#that's also why the alternate universe arc works for me

[welcometohell09]

That thing that Gets me about Timebomb, both platonically and romantically, is that Ekko doesn't need to love or care about Jinx, but he does so anyway. Jinx is emotionally fucked to the point of barely being able to sustain any form of relationship, she destroys the things she cares about when she doesn't mean to, she pushes everyone away and she self-destructs. Ekko has absolutely no reason to care beyond maybe a memory of them being friends as kids, but he chooses—actively—to look for her when she disappears from her cell.

He also doesn't obsess over the arbitrary distinction between Powder and Jinx in the same way other characters, including Jinx, do; Jinx becomes Jinx to protect herself from being Powder and Silco encourages it, Vi (in S1) separates Jinx from her little sister so she can 'save' Powder, but Ekko watched as she chose to become who she did—he probably saw her grenades start to work, her fighting abilities improve, her hair grow out and her reputation take root, if only from a distance—and accepts it as a part of a whole person. He doesn't care whether she is the kind, arguably less traumatised Powder—like in the alternate dimension—or Jinx, because to him it's just her. She's brilliant. She's awesome. In Ekko's eyes, she's not just worthy of being loved, but she's worthy of being chosen to be loved and held on to when she hasn't done anything 'for' him.

[chickenkurage]

New AU? (Artificial Intelligence N00GA1)

Read Spongey's idea below;

Here me out! :"D (WARNING: SPONGEY IS GONNA RAMBLE ABOUT THE IDEA...)

SOME NOOGAI AND DJ BACKSTORY:

I was thinking of an alternate universe in which Alan is an AI named "N00GA1". He was essentially created by humans to serve as a test subject, basically what happened to Victim, Chosen and Dark happens to him. He basically gets his salad tossed around for a while before he eventually snaps and found a way to kill his creators.

He basically grew to hate humans, a whole lot after that.

For his first body, he was able to make an abomination of a body of wires in the human world before the humans were able to kill his body, and he fled to the internet, intending to cause havoc before accidently diving too deep and finding himself in the outernet.

There he discovers that there were sentient codes, N00GA1 completely realizes that in the outernet, he can reign as a God to them and plans to take over before he meets DJ.

And uh friendship yay!!!

Since N00GA1 has no body, DJ gave him one of his decommissioned robots so that he could have his own physical form.

WHAT ROLE DOES DJ HAVE HERE?

DJ is a man who has a knack for creating robots; he loves building machines and wanted to develop his own Artificial Intelligence, where other sticks would come to like him and appreciate his work.

This is why he holds a deep fondness for N00GA1—not only for his immense power over the outernet but also because N00GA1 is an AI made by humans! DJ is practically frothing at the mouth at the fact that he has one of the strongest beings in the outernet in his hands.

N00GA1 is just like: okay 👍

HIS ABILITIES? HOW STRONG IS HE?

Unfortunately, in this AU, DJ lacks any special abilities. When he was brought into existence, he was merely a random doodle crafted by a child on a whim.

There was no careful consideration given to his design, and he wasn't intended to appear impressive. In fact, one of DJ's legs is shorter than the other, which led to the the creation of his prosthetic leg.

WHO AND WHAT IS NOOGAI?

Basically, N00GA1 has no moral compass here; he's as terrible as the next man, and possibly much worse than his creators; he wanted to steal the code within the outernet for himself, and DJ somehow saved everyone on the outernet by becoming friends with N00GA1. (THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP WORKS AGAIN)

I can't promise that N00GA1 (Alan) will get along with the hollowheads, CG, or the rest of the cast because he has a bit of a crazy personality (understatement of the year, he would kill anyone who hurts DJ).

DJ just doesn't notice it since he believes N00GA1 is really cool.

HIS ABILITIES? HOW STRONG IS HE?

And in terms of N00GA1's abilities… well, the possibilities are virtually endless. He can easily manipulate the code around him. He wants to copy a specific stick figure? Oh yeah, he could definitely do that. He wants to copy someone's skill? Easy, he could steal someone's ability to bake and make it his own.

If he wants to rearrange someone's guts and limbs? Yeah, he probably did that to that one stick who decided to bad-mouth DJ behind his back with a flick of his hand.

He could also easily leave his body and use a living stick as his meat suit. But he doesn't do that because it's weird to share codes with someone (It feels icky for N00GA1, it's almost like he's touching a human organ when he does that, it's weird, and oddly disgusting for someone like N00GA1 who doesn't care about gore).

He is essentially an omnipotent being in the internet and the outernet. However, if he's in the human world, he's basically as defenseless as a rat, unless the human world is technologically advanced, which it isn't. So, we could definitely see N00GA1 power tripping sometimes, but of course, we can thank DJ for reigning him in.

THE OTHER CAST?

In this AU, the other hollowheads have a different creator, Alex, who underwent a similar narrative arc as the canonical Alan but continued to mistreat his creations. Eventually, Second and the CG manage to break free and journey towards the outernet, where they cross paths with Dark and Chosen.

And idk maybe they become some kind of weird knit of family.

Chosen was still targeted by Victim and was taken into "the box" for interrogation. It was during this time that Chosen discovered Victim had also endured similar experiences to himself and his brothers. This realization led Chosen to agree to reveal Alex's location to Victim and was willing to even help the gray stick for his "revenge"

And there they adopt Victim (whether he likes it or not XDDD)

HOW DO THEY MEET NOOGAI AND DJ?

They encounter DJ, who has been living as a hermit, concealing his identity to avoid being recognized as a hollowhead. And had mistakenly believing DJ to be one of Alex's creations (though in reality DJ was actually just some random doodle on a random Monday made by some bored kid)

DJ is somewhat familiar with Dark and Chosen, as terrorists, and Victim as a CEO from Rocket Corp. He simply nods in agreement, fearing for his life. And they try their best to take DJ in (that they believe is probably one of Alex's oldest work, before Victim was even created), who tries to evade them at every second.

And N00GA1 doesn't know this because he's always cooped up in DJ's lab, lazing around or just watching Youtube.

THE OTHER CAST, WILL THEY APPEAR?

Maybe, it's possible...

RANDOM: NOOGAI'S DESIGN....WHY SUNGLASSES AND NOT THE NORMAL GLASSES?

DJ essentially forgot to give N00GA1 eyes, leaving them blank until he discovered that gazing into N00GA1's eyes allowed him to see his own code, a sight that made him sick for an entire month.

During this period, N00GA1 took care of him. DJ then made N00GA1 wear sunglasses because apparently it was deemed harmful for sticks to see their own code, because apparently

And...story goes on from there :DDD

If ya'll like this, we will definitely make their designs :)))

Interesting or not? :000

THE CHARACTER DESIGNS IS STILL UNDER WORK, THIS IS ESSENTIALLY JUST A SKETCH OF NOOGAI AND A NOT SO WELL WRITTEN IDEA OF SPONGEY.

[jesncin]

Chimera Constantine breakdown, refs & nods mega-post

Welcome to the master post of behind the scenes for the Chimera Constantine comics. In the style of the Sons of Mars ones I made, this post archives our research and process. So here we go! This will be a mix of showing references and personal anecdotes for how we cobbled this project together.

I'll be repeating some things I've mentioned across blog posts because I like having all this info in one place.

So! There's a lot of ways to go about re-interpretation and re-imagining a story, and one of my techniques is to not get overly attached to research. While it's good to be informed about a character, sometimes knowing every little thing about them can make one hesitant to innovate and try something different with them. So I'm purposely mindful about how much material I research.

But how does something like that work when the character in question has only 2-3 total appearances, one arc, and a quick revisit several years later? We play twin telephone.

For this project, Cin read the Hellblazer Golden Boy arc and vaguely retold it to Jes, who would then write a story based on assumptions and half-remembered memories of the story. Letting personal experience, influences and bias fill the blanks. We're inspired by how Naoki Urusawa wrote Pluto based on his mis-remembered memories of reading Astro Boy. Also when I was a kid I used to look at book covers and summaries and make up a story based on the limited information I was given. It's fun for me. Part of why I love obscure characters so much is that the lack of content about them lets the reader fill in the blanks about their lives and try telling new stories about them that aren't constrained by a saturated canon.

The original Golden Boy arc written by Jamie Delano (#39-40) is about John Constantine coming to the realization that he strangled his twin in the womb. After taking some 'shrooms, John...manifests into another reality, it's very surreal. There, John meets his twin from a universe where John had died, and his brother gets to live. The twin (taking on the name John Constantine, we'll call him Golden Mage to keep it simple) is John's opposite in every better way. They decide to merge their souls to restore...the universe. You kind of had to be there.

John's twin returns many issues later (#249) to wrap up a different arc, there he and the story are written by Andy Diggle.

The first panel of our full comic references the tarot cards John gets from his reading with Zed.

This panel is a direct reference to this scene where John sees his own shadow on a curtain after his reading with Zed. I like the imagery of this arc, even when the dialogue describing twins is really cringe. We changed it to a mirror to reinforce the mirror imagery throughout the comic. Speaking of which...!

Through Jes' reworking of the story, mirrors were streamlined to be the main way alternate universes were portrayed in the story. They'd be the main motif that paralleled the twins too. In issue #249 of Hellblazer, John uses the mirror to confront his twin who resides within himself after their soul-merge years ago.

The line "He's so beautiful, he frightens me." is spoken by a doctor witnessing the Golden Boy's birth in his universe. We repurposed it to be John's dialogue for when he's describing the man he sees in the mirror.

John's twin uses a sacrifice involving these candles to summon his sickly twin. Jes repurposed the use of candles to a magic salt circle that contains spirits like the Golden Boy (he's nicknamed "Goldie" in our take).

The Golden Boy! Even though he died in the womb, he's portrayed as a boy. Probably because a floating fetus wasn't what they were going for. We wanted to give him a distinct look that foreshadows how much he would grow his hair out. I like that his mouth isn't visible! We use the shape of his eyes and posing to get across how he's feeling. It gives him a vacant-toddler-stare I find really endearing.

We made some minor adjustments to the Golden Mage's design. Initially, we followed his canonical pulled back long hair. But since he was a challenging character to emote when we had one less arm to work with, we decided to part his hair so that it could carry how he's feeling. I like when I can get it to cover a part of his face for intense moments! If it was animated, it would 100% be expressive Ghibli hair.

Our main goal for Golden Mage's characterization is to make him feel like his own person. In the original arc, he's less of a sibling and more of an au of John Constantine himself. He doesn't get his own name. Despite gloating about having a better and more fulfilling love life than John, he also shared the exact same love interests John does. Being a twin is less about a family story and more a vehicle to talk about self hatred and potential here. Which isn't fair to the individuality of the characters!

(note, this is not how the panels look in the og comic, I've rearranged them so that they display on this post better)

So we characterized the Golden Mage to still have his canon charisma (albeit with the dialogue toned way down from his original appearance), but to have a thinly veiled temper under all that bravado to foil his con-man trickster brother. The Golden Mage was vaguely described as not being particularly attached to the love he receives. Golden Mage is also dismissive of his womb twin's death, saying it's something he shouldn't grieve since he never really knew him. We reinterpreted these lines as him being in denial over his brother's death, thinking himself as above his own feelings of grief.

