#i'm even writing an original series based on it like this shit is one of my biggest projects. this shit is FOtPoD level

[pa-pa-plasma]

quite frankly i am shocked & disappointed with the Phandom for the lack a werewolf AUs. where is your fucking awoo

[juletheghoul]

father figure

a/n: Clint got me big time, and originally I wanted to write one hot scene but I am who I am and now I have 21 pages written lol. Thanks to @foli-vora & @just-here-for-the-moment for screaming at me about this and for letting me scream at them about it too, hopefully you enjoy the first chapter. I'm still on a little break from Tumblr but with the movie out I really wanted to share. xoxo

Warnings; 18+ no minors, vague but big-legal age gap, piv sex, dirty talk, shitty dad (neglect), absent mother, allusions to illegal activity, daddy kink, secret relationship, period piece - takes place in 1987, Clint being a big guard dog for you, let me know if I missed any!

Pairing: Clint Flood x F!Reader

Ko-fi link 🥲💕

word count: 5.3k

reblogs are appreciated

Masterlist series Masterlist

-

It’s so cold, the breath from your lungs steams a little. With an angry sigh, and the comforter from your bed wrapped tightly around your shoulders you descend the dark steps into the living room. It’s late, past midnight but the neighbourhood is still buzzing with life. 

The dial on the thermostat still shows what the temperature should be set to and then what the actual temperature is and they don’t align, that can only mean the heating bill hasn't been paid again. Your teeth clench, anger swirls like a sudden squall, a heavy sigh pushed roughly through your lips.

The kitchen door opens and the object of your ire walks in, speaking loudly to someone and the annoyance only climbs. On any regular day you’d be asleep by this time, not that he’d care, based on his fucking volume.

Your mouth is open, the scathing words already in the chamber when the bulk of him blocks the kitchen light and the words die in your throat; Clint, neighbourhood thug and overall goon. He follows your dad in, his leather jacket covered frame too big for the dingy little kitchen, his big boots squeaking against the linoleum. 

“Fuck, it’s cold in here—“ you dad frowns, pulling two glasses from the cupboard, “Clint, can I get you a drink?” 

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He shifts on his feet, the bulk of him moves slowly towards the too-small kitchen table, “Thanks.”

“You didn’t pay the heating bill.” The shock of Clint in your house doesn’t stop you from giving your dad a hard stare, his wide-eyed, mooncalf expression doesn’t inspire shame or regret at letting him know. He frowns after a few seconds, an angry huff leaving his lips before laughing, it annoys you that he meets Clint’s eyes before answering you. 

“Yeah yeah, I sent it in, must be another mail fuck-up, you know how it is.” He shakes his head but the pulse in your ear only quickens with anger. 

“When?” With more force than is necessary, you pull the blanket tighter, “When did you mail it in?” The clench in his jaw only compounds your suspicion.

“You didn’t send in shit, and now you’re here in the middle of the night with—“ your eyes find Clint, and what meets you isn’t what you expect. The perpetual scowl you’ve come to expect to see on his face, whether he was walking down the street, idling in his car at a stoplight, or even sitting in the diner having coffee is gone. What’s there is a piercing gaze, a knowing expression, pride? 

“You’re here, getting mixed up in God knows what instead of getting a fucking job—“

“I am getting a job. A good one, one that’s going to change our—“ Clint clears his throat, and the words die, his expression shifts from angry determination to a pleasant, paternal—yeah fucking right—blankness. 

“Go to bed, I’ll make a few calls tomorrow and get the heating turned back on.” 

The disgust is hard to hide, so you don’t even try. They both call out a soft goodnight when you turn and walk back up the stairs. You don’t respond.

-

The bell jingles, but your eyes stay on the pile of returned tapes in the bin under the window. The weekend crowd would be in soon, just like every other Friday, all of them flooding towards the new releases section to pick their movies for the weekend. The box is heavy, but you lug it over anyway.

“Let me help you with that—“ his voice cuts through the mental list flickering through your mind, startling you enough that you practically jump. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He's taller than you remember, greyer, hotter. 

“You didn’t,” you lie, “just caught me off guard.” The step back is involuntary. 

“Where did you need it?” He holds the heavy box without trouble, it barely seems to register, a testament to at least one of the rumours you’ve heard about him, that everyone has heard about him—his strength. Seemingly just to compound the thought, he shifts it to get a better grip, and for a moment holds it with one hand. 

“Yeah uh, just there is fine. Thanks.”

He gives you a tight smile after putting down the box, highlighting the deep scar that begins from the top of one eyebrow and runs down his nose, ending just under the other eye. It’s jarring enough to see it healed. Unwanted images of what it must have looked like fresh, of having a bloody slash across his face fills your mind's eye. It sends a chill up your spine. 

Clint's smile evaporates under your gaze, the usual scowl takes over while a curious guilt burns within you.

“Thank you.” You repeat yourself, giving him a smile of your own. A tiny, silent apology. He nods.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“Your dad asked me to meet him, I forgot you work here.”

“Forgot? I didn’t know you knew it in the first place.” You mumble it mostly to yourself as you begin the process of filling the shelves with the returned tapes. 

“I’ve seen you here before.” He leans against a bare space on the wall, the leather in his jacket creaking as he crosses his arms. You’re not sure what to do with that information, and the easy assumption is that he’d been in the store before, or that he’d walked by enough times, seen you during a shift enough times to recognize you as the video store girl. You accept this assumption.

“Been here a few years.”

“I know—“

“Look, whatever bullshit my dad is trying to get involved in, can you please just tell him to stop?” The words bubble up, spilling out as you slide tape after tape behind the corresponding case. He frowns, you continue.

“He doesn’t need to be getting himself mixed up in things he shouldn’t be getting mixed up in.” His expression is cold when your eyes lock, the reminder of who he is, of his reputation makes your stomach drop.

“It’s not my business, it’s not anything I want to know, but it shouldn’t be his business either.”

“Your dads a big boy sweetheart, not up to me to tell him what to do.” 

The bell chimes over the door, ripping your attention away from the endearment. Your father walks in. Something curdles in your gut that he smiles at the sight of Clint, smiles in a way that spells trouble.

“You’re late.” Clint’s tone is icy, the warmth that curled around the syllables he’d directed at you has frozen over into something unwelcoming. It served to highlight a warmth you hadn’t noticed. That curdled thing shifts to a warmth of your own to see the smile die on your fathers face, to see him chastised. Shame eclipses it however, you focus on your task and leave them to their business.

Your father leaves without a word once their meeting is done, Clint doesn’t say anything either, but his eyes find yours, they linger longer than necessary before he walks out of the store. Thoughts of him linger, of his strength, of his voice, of the shape of the word sweetheart in his mouth until the rush comes and you forget all about him.

-

It’s not until a week later that you see him again, another unofficial meeting at the video store. They stand in the x-rated section, the two of them speaking in hushed tones while half-heartedly pretending to look at the cheap pornos lined up on the shelf. The curtains for the section aren't completely closed off, giving you a clear view of them from where you stand at the aisle just outside of it, and you’ve stacked those shelves enough times to know exactly what Clint is looking at. Something inside jumps at the thought of knowing which tape caught his attention, however superficially. Barely legal babysitters, a girl that Bobby, your shithead coworker has taunted you with by saying she looked an awful lot like you.

Your brow creases when you see him idly pick up the case, watch him study the image of the bubbly girl smiling cheekily. He puts it down, and then looks back at you. Your stomach drops, but you don’t look away. Heat floods the whole of you, a cold drop of sweat following the line of your spine. They leave without a word, but the look in his eye stays with you.

-

The heat turns on a week after that, blessed warmth blows steadily through the vent in your room, chasing away the chill that’s haunted the whole of your house. Clint walks in with your father that night, a tight smile greeting you in the kitchen. 

“Shit, I didn’t know you were home tonight.” Your dad frowns, take-out bags in his hands and something burns clean through. Anger, annoyance, embarrassment when Clint frowns in understanding. 

“I never work on Thursdays.” 

“Fuck. Okay well—“

“You serve yourself a full plate, and we’ll make do with the rest.” Clint speaks over your dad, that same tone you’ve heard a few times, the one that leaves no room for argument fills the tiny kitchen but you protest anyway.

“It’s fine. I can just go out and get myself something.” It should make you happy that he wants you to have some, but all you can focus on is the fact that it’s him that offers it and not your dad.

“Get yourself a plate, and fill it. Come on.” Your feet bring you to him, your hands reach for the cupboard and obey while your dad says nothing. 

“That’s it sweetheart, go on, grab as much as you like.” He opens the containers and urges you, his tone softening up into something warm, something almost nurturing. You smile up at him, taking a little bit of the sticky sweet orange chicken, you huff out a laugh when he tuts at how little you take. 

“That’s not enough. Don’t be shy, there you go.” He slides a few more pieces onto your plate before opening up another container.

“You want fried rice? Or just the steamed one?” His hands are scarred, his knuckles littered with the tiny silver lines of stitched over skin. His fingers are deft when they open the containers, for a second you imagine how they’d look opening up the button of your jeans, or the tiny ones on your favourite cardigan. 

“Veggies too, here have some broccoli.” He tips another container, piling the shiny, bright green vegetables onto your plate while you reign your thoughts back in.

“That’s more than enough, I won’t eat all of this.” He waves you away.

“Eat.” He urges, and with a shy, tight lipped smile and less than wholesome thoughts, you sit at the table and eat. 

Your dad serves himself after Clint, silently. His plate has perhaps half the food that yours does. 

“I won’t eat this all, you—“

“No, that’s yours. He should’ve considered his daughter before coming home without enough food. Next time he will.” Clint eats, impervious to the sulk on your dads face. 

The strangeness of it all isn’t lost on you, to have someone who is for all intents and purposes a criminal, going to bat for you against your own father. If this had happened a few years ago, if you’d been younger, more naive, you might have felt bad for your dad, you might have stuck up for him and defended his actions, but you aren’t that person. The shut off heat comes to mind, the unpaid bills over the years, the endless schemes to make a quick buck, the general neglect moves your fork across your plate. 

Clint catches your eye and winks, a cheeky thing that fills your body with heat, shoos away the very idea of neglect. 

Undeterred, your dad continues a previous conversation you tune out. Your eyes are fixed on the man across from you, on the breadth of his shoulders and the flex in the muscles of his jaw and neck as he chews through his bites of food. 

When they leave, the thought of him lingers. The sound of his voice fills your ears when you tuck yourself in, the heat of his form beside you fills your bed like a ghost, until you fall asleep and dream of that wink. 

-

It doesn’t register at first, but after the take-out fiasco, the meetings at your house tend to take place on Thursdays. They fill out the kitchen, talking about things you have no reference for, coded language regarding God knows what while you make yourself dinner, or tidy up, while you fold laundry on the couch. Little things pop up too, the fridge is full of food, a rare occurrence and part of you suspects that Clint is responsible. How novel, that the neighbourhood goon would push your father into providing. 

It shifts eventually, from an influence on your father, to him providing directly. It starts with a coffee, a warm, sweet one from the diner down the street given to you without a word before another video store meeting. Fresh donuts on another night, breakfast before a shift on another morning and although completely confusing, it feels a bit like a feral cat bringing dead mice to your door. An offering, a courtship? You shake your head, eat the food, drink the coffee, and enjoy the donuts. 

-

Rain pours, heavy and relentless as you finish up vacuuming the musty old carpet of the store. A loud sigh leaves your mouth, already shivering in anticipation of the short walk home in what is quickly turning into a fucking monsoon. A car pulls up in front of the store, idling just outside the door and you recognize it as Clints. 

“Get in!” He shouts from the open window when you open the door, pressing yourself as close as you can to lock it without getting drenched.

With a frown you stare at him, noting the lack of your father. 

“Come on, get in sweetheart, I’ll drive you home!” He reaches over, unlocking the door and you jump in as fast as you can. You don’t escape the water, despite it only being a few seconds your jacket is soaked, water droplets run down the back of your neck. He turns the heat up full blast and you’re more grateful that you know what to do with. 

“Thanks, what are you doing here?” You rub your hands together in front of the vent, soaking up the warmth. 

“I didn’t want you walking home in this.” His tone is simple, matter of fact. He drives slowly, the windshield wipers are working as hard as they can but the visibility is still trash. 

“Why?” 

“It’s pouring, you shouldn’t have to walk home in this, you shouldn’t have to walk home at all.”

“And why shouldn’t I–”

“Because.” The word comes out in a huff, almost annoyed–no, not annoyed, passionate, “If it were up to me you wouldn’t even need to work.”

Your mouth clamps shut, your mind races. Thoughts swirl as he turns slowly down your street. Heat that has nothing to do with the air blowing through the vents claws at your chest, curls in your gut and trickles to the place between your legs. 

He parks outside your house, dark and lifeless, coming up out of the concrete like a rotten tooth. 

“Why are you saying that?” The car rumbles, the rain pelts against everything. His eyes are hungry when they meet yours and the air in the car, in your lungs is gone. 

“Because you deserve to be spoiled. You deserve to be taken care of and loved–” the words are a tide, a great big wave on the horizon of a barren desert. 

