#who at this point had been established as basically a folk hero

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

this isnt a poll submission thingie i just needed to make sure you (the mod of this blog) knew about the only good reylo fic https://archiveofourown.org/works/5457191

okay that made me snort

[ultraericthered]

Disney's Most Hated Villain 10 Years Later

Now when I say "Disney's most hated villain", I don't mean he's the Disney villain that most people hate most, I literally mean he seems to be the villain most hated by Disney themselves. The shots taken at him in Big Hero 6, Frozen Fever, Kingdom Hearts III, Frozen II, and even recently in Once Upon A Studio all seem to suggest that there are some people high up at Disney who just really did not care for this guy, like they blame the ascendance of "twist villains" in Disney movies on him and want to take it out on him, despite how massively successful and popular the movie he was the villain of was and still is. It's just the most preculiar thing. A whole 10 years later and we've finally get another traditional, openly and bombastically evil villain in King Magnifico of Wish, and given how utterly polarizing that movie is turning out to be among all the earliest critics and audience viewers, I have to wonder if he'll now become Disney new punching bag for setting this new course! I swear, there's no pleasing folks these days!

But this post is for some thoughts on him and why I feel a lot of people online still get Hans wrong. He's not the most competently executed and well defined case of a twist villain, nor is he the worst, most bullshit twist villain ever who needed to be excised from the film so Elsa could keep the Big Bad spot. Taking him as he is, Hans is a B grade or C grade Disney villain at most, with lots of character potential even if it doesn't fully come together in the movie itself.

By far the most common and greatest misconception about Hans as a character is the idea that the moment of the reveal that he was an evil villain the entire time, and the very nature of re-establishing and re-contextualizing his character as a villain, is meant to cast him as some devious, manipulative mastermind who was pulling strings for the film's whole present day plot and had ill intent behind his every word and deed, even if that seems contradictory to the character we'd been watching up to that point. This is false. Hans has never mastered the chessboard, only played on it. He had a firmly set goal from the moment he showed up in Arendelle - become its ruler - but he did not have any solid plan on how he was going to make this ambition a reality. So he was winging it the whole movie. I mean, he basically says as much to Anna in that scene yet so many viewers were too distracted by reeling from either shock or confusion over the outing of Hans as the bad guy that they seemed to miss that.

The crux of Hans as an antagonist in the film is that he is a broken soul who grew up miserable and with an absence of love in his life, and it warped him into a high functioning sociopath who can easily detach himself from his heart and emotions, becoming whatever the current circumstance or person he's presently interacting with best requires him to be in the ways that best advance his own interests. He's like the worst possible outcome of what Anna or Elsa could've grown up to be had their childhoods taken an even worse turn. And above all, he is a man of many masks, rarely ever showing his true face. The mask is hollow and flexible, serving as a mirror to whoever Hans is in contact with (His nice, adorkable, and worried moods perfectly match Anna's, his angry and confrontational moods perfectly match Weselton's, his saddened and sympathetic moods perfectly match Elsa's - absolutely none of it is authentic). There's only a select few times we see the mask pulled back and get to see Hans' true face, those times being these moments and shots here:

The first shot is him lowering the phony Prince Charming mask and visibly expressing that he was genuinely charmed to meet Anna. No, he doesn't have any "love at first sight" feelings for her, nor is he at the point where he plans on getting close to her and asking for her hand in marriage - it's simply an amused fondness for this quirky, clumsy Arendelle girl he just conversed with.

This next shot is him looking towards the mountain and realizing Elsa is there. In animation, there's even the briefest hint of a grin as he turns and gives orders afterwards, 'cause he wants to seize and exploit this opportunity to play the big hero for Arendelle. Also worth mentioning is that while Hans has no one he loves, he does treat his horse Sitron well. It's pretty much his only friend.

The infamous split second shot where Hans' eyes dart up towards the chandelier before he jumps to action and turns the soldier's crossbow away from Elsa and to the candelier that drops on Elsa. This is Hans as a Xanatos Speed Chess player shown in practice.

That smarmy, mean-spirited grin that comes over his face as he says the infamous, ever memetic line that reveals his villainy.

The shot when he sees Elsa has broken out of her prison cell. Again, the good guy mask is lowered to show he's not pleased.

THIS SHOT. This is Hans fully unmasked and fully unrestrained.

The last we see of him before he's thrown out of the story.

So what's with all the Hans hate, from Disney fans and Disney itself? TV Tropes' page of Character Perception Evolution states this:

I'm not sure how entirely accurate this is since from what I recall, Hans and the twist of his villainy was getting shit on from very early on. I have to disagree that the twist was not properly foreshadowed or at least not in a way that was substantial enough (aside from those "lowering the mask" parts, all of Hans' lyrics in "Love Is An Open Door" put his intentions and the angle he was playing in plain sight, he immediately flip-flops his position when Anna charges him with looking over Arendelle in the sisters' absence, and right before the reveal he straight up lies by omission to Elsa's face by not telling her that he's currently the leading authority in Arendelle and thus has the power to grant her leniency rather than "persaude the other nobles" to do so), but the execution of the reveal with his sudden shift into a totally different character than the one we'd been watching for the previous two thirds of the film absolutely should've been handled better in execution; he needed to slow it down a bit in between saying that notorious line and snuffing out all the lit fires in the room while expositing in a villainous monologue sort of way. The idea that Elsa should've been the villain rather than Hans and Hans should've been the male love interest instead of Kristoph are simply opinions, and I'm not exactly in agreement with them, more on that in a bit.

I've said it plenty of times before and will repeat: to me, the most crippling weakness of Hans as the villain of this film is that the way he's been designed, the very nature of his sociopathic character who always wears masks, mirrors other characters, and comes up with new moves to advance his interests, rendered it very difficult for us to get a good grasp on who he truly is and feel like we'd really gotten to know him by the time the movie was over. And you could make the argument this isn't a flaw so much as it is a necessary evil in order to make Hans' role in the story work as best as it could...but I feel that argument falls flat when Disney/Pixar later gave us a similar twist villain who did what Hans did but better and even more effectively as a full-fledged character in a much shorter amount of screentime.

Erenesto De La Cruz, like Hans, is first cast in a positive light and set up as a good guy in the story, though we don't meet him in person until the third act of Coco. Like Hans, he's got an amiable personality and fast strikes up a friendly relationship with the main character. Like Hans, he is very evidently not without genuine decent qualities. Like Hans, the reveal of him as a murderous sociopath who is the true villain of the story is a very shocking moment. And like Hans, he's a big factor in the climax and gets dealt a satisfactory karmic comeuppance. But the thing that set Ernesto apart from Hans is that he doesn't wear any masks to conceal he's "secretly evil". He has a public image that conceals this, yes, but for all the time he's on screen and an active agent in the story, he is his authentic self. All of the nicer qualities we see from him aren't made up, they're real parts of who he is...and who he is just also happens to be a vainglorious sociopath devoid of a conscience who will do anything to anyone under any circumstance in order to "seize his moment" and build up a legacy that keeps him the center of attention even long after he's passed away. While he's still under the mistaken belief that Miguel is his great grandson, before he learns he's actually that to Hector, he has him put away and draws a parallel to how he poisoned Hector to death as he does so - he was never at any point in life pretending to be Hector's best friend, "Hector WAS my best friend", as he puts it. And it just ultimately matters less to him than himself and his own self-interested pursuits. That is a truly chilling villainous character who leaves a strong impression after the movie's over despite how little he was on screen. Hans was almost that, but fell short of the mark because we were left with no clear picture of who he was.

Luckily for Hans, he did get other chances to show more character:

In closing, I will still have to defend Hans' position as the story's only true villain. Yes, Disney going all out with Elsa and her powers driven out of control from her fears as the primary antagonist probably would've been the best option, but once they were set on making Elsa much less of a villain than envisioned, someone needed to play the part in order to make the climax happen and it absolutely could not be the Duke of Weselton, a character so comically unpleasant and openly against Elsa and in it for his own interests rather than Arendelle's that there is no way in Frozen Hell that Elsa would ever be convinced by him of anything like Anna being dead from Elsa's own freezing powers. That lie had to come from someone who could convincingly make Elsa believe it because they'd come off so sincere, someone she'd think could have no possible reason to lie to her. It had to be someone like Hans, someone with a heart so frozen cold that he could effortlessly mimic human emotion he didn't really feel. That is a crucial part of the story's climax that, even beyond the danger to Anna's heart, was foreshadowed from the very beginning.

[nitewrighter]

A little while back, you answered a question on what you'd do for a "Spider-Man in DC Comics" type of fic and honestly, I'm enamored with the idea of him being the New Gods/Forever People's de facto Earth buddy and designated minder. Like Spidey and his Amazing Friends, but instead of Firestar and Ice Man, it's Mister Miracle, Big Barda, and Orion sometimes.

That being said I feel like, for better or worse, a lot of folks would be more focused on how Spidey would interact with the more recognizable names in DC Comics, as well as their close family, friends, and associates.

So... what would Peter Parker's dynamic with the New Gods and Forever people end up looking like? What does the Justice League overall, and its individual members think of him? How many would buy into the narrative of him being a Wall-Crawling Menace that the Daily Bugle keeps pushing? How many would call J. Jonah Jameson on his baloney?

Do you think a young Peter Parker would have been scouted to join the Teen Titans back in the day? Would he have accepted, or continued flying solo well into adulthood?

Well going back to the Kirby roots of the Fourth World, I feel like Spider-Man's bonds with the New Gods/Forever People would start out very similar to the initial Fourth World introductions---disorienting and overwhelming!!!! Like, this stuff started back, not with the Superman title, but with the Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen title, and the thing with the introduction of the Hairies and Cadmus and the DNAliens, was that Kirby kind of flipped things on their head by having a hapless Superman being dragged along in Jimmy's adventures, though Superman took on a more established and authoritative role as Cadmus got more developed. So I feel like having Spider-Man be the Designated Fourth World Minder would basically put him a role that's kind of a combination of both Superman and Jimmy Olsen in those initial issues. At first you have Spidey starting out as kind of a youth advocate--some weirdoes start showing up in New York and Spider-Man sees, despite some culture clashes and these people talking about crazy large-scale stuff that he has no idea about, that ultimately these new visitors mean well and actually have an incredibly strong appreciation and even awe for earth. I love the Forever People so much because they are honestly THE CUTEST about how much they think earth is cool. They came to our planet from a planet that basically touts itself as SPACE OLYMPUS/HEAVEN and instantly fell in love with us. I like the idea that they would come to earth at a time when Spider-Man's feeling particularly lonely about the weirdness of his own situation and suddenly finds himself surrounded by Space Hippies who kind of give him a fresh perspective on being the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and right when he thinks, "Yeah you know, this is a lot easier with friends :)" WHUH-BAM WE HIT HIM WITH THE NEW GODS AND PARADEMONS AND GLORIOUS GODFREY AND ALSO HE PROBABLY HAS TO GET BEAMED TO NEW GENESIS AT SOME POINT.

Honestly I haven't read enough Marvel comics where Spidey is teamed up with the Avengers to really feel confident in describing how Spidey would mesh with the League. The thing is, I'm very much in the Spider-Man as "Scrappy Local Hero" camp--that's the core of his appeal for me, so like, even though Spider-Verse is so devastatingly popular right now, when I see Spider-Man, like... in Space™ with The Avengers™, I'm kind of like "What's he doing there. It's a school night." Most of my comics experience with Peter Parker's Spider-Man is grounded in the 2000-2011 Ultimate Spider-Man run because that's the comic my library had growing up, and I didn't really make it that far past Norman Osborn so like, I've also seen enough of the MCU to know that Spidey's adventures get way way way way WAY scaled up, but Spider-Man's core for me is "Some kid in NYC."

It's interesting that you ask about Spider-Man interacting with bigger names, because I recently read an arc in Superman that featured a guy with HARDCORE Spidey vibes and an appearance that definitely had some Spider-Man/Impulse inspiration.

Outburst had magnetic powers and was part of a group, "The Young Supermen of America" who were a very youthful, scrappy Superhero team that formed in Metropolis following Superman's death from Doomsday, and--okay this will eventually lead into a "Superman went fascist but it wasn't his fault because he was being manipulated by the Reality-Manipulating Entity Dominus don't worry it got fixed with THE POWER OF LOVE" arc--but Outburst ended up filling this role that felt a lot like the kind of role Spider-Man might fulfill in the DC universe, a kid who idolizes other superheroes but also holds them accountable through their admiration. It's a role very similar to the one Spidey came to inhabit in the MCU (despite being gentrified by Tony Stark...). So Spider-Man in the greater-scale DC universe, I feel, would inhabit a role that is midway between Shazam and Green Arrow.

(Look at Outburst down there on the side of that building. That's a fucking Spider-Man pose. "It's magnetic adhesion." IT'S FUCKING WALL-CRAWLING AND YOU KNOW IT, DC.)

So just looking at Outburst, I feel like that kind of answers a lot of questions about what kind of position Spider-Man would hold in DC. Still youthful, very "Local Kid" angle, desperately doesn't want to make an idiot of himself in front of the BIG TIMERS.

And similarly, there would be a lot of sort of... sympathy and protectiveness from the League towards Spider-Man both for his youthful optimism and because Spider-Man maintains a very strong connection with the civilian community he serves. They wouldn't be helicopter parenting, but there definitely would be a handful of situations where a League member swoops in like "Okay yeah no, you are 16 and WAY OUT OF YOUR DEPTH and while I respect you as a hero, I, as an adult, am not going to stand here while you get your ass handed to you"--probably to Spidey's frustration because he feels that kind of overreach undermines the trust his community has in him. So basically a much more light, optimistic, and trusting version of, "Other superheroes don't interfere with Batman's rogues" and also played with a bit more flexibility. The League is also no stranger to bad press themselves, so I think they'd take J. Jonah Jameson's takes with a grain of salt.

I honestly don't see Spidey joining a team like the Titans or Young Justice--I feel like that takes too much away from how big of a role Peter Parker's civilian life plays in his character. I feel like he would be scouted as a sort of, "Hey do you need a support system" sort of thing, but he backs away because he wants to be there for Aunt May and Mary Jane.

[birb-tangleblog]

Rise of Flynn Rider - THOUGHTS

THE PROMISED LONGER POST ON THE RISE OF FLYNN RIDER- spoiler warning!

Ok so first off, a very brief summary: the book centers on Eugene and Arnie (Lance), childhood best friends. The orphanage they've grown up in is financially struggling, under threat by a crooked tax collector, and they're both aging out of the system; the only clue Eugene has to his parents is a letter from the woman who left him there, which is signed with a ~mysterious symbol~. When a traveling circus run by the Baron (yes, that Baron) passes through town and Eugene learns of a possible lead on his past, the two boys reinvent themselves, join up, and eventually end up entangled in a scheme to steal from the King and Queen of Corona. 

I won't lie, I enjoyed this one a lot- it was a fun read, very cozy to curl up with, and even with some contradictions, it felt like a novel that was derivative of the series and set in that world. There are a lot of cameos and references, enough that I think most TTS fans will find something they like to nibble on.

Like I said in my earlier post abt the prologue and first few chapters, I'm so happy that Lance got a role alongside Eugene- he's definitely a secondary character to Eugene’s main, and he does get sidelined somewhat, but it's charming to see his friendship with Eugene and his growing passion for cooking. 

'I didn't expect anything, so I'm more delighted and pleasantly surprised than genuinely unhappy with the execution' is a running theme with this book for me and basically the tl;dr of this write-up.

There are soo many cameos and little treats- I get the impression Calonita didn't have the most complete knowledge of the series, but her chats with Chris and interest in the series’ writing definitely show. King Edmund, the Stabbingtons, all of the pub thugs, Weasel, Stalyan, and the Baron all make appearances, and we get cameos from Cap, Maximus, Pascal's mother, and even Cass gets a name drop. Several series-exclusive locations are also mentioned by name- Vardaros, the Spire, and the Forest of No Return.

I'm not immune to the fannish hit of 'hey! I understand that reference!' and I really enjoyed hunting for easter eggs, so even if the presence of the pub thugs in the Baron's crew, or the boys stumbling on Rapunzel's tower in one scene and making nothing of it (yea that happened) is a lil questionable, it made me smile and I can't be mad.

I would just describe this book as 'comfy'.

(That said, I'm a little unsure who all those references are for- I feel like if you hadn't seen the series, you'd lack context and some details would be meaningless, but if you had, I think you might long for more depth and exploration...)

Structure & Progression

Here's the part where I start criticizing the book aimed at middle and elementary schoolers lmao

It's a v short book, but the plot progression still feels a little scattered- it didn’t feel quite like a heist OR a mystery. The subplot that takes up a lot of focus is actually interpersonal conflict between Lance and Eugene- and they reconcile, but not after spending much of the book in a standoff due to a misunderstanding/'liar revealed' trope.

One of Eugene's motivations for joining the circus is spotting a man with a mark on his arm that matches the one from his letter working there, and believing he'll be able to learn more abt his parents from him. He doesn't disclose this to Lance right away, and when it comes out later on, he's upset that Eugene didn't tell him- he feels tricked, and like Eugene's prioritizing his biological family over their bond. I had a hard time with this, b/c I honestly think Eugene could've literally said to Lance, 'hey, joining this circus is a great opportunity to travel, make money, send some back to the orphanage, AND I found something about my parents, will you come with me?' and Lance still would've jumped on it. Later on, there's also another similar miscommunication that deepens the rift. 

It feels like manufactured drama, and I would've loved a book of the two of them just being buds, bouncing off each other, and trying to unravel the mysteries of the DK symbol and the Baron's ulterior motives together. Lance's fears of being left behind by his friend absolutely could've surfaced without the misunderstandings, especially the closer they got to the truth. (And I don't think that'd have been dissimilar to the unused 'Trial' episode concept and flashback.)

The pacing itself... meanders. After the boys complete an initiation mission to get a hold of a special key for the Baron, time passes (two weeks in-story) and there's some slice of life as they learn the ropes, get inducted into a lifestyle of thieving (it’s revealed the circus is a front for a crime ring), and get to know the Baron's crew.

I liked these parts and would've kept them in a longer book! But maybe there could've been some fine-tuning here so big events (Eugene stealing for the first time, the heist, the meeting with the mysterious Man with the Mark) weren’t so one-and-done. There are several points where nothing's really happening because the characters can't quite connect with each other, or they're waiting around for an opportunity passively, and that makes for a frustrating exp for me as a reader.

