#he's a villain sure but his goal is mostly to rule the world and turn everything into robots

[the-timewatcher]

but what about cool red flashy bits from both neo metal and sage, make that an option

You could tell Eggman you’re trans and he’d immediately be like “Hoho! How would you like to try my brand new ULTRA MEGA TESTOSTERONE?!” And like it’d absolutely work but he’d definitely be using it as one of the benefits of joining the Eggman Empire. Which also has dental.

[mckinlily]

Imagine a world where Bruce Wayne did not become Batman. Instead, he is just a Normal Dude. Or as normal as a billionaire deeply dedicated philanthropy in a city as insane as Gotham can be.

Because make no mistake: just because Bruce is not Batman does not mean Gotham is not Gotham.

There are a few new players though—on the Rogues side.

Timothy Drake is the teen business tycoon of Drake Industries. Absent of the inspiration of Batman and the socialization and warmth of Dick Grayson, he is ruthless and logical to a fault in pursuit of his goals and just as viciously chaotic as the disaster little brother Jason knows.

In other words, he’s Gotham’s youngest supervillian. The only good news is his chosen nemesis is Lex Luthor. Maybe. Timothy doesn’t care much about collateral damage. It’s not his goal to harm civilians, but he certainly doesn’t include their safety as a priority in his convoluted schemes to mess with Luthor.

Talon is an undead murderer who slaughtered a huge swath the Gotham’s 1% five years ago and, despite being spotted many times since, has never been apprehended. He appears when he wants and disappears just as readily, and Gotham just has to accept there’s a killer stalking their streets and there’s nothing they can do about it. Sometimes Talon has been known to rescue people, especially, but it’s never clear how or why exactly Talon chooses who is victim verses aggressor. And the end is always brutal and bloody for those Talon deems aggressor.

Damian is still Bruce’s biological son and raised by Talia in the League of Assassins. But when he was left in Gotham and met his father, this Bruce was so baffled and thrown by a child assassin that Damian immediately takes as rejection and runs away. (He doesn’t even stay long enough for Bruce to be sure it wasn’t a hallucination or very strange dream).

Damian is almost immediately found and adopted by Talon, so now Gotham has TWO bird-themed killers liable to jump down on you from nowhere and for any reason.

Oh, and god help you if you so much as make Talon’s baby Owlet sad. If you’re lucky, it will be the last thing you do.

Barbara is an ordinary librarian…who can be hired as a mercenary hacker for the right price. The public isn’t afraid of her because they don’t know she exists. More than one politician or public figure has been ruined because of the blackmail she unearthed on them. But what side exactly is the police commissioner’s daughter on? And how much of Gotham does she have under thumb?

(Is she a secret ally and accessory to Timothy Drake’s many plots?)

Steph, thank god, is actually NOT a villain, super or otherwise. She’s the one vigilante attempting to help Gotham. Spoiler has connections among some of the caped community like Supergirl or Wonder Girl. But without Bat training or the police cooperation forged years ago by Batman, she’s mostly just striving to survive while taking on Gotham’s many, many gang. Make no mistake, she’s impressive. But desperate. Spoiler comes with guns and explosions. So. Many. Explosions. Gotham has never heard of the “no kill” rule. And likely never will.

(Cass also lives in Gotham. But no one will ever see her or even know she’s there.)

Jason….well. Baby Jason never stole any Batmobile tires and never was adopted by a strange but kind billionaire. He was never killed at 15.

He died in the winter before he turned 13.

And then one day, Adult Canon Jason gets thrown into this dimension. And somehow Gothan is WORSE?! How is that even possible? Also his siblings are running around being super villains and killing people? Bruce! Control your children!!

But this Bruce does not have children (he’s still mostly convinced Damian was a prank or hallucination). He is horrified by the idea of children fighting crime. He has absolutely no idea how to handle exceptionally talented chaos machines with too much passion and no sense of self preservation. And he’s frankly a little disturbed by Jason himself and his guns and refusal to “work within the system” and Jason nopes out of there so freaking fast.

Jason also, slowly, has to become okay with the realization that his siblings are not insane because they were made Robin. They became Robin because they were already insane. There was no way to create a normal human being out of any of them.

(Jason does not want to look too closely at what that says about him.)

In the end, Jason teams up with Steph. He connects her with Dick/Talon, who is more than happy to have a new Owlet to train and preen, and Damian only slightly stabs her. They manage to persuade/threaten Tim into caring enough to help get Jason back to his dimension with misuse of Drake Industry research equipment. Damian very much does stab Tim. Tim retaliates by locking Damian in an industrial freezer. Dick thinks they’re bonding. Jason introduces them to Babs, but frankly he has no idea what he’s hoping to achieve from this. Probably nothing good because Dick, despite being an under-socialized undead assassin with some weird mannerisms and ways of speaking, still manages to pull a woman way out his league like Barbie. And Babs seems to have no problem with the “murder” part that description.

Jason never realized how much Bruce’s strict moral code and “the Mission” were key to the rest of them becoming remotely positive influences in society. Or how little Bruce has to do with his siblings getting into dangerous, violent situation. He doesn’t like anything about it.

They work out how send Jason back, and he returns to his dimension with the feeling he’s just left Alternate Gotham to a gang of supervillains.

…at least they’re together?

And Talon Dick won’t let any of his new Owlets die and will rain bloody vengeance on anyone who tries. So that’s good. For them at least.

(Jason feels absurdly like he should be apologizing to this universe’s Bruce. Or. Someone. He doesn’t. But he feels like he should.)

Back at in his dimension and at the Batcave, Jason pauses and just stares at Batman for a very, very long time. Finally, he takes a deep breath and solemnly nods just once before taking off into the Manor for Alfred’s cookies.

Bruce has no idea what the fuck just happened.

[delawaredetroit]

In what ways is Izuku “rebellious”? It changes with the tide and the vibes, sure, but from what I recall of the manga Izuku never really gets very far in the process of stepping outside of his society and his role as a Professional Hero.

For all the thematic stuff going on about saving people, most of his attempts to actually act out turn into self destruction and a vague sentiment that he’s learning something about recklessness. Hell, even in the current arc, he literally abandons someone who ‘looks like they need saving’ (Eri) because his work supervisor said “this isn’t the time for that attitude”.

His rebellion is mostly in just, not giving up ideological priorities in bad situations? He enters fights he shouldn’t and makes risky moves because his priorities don’t focus on himself so much as the people around him. And even then, the story doesn’t tend to reward him beyond the bare minimum — saving kouta arguably cost him too much to also save Bakugou, or the whole post-jakku arc rife with people Izuku can’t save despite his whole ‘world on my shoulders’ thing there, or when he focuses so much on todoroki’s trauma in the sports festival that he loses sight of his actual ‘win the sport festival’ goal.

I guess my main thought is a bit lost in the weeds now, but… I dunno, “rebellion” just feels like too strong a word for Midoriya. He doesn’t fit in the world he lives in but nothing about it feels intentional on his part so much as the hand of the author setting done tracks for a narrative theme.

I was going to trash this one because if you have an issue with language that someone else put in an ask, you should take it up with them and not me. But there are a few points I want to address here.

I take issue with your point that "[h]ell, even in the current arc, he literally abandons someone who ‘looks like they need saving’ (Eri) because his work supervisor said 'this isn’t the time for that attitude'”. Izuku had to physically held back by Mirio in that scene and Eri had to run back to Overhaul herself before Izuku relented. He was never shown agreeing with Sir Nighteye on his analysis of the situation.

Rebellious is not quite the right word for it, which is why I made the distinction that Izuku isn't much of a rule follower. This story is largely from Izuku's perspective and he has multiple biases. I've discussed it a bit here how Izuku often acts outside of expectations because of an unconscious lack of faith in the existing hero system. The reason "rebellious" doesn't fit Izuku is not because he doesn't often act outside of the rules, but because he does not perceive himself as acting outside of the role of a hero.

The basis of their society is that everyone has a quirk they suppress. The best train to become heroes and get permission from the government to use their quirks to help others/defeat villains. Izuku inherently violates those norms in multiple ways: (1) by moving to help others without a quirk, (2) using his quirk on multiple occasions to save without a license, and (3) attempting to save/understand villains.

[quirkyfries]

I’m seeing more tagged ruin slander so I’m gonna tag some ruin positivity

Guys, hear me out. Villain characters can be good characters, you with me? Villain characters can be good characters even if you don’t like them. I’m half sure that Davis had Solar, the popular side character, be caught in the crossfire of Ruin’s plans so that viewers would take Ruin seriously. The unfortunate side effect of that was the viewer’s general opinion of Ruin plummeting.

It’s one thing for Ruin’s plan to come to fruition, in which he destroys countless dimensions. It would be fair to have everyone act like said event was bad, and be horrified. But, it’s another thing to have the consequences of that event directly impact the main characters, which kickstarts the next arc.

This is to say, Solar’s death was optional, Davis could’ve just said that the Creator from Solar’s dimension was also a complicated situation like the main one is. I think that Davis had Solar die so that there was weight to Ruin’s actions. No one would’ve cared if Ruin deleted thousands of dimensions if it just stopped at that.

I think Moon would’ve reacted to Solar’s death mostly the same way no matter how Solar died, it just happened to happen during a period of near-constant stress for Moon, and if you gave him a person to blame for that death… well. Here we are.

I love Ruin, and maybe this is coming from a biased perspective because he’s the character that convinced me to watch TSAMS. As a new viewer, I started off in the “jigsaw” portion of the show and then watched the recap.

I was a little disappointed that “jigsaw” was cured, I liked Ruin a lot better when he was unapologetically maniacal and played the game by his own rules and sang his silly theatre songs. But, the new Ruin grew on me in time. (Imagine my pleasant surprise when it turned out that Ruin was acting the whole time!)

Whether you believed Ruin was always evil or not prior to the reveal, I think he was always an enjoyable character, an outsider that didn’t have a reason to care about anything that happened in the show prior. He would certainly use show events (villains like Bloodmoon and Eclipse) to his advantage, but he had no reason to feel any sort of way towards any of the main characters.

But, as a villain, I think his motive is solid on paper— I personally think they could’ve had a little more showing how Ruin was affected by his past, but decades of acting would cover that up pretty well, huh?— and the twist was something the viewers were probably meant to pick up on, with characters like Moon constantly ending episodes with “I have a bad feeling about that guy” and Ruin being the main suspect of several things and a few comments on the similarities between jigsaw and ruin (like the tune they both hum.) You were waiting to see when Ruin’s time would run out. But when it did, it was too late.

As far as I know, Ruin is one of the villains that got (mostly) what he wanted, what he set out to do. While it didn’t work 100%, it definitely worked partially.

I really like that Ruin is an eclipse in the context of the show, but I love that he’s an eclipse in a slightly different font. In the context of the show, Eclipse is the remnant killcode left behind in Sun when the brothers seperate. It’s established that Eclipses tend to be workaholics (not stopping until they complete a goal, which afterwards they don’t know what to do with themselves), usually get themselves killed, and want to be accepted or loved in some capacity. However, Ruin came to be by the combining of the brothers. He technically has all of the components of an Eclipse, and generally has the same traits as one. He worked to complete his goal, and didn’t care if he died or not after everything was said and done. He adapted to his situation to avoid dying, acting infected (which probably became a coping mechanism over time) and maybe silently mourning the loss of the world and people he knew. He wouldn’t have set out to kill the other Creators if what his Creator did didn’t personally impact him in some way. I believe that the last trait is a bit of an exception when it comes to Ruin— or maybe it’s something that he’s grown out of over the years. He doesn’t feel the need to belong to a group anymore, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t try in his own dimension.

I also agree with the sentiment that Ruin’s story isn’t over yet. Davis could have easily killed him off soon after the reveal and Solar’s death, but he’s still contributing to the B plot.

I don’t know how I’d feel about a Ruin redemption arc. I see Ruin as the sort of character to be fully convinced of his own perspective, and has realized and accepted the consequences of his actions but won’t say that what he did was wrong. He’s an anti-villain— a character in a story that does bad things in the name of good. He had good intentions, but he went the extreme route.

But, I also want to see him alive and well and happy, and if a redemption arc is what it takes for that to happen, then I guess I could learn to like it. I severely doubt that the rest of the main cast would allow for any one of those things though.

I just realized that this is getting long, but, I really like Ruin both as jigsaw and eclipse. I like that he defines himself as an actor, slash compulsive liar, in order to survive and fit in. I like that he’s a little dorky, a theatre kid at heart and watches things like anime on a few occasions. His body language is charming, and he’s super fun to watch move around and dance and wave his hands. Davis’ vocal performance is very satisfying and fitting for a character like Ruin, and is a big part of his charm as a character.

I like that he has a tragic backstory, one that he sometimes references in half-lies, and was forced to grow and adapt for it, which lead to him choosing the end-all solution to what caused him pain in the past, under the guise of preventing future tragedy. He says he’s doing it to save people, but I think he wanted closure to his own traumas and revenge, in a way. At least, I think that’s more realistic than Ruin caring about dimensions being torn apart by errant creators. He doesn’t care that the dimensions die via the creators— he doesn’t want what happened to him be repeated to others, if that makes sense? It just happened to be that the Creator was the cause of that, and the Creator’s motive (studying the effects of the wither storm) was what disgusted Ruin. Everything that happened to Ruin’s dimension and family was done in the name of research. I would be furious too! But, because Ruin is an eclipse, he was smart enough to figure out how to go about his closure/revenge/preventing future tragedy. Mind, he says he’s not as smart as Dark sun who’s been shown to be dimension hopping and whatnot, but he’s definitely been able to study other dimensions extensively.

One thing about Ruin that I found a little bit odd was that he was able to use magic. Not that there’s a reason for him not to have it, or that it’s a bad thing, it’s just something that you don’t expect from a character like Ruin. But it does make sense, given the dimension stuff, combining of moon and sun, etcetera.

TLDR I think Ruin is a worthwhile character in TSAMS and we shouldn’t dogpile him because he killed a popular side character, and please stop tagging character hate I just want to see my boy. okay goodnight

[lokiondisneyplus]

A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

[lliblo]

BN14fo Atom Bomb Baby

Prompt:

The quirk singularity is a theory that’s been around for decades. It suggests that quirks will get too powerful for the users to even begin to control. No one took this seriously of course, but it wasn’t as if they could have stopped it either. 

All it took was one child. 

One seemingly insignificant new born. 

Who’s mother could split any object in two with a though, and who’s father could see into the subatomic levels. Very few consider the product of what two quirks might produce. 

When the child took it’s first breath, the world ended. 

The Quirk Singularity Doomsday Theory never accounted for automatic nuclear contingencies. 

The world ended with nucellar fallout, mutually assured destruction was a threat that was acknowledged but never fixed. The moment a mysterious but missive nucellar explosion went off the country retaliated... and then their targets retaliated.... and now they were here. 

Izuku’s generation only remembers a little bit of what the world was like before. He remembers hero society, he remembers All Might, but he doesn't remember what clean water looked like or the blue skies. He knows that they used to be blue, he knows what the color blue looks like, and he knows logically that he’s seen blue skies. But the only thing that comes to mind when thinking of the sky is the hazy brown and green that he knows it to be. 

Even if some things were lost, he does remember very vividly that he was diagnosed quirkless. Something about his toes, he’s not really sure anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that surviving in the wasteland of the before world is so much more difficult when you don’t have a quirk to protect you. 

At least he wasn’t completely alone.

The Midoriyas and the Bakugos had been together when the world ended and they’ve stuck together since... mostly. Izuku would be forever grateful for the Bakugos taking him in after his mother succumb to radiation poisoning.

Katsuki and Izuku grew up more like brothers, and although Kacchan still had a mean streak he wasn’t as horrible as he might have turned out. 

The end of the world was a humbling experience for all of humanity. 

Izuku still thought of Kacchan as a bit of over protective, he was quirkless, yeah, but he wasn’t an idiot. 

But he was still a powerless kid who wanted to save people, and one particular instance lead him to be separated from what has become his only remaining family. 

His only goal is to get back to them. 

Even if they think he’s already dead.

And here starts Izuku’s adventures through the wasteland. With heavy inspiration pulled from the video game series Fall Out, Izuku will be facing many challenges and obstacles as he finds his way home. 

Along the way he meets people who might have been villains in the old world:

Shigaraki never had that hared for heroes distilled into him after he killed his family. He was a lost kid who came to rely heavily on his quirk to survive in this new world. He picked up a few of his own friends along the way. other wayward souls struggling to survives. All for One had long since abandoned him, and he simply focused on living.  

