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stillness-in-green · 3 years ago

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Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Three)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front

Introduction and Part One Part Two

PART THREE: Ethical Problems

Law Enforcement Conduct

The first thing that jumps out—the thing everyone talks about first and foremost about the raid—was Hawks’ murder of Twice. Murder is a controversial word in this context, I know, but I stand by it: regardless of his guilt or his intent, Bubaigawara Jin was a fleeing man who Hawks made a cold, rational decision to quite literally stab in the back. In that moment, Hawks appointed himself as an executioner of the state and murdered a man without due process—no trial, no judge, no nothing. It was an extrajudicial killing,[26] and while I know many people in the U.S. have gotten kind of jaded about that sort of thing, let me assure you that police brutality is still police brutality even when it’s being exercised against people who have committed crimes.

To illustrate this, allow me to share a few more excerpts from the Penal Code:

Assault and Cruelty by Specialized Public Employees: When a person performing or assisting in judicial, prosecutorial or police duties commits, in the performance of their duties, an act of assault or physical or mental cruelty upon the accused, suspect or any other person, imprisonment or imprisonment without work for not more than 7 years is imposed.

Abuse of Authority Causing Death or Injury by Specialized Public Employees: A person who commits a crime prescribed under the preceding Article and thereby causes the death or injury of another person is dealt with by the punishment for the crimes of injury or the punishment prescribed in the preceding Article, whichever is severer.

The punishments for Criminal Injury are imprisonment for not more than fifteen years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen or, if the injury results in death, imprisonment for not less than three years. That’s really what Hawks ought to be looking at for Twice's murder, save that apparently heroes just aren't liable for this stuff, otherwise they'd be up against it all the time in the course of “fighting villains.” Certainly, Hawks doesn’t seem to have faced any repercussions thus far, beyond having to apologize in a press conference.

Now, again, many American readers of My Hero Academia are deeply embedded in a culture that normalizes police violence, and so there is a lot of callous handwaving about how Hawks did the right thing because Jin was a significant threat. In response to such dismissal, let me provide a few more numbers:

In the U.S. in 2019, law enforcement killed over a thousand people.

In the same year in Japan, law enforcement killed two. Two people.

In the U.S., a major factor in how police keep skating on these deaths is the legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which is nominally intended to protect officers from frivolous lawsuits in cases where they’re ruled to be acting in “good faith,” a vague ruling which has made successful prosecution of police brutality and negligence all but impossible.

Japan, and I cannot stress this enough, does not have this doctrine. The significance of law enforcement taking a life is not so casually brushed aside in other places in the world, so please don’t try to tell me that Horikoshi was trying to get across the idea that Hawks did the right thing, easy as that. The critical depiction of heroes and Hero Society dehumanizing their enemies is all over the manga.

When the Tartarus guards discuss what the government is doing about Gigantomachia, one of them complains that the higher-ups can’t use missiles—missiles!—on him because he’s quote-unquote-human.[27] During their battle at Kamino, All Might tells All For One that this time, he’s going to put him in a prison cell—he characterizes his attempt to kill All For One six years ago as a mistake. Even in the spin-off manga, Vigilantes, designated police representative Tsukauchi[28] looks absolutely aghast at Endeavor’s willingness to use lethal force against Pop Step, an innocent-until-proven-guilty minor, even though, at that time, they have all the evidence in the world that she is actively engaged in setting off bombs in populated areas.

Most prominent is the series’ treatment of the High End Noumu. The heroes rationalize them as corpses, monsters, inhuman, all in order to kill them guilt-free,[29] and this rationalization spills over to Shigaraki during the War Arc, as the chasm of understanding between heroes and villains reaches its most stark. Yet, that same arc was proceeded by the reveal of the truth about Kurogiri, which had Tsukauchi directly acknowledge that they may have misunderstood the Noumu as the series dangled the possibility that Kurogiri possesses lingering awareness from Shirakumo Oboro. Earlier, we had Ending, a man who wanted Endeavor to kill him and thought Endeavor would do it specifically because Endeavor killed the High End, and this act set him decisively apart from the non-murdery heroic norm. Even into the War Arc itself, we were getting new information on the Noumu: to wit, we were shown incontrovertible proof—in the form of Woman’s internal monologue in Chapter 268—that the High End Noumu do think.

Even if we assume the government has relaxed its prohibitions about public servants assaulting people in the course of carrying out their duty, it does not follow that Hawks’ extrajudicial execution was totally fine. Heroes are not supposed to kill because police are not supposed to kill, and in Japan, it isn’t assumed that they will the moment they run into resistance.

And look, this is not to say that Japanese police never get away with police brutality. Obviously, the country has its own problems with the issue, typically involving racism and ethnocentrism. But the way that some people in the fandom just brush off Jin’s death does a disservice to the way the series frames Hawks’ actions and what that framing is communicating to a Japanese reader.

Also, even putting aside the matter of his death, openly taunting a mentally ill man about how easy it was to fool him definitely pings me as an act of mental cruelty, though of course there’s no one to sue Hawks over that one, seeing as he murdered the victim and only witness. (Chapter 264)

That all said, there are other issues with the heroes’ actions during the raid. One is called out right in the text: Midnight acknowledges that the use of chemical agents is illegal, but calls upon Momo to engineer knock-out drugs to use against Gigantomachia anyway. Is that an action Momo will face any repercussions for at all? And if not, what does it imply about the setting that she won’t?

