#she had been rescued by the third character and after she was brought back with the goop™️ ruby put a good word in for her and got shaded

[arolesbianism]

Finally got around to designing some of the oldest members of the og magic cat world story, yknow only took me like 5 years fhfksgkfg

[babyspacebatclone]

Outline below for my story based on my “Who opened the portal that brought Hordak to Etheria?” theory in SPoP.

Potential relevance to another topic I’m discussing elsewhere re: poorly handled character arcs slash treatment of traumatized characters in the series.

But mostly because I really, really do want to write this, and getting this done while it’s on my mind helps.

This fic is to be written in third person with a Queen Angella focused pov (aka observations are filtered through her bias, the only internal thoughts seen are hers).

I’m also now plotting out a second chapter from Hordak’s pov, because it turns out I figured out another connection these two have! Other than this expanded crack-fic idea I now hold as my personal fanon Angella had to make the horrible, painful choice to create a stable time loop and bring her own personal devil and tormentor to Etheria to prevent the planet from being consumed by the Heart.

Anyway, at the start of the fic Hordak and Entrapta have contributed research and tech to a device that eventually is able to bring Angella back from being between dimensions after the portal disaster.

It opens with Angella waiting to talk with Hordak alone, mentally reviewing every single reason she utterly hates him and every damage he has done to herself personally and her planet.

Suggestions for here welcome! 😊

Hordak enters, polite and professional.

Angella mentally reviews everything she’s been told about how he has acted since the defeat of Prime: submitting to a trial of his crimes, living with Entrapta, working with her towards the repair of Etheria, and taking an apparently reluctant leadership role of guiding his newly freed brothers to independence.

Outwardly, she acknowledges his contribution to her rescue.

Hordak similarly acknowledges this, but independently notes he did not do it for her sake.

Angella appears slightly shocked at this.

He clarifies that he has developed some warm feeing towards Adora (this would be explored in the second chapter, it’a a continuation of their finale scene and because I happen to like papa Hordak fanons. oh and shared angst you’ll see), and is aware of the impact the lose of Angella has had on her and her friends, further depressing Adora.

Hordak claims he performed his duty partially towards the betterment of Etheria as a whole, but personally worked diligently for the sake of Adora and by extension Glimmer.

He is glad that Angella is returned, but he believes she deserves his honesty about his motives.

Angella is silent for a moment, mentally reviewing her time in-between dimensions, although the audience does not get any descriptions at this time.

Then she speaks: “I was the one that created the portal that brought you to Etheria.”

Hordak is as shocked as any unspoiled reader would be, and cannot respond.

We now get the beginnings of scenes from Angella’s time in-between, when she first regained enough of her sense of self to recognize she could see all alternative timelines.

She starts with a timeline where Hordak does not come to Etheria.

It ends with Light Hope guiding an eager and willing - and utterly naive - Adora to initiating the Heart of Etheria.

Angella asks Hordak how much he knows about LH, and he admits he has not been told much. He acknowledges, however, he is aware she had something to do with the project of turning Etheria into to a weapon, which required Adora as the She Ra to activate.

Angella explains briefly how LH would have been able to manipulate basically anyone on Etheria into allowing an impressionable and vulnerable Adora to be trained by LH.

Throughout her explanations, we also get more details from her memories of these timelines - the more that is shown, the clearer it is that Angella didn’t just witness these timelines but to an extent experienced them.

When Hordak remains unconvinced the Horde was the safest place for Adora, Angella reveals what is admittedly fanon but ties in what I want with this overall fic.

That LH could - with admittedly time, effort, and motivation, but unquestionably the ability to - directly manipulate not just an First Ones tech on the planet to her own ends, but anyone attuned to a Runestone through them.

Anyone.

And we get the memory of Angella herself raising Adora, preventing her from ever meeting Madame Razz, and then gladly guiding her directly to the Sword and LH, proud and serene in her “mission” right up until the end.

While Hordak processes this, Angella admits she will never fully understand what being under Horde Prime’s control was like, as Micah does, but she also understands better than anyone who had not been chipped.

Hordak attempts to protest that while this may be true, bringing the Horde to Etheria seems excessive.

Angella counters with what the Horde gave to Adora in addition to time away from LH: training, a sense of responsibility….

And the experience of being betrayed, of being manipulated for the sake of Shadow Weaver’s own greed, of being lied to and needing to use her own critical thinking to confirm the truth.

Chapter 2 will show that this concept is going to have an angstfest impact on Hordak, and actually helps him understand Angella a lot better.

Hordak, a lot more subdued, again questions if traumatizing Adora had been necessary, and Angella admits there may have been an alternative time line she had not witnessed that may not have required it.

But she continues that it hadn’t just been the Horde itself she’d needed to bring to Etheria, but Hordak himself, shocking him again.

The memories here are focused on how Angella breeched reality for several crucial seconds to create the portal to bring Hordak to Etheria, in much the same way she described LH manipulating the thoughts of a Runestone Aligned princess/queen: gentle nudges against what already exists, pushing favorable thoughts/energies while repressing unfavorable ones just enough.

Angella doesn’t admit in her thoughts, but it’s implied to the reader that this all took multiple of her lifetimes to achieve, endless cycles of pressing a fragment of a nanometer against the wall of reality a cycle, the only substance she could even be tangible against.

Externally she describes how she had explored timelines where other clones had been transported to Etheria, and none had prepared Adora as successfully as the timeline Angella herself remembered. No clone but Hordak had had the precise combination of drive and persistence required to make the Horde a formidable threat, but also the singular motivation to return to Prime over conquest that allowed both Shadow Weaver’s machinations and the reformation of the Princess Alliance that shaped Adora.

Silently, she also admits that no other clone had successfully reconnected with Prime through a functional portal, and the reader briefly hears how Angella struggled with attempting to be selfish enough to not have Adora defeat Prime if it were possible, but Angella ultimately could not bring herself to not bring a savior to the greater galaxy when that timeline was already so clear before her.

(there’s one more point in Hordak’s favor, but that comes up in Chapter 2)

After Hordak processes this all, he surprises Angella - he calmly but sincerely apologizes that he and the horrors he had brought to her planet had ultimately been the best option she had found.

Reflecting Hordak’s earlier admission of his motives in rescuing her having nothing to do with Angella herself, the queen then tells him she still hates him with her entire being.

She, herself, even after the sacrifice she made the decision to make for the greater good, will never be able to actually forgive him, and she will not even try, even though Micah is.

Hordak appears amused by this to Angella; the next chapter reveals he actually finds it darkly funny to finally find someone not only willing to actively hate him but admit it to his face (Mermista is close but allows herself to be muffled by everyone else). It turns out he not only completely agrees with Angella’s assessment, but puts a chink into her inability to forgive him by pointing out another thing they have in common (completely without any desire to create empathy from her and totally towards his own mission of making amends to Adora and those close to her, oh how did chapter 2 turn even more angsty than this one so delightful….).

Anyway…

Hordak again apologizing that, as he will remain by Entrapta’s side and she is adamant about continuing to be Adora’s and therefore Glimmer’s friend, Entrapta’s going to end up dragging him to social functions Angella is present at.

Angella acknowledges this and points out she’s royalty - he is far from the first person she has had to remain civil towards in social settings despite despising, even of his is on a different level from anyone else.

This time, they share the amusement at the irony of them being perfectly attuned in this regard.

Not quite sure how to bridge this chapter to the next now that Chapter 2 exists in my brain, but I’ll at least give you my favorite part so far:

[Hordak cannot think how to brooch the topic he wants, trying to think of tactful ways to bring it up.] “Would I be mistaken to assume that there was a degree of - the desire for self-termination when you chose to sacrifice yourself to save Adora?”

The Queen’s head shot up and back even straighter, her eyes piercing daggers that immediately reminded him of His… of the betrayer’s fury.

I am so sorry Entrapta I am about to be executed on the spot I am so sorry I am an idiot please understand this was utterly my own responsibility please forget me and move on what in the deepest abyss was I thinking…

(it turns out, there are two reasons Hordak came to that conclusion; he silently acknowledges in this chapter that he fully intended for mutual destruction when he attacked Catra at the end of Season 4, let alone entering the purification pool…)

(As I said above, the memory of being controlled and witnessing the harm you were manipulated into doing to others you have responsibility over isn’t the only thing Hordak and Angella have in common….)

😈

[raointean]

So, I started a new job hanging out with my friend (yeah, it's a sweet gig) and one of the activities we like to do together is drawing. She likes to draw characters from her show that she's watching (pretty little liars, I think) so I've been drawing things from my fanfictions and I thought I'd share some of them.

These are both from my Broken Souls series, "At Least I Can Do This" specifically.

This is Yrithiel, the oldest peredhel in the camp. She actually came there voluntarily, leaving her dear friend Erestor behind, after hearing that General Tathaen's camp was full of other peredhil. The elves in the camp she and Erestor were a part of were distainful, and she left looking for better treatment. That... did not work out well for her.

This is Maechui (from the same story) reuniting with his mother. Maechui was separated from her while they were traveling as refugees on their way to Lindon and captured by orcs. He was rescued from said orcs by Tathaen’s men, but instead of returning him to his mother, they took him back to camp and put him to work. His mother thought he had been killed by the orcs until Gil-Galad brought the peredhil slaves to Lindon and Maechui tracked her down.

(I also did one of Daniel in the third age, but it was Wrong. I have a very specific image of her in my head, and that was Not It)

This is actually a scene from my fic, "A Million Miles Apart, I Hold You Close." The story itself is actually based on "To Partake" by @runawaymun

In this story, on the eve of battle during the war of the last alliance, Eärendil/Gil-Estel swings low enough for Elrond to speak to telepathically. He climbs up the Ephel Duath a ways to make contact and they have a very emotionally charged conversation. I've tried to represent their fëa through color (and the silmarill has its own soul surrounded by the glow of a paint-sharpee) and I'm actually pretty proud of how it turned out!

[ecargmura]

Hirogaru Sky! Precure Episode 34 Review - Sudden Battamonda Focus

For an anime that has villains, the villains for this anime don’t really have much focus unless it’s for the routinely formula of summoning Ranborgs. This episode gives an unexpected character some focus: Battamonda. We never got to see what happened to him after Episode 23 and it turns out that he’s been living in Sorashido City and struggling to get by as he works at a construction site. He still swears to get revenge on the Precures, but he’s been reduced to a comical character. However, while Battamonda is a big focus, the main character of this episode is actually Mashiro.

Mashiro’s doing well for herself with the whole picture book author thing. She even goes to libraries and reads her stories to kindergarteners. While her Princess series is quite popular (she even made ten volumes!), during one of her story times at the library, a little boy gets distracted and leaves the building during the middle of it after calling her story boring. This gets Mashiro into a bit of a slump. She knows her stories are more suitable for little girls, she tries to make something that’s suitable for both genders, but cannot get an idea; she even gets a bit depressed about this whole picture book artist thing. Although Ageha tries to cheer her up by saying that some kids prefer moving around rather than sitting and listening, I do like how that comment doesn’t make everything better for Mashiro. This whole ordeal of Mashiro’s slump is actually something I really enjoy seeing. Because I am also a writer, there are instances where I get slumps. I’ve gotten so many writers’ block in the past; it’s reflected with how many times I’ve rewritten my story, Lavender Eyes (you can read it on Tapas, Royal Road, Webnovel and Wattpad). Even for my other story, Boundaries, I’ve gotten writer’s block with it too, especially when I was wanting to make a full-length story for it and couldn’t figure out how. It’s all about finding the motivation to continue. For Mashiro, Battamonda’s unexpected comments help motivate her to realize that all of her stories cannot be loved by others, therefore she’s still going to write what she wants because she enjoys doing it—she even makes it her goal to become a picture book artist for real.

