#why do I always get so dramatic in these hypothetical posts

[teenagemutantninjatrauma]

People who are both Rise fans and 2k3 fans I am BEGGING. Can someone pls draw the old men from SAINW hanging out with the old men from the Rise movie. Pls. Pls imagine the possibilities

F!Leo absolutely horrified by SAINW!Leo being blind but also amazed by his swordsmanship. SAINW!Raph holding onto F!Mikey for dear life. F!Leo and SAINW!Mikey bonding over 1) having only one arm (for the funnies) or 2) having to suddenly lead a slowly dying resistance in the fallout of an apocalypse (for the tears).

Saddest of all, though?

Not a single Donnie among them.

Do you think they mourn together?

[talaok]

Hii love! How have you been? I hope you’re doing really great!

I was hoping I could request a Pedro x f!reader ooor Joel x f!reader? Reader is really drunk and so she confesses her love for him? I’m a sucker for drunk confessions hihi she’s really miserable because she loves one of them for so long but never said anything bc she’s insecure…

Oh and also, thank you so so much for your writing, it never fails to make me smile when I’m feeling down and your stories are helping me cope with stress 💕 Congratulations on your beautiful blog !!!! 😍

ok, so here's the thing, since you were so incredibly nice I decided not to choose, but instead do all the combinations, so here is: drunk confessions with Pre-outbreak!Joel, Post-outbreak!Joel, and Pedro Pascal.

pre-outbreak!Joel

"you're drunk, babygirl" he chuckled to himself as he held the bar's doors open for you.

He had offered to give you a ride home immediately after he noticed you getting a little too affectionate with everyone at the bar. 

He had originally gone out with Tommy, but as always as of lately, the thought of you had occupied his mind.

He didn't see you, he heard you first. Your beautiful laugh sounded off the walls of the dimly lit space and instantly, he (and Tommy) had known the plans for that night had changed.

" 'm not" you lied, struggling to see exactly where you were supposed to go.

"sure you aren't angel" he mocked, that smug grin still tugging at his lips as he put one of his strong arms around your back so he could guide you to the car.

The cold night air did nothing against the hot wave spreading through your body at the contact.

You wasted no time leaning into him.

He smelled of aftershave and of the hours spent working beneath the sun, and god if you didn't want to just bottle that scent up and get drunk on it every night.

"You didn't have to do this you know?" you spoke softly, your head raising to look at him better "One of my friends could have brought me home".

He laughed, his thumb unconsciously stroking your side, "I don't think any of them are in any better shape to drive than you are" he explained, lowering his head to look at you. Your pretty doe eyes made him momentarily forget what he was saying, but he quickly recovered, "Also, I don't mind"

You snorted, "You don't mind getting drunk women home? " you joked "perv"

He rolled his eyes, his mouth betraying him as it twitched into a smile "Why are you so drunk anyway?"

Your eyes briefly focused on the sky behind him before coming back to his.

"firstly," you paused for dramatic effect "I am not that drunk"

He just chuckled

"and secondly, I have some things on my mind"

"yeah, like what?" he asked, "do I have to beat someone up?"

"I wish it was that easy" you sighed, clinging to him 

He frowned "Is it a man? Did you meet someone?"

Your heart decided it would have been a good idea to pause for dramatic effect too.

"uhm- I-" Oh god you were too drunk to do this "No, it's-it's complicated"

He hummed in understanding " When is it ever not complicated?" he said "But I'm sure whatever it is it will work out, any man would be lucky to be with you angel"

And there it was, that stupid feeling in your chest whenever he said things like that.

"thank you" you murmured offering a thin smile

 __ __ __

The ride home was silent except for the soft music playing on the radio and the sound of the wind blowing through the open windows.

The air smelled of summer and cut grass, and as you soaked in the feeling, an idea arose in your mind.

A bad idea, a really bad one.

But you were drunk, and you only live once, right? He had said that any man would be lucky to be with you, so, of course, you couldn't help but wonder if he had also been included in the hypothetical, and well... now was the time to ask.

The car came to a stop right in front of your house.

You could see the lighted porch and the familiar tree in the middle of the yard, but your mind was elsewhere.

"You want me to walk you in?"

You turned to him, his big brown eyes hypnotizing.

It was now or never.

"No, I-" you stalled, knowing what you wanted to say but not knowing how to say it.

"What, angel?"

"Remember what we talked about before?" you spat out, your stomach suddenly twisted in itself 

"you mean your "complicated" situation?" he air quoted

"yeah, exactly" You nodded

"Sure, why?"

Oh god

Oh fuck

what had you done?

"Well, I-" You had to glance somewhere else, at the steering wheel, at the windshield, even at your hands, but you couldn't look at him.

"I was... I was talking about a man"

Something flashed behind his eyes but you couldn't quite put a finger on what it was.

"Do I know him?" he asked 

You could almost laugh "Well... yeah"

"Is he good to you?"

You looked at him again, just to see his complete attention directed at you, as if at that moment, only you existed.

"yes" you nodded

"Who is it?" he finally asked.

You struggled to swallow what felt like concrete in your throat.

Your palms were sweaty and your body temperature had gone up in a matter of seconds.

"Joel..." you breathed, your chest rising and falling rhythmically as you stared deep into his eyes "Joel, it's you"

There. You'd done it.

"w-what?" It wasn't every day you heard Joel Miller stutter.

"I like you, Joel" Now that you'd said it it was impossible to stop "I have for a while now"

"you..." he looked at you incredulously, as if you'd just confessed to him of being an alien.

" It's ok if you don't feel the same, we can go back as if this never happened, I just felt like I needed to tell you"

"No" he spat "No, no, we're not going back" he spoke frantically, making you smile "I like you too, angel, a lot," he said, "Ever since you moved here- I- I- Are you sure you're not just drunk?"

Your heart was beating out of your chest.

Did he just say that?

"No, Joel, it's the truth" you grinned

"fuck" he breathed, his eyes wide "I can't believe this" he murmured, leaning closer 

"I really want to kiss you right now"

"then what are you waiting for?"

~~~ ~~~

Post-outbreak!Joel  *angst because I can't help myself but there's a happy ending*

"What were you doing there?"  

He would have sounded mad to anyone else, but you knew he was really just worried.

"what were you?" you retorted, the alcohol in your veins giving your confidence a boost.

"you shouldn't hang out at places like that, those people aren't ones you want to be around when you've had too much to drink"

you didn't miss how he had avoided your question.

"Especially the men... god, sweetheart, I saw at least six guys eyeing you the entire night" he sighed, the pet name fleeing his lips involuntarily.

"how come you can go and I can't?"

He passed a hand through his hair, clearly in distress.

You were the only one able to do that, make him anxious and scared at the possibility of anything happening to you.

"y/n you know why"

"no, I don't" 

you both stopped in the middle of the street, the faint glow of the light poles barely illuminating your faces.

You could still hear the voices from the makeshift (and illegal) bar just around the corner, but the sound of your beating heart was predominant.

"Because I'm one of them" he breathed

"and yet, here you are, walking me home"

this was the thousandth time you'd had this conversation, this endless circle of you trying to convince him he wasn't the monster he thought he was, and him not believing you.

"That doesn't matter"

"I think it does"

"it's different"

"How?"

"because it's you"

You paused a moment, not knowing what to say.

Tiny little butterflies flying in your belly once again.

"You're a good man, Joel," you said, placing a hand on his bicep "No matter how hard you try to convince yourself of the opposite"

You noticed his adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed thickly.

"you don't know that y/n,"

"oh but I do" you murmured, absentmindedly getting closer "I can see it in everything you do" you spoke "I really do"

"Y/n-" he tried to speak but your lips were already on his.

You didn't know if it was the alcohol or the pent-up tension you had both spent years creating but for some reason, you couldn't do it anymore, you couldn't go on pretending that just the thought of him didn't make your stomach twist and turn.

His hand went to your face, holding it as if you were about to slip away, as if in a second you were gonna change your mind.

His lips moved together with yours, and for a moment, you were the only person on the planet.

That was, just for a moment of course, for the second Joel's mind started working again, he knew he couldn't do this. No, not to you.

He leaned away, dropping his hands by his side.

You immediately knew something was wrong, and as pathetic as it was, felt tears prick your eyes.

"this-this is wrong" he shook his head

"Why?" you could only ask in a shaky whisper

"You don't want this, you don't want someone like me"

You forced yourself to take a deep breath. You were not gonna give up, not now.

"but I do" 

"y/n you deserve someone better than me" he spoke softly, like his own words hurt him too.

"That's not true, Joel" You promised "and even if it was I don't care. I want you, and I'm tired of pretending I don't" 

"You don't know who I am, what I've d-"

"I do! I know exactly who you are Joel, and that's exactly why I love you" You spoke louder now, frustration and hopefulness mixing together dangerously "Just, please- tell me the truth, tell me how you feel so that I can at least go to sleep tonight knowing that I tried" you begged "it's fine if you don't feel the same, I just- I just need to know the truth"

"Y/n, you-you're drunk, you don't mean this..."

"Joel, please" you forced the tears in your eyes to stay put "You know I do, just tell me. Please"

His hazel eyes bored right into yours, and you were sure that if it wasn't for all those beers in you you wouldn't have been able to hold his glare.

"sweetheart I-" he didn't know what to say.

He couldn't tell you the truth right? he couldn't tell you that since he first saw you you'd been haunting his mind like a curse, he couldn't tell you that for the first time in years, he found himself smiling at something so small as you laughing at something he'd said, he couldn't tell you, because for as much as he had grown to love you, he knew, with a horrifying certainty, that he could never get used to being loved by you, by someone as perfect as you.

"Please Joel" you begged him once more, and as much as he fought it, he couldn't do it, he gave up the fight the moment he heard that sweet little voice of yours breaking.

He couldn't lie to you, not anymore.

And so he didn't.

"y/n" he said "Of course I love you"

~~~ ~~~

Pedro Pascal

You had no idea what the fuck you were doing.

Not one. Zero. Nada. Niente.

The cab had come to a stop and you still hadn't decided what to say.

The club you'd just spent the past few hours dancing and drinking at was much closer to his house than you had expected.

Your heart was thumping in your chest as you stepped onto his front porch.

You glanced at the taxi to make sure it was still waiting for you and found the driver looking curiously at you.

You had asked him to stay when the sober part of your brain realized this wasn't gonna end well.

You took a deep breath, purposely ignoring the fact you had noticed all the lights being off as you knocked on the door.

fuck, this was a mistake.

Everything fell silent for a few seconds, even your mind, and then, you heard the lock tick and the door opened.

Ok, you can do this

Pedro squinted, trying to get a better look at you.

He instantly noticed your outfit and the way your tight dress hugged every part of your body and he had to force his eyes to look away.

He, on the other side, was in what you could only guess were his pajamas: a Lakers shirt and boxers.

"y/n?" he asked, his voice hoarse and deep.

"I'm sorry, were you sleeping?"

He cleared his throat, passing a hand through his messy bed hair "no, don't worry I couldn't sleep"

"oh, alright" you breathed a sigh of relief.

"Did something happen?" he asked, eyeing the taxi beside you.

"N-no I just..." Was it just you or was it much harder to breathe all of a sudden? "I needed to tell you something"

"oh," what looked like fear fleshed behind his eyes "You want to come in?"

"n-no it's ok, I'm gonna be quick"

"alright" he nodded, wide awake now

"so..." you trailed off, "ok, the thing is that I-" you bit your lip, your nails picking some skin off your thumb in nervousness "I..."

"Sugar you're killing me here, what is it?"

You forced a small chuckle "I'm sorry" said, trying to calm your racing heart "fuck- ok, you know what? I'm just gonna say it" you decided, not giving yourself time to think about it before spitting out your next words.

"Pedro, I like you. Like- a lot" You tried to smile but your nerves got the best of you "And I know this isn't ideal and that I'm drunk and everything... but I just need you to know"

His eyes were blown wide "You're drunk?"

"well, kinda" you blew him off "but that's not the point, Pedro, I really really like you, like so much it hurts to fucking look at you" You laughed softly now at how crazy you must have sounded " I never told you because I know you don't like me back, and it's ok that you don't, but I just wanted you to know that I really fucking like you because it's been eating me alive for so long and I just needed to say it out loud"

Silence spread once again, his eyes were trained on you, and yours on his.

None of you moved or talked, and you took it as your cue to go.

