#if he dies I'll resurrect him and kill him again

[blood-orange-juice]

Doing Navia's part of the story (yes, I'm slow).

Paralles with Childe are scary (too sleepy to formulate it clearly but a lot of emotional patterns match).

Did he... symbolically hand us over his quest of killing that eldritch whale and his Vision (probably also focused on killing that whale).

(it's the only way that conversation makes any sense to me)

CHILDE.

WTF???

When I said I'll kill that thing for you I didn't mean *this*. Stop turning into an eldritch horror, come back and solve your problems yourself, you coward (I'll help. I'll be clapping and bringing you almonds, eggs and sugar).

Please tell me I'm imagining things.

[tossawary]

Thinking about two (three?) different "Rin Lives" AUs for "Naruto" in very different styles.

The first (Option 1A) is, of course, the classic where Rin survives having the Sanbi sealed inside her instead of having Kakashi kill her (while Obito watches). I can't exactly call Zetsu's sinister plan here unreasonable, but it does still rely heavily on a bunch of relatively unpredictable elements.

With Obito as a hostage, Zetsu has relatively intimate information on Rin, Kakashi, and Minato, but by that point, it's like a year out of date. What if Rin, Kakashi, and Minato have all been significantly changed by Obito's apparent death and have adjusted their techniques and procedures? The plan relies on 1) neither of Namikaze Minato's students (who also know Uzumaki Kushina and Jiraiya of the Sannin) having sufficient sealing knowledge to hold out long enough for help to arrive, 2) the YELLOW FLASH to be fully distracted and occupied while this is happening, and 3) Rin dying in such a way that it looks like Kakashi's fault. (Also, 4) no other Kiri nin catching on and having issues with all of this.)

Again, it's not exactly unreasonable that all of these elements came together in a tragedy, but also still too reliant for my liking on all of these different moving pieces who could potentially pull out skills and escape plans that Zetsu hasn't foreseen. I'll need to reread that part to figure out why clones / genjutsu weren't just used to fool Obito, who wasn't exactly in a good state to resist that kind of manipulation. (Itachi used Tsukuyomi on Kakashi at least once. Obito is under severe physical, mental, and emotional strain and only awakened his Sharingan directly before his kidnapping. He's so vulnerable.)

Option 1B for this AU, a twist on the classic, is that nothing about this mission was real. The Sanbi was never put inside Rin. Zetsu or Madara fooled a vulnerable Obito with a trick / gaslighting, and Zetsu has been desperately struggling to kill Nohara Rin for years to get her out of the way before a grieving / vengeful Obito notices that Rin isn't actually dead. This AU probably takes place before Minato's death. Kakashi and Minato have caught on to some attempted murder mystery going on here and they are SO overprotective.

OPTION 2 for a "Rin Lives" AU is actually a "Rin gets resurrected" AU. Obito catches on earlier that Madara and Zetsu are full of shit, but Obito still isn't exactly sane after everything, so while Obito has Rinnegan superpowers in the middle of the final fight, he throws Madara and Zetsu's plan out the window and somehow uses a stolen / modified version of Orochimaru's Edo Tensai technique to bring Nohara Rin fully back from the dead. Obito says a big "FUCK YOU" to all of those long conspiracies and wastes all of that ultimate power on fully resurrecting some random nobody girl he loved as a young teenager.

So, it's like: "Your name is Nohara Rin and you are no longer dead. You were turned into a bomb and killed yourself when you were 14 to save your village, and now you've been resurrected as though you never died; you're not exactly 14 anymore after the dreamy time you spent watching the world of the living, but you are definitely not actually 31. It's weird.

"The teammate you once thought was dead was actually kidnapped by two different madmen and has spent the past 15 years with them molding his body and whispering in his ears, only to betray them anyway. His hands are covered in so much blood and he's started a war and it was all apparently a trick to bring you back. So everyone is looking at you, shocked, and confused, because you're not special. All of that? For you? For some random dead girl? They were ready for the world to end. Obito is looking at you, satisfied, expectant, like you're supposed to have any answers or any kind of comfort for him.

"Minato-Sensei is here too, undead in a different way, not alive again like you are (at least, like you think you are), and so is Kakashi, all grown up the hard way. They are looking at you like a miracle and also like you're breaking their hearts all over again. And oh, no, Uchiha Madara and Zetsu are very, VERY mad right now, there's no time for any of this, is there? You died in one war and it's right back into another."

[aquarius-cookie-jar]

Another one of Dark Cacao and Dark Choco's ancestors: Berry Choco Cookie.

The first wielder of the Strawberry Jam Sword. (Feat. Grape Choco Cookie during his younger years).

I'll be going into more depth on the two's backstory. This is part 1, focusing on Berry Choco's side of the story.

⚠️TW // CW FOR THE FOLLOWING: ⚠️

Mentions of violence and death.

There's an image at the end that some users may find to be eye straining. It also contains a bit of blood. Not gorey or graphic, but just in case you may find it disturbing.

Berry Choco doesn't actually mind control Dark Choco as this artwork I made may imply. He's very much dead and not conscious the whole time Dark Choco had the sword.

The sword itself is cursed with magic that amplifies whatever negative emotion you have tenfold. The 'voices' Dark Choco hears from the sword are echoes of his emotions amplified to a painful degree. This very magic was what led Berry Choco to his untimely demise. It didn't directly kill him, but it did lead him to destroy the new home Grape Choco found refuge in after the brothers had been separated.

Speaking of which, the brothers in their prime were undefeated warriors, fighting any foe that crossed their paths. As victories stacked up, they grew arrogant, facing more and more dangerous foes. One day, they decided to attack the great Jade Dragon, guardian of the heavens. However, they were over powered by the ancient beast, their powers stripped away from them, and each one banished to the furthest corners of the world, forced to wander about until they can find peace.

Berry Choco, furious and driven by pride and anger, scoured the lands in search of an answer to defeat anyone who dared stand in his way again. He stumbled across forbidden Strawberry Jam magic (essentially blood magic in human terms), and 'tweaked' it just a bit.

This however resulted in him being unable to control the magic, becoming too absorbed in his quest for bloodlust.

When he found his brother again, he was happy to see him, but was shocked when he realized Grape Choco no longer wanted to be a feared warrior, and had actually settled down, with a child on the way.

Berry Choco was left confused, hurt, angry, full of rage— especially towards his brother's partner. How dare they corrupt him! How could they have managed to convince him to just give up everything they've fought for?! Unable to accept his brother's new found life, he was consumed by this dark magic, and ended up destroying the village, killing so many people. And eventually, his brother's partner.

He died by the hands of Grape Choco Cookie, shortly after. The tale of the two brothers vanished into obscurity, turning into nothing more than a local legend. Though whispers of his cursed sword still remained. The only evidence of his existence.

Berry Choco Cookie was practically dead for the longest time. Until, somehow, he was resurrected, brought back as a ghoul, a living puppet of the dead. What's that you say? He can finally get his revenge..?

[cruyuu]

hii! that mini-rant of yours abt sukuita was beautiful. i'm just curious about ur thoughts regarding them and what made you like them so much?? (and it's good that you moved off twitter, it's a nasty place)

Hello anon!

I'll start by agreeing with you– that app really is annoying. I was thinking of moving off it because some ppl's interpretations of characters in jjk just started pissing me off but when I got those same ppl screaming in my qrts over and over how I can like this insane, disgusting ship (while they enjoyed twisted shit as well and get a clap on the back for it, I get judged for it like come on) I knew it was time.

As for what made me like them so much– even if they are problematic and kinda ???– well, strap in.

(I'm kinda angry there aren't more analyses of them but... oh well. Only #real fans of jjk know that Sukuna secretly is a fan of Yuuji and that he doesn't want to kill him because he loves really cares about his progress as a sorcerer apparently???)

Anyways, more under the cut.

First off, if someone told me I'll lowkey be obsessed with them, I wouldn't believe them. Honestly, I thought their situation was worrying, kinda weird yet hilarious right up until the Shibuya Incident arc where I saw the true extent of Sukuna's power and thought that hey, Yuuji kept ignoring this monster, this absolute disaster of a man and he was fine? He suffered absolutely no mental or physical repercussions before that? What? This apocalypse that's deep inside him nearly fucking giggled "Don't look up at me like that brat :3" when Yuuji died and went to his domain yet he nearly decapitated Jugo and the two teens merely because they held their heads a bit high.