While Battamonda was very impactful in his debut, he did start to get a bit one note throughout his stint and only his evil personality showed off again during episodes 22 and 23. Afterwards, he was MIA for the third act of the story until now. I do wonder why Battamonda didn’t get as much of a focus as a character like how Kabaton did; speaking of which, Kabaton shows up in this episode as Battamonda’s next-door neighbor, but they both aren’t aware of that fact. During the first arc, Kabaton was full of personality. While he was a villain and did dastardly things, he was gross, loved to eat and even had a friend with the oden cart man; he even took his loss against Cure Sky with grace after she rescued him from getting killed by Empress Underg.

In regards to Battamonda, I can’t believe it took until Episode 34 to finally get some depths into him as a character. He’s childish and petty as he was shown in the second arc, but he’s also too scared to return back to the Underg Empire because of the harsh punishment. That’s why he stayed in Sorashido City as a wage slave. What makes Battamonda shine a lot is the fact that his negative behavior was due to him not having anyone support him. Hopefully, Battamonda will start redeeming himself now that Mashiro has given words of kind gratitude towards him. Overall, I did enjoy seeing him again as he made the most hilarious and craziest faces that brought a smile to my face.

Speaking of villains, Minoton is even more one-note than Battamonda as he gets cast aside and Skearhead becomes the new villain for Part 3 (or are we in Part 4 now?). Skearhead is now the one making Ranborgs, but since he’s a much stronger foe, his Ranborgs aren’t even Ranborgs; they’re Kyoborgs! Where will this arc head off now that Skearhead has taken the reigns?

Overall, I am still a bit confused why Battamonda gets this depth all of a sudden. Is it because he’s popular with the fanbase? Will the villains help out with the final battle? Is Minoton living in the rundown apartment like the other two subordinates? Before I end this review, I have to admit something shameful: human Battamonda is hot. Okay, what are your thoughts about this episode?

[random-movie-ideas]

Superman: Doomsday (Movie Outline)

I opted not to do the character arc breakdowns here and just did them on my own time. This would be the third in a Superman trilogy, following Son of Krypton and God Among Men, and would be couched within a cinematic universe, following a Justice League featuring Zod and his follower, a couple of Supergirl spinoffs, a showdown with Darkseid, and a Crisis on Infinite Earths event that wiped out the universe of a separate Superman trilogy, leaving only the young Clark of that universe behind. This would be one of those first movies following the event.

Millenia before, alien scientists released a small gray creature into a controlled jungle environment. After only a few moments of being alive, it is quickly killed by a predators. Several hours later, the small creature's body reanimates and heals of its wounds, now altered slightly so that the predator's standard attacks would no longer affect it. The scientists cheer, their experiment a success to create a special organ that would allow a creature to heal from any wound and become immune to suffering such a wound again. They have big dreams for this organ.

The creature endures test after test, being slaughtered in increasingly cruel ways over and over and over again, driving it to a state of desperate anger and constant fear, raging at its creators for doing this to them. With every single death, it grows stronger and stronger, until finally, it is powerful enough to break free of its enclosure, slaughtering its creators and getting its first taste of blood.

For a dark period of the galaxy's history after the creature's escape, the monster rampaged across the galaxy, slaughtering everything in its path, only able to be stopped for short periods at a time before it came back even stronger. This creature became such a threat to the galaxy, that some of the most influential groups came together to find a solution, including Darkseid, the Kryptonians, and Brainiac's people. The Kryptonians use their technology to create a small, inescapable pocket universe that the creature wouldn't be killed by, but wouldn't escape from. The Kryptonians face it, and trick it into being trapped inside, sealing it off and leaving it there forever.

In the present day, Clark is living on Earth, in a new era of peace brought about after the fall of Darkseid and the end of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. He protects the world from all harm, frequently visiting his cousin Kara, her alternate universe self Power Girl, and his own alternate universe self, now going by Jordan, in New Kandor, a Kryptonian city in Northern Scotland (Established in Supergirl I), covered by a barrier that filters out yellow sunlight so that the inhabitants can live normal lives if they wish. He also has a brief scene where he rescues a construction worker named John Henry Irons from a fall.

Clark is surprised one day when his wife Lois reveals to him that she is pregnant. Concerned about the complications of a human-Kryptonian baby, he takes her to his uncle Zor-El in New Kandor. Zor-El pulls him aside at one point with grave news from the Green Lantern Corps.

Zor-El tells Clark the history of the creature from the beginning, a creature known only as Doomsday, as that is all that the future holds for any planet it lands on. While it had been sealed in the Phantom Zone for millenia, the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths had ended up destroying the barriers between it and their dimension, releasing Doomsday back into the universe. Green Lantern scouts had picked up on numerous sightings of the creature, and it appeared to be on a collision course with Earth.

All of Earth's defenses are put on alert, including the Justice League, ARGUS, and so on. Clark, Kara, Jordan, and Power Girl all head to Watchtower, where they are joined by the most powerful Justice League members gathered so far (I'd need to flesh out the Cinematic Universe a bit more to know exactly who, but what matters is a good mix of them). Emil Hamilton and Zor-El are both recruited to help consult, and the Green Lantern Corps sends a squad.

Clark, reading all of these stories of Doomsday and worrying about his ability to stop this creature, takes Lois and his parents to New Kandor, asking them to stay there until it's over. Lois is adamant about helping, until she sees the genuine fear on her husband's face. Clark also brings some of his closest friends, like Jimmy and Perry, who he comes out to as Superman, though both reveal they had already put that together.

As Clark continues his preparations, Lex Luthor and Metallo approach him, Lex in his battlesuit, offering to help. Given their history, Clark turns Lex down, telling him he'd be of more use using his money and resources to get civilians out of Doomsday's path. Lex says he's already doing that, but Superman will still need help. Clark retorts that he'll never need his.

Eventually, Doomsday finally arrives on the planet. Our heroes launch into battle, taking him on, but Clark is quickly taken by surprise by the sheer raw power of Doomsday, a power level he hadn't seen since Darkseid. The battle rages for a while, and it is all the heroes can do to keep the monster at bay. At some point, Doomsday manages to get its hands on a civilian and rips them apart like they were nothing. This death sends Clark into a rage and he puts his all into fighting Doomsday, stumbling into killing Doomsday in a way it hadn't quite been killed yet in its centuries of life.

The creature dead, ARGUS binds the creature with the strongest bonds available to them and locks its body in its most secure facility, as the heroes rest and prepare for it to resurrect again. As Clark is resting, he encounters John Henry Irons again, having volunteered to help with cleanup, and they bond a bit as John talks about his daughter Natasha and Clark mentions his own imminent fatherhood.

For just a moment, Clark returns to New Kandor, and asks Zor-El about that thing his uncle had mentioned to him years ago, how his father Jor-El had saved a piece of himself as an AI, something Clark had avoided using, partly out of loyalty to his father Jonathan, partly out of fear of the kind of man he would find. He tells his uncle he's ready to meet his father.

Encouraged by his wife and parents, Clark takes the AI up into the arctic and activates it, the AI creating a fortress around him so that they can talk. Clark gets to meet Jor-El, and they talk. They talk about Jor-El's decision to send his son away, what Clark's mother had been like, Clark's life now and the people who raised him, and his relationship with Lois and their expected child. Jor-El is especially surprised to learn that both Kara and his brother had survived Krypton's destruction. The pair hug and Clark gets that closure.

Back at the facility, Doomsday comes to life. The security measures hold for a little while, but soon the monster breaks out, killing several ARGUS members, Amanda Waller just making it out with her life. The Justice League are called in, and Clark answers the call first. He arrives on the battlefield, fighting the monster with everything he has. He ends up taking a big hit, and is about to be killed by the monster, when Lex and Metallo fly in, saving the hero.

Accepting their help, Clark, Lex, and Metallo work together, fighting the monster for a while before the others arrive. Both Clark and Lex take injuries that force them down for a while, and Metallo throws himself at the creature to keep it off of them. Despite holding his own for a while, he is ultimately no match, the beast ripping him apart and crushing his metallic skull, killing him.

Left behind as the creature carries on its rampage toward a nearby series, Lex ejects himself from his battlesuit and helps Clark up. Both mourn Metallo for a moment before regrouping and talking about what they can do. Clark asks why Lex is helping him, and Lex initially gives him a sarcastic response about this being his planet too, before talking about the history of Doomsday that he read and mentioning that it reminded him of his own mistakes with Bizarro.

The two put their heads together. Clark wonders if Brainiac might have known a way to defeat Doomsday for good, given his knowledge of the universe and his contingencies for various threats. He takes Lex and they fly up to Watchtower, asking the Green Lantern squad leader there for access to Brainiac's capsule. Being unwilling to set him free, they transfer his consciousness to the main computer to talk to him.

Brainiac tells them that the source of Doomsday's resurrections and adaptation was a special organ genetically engineered by its creators in hopes of curing death forever. He mentions that in his research, her had found that the organ's functions would likely be disrupted by a dangerously high concentration of kryptonite stabbed directly into it. If one managed to do so, Doomsday would then remain dead permanently upon its next death. Brainiac gives a serial number for one of the capsules in his collection, which the Green Lantern leader then sends to headquarters.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the remaining Justice League have been fighting non-stop to hold Doomsday back. They work out that it seems to be heading in a specific direction, heading for New Kandor. The creature speaks, surprising the heroes, muttering that Kryptonians must be destroyed for what they had done to it by sealing it away. It reaches the city, and Kara, Power Girl, and Jordan stand in its way, refusing to let it through. An intense battle takes place, with even Lois Lane finding a way to help out.

Just as all seems lost, and Kara is about to be killed, Clark and Lex arrive, Lex carrying a spear wrapped in heavy lead, as the concentrated kryptonite would be lethal to Clark if he touched it. An intense battle ensues, with Lex trying and failing multiple times to stab Doomsday in the right spot with the spear while Clark distracts it. Finally, Lex takes a heavy hit and the spear goes flying. John Henry Irons, having been evacuated to the city with his daughter, puts together what needs to happen and runs out to distract Doomsday, giving Clark the chance to grab the spear and plunge it into the right spot.

Doomsday stumbles in shock, feeling something has changed inside its body. It turns and impales the severely weakened Clark on its claws, just before Lex rises in his battlesuit again and hits it with a blast that kills it. The monster falls, briefly looking at Lex and asking why it was born before it dies. Lex looks down with a guilty look on his face.

Clark is quickly surrounded by everyone who cares about him: Lois, his parents, Supergirl, Power Girl, Young Superman, Jimmy, Perry, Zor-El, Emil Hamilton, whatever Leaguers are there, with Lex and John Irons on the perimeter. Clark manages to hang on just long enough to thank Lex and to tell Lois he's sorry before he dies. We then get multiple scenes of the world in morning, with big memorials and funerals everywhere, his closest friends holding only a small burial for him on the Kent farm. Lois mentions to Clark's parents that Clark had wanted to name the baby Jonathan.

In two post-credits scenes, we see John Henry Irons in his garage, piecing together what looks like a metallic suit, looking at a clipping of Superman and taking inspiration from it. In the second, we see Lex approach Emil Hamilton. Hamilton initially tells Lex to get lost, before Lex tells him the world needs Superman. He mentions the possibility of restarting the Bizarro project, this time offering his own DNA to help stabilize a clone.

I kind of thought going into this, that the Doomsday storyline wouldn't have nearly as much meat for me to work with going into it as the previous two, but I found I especially enjoyed the dynamic this story could build between Lex and Clark, giving Lex almost a redemption arc of sorts. Some details are still a little shaky, given the larger universe it would be a part of, but I liked the opportunity for little callbacks and cameos from past foes like Brainiac and Darkseid, as well as the lead-ins for Jonathan Kent, Conner Kent, and Steel to come later.

What do you think? Next up, I'm going to flesh out the Supergirl installments that would have fallen in between the episodes of this trilogy.

[pof203]

A Summoner Birthday

Previous post: https://pof203.tumblr.com/post/723142188705464320/a-summoner-birthday

Battle ahead.

