#idk why exactly i decided i was gonna be more involved this time around??

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

I absolutely love our flag means death and I love many of the blogs I follow, yours included, but I don't ever want to truly join the fandom. The blatant racism is abysmal and just a strong reminder how toxic and racist fandom culture is in general. The fact half the show is about the romantic lead is the monster legend has made him out to be, and they even like him, yet their bias can't make them actuve see a moc has anything but dangerous. The fact people stanning and apologizing unironically his toxic second mate who is more fascinating as a bad guy than a good guy. Who throw tantrums when people literally point out things within the show that happen but also act like people are insane and toxic for thinking racial stereotypes are bad. How can they literally watch the show and agree with the villian that a character who's been told who's cried and had panic attacks and is a dude bro that he doesn't deserve nice things actually doesn't and is as scary and mean as everyone says he is. How can you think that and still think youre in the right. This show is so fun and positive. These people are so fucking insane over a dumbass goofy workplace "check out this booty im hawking whip my balls pissing on boots" pirate sitcom. It's weird!! It's so weird!!!

honestly anon, that's probably a good call. i'm personally still having a blast because i've gathered a nice little circle of mutuals and mutual-in-laws whose takes i trust and whose ofmd content isnt fucking abysmal. but even then i still see Incredibly Shitty Takes on the regular. even if i turned anon off i'd still see shit if i went into the tags (which i rarely do) or if i just. tagged a post with the character that post is about. it's fucking wild

you're completely correct tho. the amount of Missing The Point Of The Entire Goddamn Show that goes on in this fandom so that people can woobify their white fave is fucking exhausting. i don't blame you for not wanting to get involved

[wedontdeservethestars]

Can U do Johnny Cage w/ a reader who looks exactly like her sister Kitana? Thx 🙏

Ok. First of all anon I am SO sorry this took me like. 7 months to get around to. Idk why but for a while I just had NO workflow with this one BUT!! I ended up liking how it came out! Lots of emotional stuff in this one, with reader and Johnny learning to appreciate one another. Again--so sorry for the wait but I hope you like it!

(AO3 link here!)

“Kitana, baby!”

“No.”

“Ohhh, the other one.” 

That was how most of your conversations with Johnny began. Sure, you were technically the younger twin. You were second in line just behind the new Kahn, and despite the numerous times you and Kitana had agreed to this arrangement of Kahn and Royal Advisor (though, in all honesty, you held more power than a simple Advisor), you couldn’t help the jealousy you felt towards her. How could you not? All because of a few mere minutes of time-difference, you had spent most of your life in Kitana’s shadow. The forgotten sister.

“That isn’t my name, either.” It was bad enough being mistaken for your twin by anyone, but for some reason the fact that it was Johnny made you even more irritated. 

“Sorry, princess,” he shrugged carelessly. 

“And I’m not a princess,” you continued. The words felt sharp on your tongue. One of the first things you insisted upon when Kitana took over the kingdom was to remove your title entirely. You couldn’t stand the thought of her growing to such a powerful rank while yours stayed the same. Princess. You hated the word. It seemed childish. 

“Man, I just cannot win today, huh?” Johnny waved his hand as if to say, ‘ah, well,’ and wiped any memory of the past few seconds from his mind.

“If you’re looking for Kitana Kahn,” you said, emphasizing her title, “She’s with Master Liu Kang.”

You pointed a finger towards the opposite end of the venue, where, indeed, Kitana stood with a few close friends. Though she and Liu Kang weren’t touching, they were indeed standing rather close together. Besides, Johnny was well aware of their relationship to one another. Most were. You couldn’t understand why he tried so hard to gain the affection of an already-involved woman. 

Johnny, following your aim, squinted, lifting his shades. He apparently decided that he didn’t like the company she kept, because he shook his head, flipping the glasses back down. “Eh. Whatever. Was just gonna check if she’s havin’ a good time.”

“Are we supposed to?” you mumbled, mostly to yourself. Outrealm-Earthrealm meetings like this weren’t your idea of a good time, even if the events were thrown specifically as pleasant meetings where members could laugh and drink and be in good nature with one another. To keep the peace, Kitana had explained when she first brought up the idea. There had only been a handful so far, but you hadn’t enjoyed yourself at a single one of them. Maybe you were just too much of a wallflower. 

“Are you supposed to have a good time a party?” Johnny tried to clarify. “Uh…yeah. Yeah you are.”

“It’s not really a party…”

“Drinks. Music. F…” Johnny frowned as he drew out the ‘f’. His mouth started to form the word ‘friends,’ but he quickly backtracked. “Fffffun people.”

“I suppose,” you grumbled, arms folded over your chest. He sighed and gave you a nudge.

“C’mon, loosen up! You don’t have to do anything. No world to save, no politics or anything. Just relax.”

You were about to point out how, technically, the only reason this ‘party’ was happening was because of politics that specifically dealt with the two of your homeworlds, but the thought suddenly exhausted you and you let it slide. “I don’t…relax easily.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Johnny chuckled and took a sip of his own drink, some sort of foamy liquid with an ungodly color of aquamarine fading to green at the bottom. It looked like it could kill. Half-heartedly, you hoped it would. “Tell you what, next drink is on me.”

Well. It couldn’t hurt. “Fine.”

“Hella.” He gave you a grin, his teeth too perfect and square, and grabbed you by the arm, practically dragging you to the catering bar. “C’mon!”

“Johnny, slow down–” you frowned. “I’m in heels!” 

“What’dya want?” he asked as you stumbled up behind him.

“Uh…” Your gaze skimmed over the menu. Drinks you’d never heard of with ingredients even less familiar. Of course, the catering company had to come Earthrealm. “I don’t know. That one looks fine.”

“Shoulda known you were a Pinot Grigio kinda gal.” He leaned over and murmured something to the bartender, who tried his best not to look flustered (and failed). You scoffed. You couldn’t ever imagine giving into Johnny’s “charms” so easily. Never.

Shortly, a tall fluted glass was in your gloved hand. You took a tentative sip and immediately felt your tongue dry up. Not letting yourself wince at the sick, bittersweet tang that overcame your taste buds, you bravely took another sip. Johnny didn’t take notice–he was in the midst of downing the rest of his glass. Slamming the glass down, he stifled a quiet burp into his fist and laughed. You rolled your eyes. When the bartender turned around again, there was already another glass of whatever horrid drink he’d just finished. 

“Thanks, stud.” He raised his glass and gave a wink to the server, who, this time, couldn’t stop a shy little smile from coming across his face. You felt sick.

“Thank you for the drink,” you mumbled and started to hightail it out of the crowd, but a hand on your shoulder stopped you. 

“Hey, c’mon. At least talk with me a little. Not like you were doin’ anything else.”

You sighed. Damn him. “Can we at least go somewhere quiet? I don’t like crowds.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he shrugged. Realizing you weren’t going to get rid of him so easily, you decided to suck it up and scanned the venue, looking for a way out. You spied a patch on the outskirts that wasn’t too populated, a little garden area with leaves that glistened in the dew of night and held promise for some peace and quiet. 

“This way.”

While squeezing through seemingly endless amounts of people, you heard Johnny behind you, stopping to talk to a few and saying a quick ‘hi’ to nearly everyone else. You wished he would just focus on the task at hand, but then again, did you expect him to act any other way?

“So, Edenia,” he said awkwardly as you two came up on your destination. Fortunately, your guess had been right–it was much emptier and calmer over here. 

“What about it?” You turned to face him and suddenly wished he weren’t so tall.

“Uh…how’s it going?” he tried. “With your sister as ruler, and all.”

“Did you really insist on continuing to stay with me just to take about my sister all night?” you asked curtly. 

“No! No, just, uh, y’know. It’s a big shift, I’m sure. And…” He gave a timid chuckle and lowered his voice to a stage-whisper, as if he had an audience you didn’t know about. “I’m just trying to make conversation. Help me out here.” 

Your lips twitched. You hid them in your glass. “It’s going fine.”

“Good, good.” 

There was a silence, and before Johnny could say something stupid, you decided to at least try. “How are your…movies?”

“Oh, great!” You couldn’t begin to describe the amount of relief that washed over his face. “We just finished wrapping Breaknose Mountain last month. That’s gonna be a good one. Give the audience a good ol’ tug at the heartstrings. Y’know, I don’t really get to do dramas often, which, like, whatever, every actor has their niche, and mine happens to be awesome-as-shit stunts and comedy and, like, shirtless scenes, so I always have to really appreciate the times where I get to hunker down and get into a serious role. Not that all my roles aren’t serious, at least, I take them seriously, but it’s different, y’know?” 

For a moment, you didn’t know what to say. Truthfully, you didn’t know–Edenia didn’t have movies and the stories and theater your culture did have were nothing like whatever was going on in Johnny’s films, based on what he had described to you before–but the way he spoke about this…it was the first time you saw something genuine in Johnny. Something more than the brash sense of style and flirtatious glances and overconfidence. 

“That’s…interesting.” You weren’t lying.

Johnny smiled, and for once it didn’t come off as entirely jaded. “Nah, I just…uh, actually, forget it. It’s kinda stupid.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” You were curious to see whatever side of him was starting to peek out. “Tell me.”

“Okay,” he chuckled with a nod. “I, uh…I haven’t been on a stage since I was a kid. Like, live acting, in a play. Probably not since high school. And…I miss it. A lot. It’s different from film. And the stuff I did then, I’m sure it was shitty as hell, but it felt real.”

He paused, a wistful look coming across his face. He looked distracted, like he wasn’t really seeing you anymore even though his eyes were still trained on you.

“I loved Shakespeare especially. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as alive as I did when I got to be Romeo. It was…everything. It was funny, it was sad, it was romantic. There was fighting. There was kissing. And the audience, they were right there in Verona with us. Living and breathing the same air. Or…that’s what it felt like, at least. With movies, you just…you film. And it’s usually on a green-screen set. And then you go home, and…you wait for it to come out, and the reviews come in. But they’re just words on paper. Comments. Everyone sees you act but no one sees you act.”

“Johnny…” You had no idea exactly what he was talking about in terms of sets and Shakespeare and whatever Verona was, but you didn’t need to. “That’s…”

“Dumb,” he said quickly, eager to put back on that Hollywood-boy persona. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, I’m one of the biggest stars in America. Why would I want anything else?”

“I don’t think it’s dumb,” you frowned.

“Oh.” A look of genuine surprise came across his face. “Well…thanks, I guess.”

“Maybe you could still perform onstage if you really wanted to.”

“Eh, doesn’t really match the Cage brand,” he smiled sadly. “It’s okay. It’s just somethin’ I think about sometimes.”

“Well…I bet you were wonderful onstage.” You offered your best attempt at a smile, and Johnny gladly took it.

“Oh, I was.” Immediately your smile dropped as his old facade came back up, but he just laughed. “Kidding. Thank you. Really.”

“Humph,” you said in return. 

Johnny swirled what remained of his beverage around in its glass. “Can I ask a question? And promise you won’t get mad?”

You sighed, but nodded, finishing off your own drink almost just to spite the flavor. “Fine.”

“It’s about Kitana,” he warned.

“I thought we got past that.” But you waved your hand to tell him to keep going. 

Still, Johnny hesitated. “How do you really feel about her taking the throne. ‘Cause, like, you guys aren’t just sisters, right? You’re twins?”

You nodded once. Words sat on your tongue, but you knew you letting them escape would be a mistake. “I feel like…I shouldn’t talk about that.”

“Why not?” He cocked his head. “It’s just you and me. No one’s gonna hear.”

“I don’t care about what others think,” you lied. Surrounded by this kind of company, your jealousy could easily be misconstrued as planned treason. 

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I hardly know you. And it’s not an issue for a Earthrealmer to worry about.”

“So it is an issue,” he pressed. 

“No,” you huffed, “I didn’t mean–”

“Didn’t you?” His ocean blues pierced into your skull and you had to avert your own eyes. 

“Don’t do this,” you muttered. 

“Do what?”

“Cage.”

“What?” he asked again. “Listen, I’m just sayin’–if you can’t talk about this stuff normally, then I don’t mind being an outlet. Like me and my stupid theater dreams.”

“The aren’t stupid,” you said before really realizing you were doing it. Quickly, you moved on. “And that doesn’t equate to the politics of my kingdom. Not at all. One is a dream. The other is…”

“A dream?” he asked knowingly. “Of…running away? Being Kahn? Going back to the way things were?”

You didn’t deny any of his guesses. You also hoped he wouldn’t notice that detail. “Why do you care so much?”

“I…don’t know.” He frowned into his drink, and then had some more of it. “Just wanna get to know you. Know what you care about. Not what the Royal Advisor of Edenia does.”

There was silence for a long time. It got to the point where it was almost impressive how long Johnny was keeping his mouth shut for. You were clenching your teeth so hard you thought they might crack when you finally answered him. “Kitana has…everything now. We spent so long dreaming of the day when we would finally overtake that monster who killed our father, and when we could pay respects to our lost mother, and…Gods. I don’t know. We planned everything together, in hushed whispers at night, ever since we were children. We both agreed she should be Kahn. That I would remain by her side. But…it feels more like I’m behind her, or beneath her. And why shouldn’t I be equal with her?”

He stared at you. You suddenly felt awful for voicing your ugly desires.

“No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. That was…”

“You’re right.”

You stopped dead in your tracks. “Excuse me?”

“You’re right,” Johnny said again. “I mean, like, I don’t wanna start a whole-ass Edenian civil war or anything, but I think it’s pretty normal for you to feel this way.”

Secretly, you were immensely relieved to hear that. “It feels like it isn’t.”

“I don’t know how else you’re supposed to feel about it.” He wrinkled his nose. “Content? ‘Cause that seems like a pretty shitty deal.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter either way,” you tried to brush off. “I can’t do anything about it.”

“You could talk to her,” he offered.

