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mickstart · 2 years ago

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The Cognitive Dissonance Of The American War Machine - Or: That Time Call Of Duty Accidentally Condemned The US Military

So @francoisceverts asked me to elaborate on this point ages ago and I've been sitting on it thinking about it and collecting information and I want to actually sit down and give my essay on the plot of call of duty modern warfare 2 (the original, not the new one.)

Specifically, I want to talk about how the game accidentally on-purpose calls the US military terrorists.

So. For those of you who had normal childhoods and don't know anything about the plot of the campaign of call of duty modern warfare 2 (the original), let me give you a brief rundown: A terrorist named Makarov commits a massacre at a Russian airport. At the time an American agent, Allen, is undercover working with him. You play through the terrorist attack in an infamous mission that saw a wave of bans for the game, No Russian. At the end, Makarov shoots Allen, revealing he knew all along he was a spy, and leaves his dead body for the Russians to find. The body of Allen, combined with the terrorists speaking no Russian, only english, makes it appear to be an American terrorist attack, and manipulates Russia into invading the USA for revenge. The ensuing war goes very badly for the USA, and Taskforce 141 commanded by General Shepherd, the man who placed Allen undercover with Makarov, race to reveal the truth, end the war, and take Makarov down.

But, in the third-to-last mission of the game, there's a plot twist. General Shepherd betrays the player character Roach and the popular side character Ghost. He shoots them, takes the information that will reveal the truth of Makarov's operation and calm down the USA-Russia tensions, and then tries to eliminate the rest of Task Force 141. He was manipulating all of this all along. Why? Well, we'll get to that.

First I want to talk about Call of Duty and the purpose it serves. Primarily, it's there to make money for Activision. (Side note: Fuck Activision.) Secondarily, less talked about but well known, it's a powerful recruitment tool for the US military. The US military have their own e-sports team as well as a Twitch presence, and yes they play CoD. Neither the military or Activision are entirely upfront about their relationship to each other (the credits of modern warfare 2 do acknowledge the Canadian military under 'special thanks') but video game developers have to buy licenses to depict real guns and weaponry in their work, and we're all aware of how heavily involved they are whenever Marvel movies portray the military. But Activison doesn't stop at guns. Specific gunships and tanks with their key features and the mathematics of their killing capabilities are laid out in blueprint form in Modern Warfare 2. If that still sounds normal enough to you, the Pentagon literally asked a Call of Duty writer to come and meet with them as a special advisor. When I was a kid, my dad played Full Spectrum Warrior, a game actively developed by the US military to simulate combat tactics and drive up recruitment.

So, call of duty works as recruitment propaganda for the US military. It's supposed to make them look cool. It's supposed to make them The Good Guys. On the surface, modern warfare 2 does this. One of the things the game's campaign is best known for is its unique setpieces. The player fights through white picket fences, family homes, fast food restaurants, and even the white house. You are actively, LITERALLY, defending American Suburbia, as the military and the "support our troops" narrative claims they do. You jump over chasms on snowmobiles, you save innocent oil workers, you fly into an aging gulag in an impressive display of synchronised helicopters. The US military are both the underdogs, and the most powerful, heroic, impressive people in the game.

So, what the fuck do I mean when I say the game condemns the military?

Well, for that we have to go back to Shepherd and his intentions.

The ending of Modern Warfare 2 features several impressive, grandiose speeches. The one most people seem to remember is Captain Price's "History Is Written By The Victor" speech, in which he lays out the importance that they kill Shepherd, to prevent his truth from becoming history.

I wish the speech people remembered was the one where Shepherd tells you his truth.

Shepherd monologues throughout the game. The first few could be printed out and handed around as US military propaganda. They're every excuse and praising idolation of the USA's war machine you've ever heard. Here's the highlights.

"Locations change, the rationale, the objective. Yesterday's enemies are today’s recruits. Train them to fight alongside you and pray they don’t eventually decide to hate you for it, too."

Sound familiar? Sound like anybody bemoaning the fact that the people the US military handed weapons to and encouraged to fight their enemies for them just "happened" to turn on them later? Sound like anybody calling a local militia force ungrateful, or just somehow not capable of defending themselves?

"We are the most powerful military force in the history of man. Every fight is our fight. Because what happens over here, matters over there. We don't get to sit one out. Learning to use the tools of modern warfare is the difference between the prospering of your people, and utter destruction. We can't give you freedom. But we can give you the know-how to acquire it."

I almost feel I don't need to explain this one. The excessive praise, the 'all hail the conquering hero' of it all, the ready-made excuse for why the military is interfering in another country ("what happens over here, matters over there") the talk of FREEDOM? This could almost be satire, it's THAT on the nose. It could be a line in the new Top Gun, portraying the US military as heroes burdened with freedom and glory that they need to spread to others. This one is particularly interesting when you contrast it to the actual gameplay, where the invading Russians crush the military almost effortlessly. So they're the most powerful military force in the history of man, but they're also the underdogs you have to root for.

"Despite what the world may say, we are not savages, we don't kill civilians. We use precision. There's an evil man hiding in these shadows and we're gonna bring him into the light."

This seems almost too targeted as a defence of the military. But it becomes even more interesting once you know Shepherd's full scheme.

So we get all these quotes from Shepherd that are almost transparent pieces of military propaganda. The game is set up in a way that it appears to want you to take them at face value. But they aren't Shepherd's truth. After he does his grand betrayal, after the surviving main characters have tracked him down, shot down his helicopter, and brought him to the brink of his own destruction, there's one final speech.

See, Modern Warfare 2 is - obviously - a sequel. In the previous game, a nuke went off during one mission, killing 30,000 men. (This is a whole other thing I won't get into, but the mission it happens in is heavily inspired by the Invasion of Iraq in the 00s and everything surrounding it, which makes it even grosser as its rewriting history to make the fake nuke threat seem genuine.) Shepherd, we find out here, was the general in command of those men.

"Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye. And the world just fuckin' watched. Tomorrow, there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots. I know you understand."

Shepherd's motivation is revenge... and recruitment. He wants to use fear and hatred to inspire fervent patriotism, and use that to recruit an enormous army, to have the entire country supporting and rallying behind that army. He wants the military, and by extension himself, to be respected and feared and serviced. He wants to create recruitment propaganda.

So suddenly, in a meta moment, all of Shepherd's speeches look very different. This final speech? This is Shepherd's truth. The transparent propaganda, the writing that reads like stuff off of a recruitment speech? Those are his lies, and they are supposed to be false and hollow. They are all the delusions of grandeur of a man obsessed with the American war machine, and all he really cares about is gaining power and bodies. I don't think they were necessarily written with the intention of Shepherd's final speech unmasking recruitment material as false and predatory but nevertheless that is what it does.

It's never stated that Shepherd leaked the truth of Allen's identity to Makarov, but it's also very, very heavily implied that this is what Shepherd is covering up when he murders the 141. He placed Allen in the terrorist cell. He allowed the attack to happen, even wanted it to happen, because he wanted to start a war between the two countries to drive the public one way. The very start of No Russian, the operation Shepherd has encouraged and placed Allen in, involves firing indiscriminately into a crowd of civilians. (Note, the player does not HAVE to do this. But the developers found that every single test player did exactly that. Because the game has trained you to do that.) "We don't kill civilians." But a man under Shepherd's orders did. "We use precision." But a man under Shepherd's orders didn't.

Shepherd ranting about the power of the US military, the freedom it can teach you to acquire, all the things you see in adverts preying on vulnerable kids, is very different when he is literally a predator who wants to expand his army and power using fear and hatred. Not for anyone already aware of these tactics of course, but within the context of the game, this changes the speeches from flat, uncontested endorsements to blatant evil acts of manipulation. If this were written intentionally - and I don't for a second believe it was - it would be one of the most incredibly meta critiques of the military in video games, pointing out its propaganda and self-deluding dogma. "No shortage of volunteers. No shortage of patriots," uttered by a man willing to kill civilians to get that, is an incredibly eerie line when you recall how the game is tied to recruitment.

But that's not even the limit of what the game does. Okay, sure, it reveals the predatory nature of US military recruitment. That doesn't mean it's comparing them to terrorists. Except, it is.

Shepherd and Makarov are dual-antagonists. Makarov is a terrorist. He uses the fear, anger, and grief of the terrorist attack to manipulate Russia into supporting a war it has no business being in. Shepherd uses the fear, anger, and grief of the Russian invasion to manipulate the USA into supporting a war it also has no business being in, to push them to counter-invade Russia. By the end of the game, US soldiers ask "when are we going to Moscow?" They both want to manipulate civilians with fear and hate, and they are both preying on patriotism. Neither the US citizens or the Russian citizens know the truth of the terrorist attack by the end of the game. Both Shepherd and Makarov are driving their people towards wars they do not have any context for, just an emotional response. The same thing the game uses to sell emotional moments - American Suburbia being taken over, the White House under threat - is exactly what Shepherd wants to use to recruit and manipulate. The emotional reactions of USAmerican gamers to these moments is exactly what Shepherd, the villain, wants.

At the end of the game, the surviving characters have a choice to pursue Makarov or Shepherd. Shepherd is the bigger threat. Shepherd is the more powerful, more dangerous man. They pursue and kill him. The US General. And where do they pursue him? Through a network of caves in a desert. The exact locale the US military was, at the time the game released, making inseparable in people's heads from the hiding spaces of terrorists, particularly Bin Laden. Think of Iron Man, the shot where Tony Stark blows up a number of caves. The game is implicitly comparing a US General who presided over an invasion of a Psuedo-Iraq to a terrorist.

So... what's the point? What does this mean? Did Infinity Ward write a subversive story, critiquing the very thing they were supposed to be selling? Was this accidental, or an act of rebellion?

Well, it was neither really. I don't give credit here that anyone involved was truly aware of the implications of what they were writing. If they'd thought that deeply about the US military, they would never be working on a game centered around them in the first place. Predatory recruitment and manipulation of its own people is the absolute least of the military's crimes. I don't think anybody truly looked at the juxtaposition of what they were saying in the missions about defending American Suburbia VS what they were saying in the core story. I don't think this was intentional, and I don't even think you can say it was an accident. Accident implies that, had they looked at it closely, they would have changed it.

I don't believe they would have seen a problem. I think what Modern Warfare 2 represents at the end of the day is not a rejection of propaganda, but the ultimate tragedy of that propaganda succeeding. At worst, I think from their perspective Shepherd's enragement by a perceived apathy is a twisted noble motive. There's a level of cognitive dissonance you need to engage in to support the American War Machine, to say and believe one thing whilst the evidence mounts for the opposite, to ignore war crimes and civilian deaths and proclamations of Freedom whilst interfering in other nations democracy and trillions of dollars pumped into new helicopters while babies starve at home, and this game displays that starkly. It's particularly worth keeping in mind that the protagonists of the game are still military themselves. Shepherd is just one man. Just a bad egg whose removal magically fixes all the problems he represents. This sort of critique of patriotism is entirely absent from the sequel to this game.

Yes, the story of the game tells you that the US Military are no better than terrorists trying to manipulate you with emotions and your own patriotism, but they aren't even aware of what they're saying. They can ignore that and focus on "the white house needs you, men!" They've been trained to all their life by a dripfeed of propaganda.

#long post #getting put on a list for what is essentially a shitpost #I'm not debating a 10+ year old game I just wanted to write an essay thank you goodbye <3

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maoam · 4 years ago

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i love how sasuke haters accuse sasuke fans of being biased to the point we condone sasuke's wish to commit genocide and excuse everything bad that sasuke did while they stan characters that did way more shit than him. like they bitch about all the shit sasuke did and they turn around and stan characters like gaara?? obito??? itachi??? gaara literally killed for sports and for the fun of it until he got his ass beaten and tnjed by naruto and then he suddenly became this nice guy. and the people in his village had no problem to allow him to become kazekage despite him having been a psychopath for years?? if he was able to become kazekage after something like that, why couldn't sasuke become hokage, for example? i can't express how tired i am of people insulting me for being a sasuke fan, calling me stupid and whatever while those people are so fucking full of shit and have ZERO self awareness. the worst sasuke did was kill some samurais in self defense, threaten to kill some shitty people, which he gave up on doing anyway, and yet those bitches won't get off his dick while stanning and making excuses for characters that ACTUALLY killed innocent people for fun? i have nothing against him, but i gotta love how people give gaara a free pass for everything despite him being, in part 1, worse than sasuke ever was, while they constantly bash sasuke. make it make sense

Let’s not forget that Temari, the girl-power character everyone loves, was smiling joyfully and taunting the victims when Gaara was brutally killing fodders in the forest. Meanwhile Sasuke couldn’t even kill Orochimaru’s henchmen because he was “too soft” as Orochimaru said. People also died during the invasion to Konoha but I don’t see people calling the sand siblings “irredeemable”. So they had their reasons? So did Sasuke. Team 7 could have died but Sasuke’s words to Naruto gave him motivation to protect Sasuke and Sakura and beat Gaara. (I’m not hating on Temari btw)

It’s funny how they mention genocide when the only genocide that happened was towards the Uchiha lol. Not that anyone cares about it or think Konoha should pay any reparations. And they also genuinely think Konoha which discriminated the Uchiha for decades leading to the extermination of them should be allowed to imprison or execute the last living one. Do people in the Naruto fandom understand you can’t prosecute people for saying stuff they never act on or even come up with a comprehensive plan for. Sasuke had a clear opening and didn’t do it not to mention he helped save the village anyway. It’s almost like people say stuff in a severe psychological breakdown without going through with it.

There are real life victims of genocide and state violence as well as child soldiers that have violent ideations that don’t lead to anything, it’s hard for normal people to understand how mentally broken these type of experiences can leave people. Sasuke’s comments during team 7 reunion during Kages arc are actually uncomfortably realistic, many victims of violent massacre have violent thoughts and feelings. I’ve read about cases where victims wanted even the children dead, the thing they said were messed up and uncomfortable but it was all because of how broken the experiences had left them, it’s honestly sad.

People should sometime talk to people who deal with things like these as their daily work, or read about it. This is the reason we have things like rehabilitation and therapy, people who have suffered severe injustice don’t need prison or execution. Not that I mind Sasuke having self-reflection or even doing community work, but what he truly needed was understanding and someone to validate his feelings, as well as some help. And no, “power of friendship” is not the same at all and I don’t get why people think it’s realistic it would heal people like that.

By the way, this seething Sasuke hate comes mostly from the west, I remember someone once mentioned being confused why people hate Sasuke, and saying this must be western people misunderstanding his character or something. I think partly it might be that, but I also think people don’t want to understand characters like this. Look at how everyone adores the army in Fullmetal Alchemist, especially characters like Mustang or Olivier who are both war criminals who massmurdered Ishvalans, Olivier even defending the genocide. Why is it that we are okay forgiving and liking characters for committing war crimes and massmurdering disadvantaged people but not when victims lash out after years of psychological abuse and trauma?

Anyway, continue on your Sasuke loving, he’s great! Don’t care about other people’s opinions.

#anon #naruto #sasuke uchiha #mp

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hayleysayshay · 3 years ago

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On Wu’s backstory:

Wu is a character many people find annoying, but I enjoy. His backstory is vague at best. Here is what we know.

Wu is the grand nephew of Hou-Ting. He is the only heir to the throne.

At some point he moved to Republic City. Commentary implies that he was there doing a degree

At some point Mako was made his bodyguard. Commentary implies that Mako was his bodyguard for the three years.

The canon status of all commentary is debatable. As far as I see it, the show is true canon, the only reason we take the commentary as canon is because nothing contradicts it, but it is particularly substantial.

So, let’s analyse this backstory. This is all my personal opinion and headcanon and based upon what I find interesting and what fits Wu’s character as we see it in Book 4.

Was there a Royal Family massacre and is Wu traumatised?

We don’t see any other family members than Hou-Ting in Book 3. In Book 4, we are introduced to Wu, and only Wu. He is the heir to the throne.

At the end of book 3, Ba Sing Se falls to a the angry citizens of Ba Sing Se. We do see them enter the palace. They are seen looting and burning.

So, did this mob murder the rest of the Royal Family? Wu is the only heir. He is the grand nephew. This implies both his parents and grandparents are dead. What happened to them? They all must have died fairly young if Wu is the heir as a twenty something in Book 4.

I believe this is the basis of the ‘royal family massacre’ argument. Wu is too young to be the only heir to the throne. And the mob were angry. Therefore, the heirs above Wu were killed.

Now to be clear: the real reason Wu is a young heir is because Bryke wanted someone young for Mako to bounce off of. He’s around the same age as Mako but has a completely different life to him. Wu is not serious whereas Mako is. Wu is flippant and Mako is serious. Wu is extroverted and Mako is introverted. Wu is rich, Mako is not. This contrast is more fun if they’re the same age.