Hell, Yuuji also threatens him yet he– tongue-in-cheek– brushes that off with "You look like you want to kill me". The anime really points out the weird amusement because you can hear him speak and Sukuna not only sounds amused, a bit done but he also sounds like he's teasing him (and is reveling in it)

He bargains with Yuuji calmly, offers him a vow to resurrect him only if he accepts to let him take control for a minute. You would think he'd ask for more, be greedy, be like "fuck this" and torture Yuuji until he accepts but instead he indulges him.

Yet...

Yuuji clearly got the special treatment. Sukuna could've easily showed off his power, tortured him, made him intently aware that he's not supposed to fuck around... yet it was "I fixed ur arm, where my hug at". Maybe I was overthinking it back then, when I first picked up jjk, but this struck such a deep cord within me that I couldn't function properly for days because I kept thinking of Sukuna– the epitome of evil– giggling like a school girl, allowing Yuuji to be "menacing" and disrespectful, and just dismiss all of that while if it was anyone else in Yuuji's shoes, they'd be mangled, ripped apart, tortured until death and laughed over (on repeat).

I love the 'two souls stuck in one body' idea. Like Yuuji has the epitome of the word evil inside of him while he's literally a sunshine. I could totally see Sukuna trying to break Yuuji from the inside out– torture him, threaten him, kill him over and over again, all just to pass the time, test out how it feels to be alive again– and I was kinda surprised canon never went with that option. Instead Yuuji just ignored him while Sukuna did... well... quite little. I still find it hilarious how it's canon that Sukuna yaps while Yuuji just ignores him. Yuuji's got guts, really.

Now this would be just that. They have an interesting dynamic, problematic as fuck but so very interesting and fascinating to explore both in the fluffy or the grim way but considering where we are currently– It isn't just that. It got both worse and better (regarding both my decent into madness– this ship– and them in canon).

I'll separate what more I want to talk about into sections because it's easier that way.

The Beginning & The End

The story quite literally opens with them. Yuuji being kicked into an unknown world (aka the inciting incident) is the result of him finding Sukuna's finger before Megumi can even find it. If Yuuji never stumbled upon that finger, the fight with the curse at that school wouldn't happen. He'd never get to meet Megumi, nor have to swallow Sukuna's finger. So without them, jjk wouldn't exist.

Chapter 1 is titled "Ryoumen Sukuna" and Yuuji and his Occult Club speculate that a lingering spirit is haunting the premises of the school. Their theory is swiftly debunked (Ticks lol), but they didn't know that their theory proved to be kinda correct.

And yes, the explanation being ticks is awfully fitting. Ticks are parasites– they latch on and slowly bury themselves inside of a human (or animal) and if you spot them too late, you aren't able to take them out and need to visit a hospital because these little annoyances are quite deadly. Sukuna's finger was around that school for an unknown time, since Yuuji found him, attracting curses which preyed on people without anyone even noticing. Plus parasites often need a host to survive– Yuuji being his vessel and having to swallow fingers to completely resurrect him.

What follows right after that is a bit meta and again, foreshadowing the future events:

1. Yuuji and his Occult Club being dismissed for spreading rumors — Yuuji couldn't see curses before he saw death for the first time.

2. Yuuji being a part of Track-And-Field team and not the Occult club — How Yuuji wasn't born as a sorcerer. He's just your average high schooler– someone quite boring.

3. The club president of the Track-And-Field interrupts them to say he rewrote it because he wants to make use of Yuuji's extraordinary abilities for the track team. Yuuji refuses, so the coach challenges him to a game that Yuuji wins with ease. – He's being warned off traveling that road that main characters go through, telling Yuuji to stick to a normal life. He's no sorcerer, after all. But here's the thing— Yuuji, despite not being born a sorcerer, is still special. He has incredible strength and lightning speed so even if he's not as cool as sorcerers, not someone special, he still kind of is. After all, Yuuji will go on to survive hosting The King of Curses, successfully prevent him from taking control and proceed to keep him on a leash.

And also:

He's not afraid as normal people in his shoes would be. Hell, he literally made the fabled King of Curses look like a joke. Do I need to remind you that Megumi couldn't do that despite being a sorcerer? Despite not being a sorcerer, despite not being cut out for this, he still likes it and wants to be a part of it.

Also, regarding it's growing on me– did you know that ticks' body grows as they feed on blood, but they only burrow their heads into the host and grow on them by laying eggs within?

He survived hosting Sukuna, promptly told him to fuck off from his body and got enlisted into Jujutsu High despite not being a sorcerer. Plus he got a gift– being able to use cursed energy due to Sukuna. Again, he is specialz. (And yes! Specialz by King Gnu is literally a sukuita anthem! The song is a twisted version of a ballad– a love letter from a beast that enjoys seeing the agony on his lovers' face rather than a smile. Who enjoys making him lose his mind and nudges him to accept the catastrophe. To embrace the ugly and lose the good. Like: You are my special; we are special; get lost in me; i love you baby?? It literally played over Yuuji's mental breakdown– and Sukuna told him to admire the mess he made– like what more proof do you need??!?!)

If Yuuji never swallowed Sukuna's finger, he never would've had cursed energy. He never would've became a jujutsu sorcerer. He never would've unleashed hell upon earth, watched his friends die and that promise he made to his grandfather would be left for helping regular people out in any way and not exterminating curses. He would've been way happier and way less traumatized but then this story wouldn't exist. 😔

But, I digress.

Yuuji's our main character and Sukuna's the final boss of the story. Despite the narrative promptly ignoring and continuously ridiculing Yuuji, stating he's nothing (a cog in the machine), it's all just so he would prove himself. Fight his way up. Embrace change. All writers know it. And besides, even if he's powerless and weak, well that matters little— considering Sukuna would go on to kill the strongest jujutsu sorcerer yet somehow still not deal with a weakling like him. The same weakling who keeps growing and maturing, being molded and shaped and therefore rightfully needs to be put down before he becomes a threat. I mean Uraume did comment to Sukuna in 257 that Yuuji is like an empty husk actively retaining some elements of him, a fact which should make killing him be Sukuna's top priority because it implies Yuuji— even if weak— could grow to become Sukuna's equal and therefore could kill him.

Still, Sukuna doesn't care lol. He doesn't consider him a threat, calls him boring, yet has a nearly two-page inner monologue just because he learned a fucking reversed curse technique. Lol

It goes like:

you're boring. you're literally insignificant that even killing you is a waste of time.

wait he learned reversed cursed technique within a month?

guess it's time to have some fun with him and then kill him

what the fuck is this irritating feeling

Sukuna pouts. He pouts and spaces out while wondering about connections and what people are to him. Like... ok? That's kinda ga Even Yuuji is stunned why he didn't continue fighting him but instead just started making faces like he's sad. Also, worthy of note is that he had the perfect opportunity to slam his fist through him because he was distracted. Sukuna's usually highly aware of his surroundings, very much in the moment when fighting an opponent, yet Yuuji does a new thing and now Sukuna is stopping the fight to contemplate about unnecessary things instead of you know, being normal and continuing the fight? It's so funny to me. (Also the way he's awfully handsty didn't escape my notice.)

Anyways, to go back and bring your attention to what I stated at the beginning: Everything started with them. Rightfully so, everything will end with them. There's something so beautiful about Yuuji being incomparable to Sukuna in terms of power, being mocked and ridiculed by the story, not special at all and not improving much even if he is improving. It would make his final battle with Sukuna so satisfying that I cannot really put it into words and I will be there no matter what!

Can you imagine that? The poetry of it all– the King of Curses defeated by a nobody. It's brilliant, really. Part of their charm, part of what makes them addicting.

Perfect Opposites

Another thing that makes sukuita delicious is the rather blatant contrast between them. They're total opposites in every sense of the word. The story continiously highlights it.

The story tries to belittle Yuuji, make him as insignificant to the overall plot as it can, make us– the audience– convinced and fearful that Yuuji will not bring about any change. It convinced most of the audience to root for characters equipped with the qualities an mc should have (like Gojo, like Yuta, Megumi, name it), to look away from the pawn that is Yuuji.

Most people, after all, don't like weak, not cool characters. Usually, what shonen does is that it will continually boost the MC's power until the protagonist could practically wipe the floor with the antagonist. As is the case in jjk, most ppl expected that Gojo vs Sukuna would leave Sukuna weakened, on the verge of dying, yet that wasn't the case. Instead Gojo got cut in half which had driven the entire fandom to start hating Gege as an author. To start crying about Sukuna being OP, that the story's gone to shit, all because the side character they rooted for didn't end the main antagonist of the series. How come someone as strong as Gojo dies yet someone who's weak– like Yuuji– lives?

You see, I love when shonen inverts tropes. I love that Gege hyped Gojo up, gave him a perfect backstory which already highlights and forshadows why he would lose, why he's not the strongest, etc. I also love the fact that Yuta went on and, instead of facing Sukuna by himself, chose to wear Gojo like a coat. I love how the MC is just standing on the sidelines instead of actively dealing with the threat.