Overhaul’s ambitions were crushed before they could start. When the world ended he was tasked with the protection of little Eri. His quirk was essential in protecting them from the hazards of the world. He whole heartedly believed that Eri’s quirk was what could save them. He helped her trained it, and did everything he could to make sure she grew into adult hood. Surly she would be powerful enough to reverse the effects of radiation and the damage done to the world. At least that was the hope.

Stain’s goal of destroyed hero society was done for him. With no heroes or villains in this world, Stain’s devotion to following All Might’s example remained. He sought out the small fractured groups of raiders who think they could take advantage of those too focused on survival to consider people as an enemy. He assisted survivors where he could, and warned others against dangers. Yet despite all that, he kept an eye out for any rumors that might lead to All Might. The end of the world was devastating so he wouldn't be surprised if All Might was part of the many that didn’t make it. 

Izuku meets these would’ve-been villains and maybe more on his journey home. 

He quickly finds that in this world, the quirkless don’t survive. At least not without a little help. 

Rules for Use:

Feel free to expand or alter if this inspires you!

Repost a link to your fic on this post (I wanna read it!!)

Give proper credit and link this post in the fic itself (Pretty please?)

Return To: LlibLo’s Fan Fiction Prompt Index

[off-in-the-moors]

Joseph Kavinsky analysis, part 2

aka no voice and no dream pack

Warnings: spoilers for the whole Raven Cycle, mentions of: drug-use, abuse, death, s*cid, xenophobia

Part 1 // Part 2

Before starting, I wanted to thank for likes and support, not only on part 1 but also on my other posts. I was writing this more for the catharsis, after months of seeing and not really speaking about a lot of stuff. It’s nice to know, somebody read it. Some say, Kavinsky is their comfort character and, well, he will stay with me for a very long time. But enough of that. Let's talk about the point of view, xenophobia and the Dream Pack.

PoV

The running motif in TRC is, all antagonists get PoVs. No matter if they appear in one book (like Whelk) or reoccur (like the Greenmatles). The reader gets multiple chapters with their backstories, internal thoughts and goals. This move by the author is a double-edged sword, on one hand we get a better understanding of them but on the other, by knowing them better they become less effective antagonists and the air of mystery and surprise of what they're up-to/what they know is lost. E.g. In TDT we are first told about Colin Greenmatle and what is he capable of, making him a good threat for our main characters. But when we finally meet him in BLLB, with his attitude and scenes like dissing Ronan's Latin grammar or making cheese crackers while his wife is held at gun-point, he becomes more of a comedic antagonist than a villain to fear.

But here's the thing: I already lied to you. In TRC, all antagonists get PoVs, except for Kavinsky. It's a odd exception from the rule, considering Gray Man in TDT and The Wasp Demon in The Raven King, also got PoVs. But why? There are two things to look at. One I already mentioned. By giving a character PoV, the reader gets better understanding of them. By not giving Kavinsky one, Margaret didn't give anything to make K or his actions clear or understandable. By not knowing his motivations, K is left to pure interpretations, but how the reader will do it mostly will be influenced by his demonetization. Of course, not everybody will just accept what the book tells them without thinking for themselves but most fans don't.

"Bang", he said softly, withdrawing the fake gun. "See you on the street."

Alone, this single line can be interpreted in many different ways. Is it K being angry and threatening Ronan? Or maybe Joseph breaking inside because he was proofen, he really has no one? It all depends on the reader.

Second, when asked on her tumblr, if she'll ever write anything from K's pov (in 2015, before The Raven King was published), M*ggie said she won't, because: she already explored that type of character ("the thoughts and motivations of a powerful, suicidal, creative person with few inhibitions") in Sinner (2014, spin-off/companion book of her older series, The Wolves of Mercy Falls, 2009-2011 for the main three) with Cole St. Clair; that writing through PoV of such character is emotionally and mentally draining for her (which is understandable); and even if she wanted to explore it again in the future, she would through a different character's lenses than K's.

Let's talk about St. Clair.

The characters of Cole and Kavinsky have some similarities: both are drug addicts, who are rich.

That's where they end.

Cole was a famous musician, having the stereotypical rock-star life (drugs, alcohol and sleeping with fans included) with good family relationships, while K was a son of a mobster who tried to kill him and a mother who was a drug-addict herself. While their perspectives would have similarities, there is also other problems. Cole St. Clair already got PoVs in his series and a stand-alone book, Joseph Kavinsky got nothing and will get nothing. Cole had friends that cared for him and helped him, Joseph Kavinsky had his Dream Pack (which whom we don't know what type of relation he had) and his customers who we can safely say, only cared for what he can provide them with, he tried to befriend or start a relation with Ronan who rejected even the idea of it and no one even reached out to him. Cole got his happy ending and (hinted at) a girl he loved, K got rejected by everyone and committed public suicide. (Now, I heard a opinion that K didn't commit suicide, because the dragon killed him. Here is the thing, K could move out of the way multiple times, even Ronan shouted to him to move. But he didn't. He watched the dragon fly towards him and just said "The world is a nightmare.". He choose death.)

People wanted K's PoV, because they wanted to know, what pushed him to do what he did in TDT. But, in my opinion, even if M*ggie gave K pov, she would use it to further demonize him than to make the reader understand him more. She already did write a whole post exaggerating and straw-manning the canon, just to also say "Kavinsky has a very logical backstory that leads him to this place". A backstory we as the reader never truly see and one she forgot to write into her book. At the end, she truly cared only about Ronan.

Xenophobia

The Raven Cycle is a very flawed and problematic series, there are already many other posts taking about racism, misogyny, lack of diversity and many other issues with it, but in regards to Kavinsky, I'll only touch on the xenophobia. (I could talk also about portray of metal-illness, but I'm not the person to talk about it and I would feel comfortable with it.)

Kavinsky is a stereotype of a Slavic person, one we see in American media since the Cold War, especially in 80s movies. The Evil Russian trope. The son of the mobster, drug-addict, forger who can get you anything even illegal stuff, a thief.

When describing Kavinsky, one of the things Ronan mentions is: "refugee's face, hollowed-eyed and innocent". One could argue, "refugee" has many meanings, but boiling it down, is a person who came to the country to escape and seek a refuge. Many people moved to America to find a better life, in the believe of the American Dream, and many of them where driven to do that, especially from ex-Eastern Bloc countries. Kavinsky's Bulgarian, unknown if an immigrant himself or a son of immigrants, but the point still stands.

About Blue’s comment "import from somewhere else" I don't need to say much. First, obvious: You don't import people, only foreign goods, like cars. Second: this shows, he is "the other" in the eyes of the characters.

There is more to it, then just the physical description. We need to look at the outfit he wears. White tank top, white sunglasses, a small earring in one ear and a gold chain around his neck. This gives two images: one of a typical douche-bag, party asshole and the rich kid; the second of a Slavic stereotype, especially of a Russian criminal. If Margaret wanted to make K even bigger stereotype, she would dress him like a dress/gopnik, in a tracksuit.

The thing is: M*ggie could had saved the situation if she had subverted the stereotypes. E.g. K didn't wanting anything to do with the crime live, his family was forced into by circumstances or K being the guy to get stuff from, but he isn't doing it for any gain.

The truth is, K being Bulgarian doesn't add anything to his character, except for xenophobia. (Personally, I tried to find where the surname "Kavinsky" came from. It is Slavic, that much I can tell you for sure, but the rest is my speculation and searching. My best guesses are: Russian (it appears most commonly in Russian, after USA and a use in Russia set novel) or Polish (because it has uncanny simulates to the surname "Kawiński", if it was anglicized like e.g. "Kamiński" into "Kaminsky"). This isn't a common surname and with Peter from the To All the Boys trilogy and the musician, it's hard to find any information.)

But for now, K's portray is one of the many issues.

The Dream Pack or the lack of it

The Dream Pack is the unofficial name for K's group, with whom he parties and races (the canon name is "Kavinsky's Pack of Dogs" which is ugh). They're unfortunately, a non-characters. It's bolt to even call them background characters. Their portray, or again, lack of it, leaves them as props, their only role is to be K's followers and to show K as a leader on a equal ground as Gansey. We're lead to believe, they are like Kavinsky, yet another raven boys, and to make are main characters so “not like the other raven boys”. Problem rises in connection to the previous point, out of four members, only one has an English surname.

Prokopenko is a Ukrainian surname and for his description, we get "ears like wingnuts", "crooked shoulders" and his voice as "milky with drugs". It's said he had "recently attained official crony status", and was noted being in close desecrate to K for a while. Later we discover Proko is a forgery, a dream creature like Matthew and Aurora. It's heavily implied the real Prokopenko is dead, but if K had something to do with it, is unknown. He is the only character to "chortle", which Margaret said she hates and also "fratty boys and the chortling men they turn into". From this we can deduce, that not only the Dream Pack and people at K's parties but all raven boys (with the exception of the main characters) were writen like this on purpose as the personification of everything M*ggie hates. We are also informed, he drives a Golf.

Skov, who according to a deleted scene, full name is Blake Skovron, is polish (or at least anglicized version of it). In said deleted scene he's described as "major asshole, minor bigot" (unfortunately I couldn't find it to confirm it). The only canon stuff about him is: he drives a RX-7 (Mazda RX-7).

Jiang is Chinese, making him one of three canon Asian characters we see in the series (not counting Henry's father, because he's just mentioned, same goes for the Vancouver crowd). Like Proko, his role is a little bigger. In the Raven King, after Ronan finally returns to school after a long time of skipping, he tells him: "Hey, man, I thought you'd died". Ronan doesn't respond, but tells the reader he doesn't want to see Jiang outside of his car, racing. The only other thing we know about him: he drives a Supra (Toyota Supra).

Swan is the only one with an English name, but all we know about him is: he drives Volkswagen Golf, one that matches Proko's.

(For future writers: what car a character drives, isn't a personality trait.)

With the already minimal diversity, this shows the non-Americans as the antagonists or at least "the worst". On the opposite side, we have our main characters. Richard Campbell Gansey III, who has the whitest and British name I ever saw; Adam Parrish, born and raised in Henrietta, Virginia; Ronan Lynch, son of a Irish immigrant, whose Irish identity starts and ends on tit-bits; Blue Sargent, who is half-tree and ambiguous, but was drawn as white by the author multiple times (Yes, I am aware of the Instagram post, but Margaret herself said, she isn't confirming anything that isn't already written in her books. She couldn't even confirm Adam's hair color and made a joke out of it.) The only exception is Noah Czerny, whose surname is Slavic (probably Czech), but this bares no effect on his character.

The Dream Pack are the whole communities babies, created by head-canons and fanons, their relations with Kavinsky and themselves are explored, who they are as people, their appearance, their interests... This is beautiful how many different versions and interpretations of non-existing characters is there. (I, myself also made a version for a rewrite, based partly on the fanon.)

But at the end of the day, the fans did the author's job of creating believe friend group and in the end, their only function was to show, Kavinsky is a king, just like Gansey.

[aielwasteofspace]

The discourse on Mutants

Or Why the MCU isn’t ready for the X-Men.

I love Marvel comics. Huge fanboy, have been for a while, but it after phase one of the MCU my excitement for Marvel’s cinematic offerings took a nose dive. And it’s easy to explain why. Marvel and Disney began to sanitize their characters, stories, and the MCU at large. Iron Man 1 and 2 made a large part of Tony’s character arch revolve around trauma and the recovery from said trauma. We see Tony fall face first into alcoholism, and face the consequences of that path. Then Avengers happens, and suddenly our heroes have to be heroes full time. Suddenly Tony’s trauma is the butt of the joke. Steve’s challenges being a man out of time are played for laughs, and everyone has said all there is to say about Bro Thor. The only real Face The Consequences Of Your Actions moment came in the form of the Sokovia Accords, which actively get hand waved in later films. Unsurprisingly, it’s because of Wanda, who is pulling almost all of the weight of setting the stage for a proper X-Men universe, but I’ll get there.

The MCU bends over backwards to avoid actually challenging the status quo. It makes it difficult to get excited for the future of X-films when we’ve seen these historically revolutionary characters who’s entire premise is to push for change, status quo be damned, be reduced to brightly colored guardian sentinels of normalcy. Winter Soldier proves that Cap is right in challenging SHIELD because Nazis were pulling the strings all along. It’s not the government that’s bad, just the Nazis. Civil War says that Cap is wrong, and only cares about his buddy. Tony is right because he listens to the No Longer Nazi government. The status quo is preserved, we do not have to challenge our views.

One needs look no further than Black Panther to see just how far Disney is willing to go to avoid challenging its audience. Oh, sure, they call the white guy Colonizer, but the character who actually acknowledges a need for an overhaul in the system? The guy who vaguely implies in a general sort of way that systemic racism is very real and needs to be fought? He’s the bad guy. And the hero has to beat him up so that he can uphold the status quo then address the symptoms of the problem that he kind of acknowledges is there.

And that’s just the way the studios handle their characters. In universe is another beast all together, but that alone is enough to make me iffy on Disney’s X-Men. The characters and stories are very thinly veiled allegories for the civil rights movement, and most of the time that veil isn’t even there. They challenge the status quo and make the reader ask hard questions about the system and themselves. The X-Men and in a much larger sense Mutants are the ultimate Other and are intended to make the audience feel for them, and hopefully better themselves so that villains like Magneto are be seen as unnecessary. The goal is to make him seem wrong. Humanity can accept mutants, and does. Society can accept poc, lgbtqa+, Muslims, Jewish people, and anyone else othered by our systems and status quo. But we have to challenge those ways of thinking. One of the biggest recurring bad guy groups in the comics is an anti-mutant hate group that is literally just the KKK pallet swapped. I have a hard time believing that Disney will go there.

Now in universe I’d say the MC U has been in the wrong stat for mutants since at least Endgame. Ultron and Civil war had society facing the right direction, instilling a general fear and mistrust of “enhanced individuals”, but Endgame leaves the world in a state of relative hero worship. TFaTWS has Bucky, former assassin and Interpol most wanted basically on parole, and Sam, former Interpol most wanted, acting as free agents beholden to no government body. Sam is greeted and treated as a celebrity. Wanda starts her solo-series with the same impunity, even though she’s basically the whole reason the Sokovia accords happened. They are super heroes, and the world loves them.

But the ground work has been laid for the MCU to have an appropriate atmosphere for the X-Men. And it started with Spider-Man: Far From Home. Outing Peter, and having him framed as a menace begins to establish the framework for an end to hero worship, and starting it with Spidey is actually pretty brilliant. Spider-Man’s powers have no in universe explanation. As far as the public at large knows, Peter Parker was born with these powers. Ol’ Triple J could drop the final nail in the coffin with a single headline (or segment, seeing as he runs Info Wars in the diegetic) “Spider-Man: Mutant or Menace?”

WandaVision keeps the ball rolling by having Wanda essentially abuse her powers in a very public way to the detriment of those affected (no spoilers), sewing the seeds of fear and mistrust. Again, as far as the general public is concerned, Wanda Maximof was born with the powers she turned against others, effectively a Mutant, and no one was prepared to stop her.

Now within the first two episodes of TFaTWS, the stage is set to completely destroy society’s faith in super heroes. There’s a new Captain America on the scene, the public eye is firmly on him, and he has the makings of a spiteful bully. Sam and Bucky, who have mostly been forgiven their trespasses are playing by their own rules, oversight be damned. If they play these arch’s right, it paves the way for a lot of destruction of good will. But we’ll have to see.

In conclusion, while I don’t have high hopes for Disney’s handling of the X-Men, I do think the stage is being set for them to come in in a big way, and while the ground work is being set to introduce Disney’s shiny new toys, they have a ways to go before the Anti-Mutant sentiment they will no doubt try to make a big deal in universe makes sense.

TL;DR Disney needs to hold out on playing with their shiny new toys until they finish putting in the work for the characters and narratives to make sense, and I don’t trust Michael Mouse to handle the X-Men right.

[twst-headcanon]

OK how about a spa day with Pomefiore?

Good day !! So because I’ve never been to a spa (nor interested), I’ve made some research and ended up learning a lot about them ! Took me longer than I would have like so sorry about that >_<! It ended up more serious than intended but I hope you’ll like it ! Enjoy~ Mod Ebi. (French word traductions at the end of the headcanons)

Spa day with Pomefiore

“Oh dear ! Your skin is dry and terrible ! Don’t tell me you’re not taking care of your self ?? And your hair lost their shine ! Have you got enough sleep ?!” *Vil has activate his worried mom mode on*.