“You definitely shouldn’t have to worry about bills or whether there will be heat in your house, you shouldn’t be taking care of your dad, he should be taking care of you.” A crack spreads through the veneer of the fantasy and clarity comes through. Where you thought he was confessing his feelings for you, it was actually a paternal worry. 

Embarrassment burns so much hotter than desire.

“I’m fine–”

“I know, I know you’re fine but I don’t want you to just be fine. I want you to be happy, I want you to smile.” He frowns, his big hand engulfing yours and it only makes you feel worse, until he pulls you in and presses his mouth to yours. He swallows the gasp, along with an unintentional whimper. His kiss is softer than you'd ever expected, a delicate, plush press of his lips to yours until your arms drift up to slip along his neck. He feeds you a sound of his own, a low, rumbling thing as he deepens the kiss. He tilts his head and slips his tongue past your slightly open mouth, slides along yours, licks deep until you moan.

When he pulls away the world is on its ass, your heart races and your pulse pounds both in your ears and in your cunt. 

-

His jacket thwacks onto the ground of your tiny bedroom. It’s accompanied by your soaked jacket, the discarded items surrounded by tiny pools of rainwater but you couldn’t care any less. His hands squeeze at the meat of your hips, they slide around to the small of your back, press you close to feel the heavy weight of his cock against your hip as he presses you down onto your tiny bed. 

The lust, the want is so intense it drips onto your inner thighs. It clouds any and all thoughts that aren’t about his tongue licking a hot stripe up your neck, or the look on his face when he kneels between your legs, when he sees the glossy lips of your sex, the wet spread of you begging for any part of him. 

His cock barely bobs, it lands like a brand against your cunt when he settles in the cradle of your hips, bracketed by your thighs. His lips engulf a nipple, his tongue swirls mercilessly around the sensitive peak and liquid fire burns clean through you. With a steady suck and a life-altering flick of that tongue he rocks his hips. His cock spreads your seam wide, coating himself in your arousal, the fat tip of it bumping your clit with every push and pull. 

There isn’t enough air, there isn’t enough room in your lungs. 

“So fucking wet for me huh baby?” He nudges at your nipple with his nose, his tongue licking at it again and again before he moves to the other breast. He sounds almost pained as he worships your chest, breathing hard through his nose as you stare in horny silence.

It’s so hard to focus on anything but the all-consuming heat of his mouth on your nipple, or the heavy weight of his cock against your mound but you try to take in the details of him. The scars on his golden skin, the freckles on his shoulders, the size of him on top of you, so broad he blocks the light when he moves up towards your mouth. He’s an eclipse, a dark, welcome shadow across your sky, across your life. Until him, you hadn’t realized how fucking bright everything had been, how blinding, how exposed.

“Gonna take care of you.” He kisses a path up to your neck, leaving both nipples wet and puffy. “Gonna fuck you how you deserved to be fucked, you want that?” He reaches down, pressing himself harder against your clit. 

An inhuman sound comes from somewhere in your throat, the part of your brain that forms words has left the building. 

He laughs, a cocky, self-assured thing. 

“Come on, pretty baby, tell me. You want my dick don’t you? Because I really wanna give it to you, but I gotta hear it. You gonna be my good girl and tell me?” The tip of his dick slides deliciously over your clit and it’s so good you might come just from the stimulation, it’s already building at the base of your spine, spreading through your hips like a warm bath. 

“Oh yeah, she wants me so fucking bad huh? Look at her, all wet, trying to pull me in, greedy little thing.” He moans almost to himself, looking down to watch himself tease you halfway to madness, 

“Please Daddy–” It slips out, unbidden, unmistakable and panic hits like a bucket of cold water. 

His eyes shoot up, silently pinning you to your bed and for a split second, you can almost pinpoint every single drop that hits your window. 

“I–I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I–” You scramble for a second, trying and failing to get out from underneath him. You don’t make it far, his grip tightens, his eyes dilate, a grin spreads across his handsome face. 

“Oh baby, that’s what you need huh? Just a daddy to take care of you. A real one.” His lips drift across your skin as the rain pelts harder, the soft glow of your lamp casts his face in shadows at this angle, the scar on his face looks more pronounced, his normally slicked back hair falls in soft tendrils. Something swells, an emotion you can’t really parse, it lodges itself in the back of your throat. 

“Let me take care of you, baby.” His kiss is gentle, his hands too, hitching your legs high on his hips. You’re wet enough that he slides right in, but the size of him bottoming out inside you makes you gasp out a surprised moan. 

“Holy fuck–” You swallow thickly, breathing deep despite feeling like his dick is in your lungs.

He lets out a deep sigh, licking his lips before he looks down to see himself stretching you open on his length. 

“That’s so fucking pretty, Daddy’s in there nice and deep.” His words send a shock of pleasure through your body, like a lightning strike pulling more and more liquid arousal to seep out around him. He sees it, and smiles big. 

“Oh you like that, you just wanna be my baby don’t you?” 

You want to answer, you want to use your words and pull him apart, make his heart race the way yours does but he pulls his hips back and thrusts in deep and every word falls out of your head, leaks out around his cock, comes out as a breathy pant. 

Your inner thighs burn, sweat beads on your skin and his, the slick rhythmic noise between your legs fills the space between you along with your heavy breaths. Rain pelts outside, lightning flashes, shining a spotlight on the vulgar tableau like a spotlight, like a camera flash for an image you never want to forget. 

He’s so fucking beautiful, so warm against you, so fucking hard inside you. His eyes take in the no doubt cock-dumb expression on your face and there is only desire in his gaze. The rest of the world falls away under the weight of it. One big palm skates up, squeezing at the weight of your breast, his thumb brushes against the sensitive peak before sliding up and pressing gently against the base of your throat. There is no threat, only the comforting feel of him holding you down, the reassuring feel of just how much of your skin his hand can touch at once. It sends a hot lick of desire up your spine. 

“Harder–” You pull him closer, canting your hips up to meet his thrusts, wrapping your legs tighter around his waist, the blunt ends of your nails digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders and he pulls his lip into his mouth at the sound of your voice. 

There is no preamble, no teasing, in a moment he’s up and kneeling between your legs. Those big hands are holding onto your hips tight enough to bruise, thrusting, and pulling you towards him at the same time. Your bed rocks, your breasts bounce, and your brain runs celebratory laps around itself on just how lucky you are to have found this man. 

His face is a frown of concentration, mouth open, dark eyes fixed on the way you leak around him, on the way your hands scramble for purchase on anything they can reach. He grunts, moving one thigh up so your calf rests against his shoulder and the other reaches down to swirl mind-blanking circles at your clit. 

“Oh god–” Your stomach tenses at the threat of pleasure looming, heat spreads and he doesn’t alter his movements, he doesn’t speed up. 

“That’s it baby, come on, you can do it.” He nods at you, his eyes guiding you into the abyss, his thumb in place and it’s almost there, you can taste it. 

“Come on, pretty baby–” He leans forward a little while keeping his rhythm, lining himself up and then he lets a glob of spit fall slowly over the target of his thumb and the thought, the act, the feel of that extra hot slip sends you over the edge. 

Your voice breaks with it. Your body clenches tight as a bowstring, and he only grips tighter, fucks you harder, swirls his wet thumb faster. Your pulse pounds in your ears as you ride out the high, the vulgar sounds between your legs only get louder, more obscene until he pulls out, and tugs at himself in tight, fast movements. The sight of him over you, bathed in shadows and silhouetted by the streetlamp outside, his arm flexing, muscles shining with exertion while he strokes himself above you is enough to reignite that desire in your belly. 

It’s only compounded when he lets out his own unadulterated moans, when he leans forward again and palms your breast, squeezing as he paints you in himself. 

He’s the most relaxed you’ve ever seen him after he comes. That constant tension you’ve come to recognize in his shoulders is gone, the scowl he wears in the video store is replaced with a serene, soft expression as he wipes his cooling come away from your skin after making his way naked and unbothered to your bathroom next door. A shyness creeps in along with the clarity of what you’ve done. Any stress you’ve leached away from him, seeps into your body the longer you lay there, naked and hyper aware of the shift in who he is to you. 

“You okay? I didn’t hurt you did I?” He tosses the damp washcloth into your laundry basket, but lingers beside you, sitting at the edge while you lay there, naked, damp and fidgeting. 

“No, no, not at all.” You take a deep breath, try to smile but he frowns, his warm hand settles softly, lightly on your belly. You can see the way he draws up, shoulders rising with the growing tension. 

“Are you upset that this happened?” There’s something slithering through the tone, through the undercurrent of his question and you can see it clear as day, doubt that you wanted this, doubt that you wanted him. 

“No! No, this was, it was great, really.” Your smile is real, and his eyes are intense, trying to decipher your words and your body language. You rise, shoving down that self-conscious chatter about your body, about the fact that he can see everything. 

“I–Clint, it was really good…I’m just, I’m nervous about what happens now.” Your hand holds his arm, breathing through and ignoring the mean little voice that focuses on his hand on your belly. 

“What do you mean?” His thumb rubs at your skin, frown in place.

“Well, what is this?” You gesture to the two of you, “not to be that girl, but what are we? You’re working with my dad, are we dating? Was this just a one night thing? Are we going to pretend nothing happened–?” Questions spill out, word vomit in his lap like a sick cat. 

“Okay, okay–” His hands land on your arms, sliding up to cup your cheeks and the tension leaves him again, a smile replaces the frown and you mirror the expression back, embarrassed. 

“I am happy with whatever you want. I would prefer this wasn’t a one-time-thing, at this point I don’t even think my dick would get hard for anyone but you, sweetheart.” He pulls you forward softly, but firmly to straddle him. 

“As for your dad,” He lets out an annoyed sigh against your shoulder, pressing a soft kiss there before shaking his head.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not sure he has a future in what I do.” He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t give you any details and you don’t ask. Your arms wrap around his neck, your fingers thread through the damp hair at the base of his skull. 

“So what happens now?” he pulls you closer, his strong arms make you swoon but you focus. 

“I’d like to keep seeing you. I’d like to take you out on a real date, show you off.” 

“Really?” Your teeth dig into the plump of your lower lip, heat spreads through every inch of you, pooling in the parts of you that are pressed up against the parts of him. 

“Yeah baby, of course, if you’d let me.” His smile is so soft, so sincere it bolsters you enough to pull you forward, his mouth begs for yours and you have no choice but to obey. It’s soft and sweet, and when you pull away your face is warm with the feelings swirling within. 

“I want that too, but–”

“What is it?” His hands stroke your back, soothing, strong, reassuring.

“Can we just keep it to ourselves for a little bit? I don’t want to deal with the drama of my dad. Not just yet.”

“Whatever you want, baby.” 

-

Your dad shoves himself into the kitchen an hour later, shaking himself off like a wet dog. Clint sits at your table, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands and the smile, the pleasant conversation between you is gone and it’s like he’s another person. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Your dad speaks to Clint, ignoring you completely, it doesn't phase you. The clench in Clint's jaw though, that makes you smile to yourself. 

“Why? I told you I would come find you.” He frowns, rising and putting his cup into the sink. 

“This isn’t going to work if you aren’t going to listen to me.” He leans against the counter, pointedly staring your father down. Your father crumbles. 

You rise, knowing whatever they have to speak about is none of your business. 

“Thank you for the coffee, sweetheart.” He says it as you walk away, tone cold but you smile anyway. His smell lingers in your room, in your sheets, wraps itself around you as you fall asleep. 

-

Your heart leaps, a staccato, tachycardic thing that would worry you if weren't for the recognizable shape of him entering the video store. He smiles a private smile, hands you another sweet coffee he knows you like from the diner. His fingers linger on yours when you take it from him. He pulls a warm pastry from one of the big pockets in his jacket, and gives it to you with a wink. Your face warms and suddenly, keeping this whole thing a secret seems so stupid. Every molecule of you wants nothing more than to jump over the counter and climb him like a tree, wanting to feel those strong arms wrapped around you. 

Your dad walks in, and the urge dies. The thought of his expression if he saw that is enough to curdle milk. 

“You busy on Thursday?” Clint asks low, uncaring and you shake your head no. “Don’t make plans.” He winks again, and then turns, and leaves you with the sweet taste of coffee in your mouth, wishing it was his tongue instead.

-

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[reignpage]

Modern au!FAQ

What is the EdenU au?

It is a modern alternative universe set in my fictional university called Eden University established in my fictional city, Eden City. The JJK men all play a part and are connected one way or another. They each have individual love stories playing out with girls who are part 'reader' part original characters. The stories are told both through smaus, fics and questions

If I'm starting out, where should I begin?

I recommend reading based on parts, starting with Toji's, but after that whoever you read next is up to you e.g. Toji pt1 -> Nanami pt1 -> Geto pt1 etc etc Ultimately, it actually doesn't matter so please feel free to read as you please, and there's not even any obligation to read all the other characters' stories Nanami's story might be a little confusing because his was the most developed before I decided to change my structure for story telling There's a guide attached to his parts, so please have a read of that, and if you have any more questions, I'm happy to explain

Who are the sisters?