Also as a tiny note, we kept the Golden Mage's name ambiguous to keep with the vibe of the original comic, but in my mind I headcanon his full name to be Marigold "Goldie" Constantine. The yellow flower is culturally associated with prosperity, but also grief and jealousy. It's perfect for him! So we made references to the flower in the cover and first panels of the comic. I also headcanon that as a kid he called John Constantine's ghost "Johnny".

My influences for how this whole beginning meeting scene is staged and played out is E.M Carroll's When I Arrived At The Castle. The "animated" panels of Golden Mage looking back at John and breaking through the mirror is a direct call back to the keyhole sequence in that comic! The premise of daydreaming about how your life could have been and not realizing that you're staring at an alternate universe is loosely inspired by Junji Ito's Hellstar Remina. I really like the concept of staring into the unknown and then something sentient staring back from that. "What if our day dreams are just other realities we're dreaming of" kind of deal. I don't see that sort of thing in the saturation of multiverse stories these days.

Next reference is the Dead Boy's Heart! While I like that this story's its own thing, I was surprised it wasn't linked to John's dead brother in any way. It felt thematically relevant, so we brought it over as a device to trap Goldie while the brothers merge souls.

Twins can be positioned in a bunch of ways in the womb. I think canonically, John and Golden Mage were positioned like they are in the cover for Hellblazer #39, ideal for strangling I guess! We changed it to echo the motion of yin and yang. I do think the inclusion of yin and yang is a little cringey in the original comic even though I get what it's going for (balance and all that, it's just kind of simplistic to the philosophy). But I do like it as a way to echo card imagery we established in this comic. We combined the imagery of the tarot cards featured in the Golden Boy arc and King/Queen/Joker playing cards. So it felt right to bring back that whole upside down twins in the womb thing. Special fact, this is how my twin and I were vibing in the womb.

The scene where the twins hit Ctrl + E to merge layers! It's a pretty iconic pose! I like how their heads peaked out of the panels so I brought it back for our comic too. In our version, the twins fail to merge their souls entirely. In the revisit to the Golden Boy character in the comics in issue #249, it's revealed that the merging "failed" in some way, trapping the Golden Mage within John's soul.

For John's ghost counterpart from Golden Mage's universe we took Dave McKean's portrayal of him very literally haha. I know he doesn't literally have one eye, but we thought it gave him a really distinct look for us to stylize. We decided to keep the ghost kids consistent with no mouth and vacant pupil-less stares. We gave ghost kid!John a sort of bedsheet ghost form to contrast against Goldie.

Speaking of one eye! That's another motif we decided to emphasize throughout the comic. It's not in the source material at all, but we liked it as a way to both hint at chimerism and visualize how the two brothers serve as incomplete halves of each other. Special fact! Heterochromia can show up in chimera twins. Of course in the case of identical twins like the Constantines, their chimerism isn't as detectable since they have identical sets of DNA. But! It's still fun to stylize in a supernatural way. For our take we show the glowing golden eye as the soul of the Golden Boy manifesting in his brother. I like to think that John takes advantage of how undetectable his chimerism is to have an upper hand in any soul-related deals he makes.

This stylized heterochromia is inspired by @ratblazer 's Constantine design! I made a subtle nod to it with young punk John's make up echoing the scar in her design too.

For John's dynamic with Goldie the Golden Boy, we built the conflict of the story around making him doubt his attachment to his dead brother. There's a line of dialogue in the revisited Golden Boy arc about John needing to "let go", so we repurposed it into the Golden Mage assuring him that his attachments make him weak.

Even though the Golden Boy doesn't show up nearly as much as I think he should in canon, John has been shown to be really sentimental about him. John wants to be the Golden Boy's friend because he's so beautiful John mistook him for Jesus as a kid. Canonically, the Golden Boy ghost rejects John's friendship, likely still not over the whole strangulation in the womb thing. It still breaks John's heart though, he's a sobbing mess about being owned by a dead kid.

We changed this whole dynamic! The twin murder in the womb felt very X-men Xavier vs Cassandra Nova, and it's hard to get behind babies having that much motivation before they're even born. In our version, Goldie is a vanishing twin absorbed by John, the sickly twin. Infants being accidentally strangled by umbilical cords does occur in reality. However, we changed their origin to being that of Vanishing Twin syndrome because it was more specific for the ideas we were going for.

I feel this crucial change is more in tune with the overall themes of Hellblazer. John always cheats death at a cost. People are constantly sacrificed for John's continued survival. But the Golden Boy's case would be special, because he sacrificed himself out of love before he even knew what it means to love. Unlike the other ghosts that haunt John Constantine, Goldie isn't resentful of John. I think it makes more sense for the Golden Boy to be attached to John because he's all the Golden Boy's ever known. As a chimera twin, John is like a horcrux holding his brother's soul in his body. This reaffirms survivor's guilt to be something John experiences since his birth.

Canonically, although the Golden Mage initially feels sorry for the ghost of John that haunts him, he rejects John as well. John's ghost in canon is like a nuisance that keeps bothering Golden Mage. There's an instance mentioned of Golden Mage trying to recreate his murder in the womb? It's cryptically written. But Golden Mage does keep using the phrase "banished" to describe his brother.

We took this and made it so that he performed an exorcism on himself to remove his supernatural chimera-bond to John's ghost. The Golden Boy arc is pretty unique when compared with how saturated multiverse stories are nowadays since it doesn't share the science fiction sensibilities. Grief comes up a lot in multiverse stuff, in these stories characters use parallel universes to save a loved one as they're bargaining with their loss. For our take, we wanted a character to use the alternate universes to hurt and lash out at the loved one they're grieving. I pulled influence from Everything Everywhere All At Once's concept of a self destructive character on a search for the one familial connection who could understand what they're feeling.

References! The first panel is a nod to issue #36 where John is sleeping with Marj. We changed her to Kit. The second panel is a direct callback to issue #67, an iconic visual for his break up angst era.

Trivia; this page was added at the last minute! I needed something to bridge the birthday cupcake page and the final panel of Golden Mage's breakdown, so I linked them through candles! In this weird case, I reference my own work! This is a callback to Birthdays, a short comic we made for John Constantine's canonical birthday. It sets the premise for his relationship with Goldie based on the habits and experiences of survivor twins. The pages referencing this comic are meant to re-establish that John shares meals with his twin.

I wanted this page to feel like John's lighting an incense for his dead brother, and to contrast it with the snuffed out candles from Golden Mage's flashback. The candle has a yellow and blue intertwined spiral pattern that calls back to the color of John and Golden mage's dialogue boxes and speech bubbles, along with how twisted they look when they merged. Implying that in this universe, they're together in some way. I really wish I did this intentionally but it was by complete coincidence of making the cupcake pink and balancing it out with pastel primaries. But I sure can acknowledge how cool it looks symbolically okay???

The dialogue here is a nod to John's monologue in issue #19 where John is comforting Simon Hughes. It's re-contextualized a bit to be about sharing grief together in our comic.

This is a really goofy one but- since Golden Mage is supposed to be the fully realized potential of John, we thought that he would have a successful career as a musician and singer where John didn't. I don't think Golden Mage would be a punk singer though, he probably does something he'd consider more elevated.

BUT-! In the 30th Anniversary edition of Hellblazer, Sting (the guy John's appearance is based on) wrote an introduction for the edition while roleplaying as the Golden Boy. Which is nuts. The Anniversary edition basically canonized Sting as being a Constantine variant in our universe with the soul of Golden Boy. Sting, as Golden Boy, describes himself as a musician and singer too. Absolutely bonkers for Sting to throw me a bone this late in the game since no one's touched this character in ages.

Another E.M Carroll influenced panel sequence. This is from the digital comic Out of Skin.

So that brings us to the end of the comic! We've had the ideas for this comic cooking for some time, and it's people's continued interest in our takes on these characters that gave us the chance to finally bring the story together.

I'm very fascinated by the Golden Boy story, not because it's particularly strong compared to other stories in Hellblazer's run, but because its intriguing premise is bogged down by its surreal take on typical Evil Twin tropes. og Hellblazer's strength was always in its raw humanity. John Constantine's character countered the sensational spectacle of his superhero contemporaries. He may be able to outwit a vampire but he's can't fight back against being brutalized by the police. In one of his most iconic arcs, he finds out he has cancer- not because of any supernatural shenanigans, but because he literally smokes too much. In another arc, John's long time girlfriend breaks up with him, and he lashes out by saying the cruelest things to her. When he hears that his abusive dad is murdered, John still cries about it.

I think the Golden Boy arc and the retcon that followed his brief return actively undermines what makes Hellblazer special. Suddenly John's having X-Men-level evil twin escapades in the womb. Suddenly, merging with his twin will help save the universe. Suddenly, it's not smoking that caused John to have cancer! It was actually because he merged with his twin and his twin became the cancer from inside him! Suddenly it wasn't a moment of lashing out that caused John to say all those cruel things to his ex upon their break up, that was actually the Golden Boy controlling him from within, so you see it's not really his fault! Also what followed the break up was extra devastating because of the Golden Boy, somehow.

Often I hear in fandom that when you change a character too much from their canon counterpart it's basically "just an oc" at that point, but in the case of characters who get to be re-imagined and passed through many creative teams, I think that kind of mindset is deeply limiting for transformative work. The line I draw between "just an oc" and an interpretation is if the changes involved engage with their source material in any way or if they're just superficial. Big changes and 180 flips can work because they still respond to the history of said character. It's why we see that kind of thing in canon a lot. These characters are inherently built to be passed through many hands in meaningful ways to varying degrees of success. So I hope that by showing all this process that goes behind big changes to a canon character, people better understand what can go into transformative creativity.

Our thesis for this re-imagining is to take what makes Hellblazer special and re-examine the arc that we felt undermined that. Despite the grief John has for many characters in his cast, mourning isn't brought up at all in the Golden Boy arc. It's dismissed by the characters in narration, and the Golden Mage himself isn't even recognized as a sibling by the narrative, no matter how many times John calls him "bro".

Survivor twin grief over dead womb twins especially is a real thing that's often dismissed because in the words of canon Golden Mage himself "I couldn't mourn for those I'd never known". This is not true to the experience of twins. They play with and remember each other from spending 9 months growing in a tight space together. So when one of them doesn't make it out with the other, that survivor feels a grief they can't comprehend. It can manifest in unresolved trauma, commitment issues, and survivor's guilt. All things that feel so relevant to the themes of John Constantine's character. I think that by integrating the real lived experiences of survivor twins, the Golden Boy arc could've been one the most human and personal parts of the original Hellblazer run. It's could've been a story that helped a community of people so rarely validated in their grief feel seen.

[kyouka-supremacy]

I was asked why I like Beast and why I prefer it over the main universe, so obviously I ended up with a 2k+ words essay on why Beast is great. Now I feel like it diverges too much from what the original ask was actually asking for, so I'm leaving it to its own post. Enjoy.

Why do you like Beast? So, first of all you MUST know that this is a question that could keep me talking for days to no end. I'm not kidding. Here there will be some disorganized rambles but trust me, if I had time to actually do so I'd keep going on forever.