There were also lot of elements I thought were getting set up to come into play later, but not a lot of follow through? The folk hero Lance Archer is mentioned several times and has wanted posters, but we never meet him in the flesh. The Man with the Mark is revealed to be a former member of the Brotherhood(!) named Vedis(!!), but he isn't seen again after Eugene speaks with him... once. (More on this later this post is getting so long omg) 

The Baron’s plan is revealed to be stealing a reward offered for the lost princess when it’s on display to the public during a festival. Eugene and Lance balk b/c stealing doesn’t sit well with them, especially when it’s from what are ultimately a family trying to find their lost child- they decide to do the right thing by foiling the scheme/stealing it back and returning it to the royals. It goes a bit pear-shaped and they’re caught, but are forgiven and face no consequences after explaining, other than being ousted from the circus/crime ring and making enemies of the Baron. Eugene hasn’t given up on finding the DK, but he realizes he already has a family in Lance, and that’s the most important thing; the two resolve to travel the world and have adventures together.

I want to make another post on it, but at the least it feels like a foregone conclusion given we know ‘Flynn Rider’ goes on to become a renown thief who steals the crown of the lost princess- that’s literally the plot of the movie, and being a dashing rogue is Flynn’s defining trait- so even aside from questionable ideas about wealth, class, and morality, the novel’s ending doesn’t fit what’s firmly established about his character, and I think big fans of Eugene might have an even harder time with that then me. 

(I’m very suspicious that there might’ve been some executive meddling in an attempt to soften young Eugene’s character, and send a more palatable/upstanding message to children- it feels like Disney editing the old SW films to show Han didn’t shoot first.)

It’s def one of those novels where you can take some elements you like and leave others, but overall I’d still rly rec it for series fans! I’ve been buzzing and what-iffing about it for a few days, and I got some tasty tidbits on the characters and nods to the series, which is exactly what I wanted out of it.

And maybe it’s a funky take, but honestly I want to think of this book as the beginning of an alternate timeline where Lance and Eugene got out of crime earlier, Eugene got a clue abt his heritage by chance, and it changed his course. I think embracing the retcons and contradictions to canon makes for an interesting angle, and you’ll enjoy it more if you don’t take it too seriously. 

[onesunofagun]

Undeath in the Era of the Hero of Time : 1

aka Seeing the Hero’s Shade in this TP replay shook up all my feelings of agony again and now I’m working backwards from there because I like to hurt myself.

Part One: An Overview of How Fucked Things Are ™

aka The Blood Soaked Hyrule of OoT’s time 

Take it as you will, in the Zeldaverse, the colour green has an overwhelming association with undeath. 

Sure, sure, life too, I hear you. Farore came down and produced all the living beings that would uphold the law, apparently (specifically not claiming monsters and demons, but that’s another thing). On the surface, that make sense. Forests, lush green fields, prosperity, all of those good things. Green the colour of the most common rupee, green the colour of the Hero’s tunic. Green the colour of magic, and potions that revitalise the body and spirit.

The thing is, revitalising the body and spirit is a flexible idea. To imbue something with new life and vitality can have a lot of implications, especially when you stop talking about the strictly living. 

I feel vitality is certainly the best word, not only because of it’s association with life and potency ala the Goddess origin stories, but in the ways that the game uses green itself, such as a measure of both magic and stamina. Green is the colour chosen to represent the unlocked potential within young Heroes. 

Vitality specifically refers to a state of being strong and active, and it also refers to the continuance of something to exist. That’s a great thing for plants, or economies, or a potion taken by a young Link who’s swung their sword around or fired off a spell one too many times and feels a little low.

But the dead, though?

As it happens, Hyrule is absolutely littered with human remains, in no small part due to the very recently ended civil wars. 

The Civil War, if you need the reminder, is described as a time when the many races of Hyrule were divided and each focused on establishing dominion over the Sacred Realm (because Triforce). I touched on this in my last meta post, but basically, its no holds barred to stop that from happening because if the wrong person gets into the Sacred Realm and makes a wish, it immediately malfunctions. 

The criteria for getting into the Sacred Realm and touching the Triforce without royally fucking everything, is basically impossible for anybody not chosen by Hylia. 

If you are neither of Hylia’s Bloodline (The Hyrulean Royal Family) or one of her Chosen Avatars (The current incarnation of the Hero), you are not supposed to touch the Triforce. Ever. You WILL be found wanting, it WILL shatter, the Sacred Realm WILL be corrupted by your selfish desires, it WILL unleash and onslaught of mystical influence (reflecting your heart) onto the country.

Now, if it’s Zelda or Link who touches it, that’s fine. Good vibes will pour out. An age of prosperity will ensue. The Sacred Realm is in its default state, a blank and neutral wellspring of magical force.

The game has been rigged from the get go because Hylia still had a job to do. She had to get creative because Demise almost captured the flag, so to speak, leading to the snafu of the Cycle and all that because she cheated at the game, but ultimately Hylia’s task was to guard the Triforce. And that still remains true, for the most part. The Hyrulian Royal Family (and the Shiekah by extension) had to stop at absolutely nothing to win the wars and unify the country, and retain the stasis of the Realm and Triforce, because that’s what their divine orders are.

That’s what they’re supposed to do, ‘the very reason that they’re born’, to lend a quote from King Daphnes. With Hylia on their side by default, they’re willing to do a lot of fucked up things to make sure that happens, ‘for the greater good’.

These dark times are a result of our deeds... -- TP Zelda

In OoT The Sheikah are known as the Shadow Folk. They are heavily associated with death, whether that is caring for the dead’s rest in the graveyard, or working as spies and assassins on behalf of the Royals, or dabbling in various forms of necromancy. Red eyes are an established trait of their people. I will note that, at least from a Japanese point of view, red is often used with the intention of intimidating evil spirits. But it is also a color identified with power and vitality.

So, one could suppose, the Sheikah red eye also symbolises power/control over evil and darkness (spiritually).

That’s a little something that plays nicely with things like the OoT Manga’s explanation of the tear on the eye (and the previous betrayal of the Royal family) and the high probability of a Shiekah faction defaulting during the wars and being banished with other traitors to become the Twili. I know the manga isn’t canon and also SS Impa has a tear, but if you squint, that might be because of her own feelings of personal failure to the Goddess after Hylia’s shedding of her Divinity. You could headcanon that. The existence of the Yiga later in BoTW as a similar happening of division and betrayal lend some more weight to things.

Also, Sheikah who defaulted during the civil war might have even been the ones who actually utilised the Shadow Temple. 

Headline: Necromancer ninjas in the process of torturing enough info out of the enemies of the Royal family, who were reportedly seeking the Sacred Realm, decide ‘hey fuck it, let’s take it ourselves’. 

That certainly fits into the description of, ‘interloper skilled with dark magic started to appear, seeking dominion of the Sacred Realm’, for me.

Anyway, to the point.

In ostensibly one of the most haunted areas of the game, Kakariko village, we’re treated to the Graveyard and the Royal Family’s Tomb, the Shadow Temple, and the Bottom of the Well. All of these showcase the obvious death and torture that went on, as well as the creepy byproducts of places so saturated with blood, pain, regret, and hatred.

There are skulls in little alcoves on the walls of the catacombs, literally built of bones, who deliver messages to Link. The ones that whisper these messages are all marked by the glowing green eye sockets. Here, the green is used to make the presence of a ghostly sentience inhabiting the skull. 

Unsettling. Musty. 4/10 heebie-jeebies.

The Deadhand, giver of childhood trauma that it is, really does its job to hammer home the fact that there has been so many deaths, so much anguish and horror, that those remains can seemingly form into entirely new monstrosities. An amalgamate of undead flesh and nightmare fuel, made up of the body parts of torture victims and the grudges of lingering spirits, seeking to consume the living vitality of whatever comes near-- Link wearing green around the thing might as well be red to a bull.

When defeated in game, it typically drops a small green pot that refuels Link’s magic.

This is a common theme with undead enemies, specifically the ones that are of the zombie flavour. Redeads, Gibdos, Deadhands. All of them generally give up, effectively, distilled magic as a drop item.

Terrifying. Probably smells even worse. 11/10 heebie-jeebies.

Literal torture device. So many people died here, the room has a green tinge to it. It is soaked in the spiritual imprint of the pain and anguish that took place here. Blood sits here looking freshly spilled, despite the civil war ending many years prior and the Shiekah having ‘died out’, save Impa.

Elsewhere in the temple and under the well, blood splatters are darker red and at least have the decency to pretend to be old. This means one of two things:

Impa still has to make sacrifices to the Seal that contains Bongo Bongo, or feeds people to the undead creatures who lurk down in the dark so they don’t wander up. (Cue the gasp of ‘so that’s why she let the Hylians into Kakariko! Every so often one of them goes missing!’)

Which is a fun dark headcanon to play with, but probably not the case.

Or more likely, the residual spiritual energy that the green haze suggests manifests fresh blood in a manner typical of extreme hauntings. For the victims, their hatred and pain persists so strongly, that their blood seeps up from the cracks no matter how long it has been.

Poltergeist shit. Slip hazard. 8/10 heebie-jeebies.

Then there is this. Some people say its just another torture thing, it could have been intended to convey some sort of acid dip. If not torture, maybe bodily disposal. And sure, that’s a reasonable guess. 

But it is at the very bottom most cavern of the Well of Three Features, and if it were acid-- for how long the bodies have just been marinating in it-- you can assume nothing would be left of them to stick out. And the fact that all the bodies are neatly spaced, with the arms oddly preserved. They’re presumably like that from lowering bodies in from the wooden beams, the victims may have been tied up with their arms straight upwards. 

But, given the Redeads wandering around nearby, I’m pretty sure that’s what this thing does. Make Redeads.

The liquid itself hurts Link, but Link is also alive, and this pool seems to be lacking much of a glow. It’s green, sure, but it’s not exactly teeming with energy. And I think that might be part of its designated purpose-- extracting that green vital energy from living prisoners, draining them until they’re dead. I’m talking juicing people and scooping out the good stuff like the pulp from a really disturbing OJ. 

But still steeped in the juice as a corpse, you’re basically pickled in magic brine, so then those gross husks crawl out as Redeads. (Hey, you know what’s handy in wartime? Scaring the shit out of enemy forces by sending some zombies at them. And if they kill them, you’ve lost nothing. If the Sheikah could actually control them? Undead soldiers. Excellent stuff.)

But all the pulpy good stuff is gone, and has been for a while, so most of the bodies in there haven’t pickled in enough magic to reanimate, I suppose.

Human juicer that churns out zombies. Out of juice currently. 6/10 heebie-jeebies.

Now, THIS is active zombie juice, if I’ve ever seen it.

This is the Royal Family’s Tomb, by the way. Note the skeletons, picked clean, missing a lot of bones. And that’s a choice they made, because there are also full skeletons around to find. 

There are plenty of Redeads down there, for good measure, so I’m going to assume the skeletons are potential graverobbers who were eaten. If Sheikah can presumably command the dead, then the Redeads down there might actually be a counter measure against thieves. If a thief freaks out in the dark when he realises there’s undead down there trying to eat their face, there is also a good likelihood they’ll trip and splash into this green death. A few seconds of exposure is probably enough to kill the average person, and then if their corpse stews for a bit, you have another Redead. 

Their living energy revitalises the goop. Their body becomes bolstered security measures. It’s a self sustaining system.

Horrific but effective. 5/10 heebie-jeebies.

Also, there’s a chance that a couple of the skeletons or one or two Redeads down there are the remains of the Composer Brothers. But they will get their own special part in this series, covering Poes in particular.

But for the moment, let it be noted: their eyes are also that ghostly green.

Poes are spirits that are unable to move on and who have the unfortunate fate, if left unattended, of turning into phantom monsters who forget their human selves and prey on the living. They tend to pop up the most in two places. One, the Kakariko Graveyard, is obvious and somewhat expected. Dead people, lots of lingering spirits, most of them probably Sheikah and Knights of renown who died in the line of duty. Understandable.

So when you apply the same thought to the fact that Hyrule field is the second most common place to find them, you may as well be concluding that it’s an enormous mass grave of war casualties.

We have established that mass quantities of concentrated death, especially earth that is saturated by the spilled blood of strong soldiers and highly skilled warriors (full of life and magic, as it were), can result in creepy shit made from human remains reanimating over time. 

Poes share their haunting of the field with these bumpkins:

These hauntings are not the result of Ganondorf, or the corruption of the Sacred realm. They are not a particular curse placed by anybody.

The Poes and Stalfolk are present in the game from the very beginning, and quite normal fare for Hyrulean life. Lon Lon ranch and castle town are walled off for good reason, and the drawbridge raises at night specifically in response to the literal skeleton monsters who roam around at night. 

Stalchildren, specifically, seem akin to the Deadhand in that they are not a direct reanimation of any one particular set of remains. Rather, they seem to be mutated amalgamations of various parts. In the case of the Stalchildren, they rise up under the dark of night, a not-quite-human formation of bone and magic. They seem to possess an aimless drive to attack, perhaps possessed still by the orders of the soldiers who died there. 

Interestingly, in a somewhat similar fashion to BotW’s blood moon reanimating the fallen monsters (due to the potency of Malice in the land peaking at those times), Stalchildren only seem to be active under the moonlight. They disintegrate when the sunlight touches them, which promotes the idea that they are the bones of the fallen possessed by the ghostly memory of the war.

They also appear to wear raggy leather kilts, which is a feature they share with the related monster, the Stalfos, who are often acting out the part of a soldier as well. Even better, those bastards are actually WEARING GREEN, to boot, which given the history of Hyrulean Knights prior and their uniforms (SS and Minish cap) is pretty self evident. 

Stalfos, however, are also confirmed as humans who have died under certain unique circumstance (such as the magical influences of the Lost Woods) and reanimated as a consequence of what I assume is basically magic poisoning.

It could be a bit like an overdose, succumbing under the intense mystical forces at play within proximity to the Deku Tree (which the strong of spirit can resist). It could be a draining effect, maybe even just a gaseous version of what’s happening when people come into contact with the green goo, except extracted by the forest spirits and plants (also possible that the strong of spirit might resist). That could go either way.

The forest absolutely does eat people’s spiritual energy, though. RIP to Grog and Link’s mother. They’re Stalfos now.

"Anybody who comes into the forest will be lost. Everybody will become a Stalfos. Everybody, Stalfos."

Upon killing both kind of Stal, however, the bones rapidly deteriorate into flames.

You guessed it: green.

I’ve already pointed out a BoTW reference already, but to add more context back into this thing about the tie between green and things in Hyrule that refuse to die properly:

That last one is cheap of me I’m sorry but we’ll get to him too

So we have established that green has an overwhelming association with not only life, but states of undeath.

The overview is, things were already pretty fucked in OoT Era before Ganondorf got the Triforce.

On to part 2!

[duhragonball]

What version of the Saiyan Tuffle War do you prefer: the Tufflew subjugated the Saiyans or the Saiyans just straight up obliterated the Tuffles

Between the two options, I think I prefer the first one, simply because all the Tuffle characters we've seen have been diabolical villains, and it sort of undermines them as bad guys if the Tuffles were innocent victims in the war. But that's just a personal preference.

I'm not suggesting that the Saiyans were all sweetness and light either. But it seems a little naive to have an advanced civilization just welcome a bunch of Saiyans onto their planet with no ulterior motives.

I say this because most of what we know about the Tuffles is based on Baby's appearances in Dragon Ball GT. Supposedly, Baby was created by the last survivors of the Tuffles, and they "infused" him with the genes of their king, whatever that means. Baby only had two objectives: to take revenge on the Saiyans, and to to convert or destroy all non-Tuffle life forms. And that's... pretty fucked up when you stop and think about it. Baby was such an over-the-top villain in GT that it was easy to just go along with whatever crazy shenanigans he was up to. But he was programmed by the Tuffles, and presumably the Tuffle King was totally on board with this. If he had lived to see Baby Vegeta ruling over the restored Tuffle Planet with the entire population of Earth infected with his nasty mind control eggs, the King would probably be pleased.

And yeah, the Tuffles would want revenge against the Saiyans, but what did Earth ever do to them? Or any of the other planets Baby menaced? You can make the argument that Baby was a doomsday weapon that went beyond the intentions of his creators, but I think he did exactly what the Tuffles wanted him to do.

And that begs the question: If Baby's reign of terror was the last gasp of the dying Tuffle species, then what sort of weird stuff were they up to before? I'll put some thoughts on this under the cut.

First off, I think it's kind of weird how there's not a clear picture of what a Tuffle is exactly. I went looking on the DB Wiki for some pictures and found this Tuffle design by Akira Toriyama.

That design prevailed in DBZ Episode 20, and also in Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans, when King Kai explains how the Tuffles welcomed the Saiyans to settle on their planet when they crashed there in a wrecked spaceship. The implication from Plan is that the Saiyans didn't just show up one day. They were refugees who needed help, and the Tuffles invited them with open arms.

But it's weird how the Tuffles in DBZ #20 are depicted as being much smaller than the Saiyans, but in Plan they're basically to scale with each other. Maybe that's a continuity glitch, and no big deal, but then you have Dr. Lychee, who looks like this:

He starts out as a regular-looking guy, and then he becomes this blue creature who looks a lot like a prototype for Baby. The blue form is supposed to be nothing more than one of the phantoms created by Hatchiyack in the OAV, like the phantom incarnations of Frieza, Turles, Cooler, and Slug. But those phantoms looked the same as the originals. Why does Lychee look so different? Is this a form that Tuffles can naturally assume?

Which brings me to Baby and his "Tuffle Parasites". By the end of his run in GT, Baby basically identified as a Tuffle, rather than a creation of the Tuffles. When he started infecting Earthlings with his eggs, he called them Tuffles too.

Then you've got Kamin and Oren from Super Dragon Ball Heroes. Apparently they're considered "Neo Machine Mutants", which are Tuffles modified become like Baby, for lack of a better explanation. I'm not sure if this was established in the DBGT days or not, but I guess the current lore is that Baby, Oren, and Kamin were natural Tuffles who were augmented into the form we see here.

I guess what I'm driving at here is that the Tuffles seem to have a very broad definition of what a Tuffle is. For them, it seems to be more about a way of thinking and feeling than any particular appearance or body plan. A machine can be a Tuffle. An Earthling infested with a parasite can be a Tuffle. So maybe those miniature humanoids in DBZ #20 were just one more variety of Tuffle.

