#i liked everything except the plot i think

[tizeline]

TSAU Season 1 Finale - Part 1

It's about damn time I go over the TSAU's version of the remaining season 1 finale, as well as episode 1 of season 2, so HERE WE ARE! I am too lazy to adapt the entire thing into a proper comic, especially considering several plot points remain rather unchanged from canon, so we're doing whatever this format is instead.

(You should read Cell Talk and Gearing Up before this if you haven't already)

But a quick recap, the Gearing Up comic ended with Draxum in the Dark Armour going up to the surface with Mikey to start with the whole conquering humanity thing. Raph and Leo have offically joined Team Good Guys and they, alongside Donnie, Splinter, April, Shelldon and Mayhem went after Draxum to stop his evil plans.

When they make surface, Draxum and Mikey have already started their rampage and are just kinda wrecking the baseball stadium. The Foot are also at the stadium, clearly still expecting The Shredder to show up or something. Team Good Guys (yes that's their name now) figure it's probably good to try to get whatever info about the Dark Armour they can so April and Mayhem teleport to where The Foot are to try to gather some intel that might help them in the fight against Draxum.

Meanwhile, the others start fighting Draxum and Mikey. Draxum is low-key kinda baffled that Raph just straight up switched teams lmao. Leo is one thing, but Raph has always been so loyal and responsible so it's real suprising that he's completely disobeying orders. None of the Draxum family members are really enthusiastic about fighting each other (except maybe Mikey he's kinda pissed at this point) but they engage in battle anyway. Donnie, Shelldon and Splinter are less hesitant about kicking Draxum's ass and don't really hold their punches lmao. Despite that they're kinda struggling considering both Drax and Mikey are so strong, but that's when April and Mayhem teleport back with that useful intel!

What April learned from her intel-gathering is that The Foot think there is some kind of flaw with the armour, like in canon, you know the deal. What differs from canon is exactly how that flaw occured. Turns out that Donnie when he was younger got a little bit carried away with giving Shelldon cool powerful weapons and Shelldon enced up accidentally shooting up the teapot to smithereens, oopsie! Donnie managed to reassembe it before Splinter saw, but with one of the pieces having gone missing he had to sacrifice his Atomic Lass figurine to plug up the final hole (he's still upset about that to this day btw). BUT POINT IS, like in canon this means that the armour has a obvious weakpoint and if they hit that it might be enough to knock Draxum out of the armour!

You know what happens next, they resume the fighting with this new strategy in mind and eventually they manage to get a lucky hit in and as predicted knocking out the Atomic Lass toy causes Draxum to get knocked out as well. Except YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS and you know it's not quite that easy. Lo and behold, the Atomic Lass figurine was the last thing keeping The Shredder from being resurrected, so now that it's gone? Yeah, the Dark Armour is finally completed, it slurps Draxum's life-force or whatever and then spits him out.

The Shredder is back.

... Except not entirely of course, like in canon he's acting like a wild animal attacking anything that moves, but regardless it's still a new threat they have to deal with. With Draxum being so hurt, Leo makes the decision to portal him back home, and to also send Mikey with him. Both because Draxum probably needs someone to look after him and also Leo doesn't really wanna deal with Mikey's attitude at the moment with everything else going on lmao.

From here on out the battle against Shredder begins. This too goes mostly the same way as in canon, Shredder kinda kicks all of their asses before suddenly teleporting away, and then that song and dance repeats a couple of times before Team Good Guys figure they need a better strategy. Splinter brings up how Big Mama would probably have a way to subdue Shredder, only problem is that it's BIG MAMA and he does NOT wanna go anywhere close to her. In canon Leo brought Splinter with him to BM anyway, but in the AU he kinda respects Splinter, or rather Lou Jitsu, too much to force him to come along. Instead Leo decides he and Raph will go to BM for help, while the others keep Shredder from completely wrecking New York.

The rest of the finale will continue in Part 2! (which is coming soon)

[b1asho]

Wof ocs: land-dwelling seawing and grounded skywing (aka Kelp and Osprey). It’s not like they Can’t swim or fly, but it’s a lot harder for them than the average joe.

I don’t have a whole lot of plot for them; they mostly just travel together avoiding the active battlegrounds and maybe help escort an ailing Mudwing kid to her family at some point. Par for the course with my ocs, they’re both losers. They initially only really hang out together for the mutual benefits: Osprey is intimidating enough to ward off most bandits by looks alone and has a more realistic approach to setting goals and general direction (filling in a leadership role and balancing out Kelp’s lack of a backbone or stranger danger sense and curbing her absurd fantasies ) while Kelp knows a little more about *how* to actually get things done and has a better approximation of people skills (filling in Osprey’s considerable gaps in knowledge about anything that’s not farm animals or military tactics and balancing out his aggressively distrustful demeanor that prevents him from asking for help. She’s also the one who can talk their way into and out of situations) they eventually figure out they’re a good team and more or less hang around each other

