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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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so ironwood was confirmed to be dead by Miles in a $42 cameo session, where the person who bought it had asked for "comforting words to soothe our anguished souls" bc she was an ironwood fan and wanted a pick-me-up after that devastating finale. miles' response was to essentially mock his fans (it really sounded like that, especially since he ended with "thank you jimmy, may you rest in pieces, crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold up above your head."

apparently the VA, jason rose, confirmed it in DMs w the same fan who sent in the cameo ask. so like, quite apart from how rude and disrespectful it was of miles to make a mockery of james in a cameo where he'd been specifically asked for comforting words regarding the character, ngl but i think that if you have to confirm a MAJOR CHARACTER is dead outside of canon bc you failed to actually show it on screen.....you've failed as a writer. and also that kind of thing shouldn't be confirmed in an expensive and exclusive interview lmao like how hard would it have been to just talk about good aspects to james' character instead of calling him a dickbag and saying 'don't do a genocide, guys!!'

it reeks of unprofessionalism and also it just makes everything surrounding ironwood's character arc even worse since apparently 'his fate was sealed' from the moment he was introduced to the show.

Me, who received the first Moderna shot yesterday (🎉 🎉 🎉 ): Ugh I feel too crappy to answer asks today

Me, upon hearing this news: You know, I have suddenly found an untapped source of energy

Okay, all joking aside, I watched the vid and it’s definitely a lot. I don’t have any information about the request itself except for what Miles mentions in the recording, so I can’t speak to what the fan may have been looking for outside of that, but some highlights include:

“This is for the filth in my degenerate discord server” - Yeah, that’s how a lot of us (fans) talk about ourselves. It sounds like someone who really enjoys Ironwood and makes joking, self-deprecating comments about their love of a character. That’s familiar to me and speaks to the expectation that they hoped for something other than what they got. At least, if I’d sent in a request like that I wouldn’t be happy with the vid, but that’s obviously my own perspective and not this fan’s. I’d be very curious to know their own thoughts though...

“Sometimes a character we like doesn’t make it, does something we don’t agree with... or both!” - That is indeed how characters work! The real question is whether their death/actions make sense within the story, which is not addressed here. Many fans who enjoyed Ironwood don’t have a problem with him dying or turning into a villain — I’ve been honest about my acceptance of either/both, regardless of personal preference, provided it was written well — and that was always the issue. Not what happened to Ironwood, but how it happened.

“James Ironwood’s fate was sealed the moment his character was conceived many years ago.” - Personally, I don’t believe this. RT makes a lot of grand, sweeping statements about what’s been planned “for years” or “since the beginning” and too often we’re faced with writing that directly contradicts that. Though it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth, neither option paints the writing team in a good light. Either they’re straight up lying about what’s been planned (or twisting tossed out possibilities into assurances after the fact. For example, someone once suggested Ironwood might become a villain somehow at some point and now that’s presented as, ‘We’ve deliberately been working towards this specific ending for years’), or they’re being truthful and just... can’t write what they want to write. It doesn’t sound good when a writer says, ‘I’ve planned this the whole time’ and a good chunk of the fandom responds, ‘Then why couldn’t we see that planning this whole time?’

“When James was introduced we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag, but then we realized that dickbag had a heart and was also half metal, and that was pretty cool!” - I don’t even know what to make of this. I’ve deconstructed his introduction before, but to summarize here, he’s presented as no more of a “dickbag” than Ozpin who may not be doing enough to protect the people, Winter who allowed herself to get taunted into a fight on campus, or Qrow who deliberately started that fight while drunk. Glynda is the only one who is arguably innocent here. The implication seems to be that obviously Ironwood became a villain because “we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag” but then... does that mean Qrow will become a villain too someday??

The comments about them realizing he had a heart and was half metal just speak to that lack of planning. No, you obviously didn’t plan this downfall from the start if you “realized” something as basic as him caring for others partway through writing him and then allowed that care to drive his character for so long that the decent into villainy read as OOC, rather than inevitable. You obviously weren’t writing him with a backstory that influenced his character — of which his semblance is a major part — if you “realized” he was half-metal... whenever that happened. The fact that we never saw that backstory, or the semblance on screen, or returned to his half-metal nature outside of a ‘That’s coding for evilness’ theme again speaks to the fact that either a) none of this was actually planned or b) the execution is seriously lacking here.

“Let us all take a moment to thank General James Ironwood for his service to the Kingdom of Atlas, but... at the end of the day, don’t do a genocide [laughs]” - I’m having trouble articulating why I dislike this. I’m really too tired to be unpacking this right now (lol), but it has something to do with — as you say, anon — that mocking tone. Something else to do with the surge of purity culture in recent years. The tone feels like it’s tied up in an unsaid, ‘You like the character who tried to commit genocide?’ accusation when, you know, he’s a fictional character. People can like characters who do bad things. More significantly, he’s a fictional character Miles wrote. There’s something particularly distasteful about writers who feel like they’re laughing at fans for liking something when they created the thing with the intent that we would like it. And many did. So they gave attention, time, money, passion, etc. to the work and then when that part of the work finished, the creator appears to make light of that investment? Idk, I’m speaking about more than just this one line — the tone of the vid as a whole, really — but it feels much less like “You enjoy Ironwood! 😄” and more “You enjoy Ironwood... 😬” Like yeah, fans enjoyed the character that you wanted them to enjoy who you wrote to have a heart and then suddenly commit genocide instead. There’s definitely nothing complicated in all that.

“Thank you, Jimmy. May you rest in pieces crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold above your head. Amen.” - All of the above x2 with the added issue that this was never shown on screen. Miles presents Ironwood’s arc like this seven year long plan when in fact they couldn’t even manage the basic move of telling the audience what happened to the character in his final hour. The fact that a fan had to pay to find out whether Ironwood is dead is not a gold star for the writing.

Every time the RWBY crew speaks about the story in supplementary material the canon itself gets worse. Hyping Clover/Qrow on social media pushes the canon closer to queerbaiting. We’re way closer to that with them hyping Blake/Yang. Long ago comments about Ozpin’s cane suddenly make Volume 8 a retcon. A Q&A about Ironwood’s semblance makes his arc a thousand times more confusing about how we’re supposed to read his character — to name just a few. Now this. When a friend first told me this info had dropped I thought, “Thank god. He’s not coming back then. I don’t want them writing Ironwood’s character anymore,” but really... can we believe anything the crew says? “Crushed beneath the weight of his kingdom” doesn’t mean Ironwood won’t show up in Volume 9 if it’s a spirit world type adventure. It doesn’t mean he won’t show up three years from now with even more metal in his body and a, “We said he was crushed, not that he was dead ;)” explanation. Hell, it doesn’t even mean he won’t show up with no explanation at all because, as established, what’s said in supplementary works and what happens on screen are two entirely separate things. Iffy as the vid may come across to those who did like Ironwood, I was initially happy that it at least gave us some closure... but now I’m not even sure about that.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #Anonymous

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clarenecessities · 4 years ago

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As my followers may have picked up from my long, spiraling rants, I’ve undertaken a new research project, courtesy of the death grip She-Ra has on my brain. And guess what? It’s finally at Disseminate Information Stage! So I’m going to lay out all of the gods, demigods, and godbeasts of the Masters of the Universe. With sources!

This table is more of a cheat sheet. We’re gonna tackle this god by god, with a section on Actual Lore & a meta section to help you decide how valid you think they are, because frankly some canons are more canon than others.

Asklepia, Benevolent Snake Goddess

Lore: Asklepia is one of two snake goddesses, the benevolent twin sister of Serpentia. We know very little about her abilities, but the Snake Clan (a clan of human warriors) were said to worship her, and they were famed for their architecture and healing. She had the ability to curse and deform people--to what extent is uncertain, but she’s known to have condemned a fallen priest named Ka, whose disfigured likeness now adorns Snake Mountain.

Behind the Scenes: First appearing in the 1987 comic “Il Nero Cristallo Del Potere“, Asklepia remained nameless for over 30 years, until Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC) released a few choice bios. For the unfamiliar, MOTUC seeks to reconcile the often contradictory canons into one overarching narrative, which is great in theory, but in practice is kind of like putting ice cream on a hot dog. And calling it a Chilly Dog ® as if that makes it taste better. But I digress. In 2019 they released a bio for the Staff of Ka which finally put a name to the less-evil Snake Goddess, in an obvious nod to Asclepius and the asklepian (that staff+snake icon people put on medical stuff).

Sharella, the Green Goddess and/or “Avatar” of Asklepia

Lore: Contradictory

Long Version: Okay I’ve put avatar in quotes because it is... contentious. Basically, and you’ll see here why I felt the need to make this post instead of relying blindly on the wikis, Sharella was introduced (in the ‘87 licensing guide) as a tribal leader who had joint custody of Gray, the original name of He-Ro’s alter ego, while he was growing up. This was further developed by Emiliano Santalucia’s concept work, wherein she was the leader of the Green Tiger Tribe (GTT) specifically. While the comic concept was not run through licensing & is thus not “canon”, the idea of her leading the GTT persisted. This teeny tiny image of her from Tytus and Megator’s 1987 Italian box art was all we had until 2008, when one of He-Man’s accessories described her as the “warrior woman ally” of Queen Veena, “who had been changed into the immortal green-skinned avatar of the Goddess Asklepia”. In 2009, MOTUC released a figure for The Goddess, apparently forgetting they’d done that shit the year before because the packaging did say “K’yrulla” was her real name. They had to cover it up with a sticker.

So who’s The Goddess? Way back in the days before Mattel solidified any of the lore around MOTU, there were mini-comics released with the toys. Initially, the Goddess served a similar function to the Sorceress in the cartoon, and was in fact sometimes called the Sorceress. She facilitated He-Man’s transformations, gave him missions, was generally magical and mysterious, etc. If you know who the Sorceress is, and you can picture Teela, but green? That’s about it.

Back to Sharella, though. The Third Ultimate Battleground rolled around in 2015, and for the first time since some packaging in the 80s, we saw Sharella in action! She was shot through the heart with a poison arrow. Yeah. But don’t worry, she received a blood transfusion from Moss Man (who we’ll get to later), and was transformed into the Green Goddess! She’s immortal now. How Asklepia figures in here is sort of unclear, which is weird since this is still part of the MOTUC line, but whatever. Whatever! Queen Grayskull (the aforementioned Veena) received a bio in 2015 as well, which described Sharella as her apprentice who became “The Goddess”.

Horokoth, Aspect of the Mother Goddess

Lore: DC went a little batshit (pun intended) with the lore for the Eternity War. Here the Goddess is three combined aspects, “Serpos” (Serpentia) for the Snake Men, Zoar for the human “Eternians”, and a third, invented deity called Horokoth, who represents the Horde. Horokoth is “the coming destroyer. The darkness at the end of days.” and is represented by a bat.

Behind the Scenes: That last link has a clearer picture of her, it just didn’t crop well. Also, I confess I couldn’t bring myself to read Eternity War. As thrilling as the prospect of a cohesive narrative is, if I wanted to see Adora slit her brother’s throat there’s the edgier side of deviantArt to peruse. Therefore I know little of Horokoth outside of a few still images of Hordak. The bat was almost certainly selected for the Horde’s vespertilian emblem.

Hordeous, God-Beast of Horokoth

Lore: A “primordial”, bat-like godbeast of Horokoth, created in response to the god Saz’s feline races. Their face was “forever infused“ on the surface of Horde World by Horde Lord (Hordak and Horde Prime’s father in the MOTUC canon) to grant their family power and immortality.

Behind the Scenes: Yes they’ve used some words wrong, but they’ve got the spirit, right? Hordeous was (allegedly, this is secondhand) an invention of the MOTUC crew in answer to Horokoth. Now, the Horde Supreme bio predates Horokoth’s introduction by about 3 years, but obviously the comics were in production already. There’s an undated sketch of Horokoth Hordak from an undated interview (thanks for nothing you useless website) but in that same gallery there’s an orko sketch labeled 2012 so. We’re good right? That makes sense, timeline-wise. Anyway the comics slam dunked Horde Prime out of existence and combined him with Horde Lord so it’s contradictory anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Serpentia, Malevolent Snake Goddess

Lore: The evil counterpart of Asklepia, Serpentia is the goddess of the Snake Men. The priest Ka of the Snake Clan forsook Asklepia in her favor, destroying Asklepia’s sacred orb and stealing the Serpent Ring (an artefact capable of transforming humans into Snake Men) from the Ophidian Spire with King Hsss. In DC’s triune interpretation of the Goddess, Serpentia (here ‘Serpos’) is blood, passion, and desire. A primal and primordial force appearing to the Snake Men in their own image.

Behind the Scenes: Okay yes I’ve reused the Asklepia pic but in my defense they are twins and this is the easiest one to crop. So here’s the thing about Serpentia: we only got a name for her in 2019. We knew there was a snake goddess, and she was pretty evil, or at least hostile towards mammalian life (see: the source of the pic I chose for her). Where Asklepia references the asklepian, ‘Serpentia’ is a much more heavy-handed snake reference, even though Anguis was right there. Those Masters Mondays came through for us, though, with the shield and staff of Ka, Ssssylph, and of course MOTUC’s Dark Despot Skeletor, which is. something. Though only recently named, Serpentia has been a shadow over Eternia since the Snake Men’s introduction in 1985 (or, depending on how much of the presented backstory you accept, even sooner in the form of Skeletor’s lair, Snake Mountain).

Serpos/Sarcedon, God-Beast of Snake Mountain

Lore: Contradictory, but the gist of it is he’s a very large snake with elemental magic and a grudge, that was turned to stone and became Snake Mountain.

Long Version: Snake Mountain was conceived of towards the end of 1982, but wasn’t revealed to the public until September of 1983, with the debut of the Filmation cartoon. For another year, the snake coiled around its summit was simply a carving, its mouth hollowed out for Skeletor to stand in and loom. But in 1984 the Snake Mountain toy was released, completely discarding the Filmation design in favor of the hewn face of the figure we now call Ka. Instead of a snake carving winding its way up the peak, the Mattel toy featured a ‘striking serpent’, alive and attached to the mountain itself. From there, it was an easy leap to make to ‘this carving comes alive’. So easy, in fact, that they did it twice!

First attempted in 1985 in the newspaper storyline “Vengeance of the Viper King”, the snake was here called Sarcedon, the World Destroyer. At the dawn of time, he was said to crush Eternia within his deadly coils. He burrowed deep into the ground, causing fearsome storms that nearly destroyed the planet. Only a fearless hero (implied to be He-Ro) could defeat and imprison Sarcedon. Using a macguffin called a Mirror of History, He-Man forced Sarcedon to behold his own reflection in a reference to the Medusa myth that kind of missed the point of it being reflective. Sarcedon was sent back in time, Snake Mountain was restored, the good guys win, blah blah blah.

That was the last of it until the MYP cartoon in 2004. Serpos as a name was actually first invoked by Mer-Man in a 1982 minicomic, but like it probably wasn’t about the snake. Anyway in the MYP cartoon the Snake Men get this thing called the Medallion of Serpos that lets them un-petrify the snake around Snake Mountain, grow two more heads, and unleash his godly wrath. He breathes fire, trashes Eternos, beats up He-Man, then turns his attention on Castle Grayskull to consume the Orb of Power (containing the strength and wisdom of the Elders, who had first trapped him in stone). He-Man cuts off Serpos’s extra heads with a sword upgrade, the Elders are somehow magically restored to life, and they re-petrify him. Snake Mountain is restored, the good guys win, blah blah blah.

Zoar, the Fighting Falcon

Lore: Contradictory, but it sure is a bird!

Long Version: While Sharella’s backstory is fraught because of the comics couldn’t decide what they wanted her to be, Zoar was similarly tangled up by the toyline. Initially male, he went through several color schemes, some prettier than others. Though there was a vague association with the Sorceress before the cartoon (recall that pre-Filmation, the Sorceress was just the Goddess), Filmation made them literally inseperable by designating Zoar as the Sorceress’s falcon form, to which she was confined when leaving Castle Grayskull.

Some of the comics and Golden books showed Zoar as being flipping enormous & ridden into battle as a steed by Teela and Man-at-Arms. Pre-Filmation, Zoar was always referred to as male, but post-Filmation, always female, as an incarnation of the Sorceress.

The Eternity Wars comics describe Zoar as the third aspect of the Goddess, the ‘Great Preserver’ whose light would shine through the universe for eternity. They pull off a sort of tripartite priestess thing where it’s Serpos/Zoar/Horokoth represented by Teela-Na (the Sorceress)/Teela/Evil-Lyn.

MOTUC, of course, had to reconcile all of these contradictory canons. How’d they do it? “In the folklore of Eternia, the golden falcon symbolized the godhead Zoar, a powerful deity of Preternia. As a god, Zoar could appear in both male and female guises and while the blue-tipped female falcon was associated with the Sorceress of Grayskull, the golden falcon represented Zoar's masculine nature.” So Zoar is genderfluid now, and the Sorceress is merely borrowing their form when transforming into a falcon. This bio also established that Zoar had anointed the first Sorceress, Veena (Queen Grayskull), which explains why she has wings for no apparent reason.

Also it’s not offically MOTUC but the scultors of the line, Four Horsemen, made a single anthro Zoar for Power-Con 2013. In case you need that for some reason.

Glorybird, Emissary of Zoar

Lore: Many millennia ago, there were three siblings, who were very poor and mistreated by their stepmother, but had hearts filled with kindness and love. Zoar, recognizing their resilience and desire to help people, sent an emissary named Glorybird. Glorybird bestowed upon each sibling a divine gift, but as they used their new powers to fight for good, their stepmother revealed herself to be a Celestial Witch & attempted to sacrifice them to Zoar’s “greatest enemy”, Horokoth.