“Deceptively simple answer,” you replied in such a way that made it clear how often you’d thought about this. 

“I don’t think it is.” But he backed off when you gave him an annoyed look. “But hey. I barely know what’s goin’ on with my own country’s politics, let alone yours.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” 

Johnny let you stew in the conversation while he finished off his drink, setting the glass on the ground beside yours. “Well, I guess…I’m sorry. That you’re in this position.”

Hearing him say that felt like a cool breeze filling your lungs. It didn’t solve any of your problems, of course, but it was nice to have someone just…listen. Understand. 

“Thank you,” you said, and you meant it. “I’m sorry for you, too. About your acting stuff.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he shrugged, but you thought you saw his chest relax like yours had.

The silence you shared was a little awkward, but it wasn’t tense like the previous ones. It was a little bit nice, actually. You looked around the venue, deciding that the location and lights and music were a little bit nice too now that you really thought about it, and when you looked back Johnny was staring at you in a very, very particular way.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I can give you something Kitana doesn’t have.”

��What’s that?” He was close, now, his face looming over yours. It made you nervous. You almost wished he would get closer. 

“I can’t tell you until I give it,” he smiled. His eyes searched yours for something–understanding of what he was talking about, maybe. His smile widened: he’d found it. Rightfully so. You did know what he was talking about.

“You promise she doesn’t have this?” you asked, feeling your chest grow tight. Johnny moved in closer–his strong nose was nearly touching yours now. 

“Oh, big time,” he laughed quietly. 

You gave a simple nod, and that was enough. Johnny sealed the kiss. 

[katy-l-wood]

Delete your Threads account. You know what Meta as a company has done, you know the kind of person Mark Zuckerberg is. You've lived through Gamergate, the elections, covid, the fucking lot of it, and yet you're still willingly making an account on Threads. How can you possibly justify that?

Second ask: Scratch that, I hadn't read your most recent posts. Sorry for being so rude.

Third ask: "Still going to keep an eye on it" For what exactly? For it not to be as bad as it is? For it to get even worse before you decide it is wrong? You know who Mark Zuckerberg is. You know what Facebook is. Be up front: you don't actually care or stand for anything, you're only afraid of losing business. Have some dignity.

So you decided to be rude as fuck, "apologize," and then come back and be more rude?

I was incredibly clear in that post of why I am going to keep an eye on Threads, despite the concerns: Twitter was a valuable source of live news, especially during natural disasters, and Threads is the first potentially viable replacement for that. IDK if you actually follow me, but if you do you'll know I do a lot of work around natural disaster communication. Twitter was invaluable as a communication source during natural disasters. Full stop. It is not up for debate. But hey, if you want a source with more authority than a random tumblr blog, here, have a nice shiny research paper:

Mind you, that was written in 2010 and the importance of Twitter as a communications tool during natural disasters has only increased since then. There is no other tool out there, no other website--news or otherwise, that can provide such granular, specific updates when shit hits the fan as Twitter did. The only better, quicker source of information I have found during natural disasters is listening to actual radio chatter from the departments involved in whatever problem, and that can be very tricky to do if you don't know where to look or have the right equipment. There is no other site where I can go specifically follow so many of my local fire departments, my local emergency services, my local National Weather System stations, and get live pushed updates from them every single time they post.

When Twitter DDOSed itself last week and put a limit on the amount of tweets people could view and forced people to be logged in to view anything at all, the effect was immediate and BAD. People suddenly couldn't view things like missing person alerts, or weather alerts. I had people messaging me because they were trying to check the National Weather System autoalerts for their area on Twitter due to being caught in a sudden storm, but they couldn't get on to check.

Love it or hate it, Twitter had an immense amount of value and it got that value--at least in the case of natural disaster communication--because the stubborn ass government decided it was big enough to be trusted with official lines of information. Very, very few other social media sites have ever had that trust from the government. Look at how they banned TikTok on all government devices. But they DO trust Facebook, and Instagram, and Meta. Which means their chances of trusting Threads and migrating over there when Twitter finally takes its last breath are ASTRONOMICALLY higher than expecting them to go anywhere else.

We can debate the privacy and moral issues of the Metaverse and those involved until the cows come home, but it does not change the fact that if my mountain is on fire I'm gonna get information about where that fire is from wherever the fuck I can. I'm not going to wait around for it to maybe show up in a "live" updates news article from CNN from some reporter half a continent away in New York who doesn't know anything about where I live and gets the roads wrong because they just don't know. I'm going to go to the website full of my neighbors and local firefighters and see what's happening right that second.

Do we need to fix the privacy and moral issues? Yes. But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater either. Not using Threads or any other Meta product isn't the answer here. Using them with extreme caution and only for very specific needs, for the time being, is. Long term, we need to be focusing on privacy based legislation that would finally put these companies in their place. But until then, again, I'm going to keep following my local fire departments wherever they go.

P.S.: If you're going to keep the shitty attitude, fuck right off and unfollow+block. You're not wanted here.

[jitt0]

OK SO!

ik no one asked but I’m gonna just dump all my Petra Hcs on here (some things do involve my Oc but I’ll put that in another category)

So for me, before she was admitted into the asylum, Petra was an elementary school teacher somewhere in Texas. And her class was always particularly loud (she always got the bad classes because of how happy she always was)

One day in 2005 they had decided to take a school field trip to Germany (haven’t fleshed out exactly why yet) in Germany, Petra finally snaps and goes on a rampage. She ends up killing one of the kids in her class. This obviously gets the attention of dr Marcel and she gets admitted into the asylum. Getting stuck in Germany. (Great going Dr.) this is also where she decides to cut her hair.

Her and Almilio do end up escaping in 2006. Almilio was found just two days later but Petra stayed hidden until 2007. After she gets back she decides to stay (probably for Peter, idk I haven’t decided yet.)

Petra and Peter have also had a love hate relationship over the years. Peter would become more tolerant of her when he would have manic episodes and they would do risky stuff together. One time she even convinced him to Pierce her ears. Twice.

HENRY'S SEGMENT! (OC SEGMENT)

Henry gets admitted to the asylum in may of 2008. When Henry and Petra meet, at first it doesn’t go very well. Petra only speaks English, and Henry speaks Italian and some German so the only time they ever talked was when Peter was there to translate (that goes the same for him and Bruce but they met differently) they both liked to draw together in the art room, that was where their language barrier mattered a little less. eventually, Petra starts to learn German using books around the asylum, and Henry tries to learn English (so they kinda both help each other out:)

ANYWAY THATS IT TYSM FOR READING🤍🤍

[bebx]

Hey there! I hope you are doing well. I don't mean to bother you again as you are gonna figure out I am the same person who asked about your unexpectedly but hopefully temporary drifting away from ST sub fandom hehe. So I decided to do my homework and see if you probably left some clues or hints regarding your hiatus from it before but unfortunately I couldn't find any unless my dumb@$$ missed it despite thorough research as if I was looking for easter eggs in a deeply layered show like ST. My search report :- It had been going well on your side even when there was a drought in HC contents but slowly it lost the 'momentum' which I feel you played a key role in wonderfully building up yourself, ironically right at the moment of D-day which honestly feels like if reality had tv drama like loopholes lol.

So all I have now is what you last said to me that you are busy with stuffs and other things like hyperfixation on a character from Harrow series { although I haven't watched it yet but based on your enthusiasm which mostly resonates with my own interest, I have added it in my watchlist :) Cuz Bingo I can't tell you how happy I was when I found you with the same sentiments as mine after watching Damsel! } plus point is you did mention how he is certainly still in your heart and you are planning to make more posts and fanfic about him in future. So I decided to wait, months passed with more tempting Henry Creel info pouring while I still kept up with *patiently waiting for my favorite Tumblr user's ST fandom era to resurface as well as coexist with her new obsession of Harrow series*, so that one hyperfixation won't have to be sacrificed for another still worthy subject of hyperfixation :) Hence it has been quite an introspective and empathetic time but now I am like "okay at least lemme just ask her how she has been and what exactly is the status", to stifle my other apprehensive thoughts forming with the passing time as well as disappearing silver lining( as there is no sign of either Henry or JCB these days at all lol apart from Jamie Bower World Domination post) out of overthinking.

I always felt your contribution to this fandom has been immensely valuable and even though others may or may not have been enough reminding you that as I can see I am probably the only anonymous seeker regarding digging this matter up, I miss you and your blogs about it. I have mostly been a lurker kind so I never interactively participated in any discussion or thread but I have always inwardly appreciated people with a good taste of art. So even if anonymously, this is a great deal to me, sharing my wish embedded in vulnerability. *nervously chuckles* Idk if this is a stretch but given how what Jamie manually allows to be displayed on his tagged section had most of your posts, tells me that he must have subconsciously felt your absence lately too. The fact that this is true tho, makes it a reasonable theory.

So now after hopefully doing a great job at explaining the deep context behind my "ask away" here are the main deal of questions xD;-

How are you, once again? (I don't want to pressurize you into rejoining it earlier than you planned according to your life and schedules uk. Besides I don't wanna interrupt your balancing of multifandom fascination.)

Is there any particular reason behind this seemingly complete "switch off mode" which you can share? ( because my Spidey senses keep feeling it's more than what it is, could be false alarm tho) Could it be potentially because Stranger Things is so addictive, it is not possible to keep a track of its updates while continuing with hyper fixating on other fandoms?

If the aforementioned fear is unfounded, then here are my other theories and questions, have you stumbled upon the TFS spoilers of any kind?

If no, are you planning to watch it LIVE soon or later? (as the canon play is gonna stick around for a long time) is this why have you been avoiding discussions as they would involve major spoiling of the experience?

Or are you planning of watching it whenever it streams on Netflix as technically it just has to one day?

Have you been weakly following any ST S5 leaks? ( as we finally got a very *greatest leak of all time* kind of leak not even exactly 24 hours ago lol) [to tell you the truth- this is exactly what triggered me to get some clarifications from you, as despite knowing that I would open your page only to be greeted by Harrow, deep down I felt maybe you would say something about it because it directly involves JCB and it's quite making waves already.]

Did you check out the VR Game released this February?

Or are you taking a complete long break for a while because once S5 release date inches closer, there is no going back from its fever for another 2-3 years anyways? haha ( ngl this is my most optimistic theory I am clinging onto)

(optional question xD) Am I seriously the only one approaching you by bringing this old buried fascination or others have felt the same way too and they express their perplexity in your inbox instead?

(anyways I will be very grateful if you respond to my plethora of mystified emotions even though I think it would secretly answer to many other lurkers like me who found a sense of kindred spirit through you but are too busy abiding by their lurking policy)

hi, I’ve been looking at this for…. a while, because… oh my 😅 I understand that it’s been so long since my Stranger Things era, and I know some of my followers follow me for my Henry / ST content. I just didn’t know my silly ST posts actually have this much impact that they stay in people’s memories even after it’s been a long time. so this ask actually brings back so many memories. and I really appreciate that you’re still sticking around. really. I had to take a moment to just sit here and stare at this ask in my inbox and go “whoa” — but it’s a good kind of whoa. I am touched that you still remember, because gosh how long has it been since my ST days!

to answer your questions, I am fine and I am doing well. thank you. I didn’t mean to “abandon” my interest. and I AM still interested in the show. I still love Henry, even though I don’t really talk about him on here anymore. it’s funny because a part of me is kind of sad that I don’t talk about him on here anymore? to tell you the truth, anon, I don’t exactly know why? I mean… sure, my blog currently focuses on something else, but I never really stop loving Henry as a character. this sounds extremely cliche, but it’s the truth. I still love him and I still think about him and those time I spent writing fics about him.

I don’t know if there’s any particular reason behind this, according to you, seemingly complete "switch off mode" on my blog. but there’s no conspiracy theory or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about? I just kind of focus my attention on something else, for the moment, but again, I still do love Henry. just because I don’t talk about him here like I used to does not mean I love him any less. rest assured. he’s still in my heart.

I haven’t stumbled upon any real TFS spoilers, but that’s probably because I don’t follow many blogs that talk about it so it rarely reaches my dashboard anyway.

and I don’t live near the place where the play takes place, so unfortunately I don’t see myself traveling there to watch it live, as life has been a little busy for me here to take that kind of vacations. but I would have loved to. if the time were right. I do look forward to streaming it when or if it becomes available on Netflix though.

I haven’t been following ST leaks much, I can’t see “weekly” because I kind of just look at them if they reach my dashboard here or my twitter’s/X’s timeline. but I don’t actively go search for it nor do I avoid it for fear of any potential spoilers either. but I did just see the leaks you talked about, and I’m actually very excited. it actually reminded me of my fic “Salvation” — I’m not sure if you’ve read it, but yeah. gosh I am genuinely very excited.

though I haven’t checked out the VR Game. I mean… I don’t really play video games so that might explain why.

and no. I’m not “taking a long break” because I think there is no going back from its fever for another 2-3 years after season 5 is released. I don’t even know why I’m “taking a break” except that my mind has just been focusing on something else, currently.

also, yes, some people have asked, and I haven’t had the chance to answer them (I’ve been meaning to, though), so this might be the answer they were looking for as well? there’s no “real reason” behind my lack of activity when it comes to ST fandom, except that I’ve been focusing my attention on something else lately, but that doesn’t mean I love the show — or especially Henry — any less. I still am a fan of the show and of Henry. and I still love Jamie with all my heart, obviously. I still keep up with him and his music and I am so incredibly proud of him as an artist and a person.

I am super excited to see Henry again when season 5 drops. I don’t know when or if my hyperfixation will come back, so I wouldn’t wish to make any promises. but what I can say for sure is that, even though it’s not exactly a hyperfixation, I still love Henry just the same. I hope I will start making lots of posts and writing fics about him again one day.

last but not least, I will always love and support Jamie in everything he does. and he will forever be my source of happiness that keeps me going when things are difficult.