Enemies:

Fire Mermaid

Water Mermaid

Wood Mermaid

Aether Mermaid

Nether Mermaid

Fire Merman

Water Merman

Wood Merman

Aether Merman

Nether Merman

Preselected Characters:

Lupin

Wakan Tanka

Maria

Xototl

Hogen

Selected Support Character:

Mind Scan Shuichi

Story (Chapter 7 Part 2)

After a vigorous battle, you mange to beat the pirates back to their ship and they sail away.

Ha! That should teach you not to mess with us!

We're not out of the woods yet. We still have to get out of this storm.

Right! Everyone, hold on!

You run to the wheel of the ship and try to stir it out of the storm. But it's just too powerful for even you to handle. Then, without warning the force of the wheel force you to let go as a huge wave covers the ship... and washes you away.

He's gone overboard!

MY LUPIN!!!

Hogen: Hold on! ... Something else is coming!

You feel the power of the water pulling you down to the bottom. You can feel the air in your lungs cringing in pain at they start to empty and fill with water. You feel a terrible pain in your chest as many thoughts come to your mind all at once. Then, you start to close your eyes, ready to accept what fate now lies ahead of you... But before you do, you see something swimming towards you... Or someone.

For some reason, you cannot make out their face, but you can tell it's a man... A familiar one at that. He then takes you in his arms. Then, he takes out what you can tell is a bottle of a strange liquid. He opens it and tries to get you to drink it. But you are too weak to do so. Then, he takes a swig of it, puts his face up to yours (thought you still can't make it out), and then... he presses his lips on yours. You feel a strange something going into your mouth. You quickly guess that this stranger is feeding you the liquid with his mouth. Using whatever strength you have, you manage to swallow it. When you do, the stranger releases you and swims away. Suddenly, you feel the pain in your chest leave you and the water in your lungs don't feel like water anymore... It now feels like air. Then, you start to black out as you see something else above you breaking through the surface of the sea and swimming towards you. But you can no longer keep your eyes open as everything went blank.

You don't know how long you've been unconscious, but in time, you finally begin to move again as you slowly wake up.

Ugh... Ugh... Where... Where am I? Is this under... Is this underwater?

My Lupin! You're awake!

Lupin: Wakan!

The two of you embrace each other as Maria, Xolotl (turns out this is how you actually spell his name), and Hogen swim in.

Hey, welcome back! We thought for a second, you were gonna leave us.

Don't say that. We were all very worried.

Wait, can you die here in this world? What happens if you die here? Now I'm worried. I don't wanna die here!

Boogeyman's Voice: Relax, you'll be fine.

Kurogane's Voice: He's right. When you die in a virtual world, you don't really die in the real one. More like, you're just put on hold, like they do on phones. You have nothing to worry about.

Xolotl: (relieved) Phew! Gracias for the heart attack. Anyway, I think I know what story we're in.

Lupin: What's is the story?

Xolotl: Once, there was a little mermaid you dreamed about going on land to see what the humans there were like. Then, one night, she finds a ship where a human prince was celebrating his birthday. But suddenly, a storm hits and prince fell overboard. Fortunately, the mermaid rescues him. When she brought him to shore, she got a good like at the prince and she fell in love with him. But sadly, they could not be together as she was a mermaid and could not live on the land while he was a human and could not live under the sea. Desperate, the mermaid goes to see a sea witch who told her that she can make her human for three days. But there was a catch, before the sun sets on the third day, she had to get the prince to fall in love with her and give her true love's kiss. If she succeeds, she would remain human permanently. But if she fails, she will die of a broken heart. And when a merperson dies, they turn into sea foam. But the mermaid was ready to take any risk to be with her prince. So the sea witch agrees to turn the mermaid into a human woman, but to do that, she had to pay her with the one thing she valued just as much as she does the prince... Her voice. The mermaid agreed and the sea witch takes her voice and turns her into a human. One land, she meets the prince and they spend those wonderful three days together. However, on the third day, the prince decides to marry a princess that he believed was the one who saved him that day. Heartbroken, the mermaid goes to the sea where she meets her sisters. They told her that in order to be saved from turning into sea foam and let her return to the sea, she had to kill the prince. So, with a knife given to her by her sisters, the mermaid was ready to kill her prince. But she stopped herself because she could not bear to see him dead. So instead, she threw the knife into the sea and jumped in. And just like that, her heart completely breaks and she dies and turns into sea foam. However, her soul goes up to Heaven where she becomes an angel.

Hogen: (confused) Is that it? She dies?

Maria: But at least she went to Heaven. She even becomes an angel.

Xolotl: Well, in modern version, she does succeed in getting her prince and becomes a human. But I don't know if this is that version. But I can tell you once thing, in this version, there's no little mermaid... But there is a big merman.

Lupin: Really?

Maria: Yes. Actually... that merman is how we're able to be down here.

Lupin: (surprised) So, that strange swimmer from earlier when I fell in...

Maria: Yes, that was him. After you fell in, Wakan Tanka was about to jump in after you. But then, he showed up a gave us a potion that allows us to breath underwater.

Wakan Tanka: (unimpressed) And I have to say, I'm not too happy with how he gave you the potion, but I guess there was no other way. You were practically at death's door.

Lupin: I know... But something about him seemed... familiar.

Xolotl: Familiar how?

Lupin: ... I just can't put my finger on it. Did any of you see his face?

Maria: No. He swam off before we could talk to him. He had the merpeople bring us to this place. But I can tell you one thing. As they were taking us here, I overheard one of them saying that the merman found something on the surface. Something block with buttons a a handle on it... I think he found one of the breakers.

Lupin: Then that's where we must go.

Wakan Tanka: (a bit worried) Are you sure you're up for it? You just woke up.

Lupin: (trying to get up and succeeds) I think I'm well rested enough. And as I recall telling you, I'm a pretty decent swimmer.

Wakan Tanka: (laughing) Better than me, anyway. I still have trouble swimming.

Maria: You don't have to worry about that. The merpeople told us that the potion also makes us really good swimmers. We should be able to go to the breaker.

Hogen: Then let's get to it... I think my wingers are getting soggy.

Xolotl: And my nose is getting irritated since it was already cold.

And so, you swim off to find the breaker.

Outside the palace, you are about to swim up to the surface when you are stopped by several merpeople.

Fire Mermaid: Stop! Don't go any futher.

Xolotl: Why not?

Fire Merman: By the laws of our kingdom, no one can come up to the surface.

Hogen: (confused) Isn't your prince up on the surface?

Water Mermaid: That is besides the point. Our prince is powerful and strong. Though, he cannot stay up on the surface for too long.

Maria: But we are from the surface. Surely you cannot deny us that.

Water Merman: Rules are rules.

Lupin: I don't think they're going to let us by.

Wakan Tanka: I guess that means we have to fight our way then.

Lupin: Pretty much.

The battle begins.

To be continued...

NOTE: I will continued to use Xototl in the tags because that's what I've been using so many times. Sorry.

[wesavegotham]

The thing with Batman vs Robin is, I actually like stories in which Bruce frantically tries to rescue Damian (as long as Damian is still written as somewhat competent).

Bruce searching the whole city for Damian when he thought Damian left him to join Nobody? Again when the Arkham Knight had captured him? Or Bruce Chasing Ra's half around the globe when he stole Damian's remains? Fighting the forces of Apokalips to revive him after they took the body? I loved that! I'm here for a complex, overdramatic father-son-relationship that sometimes involves Bruce having to rescue Damian from a villain, I am!

But so far Batman vs Robin just isn't doing it for me.

The first issue was kinda mean-spirited towards Damian and Bruce came off as more annoyed and agressive than concerned. Instead the role of being concerned and protective over Damian was reserved for Alfred. But with Bruce being the one who is supposed to do the rescuing it would have been far more important to set up Bruce's emotional investment in this. Batman is a hero who is often written as wanting to save everyone so badly he will even rescue his greatest enemies, so if you want to make Bruce rescuing Damian seem special you have to do more.

The second issue did a better job creating a sense of urgency and showing Bruce's concern for his son, but ultimately the flashbacks to Damian's time on Lazarus Island aren't there to give Bruce a deeper understanding of his son, they exist to get Bruce and the readers who didn't read Robin (2021) up to speed on who Mother Soul is and how Nezha was freed.

Close to the end of the issue Nezha even openly admits that he thinks of Damian as the perfect tool for revenge against his jailer Batman (even though it should be Clark) simply because he is related to him. It's not about Damian's qualities. Bruce also acknowledges that it's about more than Damian and him. In fact I would say it's not about Damian and Bruce at all. It's about Bruce and Nezha. Nezha doesn't care if Bruce and Damian have beef or not. We see all the other robins fight Bruce in the third issue like Damian did in the first one and most of them are on good terms with Bruce right now.

The role Damian serves for the narrative is not as the second protagonist next to Bruce whose relationship the story revolves around, but as the one tying everything together through his prior history.

Damian killed the Lazarus Demon so Mother Soul (his great-grandmother) manipulates events to make Damian open the tomb to the new demon she wants to ally with. Nezha possesses Damian because he wants revenge against Batman. Batman would want to defeat Nezha one way or another, but Nezha having his son creates a personal stake and this way Nezha can keep Batman busy while he collects magical artefacts and magic users to absorb into the Helm of Fate. Both Waid bringing back Damian's desire to replace Batman is brought back from ages ago and writing Mother Soul giving Damian the Batman 666 suit is probably purely because Waid somehow wanted to tie the other Robins into this, so he made Damian into a Batman to command his predecessors against Bruce. It's about Damian's connections to other characters, but very little about him.

The only thing Damian as a character gets out of this so far is some praise for his competence in fighting his father. Even though he didn't manage to kill Bruce he managed to cut him off his resources in their first fight and Bruce came out of his fight with the robins with several injuries and an empty utility belt. But of course this isn't going to end with Damian defeating Batman (which would end up being held against him anyway in this context), so its not really enough to make me as a Damian fan think this is all worth it. The goal of the story isn't to show that Damian is a better Batman than Bruce. It's about Bruce showing how great he is even under dire circumstances.

[storytellingdreamer]

Star Wars Feels: Rogue One edition

My partner and I decided last year that after Andor finished, we’d watch Rogue One and then the Original Trilogy movies. The holiday period meant we had to hold that thought, but we started it tonight. For the next four weeks, we’ll be watching them on Saturday evenings. 

Tonight was Rogue One. I watched this for the first time a few years ago and it still holds up so well. I love it to pieces, which is a highly unusual thing for me to say about a movie where all the main characters die by the end of it! 

SO MANY feels.

This is my second watch. It means I can pay more attention to the different layers instead of getting swamped by them.

Cassian and Jyn, from Jedha onwards, lean into each other - they pick up each other's lines and support each other's actions. It's why Cassian's (almost) betrayal on Eadu hurts so much for both of them. I love them both so much. The way they start apart, with walls up, then slowly (and then very quickly) the walls crumble, until suddenly: “I’m not used to people sticking around...” and “Welcome home.” Before of course, the finish: “Your father would be proud.”

And the family these two build around them along the way. 

Bodhi. Bodhi, Bodhi, Bodhi. The way he grows in confidence across the film but especially from Yavin IV onwards (it started at Eadu but Cassian's betrayal meant there was a setback, effectively). I love him.

Baze and Chirrut are another gorgeous pair, and I love how well matched they are. The cynic and the dreamer. The protector and the believer. Totally bad arse. A love story, whether you read them as romantic or besties, brothers or QPPs. 

I love all of them.

Also, the roles of Guerra and Mothma and Bail Organa and the politics and all of that - it’s so good. My partner wants a Saw Guerra TV series now. I agree. He’s such a complicated, tragic character. 

My favourite Mothma moment is the little smile she gives when told the Rogue One team are on Scarif. And my favourite Bail moment is of course the one where he talks of going back to Alderaan (noooooooooo) and he’ll send a messenger to his old friend - “I’d trust her with my life.”