Backstory: Okay, so the Star Sisters (and Glorybird) were in exactly one episode of She-Ra, primarily to set them up as new toy designs. While prototypes were made for these, the figures weren’t actually produced until MOTUC released figures for them in 2012. Though they were referenced in Princess Prom, and we saw a brief cameo in a background, Glorybird was absent until the introduction of the Star Siblings in Season Five.

That’s right! This bird is a god, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Saz, God of All Felines

Lore: One of the “Gods of the Multiverse” (he is the only member named explicitly), Saz was a blue-furred, feline deity responsible for the creation of all cats, humanoid or otherwise. He transformed himself into an enormous cat-beast to defeat Serpos and Hordeous, whose progenitors created them in envy of his children. Though Serpos was defeated, Hordeous escaped into the cosmos, and Saz himself vanished mysteriously.

Behind the Scenes: “By the whiskers of Saz!” is a fun pseudo-swear made by various cat races throughout MOTU, first in He-Man’s “The Cat and the Spider” and later in She-Ra’s “Magicats”. That was the only real mention of him until... okay, so MOTUC bios aren’t always attached to the product. Starting in 2018, they did this thing called Masters Mondays where they put unposted bios on the org forums. So while we’ve had the sword since 2010, we didn’t get the background on it until March of 2020. And then a couple weeks later, the Cat Mask of Catra bio referred to him as a “mystical being” instead of a god, but the mask was from 2011 so. He may not have been a god yet. It really depends on when the bios were actually written.

Saz wielded a blade probably best described as a falchion, whose quillon & langet formed a vaguely triangular shape around a deep red gem. I want to be clear that while it looks totally rad, this sword would be very impractical and have poor structural integrity were it not made by a literal god. Do not make swords like this. Also it’s almost certainly riffing on the Sword of Omens from Thundercats (affectionate).

Sabe-Or, Son of Saz

Lore: A green-furred, orange-striped paladin, Sabe-Or is one of the only named Ancients. He inherited his father’s blade upon Saz’s mysterious disappearance, and lived for centuries more. Upon his death, he transferred his “heroic essence” into a group of Eternian tigers, forever transforming them into the Green Tiger Tribe, whence both Granger (steed of King Grayskull), and Cringer, steed of Prince Adam.

Behind the Scenes: So “Battle Cat Man” is a concept that’s existed since they decided to make their hero ride a wicked tiger into battle. If you show a kid a superhero, and a supertiger, apparently the natural inclination of most children in the 80s was to combine the two. There are so many custom action figures. So, so many. Sabe-Or is visually a clear reference to this concept, and canonically seems to be the closest we’re going to get outside of the Thundercats crossover, unless you count Cowarros from 4H’s Mythic Legions line (I do, because it means Purrrplor is also canon and I fucking love calling him that).

Moss Man, Ancient Eternian Nature God

Lore: An ally of King Grayskull, Moss Man was something of an Eternian cryptid in the centuries leading up to He-Man Times. He has control over all plant life, the ability to meld with plants, and apparently can imbue sentience to said plants.

Behind the Scenes: Moss Man wasn’t featured in many episodes, because he’s a little... incredibly over-powered. He’s literally Bigfoot from 5000 years ago with magic powers. And like, since I don’t think the writers appreciate how long 5000 years is, you know what happened 5000 years ago? Stonehenge. This bitch is Stonehenge-old. But sure, you can trace a direct line of descent from his contemporary. smh. Anyway according to MOTUC his real name is Kreann’Ot N’Norosh so make of that what you will. Also his toys were pine-scented. I just love that.

Evil Seed, Rebellious Creation of Moss Man

Lore: Created by Moss Man to help fight in the Great Wars, Evil Seed betrayed his master and turned to evil (who could have foreseen this...), finding joy in corrupting all forms of plant life for his own amusement. Moss Man imprisoned him in enchanted chains, keeping him restrained for many millennia.

Behind the Scenes: According to MOTUC, his real name is Sero Malustro, clumsy New Latin for “(to) plant evil-burnt“. Why his name is New Latin and Moss Man’s is... whatever that is, I have no idea. As you can see from the image I included, he originally had an artichoke head, which was upgraded for the Mike Young Productions (MYP) cartoon. Personally I think the artichoke rules.

Volcana, the Fire Goddess

Lore: Canonically, she’s a fire goddess, and the mother of the Volcano Magus. Together, they are a rising force that seeks to conquer Etheria in the wake of Hordak’s defeat.

Backstory: Volcana has taken a long a twisted journey, but was first revealed to fans at Power-Con 2016 in a panel revealing previously unseen concepts and characters. After the first wave of She-Ra toys, a second wave was planned with a snow focus, to bring more attention the Filmation-neglected Frosta. This began with the introduction of a fire villain, an “evil lady that glows with heat” who would attempt to melt Castle Chill. That concept actually refers to a character named Amber (not Ember, as one might assume) who was reworked into a benevolent counterpart, Volcana’s twin sister.

Volcana was later fleshed out to be a Fire Goddess with flame-red hair, x-ray vision, and arms sculpted with flames. Her cape flew up with flame detail that rose up to control the volcano (of Volcanica, a proposed toyset that seems to have been reworked into the Crystal Falls). She was emphasized by Mattel to not start fires, which, honestly, is probably why they scrapped the character. He-Man couldn’t use his sword as a sword; a woman made of fire was basically doomed.

Now, though, we’re several decades in and lines made for collecters that are largely in their 30s and 40s can say whatever they want! So she’s canon, even if Amber isn’t. Yes there’s only one mention of her. Amber technically was mentioned in an unproduced episode titled “Amber Waves of Flame”, but as it was unproduced, it’s noncanonical.

Volcano Magus, Sinister Son of Volcana

Lore: Living within a dormant volcano, the Volcano Magus of the German audio plays was the source of most of Catra’s power and all of her evil intent. He supplied her with magic for spells and schemes with which to assail the Crystal Castle, but neither she nor Clawdeen were aware of the dark influence he held over them.

In the MOTUC canon, he’s specified as the son of Volcana, a demigod from the “Region of Volcanoes” who craved the nature magic of the Whispering Woods. When he learned the Twiggets were inextricably linked to that magic, he used his powers to petrify the former Rebels (this was after the Horde's defeat) and kidnap three Twiggets to drain the magic from their souls. Twiggets, for the uninitiated, are like purple tree-elf things. According to MOTUC, Razz is a Twigget, though the ‘real’ name they assigned her doesn’t fit their naming convention. She is purple, I guess.

Kowl, who avoided petrification, read Razz's spellbooks to find a way to save his friends, and learned of an Entrapment Gem that she hid in a shoe, for some reason. He confronted the Volcano Magus, spoke in the ancient tongue of the First Ones, and sucked him into the Gem.

Backstory: Admittedly this stuff is second hand, as I don’t speak German & they only have transcriptions/translations for the He-Man tapes anyway, but if anybody can find me an audio file I will do my best to verify. The MOTUC stuff at least I can confirm 100% because it’s from 2019 & I do speak English, for better or worse.

Oak, the Jackal God

Lore: Oak was the terrible Jackal God worshiped by the denizens of Zhar, an ancient civilization that once existed in a remote, forested region of Eternia. Long ago, Oak was imprisoned within a statue which could be found within the Temple of the Jackal. When Skeletor removed the statue from the temple, Oak broke free of the enchantment which imprisoned him and wreaked havoc on Eternia. Although the Jackal God was immensely powerful, he could be weakened by the elements of nature and was ultimately foiled by a rainstorm conjured by the combined powers of He-Man's sword and the magic of the temple's guardian priest.

Backstory: I have lifted this from a He-Man guide word for word as I cannot for the life of me find a copy of the Brazilian Editora Abril comic he came from, O Templo Do Chacal (1986). The description is like, suspiciously similar to the plot of the He-Man episode The Cat and the Spider, except the Grimalkin was never described as a god. The rest of it--statue, Skeletor, storm defeat--plays out almost the same. True pity I can’t find the original source, but I do trust this guidebook. You may be interested in Ceres from the UK comics--another dog-slash-statue who frankly might as well be a god himself, but as he’s not called one in canon he’s not going on the list.

The Bitter Rose Goddess

Lore: As Man-at-Arms told the legend, “Every day, a woman climbed Rose Mountain to look for her husband to return from the war. Alas, he never came back. Her tears poured from her cheek and entered the ground. One day she disappeared, but where she stood was a single, solitary rose. It’s the only thing that grows on Rose Mountain.”

The Insect People, who lived at the base of Rose Mountain, believed that the Bitter Rose is all that held the mountain together (and when it was picked, they were proved right). After the flower was restored, it transformed into the Bitter Rose Goddess herself, who explained that she had been a prisoner of her love's sorrow, so bitter that she refused to allow anything else to grow on Rose Mountain. She blessed the surrounding area, blanketing the jagged peaks with roses, and disappeared.

Backstory: She’s kind of... barely a god. She showed up in one episode and no other media & has objectively less power than like, every single demon they ever brought in. I almost didn’t put her on this list.

Mask-Ra, Goddess of Masks

Lore: A goddess who created the magical Masks of Power.

Backstory: Mask-Ra was first mentioned in 2019 and like, look, I’m gonna be real. I don’t respect her. She’s an invention of MOTUC (unless they were drawing on this concept art of Maska-Ra, which I doubt bc he was a Man-E-Faces precursor) and they retconned her into having created Catra’s mask, which is kind of redundant given the entire episode Magicats. This mask did not need two bios. There are no other mentions of her in any canon.

Potential other Masks of Power: The Deemos and Tyrella masks from the He-Man episode “Masks of Power”, lizard and canine masks from the mini-comic “Masks of Power”, Lord Masque’s Demon Mask from the He-Man episode “House of Shokoti, Part 1″, and whatever the hell Red Shadow has going on.

Procrustus, Giant Guardian of Magic

Lore: During the creation of the various dimensions (5 in MOTUC canon but demonstratably higher everywhere else), the gods installed the four-armed, immortal giant Procrustus to guard their secrets at the heart of Eternia. There lay the Starseed, from which the entire dimension was created. It still held immeasurable power, and could be used to conquer entire universes. Hordak, in an attempt to access the Starseed, cracked Eternia in two with the Spell of Separation. Though he was (mostly) thwarted, from then on Procrustus was forced to hold the two halves of Eternia together from within, lest the planet break apart and the Starseed be exposed.

Backstory: First appearing in the mini-comic “The Magic Stealer!”, Procrustus is a lot more tangible than most gods. We know where he is, at all times, and he seems confined to one size. His powers appear to be largely physical, as he had to burrow out of the ground to investigate in the mini-comic instead of teleporting or like, magicking the dirt away. This was his only appearance until MOTUC released a figure for him in 2012. He also showed up in the Subternia map the next year, holding Eternia together.

Standor, Cosmic Creator of Power

Lore: “Before time began, the great Gods of the multiverse convened in the Hall of Power to create all that was and all that will ever be. Head architect of this great task was Standor. A cosmic being of unlimited imagination, Standor helped lead his fellow deities by fueling their energies with raw creative force.”

Backstory: Released for Comikaze 2013 to celebrate the partnership of Mattel and Pow! Entertainment, Standor is literally just Stan Lee But a God. The prototype was called Standar--idk why they changed it, but I think it’s because it’s too easy to confuse with “Standard”. They made a bio for his sunglasses. I don’t want to talk about it.

Bash-Or, Slain Mystic God-Beast

Lore: Very little is known of Bash-Or, the Ram. His last remnant was sealed within the Ram Stone by the ancient sorceror kings of Zalesia, imbuing it with his divine power to overcome any barrier, magical or otherwise.

Backstory: Bash-Or was revealed in the bio for the Ram Stone, September of 2020, but his spirit (previously referred to as ‘the Spirit of the Ram Stone’) was twice utilized by Skeletor in the MYP cartoon, to great effect, before the stone was destroyed.

#she-ra #spop #motu #he-man #clare shares notes #edited to actually include the gd graph

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twobitmulder · 4 years ago

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When did Storm Shadow Become a Villain?

There is a scene in GI Joe Resolute where Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are having their obligatory Ninja Battle and (Spoilers I Guess) Storm Shadow reveals that he orchestrated his uncle, The Hard Master’s, death and that he fully meant to kill Snake Eyes as well, out of jealousy and because his uncle would not teach him the final secret to killing a man in seven steps, fearing that young Storm Shadow was too volatile and violent. Towards the end of the battle Storm Shadows wrist bands come off, revealing his Arashikage tattoo on one arm and a Cobra Sigil on the other.

This version of Storm Shadow (Voiced by “every Beagle Boy on Ducktales” Eric Bauza) stands out amongst his post-2000 incarnations as an unrepentant psychopath, but still falls in line with the prominent view of Storm Shadow as a villain--one of the main villains with a special hatred for his GI Joe counterpart.

This is the version I grew up with. GI Joe vs Cobra through Sigma 6 were the prominent Joe adaptations when I was the target demographic and all throughout Storm Shadow was a bad guy to varying degrees.

I knew in the classic Hama stuff he eventually defected, but I was not prepared for just how much he’s a heroic character from the start. There’s no big sword dual with Snake Eyes, no Anakin and Obi Wan style “friend turned bitter enemy” dynamic. It’s made clear from jump that Tommy is undercover in Cobra and remains an honorable man in search of justice. He leaves Cobra quickly and is branded as a Joe in all his figures until 2000--when they started packing their characters in two-packs with one Joe and one Cobra. In all appearances, Storm Shadow is more a Joe than a Cobra. So what led to the the modern view of Storm Shadow as a bad guy, who, even when he gets his redemption, still has a mean streak and a cruel manner? How did a character in a toy driven franchise who had more toys as a hero than a villain end up as one of the franchise’s most consistent villains?

*(For simplicity’s sake, this is only going to cover film and television portrayals of the character).

*Spoilers for pretty much every GI Joe adaptation to follow.

The first portrayal of Storm Shadow as Cobra Commander’s loyal and competent hatchet man (one of the few) is not too much older than Hama’s original Marvel version. The Sunbow version of Storm Shadow (voiced by “guy you’ve heard in everything” Keone Young) remained a loyal cobra agent--with none of the Hama version’s depth.

He had what you might call “standard cartoon Ninja honor” where he clearly had some kind of code of ethics, but was primarily an arrogant killer (as much as he could be in a cartoon) who fought primarily with Spirit and Quick Kick (voiced by wonderfully talented “guy you’ve seen in everything” Francois Chau) as Snake Eyes was largely shunted to the side in the cartoon. The echoes of Sunbow Storm Shadow can be seen in pretty much every non-comic adaptation that followed.

Skipping right over the Dic continuation of the Sunbow cartoon because Storm Shadow actually is a Joe in that, as he was in the comics and figures of the time (and because I haven’t seen it) we come to the 2000′s era.

The Spy Troops and Valor vs. Venom DTV movies had a Storm Shadow (voiced by “guy who got his blood ripped out by Magneto in X2: X-Men United” Ty Olsson) who was essentially his Sunbow self with one major change. He actually had a history with Snake Eyes, and a bitter rivalry. The details are not gone into in either film (you get a little more in the figure file cards and mini-comics of the era) but Storm Shadow accuses Snake Eyes of betraying the Arashikage. The implication being that either Storm Shadow blames Snake Eyes for some crime or another or that there was a schism in clan.

The File cards of the time movie go from acknowledging Storm Shadow’s time as a Joe, and claiming he’s working with Cobra again for unknown reasons, to establishing their own canon that Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were once best friends and “Sword Brothers” before Storm Shadow fell to the dark side and joined Cobra. Though Storm Shadow’s file card does end with the ominous implication that he’s got his own agenda in working with Cobra (just like his Hama incarnation) the DTV films imply that he’s a Cobra loyalist in addition to his feud with Snake Eyes.

Spy Troops and Valor vs. Venom lead in a semi-canonical way to GI Joe Sigma 6 where Storm Shadow (voiced by “guy whose only other role I recognize is pulling double duty as Zeke Stane and Living Laser in the Iron Man 3 videogame” Tom Wayland) more or less continues the previous two iterations’ version of Storm Shadow. He once again accuses Snake Eyes of some great betrayal that broke their friendship. The GI Joe website at the time includes the detail that Storm Shadow was infiltrating Cobra when he was brainwashed into becoming a loyal Cobra agent. It’s another concession, like his 2001 file card, to Hama’s heroic double agent, while still portraying him in line with Sunbow’s villainous henchman.

GI Joe Resolute comes next, where we see a departure from any pretense of Storm Shadow being a good guy. Resolute, in many ways, comes off as a gritty direct continuation of the Sunbow series, and it takes Sunbow’s villainous Storm Shadow and strips him of even the token bits of honor and humanity he had. It also, as near as I can tell, begins the trend of Storm Shadow outright resenting Snake Eyes, rather than being his one time friend.

As an irrelevant aside, I have my problems with Resolute but I do love everyone’s character designs and Eric Bauza does a fantastic job as one fourth of the cast. His Sean Connery impression for Destro is particularly inspired.

This brings us to the big ones. GI Joe: RIse of Cobra and GI Joe: Retaliation where Storm Shadow is brought to the big screen by Lee Byung-Hun (who I don’t have a snarky/informative aside for because shamefully despite how prolific he is I’ve only seen him in these movies and The Magnificent 7 remake) and as a child by Brandon Soo Hoo (he’s also been in a lot of stuff, but I particularly liked his turn as Beast Boy in the animated New 52 DC movies).