Here’s another big one: what’s the legality of heroes using their quirks against civilians? Because that’s what the vast majority of the PLF are, civilians. Oh, they’re suspects, sure, but throughout the manga, “heroes” aren’t set up as people who just fight any and every tiny crime they come across. From the very first chapter, heroes are set up as a specific counter to “evildoers” designated as “villains”—legally defined as people who use their quirks illegally two or more times.[30]

There is a very illuminating scene in the second chapter of Vigilantes in which Aizawa confronts Knuckleduster for his assault of a random businessman and, the moment he realizes Knuckleduster is quirkless, apologizes for the misunderstanding and walks away. If Knuckleduster doesn’t have a quirk, Knuckleduster by definition cannot be a villain, and thus, Aizawa is not authorized to throw down with him.[31] It’s somewhat unclear, not least because a lot of the evidence is in the more-interested-in-systemic-worldbuilding Vigilantes, but there is reason to believe that heroes are not allowed to use their quirks against people who are committing mundane crimes.[32] If anything, I should think that heroes only using their quirks on people who are using their quirks illegally is part of the philosophical scaffolding that gives heroes their moral authority—you see this argument from the first bearer of One For All, who loudly espouses that people not only should not use their quirks selfishly, but that quirks should only be used to help others. This kind of supposed selflessness is what MHA’s current society is built on.

To see the relevance here, consider Trumpet. Oh, he absolutely was using his quirk illegally, but can the system prove that?[33] After all, he only ever used it on allies—do you think they're in a big hurry to snitch on him? Do you think Mr. Compress is going to? And if the police can't prove Trumpet used his quirk illegally, then is he even a capital-V Villain? What about all those other rank and file types? Certainly we saw the ones at the villa fighting back with quirks, but what about those supporters at bases scattered around the country? Did they fight back, and if so, did they do it with quirks? If not, was it legal for them to be targeted by heroes?

More importantly, can they mount an argument on that, be it a legal or a moral one?

The Scope of the Operation

The next big ethical problem actually predates the raid itself, and it’s this: how did the Commission know where to target their raids? How did they obtain that information? Specifically, how many privacy violations were involved? It strains credulity well past my personal breaking point to imagine that Hawks and the Commission were able to get every name, every base of operations, especially given the limitations they were under—the fact that Hawks couldn’t communicate openly, the hard time limit before the PLF put their plan in motion, making sure they didn’t tip off someone in the massive secret organization that had people working in heroics, the government, the infrastructure, etc.—but let’s consider the sorts of avenues the HPSC did have available to them.

So to start with, they send in Hawks, who’s specifically trained to extract information from people without raising suspicion about his motives. Doubtlessly, he’s able to get all sorts of names,[34] starting with the higher-ups—not just Re-Destro and his inner circle, but also any of the advisors that e.g. run businesses that they invite him to patronize, MLA heroes, and so on. And with a decent crop of names in hand—let us assume for the sake of argument that Hawks had some way to communicate those names to his handlers—the HPSC can start doing background checks and digging in.

Where do these people come from? Where were they born, and, if they moved, where did they settle? Where do they work? What are their social pastimes? Trace the commonalities, look into publicly available records, use wiretaps…

Yes, the police in Japan can totally use wiretaps if they suspect organized criminal activity—it was one of the powers expanded significantly under that controversial 2017 law I footnoted earlier. One thing to note is that this does require a warrant, or at least the expectation that a judge will grant a warrant.[35] But how far does that go? Can they get a warrant for financial records? How about phone records? E-mail accounts?

Can they wiretap people for no reason save their association with a name Hawks provided? If a PLF member attends a Jazzercize class on Thursday mornings, does every member of that class start noticing a weird little reverb on their phone calls for a week? Does Re-Destro’s hometown have an influx of people poking around evaluating its potential as a place to live? If Slidin’ Go once snatched your dog out of traffic and you subsequently bought a Slidin’ Go keychain, are you and your family now under investigation?

Getting details on people like the CEO of Detnerat and the head of the Hearts & Minds Party is probably pretty straightforward; heck, investigating Kizuki Chitose’s publication history was probably a goldmine in and of itself. That sort of surveillance gets more complicated and difficult to justify—and to make credible to the reader—the further down the chain of command you go, though. Sooner or later, the HPSC would have had to make a call: knowing that they don’t have the time, freedom, and resources to perfectly get only and exactly everyone that’s a real threat, do they overcompensate or do they undercompensate?

You only have to look at Hero Society to know which answer they were going to go with.[36]

To be fair, undercompensating, while it clearly would have been easier on their strained resources, ran the risk of leaving threats out there to come back to bite them later. They likely thought that they’d done enough undercompensating for Shigaraki Tomura, compounded by the fact that apparently there hadn’t been enough done about Destro’s followers back in the day, either. I mean, better to grab everyone and then let the courts sort it out, right? Rather than risk innocents getting hurt?

Well, let’s talk about innocents. Innocents, and the costs of overcompensating.