Moving on. 

I love the score. I adore it. The music is just -!!

The real genius of Rogue One is that (whether by accident or on purpose) it hasn’t forgotten its roots. This Tumblr post explains what I mean by that. This affects the pacing, the way scenes are cut together, the different POVs of each battle, and more. It works so well. 

Quoting that Tumblr post: 

There’s a moment some time during the third act when every viewer realizes, “Oh wow, this is actually how things are going down. I suddenly know how this movie is going to end, and yet I can’t believe they’re really doing this.  Are they really going to let a Star Wars movie end like this?”

You know, basically from when they shut the gate, that it's now a suicide mission; the plan changes from "retrieve plans" to "send plans", and their chances of survival are not good. 

(There have been powerful moments in the battle before this, of course - for example, the feeling of visible joy on Blue Leader and the Rogue One ground team's faces when BL comes to the rescue of some is just -!!)

But this sense of inevitability persists throughout the rest of the film with a growing dread, disbelief, and awe. 

There's the struggle to send the plans, with the main character sacrifices falling, and the moment of terrible triumph where Admiral Raddus's plan sends the shield gate open - but almost immediately, it's swamped by the overwhelming sense of the oncoming storm - the music turning dark, and ominous, and sombre. 

And the last 2-5 minutes of the film still punch me right in the gut.

Those last five minutes are a real case study in "on and on until every chance is spent" - the race against time, the awesome (terrible) power of the Death Star, followed by the terror of Vader. 

And then.  AND THEN. 

"Your highness... what's this they've brought us?"

"Hope." 

It destroys me. 

That’s the theme of Star Wars, you see: that there is hope, and light, even in the most unlikely places. If we choose to act on it. 

I can’t wait for next Saturday and A New Hope. 

Luckily this is also coming at a time when I’m getting my mojo back about the Seize the Light fic - I’m hoping that watching the films continue to help with that. 

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball GT 27

✨ GT Stands for Goin’ Tuffle ✨

This is the one where Baby takes over Vegeta’s body.  And I’m pretty sure this is also the only major appearance of Bulla, the daughter of Vegeta and Bulma. She was briefly glimpsed in Episode 2, but this is the first time she gets any lines, and later episodes will feature her as a Tuffle-ized minion.  I’m not sure that she got to do anything after the Baby Saga or not. 

Anyway, they’re coming back from a shopping trip, and she teases her dad about buying shaving cream.  It just really bums me out that we didn’t get to see more out of these two.  Not that I wanted GT to handle this, mind you.  I don’t like Vegeta’s portrayal in GT, and I don’t care for Bulla’s design here at all.  What I mean is that I’d like to see more of Vegeta as a parent, like he was with Trunks in the Buu saga, but with a different kid. 

There’s a part where two creeps drive alongside Vegeta’s car and flirt with Bulla, so Vegeta rips out their steering wheel, which forces them to run off the road and into the water.  How old is Bulla in this show?  Recent continuity laid down in Dragon Ball Super tells us that Bulla was born after Pan, and so she’d be younger here than Pan is now.  And yet, I’m not sure anyone knew this when GT was made, so it may have been assumed that Bulla was older.  All I know for sure is that Bulla can’t possibly be any older than 15 here, and she’s probably a lot closer to 13, so these two guys... yeah.  What really sucks is that they’re only the third and fourth worst offenders in this show.  Number one is Doltaki, obviously.  Number two is that Pitalian space deer. 

Last time, Gohan tried to rescue Goten from whatever had taken over his body, only to fall victim to the same menace.  Baby is now in Gohan’s body, and he’s brought Goten back to Capsule Corp. while he waits for Vegeta to show up.  Then he senses Vegeta’s presence and flies off to confront him.  The others are confused by his actions, but they can’t exactly stop him, and Baby no longer has any need for subtlety.

So he flies out to the road Vegeta’s driving on and blows up their car. There’s this memorable shot of Vegeta descending to the ground with Bulla in his arms, which is well produced but also stupid because Bulla has all the same super powers as he does.  Maybe she’s not as strong as Vegeta or Trunks, but she should be able to save herself from a car wreck.  She could at least float down under her own power, but then I remembered what Kozo Morishita said in that interview from 2005:  “Stories where the hero rescues the heroine have a sense of security. Therefore we created a pattern where Pan is imperiled and Goku gets mad at the enemy: ‘I won’t let you get away with this!’”

And that explains everything that happened-- and didn’t happen-- to Bulla in this series.  She’s Vegeta’s daughter, the one half-Saiyan character who didn’t get any spotlight during DBZ, so she ought to have a major role in this series.  But she can’t because idiots like Kozo Morishita couldn’t let go of the idea that female characters only exist to give male characters someone to save.  Bulla couldn’t go with the others on the GT ship because they already had one heroine for Goku to rescue: Pan.  There was no need for a second, so Bulla had to stay behind and wait for this episode.  And now that she’s here, she gets to play out the formula with Vegeta, getting “imperiled” even when there’s no actual danger.

Bulla gives Gohan the riot act once she recognizes him, but Vegeta knows something’s wrong, so he orders her to return home.  Bulla defies him at first until he throws her over to the car.  So at least there’s that.  I wanted a whole show of these two ordering each other around and throwing each other.  The ol’ Boss ‘n’ Toss, I call it. 

As they talk, Baby references King Vegeta, and then Vegeta says he recognizes Baby’s ki.  And then Baby confirms it: He’s a Tuffle. 

Meanwhile, Goten wakes up and seems like he’s back to normal, but then he gets all queasy and his eyes turn red.  He abruptly leaves Capsule Corp. without any explanation. Uh-oh.

Vegeta seems to have the fight well in hand, until Goten shows up “to help”, and it turns out he’s here to help Baby, not Vegeta.  Yeah, he’s still under Baby’s control, a plot twist that would have worked a lot better if they hadn’t jumped the gun with that red eyes visual before he left to join this fight.  He should have been like “Oh no, I just realized Gohan’s in serious trouble!  I have to go help him!” and then we’d find out what he really meant in this scene.

Remember when I was complaining about two Super Saiyans who look almost exactly alike?  Well let’s make it three.  Actually, Toei does me a favor by having Goten refrain from using Super Saiyan throughout this whole episode, but that’s kind of stupid, since he’s fighting Vegeta the whole time.

Well, “fight” is kind of a relative term, since the boys just rush around him in circles like a couple of idiots, and when Vegeta powers up to stop them, Baby makes his move and enters Vegeta’s body.  For those of you keeping score, this is the exact same way it’s gone down for every Super Saiyan Baby has taken over. 

Vegeta thinks he’s won, until Baby starts talking, and Vegeta realizes that the call is coming from inside the him.  I’m pretty sure Baby could assume control over Vegeta as quickly and as easily as he did the others, but he needs someone to hear him gloat, so he allows Vegeta the illusion of resistance while he tells his story.

“Our home planet Tsufuru was a world of scientific development, one of true peace and abundance.  But then, along came you barbaric monkeys, the Saiyans.  Do you remember?   We miscalculated the speed of your evolution.  The Saiyans' murderous instincts grew more powerful, and you killed the Tsurufians one after another, like insects... And at the center of your wickedness was your father, King Vegeta.   Having been cornered by you Saiyans, we took the remaining scientific ability that we had, and created a parasitic life form.   And then, King Tsurufu inserted his own genes within its cells, and launched it into space.”

So Baby has been the Tuffle’s ultimate weapon this whole time, which is why he basically dropped everything to track down the Saiyans.  But how can Baby possess Vegeta’s body and control Goten at the same time?  Baby explains that he lays eggs in every body he possesses.  After he leaves to control a new body, the eggs hatch, releasing cells that bond with the victim’s brain, making them subservient to Baby’s will. 

This, then, is Baby’s revenge plan.  Now that he controls Vegeta, Gohan, and Goten, he’ll continue laying eggs in everyone else on Earth, and rule its population from within Vegeta’s body.  And from there, Baby will continue propogating until he’s conquered the entire universe. 

Meanwhile, the GT ship has located the seventh Dragon Ball on a very cold planet.  They all wear snowsuits, except Goku, who refuses for no particular reason.

So they find the last one, and now they can go back to Earth... just in time to get killed by Baby. 

Okay, I didn’t want to bring this up before, but it’s kind of dodgy how Episodes 25, 26, and 27 all took place over the course of one day, and yet we saw the GT crew locate a Dragon Ball on a different planet in each episode.  Were the planets just really close together, or were these space scenes taking place out of sequence with the Earth plot?  Oh well. 

✨ Positivity Page✨

So after all this time, we’ve finally learned just what Baby really is.  This reveal basically completes the Tuffle Trilogy that began in Dragon Ball Z Episode 20, and continued in the 1993 OAV Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans.  Baby’s story doesn’t provide anything new to the Tuffle backstory, but his intentions toward the Earth do give some insight into the Tuffle mindset.  Baby isn’t just a weapon.  He identifies as a Tuffle, no different from the Tuffle scientists who created him.  And while Baby loathes the Saiyans as “barbarian monkeys”, he’s more than happy to use their bodies and powers to further his own ends.  By the next episode, Baby will refer to his slaves as Tuffles, and speak in terms of “Tuffleization” of the entire universe.  In that sense, Baby seems less like a revanchist weapon and more like a genetic archive designed to re-create the Tuffle species, decades after its extinction. 

The implications of all of this are pretty fascinating, although I’m not sure anyone at Toei was thinking that deeply about this.   Superficially, Baby is just a bwah-ha-ha supervillan with mind control powers.   He calls his victims “Tuffles” because it’s a quicker way to refer to them.  He wants to conquer the universe because that’s just stock supervillain fare.  The stuff that really intrigues me never actually gets addressed in GT.   For example, how would the Tuffle King feel if he could see what Baby is up to?  Would he be satisfied?  Horrified?  Would he recognize aliens like Goten as genuine Tuffles like himself?

I suppose there’s two possibilities here.  One is that Baby has completely gone off the rails, and his scheme bears little resemblance to what his creators actually wanted him to do.  The other possibility is that this is exactly what the Tuffles wanted to happen, and this is the sort of sick twisted shit that they did all the time, which is why King Vegeta wanted them dead in the first place.  But there aren’t any Tuffle survivors to comment on Baby’s actions, so GT can’t actually put Baby’s agenda into context. 

And while it’s an interesting idea, it’s not exactly original...

✨ “Good” “Ideas”, Poorly Executed✨

Okay, so this is just Hatchiyack from Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans. 

“Oh no!” you might say.  “This is totally different!  Hatchiyack fed on hatred and tried to poison the Earth with Destron Gas.   He didn’t mind-control the population like Baby is doing here.”

And that’s true, but Baby’s mind control thing is just the Black Water Mist from the Garlic Junior Saga.   This is just like the episode where Garlic and his henchmen took over Kami’s Lookout and dumped the Black Water Mist over the edge, and it took two more episodes for the good guys to find out what happened, by which time the whole world had been converted into Demons.

Toei isn’t even being subtle about this.  When the good guys finally free all the enslaved Earthlings, they use the Sacred Water as an antidote, which was the same thing they used to counteract the Black Water Mist. 

This is why I have my doubts about Toei thinking about the implications of Baby’s Tuffleization plan.  Baby talks about eggs and cells, but it’s never clarified whether the egg in Goten’s brain is a separate life form.  Is Goten the Tuffle, or is it the thing that came out of the egg and hacked his brain?  Or are they both Tuffles somehow? 

Does Baby have to personally lay eggs in every single person on Earth?  Can he use his other slaves to help him?  I don’t think anyone thought that through, because they were thinking in terms of the Black Water Mist, where it’s magic fog that turns people into bad guys.  They wanted Baby to do the same bit, and the whole egg-laying thing sounds creepy, but it takes a lot longer than magic fog. 