Lee’s Storm Shadow in the first film falls in line with his portrayals up to this point, probably skewing most closely towards Sunbow. He has a code of ethics (he doesn’t kill women apparently) but he’s still a bad guy and he seems to quite like it. Lee brings a charm to the character that had not really existed up until that point. He also spends a lot of time maskless (and it’s hard to blame the production team for that one, he’s a very handsome dude) which was a shock for anyone who grew up with the 2001 era storm shadow where the thought of him without a mask was so insane that it was relegated to a mail in figure (As a kid I seriously thought he had some Mandalorian style code of not removing it)

His origin in this version takes bits of Hama and bits of Resolute (or Resolute took from this, Resolute came out first but this might have been in development). It is, as far as I can tell, the first version to have Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes train together as children and it portrays Storm Shadow, even as a child, as an arrogant and jealous person.

Now, at least in my opinion, it’s fairly obvious that the first movie fully intended Storm Shadow to be a baddie, full stop. There’s a little wiggle room given that we never see him stab The Hard Master in the flashback (the Hard Master in this version is Storm Shadow’s father rather than his uncle) but the way he taunts Snake Eyes about it during their final confrontation makes a pretty compelling case for his having committed patricide.

The sequel would bring back elements of the Hama backstory. Zartan killed The Hard Master and Storm Shadow had to infiltrate Cobra to discover that. Given Cobra Commander and Storm Shadow are of roughly the same age (Storm Shadow being a bit older I think) and this event occurred when they were both children it’s unclear on who’s orders Zartan did this but we do know it was done to turn the already volatile young man into the perfect angry ninja assassin (given this canon is pretty much over we’ll probably never know for sure, but my guess based on the IDW movie universe comics is that Zartan either did it at the behest of the Red Ninja Clan or just to have a tiny assassin of his own, probably the former since they seem to regard each other as unpleasant colleagues who sometimes work together).

What I particularly like about this version is that, because the first movie portrayed him as this charmingly sadistic Bond Villain henchman, even after he switches sides in the sequel he’s still kind of a belligerent dick. It’s a fun piece of characterization that even once he’s cleared his name, avenged his father, and made his peace with his family, it doesn’t change the fundamental fact that he’s not a very nice person.

This is something that would persist into the next (and for the moment last, but more on that later) onscreen version of Storm Shadow.

GI Joe Renegades (the best GI Joe Cartoon, fight me) saw Storm Shadow (voiced by “holy crap this guy originated the role of Saw Gerrera in Clone Wars” Andrew Kishino) as the leader of the Arashikage Clan (explicitly a crime syndicate, harkening back to implications in Hama’s version) who operates independent of Cobra except very briefly and only to fulfill his own ends (again bringing him closer to Hama’s version than any of his predecessors). Falling in line with the implications of the movie and Resolute, he and Snake Eyes were uneasy classmates more than friends and trained together as teenagers. An attempt to kill Snake Eyes went awry and resulted in the death of the Hard Master (who again, seemed to favor Snake Eyes over his own nephew). Storm Shadow believes Snake Eyes to have killed The Hard Master(somehow failing to connect the dots given his own murder plan failed the same night Snake Eyes allegedly murdered his uncle--or hell he’s probably just in denial until the truth slaps him in the face).

Also, irrelevant aside number 2, in contrast with Resolute I really don’t like this character design. Renegades had pretty good character design all around, neatly bringing together various versions in a way that felt coherent but I don’t like the little tufts of hair sticking out of the mask or the way it kinda hangs in front of his mouth. Is he hiding his face or not? It seems like he’s not so much wearing a mask as a bandana and an oversized turtleneck.

This version neatly ties together the “Snake Eyes betrayed us” of the early 2000′s, the “arrogant unfavorite” of the mid 2000s and the “out for justice assassin” of Hama’s run. He is, again, an arrogant prick from the start, but his genuine shame and resolve to abandon his quest for vengeance and his extremely short partnership with Cobra make his eventual redemption (or the start of what you assume would have been a longer redemption arc had the series continued) more believable than the live action movies--if a mite less fun.

And that’s where it ends, at least until the much delayed Snake Eyes live action movie is finally released, where Storm Shadow is set to be played by “guy from the best episode of American Gods Season 2″ Andrew Koji. I quite like the look of the cast of this movie, and I’m excited to see what Koji brings to the role. Will Storm Shadow be arrogant, murderous, honorable, charming, brooding, misunderstood, cruel, vengeful...some impossible combination of all of the above? We’ll have to wait and see.

*Including the various alternate comic book versions probably would have painted a more complete picture, but I’ve only read Hama’s run and the IDW reboot (where Storm Shadow is kind of a non-entity), besides this was more about tracing Storm Shadow through the adaptations I watched as a kid.

*None of the adaptations seem to go with Hama’s original detail that Storm Shadow and Jinx were from Northern California. On the one hand I see why you transplant them to Japan with the rest of their family (it’s a globetrotting element and makes the cast more cosmopolitan) but I always liked the idea of that they were children of immigrants.

*Adaptations have been touch and go about casting Japanese actors in the role but I was impressed to find out that Sunbow cast Japanese Americans as both Storm Shadow and Jinx, making them probably the most faithful casting in relation to their original backstories.

*Apologies for my complete inability to get screenshots of roughly the same size or resolution.

#gi joe #storm shadow

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anonymouslyangsty · 3 years ago

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I would love to hear about Taka secretly being the murderer instead of Toko!!

HEHEHEH I now have an excuse to talk about the Brainrot. Also gosh. This is real long. And kinda just a string of thoughts, though no more so than usual I guess. I got into this one

First and foremost, we got to establish how close to the Toko/Syo situation Taka would be in this case. For the sake of simplicity, we'll say it's another situation of Taka and Ishida being separate personalities, just like with Toko and Syo. I think there's definitely merit to them being the same person, but I'd have to think that over since...well I've never thought of this concept from that mindset before.

Let's consider Taka not knowing. I like that it's kinda a metaphor to some degree? Because as kids, we all have a very black and white, pure idea of morality and justice. Don't steal from others, don't lie, don't hurt people, ect. And that clear cut morality is very much in line with Taka as a character. He follows the rules! All the time! Even in a death game he'll yell at you for running in the halls. And this morality of his is so pure and simple, to the point of being childish.

But morality is not black and white in the real word. It's complicated, with tons of different factors to consider more often than not. Is it already to steal if you'll starve otherwise? Is it alright to lie if the person you're lying to has bad intentions, even if they are a authority figure? Is it okay to hurt someone if doing so saves others? Morality isn't clear cut and sometimes rules need to be broken. But when we're immature, it's easy not to realize this.

So having Taka not know about Ishida would be representative of this concept of immature vs mature morality. The immature morality, the black and white view, is unaware of the need for complexity. This would be Taka, because Taka seems unable to accept grey morally. His interactions with Mondo reflect that. When he thought Mondo was bad, he was totally bad. He was violent, lazy, and a criminal. When he decided Mondo was good, he was totally good. He was the perfect man, unable to do any harm, let alone kill someone.

So Ishida would be the mature morality, the one who realizes that the idealistic views of the immature morality are just that, an ideal, not reality. Ishida would understand that Taka's belief that, if he can just bring his ideas and morals into politics everything can be solved, is wrong. Corruption runs deeper than Taka's willing or ready to confront. And even with all the hard work in the world, Kiyotaka isn't going to be able to solve everything.

How do you solve society's issues when the avenues to legally solve it are corrupt? Who do you call when the cops abuse the people? When the billionaire has all the judges paid off? How can you uproot corruption when so many politicians benefit from it and strive to perpetuate it?

You can't. And that's what Ishida's there for. Ishi is more of the revolutionary that Taka is, the one who's willing to break the rules to ultimately create a better world to live in.

So yeah. Ishida is a murderer. He kills corrupt authority figures, those who'd would lie and bribe their way out of trouble if he didn't kill them. Because for far too long justice has only affected those who couldn't pay their way out of it. I guess he's kinda a Sparkling Justice kinda situation, motivation wise.

His calling card would definitely be different from Syo's. He'd probably leave a file of all the crimes the politician was executed for. Nobody knows how he gets the info, since so much of it was covered up, but he has it. Along with this, his victims are always decapitated. This is in reference to the French Revolution, where the people rose up and used a guillotine on the ruling class. (I’m sure there’s a more Japanese appropriate revolution I could make reference of, but I don’t know what it is.)

Now actually, how does Ishida get all that info on his victims? Not sure fully myself, but he probably uses Takaaki's position as an officer to his benifit. I'm sure he can get a lot of confidential information by breaking into police files. He has his ways.

Also, it should be noted that someone like Mondo wouldn't become a target for Ishida. Ishida doesn't deal with petty criminals, or even serial killers. He deals with criminals that'll powerful enough to manipulate the justice system to their advantage. Ishida only kills those the law refuses to deal with.

Unlike Toko and Syo, I think that Kiyotaka would be totally unaware of Ishida. I like the idea of Ishida attempting to protect Taka from what he does. Because Taka is everything Ishida fights for; to protect innocence by destroying corruption. So Ishida wouldn't want Taka to know about what he does.

Perhaps fittingly, this isn't exactly a good thing. How can Taka grow as a person, learn to be a leader himself, if he isn't aware of the corrupt world he's getting into? Taka does need to evolve into mature morality, but Ishida won't let him in his desire to protect Taka. Ishida keeps Taka innocent and naive, which isn't always a good thing.

Moving on, I want to talk about backstory for this AU. It's basically the same. Toranosuke's corrupt in his actions as Prime Minister, probably cheating many out of their livelihoods and ruining lives in the process. He's eventually found out, leaving him and his family in dept. As far as I know, Toranosuke never serves a prison sentence. I don't know why he didn't in canon, but I'm going to say he bribed his way out of it in this AU.

And all of this is...upsetting to Taka to say the least (I'm going to say Taka's like 8-10 at this point) . Because even if his father tries to hide it from him, Taka's aware of the fallout of what his grandfather did. The thousands who were cheated, the workers left jobless, the safety violations that were ignored. He knows what his grandfather did was wrong. And everybody, from the news reporters, to the people on the street, to even his own teachers, say Toranosuke should be imprisoned for what he did.

The situation is terribly unfair. Why should everyone hate him because of what his grandfather did? Why should his dad have to work all day just because of Toranosuke? Why isn't his grandfather in jail if he did so many bad things?

Kiyotaka is a passionate boy, and while he's well behaved, that level of passion wouldn't be easy for a 10 year old's willpower to contain. I think that eventually the stress of everything becomes too much. The constant bullying at school, the fact that he never sees his father anymore, the fact that his mother left them after grandfather got in trouble. It's all a lot for a child. And Toranosuke, the man behind all that heartache, is still there. An old, withered man, just laying in bed while everyone else suffers for his mistakes.

It's not fair. It's not fair that the bad guy gets away with it, and Taka hates his grandfather so much for it. Perhaps if Toranosuke had spoken to him, had said anything in explanation for what he'd done, Taka could've dealt with it better. But he didn't, so Taka didn't.

I think Taka eventually does something drastic. It's not planned or calculated in any way, more like a child having the worst possible meltdown. Perhaps he pulls out his grandfather's life support, or he smothers the man with a pillow. Either way, Toranosuke Ishimaru dies at the hands of his grandson, a young boy who couldn't handle the stress the world put on him.

And Taka's horrified when he realizes what he's done. Because he just killed someone, someone who had hurt so many people, but someone nonetheless. And regardless of how angry Taka was with his grandfather, he honestly didn't mean to kill the man.

So Taka does what any terrified child would do. He runs as far away as possible, with absolutely no plan. And it's days later before anyone finds him and brings him home. He's completely catonic when Takaaki finally finds him.

Taka's fingerprints being on the crime scene wouldn't be suspicious, since he lives there and is in charge of taking care of Toranosuke while Takaaki's out. So it wouldn't be hard to assume someone came in, killed Toranosuke, then cleaned up any evidence before leaving. After all, Toronosuke was dead for hours before Takaaki returned home.

It's possible that Takaaki knows what actually happened. I mean, Taka's still Taka. He'd probably confess what'd happened once he's less catonic. But, regardless of if Takaaki believes the confession, he sure as hell isn't going to accept it.

It’s the only time Takaaki ever yelled at his son. Not out of anger, but a panicked terror of not knowing if his son was deeply traumatized and blaming himself. or if he was truly guilty of murdering Toranosuke. He makes Taka swear to never say he killed his grandfather again.

And somewhere in the midst of all that issue, Ishida starts being a thing. Perhaps it comes from Taka’s immaturity; his childish views on morality are completely incompatible with what he’d done. And how he’s promised to never bring it up again, but that means that he can’t do the right thing and confess. It’s a horrific contradiction and a horrific situation.

Perhaps Ishida is Taka’s means of coping with that. Taka doesn’t remember what happened on that day, but Ishida does. Ishida carries the burden of that day and, as Taka gets older, all the other deaths.

Does Takaaki know about his son’s vigilantism? Who knows.

Anyway, as for in the death game. I would still say the murderer gets revealed in ch2, but I’m not quite sure how. There’s no way that Taka could tell anyone he’s Ishida (or whatever the media calls this ‘mysterious killer’), since he himself honestly doesn’t know.

I feel like it would be possible for Togami to catch him however, assuming there’s info on his case in the library. When the secrets are passed out, Taka would probably be pretty vocal about his being a “total false accusation”. After all, there’s no way he killed his own grandfather! These so called secrets are clearly just slander, right?

Given how honest Taka’s shown himself to be, Togami might think that’s suspicious that he likely honestly doesn’t remember his secret happening. Which might be enough for him to connect Taka to the string of murders. After all, Toranosuke would fit the bill of the killer’s usual victims.

I guess to get Ishida to front, Togami would have to convince both the class and Taka that he’s the aformentioned murderer. It would be...A very bad time for Taka. Bringing up a lot of repressed memories.

Also, gotta talk about Ishida a tad more! With Toko and Syo, the fact that they have such different personalities is part of the charm. So, it seems kinda lame to keep Ishida as “just Taka but loud and rude” like in canon. Not to mention that Ishida wasn’t made with Mondo in mind, so it wouldn’t make sense.

My first thought is that Ishida is almost the total opposite of Taka. He’s still just as militant as Taka, but he’s far more serious, less expressive. He probably very openly consiters making Togami his next target for the whole mutilating a corpse thing, but decides not to on the grounds that he’s a minor (and also because they’re in a death game and Ishida doesn’t want to risk Taka dying)

Also I’m realizing that, if Togami sets up the killer like he does in canon...That means he cuts off Chihiro’s head….Ew

#Not sure if I'm happy with all the details of this #but whatever #I just think it's a cool idea even if I haven't thought it out fullyl #Taka #Danganronpa #kiyotaka ishimaru #an ask tag

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a-student-out-of-time · 4 years ago

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(Mod, can this anon just say I really appreciate how much self-control you have? When that Haiji defender showed up on your blog, you just said "get off my blog". This anon really appreciates how you didn't scream at them, accuse the person of secretly being a pedophile themself, tell them to kill themself or to choke on broken glass, encourage your followers to harass Haiji fans, etc. Today's generation of pop-culture-fandom could learn from your example.)

//Now that you bring this up, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to talk for a bit about fandom toxicity.

//There is, in a way, a feeling of entitlement and ownership when it comes to characters or properties. That, because these things hold a special place in our hearts, that they belong to us and that our interpretation of them is the correct one and that anyone who disagrees is wrong.

//So when there comes creative decisions or opinions made by others with those properties, even ones by the actual creator of the work, that don’t match up to our own, there can come a feeling that these are a direct attack against us as well. With that comes a lot of the worst parts of fan culture: harassment, insults, bullying, threats, and even actual attacks on these people.

//But the truth is, these people were probably just expressing their feelings and emotions about the same work, because they enjoy it too. They were never trying to directly or indirectly attack you, they just simply had a different opinion. It’s important to keep that in mind: the people you talk to online are human beings with thoughts and feelings of their own, and those feelings are rarely going to be the exact same as yours.

//An unfortunate part of the problem are the inherent psychological biases that we all have, and confirmation bias especially. Where we’ll focus on information we agree with (even if it’s factually wrong) and ignore anything that conflicts with that (even if it’s factually correct). This goes beyond just fandom, but I’m going to stay on topic.

//There is not a single human being at any point in history who hasn’t been guilty of these biases. You, me, everyone you’ve ever met, we’ve all done it at one point or another. The issue is when these biases get us to leap toward intolerant conclusions about those whose viewpoints we disagree with. “You don’t have the same opinion as me, so you must be stupid/evil/bigoted/brainwashed/etc.”

//It can be so easy to draw those conclusions about people, especially when the arguments aren’t well-structured and you’re in the heat of the moment. But let’s be real: we’re never all going to 100% agree on everything. And that’s okay. Hell, if we did, that sounds more like a dystopian nightmare scenario where free thinking has been suppressed.

//And thinking is an activity I’ve always encouraged. Toxicity is ultimately at odds with critical thinking, where any dissenting opinion is hunted down and suppressed and anyone who speaks up is bullied into silence. That is not what my blogs are about. It does kinda make me sad that I’m being praised for not being a toxic asshole, because I don’t really feel like that’s praiseworthy. I want that to be a normal thing.

//Here’s an experiment: take your favorite DR character and ask yourself why you like them. What is it about them that drew you to them? Their personality? Their backstory? Their role in the narrative of whichever game they were in? When you have those reasons in mind, consider the following: what about this character is flawed? What about them is inherently dark or troubling? Why might someone else dislike them?

//And then work backwards from there: take your least favorite DR character and ask yourself why you dislike them. Then find all the ways why someone else might like them without diving straight into intolerant conclusions. Look past the surface and dig a bit deeper to see what exactly makes them tick.

//That’s not me asking for essays, that’s something I want you all to consider for yourselves.

//I’ll be the first to admit I really disliked Junko. I didn’t consider her all that interesting of a character or a villain, and she just cames off as very annoying and overblown to me. I considered everything that she sets in motion to be far more interesting.

