#the concept was so cool and i wanted to explore it
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None of these stories are anti-Jedi. And I don't deny that Lucas may have had a full story that existed in his head. But it wasn't published. What was published was hundreds of books and comics and rpgs and computer games that he approved/allowed.
And once you have published material, it becomes a resource. It's official in ways that your external comments and views will never be. External interview questions are not part of the world that you've built. They're simply your own views of your own work. If you wanted them in your work and failed to put them in there, they are not a part of it. What's real is now the interaction between the reader and the book or the viewer and the movie. That's the art form. The real message is the message that was received, not what you withheld or failed to deliver, and had to patch with interview questions.
All the published material are the real Star Wars stories. Nothing about them is invalid. They don't say "unofficial Star Wars" on them. Lucas approved what he wanted and they went to publish as real events from that universe. Nobody has any way of knowing what he privately agreed or disagreed with, so those opinions don't matter in a way that informs the universe.
If you want to build your own personal understanding of Star Wars around these external comments (which are not nearly as obvious or accessible as the published stories), then there's nothing wrong with that. You have the freedom to do it.
But what you can't do is insist that it's the "right" view or "only" view, and you can't tell people not to use xyz published material, and you can't tell people that their ideas aren't valid just because they ARE using that published material. You can't even properly claim that your views are "official." Since when are creator opinions of a finished work official? Even that concept is hugely debatable.
All you end up doing is trying to blockade off real, official, published resources so that the only outcome is that your opinion (and it's only an opinion!) is correct. It's disingenuous. It's bad faith.
I think it's a cool and fun take to try to remain close to the creator's opinions. And it's valid to explore inconsistencies to try to navigate to a coherent storyline that makes sense to you. But you have to realize and acknowledge that you are not "right" and nobody else with sourced opinions is "wrong." What you have is a headcanon. It's not even based on published works. Even if we all agree that creator interview answers are "official", they still don't trump published material. At best, they're equal.
You can argue against "Jedi-critical" views too! That's part of a healthy fandom. But you have to have your own sourced arguments to do it. You can't just say "I don't like your published material as sources, so therefore I declare you're wrong as a blanket statement if you use them, so I don't even have to try to have a genuine discussion." That's also bad faith. Your sources are no more right or official than theirs.
I don't care what headcanons y'all have. I think they're all fun. There's enough room in my love of Star Wars to enjoy looking at everyone's views. What I do care about is when people use bad faith tactics to artificially cut the legs out from people they disagree with ... all for mere headcanons. And then to believe that they're right to do that. Weird and uncool!
I really dislike it when anti-Jedi and Jedi-critical crowd uses EU books as a prove for their points. Why they’re all wrong:
a) The books were written by various people who didn’t consult George Lucas about what they’re going to write. Everyone understood SW as they did. When an original author has never claimed such art as canon and actually refused it – this is a definition of fanfiction, isn’t it? Paid, yes, but fanfiction nonetheless.
b) Most of these books were created way before PT. They didn’t know about the Jedi things what we know now. It becomes quite hypocritical – I mean, in the EU the clones were enemies, not allies, but somehow I don’t see any claims ‘but the clones are enemies! The EU says so!’. Even in Karen Traviss books not all the clones have a personality, but we all ignore it now, aren’t we? She wrote her books before the TCW, not knowing how the series would spin the story. So EU retcon works for the clones, but not for the Jedi?
#that you like to unearth and use interview questions as sources is fine#but they are not superior to what's actually published#it's WEAK to make up the idea that 'published material is invalid so i don't have to listen to you and you don't get to speak'#if you really can't stand other equally correct parts of fandom and you have to live in a place that's only your headcanon#then just curate your social media experience#you can enjoy your headcanons without badly attempting to undermine someone else's#and like. everybody has to face the hard truth that 'what's published is the reality'. it's canon! full stop.#you don't have to like it but it doesn't stop it from being real#and other people are gonna like it just fine and they're not incorrect for it#i also think my ideas are better than some of the content in Lucas' prequels#he did some things SO badly! it's embarrassing#but i can have my headcanons and still enjoy the material. and i can fix it with fanfic if i want#and i don't need to tell people off for using what's published#Star Wars#live and let live
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When you mentioned fused stancest I literally could not stop thinking about how they would act if they couldn’t infuse for a while everyone’s reaction to how they function as one person. I would love to hear more of you take on it.
I have so many!! This ended up longer then i expected (Sorry if this isnt what you meant)
So I actually wanted to write something like this concept but the angst is like a parasite and it takes over everything
I think if they got stuck as a Fordley (thats what im calling the fusion) the reactions would go like this:
Mabel is squealing and thinks its so cool and definitely asks to ride on their shoulders. Shes having the time of her life (and even asks if she can try the fusion machine too.) Two grunkles for the price of one and all that but now they are one cooler taller Grunkle.
Dipper hates it. He constantly gets jumpscared. He'll go down to get water and Fordley is creeping around in the middle of the night to get snacks before slinking back down to the lab and dippers like cluching his chest and shaking and sweaty and he really just wants them unfuse already.
Stan would be upset cause why would ford even build something like this. And then he fucked up and now theyre stuck this way. But also he's secretly pleased with the fact that the intensity of his feelings for stan drove Ford to literally create a way for them to be one.
Ford is only too pleased because this is what he wanted. Now he's only thinking that they get to do all the things they love together just like they always said they would do as kids. They'll watch stans shows and do science stuff and he's pleasently surprised with how their minds blend together so well. Even if stan pretends he doesnt enjoy the explorations they go on Ford can feel that he does.
They still work on a way to fix the machine so they can get unfused but only cause stans still a bit pissed at not having a choice in the matter but Ford fully intends to convince him that being one is how they are supposed to be.
Wendy would be like wtf then rapidly compartmentalize and just nod and be like "this is my life now."
Soos looses his mind and fanboys so hard and writes all types of fusion fics and has tea with them to ask how it feels to make his fics as canon as possible. He will also au the hell outta Fordley.
They definitely become an urban legend cause some townie or tourists saw them slinking around in the woods "Seven foot tall, four eyed creature spotted in the woods of gravity falls. Hairless cousin of bigfoot??" And all of the photos are super blurry and you got some people saying it has four arms and debating if it eats humans or only family sized bags of toffee peanuts?
As for specifically with the angsty one i wrote
Ford refuses to let them find a way to fix it cause he doesnt see them being stuck as a problem
Stan is (rightfully) upset and refuses to engage with Ford. Ford eventally coaxes stan to hear him out and they slowly work through their issues cause really what else can they do when their literally stuck together. And then maybe stan realizes that being them isnt so bad and he begrudgingly respects fords audacity (and insanity) to make what he wanted a reality.
And when they do (mostly stan) finally accept the situation, they allow themself to truly start to think of themself as one and i think even the deformites of their unstable fusion would start to shift into a more stable form.
Mabel is lowkey scared of them because of what happened in the lab but she slowly warms up to Fordley. But its only after her grunkles stop fighting. (dont ask how you can fight when you share one body because they do it and they do it easily and she can tell)
Dipper is confused cause no one actually sat him down to fully explain what happened and he's working on context clues only. He's too scared to ask Fordley and anytime he asks mabel she just goes wide eyed and pale. And then one day everything is cool. Like Fordley is still there but he's happier and engaging with the nibs and mabel isnt scared of them anymore and dippers even more confused because nobody has clued him in????
Maybe i should just turn these into fics atp?
#stancest#stancest fusion#pines4the(t)win#ask me more about Fordley cause thats all I'll be thinking about for a good minute
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GreedxLing Week Day 2: Crossover
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Ling had been certain that he and Lan Fan were ready to take down a witch.
They'd gotten the other 99 souls required easily, far faster than any other student at the DWMA had ever managed. (Well, anyone besides Maka Albarn, but she was a freakishly intense prodigy so that was hardly a fair comparison. And she'd had to start over anyway so it barely counted.) Their soul resonance was nearly flawless. When they fought together Lan Fan’s blade was like an extension of Ling's arm. Every strike landed precisely and powerfully, and their special attacks never failed.
No witch should have stood a chance against them.
And they hadn't gone into the fight alone. Ed and Al were with them, and the two brothers were nearly as good as Ling and Lan Fan. The weapon meister combination of a giant suit of armor and a guy way too small to wear it was unconventional, and Ling was pretty sure Ed having his friend make him an oversized prosthetic arm so he could wear one of everything from the pauldron down, then and having Al fight beside him only counted “wielding a weapon” on the barest technicality, but they made it work. Ed was very good at punching things until they stopped getting back up, and Al stepped in perfectly to watch his back.
And Professor Hawkeye and her meister, Mustang, had accompanied them on this mission, so really they were as safe as could be.
Okay, maybe the adults had less accompanied them and more failed to notice the students sneaking along on a mission they'd been explicitly told to sit out because it was too dangerous. Something something ancient and powerful witch, blah blah dark soul magic, yadda yadda artificially created weapons who could operate autonomously, achieve soul resonance within themselves, and perform feats that no human weapon and meister team could hope to match. Whatever. If anything that was all the more reason for them to come along instead of leaving the old people to try and face all of that on their own.
Really, Hawkeye and Mustang should be grateful they were there, considering Mustang got himself critically injured fighting the first enemy they came across; a beautiful woman who could summon spears to her fingertips that grew to whatever length she wanted and apparently could cut through anything. The man did manage to kill her before succumbing to blood loss, though, which Ling could admit was kind of impressive considering how she shook off what should have been mortal wounds and healed almost instantly from any damage. But still, if the rest of them hadn't been there to provide cover and a distraction Hawkeye never would have been able to drag her unconscious meister to safety and call for more backup.
Hawkeye threatening them all with a “serious conversation” when they got back to school and swearing she'd expel them if she found out they'd stayed to fight if there was a chance of running away seemed pretty rude and uncalled for to Ling, but the woman was under a lot of stress.
So they ran deeper into the witch's compound–a confusing warren of underground tunnels that Ling wasn't entirely confident he'd be able to easily find his way back out of even with his normally perfect sense of direction–smashing delicate lab equipment, yelling for any cowards in the place to come face them, and generally just making a commotion to try and draw attention away from their injured companions.
Ed seemed particularly thrilled at all the destruction they were wreaking. Ling thought it was pretty fun too, but the other meister was delighted in a way that was a little concerning, laughing maniacally as he grabbed flasks of some unidentifiable green liquid off a lab table and flung them against a wall where they promptly exploded.
Al heaved a long suffering sigh at his brother, but didn't try to stop the rampage, and also shoved over an entire shelf of the exploding potions as they left the room they'd found them in and giggled to himself about it because he was only “the normal brother” in the sense that anyone would seem sane and rational standing next to Edward Elric.