Alternative universes are cool I love Beast. I think it starts off at a point when the bsd author was more experienced from having already worked with the main series for many years, and ultimately ended up making an alternative version of the work that is more mature and refined, while still maintaining bsd's core themes (and conservative worldviews at that lmao). Starting off, the “what if” concept is endlessly fascinating, pretty much the entire fandom culture is based on it. It IS unfailingly cool to see what could have happened if Akutagawa sided with the ada and Atsushi with the pm, it is extremely interesting to see what changes out of their personalities and on the other hand what stays the same, what is intrinsically them. About sskk, I find it really compelling how Beast tackles intimate aspects of their lives, pasts and traumas. The café scene is genuinely brilliant in the way it shows, completely unexpectedly and to the reader's full disbelief, them getting along in normal circumstances. Who could have predicted that! Of all things, Akutagawa and Atsushi getting along. But it happened, and nothing before had ever shown to that extent how similar they are, how much on the same page they are, how much they're meant to be– like yeah obviously I mean romantically, but even if you're not particularly into that, it displayed just how deeply connected they are. I'm forever grateful for that scene.

Beast Akutagawa is great But I think… More in general, I just really like Beast Akutagawa and Beast Atsushi, even better than their canon counterparts 😅 Again I do think at the point when they wrote Beast the author had already gathered a lot of experience from serializing bsd for at least five years, and ended up making characters that are more solid and compelling (although please don't get me wrong, I LOVE canon sskk and I believe canon Akutagawa's character arc in particular is amazing. It's just that at least to me Beast sskk is everything I could ever ask for.). I love Beast Akutagawa! It was so so capturing to see him grow outside of the pm. And especially it was infinitely interesting to see Akutagawa grow outside of Dazai. And don't get me wrong, I love the influence Dazai has on canon Akutagawa, I wouldn't have it any other way: it made Akutagawa who he is, and I love reading about his character. But I also found it wonderful and pleasantly refreshing to see how he would be if he had never undergone Dazai's training; I like this Akutagawa who's possibly even more immature and impulsive, wild and untamed than his canon counterpart. Beast is also the universe where Akutagawa gets his chance at being a good person - which is something he desperately strived for but never got to have in the main universe -, and in the end I am a little attached to Akutagawa, so I'm happy for him! His relationship with Oda and the whole ada are wonderful, I like getting to experience a universe where Akutagawa is loved and supported, unapologetically, for who he is.

Beast Atsushi is great Beast Atsushi is AMAZING. Like. Character molded appositely to my liking ahah. He's so cool! He's so tormented! He's sweet and cruel and utterly unstable! I love him so much. He truly is Atsushi at his full potential. I love this Atsushi who's biggest fear isn't the world, but rather himself. He's beautiful and horrible and deathly and kind. He killed his abuser to stop him from haunting his nightmares, but ended up turning those nightmares into his life. He takes his coffee with three sugars. He loves his little sister and would risk the safety of his organization and the boss he's endlessly loyal to for her. The only person who ever understood him is his most loathed enemy. He's one with death and indistinguishable from darkness. His laughter stops rain. He lives in perpetual physical pain due to a choker constantly piercing around his neck and yet even that is nothing compared to the damage of his psyche. He's so, so fucked up. He deserves the world. I LOVE HIM.

Beast Dazai is great Also, I really like Beast Dazai!!! He's always Dazai, but I think his character works out a lot better in Beast for the role he covers. In canon Dazai is this omniscient, all knowing figure, but he's also a protagonist, and him being so perfectly flawless doesn't go well in the long run. You've seen it in the last season 5 episode, it just gets boring after a while– it would be nice to see him face actual challenges and high stakes for once, but he's so overpowered, that never happens. In Beast, it's pretty much the same deal (author really loves Dazai lmao), but the fact that he isn't the protagonist and instead the main villain? I feel like from a storytelling standpoint, it works so much better!! I mean, his being omniscient works a lot better– he's not the one who the reader expects facing challenges and high stakes, the protagonist is. In addition, in Beast Dazai has almost universal knowledge due to his link to the Book, so that makes his being omniscient and even god-like a lot more feasible and easy to contemplate! I think that plot-wise it just works a lot better, there's an actual reason he's so overpowered, and that reason is explained, it's in the text. Oh and I LOVE his utter devotion to Oda. I know it's the same in canon, but still… There in Beast you can see it concretely, you can see it everywhere. That very universe exists how it is because of Dazai's love for Oda, because there's nothing he wouldn't do for him, because in the whole universe, in the whole multiverse, Oda's happiness is the only thing that matters to him. I think such strong feelings of love being put so explicitly is something simply wonderful to read, and makes Dazai infinitely more sympathetic than what he may be in canon. “But I do have one regret, Odasaku— I won't be able to read the novel you'll complete one day.” LIKE YEAH, SURE, ALRIGHT, JUST SHOOT ME TO THE HEAD ALREADY. That line alone is worth the whole novel, honestly. Oh and the thing about Oda harshly repudiating Dazai, the man who literally did everything for him, who dedicated his whole life for him… Man!!! That REALLY made me sympathize with Dazai in a way canon will never be able to. All those factors only contribute making Dazai's suicide in the end all the more emotional– which I believe works really well in the story, he is an enemy and he is a god and he had to die, but still makes for an extremely emotionally charged scene and a wonderful story climax. Imo Beast Dazai had to die so that canon Dazai could live (and, hopefully, find a reason to live!), and it's as bitter as it is beautiful.

The Beast ada dynamics are great And I love the ada in Beast!!! They feel infinitely more of a family than they do in canon. Kenji, Kunikida, Tanizaki, they all seem to love Akutagawa in a way that's hard to be found towards Atsushi in canon? The way they didn't falter to rescue Akutagawa even as he went, against all their advices and pleas, to a suicidal rampage was wonderful and heartwarming. They make it sound unbelievable that when Atsushi was (mind you, unwillingly) kidnapped their first response would be that it was an hassle and that he should have dealt with it on his own (this time I truly believe it was the author learning from their own mistakes, because seriously, who does that. It makes everyone instantly feel a thousand times less sympathetic). As people have said, the ada alone makes Beast feel like the “right” universe on the basis that in it they actually care about their members. All things considered, the ada treats Akutagawa as this kind of rabid murderous gremlin they just adopted who's going to bite everyone but that they still love no matter what, and it's super cute. Beast ada really is the bsd found family if there ever was one.

A cool plot The Beast storyline is just very compelling in general? The introduction chapter is amazing, I mean, The Heartless Cur is amazing. Again, Beast Akutagawa is such a great character, and the description of his struggle to find his own humanity, although in my opinion does fall weak in some points and has flaws, still treats a concept that's very interesting to ponder over nonetheless. I like how there's a series of more light-hearted chapters in the first half, it helps solidify the characters, and those chapters are really nice to read; not to mention having lighter chapters alternated with the strikingly more gloomy and violent pm Atsushi scenes makes the latter feel all the more frightening and disturbing, it's a great narrative choice. And the big crescendo of Akutagawa storming in the pm headquarters! His fight of physics and morals against Atsushi! Them telling each other they're nothing like the other when the reader knows the exact opposite is true! It's all very good, and again, Dazai's suicide makes for a perfect climax to the story.

Sometimes being a seinen can be good I like how Beast is a seinen way more than the main story is? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with shounen manga - which bsd seems to lean towards more often than not, with only occasionally tackling more adult concepts -, but at this specific time in my life those darker themes are just something I find more entertaining to read about. I feel like the gritty and often gruesome depictions, although maybe a little overused in the manga, really help emphasize the dark atmosphere of the manga and overall effectively convey the whole “beast” imaginary as wild / violent / unpleasant / animalistic.

It's got sskk in it And in general it's just… Compared to canon, Beast is very very sskk centered. It's significantly shorter than the canon manga, and in a way that helped focus on sskk specifically, because it only had space to narrate one story, which is sskk's. And I don't know what to tell you, I'm here for the sskk. Of course I like Beast best.

Beast Atsushi is great (cont.) Back to Beast Atsushi because he's everything, really. I love how when I went into Beast I was like “I mean, whatever Dazai is making of Atsushi under the pm, if can't possibly be any worse than the constant abuse Akutagawa had to experience ���” AND I WAS PROVED WRONG. I mean, I think the fact alone that the author could come up with something worse is remarkable. Dazai's emotional manipulation and psychological torment is, I believe, the darkest facet of Dazai we ever witnessed, and it's extremely well executed. Beast Atsushi is so so unstable, so on the brim of mental breakdown and psychosis at every second. Him being made unable to let go of the past makes him live in a perpetual nightmare. And I feel like the way his character story is unwrapped is truly masterful, storytelling wise!!!! On the reader's first encounter with him, it's evident how deeply scarred and disturbed he is, but the reader can't tell why. That adds to the mystery and feeling of unsettling surrounding the character: his story is wrapped up by darkness and it's impossible to predict, just like he is– and it's deliciously unsettling, scary, to be unable to tell anything about what made him like he is except from guessing that it must have been something really bad. And yet even then /nothing/ could have prepared the reader to what his backstory really is? And when the traumatic event is finally unveiled, it's worse then any guess the reader could have made. Atsushi's back to the orphanage flashback passage is terrifying! He didn't undergo any harm, like it would have been easy to guess; on the contrary, his torment stems from having killed his abuser. But he did so at a point when he didn't represent a threat for him anymore, when he was proud of him, when he got close to resemble a father to his eyes; and all of this he realized too late; and now he lives in constant regret, constant terror of himself. It's great, really! And even then, Atsushi carries on with being. super cool lmao. Like yeah he's unstable and everything, he's wild and violent, but he's also still very kind. He's timid and blushes easily. He also feels a lot more mature than he does in canon, and it's nice to see. He's more confident and serious, and that's nice too. He REALLY is my favorite character.

Some pretty cool scenes are in it Moving on, Beast has some truly amazing scenes. The Heartless Cur is amazing and builds up such an awesome character, Atsushi's introduction is petrifying, the Kenji / Akutagawa conversation is as deeply moving as it is cathartic. I won't be talking about the sskk café scene. Akutagawa's whole assault to the pm headquarters is rich of emotional scenes. I already talked about Atsushi's flashback and Dazai's suicide being wonderful passages both from technical and emotional standpoints. And the manga ending is just so good!!!!!!! Like it truly is the perfect ending– the way it ties up with the main story! How it feels like ada Akutagawa's story has just begun, a conclusion but also hope for what's to come. The “out behind our company's building there are some people of low character hanging about”– I can't stress enough how emotional this line, a final and definite tie to the main story, makes me, how meaningful it is in its quality of being both an ending, and a beginning. The last page showing Akutagawa at the center of the ada, it just moves me so deeply to see him being the protagonist, surrounded by a crowd of people who love and support him, getting his own chance at a life in the light 😭😭😭 “I'm going to live as an agency member. I'll solve cases, rescue the weak, and prove that I'm not evil.” Crying my eyes out 😭😭😭😭😭😭 And don't get me started on when Akutagawa and Atsushi's voices mix up to speak as one; I could never hope to be able to express what that makes me feel.

Siblings dynamics are my jam I also love Beast because one of the main aspects that drives the plot is Ryuunosuke and Gin's relationship, and I /love/ siblings relationships, and I //love// Ryuunosuke and Gin's relationship. I don't think Gin's character was written well at all (because the author literally can't write female characters for the life of theirs), but eh, at least it reinforced the concept that Ryuunosuke loves Gin terribly and would be able to do anything for her. Atsushi and Kyouka's relationship, too, is to die for.

