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dejwrld · 1 year ago

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— in which the heir to the biggest mafia/yakuza in japan is in an arranged marriage with a foreigner & it turns into a wicked jealous filled obsession. inspo from happy together by the turtles

( cw ) ⸻ fem reader, her/she pronouns, female pet names, yandere themes, yandere!ushijima, mentions of violence, mentions of blood, mentions of murder, mentions of gore, yakuza/mafia au, choking kink, character death, possessive!ushijima, ooc!ushijima (only said ooc cause he does not act like the way he acts in hq), toxic relationship, ushijima father slaps him in one part, arranged marriage au // minors dni ! repost from old account!

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀this fic won the mystery fanfic repost poll.

HOW COULD SOMEONE’S HANDS FEEL SO COLD? That thought lingered in the back of your mind when you felt Ushijima Wakatoshi’s hand placed on the lower part of your back as you waltzed around the venue. You remembered how his touch felt so cold that it sent a shiver down your spine even though minutes ago you complained about how hot you were in the vintage well-tailored white dress. You never expected your life to change suddenly due to your father. It was a bit comical considering that he got you into this marriage and didn’t even bother to show up to walk you down the aisle.

You felt like a sheep among some vicious hungry wolves. You had no friends in Japan. You had no family in Japan. Just Ushijima and his circle. You couldn’t even contact your family unless they contacted you first. You would think that you were the president’s daughter, but you were only one of the richest men in the world's daughter. That came with consequences. Your life was always under a microscope. Eat this. Dress this way. Don’t date this person. Attend this university. You didn’t actually think you’d be scribbling ‘have an assassination threat on your head’ off your Bingo card.

So here you were, bound with Ushijima Wakatoshi for your safety and the future of your family. You should have known that an arranged marriage was going to be put on the table. Someone would question why a foreigner has been hanging around the notorious family that controls more than eight districts in Japan. You planned to lay low, enjoy your time in Japan, maybe go back to school, and then when your father contacted Ushijima’s father, go back home. But the thing is, you knew that there wasn’t any going back home. For all you know, your father could have been dead. The thing is you knew this marriage wasn’t going to be rainbows and sunshine, Ushijima didn’t even smile as you waltzed down the aisle in a room of strangers. You remembered the deadpan look he gave you, but that last dance is what caused your stomach to form the most horrendous knots as he brought you closer. You could feel his breath trickle at your earlobe before he whispered, “The only one for me is you, and you for me. We both have a lot on the line when it comes to this fuckin’ marriage. We’re stuck with each other, so let’s make sure this work.”

Even though he uttered those words in your ear over two months ago, you and Ushijima just couldn’t work. It wasn’t like you weren’t putting in the effort, you did. You even learned how to cook some of his favorite dishes and even then, you still were met with a harsh cold steel door. You remembered vividly when it seemed like a switch was turned on in his head. You sat in the living room like the pretty wife you were. The diamond ring on your wedding finger glistened under the family mansion light, you hated to admit that Ushijima picked out a beautiful ring when there wasn’t much meaning behind it. You were confused about why you and Ushijima were summoned here in the first place. It wasn’t like you two were doing anything romantic anyway, just you watching the maids cater to him due to him partying the previous night. When you heard the harsh footsteps and your eyes watched as men bowed as the Takashi Utsui entered the room. By the looks of his face, he looked pissed and your mind instantly panicked. You toyed with the ends of your dress as you watch Ushijima stand up with urgency to greet his father.

Your eyes bulged outward when you heard and witnessed the harsh slap Takashi placed against Ushijima’s cheek. The room was so silent and you observed everyone in the room. No one bulged at the action as if it happened before. You watched as one of Takashi’s men rushed to his side handing him a folder. He opened it with urgency revealing the photo of Ushijima in a club the previous night. A woman was on his lap kissing his neck. Your eyes instantly lowered in embarrassment. Even though this marriage had no love, you still felt a form of humiliation.

“What did I tell you before you said I do to that woman right there?” Takashi’s finger points at you.

Ushijima's jaw clenched tightly as if he was holding back an explosive bomb.

“Huh? I can’t seem to hear you.” Takashi stepped forward toward his son. His head tilted to the side as he was trying to hear Ushijima’s words.

“That if I embarrass her, I’m dishonoring my family,” Ushijima said.

“And?” Takashi asked.

“And she’s a part of the family now,” Ushijima said.

Your heart was beating so hard at the word. You watched as Takashi's fingers combed through his hair. He let out a sigh to calm himself down before he’s walking over to you extending his hand for you to take. You hesitantly took it as he helped you up, walking by his angry son to walk into the family garden in the backyard. Your hand grasped at his arm as you walked by his side. The sweet scent of the Cherry Blossom tree that was in their backyard. You remembered Ushijima mentioning that his father got the tree grown in the backyard because his mother adored the scent of when the petals free-fell to the ground. However, even though his parents divorced his father still made sure the tree was taken care of.

“I want you to go out,” His father commented as he was walking around the garden. He could feel your grasp upon his arm tighter, “You’ve been trapped up in the house while my reckless son goes out and embarrasses our family,” He commented.

“I don’t know anyone to go out with sir,” You commented. “I would rather be home, especially considering that it would only be a burden. Do I need to remind you, that I have a hit out on me?” You pointed it out.

You watched as his lips formed a straight line, “Of course. I won’t let you go out alone, you’ll be with my assistant and her friends. Plus, I’m sure I’ll have some men in there if you need them,” he reminded.

You would look at him before simply nodding, not bothering to argue with him once again. “Okay.” was the only thing you said before he let go of your hand.

“Please enjoy your time out. I would hate to have to tell your father you hate it here.” He responded. “You deserve to be happy and I’ll be sure to ensure that.”

You forced a smile on your face which seems like you were doing that a lot. The sweet scent of the cherry blossoms lingered up your nostrils before you were speaking once again, “Okay, thank you.” You gave his arm a squeeze and a kind smile before departing to go back into the luxury home.

You were expecting to be met by Ushijima, but he was nowhere to be found. It didn’t particularly shock you, he got embarrassed in front of everyone. You were expecting to be met with your usual driver who hardly spoke to you unless you spoke to him first but instead was met with Tendou and Kai. Your eyebrows raised as you stared at him, “Let me guess, you’re taking me home.” You sighed and you didn’t get an answer, but you did follow them outside the huge mansion.

When you got in the SUV, you would sit in the back instantly indulging in the things on your phone before you heard Kai’s voice. “He actually does care about you, you know?”

You would shake your head, “Has a funny way of showing it.” You answered.

“But, please do not do something tonight that will upset him,” Tendo warned as his fingertips tapped at the steering wheel.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “He gets to go out and act a damn fool, but wants to lose his mind if I do the same,” You kissed your teeth. “I’m going to go out and have so much fun like his father said to do.”

The remaining amount of time in the car was quiet before you were dropped off at the luxury mansion that you resided in. Despite you decorating the huge mansion to your liking, it still didn’t feel like home. You were greeted by one of the maids, and you would only tell her that she could take the day off, especially considering that you believed today was one of her children's birthdays.

“But Mr.—“ The maid's words were cut off by you.

“I will handle him. You guys can have the rest of the day off. Go enjoy your child’s birthday,” You explained as you watched her face light up before she walked away to grab her things.

FOR ONCE YOU WERE ENJOYING YOURSELF. As you were at the bar attempting to flag down one of the bartenders, you could feel a male figure squeeze himself next to you and the countless others at the bar. His tall stature towered over you as you attempted once again to get the bartender’s attention. However, the man interjected whistling and getting the bartender’s attention.

“That’s the trick, to get their attention,” He commented as he gave you a smile that you returned. It was like a bird calling as the bartender flocked to him effortlessly. “This beautiful young woman has been trying to get your attention. I’ve told you guys about not being aware of the customers in front of you.” He warned.

“Sorry sir, it’s a bit hectic back here.” The bartender apologized as his eyes traveled to you. But when he noticed who you were, he looked away with quickness. “What can I get you?”

You would ignore his sudden break of eye contact and begin to list the drinks your section wanted. “Could you get them served to that section also?” You pointed to the section on the left of the club. “Add an extra bottle and just charge it to Ushijima Wakatoshi’s card.”

The gentlemen next to you eyebrows raised as he was trying to mentally put a face to the name that fell off your tongue. You leaned against the bar patiently before speaking, “Thanks for helping me. I appreciate it.” You gave him a kind smile as you watched one of the bottle girls load up the drinks on a tray to deliver to the section you were at.

“It’s no problem. We wouldn’t want to disappoint the wife of Ushijima Wakatoshi.” He responded.

You rolled your eyes hearing that statement, which the man caught instantly. “Is there a problem? Are you—”

Your words cut him off with a quickness. “It’s not a problem. I am his wife after all, but I just hate that here that’s all I’m known for.” You said to the gentlemen.

You understood that it was for the best for a lot of people to know who you were, but being known as the wife of a man who didn’t even take the marriage seriously himself felt even worst. You had so much more power than people expected, but here you were in an unknown world not being able to use that power.

You thanked the stranger once again before attempting to go back to the section, but you felt him tug you back towards him. He lets out a firm sigh before extending his hand toward you. “Let’s start over, I’m Lev Haiba. I own this club.” His hand motioned around the crowds of people in the nightclub.

You couldn’t help but snicker as you shook his head. “Y/N, heir to the biggest oil company in the world.” You answered. “But that has to stay between us.” You gave Lev a playful smirk and he only held his hand up in a defensive mode.

“Your secret is safe with me. I hope Japan is treating you well considering the uh—circumstances.” Lev says.

You could hear the pity in his voice. “I’m assuming you’ve heard the news of my loving husband?” You asked as the two of you were walking towards the section you were in.

“Everyone did. It was this club he was spotted doing said activities. However, it’s Ushijima Wakatoshi, no one is going to ruin his mood.” Lev admitted as he rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. “But I have said too much, I should get back to my job. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

You watched as he disappeared into the crowd, once again feeling like the sheep in a field filled with wolves as you sat down in one of the chairs. You instantly picked up the drink wanting to drink the night away.

WHEN YOU RETURNED HOME, you dropped your YSL heels on the floor as you stumbled into the house. You glanced at your phone and saw that it was four in the morning. You couldn’t believe that you stayed out so late. You definitely were going to have to rain check with the afternoon tea session with Ushijima’s mother. You attempted to tiptoe your way further inside the house not wanting to wake Ushijima (if he was home). You were aware that on some occasions Ushijima men would be at your house. It didn’t shock you that they were here in your living room doing god knows what. However, the weird feeling under the bottom of your feet caused you to instantly sober up. It felt wet, slightly slippery. You glanced down and your eyes grew big at the sight you were seeing. You had stepped in a small splatter of blood that decorated the thin plastic layer that was on the floor. Your heart rate increased instantly as you stumbled back in a horrified panic to be met with Ushijima catching you from falling.

“I—“ Your words were stuck in your throat. Your hands were shaking harshly and your heart felt like it was trying to claw out your chest. Your eyes stared at your husband as the crimson-colored liquid stained the white Versace button-down shirt.

“It’s good to know you’ve made it home safely. Now let’s go get cleaned up. We’re both in need of a shower anyway.” He firmly said.

You felt Ushijima grab hold of your forearm. His blood-covered fingertips stained your brown skin. “But we have guests.” You stuttered out.

“That’s fine, they will be busy cleaning up the mess that you made,” Ushijima confirmed.

Your eyebrows knitted together in confusion as you were being tugged into the shared bedroom. With urgency, Ushijima closed the door behind him. “Strip.” was the only thing he said as his hands went up to unbutton the buttons on his shirt.

You did what you were told, letting the dress you wore fall to the ground. You crossed your arms over your chest preventing Ushijima from seeing you like this. You didn’t even notice that he had already stripped out of his expensive clothing. You could sense him towering over you before you finally croaked out some words, “You said my mess? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Goosebumps decorated your skin when you felt Ushijima’s fingertips tracing alongside your side. His fingertips engraved you with the possible sin he just committed before you arrived home. He stopped right at the soft fabric of the thong you wore, letting out a low hum before pushing them down. You didn’t argue against his action. You weren’t sure if you were too afraid to or if you just wanted to see where this would go. You stepped out of your underwear before watching Ushijima disappear into the bathroom. The sound of the shower could be heard before his voice broke you out of your broken thoughts. Like an obedient dog, you walked into the bathroom with your hands still attempting to cover your bare body. Ushijima was already in the hot steaming shower washing over the blood that was on him. “I’ve already seen you vulnerable before, remember our wedding night?” He asked. “There’s no need to hide your body away from me.” He answered.

“You never responded to what I said. What mess have I created? You’re the one that’s going out every night and acting a fool,” You reminded him.

Ushijima let out a sigh, “Just get in the fuckin’ shower and we can talk.” He says, “Please.”

Hearing him say please was a shock to you, you took a couple of steps forward opening the door of the walk-in shower to join him. In a different world, such an intimate moment would have your stomach flowing with butterflies. But right now, your stomach could only twist in dangerous knots while you let the steaming hot water heat your body. “Did you have fun last night?” Ushijima asked.

Your eyes met with his as you felt the warm cloth filled with soap brush against your body. He was kind enough to clean you himself. Similar to a doll maker creating a doll, you felt that’s what Ushijima was doing. You were his doll as soon as you walked down the aisle clutching onto his father’s arm. “I did. It was nice to not be bottled up in his house. It can get lonely sometimes,” You answered.

“You have the maids, it can’t be that lonely,” He responded.

That was true. During your time living here, you managed to get to know each of the eight maids and two groundskeepers that worked to make sure Ushijima’s home looked nice. But it still felt lonely, cold. It didn’t feel like a home.

“Although, I appreciate their help around the place. It’s not the same.” You answered as your finger went up to motion for the young man to turn so you could wash his back. “You know this. I’m not asking for much, but can we at least pretend we’re enjoying this marriage.”

“I’m actually enjoying this marriage,” Ushijima responded with a chuckle.

“You have such a weird way to show it. Going out every night, being seen with other women—“ You stopped abruptly to let out a weary sigh. Not sure if the sudden feeling of being lightheaded came from the hotness of the shower or the fact that you’re finally voicing your opinions to Ushijima. “It’s humiliating.”

Ushijima didn’t say much about your words. The two of you continued to shower in silence before eventually getting out of it. At this point, you had sobered as you toyed with the ends of the soft white rob Ushijima put you in. You watched as Ushijima waltzed back into the bedroom, “Well, let me show that I will change.”

Your body leaned against the doorframe of the master bedroom bathroom, “Sex really can’t show me anything. Changed behavior though,” You said rolling your eyes at him.