“Don’t worry little potato I have a solution. Meet me at the room of mirror next Saturday at 9:30AM sharp. Don’t be late !” And just like that Vil was gone with the wind.

On the d-day you meet up with our favorite Pomefiore trio !

“So where are we going ?” ”Straight to Hell” Excuse me whaaaa ?!!?? “Oh non non non [1], don’t say that Epel-kun you’re over doing it. We are just going to notre roi des poisons [2] favorite place !”

Well it should be fine right ? Anyway off we go !

“Welcome to Sense Spa Twisted Wonderland Resort ! We hope you’ll enjoy your day with us !” GODNESS IS THAT A CASTLE ?! NO A PALACE ??? Everything seems so chic how come we can spend time here, doesn’t it cost a fortune ???!! This place would make anyone blind before we even get started.

But rejoice thanks to Vil’s job as a model and him being a regular VIP at this place, he gets free pass once in a while and usually takes other Pomefiore members with him Thank you for the free stuff.

And because Vil wanted to arrive half an hour before the appointment to make everything clear, he has time to lecture Epel and you about rules and manners at a spa.

Somehow it ends up with more tips from him than rules like what kind of treatment to use and their benefits.

Rook also helped from time to time adding a comment or two, and made sure with the staff to ask who would be more confortable with a male or a female worker.

Also this spa being the most renowned of Twisted Wonderland, they actually have all kind of treatment for everyone, from normal human to Atlantica’s merman or fae. Truly a first class establishment and a really good hunting ground for Rook where he can observe different races!!

First of all you are all dragged to facial and bodies treatment ! Those are mostly made with local and fresh product so it’s guaranteed by Vil.

Might as well keep an eye on Epel so he doesn’t eat this chocolate treatment or maybe help him and try it as well if you’re curious who knows ? Because it natural it shouldn’t be harmful ??

And while Rook is more interested in staring at someone having his cat like ears being groomed not that you don’t understand it looks so fluffy anyone would like to pet it, you can start to choose what kind of treatment you would like !

So for the limited edition treatment (only available at this place) you have “My Golden Virginia” for ambitious people looking for a glittering skin tone, and also “BBB” (Brilliant ! Bewitching ! Beauty !) for elderly with purplish skin who wants a youthful looks.

Now the baths ! WHY DOES THIS PLACE LOOKS LIKE A SMALL WATER PARK ?? It has waterfall shower, bubble bath, whirlpool jet spa... Moreover those are huuuge looks more like pool rather than actual baths.

Epel is freaking ready to bomb jump inside and swim, feel free to join him and if you do, do it when Vil has his back turned what he doesn’t know never happened right ?

Next ! To the massage !! Like for the facial you have many kind of treatment but for this one, Vil insisted that you all take the same one so you could stay in the same room. He’ll pay again next time if you want to try something else.

While being massaged, you guys start talking when “CRACK”

..?!??? What the .? What was that ???

“Don’t worry chéri(e) [3] it’s just my back cracking.” IT’S MAKING SUCH A BIG NOISE ARE YOU SURE IT’S OK ??? “Ohonhonhon [4] everything’s fine, I am used to this !”

Epel is at first as surprised as you are but Vil isn’t even reacting ??? Is it fine to drop the subject like that ?

Anyway back to the discussion. While Vil and Rook are most likely to be the chatter-box selves (especially Rook), Epel will falls asleep. Either because he can’t follow the flow of the discussion or because he actually can relax (even with all the noise). As for you you can join the third years, try to make a small talk with Epel or just relax and fall asleep.

Finally to the the salon ! It’s time for some grooming and hairstyling ! Because he wanted to surprise you, offered to make your makeover with all his privilèges the staff let Vil do as he please, he is the golden apple who helps this institution earn a lot thanks to all the publicity he makes after all.

The choices are so diverse what to choose ? Something from the catalogue ? Or something more personal ?

If you choose from the catalogue then you’ll be able to choose a special course “iconic personality couture” where your make over will be inspired by Twisted Wonderland great characters (aka Disney villain).

Of course Vil would be more excited and pleased if you choose the evil queen, but don’t be pressure and choose something you really like.

While Vil does your hair and make-up, Rook helps with the manicure and pedicure. He has a talent for arts so he can transform your nails into masterpiece like seriously how ? Epel might not be helping grooming you but his senior are taking advantage of this situation to teach him other stuff.

Now it is their turn to be groomed !! They either go full mode on their sense of beauty or if you ask for them to match with you, they won’t refuse it ! -well Epel would grumble a bit but will compel especially if everyone is on board with it-.

After everyone is done, Rooks takes everyone to the garden to take pictures. The way he takes picture is unusual but somehow it enhance even more your beauty. Which is really interesting because it shows how he sees you and the world.

So your day ended up really busy but also relaxing. Vil is proud and content if you feel better -which was his main goal-, Rook happy to tag along and watching you in a new environnement. As for Epel, it was less « unbearable » as he would first think but it was especially thanks to your presence that he could enjoy more today.

[1] Oh non non non: Oh no no no (simple really)

[2] Notre roi des poisons : Our king of poisons. Also I am aware that he officially says « roi de poison » but it sounds weird to me in french.

[3] chéri(e): darling with an (e) is for female.

[4]Ohonhonhon : FRENCH PEOPLE LAUGH LIKE THAT I DON’T MAKE THE RULES -reference to Hetalia and I don’t even regret it-

[onebadwinter]

Baron Helmut Zemo Tropes

Taken from Here and Here

Anti-Villain: Sometimes verges on this, though it's a case of Depending on the Writer.

Arch-Enemy: After his father's death, he takes this role to Captain America and leads the Masters of Evil after inheriting the title.

Aristocrats Are Evil: He's a baron after all, and believes his aristocratic heritage entitles him to rule.

Avenging the Villain: Helmut's original motive was to kill Captain America because he killed his father. Eventually, Helmut came to the realization that actually, Heinrich was an awful father and an even worse person.

Badass Normal: Has no powers, but regularly fights the likes of Captain America and the Avengers. He usually has a contingency that will allow him to deal with his opponent's plans anyway; it's only when these contingencies fail (as happened during his battle with Moonstone at the end of the initial run on Thunderbolts) that he's in trouble.

The Big Bad: Of his fare share of arcs, particularly those involving the Masters of Evil.

Brain Uploading: He only survived being decapitated because Techno uploaded his consciousness to a computer.

Butter Face: A Rare Male Example. He has the body you'd expect of somebody who can keep up with Captain America in terms of physique... but that handsome form is contrasted by a hideously malformed visage. For a while, he had a young, dashing look again after hijacking the body of the Helmut from another Earth, but only two years later his face got disfigured again. When he got Carla Sofen's Moonstone, he used it to fix that, but when Melissa broke it again...

Calling the Old Man Out: During his trip back in time, he ran into his father while the latter was gleefully doing mad science for the Nazis. Helmut had long since discarded any Nazi prejudices he had once had, and was fuming watching his father put down other races, the handicapped, etc. Finally he had enough and started beating the hell out of him while giving a "Reason You Suck" Speech. Quite the sign of Character Development for the guy who started out worshiping and avenging his father's memory.

Captain Patriotic: At the beginning of the Thunderbolts, he disguised himself as Citizen V, supposedly the son of a previous hero who'd gone by that name, whom Zemo had killed. Zemo went the whole hog, even decking himself in a cape designed after the American flag.

The Chessmaster: Zemo has a plan for everything, and lays them out months in advance.

Cool Mask: Wears a tighter fitting version of his father's mask.

The Cynic: Has a generally negative view of humanity.

Daddy Issues: He loved his father, and his father loved him... until the Adhesive X incident, where he became outright abusive in every way. Originally, Helmut blamed Captain America. Now, he acknowledges that his father was just a horrible human being.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He once shot the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe and a being way outside his normal weight class, through the head. Admittedly, there were mitigating circustances that allowed him to do this, and the Grandmaster did get better (because, hey, comics).

Disney Villain Death: Many, many times (see Never Found the Body below).

Even Evil Has Standards: Arranged the death of one of his ancestors during a time-travel jaunt, after he found out the man was a rapist and a mass-murderer who did it all For the Evulz. He later clashed with another ancestor when he thought he was harassing a girl (the two were actually in love, and he quickly apologised).

Evil Genius

Evil Is Petty:

The Faceless: He rarely ever removes his mask, due to his face being horribly scarred in a accident.

Facial Horror: His head has been slashed up so badly that it's practically a skull, with ribbons of flesh draping over his eyes and sliced-off cheeks and lips. The sight of his face visibly disgusts everyone in the original Thunderbolts.

Freudian Excuse: Raised by his father to believe in his inherent superiority. There wasn't a lot of dad hugs down in that South American jungle, mostly just rants and lectures.

Good Scars, Evil Scars: Hideously disfigured beneath his mask.

Grand Theft Me: After becoming a "ghost", his mind was transferred to the actual son of Citizen V (Techno noted it was basically him playing a joke). That is, until an energy conflict - the V-Batallion tried to teleport Citizen V as the body was being sucked into a portal - made his mind be expelled into Techno's machinery. But given he arrived at Counter-Earth, this meant Zemo could do a literal case of the trope, and took the body of his self from this world.

Heel��Face Revolving Door: Cannot make up his mind which side he is supposed to be on. He even once took a bullet for Cap despite being his sworn enemy.

In the Blood: The arrogance and the drive for control certainly are.

Joker Immunity: Unlike his father, he can never seem to be put down for long.

The Leader: Of the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts.

Legacy Character: To his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo XII.

Manipulative Bastard: Zemo's very good at getting other people to do what he wants, playing on their emotions and desires.

Master Swordsman: One of the best in the Marvel Universe. Zemo's dueled the likes of Captain America and survived several decades worth of warfare on a time travel jaunt.

Nazi Nobleman: Started out as one, though he's moved away from fascism in recent years. Nowadays his goals align more with Dirty Communists.

Never Found the Body: During the run of Thunderbolts alone he was declared dead on four separate occasions, all of which turned out to be false. In each instance, his body was never found. By the fourth time, most of the team just assume he'll turn up eventually (not that they want him to).

Noble Demon: He's much more noble than his father,for sure.

Purple Is Powerful: Signifies his aristocratic leanings.

Secondary Color Nemesis: Purple, to oppose Cap's blue and red.

Take Over the World: He insists it's to save it. Some people (like Songbird) aren't convinced.

Taking the Bullet: Once leapt in the way of an energy blast an insane Moonstone aimed at Captain America. Messed his face up bad.

There Are No Therapists: This guy is seriously messed up and would probably have turned out differently if he got professional help.

Token Evil Teammate: Alongside Techno, he serves as this for the first iteration of Thunderbolts. While most members of the team fall somewhere between The Hero and the Anti-Hero, Zemo shows no signs of having softened whilst playing-hero, and alongside Techno manages to almost conquer the world and turn it into a Darwinist nightmare. He also constantly mocks his teammates for wanting to be heroes, calling them "weak" and "traitors to the cause" when they show the smallest signs of heroism outside of their pubic duties.

Unlucky Thirteen: He's the thirteenth Baron Zemo.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his mind, at any rate, after some Character Development, he becomes determined to take over the world for its own good. That doesn't mean that he's not an Axe-Crazy terrorist who's willing to perform some truly heinous actions for the sake of the "greater good." Zemo: I would never have hurt a world I worked so hard to save.

Western Terrorists: More like this than a Nazi.

Wicked Cultured: When being held at swordpoint by his worst ancestor, an evil aristocrat who believed only in the absolute of power, said ancestor's son (who'd struck up a friendship with Zemo) asked what was more absolute than power. Zemo's answer? "To be, or not to be."

Worthy Opponent: Sometimes sees Captain America this way, and definitely sees Sharon Carter this way.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's good at incorporating the gambits of others into his plans, as evidenced by his deft manipulation of Moonstone when they were both members of the Thunderbolts.

One of his nastiest acts of spite was destroying a box of Cap's treasured belongings, including some of his last links to the past, right in front of his eyes.

What was his initial plan in founding the Thunderbolts? Pretend to be heroes, earn America and the world's trust, become famous and respected, and then gather knowledge on the other heroes to... sell to the criminal underworld? Eventually, Moonstone points out this is a freaking stupid plan.

Taken to the highest extreme possible. When he actually did have the power to implement whatever change he might have wanted, Songbird shut him down with the intention of killing him out of not trusting him. What were what he believed could have been his last words?

MCU Zemo Tropes

Adaptational Attractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart usually has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.

Adaptational Heroism: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he does don his iconic comic book alter ego, unlike in the comics where he was a straight-up one-note supervillain, Zemo here is depicted so far as an Ambiguously Evil Anti-Hero ally of Avengers Sam and Bucky without mostly ever betraying them until his escape from the hotel in the fourth episode with most of his redeeming and justifiable qualities shown upfront more than his villainous qualities that Civil War mostly showcased, but still likely an on-and-off antagonist simultaneously during his Enemy Mine with the two superheroes.

Adaptational Nationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is a Sokovian. Ironically, his actor actually is German, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees a bit of his German accent creep in. He also has a vast array of vehicles and a private plane in Germany, and seems very familiar with both Berlin and the German language. Whether this is a Retcon into making him part German or just a Mythology Gag is yet to be seen, though he does identify Sokovia as "his country".

Adaptational Nice Guy: His comic counterpart and that of his father were literal Nazis who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did grow out of the former, he still tends to try the latter. This version of Zemo, despite being on a black ops killing team, has a much simpler and more sympathetic motivation, while his father was merely a civilian. Neither have any ties to HYDRA (aside from Helmut's exploitation of HYDRA's Winter Soldier project), while the versions from the comics are both prominent members of that organisation.

Adaptational Wimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers, with a particular emphasis on his skills at fencing and manipulation. While this version retains his cunning, he is also presented as much less of a direct threat to anyone despite being a former black operative; when Black Panther decides to bring him in alive, he goes down with barely a struggle. Most of his success ties into this, with him exploiting his lack of obvious supervillainous affect to stay under the heroes' radar until his plan requires him to show his hand, then relying on Steve and Tony's flaws and personal issues to do most of the work for him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows that he hasn't forgotten how to do his own dirty work, however, putting his soldier skills to use alongside his usual guile and strategizing once he gets back into the fray.

Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Zemo is generally depicted as an unapologetic villain who is primarily driven by a selfish desire to rule over others. His film version, on the other hand, has a much more sympathetic motive for his villainous actions, as he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage in Sokovia seeking revenge for the death of his entire family.

Affably Evil:

Alas, Poor Villain: His defeat in Civil War is treated as an utterly somber affair, with him having nothing left after completing his plan and hoping to commit Suicide by Cop at T'Challa's hands before trying to kill himself when T'Challa refuses to be consumed by vengeance as Zemo has. Even though he got what he wanted (up to a point), it doesn't change the fact that his family is gone forever.

The Alcoholic: Following his escape from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo reveals himself to be a little bit of a tippler, partaking in shots, champagne, helping himself to Sharon's expensive liquor collection, then taking more shots at a club. He apparently approves of the way they party in Madripoor.

All for Nothing: He wanted to destroy the Avengers and was content with them dividing. Thanos's arrival and the events of Endgame undo all of that. In fact, the Avengers are no doubt more beloved than ever as a result.

Anti-Villain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive — revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family — is at least a little sympathetic.

Apple of Discord: His Evil Plan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.

Arch-Enemy: Since the death of Ulysses Klaue, it seems Zemo has taken his seat as Wakanda's most wanted for the death of King T'Chaka. Not a day after he breaks out of prison, Ayo is already hot on his trail to capture him.

Aristocrats Are Evil: It's revealed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that he is a nobleman like his comic counterpart. Though unlike said counterpart, his upbringing had nothing to do with him becoming a villain since his father was by all accounts a decent man in this universe.

Badass Longcoat: The events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have Zemo wearing a stylish winter coat, complete with Conspicuous Gloves.

Badass Normal: Unlike most of the Avengers, he's just a plain old human. But, through sheer patience and ingenuity, he still managed to tear them apart. During the trip to Madripoor he proves to be no slouch in combat either, reminding everyone he was former special forces. He also comes much closer to permanently stopping Morgenthau than Falcon or Bucky have ever managed so far, largely because he's fully willing to kill.

The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. Zemo has achieved his goals but with never with the fully desired outcome.

Batman Gambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.