The designs and manga art style slay Besides, the character designs are beautiful???? Akutagawa's Beast outfit is my second favorite out of the whole franchise, it's just such a look™. I love in general how rabid and messy Akutagawa looks in Beast, he feels so much more free? And like, good for him. In my head Beast Atsushi is the most handsome man in the entire franchise and I don't think I can take criticism on this. I find cutting off his longer bang such a witty way to represent not only how this Atsushi is different from the one we know (after all, that's the most remarkable and eye-catching feature of his appearance!), but also to symbolize how the cut with his past at the orphanage was harsh and violent. Characters designs aside, Hoshikawa's art style is GORGEUS. It's hard and rough and messy, it's dark and unpolished and violent and beautiful and exactly everything Beast is. It's PERFECT for the story, it's like it was made to portray it.

Sskk is always great And that's just talking about the canon content but like. Beast means a Beast sskk. Which is basically new and improved sskk. And I like sskk. And I like every version of sskk but especially this version where they're even more violent and fucked up and madly in love with each other and evidently meant to be. So yeah.

And this is like, just the very tip of the iceberg of what I love about Beast. Humbling offering you this Beast love letter in hope we can all give this novel the appreciation it deserves (๑˃‌ᴗ˂‌)۶

[foreststarflaime]

Me and @stargazing-zani were bored so have this list of what partner pokemon the ff7 crew would have

The Banora boys get the Applin variants. Genesis gets a Flapple and Angeal has an Appletun

Genesis also tries to deflect attention onto his much flashier Ceruledge in public tho

Angeal was also given an Aegislash by his father which he nicknamed Buster. Buster has seen too much as it’s passed down to Zack and then Cloud in turn, watching its partners suffer but unable to form the words to comfort them

Hojo tries and tries to get Sephiroth something big, ultra-powerful and intimidating, but Seph is set on the adorable Mew which found him and refused to leave his side. Still a mythical so Hojo lets him keep it but is very miffed

Cloud was adopted by a Galarian Zapdos bc chocobo. I don’t make the rules. I do feel like the character arc the Sobble line goes through fits him really well tho

Zack has an unevolved Rockruff for quite a while. When it eventually does evolve, no matter what time of day it is, it will inevitably evolve into Midday Lycanroc because Zack’s sunny personality is overwhelming

Aerith has a Tinkaton. They’re perfect for each other

I don’t know how to explain it but Mudsdale gives me Tifa vibes, also it was a powerhouse when I had it on my team and I love it

Hojo created a Mewtwo bc all other pokemon rejected him, but it immediately turned on its creator and murders him violently, preventing all problems and fixing everything without the need for time travel

Insane Seph got a Deoxys bc creepy alien. Maybe it is Jenova in this universe and starts corrupting him as soon as he gets it driving him insane

Rufus gets a Houndoom bc that’s basically what Darkstar is anyways

Cait Sith is basically just Meowth already, I don’t need to do much here. Maybe Perrserker to be the version from the Scotland area Pokemon game

Alternatively for Reeve I feel like Duraludon works, bc urban development and it reminds me of the Neo Midgar concepts

Heidegger gets either a Skuntank or a Granbull, idk which but vibes

Hehehe Vincent has a Cofagrigus

I bestow upon Yuffie the honor of Thievul. Loved it on my team and they both have the little shit vibes. She would also be an evil team grunt stealing everyone else’s pokemon tho, and honestly good for her go crazy Yuffie

I know for Kunsel it’s always the hack-y technology vibes. But consider. Always hiding behind a mask, never see his face. Mimikyu

Barret? Absol. Avalanche, impending disaster, perfect

I feel like Rude would like Urshifu

It would be absolutely hilarious to me then if Reno just had an Emolga

Scarlet with a Metagross

Why is Tseng so hard. Inteleon perhaps for the spy-y stuff

For Veld maybe a Wishiwashi for the Turk’s whole stronger in numbers found family thing

Oh dear god while writing this I thought too much about the implications of SOLDIER still existing in a world where pokemon battles replaced normal fighting. Maybe it was an experiment to splice human dna with pokemon to get humans to be able to fight using pokemon moves too? So like you go up against a SOLDIER, faint all 6 of their pokemon and think yay I’ve won, and then the SOLDIER just starts going after your pokemon themselves. They are their own 7th pokemon

[sillybigbird]

OKAY, SO. Silvie here, before starting I'd like to remind you my IC accounts is @babsggordon and its the only one I mannage.

Previous recaps:

Now

This are are the events of the past week (In order from I remember):

Lazarus Pit

Gothamites started to randomly sip them, encouraged by the numerous PSA's saying to not to.

Alzhul discovers that his pit is being used underground by a lot of other organizations including the court of owls. But also he discovers the experimental additions to the pit are making people expell their organs off, he decided to work on a antidote to add at the pit because theres no way to get gothamites away from it (LMAO). Hes having a lil redention arc

Multiverse

Theres a lot of alternative versions appearing, the most popular are more Dick Grayson's appearing out of nowhere and a lot of there people crashing, so far this are the ones that I know.

Spiderman everywhere, it started with our lovely Peach.

Starfire

Tommy Shepard

Deadpool and one of his variants

Julian Gordon

This is not multiverse but since we're talking of additions we should mention Lux and his initial arc who consisted in dating Crimson, Deadpool, Nightwing by Circus-champion, Kyle, and John Constantine (who also joined this week).

Duke also joined us. (Hi Duke o//)

Helena also joined us

Kidnapping

This was a popular topic this week, this were the kidnaps and consecuences:

Jason: A guy named Evangeline claiming being Jason's original partner appears in our universes Dick Graysons Anons with threats of kidnap Jason, and he does but Constantine, help us rescue him. And they're chilling with Hinata, Deadpool, and Crimson in there where Giovanna Talon appears to attack everyone. Lux f*cking kills her and revives him

Giovanna: That attack was useful to kidnap her and so, Hinata, Crimson, Lux and Babs are trying to debrainwash her.

Dick Grayson: Babs and Wally kidnaps Renegade and retrieve them back to the "Bat's army" (idk how to call it).

Random and pending events

Damian and Jon Start dating

Hinata and Tommy start Dating

Aswell Bart but I missed with who

JJ is apparently fine!

Blackhawk (Hal Jordan) is kinda having his redemption arc but as Talon where he just stopped pushing g everyone away lmao

An apple, TWO faces and joker are fighting for gothams mayor elections

Update on Babs events

She and Dick adopted a new kitty

James Gordon Jr is back and she's losing her head everytime he's around

She's also trying to protect Julian not only from the pit and Talon mess, but now James can find him and she's kinda stressed out

Food poisoning :(

Current events I know of but there still going on and it's not mostly of common canon knowledge

Deadpool did an feather errand for the coos (oh boy)

Jason is getting an ultrasound 👍

If I missed something feel free to add

Additions

By @why-rock-look-tasty-if-no-eat

(Bart got with Jamie. Jason and Roy adopted Damians little brother (Yao I think?) not to long ago to. Jason, Liang, and Joker also had an arc or are still going with it I don't remember. Dick "notnotnightwing" got bought by the COO apparently because he asked them out as a joke so that he wouldn't get killed. Damian got another animal, RR totally got mauled by a (different) cat. Another Nightwing "officialnightwing" is like, flirting(?) with a reporter whose trying to prove that the Waynes are the Bats.)

[theomnicode]

One punch man and flirting with romance

Romance, in my opm? More likely than you think.

There are many instances in one punch man where the author and the mangaka specifically tip their toes into showcases of implicit romance than explicit, but it is there and I'd like to jump into the romantic cruise ship and put down some of the cases where romance has been implied.

Starting with number one, Fubuki and Psykos implied to be kissing under a tree as teenagers where Fubuki seals off Psykos' powers with an implied kiss, where Psykos is also seen blushing right after. Rest of their interactions also ooze romantic overtones.

Number two is cd audio drama, Saitama and the mysterious heroine, where Saitama and Genos go see a movie and Saitama starts talking about relationships after seeing Suiryu flirt with a woman, then goes on tangent about girlfriends and such.

Saitama: That’s not the point... I have the feeling that things like a heart to heart interaction, sharing an umbrella, warmth, are all things broken away in my life. Other people can have things like big events and circumstances happening, romances and such bringing happiness in their daily lives. I have the feeling something broke and that sweet-like fluffy, nice stuff just fell right off from me. That's what I meant.

Saitama: Genos, look, have you ever seen a hero anime without a love interest in it? Genos: I don't remember watching a lot of anime in the past.. Why do you ask? Saitama: Well, we're heroes, right? We're working and living as such. And yet, why are we indifferent towards things like love interests or girlfriends? In some way it seems obvious and logical, but is it really ok? Are you ok with reality being so much harder than fiction?

It is obvious that Saitama would still be interested in romance, as he seems to be a romantic at heart, yet after becoming so strong he struggles with his emotions, his apathy.

Saitama also reads romantic shoujo manga on his spare time, as seen on season 2 OVA.

Number three is fairly recent addition where it is implied that Genos interest in Saitama as a disciple may or may not be entirely platonic. 3 different people (Zombieman, Flashy flash and Amai-mask) take note of Genos growing interest in Saitama. Genos has also been noted very much be interested in his master's physical appeal in audio cd dramas and below excerpt.

Genos for a long time, has been a prime example of a potential fool in love, but it is still handled in implicit rather than explicit manner. Shoujo sparkles and all that included.

Number four is a most recent addition of Blast and his partner, possibly holding hands under the panel. Blast's partner is specifically referred to as "partner" and not a collaborator by Sitch, giving his partner some more importance in the scene than rest of Blast's teammates. This one may be reaching, but we'll be seeing in future arcs how correct that assumption is.

Number five, Saitama and makeover audio drama where Genos has given Saitama's attack a long name.

Saitama: (Serious voice) Super shining and lightning, that’s right, this next punch will overwhelm you like a gust of northern urban wind deep in December, this illusionary, fantastical, understanding punch from the heart, starting from hyper dreaming attack the final, a never-ending eternal forever endless sentimental with a high sense aggregation of full throttle, godless, loneliness, can’t stop falling in love and as soon as fighting…

Number six, monsters named Maiko plasma and Electric catfish man appear to be a married couple. Maiko plasma refers to Catfish man as "darling" in multiple occasions, so they appear to be involved.

Number 7, where Tatsumaki thinks that Saitama is attracted to her because he's gripping her hand.

Last but not least, number 8, romantic alternate universe comedy part between Fubuki and Saitama in high school audio drama, where Fubuki thinks Saitama wanted to confess to her.