They succeeded in calling attention to themselves.
They didn’t draw out the actual witch, at least not yet, but the two minions who came after them were terrifying enough on their own.
One was a short fat man, who partially transformed into a…meat grinder? Some sort of construction equipment maybe? It wasn’t anything Ling would call a weapon in the traditional sense, but the sight of the man’s abdomen splitting open to reveal rows of spinning metal teeth was more alarming than any blade or hammer or gun could hope to be. Luckily he didn’t seem very smart, and kept stopping to look around and call for someone named Lust who never showed up, so it wasn’t too hard to dodge his attempts at pulverizing them.
The other person was more of a problem. They were taller and much more agile, and clearly knew their way around the witch’s headquarters, which made evading them in the tight corridors a challenge. And they never seemed to run out of ways to transform their body. Ling would dive back to avoid the swing of an arm that had become a blade only to immediately have to roll to the side when that same arm turned into a cannon aimed right at his head.
They also never shut up. Every attack was followed up with a comment about how “You pathetic humans never should have come here,” or “You’ll never make it out of here alive, you worms!”
And of course, Ed also didn’t know how to shut up.
“I’d rather be a pathetic human worm than an ugly freak like you and your buddy!”
“Who are you calling ugly, you tiny little pest?”
Their hand turned into some sort of glowing gun that fired a laser at Ed. Frankly, Ling thought turning into a sci-fi bullshit weapon was cheating.
Al just managed to yank his brother out of the way and hold him back from rushing in for an attack.
“Tiny?! We’ll see who’s tiny after I rip your legs off!”
“Oh, I’d love to see you try and–Gluttony, would you focus?”
The fat man, Gluttony apparently, turned back from where he’d been starting to wander away down a cross hall.
“But Envy, I need to go look for Lust. I don’t know where she is.”
Envy shook their head. “We can look for her after we crush these intruders, alright? You don’t need to worry about Lust, she can take care of herself.”
“But–”
“Ling, we should try and get out of here while they’re distracted,” Lan Fan said, speaking into Ling’s mind as she always did in her sword form and drowning out the argument in front of him.
“Right,” Ling whispered back, trying not to draw attention back to them. They were at the junction of two hallways, and there was just enough room that they could slip around their pursuers and go back the way they’d come if they were quick about it.
“Ed, Al, let’s get out of here,” he added only slightly louder. Both Elric brothers nodded their understanding.
Ling led the way, moving as quickly and quietly as he could along the far side of the hall from Envy and Gluttony to rush back past them.
Something slammed into the wall inches in front of Ling’s nose, and he barely stopped in time to avoid running into a giant mess of metal and wires and tubing that was shaped like a crude, nightmarish hand, reaching nearly from floor to ceiling and completely blocking his path.
The hand connected to an equally haphazard mechanical arm that shrank as it got further from the wrist, all the way down to Envy’s human looking shoulder. They’d stopped talking to Gluttony, their focus entirely fixed on Ling and his friends.
“I didn’t say you could leave,” they hissed.
“New plan,” Ling gasped, backpedaling a few steps away from where Envy’s hand was slowly pulling away from the new crater it had left in the solid stone wall. “We run away as fast as we can and worry about finding an exit later.”
“I like that plan!” Al said, already turning back up the hall and dragging Ed with him.
“Very sensible,” Lan Fan agreed.
The following chase was a blur of sprinting over uneven floors and taking corners at speed while ducking out of the way of blades and gunfire and giant mechanical hands, as well as the occasional attempt to grind them into a paste. (Gluttony referred to this as “eating them,” which, bad!) Ling completely gave up trying to keep track of where they were or the direction they were going, just concentrating on staying alive and hopefully losing the monsters on their tails.
It was a surprise when, after darting around another corner and through an archway, they found themselves out of the claustrophobic hallways and in a cavernous room. Tubes wrapped and tangled around each other up the walls and across the ceiling, coming together in the center of the room and trailing down to connect to a large throne, its occupant shrouded in shadows so deep Ling couldn’t make out a single detail of his face. A sense of creeping evil permeated the entire space, and Ling realized that this must be the witch’s inner sanctum.
There was no other door but the one they’d entered through.
The only other occupant of the room was an older man standing next to the throne, unremarkable other than the eyepatch over one eye. He strode forward with a glare as Envy and Gluttony burst into the room behind Ling and the others.
“What is the meaning of you fools allowing these humans to make their way here? You’ve disturbed Father’s work.”
“Hey, these little insects are fast,” Envy protested. “And I didn’t see you helping stop them, Wrath! Or Sloth and Pride for that matter.”
“Our brothers are away on an errand for Father,” Wrath said dismissively. “You shouldn’t need their help to squash a few bugs anyway. Or mine, but I’ll go ahead and lend it to you since it seems to be the only way anything gets done around here.”
Envy growled, and the growl deepened and distorted as they transformed.
In the open space of this room they were able to change more than just their arm. Their whole body stretched and twisted as they grew into a giant robotic thing. It looked a bit like a mech suit from an anime, if that mech suit had been welded together from a thousand disparate parts by a madman into a body horror nightmare amalgamation, bristling with every weapon imaginable. They dropped down onto all fours–their new form no longer bipedal–and the impact shook the room so badly Ling nearly lost his footing.
“Fine,” Envy said, in a voice like grating metal. “You take care of the one with the sword, that seems more your speed. I’ll take the armor and the runt.”
For once in his life, Ed didn’t immediately freak out about being called a runt. Maybe even he recognized they were in serious enough danger to let something like that slide. Instead he said, “Actually, I think I’m just gonna leave.” and darted toward Envy’s flank, maybe trying to use their large size against them to slip by them and back out the door before they could twist around for the attack.
Ling wasn’t able to watch and see how that tactic worked out for his friend because, faster than seemed possible, Wrath was no longer across the room but right in front of him, swinging a sword toward his neck. Only Lan Fan calling out a warning allowed Ling to react in time to block the attack, and the force of the blow sent him stumbling back.
Ling could hear Ed and Al fighting Envy, and it sounded like they were struggling (it also sounded like Ed had landed at least one blow because he yelled “that’s for calling me a runt!” So much for letting things go in a dangerous situation), but he couldn’t go to help them or even spare a glance in their direction. It took all his energy to match Wrath, and he spent more time blocking and dodging than making his own attacks, unable to find an opening.
He didn’t know if the man was one of the witch’s created weapons. He must have been, from the weird name and how unnaturally fast he moved, but he didn’t appear to transform his body in any way.
But he could pull seemingly infinite swords from somewhere, rearming himself instantly the one time Ling managed to disarm him, and throwing them with as much deadly accuracy as he wielded them when Ling tried to retreat and put some distance between them.
Gluttony, apparently unable to decide who he should be attacking without explicit instructions, just took a swipe at whatever intruder happened to be in range of him at any given time as the fight took them around the room. It was better than having to fight two at once, but the added need to keep track of distance from him wasn’t something Ling appreciated.
He tried to keep circling to Wrath’s left, to put himself in the blind spot created by the eyepatch. His success was limited, but the strategy was letting him keep his head attached so far, and he didn’t see any better options so he kept to it.
The witch eventually grew impatient with the fight.
“Enough,” he said, not yelling but somehow projecting his voice across the room and over the sound of fighting.
Ling didn’t look over, refusing to be distracted.
But then Al asked: “Dad?”
At the same time Ed snarled: “Hohenheim!”
That got Ling’s attention.
“Your dad’s a witch?” That was the type of thing he’d hope his friends would tell him before it came up mid-battle.
The witch did look a lot like Ed, an old man with graying blond hair that had probably once been the same shade as Ed’s braid, and eyes the same distinctive golden color.
Whether the Elrics were going to answer him, or keep yelling at the witch that was maybe their dad, Ling never found out. Envy took advantage of the distraction and slammed one giant hand down into Ed and the other into Al, pinning them both to the floor.
“Ling!” Lan Fan yelled, and he jumped back away from Wrath’s sword.
He just barely got out of the way, a stinging cut opening on his cheek instead of the intended decapitation.
Wrath followed up by throwing his sword, and the thin blade slotted cleanly into the loop at the back of Lan Fan’s hilt, ripping her out of Ling’s hand. The sword continued on its path, and buried itself deeply into the wall.
Ling dashed over and yanked on the sword, but it didn’t budge.
“Duck!” Lan Fan shouted, and Ling dropped to the floor right as the blade of yet another sword hit the wall where his head had been with enough force to shatter the tempered steel.
Ling rolled to the side and sprung back to his feet. He and Wrath circled each other again, but this time Ling tried not to let himself be moved too far from Lan Fan.
“Ling, just go,” Lan Fan cried. Her voice, already faded in Ling’s mind from a few feet of distance, sounded desperate in a way he’d never heard her before. “Get out of here, please!”
“I’m not leaving you,” Ling snapped. He wouldn’t leave any of them. There had to be a way to–
Something slammed into Ling’s side, tackling him to the ground. Too late, he realized he’d forgotten to keep track of Gluttony.
As he struggled beneath Gluttony’s weight, watching the grinding teeth of whatever his weapon form was inch closer and closer, Ling really wished he’d been a little less confident in his abilities and chosen not to come here.
“Wait,” the witch called.
Gluttony stopped a second short of turning Ling into mince meat.
The Witch walked slowly towards Ed and Al.
“You two are Van Hohenheim’s children?” he asked.
“What’s it to you, you bastard?” Ed growled.
“Yes, we are,” Al, ever more diplomatic, rushed to answer. “You–um well– you look a lot like him.”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” The man muttered. Then, louder, he added, “We’ll be keeping these ones alive, Envy, so do try not to crush them too much if you haven’t already.”
“Um, alright,” Envy said, shifting to put less weight on the Elrics.
“As for the others,” the witch turned back to look at Ling. “We don’t need them. You can go ahead and eat that one, Gluttony.”
“No!” Ed yelled. “No, please, they're our friends!”
“But I have no use for them. A measly two souls aren’t even enough to use in my experiments. Although…” He tilted his head, regarding Ling with a more considering eye. “I suppose it might be time to give Greed another chance.”
The witch stood up straighter and clapped his hands sharply. “Wrath, Gluttony, bring the boy over here. I have use for him after all.”
Gluttony whined in disappointment, but obediently shifted off of Ling and grabbed one of his arms. Wrath grabbed the other, and the two of them began dragging Ling toward the throne in the middle of the room, ignoring his struggling as if it were nothing.
“No!” Lan Fan screamed.
Ling twisted to look at her.
She’d taken her human form again. The sword that had been harmlessly hooked through the loop of her pommel was now stabbing her arm just below her right shoulder. There wasn’t much blood, the blade completely filling the wound, but that arm flopped limply as she struggled, reaching toward Ling.