I say this because I think it’s clear that Wu was created with no clear trauma in mind. Wu does not act especially scared, or traumatised by the past. He is cautious and scared of hearing of Hou-Ting’s death, but acts in a comedic manner (fake strangling sounds) but then resumes a proper mourning action (may she rest in piece). Wu acts fairly silly throughout the series, enjoys the attention from fans, and even towards the end he creates a plan that he hopes will gain him attention from Korra. Wu is breezy and flippant and shallow, only really maturing towards the end and appears to be genuinely committed to dismantling the monarchy.

The trauma seen in fan works is a result of fan expansions, and personally I don’t really see it having a strong basis in the show. Wu is never really shown to be scared, or withdrawn at any points. Wu is never shown to be angry at the local populace who killed his family, as although Wu is shallow he never treats anyone badly. So is he masking? That’s totally up to your interpretation. Wu could be burying all his negative emotions and is acting out to hide his trauma. This is perfectly plausible. Personally, the lack of anger is what slightly damns this interpretation for me, I’m sure he’d show something.

Also I don’t think Wu not being fully prepared to take the throne is unreasonable— it makes sense if he was going to finish his education before starting public duties and gaining more political experience. And he could have made public experiences but still be fairly shallow. It’s implied that the Dai Li have a great degree of power so Wu not taking things that seriously or having a lot of experience is perfectly reasonable: it’s not needed for him to do so. So no, I don’t think Wu being the primary heir to the throne has to be sudden and unexpected because Wu isn’t very well prepared or serious.

How Old is Wu?

If you take the idea that he was in Republic City doing a degree when Hou-Ting was murdered, he could have been eighteen at the time, and twenty-one by the time of Book 4. He could be older. He could have started the degree at a younger age however, so he could even be nineteen at the start of Book 4.

If you ignore the idea that Wu was in Republic City prior to Book 3, and only came to Republic City to be safe after the Queen’s death, he could he even younger, potentially around eighteen in Book 4 if you HC him as young, but he could also still be older than Mako. Basically nothing confirmed, but I think it does depend on how seriously you take the commentary about the degree.

Have Wu and Mako worked together for three years?

This is going to be my strongest opinion, but I don’t think their relationship makes much sense if they’ve known eachother for three years.

I feel like this was meant to explain what Mako was doing for three years, but Mako doing his job as a detective was enough. So I don’t think it was needed.

In the episode where Wu’s coronation is ruined, Wu has a breakdown. Mako asks why he even wants to be King. He apologises, and Wu says that ‘no-one ever spoke to him like that’.

No-one has ever spoken to Wu like, even Mako. For three years? I don’t buy it. Mako is professional but he does talk back to Wu. Mako doesn’t think Wu is deserving of power just because he was born into it. I can’t believe Mako would his tongue on Wu for three years.

Also, I think Wu and Mako have a nice arc over Book 4. They get to know each-other more deeply. Mako sees the more mature side of Wu. I just don’t get the impression that they really knew each other that well beforehand, and I think you’d learn more about each other if you were together 24/7 for three years.

Obviously a lot of fan works expand on this and make the whole three years together thing make sense (by making them fuck usually and then having ensuing drama), but my critique is that I often think this over explains Wu’s character and ignores the very real shallowness Wu does show in early Book 4 by making It doesn’t meant I don’t love these fics, but I just don’t really ever reconcile them with the version of Wu we see in the show.

What I headcanon.

Again, this is literally just headcanon, and the events have no real confirmation in canon, it’s just what I think is both interesting and what I think matches with Wu’s characterisation in the show, whilst also giving him a backstory and more depth.

Wu’s grandparent and heir to the throne had one child, who became Wu’s father. This grandparent and heir dies. This grandparent dies young.

Wu’s parent’s were married. It was a political arrangement as Wu’s mother was from a rich family. Their marriage is strained. They have one child, Wu and don’t really talk to eachother much. Wu’s Dad dies young from partying too hard. Wu is left the only heir.

Wu’s mother remarries a wealthy baron or something. Because of not doing widowhood properly she is not welcome at the palace and moves away from Ba Sing Se. She and Wu have a strained relationship, since she never really wanted Wu in the first place. They sometimes exchange letters. (This could be swapped for his father and his mother was the heir but honestly I just wanted a strained relationship with a maternal figure. She got her happy ending but not with Wu).

Wu and Queen Hou-Ting have a very strained relationship as Hou Ting considers him weak, and despises animals which Wu loves.

Wu ends up with no real close familial relationship and is used to never really caring about anything. He is very isolated and is mostly raised by Dai-Li appointed carers.

At twenty ish Wu decides he wants out and asks to study in Republic City. The Queen is against this but Wu is insistent and she sees it as an excuse to get him out of her hair.

Wu moved to Republic City. After the fall of the walls, the Dai Li are in disarray as much of the leadership flees the city. Wu was previously appointed Dai Li bodyguards but Republic City officials replace them with city appointed bodyguards instead to maintain order. Unsure of how to proceed with Wu, Raiko and the other leaders agree that Wu shall complete his degree whilst Kuvira restores order. Wu is rarely included in meetings that decide the Earth Kingdom’s policy because they don’t like him and everyone just accepts he will be a King supported by his advisors and won’t rule himself.

Wu is of course horrified but he has a lack of personal stake in the death of his great aunt other than the realisation that he is now under a lot of pressure, which Wu mostly just ignores.

Wu completed his degree. After this, he begins to move into the public sphere and begins to make public appearances. Instead of a rotating team of bodyguards he requests a personal one, Mako, because he saw him a newspaper and thought he was hot really cool. This happens around six months before Republic City.

Mako treats Wu as a job, but the events of Book 4 eventually push them to become better friends and get to know eachother. Wu matures What happens next is either comics canon or my own ideas.

This is complete headcanon and I expect some people disagree! Hope it makes sense.

#wuko #Prince wu #mako #legend of korra #tlok #lok #avatar

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peppersteakss · 4 years ago

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so... you wanna know the dream smp lore as of dec 19th, 2020

you have come to the correct place

the dream smp in a nutshell (somewhat)

ok so despite the server itself starting in april, the lore doesn’t start until wilbur joined in like june. the basics are that wilbur tommy and tubbo started a drug business and that didn’t sit well with dream sapnap or george bc it was their server, so tommy tubbo and wilbur (and eret came in at some point) decided to separate their land on the server and call it l’manberg. they built a wall, they had their own national anthem. this again upset the dream team. eret then gets revealed as a traitor and causes everyone in l’manberg to lose their first lives. (there’s a 3 live rule for almost every character in the smp, the only exception being philza - he only has 1) eret did this in order to become kind of the server. then dream bombed l’manberg after wilbur tried to negotiate with him. at that point, independence for l’manberg was no longer looking like an options

then came an agreement between tommy and dream, they’d duel for l’manbergs independence, but if dream won he’d take one of tommy’s music discs (why the discs are so important? i literally could not tell you). dream won, taking tommy’s second life. and somewhere in there fundy enters the server as part of l’manberg, and starts all the weird family dynamic stuff

here’s a little tangent on family dynamics in the smp:

philza is the father of techno and wilbur (twins), and it’s confirmed their mother is a samsung smart fridge. he also fathers tommy, who’s mother is unknown, and tubbo, who’s adopted - his bio parents unknown, but there’s a really popular theory going around that schlatt is his bio dad

wilbur is the father of fundy, and fundys mother is apparently a fish - sally the salmon. it’s complicated, at some point the idea of sally being a shapeshifter was brought up but never confirmed

back to the lore, tommy came back on his last life and then negotiated with dream for the independence of l’manberg and in exchange he would give dream both of his discs (again, i have no clue why they’re so important to him but they play a huge part in his character) so with that, the war between l’manberg and the dream team was over. l’manberg wrote a decree of independence, officially exiled eret, then started a government - tommy was assigned treasury of the state and later the vice president, tubbo was the secretary of state, and fundy was just wilbur little champion. wilbur took the title as president

jack manifold then joined the server and l’manberg, dream begged him to join the dream team but he stayed with l’manberg. then tommy, jack, and tubbo decided to cause chaos and get revenge against dream for the destruction of l’manberg and for tommy to get his discs

there were a few minor events in between the war and the election that i don’t really deem that important, the most notable thing is that quackity joined the server. but if you’d like to read about the events - they’re on the wiki! i’d also recommend keeping up with the wiki because the plot moves very fast, and the wiki is a good source that always keeps track of everything that happens and just the members individually! there’s also a channel on youtube that uploads the vods of every member but only their smp streams, it’s just called dream smp members vods (if you’re at all interested in watching this rather than reading it)

we now get into the election. a lot of people weren’t really happy with wilbur as president and they weren’t taking him seriously, so wilbur tried to fix this by holding an election that originally he thought only he could win. quackity then formed his own party to run against wilbur, thus leading to SWAG2020 (quackity and george) vs POG2020 (wilbur and tommy). later joining the election would be Coconut2020 (fundy and niki nihachu) as well as Schlatt2020 (it was just schlatt). this was a real poll left up to the viewers, and Schlatt2020 ended up winning as for some reason his results were supposed to be combined with SWAG2020s results - together they had 46%, just 1% above POG2020 - so Schlatt was now president of l’manberg. (despite only joining the server once the campaigns had started and almost ended). schlatts first decree was to exile wilbur and tommy from l’manberg - he then kept tubbo as secretary of state and demanded he hunt tommy and wilbur. it’s also worth noting that he ordered the walls of l’manberg to be destroyed. this ends the l’manberg independence arc as a whole (yes all of that was one single arc) as l’manberg was renamed manberg by schlatt. (one last thing worth noting is that wilbur lost a life during the election, so he only has 1 life left)

this then starts the manberg rebellion arc. this is actually the longest arc at the moment as it lasted for almost 2 months(sep 22nd-nov 16th), but the next arc is still ongoing so that could change. also it’s now important to note that important events always happened on the 16th, so if you plan on ever watching streams live, you should always try to catch any that happen on the 16th.

wilbur and tommy created yet another independent part of the smp called pogtopia. other members of pogtopia were technoblade (who had just joined the server) acting as a mercenary, and tubbo, the pogtopia spy. this then caused another split of the server, and dream became part of pogtopia but only in secret. there were also third parties, that being manifold land and the badlands.

a festival in manberg was announced, and tubbo was supposed to give a speech and organize the event. this then caused wilbur to question his morality, and this sparked the idea that wilbur should blow up manberg for good, tommy didn’t agree with this, and dream sided with wilbur simply because he wanted schlatt gone. tommy and tubbo then decided they could only trust each other (THATS IMPORTANT PLEASE REMEMBER THAT)

the festival happened on oct 16th, where tubbo was outed as the l’manberg spy, techno was then ordered to kill tubbo (which he did, causing tubbo to lose a life and bring him down to one life) but he then basically caused a massacre in manberg. niki then joined pogtopia in hopes to save manberg with tommy and tubbo while wilbur and techno planned to destroy it. wilbur originally had plans to blow up manberg at the festival, but was unsuccessful as he lost the button he was supposed to use in order to do so

quackity was removed from his spot as vice president, then joining pogtopia. then an ultimatum was established within pogtopia - deal with schlatt, or wilbur blows everything up. that did not stop wilbur from attempting to blow up manberg yet again at nikis birthday party but was stopped by quackity, karl jacobs, and niki. the ultimatum was then given a deadline, november 6th.

quackity tried to meet with schlatt, who had tried to blow manberg up yet again only for schlatt to reveal that he moved the tnt wilbur put in manberg to pogtopia. fundy then revealed he’d been spying for pogtopia in secret - and wilbur began to realize that under schlatts leadership, NO ONE was on manbergs side. except dream who then revealed he actually was going to protect manberg for some reason idk dreams motivation and just dream in general is really confusing, but regardless he negotiated war with pogtopia, and the decided date was nov 16th

schlatt ended up dying of a heart attack in front of everyone in pogtopia, leaving the presidency to tommy, who then handed it to wilbur, who then handed it to tubbo. wilbur took this as his chance to blow up l’manberg, as in his eyes it would never be the same. philza then joined the server and tried to stop him, but he was unsuccessful. wilbur then convinced phil - his own father in canon - to kill him, and he did, causing him to die in all actuality this time as that was his last life.

techno then caused another massacre right after wilbur literally blew up l’manberg because he was angry that l’manberg was just replacing one dictator with another, and set two withers. he swore that he would destroy any government that rose in the dream smp. (i actually recommend watching wilburs video on this event, it’s his most recent dream smp video and probably his final as his character is dead now. techno also tells the story of theseus and he explains it much better than i can, and the role of theseus does play in later in the lore)(it’s also just a fucking cinematic masterpiece but maybe that’s just me)

that ends the manberg rebellion arc, and so starts the l’manberg retribution arc (which is still ongoing) and although the last arc currently stands as the longest arc, there’s much more lore in this arc at the moment. like i’ve said, the lore just moves very fast

the remaining citizens of l’manberg start to rebuild with the help of ghostbur, which is just as he sounds - the ghost of wilbur. he only remembers happy memories from his life and generally just likes to follow people around a lot, he’s not on anyone’s specific side. also somewhere during all of this, eret decided to adopt fundy, so eret is now in this complicated family dynamic mix

quackity was angry with technos actions and started ‘the butcher army’ so he could take techno down, despite tubbos wishes to not start any more wars and to keep l’manberg peaceful, and also the factor of technoblade now having nothing.

dream along with captain puffy started defacing and destroying the sever as a whole and placed all of the blame on tommy. most notably he targeted skeppy and badboyhalo in the badlands (who for some reason have one of tommy’s discs). dream left a fake note about the disc, which is what let to the belief that tommy actually did commit these crimes.

on nov 19th, a funeral was held for schlatt, to which the crowd who attended made fun of him and celebrated his death, and trying to cause trouble (basically quackity made a piss portrait of schlatt and ate his heart) the rest also took pieces of schlatts body. he was put to rest in the side of a mountain outside of l’manberg

badboyhalo actually encountered the grieving of him and skeppys houses done bg dream, promising to burn tommy’s discs. everyone else was finding out about “tommy” greeting bad, meanwhile quackity was replacing schlatts remains with fucking glass, trying to resurrect him - he then gave this task to awesamedude, but whether or not he’s going to do it is still up in the air

ranboo then joined the server and became close with tommy, and they both george’s george’s house. this caused dream to build and obsidian wall around l’manberg, and then everyone found out tommy grief led george (which is not a good look for the vice president (tommy is the vice president btw)) and this is when the idea of exiling tommy came up. tommy was then brought to court simply because dreamed wished to see tommy get exiled for things that he didn’t even do

a lot of stuff happened but i’m really trying my best to keep this brief, again you can read the wiki if you’d like more detail! it’s a great source of information! but in the end the decision to exile tommy was left to a twitter poll, it was close but the winning option was to exile tommy

before tommy got exiled, there was the introduction of mexican l’manberg also known as el rapids. in el rapids, a lot of conflict happened with dream, and at this point it really seems that no one is really on dramas side (which like rightfully so dsmp!dream is fucking horrible)

still before he was exiled, tommy brought up the idea of waging war on dream because it seemed that really everyone in l’manberg was against him. there was even the idea of getting people outside of l’manberg involved (like techno, sapnap, bad, etc). tubbo then had dream escort tommy out of l’manberg to his exile. he’d just betrayed his best friend, the person who he agreed was the only one he could trust, which confused a lot of people because it was almost a last moment decision - but apparently it was the only logical thing to do (bs imo) but then tubbo agreed to work with quackity in killing technoblade

dream stayed with tommy often while in exile, and they stayed together for about 11 days with occasional visits from ghostbur. dream was very violent towards tommy during all of this, threatening to kill him if he didn’t do as he said, blowing up an old house tommy and tubbo built, and saying that he could /never/ go back to l’manberg. tommy actually began hiding important items from dream so that he wouldn’t destroy them, as that was a common thing as well - he’d make tommy drop all of his items to dispose of them for good. there was one item he’d never drop, though, and that was a gift from ghostbur - it was a compass that pointed to the whitehouse in l’manberg called ‘your tubbo.’ similarly, tubbo also has a compass called ‘your tommy’ that pointed to logstedshire (the place where exiled tommy and dream would stay)(‘your tommy’ was destroyed, most likely by dream, and even though tubbo got a second one - tommy doesn’t stay in logstedshire for long)

dream unfortunately found out about this as well, and the. disposing of all of his hidden items. and after 11 days of experiencing all of this with dream, tommy left to find somewhere much safer, ultimately deciding to make a burrow under technoblade and philzas house, as no one in the smp except them had known its location.

he thought he could stay hidden but techno found him literally the next day after being hunted by the butcher army that quackity had built, and being ordered for execution in l’manberg only to be saved by a totem of undying and escaping l’manberg through the sewers with the help of dream. (it’s worth noting that philza was also captured, is now on house arrest, AND was almost forced to watch another one of his sons die right in front of him) and guess when all of that happened???? DEC 16th. also everyone in l’manberg now thinks tommy is dead and they’re planning a funeral for him because they saw some sort of explosion debris that somehow links to tommy(i think it was blown up logstedshire)

techno and tommy then formed an alliance in order to get back technos stolen items (the butchers from l’manberg took everything) as well as rescue phil, and to get tommy’s disc back. i’m doing this, techno revealed a secret room that no one but himself knew about prior, revealing to tommy a room full of wither skulls and a full set of netherite armor, uttering the fucking ICONIC line ‘welcome home, theseus’ and therefore referencing the last big event, showing that tommy has made progress since then (at least in the eyes of technoblade)

so tommy stays with techno with more visits from ghostbur, and visits from dream - although tommy has hidden during both of his visits with invis potions. techno is set on protecting tommy now, and tommy is still struggling with trying to separate himself from dream. the first time dream visits it’s with techno, and techno convinces him that tommy isn’t at his house. dream also points out that techno owes him a favor bc he saved him in l’manberg. the second visit is when ghostbur was there, and ghostbur slips up quite a lot when interacting with dream. dream reveals he knows tommy isn’t dead and that he’s with techno somehow, and i think that’s just about it

one last thing worth noting is that this story is almost always looking at the fans for inspiration and has included a lot of fan theories into the canon (techno and wilbur being twins, and most notably the ‘welcome home, theseus’ line) so i’d highly recommend in participating in fan stuff as much as you can! there’s also just a lot of creative people in the fandom if you stay out of the weird side lol. but with that, i think that’s about all of the lore as of now

(i wrote all of this from midnight to 3 am so i am so sorry if i forgot things and i’m sorry about spelling mistakes)

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indigosprite · 4 years ago

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Chrome Callout post.

relax this is just my love hate relationship with chromes writing and potential. spoiler, it ends with all the love... hate is only in the middle.