And this is the problem with GT.  They tried the “Grand Tour” and it wasn’t working out, so they shifted to this DBZ-style action story, except this isn’t working out either.  The problem isn’t that they picked the wrong direction or the wrong story.  The problem is that they suck at telling stories.  Look at Goku in this episode.  Why did he refuse to wear warm clothing to the ice planet?  He learned this lesson way back in the General White arc.  Suno gave him warm clothes and he could fight effectively.  Flash forward to GT, where Toei made him a child again to recapture some supposedly lost magic, and yet GT Goku is making dumb decisions that the actual kid version of Goku never made.  They tried to combine kid Goku and adult Goku and ended up with something much, much less than the sum of its parts. 

So you can redirect those same creative energies to setting up Baby as the main villain, but you’re going to run into the same problems.  If Baby was a Tuffle revenge plot from the beginning, then what was he doing on M2 that whole time?  If he had the ability to convert other life forms into Tuffle slaves, then why wasn’t he doing that this whole time?  By this time period, the Tuffles have been extinct for like 60 years.  Baby started the Luud project at least twenty years ago.  What was the point of that?  And if the Tuffles could do this sort of thing to Saiyan victims, then why didn’t they try it during the war instead of after they were all dead?

✨Is this episode worse than “The Roaming Lake”? ✨

Yes, it’s worse.  GT has yet to score. 

I’ve seen people praise this part of GT for giving us a “fresh” match-up like “Gohan vs. Vegeta”.  Except that’s not true at all.  It’s not Gohan fighting, it’s Baby controlling Gohan’s body.  And either way, the fight is just a lot of uninspired flaling around. 

You’ve got this part where Gohan drags Vegeta through the pavement, and a lot of posturing, and then Goten shows up and they just annoy Vegeta until he powers up, at which point Baby automatically wins.  You might as well call “Vegeta vs. that guy’s car” a fresh matchup. 

“Get ready to take it to the next level!”

The Tuffle stuff is always interesting, but it runs into the same problem we saw in the Hatchiyack story.  Baby’s trying to avenge something that happened before Goku was even born.  The Saiyan/Tuffle War probably predates Vegeta too, although GT Vegeta seems to recognize Tuffle ki, which implies that he’s met a Tuffle before, even if he didn’t actually participate in the war.  I’m pretty sure Toei just used that line to provide at least one character who would understand what Baby was referring to.  Unfortunately, this isn’t Vegeta’s story.  In fact, Vegeta’s been effectively written out of this story now, so his thoughts and feelings about the Tuffles are completely irrelevant. 

And that’s what makes all of this such a hard sell.  Frieza killed Goku’s parents, even if Goku himself doesn’t remember them.  Dr. Gero wanted revenge on Goku for things Goku did to the Red Ribbon Army.  There’s a personal connection with those characters, and I think Toei wanted to provide something similar with Baby, except it just doesn’t work.  All the people Baby is mad at are already long dead. 

More importantly, this string of episodes where Baby possesses people has become incredibly monotonous.  The only difference between this episode and the showdown on Pital is that Baby’s gotten more confident about his tactics, and he’s finally sharing some of his backstory.  But I’m still bored with it. 

✨ The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

A girl Saiyan? How’ll

GT handle this? Here goes:

“Women be shoppin’.”

[nerves-nebula]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO OMG OKAY QUESTIONS (no pressure to answer or go too in depth !)

What inspired you to make the characters? like where they an instance "YES I HAVE A CHARACTER IDEA" or was it more of a development over time?

Will Etik and Groe get along?

Will Etik ever have to pick a side between Maureno and Groe? (oo possibility of angst but also Etik.. Etik deserves to not be put in that position)

I LOVE how you do your character designs, like all of them feel unique but not overly complicated/hard for eyes to make out (if that makes sense? it's a compliment my eyes are wonky alerkgm). do you have any tips for character designs?

Thanks!!! I can't wait to learn more about Etik as you share more about Etik's story with Maureno (and Groe!)

OK SOOOO you've given me the chance to ramble AND SO I SHALL.

FIRST QUESTION: buck up cuz this is a long one.

Etik, Maureno, and Groe are all pre-existing characters. Sort of. They originally come from a story where Groe is the main character and is dealing with a lot of PTSD and has to teach a class of teens/young adults how to Use Magic! Etik is one of his students, and Maureno (called Maurice in this story) lives in the palace Groe is teaching at on a boat they can never leave (for backstory reasons)

(scenes of Maurice and Groe on the boat can be seen here)

so they didn't really spring up wholesale, but the next story put them in they were just background characters. Still, this version of them was wayy different. this was also the version where I changed Maurice to Maureno, sicne the characters were very different and i wanted a more funky name of this Evil Version. Etik isnt an important part of this story.

(I've posted that second version here)

WHICH LEADS US TO the maureno and groe that YOU, the ASKER know.

this version of them is relatively new compared to the other two, i just came up with it earlier this year. YOU SEE, I developed a bit of an infatuation with Sun Wukong and a dozen or so iterations of his character. I also later on fed my affection for honey badgers, and SO! I wanted to write a character that was inspired by Sun Wukong but like, for honey badgers. (sort of, there's plenty of differences but yea)

I also wanted to include Groe because I LOVE to torture him, and because I'd had this idea of him being killed/brought back which fit in well with my sun wukong fascination. Plus Groe's personality was perfect for it cuz he's already really bitter and petty and a bit of an asshole. I ended up including Etik and making her play a more main role because she's been underdeveloped for a while so I figured Why Not give her some attention?

SO IN SHORT: It was a combination of "YES I HAVE AN IDEA" and then mapping that idea on to pre-existing characters.

SECOND QUESTION: Etik and Groe already get along! Etik thinks he's cool and mysterious and admires his craft/work (his plants & his potions). Groe likes Etik too, it just hates that she stays with Maureno because it doesnt trust Maureno to look after a kid. and also because of its own child-related trauma.

THIRD QUESTION: Sort of! Etik is kind of caught between them already, but in more of a "Divorced parents trying to one up each other" sort of way not a "You have to choose one of us!" way. She'd probably choose Maureno anyway because she lives with her, and because she made a pact with Maureno to rescue her siblings. But she wouldn't be happy with or accept the idea of cutting off contact with Groe.

FOURTH QUESTION: Uhhh once again I'm kind of at that stage as an artist where I've internalized a lot of shit but cant exactly explain it. I basically just try to follow the rules of like, Shape Language and designing recognizable silhouettes (Groe is tall and thin and mostly pointy so that he looks like of like a wilting flower, Maureno is short and round but with a few edges that show that she's not just a big softie and is a potential threat, Etik just has a pretty average build cuz she's a pretty average girl. probably the least recognizable silhouette except for her little AAC snake)

my only other advice is to make more of your characters fat and transgender and disabled and non-white. fsdfmkdsfmsdf those arent really tips though, that's just what i like to draw hah.

[somacruising]

TALES OF THE RAYS: MIRRAGE PRISON

CHAPTER 5: THE DARK WOLF THAT SMOLDERS (PART 2)

(Part 1) | (Part 3+4)

Hello, and welcome back to the next part of this chapter! This one discusses exactly what the Empire is doing that’s so heinous and introduces us to one of my favorite characters from this game: Mercuria (she doesn’t appear in this part, but she’s mentioned)

Let us begin.

...

Part 2 (Milenna’s Base)

Jade: Well, let's resume our meeting.

Karia: Yes, sir... It's a continuation of the story. This is exposition is too difficult for me. It would be nice to be able to poof away or skip.

Kyle: Poof away? Skip?

Klarth: It gets even more serious from here. —Chester, I know this is hard for you, but tell us what you know.

Chester: Oh...You're talking about the Living Doll Project.

Chester: …It was Princess Mercuria, the only survivor of the Bifrost royal family, who initiated the project in the first place.

Mileena: ……….

Leon: Bifrost perished after losing to Selund in the Mirrage War, right?

Mileena: Yes... According to Gefion's memory, the Kaleidoscope helped the Selund win the war and Bifrost was conquered.

Chester: From what I've heard, Mercuria was brought to Selund as a hostage at the end of the war.

Chester: Demetrius was raising her. He became her surrogate parent.

Mileena: …Demetrius did that?

Chester: That’s what Mercuria said. The Salvation Army met Mercuria through Phantom.

Chester: At first they didn't know she was a Bifrost survivor, so they assumed she was the daughter of an anti-Gefionist nobleman.

Chester: Before we knew it, she had taken up with the Salvation Army.

Chester: The reason I was able to infiltrate the castle during the Mirrorshift was because of help from the Mercuria Faction.

Chester: At that stage, Mercuria looked like she was trying to cut off Phantom and join forces with Phillip.

Raine: Let me get this straight. Mercuria approached the Salvation Army as an associate of Phantom.

Raine: Then, for whatever reason, she decided to cut off Phantom, took control of the Salvation Army, and became involved in the 'Phantom Sealing Project.’

Chester: Yeah. After that, Mercuria and her guardian, Demetrius, started talking about bringing back the Empire and reviving the Bifrost.

Chester: They wanted to take members of the Salvation Army to use as Mercuria’s personal force.

Chester: That's when Philip and Mark fell out with the Empire. I guess after they left the empire, they started hanging out with Zelos and the others.

Chester: Alvin probably knows more about that than I do, but it sounds like he's talking to Senel right now.

Jude: Is it because of the Living Doll Project that Phillip and the others fell out with the Empire?

Chester: I don't know... Maybe so, or maybe for some other reason.

Chester: Either way, what we do know is that the Living Doll is a way for the—

Chester: All we know is that the Living Doll is a terrible thing, putting the soul of one person into the body of another. I have no idea why anyone would want to do such a thing...

Raine: …Thank you, Chester. That must have been difficult. I don't need to hear it anymore. Just be there for Ami.

Chester: …Yeah. I'm sorry I couldn’t be more help.

Jade: Ami is sedated and sleeping. She's stable now, but we haven't found a way to fix her yet.

Julius: To sum it up, we have three major problems.

Julius: One is rescuing of Ix, who is having an Overray Outburst. This is compounded by the problem of the Sandstorm of Death.

Julius: The second is the Living Doll Project. We need to find out why Princess Mercuria is doing this.

Julius: Of course, we'll have to find a cure for Ami as well.

Julius: Third, the Asgard Empire itself. They’re after Mileena and Ludgar, and they’ve captured Luka, Illia, and many others.

Julius: There is no doubt that they are trying to exploit the otherworldly anima of the nexuses.

Jade: So we, too, will try to solve the problem by dispersing our forces. —Guy, explain.

Guy: Did you ask me to come up here with you just so you could say that...? I guess it can't be helped...

Guy: First of all, we’ve decided to set up a dedicated department for gathering information. I'd like to ask Rose and Karol here to help us out.

Rose: Are you joining too!?

Karol: Eh, me too!?

Guy: I’m not, but Karol is going to take the lead on this. Karol’s going to be the chief of the Karol Investigation Division.

Karol: Chief!? Me!?

Guy: That’s what Professor Raine suggested. We all have to live up to her expectations.

Karol: …Heh…heheh. Well, well, if you say so, I have no choice but to accept it.

Rose: Hmmm, hmmm, that's good, isn't it? Raine decided, right? I think it's a good choice.

Rose: So the members so far are me, Dezel, and the members of Brave Vesperia?

Raine: I'm glad you're so quick to guess. I think you guys would be better suited to a guerilla type of force.

Jade: I'd like Chief Karol to gather all of our most eccentric people there and collect information.

Jade: Please fill in the necessary personnel accordingly. I’ll leave the selection to you.

Karol: That's a lot of responsibility... But leave it to me.

Julius: Keele Labs will gather knowledge from other worlds to build the means and organize the steps necessary to rescue Ix.

Julius: Those who can fight will proceed with the search and rescue of the stray nexuses.

Julius: However, Mileena, Ruca, Illia, Ludger, and Elle—

Klarth: You too, Julius.

Julius: —And me, too. Anyway, these people should avoid acting alone.