Pictured: a man who was in daily close contact with the leader of the movement and who was at one point in time in possession of a copy of the movement's manifesto. (Chapter 218)

The problem with grabbing everyone in a group, even the most obviously PLF-aligned groups, is that there are always going to be both people who don’t seem to know anything because they’re very good at living double lives and aren’t particularly active on the recruitment front, and people who don’t seem to know anything because they legitimately don’t know anything.

The Gunga Villa is straightforward enough—on paper, it was probably reserved for a business retreat for four months, because you certainly wouldn’t want some random newlywed couple booked for a nice mountain honeymoon recognizing Shigaraki Tomura wandering around. Same story for the employees; the MLA wouldn’t have put the League up at the villa if there was a chance that anyone there would rat them out. So I think we can assume relatively fairly that anyone in the building the day of the conference is solidly implicated, whatever their claims might be otherwise.

Of course, plenty might well try to claim that they were just there for the vacation, or just started work last week and had no idea the place was a nest for conspiracy, but that was where Hawks spent most of his time, and most of the people at the villa presumably fought back against the heroes. It might be a complicated process, matching hero eyewitness testimony to every person there, but you can at least sort of see the path to it.

Other groups, however, are a lot less straightforward. Consider the following categories:

The Liberated Districts

As I discussed earlier, Deika was presumably a high watermark on societal saturation, but Deika still only counted 90% of the population as “Liberation Warriors, lying in wait.” That leaves 10% unaccounted for. So who are those 10%? Are they children?[37] Some children too young to know anything about the PLF, and some old enough to know but not yet old enough to be considered warriors for the cause? Are they instead elderly people, maybe remnants from when the MLA first started to infiltrate the town that have just never had enough close family or social life to get pulled into the Liberation Army by the usual vectors?

By far the worst option is if Trumpet’s 90% accounts for anyone even remotely connected to the MLA—that would mean one out of every ten people in Deika is legitimately completely ignorant of what the powers that be had brought in. How on earth are you supposed to tell those people apart from the other 90% when the heroes sweep in and arrest absolutely everyone? Or are we to believe that the HPSC had time to get in an agent to flash a covert L-sign at everyone in town and they only arrested people who visibly acknowledged it?

These problems only get worse for our hypothetical town that’s 70% PLF. That opens you up to far more people who have only recently started getting drawn in. Consider the disaffected twenty-something whose family has no idea what’s been keeping him out so late in the evenings. The young mother who met the nicest and most convincing people via the daycare, but whose husband is always out of town on business trips so she hasn’t had time to introduce him to anyone. The working parents who just joined up and whose kid, away at hero school, doesn’t know anything—yet.[38]

Evaluating these peoples’ social circles and financial history for other PLF attachments is going to turn up a ludicrous number of false positives unless the Commission can narrow down exactly when and where such people crossed paths with the ideology of Liberation. So many people would have been raised to it, people whose entire lives are suspect, but mistaking even one new recruit for a lifelong loyalist gives you exponentially more avenues to baselessly suspect people—and as established, the Commission just doesn’t have the time to be overly discerning.

Detnerat, Shoowaysha, and Feel Good Inc.

This is another line of attack that seems like it should be a bullseye, but is actually quite the opposite. Detnerat is a business that is run by the leader of the entire movement, yet the fact that not everyone who works there is a member of the MLA is one of the very first things we find out about them! Miyashita was something akin to a personal aide or secretary to Rikiya, someone Rikiya liked well enough that he was on the verge of introducing Miyashita to his other friends—and Miyashita didn’t know the first thing about his boss’s true affiliations. It’s patently obvious from that alone that not everyone at Detnerat is PLF, and it's likely that the numbers of the faithful are even thinner at Curious and Skeptic's outfits, where they're high-ranked executives but, crucially, not actually in charge.

This is, of course, complicated further by the fact that people who work at e.g. a publishing house are probably there because they agree with that publishing house’s politics, whether or not they know what’s going on behind the scenes. Ditto with Detnerat—certainly there would be people there who just needed a job and could charm their way through an interview without an inner passion for the work, but loads of people probably work there because they legitimately believe in the company’s ethos. So how do you tell people who have relatively radical personal politics without having any idea about the terrorism apart from the people who are absolutely PLF/ex-MLA but who are now lying about it because their organization's cover is blown and the response to that is, “Well, time to go back underground!”

The Hearts & Minds Party

Membership of this party would seem to be a good indicator, but using it that way too unquestioningly is also very flawed. This is because the HMP particularly is probably an excellent recruitment tool for the MLA/PLF. The note above about having radical political beliefs but still being ignorant about the planned acts of terror is especially true for the HMP. The Commission cannot just pull the voting records and arrest all of them because plenty of them are going to be totally ignorant of what was really going on with the heart of the party, only joining up because they believed in the kinds of things the HMP was platforming on—less repressive quirk use laws, prison reform, very possibly issues like the abolishment of the legal category “villain” or greater social safety nets. Just because someone votes for those things, doesn’t mean they know about or would support the MLA’s violent extremism or the PLF’s anarchic goals.

So at what level of initiation does the Commission call a cut-off? How long does someone have to have been voting straight-ticket HMP for them to be considered condemned by that association?