Beard of Evil: He has grown a beard during his eight years in prison as seen in Episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Beware the Superman: His return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals his own take on the idea. While he is against the idea of a Super Soldier on principle, he is not specifically against them as people, but more how they are precisely put on a pedestal, their flaws washed away/ignored and subsequently inspire Blind Obedience. He specifically notes how the personal loyalty inspired by Steve Rogers to Sam and Bucky (then, even now) precisely drives them to such extremes—even breaking the law much like they did to free him. Sam and Bucky do not protest the point. He admits that Steve was not corrupted by the power he was given but points out there was only one of him compared to the many who would abuse it. He is proven right on this point by John Walker taking the super soldier serum and going off the deep end.

Big Bad: Of Captain America: Civil War. He exploits and exacerbates the ideological differences between Captain America and Iron Man, resulting in the eponymous Good vs Good conflict that threatens to destroy the Avengers.

Big Damn Villains: As Sam, Bucky, and Sharon are pinned down by bounty hunters in the Madripoor shipyard, Zemo suddenly makes a grandiose entrance in full villain garb on a ledge, killing several assassins by shooting a nearby gas tank with his pistol before going to ground and taking down the rest in close combat, opening up the heroes' window of escape.

Blue Blood: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier reveals that he was always a baron. While the fall of Sokovia took away most of the power of the title he still has a lot of money and connections as a result of his position.

Breaking the Fellowship: Thanks to his efforts, the Avengers are severely compromised, with several of the foundational friendships that held them together torn apart and anyone who sided with Cap imprisoned or branded a fugitive. Even Tony and his supporters still bear physical and mental scars caused by fighting their friends.

The Bus Came Back: After being imprisoned at the end of Civil War, Zemo returns in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with the title characters seeking his assistance in tracking down the source of the Flag Smashers's Super Soldier powers.

Cape Busters: Has a personal grudge against the Avengers and plots to destroy them by pitting them against one another. By the time of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he has apparently narrowed his vendetta to all super soldiers, stating that they "cannot be allowed to exist." At the same time, as stated above in Beware the Superman, his is more nuanced compared to other versions of this trope.

Character Tic: He has a habit of tilting his head whenever he's attempting to manipulate someone. It seems to be a subconscious thing he does, as he immediately stops doing it when Sam notices and lampshades it in Episode 4 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

The Chessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.

Colonel Badass: He used to be a Colonel in the Sokovian Special Forces, and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced — though not because of his combat abilities, but because of how effective he is about executing his plans.

Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: In Civil War, he's never called "Baron Zemo", the title he goes by in the comics, and is instead referred to by his military rank Colonel. This is subverted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which reveals that he was Sokovian royalty and has several characters address him as "Baron".

The Comically Serious: His stoic demeanour tends to stick out when he's in the same room as Sam and Bucky, like when he awkwardly jumps to the defense of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his crappy dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Composite Character: He takes Klaue's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.

Cool Car: He actually has a lot of these. His family owned an impressive collection of classics, with plenty of Rolls' and Bentleys in his garage. It's a taste he himself had acquired, as he, Sam, Bucky and Sharon make their getaway out of Madripoor in a super-charged muscle car he had stashed in the docks.

Crusading Widower: His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone.

Cunning Linguist: Zemo's multilingualism allows him to assume different identities. Aside from his native Sokovian, he speaks English, German, Russian, and presumably French, given that he was able to convincingly impersonate a French-speaking psychologist.

Death Seeker: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.

Determinator: He manages to find new resolve after Civil War, and Iron Man's sacrifice has done little to change his views. With Iron Man dead and Captain America retired, he decides he will stop the creation of any and all super soldiers in the world no matter what happens.

Divide and Conquer: His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.

Driven to Suicide: Tries to goad T'Challa into killing him, and then to shoot himself when he refuses. Neither works out for him; making enemies of a guy with Super Strength and a bulletproof suit was a bad idea, evidently.

Elites Are More Glamorous: His family is Sokovian nobility and he was colonel in EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.

Enemy Mine: Downplayed Trope. Despite not personally hating Sam and Bucky, the latter two consider their alliance with Zemo this due to Civil War and the damage he caused; the only reason they tolerate him is that he can accomodate them with the resources they need to take down the Flag-Smashers. To his credit, Zemo doesn't hesitate in helping their cause because of his Beware the Superman beliefs, even expressing interest in facing Karli Morgenthau herself.

Even Evil Has Standards:

Evil Genius: While he has combat training, his greatest strength is his intellect. Aside from his abilities as The Chessmaster, Zemo was able to crack the encrypted HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier program that Black Widow released to the Internet and build a very effective EMP bomb in his hotel room.

Face Death with Dignity: When T'Challa finally catches up with him at the end of Civil War, he's completely calm and fully prepared for T'Challa to kill him to avenge his father, even seeming to acknowledge that in his mind T'Challa's revenge against him is just as justified as his own revenge against the Avengers. Later, in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's completely calm and accepting when it looks like Bucky is going to execute him, and later he calmly walks away with the Dora Milaje when they show up to take him into custody, knowing there's a decent chance he's going to be executed in a spectacular fashion in Wakanda for killing the king (for some reason the Dora Milaje went to all that trouble just to turn him over to the U.N. where he'll be held in the same prison that used to hold Captain America's half of the Avengers, but he's got no way of knowing that).

Facial Scruff: His brief appearance in the second episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has Zemo with this due to his time spent in prison. Downplayed in that it looks relatively thin despite having been locked up for eight years at this point, and he shaves it off shortly after.

Fantastic Racism: He has a distaste for enhanced individuals in general, and super soldiers in specific. Specially if such super soldiers are put on pedestals he deems completely unearned.

Flaw Exploitation: He turns the Avengers, particularly Steve and Tony, against each other through a series of Batman Gambits with the ultimate goal of making them fight each other to the death — or if not that, at least to the point of no longer being a cohesive unit. In particular, he reveals to Tony the truth of what happened to his parents knowing that he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage against Bucky and that Cap will prioritise keeping Bucky alive even at Tony's expense.

Friend to All Children: Invoked in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In the fourth episode, Zemo earns the trust of a few children in Latvia by offering them sweets in exchange for information. But he also uses to opportunity to manipulate them into thinking Bucky and Sam aren't to be trusted.

Four Eyes, Zero Soul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.

From Nobody to Nightmare:

Gambit Roulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of intel from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. that Black Widow dumped online back in Winter Soldier. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...

Godzilla Threshold: Sam and Bucky see recruiting him to stop the Flag-Smashers at this...and ultimately cross it when they run out of options.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for.

He Who Fights Monsters: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family, which he blames on the Avengers for causing collateral damage in the Battle of Sokovia. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after him for revenge in T'Challa.

Hidden Agenda Villain: His motives remain unclear for much of Civil War and are only revealed as the final battle is taking place.

Hidden Depths: Like Sam, he's a fan of Marvin Gaye and considers "Trouble Man" a masterpiece.

High Collar of Doom: He does the Marquee Alter Ego and Not Wearing Tights through the whole of Civil War, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe. His supervillain gear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier also features one of these, albeit with his comic self's fur trim included.

Human Shield: Thanks to his EKO Scorpion training, is fully capable of taking hostages to hide and shoot behind, as a group of assassins in Madripoor discovered.

Hypocrite:

Interrupted Suicide: After explaining his motivations to T'Challa and apologizing for the death of his father, Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa, however, has none of that, and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.T'Challa: The living are not done with you yet.

It's Personal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible. As pointed out in Beware the Superman, he extends this to any Super Soldier held in such high regard, which is why he has no problem teaming up with Sam (who's more or less Badass Normal like himself) and Bucky (who is a Super Soldier, but isn't exactly held in high regard).  When he, Sam, Bucky, and Sharon come across the HYDRA scientist responsible for creating more Super Soldiers after the failed Siberian Winter Soldiers, Zemo quietly and stoically shoots the man before the team is attacked.

Jerkass Has a Point: In episode 4 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo explains why he doesn’t believe that super soldiers should be allowed to exist. By his own previous statements, Sam would probably agree with much of what he says, and John Walker spends the rest of the episode illustrating his arguments.

Kick the Son of a Bitch:

Kill and Replace: Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate Bucky's brainwashing during the evaluation.

Knight of Cerebus: He's a Villainous Underdog, but he manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process. Averted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier when his Laughably Evil side lightens the mood.

Know When to Fold 'Em:

Laser-Guided Karma:

Laughably Evil: Downplayed the next time he makes an appearance as he becomes The Comically Serious in an Endearingly Dorky kind of way when he joins in Sam's conversation with Bucky to praise Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his lame dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Manipulative Bastard: He is very skilled at manipulation, having studied the Avengers' psychological profiles in order to exploit their individual weaknesses and play them against each other.

Man of Wealth and Taste: Zemo is a baron and more than loaded, owning a private jet, a fleet of classic cars, a personal retainer, and plenty of money and stashed resources.

Marquee Alter Ego: In Civil War, Zemo does not wear a mask — or any kind of costume at all, unlike his comic book counterpart. This changes in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Master of Disguise: Zemo uses prosthetics and heavy makeup in order to convincingly make himself look like Bucky Barnes in the security cameras, fooling just about everyone into thinking the latter was responsible for the UN explosion. He later pulls a Kill and Replace on the psychiatrist who was intended to interview a contained Bucky with no one none the wiser until things start going wrong. Although the latter example is downplayed as when Tony finally discovers the real psychiatrist's body, he looks decidedly nothing like Zemo's impersonation of him.

Misplaced Retribution: Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still his idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.

Moral Myopia: He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He acknowledges this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father but by that time he’s hoping to be killed so he can join his family, either by T’Challa or his own hand, so it’s more about easing his conscience rather than remorse for what his actions indirectly caused.

Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of Civil War, he has a pitch-black coat with a large collar. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier trailers and promo images however reveal he’ll be getting a new costume featuring his signature purple mask and even incorporating the classic ermine trim on his collar.

Nazi Hunter: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is shown to despite and openly oppose them, telling Karpov that "HYDRA deserves its place on the ash heap". The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has him openly despise Nazis and reveals that he'd been hunting down and killing HYDRA members for years as part of his quest to destroy the Super Serum, long before the destruction of Sokovia.

Necessary Evil: How Bucky, and especially Sam, view him in their fight against the Flag-Smashers. No one knows more about the super-soldier serum and Hydra than Zemo, and fortunately for them, they have a common enemy in the Flag-Smashers.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.

Nice to the Waiter: He is quite friendly and courteous to both a staff member of the hotel he stayed at for Civil War, and his old family butler.

No-Nonsense Nemesis: Zemo is an extremely pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an extraordinary world, and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal. This is especially shown in his first full-blown action sequence in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, taking down assassins after himself and the heroes in a surprise attack that wouldn't be out of place in a first-person shooter game.

Non-Action Big Bad: Although he has military training, he never directly fights any of the Avengers in Civil War, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception. Becomes a Subverted Trope by the time of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showing he's fully capable of taking down several assassins after the heroes, though all of them are still normal humans.

Not So Above It All: After being freed from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo shows that he isn't a stoic and unpleasant individual 24/7. Notably, he jumps in on Sam and Bucky's conversation about Marvin Gaye's Troubleman soundtrack to give his own thoughts on the record, and he can be seen thoroughly enjoying himself Madripoor, drinking quite a bit of hard liquor and awkwardly dancing at the Little Princess nightclub.

Nothing Left to Do but Die: After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide.

Nothing Personal: He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man in Civil War. While conversing with Bucky for the first time since the events of that film in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he says this verbatim about using him to tear apart the Avengers.

Not Wearing Tights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume in Civil War. However, he dons the purple mask in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Outliving One's Offspring: His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.

Old Money: He is generationally wealthy due to his family being Sokovian royalty.

Only Sane Man: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it says a lot about Sam's present circle of associates that (other than Sharon Carter) Zemo is by far the most mentally well-balanced individual Sam has around him at his job.

Papa Wolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.

Patriotic Fervor: Averted. As Zemo himself remarks ruefully, while he served in Sokovia's armed forces, his drive for vengeance isn't out of any love for the country, as he never actually had much patriotic feeling. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier shows that he does have some serious grievances over how it ended up, though, even chastising Sam and Bucky for not visiting the memorial.

Politically Correct Villain: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is a fan of Marvin Gaye and understands Trouble Man (Sam's favorite album) to be a condensation of the African-American experience. Also berates Sam for stereotyping himself as a "pimp" just because he's flamboyantly dressed.

Purple Is Powerful: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees Zemo don a purple mask, coat, and gloves as he resurfaces to the criminal world.

Put on a Prison Bus: Zemo is taken to prison by Black Panther before he can commit suicide, ultimately sitting out the next few years until his return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.  And it happens again in Episode 5 of the aforementioned series, where he's taken by the Dora Milaje to the Raft.

Pyrrhic Victory: Zemo succeeds in fracturing the Avengers and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a Pyrrhic Victory for the heroes. Best summarized by the following exchange:Everett K. Ross: So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly? Helmut Zemo: ...Did it?

Revenge Myopia: Getting his revenge was worth anything — including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering. Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him. Worse still, because he tore the Avengers apart, they had no gameplan and were unable to present a united front against Thanos, leading to even more families the universe over being devastated by the Snap.

Rogues Gallery Transplant: Downplayed. While Zemo is still an enemy of Captain America and The Falcon as he was in the comics, he also ends up becoming an enemy of Black Panther's, due to his involvement in King T'Chaka's death. It extends to the entire nation of Wakanda as well, as they immediately dispatch Ayo to apprehend him when he escapes from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: His noble lineage while serving in the Sokovian special forces makes him this.

Secretly Wealthy: He may have been living the gritty villain life in Civil War (probably to fly under the radar), but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that he is a wealthy Baron like his comics counterpart. Sam even reacts with "So all this time, you've been rich?"

A Sinister Clue: Zemo is left-handed and is the Big Bad of Civil War. Shooting a gun with his left hand starts off his Big Damn Villains moment in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Sucks at Dancing: While the gang rests and spends the night at Sharon's club in Madripoor, Zemo's dancing moves leave him wanting. Let's just say he was channeling his inner Commander Shepard.

Suicide by Cop: After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.

Superhero Movie Villains Die: Subverted. After completing his plan to turn Iron Man and Captain America against each other, he first attempts Suicide by Black Panther. Attempts being the operative word, as T'Challa refuses when he realises how close he came to turning out like Zemo. As a result, Zemo attempts to shoot himself in the head, but Black Panther stops him and turns him into the authorities, leaving him incarcerated but very much alive.

Supporting Protagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as most of Bucky's and Sam's story and dynamic are sometimes told from his viewpoint during his team-up with them.

They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.

Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's much more upbeat in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier than he was in Captain America: Civil War. Which makes sense: in the latter he had just lost his family and was on a revenge quest whereas in the former the stakes aren't as personal and he's had time to grieve for his family in prison, meaning he has the time and temperament to joke around, make fun of "allies" and dance badly.

Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed, but in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's much friendlier with Sam and Bucky than he was with Tony and Steve in Civil War. Justified, as this time around he's working together with them to take down the Flag-Smashers and even then he still takes the time to engage them in relatively civil conversations.

Tragic Villain: He pursues his vengeance purely because he feels he has nothing else to live for without his family. This is highlighted by his decision to goad Black Panther into killing him and, when that doesn't work, shoot himself.

Tritagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky in their crusade to defeat the Flag Smashers, while being more developed as a character in contrast to his debut in Civil War along the way of the narrative.

Tranquil Fury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.

Troll: Even when he's not manipulating or killing everyone around him, he's kind of a dick, as seen in his reappearance in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, reciting Bucky's trigger phrase, knowing it doesn't work, just to upset him, needling Sam about his experience in the Raft, and later telling his retainer to serve Sam and Bucky them any food that's gone off.

Truer to the Text: Zemo in Civil War was a borderline In Name Only depiction of him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier retroactively adds a lot more aspects of the original comic character, such as his noble status, his costume, and his physical prowess.

Unknown Rival: To the Flag-Smashers, particularly Karli Morgenthau. Do to being enhanced with the super-soldier serum, Zemo considers the Flag-Smashers to be dangerous individuals, and is more than willing to form an Enemy Mine with Sam and Bucky to take them down. Karli on the other hand, isn't even aware that Zemo exists until he shoots her and destroys the serum right in front of her. Even then, she seems more content to get up and run than to try to confront him for his actions.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He successfully managed to break up the Avengers, hoping to bring down the most powerful team of beings in the universe to avenge the deaths of his family. Unfortunately for him, it worked a little too well, as they don't stand on a united front when Thanos arrives and, despite putting up a good fight, get flattened by the Mad Titan. Said Mad Titan then uses the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, turning the world into a total mess that it spends five years trying to recover from until the Avengers find a way to set things right. Even when they do undo the Snap, the world falls into utter chaos once again trying to handle those that were restored to life, leading to the Flag-Smashers taking rise and causing just enough trouble to force Bucky and Sam to bust Zemo out of jail to help them.