Raine: That's all for now. Thanks for your help, you all.

Mileena: Oh, um, do you have a minute?

Raine: Mileena, what's wrong?

Mileena: I need to have a quick word with you later. Also with...Jade. It's about...General Nazar.

Raine: …I see. Come to the strategy meeting room later.

(Part 1) | (Part 3+4)

[thancredsgf]

Seifer and Quistis in Act 3: Chapter 9, Part 1

Few months ago, I waited for the release of this chapter with excitement because of this picture; Quistis on Seifer's Hyperion. This post will be a recap and highlights of Seifer and Quistis in this chapter. This picture is the banner for the second part of chapter 9.

Firstly, it was good to see that Seifer was boosted in part 1 while Quistis was boosted in part 2.

Basically, the plot for this chapter is that the whole cast of FF8 have lost some of their memories on what originally happened in their world. The ones with all their memories intact were Squall and Rinoa. Lunafreya from FF15 was also introduced in this chapter.

The chapter opened with Luna forgetting who Noctis is and losing most of her memories. They found out that Ultimecia is the cause of this and has been stealing memories for power. Then, we see the FF8, FF14 and FF15 cast discussing on how to save Luna.

When they were discussing about what to do with Ultimecia, Seifer appeared wanting to know more about her. Then, I was blessed when Seifer interacted with Thancred a.k.a my fave character from FF14. Thancred was worried that Seifer was thinking about joining Ultimecia's side again to which he immediately declined.

From their reconnaissance work, we find out that Ultimecia had Luna and Irvine's memories at her disposal. She becomes more powerful as she gains more of their memories. So to rescue Luna so that Ultimecia doesn't steal more of her memories, Seifer suggested that Rinoa be the bait for Ultimecia since she has all her memories.

The plan worked and they managed to rescue Luna away from Ultimecia. Seifer brought Luna, Rinoa and Rydia to a separate safe place. And while they waited for Squall to catch Ultimecia in a surprise attack, Rydia was surprised that Seifer and Squall were working together in this plan. So Seifer said:

This was referring to a separate event when Raijin and Fujin saved him from becoming Ultimecia's knight again. When he said this, I definitely thought this chapter was really setting up to be Seifer's redemption arc. I'm all for Seifer striving to be the good guy and doing his best to protect his friends, including the orphanage gang 🥺😭

Then, Seifer being impressed with how tough Luna is said this:

And I was immediately reminded when Seifer said to add Quistis to the list in FF8. A list which we don't specifically know about. It's highly possible it's the same list that Seifer said here too, since we all know Quistis is definitely a tough nut to crack 🤣

Then, after Squall and the others arrived, they all confronted Ultimecia. After defeating her, we see a scene where Luna gets all her memories back.

What was interesting here is the fact that both Seifer and Quistis were in this scene with two famously established couples of the Final Fantasy franchise: Noctis and Luna, Squall and Rinoa. The couples all had their own sweet moments too in this scene. Seifer and Quistis must really felt like third wheels but I'm sure it's fine because they had each other 😉

The creators of this scene could literally choose anyone else since the rest of the FF8 cast was also there in the previous scene but they really picked Seifer and Quistis for this scene. Also loved how they seemed at ease with each other (as per usual in all their scenes in Opera Omnia). Seifer never belittled her like he did with other characters sometimes and Quistis never doubted his allegiance or the true purpose of his appearance like other characters do. She's always had faith in him too (as shown in her Lost Chapter which I have recapped in another post). They just have this unspoken respect of each other in this world and it's one of the best things ever. I was glad that they were paired up together and I honestly thought it was appropriate and they really gave off the protector vibes for both of the couples, while also looking like a badass couple themselves 😗

I know that them appearing with 2 other couples is just crumbs but I'll take all the crumbs I can get with Seiftis 🤣

With Ultimecia running away and them finding out that their memory fragments were somewhere deeper in the area, this chapter continues to the 2nd part and I will do a recap of that in another post.

[anneapocalypse]

On Nona's Identity

I'm sure I'm not the first to think or suggest this, but as I've just finished my re-read of Gideon and Harrow and the Nona preview and it's my current working theory, I figure I may as well put it out there! Spoilers for all of the above.

I think Nona is Alecto in Harrow's body.

I mean, Nona being in Harrow's body is hardly a theory; I'd say that part is almost a given based on what we know from the preview. Nona looks like Harrow. She and Pyrrha were rescued and brought to Blood of Eden by Camilla and Palamedes after some Big Event. Most critically, Nona's hair grows unnaturally fast (which Harrow's has done ever since her brain surgery thanks to Ianthe's little trick).

Initially, I sort of assumed it was going to be some new character hopping into Harrow, some ghost we hadn't met yet, but re-reading the epilogue of Harrow the Ninth, in which we are first introduced to Nona though not by name, there is considerable emphasis placed on the question of who she is.

Moreover, in Harrow's final moments in Harrow the Ninth, she finds herself seemingly back in the Locked Tomb, climbing into the empty coffin where the Body once lay, as if to symbolize that they have switched places.

I think Alecto has already been haunting Harrow. There's some solid foreshadowing of this in Harrow when Abigail explains the mechanisms of hauntings to explain the presence of Commander Wake in the two-hander, and later Cytherea's body. But in that conversation, which centers around Harrow seeing written messages that no one else in the River bubble can see, Harrow never brings up her visions of the Body which has visited her, on and off, since the day she broke into the sepulchre there by the sea and beheld the face of the Holy Corpse—the Body being the reason Harrow believed herself to be insane in the first place.

As understandable a response as that would have been to the various traumas of Harrow's childhood, I don't think the Body was ever a hallucination. Sudden and violent death, as Alecto's murder likely was (and per this theory I am inclined to believe it was not her first murder but her second) has a tendency to produce revenants—spirits that cling to some vestige of their former life in order to complete unfinished business. I think that one way or another, Alecto's soul found a thanergetic link to follow and a way to follow Harrow out of the Tomb.

We've been told repeatedly (and shown, via the unfortunate case of Colum Asht) that a body left vacant is vulnerable to possession by lost and hungry souls. And if she was already right there, Alecto would have had first dibs when Harrow and Gideon left Harrow's body vacant aboard the Mithraeum.

The memory loss is easily explained by the length of time since Alecto's death. Ten thousand years trapped in isolation is more than enough to result in some kind of madness.

Nona feels like she has heard and been told many things before, and forgotten them. Sometimes she knows things but doesn't know how she knew them. Though she was initially unable to speak, she now can comprehend and speak every human language, something her companions could not have taught her, which speaks to what she was before (see again the theory I linked above).

Finally, as an incidental, there's the question of Nona having tantrums, which comes up a couple of times in the preview:

In the bad old days she used to have to be helped even with the nightshirt, because she couldn't be trusted not to get stuck with it halfway over her head and get all hot and upset from claustrophobia. It was incredibly important that she not get upset like that again. She had only ever had two tantrums in her life, but it would be humiliating to have a third.

And later:

All she had was a good nature—that wasn't true all the time, but Nona didn't want it bruited about that she had a bad temper when she had only ever thrown two tantrums in her life and couldn't remember either of them.

Any of this could be just as easily explained by Nona, bereft of memories and struggling to communicate, getting upset about her lack of control over herself and her environment. But also, boy I bet being a soul for 10,000 years in a facsimile of the place you died (a la Palamedes in Harrow) could make you pretty damned claustrophobic. And if we know one thing about Alecto's personality, it's that she could get very angry.

So that's what I've got! Could be right, could be wrong, but either way I can't wait to read Nona the Ninth as soon as it's here.

[maemi324]

Mafia

Hey there friends! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve actually posted something. 

Let me just say, Happy Holidays! I hope you are having a wonderful and safe holiday. 

This fic was inspired and written for @butterscotchbaku​ and @in-this-house-we-stan-izuku​ based on some requests I had written in, as well as just ideas passed back and forth. 

I hope you two are having a wonderful day and may that continue into the new year! Thank you for all you’ve written and done!

Pairing: Izuku/Fem.Reader

Warnings: mentioned beatings, mentioned assault but nothing described in detail. all very vague. uhh violence, or hinted at violence. Edited only by me, so i may have missed something.

 I think that’s it. 

I hope you two enjoy this! 

Cigarette smoke hung heavily in the room, walls filled with generic knickknacks and warm colored walls gave the meeting a false sense of pleasantness. To any unsuspecting person, this was any other meeting room, one long table with rounded edges and somewhat padded chairs, the head of the table having the one most plush. 

Hell, even the people occupying them would have anyone turning up their nose in disinterest. Nothing but business men and women in dark, smart looking suits.

But you knew better. Sitting at the head was the infamous Izuku Midoriya, known under the name of Deku, direct descendent of the greatest Mafia leader Japan had ever seen; All Might. 

And here you sat, comfortably in Izuku’s lap, your temple pressed against his neck as you listened to his voice rumble on towards the other members. You were hardly paying attention to what was being said as you glanced around the room to the others.

Katsuki Bakugou- Dynamite, or TNT if you were feeling particularly cheeky. He was head of interrogation, finding out who knew what and definitely had too many ways of making people talk, and only one sure fire way of keeping them quiet. 

Todoroki Shouto- Bakugou’s counter in interrogation. He was mainly there to keep Bakugou from killing every target. He could control his temper, sure, but Todoroki added a sense of cold unease to their targets. He was effective against the folks who didn’t rise to Bakugou’s jabs and threats. He tapped the ashes of his cigarette into the small dish provided.

Kirishima Eijirou- Red Riot-another strong man and a third in the interrogation squad. He kept Bakugou from grousing the entire time, as well as leveling the two tempers in the group. Though he was a strong man, he was also incredibly sweet. You recalled that, while dealing with some unsavory characters that had children- typically rescuing the children at the other parents pleading- Red Riot was a favorite with them, his bright smile and charm keeping them distracted as Bakugou and Todoroki dealt with the problem.

Iida- Ingenium-was the getaway driver, best out of the best. He somehow always managed to get them out as quickly as possible while still following the law. It made losing the police all the easier. Ochaco Uraraka, or Uravity, was the treasurer, in charge of keeping account of all of the mafia’s funds, who owed them money and why. For more problematic clients, she was a stickler down to the very last penny. 

There were others, but those were just the ones in the room at the moment. You sighed softly, adjusting in Izuku’s lap. Someone at the end of the table was pleading for something. You could tell by the unimpressed glare on Izuku’s face that it was going south for whoever this was- a blond man with an inferiority complex for certain.

You glanced down at your left hand, engagement ring shimmering brightly despite the warm fluorescent lights. It wasn’t very large, an emerald surrounded by diamonds. He’d only given it to you a few days ago. On a rare day, you were able to go out with him in public-the benefit of a mask and some contacts while on the job- you had decided to flit about a few museums. The ring caught your eye immediately, the prized possession of some rich so and so, dating back who knows how long in their family.

Maybe it was because of how brightly it matched your lovers eyes, but the ring called to you. You didn’t mention a peep to your lover however. You knew he would have taken it right then and there. You rather liked coming to this museum, with added security after a robbery, you would have to frequent it less.

Your lovestruck fool of a man decided to do it anyway. He’d said that the plan went off without a hitch, though the smudges of dirt and a bit of blood- not his own- said otherwise. At the time, you had to question why, sure he’d robbed plenty of other places, gifts for trips that took longer than expected, but a place that you favored going?

“I’m just crazy about you doll, You deserve the best of the best. The way you eyed that ring, I knew there’d be nothing else that would be more perfect for you. But, it’s not just because you fancied it that I got it for you. We’re together, we always will be...but I want to make it more official. I wanna be yours forever, and I want you to be mine. What do you say doll? Marry me?”

You couldn’t say yes fast enough.

A gentle nudge to your shoulder brought you out of your daze. You looked up to the love of your life.

“What do you think dollface? What should we do with Monama?” 