I also want to thank you for reaching out. it means so very much to me. if there is any further matter you wish to talk or discuss with me about, you are very welcome to drop by my inbox anytime.

(and yes, I still love talking about Stranger Things and Henry here. anybody is more than welcome to drop by my inbox to talk to me about Henry — who knows, it might re-spark that hyperfixation within me…)

[shinakazami1]

Uhh I would like to hear your opinion of either Stanley or the bucket take your pick.

But quick question I've had for awhile are you ever gonna return to the fandom? Or just talk about it occasionally? Or even just stop talking about it all together now that you're in a different fandom mainly? I enjoy your work regardless though of what you do. So keep it up!

Hi Cat!! Lovely to see you!

I answered about Stanley here so, I'll answer your remaining questions first and then the Bucket!

I don't know if I will return. I can't exactly enjoy the game anymore nor I want to be involved with fandom much. But I still hold the memories dearly. I have 10+ fanfics in my drafts, just need to reread through them. I have many ideas I still want to explore. I want to replay the game after I'm done with New Tales. I've been wanting to make a short comic. Idk if anyone still in the fandom would want it but seeing you and squoote in the asks does bring me hope someone still enjoys what I make haha

I hope to finish what I've already started. Good luck charm still waits for the next chap. We will see how it will go. But thank you for asking and remembering the lil ol' me :]

Now, onto-

The Bucket

How I feel about this character

Smart writing. Very, very smart writing. Started off as a joke and evolved into something so gorgerous and beautiful.

After so long on solitude, The Narrator decides to rewrite his story and be kind to Stanley. He sees they only have each other. He decides to use an everyday object that could be found in the office as object of comfort.

I think it represents most the Broom Closet ending, as a bucket would make sense to be from there. In the original - it's not an ending. It becomes a joke that it is. The Narrator knows there is a player. The game changes a bit between the runs and moves on. That's the BEST, to me, representation of the game, no joke.

And the bucket represents... A lot, actually.

First - what Narrator said. A calming presence. A bucket. A lover. But there is a lot.

The Bucket can be many things, depending on the perspective. Anytime the Bucket speaks - its Narrator speaking through the role. He shows he's playful. He shows he cares for Stanley. He wants to entertain and not hurt him as much yet he still ends up doing so (the fact you can still die in cargo ending). He changed, he wants to be held, he wants to be there with Stanley through the story they're both stuck in.

But also - the Bucket is Stanley. He is the comforting presence. He's seen as object without free will, just carried around, but also seems to have so much personality at the same time.

The duality fits them. It's a healing object for them both.

And this is why in Fernator AU--/silly

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Object to be desired, never to love back. Though Stanley x bucket x Narrator in the Bucket Apartment slaps.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Bucket x Narrator. Let him be with the symbols of his growth.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Once again, dunno the state of the fandom sieuehwh so headcanon time

- Bucket is a presence Narrator out himself in while he awaited for Stanley's return.

- The texture of the bucket feels off.

- You can't hold it by the handle. You have to hold it close. Holding by the handle feels like pulling someone by the hair.

- Narrator works in his free time after getting out of the game on more stickers. Fun work

- it holds liquids well. Soil too. In this Fernator analysis - /silly

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I will keep repeating myself. I love what is there and I don't want anything more. The game is finished. It said enough

[overthinkingtaleblr]

Ok… quick question before I seep back into the abyss that is the world off the internet, has anyone put much thought into the Johnnys and Jenny’s being related in some way??

Because I know I really like the idea of Jenny Ghost either being Ghost’s cousin or the daughter of the first Johnny Ghost that had died. And just being pissed that he’s got the same name as her dad now.

And then Jenny Toast I usually headcanon as being Toast’s sister Jenny who just… decided to quit being a cop and moved instead to the paranormal investigator business because it’s basically a cop for the paranormal. Find myself switching between her being older and younger too. Idk.

Granted I don’t remember much about the Jenny’s aside from the fact that they were fanmade and then pushed into the lore during a stream (plus that weird Twilight thing with Toast and Jenny Ghost…?)

Idk. Thoughts?

- Blue Strawberry

(Also hi! Back for a tiny bit! Probably gonna fall back into the habit of not posting for awhile and then bombarding the internet for a day again as we work through stuff over here.)

Tbh if memory serves, it wasn’t a stream that introduced the Jennys into the world, it was the billion-year-war arc— there weren’t many conversations about genderbending Ghost and Toast in the circles i was in (which tbh weren’t very involved circles so i could be wrong ^^;). People I was with also didn’t think they’d be around past the BYW… but poof, they came back in one video and I remember exactly zero details from it. Gavin was fanmade and made canon through a stream tho. I didn’t even watch the Twilight thing so you might know more stuff than me lol—

ANYways— having the Jennys be related to Ghost and Toast— whether it be through family or history— would be a good way to explain why their names are so similar. It wouldn’t give us too much to work with to figure out dynamics and relationships since they were played by the same characters to we couldn’t ever see them interact. That could also be decided through headcanons though! Seeing as i hc Ghost being raised partially by the other Johnny Ghost, having Jenny be his daughter could be interesting. Also, seeing as Toast does talk about his sister being named Jenny, I could see her coming in and joining the team if the world fell into an apocalypse. Also if it helps, i remember someone I followed on DA giving Toast TWO sisters named some variant of jenny, one older and one younger.

… tbh i sometimes wish we got more out of the Billion Year War arc— so many characters were untouched or had very little time to be developed and then never got returned to.

Also hi Blue! Glad you guys are working through things, I hope you’re staying safe

[mayakern]

ive only watched freshman year so idk who these are similar to in FH, but these two are my water genasi nem (short for anemone) and her fire genasi sorcerer wife flare!!

@corful this is gonna be a long one so i hope ur ready to strap in! cuz this campagin got all the way to level 20 🤭

their game started out when the party was just kids! we started at level 0 in our small, quaint town. all the og party members were childhood friends. nem was originally a very shy and sweet and bookish girl and all her friends called her nemi. her friends were leah (aasimar cleric), renevoire (tiefling storm sorcerer) and george (half-orc pugilist). bc we were level 0 our characters didn’t actually have real classes but that’s what they eventually grew up to become.

the group was soon joined by ixen, a young kobold spore druid. this art is by my bff @scookart bc i cannot find my art of baby ixen bc this part of the campaign happened in like 2019

im gonna add a cut here so this post isnt one million miles long on y’alls dashes lol

a lot of stuff happened. we delved into hidden ancient temples and gained extra-planar powers. we defeated a shadow monster that destroyed our home and killed a bunch of our friends and family and had to make a deal to warp time and set things “right”—our dead loved ones could come back, but only if we, the party, agreed to leave forever and never come back together as a group.

nem left for wizard las vegas, where she was immediately accepted into wizard school as a promising young mage. there, she met flare, who was kind of too cool for school and nicknamed nem “soggy boots.” some shenanigans happened and they started hanging out, partially because their teacher thought they each had what the other lacked (nem was very precise and studious but struggled to customize her spells to herself, flare had a knack for making her magic her own but lacked nem’s work ethic and control).

tldr bc a lot happened here, but nem helped flare sort out a problem with one of her friends and in doing so, the two kids got mixed up in some illegal magic and became fugitives, their citizenship revoked, and essentially became wanted criminals despite being like 12. bc of this, they fall into a life of crime. mechanically speaking, this is why by the end of the campaign nem was a level 2 divination wizard and a level 18 arcane trickster rogue. this also causes nem’s personality to do a 180. she goes from sweet and shy to jaded, gruff, and untrusting.

over the next 10 years, flare ends up quickly climbing the ranks of their thieves guild on a more administrative/leadership track while nem does the actual physical thievery. during this time, they also start dating. the vibes have been there from the start but they really take off around the time nem is 15.

they get an apartment together with a roof terrace and things are pretty good, tho nem doesn’t really enjoy being in the thieve’s guild. she doesn’t really like doing crime for a living and she struggles to be truly vulnerable around anyone, including flare, because she feels like at any moment that shadow monster, who managed to survive, could come back and rip her out of her life again.

and that’s exactly what happens after nem turns 21. she gets a job to steal some magical artifact in another city and the thing has weird vibes from the get go. nem and flare have traveled there together so flare can do her shmoozing and get more intel. nem receives a note that absolutely REEKS of shadow monster shenanigans and she decides to basically ghost flare and leave quietly in the night, leaving nothing more than a note that strongly warns flare not to go after her or to continue looking into this. she justifies this to herself by saying it’s better if flare doesn’t get involved and she knew that nothing in her life was guaranteed to be permanent, but really she did it because she was terrified of actually being vulnerable.

lo and behold! the shadow guy was involved. he’s in the material plane for good now and he called the original friend group back together to fight a bigger, badder evil. the rich guy from our small home town has found a way to merge with shadow beings and is using the impending confluence of the planes (think like an interplanar eclipse) to bridge the gap from the shadow plane to the material one so he can swallow it in shadows and rule eternal. so that’s bad.

the original shadow guy has been greatly weakened. his name is ammen and he’s also stuck in the material plane now in a human body and is having to learn in real time what having a body means. including having to poop. there’s a lot of shenanigans. he basically becomes a glorified and inept babysitter for a group of orphans the party rescued.

the party’s reunion is sweet and sad and also hella awkward. for the most part, everyone just grew up but their core personalities are the same. except for nem. no one really knows what to do about how weird and unsocial she’s become. when they ask about her job and why she’s become so fast, she says she’s a marathon runner. this becomes a running gag where all members of thieves guilds use sports, usually marathon running, as a cover for their work. rennevoire has become a ghost hunter. george has become a pit fighter. leah has been doing justicy-y things. ixen has been traveling the world doing archeology for fun. when the party reunites, george takes on a persona as a country music star, hannah montana style, named georgianna grande. rennevoire becomes her manager and basically starts a country music record empire/pyramid scheme.

(they’re all in separate images so i dont want to paste them in, but you can see the grown up party here)

lots of shenanigans happen. we go to different planes. each member of the party has a different plane associated with them and gains powers related to that. but you’re here for nem and flare!

flare shows back up in the city nem and the group are in and nem is sweating bullets. but flare is… weird. nem goes to talk with her and flare attacks her/the party! turns out it was a changeling in disguise. and in fact he is the dad of that kid nem and flare tried to help as kids, the situation that made them fugitives in the first place. that kid is still in a coma and has been all these years (their attempt to help him as kids failed miserably) and now his dad has basically gone crazy obsessed spending his whole life trying to get his kid back.

shenanigans ensue and the gang travels to wizard las vegas. turns out there’s like a sneeple curse going on that’s trapped the kid’s consciousness in another plane (a sneeple plane) and now flare is trapped there too. they’re both in comas. nem is distraught. she is usually very careful, but she starts getting reckless and making stupid mistakes bc she is so overcome with emotion. she visits their apartment and flare adopted a MAGICAL PUPPY while nem was gone. nem is absolutely horrified. she’s never taken care of an animal before.

eventually they manage to rescue flare and nico (the changeling kid who is no longer a kid). nem and flare have a heart-to-heart about their relationship, their fears, etc. nem is finally fully vulnerable with flare about how scared she was and how she was trying to protect both flare and her own feelings by leaving. they eventually get make up and get engaged. they try to elope quietly, mostly bc of nem’s avoidant personality issues, but the party catches on and gets mad so they do end up having a wedding, albeit a rather rushed one.

flare and nem go on a brief pocket dimension honeymoon where they basically just bang it out for a solid week, while only a day or so passes in the real world. they also spend 1000 gold on magical sex toys. i said this offhand as a joke bc at that point the party had like 50k and nem personally had like 10k, but my dm actually made them a "long distance relationship starter kit." (click the link to see the item, warning for nsfw content)

after this there’s more shenanigans. things are getting dire with the state of the world and the impending interplanar eclipse. eventually the party manages to find a way to circumvent the threatening apocalypse but in order to do so, they will have to turn back time to before the evil rich guy merged his soul with a shadow being. that means going back to when they were 10, to before flare and nem ever met. meaning flare will not remember her. nem is, understandably, crushed. previously when confronted with situations where nem could gain power if she sacrificed anything related to flare, even in symbolic situations that would have no real world ramifications, she has 100% refused. this is basically the worst possible choice for her. she cries a lot. talks with flare. comes up with a plan and the determination she needs to Do The Right Thing.

so the party have a final confrontation with the BBEG and it is during this fight, while he is distracted, that they turn back time. so as the fight progresses, they all become younger and younger, and they lose their powers (ie they level down), until they’re back to being kids and the BBEG is just a human and they can kill him before he becomes a problem.

the party is no longer forbidden from staying together/staying with their families. but nem still has a mission. she returns to wizard las vegas. she finds flare. she tells flare what her adult self told nem to say to her child self—information flare had never told anyone else, even in her adult years—and the two were able to reunite again and start fresh, and this time not as fugitives.

i think in this new version of the world, nem either goes full wizard or goes wizard 18 / rogue 2. i’ve tried to draw what i think wizard nem would look like but i just haven’t liked any of my attempts. idk maybe i’ll try again soon some times.

anyway i love my girls and i hope you’ve enjoyed this Very Long Post about them

u can find more art of them on my toyhouse

their campaign ended over a year ago but i’m still obsessed w them….

don’t think i’ll ever be over these two and their big stupid gay wedding that they got to have TWICE thanks to time travel shenanigans 😭

[pinkpicket]

Is this relationship\ situationship worth it?

Pile 1- pile 2- pile 3- pile 4- pile 5- pile 6

1. No. And you know why? Bc it seems like whatever this is it wont become better, i see no improvements at all and it genuinly makes me sad bc u seem like ur really trying and overthinking this, trying to not let go, trying to remain hopeful but deep down u know this wont ever bloom to its full potential. Honestly i see disappointment coming from this, it’s like ur gonna be asking urself all this waiting for what? And ur right. So let go or at least distance urself for now. But don’t get hopeless bc u have something better or it’s on the way, and they won’t disappoint u like this. So this one is not worth it but what’s to come is more than worth it.

