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percyjacksonfan3 · 4 years ago

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The Last Olympian Thoughts

So because I have absolutely 0 self-control or restraint when it comes to this series and its characters, and for The Last Olympian in particular, I could not put TLO down. Because of this I figured I couldn’t do the usual photo reaction posts I have been so far, because the spam would just be ridiculous, so I am stealing the idea from @yourstrulytaaay to do a masterpost instead. (Adding a Read More cause this got ridiculously long)

Fun fact, TLO came out right after i finished reading the series for the first time so it's the first PJO book i bought and my only hard cover one for the og series. I checked the year and turns out it was published 2009, which means i was actually 9 when i read the series for the first time. I realize this is not really a fun fact but i thought i was older when I first read the series so it's blowing my mind a little ‘cause now I’m 21 and everything hits different and i still have so much love for this series and the characters Okay onto book thoughts: - i was right that this book is gonna destroy me, the first line alone made me so excited and nostalgic it's ridiculous - I love Rachel and Percy sm tbh. Her being a bit of peace and normalcy in his life without always reminding Percy of who and what he is is so good for him. Just a little escape

- of course by the end of the book that's not the case any more but by the end he's lived his prophecy so he doesn't need it as badly, plus he and Annabeth are solid again - Percy saying Annabeth has been hard to be around lately... Ouch my heart. Luke really is the last thing that keeps them from being together and Percy is so jealous and Annabeth so torn and in pain, i feel so bad for them both

- Beckendorf 🥺🥺 - the telkhine with the Lil Demon lunchbox!! I forgot about him. Percy: 'i left him alive, partly because his lunchbox was cool' is one of my absolute favourite lines tbh - Paul taking Percy crabbing and being imperative in helping Percy kill the giant crab 💖 Paul Blofis is important and deserves the world, okay? - aw Percy, you can't save every demigod bb

- 'i had to fight him eventually. Why not now?... What difference would a week make?' Oh Percy you have no idea - real talk tho, the fact Kronos possessed Luke's body would also mess me tf up. Percy keeps forgetting it's not Luke anymore and yeah, that would be so so hard and confusing af, like what another smart little mind game for Kronos to pull on top of everything else - the fact Percy fights Kronos before getting the Achilles Curse and actually doesn't die within seconds is... Astounding. He kicks him in the chest! And yeah Kronos is weaker and still adjusting to Luke's body, but Percy is having trouble fighting Luke cause they used to be friends - Percy breaks Kronos' time magic!! Like?! Boy is POWERFUL.

- OUCH - honestly Luke, Thalia and Annabeth's family breaking the way it did... Don't talk to me. Poor Annabeth, Luke betrayed them, Thalia joined the Hunters because of Luke's betrayal so she's pretty much AWOL all the time and then Luke dies. Like Rick wtf, my heart can't take it? -Percy and Tyson having each others backs when talking to Poseidon in the underwater palace is the brother-brother relationship we love to see - Percy trying to stick a sand dollar in the vending machines at school 🤦🏻‍♀🤦🏻‍♀ - the whole underwater interaction at Poseidon's palace? Perfection. Awkward family drama and all - Connor falling out of the tree when he sees Percy because he's so excited 😂😂

- 😭💖

- k, ik Clarisse isn't perfect but tbh if i was a child of Ares whose father was disrespected and hated by my fellow campers (ares deserves it but still) and that disrespect trickled down to how the other campers treated ME (which if Percy is reliable here, it obviously does) then i would also be irritated at being used for muscle and nothing else? And just expected to fight with the people who act as if they'd rather not have Ares kids around the rest of the time. Like Clarisse isn't totally wrong - Percy reading the prophecy, seeing he's meant to die and just being like 'i do not see it' and refusing to outright think about it makes me so sad for him - (but it taints every action after and he's super reckless afterwards bc of it- including finally breaking and accepting the Achilles Curse) - (also him taking this as the last straw and finally beginning to show Annabeth how he really feels, cause fuck it, he's dying anyway) - Give me more info about Rachel's backstory and family Rick!! - how did i forget Percy willingly eats chocolates that taste like cardboard because 'i didnt have anything against cardboard' like sir? Ik Silena didn't want them but still? - 'she'd always been cute, but she was starting to be seriously beautiful' STOP, MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT - Percy staring at Annabeth and forgetting what they're talking about cause hes so distracted 👌🏻

- hmm yeah... For some strange reason.... - i forgot how Percy totally bombs this convo bw them and now want to cry 😭 Annabeth is trying to talk about what's important and Percy, you sweet oblivious man, you're shooting her down without even realizing - love that they're both on the same wavelength tho. Percy two lines before, hmm it's cool to date ppl from other cabins, wonder why im thinking that around Annabeth, my best friend in the world, and then Annabeth a beat later, hmm, let me bring up Silena and Beckendorf and how it's important to be with the people you love when you have the chance, no way Percy will miss this huge hint right? - they're the best - k i honestly forgot Percy full on physically intimidates Leneus like that - luke telling his mom if he ran away the monsters wouldnt get her..i can just imagine luke crying when he says good bye before running away because he thinks it's his fault his mom is like that and he cant take care of and protect her anymore because it's too hard - uh oh now i have angsty pre-lightning thief luke fic inspo... Him, Thalia and Annabeth on the run... The ANGST - Rick holds absolutely nothing back in this book and i am in pain - HESTIA!! 💖💖🥰 - actual loml - i love that Rick titled this book after her and that he wrote such a great series about the importance of family (biological, found or otherwise) and home, and that he said actually Hestia is the most important bc shes the most humble and keeps the peace and knows when to fight and when to yield and you protect what you love, which is your home - i just... Adore Hestia - Grover! Missed you babes - Hades is so so horrible to Nico, always comparing him to Bianca :/ - but i do love Hades, Persephone and Demeter together they make me laugh - oh god the River Styx - Achilles 🥺 - Annabeth being Percy's lifeline is, and continues to be, A Lot™ - 'my name was Percy Jackson. I reached up and took Annabeth's hand.' LOL Why am i crying? - Like the fact there is no Percy without Annabeth, and that remembering her literally reminded him of who he is in his very soul... It's fine im fine - i won't even get into the parallels of her being his lifeline now and then later when Hera takes his memories but leaves the memory of Annabeth for Percy to fight to get back to (anyone who wants to yell about it with me... Feel free to message) - badass Percy is my fav Percy tbh - him defeating Hades?? Like? Hades is arguably the most powerful god, okay - i feel bad for Nico but if i was Percy I'd do the exact same, Nico, sorry man but this is a high stakes time crunch deal and Nico is literally the only hope of persuading Hades and distracted by his own internal stuff - flashbacks to Luke, Thalia and Annabeth hurt, ow - George and Martha are the best - damn i forgot Hermes full on nearly kills Percy here, yikes - Luke stop cockblocking Percabeth challenge

- i love!! Percy's love for New York!! So much!! - Percy leaving to live in New Rome in HoO is a lie and this is all the proof i need for why - the fact the entire last half of the book is the battle and aftermath... Such great buildup and pacing. All the tricks and twists and battles in this War of Manhattan? I would not take out a thing, Rick, you legend - of course then the final battle in hoo with the gods is what? Two pages? Ugh, don’t talk to me about my hatred for BoO and HoO - 'no detours you two' is still the cutest thing!!! - THE HUNTERS!! Thalia i missed you - good job Percy, you finally spent your sand dollar - Minotaur!! - 'dont i get a kiss for luck? Its kind of a tradition right?' Percy finds out he's gonna die and is out of fucks to give and honestly I support him - also Michael just standing beside these two while they're flirting like umm �� 👀 while a monster army marches towards them, nbd - Annabeth taking Ethan's knife meant for Percy!!! Cause she just knows his weak spot without him even telling her! They literally invented love - Feral Percy is so scary omg, i love how well Rick incorporates the Achilles Curse in this novel, with the whole heightened weaknesses and stuff ans the parallels to Achilles arrogance being what killed him and Percy's loyalty, fierceness and protective instinct being his own heightened weakness - the fact that Percy is the one who inadvertantly kills Michael Yew tho, I'll never recover from that - the fact Hades offers Maria di Angelo a golden palace by the Styx like how Poseidon offers Sally a palace under the sea tho. Let's talk about that parallel - the entire talk with Prometheus is so so good - not me picturing young Luke hiding in the closet to get away from his mom when she has an 'episode' -i love callbacks in stories and all of the callbacks to the rest of the series in this book make me very happy (medusa, minotaur, the underworld, Rainbow!! My baby!!, Daedalus and more) - Percy summoning a wholeass hurricane against Hyperion - the Party Ponies! They're so chaotic, i love it - Dionysus! 😁 I can't help it, i love him - Percy absolutely losing it when he sees Sally and Paul asleep in the car 🥺 - Rachel telling Percy he's not the hero screws with him so much :( poor bb - although i really really love how Rick wrote this, it's so refreshing to not have one chosen one save the world, but a combination of people - the drakon, Silena and Clarisse make me cry - the Patrochilles references, im not okay - Annabeth giving up on Luke after hearing what he did to Silena and Percy telling her that doesn't make him happy 😭 that whole interaction makes my heart ache - Percy giving Hestia Pandora's pithos 🥺 - and Hades, Nico and the others coming for a final attack is so badass, i love it - listen im glad the og trio were the ones to confront Luke on Olympus but the fact Thalia got so close and then pinned by a statue of HERA makes me so sad. Ik her and Luke were finished and she coped by cutting him off completely and giving up all hope but i would pay money to know what they would have said to each other to say goodbye - Ethan 🥺 - Poseidon joining the fight against Typhon is so cool, such a great scene - 'PEANUT BUTTER!' - Annabeth you brilliant badass you - RIP Luke, you werent great but you werent the worst either - the gods just rolling up seconds too late, wondering wtf happened in Olympus and who the dead body is - the chapter where the Olympians meet and give out rewards is one of my absolute favourites (again i am incensed we didn't get anything like this in HoO) - will Percy turning down immortality ever not make me scream in glee? No? Alright then - Annabeth being relieved like Percy was relieved at the end of Titan's Curse tho - oh Hermes :/ - its so hard reading all this and knowing what comes in HoO... Like it's such a cathartic, earned and mostly happy and peaceful ending and then HoO comes along and undermines it all - aww Rick let Paul see Olympus somehow pls, he deserves it, he killed a dracanae - (i would also love to see it) - Percy being more upset Rachel took his pegasus than her going to Camp and possibly dying, lol, priorities dude - i honestly think that Rick had other ideas for the second Great Prophecy and how things would go down in BoO, cause the prophecy like... Barely applies to BoO, Doors of Death are in book four, and explabations of it is all so unclear when Rick is usually pretty good with that stuff - PERCABETH - lol Percy complaining about privacy when he and Annabeth are caught kissing literally in the middle of the very open and public dining pavilion, okay - BEST UNDERWATER KISS OF ALL TIME - that's it and im a glass case of emotion - very happy to say that this series remains my favourite of all time 💖

If anyone ever wants to come gush about anything Riordanverse related feel free, because as you can see I have a lot of thoughts about it all

#lau rereads pjo #the last olympian is my favourite book for a REASON #honestly every line is killer #so much subtext to read into #the dialogue #the relationships are dialed up to 11 #every character is so on point #the battle strategies too? are just so interesting?#I just adore it #Tay don't read any of this yet cause it's all spoilers #alright I'm gonna go write fic to express these feelings now #tlo #the last olympian #pjo #pjato #percy jackson

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 4 years ago

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I've mentioned this before a few times but seriously imagine if instead of Maya having to die (let's be real), Ava got Tyreen's powers and realizes being a Siren actually isn't as cool as it seems cuz whoops thousands of people are now hunting you for sport or experimentation and you can't touch anyone anymore without accidentally hurting them. You may now regret begging for the siren curse. Also, we'd actually get to see Maya train Ava as a Siren AND see what the phaseleech powers would have been like if they weren't broken between two people and the Phasewalk/lock powers weren't thrown into the mix.

Yes I'm still on this alt. Scenario because I think it would have been really cool and helped develop Ava as a character since her entire thing up until Maya's death was literally just "I'm going to be a Siren Vault Hunter" and then at the end of the story she just gets it without really working for any of it or even being prominent in the plot at all. She shows up, like, twice and then disappears until Troy dies. She literally just shows up at the end of the Troy fight and gets powers for that cutscene. I don't hate Ava but I will admit that was kind of a 'forced' moment for me. I knew what they were trying for, but damn they really missed the mark trying to make Ava Maya's lil trainee cuz we barely see them interact, and Maya isn't even alive long enough after her introduction to have the two of them talk beyond arguing. Im guessing a lot of their interactions were cut, and maybe also because Athenas was only a single map, but still.

And yeah okay for Ava to get powers, Maya dies and I guess that can be considered a drawback for her, but let's be real the issue I truly have with this whole thing is that Ava doesn't even work a BIT on screen to prove to the players she's a good choice (and in fact 2 of her most prominent moments are her disobeying a fan favorite character that then dies- it doesn't help her case). Maya dies, but that's not Ava's fault imo, and so Ava does literally nothing the whole story (I'm down for arguments either way, but the minute Maya decided holding Troy physically instead of using her Phaselock was somehow the better option when she knows at least one of those siblings can give others the deadly suck by physically touching them, my brain just shuts off) and she also learns nothing. If anything, she probably learns that if she just yells it enough at people, she'll get what she wants, cuz that's pretty much the extent of what she does in the main story beyond being sad and lockpicking (u wanna leave Athenas? Okay. You get your wish. You wanna be a Siren? Okay. Here's some powers. You wanna be a Vault Hunter? Okay. Here's the ship. Everything she yells about in the beginning of the game is handed to her just because um. Maya, I guess. She earns none of it herself). If, instead of it being Maya's powers, she got Tyreen's powers as one last "fuck you" to the Raiders, I think it'd make it feel a bit more like she's not just being handed everything she wants without working for any of it or learning a lesson because plot. Her character doesn't really change from the start of the story to the end, except that she's a bit sad that Maya died. It just feels so wrong. Idk. I think it'd be pretty cool if Ava accidentally hurt someone in the Raiders because she couldn't control her new powers so she could have that "oh shit" realization moment that a) being a Siren isn't all it's chalked up to be and b) she's gonna have to work to get her powers under control or risk hurting everyone around her. Her having that hurdle I think would have made a lot more people at the very least appreciate her as a character instead of calling for her death (yikes!)

Uh. Yeah. I have no idea what came over me to write this. I think Ava's biggest flaw to me is that she had Potential to be a good character but the writing fell flat under her. It started a story with her and then dropped it (like another character we know 🤔 his name rhymes with... boy), so she never really develops or learns beyond getting sad that Maya is gone. I don't hate her, but I can see why some people would, tho it's not really "her" fault, it's the writing, if that makes any sense.

Also, interesting note, I do consider Roland's death to be because Lilith ignored Angel's request and showed up, unlike Maya's. I don't think Jack would have shown up in control core Angel unless he thought there was very, very good reason to, and Lilith was Right There for the taking. He seemed to even plan that out, having the collar on him and everything, and Angel knew to warn them specifically because of that. Before that, Angel tells Jack that Maya is incapable of processing eridium like her (either due to ignorance or a desire to stop Maya from having a similar fate to her own) so Jack wouldn't have brought the collar for Maya. That said, it's fully Jack's fault Roland died and the blood is on his hands, I just don't think the situation would have played out the same without Lilith there.

Unlike that, I think the situation in the Vault of the Rampager would have happened regardless if Ava showed up or not. I always assumed the cutscene that happens when you 'leave' the Vault is actually what's happening while you're inside, and when the VHs walk out, Ava is alone.

If that's the case then Maya would have been alone when the twins showed up, and probably would have been done for like Lilith was, as Lilith is supposedly the More Powerful Siren. We'll never know for sure, but I get the feeling things would have played out pretty much the same. It's not like the twins showed up for Ava, they wanted the Rampager, and the Rampager was already dead when Ava made herself known. Maya's alone, against 2 cult leaders with no way of contacting the other VHs cuz they're in the Vault and Tannis is the only one who apparently can (since Maya does not have a freaky live action pop up ad, good for her) and echoing is a no go as it's established connection is awful down below the city. She can only Phaselock 1 person at a time, so she either Phaselocks Tyreen (if she even can) and gets dusted by Troy, or she Phaselocks Troy and gets her powers stolen (and probably killed or left to die by cultist) by Tyreen. No winning for her. It would have happened regardless if Ava was there or not, so people blaming Ava for Maya's death should probably just blame the finalized script.

I don't think it's right to blame either Lilith or Ava for their respective loved one's death. Like yeah Jack wouldn't have gotten that opportunity to kill Roland had Lilith not shown up, but Jack wasn't suddenly forced to pull the trigger because Lilith showed up. He did that all by himself. Similarly, Ava not showing up wouldn't have stopped the twins from attacking Maya. She just changed the topic of conversation a lil bit. And Ava has all the combat ability of thin air at this point, so her appearance or non-apperance made no difference whatsoever when it was Maya vs the twins.

Oh God I've been typing for like an hour BYE bed time for me

#Borderlands #H2o au #Borderlands 3 #Bl3

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the-evil-authoress · 3 years ago

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GX Month Day 6: “Heartfelt Appeal”

You find two characters that click so well, look them up...and there’s no content! ‘Why?? Someone please make content!’ The pleas go unheard. You’ll just have to make it yourself. Show some love for your rare pairs today!