“Come on, when was the last time we actually had sex.”

“You’re deflecting from the original conversation Ushi,” You sighed as you walked towards the dresser to find something to wear.

As you were searching for something to sleep in, you could feel Ushijima’s strong arms wrap around your waist. He tugged you closer to his body and you felt the growing boner poking at the fatness of your butt. “You haven’t called me Ushi since our wedding night.” He commented.

“You’re so annoying.” You sighed, but you didn’t bulge out his touch. “We both were drunk as ever that night. I can’t believe you still remember that.”

“Of course, I remembered it. You moaned it so beautifully while your head was buried into a pillow,” Ushijima reminded you as you felt his lips press against the exposed skin on your neck.

You felt your skin grow hotter with each harsh nibble, lick, and bite on your neck. One of Ushijima’s hands disappeared inside your robe and straight in between your thighs. His index and middle fingers swiped at your wet folder and indulged in how wet you were while you seemed to melt into his touch. “You don’t remember, hmm? How your thighs couldn’t stop shaking once we were done?” He asked as his fingertips that were covered in your wetness would rub at your clit. “How you wet up the sheets so badly?”

You made direct eye contact with Ushijima in the mirror that was connected to the dresser. The once softness that was in his eyes for a split second was gone. You weren’t particularly super religious, but you were sure you were looking into the eyes of the devil. He undid your rob and tugged it off your bare body causing you to gasp suddenly. Your thighs quivered for more as you felt your own wetness stain the inside of your thighs. Ushijima stopped the subtle circular motion on your clit before he’s talking once again. “Tell me you remember that and I’ll help you cum,” His words tickled your earlobe and you nodded instantly.

“I remember. Ushi—“ You desperately coughed up those words. “I remember.”

“Good,” Ushijima said while the grip around your waist grew tighter. “Now be a good wife and go to the bed and get on all fours, darling.”

You did what you were told, being sure to grab a pillow to make yourself feel more comfortable. The anticipation bubbling into your stomach as you could sense Ushijima behind you. When you felt him tug you closer to the bed, you swallowed the large lump forming in your throat. Your cunt so eager to swallow his cock bit by bit even though you were sure he wasn’t going to be so gentle. When you felt the tip of Ushijima’s cock enter you, you chewed at your lower lip getting ready for him to instantly bottom down inside you. The faint memory of your wedding night when he specifically praised you on how well you took his dick swirled around your head.

This time he took his time. Pushing his cock inside you slowly, teasingly, until you were gasping for him to put it all the way in. His large hands grasped at your waist before his hips begin to drive forward to be met with the soft flesh of your butt. Your head buried into the pillow caging in your moans before Ushijima grabbed the pillow and tossed it. “I need my men to hear you while they’re cleaning up your mess.” He said firmly.

His fingers buried into the flesh of your skin while the sound of skin slapping against each other could be heard. Ushijima was in a complete trace as he watched his cock disappear into your addicting cunt. “Go ahead, moan out how good Ushi is making you feel while they clean up your mess.” He said through gritted teeth.

“What mess?” You hiccuped out through moans. Your eyesight grew blurry due to the tears that accumulated through Ushijima’s thrusts.

You let out a yelp when Ushijima grabbed a hold of your head tugging you upward. His chest pressed against your sweat-coated back before he let go of your hand to use that hand to snake around to your neck. “Don’t act foolish Y/N.” He answered.

You could feel Ushijima’s cock twitch inside you as he stopped his thrusts abruptly. His hand wrapped around your neck and you could feel him give it a slight squeeze before his thrusting continued. “You know my doll. When you press your thumb in someone’s windpipe, index finger to their carotid artery, and your middle finger applies pressure to their jugular vein…they’ll lose consciousness.” Ushijima said.

The heat of the moment of your breath grasping away for a couple of seconds due to Ushijima mimicking the same thing he just told her, he let go of you and shoved your face further into the fluffiness of the mattress. “Even when I nearly took your breath away, you only clutched around my cock even tighter.” He said darkly.

His words sent a bone chilling shiver down your spine as you moaned out helplessly. “Ushi!” You moaned out.

His thrusting only continued, ignoring your little whimpers before he leaned over placing wet kisses on the middle of your spine. “You know that only makes a person lose consciousness, but if you continue you can damage the cortex of your brain which leads to your death.” He uttered as he was thrusting.

His chest heaved upwards as he traced his name upon your skin. “It took less than 6 minutes for your little friend Lev to finally fuckin’ die when I wrapped my hands around his throat.” He said through groans. You could feel his thrusting grow sloppy, he was about to cum.

“I had to clean up your mess Y/N,” he said.

You felt yourself orgasm immediately. The dangerous shiver that went though your body made your body go into complete shock. Your gasping out for Ushijima. The thought of him killing a man that talked to you pushed you to the edge. Perhaps you did flutter around his cock even more at the sound of those words coming out his mouth. Ushijima still fucked you through the explosive orgasm until he too was cumming mess, not bothering to pull out either. Filling you up to the brim with his cum just to trap you as his.

He let your body collapse on the bed like a rag doll. You were completely out of breath with his cum leaking out of you and when you met his eyes, they were soft once again.

“We’re starting a clean slate starting now. No more outside interferences when it comes to our marriage. We’re going to be happy together if we like it or not.” He said as he leaned down to place a kiss upon your temple.

“Now get some rest, my doll, we have tea with my mother in about eight hours.”

You really were still a sheep upon the family of wolves.

#ushijima wakatoshi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi smut #hq x reader #hq smut #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu smut #anime smut #anime x reader #female reader #angelshubnetwork #chosoistkinktober23 #⊹˳⁺ ♡ 𝒻𝒶𝓃𝒻𝒾𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒸𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈

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sandsoftide · 1 month ago

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Haven’t seen enough people talking about why timebomb and specifically ekko also suffered from arcane s2 being bad. Spoilers and crit

I’ll say more in depth later when I have gone back and revisited it with a clearer head and let me make it entirely clear I LIKE timebomb in concept. Much like caitvi. Like I see the vision I just don’t like a lot of the creative choices

Ekko in s1 was a REVOLUTIONARY he built the firelights w his own two hands and was sort of a foil to jinx and silco, he hated them but he wasn’t going to roll over to piltover either. He wanted independence but not through exploitation. He was a leader and a caretaker and mature beyond his years bc he was forced to be. And he hates Jinx bc she reminds him of that trauma and he’s betrayed by what she became like there’s SO much there look at it

In s2 he goes “hm my tree is being weird” and then gets sucked into the timey wimey thing and disappears for a whole act and the firelights aren’t even MENTIONED (and ik he wasn’t a major character in s1 either but like, he was still important and relevant to the plot throughout bc of the firelights?)

Then he gets sucked into this au portal (cool concept and cool execution) and falls in love with powder or whatever. And she ISNT JINX. SHE IS NOT THE JINX WE KNOW BC JINX IN MAIN TIMELINE IS FULLY BUILT FROM HER EXPERIENCES AND TRAUMA AND MENTAL ILLNESS. Like what Jayce said to viktor that’s part of her whether it hurts her or not. Her trauma doesn’t define her but it’s a part of her! And then all of a sudden Ekko’s sad bc he misses jinx (who iirc last time he met they had the whole I hate you and I miss you talk and they fought and both thought the other dead or whatever?) and then he’s talking her off the ledge even though he has absolutely no reason to! Because he DOESNT KNOW HER he knows literally nothing she’s done since s1 finale!!! Even the “jinx as a symbol for revolution” stuff from act 1 that went nowhere he would know NOTHING ABOUT bc he basically immediately went to Jayce? And they never did the revolutionary jinx stuff that was implied w the flag waving either so there’s no connection there either

Like a full episode was spent developing timebomb and it was interesting but also contributed nothing bc that is not jinx. She just feels like a mpdg and he doesn’t feel like ekko bc he needs to be in love w her for the plot? So they do absolutely nothing interesting they could for timebomb and still make it the entirety of ekko’s plot while tossing out the firelights and the zaun v. Piltover plotline as a whole

i mean again its hard to say bc this is right. objectively. like the stuff w timebomb was objectively well written. i just feel like it doesnt give ekko the space to be his own character outside of the ship? my point isnt that the stuff was poorly written i actually enjoyed it a lot and i think they did a good job w it i just also feel like it does ekko a disservice to have that be his only plotline and how it doesnt feel like it connects to his character in s1

i feel similarly about other plots in s2, like mel's. like yes this is good stuff! i love seeing mel in the spotlight the black rose magic stuff is interesting in a vacuum but also its totally separate from the interesting thematic roles in s1 that dealt with AGAIN THE CLASS CONFLICT AND POLITICS and dropping that for something different feels. like its a disservice to the characters, i guess?

also by having the timebomb development take place primarily in an au with powder and NOT jinx we dont really get to see jinx's thoughts at all. it feels like a repeat of s1 where someone is trying to save POWDER and not jinx, they dont see her as who she is now but rather who she was or could have been. which couldve been interesting to explore but they clearly werent interested in that ANYWAYS

#tidethought #arcane critical #anti timebomb #<- not actually I like them in concept I just think s2 was bad and s2 being bad impacted them #If this shows up in main tags I’m SO sorry not my intent

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thegirlwhowatchedeverything · 1 year ago

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The conversation about the death of Sydney's mom in 2x9 is so unhinged. At first we're made to think Carmy's responding the way 99.9% of people would to hearing about someone's dead loved one - "I'm sorry" - but no, before his mind arrives at that automatic human response, his first thought is to apologize for not knowing this deeply personal fact about his girlfriend business partner: I'm sorry...I feel like I should have known that. The writers know what they we doing. Especially in the context of the next part of the conversation. Syd immediately shuts down what she thinks is the token apology she's been on the receiving end of for 20+ years. I honestly don't think she even hears what he says after "I'm sorry". It's only after she shuts him down for what she thinks is the token apology that Carmy actually gives said token apology. For whhyyy did they write I feel like I should have known that. I mean we know why but let's do a quick Claire comparison. After creepily getting Carmy's number from Fak, this exchange happens in 2x3:

Claire: Okay can you just, can you just not make this weird? (the cognitive dissonance of this statement, Claire, babe...) Like I just need a favor. My cousin bailed on me.

Carmy: What, Big Denny?

Claire: No, Mac. Denny's dead.

Carmy: Oh. Damn, Denny.

Claire: Yeah, totally sucks, but I have to move all this shit for my mom who is not dead. She's absolutely thriving...(rest of convo is irrelevant to my point)

There was no narrative need to emphasize the fact that Claire's mom is alive (and thriving!) other than to directly contrast Sydney. You can't even say oh it's a throwback to the dark humor of S1 with the two "I'm not dead, my brother's dead" conversations Carmy has with the health inspector lady (1x2) and Mr. Szorski at Cicero's catering gig (1x4) because those scenes are dark and sad and funny because we know and care about Carmy and Mikey whereas we do not know or care about Big Denny or Claire's mom. Carmy and Mikey are the absolute driving forces of the show, especially in S1 whereas we never see or hear about those two other characters. But, interestingly, Carmy clearly knew Big Denny and didn't even respond with the (as established) token "I'm sorry." Whereas he looks absolutely anguished over Sydney's mom, a woman he's never met and knows absolutely nothing about. But he plays it like he's finding out about the death of his mother in law because he feels like he should have known. And yes, granted in this context dead mom > dead cousin on the emotional scale but still. Carmy's two reactions are so starkly opposite.

It's just so pointed to have Carmy react to the deaths of his girlfriend's and girl-who-is-a friend's relatives, no? We knew the reveal of Sydney's mom was coming because it's narratively relevant, it's such a formative part of Sydney (hence why it hits Carmy like a gut punch). But to unnecessarily bring up Claire's mom for what other reason than contrast with Sydney, right?

Okay, to bring it back to the scene in question - this man is able to pull the biggest smile and laugh from Syd all season by matching her energy and making a deadpan joke about her deceased mom. But it's fine because he doesn't think he's funny (1x8). He doesn't need to bring pleasure or amusement to others (2x10). I can't.

#the bear fx #the bear #the bear hulu #chefskiss #sydcarmy #carmy x sydney #sydney x carmy #syd x carmen #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #sydney adamu #ayo edebiri #jeremy allen white #cinematic parallels #parallels

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violetasteracademic · 6 months ago

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On the different versions of Elain Archeron

*Deep breath*

Alright. This is a long one. So I went through the transcript of the infamous shipwar podcast on Spotify. I am not going to speak much on it, because it was honestly more disappointing than I could have ever imagined. Some of the worst takes being that Elain could still wind up with Grayson because he isn't dead and is still single. She could wind up with anyone alive and single, because SJM confirmed we have met her endgame love interest and that's it. She clearly doesn't have chemistry with Azriel OR L/ucien. Whoever she gets with next has to be a rebound so we shouldn't even be shipping her with anyone because she can't go into a new relationship without a fuck buddy first. I am going to stop here, because it was honestly over an hour of all of the worst takes I've ever heard about Elain. I do respect that Steph put an immediate stop to Ava trying to use Elain's pelvis as an indicator she and Azriel cannot be endgame, and refusing to engage in or platform that conversation.

It was a lot for me to take in at once. I honestly don't go into anti tags. I see a variety of takes because it simply happens, whether you want or intend for that or not, usually on Insta or tiktok where filters are less effective. I stay in my little bubble and frankly immediately block and do not engage with anyone who shows up in my comments to fight. I am extremely careful with my posts and tagging, and often ask my rebloggers to only use Elriel tags because I am not here to argue with other people online or convince anyone of anything. This is for fun, and more than that, my goal is to provide comfort. If I'm wrong about a fictional ship, I'm wrong. But if I made someone feel better and more hopeful during the process, then I'll never look back on this and be embarrassed about participating here. These are books. This is a fandom. I'm here for the joy. And yes, sometimes I get sassy. And when that side of me emerges, my hope is it can provide some laughter.

All that being said, while I can't say I am glad I read the transcript and overall wish that I hadn't, there is one piece I feel comfortable speaking on that I think distills what I believe to be the largest issue making the different takes people have on Elain's future so volatile, which is that the fandom has chosen to regard Elain as someone who either will be stagnant or move backwards to who she was prior to becoming Fae. Thus, having a completely backwards trajectory from her sisters. If this happens, I actually very much agree that Elain is boring. I just don't think that is going to happen, and I don't know why so many fans are accepting of the only confirmed FMC remaining in such a stagnant place. But let's get into it:

Essentially what we are seeing here is this:

E/lucien makes sense because of who Elain was before becoming Fae. I think what this fandom lacks is the ability to see growth or an arc in a traditionally feminine character.