"ok, I'm gonna go now" you spoke "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, goodnight" You turned to walk away when a hand grabbed your arm.

You turned around, finding his eyes trained on you with an expression you had never seen on him before.

"sugar..." he finally spoke

And there it was, the "it's great you feel that way but I think we should just remain friends" speech you could have felt coming from a mile away.

"y/n are you sure you want to do this now?"

"what do you mean?"

"I mean you're drunk, and maybe you'll wake up tomorrow and regret all of this"

"I don't care, I just wanted to tell you" You shrugged "and there's not really anything to do, Pedro, I know you don't like me, it's fine, I'm gonna go home now"

an unexpected laugh fled his mouth "You really believe that?"

You frowned, your breathing getting heavier again.

"sugar, do you really have no idea what you do to me? About all the nights I spend thinking of you? All the times I dreamed of doing exactly what you're doing right now?"

Your heart had decided to stop working completely, and to be honest, who could blame him?

There it was, Pedro fucking Pascal telling you all about what you do to him.

"I-" you could only stutter

"y/n, fuck- baby, I just- I always assumed you wouldn't want to be with someone like me"

"What?" 

"Well I mean, you're very much out of my league sugar"

"you're kidding me right?" you laughed "You're Pedro Pascal, what are you talking about?"

"And you're Y/n Y/l/n," he explained, a smile tugging at his lips.

Silence again, but this time lighter, it was an incredulous, happy silence filled with realization.

"So what does this mean?" you asked, breathless

He grinned "I have no idea," he said "I just-god, I wish you were sober so I could kiss you"

"You can kiss me"

"I don't want you to forget our first kiss"

"then I'll come back in the morning"

he smiled "Promise?"

"Promise"

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 423: One For All vs. All For One

At the request of a few asks, have some chapter thoughts. I will warn everyone in advance that some portions of this post are extremely bitter. This is less salty than it is bile-flavored. It's also not quite as thorough as other posts have been, as my disillusionment with the material limits my willingness to comb the chapter for details to muse about beyond the ones that jump out at me.

None of which is to say that this post is short.

CONTENT WARNING: Confrontational rhetoric about irl prisons and the hypothetical of committing suicide to avoid them. I have strong personal feelings about some of the language I've been seeing from defenders of this chapter and I'm in no mood to prevaricate around them.

o Danger Sense continues to be some real bullshit.  My initial response to the leaks was that it was yet another dumb contrivance to make things arbitrarily harder for the villains than equivalent things would be for the Heroes, but reading the official release, I actually just think it's dumb that AFO thinks Danger Sense would have alerted him to his/Shigaraki's failing body at all.  Why would it?  Danger Sense nominally (nominally) activates based on hostility, and where's the hostility in super-regeneration failing?  If it were the remnants of Shigaraki/OFA attacking him from within his own body, that'd be one thing, but that doesn't seem to be what the first few pages are getting at. 

Rather, it's just that the power of OFA is being too much for his body, in the same way it was for Deku at the beginning.  As if, you know, Shigaraki hasn't already been surgically modified to handle both AFO and, presumably, OFA the whole time.  Ujiko only mentioned the former specifically, but given that the plan was always for AFO's new vessel to be able to steal OFA, why wouldn't that also be accounted for?  The best I can think is that AFO and Ujiko didn't know that OFA would put such strain on the body, but it's not like AFO couldn't have observed that the quirk's been growing stronger over the generations.  If he and Ujiko just failed to calibrate the body correctly, it's a failure of Ujiko's warped genius as a mad biologist and quirk scientist—which again takes us back to dumb contrivances that make things harder for the villains than they would be for the heroes.

    

o The Kurogiri scene would be very touching if it, you know, actually amounted to something.  If it didn't apparently end with Bakugou coming in to murder him.  Except we don't even quite get that level of commitment because Kurogiri was falling apart already, so you get the impression that he would have collapsed with or without Bakugou's intervention.

    

o This in turn makes Bakugou's intervention really silly and pointless.  My god, I don't care.  I do not care!  I do not care about Bakugou pushing Deku two steps forward past a barrier that was already failing.  I do not care about Bakugou getting one last stupid victory lap when he's already dramatically endured a severe beating and emotional assault, stood back up from the stupidest heart surgery in the history of fiction, and faced down everything AFO could unleash on him, far outstripping that same villain's climactic efforts fighting All Might in Kamino in what remains AFO's only semi-emotionally resonant battle in the whole manga.  As it is, this is just one more ludicrous handwaved magical cross-country teleport like every other one the Heroes have been enjoying through this whole fight.

    

o Yoichi paying attention to AFO now?  Man, imagine if we could have just skipped a bunch of bullshit and gotten this way back in Chapter 368, when Yoichi first told AFO that it was over.  Imagine if Vestige Yoichi had something like this when his actual for-real flesh-and-blood brother died, rather than having zero reaction to it whatsoever, not even looking over Deku's psychic shoulder and making a sad face about it.

o It actually kind of offends me that Horikoshi thinks he can get away with taking a stab in the direction of making AFO "sympathetic" now.  Now, after he's spent the entire endgame portraying AFO as a two-dimensional Demon Lord who was literally Evil In Utero.  And, you know, I'd buy AFO as being Evil In Utero but also capable of loneliness, sure. And I'm even more than on board with interpreting AFO as a man who's spent the last century working 24:7 to convince himself that he's heartlessly evil to deal with the loss of the only family he ever had. But the fact that this statement has been put in the mouth of Deku, who has never indicated the faintest trace of sympathy or understanding, much less compassion for AFO?  Fuck off.

    

o All that Yoichi hyping up Deku's incredible finesse in attacking Shigaraki with the stored-up OFA quirks makes me think is, "Welcome to My Hero Academia, where the stakes are made up and the past doesn't matter!"  I am so abominably weary of the endgame's—and the series in general's—willing to just baldly lie to the audience's face about what is actually happening at any given point in the story.

That was the moment when we should have had a response from Yoichi, what with Shigaraki having apparently torn AFO's vestige limb from psychic limb and Bakugou overseeing as the real man rewound out of existence.  That Yoichi didn't respond back then just made him seem like he'd written off his brother generations ago; it makes his sorrowful-yet-grateful act in this chapter incredibly unearned.  Of course, the actual reason we didn't get a beat like this back then wasn't for any reason consistent with Yoichi's feelings about his brother, nor because Yoichi was too far away to know that the brother he has a psychic bond with was dying.  No, it was because Horikoshi was already writing towards this beat instead, so he didn't need to bother.  The last time Yoichi looks the real AFO’s way was the chapter-ending Bakugou blast of 409, when it takes the first eight pages of 410 for AFO’s Rewinding death to finalize itself.  The Hawks vestige talked more to All For One in his last moments than AFO’s own brother did.

    

Internal monologue is placed where internal monologue cannot possibly exist.  Characters' plans are backdated to points in the story which are completely irreconcilable with how those characters were behaving at the time.  Surprise and dismay are pantomimed from characters who are revealed to have anticipated and planned for the very eventuality they're acting so shocked about.

The main character, a kid who was once characterized by his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud, who had a running gag of tightly packed, densely worded speech/thought balloons, has been reduced to an empty marionette, devoid of internal monologue, scoured of thoughts more complex than the multiplication tables of his quirk combinations.  The story can retroactively say that Deku did—intentionally and willfully!—anything it wants and not have to worry about belying its phony stakes and made-for-Twitter cliffhangers because it has deprived Deku of his own capacity to reflect.  He can't spoil twist reveals of his own true intentions if the narrative completely locks us out of his head!  Nevermind how much of his final battle has occurred inside a shared goddamn psychic space.

All of this has made it totally impossible for me to read the story as a story.  Not only do I see the strings, the strings have become all I can see.

Of course the vestiges are back one last time for a dramatic punch, despite multiple chapters swearing up and down to us that we were seeing a big emotional sacrifice play.  Last chapter we witnessed the word vomit that was Horikoshi trying to justify Star's pilots surviving their planes blowing up, because that's how determined Horikoshi is that no one on Team Hero actually die.  Of course the vestiges came back.

Who cares?  Truly, who the fuck cares?  I don't care about them; I don't care about whether they'll be back again in the epilogue; I don't care about why Vestige Might and Shinomori are missing from the punch; I don't care about the story finally trying to pretend that anyone in its pages has ever given a single starving river rat's ass about All For One's humanity.

—NOW ENTERING FULL-FLEDGED RANT ZONE—

I care about the only characters who have ever been facing actual stakes in this war: Shigaraki and his followers.

    

o Even though I care, I don't have it in me to weigh in much about Shigaraki's seeming death here, and especially not his last words.  I'm far too jaded about Horikoshi's cliffhangers to think that anything I say now about Shigaraki dying and what it means for both Hero Society and the people Shigaraki leaves behind can be assumed to still be accurate two weeks from now.

I hope it's a fakeout.  I hope a chunk of Shigaraki's body fell through Kurogiri's last portal and the hyper-regen can kick back in once he's no longer being assaulted on all sides by the allies of the kid who was trying to “save” him.  I hope Horikoshi has one last stupid asspull up his sleeve.  I hope for a complete Karma Houdini ending for Shigaraki and the rest of the League.

If we don't get that, it's gonna suck, and it's gonna turn Deku into a fraud and a liar.  I don't care if the story wants me to think Shigaraki was saved; I don't care if Deku is satisfied with having saved "that crying boy."

I have not forgotten that "that crying boy" gently refused to accept Deku's "save" when the bell rang to go home. He wanted to go back to his friends, instead; he reiterated his desire to be a Hero for the Villains.  The crying child returned to the form of Shigaraki Tomura and then AFO devoured him.  Deku didn't save the child then, and he hasn't saved him now.

Remember how Eri didn't count as truly saved from Overhaul until the first time she could smile fully and freely?  Guess what stops you from doing that?  Right���being fucking dead.

And those touching last words of Shigaraki's won't do Spinner much good on account of him still being brain-damaged from a bunch of extra quirks no one can remove, because the only people who could are, again, fucking dead.

Unless, of course, the theorists are right and Deku is going to be not only not quirkless in the epilogue (meaning all that drama and emotion about sacrificing OFA is going to be another fucking lie), he's going to have the "unified" OFA+AFO quirk via Shigaraki's fistbump.  Meaning Deku can remove the extra quirks, presumably just before telling Spinner that Deku saved-via-killing the love of Spinner's life.

Solidarity among outcasts is false and toxic.  Everyone should just rely on Heroes more, no matter how much Heroes have failed them in the past.

o One last thing I want to address, less about the canon and more about the reactions I've been seeing elsewhere to the prospect of Shigaraki (and any combination of Dabi, Toga and Spinner) being dead: the idea that being dead is the best possible outcome for them because if they don't die they'll only have to spend the rest of their lives "rotting in jail."

Great job, team; nice message to take home.  Everyone pack it in.

    

Firstly, and to get this out of the way, that is a false binary that totally ignores the long history of Shounen Jump villains getting absurd Karma Houdini endings where they walk off into the sunset free as birds because they've changed their minds and resolved to be better, or at least have decided mass murder is no longer worth their time and effort.  (Vegeta wasn't the first mass murderer a Shounen Jump story rewarded with freedom and friendship, nor was he the last.)

But more importantly, that false binary is one that could only be presented by someone who truly does see prison as a fate worse than death.  No rehabilitation is possible.  No supervised release or house arrests in the care of assigned guardians who want better for them.  No lenience can be granted in recognition of the League's mental states; they can be admitted to no mental hospitals focused on therapy.

The "better death than prison" line is the product of a perspective that has never had to seriously consider the prospect of living behind bars.  It's a childish imagination of prison as a nebulous Bad Place where Bad People go to be Punished For Being Bad, or a self-righteous fantasy of a cold hell where sinners are sentenced to suffering eternal.

People can tell that the League have suffered too much to sentence them to Forever Bad Times, so they comfort themselves with the idea that at least they died happy, instead of living forever in a pop-culture-informed crayon doodle of concrete and solitude.

I’m not here to tell these readers that there aren't people in the world who would rather die than live under watch for the rest of their lives.  I won’t deny that Japanese prisons are bleak and there’s every chance that the prisons in Horikoshi’s fictionalized Japan are even worse.  But I am asking people espousing the view that death would be better than incarceration to seriously consider all the angles on what that sentiment means.