2. I see two different people here, one is more than willing while the other seems to not even try. Now idk which one u r so ill tell u about both and u decide for urself: A) this person is such a giving person, so protective of the people they love( i see strong scorpio here) and willing to do whatever it takes. This is a person that will fight for who they love with whatever they can but also have their own boundaries too, like if u not giving the same way they’re not going to stay ( AND GOOD FOR THEM👏) while B) person is…. Um.. lazy and neglectful like someone u cannot depend on, definitely not to defend or fight for u. It’s like they dont see the worth in what’s around them. They’re ungrateful. So is it worth it? no, not at all. So should u leave? Well that depends on which person u r. So if ur person A definitely move from this pls, ur loyalty deserves to be reciprocated. But it definitely wont be easy for u to move on ( not surprising considering how loyal u r) but if ur B person then i guess dont leave, u know why? Bc u won’t find no one better but i cant guarantee they wont leave if u don’t change.

3. Fuck no. Absolutely no. Did u hear me???L? I said fucking no. Dude im actually pissed, why on earth are u even with this person????? Like u absolutely deserve better, WAYYY BETTER. This person is making u lose in life, so get out as soon as possible. This shit is not worth it at all. Im not even gonna tell u nothing more other than the fact this thing has no future. So love urself for once and leave.

4. Yes. Definitely. But u have to work for it like this is the type of thing that can become so beautiful and fruitful but it needs work like all things. So whatever ur problem is work it out bc in the end it will bloom into a beautiful relationship.

5. YES. Hell even more than yes. Honestly im so happy seeing this, i thought all the reading would be negative but this is absolutely gorgeous. Fight for it. So id actually like to give u some advice: even tho i see this as a beautiful mature ( or soon to be mature) relationship, try to be more giving like buy gifts for each other, talk more, share ur feelings more bc baby this thing u have going on is meant to be. The universe arranged this, so protect it with everything u have. Remember this reading, honestly save it up somewhere just so u can be reminded from time to time.

6. Wow okay this is very confusing. I see this as two situations, so maybe two very different groups of people chose this group. read both and decide which is meant for u.

So first group of people are the ones that i would give a small tiny yes, sorta bc this is not exactly the person that’s worth it but more like this person will lead u into something or someone that will be worth it.

While in this other group, i see two type of people( it can represent the people involved so once again u decide which is u 🤕) well number 1 is the hermit, this person rn is meant to be alone, they need to find themselves first then maybe yes this relationship will work, but as for now u have a journey ahead of u. And number 2 is the one that’s fighting for this relationship, i hate to say this but this is not worth it. So if u want to sure u can still try, but u wont get anything out of this. This is a waste of time.

[tartrazeen]

It is a bit tricky nailing down Angus' feelings for all this. 🤔

Deirdre's easy. She's the princess, she's got all the power, and the only line she has to worry about is whether or not something's fair. I'd say 'proper' or 'traditional', but she pushes back on those when she doesn't like them, so 'fair' seems to be the underlying factor for her - and she lumps in a lot of stuff as being fair by virtue of being the princess. Not always in a bad way! She was willing to sacrifice herself in the second episode because she was the princess, so she embraces the responsibility involved.

It's why it's so funny that she is more open with Angus and grabbing him all the time. Like she knows nothing's going to happen because Angus is Angus. Upheaving a whole bunch of rules just to give herself permission to hook up with him? That's not a fair trade. Unless - like... idk, is Angus interested, did he say anything 👀

The line's mostly drawn from her side, is what I'm saying. She's permitted herself to relax and damn near flirt, but going any further would be a massive change that'd need a massive commitment.

But then there's Angus. He's a lot harder to pin down.

First off, lololololol pin down

Second, assume this is separate from the polycule in Angus' mind. I always thought Deirdre was the first person he's involved himself with anyway, and the thought of what he's gonna do with her gets too easy when he's already comfortably moving around four beds.

Third, I'm not looking to rehash everything I've already said (even though I do love mentally rehashing it for fun uwu). There's a bigger fish to fry: if everything could work out the way Angus wanted, what would he do?

Rohan would have to give his blessing. That's the most important thing. We all agree, right? Yay!

Garrett wouldn't have to give his blessing so much as his acknowledgement. This guy's all about battles and showing off, so recognizing Angus as the 'best' for Deirdre and stepping aside would be enough. It's still a lot, but it's easier for Angus to force Garrett to accept it if he absolutely has to. Angus can't force Rohan into anything without risking their friendship, so that's the critical difference.

Ivar and Conchobar would both be non-issues. Ivar would be supportive of whatever made his friends happy, so long as it doesn't distract them from their duties and his quest, and I don't think he'd see an issue with their gap in class. He might chalk it up to being a quaint quirk of Kells. And to be perfectly honest, if Deirdre ever decides she's gonna marry someone in particular, her dad is not gonna stop her. Not that he won't try, probably! But he's gonna lose hard. Deirdre has "Remember when I ran off to become a Mystic Knight and saved Kells" and "Remember when you sold me off to Garrett and I said no" and "Hey remember when you were gonna marry Maeve" triple-attack on her side. Forget him.

Cathbad would probably need to give somewhat of a blessing. Not exactly that. More like... approval, maybe? I don't think Angus could handle a million jokes about a lowly thief stealing his way onto the throne, especially when he barely handles the jokes that are only about the thief part. So Cathbad would have to agree that he approves of the two of them and only give his unsolicited snark when Angus fumbles (oh, and he will. And Cathbad is totally welcome to say that - once).

The village - yes we're going that far - is sort of where it breaks down for him.

The guards - oh yeah, we're talking about the guards too, we're not stopping at the main cast when Angus wouldn't - would have to find a way to privately come to terms with it. There are a number of moments where someone says something in front of the king, and then when the king's out of earshot, a guard gives their real opinion; even if they swear openly that they're fine with Angus now that Deirdre's shacking up with the utter bane of their existence in this place, it's not gonna stick until he can walk around and ignore them. I'm not sure how long it'll take, since Angus'll be coming off of at least a decade of being chased and imprisoned by these guys. But ignoring him would be the best. He doesn't need to be friends with them, and I imagine he doesn't like a handful of them, but getting to walk around as unseen in a hall as he would be crawling through a passage seems like it'd fit his happy status quo.

Angus trying to leverage his status as Deirdre's boyfriend wouldn't be the problem. That'd happen all the time, mostly harmlessly, and the second it hits a level where Deirdre wouldn't like it if she found out, it'd stop. :P And it's not some sexist hen-pecked trope. I think with how seriously Deirdre takes her role as a royal, compared to how begrudgingly Rohan takes to his as a legendary warrior, Angus wouldn't dare to do something like ask the villagers for gold. Pushing Rohan to do it? Sure, Angus'll try, and he'd definitely use his own status as a Mystic Knight. But not Deirdre's as a princess. That's disrespectful, not cute and cheeky.

Angus spending some nights in the castle would be more of a problem, but not the main one either. It's not like he's going to stop talking to his friends in the village, just because that's the crowd he's depended on to survive and old habits really die hard. He's going to want breaks from all the royal prim and properness, too. Problems wouldn't come from any jealousy from anyone there, because he's been fairly comfortable brag-talking about how he's in the castle all the time as a knight. He's already taking any jealousy in stride. Yes, it is nice being with the princess, thanks. Oh, what's it like? Sorry, royal secret, can't kiss and tell. Anm Rohan might get a little lonely from time to time, since Angus is only ever gone when he's stormed off. While I do see Angus keeping visits with Deirdre to a minimum (as far as Rohan can tell) so he doesn't leave Rohan alone for too long, and that becoming its own problem over time, it's not really a problem with the village itself.

It's Deirdre.

Angus can fit in at the castle in his obvious "haha i don't belong here what are you gonna do about it" way, but Deirdre is going to piss off so many people if she's hanging around there for too long.

How do I know?

THE SOUP.

I can genuinely extrapolate every other thing from how it would based on just that soup. You know the one - it's like episode 48? 47? One of the later ones. Deirdre and Ivar go to Rohan and Angus' village, smell something awful, go to the hut, and turn down Angus' very happy offers to share his soup.

🙃

You might be asking what the problem is.

The problem is that Angus is a peasant. And poor. And has been both of those for quite some time. And very openly encouraged these two to try something he says is really good, and is almost certainly something he's made before, and would have definitely smelled as strong to the other villagers. He doesn't think anything of it.

Now it's one thing for the princess to politely hand out scoops of seeds in a charitable visit. It's another thing entirely to go with Angus to places in the village for fun, and not-so-subtly turn down certain foods or drinks, and very-loudly-in-outrage react toooooooo... Ye Olde Blue Collar Humour. A lot of which I am sure involves some crude jokes about the Princess of Kells, and just in general involves some general ribbing ('cause Angus got along fine with his two ex-friends at the tavern roasting him over his maps). There's an assumed All In Good Fun that she's not gonna fully prepare for, and that a lot of others are going to have sucked out of the room purely so they can be polite.

And what happens after that?

🥴 Angus just goes off by himself.

You know, ditching Deirdre.

Because what's he gonna tell her? "Sorry, Deirdre, you can't come, you kill every party you're at"? Hell no! She'll take that as a challenge! But there's one episode where Pyre goes nuts because of a plant and Angus and Deirdre are off to investigate, and Angus makes a joke like "uwu And you say we have nothing in common." A lot of what Angus is has to do with being a peasant! She didn't even find common ground with Rohan in the first episode, and he was the apprentice to the court's druid!

Angus knows this.

Angus also doesn't do well with confronting royals about their shitty ideas.

Angus is also gonna be dating her and ostensibly won't be as quick to say, "okay try it, let's see how this works out for you." (Well, maybe as a last resort, but if she actually comes back upset, he's gonna feel awful.) He's supposed to be her support, and setting her up to fail isn't going to work out on any level.

At worst-best, Angus somehow organizes the village to wait until she's back at the castle to start any 'real' parties. She'd still be hurt when she finds out, like he's hiding her from them (and she'll add some arrogant outrage at that too, since who hides a princess from peasants?), but I could see him thinking it's tomorrow's problem.

The funny thing is, those are all the mandatory obstacles Angus has to leap before he's getting publicly involved with her. And honestly involved too, not just humouring her on some fake-dates. Like I said, everything stops the second Rohan so much as frowns, but if there's not a solution for everything from the guards to the villagers, Angus still isn't surviving this relationship.

I find that hilariously ironic. It should be the other way around, right? Like Aladdin trying to fit in to be with Jasmine. But this time, Aladdin's already at the royal table. It's Jasmine who's gotta figure out how to hack it in the market - and even in that movie, she went out for five seconds and almost got her arm cut off.

🥴

... Oh my God.

Deirdre's gonna have to get Rohan to teach her how peasants live 😭

😭😭😭 Oh my God 😭😭😭 What if Angus thinks they're dating and instead of freaking out like they're cheating on him, he's like, "Yeah, it was a little too good to be true. I'm happy the two of you are finally together, though! I am absolutely okay with this. 🙂 No really, what else could I have possibly been expecting?"

ANGST. GIVE ME LATE 1990'S ROMCOM MISCOMMUNICATION ANGST.

uwu

I'm in ship mode.

Starting the new year with some Angus/Deirdre What If fluff.

By What If, I mean I don't actually think this fits in with the show, but they never technically said it couldn't happen uwu

To set the stage, we know Rohan lived in the castle since he was a kid, and Angus tagged along as part of a package deal. Angus also immediately took to crawling around in the walls, finding passages that were probaby meant for... idk, cats? Maybe? I don't know why there's so much space for him in there, especially as an adult, but there ya go.

But I'm also imagining that with the shape of the stones on the outside of the castle, there are enough handholds for small fingers to find purchase. Experienced rock climbers can get a grip on what seems like a totally flat wall because they can work with such subtle grooves after years of practise. Picture Angus getting into a dozen different places through a mix of gaps between the walls and crawling around on the outside to come in through a window.

Angus and Deirdre technically met in that episode about the curse on Kells, which was just when Rohan went to live in the castle, and immediately after Deirdre referred to Rohan as some "dirty boy". We see Angus getting into Cathbad's chamber, coughing on the way in from all the dust, so no matter how dirty Rohan was, Angus would be even worse. And from the look of things, Angus didn't have a reason to go in the castle until then; the guy makes such a big show of knowing everything about a place when he's introducing someone to it (like Garrett to Tir Na Nog and that kid-prince to Cathbad's chamber too), and he acts like he's never seen this room before.

So.

uwu

Imagine Angus, brand-new to the passages in this castle. He's trying to find his way to where Rohan is, but this place is a maze. He's never truly sure which room he's about to pop out of, but he does realize - after going in a few circles - that there are more than a few ways to enter certain rooms.

Deirdre, who's passing through these halls, hears louder skittering than any rat (or cat) she's heard before. She's curious, and she's bored from all of her princess lessons, so this is the perfect spark of excitement to go see what it is. She follows it around, trying to keep up with it going up and down the floors. It goes all the way until she's in an empty guest room, creeping closer and closer towards the fireplace.

And then out pops a soot monster.

(it's angus but she doesn't know that yet)

Deirdre's surprised for half a second, and then outraged that this even dirtier boy is intruding through her castle walls. Angus can't see her because he's got soot over his eyes, so he doesn't know this is the princess yet. But he figures it out after he pats himself off and covers the whole room in soot, getting Deirdre to start coughing and angrily yell for the guards. That makes everything snap into sense, and Angus is back in the fireplace and off through the walls a second later.

Then the rest of the episode with the curse happens, Angus finds Rohan, the two of them meet Deirdre, and they (or Rohan at least) pretty much never talk to her again until they're adults - based on how they are with each other in the first episode, anyway.