MORE FANTASYSHIPPING! 8D

Year 2’s Duel Monster Spirit Day! Friendly reminder that ‘Mana’ is the name Dark Magician Girl gave when she introduced herself to Syrus last year.

Colorful banners and streamers hang from the entrance hall once more, market tents set up in the main yard with flashy signs and flags announcing their wares or food or other activities. Syrus stares at it all with the same wonder as last year, and peers through the throng of students hopefully. His other friends have already gone off to find the activities they like best, be it duels or carnival games or the kissing booth, so Syrus is free to wander at his leisure and search.

It’s stupid, it’s silly, and Syrus still wonders if last year was a fever dream regardless of the way Christina keeps teasing him and the ghost of arms he sometimes feels around his shoulders. But still, he hopes and maybe this year he can confirm it for sure.

“Syrus!” a voice calls out that tickles his memory and Syrus swings to face-

“Mana!” Heat floods his cheeks. Dear Ra, did she get prettier or is he just hopelessly, stupidly crushing? “You...you just disappeared last time,” he squeaks out the first thing that comes to mind that isn’t a jumbled mess of pretty hug magic like, and wants to kick himself when Mana’s expression falls.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she says, looking so sad it physically hurts. “I didn’t want it to end that way. I lost track of the time and I wasted too much of it showing off.” Her voice turns a bit bitter before she shrugs it off and smiles again. “But not this time. This time you have my full attention.”

“No, no!” Syrus frantically waves his hands in front of him. “I didn’t mean- I what?”

Mana giggles and leans down. “Just for today, you have me all to yourself!” Winking, she taps his nose and Syrus wheezes as his heart makes a valiant attempt at pounding straight out of his chest. Leaning back, Mana clasps her hands behind her back. “So what do you want to do?”

“Ah, well, um, we, we could, we could check out the carnival games,” Syrus finally stammers out a full sentence. Gods he hasn’t been this bad about it since the beginning of the year!

Mana only giggles again as she takes his hand and heads off toward the game booths. “Don’t go hiding in a trashcan on me now.”

Syrus’ brain freezes for a full second. “YOU SAW THAT?”

“I see everything Chinatsu sees! Well, almost.”

Who the hell is Chinatsu?!

It takes a solid 30 minutes and two botched carnival games to finally work himself out of that last anxiety attack, but finally his heartrate feels normal and he doesn’t want to die of mortification. If he dies he won’t get to see Mana smile or hear her squeal over the stuffed Happy Lover she won from the last game. Her throwing arm is ridiculously good. She’s also amazingly child-like for...however old she’s supposed to be.

“Ooo! I wanna try that! I wanna try that!” she squeals, pointing animatedly at the food stall with an assortment of pastries. “The bean fishies! Chinatsu loves these! I always wanted to try one!”

Syrus orders them a taiyaki each and ends up going back for seconds when Manna practically melts where she stands. “It’s so rich and sweet~!”

The next half hour ends up devoted purely to letting Mana sample all the food at the festival and discover her favorites. They compare tastes and Syrus offers recommendations. Mana ends up leaning more towards milder flavors of the sweet and savory variety; too much flavor and she’ll gag on it even if she likes the taste. Syrus prefers saltier foods with just a tiny extra kick. Mana’s reaction to hot spices had been concerning but strangely fun.

“Hey, um, if it’s not rude to ask...” Syrus starts as they sit on a bench nibbling on dango. Mana tilts her head to show she’s listening and Syrus ploughs ahead before he can talk himself out of it. “Are you really the Dark Magician Girl?”

Manna chews slowly before swallowing. “What do you think, silly?”

He thinks she is, and he’d call it crazy if not for, well, everything else crazy about the last two years of his life. After literally sentient murder crazy light, he might be ready to believe anything. But then- “Why me?”

“Because you wanted to get to know me,” Manna says without missing a beat. “You didn’t just see a pretty face or a powerful mage; you wanted to know the real me beneath all of that.”

“Oh...” Syrus remembers that conversation. Christina asked him why he had a card crush on the Dark Magician Girl. Did she ask because...

“And because I want to get to know you too,” Mana continues and Syrus sputters as his poor heart makes itself known again. “I’ve gotten to watch you a lot but that’s not the same as interacting. I want you to show me who you are. And I want to show you who I am.”

“Me? But I’m...I’m not...” His eyes fall to the ground as he thinks of that embarrassing episode of hiding in a trash can, of his brother who he couldn’t even stand up to in the end, of the Society of Light that he did absolutely nothing to help stop and even got himself kidnapped by a digital woman and her duel monster lackeys.

“Syrus.” A hand on his cheek brings him back to face Mana’s deep green eyes. “You can do anything and be anyone you want to be. I mean, just look at you already.” She plucks at the yellow blazer and Syrus’ chest fills with pride at the reminder. That’s right. He did do that. All on his own. “You look so good in yellow!” Mana cheers and Syrus’ ducks his face away again. He doesn’t know how to handle all these compliments! “Believe in yourself, and when that’s hard to do, believe me when I say I believe you can do anything.”

Those words might mean more to him than any other praise or pep talk he’s gotten before, simply because they sound so genuine. He’ll hold those words close to his heart for the rest of his life, because someone as strong and powerful as the freaking Dark Magician Girl believes in him. Swallowing, he nods and clears his throat to find his voice. “So, um, what do you wanna know?”

Smiling, Mana stands and pulls him straight back to the carnival games. Oh, so they’re not talking more? Syrus has to admit to being disappointed.

“Favorite color?” Mana asks as they try to catch tiny goldfish and distracts Syrus from the extra shiny one he almost caught.

“Actually...it’s orange,” he amidst sheepishly. “But I look horrid in it.”

“Aw, I think you’d look cute in orange! Like a little pumpkin.”

“A pumpkin?!”

“Oh? I’m sorry, was that an insult?” Mana asks with such genuine concern and confusion that Syrus can’t even be mad.

Shaking his head, Sryus flips the question around on her. “What about you?”

Mana stares at the water in the plastic pool. “It used to be purple...but I think I like grey a little better now.” She looks up and smiles and Syrus can’t help but feel like he’s missed something significant in that response.

“Favorite animal?” Mana asks once they’ve moved on to a ring toss game.

“Dogs,” Syrus says immediately, then feels self conscious about it. “I mean, they’re loyal and fluffy and I’ve always wanted one, they look fun to play with-”

Mana laughs. “Dogs are man’s best friend, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Mine are birds.” Mana looks up to the sky. “Because they can fly. I always wanted that freedom.”

“But you can fly too, can’t you?”

“In spirit form. But I can’t go too far from my card. Like this I can only float a bit.” With a snap of her fingers, her feet lift a couple centimeters off the ground in demonstration.

“That’s so cool.” Syrus stares in awe as Mana sets her feet back on the ground.

“The silliest thing you’ve ever done?”

A deep breath as a laundry list of his most mortifying experiences assault him. Breath out. He digs deeper for an older memory less tarnished by years of ridicule and insecurity. “I wore a sand bucket on my head and called myself a king.”

Mana laughs, loud and sudden, and Syrus takes pride in his four year old self for managing to entertain two people. He doubts he’d share that memory with anyone else; it’s one of the few he has of Zane smiling.

“I used to hide in giant vases then jump out and scare the crap out of my best friend,” Mana says with a wide grin, and Syrus snorts because he can picture it clearly. “Master always scolded me, but his reactions were too fun.”

Her master? Dark Magician then? Syrus wonders what kind of person would get to hang out with both of them. Probably another powerful spellcaster. “What is he like? Your master? Or...is he here today too?”

“Mahad? No, his situation is different from mine so it’s harder for him to cross the border,” Mana says, scanning the festival for their next game. “He’s pretty strict, and doesn’t know how to take a joke. But he’s kind and selfless.” Her voice grows soft and wistful, then she shakes herself and scratches her cheek. “Honestly, we’re kinda opposites, but that’s what makes it fun.”

She points to a shooting game booth before eagerly charging toward it; Syrus shows her how to use the toy gun and manages to beat her at this game. He still lets her pick out the prize, giggling when she picks out a lucky cat keychain.

“Dream career?” The key chain sways as it dangles from her finger.

Syrus fidgets. “It may seem kinda obvious, but I wanna be a pro duelist. A really famous one,” he mumbles, eyes turning to the ground.

“I bet you’ll be more famous that Yugi!” Mana cheers and Syrus quickly waves his hand in front of him.

“No! No, I doubt that!”

“Do you wanna have kids?” she asks while they fish for balloons with little hooks on strings.

Syrus chokes and drops his string straight into the water. “I mean, uh, maybe?? I guess I’d like- like to settle down and- and have a family- eventually...”

Mana smiles, but it looks a bit sad. “Yeah. I definitely want that too.”

“Best childhood memory?” Nimble fingers rifle through the Senbonbiki strings before giving one a tug.

Syrus answers without hesitation. “Zane teaching me how to duel.”

The string is a dud without a prize attached; Mana turns from pouting to look at Syrus with curious eyes. “Oh?”

“Yeah... we...” Syrus looks away, tries to keep the melancholy out of his voice. “We had a good relationship back then.”

Mana hums, reaching out to take his hand and wander back through the festival. “I think...mine is meeting Atem for the first time.”

Atem. That’s Christina’s ace card. Syrus shouldn’t be surprised he’s a duel spirit too. “Are all monster cards duel spirits?”

“Not every card has a spirit attached, but I have noticed almost every design mirrors a creature or person that actually exists.”

“Weird.” Honestly, Syrus never thought about it before, but it’s really weird that a game on Earth could accurately depict creatures from another dimension. Sure, Pegasus based the original cards off carvings he found in Egypt, but those were 3000 years old! Some of the new archetypes look distinctly futuristic, and Jaden designed the Neo Spacians so explain that! Just thinking about it gives Syrus a headache.

“Have you ever lost a fight?” he ventures to ask as they nibble on chocolate bananas.

“Lots of times,” Mana laughs at herself. “Especially during training. And no matter how good you are there’s always someone stronger, so tactical retreat is necessary!”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Syrus nods. The sky’s getting darker. Will Mana still be here for the fireworks? “What’s it like being a spirit?”

She doesn’t answer immediately. “It’s...lonely sometimes,” she admits, voice soft, almost forlorn. “Not many people can see us. We entertain ourselves by watching the world and taking bets on what kind of trouble Jaden will get into next.” Mana shrugs and smiles, an obvious attempt to make light of the situation, but Syrus can see straight through it.

“Oh,” he says, wishing he could put his emotions into words that wouldn’t hollow.

Mana glances out at the darkening sky, voice soft as she asks, “One thing you really wanna do before you die?”

“Huh?” The question startles Syrus as much as the oddly wistful tone. “I guess...” He hesitates. One thing? The thing he wants to do most? That he’d regret never doing? “I wanna be happy. With someone I mean!” he quickly amends and the word babble spills out from there. “I wanna get married and buy a house and share my life with someone. I know it probably doesn’t sounds that ambitious but-”

“No, that’s a great ambition.”

Syrus can’t really name the emotion on Mana’s face. Nodding, he looks down at his feet and fiddles with his hands. “Maybe...if we get to know each other better...you could be that person?” He squeezes his eyes shut, not daring to look up.

An intake of breath. “Syrus...”

The boom rattles through his bones and Syrus screams, flinging himself towards the nearest source of comfort and shelter, straight into Mana’s arms. Oh. Oh, the fireworks! Prying his eyes open reveals bursts of color lighting up the sky as another boom shakes the air. He laughs awkwardly and rights himself, murmuring an apology.

“I don’t have much time left,” Mana says, colored light illuminating her mournful expression, and the dread seizes Syrus by the throat.

“Ki-kiss me properly this time!” Oh gods his voice cracked and got really screechy, but he said it! His hands fist against his legs, trembling as her heart goes off on another marathon, and what if she rejects him? What if he read this all wrong? What if-

“Okay.”

Her kiss lingers on his lips long after the fireworks fade and she disappears back to being a spirit. He can still feel her hand against his own, and this time he knows it’s real.

#gxmonth2021 #fantasyshipping #syrus truesdale #marufuji shou #dark magician girl #ygo gx #yugioh gx #yu gi oh gx #long post

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comic-brew · 4 years ago

Text

Pieces

@whumptober2020 days n.4 Running out of time: Buried Alive and n.5 Falling (alt prompt)

Summary: The wet soil doesn’t end, it engulfs him in its cold embrace and doesn’t let him go, no matter how wildly he struggles against the earthly tendrils wrapped securely around his limbs and torso.

Notes: shitty au where basically TV Titans Jason has flashbacks of his comic-life, even though he technically haven’t lived any of them yet. How much this story progresses depends on if I’ll write a second ch. Beware of 2 different writing styles cause I started this way too long ago.

Reading time: 35 mins (4.4k)

Warnings: whump, panic attacks, being buried alive, self deprecating thoughts, angst, oxygen deprivation, PTSD (?), vertigo, falling, perhaps sth else I missed??

or read here on ao3!

ps. reblogs and feedback bring the author great joy uwu

***

“Hey, Jason” Gar greets after knocking and opening the door to Jason’s room just enough to peer his head through.

“How’re you doing?”

The boy waits but Jason doesn’t reply. He’s simply staring out his window, arms falling limply at his side, barely even registering the new presence in the room. Garfield bites his lip and invites himself inside and by Jason’s side. He glances at the boy’s rapidly moving, but hollow eyes, then at the view of the sky they’re aiming at.

“Are you still with us, buddy?” he asks.

He hesitantly runs a hand up and down in front of Jason’s distant gaze and that seems to do the trick.

Jason blinks, then shakes his head to rid himself of whatever thought he was so unnervingly engrosed into. Turning to face the green haired boy, he assumes the most carefree expression he can muster, forcing a halflit smile in a futile attempt to compose himself.

“Yeah, was just.. thinking” he assures, his eyes holding no emotion.

“ ‘Course… You sure you’re okay?” Gar presses, making little effort to conceal the incredulous frown his eyebrows are drawn into.

Jason shifts in his place while his hands clench and unclench, in an attempt to calm his discomfort and aggravation at Gar’s question, because he knows his teammate’s just asking out of honest concern. It’s not his fault Jason hasn’t slept in days and isn’t used to people checking up on him.

“I’m fine, dude, seriously.” Jason insists and Garfield knows better than to further inquire him “Now, did you want something?”

Fuck. Jason almost winces at how aggressive his words have come out. Gar blinks, opening his mouth to say something. Before his thoughts can materialize on the tip on his tongue, he seems to rethink what he wanted to say. That delay of course doesn’t go unnoticed by Jason.

God..Why does he always mess everything up?

As Gar’s about to speak again, the new Robin raises a hand to the green haired boy’s chest, stopping any word before it can reach his ears. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just tired and I’m taking it out on you.” he huffs a bitter laugh “You don’t deserve me being an ass to you too.”

The boy’s brown eyes light up with understanding and relief and his tense shoulders physically relax at the confession. “Hey, it’s cool man. I get it.” he acknowledges, smiling politely and squeezing Jason’s shoulder.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t recoil from the touch, instead reciprocating Gar’s reassuring smile with an exhausted, but genuine and lighthearted smirk.

They both remain in that position for several split seconds, until Garfield finally retracts his hand to clasp his palms together as it dawns on him that he still hasn’t told his teammate the news he came to deliver.

“Actually I did come to tell you something” he announces, grinning widely and slightly fidgeting with his fingers “Rachel and I were thinking of watching a movie, you’re welcome to join us. You know, if you feel up to it.”

Jason takes a spare second to ponder and process Gar’s proposition. He steals a glance at the translucent glass of the window, separating his world from the towering skyscrapers and showering his neatly made bed in the soft gleam of the afternoon.

It would surely be better than staying there alone, falling into the inky depths of his eternal abyss.

Turning to face the boy whose eyes scour him expectantly for any indication of his intentions, he relents with a rather forced shrug.

“Uh, sure, I guess.” Jason says.

Gar’s face lights up and pulls into a joyous grin. “Cool… cool.”

He awkwardly shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants and starts heading towards the door, stopping midway to listen to Jason calling out after him.

“I’ll be there in a sec.”

The green haired boy simply nods and subtly waves his hand goodbye, before he disappears into the hallway.

***

When Jason steps foot into one of the spacious living areas Titans Tower houses, there are three heads turning at the soft sound of his approaching footsteps where he expected to be greeted by two. The platinum curls flowing gracefully with the motion can only belong to one person. Well, at least one person they know.

“Rose” he sighs. “Didn’t expect you to come”

“Didn’t expect to come either” she counters, the corners of her lips twitching upwards in amusement, “But I guess this could be fun after all”

She is comfortably perched on a lovely armchair covered by smooth, pearl fabric, facing the flank of a matching couch. One knee bent and placed securely under her body, the side of her head is doused in the last dull afternoon light seeping into the room through the daffodil curtains keeping the golden sunset rays at bay. Rachel is regarding Jason with a mellow smile, sitting cross legged on the far end of the couch neighbouring Rose’s armchair and Garfield has already started fumbling with a rather ancient DVD player.

It’s a wonder how this thing still exists in a building where interactive holograms are a norm. But then again it wouldn’t be the oddest thing about this place.