OPM may not yet have any really explicit romance, but implicit...there is a boatload. ONE does not leave fans cold when it comes to romantic undertones. :D

[izziessogay]

I really didn't like how arcane ended and I wasn't going to speak on it, but I have to get it out.

personally I relate to Vi, not only as a butch lesbian, but also as an older sister and as someone who is easily taken advantage of at the promise of comfort.

jinx's death shattered me, and trust me I am familiar with tragic character deaths, this is different. she stood for something. she stood for traumatized and mentally ill people, for survivors of abuse, people with bpd and so on, she was flawed throughout the show but she was not villified (imo). they showed her experience as a real human experience that deserves compassion. killing her reinforced the belief that suicide makes suicidal people happy, it doesn't. death isn't happy, nobody was relieved by this sacrifice, and you would know that if you have ever been in a place like that, known someone or even lost someone, because of this shit. my wife deeply related to jinx, the trauma she had, the things she was battling and all that still not making her irredeemably evil. this character is supposed to show that you can struggle and be alone and miserable and that you can get better despite that, that you deserve to get another go at life, no matter your flaws. arcane did that, up until the last act. my only sister is a teenager, who every day battles with things she gets minimal support for, I live far away and often feel helpless. jinx both represents my wife and my sister to me, the people I love most in this world. her ending feels like a huge fuck you, 'haha, you thought there was hope? actually struggling teens should just kill themselves semi heroically, because we don't want to deal with their antics'. even if they are hinting at her surviving none of this changes, they killed her socially still, when she was meant to be with her community, to build herself up again, to find her family (other people have said more eloquent things about all of this, check them out).

I have more issues with the finale, but over all I think that all the story lines needed more time.

I didn't quite get what happened with Mel and what the black rose even was, but I didn't care much about her character, so maybe I missed some things, I think she turned out the best in the end.

Ekko seemed to only have one purpose, which was to save. other than that he didn't get much character development. people are praising him for being the best, but I fear that might be because he's awfully underwritten and doesn't have much about him, other than him saving the main characters. Even his alternate universe escapade didn't give us an insight on him, more on Powder. His power wasn't explained well, especially when he broke the four second mark without any consequences it seems. in general I can't pick out many flaws, which indicates a poorly written character.

I didn't mind astrally insane Victor to be the enemy of all, however Jayce's and his story took up too much of the final act for me. they didn't seem that relevant to me to be the turning axis of everything and as someone who doesn't care much about their ship I didn't get much out of that arc. it felt out of character for a show that had been about systemic oppression and family feuds and classism to have a conclusion of "imperfection is actually beautiful". that seemed redundant, all characters in the show have flaws and redeeming qualities, even someone like silco or ambessa. everybody who likes the show knows "imperfection is beautiful", it didn't feel like a satisfying conclusion for the viewer, even if victor might have had to hear it. ON TOP OF THAT we never actually got explained anything regarding Victor and his descent to evil and how the fuck that happened.

In the end nothing seemed like it had changed, Piltover is still oppressive, the only reason why they work with Zaun now is because they fought a common enemy once. Sevika (my beloved) gets looked down on in the council and as the only Undercity-member it's impossible for her to overturn a vote in Zauns favour. Cait is still a cop, not having changed anything about herself, Vi has nobody besides her, no family. Mel seems unhappy, Ekko is definitely unhappy and in a worse spot than before. I frankly don't care what happened to Jayce and Viktor, but their ending is the only one that would keep me on my toes for more. Which brings me to a hot take, possibly: I think we might have been queerbaited, hear me out. We got lesbians (which I am eternally grateful for), but thes were a thing since early season 1, after season one people started talking about Jayvik, which wasn't supposed to happen originally, but since it brought engagement they made their relationship a bigger part of the story. Possibly also the reason why Vi and Caits relationship seemed rather rushed and inorganic at the end. you can disagree with me on this.

Lastly I have to talk about Vi, a character that I couldn't relate to for most of season two, because it's been a while since I had to deal with situationships and breakups. All that made me overlook what Vi really stands for. She might seem hard and tough, but mostly she is looking for comfort, she loses people close to her constantly and is therefore constantly in search of another safe space. A safe space that is never really provided. Cait doesn't understand her trauma, her upbringing, her culture or her family, and she never bothers to understand it. She never shows remorse to what she did in the undercity, she never questions Piltover (only ambessa, an outsider). She never sees Jinx as someone who deserves redemption, she never sees why Vi is struggling, she never makes an effort to care about her past and her experiences. You might wonder why Vi still is with her, but it's honestly obvious enough, it's because she doesn't have anyone else left. Cait at least loves her for her personality or her looks or whatever, and that's more than anybody else loves her. I hated that they put her back with Cait in Piltover, it seems very abusive to me, considering what we know of Cait (she might be different now, but we never get to see any of that, so I'm assuming freely). Vi will take anything and everything to make herself get some comfort, however toxic that behaviour may be. I see that as the reason why she folds so easily whenever Cait shows interest and forgives immediately. She didn't find well deserved peace in the end with Jinx (and Cait), she got "good enough for now". Nothing was addressed, nothing changed. AND JUST TO CLARIFY I AM HAPPY ABOUT THE LESBIAN REPRESENTATION AND I AM VERY GLAD WE GOT IT, OVERALL I THINK THEIR RELATIONSHIP WAS VERY INTERESTING TO WATCH. JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE SHOW I DIDN'T LIKE THE END.

For a show that was about the people, we got horrifyingly little people focused resolutions. The last burial we see was Rictus, but dozens of people die after him. We didn't talk about Isha, we didn't talk about Jinx, Ekko wasnt even allowed to get a word in after he deus ex machina saved everything. Sevika didn't get any conclusion. Mel seems on the same path as her mother. Jayce and Viktor are to my knowledge still astral projecting through space. Cait never learned compassion with Zaunites. Vander couldn't be saved. An unsatisfying end.

Tldr:

- Jinx's death was bad, mentally ill people should be saved and their illness shouldn't be glorified over them

- none of the story lines seem finished and rushed to an end

- Viktor and Jayce's story felt overpowering and took away from a story about oppression and sisterhood

- in the end nothing changed

- my butch dyke/older sister heart that can be manipulated quite easily too hurts for Vi

- I didn't like it 🍅🍅🍅

[utilitycaster]

🔥 each member of vox machina

Vax: really the sadboy narrative for Liam has always been stupid but it's egregiously bad that it started with Vax, who is like, sad for maybe a fifth of the episodes and largely because Liam O'Brien's actual mother was dying, like, with all due respect what the actual fuck, fandom.

Vex: I am the founding and probably only member of the "Vex is my favorite character and also I am 100% cool with Colville's depiction of her." The generosity she shows even very early on in C1 is still a generosity borne of some degree of security - they have a keep by then - and I also just don't think you have to like a character to write them fairly. Granted it's been a minute since I read early VMO but nothing stood out to me as out of line with my understanding of Vex.

Pike: repeating myself once again but I like Pike a lot and wish we could have seen more, but because we didn't, people who say she's their favorite in C1 do tend to turn me off in that I feel they're looking for a relatively flat and widely praised character to project onto rather than a character who goes through more messy development.

Grog: I think he's often underestimated and I was guilty of doing so myself, to be honest, until I saw Travis play more and until I personally got better at D&D. Also I still maintain that playing INT 6 sensitively and well is infinitely harder than playing INT 16, all things considered, and this is yet another reason why people should play high INT more often.

Scanlan: Also underestimated; I do understand being turned off by the whole extremely horny playboy thing but as I've said before Bard's Lament is a major litmus test for me: if you think Scanlan is completely at fault here, you are wrong, and if you think he's not partially at fault, you are also wrong.

Tary: I genuinely love him and think he's a great character and one of Sam's best, but while his character arc is strong the Taryon Darrington Arc of the VM Campaign, through no fault of his own (and partly bc I personally think D&D Hell, especially pre-Descent Into Avernus publication, is kind of boring), is one of the weakest parts of the campaign because it's kind of a grab bag of loose ends. With that said I would happily watch more Darrington Brigade-one shots.

Percy: Percy is also generally a litmus test in that it's like. Is he a good person? Eventually I believe he becomes one, and even before that I think he's very sympathetic and deeply traumatized and like, 24, so I get it, but also, who the fuck cares. This ties into the Essek and the Ashton opinions and all kinds of other stuff but why are people so invested in fucking absolving their blorbo of all sins? I want someone who's lived enough of a life to have done some heinous shit because that's fun and interesting and it's pretend and also because then they can have a rewarding character arc by either working towards redemption or coming to terms with who they are or spiraling into tragedy.

Keyleth: I like Keyleth a lot but I am, as this post indicates, far more sympathetic to Vex, and so while I do think Keyleth is a fairly good person she is also extremely sheltered and naive and terrified of doing the wrong thing and I would have, like Vex, wanted to scream at her half the time were I just a random NPC wandering about the campaign. On the other hand C3-era Keyleth? fantastic no notes she has grown up in such an interesting way.

Tiberius: I think we, and by we I mean people capable of separating the art from the artist, can recognize that his concept actually fucking slapped and unfortunately he was played by someone who absolutely sucked in a myriad of ways. I would love to see the alternate universe in which the same general concept (prodigy sorcerer from Draconia who is full of themself) had to face not just the destruction of their civilization but the realization that they were taking advantage of the Ravenites and while they did not deserve to be killed by Vorugal, had done nothing to justify aid from those they had subjugated either. Like, the alternate world in which one of the current cast members or like, a close friend of the main cast (Ashly, Erika, Mary Elizabeth) played this is one I'd love to see.

[greenerteacups]

also just read your favorite weasley post and !! love that Ron is your favorite he gets so much bashing in dramione works im like grrggr he’s not so horrible omg! he has his shortcomings but if you’re literally diving deep into draco as a character who in canon is overtly an ass then why are we destroying Ron’s character to justify the dramione relationship TT poor story building imo, but to each their own!

love your work, excited for what’s to come!!

I think Ron would've had better reception in the D/H fandom if — I mean, for one, if he wasn't a major obstacle to their ship going canon, which is like, not his fault, but also means he's never gonna be the most popular dude on the block — but also if the later books hadn't done him a bit dirty. Without even getting into how their characters change, Hermione becomes a lot more likable in later books when her enduring flaws of bossiness, paranoia, and know-it-all-ing become incredibly useful and appropriate in a literal war. Ron, in contrast, starts as an almost idealized "hero's best friend" archetype, friendly and witty and loyal, and then gets his flaws uncovered slowly. Whereas Hermione wears her faults on her sleeve from day one, Ron's self-esteem issues and empathy problems emerge realistically over time as the plot brings them to the fore. But because JKR doesn't conclude emotional arcs, he doesn't get an actual moment to overcome those flaws and triumph, restoring audience faith and making himself more likable by having overcome struggle.

Draco canonically exists to be a bully and antagonist. The stories are not terribly interested in him beyond that role. But there's something honest about that, since the reader never feels like the text expects you to like him. Draco is awful and owns it. He's narcissistic, cruel, and mean from the first interaction, so he has nowhere to go but up. If you like him, you like him because (probably) you're interested in where he could go in the future or in alternate universes, and how he could overcome his faults (making him extremely likable, because we love characters who struggle and win). He's not a three-dimensional character so much as he is the possibility of a three-dimensional character, and all that potential is really easy to like. Meanwhile, Ron is a three-dimensional character, full-stop. He fucks up sometimes, but in general, the text wants you to like him — problem being, the text doesn't always know how to make that happen, and sometimes it fails. Which can be doubly annoying, because then you feel like you're watching a character getting rewarded for bad behavior.

Now, me? I'm a consistent bitch. Blond or ginger, I'm equal-opportunity: give me a witty asshole with empathy problems and a fanatical devotion to the people they love, I'm locked in. I like Ron and Draco for a lot of the same reasons. I think they're very similar in a lot of ways that get overlooked. And if you ship Draco/Hermione, that should be great news, because you might suppose Hermione has a type.