Except now I'm gonna change what happened over the years to plant some better seeds for a budding princess-and-thief romance. 😌

Angus is still going to want to visit Rohan while they're growing up (obviously). He's also going to want to map out the rest of this castle. So he visits, and he explores, and he stumbles into empty rooms, and he leaves a sooty mess behind, and he disappears before anyone else can catch him. He and Rohan probably giggle about this since the servants would mention some soot-ghost causing them all this extra work, and - more importantly - annoying the princess, who says it's some boy that's running around. Rohan won't admit a thing to Cathbad, and Angus is good at staying hidden.

Then one day, he crawls out of a passage in the corner of a room, and comes face-to-knee with...

😵‍💫 Deirdre.

Angus has just found out where her room is, and she is not happy.

She isn't the type to start hysterically screaming for help right away, and now that she's met Angus at least once (during the curse episode), she's much more likely to look down at him crawling in from that corner and go, "YOU. 😠 You're the one who's been hiding in the walls."

Angus goes "whoops" and disappears again, leaving Deirdre to shove some furniture over the hole to block it up.

A few nights after that, and Deirdre - stubbornly getting through her needlework in a different room - sees some soot sprinkle down and onto her fabric. She looks up, and beside a hole in the ceiling by the chandelier, she sees Angus. She goes, "😠," he goes, "🤫" and then he disappears again. Deirdre is scolded for getting distracted and quietly returns to her stitches.

A few nights after that, Deirdre hears rustling from behind the wardrobe in her room. She gets up to go see if it's a mouse that's been trapped... and finds Angus chomping on food he's stolen from the royal pantry. Clearly he's mapped out that route, but he mesed up on finding his way back to Rohan and on finding a better spot to rest for a snack.

Deirdre goes, "😠 OUT." Angus goes "😮 oop" and takes off again.

The key to this is that Deirdre thinks Angus is a pest, enough to want him gone, but is having an easy time getting rid of Angus by herself. No guards required, or else everything would forcibly end early.

There are a other few milestones I picture happening along the way when they're still kids, like Deirdre hearing muffled breathing from somewhere in her room, just to explore and find Angus behind the wall of another corner, only just visible behind a smaller hole that - for once - he can't actually fit through.

Except he's just snoozing back there.

He scatters when she wakes him up - throwing a rock at him or something, because he's in her castle and she isn't going to touch him when he's so filthy - but weeks later, he's in there again. Same thing happens. The third time, though, is when he doesn't really wake up from her snapping at him. With the hole being just smaller than their heads, she can't quite get a good look at him, but she ducks down and puts her ear against it to listen, all to hear him shivering. She thought it was the pop of the fire in the hearth, but it's him.

It occurs to her that the reason he's in this part of the wall is because it's beside her fire. He's freezing. It was winter but she hadn't made the connection to the cold and needing shelter. She knows he has a friend in the castle, but she assumes he wasn't allowed to stay with him because of Cathbad. Their druid's complained about him occasionally to her father.

She considers doubling down and waking him up for sure, but... well, the fire drowns out the noise, he's quiet enough anyway, and it isn't like he can get in here through that small hole in the corner. She puts a basket in the way to be safe, casually adds more wood to fireplace, and returns to bed. He isn't allowed to stay there forever, but if it's so cold that he has nowhere else to be, he can stay for one night.

She never asks about his circumstances, since he's a peasant and it's obvious what they'd be, but on the nights that it's cold enough to warrant a fire, she gets into a loose habit of checking if he's there before she goes to sleep. They don't bother each other, but if he's there when she checks (he sometimes is), she'll add more firewood.

He's interesting to her. There aren't any other kids around, and certainly not any boys (she's not counting Cathbad's apprentice). She's peeked at him during the night a few times, like he was a new kitten in a barn or something. He's always either been asleep or already gone to wherever he goes. Both are interesting, even though she has to wonder how he's somehow never awake to notice.

Another milestone is a time she's lost something. A necklace, maybe, and one that was important to her. She looks in her room and all over the castle, but it's nowhere to be found. Some time later, after another night she's cried herself to sleep, she hears a soft clink in the corner by the fire. There's no fire tonight, since it's quite warm this time of year. She gets up to investigate anyway, and finds her necklace beside the basket, which was pushed to the side a bit. There's no one behind the wall. She even calls out to be sure, and there's silence.

It's never really clear if she did lose it or if 'someone' took it in the first place. All she knows is that she got it back and she's grateful. Eventually, she decides she must have lost it. Every way of getting in here is blocked off by something already, and she doesn't think he'd be reckless enough to come in through the window.

She doesn't hear him for months after that. No scurrying, no snoozing, no snacking. She's pleased that it's finally done, and proud to have endured it...

... but one night, she decides to leave an apple in the spot behind her wardrobe. It's where he'd been snacking when she caught him that time.

The apple's still there days later. There are a few bites missing, but they look like rat bites. She throws the apple away, embarrassed by the whose idea, but a month later, the urge to try again returns. It might have something to do with Cathbad's newest complaints, meaning Angus hasn't actually disappeared. She leaves better snacks by the other corner, the one small hole by her fireplace, and waits to see if it's gone the next morning.

It isn't.

She's even more embarrassed. There aren't many kids she's allowed to talk to (including Cathbad's apprentice), and if she wasn't talking to Angus...

Well. It was probably for the best. That was the thing with strays: feed them and they never leave. Since she didn't accidentally feed anything, nothing is going to stay to bother her. Especially not a boy who wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.

... She keeps trying occasionally. Just to see if he'd come back.

A couple of years pass, and she hears a commotion outside her door. It's a guard running through a hall. Nothing to be worried about, she thinks, and she's about to forget it entirely when something comes in through her window.

It's Angus. :3 Crash-landing.

Trying as hard as he can to smile his way out of her screaming at him while he's still upside-down and on his head ¯⁠\⁠_⁠༼⁠ ⁠ಥ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠ಥ⁠ ⁠༽⁠_⁠/⁠¯

She's furious at the intrusion, demanding to know who he is to barge into the princess' room. She'll have forgotten his name at this point, since it's been so long, but she has a keen awareness that she knew it once. She'd never ask for it, though, and lucky for him, Angus doesn't misinterpret her demand as that. He's scrambling to right himself and say that he's just passing through, just has to get behind the wardrobe to leave, even moving over to it to start pulling it away from the corner it's been blocking for years.

Deirdre instantly cuts in front of him. He's not touching anything in her room, and she wants him out of it.

In the very back of her mind, she notices he's grown. He's taller than her now. Before, they were almost the same height.

He swears he'll be gone just as soon as she moves, but there's a knock at the door firsn. Deirdre's maid heard her in there and is asking if she's alright. There's an instantly pleading look on Angus' face, and Deirdre glares him into silence because she can't be bothered to kick up a fuss over this. Sweetly, she calls back that everything's fine, and the maid says that's good, but it's also cleaning time so can please she come in. Angus is like o_o because he needs to move the wardrobe out of the way, and that's decently loud.

I guess Deirdre gets inspired by his panic and decides to teach him a lesson. She says the maid can of course come in, but to please start at a certain corner. Angus goes O_O as the door opens for the maid to enter, and Deirdre shrugs while she leaves him to hide. He darts behind the massive curtain beside her window, since there aren't any other options.

The maid starts cleaning around the room, suspicious that the princess is paying this so much attention. Deirdre says everything is fine, but just as the maid comes up to fix the curtain, Deirdre asks her to clean under the bed right now. Not for any particular reason. Just as an order.

As the maid slowly agrees and turns around to do so, Angus sneaks out from the curtain and Deirdre points to under the desk. When the maid finishes there, she's about to go to the desk next, but Deirdre asks if she can go tidy the wardrobe next - and points Angus to under the bed, who figured out what's happening and goes >:( on the way. Deirdre has a great time leading the maid around the room like this, especially as the maid says it's strange that the floor is so worn beside the wardrobe, like someone's been repeatedly moving it. Angus is back to going o_o as Deirdre says, "Really? :3 That's so interesting - what interesting information that is."

Finally, when the maid leaves and Angus can get up, Deirdre scowls and says, "Do not go through my room, or I'll have every guard in my castle drag you to the dungeon."

Angus gives an awkward little bow, and then goes over to the wardrobe, loudly scraping it against the floor as he pivots it to reveal that hidden passage in the corner. Deirdre doesn't even bother saying he could've gone through the door, and simply watches him crawl through and loooudlyyyy scrape the wardrobe over the floor again as he pulls it back in place behind him.

Deirdre puts a small vase at the foot of the wardrobe. Sure enough, weeks later, the vase is awkwardly sat a few feet away - like someone pulled the wardrobe back into place behind them, but couldn't sneakily reach the vase to reset it too.

Once - and only once - the guards are particularly upset. She walks past them and into her room, just to see the wardrobe pulled slightly away from the wall. She rolls her eyes and goes to move it properly, but stops when she puts a hand on it and feels that it's wet. She sees blood on her palm when she checks it.

Before she can do anything, her door flies open and a guard barges in. Deirdre whirls around, and the guard - apologizing profusely for not realizing this was her room, having simply been told to search everywhere - tries to peek around while explaining that they're after a Temran spy. Deirdre tells him to search somewhere else because this is her room, but only when the guard lingers does she fully snap and tell him to gtfo right this second. It works, and the guard jumps and scurries away.

She doesn't yell at him this time. After she's done peeking out of that same, young curiosity, she takes a true look for blood and sees his hand's wrapped but leaking through. Wordlessly, she stands back up, finds another wrapping in her desk, grabs an apple from a bowl in her room, and puts both of them on the ground beside her bed in silence. But she's still not exactly happy at this, and doesn't want to seem like she's condoning it. Just to be safe, she kicks the apple over to him, and is satisfied by the little snort of disapproval that earns. It means he is only playing dead.

She checks outside the door and sees more guards crowding the halls. Then she firmly shuts the door and locks it. The smear of blood on her palm catches her attention again, and she slowly decides to wipe it off the wardrobe before anyone else happens to find it. She's procrastinating, she supposes, because eventually she starts having to check around the room herself.

She's only vaguely concerned that she's locked herself in with a spy, because a spy wouldn't know about that hole behind her wardrobe. There's nothing behind the curtain, but under the bed, there's Angus - eyes shut like he's playing dead.

Ten minutes go by before she finally hears some muffled chewing.

Angus is gone in the morning, along with any trace he'd been there. He must have gone back out through the window, because the door is still locked and the wardrobe was still slightly ajar. The guards caught the spy eventually; it was someone else, and the king notices how unusually pleased his daughter is to hear that.

I don't want these two getting too close while they're kids, because I still want everything to line up with the first episode, where Deirdre's pretty damn unhappy to have him knock her over and doesn't seem to know Rohan that well either. But I do want there to be some established level of familiarity with each other, because she was fast at kicking him for kicking her (which is very unusual for her; she's usually more composed than that, outside of the one time she punched Pyre lol) but Angus reacted like it was normal for them. So there's like a friendly, unique, antagonistic banter built up over the years, where Deirdre's more than comfortable snapping at him, teasing him, and touching him than she is with anyone else, who she always has to be A Princess™ with.

What I love about this is the curiosity Deirdre has. It's completely unspoken and easy to deny, even to herself, but she keeps finding reasons to be drawn to him. When she's young, she sorta treats it like she has a pet? Like a wild rat or something that she pretends is her pet, because she feeds it every so often. She keeps enough distance to avoid getting too attached, but she's quietly delighted to see signs of him around. She's also furious to see any mess because ew, a rat.

Meanwhile Angus gets more and more desensitized to her. He gets kicked by her and doesn't have any problem snapping back an excuse - almost like he does when he's being yelled at by Cathbad. He's comfortable enough to overstep their formal boundaries, but is still fully aware he has overstepped and is cautiously testing the new, 'real' boundaries that exist: he can hide in her room if he's desperate, she won't immediately call the guards if he doesn't make a mess, but she has very little patience for him altogether. It's enough for him to be cheekier and tease her back when he's not in her room (doing his "i think the princess would prefer my hand" schtick), but also to avoid rocking the boat so hard that he loses the tiny privilege he has. Well, until he gets more comfortable and bolder with his teasing over the course of the show.

The pet thing matters too, because I'd like to think the arrangement of Angus being in Deirdre's walls doesn't change. Angus doesn't just stop using those passages, but they wouldn't turn every night into a sleepover. Maybe once, Deirdre would hear a sound in the wall that wakes her up, and she'd nervously call out, "Angus?" And there'd be silence for a moment before he says back, "... Yup?" And that'd be the end of it. They don't have to talk, and there's a look of understanding between them the next morning. (Especially 'cause there's a guard who's pissed about something.) (Deirdre swears she doesn't think it's funny, and Angus swears he totally didn't see her grinning.)

But that emotional distance is important because Angus still defers to Rohan - and hell, even Garrett - as the real End Game for Deirdre. He's just a funny little pet rat that scurries around the walls sometimes. A jester at best. Nothing more, even if he's openly asking her for a kiss. He's completely harmless.

The truest test would be one night in the middle of the show, when Angus is passing through and hears crying. It's Deirdre, mourning her mother, since she never got to see everything Deirdre's accomplished over the years. He's torn on whether he should ignore this like they always do - this is her room, after all, so part of arrangement means respecting her privacy - but then he hears her call out, "Angus?"

He doesn't answer. In fact, he stays silent long enough for Deirdre to bury herself back in her pillow and weep.

It doesn't feel right for him to intrude on her.

He crawls through, back on his way, when he realizes there's no chance she would have heard him. She was guessing to see if he was there. That worries him, because there's a good chance that was to scream at him after correctly assuming he was intruding. He's already back to space where he can start climbing down outside as he thinks this. He can't explain why the hell he doesn't, because he really can't afford to lose his Wall privileges, but he climbs up instead - and through her window.