“Well,” Gar begins, slightly groaning when the DVD port spitefully refuses to close, “We’re both glad you did join us. Now, take a seat ladies and gentlemen!” he announces with fervor when he finally manages to slam the port close, and gestures towards the unoccupied cushions next to the purple haired girl.

Jason takes the invitation gladly and flops down on the other end of the couch, closer to the hall he was in just a few seconds ago.

“What are we watching?” Jason asks.

Rachel turns her focus to him then, leaning her back on the couch and clutching a decorative pillow to her abdomen. “Gar found this, and I quote, 'apocalyptic masterpiece of censorship’ and insisted we had to watch it.” she grins, rolling her eyes at reciting her friend’s words.

Jason and Rose both snort at that as Garfield reaches the couch in a few quick strides. “Seriously guys, I have only ever heard about this movie from some pretty questionable sources.” he says giddily before sobering up again, clearly fussing over his discovery.

“We’re literally staring an urban legend in the face, guys!”

“Yeah, not like you hang out with the Titans or whatever” Jason quips. Seriously, how can a movie be more exciting than fighting crime alongside heroes? Than being a hero?

“Good point, bro. Good point”

Jason shoulders stiffen at the nickname, but only for a briefly awkward moment which Gar is more than eager to fill with more (unnecessary) information.

“Well, according to those guys the movie was banned shortly after its release and all copies were revoked and ultimately destroyed.”

“Clearly not all copies” Rachel muses before asking why the movie was banned in the first place. Gar mumbles something about it addressing some extremely controversial topics and offending some powerful douchbag before making his way to the middle cushion.

Rachel scoots over without even untangling her legs to make more room for him to sit.

Rose simply raises an eyebrow.

“Where the hell did you even hear about this stuff in the first place?”

Gar suddenly goes stills in his place on the couch. He runs a hand through his messy strands of hair before reluctantly providing an answer. “Uh… Tumblr?” he says while grinning awkwardly.

Rachel nods her head back slack-jawed, brows shooting up in a terrible attempt at showing understanding. Gar frowns as he then glances at Jason who’s staring at him with wide disbelieving eyes, the sound of Rose dramatically smacking her own face enhancing the atmosphere.

“It’s not that surprising guys, come on!” Gar protests, an exasperated sigh emanating from his lips.

At that, the three of them exchange deadpan looks before bursting out laughing. The laughter soon subsides into small giggles and high pitched breaths as the green haired boy smiles with content and leans above the mahogany coffee table to grab the tv remote.

“Well, friends, brace yourselves, for the most epic zombie movie to barely exist” he says, smirking as he plops back down on the leathern cushions.

On the screen, their reflections have given their place to the lean figure of a boy of asian descent in his 16s walking alongside a girl with dark complexion and luscious, auburn hair. A gentle, velvety voice surrounds them from the speakers and integrates them in the world the film is set in.

Time flows pleasantly as the story progresses with no interruption aside from a few enthusiastic inputs from a beaming Garfield.

The rest of the Titans are all gathered together in some other part of the Tower, once again excluding them from whatever plans they might be conjuring.

Because that went so well last time, Jason unwittingly ponders, quick to dismiss the thoughts lest those dreadfully fresh memories resurface.

But perhaps it’s already too late to whisk them away.

Jason gets up out of the blue, eliciting an inquisitive glare from the rest of the kids.

“I’ll just.. go grab some popcorn” he states vacantly, pointing at the hallway with his thumb without breaking eye contact. Truth is he needs a minute to recover from the intrusion of sensations he’d rather forget.

Plus, popcorn sounds nice.

“We can pause the film if you want” Rachel’s soft voice prompts, wording what has likely been dancing around the others’ minds as well.

“Nah, it’s cool. It won’t take long. I’m not going all the way to the Antarctica and back or whatever” he replies, fighting the nagging urge to roll his eyes and let the poison drip onto his voice. The kids nod and in a moment’s notice he’s gone.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Right foot.

Keeping up his pace feels abysmally hard. His head is reeling and his senses are swimming all around the place, reality feels like a fuzzy blanket draped over a newborn’s skin. Jason takes a few more carefully calculated steps before he stumbles on thin air. Careening into the wall he leans against the slick concrete on his flank until the world stops shifting enough for him to continue.

Somehow Jason makes it to the kitchen. He fumbles with the drawers, opening and closing them jerkily.

In just a few seconds the falling has progressed to the point where he can barely stand. He doesn’t think it’s ever been this bad the previous times.

Everything is spinning around. And when it all shifts upside down he’s falling from the marble to the ceiling, and when his skin and the asbestos are inches from colliding, the world tilts again like an hourglass that’s ran out of sand.

Just like that his descend is reset. Over and over.

He finds the popcorn bag in the last one and grabs it hastily. Only after the third attempt, the previous two ending shamefully with his clasp clutching piteously at empty air.

Dropping it of on the countertop it’s more muscle memory than will that redirects him to the sink. His fingers grip the knob, turning the water lukewarm, but as he lets it puddle on his palms he can’t feel it any clearer than a breath of a ghost on the back of his neck.

Jason splashes the water on his face but it ends up mostly on his clothes and on the ground. Gravity works funny when you have no sense of it.

His hands latch onto the edge of the sink and cling for dear life. The ledge, hold on to the ledge. His eyes open wide, they soak up the terror of the height. The terror of death.

The eerie reassurance of death.

The smog dissipates faster this time. But with it the distressing thought that it’s getting worse, that he’s getting worse, finds the chance settle in his gut.

Jason can’t do this anymore.

But he’s already been gone for a conspicuously large amount of time, and the thought of having to explain his reoccurring day-mares can’t even be entertained by his mind. So that makes a problem for another day.

The popcorn is ready in only a few minutes. Jason holds on to the sink for a couple more moments, taking deep breaths in and out, until his heart has stopped beating frenzied.

If they ask, he can always say he had trouble with the 'corn.

He can always say.

“Okay” he breathes out, closing his eyes as he informs nobody in particular.

“Okay I’m ready”

With that Jason grabs the bowl filled to the brim with the snack and disappears out the door. The journey from the kitchen to the smaller living area is nothing compared to the odyssey he went through following his departure from the lounge.

Once he sets foot back inside all heads turn towards him.

“What did I miss?” he asks, ever so cheerfully as he strides closer to the small den of couches.

One of them starts speaking, no doubt filling him in on the events that happened while he wasn’t watching. Whoever it is, Jason can’t concentrate on their voice enough to tell it apart.

On the screen, the boy is desperately gasping for air as he’s emerging from a moonlit grave.

The world spins out of focus, and before any of them know it the bowl has slipped through Jason’s limb fingers.

It has slipped, and it is falling.

***

The splintered wood pricks and stabs the sensitive skin beneath his shattered fingernails and the blood is threatening to leave his hands and drip onto his glacial cold face. His fingers hurt, they weren’t made as a shovel, they weren’t made to be penetrating wood, but they are doing exactly that, and he can’t acknowledge the piercing, burning throbs that travel through his veins to set the rest of his body aflame, because his lungs are burning, they’re flaring up more and more with every broken attempt at filling them up with air-

He has to dig, he has to keep going-

The last layer of polished wood finally relents, small pieces of it falling onto his raggedly, but once expensive, dandy suit. Blood is mixed with sweat on his palms, accelerating the speed with which it runs along his hands, tickling him while he scrambles for a breath of fresh air that never comes.

“N..o…” he croaks out and speaking is hard, his throat feels as the ash coated land left behind the passage of lava, and now he needs to cough, and he needs to breathe but there’s no air coming in, and frankly, he can’t decide whether it’s from the panic that has overcome him or because there simply isn’t enough oxygen in the cramped space he’s trapped in.

It’s not some prank

As if on cue the ground above him slightly shakes as the mud repositions and soil seeps through the open slit of the-

Of the coffin.

I’m buried alive…. I… I…, he realizes, ever so frantically.

And so his thoughts begin to plague him, the next one banging and clawing at the door of his mind before the previous has had the time to be stated, he’s hyperventilating and fairly so, he’s buried underneath 6 feet of soil-

Stop it Jason, get ahold of yourself. You made it this far because you never gave up, you won’t give up now either, a part of himself with a semblance of sanity left scolds him and orders his bloody hands to move, they grip the edge of the broken pine casket and pull with all their might.

The wooden seal cracks and Jason makes a supernatural effort to set it aside as it holds the weight of 6 feet of soil, his atrophied muscles protest by threatening to give out but it’s sheer determination that gets him to move on, he has to make it, he can’t die in there, he can’t leave, can’t leave his family.

Mud now openly drowns him from the huge whole in the lid of the casket, devouring every corner, sticking to every inch of skin and fabric.

He’s still gasping for air, his lungs and throat feel ready to burst and he’s dizzy, everything is spinning, but on the other hand 'everything’ is nothing more but a muddy grave and he’s still inside.

Almost frantically his injured fingers reach for the source of the soil. With jerky movements and all the strength he can muster he forces his hands through the earth. The stiff mud swallows him whole, lets the worms and maggots get tangled in his long strands of hair. Jason keeps his eyes and mouth stubbornly shut as he desperately struggles to propel his flimsy frame through the endless layers of ground.

He can faintly feel the darkness creeping in the corner of his mind, promising relief, promising safety. Those whispers sound tempting to his weak, grazed arms, to his blazing lungs-

The whispers don’t know that it’s not written in his DNA to yield.

His arms hastily swim through the wet mass that’s holding him beneath the surface, he can feel the dirt in his hair, in his ears, in his shirt, his pants, his everything. Maggots and caterpillars are crawling on his convulsed features. His heart is throbbing unnaturally loud, he can hear the thumping in his ears as his marred hands push and dig with painstaking effort.

Better hurry little robin! It ain’t fun if you die now, amiright boy blunder? HahaHA!

He’s digging, he’s trying, dyeing the earth crimson with his blood, please-

The wet soil doesn’t end, it engulfs him in its cold embrace and doesn’t let him go, no matter how wildly he struggles against the earthly tendrils wrapped securely around his limbs and torso.

He’s desperately gasping for a breath, just one breath to keep going, he’s coughing up phlegm and bile while his chest writhes and burns. He can’t help his mouth gaping in a last-gasp search for oxygen but the only thing entering his mouth and traveling towards his pricking trachea is dirt and rocks and… and…

…a feather?

A feather. He can feel it with his tongue, he can taste its sourness and almost hear a soft crunch under his teeth.

A feather. Robin.

He’s Robin, and Robin doesn’t die alone in an empty grave.

Robin fights. Robin protects. Robin wins.

With renewed resoluteness he forges ahead, his hand reaches where he supposes skyward is one more time.

This time, it’s met with the comfort of soft raindrops and the gentle wind blowing against his numb fingertips.

***

“-on? Jason!” Rachel calls at the sound of the metal bowl clattering to the ground, slipping right through the boy’s fingers and letting the freshly baked popcorn scatter all over the marble floor.

The girl exchanges a worried glance with Gar, before Rose gets up and marches furiously towards an exasperatingly unresponsive Robin, the popcorn crunching beneath her feet. She comes to a halt a few inches away from Jason’s hollow eyes and slaps him hard across the cheek.

The other two begin to protest loudly but Rose barely pays them any mind. She watches with pursed lips as Jason’s cloudy eyes regain focus and his hand shoots up to the skin gradually assuming the oh-so-wonderful shade of radish.

“Ow.. what the fuck?” Jason frowns at her while cautiously rubbing his cheek with his right hand. There’s no blood on his fingers, no mud on his skin. He can breathe.

Rose ignores his baffled query and simply turns to the two teens watching the whole scene play out from the safety of the cushions. She beams triumphantly as she announces smugly, “See? It worked.”

Jason, visibly annoyed by his incompetence to understand what the hell is happening traps her wrist in a vice like grip and tugs, forcing her to face him. She squints viciously at the gesture although she effortlessly pulls her hand free.

“Why the fuck did you slap me?”

The girl opens her mouth to respond, putting together a not so composed reply in her head -to put it mildly-, so it’s probably for the best when Rachel interrupts her train of thought.

“What happened, Jason? You completely zoned out”.

“Yeah, dude. What the hell was that all about?” Gar chimes in, nodding at the pile of popcorn by Robin’s feet and at the discarded bowl that has slid all the way to the edge of the couch he and Rachel are perched on.

“Wha..” Jason regards the strewn snacks with a quizzical look, as if he’s waiting for them to answer why they’re spread out all over the floor. Oddly enough, they don’t.

He fixes his still hazy gaze on his calloused hands next, his confusion manifesting in the form of furrowed brow.

He- he was-

no. He was never there. Always here.

His inviolate fingers are proof enough of that. But then.. is he losing his mind? Just like old Bertha, the old lady running around the theater, screaming that she had been kidnapped and experimented on by flying giraffes…. Not that it’s impossible with everything he’s witnessed the past year.

No, that can’t be it. He’s still shaken up from the fall right? It’s logical that he’s hallucinating about graves, he was seconds from ending up in one just a few days ago. It will go away right?

It will, it has to.

They can’t know, the street kid inside of him insists, they’ll throw you away like a broken toy. Broken..

“Jason, talk to us. What’s wrong?” Rachel is still staring at him, they all are. Her voice is laced with pity, they’re sorry for him. They’re pitying him, the bird that broke its wing and they know that now can’t survive on its own.

“What’s wrong with me?!” His head snaps to where her voice is coming from and the girl flinches at the bite behind his words.

“I didn’t mean- I meant you should perhaps tell Dick about it, he might be able to help” she stutters, her face bearing a deer in the headlights expression. Her gaze briefly meets with Garfield’s, perhaps to seek some backup. Somehow that angers Jason even more.

“Tell Dick? Really?” he snorts, “How about we tell Dick about that time you almost fucking choked me, maybe he could help!” he gasps mockingly. He is shouting now and the girl seems taken aback by the progression of his anger, gawking at him with a hint of sorrow tainting the indigo of her irises.

Gar stands up from his seat and approaches him, getting in the way of him and a Rachel fumbling for the right response to Jason’s accusation. The green haired boy extends his hand almost cautiously, it’s a simple gesture meaning nothing else than stop. It’s common sense, he knows he is going too far again but Jason’s common sense has jumped out the window. To him, they’re treating him like a wounded animal.

Perhaps he’s just projecting how cornered he feels.

“Dude, that’s enough”

“I’m sorry to break this to you, ” he points a finger accusingly at Rachel, “but Dick can’t fix everything like some kind of god you’ve made him out to be”

“Buddy-”

“He can’t fix you and your fucking razor blade tornado or whatever…” he keeps holding Rachel’s bleak glare gesturing wildly with his fingers and ignoring Garfield’s feeble attempts at making him stop.

“…and he can’t fix this” Jason concludes by pointing miserably at his head, then the rest of his body, until his hand drops limp at his side in resignation. His newfound rage has dissipated into downright bitterness.

At the far back the movie is still playing, forgotten. In the faint comforting light of the screen the girl with the auburn hair is kneeling in front of a stone cold body, burrowing her face in chestnut locks that would never grow any longer, as her shoulders heave sharply with every wreaked sob.

Grieving. Jason can still feel the three pairs of eyes -one consisting of one blue and an eyepatch- burning holes into the glimmers of tears stubbornly refusing to be spilt from his, even as he averts his stare.

There’s a deep pause after the abrupt revelation and the four kids are encompassed in a veil of tense silence no one seems willing to break.

Rose -who seemed rather amused when the yelling had started- is now solemnly inspecting the intricate patterns on the sheer curtains tucked to the side of the plate-glass window. Garfield is standing with his arms crossed protectively around his torso. Rachel has ceased to stare wide eyed like a freshly caught fish, however she’s keeping her arms close to her body and shifting awkwardly in her place. Her expression remains grim and her eyes dim, bearing an eerily sorrowful glint.

She puts her head down and eventually flies out of the room without another word. Consumed either by irritation or even guilt, if Jason has to guess. Gar spares no more than a defeated glance at her departure, otherwise maintaining his position by the abruptly deserted couch. He simply reaches for the tv remote, cutting off image and sound amidst a heated argument between the two leads. Damn this movie.

Deathstroke’s daughter looks between the two boys expectantly for half a second. None of them pays her any mind, too busy staring at the suddenly immensely intriguing floor.

“Nevermind, I’m out of here” she mutters through gritted teeth before getting down from atop the loveseat she had claimed and heading towards her own room.

Jason stares blankly at the scattered popcorn, but it provides no answer to the million questions dancing around in his mind.

Frankly, he didn’t expect it to.

Gosh. He’s so messed up.

Gar offers to help him clean up. He refuses. Perhaps Jason pushes him away just like everyone else. He’s got his own mess to clean up, first literally.

The metaphorical one might have just stained too deeply to remedy.

The night finds him placing the broom back in it’s place in the supply closet and sitting alone in pitch darkness.

Thinking of a grave that doesn’t belong to him, it never did, but it has his name on it. Thinking of the memories he shouldn’t have, piecing together how his heart only knows more fragments have been prodding at him, more broken pieces he doesn’t know where they fit.

The night finds him sitting alone in pitch darkness. Shivering, shaking with quiet tears.

Knowing he’d be undisturbed, alone, in the grave he’s built for himself.