Over and over again, the question arises: how did the heroes and the police distinguish the initiated from the uninitiated? And given that Japan’s legal system at least nominally requires that guilt be proven, what are they going to do when huge numbers of those people claim innocence?

The Presupposition of Guilt

Let’s take a few minutes to circle back to what I talked about earlier, the presumption of guilt and how it relates to arrests, convictions, and the perception of arrestees in Japan. This is going to swerve hard back towards real-life Japan issues for a bit, but it is exceptionally relevant when examining what’s likely to happen to the people arrested in the raids, innocent and guilty alike, so thanks in advance for bearing with me.

In Japan, the rate of conviction is extraordinarily high—if you’re in anime fandom and active in social justice circles, you may have seen the tumblr posts about the country’s famed 99.9% conviction rate.[39] There are a range of explanations for this. Defenders argue that, compared to police in many other countries, police in Japan are very cautious and don't move to prosecute unless a case is all but airtight; thus, many who are arrested may well be released without charge if there is even the slightest doubt that the case will hold up in court. One can easily see truth to this by looking at the numbers on how many people are arrested in Japan versus how many are actually charged: Wikipedia notes (albeit without citation) that in the U.S., roughly 42% of arrests in felony cases result in prosecution, while in Japan the figure is only 17.5%.

Conversely, critics note that a major feature of convictions in Japan is the confession, and confessions can be coerced, particularly in the sorts of conditions that those imprisoned in pre-trial detention are kept—no legal representation, no contact with their families, loved ones or employers, no requirement that they be informed about what they’re being charged with, potential weeks upon weeks kept in isolation, sessions of questioning that can extend for most of the day.

There have also been cases in which confessions have been found to be falsified, for example by having the suspect sign a paper and then filling in or altering other details after the fact.

There are some other factors about confessions to be aware of here:

In Japan, it is not legally permissible for a suspect to be convicted solely based on their confession. The constitutional provision in this regard is something called himitsu no bakuro, the “revelation of secret.” The revelation of secret is something in the confession that is factually verifiable and which, at the time of the confession, only the suspect could have known. Common examples are things like the location of a previously undiscovered body or the time and location where a weapon used in the crime was purchased. The majority of verdicts that are overturned in Japan are overturned because of issues with a confession.

Sentencing is also very lenient compared to the U.S., particularly if the suspect was cooperative with police and admitted guilt (seen as showing remorse). Thus you wind up with a situation in which suspects believe that they’ll lose a case if they go to trial (because practically everyone does) and prosecutors—rather more aware of the weaknesses in a case than a confused and vulnerable layman—don’t want to bring a shaky case to trial, and thus both parties are invested in whatever will get the suspect out with a minimum of effort. The result of this is a high number of people released on “suspended prosecution,” which is an admission of guilt, but with a prosecutor's decision to show lenience while still establishing precedent for possible later offenses warranting more severe punishment. This is a particularly common result for first-time offenders, especially in non-violent crimes.

Note that suspended prosecution is not at all the same thing as being released for lack of evidence; a suspect is conceding their guilt by accepting the arrangement. However, many suspects who the police might not be confident in convicting are known to sign confessions and accept the arrangement regardless, because, along with fear for their livelihoods, it’s known that judges tend to view extended time in detention as a sign of guilt. Also too, if admitting guilt is seen as showing remorse, then maintaining one’s innocence is often perceived as a lack of remorse—leading to fears that fighting the charges will result not only in defeat, but also in harsher sentencing!

All of these factors combine into a problem with perception of guilt that feeds on itself endlessly at all levels. Let me use a run-on sentence to summarize: the general public views anyone who is even arrested as probably guilty, because the police are seen as generally only moving on those who are guilty, because police specifically only prosecute those who they can all but prove are guilty, but guilt can be “proven” by a sufficiently detailed confession, and while confessions are required to have some corroborating evidence, they can easily be falsified and may well be offered up with minimal resistance because the suspect is also convinced that judges will only be harsher on them if they put up a fight because suspects also believe that they will be convicted at trial because everyone knows the conviction rate is unbelievably high.

Japan likes to think of itself as a “safe” country, which is in large part why its deeply concerning arrest and detainment procedures have held up repeatedly in court. These things help keep people safe, after all, and who wouldn't want people to be safe?

Returning, then, to the matter of My Hero Academia and the Paranormal Liberation Front mass arrest, I don’t think it’s overstating things to claim that the dehumanization of villains and the glamorization of heroes has probably exacerbated these problems.

Cruel punishments are illegal under Article 36 of the Japanese constitution? But what if someone really, really deserves it, though? (Chapter 94)

You can see that willingness to shrug off civil rights violations as long as it means safety in the symbol All Might represents, a hero who is there to beat up baddies, not ask questions about why they're being bad. Ditto Tartarus, where the Bad People get put, regardless of whether their Bad really warrants so awful a punishment or whether the severity of such a punishment serves as an effective deterrent.[40]

As to the presupposition of guilt, if a hero thinks they saw someone Doing A Bad, and confidently testifies to that effect, who’s going to doubt them? It’s blunt to the point of headache-inducing that Midoriya Izuku, the boy who will be the greatest hero, who’s treated by the story as if he’s the first person in history to think about “saving” a “villain,” doesn’t even start to think about such a thing until he literally experiences a psychic impression of a five-year-old crying within the heart of Shigaraki Tomura.