“Let him go! Bring him back!”
“Lan Fan, stop moving,” Ling yelled. “Your arm! You’ll make it worse if you don’t hold still!”
“I don’t care,” Lan Fan reached up to yank at the hilt of the sword. She managed only the slightest movement of the blade, and blood began oozing more quickly from around it. “Let him go! Take me instead!”
The witch and his weapons ignored her. Ling was dragged in front of the throne and forced to his knees as the witch retrieved a small flask of some viscous red liquid from a table nearby.
Gluttony moved to hold both of Ling’s arms, and Wrath took ahold of his chin, forcibly tilting his head up.
“This may hurt,” the witch said calmly, sounding almost like a doctor about to administer a shot.
“Let him go, you bastards!” Ed snarled.
“Please, stop this!” Al begged.
“Ling!” Lan Fan’s yell sounded more like a sob.
And then the witch tipped the contents of the flask into the cut on Ling’s cheek, and he couldn’t hear anything over his own screaming anymore.
—
Ling’s body twisted and writhed in ways it was never meant to, his bones breaking and rehealing over and over, his insides feeling like they were being boiled.
It was excruciating.
It was too much.
Ling retreated from reality into the place inside himself he accessed for soul resonance training with Lan Fan. Not quite inside his own soul, but not in his body either. A quiet and empty void.
Except it wasn’t quiet or empty now. The pain followed him down, though it wasn’t as strong as it had been, and the space was full of a thousand overlapping screams.
And there was another soul there.
The soul wasn’t normal. Not in the twisted, evil way the kishin eggs Lan Fan consumed on their missions were. It just looked like it had been put together hurriedly from the pieces of many others, somehow coming together into a cohesive whole.��
It was almost beautiful, in an alien way.
As Ling watched, the soul’s shape changed, until he was looking at a large, shadowy face with jagged teeth and glowing white eyes.
“Well, what do we have here?” The voice came from the face in front of him, though its mouth didn’t move. “Am I supposed to be using your body now?”
“What’s happening to me?” Ling asked.
“They didn’t explain, huh?” the thing asked. “Yeah, they wouldn’t. The names Greed, kid, and if I had to guess, what’s happening is they put me in your bloodstream and now your body’s trying to adapt to my power. Probably doesn’t feel too good.”
Maybe Ling was going crazy, but the floating head sounded a little sympathetic.
“Look, you should probably just let go. Let yourself fade back into your soul or whatever. Only one person’s ever survived this, as far as I know, and it’s not a pretty way to go. I can keep you from feeling it, but not when you're fighting to stay conscious like this.”
“If I die, will they try again with someone else?”
“Huh?” One of Greed’s eyes got bigger than the other, giving the impression of raising an eyebrow he didn’t have. “Yeah, probably, if there’s anyone else around. Won’t be your problem anymore, though, will it?”
Ling thought of Lan Fan, pinned to a wall with a mangled arm and still fighting to get to him, to help him.
He couldn’t let her go through this.
Ling stood up as straight as he could while floating in a void and glared at Greed.
“I’m not going to die,” Ling willed himself to believe his own words as he spoke. “There are people counting on me. I’m going to save my friends, and I’ll take on all your power to do it if I have to.”
Greed stared at him silently for a moment, somehow looking stunned despite being mostly sharp teeth and empty eyes. Then he burst out laughing.
The laugh sounded more delighted than mocking, which was not what Ling would have expected.
“Oh, I like you,” Greed said when he was done with his laughing fit. “This is gonna be fun. Alright then, you take my power, and we’ll see what we can do for your friends. I got a score to settle with the old bastard myself.”
Greed moved closer to Ling, his mouth finally opening, stretching wide enough to swallow Ling whole. A blinding white light shone from between Greed’s teeth as they rushed toward Ling. The screaming around them crescendoed, growing louder and louder until Ling realized he was screaming along with it. Everything became so overwhelming, he was certain he was about to be ripped apart, and then–
—
Ling’s eyes opened, but he wasn’t the one to open them.
His body was still kneeling on the floor, right where it had been, his arms stretched out to either side of him.
Wrath and the witch stood looming over him. Gluttony had wandered away, not in Ling’s direct sight anymore, though he didn’t dare hope he’d gone far.
The pain faded rapidly, energy crackling around him as his body healed, until he felt fine. Better than fine. Maybe better than he’d ever felt in his life.
Ling’s head raised, his eyes looked around, but once again it wasn’t him behind the movements.
“Ling?” Ed asked. “Are you okay?”
Greed looked over at where Ed was still pressed to the floor by one of Envy’s hands. He smiled, and Ling could feel it pulling at his face in a way his own expressions never did.
“Oh, is that his name?” Greed asked. “Sorry, but Ling can’t come to the phone right now. Greed’s running the show from here on out.”
Hey, that’s one of my friends! Ling protested. You said we would–
Shut up and let me sell this, Greed hissed back inside the shared space between their souls.
“Greed,” The witch said. “Welcome back to the family, my son. Your past transgressions shall be forgiven, if you agree to once more work with us for our common goals.”
Ugh, I hate this guy, Greed muttered.
Out loud, he said: “What else could I do, when you’ve so kindly given me a second chance, Father?” He bowed Ling’s head in what might have been a convincing show of respect to someone who couldn’t hear his thoughts. “I promise, I won’t waste my new life.”
“Very good,” the witch hummed his approval. “Then rise, and tell me, how does the new body feel? And what form does the weapon inside you take now?”
“It feels pretty great,” Greed answered as he stood up.
He raised both of Ling’s hands to eye level, and instead of the horrible twisting transformation Ling had been halfway bracing himself for, all that happened was a coal black something covering the skin to about halfway up his arms. The nails grew a bit longer and sharper, but nothing as dramatic as the woman Mustang had killed. (who Ling supposed must be the missing Lust)
“Still got my shield,” Greed added. Obviously, don’t know what else the asshole expected to happen.
“How disappointing,” the witch said. “I had hoped that combining your melted essence with a skilled swordsman such as this one would allow you to take a more useful shape, something suited to attacking rather than weak defense. Still, it can’t be helped I suppose. I can still find use for–”
“Monster!” Lan Fan shrieked from her place against the wall. “Give Ling his body back! Get out of him!”
Greed didn’t turn to look at her.
Ling wished he would, desperate to check on her.
Ling was grateful he didn’t, not wanting to see the pain he could hear in his best friend’s voice on her face.
“Fraid I can’t do that, sweetheart,” Greed drawled. “Not exactly a thing where I can just jump back out of the body once I’m in it, you understand.”
Don’t talk to her like that! Ling snapped, and was surprised to feel his hands twitch in response to his own emotion.
Greed couldn’t jump back out, but maybe Ling could still get back in control.
Stop that! Greed admonished. I told you, I have to sell this. Just trust me for a minute, would you?
The witch turned to regard Lan Fan. “I’m afraid you’ve outlived your usefulness,” he said. “Wrath, dispose of her.”
No! Ling thrashed where he was trapped within his own body, but before he could make any progress, Greed moved.
Taking advantage of the witch’s distraction, the moment Wrath stepped away, Greed plunged one of Ling’s hands into the old man’s chest.
Whatever his shield was made of, it punched through flesh and bone as easily as a knife passing through butter.
“Like I said, Dad,” Greed spat. “I’m not wasting the chance you’ve given me.”
The witch looked very unconcerned for a man with a hand in his chest.
A wave of force slammed into Ling’s body, throwing him and Greed to the floor.
“So disappointing,” the witch sighed. His chest was healing with the same crackling energy that had surrounded Ling’s body moments before. “You do so much for your children, but in the end you can’t prevent them from making the same mistakes again and again. Oh well. Wrath, leave the girl and kill your brother for me.”
Wrath lunged at them, his movements almost too fast to follow. For the second time that day, Ling was in a fight with the ridiculously skilled swordsman, but this time he wasn’t even able to control his body. He had to rely on Greed to dodge and block fast enough, using his shielded hands to deflect blow after blow in a deadly dance.
Can’t you put that shield over more of my body? Ling asked as Wrath managed to cut his face, again. At least this time it healed almost before the pain could register.
That would take too much energy to power it up in the middle of a fight. Greed answered. Still kinda settling into my new body here, you know? This is what we have to work with for now.
Too much energy…
Ling knew one way to boost a weapon’s power and allow for high energy attacks.
I’m going to try soul resonance. Ling said.
No way, Greed argued, ducking a slash from Wrath’s sword so close Ling was pretty sure it cut an inch off his ponytail. We don’t even know if you can match my wavelength, and if you do it wrong the distraction will get us killed!
We’re going to get killed eventually anyway if we do nothing. You can’t keep this up forever. And anyway, if our souls weren’t at least somewhat compatible my body would have rejected you, right?
Maybe? I don’t actually know how that works.
I can do it, Ling said. He couldn’t lie to someone sharing his body like this. He had to make himself believe it. I know I can. Just–trust me for a minute would you?
…Fine, Greed said. But hurry up, alright? You weren’t lying when you said I couldn’t keep this up forever.
Even as Greed spoke, Wrath got another hit in. This time it was on Ling's left arm above the shield, and felt much deeper. It still healed right away, but it was clear that Greed was losing ground.
Ling forced himself to ignore the fight, instead turning his attention to Greed’s soul.
The soul was unfamiliar, and reaching toward it felt strange. Ling didn’t know if that was because it was artificially constructed, or if he just wasn’t used to resonating with someone who wasn’t Lan Fan. She was the only weapon he’d ever worked with before.
(Wrath knocked Greed off balance, and Ling distantly felt himself falling. He didn’t let it distract him.)
Greed’s wavelength was much more aggressive than Lan Fan’s. There was a sense of desperately reaching for something to it, whereas Lan Fan felt more grounded and content.
(Greed hit the floor, and before he could try to get back up or even roll away, Wrath was standing over him, one foot on either side of Ling’s torso, trapping them in place. Ling ignored it.)
And yet, Ling discovered that matching this new wavelength wasn’t as difficult as he’d feared. Even as frenetic as it was, there was a clear opening within it. An empty space that Ling found he slotted into nearly perfectly.
(Wrath’s sword swung down toward their neck.)
Ling’s soul wavelength matched Greeds completely.
The shield spread up from their arms and over their whole body. It reached their neck a millisecond before Wrath’s blade, and the sword snapped on impact.
The shield kept spreading up. Ling felt it cover their head, but he wasn’t thinking about it’s progress anymore.
Wrath stumbled back a step, and they surged to their feet. Ling wasn’t sure who was controlling the body anymore. He didn’t think it even mattered at this point.