Right now I think the two are somewhere on the coast near the Diamond spray delta????(google map of Pyrrhia idk)

Some general info related to what’s on the page:

Every tribe has a lot of regional variety in terms of physical appearance. For skywings, the northern ones are the most populous and have united the other major aeries under the goal of pushing for imperial expansion on the side of burn. Northern skywings have the most dimorphism between males and females as well as the brightest colors out of the skywing region types (females have a very distinct reddish orange coloring while males have duller browns and yellows, as opposed to ospreys group where it’s switched to darker brown f vs lighter brown m) This is because they have the most unbalanced parental care system, where the male raises the chicks alone while the female leaves. No matter the type of physical difference, the social separation is ever present and more or less as extreme (completely matriarchal). An aerie is a nesting area for a group of related individuals, where there is one dominant female, a pool of married-in males (one is chosen every season to be the matriarchs pair), some other female subordinates, and the matriarchs kids (including some adult males). Females are leaders, hunters, and providers while the males do menial labor or domestic, and craft tasks. Among all skywing ethnicities, there are cases of males being born with female coloring or vice versa. Males with female coloring do not have a place in society according to their rules, since they look like a female but can’t lay eggs (meaning they are ‘broken’ in the eyes of their peers. They can’t even participate in making eggs because that would look gay and I’m deciding that theyre homophobic for fun/because of the sanctity they put on the hetero-ness of their everything). They’d normally just be driven out in bigger northern aeries, but Osprey is an exception because of his slightly different culture and because his group needed every worker they could get to survive on their land (he was kinda just treated like a defective female that has to work with the males. Not fun). A female with male coloring is more tolerated ONLY if they stay celibate and out of the way of the “real” females (often, they are just put in all-female homes as an attendant). Ospreys aerie was a small and rural one that practiced subsistence herding/hunting, so it wasn’t hard for a northern recruiter to strong-arm them with a little military coercion and cash into giving up their eligible youths for the draft. He didn’t really feel a particularly strong bond with any of his family group due to their previously described sentiments towards his condition, but it’s still a blow to the ego to know that they sold him off to die for not even one iron ingot. He got lucky with the force he was taken into (they got bronze swords and leather armor, which is more than some other skywing soldiers) but not so lucky with the area he was sent to (Sandwing ambush). After being badly wounded and finding out he was the only survivor, he fled rather than going back to a northern base and has been evading capture (and execution) since. The lack of depth perception/decreased vision in general means he can seriously mess up landing and taking off in crowded areas like a forest, and can’t do a lot of complicated maneuvers anymore. Despite already being jaded and cynical at his big teen age, he’s not really equipped to be on his own at all and has been thrown off the deep end in terms of experiencing the world for the first time.

Seawings live in pods of family members and some outsiders. Unlike other dragons, they are actually led by a pair-bonded male and female rather than it being a female-led harem type thing. This pair are the bulls, and they’re bigger than everyone else because of hormones (they’re the only reproductive members. This is enforced to varying degrees between pods, some larger more organized ones even have legislation about it. Homosexual activity is encouraged to prevent threats to the bulls (aka new kids or a new mating pair). Through interacting with other tribes, some of the more powerful “superpods” made up of multiple family lines have adopted a more female-dominant system where there are still physically distinct bulls but only the female does any governing. For trade and other stuff, too, pods will normally only send their female members since no one else would respect a male. Kelps pod was a mid-sized one that was technically a part of another super pod’s domain, but they only really interacted through some resource taxes and occasional new laws being delivered. Kelp was on the bottom rung of the social ladder and chafed a lot with her pod because of her general weirdness and lack of strong allegiance to her bull (her mother). She still feels sentiment towards them because they raised her, but was never able to fit in. The superpod they were under was allied with blister, making their territory a target for mudwings and skywings. Eventually, Kelp’s pod was affected by this when an ongoing battle between the superpod’s troops and some mudwings spilled into their land. The superpod forces lost and Kelps home was looted, in the process she was burned and separated from the others. For about a week she hung around tending to her own wounds to see if her pod would regroup somewhere, but eventually left to find a real doctor (trying not to think about the implications of them not coming back) it’s been about a month since then, and she has somehow been stumbling by using her craft skills. Shes been robbed several times and has only gotten away with her life thanks to the good ol tail slap+ massive seal teeth jaw strength combo (other than that all her health problems are 100x worse because she’s on land most of the time to avoid Mudwing-patrolled rivers and the hostility of other pods.) She’s never been outside her pods range before and the world is not so great, but she has a positive outlook (some might even say a foolishly optimistic one).

[creatingblackcharacters]

These writing polls have made me think about the writing of multiple Black characters just as a consideration. This made me remember a casting choice that's more than a little... questionable, in terms of "they didn't consider the impact of making this character Black" (and if they did, uh, that's worse tbh). In 2020, the movie "based" on the Artemis Fowl book came out (I put quotes because it was truly a horrible adaptation). They made the decision to cast the character of Butler as a Black man. Now, I would be fine with this except: the Butler family in the books is one that has "served the Fowl family for generations" and the implications of casting a Black man for this role are truly terrible. They also took away a lot of his involvement in the plot it feels like. I'm all for diversifying casts for adaptations but I feel they need to consider the implications behind some choices first.