My absolute favorite thing in fanfics is Chromes characterization. Like we all know Chrome is completely aware that Mukuro and co need a reoccurring dose of Valium and a therapist willing to do illegal things in order to lower their sadistic points to ”kind of disturbing but tolerable”. Or at least we hope she does even though she proves to us again and again that she’s not phased by it in the slightest and might actually be just as bad. TYL and she’s still running around helping them do god knows what. She follows them on this massacre pridefully, she “believes in” them ( its sweet actually. They’re what she thinks of when Mukuro asks what she believes in and makes a young kokuyo gang.)

In fanfics when people write her to be a double edge sword it’s hilarious, and it should’ve been the character depicted in the Anime and manga instead. But I guess if she hadn’t been the quiet, breathy & compliant 14 year old people wouldn’t have morphed her into the fanon I enjoy now. Here’s some stuff i love and HC abt Chrome and the things I absolutely hated.

1. When she actually speaks not just when spoken to. She voices her concerns although she has no intent of not doing what’s asked of her. Who knew she could speak and still be the obedient gang member Mukuro trusts her to be. And when she does this it’s funny. She is the conscience he buries underneath disgust and amusement for chaos, but that’s not her entire character. She’s not reduced to the mom friend either because of this, she’s too passive on the matter. She indulges/Enables it just the same as Chikusa or Ken, although she knows better meanwhile the thought never occurs to them. To summarize :

she’s Brian

2. She’s unhinged and the best part is nobody knows even though it’s blatantly obvious. She may not have the same bloodlust or violent disposition as her peers but there are other ways to showcase this. To Allow Mukuro the leader of this little fearsome Five-some to possess you whenever he feels like and witness whatever horrors he decides to inflict upon someone that day means she’s accepting of literally everything he does. She never resists or expresses distaste/fear for him or anything he does. We assume she would in some capacity because she was depicted as this wide eyed innocent girl trying her best to repay the man that got her to join a gang under the guise of a found family. She quite literally signed up for guts n glory. She knew this and never had second thoughts. Mind you she doesn’t share the same hatred for the mafia as the boys, theirs is blind hatred regardless of who you are. Hers is through them, they are her looking glass rightfully so, so if they say it then their word is law. I’m not sure about you but I would definitely be mindful of the girl who was raised semi normal and willingly turned into a killer for Mukuro of all people. They’re killing adults not shaking them up, they aren’t Tsuna and his friends they finish the job when necessary. The body count is unimaginable. She is just as loyal as Ken and Chikusa and would probably strike you where you stand for speaking ill of him. (She wouldn’t but would definitely be opposed to whatever you’re saying, unless it’s name calling. He takes no offense to that and welcomes it in fact.)

3. The fact that she’s a person apart from Mukuro (physically speaking.) and the Vongola team at all is a blessing in few fics. Although she was made to stand in for Mukuro, when he is released it’s not necessary hence him pushing her to be apart from him and his duties. He did this in the future as well when he possessed Guidio Greco no longer using chrome which lets us know she was successful in becoming a useful comrade and not just a vessel and vongola stand in. She had to otherwise he would’ve left her alone whether she was keeping his Vongola ring warm or not. She is just as aloof as Hibari, always off with her own people only engaging when it’s asked of her. I adore when people keep that in mind and don’t lump her with following behind the vongola as if she were one of them. She shows up for them when asked but her main focus is ultimately committing felonies with Ken and Chikusa per Mukuro’s orders. let her be with the kokuyo gang and let her contribute in the way she’s meant to as a fighter. figure her out give her something cool

ik that’s hard considering what we got in the manga. warning things i hate ahead

what we got in the Anime and Manga:

so we know Chromes entire purpose was to be Rokudo Mukuro’s stand in, while holding the Vongola ring he soon takes back she is just the girl that is able to get him to come fight their battles when necessary. The Anime and Manga rarely let Chrome fend for herself. We all knew he was coming the second it got serious. By giving chrome that ring she ended up being the one thing to keep him loyal to his contract with being their guardian. If she’s in danger he comes and saves her, the Vongola put her in danger because he will show up and do his job it’s like a rat trap. She is not meant to be a Vongola guardian but more like a Mukuro whistle. They never openly admit it but in the show they will expect/ask her to do things that her track record doesn’t imply she can do and just silently expect Mukuro to show up like always. SKSJDWDN they’ll be like “oh yeah call the girl who passed out and all her organs disappeared I believe in her to do this job even though i’ve never seen her make it to the end of a fight ever not worried at all” sksksjjd They never actually expect chrome to do a job they expect her to go there and manage to get Mukuro to come out and play and we should acknowledge it was just an unspoken thing. Now I know that despite what I just implied about her not being that great a fighter but just good enough there are two comments made in all 400 chapters that are supposed to negate this.

Mammon says her illusions are powerful just not enough to fool him , and reborn says she could turn the tide if she were to fight against Mukuro but with confidence, these mean nothing to me because amano throws in so many useless comments like this and then fails to develop it further to make it believable. and she made powerful characters make note of this so it would be non negotiable and we would just take it at face value because its them but hello ?? ofc we want to see it just like we had to see Tsuna grow before we even considered taking him seriously. hell Dino got a quicker rise to his title than chrome bc its that easy to say oh he can come into his own when needed they just never meant to do it for chrome.

it’s so irritating when they try to say she’s powerful or could be but give no actual footing for anyone to take those comments seriously when they make her pass out for thirty chapters after doing the bare minimum.

let chrome win on her own not just start strong then step out of the way then have some character say “no really she could be powerful we aren’t going to show you though” .

when she helped them sneak in the base on her own and even makes those illusions of them fighting we should have gotten more of that!!!

literally every character is fighting the funeral wreaths and chrome is running in the woods out of breath...even Lambo got to fight.

you made her sit out of the rep battle to focus on making organs like that wasn’t something she already accomplished in the future and suddenly can’t do anymore ?.....

Chrome finally makes one fighting decision and its to make a mist forcefield that’s dangerous but hell yeah we think she will finally pull through with something powerful and prove herself and then they have mukuro come in a panel later saying “your flames are far too weak to do that I will make it better and help you not die” BYE that was a perfect time to have her come in to her own seeing as she was powerful and confident enough to initiate it in the first place.

breaking the barrier daemon spade makes * chefs kiss * give me more

when they’re not blindly robbing chrome of character development she’s just getting kidnapped, passing out or helping them with small things like making a fake Yamamoto for a party or sneaking in the base with illusions to disguise them. Hello she’s training under mukuro right ??? why did we ever get to see her get stronger each fight and have them say ‘she’s learning quick” instead.

enough abt what we got, back to what I’ve managed to make out of the scraps we were given..

4. Mukuro is the only one who reassures that she actually is a fighter and she eventually grows to be a good one bc of this and you should write about that dynamic and why it exists more. this one is long.

the whole dynamic I was referring to exploring is the one where Mukuro and chrome are meant to be equals. He meets this girl whose been neglected and left for dead, another kid messed up by adults neglectful selfish behavior. she willingly follows the boy who is plagued by the same demons and made a small group dedicated to getting revenge for it. Mukuro & Chrome know they’re two sides of the same coin. he is anger and she is acceptance. He probably finds it amusing she isn’t as angry as them wants to draw it out of her where as chrome wants to pull out the peace that comes with moving on once you’re in a better place. the girl is so happy to not be near her mom and grateful for this little family while the boys are quite literally holding a grudge against the world. and like none of them even see it the way she does but she wants them to. Mukuro and chrome didn’t go through the same things but it doesn’t matter to either of them because its the same story, nobody loved or valued them enough to protect them. In the end chrome will learn to be angry abt things that happen and use that to find a will to fight for something and Mukuro will learn to be at peace because they’re not in that lab anymore and those people are gone from their life. as fighters they’re so important to each others balance Mukuro’s rage cannot be left to be so blind and hers unattended and i know it’s supposed to be Tsuna that cleans his soul but i think chrome definitely plays a more active role in that. I think he sees a better him in her, he makes her his second gives her his name because she’s the good he knows he can never fully be. she posses a peace he’s not hopeful enough to believe he can achieve or want and ultimately it will make her far more capable of the change he wants. in believing this it means he also believes she will be just as powerful as him with the right training. he’s literally training his demise and her name is Chrome. he wont take over a (mafia) world he wants her to save. we all know he’s like annoyingly stupid when it comes to showing his emotions, he rather pretend he’s sending you to die when he’s quite literally ushering you to what he thinks is safe and sacrificing himself. so I can totally see him being like “okay Tsuna might really change the mafia and I want to see that but I've already dug my own grave here's a better newer me that will be way easier to accept than me turning over a new leaf 40 dead families later.”

5. in the future Hibari is much more happy to help and be around because he knows what a powerful fighter Tsuna turns out to be, i think this is the exact same reason why he goes and helps chrome save herself. Kyoya knows and possibly even respects future chrome enough to save her when she’s at her weakest which he usually detests. Chrome grows to be much more in the future and that’s exactly why he even gives this sick chrome a push. everyone likes to think it’s a Mukuro thing for him but what if it actually is a chrome thing. in the show he’s never been present to witness her show any kind of power so we can only assume that at some point he saw her in action.

6. it’s implied in the future that Mukuro fights alongside her, he views her as more than just a vessel and doesn’t baby her in the slightest when he pushes her to become her own being. I won’t call it respect per say but he doesn’t look at her as a doll even though that’s the part she played for him. He still trains her the way he eventually does Fran. We all know he just wants Mini Mukuros to aid him in his endeavors but the fact that he chooses her says a lot about how she’s meant to be viewed. He also chooses a nine year old brat with an apple hat but hey he must see something everyone else doesn’t until he’s done with them seeing as Fran was kidnapped by the freaking Varia once Mukuro’s teachings were for the most part implemented. “Oh you learned under Mukuro ? We can’t have Mukuro you need to join us immediately” (I’ve just realized Mukuro gave the vongola their strongest mist guardians all while claiming to hate them. Funny man). imagine how powerful Chrome gets, even better when Mukuro is actually there in the flesh to teach her where as Fran got some illusionary version of him. WRITE ABOUT IT.

7. for the love of god give that girl her own fighting style. yamamoto has his sword gokudera is literally baby genius ryohei is a boxer and hibari has like the most random weapon ever. go crazy. i love it when chrome isn’t pulling a trident from her bag. because she’s not mukuro anymore. she’s a reticent mist guardian, compliment that. Mukuros trident has his own history with him. give her some history of her own.

in my fic Chrome uses a scythe and tears through reality with it.

reason: because she is a grim reaper in her own right. she rose from the dead and is showing up to collect the souls of the wicked. a silent but fearsome person.

her style ? : personally I like to believe chrome dabbles in profiling, hear me out. Her parents were neglectful and in turn she really has little experience with relationships in general, i think her curiosity would lead her to constantly study peoples relationships and behaviors and see how they affect her target. aka she fights by showing up getting in your head and haunting you with your own past because even if they see through it damn what a nasty wound or insecurity to bring up in the form of a hell loop illusion. this also ties into her being Mukuro 2.0 he’s known to just be eerily in the know of everything going on even when he’s not there. this would be a great way of her matching that aspect of him and possibly surpassing it.

#THIS WAS SO LONG #But worth it #im so excited about writing chrome rn thanks for letting me rant #fic talk #chrome dokuro #khr #khr headcanons #SpriteLand #SpriteRot

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ilonga · 4 years ago

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rise of skywalker and sequels salt time, y’all

things I’m salty about in the rise of skywalker and the star wars sequels, in no particular order:

- Finn was sidelined

- FINN WAS SIDELINED

- he was such an interesting character with so much potential (a stormtrooper who deserted!! pretty sure that was the first time we’d ever seen that!!), and it was all ignored and he was turned into background noise for what?? kylo ren??

- seriously! after TFA, the movies should have explored his backstroy! we should have seen his stormtrooper past affect him!! maybe a stormtrooper revolution!! he should have had a CHARACTER ARC!

- also his force-sensitivity being turned into a joke and comic relief was frankly insulting

- they could have done so many things with that side of the character (even though it was kind of out of nowhere)! parallels between finn and rey, finn questioning his identity, the whole a former stormptrooper being force sensitive thing should have been explored!

- Poe was sidelined

- Poe was a spice runner for no reason?? 1) isn’t that a rude stereotype, and 2) Poe is not Han Solo 2.0!! he was his own, different character!

- Finn/Poe didn’t happen

- gonna be salty about that forever, though I guess I saw it coming :( (it’s disney, what did I expect?)

- but they gave Poe a straight love interest that we’d never heard of before this movie and who he had like two lines of dialogue with just to rub it in?? like, really?

- they completely forgot Rose existed

- like, listen, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the finnrose kiss either, but you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen and hope everyone forgets about it

- and sure, rose’s introduction and character in TLJ was a bit clumsy

- BUT YOU CAN’T JUST IGNORE HER AND PRETEND SHE DIDN’T HAPPEN

- she had a lot of potential as a character, and interesting backstory, a practical pragmatic personality, and a lot of ways she could play off the other characters

- TROS could have been where we saw Rose grow as a character and really shine

- instead, she was forgotten

- ugh

- REY PALPATINE WAS THE DUMBEST FRICKING THING OKAY--

- like, first of all, palpatine coming back for some reason somehow was the most ridiculous direction this movie could have gone and didn’t work, at all

- their enemy for the first TWO MOVIES was the First Order and Kylo Ren

- they had a huge moment in TLJ where the Resistance is steadily being destroyed and they won’t last long against the First Order

- now they’re supposed to take on the First Order and a now-supposedly-immortal emperor palpatine who has a collection of unmanned star destroyers he can control for some reason??

- both of them at once? the resistance is barely alive as is, now you’re adding an OP extra army + sith lord to the mix?

- I mean, this is ridiculous. Palpatine’s dead. Anakin’s big sacrifice in return of the jedi was KILLING palpatine. now he’s back, and the resistance somehow realises he’s back and decides he’s enemy #1 now?

- how did the resistance find out a dead sith lord came back to life on a remote planet anyways?

- and WHAT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, THE FIRST ORDER? AND KYLO REN?

- Kylo Ren, who they finally decided was going to be the main villain in TLJ (even with that stupid “rey trying to redeem the mass murderer” plot going on in the background), and now they don’t have the guts to commit to making him evil (which he was for the LAST TWO MOVIES AND THE MAJORITY OF TROS)

- so, since they weren’t committed enough to make Kylo a villain like he actually was and didn’t have the groundwork for a redemption, they just decided to ignore the fact that he was evil and hope it would go away

- like, are we going to forget that he literally MURDERED HIS DAD, HAN SOLO

- or that he and his first order destroyed a whole SYSTEM OF PLANETS? filled with billions of innocent people?