If it were you facing the life sentence, are you so sure you would prefer to take your own life?  If it were someone you loved who would rather die than face imprisonment, would you help them—hand your older brother the gun, or your younger sister the knife?

Or would you want to hope that they could get some help instead, have an opportunity to connect to something meaningful—find religion, take up reading classic literature, connect with someone inside or via letters?  Would you want them to accept the lawful punishment for what they'd done rather than evade it by ending their lives?  Would you want them to hold on in case their case could be reassessed someday, that they might eventually finish serving their sentence or be moved to someplace that would focus on helping them rather than punishing them?

Would you want a glorified cop in a cape making that decision for them—or you—based on that cop's ability to "forgive"?

If you think prison is a fate worse than death, why is it okay that people like Gentle Criminal or the Shie Hassaikai Trash Trio have to endure it, while mass murderers, serial killers and insurrectionists like the League get to escape through death?  Think of every purse snatcher who gets paraded in front of cameras with their arms bound and their face muzzled; think of Twice at sixteen; think of Mr. Compress now.  Do these people deserve to suffer in the kind of torment you're imagining prison must entail?  Would it be better for them to die rather than endure it?

If prisons in BNHA's Japan are so terrible as all that, isn't that something the kids should try to fix?  Shouldn't that be a part of the mass societal improvement project people are swearing up and down the kids will have nicely sewn up in the epilogue?  If the kids aren't going to fix these prisons—these places that take suicide risks like Ending and spit them out worse than ever; these places like Tartarus where the wardens call the people in their charge monsters and animals—then why should I believe the kids are going to fix literally anything else?

Or is it simply the case that it's perfectly fine that prisons should be this way; shitty prison conditions are only bad when it's the villains whose sympathetic backstories we know who're facing them?

"It's a shame, but the League has to pay for their crimes."  But why does that “have to be”?  Isn’t it because no one involved—not the characters, not the author, not the people who accept this ending—can envision a world where the “has to be” could be otherwise?

That's the problem with, "Killing someone can be a way of saving them," and, "They would have just spent the rest of their lives in prison anyway."  It's a stunted mentality that leaves no room for the radical reforms and systemic improvements that are necessary to stop this whole cycle from repeating.  Worse, as I very much suspect we're going to see in the epilogue, it's a mentality that says the system is actually fine as it is—the only real problems were caused by a tiny handful of bad actors, and now that they've been removed, everything else will self-correct, and things will go back to normal.

    

That precious, perfect status quo that Deku swore to return: this is the way he brings it back, it and everything that comes with it.

    

o In summary: if this ending sticks, then what we have in My Hero Academia is thus:

A world that played at being grounded, but which turned out to run on arbitrary rules, magic thinking and Evil Babies.

Characters that were presented as radically kind, but whose endgame resolutions represented a cruel underlining of the status quo, in which only those who suffer in silence deserve not to have to.

A story that wanted to be staunchly idealistic but which ultimately entrenched to hollow, meaningless platitudes.

o P.S. So like, Nana’s vestige saved Shigaraki off-screen, right?  So even after all her fear that Shigaraki would have to die, even after all the efforts she and Deku made to help Deku break him down, at the very last moment, she wanted to save him.  And she did so in the only reason she could, as one psychic scrap to another: she held his soul together when he was shattering apart.  But when Deku comes to the very last moment, when Shigaraki’s body is shattering apart, does he do anything to try to hold Shigaraki together?  Try to tell Shigaraki how to use Black Whip to hold his body together, call for Sero and his tape, Aizawa’s Erasure, anything like that?

If it doesn't stick?  That I'm less sure of.  But I'm pretty sure Deku's fucked as the Symbol of Hope no matter what.  There’s no way, at this point, to fix his portrayal as the kid who has a drive to save that eclipses all common understanding.  Every part of the story, before and after that declaration of Yoichi’s in Chapter 287, has served to undermine that claim.  This is just the last nail in the sky coffin.

    

Nah.  Instead, he just administers one last punch to finish the job.  The boy with the drive to save that eclipses all common understanding, everyone.

[the1975attheirverybest]

Matty, ATVB, Simulacra and Simulation

responding to a question that someone asked ( which @abiiors has been kind enough to pass on to me). Here’s a brief explanation that I hope makes some kind of sense. ( please easy on my friends yall. Their blogs aren’t means of contacting me🩷)

it’s all very ✨meta✨ and ✨postmodern✨ I’m not really joking this is the kind of philosophy that Matty is referencing when he calls things “postmodern” or “meta.” So, strap in. Grab a snack or a drink or a joint.

ANYWAYS!

The relationship between art/ media, and “reality” has been a hot issue of contention for philosophy going alllllll the way back to Ancient Greece where Plato argued that artists are “liars” who “copy” reality and try to pass it off as real. 

This obviously brings up questions regarding imitation, invention, recording, copying, representation, transcribing, etc etc etc. 

the book that Matty is referencing Simulacra and Simulation takes up these issues in the context of our current society (postmodernist, late stage capitalist society). 

The book argues that we have become sooo obsessed with media that we have replaced “real life” with it. We treat images, recordings, video, memes, etc as real as the things that they are based on (real life). 

In this way, what we know now as reality is actually a simulation of reality. 

According to the book, this did not happen overnight. It’s something that we moved towards over centuries. The real move likely started in the 1600s and it took until the 20th century to get us to the point where we are now. 

“Simulacra” is all the excessive media that we have used to replace the real world. Signs, symbols, ads, billboards, video, sound bites, etc. 

simulacra are NOT “pretending” to be real or “hiding” the truth. They have simply BECOME THE TRUTH because we treat them as true.

The book refers to this phenomenon as “hyper reality.” Like more real than the real. The thing that we started off simply recording or copying (“real life”) has turned into “less real” than thecopy of it (the video, picture, movie, insta post, etc).

The book makes a dramatic analogy of this by telling a hypothetical scenario where someone decided to make a map of a giant empire that is soooo detailed and accurate that it becomes as large as the empire itself. So people start to treated as if it ISSSS the empire. Not a map of it. 

Fun fuckin fact: this book came out in the 80s lmao. So before social media. Imagine how wild it would be today?

Why is Matty referencing this book? 

Well, let’s take a look at his Instagram posts (pause for a moment to consider the irony that he’s posting an Instagram story of a book about how everything is basically an Instagram story of reality. Peak Matty Healy? I think so. )

The first quote that he posted is

 Simulating is not pretending: "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms.”

As I said above, simulation is not meant to “trick you” its not covering something real underneath. It IS the thing now. It’s acquired the status of being real. So, if someone goes so far as to act sick, stay in bed, make themselves sneeze, cough, stay up all night so that their eyes are red and they haven’t slept and they’re super tired, they might as well BE SICK. in fact now they AREEEE SICK they’re not pretending. 

2. The second quote is 

Therefore, pretending...leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the “false,the real" and the imaginary 

“Pretending” would be considered lying. Like there is a truth distinct from what you are portraying and you seek to hide the truth by portraying it differently. “Simulation” however doesn’t leave any difference between what’s true and what you show publicly, the two collapse into one another. 

What does this have to do with ATVB?

Well, Matty is taking us back to “If it’s method acting but what you’re acting is actually your real life then what’s acting and what’s real?” Right?

There are, of course, other ways to extend this conundrum in light of 2023. That is, what’s rhetorical difference between “Truman Black” and “Matty Healy”? What’s the difference between the public perception of Matty Healy and the “real” Matty Healy? (Is there even such a thing?) If he commits to a joke or a bit AI HARD is the “bit” even a bit anymore? If not, does it lose its effectiveness? Cuz obviously people do acts  BECAUSE they’re acts. They’re not reality. Except we now live in a world where all “acts” can and are indeed real. 

Furthermore: is there a difference between the first and the second halves of the show? During SATVB NA the answer was no most of the time. Because they blended the setlist. BFIAFL and greatest hits were no longer clearly separated. They played bits of both at the same time. 

If all of this is true, what then does it even mean to be “sincere” or “earnest” in a world where everything has an equal degree of reality all the time?

DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO ANYBODY AT ALL OR AM I INSANEEEE

[ladystoneboobs]

y’know, whatever the true parentage of aegon vi aka young griff, in a way he is more like rhaegar than jon snow is. by which i mean their attempts to force themselves into archetypal roles, rhaegar as the prophesied hero against supernatural dark forces and yg as the hidden-prince-in-exile come to save the country and restore peace and harmony by taking the throne.

rhaegar’s very existence is owed to a prophecy, when the ghost of high heart said the ptwp would come of aerys/rhaella’s line they were forced to get married by their father. his destiny was decided and agreed before he was born, as just a hypothetical male prince. bc ofc this promised prince must be a son born with a cock, right? no one ever looked for or expected a princess for this. and when he was born during the mysterious tragedy at summerhall, what could be more of a sign that the prophecy was fulfilled? no need to keep waiting for any more kids, anyone further down the line, this baby had such a dramatic entrance he has got to be the specialest boy of all. rhaegar likely knew all of this from a very young age. grandpa jaehaerys ii believed enough to force his kids to marry, so he wouldn’t want this important planning to go to waste by taking it to his grave, now, would he? was rhaegar reading all the time bc his favorite genre was old prophecy scrolls or was he always doing homework to become the hero he knew he already was? does it really matter when either way he never really had much choice in his role in life? one day he finally goes to train with the master-at-arms only bc he realized from his reading that he “must” be a warrior. he became as great at that as he was at anything else, according to ser barry, but he never enjoyed knighthood. 

to me that’s all a far cry from jon, who grew up idolizing daeron the young dragon and dreaming of glory and conquest. jon, who spent most of his waking hours training in the yard even when injured at the end of asos, just bc he didn’t know what else to do and it helped him blow off steam. jon, who had a nostalgic “hunger” in him when hearing the sound of swords in the yard as lc. the same guy who as of acok still couldn’t get why sam would consider old books and crumbling scolls to be treasure. jon, who has nothing but doubts once he does rise to power and herodom as lord commander and can’t conquer them. and most importantly, jon, the hero who chanced into his role as shield guarding the realms of men only bc ned won the fight at the toj after rhaegar died and took him to be raised in the north. if/when jon does return to life and take his place as a heroic head of the dragon, that role can only be his own choice, not one he was raised for his entire life, just as his membership in the night’s watch was ultimately his own choice based on his northern childhood. (jon’s conception may have also been prophecy-related, but beyond that, his path and rhaegar’s sharply diverged.)

know who was shaped for a royal destiny “since before he could walk”, though? that’s right, aegon in essos aka young griff. his destiny was already chosen for him by the schemes of illyrio/varys just as rhaegar’s was by grampy jae ii and other dragon prophecy nerds before him. he studied his scrolls and trained with the royal master-at-arms just as aegon studied in the routines of his entourages and was trained by knights of the golden company.

and, at some point, we know rhaegar realized he wasn’t the ptwp and decided it was his first son, aegon, instead. mostly bc a comet was seen the night of aegon’s conception. i remember seeing a post years ago saying rhaegar must have spotted the comet that night, run naked straight to elia, and declared they had to get babymaking asap bc the comet was a sign too significant to be ignored. a joke post, prob, but i feel like there’s prob a lot of truth to the idea of rhaegar desparetely forcing the signs to add up, concieving a child on that night after he’d already seen the comet rather than just happening to have sex with elia on the same night there just happened to be a comet sighting. i believe this bc why would it all just be lucky coincidence if aegon vi was not the ptwp? lbr now, whether he indeed got his head smashed in by the mountain or was switched out and sent to essos, rhaegar’s elder son was/is not the promised hero. (just like rhaegar himself could not be the pwtp, after all.) a previously-thought-dead-for-16-years newbie with shaky parentage credentials introduced this late in the game is not going to steal both jon’s and dany’s thunder like that, c’mon. so a comet appearing just for his conception feels about as likely as red rahloo actually killing 3 kings just for the sake of frickin’ stannis. it’s even possible that rhaegar later decided aegon might not be the ptwp either and put more stock in dragon head #3 bc of the whole ice and fire union aspect with lyanna. we just don’t have enough info about that part of the story to know for sure. but there’s no suggestion he was unhappy with elia beforehand or that either of them thought she could not bear more children until the maesters actually said so after aegon’s birth. and even if he was “right” about lyanna’s child being the most important one (ew), he was still counting on both aegon and rhaenys to be the other two heads of the dragon, and presumably planned to raise all 3 of them for their destiny together in kl as he had been. in which case his plans utterly failed, because that is just not at all what happened with any of those kids.