This didn’t feel like soul resonance with Lan Fan.
That always felt powerful in a safe familiar way, a close connection with the best friend he’d known his whole life. They worked together well because they had been close for as long as either of them could remember. It was a comfortable teamwork that Ling treasured.
This was something else entirely. Greed’s soul was unfamiliar, and yet it felt like an expansion of Ling’s own. It was brand new and exciting; a little frightening as Ling felt himself swept along Greed’s wavelength, but exhilarating as he could tell Greed was moving along with him just as much. It was a dance, and a struggle for dominance, and an embrace all at once. Ling didn’t know what they would do–what they could do–together, but the possibilities felt endless.
Wrath backed away as they stepped toward him. He threw more blades as they approached, but Ling couldn’t even feel them when they bounced off the shield.
“Oh what the hell?” Envy yelled from where they were still restraining Ed and Al near the door.
There was a noise like cannon fire from that direction, and something exploded against Ling and Greed’s back. It didn’t even break their stride.
The clawed tips of their fingers had grown longer than before. Watching Wrath retreat got abruptly boring, and they rushed forward, sticking those sharp claws into Wrath’s abdomen just below the ribs.
“This is for my friends,” they growled.
Ling didn’t know who’s anger was fueling them more, if they were taking revenge for Lan Fan’s injury or something that had happened in Greed’s past.
It didn’t matter which it was.
It was both.
They lifted their arm and flung Wrath over their head. He flew through the air and collided with the back of the throne with a sickening crunch.
They turned to the witch, but before they could take a step in his direction he made some complicated gesture with his hands and an orb of shimmering red force closed around them.
A soul wavelength painfully disparate from theirs surrounded them on all sides, and the resonance abruptly ended.
They fell to their knees, the impact jarring as the shield retreated to only covering their forearms once again.
Now Ling could tell it was Greed who clapped their hands over their ears against the onslaught.
“That’s enough of your little tantrum,” the witch said, barely even looking at them. “Gluttony, you can eat him.”
“Thank you father!” Gluttony yelled.
Ling couldn’t move. Couldn’t try to wrestle control back from Greed. Could barely think.
He could only watch as Gluttony leapt toward them, grinning and eager to devour them.
And then a blade passed through Gluttony’s head at the level of his eyes.
A blow like that must have severed the monster’s brain.
His body fell to the ground, the smile still wide on the lower half of his face.
Lan Fan stood behind him. Her left arm turned into a blade just below the elbow.
Her right arm was gone from the shoulder, nothing but a bloody stump.
Ling didn’t turn to look, but he was sure the arm was right where it had been, pinned to the wall, and now cut away.
“You will not touch him,” Lan Fan growled. The rage in her voice was like nothing Ling had ever heard.
“Lan Fan,” he gasped out, back in control of his own voice.
“Ling?” Lan Fan’s eyes widened. “You are still in there! Ling, you have to fi–”
“This is completely unacceptable,” the witch said. He was glaring at Lan Fan, showing something other than vague disinterest for the first time since Ling had laid eyes on him.
Now he looked pissed.
“You break into my home. You ransack my research laboratories. And now you kill one of my children.”
He stalked toward Lan Fan as he spoke. She stood firm, but Ling could see her beginning to sway on her feet, the blood loss no doubt catching up to her.
With his focus on Lan Fan, the sphere of disrupting soul wavelength around Greed and Ling began to dissipate. They struggled to their feet.
“This will not stand!” the witch roared, raising his hands in preparation for some spell.
Lan Fan raised her one remaining arm to block whatever was coming.
Whatever it was, they’d never find out.
Greed once again punched through his father’s rib cage with one clawed hand. Not willing to leave anything to chance this time, Ling slashed the claws of their other hand across the back of the witch’s neck, cutting through the spinal cord.
His body tumbled to the floor, and it didn’t move again.
A moment of stunned silence.
Then Envy screamed.
“Greed, you traitor! How dare you side with these worms? I’ll kill you for this!”
They jumped over Ed and Al to rush at Greed.
Before they got there, the wall opposite the door exploded inward, and more teachers from the DWMA poured into the room.
Ling didn’t care to stand and watch the fight that followed. He ran to Lan Fan’s side, just making it in time to catch her as she fell and lower her gently to the floor.
“You idiot,” Ling said, surprised when it came out like a sob. He realized that he was crying. “Why would you cut off your arm for me? You could have died!”
“You could have died,” Lan Fan said.
Ling pulled off his jacket and pressed it against what remained of her shoulder. She cried out in pain, and Ling felt like scum, but he didn’t let up the pressure.
After a few gasping breaths Lan Fan continued: “And I would have had to watch you die, useless and stuck to the wall. This was the only way.”
Ling shook his head. “Still. Your arm–”
“Well I for one am grateful that you saved my ass!” Greed put in, shoving Ling out of control mid-sentence.
Lan Fan narrowed her eyes. “I was saving Ling, not you.”
Greed shrugged casually, but Ling could tell how careful he was not to let the gesture jostle Lan Fan's shoulder where he was still holding the jacket against it.
“Yeah, well. Same ass, so thanks anyway.”
“I hate you,” Lan Fan said, without much force behind it. “Also, I’m going to pass out now, so don’t let Ling die before I wake up.”
“No!” Ling reclaimed control of their body. “Lan Fan, don’t pass out, okay? You need to try to stay awake.”
“Can’t. Sorry,” Lan Fan murmured, and then her eyes closed and her head lolled limply against the ground.
“Lan Fan!” Ling screamed.
Distantly, he was aware of the sounds of fighting coming to a close, of someone–Professor Stein maybe–trying to tug him away from Lan Fan and saying to let him look, of Greed taking back control to make him obey.
He heard Greed in their head more clearly than the noises around them.
Let the doctor guy look at her, Ling. She’ll be okay. She’s tough, I can already tell.
Ling couldn’t pull their eyes away from Lan Fan. He appreciated Greed trying to comfort him, but he couldn’t answer.
He wouldn’t believe she’d be okay until he saw her awake again. And until then, nothing else mattered.
—
Lan Fan woke up the next day.
Ling and Greed were sitting in a chair they’d dragged next to her bed in the infirmary. They’d refused to leave her side since she’d been out of surgery.
A few times some of the higher ranking meisters and death scythes had tried to draw them away for a debrief, but they’d refused to go.
Surprisingly, Professor Hawkeye had taken their side. Glaring from where she sat in her own chair beside Mustang’s bed, she snapped at the would-be interrogators to have some patience and respect.
Ling was pretty sure they wouldn’t have been allowed to stay no matter how much he wanted them to if she hadn’t stepped in.
He promised himself to always pay attention in her class from now on, and never let any other students get away with badmouthing her.
Lan Fan woke slowly, and smiled when she saw Ling leaning over her, hovering with indecision between running to get help and staying by her side.
Then the smile fell away, and she looked down at where her arm should be. Where it never would be again.
Ling cleared his throat. “Winry can make you a new one, once you’ve healed. Like Ed’s.”
“Right,” Lan Fan agreed. Her voice sounded hollow.
Greed slid into control of the body, and Ling felt a shit eating grin grow across their face.
“You should have her make you something with spikes and flames and shit. Something real cool, better than the old boring one.”
Lan Fan turned and glared at Greed. “I don’t want your opinion on what I do with my arm.”
She was angry, but Ling thought she might also be glad for the distraction. At the very least there was life in her eyes again.
Greed shrugged. “Fine, do what you want. Get a lame normal prosthetic and waste the chance of a lifetime for badass body modification. See if I–”
“So,” Ling interrupted before Lan Fan could decide to try and strangle Greed one handed. “You’ll never believe what stupid shit I heard Black Star and Kid got up to this time.”
—
They were still talking about nothing important, Ling holding Lan Fan’s hand, a few hours later when the door to the infirmary opened and Stein walked in.
Ling couldn’t say he was a fan of Stein’s bedside manner. The man always gave the impression that he’d rather peel your skin off and look at what was under it than give you a bandaid(not least because he occasionally waxed poetic about the joys of peeling skin off to look at what was under it), but he was the closest thing the school had to medical professional after the former nurse turned out to be a crazy snake witch bent on plunging the world into madness.
And, to be fair, he never actually experimented on any of the students in his care.
As far as Ling knew.
So he assumed the man was there to check up on Lan Fan or Mustang, and didn’t pay him any mind.
Until Lord Death himself walked in behind him.
It was rare to see their school’s headmaster outside of his office. He only made visits to other areas when something very important came up. And since there wasn’t an imminent threat to existence as they knew it, that could only mean that they were in big trouble.
“Hi, howdy, hello, everyone!” Lord Death greeted them brightly. “I hear you young people have had quite the adventure.”
Ling wished he could take the good mood as a sign he wasn’t about to be expelled, or arrested, or worse, but Lord Death was always like that.
Before Ling could figure out a safe answer, Greed took control again.
“Oh, now what the fuck are you?”
“Shut up!” Ling hissed, shoving Greed back out of the way. “Lord Death, I apologize. He didn’t mean it how it sounded, really! Please forgive–”
“No need for that, Ling,” Lord Death said, waving an oversized hand dismissively. “I know the way I present myself is less than impressive. Don’t want to scare the students, after all! And that little outburst did prove that what the Elrics said was true. You really do have someone else rattling around in that head of yours.”
Ling could feel Greed trying to get control again, no doubt to insult Lord Death again, but he held his ground. That surprised Greed enough that he stopped reaching to take over.
What gives, Ling, he complained.
Lord Death is in charge of this school, Ling explained. He can expel me–or throw us both in a cell–if he wants, so please just stay quiet for now.
That’s in charge? Greed asked. This place is even weirder than the old man’s hideout. But fine, whatever, I’ll be good.
Lord Death turned to Stein. “Is there anything that can be done? I hate the thought of leaving the poor Yao boy stuck like this.”
That was marginally insulting.
Stein shook his head. “Unfortunately, no," he intoned, absentmindedly tightening the screw through his cranium. "As far as I’m aware, there’s no way to separate a meister and weapon who have been fused like this. I’ve been looking into it for Crona, and I haven’t been able to make any progress. It doesn’t help that I can’t experiment on them.” At everyone in the room’s concerned looks, he quickly tacked on: “Not that I would. They’ve had enough experimenting in their life, and respect their bodily autonomy. And Marie would kill me if I tried it.”
“Lord Death, Professor Stein, we don’t want to be separated,” Ling said.
Everyone turned to look at him like he’d grown a second head.
“It’s–I know I didn’t ask for this,” Ling tried to explain. “But Greed and I work well together. We get along. And, especially if trying to break us apart would be dangerous, I’d rather we stay this way.”