- he personally tortured Poe, he personally tortured Rey, and he was complicit in a system that kidnapped Finn, took him from his family, and brainwashed him

- not to mention that one of the opening scenes of TROS was him literally massacring people

- but no!! it’s all fine now, bc he looked at his dad’s ghost a little sadly and got a new lightsaber color

- like, no. he isn’t “redeemed” because he’s decided he has the hots for rey. heck, that makes it even worse. he’s been trying to manipulate her for all three movies, he’s gaslighted her, he’s threatened her, he’s hurt the people she cares about. NONE OF THAT IS OKAY. and it’s even less okay that all of his evil deeds can be written off because rey’s “”love”” for him “healed” him or whatever the fuck they want us to think

- and why would they have Rey HEAL him? after SHE stabbed him? in what universe does that make sense?? even if rey didn’t defeat him fairly bc he was distracted or whatever, this is still the supreme leader of the army rey and the rebels are trying to defeat. like, rey, are you a part of the resistance or not? it doesn’t matter if he was “nicer” to you than the rest of the rebels. He’s still your ENEMY. Your “”empathy”” here helps no one, least of all yourself. Kylo Ren dead would have been a massive victory for the resistance--maybe they’d even have had a chance against the first order then! you know, the first order? the enemy you were fighting for the last two movies?

- is this the message you want to be sending to young girls in the audience? that it’s ok if their partner hurts them, hurts other people, is a bad person in general, because their love can “”heal”” him? and that eventually, he’ll turn good if you just try hard enough?

- this is how people wind up in abusive relationships!! that shit is NOT okay

- and the kiss is ridiculous for the same reasons. you don’t owe kylo ren anything, rey. Not in the least for “rescuing” from a situation that was pretty much created bc of him. He’s the one who teamed up with palpatine at the beginning of the movie, remember?

- sometimes I feel like this movie forgot that kylo ren is, you know, a bad person, which the other two movies spent their entire runtime showing us

- like darth vader’s sacrifice was one thing. first of all, it was for his son, his child, and secondly, vader was very much under the power of the emperor and debatably had the mindset of a slave

- kylo ren, on the other hand, was completely under his own power. HE was making the choices, and calling the shots. HE murdered Snoke. And he died for a girl he was manipulating and gaslighting constantly and that he didn’t have much of a connection to other than “the force”

- like, darth vader’s “”redemption”” definitely wasn’t perfect either. you can argue that him killing the emperor and sacrificing him self to save his son didn’t negate any of his actions or him being a bad person. but it was definitely more meaningful and better handled.

- and let’s talk about rey

- I will forever be bitter that rey didn’t get a meaningful character arc and character growth

- which is so disappointing because she was SUCH an interesting (& mysterious) character with so much potential in TFA

- I feel like, in making her palpatine, which was pretty out of nowhere and contrary to the last jedi, they were so busy trying to fit her heritage into the movie in a way that sort of made sense that they forgot to make the movie about her growing as a character and person

- couldn’t they at least have given her her own lightsaber?

- I mean, her being a palpatine is already ridiculous because since when does palpatine have a son? (clone, whatever) And since when did that son have some sort of epic struggle where he refuses to join palpatine and runs away? and when did that son find someone he fell in love with, and have a daughter? and then subsequently abandon her, a seven-ish year old, on a dangerous desert planet? (I mean, wasn’t palpatine dead by then anyways?)

- it just doesn’t fit with the already established star wars universe. we already know palpatine’s story (well, not the beginning of it, but enough). It was movies 1-6, clone wars, and rebels. if he had had a son that had a luke-esque struggle against the darkside, it would have shown up.

- it just doesn’t fit

- but anyways, back to rey

- I guess they were trying to give her some luke-style struggle where she struggles with her heritage and a pull to the darkside that she has to ultimately triumph over? but it doesn’t work

- one, because she never HAS any struggle with the dark side. shooting lightning out of your fingers out of nowhere doesn’t count (and wasn’t that a ridiculous scene. it was more comical than anything else, which is definitely not what they were going for)

- a struggle with the darkside is about being tempted to give into anger, fear, and hatred, and struggling not to do the wrong things and turn evil. In luke’s story, we SAW that. we also saw luke’s horror and eventual acceptance of his heritage, which we never really saw with rey. It was just like, “okay, guess I’m a palpatine?” and it wasn’t nearly as impactful bc palpatine had been dead for the past thirty-ish years. as a contrast, vader was a living and very present villain who the heroes had to contend with, and it was personal for most of them.

- so I guess they tried to make that her character arc, but it didn’t work. so we were left with a stale character who didn’t really have any meaningful victories or losses.

- is she really a “”mary sue”” like everyone’s claiming if they never really made the story about her?

- I think that was the biggest thing that was so unsatisfying about the sequels

- she was hyped up to be the first real mainstream female jedi protagonist (obviously clone wars got there first, but movies are definitely more mainstream than a show, sorry cw :( ), but she never really got a journey, struggles, or real triumphs. which is such a shame because she was this really empowering character in TFA that I was so excited to see more! but her trilogy-wide character arc just wasn’t satsifying

- I wanted to see her really struggle, and rise above her struggles! I wanted her to have meaningful triumphs!

- also I don’t think she ever got injured either, which is definitely a deviation from the star wars trilogy pattern. that’s kinda strange. (luke lost his hand & got electrocuted, han got frozen in carbonite, leia got tortured & shot, anakin got, well, a LOT of injuries, but even before becoming darth vader w/ the foregone conclusion, he had his arm cut off, padme was pretty heavily injured on genosis, and obi-wan was injured in the fight against dooku)

- yup

- also the sith wayfinder was kinda dumb, and I never felt like there were real stakes in TROS

- and let’s address the rey skywalker thing: ok, fine, I get what they were trying to say, kind of

- and I’m not foaming at the mouth about it like some people are. I’m fairly indifferent

- but it would have been a lot more meaningful if rey had had like, a really close, deep relationship with Leia and Luke, so she could say that she and they considered her a skywalker

- but she didn’t have that sort of relationship with them, not really. Sure, she and leia were friends on-screen, but that was it. and luke didn’t really seem to like her all that much.

- so like, “meh”

- especially since Leia’s technically a Solo or an Organa, so that line working really relied on her relationship with Luke, which wasn’t strong enough

- yea, so that’s that

- the “jedi voices” scene was pretty cool though (AAAAH AHSOKA!! AND ANAKIN!! AND ALL THE OTHER JEDI!!), and I liked her yellow lightsaber (although she could have built her own lightsaber at the BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, instead of carrying luke’s the whole time)

there are things I like about the sequels, mind you. a lot of things!! but there’s a lot I was disappointed in too.

congrats if you got this far, that was a LOT of salt

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years ago

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Ash/Athena Crossover AU: Meeting Danny

@whump-tr0pes and I have lost our fucking minds, thanks for coming everyone, now buckle in for cheerful jackassery. We use each other’s characters in this AU with permission!

Direct continuation from this piece Athena wrote!

“So this is the formal sitting room,” Ryan said, waving cheerfully at a somewhat cavernous space full of comfortable couches perfectly placed to encourage conversation, low side tables with warm lamps, piles of books carefully placed for aesthetic reasons. Big wooden beams cut through the unbroken line of the ceiling above their heads, giving the house an older, worn-in feel. “There’s no TV in here, you’ve noticed, but there’s one in the media room at the back. Oh, and in the secondary family room upstairs.”

“Not a problem, we’re not big TV watchers,” Gray replied smoothly. They were a step or so ahead of everyone else, and Ryan had clearly noticed, directing most of his commentary to Gray first and everyone else second.

“Speak for yourself,” Gavin muttered.

“Oh, nobody speaks for you in the slightest,” Isaac muttered under his breath, without a change to the expression of polite interest he was wearing.

“Ooooh, witty banter,” Ryan said brightly. It was impossible to tell whether he was being sarcastic or if he was genuinely having the time of his life. His eyes ran over Isaac and Gavin with thoughtful consideration, making both men shift a little uncomfortably. “This is going to be a fun weekend.”

“Um. Excuse me?” Sam slowly raised their hand. “Mr. Michaelson?”

Ryan’s eyes had been dancing over the group one by one, but when they hit on Sam they stayed. Ryan’s voice went lower, warm and melodic, and his odd honey-colored eyes locked on Sam’s with real, unfeigned interest. “Okay, first off, you never ever call me Mr. Michaelson, I’m just Ryan to you. And you never have to raise your hand to speak to me.”

“Oh-okay,” Sam said in a voice just above a squeak, face coloring bright red. Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “Um. I’m Sam, I just-”

“Sam? Your name is Sam?” Ryan smiled again - at the flash of brilliance, the team stilled slightly. “Sam, I am so glad to meet you, and I will happily answer any questions you have, any questions at all.” He winked. “No matter how... personal.”

“He’s going to kill me with that,” Tori said in a strained voice.

“Jesus,” Vera muttered under her breath. “He’s going to kill us all with that. At least we’ll die happy.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gavin said again, but swallowed hard, jamming his hands in the front pockets of his jeans like an awkward teenager.

“Isaac’s right,” Vera said airily. “No one speaks for you.”

Either not hearing or choosing to ignore them, Ryan’s focus was still wholly on Sam, moving closer with that same bright smile focused entirely on them. “What do you need, Sam? Our house is at your disposal, just absolutely anything you need, we are here to help.” Ryan gestured around himself. “I’m here to help. All of you. We understand the… delicate position you’ve been put in by the Stormbecks-” Gavin went slightly still as Ryan’s eyes seemed to linger on him as he spoke. “-and that asking us for help is probably an even more delicate position. There’s a reason my parents sent me and didn’t just saddle you with my brother and his goddamn knight in shining armor all weekend. They’re the ones currently staying here full-time.”

“I just, um, wondered why the whole house smells like cookies,” Sam said, very softly, still bright red and with their eyes focused on Ryan.

“Ah, right. That. So speaking of my brother…” Ryan sighed, some of the light falling out of his face. He glanced at Gray, clearly pegging them as the person in charge and the one to talk to. “My people filled you in on his situation?”

Gray nodded. “We appreciated you being so forthright,” They said, words carefully chosen. Ryan held their gaze - and his look at Gray was wholly different than it had been to Sam. Instead of flirtatious interest, he looked, for just a moment, calculating.

“I’ll appreciate your… discretion, if you witness anything that we would appreciate not being taken outside the Michaelson territory while you’re here,” Ryan said quietly. “My brother’s past is not a secret, by any means, but he is still in the process of recovering from it and can occasionally… struggle. If you’re on the run from the Stormbecks…” Ryan was quiet for a half-second, and then simply turned, the light back in his face. “Let me show you the kitchen, and you can meet Danny. And…” He sighed, heavily, rolling his eyes. “Nate.”

When he had turned away, Gavin leaned over to Isaac. “Did you see that?!”

“See what?” Isaac was blinking at Ryan’s back, looking nearly transfixed.

“When he said Stormbeck, he looked at me. Twice! He knows who I am, Isaac, I’m dead. I’m going to die in this fucking three-story bungalow!”

“We’ll send flowers to anyone who can prove they’re actually mourning you,” Vera said smoothly. “And he didn’t look at you the second time. You’re imagining things.”

“I’m not!”

“Are you coming?” Ryan’s voice called out cheerfully from ahead of them. “Danny says he’s ready.” His voice dropped back into that low, velvety flirtation from earlier. “Sam, why don’t you come on in here first and get a look at just why the house smells so good today?”

Sam started walking without thinking, ahead of everyone else, until Isaac grabbed their arm. “Hey, all together until we know what we’re dealing with,” He said, blinking at the look on Sam’s face.

“Oh, uh, r-right,” Sam murmured. “He’s, uh, he’s very… nice, isn’t he?”

“He’s nice all right,” Gavin hissed. “Nice and ready to commit murder.”

“Gavin,” Gray said, reaching out to put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. Gavin flinched, but didn’t pull back, setting his jaw and staring angrily at the ground. “I know this is awkward for you, but these people are our best chance to get through this territory alive. You need to try for politeness while we’re here. It’s just a few days.” They stepped ahead, moving towards a set of wide, rustic wooden doors that clearly led to the kitchen, where the sound of Ryan and another low male voice speaking could be heard.

“If I die, I’m haunting all of you,” Gavin mumbled.

“You’re already haunting us,” Tori said. “You won’t stop haunting us.”

“If the Michaelsons don’t kill us before this weekend is out,” Finn said softly to Ellis, “there’s a distinct chance we’ll just kill each other.”

“Hopefully we get a room to ourselves,” Ellis replied. “We’ll stash a bunch of food and water in it and maybe if we don’t leave we’ll survive the world’s stupidest massacre.”

Ryan popped back out the doors to open them up with little doorstops along the bottom, gesturing inside. “Here we go, illustrious guests! Meet… my brother!”

“And Nate!” The second male voice called.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “And Nate.”

The team had steeled themselves to attempt to survive the charisma of yet another version of Ryan, and what they saw instead had them come to a stop, blinking.

Standing at the huge, industrial-style oven and stovetop was an incredibly tall, thin man with pale freckled skin and wavy, bright-red hair that hung over his eyes where he stood prodding at one of the cookies he’d lined out on a baking sheet, testing it for how soft it was. He turned to look at them with bright blue eyes in a handsome, heavily freckled face, a shy, nervous smile on his face.

“Hey, everyone,” He said. His voice was low and deep, and wavered just a little.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened to his face?” Gavin whispered under his breath. Isaac elbowed him in the ribs.

A deep scar ran along Daniel Michaelson’s skin, cutting into his jaw and cheekbones, a divot dug deep into the bridge of his nose. Between those points the line was more faded but still prominent.

“Shit, his neck-”

Isaac elbowed Gavin again, harder this time, but he found his eyes drawn there, too.

There was a ring of scarring around Daniel’s neck, just above the high neckline of the heavy knit sweater he was wearing, the obvious marks of a collar worn too tight for too long.

“You’re Daniel Michaelson?” Gray asked, not impolitely but with evident confusion.

Gavin’s eyes went to Ryan and back, blatantly staring. “How can you be his brother? You’re super wh-”

“Gavin,” Isaac said with a groan, “Shut the fuck up or I will tape your mouth shut.”

“He’s adopted,” Ryan said smoothly, apparently unoffended. “As a child. It’s a whole thing. Let’s not talk about that right now. This is Danny, and it was actually his idea to let you stay in this pretty summer house and not one of the clapboard shacks we put our own people up in when they fuck up with other syndicates, so be grateful.”

Danny’s smile hadn’t faded under the scrutiny - nervous and eager-to-please, he seemed smaller than he was in the moment, his shoulders hunched forwards. “You don’t have to be,” He said softly. “Grateful, I mean.”

His eyes ran over all of them, pausing on Isaac and Vera - something in his expression shifting slightly looking at the two of them. It seemed like he lingered a few moments longer on Isaac. “It just seemed like, like the right thing to, um, to do. Nate and I rattle around this house, I thought it might be nice to have… to have company. Do you want a, um, a cookie? It’s chocolate chip, I figured stick to the old standby… everyone likes chocolate chip, I did half of them crispy and half of them soft - and some have M&Ms, I know people like that, and then some others I put walnuts in, and-”

“Can I eat a cookie?” Sam asked, eyes widening at the sheer variety of them. “Please?”

Danny seemed to nearly sag in relief, and he nodded quickly, stepping back from the oven. “Go, um, go ahead! I made, I made a bunch.”

“You made like a hundred,” Sam breathed out, moving forward and tentatively picking up one of the M&M cookies, biting into it with a sigh of pure contentment.

“He cooks when he’s nervous,” Ryan said sidelong to Gray. “Get ready to gain like ten pounds in four days. He spent four hours putting a meal plan together for you.”

“... a meal plan…?” Gray blinked. “We, we couldn’t possibly expect you to-”

“I told you.” Ryan shrugged. “He cooks when he’s nervous, and he’s never not nervous. He had to cook for… for them. Before. Picked up the habit and he’s never dropped it. Trust me, it’s going to be the best fucking food you’ve ever eaten, and if I catch anybody not being effusively grateful, you’re sleeping on the lawn with a gun to your head.” He paused, then grinned. “Just kidding.”

“Are you just kidding?” Tori asked, voice wavering.

Ryan blinked at her. “Honey, I am just kidding if you’re asking about you. As for everyone else…” Ryan looked over the team. “I’m kidding if the ungrateful person is them-” He pointed at Sam. “... or if it’s what I’m guessing is your girlfriend who can kill me with her pinky finger-” He winked at Vera. “Kidding if it’s… well, you I just like-” He shot his brilliant smile at Gray again. “I get the feeling the Silent Types back there would never be so impolite.”

He waggled his fingers at Finn and Ellis.

Finn, baffled, slowly raised a hand to waggle fingers back.

Then Ryan considered Isaac and Gavin, eyes narrowing a little in thought. “Jury’s out on that one,” He said softly. It wasn’t clear which person he meant.