You're correct! I am of the opinion that there's no such thing as a true raceblind casting, because we don't live in a raceblind world. Unfortunately, the moment you choose someone of a background to play a role, everything that comes with that person's identity (including the misconceptions) is going to be projected onto it. We live in a Society, and none of our media exists within a vacuum outside of it.

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

I've been thinking about that again lately - especially the point about Cassian being an unconventional male lead in the movie - and I think what annoys me so much about the Andor characterisation (besides how little there is of it sometimes) is that it reads like a character who was reconfigured for the male gaze in many ways.

Rogue One Cassian:

a guy who committed fully to a cause at a very young age, and was clearly destroying himself in the attempt to hang on to that idealism. Yes, that man killed people without flinching, and was clearly prepared to do it all over again, but he was also wracked with guilt over it

implied to be a good manipulator (Tivik, who is clearly very afraid, still agreed to meet him and give him a huge secret; he convinced Bodhi they'll make it off Scarif; holds good speeches; described as a great recruiter by his superiors in the additional publications)

but clearly winging it most of the time, and not often suave

no hint of being great with women (calling Jyn's commitment to the cause inadequate and privileged, trying to tell her what she is feeling, then returning and offering her an army of people willing to die for her is... inelegant as far as flirting goes tbh)

kept being one-upped by the female lead in physical fights

took orders readily, deferentially and silently, both from his CO and (gasp!) the female lead

there was no specific personal loss that had pushed him into caring, although he did tell Jyn she was "not the only one who lost everything", it was never specified if that made him pick up the fight or not

he was the organised stickler to Jyn's rebellious chaotic approach

he was largely a reactive character, shifted around by the plot and, most importantly, by following Jyn

failed his main assignment, not because anything out of his control went wrong, but because he couldn't bring himself to shoot Galen

his arc was relearning (or, possibly, learning for the first time) to assert his own judgement over his superiors, which is a storyline usually given to female characters

meanwhile, here is what Tony Gilroy saw in Cassian:

source: Vanity Fair

Couple things here.

"A perfect kind of spy" - yeah! But in a real-world sense, not a James Bond sense. Because James Bond is actually a really bad spy. Cool, but terrible. He leaves a trail of women he fucked whom he told secrets to and who can be used to manipulate or trace him, he tells everyone his government name for no reason, he is drunk, keeps killing people who could tell him stuff, and cannot stop drawing attention to himself. An actual good spy is unassuming and nonthreatening, and sure, charming and attractive doesn't hurt but not in a way that people will remember. A spy who is the hottest thing since sliced bread? Way too conspicuous. The Cassian we see in the movie defaults to make himself nonthreatening at every opportunity - making himself look goofy and clumsy ("oh no, my gloves!"), smiling, making himself smaller, letting himself get kidnapped with no earnest attempt to resist or retaliate.

He is not the perfect warrior. He is a good shot and appears to have an ungodly pain tolerance, but we never see him engage in violence in the way that "warrior" stereotypically implies. It is never implied he is adept at any strength-based combat and he will not get up close and personal. This man never beats up anyone, he is not reckless when outnumbered, and his main contribution to the final fight is drawing fire and covering the protagonist, and almost immediately getting hit.

"The perfect killer" who, again, had the perfect chance to execute a vital enemy target and didn't, simply because he emotionally could not do it. Great analysis, man, no notes!

I think the interpretation of "seductive" isn't wrong in regards to R1!Cassian, looking especially at his speeches in the latter half - except, of course, on Andor we end up with that being reflected both by Cassian being suddenly incredible at massive feats of manipulation (while being unable to lie to his mother or convince people to get off his back about the money he owes them, somehow), AND literally by Cassian being a flirt and womaniser. Which, again, really works against him being a good spy, and also goes against the characterisation of the movie. Sure, you could say he was weird around Jyn because he had a crush, or because he wasn't into her, but Cassian seemed so burned out most of the movie that I just can't picture him mustering the energy for any kind of hedonism.

The last bit of that quote is such an upsetting mischaracterisation of Cassian's final acts, and I really hope that's just because it was phrased weirdly. Because "How do you get to that place and then sacrifice yourself" implies that Cassian felt he was top of his game, and proud of it, and sacrifice was an active step he took in spite of that. Cassian visibly resented himself for his actions. He repeatedly put himself in harm's way with no hesitation and very little care for his life before the finale. Giving his life was not sacrificing something good for a win. Scarif was his redemption. This is very clearly stated in dialogue. Cassian viewed this victory as making things right with the world, and seemed mostly relieved to die on the beach. I don't understand how a writer could not get that.