That same MC who wishes to save his friend, who fights for others, who's as selfless as ever. Who's not a strong sorcerer but a strong person. Who keeps on witnessing how the strong ones are plucked like flies and possibly is wondering how the hell anyone's– let alone him– is going to defeat the threat in front of him.

The entire jujutsu society didn't sit down and speculate about Sukuna's weaknesses and strengths. Didn't even sit down to formulate a plan, to fight together, because it's all about proving your worth as the strongest, right? It's all about cool techniques, showing off, etc.

Most people saw it like this– well if Sukuna is strong then just have strong characters fight him. There you go. You have the strongest jujutsu sorcerer against the strongest used-to-be jujutsu sorcerer. If there's anyone on the same level as Sukuna, it has to be someone exactly like him. A monster. A mirror.

Most people don't see the point of Yuuji being the executioner because the narrative convinced them throwing a puny Yuuji against someone like Sukuna will realistically get him killed. For someone who should be dead by all accounts, Yuuji keeps persisting and keeps pissing Sukuna off– the same man who still doesn't kill him because of well... reasons. He's too insignifact to even crush, by Sukuna's standards. Yet he takes pride in torturing him– killing off and taking away people that Yuuji loves– has inner monologues about him, thinks back on him too much for no reason while fighting different people, almost as if he's fascinated, as if he cares, as if he never met someone like him.

If you'd ask the majority of the fandom who'd get to kill Sukuna: Gojo seemed like a plausable option, at first. Yuta too. Hell, Megumi even. After all, they're continiously put in focus, placed as special and branded as 'has potential'. Then Gojo dies, Megumi's taken over and Yuta is possibly on his way to death (Note: jjk is an ongoing story so... yeah. This is written before Chapter 262 for anyone who's reading this in the future.)

These people tend to forget one simple thing– that opposites attract. That you don't fight fire with fire, but with water. You don't come at the King of Curses with techniques using cursed energy– instead you come at him with raw strength alone. You don't battle to prove your place as a sorcerer– you battle to save a friend, to save people from a massacre.

If you battle to prove your ideal– then you best come at your opponent with something they don't know about. They know about being strong. They know about being a monster. They know about everything selfish because they embody it. Show them a different view.

Be selfless.

There's no one more tailored for the role than Itadori Yuuji. No one special. Weak. Insignificant. A total opposite to Sukuna. It is to be expected by most people that if he faces Sukuna in a battle, that he'd be killed off in an instant yet he survived a couple of battles with him nonetheless. He's broken down, haunted by all the people that died in front of him, but is still suicidal enough to face Sukuna all because he wants to save Megumi. He does it out of care. Out of love. He'd willingly trade his life for anyone.

Love isn't a curse. It is, in fact, the opposite. Love (unconditional one) is the most powerful weapon against curses.

And that is Yuuji's biggest strength. That is the key. He's there to prove that isolation makes you weak, that it is the bonds you share with others that make you strong, make you push on, make you live. Not your capabilities as a jujutsu sorcerer, but you as a person. Jjk does a great job at portraying that who you are matters more than what rank you are on those power-scaling polls.

This is why I adore them so much. I admittedly did go off a bit (literally crafted a theory) but it was all to prove a point why I love them. What makes Yuuji so perfect as Sukuna's doom— a perfect opposite— is the fact that he's a living, breathing epitome of something Sukuna never knew about. Friendship. Love. Care. Lowkey it does sound cheesy but it works. It really works too well lol

Yuuji will end Sukuna with the power of love.

Also: Funnily enough, both Sukuna and Yuuji do look extremely alike. Sukuna's OG form is literally Yuuji grown up. You could say, in a way, that Sukuna is just Yuuji who chose the dark path lmfao

They're not beating the twins allegations but neither are they beating the 'each other's half' because their contrasting way of living, of looking at the world, just places them as perfect enemies, perfect soulmates, two sides of the same coin, etc.

They're enemies and I've always been weak for enemies to lovers to I'd still kill you.

Family Matters

I ranted a bit about this here. Although yes, this adds even more shit onto the plate and literally slaps an incest tag onto them, it still gives further depth to their relationship.

Like I said in my rant– Yuuji is an offspring of Sukuna's twin brother who he devoured. From the story perspective, that puts Yuuji on a big pedestal. He could be the perfect revenge for his father who got eaten before he could even live. Let's not forget that Yuuji got sentenced to death by the story when he swallowed Sukuna's finger and survived, which kinda mirrors that (He's just fifteen yet the threat of death was looming over his head daily).

But despite the odds, he still lived– just like Sukuna's twin brother had managed to get reincarnated (to experience life)– even if that brought on a massacre and led to the mess we are in now.

So, Yuuji ending him is the perfect revenge. Pure poetry. Thank you for coming to my ted talk!

Now, I know most people get the ick about this ship now. After all, it is ugly if you view their relationship through a romantic light. It's horrible, but at the end of the day, it is fictional. They're two lines on paper, not something that exists. No, that doesn't brand anyone liking them a literal real life incest enjoyer or dangerous individual nor is there any deeply rooted psychological problem with the people liking them. And I know— So why do you like this? Because I am an adult and can seperate what isn't real and what is. If you can't, then stay away from fiction because applying morals to something that doesn't exist is worrying.

Also in fiction, there are no rules because putting rules in fiction is destroying what makes fiction good in the first place! Hope this helps.

Sukuna and Yuuji being uncle and nephew makes for some good memes, some problematic– familial or romantic– fics and still works for the narrative. I'm not complaining and I genuienly can't hate them. It can't make me unship them. Their dynamic is too interesting for me, I'm afraid. I love them, whether in a romantic, purely familial, platonic, enemies, whatever way.

So yeah, anon. There you go.

Sukuita is very interesting for writers who want to push boundaries when it comes to writing dark, disturbing stuff but it is also a playground for those who want to nick them out of canon and have fun with them. I am one of those people because I really do find both of them interesting– in canon or an au, related or not, similar or opposites, whatever.

Have a great day/night!

[distort-opia]

Could you maybe explain to me what exactly Jason's problem with Bruce was/is when he came back?

Maybe I'm being stupid but I don't know. Like, I know there's this space between Jason's resurrection and Talia finding him... and Jason returing for a sec to kill Bruce, then changing his mind, and went back to Talia to plan The Ultimatum and travel the world a bit.

I went off the assumption that Jason thought Bruce didn't care enough for him to kill the Joker and then the whole stupid thing with the batarang to the neck after everyone thought Dick died.

But, like, Jason kind of destroyed his relationship with the batfam himself with the whole coming out of nowhere and trying to hurt/traumatize/kill them. I don't mean to hate on Jason specifically, I just don't get him on a fundamental level.

Would really appreciate if somebody could clear that up, I'm kind of desperate. Like I have most of the facts but it seems like a jigzaw puzzle with too many pieces and I can't make sense of it.

To be honest, I don't understand your confusion fully? You pretty much explained it yourself, why Jason was angry at Bruce after he came back. Even Judd Winick, the writer of Under the Red Hood, says it very concisely (in this interview):

When it comes to Jason's relationships with the Batfam, I'll once again let Winick explain his vision (transcription of a podcast episode to be found here):

You say that Jason harmed his relationship with the Batfam himself as if Jason's intention had been to have good relationships with them. At the times he went after Tim or Dick or Damian, I don't think he cared much about that, hah. Most of his choices at the time could be boiled down to "What would piss off Bruce the most, either directly or by proxy?"... and also, "What would get Bruce's attention the most?". Because that's what made it complicated, right. Jason wouldn't have gone to these extremes if he didn't care about Bruce.

As to things not making sense... you're not being stupid, I'm sorry to say that at least to me, it's impossible to reconcile all of Jason's actions within a coherent character. Just because he was written by different people in different continuities with very different goals (though maybe more accurately, by some writers lacking a goal, as in not really knowing what to do with him). This is true for most comic book characters, not just Jason; true consistency is a pipe dream when the history of a character spans decades. Keeping that in mind, my personal approach is forming an idea of the original core traits of a character (which is why I gave examples of what Winick himself said), and then filtering their subsequent portrayals through that. Some comics will be horribly OOC despite them technically being canon and you simply have to go the "I recognize that the Council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision I've elected to ignore it" route. Then there's, of course, your personal preferences; you can choose what is canon to you because you like it, and form your idea of a character around those instances-- though here I'd always warn to never stop being aware that it's your idea of the character. There is no absolute truth, and we're all playing in a sandbox. Other people will choose other instances of canon, or try to reconcile all of them somehow, and your ideas might not jive. That's perfectly fine.