Then he clapped his hands together. “Okay! I need to go confer with our people - sorry, I know this is going to make you nervous, but Mom and Dad insisted our people be crawling over every inch of space outside the house. You understand, we need to keep it all very locked down while you’re here. So, y’know, talk to Danny, me, or Nate if you want to go outside, we’ll make sure everyone knows you’re good to be out there. But go outside without letting someone know, things could get… shoot-y. I’ll be back!”

He popped back through the doors, heading for outside, leaving them there.

“He n-never introduced m-m-me,” A deep, rumbling voice said from the corner.

Danny was the only person in the room who didn’t jump. Instead, his nervous smile shifted into a very, very real one, looking with real love in his eyes to a man who had been sitting, the entire time, at a table in the corner being so perfectly still he’d gone absolutely unnoticed.

He was older than Danny, with green eyes and black hair, and had a look of bored hostility on his face that didn’t change in the slightest as he slowly stood and met their eyes. He was considering each of them - weighing them as a threat that needed dealt with. Gavin shrank against Isaac under the intensity of the stare - until Isaac very discreetly stepped to the side and away from him, leaving him alone.

The man moved with a slight limp to stand in front of them. He was wearing the first gun they’d seen on any of the Michaelsons so far, clipped into a small holster along his right hip.

“I’m N-Nate Vandrum. Danny is d-d-doing a nice thing f-for you. Don’t f-fuck it up,” He said flatly. Over by the oven, Sam picked another M&M cookie up and said something in a low, enthusiastic voice to Danny. Danny grinned and relaxed a little in return, picking up one of the ones with walnuts in it and taking a bite himself.

Something of the hostility in Nate’s face softened, as he looked at them. Then he turned back, and instead of deferring to Gray as Ryan did, Nate’s gaze landed - and stuck - on Vera. “You used to b-b-be law enforcement,” He said, thoughtfully. “You h-h-hold yourself like you w-were, at least.”

Vera nodded, crossing her arms under her chest and looking him right in the eyes. “So did you.”

“Hm. Was g-g-going to be a teacher. My grandp-... parents thought it wasn’t s-safe, with all the s-s-syndicates having different education s-systems now.” Nate twitched a slight, sarcastic smile. “So I w-w-went into the force. Great g-gig, until someone d-d-decides you’re meat.”

Vera nodded again. “That’s a damn fact.”

“I k-killed the last person who hurt D-Danny. Keep it in m-m-mind.”

Vera’s eyebrows raised, slightly. “I’ll do that. Same for my people.”

“I’d expect n-nothing less.”

The two of them looked at each other for a long, long silence, broken only by the sound of the rest of the team shifting awkwardly. Then Nate looked over his shoulder at Danny. “I’m g-g-going to help your b-brother. Are you oh-okay without me?”

Danny, in the process of pulling down a cookbook to show Sam - who was either interested or great at pretending to be - looked back at Nate. For the first time, his smile had the same brilliance in it that came so naturally to Ryan. “I’ve got this. I’m going to get them something to eat and then show them their bedrooms, we’ve got enough for everybody as long as some people don’t mind bunking up. Go on.”

Nate nodded, then looked back at the team. “Like I s-said. Don’t f-f-fuck it up.”

He walked past them without looking back, towards the door.

“I don’t like him,” Gavin muttered.

Vera watched him go, a slight smile on her lips. “I do.”

#whump #whump crossover #Athena/ash au #honor bound au #honour bound au #referenced past violence #the gang's all here #pray for gavin #ryan Michaelson will not sleep with everyone #but he is willing to try #the danny and sam show #crossover fic #escaped whumpee #escaped whumpees #recovering whumpee #honestly this was just so much fucking fun to write

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robotslenderman · 4 years ago

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OC I’ve barely ever talked about:

When I talk about Madeline and her relationship with Strauss, the Chantry and the Tremere, Amy is often at the front of my mind as one of her most meaningful friendships and bonds there. But I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned much about Amy, have I?

Amy was another fledgling that Strauss was raising at the time. She was Embraced as a Sabbat shovelhead in 2002 by Strauss’s antitribu childe, making her his grandchilde. Her sire was one of the few survivors of the 1998 antitribu massacre (having literally not been present when it happened), and also one of the last to be hunted down and eliminated.

Story under the cut. Contains a bit of headcanon involving canon characters (Strauss, Romero).

Two weeks before her sire’s final death, Amy was attacked walking home from her job as an accountant. She was thrown in an open grave in Hollywood, buried, and left to dig herself out. When she emerged, covered in dirt and wondering WTF happened and how she managed to survive being suffocated, she found the caretaker’s house and went inside for help.

Naturally, Romero freaked and pumped her full of lead.

(At the time, Amy just thought that Romero had been watching too many horror movies and thought she was a zombie. In reality, getting past Romero was part of an LA Shovelhead’s rite of passage and also the reason why Isaac kept him in the cemetery before the actual zombies showed up. The Sabbat had been increasing in numbers around that time and Romero was in charge of keeping any Shovelheads from making it out of the cemetery each night. The Sabbat left him alive because, you know, social Darwinists who reckoned his presence was doing them a favour by weeding out the weak.)

Covered in dirt, Amy fled, extremely confused as to why she managed to survive suffocation and being shot with a full magazine, and also having a strange but intense craving for a rare steak. On her way out of the cemetery she was intercepted by her sire, who fed her and brought her into the Sabbat fold. From Amy’s point of view, she was going through the weirdest kidnapping ever.

Two weeks later the Tremere caught up to him and killed him.

They would have killed Amy, too -- but she hadn’t committed Vaudlerie yet, and so didn’t have the mark of the antitribu that they expected her to have. Confused as to who she could be, figuring she was a fledgling but not knowing for sure and not wanting to chance it, the Tremere who killed her sire brought her to the LA Chantry to get Strauss to take a look at her.

Meanwhile Amy was like “uh yeah, I’ve been held hostage for two weeks by some whackjob who thinks I’m a vampire and gives me blood? I’m... honestly not sure how I haven’t starved to death yet but yeah that’s a thing that he’s doing. why am I not dead. a guy shot me two weeks ago and it just hurt a lot?”

Strauss found her Amusing. She had picked up enough information from her sire in the last fortnight that Strauss kept her (un)alive for a bit longer, partially to keep pumping her for information and partially to use her as bait for other antitribu Tremere his childe had been in contact with.

After that, she wasn’t useful any more, but she’d showed she wasn’t a liability either. So Strauss decided to keep her around and raise her as his grandchilde. Under other circumstances, if he already had a Fledgling childe at the time or simply been too busy, she’d have been put down.

She pretty much “grew up” (is that what vampires call it?) as Madeline’s adopted sister. She was around when the Pyramid was destroyed and when Madeline had her falling out with Strauss, and still there in the years afterwards. Amy gets along very well with Madeline and was pretty down when she left, but held no ill will towards her. Amy was one of the few people who could understand Madeline, although it did take her some practice to get there.

Amy had a gift for bringing out the oracle in Madeline, and was the first one to figure out that Madeline could use her mouth as a verbal equivalent to automatic writing. Amy could ask Madeline a question, and Madeline would answer it with knowledge Madeline didn’t know she had. It made them a very effective team.

Amy has made it her mission to turn Strauss into, if not a tech guy, then someone who can at least use a computer without supervision asking “where’s the any key?”

Unfortunately, Strauss is seven hundred years old and thinks technology is a fad that the kine are going through, so he has little motivation to learn and probably won’t figure out that it’s not a fad for another fifty years or so. On the rare occasion he does figure out a piece of technology, it’s almost obsolete.

Amy has not entirely given up, but until Strauss figures out that tech is here to stay, she sticks around as his unofficial tech monkey even as a neonate. Strauss is frustrated that she insists on sending texts to other vampires instead of simply letting him send out a runner with a handwritten letter, but by then they have a good enough relationship that he tolerates her insubordination on that front. Except when it comes to other elders; she lets him have his way then, because they prefer letters too.

It was Amy who delivered the card to the safehouse in Santa Monica, and also the one to raise the alarm that the Nosferatu had gone dark and stopped answering their messages.

#Amy Allegra #my OCs #Maximilian Strauss #VTM #VTMB

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whetstonefires · 5 years ago

Note

Same anon as Seph anon, thanks for answering my ask! Ahahaha I really did go a little wild with the chance to ask one of my favorite authors about one of my favorite characters... so, here's a more restrained version of that for another one of my faves I guess cause it's just a pleasure reading your responses. Tifa Lockhart. 4 (because i see her as kind of a person who'd be into the idea of romance?), 5, 14, 18, and 20.

Oh well hey again! Glad you liked the last one. Aww, thank you. 💗 Enthusiasm is always nice. More opinions by me, then! ^^

4. Best places to kiss on their body

Haha I agree Tifa’s a romantic in both the general and narrow senses but ooh, spicy. 😆 Hm.

I think Tifa would like kissed...just below the corner of her mouth, and on the insides of her forearms, and in her palms and knuckles because her hands are so much of her, and would be so easy to see as things that don’t need or deserve tenderness because of their power. And on her hip, at the outside hinge, just below where her belt rests in her main outfit.

5. Guilty pleasures

Unlike Sephiroth, Tifa does guilt a lot. She’s also a lot better than he ever was at pleasure. Both are highly contextual. They change.

More than once, it’s been Cloud. When she was fifteen and sick with feeling trapped in this dead-end town, her promise with that awkward boy next door who’d acquired a certain mystique through his standoffishness and big dream was a vehicle for fantasy that she’d have been mortified if anyone suspected.

When they were traveling the world and she knew something was wrong with him, with what he remembered, and she wasn’t saying anything because she was too afraid to find out what was wrong with who--she was still happy to have him there. Her person. Hers. Leaned into enjoying it more than she would have, if she hadn’t felt like it was going to be snatched away, somehow.

When she first lived in Midgar, it was pain, and blood on her knuckles. She went looking for fights, in those first months after she healed up from Masamune, and the slums had plenty on offer. She knew it was a waste of herself and her training, a stupid risk and a cruel choice, but it was the only thing that felt real.

That was how she first came to the Heaven--not as terrorist, or potential owner, or interviewing for a position as a barmaid. She was looking for a brawl.

In the days after Meteor, it was sweets. She’s always been active enough that indulging her sweet tooth only twinged her a little on an internalized-weight-bullshit scale, but when the main engine of industry had just been crushed and there were refugees on every side and she was spending most of her waking hours trying to mitigate the suffering in the aftermath...spending outsized chunks of her share of the enormous heap of gil the team had accrued traveling the world on getting A Whole Ice Cream all to herself felt more like a crime than half the people she’d beaten to death in her time, but it was one she went ahead and committed.

14. Ingrained habits/forces of habit

Tifa has many good and responsible habits. She does dishes promptly, without thinking twice. She does her kata every morning. She’s good at forming habits, and keeping them up.

She’s also good, of course, at habits she doesn’t want. Patterns of rumination that aren’t good for her. Habits of avoiding a subject or a problem that bothers her, until it’s a bigger problem than it started as simply for her habituated inability to confront it.

And if she doesn’t change contexts after she loses someone, it takes a long time for the habit of expecting them there to go away. She never quite stopped expecting to see Cloud when she was leading the team after the Northern Crater, and it took until after she’d spent a few days with him in Mideel to stop looking for Aerith.

18. Things they’ll never admit

They’re mostly silly or obvious, or both. She thought Sephiroth was cool and Zack was hot, when she was sixteen. She really did believe Cloud wasn’t real, for long enough to matter, even though it was Sephiroth who said it.

There’s one that isn’t. She tries to be sorry, for everyone and everything that was lost and broken in the road to ending the old world, and she can’t. It’s sad, and she wishes it hadn’t had to happen, and she’d never have done it, but she wouldn’t wish any of it undone, if it put Shinra back in power.

Even the people she loved. Her town, her Midgar friends, Aerith. She’s given her heart to the future, and she’ll let go of everything from the past if that’s what it takes to build something new. Nibelheim was a cage for her anyway, dear as it was and dearly as it loved her. It’s easier to leave behind than she thinks it should be, now that she isn’t alone in the emptiness of its destruction, or strangled with a hopeless need for vengeance.

She has Cloud left, from those days, and that’s enough to live on.

But she thinks even Barret would give it all up, everything they have now, just to have the massacre of Corel unmade. And maybe Cid or Reeve would agree with her, but she doesn’t want them to. So she’d never tell anybody.

20. What-ifs/Alternate Timelines

There’s a lot you could do with alternate-timeline Tifa but only three things that I’m persistently interested in.

First, she realizes she can leave town, too. Like...she clearly more than a little wanted to, and felt that she had to stay. Leaving town to seek your fortune and become a hero or whatever is only for boys. So she was living vicariously through Cloud, in canon.

The natural thing as a fic writer is for her to also try for SOLDIER, which I’ve seen done, though in character terms it’s a little less likely, assuming it’s even an option. I tend to assume Shinra only recruits men for active combat roles (which Turks technically are not even tho they actually are) because that’s what we’re shown, and while you can headcanon around that because of helmets and so on, I’ve never felt that ‘pretending the fascists aren’t as sexist as they seem’ was really a strike for women’s lib in transformative fandom? Shinra is not a positive environment. That’s a fact I’m happy to let stand.

They might make an exception if you were good enough, tho, and Tifa is very good.

Second scenario, Zangan doesn’t turn up at just the right moment to get her out of the reactor before Hojo swoops in, and she gets picked up with the rest of the survivors for the Sephiroth Copy Reunion Project. I started writing this one. It’s uh. Dark.

Third, she doesn’t wind up in Midgar. There’s suggestion in the game that Zangan brought her there to get treatment for her stab wound but it’s literally the other side of the Planet so I mostly ignore that on the basis that it’s absurd and adds nothing of value to the story, and assume she made it there on her own.

But in this AU he left her with one of his 127 other students and they bonded while she was healing up, and got into contact with some of the others who knew how to contact some of the others, and all these people knew people of their own, and Zangan-Ryu became a Mass Movement without actual Zangan’s direct involvement or support, at least not until later on.

Because I think it’s wild that this man wanders the world dropping in on his scattered collection of disciples one at a time, meaning Tifa is part of a fairly large community with whom she is not at all acquainted, and there’s potential there that I’ve never seen built into.

Tifa fomenting provincial insurrection potential. :D

#ask #ask meme #tifa lockhart #ffvii #hoc est meum #a nonny mouse

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ninetailednaru · 5 years ago

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Obito & Kakashi Have Some of The Saddest Backstories in Naruto: My Thoughts.

Look, I know I am a WRITING BLOG, but I couldn’t resist talking about this.

Kakashi

Kakashi Hatake— the Copy Ninja of Konoha, Sensei and Leader of the legendary Team 7, and one of the fanbases most beloved and cherished characters.

On the surface, he seems like the laid-back, yet strict academy teacher who’s kind of pervy and goofy. But in Shippuden when we get a better look into his past, you can’t help but think “what if?”

I saw somebody one say that Kakashi is the “Sasuke that didn’t turn to darkness.” Honestly, they have a point.

Kakashi was a child prodigy that lost everyone and everything at a very young age. His father committed suicide and was left to find his own father’s dead body, he was under the impression that his best friend and rival was killed trying to save him, and he unintentionally killed his friend and squad mate when she threw herself in front of his attack.

Then, with Sasuke, he was another prodigy who lost everything as a child. His own brother was killed his entire clan by force (which he was unaware of at the time), and then was made to watch the entire night unfold in front of him again, and again, and again for 24 hours and then once more a few years later when he ran into Akatsuki!Itachi. However, unlike Kakashi (and Naruto who went through a lot as a child as well, but that isn’t important yet), Sasuke gave into the darkness. The Uchiha “Curse of Hatred” as it’s called.

Sasuke handled his trauma differently because it manifested differently. Sure, events like Orochimaru giving him his curse mark influenced him taking this path and all, but we saw him resist it. We saw him try to become better and forget about all of that. What really sent him over edge was seeing Itachi again and basically getting bodied by him.

Kakashi didn’t turn, amazingly enough. I can say that I wouldn’t be surprised if he became an antagonist given his terrible childhood. But, once again, he handled the trauma differently. We know Kakashi suffers/suffered from PTSD from killing Rin, and survivor’s guilt. The poor guy had nightmares for ages after killing Rin, and was labeled a “friend killer” by his classmates who didn’t even know the half of what really happened. Then, a few years later, his Sensei is killed in the Nine-Tails attack by his believed-to-be-dead friend posing as Madara Uchiha. Ironically enough, he witnesses said friend (Obito) die AGAIN during the Fourth Shinobi War.

Kakashi eventually learned how to cope heathily and is doing much better as we’ve seen. But, we know he still hurts in part. He visited Obito’s grave everyday for YEARS (which was why he was so late all the time— a habit Obito had in their youth), and felt so terribly guilty. This is the kind of shit that ruins people for LIFE, and I have so much respect for Kakashi for handling it the way he did.