But yeah, overall Cassian, while still a very tragic character (and still played by the man with the saddest eyes in the biz), has become way more of a male action hero type in Andor. The initial Han-Solo-esque blasé attitude and reluctance to fight, the mercenary mentality, the petty criminal background are all things typically associated with the Cool Tough Guy, traits which he emphatically did not have before. Also, I get that Cassian and his skillset would be a great asset to Luthen, but I feel like Cassian from Rogue One was emphatically not a guy who any recruiter ever treated like God's gift to the cause, and Luthen repeatedly makes the point that his own life and the invaluable imperial tech Cassian stole are worth the risk of recruiting... some thief who can lie okay? Luthen's early treatment of Cassian is oddly chosen-one coded, and I never felt like that was earned. But it makes Cassian look badass! Which was probably the main intention behind all that. And then the constant bitchiness about submitting to authority. I'm obviously not talking about the prison arc, I mean when he was receiving very necessary training on Aldhani or even when he has a go at Kleya for giving him bad intel before stealing the TIE in season 2. That is simply wildly out of character for the man we saw in Rogue One - but it is more palatable for the kind of male viewers who think masculinity is always asserting dominance. If your pov character can't be in command just yet, he can at least be bitching about the ones who are. And making him so slow to care for the broader cause makes it look like he's not ever really acting out of conviction so much as he seems to be avenging personal losses and harm to himself and people he personally knows. Which is also a much more traditional motivation for a male character.

We do still see Cassian flounder a lot, but in a way that makes him look much better than in Rogue One, because it's always established that he's a) new at this and b) even if he comes in prepped for a situation, it was always on a notably short deadline or with extra hurdles. He was brought into Aldhani three days before go time; they have to orchestrate the prison break with very limited amount of communication; he was ill-prepared for the theft of the TIE (and also apparently only there for a few hours? why not send him in for a few days, to watch other people fly the thing?); he had virtually no time to make any kind of plan before trying to extract his friends from the farm planet. R1!Cassian was much more reliant on prep and planning (the whole operation up until Jedha had clearly been planned for a long time), and was skilled at improvising when that plan - his plan - inevitably went sideways. In Andor, every fuck-up appears to be outside of his control, and he was mostly winging it anyway! Any success is therefore impressive and cool, and a dunk on all the other idiots who spent so long planning it.

The only truly dumb choice he makes is executing Skeen before he can prove to anyone that Skeen was going to betray them - and here we do see him be the cold killer that Gilroy seems to think he is! Because that was not ordered, did not further any cause but to satisfy his anger at being successfully lied to, and there was no shadow of self-defense in it. It's not necessarily a thing I can't see R1!Cassian doing, especially a younger version - but it does run counter to the portrayal we got, of a man who "did everything I did [...] for the Rebellion", who hated killing so much he eventually couldn't even do it when it did further the cause. And, crucially, Andor!Cassian never once seems to feel the slightest bit of guilt over the people he's killed so far - only people who got killed because of him or beside him, like Nemik or Kino, and even there guilt didn't seem to be the thing that lingers, he's mostly angry. Which is fair, both for the themes they're exploring and as a possible backstory for the character, but again, much more palatable to that certain male audience.

Lastly, this is even in the clothing! It pains me to do anything but rave about Andor's costuming because it is divine, but... they even dressed him kind of like a cowboy in his intro (see this post). R1!Cassian spent a large part of the movie in a floofy parka that his frame completely disappeared in, face haloed by soft fur, and was otherwise dressed pretty much in army fatigues (except for the Imperial uniform and the sexy black leather jacket in the intro, which might be where Gilroy pulled the inexplicable Bond vibes from??). Also, we get a shot of his ass but not of Jyn's, which is very funny but I don't know if I want to pretend this is a serious argument or not. Andor sees him in much more leather and suede in more muted colours, coarser materials, long, swooping open coats with a more classically adventure-hero type silhouette (when he gets to pick his own wardrobe, of course). And, of course, there's a shirtless scene, too.

so yeah, I know a lot of people will not vibe with this assessment because Cassian in Andor is still, unlike a lot of action leads written by men, not a creep or a misogynist. But they still retconned or reshaped a lot of the traits that made him so inadequate to a lot of male Star Wars fans in the movie, and as someone who thought that was very sexy of Cassian that's just such a bummer.

Nah I gotta say something.

After watching Rogue One all of the characters are amazing. I literally love them all. Some people saying Cassian was their favorite. I love him, he’s my blorbo.

And then Andor completely retconning his entire character, personality and background and everything we knew at all whatsoever, some people still say that this was why the SAME GUY was always the fave ???

I loved him because he was a refreshingly different male lead. Because he wasn’t some brooding loser but was intentional in being a leader within the rebellion no matter the costs. And then they made him out to be a reluctant cowboy?

I get liking both canons. I get still loving this new character and the old. I get trying to bridge the differences. But completely ignoring the fact that they changed his everything and acting like it was the same guy, it’s so sad seeing so many people never gave a shit at all in the first place when they claimed to. Maybe it’s just me being naive but that’s actually wild to me male characters can be completely contradicted and still be valued over their female counterparts. I actually hate y’all.