That being said, while I do like Jason a lot, he isn't my full-time blorbo, so I'm sure other Jason scholars could respond to this much better than I did! If anyone wants to add more in-depth answers, please do.

[exo-raskreia]

How is Gege going to wrap everything up in 5 chapters?! There are still a bunch of questions, things to be resolved:

• Gojo's comeback?! (I've believed in his comeback since 236 cuz there's been hint after hint! Or else, worst character death & I'll forever be salty about it 😠)

• Utahime's potential role in that or something equally important?! (Gege's really wasting her like that?)

• Nobara comeback?! (What about Uta buffing her Resonance against Sukuna's finger?)

• Hakari vs Uraume?! (At this rate, Gege better not waste time on it OR watch him make Hakari offscreen or one-shot/finish off Uraume in a few panels 💀)

• What's gonna happen to Yuuta in Gojo's body?! (He better not stay stuck there—this could ruin YutaMaki—nor die...)

• The Merger?! (Watch Gege kill everyone off & reincarnate in a diff life 💀)

• Kenjaku really died like that? No backstory, his relation to Tengen?

• Tengen backstory?

• Sukuna backstory? No glimpse into the Heian Era?

• Kashimo really just died like that? He didn't even last 💀

• Did Higuruma really die?

• Where are Gakuganji & Ijichi? Are they potentially helping Uta?

• Will Megumi live to find out about Toji like Gojo wanted him to?

• Was Shoko really as uncaring as she seemed towards Gojo & the Horrible Plan? Didn't she want to let him know she's always been there for him?

• The military subplot? (What was the point?)

There's just so much to be concerned about. It's gonna be rushed & bad at this rate. This is Bl3ach all over again 🙄 (a "timeskip married with kids ending" would be the cherry on top... 😒)

I wouldn't be surprised if Yuuji dies along with Sukuna 💀. Or as others have said before, what if Megumi sacrifices himself to bring back everyone—his DE mudra is that of Yakushi Nyorai (Healing Buddha), & his shikigami seem to represent the Ten Sacred Treasures that can resurrect the dead? But still... 😥

If the Merger happens, kills everyone off, & they all reincarnate, my idea for at least a bittersweet ending is that all the adults become teachers/staff in a high school & the kids are the students. Imagine Gojo as a science teacher or counselor or smth, Utahime as the Japanese or choir teacher, Yaga the principal, Shoko the school nurse, Sukuna a sports coach (lol), etc. We could even have a scene of Gojo going to tease Uta in her class, implying GojoHime hasn't changed; and the students go "They're flirting again". 😭

If the Merger doesn't happen, can we at least get a scene of Utahime being pregnant with Gojo's child or showing her with a baby that looks just like him in the future 😭? They were either in a secret relationship the whole time or they got together during the timeskip...

I highly doubt there'll be a sequel or that the final chapters will be longer but who knows. Gege just seems like he's been wanting to end JJK for a long time... Wouldn't be surprised if he releases another fanbook to fill in some of the plot holes 🙄. There's a bunch of things in the manga that I'll forever feel critical about, & I once made a post on it here.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I shouldn't trust Gege at this point but he might still deliver somehow. The 4th character popularity poll results are coming up with a color spread. Wonder if Utahime went up a rank...

There's also GojoHime's 200% Hollow Purple to look forward to in the anime... 🥹

[agenttommykinard]

for your ship and au post, bucktommy old guard au?

okay okay

Buck is Immortal, he died in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War and likes to joke all the time that he's older than the US

finding the others had been very hard for him, he had been the youngest immortal and had a whole ocean separating him from them

years of loneliness and watching your family die, plus hundreds of years of war and seeing humanity at its worst does weigh on Buck, but he does his best to ultimately see the good in everything, and he takes his immortality as a chance to learn, to help people, it's something he reminds the others

eventually, the years go on and he goes with the others to help, it leads him to meet a young pilot, freshly deployed at 22 years old after he obtained his military pilot license

Buck doesn't mean to be, but he's drawn to the kid, Tommy is young and tries to hide it, but Buck knows loneliness like an old friend and sees past it

Tommy helps get them out of a tough situation, and in the dark in a camp in a desert, he takes a chance and kisses Buck under the stars

Buck knows he shouldn't

but he does

it ends though, when one of the others gets "killed" and they need to leave, they were only there for a mission and Buck has to leave Tommy behind, he shouldn't get attached anyway

that doesn't mean he doesn't keep tabs on the kid

he learns that Tommy's been discharged, that he's in the States again and that he's becoming a firefighter

sometimes, he imagines going to LA, finding Tommy and telling him that it wasn't just a few nights for him, that he regrets leaving

most times Buck thinks about the centuries of living he has, of the baggage that comes with being immortal, that this could only end with him living on and Tommy would eventually die

fast forward and they have a mission, sex traffic ring out in LA and they need transport and Buck shouldn't, but he's in charge of transport and it's been 20 years

he asks Tommy anyway

the mission goes sideways and Tommy definitely holds Buck as he dies and then resurrects and suddenly Tommy knows who Buck really is

Tommy doesn't run

they catch up and Buck takes a break and he lets himself just slow down and be human, even if it's for a little while, because how can it be pretend when he's in love?

AND HERE IS WHERE OUR STORY SPLITS TO POSSIBLE ENDINGS

one ending is Tommy gets caught up in everything, and he knows Buck can heal, he knows the others can as well, but he can't stand by to watch their suffering and he goes in to help them/save them and it results in his death, Buck wearing his dog tags for the next how many centuries he lives, eventually the name wears off from how Buck rubs at the metal but he never forgets Tommy's name and the love they had

Tommy and Buck have their decades, Tommy gets older and Buck watches as he ages, he gets grey and people joke about Tommy being Buck's uncle - Tommy dies quietly in their home, peacefully in his sleep, the last thing he ever said to Buck was "I love you"

Buck loses his immortality and learns what it's like to age with aches and pains, but he has Tommy at his side and he's at peace with his death

Tommy ends up dying, his blood spilling out onto the street from a bullet that was meant for Buck - hours later he gasps back to life and Buck doesn't have to lose another loved one

send me a ship + an AU and I'll give you a summary on how I think the AU would look like

[hatt0riart]

I WANTED TO MAKE MORE THAN JUST THIS but it took like. a week to get done and im sick these days

anyways in light of mk1's nonsense i revisited some koncepts i had for a roleswap au. i took hanzo's inspiration from a mix of mkx and mk11 outfits and kuai i kind of just winged it based off my own preferences in past appearances!!

more rambling is under the cut about the actual AU :-]

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST MY ART ON ANY OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA OR CROP THEM FOR ICONS. THANK YOU!

SO I HAVE NOT ACTUALLY DEVELOPED THIS BEYOND SOME OLD SKETCHES I HAD OF KUAI'S DESIGN but i had some general ideas of how this was supposed to work???

the shirai ryu is still alive and well! he's still a family man and very clan oriented. satoshi is still born and grows into his clan's responsibilities, however harumi dies in child birth.

the lin kuei on the other hand is Not Doing Well. they end up getting wiped out during a raid from the shirai ryu and most of kuai's immediate family (whether by choice or blood) ends up going down with them.

prior to this kuai ends up passing after a failed mission to retrieve the map of elements from the shaolin temple in an attempt to prove himself to his clan. (instead of bi-han being the one set on that path, kuai ends up taking the initiative instead WAY before he's ready without anyone's knowledge and ends up dying when met with scorpion.)

most of it is similar how it is in actual canon for how scorpion's story goes. he gets resurrected he pledges loyalty to quan chi in order to get revenge, blah blah blah. mortal kombat happens. the two meet again at some point.

kuai's still on that "you killed my family" juice but its...more so about familial ties (like bi-han and smoke) rather than it being the love(s) of his life (like hanzo's wife and son) , seeing as he died young from his own overzealous nature.

very much has anger issues. he's impatient and has alot shorter of a temper by comparison to scorpion in the original canon. hardly ever humbled until that point lol

hanzo on the other hand is surprisingly more lax. meditates often, drinks alot of tea and while he *IS* stressed he handles it alot better than kuai does. maybe has a problem of ignoring his problems though for the sake of the task at hand.

kuai ends up harassing hanzo alot in this AU even outside of the tournament. he's kind of a bitchy ghost there to remind hanzo of what happened to him and lowkey hanzo guilts over it.

kuai has alot of grim reaper motifs in his design. he carries a scythe made of ice primarily and fights at a more long distance range.

hanzo on the other hand is alot more of an up close brawler. he keeps alot of design traits from mkx with a bit of mk11 sprinkled in for inspiration of his "classic" design.