Villain Protagonist: So far of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky to take down the Flag Smashers, getting more screen time and more of his development unlike in Civil War.

Villain Respect: As of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo develops this towards Sam Wilson due to his refusal to be ehnanced into being super soldier while maintaining his idealistic outlook. He also concedes that Steve Rogers was not corrupted by the power he held but holds him as an exception.

Villainous Underdog: He's not a Physical God, not an alien, nor a Super Soldier. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and The Power of Hate. This is exactly why Sam and Bucky decide to bring him into their crusade against the Flag-Smashers.

Weak, but Skilled: Invoked. Zemo is a professionally trained special ops colonel who has the combat skills to take down regular men with ease. However, he knows that no amount of skill can destroy a group of enhanced individuals like the Avengers, and so relies on his manipulation and espionage skills to turn them against each other instead.

Weapon of Choice: A Smith and Wesson 6906 pistol, which he uses to execute the other Winter Soldiers and attempt suicide.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zemo's objective in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is to stop the creation of any and all super soldiers, believing that they create symbols of facism like the Red Skull once did. He accomplishes this in the fourth episode by shooting Karli Morgenthau multiple times and then smashing the remaining vials as Nico is helping her escape him.

What You Are in the Dark: When Zemo corners Karli and discovers the last of the Super Soldier Serum in her possession, rather than take it for himself, which would have made his mission a lot easier, he smashes the vials and would have successfully destroyed them all had Walker not intervened.

Wicked Cultured: He's a connoiseur of music and art, as revealed in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He has quite a sympathetic motive for his mission of revenge against the Avengers, namely that he blames them for the death of his family.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's not in control of everything that happens in Civil War (for one thing, he has nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans. Even more so in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Civil War, at least he still instigates most of the events, but in the show, he's broken out of prison without having expected to and is more or less thrust into an ongoing conflict he has nothing to do with. He still manages to play the heroes and the villains—that he utterly disagrees with—and so far has gotten away completely unscathed, once again having succeeded at what he set out to do.

He's the Big Bad of Civil War and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful are genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, has a few standards, apologizes to T'Challa for killing his father, has regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at, and even eventually apologizes to Bucky for using him. Considering he's just a grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family, it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling maniac.

By The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, he is shown to be fairly courteous to those around him (who, apart from his family butler were his enemies before) and he is capable of holding civil conversations with Bucky, even offering him a genuine apology for his actions in Civil War. He also agrees to join Sam and Bucky's crusade against the Flag-Smashers, without the driving of a hard bargain one might expect from him. He is also fully willing to lend his resources from the criminal underground to Sam and Bucky to take the Flag-Smashers down, no questions asked.

While none of the Avengers die as a consequence of his plan in Captain America: Civil War, he accomplishes his main goal in dividing them and is content with this. While the looming threat of Thanos forces them back together in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the reunion turns out to be temporary — by the time of Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Avengers are still very much defunct.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he successfully killed the man who recreated the super soldier formula and destroyed all but one of the remaining samples while inadvertently leading to John Walker gaining the Super Serum for himself. This turns in Zemo's favor after Walker brutally executes a defenseless Flag Smasher in broad daylight in front of civilians, corrupting the image of super soldiers in the public eye. He willing gives up a chance at pulling a Villain: Exit, Stage Left to visit a memorial and allows him self to be captured, his work done.

He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.

He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberian compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.

His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.

His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only two active members of the Avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point. Of course, this is covered under Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.

Notably, this is also why he finds Bucky a bit tolerable, since he is being bewared of.

In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks any affiliation with HYDRA and outright states that they deserved to be brought down. A conversation in Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals he despises the Red Skull and those who idolize him, and he kills Doctor Nagel while the man is gloating about being a god.

Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, he declined to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers and shot them dead rather than risk someone else doing so, as they were worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world given the order. He also seems uncomfortable with the concept of experimenting on humans in general.Zemo: If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?

Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that at some point, he became involved with the criminal underground, under the simple but accurate alias of "Baron".

A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived (then again, he was in a fortified bunker that would take serious fire-power to break through).

B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.

C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.

D) Black Panther had succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther existed).

E) Captain America told Iron Man that the deaths of his parents were orchestrated by HYDRA.

Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members.

Zemo believes that "gods" like the Avengers should not be allowed to exist. Sam points out that be decreeing who deserves to exist, he's speaking like a god.

Tortures and kills Vasily Karpov for information. Karpov is not only a still loyal HYDRA operative but one of the main leaders of the Winter Soldier project and ordered the death of the Starks and his slow death is just desserts. He does the same to  the HYDRA scientist responsible for making more Super Soldiers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, finishing his work from Siberia.

He also happily participates in the interrogation of Doctor Nagel, the Mad Scientist who recreated the Super Soldier Serum via human experimentation, and personally guns the man down.

Zig-zagged; he knows very well that he can never kill the Avengers himself, since more powerful men than him have tried and all have failed, which is why he makes a plan to get them to kill each other for him.

In the secret HYDRA lab in Madripoor, he and his comrades come under attack. Not knowing where the assailants are, Zemo makes a quick getaway, causing Sam and the others to think he bailed... only to show up moments later when the assassins are in plain view, making it much easier for him to take them down.

 When the Dora Milaje apprehend him a second time in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he surrenders himself without a fight, presumably both because he knew he had no chance of victory and because he had already achieved his goal of destroying the current iteration of the super-soldier serum.

He uses Bucky's Trigger Phrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of Civil War, he himself is locked in the same apparatus.

He kills T'Challa's father in the course of his Evil Plan. After T'Challa learns the truth about this, he foils Zemo's attempted suicide to ensure he faces justice for his crimes.

[asterekmess]

1-4 What the fuck is a true alpha? A recurring joke? A convenient plot armor? A desperate attempt to make an irrelevant character look ‘relevant’ despite canon showing otherwise? Scott/Posey Stans think that Scott McCall has a right to command and dictate everyone’s life because he is a tWuE aLpAhA; Scott has a right to play judge, jury & executioner with his “inferior” friends, and he has a right to determine what is wrong or right based on his own benefit and bigoted black and white mentality.

2-4 If you think that this sounds an awful lot like the Divine Right of Kings, you are absolutely right. An unearned (and undeserved) mystical superiority or blessing, a fabricated sense of purity, goes a long way in ameliorating Scott McCall’s Failures and Fuck-ups. And like kings who rule by Divine Right, he can do as he likes. Which is why Scott can patronize and lie to Allison and Kira to control them, assault Isaac and Jackson due to his own pathological jealousy and possessiveness,

3-4 use Hayden (Liam’s girlfriend) as bait against the Dread Doctors without her consent to play the hero, dehumanize Stiles and accuse Stiles of being a violent, dangerous, inhuman monster and serial killer for daring to accidentally kill his abuser in self-defense, sell Derek and his Pack to the hunters, refuse to tell his girlfriend Allison the truth about her mother’s death to look ‘good’ in her eyes,

4-4 plot/conspire with Gerard Argent and Deaton behind everyone’s back to violate Derek Hale’s boundaries, bodily autonomy and consent for his own benefit, claim that the Argents had a reason to slaughter the Hales (including HUMANS and CHILDREN) in front of Derek Hale and of his comatose uncle – and then Scott/Posey Stans will consider everyone kicking Scott’s whiny, toxic excuse of an ass to the curb and not giving an utter crap when Scott died in Season 5 as an act equivalent of treason

I put all your asks together so I didn’t get confused (which is v likely to happen) and I thank you for numbering them for me. <3

The concept of a true alpha...sigh. Look, I see the intention, okay? I see the goal, the idea that you don’t have to kill someone to become an Alpha. That there can be “Good” Alphas who haven’t killed anyone. But I also think it’s lazy writing. This is one the few instances where TW hadn’t actually shot themselves in the foot yet. They gave us so little information on werewolves that they never actually said that the only way to become an Alpha was by killing another Alpha. They could very easily have said “Also, you can become an Alpha this other way” (Be it by passing the Alpha spark down to children willingly, or being beaten in a special kind of combat, or through a ritual of some kind)

But they didn’t just want another way to be the Alpha. They wanted a way that didn’t take any effort. It would be too hard to introduce another Alpha that would give up their spark to Scott, or to have him put in the effort to do a ritual. They needed a way to make Scott an Alpha without any additional effort. Part of me honestly wonders if they did it because they knew they’d lost a lot of Scott fans by the end of Season 2, what with all of his betrayals and lies and what he did to Derek. They needed a way to reaffirm that Scott was the good guy, so they made up the True Alpha thing and said “Look! He’s so pure and goodhearted and he has so much good will, that he can’t even help but become an Alpha”

They demonized werewolves by reducing them to murderers who had to kill for power (In Derek’s case it was survival, and i’ll fight for him.) and then held Scott up as a saint because he managed it without killing.

Except that he had killed. Or at least tried to kill. How could he be this pure person they claimed if he spent weeks poisoning a cancer patient, lying to everyone around him, and he took Pleasure in it. He was Proud of himself for his lies and his tricks and for getting back at Derek by hurting him. That’s the kind of behavior we expect from Stiles, who is established as a morally gray character. You cannot have Scott do something like that and then make the claim that he is morally pure.

Once Scott finds out from Morrell that killing someone will take away his True Alpha status, he goes out of his way to avoid killing people even when it puts others at risk. This ISN’T an Avatar moment, okay? He doesn’t summon the power of his ancestors and render the villains completely incapable of harm. He just fucking lets them go! Deucalion gets his fucking eyesight back for fuck’s sake. He was MORE dangerous than before and they let him go! (I know Derek was part of that, but I’m pretty sure Derek was possessed by a pod person by that point)

He never said he’d behave. No one checked on him or watched to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone. They just let him leave. He could’ve just rebuilt a new Alpha pack. Could’ve killed dozens more people.

Jennifer would have too, had Peter not killed her.

Even better, he brings Ethan and Aiden into his pack. They walked right up to him and told him “Everyone is hunting for us because we killed a ton of people” and he just took them in? Gave them protection from the families of the people they’d slaughtered? All because they followed him around for a bit and said “We’ll only kill for you from now on.”

And this is why I get so frustrated about the blue eyes. The concept of ‘taking an innocent life’ is so fucking vague? Scott is indirectly responsible for countless deaths throughout the show. Whether by inaction or because the people doing the killing were acting on his orders, or whatever the fuck else I can’t think of at the moment. It doesn’t matter if he hasn’t intended to kill anyone. He should not still have his True Alpha status. Period. But he does, so apparently Scott can kill as many people as he wants, actually, so long as he doesn’t do it with his own claws and teeth. Or maybe he just can’t kill a human who hasn’t killed anyone else? Who the fuck knows.

I’ll say it again. If The Alpha spark can be used to heal someone, why didn’t Scott use it to save Allison? She wasn’t cursed. She was stabbed. He could’ve done the same thing Derek did. Peter even said that it can be done on accident. All it requires is that he do the pain drain and not stop when it starts to hurt.

To be quite honest, I don’t blame Scott’s True Alpha eyes for his entitlement and his belief that he can do no wrong. He held that same notion way before his eyes ever turned red. The eyes are to blame for no one else calling him out for his actions. You’re told by the only fucking person who seems to know what’s going on in the supernatural world that this kid’s eyes turned red all on their own because he is meant to be an Alpha. That it’s because he is good and pure and it’s a sign of his worthiness. He literally was just gifted extra power, apparently because he’s the only one worthy of it. How the fuck are you supposed to deal with that? Are you supposed to be the one person who tells fucking Werewolf Jesus (technically Derek is Actual werewolf jesus what with the evolution thing, but before that Scott’s as close as it gets cus’ Peter’s just a zombie.) that he doesn’t know best? That he’s doing something wrong? If the Powers that Be made Scott an Alpha, what will they do to the one who tells him he fucked up? Everyone is just supposed to trust that Scott must be in the right. That his reasons are good enough. That he knows what’s best. Because if he doesn’t, then why the sudden Alpha eyes? Peter questions Scott often and happily, mostly because he doesn’t care if he gets struck by lightning or something. It’ll always be worth it to get that last quip in. Eventually Stiles starts to argue too, because he’s reached the point where he doesn’t care if he dies so long as everyone else important to him stops getting hurt. That’s when Scott starts cutting him out. When he stops believing Scott knows best.

And honestly, it’s like the first post I made that sparked this whole ranting binge. Scott cheats. He cheats and he uses his abilities to his advantage without ever thinking of what it does to other people. Except this time he’s not cheating at lacrosse. He’s not taking credit for bowling six strikes in a row. For some reason his eyes turned red, and everyone else is taking it as a sign that he must know better and he should be in charge, and he never disagrees.

Sure, he complains. “Why me? Why does it have to be my responsibility?”

Guess what buddy? It fucking doesn’t. If you stopped fucking ordering people around and admitted you don’t know what you’re doing to someone besides your MOM and you want someone else to take the lead? THEY WOULD. But because he will not admit any kind of weakness or that he isn’t sure what to do, he puts the weight on himself. He blames everyone else for the lead weights he tied around his waist. He doesn’t want to have to do the work, but he hates the idea of someone else being in charge. Of not being important. We’re told right off the bat that Scott wants to be important. He wants to be on first line not because he loves the game, but because he wants to be popular. He wants Allison to go out with him. This is just another way he wants to be important, and he won’t ever let go of it. He gives orders and makes calls on who gets to know what and who is worthy and won’t take responsibility for the failures, but happily takes credit for the successes. When he fucks up by not talking to people or by lying to them or making a bad call, he doesn’t admit it. He doesn’t tell anyone. He lets them think that he’s blameless so that when he actually says shit like “I lost them” someone will say “They’ll come back because you’re their leader” No. He’s not. He lost them because he pushed them away. It was his fault.

Whatever. I’m salty. *pouts* Anyway. True Alpha is dumb, and I’ve read a couple theories about how Deaton made it up, and tbh, I’d follow that logic. If you’re curious, I think I tagged it ‘true alpha’ or ‘deaton’ on my blog.

[aobawilliams]

First Line Tag Game!!

I was tagged by @idontonlytalkaboutdcmk

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line, then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

I’ll try to go from more recent to older (date of the creation of the doc will be written in MM/YYYY format), but this might not correspond to the time the sentence was actually written. (I might have missed some stuff but, oh well, whatever.)

1- (04/2021) Aizawa meets Izuku AU (MHA, OS in progress)

It was luck that brought Shouta here.

2- (03/2021) Vigilante Yagi AU (MHA, in-progress, either a long-fic or a serie of OS)

All Might has been a hero longer than he has ever been Yagi Toshinori.

3- (02/2021) Dad For All AU (MHA, various blurb on tumblr so far, most likely a longfic)

Izuku was trying really hard not to panic. One second he was fighting a villain with a still unknown quirk, the next he found himself __ years in the past, according to the news report currently going on TV.

4- (02/2021) Midoriya Inko’s Guide To Good Parenthood (MHA, in progress, probably a serie of OS?)

Midoriya Inko isn’t anything special. She's 30 going on 52, has a really bad case of anxiety, can and will cry for any reasons, and has gotten so many grey hair from her son's shenanigans its a wonder she still has green hair.

5- (12/2020) The Kids Will Be Alright (DCMK, spin-off of Sharpen Your Knives)

Ran was running. Fast, fast, faster, not fast enough. She put all her strength in her legs, went as fast as she could.

6- (11/2020) Before the coffee gets cold - The Sisters (DCMK, OS published on AO3)

It was probably foolish of her to come back to this place. But, on the off chance that the rumours were true, she wanted to give it a chance.

7- (11/2020) Sharpen Your Knives (DCMK, in-progress longfic, won’t be published for a long while)

Shinichi has no idea how things could have gone so wrong, so quickly.

8- (08/2020) The Time Travel Road Trip Case (DCMK, spin-off of Who The F- Is This) (technically not the first lines, but it’s the first part I’ve written)

Shinichi(Conan) felt someone lift him up from the back, he turned his face as he came level with their chest, one look at their face and…

Well, guess he found KID.

9- (06/2020) Who The F- Is This (DCMK, longfic in progress, the first chapters are on AO3)

Shinichi’s head was throbbing. He felt like someone was playing drums with his head. What has happened?