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curiosity-killed · 4 years ago

Note

Hello....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your favorite yunmeng shuangjie scenes/moments? And why? Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Ah gosh this is the hardest cql question for me ;A; tbh @veliseraptor pretty much hit all of mine as well and more coherently than I’m going to do it lmao

so I will just add a couple others that I also love bc I am incorrigible:

pretty much all of ep 14-15 but this convo in particular:

because what I love about so much of these two episodes is how we see who they are before the story. We’ve seen Wei Wuxian be an irreverent and too-clever-for-his-own dumbass and a smart, noble young hero — and here we get to see him as the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, as the young man who truly believes he will be Jiang Cheng’s second-in-command.

Especially coming after the Yunmeng Twin Heroes/Prides talk in ep 14, this shot has always been striking to me because of the way they’re framed both as relatively equal (standing, sharing center, etc.) and in a way that emphasizes the in-world power dynamic (standing together but with wwx back 1/3 a step, slightly more shadowed, his hands usually contained in neat posture). So soon after this, everything goes to shit, but for a moment here, imo, we really see what another life would have been like where Jiang Cheng became leader under better conditions and where Wei Wuxian remained at his side.

and I am, as y’all know lmao, generally not terribly interested in exploring that happier universe but I do find it deeply compelling that it was their path — the path they knew they would walk together — given how we know it becomes untenable and unwalkable for them due, in large part, to that very same sense of duty and love that has been so clearly demonstrated in these episodes.

episode 18

the hesitation! the fear! the trust! hnnnn babies. Anyway mostly i am just here for the (paraphrased, presumably badly and from memory), “from this point on, Jiang Cheng, I can go no further with you” because wow! babe! OUCH! as discussed above, I love the contrast between their life up to this point, which has largely been them as a solid and effective unit, and the breaking and destruction of that dynamic through the events of canon — and hello! we have arrived.

there’s a lot of great meta and insight out there about the golden core transfer and I am fundamentally uninterested in who is right/who is wrong about it because it’s just so narratively delectable. they both are so motivated by love and duty, and the actions engendered by that love and duty tear them apart until they are at the edge of a cliff and Wei Wuxian is smiling as he falls to his death, leaving Jiang Cheng alone with his grief and his anger and a secret buried in his chest that he doesn’t even know. Miscommunication as a plotline is generally v boring to me but I’m a sucker for it in mxtx’s stories (so far anyway lol) because the decisions that lead to it come from a very deep and real understanding of the nature of the character. Jiang Cheng couldn’t let Wei Wuxian be captured by Wen soldiers if there was something he could do about it, no matter that Wei Wuxian would never agree to that decision or think the exchange was worth it; Wei Wuxian couldn’t let Jiang Cheng live without his core if there was something he could do about it, no matter that Jiang Cheng almost certainly wouldn’t have agreed to it* and wouldn’t have believed the exchange worth it. And those two decisions born of love and desperation destroy them (if not literally, then certainly the people they were at the start)!! We love it here <3 :’)

*look I’m not touching the disk horse but the fact that Wei Wuxian felt it imperative to never ever let Jiang Cheng know the deets (even when knowing would have been super helpful and advantageous for wwx & co.) and that Jiang Cheng had already given up his own core/life specifically to protect Wei Wuxian is a pretty blatant mound o’ evidence that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have agreed if he’d been fully informed.

ep 20

god i wanna be hugged again

okay so basically this is just outing me for having a very specific favorite arc and that arc being Sunshot with the subdomain of the deterioration of Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s relationship throughout the campaign. but: HUG! the desperation and physical grief and relief of Jiang Cheng; the way Wei Wuxian pulls back, how he retreats both like he is no longer used to touch that doesn’t bring pain and like he didn’t intend to be found. Jiang Cheng trying to be a good brother by following wwx’s lead in the interaction with Lan Wangji but accidentally enabling wwx’s continued downward trajectory. HNNNN

the way jiang cheng tries to be cool and tough and just toss suibian at wei wuxian, the way he absolutely fails and does that terrible tender thing with his face and then clings to wei wuxian aaaahhh how dead-eyed wei wuxian looks, how he looks at suibian, how he takes so long to respond to the hug im literally never over this scene honestly

jiang cheng at this point feels like they can finally go back to how it’s supposed to be and start back down that road they’ve always shared and these months will only be a small detour, easily passed beyond, and Wei Wuxian is watching him while knowing that he can never ever walk that path again

ep 50

....yeah. yeah. Jiang Cheng finally has his answer on why they never walked together again, why Wei Wuxian couldn’t, why his sacrifice and his love and his duty was never enough—and maybe the knowing is better but. it fucking sucks. it hurts! so much! for both of them!!

i’m not necessarily of the opinion that they must reconcile or that it’s healthier than the rest but i am absolutely of the opinion that I want them to and that they each would also like it but view it as fundamentally impossible

the kindest thing to do is to let you go hnnnn

anyway this is why I have written uh. over 300k about these two basically. they hurt me and i love them and it’s awful

#thanad-zid #asked & answered #I FOUND IT #it disppeared but IT CAME BACK #in a weird place but that's fine #pls pardon the shitty gifs #they were entirely for the shigs

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years ago

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April 25: 2x16 The Gamesters of Triskelion

Finally watched some more Star Trek. I feel like it’s been forever...

Today’s ep is The Gamesters of Triskelion, which is... okay. It’s not terrible but I think its best aspects are the most familiar: the type of alien, the moral values at play; and its weakest are its most unique.

I think Spock likes it when Kirk says “mind the store.” What a folksy human thing to say!

Plus now that he’s Captain he gets to sit in the chair.

This conversation between Spock and Scotty is hilarious. “I’m assuming you mean they disappeared in an unusual way??” “Uh, yeah?? Do you think I’m dumb?”

This alien looks like Lady Gaga c. 2010

Kirk is being very Dramatic today.

Come on, Spock, gotta get your man.

You know Spock is worried when he mentions hope. That is, as McCoy says, a human emotion.

“Collars of obedience.” Kinky.

Stylish pink jail.

I’m really feeling this Spock and Bones interaction today. That’s a great eyebrow lift.

If the random alien is leaving, Uhura must have been his ass down.

“Nourishment interval.” We need to bring this into our modern vocabulary.

Not one, but TWO ladies in command gold today (one at Communications, and one at Spock’s station).

Wild aquatic fowl.

I feel like this episode is another example of a writer putting her alien sex fantasy on television. Like, a hardcore alien sex fantasy. The obedience collars, the training harness, the whipping, the weird flirtation between Chekov and his “training thrall”--herself a very androgynous alien, just to throw some gender play in there.

Kirk turning up the charm again. I missed Charming!Kirk. I mean, picking up a silver platter to use as a mirror and saying “That’s beautiful”? This man has no shame.

I feel like this episode shows how Spock’s logic is actually a very effective life strategy. He’s facing a very mysterious situation with high stakes--literally his best friend/soulmate/captain lost, plus two more crewmen--but he isn’t defeatist like McCoy or defensive like Scotty. He just follows the evidence, even when the evidence seems wild. And he was right.

Detective Kirk time!

“Are they computers?” He’s hoping so, since he’s very good at defeating computerized enemies.

Could it be instead another example of aliens who have transcended their physical bodies?

He is really laying the charm offensive on thick here.

I get how people have vague memories of TOS and remember Kirk as slutty, because certainly there are lots of shots of him kissing ladies, but like... 90% of the time he's using charm as a weapon, like he doesn't like Lady Gaga, he just wants to get off this planet.

“Love, for one thing.” Time for Kirk to be a Romantic Nerd again. He sure does love love!!

See imo just as it’s ridiculous for him to limit love to being one of the most important things on Earth, since he barely even spends any time on Earth and his general thesis is about what all intelligent creatures can care about besides their basic needs being met by “Providers,” I think it’s silly to limit love to being between men and women. And just as he’s kinda lying about the Earth thing, I think he’s lying about the heterosexual thing.

People in love “live together, help each other, make each other happy.” I love his definitions of love!! Like with Edith, he center helping each other in the definition.

McCoy and Scotty think they can take on Spock lmao. The Captain’s life is at stake; he’s not fooling around. And he’s right too so y’all can shush!!

Honestly, that leaning down to talk quietly to them--I know it’s because he doesn’t want to say the word “mutiny” too loud where other people can hear him, but it really reads like he’s mocking them.

Shauhna is harassed at work.

Spock’s like ‘screw a landing party, I will retrieve my space husband by myself... and I guess McCoy can come too.’

McCoy’s voice was the one Kirk heard but he still calls out to Spock.

Mmm, yes, disembodied alien brains.

I like the painted background behind them, too. Which is apparently stolen from Devil in the Dark. S2 needs more painted backgrounds.

“You think YOU’RE competitive? A race that does nothing but gamble? Well you’ve never met humans lol.”

Since when has Kirk ever competed for a woman? Hardly a competition when he always wins.

“Fresh thrall” something so... ugh about that phrase.

Ah, yes, an Andorian.

I’m starting to feel like this is Spock’s Pre-Reform Vulcan Sex Fantasy.

I feel like Shauhna will eventually become the leader of the Triskellion people. My mom thinks it would be cool for Kirk to meet her again in the future. I feel like there’s a fanfic in there somewhere...

“I didn’t lie, I just...lied.”

Honestly, don’t bother leaving everything to these disembodied colorful brains, just take Shauhna with you and enlist her in Starfleet. Or at least, like, high school.

...And after all that she STILL has a crush on Kirk. The man is too powerful.

What, no return to the Enterprise? No Kirk appearing shirtless on the bridge? No everyone acknowledges that Spock was right the whole time? No awkward little joking time?

I guess perhaps Kirk is embarrassed.

So overall... again, B basically.

As far as commonly used tropes in Star Trek go, this one is actually one of my favorite ones. I like it more than “godlike man must be defeated” and probably even more than “computer runs society,” though not as much as “old Earth tech becomes sentient.” But generally speaking “aliens transcend corporeal bodies by becoming too smart” is a good trope and I like seeing the different spins on it: the Organians, who can choose corporeal bodies if they want and are incredibly peaceful; the aliens from Return to Tomorrow, who wish they still had bodies; the aliens from The Cage/The Menagerie, who do have bodies but can’t do much with them, who must rely on aliens they capture to do physical work on the planet’s surface for them; and these aliens, who are so bored they must rely on arbitrary wagers using enslaved aliens just to have something to do. There’s something sort of... sad but fitting about that fate. Understandable, awful, pathetic. Still, I wouldn’t call this my favorite take on the trope.

But the specifics of the story, outside the “brain-aliens trope,” I didn’t like so much. The BDSM kink stuff mixed in with like actual slavery made me super uncomfortable. I know it’s based on Ancient Rome but like... even though it was a clear bread and circuses situation, that was not what I was thinking of tbqh.

This is a good episode for showcasing Star Trek Values, which overall I would say are my values. I do see how some people today would criticize them for being a little... well. How to say it. Colonizer-savior. I completely disagree that this is the reading that should be given to them and in fact I think it’s a bad faith reading but people are the way they are and certain things are in vogue sometimes and not others, so. I just mean that when Kirk says that they (the Federation, one would assume) have helped other civilizations “progress” or whatever word he uses, it sounds a little like they came in and made alien societies better using their own values. But I would say that what we actually see, in specific examples throughout the series, is the Federation wanting the civilizations it interacts with to be free, in fact requiring members state to be free, and that is really the one value a free society can impose on others or require of others--choosing slavery or dominion is choosing to relinquish all future choices, and thus cannot be allowed by any society that values freedom. That catch-22 that we see so much now. So, my point is, I think the values Kirk epitomizes for the show are freedom, self-determination, and a certain conception of progress, too: the ability to grow and develop, the avoidance of stagnation. And certainly this episode shows a clear case: having everything provided for you in exchange for being the professional playthings of a bunch of disembodied brains is objectively bad! Surely we can all agree on that. But this obvious example is used as an excuse for Kirk to speechify on the topic of what a utopian future will look like, what the best of humans can be, and what the rest of the universe could be like if it learns from our best traits (and not our worst). Which is overall something I find very comforting.

I’d just been thinking, at the beginning of this episode, that I think S1 is a better Kirk season than S2. S2 has too many episodes that problematize his leadership or his heroism, or that barely even use him--even episodes like The Trouble With Tribbles that outright mischaracterize him imo. But this episode really was Classic Kirk and I appreciated that. We see him being charming, smart, selfless, strong, creative, romantic... coming in at the end to embody the utopian values of the series.

Spock was so well characterized and so smart and so heroic, too, that he kinda was the mvp for me, though... Don’t take away my Kirk stan card lol. Spock was just so In Command... You can see how he could become a captain later, even if being in command never really interested him much.

I don’t entirely get why Kirk bargained for the thralls to all stay and make their own government (or to be trained in self-governance by their enslavers... a whole different issue tbqh), given that it’s already been established that most/all of them have been kidnapped from other planets. Should they not be... returned?

And if most/all of them are 2nd or later generations, that’s a whole other complex issue that could perhaps use third party mediators or something...

I also wondered about Shahna's origins. Was she the descendant of another civilization that is native to the planet, or is it just that her people were kidnapped so much earlier that she herself, personally, has never lived anywhere else?

I think it both makes more sense and is a more fitting ending if it’s the first. It makes sense to me that the first peoples enslaved by the brains were natives of the planet: more convenient that way. Also, I think we need to see more alien planets with more than one humanoid or human-intelligence level species.

And, if her people are native to the planet, having them become leaders of their own right again and not just possessions of the glowing brains is more powerful. Otherwise it's kinda sad: yes, they can form their own government here, but they've still been robbed of their real history and their real homeland, which they don't even remember.

Also as my mom pointed out, it’s not clear the brains themselves are native to the planet. They could have been invaders--the last real thing they did before they started wagering fake money--and Shauhna’s people the natives.

I really did like Shahna a lot and I hope she becomes the leader of whatever government they set up and eventually does get to travel into space.

Imo this was one of those TOS eps where the potential back story and the hints of world building are more interesting than the actual story.

Also apparently the actor who played Galt was trying to walk in a gliding manner so it wouldn’t be clear what he was hiding under those robes and... I have to say, definitely wheels.

Next up is A Piece of the Action, one of my favorites. Great plot, great fun, great sci fi concept, great Kirk material!

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #star trek tos #2021: fandom thoughts

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isolctions · 4 years ago

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WORLDBUILDING WITH RAJA HOUR!

so! if anybody recalls, aspen meadows has a very extensive and very complicated canon / main universe — i typically omit certain details depending on the plot because it tends to be a Lot and not everyone’s muse meshes well with the knowledge of aspen hosting a demonic entity & carrying a baby and such, but if you’re curious anyway, this post is for you!! (also, i’ll go into specific detail abt the rest on a later post, i’m just putting this one out there while my mind is still excited and working.)

now, let’s talk about the entity of the hour, NAZYA LEE.

nazya is the human counterpart of ilyssa’s offspring. technically aspen’s child since she births her eventually, but not really, because she just carries aspen’s humans attributes and that’s it. beyond the surface, she’s still classified as an otherworldly being / direct attachment as one of ilyssa’s children despite having the appearance of mortality.

speaking of otherworldly characteristics, did i mention she’s not human? thus, she’s actually able to appear as old as she chooses to. she also has a bad habit of disappearing into different dimensions completely on accident until she’s able to get that under control. so, yeah.

some of her notable physical characteristics, besides being human-passing obviously, is her vision — rather, the complexities of it. when on the mortal plane (ie, earth), naz is rendered ‘blind’. while she may not have vision, she does have heightened awareness as well as higher senses, mostly due to lineage. she’s able to hear at much higher and much lower decibels than a normal human, she has a wider range of smell, her taste palate is very distinctly different from humans (beyond just regular pickiness. like, some foods she literally cannot process or can’t eat at all. as for the foods that a human would not eat, uh, she kinda eats the occasional human or two. blame ilyssa!), and her reflexes are on ten million. she’s very in tune with the environment and uses it to her advantage, even if she’s unable to see it. she also can sense auras, too.

however, when she’s not chilling on earth and decides to visit the void or a planet or two, she gains altered sight. with that, she’s now able to actually see her surroundings as well as the species of who she’s interacting with, and has this really cool ability to see and detect lies. only downside is, she still can’t make out faces, so all she’s got to go on is species basically. (which is something she can sort of do anyway when on earth, so???)

time for abilities! other than being able to transport to any place and any timeline and any dimension at will, she also has the power to manipulate and alter reality, create paradoxes, and with bare touch, is able to send and entrap a person within their own personal representation of hell, via the whole idea of eternal suffering. however, naz isn’t really fond of doing that unless well-deserved, so she prevents this ability by wearing gloves at all times.

personality wise, she’s very very very kind and gentle. gets that from aspen. she’s also relatively quiet in conversation, and prefers to observe — mostly to learn more about who she’s interacting with, but also to pick up on speech patterns and either mimic them when necessary or tell someone apart in a group. she’s also not really big on mortal sympathy, and will more than likely resist the urge to hit someone with her cane should they pander to her. like, she’s whole half demon out here and this is what you choose to focus on??? anyways!

also worth mentioning that a lot of this, i came up with literally in two days & could be subject to change since i’m not fully sold on tag dropping just yet. but she (might be) here and she Cute!!

#idk how to tag this #but here we are #soul glitch ━ aspen x ilyssa

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eisforeidolon · 5 years ago

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Episode: Back and to the Future

I get why, thematically, they chose that song for the previouslies that kick off the final season. However, from my perspective I just do not think it actually works at all. It is far too sedate for the action it’s recapping and the scene it cuts into. The juxtaposition of such different paces is just ... odd.