You sat up in his lap, watching as the blond shivered in his spot, a smirk on your fiance’s face hidden by his fist as he leaned against it.

“Monama, what is it he did again?”

“Well Doll, he owes us money. He swears he’s good for it, but this is the third time he hasn’t been good for it.What should we do with this foolish, foolish man?”

Monama...ah yes now you remembered him! A little wanna be Mafia leader who went under when he ran out of money. He placed bets with other rival gangs against Deku, proclaiming that not only could he and his group get it done, but get it done better. 

There were times when they had, though just barely. It was hardly enough to keep a betting pool aimed against Deku however. Everyone but him seemed to know it. The overconfidence in his group and underestimating Deku lead to his downfall when Deku pulled off an impossible mission without even having to undo his tie.

When these gangs came to collect, he begged Deku to allow him and his group safety, help paying off the debt. Deku agreed, but in return, he had a year to earn the money back, only adding interest when the blond began getting too cocky. 

“I just need a little more time! A day, give me a day!” he pleaded, voice shrill and desperate. 

You winced, brows scrunched in annoyance.

Honestly, you didn’t care for Monama, and weren’t all too excited for his continued presence in the gang. You looked down at your nails idly.

“Have Dynamite follow him for a day then. If whatever magic he seems to think he can pull off, doesn’t in fact pull off, then he can have fun beating the change out of him. Or, whoever he’s seeing to get the money can pay it” You figured, even though he’d be annoyed at the idea of tailing that worm, Bakugou would have a good time beating it out of him.

Izuku gave Bakugou a look, who only snarled in response. A tilt of his head and Bakugou got up from his chair, footsteps heavy as he grabbed Monama by the arm, “Let’s get this over with you pathetic extra,” rolling his eyes as Moana sagged in slight relief, gratitude spilling from his lips.

Izuku held up a hand, “Let Red Riot escort him out for now. We have some business that you’d like to be here for I’m sure”

Bakugou’s eyes widened a fraction, a grin making its way onto his face as he shoved Monama towards Kirishima.

As Bakugou took his seat and Kirishima exited with Monama in tow, another man entered the room, a small man with purple hair. You recognized him as Mineta’s father. His son’s invention, a sticky substance that rendered anything in its grip as good as stuck, was what kept him in the group. What had him on thin ice however, was his treatment of the women in the group, all things he learned from his father. Izuku left Iida to beat it out of him however he saw fit. All it would take is one more strike. 

His father, however, was all out of strikes. The way he leered at you and the other girls had you all walking on eggshells around him. You only came forward to Izuku about it after you and the others had confided in one another. He had groped at you after a party the gang had thrown. It was the first and last time he’d ever made a physical move towards you.

You could feel the man's lecherous eyes on you, making you lean into Izuku, his body blocking the man's gaze. 

While you told him your story, Izuku’s face had remained calm, though the cup he had been holding shattered into thousands of pieces. He knew there were rumors about the senior, but to have it be found out as fact, and not just rumors from other gangs... He was furious, you knew that, and you knew somehow, someway, that Minoru senior would pay.

“Doll, why don’t you go talk to YaoMomo about wedding dresses, hm?” You nodded your head, though hesitant to leave the safety and comfort of his lap. You knew you were safe with Izuku by your side, but that didn’t mean you were comfortable passing by this...Disgusting being. His gaze softened and he hooked his arm around yours, escorting you personally towards the door.

Izuku tilted your head into a sweet kiss, his thumb rubbing comforting circles onto your side.

Izuku opened the door for you, but before you left, he kissed you again, deeper, sweeping away the sickly feeling of being watched with his tongue as it danced with yours, one hand cupping your jaw to pull you close.

He pulled away all too soon for your tastes, hand leaving your jaw, “Actually, maybe talk with her about the cake too, this may take a bit...” he turned away from you, eyes turning cold and jaded as the door closed.

“It’s about to get ugly in here”

[roberttchase]

Manner minded or double trouble? Both SO matty? Maybe Christie looking after him?

double trouble: [character] is sick and injured.

I will be writing the manner minded one separately :) I hope you enjoy this (somewhat more detailed than I'd originally planned) ficlet.

Send prompts to my inbox.

+ + +

If you were to ask Matt Casey if he thought he was lucky, for the most part he would answer with 'no'. Yes, he's lucky enough to have Sylvie Brett as a girlfriend, lucky to have gone to the fire academy, lucky to have been promoted to a lieutenant and then captain. But he also had an emotionally abusive father as a teenager, a murderer for a mother, his girlfriend of eight years was killed, his wife left him. For every good thing, it feels like there are three bad things in his life.

So he can't even really say it's a surprise when, while on scene helping squad rescue two victims in a car that's balancing precariously close to the frozen Chicago River, Matt loses his balance, slips from the hood of the car, and falls almost twelve feet onto the ice that then suddenly cracks underneath him, submerging him in below forty degree water. Nothing in his life is ever easy. Intense pain radiates from his chest, his body feels like it's on fire, and then nothing.

From there, the scene is absolute chaos. Sylvie and Violet are both off shift, spending the entire week in Joliet helping teach at a conference. The two paramedics that are on scene are instantly calling for backup, while both Severide and Tony frantically suit up in scuba gear for precaution. Boden's yelling orders, but the three other members of truck are all frozen, staring at the large hole in the ice, from which their Captain is currently very much not getting out of.

+ + +

"Christie, you really don't have to do this, Severi-"

"I know what Severide said, but I'd feel more comfortable if you stayed with me." Christie Casey frowns, looking at her younger brother. He's at least four shades paler than he should be, cheeks flushed and eyes dull. Stubble consumes the lower half of his face, and the firefighter looks exhausted. She can't say that she blames him, not with the hell that he's gone through the past thirty six hours.

She'd gotten the call from Stella Kidd yesterday, a kind but shaky voice telling her that Casey, Matt, had fallen into an icy river, and was at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center being treated for two broken ribs and mild hypothermia. Arriving half an hour later, she'd been taken into Matt's room, where they had him on enough pain medication he was basically incoherent. One of the doctors had explained to her that the next few hours were important for any person who'd almost drowned- inhalation of the river water had occurred, and aspiration pneumonia was a large possibility. For a naive moment, Christie was certain that Matt would be fine.

Matt's never that lucky.

It's how she finds herself now, half glaring at her brother, who's been given instructions to stay with someone for the next forty eight hours, while his body wars with itself. The red haired doctor had explained that unless the mans fever reaches over 102, or his breathing deteriorates, he's allowed to stay out of the hospital. Severide's offered to let him stay at the loft, to take next shift off and watch over his best friend, but she tells her brothers best friend no. She needs to be able to watch over her little brother, if his paramedic girlfriend can't.

She's already talked to Sylvie, had called her only an hour after getting the call herself. They'd come to the conclusion that as long as someone was there to watch Matt, she needed to finish up the week for the CFD and CEMS.

"You ready to leave? I'm bringing you back to my place. Violet's got the guest room all ready for you."

Matt blinks and then nods, shoulders curved in slightly, one arm wrapped around his side. He looks a little woozy, though that could be from the pain pills being pumped through his body. That, or the fever he's sporting. April wheels him to the front of the hospital while Christie grabs her car and pulls it up to the curb.

Half an hour later, Matt's being helped into the guest room, where, sure enough, the bed has fresh sheets and a few extra pillows have been added for the man who isn't supposed to lay flat on his back. She gets him under the covers, thankful he's cooperating, and by the time she's back with the meds in a little plastic cup, as well as a glass of water, Matt's asleep.

"Matt, hey, you have to wake up and take your medicine, then you can go back to sleep, okay?" She shakes him as gently as possible, not wanting to hurt his ribs any more than they already are. She must knock something loose though, because not a second later he starts coughing, low and harsh, and his eyes flutter open. Gasping for air, they wait for his chest to stop spasming. His arm is cradling his side and she feels terrible, wishing she could help.

"I just need you to take this medicine, then you can sleep again," she promises, holding the cup out for him. When he nods, the woman lets the small pills tumble onto his open palm, and soon he's swallowing them tiredly.

"C-Can you stay?" The words are quiet and hang in the air as she turns to leave. Pausing, Christie turns back and is struck by just how young Matt looks, laying there with fever flushed cheeks and sallow skin.

Moving slowly, the woman gets into the other side of the bed, carefully shifting to get comfortable.

"Just like old times huh?"

She knows he's referring to their childhood. Christie can't help but smirk a little at the memories.

"Are you talking about when you would come crying to me because you were afraid of the dark?" Her tone is teasing, and instinctively she lets her fingers find his hair, running them through it just like she did when they were young teens and their father had been yelling at them.

A laugh bubbles out of Matt's throat, but it quickly changes to coughing, and it takes a moment for Matt to calm down, sipping water before replying.

"I was actually talking about when I was eight and caught whatever that punk across the street had after he coughed on me. I remember I was out of school for a week, and you stayed with me as much as you could."

She remembers it well.

+ + +

Matt never gets sick, not when he was a baby, and not now. She's always been the one to come down with colds or strep throat, and Matt always manages to avoid germs. He had been sick once when he was a toddler, once, but other than that, she can't remember him ever even getting a runny nose. And then Michael Jeffries goes and coughs all over him on the bus when she's in fifth grade and he's in third, and Matt's record of not getting sick goes down the drain.

It had been on a Monday. That following Thursday afternoon, Christie's waiting for Matt to get on the bus when their bus driver tells her that her brother has apparently gone home early. The whole ride home, the eleven year old is upset, not for her brother, but at the fact she wasn't taken out early either. Why did Matt get to go home and play when she didn't? By the time she's walking into their small home, the blonde is stomping her feet and slamming the door behind her, ready to ask why her stupid brother gets such special treatment.

Instantly though, she realizes something is wrong. Mommy isn't downstairs like she normally is, but instead of being worried, the girl let sher anger build. Running up the stairs, her ponytail swaying behind her, Christie's ready to yell and throw a tantrum, but she freezes when she sees her mom sitting on Matt's small twin bed. She's holding their big blue bowl that she always gets out when Christie's stomach is sick, and Matt is throwing up, coughing and spluttering after, while she rubs his back. Cautiously, Christie walks into the doorway.

"Mommy...what wrong with Matt?"

Nancy and Matt look up, the older woman rubbing her sons back.

"Matt's just not feeling well honey, he'll be alright."

Christie frowns and looks at her brother, whose cheeks are a startling bright pink, his skin pale.

"He looks really sick..." Suddenly she's not mad at all anymore, instead she's worried, no, scared. Matt doesn't get sick. That's his superpower, just like hers is liking vegetables.

Before any more words are spoken, Matt coughs and lets out a strangled little whine. "M-Mommy..."

Christie turns her face away as Matt gets sick this time, not wanting to watch anyone throw up. Instead, she goes and busies herself with finding paper and her crayons. Sitting down on her bedroom floor, the eleven year old goes to town with making her brother a get well soon card, the only thing she knows she can do in this moment.

That night, while she and mommy eat downstairs, Christie can hear Matt crying with Daddy. The second she finishes her food and washes her plate off, the blonde runs upstairs, wanting to make sure the younger boy is okay. She stops in front of his room, but no one's there, the twin sized bed with dark green sheets is empty, even his beloved stuffed bear is gone. Walking further down the hall, she sees the two she's been looking for in her parents king sized bed.

Matt's laying against Daddy, Bear clutched in his hand, his ear against the boys lip. Daddy smiles at her and puts a finger to his lips, telling her to be quiet. Nodding, Christie tiptoes in and peers at them both, before climbing in putting a delicate hand on Matt's shoulder, hoping he'll be ok.

+ + +

Brought back to the present, Christie feels Matt's forehead and sighs. "just try and sleep okay? I'll be here if you need me, okay? I won't let anything bad happen to you Matt."