10- (06/2020) Harrinichi Kupotter (DCMK & Harry Potter x-over, longfic in progress)

Shinichi doesn't really believe in superior beings, gods or the supernatural. So far everything in his life could be explained by science and very human tricks.

11- (03/2019) Naobuza & Raphtaku AU (The Rising of the Shield Hero & Naruto x-over, an old baby I keep coming back to)

If you were to ask anyone to tell you about Naofumi Iwatani, those who remember him would tell you that he’s a weird kid. There’s something otherwordly about him, as if he was evolving in a totally different universe from them.

12- (01/2019) The self-indulgent FMA TT au (FMA, an old project that I should go back to, someday)

Somehow, sometimes, Ed felt like there was some being out there, out for him.

13- (01/2019) Nanadaime time travel AU (Naruto, will most likely be an OS, one day I will finish it enough to post it on AO3)

It was a late night In the Hokage office, one of many. As was usual by now, the Hokage was filling paperwork at his desk, his right-hand-man filling his own number of files at his side.

14- (11/2018) Baby Ed saving the world with hugs and punches (FMA, an old project that I will go back to)

On a warm night during the summer of 2005, as the sun left it’s place for the shining stars, Edward Elric went to sleep for the last time besides his lovely wife, in the house he has rebuilt with his own two hands.

15- (06/2018) The roadtrip 03Ed never knew he needed (FMA03/CoS & Fantastic Beasts and where to find them x-over, a serie of OS)

He wasnt sure what brought him back here.

Maybe he just wanted to make sure Envy was dead, one monster less in this world. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure there was no way between both world (no way to go home.)

16- (04/2018) Badass Women Roleswap AU (FMA, I still sometime go back to it, will most likely be a serie of OS)

Ed didn’t have many memories of his father. He could remember a tall man, who always looked sad. A giant who always had trouble when it came to holding him and his brother. A figure always working in his study. A person who always looked sad when teaching them alchemy.

17- (03/2018) FMA TT fic I wasnt planning to expend (FMA, old project, I will get back to it.) (it is, also, the first fanfic idea I got when I got back into writing fics)

Nothing happened as it should have been. No matter everything they’ve done to try and stop him, the dwarf in the flask still managed to bypass it all and, in some way, reach his goal.

And that’s pretty much it for any written stuff I got (anything else is too old)

Bonus: A la recherche du canard (Looking for the duck) - it’s an old assignment I had for french class, where we had to pick an article and write a short story based on it. (When I say old, I mean it’s from 2012 - it’s a good way to see how far I’ve come). It’s honestly really bad but I did have a lot of fun back then. (This is a translated from french version btw) (yes I stole names from Hetalia I was always terrible at finding names for characters)

The sun shined upon the sleeping man face, who opened his bright blue eyes. He got up suddenly, throwing his blanket on the ground. Today would be the day where he, Alfred F. Jones, Yorkville police officer, would accomplish his mission: keeping an eye on the annual fair set-up.

So, observations: You can very clearly see me go through various fandom phases it’s funny. Also my naming skills for the AUs got slightly better (but not that much.) I do tend to drop a name (usually the person from whom the POV is) in those first sentences. The first paragraph tend to get shorter with time (which might simply be because I realised I tend to lose focus when it gets too long.) I also never start on dialogue, generally I go for the POV’s thought uh.

I do quite like the ones for the Vigilante Yagi AU and the Midoriya Inko’s guide, The Kids Will Be Alright too. Badass Women I like it but also am not 100% happy with it.

This mostly made me want to share even more about these stories to y’all.

Anyway! Tagging @whoever wants to do it! I’m not sure whom I follow has already done it/been tagged or not, uuuuhhh, maybe @artistfingers ? If you’re a writer and wants to do it then go for it and tag me I guess.

[spidermilkshake]

Isolated Element--Part 1: Captoptromancy

Welp, I'd best post writing on the hellsite too. What better place for the unhinged fanfiction that spills between my brain's cracks?

IP: Kingdom Hearts (powerfully headcanon'd)

Genre: Fantasy, Mystery+Suspense

Word Count: 2,400+

TW: Unreal/derealized dream states, mild body horror

(Next)

1: Catoptromancy

It had been a few years since she had last come this way. Already, nothing was at all like she remembered. Years back, Traverse Town didn’t even have its proper name; it was only known as the settlement cobbled together from Gaia’s refugees—from Radiant Garden to Corel to Nibelheim—a hybrid of survivalist shelters and shanty-town as more and more hunks of unfortunate Worlds materialized in the outskirts, sometimes bringing hundreds of new people with them. A few years ago there weren’t quite five thousand folk crowded in here, getting by on salvaged bits and crisis aid given by the Elveshmean military and the Elvaan Źduhace (the Elven Dragoon Order). If not for the work of Radiant Garden’s more progressive intellectuals, Gaia’s ties to Elves and even fellow Human nations would not have been so strong, and if not for these ties, the alarm at the sudden radio silence would not have been so swift in onset. If not for this, Traverse Town would likely have remained a guttering, suffering den of survivors—languishing and on their own.

Aqua sympathized.

As she disembarked the transport cruiser into a grey, stale-smelling rain she noticed immediately the place’s changes. She pulled the sides of her hooded poncho together, pausing by the platform’s railing to look out over the newly-constructed bell tower, and the mis-matched buildings surrounding it. Formerly, this area had been half-built and strewn with piles of salvaged rubble. The wrecked hulk of an Interspace-Airship hybrid, the Highwind Mark IV, had lain propped up on blocks, its engines burst and drained of power. It had since been moved—or taken apart, likely to go towards the Mark V. Shaking the oil rivulets dripping down her hood away, Aqua brought herself back to the present. Traverse Town was now equipped with signs; she began following some, scanning the terraced levels and built-into underpasses for signs of nightly lodging. A warm, elevated porch caught her eye—its swinging sign lit up with a covered manatech lantern, the orange glow making “Bedknobs+Broomsticks: Food—Rooms—Entertainment—Vacancies Available” legible through the weather. She climbed the stairs to the entrance, taking a moment to shake the rain from her poncho again, to not drip a soot-marred trail all through the place. The least she could hope for was that this one wasn’t already grimy, and without her griming it up for the proprietor.

It did turn out to be clean inside, mostly. A few active spiderwebs decorated the high, out-of-the-way corners, but a polished oak bar-top was well-shined, and a row of recessed booth seating looked to be mostly clear minus some spice containers. It was a tiny place, a staircase and a cramped elevator entrance intruding halfway into the diner-like area. Clearly, most of the establishment was on ascending floors and this scant hole-in-the-wall was the only important thing besides cheap beds. At first she assumed she was alone on the floor—some clanking in the doorway behind the bar area implied one distracted kitchen worker only. A sound like sheafs of silk rubbing together turned her head, and the slight, constant movements caught her peripheral vision.

She jolted, instinct forcing her to grip thin air after a Keyblade that would no longer come to her. After all this time, she’d assumed she would be used to the full range of weird entities roaming the Three Realms, but apparently this… entity, was still a surprise.

He was wedged into the outermost side of the closest booth, in the shadowy corner. His feet were propped up on the table and half-crossed, but it was not their electric-green claws and webbed toes the color of “drowning victim” that was so terrifying: The rest of him was by far more strange. Tall, slender, with swept-back pointed ears and some of his dark reddish hair braided into an Elf-Knot identified his species—and the bustling array of mutations he bore brought that species into question again. Above the protective gloves and bracers he wore, his forearms were that drowned-blue color, and slithering with several large tentacles each. His ripped jeans were a similar story at the hip joint—and even more sprung from a point near his shoulder blades. The deep V-neck of his shirt allowed a travesty of more subtle issues to be on display: His shoulders and across his collarbones had stubby, green quills protruding from them, the veins of his neck close to the surface were a green hue too and hideously engorged. On second glance, Aqua suppressed a shudder of revulsion as she saw the veins on his arms and even one faintly popping from his temple were the same. A moment passed in which this Grey Elf paid no attention to her—engrossed with a ratty-looking, thin book propped open against one knee—but then, vivid purple eyes flicked over to the onlooker.

“Well, well, cydezé,” the twisted elf greeted her, gaze flicking over her from the Keybearer’s Chi-Rho emblem on her chest to the lacing ornaments over her corset and spur-stabilizers on her boots, landing at last on her muted blue hair and bright eyes. “They say it’s rude to stare, stranger.”

“Sorry, I, uh…” Aqua stalled her movements by force of will, as instinct was sending her creeping backwards. “I couldn’t help but look.”

“’Swhat they all say!” He snickered, snapping his book closed. She couldn’t be so sure of this relaxed, humored response; her eyes lingered on the tentacles as they coiled back over themselves. “No offense taken at all, eh, miss..?”

“I’m Aqua,” she suppressed a flinch, especially as one of his eyebrows raised in intense interest.

“Aqua, eh?” Finally, he slid the mutated pair of feet down from sight. “Excellent. I’m named Oppidimy—though some call me the ‘Octomancer’. Or a walking accident.” He chuckled again, grinning.

“Now we’re introduced, at least—so! You didn’t come in here after me, I’ll assume, but surely you’re looking for someone.”

Aqua’s brow twitched as it was tempted to furrow, “What makes you say that?”

“You have that ‘looking for someone’ quality,” he smirked, tipping a hand towards the scene outside, “It’s a safe assumption. Most who come here are, in fact, trying to find people.”

The young Keybearer half-bit her tongue; appearance aside, she was unsure of how wise it would be to make even a guarded mention of her goals. Oppidimy was clearly a mage of some sort: What kind was as uncertain as how he’d come to be half-elf, half-aberration. And what kind of magic-user he was made all the difference.

“Actually, I wasn’t looking for someone,” she chanced it. She figured she could downplay the importance it had, leaving little clue that the lost item in question was the sacred Keyblade. “Something, actually. Several somethings.”

“Lost some stuff?”

“Actually… more like stolen.” She sucked in a breath, reigning in the residual outrage that lingered even years later, “A sword, and a set of plate armor. They were very important to me and I don’t have much idea of who took them from where I last saw them.”

Oppidimy clicked his tongue, eyes hooding in a disgusted expression as he nodded.

“That’s cute—people really are out there like that. World’s in the process of ending and they’ll still try robbin’ you blind.” Aqua blinked hard at the statement, but he carried on overtop of her visible bewilderment, “Odds are, the culprit’s one of a short and nasty list; the only types who would be out to steal anything that wasn’t provisions, these days.

“I might be able to help y’ out,” a slow, crooked smile spread over his pointed features, and his gloved fingertips settled together into a triangle of scheming thoughts. “At least, if you’ll have me. At the very least I could help rule out some of these skeezballs.”

“And how would you accomplish this?” Her voice turned suspicious, and the Rurcelan mutant obviously cottoned on. He disbanded the triangle of wicked contemplations with a series of assuring waves, shaking his head and chuckling.

“Ah, ah, I know that tone—relax! My methods are one hundred percent legitimate, completely moral. Even though I blend in quite well with society’s villains and monsters, the ‘look’ was not exactly intentional. But, if you’ll take up my offer, you’ll see how it serves to my advantage.”

As Oppidimy began to stand and tuck his book amongst the grips of the tentacles issuing from one elbow, Aqua tilted her head:

“…So you specialize in espionage?”

The elf raised a gloved finger to his lips and the quills on his bare shoulders went rigid, suddenly looking grim and serious.

“Not so loud,” He slid past her, the Keybearer wearing a stone face even as she cringed internally at the tendrils coming inches from brushing by. Stepping towards the stairs, he turned back to call over his shoulder, smirk returned: “Come see me some time if you need a hand, yeh? I’m in 32. I’d suggest giving that old office door a knock so you can get a room of your own before it gets too late.” He began to cackle, “Owner’s a bit narcoleptic, so knock hard!” His laughter echoed, becoming cartoonish as he ascended the narrow stairwell and the raucous noise faded out. She paused a few seconds just to breathe.

Never had she encountered someone quite so exaggerated—it felt like a front—or a trap. She could be the intended victim, but just as easily the intended bait, a lure to draw in the unsavory targets he’d referred to. Only further investigation would bring that to light.

-------------------------

As suspected—the place was a cheap joint for cheap beds. The need in town was high, and the cramped room she was assigned was, at the very least, livable. Crumpled under the stiff, rough-textured outer sheet, every attempt to calculate the dubiousness of the elf’s offer, versus the likelihood she could finally close in on her lost Keyblade, set her sleep back another hour. And another. But slowly, surely, sleep and Aqua arrived at an uneasy truce.

She had the dream again. Different—and clearer.

The vision of that round, white, metal-plated room, the gaps in this armoring (or acoustic featuring?) showing faint glints of pipes, cables, and other hints at underlying manatech. It mocked her. She was for a second so infuriated at its recurrence that she almost missed the new features: Insignias in a stark black marked the walls, familiar but strange. It was much like the Keybearer’s Chi-Rho—or the Heartless Emblem, itself very much a cheap plagiarizing of the order’s sign—upside-down, so that the spikes forming the “Chi” took the peak position.

The miasma of her unconscious half-lucidity swam around her as she struggled to turn around and face the raised central area. She had already seen what was arranged there during the prior dream states. Her armor, and her Keyblade, where she knew it last. If the passage of time was to be believed, someone had been keeping it tidy and dust-free.

The chair was new. Aqua’s jaw hung in silence a moment, unable to react, as she faced its occupant. Outside of this recurring hallucination she knew she was asleep—and she wondered if he, within the dream, was also. His dark-toned skin and wildly-arranged silver hair were uncomfortably familiar, and his face itself also so but for different reasons. His ears were slightly-pointed as a half-elf’s would be, but since his eyes were closed she couldn’t tell if he possessed the mish-mash of colors and features she dreaded. She had seen this man before, she was sure this was… but somehow, her mind refused to let her assume this was the same person. Or persons, technically. He had to be, and yet… she was sure this quietly seated man was another entirely.

Her frown began to appear, giving some control of her face and voice back. Whoever this dead-ringer for Terra (and Xehanort) was, there was no likelier suspect for the role of the one who had relocated this Chamber—her Keyblade with it.

“Where are you?”

Aqua nearly jumped, though her dream-self felt far too sluggish for it. Exactly as and exactly what she had been gathering up energy to say the man with closed eyes had asked in a low murmur, devoid of feeling. Though, this she supposed could be from him truly being asleep—mumbling and aware of her regardless.

“No,” she barked, “You tell me. Where are you? And who are you?”

The man paused, eye movements flickering behind their lids. In painfully slow motions, he began to shake his head.

“I cannot answer you. You must tell me first.” He was still almost deadpan, with a hint of tired annoyance creeping in now.

“You can’t force me to tell you, and you can’t do anything to me. This is a damn dream-state. So, if you want anything, you first.”

He huffed, his brows twitching, and the sleek black fabric that made up his gloves straining as his grip on the armrests tightened.

“No,” he growled. “You don’t understand. I cannot answer you first because I have no answer. I don’t know who I am.” He let silence return to the humming void around them, becoming neutral in expression, “But perhaps, if you tell me your name, I can know more.”

A spike of hope softened her expression; the frustration and the intonation was so like his, melded neatly with the rigid aura of calm he imposed on himself—two traits so Terra-esque and incongruous with each other they seemed unlikely to be performed. And very un-Xehanort, in this way.

“I’m Aqua. Do you have a name, by chance?”

“I do,” he nodded, brows knitting slightly, “But it would mean nothing to you. It is a chosen name, taken after the time you seem to recognize me from.”

“Are you Terra?” She forged ahead, prepared for a let-down.

“I am aware of who that name belongs to, but I do not think so,” he surprised her, “Before you ask: I am equally aware of the one called Xehanort. I am not him.

“You have seen this Chamber before, haven’t you?” A dim inkling of curiosity entered his soft tone, surprising her alongside the change of subject. “Years ago I began to see this place. In my dreams at first, and then, every time I closed my eyes. I suspect you saw these visions. You saw the way into the room, hidden in what is left of the bastion of Radiant Garden.”

“How did you figure that out?” But, already guessing the answer, her eyes wandered to the sections of her armor propped on the central dais.

“I have memory I can’t explain,” he began. “I remember the name of the one this Keyblade, and its armor manifestation, belongs to. Aqua.” Sudden, jarring, he seemed unable to resist letting his eyes snap open and zero in on her with their bright, orange intensity, “This belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

An immediate shock came over her—but not only from being eye-to-eye. As soon as it happened, a spell broke. She felt roaring in her ears; the Chamber of Repose winked out and she was filled with the sickening sensation of half-awake, confused floating just above one’s body. Psyche-wise, she felt slammed back into her self as she bolted awake, still curled under the cheap inn’s terrible sheets, the room quiet and empty.