Obito

Obito Uchiha— an orphan Uchiha who enjoyed helping the elderly and had a wild dream, wanting to become Hokage some day.

Going back to Kakashi being the “Sasuke that didn’t turn to darkness,” the same person said Obito was the “Naruto that turned evil.”

Kakashi and Obito’s story in my eyes is the equivalent or Naruto and Sasuke’s, but with the roles reversed. Obito grew up without his parents, being raised and taken care of by his grandmother. He was often late to training due to helping the elderly he’d pass on the street and his generally poor time-management skills. Obito was a late bloomer with nothing special in particular about him or going for him— a master of none. He did enough to get by, and when he met child-prodigy Kakashi Hatake, it sparked a fire in him that made him want to do better.

Now, let’s look at Naruto. An orphan who’s parents were killed by the Nine-Tails attack on the Leaf, who became the very same tailed-beast’s jinchuurki essentially at birth. In doing so, he was shunned by his own village and instead of being seen as a hero like Lord Fourth wanted him to be seen as, he was seen as a pest. A burden. A no-good, fruitless individual who just caused trouble. He was attention starved, which explains his flamboyant and obnoxious attitude, along with all the trouble he went around causing. He wanted to be seen. He wanted people to remember the name “Naruto Uzumaki” at any cost— good or bad.

Naruto channeled his loneliness and saddness through laughter. He hid it all behind smiles and giggles. Naruto had nobody and no one, so he set his sights on becoming someone everybody saw and recognized.

The Hokage.

Obito was just like this. We know that when Obito saw Naruto, he saw himself. It really opens your eyes to what could’ve been— to what could’ve happened to Naruto if he turned to darkness. Obito was manipulated. His pain and suffering, along with his big heart and love for his friends— for Rin— was exploited. It was all building up, and like how Sasuke’s run in with Itachi did him in, Madara’s and the White Zetsu’s manipulation and timing to get Obito to the scene of Rin’s death to witness it in full (out of context to say the least), was the straw that broke the camel’s back. In Obito’s supposedly “dying moments,” Kakashi promised him he’d protect Rin at all costs. What a way to break a promise by killing the very person you swore to protect in front of the person that you swore it too.

Obito felt betrayed. His emotions flooded through him like electricity and he lost it. We saw how he massacred the mutalated the Mist Shinobi and how the water from the rain was dyed red. He tore through them in a fit of rage and resigned himself to darkness. He awoke his Mangekyo, which often happened when one witnessed the death of somebody close to the user and was associated with the Curse of Hatred, and became the brand new Madara Uchiha.

Yes, I get many people don’t like Obito. But, honestly, I do. I think what he did isn’t all that crazy considereding what he was put through. He was being puppeteered and manipulated the entire time and had no idea until the stage was set and ready to go. Just like how what Sasuke did was honestly justifiable because of his fucked up circumstances.

Conclusion

As previously stated, in my eyes Obito and Kakashi are the Sasuke and Naruto of their time with the roles reversed. They both went through so much, as children none the less, and the both dealt with their trauma differently. Trauma manifests differently in each person, and Obito happened to be in the perfect situation to be played like a son of a bitch by a rebellious mass murderer and become one as well. Their pasts are tragic and fucked up, and honestly, the way that things played out don’t surprise me in the slightest.

And that is why I believe Kakashi and Obito have some of the saddest backstories in Naruto.

#naruto #obito uchiha #kakashi hatake #naruto rant

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sasorikigai · 4 years ago

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BLOOD TIES - Kamidogu Meta

In the Red Dragon Temple somewhere in China (near Linxia), Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang) attempts to steal retrieve the Kamidogu Dagger for Lord Raiden. He is interrupted by Kano, as the Curse of the Kamidogu corrupts the cryomancer, giving him the character-defining scar on his right eye. After Kano comments about the nature of the Kamidogu Dagger, that Kuai Liang will be possessed by the Blood Code and for the curse to be broken, he would just have to kill himself - the possessed. Kuai Liang not only throws a frigid haymaker on Kano’s right hand - where his cyberized eye lays - but rips the device out and escapes. At this point, Kuai Liang would have only recently come back from being cyberized as Cyber Sub-Zero (LK-520), but as a Revenant of the Netherrealm alongside Scorpion also. The concept of death and his mortality is a double-edged sword, yet no panic sets in as Sub-Zero escapes, bloodied and corrupted. The agonizing whirlwind of the innocents who had died as their flesh becoming translucent, and being shattered like glass shards continue to haunt him again.

It also showcases Kuai Liang’s stamina and resilience as a human cryomancer, capable of not only overwhelming Kano, who had been unmarred and having been in such advantageous position over him, but his unsurpassed cryomancy as well. As a hybrid of a Cryomancer and human, Sub-Zero controls the power of ice and cold effortlessly. He can generate cold ice by absorbing the surrounding air and releasing it as cold energy to freeze water vapor. By using his powers and creativity, he can create ice constructs of varying purposes, weapons being an example out of many.

Meanwhile, as Hanzo Hasashi and Takeda Takahashi pushes on for the Sky Temple, they camp close as Hanzo witnesses the streaking lightning, along with the clouds that get too close. Corrupted Raiden comes crashing down from the skies, knocking Hanzo off his feet and electrocuting him, spilling the doctrines of the Blood Code. When Takeda interrupts and stabs Raiden from the back, Raiden also zaps him.

In the Himalayas a few weeks ago, Hanzo contradicts what Takeda says as hellfire being not a style, but his curse; hellfire is a burden he has carried since the day everything changed for him. He sites that the last seconds of his life passed like hours, as the massacre of the Shirai Ryu was an outrage, but it was nothing compared to what his eyes held in those final moment. His beautiful family, frozen, as the village blazed around the Hasashi family. Hanzo prayed that ice would thaw, he prayed not to the Gods, but to the fire itself, for Harumi (Kana), his wife and Satoshi (Jubei), his innocent child. He died, but his soul kept praying for fire until Quan Chi answered. Fire did not burn him, and Quan Chi never controlled him, he was never his Revenant, but a volunteer; for his loss had become a fire within, and the dark sorcerer only stroked the flames with promises of justice and vengeance.

Hellfire consumed my heart, my name, and my conscience.

An Anti-Villain is the opposite of an Anti-Hero — a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain. His desired ends are mostly good, but his means of getting there range from evil to undesirable. Alternatively, his goals may be selfish or have long-term consequences he doesn’t care about, but essentially, Hanzo is a good person who might even team up with the hero if their goals don't conflict. In terms of personality, Hanzo Hasashi is shown to be kind-hearted and can be caring and honorable in nature, even towards their enemies, but it can be possible for them to treat their own allies with rudeness, which by its own accord, is a very unusual trait to possess. Moreover, compared to regular villains that are just simply evil, anti-villains are often neutral - depending on the writers of said characters. Those that are part of the neutral alignments however, aren't exactly benevolent, but they aren't malevolent either. As Scorpion, the Netherrealm’s hellspawn spectre, he would find vengeance, but not justice. The fire remained, and he would keep fighting, even after his life was restored.

"Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light."

Hanzo Hasashi is an atoner, who thinks he doesn’t deserve a second chance, after all the murders he’d committed willfully, a suicide in the form of hara-kiri. As in Japanese culture, traditionally suicide can be done to cleanse one's honor, as Hanzo would have struggled with the demons in his mind (Scorpion), swaying his temperaments, which makes him The Wild Card - who is a character so used to swinging between teams that they have no default "good" or "evil" character alignment or even a "home team." He truly is not interested in consistently remaining with either side, and will very often simply want both to leave them alone. He is the sort of person who will stay out of things entirely, until someone else (usually the hero or other sympathetic character) asks him for help (in this case, Raiden and Kenshi, who is ‘a wise man’ in the story, who saw Hanzo’s hellfire for what it was).

Kenshi Takahashi was who saw through Hanzo’s shame, pain, loss that he couldn’t ever lose. And Hanzo still has to relive the moment of his own death when wielding hellfire, and has to risk destroying himself all over again every single time. Hanzo’s recovery would have been ungraceful, and feeling ephemeral, even as his grief and remorse claws at his throat. He wishes he could clam up his emotions and keep them safe, but he tends to wear his emotions on his sleeves as his hot-tempered impulsiveness and always choosing fight over flight when Hanzo’s own survival mechanism, enabling him to react quickly to life-threatening situations with offense, instead of defense.

Hanzo completely dominates Raiden, even when Raiden is a demigod, obviously canonically proven to be stronger than him. Not only Hanzo blames Raiden for destroying the Second Shirai Ryu and killing Takeda, but the act of giving the Kamidogu Dagger to himself as well. It serves as Hanzo’s berserk button, which is one type of trigger, where the response to a minor or generally insignificant thing is one of extreme anger. That is, engaging the trigger turns an ordinary character into the berserker. The Berserker is a character who throws himself into a fight with such reckless abandon, it seems like he wants to die. It could be over-enthusiasm, overconfidence, unstoppable rage, or the desire to die (in battle). Whatever the cause, it's usually accompanied by a bellowing warcry (Hanzo’s characteristic baritone). Sometimes with total obliviousness to whether he's actually fighting the enemy.

And he never, ever retreats. This is only amplified by his paternal instincts towards Takeda, as agonizing pain and torment of losing too many continues to fuel his feral viciousness towards Raiden. All of this could be accumulated and summarized as love, which breaks the barriers between bodies and perhaps minds, as ouroboros of life and death encircles and becomes a repeated loop. He still manifests himself as a ghost, haunted by his own memory, bound to relive moments as if they are a means of a way out. The one shot at Hanzo’s own freedom and yet, still blinded enough to believe only in his tenacious, unyielding and resilient will that keeps him going all along, as Gods only exist to mess and ruin the course of his life and perhaps fate.

Hanzo only stops his onslaught and assault when he finds out Takeda’s alive. Hanzo also doesn’t ever hold himself from speaking his mind, saying that Raiden WILL heal Takeda back to health with Jinsei - the Earthrealm’s life force - as Takeda fights for his life. The Kamidogu relates back to Shinnok’s Amulet; for the daggers serve as the keys, and each Kamigodu blade tested the blood of the one being, as its essence dwells within them. Raiden, in tne end, apologizes for not revealing the true nature of daggers’ perilous nature, as the Thunder God did not foresee a demon corrupting the blood magik. Raiden informs Hanzo that all of the other Kamidogu are accounted for, except the one stolen many years ago, which Sub-Zero happens to be in the possession of, as he has been corrupted with the Blood Code. Hanzo makes a promise that he will find Sub-Zero, dead or alive.

"I knew I couldn’t kill them. More powerful men than me have tried. But if I could get them to kill each other …"

This only draws timeless stigma that has been rampant throughout the Mortal Kombat lore, as when Raiden shows up, people are bound to be dead (as proven with so many kombatants, including Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Hanzo Hasashi throughout the games), as Sub-Zero’s near-death which will come later in the comics, along with Hanzo and Kuai’s bitter rivalry, extended beyond as even with Hanzo’s resurrection, the bitter feud between Scorpion and Sub-Zero extends to their human counterparts, as this event takes way before MKX storyline. Fate had already been unkind to them, as they both turned evil, lest one was a volunteer, and one held at dark sorcery without volition.

"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

On the other hand, this continued rivalry may become a precursor that shows the unfurling events of the future, where they would develop a genuine friendship with the hero and perform a heel-face turn somewhere down the line. For Hanzo Hasashi’s morality was never at tabula rasa; for his intrinsic temperaments weren’t evil to begin with, as they both were pawns in Quan Chi’s malignant scheme to pin them forth as mortal rivals with misconstrued understandings.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#hanzo hasashi #kuai liang #mortal kombat #✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ bone-deep chill of despair (sub-zero)#✗ seeking reconciliation with his own humanity (iii)#✗ you are an equal amongst deceivers (iii)

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psyga315 · 5 years ago

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Fixing RWBY Volume 4

Volume 4 is… interesting, to say the least. It is obviously a breather volume, but at the same time, it tries to hammer home that every character is suffering to some degree. It also tries to do a sort of Game of Thrones-style “location-based arcs”, where multiple plots unfold across different areas. The only problem is that not everyone gets that spotlight. I can point you guys to the scene where Ruby sees Jaune training and nothing comes of it.

This is where I was beginning to see the problems of RWBY (dropped out midway through Volume 1 and only picked it back up before Volume 3), but I couldn’t quite put my finger on where exactly. Some critics have pointed to Volume 4 as a place where things begin to fall apart, especially in regards to Blake’s character. Then again, she was drawing pictures of the man who abuses her so…

As such, I’m going to tackle this Volume and try to tweak it so that it’s better. As before, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel or slap unneeded characters around. At this point, the only biggest change was Hazel’s appearance earlier in the show. With that in mind, we should begin with a meta-story first.

Keep Moving Forward

Volume 3 was a success and hype for Volume 4 was at its peak. Because RT managed to sell the idea that RWBY was gonna get dark way earlier than they did, I don’t see them using RWBY Chibi for anything other than training people to use Maya. Although there were plenty of animators from Volume 2.5 that used Maya, the ones RT picked out had experience with Poser and thus, they need to bridge the gap before the big Volume.

Around the same time, Miles and Kerry begin to realize that they’ve undertaken a rather ambitious task. Realizing the limit of their age earlier than they did (no joke, part of the reason the Faunus subplot got ditched was because they considered themselves too young and inexperienced to properly tackle it), they had an emergency meeting to figure out how to handle this Volume.

One solution was to simply keep the girls separated for one or two episodes before they’re reunited, nipping the problem in the bud and allowing the plot to continue. Miles insists that there should be a longer degree of separation. After all, all these girls have been traumatized and this isn’t going to be a simple pat on the back for them. The idea is then extended to one volume, to which Kerry suggests that the girls spend two Volumes separated. One where they’re getting over their trauma and the other where they’re doing something about their situation.

Instantly, the idea sticks and plans for both Volumes 4 & 5 began to take shape. Now comes the question of how to handle the high concept of four, maybe five plots going on at once. I’d assume that, with the Volume 2.5 thing, RT would have a lot of animators they could call upon. And so, a means to tackle the idea was formed: Much like how RWBY split up, so too should their animators. Miles and Kerry would continue to write scripts for the episode (barring suggestions from each animation team) and the four animation teams would handle their respective arc.

We have Team Mistral, the main team that deals with all the RNJR scenes and scenes that don’t involve the other members of RWBY, such as Salem’s Lot and Oscar. Then we have Team Atlas, who handles Weiss’s scenes. Team Menagerie handles Blake’s and Team Patch deals with Yang’s.

M&K also decide, this time, that, if they’re going to get serious, they should at least set up some sort of timeline. This leads to a month of brainstorming between them and other members of the crew to figure out what sort of hijinx would happen in a 6-8-month timespan and more importantly, how the saga would unfold. Should it all be at the same time or split across different points? Miles argues that it’d get too confusing, so at the same time would do.

They also decided to plot out how Volume 4 would unfold. Each episode will have RNJR as a major focus, with the members of RWBY sharing focus each episode. The way it works would be as follows:

· Episodes 1, 11, and 12 would focus on RNJR and WBY.

· Episodes 2, 5, & 8 would focus on Weiss.

· Episodes 3, 6, & 9 would be on Blake.

· Episodes 4, 7, & 10 would be on Yang.

· Some episodes would sprinkle in scenes of Salem’s Lot and Oscar.

This obviously messes up the flow of Volume 4, but at the same time, it would give everyone proper focus instead of randomly across the entire volume.

With the hype of Volume 4 reaching critical mass, it premieres on October of 2017 (remember, they delayed Volume 3 by a year to get the additional animators) and this is how Volume 4 would be tweaked…

Salem’s Arc

The first thing we see is Salem’s group celebrating their victory over Beacon while berating Cinder over getting injured. Salem destroys any vague wording she had given in the original and outright says that the method of which Cinder took her powers was considered unnatural and that she did not expect Ozpin to have a Silver-Eyed Warrior in his academy. Hopefully the audience can put two and two together that she’s talking about the Grimm-

[cue that clip of the audience reacting to the Volume 4 trailer and someone shouting “IT’S SUMMER!”]

… Salem explicitly points out that Cinder used the Grimm and that’s why she got fucked up by the Silver Eyes.

Most of these scenes stay as they are with the exception of Hazel being the new member of the group and thus be introduced to Watts and Tyrian, the latter of which being the one who saved Cinder last Volume. Hazel shows some remorse to the Fall of Beacon (to the point where he takes over Emerald saying “it’s almost sad” from last Volume) but when Salem says Ozpin was killed, he is relieved. At least something good came from the bloodshed.