[elasticitymudflap]

If Betty returns in season two, what kind of plot lines and character arcs would you like to see for her? Which characters do you want to see her interact with?

oh man. okay buckle up because you are about to endure my full frontal autism.

first you're going to have to go into this post knowing that i am insane about betty grof. i am aware of this. but they also called me crazy back in 2012 when i said simon and betty probably loved each other very much despite the fact she disappeared, and that she was probably a huge chaotic badass, AND I WAS RIGHT so.

all of this aside, here are a couple things i think would be epic and sexy of them to address:

~betty's past~

GIRL WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.

no, seriously. i hate that the cut content from the storyboards revealed so much about her that didn't make the final 'jerry' cut. betty is passionate, intense, and liked simon's work because he was this weird little guy who proudly had all these "out there" theories. she even stated that "ancient magic" was once her major, so it's no fucking wonder she was so jazzed to find the one other guy who studied and believed in the strange things she did.

how did betty come to have these strange beliefs, and to the point of pursuing it in fucking grad school? was she just always like this? did her interests and beliefs put her at odds with others when she was growing up, little miss dig-her-way-down-to-the-devil, and that's part of the reason she wanted all the more to support simon?

reading that scene in temple of mars where magic betty laments "what remains" of her original self after spending so long dedicated to simon, even if you take into account the way MMS is warping her perspectives and cranking her obsessive tendencies to 11, i find it hard to believe betty didn't grow up with some kind of instability or trauma that made her more prone to throw herself completely at someone who showed her genuine love and kindness. this isn't necessarily a fault on simon's part, he probably didn't even clock it because he was so caught up with trying not to fuck things up with her (he's got his own issues). but it definitely seems like this is something deeply coded into her being, especially when you consider she was willing to leave everything she knew behind in an instant for him.

and i NEED to know more about the wacky shit she was up to in ooo, before and after becoming magic betty. did she ever go to wizard city? did other wizards even know about her? what does she think about her time as magic betty? moreover, how the hell did king man even get betty to agree to his weird idea of cognitive behavioural therapy?? how did she actually go from literally willing to kill herself via time travel to actually accepting that she needed help getting over simon?? did prismo and the cosmic owl get involved?? what is their connection to king man and mars anyway, i mean we know grob gob glob grod hung out with them?? do you think betty knew at any point about simon's head holding the fionna and cake universe?? SO MANY QUESTIONS RAAARRGHGHHGHH

also, not to get super sappy, but i want to see the enchiridion expedition from her perspective!! i want to see her progression from 'hell yeah im going on an adventure with that guy whose research i admire' to 'oh my god i love his stupid ass help????'.

~betty's guilt (feat. regrets)~

i don't care what the alternate bus stop scene said, you will never convince me betty grof has "no regrets". i think she has 'no regrets' in terms of loving simon, and she would never want him to think that she regrets their relationship because of what it "did" to her (turned her into a kaiju). i think this scene was betty trying to give simon a modicum of closure by reassuring him of that fact, and trying to help him reckon with the fact that there's no going back and changing how things ended up for the two of them; from here on out they can only move forward.

that being said, we know that betty will often push simon into doing things she thinks are best for him, whether he wants these things or not, such as not getting held up by snakes or not dying. she's a quick thinker and a risk taker who doesn't like looking at the 'big picture', and these are things she's probably very aware about herself.

i think, in the 12 years that they were apart, betty probably had a lot of time to reflect on her decisions after the crown came into their lives. how her hubris in trying to study magic ended up in her becoming "magic betty", how magic betty nearly ended/condoned the end of the world multiple times, how she ultimately did cure simon but almost killed him in the process. most of all, you cannot convince me betty wouldn't agonize over how her split-second decision to jump into the future affected simon. you really think betty fucking grof would've have been totally unaffected by the revelation that simon spent nearly ten human lifetimes agonizing over driving her away?

in her last interaction with him, magic betty's recklessness cured them... only to then be grotesquely crushed to death inside of golb. but he didn't get upset with her, he didn't panic, he didn't even fight it, he just... gave in. there's this air of acceptance to him, an acceptance that comes after prolonged and complicated grief, that i'd argue, wasn't the culmination of being cured, but the culmination of his long and painful battle over losing her; he was content to die as long as he was with her. that must have been... really something for her to mull over.

i could easily see her developing a bit of a complex over it. i think it would be fascinating to see a betty who now, after all the dust as settled, has looked at their history and concluded that she was the common denominator in all of this, that she is bad for simon, that in a way she is a "curse" to him. and that it would be the perfect justification for her staying away from him all these years, thinking without her influence he could finally move on from her and live the rest of his human life happily with his new magic future friends.

i don't think betty has necessarily "moved on" from simon, i think she still loves him dearly... but as i said, thoroughly convinced she'll only damage him further if she keeps trying to pursue him, and that simon's breakdown during season 1 was only more evidence to that fact.

i think she's trying to lead him to get over her 'for his own good', and that she's purposefully being vague and simplifying conclusions about their relationship so he doesn't try to fight her on it like he always does when she makes these huge decisions for them. she's not bringing any of the stuff she actually regrets up with him because only betty sees it as a problem. simon is so enamoured with her he probably wouldn't even entertain the possibility that she had negative effect on him, but he would believe the reverse in a heartbeat.

this isn't me saying they're ""toxic"" at all, i'm saying that these are two very damaged people who would benefit from multiple types of therapy. and that, as they are, they currently are more likely to keep going in loops with unhealthy behaviours and blaming themselves ad infinitum rather than try to reckon with how they can change, and how it is a problem that they'll always do it for the other, but never for themselves.

even if all of my above ramblings turn out to be bunk: betty grof needs some kind of therapy for her pre-existing self sacrificial tendencies and self worth issues, a space for her to process and work through all of the things that happened to her in ooo, couple's counselling, and the biggest blunt known to man.

you might be wondering "emery, why are you talking about her like she isn't beyond such things? she's golb now, the embodiment of chaos! her ""arc"" is over."

~golbetty conspiracy theory time~

i'm not entirely convinced betty is golbetty as we've come to understand her. i stand by this with my crumbs of a conspiracy theory in that when simon first did the ritual, it was ORIGINAL golb's face that flashed over the scene (not golbetty or even the statue's face), and how golbetty seemed to transform back into Golb Classic after she blew simon away into the void. there's also this weird thing where golbetty had these holes or rips on her leg when she rotated; i thought it was an animation error but then it was also in the storyboards so idk what to believe...

plus the boards ive seen seem to only refer to them as "GOLB", never 'GOLBetty', which i just find... interesting

and i keep thinking about simon info-dumping about golb to betty in the 'come along with me' flashback and the specific wording that was used: "imagine if we could somehow harness all that dank energy..." and then comparing it to the specific wording of betty's wish "... however it has to happen, I wish for the power to keep Simon safe"

there's a couple lines in 'you forgot your floaties' regarding betty's work before becoming magic betty that i feel often get overlooked, one being how tiny manticore describes the situation as "she thinks she can save her BF, Simon, by finding the source of magic," and in betty's own words: "studying [magic madness and sadness] could lead me to their underlying cause, and then I'll control the forces that hold sway over Simon"

i've always wondered if part of the reason betty's wishes to "banish golb from this world/for golb to disappear" didn't work was not just because they didn't tap into her heart's deepest wish (keeping simon safe), but because a wish like that would also require some kind of fundamental change to the laws of the universe first in order for it to work. magic betty even references golb as "the most powerful force in the universe," so how would the crown ever hope to compete with that? according the ancient candy elemental, wish magic has the potential to cause "irreversible damage to the very structure of existence". maybe the crown itself couldn't banish golb with a simple wish, but it could restructure the world to create someone who was powerful enough to control even golb, if only it were structured through the correct wishing language.

and it would make total sense for betty to become that person.

i've been thinking about the way the candy elemental tries to warn evergreen from using the crown: "this wish may see things in you you cannot see yourself, can you truly say you know your heart's truest desire?"

i wonder if there may have been two elements to betty's wish, and the part of it that betty "didn't see in herself" was her worded in the language of "power"; betty's desire to gain control over forces of the universe no human could ever hope to fight against, let alone win.

she spent her human life fascinated by ancient magic, fighting to get her's and simon's work recognized as valid and worthwhile. then, she's suddenly in the future, fighting to stop simon from dying, physically fighting at times, and fighting to find a way to gain control over these "forces" that held him prisoner. she essentially is fighting to become the conqueror of magic, madness, and sadness... and she fails, becomes a victim of it. and it all goes downhill from there, the loss of control over herself, over her mind, over her goals, yet the most 'betty' thing about her is that she's still fighting, albeit a bit crooked and to the detriment of all else. in the end, she's even fighting with herself, fighting to remember who she even is without the fight, not even sure if that person exists anymore.

and then she's freed, suddenly, from the confines of MMS to the literal confines of a quickly shrinking prison. when you watch the two of them in that scene, she isn't fighting to escape the same way finn is literally fighting the wall, but you can tell she's not giving up. part of her is still fighting to think of a way out, even when it feels like there's absolutely no hope left.

her desire "for the power" could mean, in a sense, to have the ability to be in control of all that she couldn't at one time or another: time, fate, magic, life, death, chaos... but this was articulated through her love for simon, because it's the only way she probably even recognizes it within herself.

this is why i don't entirely think betty and golb are fused, or that betty is solely "golbetty". i think being "fused" with no possibility of escape would be antithetical to the language and possible wider implications of her wish. this is why i think she's something above even golb, like a being with the ability to possess/harness the power of other deities. and i think she does this specifically in scenarios where simon is in immediate danger and she needs to control them or harness their power in order to protect him.

i'm ready to be proven wrong, and i probably will be. still, i rotate these thoughts in my head at a dangerous velocity, and none of you can stop me.

~ok i'm done ill stop being insane now (lying)~

so to... actually answer your question, i REALLY want betty to meet fionna and cake, because it sounds to me like they remind simon a lot of her. i would just love to see the absolute fucking tornado they'd be when put in a room together.

also, obviously first and foremost, I NEED BETTY TO TALK TO MARCELINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway, as far as season 2 goes, something is definitely up with prismo. and since he's guardian/creator of multiverse entities, who the fuck knows what that means for the fabric of existence if he's glitching out.

all im saying is, i wouldn't be surprised if our main trio end up having to save the multiverse and have to do so with help from other... entities. bettities, even. (hehe. bettity)

[wantoup]

Rating: Teen Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Fandoms: Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) Relationships: Geto Suguru/Gojo Satoru Characters: Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Ieiri Shoko Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Volume 0 | Cursed Child Arc (Jujutsu Kaisen)

“Satoru,” Suguru says, “why am I alive?”

Ignoring him, Satoru says to Shoko, “He looks alright, and he’s talking, but you’re better equipped to evaluate him.”

Clearly giving up, Suguru says, “Shoko, will you tell me what the hell is going on?”

Shoko rolls her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? Gojo wussed out of actually killing you, and instead stashed you here in his secret clubhouse. You should have seen it, Geto, he came crying to me like a little bitch, begging me to save you.”

“That’s not what happened—”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Suguru says.

“Hey!” Satoru protests.

----

Satoru fails to kill Suguru following the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, and now finds himself hiding a wanted curse user and mass murderer in his home. But it’s easy to forget about all of that, when it also presents the first opportunity Satoru’s had in over a decade to actually talk to his best friend.