STILL A PYROMANCER!! i just havent thought out how. he's just regarded with a bit more respect for having those unnatural abilities lol

but yeah this is just me spitballing in bullet points. i'm hoping to make more stuff later that is a bit more...thought out properly but it follows more of like

mk mythologies --> mk9 -> mkx

type of timeline i guess? except hanzo is in bi-han's position and kuai ends up being put in scorpion's. bi-han doesn't really have a place in the AU outside of being a background character and driving motive for kuai's vengeance later on. (though we're not gonna talk about how bi-han's mentality eventually fed into kuai's at a young age and made him come to the conclusions he did before he died.... maybe.)

smoke exists for the sake of painful flashbacks lol

satoshi's also a bg character but he does end up growing up with the shirai ryu and takes on his own share of clan responsibilities. idk whether or not he takes after hanzo's pyromancy or not in this AU but either way he grows up to be a well respected figure in the clan!

alot of stuff outside of this remains the same though, just the lin kuei and shirai ryu's dynamics get swapped.

ANYWAYS YEAH IF YOU READ THRU ALL THIS THANKS FOR READING BYEEEE (i'll be adding to this au more later on when i finish my other sketches lol)

[zeephyre]

CRITICAL ROLE CAMPAIGN 3 EPISODE 85 SPOILERS

IM LITERALLY ABOUT TO LOSE MY MIND YALL

Where do I even ??? start ???

I haven't been posting c3 as the episodes dropped in...a while actually, like right before they went to the feywild. i have many thoughts and many feelings about so many things that have happened since then and I'll summarise them so I can get to THIS episode.

fearne and ashton - love their shard powers, they're literally royalty and terrifying, and i want them to make-out. i can't wait to see them go full primordial again in a real combat situation.

imogen - save her. literally save her. free her, even. i love everything about the call of ruidus when it comes to imogen on a narrative standpoint, but...God I get so worried that we're gonna lose her. I don't mean she's gonna betray the hells, but...ruidus could take her and then i would simply perish.

laudna - before i really get into wtf went down this episode with her and she who must not be named, i gotta say... im worried. very very worried. however, that fireball was objectively the best shit ever.

fcg - i can't even really remember anything stand out abt fcg except what Sam pulled last night so.

chetney - still the heart of the team, still my baby girl, still my favourite. love him to bits.

orym - i think laudna is going to beat his ass one of these days and im... even more concerned about that after this episode. his nana morri powers are cool as fuck tho... does that make him a warlock now? i know he isn't multi-classing but wouldn't that be cool

ANYWAY WE'RE ON THE FUCKING MOON AND WE GOT MOON LORE AND EVERYTHING WAS SHITTY THEN FUN THEN SHITTY THEN FUN AGAIN THEN REALLY FUCKING SAD THEN IT ALL WENT TO SHIT AGAIN.

the moment imogen reached out to ruidus and matt mentioned that she could sense where other ruidusborn were i fucking knew that otohan was high tailing it in their direction, and i thought they instinctively knew that too but they probably got so distracted.

we were travelling for hours and had a huge fight that almost got them captured (not to be confused with the OTHER two fights that almost got them captured) and I was begging and screaming and crying for them to get a long rest safely hidden away AND THEN THEY SPLIT THE PARTY WITH BARELY ANY SPELL SLOTS OR HIT POINTS AFTER BEING DRAINED FROM ANOTHER BATTLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM

(Sidenote, the willmaster really opened up the door to the further increase in moral pondering in a certain number of hellians. i do think using the harness is disgusting and hypocritical, but i don't condemn them for it, it just...makes me wanna vomit thinking abt what ludinus did with it. not to mention the HUNGER parallels between laudna and ludinus...its just not good yall. also??? objectively funny that fcg seemed weirded out by the idea of killing the willmaster, not just with the harness but in general, considering how many people they've killed up to this point)

idk if its just the inherent terror that an evil old hot lady can inspire that makes otohan so much more terrifying to me than ludinus. like, objectively, ludinus is a worse threat and could wipe them out EASILY but jesus otohan is like the damn reaper to me. it's the trauma from the laudna, fearne, orym massacre mixed with the underlying little drop from their uthodurn romp that let us know that resurrection spells are NOT working and idk if that got fixed bc of time passing or distance from the leylines but i really did not want to test that shit out in real time

thank...god that sam riegel is a damn genius player, that banishment of fcg and fearne was the ONLY reason fcg survived. and thank GOD FOR KEYLETH BECAUSE WITHOUT THAT CLOUD SPELL BELLS HELLS WOULD BE VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY DEAD RN.

God, "otohan has us. run." is going to haunt me just as much, if not more than the almost tpk. it just...shot me straight back to bassuras and the plan to run that just...immediately fell apart.

god fcg truly could have died there. and fearne would be captured. i know the hells would be too stupid and too brave and too loyal to leave fearne with otohan in their cloud form but can you imagine a world where fcg was gone, fearne was captured and the hells had to switch from recon to rescue... itd be stressful but pretty fun.

thankfully it didn't come to that and some good came from the shit.

ruidus is so beautiful. i was worried they'd end being trapped under ruidus while they explored (not that I wasn't on board with the detours, I wish this wasn't a time sensitive mission), but matt's imagery of the fossilized elven structure and garden made me sad but also happy that we got to see it.

i cannot believe that the stupid plan to shove fearne up a water hole happened AGAIN and it ended up with us FINDING A BACK HOLE TO RUIDUS GOD I LOVE THESE CHUCKLEFUCKS WHEN IS THE NEXT EPISODE MATT YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME. WHERE EVEN ARE THEY??? IS IT EVEN EXANDRIA???? WHAT DO WE DO IF IT IS EXANDRIA??? WHERE DID THIS HOLE EVEN COME FROM???? DOES IT CLOSE AND REOPEN??? IS IT STAGNANT?????? IS IT FUCKING STABLE?!?!?!?!?!

God...we could go back to keyleth and the others and actually invade ruidus without encountering the ruby vanguard. (that's if they're alright because otohan did go out onto the battlefield and we don't know what fhe fuck she did when the illusion fell through)

GOD. IS IT THURSDAY YET??? WE HAVENT EVEN FOUND THE RESISTANCE????

[milkyrrr]

Doubt

"SO IT WAS YOU?!" Moon clenched his fingers on the thin metal neck with special fury, lifting the Ruin high above the ground.

"Ngh, l-let, me-, tell-, ngh..." he answered brokenly, helplessly swinging his legs in the air in an attempt to find support. Due to the difference in height and strength, he could not resist, only clinging to other people's hands to loosen his grip.

"Moon, you're overdoing it." Solar growled, crossing his arms over his chest. He was on edge too. He was also very, very angry that he was being used as a damn "model" in order to resurrect Eclipse. But now Moon was really overdoing it with aggression.

"I don't care, I'm going to squeeze his neck until it breaks and this fucking psycho dies to hell!" Moon shouted, without even turning to the interlocutor.

"Moon, I'm warning you..."

"I don't care! That piece of shit came back because of him! The only thing I fixed turned out to be a problem again! Isn't it wonderful, huh, Ruin? Have you achieved what you wanted?! Did you want me to not hold back my emotions? So get it, get it to the fullest, you, fucking masochist-"

"That's enough." Solar, approaching them a couple of steps away, abruptly pushed the Moon away, standing between them. Moon clenched his fists, watching Ruin, coughing, slide down the wall, trying to come to his senses and gulping for air.

"I won't let him stay alive. I'll kill him." the programmer growled.

"You didn't give him a chance to say a word, but you immediately attacked him. I know he brought Eclipse back, he copied my data, but don't you want to hear why he did it? If you kill him, you won't get an answer to any of your questions."

"Yes, I don't need answers! I can do it without his loud and eloquent words! Just let me get it over with!"

"No. You're not yourself, again. Try to take a step towards him and I promise I will take the necessary measures. Chill out. You can't make decisions based on emotions." Solar turned to Ruin, who was staring at them in fright... He... He didn't look like someone who could coolly bring back to life the main enemy of them. Them, which he almost considers family.

"Thank you, Solar." Ruin coughed. Leaning his hands on the floor, he tried to stand up, but his legs quickly gave way, and he had no choice, just to continue sitting on the floor, bending his knees towards himself and clasping them with his palms.

"Why did you bring Eclipse back?" Solar asked coolly, watching the Moon out of the corner of his eye.

"I didn't mean to, I swear! Me... I was forced." he replied in a frightened and very quiet voice, staring at the floor.