Another change would be that Salem assigns Watts to Atlas instead of Haven. Her reasoning is that, with the CCT being down, she’d need to find a means to see what’s happening in Atlas. Watts understands and prepares a transport to Mantle, knowing he can hack into it with relative ease. When Hazel gets his assignment to talk with Sienna Khan, he asks if Tyrian would be a better choice, since… Y’know, Faunus. When Salem considers switching Tyrian’s job with Hazel’s (hunt the Silver-Eyed Warrior) Hazel and Tyrian instantly reject the offer. Hazel because he doesn’t want to hurt Ruby and Tyrian because he wants to hurt Ruby. Note that Salem doesn’t mention anything about the Spring Maiden. It’ll become apparent why in Tweaking Volume 5.

Also, I’d keep Salem’s motherly nature in this scene because that was always the nice contrast to Ozpin and considering how I dialed up the untrustworthiness of Oz, having Salem treat her minions like children instead of tools or assets would set up a huge contrast.

Cinder’s scenes are kept the same. At some point, I want to establish that the reason characters seemingly teleport all over the place is that it’s something Salem’s Seers can do. This would be done by placing multiple Seers across Remnant, which his why Watts is also going to Atlas, and then using one Seer to teleport to the other.

Oscar’s Arc

I like to thank Vexed Viewer’s video on how the creators screwed up introducing Oscar, since it gives me an easy means to avoid all the shit they did.

Oscar’s arc begins same as it does, but this time, his aunt (who we actually see) enters his room and asks if he’s okay. This has been the fifth night in a row where Oscar has had night terrors, almost centered around the exact same thing: the Fall of Beacon. Despite living so far away from Vale, he remembers the massacre vividly. More importantly, he remembers fire. Lots of it.

One of the episodes would end with focusing on him, only for a voice to pop up: “Hi! I’m Professor Ozpin!” That’s clearly more of an ending bit than a beginning bit.

Episode 6 and 7 would be where we see a good chunk of Oscar’s story unfold. Obviously, we have Ozpin trying to get Oscar to go to Haven, Oscar wants nothing of it. He has dinner with his aunt where, slowly, Ozpin takes over Oscar and forces him to go to Haven, convincing Oscar and his aunt that he always wanted adventure. Even without a body, Oz manages to find someway to ruin someone’s life to have his way.

Also, we don’t have him take the train. That’d be like if in Lord of the Rings, everyone was walking into Mordor and suddenly some 12-year-old kid flies in on the hawks. He’d be in actual walking distance from Haven. About an hour away. The encounter with Hazel stays the same, but Oscar has a slightly longer conversation with Hazel where he asks him if he’s ever been pressured to do something he doesn’t want to do. Hazel, having no idea about Ozpin’s reincarnation, tells him he has, but the reward would be to have peace of mind. This motivates Oscar to fully commit to going to Haven.

Also, skip the stinger because we’re going to use that for Volume 5.

Yang’s Arc

It’s mostly the same, but Port and Oobleck aren’t in the house since they’re dead. Also, Ironwood states in a letter that he apologizes for DQ’ing RWBY and that there’s no need to thank him for the arm so we can get rid of that meme.

There’s another plot detail, one that I’ll establish in Weiss’s arc, but the long story short of it is that the news plays footage of the ball where the Trophy Wife laughs about Vale lacking proper defenses, setting the already upset kingdom into fury, since those defenses were Atlas’s and as far as everyone knows, they were part of the problem. Taiyang is forced to go out and help quell the demands to go to war on Atlas.

Here’s how I’d structure it:

Episode 1 would have Yang adjusting to life without the arm. The simple montage of her doing chores which gets interrupted with Adam flashbacks.

Episode 4 has Taiyang giving her the prosthetic. She tries to wear it, only to have flashbacks of not only Adam, but injuring Mercury and Blake leaving her. She gets her signature hand trembles as she remembers the train from Volume 2, Gretchen’s death, and Raven telling her about Summer. It ends with her asking if she should really become a Huntress.

Episode 7 shows her watching the news when the Trophy Wife footage comes on and sees Weiss attacking her with a Boarbatusk. For the first time since arriving in Patch, she feels concern for her teammates. She knows that Ruby would be safe since she has Jaune and the others and Blake can die in a fire for all she cared. Taiyang comes home, tired and even battered a bit, having to stop some people from committing Atlasphobic attacks, which led to a Grimm attack. They have a chat about the state of Vale and Yang asks Taiyang why she even became a Huntress in the first place, to which Taiyang replies that she wanted to be like her mom, Summer. After she left and was presumed dead, Ruby had been menaced by a small bird Grimm (I’m going there) and Yang tried to fend it off. This was the spark that led to her being a Huntress. Yang, however, doesn’t buy the idea and goes to bed.

Episode 10 would bring the Atlasphobic attacks right to Yang’s home as the house is bombarded with people citing Taiyang as “Ironwood’s bootlicker” and “a droid sympathizer”. They want Taiyang’s head because if he’s not with them, he’s against them. The sad thing is that most of them are traumatized people who lost loved ones to the attacks. Yang wants nothing of it, but the moment the group grabs Taiyang and tries to string him up, her anger flares up, grabs the arm, and slaps it on her. She goes in and saves Taiyang from getting lynched but when it comes time to attack the crowd, she flinches and remembers attacking Mercury and recalling the words of doubt Blake casted in her head. She ejects the arm and, realizing she’s fighting people without awakened Auras, fights to knock them a few out before calling everyone out for letting fear control them. This obviously doesn’t instantly resolve the tensions with Atlas, but it does inspire Yang to return to being a Huntress.

Episode 11 has Taiyang, after healing up from the beating he got, talking to Yang about Raven. Because she knows about STRQ in this tweak, we don’t need to do the whole “oh, so now you talk about her” thing, but Yang does ask what Raven meant with Ozpin valuing Summer as a Pawn. Taiyang asks when she met Raven and notes that she would add that little detail. He then explains to her that Summer was special, just like Ruby, and that she was sent on special missions that none of the others were invited to. With Ozpin kicking Raven out, having favoritism placed on Summer and making Qrow his personal Huntsman, he slowly dismantled STRQ and Taiyang has quite a bit of upset over that. Realizing that this is what’s happening to RWBY, Yang decides to head to Haven…

Episode 12 has her using her motorbike, only to be stopped by a Huntress, Heather Shields, who asks for her help in tracking down a bunch of bandits. She isn’t interested until Heather says that their leader is possibly in league with the White Fang as they have a Grimm Mask. This piques Yang’s interest since this could either mean Raven or Adam.

The reason I added this subplot about Atlasphobic attacks is that I really didn’t want that ballroom scene to be in a bubble and I also wanted to emphasise the whole “angry at Atlas” thing.

Weiss’s Arc

Quite literally the same arc, but with a battle between Weiss and Jacques because he didn’t really have any earned comeuppance in Volume 7 and it’d be a better place for “This Life is Mine”’s rock version than battling giant bumblebees.

Episode 1 has Weiss more subdued than her earlier Volumes, showing her father’s leash is well on her neck. She is asked to visit her father, leading into episode 2, which has no actual changes outside of the reasoning for Ironwood’s embargo being more vaguely worded, since we want to illustrate that he’s going 1984 right now.

Episode 5 is Episodes 6 & 7 of the original mashed up into one episode. However, we get a shot of Watts recording the ball, then using the Seer to teleport to Vale and hand his recording to a local news outlet before moving to Mistral with the Seer.

Episode 8 is Weiss mastering her summon and sneaking out… Only to be caught by Jacques. Jacques is well aware that Weiss’s songs were nothing but hate speeches to him and he demands respect. Weiss refuses, telling him that he’s a poison on the family. Jacques remarks that she’d technically be poison too, since the Schnee children share his DNA. It soon leads to a battle in the Schnee manor where Jacques over relies on Dust as he isn’t a skilled fighter while Weiss over relies on her summon. As such, the two are evenly matched until Jacques runs out of Dust. Realizing that her fighting has become sloppy, she goes back to using her Glyphs and uses one to pin Jacques in place in a manner similar to how Watts pinned Ironwood in their V7 fight.

Episode 11 has her try to get on an airship before Ironwood stops her and tells her about the closures in place… Then assures her she has clearance to go, inquiring that she goes to investigate Winter’s findings on Haven. She jumps at the chance because she thinks Winter is there. Episode 12 is her on a private military aircraft with Pilot Boi.

Blake’s Arc

… Oh boy. You can tell why I saved this one for second last. Blake’s arc is by far the most infuriating of the arcs and really sets a bad standard for her. I remembered flipping her off when she said “we’re not going to fight the White Fang” when I was first watching Episode 11 because I had it up to here with her tomfoolery.

So, instead of making the battered abuse victim abuse Sun and chilling at her parents’ place as the rest of her team suffers while being stalked by someone who has a big lesbian crush on her, we’re gonna rehaul her entire arc.

Episode 1 has her secure passage on a boat. It’s not as grand as a liner in the original, but it’s not the rinkydink rowboat she was on in the comics. Rather, a simple cargo ship she had to bribe in order to get on. She has no clear goal in mind and when asked where she’s going, she says “nowhere. I just want to keep running.”

Episode 3 plays similarly to Runaways and Stowaways, but Sun stalking Blake is removed. If he wanted to be a good Samaritan, he shouldn’t dress up like some fucking cultist for no discernable reason other than “le bait and switch!” Instead, he’s there because SSSN need a lot of supplies and money to back to Haven and Sun is just doing his job as a security guard. He plays catch up with Blake whose moody nature causes a Grimm to attack them. The Grimm is defeated, but the ship has taken damage and must make a pitstop. When asked where it’s landing, the captain says “Menagerie” and this fills Blake with fear.

Episode 6 has Sun and Blake arrive on Menagerie, where it’s actually crowded this time. Failing that, the big problem is that they’re intolerant towards humans, since this is their turf. Obviously, the captain is met with tons of scrutiny and forces Blake to do the one thing she’s avoided her whole life: Talk to her mother.

I should explain something before we continue. In this tweaking, Ghira was killed by that group of people in Adam’s short. This explains the sudden shift between White Fang leaders and Adam’s words in Volume 3. In honor of Ghira leading a noble cause, Kali was given the title of Chieftain of the village I forgot the name of (Kua Kuana?) With her status, Kali could grant humans a temporary pass. And so, Blake reluctantly visits her and we get a touching reunion.

We also see Blake get introduced to the Albains, who in this tweaking aren’t telegraphing that they’re bad guys and are genuinely trying to get in Kali’s good graces. When Blake gives the Albains the business of the White Fang killing people, they state that they’re well aware, as they have Adam in custody and will sentence him to exile in the wilds of Menagerie where he’d most likely meet his end at the hands of monsters. Keen eared viewers would notice that Salem said that Adam was meeting Sienna Khan so… what gives? Well, that’s going to be explained in…

Episode 9 has Blake and Kali talk a bit about Ghira, we have that much needed talk, but instead of Sun busting it, it’s Fennec. He reports that Sun had been kidnapped by renegade White Fang members, but not saying that it was their members that kidnapped Sun. This causes Blake to give chase and goes to the outback where we get to see one of the vicious monsters Blake talked about instead of leaving it to the imagination or DC.

There, we see Sun and Blake were able to defeat it with moderate difficulty before they see Adam. The three fight, but as Blake’s trauma kicks in, Sun protects her and ends up knocking Adam senseless, revealing that it isn’t even Adam, but Ilia using a Semblance that makes her camouflage as other people (think Neo’s Semblance, but on a smaller scale). Blake and Sun are confused before Ilia knocks Sun out and retreats. I should also mention that in the battle, they also knock the scroll out of her.

Episode 11 has Blake explain to Sun why she ran (without her being a bitch about it) and Sun says why that reason’s bullshit. Kali and Corsac come in and they converse about how Adam is still out there. Kali shows plans for a raid on Haven and Corsac feigns condemnation of Adam’s actions. Blake then states that the White Fang has gone too far with its corruption and must be destroyed.

Episode 12 isn’t focused on Blake, but rather on Ilia, as she reports to the Albains and informs them on why she had to disguise herself as Adam. It’s here we find out that, yes, the Albains were in on Adam’s plans the whole time, but had to keep up appearances. They then explain that their goal is to try and prevent Menagerie from going to Mistral’s aid.

Ruby’s Arc

Finally, we get to RNJR. This is gonna be a long one since they’ll have all 12 episodes, even if they appear in only one scene. Let’s knock these out of the park by saying that Episodes 1 & 2 relatively stay the same, but episode 2 has them arrive in Shion just as Raven’s team attacks. This leads to a battle where Ruby battles her sister’s mom and doesn’t even know it. However, Ren sees the mask and freaks. Making matters worse is that the Nuckelavee appears and forces Raven to retreat. The group manages to hold off the Nuckelavee, but are unable to defeat it, leading them to run with a Huntsman following them, the same one that died in the original.

Episode 3 has Ruby talking to Ren about what the hell was up with his freak out but Ren refuses to talk and Nora isn’t helping matters. The huntsman introduces himself as Shiro Wan and says how he’s been assigned by Lionheart, the Headmaster, to investigate a recent string of bandit attacks. He then says that, if they can help him with the bandit, he can get a good word in to bring the group to Mistral. Ruby later confronts Jaune on his training with Pyrrha’s video as Jaune berates himself for letting Pyrrha die at Beacon, saying that if he was stronger, he would have helped her. We end the episode with him confiding in Ruby something: “Ozpin tortured Pyrrha…” That or he wants to kill Cinder.

Episode 4 reveals that Qrow is not only following them, but is talking to Raven about the Spring Maiden. Raven feigns ignorance, but her wording leads Qrow to confirm that she knows where the Spring Maiden is. Also, I want him to say this:

Qrow: If you don’t tell us, we’re all going to die.

Raven: And who’s this ‘we’ you’re referring to?

Qrow: EVERYONE, YOU DUMB FUCKING EDGELORD BITCH!

… I just want to do that.

Episodes 5, 6, and 7 are relatively the same, but Tyrian kills Shiro. Episode 8 has Jaune lay into Qrow about Pyrrha and Qrow tries to defend Oz by saying that Pyrrha chose, but Jaune brings up how he saw the contrary, even asking Qrow if they informed Pyrrha about Salem and the Relics, to which he sadly says no. Episode 9, 10, 11, and 12 are relatively the same as well, with only two exceptions. The first is that, in the flashback for Kuroyuri, we see that Ren makes friends with a ten-year-old girl before Raven and her bandits attack. Nora is also there and with her depression and the bandits, the Nuckelavee is let loose onto Kuroyuri, the ten-year-old last being seen with Raven and looking at the destruction with remorse. During the Nuckelavee fight, Ruby’s silver eyes act up, freezing the Nuckelavee in place for Ren to hand some final blows, rather than “hold arms down to win”.

The stinger isn’t really plot important, but reveals what will immediately happen in Volume 5 as Jaune, Nora, and Ren, with Pyrrha’s shield (if you’re gonna say she has extras, at least show she has extras), carry it over to a house and knock on the door… It’s clear what’s going on, but as the door opens, we cut to black. To be continued in Volume 5.

DVD Extra

I’d say four extra stories starring each member of Team RWBY. Maybe even adapting a story from the comics?

And that’s Volume 4… The next tweaking is going to be my final one and I’m gonna go out on a bang.

#RWDE #RWBY #RWBY rewrite #rewrite

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grimmjowkurosakidrake · 5 years ago

Text

Oasis

Sumary: Time travel AU! The temptation to fix everything it’s too hard for Sasuke to resist.

Characters: Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Itachi Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Ino Yamanaka

Relationships: Sasuke Uchiha/Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha & Itachi Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha & Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno & Ino Yamanaka

For the Sasusaku month day 8: Oasis

The oasis It’s guarded by proud people of the old religions, they have chakra but they don’t call it chakra, they call it soul spirit.

They act with kind reverence around Sakura because they could tell she was a healer when they first saw her. Just as they bow with respect around Sasuke because of the lingering dark power he naturally emanates.

They show the travelling couple the way to the oasis as if it was their duty. The place is beautiful.

Underground corridors of weirdly coloured stones leading to a secret cavern and in the middle, a dazzling string of transparent water reflecting the colours of the precious gems lining the place around them.

“Only people with a powerful soul spirit can make use of the oasis.” Says the leader of the people, “the waters of this place allow the travellers who are worthy to go back in their own history and mend past sins.”

“We are powerful enough.” Mutters Sasuke purposely walking towards the waters that starts to glow as if it were sensing his chakra.

He stops at the edge of the oasis, giving Sakura an inviting, hopeful glance. Extending his only hand in her direction.

“Sasuke-kun, we don’t need to do this.” Taking two hesitant steps towards Sasuke, the young Kunoichi tries to dissuade her lover. “We’re happy now. Aren’t we?”