I get a real transhumanist vibe from the Tuffles, particularly from the notion of archiving their King's DNA into Baby, and the way Dr. Lychee continued to exist as a "Ghost Warrior" after his natural death. Oh, and the Tuffles of Universe 6 augmented Kamin and Oren. That wasn't for revenge, by the way, they just wanted to see if they could do it, and apparently Kamin and Oren were outraged enough by this that they turned on their creators. Throughout the Dragon Ball franchise, the Tuffles are known for their advanced scientific knowledge, and also for making all these freaky creatures.

And maybe they weren't all evil. I wouldn't go that far. But I get the feeling that their leaders welcomed the Saiyans to their world because they saw a potential resource that they could exploit. Maybe they just wanted the Saiyans to pacify the uninhabited parts of their planet, or maybe they though the Saiyans could help them against other enemies. But maybe they saw the Saiyans as potential test subjects for their experiments. Just a thought.

I don't think the Tuffles necessarily subjugated the Saiyans, but it might have been more of a case of rising tensions. They lived in separate parts of the planet, with the Tuffles in the cities and the Saiyans in the wilderness, but the Saiyans grew more numerous, and the Tuffles probably saw that as a threat, and the Saiyans probably started to wonder why they needed the Tuffles at all. A lot of things might have instigated the war, but it wouldn't surprise me if the flashpoint involved Tuffles experimenting on Saiyan prisoners. If something like that came to light, then it would become a matter of survival. The Saiyans would have to wipe out the Tuffles to avoid being "Tuffleized" or worse. And the Tuffles would have to crush the Saiyans in battle to maintain control of the planet. There could be no return to the status quo; it would have to be total war until one side was completely defeated.

Once the war began, it must have taken a long time for the Saiyans to win. King Kai said that the lunar cycle on Planet Plant was eight years, and that each full moon allowed the Saiyans to gain ground in the war. So this implies that it took several full moons to end the war, so the conflict might have lasted decades, or maybe even a century. There might have been a few armistices or truces during that time, as each side would want to try to regroup and get as much momentum as possible before the next full moon. At least, that's how I'm picturing it.

One causus belli that sticks out in my mind is that the Tuffles were apparently a spacefaring people, but the Saiyans couldn't do much in space until they made contact with the Arcosians, and then King Cold's organization. So maybe the Tuffles were purposely keeping the Saiyans confined to Planet Plant, either to prevent them from escaping, or to isolate them from other civilizations. The Saiyans would take this poorly, I'm sure. So that might have a lot to do with it.

To be sure, the Saiyans of this era were real rat bastards, no doubt. I'm sure a lot of Tuffles of the time would make the argument that they were trying to contain the Saiyans as a matter of self-preservation, or even for the good of the greater universe. But I also suspect that the Tuffles aren't just friendly-looking anime folks. Creatures like Baby, Hatchiyack, Kamin, and Oren give us a peek into their more inhuman qualities, qualities that the Saiyans probably knew firsthand. It's possible that King Vegeta thought he was the one doing the universe a favor when he wiped the Tuffles out.

Something else to consider, in Episode of Bardock, we meet the Plantians, who were apparently the original inhabitants of Planet Plant. At some point, they were gone, and the Tuffles were living there instead, and then the Saiyans showed up and wiped out the Tuffles. So what happened to the Plantians? Did they just migrate to another world, leaving Plant empty for the Tuffles to move in? Or did the Tuffles do something to them? Food for thought.

[felassan]

After The Blight

A timeline of the Hero of Ferelden’s movements and notes about their activities after the end of the Fifth Blight

I just wanted to collect it together somewhere. Obviously it does not apply if the Hero performed the Ultimate Sacrifice, although sections of it will apply to Orlesian Warden-Commanders. This is a mixture of canon information, suppositions and headcanons (so it’s a mix of a reference post and personal notes about my own HoF). The latter two things are clearly marked as such. This post has been updated. (Tevinter Nights spoilers under cut)

9:30 Dragon - Fifth Blight begins.

9:31 - Fifth Blight ends, events of DAO end. The Fereldan reign or service to the crown of Queen, Prince-Consort and Chancellor HoFs begins. The HoF studies the Blight. There is an investigation effort into the darkspawns’ remaining secrets.

supposition: shortly after the coronation of Ferelden’s new monarch[s], the HoF answers the First Warden’s summons to Weisshaupt and travels there to report about the Blight. if the Dark Ritual was performed, they avoid mentioning it, despite the pertinent questions they are asked about why no Warden died killing the Archdemon. suspicions in the order abound 

supposition: if Avernus continued his research in some form, the HoF begins working with him around this time

personal headcanon: Dog never left HoF’s side after the Blight, because why would he? I know what it says about replenishing in the kennels, but that could easily be done during HoF’s many trips to Denerim

9:31, 4 months post Blight - Zevran has now begun his quest to dismantle the Crows, so romanced Zevran has most likely left HoF’s company by this point.

9:31, 6 months post Blight - Queen HoF marries Alistair in lavish ceremony. If Alistair was romanced, they then tour Ferelden. Prince-Consort HoF marries Anora in lavish ceremony.

note - The timings of the events in the expansion, DLCs and DA2 Act 1 are a bit squashed and inconsistent, which is why things in the upcoming segment get a bit janky

17th of Ferventis, 9:31, 6 months post Blight, post royal wedding - The Darkspawn Civil War/Amaranthine Conflict and the events of Awakening begin. The HoF had been promoted to Commander of the Grey, Ferelden’s Warden-Commander. They travel to Vigil’s Keep having been tasked by the order with rebuilding the Wardens’ presence in Ferelden and dealing with the remaining darkspawn plaguing the nation. Romanced Warden Alistair could not join them as he had been assigned to the Warden parties in charge of the Thaw Hunt (a hunt for remnant darkspawn pockets). Romanced Zevran could not join them as he was away hunting and being hunted by the Crows. Romanced Leliana could not join as she was summoned for an audience by the Grand Cleric.

supposition: HoF’s promotion was given to them during their time at Weisshaupt. it’s both a reward for their service during the Blight and a maneuver by the First Warden to capitalize on the HoF’s reputation and the post-Blight state of Ferelden (which was weakened and freshly appreciative of Wardens). the goal was to leverage the Wardens back into prominence and power in Ferelden

9:31, 12 months post Blight - This basically brings things into ~9:32. The Darkspawn Civil War/Amaranthine Conflict and events of Awakening end. If the Architect was spared, other Wardens in other nations are appalled, but the Wardens think the ensuing conflict between groups of darkspawn might make the Deep Roads safer. If the Architect was spared, HoF begins work of some kind with the intelligent darkspawn and has interactions with them in the coming years (in 9:37, Warden Nathaniel calls these darkspawn “The Warden’s allies” and mentions information these allies provided the Wardens with). Soon after what happened with the Architect, if Avernus continued his research in some form, HoF sends him information about the Architect.

personal headcanon: HoF names Nathaniel Howe their second-in-command. Nathaniel becomes Constable of the Grey, Warden-Constable of Ferelden

favored headcanon: HoF names romanced or befriended Warden Alistair their second-in-command. Alistair becomes Constable of the Grey, Warden-Constable of Ferelden

9:31 - If Avernus continued his research in some form, Hawke finds a very important set of Warden letters and documents from the HoF intended for the First Warden, on a dead body on the Wounded Coast in the Free Marches. HoF dispatched the messenger from Ferelden via Amaranthine to go to Weisshaupt by way of Kirkwall, possibly with the aid of an agent in Kirkwall. The courier was most likely dispatched from Vigil’s Keep. Something had happened that the HoF is concerned about and wanted to inform the First Warden of ASAP. Enclosed was a message from Avernus to the HoF. This message indicates that the HoF has been working and corresponding with Avernus to aid his research, including sending him shipments of supplies. Avernus’ research has made progress but also revealed some alarming implications, and he urged the HoF to inform the FW at once. 

supposition: “supplies” includes live subjects, as in sentient beings (Ghilan’nain would be proud)

supposition: due to everything with Avernus if he continued his research, it’s around now that seeds begin to be sown in HoF’s mind of finding a way to escape the Calling 

personal headcanon: the agent in Kirkwall is Varric Tethras, or one of his people. after all, he is an information broker, spymaster and someone who knows everyone

~9:31 - The events of The Golems of Amgarrak take place. HoF investigates Amgarrak Thaig after being invited to Orzammar by Jerrik Dace, on a search mission to find a lost expedition. Most likely takes place after Awakening because Jerrik sent a letter requesting aid to Vigil’s Keep.

personal headcanon: the HoF has contact here with House Tethras, who canonically funded Jerrik’s search mission

9:32, nearly 1 year after the Archdemon’s death - The events of Witch Hunt take place. HoF searches for Morrigan through the Korcari Wilds, Cadash Thaig, Kinloch Hold and the Dragonbone Wastes. If HoF romanced Morrigan, they may vanish with her through the eluvian. In some universes Kieran has now been born. For some HoFs, they now meet their son for the first time.

supposition: it’s now that Morrigan tells some HoFs about the leads she found that point to the western lands as a place where a cure for the Calling might be found. if HoF didn’t leave through the mirror, some HoFs may now find that the “gift” Morrigan left them along with the stolen Dalish book is information about these leads. do note that some HoFs are implied to have come into the knowledge without Morrigan’s involvement

supposition: 9:32, post Witch Hunt - It’s now that HoFs who romanced Zevan travel to Antiva to reunite with him for a time, their expansion and DLC-business being concluded. they do what they can to help him in his Crow quest

9:32 on, for a time - HoFs who romanced Morrigan, fathered Kieran and left through the mirror help Morrigan raise Kieran for a while. This goes on for a long enough time that the roughly ~10 year old Kieran clearly remembers his father in 9:41.

supposition: much of this family life took place in hidden, secret places, some of which are in Thedas ‘proper’ itself and some of which are in the Crossroads and places reached via the Crossroads

supposition [?]: 9:32 on, til leaving / ‘mysteriously vanishing’ in ~9:40 - HoF most likely based out of Denerim Royal Palace and/or Vigil’s Keep, being largely occupied in this period with the duties involved in being Queen, Prince-Consort, Chancellor and/or Warden-Commander of Ferelden. The former would involve such things as advising, often being seen at court, helping to rebuild Ferelden in the wake of the Blight, and resisting the influence/incursions Orlais attempt around this time. The latter would involve such things as recruitment, training, establishing bases, sending annual reports to Weisshaupt, scouting, clearing remnant darkspawn activity, rebuilding Vigil’s Keep and/or Amaranthine, overseeing the arling etc. It’s also likely that Warden business would take them to other parts of Thedas at times. Romanced Zevran and romanced Leliana both assist when they can with rebuilding the Wardens, without officially joining. Depending on HoF’s actions during the Darkspawn Civil War/Amaranthine Conflict, potential events such as a riot of common folk at Vigil’s Keep can occur here. HoF continuing to actively serve in the Wardens during this time probably isn’t just supposition due to how they and Warden Alistair can refer to their duties in 9:41. Still, there’s lots of space and flexibility in this period for headcanon, for example to include things from the ‘rumors’ and such listed at the end of this post.

supposition: HoFs who romanced Zevan are involved on and off as they are able in this time period with his Crow quest, helping when they can. “on and off” refers to their involvement in his quest, not their relationship. canonically around this period Zevran is known for high profile kills of Guildmasters and having some of the others in his pocket. by 9:34 he has 2 out of 7 Guildmasters in his pocket and has killed at least one other along with Eoman, 2 Grandmasters, and 4 other members of House Arainai

personal headcanon: HoF establishes Soldier’s Peak as a secondary and proper functioning Warden base in Ferelden, and it comes to rival Vigil’s Keep

personal headcanon: HoF grows increasingly dissatisfied with the actions and attitudes of the Wardens (primarily the First Warden and other leadership in the Anderfels) during this period, and in the later years begins to consider making a play for power and seizing the First Warden’s seat

~9:33, 1 year after Darkspawn Civil War/Amaranthine Conflict ends - If HoF saved the city of Amaranthine, it is finished being rebuilt. Relevant because it is part of the arling goings-on, which is currently in HoF’s hands.

personal headcanon: 9:34 - HoF visits their clan near Kirkwall, having sent word ahead to Merrill. HoF is able to see Merrill and Marethari again prior to Marethari’s death in Act 3. this ties in handily with the timeframe when Warden Stroud/Alistair passes through Kirkwall on a mysterious important Warden mission. HoF, in the company of this Warden party (which includes Warden Carver), meets Hawke and is reunited with Anders/Justice and Isabela. HoF meets their contact Varric in person for the first time

~9:36, 5 years after Darkspawn Civil War/Amaranthine Conflict ends - If HoF saved the city of Amaranthine, Vigil’s Keep is finally finished being rebuilt.

supposition: ~9:37 (dependent on when Hawke did MoTA) - Not long after Hawke kills Corpheus, HoF begins digging for information about him much like the DAI Warden contact. HoF is investigating rumors they had heard and found about him, being concerned that he would be able to jump host bodies on death like an Archdemon. This happens in romanced Warden Alistair worlds in tandem with Alistair, and I don’t see why it would be exclusive to those. This can technically occur anytime between 31 and 37, but 37 makes the most sense for this to happen, as I can’t see HoF sitting on Corypheus knowledge for almost a decade before he rose

9:37 - Queen HoF is at home in the Royal Palace in Denerim when King Alistair meets Hawke in Act 3.

supposition: Prince-Consort HoFs, Chancellor HoFs, HoFs who remained King Alistair’s paramour, HoFs who were friends with King Alistair and potentially some others are also at court in Denerim at this time, either visiting or in a less temporary manner, depending

9:37 - Hawke meets Warden Nathaniel and possibly their Warden sibling in the Deep Roads. The First Warden had ordered an investigation along Hawke’s Deep Road expedition route, as Hawke went further into the Roads than anyone believed possible and the Wardens are interested in the primeval thaig. The Wardens obtained directions from Bartrand and were prepared to do extensive excavations around the thaig using explosives.

supposition: HoF had some involvement in the above, for example overseeing, organizing and decision-making on a level more local than the First Warden’s initial order

personal headcanon: Hawke’s Warden sibling has been under HoF’s command in recent years

personal headcanon: 9:38 - HoF accompanies Alistair during the events of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, and Until We Sleep. these events canonically take longer than 3 weeks, probably ~2 months. their travels take them to Antiva City, the Tellari Swamps, Ventus, Seheron and the Fade. HoF is reunited with Sten and Isabela, and meets Maevaris

~9:40, before Cassandra interrogates Varric - HoF departs on their long-ass quest to the west to find a cure for the Calling. Romanced Zevran accompanies them. Their journey takes them far out of the areas where Corypheus is operating, to lands untouched by Blight. Cassandra initially seeks HoF now, but cannot find them, most likely because they’ve left. Romanced Leliana couldn’t go because Justinia called on her for help. Romanced Warden Alistair stays behind to investigate the mounting concerns in the Wardens with corruption in the ranks, Corypheus, Wardens disappearing and the false Calling.

supposition [?]: Awakening Warden companions that we’ve not heard from again - so Velanna, Sigrun and Oghren - accompany HoF on their quest, explaining why they haven’t resurfaced

personal headcanon: in the months prior, HoF began to grow concerned about stirrings of strange behavior in Warden ranks, much like the DAI Warden contact

9:41 - A letter arrives to Weisshaupt from the new Warden-Commander of Vigil’s Keep. Around this time Clarel is noted to have stopped writing to Weisshaupt.

supposition: there is a new Warden-Commander because HoF has now departed on their quest. the new one could be temporary in the interim or a permanent replacement. the new one is possibly whoever HoF promoted to Constable of the Grey / Warden-Constable of Ferelden, as Wardens of this rank are second-in-commands who step in when the Warden-Commander is away. [headcanon note here: if HoF had elevated Alistair to the position, it’s possibly now occupied by someone else given Warden Alistair soon goes into hiding after becoming concerned]

9:41, mid-Inquisition - It proves difficult, but Morrigan, Alistair or Leliana facilitate Inquisition contact with the HoF and an exchange of letters between HoF and the Inquisitor. HoF signs their letter “Warden-Commander”.

supposition: given how they sign the letter, it doesn’t seem that they have officially stepped down from the role yet. alternatively, a Warden can continue to use the title after stepping down, or this is an inconsistency. I think it’s most likely the new Warden-Commander in the Weisshaupt letter above is acting-WC at this time point

~9:44, post-Trespasser - HoF has returned from their quest to find a cure. If they romanced Leliana, they rejoin her. If Leliana is Divine, HoF is often seen at her side. If not, their respective responsibilities often keep them apart, but whenever they can they spend time together at a villa on the Waking Sea.

supposition: HoF didn’t come back until now, as they are not mentioned in the base game epilogue. their quest really took years

supposition: All HoFs return now, because why would only Lelimancers make it back?

supposition: HoF found a cure, given the fairly light tone in the romanced Leliana epilogues. if so, they probably step down from being a Warden, as Fiona was not allowed to remain in the Wardens after being cured

supposition: If HoF romanced Morrigan or Alistair or married Anora, they instead rejoin their respective LI, or LI and child in the case of Morrigan sometimes. Leliana, Morrigan and Warden Alistair as LIs in DAI all express the same sentiment of what amounts to “this time, when we rejoin one another, we intend to stay together”. romanced Zevran here was already with them, having gone on the quest

supposition: At this time point HoF clearly still has some continuing responsibilities of some form. work with the Wardens in an advisory capacity? ongoing service to the Fereldan crown? there’s lots of space and flexibility now for headcanon, for example to include things from the ‘rumors’ and such listed at the end of this post

supposition: It appears Leliana tells romanced HoF of the troubles to come (’for both saw the troubles that were to come’). presumably this is a reference to the Dread Wolf and related threats. I assume she would tell this to any HoF that she was good friends with

personal headcanon: the cure for the Calling is distributed to Anders and Carver. whether it’s distributed to all Wardens or made common knowledge to all Wardens is debatable

personal headcanon: HoF ‘takes care of’ some of befriended Divine Leliana’s enemies. I especially favor this headcanon with romanced Leliana

~9:44, post-Trespasser, probably into 9:45 - ‘The Bard’ reports a sighting of an unspecified Warden-Commander in an auctionhouse in Llomerryn, talking to disguised Divine Victoria. This Warden-Commander’s identity is left unstated, and this story of the Bard’s, or this part of the story, seems like it was made up.

supposition: this was made up and never happened, given the context. I do love the allusion to the apparent contact and scheming between HoF and romanced or befriended Divine Leliana, though

----------

There are also lots of things that the HoF was rumored or can be suggested to do post-game in the DAO and expansion epilogues. If desired, these could easily be woven into headcanons and stories to help fill the periods where there are large timegaps. You could also headcanon in HoF appearing with romanced Zevran and romanced Leliana at various timepoints when they resurface in the narrative, for example.

continue to have unspecified adventures and travels

travel with Sten to Par Vollen

travel with Wynne and Shale

dwarves: return to Orzammar, potentially Paragon duties

Mahariel: return to their clan

Tabris: potentially Bann of the Alienage duties

Cousland: return to Highever, help Fergus rebuild

and so forth

[solarianvoidthearoace]

Excerpt#3 of JuPeter Vampire!AU

CN/TW: friendly insults/mocking, discussion of past brawl, misunderstanding of said friendly insults/threats, brief implication of Juno being a trophy wife, friendly challenging

“So you are the lady that occupied the best thief in the entire region for over two months now”, she rested her elbows atop the counter, leaning in to scrutinize Juno. After a while she nodded in apparent approval,

“Alright, come right around Pete, the family’s waiting in the back room.” Straightening back up to her full height, she made her way to said door behind the bar counter. Curious and a bit intimidated, Juno followed by Nureyev’s hand. The back room was surprisingly better lit than the main room of the tavern, a small round table dead center, with three people waiting for them.