I guess I'm supposed to feel all sad and shit from the lingering shots of dead!Jack's burned out eye holes? Maybe if he'd had a personality other than being an amorphous shifting blob of unbelievable power and permanent intellectual infancy I was supposed to care about because of the number of times they had the other characters say he was their son/family/awesome. As is? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wish I could say I was surprised that the veritable army of animate corpses making a beeline for the Winchesters and Cas just … somehow … let them escape and run away. I'd have been a lot more surprised if the writers had actually bothered to do the work to get the characters out of the corner the last finale put them into, at this point. Then there's the bit where the writers shove some nonsense into Dean's mouth to try and make it seem like this whole thing with Chuck isn't a sudden random asspull to go for the most absurdly overpowered villain they could think of for the last season. Totally believable, oh yeah.

Although the idea of a sewer running through a graveyard including right to the wall of a crypt does not exactly seem likely to me, I do actually give the writers points for having that not actually work as an escape route. Also awarding some points for them remembering that as an angel, Castiel should be able to see demons.

As other people have already pointed out, considering what he did to the Novak family and how haphazardly he handled Claire, especially? Him bitching about any other creature defiling somebody's corpse is pretty fucking hilarious. Though I'd possibly be more sympathetic if demon!Jack didn't already show a 500% more interesting personality in thirty seconds than actual!Jack did in two seasons. So far as I’ve been concerned, the only think Jack has really had going for him is Alex, so Alex as a different character, even a demon, I’m calling a win.

I honestly do not get the decision of trying garner fan nostalgia by bringing back ghosts from previous seasons if they're just going to arbitrarily make them kill anyone at random for kicks. Would it have been that hard to have shown “Bloody Mary” killing one person who might have had a secret where someone died? Because I could buy it for one of those teen girls, but not both. Or limiting the “Woman in White” to attacking men along highways who might possibly be unfaithful? Maybe we're supposed to believe that they're all just so pissed off at having spent all that time in hell that they have completely lost touch with what originally tied them to earth and drove them to kill in the first place? I don't mind them no longer being tied to a physical location since they were banished and unnaturally returned, but to be so disconnected to what drove them to become angry spirits seems much more intrinsic to who and what they were. I guess even the ghosts lose their personalities to become cardboard in the hands of Dabbernatural.

Oh, look, mysteriously, big G God's tantrum opening up hell is not actually big enough to impact the whole planet – or even, you know, more than the literal next town over. This is my surprised face.

Then we get to the bit where the Winchesters find an abandoned car with a bloody mess inside and are all, “Look at this Woman in White kill! Obviously it was a Woman in White! Totally the specific one we sent to hell! Because … car! And, uh, blood! And, oh, because the fucking script says so.” REASONS, YO.

Aren't all garage doors required to have an emergency pull for if the power goes out? Obviously the script required the pair of VotW end up stuck hiding in the garage, which, uh, a ghost can't find people hiding now? Did I miss something in there that explained that silly convenience that makes the ghost even less spooky in an episode that really really fails on that count even more later on?

I guess maybe I should be happy that it's Castiel that gets hit with the dumb characterization stick to necessitate Sam & Dean not work together to clear out the town? Look, at this point, considering the way the writers have had him act as a constant disaster zone of idiotic choices and betrayals for several seasons now, my ability to sympathize with Cas is a wee bit limited. To have him now sulk like a toddler and refuse to work with the demon to help the Winchesters save an entire town full of people and prevent the spread of angry hell ghosts to the world beyond that? Because oh noes it's wearing Jack's face and he was just sooooo attached? Even though all of them supposedly thought of Jack as their kid? He doesn't even try to offer up alternatives to working with the demon with the very convenient solution, just whines about it?

So basically this billions of years old angel somehow has less fucking practicality than the Winchesters (despite how easily he killed the shit out of his fellow angels when it suited his plans). Not to mention that by refusing, he's saddling Dean with having to work with demon!Jack. The human guy who was just recently convinced he had to kill Jack for the good of the world after Jack killed his mother, only to have a change of heart when he saw Jack’s understanding, only for Jack to end up killed anyway – you know, emotions a hell of a lot more conflicted about their supposed kid's than Castiel's? Castiel is just fine with that! What a self-centered dick.

I liked Dean's conversation with Rowena on the phone and his response to her presumable demand to ask more nicely. I laughed at Sam accidentally shooting Cas and Cas' resultant reaction. I thought it was curious that they had the demon bring up Dean's time as a torturer in hell, though I'd be pleasantly surprised if it was anything but a way to segue into the Cage getting opened. One utterly wasted Michael storyline is apparently not enough for Dabb! Maybe it's just supposed to be some kind of weird demon idea of flattery, but I did find their interactions interesting. I would be intrigued by the weird flashes when Cas was trying to heal Sam (Another angel power that actually works for once? Wow!) … if Dabb hadn't already yammered on about what it means in an interview. That dude is absolutely allergic to leaving any kind of major storyline an open mystery or letting it retain any intrigue for fans to speculate about. I was not impressed with Sam getting damsel-ed to be saved by Castiel at least twice. Come on, show.

As I speculated before and said above, I’m fine with the Chuckified nature of their release meaning some rules don’t apply. I could maybe even understand the thought process that them being out in the daytime, without being limited to darkness, was scarier? I just wish anyone behind the camera was awake enough to actually look at the aesthetics of what they did here and realize that no, it's really really not. The whole thing just looked so embarrassingly mediocre - pantomime actors in bad bargain basement costumes silly. I think it was @hippychick006 that suggested gifs of the whole end portion looked like they should be set to Yackety Sax? The context of the episode does not in any way negate that. Just … wow. Like with the wire fight, I am flabbergasted that this made it to air without somebody finding the brakes.

I'm not sure if the writers actually made a failed reference by having the Woman in White say Dean was the one who took her home when it was Sam, or if they meant to imply he and Sam together had been there/responsible and Dean was the one she was addressing. Regardless, I'm not impressed with how all the ghosts Sam & Cas were being confronted by just … stood there to be shot one by one for a while. And then … ran … literally ran … chasing them down the street instead of doing the whole ghost teleport thing. There are way, way too many times in this episode where the guys get away or win a fight because reasons and there is absolutely no tension in that. Even if it didn't also look ridiculous. Dean’s part of the confrontation was a little less absurd in that respect, at least. And the spell effects actually looked reasonably cool.

I'm a little annoyed at myself that the obligatory brother scene at the end of the episode kind of works on me. Though I’m not particularly impressed with Sam's conclusion that God is totally going to leave them alone now. Sure, Chuck has a long habit of leaving when he's bored, but he isn't leaving this world because he's bored. You guys actively pissed him off! Yet Sam treats it like a foregone conclusion Chuck will have buggered off instead of sticking around to watch his previously favorite but now uncooperative toys suffer and die first. Though I'm not sure if that's a writer issue, actually, or just a legit choice I don’t care for. I could see Sam insisting on trying to sell a potential positive side with no room for doubt with as fatalistic as Dean is being. I could also see it just being one of those things Sam convinces himself must be true because he's reasoned it out in his head and refuses to consider alternatives may exist. Like how he was so convinced it could only be God planting visions in his head back in season 11. Still, I like the callback and I can even see why Dean is the most immediately cynical and pissed off, so hey! There was actually one whole entire scene I enjoyed in there!

#negativity for ts #anti dabb #anti castiel #anti jack kline #writer incompetence #spn 15x01 #spn season 15 #long post

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angstytieflingbard · 5 years ago

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Platonic THB x Child!Reader Request

Request: “Could I request another Adventure zone fic(sorry if this is annoying lol)? If not its okay! Again thank you for the first one! Another platonic fic with the reader being a young kid, and they seem pretty innocent. Until its revealed that they are a antagonist character and like actually a pretty intelligent manipulative person...but gets reformed cause its actually her mom who's the real antagonist? Just them interacting with the main three + Angus? Thank you for your time!” -anon

Summary: You thought you’d always have to do what your mother said. She wasn’t kind by any means, but she was what you knew. However, when a chaotic group of adventurers you had tricked into her grasp not only defeat her, but decide to help you, you start to realize how kind the world really could be.

Warnings: Heavily implied unnamed antagonist death

A/N: Okay taz anon, here it is! Sorry it took so long! It took me a couple tries to be happy with the plot, honestly, but I think it turned out pretty well. If you’re reading this, and you enjoyed it, or you want me to write something else for you, shoot me an ask! My request rules/fandoms are linked in my bio. I hope you enjoy!

~~~~~

You stared ahead blankly, shock settling into your bones. Your mother was gone. You knew you should feel something, sadness or anger or some mix of the two, but instead you just felt… cold.

She’d been evil, you understood that, and she’d done everything in her power to raise you to be the same way, going as far as to use you as an agent of sorts for her schemes, despite your young age. In fact, that had ended up being the cause of her downfall, using you to lure in a group she called ‘reclaimers’ in her desperate search to find some kind of powerful object. She’d never told you exactly what she was looking for, partially because any time she mentioned it or the organization also looking for it (and similar objects, from what you could glean) all you could hear was static.

You sat on the steps of the old keep your mother had used as a base, and eventually, out of the corner of your eye you saw someone sit down next to you. Magnus, the kind, strange human man with the axe he called ‘Railsplitter.’

“Hey, kid. I’m sorry you had to be in there for that. That was… rough.” You blinked, knocked out of your thoughts by his apology.

He was apologizing? To you?

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have stayed anyway. I knew she’d try to kill you if you didn’t agree to help her. And I knew you’d say no.” You admitted. You pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around them. Magnus nodded.

“Smart kid. I should’ve guessed, considering you managed to lie in two separate zones of truth.” He said with a small chuckle, attempting to lighten the mood. You smiled slightly, but before you could say anything the doors of the keep burst open. Taako strode out, flicking a strand of his long blonde hair over his shoulder as his cloak flowed dramatically behind him. His heels clicked on the stone as he approached.

“Alright, we’ve finished up with the, uh…” He paused, glancing over at you.

“You can say that you looted the place.” You said bluntly. Taako laughed, ruffling your hair in an almost fond gesture.

“Yeah, that. I think Merle was checking down some side hallway he saw, he’ll be back in a second.”

“Did you guys find my room?” You asked curiously. Taako tilted his head, thinking.

“The only bedrooms we saw was the little dormitory for your moms’ goblin friends, and your moms’ room obviously.” You nodded, a little disappointed.

“I’m back! And I return with gifts!” Merle called out as he finally came out of the keep, practically waddling with how fast he was walking. He held a small sack in his arms, which he deposited in your arms as soon as he got close enough. You opened it, glad to find a few of your more valued belongings, specifically a plushie shaped like a bat, a few books, and the drider-silk cloak you had gotten as a gift for your birthday earlier in the year. You clutched the sack to your chest, giving Merle a grateful smile.

“Thank you, Merle.” You told him honestly. He waved your thanks off with a small shake of his head.

“Don’t mention it, kid. Really, don’t, I have a reputation to uphold.” He told you, and you couldn’t help but give a small giggle in response.

“Besides, he’s probably gonna sell literally everything valuable that was in your room, so this was really the least he could do.” Taako remarked with a smirk. Merle huffed indignantly, but gave no defense.

“C’mon, the --- should be here soon. I called with the ------ while you were inside.” Magnus said, and you blinked up at him, curious about the static you’d heard.

“You can do the static thing too?” You asked, and all three of them shared a glance.

“We’ll explain everything when we get to our… organization. ------------ will be able to explain better than us anyway... “ Magnus told you placatingly. You frowned, but nodded, letting the three of them guide you over to where their apparent rendezvous point was supposed to be.

~~~

Your first few hours on Moon Base Alpha had been chaotic, to say the least. Magnus had helped you out of the pod, and Taako had patted your back comfortingly as you attempted to get over the disorientation, both from flying and from having traveled in a vehicle you apparently couldn’t physically comprehend.

Then, you were ushered into the director’s throne room, where the three explained where they found you and why they brought you up, and she had, after much convincing, given you a vial of voidfish ichor to drink, which you had been quite upset to find tasted like rancid lime go-gurt.

Now, you sat in your newly assigned dorm, waiting for the boy who was apparently going to be your roommate, re-reading one of the books Merle had grabbed from your room before you left. It was a volume of a young adult detective serial, one you’d loved endlessly from the moment you were able to read it. Your mother had disliked it of course, on account of it encouraging general goodness, but she’d eventually relented after you took to practically tearing the keep apart brick by brick to hide the books in the walls and floors in the hall outside your room.

Eventually, the door opened, and a boy about your age came in, eyes already seeking yours out with a pensive stare. He was a little shorter than you, with dark, freckled skin and curly black hair partially hidden by a blueish grey flat-brimmed hat. He was also wearing khaki shorts with a blue argyle patterned sweater vest over a short-sleeved button up, and simple walking shoes.

“Hi.” You said after a long moment of staring each other down.

“Hi. You’re (Y/N), right? Madame Director told me you’d be bunking with me.” He moved to sit on the bed across from yours, the one already personalized with small decorations and posters on the wall.

“Yeah. They didn’t tell me anything about you. Just that you’d be here eventually.” You admitted.

“Oh! Well, I’m Angus Mcdonald, world’s greatest detective.” He introduced himself, holding a hand out for you to shake. You sat up, turning and leaning over the gap between your beds to shake his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Angus. How did you become the world's greatest detective?” You asked curiously.

“You just gotta be good enough at it for people to recognize you. And know when not to shy away from things people say aren’t your business.” He smiled as he talked, obviously proud of his title. You nodded at his words, thoughtful.

“You kind of remind me of a character from a book series I really like. Here,” You commented, grabbing the book you were reading and showing him the cover. He gasped, and you could practically see stars in his eyes.

“Wow, you read the Caleb Cleveland series?” He exclaimed. You felt a smile creep onto your face.

“Yeah, they’re my favorite books ever. My mother never liked them because, you know, Caleb Cleveland is good and all, but that never stopped me from reading them.” You confessed, your voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. He grinned at you.

“That’s so cool! How did you get away with reading them?”

“I started hiding them behind loose stones in the floor and walls so she wouldn’t find them.” You explained with a giggle. He laughed with you.

“I’ve gotta tell you all about some of the cases I’ve been on as a detective. That’s actually how Taako, Magnus, and Merle met me!”

“I’d like that.” You told him honestly, and his grin grew even wider. He started to ramble about one of his favorite cases to solve, the case of the Rockport Slayer, and you felt whatever tension had been in the room when he first came in bleed away in the wake of your newly discovered shared interests.

You liked it here, you decided, settling in to listen to your new friend’s story.

#taz #the adventure zone #taako #taako taaco #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #angus mcdonald #x reader #reader insert #fanfiction #fanfic #probs ooc but this is my third go at this particular one so #*shrug*

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genderfreezone · 5 years ago

Note

Do you like the Evil Within 2?

Yeah! Certainly not as much as the first one (i was not immune to being sad they left out fan favorites Jojo and Ruvik's Cube)

The rest of this post is me rambling about things i didnt like about the game, and then things i did like (most of my issues are how they treat the female characters tbh)

Its missing kind of the action-noir-gone-horrifically-wrong feel of the first game. The scare factor also suffers bc our player character has been through this before, hes a veteran at dealing with this crazy shit, it doesnt phase him anymore and by extension it doesnt phase the player. They really like tripled down on the Evil Corporation thing and both the intrigue and horror suffer for it.

This game did not drink its respect women juice (the first one didnt really either, case in point: Everything About Kidman) Sebastian is surrounded by 5+ female characters and only 2 of them survive (and one of them is his 7 year old daughter hes spent the whole game trying to rescue... and yet they never bothered to give her any kind of characterization or agency. A highly empathetic and supernaturally powerful little girl in a monster-infested hellscape?? HELLO???? Lily really had the potential to be the most interesting, sympathetic, and complex character--especially as she slowly lost her innocence--in the WHOLE GAME, but she was just sort of relegated to Plot Device McGuffin) The rest of the female supporting cast are killed off for Sebastian's Man Pain. In fact, THIS ENTIRE GAME IS CENTERED AROUND SEBASTIAN'S MAN PAIN. Torrez is a walking stereotype, shes literally just Vasquez from Aliens. Hoffman was the most likeable and believeable, except when it Turns Out She Was In Love With Liam Or Whatever (psst, guess what, i dont care. Also O'neal was kind of a dick anyway? I dont care x2)

And you know who i SUPER dont care about? Bland-White-Bread-And-Mayo-Sandwich Myra. Where's the no-nonsense firecracker of a police lieutenant Sebastian married? Not here, thats for sure. Her entire personality is "mother" and "worries about stressed-out husband". We got more characterization of Myra in seb's jornals from the first game, where she never even made a physical appearance! Horror media does this SO MUCH, women are either A. Sexy Lamp B. Hurts Men (Sexily) C. Mother or D. Innocent Virgin. It sucks. Do better.