We (Elriel's) don't expect Elain to become a warrior, but we also don't expect her to spend the rest of her days as a ball host and party planner/gossip queen living out her life as L/ucien's socialite wife without putting herself in danger. So E/lucien shippers are shipping a years old version of Elain because that is the version of her that makes sense with L/ucien. And there is this idea that Elain is the only one of the sisters that doesn't fit in or is unhappy, or wants to go back to being human or living in the human lands again. I've tackled that as well here.

I believe there are enough details in the books to prove that is absolutely not where we are headed (not to mention Elain has already killed a king, beat hellbeasts with her bare feet, and demand she be utilized to serve her court and find the Trove despite the danger, but I digress), but more than that, I think if people are honest about Elain being widely regarded as the most boring character, it makes very little sense to ship a storyline of stasis. People are very focused on who she used to be, versus who she is becoming, because they can't imagine a traditionally feminine character with no warrior training arc being good for anything but gossiping and hosting parties.

I don't want to beat a dead horse and re-write about the same points over and over, so if you are interested- I have broken down the grooming done to each Archeron sister and how it was deeply entrenched and part of all of them and their stories. Elain is likely to both use and overcome hers just as Feyre and Nesta both used and overcame theirs here.

Most importantly, Sarah has already told us that Elain's personality has been a mask, and that she has behaved in the way she thought wouldn't disappoint her family. But with time and safety, a new side of her will emerge.

Sarah showed us that she is aware that fans call Elain boring, and literally reminds everyone that she is not afraid to get her hands dirty and torn up by thorns.

When I see these conversations unfolding in the ACOSF bonus chapter, I see a different side of her emerging. I see we haven't yet seen all she has to offer.

I see growth. Emergence. Depth. Complexity. I see clarity that Elain's pretty, people pleasing behavior is not her. It is who she pretends to be to keep those around her happy.

I see her becoming more confrontational. I see her standing up for what she wants. I do not see her being set up to find her way back to the human lands so she can simply become who she was as a child once again.

It has already been established that a relationship with Azriel is pure risk. It could be destructive. It could threaten fragile peace and allies. Therefore, a relationship has been forbidden.

It has been established that exploring a relationship with L/ucien would resolve all of these pesky conflicts. It would best serve her family and her court and maintain peace. She would be exactly what she was groomed by her mother to be, a beautiful woman whose match and marriage will best serve her family. And her mother stated that it will be THEIR maneuvering's, not Elain's, that would win them an advantageous match:

Elain is not best suited to L/ucien. Her mask is. To believe that they are a good fit is to believe that Elain will not grow beyond being, as Ava says, the belle of the ball. A socialite. A beautiful woman who will marry whoever best serves her family's needs. To imagine Elain and L/ucien is to believe Elain will grow backwards, not forwards. Elain was eleven years old when much of this was established about her.

Elain was never intended to have a choice in her love life, but for her family to work behind her back to provide the most advantageous match. That story is playing out with L/ucien as Rhys has demanded that Azriel not interfere with the mating bond because of the threat it poses to the security of the Night Court's allies.

At the end of the day, there are two versions of Elain. The version of her that was groomed and pleasant and sweet, the version of her that will present herself exactly how her family wants to see her to keep them happy and pleased with her, OR the version of her that is growing stronger and sharpening her teeth. The version of her that may be able to utilize her smiles that can bring kings to their knees and convince anyone to do anything, just as Nesta used her dancing and political machinations, just as Feyre used her tracking and abilities, but will not let it define her.

What the sisters can do because of how they were raised does not inform who they love.

How they've been taught to be is not how they will remain.

And because I'm an Elain girlie first and foremost, I'd rather she start a goddamn war and burn the whole system to the ground to be with the man she loves and the man she CHOOSES for herself. I'd rather she say to hell with the consequences, and take control of her own life and her own narrative. I'd rather see her grooming be a tool in her tool belt that she now takes control of rather than a life sentence.

I want Elain Archeron to grow. I want her to define herself.

I want her to shed her mask and set the world on fire with her strength and her light.

The reason people are seeing two Elain's is because there are two Elain's. The author herself has made that quite clear.

I can't wait to see her tell us once and for all who she is going to be.

#elriel #pro elriel #elain x azriel #azriel and elain

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iridescentdove · 1 year ago

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👏I👏AM👏TIRED

of seeing so many Yandere! BSD x Reader, and it’s always the character or everyone being Yandere for Reader, I have to request a Platonic! BSD x Yandere! Teen! Reader, in which Reader is in any organization of your choice, and since Reader is underage, they see said organization as their family, precious people that they hold dear to their hearts, and don’t wish for any of them to die or leave and abandon them. This triggers their Yandere instincts, and ultimately they kill anybody who’s hurt their darlings in any way or attempts to "steal" their attention or worse, guide them away from Reader.

LONELINESS NO MORE.

platonic!bsd x yandere!teen!reader

A/N: It's nice to go a bit gruesome sometimes lol- anyways, so I just decided to choose the PM for this.

Let's just say you were similar to Dazai in a way. As a homeless young child, you had no home or family and friends to even call your own.

And to say the least? It was a little lonely.

This was something rather different, as you grew up to have an understanding that the world is never fair. Even before being taken into the Port Mafia by MORI, you were already much of an unhinged criminal yourself.

In a way, it was bad due to how young you were, but given this was a wretched world on it's own – many things can happen.

You killed, you stole, you did many things. At some point you probably rivaled Dazai's crime list because yours looked like an entire fucking receipt.

And that is what lesd you to the mafia.

MORI had found you, and went 'fuck it', deciding to just grab you and take you back with him to the base.

Well at first – you got a bit defensive, not knowing his real intention and thinking of fighting back yourself. But it was when he gave you new clothes, gave you food, and actually took responsibility of you was when you realized.

This man was just ... taking care of you.

And for the first time? You were really excited. It didn't take very long for you to grow accustomed to the Port Mafia.

Sure they made you do dangerous and gruesome missions, but you were used to it honestly. So it didn't matter that much. You met new faces and grew very attached to them, the dreaded loneliness that creeped into your heart grew into–

Obsession.

Yes, that's right. You found no other reason to dislike them at all, and they treated you like no one else ever did.

Like family.

CHUUYA was rather nice to you, despite his aggression and the rough edges he seems to pull off. Since you're underage, he drinks grape juice with you. Lmao ye, we love that shit. You liked being around him, defending him against accusations and giving him a shoulder to lean on.

He was like a brother to you. You adored most things about the fancy hat man. Scratch that, everything about him.

He releases one of those rare genuine smiles – mostly only to you, and he just thought you were the sweetest.

Oh, how wrong he was.

It was only one simple conversation. CHUUYA was talking to another mafia members in the lower ranks, discussing about the topic for the next PM meeting at hand.

Of course at first glance, they didn't look close at all. Just a normal chat between acquaintances. But did it make you mad?

Obviouely it did.

The very next day, the orange haired-man was looking for the same said man he spoke with the day before. Yet he was rather confused to see he wasn't around.

What the hell? Well that was weird, he could have sworn that he asked to meet them in this same spot right now.

Well, guess he wouldn't be meeting with them after all. In the distance, you were smiling – hiding that dead, cold expression on your face as you wiped the blood off the saw, a few splashee of blood and guts on the weapon.

But of course, you wouldn't let him know anything~ ♡

And simply, KOUYOU made it much easier. She was like a sweet, elder sister that spoiled you and taught you everything that you needed to know.

You simply loved her, and loved the times when you'd just hang around each other and dress one another up in various clothes. Be it trendy outfits or putting makeup on one another.

She took care of you as she should, and she grew very attached as well. KOUYOU was rather protective and sweet.

So when you saw her spoiling another girl in the picture, you were fucking livid.

How dare she pay more attention to another kid than you?

She was treating KYOUKA in private as if she was more important than you ever were. And it began to hardem your heart once more, growing angry at your elder sis paying more attention to some useless assassin.

You were way better than her, stronger even.

So imagine how relieved and prideful you felt when that girl had left the mafia to be with the detective agency instead. She wasn't even loyal! She doesn't deserve to be in the PM!

It left KOUYOU feeling agitated and sad, so you did what a younger sibling would do. You were the one comforting her, even manipulating her with your sweet words. You lured her in and had her give you more attention than before.

Just like how you wanted it to be.

AKUTAGAWA was honestly a tough nut to crack. You can easily tell he doesn't care about you at all. Well, he'd acknowledge your abilities a little but that's all you're getting.

But that won't stop you from killing those who tried to get even the slightest close to him.

After all, family members must stay with one another forever.

You didn't really mind much about that blonde girl who admires him and follows him around. It's not like she can take him away, he doesn't give a damn about her.

Plus, his sister was very nice! She gave you the love you needed, and she actually cared. Even though her brother was pretty cold, you'd think she also was – but in reality, GIN is a sweet, somewhat shy girl who gave you gifts and attention.

No matter which mafia member it was – wheneve ryou were with them, you were so sweet and caring, such an adorable teen who looks out for all of them and their wellbeing.

Yet behind closed doors, while they weren't looking, you glared daggers at other kids or people they payed attention to, your greedy self wanting all of it to yourself.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't!

You never held back. You spilled their guts out, you ripped out those fools' hearts – crushing it under your foot, knowing you deserved the love more than their ignorants asses ever did.

And most of all? No one noticed a thing. MORI had continued to send you out mission after mission. He didn't notice the desperate pleads of those immature adults, the heartbreaking cries of those innocent children.

If it was for family, you'd do anything.

After doing all that – you give them a sickly sweet smile, as you pull them to hang out and play with you, no questions asked.

They never noticed.

And quite clear, you were a sadistic young teen. After being so pissed seeing those people getting close to them, it's like a breath of fresh air when you hear the bloodcurdling screams coming from their mouths.

TACHIHARA wasn't that observant, but he could tell that there was something not right about you at all. Yet, he himself was not free from the depths of your pure, honest love. He'll find himself spoiling you, loving you – like you're his very own sister.

He was going to fall into the trap whenever he likes it or not, because you love them way too much.

If someone else tries to destroy that happiness,

They'll just have to dissapear like the rest.

#port mafia x reader #bungou stray dogs #bsd x reader #port mafia #chuuya nakahara #yandere #bsd yandere #mori ougai #ozaki kouyou #platonic bsd #teen reader #bsd akutagawa

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meatball-headache · 22 days ago

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I have completed The New War. It is indisputably Warframe's greatest, grandest, epickest, most unique quest.

...so, it's worth a few words, but where do I begin?

Wow. Okay. Well... that's, that's certainly something.

Okay, but... Warframe's story quests... somewhat baffle me. Maybe it's me. As I often confess, I don't play games with a lot of cinematic story these days, FFXIV being the exception to every rule. I played Red Dead Online instead of the actual game, so I could just get to the action without being bogged down by story. That's why I like things like Bloodborne and Warframe, which have this deep, cool lore, but the game just starts with you playing, and you figure it out from the game itself, rather than having it all explained in cutscenes.

So, seeing cutscenes in Warframe is a fascinating experience. I know these characters, Ballas, Teshin, Margulis... or, at least, I've heard of them. But, I feel like I've missed some introduction. Teshin, for example. The first time I saw him was when I did Duviri. This was before I did the Second Dream, even—for some reason, I did Duviri right when it came out. So, Teshin's a Duviri character. But, later, in the War Within, you deal with Teshin a lot, and your Operator speaks as if she knows him well already. There's no mention of Duviri at all! So... what am I supposed to know this guy from?

It's a little like Destiny 2, which I hated. Whenever I'd play that game, once every couple months, it would open with me in a mission, characters I don't know telling me to fight someone I never heard of, all the while someone I never met is congratulating me for killing some boss I don't remember. Then after that mission, you're locked out of the story unless you subscribe for real money... so I was constantly confused.

Let's look at Warframe specifically. Where we last left the story, in the, the Apostasy Prologue, I think? That was just a cutscene where we saw Ballas pull the Lotus from a machine and take her away. No, no—it was the Sacrifice, where we fought the Umbra Warframe, and we kept having these cutscenes where we had the POV of someone sick in bed, playing a board game against Ballas, and someone else watching on. The name "Ballas" was familiar from dialogue in the Second Dream, where we gathered that he was some important figure from Orokin history. But who were we in that scene? Are we supposed to be Teshin or something?

Maybe I'm just dumb, coddled by FFXIV's all-access story where Y'shtola or Alphinaud are on hand to explain everything. Maybe I've been ruined by growing up on JRPGs with tropey plots and bad translations, and never had to challenge myself with actual literary analysis.

No, no. Well, yes, I could still be dumb, but, here's what I think. I think that's the game's intent. It wants to baffle you, drop you into scenes with characters you're sort-of heard of, and let you piece together just what's going on. So, if we look at where we left off and where we began yesterday, in the previous cutscene, Ballas—who's apparently just alive and around—takes the Lotus out of her Lotus machine or whatever and leaves with her. Lotus seems to go willingly. How, and why? We don't get a clear answer. In fact, we don't even get a clear question, we just want to get the Lotus back. With the beginning of The New War, we have a full-scale attack from the Sentients against everything and everyone, and we see the Grineer, the Corpus, the Ostrons, and our old friend (apparently) Teshin himself fighting against them. We hear Erra's comments on our "slapdash" alliance. Wait, we're allied?

Yeah, obviously. See, a lesser game, like FFXIV, would've had a whole series of drawn-out cutscenes where the danger is revealed, the heads of state get together to discuss their options, they agree an alliance is their best hope, they appoint Alphinaud as the overall leader, they discuss their plan... (I disparage FFXIV a little bit. Dawntrail had a similar scene, but it just cut to Vrtra blasting the mothership—thought we did pause on Koana to here him explain what's going on and why.) Warframe did none of that. We had a scene where we saw Erra with Ballas in shackles, apparently, and the Lotus turned into a Sentient, and then we cut to—

Right off the bat, The New War is a whole nother thing. Rather than make you sit through cutscenes ELI5ing you, it goes straight to the action. The game—the devs—trust the intelligence of the player to get what's going on from context, and, they attack your emotions directly by thrusting you into the danger immediately, rather than letting you get settled and learn everything about what's happening.

Kahl-175's chapter was beautiful. First we saw the Ostron get attacked, and Erra approached a child and said sweetly, "Don't be afraid." Is he... going to kill the child? Or... just capture them, maybe? We cut to Kahl, injured, loyally responding to Vay Hek's commands. He bravely sallies forth, but then when he sees another Grineer—another brother—go down, he goes to help, but it's too late. He plans to sacrifice himself as a living bomb to blow up the enemy base, "For the Queens!" So he fights through waves of Sentients, finds a bomb, and finally climbs, injured badly, to the base of the... base, and sets off the bomb, not for the Queens, but, "For my brothers."