At the press conference in Chapter 306, it’s illustrated numerous times that huge portions of society don’t particularly care about Dabi’s accusations. They don’t ask for Hawks to face justice for the murder he openly admits to committing; they don’t ask for apologies for the heroes’ wrongdoings. They ask for heroes to make them feel safe. Even if it means lying to them; even if it means asking Endeavor to go out there and “take down” his firstborn son. People are uneasy about the accusations, certainly, but what they want is not for heroes to take responsibility for their actions, to atone for them, but rather to deny that there’s any truth to the accusations at all.

This is not a society that, in the wake of Gigantomachia’s rampage, is going to be open to the possibility that some people caught up in the mass arrest are legitimately innocent and that everyone, even villains, deserves to be afforded the full extent of their rights.

The Dissolution of the HMP

Speaking of rights, let’s go over one that we can immediately see has been flagrantly violated in the manga compared to the state of real-life Japanese law—the overnight dissolution of the Hearts & Minds Party.

As discussed earlier, it's unlikely that every member is a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist. There are bound to be perfectly innocent people in the country who just so happen to agree with the HMP’s campaign platforms. Now, all of those people are going to turn on the evening news[41] and be blindsided with the news that their political party has just been dissolved and some enormous percentage of its membership arrested. This was not publicized or forewarned; it just happened, in a matter of hours. Do you think those people—people who are members of a party that specifically opposes the current status quo—are just going to nod and say, “Oh, wow, that sucks, but who am I to question the wisdom of the government and its agents? Time to find a new political party, I guess!” Would you?

I can assure you that you wouldn’t, because let me be clear: under current Japanese law, what we’re told happened to the HMP is unbelievably illegal—not only because they were dissolved at all, but particularly the speed with which that dissolution was carried out.

I mentioned earlier, in the section “Japan and Illegal Organizations,” that there were methods by which organizations can be dissolved. Now I’d like to look at that in more detail.

Any organization that’s been flagged as a potential threat—that “terroristic subversive activity” designation—can come under investigation from the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Their recommendations are then passed up for evaluation by a member of the Public Security Examination Commission,[42] who can pass a variety of prohibitions—the bans I mentioned earlier on printing activities, public assembly, and a few others. These prohibitions are issued in periods lasting up to six months, at which point they are re-evaluated and can be dismissed or renewed.

If the Public Security Examination Commission decides that the comparatively soft-pedal restrictions on freedom of the press or freedom of assembly are not sufficient to deter the organization in question from committing terroristic subversive activity continuously/repeatedly in the future, the Commission can elect to order the organization dissolved. This revokes their rights mentioned above entirely, and further stipulates that they liquidate their assets,[42] and that no member of or representative for the organization can take actions in the organization’s interest (e.g. things like opening bank accounts or buying property). The only exception to the latter restriction is a designated representative for the organization who is granted the right to manage its assets in the process of overseeing the dissolution.

Any of the designations above can be appealed, but dissolution is permanent until specifically overturned.

Now, it might well seem that the HMP could be targeted under the “advocating for subversive terroristic activity” criteria, but here’s the problem with that: that criteria is based on the organization engaging in/advocating for such terroristic subversiveness as an organizational activity—that is, the activity in question is a foundational, core aspect of the organization’s endeavors. And I simply don’t think that’s how the HMP operates. To reiterate, I believe they’re a recruitment tool, meant to siphon people into the MLA (later the PLF) proper, but otherwise a perfectly legitimate political party with real political aims, outreach, goals, and so on.

Of course, I can easily see the anger over all the destruction leading the Ministry of Justice to being heavy-handed in its response to the Paranormal Liberation Front and any organization even suspected of being associated with it, of which the HMP is the most prominent. I could also simply be wrong about what the HMP says at their rallies. Regardless of either of those possibilities, however, there is still the matter of the timetable.

There was a period in Japanese history that organizations—political parties especially—could be dissolved on the spot. The Meiji Constitution granted that right to the Minister of Home Affairs, a Cabinet position appointed by the Emperor, and indeed, any number of socialist, communist, or labor-oriented parties were banned and dissolved within scant months of their establishment for their alleged leftist or subversive leanings.[44] The Farmer-Labor Party of 1925 was dissolved three hours after its establishment! So clearly there’s some precedent—or at least, there was. Like many things, the power to summarily dissolve organizations did not survive the Meiji Constitution’s transformation into its modern-day incarnation after World War II.

The Subversive Activities Prevention Act, the same one that lays out the causes for dissolving an organization, also details a legally mandated process by which this dissolution is carried out. Most prominently, organizations cannot just be dissolved with no notice, no chance to defend themselves. Any disposition curtailing an organization's activities, from the bans on their printed material to complete dissolution, is required to be announced both via the government's official gazette[45] and, if the residence of a chief officer or representative of the organization is known, also via written notification. These notifications must be sent at least seven days before the hearing date—a hearing which, further, the organization has the legal right to send agents to in order to present statements and evidence in their own favor, as well as examine the evidence being presented against them.