“Thief! Long time no see, what brought your mug back in here this time?”, a woman with green hair greeted. It was the fond kind of depreciation that carried in her raspy voice.

“As you can see, I brought lovely company I felt the need to introduce to you. Though I apparently was wrong about all of us being criminal socialites, as he doesn’t recall having heard of the Captain”, Nureyev sat down first, in a room where everyone except for him and Juno seemed to be armed purely by habit. Okay, Juno didn’t know wether Nureyev wasn’t armed, it was a habit he shared, after all, but he at least left his revolver in the mansion.

“Told you not to call me Captain, Pete, I never was your captain and haven’t carried that title in years”, the bar owner sat down next, without leaving a chair empty between her and Nureyev.

“I suppose introductions will be in order then, since Ransom’s companion does not seem to have been told about us beforehand”, the remaining person, a giant of a man, joined them at the table, leaving one chair to the Captain’s left and another one between him and Nureyev.

Juno looked cautiously around the table, his eyes locking on that green-haired woman for a bit, before he took his seat next to Nureyev.

“Doctor, would you kindly join us? I remember you being the one to establish the rule that everyone has to sit if one person sits down first. Wasn’t it about fairness in case a fight breaks loose?”, he waved at the remaining chair.

The doctor scoffed,

“And who’s fault is it we needed that damn rule, eh, Ransom? You’re lucky we work well together and my wife likes you”, she slumped into the seat, crossing her arms.

“So, introductions. I think I should disclose something first”, the Captain smirked a bit,

“I know who you brought along, Pete. One Juno Steel, vampire hunter and detective. I had Jet look into him back when he wasn’t yet agreeing with himself whether to ever leave Hyperion. So, Juno, darling, you seem to be the only one at a disadvantage of knowledge here”, the Captain leaned back.

Nureyev rolled his eyes, sighed and smoothed out his waistcoat before turning to Juno,

“Apparently the honors are mine to introduce what I already told you is this town’s ragtag gangle of criminal legends. This red-haired lady here is Captain Buddy Aurinko”, the Captain’s glare at the title didn’t go unnoticed,

“And next to her is her prickly but highly competent wife, Doctor Vespa Ilkay. And last but not least, Mister Jet Siquliak. As to what our areas of expertise are -“ Juno’s raised hand interrupted him.

“The Captain Aurinko you have been talking about like an old friend for months is Buddy Aurinko? The Buddy Aurinko?! And Vespa Ilkay, as in, the Vespa, infamous assassin and other half of legendary criminal duo Buddy and Vespa. You are on first-name-base with the legendary Vespa and Buddy and you didn’t feel the need to tell me?!” The room fell silent at that.

It was Buddy who spoke first,

“So you have heard of us, darling, that’s good to know.” Juno rubbed at his temple,

“Of course I have heard of you! Sure, I worked as a monster hunter, not exactly a career where pirates and thieves concerned me, but obviously I have heard of you. I mean, who hasn’t? Your desertion from the naval fleet was before I even picked up my first gun but, wow, yea, definitely a criminal legend!”, he turned to Vespa next,

“And you’re basically legendary for revolutionizing field medicine, pretty much every monster hunter in business fell back onto your methods to make it out at one point. And yea, I have heard about some of the kills you managed, holy hell, some of that still sounds impossible to me.” When he finished, Juno noticed the others’ expectant look on him and blinked.

“Ah, so I take it you haven’t heard of Jet, darling”, Buddy took over, leaning onto the table and looking at Juno, who shook his head.

“Jet here used to be someone”, she seemed to be searching for a word,

“Dangerous. There are several novels based around what he was up to in his youth but to us the past is past and all you need to know is that he’s a very capable thief and burglar.”

“So, ageless thief”, Vespa spoke up,

“Why did you bring your lady here? If he’s with you it can’t be that he’s desperate to get a job.” Nureyev grinned at that, a hint of danger in the way he showed his teeth,

“If what my grandfather Peter Nureyev accumulated in wealth can sustain me easily enough, why shouldn’t my lady love profit from that as well?” Juno had to suppress a shudder at how easily Nureyev lied about his true name. Also it didn’t sit right with him that Nureyev put up the facade of a rich kid born into wealth. Juno knew better, after all.

Because the memories he had seen of Nureyev were before he even reached adulthood and therefor probably one and a half decades before he was turned. It hadn’t been pretty, Nureyev had grown up as poor as can be, barely scraping by before being taken in by -

“Juno?”, Nureyev gave him a quizzical look.

“I’m sorry, I got hung up on a thought. What did I miss?”

“Pete just mentioned you would like to get back into shooting”, Buddy gave him yet another scrutinizing look,

“I heard you were brilliant with a revolver and I’m sure we might just be able to get you back on track towards former glory. I would be your training partner, coaching you through getting confident with a gun again.” At that she brushed back her hair, uncovering half her face and the eyepatch that had lain hidden behind the red curls. Juno didn’t miss a beat,

“That’s such a great offer, thank you.” Vespa snorted,

“If you happen to really become half-decent again, we might be able to get you even more of a way to kill time. Getting you out of that ratty old mansion and back out into the world. Might even earn enough to gain independence from that cocky, posh rich kid.” Peter simply rolled his eyes at that, probably used to insults regarding his supposedly inherited wealth in context of his career choice.

Juno on the other hand couldn’t help but growl,

“I’m staying with him because I want to. Because of him, actually. I would probably be three towns over by now if we hadn’t run into each other in this very tavern. Unexpected reunion? Sure. But you can stick what you’re implying there right up your -“, Peter clearing his throat interrupted him.

“Juno, dear, thank you very much for defending both our honor but rest assured, Doctor Ilkay was just bantering”, he gave Vespa a side-eye and his tone changed,

“Probably even trying to look into your intentions with me. A protective sentiment, as unnecessary as it may be.”

“But -!”, this time Vespa’s snort and cackling broke him off before he could get on with it.

“Loosen your tighty whities, Steel. You know why you couldn’t place it if Ransom even mentioned me by the name of Doctor Ilkay? Is because it’s recent”, she shrugged, leaning forward in her chair and onto the table,

“I would’ve to be real stupid to get up in arms against the man who financed me finishing my medical degree. Also from what I heard his grand-daddy Peter Nureyev was from a similar shithole to the one that spat me out, tried changing the system back there, became a folk hero and ended up here, somehow.”

Vespa shook her head, as if trying to make sense of that, before she gave a one-armed shrug and gesture by way of what have you,

“And yea, I called Ransom a cocky arse, because he is, but somehow it’s almost as if he remembers his old man’s roots. Posh rich kid, sure, but somehow with those ideals and morals the old Nureyev had. Not that I ever met the man, though Buddy and I sure are old enough that we should’ve ran into him at least once.” From Juno’s point of view there was a whole lot to unpack in just those last sentences. He felt like he needed to ask Nureyev how the hell that even worked out if Buddy was the one supplying him with literally bottled blood.

But for now, Juno somehow felt really welcome between these people he had only heard of before today. And that reminded him,

“I came to town with my research expert and best friend, Rita -“, Jet cut him off this time.

“Yes, Miss Rita has been introduced to us. We offered her to stay at the rooms in the back of this building, living along with us. Captain Buddy already gave her something to work on which is why she is not with us to greet you.” Surprised as he was, Juno made a noise of acknowledgment.

“Darling, if the Registry does get back to her, you’ll be the next person to know of it. As you might have noticed, word travels fast in small towns and even faster in this one with an established criminal network.” At Buddy’s words, Nureyev smirked and rested his chin on his palm,

“The wondrous ways of the Cerberus Province, isn’t it lovely to be a criminal socialite?” His teeth and his glasses glinted sharply in the light of the room, Vespa snorted, Buddy sighed and Juno felt that maybe this was some sort of family to Nureyev. A family that he had been anxious about for Juno to meet them.

A family, as it turned out, that was all too happy about it’s newest two members. Juno and Buddy made a habit and a statement of meeting twice a week for their firearm training. Rita and Jet became rather inseparable, at least Juno couldn’t remember the last time he had seen one without the other around the Lighthouse. Even Vespa warmed up to the occupational monster hunter, in her rough way of showing it.

“Peter is treating you well, isn’t he, darling?”, Buddy casually started between rounds of shooting. Juno raised a brow, for someone who he had barely met two months ago, she was rather motherly towards him in particular.

“He’s taking good care of me, yea”, Juno couldn’t help his smile if he had wanted to,

“To think he had offered me this life a year ago already, it’s a dizzying thought. But I also think I’m fine with how things went.” Buddy gave him a once-over, looking for something apparently. Whether or not she found it, or even what it was, he couldn’t tell when she spoke again.

“You have made yourself quite the powerful friend, darling. I hope you know as much besides your obvious appreciation for the rest of all that he is”, she leaned back on her stool, relaxing against the table behind her.

“The way I see it, it’s powerful friends. Plural. I never would have thought to even get to meet you and Vespa and now see where I’m standing”, Juno shrugged,

“I’m happy and appreciative to have met all of you. Rita was the only family I have known for so long and now I get to have -”, he had to take a breath, wiping at his eye and resting those fingers against his temple,

“I finally have a family again.” From the warm smile Buddy directed at him, she knew that very sentiment, having carved out her own corner of the world, planted her feet and declared it the Buddy Aurinko Crime Family.

“Ransom should be on his way back by now, what do you say we wrap this up for today?”, she stood, walking past him to the target area of what they had gradually made into a decent shooting range.

“Of course after you hit this”, she held up a playing card for him to see, before taking one of her hairpins and fixing it to the target they had been using. Juno saw her counting the steps on her way back, while he slowed his breath and readied his revolver.

“A two-and-a-half by three-and-a-half inch playing card. To be hit from a 32 feet distance”, she held up the rest of the deck,

“I’m not gonna be picky, darling, I just want you to hit it at all. Afterwards you can go, run off to that dear lover of yours returning home”, if her voice was more teasing than usual, so be it.

“Come on, don’t be shy. Two days ago you managed to hit the target at 25 meters distance dead center. A lady who can celebrate is a lady who can get a shot in on a playing card”, with that Buddy went back to the table, taking her seat. Juno huffed, a snarky reply on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t as if she had invited him on a drink for that bull’s eye or anything, was it now?

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Gonna make full use of my ‘comic rant’ tag and roast Future State: Superwoman.

Spoilers! And yelling! Of the disgruntled kind!

So a few things at the start here: 1.) I wanted to love this book. I wanted it to be great. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, in spite of some iffy stuff in the solicit text. So this rant is not coming from a place of having decided this was going to be awful ahead of time. 2.) My tolerance for bad Supergirl comics is pretty high! Takes a lot for me to actually come out and say that a particular issue is trash. Reader: This story is trash.

It’s not ‘middle-aged white guys writing/drawing a story about sending a minor to a potentially hostile planet fully nude’ trash, mind you. It’s the compost bin, rather than the landfill. Slightly nicer trash, but it still stinks to high heaven. Allow me to expand!

PROLOGUE - SUMMARY: ...I actually can’t summarize this comic b/c it would devolve into a lot of senseless yelling. We’ll just have to tease out this terrible plot as we go along. 

PART I - DEAD DOGS TELL BAD TALES: The comic opens with Kara standing at Krypto’s grave. That’s not why this comic is trash, but it bears mentioning. Because why. Why would you do this. 

PART II - IN WHICH IT ONLY GETS WORSE: So, Kara has a running inner monologue, and the main thing we gather from Kara’s thoughts is that it was Krypto who taught her to be a hero. On paper, that sounds very sweet! In practice, it reads as Kara having no moral center whatsoever—whatever good qualities she might possess, she did not learn from her parents, or her foster parents, or friends, or fellow heroes. Nor do they come from within Kara herself. Nope, t’was Krypto who taught Kara not to be a jealous rage monster. That is not hyperbole--Kara’s walking around angry about her cousin all the time and she’s like, ‘It was you, Krypto, who taught me not to judge, and to let go of anger.’ Listen, I love Krypto, but this? This is, as the youth would say, a bad look.

PART III - THOSE CERTAINLY ARE...SOME THEMES: The set-up here is that Kara is on the moon, and has established a sanctuary for alien refugees. That’s a dynamite idea! I love that! Buuuuut Kara didn’t look at the plight of alien refugees and say, ‘I want to help!’ Really, she didn’t even look at herself and say, ‘I don’t want others to feel like I’ve felt.’ No, she said, ‘Earth won’t accept me as a hero, and Clark didn’t name me protector of Earth, so. I’m out!’ (Honestly, if your moral compass is so whack that you need a dog to walk you back from Hulk-Smashing...can’t say I blame Clark for not picking you, Kara!) But apparently, the people on the moon don’t really like her either. And it is literally never explained why. There’s a whole montage of Kara fixing stuff and saving lives and all the moon folk just glare at her. This makes both the moon people AND Kara look like a**holes, because they come across as ungrateful, and she comes across as a glory hound. Thanks! I hate it! So the ‘peace’ Kara’s found on the moon isn’t really peaceful at all, cause she still resents her cousin, and people still don’t like her, in spite of the fact that she’s constantly performing acts of service for them. 

Also, side note, I’m just now realizing this is an entire population of alien refugees...and Kara is somehow still the odd one out. Like, Earth I get, because everyone else is a human and maybe freaked out by the super powers. But a bunch of aliens? WHY. Why did you do this. Why did this need to be set on the moon with alien refugees if you’re not going to interrogate Kara’s identity as an alien refugee herself AND all of the aliens are inexplicably humanoid in appearance and utterly ordinary in terms of power levels.  

Like. This is not the CW show, where they have a budget, and a huge ensemble cast to serve. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. AAARRRRRGHHHH.

PART III CONT’D: There’s also this weird ‘birthright’ element introduced...like, Clark and Jon stole Kara’s ‘right’ to be earth’s defender which is...a terrible reading of Kara’s modern origin. It brings in the idea that Kara is a ‘chosen one’ and because she didn’t get to be that chosen one, all of her hero work is for nothing. Never mind the whole central conceit of what makes Clark and Kara heroic...that they have this incredible power, and choose to do good with it. Nah...it’s all about her ‘right’ to protect the people of Earth! And mean ol’ Clark took that away! THANKS. I HATE IT. 

PART IV - A POOR USE OF SPACE: So, all of the Future State books kind of struggle with the issue of too much exposition, which is understandable. They have to introduce an entirely new status quo in a very limited amount of literal page space, so you *really* have to have a handle on how you allocate your time and focus.  

Introducing a brand new, lore-heavy heroic character who gets all of the development and dynamic art and pulls focus away from the character you’re meant to be writing is a bad use of a two issue limited series.

Like, this is a crappy Supergirl comic but it’s a great backdoor pilot for a Lynari ongoing, I guess. 

Imagine if in the Jon Superman book, they introduced a random, brand new best friend for Jon, and he got the big character arc instead of Jon. That’s something you save for an arc in an ongoing title, NOT A TWO ISSUE EVENT COMIC.  

Back to said new character, there’s a lot of forced attempts to parallel Kara and Lynari, but Lynari’s backstory is so confusing, rushed, and poorly explained that it’s like: okay, they’re both...angry? And the moon jerks hate them? ...uh. Okay.

(I’m gonna bring back my ‘why is this set on the moon, even’ question so that my ‘poor use of space’ header becomes a better joke.) 

PART V - I'M HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO...B/C THERE SURE AIN’T ONE HERE: I’ve already mentioned that Krypto was apparently Kara’s conscience so when Lynari’s aunt arrives to...kill them? (again, everything about Lynari’s backstory is rushed and poorly explained) Kara gets real mad and basically pulls a Gothel: ‘You want me to be the bad guy? Fine! Now I’m the bad guy.’ But thank goodness Lynari is there to tell Kara no! Don’t murder the giant aunt eel! Lynari then steals Kara’s powers and gives up the swamp jewel that’s been hidden inside their body and now their aunt is less murder-y!

WOW. Couldn’t even give the big damn hero moment to Kara in her own book, huh?

So the day is saved. It takes Kara a while to regain her powers, and it’s only then, when she’s no longer ‘above’ the moon jerks, that they’re like, ‘oh, we like her!’ There is a bit of narration about how that attitude is awful. But that narration is provided by Lynari. See, the inner monologue is no longer Kara’s thoughts, but rather it has switched to Lynari’s point of view. They’re telling us this story. And do you know why?

PART VI - WHY THIS COMIC *SUCKS*: KARA DIES. SHE’S THE FRIGGIN’ ‘SECOND GRAVE’ OF THE TITULAR ‘TWO GRAVES’

Fudge this comic to heck.

See, Kara dies on the moon, presumably of old age. She’s buried next to Krypto. And this random character who we’re suddenly supposed to care about tells us her story. Not Clark. Not the Danvers. Not Brainy. Not even one of the supporting cast members from her solo title. No one from Kara’s life is mentioned at all, save for Jon and Clark, and they’re pretty much relegated to flashbacks of Kara punching them. 

PART VII - TIME TO COMPARE DEATHS, I GUESS: First and foremost can I just say that I hate that’s a sentence that I’m typing about Kara in the year of our lord, 2021. But okay: Kara’s big famous death in Crisis stopped the entire DC universe cold. Everyone paused in the middle of the destruction of the multiverse to mourn her loss and honor her (GENUINELY HEROIC) sacrifice. Clark and Barbara--two established characters with a strong connection/relationship to Kara--offered lovely eulogies. 

