. Especially when they prey upon others using causes that need legitimate champions!

The goals of the “Pacifist” faction are arguably “good”. They are part of a group that has watched humanity evolve and they only want the best for us. They “keep their involvement to a minimum”, but at the end of the day they’re doing the same thing that the “Sealing” faction is doing. They’re enforcing their own will on humanity by taking away humanity’s means to fight against them, or anyone for that matter.

In the anime this is likely because the “Pacifist” faction is short-sighted and hasn’t stopped to consider what will happen to humanity when they take away the only weapon they have against the “Sealing” faction, but in reality? In reality groups like the “Pacifist” Faction either are themselves or contain an element that wants the people they’re disarming to become reliant upon them for what they need. They take away that person’s own weapons and replace them with their own. They dictate the rules of battle and push you to come to them for aid and defense. They accrue personal power and influence at the cost of their followers’ freedom of thought.

These are important things to think about and be on the lookout for, and it’s an issue that is very prevalent in my own life and dealings online. So those are my reasons for why I read political allegory into the factions of Planet With. Now am I justified for doing this when I so often decry others for “reading shit that isn’t there into stories”? No, of course I’m not. Or rather I’m not justified using that argument against people who dropped a show as a result of what they read into it.

I’m not going to lie. I’m inexperienced with expressing views on creative work online, and am overly sensitive to certain things. I’m just as flawed as anybody else. It’s hard for me to understand when people see “bullshit” in something that I didn’t see. It’s hard for me to accept some one calling a show (particularly one I like) “Garbage” when really it’s just not clicking with them. I know that I’ve been guilty of calling a show “Garbage” in my time, but it’s a term I hope to avoid moving forward. I want to live up to my professed belief that there is good to be found in all fiction, even the “bad” fiction. Part of that is accepting the responsibility I tell others they need to accept. To practice what I preach.

If I’m determined that the Audience has just as important a role in creating art as the Authors then I need to learn to accept the interpretations of my fellow audience members, and to feel free to express my own interpretations of things.

[stops to take a break and slide back into character]

Wow... That ended up being a lot heavier than I imagined. What a way to kick off the summer season! There’s more to come but for now I need a break, and the writer could probably use a nap.

Until next post keep talking fiction, friends! I’ll see you soon

#Anime #Planet With #Episode 1 #Episode 2 #Fictionerd #Let's Talk Anime #LTA #Robin

1 note · View note