The story lacked the "digging up old buried memories" and "theres more to this than meets the eye" of the first game. It felt too...... Straightforward. Everyone told Sebastian the truth. EVERYTHING WAS EXACTLY WHAT IT SEEMED. It all felt too simple, too easy, like there SHOULDVE been something else beneath the surface. And yet there wasnt. (I watched markipliers playthrough and i loved his theory that Kidman was actually Lily. It had such potential. Kidman's entire resume for the police station was fabricated, who's to say the rest of her past wasnt fabricated as well? It would retcon a lot of stuff and like 80% of her backstory from the DLC, but you know games like this arent above retconning important shit, and at least it wouldve been sacrificed for something with actual intrigue. Maybe it wouldnt even retcon anything! Consider: tiny Lily is taken by Evil Corporation and dropped off in a non-nurturing environment that would lead her to become the kind of person who would willingly join & work for an organization like Mobius. At least wouldve been a nice excuse for why Kidman and Lilys face models looked so similar... other than... yknow.... "WomEN ARe hArD tO DRaWwwwwee")

Okay okay ive been ranting for long enough. It probably makes it sound like i kinda hate this game, but i dont! It certainly doesnt hold the same place in my heart as the first one (which i still have very glaring issues with lmao Kidman deserved WAAAAAAY better), but i do like it! It brings back salty, grizzled, tsundere Sebastian Castinellos. It brings back spooky monsters that kill you dead. It brings back having a fun theatrical over-the-top villain who takes himself a litte too seriously.

I love Stefano. Probably not in the way some other fans do, but i love him as a ridiculous theatrical over-the-top villain. He sucks! And i love that he sucks! I love him BECAUSE he sucks! Hes terrible and exaggerated and completely up his own ass and ITS GREAT. He isnt as ACTUALLY THREATENING as Ruvik was (even in his bad assassin's creed cosplay. I could go on and on and on about why Ruvik is simultaneously a ridiculous AND frightening antagonist and how much i love it but uh..... maybe later) but hes such a FUN villain! Hes the kind of pretentious art snob shitheel i cannot STAND irl, but in this game i LOVE to HATE him. Hes just SO over-the-top you kinda wonder if he actually subscribes to the pretentiousness he spouts, or if hes just being Exceptionally Extra.

The other villains? Theodore was.... forgettable. His monsters were forgettable. (Its like how i completely forgot that Frank Manera was a character in Whistleblower for like... 5 years lmao i guess this game also kinda followed that "having multiple named/characterized antagonists in one game" thing that Outlast did) Myra, i just didnt care. Her final design was kinda cool, i liked the red clusters of insect eyes. Her monsters werent really gross enough to be memorable. The only reson theyre gross at all is bc they kinda look like theyre made of semen. (I checked the wiki and apparently Myra's white goo is "psychoplasm" and her monsters lost 99% of their gross factor. I just dont care.) The Administrator literally just looked like a 3D human model of Maxwell from dont starve, and i have to laugh every time i see him. Hes not terribly threatening, all he does is threaten characters to work faster and doesnt actually follow through on those threats. He doesnt even make fun threats like HABIT or anything. He thinks hes so powerful and ominous that his mere presence will frighten the player but hes just kinda all bark and no bite. Hes The Big Bad Company Man so you know hes gonna get whats coming to him, and you know Kidmans gonna be the one to do it to him, so hes not even that much of a threat. Hes whatever.

Stefano definitely got all of the coolest monsters. Many Arms Buzzsaw Lady was terrifying and i love her. And OBSCURA was just *Chef's Kiss* Anima was cool, she kinda looked like a mix of Laura and Samara. The Harbingers were neat, but really only bc ive got a thing for gas masks. The rest of the monsters werent really unique or weighty/threatening enough to be memorable. Now the first game is a fucking TREASURE TROVE of unique monsters *muah* you got Sadist, Sentinel, Keeper, Amalgam, Heresy, Laura, Shigyo, the Twins, Alter Egos, and im probably forgetting some!! But holy FUCK!!!!! And if we're includong the DLC?? MOTHER FUCKING SHADE. SPOTLIGHT LADY. LIGHT WOMAN. SEXY LEGS. Whatever you call her, i fucking love her. Her design is so simple. Helmet. Sheet. Legs. Her voice? Unnerving as hell. Love it. (Also i just personally love the diving helmet. Also like you know how a lot of games have a spotlight mechanic where you have to avoid the light and if it lands on you, you're fucked? LET'S MAKE AN ENTIRE MONSTER OUT OF THAT. She's PERFECT.) Oh and also those weird crawling exploding dudes. They made gross sounds and it was great. (Tbh Keepers still probably my favorite, if only for horny reasons)

TATIANA HOW HAVE I NOT FUCKING TALKED ABOUT TATIANA. Shes like the ONE female character that i fucking LOVE in the sequel. I love how they finally gave her a personality, and that personality is literally just "fuck you, Sebastian" Oh GOD its great shes SO FUNNY. I just.... god i love Tatiana lmao. I love how she makes you kinda uncomfortable too, like she knows something, but she wont tell you bc youre stupid. I didn't like the kind of "all-knowing guide" thing they did to try and make her creepy (like she's a "guide" but then also turns around and is like "no i wont tell you what you need to know bc you """have to discover it on your own""" or whatever") it serves no purpose since she never gave you any actual information, and it didn't succeed in making her creepier, all it did was frustrate me. She was at her creepiest when she IMPLIED she was doing something behind the scenes or knew something you didn't know and then didn't elaborate (not REFUSING to elaborate, just... stopping talking and leaving the statement to hang in the air, like the "getting her nails done" and "its been a long time, detective" and the "now what makes you say that" from the first game) and she was at her funniest when she was interacting with Sebastian from the sidelines, her snide little comments and sarcastic clapping cracked me the fuck up. Tatiana not treating Sebastian seriously was a fantastic touch for a game that otherwise would probably take itself so seriously it would double back around to being silly. Without Tatiana, it would've been just another male-centric gun-toting "survival horror" game, and for the most part, it was just that. She was definitely a much-needed source of slightly derisive comedy and a definite high-point for me, even if they didn't so a great job of making her creepy or fulfilling her "purpose."

Oh I also really love the COLORS in TEW2. The first game fell into the trap of having the colors be totally washed out that a lot of horror stuff does, but it also kind of worked for it. Especially with the color pallette of our main villain and how the whole thing was His World. The saturation of the colors in the second game is a breath of fresh air and gorgeous to look at, and you can even see the color motifs of the game change with each new villain: the game starts out with Stephano has lots of blues and purples and dark reds, when Theodore takes over we get bright orange and yellow contrasted with black and brown, and in the climax with Myra the game goes back to having washed out colors and white (and with her villain design? Let's face it: they were kinda just trying to do Ruvik again) We did get portions that were still kind of wahed out whites and greens and greys, but it wasnt the ENTIRE game, even the big blood-and-brains splatterhouse sections of the first game kinda had their colors weirdly muted for that "Horror Aethetic."

In conclusion, i do like the evil within 2, but i also had a lot of problems with it. And i complain about these problems because i like the game and know it couldve done better, tried harder, and been a LOT more than it was (the wasted character potential is my real overarching pet peeve, probably becuase i loved the characters in the first game, and character development is kind of my whole jam) . But all in all, it was still a fun monster-zombie romp with at least one entertaining villain and fun-to-look-at designs and environments. It wasn't character or horror or even REALLY story driven in the way I know it COULDVE been, but i still had a fun time and enjoyed myself.

#long post #875asks #anonymous #the evil within 2 #i couldnt put a readmore on a mobile post so you all have to suffer with me #my paragraph about stefano got cut out so i put it back in lol

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ruserious-hi · 6 years ago

Text

Chapter V

Summary: You’re entire life you had felt that you were special, like you were mean’t for something greater. You weren’t ordinary. You had a mother, friends. You were even at the top of your class. It wasn’t until your eighteenth birthday that you discovered you were right all along and yet wrong in so many ways.

A/N:

Although it was early in the morning, you couldn’t sit still as the doctor began sawing off your cast. Your tiredness had quickly faded as the excitement of finally being able to train since your wrist and ribs had healed sooner than the doctor expected.

The moment your cast came off and the doctor went through the spiel of physical therapy you had to do you ran back across from the medical wing to the main dormitory facility. When you got there, you found Sam sifting through the cabinets looking for who knows what. With a flick of your wrist, you shut the cabinet causing him to turn around in shock.

“Notice anything different?” you asked with a slight smirk on your face.

“Yeah. Someone ate the last bit of fruit loops and didn’t replace them. Was it you?” Sam retorted while crossing his arms and leaning against the counter.

You shook your head and rolled your eyes.

“No bird brain, do you notice anything different about me?” you said spinning around.

While you were spinning, Peter yawned as he walked into the room dressed in his Thor pajamas and looked right at your arm. His eyes lit up.

“It’s off?!?” exclaimed Peter. You nodded and he rushed over to you. With a nod of approval from you, he wrapped you in a hug. “Y/N, I’m so happy for you.”

“I think this calls for a celebration,” said Sam jumping away from the counter, forgetting all about his fruit loop fiasco. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. initiate SALMON protocol.”

“What’s salmon-”

Just as you were about to ask what SALMON was Party Up by DMX started blaring out of the speakers, rave lights began flashing, and confetti shot out from every direction. At that point, Sam grabbed your hand and started bopping up and down. Peter joined in and started running around and wooing.

Eventually, everyone else, curious to what the commotion was so early in the morning, ambled into the kitchen. First, it was Wanda and Vision. After congratulating you, Wanda tried to teach Vision how to dance to the music. It wasn’t going so well. Then Nat snuck in and started showing you some new moves. Steve, after attempting to scold Sam who was too distracted by chasing Peter to listen, retreated to the corner of the room where Bucky stood with a neutral expression as he took in the pandemonium of the moment.

Peter, in an attempt to escape Sam, was literally hanging from the ceiling.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. terminate SALMON protocol.”

The music stopped and the lights turned on which led to everyone freezing in their spot to find a stone-faced Tony.

“Sam how many times do I have to tell you not to initiate, you know what, unless it is for a special occasion.”

“It is a special occasion,” he retorted. “Y/N over here has a clean bill of health.”

Everyone wooed and patted you on your back. You couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll allow it. Clean this up Wilson and Y/N,” he said. “I need to check to confirm with the doctor. Then you and I need to have a little chat.”

After your nod of agreement, Tony spun around and left the room with a trace of a smile on his face.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. you know what to do,” Sam exclaimed.

And everyone began celebrating again.

As you let the joy of the moment vibrating throughout the room flow through your veins, for just a few minutes the pain and suffering that weighed heavily on your heart was lifted. It was just you and a bunch of bad-ass heroes dancing your hearts out.

While everyone went to train after your early morning celebration, you found yourself sitting on your bed doodling in a notebook Steve had given you.

That’s when you felt a vibration at your door. It was from Tony. With a flick of your wrist, you swung open the door.

“Hey, Tony.”

“Hey, Sparky.” Entering the room, Tony closed the door and sat at the foot of your bed. “I’ve got good news and bad-ish news. Which do you want first?”

You pondered for a minute. While looking at Tony, you could tell something was weighing heavily on him. “Bad.”

“Good choice,” he sighed. “Well, you healed much faster than the doctor expected.”

“This is bad news?” you questioned.

“Well, I did say bad-ish. We, the doctor and I, think there might be something in your blood. Like Cap and Bucky.”

You were confused, “What’s in their blood?”

“Well Steve got his powers through a serum my Dad was involved in creating. It takes all human abilities and turns it up to the max,” he explained. “We think you might have some variation, of course not the exact thing, because that was all destroyed in the 40s.”

“Then how did Bucky get all those same powers,” you questioned.

“HYDRA,” he said shortly before coughing and diverting the conversation away from Bucky. “Anyway. Our current theory is that HYDRA was dampening this power, which is why you didn’t heal immediately, so we want to run a few tests on your blood to see what’s in it and also to keep a close eye on you to see if anything else manifests.”

“Okay.”

“Are you sure? If you don’t want to know, you don’t have to. It’s up to you.”

“It’s okay. I want to know everything. And if part of that means finding what’s running through my blood and the full extent of what HYDRA did to me. I’m ready.”

Grabbing Tony’s hand, you sent a feeling of reassurance to Tony.

“Alright,” popping up off your bed, he pointed at your feet. “Then throw some shoes on. We’re going on a field trip.”

As you sat on the chair with a U.V. sticking out pulling the blood trickle out of your body, you asked Tony who was standing across from you with his arms crossed, “So what was the good news?”

“Oh, right,” adjusting the sleeves of his shirt. “Training. You’ve been sitting around locked in your room for most of the few weeks you’ve been here and I haven’t said anything because you were injured, but that’s no longer an excuse. Nat has been bugging me about training you to fight. Something about your magic fingers not being enough to protect yourself and ya da ya - but I agree. I think it would be good for you. What do you think?”

You nodded, “Yeah. I think it would be cool. I always wanted to learn karate, but I was always so busy with school and my mom never took me when I was little so it was just one of those things always in the back of my mind, like learning to do a backflip.”

Tony raised an eyebrow looking out the window, “Well, I can tell you now. Nat teaching you to fight will be tough. If you didn’t have such a fast rate of healing, I would say get ready for puking and bruises. And I am sure your pal Mr. Parker can teach you to do a back-flip he does it all the time.”

Finally, the doctor pulled the U.V. out of your arm and gave you an Elmo bandaid.

“The tests should be back in an hour or so. Tony, I’ll have F.R.I.D.A.Y. send you the results as soon as I get them.”

“Thanks, doc,” you followed Tony out of the room.

“What now?” you asked.

“We wait,” he said as he strode down the hall, you tailing behind him. “But first I want to show you my lab.”

“Cool.”

You felt like you were walking forever. For a place full of maybe the highest tech in America, it was strange that it took so long to get to-. Wait. Something wasn’t right.

You paused, but Tony kept marching forward. Looking at each of the doors, you tried to trace this unknown vibration that set off an alarm in your mind. Your heart rate picked up. It wasn’t coming from next to you, but above you? But this was the top floor...

“Hey Tony?” whirling around, he finally noticed that you stopped following him. Hesitantly, you continued, “I - I think there is someone in your vents.”

Tony rolled his eyes, “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

“Smoke him.”

“As you wish, Mr. Stark.”

That’s when gas started pouring out of the vents. Coughing and stepping to the side, a figure came crashing out of one of the openings in the ceiling and landed perfectly in front of Tony.

“Damn it, Wanda,” the figure said. “I thought we went over not snitching on me.”

“It wasn’t Wanda,” Tony said pointing at you.

As the smoke began to fade giving a clearer image, you saw an older man with short blonde hair. He looked at you with confusion.

“Who’s this?” he loudly whispered to Tony.

Walking back up to Tony, you replied for him, “Y/N Y/LN. And you are?”

“Clint... and why are you here?”

“Because I am. Why are you here?”

Tony looked from you to Clint reveling in the weirdness of this interaction, “Yeah. I would like to know that too. Why are you in my vents - Clint? I thought when you retired we’d be free of you.”

“Uh what? Why am I being interrogated? And no one told you about me? This just isn’t right,” he argued to two amused people completely unfazed by his little rant. “Ok. Fine. I left something in your lab BEFORE I retired that I really need and I knew if I told you guys I was coming to pick it up you would do something extravagant for your favorite pal Hawkeye, so I figured I’d sneak in grab it and get out.”

“Bold of you to assume we’d be that excited about your presence,” Tony fired back.

With his hand held to his chest in defense, Clint reacted, “I leave for two seconds and you’ve already forgotten and replaced me.”

Tony patted him in the shoulder as all three of you proceeded to the lab, “You know I’m just messing with you pal. Good to see you, man. How’s the wife and kids?”

“Pretty good. Laura has been keeping me busy and the kids have been doing well in school,” he responded then turned to you. “Did they really not tell you about me?”

“Yup.”

“I’m going to have to have a chat with Nat. What about Banner and Thor? Did they say anything about them?”

You shook your head.

“That makes me feel, slightly better. So what brings you here to Avengerville Y/N Y/LN?” Clint asked as Tony placed his hand on a portion of the wall. Tony stopped to signal Clint to stop asking questions.

Glancing at Tony, you told him it was okay as you all walked into the lab.

“Kidnapped by H.Y.D.R.A., saved by the Avengers, and had nowhere else to go.”

Clint looked at Tony, “So you adopted another one?”

Tony was moving some parts around on a large metal table, “You know I can’t help myself, Clint.”

Clint laughed, “Alright, well it was nice meeting you Y/N. Welcome to the Avengers. Now I better go see at least Nat or else she’ll be pissed I visited and didn’t say hi.”

Clint then quietly walked out of the room as you waved goodbye. “That guy is weird.”You noted to Tony.

“We’re all a little weird,” observed Tony as he sat down on a metal stool. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

Sitting next to him, he waved his arms and a computer screen projected into the air. On the display was your picture from the day the Avengers rescued. You looked so different than you did today. Your skin looked suctioned to your face that was smudged with dirt and a faint purplish bruising. But what you noticed the most was how sad you looked and it reminded you how sad and lost you felt then. I feeling you didn’t want to remember. You couldn’t look at it too long, so you started looking at other parts of the screen.

“As you can tell we don’t have much,” Tony interrupted. “Still nothing on your Mom, but the team has been looking into some known HYDRA facilities that we hope might be able to extract information about your mom and or you.”

Your mom. You hadn’t thought about her in a while. Did she miss you? Was she looking for you? Was she still alive?

“Why are you spending so much time on me?” you wondered out loud, your eyes glued to the floor. “Don’t you have the world to save? I mean. I’m just one person and you don't even really know me...”

Tony looked at you with a concerned expression as if you just insulted him.