This one: Kara gets to die of old age in obscurity after a lifetime of striving to be recognized and only achieving it by de-powering and serving a population of jerks. 

Not the warm and fuzzy ending you think it is!

(Meanwhile, Clark lives for millennia and spawns an entire dynasty of Els, all of ‘em out there, protecting the cosmos. I was looking forward to House of El in the hopes of maybe seeing some Kara stuff but NOPE. Thanks to Superwoman, we’re probably not gonna see any future Kara stuff beyond this! G R E A T)

And like, the argument could be made that this ending makes Kara happy. This is the life she chooses! She wants to be alone and garden on the moon! Except, we get zero insight from Kara regarding the remainder of her life. We only have Lynari’s narration and some montage shots...nearly all of which focus on other characters. But honestly, even if we did get Kara’s side of things, I doubt it would shed much light on her feelings, bEEECAUSE...

PART VIII - SUPER BLAND: This Kara really has no personality outside of ‘detached and vaguely bitter.’ I like Sauvage, I think she’s an incredibly talented artist, but here, Kara is stiff and her expression often reads as aloof. She’s very pretty, but it comes at the expense of being expressive. (And I know Sauvage can do expressive stuff...because Lyanari gets to be expressive.) Like...I love that shojo manga vibe but this is a Kara devoid of spark and warmth. 

...Like...Melissa Benoist’s portrayal of Kara is right there... 

I’ve already sort of touched on this but her inner monologue doesn’t have much personality either. She’s just parroting the same, ‘I need to do as Krypto taught me!’ nonsense for both issues. Until, of course, we shift to Lynari’s narration, and lose Kara’s thread entirely. 

PART IX - LET’S WRAP THIS UP: This book frustrates me to no end because it had a lot of stuff going for it. It’s got a female writer and artist--still a rarity for the Supergirl book--it’s a limited series mostly free of continuity and character baggage, and it’s not tied down to the grimdark cyberpunk stuff happening in the Gotham books. YOU COULD’VE DONE ANYTHING. And, once again, DC goes with a pitch that’s: Kara is angry, Kara resents Clark...and Kara dies.

It’s also happening...right as Kara has no dedicated ongoing title, the movie’s been shelved, the TV show is entering its sixth and final season, and all promotion has shifted to new CW and HBO shows. 

*screams into the void* 

MAAAAAAN I hate this book. I hate that it retroactively makes me hate the Andreyko run a little bit--a run that I took to be about a traumatized young woman forced to confront her grief, and who leans on a beloved animal companion for comfort. Here, Krypto is L I T E R A L L Y the reason Kara’s not constantly frying folks with her heat vision. 

I hate that this book has made me use the word ‘literally’ so much in this rant.

I hate that this could possibly be more in continuity than Millennium.

Remember Millennium? Where Kara was in like...five pages? And she was warm, and kind, and promised to help Rose because it was the right thing to do, and oh yes, WAS PRESIDENT OF EARTH?!??! AND A CLASSY OLD LADY!?!?!?!?! WHO WAS STILL ALIVE AND KICKIN’ IN THE FAR FLUNG FUTURE!?!?!?!?!

I hate that I’m using my lunch hour to rant about how much I hate this comic.  

I hate that DC editorial seems hell-bent on erasing the interesting aspects of Kara’s character to sand her down to ‘the angry one’ or ‘Batman 2.0′

PART X - LET’S END ON SOME (?) POSITIVES: Don’t read this book! Don’t do it! Don’t waste your time and money!

Instead, check out ANYTHING ELSE. If you want mom!Kara, read Tom Taylor’s ‘Last Daughters of Krypton’ in the DC Nuclear Winter special. If you want heroic oldlady!Kara, read Millennium. Honestly? Pick up anything by Bendis that has Supergirl in it. It is miles away better than this. You want angry Kara working through her grief? Andreyko, Red Lantern, even Infected. ANYTHING BUT THIS. HECK, grab Superman of Metropolis instead! That has bad Kara characterization but at least she doesn’t end up dead. 

Anyways. This comic is bad. I wish it wasn’t! And this is now the SECOND TIME IN A ROW that Kara’s book ends on a terrible note before the character disappears from monthly comics for an unknown period of time.  

*screams into the void again*

[iturbide]

(CheeseAndCake here) It is done. More CC!Edelgard in Heroes has been sent! I tried to make it clear that, while Edelgard has changed a lot, and is showing the dragonkin propper respect, her mind is still jumping to the thoughts she used to have before she gets a hold of her thought process. It’s still there, but she doesn’t let it show or let those thoughts dictate her actions and is doing her best to change it. I’m so proud of her.

You and me both her development as a character is absolutely fantastic, especially in the way that she still jumps to certain thoughts and then forcibly grapples with those very thoughts because she’s conscious of the fact that she needs to work on that.  I especially liked how she reminded herself that it’s the second thought that’s important rather than the first, because that’s really important for people who are trying to change: if we tell ourselves that the first thought is the only thing that matters, then we just feel ashamed and guilty for reacting in ways we’ve been conditioned to, and it stymies progress.  She really is working hard on changing, and that is absolutely something to take pride in.

You know who else would be proud of her?  The Bad End AU folks.

In the interests of keeping this at least kind of contained, I’ll just stick to the core group: Claude, Hilda, Ashe, Annette, and Nika.

Claude

After getting summoned, would take pains at first to avoid any Edelgard, in part because at the time he was summoned the Edelgard of his world probably doesn’t know he survived; he might even be going by his given Almyran name rather than his adopted Fodlani one, both to safeguard his identity and because he’s spent years back home where they use his true name...though the resemblance between him and the other Claudes would still give him away to some extent, even if he is older and wiser than they are.

CC!Edelgard would probably be the only one to actively seek him out, since the others tend to be very focused on their tasks and don’t care to make small talk with those who aren’t in their immediate circle of confidantes (Hubert, Byleth, etc; occasionally they would chat with Lysithea, but part of it would be trying to coax her to the Imperial side).  The first time she does, he would spend a solid ten seconds trying to size up the situation (because he’s pretty sure that’s Edelgard, but she’s not in the Imperial reds, but is she just trying to get him to lower his guard, or is there something else going on here?); having known someone very much like him for quite a while, it would be all the proof she needs to say with certainty that this is, in fact, Claude, because she doesn’t know anyone else that will just stare so intently at something (or someone) they’re trying to figure out.

She might try for the same Almyran icebreaker that she used with Legendary Claude, and for a split second he would get chills because fuck did Edelgard conquer Almyra too -- wait, no, if she did she’d probably make Fodlani the standard language, huh. The only sign of those internal thoughts would be a slight sharpening of his gaze as he looks at her, which would soften again once he comes to his far less dire conclusion and actually processes the words she said -- though at that point he’d laugh because him?  Ruler of Almyra?  He’s an advisor, she clearly has him mistaken for someone else.

Of course then she tags him as ‘heir’ instead (using the Almyran term), and his smile gets a little sharper, because if he’s guessing she only figured that out recently -- if she knew he was a prince at Derdriu, he suspects that she wouldn’t have tried to kill him.

CC!Edelgard let him go, of course.  But this is about as close to a direct admission as Claude’s ever come, and despite the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings swirling through her she pushes herself to ask if he’d like to talk about it over a game.

Claude isn’t one to pass up a game, honestly.  So the board is set, and they talk about their worlds over several matches; they don’t realize how time passes, engrossed as they are in the games and conversation.  Someone quietly brings them a meal once it gets late enough, and they each offer a distracted word of thanks, eating without ever putting the match on hold.

They discuss his world, and how the Edelgard he knew ordered his death, only for their professor to land a non-fatal (but convincingly mortal-looking) blow; how the situation in Fodlan made his dream as good as impossible, so he took an advisory position under his father when he returned to Almyra while establishing an information network stretching beyond its borders that he hoped would do Judith proud; how news of a Blaiddyd brought him secretly back to Fodlan to evacuate Dimitri’s half-brother Nikita, and how he’s tried to give Nika a life of his own choosing rather than molding him into a leader for Faerghus; and most of all, about the dire situation in Fodlan, and how Claude is willing to take the fight back across the border if that’s Nika’s choice once he comes of age so that the people there can live by their own choosing again.  

They discuss her world, and how she saw her conquest through, only to realize too late that she’d been deceived and manipulated from the start by Those Who Slither; how she was taken captive again, subjected to worse than she’d suffered as a child, until Claude and Dimitri’s cousin Ivanna created enough chaos for her to break free; how she joined them in the fight to put an end to what she had forged, casting aside the title of Emperor and seeking only to atone for her past evils in whatever way she could -- beginning with changing herself, expanding her view of the world and her understanding of its people along with it.  

Claude never imagined that Edelgard von Hresvelg, Emperor of Adrestia and Conqueror of Fodlan, would tell him that he’s right to try and stop her.  But then, this particular Edelgard has seen where her ambitions end up.  It’s heartening, in a way -- and while he doesn’t think she deserved what happened to her (no one deserves to suffer the way she did), he’s still glad that she’s managed to realize how narrow her previous worldview was, and he’s proud that she’s trying to broaden her horizons.  They might not become friends, necessarily, but he would be willing to help her work on that in much the same way that the Claude she knew did, which she would appreciate.

He’d also teach her more Almyran just because he can.  She’s going to go back able to hold basic conversations and just wait until her Claude hears that.

Hilda

Much like Claude, she might also be going by another name -- though in her case, it would be an assumed Almyran alias, since using her own name would be dangerous with her supposedly dying at Derdriu along with Claude.  She’s gotten used to it, for sure, but she also can’t wave off suspicion anywhere near as well as Claude does, since she has the classic Goneril Pink palette going on (and, as Claude’s mom pointed out when they first met, she’s too old to be Holst’s kid, so sister makes more sense -- and Holst only has one sister, officially).

Also like Claude, she would do her utmost to avoid any and all Edelgards, and for much the same reason: she was supposed to have died at Derdriu, so Edelgard realizing she didn’t could put her and Claude both in danger.  Lucky for her, most of the Edelgards don’t have much interest in cross-House socialization; however, CC!Edelgard takes an interest in Claude, and if there’s one thing Hilda absolutely will not allow, it’s someone threatening Claude, so when she sees the two of them in conversation, the second she recognizes that this is an Edelgard -- something that wouldn’t be immediately obvious to her, given the outfit change -- she’d be putting herself bodily between them with her axe at the ready.

Claude is far more amused by this than Edelgard is.  She’s not big on having weapons pulled on her, understandably, and there’s a momentary face-off between Hilda with her axe and Edelgard with her dagger before Claude inserts himself between the two women and suggests they just talk this out like reasonable people.

“Since when has Edelgard ever been reasonable?” Hilda scoffs.

“Since I was robbed of my freedom and nearly my life at the hands of foes I’d underestimated too long, and Claude offered me a chance to atone for my past.”

That’s enough to make Hilda take a step back.  Claude has no interest in speaking for or over Edelgard, but he acts as a mediator between them as they talk, calming arguments before they can get out of hand and generally guiding the flow of conversation.  Hilda isn’t as quick to trust Edelgard as he is, but even she can’t deny that what the former Emperor went through was something no one should have to face; she’s at least willing to give Edelgard a chance to change, and show proof of it -- and even she has to admit that the former Emperor’s progress is stark, in comparison to their last meeting.

Ashe

Unlike Claude and Hilda, Ashe doesn’t have a reason to hide his identity.  He wasn’t part of the final battle at Fhirdiad, having been charged with Nika’s evacuation before the Imperial Army arrived at the Kingdom capital, so there’s no illusion that would be broken by discovering that he’s alive.  His goal is to safeguard Nika’s life, and that’s what he intends to do.

Of course, this means that he has absolutely no love whatsoever for Edelgard or Hubert, since he believes (and Claude agrees) that it was the Emperor’s right hand man who’s been sending assassins after the young Blaiddyd.  Claude might have a fair-minded perspective when it comes to Edelgard (though he still condemns her actions, make no mistake, he just recognizes that she’s still human and has potentially deeply flawed motivations that drive her), but Ashe still harbors some intense hatred and resentment toward her.

Hilda might be willing to listen to CC!Edelgard (with Claude’s mediation), but Ashe has no interest in hearing what any Edelgard has to say.  He’s not openly aggressive with them, but he prefers to avoid them when possible -- and when he has to work with them, he’s terse at best, following orders to the letter so that he can distance himself from them as soon as possible.  CC!Edelgard would have to put in a concerted effort just to talk with him, and even then he’d be unimpressed.  She murdered his friend, her own step-brother -- something Claude’s secured proof of -- destroyed countless lives in the Kingdom (not to mention the Alliance and Empire), robbed nations of their independence and forced obedience on them...he might have done things he’s not proud of in the past, but he never committed atrocities the way she did.

He wouldn’t condemn her attempts to change.  He knows the importance of getting another chance, of making amends and atoning for past crimes -- but at the same time, she took so much from him that he wouldn’t be able to forgive her.  The pain she caused him is too deep and too personal, so while he would certainly acknowledge her growth and progress, he wouldn’t forgive her for what she did to him and his. 

She would acknowledge that he doesn’t have to forgive her, though.  She’s not going to try to win him over or change his mind -- but the apology is still important, because she recognizes the harm she caused him.  She’s going to keep striving to better herself whether he accepts her apology or not -- and when she leaves, promising that she’ll let him choose when and if they speak again, Ashe would know that she really means what she says.

Annette

Similar to Ashe, Annette doesn’t have a reason to hide her identity.  She wasn’t there for the fall of Fhirdiad, since Dimitri sent her off with Nika to keep him safe; the Empire has no reason to think she’s dead, so her being alive doesn’t need to be a secret.  All she’s trying to do is keep Nika safe, and that’s exactly what she intends to do.

Unlike Ashe, though, she doesn’t go out of her way to avoid the Edelgards, and generally only leaves shared spaces with them when she has something to do.  She knows how dangerous the Adrestian Emperor can be and generally is, so she prefers to stick closer to her friends in order to help keep them safe, specifically placing herself between Edelgard and her companion.  Ashe removing himself from places where Edelgard is present generally ends up removing Annette, too, since she’d much rather stay with him than linger around Imperials.

CC!Edelgard would likely be the first and only one who actually bothers approaching Annette -- and the moment she does, Annette would be on her guard.  If she’s with someone, she would try to send them away so they’re not in danger; if she’s alone, she would just be wary but open to at least trying to listen, since Claude has made some good points about Edelgard being human and therefore having very human motivations, however flawed the execution might have been...but at the same time, she’s still nursing raw wounds of her own.  Not only is Edelgard responsible for the death of her closest friends, she also saw to the death of her father -- and estranged or not, she wanted to give him a chance and try to rebuild their family.  None of that even gets into the fact that she can’t go home because of what Edelgard did to the Kingdom, or the fact that she ordered the murder of a child -- Blaiddyd or not that’s unconscionable to her.

Compared to Ashe’s icy loathing, Annette is much more passionate and emotional when it comes to her rebukes.  Nothing Edelgard could ever do will bring back Annette’s family or friends, and after all the harm she caused...Annette can’t forgive her.  Even if she understands what this Edelgard is doing, she just can’t bring herself to forgive that hurt.

But Edelgard would certainly understand that, by now.  And she would explain that she’s not trying to make Annette forgive her: the apology was necessary as an acknowledgement of her own wrongdoing, and so that Annette could know that she recognizes the pain she caused.  She’ll keep moving forward, striving to change and atone and avoid committing the same mistakes again.  And that would be what finally cements in her head that Claude was really right about her: she really is a person, someone driven and flawed...but also someone who can change, if she wants to.

Nikita

Nika, unlike the others, has never had a personal encounter with Edelgard at the time he was summoned.  He knows of her, primarily through accounts from Claude, Hilda, Ashe, and Annette, but he’s never seen her in person: he would only know to avoid her because the second they see her, Ashe and Annette would point Edelgard out to him and tell him to avoid her at all costs.

He would try, too.  Since he would spend a lot of time with his Kingdom guardians, he’d either end up leaving places with Ashe when Edelgard arrives or going elsewhere on Annette’s advice.  Hilda would be similarly defensive of him, though she would be confident in her ability to cover for him should Edelgard make a move and therefore wouldn’t encourage him to leave when they cross paths with the Emperor; Claude, meanwhile, would be the only person willing to engage with them, even if they don’t usually approach him.

Which is where CC!Edelgard comes in.  After they’ve started interacting on a somewhat routine basis, if she approaches Claude while Nika is with him, Claude would go out of his way to introduce them -- and since he would have discussed Nika before, CC!Edelgard would know exactly who he is. 

Nika’s heard a lot about Edelgard over the years.  Depending on where it comes from, it can be either scathing or even-handed but still critical.  And he would do his best to keep the latter in mind as he agrees to talk with her (with Claude mediating, because Nika would clearly want him there, judging by how he surreptitiously grips Claude’s hand when Edelgard makes the request).  He wouldn’t know what to expect from her, really...but the story she tells of her torture and manipulation at the hands of a shadowy force would be unlike anything he could have predicted.  There might be no real affection between the two, under the circumstances, but he would certainly be sympathetic to the suffering she endured, even if that doesn’t excuse her actions.

Given who Nika is, and what he intends to do, Edelgard might even try to help ensure his success as best he can: giving him what information she has about Those Who Slither, providing details on the Imperial Army’s structure and workings from her own world before everything went wrong -- anything and everything she can think of to ensure that when he goes back, he’ll be able to make Fodlan a better place than she did in her own world.  He would accept it with respect and gratitude and promise to do his all...but he would still feel very strange about interacting with the woman that killed his half-brother.  Even if he didn’t know Dimitri well, part of that is because she robbed him of the chance.

Ultimately he would be courteous and respectful, but he wouldn’t go out of his way to interact with her: he wouldn’t shy away from conversation when they happen to cross paths, but otherwise he would leave her to her own devices -- which, generally, would probably suit her, since she probably wouldn’t know what else to say to him.  Ultimately, though, Nika would admit that Edelgard isn’t the person that he thought she would be -- which, he supposes, goes to show how much effort she’s put into becoming a different person.