This clearly did not happen. Bare minimum, Hanabata Koku, as leader of the Hearts & Minds Party, should have had an address the Commission could get ahold of, especially given all the snooping they so obviously must have been doing to unearth the extent of the PLF’s reach.

It’s instructive, in this regard, to look to history. To wit, I’ve said a lot about how gun-shy Japan is to dissolve organizations outright, thanks to its history of governmental repression—but how true is that really? If the government really wanted to, couldn’t it just decide to crack down on something and ride out the controversy? Has it done as much before?

To put all this into proper perspective: no. It hasn’t. The government has invoked the Subversive Activities Prevention Act against a group rather than individuals only once in all the time since the act was passed in 1952.

It was against Aum Shinrikyo, and it didn’t happen until seven months after the subway attacks. Even with nearly unanimous desire to prosecute, even though Aum had been under police surveillance prior to the attacks, even though lawsuits against them were and had been ongoing, meaning at least some measure of investigation was being done openly, it still took seven months to gather the evidence, submit it to the Public Safety Examination Commission, allow Aum their appeal, and enact the ruling. That’s because, in a society ordered by democratic processes, these things take time.[46]

But the HMP? No one who wasn’t a member knew about their affiliation with the League of Villains—much less an underground army!—until Hawks got the word out, and the Hero Public Safety Commission had to be rigorously careful that news of their investigations not leak because they knew they had their own moles to deal with. So far as we know, the Hearts & Minds Party remained a legit organization right up until the day of the raid. It is functionally impossible under current Japanese law for them to have been dissolved in the scant few hours between the commencement of the raid and the attack on Tartarus in which the two guards mention the dissolution.

Even if the relevant agency in the Ministry of Justice submitted their paperwork the absolute minimum of time in advance, there is no way the HMP and Trumpet—and therefore Re-Destro and the League and everyone else—shouldn’t have known that the government was moving against them. The only answer is that the Ministry of Justice was evading its legal obligation to notify both the public[47] and the HMP itself, or that the Japanese government, in the wake of the Advent of the Exceptional, throttled back on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms exactly the way human rights activists today are always warning about.

Stigma and Recidivism

In the same way that In Custody is not (or shouldn't be) a magic status effect preventing villains from escaping from police, In Jail is not an endgame state. Most people in prison are not there for life (or death) sentences, particularly not in Japan. Even if the majority of the PLF gets stuck in prison for decades, there will, eventually, be an “after” for them. So what happens “after”?

Well, like many countries, Japan has made efforts in the modern day to offer training classes and parole officers to help reacclimate ex-convicts into society once they’ve done their time, but it remains a difficult process, and the country has a relatively high recidivism rate. Given the stigma against criminals—present to a degree in all countries, but particularly exacerbated in Japan—it is frequently difficult for released prisoners to find stable housing or employment—both key factors helping to prevent recidivism.

So does MHA’s Japan have similar programs? Well, it’s hard to say, given that the only prison we’ve actually seen is Tartarus, which is obviously a poor model to base a lot of judgement on—save, of course, that any country that could develop a place like Tartarus is a country with an appalling deficit of care for criminals’ human rights, which doesn’t bode well for their other prisons.

Speaking of things that don’t bode well, though, we have two obvious examples in the canon of how convicted criminals fare: both Gentle Criminal and Twice are, it’s suggested, prosecuted for their foundational fuck-ups—Tobita for obstructing public duties[48] and Jin for his traffic infraction. It’s unclear whether they went to prison or not—given the relative lenience shown to first-time offenders, I’m inclined to think probably not—but even given these very mild offenses, their lives were turned completely upside-down, and no apparent efforts were made to help them through chaotic periods that saw Tobita apparently disowned and Jin losing his job.

Consider the harsh reactions they garnered and the apparent lack of assistance from any social structure despite the relative mildness of their wrongs, and things start to look very bad indeed for the PLF. Will there be any steps taken at all to deradicalize them? Does taking such steps seem likely, given what we've seen of MHA’s legal and carceral systems thus far? Further, if there is no plan for deradicalization, how exactly do the heroes propose to stop this from happening again (and again, and again and again and again)?

Here’s another alarming thought: what will be done with the children? There’s no way around the fact that the MLA, and therefore the PLF, included children[49]—and I don’t mean it in the tumblr sense of describing a sixteen-year-old as “a literal child,” though there would be some of those, too. No, I mean the grade-schoolers, the toddlers, the babies. Maybe some of them will have non-PLF family they could hypothetically go to, but as I have written about in the past, there’s a very real bias about orphans and other children separated from their parents in Japan, and even blood ties are not always enough to overcome that stigma. Alternative care is in a woefully sorry state as it is in Japan, and this would only be compounded for PLF kids—damned first for their criminal associations and again for being the children society doesn’t want.

However many thousands of them that may be.[50]

So here again, a question recurs. Where before it was, “How do you tell the guilty from the innocent?” here it’s, “How do you stop the societal backlash from ruining countless peoples’ lives both now and for decades into the future?” What kind of stigma will all these people—rank and file who come out of prison deradicalized and ready to rejoin society, children who were too young to understand why heroes took their parents away, ignorant family and friends who just lost loved ones to a massive government sweep, innocents swept up in the net and imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit—going to be facing? How long, then, before that stigma sees them radicalized in turn?