You really mean that? Greed asked. Ling could feel the disbelief coming off him in waves.
With a sinking heart, Ling realized he’d never actually talked to Greed about this.
I do, Ling said because it was true. But I guess I shouldn’t speak for both of us. If you want your own body, we can see if Stein–
“You heard him, we’re staying like this,” Greed said like he was daring anyone to argue with him.
Lord Death sighed. “No offense intended, Greed was it? But you are an unknown entity, one we have no experience with, and it would be irresponsible of me to endanger my students by–”
Hawkeye snorted, which was the most undignified and unprofessional thing Ling had ever witnessed her do.
“Endanger how? With all due respect, Lord Death, he’s been here for over 24 hours already and all he’s done is sit by Lan Fan’s bedside and make a few jokes in poor taste. If he meant to pose a threat, surely he’d have done so by now.”
“Professor Hawkeye is right,” Lan Fan spoke up. “Greed has done nothing to hurt any of us. He didn’t choose to be fused with Ling, and Ling would have died–we all would have died–if Greed hadn’t killed Wrath and the witch. If–” Lan Fan paused, her voice suddenly very watery.
Ling was alarmed to see tears gathering in her eyes.
Lan Fan swallowed heavily before continuing. “If Ling wants Greed to be his new weapon now that I’m crippled, then–”
“No,” Ling interrupted her. “No, no way Lan Fan! I’d never abandon you like that! You’re my best friend. Greed may have helped me kill the witch, but I got those other 99 souls with you. We started this journey together, and that’s how we’ll finish it!”
“But you said–”
“Death the Kid has two weapons. I don’t see why I can’t do the same.” Ling placed a hand on her hair. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I think the three of us could be a really good team. If that’s okay with the two of you?”
Lan Fan sniffled and nodded.
Greed took back over the body, and smiled in a way Ling didn’t trust.
“Fine by me,” Greed said. “I’m always down for a three way.”
Ling shoved him to the back of their mindscape.
“Ew! Don’t phrase it like that!”
Lan Fan just laughed.
Ling was shocked by that reaction, but also grateful to Greed for making it happen. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh since things started going bad at the witch’s stronghold.
“Alright, you’ve convinced me!” Lord Death said. “Greed can stay, and be enrolled as another student of the DWMA. I always do love giving people a chance. Of course you know, Ling, this means you’ll have to get double the souls of all the other meister students. 99 kishin eggs and one witch apiece.”
Ling nodded. “That’s very fair, Lord Death. I can handle that. After all, Lan Fan and I already got her 99, and Greed and I killed a witch.”
“Well, actually,” Lord Death started, and Ling could already tell he would hate the rest of this sentence. “Since you went after a witch and failed to kill him with Lan Fan’s blade, the two of you will have to start over.”
“What!” Ling and Lan Fan screeched in perfect unison.
“Yes, I know it’s no fun, but them’s the rules!” Lord Death said. “The same applies to the Elric boys. Let that be a lesson for you all about stowing away on missions you’ve been told you’re not ready for!”
“Also, not to kick you when you’re down,” Greed put in. “But everyone keeps talking about me and Ling killing the witch, and he is for sure not dead.”
“Huh? But we stabbed in the heart and cut his spine!”
“Yeah, and did you see a soul?” Greed asked. “He figured out how to siphon most of it off for safekeeping in a different container ages ago. That’s what all the tubes were for. You were kind of checked out, but I saw Envy get away with his body and Wrath. They definitely retrieved the soul before they booked it to another safe house. Oh, Wrath also isn’t dead. His brain was still attached and he wasn’t a pile of ash, so he can heal.”
“Oh god, this is the worst,” Ling groaned, putting his head in his hands.
Lan Fan patted him on the back, and Greed did the mental equivalent of the same.
“We can handle it,” Lan Fan said.
“Oh yeah, it’ll be no problem,” Greed put in.
Ling supposed that, if he had to start from square one on gathering twice the souls he’d thought he’d ever need and eventually deal with an ancient witch’s inevitable revenge plot, he could at least do so with good company.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Ling said. “We’ve totally got this.”
#greedxlingweek2024#fma#greed fma#ling yao#greedling#lan fan#edward elric#alphonse elric#soul eater#but don't expect any soul eater characters to show up for more than 2 seconds#oh crossover that'll be easy i thought#i love so many characters with a gay ass body sharing situation!#i'll just do a quick little scene of them talking to eddie and venom or jaime and khaji da#and it'll be no prob-#inspiration grabbing me by the throat and looking me dead in the eyes: soul eater universe fusion#me: but that's so much work and i haven't even watched soul eater all the way through since highschool couldnt i just#inspiration tightening its grip with every word: soul. eater. universe. fusion. or nothing.#this got a little out of hand#the concept was so cool and i wanted to explore it#and then i'd written 3 thousand words before greed even showed up#the yapper strikes again#anyway like i said i haven't watched soul eater in ages#so if you see anything that doesn't make sense within the rules of that universe#no you don't
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I was just thinking that, if we do actually get amnesiac Jay, him eventually getting his memories back could be really interesting. Because obviously you’ve got all the great memories with his family and the people he loves, but at the same time just— the horrors. The guy has so much trauma piled up from over the years and I feel like that would be A Lot to have dumped on you all at once.
#like I get Ninjago is still a kids show so they probably wouldn’t lean into that angle much#or realistically they probably wouldn’t even acknowledge it at all#but I still think it’s a really interesting concept#like yeah of course you want the memories of your loved ones and all the good times back#but those also come with just so many traumatic ones#and we’ve seen before that Jay… doesn’t exactly have the best mental fortitude#when situations get really bad he’s pretty much always the first one to crack#like in hunted and crystalized#idk I just think it would be a cool angle to explore#ninjago dragons rising#dragons rising#Ninjago#ninjago jay#jay walker#dragons rising spoilers#dr spoilers#dragons rising leaks
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The older I get and the more terrible takes I see the more in favour I become of gatekeeping
#text post#Normies who so so so badly want to be part of a certain crowd to be quirky while being actually disgusted by that crowd's whole thing#People going “I want that old man” but the character is 30 because they can't imagine someone REALLY thirsting after an actual older man#“He's so caked up!” about a Genshin Impact character because when people say that they can't POSSIBLY mean being attracted to fat people#“This game is ableist” because the horror game with horror themes explores extremely dark concepts#and they want to like the popular horror because it's cool to like it but they can't fathom people ACTUALLY liking REAL dark content#“This game should have an easy mode” because the super hard game known for being hard is too hard for them#and they hate not being part of the fandom about the hard game that's known for being hard#“Ok hear me out” about the most milquetoast character because when people say “hear me out”#they can't POSSIBLY be ACTUALLY attracted to the really weird shit#and if they are any of these things they are sick and twisted and problematic and -ist and -phobic and perverts and degenerates#I'm done#Stop trying to be a freak for clout when at your core you're actually happier with generic crowdpleaser media#Stop moving into spaces not for you and then demanding they cater to you#And forcing out the real audience using morality and shame as your weapons of choice#I'm so fucking done#vent
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as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.
and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.
and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.
and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).
but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.
and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.
it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.
and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.
#jason todd#jason todd meta#red hood#batfam#batman#dc comics#comic analysis#classism#tw: csa mention#maybe someday half of the most intriguing and nuanced aspects of his character will be touched upon#red hood outlaw 51-52 had some cool moments wrt jason + class + hometown friends + systems of power but. that was a two issue arc#and even then it was admittedly messy#GOD i want him to be three dimensional and well rounded and well used#even if a writer wrote a fucking. filler comic for an annual or smthn exploring what jason does outside of being red hood#keep the name if u want. have him have deliberately taken the name of his killer and twisted it until ppl from his city know rh#as a protector of kids and the poor and sex workers and so on. that WORKS. but show him connecting w his community#have him get involved in mutual aid. have him do something when he’s not out as red hood at night. let us see jason & barbara interact more#or jason and steph !!!!!!!! or another positive but complicated dynamic (he has a lot of those)#i just. i think that his stagnancy makes me fucking sad. i liked some aspects of task force z. felt like it ended too soon tho#FUCK the joker lets unpack his self concept & have him be a real person outside of vigilanteism (?) and vengeance#i liked some aspects of the cheer arc in batman urban legends mostly bc he had SOME agency and bc he wasn’t completely flat#even tho i hate the retconning of robin jason being angry and moody and so on#part of the problem is we don’t see him too too often for more than semi brief appearances so im so happy to see him i’ll just accept it#love the idea of a nightwing & red hood team up comic. hate that tom taylor a) wrote it and b) gave jason that stupid ass line abt justice#u think this man trusts cops ????? or the legal system !????????? BITCH.#get jason todd into like a sociology / gender and intersectionality / feminist studies class NOWWWWW#ok im done im sleepy and going to watch nimona. thx for reading to anyone who did#PLS anyone who reads this let me know what u think im frothing at the mouth rn#wes.txt#mine
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Hey, I was just thinking about something to do with your Seer Twins AU that actually makes a lot of sense. I know that Donnie sees the good in his visions while Leo sees the bad, but what about if they need to connect two partial visions together to make a complete vision or something like that. This is where, what I'm calling the bridge comes into play. This third person, who is also born at or around the same time as the seers, has both the yin and yang marks on them, but can't use that part of their powers on their own and it won't even show up on scanners unless they're near one of the others while they're having or are about to have a vision. That being said, they can help the other 2 when they have waking visions weather by just being there or protecting them with their extremely powerful abilities. I think you know where I'm going with this. I can see that Mikey is the bridge for Donnie and Leo, and they don't realize it because the yin and yang symbols that he has are in his spots that have subtle swirls to them anyway. With this theory, Draxem originally scanned Mikey when one of his brothers either was about to or was having a vision while he was around, but the next time he scanned Mikey that wasn't the case, and Draxem just assumed it was because of his extremely powerful Ninpo. With this theory as well, the counsel doesn't know about the bridge thing, and just thinks some of the visions are extremely vague.
Also I can see Leo and Donnie getting charms of some sort, in the good future timeline, that helps them control their visions better.
First of all, this is very cool. and i like it a lot. Mikey having having a role in this that no one has figured out? And a little symbol that just looks like a spot with a color variation? Fantastic and adorable!
I will like to add some things to this. Like
Mikey wouldn't be able to see the visions he helps with, like at all. He's assisting but is not fully part of it.
Since the twins' standard visions are broken up bits of visions kinda scrambled around, if Mikey just being close by helps stabilize them so they can see them more linearly. (the twins don't have to be together at the time either. This is just something he passively does to either of them. Meaning Donnie's blueberry pancake vision was probably quite a bit less jumbled/more clear than he's used to having just b/c Mikey was there.)