//I have, however, seen a lot analyses and in-depth looks at her as a character and after going through those, I came away with a lot of insights I didn’t even consider before. My opinion hasn’t changed too much, but I can definitely see (DR3 notwithstanding) all the way she can and does make for a interesting villain.

//So the takeaway is, even if you don’t end up changing your opinion, you can at least say “I still disagree, but I’ve gained some perspective into why someone would feel this way and I’m better for it.” Critical thinking does not mean you have to give up your opinions, and there does exists a very wide middle ground between total agreement and toxic harassment.

//But critical thinking is at odds with the idea that it’s best to retcon, ignore, or fabricate details of canon that we disagree with to justify those opinions. This is why I got so mad at the anon who claimed Haiji was talking about fictional underage girls, something that is not at all substantiated by evidence in the game. You can’t simply ignore these details because you don’t like them.

//Critical thinking is about being able to either say, “Okay, I fully acknowledge that these details about this character I like are problematic and I understand why it might upset people, but they’re not the sole or central reason why I like this character”, or “Okay, after careful analysis, maybe I was wrong about what I originally thought about them.”

//Me personally, I look at these details and ask “Okay, but how can we build off of this? Can we tell a new story with it?” For example, while SDRA2 Chapter 0 left a bad taste in most everyone’s mouths, I didn’t want to just retcon it. Instead, thought Kokoro being regretful over her actions and wanting to reconnect with her daughter would make for a very interesting story.

//But the most important part of this that I’d want anyone to take away is that it’s important to listen to others and consider their viewpoints as well, and again without immediately jumping toward conclusions and talking over them before they make their case. Listen to people, ask them questions, and remember that on the other end of the conversation is another human being with thoughts and feelings of their own.

//Now, there is that invisible fear that “understand that others have different opinions” is shorthand for “just accept that some people are into r*pe/inc*st/p*dophilia and let them make content of it.” I promise you that is not at all what I’m suggesting here. I hope my previous angry rant about Haiji cemented that fact.

//What I am saying is that we need to be acutely aware of both the thoughts and feelings of others and those of ourselves. That it’ll be better for us as well as others to apply critical thinking and careful insight into our opinions, not taking them as inherent fact simply because we hold them, and understand that others will not always enjoy the same content the same way we do.

//And most importantly, being able to separate those who are willing to listen vs. those who’ll prefer to stay toxic, bitter, and unmoving is a very important skill to learn. There is no shame in withdrawing yourself from any sort of talk with a person who upsets people for fun, and it will be better for your health in the long run.

//Finally, let’s be real, what’s gained from arguing with people online? People who you never have and probably never will meet? Not much. But if someone is not going to budge and only wants to share their toxicity with the world, it’s better for you to simply walk away, block them, cut yourself off, and move on. Their toxicity is their deal, and it doesn’t have to be yours.

//But I also think there are people who are willing to listen, who may simply not know that they’re engaging in things that are hurtful or toxic. And some frank but kind insight as to why can change their opinions. A willingness to listen, not to just defend their position, is what’s important.

//I’ll be completely honest here and say I was in that position once. I’ve said and thought some awful things before, and I feel so fortunate that I met the right people who stopped me from going down that road before I got too far. Not with hostility or arguments, but honest and kind discussions and insights.

//As fans and as people in general, we can, should, and need to be better. That’s why I don’t want my space to be full of hate and bullying, but just storytelling and creative discussions, where people are welcome to express their opinions, and even if we disagree, that’s alright. We’ve at least gained some insight into each others’ views ^^

//Compassion and wisdom are what I consider the most important virtues, and being more critical of ourselves is how I think we can solve the issue of fandom toxicity. That’s what I’ve tried to apply here. My goal is just to tell a good story for you all to enjoy here, and I appreciate each and every one of you who’ve followed, liked, reblogged, or even just considered any of my posts worthwhile to read

//And if you made it all the way through this, I hope you’ll consider everything I’ve said here as well. You can’t change every single toxic person out there, but you can change yourself for the better and encourage others to do the same.

#mod talks #mod rambles #a student out of time #I didn't have any bad experiences recently I promise #this has just been on my mind for a while and I felt like sharing #Anonymous

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gilmesc1 · 4 years ago

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Do you have any thoughts on fictional portrayals of DID, like danganronpa, spl!t, and others?

Yes, I usually would take time to do research but lucky for you I already did XD

I looked into Danganronpa a while ago since we have 1 or 2 system mates from it, and in that case, prepare yourselves for a hot mess of my opinion and facts I got from a google fest.

So, to start out, I guess I might share spoilers?? So you hath been warned. Additionally I’m not going to sit here and rephrase the entire story so, honestly why am I even explaining this. Anon at least knows what’s going on XDD

So Danganronpa is a psychological mystery anime that focuses heavily on the themes of hope and despair, where in most versions of the story characters are forced into a killing game where they have to kill each other. Bet you couldn’t have figured that one out on your own XD

One thing I like about it is that the characters overall are written fairly well. Many of them are complex multi layered gems of writing with good development and story arcs. One thing that I found interesting is the semi accurate portrayals of mental illness and how it impacts the characters in this insane situation.

So, let’s break into that. I focused on the portrayals of NPD and DID specifically, and I could go back and look into others, but we’ll focus on those for this post. And just going to throw this out now, I think it’s interesting and also kind of a bold move to tackle those kinds of things in an anime.

So let’s look at the DID portrayal. The character’s name is Toko Fukawa, and she is a fucking wreck. Confirmed emotional abuse gives a lot into her character, and we see her as this timid, deflective, honestly broken shell. Later in the series we are introduced to her alternate personality, I know, exciting.

However it’s a literal serial killer. So like. Yeah.

I don’t love that part. I mean, out of all of the portrayals for this alter, you had to go with serial killer? And not only that, but a really famous, generally acknowledged as insane serial killer. Thaaaanks writer.

To recap what a lot of tumblr says, this kind of portrayal is dangerous because the majority of DID portrayals are of crazy violent stereotypes. It was quite honestly disappointing, and I wish that the writers hadn’t used this as their big reveal.

But hey, neutral standing here, let’s look at why he did do that from a different perspective. Since the theme of the game/anime is killing, it does make sense plot wise to have a serial killer. Additionally, it’s a clever way to get said serial killer into the game in the first place. Plot wise and with a few things I’ll mention in a second, it does make sense in a twisted way.

But let’s get the bad out of the way first. One thing I really don’t love is her appearance. It’s like someone took the original character design of fukawa, took some drugs, and then drew a nightmare creature. Seriously, there’s crazy eyes, hair flying everywhere, and this freaky inhuman tongue that the alter has out no matter what she’s doing. Like whaaaaaat the fuck.

Firstly this spreads misinformation that we can change appearance at will. Like don’t get me wrong, I wish I could, but the best I got is changing clothes if I have the time. Also the tongue I really hate because it gives the impression of the alter being this inhuman monster. Also again with the impression that we can morph stuff when we switch. I mean, if I had that, I’d be having a lot more fun in my day to day life than I do now.

Do what you will with that information.

Additionally we do see Fukawa’s tongue, and it’s not a weird demogorgon kind of thing, so, yeah, the tongue thing is weird.

Finally her name. It’s Genocider Syo/Jack/Jill. Not a normal name, no the only name we have for her is her serial killer name which I feel serves to continue to show her as this inhuman thing where we all go, Oh god oh fuck time to be afraaaaid.

But hey, let’s look at what they did right.

The backstory of how genocider came to be is really accurate to how it works. Fukawa has a history of abuse at a young age, and genocider eventually comes into the picture to protect her.

Let me explain: So this is a theory on my part (Check out Weeby Newz’s youtube video, that’s where I got this) but Fukawa was revealed to have suffered massive emotional abuse at the hands of a boy who she had romantic interest in. Since he was moving away, she decided to confess her love to him in a letter before this happened. Turns out the boy pinned the letter in her classroom so everyone would make fun of her. Dick move.

I think genocider formed after this specific event, firstly because this is a huge defining experience for Fukawa. Additionally, the way genocider acts serves to prove this. Her target victims are boys, and her first victim was the boy who hurt Fukawa. I mean yeah, killing was waaaay extreme, but bear with me on this next part:

I’d say that genocider is a protector. A lot of her initial actions were to protect Fukawa from getting hurt in the same way, and protectors do have a history of going to the extreme to protect their hosts and systems. Even though she seems like a persecutor, I don’t think any of her actions have been directed at herself and Fukawa, they actually seem to have a decent relationship, and to end this theory that is completely non canon and just me pretending I’m smart, I’d call her a protector.

Next, looking at the relationship they have. Genocider at one point tells the protagonist that they have a “non disclosure policy” when they switch when the other is in the middle of something. (like murder??) And I personally really liked this, as it was a kind of realistic DID humor in my eyes. Take it or leave it, that’s my opinion.

And that’s really all I have on that behalf. Genocider really isn’t shown as a “normal person” often, which I guess is the point but also leaves me with nothing to evaluate. (Side note, this is only V1 of the series and I’m aware she changes but dear god go easy on me)

Finally, here are a few things that I find a little weird tbh.

At first glance when they switch, it’s a touch accurate, if over dramatic. Losing consciousness and coming to as a different alter is possible so I do like that, however they also have her constantly switching when sneezing, which is a little out there.

I mean, I think I’ve done that before, but for it to be a consistent theme, idk. Maybe overdramatized again.

Secondly, there is a voice change, which is accurate, but it really just serves to fit the crazy image, so I’m conflicted on that.

So that is really all I can say on that specifically, to end things I’m going to talk about one other character Fukawa has interactions with, Togami. (He has a first name but I can’t spell/remember it.)

So I gravitated towards him while watching the series because he reminds me of me, hence me saying that he seems to be a dead ringer for npd. Let me explain.

He’s very cold and distant from others and obviously feels superior, additionally he is willing to fight tooth and nail to consistently be on top and win in any situation, leading to him doing some fucked up things.

But like I feel for him. It’s like watching me XD

His past was a very competitive cuthroat environment, where he was taught that losing is worse than death. Additionally he was almost groomed to be this untouchable figure so it’s no surprise that he believes that. I might make a second post about him because there’s a lot more I can say, but I’m going to double back to Fukawa now.

So Fukawa gains a very unhealthy obsession with Togami, despite him wanting literally nothing to do with her. He’s verbally abusive to her and does go out of his way to attack her, but she thinks it’s a sign of love. Poor Fukawa.

This also kind of fits with NPD, because we can have some pretty gravitating personalities. I think the attraction has a lot to do with Fukawa’s mental state, but I just found it interesting that the emotional abuse victim gravitates to Togami of all people.

So I brought him up for that above thought I had, and also to compare this last point. So Fukawa was confirmed to have DID, like it was specifically stated. To my knowledge it was never stated that Togami has NPD, but I strongly assume that he does. (key word assume, I could be wrong.)

So I found it interesting that Togami has this very accurate portrayal of NPD without ever confirming that he has NPD, while Fukawa is specifically confirmed to have DID while having a semi accurate portrayal. I think the writer really wanted to include mental illness in his story line and I doubt he intended anything to be intentionally harmful.

Writing mental illness into a story is very very very tricky, and it’s practically impossible to satisfy everyone, but the fact that he did do it is in my opinion, very bold.

He made good and less good choices, but overall he did make very compelling characters. Genocider admittedly fits better in this plotline as a crazy killer than she would as a realistic alter, but this is fiction.

So final statements: Toko Fukawa is not a bad character. I like a lot about her and overall I think she is very well written. Genocider is very less developed and more of a surprise plot twist than a character, which is unrealistic. The writer made some very awkward choices from a realistic standpoint despite it fitting well with his story.

So overall, she really isn’t a good portrayal of DID. You can enjoy her character like I did, but the main takeaway here is to not take her as a realistic portrayal. I know it seems obvious but this is the kind of thing that forms unhealthy ideas in viewers.

I’m not hating on Danganronpa or Toko, I actually really loved both. I’ve tried to stop ranting about fictional works that I hate. I used to be a loose fucking canon but I realized that I had been bashing a few autistic friend’s special interests, so now I try to be hyper aware that a fictional work might mean everything to someone even if I personally disliked it.

But that isn’t the case here because again I loved Danganronpa XD

So friends, that about does it for me. I liked doing this kind of analysis so if you want me to do more, send them my way XD

My next post will probably be the syscourse analysis if I can get that done before I get an easier topic. So thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, thank you for the ask anon.

And I’m now out of words. You all should be happy. XD

#did #did tag #dissociative identity disorder #actuallydid #actuallymultiple #actuallydissociative #actuallytraumagenic #danganronpa #toko fuwaka

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solynacea · 5 years ago

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333: Pride, Gluttony, & Scars

Warning: This a very long post that contains character analysis and an as-of-yet unsubstantiated theory. I don’t blame you if you want to skim read, and there’s a TL;DR at the bottom.

I’ve seen a lot of posts about the events of the newest chapter of Nanatsu no Taizai; as someone who does manga edits, I spend quite a bit of time staring at panels and dialogue to figure out how to organize, what can be taken out, what should be left in, etc. And I’ve done the same with this chapter, pouring over the scenes of Escanor’s final moments again, and again, and I’ve seen a theory about Merlin posted by @derieri, so I’d like to share my thoughts on the final words exchanged between Escanor and Merlin.

But first, let’s talk about blame. I’ve seen so much of it going around: Elizabeth should have healed him, Mael should have kept Sunshine, Meliodas should have kept him from fighting, and while those are valid complaints, they also subtract from and undermine Escanor’s character and the development of his arc. We learned from his gaiden that he thought he was a monster, unfit to live, a beast to be put down without remorse. It wasn’t until Meliodas bested him in combat and forced him to realize that his life was not his to do away with so carelessly that he began to live. And Escanor did what so many people with chronic depression/suicidal tendencies do: he latched onto his comrades as a reason to continue living.

Note: I am someone who suffers from the above conditions, so I am basing my analysis on that.

To Escanor, his very reason for being alive in his world was to protect the people he cared for, even if that meant losing his life in the process. And while he does care for the people of Liones — seen by him battling Estarossa to keep them safe and purposefully moving their fight to a lake to avoid hurting the knights nearby — the largest part of his world was the group of misfits who had become his friends. The Seven Deadly Sins were his family, the people he loved, the ones he would do absolutely anything for. Escanor did not see value in himself outside of as a tool to protect others; even without Sunshine, facing down an Indura spawn, he was willing to let it rip him to shreds to protect Gilthunder and the others. He was willing to die then. If Mael hadn’t intervened, he would have.

The long and short of what I’m saying is that, even without Sunshine, he would have found some way to put himself in that battle. We knew he was dying. It was shown in the blood he continued to cough up no matter how many times he was healed, in his disregard for his safety while fighting the Sinner at Camelot. His one regret when he thought he was going to die then was that he wouldn’t be able to continue protecting his comrades. Escanor, in his final moments, made two choices that those around him, who loved him, respected: he retook Sunshine to fight for his friends, and he burned up his life to keep them safe. (For those of you saying that Mael could have taken his place: yes. Or he could have joined in. But the Sins weren’t able to resist the Demon King without Merlin’s limit break magic, so whether or not him doing anything would have changed the outcome is debatable.)

Now that the bulk of my understanding of Escanor’s character is done, let’s move on to what originally prompted this post: his confession, and Merlin’s reaction to it.

While saying his farewell to the Sins and others, Escanor makes sure to acknowledge each of them in some way, whether by thanking them, apologizing, or asking for a favor. Or, in Ban’s case, getting in one final roast. What doesn’t he do? Downplay their grief. He fully acknowledges that his death is going to impact them all in some way, particularly not being able to attend King and Diane’s wedding. And when he gets to Merlin, he makes the confession of feelings she already knew he held.

After which Merlin does what Merlin is best at: she deflects. This is a canonical character trait for her; whether making a vague mention of something (her love for Meliodas), or waiting until the last second to reveal pertinent information (her Infinity magic), Merlin is known to be powerful and mysterious. She’s cool, she’s unruffled. And that doesn’t change here.

What does change is how Escanor speaks to her. Up to this point, he has always been respectful, almost to the point of absurdity. He does not press her on anything, does not question her. Yet here we see him blatantly refuse to allow her to hide behind a half-truth. Did Merlin view him as a test subject? Yes. Merlin views everyone that way to some degree. But Escanor isn’t a fool, and he immediately shakes his head and tells her that his feelings for her exist regardless of her view of him. Which leads to this:

Her veneer cracks. Merlin has only appeared vulnerable to this degree at one other point, and that was the death of Arthur. Her cool demeanor falls apart whenever some she cares for is dying, and that’s what happens here. If you want to read her body language, she’s averting her gaze (hiding from him), crossing her arms (to get distance/hold her emotions in check), and digging her fingers into her coat (to retain control). The moment Escanor tells her that he doesn’t care how she sees him because it won’t change how he feels, she begins to fall apart. And what does she say? “You’re too late.” We’ll come back to that.

She continues by seemingly veering off topic. “Too late for anything, for everything . . . some things just can’t be taken back.” Now, quite obviously we have yet to get a full gaiden for Merlin. Some of her backstory has been hinted at, like the destruction of Belialuin, which seem to be what she’s referencing here. But there’s something odd about it, and as @derieri pointed out, the way she’s wording her sentences and the confusion of Meliodas and Elizabeth make it highly likely that she’s referring to something other than Belialuin’s fall while saying that it’s too late. She continues by saying, “Escanor, I wish you would have found me sooner . . . If possible, 3,000 years sooner . . .”

That’s a very specific time frame, given that the first Holy War ended exactly 3,000 years before this event with the sealing of the Demon and Goddess Clans and the curse put on Meliodas and Elizabeth.