in that sense, death is what jon and his bio dad most have in common as they both walked fairly boldly and blindly into their doom. but the circumstances are still a bit different as jon was murdered in a mutiny rather than killed in battle, not to mention his likely resurrection as an actual hero of prophecy. despite being around 10 years older than either jon or aegon is presently, i’d say rhaegar was even more naively overconfident in his plans than jon was in his final moments. to go that quickly and without any known hesitation through each change of plans from simply being ptwp himself to becoming a warrior as well as a weirdo nerd to fathering 3 heads of the dragon to truly fulfill prophecy to organizing a political coup at harrenhal to honoring lyanna instead to eloping with her after aegon’s birth to make her wife #2 and mother of dragon head #3 to riding off to one definitve battle against cousin robert after hiding in his lovenest with lyanna for months, idk, that does not read to me as someone suffering the same questions and doubts jon did in the nw. rhaegar told jaime “when this battle’s done” not “if i return in victory” in their farewell. he had no back-up plans in case of his defeat, leaving elia with aerys and lyanna in the toj, no plans for how to protect either wife or any of his all-important prophesied progeny in the event of his loss, just as he had no immediate plans to deal with aerys yet. (compare that to idealistic young king robb stark, thought to be recklessly honorable and accused of thinking himself invincible in his youth, yet he still managed to make plans for his succession should he die childless in battle, and planned to put his wife and mother in strongholds held by trustworthy (sane) allies who could defend their positions for some time in his absence.) all that only makes sense to me if he always thought he’d still have time for all that later, never truly envisioning the possibility of house targ being overthrown so soon when all his hero kids were still babies. 

after all, whether he was the ptwp himself or only meant to raise the 3 promised dragon heads as heroes, surely their destiny was already written years before and he couldn’t go out in such a mundane way, right? i’d say aegon/yg shows the same kind of overconfidence in going along with all the gc’s changes in planning, from whatever varys/illyrio originally wanted with viserys iii alive to finding dany and marrying her after the birth of her dragons to leaving for an invasion of westeros first to conquer the stormlands himself before wedding dany as equals. he never imagined she could refuse him until tyrion told him so, and imo is still not grasping that his female relation could prove more important than him in westeros with her 3 dragons. rhaegar may have known he was doomed since his tragic birth among so much death and later knew he wasn’t the pwtp, but he likely still expected a higher doom, one as dramatic and magical as his birth at summerhall. he couldn’t imagine his chest being caved in by lyanna’s dumbass ex, his boorish cousin robert, just as aegon/yg can’t know what doom could be in store for him in westeros either. 

[skylights422]

New X-Men '97 tomorrow! I am very excited! But I also had meant to make more posts reviewing the first three episodes. It was going to be multiple posts over different topics, but I am short on time and organizational energy, so I am just gonna make two posts over the biggest topics: The Romance Drama, and The Plot. Romance drama first! It got Long, so it's under a cut. xD (And a quick disclaimer that any negative opinions on the canon writing of couples doesn't mean I dislike people for shipping any of it; I almost never ship anything personally just as a matter of personal preference, but am very much a Ship And Let Ship/Don't Like Don't Read kind of person)

First, I will just say that the Jean/Scott/Logan drama was...always the most boring and confusing part to me in the 90s show? I just didn't feel like they did enough to show why Wolverine was SO in love with her when it seemed like they never spent any time together normally or had any major bonding moments? So I felt like he was just pining based on appearance and the fact they were teammates, which...is fine I guess but not the sweeping, dramatic unrequited love it was always portrayed as.

(I mean Wolverine was so torn up about them getting married he REFUSED TO ATTEND and instead spent time trying to kill an illusion version of Scott in the Danger Room, that's. Very dramatic! And for what? Maybe they covered it a little bit in an episode I haven't re-watched yet but I remember Past Me at least not finding the explanation impressive enough lollll)

So, I'm not...super looking forward to more of it in this new show, but also expecting it since it was always such a feature. I'd rather not have Jean kinda date Logan just because she's mad at Scott and Logan wants to? But it won't shock me. By and large I have made peace with my dislike for that particular love triangle since I'm otherwise such a fan of both series. (And so far anyways Logan has been a little less weird about his unrequited feelings even if they're still pretty obvious)

THEN we have the Rogue and Magneto romance. This one I have had more mixed feelings on. My kneejerk reaction was confusion and dislike - I didn't know until I looked it up after the episode that they were together in the comics, and since they weren't in the previous show, it felt...really random. (Also I am just not much a fan of couples with large age gaps, obviously Rogue is an adult and can do what she wants, it's just not my cup of tea. Plus Rogue and Gambit is one of maybe, like...five? Couples in media? That I have any investment in AS a romantic couple lol, but mostly I was just not looking forward to more romantic drama in general since it's just not something I tend to enjoy much)

Now I have two opinions. One is simply that I am Over feeling bothered by it and just curious to see what they do with it, since Rogue and Magneto do have some compelling thematic reasons to have scenes together anyways. And Rogue and Gambit definitely COULD have a mature conversation about it, which would actually be pretty neat.

Now my main quibble is that it was introduced so suddenly, and with so little explanation. As a general rule, I do NOT consider 'it happened in the source material' to be a valid excuse for anything in an adaptation unless it also makes sense within the established lore/characterization/etc. of the adaptation itself. A Doylist explanation existing does not remove the need for a solid Watsonian one, and if there just...isn't a Watsonian explanation, then I feel it is lazy writing at best, actually terrible writing if done badly enough.

There's definitely still time for them to give some kind of flashback or explanation for Rogue and Magneto though! You can introduce new aspects to character's pasts, in general. So I am holding out my final opinion to see if they do that, and in what way.

On a smaller, technically still hypothetical note, next for romance drama we have: Morph crushing on Wolverine. I do agree that it's extremely possible, even likely, that Morph seeming Interested in Wolverine in this version is deliberate - I mainly say hypothetical because I have seen some VERY overtly queercoded stories/scenes/etc. be written genuinely by accident, and at this point I'm really not sure how it was intended (like, if it's meant to be anything bigger than the scene itself or not).

And once again, I have mixed feelings on it. On one hand, having an openly gay character in an X-Men cartoon is good! It's nice to see some diversity in orientation. And Morph makes sense since they are the closest to a blank slate as you can get with a pre-established character, only being in nine episodes total of the original series - very spread out ones, as well.

But well, there's two reasons I feel kind of egh about it. One is that nearly all the Established Duos that got a lot of attention in the original show were romantic ones, and as someone who is fundamentally more invested emotionally in non-romances, I really liked the thought of having a best friend duo to fixate on. (We do still have Magneto and Xavier but XAVIER IS DEAD RIGHT NOW SO IT ONLY HALF COUNTS)

The other is that it...would almost definitely be another unrequited crush. Which for one, is just drama that isn't interesting to me. But also I dunno if 'sad gay bravely accepts never getting with the love of their life' is amazing rep for...friendships OR gay people??? Like you could write it so that Morph is genuinely fine being 'just' friends, and maybe in an ideal world that would even kick Wolverine into considering he could maybe be More Normal About Jean. But I worry about their friendship falling apart or it being made out to be 'not enough' to Morph and ultimately just making everyone look bad (and also if they push too hard on the Sad Morph Angle I feel like it could just be another case of villainizing people for not returning affections which I just, REALLY HATE)

SO I'M ON EDGE ABOUT IT. Possibly they won't do much with the concept at all, which I'd frankly prefer. Possibly they'll find a way to write the one-sided romance that is actually considerate to both sides and doesn't destroy their friendship. Possibly they'll even introduce other gay couples somewhere in the show so the rep for it isn't all riding on Morph's shoulders! But I am also very aware how easy it would be to do this wrong. SO WE'LL SEE.

[notawizardblep]

About a couple weeks/month ago I read some posts about barely any variance in eye colors for the TF2 Mercs. This post is late to the party but I wanted to publish my own headcannons. My intentions were that the more different eye colors the better, because I found the fact that Demo being the only one who has a brown eye in a sea of blue incredibly boring character design for such well designed characters.

Spy/Scout (Blue): These two are the only ones who keep their single colored blue eyes. Since blue eyes are recessive, they were once an indicator if someone was related or not. (However eye colors are much more complicated than that.) This could be used as a visual hint to the audience/gamer that they are related, especially if they are the only ones out of the group that share the same color.

Demo/Heavy (Brown): I’m not changing Demo’s eye. Why brown eyes Heavy? I don’t really have an explanation for this decision other than because I said so and I wanted more brown eyes. They have the same voice actor idk.

Soldier (Hazel): I also don’t really have an explanation for this one either except that hazel eyes fit well for Soldier to me.

He’s almost always has his helmet on so the only time you would get a good look at them would be when his full facial expression is important to the audience. (In a hypothetical situation.) He also is part of the category of mercenaries where it’s a rare occurrence to see their eyes so they have rarer colors to make the “eye reveal moment” more dramatic. (In a hypothetical situation.)

Medic (Grey): This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t really like blue eyes Medic. However I was having trouble sticking with one eye color. The thing with grey eyes is that they can be mistaken for blue eyes unless you are comparing the two together. I also like the part in Emesis Blue where his eye colors change to signify something and I was inspired. Making Medic’s eyes more “reflective” of the lighting color/tone would be a cool effect to implement. As a character, he reacts to the situations given to him rather quickly and having an eye color that’s tougher to distinguish could be used as a visual representation that we don’t know what’s going on in his head.

Medic’s glasses would also do the anime thing where they become non-transparent whenever he’s about to commit an atrocity.

Sniper (Green): I think green eyes just fits Sniper very well aesthetically. The color compliments his orange/yellow sunglasses. Plus, it makes sense for him to have a striking eye color since sight is so integral to his job.

Like Soldier, his eyes would be rarely seen because they are concealed by his sunglasses. The only exceptions would be when the sunglasses are off, or when his expression is more appropriate to see his entire face so his eyes can be seen through the lenses. Personally I would restrict most of these instances to when he’s not in professional mode.

Engineer (Heterochromia: Brown and Blue): I can recall only two times where Engi takes off the goggles, both times being in the official comics. So he definitely fits in the “dramatic eye reveal” category. Was he born with it or is one eye a cybernetic implant?

I picked brown and blue heterochromia as a visual representation for his relation to the Administrator. His family has worked for her for generations. The Administrator’s color is purple, a combination of both red and blue because she is secretly in charge of both teams. Engineer doesn’t work only for red or only blue, but the Administrator.

Pyro (????): Non applicable.

[newbie9034]

Wondered if you have any advice for people trying to get into writing!!! how did you start out?

This is going to sound so lame, but…

Honestly, I just… started. I read a lot but kept feeling like there was a story I was looking for and couldn’t find. I didn’t really have a big idea, it was more like scenes in my head I couldn’t get out, and then I wrote them down.

With my FF, it’s easier because I can write off of real things, and people give me prompts. I just sorta think about what would happen and write down what plays out in my head. It’s very much like recording a movie. I sort of hear the dialogue in my head, as well, so it’s really just a matter of recording it.

With my original work, that started with scenes that felt compelling, and then I sort of did a character study of who I wanted these people to be, what they look like, what their life has been like, why they are the way they are. It’s all very psycho-analytical. I wrote all of that down and came up with a sort of vague outline, and then connected chapters by sort of filling in the blank space between big scenes.

I write VERY out of order. That means I have to do a lot of editing, at least for things that are multi-chapter. I do a lot of re-reading - honestly probably too much. That’s where my anxiety about letting other people read it comes in, I think.

I pretty much write chapters (rough draft) all in one go, and can generally crank out like…. I dunno. 4-6 pages an hour? That’s with dialogue and spacing, though. And sometimes I get halfway through it or only a page in and sort of… run out of film, so to speak. Like out of ideas. So I leave it and come back to it.

After that, I spend loads of time rereading it, making changes to the flow, changing words, rethinking how people would interact. And then it’s just sort of a gut feeling when I feel like it’s ready - when I feel iffy about it, I usually wait and hold onto it. Sometimes that feeling goes away without me doing anything, sometimes I eventually figure out what feels off about it and I make edits. It just depends.