Nanami's reader and Geto's reader One year apart They live together

How are you going to end the series?

There won't be a final ending, not in the traditional sense The official ending will come from all the jjk men becoming officially in a relationship with their readers But I have plans to sporadically update each story with snapshot smaus and fics of their established relationship stories Happy endings don't come from a label

Who is your favourite reader?

I don't have one I like them all for different reasons

Who is your favourite jjk man to write in this universe?

No one in particular Sukuna's, Nanami's, and Toji's maybe Mostly because they're my three favourite jjk men in general

Which reader do you relate to most?

Maybe Toji's reader We're both writers and not particularly outspoken or popular But we're not shy and we love gossip Though, I see a part of myself in every reader

What's your creative process like?

Creating the series, I picked a trope I wanted to explore using my understanding of the characters, and created the world/plot around that I have a rough idea of how I want things to go, but generally speaking, I go with the flow, allowing myself to change my mind and adjust the story so that it feels as natural and realistic as possible

Would you create a mood board for your visualisation of the readers?

Not likely I like that the appearances of the readers is left vague because then irl readers are not restricted in their imagination, and also their involvement I want irl readers to be able to picture who every they wish, whether that is someone else or themselves

What's your posting schedule?

I don't have one I post when I feel like it but I usually post at least once a day And as for who I post, I like to make sure every character gets a turn, so who I post next depends on who I haven't posted for in a while

Why do the readers never stand up for themselves?

The readers aren't complete pushovers They're supposed to be somewhat realistic; not all women are badass, don't take shit, punch them if they so much as look at you type of people Sometimes women have to bear with men's mistreatment because they have a larger goal in mind, but that isn't me promoting that behaviour, it's just storytelling

I hate _______'s reader

That's not a question but it's something I get often I understand people disagree with the personalities or behaviours of certain readers, and that's perfectly fine, sometimes it's intentional Perfect characters are boring and character development is precious People can feel and express those feelings however they please...to a certain extent For example, if you slutshame a certain reader, I'm inclined to block you because I think it's important to remember that, whilst this is fiction, some people actually relate to these characters and events, and name calling is harmful

How am I supposed to know these extra information if you delete your responses after a certain amount of time?

You could always ask You could turn on alerts for my blog You could visit my blog once or twice a day because I tend to delete around the 15 hours mark, in my head that's enough time for someone who's been sleeping to just take a peek at my blog Ultimately, this is something I'm quite fixed on because I post often so I don't want to clog up my page And if this is a problem, then I am not the right blog for you

Can I make a request for the next update?

I'd rather you didn't I'm not taking requests at all right now And I'd like to maintain complete creative freedom with my stories and people giving their two cents can bias my process

How are the series going to end?

The series are currently in the 'pre-relationship' stage. They'll end when the couples get coupled up i.e. get into a relationship BUT there will be sporadic posts for their 'during the relationship' stories These could be like special episodes of key moments in their life, as we have already seen with Nanami's part 0.5s where they take a break

Could I use your ideas?

No.

[lairofsentinel]

Since this user's posts seem to have been deleted in previous opportunities I copy-paste their words here because they express exactly what I feel about this game. Dragon Age has died, unfortunately.

I'm a big time Dragon Age lover and have enjoyed every game in the series. Personally, I think Inquisition is the best in the series. And I was excited for Veilguard right up until I actually began playing it. Now, I want to clear things up at the start as to what I look for and believe makes a good Dragon Age game. To start, I DON'T CARE ABOUT COMBAT. I. Do. Not. Care.

You can make it Origins tactical. DA2 fast tactical. DAI hybrid. God of War action, I don't care. Dragon Age has always had combat that was...fine. A nice distraction and breakup in between the bits I actually care about: narrative ROLEPLAYING, story, characters, and exploration. I don't give a crap how great the combat is if the narrative roleplaying and writing are poor, I'm not playing BioWare titles for amazing gameplay. I am here for the story, the characters, and the roleplaying. Truth is, for a time I considered DATV's combat to be the best in the series.

And this is why I feel the game is a terrible Dragon Age, because it lacks or fails to respect those elements concerned with narrative roleplaying, story, characters, and exploration. Now, in many reviews and online videos you'll hear some reference often to the drop in writing quality. And a lot of time people will incorrectly say that the writing with the characters is to "modern" or "Marvel quippy" or not "dark" enough. I think these people are wrong, they recognize there is a drop in writing quality from previous games but aren't able to articulate why that is.

Dragon Age has never adopted any sort of faux medieval speech and vocabulary (though we'll get into this more later). This is a series that used "epic fail" as a thing someone uttered in the very first game. It's always had anachronistic dialogue and banter. So why is it such a drop then? Why is it considered poor? Simple. This is a game that does not believe in the world it has setup for over a decade. It does not believe in or engage properly with its own world and lore. I mean, look no further than the title "The Veilguard" a phrase that is never uttered by anyone in our group, and further proof it was a last minute marketing change. Compare to Inquisition where the title is apparent from the start in the game and has actual meaning.

You see, characters in DATV do not feel or react to events the way they should based on the lore. Why is no one constantly asking what the hell the Inquisitor is doing? The Inquisitor is kind of a BIG DEAL when it comes to Solas and Elven Gods, my Inquisitor drank from the WELL OF SORROWS! So why are we sitting around thinking at the start, "hmm lemme think who I can contact who might know more." The Herald of Andraste! They know more Rook, the guy that is technically your boss. The Inquisitor! Who else have you been working for this entire time? Who do you think told Varric to recruit you?!

But even removing the Inquisitor, the Elven Gods being real and also near synonymous with the old Tevinter Gods is kind of a BIG DEAL. It was only a theory fans crafted long ago that slowly revealed itself to be true. And it completely upends known religious dogma on all sides. Yet, why aren't people we meet going through a massive existential crisis? For instance, the Veil Jumpers we initially meet were presumably told off-screen about Fen'Harel, and are seemingly cool with this massive knowledge alone. But then we talk about those two other Gods being released and they're like, "well, shit those two aren't good." As if they have any clue if the fables about those Gods are real when we previously just upended everything they thought about the Dreadwolf! Why are you acting like this is another Tuesday?! Your entire religion is wrong. In that same conversation, Strife notes "Solas might be a bastard, but compared to the Evunaris? Let's just say they weren't know for being kind rulers."

My brother in Anduril, what are you talking about! Elven religion teaches that Elgar'nan was so beloved by the Earth that it "the land brought forth great birds and beasts of sky and forest, and all manner of wonderful green things." And that he fought the jealous Sun that tried to burn the land and all beasts away. Custom says that he and Mythal, "created the world as we know it" after defeating the Sun. He is literally described as one of the "good" Gods. WHY ARE YOU ASSUMING HE IS EVIL! It's like finding out Satan is real, but not as evil as have come to believe and then being told Jesus Christ is back and a devout Christian going, "well shit, that can't be good." WHAT?!

The same goes for Andraste and the Chant of Light, it took me 30 hours of playing before ONE character mentioned Andraste and the implications with the Chant and it was never brought up again. Our entire party is seemingly made up of unphased atheists. Now compare to something like Inquisition which explored this aspect HARD and was amazing for it. You'd get into great debates with religious figures and party members about the implications of Corypheus actually being a Tevinter Magister of old. And you'd talk about what it means towards the religious dogma preached and how much is true. And these intense political and religious discussions are present in every previous game, and not confined to a single conversation with one party member where it is seemingly resolved.

These conversations do not happen in DATV because there is no depth to the writing or engagement with the world. The Elven Gods are evil and need to be stopped. That's it. We don't need to think about the implications this has on Dalish customs and religion. Fuck it, all the Dalish are going to still wear their Vallaslin slave brand tattoos. Let's forget about Trespasser implying Solas was removing them from followers coming to join him. Let's even forget they were likely all told at this point that they are slave brands, nope still going to wear them yet speak blasphemy with every sentence against our Gods. No one cares about Andraste or The Maker or the Chant. Big deal if these Elven Gods contradict the overwhelming majority religion in Thedas. Not a single party member has religious or cultural objections to killing the Elven Gods; not a problem. Not one single elf wants to join Solas in tearing down The Veil and getting immortality again?

Again, let's forget about Trespasser setting up Solas gathering MANY Elven followers from Dalish clans who would be super inclined to join him after experiencing CENTURIES of discrimination and slavery by humans. The better question is what Elves wouldn't join Solas at the start? And what Elves wouldn't look at the other two Gods and go, "meh, maybe we should give them a try. They can't be worse than humans, right?" In DA2 you had elves joining The Qun to escape the discrimination of humans, but not ONE ELF wants to join Solas or Elgar'nan? Those Ancient Elves in the Temple of Mythal? I guess they all died, right?

This extends to EVERY single element of Dragon Age that previously had depth to it, it now has been completely removed. Those murdering Antivan Crows? Oh, they're just good Italian Mob Family that protect their city. Tevinter? Yes, it has poor people, but we're trying to do better. Oh, slavery? No, no we don't show that here. The Qun? The what now? No, they are all Antaam now, and so that means they are all generic evil warlords. No, they don't even attempt to follow their own hardcore view of The Qun like when Templars split from the Chantry, they're just warlords now that like plunder. Dwarves and their rigid Caste society? We don't do that here. Elves and racism across Thedas? Elves used to experience racism? News to me, what's a Shemlen? Never heard of that term, we like all humans. Pirates? That is insensitive, we are Lords of Fortune and we are sure to return any cultural artifacts found to their rightful owners; it belongs in a museum after all. The fucking Fade and spirits? Wait, you mean its different than generic fantasy spirit world? I'm sorry, that's too complicated here.

This either intentional disregard of the lore or plain ignorance also extends to environmental design. The asset reuse from Inquisition is particularly hilarious and must speak to the developers not having time after the switch from MP. Why are the same statues found in Val Royeaux in DAI also in Tevinter and Antiva? Why are those stupid Fen'Harel Wolf statues EVERYWHERE? Even in the catacombs of other Elven Gods! There are no statues of Elgar'nan or Ghilan'nain. Nothing for June or Anduril. Dirthamen. Falon'Din. Nothing. No, the only Gods that seem to get statues are coincidentally the ones who already had assets created for DAI or past titles that could be reused. Hmmm.

This continues into character designs too, why do the Veiljumpers and Shadow Dragons all dress richly? They are supposed to be poor as fuck. There's a codex entry about Veiljumpers finding a lost cache of old ancient elven armor and weapons and so boom they all get to dress like High Elven Lords and not the dirty, poor, wandering Dalish clans they are supposed to come from. Why do this? There isn't even an attempt to explaining why the Shadow Dragons, an organization supposed to be secretive, has branded clothing in bright rich colors and fabrics for all members. Naturally, it must be incredibly difficult for Tevinter authorities to not identify them.

This lack of depth and verisimilitude, naturally, affects all the characters. Because in this game you cannot roleplay and you cannot ask questions. In Dragon Age Inquisition, once you started the game, you could immediately interrogate Varric about what happened to every DA2 character despite the Inquisitor never meeting them, you know because it respects its players. You could speak to shop keepers, blacksmiths, your horse master. You could interrogate every single person to learn more about them and the world. The same goes for your player character in DA2 and Origins. You show in Denermin and find yourself knee deep in a quest to help Wade the Blacksmith craft the perfect armor. Here you can't actually speak to a single shopkeeper to ask questions and get some lore bits. You can't ask party members questions about their background, religious beliefs, upbringing, their factions, etc. You can't ask any returning characters any questions either about what they've been doing. Enter a brand new area? Great, you're not asking anyone questions about this never before seen place.

How does a lost Dwarven thaig survive every single blight? How are their immortal lichs in Neverra? How long has that been a thing? Why haven't they told anyone about the Elven gods or any other knowledge they've accumulated in an immortal lifespan? If immortality is so "easy" why can't Solas just do that to restore the Elves? Why are the Venatori, Tevinter Supremacists, following Elven Gods? Wouldn't that be a major identity crisis? Why would Antaam, who still preach the Qun, follow an Elven God that speaks blasphemy with ever breadth? Sshhhh, no questions. You get what is directly told to you and that's it, no follow-up questions.

Party members do not conflict with each other or interrogate each other's beliefs which is why their banter feels inconsequential and meaningless. Lucanis is a assassin, he kills people for money. The same organization that marked Zevran for death for failing a contract. The same one that took him as a kid and trained him to murder, often brutally, for coin. And yet no one really seems to care. He's just a nice Italian assassin from a nice assassin organization. Who cares. Let's instead talk about cooking, at length. Harding, a devout follower of Andraste, has no qualms with Elven Gods wreaking havoc on known religion. We get one conversation you can tell her to believe what she wants, and that's the end of that debate. Bellara also gets about two whole conversations about the conflict concerning her Gods wreaking havoc, both easily resolved. We don't need to think about any larger implications or doubt her loyalty when the Elven pantheon are seeking to restore her people that have been discriminated against since forever. Emmerich, a necromancer of Neverra, apparently has no religious belief. A codex entry even states that those of the Mourn Watch don't know where the soul goes after death. They don't like to think about it. Buddy, Mortalitasi belief is literally that our souls return to the Void alongside The Maker, but to keep balance a exchange must be wrought with The Fade to allow a spirit to house the now empty vessel. How do you not know the religion and customs of your own faction and land? This man has a whole quest line about funerary rights, yet not ONCE mentions religion and what he believes happens after death?! Sshhhh, no questions. No thinking.