[apparitionism]

Court 2

Hi @amtrak12 —here, on the occasion of the B&W-meeting anniversary, I have the next part of your @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange gift, which is turning out overall to be a slower-than-slow unspooling that has something to do with lawyers and arguments and ownership. Herein, the plot thickens. Or maybe just clots, or perhaps congeals. Anyway, events—or “events”?—occur. Following, sort of, what happened in part 1. (Contributing to my usual sluggish pace is the fact that it’s been a rough several months, for me at least. I hope everyone’s holding tight to whatever helps...)

Court 2

Leena stumbles. She is sitting in Artie’s Warehouse office, waiting for Claudia to finish some database update or other, and yet her entire being manages to lose its footing. To stumble.

“Are you okay?”

The question from Claudia startles Leena out of her first response to the lurching sensation: trying to ascertain whether she should have been more attentive, all day, to the background hum of artifactual grumbling. They always want attention, artifacts do, but has today been—and is this moment in particular—about attention? Or has some hapless item found itself in genuine distress?

“Seriously, are you okay?” Claudia asks again, again startling Leena, enough that instead of what would usually be a measured “yes,” she voices an awkward “huh?”

“You look like somebody kicked your puppy. Or wait...” Claudia squints. “More like your puppy did a thing and you don’t know if you should give it a treat or say ‘bad dog.’”

“You do cut right to it,” Leena says, because Claudia has.

“I’m discerning.” She squints again. “Is that what I mean? Myka would know.”

“Even if it isn’t, you are. And yes, she would.”

Claudia beams, likely on both accounts. “Thanks! Probably. So what’s up with your puppy?”

“I can’t tell,” Leena admits. “Something dramatic. And the real question is, which puppy?”

“I can’t help here. First, because I don’t know what we’re talking about, and B, because I was never one of those kids who wanted a puppy. But mostly because my helping skills are pretty much always under construction.”

Don’t run yourself down, Leena would admonish, but whatever those artifacts are up to is the more pressing issue, and anyway Claudia generally shrugs off explicit direction to acknowledge her value... unless, interestingly, it’s Myka who delivers it. So she goes slightly more opaque and functional: “Come with me. We can both figure out what we’re talking about, and maybe you can hammer at those skills.”

“Where are we going?”

Leena closes her eyes and concentrates on the disquiet, trying to orient. “Container aisle,” she determines. “Can’t narrow it down more than that.”

They reach the floor and walk for a bit. Then Claudia says, like she’s been thinking about it, “Container aisle? I’d rather go to the Container Store.”

“Need more organization in your life?”

“In Pete’s life.”

Leena waits for it.

Claudia delivers, “Because when I go to steal DVDs and games from his room I’d like to able to find them.”

It’s not the best. Leena waits again. This time, Claudia doesn’t deliver, instead saying, with a little mournful pout, “What’s the container aisle for, anyway? Boxes? Bottles? Tupperware?”

“Some of all of those. Generally, artifacts that hold. Catch and hold, or just accept to hold.”

“Hold. Hold... stuff?”

“Yes?” Leena isn’t sure what Claudia means by “stuff.” She’s often a little unsure about what Claudia intends words to mean, and she suspects she’s not the only one. Except for, perhaps, Myka? And possibly Steve? Still, Claudia does flummox Steve...

“But everything holds stuff,” Claudia says. “It’s what makes a thing a thing. A thing is just a stuff container.”

“Philosophy. Impressive.” Leena says it quietly, so as to keep Claudia’s ego in check, yet she’s delighted. However: “Things are stuff containers mostly by an accident of metaphysics. The aisle stores things designed for holding.”

“So this is the aisle we’d put the Warehouse itself in. If we could do that kind of freaky recursion function... or does that only work the other way, where it’d be recursion for the Warehouse to hold the containers?”

“The aisle’s already itself holding more than one Joseph Cornell box. That’s enough recursion for me.” Leena keeps her tone casual, but she’s further delighted that Claudia is so obviously thinking. Seeing connections and associations: it’s what she’ll need. For the future... Leena stops herself; she doesn’t want to be disturbed, today, by the future. There’s enough to puzzle out in the present, given her stumble, given what now seems to be an increasing disgruntlement in the artifacts’ hum.

And given the fact that the container aisle always gives her pause, for she does have particular friendships here. Certainly those Cornell boxes; artifacts that have true auras thrill her, especially when said auras have been so meticulously constructed. Leena wishes she could have met Cornell, could have sat him down so as to parse his ability to engineer these compact works of acquisition, accumulation: little Warehouses, all of them. Only a few are actual artifacts, but that’s more than most artists could dream of generating. If they ever did so dream... but it’s better that they don’t.