I think it would also be cool that if he's actively helping them while they're together that, like what you said, they both get a full image of what's happening. But also like, i think for the twins, it would be more like a lucid dream than a vision. Like, normally they're just watching what's happening with flashes of feelings from whoever they're watching from. But like, if it's assisted like that, they're more aware in said vision and can possibly watch from a third person perspective rather than a first.
I also really like the idea that though that's something this third can do, it's not their main thing. I think this third is there to help if needed, but mostly is there to protect. Since Seers (especially newly come into their powers seers) are quite vulnerable during their visions, they would need someone to watch over them during that time. They're given a giant mystic source with powerful mystic abilities to go with it.
I don't think he'd need a second source like Leo and Donnie, i think his one would just be compatible with the twins enough to augment the twins abilities.
i think it would be kinda neat too if Mikey can't sleep while one of them is having a vision. Like the second one of them slips into a vision he's awake and alert and, especially early on, has no idea why. A few minutes later, he gets tired again and goes right back to sleep. Whether it's limited by distance or not, i'm not sure at the moment. But i do like this since, his job is to protect them during visions so he mystically gets woken up to do that.
Like you said, it's not something the Council would be aware of b/c of the subtlety of it. (plus, even if they did know, I think they wouldn't like the idea. They see themselves as 'protecting' the seers so i don't think they would like the idea that they already had a naturally assigned protector.)
Anyways, that's all i have time to rant about right now. But i do really like this and it's given me quite a bit to think about while i'm at work tonight lol.
Thank you!!
#asks#tmnt#rottmnt#seer twins au#my doodles#not gonna lie but mikey being assigned their 'protector' is such a cool concept that i want to explore so bad#mikey has always been op in seer twins#but op mikey with a reason/job to be op for?#hell yeah
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honestly tempted to write a yandere sierra fic, but not in a romanticised way. like, a horror fic about how she relapsed into super unhealthy habits during/after all-stars, until she eventually tries killing either cody himself or the people in his life. or her forcing cameron into acting/dressing like cody in her mania, only to attack/kill him when he doesn't meet her impossibly high expectations.
just. sierra's stalking taken to it's logical extreme, and the consequences thereof.
#kinda drafty in here (posts from the drafts)#the yandere trope is SO FUN to think about it's a shame people only ever use it WRONG#yanderes shouldn't be romanticised or woobified they're CREEPY they're HORROR they're PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER#even just canon sierra's stalker troupe is such a cool concept to explore in the context of dark fic AND YET#so mad that pop culture's rose-tinted glasses has ruined the term 'yandere' i want to se fucked up girlies doing awful things#and i want them to face CONSEQUENCES. i want the narrative to punish them! i want acknowledgement that they're awful people!#total drama#td sierra
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Ep 5!!!
#Episodes that make me go “The author has never talked with a woman ever” 😓😓😓#I don't like how Lucy's character is handled at all. And I feel like I can't talk about it because I'm just going to sound like a bitter–#ss/kk shipper... But I really don't like it. And if it can help my case I'm a multishipper so I really don't take any–#issues with atsu/lucy I like the ship quite a lot actually.#So you're telling me there's this girl... Who meets this boy who pretty much ruined her life by directly causing her to lose her job...#And the next time she sees him she's going to sacrifice her own freedom for him as well as tell him “when you're done doing your things–#come and save me” (longest ewwww ever)... And when she regains freedom (author didn't bother to explain how because they don't care)–#she goes to work... As a waitress at the café beneath his workplace. So he can keep doing his Cool Superpowers Job while she literally–#must serve him every time he visits the place. It's just ?????????????????????????????????#Look‚ I don't dislike Lucy and I feel general affection towards her. It's just that they make her act like no one ever would#Just for the sake of the plot I guess#And like I knoww it's (probably just a little) more nuanced than that. I know Lucy is living her own fairy tale fantasy.#It's just that what I've said about her story is still true‚ you know?#I'm sorry but as sweet as atsu/lucy can be. I really hate the author for making Lucy a waitress. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.#It's so weird. This anime has women writing standards that feel like dating back to the 20s#Same with Katai and the ideal woman tbh. Like why are women to be seen as this abstract impersonal entities? Why can't they just be people?#Ideal for WHO. It's like super screwed up of a concept. What even is an ideal woman? What does it mean to be a woman anyways?#They just want to say “ideal wife”. But women aren't made to be wives their existence isn't functional to another person.#Sorry. I derail. Next episode is going to be even worse on this front ughhhh#Back to the episode: once again it really shows they were running out of budget with this season‚‚‚ the animation looks very suffered#Too many flashback also... I feel bad for the animators tbh#I don't really like the shift in art style :( Not even Atsushi I found particularly pretty this episode my heart cries#The nail pulling thing made me feel like throwing up afhsjyabfsbfwasfvb I feel like I can bear worse gore but there's a couple of little–#specific things I can't stand and this seems to be one of them pffftttt#I like Higuchi I think she's both very funny and cool. I really wish she was explored more (but then again looking at Teruko... )#The relationship between Kunikida and Katai looks so interesting even though we only get glimpses of it. Kunikida regrets Katai leaving–#the ada but is also happy for him but also worries for him. He comes to his house seemingly to check on him and starts cleaning around.#The way he loves him and cherishes their friendship and shared history is really evident and it makes for a compelling dynamic.#Perhaps I should read their short story... In any case. Going to someone's house and compulsively start doing the dishes half out of will–#to help out half because he can't bear the mess sounds a lot like something I'd do lol
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An Account From The Man Over There
(In which I decided to write a Cats musical fanfic where the beginning of the Jellicle Ball is shown from The Man Over There's perspective.)
Thomas did not have a good day today. What makes it worse is that he knows it could have been a good day. And a good final work day would be the perfect start to his days off.
His penultimate appointment of the day was for a new patient; a dear little cat name Euthymia, or Mia for short. Mia has the biggest eyes Thomas has ever seen on a cat before. She was also the sweetest, compliant cat he cared for at the clinic. Mia is very much like her owner in that regards. Mrs. Covey is also kind and sweet. Both of them are a matching pair, and Thomas wishes they were the last appointment of the day.
But they weren’t.
The less Thomas thinks about the final appointment of the day, the better. He doesn’t want to think again about how the pet owner believed a cat could survive a no-meat diet. He doesn’t want to recall how the owner told him shamelessly about switching their cat’s diet without asking a vet about it. He doesn’t want to think about how lost his cool, and how he barely kept his job.
As Thomas slumps down to the floor, his back right up against the door, he sighs. He’s tired and hungry. But he doesn’t want to finish his leftover takeout from yesterday.
Thomas instead decides to go to sleep early.
Thomas stands back up, and goes to his bedroom. He strips out of his clothes, remaining only in his boxer trunks. Picking up his trousers, Thomas reaches into the right pocket and pulls out his keys, setting them on his nightstand. And after setting his alarm for eight-thirty, Thomas flops stomach-side down onto his bed. He can throw his clothes in the hamper tomorrow morning.
Thomas rolls onto his backside, and stares at his ceiling. He stares, and soon eventually finds himself drifting off into sleep.
When Thomas wakes up again, the first thing that he hears is soften sounds of unexpected meowing and screeching from outside his bedroom window, where the nearby junkyard is. While there is the occasional cat or two (or more; Thomas once when sick counted the number of cats there, and counted seven) at the junkyard, the noises never get on his nerves.
Until now. And Thomas is not happy.
I already had a bad day yesterday, thinks Thomas. This isn’t what I need now.
Thomas groans as he gets out of his bed, rubbing both of his eyes. He soon finds himself staring at the racks of shoes near his closet. With an idea flashing into his mind, Thomas walks towards the pile of shoes, and picks up his good boot from the top rack.
Thomas then goes to his bedroom window. He slides open it up, and chucks the boot out.
And there’s nothing. It’s just a beautiful silence.
“MEOWMEOWQUEENMEOWOFTHEOWMENIGHT!”
“Oh for—”
Really? thinks Thomas. They didn’t scatter and leave? Well, that’s just great! Just great! Now I’m missing one boot. Why the hell did I threw my good boot? It wasn’t cheap!
Thomas slams his window close, and quickly goes back to his closet. He grabs one of his pajama bottoms and a knitted pullover, putting them on as fast as he can. Thomas then grabs his keys from the nightstand, slips his feet into a pair of slippers, and rushes out of his bedroom.
Thomas leaves his flat (but not without locking it; he’s not risking anything), and makes a dash to the junkyard. The quicker he finds his boot, the quicker he can go back home and get whatever shut-eye he can get before his alarm rings.
As Thomas approaches the junkyard, he can still hear the screeching and meowing. It’s louder than before, and more in sync, like a choir.
Now, when Thomas bought his flat from Mr. Faber, he was told the junkyard nearby is forbidden. No one can enter, unless they have a key. And Mr. Faber has the only key in existence. However, Thomas over time in his observation discovered that there is a way inside: through a broken fence piece at the entrance gate, located by the street lamp.
Thomas never thought he would enter the junkyard, especially by sneaking in. There’s a first time for everything, perhaps. And upon entering the junkyard —breaking into the junkyard— Thomas couldn’t help but think something is feeling…off.
He only took a few steps, but Thomas thinks that everything gotten bigger. A lot bigger, as if he shrank in size. And he thinks this more and more as he continues walking, realizing that it’s taking longer to walk to the center of the junkyard, where he knows his boot landed.
It’s at this point does Thomas realizes something isn’t right. Something about this night is wrong. The earlier meowing and screeching are gone. Instead, Thomas can now hear a group of people singing. And they’re singing. About cats.
“Romantical cats, Pedantical cats
Critical cats, Parasitical cats
Allegorical cats, Metaphorical cats
Statistical cats and Mystical cats!”
“I don’t think one can be metaphorical, cat or human,” mutters Thomas.
“Political cats, Hypocritical cats
Clerical cats, Hysterical cats
Cynical cats, Rabbinical cats!”
Thomas finally approaches the center of the junkyard. And he stops. He stops and carefully crouches behind something. A hat-box. He’s crouching behind a giant hat-box.
This can’t be real, thinks Thomas. This has to be a dream.
Thomas crouches behind the giant hat-box, and sees it. He sees it, and can’t believe it. It’s impossible, yet he’s witnessing it right before his very eyes.
Right before his eyes, Thomas sees a group of cats dancing and singing. The cats are singing like humans, and they look like humans. They resemble humans in stylize and detail costumes that are feline-like, fitting for a mega musical. The cats are dancing together in sync, their voices in unison. Voices he can understand; Thomas wonders anytime he was tipsy on a near or full moon and heard cats —or rather, one particular cat— speaking wasn’t his imagination.
“Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats!”