...but the bomb doesn't go off. Time stops. Erra is there. "Don't be afraid," he says.

Oh.

He's definitely going to kill Kahl. His noble plan failed. And this means, Erra definitely killed the Ostrons, too. Shit just got really real.

Next we meet Veso in the weak middle act, being berated by Alad V, and "nobly" fighting in the name of profit. (The Corpus' prophet is profit. Heh.) His section is full of puzzles that kind of baffled me. In fact, half the time, I didn't even know I was doing puzzles. That's Warframe for you—it'll helpfully put a waymarker exactly where you need to go, but it won't tell you what you need to do when you get there. (Usually it's Void Sling, which I always forget how to do.) In the end, he has to fight the goddamned Jackal... I strugged with that and died a lot, but eventually got it done. I think the game took pity on me and gave me an automatic win because looking back on it, I don't think it had a life bar on that last attempt? At any rate, Alad V wants to surrender to the Sentients—honestly, a logical idea, because there's no way they can win—but Veso overrides his override and syncs the fleet in one grand, albeit futile attack.

And then Teshin shows up, because of course he does. Teshin's a major character in these story quests, but his introduction is still a complete mystery. This is where I draw the line between "the game trusts the player to understand what's going on" and "okay, I definitely missed an intro quest somewhere." I think he's the NPC you talk to for PVP? Which no one does. My guess is when PVP was added, there was something introducing him. Maybe there's just a video on the Youtube, like how FFXIV 1.0 ended. (I'll do my own headcanon, hang on... Okay, so at the beginning of the game when you first get to your first Relay, Teshin senses the presence of a Warframe and goes to you, saying, "So, the Tenno are back..." Then he leaves and leaves you wondering what the heck.)

Anyway, now you do Teshin's chapter, and, it's worth mentioning, each of these chapters have their own UIs, their own unique skills, their own style of shields and HP. I've noticed this about Warframe: it makes every scene unique. Think back to the scene where you're a sick person in bed playing a board game against Ballas. It's not just a cutscene you watch, you actually play the board game. Someone went through the effort of programming in a minigame for you to play during a dialogue cutscene. Again, this is something any lesser game would have you do separately, so you can watch the cutscene and focus on it, and then play the minigame and focus on it. Warframe, again, trusts the player's intelligence to do both at the same time—or, they trust that it will be just too much to do all at once. I'm trying to solve this new minigame while listening to new information, and it makes it hard to process all of it—which, I think, is the point. Warframe wants to keep you completely on your toes. I kept putting down my controller during cutscenes to take screenshots, only to snatch it up again once I realize, I'm supposed to be aiming that beam or something.

Warframe loves to give you puzzles and no explanation. I can respect that. Some are really confusing, and to my shame, I was not able to first-try... nearly anything in this quest. I did Kahl's chapter on the first try, but everyone else died all over the place. And, what's really interesting, is that it's not a case like, again, the only other game I play FFXIV, where if you die, now you know what that does, and you don't die to that again. In Warframe I just had to try and try again until I figured out, one, what the game was asking me to do, and two, how to do it.

At the end of Teshin's chapter, there's a confrontation, and then the Lotus is sucked into a vortex, the Operator is stabbed through the whole and sucked into a vortex, and then...

What the... What the hell is going on? First, they make you sign a contract to begin the mission, and now this!? ...or... is this because I was idle for like 45 minutes at one point and my computer turned off Wifi when it went to sleep? It's probably the latter, but in the moment, it was certainly a fourth-wall-breaking mindfuck of the ultimate degree. I was already completely hooked, and now this?

Now we see Ballas as a king. Wasn't he shackled by Erra? Why's he in charge now? Was their a conflict between the two that we didn't see? Was this their plan from the beginning? Will it be explained if I keep playing or is this all we're going to get?

Naturally, I kept playing, and then—

...if this dude turns out to be my Duviri guy, I'm going to scream.

So now I'm Human Male, infiltrating the Narmer, which the context tells me is the kingdom Ballas made. "Narmer" is a familiar name. I've heard the song on Youtube, sans context, and I've seen notes saying that certain mods and arcanes and stuff can be gotten from "Narmer bounties," so there's something going on with them later. Human Male has a pistol, radar, and a smoke grenade—and a healing power reminiscient of what I had in Duviri. And that's it. Up against these guys that just dusted the Lotus and my invincible Warframe both, and conquered the entire solar system.

Again, no context. The game is letting us figure that out for our own—who this guy is, where he came from, what he's doing, and why. We're resisting the Narmer, of course. And, it says right there, rescue Ostron prisoners, so you know I'm doing that. He gets to the end of the level, and then there's something called an Archon, so he has to book it, and he goes...

...back to my ship.

Well, all my decorations are missing, but the colors are mine. Why is he in my ship? And then—

YEAH IT'S MY FUCKIN' DUVIRI GUY. Okay! Okay, so we're really doing this! Not only is it my Duviri guy, but he's got Ordis, too—and, somehow, what's left of the Lotus.

Why does he have the Lotus's remains? The game doesn't tell you, but, obviously, he went into the Void and found them. What, you think he ordered it from Amazon? He's trying to revive the Lotus, but so is Erra and Ballas—only, Erra wants to remake her as Natah, Ballas wants to remake her as Margulis, and John Duviri wants to remake her as the Lotus.

Now, in the quest Natah, we learned from Hunhow that the Lotus's real name is Natah. Then in the Second Dream, we heard the Lotus's voice actor being called Margulis. Margulis was apparently executed for treason or something, we don't know what happened to Natah, and now there's the Lotus. So, was Margulis not executed, but turned into the Lotus? Or, what? The Lotus is very mysterious. She has extremely powerful powers and is essentially a Tenno goddess. Perhaps more will be revealed in the fullness of time? But, the game is often content to not answer questions. Half the time it doesn't even ask questions, it just does what it wants and leaves it to you to grok what's going on.

So, we try to find out. First, John Duviri needs to steal a Corpus ship, so for that, we travel to Fortuna—and if "We All Lift Together" jumps into your head just by reading that name, you're not alone. But this time, we're treated to a different song...

"Praise the wise and mighty Ballas . . . "

Powerless against the Narmer, we enter the stealth section of the game... and this was really frustrating. I got caught dozens of times and this took me an hour or so. Especially inside the factory, I just couldn't figure out what to do on the left side for ages, until I finally opened my eyes and saw the extremely obvious way to go—so obvious, in fact, that the game pops up with a "Press L1 to Crouch" tutorial. Bro—do you think I made it to The New War without crouching? What do you think I've been doing for the whole stealth section thus far!? So, I stole a ship and went to Uranus (which is occupied by Grineer, so why do we need a Corpus ship?) where the Natah quest took place, and where we first encountered Sentients, and Hunhow. This time, though, we meet Hunhow in the flesh (?) and he gives us a magic weapon, the S-tier bow N... Nakurak? Nataruk. It's on Overframe.gg's tier list at the top of S rank, masked with a spoiler filter, which made me click it because, how could a weapon's name be a spoiler? It can't be that much of a spoiler, just a teaser, right? So I clicked it long ago and thought: yep this means nothing to me. But! Now, I had it, this famous bow. It must be good, then. And, yeah, it's pretty good—especially compared to my pistol.

Ah, I'm doing that thing again. Everyone hates when a Youtuber provides an "analysis" of some piece of media, and it turns out just to be recapping the story. That's exactly what I'm doing here. But, I'm also not pretending to provide a new and unique analysis—and I'm not writing and revising a script beforehand. I'm just thinking out loud, so to speak—so to type—and getting my thoughts out in writing. And part of that is retracing my steps through the story, refreshing my memory, and just sharing how I felt each step of the way. But you, dire reader, should have already done this quest—so there's nothing new for you, and if there is, shame shame, you're spoiling it for yourself. But that's all right, in the end, because I'm not writing for you, honestly, I'm just writing for myself. So it goes.

So, Hunhow introduces the three Archons to us, and now I'm thinking, okay, so the weird part's over and we're getting back to a normal video game now. Here's the "kill ten rats" part.

Hah.

But, on seeing the Archons, I noticed one thing right away. Actually, I think I saw it when John Duviri got chased by one in his first mission, but, they've got the body of a Warframe—recognizable ones, that's Mag, Rhino, and... I'm not sure about the other one but his powers seemed like Caliban's—and a Sentient on their head, with a crystal stuck through them both at the Warframe's head, like a linchpin. What would happen if you took the crystal out? What would happen if you stuck the crystal somewhere else? I'm vaguely aware that Archon Shards are some kind of game mechanic—can't be that complicated, though, because the top searches on the wiki are always Kuva Lich and Icarnon...

Anyway, right after that, we get a smash cut to a Zariman school? It's first person, but I know who I am. I'm my kid, back Before It All Happened, bored at school, as all kids throughout all time have been. There's a training drill for the crew, and we get to watch—only for it to fade back to Duviriman, and the battle against the Archons.

I went against the Owl first. Well, I went to Earth, first, I wasn't paying any attention to who was where. I kept dying because I wasn't listening when Hunhow was telling me how to attack the enemy weak spot for massive damage, but helpfully after I died, Ordis reminded me just vaguely enough for me to get what to do. Still hard, but I got it done, and just as I had suspected, he pulled out the crystals to kill them. One down, two to go! Thanks to my magic bow, this will be easy and normal!

Back to the Zariman. Something happened. The whole place is attacked and destroyed. Your classmates are crying in the corner, and I'm my kid, as I suspected. So, this is retelling the history of what happened on the Zariman. I just know what... a lot of bad shit happened, everyone was fighting everyone, it's complicated. There's Tenno, Sentient, and Orokin involved, and the Sentients made the Warframes to wipe out the Orokin? All tied together by the Lotus, which only makes things more confusing... But, anyway, yeah, time to see what really happened back then! My kid helps her friends, and then, in the corner...

"Is that me? Nah, we all have the same uniform, and there's only so many hair styles."

...I didn't get a screenshot, but that person turns around and yep, it's me. She has black eyes and says "Thanks, kiddo." End scene.

What the fuck is going on?! Once again—when the devs decided to start having cutscenes in Warframe, they clearly didn't consult any of the standard texts, or they did, and decided to skip all the rules. Half the time I'm playing in cutscenes. The entire time, crazy, weird shit is happening. From the beginning, Warframe has been nothing but baffling—no, no, "baffling" isn't the word. I've just been spoiled by having the Echo in FFXIV to let me go into the past and read people's mind and see exactly what happened to set things in motion. In Warframe, you don't get those Echoes. You just get... the experience, you just see the aftermath, so to speak, and it's on you to figure out what's happening and why.

Did you read Dune? It's fantastic. Better than fantastic—it's possibly perfect. Dune is rife with its own mythology, history, language, culture, all that—and at no point does the narration explain a single thing to you. The characters live in their world, and are completely comfortable with it. It's normal to them, they don't feel compelled to explain what the kwisatch haderach is, just like I don't feel compelled to have to explain who Jesus Christ is. Warframe has a similar aspect to it—you keep getting these scenes where characters might be talking about something about the Old War that they know all about, and you're in the dark, and that's that. They won't light the way for you, figure it out yourself, and if you can't, that's not their problem.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say—how I feel. Warframe's story is not badly written, but, it could seem that way. It could seem like there's plot holes, or missing pieces, or they're just jumping around at random. I don't have all the answers, and the game isn't telling me that I should even be asking questions. Everything is taken as a given. For instance, when you play as the Drifter, Ordis has a body. Ordis has a body!? When? How? Why? —none of these questions are relevant. Ordis has a body. Maybe the Drifter built a flying computer for Ordis to inhabit because the ship computer was offline. Maybe this is Ordis's true form, finally recovered from an ancient Old War battlefield. Maybe we're in a time loop and this is Ordis's original body, before he lost it and became the ship in the Warframe game that we've played thus far. The game's not putting a spotlight on it and saying, "Whoa, how mysterious, don't you wonder about that?" I do wonder about that! But the narrative takes it as a given and rolls with it, so I've just got to do the same.

And the same happens with bigger plot, too. In, what, the Sacrifice, or the Apostasy Prologue, something in there, we had a cutscene where we just see Ballas approach the Lotus and take her out of her Lotus machine and take her away. Or vice versa. I don't remember, and I think I have a screenshot of Lotus carrying Ballas. So... why is Ballas around? Isn't he an ancient Orokin, and weren't they wiped out? Where's he been, and why'd he get out? Where was the Lotus and how does he or anyone know where that is? Why was it possible to... anything that happened? There are lots of questions, but no time to ask them. The game simply says, "This is what's happening now. Try to keep up, kiddo."

...anyway, after the weirdness with your clone on the Zariman, the Drifter fights the second Archon, in my case it was Rhino on Mars. This was a much easier fight, I won the first time, though I didn't figure out his gimmick where he clones himself. I just shot them until I found the real one. I'm guessing, since the Owl required you to use the smokescreen ability, this one requires the radar ability? In any case, it was an easy fight, and we brought the crystal back to the Lotus, even though she was showing signs of hostility after the first crystal. This time she broke loose and attacked us, Ordis sacrificed himself to save us (but he turned out to be fine anyway), and Lotus flew away to do something mysterious and probably Ballas-related.

Then we're back on the Zariman where the kid is facing her clone who says—with great acting and facial expressions, by the way. This blows anything FFXIV has ever done with animations out of the water... but maybe that's typical of more Western games, there's more of a movie-based inspiration than anime or whatever? I just know every JRPG is filled with scenes of everyone just standing around taking their turns talking, whereas western games seem to be a lot more Hollywood. Anyway, the clone says she can save everyone... something something, I don't remember exactly, but it's a deal with the devil sorta thing. The kid accepts and they shake hands, and then—

I didn't get a good screenshot, but there are thousands and thousands of copies of the kid. And then I realized:

At the game's beginning, you controlled your Warframe, and Ordis called you "Operator," like he was speaking to you, the player, not the person inside the Warframe. There's not a person inside the Warframe, though. As we began to realize that in-world these things are remote-controlled somehow, we eventually did the Second Dream, and learned that it was the Tenno that control the Warframes. In the Second Dream, your Warframe rescues your you, your kid, from the pods in the Reservoir. One thing I wondered was, what about all the rest? Sure, it's a video game, so the bad guy goes after the player, but what about all the other Tenno sleeping in the Reservoir? But, with this scene, I realized...