Deirdre doesn't notice until Angus has his hand gently on her back. At that, she's a bit startled, but mostly just relieved to see someone there. She doesn't hesitate to sit up and pull him around her, taking all the support she can get from him quietly holding her. He stays until she's asleep, and he's gone long before she's awake.

There's no look of understanding shared the next morning, because Angus just doesn't look at her. It's not meant to be rude, just affirming that they were both going to politely pretend it didn't happen. And it doesn't last forever, obviously. Angus does deliberately - cheekily, as always - find her afterwards and maybe even spins her around as extra proof that this is no big deal, and asks if she's okay. She says she is, and he ends it there almost instantly, trying to spare them from her awkwardly thanking him out of obligation. Somehow, it's exactly what they need to reset things. It's their emotional wardrobe sliding back in place over their emotional... emotions.

But just like the real wardrobe, even if Angus thinks he's sealed everything up again, there's something still out of place from Deirdre's side. In the moment, she'd really wanted anyone to comfort her. She'd only called out for Angus since he was the sole person with a chance of being in earshot. But the more she thought about it, she didn't know who else she could've asked for. Angus holding her felt so close and right, like he alone had any chance of soothing her.

She's not going to think about it. She's going to move the emotional vase back in front of the emotional wardrobe, but she's keenly aware that this happened.

And she's curious to see if she can feel like that again.

[mono-dot-jpeg]

the antarctic idiots [pt. 2] - c!technoblade

summary; in which two anarchist piglins adopt an ender boy.

genre; child! ranboo, piglin hybrid! reader, slight canon divergence from dream smp, fluff, found family au is my shit, reader is now ranboo’s parent i don’t make the rules, techno is a grumpy father but it’s okay you love him, realistic minecraft? (idk how to describe it-)

pairing; c! technoblade x reader, platonic! ranboo x reader

word count; 1.3k

< previous - next >

a/n; yall here me out, i open my ask box to have you guys talk to the characters of the antarctic idiots,,, i just really wanna act in character, i love doing that kind of stuff kshdskjdf

i don’t completely know how it would work, but, i wanna do it someday maybe.

also, if you’re too lazy to look at my masterlist for this series or you just wanna see everything related to this story, use the #antarctic idiots tag! and if you have anything to share with me about it, tag me!

“i’ll take your word on that, y/n.”

“you should trust my words from the start, wilbur.” you commented, your voice light and teasing. “but i don’t blame you, you lost a lot after l’manburg’s citizens betrayed you.”

“they did not betray me.” 

“yes, yes, my bad.” you hummed.

“are we allies or enemies, y/n?”

“ally, enemy? i say neither. i was forced into this after all. what with that favor of yours.” you pointed out, he couldn’t even be mad at your response, he knew that you never wanted to be put in a war like this. “i may be part of pogtopia but my intentions are not the same. i will be clear that i’m only here to fight and then i will be taking my leave after this revolution.”

“yes, of course, understood.”

“now, just because we’re friends doesn’t mean i’m gonna train you with the easy stuff. you used to a president, soot, show me what you can really do. you’re stronger than you let on.” 

“i don’t expect anything less from you.”

“come on wilbur, you fought in a war, you should’ve been at least a bit stronger.” you muttered to the man before handing his some wraps to bandage his small wounds.

“i put up quite the fight though didn’t i?” he commented, starting to fix up his injuries.

“yeah, you did. you’ve certainly changed since the last time we fought.”

“techno has taught me quite a lot.”

“how do you know techno?” you asked curiously. 

“he’s my older brother, twin. actually.” you blinked. “yeah i know, we’re not really alike.”

“yeah, you’re a boar hybrid and he’s a piglin hybrid...”

“our mom is a samsung refrigerator, we don’t understand anything of how we existed.”

“fair enough..” you don’t question wilbur’s origins anymore, soon turning the conversation, “so you and techno grew up together?”

“yeah, we trained a lot together and now he’s a total master at fighting, but that’s thanks to our father.” wilbur smiled a bit, thinking about the old times. “maybe you guys should try and train together next time.” 

“i don’t think we will anytime soon. he seems rather busy with gathering resources.” you said, sitting next to wilbur as you put your pendant back on your shirt. “plus if he’s so well versed, i don’t think he’ll need any help from me. anyways, plans, what’s the plan for this whole revolution?”

“well, we plan accordingly to what info we get from tubbo. he’s shlatt’s righthand man now so he’s gonna know a lot of info which will help us out. techno and you are gonna train me and tommy of course. you guys are our wild card. our trump card. both of you are so powerful. we can take back what was ours.” wilbur looked at you, this confident glint shined in his eyes. “we will take back l’manburg.”

oh how you wished you felt the same way about l’manburg as he did.

another day passes as you live in the ravine that was pogtopia. you got accustomed to the small area rather easily. it didn’t feel too different from your own home other than maybe the cold temperatures despite how much glowstone or torches would be placed around to keep it warm. 

wilbur and tommy were busy for some odd reason, so that left you and technoblade. you weren’t the best with meeting new people and techno seemed like he was the same way, so you didn’t bother making conversation. it wasn’t until techno actually decided to speak.

“how can i trust you?”

“bold question to ask. what ever happened to, hi, how are you?” you joked a bit. “how can i trust you?” you looked at the fellow piglin hybrid who seemed to already start a staring contest with you.

“i asked first.”

“i asked second.”

“do you know who i am?”

“you are technoblade, are you not?” a beat of silence. “if you aren’t, i won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“i’m technoblade, yes, but do you know what else i am?”

“a piglin hybrid?”

“i’m the blood god.”

“interesting.” another beat of silence. you didn’t seem to show any reaction to his words which makes him wonder. were you just hiding your judgement or did you just didn’t care? “is that why wilbur and tommy recruited you for help?” 

“in a way, yes.”

“so if i were to say that they’re using you as a weapon, would i be wrong? i mean i’m just saying stuff right now. it seems like you’re really capable of doing a lot of things, technoblade.” you suddenly feel his hand against your neck. “ah- i hit a nerve. my bad.” you hummed as if you weren’t close to getting choked to death.

“don’t talk about my family like that. they would never use me.”

“so, tommy is your sibling too? didn’t see that one coming, although it seems like i didn’t really see any of this coming.” you shrugged. techno was silent, his piercing red eyes burned into your e/c ones, he was trying to analyze you. you could tell he wanted to know more, he was curious. he was cautious of you. “i’m here to finish a favor, so it would be very nice if you do not take any of my lives.” 

“i don’t trust you.”

“well, glad we could get straight to the point. i’m not really one for trust either so it’s nice to know that you feel the same way. again, i don’t really wanna be here, but again, here for a favor, i intend to keep that favor done.”

the voices in his head were buzzing, many said blood for the blood god, some said much less helpful words, a few suggested to get to know you but all of them said to not trust you. and techno listened to the few. he moved his hand back slowly. 

“who are you exactly?”

“well, as wilbur said before, i’m y/n. a piglin hybrid just like you. though, i’m pretty sure i lived in the nether much longer than you have. i live far away from the smp and l’manburg...well, manburg now. my intentions are questionable. but that’s nothing to worry about since they don’t involve you.” you explained casually. “i’m here to also train wilbur and tommy, unfortunately i have to fight in this revolution as well. who are you exactly?”

techno raised an eyebrow at your question.

“to be fair, you got to know about me, now let me know about you, piggie.” he huffs, air escaping his nose as he listens to your words. “at least we’re not killing each other. would you prefer that?”

“i’m more of a action over words person. though words can be very convincing.”

“so is that a yes or no?”

“my name is technoblade as you know from wilbur and tommy. i’m not really from the smp or manburg. i recently joined this area after ruling over antartica.” he can see your eyes sparkle a bit in amusement. “i’m just here to destroy government honestly. my intentions are very clear unlike yours.”

“that is very true, mr. blade. you seem to have your beliefs and intentions very clear. i do understand your need to end government. i can relate to that rather well surprisingly.” 

“i feel like the whole hating government thing might just be a piglin thing.” he looked at you with slightly furrowed eyebrows. “though i’m rather pleased to find someone that thinks the same way as i do.”

“see if you didn’t tell me about you, then we would’ve never found out that we both hate government. anyways, i would love to know more about you ruling antartica. then maybe you wanna try and train together?”

“you’re asking for a lot.”

“come on, mr. blade.” your voice teasing as you sit next to techno. i’ll give you some fun stories about wilbur and tommy.”

“you’re not gonna give up, are you?”

“i’m a stubborn person, what can i say?”

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[ectonurites]

idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

--

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person. 

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!” 

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero. 

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks” 

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned. 

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been. 

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event. 

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark. 

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team. 

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes. 

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy. 

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon? 

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact! 

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it. 

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals. 

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends. 

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person. 

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is. 

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start. 

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things) 

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age. 

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion. 

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized. 

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

--

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

[elsa-writes]

Alfie Solomons x Reader: Beauty and the Beast

Part 1

Authors note: this is my first time writing for Peaky Blinders, and my first time writing a fic in a while, so please feel free to bully me for my inaccuracies! also I might change the title later cuz idk what else to title this. Enjoy!

—-

Polly pretended to disapprove of you and Arthur’s shenanigans. Reality was, she knew with you around, Arthur couldn’t get into too much trouble. True, it was not the most respectable of hobbies for a lady, to be playing cards and hanging around bars every Friday night. However, Arthur couldn’t be getting any whores pregnant when he had to watch over his young cousin. And he’d make sure you’d stay out of trouble, too. Tommy had a similar line of thinking. Although with this latest scheme, you weren’t sure you had his full support.

“Are you sure this is the best idea?”

“I think,” Arthur paused for a beat, stroking his mustache. “It will go smoothly. You want to prove yourself, that you can function in this line of business, this is it.”

“And what did Tommy say about it?” You questioned. He’d sent Arthur in his place for a meeting with Mr Solomons. You were sitting in the car outside of the distill- bakery. Arthur insisted that you come along to this meeting. Camden Town was a bit nicer than Birmingham-though not by much.

“You know Tommy, he’s, well, you know,” he blustered. In the back seat, Billy coughed.

So Tommy was not aware of this arrangement. “Right.” But you were not going to NOT go in.

You’d bumped into Mr Solomons once. He’d been leaving after having a conversation with Tommy. You scampered away before he could say anything to you. Not out of fear of him; you ran away because you were afraid Tommy would know you’d been eavesdropping. Though Mr Solomons had made a reputation for himself, from what you’d overheard, he sounded like a bit of a clown.

“Are you coming or are you going to stay in the car like a baby?”

“I’m not a baby,” you protested and stepped out into the cold air. “Finn is a baby.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t invite him for a reason.” Arthur punctuated the sentence with a slam of the automobile door.

You adjusted your outfit, making sure you looked proper and professional. “Let’s get this over with.”

A man awaited you by the door and led you inside the distillery. It was dark, and damp. The odor of rum-er, bread, permeated the air. The smell made you light headed. Your shoes echoed on the cement, the loudest sound in the room.

As you descended into the labyrinth, a man appeared from behind a corner. Mr. Solomons himself.

His hat cast an ominous shadow over his face- definitely planned for theatrical effect.

He did not react to your presence. If he recognized you he gave no sign. “Welcome, welcome! You must be Arthur!”

“Mr. Solomons,” Arthur greeted, offering a hand.

“I’ve head so much about you,” Mr. Solomons said. The amusement in his voice was evident. He wasn’t taller than your cousin, but he was stockier and way more intimidating. Billy stood on the opposite side of you, wary of the large man.

Arthur replied, “Shalom.”

You cringed. Mr. Solomons gaze flickered to one of his men behind Arthur.

“Let me just say, Shalom,” Arthur repeated, painfully serious. You felt ill. If it were a less tense situation you would have smacked him over the head.

Solomons tilted his head just enough for you to get a glimpse of the look of incredulity on his face.

“Shalom!” He said. “So glad you could join us for this most joyous of celebrations! And I see you’ve brought friends for the occasion.” Solomons nodded in your direction. You’d been instructed by Arthur to not speak too much or get involved. The same went for Billy.

Arthur shifted on his feet. “This is my cousin, and my associate. Shall we discuss business?”

“Cousin, eh? From the sounds of it, there’s a new Shelby every fucking week.” Mr Solomons chuckled. “Come along, come along.”

He lead you into a room with a table in the center. Something was off. Perhaps it was the comment Arthur had made. It had surely offended them. The Solomons men hadn’t even looked at you. Not that you wanted to be looked at. It was unusual, though. They weren’t even looking at each other.

Something else in the room caught your attention; a goat tied to the leg of the table. It bleated sadly at you. You resisted the urge to pet it.

Mr Solomons circled the table and gestured. You took note of the pipe in his hand that also seemed to function as a cane. “Take a seat, why don’t you?”

Arthur hesitated, both you and Billy watching him before making a move.

He took the chair on the end. Some of the Solomons boys were standing behind the three of you in a perfect line. Another one took a chair next to Mr Solomons, still not looking at you.

Mr Solomons himself remained standing, studying Billy like he was the most fascinating thing on the planet. “And you’ll be...”

“Billy,” Billy said.

Mr. Solomons focused his attention on you. “Shelby?”

“(Y/n),” was your answer as you sat down at the table. There were plates and cups arranged before you. You kept your hands in your lap, careful not to touch anything.

“(Y/n)...You know, out there in the sand, out there in the desert where me forefathers come from... started out as a little speck...”

“Is everything alright?” Billy leaned over to whisper to Arthur. One of the men lurking around had shut the door behind you while Mr. Solomons rambled on. Arthur tried to dismiss Billy’s concerns with a wave.

“Billy, don’t worry mate, yeah, if you want you can leave. If you need to go to the little boys room or something you can leave.” Mr. Solomons interrupted, sounding a little too much like a school teacher.

“He’s alright, he’s alright,” Arthur grinned, rubbing Billy’s shoulder. “Billy boy.”