"Recently... A strange little robot came to visit me... He looked like an artist mannequin, and at first I didn't even pay attention to it. He said something about the stars, Lunar, and.. Eclipse... I didn't take his words seriously until he suddenly came right up to me and grabbed my hand. My head, it is... It got very sick. I felt with every grain of my body how everything inside me was bursting at the seams. My new body is strong enough, but unfortunately, the protection has not been finalized... This strange robot threatened me. He said that if I didn't follow his instructions, he would kill me. He said that this pain is the least he can do to me." Ruin swallowed before continuing. It was as if an invisible lump had risen to his throat. "I didn't know what to do, really! I did exactly as he asked, I copied Solar's voice and part of his personality. I swear, I'm really sorry, I tried to resist it, but this pain, it reappeared and pressed very hard on me, as if my rays were slowly but stubbornly torn from my head so that I could feel each wire thinning and tearing, and the sparks at the ends hurt, burning from the inside... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I'm not worthy to be a part of your family, but I couldn't help it!" There was indeed desperation and helplessness in his voice.

"You are not just unworthy to be a part of the family, you are not worthy to live." Moon clenched his hand into a fist again. "Solar, let me through, I listened to the reason as you wanted, now I want to kill him even more."

"No."

This word was hard for Solar. But he understood that Ruin was just as much a victim as they were. He was just being used. You know, under pressure, you can make people do a lot of terrible things. And if the victim is naive and weak, then it is much easier to break it.

"What do you mean 'no'? He's still a traitor! Let me go, I say!" Moon started to boil again, but Solar turned to him, covering the figure sitting on the floor with his hands, hunched over with guilt.

"I said no. If you want to deal with everyone who is to blame for this, then go ahead. Because you know what? The Eclipse was created because of me. If I wasn't here, he would be too. I am the only native speaker of a code like it. So come on, show me your anger and hatred. Pounce on me like a wild dog, tear me apart."

Moon banged his fist loudly on the table next to him, after which he stomped loudly to the other side of the room, cursing under his breath. He stopped at the edge of the room and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Solar sighed, then turned back and sat down on his knees near the Ruin. Putting his hand on his shoulder, he said:

"It's okay, buddy. I understand that you didn't want to do this. Promise me that we'll figure this out together. I don't want you to be alone and at risk."

"I'm really sorry..." Ruin whispered. The theater attendant shook his head to the sides.

"I know. I see it, Ruin. Now get up. You'll be safer in kindergarten than here alone. Eclipse hasn't done anything yet, and I don't want him to do anything to you. As more supporter he has, as worse it gets."

"I'll try not to let you down! I swear!" he exclaimed, raising his head. Solar snorted.

"I really hope so..."

[bonefall]

there's been some chatter going around that ivypool's super edition might lead into an exploration/revival of faded characters, mostly bristlefrost. what's your take on that? (both for how you could implement that into BB if ever it becomes a plot point, and also your general opinion)

I won't be surprised if they do! And I won't really be disappointed either. Honestly I've never been fond of the idea of double death. I love the concept of fading, but ghost-killing has always felt kinda... boring, I guess?

Fading feels terrifying, but natural. Like a soul finding peace, and moving on to whatever the next stage of being is. The idea of persisting forever, far after there's anything relevant to watch on the mortal plane, seems worse. But killing ghosts? Why? Can't think of anything else? They can't respawn, or persist with ghastly injuries?

Double-death may have been added to add more stakes to Dark Forest training, or to make it so you can physically fight the spirits and win for the climactic battle... but honestly? It feels like they were trying to prevent themselves from using their favorite characters ever again.

But I don't expect this team to stick to it. Never really have, even when I was a tot experiencing it for the first time in OotS. They double-killed off a bunch of their fan favorites. Tigerstar, Hawkfrost, Spottedleaf... it's always felt like a matter of time before they just find some way to bring them back.

For BB though? I love coming up with supernatural stuff and magic systems. I can work with it, no problem.

In fact I'll be happy to. I've already done away with demons being able to die in the Dark Forest-- they can only be killed if a mortal comes in to kill them, or they leave the protection of their home. There's also a new state of undeath, Hawkfrost is half-killed by Tigerstar but manages to make it home just in time, leaving him in a state where he phases in and out of existence. A half-ghost.

I'll have to see what they do before giving a definitive answer, though, since I'd be trying to accommodate what they toss at me. It's important to note that I MASSIVELY changed the way Bristlefrost died, though. Instead of evil water, she burned up in orbit, knocking Ashfur out of the sky like a shooting star.

So like... if it's a Void location that a whole soul goes to, I'll probably mess around with it. If it's a resurrection ritual, that'll be easy to just adapt 1:1.

[c-is-for-circinate]

God I have so much to say about the mechanics of the Delilah fight, and how they relate to the emotions and the themes of what was going on, and how the new ruleset of, nobody here can die but once you're out you can't come back either changed everything. And I can't get my thoughts straight, so: bullet points!

I think it mattered a lot when FCG went. I think it mattered because it was proof that they weren't all going to be here until the end of the battle, because it changed the way they were looking at the math -- and I think it mattered because FCG is the main party healer, and not having him there completely upended the math. Recovery was not going to be a thing! Not with the kind of hits Delilah was throwing around, and the tiny amounts of healing they had left. Damage race was all they had.

(Honestly, the best thing I can liken it to is a roguelike video game, where you know you're probably going to die, and you know all you'll lose are the things you didn't have to begin with. The goal of survival, then, isn't to safeguard your own welfare -- it's because if you die, you can't win. And oh did they need to win.)

And this is SO DIFFERENT from the Otohan fight! It's the exact opposite! Everything there was about the potential for death and the fear of it. Everything in that fight was about the defensive play, the cruel horrible math of, if I save myself what will protect my friends? If I don't save myself, how will I help them? Can I even help them at all anyway? The only way for them all to survive the Otahan fight was for all of them to survive the fight, and they didn't, because they couldn't!!!

And so oh, how much this feels like redemption for that. How this triumph feels like a triumph not just against Delilah, but against their every failure last time.

(FCG, their healer who survived the end to the last time -- who was short on spells because he tried to kill them that morning, who healed too little and too late because he was so afraid of himself -- who made the choice at the end, who to save and how, and hated it! -- FCG who's short on spells now because he prepared only for a resurrection, not to kill. FCG who fights and heals with all they've got, who clears the minions in a single blow the way none of them could stop Otohan's shadows. Who gets to leave early, absolved from decisions, from responsibility, given a break.)

(Orym, who felt so very very useless last time -- who tried to get up and tried to get up and failed and failed and fell again -- who died, who died and saw the person he loved most in the world for one gentle second, while Laudna ended up here -- who died, and got the chance to come back that could have been hers. Orym who spends this fight trying to get up, not to his feet but to the crown of a tree, who fails and fails and makes it this time. Orym who strikes a killing blow, the first killing blow, who rends the tree's crown asunder. Orym who dies again, still safe but without taking anybody's time, attention, magic, any of it away from the fight at hand for his sake.)

(Fearne who didn't know what to do, Fearne who had to flip a coin! Fearne who panicked and ran and muddled and didn't know, didn't know, she's not from this world! People don't suffer and die like this where she's from, in the world where archfey are immortal and time is soup! Fearne who didn't know didn't know didn't know, being the one to figure it out. The one to leash Delilah to the ground. The first one to target the tree. The one with the power to make it burn.)

(Ashton the tank, whose job it is to take hits -- Ashton the battlefield control barbarian who couldn't control a goddamn thing -- Ashton who ran, last time. Ashton who made it out only to discover that nobody else made it with them, Ashton who left them behind -- got to stay. Got thrown to the edge of the battlefield, off the map, and made it back. Ashton handing Imogen his only potion, I'll stay as long as I can, getting to protect this time.)

(Chetney who was maybe the only one actually with it, last time, tooth and claw and blood hunter curses to the very end. Chetney doing the same now again. Chetney who I still can't quite figure out, who didn't have anything to redeem but the loss.)

And Imogen. Of course, of course, Imogen.

Imogen's fury. Imogen's wrath.

Imogen calling down the moon. Imogen grabbing her power with both hands and bending it to her will. Imogen using every last ounce of magic that Otohan forced her into, when she was terrified and confused and cringing and trying to surrender rather than fight -- using it to rend Delilah asunder. To shatter a tree with lightning. Imogen blazing and brilliant and unafraid.

And all of them, together. Working together. Spreading out, each to their own jobs. To get to Laudna; to take down minions; to harry, to draw fire, to bind Delilah, to get to the tree, to throw damage. Nobody in anybody else's way, nobody scattered at cross-purposed confusion, everybody perfectly united in this one goal. The Bell's Hells, raining down hellfire, together.