You cannot sweep 115,000 people under the rug and not expect there to be a stain—and given the narrative themes of the rest of My Hero Academia thus far, it’s absurd to think that’s even an option.

Next time: how scrapping the ex-MLA portions of the PLF undermines MHA's narrative integrity.

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

Footnotes (Part Three)

[26] And in the legal sense, murder in the second degree.

[27] For the monstrous callousness of his comments in that conversation, said guard is immediately murdered by karma All For One. I very much hope we ever get Shishikura’s opinion on this, because I’m pretty sure the guard was his dad.

[28] Who, in Chapter 35 of that series, leads a group of police firing rubber bullets at an active villain, emphasizing that the police are trained in non-lethal tactics, and any escalation from that is not to be taken lightly.

[29] Indeed, you could make a fair argument that that’s exactly why the manga included the Noumu to begin with, though the lower-tier ones wind up captured as often as not.

[30] Vigilantes, Chapter 74.

[31] This sidesteps the matter of “rescue heroes,” those who focus on disaster response and evacuation. Note, however, that this is not a categorization that pits those heroes against non-quirk-abusing civilians. Non-quirk-abusing civilians are criminals for police to deal with, not heroes of any stripe.

[32] This would be in keeping with real-world de-escalation tactics. So for e.g. the purse-snatcher in Chapter 1, where we’re told he didn’t use his quirk until he’d been backed into a corner, I would bet that Kamuy Woods or whoever confronted the thief didn’t start actually using their quirk on the man until he went into giant mode. That is anyway a kinder interpretation than noting that he was a heteromorph and would have been using his quirk automatically just by virtue of existing in public.

[33] After digging him out from under the stairway it had a teenager drop on top of him, I mean. Did he even have much of a chance to use Incite at the villa, do you think?

[34] Though given that literally every member of the MLA we’ve met is addressed solely by their code name, I don’t for a second believe he could have gotten real names out of everyone he talked to.

[35] And judges virtually always grant warrants. It’s that presumption of guilt thing again.

[36] But that panel of the normally taciturn Edgeshot shouting at a bunch of high schoolers not to let a single person escape is pretty damn telling too.

[37] 14% of the Japanese populace is under 14 years old, so that’s not too far off, though I’d be inclined to think, based on everything we know about them, that the MLA was having more kids than Japan at large, not fewer.

[38] This should have been Uraraka, by the way.

[39] An exaggeration, but only by a handful of tenths of a percentage point.

[40] Though until recently, it’s served as a great check on recidivism, clearly.

[41] You know, assuming that they weren't all arrested in the middle of their workday or cleaning house or going to university or what have you.

[42] Both are among the agencies that make up the Ministry of Justice. I’d be willing to bet that, in-universe, the Hero Public Safety Commission is also under the Ministry of Justice umbrella.

[43] The funds are then remitted to the National Treasury.

[44] Though one thing to note for our current context is that, even when those parties were dissolved, it did not automatically follow that any duly elected representatives were expelled from office. Unless there was legal reason to remove them, any elected officials were simply rendered “Independents” rather than being affiliated with a political party. The constitution stipulates that Diet members can only be expelled by a two-thirds majority vote, though in such circumstances, most politicians choose to step down from their positions before it comes to such drastic measures.

[45] A newspaper or other bulletin officially authorized by the government to publish public and legal notices—in Japan these days, it’s an online site/newsletter.

[46] And they’re often still controversial with progressive activists, as the invocation against Aum was even contemporaneously! Incidentally, Aum’s dissolution lasted for a mere two years before the government panel ultimately declined to make it permanent.

[47] And if you don’t think the HMP had someone watching the official Japanese government website, you’re clearly not taking them seriously.

[48] And possibly more besides; the dialogue in question trails off in a way that suggests that the obstruction charge is only the first in a list.

[49] Start at Yotsubashi Rikiya being inducted when he was still in schoolboy shorts and continue right on up through the people we see in school uniforms in various mass battle scenes involving the MLA rank and file.

[50] And it easily could be thousands. If, say, even 10% of the PLF are minors, that’d be well over 10,000 kids, and thus we’re right back to overcrowding problems, except this time they’re about Japan’s child services programs, and the last thing they need is a new group of kids that numbers a full third of the number of children already in their care in real-life Japan. Naturally, the number only climbs if you think Re-Destro wasn’t counting kids in his initial reckoning of the MLA’s membership.

#bnha analysis #bnha meta #paranormal liberation front #meta liberation army #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #bnha spoilers #my writing #plf arrests #stillness has salt

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lendmyboyfriendahand · 4 years ago

Text

Still something left to save

Maedhros had sent the letter two days ago. Two days of agonizing waiting while the whole camp held its breath.

Maglor still acted like the Valar might have mercy, and return the Silmarils in exchange for repentance. Maedhros knew better though, and was reviewing his weapons and armor. The Valar would refuse the plea, as they had wished to refuse Feanor’s claim when he had not yet harmed any - if indeed they bothered to answer at all.

So a single rider approaching under a flag of truce was not completely surprising. Maglor claimed it was a hopeful sign, that the hosts of the Valar might truly wish to negotiate. Maedhros was of the opinion that the Valar had no faith in the house of Feanor at all, and believed them so low as to murder anyone not conspicuously nonthreatening.