And out of everything to be thinking about in this moment, Thomas wants to know of one thing:
What is a Jellicle cat? Nothing of what I heard earlier actually define it…
Thomas makes the mistake of letting go of his hold of the hat-box. He slips and falls onto the ground of the junkyard. Thomas quickly scurries to hide again. If there’s a chance that one of those cats heard him falling—
A brown-greyish tom cat rushes to the front of the junkyard center. He slightly resembles the frail-looking cat who used to visit The Victoria—Gus. Gus is also incidentally, the cat who Thomas now wonders could speak all this time. But Gus is to use human terms, a senior. The cat up front of the junkyard center, is middle-age. Older than Thomas himself, perhaps.
“There's a man over there with a look of surprise,
As much as to say, ‘Well now how about that!’”
Thomas slowly sulks to the ground. He was not only spotted, he got ratted out, and he got ratted out through song. Thomas likes a good musical. In fact, he even participated in one in his younger years. But Thomas isn’t sure how to feel about being sung to in this particular context…
A younger silver-grey tom cat soon joins the other cat. He looks quite puzzle. And exasperated.
“Do I actually see, with my own very eyes…
A man who's not heard of a Jellicle cat? What’s a Jellicle cat?”
“What's a Jellicle cat? What’s a Jellicle Cat?”
Thomas doesn’t like the smirk on the brown-greyish cat’s face as the question was ask.
Despite being against all sense of logic, Thomas instead of running away from the preoccupied cats and their question, he decides to walk closer to the center of the junkyard. Closer to them. What in the world lead to his current predicament?
Oh right, thinks Thomas, smacking his hand directly onto his forehead. The BOOT. The BOOT that I THREW AT THEM.
Thomas is certain he hears a soft chuckle from one of the cats. It sounds very male. Thomas wouldn’t be surprise if the chuckle came from that cat from before.
The clowder of cats is now in a pyramid formation. They’re all staring him dead in the eye, ready to sing again.
There are so many different cats in the formation. Different colors, different markings, and different patterns, or having no patterns at all…they are so many. One of the cats is on the older side. She has white and golden fur, and a woven collar. The collar looks soft to touch.
The cat looks identical to Anne’s cat, Apricot. Anne could never make Apricot a permanent indoor cat. Anne always said that Apricot comes and goes whenever she felt like it…
“The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.”
The cats are once again in unison. But they are not singing, not really. They are all speaking low and solemn. The solemness in their voices matches their equally solemn faces. What they’re saying together sounds like a chant. It’s…terrifying.
It’s terrifying to hear this unexpected hush chant. It’s terrifying to hear the chant, feeling the many pairs of eyes on him. It’s terrifying to know that they’re looking at him due to being an outsider, looking inside a world he doesn’t belong to, and should never have learn.
This night is certainly going to be a different night from all others.
“First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.”
But what if one has a sister and she name her cat after a fruit, thinks Thomas. Apricot is a sensible name, sure. But it’s not exactly a formal name like the ones they just mentioned.
“There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names.”
Well, that answers my previous question, thinks Thomas.
“But I tell you a cat needs a name that's particular,”
The collective of cats moves towards him suddenly. Thomas quickly walks backwards, and falls back on the ground. He quickly scrambles backward, hoping to feel something hit his back.
“A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,”
He feels nothing. Just the cold air of the night.
“Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;”
The pyramid formation breaks apart. The cats are separating into three sections. But they are still surrounding him. Do they think he’s going to attempt an escape? Thomas doesn’t think he even has a chance to escape at the moment.
“The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.”
One of the cats, a pure white cat with the most expensive jeweled collar Thomas have seen before, suddenly leaves her section. She slips away near the back and sits, staring into space.
“When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable—”
The white cat is now on her tiptoes.
“Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name.”
As the cats continues to whisper ‘name’ they all start to disperse. They disperse, and disappear. It’s now just the white queen and him in the junkyard. She’s standing up, prepare to dance. The spotlight —Thomas isn’t sure where it came from, as well as the music that he hasn’t commented on until now— is all for the cat.
It’s a very interesting dance solo. Thomas isn’t sure why the cat is obsessing with her foot. But Thomas admits that there’s an air of elegance to her dancing. It’s very similar to how a ballerina dances. The grace that she has reminds Thomas of a ballerina friend he had back in his university days.
A cat residing the pipe —he’s a tuxedo cat— soon sprints out. The spotlight gotten bigger and brighter. The tranquil music of the white cat’s solo is now livelier, and jazzy.
“Jellicle Cats come out tonight
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball!”
As the tuxedo cat sings and dances along with the white cat —both of them are smiling, having a nice time together (very much how siblings who are having fun and enjoying the same shared activity), the rest of the clowder reappears.
“Jellicle Cats come out tonight
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.”
The silver-grey tom cat from before makes his way up to the front. To where Thomas is at.
“Jellicle Cats meet once a year
At the Jellicle Ball where we all rejoice
And the Jellicle leader will soon appear
And make what is known as the Jellicle choice.”
Oh! There is a reason why there’s a clowder of cats at the junkyard tonight, thinks Thomas.
“When Old Deuteronomy just before dawn
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife
Announces the cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different Jellicle life.
For waiting up there is the Heaviside Layer
Full of wonders one Jellicle only will see—”
As the silver-grey cat raises a paw...hand into the air, the rest of the cats —all have been dancing together again, all in the formation of a circle— are looking upward to the night sky. The white cat is in the center, and is also raising her hand into the air.
The silver-grey cat also sticks up his pointer finger, emphasizing that yes, only one Jellicle can go up to this Heaviside Layer. No exception.
“And Jellicles ask because Jellicles dare…
Who will it be?”
“Who will it be?” repeats the rest of the cats.
As Thomas feels the hard stare of the silver-grey cat, he decides on one thing:
He is going to have to embrace the unexpected weirdness of tonight.
He has a feeling that it’s the only way to keep his mind intact.
#cats musical#cats the musical#cats 1998#fan fiction#fanfic#the man over there#i wrote only the beginning since that's when tmot is the most active in the musical#i do have ideas for other numbers though but idk if i'll ever get to writing them bc the concept is cool and i want to explore it#but i'm not sure if they'll actually work. so this fic for now is all it will be
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think ive finally figured out a building process i dont despise. still got a LONGGG way to go improvement wise (a whole lifetime even) but the process occurs regardless :3
#danny phantom#fentonworks#background art#lineless art#drawing process#my art#fan art#ignore the lack of sign btw i forgor :skull:#VERY messy in places but! im reaching a point where i can bust out something like this kinda quickly :)#which is good because i really dont have the focus for cool week-long pieces most of the time#so if i can get fast enough at making shit that looks ok? thatd b so awesome.#btw expect some ops center concepts soon because im not happy w how restrained i made it#like it looks fine. but i want it to look like the abomination cobbled together over the last 20 years it is#like i wanna feel the same emotion looking at this thing that i feel looking at the pathologic polyhedron#i think thatll both be cooler and more accurate to the show fentonwork's vibe#i also wanna explore the modern industrial thing i had in mind w that giant window#think i could do better w a few more iterations. i like it as a starting point though!#anyways my wifi is really slow so im just gonna ramble while the video uploads ok? :3#So! im starting to write out some worldbuilding for my rewrite#basing shit off of ohio mostly because i live here#but also personally i hc amity park being around where/in the place of cincinnati#tho i have way more experience in the northern part of the state#because lake eries a daytrip whereas a wisconsin trip needed a sleep break#like i doubt theres an Official Location in a meta sense due to all the inconsistencies#like id genuinly b suprised if they even had like “midwest” written down#but its more fun to work w a solid base so :p!!!#ANYWAYS rewrite ideas#1) major change. im fusing amity w elmerton#because im a hater but also because i like the idea of east/west clevland applied to amity so im doing that.#although cincinnati is north/south...
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saw a dracula daily post saying it was like a timeloop story the way people were reading it year after year and the characters were going through The Horrors again and again the same way as before, and the post asked which dracula character would be the one who knows about the timeloop and tries to break it, and i would like to submit for consideration that none of them know about it because WE are the ones who know
#my post#like okay obviously first of all dracula isnt a timeloop story and to look at it that way is just meta and not canon or what stoker intende#but i think it's pretty cool meta so i want to explore it for a second#and if we stick with the concept of ''my friend jonathan is emailing me!'' that puts us into the story! we know jonathan!#we are the ones free from the time loop but we also know that we can't ever break it bc that's the nature of stories#our good friend jonathan is doomed to go through the horrors every year and we know this but can only watch#bc while making jonathan into our dear friend inserts us into the story in a way#we are obviously still Not Actually IN the story and are doomed to watch from the outside as everything goes wrong again#this isn't like. a deep and insightful take or anything and i'm aware of that#it's literally just the nature of stories#but i thought that adding the timeloop layer on top made something interesting and this is my house so i get to post whatever i want#if you look at it as a timeloop then we're dooming our good friend jonathan to the horrors year after year by choosing to read the book#again and again#if you were wondering the original post i saw concluded that quincey was the one who would be aware of the time loop#dracula daily
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If there's one thing I like more than time travel it's crossover reincarnation, so.
Botk link reincarnated as Damian Wayne.
An incredible weapon master of all types, but especially prodigious with a sword - he was beating knights at the age of 4 and with his memories as intact as they get for him I can see that goalpost moving even further (probably with traps and tricks, a 3yo doesn't exactly have great bodily control).
He's an excellent survivalist, agile, strong, durable, cunning and creative. He can move like a feather in the breeze, strike from behind with ease. His first kill, an animal, did not stir him as it did the other children. With his poise, grace, skills, obedience, he ought to be ra'as' finest assassin in the making, a jewel in the crown of the league.
Except he never speaks a word. Half his targets escape unscathed. He skates by true punishment on the merit of his skills and achievements in other missions. Testing has shown it is not a physical deformity that prevents his speech, but not even talia has been able to coaxe a word from him past his second birthday.
It is a defect ra'as is growing more and more frustrated by, as each attempt to fix these two final flaws ends in resounding failure. Less extreme solutions are running dry.
Talia fears those solutions. Her child does too, she knows. For them, there is a possible solution, more extreme than anything ra'as would tolerate.
She sends him out of the league. To his father.
To Gotham.