Hey, remember The Fade? Remember how mages go to dream there every night. Remember how The Black City is always visible there? No? Well, we don't either. You won't see The Black City in The Fade. You might see it in The Crossroads in a closed off section, even though it is NOT The Fade. Oh, we're going to have you physically enter The Fade in multiple quest lines and no one will think it's a big deal. No, you still can't see The Black City. Now, The Fade is reduced to nothing more than your generic fantasy spirit world. It has none of the previous rules and lore that bound it before. Demons can bind to non-mages and we won't attempt to explain it. Solas fucks with The Veil and not a single mage notices a change in their dreams when they sleep at night. No biggie.

Lastly, let's return at last to the actual minutiae of writing. I stated at the start the writing isn't bad because of Marvel quippiness, which the series has always had. I was partly lying. Yes, the series has always had anachronistic dialogue. It has had meme language in its own previous titles. But, it was just that, a small joke here and there. For the most part the series actually tried to use it's own sort of "older" speech patterns. I think a perfect example has to do with Taash, she eventually finds her own identity and declares she is proudly "non-binary." Literally stating, "so, I'm non-binary." I have no issue with this sort of inclusivity in Dragon Age, it's what the series is known for. Yet, why does that sound wrong? Simple, it's far too anachronistic. It doesn't belong in Dragon Age. In Inquisition, Dorian let's us know he's gay. But he doesn't say, "I'm gay!" or "I'm a homosexual" those terms would not exist in his world. Instead he says, "I prefer the company of men."

And it's these little subtle changes in writing that makes it feel all the more different. We went from "I once ventured in to The Fade to serve the Old Gods of Tevinter in person. I found there only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. Now I shall return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world gone wrong. Pray that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the Gods. And it was empty."

To: "Well, shit. That can't be good."

So, what do we have when all is said and done? Well, we have a decent generic fantasy action game. An intentional attempt by the developers to remove every edge from the world of Dragon Age in place of a very simple, easy to understand world with not much depth beyond what you see. You don't need to think, just play and have fun. This is beyond turning a MP game into a SP game, which so blatantly obvious in this game. DA2 was developed in 16 months, but is carried strong by its writing. You see, nothing prevented them from just acknowledging their own world they created. It costs very little to write around what already exists. Even if you can't make no assets or redesign the world. Writing is cheap and having characters voice these elements is not as costly as a redesign. No, they chose to remove the edge in every element because this was design intentionally for the masses with easy to understand world and zero depth.

But I wanted to play Dragon Age. I wanted to get into intense religious debates with party members as known lore is completely upended. I wanted to debate Elvish clans deciding to join Solas or the other Gods due to their treatment by human society. I wanted to debate the ethics of necromancy with the Mortalitasi of Neverra's Crypts. I wanted to engage in intense debating with Solas on the ethics of his goal. I wanted to see Tevinter react to a real push for anti-slavery and actually see the slavery in the slave capital of the world. I wanted to butt heads with the Antivan Crows and call them out for the murderers they are. I wanted to see the Black Divine and debate the Chant of Light with them. I wanted to speak to the Archon of Tevinter and see how he felt about the Venatori's past efforts in Inquisition. Hey, what happened to Meredith Reborn in Kirkwall and her idol and Red Templar worshipers? Forget about it.

We got none of this. I got a game that is pretty much disrespectful of its own world. I waited 10 years for this? Why even bother if this is the result? They may as well have just killed every previous character we ever knew, including Solas, offscreen and started anew with this game. Because as a Dragon Age game and sequel, it's terrible and no returning character is how they should be.

And when we get to the ending, that's pretty much what they did. Everything you did in all the past games? Well, that was pointless. Everyone is probably dead. King Alistair. Gaspard. Celene. King Bhelen. The Arl of Redcliffe. The Divine. The Circle of Magi. The Templars. The Seekers. Everything, everyone, and every organization that existed in the South is likely dead and destroyed. And now Dragon Age can become what they wanted, a generic fantasy IP.

But I just wanted to play Dragon Age.

[zuko-always-lies]

Do you think that the betrayal at the Boiling Rock was done to give a reason for Azula's eventual breakdown in the finale? The more I think about it, the more Mai's anger towards Azula doesn't make sense to me. I know that people say that it's because Azula left Zuko to die, but if that's the case, she should have been angry with Ty Lee as well, since she also tried to stop them from leaving the prison. Also....they were chasing after Zuko and Iroh for the entirety of book 2, even though they kept on running into the Gaang and never actually came across Zuko and Iroh, and that was just Azula. Mai had zero issues with Azula's mission in the second season, and she already loved Zuko by that point. It feels like the writers just forgot about that.

So the thing to understand that in (well-told) narrative, everything happens for a reason. Everything serves a very deliberate narrative purpose. But perhaps we should take a moment to reflect on the differences between Book 2 and Book 3 characterizations before we go back to the Boiling Rock:

Book 2 Azula has some distinctive edges to her which shows the original ideas the writers had. She was consistently depicted as quite hostile to Zuko (this wasn't changed until the writing of the last episode of the series, when the writers realized that they needed Zuko to go home). She was depicted as using fear to control soldiers in a military context, including Ty Lee, but never as using fear to force or substitute for personal relationships. Azula was depicted as mean and cruel(and I believe she was originally supposed to be crueler and more merciless than she ended up being, but it ended up being scrapped as too dark). However, she was also, aside from maybe one scene, was depicted as stable and mentally put together well. Finally, Azula was never depicted as sympathetic in Book 2, and we can't be certain of what the original intentions in this respect were.

Book 2 Mai also has a couple interesting characteristics. First, she was consistently written as not being afraid of Azula. Second, the seed that she had a crush on Zuko was clearly planted. However, since Zuko was never supposed to "go home" in the original outline, it's not clear how this might have flowered, and it's possible the writers didn't know either.

Now let's move on to Book 3. We should note that Book 3 came out in two parts, but I'm not quite sure how much that reflects what the production looked like. It might be that everything was mostly decided before they started writing, but based on the shift between the first and second halves of Book 3, there might have actually that they mostly wrote Book 3.0 before they figured out what they were doing for Book 3.5

Anyways, Book 3.0 (and really we can kind of include the Crossroads of Destiny here) had two shifts in the depiction of Azula's character. First, she was now consistently depicted as caring a lot about Zuko. The first episode of Book 3.0 was kind of ambiguous here in a way that suggests the writers were tentative about this, but every following episode clearly showed Azula being kind to Zuko in one way or another. Second, The Beach introduced the idea of Azula as sympathetic character, including her trouble with her mother. Note that there are two ideas that Book 3.0 does not introduce or use: the idea of Azula being mentally ill/crazy (at her worst, Book 3.0 Azula is only a bit over the top), and the idea of Azula controlling her friends through fear. In fact, The Beach "normalizes" Azula's relationships with her friends a lot.

Meanwhile, Book 3.0's depiction of Mai centers around the seed about her relationship with Zuko flowering. 3.0 always continues the trend of depicting her as unafraid of Azula and generally not giving a shit what Azula thinks.

Book 3.5 is where the final shift in the depiction of Azula occurs. There are two new ideas introduced here. First, there's the idea of Azula using fear and terror to force people to have relationships with her due to Azula's own fear of loneliness. Let me point out that this idea conflicts strongly with her past depictions, where Azula only used fear as part of her methodology of ruling. Mai being "afraid" of Azula is also suggested, for the first time at this point, despite all previous depictions of Mai emphasizing that Mai was not afraid of Azula (while Ty Lee was). Second, the idea of Azula being mentally ill and "crazy" is introduced late. Previous depictions of her showed her being mean and cruel, but not her being "crazy."

Now, at long last, we can return to your question. Again, we must remember that everything which happens in a story happens for a reason. The Boiling Rock episodes served one primary purpose: depicting Zuko and Sokka bonding and getting to know each other. This is why these episodes were written. Hypothetically, reintroducing Hakoda and Suki could be another purpose for them, but Hakoda was instantly written out again and the writers made it clear that they had zero real ideas for Suki in subsequent episodes and essentially just had her character hang around in the background 95% of the time.

However, if the purpose is to show Zuko and Sokka bonding, why do Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee appear? Why does Azula show up and fight Zuko, and why does Mai save Zuko? None of this was necessary for the Zuko and Sokka bonding experience. I suppose having Azula and Zuko fight furthers their rivalry, but literally in the very first scene of the next episode (The Southern Raiders) there is a fight scene between them which serves to further this purpose far more effectively. The writers also could have written Mai's sacrifice as having a big effect on Zuko, but we all know they avoided that too.

The reason that Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee appear has to be almost solely for reasons related to the arc of those characters. The writers wanted Azula to have a big breakdown and go "crazy," but they hadn't built up toward that idea at all in the previous two seasons. They needed to speedrun toward it now, and having Mai and Ty Lee betray Azula offered a convenient start toward Azula's downfall and mental health collapse. Moreover, it also allowed them to depict Mai and Ty Lee as "redeemed" and "on the right side now," while having them stick by Azula until the end would make depicting this problematic. Zuko being Mai's love interest and Ty Lee always being depicted sympathetically probably contributed to urge to redeem these characters, but it's also important to remember that the writers took pains to make sure that child characters were "happy" and/or "redeemed," even if they died tragically, during the series. The only real exceptions to this were Hahn (NWT warrior who was Yue's betrothed) and...Azula. One of the reasons why Azula's ending strikes so many people as odd and at odds with the themes and tone of the series is that almost every other child got some sort of "happy" or at least honorable ending, while Azula was not only humiliated and utterly broken but also denied the slightest hope of happiness.

[arceus-insanity]

With the Series Ending

I decided to do this solely based on canon, except for F which are so bad that they transcend the rule. I also put this in the lens of do I enjoy watching them, or do they infuriate me. Most of the ones in G are there because I can't tell who they are from the picture, or are so minor I don't get why they were on the list to begin with

Hawks was the hardest to place because as I've mentioned before I love villain fanon Hawks, and hate Canon for all the missed potential and the guy being shit.

Before the last arc, Deku would have been in C, and I felt most criticisms of him were undeserved. I still feel a lot of them are dumb, however, he's canonically a hypocritical, suck-up to labels, abuse apologist, idiot, etc. As much as it feels like character assassination it's canon, same with Shoji. I also just don't care to read fanfiction of him, and feel he takes a lot of roles where other characters would make more sense. If I'm not already following someone I'm not going to read fanfiction with him in it

Most of E I hate as much if not more than F but the fandom either doesn't write about, or treat them like the pieces of crap they are, looking at Mineta of course.

Fun fact Edgeshot is in E for bringing Bakugo back, and causing me both meta and dramatic issues for me. What the fuck was the point of killing Bakugo to immediately bring him back. How the fuck did Edgeshot know he could do this? How the fuck did he know how to do this? Why the fuck is he doing this for some random teenager he has never interacted with before, in the middle of a war? And now why the fuck does this fucker get to live, no one gave a single fuck about Edgeshot but he gets to live!

Centipeder would have been in E if not for the fact I know what my ringtone for him would be, Red Flags by Tom Cardy

Uraraka owes her rank in B for her arc with Toga, otherwise, she would have been in D. For the plot forgoing her original motivations so they could turn her into a generic love interest. Toga tried talking crushes with her 'twice' everything else regarding that shit, which started before they ever met, is on her

I actually love Endeavor fanfics as most of them either a treat his abuse for what it is, or b I view them as an own on canon Endeavor and his incredible laziness and selfishness. But Twitter exists and they flock to him and his bullshit so to F with him.

Speaking of Fs, Bakugo is a whiney spoiled rotten brat with a silver spoon shoved into his mouth since birth. I hope he never breeds. Damn near every shit thing that has happened to him, was either brought on by himself, literally applied to everyone, he literally doesn't care, and even with the two exceptions I'd give this, the Sludge guy, and being chained up at the sports fest (he should have been disqualified), do not justify his shit

Congrats to Dark Shadow and Tokoyami for being the only hero (student) to make it past B

Needless to say I love villains, Dabi is by far my favourite, followed by Himiko, they are way more engaging and convincing than the heroes. And by convincing I mean it actually feels like they are going to put in effort to make their goals happen, not just wish really hard. I truly wish we could have seen how Shigaraki's goals shifted during his reign over the PLF. We had already seen how he wanted the League to be happy and an exception to his goal of destruction

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

Okay, imma be real? I think this fandom gets way too upset over characterization differences between books (this'll be a long one just let me explain).

I see a lot of posts in the WOF fandom about how certain characters got ruined in the next books or how their characterizations were completely screwed over. A lot of posts also are like, "Oh, Tui messed up X character in this book so badly!" Or "All their personality has changed in this book, what happened to my favorite character?" and so on like that.