I am every Tenno.

Every Warframe is piloted by this kid, the one survivor from the Zariman incident. She's copied thousands and thousands of times—infinite times, probably—through some kind of parallel time, multiverse shenanigans. It's extremely magical and totally unexplained. And, the thing is... Hunhow addressed the Drifter as "Tenno." He doesn't refute this at all. The Drifter is a Tenno as well, but there was only one survivor... in this timeline, maybe? Is he from another timeline where there was no Zariman disaster, or, somehow my grown-up self? (I like how they discuss in the cutscene whether he's just her from the future, and the game totally ignores that they're different genders. The kid just thinks "Huh, I guess I trans my gender when I grow up, okay then.") Or, something even more mind-bending? The same timeline, but just a different outcome—but still the same. Somehow.

It's fucking weird.

And I still have one more Archon to beat!

The writers for this game... well, the advice I know is "If you want to have good ideas, have lots of ideas." You come up with an idea for your story... and you throw it out and come up with one better. So they must've just had a lifetime of "Yeah... but what if instead..." and one-upping their ideas until they got to where they are now. The scene where the Drifter—now in a timeframe where he knows what's going on—sits down to dinner with the kid—who simultaneously just experienced the Zariman attack, and is also the kid we later play as, who "got all your Warframes back" as the Drifter asks—this scene is where my brain finally shut down and I understood. You're not supposed to be trying to understand this intellectually. You're supposed to be trying to understand this emotionally. Respond to the impact and magnificence that the game wants you to experience, rather than fussing over the little details of "Wait, why's he standing over there now?" It is beautiful, and it's art in the most extreme and perfect way.

Then, you get a strange choice, for the Drifter or the Operator. "To finish this," they say, so I assume it's just for the rest of this quest? Or, would this actually change my Operator into the Drifter permanently? I mean, this quest made me sign a contract before I started! Anything could happen.

I chose the Operator. I am the Operator. I've always been the Operator. And the Drifter, he's... also me, but not yet.

The Operator got stabbed by Ballas (or was it Erra? I don't remember, I was getting stabbed at the time) and fell into the Void with the remains of the Sentiented Lotus. How did the Operator survive? Obviously, she didn't. This is another identical copy, plucked from infinite timelines. The copy also got stabbed and died in the Void. Everything happened, has happened, will happen, and is happening. That kid was mumbling, "When are we gonna use this stuff?" during our Eternalism lesson, and hey! I wound up having to use it right away.

I also noticed, on the slides for the Eternalism lecture, that the recommended reading was some books by A. Entrati and E. Entrati. Our teacher was E. Entrati (I don't remember her first name)... and it occurred to me... I don't have Grandmother's name on Deimos yet, do I? Hm...

And then, final battle. The Lotus went to confront Ballas and we went to confront both. Erra had a change of heart and died on his own. No pity for bastards. And the fight, in true Warframe form, was a cinematic spectacle—I know FFXIV's trials and raids are spectacles, but Warframe, at its best, is like playing a movie. There's dialogue constantly, and the combat is a puzzle, reflecting beams at targets, baiting your foe's attacks, that sort of thing. I didn't even realize it was a boss battle, I didn't even realize it was a puzzle at first, I thought it was all cutscene for a while. It was intense, and once I realized that I'm part of it, the tension only amped up.

But, in the end, it's a video game. We defeated Ballas, and rescused the Lotus, and now everything is back to norm—WHAT IN THE HOLY NAME OF FUCK IS THAT????

All problems solved, Ballas done away with, Narmer's yoke broken, the mystery of the Lotus solved—and then this insane, preposterous, impossible thing. It loomed up with perfect megalophobia, and then... just grinned and smiled. On top sat the kid's clone, wearing the Lotus mask—the same weird creep that we chased during one early part of the quest. All it did was appear and smile and then it was gone, without a flash or bang or the remotest effect, it simply disappeared.

This is an absolutely bonkers ending to what was a pretty bonkers quest. The New War, as a whole, didn't answer a lot of questions about the Old War, the Orokins and Sentients, or what happened on the Zariman. In fact, it just raised a lot of new questions, introducing the Drifter and his impossible connection to the Operator... and this ending. What. Just... what.

Now, I'm not playing this on launch day back in 2021. I have the benefit of scraps of information that's come since. For instance, there was a new Warframe named Jade—in the Second Dream (or thereabouts) we see that Margulis was sentenced to the Jade. So, whatever Jade's quest is about, it'll reveal more about that time. I also know there's a quest "Whispers in the Walls" that's been on my Codex forever, waiting for me to clear—to even reveal—the prerequisite, "The New War." And I've seen mention of "the Man in the Wall" as a character of some sort, and, uh... I guess I'm looking at him. And, during the tantalizingly named patch "The Lotus Eaters," the login screen seemed to depict the Lotus and this wall-man looming over her.

The New War is unquestionably Warframe's greatest quest (so far). It took me nearly 12 hours. FFXIV's patch stories don't even take me that long! Not even if I combine the raid grind that comes with it! This was absolutely epic and perfect in every way. Every scene kept me completely rapt, and constantly guessing and wondering at what might come next. Everything kept being different, from playing playing as a Grineer and a Corpus with their own title cards, weird new hacking minigames, mashing buttons during cutscenes, and a beautifully perplexing story.

But.

The single reveal in the Second Dream, when they suddenly dump you into a character creator, is a better moment. That moment is honestly the highlight of my entire gaming career. Nothing can touch that... unless it turns out that all of Warframe was just the tip of the iceberg leading us to some kind of ARG or something paradigm-shifting like that. But I've already said my piece on the Second Dream.

It turned out that @chiclet-go-boom sent me the New War trailer all those years ago. My first-ever contact with Warframe was seeing that. I didn't understand anything that was happening, but had grandeur and mystery in spades—though it didn't show any gameplay, it promised some kind of substantial world and story that was more than I expected. I thought Warframe was some kind of PVP game like Apex or Overwatch and just as "deep." When I did get around to actually playing, when the Angels of the Zariman came out, I had all these quests in my Codex that required The New War to unlock... but I didn't have The New War in my Codex. This was telling: clearly, this The New War quest was going to be something special, accessed from somewhere else, perhaps, and with so many other quests hanging on it, it must usher in some complete shift in the game to reveal so many new paths. Plus, just look at the name. "The New War" is exactly what you call your big 2.0 restructuring quest.

So... what do I think happened?

There's been plenty of text ingame about what happened, from the Zariman, the Old War, Lua and the Void and everything. I don't remember most of it. But, I'll try to make a go at... some of the key points.

There's three species here. First is human, the Tenno on the Zariman. We saw the kids, bored at school, flying off Saturn, which means that humans must have mastered interplanetary travel, since it's mundane to them, and they feel comfortable enough to sit kids down for regular classes during trips. Well, they get attacked, so not totally safe. Second species is the Orokin, the blue, long-armed humanoids. Third is the Sentients, really cool-looking alive robotic monoliths... or something. Where the Orokin and Sentients came from I do not know—I think one came from the Void, and the other can't enter the void, or vice versa, or something.

The Zariman got attacked and only the children survived. Margulis took them in, which was an act of treason, so she was sentenced to death by the Jade light. So, the Orokin and the humans must have been at war, or something. Ballas loved Margulis but Margulis loved the children. The Orokin built Warframes—I think some dialogue during the Sacred Grove quests has a person talking about how she's designing Warframes for Ballas. Then, I guess, the Sentients made the Lotus in the image of Margulis to use the Tenno to pilot the Warframes to wipe out the Orokin? Snippets of mention of the Old War suggest that the Warframes wiped out "a civilization," and since we see Orokin ruins everywhere and Orokin people nowhere, I guess it's the Orokins that were wiped out. Interesting is that all the Orokin levels are in the Void, except Deimos, where an Orokin surviving family lives.

But, wait—they're the Entrati family, aren't they? All them on Deimos? Then why would the Zariman classroom slideshow say to read books by A. Entrati, if he's Orokin and they're warring with them? Unless, the Deimosites aren't Orokin? But they're blue, they look like Ballas, who is certainly Orokin I think.

Also, if the Sentients made the Lotus, how come they have the power to do so? How come the Lotus has the powers she has? Why would the Tenno children be particularly good subjects to pilot the Warframes? Is this some Evangelion thing where you mother has to be dead? Why wouldn't the Sentients just make a bunch of Lotuses to attack the Orokin directly?

And, the game begins with the Tenno returning—the Warframes coming back to life. So, where did they go? But, in The New War, the Tenno disappeared again. Is this some more time loop stuff? Are we essentially at the same beginning, but now history is different there's Narmer? Who is Natah, and how—in what way did she become the Lotus?

All this, and now the Drifter, the evil clone, the man in the wall... I know Warframe 1999, or, something, has something to do with the Entratis, so there's more to be dug from that hole. They added a new faction or something when they released Dagath, or Dante, or something. I don't know, I just watched the one dev stream one time to see the Hydroid rework :p But I know the story's going to go down that path.

Also, @maeljade said "Congrats on beating Warframe's Endwalker." What's that supposed to mean? Because it was a grand, epic, emotional, time-traveling adventure? Because it was much-hyped and long-awaited? Because they came out at the exact same time? :P Or... because this is the end of the first story, and now a new story arc begins? From the hints I've seen, it looks like the Entrati family, this man in the wall, and the Lotus are going to be the focus of the upcoming story. But, let's be honest, "focus" and "story" don't belong in the same sentence where Warframe is involved. Don't get me wrong, I love this game, I love how they're telling the story—but it's extremely confusing, completely open, and if you measure from Natah to The New War... there's not really a solid throughline here. In Natah we find out that the Lotus is really Natah, a Sentient. In the Second Dream we find out that we're really the kid on the moon. In the War Within... I forget what we found out but Teshin shows up to help us fight the Queens and unlock the Kuva zone. Some kind of coming-of-age episode, I guess. In Chains of Harrow, we learned that the Void is even weirder than we thought, and perhaps is just a person unto itself. The Sacrifice was about the Umbra Warframe and we met Ballas, and then in the Apostasy and The New War, we have the whole Ballas kidnaps the Lotus, Erra enslaves Ballas, Ballas creates Narmer and conquers the game thing. It's hard to argue that it was all leading up to that, everything just kind of suddenly happens.

Anyway, I've been writing for almost as long as the quest took. It's, no question, the greatest quest in Warframe, there's no comparison whatsoever. It's probably longer than every other previous quest combined. It absolutely exceeded all possible expectations—I was expecting more of the usual, kind of regularish quests with voice overs during, cutscenes between, and some big twist at the finish. This was like playing a movie. So many times I wasn't sure whether I was playing or watching—in a good way! I'm watching something exciting happen and the camera moves just so and I realize "Oh wait, I have to be them now!?" Active time events popping up during cutscenes. This was simply unprecedented. With the Second Dream, the game began to experiment with cinematic quests... and, having instantly perfected it, they then went off to the races with it.

I've been playing Warframe for a couple years now, and I have around 650 hours in it. I know, I know, I thought it'd be a lot more, too! Sure feels like I've been playing for a lifetime. I could've done this quest a long time ago, but I'm glad I waited. I'm glad I let the game steep, let myself sink into it and absorb it, take my time and go my own way, and now, finally, have this phenomenal experience. Like I said, the moment in the Second Dream was, I think, still a more profound, eye-opening, jaw-dropping moment—but that whole quest takes like, half an hour. The New War took me a solid twelve hours, and I did take a break for like twenty minutes to do something else, but I realized... no, no, I have to do this in one go. One massive, monumental, extraordinary adventure. And it was perfect.

...

Man, I don't know what else to say. I don't know what to think. The Second Dream had that moment, but The New War was just a wall-to-wall nonstop experience. It's like the Second Dream was magnificent, and then The New War said, "Ah, but I am not left-handed..." and really kicked it up to 11. It's going to be a long time before I'm ready to do another story quest. I don't know what this has unlocked for me, other than a slew of new quests. I know I've seen tooltips that say items can be gotten from the Drifter's Camp, and now that I finally have that, I can check that out. I've seen that you get some things from "Narmer Bounties" so there must be something about that somewhere. I know that the Zariman will be a zone on the star chart at some point because I have a button for Arbitrations that says I need to complete the entire start chart including the Zariman and a bunch of places on Deimos that aren't on my map... But, there's a lot of quests ahead of me, and we're finally getting to the things that I saw come out: Angels of the Zariman, Whispers in the Walls, the Jade Shadows. Probably it won't be until next Christmas that I get around to doing those... but, we'll see. After all, we're fighting a new war now...

All right. I think that's all for now. My mind is empty. I said some words. That's all for now.

#warframe #6820 words lol

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lightandfellowship · 4 months ago

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An aspect of Hoder's death that I find pretty compelling outside of just the effect her death had on the cast + the events of the game is the fact that her brother and friends seem to just be guessing at what she would have wanted or what she would have done in their shoes. And quite possibly guessing incorrectly. Which highlights one of the many tragic elements of death apart from the death itself: the dead not being able to speak for themselves.

Vidar turns to Kingdom Hearts because it might save Hoder's brother and he thinks that's what she would want. After all, her brother is someone precious to her who she's willing to protect with her life, as she demonstrated in Enchanted Dominion when she sacrificed herself to save him. But saving her brother via Kingdom Hearts means potentially harming the worlds, their residents, and the entire universe in general, and considering Hoder chose to confront a super powerful fairy all by herself to try and save Aurora, a random stranger she had only just met, endangering innocents for personal reasons sounds like the kind of thing she might seriously disapprove of. But it seems like Vidar, Vala, and Vali never considered that possibility, assuming that it was just a given that Hoder would risk the entire world for her brother.

And while Baldr's motivations are kinda complex and can be interpreted in a number of ways, it wouldn't susprise me if part of the reason why he wanted to purge the world and kill the upperclassmen was for the sake of getting revenge on Hoder's behalf. We know he blames the upperclassmen for not saving her, and it was the evil of the world that drew Hoder to the castle and got her killed in the first place. (There's also the element of "Baldr blames himself for her death but he can't handle the guilt so he's going to blame everyone else instead as a coping mechanism.") Once again, someone close to Hoder is risking the lives of countless others for her sake, ostensibly (though I'm sure Baldr is just telling himself that he's doing it for her when really he's mostly doing it for himself, unleashing his grief and wrath upon the world that wronged him.) And it's not just strangers at risk this time, her friends are getting killed one by one, all because her brother thought they deserved it for failing to save her. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Hoder didn't blame her friends at all for what happened to her and had no interest in getting "revenge" on them.