[teruthecreator]

THS IS A ROBBERY 🔫YOUR ROLESWAP LORE!!! HAND IT OVER 🤲if u want 2 :)

just took my melatonin bc i have to wake up at 4:30 AM to drive 16 hours to my mother’s so i’m sorry if this becomes derailed but uh. here’s the roleswap lore! or, at least, everything i’ve decided (along with matthew and corinne bc the three of us tagteamed on it) 

gonna chuck it all under a readmore bc this is going to get long

so first off, just gonna run out in front and say i have no idea how this fits into graduation plot. i haven’t gotten that in plot consideration, given their character differences in comparison to their canonical selves. so, for the most part, it’s a lot of background establishment and character traits. but i do have a few plot bits that i’ve figured out bc i thought it was cool. why such a long preamble? i don’t know. help me

fitzroy maplecourt: 

first off, he’s not called sir!!! because he doesn’t go to knight school! 

my idea for his backstory is that the way he decides to grapple with his identity crisis/imposter syndrome (which he definitely Still has) is that instead of becoming a grander, larger than life version of himself. he just. goes the opposite.

not necessarily becoming a degenerate (bc he just smokes pot and that’s not bad he’s just vibing)??? but more just like. leaning into the laid-back nature of life that one might pick up from a lifetime in rural country. 

he goes to a liberal arts school a ways away and just decides to bum around and take life not seriously. he develops a pretty large group of acquaintances being a hippie stoner; he doesn’t really pursue a degree either. i think if he picked up any major it was probably like. an art major or an english but he basically fails most of his classes bc he doesn’t care! 

unlike his canonical counterpart, fitzroy doesn’t mind being called nicknames!! ones i think he has the most are fitz or roy, but basically you could call him anything and he’ll respond. that is because, instead of clinging to the concept of his identity bc it’s the only thing he feels he has, his identity is nebulous!! he doesn’t understand it and it scares him too much to be concrete, so he just lets people decide shit about him for him. 

his personal philosophy is more about floating through life and letting people assume shit about him than having a solid personality and backstory that people understand and recognize. it is a more dissociative way of having an identity crisis! how fun! he also barely talks about his past, and what he does talk about are cherrypicked points of his past that fit his narrative of being a casual down-to-earth hippie

 the moment that this all changes is when order decides to pop in and grant him powers!!!! wahoo!!!! here’s how that happens: 

he’s baked out of his fucking gourd in his dorm room, in the spring semester of his junior year. he’s alone (which is rare) and he’s maybe a little sad, but he decides to just ignore it. he looks at his table and laughs. “hehe, what if this table just. blew up?” he says to himself. it isn’t that funny, but he laughs. then he lays his hand on the table. 

the table blows up.

after that, he has magic!!! 

i’m going to go into detail a little bit later about how fitzroy’s magic manifests in the roleswap universe, but i wanna get through the backstory first. basically, he gets really freaked out after his magic comes to him because it is So New and Wow What and What The Fuck.

he realizes that this new addition to his character Completely changes how people who know him would perceive him (as a bum stoner chill guy), and he can no longer have control of his narrative with this magic business. so he drops out!

well, he actually just transfers. to a school far, far away where people will never know who he was and he can rebuild his narrative with this magic incorporated into it. he chooses wiggenstaff’s because he figures the school would have more of a knowledge of magic than his libarts school, which would mean he could understand why the fuck weed gave him magic (sidenote: it wasn’t weed, obvs, but he thinks this so for a while he doesn’t smoke!) 

he is now the chill hippie of wiggenstaff’s!!! most people like him because his personality is fairly easy to digest; some people think he shouldn’t be there, but he is! he starts out as a sidekick and he would’ve honestly been fine with that forever, but then he’s suddenly thrust into the hero track!!! wow!!!! i will also explain this with the magic. 

but yeah!! that’s fitzroy, for the most part. now we’ll move onto the other boy

argonaut keene:

he actually prefers if people call him argonaut, but he’s less likely to correct people than canon fitzroy Or canon argo. he’s a tad bit shyer in this universe!

argo’s backstory pretty much follows the same idea of his canonical background, but with some key differences that shape him into the character he is in the present! 

basically he still grows up on shebrie’s ship, surrounded by crewmates and the salty sea air. but his fascination with the sea doesn’t manifest into this swashbuckling lifestyle that he has in canon. 

what fascinates him more is the ship itself. how it functions, how water wears down wood, how directional currents can affect navigation. basically, he becomes invested in the sciences part of sealife more than the pirateering. he has special interests in marine biology, but his heart remains in nautical engineering. figuring out ways to make the ship run better, faster, and more efficiently consumes his childhood thoughts!

shebrie encourages her son’s craving for knowledge with tomes and books from all over the world about anything related to engineering and nautical things. he’s homeschooled, basically, but he becomes rather intelligent within a few short years! 

and then, well....shebrie dies. yeah we aren’t escaping that finality, sorry folks. that part of canon Still Applies.

after shebrie’s death (coughMURDERcough), argo is. traumatized! and he makes the decision to almost entirely sever himself from his life on the sea. it’s all too painful to look back upon--the times he spent studying with his mother in the captain’s quarters, rattling off dolphin facts as they sailed onward, dreaming of turning gears as the ship gently rocked him to sleep--and so he just decides to throw the whole thing out!

he can’t ignore his lifetime of education, though, so he continues to pursue it. with the remainder of money his mother left behind, he enrolls himself in a boarding school of science and technology, with plans to continue study in Only engineering. no more nautical Anything on his roster.

eventually, when he is old enough and graduates high school, he roams around...trying to figure out what to do. he doesn’t have enough money for college, so he can’t continue his scholarly efforts yet. he works around, job-to-job, city-to-city, and just notices how...delayed everything feels. like society is suffering under this slow pace towards innovation. 

and that’s when he decides his next course of action. if he were to discover the root of some problem and engineer a solution, he would be famous! he would gain notoriety and praise and--and all the things his mother had as a captain. but he would have it on his own, separate from his mother, and separate from his past. 

he figures out his next course of action: attend a school that will give his prestigious enough marks to be accepted onto a research team, find a problem, solve it, help the world, maybe earn a little bit of that credit and respect that would make him feel like he was doing his mother proud. 

the thing i want to emphasize here is that argo’s take on helping the world comes from that morality that canon fitzroy has. canon fitzroy wanted to be a knight because he wanted to fairly and justly instill ideas of “good” and “bad” onto the world. roleswap argo has a similar moral sense, but instead of establishing rules he wants to fix the “bad” and make it “good” in a technological/scientific sense.

the only school argo can think of that can get him that kind of notoriety is wiggenstaff’s. getting onto the HOG board would mean he’d have access to countless resources and be respected by a large audience, which would give him the opportunity to make change happen. even if he’s only a sidekick On Paper, what matters is that the diploma would give him the ability to Apply to the HOG. so he drafts a carefully worded letter for a scholarship and achieves a full-ride!!! epic 

like fitzroy’s magic, i’m going to break down argo’s relation to the unbroken chain after i get through backstory stuff. but trust me, I’ve Thought Of It

argo sort of blends into the background at wiggenstaff’s. or, he would, if his roommates/friends weren’t so Fucking Out There. fitzroy is enough to make him always be visible, but even the firbolg’s massive frame means eyes are always on him. which makes him nervous!! he doesn’t like the attention (as opposed to his canonical self, who revels in it for the self-esteem fuel) his insecurities manifest more in what he’s Doing rather than what he Is, mostly because his identity is barricaded by a wall of trauma repression

he’s still plenty funny and witty, just quieter. also he’s a lot Meaner than canon argo, at least to me. because if you irritate him he Will just completely shut you down with words. motherfucker doesn’t bark but he will most DEFINITELY bite

that’s their backstories, for the most part! in terms of how they interact together:

as established, they meet prior to wiggenstaff’s on a tinder date (during the grace period of argo working odd jobs and fitzroy about to be granted immense fucking power) and end up casually dating during the course of their wiggenstaff education. argo is a nervous goober and fitzroy just likes making him blush. it’s very cute.

fitzroy is still less inclined for the romantic than argo, who remains a steadfast absolute romantic internally. fitzroy still holds a lot of the self-doubt and distrust that canon fitzroy has, only it manifests in him not taking anything seriously! which means when he catches Feelings feelings he basically freaks out 

argo still falls in love really quickly, only now he’s more conflicted about it because being in love means trusting and trust means communication and communication means Oops Years Of Trauma Are Being Unloaded Uh Oh! 

now i’m going to touch on the big points that i find really interesting: fitzroy’s magic and argo’s relation to the unbroken chain

fitzroy’s magic:

chaos is not the being that grants him magic. it’s order! 

my take on what this means for what deity is on what plane of reality is that chaos is more Needed so they are the one that is physically On Nua, while Order remains in dreamscapes because they are already a constant amongst the tangible world. yes i know this directly contradicts the reasoning for why theyre Supposed to be where in canon, leave me alone i’m having fun. 

my reasoning for this switch is because chaos stands to be a contradiction to everything canon fitzroy has going on. he has a very strict, nailed-down understanding of himself and the world. everything he thinks is in black and white, bold statements, no questions, he follows rules and obeys the law. untiiiiil chaos gives him magic and shocks him out of that complacency. they lean into his inner impulses and that rage he’s kept locked deep inside. they allow for magic to Explode out of him, rather in calculated bursts or with intent. 

which is why order is more fitting for roleswap fitzroy!! because fitzroy, in this world, has less of a concrete grasp of himself and the world. he purposely lets himself be nebulous and goes with the flow. thinking of the future in real terms is not something fitzroy Does, he has no plans and that’s Fine. order seeks to give fitzroy a backbone, to put it simply. 

his magic doesn’t go impulsively out of him. it is calculated--it comes with thoughts and intentions. the reason it surprises fitzroy when the table blows up is because he didn’t think his thoughts or wants would amount into that, but that’s what order is trying to show him. that his intentions matter. that he matters and he has to Think and Focus and Be Here.

i’m still not sure if his power would manifest as lightning??? because the imagery for the lightning works perfectly for canon fitzroy because of the random power of lightning strikes. but for roleswap fitzroy it’s more like...thunder. like Purpose. thunder happens because of a reaction--it comes with intent. if differing air temperatures collide, it creates thunder. that combination is purpose + intent equating in magic. 

i think that part needs word bc like. how would one quantify thunder?? i think fire might also work really well because the idea of a controlled fire. like things have to Happen in order for fire to start, it can’t just appear like lightning can. 

order’s manipulation relies more heavily on the concept of boosting him up as a savior/hero, rather than boosting his ego and desire for power. fitzroy Has no desires in roleswap world--he’s just there. but when he gets put on the hero track, now he’s suddenly been given purpose. and order uses that to be like “wow, look at all these people who rely on you! look how important you are! don’t you want to use this magic for good?? to do good?? start a war with a demon come on pussy :-)”

OH YEAH also he becomes a hero in this universe (like in terms of tracks) because of the fact that it directly contradicts how he views himself. for canon fitzroy, it was showing him how much more he is capable of without the restrictions of morals (i.e, king fitzroy). but roleswap fitzroy doesn’t Have an image he wants to bolster! he doesn’t think he needs it and, frankly, he doesn’t care for it. the hero tracks carries with it all these stereotypes and expectations that now directly contradict his personality--thus showing him he is capable of more.

okay now for argo’s business jesus christ this post is so long and im NOT EVEN DONE WITH ALL THE POINTS I WANTED TO MENTION

argo’s relation to the unbroken chain:

so since roleswap argo has less of an association with his past (and, by extension, the memory of his mother), he is less inclined to join the mysterious cult that his mother was a part of. 

moreover, he doesn’t necessarily believe the shit he’s told??? he’s way more skeptical of jackal than canon argo is--immediately questioning why and how jackal knew his mother, and constantly trying to poke holes through his narrative.

generally speaking, if you try to talk to roleswap argo about his mother or his past, he Shuts Down. like completely. and that usually results in him snapping at you or just clamming up completely. mostly he just gets really snippy and angry because Hey Shut Up Dickhead I Don’t Want To Talk About It

a part of me still isn’t sure whether or not argo would take the unbroken chain up on their offer. but i also know that, plot wise and character arc wise, it is a necessary part of argo’s story. so i think, at most, he agrees but is extremely hesitant and might even let fitzroy on immediately once he’s given the task of digging into fitzroy’s life

also, they’re boyfriends in this universe, so how could he Really keep it a secret for that long. come on jackal, you idiot, you know they’re kissing. 

i think he’d Eventually warm up to jackal as a sort of father figure, but only after many nights of conversation and dancing around the subject of shebrie.

OH YEAH. this argo doesn’t know the commodore murdered his mother! important to note! he just assumes what he was told was true, that she sailed into dangerous territory and was ambushed. 

during the tribunal bit If That Even Happens In This World, i think fitzroy actually is the one who figures it out Before argo. and once argo does, well............fuck!

OKAY last little bit, just gonna talk about some random extra parts of the world that i’ve thought of already: 

in this universe, grey takes on higglemas’s identity instead of hieronymous’s!!! this is for good reason actually

okay so basically my thought was that, instead of whatever happened in canon yadda yadda dog time, hieronymous and grey are fighting and it’s a pretty evenly matched battle. there’s a cooldown moment where hiero thinks he’s safe but grey uses sneaky backhanded tactics to try and get the drop on him. 

only higgs sees it in time and saves his brother, taking the hit himself. he collapses, extremely wounded, and hiero rushes to his aid. he’s cradling his brother’s body, trying to keep him alive, when grey approaches to deliver the final blow. 

hiero is completely crushed and defeated and basically will let grey do anything to him by this point. the only thing he begs of is to let him live long enough to save his brother.

now, grey isn’t nice. let me make that clear. grey fucking SUCKS and the reason he agrees is because he wants a Real War with hiero and he can’t get that if hiero is basically like “if you let higgs die then you might as well kill me”.

so, grey agrees, and hiero ends up saving higgs by turning him into a cat. was supposed to be a temporary solution until he could find a better spell, but he wasn’t the magic guy in the duo. eventually, grey gets tired of waiting and decides to do some other shit. like turning the school the brothers have been running into a backalley place for demons!!

he takes the form of higglemas and leaves hieronymous locked in his office as basically a mascot. he’s like the queen and grey is the parliament--grey makes all the rules, but everyone assumes it’s hiero. faux-higgs is more on the ground, changing things and making the school a place more fitting for an eventual war. he builds up the concept of heroes and villains being Real, in the hopes he can sway some mortals to his side when he’s able to open a portal to hell. 

hiero still tries to stop this from happening, but his pride and his self-image is wounded by what happened. he feels guilty and puts the blame entirely on him, instead of doing the whole cowardice route like higgs did in canon. he gets people to help him eventually, via mind control and all tht jazz. 

also in this universe, buckminster is the one who gets birdified instead of leon!! has to do with my leon/buckminster and higgs/hiero narrative parallels that i’ve thought of for far too long.

firbolg is exactly the same in this universe. it is hard to swap three people and i didn’t want to think about him. 

fitzroy doesn’t pick a grab. i think he’d rather a lizard, like a bearded dragon. he names him something stupid. like scaly. or kyle. 

uhhh yeah!!! i think that’s....everything i’ve thought of so far!! lemme know if you wanna hear my takes on any other elements in the roleswap world!!!!

[qqueenofhades]

Question for you. When you have time. And if you want. I know things are busy for you. What do you mean by end stage capitalism? Thanks.

Aha. I am sorry that this has been sitting in my inbox for a while, since I’ve been busy and doing stressful things and not sure how to answer this in a way that wouldn’t immediately turn into a pages-long rant. Nothing to do with you, of course, but just because I have 800 things to say on this topic, none of them complimentary, which I’ll try to condense down briefly. Ish.

In sum, end-stage capitalism is at the root of everything that’s wrong with the world today, more or less. It’s the state of being that exists when the economic system of capitalism, i.e. the exchange of money for goods and services, has become so runaway, so unregulated, so elevated to the level of unchallengeable dogma in the Western world (especially after the Cold War and decades of hysteria about the “scourge of communism”) and so embedded on every level of the social and political fabric that it is no longer sustainable but also can’t be destroyed without taking everything else down. Nobody wants to be the actual generation that lives through the fall of capitalism, because it’s going to be cataclysmic on every level, but also… we can’t go on like this. So that’s a fun paradox. The current world order is so drastically, unimaginably, ridiculously and wildly unequal, privileging the tiny elite of the ultra-rich over the rest of the planet, because of hypercapitalism. This really got going in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan, still generally worshiped as a political hero on both the left and right sides of the American political establishment (even liberals tiptoe around criticizing Saint Ronnie), set into motion a program of slashing business and environment regulations, reducing or eliminating taxes on the super wealthy, and introducing the concept of “trickle-down” or “supply-side” economics. In short, the principle holds that if you make it as easy as possible for rich people to become EVEN MORE RICH, and remove all irksome regulations or restrictions on the Church of the Free Market, they will benevolently redistribute this largess to the little people. To say the very least, this….does not happen. Ever.

Since the 1980s, in short, we have had thirty years of unrestricted, runaway capitalism that eventually propelled us into the financial crisis of 2008, after multiple smaller crises, where the full extent of this philosophy became apparent…. and nobody really did anything about it. You can google statistics about how the price of everything has skyrocketed since about the 1970s, when you could put yourself through college on one part-time job, graduate with no student debt, and be assured of a job for the next 30 years, and how baby boomers (who are responsible for wrecking the economy) insist that millennials are “just lazy” or “killing [insert x industry]”. This is because we have NO GODDAMN MONEY, graduate thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (if we can even afford college in the first place), are lucky if we find a job that pays us more than $10 an hour, and often have to string together several part-time and frangible jobs that offer absolutely nothing in the way of security, benefits, or long-term saving potential. This is why millennials at large don’t have kids, buy houses, or have any savings (or any of the traditional “adult” milestones). We just don’t have the money for it.

Even more, capitalism has taken over our mindsets to the point where it is, as I said, at the root of everything that’s wrong with the world. Climate change? Won’t be fixed because the ruling classes are making money from the current system, and if you really want to give yourself an aneurysm, google the profiteers who can’t wait for the environment/society to collapse because they’ll make MORE money off it. This is known as “disaster capitalism” and is what the US has done to other countries for decades. (I also recommend The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.) This obviously directly contributes to the War on Terror, the current global instability, the reason Dick Cheney, Halliburton, Blackwater, and other private-security contractors made a mint from blowing up Iraq and paying themselves to rebuild it, and then the resultant rise of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other extremist reactionary groups. The bombing produces (often brown and Muslim) refugees and immigrants, Western countries won’t take them in, right-wing politicians make hay out of Threats To Our Way of Life ™, and the circle goes on. Gun control? Can’t happen because a) American white supremacy is too deeply tied to its paranoid right to have as many guns as it wants and to destroy the Other at any time, and b) the NRA pays senators by the gigabucks to make sure it doesn’t. (And we all know what an absolute goddamn CLUSTERFUCK the topic of big money and American politics is in the first place. It’s just… a nightmare in every direction.)