This kind of thing, ESPECIALLY after rereading the series recently, then coming back to the fandom, pisses me off to NO END for a couple of reasons.

1. Tui wasn't "ruining" your favorite characters personality in the next book, because the focus of the next book wasn't the character in question. The spotlight is on another character entirely, and trying to micromanage THAT many personalities to their truest form is INCREDIBLY difficult.

2. Plotting out character personalities is a GRUELING process, coming from someone who does a lot of writing. ESPECIALLY if it's original characters, because then you can't just pull from fandom or canon, you gotta do that shit yourself. And over the course of the canon, their personality is gonna change!

This brings me to my last point and probably the biggest reason:

3. EVERY BOOK IS FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE.

This has been a STAPLE of the Wings of Fire books from the VERY BEGINNING. With every new book, we as readers are jumping from one dragon's mental space to the next, learning about their traits and quirks and how they perceive the world around them, every single time we pick up the next book in the series. It's what helps give us those deeper insights into the characters that yall get so angry about when they aren't immediately represented in the next book, when that dragon is no longer our spotlight.

Also, when we are learning about the other dragons before we jump to their perspectives, the character that we are reading about is already making assumptions and assigning traits that they think correlate with the character in question! We are seeing the world through their eyes and thoughts, so when we move to another perspective, that dragon is doing the exact same thing, even though now we know more about one of the other characters!

And then the fandom gets hissy when the first character gets relegated into the background and assigned some base personality traits, even though that's exactly what happened before.

Personally, I think the ones who suffer from this the MOST are Clay in Arc 1 and Moon in Arc 2. Clay, according to fans, gets boiled down to nothing but his love for food, even though we see in his, Sunny's, and Peril's perspectives that he's more than that. His behaviors also directly correlate to why he gets that kind of background trait (although that's a whole other rant), and every time I see someone saying that Clay got screwed over by characterization, I take psychic damage.

And Moon. God, yall, Moon gets it THE WORST FROM YOU. I've seen SO MANY POSTS about how she got boiled down to nothing but a love triangle piece in the later arcs, which is only partly true, but we also see from ALL OF THOSE PERSPECTIVES (Qibli and Winter specifically) that the traits they're assigning her are both different aspects of how her character worked in the first book and what two lovestruck, moons-blinded dumbasses are seeing and choosing to view her as.

Her book even SHOWS how much of a NIGHTMARE it would be to have every character be deep and know their inner thoughts at all times. Moon herself gets mentally and physically overwhelmed near CONSTANTLY during the majority of her book, and I'm not even technically factoring in Darkstalkers' influence.

All of that to say, Wings of Fire fandom, is to stop losing your SHIT over how your characters might seem flat or not like they were in their books. All of these perspectives are different, and if you motherfuckers actually took some time to reread the books while actively LOOKING for those hints of your silly guys being the same silly guys, just from another dragon's POV, then maybe yall wouldn't be so pissed off about characterization in the books nearly HALF as often.

I don't even care how much discourse this is gonna spark I just felt the incredible urge to tell yall to use those skills you learned in English class and chill the FUCK OUT on this topic.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Now go use your eyes :>

.

[atopvisenyashill]

What are your thoughts on GRRM’s new notablog post on HOTD S2?

omg i'm sorry so i did not get notified that i had a few new asks, i didn't even see this until i logged in on desktop. tumblr eat shit smh.

ANYWAYS.

I actually agree with Xiran Jay Zhao, here, where they said this was a warning shot. It feels like a warning shot. Like a "hey I'm being nitpicky and pedantic now but if you think I won't go scroched earth you got another thing coming." I've seen so much "this is unprofessional" "this is annoying" "why is he complaining" and I think it is not only mind boggling to side with a corporation and the idiots running these shows (and we know I mostly like Condal and Hess, but come on Condal was the mastermind of Sansa Bolton why are we defending him right now!!), I think everyone is blowing his comments wildly out of proportion. He didn't take a dig at anyone but the writer's room and more specifically Ryan Condal, who he has had a working relationship with for well over a decade. He didn't shittalk any casting, he didn't shittalk any specific writers or directors except one of the main showrunners, he compliments the special effects, he has consistently had (and imo is careful) nothing but praise for the actors, even minor roles like Blood & Cheese. This was an incredibly milqtoast "please remember that every change has huge affects on the narrative later" critique and the people handwringing over his behavior are absolute losers, I'm sorry.

And beyond the fact that he didn't make any huge digs, I think this conversation also wildly ignores the way authors have no control over their own characters once they sign the rights over. They can be completely bamboozled by changes and they have no recourse to go "what the hell are you doing." And yet, signing your book's rights away (even if the production sits in developmental hell for decades) is usually what nets these author's the most money - GRRM surely makes a shitton off his books, but most authors get paid absolutely nothing even when they're wildly popular because of how book deals work now. Take, again, Xiran for example - Iron Widow was a huge runaway hit, a good and fresh take on this new boom of culturally based sff. And yet Xiran has talked about how they immediately set to work writing a middle grade novel because they desperately needed the money because they got paid 16k over two years for their runaway hit that made their publishers significantly more than 16k. I think George is not only mad for authors with less control than he has but also, obviously, for himself - I've said time and again, but I do think Dark Daenerys is where we are headed, and the fact that they completely botched showing it has got to smart. And if the ending for Dany is anything other than Jon killing her, that has got to smart too. So he watched these people fuck up his original series and push him completely out of that writer's room as they made more and more changes, and now he's watching s2 of HOTD and seeing some changes and getting some real bad vibes. It's not doomerism to think s3 is going to go massively off the rails when we have seasons 6-8 of the main show to show us just how off the rails it can go!

So anyways, that part of my rant over (and please believe me when I say I checked myself here because I could rant for hours about how it's genuinely so upsetting to see people call him unprofessional over this when not only did he write the fucking series, but he's lived in this series for three decades!!!!! this is his whole life, this is his legacy, of course he's feeling some type of way about how it's handled jesus christ on a cracker, there's people who have said worse about their mediocre nyt pushed bestsellers getting adapted badly!), when it comes to the actual meat of his post....I'm sorry idk how anyone is annoyed by this post because it was hilarious to me. He spent a whole blog post whinging about how Dead Baby #4 and Kingsguard Man #12 are gonna get cut out of the show. I think he framed it in that goofy way on purpose to hide how annoyed he is but you can see where the real annoyance lies - the changes to Helaena, losing one of his grisly death scenes, and being willfully mislead about potential changes to the plot. I think a lot of people missed those points but EYE am not a goofy ass like those people and I can guarantee you that Condal and HBO got the point too.

Of course, I do think he is also irked about Maelor and Ser Rickard's scenes being cut out. He wrote a long ass, highly meticulous, near unadaptable work, and I think when he handed the IP over he assumed he was giving it to people who would rise to the challenge and only make cuts when absolutely necessary. And that just clearly hasn't happened. Incredibly important characters get cut, main characters get their plots wildly changed for no reason, and people get personality transplants on a near constant basis for no other reason than D&D and Condal thought it would look cooler. I think if there was more dedication to keeping him in the loop and keeping true to the story, he wouldn't have bitched so much. But Hess is on record saying she doesn't feel loyal to the story and at a certain point, you reach your breaking point there and I think he has finally reached his. AND GOOD FOR HIM. LET THAT OLD MAN GO APESHIT THEY'VE COMPLETLEY FUCKED HIS WORLD UP!!!

[milkytheholy1]

TMNT Masterlist

2003:

Leo:

Third base - Leo x Female Reader

Hey everyone, I currently have two requests left to do but I really want to get some stories that I personally came up with as well. I really want to try writing for different versions of the turts besides 2012 and Rise even if they are my fav versions. Sorry if the character interactions are a bit iffy in this one, I haven't seen much of the 2003 series I'm only up to season 2.

Donnie:

Drawn to you - Donnie x GN Reader

No, the tech-savvy turtle was drawn to you by your persistence, by the way you poured yourself into your work, how you understood the need to complete something no matter how long it took.

Mikey:

Turtle titan to the rescue! - Mikey x Female Reader

Okay so far warning, I haven’t really watched past season 3 of the 2003 series, I have been working my way through it though. So some characters might not sound or act like how they should from the show and I might end up getting some stuff wrong, so sorry in advance. This story will flip between 1st and 3rd person narrative.

2012:

All Turtles:

Turtle Power part 1

What if you included even more turtles in the hit tmnt movie, TMNT:Turtles Forever? This isn't an X Reader fic and takes places in the 2012 universe...well, for the start at least.

Leo:

Dear diary - Leo x GN Reader

Leo practicing how to ask them out with many many scripts for acting in front of a mirror:") or maybe they find out about his diary! You can pick

A confident strut - Leo x GN Reader

Went with the first one since it's been some time since I wrote for my 2012 boy! This is going to be set before the whole sister reveal, but I wanna make it clear that I do not ship Karai and Leo together cause that shit is gross. Enjoy!

I heard you - Leo x Female Reader

The reader,who has a crush on Leo, waits by Leo's side for him to wake up in the farm house and she is so relieved when he wakes up after months

Not traditional - Leo x Male Reader

The reader is giving Leo a whole sexuality crisis so Leo asks April if it's weird for a guy to like another guy and April reassures him that it's perfectly normal, and later that week Leo accidentally slips that he likes (y/n) and in a flash the have this little moment of understanding that they both like each other and want to be more than friends.

Goodbye Leonardo part 1 - Leo x Female Reader

I know what you're thinking, two stories in one night? This is somewhat based on the season four episode: Broken Foot. Also sorry it's so long but I had to fill in some blanks to get to the build-up of the story and sorry for the rushed ending it's currently past midnight where I'm from and I'm very tired.

Goodbye Leonardo part 2 - Leo x Female Reader

Okay, okay, you'll get your stinking part 2. This is probably one of the most requested fics I've ever done, the original intention was to leave it as a standalone fic. But, because you all seem eager for more I eventually broke and decided to do it. This is set a few years after the original and doesn't follow the episode 'Broken Foot' like the original oneshot. In my opinion, it's also waaay more angsty and it might actually be sadder than the first one. So I hope the wait was worth it, enjoy!

Donnie:

Wrong about me - Donnie x Female Reader

Donnie gets cheated on by April and (y/n) finds out and hurts April's feelings then comforts Donnie?

Hot - Donnie x Female Reader

Donnie was talking about some science stuff the last 20 minutes, but reader can't fully pay attention to what he's saying because they're just thinking about his voice, his gestures and everything. They think "don't you realize how hot you are?", but Donnie stops talking and reader realizes they just said that out loud and now they want to die.

Happy birthday - Donnie x GN Reader

it’s the reader’s birthday and the turtles just find out and they have to quickly set up a surprise birthday for the reader.

Well done science boy - Donnie x GN Reader

Had this idea in my head for a few days so thought I'd post it, I wanted to make it a shorter story than what I normally do but I got too lost in it and it ended up being just as long, oops. Hope you enjoy!

Hello nurse - Donnie x Female Reader

Literally did this so I could pull off one reference, that's all. Enjoy!

Raph:

Hots for you - Raph x Female Reader

Raph finds out that his girlfriend is bisexual?

Heard you from a mile away - Raph x GN Reader

not going to lie I had to search up what it meant, decided to do Raph since i've never written for him before in the 2012 version. So if this comes across as out of character, apologies. Anyway, enjoy!

2014/2016: Leo:

Red lips - Leo x Female Reader

“Don’t give me that face, it’s so cute I might not be able to hold back.”

Donnie:

Five years - Donnie x Female Reader

Donnie creates a portal that transports them to 2021.

Five years alt ending - Donnie x Female Reader

It’s weird how many people have asked me for them to have kids, but I guess if that’s what you guys want to see then here is a short version 2, if you will, of five years. Be sure to read the original or it won’t really make much sense, this is just the ending. Enjoy!

Life is a dream part 1 - Donnie x GN Reader

You felt the small vibrations of your phone in your pocket, pulling it out you saw Donnie was once again calling you crap, "H-hey Donnie, I promise I'm on Allen Street. I'm like less than a minute away." you panted into the device. You could hear his sigh through the speaker, "Don't worry about it, I'm just wasting valuable pop tart time." he joked, your laughter was his reward.

Part 2 - Donnie x GN Reader

Speaking of the brothers, Mikey was sat playing some video games while leaning over to slurp his coke, you could hear panting and the sounds of something being destroyed coming from the dojo Raph. Finally taking lighter steps into the lair, you could smell a sweet fragrance waft through the air Leo.

Part 3 - Donnie x GN Reader

"Do you remember that video where the cat plays chopsticks with the chopsticks?" Mikey asked, pushing aside Donnie and getting closer to your face. You flinched at his close proximity, your mind still trying to adjust to your bright surroundings. "Can we focus here?" Leo argued, pulling Mikey away from you, he securely wrapped his arm around his younger brother in case he felt the need to jump at you again.