What makes Hoder's situation interesting/unique though is that she technically does get several opportunities to speak for herself after she dies, unlike most characters who die suddenly and prematurely. Once in the Underworld after her spirit gets temporarily brought back to meet with Xehanort and Eraqus, and several times after that when she's hiding in Xehanort's heart. But for most of these scenes she chooses not to speak, and when she does finally reveal herself and speak, it's during a scene where all of her dialog was potentially just a ruse to get closer to Baldr in order to take him out, and thus it's hard to say exactly how genuine her words were. Even when given the rare and precious opportunity to express her true feelings and desires post-death, she remains quiet, or chooses to speak but potentially with ulterior motives. Which actually fits how she acted in life as well. So maybe dying was never the problem, maybe part of her tragedy is that she never would have made her feelings clear even if she were alive. Which I think is a pretty interesting character trait for her, a character who values actions over words, a character who doesn't seem to be too concerned about explaining herself or being understood by others, a character who would rather just take matters into her own hands instead of clarifying her wishes to others who could act on her behalf...and the tragic accidents + miscommunication that occurs because of those secretive, proactive, and independent aspects of her personality.

Anyway, I have to imagine she kinda resents seeing her loved ones do these really terrible things in her name. Especially since she probably thought that her sacrifice was going to be the only one, no blood on her hands except for her own, only for that death to cause ten others. And as I've seen other people speculate, this probably contributed to her choice at the end to intervene. All of this tragedy happened because of her, because of her reckless actions and because of her friends and brother's love for her, and she needed to take responsibility for it.

"Dying was the worst decision I ever made." <- Hoder, probably

#rambling about dim path #ch tag: hod #ch tag: bal #ch tag: vid #ch tag: val

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spotlightlowlife · 8 months ago

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Unpopular opinion, at this point, Blitzø is an issue.

Not because he's in the wrong, his situations suck more than him, so do some of those around him (*cough*Stolas *cough*Loona), he sucks because he's becoming more and more of an outlet for writers to play out power and sex fantasies with whilst being edgy and always quick enough to have a remark ready for others, always managing to be the centre of attention but will always be the victim too.

In every conceivable way, he's being wronged or he's punching up.

The arrangementship with Stolas is a case of him being a victim but for those who don't see it this way, Stolas x Blitzø is a chance at happiness, pauper being picked, even though their union was and will always be an inappropriate power imbalance which has now been the case since childhood, back where Blitzø was a victim of his dad, yet a few years later he somehow developed feelings for his friend who seemed like a sibling to him, but he seemed to envy him too? Either way we are too root for his unrequited 'love lost' that we can blame on a fire accidentally caused by none other than Blitzø, but we can also push blame others for this accident too.

Fizz and Barbie may be victims of his recklessness, but he means/meant no harm and he had it just as bad as them, hence the 'sorry but..' he offered Fizz.

Substance abuse got to be something Blitzø endulged in before we met Barbie who we had already been informed is an addict, Blitzø got to be both a boss and a victim during his binge which had even the sin of gluttony beat and concerned, yet when we meet Barbie, she is composed, working and has some success in being able to freely travel, having a human disguise and being able to easily manipulate others, which could have all been good, a change of tone from yet another downtrodden character and a change from a sloppy addict that may have expected, only, we had to be told Barbie was in rehab and recently so, we had to be informed that Blitzø looks out for her and is worried even though we never had never saw him track her progress previously. We meet her, there's nothing to indicate that they have spoken since Blitzø's fall out with Fizz, Barbie is pretty much work a similar job to her brother of causing destruction on Earth, yet morals come into play for just one of them? Neurotic, antisocial and traumatised, comes to earth as an assassin, excellent, no content yet and seems well put together but we have been told is an addict, comes to earth the deal, scum.

Barbie made Blitzø sad by not listening to him and washing her hands of him (again, when did they last speak? Has there been nearly 20 years of the same conversation?), which yet again has us pouring sympathy into him.

Then there's the clearly hurt and robbed Verosika, who's upset is totally glossed over because 'she's so iconic'.

The power dynamics are entirely power play, because there are too many characters supposedly of much higher standing who Blitzø easily rubs shoulders with, stands out to and crosses to no consequence, all for no particular reason, the dismissal of what he says and does is reminiscent of a movie where a ghost doesn't know they're dead or a character doesn't realise their friend is imaginary. All excluding Stolas of course but this but this is where the power play sex fantasy is.

Why are they together? Answer, Blitzø's desperation to have his business work, the whole plot to the show.

Like Hazbin, the pilot started out rather strong, it ticked every box mentioned in one episode, they were a wicked bunch but morally grey, the trip to hospital being a prime example, we met humans, we saw Earth, Stolas was a intimidating and regal, Blitzø was reckless with money and decision making, the advert on a low rating station being the prime example, along with blind nepotism.

How is it that this series hasn't had the time to return to its roots since half way through season one?

When does Blitzø get a break from all this trauma dumping and actually get to have other things going on in his life?

Realistically, someone who works has work to talk about, it is a major part of their life. Someone who runs a business tends to put in more hours than your average worker. Work gives you something to talk about, creates new experiences and problems to solve, has you mixing with other and takes up a lot of your time. Where is any of this?

Until it returns to the plot where he is a business owner actually running his business, having interactions with customers and victims, travelling to Earth more regularly, facing actual threats from those who don't care about how sad he is and are actually bothered by his obnoxious ways, I have a questions.

Where are the common teething issues business tend to have, like budget, landlords, tax, inflation, lack of exposure?

How do they pay their day to day expenses, especially since they have so much time on their hands?

Why aren't they out advertising?

How do I.M.P catch the eye of those who just died and how do these sinners pay?

When was the last time we saw a sinner?

Blitzø's direction gives the impression that he's being written for the chronically online people who wish this was them, that they were more feisty, outgoing and desirable whilst others just got them and felt their misery, something that can easily be done as a viewer, throw in the tried and tested powerful and dangerous royalty that worked so well for Twilight and 50 Shades and we have a character who can be vicariously lived through, basically the classic fairytale default damsel who people also want to criticize. It's like he's being reduced to an clownish caricature, looks the vibrant and animated character we were introduced to but that's all just in paper now, he barely stands out in any recent episodes because his presence wasn't nessessary and when he was relevant, it's for his ship or drama from his past.

While waiting to see him with his coworkers who he voyers on because he's sad and lonely, his rude and violent adult adopted daughter, or learn about the trauma surrounding his mother, or whatever is going on with his user dad, or when we will next see his troubled sister who is mad at him, his bitter ex, his best friend/ex friend/rival/friend who lives the life he should be living who he sexually harasses since reconciliation, or his transactionship, or whatever else is pushed on him and there no doubt will be more. What about his present? What about his daily life outside the misery forever sent his way for us?

He should be encountering strangers and a massive variety of situations he can't entirely control on the regular, having to draw upon his smarts, experiences and group dynamic to get out of binds or be efficient, his trauma, sadness and his sass could be a force of good.

How much of his likability is nostalgia, maybe from outside of show? Outside of the pity and sex jokes, what is being done with him?

This may all be harsh and funny enough I actually like this character, but never have I known a series where the solution to making a main character more deep was is a simple case of

'Let them get on with it!

Let them do their job!

Stick to the story!'

Well I do know one other case...

#helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss blitzo #unpopular opinion

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muffin-snakes-art · 1 year ago

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Hi. So I’m not a Layton guy and all THAT familiar with the lore, but a close friend of mine is, and as far as I understand Layton has a dead girlfriend? Can I please know who Magolor’s dead girlfriend equivalent in this AU is? I’m legitimately so curious. /pos

I have been thinking A LOT about which Kirby character would fit Claire's (dead gf) role. In the end I chose Taranza bc I feel he and Claire are the most similar in character. They're both really good at what they do (Claire: brilliant scientist - Taranza: immaculate mage), quick thinkers, humble, and have a lot of love to give.

I'll explain more under the cut (along with images of Claire and younger Layton for design ref), but Taranza could've also fit in as a couple other characters bc I made Sectonia as Descole. In this essay I will-

In Kirby there's an interesting connection between Magolor and Taranza. Primarily based on that one Magolor portrait in that haunted house in Triple Deluxe (like ok huh????) and also that one Star Allies Wave 3 illustration.

With that portrait existing, to me it implies that Magolor has met Taranza and Sectonia before the events of the game somehow. This theory is further backed up with the Old Friend mask in Merry Magoland. Magolor would HAVE to have known what Joronia looked like before her transformation, and that means he would also have met Taranza too at that time. I could be completely wrong about this HAHA but those are my thoughts on that.

When Wave 3 was announced, I didn't think much on the connection of the 3 characters other than they were from the first three core games of modern Kirby. But then they posted this art piece.

It's so cute how Magolor and Taranza combined their magic to create a shield for Kirby!! Both of their respective magic circle designs are melded together perfectly. Did they practice together on their own to perform this or was that a lucky in-the-moment occurrence? Either way, they must know and understand each other's magic abilities to a decent extent. Like how both Claire and Layton understands each other's careers and goals. Layton is a professor in archeology. Claire is a scientist researching time travel and other stuffs. Those fields go hand in hand, and the two do what they can to support and improve each other's passions.

Now onto the other characters that Taranza would've fit as and reasons why I ended up putting him as Claire.

So I put Sectonia as Descole. Descole has an extremely loyal partner/butler/henchman named Raymond. Yea Taranza would easily fit as him, but a few things made me decide not to. Descole may appear cold and not show it, but even in his madness he cares for Raymond. He does order Raymond around, but he still gives Raymond freewill to do as he pleases. Sectonia is very controlling over Taranza. If Raymond were to make mistakes, I don't see Descole punishing him for them. Sectonia would. She blasted Taranza away for mistaking Dedede as the hero of the lower world. Maybe when she was Joronia she wouldn't and wasn't as controlling but....I feel we don't have the full story on their relationship. I also focused more on Sectonia's overall in-game personality. I absolutely love seeing the two spiders enjoying each other's company and having fun, but in-game we never really got what Joronia really thought of Taranza. As Sectonia, she saw him as a disposable servant. You can say her personality was corrupted by the mirror, but I personally believe the mirror actually amplified her negative feelings and views. Negative emotions are brought up a lot in Kirby lore. I personally find that more interesting than just the mirror possessing her or something. I may be very wrong on that, but those are what I thought about.

Last reason, which is uhm, Raymond saves Descole from death FGDHSJ I don't think I need to elaborate on that. It would be so neat and ironic to have Taranza as Raymond, but I also wanna keep things in line as possible with Kirby lore canon.

Yet, who could be Raymond then? Idk fgdsj that's why I struggled so much. If Claire wasn't an option, Taranza would've been Raymond.

Now the one other character Taranza could've fit as is Descole's late wife. His wife was never mentioned by name, to my memory, and didn't have a huge role in the games. There's not enough information on who she was. I wanted to give Taranza a fitting role in personality and importance.

So in the end after all that thinking, Claire it is! I also don't know who else in the Kirby cast would fit her better and be Professor Magolor's late partner. One may think Susie would fit Claire more, but I've already decided she will be Emmy. Emmy's and Susie's personalities are very similar to me. And Emmy's lore? Fits quite well with Susie's. I'll draw that at some point.

So uh yea. Thanks for reading all that if you did! Hope you enjoyed the insanity

#feel free to disagree!#I thought about this for the past few days I am unwell #i spent a good few hours writing this #there are many other important things i could've put my time into but this is very important to me #one last thing...#I've also decided who'll be Don Paolo #mark HAHA #it sounds so dumb knowing the story but also fitting in character???#that may change but I can't stop thinking about Don Marx......#asks #anon ask #kirby #magolor #taranza #sectonia #PLxKirby #professor layton #hershel layton #claire foley #jean descole #nintendo #hal laboratory #fanart #clip studio paint #magoranza/taranzolor get yo food #i don't ship characters but this is a cute ship and I see the appeal #i feel there's more to say about Magolor's and Taranza's connection #and how it parallels Claire's and Layton's story #but I can't figure out how to word it and it's mostly hc based #am tired idk how to write

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phantom-of-the-501st · 8 months ago

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Thoughts on the Batch's Ending

Ooookay. This is going to be a long one. (Little note from Steph who just finished writing this: it’s nearly 3000 words…)

Tagging @saturn-sends-hugs @inkstainedhandswithrings and @eriexplosion because I value their thoughts (but I'm also not demanding that you read 3000 words of waffle)

I’ve had a lot of thoughts about the finale of The Bad Batch and honestly, my mind is a bit of a mess right now. One of the things I just want to try and tackle is how I feel about the ending of each Batch member individually, because while I can look at it and say “The Batch got a happy ending!”, I feel like that doesn’t really give me much of an idea of whether or not each character got an ending that I feel is fitting for their story arc.

So, this post is basically just going to be me unpicking the ending for each of the Batchers and working out how I feel about it (aka me trying to unscramble the mass load of thoughts going on in my head right now).

Omega

Overall, I’m very happy with where Omega ended up. When you look back on how she was when we first met her, you realise just how much she has grown over the last few seasons. She didn’t just learn to be a part of the squad, she also learned how to look after herself. It isn’t just a development of her skillset, it’s also a growth in maturity, which allows her to have a clearer head and more rational decisions in the field. While Omega trusted her brothers to come and rescue her, she didn’t just sit around and wait for them, she hatched her own plan to not only get her and the other children out, but also help the Batch when they arrive at Tantiss.

Like Echo, she strongly believes in helping people and I love that that has carried through into her ending. While it would have been nice for her to live a quiet life, free of any more troubles, it makes complete sense for her to want to join the Rebellion. And I think it was at a good time as well. Omega got to spend the rest of her childhood being raised in a more peaceful, safe environment, before making the decision a few years down the line to go her own way. This is her leaving the nest and I think it was tackled incredibly well. You can see how she has taken on attributes from all of her brothers, and judging by her style choice, Phee as well. We see Omega using the support of her brothers to carve her own path and I love that.

Personally, I can’t really see a more fitting development in her story than this. And I’m reluctant to actually call it an ending because for her, this feels more like the beginning of a new chapter. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we saw her again later down the road.

Hunter

Now those who follow me may be aware that Hunter was never my favourite member of the Batch. I didn’t dislike him, but I never really connected with him in the same way that I connected with all of the other characters. Saying that, it doesn’t mean I haven’t given a lot of thought to him and his character.