Meanwhile, end-stage capitalism has also systematically assigned value to society and to individuals depending entirely on their prospects for monetization. Someone who can’t work, or who doesn’t work the “right” job, is thus assigned less value as a human (see all the right-wing screaming about people who “don’t deserve” to have any kind of social and financial assistance or subsidized food and medicine if they won’t “help themselves”). This is how we get to situations where we have the ads that I kept seeing in London the other month: apps where you could share your leftover food, or rent out your own car, or collectively rent an apartment, or whatever else. Because apparently if you live in London in 2019, there is no expectation that you will be able to have your own food, car, or apartment. You have to crowdsource it. (See also: people having to beg strangers on the internet for money for food or medical bills, and strangers on the internet doing more to help that person than the whole system and/or the person’s employment or living situation.) There is nothing inherently wrong with capitalism as an economic theory. Exchanging money for goods and services is understandable and it works. But when it has run out of control to this degree, when the people who suffer the most under it fiercely defend it (see the working-class white people absolutely convinced that the reason for their problems is Those Damn Job Stealing Immigrants), when it only works for the interests of a few uber-privileged few and is actively killing everyone else… yeah.

Let’s put it this way. You will likely have heard of the two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max airplanes in recent months: the Lion Air crash in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019. Together, they killed 346 people. After these crashes, it turned out that the same malfunctioning system was responsible for both, and that Boeing had known of the problem before the Max went on the market. But because they needed to make (even more) money and compete with their rivals, Airbus, they had sent the planes ahead anyway, with unclear and confusing instruction to pilots about how to deal with it, and generally not acknowledging the problem and insisting (as they still do) that the plane was safe, even though it’s been grounded worldwide since March. There are also concerns that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is too deep in Boeing’s pocket to provide an impartial ruling (and America was the last country to ground the plane), and other countries’ aviation safety bodies have announced that they aren’t just going to take the FAA’s word for it whenever they decide that the Max is safe. This almost never happens, since usually international regulatory bodies, especially in aviation, will accept each other’s standards. But because of Boeing’s need for Even More Money, they put a plane on the market and into commercial passenger service that they knew had problems, and the FAA essentially let them do that and isn’t entirely trusted to ensure that they won’t do it again. Because…. value for the shareholders. Or something. This is the extreme example of what I mean when I say that end-stage capitalism is actively killing people.

It is also doing so on longer-term and more pernicious everyday levels. See above where people can’t afford their basic expenses even on several jobs, see the insulin price-gouging in the US (and the big pharma efforts in general to make drugs and healthcare as expensive as possible), see the way any kind of welfare or social assistance is framed as “lazy” or “bad” or “socialist,” see the way that people are basically only allowed to survive if they can pay for it, and the way that circle is becoming smaller and smaller. The American public is also fed enduring folk “wisdom” about “money doesn’t buy happiness,” the belief that poverty serves to build character or as an example of virtue, or so on, to make them feel proud of being poor/deprived/that they’re doing a good thing by actively supporting this system that is responsible for their own suffering. And yet for example, the Nordic countries (while obviously having other problems of their own) maintain the Scandinavian welfare model, which pays for college and healthcare, provides for individual stipends/basic income, allows generous leave for parenthood, emphasises a unionised workplace, and otherwise prescribes a mix of capitalism, social democracy, and social mobility. All the Nordic countries rank highly for human development, overall happiness, and other measurements of social success. But especially in America, any suggestion of “socialism” is treated like heresy, and unions are a dirty word. That is changing, but…slowly.

In short: the economic overlords have never done anything to give power, money, or anything at all to the working class without being repeatedly and explicitly forced, they have no good will or desire to treat the poor like humans (see: Amazon) or anything at all that doesn’t increase their already incomprehensible profit margins. The pursuit of more money that cannot possibly be spent in one human lifetime, that is accumulated, used to make laws for itself, and never paid in taxes to fund improvements or services for everyone else, lies at the root of pretty much every problem you can name in the world right now, is deeply, deeply evil, and I do not use that word lightly.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

BBQ gripes about fanon Hawks

Not even gonna put this in the character tags aside from the spoiler one I use just for the anime-onlies on my blog. I'm salty. I just wanna vent. I want to keep the general character tags fun because it was awful when I went looking for new content and found so much Not Fun material a while back; and I don’t want to become what I hate. Basic point - my blog, my vent, and unless it’s reblogged (which you are welcome to if you like) this post dies here.

Please know this isn't a callout post or me claiming that others are being fans of Hawks "wrong" because they disagree with me. I am a huge proponent that (with very few exceptions) fiction and fandom should be free to be enjoyed, reinterpreted, or otherwise indulged in however the individual fan prefers; and if I don't like it, I let them have their space and go do my thing elsewhere and leave them alone (hence why this not going in character tags). I just have been annoyed with the rampant mangling of Hawks' canon  personality/characterization - that is, confusing common fanon interpretations of him with how he’s actually written/portrayed and then getting angry (like, actually-angry-spilling-into-publicly-dragging-real-people, not just disappointed) when he acts like canon Hawks in canon. Non-canon is open season and by and large has my blessing, it’s just frustrating when it gets dragged into discussions about the manga. 

This has been going on a long time, but I just want to get it out of my system in my personal space. All this is, is my "Overthinking Tumblr blogger Shakes Fist at Cloud" moment.

#1 Hawks is a sociopath/unempathetic.

I just... I... You can't be reading the same manga I am if you genuinely come to this conclusion about who he is in canon. A man with nothing to gain by looking like this when considering the depths of the suffering inflicted on others that he bears some amount of responsibility in...

...cannot be called unempathetic.

"But he killed Twice and Best Jeanist!"

Twofold counterargument to this one, starting with BJ - we don't actually know he's dead. There's a body, there's a disappearance, and we have no idea wtf happened, but we also don't know wtf happened. It's drastically ooc for Hawks to murder someone in cold blood. For someone who places emphasis on speed specifically "because when two sides keep fighting and won’t give up, someone eventually has to die" it makes no sense for him to not have had a plan and simply ambush a man in his own home - this goes doubly since he was in contact with the HSPC and had time to "premeditate" anyway.

And as for Twice: Hawks ran out of options. He wanted to detain Twice and keep him from escaping and helping the MLA. He was able to do so when alone, but the moment Dabi cornered him Hawks had a choice to make - probably die in the fight and let Jin go or make absolute certain he can’t and still probably end up dying because he's in bad shape and still probably won't make it out of this, regardless. I don't need to harp on this - it's been said a couple different times now by several people. Even in 266 when Dabi initially ambushes Hawks, Hawks thinks to himself that he’ll carry Jin out of the building to keep himself and Jin safe before Twice retaliated and Dabi literally forces Hawks into a corner.

Jin's loss was a blow, but the chips on the table being wagered are human lives, not feelings. Up until that point, Hawks did everything he could despite the weight of his decision. Human life is human life, and Jin’s life isn’t more important than the may more who will be saved by quashing the MLA’s revolution. Simply equating “could kill someone” with “unempathetic” is fundamentally flawed, and mistaking someone who is pushed to kill despite every attempt to avoid it as unempathetic and even sociopathic has missed the point to the extreme - the mere fact he avoided lethal force for so long alone proves he possesses empathy.

#2 Hawks is a compulsive liar.

He is a good liar, but he does not like lying. He does twist the truth, but always when forced to keep a secret. Even then, his lies are predominantly spun from truth and omitted details instead of outright fabrications. He doesn’t gaslight, and he doesn’t make up stories/details if he can help it.

When Hawks told Endeavor his dreams for the future, that was the truth. When he told him he thought he was cool at the hero billboards, that was the truth.  When he tells Tokoyami to focus on his strengths instead of merely covering his weaknesses to be a better hero, that was the truth. When Tokoyami asks Hawks for his weakness and even why he took him on as an intern in the beginning just to ignore him, he tells him the truth.  When he tells Jin he "doesn't belong in a cage" and that he considers him a good person, that was the truth. When he recognizes he’s profoundly wounded Jin for deceiving him for months, he tells Jin the truth. When confronted by Dabi and he doesn’t need to lie anymore in this fight to the death, he tells him the truth despite not actually needing to in hopes to learn the truth behind Dabi and Shigaraki.

I don't have a better segue, so I'll just mention that a lot of folks who believe this also believe the next point.

#3 Hawks is unapologetically emotionally manipulative.

The context makes a huge difference and we need to look at when and why he manipulates others as well as the fact that he does.

At the hero billboards, Hawks plays the heroes on stage as well as the crowd. He's trying to shift the mindset of, "oh yeah, just another hero ranking" to "wake up, mf's, things are changing and you better be ready to change, too!" Rocking the boat is a huge no-no in Japan. Despite being part of his “persona” there is still real social risk involved with this move but one that he deems necessary to turn heads and get gears turning. This is not just an elaborate ploy to get under Endeavor’s skin, but an effort to reach a wider audience while he has them captive.

He does use the public crowd around him and Endeavor before the Hood fight as an excuse for its appearance, but the original intent was to mentally prepare Endeavor for what was potentially (and proved to be) the fight of his life without outright telling him so he could maintain his undercover status. When he realizes he’s part of the reason for Endeavor’s permanent scar and life-threatening injuries, he feels remorse.

He lies to Jin to get information out of him, but linking back to #2, when calls Jin a good person and offers him a way out, he’s telling the truth. He does feel guilt for having to manipulate an otherwise well-meaning person and betraying them, especially given his long-running history of being used and the ongoing issues he suffers from because of it.

When he meets up again with Endeavor to drop his clues about the League’s movements, he squirms when he realizes the interns don’t know him well enough to know he’s blowing smoke because he does NOT want these kids to actually buy what he’s selling. This espionage mission is hard to navigate, and he has to tread carefully lest he setup the dominoes in the wrong places.

This is all to make the point that Hawks is more than capable of emotionally manipulating people, but it’s not in his nature or something he does to any and every person he comes across just because. We haven’t had much opportunity to see him operate outside of the HSPC’s orders which is where the bulk of the instances of his manipulation comes from - those orders requiring him to operate covertly and thus, by nature, necessitate lying, manipulation, and strategically withholding information. 

If anything, when he’s making an appeal to someone else as his own person - not as a hero on a mission- we actually see a level of vulnerability and transparency we don’t otherwise catch.

Though it’s technically canon-adjacent and not necessarily canon in and of itself, in My Hero Academia: Team Up Mission where he works with Bakugo and Midoriya he operates on a level of transparency with them we’re not used to seeing; and my theory is he took it as an opportunity to operate without ulterior motives and build report instead of bucking back against “training up the next generation of heroes” like he initially did with Tokoyami.

Which now actually segues better into the next point.

#4 Hawks never lets people get close to him.

There’s a surprising amount of evidence that Hawks wants the ability to be an open book. Back at Team Up Mission, the restaurant staff note he regularly takes people he likes to their establishment - so we’re basically told outright this is a special place to him reserved for enjoying himself and only people he likes get to share it with him - so we already know what that says about how he sees those two despite their sparse interactions. We already know he’s taken Endeavor there when Endeavor made no move to input as to where he wanted to have the lunch meeting.

Though he kept Tokoyami at arm’s length initially, we have at least three canon instances of him sharing personal interactions with him with other canon-adjacent indications he cares for and values his intern. We’ve readily established that while Endeavor may not consider himself close to Hawks, Hawks does hold Endeavor as near and dear to his heart. While his only mission regarding Twice was to get information out of him, he still made a genuine effort to help and save him because he wanted to and considered him a friend despite the circumstances.

We still don’t know very much of Hawk’s past, his personal relationships outside of work, etc.; but despite the HPSC’s extensive efforts to strip him of his identity he not only possesses a faceted, complicated personality but seems to want to share that with others readily when and in the ways he’s able. Getting into the truly squishy, vulnerable parts of him may take a while, but on a scale of closed to open, he seems to lean towards open.

#5 Hawks is hopelessly in love with Dabi and will abandon everything up to this point for him.

This isn't to throw general DabiHawks shippers under the bus. Most of them know VERY well at this point that canon has sunk that ship, and they're just having fun with it at this point - and you know what, power to you! They look great together! In another life, the character chemistry could have been incredible. There’s a lot of great DabiHawks shipping content I thoroughly enjoy despite not shipping it myself.

It just isn't canon. It never was and never came close. Even now, with the Endeavor reveal being very much imminent, Hawks' view of Dabi is one of a lying, malicious, callous, murderer. Though he’ll likely be crushed at the revelation of what Endeavor’s done, that doesn’t equate to him defecting (especially not immediately) and falling into Dabi’s arms.

And Dabi hates Hawks just as much.

Again, this is not anything against the ship or the shippers - just an annoyance I have with some who were so wrapped up in the ship they were genuinely mad when the ship sank and they dragged that frustration out into the real world against real people when canon didn’t align with fanon. 

Ships are some of the most stupid things to rail against creators and fans over, and the amount of harassment they receive now over shipping has me ripping my hair out when I know it’s a mere fraction of the total pool of shippers who are frothing at the mouth while the rest are super cool and happy doing their own thing and keeping to themselves.

Ship what you want, regardless of “validating evidence” and have fun. Don’t make it others’ problem when it isn’t canonically validated.

#6 Hawks is a dirty cop.

Only half upset with this one because it comes down to the nuance and lack of precise definition of this phrase I have a problem with. Lots of people hate cops for very real, legitimate reasons. Police forces - being a voluntary, government-employed force enforcing government rule - are notoriously prone to corruption of every kind.

It's implied the HPSC is itself corrupt, though to what extent we don't know. (Granted, buying a young child from his family to raise as your personal puppet is pretty high up there.) By continuing to follow orders from the HPSC and not vehemently fighting back, many see him as reinforcing a corrupt institution and at least partially liable for their continued hold on society. 

Fair enough, but... The issue I have with this is it reduces Hawks to his job.

I believe a huge chunk of this take comes from my experience as an armed service member spouse, but it's easy for me to empathize with a guy

Who was promised the moon for himself and his family in exchange for his service not realizing what was actually being asked of him

Is praised outside the organization for "being a hero" and "upholding this country's core values" while first-hand witnessing the corruption of it when inside

Is viewed as a cog valuable only in services rendered instead of being treated like a human by said organization and worked into the ground because of it

Is frustrated by the insistence to keep the status quo instead of improving procedure/infrastructure/environment because egos need to be padded over real, human problems being solved

Has his autonomy or otherwise ability to operate under his own judgement restricted in favor of maintaining organizational control at the cost of effective action

Has DEPENDENTS who rely on his continued work to provide for them and is thus unable to refuse an order, even when it's morally reprehensible and even outright illegal

Whose cries, both those calculated and desperate, to the organization (who have placed themselves as the sole resource he can turn to) for help (even for his own body/mind) fall on deaf ears until he breaks to the point of becoming unusable or dangerous - and even then minimal effort/responsibility is taken in favor of keeping him functioning in the organization as long as possible.

Hawks fights back against the HPSC constantly. He raised concerns over letting civilians suffer to get him in with the League of Villains and then still defied orders by reducing casualties to zero. Despite orders to keep his mission top secret, he's informed Endeavor of his motives/movements independently from the rest of the heroes. He had long refused to take an intern (read: fresh meat for the machine) to train until this year, and even then sought to minimize his encouragement of Tokoyami for as long as possible until he realized Tokoyami was made of the real mettle people needed in a hero and not just another youngster endangering himself on a pipe dream.

He even takes initiative to keep his personal to-do list from the HPSC to a minimum by squashing problems before they come knocking asking him to fix it for them. He knew of the League of Villains and anticipated the escalation of their movements immediately after the USJ incident as well as has a network of informants and connections with local police forces to stay in the know.

His methods for apprehension of criminals are, and continue to be, to react and detain them so quickly they can't retaliate or endanger others in the struggle, thus minimizing human loss and injury despite the insinuation the HPSC has told him that gloves are off in the current situation.

He might be "a cop" depending on the definition we go with, but he isn't a dirty cop. He doesn't plant evidence. He doesn't shoot first and ask questions later. He doesn't blindly take orders. He largely doesn't see "villains" as dirt under his shoe but as people pushed to extremes. He's a morally convicted individual trying to rebel within the system instead of tearing it down outright. He may be wrong in the assumption, but he genuinely believes he can do more on the inside of the system than outside.

#7 Hawks is a manwhore.

Ok, this one is not serious and actually just to end this all on a lighter note after ranting until I'm blue in the face. 

I'm 100% guilty of this myself. Something about that chicken makes me and many others salivate - either for themselves or to watch him with someone else. We love dressing him up slutty, portray him as flirting unashamedly, and placing him in as many overtly sexual scenarios possible.