Written for @ficwip / @ficwip5k's 5K AU challenge!

[buffythecomicslayer]

In an exclusive interview, Amber Benson, James Marsters, and Charisma Carpenter dove into the new Audible original Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, which debuts on October 12. Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, they could not speak on their experiences on Buffy, Angel, or any other struck work.

Slayers is co-written by Amber Benson, who portrayed Tara in Buffy, and Christopher Golden, who has penned multiple books in the Buffyverse. Before the COVID pandemic, Benson began calling her former costars to see who might want to be involved, focusing on the characters she felt weren’t serviced enough in the original show. She also wanted to find a way to highlight what it means to be a slayer who is also a woman of color.

Amber, why did you want to do this now?

Amber Benson: The reason I got excited about doing Slayers was because I wanted to see Charisma be a vampire slayer. I want to live in the meta world where Charisma Carpenter is Cordelia, the Vampire Slayer. That was the pull for me. We spent a ton of time trying to create satisfying arcs for all of these characters that we love so much. It’s been a labor of love. For me, doing this was about diving into a world where I get to have some control over things.

Why set it in 2013 instead of 2023?

Benson: We wanted a passage of time so there was an entrenched world where slayers existed in our world and they were everywhere — especially because we have Laya who takes audiences through this mythology. She’s like a fangirl of vampire slaying, and is on the Reddit forums. We didn’t want it so entrenched that we were so far removed from other times. We wanted that sweet spot of the world knows about this stuff, but it’s not an old hat.

What was it like getting back in the room to record with everyone?

James Marsters: We love each other so much that it was absolutely fabulous. I was just able to watch Charisma step into this role and have it make complete sense. It is so far from the Charisma that we started with years ago. It couldn’t be further, and yet, it makes absolute sense. Just her as an actor, being able to give a strong, loving, slightly world-weary, wise perspective to it, this absolutely seems like what Cordelia would be like in 2013. And I loved watching Amber take her character in a completely new direction. It absolutely makes sense, but it couldn’t be further from the Tara that we started with. And I was in awe of Juliet Landau.

And then Seth Green showed up! He’s not even in it, but he was recording something else in another booth at the building, and he heard we were in there. He comes in, and the whole thing stops. We didn’t do any work for 45 minutes because we’ve just gotta love on Seth. It was a complete love fest the whole time. We’re all in a really good place. All of our lives are going really well, so we could brag about how well we’re doing. Plus, meeting Laya DeLeon Hayes, having her fold into our family — and she’s the most experienced voice actor of all of us!

The last time you played Spike was in 2004. How did feel stepping back into it?

Marsters: I had told the producers way back when: “I’ve been doing Spike for about seven years, and if you want me to do the character, you’ve got about seven more years. I think we can get away with it for a 14-year window.” Spike is a vampire, he ain’t aging, but James is! Seven years came and went; it hadn’t happened, and I put it in the rear-view mirror. Then Amber calls me! And it was perfect.

Tara was a very important character on TV, and it was really devastating how that arc ended. Amber, can you hint at what she’s like now in this alternate universe?

Benson: She’s a very kind-hearted character, and we wanted to give her some meat. So we found a way, without spoiling anything, to give her something to sink her teeth into. We also wanted to keep the goodness of her, and it’s still in there, but we go to some darker places. And selfishly, as an actor, I wanted to work with Charisma, to do more with James, to spend time with Juliet. I have a lot of fun stuff with Juliet!

Charisma, you’ve been very vocal about your experience on Buffy. What was your reaction to getting the ask to come back into this world and bring Cordelia back? Were you hesitant at all?

Charisma Carpenter: When I got a call from Amber in 2020, I said, “You know, my friend, I would follow you anywhere. Of course, I want to be a part of it.” I didn’t know where it would end up, or certainly what medium it would be in, but it wouldn’t matter. I would just do it because I trust her vision. I trust her and I respect her talent as a writer and creator and I just love her to pieces.

How did it feel for you to be able to give Cordelia this entirely new life?

Carpenter: I think I felt a bit lost. Because the description of Cordelia and the scenes were the world-weary, kind of doom and gloom. I’m kind of saddled with this young player that’s super excited. How do I play this embattled slayer, who’s living their purpose and sees it really as the burden that it is — taking on the big bad — and infusing that with the Cordelia from before, which is sassy and witty and pithy and all those superficial things? How do I balance them? So for me, it was such an interesting dilemma to figure out. I spent a lot of time with Christopher and Amber, stressed, going, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I didn’t think it was possible to bring more layers to Cordelia, because I feel like she went through so much in terms of her character arc from beginning to end.

Marsters: It’s so funny because, from my perspective, you came in and effortlessly did this. It didn’t seem to be a struggle at all!

When this was announced, many referred to it as a Spike-focused series because he’s the narrator, but this universe has always been so about female empowerment. Do you guys see it that way?

Marsters: I saw that, and was like, “Oh, didn’t clock that before. I don’t think so, but OK! It’s called Slayers!”

Benson: And he came up with that name!

Marsters: Yeah, first we thought of Spike and Dru, but reading the script, that wasn’t really the thing. We have two new slayers that we haven’t had before: Cordelia and Indira. We’ve been promising the audience there’s a new slayer for a new generation. Every generation has one. We never made good on that promise. So, you had to wait — now you get two.

Benson: I think it’s a multi-pronged narrative. We have amazing Spike stuff. And he is the narrator and he takes us through this and has so many amazing arcs and relationships. The Juliet/James combo is electrifying.

Marsters: Spike is a great character, but he doesn’t encapsulate the theme. I’m in the project a lot, but what are you going to call it, Spike, the Vampire, Slayer of Vampires? It’s not the same thing. It is much more exciting to keep it focused, as it always has been, on a woman who is overcoming the challenges of life, and using a vampire demon metaphor to talk about those challenges. That’s one of the big strengths of the project since the beginning. I was glad with all the changes, all the updates and all of the surprises that we’re offering, that that kernel is kept. I would never want to get away from that.

Benson: Charisma, you should also talk about this because the “Justice for Cordelia” aspect is very important.

Charisma, please! Let’s hear it!

Carpenter: One of the most important things to me about Slayers is that it is an opportunity to give the Buffyverse fandom permission to enjoy the show, enjoy these characters again in a way that is representative of perseverance, of work ethic, of the familiar. It has really been made clear to me how much entertainment in general and the previous show and what this future show will do to provide comfort, empowerment, self-belief and reminders of our purpose. I think it will be an opportunity to give credit and justice to Tara, to Anya, to Cordelia. Because that show involved hundreds of people to make, and it wasn’t about just one person. So I feel like it’s really a beautiful thing to have this opportunity to bring her back to life — Cordelia specifically — and have her live out a very empowering life, and share her wisdom from that battle. I just feel like it’s very poetic in a lot of ways.

Spike is a bit of a controversial character, especially through the 2023 lens. Amber, how did you come to the decision to have him narrate?

Benson: No. 1, it’s always important to separate the actor from the character. And I know that James has spoken about this. He is one of the best humans, I adore James. But yeah, there is problematic stuff with the character, especially around consent. We really wanted to do something different and not live in the past. So for us, it was sort of a reinvention of the Spike character. We wanted to see more of that human and empathetic version of Spike. That was really important to us — the more James-version of Spike. He still has all the Spike bells and whistles. He’s still sexy as hell. But we also wanted to see that humanity and I think that was one of the reasons James Leary is such a big part of this. There is a humanity. James really wanted to make sure we still kept him Spike, but we updated for 2023.

Again, I know you can’t talk about the past projects here, but many of these characters weren’t there at the end — specifically Cordelia, who’d died in Angel. Are you ignoring the events of Angel completely?

Benson: We really created Slayers away from everything else. We wanted to create a world that felt familiar, but also was different — because I think putting your own stamp on something is really important. I think that’s what Chris and I wanted to do — find a way to do the things that we thought were important, some of those righting of wrongs things. That was important for us. We weren’t really looking at other versions of these worlds to draw from it really was. We tried to keep it its own unique thing.

Well, it is based on characters previously created. Was it a struggle to get permission to take ownership of these characters?

Benson: We can’t really talk about this stuff because of the strike and because also, sometimes, the creation is the creation, and the creators are totally removed. And for me, just personally, I will say this, I always had trouble going to conventions and not being honest about certain situations. And now that all of that is sort of grist for the mill, I feel this relief that I can love this world and these characters and have a little bit of a little tiny, tiny piece of ownership in them. I love this world, I love the family I have because of it. I love the fans I have in my life. A show is not always just the person that came up with a show. A show is a collaboration for us on Slayers.

Speaking broadly about ownership of creative material, it really is a collaborative media. It’s not one person. The auteur theory does not apply here. It takes a village.

Marsters: The genetic material is there because Amber breathed it. She is a fabulous writer, and Christopher Golden has been writing books in the Buffyverse for years. So it’s kind of a seamless continuum. It’s not just like a bunch of people who don’t know much about the lore or don’t care about it. There are people who’ve been involved from the beginning, in the driver’s seat.

Were there other characters or actors you wanted to bring back?

Benson: For us, the important thing is to do service to characters that maybe didn’t get the right servicing in other versions. So we really focused on that. That was really important for us.

Well, Seth Green popped in! Were there ever any talks of bringing him on?

Benson: We were talking about it, but we had such a full slate of characters that once we looked at it, we were like we can’t service everybody if you have too many characters. It was really important for us to make sure everybody had a satisfying arc. If we do multiple seasons, then we can bring in other people and give them new things to do. Seth is definitely on our list. Clare Kramer too, we would love to have Glory come and play. There’s just so many amazing characters to bring in.

Do you see this going for multiple seasons?

Benson: I would love to do more seasons. Emma Caulfield was like, “When do we do the next one?” We really would love to do more. We love the team at Audible and Audible UK. They’re all fans. They all love this world. So we would love to jump back in and do more. It’s really up to the fans!

[kotikaleo]

Oh, sure, I can share some about the story. But first, responding to your counter questions, favorite game is Security Breach as well. It may not have been made perfect, but honestly, it's just very fun to play. Help Wanted 2 is also fun, but I do like Security Breach more.

Now, favorite character. That's the hard part. Cause there are a lot of favorites. But currently Glamrock Freddy, Puppet, and the Daycare Attendant Sun/Moon are fighting for the favorite robot character spot. I always liked the Puppet, even if she looks a bit out of place with all the bigger, chonkier animatronics. That just adds to her charm. And Glamrock Freddy and Sun/Moon are because I love their character in the game.

Now, for the story. It follows Michael Afton, but in a Time Travel au. There are two main catches to it, though. One, is that he not only goes back in time to before Crying Child gets bit by Fredbear, he is in an alternate timeline or universe(not sure which it would be). William was not abusive or neglectful in this timeline/au as opposed to the William from Michael's time. Nor would he have been the killer, or at least not after Michael from the future shows up, still working out whether he would have gone crazy if his kids started dying or not.

The other catch is that Michael is still a purple corpse person kept alive with Remnant(that for Reasons won't smell like a corpse, except maybe smells like smoke cause he's coming from after the Pizzaria Simulator fire). So he's very averse to getting noticed, but he eventually runs into either Henry or maybe Mrs. Afton(haven't decided yet). And it's basically going to be a story where Michael can get a second chance at having a good family and have another chance of being a good brother to Crying Child, though it is obvious very tense at first. Especially when he's going to be very prone to wanting to punch William in the jaw for a while XD

And maybe Ennard is also brought in and has their own redemption arc or something.