Hunter always had a lot on his shoulders. He was the leader of the Batch and that meant keeping a rag-tag group of defective clones in line, but it also left him with the belief that if anything were to happen to his squad, it would be his responsibility. So, with Crosshair and Omega stuck with the Empire, and Tech dead, Hunter had a lot to carry. At the beginning of Season 3 we saw that he had become more reckless and irrational, not really thinking about plans and wanting to jump straight into things. It was Wrecker who had to step in and make sure Hunter didn’t do anything stupid. Hunter felt like he lost control and that took a lot out of him, especially since this is something I think he could feel creeping up on him throughout Season 2, even if he tried to fight it. The Batch had started to make decisions without him, and Omega was forming close attachments to other people, which was digging a knife into Hunter’s fear of losing his squad. So S3 saw him trying everything he could to reunite the Batch, because he couldn’t bear to lose anyone else.

And he achieved that. But what I also deeply appreciate is that we see Hunter accepting that Omega wants to go her own way. This was something he didn’t want happening for a long time, but once he accepted that she was capable of looking after herself, and once he accepted that he could never keep her tied in place forever, he supported Omega in her decision to join the Rebellion. Yes, he will always worry about her. He even tells her that she will always be their kid. But he knows that it’s time for her to carve her own path, and that means for him, finally letting go and accepting that Clone Force 99 will never be what it once was.

Wrecker

Wrecker is an interesting one for me because he’s one of the few characters where I can’t really see a big step for his character in the final episode. For many of the others there is some form of acceptance, or big step in their lives, but for Wrecker I don’t really see that. And unfortunately, I think that comes from Wrecker never really being the focus of any strong character development throughout the history of the show. That’s not to say there wasn’t any growth at all, but when we look at how far everyone else has come in their stories, Wrecker always feels like he never got the same treatment in this show. The biggest growth I saw was when he stepped in to help Hunter when he could see the sergeant was spiralling.

So, while I’m happy he lived and has gone on to enjoy a longer, more peaceful life than we ever expected for the Batch, it makes me sad that we never really saw anything big for Wrecker in this ending. No big acceptance, no huge sacrifice. We don’t even get to see him say goodbye to Omega when she leaves. I love that Wrecker got a happy ending, but I always wish that we had gotten the opportunity to see more of a character arc with him over the course of the entire show.

Crosshair

I accepted a while ago that if any of the Batch members were to survive, Crosshair would be one of them because I didn’t expect the writers to kill him off after everything that he had been through. And thankfully they didn’t! I love that after everything, Crosshair has managed to find peace. Maybe not completely, but enough that he has the chance to live a life that doesn’t involve him being a soldier.

Throughout S2 and S3 we saw Crosshair come to terms with the fact that he was disposable to the Empire and that they didn’t care about him as much as he had made himself believe. And one of the things Crosshair fought with the most was his own identity as a soldier. For so long, he believed that that was all he was, all he could be, so that’s why it has been so amazing finally seeing Crosshair acknowledge that he doesn’t need to be a soldier to still live a life he deserves; his purpose is and always has been more than that.

Saying that, I want to address the hand thing because I am still unsure of where I sit with it. Following his escape from Tantiss, we see Crosshair has developed hand tremors as a result of his PTSD, and a decent chunk of the season has been dedicated to him learning how to live with them. The biggest reason for this affecting Crosshair so much was that it impacted his ability to be a sniper, which is what Crosshair believed to be his main purpose: he didn’t know what to do without the ability to use his hand. And we were given some incredibly sweet scenes between him and Omega as she helped him work out the best way to manage the tremors, for example, them meditating together.

But then that brings me onto my main issue, which is, why remove the hand? One of the reasons I keep seeing is that it removes Crosshair’s ability to be a sniper, but we had already seen that. That’s the issue that the tremors were causing. Crosshair had already been struggling with that ability as a result of what happened to him on Tantiss, so cutting his hand off as a way of preventing his sniping ability seems a bit unnecessary. Now admittedly, the soldier who cut his hand off didn’t know that he had hand tremors, so logistically it makes sense, but as a story tool it seems a bit bizarre to me. Personally, I think it would’ve been more interesting to pursue the idea of Crosshair learning to manage his tremors through meditation etc. and adapting to a life that has less of a focus on sniping.

Another reason I have seen for the hand is that it symbolises Crosshair finally becoming free from the Empire and what they did to him on Tantiss. Him no longer having the tremors indicates that he is no longer burdened by the Empire and his time there. But that doesn’t really work for me either. For one, Crosshair will never truly be separated from what happened to him there; even if he lost the shaking, he would still have a number of psychological issues as a result of what he went though, so I can’t see it as a way of symbolising a true separation. Which is once again why I think that following the story beat of him managing the tremors would have been a more interesting path for them to go down with his character.

Saying that, I’m still happy with where Crosshair’s story went. He is arguably the most complex character in the Batch and I’m so glad we have been able to see him develop the way he has. Him living a long, quiet life is something that I’m happy he has gotten, and I truly don’t think that him dying would have brought nearly as satisfying a conclusion as Crosshair finally finding a new place in the world.

Tech

Oh boy… this is going to be an interesting chunk of this essay. So errm… it turns out Tech is actually dead, which is… kinda shit.

Back when we saw him fall at the end of S2, I said that one of the reasons that I didn’t believe that Tech was really dead was because if he was, I would’ve found the writing kinda cheap. I said repeatedly throughout that season that I didn’t want all of his character development to simply be an emotional manipulation tactic to make us even more sad when he died… which is what it turned out to be. It doesn’t surprise me that Tech sacrificed himself, but it makes me mad that ultimately his death never really had any real impact on anything. I mean, they hardly even addressed it in the final season!

I get that animated Star Wars is known for rarely addressing characters after their deaths, but The Clone Wars focuses on so many characters that if we gave that much attention to every character that died, then we would never progress the plot. However, unlike TCW, The Bad Batch primarily focuses on a smaller group of clones and therefore not only has the space to explore the impacts that death would have on the squad, but really should find it a necessary part of the storytelling. The lack of attention given to Tech throughout this season has been beyond frustrating to me. He deserved better.

And I can’t write a section about Tech’s ending without addressing the CX-2 situation. Were we all delusional for believing that Tech was alive? No. Now before people come at me for saying that, I want to explain why that is the conclusion I have come to. You would have every right to label us delusional if there was absolutely no proof behind the claims that we made, but when the writers give us a character that both speaks and acts like Tech, what did they expect us to think? There were too many parallels between Tech and CX-2 for it to be coincidental and I still stand by the fact that we had reason to believe that they were the same person.

Now, looking at the other CX soldiers we see in the finale, they all seem to parallel the OG members of the Batch: there’s a larger one who primarily focuses on hand-to-hand combat, someone who favours blades, a sniper, and a more tech-savvy one. And I’m sure there is a reason for that, symbolically or practically, but if the fact that they all resemble the Batch is important, then why was so much focus put primarily on CX-2? There was no way we weren’t going to think that they would reveal him to be Tech.

Overall, I’m annoyed. Tech was such a brilliant character and I am so frustrated that not only did he get a death that I felt was kind of cheap, but he didn’t get nearly the respect he should have been given in the final season. Now, I’m not using this as a way to bash the writers, and I definitely don’t think that anyone should use it as an excuse to be bullies, but unfortunately, I can’t be satisfied with the way Tech’s story ended, and I’m not sure I ever will.

Echo

Last but certainly not least, Echo. To say that Echo means a lot to me is an understatement, and I was genuinely terrified that I might have to say goodbye to one of my comfort characters. But thankfully, our boy made it!

Following Season 1, we all wanted for Echo to get some more development. It never felt like he had truly been used to his full potential. And thankfully, Season 2 began to give us that. Yes, we ended up saying goodbye to Echo for half a season, but we saw some incredible growth in his character, and him choosing to join the rebellion made too much sense not to happen. Unfortunately, this also meant that we didn’t get to see Echo for the majority of the final season, but I am beyond grateful that what they gave us in these last few episodes has been some of the best Echo content that we have ever seen. Watching him grow and find where he belongs has been a pleasure to watch, He really is an ARC trooper through and through. Particularly in these last few episodes, seeing how much he has grown to be like Fives, and watching him carry on his brother’s legacy, has been so incredible, No matter what anyone says, I believe that he truly is one of the greatest, and most important characters that we’ve ever gotten out of animated Star Wars.

However, I do have one gripe with Echo’s ending, and it’s the fact that it doesn’t actually feel like a conclusion. If anything, I have more questions about Echo now than I did before the last episode. Echo going to the Rebellion is an absolute given; he still has stuff to help Rex with. But the fact that there is absolutely no mention of him in the epilogue has just made me wonder where he is. Omega mentions Crosshair and Wrecker, and we only see Hunter, so we know that Echo isn’t with them. But we also know that at that point in the story, Echo also isn’t with Rex (assuming we’re in Rebels era). So where is he? What is he doing? Is he actually dead at that point??? I really hope we see more of Echo in the future because if this really is the last time we see his character, it’s too open ended for me to really be satisfied with it.

But if I’m being honest, I really don’t think that this is the last time that we are going to see him. And especially with Omega joining the Rebellion, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw another clone-centric show following these characters in the future.

Concluding Thoughts

All in all, my thoughts are still a bit jumbled. I still don’t know how I truly feel about everything, but hopefully this post at least gives some insight into how I think each character’s endings were handled. Will I change my mind at some point? Probably. But for now, this is where I stand.

At its core, I think the ending we got makes sense for a lot of the characters, and I’m glad that they didn’t all just die at the end. Sure, there are choices that I’m not happy with, but seeing that some of the Batch go on to live long lives is something that I’m very happy to see. It doesn’t happen enough in animated SW, so I’m glad we got to experience it.

#Star Wars #the bad batch #the bad batch season 3 #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers #tbb omega #tbb hunter #tbb wrecker #tbb crosshair #tbb tech #tbb echo

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wishful-thinking64 · 4 months ago

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One Hell of an Unpopular Opinion #08

Two out of the three Hispanic characters in Hazbin Hotel are deeply rooted damaging stereotypes within Spanish & Latin American cultures and the one that isn't a blatant stereotype is misused. ___________

With Spanish Heritage Month right around the corner and being a Latina myself, I think it's more than fair for me to give my thoughts on the Latinos (in Spanish, it doesn't matter if there's only one guy in a primarily female group, you have to put Latinos) in HH. Let's start off with the least offensive out of the group, Carmilla Carmine.

We're introduced to her in Scrambled Eggs which is Episode #03 of HH. She invited each of the Overlords to a meeting to speak about how brutal this year's Extermination was and what they could do going forward. During said meeting, Velvette throws the head of a decapitated Exorcist on the table for her to try and take control of the conversation. Things before and during the song Respectless (why this song wasn't called Disrespect or Diss-respect is something I'll never understand) escalate as Velvette figures out that Carmilla is the one behind the dead Exorcist based on her body language and when she asks, "You know why this angel's headless? Do you have a disclosure?" Carmilla immediately ends the meeting thereafter, confirming her suspicions were correct. People have already criticized the mystery of the dead Exorcist being solved way too soon, though I haven't seen as many people criticize why the other Overlords didn't look or immediately question Carmilla the SECOND that Exorcist's head rolled on the table? Like, you guys know that she's Hell's top ANGELIC arms dealer, why wouldn't any of you suspect her from the start? Even if she had ended up being a red herring, I would've seen it as the Overlords using the process of elimination and common sense cause why wouldn't the ANGELIC arms dealer kill an Exorcist??? In any case, the reason behind Carmilla killing the Exorcist was to protect her daughters and thus someone we should sympathize with. Except that, we don't know anything about her daughters and we still don't know her. So why should I care? I have no attachment and therefore no proper reason to care for a character I JUST met. And don't get me started on her daughters as they're nothing more than minor plot devices who could've been replaced by Vaggie. Speaking of which...

Vaggie is based on two harmful Latina tropes and one harmful LGBTQ+ trope with these being the "Feisty" Latina, the Crazed Latina, and the Man Hating Lesbian. Whenever the "feisty" Latina is done in media, she's almost never actually feisty but rather plain bitchy. The word feisty is used because the show runners tend to want the audience to like this character as, to them, she's (somehow), "a woman who knows what she wants and how to take charge." We see this several times when Vaggie isn't interacting with Charlie though I would say the times that this backfired the most was in Episode #01 and Episode #04. Back in Episode #01 when Vaggie was working on the hotel's commercial she wants Alastor to help out with it. Mind you, she previously slandered the advertisement he had originally made for the hotel so I don't know why she wants his help with making a new one in the first place but nonetheless Alastor basically says, "Yeah. No. I'm not gonna help you cause you already know I hate modern media and you clearly didn't like what I had planned so figure it out." Now, instead of ending the conversation and leaving the man who wants no part in this alone, she holds up the camera that she has in her hands and not only films him but actively mocks him too. This isn't a "bold move" like I've seen people claim it to be, it was simply moronic since she already knew he was an Overlord that's killed and fought people over MINOR INCONVENIENCES. After this the two strike a deal which is another plain stupid move on Vaggie's part as that's only going to come back and bite her in the ass later on in the series. Meanwhile, in Episode #04, she told Husk to go after Angel Dust even though... A.) Going after the residents isn't in his job description. B.) If ANYONE is going after the residents it should probably be THE MANAGER since it's their job to make sure that everything between the staff AND customers is good. C.) She KNOWS that Husk has been sexually and physically harassed by Angel in the past as not only has she SEEN it but she's TOLD Angel to stop harassing the staff. I guess the safety of your co-workers doesn't matter though if Charlie's sad. D.) Lastly, I swear that there was a rule that was established early on about NOT FORCING RESIDENTS TO STAY AT THE HOTEL. Like, am I tripping or did the series retcon that super fast??? Anyway, the point is that the series has Vaggie acting like a snide bitch when she's interacting with anyone other than Charlie. This "feisty" Latina stereotype goes hand in hand with the crazed Latina. The crazed Latina trope is when a Latina will throw hands for the dumbest of reasons or for little to no reason at all. It makes it seem that Latina's are overly aggressive which is how the series portrays Vaggie. She's always seen wielding an angelic spear 24/7 knowing that she can kill any resident or staff member who steps out of line with her, constantly seen threatening to hurt others with it. Out of the two racial stereotypes this one has been called out the most as it's paired with the man hating Lesbian trope because every time Vaggie's threatened to kill someone with said angelic spear, it has ALWAYS been a MALE character. Okay, now it's time to end this off by addressing the elephant in the room that is Valentino.