It's as if it's all he's been waiting to hear. It takes him all of two minutes to fall back asleep, head resting against his sisters shoulder. She supposes that this can be the start of all the years she'd missed taking care of him after she'd left for college. He deserves it.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Carry Me Home

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: John, Scott, Virgil

Back to back rescues is a recipe for exhaustion.  Luckily, Scott’s got an eye in the sky looking out for him.

A random discussion with @janetm74 about how much we love sleepy Scott fics somehow turned into this...  Well, it feels like it’s been a while since I posted any fluff, so here you go.

John didn’t have alarms rigged to alert him just before his eldest brother crashed out, although at times that certainly sounded like an appealing prospect.  Maybe one day he’d implement it, considering Scott’s penchant for working until he dropped – literally – but for now it remained a vague concept in the back of his mind.

Today was one day where it might be useful.  It was, he supposed, fortunate that the rest of his brothers had just returned from their respective rescues, leaving him with only Scott to monitor as his big brother packed up after his own rescue.  If he’d been distracted by another brother, or some new stream of important data that needed instant attention, he wouldn’t have caught the signs in time.  As it was, the only thing on his conscious radar at that moment was Scott, and John saw the moment his older brother’s vitals plummeted.

His immediate reaction was panic, his heart jumping up to land in his throat as Scott’s blood pressure and heart rate dropped from its high, adrenaline-fuelled state.  But Scott didn’t keel over, or faint, or outwardly show any reaction at all, and logic sidled its way in before John did something unadvisable.

This was Scott’s third rescue in the past twenty-four hours.  None of them had been easy, but this final one had been particularly physically demanding, with his brother clambering in and around a large and challenging area of craggy rocks - in a couple of cases having to carry a rescuee while doing so.  John was also aware that Scott hadn’t had much by way of sleep, and while he hadn’t been tracking his brother’s every move, he suspected food probably hadn’t featured as much as it should have done, either.

It was the perfect storm.

He watched the camera feed closely as Scott packed away the last of his harness equipment before sitting down heavily in his pilot seat.  A dirty, tired hand rubbed at his face, leaving streaks on the skin in an admittance John knew Scott wouldn’t have made if he’d realised he was being watched.  The yawn, splitting his brother’s face in two and beading moisture in the corner of his scrunched closed eyes, was the last straw.

Scott was not piloting anywhere like that.

Pulling up Thunderbird One’s controls took barely a thought.  By the time Scott’s weary hands rested on the levers, ready to guide his ‘bird into the air, John had locked him out and activated her remote pilot.

It only took a second for Scott to realise that Thunderbird One’s controls weren’t responding to him, but a second was far too long for a man who lived and breathed flight.  John let his hologram flicker into view as Scott grumbled and poked at the controls again, clearly not yet realising that the reason they weren’t working was because John had decreed it.

His brother jumped when he noticed him.

“Everything’s fine, John,” he said, although he was still scowling at his ‘bird’s controls as if he thought there was something wrong.  “I’ll be in the air in a minute.”

“I know,” John agreed pleasantly, and was relieved to see the scowling blue eyes turn suspiciously towards him.  Scott was exhausted, but could at least still do the bare minimum of realise when a brother was up to something.  “Strap yourself in.”  Scott gestured at his shoulder harness, and John barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “The turbulence straps,” he clarified. While the shoulder harnesses did their job in most conditions, Thunderbird One’s pilot seat also came with additional security in the case of heavy turbulence – or, in a worst-case scenario, a crash landing.  Considering Scott was undeniably more creeping further towards sleep every moment – proven by another yawn which he couldn’t stifle – John wanted him fully strapped in.

“Don’t need ‘em,” Scott grumbled.  “Conditions are clear.”

“Scott.”  John had mastered the disappointed parent voice years ago out of necessity, and sometimes even Scott reacted to it. Today, with the older man more asleep than awake, the stars aligned in John’s favour, and the turbulence straps were fastened.  Scott still grumbled, but John didn’t care as long as he was secure.

“What is the point of this?” his brother demanded, failing to hide yet another yawn.  His eyes were half-lidded at best, and another glance at his vitals showed that it was only Scott’s stubbornness that was keeping him awake.  There was absolutely no way he was fit to fly, and John was going to enforce that.

“Relax,” he said, keeping his voice level and low.  “I’ll get you home, big brother.”

“Wha-?”  Blue eyes shot open.  “John, what are-”

John didn’t let him finish his sentence before powering up Thunderbird One’s VTOL and lifting his brother’s ‘bird – complete with said brother safely ensconced within – into the sky.

“You’re dead on your feet, Scott,” he pointed out calmly.  “Get some rest.  You’re in no state to pilot.”

“I’m fine,” Scott tried to protest, but yet another yawn interrupted him and he involuntarily slumped back in the seat.  John took the opportunity to ignite Thunderbird One’s rear boosters and accelerate her up through the sound barrier.

“Scott.”  This time it wasn’t the disappointed parent, but rather the wheedling little brother.  Scott was always weak to wheedling little brothers, and this was no exception.  He slumped back further in the chair, head resting back against the headrest.

“Fine,” he huffed, finally accepting that this was a debate he was never going to win.  Another yawn crossed his face and his eyelids fluttered closed for several moments before they were wrenched open again.  “Just for now.”

The fact that he had caved at all proved how unfit to fly he was.

Blue eyes fluttered closed again, but this time they didn’t re-open.  Scott’s vitals stabilised themselves, far too low for consciousness to be on the cards at all, and John kept an eye on the camera feed as Scott’s chest rose and fell in slow and even breaths.  His brother badly needed the sleep.

After a moment, during which he brought Thunderbird One to a safe, comfortable cruising speed of Mach seven and confirmed nothing was in her flight path, he opened a line to Tracy Island, and his immediate younger brother.

Virgil wasn’t long back from a rescue himself, and still had a smudge of grime on his nose that no-one had pointed out to him yet.

“Another rescue?” he asked. He looked somewhat weary himself, although far from Scott’s own level of exhaustion.  John shook his head.

“No,” he promised.  “Scott’s fallen asleep.”

That perked Virgil up straight away.  “In Thunderbird One?” he demanded, incredulously.  John gave a wry smile in response.

“I’m in control,” he assured him.  “Scott’s exhausted, but safe.”  To prove it, he sent along a copy of Scott’s suit telemetry, which was currently reading vitals consistent with a deep sleep.  Virgil scrutinised them closely for several moments before sighing.

“He needs to stop pushing himself so hard,” he despaired quietly, before collecting himself.  “What’s Thunderbird One’s ETA?”

John glanced across at the figures.  “Half an hour,” he said.  “Scott’s probably not going to wake up before she lands.”  He hoped he didn’t.  Scott needed actual sleep, not a half hour nap in his Thunderbird.  “Judging by his vitals, I wouldn’t be surprised if he sleeps right through.”

Virgil’s eyes glanced over the data again, and his lips thinned in agreement.

“Get him home, John,” he said.  “I’ll take it from there.”

“F.A.B,” John agreed. He didn’t close the line with Virgil, but he did turn away from his younger brother to instead watch his older brother as he continued to guide Thunderbird One home.

As predicted, Scott slept right through the landing half an hour later.  There was a slight stir as she decelerated and rotated, but his eyes stayed closed and he remained slumped bonelessly in his seat as John settled the Thunderbird on her castors and allowed her to roll back to the hangar.

Virgil was ready and waiting on the gantry when John let his hologram flicker back into view.

“Still asleep?” the middle Tracy asked as the Thunderbird came to a stop.  John nodded.  “Okay, I’ve got this.”  Virgil stepped forwards onto the extending loading ramp, and as he neared the cockpit, John disengaged the pilot seat so that it swung out to meet him.  His younger brother didn’t hesitate, reaching out and releasing all the straps and harnesses holding Scott in place before scooping the still-sleeping man up into his arms.

That was, in theory, the end of John’s domain.  With Scott safe and still slumbering away in Virgil’s arms, he was the dark-haired Tracy’s responsibility now, and his hologram stopped projecting so as not to distract Virgil.

Still, John watched as the platform retracted, bringing his brothers back to the gantry, and Virgil walked across the metal towards the elevator.  In his arms, Scott shifted, a sleepy murmur indicating that his sleep wasn’t quite so deep any more.  Virgil was no stranger to handling him, however, and a small, fond, smile crept onto John’s face as his younger brother murmured something quiet and melodic.

The microphones couldn’t pick up exactly what it was Virgil was saying – or, John suspected, humming – but whatever it was seemed to do the trick as Scott settled back down.

There were no blind spots in Thunderbird Five’s coverage of the villa.  John didn’t normally pay close attention to areas outside of the den, kitchen and hangars, largely content to let his family get on with their personal lives without him spying on them, but today he tracked Virgil the entire way from the hangars to Scott’s bedroom.  Virgil was frowning a little by the time he got there, clearly a little suspicious at how little effort it had taken to keep their big brother asleep, and the same unease filtered through John’s mind.

Was Scott really just that exhausted, or had they missed something?

John watched the feed like a hawk as Virgil gently stripped off Scott’s uniform, revealing the plain undershirt and shorts, and his telemetry data disappeared.  Nothing new flagged up as a point of concern, except for the ongoing fact that Scott barely stirred.  Virgil rested a hand on their brother’s chest, and instantly made a face.

The next moment, Scott’s underclothes were also being stripped away, leaving him in just his underwear, and Virgil was dropping them on the floor by the uniform judgementally. Despite the underlying concern, John smirked a little.  Scott had done a lot of physical work on the last mission; it made sense for his clothes to have absorbed the sweat that came with that and he didn’t envy Virgil for dealing with that at all.

Pyjamas were retrieved, but before Virgil began the unenviable task of trying to dress their sleeping brother without waking him, a familiar yellow light skipped over Scott’s body.  John immediately tapped in to the medscanner as Virgil scrutinised the results; just like the suit telemetry, it simply flagged up sheer exhaustion, but with a small caution for dehydration added in as well.

Shoulders slumping in what John assumed was relief, Virgil eased the still-sleeping figure of their brother into loose pyjamas and tugged at the comforter until Scott was nestled snugly in bed.  Just before he pulled it all the way up to Scott’s chin Virgil hesitated for a brief moment, and then a monitor was being carefully attached to Scott’s pyjama top.

John tapped into that as well, relieved that Virgil had thought to attach one, and immediately got the data streaming straight into Thunderbird Five for him to check periodically. Just like the scan, it currently declared no causes for concern, barring an advisory for mild dehydration, and a little bit of tension bled from John’s shoulders.

Seemingly satisfied, Virgil then pulled the comforter the rest of the way, tucking Scott in firmly, only for their brother to stir again.  The pianist’s hand immediately threaded into brown locks, and John watched fondly as Virgil ran his fingers gently through Scott’s hair soothingly.  The microphones in Scott’s room were more sensitive, adjusted for quiet night time conversations, and while earlier John hadn’t been able to hear how Virgil settled their brother, now his voice resonated through Thunderbird Five.

John recognised it instantly.  How could he not, when he’d heard it so many times as a child, first from Mom, and then overheard as Scott did his best to fill in the gaps after the avalanche?  A quiet and gentle lullaby from years long gone by did the trick to settle Scott again, but Virgil didn’t stop singing even after Scott stopped stirring.

That, John decided, was his cue to leave.  Scott was home safe and in good hands – and he had the readings from the monitor to keep an eye on if he wanted to check up on him.  There was no point lurking around and listening to a brother who may or may not realise he was still watching.

He dismissed the feed just as Virgil finished a verse, suddenly plunging Thunderbird Five into silence before the quiet background hum of his ‘bird’s ever-running machinery registered again.  A glance at the monitor readings brought his attention back to the dehydration caution, and John checked to see who was near the kitchen.  Virgil, no doubt, would be staying with Scott for a little while yet, but there was no harm in sending someone else up with some electrolyte drinks for when Scott finally woke.

Well, no harm as long as he made it perfectly clear to the rest of the family that Scott was getting some long overdue and well-deserved rest, and anyone who disturbed him would find out exactly how creative John could get with technology.