She also casts a regularly kind eye (and ear) on the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox, because it’s a favorite of Mrs. Frederic from her past, and any window into Mrs. Frederic’s (relative) youth is inherently interesting; this jukebox likes to play the Marcels’ 1961 “Blue Moon” unprompted, and Leena has never gathered sufficient nerve to ask if it might have been a tendency of Mrs. Frederic herself to select the platter that catapulted the constellation of record and container-player to artifact status.

And then there’s the—

“Oh my god,” Claudia says, loudly but more deadpan than seems warranted, given the... unexpected situation? absurdist tableau? catastrophic scene? that now confronts them, and Leena blames her rumination on her aisle-friends for having distracted her from the sensory tsunami of auras that threatens, in this overpowering instant, to drown her.

****

“The artifact currently belongs to a... let’s call it a museum,” Artie is saying. “Well. ‘Belongs.’ I suppose we should say, ‘resides in.’ Hence the case. The argument.”

“Is this about repatriation?” Myka asks. It’s what she associates with museum objects and court fights—but in the next instant she sees she’s let slip from her grasp the idea that she’s supposed to be waiting, inferring. She seizes, freezes. Can everyone see the “oh no!” thought bubble above her head?

Luckily, no one seems to notice, so she forges on: “If so, I think I’d be more convincing making the case for it. Than Helena, I mean.”

“Why?” Helena asks.

“Because you’re British,” Myka says, but she can’t stop there; a babble is building, and with no dam in sight, she burbles on, “so no offense, but there was a lot of honestly indefensible taking and holding of other cultures’ stuff. And you’d be likely to bring that whole thing to mind... so, really, it’s because you sound British.”

“English,” Helena corrects.

“A distinction without a difference,” Myka says, and this time she achieves a levee; she congratulates herself on for once being succinct. Clichéd, but succinct.

“Now I’m offended.”

Oh god. “All I meant was—”

“I’m teasing.”

Her smile fills Myka’s vision. And the prickly pleasure Myka finds in being teased, in being the object of Helena’s smooth humor, fills her soul.

Artie’s voice breaks in, a buoyancy-deflating puncture: “It’s possible she’d be more effective. Implicitly acknowledging the error—no, the criminality—of colonial ways.” He gives Helena another pointed look.

This one’s nationalized, generalized, and Myka tries to dispute it that way: “Americans aren’t angels.” She realizes—too late?— that she’s undercutting her own initial reasoning. No saving that now. “But also, arguing that whatever museum I’m pretending to represent should keep it? I’m not comfortable with that.” As the words leave her, a that’s right shiver—unexpected, unusual—ripples her spine.

Artie says, “And the Warehouse cares intensely about your comfort level, so... oh wait. No. It doesn’t.”

Pete glances at Myka, then says, “Let her off the hook, man. I’ll do it.”

It’s sweet.

But she wants to strangle him for it—because adversaries. She should have kept her mouth shut. A good rule to live by, as she thinks about it. Wait, but is saying she should have done something actually a rule? She can’t live by something she should have done, can she?

“You’ll lose,” Artie says... answering her thought? No, reproving—informing—Pete.

“So what?” Pete says. “Then H.G. wins and we all come home.”

“Let me rephrase: you’ll look like you intended to lose. Judges get tetchy about tanking.”

Claudia mock-gasps. “Oooh, might get disbarred.”

“And then I’d be crying.” Pete says, brushing away imaginary tears. “If I was barred in the first place.”

Artie says, “Your tears won’t move a judge, who might throw the case out entirely, and then where would we be?” He doesn’t wait for an answer: “Without the artifact.”

“If nobody wins, everybody loses,” Claudia intones, sounding like the Delphic oracle. Or Socrates? Something classical, obfuscatory. Obstructionary?

“Not the Elgin Marbles,” Myka says next. “Please, no.” Other than their classicality, she isn’t sure why she’s brought the  into the discussion... is it simply that it’s the biggest repatriation case she knows of—maybe even literally? Now as she thinks about it, though, surely it’s too big. Artie wouldn’t want to generate that kind of publicity, would he? She and Helena wouldn’t be able to fake their way into a case like that, would they? Then again, the two of them in the news... what news they would be...

“Agreed,” Helena says. “Please.”

Myka hadn’t expected the immediate backup—though she’s unsurprised to learn that Helena knows of those disputed rocks—but she’ll take it. She wishes she could reach out a hand and... what? Stroke Helena’s arm in thanks?

Well, why can’t she? Nothing classically obstructionary stands in her way.

So she does.

Helena slides a look her way, not with surprise (of course not); rather, with some cognate of the that’s right ripple.

Which in turn produces a recursive ripple, a catch-hold-echo of right... right... right...

“Artifactually inert,” Artie says as it fades. “As far as we know.”

“Better safe, though,” Claudia enthuses, “so let’s bring those babies in! Pete can carry ’em.”

Pete snorts. “Not even with these guns. Big rocks carved pretty are still big rocks.”