Here, Escanor directly acknowledges that there is something other than the sin that earned her the title of Gluttony. Merlin’s reaction?

Utter surprise and, by the sweat on her brow, horror. Whatever this sin is, it’s something that she’s tried desperately to keep hidden for centuries. Not even Meliodas, who she once loved, or Elizabeth, who she views as an older sister, know what it could be. When Escanor says that he doesn’t know the specifics, only that there was something else because she always looked so sad, we get a close up of her eye. Traditonally, this is a technique used whenever one character breaks through to another. It’s meant to bring us close to the character, to show those boundaries breaking down.

In this context, it means the boundaries between Merlin and Escanor are breaking down.

She goes silent after this while he says his final farewells, and doesn’t move until she goes to him and kisses him. There are three things that happen in those few panels that contradict Merlin’s established character: 1.) she moves towards someone, instead of having someone move to her; 2.) she acts on an impulse; and 3.) she puts herself directly in harm’s way. Merlin has been in battles before, yes, and she has suffered damage, but it is very rare for her to put herself so blatantly in danger when she doesn’t need to be. She could have told him she’d always remember him fondly. She didn’t need to burn her face as horribly, yet she did.

Directly after the kiss, she says:

There’s an interesting word choice here that might not be obvious to non-native English speakers. Merlin does not say, “I do not reciprocate your feelings for me.” She says, “I was never able to reciprocate your feelings for me.” In other words, she doesn’t say she does not love Escanor. She says she’s unable to love him. And there’s a world of difference between those two. It’s the difference between saying you do not eat something because you don’t like it, and you aren’t able to eat something because there’s a reason, like an allergy. Something is prohibiting Merlin from returning his feelings, at least in a deep way.

This is the panel that first caught my attention. “As proof of your life, as proof that you existed, I’ll take these burns upon my body . . .” That is a lot of commitment for someone she claims to see only as a research subject. There’s another person we’ve seen sear their flesh to touch the person they care for, and that was 3,000 years ago, when Meliodas reached into a goddess barrier to cradle and comfort Elizabeth. Merlin is scarring herself so that no one, herself included, will ever forget Escanor. And furthermore, she’s doing it as a symbol of his love for her.

Remember that point I said we’d come back to later? In the theory, it’s stated that Merlin sold Meliodas and Elizabeth out to the Demon King and Supreme Deity. Which, frankly, I think would be another level to the tragically beautiful story that is Nanatsu no Taizai, but from that come two possibilities: Merlin was punished for her hubris in daring to speak to the gods she betrayed by having her ability to love removed, or she removed it herself after the destruction of her home/the curse being placed.

Tl;dr: Merlin did, in some way, love Escanor, but whether through her own means or outside interference was unable to reciprocate it fully.

#text #long post #nnt #nanatsu no taizai #merlin #escanor #escalin #nnt meta #nnt analysis #meta post #analysis post #it's been a while since i did one of these and it came out waaaay longer than i expected #and it's also four am so i'm rambling a bit as well

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mobius-prime · 4 years ago

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266. Sonic Universe #1

The Shadow Saga (Part 1 of 4): Living Weapons

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

We've finally arrived at the comic's most long-standing sister series, Sonic Universe! Like its predecessor KtE, SU ran in arcs of several issues, though the arcs were made up of four issues at a time instead of three, and largely focused on side stories that ran at the same time as the main plotline, usually following the adventures of characters other than Sonic. This allows us to get a greater insight into what the expanded cast of the comics is up to without taking the focus of the main comic's plot away from its titular hero. If we're being honest, some of my favorite stories from this era were contained within SU, as I'm very attached to a lot of the secondary characters of this universe and only following Sonic tends to get boring after a while (one of the reasons I actually liked KtE). As the name implies, this first arc focuses mostly on Shadow. I will note before we get started that since the issues of SU were released alongside those of StH, one per month, the stories of SU often end up intersecting with the main plot. Most of SU's arcs can be read in full four-issue chunks without interruption, but I've deliberately split this one into a couple parts based on context clues about how exactly it intersects with StH's next four issues. Thus, we'll be covering the first issue of the Shadow Saga, followed by two issues of the main comic, and then the other three issues of the Shadow Saga before we finally make our way back into the main comic for the 200-issue milestone special.

This issue picks up right where we left off last time, with Shadow teleporting himself and Metal Sonic away from Moebius to a new zone, though there's a bit of a twist. See, the other sister series I haven't been covering (but might in the future, depending on a couple different factors) is the comic's continuation of the Sonic X anime, which ran for forty issues, with the final one being released just before this one. I haven't covered it because technically it's an entirely separate canon from the preboot, with the only point of intersection being its final issue, when Shadow initially ends up teleporting himself and Metal Sonic to… you guessed it, the Sonic X zone. That issue ends with them teleporting away once again, which lands them here, in the Sol Dimension, hovering above the waters of a vast ocean. Shadow tries to get Metal to stop fighting for a second, reasoning that he's a living weapon that can think for itself and therefore should reject working for Eggman, but Metal doesn't listen, instead calculating that Shadow's rocket shoes are all that's allowing him to hover and that he likely has very little swimming ability. So naturally, it shoves him down into the water and zooms off in search of this zone's equivalent of Eggman.

I have no idea if the implication here really was meant to be that Shadow is bad at swimming, or if Metal was just mistaken and Shadow deliberately only surfaced after it had left, but either way, Shadow is taken aboard Marine's boat, where he explains why he's here to Blaze. Blaze, recognizing him as being from Sonic's world, explains that he's ended up in her own dimension, and all the while an excited Marine, her Australian accent out in full force, continually tries to interrupt and do some explaining of her own. Shadow irritably suggests she captain the boat back toward the nearest port, which she promptly does, wanting to show off her captaining skills, while Shadow and Blaze continue to talk. This gives Blaze the opportunity to explain to Shadow - and therefore, us - exactly what happened in the offscreen "adaptions" of Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure that Ian never showed the full picture of. Interestingly enough, it seems that the entirety of the former basically didn't take place at all, with Sonic's relationship with Blaze being entirely centered around the events of the latter. Apparently, Blaze's problems began when the Sol Emeralds she was sworn to protect went mysterious missing, and she began having dreams about Sonic and Eggman. She ended up finding her way to the Cosmic Interstate and into Mobius, where she had her first, very hostile encounter with Sonic. From there, she evidently went immediately back to her own dimension, and not long after Sonic and Tails somehow ended up there after a freak storm (which is interesting in itself, considering the equivalent events of the games are implied to have taken place at least several months apart). Marine found them, as well as the green Chaos Emerald, and when the robot pirate Johnny stole it they enlisted Blaze's help to chase him from island to island, hoping to get the gem back.

Thanks for your entirely-factually-sound addition to that story, Marine! I love that she includes the detail of Blaze apparently having a giant friend crush on her. Soon enough, the boat pulls into the nearest harbor, while Shadow muses that if they still have the Chaos Emerald, his mission - to breach the Special Zone and retrieve one - may not be a total bust after all. However, it becomes apparent as they dock that the island they've arrived at is cloaked in a layer of ominous smoke. They quickly disembark to find that Metal has already reached the island, setting several buildings ablaze and grabbing random terrified citizens to question them on their version of Eggman's whereabouts.

Blaze in the preboot is actually significantly more prone to outbursts of anger and violence compared to her relatively more composed and calm counterpart within the games, something which I actually appreciate. She's knocked aside by Metal, and Shadow joins the fray, trying to once again teleport the two away to help protect Blaze's world, but is thrown aside before he can complete a Chaos Control. Marine jumps in next, grabbing onto Metal's head and whooping and throwing some very Australian insults at it while it tries to shake her off, and Shadow can't get a proper shot in for fear of hitting her. Finally Metal manages to throw her off, and Blaze runs over to check on her while Shadow once again confronts Metal about its purpose in life.

I like this. It makes total sense that Shadow would see a part of himself in someone like Metal, given their somewhat-comparable backstories. I suppose it makes more sense in this context as well, given that the events of Heroes never really happened here and thus no recent instance of Metal Sonic has ever rebelled against its creator. Metal processes Shadow's words for a second, and then replies that as Shadow currently considers protecting Mobius and its inhabitants his own purpose, they're still both just living weapons, weapons with conflicting purposes. Shadow regretfully calls on Blaze to attack with her fire, then he spindashes Metal into the air, where Marine, having rushed back to her ship, deals the killing blow with a shot from her cannons. The three then get busy with helping put out the fires around the village, and when Marine won't shut up about how badass the fight was, Shadow irritably reminds her that Metal was the only hope he had of getting back to Mobius in the first place, and then makes a request that leads into one of the most hilariously famous series of panels in the entire preboot.

That grumpy frown. I adore it. Blaze steps in to vouch for Marine, considering she's like, literally six, and then offers Shadow the Chaos Emerald, saying that with its help she's found enough of the Sol Emeralds that she won't need it anymore to find the rest. Shadow thanks her, and they part on good terms, with Shadow performing one last Chaos Control to send himself back to his home dimension.

Hey, Hope, good to see you! I'm still a bit sad that she feels she can't go back to the Mobians, but at least she seems to be doing well for herself, working as an engineer for GUN. Shadow reports to Tower that his mission was technically successful, even though he didn’t manage to breach into the Special Zone like they'd planned. Hope is happy that even though her transporter didn't work as expected Shadow still succeeded in retrieving an emerald, and Tower informs Shadow to get ready, as he's already being assigned another mission which will begin that night. Of course, we won't be seeing it for a couple of days, since as mentioned before we're taking a quick detour back to the main comic for now.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #su 1 #writer: ian flynn #pencils: tracy yardley #colors: jason jensen

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familyagrestefanblog · 5 years ago

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My notes to Ezras and Veronikas blind-reaction video

I’ve watched this video like at least 3 times today because honestly, Ezra is comedy gold and a whole ass mood. Also I wanted to get as much information out of their reactions as possible and at the same time try to figure out what episode we are dealing with here. My guess is “Kwami Buster” what do you think?

But now for my notes. Get something to eat and drink I’ve got 4 whole pages ^^

Ezra just dead ass comfirmed Mark + Nathanael as canon, nice!

episode starts in a location we’ve already been in s1 but rarely and we havent discovered it much so my guess is this:

The only time an akuma attack took place in there was in “Mr. Pigeon” and it rarely came up in other episodes.

a “her” is possibly up to something

a “she” (It didnt seem to be the same person) has alot to speak in this episode but normally doesnt speal much -> Ezra; she kinda does -> Veronika

A character has an ongoing theme, it happenes over and over (progression in the season/s). They dont know wjere the creators will go with it but Ezra theorizes it’ll be a massive sacifice. ( I think they are talking about Marinette here, who will maybe see something like Adrien and Kagami together and gets sad over it again. Since she will give up her love for him in s3 finale I find this more than likely). Also Veronika said first she cant imagine it being super sad and then mentioned Marinette slightly with “Like, Ladybug’s...” but then cuts off and agrees with Ezra that “it could be very sad” because Ezra said that he thinks itll be a massive Sacrifice because the show doesnt shy away from real emotions/feeling, espacially love and passion.

something new came up that teaches us about the term all of season 3 has been dealing with. We havent seen it yet, but its setting up why “they” happen. (No idea on this one)

something completely different and exciting came up (They are MARELING!) “Its beautiful!” “This is gorgeous!”. Never done before and something slightly origin story like (My bets are that this is a continuation of Master Fus backstory in “The collector” and its done kinda in the way of his painting like flashback pics

A “him” is in it and they are very excited about it (could be younger Fu but it could be anyone, really)

The voice actor whos telling the tale (another reason why I think its Fus backstory) is gonnabe very very busy

the whole sequence is going on for a while

Huge responsibility for Marinette (also another reason for the Backstory. I think this would be the episode he will start actually making Marinette a guradian of the Miraculous and therefore trusts her with even more of his backstory and what happened in the past

Veronika feels for a character alot of other people start to feel for too. She calls the person “missunderstood” (I think its Natahlie)

One story line Ezra knows very little about came up next and Veronika wonders if it will come up again “at the end of recordings” (so the Finale) (I thinks its the storyline of what happened to Emilie)

Very funny Adrien and Plagg moment that has alot of Fanart already -> its cute

right afterwards something “very different” happened and Ezra was SHOOK AF

A “hat thing” came up several times in the whole episode. Its gonna need a voice actor, its new to the story but not a character per se. “Its like a significant character in another characters being” (wtf??)

Once again something “very different” happened and Ezra is delighted and shook part 2

“look at its/his mouth” followed immediatly by a little conversation about hawkmoth winning and that it becomes more and more possible by every passing episode

“Sweet Plagg” Plagg either being normally cute or adorable or hes sweet and sensitive in a bad situation (ITs so THE laTER ONE YALL!!!)

SOMETHING HAPPENED! Ezra was so fucking SHOOK PART 3 that they repeated his high pitched “WHAT???!!?!??!?!?” three times!

Veronika: “How can they do that though! :D”

Ezra: “NOOOOOO WAY!!!!! (°ロ°)

Veronika: “What are they gonna do? :D”

Ezra: “There he goes! D:”

She was smiling and so excited and he dead ass sat beside her this close to having a mental breakdown (like I said this glorious man was a whole ass mood this entire video)

It seems something so massive happened that Ezra yelled: “The series is over! How can we have a Series if THAT happened? We dont have a Series if THAT. JUST. HAPPENED!!!!”

The only thing massive enough to end the series is Hm getting the ultimate power in one way or another. (everything else from reveal to betrayal and death is just an obstical to overcome in the plot, but Hm getting the ultimate power is presented to us as instand game over!) And with the little context we got from them from just moments before it seems to actually fit?? WTF??? In the episode I’m trying to put together with the context here it seemes that through Kwami buster Hawkmoth has got both Plagg and Tikki and was able to power up through them without getting the ultimate power just yet because for that he needs the jewellery to channel the powers. So I guess now Hm would only need Lbs and Cns empty jewellery so he cant combine them and game over.

Both Veronika and Ezra are just seriously loosing it (but most of all him)

“look how giant it is!” “And much bigger!” implying that we say whatever they talk about smaller before (for some reason my mind immediatly went to the giant butterly Hawkmoth head in the “origins”)

They are confused about how something (important) works

Something is there that we have seen in another episode before (1 Episode? Not sure but it has to be something rarely seen) + they are confused by it

something hilarious happened

a new ship can be merged in this episode (Maybe Marinette and Adrien with other Miraculous’? Maybe this is where we’ll get Dragonbug and Snake Noir because at some point later in the episode they would have to get Tikki and Plagg back making DB and SN possible)

The puns (in english) are WILD

Someone is being very courageous

it seems to feel like a classic Ml episode but with so many new elements. Not something we’ve seen before and I believe them! :D)

Ezra screams Part 8 + “That thing is dangerous!”

“How are they gonna- (stop him/it/whatever?)” <- Veronika

“How are they gonna, THEY DONT HAVE A WAY!” <- Ezra

Ezra screams part 9

Ezra gets to do something in the episode and I dunno what

“Thats when that happpens??” -> Veronika

“He wants that!” -> Ezra

A character we have seen more of this season is in this episode too

they fucking CLAPPED saying “finally, yes!” but it seems to be about something commen because Veronika seems to do it every time she wrapps up an episode

Adriens fucking parfume ad on a bench and neither of them remeber the words (SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME)

Hawkmoth moment + hilarious Hawky impression by Ezra saying “Ladybug and Cat Noir”

Hm and probably Lb and Cn are inside it/something

There is a weird noise but is has a purpose

a thing is “hUngry”

Ezra and Veronika a little shook part 10

“Thats so sad! :D” -> Veronika (I fucking love that woman xD)

“Dont do it! D:” -> Ezra concerned af

But “he” wont do it. Veronika and Ezra are relieved

Both doing Cataclysm impressions

Ezra being our very own Ladybug and being very passionate about her catchphrase lines (”Miraculous LadybuuuUUUUUUUUUUUUUUG!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ )

THEY POUND IT! :D

He asks her if she knows a character near the end (she does) so I’m taking from that that there is an important new character coming up in future

huge episode for 3 characters

Ezra repeats, one plagg moment was adorable

SHOOK PART 11

“Thats a huge reveal!” <- Ezra. “Unless he takes it back or she refuses" (my bets are on Gabriel revealing himself to be Hawkmoth to Tomoe. The contract they made in the beginning of the season, their growing partnership and some of Tomoes words in “Ikari Gozen” make me highly suspicious for what the future holds. Her knowing him to be Hawkmoth and that their partnership turns out to be more twisted than we though wouldnt surprise me, if anthing i would be PUMPED for it!)

It’ll (probably)be a huge thing in s4

something happened that reminded Ezra of karate kid

someone is in a disguise and Veronika laughs

Cliffhanger that Ezra describs as “dark”

no classroom episode, no ther students. “This was like to the heart of the matter of the miraculous powers and hat they can do and finding out things that we have no idea they could do and it opens up the lens and shows you more of this world and how dark it CAN be!” <- Ezra

#Miraculous #Miraculous Ladybug #Ml leaks #Ml spoilers

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marquis1305 · 5 years ago

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Silk and Steel Ch 3

AO3 Link

Rating: Mature

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

Relationship: James “Bucky” Barnes/Reader

Additional Tags:

Slow Burn, Reader-Insert, Florists, Reader is an Enhanced Individual, Nick Fury Knows All, SHIELD, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Bucky Barnes Feels, Protective Steve Rogers, Hydra (Marvel), enhanced!reader, Reader’s Brother works for SHIELD, POV Female Character, James “Rhodey” Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Rhodey is skeptical, Vision is curious, Tony feeds good behavior with blueberries, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Blueberries, backstory incoming, The Winter Soldiers - Freeform, Fragmented Teamwork, You like making quips as much as the next person, Tony Stark's Nickames

--------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3: The Soldier

You meet the rest of the team, and a few things are revealed about your past. Some of which is more worrying than not.