“You’re not just one person. You’re Y/N Y/LN. And we might have just happened upon you in that HYDRA facility, but as soon as Barnes rescued you, you became our responsibility. But more importantly you became a part of our family and that means we take care of each other.”

“And I am sure everyone else would say the same thing.”

“Mr. Stark. The doctor has sent the report. It appears your theory was correct. Miss Y/LN has traces of the serum found in Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes.”

“Thank you, F.R.I.D.A.Y.” glancing at you Tony stated, “Well, that’s one mystery solved.”

“I got to get some work done here. I’ll let Nat know she can start whipping you into shape tomorrow. Go rest up, kiddo. You’ll be out kicking ass in no time and we’ll be right beside you.”

Taking that as your cue to leave, you commented before you left the room, “Thanks, Tony. And in case no one has told you lately, you’re kind of the best person ever.”

Tony smirked and waved you off, “I know. Now go play with Peter or something!”

“For someone with super serum running through you’re blood you sure are slow,” Nat commented as you sat leaning against the wall chugging water and dripping in sweat.

After getting cleared for training yesterday, Nat decided to dive right into a mile run. It didn’t help that the effects of the serum dampener HYDRA had used on you still hadn’t taken full effect yet.

“Hey,” you said between labored breaths. “I went. From no movement. To a mile. And my body. Is not liking that.”

Standing up you started stretching and flailing around to loosen up. Everyone else, with the exception of Bucky and Cap who were sparring at the opposite side of the training facility, had already finished their training earlier.

“I’ll let you pull that card now, Y/N,” Nat replied. “But next week I’m not taking any excuses.”

“Tony was right,” you said while stretching. “You are tough.”

Nat’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow, but you could feel her heart warming at that compliment.

“Enough chit chat,” Nat declared. “It’s time to learn to fight.”

Jumping up and down, you started swinging your arms back and forth making a whooshing noise as you followed Nat to the sparring mats, you said confidently, “Okay. I’m ready.”

Lining up across from Nat, she stated, “Come at me.”

You looked at the five-foot-seven assassin. Oh god. What did you get yourself into? You tried to think of how to approach this. Should you go straight at her? Walk around? Throw a punch?

Fuck it. You were just going to go for it and hope for the best.

With a deep breath, you charged forward.

And the weirdest thing happened. The moment you charged forward everything clicked. You no longer saw Nat. Instead, you saw an enemy. Someone who you needed to take out. In a swift motion, you dodged the enemy’s first attack. That was all you needed to take them out. Crashing into the enemy’s exposed waistline, you lunged forward flipping yourself around the attacker causing them to lose their balance. Using the momentum from the forward roll, you swept them off their feet. This was your chance to secure them. In one quick motion, you landed heavy on their trapped body using your legs to secure them to the ground helpless. Raising your left hand above your head-

“DAMN Y/N!”

You turned your head in the direction to find Peter eyes wide holding what looked to be a bag of chips. Looking down you noticed a shocked Nat and then your right fist raised above your head and ready to strike.

“Oh my god,” jumping off Nat, your heart racing at a million beats per seconds. You knelt next to Nat who was still laying on the ground groaning. Was it hot in here? What the hell just happened? “Are you okay?”

Peter’s shout had attracted the attention of Steve and Bucky. Steve was now kneeling across from you on the other side of Nat while Peter and Bucky stood off to the side

“I’m fine,” Nat grunted as Steve helped her up, who then turned to look at you with a raised brow. “But someone’s been lying on their resumé.”

Steve looked between you two quizzically, “What do you mean?”

“Y/N over here did a little whoosh,” Peter demonstrated what he saw to Cap and Bucky. “And then BAM Nat was on the ground and Y/N was about to knock her out.”

That’s when all eyes turned to you.

Raising your hands, you pleaded, “I honestly have no idea how this happened. It was like someone else was holding the strings and I was just along for the ride. I’ve literally never fought a person before in my life, so this makes zero sense to me.”

“HYDRA,” Bucky asserted looking directly at Steve. “They probably trained her to fight and wiped her memory of it.”

“That would explain the aggressive fighting tactics Y/N used. I haven’t seen that kind of fighting since, well, you Barnes,” noted Natasha. “Whatever this is, Y/N, you need to learn how to control it.”

“Agreed,” Steve concurred. “Y/N, you need both hands on the wheel before you can continue any training.”

“But-”

“Someone could get hurt, including you,” Steve explained.

“Okay,” you accepted. As a silence took of the five of you.

“I can help Y/N,” Peter offered shyly raising his hand.

“Sorry. Bad idea Peter. If Y/N can take Nat down at a snap of her fingers, then you have no chance,” Steve pointed out.

“What about Barnes?” Nat prodded. “He’s been through it and knows how to snap out of it. It only makes sense.”

“What? No.” Barnes protested.

“She’s got a point.”

Barnes looked angrily and motioned Steve off to the side. Walking to the other side of the room, Bucky started whispering angrily at Steve.

“I wonder what they’re talking about,” Peter pondered as he offered you a chip.

“Probably 100 excuses why he doesn’t want to help me.”

Poking you, Peter continued “Hey don’t say that. It’s not your fault.”

“Bucky’s always like that, Y/N,” Nat confirmed. “Alone and brooding. But don’t worry it’s only temporary. Once you’re in control I will happily be your sparring partner.”

“How come you never offered to spar with me?” Peter questioned. As the two spider heroes began an innocent quarrel, you tried to focus in on the argument across the room. The only thing you caught Bucky saying was, “but it’s her.” What was that suppose to mean?

Before you could unpack all that, Steve must have won that argument because they were both walking back towards the three of you and only one stopped while the other angrily marched out the door.

“He’ll do it,” Steve reassured as he watched the door close behind the brooding soldier. “And don’t worry. He’ll come around.”

“If you say so.”

You could really feel the love tonight.

After the training incident, you retreated to your room to take a shower while Peter ran off to go tell Tony what happened.

Peeling off the sweat-soaked clothing, you hopped into the shower. As the warm water rushed over your skin, everything that happened at the training facility resurfaced.

But your feelings toward it were very murky. On one hand, you could kick some serious ass, which could come in handy if HYDRA or any other bad guys came after you again. But then again, you didn’t have any control over it and it wasn’t like you could summon it on command. Then with that came working with Bucky, the human form of a brick wall. How was he suppose to help you? He seems to already have problems of his own to deal with.

As you dried off and put a fresh pair of clothes and fuzzy yellow socks, you heard a knock at the door.

“Come in!”

“Hey girl!” said a cheerful Wanda. “Sam and Peter are starting a game of Life so they sent me up here to see if you wanted to join? I am playing too and Steve.”

“Sure.”

“So I heard about this morning,” Wanda prodded in the elevator ride down.

“Word travels fast here,” you commented.

“I blame Peter,” Wanda quipped. “He’s like your number one fan. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t already made an action figure of you and started playing with it. I just can’t imagine what will happen when he meets Thor.”

“Who is Thor by the way? That guy who lives in your vents mentioned him.”

Wanda laughed at that as you walked out of the elevator, “Thor he’s a god from Asgard.”

“Where is Asgard? Never heard of it.”

“It’s in a whole other dimension.” “Another dimension?”

“Yup. He has lightning powers and is super strong and handsome. He comes to Earth and helps us often and his adopted brother tried to take over the world.”

“ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT THOR?” Peter shouted excitedly from across the room. Sam, who was sitting next to him, smacked is arm putting him back in his seat.

“Oh good. We set him off,” Wanda whispered to you.

“Yup. But now we’re not,” you replied.

“Aww, okay,” mourned a disappointed Peter. “Well. Who’s ready to play?”

When the game ended with Steve winning and Sam ranting about losing his job as a doctor, everyone said goodnight and went their respective ways. Yawning as you stepped off the elevator, you noticed a small yellow sticky note on your door. Upon closer inspection, the black ink scrawled on the little yellow paper read:

Meet me at the training facility. ~ B.B.

You gently removed the note from the door. Your bed would have to wait.

#avengers x reader #Bucky barnes x reader #marvel #mcu

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thatyanderecritic · 6 years ago

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Deathless

Title: Deathless

Media: Book, Author: Catherynne Valente

Yandere(s): Koschei the Deathless (Or as Julie and I like to call him: “Kosher”)

Yandere Scale: 1/5 (Julie: 0/5)

Criticism written by: Kai

Editor: Julie

Before we begin, Julie and I have two different views on this book. To keep things clean, I did the review while Julie did an analysis; which you can read here.

The Review:

Sigh… Kai here, back with another review. This time I’ll be reviewing the confusing and difficult to follow novel: Deathless. Bear with me as we go down this rabbit hole of a review.

Now booting Kai 2.0 … Version: Salty

Deathless is a story about… uh… Deathless is a tale about a girl named Marya (Mary? Maria? Idk how to pronounce any of these Russian names if it’s not Ivan or Dimitri.) who get whisked away by the tsar of life: Kosher- I mean Koschei and become his wife. In the beginning of the book, Marya was seduced by Koshei and his magical lifestyle. After succeeding in the three tasked made by Baba Yaga (yeah, IDFK. Apparently the Baba Yaga and Koschei are siblings), Baba Yaga gives her blessing to Marya and Koschei’s wedding. But Marya was warned that she would leave Koschei in the future and fall in love with a man named Ivan. Marya swears that’ll never happen; she’ll kill Ivan and eat his heart. Immediately starting in part 2, Marya falls in love with Ivan in the middle of fighting a war with Koschei’s brother (IDFK man, this shit is hard to follow). Marya runs away with Ivan and together they suffer in hunger and poverty. Koschei goes running to Marya and begs for her to take him back. Marya locks Koschei up in her basement (fuck man, I’m so lost) and had Ivan promise to never look in the basement. For a time, things seem to be well with Marya fucking Koschei in the day and banging Ivan at night. But Ivan, being a nosy motherfucker, looks in the basement and discovers Koschei. After Koschei tricks Ivan to give him some water to drink, Koschei regain his magic and kidnaps Marya. Now in part 3 (the final part), Marya and Koschei are living a happy married life in a small Russian town with happy villagers. Things are going swimmingly till Marya gives birth to a little girl… that little girl being the embodiment of Koschei’s death. Koschei died and Marya is freed. Turns out that Koschei had the two of them trapped in a peaceful dream within an egg. But the thing is, Koschei’s death is hidden within an egg… which is why he died (Don’t look at me, I’m fucking tripping as it is as I’m recalling the story). Now back in the real world, Marya looks for Ivan; who was dying from old age. After watching Ivan die, Marya moves on and discovers a town like the town in the dream. There, all her fairytale friends are living there as humans.Only the Baba Yaga recalls Marya and explains how Koschei’s brother won the war and turn all the mystical into the normal. Koschei is still alive in the village and Marya decided to visit him to see if he remembers her… I guess. The ending is ambiguous.

Anyways… what the fuck did I just read? Well… Julie and I technically didn’t read the full novel. Our knowledge comes from a combination of: an 11 hour audiobook of Deathless (which we didn’t finish because we were confused as fuck), the wikipedia summary, two reviews on Deathless, and the actual hard copy of the actual book (which we didn’t finish because we were confused as fuck). Let me just complain here and say this book is damn near unreadable and almost unintelligible. First, people talk as if they’re the goddamn Riddler from Batman. Characters were unable to straight up say what they mean, phrases have double meaning, and it was like reading the writings of Dr. Seuss’s less talented brother. Descriptions were just a fucking pain in the ass to comprehend. Everything about this book was a fucking mental gymnastics. Julie and I had to stop every five minutes to decode what the hell is going on.

You see that? All that flowery words bullshit? Marya is just throwing up. JUST SAY SHE’S THROWING UP AND MOVE ON. CHRIST. It took Julie and I three minutes to figure out what this description was suppose to be about. And this was one of the easier descriptions. It doesn’t even help that the story itself is just plain nonsensical. It felt like I was reading the words of the author after she puked out alphabet soup. Already, Deathless was basis on a Russian folktale that was already wild. With the combination of awful dialogue and confusing description, it was just a maze of a book to traverse.

I get some people will argue with me that this is a good book. For one, I probably just don’t understand it because it’s not my culture. Sure, you might be right. But so is the author… Catherynne is an American. Not Russian. Besides, the original folktale that Deathless is based on was easier to follow than this crap. Next argument some might have is that “Deathless is too sophisticated for your simple mind to handle.” No. It’s not. It’s ridiculously complicated for no reason. Complicated does not mean well written. There is nothing wrong with writing something simpler… you’re trying to create a novel that all adults regardless of age can understand. Truth be told, the writing in Deathless reminds me of the stuff you’ll find in creative writing class. This sort of story would get notes everywhere saying “Less description. More action” or “What do you mean? Clarify.” You're not the next Da Vinci code but a storyteller. Can’t tell a story if it ain’t readable. To compare this book, I would compare it to those research papers you would read in college. Lots of information but written by someone who’s trying to sound smart.

Moving on from my bitching, let’s talk about the one thing people care about the most: the yandere and characters. Based on what Julie and I were able to figure out, Koschie is the supposive yandere here. First let’s talk about him. Besides talking like the chester cat from Alice in Wonderland, Koschie was a surprisingly passionate guy who really cares about Marya. The best scenes with Koschie are the scenes when he isn’t talking and just physically showing his physical affections for Marya (lol). You know the phrase: “You look better with your mouth closed”? That fits perfectly for Koschie. Koschie’s physical interactions with Marya is the only straightforward thing with this entire novel.It was the rain in a desert. Anyways… even though Koschie was a passionate guy, it doesn’t make him a yandere. He breaks many of our rules… but the biggest one he broke was that Koschie still fucks other women besides Marya and keeps a collection of his past wives in a factory. I know the anon explains that these wives were actually Marya in another cycle? But honestly, it doesn’t change anything for us. Btw, anon, you’re seriously a champion for figuring that out. Julie and I did not know at all that this was supposed to be a cycle at all. Shit… I feel like we’re a part of game theory for trying to figure out what this author even means. Spoiler alert: If you have to do a conspiracy theory on your novel, your book ain’t that great.

Sorry… back to Koschie. Anyways, Koschie says some pretty words here and there. He sounds pretty yandere on paper… I guess. But Koschie bangs other chicks and lets Marya bang other dudes too on the side. Sure, I guess this is a progressive poly relationship. Good for them. But poly relationship plus yandere? It just doesn’t mix. This ain’t it chief. Koschie skims on the edge of being a yandere and being not a yandere. Sure he kidnaps Marya, kill some dudes that have the name Ivan, and say some possessive shit to her, but the actions just doesn’t line up. I don’t know… with the cycle theory in play here, I just see Koschie as a broken man who’s trying to reclaim control over his life. Not exactly a yandere per say. Like imagine: getting cuckold by some normal human, over and over again. Shit, I would go crazy too. I feel really bad for Koschie for falling in love with/having a wife like Marya. Apparently, Koschie and Marya are the same type of people but idk man… Marya is kinda of a crazy bitch too.

I’ll just briefly talk about Marya now. As we all know, a female lead defines a yandere. And Marya? Yikes man. I don’t know where to start with her. First off, Marya somehow managed to be both smart and stupid at the same time. We see that she’s clever enough to solve Baba Yaga’s tasks but she so goddamn stupid. Because of her curiosity, she’s extremely meddlesome and got Koschie almost killed even though he told her not to fuck with the egg… yet she fucks with the egg anyways. Then we jump to part two where Marya is more jaded and blames Koschie for all her misfortune (Idk). It’s not like he did anything bad to her. Honestly, reading their interactions, Koschie has been nothing but a gentleman to her. Besides the fact he bangs other women and like to do some weird power play on Marya, he’s pretty chill. If anything, she brought her own misfortune herself. She chased after Koschie because she’s fascinated by magic and wanted to be part of that world. Now that she’s part of that world, she doesn’t want to bare the burden of it anymore and return back with the humans; with Ivan. Btw, Marya wanted to sort of “keep” both Ivan and Koschie at the same time (because she’s thirsty). I mean… I get the sentiment, but Koschie literally stated that he wasn’t comfortable with that but Marya had her bitchy mode where she scratched Koschie and told him not to talk to her in that way (Weird flex but okay?). Ivan wasn’t cool with the arrangement either, hence why Marya left with Ivan. But oh the irony. Marya left with Koschie to avoid suffering, hunger, and fascination for magic but now with Ivan, Marya returned back to a life of suffering, hunger, and the normal. Again, more irony, Marya and Ivan have a fight because of their lifestyle. This is the part where Koschie comes begging at her door. And Marya, only being able to think with her vagina now, bangs Koschie and locks him in her basement. Just like how Koschie did a weird power play over Marya, Marya now does a power play over Koschie. One of the more fucked up lines Marya said to Koschie was along the lines of, “Lol. Look at you. Trapped in my basement… waiting for my attention while you abandon the war outside.” Like mega yikes my dude. I know Julie and I asked for a twisted female protagonist, but we asked for a relatable twisted female protagonist. Not… this. I guess Marya is strong? But… weird. Honestly… I lost any relatability with Marya the minute she started bouncing between Ivan and Koschie. And with how… sadistic she became towards the end, I don’t blame Koschie’s action. That’s a broken man with possible stockholm syndrome at this point.