She sat up, waiting for some soreness that never came. A vivid dream. Not exactly, but closer than really being there. For a minute she just listened; a few muffled clangs of activity echoed from some lower floor, and she could hear through razor-thin walls the sounds of folk opening and shutting doors, exchanging bleary greetings, and going about the act of “morning”. A sliver of weak light creeping in between shut curtains confirmed the early, small hour. She collected her wits, and stood. She wasn’t getting any more sleep now anyways.

To Be Continued

[enchystemporarydomain]

A quick story wrapped around an idea I had. It involves superheroes, but is mostly about a budding BDSM fetish… I have a few more ideas for these particular characters, exploring a Super, Mortal relationship...

I’m reposting this because I can’t find it on my other blogs...

A blue cape of smooth material. with a lustrous gold frame, connected to a massive frame of muscle. She was wrapped in white kevlar from neck to ankle, and stood on sturdy black boots with blue soles and rims. No symbol upon her breast just yet, as she was fairly new on the super block, but aside from so there was no doubt she was a fully fledged, capable powerhouse. She walked across the small bunker room in pronounced, careful strides, her hands balled into fists. Her gaze focused.

She tossed her hair back and posed. And smirked.

Watching her was a man dressed in black. His ensemble was practical and protective but not without aesthetic appeal. The black bulletproof vest could be overlooked altogether thanks to the much more noticeable sleek shoulder pads and electronic gauntlets. He wore unusual sunglasses with rims made of some sort of technology and dark red lenses. Where his partner exemplified strength and power with her muscular frame and walk, his ensemble painted the picture of the mechanical and engineering genius he was.

He watched his partner-slash-boss and laughed as she posed. She joined as well, obviously cheery about testing out her new uniform. 

“Man, what even is that hair flip?” he said. “I said show me your power pose.”

“Hey! I will do a hairflip when I see my enemy,” she said. 

“Oh? Is your hair bulletproof too? Parry bullets?”

The two had a laugh, admiring their new uniform. They were somewhat frightened inside about their job. As upcoming supers their first job was incredibly important if they wanted to be recognized by the major organizations. Fighting supervillains and street criminals was a service to the people and definitely a noble idea, but they also needed to eat and pay bills and the Justice Ensemble offered grants, loans, and benefits.

The two made their way out of the secretly enormous bunker beneath their basement (hidden via a door behind a shelf) and got ready to pursue a lead.

“I mean this legitimately, though,” the lady said, smiling down at her much smaller partner. “I really do love the outfit. To be able to weave not just program nanomachines but weave them into stylish nylon and kevlar… it’s amazing I found you with just a Craigslist Ad.”

“It’s what I do,” he responded, wishing he could think up a cooler quote.

“And you do it much too well for what I’m paying you,” she said, guiltily. “Anyway, hop on my back. I’m flying us.”

“Alright, Madame Bolt!”

“Strap on tight, Puma.”

*** *** ***

Grant had been a medium fish in a small pond back in his home town. An engineer working at his uncle’s garage work. With the internet he had access to fellow geniuses. Cliques of talented, gifted engineers to whom the greatest goal in life was being hired by a fantastic tech firm. Worshipers of tech giants like Bill Gates, or Hurrit Akkar (known among the hero world as a cold villain).

Grant had different dreams. Not bigger or necessarily more ambitious dreams but great dreams. He idolized the controversial supers of the world. The Justice Ensemble, Do Gooders United, Robots For Justice, and all that they did. He had a few years of vigilantism under his belt in the small crime filled towns of North Ontario.

He wasn’t quite sure what was it that made him make the leap, though. A craigslist ad written by an otherwise unknown superheroine looking for an engineer to design suits? The job would take him to America, relatively far from his home, and would be an incredible risk. What if the start up duo never made it to the big time? What if the money dried up and he was left stranded here? What if his employer was incompetent? What if he was incompetent? So many risks, and yet he took the chance anyway.

Now, holding steady on his new partner’s back, flying over the buildings of Candesfinning City wearing his beautifully designed outfits, the wind in his hair, Grant put away all of the worries in his mind. They still had a long way to go, but the thrill and excitement was intoxicating.

They landed in front of the buildings they knew their targets, a low level cartel base, to be residing in.

Alicia, super name Madame Bolt, set Grant down.

“Alright, Puma,” she said, holding back a grin. This was the first time they were using their super identities, so the campy ridiculousness was still fresh in mind. “I’ll do all of the fighting. Follow behind me, but not too close.”

“Got it, Madame,” Grant said.

*** *** ***

Super fast, bulletproof, and strong enough to easily bench over two thousand kilograms, the low level street gang didn’t stand a chance. Alicia had such a handle on the situation that even when stray bullet was fired in Grant’s direction, a potentially devastating tragedy, she saw it moving as slow as a floating slug and stopped it.

It would have struck Grant in his specially designed bulletproof suit, but he was still happy he didn’t have to take that risk. 

With the gangsters taken care of (most of them hired teens plucked from the streets and only five armed adults), and the evidence of illegal firearms and drugs gathered, Grant hacked the three computers in the building. It was an easy job: even without his advanced equipment these cpus had no firewalls in place. Alicia was watching over his shoulder. She must have been expecting more quick-typing and code on screen because, judging by her face reflection on the monitor, she was somewhat disappointed.

“Nothing big. However, in one of their emails they let slip something about 821 Glasglow Island. A meeting between them and another organization, though they were careful enough not to be specific.” Grant said. “I think we should leave that to the feds, perhaps?”

Alicia shook her head.

“We can handle this better than any feds. Gasglow Island is just a few kilometers east from the piers,” she said.

“In that case we could head their right away, if you like-!”

The two of them heard police sirens outside. Alicia swallowed, nervous. There were rules about supers taking the law into their own hands, and so far the two of them hadn’t stepped of line according to them. However…

“...Do you want to make yourself known?” Grant asked his boss.

“No. Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“Okay. Want me to hop on?” Grant unplugged his USB drive and put it away.

“Nope. Stay still.”

“What do you-?”

Before Grant could get a word in edgewise, Alicia’s cape had expanded in size. It’s nanomachines, designed by he himself, manipulated the fabric and bound around Grant. His arms wrapped together in a tight, inescapable hold, then bound to his sides. His entire body, like a mummy in blue and gold. Shocked and helpless, Grant could only give out muffled cries.

He felt himself being picked up by his larger boss. She held him tightly against him, almost protectively. She was gently holding the back of his head as one would an infant, and another on his thighs, ignoring his squirming.

“Stay still, this is going to be incredibly quick,” she whispered, before lifting up off the ground.

She hopped out the window with Grant bound and in tow, then fled at incredible speed.

*** *** ***

She let him down at the island less than a minute later. Though she set him down feet first as carefully as she could he still fell on all fours. 

“Grant! I’m so sorry,” she said, helping up.

“I… I just need a moment… Woof!” he said, catching his breath. Being bound caught him off guard. And now… he was on Gasglow island now? How?

“I’m sorry, Grant. I didn’t have time to explain. It’s dangerous for a normal person to accelerate as quickly as I can so… So I used the cape you made for me to protect you,” she said. “It was entirely necessary.”

“Alice, it’s… it’s fine. I was just shocked…” Grant said. He was blushing rather hard and turned his back to her. Alice raised an eyebrow at this.

“Grant? You’re not hurt, are you?” She reached for his shoulder but he stepped forward.

“No, I’m fine. It was just frightening. Er…” He cleared his throat. “Are… are we going to have to do that everytime you have to fly me really fast?” 

Alice shrugged. “Well… I personally don’t mind. It’s the most effective method we have right now and it doesn’t hinder me in any way. But if you don’t like it maybe we can workshop it? You can whip something up?”

Grant nodded, rubbing his hands together in a way Alice hadn’t seen him do before. 

“Yeah. We’ll do that for now. Maybe I’ll invent a neck brace or something,” he said. He cleared his throat.  “So… this is the island. Should we look up this warehouse and see what the mob wants with it?”

Alicia didn’t answer for a moment. She was watching him, curious about how he was acting… He prayed she wasn’t putting two and two together.

Then she smiled. “Yes. Let’s go.”

She lead the way. Grant sighed and followed her from behind.

*** *** ***

The warehouse, it turned out, was fairly simplistic. No security cameras or even guards. A great many creates full of wrapped goods. Most of them legally owned by, presumably, one of the mob higher ups. But using Grant’s X-Ray tools and Alicia’s speed (and immunity to X-Ray radiation, thankfully) they found a crate of bullets hidden deep in one of the crates, beneath old boxes of cloths and linen. One quick anonymous picture sent to the feds and the two of them left.

Alicia tapped Grant on the shoulder before they left.

“I want to leave as quick as we can, less we’re sighted here and the mob will change tactics before the feds can investigate,”” she said. She beckoned for him to get into her cape.

Grant swallowed.

“Yeah… yeah sure. Just…” He stiffened and turned around. “Go ahead.”

Alicia smirked and wrapped him up in her cape. She held him firmly but carefully. And then they were off, faster than a speeding jet.

*** *** ***

As the weeks proceeded and the two spent almost every day zooming from place to place, Grant began to feel a bit more in his nature. Seeing his tools being used to take down monstrous organizations and help the needy made him happier and more excited than he ever dared. Alicia was similarly giddy, with every successful day celebrated at their home base (currently a modified house’s basement) with chinese food and netflix.

It seemed the city had caught on that it had two new vigilantes to worry of (not that they were hiding this at all). Simply by leaving some clues about their names, usually via cleaned, finger print-free notes with their signatures, the two of them had managed to spread the name Madame Bolt and Puma quite far in such a short time.

They still hadn’t decided on an insignia for Madame Bolt’s costume yet, however. They haven’t allowed anyone aside their enemies to even see them yet, so there wasn’t much to present on that front anyways.

One thing Grant still had to get used to was… the travel…

When they flew, generally she would allow him to ride on her back. It would be an awkward position, but the two acknowledged that it was the most efficient way to travel and they were mature about it. The cape between their bodies made the mode of travel less awkward as well, keeping them apart.

It was when a quick escape was needed where things were a bit… uncomfortable. Or rather, and Grant still had barely admitted this to himself yet, entirely too comfortable. Alicia would wrap her bolt all around his body so tight snug… She would cradle his body against her own, supporting the weaker man… And each time it felt much too nice. Much too comfortable.

And, damn it, it was far too arousing...

Grant was certain it would make Alicia far too uncomfortable if she found out just how much he was starting to like it. Would she fire him and find a less… awkward tech guy? Alicia, the great Madame Bolt, his boss and partner, seemed more like a roommate and friend these past few weeks, but he wasn’t so sure their companionship would withstand the test of… whatever this even was.

Little did he know, Alicia knew more than she was letting on…

*** *** ***

“Alicia? What’s the matter?”

Grant had come out of the little tool lab he had in the bunker to see the blonde avenger staring contemplatively at nothing. He sat down in front of her and leaned foreward. She sighed.

“Grant… Are we ever going to show ourselves to the public?” she wondered aloud. 

Grant nodded, thinking it over. He knew this was going to be something they needed to speak about soon. He let her continue.

“I mean… I know it’s my fault, I’m sorry. I mean, you work so hard. Not just making the tools but managing our brand… leaving those little notes and making sure the police see us as allies… And we need to go public one day if we’re ever to attract funding and attention…”

Grant looked over to the trash bin. Filled to the top with take out boxes and fast food bags.

“The funding would be nice,” he admitted. Alicia nodded. She looked so apologetic it hurt Grant.

“Grant… Right now we’re just vigilantes, and I know we have to move on upward to public crime fighting eventually. And though I have the budget to keep going as we are now for a while longer, I don’t want to put you through this if you don’t want,” she said. “I’m sorry that you’re stuck here. You have such talent…”

“Do not apologize,” he said, firmly. “Is the idea of going public really stressing you out?”

She nodded and sighed, leaning back on her chair. Though still muscular and strong, it would be difficult to tell this was the great Madame Bolt herself. The same Madame Bolt who was invincible, powerful, walked with grace and flipped her hair with gusto.

“Yeah, it is. I just don’t feel ready for it. Truth be told, even being an underground vigilante has been a huge step forward. I… I most likely would never have been able to do what we’ve been doing without your support. Not to… you know, guilt you into staying,” she quickly said.

“I want to stay,” Grant said, rather firmly. “If… if you want to keep being a vigilante instead of a full on hero, I’ll stay right here with you.”

Alicia looked surprised. She smiled. “Really? But why?”

“Because… Well… We do important work. But to be honest, that’s not all. Um…” Grant found himself becoming a tad sheepish. He willed himself forward… “Whenever I see you work… Whenever we’re flying across the city, and we solve a crime, it’s amazing. And you let me share in the feeling… of… you know… being a strong hero. I feel like I’ve done more here in this city with you in the past weeks than I ever got done on my own. I’m thankful you let me be a part of this.”

Alicia didn’t say anything, but her expression softened. Her hand crept closer to his own, though Grant didn’t notice and stood up, retracting it. She looked disappointed.

“I mean, we can stay anonymous if you want. I’ll have to take up a part time job, maybe make some extra cash on the side for us. Not sure where I’d-!”

Alicia had, with tremendous arm strength, slid the table between them out of the way and grasped him. She kissed him then and there, holding him tight. Grant closed his eyes, letting go of his thoughts and letting himself enjoy this…

They separated and looked at each other. He looked up at her, and she down at him. They said nothing for a moment. Then Alicia whispered…

“The bunker room…”

*** *** ***

She threw him down onto the queen sized bed. She chuckled as she crawled over him, letting her long blonde hair drape down over his body. Grant, in turn, reached up to stroke and feel her muscled sides and arms. He grasped at her shirt and reached up to kiss her again.She responded vigorously. 

Her knees surrounded him on both sides. Then she got down and pressed her whole body down on him. Since he was much shorter, however, her hips made it only to his thighs. Frustrated, she curled up again, splitting her knees outward so she could comfortably rest her hips over him. Nice and comfortable, and obscenely intimate. She kissed him while holding him down this way.

Grant needed to vocally mumble for her to stop, so he could remove his shirt and shorts. She was halfway doing the same.

“Alicia… don’t kill me, okay?” he whispered to her, half jokingly. She laughed.

“Oh no no, I’ll keep you nice and safe…” she said. Then she stopped trying to remove her shirt. Her expression became thoughtful again.

“Is something the matter?” Grant said. He worried if, maybe, she was already regretting this…

“Stay here…” she said. She got off of him (which disappointed him greatly) and walked out of the room…

*** *** ***

A minute later she came back in… in full hero uniform. Grant smiled at her return, but his face fell a bit when he noticed what she was wearing… 

She grinned mischievously, waving the blue and gold cape around…

“Not fair,” he whimpered. “You get to be Madame Bolt?”

“Well, I personally think Puma’s costume is too, well, hard and rough for bed,” Alicia said, walking back to the bed. She let the cape drape along Grant, who swallowed nervous. His erection, which was already quite visible, seemed to tighten and grow right then and he knew she could see it… There was no kevlar armor to hide it this time…

“But I know that my costume can be a bit more… enticing…” she said. She bent down and lifted his feet. He watched curious… and then in horror and excitement when she wrapped her cape around his feet, binding them tight together just over the ankle… Like rich, nylon socks…

“...You knew?” Grant said.

“Of course. It was so obvious,” she whispered, letting the cape crawl upward, pulling him closer off the bed…

“I’m so sor-!”

The cape pulled him right up and she caught him in a hug.

“Don’t apologize.”

Then she tumbled back down on the bed while holding him against her. She landed on her back and he landed upon her… face right against her chest. The cape tied him down and she held his squirming body…

“Alicia...M-Madame Bolt… Please…” Grant said.

“Please what?” she asked, continuing to bind him up and cradle him.

Grant didn’t know. He was so excited… his naked body bound, feeling the material quite vividly now… She was pressing him against her breasts… He wasn’t afraid of being kept wrapped up… with his hands stuck to his sides, his legs kept together, squirming against the inescapable hold, and her strong, gentle hands cradling him… He was afraid he wouldn’t last long this way… 

But instead of voicing this, all he could do was whimper. Alicia, Madame Bolt, was so mighty… so strong… too strong to push up against… He wanted to be there, wrapped up, played with by her… 

Sure, sex with her as an equal would have been amazing… but…

Her hand was on his ass. She was squeezing it. Grant groaned in pleasure… 

“It’s okay, Grant. I’ve felt your erection so many times while carrying you. I know what you want to do. I know what you’re afraid of and I want you to know… it’s okay…”

She rolled over so that she was atop him now. She positioned his wrapped up body so that their crotches would align. His head and face just above her chest… smelling and feeling her cleavage, still covered in the protective kevlar..