Since when does Pete know anything about the Elgin Marbles? But Myka is being uncharitable. Probably. And besides, she would rather let them have the dispute, for it lulls her back into her earlier reverie, that compelling scenario of she a judge and Helena an advocate... no: a supplicant.

Her reverie... but that not-really (if-only) supplicant interrupts it, saying, “So, not the marbles.” This makes it clear that Myka’s continued expressions of ignorance about “it” have not mattered in the slightest... apparently “it” was never identified? Neither Artie nor anyone else is holding a file, which Myka chooses to interpret as positive, for who could, in such absence, have read anything about whatever’s at stake?

Myka is safe.

And yet she’s not safe at all, for Helena chooses that moment to reach out a reciprocal hand toward Myka. It finds her right biceps, setting off electrical sparks and short-outs and terror—Artie will see! Pete will see! Claudia will see! and as the worst disaster: even Helena will see!—then trailing down to her elbow, fortunately a less sparkily reactive location.

Still. she is not safe at all. Because, among other potential catastrophes: what if Helena tries something like that in court?

****

Pete’s stalking the Warehouse aisles, looking for Myka; she’s been down lately, and he hates it when she takes off like this, like she needs to hide in a cave and lick some wounds she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t have.

But also: he has a vibe.

Sometimes, if a vibe isn’t too insistent, he can shove it onto the Vibe Bench. When he was a kid, he used to talk them away like that, saying it out loud: “Ride the pine, vibe!”

This one he can’t make sit down, and honestly? It comes down to how Myka-vibes sometimes remind him of Mom-vibes, the way they scream IMPORTANT!

Which is why he doesn’t really grok where he’s finding his way to, and that’s why he’s genuinely shocked, practically out of the vibe, by what he sees when he takes a hard turn into the aisle that’s clearly today’s Vibe Hub: it’s H.G., standing there like she belongs or something, like she’s never been gone, like she can just hang out and it’s no big deal.

But it’s definitely some kind of deal. “What are you doing here?” he demands.

She looks like she wants to bite him in half, but she wraps her arms around herself like she’s keeping that in check, like otherwise she’d actually do it. “Conducting a symphony,” she spits. “Weaving a tapestry. Piloting a dirigible. As if any answer could satisfy you.”

She’s totally not wrong. It’s almost funny how totally not wrong she is.

But then he notices that she’s unfolded her arms, that she’s gesturing at the floor. He looks down, down at that cold concrete Warehouse floor, and nothing nothing nothing is funny or even almost, because there, lying there out cold, is Myka. His vibe charges back into the game, and rage takes over: “What did you do?”

TBC

[darkfictionjude]

A few in one go

1. Mallory would be angry if she found out about that hookup. Honestly I haven’t thought about it but it could be good for drama sake if Sky saw that person again

2. I did say Roger could be an endgame just not an RO because your bestie won’t be in Hollywood. Roger/Olivia aren’t apart of that scene so there’s no reason to have them be there except for plot convenience

3. Mallory and Greer? Guys, I do want to stress that the MCs of my stories aren’t omnipresent beings that know everything and can see everything. Don’t take everything they say as law. Sky thinks Greer might’ve gotten with Mal, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Sky is 16, thinks they’re right about everything. Greer hangs out with Mallory that’s all that’s known, that doesn’t mean they’re fucking

4. Well technically Greer rejected them because he doesn’t date kids. Magenta thinks Sky is not really worth her time, she likes likeminded people and for her acting is a way of life not a hobby. I say that she might be disliked because her first meeting is a bit… not mean but she isn’t really that kind either and people tend to not like that in an RO. Meanwhile Charley is protecting Luce, she isn’t mean nor unkind

[kit-screams-into-the-future]

another post for @bttfjanaury! this one's @itsthemorph's mermarty au and very predictably i got carried away with it LMAO.

yap session and bonus stuff below the cut:

once again i came up with an entire backstory for this au, and if i were a fanfiction writer i would genuinely consider writing it since it's a lot less visually comedic than the weredoc au (and comedic in general, it's played a little straighter than "man turns into dog and is thoroughly inconvenienced by it") (unfortunate [in reference to visuals] bc i enjoy drawing mermarty a great deal more than weredoc GBJKGJ) bc i really like the premise but i'm pretty bad at fleshing out a narrative in enough detail to last the whole story so bullet points it is:

doc has decided to take a break from his time-travel-related research and go on vacation! the fresh coastal air might jostle a couple ideas into place, and while he is a nuclear physicist and not a marine biologist he wouldn't mind checking out some of the local aquatic life

and by local aquatic life he meant like normal fish and stuff. a nice mollusk or two even. so when he ends up fishing an entire boy out of the water instead he's understandably very shocked

before doc can move past the "where did he come from??" thought to register his more fish-like qualities, the boy makes a run (a swim?) for it. fortunately or unfortunately for doc, he ends up being able to register the fish-like qualities after all since he gets dragged into the water along with him. the moment doesn't last too long, though, and the fish-boy is gone as soon as doc realizes the guy has a fish tail instead of legs

doc gets back on the dock (haha), thinks about the whole ordeal for a bit, and decides that the best course of action is just to assume he hallucinated the whole thing in a fit of heatstroke or something like that. he's here to relax and get his thoughts in order so he can continue working on his time machine! there's no time to investigate fairy-tale creatures or whatever supposedly living off the coast of california!