At the end of it all, I'm still struck down by the fact that the one person they were at risk of losing with this fight was the one person they'd already lost. The only life in danger here was Laudna's. There was no risk to any of them, if they failed. But they fought. They fought with everything they had. They spent everything they had to spend, the potions they might not get back upon waking, every ounce of energy, the very last spell slot that wouldn't be able to take them home. They had nothing to lose that wasn't already lost, and it meant they could throw everything into the fight. And it was beautiful.

[super-paper]

you don't have to respond to this if you don't want to, but--I saw you mentioning you felt stupid earlier and I'm going through the same feelings myself but I just wanted to say that your analysis of my hero academia was genuinely the best I'd ever seen after following the comic for almost an entire decade(I've been here since almost the beginning...). it's not your fault if the writing took a bizarre turn, you were correctly recognizing things about the story that was presented to you and I've really appreciated your presence ever since the first time I read one of your posts.

Thank you for your kind words, they really helped me feel better. I always enjoy reading your thoughts as well, so I hope you are able to feel better soon as well.

At any rate, I think I'm a bit calmer now-- At the risk of setting myself up for more heartbreak in two weeks, I really think there's no way for it not to be a fake out because Tenko dying sincerely is a failure on every level for so-so-so many characters and the story as a whole. Izuku wanted to redefine OFA as a power meant for saving not killing, yet OFA ends up killing Tenko anyway? We get a scene where the main villain literally mocks Tenko for having never been his own person and commands him to disappear, and he does?? Nana ultimately fails to save her family from AFO a third and final time??? The Yoichi expy is ultimately forced to die while tethered to his abuser and is never allowed to truly escape or live a life outside of AFO???? Spinner pushes himself to his absolute limit and Kurogiri sacrifices himself because they both want to save Tenko, and it ends up being all for nothing????? Toshinori never gets any resolution with his beloved mentor's sole remaining family and has to live with the pain of once again failing to save her legacy?????? Tenko wants to become a hero to the villains, to the LOV specifically, but dies while all of them are literally hanging on by a thread at this time???????? Gran Torino was right??????????? There's bittersweet endings and there's bleak endings, and this is absolutely bleak if true.

Like, I know death and rebirth are huge themes in MHA-- but this is a case where the overall build up and execution of the chapter has left much to be desired. Still, the fact that Tenko says the name "Shigaraki Tomura" in quotation marks in the raw text does lend to the idea that this is actually the death of his villain persona rather than the death of the individual-- my other big concern rn is how Tenko's rebirth will ultimately be executed, since he still asks Izuku to pass a message along to Spinner on his behalf. Like..... a resurrection that has him losing his memories of his life as Tomura, or reverting back to his young "untraumatized" self, obviously feels wrong for entirely different reasons-- but this is just speculation atp and I don't wanna get worked up over smthing that hasn't happened yet.

Tenko's ""death"" also shares explicit parallels to both Toshinori's and Katsuki's brushes with death, so I do think Hrkshi could make things come full circle in a satisfying way here-- if Tenko's death is the only one that actually sticks while the heroes are allowed to defy all odds and resurrect/be reborn as the best possible versions of themselves, then obviously there's no salvaging the story. But I wanna have faith.

(Side note: Tenko/Toshi/Katsuki's (and even Touya's) limbo scenes depict them as surrounded by light and "sharing" that infinite space with someone who sincerely wants them to live-- and these scenes are starkly contrasted with AFO's limbo scenes, where his moments before death all depict as him being surrounded by darkness while being mocked by the vestiges of his victims.)

Anyway!!! At my own peril, I'll be leaning hard into the "Tenko Shimura: Rising + quirk awakening + aura!might using his vestige and the remnants of OFA to fill in the gaps of the broken reconstruction quirk (thereby fulfilling Izuku's wish to turn OFA into a power that exists to save while also helping Tenko symbolically embrace that he has the power to do more than just destroy-- he can save the villains through creation, not destruction)" theories from this point forward.

[shelfthe-reader]

Greetings mutual of mine, tis I, completing my duties as a mutual to randomly send you questions :D

I dare you… to rant about a character who deserved better GO

(lets pretend this hasn’t been sitting for two weeks)

So my instinct was to start yapping about my #emotionalsupportwhiteboy Jason Grace but I doubt I can say anything new about him. Or be able to be coherent since all of his lore just flew through the window. Then I thought Will Solace or Nico di Angelo but they are too obvious (since they were literally Rick’s punching bags). But instead I give you Darrel Curtis from The Outsiders and LET ME TELL YOU WHY (SPOILERS FOR THE OUTSIDERS IF ANY OF THE MUTUALS ARE WANTING TO READ THIS INCREDIBLE PHENOMENAL BOOK)

A/N: To make this as fair as possible, I’m ONLY focusing on characterization from the book. Reason being I’ve never seen the movie so I’m not able to average out the three major lores (book, movie, musical.) It’s only fair if I do either the original or all. Not partial lore.

I’m not quite sure if this counts as “deserved better” but it’s still tragic

I first read this book tthan our protagonist Ponyboy Curtis.

At that age, I HATED Darry. I didn’t sympathize with him, I thought he was a terrible person, etc. All of my energy went into crying for Johnny, and deciding that Pony and I were the same person. I didn’t give a shit about Darry’s actions. I thought he deserved what came to him.

But then, in my senior year of highschool (this year, 2024 for those in the future if this post gets resurrected), I picked up the book again, read it three times in four months, annotated it, and watched the musical. As I’m writing this, I’m rereading my annotations from last month.

Now enough with this exposition, let’s get into my rant about Darrel Shaynne Curtis Jr.

***

Darry's gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast. Sodapop'll never grow up at all. I don't know which way's the best. I'll find out one of these days. (The Outsiders, pg 10)

Darry was one step away from being set for life- he was a Greaser who could get out. He was smart, he had non-Greaser friends; he had a football scholarship and was set for college.

He was either 19 or freshly 20 when BOTH of his parents get killed in an accident leaving two kids under 18. Naturally, being the soul he was, he immediately gave up his dream to keep his hooligan family together. They all knew that if he went to college it would be over for the family. There’s only so much you can do in Poor-ass, bum-fuck Nowhere, Oklahoma. And Darry does it all.

On top of working stupid hours in stupid conditions hauling stupid amounts of roofing, he has to parent a teenager who knows too much for his own good. This book is written in first person, and while Ponyboy defends his every decision, you can tell he doesn’t have the street smarts his brothers grew up with. And you can tell that stresses Darry out even more, even with the amount of times Pony insults/shit talks his brother.

Does Darry deal with this well? Hell no. I’d be surprised if he did. So much stupid in one week can drive a person crazy (believe me, I know.) Now, I don’t condone smacking children for ANY reason, but I think here, Darry was in that brother/father limbo and crossed into brother territory. Like have y’all NOT smacked your siblings? But went royally wrong here is that because he acts so much like a “father-overlord” to Ponyboy so often, Pony couldn’t even compute the fact that Darry could ACTUALLY act like a brother sometimes. In the park with Johnny, he even compares it to Johnny being hit by his father. Apparently being a brother doesn’t describe Darry anymore

The REALLY heartbreaking part is the reunion after ✨The Fire✨. When his “Alpha male, if I don’t feel anything it would be better for all of us” facade shatters and he just KNOWS that he inadvertently causes everything after page 58. That’s another burden that no man should EVER carry.

It took a murder, a fire, a rumble, a death, a suicide, a three-day fever dream, and Soda running away for Ponyboy to finally understand what Darry does to keep him safe and I think that’s the most tragic thing of all.

Am I just talking in circles? Probably. I’m never coherent when talking about my traumatized characters.

As a treat for staying the entire length of this essay/incoherent rant, here are the bones of an Outsiders playlist I’m making.

[multi-lefaiye]

i could ask you to elaborate on why purple boy is slowly turning into a lion monster. and you can answer that. but what i really wanna know is what killed him the first time.