But all that’s to say that I just… started. It wasn’t always good, and even now reading my early stuff, I feel like it’s clunky and awkward at times. But that’s fine! It’s all part of getting better. You can’t expect yourself to be perfect at the start. And as far as ideas- you don’t need a whole book planned out! You can just brain dump, if that works for you. It does for me! It just helps to really know your characters, if you’re going to do that. Sort of like how when you know your friends and family really well, you can predict how they would react to things or what they would do in different situations? That’s what I do with my characters.

This is probably more than you wanted but… yeah. If you want to write, just write! It can be silly little goofy stories just for you, or dramatic scenes that get your feelings out. It feels therapeutic to me, a lot of the time. Just write whatever you want to. And if you choose to post it somewhere, great! I’m sure other people will enjoy it. But I would worry about writing whatever YOU like, not stressing about trying to write to please a hypothetical audience, you know? Just whatever feels right. And if you feel silly about it, just keep it anonymous! That’s what I do ☺️

Does that help? Do you have other questions? Sorry this is such a long answer! Props if you made it to the end!!

TLDR- write whatever you want to, there’s no rules! Find what works for you!

[brushstrokesapocalyptic]

it’s time for the “overanalyzing one-off lines” show!

so the very first thing magnus says when he sees pit in chapter 2 of kid icarus: uprising is as follows:

“Well, I didn’t expect to see an angel here. Hope this doesn’t mean I’ve kicked the bucket.”

now, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but that’s a really weird thing for someone to say, and it’s even more weird that no one comments on it. pit and palutena go on talking about unrelated things, as if that’s a totally normal and expected thing for magnus to say.

now, if you’re like me, you probably also didn’t really react to this line the first few times you saw it. it’s the second chapter, kiu has a lot of slightly-odd lines which turn out to be foreshadowing. me, personally? my first thought was “oh, i guess angels are probably associated with escorting the dead to the afterlife,“ and then i moved on.

they’re not, though. that’s what reapers do. and there’s no way humans have these two races mixed up. just fucking look at them.

do they look anything alike to you??? no. they don’t. which raises the question of why, exactly, magnus said that.

now, we don’t know a lot about angels as a whole. pit (and by extension dark pit) is emphatically not the gold standard of angeldom. we can assume he looks fairly ordinary for an angel, seeing as no one has trouble identifying him as such. beyond that, though, a lot of what we know about angels comes from what pit isn’t. for starters, he can’t fly. and there’s something else, too, but i’ll get to that later.

before that, though, i’m gonna go through the various unsubstantiated comments made by people with a dubious level of authority on the subject. (incidentally, i sourced these screenshots from the wiki— much more convenient than trying to dig through youtube for every single random conversation.)

without any further ado! let’s get into it!

Angels as Messengers

Gaol: Aw, Palutena’s little messenger boy. And Magnus, it’s always a pleasure. (src)

in the specific context of overanalyzing magnus’s first line, this is an important sentence to pick out. magnus and gaol are both humans, both with presumably a fairly similar history as mercenaries up until gaol got stuffed in a suit of armor. but while magnus makes a weird comment about death, gaol calls pit a messenger.

and pit agrees with her!

Viridi: I wish I had an angel to do my bidding. It’s like having an intern.

Pit: I’m not an intern. I’m a messenger of the gods!

Viridi: Poor Pit. Don't you know that the definition of angel is "errand spirit"? (src)

this particular conversation is the most insight we get into angels as a whole, i think. viridi thinks of angels as like divine interns, there to do little tasks for gods, and palutena doesn’t exactly disagree with her. pit says they’re specifically messengers, which lines up with biblical mythology. i could see the traditional role of angels in the world of KI being exactly that, showing up to tell the humans what the gods have to say because the gods themselves are too busy being petty jerks to do it themselves.

The Angel’s Code of Conduct

Magnus: You go in fully dressed? Don't you at least want to change into a...swimming tunic or something?

Pit: Oh, no no no! The angel's code of conduct says that we must always be ready for duty.

Magnus: I guess you wouldn't be an angel if you didn't do things by the book. (src)

Pit: Hey! You know the angel's code of conduct! I need to be prepared at all times! (src)

another random little thing is the angel’s code of conduct. without a larger sample size, we can’t know if it’s a real thing or just an excuse to save on laundry, but apparently it’s against the rules to not be on call at all times. in pit’s case, the duty he has to be ready for is doing palutena’s dirty work, but it can easily mean just about anything— including, of course, being a messenger.

No Warrior

Chariot Master: But you are no warrior, angel. Tell me, why do you fight?

Pit: I fight for Lady Palutena. And I fight for the people under her protection!

Chariot Master: That's not reason enough for an angel. (src)

remember how i said there was something else weird about pit? the chariot master seems to think angels aren’t very prone to battle— or perhaps even that they’re actively opposed to it. this lines up well with the idea that they’re supposed to be messengers, peaceful go-betweens for gods and mortals. this does not line up well with pit, the adorable weapon of mass destruction.

and it also does absolutely nothing to explain the question driving the whole existence of this post.

you know what does kinda lean towards an explanation?

No Other Angels

Pit: Do all gods have their own angels, like you have me?

Palutena: No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. (src)

i said before that the Intern Pit conversation had the most illuminating information on angels. this is what i was actually referring to. on its own, it’s pretty innocuous, but it’s just as weird as the magnus line. shouldn’t pit know about other angels, seeing as he is one himself? but he doesn’t know if there are other angels.

the only angels we ever see are him and his clone. no one ever directly references the existence of other angels, they only make general statements about what angels as a whole are like— statements which clearly don’t apply to pit, meaning they’re not just extrapolating based on the one angel that definitely does exist.

the one time someone does comment on the hypothetical existence of other angels, palutena gives a vague answer to the tune of “no,” the topic is changed, and no one brings it up again.

let’s go over everything i’ve established about angels up to this point. they can fly, they’re peaceful messengers of the gods, and pit is the only one that seems to exist as of the start of KIU.

it should be pretty obvious at this point what answer i’m dancing around, if it wasn’t obvious from the start. pit is the only angel around because all the other ones are dead. the reason why magnus said what he did is that his thought process went something like this:

See an angel.

Think “Aren’t angels extinct? Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? I sure hope not.“

Make a quip about that.

Move on with his life, because he isn’t dead and evidently neither is this guy.

i’m not gonna pretend i went into this post with the intent of any other conclusion to that mystery. anyone who’s bothered glancing over a plot summary for the original kid icarus can draw that conclusion. it’s certainly what i did, reinforced by fics by people who had the same thought!

the truth, however, is that this was all a trick to get you to read my analysis of the theoretical nature of angels as a race. now that you’re invested, i’m going to dramatically throw aside my cape and reveal my TRUE FORM: telling people that fandom consensus is wrong, and my ideas are cooler and better than everyone else’s and you should all throw roses at my feet and bow before your king.

(or just, y’know, take it as the subjective analysis that it is. whatever floats your boat.)

Hot Takes

the original kid icarus does not actually tell you about angels going extinct. here’s the wiki article with the full text of the backstory, just for convenience, so you know what i’m on about for the rest of this post.

so, the part of the story that i think gets misinterpreted is this part about palutena’s army.

Medusa led a surprise attack on Palutena's army which could barely fend off the attack. Palutena's army suffered major losses and was heavily defeated in the final battle.

specifically, i think a lot of people interpret said army as having been made up at least partly of angels. sure, in the actual game it consists entirely of centurions, but you have to take old NES games with a grain of salt. i know i don’t buy for a second that pit was part of palutena’s guard before the original game (he was just too goddamn young), there’s nothing wrong with reinterpreting things.

recall everything i established about angels already, though. this is the hot official lore, from the game everyone knows and loves. angels are messengers, and if the chariot master is to be believed, never warriors. pit is an outlier. palutena’s army consists of centurions, not angels. if medusa wiped them out, it wasn’t because they were fighting for palutena.

(and honestly, i don’t think angels are necessarily associated with palutena exclusively. sure, she’s got the wing imagery, and she’s got the one known surviving angel working for her, at least up until pittoo is born. but angels are messengers of the gods, not messengers of palutena. again, pit is an outlier.)

which all brings us to the real question of this post.

what the FUCK happened to all the other angels? why is there only pit? why does magnus act surprised to see a messenger of the gods, and make a quip about being dead, if not because angels are otherwise extinct?! WHO KILLED THEM, AND WHY?!

thus concludes the “over analyzing one-off lines“ show. see you next, uh, maybe at some point if i feel like it!

(also another thought i had but couldn’t find room to fit it in properly: the gods don’t really act like angels are all extinct, but i feel like that can be explained through the sheer scale of a god’s lifespan. if we assume they were wiped out sometime around the original kid icarus (even if not as palutena’s army) then that’s a whole twenty-five years. that’s a long time for us humans, but for a god, that might as well be last tuesday. “yeah, i know what angels are like. sure wish i could have one. too bad palutena’s got a monopoly on the one single angel that medusa didn’t manage to wreck.”)

[ilikekidsshows]

My biggest issue with the senti-Adrien theory is in the resolution, because, true or not, adrien IS being controlled and needs to break free. Senti-Adrien's freedom can ONLY be fully obtained by magical BS that severs his soul from the amok and peacock miraculous, which at best can be presented as a metaphor for something, maybe. Human Adrien's freedom can be obtained by realistic, human means that real abused/controlled kids can aspire to replicate to help themselves.

This refers really well to that other response I wrote about Miraculous’ favored style of resolving storylines. The series has a lot of elements that are wish-fulfilment, dramatic or just cool but, when it comes to resolving conflicts between characters, Miraculous always aims for the resolution to be applicable to real life situations over any other aspect. In that previous post I talked about this in relation to cathartic solutions, like characters getting even, which Miraculous never goes with, but the same could be said for magical solutions as well.

This is part of that idea some fans have that Marinette gets “punished” too much in the series because she’s always learning to do better and apologising for her mistakes when she already solved the situation as Ladybug. But that’s just the thing; Marinette being Ladybug isn’t a relatable aspect of the character. The kids watching the show can’t turn into superheroes to purify their friends’ negative feelings when they’ve hurt them. The kids watching the show will have to own up to their mistakes and do better in the future, so that’s what Marinette does, she doesn’t get a free pass even though she does always save the day.

A hypothetical SentiAdrien situation would need to be resolved with magic, which is not relatable at all. Your friends can’t do creation magic or wish magic to make your problems go away. It would be really disheartening for abuse victims to watch. It would also be really hypocritical if a showrunner, who has spoken on twitter about wanting to teach about abuse with his show, had his show declare that Gabriel is abusing his son because there’s something different about Adrien, not because he is abusive. Gabriel has said he doesn’t view Sentimonsters as people, so him abusing a Sentimonster son makes sense. So many Sentimonsters are okay to be killed, why would Gabriel think his son is a special Sentimonster and more sentient than the rest are? I’m not being sarcastic, that’s literally the question that would need to be asked.

If Adrien is a Sentimonster, his abuse happens because of what he is, not because of Gabriel being terrible. Adrien was just born "wrong". I’m sure all the abused kids whose parents justify their abuse with whatever is considered “wrong” about their kids will appreciate the narrative agreeing with Gabriel that kids with something different about them have to prove that they’re “properly human”. Because a SentiAdrien story would be about Adrien proving he’s human to himself and others. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a point in making him a Sentimonster to begin with. Never mind the most likely ending where he actually does get turned into a real boy with magic, implying that kids who are different need to be cured of what makes them so.

On the other hand, solving a SentiAdrien storyline by having him break the connection through his willpower or other such nonsense has the issue I previously mentioned that it makes Adrien super special and strong to get out of an abusive situation when no other Sentimonster can. That or he’s older than the others, which sends the message that you just have to wait until you’re old enough to leave yourself and just endure until then.

This sort of “inner strength” narrative also implies that the people who are victims in abusive situations are at fault for not leaving, because they’re too weak to oppose their abuser. It’s saying that they just don’t want to leave hard enough.

[cilil]

I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THEM TOO AND YOU'RE GIVING ME FEELS😩❤️ (and also thank you for being so sweet, especially about the egg fic, it's very dear to me and one of my favorite things I've written🤗).

If I had to write Gothmog's inner monologue as he falls into that (stupid and clearly Balrog-phobic) fountain it would be "Oh no. Oh shit. Oh fuck." Which is not exactly Shakespearean tragedy material, but what I think is an in-character reaction. Because yes, in my mind he's thinking about all the people he loves and is loyal to and how they need him (not wrong) and how his mentally and physically ill Vala can't even bring him back.