“I did so many mistakes, committed so many wrongdoings in my life, Sakura. I treated you so awfully. Don’t we deserve a second chance? A little more time to be together?” He sounds distant. In the same way he sounded as a Gennin, when his sole purpose was vengeance.

“We have all the time in the world, Sasuke-kun.” She tries.

“I’m sorry Sakura.” He apologises, closing his eyes. “Hopefully you won’t remember any of this when I’m finally done with everything.” After the brief but heartfelt apology, Sasuke allows himself to fall into the water, finding himself surrounded by white light and Sakura’s voice screaming his name.

Then only Darkness.

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He wakes up feeling different. Weaker, in a room he hadn’t seen or been in, since his childhood days.

A quick trip to the bathroom and a brief glance at the mirror tells him he’s four, maybe five, in any case just a few years ahead of the massacre that changed his life and transformed him into the man he is... Was.

Now that he’s here, Sasuke is not really sure of what he wants to do. Not in specific terms anyway. He wants to be a better friend for Naruto, wants to be a younger brother for Itachi. For sure.

He especially wants to become the man Sakura deserves. Wants to accept her invitations to dinners and festivals, to hold her hand around the village and in their travels. He even longs for the opportunity to be openly jealous of Naruto’s and Lee’s advances on Sakura.

Sasuke wants to meet her parents without the lingering shame of being the man who broke her heart and tried to kill her. He still remembers standing alongside Sakura in front of the Harunos, telling them that he was going to take their daughter away while knowing he had dared to raise his hand at her in open violence.

He overall wants to train alongside her, to become strong as they grow together under the same sky.

He decides to start with the massacre because he doesn’t want to lose his brother once again. Sasuke will leave the final decision to Itachi, but he will be the one to tell him about the coup d'etat or at least he will find a less violent outcome for his clan.

In the following months he keeps his ears and eyes open for any signs or talk of treason from his parents. He’s aware that he can’t talk to Itachi until he knows for sure his parents are at least in the planning stages of their betrayal.

A few months into his new life he hears his mother talk about spies in the academy reporting to her. His father grunts his approval and then he tells her about Itachi being difficult about his part in the coup d’etat. That’s all he needs.

He cries in his brother’s lap for the first time in decades, that night. Forcing Itachi to comfort him and hear him out. “Mother and father were talking about killing Lord third.” He sobs in his brother’s chest. “Are we bad people?”

“No, little brother,” placates the prodigy. “I just wish you wouldn’t have to hear that.”

“We have to tell Lord third!” Screams Sasuke just in case Itachi hadn’t thought about it already.

“I already did that, Sasuke.” Sighs Itachi with resignation. “And Lord Hokage has been trying to find peace between the Uchiha elders and the village, to no avail. It seems that as long our elders are in power, we won’t come to an agreement.”

“Then...” Stresses Sasuke, “Brother and cousin Shisui should run the clan.” This is enough for Itachi to stare at him.

“And what about father and mother?” Asks the Uchiha heir softly.

“They’re doing something really bad, Nii-san.” He says seriously, in that childish manner of speaking he’s been forcing himself to adapt to. “We can’t let them, even if it makes them sad, even if Lord third has to punish them after.”

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In the following months the crimes of the Uchiha elders alongside his parents and some extremists are revealed to a close number of people. The elders and his parents are put on trial and disposed as leaders of the clan.

In their place, a group of young powerful Shinobi with Itachi as the youngest clan head in history are taking their place. But the Hokage is merciful with them, only banishing them into the outskirts of the Uchiha district, being carefully observed by Hyuuga Anbu.

At the same time, Shisui, coming out of a horrifying fight with Danzo, exposes the man and his followers as sadistic treacherous Shinobi. Training young kids into a personal army, experimenting with dead Uchiha. Killing young, promising ninja just for the sake of emotional torture.

Sarutobi-sama, intransigent as he may be, can’t and won’t allow child abuse in any form, the deaths of so many children forever carved in his mind and his heart as a personal penance. He orders Danzo’s execution on the spot.

Sasuke celebrates his sixth birthday without his parents, but with his big brother by his side as a better clan head than his father could ever be.

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Sasuke finds Naruto on a park a few weeks after his birthday. He wasn’t planning on it but he figures this is a good enough moment as any other to start a better friendship with his surrogate brother.

“Hi.” He says over the blond boy who is kneeling alone in the sandbox, looking dejected and broken. “My name is Sasuke. Who are you?”

At first the boy doesn’t realise he’s being talked to, he moves his head but doesn’t look at him until Sasuke stomps his foot on the sand to get back his attention. “I’m sorry” apologies Naruto. “I can go if...”

“I asked for your name.” Insists Sasuke.

“Naruto Uzumaki,” answers his future friend surprised.

“Well Naruto, do you want to play with me?”

Naruto screams an excited yes with one of those sunny smiles that never failed to make girls blush in his timeline, Sasuke smirks as he sits alongside the blond and plays with him until Itachi himself comes from a consul reunion to bring him home.

“Hi, Nii-san,” smiles Sasuke, expecting and faking annoyance at his brother poking him in the forehead. “I made a friend today can he come for dinner and stay the night?”

Itachi would deny his request in a heartbeat if he wasn’t aware of Naruto’s story. But he does and so, he grants him his wish that day and the days to follow. Effectively becoming a surrogate three man family unit for Naruto.

Sasuke still wants to find Sakura, maybe even partake in his own version of puppy-love with her. But the Uchiha’s second son can’t be seen marauding civilian territory. Tentative peace between the Uchiha and the village put into action or not.

So to his utter disappointment they don’t meet each other until they both enter the academy.

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Part of Sasuke doesn’t want to be Sakura’s knight in shining armour. Because he genuinely believes that is Ino’s job and because he knows Sakura deserves her independence.

But he hates seeing her cry, hates seeing mean girls hurting her and humiliating her as if the act of belittling her were a sport they were particularly good at playing. Sasuke feels the physical need to run over there were the little girl is kneeling on the floor, hiding her pretty face with her long bangs and tiny hands as she cries her green eyes out while she’s being insulted and kicked by her classmates.

In the end Ino ends up beating him to the punch. The Yamanaka heiress does a beautiful show off being Sakura’s warrior princess, too.

She jumps on the scene with her chest held high, screaming at the girls to stop and to scram, the bullies glare at Ino with defiance and the flower girl returns the challenge with the same or even stronger determination.

She then takes care of Sakura, cleans her dirt covered face and puts a cute ribbon on her head to clear her face.

“There, you look cuter this way.” Compliments Ino holding a hand-mirror in front of their faces.

“But... But my fo-forehead,” stutters Sakura, in a display of shyness Sasuke has never seen before. He’s always known Sakura as an energetic, strong and confident girl, this shy version of her is new and not something he knows how to handle.

“The more you try to hide it, the more attention you bring to it!” Exclaims the blonde. “Besides it’s not so bad, you just have to show off a pretty face like that. I like the style, anyway.”

Sakura blushes and looks at Ino as if she’s the sun. Sasuke decides to let them have their moment.

He has all the time in the world, anyway.

Sasuke resolves to wait until they get in team seven together to become closer to Sakura. He tries to start a conversation with her a handful of times, but her shyness always unsettles him.

He still acts kinder to her than anyone else when he can. Smiling at her when she manages to sit by his side, accepting her hand-made bento when she wills herself to give it to him, he even trains shuriken-jutsu with her two or three times when Iruka-sensei instructs them to pair off.

Sakura doesn’t notice, still too shy and with a still too low self esteem. But Naruto surely does. Sasuke knows Naruto still likes Sakura, he’s attracted to her odd hair and her sunny smiles just as much as every little boy who ever fell for her in his timeline was, and even if the younger Uchiha is aware that someday in the future they will develop a sibling bond, his heart still constricts when Naruto asks him:

“Do you like anyone?” His eyes staring at the ground, while unconsciously scratching his head.

“Yes,” he answers with the honesty Naruto deserves from him. “I like Sakura.”

“Wh-What?!” Exclaims the Kyubi. “You can’t like Sakura-chan!”

“Why?” Maybe it’s healthier for them to exteriorise their feelings about it. He knows one or two things about bottling up emotions.

“Because I like Sakura-chan!” Confesses the boy as if it was the easiest thing in the world to say.

“Well, I like her, too. So if you want to win her over you’ll have to confront me, idiot.” He challenges his best friend with an air of superiority.

“You’ll see!” Screams Naruto, pointing directly at his face “I’ll become Hokage and I’ll marry Sakura-chan!”

And so, their rivalry is born.

Sasuke knows that someday in the future, Naruto will notice the girl that has been chasing him around for longer than anyone.

He also has the conviction to never give up on Sakura’s love, not ever again.

But for the time being, their relationship could do with some girl related rivalry.

Sequel

#sasusaku #sasusaku fic #Sasuke Uchiha #Sakura Haruno #naruto fanfiction #Sasusaku month 2019 #Ssm19 #time travel fic #fanfic #fanfiction

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yazzydream · 6 years ago

Note

yazzy, i trust your taste so much now, since i found both russian roulette and heae the silence by your fanarts, so please rec' fanfiction

Oh maaaan. That’s so flattering. Lol.

Since you haven’t specified for which fandom, I’ll just post my very favorites in general:

As you’ve mentioned we’ve got

Hear the Silence by EmptySurface - [Naruto, SI OC]

Russian Roulette by Vixen_Tail - [KHR, SI OC]

(For those who don’t know them.)

Harry Potter

Prince of the Dark Kingdom by Mizuni-sama - [AU] This one is… my all time favorite fic ever. It’s unfortunately not been updated since 2014 ;_; But still has 147 chapters. This is a ‘Voldemort won’ story where Harry stumbles back into the British Wizarding World and somehow Voldemort becomes his mentor. NOT Dark!Harry. That’s what’s so wonderful. You can see how the circumstances and changes in history led to everyone becoming the way they did while still being true to themselves.

Timely Errors by Worfe - [Harry Potter] A short sweet Harry-travels-to-the-Marauders-time fic. This actually has my favorite version of Harry.

Across the Universe by mira mirth - [Oneshot, time travel] This is… totally tropetastic and great. lmao. Like, you’ve got cynical Harry dimension traveling to a world where their Harry died that fateful Halloween night and James and Lily survived. The BWL is Neville. But it’s all from James’ pov who is simultaneously happy to have his first son back but is incredibly aware that Harry’s not what they expected to be.

Full circle by tetsurashian - [HUMOR, Harry/Voldemort] An absolute blast. This fic is so so fun. Harry and Voldemort/Tom have been in a neverending cycle of rebirth until they ended up in what seems to be their original timeline. There are all these amazing omake snapshots of their previous lives at the end of some chapters which are seriously amazing. My favorite so far is the life where they’re both girls who end up ruling their strict all girls-boarding school with an iron fist. lmao.

Ibex by AgeOfAlejandro - I will never get over how relieved I am I stumbled upon this fic again on AO3 after I thought I’d lost it forever years ago during one of FF.net’s purges. Uhh… how to explain this one. It’s Dark Lord Potter. The best version of dark!Harry imo. He’s manipulative and ruthless, but he still loves. All those things that make him care about people is still there. It’s just taken a backseat to what he feels is necessary. Last updated in 2012, so I’m not sure the author will come back to it, but it’s worth reading all the same.

Icarus by budchick - [Oneshot, Harry/Tom Riddle] It’s been a while since I read this. But Harry ends up in a world where Tom Riddle is raised by Tom Riddle Senior. It’s… well. He’s trying? But having a witch-boy who does some really scary shit and keeps traumatizing the servants is very stressful. Lol.

Naruto

Ghost by cywscross - [time travel] I am a trope whore. loool. So. We’ve got adult Naruto (aka Yuurei) time traveling to when his younger self was still with the original Team 7 to start off. And, I gotta say I love it when the older self mentors the younger version of themselves trope. This is all from younger Naruto’s pov.

The Guardian Crow by dianamoth - [SI OC] SI is reincarnated as a summons. It’s such a good idea that makes way for a less complicated life when compared to other SIs honestly. So It’s good to relax with.

With Nothing On My Tongue by sunshineinwriting - [team 7-centric] Naruto’s use of the kage bunshin changes a lot of things in how he absorbs information and matures. It sends a ripple down to everyone. Badass little child soldiers everywhere.

Claws Amidst the Cracks by Undead Artist - [OC-centric] Not quite self-insert, but OC-centric. And INCREDIBLY BRUTAL. Definitely heed the warnings. It’s super intense and fucked up, and made me cry so many times. OC wakes up as Sasuke in the aftermath of the massacre. OC, who is from our world, did not have a great life either. Anyway, it’s brilliantly written and I love it, but I know some people just cannot with how graphic it can get.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Chroma Diamonds by Brick - [KHR, R27, 2772, R2772, AU] Slow burn, best burn. We’re nowhere near the romance bits, and it’s fantastic. The set up is: No one came to train this universe’s Tsuna (and yes, other dimensions existing is a plot point) and he grows up kind of twisted with his Flame sealed. Tsuna’s not… a bad person per se. But without anyone there to kick his ass into gear, he makes decisions that would probably freak out canon!Tsuna. Lots of Flame lore and culture. Namimori is a mafia retirement town. Ayye.

Colorire by The_Plot_Bunny_Whisperer - Just a feel-good SkyArcobaleno!Tsuna fic, good to relax with.

Welkin by Shivani - Another SkyArcobaleno!Tsuna fic. This one’s… huh, actually the only bashing fic on this list actually. Lol.

Sidelines by esama - In one of those other universes that taken over by Byakuran, this Tsuna is the only one who remembers it when things are returned to “normal” by canon!Yuni.

For the Love of the Game by metisket - [Yamamoto-centric, character study] This snippet covers it pretty well: “It strikes him as weird that he’s had to struggle not to kill people, that it’s been such a challenge. He’s pretty sure that for most people, not being a murderer is way easier than being one.“

Undertale

Metamorphose by tuesday and The Great Boondoggle by Masu_Trout - [Oneshots] These are written by two separate authors but they follow similar themes and characterizations of Frisk which I adore. Which is that Frisk isn’t some sweet baby angel. All those possible choices that the player can make in Undertale? Yea, that’s part of their history. Frisk made those choices to kill or be killed, to commit genocide, or be a pacifist. Chara isn’t a separate entity that exists as a convenient scapegoat who possessed them. All those awful and wonderful things are part of their personality. It’s great. That said, neither of these fics are heavy/angsty.

Orot by MiniNephthys - [Oneshot] Post-neutral ending. Frisk returns to the Underground.

Crossovers

The Warrior & The Wolf by worldtravellingfly - [HP x Naruto Crossover, Oneshot, Fem!Harry, Harry/Kakashi] Kakashi reincarnated as Sirius’ son.

Somewhere Far from Victory by ewfte - [Naruto x BnHA Crossover] Kakashi is reincarnated as Todoroki Shouto. I’m not really into bnha, so I usually have the wiki open to me as I’m reading. Lol. But it’s so entertaining. It’s fascinating (and sad) seeing what Kakashi makes of the world where he isn’t required to kill for his village from age 6, but still has to deal with… you know, Endeavor.

Whispers in Corners by esama - [HP x Sherlock, Harry/Mycroft] Harry makes a living as a “psychic” calling up the spirits of the dead. Mycroft hires him to tie up some loose ends, and they end up building a relationship.

Impetus by Crunchysunrises - [BtVS x Hunger Games] Buffy ends up in District 12. Which implies there’s more to life outside the Districts which is a no go for the Capital. So barely even understanding each other’s language, Buffy is “chosen” for the Hunger Games. It’s amazing. Because Buffy’s this sweet delicate looking valley girl who likes makeup and looking good, but she can still kick the ass out of anyone in the Districts, and they don’t see it coming.

Others

Apples Equals Cyanide Equals Light by Silver Pard - [Death Note] A highly entertaining introspective by Ryuk about Light. Who really really was very different from other humans.

Brightly Burning by Aishuu - [Hikaru no Go] For want of nail. Basically, what if Hikaru hadn’t joined the Go world until after Sai disappeared? Hikaru is fucking terrifyingly strong and depressed, is what. This last updated in 2009… so probably discontinued. Lol.

No One Left To Blame by Wix - [Oneshot, Team Iron Man, Not Team-Cap Friendly] A one-shot that pretty neatly encapsulates what I think Team Cap deserved post-Civil War.

A Disturbance Beside Him by ghuune - [Daria, Daria/Trent, Smut] It’s sexy definitely, but it’s their characterization during and about sex with each other that really really sells it.

THIS ENDED UP SO MUCH LONGER THAN I EXPECTED. I guess I had a lot more on my rec list than I thought. Or rather, when it comes to my favorite fics I always have to say something about it, don’t I? Whoops.

#fanfiction #replies #rikkikikki #replies 2019 #please excuse any typos...

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