:3c oh i am so glad you asked this question

short answer: his mother. or at least, the creature that used to be her.

long answer: WELL. (cw under the cut for non-graphic descriptions of body horror, discussions of ableism and terminal illness, and also just. straight up. i'm telling you how eden died. not going into graphic gorey detail but yeah </3)

so, eden's mom died when he was 12. famously, that's an event that really helped shape his life, second only to abdiel leaving six years earlier. however..... it's important to know that those two things are related.

y'see. eden doesn't know this. but hannah had been sick for a long time, and part of why abdiel left was to go find a cure for her. that's not what she wanted him to do, of course. hannah wanted him to stay with her so they could enjoy the time she had left. but he was determined to cure her and that he'd have to leave her in order to do so. so. welp. her wishes in this situation would have to wait.

another important part of this puzzle is that abdiel is a necromancer by trade. he knows other schools of magic as well, sure, but necromancy has always been his focus. and he specifically is a major proponent of the idea of using necromancy for healing, rather than simply resurrection. that's what much of his life's work was focused on.

so, abdiel sought to find a way to use necromancy to help cure his sick wife, and he failed, and she died. and eden, who was left feeling worthless and alone after his father abandoned him (and after basically all the adults in his life failed him, one way or another ), decided that part of his revenge would be destroying that work and making it his own.

eden would become the only dr. linnaeus remembered by history, by doing what abdiel had failed to do. by not only reviving hannah, but curing her illness entirely, and then using that to cure anyone else suffering like her who wants to be saved.

of course, by the time eden knew any necromancy magic himself, hannah was long dead. and... from a purely practical perspective, eden was nowhere near skilled enough as a spellcaster to be able to use any traditional necromancy to revive her. so eden decided, instead, to try something new.

he was going to revive his mother through transmutation magic, through the alchemy and artificer infusions he was already learning and showed a great affinity for.

i'll skip ahead in this explanation, but basically eden's idea was to create a new body for his mother's soul to inhabit. he wouldn't be reviving her in her original body, no, he'd be reviving her in one free of the pain and illness she'd suffered from for much of her life.

(before i continue, i'll just go ahead and establish this now: no, eden did not consider whether or not hannah would want to be resurrected. by this point, his tunnel vision on beating abdiel, one way or another, was beginning to consume him. ethical concerns didn't matter so much at that point.)

skipping ahead again. when eden finally succeeded at the ritual he'd created, it... backfired, putting it nicely. the creature he created wasn't hannah, not really--it had her face and it spoke in her voice, but it wasn't her. it was a mass of limbs and teeth, with too many eyes and an enraged howl that shook eden to his core.

he tried to reason with it at first, to get it to recognize him and calm down as it thrashed around his lab. and it lashed out at him, slashing him across the face and throwing him to the floor. and for a moment eden just... lied there, shaking and staring at the monster he'd created. it hurt. that thing wasn't his mother, but it was her face and her voice screaming at him, cursing him for creating it.

and then he was just... angry. how fucking dare this thing attack him? how dare it be such a failure? how dare it ruin everything he was working for? how dare it act like this was his fault?

before he really knew what he was doing, he grabbed a hammer from his artificer tools and lunged at the creature, intending to put it out of its misery so he could try again. clearly, he needed to refine the ritual, but he was on the right track. he just-

(eden managed to kill his creation, but it fought back and mortally wounded him in the process. he shoved its body into the open fire at the heart of his lab, where he'd brew potions and boil water when he needed it. and by that point, he was too exhausted to keep going and try to find help. so he just... lied there, and bled out slowly.)

(as a not-so-fun aside to this. when eden's body was found a few days later, there was an investigation launched by the university. a recent graduate dying brutally in his university-funded lab? yeah that raised some eyebrows. ultimately, though, said investigation determined that eden had killed himself, as by then the creature's remains were burned until they were unrecognizable. everyone assumed it was just some... *thing* he'd been studying.)

(very few people were surprised by that news.)

[ananke-xiii]

Although I mainly see the first six episodes of s13 as an engaging portrayal of two giref-stricken people lacking the tools to deal with what has happened to them, I can also totally see them as the so-called "widower arc". Two things can be true at the same time because yes, Dean was totally grieving Cas' death. But I'll make it worse for you.

Maybe I'm biased by the many times I've read the term "widower arc" but Dean was 100% looking for a consort in Cas in s12 (yes, "consort", I'm tired of "partner" or "boy/girlfriend", they're weak terms, give me "sharing destiny" type of old words) so I think this interpretation is not so far-fetched.

We have a grieving widow(er), a desired consort who's dead and then resurrects and a son who's been defined as "the rising son". As I've already said these are some of the elements of one of the most ancient myths in Western culture, that is the myth of Isis and Osiris.

Now, of course it was not a retelling of that myth, I don't even think it was a conscious effort to shape the story that way but sometimes symbols will be symbols, what can you do?

First of all, two brothers: Set and Osiris and Lucifer and Cas. We know how it goes, one brother kills the other (As an aside in one version Set built a wooden chest and tricked Osiris to enter into it just to seal it and drown it in the Nile. We have totally NEVER seen this image in Supernatural. Not even ONCE).

Things get very interesting from here on because in the myth there's a lot of focus on the body of the deceased brother, Osiris/Cas. The most famous way Set disposed of his brother's corpse was to cut it into pieces, to... tear him apart if you will. It is then kinda WILD that AU!Michael kills "his" Lucifer the same way:

MIchael: I killed my Lucifer. Tore him apart in the skies over Abilene. But hey, can’t get enough of a good thing.

Apparently, the body must be somehow intact for resurrection to happen. In the myth Isis has to find his husband's bodyparts scattered all over Egypt in order to resurrect him. So we need to pay extra close attention to Cas' body which we are actually shown in that tragic scene where Dean prepares him for the pyre. So it's Dean who takes care of Cas' body, who "collects" it, just like Isis. Interesting.

In SPN "What gets burned stays dead", therefore Cas cannot resurrect, or so they think. The mantra is repeated by Jack in "Tombstone" when he first sees his father. To be honest, we don't really know how Cas resurrects. For the first time we see what happens to him between death and rebirth but we miss the technicalities. We can only assume that Cas' ashes were enough. Or maybe, just maybe, that's just a rule that applies in Chuck's story. Just saying.

I'm not sure if they try to discover how Jack managed to do that but the point remains: it was Jack who woke Cas up in the Empty.

And why did he do that? Well, because he can. The very first thing that Jack does is resurrecting Kelly in an episode aptly named "The Future", where Jack is sort of introduced via his mother's resurrection. He doesn't know how to use this power but he unconsciously does it again with his father. And I ask again: why?

Jack wakes Cas up in "The Big Empty", four episodes into the season. He could've done it sooner? No. Because what prompts him to unconsciously act is Dean's grief. And Dean reaches his boiling point when Sam finally provokes him. Osiris/Cas dies and his consort Isis/Dean is inconsolable. Other people like Sam can forget about it, but Dean can't in every sense of the verb.

In the myth it's Isis who resurrects Osiris and has a child, Horus, with him. But she got help. Dean's only human but there is a demi-god running around in his bunker so I think that helped. And Cas must be credited for the effort and the pushing.

Let's just say that resurrecting Castiel took three, actually four people okay? It required a team effort. Because none of them is a fully-fledged god like God or Amara or some Archangel who can just snap their fingers and boom welcome back to Life. Coaxing someone into resurrection (a resurrection with consent) takes a lot of willpower... and a lot of love.

I said four people because the last character in this little story is The Shadow. And we see this in the myth as well!

Isis doesn't "just" resurrect Osiris, she has to convince the motherfucker. Cause, you see, Osiris's heart was tired. A tired heart! Oh so beautiful! He didn't see the reason to go back to life. He was sooo tired. Isis has to literally seduce him back to life. And... this is kind of what The Shadow does, but in reverse? It tells Castiel to go back to sleep, to find peace, it's been in his mind and he wants to sleep, it knows!

The Shadow is Cas' tiredness, all his failures and regrets. But, as I said, it takes a lot of willpower and a lot of love to resurrect the dead, this is what Isis teaches us actually. To love more and then some more. And Cas loves back and he loves hard.

Castiel: You can prance and you can preen and you can scream and yell and remind me of my failings but somehow, I’m awake. And I will stay awake and I will keep you awake until we both go insane. I will fight you. Fight you and fight you for…ever. For eternity.

He didn't come back because he annoyed an ancient cosmic being. He came back because he loved.

So Osiris/Cas are back to life and that's good, right? Well... yeahhh. The thing is that Osiris will then live in the world of the dead so he kinda doesn't really really stay alive for long. And Isis will follow him. Things will likely go bad for Cas.

But the story continues!

Set/Lucifer and Horus/Jack engage in a rather disturbing (in the myth) struggle for power. The myth has different endings: in one they reconcile, in another they divide the realm, in yet another one Horus is the one true winner. So we don't really know (from this point in the narrative) how things will actually turn out for the two of them.

Isn't it interesting? Well, it's not surprising because there is a connection between christian stories and greek and egyptian ones but still? Kinda cool to see how myths keep repeating and repeating. As if we're still trying to understand them.

Anyway: yes to the widower arc, yes to love piercing through the veil of death. Both ways! It takes the love of two to resurrect.