it's not shown in the comic but i imagine doc has a little portable radio next to him as he was fishing, so some time passes before he catches a glimpse of something shining in the water underneath the dock

he looks through the cracks in the dock and lo and behold, it's the same boy from earlier! doc greets him, and the boy immediately disappears under the water. doc thinks he's scared him off until a few minutes later where he pokes his head out and says hi back

they get to chatting and doc learns a couple things:

1. his name is marty!

2. he was trying to get doc to realize that he forgot to put bait on his hook but got his hand caught on it, and was trying to get his hand unstuck from the hook without ripping it open before doc ever had the chance to see him, which he obviously failed at

3. both the being seen and ripping his hand open, because in his haste to get away after being seen by doc he ended up doing that anyways. so there's like a lot of blood coming out of his hand now? but like don't worry about it. it'll be fine. he thinks.

4. he really likes whatever it is that's playing on the radio

doc insists on patching up his hand and initially marty refuses but lets him do it eventually, and marty tells doc that for a land dweller he's actually surprisingly nice. doc says nah anyone would want to help out someone hurt, especially if they're the one's who caused it. and marty's kind of confused by that because his family's always warned him of how dangerous humans are, which he kind of never thought too hard about until now where his time off this particular coast has really proven them correct, because he's encountered a bunch of humans over the past couple weeks and they've all tried to kill him or catch him. doc's the only one who's actually bothered to say hi!

after learning that particular not-at-all-concerning tidbit, doc asks him to elaborate because there's a lot to unpack over there, but someone else walks onto the dock before marty can get a word in and he takes off

marty does not return, even once the other guy leaves, and when doc packs it up to return to the place he rented out for the vacation he overhears a conversation among a group of men about spotting something weird in the water earlier and that it kind of looked like a mermaid? and that if any of them manage to catch it they'll all be rich as thieves. and another guy in the convo goes no you're thinking of rich as kings, you're mixing it up with a different analogy. and the first guy goes no i'm not i said what i said

so now this vacation is doing anything but clearing doc's mind. he's really worried about that little fish guy

there's a couple more ideas i had but halfway through writing out this bullet list i've realized that if i were to actually write this as a fanfiction, i'd probably want to keep those a surprise. so what i just wrote out is kind of the equivalent of one chapter

edit after thinking about it a bit more: since most humans have been trying to kill him, marty really has no incentive to let a guy know that he's wasting his time fishing with a baitless hook. so a. he's still pretty optimistic that most humans aren't out to get him, even if his experience off this particular coast says otherwise, so he was trying to be nice anyway or b. (which i think is a lot funnier) he has started to pull on people's lines as a way to fuck with them. i think if i wrote this i'd change it to this one

i based mermarty off of a guppy fish! specifically this kind of guppy fish:

i was searching up kinds of fish and he just had the vibe of this thing. although now i think i should've made him a flying fish instead. for the pun

alternate ending to the mini comic:

the other one makes a little more sense since just approaching a guy whose species doesn't know about your existence unprompted is pretty stupid even for marty (and also i thought it was funny that the hook didn't have anything but doc ends up catching something anyways) but i still think this one's funny too

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.

[morninkim]

As a show of good faith toward the remaining Decepticons at the beginning of a new, united Cybertron, newly appointed Senators Bumblebee and Soundwave allowed Shatter and Dropkick to enlist into Autobot City's Defense Team.

These two turned out to be... not the best choices.

The city may have fallen to Insurgent Decepticon occupation had it not been for young recruits Hot Rod and Arcee's accidental interception of Shatter's communication with the fugitive Starscream.

To replace the errant Defense Team members, Springer and Blurr were reassigned from Iacon to Autobot City in their stead.

[phoenix-art-official]

dont ask me why i made this, its all my hand felt like producing

[king-spite]

i know the red queen tv show is now less likely to happen that katy perry going to space BUT if it DOES happen i think they should pull a rhaenicent and make elara and coriane have a failed tragic homoerotic friendship before becoming "rivals". nevermind what actually happens in the books. i think that would save me actually

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[ljesaw]

it’s with depression that i fear i have to say, i think for a long time (too long really), zuko doesn’t reach out to his uncle during his retirement in ba sing se, not even for the much needed guidance he could use, because he considers it part of the exhaustive list of reparations the fire nation (and he himself) owes

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 4 :)

[itstimeforstarwars]

I feel like I've been seeing a lot more time loop posts lately but tbh I don't really mind. You know what they say about time loops and all...

[8cfc00]

augh who up feeling like they should be humanely euthanised for liking media the wrong way... sorry for fandomising certain characters but not fandomising others enough in the right way.