Final part - Donnie x GN Reader

"What?" he asked, "Can I ask you something?" You pondered why you were willing to tell Raph some of your deep, dark thoughts and not someone like Donatello "It's a free country," he quipped going back to his knitting. "Right," you said, glancing down to avoid making eye contact "It's just that...do you think- feel like something is off?"

Mikey:

Parading in style - Mikey x Male Reader

So I don’t know much about pride parades in NYC but I can only imagine they’re triple the ones from where I’m from, I’m also not going to give you a description of Mikey’s human form as that can be up to you. I’ve learned from experience that everyone has a different view of these characters and it’s unfair to the reader to force them to take my view of what he could look like, so yeah he looks like whatever you want him to. Hope you enjoy!

Raph:

A cold night in new  - Raph x Female Reader

Reader's apartment building's heat went out during a really chilly spring day, so when raph comes over he's all like "why tf does she have the thermostat on 5 degrees", but then he finds her cuddled up with tons of blankets on the couch, watching tv. after turning down the volume, reader explains the situation with the heat while shivering and clutching the blankets. raph has a brilliant plan for this.

Begging - Raph x Female Reader

Bayverse Raph and his S.O get into a huge fight and he hurts her feelings and Raph found her on the rooftop crying and he asks for forgiveness

Seeing you - Raph x Female Reader

The reader feels invisible and lonely, so she confides in Raph and telling him how her current boyfriend is using and abusing her. Then later on Raph confesses his feelings for the reader but her abusive boyfriend catches the reader and raph together.

I promise - Raph x Female Reader

The reader has scars from her mother and she shows Raph while crying about them and Raph listens and comforts her.tumblr

[romanarose]

Sicky Wicky

Frankie Morales x fem!reader

Join my taglist : Masterlist

Buy Me A Coffee : Kofi

Written for @strang3lov3. IDK if you're still sick but i wanted to just whip a lil thing up real fast for you. I hope you like Frankie, I saw you have him on your masterlist. I know Joel is our guy but as you know i decidedly don't write for him anymore so I hope this is okay <3 Frankie is my sweet soft baby

Summary: Just Frankie taking care of you while sick <3

Warnings: Some mild sex jokes

***

When entering the home he shared with you, Frankie avoid his usual "honey, I'm home!" routine, knowing when you don't feel good you like to nap on the couch a lot.

He slid his cowboy boots off, trying his best to not let the heels clomp on the wood floors but grumbling when his sock stepped in a pile of melting snow.

"Baby?" You call from the living room, and Frankie mumbles a swear.

Rounding the corner (with one wet sock) Frankie peaked at you. 'damp' was the first descriptor his head came up with, but he'd never tell you that.

"Hey baby, feeling any better?"

You give a little shrug. "Stopped puking, fevers pretty low now. I think I'll be okay tomorrow."

As much as he wanted to stay home with you and take care of you, unfortunately in this economy losing the hours for both of you wasn't ideal. Still, he'd managed to swing by during his break and check on you when you weren't answering his texts, only to find you fast asleep.

He checked your forehead, and yeah, just a little warm. That was good, you were on the mend.

"You think you can eat some tomato soup?"

You look up at him, tired eyes and- yeah, damp hair. Poor girl. "With grilled cheese pweeeeeeeeze?"

Francisco couldn't help but laugh a little. "the best damn grilled cheese ever. Only the best for my poor sicky wicky baby."

He did not disappoint. The bread was grilled with garlic butter, the good cheese and lots of it. The cheese pull on that beast was Instagram worthy, and he even garnished the tomato soup with parsley.

Mouth full, you look at Frankie's shit eating grin as he sat on the couch, your cold feet tucked under his butt. "You're awful proud of yourself, aren't you?"

"You're eating my food and moaning like that time you ate me ass, so yeah, feeling pretty good."

You wiggle your feet just to make him yelp, and have the first good laugh you've had since falling ill last night.

When the mutual laughter settles, the sounds of your favorite sitcom playing reruns on the TV echoing in the background, your voice fades into sincerity. "Thank you for taking care of me." You yawn, setting aside a plate that had not a crumb on it and a bowl licked clean.

Frankie runs your knee, a smile reaching up to his eyes in little crinkles. "Not a problem at all. You getting tired again."

"Yeah, wanna finish this episode though." You snuggle back down under the blankets, eyes dropping. You weren't making it through the episode.

"Okay." He pats your leg and grunts as he gets up. "i'm gonna get a load in the dishwasher while it finishes, then I'll carry your happy ass to bed, hows that?"

Another yawn. "Something somethin... I'll take your load.... something... in my..."

"dishwasher?"

"yeah I lost it."

"Good job baby." He pats your head as he walks around the couch, chuckling. "I'm sure it'll come to you."

"Uuhhhh you'll cum... into me?"

"Go to sleep!" Frankie calls over his shoulder. You're in the middle of arguing when you fall asleep again, tummy full, fighting off the last of your sickness.

***

Hope you all liked it! Been a hot minute since I wrote non-dark frankie!

Want some dark frankie? Want cute frankie smut? Want A dad!frankie series dealing with addiction?

thank you all for reading!!!! I might be MIA for a while, im going on a trip to get away and write this novel that was originally based off a fishben fish I wrote LOL, then Ill be online classes full time and, if i get this job i so desperatly want, working full time. I'm so broke it's so fucking bad I need this job ;-; so, prayers plz

HOPE YOUR FEELING BETTER BUG!!!

[pastafossa]

When do you think you’ll end your Red Thread series?

So this is where it gets hinky!

Before news of DDBA came out, my plan was always that it would end a bit after S3 (maybe a couple months canonically). That's when we'd wrap up all the plotlines revolving around done by the Man in the White Coat, the Project Beagle plotline, a plotline I can't really talk about yet, things like that. We'd also have a nice romantic finish for their romantic plotline. After that I was going to do a couple one/three shots, and maybe one shots for the future (I came up with something for the Thanos Snap for example), but that was going to be it.

Now DDBA is coming and I'm like ???

we know i can't stop writing for matt let's be honest

So. The plan is: TRT, the official fic, will still end at its scheduled point because seriously, that fic cannot go on forever. After that we'll get our one-shots and shorter fics, both the ones planned and some I had ideas for just based on seeing Older!Matt running around in behind the scenes pics and such, cause we deserve to see him and Older!Jane being a chaotic and still sickeningly in love little married couple. And then, once I get a feel for DDBA, I may

may

big may, this is not a sure thing

have an idea I'm working on for a bigger fic. It won't be TRT's size again - I love TRT! I do! But it takes SO much work to construct and I'd like to work on doing an AU TRT for publishing one day. But it'll be longer than my usual one-five chapter side fics. My big thing is I want to make sure I have a solid original plotline. I don't want to be bound to canon, and I'd want it to continue to feel like Jane has her own shit in this big wide TRT world to deal with while Matt's out doing his shit. So I'm workshopping some stuff. But even if that doesn't work out, just know we'll get some one-shots and TRT takes on things regardless. <3

[gotouhitori]

Okay, so. I'm in Love with the Villainess. Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou. WataOshi. Whichever title you want to refer to it by.

Before reading or watching it, I wondered why the hell people were holding up this random villainess isekai light novel with an over-the-top masochist main character as a landmark yuri title. Okay sure I don't doubt there's yuri going on, but how can it be so special?

Then I watched the anime. "Huh. The series and its main character are clearly and unambiguously lesbian in a way that so many other series can't bring themselves to be. And it has the most frank discussion of queer issues I think I've ever seen in anime or related media. Yeah, I think I see now, it is a cut above." And both because I've heard the novels get into a few things a little more and because the series now has its hooks in me enough for me to want to read the novels anyway, I read the first novel. And yeah, that does add a bit.

And then I read the second novel. The latter bit of the anime does cover the first bit of the second novel, but it's mostly new territory for an anime-only or anime-first such as myself. And holy fucking shit. Spoilers under the cut.

For one thing, the anime/first novel dropped some trans hints about Yu, and that turns out to be a whole transfem allegory - which isn't unheard of by any means, but it's not especially common in a work where that isn't the main focus. And not only that, but there's an actually explicitly textual transmasc in Rae's past life, who forms part of Rae's motivation to make considerable effort and take considerable risk (up to and including treason) to make sure Yu can live as a girl - once Yu states that is what she wants, it is important to note. Random yuri villainess isekai light novel says trans rights, and will absolutely stand by it.

And then all of the stuff about class and inequality comes to a head, and remember how the game that Rae's in the world of is titled "Revolution"? Yeah. One of those happens. Various hints have been dropped about what happens, largely centred on Rae making efforts to save Claire's neck in the most literal way possible when things really go down. But holy shit does that turn out to be more effort and a much more complex endeavour than it appears at first... or for most of the time while it's going on, for that matter. Ultimately she arranges things so that while the revolution still happens (it is basically inevitable), overall loss of life and suffering is minimised, and the general situation is as good as it possibly could be. By the time the proverbial smoke clears, Rae and Claire are openly living as a couple, which is a lot more than you usually see - one of the things Rae comments on is how in per previous life, too much of the yuri she read ended with at least one of the girls either dead or winding up with a man, which annoyed her enough to write fanfic based on series she likes with unsatisfying endings to fix that. And though the game did have a yuri spinoff, the original - the events of which she was living through and manipulating - was het. The character she winds up with was never supposed to be a romanceable character to begin with.

And that's just the first two of the five novels. Living through and changing the course of an actual revolution and settling down with her partner is just 40% of the whole story. (And less if more novels get published.) I've just started the third novel, and it's certainly looking like the rest is going to be at least as much of a ride as the first two were.

This really is an outstanding series. It's Dungeon Meshi levels of "I cannot stop thinking about it" to me, which if you've seen how much I post about that, says a lot. And I haven't read even half of it yet.

[bookwormbynight]

Batman the Animated Series dropped the ball with the two-part Two Face origin episode, let's talk about it.

This is Not a rant about problematic representation even though I'm sure we're all aware it is. I'll get into my reasoning for scooting past that in a second. Also, I adore BTAS and it's formed a good chunk of my headcanons for characters which is why this let-down for me is so annoying!!

In my personal opinion, whatever mental health issues Harvey's got should not have been called multiple personality disorder (currently named dissociative identity disorder) - not because it's problematic to have DID characters where one of the personalities is a villain, bc like, anyone can be a villain. And also it's fun.

To be clear, I'm not saying that it's GREAT if this is the only DID representation in BTAS specifically, bc it then implies in this show with an audience of children that DID is what's causing the villainy, but Two-Face with DID isn't inherently terrible in all scenarios. Some people on this wonderful site and AO3 make Harvey and Two-Face DID stories in a fun and respectful way, so if you look at it through the very focused lense of this post that this audience is made of adults having fun and possessing awareness, Harvey and Two-Face are allowed to be separate people Morally or whatever. That's not the point.

It's because it's fuckin piss poor writing lol. They did it wrong.

Within the frame of the show, Two-Face doesn't have his own personhood, he's just Harvey But Angry. This means we never really get an aspect of "two people having to share a body", or a Jekell and Hyde "your body's been taken over!" horror (pop culture conception, not the actual book), or even a "hmm we know Harvey but who is Two-Face?" All of those possible interesting plotlines for multiple personalities, out the window.

I mean, I guess Two-Face has the coin thing as a distinction but like, why? Harvey brings out the coin when being "big bad harv", but we KNOW the coin toss is his expression of duality based specifically on the 'could' and the 'couldnts' of life that he discovered after Harvey lost his original goals for the future (+his face) because he explains that out loud in the episode so like ???

Then on top of that, the backstory has nothing to do with the actual disorder, it's just that "Harvey felt the need to push down his emotions and eventually started characterizing said emotions as something different than himself". Which is a very fucking interesting idea, but they call it DID and then don't treat it like what it actually is because it's DID. Or whatever.

Boring. Sloppy. Pick one motherfuckers, toss a coin bc you can't have both I swear to God it doesn't work 😭

See, what I think should have actually happened was the actual shit in the book about Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde. Use the offered backstory, have Harvey push down emotions, but then don't actually call it a different personality - have HARVEY call it a different personality. Have him make those emotions and impulses and shit so foreign to himself that slowly he loses control over them, just like Jekell. In reality, it is a part of himself, and he is responsible for his own actions, but he doesn't want to be. God, he doesn't want to be. And he's gonna make that everyone else's problem.

That would also solve the issue of "a personality only shows up when the body looks right" because that doesn't make any sense :/. If Harvey's emotional well-being/control/anger management disorder is the actual cause, then of course his self image would influence that. It would also fix the problem of the lack of distinction between the two, and the thing with the coin. (Either he's always used the coin and that's just Harvey, or he only uses the coin after the acid.)

What do y'all think.

[emeraldhypothesis]

If I can request another:

Seto Kaiba! And my favorite third rate duelist with a fourth rate deck, Joey Wheeler! ^^

Kaiba:

My GOAT

Why I like them/why I don’t

I mean God, where do you even start with Kaiba? What's left to say about how he's one of the coolest characters ever? One of the most iconic rivals in shonen media and arguably fiction, Kaiba has left an undeniable impact on pop culture

What I like about their appearance

The drip is immaculate with Kaiba. His glittery Duelist Kingdom Manga Coat, the iconic white trenchcoat that all rivals must at least homage to this day, that funny purple coat the filler arcs put him in, his glorious six-pack in DSOD, his defined arms, and piercing gaze that sees through to your soul...

sorry what were we talking about again?