As it turned out, the rest of the team were just three people.

Three of the deadliest people you could think of, off the top of your head. And there they were, politely lounging in what amounted to a private airstrip. Quinjet and all. You felt your mouth dry out, it was one thing to objectively know that people with that sort of wealth was out there, it was another thing entirely to witness the line of jets, cars, and other sorts of vehicles. And right there, in the middle of all of them three figures all decked out in black, looking like they should be some sort of Bond criminals.

“Right, energizer bunny, this is agent succubus, capsicle, and the manchurian candidate. Ladies, this is the Energizer bunny.” Stark nodded between the three and yourself, lifting the scotch that he had had you pause for when you left the conference room.

And there went the tension from the room. Giggling softly, you roll your eyes, introducing yourself properly. “I’ve heard about each of you. It’s good to finally put some names to faces… or well…”

“We know what you mean.” Steve Rogers has a friendly laugh, disarming with an easy charm in the same way that Tony Stark helped ease your nerves by teasing. “Your brother did good work, we were sorry we got the call.”

“Well, when he insists on putting himself through missions before he’s ready for them. Then again, same could be said of any of the men here.” Natasha quirks her lips up in an almost smile. You know that of all of the people you’ve met today, she’s probably the most dangerous. And knew the most. “Nice to finally meet the sister he likes to brag about. Surprised you didn’t bring a bouquet.”

“What can I say, I’m better at leaving my work life behind when I shut the door for the day than most.” You return the gentle quip, understanding that she needed to get a read on you. You were a relative unknown. But she had the most experience with SHIELD directly, and had the most access to Fury’s files. She likely knew more about you than you know about yourself.

Your gaze slid past her to the remaining member of the so called team. Watching him as he doggedly kept his gaze from you. Taking note of the black glove that kept what you knew was a vibranium hand hidden. His hair pulled into a half bun away from his face. Something echoing in memories tucked too far away in your mind to easily recall.

It wasn’t until Tony rested his hand on your shoulder that your attention was pulled back from the other’s, away from the brooding soldier. “Alright, time to talk strategy.” Rogers came forward, nodding. “We received the call from Fury with some of the intel, hadn’t expected to be back here so soon.” “Yeah, well, I owe him a favor or five, so, I’m playing nice. Just be sure to keep your friend there on a leash, wouldn’t want anyone thin-” The line of thought cut off by a well placed nudge of your elbow to his gut. Giving him a pointed look.

“Whatever information you might have on my brother, we’ll need. All Fury had told me was that Hydra had managed to nab him.” Turning your gaze to the others as they fell in line beside the Captain, making their way back towards the facility. You moving to one side of him, while Stark fell in at your other side.

“He was working undercover, trying to find information that might lead to a Hydra base. We knew that there were more out there, but we hadn’t been able to root them all out yet. Fury has something of a grudge.” The Captain turns his gaze to you, watching with a certain softness to him.

“I expect he would. But that doesn’t explain why he was chosen for this.” Wiping a hand over your face does nothing to wipe away the beginning edges of exhaustion. A full day of work and half a heart attack will do that to a person.

“Fury knew about your connection to Hydra.” Natasha offered, her tone indicating that it meant she knew as well.

“Wait, what connection? Is there something I’m missing here, or is Romanov just trying to sound smart again?” Tony quipped, turning his gaze back to you.

You swallowed past the tightness of your throat, trying to find the words to explain the one thing that you had spent your life pretending didn’t exist. It had been easier that way, and your parents had taught you well. Taught your brother well, it didn’t make sense that he had turned around and used it for this...

“The Winter Soldiers that Zemo killed…” You blinked in surprise as Sergeant Barnes finally spoke up. “One of them had children. Borne after the serum… An attempt to breed the next generation of super soldiers, without needing the serum. After the riots the children had disappeared. A boy and a girl. We thought that they had either been killed or transported to another Hydra base for training… I thought you looked familiar.”

“Wait… So are you telling me that Miss Bunny here is a super secret breeding project?” Stark almost scoffed, raising a brow between you and Barnes.

“What, did you think that enhanced individuals all popped up fully grown? Most of us were created Stark… By one thing or another.” Sighing and rolling your eyes. “We were smuggled out before we could even remember anything about the base. Brought here, and hidden in plain sight. As far as I’m concerned, the people who raised us are our parents. Anything else was just words in a file that I never bothered to read. And all the more reason to ignore Fury’s calls to attempt to recruit me.”

“Right so, now that we’ve established you’re a baby super soldier, anything else that you might want to reveal? Just, you know, in case it might be relevant?” “I feel like telling you how I like my coffee is going to be extremely relevant here in the next ten minutes.” You flash Tony your brightest smile, made brighter by the snort of laughter you caught from the Winter Soldier. The sound barely muffled by his attempt to turn it into a cough. Tony rolled his eyes hard enough that you were surprised they didn’t fall right out of his head. Continuing to lead the group back through the hangar until you hit the elevator once more.

“So… are we expecting the rest of the Avengers for this?” You question, looking over the four in front of you.

“No, and this isn’t a reunion tour kid. The only reason capsicle is here is because of Fury.”

“No, we’re here to save someone, and the three of us have a better understanding of Hydra than what people you have left.” Natasha interjected with a smirk.

Steve rested a hand on your shoulder, offering his trademark smile. “But the point is, we’re here. For however long this takes. We won’t let them keep him, and we won’t let them get to you. The only thing that you need to is what you’re comfortable with. The team won’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“Then you’re already playing with a handicap, because all of us know that Hydra won’t play nice.” You grit your teeth. Shaking your head. “I want to stay as much out of this as I can, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to buckle up and do my part. So just tell me what to do already.”

The elevator dinged open to the conference floor once more. Rhodey and Vision had since made their departure, you assume it was to keep from any further bickering.

“First things first, we received a note along with your file. We can’t tell if it’s in code or is just an honest letter. But it’s marked to you.” Tony waved you ahead, leading you back to the table and flipping open the file.

The letter was in your brother’s handwriting. The same silly smiley face that he doodled in the corner of every letter when he couldn’t make it to a dinner. Or when he couldn’t risk phoning. Carefully lifting it in your hand to read. The other’s spreading out to take their seats at the table while you did, Tony bringing up a virtual copy.

“If it’s code, it’s not one I’ve seen before.” Natasha frowned, leaning back in her seat as she considered it.

“Nothing Hydra based either, no markers that would have been used on one of my missions. Not that that’s surprising.” Barnes shrugged, his gaze finally lifting to you once more. You could feel the weight of it, even as you did your best to ignore it.

“Friday has already run it through a hundred encryption codes. Nothing.” Tony was making his way towards the attached kitchen, hopefully to start a pot of coffee. You hadn’t been joking when you said that you had needed it.

“That’s because it’s not a code. At least, not one that anyone would understand if they weren’t us.” Finally laying down the letter to look up, almost caught off guard at the expectant looks meeting you from each of the former avengers, and one Winter Soldier.

“No guys, really, it’s just a letter telling me he won’t be making it to our dinner this week and talking to me about all the things I would usually ask in person.” Shrugging, you lay the letter back down on the table. Moving to the projection of the page. “The smiley face is the only thing of importance. We’ve used them since we were kids, to let each other know where we were standing without words. A regular smiley face meant that we were uncomfortable, but could work through it. Hearts meant that we were in immediate danger. He’s used a winky face with the tongue in the shape of a P. The wink means that he’s undercover right now, he’s having to lie. The tongue means that he won’t make it to the next few dinners.”

Steve furrowed his brow slightly as he looked to you, arms crossing over his chest as he leaned back in the chair. “So, all that just from a doodle in the corner?”

“Not all of us can be super spies. It was simple, but it’s always worked. And it kept me from worrying without giving away any details.” You shrug, taking in the smirk from Natasha and the slight glint in Barnes’ eyes.

“The next step is figuring out what his plan was.” Natasha sets her phone on the table, bringing up reports you were fairly certain she shouldn’t have had access to. “You know him best, what are your thoughts?”

Wetting your lips, you shrug. Barely glancing up when Tony offers you a mug of coffee, somehow made exactly the way that you prefer. “Honestly… if he was trying to use our past, then he would have went to babushka.”

“He what?!” Barnes was suddenly standing in front of you, gripping the arms of your chair tight enough to cause indentations in the metal. Crystal blue eyes staring down at you in a mix of anger and disbelief. Half a snarl on his lips.

The others already jumping to their feet, ready to stop him from hurting you, you assumed.

But you simply met his gaze, lifting your coffee to your lips and sipping at it. It was your turn to weigh him. Weigh his reaction. How much he knew about everything.

Whether he could be trusted.

Was this the Sergeant or the Soldier?

#Silk and steel #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers #natasha romanov #tony stark #Tony stark's nickname habits #Energizer bunny #Baby super soldier #long post #fan fic

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queeruma · 5 years ago

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Okay, so an anon sent me this ask:

Can I ask if canon materials say anything about Uma and Ursula’s relationship? Do you have hcs about it? I never read the third Descendant book so I don’t know much about her

and I wrote up this post, posted it, immediately realised that tumblr had fucked up all the formatting, deleted it, and then realised that by deleting it I’d also deleted the ask. I’m sorry anon, my brain is not functioning properly, but here’s my answer, hopefully formatted correctly this time:

Hi anon! So I thought I could answer this in like 10 minutes, and then it turned out that I have a Lot of thoughts about Uma and Ursula’s relationship, and here we are almost two days later (this post kind of just turns into Uma hcs at the end sorry about that)

Yes, between the movie, Rise, and Uma's Wicked Book, there's actually quite a lot of information about Uma and her mother.

Under a cut because this got long:

Within the actual text: Uma's relationship with her mother is… complicated, to say the least.

On the one hand, Ursula is about as far from a loving, caring mother as one can get. She has been forcing Uma to work for her, without pay, since Uma was 'so little she could barely see about the counter'. She is verbally abusive, berating Uma and humiliating her over her losses to Mal, and we see in the film that she's not above harming Uma physically either. And Uma seems certain when she's speaking to Ben that her mother does not care for her at all.

"All those days spent working at Ma’s restaurant, serving up gruel and scrubbing the floors, and I’ve never gotten paid a coin.” - UWB “Uma had worked at the Fish and Chips Shoppe her entire life, from when she was so little she could barely see above the counter, until she was old enough to wear an apron, carry a tray, and take an order.” - ROTIOTL “Uma was glad to have the place to herself. If Ursula were around, she would only be raging and complaining about how she had been saddled with such an ungrateful and useless daughter. Ursula never ceased to remind Uma how often she’d lost to Mal. When she’d learned Mal had been chosen to go to Auradon, Ursula flipped her tentacles. Uma never heard the end of it.” - ROTIOTL “Things I wouldn’t miss about the Isle: (...) Ma yelling at me” - UWB “My mom doesn’t care about me either. Well, not unless she needs someone for the night shift.” - D2

On the other hand, we see a certain level of respect between the two of them. Uma seems to be proud of her mother's strength, and is very comfortable showing her heritage as 'daughter of the sea witch'. Despite her mother's treatment of her, we never see Uma being afraid of her mother (contrast with the core four in the first movie, who definitely are). Uma remembers her mother taking her to Hook's inlet to watch the crocodile wrestling, and (repeatedly) telling her the story of her defeat at Eric and Ariel's hands. She states that her mother taught her about the importance of negotiation. Ursula, lamenting over her loss in her final battle, tells Uma that they would be 'Queens of the Seas' if she'd won. Given that unlike most of the villains, Ursula doesn't seem to be trying to manipulate Uma into anything in particular, I take this to mean that Ursula would have given her daughter what she felt was her due.

And, most importantly, Ursula has one single piece of her nautilus necklace left when she's on the Isle, and she gives it to Uma when Uma is a small child. Uma likes to hold it when she's feeling anxious. There's clearly more than just antagonism between them.

‘Uma was special: she was the sea witch’s daughter, a force to be reckoned with!’ - ROTIOTL 'The gold was warm against her skin, and she felt a faint echo of its former power. It had the sense and shape of her mother's wrath.' - ROTIOTL “No, last I saw her was on the news when she was blasting you with her magic!” Ursula laughed. “Good for her!” - EFTIOTL “That’s my mom! At least Maleficent recognised her power.” - MSB ‘“Mama was really something, wasn’t she? Back then?” said Uma.’ - ROTIOTL “Ma used to take me down to Hook’s Inlet when I was a kid, and we’d bet on the crocodile-wrestling matches there.” - UWB 'She recalled her mother telling her about that final battle (…) Prince Eric had taken the wheel and rammed his ship right into her heart (…) Uma always held her breath at that part of the story, wondering how it was that her mother had survived such a battle. Because even though she'd lost, she'd survived. Prince Eric hadn't destroyed her completely.' - ROTIOTL ‘Her mother had taught her about the power of negotiation, or as she’d described it, talking someone out of their greatest treasures and giving nothing of value in return.’ - ROTIOTL 'Queens of the seas, Ursula would lament. We would be queens of the seas if not for that awful Triton and that terrible Beast.' - ROTIOTL ‘(...) the locket she wore around her neck. Inside was a tiny piece of junk that her mother had given her as a child. “It’s all I have left,” Ursula had said at the time. Uma never understood why a sliver of metal mattered so much, but she liked holding it when she was anxious.’ - ROTIOTL

I think Uma's outfits also say a lot about her relationship with her mother. The core four pretty much exclusively wear their parent's colours, even after they've rejected them. We already know that colour means a lot in these movies, considering the thought they put into the shades of purple in Mal's hair and clothes in D1. Every VK either wears their parent's colours - Harry, Celia and the core four - or they don't resemble their families at all - Gil and Dizzy.

Uma's purple undertone, her hair and skirt resembling octopus arms, and the mesh undershirt with holes that mimics octopus suckers are all there to reflect her status as Ursula's daughter. She's proud of her heritage - but there's probably a practical reason as well: there's an element of protection in reminding people of her mother.

However, I think it's telling that her main aesthetic and colour are all her own. The pirate hat, the tough leather jacket complete with epaulets, the chunky belts, her sword, and the overall teal theme, all make it very clear that Uma is her own person, and no one who looks at her is going to forget it. She's not going to ride by on her mother's reputation all her life - people will know her name, not just her parentage.

Her symbol also demonstrates this mix of nature and nurture. Mal, Evie, Carlos, Jay, Harry, and Gil all have symbols that refer directly to their parents (Gil signs off UWB with a bow and arrow, presumably a reference to his father's skill at hunting). In contrast, the skull and crossbones - crossbones in this case being a trident and sword - with a wave in one cheek, an eyepatch, and octopus arms below it is 'the unofficial symbol of Uma, daughter of Ursula - pirate queen'.

As far as headcanons are concerned, I can’t really list them? I just have a kind of general ‘this is how Ursula affected the way Uma’s life went’ hc:

I think all of Uma’s better memories of her mother are from her very early childhood. By the time Uma and Mal stop being friends, Ursula has already pretty much checked out of everything; I don’t think she ever tries to manipulate Uma in the way Maleficent and the other villains do their children. She leaves the work in the shoppe to Uma and retreats into her Auradon soap operas. Uma is used to seeing other parents on the Isle put effort into their relationships with their children (that is never actually a Good Thing but baby Uma doesn’t know what decent parenting is) and she wonders if Ursula’s lack of manipulation is her mother neglecting her because she sees her as worthless.

So Uma kind of decides that she’s going to be as independent as possible, because if she makes her distance from her mother her choice, she doesn’t have to confront the possibility that Ursula is neglecting her because Uma isn’t good enough for her. And because I loathe the canon Uma and Mal backstory with the passion of an anti-vax parent for essential oils, here’s my take on it (credit for the idea that Maleficent encouraged Mal to end their friendship goes to @edream93 in her wonderful fic ‘We’ll Light the Fuse’ - it partly inspired this hc):

Uma and Mal were good friends from a very young age, and there was some genuine affection and trust between them, which Maleficent obviously did not approve of at all.

She allowed it for a while because they did get into a lot of trouble together, but as Uma drifted further away from her mother, she became concerned about Uma’s influence on Mal.

See, Uma might have started out distancing herself from her mother to protect her own feelings, but she also actually began to care less about her mother’s opinion of her.

Maleficent, who wanted Mal firmly under her control, knew that if the two girls stayed friends, Uma might encourage Mal to question her mother’s authority.

And if there’s one person on the Isle talented at subtlety and manipulation, it’s Maleficent. Mal and Uma’s friendship was doomed to end the second Maleficent decided she wanted it to.

I also think Ursula’s F- parenting plays into Uma’s feelings about Auradon. Uma is genuinely right about the Isle - it is unfair and morally abhorrent that the children of villains are fated to live in a ‘fate worse than death’ for the crime of being born to the wrong people. She and the other descendants of villains unquestionably do not deserve to be there.

But Uma’s desire for freedom and revenge isn’t just based on her rational disapproval of the Isle. It comes from a huge amount of anger and pain, and it’s admirable that she manages to use those negative feelings (along with her love for and loyalty to her crew) to motivate herself. She is equally furious and terrified - Auradon abandoned her, Mal abandoned her, her own MOTHER abandoned her - and either she didn’t deserve it, in which case she has to be angry at basically the whole world, or she did, in which case...

yeah, she tries not to think about that.

Luckily, between her friendship with Harry and Gil and the loyalty and respect she gets from her crew, more often than not she’s able to believe that she deserved better she deserves so much better she deserves the whole fuCKING WORLD.