“I know you’re a strong, capable hero, and I won’t forget that just because you want me to be your mommy…” she whispered, and gave him dry hump.

That did it and he lost control. It wasn’t how their first time should have gone, really… But as he was mercilessly humped and pleasured within her cape, accepting his place in her power, he didn’t care at all what others would have thought. He loved this feeling…

She wrapped her strong thighs around him, groaning as she humped him nice, thoroughly, uninterrupted… Her strong thighs, her sensitive crotch, in the suit’s fibers, against him… She pressed down just firm enough to squeeze his dick, his balls, just firm enough to scare him, and released very slowly each time… She herself enjoyed this power over him… Oh how she wished he wasn’t so fragile… But that was the beauty of it all, wasn’t it? 

He loved being bound, and she admitted now she loved binding him so much. She loved having this cute little man under her power. In her cape. In her arms. Kept safe by her, but more importantly kept close. She yearned to bind him more. To strap him against her forever, and never let him escape. Never let him free. 

She’d pocket him, encapsulate him, belt and lock him, completely own him if she could. As she thrusted against his wrapped up body she fantasized all of these things… That each thrust was pushing him into her until he was thoroughly caught in her essence. The fact that the cape kept them from feeling each other’s warm skin was frustrating, but it would be worth it… building and building the need they both shared for each other...

She stopped when she could tell that he, and also she, were coming close to cumming… 

He groaned, wanting to continue, but she held him firm and didn’t allow it…

She released him from the safety of the cape, despite his protests… Then she stripped down…

She wrapped not her cape, but her warm, large, muscled body around her precious little super-partner instead. And as she allowed him to insert himself in her before continuing to thrust, she thought: “Yes. Now I’ve really got you bound…”

And she thrusted...

*** *** ***

It was almost morning when they finished, relaxing together in the king sized bed, surrounded with concrete walls, safe from the rest of the world. She still had her legs around his. 

“...I quite enjoyed myself,” she said, breaking the silence. Grant chuckled.

“...Um… so… I guess I shouldn’t make that neck brace I mentioned back when?” he said.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, her legs wrapped nicely around his.

*** *** ***

“Oh Puma… Come here~” she called for him. Grant turned off the power drill he was using and took off his mask. Still in the smithing apron he left his lab to see his partner, now in more ways than one, standing excitedly. She was in uniform, though her cape covering her up.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Grant… Next time the police come, I think we should stay and reveal ourselves to them,” she said.

Grant gave a proud smile as well. “So. It’s time for Madame Bolt and Puma to meet the adoring fans?”

Alicia nodded. Then she unraveled the cape revealing her uniform and Puma’s smile fell. 

“Surprise! Since you’re always working so hard on everything-” she began.

“Oh no…” Grant whispered.

“I decided to design my emblem by myself. What do you think?”

Grant, AKA Puma, the great engineer, stared in horror at the red emblazoned symbol on her uniform, just on her breasts downwards. A wonderful star image, and inside an image a bound up mummy, obviously meant to be him. Just stylistic and abstract enough to be mistaken for something else without context…

“Isn’t it wonderful? It represents our bond and teamwork quite well, I believe,” she said.

“Please change it.”

“See? The star is me,” she said. “And this cocoon here represents…”

“Please… No…”

[The End]

[appleb18]

Star vsThe Forces of Evil Season 4... One Year Later

One year ago, Star vs The Forces of Evil ended its fourth season and it was a disaster. It wasn’t always all that bad, in fact the show was pretty good on it’s first two seasons and bit of season 3 however it's just the final season that ruins it. It didn’t live to people expections and it felt rushed. Now let’s discuss how the show messed up shall we? 

Behind the Failure

Before I talk about the dreadful writing of season 4, I want to talk about behind the scenes of the show's downfall. According to Daron Nefcy Twitter, she tweeted that “Just finished the last episode of Star vs The Forces of Evil” a month before the finale. 

It’s fine if it was an episodic show like Phineas and Ferb, Batman Brave and the Bold and episodic shows but writing an ending for an ongoing story is something you should NEVER do. Writing the ending without a plan is a terrible decision to make, especially past plot points that were established and most of them were left answered. 

 You’ll probably be thinking that they were rushed and while I understand that all plot points can’t be answered like Gravity Falls but they wanted to make the romance their top priority over the story, which I’ll talk about later. Daron actually knew she had four seasons to work with and it makes it so frustrating to hear! 

So now let’s talk about how it all went wrong. 

Character 180

Previously, I used to like most of the cast, they used to be enjoyable characters but in season 4, oh dear they all turned into pricks.  

The onlys characters that didn’t get ruined in the fourth season were

Eclipsa and Globgor 

River Butterfly 

Tom Lucitor 

But everyone else, they all became such unbearable picks like The Magic High Commision. They used to act like decent people, trying to defend Mewni from Ludo/Toffee

And they actually have character, especially Rhombulus growth when he befriends Star. 

But they get character assassinated and become monster haters with no actual reason just like the Mewnimen and they never atone for what they’ve done to the Butterfly family. 

Moon betrayal came out of nowhere and it only lasted like seven minutes then she joins Star and Eclipsa because she didn’t realize Mina and her soldiers are going to commit genocide. Why didn’t she see that coming? They were racist to monsters, did she think they’ll actually spare them? 

Her reason behind is so stupid and that is because she doesn’t trust Eclipsa ruling Mewni but why all the sudden? While it’s true she let her get shot by Meteora but that’s an mother instinct to protect her child. Also she tried to kill her own daughter to protect Star and Mewni. So Moon shouldn’t see her irresponsbile. While she isn’t fit to be ruler, she is trustworthy. What’s worse is she admittedly teams up with them to defeat Mina.  

Then there’s Star and Marco, the two main characters of the show and they became terrible people. All of the development from the previous seasons get thrown out of the window. 

Marco never talked to his parents after he left and barely visits because “he’s too busy” and he didn’t even know he’s gonna get a baby sister. Clearly doesn’t care when Star’s mom goes missing, his ego in the Neverzone and neglecting Nacho’s for a very long time at least 1000 years. Marco breaks up with Kelly for no reason and he knows what’s she going through.

For Star, she acts more of a princess and has responsibilities, having a reason why she can’t go back to Earth but it doesn’t excuse her being a terrible person. She’s irresponsible that she leaves Rhombus and Eclipsa alone despite it’s very clear they want to kill each other, she’s a brat in “Junkin’ Janna”, she’s so rude to Tom when he comes a better person for her, she’s been eyecandy on Marco even though she has a boyfriend and she’s a complete dick in “Cleaved”. I hate the excuse for her acting like a prick because “she’s a teenager, and teenagers are dumb”. What a load of bull 

Losing Focus 

Season 4 has to be the most unforced in the entire show. They present plot points and they barely explore it. They’ll make a comment about it and the show just moves on from it. Mostly showing shipping episodes and filler 

The show introduced that mewmens were originated from Earth but never further explored that. 

Mewni hates monsters but never shows why and how. It just makes them complete dicks throughout season 

They never had a set goal or what’s trying to be. The only thing that made the plot moving was Moon disappearance but it gets resolved in two episodes. 

So the only thing left is Star trying to end racism for season 4. The problem with this is there’s no stakes, if she fails, monsters and mewmens won’t get along and that’s fine because their children on both sides won’t make the same mistake as they did, making it no need to push it.

It would’ve worked better if they showed the Mewni perspective when Eclipsa became ruler. Unfortunately, they display them as unguided children, expecting Moon to do everything for them and complain. Also they hate monsters because they do not like them.  Most of them go live with Moon, making them not accept change nor monsters. They don’t deserve any sympathy, they are just a bunch of idiots who are racist. 

And the thing that made the season so unfocused is the freaking shipping. 

Starco is Terrible 

Remember when it was good back the first two seasons but season 3 and mostly season 4 made it so hard to watch and instead of shipping being a subplot like most shows, they turn it into a main plot. I don’t understand why they have to prioritize shipping over the story. It’s inevitable that Starco will become cannon because that’s what people wanted but it cost to establish ships to be torn down in the most frustrating way.

Kelly and Marco break up with no reason why and it’s off screen.  

Star is a bad girlfriend to Tom, leaving Star crying

Then in a few hours, Star and Marco become a couple. Only a few hours and the resolution was so dang quick. It makes me wonder why they have to stay so long if she loves Marco more than him? 

Star and Marco would rather die together instead of being with their family despite their relationship just starting. It would’ve worked better if Tomstar broke up earlier and Starco become cannon so we can see their relationship more than just a few episodes. There’s really no need to drag it for so long! 

Mina Loveberry isn’t Threatening

Mina Loveberry, the main villain for season 4 and yet didn’t do anything. Unlike Toffee scheming behind the scenes for three seasons, Ludo raising an army of rats and gaining better control of the wand and Meteora powers growing, she didn’t play her role for the whole season. All she did is she rebuilt her battle armor and send poison fruits to Eclipsa, that’s it. The show never showed how dangerous she is 

While sure she can beat Star and Tom but she got oneshoted by Meteora who got defeated by Eclipsa. So she really isn’t that big of a problem to handle. 

In the finale, again she never did anything and she got knocked down by a Corrupted Unicorn, making her not so dangerous like other characters said she was

Seth should’ve been the main villain instead of that crazy lady but unfortunately, they never introduce him even though he’s still alive according to The Book of Spells.  

Cleaved 

So the series finale and I have to say, my god how the show has fallen. This finale is a disaster, it’s way worse than any other cartoon finale such as Adventure Time and Steven Universe Future. 

With no build up, Star has come to a conclusion that she needs to eradicate magic because it’s bad. There weren't any clear signs that magic is truly bad. Star never actually thought about everyone else that is made out of magic or used it for their daily life. The only thing she realized is she won’t be with Marco. Not able to her friends or the many lives she’ll ruin but she won’t see Marco and everyone agrees to destroy the magic. 

So Star and Marco go to the World of Magic to destroy it. As they enter and almost forget who they are, the pudding apparently helps them jog their memory and he’s carrying a lot of them. 

They realized Tom was still at the realm and he’s riding on the Corrupted Horse so Marco will handle it while Star uses the whispering spell to destroy it.

Star gets help destroying magic by Eclipsa, Moon and for some odd reason Meteora can do it too with her butterfly form even though she never went through mewberrity. Then the past queens help them out too

As they were destroying magic, Marco feeds Tom the pudding but gets impaled by the unicorn with dramatic music playing but that got completely scrapped when he goes back to Earth. 

After they successfully destroyed magic, Star and Marco have to go back their worlds but then she decided she wants to abandon everything and everyone so she can be with Marco and he does the same by staying in the realm. They both hug and something happens through the power of love that links between two worlds and again they were a couple for two episodes. 

She goes back to Mewni and sees that she doesn’t have cheek marks anymore. Moon, mewmens and Mina are reformed and no punishments were given.

With magic gone, her and her family just caused the multiverse that relies on magic, face chaos and they will collapse entirely. Although they prevented genocide of the monsters but ultimately cause genocide at a larger scale than Mina’s in the process like all of Star spells, people who are made out of magic and The Magic High Commsions are dead. 

Then two portals for each world exploded and both worlds collide. The writers made it out as if it’s a happy ending but it just causes panic between both worlds and racism towards monsters is now worse than ever but Starco can at least be together. 

Conclusion

I used to like Star vs The Forces of Evil and I thought it would’ve been great but like most shows that disappointed me such as Steven Universe, and Voltron, this show really frustrated me. If the show actually didn’t focus too much on the shipping or made it as a romantic show, it would've been great but they didn’t and the show suffers for that. It’s a dang shame that it has to that route. 

[mk-wizard]

Is Megatron Redeemable?

 Hello, fans. I am your hostess MK_Wizard and I bring you the most debatable obscure theory out there: is Megatron redeemable?

Well, to see if that is true, we have to be in agreement that redemption is not one way. The culprit has to want to change and make amends. It is not enough to give those chances and despite what a lot of romantics like to believe, love does not motivate goodness nor does it cure evil. Also, redemption doesn’t you are going to come out of this journey towards making it up to everyone being liked or having everyone’s forgiveness. It just means that you have proven yourself and that you paid your debt to society.

To also clear the air, there are some villains who I don’t think will ever find redemption because it is a path they actively avoid nor do would they consider because they are too self serving. However, if your main motive for your misdeeds are noble and you still practice honour, I think the potential for redemption is there. And the same goes for Decepticons who were just following orders, but had no personal vendetta against anyone. With that all said and done, I think some incarnations of Megatron can find redemption.

Specifically, the G1 version and several of the comic book versions. Heck, in one, he even tried to become an Autobot and stayed on the straight and narrow somewhat. Keep in mind, the definitive version of Megatron wanted to make Cybertron a better place by calling out the flaws in Autobot society that had to be addressed and the fact that he was criminalised for just speaking confirms that Autobot society was (and still is) flawed. He tried being diplomatic and tried to keep using his words despite being at the end of his nerves after a lifetime of mistreatment for being of the lower class (and possibly because he was abnormal), but it wasn’t enough that people only listened to his words when Optimus another Autobot said them and he took credit for it, it was the Autobots who assaulted him and other Decepticons first. In fact, one thing that stands in universal canon that was mentioned in Prime once by Megatron himself was how the name “Decepticon” came to be. I don’t remember the exact speech, but apparently the term “Decepticon” was actually a label with hate behind it of which any bot who would speak of the glaring flaws in Autobot society would hatefully get labelled as. Megatron decided to take back this label and change into something better as a metaphor for two things. Firstly, isn’t it funny how everyone who gets called a liar always says the same things even when they haven’t met each other and shouldn’t that say something? Secondly, it is a case of one finger being pointed at them while three fingers are being pointed back at the Autobots at which the Decepticons are not deceivers at all and the Autobots are really living in complete denial in which they lie to themselves every day.

This is all relevant to how Megatron could be redeemed because even when he snapped, he still is trying to do the right thing even while his image got warped. Megatron doesn’t want to rule the world because he lusts for power. He wants to rule the world so he does’t wind up as anyone’s slave again. And deep down, he doesn’t want anyone to be a slave either nor does he want to be responsible for the genocide of all Autobots as we saw in War for Cybertron. The idea of destroying ALL Autobots does in fact make him sad because he wanted to help them too and he acknowledges that not everyone deserves to die just because the senate was corrupt. I think that if he was given the chance to show to mercy to a civilian or to make it up to someone who hurt him, he would. And might I remind everyone that he set the rules of Decepticon society and one of them states is that other factions are tolerated in so long as you follow the law and don’t harm your fellow bot. So I am pretty sure that if an Autobot civilian wanted to grant them amnesty and safety in return for loyalty and abiding by the law, he would give it and he would condemn any Decepticon who dared to lay a hand on that Autobot after (though other Starscream and some specific Decepticons, none of the others would). Heck, when Megatron does go good, he is tormented by both the fact that people still won’t listen to him and also by all the things he regrets doing during the war. Moreover, his friendship with Rodimus is genuine.

I truly do believe that if Megatron was told to pay his debt to society, he would and wouldn’t complain. While I highly doubt he would be friendly or reach out to anyone, if someone reached out to him, maybe he would at least listen. This is because Megatron’s honour compels him to want to find peace with both his goals and his integrity. The end all Decepticon goal was to change Cybertron for the better not to wage a war which ultimately destroyed it (which might I add, he hates that it came to that) and not get those who stood by his exiled and homeless. So yes, I think he would want to make it up to everyone because he is a mech of his word and he doesn’t want good Decepticons who gave the cause and him their all to be let down. I think it would take a lot of work though and years for that redemption to be achieved. And even at the end of that, I don’t think the Autobots of his generation will ever fully forgive him. Plus, staying on the straight and narrow would be a struggle. Megatron would probably be plagued by tons of ghosts, have trouble adjusting and I can only imagine his PTSD.

Personally, I think such a story arc would be compelling as I am a fan of epilogues and resolution. What do you all think though?

PS: I want to add one closing comment which I feel applies to everything Megatron went through and how he got turned into a villain mostly by force;

“If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticise.” - Voltaire.