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?

Same name so no contest.

Voice wise though... this is so hard. This is still Kenjiro Tsuda's defining role to me, even as modern shonen fans rediscover him through characters like Nanami from JJK or Kishibe from Chainsaw Man. His vocal evolution during the series is fantastic, where he gradually lowers his voice so by the end Kaiba has a baritone that's as smooth as a jazz solo, and don't get me started on what the decade between DM and DSOD did for Tsuda, Kaiba's voice afterwards is like a siren's song.

But Eric Stuart is also just defined by Kaiba. While Tsuda plays Seto as more of dormant volcano that can erupt to show Kaiba's rage and passion, Stuart portrays him like a wild hurricane that will lash out at anyone who provokes his ire. It's interesting that he maintains a lot of Kaiba's youth in DSOD, where in the more emotional moments it lets Stuart portray Seto as what he is- a young man trapped in the maelstroms of grief, desperately chasing for any sign that he can get the one person who got him back for one more game.

You can't make me pick. I love them both.

OTP

Pride, no question. Even before DSOD was basically a two hour grieving session on Kaiba's behalf about Atem, Kaiba and Atem's rivalry is one of the defining examples of shonen rivalries sounding more intimate than a dying man's love letter. Seriously, the manga goes places with how Kaiba describes the feelings that Atem generates in him.

With the context of DSOD though- holy shit. Holy shit man we won so fucking hard in 2016. "You have your bond with him... and I have mine."

Honorable mention to, of all things, Kaiba/Tea which I had a brief dalliance with in 2021. I think she'd be one of the few people who can put with him and bring him to heel.

NOTP

Besides Mokuba, I'll repeat what I said in Yugi's section that I don't think either of them would fall for the other because of Atem's lingering shadow.

OT3

Well he's got three Blue-Eyes, so that's the easy joke.

Favourite card they use

Look I know it's easy. I know everyone says it, it's the go-to pick BUT COME ON, BLUE-EYES WHITE DRAGON IS JUST THAT COOL.

YOU DO NOT WRITE A SCENE WHERE KAIBA SACRIFICES GOD FOR THAT DRAGON WITHOUT SIX YEAR OLD EMERALD HYPOTHESIS (or however old I was when I watched Battle City) LOOKING AT THAT DRAGON LIKE HE FOUND RELIGION.

Favourite moment they were in

Picking one is so hard. I just wanna gesture at practically every moment he's on-screen and being so over-dramatic he rides the impossible line of being cringe and being jaw-droppingly cool.

I guess I'll just list a few because I legit can't pick:

Tapping into the Rod by accident to get a glimpse of his past with Kisara, letting him stop himself from losing to Ishizu and breaking destiny as a result.

His amazing comeback against Seigfried, one of the few redeeming scenes of the KC Grand Prix.

Willing Obelisk to his hand in DSOD.

But emotionally I'm super fond of his speech to Mokuba in Virtual World where he reveals that Blue-Eyes is based off a dragon Mokuba drew as a child that Seto resolved to earn as he grew up, ending with him tearfully asking Mokuba if he's become a man worthy of that dragon yet.

Least favourite moment

You know in retrospect, telling Yugi to get over Joey's death post-Marik Duel because he wanted his rematch? Bit of a bitch response.

Would I fuck, marry or kill them

Same deal with Ryoken- I marry for the money with full knowledge that he is thinking of Atem the entire time.

Joey:

JOEY MY FRIEND JOEY FUCKIN' WHEEEEEEEELAH

Why I like them/why I don’t

Everyone loves an underdog, and Joey is the underdog of fiction. He's cast such a shadow that all of the Best Friend Characters- Syrus, Crow, Bronk, etc.- have to match, but Joey was just a character in a league of his own. You can recreate Kaiba's success, as seen with great rivals like Kaito, Reiji and Ryoken, but I'd argue it's much harder to recreate what made Joey work- I think because you do see him start from rock bottom (both as a Duelist in the anime and as a person in the manga), whereas usually the best friend characters start out as generally decent people and know their decks well. Joey has that full journey that makes him stand out from his homages to this day, and it stands to him. He's not just probably the best for nostalgia, is what I'm trying to say.

What I like about their appearance

Joey has such a great set of designs. I love his green jacket in Duelist Kingdom that makes his hair pop, and then the white shirt for his roaming in Battle City, but I think my favorite Jou design is his DSOD look which combines the two to show his maturity and how he's developed- alongside the white and green just working together really well.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?

Dub, no contest. I saw a Tweet once (before Twitter went to shit) that remarked on how ubiquitous certain anime localization names/terms have become, with the particular examples listed of Ash Ketchum, and Joey Wheeler.

I have to actively work to remember to call him Katsuya if I'm using sub names- and even then, I will slip and say Joey.

In terms of performances, I have to again say that dub just runs circles around the Japanese. Hiroki Takahashi is an incredibly talented actor, it must be stressed, but Wayne Grayson just makes Joey his own. His accent, his mannerisms, the little sounds he makes, it's all just so effortlessly charming and personable. I know most people praise Dan Green and Eric Stuart especially for their roles in the dub, but man Grayson is such a gem as well.

OTP

If I don't look at the age gap between Mai and Joey, it can't hurt me...

Otherwise I have a very fond soft spot for Joey and either Atem or Yugi, both of them have such good bonds with Joey that carry throughout the series, and I'd be a sucker not to highlight the docks duel for this exact reason.

(also like. That AMV that 4Kids made for the Joey vs Yugi duel in Duelist Kingdom? I remember that)

NOTP

I don't super enjoy the power imbalance between Kaiba and Joey, so while I can enjoy Puppyshipping in very specific contexts... it's not something I would ever seek out normally.

OT3

You look me in the eye and try to tell me Yugi's friend group hasn't had one night where they all tried making out with each other for fun.

Favourite card they use

Much as I hate how a lot of Joey's deck has been turned into "Bad Red-Eyes Legacy support," Red-Eyes is a hell of a cool dragon. That said, I find Time Wizard adorable.

Favourite moment they were in

Oh, what a toughie. I feel he has so many good moments, like him fighting to the bitter end against Valon in DOMA, fighting against Marik during the dockyard duel, managing to pull off some impressive plays against Bandit Keith and make Yugi work for a win in Duelist Kingdom as the climax of his arc, he's got so many.

Think I'll go with him tanking Ra's rage though and making Marik stress-vomit from how close he came to losing. Respect to Joey for that one.

Least favourite moment

I'm not fond of how arrogant he's made to be in his duel against Duke, and I really don't like that Joey's final duels in the series happen in the KC GP and see him barely beating Solomon and then made to job to Siegfried after opening a brick hand. It's a bit of a lame spot to end Joey's record.

[lonelywretchjervistetch]

My DC Cinematic Universe - Creature Commandos: Part II

Chapter Two: Weird War Tales

To start talking about the Creature Commandos, both the television show and the original comics, we should establish a bit of background. And that's more complicated than you may know. The Creature Commandos are one of those classic weird comic book ideas that turned into a cult classic, adapted more than you'd expect, and brought back in comics time and time again. As of me writing this essay, there have been four major incarnations of the Commandos in the comics, often composed of the same members, but switching it up every once in a while.

Before I launch into the comic book history, Id like to make something known: I am not a purist when it comes to adaptations. I see a HELL of a lot of merit in adaptations, and care more about faithfulness and informed decisions and adjustments. If the change makes sense, great. If it's a change that improves things, even better. If it's a change that actively detracts from the character or story, and betrays the original character concept...yeah, not ideal. I just need to say that because, with all of the shit I'm about to throw your direction, dear Reader, I want you to know that I KNOW it's crazy, and I understand that it couldn't really be kept as written.

Second thing I want to say here is that I'll be approaching this as I did my world-famous Superman essay series, which is to say that I'll be talking about characters from the comics, how they've been adapted, and how I would adapt them personally. It's also to say that I'll be thinking of my iteration of the Creature Commandos as a part of my personal DC Cinematic Universe, so this will share a continuity with my version of Superman. I'll also treat this as if I'm making an animated series based on the Creature Commandos of my very own, because I do think that's a good idea!

Last thing I'll say is this: I'll be giving two pitches and approaches for this hypothetical series: purist and adapted. Yeah, that "wolf" analogy was foreshadowing for this point. As I said, some material needs to be adapted. So, as I go along, I'll address whether or not a character should be adapted in a straight fashion or not, as well as applying that to this hypothetical series as a whole. So, yeah, that's what you're in for. Up ahead, I'll start just by talking about the original Creature Commandos. And to do that, we'll have to talk about something else: World War II.

I will, Tom Hanks, sir. I will. The Creature Commandos were introduced to the DC Comics universe in 1980, well after World War II, when comic books were at peak popularity. However, they were introduced in the classic comic book series Weird War Tales, written at the time by legendary comic book writer J. M. DeMatteis, who was inspired by the very concept of a book called "Weird War Tales." Lemme describe this series before anything else, because it's one in a long tradition of anthology series in DC Comics.

Originally launched in 1971, Weird War Tales told war stories from across history, incorporating horror story beats whenever possible. Understand, this was during the time of the tyrannical Comics Code Authority, which was meant to establish a conservative censorship in comics in response to backlash during the 1950s, thanks to a moral panic taking place at the time. Before then, comics were allowed to incorporate horror, unfettered violence, a little bit of sexuality, and all the stuff that makes stories fun to read. In other words, it created the Silver Age of Comic Books, forcing DC into the wacky, weird, and nonsensical. I mean, hell, it was so restrictive that author Marv Wolfman almost had to change his name because it was too scawy. Ridiculous.

However, when the '70s rolled around, the moral panic was coming to an end in the USA (to a certain degree), and changes to the code where made in 1971. In fact, comics were now being seen as a way to connect with the youth of America, leading to a number of stories about drugs and violence, meant to act as warnings and cautionary tales. This led to legendary stories in Marvel and DC, but also incidentally led to new opportunities for stories, including the return of horror comics. DC, formerly one of the kings of the genre (second, arguably, to the now dead EC Comics that created Tales from the Crypt), brought back multiple titles, like House of Mystery. In the process, they also created a new title: Weird War Tales.

The way these books worked, by the way, was that you would have a narrator introduce the book, maybe going through their own side story or drama at the moment, then would launch into a few stories, sometimes with a theme, and sometimes without. Said narrator was usually a creepy keeper of tales. The original Tales from the Crypt, of course, had the legendary Cryptkeeper. House of Mystery had Cain, who would be used to great acclaim and legacy by...an author who used to be prevalent on this platform, but has since been disgraced by certain allegations...and Weird War Tales, soon after it launched...had Death. And, no, not the one from that author's famous comic book series, I mean stereotypical Death.

Spoopy.

The above iteration of Death, who changes appearance issue-to-issue, is seen in Issue #93 of Weird War Tales, in which he introduces "the weirdest warriors of all": the Creature Commandos! Yup, the titular characters finally make their appearance in this post. So, let's talk about them. If you're reading this essay, you've likely seen, or at least heard of the recent animated series and its now-beloved characters, so I don't really need to introduce them. But, hey, I'm a talker, so I will anyway:

Lt. Matthew Shrieve: an intelligence agent for the U.S. Army, Shrieve is the fully-human, unaltered member of the group, acting as their liaison with the government, and commanding them on the European front of World War II. However, he's the face of the operation. The person creating these monsters is...

Dr. Mazursky (never given a first name): The brilliant biochemist who developed various methods to turn men into monsters, in order to take advantage of the archetypes within the collective unconscious to frighten the enemy off the battlefield with real monsters! Kind of. With Shireve, he leads Project M...for Monster!

Private Warren Griffith AKA Wolfpack: A kid from Oklahoma who was denied from the military, due to his psychological disorder that makes him think he's a werewolf. However, Project M offered him the ability to serve his country, and actually turn into a werewolf! Kind of! Elective surgeries and chemical treatments grant him the ability to turn into a werewolf, independent of the lunar cycle, but still uncontrolled. Hence, he takes the codename Wolfpack!

Sergeant Vincent Velcoro (or Velcro, depending on the run): A suspected spy and information leak, Velcoro is given a choice: go to prison for 30 years, or get turned into an artificial vampire. He chooses the Morbius route, and becomes...Vincent Velcoro! He never gets an actual alias in the comics.

Private Elliot "Lucky"Taylor AKA Patchwork: A Marine private in the Pacific campaign of World War II, who accidentally steps on a land mine and gets blown to bits. Doctors go Frankenstein on him for weeks, putting him back together (without vocal cords) as the monstrous-but-mute Patchwork, a real Frankenstein's monster!