Ultimately, Uma is a very practical person, and any feelings she has about her mother, positive or negative, will not stop her from getting off the Isle and going after what she wants - whatever that ends up being. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the octopus-inspired elements and purple undertones of her D2 look are gone in D3.

#h speaks #please let it have worked this time #uma #uma daughter of ursula #ursula #im sorry it's so rambly and incoherent #my brain does not know the meaning of the word concise #but thank you for the question anon!!!#i hadn't realised i had so many feelings about uma and ursula until now

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headcanonrepository · 5 years ago

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The TWEWY characters in Dream Drop Distance are from an alternate Shibuya to TWEWY.

(Spoilers for both games, naturally)

There’s a few details in DDD that bug me about the TWEWY characters that don’t line up to the game they come from, and while we could chalk this up to general Kingdom Hearts weirdness (after all, the Final Fantasy characters also don’t line up with their own canon perfectly...which is another headcanon for another time...), TWEWY has parallel universes so why not use them? Off the top of my head:

1) Joshua is known to the kids, or at least Neku, and not simply as an insufferable Player of the Reaper’s Game (some of Neku’s dialogue could imply that he knows Joshua isn’t a normal kid like them)

2) Rhyme is herself, despite being Erased at the point in the game where Joshua and Neku first officially met

3) Shiki hasn’t been taken as an entry fee for the Game

4) Neku’s attitude towards people isn’t quite as severe as his week 1 starting point, but not quite as open as week 3 and he fluctuates a bit

5) Joshua is a bit softer and far more helpful than he is in TWEWY (he offers to send a message to Riku for Sora, he gives Riku information on the nature of the dream worlds completely unprompted, he shares a lot of details on their backstory...definitely an AU Joshua)

So here’s how I think things went in their world:

Joshua isn’t Composer. He’s a Producer instead, and makes himself known to the kids early on, helping to guide them through the rules of the Game. Neku possibly twigs that something’s not quite right about Joshua but learns to trust him regardless.

The Game progresses, with some differences, the biggest being that the kids learn to trust each other and become friends earlier on, and Neku gets (or begins to get) the importance of working together and expanding his world earlier on.

Something big happens to Shibuya mid-Game that results in its destruction. Possibly the current Composer or Conductor does something so Taboo that the Higher Powers obliterate Shibuya rather than risk it spreading to other districts. Joshua uses Rhyme’s entry fee to get these kids (or at least their ‘dreams’) he’s become fond of out of Shibuya and into the refuge of Traverse Town. They’re still in the Game, though, leaving Shibuya cannot stop that, and to stop them from being erased, Joshua has to cobble together an impromptu Reaper’s Game from whatever he can find in dream!Traverse Town (which is why their missions seem so straightforward - he’s just making this all up on the fly to keep them together and to help them heal each other)

As for post events in DDD...I’d like to believe they manage to restore their Shibuya and return home and to life. But I guess we’ll see if Nomura ever addresses that...

#twewy #twewy spoilers #kingdom hearts #kingdom hears spoilers #I may or may not have already written a fic dealing with this...#I should post it up

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catflowerqueen · 5 years ago

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Déjà vu (Oh, the Irony)

Summary:

Jirachi comes to the Wigglytuff Guild for a visit, and inadvertently grants a wish with some interesting consequences for Team Rainbow. After all, it's one thing to know, mentally, that Paula and Laura are rather young for being such being good explorers. But this... this is something else entirely. Also, Drowzee gets a new appreciation for the meaning of the word "irony."

Knowledge of my “The World’s Treasure” and “Missing Scenes” story is vital for understanding this. Feel free to view those stories, as well as this one,on my fanfiction .net account or ao3 as well. My username is the same in both places.

And my askbox is open if you have questions.

Author’s Note: This is somewhat of a new series of stories that I’m going to attempt, but don’t expect updates too often, as I’m still getting back into the swing of creative writing. Also, with this story in particular… don’t expect updates for at least the next two weeks, because I have a lot of major papers due for school soon as the semester is ending, as well as paperwork to grade, and I already spent today writing this when I really should have been working on those instead.

This is technically non-canon for the eventual storyline I have planned, but all backgrounds and histories—both for the characters and for specific locations/things discovered through use of the Dimensional Scream ability—are the same as those in the World’s Treasure and Missing Scenes series—it’s just that this is not the method in which those histories and backstories are going to be revealed when it comes to that point in actual canon. …assuming I eventually find the time to actually write said canon out. I still want to! I’m just continually busy with other things, because Real Life is complicated. Also, I have some stories in another fandom that I want to write as well.

As this technically takes place in the future of the TWT and MS universe, there are a few things that might be spoilers. I’ll try to be vague in the story to avoid that as much as possible, but I can’t guarantee that some things won’t slip through.

Check the author’s notes at the end if you want a bit of background for what exactly is going on in this universe at the time of this non-canon scenario. Otherwise, please enjoy the story.

-----

Chapter One: Bidoof’s Wish

“Are you two sure you’re up for this already?” Chatot asked, glancing between the two girls of Team Rainbow with a look of concern on his face.

It wasn’t the first time they had been asked this question today. Even though the… incident… with the outlaw known as the “Dreamy Blackmailer” had finally resolved and Laura was given a clean bill of health by Nurse Blissey from Magnezone’s Police Headquarters, and then taken an additional week off to try and heal a bit mentally, their friends throughout Treasure Town and the Guild were still concerned. After all, not only had the incident had brought both of them face to face with some of their worst nightmares—literally speaking—it hadn’t happened too long after the Weathered Peak expedition. And while no one had been in the best of spirits after that expedition, what with the overwhelming failure to actually find anything of interest aside from a new definition of “extreme weather phenomenon” and, in Chatot’s case, a rather horrifying lesson from an injured and delirious Laura about the myriad of ways that one could construct prison cells and stockades from repurposed caves and rock formations, Paula and Laura had definitely been hit the hardest. Sure, Chatot was a close contender for that position, what with the aforementioned front row seat to that lesson on prison cells and stockades, but Laura had been the one to actually suffer the injury and the experience of reliving some terrible memories during an expedition she hadn’t really wanted to go on in the first place; and Paula had to endure what was technically blackmail—and from the Guildmaster, of all people!—which forced her to be split from her partner during the exploration, meaning that she wasn’t there to stop her from getting injured or provide moral support in the aftermath, compounded with the fact that the lack of treasure meant that they had gone through all that pain for nothing. Or at least close to nothing, since even though the goal of the blackmail—to get Laura and Chatot to spend some time alone together so that they could clear the air between them, make up from their recent fight, and get back on friendly terms—had technically worked, even Wigglytuff agreed that it really wasn’t worth it when the price had been injury and trauma on one hand and betrayal and worry on the other. He still felt guilty about it now—especially since the memory of the blackmail probably did not help Paula at all during the aforementioned Dreamy Blackmailer debacle—even though Paula, Laura, and Chatot had forgiven him for it.

Suffice to say, Team Rainbow had really been put through the ringer lately, so it wouldn’t have been surprising if they weren’t quite ready to get back to exploring yet. Then again, this was Team Rainbow they were talking about, who had the unfortunate tendency to downplay any problems they were having via overworking themselves in an attempt to get people to stop worrying about them. Which of course just made people worry about them even more.

But at least it meant that Paula’s response of “Yes. We’ll be fine—don’t worry!” as she adjusted her treasure bag, her partner nodding beside her from where she was just finishing up a swap with Croagunk, didn’t come as a surprise.

So it was with a resigned sigh that Chatot finally waved them off with only a minor admonishment to be careful, and the two ascended from the lowest guild level in order to head off on a day of exploring. But he couldn’t help but follow them with his gaze, and once they left his line of sight his eyes still lingered a bit on the top of the ladder before he blinked and shook his head, determined to put the inevitable worry he still felt out of his mind and get back to work running the guild. Today, after all, he also had the additional task of preparing some informational pamphlets for Drowzee to look at in regards to how to manage an exploration team. He didn’t actually expect the Hypnosis Pokémon to arrive in town from the little exploration he had decided to undertake as a sort of goodbye to being a solo explorer until tomorrow—or possibly later tonight, at the earliest, in which case it would likely still be too late for him to actually have time to meet with Chatot—but it never hurt o be prepared.

He sighed again before glancing about, noticing that everyone else who was with him on the lower level was in the same boat, despite their attempts to hide their true feelings. Croagunk was determinedly looking down and organizing his items in pure silence, with none of his usual mutterings and praise towards his prized Swap Cauldron. Loudred was attempting to use a stage whisper—with an emphasis on “attempting”—to get Diglett to let him know when Team Rainbow fully left the premises, even though Diglett’s job was only to monitor those coming in rather than those leaving, since determining moving footprints wasn’t an easy task. Wigglytuff had his door cracked open, and his mouth was quivering, as if it wanted to form into an uncharacteristic frown.

This, Chatot determined, was where he should focus his energies for the time being, as an upset Wigglytuff was never a good thing. It would also be a good segue into preparing those pamphlets for Drowzee, as a seasoned explorer such as Wigglytuff would be sure to have some good advice for the ex-outlaw, especially considering his own past as the apprentice of an explorer with a history as an outlaw. But before he could start to make his way over, he was interrupted by Bidoof coming down the ladder with a very perturbed look on his face.

“Bidoof? What are you doing back down here?” Chatot asked, equally as thankful for the interruption as he was annoyed at the fact that the apprentice was ignoring his orders. “I thought that I told you to look over the job boards today.”

Bidoof cringed at the glare on Chatot’s face, even though it wasn’t at its usual levels of scariness. “Oof… Sorry Chatot, I.. I really would like to do that but…”

“‘But?’” Chatot sharply prompted.

“But… but the boards are both empty, by golly!”

“Squawk! What? What do you mean they’re empty?!”

“There’s… there’s no jobs left on them, no siree!” Bidoof shook his head, “I think Team Rainbow took most of them for themselves… and then the other teams hanging around took the rest of them… and by the time I got there, there was only an S-class outlaw job left… which I don’t think I’m ready for anyways… but then Team Poochy snatched it right out of my paws before I even got the chance to look at it too closely, yup yup!”

“That’s…” Chatot got a twitch beneath his eye before sighing in defeat. The sequence of events was extremely plausible, as unfortunate as it was—especially the part about Team Rainbow grabbing the majority of the jobs from the boards before anyone else got the chance. Chatot could remember very well that same scenario happening shortly after Laura asked her goddess’ permission to stay in the Pokémon World, rather than return with her to Earth… and even before then, there was that incident with Laura right after she returned from wherever she had been after the future was saved. Add Paula’s exuberance and love of exploring into the mix—especially when she, too, was trying to convince everyone that she was actually fine and recovered—and it was practically a given that the two would ignore the guidelines for how many requests that a single team should realistically take on at once. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do all of those jobs successfully, but more that they shouldn’t. Although Chatot did appreciate the influx in treasures, bounty, and reward money that it generated for the guild, it was a bit inconsiderate to the other exploration teams that would come to the Wigglytuff Guild specifically for the use of the boards, not to mention that it denied those still apprenticing in the guild the chance at a little training. Also, it left them all worrying over the two girls’ mental and physical health even more, since they had all seen the consequences of their overworking themselves in this manner many, many times. It made Chatot consider, not for the first time, the possibility of him and Wifflytuff setting up a board specifically for Team Rainbow’s exclusive use, just so that the two could ensure their precious graduates safety and wellbeing. But on the other wing, he supposed that it rather defeated the point of their having graduated if he and the Guildmaster were still regulating what the two could and could not do…

But all of that was something to consider at a future point in time. He would definitely have a little talk with the two of the two members of Team Rainbow when they finally returned to town at the end of the day, but for now he needed to figure out something else for Bidoof to do.

“Very well,” he said, “I suppose I can’t exactly fault you for that, so for now why don’t you—”

But he was cut off by a surprised exclamation from Loudred over by the sentry post. “WHAT?!” he yelled, before hollering again, “Hey, BIDOOF! Diglett says you have a VISITOR at the entrance!”

“A visitor?!” Bidoof repeated in surprise as he and Chatot headed over. “Golly, that’s sure a surprise! Who is it?”

Loudred turned to call back down to Diglett, intending to ask for more information “HEY Diglett—!”

“Yes, I heard!” Diglett called back up before Loudred got the chance to finish his question. “Give me just a moment… Okay. He says that he is… Jirachi!”

“W-WHAT?! J-Jirachi?!” Loudred and Chatot repeated incredulously. “Wh-Why would Jirachi come here? And to meet Bidoof, of all pokémon?”

Bidoof frowned in confusion. “Jirachi… Jirachi… do I know a Jirachi…? Maybe… oh!” He smiled as he finally remembered. “Diglett! Ask him if he’s the one from Star Cave!”

Then, the others understood as well, remembering the Snover incident from so long ago, when Bidoof took the initiative to go on an ill-advised and technically against the rules trip to Star Cave after having been tricked by Snover, and how he was able to explore the depths all on his own after the rest of the guild rescued him, culminating in his meeting with the legendary Wish Pokémon. He never did them what he ended up wishing for, though—only that it was granted, but the effects would take a while to actually manifest. There had been some wild speculation running through the guild for a while, until the incident was nearly forgotten in the excitement over Team Rainbow joining the guild a few months later.

“The answer is… yes!” Diglett called back in excitement. “This is the Jirachi from Star Cave!”

“Well don’t just STAND there!” Loudred whipped around and demanded of Bidoof. “Go up and MEET him! And then bring him down HERE so we can see him, too!”

-----

A few minutes later saw Jirachi in the bottom-most level of the guild. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he had amassed an audience, as all of the apprentices who were left in the guild (which ended up being everyone but Dugtrio, basically, as he was out getting more job requests in order to fill up the boards while the others were stuck waiting for his return since they, like, Bidoof, had been a bit too slow to pick any before Laura and Paula nabbed them all). Instead, when he wasn’t turning this way and that as he levitated, taking in all the sights, he was focused on his friend.

“Ooh… This place is really interesting!” Jirachi told Bidoof in excitement. “If it’s always like this, then I can see why you like exploring so much, Bidoof. I thought that I would be tired after journeying all this way, but the energy surrounding this place is so exciting! It’s perking me right up!”

“Yup, yup! The guild is pretty great!” Bidoof agreed with a smile. “And… gosh, it sure is nice to see you again Jirachi… I must admit, I’ve been meaning to come see you for a while now… I wanted to thank you for granting that wish for me, but it’s been so busy that I never had the time to!”

Jirachi smiled. “Ha ha… That’s all right, Bidoof. With a wish like yours… it’s only to be expected that you would be too busy to find the time to visit. And… I’ve been sleeping a lot again lately, so I may not have noticed even if you did come by,” he admitted with a sheepish grin. “But that wish of yours… well, it’s not exactly why I came by, but now I’m curious; where are those buddies of yours you wished for? Have you been teaching them lots?”

Bidoof blushed a bit, slightly embarrassed about the fact that everyone in the guild now more or less knew what he wished for so long ago, but he also couldn’t help but smile at the thought of his friends on Team Rainbow. “They’re out exploring right now! They already graduated from the guild, see, and… well, gosh, I don’t know how much of it is do to anything I taught them, but… I’m real proud of Team Rainbow, yup yup! It was so much fun to be with them when they were still apprentices, and they still live nearby so I get to see Laura and Paula nearly every day!”

Jirachi’s mouth formed an “o” of shock. “Did you say that one of the buddies I influenced to come here was… Laura? Of Team Rainbow? That’s what you said, right?” He looked around at the others, verifying if what he’d heard was correct.

“Hey, hey! That’s what he said, alright!” Corphish nodded

“Oh, wow, wow!” Jirachi clapped his hands and spun in excitement. “That’s great! That’s actually exactly why I came in the first place!”

“Oh, oh?” Wigglytuff asked. “You wanted to meet friendly-friend Laura? Why?”

“You see, I don’t really get out much,” Jirachi admitted, to the surprise of no one, “so I’m a little… or, rather, a lot… behind the times when it comes to some things… or, really, a lot of things… but… sometimes while I’m dreaming, my psychic powers act up a little, and I hear whispers of conversations. Rumors. And sometimes they’re really interesting! So, I wake up in excitement! But… I don’t really have a way to know if these rumors are true, since I live so out of the way, and travelling can get so tiring so I usually just fall back to sleep.” He huffed a bit in frustration before brightening again. “But! This time! This time I heard some rumors about a girl named Laura… who joined an exploration team called Rainbow… who is currently a treecko, but who some say used to be a human!” He paused again to clap and spin with excitement. “So I just had to know if they were true. I had to! And I remembered! This time I had a way to verify those rumors! You, Bidoof!”

“H-huh? Me?!”

“Yes! You told that you were a part of a guild—and not just any guild, the Wigglytuff Guild! That place—this place—has tons of information, right? And tons of explorers! And you! My friend! So I thought… if I came here… I could verify the rumors! And that hopefully…” Jirachi got quieter, and seemed almost wistful. “Hopefully… hopefully some of them would be true. And that it would mean… well, it would mean what I hoped. That they… that she… well. I’d better not say… just in case I’m wrong… I don’t want to get my hopes up too much.”

“Well… golly! I’m honored, Jirachi!” Bidoof said, slightly nervous about potentially disappointing his powerful friend, but still hopeful that he would be able to help, and happy to get the chance to ramble on about Laura, and Team Rainbow in general. “So let’s see… Laura… well, first off—yup yup! The Laura that I know, who joined Team Rainbow and the guild here… she really did used to be a human!” Bidoof verified. Then, when Jirachi’s grin turned from wistful back to gleeful, he decided to add, “She is a treecko right now, but she surely did used to be a human, yup yup! And we even got to see her human form for a little bit, too! I don’t know to much about humans in general, but I thought she was really pretty, so I reckon other humans would think so too. Especially her eyes—they looked like rainbows, and still do even though she’s back to being a treecko now, yup yup.”