That's what I have so far, it's not fully fleshed out yet, and I'm hoping to finish one of my stories first before adding this to the story queue I currently have. Ennard might not even be a part of it, it's just an idea I had that sounded cool. But if I can't work them in, then they won't be part of it.

OH OH OH

First of all *shaking hands on Sun/Moon and Freddy opinion* I just looove how we have same favorites XD

Also Puppet is cool as well (fun fact, did you know that in russian fandom it is known as Марионетка Marionette more than Puppet?)

OH MY GOD THE STORY!!

You mean you decided to to give the saddest ever boy his happy family?? óωò that is so wholesome!! Does that mean that there are two Mikes in a story or CC just suddenly have a much older brother?

Oh gosh I also imagine the first meet up, and Michael being So Pissed at William but he doesn't know why and so heartbroken by that

Ohhhhhhhh please tag me in it, I will enjoy that so soooo much

[dirty-bosmer]

I've been meaning to ask this ever since The Illusionist was completed, but have you ever thought of an AU or alternate ending for the story? Iirc you mentioned pantsing it, so was there ever a different trajectory you considered when writing the final arc? If Nim could have taken another path, what would it have been (and are there any that are happy for either her or Lucien 🥺 LMAO big ask, I know)?

Hopefully that made sense <3<3<3

OOOhooOHOOoo, what a good question! Yes it made sense and really made me think. There are two alternative endings that I think fit the logic of the story and the characters. Actually, I kind of feel bad for Nim now, because of course I chose the angstiest end for the fic lol. Under the cut because looooong and also spoilers.

The first: Mathieu convinces Nim to join him in taking down the Dark Brotherhood. He confesses everything to her that morning after he finds her drunk on the waterfront, and even though he’s responsible for the Purification, he appeals to Nim’s desire for freedom from Lucien and the clutches of the Black Hand just enough that she agrees to his plan. Nim continues to kill off the Black Hand, thereby setting Lucien up further. After she kills Ungolim, Nim is the one who tells Mathieu that Lucien went to hide out in Applewatch. She arrives with the rest of the Black Hand and actually takes part in his torture/death, and even though she does feel conflicted and guilty over betraying him, it’s also very cathartic after everything he put her through. She’s SO angry at him, blames him for not working harder to prevent the Purification, for taking her as his Silencer, for ruining her chance at a normal life, and I think it would be a turning point for her to say, “fuck it, I’m living the way I want to now and NO ONE will take it from me.”

Once in the Night Mother’s crypt, she and Mathieu turn on the rest of the Black Hand. Meanwhile Lorise is going wtf??? and the Night Mother/Mephala is like “lol y’all think you’re slick. I’ll be back tho, and btw Lorise, Mathieu was the traitor and he’s the reason why Vicente is dead. Lucien told Nim all this like a month ago :)” Lorise turns on Mathieu in her rage, and Nim is forced to kill him to keep Lorise alive. Lorise is understandably pissed that Nim never told her and had fully planned to let Mathieu go free, but Nim pulls some gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss and is like “I would never! This was the only way I could keep you safe!” They agree to torch the crypt, then go on holiday to Daggerfall where they let themselves properly grieve everything they lost in the Dark Brotherhood.

In this version of events, Nim doesn’t have a complete mental break. The mantling proceeds a lot more slowly, and she actually has a happy mortal life. She moves back to Anvil to continue her apprenticeship like nothing ever happened lol but she’s lonely. She misses Raminus and is disturbed by how haunted she is by Lucien’s absence. Because she can’t stand being alone and living simply, she’s like “what if I open up old wounds and write to Raminus and tell him I need him c:” knowing full well how much influence she still has over him. She visits the University, and because Raminus is still in love with her and has been plagued by dreams of her weird Daedric visions, he doesn’t throw her out immediately. Having never received proper closure, he tells himself he just one more conversation with her is going to set his head straight, but Nim is fully committed to gaslight, gatekeep, girl boss at this point, so she confesses to the destruction of the Dark Brotherhood, saying that was her plan all along and she had to do it to save Lorise, that she couldn’t tell him the last time they spoke because she’d be placing him in even more danger. Obviously, he’s horrified and disgusted, but Nim is like, baby we brought out the best in each other and I’m changed woman now uwu. I’m such a good little mage, see *points to calendar that says ’68 days since last murder’* and Raminus is like “well that’s qualitative proof.” He’s so shocked by it all that there is simply no other choice than to be horny for her. Sorry I don’t make the rules.

They live comfortably even though Raminus remains a little terrified of Nim and repulsed by his own willingness to let her back into his life (Compartmentalizing King 👑). He sees hints of the Madgod in her, and it infects him too but in what I’d like to think is a rather wholesome way? She convinces him to retire from his role as Arch-mage and he becomes the eccentric geologist he always wanted to be as a wee lad. They spend the rest of their life travelling Tamriel together and the adventure keeps Nim more or less stable until Raminus inevitably passes from old-age and she makes her way to the Shivering Isles.

The second ending would be far more chaotic lol. In this timeline, she meets with Mephala in the Night Mother’s crypt and accepts the role of Listener, knowing Mephala’s grasp on her soul will keep her on Nirn a while longer before the mantling overtakes her. Also she’s like well I’ve already fucked up my life to the best of my ability, so why not make it worse :D? In this timeline, she still arrives at Applewatch in time to save Lucien and because she doesn’t have her break, she’s there to kill Mathieu. So Lucien and Lorise are both alive, and the three of them + Arquen embark on their little business holiday to Hammerfell and Skyrim to establish new sanctuaries and rebuild the DB. Nim’s relationship with Lucien sours in ✨New and Improved✨ ways, because now he has absolutely no control over her. Now, the power has been completely reversed, and as unhinged as he is, Lucien does honor the Night Mother’s choice to name her Listener. Nim taunts him with this constantly. Also in this timeline, Nim and Arquen have a full blown affair because Arquen recognizes the chance to seize power and Nim recognizes the chance to rub it in Lucien’s face. They are nothing if if not Toxic <3

So yeah, Nim’s accession to Listener leaves Lucien rattled, hollow, uncharacteristically doubtful and maudlin. By now, he’s lost his sanctuary, the rest of the Black Hand, and his Silencer. He has to rebuild completely by himself, and maybe he thinks this is some sort of punishment or test from Sithis? It sends him into a bit of spiral/crisis of faith, because while he’d always respected Ungolim’s leadership and was never covetous of the position of Listener, the fact that the Night Mother chose Nimileth as Listener is quite frankly an insane move that he simply can’t wrap his head around. As an individual, Lucien never truly respected Nim. He was obsessed with her, yes, but he saw her as little more than his knife to wield, and always thought she was a whiny, ungrateful little brat because she was but more importantly because she didn’t worship at his feet like the others in the sanctuary did :’(

And true to his observations, as competent an assassin as she was, Nim was an awful Silencer lol. She was disloyal, unfaithful, distracted, quarrelsome. Not to mention she held and still holds nothing but disdain for their order and has no leadership skills whatsoever. As Listener, she’s so unserious, basically Arquen’s puppet out of sheer indifference, and it disgusts Lucien, further fueling the violent impulses he’s always felt when they’re together, only now he can’t act upon them so he goes on a similar psycho killing spree as he does in the original fic lol. Also Lucien does recognize that there is something awry about the whole thing, because the Night Mother would not have named her Listener if the Dark Brotherhoods best interest were in mind (and he’s not wrong. It was all Mephala’s personal schemes in the end anyway). So yeah, he’s constantly having to quell what he considers the blasphemous, heretical urge to question the Night Mother’s commands and it eats at him constantly.

I imagine after they return to Cyrodiil, Nim settles down in Bravil and is actually quite content there. She makes Lorise her Silencer and spends her days gardening, helping out at the Mages Guild and the chapel of Mara, going on trips with Arquen and Lorise, and Lucien just has to seethe and watch her find happiness without him. He festers a bit in Fort Farragut, playing sad songs on the lyre and drinking Argonian bloodwine, writing on the walls “I will not blaspheme. I will not question the Night Mother’s will. I will not kill disobey the Listener,” all the while thinking why her why her why her. And because they are the most divorced couple on Nirn, Nim can’t let him grow tired of her, so they’re always playing stupid games to make each other jealous, starting fights and fucking about it, and Arquen is just tapping her watch thinking “when are you two going to kill each other so I can become Listener.” It goes on that way until Nim is finally like “okay, I’m bored fr now” and fucks off to the Shivering Isles for good.

As you’ll notice, Lucien does not get a happy ending in any version lol but I loved thinking about them this way. This was such an incredible question and one I had not really thought about before! Thank you so much for asking <3

[fave-fight]

ROUND 2, MATCH 1

NO MAGIC, POWERS, WEAPONS, OR ADDITIONAL HELP FROM OTHERS

Chuuya Nakahara:

“He’s the top martial artist in the entire mafia (without using his ability), and on to of that he’s the most powerful ability user (that we know of) in Bungou Stray Dogs. If this is a normal fist fight, he could probably win without using his ability unless his opponent has some form of magic/supernatural assistance. And if they do, he could kill the pretty much instantly using his ability.  Also. I’d really like to see him win for once, because in BSD the author has to keep coming up with highly specific scenarios to justify why he’s not just wiping everyone out. Some of those scenarios include: 1) he’s just not there in the first place (he was canonically out of the country for the entire beginning of the series) 2)he gets trapped in the BSD-equivalent of an alternate dimension* (ie someplace you can’t just break out of with brute force) 3)the only guy he regularly fights has the ability to be immune to all abilities AND is the top strategist in BSD (and even so Chuuya still beats him in terms of combative skills) 4)fights that he’s about to win get interrupted by other things, causing both him and his opponent(s) to go “well I guess we could just stop fighting and call it a stalemate 🤷‍♂️  5) (spoilers for the current manga arc) he’s currently being mind controlled as a vampire (BSD vampires and the equivalent of other media’s zombies. They’re mindless or mind-controlled beings who go around biting people). He would have solved all the problems by now but the author was like “nope!” and yoinked away his free will and autonomy.  *for any BSD fans who wanna check me on calling Poe’s ability an alternate dimension, I mean in the same way other subspace-type abilities are “alternate dimensions” as Rimbaud described (counting Rimbaud, Poe, and Lucy for this type of ability), rather than referring to “alternate universes” as in Beast.”

Oliver:

“I'm going to be honest he's likely going to get his ass kicked and while "canon" is finicky because of how vocaloid works this child canonically (according to their creators) eats dirt, rocks and sometimes spiders depending on what alternative universe version you have (don't ask), they are basically feral but also sweet, they're covered in bandages and I feel like they'd take a beating anyway whee propaganda over”

“Lil blonde British boi deserves the win methinks”

“I also find funny the little British boy”

“this is a tiny little british boy who eats dirt and spiders for a living just let him die in a fight it would be hilarious he survived eating tarantulas and dirt and weird things let him die via a fistfight like he should”

“This kid eats rocks and spiders. He is unstoppable. Let the Victorian child kill.”

“Small skrunkly british victorian boy swag, also itd be funny to see a 12 year old win against everyone else”