Dr. Myrra Rhodes, AKA Medusa: A later addition to the group, this plastic surgeon was transformed by mistake (and a mixture of spilled mysterious chemicals - remember OSHA guidelines for a safe disposal area, kids), with her hair transforming into snakes...and that's it. Um. Yeah. Medusa? Look, even the nostalgia can't save this one, this was a dumb one, not gonna lie. A group of chemicals, random-ass, medical-grade chemicals, turned her hair into snakes? No wonder Gunn didn't use this one.

...Oh, right! I assume the joke is through at this point, and we can acknowledge that NONE of these characters make an appearance in Gunn's Creature Commandos, except kind of one in the form of Mazursky, and even then...not really. But there is one more character, which we'll get to a bit later.

But yeah, obviously, this group is completely ignored by Gunn's iteration of the team. And this isn't without precedence, because this is just the FIRST version of these characters in the comics. If you would like to see this version in other media, though, feel free to check out either the two DC Nation shorts I've posted just above (which are kid-friendly translations of the characters), or the episode "Four-Star Spectacular" from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which features the original team in one segment. There's also a DC Showcase with the team, Sgt. Rock, but I can't find that thing ANYWHERE. So, good luck looking for that one.

Either way, adapting the original Creature Commandos wouldn't be impossible, but would be tough. To be uber-faithful, you'd have to make it a period piece, set during World War II. Which, honestly, could be very cool! At the very least, I like the idea of the Creature Commandos and Project M existing in the DC Universe during World War II, and acting as inspiration for the modern group.

Speaking of, let's talk about the modernization really quick. The original team was rebooted after Crisis on Infinite Earths, in the year 2000. This iteration of the group added three members: Aten, the mummy with healing powers; Bogman, a...kind of generic version of the Creature of the Black Lagoon, honestly; and Gunner McKay, a World War II soldier resurrected by Mazursky (who's STILL ALIVE) as a cyborg. Now led in the field by Captain Lucius Hunter, the grandson of famous Korean and Vietnam War heroes, the team operates in the modern day (2000) for Project M, fighting against supernatural threats like Tazzala and Lord Saturna and Simon Magus and what's that?

Sorry? Nobody cares, you say? Only 7 issues, you say? Almost completely forgotten, you say? So completely forgotten that DC's officially placed it in a separate part of the multiverse meant specifically for failed reboots of Pre-Crisis characters, and still, nobody cares at all, even DC, because they forgot they did that and still brought the characters back for a cameo 10 years later?

Hopefully now, you can see why Gunn opted not to use these characters for his Creature Commandos. However, that still doesn't address where each of those characters he chose DO come from. I won't go into that yet, but three major characters from the show's iteration come from the third attempt to reboot the Creature Commandos, as a part of the New 52. For those in the know, your mental "yikes" is understood. To be fair, the characters associated with the team both predate the reboot, and are also a direct product of it. And I'll make that make sense in a moment.

The way that the DC Universe was rebooted was, notoriously, Flashpoint. Flash fans and comic book fans alike know this as the tine Barry Allen travelled back in time to save his mom, only for Eobard Thawne to fuck with everything, and make the timeline reboot into a nightmare reality where Batman's dad lived and kills people, Superman landed in government custody and has never seen the sun, and a war between Themyscira and Atlantis has enveloped the entire world. Oh, and Barry's mom is alive. Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

In this new timeline, Frankenstein's Monster (yes, like the one from the novel) is revived in 1942, and works together with Myron Mazursky's Project M. He works together with Matthew Shrieve, Vincent Velcoro, Warren "Wolfpack" Griffith...and Mazursky's adopted daughter, Nina "Mermaid" Mazursky. Yeah, Nina comes from Flashpoint originally. The team, known as the Creature Commandos, fights against Nazi Germany, with the sword-wielding Frankenstein stabbing Hitler through the chest in his bunker! Oh, don't worry, I will get to the incredible character that is Frankenstein, and the ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT THAT GUNN DID TO HIM. It's honestly one of the greatest sins of this show.

Anyway, the Creature Commandos is disbanded in 1945, by which I mean they're tricked into going into a stasis chamber, and trapped there for 65 years. In the modern day, they find the remnants of Myron Mazursky's work, and find out that Matthew Shrieve tried to replace them in the modern day with Solomon Grundy, Man-Bat, and...Doctor Phosphorus. Starting to see what's happening now? Well, we aren't done yet. After the group revives, they're chased by Shrieve's granddaughter, Miranda Shrieve, who hates monsters because the new group killed her grandfather. However, they're saved by the new government organization, S.H.A.D.E., and one of their top agents: the Bride of Frankenstein.

S.H.A.D.E., headed by a body-changing mystery-man named Father Time, sends its agents and scientific freaks against metahuman threats and supernatural disasters. She tells Miranda that her grandfather was actually killed by General Sam Lane (yes, Lois Lane's dad; Flashpoint be crazy), and she joins them to fight against Lane and his new agent: G.I. Robot. After G.I. Robot is destroyed, they find out that somehow, FUCKING SOMEHOW, Myron Mazursky is still alive after 65 YEARS, and they defeat Lane and his forces, while reuniting Nina with her father. Which, after watching Gunn's series, feels...bad. It feels bad. After all of that, the Creature Commandos disbands, and we go back to the story of Flashpoint.

And THEN...we get to the New 52.

Written by Jeff Lemire (yes, THAT Jeff Lemire), this series follows Frankenstein and his wife a agents of S.H.A.D.E. in the rebooted DC Universe, with a squad consisting of, yes, Wolfpack, Velcoro, Khalis (new version of Aten the Mummy), and Nina Mazursky. And yes, in case you didn't know, the Bride DOES have four arms in the comics, and it IS cool as shit, and I'm not completely goddamn crushed that that was apparently TOO HARD TO ANIMATE. Anyway, this group lasted for 16 issues, and then just...vanished. Like many of the first 52 titles of the New 52, this was a failed series financially, and ended suddenly. DC wasn't done with Frankenstein, 'cause he's rad as shit, but they were done with the Creature Commandos.

Well...these ones, anyway. Because hey, hey, they're back! Yeah, out of NOWHERE, and seemingly completely ignoring the iteration that already existed in a New 52 world, there is now a Rebirth iteration of the team as of this year. Written by David Dastmalchian (yes, Polka Dot Man himself), the team features Vincent Velcoro, Wanda "Wolfpack" Griffith, the return of Mina "Medusa" Rhodes and Elliot "Patchwork" Taylor, led by Dr. Barbara West (new character, got something mysterious going on) and Matthew Shrieve, just as much of an asshole as he usually is in the comics, and commissioned by General Wade Eiling (notorious Justice League opponent known as the General), who's working for...Brainiac? Yeah, this series is a mystery, but we're only 4 issues in, so we'll wee how it goes!

The Creature Commandos, true to form, have never died in concept, and the characters from the original team keep getting resurrected. Which is why it's absolutely insane that Gunn's lineup comes almost entirely from an alternate universe version of the team. Take a look again, and you'll see that I'm right. The only character not introduced as a part of that group is Weasel, and he's only in Gunn's Commandos because he loves the character so much from The Suicide Squad (and to take the place as the werewolf of the group). It's just such an odd choice for this iconic team to feature...none of them. Why not apply that Gunn philosophy of changing characters and improving blank slates onto these guys? And hell, as much as most of us would hate it...you could easily kill some of them and replace them with other characters. I dunno, this seems like completely ignored potential to me. And I'll keep it in mind for my own version of the group.

Oh, almost forgot to mention this. G.I. Robot was invented in the 1950s, LONG before the Creature Commandos was even conceptualized. However, when Weird War Tales was getting written with the Commandos, who else would get pulled into that but one of the weirder characters of World War II comics, G.I. Robot? So, yes, G.I. Robot has long been considered a Creature Commando, making him a great candidate for this series. No complaints, and he was one of my favorite characters. Cheers for the Tin Man, baby.

So, now what? We've seen the history of the group, but where do we go from here? Well, obviously, Gunn put together his group, then threw them into a story. Cool, I'll do the same. The major question here is, who are my Creature Commandos? Well, as said, I have two approaches to consider: purist and creative. I can either go by the comic book team, as written with few changes to the roster, or I can come up with a new team that's inspired by the comics and the original, but with a priority being in telling a good story. Now, that said, this post is getting...long. And, to be honest, I'm still nailing down by favorite choices for the Creature Commandos. So, methinks this is a good place to pause until the next essay.

Next time, we'll look at the first episode of the series, and consider what makes a good set-up for the Creature Commandos and Project M. We'll also answer the most important question: do we really need to put Amanda Waller in here, especially because she's just straight-up not good at her job? At all? Like, a literal zero success rate, let's be honest here?

See you next time (maybe, no pressure)!

Part One: Introduction and Adaptation Part Two: The Original Creature Commandos Part Three: Amanda Waller and Rick Flag, Sr. Part Four: The Frankensteins Part Five: G.I. RobotPart Six: Weasel Part Seven: Doctor Phosphorus

[msfbgraves]

Did you see that horrific Happy Hanukkah tweet featuring an AI Terry and Daniel in a cage from Hayden on Tw*tter??? So awful in every single way. Acknowledging a Jewish celebration in this disrespectful way with the character who is evil and the villain of the show—and who is apparently Jewish! YIKES. What was he thinking??

Anyway, Terry is always going to be Irish Catholic to me and I don’t care what The Big Three think. What a gross thing to do and I’m not even Jewish.

I minored in European medieval history and majored in 19th and 20th century European history. The Wikipedia page on antisemitism explains it better than I ever could but the cliff notes version of antisemitic stereotypes we all walked away with went like this, stereotypes, mind, that were used to continuously justify genocidal violence against Jewish people:

You, as an anti-semite, can recognise a Jew, among other things, by their

-Dark hair

-Name connected to jewels and or money

-Sophistication; they're dangerously smart even

-Rich by money made in trade or banking or illicit pursuits, they don't do 'honest' work

Jews were said to be untrustworthy, disloyal, backroom dealers who whisper in the ears of power to get their way

They were said to spefically target Christian children to harm in blood rituals

Whenever there is a sickness, it is because a Jew poisoned the water

...

Does this possibly remind you of a certain antagonist in The Karate Kid III? The one who heads a company called Dynatox?

So, you know, if you were going to write a dark haired, duplicitous, murderous rich guy who makes his money by bribing judges with money made by poisoning nature, who goes by the name of Silver

A man whose sole raison d'être is targeting young boys; and who does this primarily by deceit

You would have been very strongly advised not to make this character canonically Jewish when he wasn't said to be so in the original.

Just, no. NO. Please, for the love of all you hold dear, don't fucking do that.

But, apparently Hayden is Jewish, so then it must be fine. I mean the only cultural framework for a series based on a film that was released internationally and is streamed worldwide is the American one, obviously, so, sure, take the dark haired billionaire by the name of Silver who targets children and bribes officials with money made poisoning nature and make him not only rich but sophisticated rich, just to hammer the point home that he is a dark haired Jewish intellectual that harms nature and preys on children by tricking them before making them bleed and I'm just like, why didn't you give him a hooked nose while you were at it. To tick the last box on your antisemitic bingo card.

And what is it with the crush on the goy bully who looks like a literal poster boy for the Hitler Youth?

So, again, is it OK to make Terry Silver a wandering antisemitic stereotype of a villain when you're Jewish yourself? Again, I'd advise against it, really I would.

Is it absolute text that Terry is Jewish? No. It is very strongly implied but not text. And maybe it will fly over people's heads but then to keep hammering that point home? Feels like rage baiting. But you know, this is Hayden we're talking about, even his co writers were like, "Oops, maybe you shouldn't deny depicting the sexual assault of a teenage boy when that is clearly what you did, even perhaps unwittingly." So consider the source here: that man is a steaming pile of dog shit on the best of days.

When Thomas wrote his own Terry Silver AU he called him Terry McCain and made him very explicitly Irish, and I have written better posts than this one on why I headcanon that Terry was raised Catholic because his Irish American mother married his Jewish father. His father would have had another reason to see his son as less than because as a rule of thumb by Jewish law, only children born of Jewish mothers can be Jewish without converting and certainly not all practitioners of Judaism are accepting of converts, feeling that only those born of nonconverted Jewish mothers truly count as Jews. (It is far more nuanced than that, obviously, depending on individual circumstances, do look it up rather than simply take my word for it... Yet it comes up in media dealing with Jewish life with regularity.) And certainly in the 80's, Terry would style himself into a living antisemitic stereotype because fuck you, Papa, for dragging me to yet another bar mitswa I would never have, fuck you for hosting all those minyans I could never join, fuck you for the fact that even though I am your only son, I will never be able to say kaddish for you, I'll never be styled a true man in your eyes, Fuck. You. I'll show you Jewish! Which, you know, is insane, but this is Terry we are talking about, and it compels me, the son full of Catholic Guilt about not being Jewish enough. There really has to be a reason why he is Like That and I think that background might just do it.

So for a Watsonian reasons, I can work with it, but would I have strongly implied that Terry was Jewish, given his backstory in The Karate Kid III and possible lingering antisemitic stereotypes the audience may have been exposed to?

No I wouldn't have. Not in a million years.

Dickhead.