“Oh… oh…!” Jirachi clasped his hands in front of his mouth, his eyes widening and starting to shine with unshed tears of joy. “And… and one more thing! Did she… does she… the Dimensional Scream? Is that an ability she possesses?”

“Yup yup! It surely is!”

“Hooray!” Jirachi exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and spinning in ecstasy, laughing as happy tears escaped his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. “Finally… finally a Rainbow Child is visiting again!” He slowed down his spinning, sighing wistfully again as he slowly calmed down. “It’s been… so very long. I know I slept through most of it, but… it must have been nearly a thousand years since I last… since she last…” he sighed again, this time in resignation. “But… you said that she’s out exploring now, right? So I guess that means I’ll still need to wait a while to actually see her again…”

“Oof… I reckon that’s true,” Bidoof said, frowning at sad his friend sounded about that fact, and feeling bit sad himself at the thought of how long Jirachi had waited to see the Rainbow Child return, even as he was shocked at the timespan and surprised at the fact that Laura’s past incarnations apparently used to visit the pokémon world a lot… as well as curiosity and unease about the fact that they had apparently stopped some thousand years ago.

“Oh!” Wigglytuff suddenly explained, clapping his hands together. “I know! I know! Bidoof, while we wait for Team Rainbow to come back… why don’t you show Jirachi around Treasure Town? Give him a tour! It will be fun!

“Ah! Yes, guildmaster, I concur!” Chatot agreed with the flap of his wings. “That is an excellent idea! And while you’re there… as I was about to say earlier… Regarding the day’s duties, since Dugtrio is not yet back with replacement jobs… please do a survey of the shops in town; it is important to know which get the most use from the members of our esteemed guild, and in what ways… and if any of them will be offering new services soon which we should be aware of.”

“Oof… I, uh… yes siree, I will do that,” Bidoof said, his happy mood at the thought of getting to show Jirachi around town becoming slightly dampened by the fact that it wouldn’t be a day off, like he’d thought, but rather an exercise in multitasking. “Come on, Jirachi, I think I’ll show you Spinda’s Café first…”

With that, the two headed off, and Chatot set the rest of the guild to do some mild cleaning and reorganizing until Dugtrio finally made it back and they could do some real exploration work.

-----

Team Rainbow still wasn’t back by the time that Bidoof’s tour/survey was completed. This was a bit surprising, as the whole endeavor had taken a bit longer that Bidoof anticipated, since Jirachi stopped frequently to either admire something or because he needed to rest a little bit before continuing. He was, after all, a sleepy pokémon in general, and hadn’t been lying about how long his journey had been. Some of the things he stopped to admire seemed a bit mundane by Bidoof’s standards, but if he really had been sleeping for nearly a thousand years, then he figured that it would make sense that Jirachi would have missed an invention or innovation or two that was commonplace now. …Though he wasn’t sure if that fully explained why the legendary seemed so enamored by the dandelions dotting the path in some places. Surely those existed for far longer, right?

In any case, the tour was also lengthened by the fact that many of the shopkeepers seemed ecstatic to talk about their shops and wares, especially the Kecleon brothers… and Marowak, who seemed to take the opportunity as a chance to test out the new pitches he was considering to entice more pokémon to come train at his dojo… but Bidoof figured that at least part of that was excitement over seeing a legendary wandering through town. The last time that had happened had been with Cresselia, after all, and while it had been fairly recent, the circumstances surrounding it had… not been the greatest. By the time that Bidoof was finally finished and ready to report back to Chatot, Jirachi was understandably bored and uninterested in hearing a bunch of information that he’d already heard throughout the day. So, he opted to go visit the Beach for a while instead. He seemed weirdly excited by the prospect, too, but Bidoof figured that it had something to do with Laura, or the Rainbow Child in general, so he let it go without too much comment. He invited Jirachi to come have dinner with the guild when he was finished at the Beach, but Jirachi declined, citing interest in seeing what the Café’s menu was like in the evening. Though he did promise to come and stay at the guild for the evening if Team Rainbow still wasn’t back by then.

So this is why, when Jirachi failed to return to the guild like he promised a few hours later, long after dinner was finished and with still no sign of Team Rainbow, Bidoof found himself heading towards the Beach, intent on finding the legendary. Dinner had been a bit earlier than usual today, so the sun hadn’t yet fully set and he found the Wish Pokémon fairly easily. Unfortunately for Bidoof, the reason that said pokémon hadn’t returned to the guild yet was because he—rather predictably, in hindsight—had fallen asleep. So then Bidoof was faced with the somewhat arduous task of waking him back up.

One fight and several bruises on Bidoof’s part later, and a more-or-less awake Jirachi was yawning drowsily and looking around at his surroundings in mild confusion. “Hah… yawn… Ah, I’m still on the Beach…?”

“Erg…” Bidoof groaned a little, “Yup yup… I reckon you fell asleep here.”

“Oh… right… I was going to head over to the Café, but I felt so tired that I decided to rest for just a little bit longer… and then… well.” Jirachi said, blinking, as he finally noticed Bidoof. He easily spotted the bruising and ruffled fur, and had the tact to look sheepish as he put two and two together. “I must have attacked you in my sleep, huh?” he guessed. “But I see that you managed to wake me up again, so that’s good! I… probably owe you another wish for the trouble,” he finished, the last part in a mutter.

“H-huh?” Bidoof said, a bit confused before it clicked what Jirachi meant. “Oh! No, no, that’s fine,” Bidoof shook his head. “I don’t really need anything. But… you said that you wanted to stay in the guild if Team Rainbow didn’t come back in time, right? And, well, they’re still not back yet, so…”

“They’re still not back?” Jirachi tilted his head. “Is it normal for them to be out exploring so late?”

Bidoof shook his head, a frown on his face. “No siree, it really isn’t…” He sighed in sadness. “To tell you the truth, everyone at the guild… we’re all really worried about them. Some real stressful stuff has happened to the two of them recently, and I reckon that working hard like this is probably the only real way they know to cope with it, but… golly, it just isn’t right!” He stomped his foot in frustration. “It’s so unfair… all of these stressful and trying things seem to happen to them… the whole Temporal Tower thing from years ago… the thing with Darkrai… the other thing with Darkrai… and then what’s been going on recently… and they’re still so young! Paul is only sixteen… and Laura is just fourteen… and… golly, I know exploring is really fun for them, but with all the other stuff… sometimes I just…” Bidoof’s frustration simmered down a bit and he sighed mournfully.

“What is it, Bidoof?” Jirachi asked, worry and empathy on his face for both his friend and the plight of Team Rainbow.

Bidoof sighed again, looking down at his feet. “Sometimes… I wish that the two of them had the chance to just be kids again. Even if just for a little while…”

At those words, Jirachi twitched a little as something resonated inside him. “I see,” he said, his eyes starting to take on a faraway look. “Bidoof… you never fail to amaze me. Of all the possible wishes in the world… all of the things people have asked me for before… and you always, always choose not to be greedy; you always choose to help others… it makes me like you even more!”

“I… wait. What?” Bidoof asked, blinking in confusion and looking up before cringing back in shock at the sight of Jirachi, who was floating even higher in the air than he typically did, eyes glowing.

“And I suppose, technically, this is my fault a bit, too,” Jirachi said, more to himself than to Bidoof, in a voice that seemed to echo slightly with power. “I could have chosen someone other than Paula to nudge in the direction of the guild… and if I’d been more aware… I could have eased that poor girl’s suffering… and maybe the visits wouldn’t have stopped… or if not, I could have spent those years preparing… I could have done something to ease the suffering of the last one, instead of wallowing in loneliness… I’m the selfish one this time, so really…”

Jirachi tilted backwards as his eyes slowly closed… but as they did so, the one on his stomach—which Bidoof hadn’t even known existed—opened instead, brimming with even more light and power. But its owner took no notice.

“Really…” he repeated, as his true eye fully opened. “Granting this wish… it’s the least I could do!

Bidoof screamed and slammed his own eyes shut as the brightness spilling out of Jirachi’s true eye grew to blinding, and the wave of power that Jirachi unleashed was so huge that Bidoof briefly lost his footing. He thought he heard a thump as something fell to the sand, but other than that… there was stillness and quiet for a few minutes before Bidoof dared to risk opening his eyes again to try and figure out what happened. He glanced around… and then immediately jumped to his feet with a cry of alarm when he saw that Jirachi was facedown on the sand, shaking with the aftereffects of whatever he had just unleashed.

“Jirachi!” Bidoof called, rushing over and helping him to sit up. “Are you okay?! What just… what just happened?! What did you do?!”

“Oh… Bidoof…” Jirachi slurred, one of his regular eyes cracking open lazily. “I think I… ngh… I think I… overdid it… a little…”

“Overdid… what?! What just… what just happened?!”

“That wish… sigh… it was… really good… but… really draining. I think… sigh… I think I need to sleep for a while again. I should wake up soon… to fulfill the rest of it, but… yawn… until then… please take care of me… zzz. Zzz…”

And with that, Jirachi fell asleep. He was so completely dead to the world that even his psychic powers were inactive, and nothing Bidoof tried could wake him up. He had no choice but to struggle and shift Jirachi onto his back so that he could carry him to the guild, all the while wondering what exactly just happened, and getting a sense of foreboding that he’d accidentally done something wrong…

-----

“…I see,” Chatot said, glancing at where Jirachi lay asleep—and drooling a little bit—on the bed in the room at the end of the hall where they’d placed him after Bidoof had returned, shouting frantically about there being trouble. He’d had to shoo everyone else except Wigglytuff away because, as usual, the other apprentices were too nosy for their own good, but after doing so he’d had Bidoof recount exactly what happened to leave Jirachi in this state.

“And you have no idea what happened when that power was unleashed?” he confirmed. “Or why Jirachi even did… whatever it is he did… in the first place?”

Bidoof looked uncomfortable as he shook his head. “No! No siree, I have no idea! I’m just as lost as you are! Except…” he paused.

“Except…?” Chatot prompted.

“Well… last time… when I met Jirachi the first time in Star Cave… he told me that he granted wishes to those who managed to wake him up. And… and when I found him on the Beach, I had to wake him up so that I could bring him back here, so… so I reckon that maybe he counted that, too? As fulfilling those conditions?”

“I see…” Chatot murmured, nodding to himself, “that makes sense… So then that power… I would assume that means…” he raised his voice back to normal levels and asked, “Did you make a wish? Or say something that could be interpreted as such?”

“Oh, gosh… uh… I don’t think so… lemme think…” Bidoof started muttering to himself and pacing, trying to push past the worry and remember what it was that he said right before Jirachi went all strange and glowy. “I said that… and then there was that… and then Paula and Laura came up and… and… oh.” Bidoof stopped dead in his tracks. “I think… uh… oh golly, I think I made a big mistake…” he whimpered.

“Don’t worry Bidoof, it can’t be that bad!” Wigglytuff assured him. “What happened? What did you say to friendly-friend Jirachi?”

“I j-just…” Bidoof gulped, before continuing, “I was just talking about how worried we’ve all been since Team Rainbow has been under a lot of stress lately… and I was frustrated today, especially, since they still aren’t back yet after taking on so much… and I was saying how it was so unfair considering how young they are… so I uh, I may have accidentally told Jirachi that ‘sometimes I wish that the two of them had the chance to just be—’”

But the end of his inadvertent wish was cut off when the three of them heard shouts of alarm coming from the main area.

“Eek! Oh my gosh!”

“What in the…?!”

“Hey, hey! What the heck?!”

“Dad, why are… how can…?!”

“Is that…?”

“What in the WORLD is going on here?!”

The three of them rushed out just in time to hear a voice which they hadn’t expected to hear until tomorrow begging, “H-hey, can everyone please calm down a little bit? Or at least your voices? You’re scaring them!”

“Squawk! What is going on out here?!” Chatot demanded.

“Chatot!” Drowzee, who had indeed arrived a day early and stopped in at the guild despite the late hour, answered brightly, looking highly relieved to see him. For some reason, he had Team Rainbow’s treasure bag slung over his shoulder, and in his right hand…

“I know I’m early… and I wasn’t planning on stopping in so late, “Drowzee started to explain, a bit of suppressed panic mixed in with the awkwardness he still often felt around the guild members, despite everything that they’d been through together recently, “but there was… I ran into, uh, a bit of a problem as I was heading into to town, and I’m really, really hoping that you know how to fix it,” he finished, glancing down a bit to the right as he did so.

Chatot followed his gaze, and was then dumbstruck by what he saw. “But that’s… what is… what?” he demanded. “I just… what?”

In Drowzee’s right hand was held the hand of another… and this hand belonged to a human. She was tiny, Chatot supposed, at least compared to the last human he’d seen. Her outfit, a cute little dress with matching leggings, was… well, he could tell that it would have been white, if not for the grass and dirt stains covering it. Her hair was equally white, rather than the brown that he would have expected, considering the girls eyes—which were the familiar, rainbow-colored ones belonging to his dear friend and precious graduate…

She looked like she was relaxing a bit after holding herself tense—likely in response to the yelling earlier—and she looked around, making small noises of excitement as her smile grew and grew. She spotted him and gasped in wonder, leaning forward and unconsciously trying to tug her hand out of Drowzee’s grasp, as if she wanted to dash forward and get a closer look at the pretty, talking bird in front of her. But she couldn’t really make any serious attempts to do so, as her other hand—and the attached arm—were too occupied holding onto a tiny, adorable, pichu who was teary-eyed and sniffling, periodically turning her head to hide her face in the human’s collar.

That combination… an electric-type rodent with a human companion… appearing at the guild around the same time that Team Rainbow was expected back… Team Rainbow’s treasure bag in Drowzee’s grasp… it couldn’t be… and yet…!

“Drowzee… is this… are they…?” Chatot couldn’t quite formulate the question, his voice sounding strangled from sheer disbelief in spite of the fact that there was no denying the proof in front of him.

“Yeah…” Drowzee nodded, still feeling shocked himself at the situation. “I happened to meet Team Rainbow at the crossroads when I was headed into town, and then while we were talking, Laura and Paula… they suddenly turned into… well. This.”

Chatot was struck silent, but Wigglytuff was finally able to break his own as he turned to Bidoof and asked, “So… what was it, exactly, that you said to Jirachi?”

“Th-that…” Bidoof whispered, shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of the situation “that sometimes…. I wish that the two of them had the chance to just be kids again.”

No one had a response. The entire guild was silent as they all took his words in…

…and then, with a singular voice, Drowzee, Chatot, and the other apprentices all screamed, “YOU DID WHAAAAAAAT?!!!”

-----

Author’s Notes: Important background for this story: This takes place when Laura is about 14 and Paula is about 16. The two girls have recently had some very emotional things happen to them recently, with the most notable things being Laura getting injured and then trapped in a cave with Chatot during an exploration to a place that she already had some mixed emotions about in the first place. Throughout this Paula was upset that; first off, Laura and Chatot hadn’t been getting along recently; secondly, in a somewhat misguided attempt to get his friends to get along again, Wigglytuff pulled rank and declared that Laura and Chatot had to explore together, alone, so Paula wasn’t there to stop Laura from getting hurt or help her through the emotional memories; and thirdly that—inevitable successful reconciliation between Chatot and Laura aside—it was all for nothing since no one even found any treasure anyways.

The second big emotional thing to happen was that some outlaw with the ability to travel through dreams—so probably, like, a gengar or some other ghost- or psychic-type—struck Treasure Town while Laura was away visiting Mason/recovering from the recent emotional stress and started plaguing everyone with nightmares and diving into their subconscious thoughts in order to acquire blackmail material (which is part of why they were able to stay at large for so long). This of course includes Paula, who was probably among the primary targets since her fame and notoriety would have been too enticing to pass up. They are eventually caught around the time that Laura gets back, and then they decide that the best way to hide/escape would be to essentially take Laura hostage by diving into her mind and forcing her into a nightmare—similar to what happened to Azurill. Except this turns out to be a huge mistake on their part, since Laura’s mind ends up so confusing and cavernous due to the fact that she’s had so many reincarnations that the outlaw basically gets lost and trapped, necessitating outside help. This leads to Drowzee and Cresselia—who had been using their abilities to help catch the outlaw in the first place—to have to team up with a different outlaw with dream walking abilities and more familiarity with Laura’s mind in order to successfully rescue her—and the perpetrator themselves, by this point. Unfortunately, Paula is, once more, stuck behind and unable to help her friend, which of course does not help her mindset—which is still recovering from her own stint at being this outlaw’s victim, especially in light of how big a role blackmail played in this incident, considering her experiences with it on the recent expedition. Also not helping is the fact that she and Laura have somewhat of a bad history with the person teaming up with Drowzee and Cresselia, and has not forgiven him for what he did even though Laura has.

But the trio is successful, and decide to form a more permanent team together—partially with the intent that it will help the third member with parole/rehabilitation.

So at the moment this story begins, Team Rainbow is suffering from emotional exhaustion—Paula feeling useless and Laura just… a mess in general—and is only just starting to get back into exploration work, all the guild members are upset after having watched their friends suffer—and in some cases being to blame for some of the suffering—and are continually being struck with just how young these two actually are despite having been through so much. Drowzee is also still hanging around town, or at least close enough to it to visit frequently—both because he, too, needs to recover mentally from the rescue mission and because there are some logistical issues regarding his new team and circumstances that need to be finalized. Mason may or may not be helping with that, since he also has a history with the third team member, but one that is decidedly less fraught with tension and bad blood, on the whole—which may actually be one of the things that everyone else finds so surprising/unnerving about the whole situation, to be honest.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #the world's treasure #what if...?#deja vu (oh the irony)#fanfiction #writing

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