The relief that he won't have to fight Eönwë now probably came as a bit of an afterthought once he was dead (assuming that slain Maiar are not immediately and not entirely dormant)/as an attempt to comfort himself. Though this also comes with the unfortunate side effect of Gothmog's Balrog siblings having to fight Eönwë, which in my headcanons has happened and he was responsible for killing at least one of them. Yet more drama.

(Though don't worry, it doesn't ruin their relationship or anything; knowing that everyone has their orders and the Balrogs would rather die than go to Valinor, Gothmog is weirdly chill about it. But Eönwë will of course assume he hates him for it and angst about it.)

Last words... oooh let me write this down. I could write about that sometime👀

And yes. Gothmog is the biggest softie with his bird boy. Always very careful not to set him on fire. Always keeping him warm. Would take him into a volcano for hibernation if Eönwë was more fireproof.

Omg wait there's asshole Eönwë fanon? The only thing I can think of is "nice guy" Eönwë in the context of Eönwë/Mairon, either doing something nasty to him post-WoW or an AU where he drags him to Valinor - not my default take, but something I certainly entertain for a fic if requested. But otherwise I thought Eönwë was in the clear... well, apparently not. Maybe he's guilty by association due to the prominent anti Valar fanon. I saw someone claiming once that he's problematic for saying a slur. Interesting claim to make about a character with one line of direct dialogue.

The weak and stupid allegations probably come from the Mairon issue as well, but like... is the narrative parallel between Melkor deceiving Manwë and Mairon deceiving Eönwë due to evil people taking advantage of the very mercy and kindness they deny others just invisible to people? I suppose themes are sometimes a bit tough to spot (though Tolkien spelled it out somewhere). But that's what it is. And I frankly think Eönwë - while he will most certainly beat himself up over this in later years - was wise not to continue the cycle of violence. Same goes for his treatment of Maedhros and Maglor. It was simply mercy. The very nature of mercy is that it's not always the smartest or most optimal thing or you get an immediate benefit from it (see also Bilbo and Frodo with Gollum: Technically it bit them in the ass to spare Gollum, but it also allowed for the One Ring to be destroyed in the end).

I also think Manwë very deliberately chose a Maia as his herald who can embody his ideals of kindness and forgiveness instead of some warmongering, vengeful spirit.

Sorry for the tangent, anyway -

A hypothetical duel between Gothmog and Eönwë would make for such a good dramatic fic. I'll write that one down as well👀

Eönwë is the kind of person you never want to be angry at you. And it's really not hard to stay on his good side, but my god, if he snaps you're in BIG TROUBLE. He's one scary raptor and he can take down prey above his pay grade too (Melkor).

As for the egg, I have this headcanon that part of the reason why it even exists is because Eönwë felt so lonely and it then came into his head that if he, you know, allowed something to come from his and Gothmog's shenanigans he would have something to love and take care of at home too, something that's entirely his own and made with love. I hope maybe Ilmarë and Arien are willing to be egg aunties and maybe contribute some sun and star fire to nurture the little phoenix Maia before they started gnawing on high kings of the Noldor (run Ara run)😌

(Same about Manwë and Melkor, also both platonic and romantic. Manwë was definitely very alone with this; normally he can tell Varda and Ulmo everything, but this they don't get.)

Hand on my heart: I have been sitting on a broad outline of an Eönwë-centric character study type long fic and one of its main themes is him struggling with his mental health. There may be some self-harm and suicidal tendencies involved. Because he blames himself for everything that went wrong and hates himself for being a warrior spirit and thinks he deserves to suffer for every single thing he did wrong. He's been spiralling ever since Gondolin and Númenor will absolutely drag him down.

Gosh I love these characters so much, thank you for letting me rant😭❤️

wait wait wait, it took me so long (i was binge-reading all your fics hehe) to realize the romeo-and-juliet type of relationship eonwe and gothmog have going on. its even better because tolkien once envisioned gothmog and eonwe to be the children of melkor and manwe so them meeting up secretly is sooooooo sweet but heartbreaking, like they are on opposite sides, and they know they'll eventually fight each other. but gothmog died first, so how did eonwe handle that. imagining him trying to live after gothmog's death is just asdkjakdakds

You're too sweet❤️❤️❤️

And yes, this is what really sucked me in too once I realized it! We (my friends and I) started out seeing Firebird as more of a crack ship or something that's maybe hot for smut, but then we realized the old Lost Tales connection and the doomed, tragic love and the parallels between them and... everything.

In a weird way, Gothmog falling in Gondolin was mercy for them both. Otherwise a confrontation during the War of Wrath would've been pretty much inevitable, especially if Gothmog had once again been ordered to go after the Elven kings (Eönwë can't just let him kill Finarfin and it's not like he's that terrible of a friend either). They would've fought each other, knowing that they have orders and that the other knows and understands this as well.

As for what the outcome of that fight would've been, I'd say 70-80% in Eönwë's favor, with this being a sort of average between "they duel and it's just them" (which is more beneficial to Eönwë) and "because the forces of evil cheat, Gothmog gets random assistance from other Balrogs" (similar to what happened with Fingon). Even if they refused to kill the other in the end, someone else on their side happily would. One of them would've wound up dead for sure.

Eönwë tries to take comfort in the fact that this scenario has been avoided and soon realizes that Melkor currently can't bring his Maiar back - so Gothmog also stays dead - but that means he no longer has the one person in his life who understands him. In all his other relationships, he has to perform; whether that's actually true or not is another question, but Eönwë definitely feels that way. It's not like he can tell, say, Manwë, Finarfin or Eärendil about his killer instincts and how he sometimes has the urge to hack, slash and dive bomb people.

What makes this worse is that Eönwë also can't express his grief, or at least he has to pretend it's just about Gondolin. How would he explain that he's mourning the evil Lord of Balrogs more than the brave warrior Elves?

It gets even worse in the one verse where he has an egg and now has to hatch it alone (which may or may not even be possible without another fire spirit) and can never tell anyone where it came from.

Maybe Eönwë goes into the War of Wrath so readily because he doesn't have much to lose. He doesn't feel quite at home or connected and has nobody to talk to about it and nobody to make him feel accepted and loved regarding the parts of himself that he always has to hide. But he also can't just... give up. He's immortal. Even if he died, Manwë would still be more than capable of bringing him back. And he has a purpose to fulfill.

So yeah. Poor Eönwë indeed😭

And now I'll go and dig up (pun intended) some Firebird headcanons for Ainur Week

[sebastianshaw]

So, while my Tumblr muse for Fabian died for some reason, he’s still going strong at a couple boards, and I wanted to share this post I made with him today. The “Brat” that gets mentioned is the little dachshund I gave him that he uses to pick up women XD

Not long after the departure of dear lovely Anna---poor thing just couldn’t bear the pain of not being the ONLY woman in Lord Cortez’s life---Fabian had sent out invitations to meet him in the common area at this date and time. Yes, he could have just sent an email, or, you know TOLD THEM, since he lived together, but instead everyone got a gold ink invite on formal cream cardstock. decor. Formalwear requested but optional. And today, on the date and time, the common area was looking ANYTHING but common. It looked. . .well . . .in addition to the banners and drapes and other decorations themes in gold and white, there were also now numerous pictures of Fabian mounted around the place, painted or photoshopped into elaborate costumes and triumphant poses over mighty enemies, small statuettes doing the same, even a crown-wearing bust. Who had he commissioned for these? And who the hell had he catered for all these gourmet tapas? And paella? And was that a whole roasted suckling pig?!?! Fabian himself, oddly, was nowhere to be seen. At least, not until the music started, a glorious fanfare of trumpets, and he emerged in a flourish, wearing a solid white costume, glittering gold crown, and, yes, a gilded crown encircling his head. Really. And were those sparkles in the air around him? “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE BROTHERHOOD,” Fabian boomed after giving everyone a moment to gasp, clutch their chests, swoon, all the understandable reactions. Brat used the time to scamper out, also in a matching crown, and jump excitedly around the feet of all his friends. Once everyone had a chance to get their bearings again, he continued, “Doubtless, you wonder why you have been called here for such festivities! For while every day in my presence merits celebration, I am a humble man who eschews the fanfare I deserve. . .for the most part. But today there is something EXTRA special to pay heed to besides my mere existence gracing you!” Dramatic pause again, slightly undermined by Brat yipping as he tried to get Fabian’s attention for pats. “Since I have joined your noble mission, my incredible superhuman humility has led me not to seek an official position. After all, I live but to serve my brethren and alleviate our plight! My entire nature is to pursue aiding others, not glory and adulation for my countless accomplishments to that end! But, because I am someone who always seeks to give succor to my people in their time of need, is the reason I must now, as the Americans say, step up to the plate! Yes, it is true, my friends---at last I shall be in title what I have truly been all along in action!” He raised one arm, its hand upturned in a grasping, clawing gesture, as he proclaimed, “I, LORD FABIAN CORTEZ, SAVIOR OF HOMO SUPERIOR , BELOVED OF WOMEN, TERROR TO HUMANITY, SUPREME---Brat be quiet--MUTANT, MOST TRUSTED OF LORD MAGNETO, AM NOW OFFICIALLY --- YOUR LEADER!” He flung both arms up in the air and back in a dramatic gesture, “REJOICE!” Then, he lowered his voice, clasped his hands in front of him, and said, a rather nasty smile forming on his face as he spoke, “And, while I know there are no actual objections, in the event that there were--the VERY theoretical, hypothetical, nigh impossible event---I’d like to remind everyone. . .I’m your healer.” The smile increased, as did the nastiness “Meaning, your bodies, your ability to fight, your lives. . .literally in my hands. As is that of your beloved teammates. And, while I absolutely never would do such a thing. . .it would be just terrible, wouldn’t it, if I were to ever. . .withhold my abilities? We live a very dangerous lifestyle, my friends. Any day could be the day we’re permanently disabled or dead. And I am what stands between that and you, more than anything else does. So. . .just something to keep in mind.” He returned to a jovial tone, sweeping his cape with a flourish and gesturing to the buffet and drinks available, “Now, go ahead and cheer! Make merry among yourselves, for today is a most glorious day for you, the Brotherhood, and all of mutantkind!”

[out-of-this-dimension]

Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others.  We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox.  Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better.  Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all.  Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually.  However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular.  Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive.  I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64.  I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return.  I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies. 

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story.  I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars.  Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky.  Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it.  An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.  

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault.  Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure.  Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault.  This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids.  We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma.  We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma.  That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him.  While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels.  If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels.  Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are.  But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.  

- Revise the scene with Tricky.  I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done.  And why is he suddenly king now?  Did his parents die?  He seems not affected by this at all?  Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it.  Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big.  As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out.  Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously.  And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved.  I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again.  I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive.  This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids.  I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that.  Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask?  I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”.  Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest?  I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off?  They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back.  Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing.  Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning?  Or maybe back in Katina?  And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force.  It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival.  Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen?  I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission.  I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.  

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals.  Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies.  While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well.  While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray.  Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”.  As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion.  Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there).  But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this.  He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids.  Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo?  Are they safe somewhere else?  Where do they go?  How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs.  A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me.  While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out.  I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be.  “But why, Amalia?  Why are you disappointed by that?”  1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes.  2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy.  And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures.  Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later?  Where were the Krazoa in all of this?  Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers?  It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much.  Which I mean, sure.  Family, kiddo game.  I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant.  As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins.  Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations.  Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast.  Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened).  I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it.  I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria.  Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault.  Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible.  It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it.  Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion.  Why?  Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level.  Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team.  Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria.  The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short.  It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware.  I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place?  I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic?  Also where is my revised Adventures music?  Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t? 

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign.  I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints.  I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign.  Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels.  Self-explanatory.  Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.  

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points.  I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers.  It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good.  Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly.  I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it.  And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault.  But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot.  For variety’s sake.  

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind.  So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future.  I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading!  Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s?  Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

[viscountessevie]

For S3 Kanthony: the Queen may have approved of their match, but that doesn’t mean the Ton is going to be anymore welcoming to Kate. Can you imagine how ticked some of those families would be that someone they view as a nobody is now heading a powerful family? Or how about Violet adjusting to someone stepping into her social role? There is so much potential drama here…why can’t we have this on our screen? Also, if Anthony were the only male child, I could see this being a concern. But this isn’t

This is such an old ask so thanks for waiting anon! I think it's related to this ask and the string of posts that had popped up on the main tag a while ago asking for an infertilty storyline for Kathony in S3 (those of you who wanted that are gross af - will explain more later)

When I first got these asks, I did agree these were compelling dramatic conflicts for S3 Kanthony but I just want happily married Kathony in S3. It's a least I deserve after Frannie's recasting and S3 leads.