Oh, God. Where do I start with this failure of a character? I suppose, I'll start with the Casanova aka the Enticing Latin Lover archetype. This involves a strong suave man who's tall, dark (or I guess light purple in Val's case), and handsome (I wouldn't call him that but that's how he's portrayed in the series) as well as being full of ulterior motives! He's the sultry hypersexual Hispanic seducer that everybody can't seem to get enough of. I wouldn't have nearly as much of an issue with this as he's the Overlord of Lust but with how the stans either absolve him of or make LIGHT of his crimes solely because they think how he looks, sounds, and acts is hot (brother eugh), with the show runners encouraging stuff like that on social media (yes, I'm referring to when people were comparing Val's personality to Karen Smith from Mean Girls with Viv agreeing with it cause he's so dumb), his sole purpose is being a plot device for Angel Dust and being fetish fuel. Which really bothers me considering that a good chunk of Hazbin Hotel stans are LITERAL CHILDREN! Continuing on, we have ill tempered and idiotic Machismo/Macho Man. The show can't seem to make up its mind whether or not they want us to take Valentino seriously or not. I get what they're trying to do by making Val intimidating and cunning at one point and a "charming" himbo the next but it's done in such a jarring way that could've been easily fixed had they shown him being more creepy towards lower class demons and Sinners but have him be "charming" towards Overlords and other members of Hell's high society. Like in the show, he's openly verbally violent towards Angel Dust while Charlie is in his presence (I also hate the fact that show Charlie didn't actually do anything when she noticed that Val had hit Angel cause pilot Charlie would've thrown hands regardless of what Angel told her) and doesn't give a flying fuck when she's turning into her demon form RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! Then there's the fact that the Hellaverse doesn't take violence seriously until it HAS to and then these moments can come across as unintentionally comedic. Case and point, when I initially saw Valentino backhand Angel Dust in Episode #04, I AUDIBLY LAUGHED. That shit SHOULD NOT have been nearly as funny as it was! It was meant to be a serious moment where the show segues into how Angel is abused at his job but there I was laughing my ass off in my room for a solid thirty seconds before I was able to regain my composure. Next up is point three about the Cholo or gangster archetype in which a Latino will wear stylish street wear clothes (similar to the outfit Val wears in Episode #04) and commit violent crimes. My previous points indirectly had me go into depth about the violent crimes part so let's move onto point four which is Val being a drug addict and drug maker. Latin characters (specifically men) have been depicted as drug dealers and druggies since AT LEAST the 1970s (it only makes it worse that Valentino supposedly died in this time period.) It's been heavily implied that the smoke from his cigarettes acts as an aphrodisiac which is why he blows it in other peoples faces so much. We see him smoking cigarettes (which contain so much God damn chemicals in them but especially nicotine) throughout the show like its nothing meaning he's gotta have a high nicotine intake (logically, he would've gotten lung cancer by now.) The last racial stereotype that they gave him is the raging alcoholic and I know that anyone can become a raging alcoholic however alcoholism is actually a very common problem among Latinos as more than 33% of them suffer from issues related to an alcohol dependency. It's an ongoing problem that many Hispanics face and seeing how Val is already shown to be a violent individual WITHOUT alcohol in his system, that's only going to make him worse and we saw that in Episode #02 when Val got more irritable and threw his drink in Vox's direction upon knowing Angel Dust was staying at the HH.

___________ People of the jury, I rest my case and I hope you all liked reading my thoughts and I'll see you later!

#vivziepop criticism #vivziepop critique #hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #hellaverse critical #hellaverse critique #hellaverse criticism

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wolfjackle-creates · 2 years ago

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Ghost!Robin Part 13

THE DINNER ENDS!!!!!! Dear god, I need to write something that has less than seven characters present in the currently-being-written scene. This segment will be a bit longer than most previous ones simply because I was so close to the end.

Story Summary: Danny was invited to dinner at Wayne Manor to meet Jazz's boyfriend and his family for the first time. He worked hard to make sure no ghost business would interrupt the evening. But when he arrived, all he could focus on was the ghost of the dead Robin that seemed to haunt Jason. Looks like he was breaking his promise.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.9k

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“Look, I’ve faced both an evil future version of me and have had to deal with mind control.” He looked to Bruce and, serious now, said, “As soon as the Anti-Ecto Acts are repealed and the Guys in White disbanded, I will help you write those plans myself.”

Bruce gave a single nod. “Do you know what caused you to turn evil in the alternate time stream?”

Danny sighed and nodded. “Believe it or not, I cheated on a standardized exam.”

“Okay, what?” asked Tim, incredulous. “What sort of 2000s PSA life do you live? How did that lead you down the path to evil?”

Danny frowned. “I got caught, my teacher met with Jazz, my partners, and my parents at a local restaurant to discuss it. There was an explosion and the entire place blew up killing every single person I was close to. I was then sent to live with Vlad where things got worse.”

Duke let out a low whistle. “Damn. I think I’d go evil, too, under that pressure.”

Robin flew over to him and draped himself over Danny’s back, hugging him as tightly as he could. Jazz reached over and gripped his hand. He gave her a smile and squeezed back.

Bruce nodded. “But it sounds like a future that is unlikely to happen again.”

“Grandpa says the same thing. And since he’s the Ghost of Time, I try to believe him.”

Tim made a noise of agreement. “Be glad you have that assurance. I’ve an evil future self as well. He’s such an asshole.”

Danny forced a laugh, recognizing the attempt at levity. “I’m sure. How’d you get yours to go away?”

He shrugged. “The obvious way. Threatened to kill myself so I could never grow up into him.”

Dick spluttered from his spot next to Damian. “I’m sorry, you did what? Tim! How could you?”

Tim shrugged. “Better than having an evil, gun-using Batman running around.”

Bruce was now sitting with his head in his hands. The rest of the table also started yelling at Tim, the references and names making no sense to Danny who looked over to Jazz. She just shrugged at him.

Leaning over, he whispered in her ear, “At least your in-laws won’t be too freaked out when weird things happen around you.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Honestly, I’m glad this is how the evening ended. It means no more secrets between Jason and me.”

“Guys, enough!” shouted Tim. “Look, I’m fine. This happened ages ago. But I promise I’ll update my incident report so you can all snoop on it later. Now, if you’ve all forgotten, we have guests. And ones who can help us with our League troubles. Danny, you had questions about the Lazarus pits?”

“Yeah, uh, you said it can be used to heal people? How does that work?” To Jason, he added, “And how did you interact with it?”

“I was dunked in it,” said Jason with a shrug. “After I’d been revived. I wasn’t in my right mind and Damian’s mom thought it might help.”

Robin nodded and signed something.

Dick translated for the ghost. “Baby Jason says the pit tied him and Big Jason together, but also prevented them from actually combining into one person again.”

Danny looked between them. “You were submerged in a pool of bubbling ectoplasm? How the hell did that not kill you? That shouldn’t be possible for a human. I doubt it’d be good for a ghost!” No wonder his future brother-in-law was split in two. That was probably the best that could be expected.

Danny hadn’t even realized how hard he was projecting concern until Robin trilled back at him to calm him down. Danny took a deep breath and pulled in his aura. “Sorry, Robin. I do think I’d like to get you both in to see my doctor as soon as possible, though.”

Jazz cleared her throat. “We can discuss that at home.”

Bruce stared at him. “Do you think they can help Jason?”

Danny shrugged. “He knows the most about ghost-human hybrids of anyone. If anything can be done, he’ll know.”

“I will go with you,” Bruce said.

Danny immediately shook his head. “Nope. I won’t bring anyone from Earth into the Realms until the Anti-Ecto acts are repealed. And only Jason can invite people to his private medical check up.”

Steph pouted. “But Jason is from Earth. Sure, he’s got some weird thing going on, but why does he get to go exploring other dimensions?”

“Cause he’s dead. He belongs to the Infinite Realms just as much as he belongs to Earth. I’m not gonna block someone from accessing their home.”

“I’m not dead!” yelled Jason. “I’m alive.”

Danny winced. He’d have to talk to Jazz about that. Death wasn’t really a thing that could be recovered from. Not fully. But it wasn’t his place to tell Jason he was still dead if he wasn’t ready to hear that. Jazz or Frostbite could have that conversation. “Of course you’re alive. And Earth is your home, too. But you’ve got one in the Realms if you ever need or want it. Think of it like dual citizenship.”

“I don’t want it.”

Danny sighed. “Look, then the part of you that is manifesting as Robin has a place there and you two can’t be separated so you’re allowed to follow him. It’s the only way I’ll be able to get you in to see the best doctor to help you out.”

“Jason,” Jazz spoke gently and rested her hand on his forearm, “you’re still alive. Nothing about your situation has changed. You just have some more information and more help. Which is a good thing.”

Jason frowned and didn’t answer, choosing instead to glare at his dinner plate.

No one else spoke up until Alfred cleared his throat. “Well, I believe that we should wrap the conversation up here. We’ve all received quite a lot of information and will need some time to review it and consider our next steps.”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, I think— Wait, um, before we end this, would you have a sample of the Lazarus Water I could take to Frostbite?” At the confused looks he was given, he added, “The doctor I mentioned. I think it’d help him figure out how best to help Jason and Robin.”

Bruce exchanged looks Danny couldn’t interpret with Damian and Tim before speaking. “We’ll have to discuss it. Would we be able to give you our answer in two days? At the very least, we’d like to have the report from your friend first.”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. The sooner the better, though. I’ll call Tucker on the way to Jazz and Jason’s. We’ll put something together for you tonight. I’m not sure exactly how long it’ll take, though. Depends on how much sleep Tuck’s running on.”

Bruce merely nodded.

Dick laughed and got to his feet. “Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure getting to know you. Welcome to the craziness of the Wayne family. It sounds like Jazz and you will fit right in. Let me walk you out.”

His words seemed to be a signal to the rest of the family. Most of whom also rushed over to try and insist on walking them out.

Until Jason shouted, “Enough! We don’t need a crowd to follow us to Jazz’s car. You can say goodbye from here just as easily.”

Dick pouted but acquiesced. Only after pulling Jason into a hug, though. Jason forced Dick to let him go only for Robin to rush in and take his place to Dick’s delight. After separating, they signed something to each other that had Jason blushing and scowling.

And then Dick moved on to hug Jazz, then Danny. “Come back anytime,” he told Danny. “Whether or not those two are with you. B meant it when he said you would have a room here.”

But then Steph was pushing Dick to the side to give Danny a hug as well. “What’s your phone number? I so want whatever blackmail you get on Jason. And I’ll share some of what I have.”

Danny laughed, but did agree to exchange numbers before the Duke was in front of him.

“Dude, you have to come by more often. It’s so annoying being the only meta around here.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Danny promised.

When Tim came over, he insisted on adding both Danny and Jazz to some of the family group chats. “If you give me your sister’s number, I’ll add her in, too.”

Jazz shook her head. “We’ll have to confirm she wants to be added in first. And ask her if she’d like an introduction to Superboy.”

“His name’s Kon. Kon-El. I’ll message him tonight, too. I’m sure he’d love to meet her.”

“Dani will say yes,” said Danny, “but she doesn’t always reply right away. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear from her.”

Then Tim was being pushed aside by Barbara who wanted to make sure he knew how to send them the information about ghosts and the Realms. And Cass was waving goodbye.

Bruce was the last of the group to approach them. “Remember, if you ever need a place to stay or want to lay low, you can come here any time. Even if you just want a warm meal. Your sister as well.”

“Thanks, Bruce,” said Jazz. “We do really appreciate that. You don’t have to offer it.”

“But I want to. Jason…” he trailed off before trying again. “I would like it if you kept me informed with any updates to your condition.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Right, because you want to know how much of a liability I am.”

If anything, Bruce’s face became more closed off at those words. “That’s not… Hn.”

Robin rolled his eyes, somehow visible despite his mask, and flew over to hug Bruce around the waist. Danny couldn’t make sense of the expression Bruce wore as he looked down at the ghost and though his arms twitched, he didn’t return the hug.

Alfred smoothly stepped forward before anyone could say anything. “Well, now that the goodbyes have all been said, I will walk you four out.”

Jason shook his head. “You don’t have to, Alfie. I know the way.”

“Of course you do, Master Jason. But I insist. We’ll stop by the kitchens and I’ll send you home with leftovers.”

Danny tried to hide his smile as Jason merely turned and walked in the direction of the kitchens. It seemed no one argued against Alfred. Once in the kitchens, they were given so much food to take home it required all three to carry it, then Alfred was leading them out a side door which brought them to the drive where Jazz’s car was parked.

Jazz nudged him and nodded her head towards the car. Danny nodded and followed her in while Jason, Alfred, and Robin remained outside to talk for a minute.

Danny took the back seat and met Jazz’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

She gave him a wry smile and said, “What a night, huh?”

Danny snickered before bursting out into full-on laughter, Jazz joining a breath behind him.

-----

Tim totally spilled the beans about Gun Batman to get people distracted from Danny. He's just being a good new friend.

I'm thinking I'll put this on a temporary hiatus as I work through how I want arc two to go. I know the story beats, but the pacing will absolutely have to change. Not gonna spend 16k words on a single evening again! (Did you guys realize it was that long? I certainly did. XP) In the meantime, I'll keep working on Bring Me Home and rewriting the Wrong Number AU.

Bonus points to anyone who can guess my favorite line from this segment!

And sorry for not replying to comments on the post from two weeks ago. I got caught up in irl stuff and wasn't able to get around to it.

Tag List Part 1

@addie-lover-of-stories, @justwannabecat, @gin2212, @amercurio, @regonold, @overtherose, @readerzj, @sjrose1216, @echoednonny, @deeterzz, @blu-lilac, @number-one-jew, @rowanaway-fromthisbs, @vythika96, @tired-yet-awaken, @themirrorghost, @emeraldcorpral, @all-mights-asscheeks, @darkhinauniverse, @blep-23, @phandomhyperfixationblog, @larkcoe1, @thegatorsgoose, @job-ross-the-second, @britcision, @lenacraft, @bubblemixer, @androgynouslordofescapism, @purefrickingspite, @leftmiraclechaos, @lizisipancardo, @starlight-sparks, @miraculousandmore, @gildedphoenix, @sometimesthingsfallapart, @letmesayfuxk, @phoenixcatch7, @skulld3mort-1fan, @abaowo, @dhampir-princess, @idkmrpianoman, @sarina-elais, @ballzfrog-blog, @undead-essence, @spookytragedyshark, @flyingpansaurus, @akintoabitch, @marivictal, @8-29pm, @justreadingthefanfics, @happybear135, @kisatamao, @spoopyspoony, @adorablechaos, @sara0055, @screamingtofillthevoid

#dpxdc #my writing #danny fenton #jazz fenton #anger management #all the bats #the endless dinner is done!#you guys have no idea how happy i am about that #i'm really proud of this work though #it was a challenge but i think im a better writer for it

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