Your stomach churned. Something was wrong. This was not the kind of conversation that Tommy and Mr Solomons had had the day you eavesdropped. This was not the simple meeting you were promised.

“You want to stay?” Mr Solomons asked Billy; staring at him so intensely you had to look away.

“I’ll stay.”

“You stay there, then, treacle.” Mr Solomons grimaced, and his voice suddenly became much louder. “So! The pharaoh! Have you heard of him?”

Without thinking, you nodded, and he pointed in acknowledgement at you.

“He kept my people, the Jewish people, in slavery for thousands of years.”

“Persecuted, right,” Arthur interjected, pleased with himself for making this astute observation. Mr Solomons eyes lit up with amusement.

“He did, he persecuted my race. killing the innocent, right. So this feast that we’re having here , is basically the day what when the Jewish angels decided the evil fucking Egyptians had pushed their fucking luck!”

“Right,” Arthur added.

“It’s part of our tradition to do this, for in order to make it good with god to kill a king.”

Oh fuck. You glanced towards your cousin. By the look on his innocent smiling face he had not come to the conclusion you had. Okay, keep it cool. From the rumors you knew Mr Solomons was an intelligent man who spoke in idiotic riddles. You could have been misreading things. Sabini could be the pharaoh in the story.

“Right,” Arthur said again. What was Tommy doing at this moment?

“That is the ritual of the sacrifice of the pass over goat.” Mr Solomons said.

Everyone at the table turned to look at the bleating creature.

Arthur looked ill. “A goat?”

Mr Solomons gestured to it. “Yeah, we’re gonna sacrifice it. Tonight. That’s part of the reason why we have to shut the doors as well.”

You wished Arthur had let you keep a gun. You were a sitting duck. Every muscle in your body tensed, ready for the action. No, Tommy wasn’t the pharaoh.

“But this year we thought we’d give the fucking goat a name!” He grinned.

“You named it.”

“We fucking did.”

You averted your eyes as a man put a knife to the goats neck. “Arthur?”

“You named the fucking goat.” He shifted in his chair. It seemed as if he was catching on.

“Evil fucking Egyptian pharaoh-“

“The fucking-“

“And you know what we called it?”

“What’d you call it?”

Your hands balled into fists.

“Tommy Shelby,” Mr Solomons answered with a hint of triumph.

As the blood of the goat spilled on the ground you dropped to the floor. Chaos ensued; a gunshot fired so loud your ears rang. It took a few seconds for your hearing to return. Arthur was screaming. You looked up to see poor Billy slumped in his chair, covered in blood, not moving. You brought your knees to your chest and covered your head to avoid any potential stray bullets. Three of the men had to restrain Arthur, who thrashed and cursed.

Heavy footsteps approached. You scooted back further under the safety of the table. Trying to help him would be useless; you were outnumbered and they had guns.

Arthur went quiet, his freckled face pale.

The back of Mr. Solomons came into view.

“That’s that. So, and the evil Egyptian scum was finally cleansed by the blood of the Passover goat. Mate.”

You covered your moth with a hand.

He kissed Arthur’s cheek twice. “That’s for Sabini.”

Then he promptly bashed Arthur over the head. Funnily enough, it brought back memories of all the times you’d seen Arthur do the same thing to someone else. The urge to laugh overwhelmed you.

Mr Solomons dropped into a squat and placed the gun he’d shot Billy with into Arthur’s hand.

While he was in this position he noticed you under the table.

“Ah, hello there,” he grunted, eyes looking you up and down.

You wanted to swear, or grab the gun from Arthur’s limp hand, or do something very impressive.

He stared at you, waiting for a reply.

“Hi,” you sputtered out. “Is he dead?”

“Oh, nah, that would ruin the fun. You were not supposed to be here tonight.”

“I know.”

“Right. What the fuck am I going to do with you?”

“Let me go?” You suggested. It was worth a try.

He scratched his beard, lost in thought. “Cute, but I think not. That wouldn’t exactly wrap things up nicely, would it?”

A heavy pause lingered in the air. You pulled your knees in even closer, in an instinctual effort to protect yourself.

“Ok. Well! Lads, why don’t you take our guest upstairs?”

“Excuse me? No, no way.”

One of the men grabbed your arm, yanking you to your feet.

“Hey!” You struggled to get your arm free.

Mr Solomons stood up and turned away from you.

“You’re gonna kidnap me and you can’t even look me in the face! Fucking coward!” You shoved the man off but slipped in the blood on the floor, letting him get the advantage.

Another grabbed your other arm and despite your best efforts you couldn’t elbow him off. The near tumble had discombobulated you.

Mr Solomons glanced over his shoulder, as cool as a cucumber. “My good friends the London police are here if you’d prefer to go with them.”

The shock of what he’d said made you forget to fight. “Wait, what?” He didn’t have police on his payroll. Oh, Sabini did, how could you forget?

“Get the fuck off me!” You screamed.

The two men dragged you out the same moment as the doors flung open. A group of police stormed the room.

“Fucking animal came in here with a gun and he shot him in the face!” Mr. Solomons gestured with his cane, ignoring your pleas for help. “And my lads restrained him. Look at him! He’s dead! Is he dead! He’s fucking dead!” His false astonished voice followed you down the hall.

You fought back with all your effort.

“Stop fucking fighting, you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you too!” One of them said.

“Oh, how kind! How generous! Please be sure to thank him for me! Arthur! Arthur!” You didn’t know why you were screaming for him. They were carting him off to jail. Fuck. Would Tommy know? How long would it take for him to find out? “Bastards!”

Going upstairs was the worst part; you managed to slither out of their grip and ran up a few steps before tripping onto your face. They at least had the decency to not laugh.

The upstairs appeared to be some sort of flat. The two assholes threw you into the closest room, probably out of desperation to be free of you.

“What are you going to do with me?” You demanded, although you were scared of the answer.

They exchanged glances. They had let you free but blocked the door.

“Well, we’re not sure. He didn’t really give us instructions.” One said.

“I could give you some instructions. How about you go shove a-“ the threat was enough. Without rhyme or reason you charged at them like a bull.

Before you could spring your attack, they slipped out, locking the door behind themselves.

Slamming your fists on the door, you swore at them, every word imaginable.

Once you exhausted yourself you switched gears. Taking in the room; you noticed a bed shoved against a wall, a large, messy desk, and a small window. The style of the room was at least ten years out of date, and was covered in what looked like ten years of dust. This must be where Mr Solomons slept. For someone who had money he didn’t live like it.

You moved to the one window in the room. Here was a potential escape route. Except for the crowd of men huddled outside smoking. They wore aprons, like the others you saw. There was no way you could get past all of them.

But you could once they left. The only issue was making sure nothing happened to you in between then and now.

Who knew what upsetting plans he had for you? He fucking shot Billy. He could have shot you. Maybe the only reason he did it was because the police were nearby. He could be on his way up here at this very moment.

You needed to block the door. Anything to stall for time.

There was a coat rack in the corner that you used. The large cabinet full of decorative China plates looked easy to push; after a few tense moments of pushing you abandoned it and went for the desk. You investigated your work. The door could still be opened a few inches. Anything more than that would be blocked.

It should be enough. It didn’t feel like it. You were becoming aware of the heavy, dull ache in your muscles. Your ribs hurt from you dropped to the floor and bruises had begun to appear on your arms. You sat down on the creaky bed. If you were trapped in here, you might as well enjoy the “comforts” of this place.

A few hours passed. It had to be the next day already. Your thoughts were with Arthur, wondering if he’d woken up from the bashing yet. And Tommy, if he knew you were being held hostage. He was smart. He’d get you out of this. Unless he’d finally had enough of your antics and disowned you. No, no. Polly, John and Ada wouldn’t let that happen. You were spiraling and tired but too paranoid to sleep. Laying back on the bed, your eyes closed as you strained to listen for any sound. Why in the ever loving fuck had you let Arthur do this? When had he ever done anything smart?

Someone knocked at the door.

“Fuck off.” You said, a conditioned response from years of your cousins barging in on you.

Mr Solomons huffed. “Yes, yes. Listen. I’m not going to shoot you-well, I might if you get on my nerves- I have actually come to the conclusion that you may be quite useful to me.”

You sat up. “What?”

Mr Solomons opened the door, and to your relief, it got stuck on the desk. “Moving my fucking desk around?”

“I doubt I’m any use to you,” you said in your bravest voice. “Tommy will be looking for me. And he will want revenge for your betrayal with Sabini.”

He jiggled the door again. It didn’t budge. “Yeah, exactly. Revenge and all that. And I know he’s fond of you- you were at his house that day- so if I have you, right, as leverage, he’ll be less likely to put a fucking bullet in my head.”

“Did you really put Arthur in prison?”

“Yes, and I’ve just gotten word that Michael...Gray, is it, he’s been locked up too. So Tommy is probably a bit busy at the moment.”

Michael? That was probably a lie. A bluff. Polly would be in shambles.

“So are you going stay in there forever or are you going to come out?” Not taunting. Curious.

“I’ll stay in here.”

“You can come out, I’m not going to fucking hurt ya-“

“I saw you shoot Billy in the fucking head! And nearly kill Arthur!” You barked and flung the nearest object you could find, an empty bottle, at the door.

He cursed and shut the door before the bottle could slam into his head. “Didn’t you listen to a fucking word I said? Tommy Shelby would really come after me then.”

“Fuck the fuck off!” Another bottle flew through the air for good measure. This time the liquid contents splattered on the papers on the desk.

“Fucking hell,” he growled. “Stay in there as long as you want then, yeah?”

Your voice wavered. “He’s gonna come for me! And you’ll be sorry when he does!”

[papyrusgayfont]

* all the miraculous episodes coming out are making me think about my miraculous ladybug/undertale au, so uh I’m just gonna talk about that for a bit

* I just wanted to explain the characters a bit, who’s actually in the au, who’s not, etc

* basically, all of the original Miraculous characters are in the au, but they’d mainly just be side/background characters. Some would be more involved, like Marinette, Nino, Alya, basically most of the class, but for the most part the au would focus on the Undertale/Deltarune cast

* Adrien did exist in the world of this au, but he passed away, idk when exactly that would’ve happened, but probably soon after the monsters were freed

* Unlike the show, Adrien wouldn’t be a sentibeing (assuming he is, he could not be, but there’s so much evidence that suggests he is that it’s basically confirmed), so therefore Emille would exist. She wouldn’t be around for Gabriel’s shenanigans, she’s probably staying with Amelie, idk, but, yeah

* the list I made of which UT/DR characters replace which Miraculous characters is kinda misleading, no one is really “replacing” anyone, since no one would take anyone’s personalities, just the miraculous that the character uses, who gets akumatized, and their role in a given episode (so, for example, Sans would get the snake miraculous, but he wouldn’t really act like Luke or usually take Luka’s role in an episode. He would get akumatized into Truth and Silencer, but other than that, there really wouldn’t be any similarities between Sans and Luka)

* ok now onto some more general things:

* Berdly x Jockington would be a thing, because I decided to do that. For some reason. The relationship would probably start to form in like, Dark Cupid or smth, idk

* Max’s mom and Berdly’s mom would be married, also because I decided to do that

* Susie would have been adopted by Alphys and Undyne, mostly because I like the idea of Undyne adopting Susie in Deltarune, so why not I’ll put that in here

* Frisk and Chara would be able to switch between who’s controlling Frisk’s body, the way that you can tell them apart is that Frisk would wear their blue shirt with purple stripes and brown pants, and Chara would wear their green shirt with a yellow stripe and beige pants. Kris would wear a hoodie with a darker green and a darker yellow stripe and idk brown jeans or smth I don’t know fashion

* the rabbit miraculous would still be a pocket watch, but it would have a chain so you could put it around your neck, and for Kris it would be camouflaged into Chara’s heart shaped locket

* in the show, it’s been explained that the reason a child holder has to detransfrom after using their power once is because they don’t have enough energy for the kwami to feed off of, so the kwami has to eat and recharge. For monsters, the kwami would have to feed off the magic they use to form their physical bodies, and so that’s why they would detransform after using their powers once

* the Gabriel Agreste company would also have an acting company as a part of their brand, apart from the fashion company, and that’s where Mettaton would have worked before the main events of this au

* Mettaton, at this point in time, wouldn’t want to leave acting completely, but he would want to take a break, so that’s why he would be the theatre teacher at Françoise Dupont High School. Alphys would be the second science teacher, and Undyne would be the second gym teacher.

* Dess and Noelle would live with Asgore in his house, since Asgore wants to take care of them after Rudy’s passing and their mom leaving them

* both Mettaton and Papyrus would be gay, but Mettaton would publicly be out, and Papyrus wouldn’t (I’m not saying that the world of this au would have homophobia/transphobia as a problem, like 99% of people in this world would be accepting, but ofc there would be those few)

* some of the akuma villains would probably be some of the darkners from Deltarune, since the dark worlds wouldn’t be a part of the au, and I’d just like to include them (so Markov - Queen, Bob Roth - Spamton, Burgerpants - Jevil, etc)

* I’ve got some (very basic) ideas for how certain episodes could play out: for example, Silencer. Essentially, the episode would mostly be the same, the only difference would be that the band isn’t “Kitty Section”, it would be a band that Papyrus started in his spare time, and Mettaton is their manager. Papyrus would have designed the costumes, and seeing that they were stolen, he and Sans would go and confront XY and Bob Roth about it, and Sans, upset that his brother’s work is being stolen, and also hearing that XY has blackmail on Papyrus (see Papyrus not being out), gets akumatized

* for Papyrus being a sentibeing, I don’t have it fully finalized, but I was thinking that the object that holds his amok would be a piece of his scarf that Gaster used to test and see if what he was doing would work

* for “Felix”, I was thinking he could be a shapeshifting monster that was Papyrus’ old friend from the Underground, who knows that Papyrus is a sentibeing, and wants to try and protect him from any harm that Gabriel could bring him

* for Mad Mew Mew’s “Queen Bee” arc, in the “Miracular” episode of the au, instead of Mad Mew Mew never getting to be Queen Bee again, she and Ladybug would come up with a plan where she would come up with a new costume and name for her so that she could still wear the bee miraculous, but Hawk Moth wouldn’t recognize her. This would lead into the season 3 finale, and then the “Queen Banana” episode, where we’d learn Mad Mew Mew’s new superhero name and her new outfit

* ik these are all horrible ideas, but my brain will literally not let me think about anything else, and I just had to write them down

[stellocchia]

Uhhhh... Motherfucking au where everything's the same but SBI is canon and techno is a person with morals and empathy.