Something to be noted about this ask is that it was written before the S3 leads announcement 😤 so even if we did get any of these storylines, Pelican is going to overshadow everyone like they've done the last two seasons. That aside, the writing for this show has been objectively god awful and I wouldn't trust the writers to properly complete these arcs well at all.

That reality check aside, let's talk about these potential storylines in a hypothetical world we'd get them:

The Ton's Pushback of Kate:

Yes, it would be interesting to see how Kathony navigates it. And while we did see the Bridgertons' fall from grace last season, it's not going to stick next season. They are pretty untouchable and will bounce back for sure. In that vein, Kate would be protected and the Ton just has to suck up and be nice to her.

Violet Adjusting to Kate being The Viscountess

Okay I know this has mess potential for the conflict of it all and there was a time everyone was saying that Violet and Kate would butt heads running the household. But I can see Book!Violet doing that more than Show!Violet. The latter seems very welcoming and ready for Anthony to marry last season. Girlie was ready to retire is my personal headcanon and it would be more interesting to see Violet guide Kate into the role. Kinda like our version of The Princess Diaries but The Viscountess Diaries ahahha.

Writing this back, I'm realising I just want Kate to be happy in S3 lmao she's suffered too much in her own season already, I don't want anymore drama for my girl.

You're SO right about a potential infertilty sideplot for Kathony. It's so boring, tired and not to mention the optics are going to be shitty. Like let's add one more failure/insecurity for Kate - its like those people who propose these overly angsty canon situations for Kathony are fucked up. Why do yall wanna constantly see these character suffer? I think in fics it's fine but if you overly do it, you might wanna examine that. This isn't just about Kathony fics, across the board I have seen some authors just straight up abuse their so called 'fave' characters in the name of angst it's annoying. Like why do you hate them being happy??

If Shonda does that route with Kathony, she's just as bad and honestly I don't know what to say. She just constantly lets me down with the shows she produces, I have officially given up on her as a creator who champions for her community and characters of colour.

As always thanks for reading this far yall and for this ask, anon!

[specs-and-capelets]

i’ve posted this before on my other account, but i deleted it and— well, i was just too lazy to put it out again. so— why not i put this here for content?

uhh this is on ao3 too, so if u stumble upon it, it’s published by my account :)

prompt: logan’s an idiot at writing love letters and asked janus for his help

—

It was just another usual day at the Mind Palace. Well, slightly unusual, perhaps, Janus concluded. It is rare of him to be so deep into reading while being outside of his room.

The air was crisp and his current spot was perfectly warm, located on the couch at the Commons, where sunlight shone from the opened window, a mercy and reward from the cold morning Janus went through earlier. It was the perfect time to read outside of his room. There’s no disturbance from the other sides on this time around. Roman and Remus were deep in the Imagination now, probably at each other’s throats, Virgil’s alone in his room, most definitely on Tumblr, and Patton’s outside in the garden, enjoying the day. Yes, it’s certainly the best time of the day to read right here, Janus thought with a slight smile in his lips.

Anyway, it was a just a slightly different day than usual, but still a usual day nonetheless.

Footsteps suddenly emerged from the hallway, slightly disturbing the quietness of the Commons. Janus’ eyes teared away from the words of the book, tensing, like a predator sensing an enemy approaching. Tap, tap, tap, the footsteps sounded. It’s a familiar rhythm, Janus realized, relaxing, his eyes going back to the book.

Logic came into his view not a moment later, most of his body obscured by the book in Janus’ hand. The logical side stopped when he saw him, eyes perking up at the sight of the lying side. Oh? Janus half-expected Logan to greet him or say something first, but he seemed to be hesitating, the words uncharacteristically stuck in Logan’s throat.

“Janus,” Logan greeted after a moment, hands subconsciously playing with the edge of his tie.

Janus lowered his book, meeting Logan’s eyes. “Ah, Logan.” The smirk on his lips was automatic. “Greetings. I definitely did not see you there.”

The tension melted slightly from Logan’s body, the logical side shaking his head at Janus obvious lie. “Of course you didn’t,” He replied sarcastically, but the tone immediately died as he spoke again, “Are you-“ Logan cleared his throat, looking at the floor. “Are you, perhaps, busy at the current moment?”

Janus noted the nervous energy Logan seemed to be radiating, his eyebrow raising up in silent acknowledgment. The snake was intrigued, what is this all about? “I’m sure this book could wait.”

“Ah, if that’s the case then-“ He paused shortly. “I need your— input. Regarding a certain matter.” Logan looked slightly uncomfortable and fidgety as he forced the words out, anxiously waiting for Janus’ reply.

It’s unusual to see Logan so nervous, Janus thought inside his head, not sure wether to be delighted at the sight, or be also be anxious himself about the impending question, because Logan and nervous rarely went together. Well, the most nervous Janus had ever witnessed, anyway.

“Ah, of course,” Janus answered coolly, setting down the book he was unconsciously gripping. “Certainly do not ask away, Logan.”

There’s a slight hesitance in his voice, a pause, a flicker of doubt in his eyes before the logical side started talking again, “What is, in your opinion, the best way to write a love letter?”

What?

“Pardon me, a love letter?” Janus asked, incredulous. Had he he misheard him earlier? Surely that must be the case. Logan couldn’t possibly be asking him about love letters.

“Yes,” Logan clarified as he looked at Janus straight in the eye. “A love letter, that is correct.”

“You’re asking me-“ Janus pointed at himself, still incredulous. “On how to write a love letter?”

“That’s right,” Logan answered again, mouth twisting, his expression falling grim as he looked away. “If you’re uncomfortable on answering, then that is fine-“

“No,” Janus cut him off before he could finish the sentence. He sent Logan an apologetic look, not even bothering at all to hide his look of surprise and bewilderment at the question. “Apologies, I just— I’m definitely not surprised you decided to ask me about that.”

Logan huffed out a laugh at that, which also caused Janus grin slightly. “I, too, am surprised at myself as well.”

“This is more of Patton’s field pf expertise,” Janus continued, looking up at Logan, expression still displaying his look of surprise. “Why not ask him? Or Roman, both of them are better at this than I’ll ever be.”

“I already asked them both about this,” Logan answered, then he made a look. “Patton’s suggestions are not... terrible, per se. He told me to write, I quote, ‘my heart out.’ Write it my own way and avoid holding back any details, especially regarding my— ah- feelings. Do not filter my ‘feelings of love’ for the recipient. But it is far too emotional for my taste.” Logan then rolled his eyes fondly as he continued, “As for Roman, his approach is more fanciful. He suggested that I should write a love poem or a sonnet or something else in a similar fashion. He told me to— woo the recipient.”

Janus snorted at that. Logan and love sonnets? Maybe, but really out of character. “I definitely can’t see how that doesn’t suit you.”

“Yes, exactly.” Logan made an appreciative gesture, smiling slightly at Janus. The snake side found himself smiling back, and oh, what a nice smile he had there. Logan continued, “I also asked Virgil for his opinion on the matter. His answer is, and I quote, ‘Ya should just wing it, Lo, we both know we’re terrible at this.’”

Janus found himself laughing at Logan’s impression. Oh god, isn’t Logan adorable, he thought fondly. It’s not like he’s going to say it out loud, of course. “How about Remus?”

Logan only gave Janus a look.

Janus cringed at his mistake. Of course. Asking Remus would be a disaster. “Yes, you’re right. Terrible idea.”

“And that leaves you, Janus,” Logan continued. “I actually believe you’ll give the best advice out of all of them here, as I see you’re not too emotional nor too dramatic in things like this.”

But aren’t things like this are always emotional and dramatic? “I am certainly not flattered you’d think that my advice’ll be the best, but I.. do not doubt that I can give you something- satisfying,” Deceit replies quietly, giving Logan a weak grin.

Logan sighed softly, something flashing in his eyes that Janus couldn’t quite decipher. “Janus, for this past year, I believe we have gotten quite close. You’re more than capable of giving people good advices, and I’m confident to say that since I experienced it firsthand.” He trailed off, something soft blooming in his eyes. “Please, don’t be too hard on yourself.”

The snake side blinked, surprised and touched at Logan’s statement, and he hoped to god he’s not blushing right now.

“Do not blame me if it’s not satisfactory,” He hissed, adjusting his position as he think. “Patton told you to write it in your way, correct? That may be good, but I think you should try writing what the- ah— recipient would like to read.

“Present the letter in the way the recipient would like best,” He explained. “That way, in my opinion, at least, they’ll notice the thought and effort you put for going out of your comfortable zone and write the letter in a manner you’re unfamiliar with.”

Logan nodded, absorbing Deceit’s explanation. “I see.”

“Be humble. Be sentimental. Try to flatter the recipient while also being true and sincere,” Janus added.

Logan hummed, seemingly pondering about something, eyes flickering back to Janus. “If you— hypothetically receive a love letter from someone, what do you wish to find in the letter?”

Janus snorted. “An explanation to why that person deemed me worthy of love, that’s for certain.”

“Are you being serious?” Logan asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Janus, you know that you are, in fact, worthy of love, right? Everyone else here and I love you and care about you, you shouldn’t hesitate to ask us for clarification whenever you’re feeling-“ He pulled out his flash cards from seemingly out of nowhere, picking out one from the pile and reading it. “—not so gucci with yourself.”

“Of course I know that, Lo,” Janus answered, his voice a tad bit louder than earlier. “I just- uh- I’d definitely appreciate if the hypothetical person explained it in the hypothetical letter,” He explained, out of breath for some reason.

Logan gave him a look, but thankfully, he dropped it off, nodding gratefully at Janus. “I think I have enough information to start writing on my own.” He smiled at him. “Thank you for your input, Janus.”

“Yeah,“ Deceit croaked out, feeling faint. “Of course.”

He watched Logan leave, watched as his back disappeared again into the hallway, making sure the other was completely out of sight before slumping his body further in the couch, covering his face with a hand. He sighed deeply, feeling sadness, bitterness, and regret overtaking him in one big wave.

It’s over, he thought. He had his chance, but he never took it.

Logan’s in love with someone else.

—

Janus liked Logan.

He really, really liked him. He couldn’t pin point exactly when it started, but he remembered it being somewhere when Thomas was in college, back when people called him Deceit, where Janus would find Logan up in the latest of nights and earliest of days as he studied alongside Thomas. The times when Janus witnessed Logan finally getting a break, in a form of passing out on the couch in the Commons, relaxed and so, so soft for someone so rigid. As Janus stared at the sleeping side one night, he realized just how much he had done for Thomas, for them. Janus was extremely grateful for that, and he couldn’t help but to fall in love a little deeper.

He may not show it, pressing his feelings down on his chest and continued on his Disney villain charade, but from the start, he cared deeply for the other sides and had an.. extremely fond feelings for the logical side.

Logan, who’s fierce and passionate about facts and knowledge, who won’t hesitate to correct what is wrong and prove what is right, who constantly seek to improve himself. Logan, who’s also kind and caring and understanding in his own way, softer under that hard, stubborn shell of his. Logan, who’s intelligent, who glowed brightly as he mused about the secrets of the universe and talked on and on about biology, philosophy, astronomy, practically every piece of knowledge he studied, and anything and everything in between.

Janus had always been attracted to intelligence, and god, Logan was absolutely gorgeous.

As the years past, Janus’ attraction to the logical side only grew along with their interactions. Polite smiles and curt nods as they walked pass each other turned into greetings and small talks. Small talks about jams and books turned into debates on philosophy and society. And then, they became closer, sharing tea and thoughts together inside the privacy of Logan’s room. Slowly, as their fondness for each other grew, Logan let his guard down around Deceit. He witnessed his private smiles, witnessed his soft laughs, witnessed his tears.

And as the years past, in silence, Janus liked him more and more.