The best part about all of it, though, is that it’s almost the exact opposite of how he dresses/conducts himself in canon. His clothes are loose fitting and high-coverage. He’s personable, but never gives any indication he’s romantically/sexually involved or interested in anyone. The asscourse is real only because we cannot confirm either way due to his baggy clothes. His overall figure/body shape has been hinted at, but only recently confirmed; and his jacket had to be literally be burned off to get a good look at the pattern of his shirt under it!

~~~~~~~

And with that, I release the frustration and move on. 

Enjoy fanon as much as you like - even I do! Just be aware of where canon and fanon diverge, and definitely don’t take the difference out on real people. Please also be aware of how others hold their favorite characters dear before flooding the general tags with negativity and creating a hostile environment for them. People latch onto their “comfort characters” for a plethora of reasons, and when they lose that character to the plot, the fandom, or otherwise, they should still be allowed to grieve and celebrate what they had in a safe environment. 

Retaliation in response to others coming against your favorite is also not acceptable behavior. It sucks, but the most mature thing to do is step away from the general fandom, stick to blogs/spaces you know are safe, and let the storm blow over. Comfort characters do not justify mistreating real people no matter how much they may mean to you.

When “canon gets it wrong” is where fanfiction and pockets of the fandom community comes into play. Leave those people alone and let them be. For those who aligned themselves with canon, they are not free game to take personal frustrations out on. Leave those people alone and let them be. Unfollow the people/tags you need to for your own sake and others’, and the fandom will be a better place all around over time. Venting belongs in controlled spaces away from the rest of the fandom and with enough warning for those who not only don’t want to endure it but who for their own safety shouldn’t.

Fandom is a community, and healthy communities do not endorse members lashing out when they don’t get their way.

[thesimonkshow]

My thoughts on Folklore

This is about to be a long ass Taylor Swift post, so strap in for the ride.

I along with many others were going about their business (looking at Adam Driver gifs) before my phone alerted me to the notification that Taylor Swift was releasing her eighth studio album Folklore the very next day. Chaos everywhere, my sleep schedule went out the window as I went into the Swifties tag to see how everyone else was dealing with this news. So I eagerly awaited 2PM (Australian time) for the album to drop and after a few listens (sleep got the better of me through my first listen due to my previous sleep schedule), I eventually picked out some album highlights.

The 1 - I love how freely she’s cussing on the album (a point that will be reitriated throughout), and I know Gossip tabloids and casuals will be shooketh because they’d think Taylor & Mr. Alwyn have ‘broken up’ due to Taylor’s personable lyrics but this gave me Better Man vibes. Remember when the Bridge said ‘You might have bern The One if you were a Better Man’ and this is basically that without the angsty fire.

Cardigan - I LOVE how Alternative Folk fits Taylor’s voice, it sounds like she’s telling us a story and we are entrapsed by her. It also works perfectly with the love triangle songs, which I had to understand a bit through a few listens.

The Last Great American Dynasty - The moment I saw this track, I knew it would be epic. I pictured her taking the piss out of the Trump family, but what I got was an awesome song about the woman who owned Taylor’s Rhode Island house and the antics she got up to. I love the descriptors she used when describing the weddings and the party’s Rebekah & Bill had and especially the bridge of antics Rebekah got up to later in her time. The ‘And then it was bought by me.’ Part of the bridge, I love a good twist!

Exile - OH MY LORD. When I saw Skinny Love Bon Iver on this album, I knew this would be something and low and behold it was. The concept of the man in exile in her intro caught my attention but seeing it up close and personal was amazing. The vocals interlaced with each other was perfection, especially as Taylor responds to Bon Iver. I really connected it to the struggles of Seth Rollins in the latter half of 2019, how he seemed to be exiled from the WWE, how his initial opponent Kevin Owens was having his flaws disregarded to drag Seth down, the ‘Always Keep Fighting’ shirt that he wore (raising money for mental health chairties) adding insult to injury for Seth, who had even briefly deactivated his twitter to clear his headspace following attacks/death threats from a fellow wrestler’s fan base. ‘I gave you every sign’ rings true here, the man was struggling and no one seemed to care.

My Tears Ricochet - My WWE ass was happy to see another Wrestler reference after The Man. So this was an interesting look, but I got another story that intrigued me, a man having been involved in a tumultous connection with the songs narrator showing up to her funeral to save face. Listeners drew parraells with the recent Masters drbarkle with Scott Borchetta, head of Big Machine Records with whom Taylor was once signed to, and I have to say it’s a good perspective to take.

Mirrorball - This one took a while but I ended up loving the fact she could sing from a Mirrorball’s perspective and still make an epic song. I loved the part about always fitting in with the crowd because at functions/discos where mirrorballs are used, the lights will change to fit the mood and being a reflective surface, Mirrorballs will reflect the colour change.

Seven - This was a nice ditty about a past friend Taylor once had. I really loved the line ‘Please picture me in the weeds before I learned Civility’ it gives a more sophisticated parraell to Never Grow Up.

August - This is the second in the love triangle songs, and I loved the storytelling aspect as Taylor paints the picture of an affair that Summer Nights would quake in it’s boots if it heard about it. She sweeps up the adience in the Mistresses POV, showcasing the sweetness of love and the sting of toxcisity.

This is me trying - Where are those who said Taylor Swift plays the victim in her songs? Because this is for them. Taylor states in this her regrets of wasted potential, broken relationships etc. at the end of the day no matter how many awards she has, records she breaks, or money she possesses, Taylor Alison Swift is a human being, and we should give her boundries to grow and flourish.

Illicit Affairs - This track title also intrigued me, and whilst it does what the title says, and discusses the highs and lows of the secret passions of mismatched lovers, the second verse & bridge stood out to me the most. The way Taylor’s voice went up on him in the line ‘Leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for him.’ Drew my attention as she later did the same thing on the word high, this had to mean something. And given that we don’t know the narrators gender, this could also be a song about a closeted gay man who’s found love but is struggling to accept this relationship. Whereas the bridge reminded me a lot of the Adam & Hannah breakup in Season 4 of Girls in the episode Sit In where Hannah denounces Adam’s nickname of kid, which he had called her by since the first season, with the episode before that showing her heartbroken that Adam has gotten a new girlfriend behind her back and thus turns into a mess locked in her apartment for a day and two nights. it was a heartbreaking part of the show, one that shifted it into a new era for better or for worse, and the entirety of this reasonated with me.

Invisible String - Around this point was where melotonin kicked in for me on my first listen, so I’ve heard this less than the other songs, but I love how it discusses her relationship with Joe & how for better or for worse, he is hers. It continued the theme with them on Lover of not having a great picturesque love, but having ups and downs like any couple.

Mad Woman - The calmer sister of The Man, she won’t throw big production and actions around, she can take you down with words alone. The track stings brutally as Taylor takes down sexism as it exists in our world today, and even sadly paints a visual of how it must have been for women back in the day fighting for equal rights. ‘Does a scorpion sting when fighging back?’ Line was annother connection, as I was reminded of Vanessa Ives from Penny Dreadful and how the animal symbology that stuck with her was a scorpion, used to great effect in the Season 2 finale in a confrontation with Lucifer’s makeshift doll of her. The chorus line ‘And you’ll poke the bear till her claws come out, and you’ll find something to wrap your noose around’ stuck with me on my listens, and really shows how men will strike and then run away saying ‘it’s a joke, she’s hysterical’ etc. the part about women loving to hunt witches also reminded me of a Doctor Who episode called ‘The Witchers’ and also reminded some listeners of how Demi Lovato took Scooter Braun’s side in the Licencing debarkle, in fact in the first part of the bridge, the song also has a double meaning. It’s also about the state of affairs following Taylor’s songs being stolen from her. The part in the bridge about the wives knowing about their Spinster husbands having affairs and not wanting to show their anger for fear of being outcast like the titular woman is angsty but so lyrically genius.

Epiphany - I had to listen to this a couple of times but once I realised what it was about, I was in shock. This is about her Grandfather Dean who she mentioned in the intro who fought in a war. The song paints the war setting with the helmet, the flesh wound and the rifle within the first few words, and I especially loved the line ‘And some things we don’t speak of.’ because it talked about how some soldiers develop PTSD from their experiences, yet don’t want to discuss them for fear of being perceived as weak. Also the outro beat sounds like a radar scanning for a plane, and the beat of the drum sounds like bombs exploding, really adds to the War theme.

Betty - This is the final track in the love triangle story as it tells the story of James as he fights to earn back Betty’s love after he has an affair with Inez. The eventual pitfalls of Illicit Affairs have come for Inez which causes her to tell Betty of their affair, which is a nice link. This songs gives a classic Greese/Christine/Cheesy 80s Film meets Trixie Mattel vibe which I loved. I also loved the callbacks to August & Cardigan, along with the casual F bomb droppings.

Peace - This is another sweet love song for Joe which calls back to Cruel Summer, Cornelia Street & Dancing With Our Hands Tied as Taylor struggles with the connection she has established with Joe, and contemplates escaping, but eventually knows she’ll stay. How the entire world will be on them, but she’ll be by his side through it all. Similar to Invisible String but different all at once and a perfect penultimate track to lead to the last song.

Hoax - The sweetness brings us to the double edged sword of a closing track. Giving a shattering realisation that love can be tricky at times, the references to Call It What You Want ‘I am ash from your fire’, The Archer ‘You know the hero died so what’s the movie for?’ & ... So It Goes ‘You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score’. Taylor loves Joe so much that when they fight it’s as painful as when she became Pop Culture Enemy #1 back in 2016. But no matter what, she says herself ‘Don’t want no other shade of blue but you. No other sadness in this world would do’ relationships are always painful, there is no happy endings all round, but there is still love to be found.

All in all this is an incredible album & @taylorswift you have created magic and I hope you know that myself & all the Swifties are so proud of you for flexing your writing skill and crafting such a stunning album.

[davidmann95]

So do you think Superman & Lois will be actually good in a Flash S1 way or just pure cheese like Legends of Tomorrow? What do you want from the show?

‘What I want’ is a little complicated to publicly assess, because I’ve already read the script for the first episode and thereby have something of a decent sense of the tone, basic setup, and several of the characters. It absolutely seems like it’s touching on just about every angle I’d want it to to one degree or another though, other than missing some levity that’s I think more than safe with a Superman show to assume will emerge over time. Judging by said script though, genuinely very good for the most part, so what I want at this point is for them to keep doing what they’ve been doing between that and his past appearances. Just throw on top the family getting into a hijink or two and fighting Solaris, and I’m golden.

Anonymous said: Why do so many people seem to dislike Tyler Hoechlin as Superman ? The major criticism is that he seems like a Christopher Reeves ripoff, but putting aside the fact that he really isn't, I thought people liked Reeves Superman.

It seems to break down into two major schools of thought (not that everybody who doesn’t dig him falls into these categories), both of which seem to have emerged gradually over time given when he first showed up the response was almost universally positive:

1. Folks who flatten out him playing a fairly classic-flavored take on the character into him doing a hollow Reeve riff. There’s a subset here of Snyder folks specifically who see him as not only essentially ‘stealing’ limelight and love from Cavill’s Superman, but believe he’s been built above all else around doing so. Suffice it to say, I think there’s way more to him than that.

2. Folks who consider him ‘weak’, whether resenting his position to date as a supporting character and how thereby in Supergirl she’s consistently positioned as an equal or greater hero, or literally critiquing Hoechlin’s physical condition as being insufficiently ripped to play Superman.

Uh...I guess I’ll concede that if you consider bicep size a barometer of quality in your Kryptonians - I do not, if his appearance had to be proportionate to his strength he’d probably dwarf Jupiter - he probably won’t be able to work out 6 hours a day every day for however many years his show runs to keep up with Cavill, but bro still looks like he could tear me in half. As for his narrative role, of course he says Supergirl’s better than him whether you agree or not, he’s Superman and he’s a nice guy who sees the best in people, and of course he hasn’t been getting the big wins yet when he hasn’t been a lead. They’ve still gotten his character right in ways no other mass-media adaptation has touched, the rest’ll follow.

(And for that matter: he fights on even terms with a future Christopher Reeve Superman while at a disadvantage, and of the 50+ superheroes who stick their heads in during Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the *three* who manage to actually land a hit on the universe-devouring Anti-Monitor. I’d say he’s just fine in the power department.)

Anonymous said: Three part question: 1. The CW shows won’t be able to start their next seasons until at least next year; what would you like for them to focus on fixing either individually or as a universe in the meantime? 2. The next crossover will be between Batwoman and Superman; what do you hope that ends up being and if you had to pick one character from each other shows to join in, but NOT the mains, who would you pick? 3. On a scale of 1 - 10, how smoldering is Hoechlin in that Superman & Lois promo?

1. Okay, entirely non-spoilery: having read the script as I said, the main thing they need to do is get some 15-year-olds in there with red markers to take to the kids’ dialogue. It’s not a worst-case scenario, Jon and Jor and Sarah have good moments, but it’s clearly teens as viewed in shows about adults rather than teens as depicted in shows about teens, and if they’re gonna be co-leads that can’t fly.

2. This is 100% where they’re gonna debut Bruce. They could have teamed up Superman with Flash for that old-school JLA action, they could’ve returned to the World’s Finest dynamic they established with Supergirl and Batwoman, but instead they’ve paired up two characters where the only thing they have in common is that they both know Batman. Sadly they will probably be COWARDS and not use Conroy again EVEN THOUGH HE HAS SAID HE’D LIKE TO COME BACK, and that it’s a two-parter probably shoots down my theory that Bruce would be introduced via an adaptation of Metal (Batman being gone because he’s trapped in the Dark Multiverse being tortured by Barbatos and in need of rescue by Batwoman and Superman, the introduction of Batman to the universe introducing ALL the Batmen) - while an eventual adaptation of that seems inevitable, especially given Red Death has already been namechecked, it probably won’t be as a relatively measly two-parter.

My idea I’ve floated on Twitter however as a joke that I’ve become increasingly, quixotically serious about overtime however is still very much doable: since CW Oliver Queen is just Batman, make CW Bruce Wayne Green Arrow. Have him grow a Van Dyke and make offensively spicy chili and rail against the fat cats on Wall St.; seriously, him having divested himself of his assets because he realized it’s impossible to be an ethical billionaire is a better answer to what happened to Batman than whatever these shows will actually come up with. And I don’t know what a boxing glove batarang looks like, but I want to find out.

Or also someone suggested on Twitter that it could be Clark playing Super-matchmaker getting together Kate and Maggie Sawyer, and I’d also be fine with that.

3. I’ll give it a passable 6, but he’s clearly not really trying.

[littlemisssquiggles]

There are several theories for the WIP clip, from it being a flashback to Oscar's semblance being either mental time travel or time freezing. While I'm keeping my mind open since it is clearly WORK IN PROGRESS, that whatever the reason is for the tone only matters if it is done well, that RWBY is primarily hopepunk and isn't a stranger to mood whiplash and sprinkling light moments, I sincerely hope the context behind it is well done. What do you think the context is behind the clip?

Hiya Miki-chan. Well as I once told Key before, I’m not very big on the whole concept of Oscar’s semblance being related to time or time travel. In regards to semblances for the precious little prince, this squiggle meister is still more in favour of it being nullification or Oscar not having a semblance at all---with his true power being magic. Heck, I’m even for the concept of Oscar being an incubator for magic---in the sense that Oscar is able to take whatever percentage of Ozma’s magic is left coursing through him and amplify it to a point where Oscar unpredictably ends becoming more powerful than the likes of his predecessors.

I’m still clinging to my Oscar is the True Ozma, Oscar the Golden Cap and Oscar’s Creatures of Luxx Pinehead headcanons since I still believe it would’ve been interesting if Oscar became RWBY’s equivalent to the Golden Cap from the Wizard of Oz series.

I still believe that Oscar being able to relinquish control of Salem’s army of Winged Beringel Grimm---using his magic to transform these former nightmarish creations of destruction and darkness into spirts of light to aid their creator in combating the chaos brought forward by the Wicked Witch---is a super cool concept. Even now, in spite of everything we’ve gathered thus far on V8, this squiggle meister still believes Oscar turning Grimm into Luxx would’ve been an interesting ability for him to have as a budding wizard of light. But then again; y’know that’s just me here.

In respect to the WIP clip, despite others trying to convince me otherwise, I’m still in the court of the fans who believe that the clip is a flashback. I know folks have come to me implying that it can’t be a flashback using the setting of a frozen Mantle as their rationale---however, I’m sorry but that still doesn’t convince me. Given the fact that the clip was a work-in-progress, I have reason to wish to believe in the likelihood of the flashback possibility since, who’s to say that the Mantle backdrop used in the clip wouldn’t be tweaked or completely altered in the final revised version of this clip?

From my cookie-crumb experience working in animation, sometimes when working out shots, the animators may use previous rough drafts or versions of backgrounds as a means of aiding them in establishing the shot. Although we see a frozen Mantle used in the preview clip, for all we know, this background could possibly be a placeholder for when the real updated environments are done.

Basically, what I’m saying here in a nutshell is to not toss the flashback theory out just yet. Besides I don’t blame folks for wanting to believe in this theory since, in my opinion, it’s the one that makes the most sense to me. Given how V7 concluded with the arrival of Salem, Oscar being separated from the others, our heroes being deemed enemies of Atlas---the last thing I expected was for us to see some of our heroes’ joyriding through the streets of Mantle without a care in the world?

It would be a bit weird if things are looking grim and we have this weird carefree moment with Yang out with the JNPR boys…when Salem is lurking up in the dark clouds on the back of another Kaiju-sized Grimm followed up by an army of Grimm big enough to crush an entire kingdom.

It would be a bit awkward to have this type of scene when we basically have the potential battle and fall of Atlas and Mantle lurking above our heroes’ heads.

This is why I favoured the flashback theory. It would make more sense for this light-hearted moment to come from the past since the present is looking tense. I definitely like the concept of Yang reminiscing of a lighter time when she went out on a mission with Ren and Jaune and Oscar happened to tag along with them as the Xiao Long girl’s way of recalling a cherished memory she shared with Oscar after learning of his alleged death.

I liked that idea since it would’ve been a good way to finally see what the heroes’ genuine opinion of Oscar was. I would love for that to be the case. However, that being said, there is the flip side to this where the context of the clip could also suggest a scenario in which our heroes are forced to lie low and while the others wished to stay and remain in hiding, it’s Yang who chose to boldly go out into Mantle to possibly see if she could scavenge for supplies---such as dust and other equipment that could aid them in some way. I could even see this being one of the first moments of conflict within the group. Like let’s say…Ruby believes the group should stay in hiding and Yang disagrees with her and goes off on her own. And as a means of keeping the peace and avoiding any tussle between the sisters, Jaune and Ren agree to accompany Yang outside while the others remain back at the base.

It could even be a case where Pietro offers the trio a place of designation to investigate. In the clip, the place where the Yang and the JNPR boys were reminded me an awful lot of Pietro’s workshop in Mantle. So who’s to say that Pietro didn’t task Yang, Jaune and Ren with going to his workshop to salvage whatever equipment they could find and in doing this small mission, that’s where YJR ran into Oscar who returned to Pietro’s shop since it’s the one part of Mantle he’s familiar with. Therefore YJR discover that Oscar was alright and that’s where we go into the preview clip.

That could be the case too and while it could technically work; the one thing I don’t like about it is the odd tonal shift. It would be pretty strange if we went from things looking serious to this scene of some of our heroes riding around idly in empty Mantle out in the open like that. It would make Yang, Ren and Jaune look very reckless and again, it would mess with the TONE.

I dunno. As a far as I can say, anything can go at this point Miki-chan. I’m not discounting any possibility at this point. If I had to favour one over the other---it’s the flashback theory that I like best. If it turns out that it isn’t the flashback theory and is the other one then, just like you, I hope that whatever the CRWBY Writers do to kick us off into the new season, it’s done well and make senses within their own CONTINUITY.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)