So the 16th was an overreaction and he actually regrets it. He got really swept away with everything in pogtopia and Wilbur egging everything on didn't help. So when he starts his retirement he actually means it and there's no wither arc

He still forgets to tell anyone he's in retirement so the butcher army kinda happens as it did before. He actually willingly follows them back to lmanberg for a trial (he doesn't just immediatelly comply with them of course but no actual battle Takes place)

He gets executed without trial and wether he has the totem or not he doesn't use it. He loses a life, figuring that if he gives them their show of power this whole shitshow is finally gonna be over.

He finds Tommy and like any decent person but especially a brother he takes him in officially. No raccooning needed. He focuses on helping Tommy recover a bit, both physically and mentally while doing his thing and keeping an eye out for lmanberg, if they decide one life wasn't enough.

Hiding from dream and stuff is p much the same

Phil comes back by himself.

They don't exactly have any reason to go to lmanberg so they don't exactly do.

Well. Mostly. They sometimes sneak around especially when dream is there to kinda scout what's going on. It's a compromise. Techno is gonna support him in getting stronger and getting info for his endgoal of getting the disks back and Tommy will hold back for now and be patient.

Butcher army still moves onto dream anyways because... Idk I feel like quackity would've gotten to him anyways like. Why not yknow.

The festival happens and the community House scene is pretty similar

Dream blames it on Tommy, wants the disc tubbo has, Tommy reveals himself.

The whole thing is just hilarious because. Yknow. People didn't know Tommy was alive. So first they thought dream was insane and then Tommy fckin entered the stage. Techno backs him up. Tubbo is pissed. His reasons are pretty different while also being pretty much the same.

Tommy let him think he killed himself and was okay doing so while going after his stupid discs. He's alive so there's the possibility he actually did blow up the community House and give them trouble with dream. Lmanberg and techno aren't cool or anything. After the execution they were just mutually ignoring each other. Lmanberg thinking he was like. Scared or some shit.

Listen. Tubbos just been having a hard time ok.

They still kinda have their shouting match because both have been bottling up shit

Dream gets the disc

Dream announces doomsday

Tommy sides with tubbo

Techno is ok with that. He didn't have an agenda. He's in retirement. He makes it clear though that this means that that's where they part. Techno's taking his retirement very serious. Techno and him had the compromise that techno would help Tommy get ready to get the disks back before releasing him back into the wild. If Tommy gets involved now, this deal ends.

Techno's Not getting involved with this conflict.

Tommy pretends to think for a few seconds but there was never a decision to be made in his mind.

They hug and part ways

Tommy still rallies the people

It still falls apart after he leaves

People are still pissed at him

So doomsday arrives and it goes pretty much the same except. Yknow. No techno or philza.

Dream releases several withers like. One or two hours early because he's a fucking bitch. (Here he actually has wither skulls himself)

And when I say several I mean several

Once he has enough spreading chaos and keeping everyone busy he builds the tnt grid and yeah.

Lmanberg is a crater anyways.

However. Philza (who in this au actually bothered to learn about the country he helped rebuilt and lived in for weeks) went and got all of ghostburs stuff the night before because. Yknow. I want him to a bit more of a good person in this.

Also. Yknow. Friend.

There's still a lot of shit blown up. The minecraft-blade-soot-innit family ain't saints. They got ghostburs shit. That's it.

So afterwards most of the shit goes the same with dream. The scenes on the grid etc etc etc

When Tommy after a long day enters his house there's technoblade and Phil and ghostbur who've been waiting for him to come home after that shitshow. They comfort him, tell him he can always come visit them in the Arctic or even live there with them if he wanted. He declined but thanks them anyways

They spend the night just to make sure he'll be okay.

The next day they go back to the antarctic

Mostly the same stuff as in canon happens

Tommy and Tubbo still get the gear for the fight against dream themselves. Tommy made the decision to do the disc thing without techno during the community House scene and he wants to respect techno by not going back on that. Though he knows if really necessary he could go and barely need to do any convincing for Techno to help him out with some gear

Getting worried about tubbo he doesn't want to chance it but not wanting to put techno on the spot he tries to steal and very similar to canon techno just pretends to be too busy to care.

When they leave techno Phil and ghostbur are also waiting for them though not on the prime path. They're a bit off to the side and them and the duo don't talk. Tommy's already done that with them after he got dreams invitation. Theyre just there to see him go off.

They're not with the saving group but they don't need to be and one of the first things Tommy does after his victory is private message them that he's safe and they won and dreams in prison.

He comes over for dinner the next day to tell them in more detail so they know what's going on and that's about it for season 2

I'm not getting into season 3 now and probably never but a few tidbits about it

Tommy still has to somewhat earn the diamonds for his hotel from philza. The minecraft-blade-soot-innit family might be semi functional but that doesn't mean Phil just gives them money whenever they ask for it. That's not how you raise kids.

Tommy obviously sends them an invite to the hotel opening anyways and techno asks what the VIP perks are

Tubbo and Tommy still have to work through a lot just like in canon. Add to that that tubbo doesn't quite know what to think about Tommy and his family being this close again. On one hand they weren't involved with doomsday like in canon and have just been keeping to themselves since Techno's execution. On the other Techno's behaviour in season 1 is still fresh in his mind and "he was having a rough patch" kind of doesn't just give him closure on that. Like he's not mad. He just doesn't know what to think of it. Cuz like. Techno's not trying to redeem himself or anything. He started his retirement because after getting out of that ravine and the adrenaline fading and just having time to think and realize what happened he realized that he couldn't let himself be controlled by the voices anymore so it's like. Going from full on alcoholic to no alcohol at all ever within a day. And to make that possible he focuses just on his retirement. This isn't about becoming a better person per se it's about not getting so strung up in shit that you tell your younger brother to die while sicking withers on him. He recognizes that he fucked up. He accepted lmanbergs judgement of executing him. Now he just wants his fckin peace. And that's kinda weird to think about for someone in tubbos position. Because. Yeah.

Thinking about Tommy spending time with his family like everything's peachy irks him because. Kinda makes it seem like everything's resolved. Like he's okay with them just having a happy ending despite them not really deserving one. But with time he realizes that Tommy needs them as a support system and that getting worked up about it just isn't worth it.

Uhhhhh and that's about it I think

Ooooh, semi-functional family sbi and clingy duo angst? Love that!

I do wonder how the whole exile debacle would go if they were actual family, especially considering that Phil was in New L'Manburg and therefore knew about the exile and could go visit Tommy freely, same with Techno actually (except for the being in New L'Manburg part), but, like, for him we can pretend he didn't know. Like, would Phil try and go visit Tommy more then once? Or would Dream find a way to keep him away? Maybe make him think he has no right to meddle with Tommy's life just now?

Also I wonder how Ranboo would be involved in all of this. Because if Techno and Phil were not there during Doomsday I doubt they invited him to live with them and I doubt they made the Syndicate, so would Ranboo live with Tuboo? Would he try to act as a sort of mediator for Clingy Duo?

Like, there are so many possibilities for this....

[shotorokiworld]

emotive .1

pairing: daisuke kanbe x fem!reader

warnings: not really any yet....

summary: the story of how and why daisuke kanbe fell in love with you. proving once again, that opposites attract 

a/n: this is my first time posting my writing anywhere so I may or may not have panicked a little. there are probably some mistakes i didn’t fix, as i was rereading i kept overthinking things so i just said screw it (like how daisuke kinda comes off a little creepy but idk i swear i already have part 2 written and it gets better). oh and one other thing! i have never read the manga and i based his personality solely off of the first episode of the show, which might’ve been a bad move but we’ll see. please enjoy!

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

Daisuke Kanbe is known as a cold, collected(despite his reckless tendencies), intimidating man, which he is. What very little emotion he shows comes in the form of a cocky smirk or a challenging raise of his eyebrows, if even that. He likes it that way and he enjoys the fact that people perceive him this way.

People can’t stand not being able to read other’s faces or get a rise out of them. This just gives him yet another advantage while he’s working on cases in the field. Suspects and witnesses alike tend to crumble under his gaze, they can’t figure out what he’s thinking, they can’t call his bluff, and before you know it, words are spilling out of them.

It’s not like he doesn’t have any emotions, it’s just been so long since he’s experienced most of them. The adrenaline rush he gets from acting so reckless on the job is the closest thing to excitement or fear he’s felt in years. If it weren’t for those moments, life would be such a boring existence for a man like Daisuke.

All of this makes it a bit easier to understand why he fell in love with you. You were so different from him, you were warm, inviting, and all kinds of people were drawn to you. Normally, Daisuke couldn’t stand people like that, they gave him migraines. However, there was one thing that set you apart from the majority. The way you felt everything so intensely. You never tried to hide the way you were feeling, even if you could. Your face was easy to read, you didn’t hide behind a facade, anyone would describe you as an open book.

This is what made him gravitate towards you in the first place. He had never met anyone so open and unashamed of bearing their soul to the world. It almost made his head spin trying to understand how your mind worked.

At first he would just watch you more intently in the office, where you worked as a secretary. Then he would find himself thinking about you while he’s out in the field; his eyebrows would pull together ever-so-slightly in annoyance. He doesn’t want to think about the obnoxiously kind, headache-inducing enigma that is you. Though just two weeks later that’s all he seems to be able to think about, and he’s given up trying not to. His mind was filled with questions that needed answers.  

There is only so much observing someone from afar can tell you about them. Having only spoken 15 words to you, at most, in the few weeks you had been working in the office, didn’t help much either. If he was gonna figure you out, he was gonna have to put in some effort. You’re so open with the people around you, so one conversation should be enough to satiate his curiosity, right? Wrong. It only made things worse for him.

It had been a quiet day, a few members of the staff had been let go early but you were still there and Daisuke sat lounging at his desk. He knew this would be the perfect time to strike. Not only was the office dead, but if you questioned his sudden curiosity in you, he could play if off as boredom. Just as he had made the decision, you were walking by his desk, lunch box in hand. Without hesitation, his arm juts out in front of you, blocking your path, and stopping you in your tracks. Your eyes widen a bit in surprise before you turn to him with your typical kind expression, tilting your head to the side in question.

“Daisuke? Everything alright?,” you asked in a sweet, curious tone.

When his gaze finally rose to meet yours, he had the same bored look on his face that he normally does, which took you some time to get used to. The first few days of working in the office you had assumed he didn’t like you, or that you had done something to upset him already. Those assumptions died when you realized that everyone in the office got the same treatment, but that didn’t stop Daisuke from noticing your face drop or the way you wouldn’t look him in the eye while talking to him during that time.

Things were different now though, you held eye contact and didn’t uncomfortably fidget while waiting for his response. He waited a few moments to answer, taking in your demeanor.

“Sit with me?” It was a question, technically, but it didn’t sound like one coming from him. He knew you wouldn’t say no, you were too amicable to do that.

He was right. You moved to sit in the seat only a few feet away, although not before pausing to give him a confused look then ultimately shrugging it off and joining him. You placed your lunch down on the desk in front of you and saw from the corner of your eye that he was just watching you as you unpacked your meal, not moving to do the same. You looked relaxed as you moved, but he could tell by the way you chewed at the inside of your cheek, and the way that your eyes darted around the desktop, that you were nervous.

So he’ll start by simply breaking the ice, casually asking “how are you liking your job so far?” You’d be a bit surprised that he asked, considering he doesn’t seem like the type of man to enjoy small talk, but you perk up anyway.

“I’m really enjoying it actually,” you tell him with a bright smile, “everyone is so nice, and it keeps me on my toes, so I’m never really bored.”

“You fit in well. Where did you work before you came here?” His eyes never leave your face, he doesn’t want to miss a single movement.

“I was a university hired tutor, my school offered me a position as a composition tutor so I could have a steady income while looking for a job I really wanted,” you explained, no hesitation in your response.

“And you wanted to be a secretary for a bunch of second rate detectives?” He tilted his head every so slightly, to watch and see if he had pressed any of your buttons.

Which he had, your eyebrows drew closer together and you shook your head, “well first, I don’t consider any of you to be second rate, and second no being a secretary isn’t my end goal, I’m not exactly sure what the right job for me is just yet,” you turned to him and shrugged, “I just know I want to be part of the team that keeps the people in this city safe.” Then you gave him a big smile and stuffed a bite of food into your mouth.

Daisuke wanted to know the reason behind that decision but he decided to dive into that rabbit hole at a later date. So he kept asking you things, nothing too personal at first, he was letting you get comfortable answering his questions without overthinking or hesitating. He had figured out pretty early on that you were a bit oblivious to certain things. Here you sat, happily talking Daisuke’s ear off while you enjoyed your lunch. Not once did you find it even a bit odd that he was asking you so many questions, but not once giving you the chance to ask your own or say anything about himself. Why was that so interesting and frustrating at the same time?

As time went on Daisuke started trying to dig a little deeper, asking you things a little more personal than your average lunch break would involve. This went unnoticed by you, but he had barely begun to scrape the surface when the phone on your desk rang across the room.

That was the end of his interrogation, work began to pick up, and Daisuke found himself feeling disappointed. He didn’t want to stop talking to you, even though it was more like listening to you speak while he hung onto every word.

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