He didn’t pursue it, ultimately pressing down his romantic feelings towards the other side securely in his chest, hoping that it won’t see the light of day. He thought, at first, that maybe if he just ignored it all, the feelings would all go away. Truly a classic way to not deal with anything, really. He didn’t want to cause Logan more problems than he already had, seeing as the nerd wasn’t entirely attuning to his own emotions. He’s also a liar, a deceitful snake, a bad guy in their host’s eyes. Would Logan want that to be his partner? Sure, they may hang out a lot, but would Logan let him in that far?

But then Virgil got accepted, and then him and Remus followed right after. The tension that grew between Light and Dark, as Roman dubbed it, finally subsided. Everything’s better now. Perhaps not perfect, but clearly a lot more better than before. Still, Janus never confessed. He’s still afraid. Afraid of rejection. Afraid of pain. Afraid to destroy the friendship that they had.

So Janus kept quiet, kept going through his days as he silently pined. And now? It’s too late. Logan now had his eyes on someone, and it’s definitely not Janus who’s going to be at the receiving end of the love letter.

It hurt, knowing someone you loved so much for a long time was going to confess to someone else.

At least, Janus concluded, Logan’s happy. And that’s all that truly matters in the end, isn’t it?

—

“Janus!”

It was the day after Logan asked him about love letters. Janus still half expected it to be a dream or some kind of vivid image his brain came up when he spaced out. But no, it really did happened, and it still haven’t failed to baffle him.

Janus was just heading to the kitchen to get something to drink as he waited for breakfast, but Logan’s voice calling out to him stopped him in his tracks, his head looking back automatically to see Logan walking up from behind.

“Logan,” Janus greeted, his mismatched eyes scanning the logical side. He looked— messier than usual. His hair uncharacteristically ruffled in a careless manner, slightly dark circles around his eyes and he looked... not very awake at the moment, which was highly unlike him. “You look positively good, Logan, it looks like you slept well earlier.”

Logan flushed slightly at Janus words. “I was rather occupied the entire night.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “Love letter?”

Logan nodded slightly. “Yes, that is correct.” He cleared his throat. “I have a question to ask you again, if you do not mind answering.”

He’s still on about that? Janus mentally asked, feeling a twinge of annoyance, and maybe a tad jealous. Maybe. It’s not finished? Who is he writing to? What’s taking him so long?

But instead of voicing all that, Deceit only put on a grin, as usual. “Of course, Specs-tacularly Nerdy.” He internally cringed at the nickname. He blamed Roman and his tendency to give everyone ridiculous nicknames.

Logan only rolled his eyes at Janus’ nickname for him. “Various sources suggested to use terms of endearment in addressing the recipient,” Logan said, tilting his head slightly. “Such as ‘My Dearest’ or ‘Beloved’ and other similar to that.”

Janus automatically faked gagged, his hands giving a disapproving gesture. “That definitely does suit you perfectly. You sound perfectly in character using that, Logan. If it were for me, I wouldn’t feel unsettled.”

“Ah, is that so?” Logan grinned at him, and something inside Janus’ chest swelled with affection. Shit. “Fantastic. Thank you again for your opinion, Janus.”

And with that, Logan turn around and ran back to his room, blissfully oblivious about Janus’ internal turmoil, the snake side letting out the breath he was holding as a blush spread on his face.

—

It kept Janus up at night, tossing and turning on his bed, wondering who the hell caught Logan’s affection.

Is it Patton? They both do have some sort of opposites attract kind of dynamic between them. The Heart and The Brain; Patton and Logan. Patton quite obviously adored Logan and the logical side, not so obviously, cared about the fatherly side as well. But wether it’s romantic or merely platonic, Janus was not sure which was true. They hug, they sometimes cuddle on the couch at movie nights, but it’s not enough for him to know that they’re into each-other, or at least, he couldn’t see if Logan was into Patton.

Is it Roman? They had this rivalry dynamic and tension between them. Janus knew better, himself had heard both sides of their opinions towards one another, both holding the other in high regard, respect, and admiration. Because in the end, they both only wanted what’s best for Thomas, and after setting aside their arguments and making some sort of truce, they worked extremely well together. Past all the bickering and arguing and disagreements, they’re very compatible.

Is it Virgil, our resident stormy cloud? They shared many moments together in peaceful quietness as they enjoy each other’s company. When Virgil had his episodes of panic, he’d fall to Logan as the logical side knew the best way to calm him down. They both had deep trust in each other that Janus was honestly jealous of. The left brains of the group. The storm and the grounding earth.

Janus suddenly sat up, realizition whacking him on his head, but Logan had asked them all for advice. Who asks their own love interest advice on how to ask them out? That’s ridiculous. So, the only side Logan didn’t ask was—

Remus. Remus ‘Creativity’ Sanders himself. Janus-

Janus could see them working out. The brain cell and the chaotic madman together. After Remus’ first debut to Thomas, they started talking more, as Remus finally found someone new to grace his presence with and annoy the hell out of. Logan battled Remus’ morbidity with deadpans and indifference, and in the end, they ended up as friends. He was glad that he was spared a little from Remus’ chaos, and that he found someone new to hang out with other than Janus.

It could be Remus, Janus solemnly concluded. With a sigh, he laid back on his bed, thinking why in all hell he’s worked up about this.

Whoever it is, Janus was happy if Logan’s happy. Yeah. He’s totally not sad about that, not at all. And if they broke Logan’s heart? He’s going to strangle them to death.

—

It had been a week since Logan’s last question and nothing noticeable happened ever since.

Sure, they meet up at every once in a while, but Logan never told him his progress regarding the love letter. Did Logan gave the letter already? Was he planning to keep quiet about his new partner? Or was the letter still unfinished?

Janus got his answer late at night.

He was just getting out to get some midnight snacks; a habit he and Virgil seemed to share, apparently. When he entered the Commons to get to the kitchen, he’s surprised to find the television on, illuminating the dark room. The volume was very small, almost muted. There’s a figure slumped on the couch, seemingly watching the documentary show on the tv.

“Logan?” Janus called out, surprised to find the logical trait and not Virgil.

Logan’s head snapped towards Janus’ direction, eyes wide in surprise. “Jan?”

“You shouldn’t be sleeping,” Janus scolded quietly, making his way towards the other side. “What would Thomas do without his logic in maximum condition?”

Logan didn’t answer, choosing only to stare at Janus in silence. The snake side raised an eyebrow at his stare.

“How can I make sure that my letter are going to be receive well?” Logan suddenly asked.

Of course. Perhaps that’s why he’s been postponing to send the letter. He’s afraid.

Janus quietly made his way and sat down next to Logan, making himself comfortable as the other watched him. He made a soft sigh before finally meetinh Logan’s gaze, and in the dark, he could see the fear and uncertainty in his eyes, making Janus’ chest swelled with sympathy.

“There’s no magic formula for this matter,” Janus answered quietly. “Or, scientific formula. Or any formula at all. All you can do is be sincere with your feelings and— Well- hope that whoever it is reciprocates.”

Logan pursed his lips, eyes downcast. “I’m insane aren’t I to ask again and hope that I’ll get a different answer?”

“Perhaps.”

They fell quiet after that, Janus’ quest for a midnight snack long forgotten in favor of spending time with Logan in the darkness of the room, and in the darkness of the night.

In the morning, the others found them on the couch, asleep, with their legs tangled together, Janus’ arm behind Logan’s back and the logical side’s head resting on the deceitful side’s chest. Their backs and limbs may hurt when they woke up, but the warm feeling of waking up next to Logan was definitely worth it for Janus.

—

There’s a blue envelope sitting on Janus doorstep one morning.

The first thing Janus felt after he registered what he’s seeing was indeed there, was utter disbelief and bewilderment that the letter was intended to him. On his doorstep. Then he thought that maybe his twisted brain decided to play tricks on him and present him with this sick hallucination.

But when Janus bent down and picked up the envelope, it’s solid and real between his gloved fingers, so he’s not hallucinating, that means it’s really there. On the other side of the letter, written neat and precise, was his name, Janus.

So it really was for him.

He brought himself and the letter inside his room, still in disbelief that the letter— Logan’s letter was for him. Him. He marched towards his bed, his eyes still glued at the letter as he sat down on his bed.

Janus opened the letter gingerly, taking his time and mentally preparing himself. He could hear the beating of his heart in his ears, his chest filled with anticipation and a sense of disbelief when he finally pulled the paper out of the envelope. He took a deep breath before bringing the paper into eye level, and finally, reading it.

Janus,

I am writing to you this letter in hopes to convey my feelings for you that I couldn’t bear myself to do face-to-face. It may be cliche of me, but the idea of using a love letter seemed perfect at the time and far less daunting than the idea of stating it directly and verbally.

I believe I started to realize my feelings for you was when we increased the number of times we would ‘hang out,’ as the others would say. I was rather busy at that time, but I found myself that I didn’t mind to cut my work time in order to spend more time with you. It baffled me at first. I’m not the kind to pick interacting rather than working, but I find that you are the only exception. Then I started to think deeper about this.

I found that I am unaccountably fond of your smile, your laugh, your presence, and I wish to see you and be with you everyday. I fell in love with your intelligence, with your wit and your snark, with your sarcasm and your charm. And as we got even closer, I fell in love with your passion for psychology and equal passion for arts, I fell in love with your private, softer, caring nature, I fell in love with your touch.

I am utterly and hopelessly in love with you, and it is entirely illogical for me to be so. But with you, I find myself that I do not mind in the slightest.

I would like to keep debating with you. I would like to bring you flowers. I would like to hold your hand. I would even like to kiss you. And in the mornings, I wish to see your face every time I wake up for the rest of my existence.

Sincerely yours,

Logan

Janus calmly folded the letter back into the envelope, setting it down on his bead while millions of thoughts swirled inside his head.

Then he bolted right out of his room. He had to see Logan now.

Finally arriving in front of Logan’s door, he didn’t waste time and started knocking frantically, anticipation practically killing him inside.

The door opened, revealing Logan’s confused face. “Yes-?”

Janus pushed him inside and slammed the door shut behind him before Logan could even compute that it’s Janus. “You buffoon.”

Logan’s eyes widened in confusion. “What?”

“You absolute moron.” Janus repeated his statement more heatedly, jabbing a finger to the other side’s chest. A fierce, hot blush spread on his face as he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“What- what are you--?” The utter bafflement was thick in his tone and features, the side stopping mid sentence. It took Logan a few long seconds to realize what in all hell was Janus talking about. A similar blush glowed on Logan’s cheeks as realization hit him. “Ah. The letter.”

“We wasted so much time,” Janus said more calmly, his tone softer than earlier. “I could’ve been kissing you stupid from a long time ago.”

“I apologize it took me so long to realize my— feelings.” Logan looked genuinely apologetic, and before Janus could tell him not to apologize about that, he continued, “And how long it took me to finish the letter.”

A relieved huff of air left Janus’ mouth followed by a smile forming on his lips. Logan loved him. Logan truly loved him.

The logical side looked away, still blushing. With a surge of confidence, Janus took the opportunity to hold his hand, causing Logan to look back at him with wide eyes, the blush burning brighter.

“I can’t believe you used a love letter to confess,” Janus commented playfully, teasingly, as he took in Logan’s red face. God, Janus felt so happy. So very happy that this absolutely wonderful nerd loved him back. After all the waiting, all the pining, all the the things his heart yearned to do with him was all in his reach now. “Why not face to face? You’re usually straightforward when it comes to communicating.”

“I can’t- I cannot bear to see the look on your face if you-“ His voice cracked. “Reject me,” Logan answered quietly, vulnerably honest. There’s a wave of doubt in his eyes as Janus gaze into them.

“Oh, Logan,” Janus said so, so softly, smiling, leaning in. “I love you, too.”

Then Janus pulled Logan by the hand, yanking him down, his other hand firmly holding the other’s face as he pushed himself forward and crashed their lips together.

Logan made a startled sound muffled by the lips that was against his own, but Janus kept kissing him and kissing him, one hand fisted in Logan’s collar and the other cupping his face, overjoyed to know that this wonderful, beautiful nerd was his. The logical side obviously didn’t know what to do with his hands, opting to just rest them on both of Janus’ shoulder.

Janus pulled away, staring at Logan’s eyes, gaze full of adoration. “I love you,” He claimed again, emotional and sincere, so uncharacteristically soft and tender. He rested his head on the other’s shoulder, pulling him into a hug. “I love you.”

Logan, teary-eyed and still blushing, smiled back with equal love and affection for the other. And softly, he said the words back,

“I love you, too.”

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!