#'gee phoenix that sure sounds like that dp x dc you're normally rattling on about' yeah lol I steal tropes and sell them on the black market#Anyway this has been slowly rotisserie-ing in my head for a while I just like shaking canon like a magic 8 ball#I'd love to explore how link would react to Gotham and how he might see getting suddenly dumped in a found family as the youngest#And how that contrasts with both his expectations in the league and his role as the saviour last hope of a whole country#Because that kid cannot have a modern interpretation of killing. Like monsters? Kill with prejudice loot the corpses.#The yiga might have a little more hindsight understanding and he never killed them anyway but zero hesitation blowing them up#And ganon is so far removed from the concept of 'killing is bad' because a) human??? Monster??? B) literally the problem#C) he's been killing people so it'd even out d) everyone wants him dead So Bad e) been killed already like a dozen times what's one more#I get the feeling he'd assign the same role to the joker like 'widely considered the source of all evil. 'died' several times and came back#personal source of absolute misery for several heroes. Killed many' = slay the monster. Straightforward.#Like yes link always chooses kindness and has a strong morality and Opinion on killing people it's just a lot would be solved#By hitting the joker until he stopped making life miserable for everyone and if that means permanently well that's kind of link's job.#And like with Jason the bats understand that a lot better than they pretend to. But that is a 10yo who should not be thinking like that.#I think it'd be interesting to see how that'd change their reactions to 'Damian'. Like he holds a very similar opinion to og and Jason he#Just goes about it completely differently.#And I'd love to explore the differences between two fictional worlds and how they can go from pretty much the most black/white morality#To probably one of the greyest areas while still holding near identical themes and methods of dealing with that.#Found family compassion as a weapon against evil and copious amounts of weapons and cool gear lol#Also link should keep the arm he's earned it. Reincarnating with all his memories knocked a few other things loose I'd imagine#Mostly because all the loz games I've played have absolutely altered the way I view any link and also I love referencing them.#Damian with telekinesis and infinite glue would be great. A tiny 10yo sword master choosing instead to drop a dumpster on you#In between hurt comfort link beginning to bond with his family and begin to speak and learn sign language from cass#There's also the sound of explosives and a small figure clinging to a flying door as it crosses the Gotham night skies#Speaking of cass I bet her and link would be great friends in this au.#batman#batfam#bruce wayne#loz au#Loz#loz totk
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I seem to have a horrid habit of focusing on world building instead of the stories! That said, have some facts abt both stories and their worlds!!
A Seer of Secrets
All four celestial monkeys know of each other’s existence (obvs). But the Long-Armed Gibbon and the Red Buttock Baboon have ultimately decided that dealing w Macaque and Wukong is NOT worth it. Good choice LMAO
Demon courting is kind of weird. Female demons tend to be more aggressive with courting
Speaking of courting, kidnapping is part of it but it’s consensual. Well… nowadays it is. But you don’t realize it because they disguise it as an “I’m surprise visiting you… and now we’re going to my house. Pack a week's worth of clothes.”
Seers and Oracles usually have an item or symbol that connects them to divinity. I wonder what Seer’s item is.
Demon food is USUALLY spicy. For some reason, MK and Mei can withstand it but Wukong lowkey struggles? He doesn’t question it much. They're a weird duo.
There's this huge ass under-market for demons. I'm talking multiple districts kind of big. It's based on the five phases of Chinese philosophy. So you've got Fire, Water, Wood, Gold, and Earth. The District levels go in order as the inter-promoting direction... Or generating direction (I wanted to feel fancy). So it goes Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and then Water. But it's in this big circle that spirals upwards. It's pretty cool because the transition from the Water District to the Wood District is by a massive waterfall that has these big rock platforms that act like an elevator. So, it's kind of tapping into the whole "controls" thing of the uhhhh.... inter-regulating part.
Speaking of the districts, there is ONE place that is considered pure neutral territory. And that would be the Earth section. Simply because Earth is meant to represent " patience, thoughtfulness, practicality, hard work, and stability." This is also where demons can find items that can help with healing 'n their abilities! It's where most markets are set up due to the unspoken truce.
The Wood and Fire district tends to get... really heated. Especially in the Fire District. The space between Wood and Fire is highly populated. So a lot of fighting happens and it's considered far enough from the Earth District. This is where demons like to just... bust out the moves and get into nasty fights. So if you can survive running through the Fire District (where there are a lot of fights over territory) and to Earth, consider yourself lucky. And fucked, because the moment you step out of the Earth District, someone is on your ass.
Water isn't exactly where demons live. It's more of a uh... "If I can't be on the surface for a hot moment or so, I can chill here and not be bothered" kind of place. But it's usually for those real big hot-shot guys. So the Demon Bull Family, for example.
You Were Nothing Like Me
You guys don't understand. I have almost 5,000 words on the doc. That's more than ASOS, sadly.
Everyone's names are based on Constellations because I'm unoriginal. The only people who aren't are the brothers... And Queen Astra, who is Outertale Toriel.
The Void? Yes, it's sentient. It lets Gaster be an invisible guiding hand.
It also oddly likes chocolate.
Monsters know ASL. This is because of a bunch of ASL content being found-- why was it in the dumpster? Who knows! But it's benefited the monster community, and it's gotten the favor of the Deaf Community! Because they're more accepting than others.
I made three official holidays for Monsters and pulled the names out of my fucking ass at 3 AM. Gyftmas, of course, exist. It happens on the Third of every December. Monsters originally guessed based on the crystals in Waterfall. Which would dim during the summer and brighten up during the winter. The brightest day just so happens to be the third Wednesday of December without fail. Why do the crystals dim during the summer? Because monster magic, despite being beneath the ground for literal centuries, accommodated the heat by glowing brighter. Why does glowing brighter help? Because why not. It's like when fireflies come out during May and June. Because. Day of Silence is a pretty somber day. It is a-- uh-- a day dedicated to the Royal Family and their lost children. Most monsters take this day off and mourn the fallen prince and child. It's said that you can hear their souls mourning throughout the underground... Said sound gets louder when the fusion of Outertale happens. Yup. Sunset Feast is a really happy one. It's the day the barrier broke! Because woohoo, freedom. Their version of the 4th of July. So, fun fact about this holiday. Frisk broke the barrier the same fucking day it was created. And it, thus, replaced the old holiday Feast of Darkness. Anyways, Sunset Feast is where monsters gather near a large clearing that's by the entrance of Ebott and-- uh-- watch the sunset! Big feast, too. Really fun and loud! Lots of music 'n stuff.
Who named those holidays, you ask? Not Asgore. That's for fucking sure. Not with his shitty naming skills. It was actually Toriel, who named them. I refuse to believe both of them had shitty naming skills. Toriel was good at naming things because I said so.
Typhas, or known as water sausages, have three different forms. You have Snow Typhas, which are commonly closer to Snowdin, and are pretty sweet! They're actually used to making icing or Nice Cream. You also have Spice Typhas, which are closer to HotLands and are used as a spice! The spiciest part of Spice Typhas are the seeds, kind of like peppers!
Depending on where you're at in the underground, you get unique currency. Gold is the overarching one, but sometimes you gotta make some fun unique ones. The Ruins doesn't have currency minus gold. They like to bargain and trade. Snowdin uses Milky Quartz. Waterfall uses Water Opals. HotLand uses Rubies. The Core uses Quartz. The Castle uses Sapphires. And the Court and Royal Family use diamonds... but not a lot of people see them.
I can go on for actual days about YWNLM's world building. I think about this world too much. I-- I just... I love it. It makes me happy.
#I literally have a section dedicated to how magic works#Also the Void. I love exploring the concept of the Void and made a cool thing called the Void Guardians?#Which are just a bunch of people who have void burns due to exposure (and magic use) of the Void?? It's so fucking cool#The void burns usually come from where the magic concentration is the most#So for example if *I* were to use Void Magic. It'd mostly be around my hands#But if it uhh idk. If someone's magic was (for some reason) concetrated around the eyes#Their scleras would be black! Because void burn#I can keep talking abt the concept of the void if i wanted to omg#someone please ask me abt the void in my AU#i'd love to go on a silly rant abt it#crow talks#❛ a seer of secrets ❜#୨⎯ You Were Nothing Like Me ⎯୧#Undertale AU#Undertale#Lego monkie kid#lego monkie kid fanfiction
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hang on are cougars like panthers
#'the cougar also known as the panther' SCREAM#dont mind me rewatching carmilla as a side effect of my newfound interest in vampires#you'd think it was renewed interest in vampires but no#i actually have never been all that interested in vampires as their own thing i was just gay#and i dont think carmilla really explored the concept itself#like A* in using the medium. D or whatever in exploring their subject matter#actually tbf their subject matter was lesbianism so. again probably an A. they knew what they wanted and they did it well#idk how letter grades work tbh#also not actually sure how much they got into the vampire thing which is why im rewatching to check#bc i was reading iwtv and i was like damn carmilla left stuff on the table#but i also think a lot went over my head#even just english wise im a little stunned at how much i didnt catch. like i was fluent in 2015 for sure but. you do keep learning words#also carmilla is like a popculture remix and i dont have a lot of popculture knowledge so a lot of that went over my head too#now i have just enough to know that im missing a lot#like theres a line in s1 where laura goes 'im living with a vampire. an honest to lestat vampire' and like. never caught that#bc i didnt know how the fuck that was fhkjghgh#but anyway im watching s2 and laura's like 'vampire seductress here is just crabby bc im not falling for her 17th century idea of game'#and like they keep calling armand Ancient right? but carmilla is not much younger#just the difference in framing is what made me start thinking abt it all#like carmilla is 400smth and laura is aware abt that to joke abt it and probably thinks it's a little hot but then you think abt how they#depict that kinda age with armand like what he says to madeleine. 'how do you go on when everything from your era is gone'#and sure carmilla has that loneliness but DAMN. like fuck. shes been doing this same trick. being like the abigail hobbs to the dean for#centuries? i mean there was that century or idk how long where she was buried alive or whatever. but THAT TOO#like damn fuck!!!!!!!!!! ive been going through the fanfic again this week and like there really isnt much#at least doesnt seem to be much that explores this. unless it's in all the aus bc i filtered those out (and still got them)#also interesting difference is if i remember correctly the hollstein happy ending is that carmilla becomes human#in iwtv of course like every important relationship is between vampires. and every lover turns vampire. and every vampire is a lover#sorta. bc abuse themes and stuff. so the inversion makes sense but wouldnt it have been kinda cool if she turned laura tho#anyway. can you believe they were like 'well shes a cougar thats her job and also her supernatural power' dhfkhjgkh as i said: A*
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I think transfem Alina is god-tier actually
#Idk man not only is it cool in general but#It adds more to her character#To me at least#Alina being twice as feminine as everyone else and obsessed with the way she looks#Always struggling to do what the council and the elves want so that she can fit in#Turning on sophie in an instant because she cant give them another reason to judge her#Alden leaving her in the dust for a cis woman#Never fully fitting in even though she tries her absolute best to#Always being one step behind#I just think its a neat concept that should be explored more maybe#Kotlc#councillor alina
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