Anyways… to summarize… I don’t know what I just read. Story is confusing. Characters are weird. I just have a bunch of puzzle pieces in my hand and a couple of yandere like lines. I suppose I can appreciate Koschie as an aesthetic. He says some pretty neat things, physically sounds sexy, and does some yandere like actions. So… I give him one yandere pity point for the attempt.... He might have shine better if the story was actually good.

Overall score: 1/10

#deathless #catherynne m. valente #book #novel #male yandere #yandere #review #opinion

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astroellipse · 4 years ago

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live blogging but it’s all one post and not actually live at all. this one is really long open at your own peril.

This has to be one of my favorite cutscenes in the game... I skipped most of the cutscenes in this questline with “Tsuyu” and whatever else went on because I don’t care for it, aside from some funny Asahi bits. And this cutscene is the KING of funny Asahi scenes, him just getting straight up murdered. It’s even funnier the second time around because now I realize... he was never actually acknowledged by Zenos. That was Elidibus controlling his body, simply using Asahi’s devotion for his own devices. And I realize now that Elidibus was trying to back up Emet-Selch’s own carefully laid plans, which... is something to keep in mind for later. I can’t wait to see more of Fandaniel later I love his/Asahi’s voice actor. And I know it’s fairly negative in this case but I can’t help but enjoy the campy villains...

And now I can finally stop skipping cutscenes! I realize I just now skipped the part where Alphinaud set out on his doomed journey to Garlemald, but... man I didn’t want to hear Gosetsu cry about Tsuyu I just hate that plot point so much. They really shoulda just let them die.

Oh my god I forgot that Gosetsu is bald now. I know it’s like a tradition thing and serious and everything but. Hhhh he looks so silly without it... Doesn’t help that it lets you see the outlines of all the polygons comprising his head...

Oh man I appear to have gotten events swapped around. Is it now that we see that energy source on the Azim Steppe? We’re about to go and put up that barrier in the Brume, which I’m pretty sure i thought came after ShB for whatever reason. I think I’ve mentioned it in a previous post... though that one I also think I deleted for an unrelated reason, I think because I was tired and got some details wrong and in my frustration and exhaustion threw the whole thing out. I’ll have to write down those particular thoughts again, after I see whatever it is that’s about to happen.

Oh man. i wonder if Hien doesn’t realize that Y’shtola is blind. They get to the Azim Steppe and he’s immediately like “Let me show you my favorite spot where you can see the pretty fields and sky :)” and she returns with “Yeah yeha okay let’s get on with what we came here to do”. Very funny. Actually Hien and Y’shtola are in general very funny together I like seeing him react to her talking to him like he’s an idiot.

So, the legend goes that a “wayfaring soul” came to the Steppe and received a sliver of Nhaama’s power in the form of a shard, and used it to cleft the earth and raise it to the heavens to avert calamity, then made an offering of blood. The sliver of power is Allagan technology, which was used to raise Azys Lla and create Dalamud. The dialogue has been very particular about referring to the person in this story as “wayfaring soul” and not shorter synonyms like “traveler”, which i think is probably deliberate? Especially with this now being the lead-up to ShB.

I guess now would be a good time to re-write some of my thoughts about the Steppe. It is not an original theory that Azim the god and Azem the ancient are related if not one in the same. They are both light, and related to travel. The WoL is expressly referred to as a traveler by Cirina’s grandmother, and iirc Azem is as well. Azim descended from the heavens to walk amongst his children, who are all nomadic. If they do have a relation, then the people of the Azim Steppe might be thought of as Azem’s people. I say this because I’ve been wondering why the Empire hasn’t touched the Azim Steppe, the real reason. The Xaela would make incredibly useful conscripts, and could be easily trounced by a suitably large magitek army during any one of their squabbles, or I’m sure the Empire could destabilize them in any other way. And that isn’t even to mention the large energy source hidden away in its cliffs, which have to be giving off some kind of signal. I wonder if the Empire ignoring the Steppe has anything to do with Solus and his sentiment for Azem.

I suppose I should actually get on with re-seeing this part, then.

God. I love y’shtola the bit with Magnai is so good. The voice acting. He sounds so hurt with his “Little...?”. “Look into my eyes” She’s blind you absolute dumbass.

Alright. Well. I didn’t actually gleam anything new. We’re about to go into the meeting sequence and. God. This is another one of my favorite cutscenes in the game. the visual effect used to represent the WoL’s soul being torn from their body is so cool... I wonder which outfit I should wear? I’ve changed all of them I think since uploading screenshots last. AST is cute and what I’ve been using for the last few quests to soak what little exp I can, but... this is a bit too serious for a cute healer in a skirt and glasses, plus the collar on the shirt would cover his face in some of the shots... DRG it is again then, I guess. It has sort of taken over as my primary class. I enjoy playing it more than BRD :\

“Let us hope that the coming meeting passes more peacably than the last such gathering in ala Mhigo” jfc Y’shtola. Hhhhhooooo here we go!!!!!!! Hhhhh I love Alisaie I remember this was the part that solidified her as precious little sister numero uno.... god... the scene where she gets taken away I’m already nearly tearing up I love Shadowbringers man holy shit.

Raha you dumbass!!!!! Endangering everyone like that. Literally takes five tries before he gets it right, and trying to explain everything while the WoL can’t rightly hear. I know he’s desperate but goddamn dude. Just. God. I’m so excited. I’m excited to see Urianger get to be an actual character again. I’m excited for the Scions to actually care about each other and especially the WoL. Also to see Doran grapple with these troubles as Secret did, finally finally learning why the hell he’s here, what Secret is and what he is, and... coming to terms with it. He was excited when it first happened, before his memory was sapped, mostly a product of being fused with Secret for so long without a will of his own, but... after experiencing all this, seeing these people as his friends. Learning to accept his place in the story much more easily than Secret...

There’s a reason I’ve kept the title “The Last Resort” on him. It’s for my own purposes. Secret has still not accepted that she as a person, though not her soul was created for the sole purpose of being a hero. If she can’t accept this in time... she might resort to letting Doran take the reins. Forfeiting her personhood altogether. This path would rely on unofficial lore about Fantasia, about how it warps reality to make it so that you were always this race or that... I might actually do it, too. I’ve done more things right with Doran, and I have friends on this server. I... suppose Secret would take Doran’s place in my personal narrative then. Which. Feels bad. Like a disservice to Secret, though... I suppose it doesn’t have to be. At this point Doran is still no less relevant to her. Secret will have simply gotten literally washed away with her memories.

I’m uh. Starting to think I might be too attached to Secret. The thought of having her not be my main character, of neglecting her in any way, of having to make this choice is. Making me genuinely emotional... though I suppose I’ve seen enough people on here talk about how they cry about ocs and whatnot.

Anyhow. I think I might change Doran’s hairstyle for Shadowbringers. might make it longer. It seems only appropriate, it having been so long... and something more elegant would be fitting. Maybe I’ll finally find and settle on an AST glam that is suitably pretty. I adore my current one for how cute it is but it doesn’t exactly fit ShB’s vibes.

Oh wait back to serious stuff. It’s funny that Lyse didn’t get called. G’raha explained it as the people closest to the WoL were called, and... for even Urianger to be called and not Lyse. It has funny implications.

MAN....... WHY does this game put Alisaie through so much :(((((((( Endwalker had BETTER give her and Alphinaud some damn good development like they implied. LET THE WoL BE THEIR OLDER SIBLING OR SOMETHING...... The WoL and Alphinaud were so good together during HW, and then them and Alisaie in this sequence and a few other scenes before now and during ShB but... it just doesn’t feel like it’s there during ShB, not with all the other adult characters around.

Granted I do this with every kid in this game. I saw Myste and even before I knew what their deal was it was just

this plays in my head every single time i see a kid. Let me adopt Unukalhai. Game. Game I am demanding now let the WoL care about others. That poor kid has just been sitting in the Solar for two entire expansions then some, and not even as a result of being a necessary quest npc stuck in a time bubble like Urianger’s double in the Waking Sands like he’s aware of what’s going on. I... actually imagine he might be relevant in Endwalker. Reaper comes with your very own voidsent, which means the void will be relevant again which might mean Unukalhai will be relevant!!! At the very least to the Reaper questline, if it has one.

Continuing the story again. Actually you know what LET THE WOL HUG THEIR FUCKING FRIENDS!!! It wouldn’t take THAT long to set it up for each different race which I assume is what keeps them from having the WoL physically interacting with much of anything but it would be SO GOOD!!! IT WOULD BE WORTH IT!!! I wanna give Alisaie a hug she’s suffering so much :(

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH IT’S HIM HIM HIM HIM IT’S EMET-SELCH FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES! HELL YES I’VE BEEN WAITING!!!!!!!!!I forgot he was introduced here!!!!!!!!!!! It sounds like his voice actor hasn’t settled into his voice yet at this point though :0 And his theme!!! i love his theme I thought it was so weird at first but it’s fitting...

Oh my god did they not update Varis’s model since his debut? Look at this shit

Why are his pupils square... and blown up as it is on my screen it’s like... i can see individual splotches of color on his texture??? Incomparison Emet-Selch’s eyes are still sharp up close and instead of weird splotchy skin you can see individual pores. I just. Why. Didn’t they update him???

OH LMAO RIGHT AND THEN VARIS JUST SHOOTS HIM! GOD. And the FACE they have him make. Emet-Selch is such a good character.

Actually I’ve decided that Garleans are just ugly. I think that’s just it actually.

And then there’s... Black Rose, was it called? This would be confusing to see if you didn’t do those sidequests in Gyr Abania. Granted they were to unlock aether currents but I imagine plenty of people skipped them. This would have been a very abrupt introduction, and it loses relevance so soon after...

Hmm. With the story bringing back what I now realize are forgotten/resolved tidbits about the Empire, I can’t help but wonder if they’ll bring back the Optimates, what with us finally seeing the Garlemald in person in Endwalker. They would make for a good enough rival faction.

I have... changed Doran’s hair... it’s really just his old hairstyle but longer, the highlights are even in the same place though they’re fainter. He has gone through subtle changes between expansions. First I changed his lips to a darker color, flip flopping between not wearing lipgloss to a peach color then to as dark as you can get without wearing actual lipstick. Then I changed his eyebrows, still short but angled slightly downwards. And now his hair is long... the implication is that he’s let it grow out over time. It looks nice with most of his outfits, even plays nice with DRG’s hood, though as I expected my previous AST glam is a no-go. It actually looks cute from the front but it sticks right through them hem in the back and we can’t have that.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh may have just spent 800k gil on a nice shirt. On the bright side my AST glam is now just about as pretty as I can get it. I took the vibe I liked from the old one and now Doran’s a little... uh... maybe I shouldn’t have given him long hair.....

Ah shit I haven’t put together a GNB glam yet and I’m running low on funds... the only reason I could even afford that shirt was bc one of my fc members gave me and the only other guy that was on 1mil one night at random :| I really like the current glam but... it’s too cartoony for ShB!!!! hhhhhhhh Maybe I’ll be able to utilize some of the next Scion set once I get it...

hhh back to story... there’s this person in my FC that’s super talkative, but 56 and married and getting into over-sharing territory :| not like... weird oversharing but man I don’t need to know you get hives that was unprompted. Chill otherwise and it IS like 12 but wtv.

Aw man if that guy in the most recent trailer really was the twins’ dad then no wonder Alphinaud is out here looking to make any man who’s nice to him out as a father figure. There’s Estinien, Arenvald, now Gaius... and you might count Urianger and Thancred, and maybe the WoL.

Oh, Ascian lore! There’s a hierarchy. Red masks stand above black, already knew this. Those joined to the Source stand above those adrift in the shard. I don’t think I would have understood this the first time.

“A silent agent of death... Now that I think on it, Black Rose may well possess the perfect aspect.” I... is this him pondering whether this is how the Calamity will take shape, or deciding it?

Oh I really don’t like Varis’s voice acting. I’m glad he dies soon. Although, that “... It was by design!?” was pretty good. So is that information that Garlemald is an Ascian construction is absolutely hilarious, as is Emet-Selch toying with Varis.

OH. Emet-Selch has all these clones because Varis choose him as a test subject while messing around with Allagan cloning technology. I thought for some reason that the clones had been Emet-Selch’s doing.

“I’ve a feeling this won’t be the last time his bravery in the Empire will serve us here in Eorzea.” Said by Raubahn about Alphinaud setting back Black Rose production. Probably obvious foreshadowing for Endwalker.

Sharlyan... attempted to negotiate peace with the Empire? That’s not exactly surprising, though it is still new to me. Tucked in optional standing-around dialogue from Alisaie

Oh my GOD I hate Varis and his idiot hat. This scene is so uncomfortable and not just because I have to hear Varis speak. All of the city-state leaders act like monumental shitheads just to create tension and let Varis put them down it’s stupid. You idiots you’re supposed to be engaging in peace talks not venting about the Empire. Put aside your pride and play parley with the single most hated man in the world. It’s literally all just to stall for time, why would they do any of this. And oh my god, who even let Aymeric speak here. He brings up his stupid little battle with the dragons or his daddy issues at every opportunity. Yes yes we all played Heavensward but I can assure you it was not for its politics or message about war. Like yeah that whole ordeal ended terribly. We just killed the evil people/dragons and that was that. Solved purely through force.

Hhhh I forgot about this. That Varis AGREED with the Ascians. “There will be but one race--a perfect race--as we were when time began.” HHghghh. Oh right and he freely admits the bit about Garlemald being built by an Ascian.

Hm. Currently the Ascians’ plan is to bring about more Calamities which would be terrible and kill lots of people. Fandaniel... wants to kill everyone. I wonder how he accounts for the other shards. Wouldn’t it have made sense to at least try and work with his fellow Ascians? Either to round all up all the souls in one place before blowing it all to hell, or by sabotaging their plans and creating more situations like the one that created the Void. Or if decimating the Source would kill everyone anyways.

“Don’t you dare leave me alone.” ALISAIEEEEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I HATE THIS PART! I HATE IT! DON’T TAKE HER AWAY THAT SCENE HURTS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!

Taking a break to do my dailies for poetics bc I BARELY make the ilvl requirement for the next dungeon. anyhow. In this prae run there’s a Haurchefant look-alike called “Haurchefant Corpse”. He’s wearing a white suit and a halo, and is a scholar. I’m still laughing man wtf!!! Dude kinda sucks though he didn’t summon his fairy before the battle with Nero and only got out like two offensive spells lmao

Alright. Story again. G’RAHA. STOP BEING A CRYPTIC ASSHOLE!!! ALISAIE!!!!!!!!! HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I KNOW THEY REUNITE SOON BUT... HER REACHING FOR THE WoL... WHO LET THEM BOTH ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD!!!!! I’ll fucking cry man... this is cruel...

Oh my god I was looking to see if there were any story sidequests at this level i skipped the first time and saw that there IS story with Unukalhai that I haven’t seen, currently. Because I haven’t been able to do all of the savage trials with him... maybe once I get to 80 I’ll be able to convince someone to unsync them with me for first clears... the questline is called “Void Quests” too... Ah. To do this last questline you have to have ALSO done all the role quests. Good thing I’m leveling one of each currently lmao... wait. I don’t have a caster. I suppose I’ll have to level summoner on him after all...

“But no one is invincible, Doran. Not even you. So please, take care of yourself out there.” Foreshadowing of the WoL nearly getting merc’d on the battle field. Side note I had to look that up because I’ve been thinking of that word a lot lately. And now realize that it is not a real word but a gaming term? Also that it’s written like that. It comes from CoD4. Or. Actually. reading more I have no clue where it comes from though I did know it was in relation to mercenaries at its root even if its meaning doesn’t.

Ah... speaking of this is probably the last story bit I’m going to do before bed. Though. I... think this leads right into entering Norvrandt. Oh holy shit Doran’s forehead is so big now. he looks so goofy in this shot they took away his fucking eyebrows.

I’ve mostly been wearing his new AST glam since I changed his hair and that at least has glasses... and GNB wears a full-face mask and BRD has a half-face mask. But this. This looks like a lil bit silly ngl.

Ohhh I forgot you fight as Hien against Elidibus/Zenos... While waiting for the WoL to arrive. i love fighting as DRG against Zenos. Same reason as I enjoy using SMN. Fighting using the power of a beast, it’s fitting. Also goddammit G’raha... Why are you so stupid. My guy. Thank goodness Estinien is some kind of stalker because my god. Ohhhh riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight it’s later you actually go to Norvrandt. Rn you just get a lil peek at G’raha. Again, waaaay too recognizable. Literally not even a secret.

Hhhgh... hearing Aymeric speak to the WoL.... they are Friends it is Cute. He like... actually tries, I realize. He makes it clear that he’s fond of the WoL past the obvious hero stuff. Godddddddd this is adorable... Aymeric is still an idiot but he is an incredibly endearring idiot. Ah... and Count edmont comes to visit too. His fatherly relationship with the WoL is adorable as well... I still remember their moment during the DRK questline.

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhggggggg and Tataru crying about seeing the WoL... fwiends... ShB is GOOD. And the WoL goes and kneels in front of her.. ghghhh

Ahh that WAS finally the end of the intermediate stuff. Oh my god I love this game. Jesus christ this is so good. And I finally got the new travelling outfit! Hopefully this’ll give me an idea for a GNB glam... I... can’t use the body piece cause it’s too gaudy but the others would work maybe.

Oh shit I finally lost my sprout too! I’m gonna stop writing now just gotta finish up some business...

#mmorpg hell

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