The messenger was ushered past the sentries to the tent Maedhros and Maglor used as an improvised command room. He was wearing a helmet that blocked his face. The voice that called out in greeting was oddly familiar, as was the glint of his eyes, but Maedhros couldn’t place it.

“What news do you bring from the Hosts of the West?,” Maedhros asked.

“Morgoth has fallen. Lords Tulkas and Orome have bound him in chains and shall throw him into the darkness beyond the world, from where there is no return.”

“And what of the letter we sent to Lord Eonwe?”

“The Silmarils shall return to Valinor where they were created. You may go as well if you wish, and plead your right to them in the Ring of Doom.”

Then Maglor desired indeed to submit, for his heart was sorrowful, and he said: ‘The oath says not that we may not bide our time, and it may be that in Valinor all shall be forgiven and forgot, and we shall come into our own in peace.’

But Maedhros answered that if they returned to Aman but the favour of the Valar were withheld from them, then their oath would still remain, but its fulfilment be beyond all hope; and he said: 'Who can tell to what dreadful doom we shall come, if we disobey the Powers in their own land, or purpose ever to bring war again into their holy realm?'

Yet Maglor still held back, saying: 'If Manwë and Varda themselves deny the fulfilment of an oath to which we named them in witness, is it not made void?'

And Maedhros answered: 'But how shall our voices reach to Ilúvatar beyond the Circles of the World? And by Ilúvatar we swore in our madness, and called the Everlasting Darkness upon us, if we kept not our word. Who shall release us?

''If none can release us,' said Maglor, 'then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking.'

The messenger burst out, “Do you care so little for the life of your kin? You are arguing where and who to kill if your demands are not met; can you not simply seek peace?”

Maedhros rounded on him. “What right do you have to speak such to us? What can you possibly know of our oath, and the cost of defying it?”

“I know as much as you told me, in Himring when you knew the foolishness of marching north unprepared but still felt the call. Perhaps you’ve forgotten though, in the years since.” The messenger took off his helmet.

Maedhros was stuck speechless.

Maglor was not. “Fingon? You’ve been reborn? I thought we were supposed to abide long years in Mandos and yearn for our bodies.”

“It’s been a century, isn’t that long enough?”

“I suppose so. Is my father back yet?”

“No. The dead cannot leave until we are repentant, and that will be a long time for him.”

“Is your father back?”

“Yes, and ruling Tirion while Uncle Finarfin fights here. Before you ask, Grandpa is still in Mandos, as are all your brothers. I didn’t get a complete list; I was only in Valinor for long enough to arrange passage on the next ship leaving.”

“Why?" Maedhros whispered hoarsely. “Why would you give up on a chance for peace after centuries of war and death?”

“I could hardly sit by and do nothing when Morgoth was still running rampant! Besides, I wanted to see you in person.”

“You did?”

“Yes. After the tales I heard from Doriath and Sirion, I wanted to see if there was anything left to save of the man I fell in love with.”

Maglor said, “I’ll give you two privacy. I will return in an hour, and in the meantime will inform the army that we are in council over our next course of action.”

“There’s no need for that. After your brother’s speech earlier, I really don’t have much left to say to him.”

“No?” Maedhros asked. “As steadfast as you are renowned to be, you can exchange your love for hate in an instant?”

“I don’t know if I hate you. But I can’t love you, not when you’re drenched in blood and only wading deeper.”

“You accuse me of forgetting what we talked about in Himring, its you who are ignoring it. Or did you never listen in the first place? Each day, each hour, each breath is an effort, each moment that the Oath is unfulfilled worse than the last. A century ago I was carrying a stone; now it is a boulder.”

“So why do you not set the boulder aside? Why not surrender to the Valar, or found a new kingdom in the East, or ask me to ride off with you and live far away from all oaths and kings and fathers?”

“If I cast the Oath aside it would not be gone, merely underfoot waiting to reach up and pull my down with it rather than crushing me.”

“Would that not be better?”

“Until it reached up and choked me, and I moved once again according to its string. The Oath will be there waiting for me wherever I go for the rest of my life, unless I can fulfill it.”

“Then let it wait. Better to have peace for a few decades, in which time you may understand how to evade your Doom.”

“If you refuse to accept that certain things cannot be changed, I don’t have any answers that will satisfy you.”

“And if you refuse to see any path forward but over the bodies of innocents, I may as well be shouting at the wind.”

“I begged you once to kill me and you refused. If you cannot stomach having released me onto the world, that is your problem, but I will not be crushed by your guilt as well as my own.”

“I rescued you because I loved you. What you have done is horrific, but it was not fated from that moment. I take no part in your guilt, but as a friend would aid you towards repentance.”

“There is no penance that could make up for what I have done, and even if there were I would refuse to take it. It is better to live scorned but free than to bow and scrape in desperate hope a jailer will be amused enough to grant a moment of relief.”

“The Valar are not Morgoth, and have no interest in cruelty.”

“And if you’re wrong? Or if they are merciful, but someone decides I’m not being appropriately punished, what then? Once I surrender, I’m sure I won’t be allowed so much as a belt knife for eating. There will be escape from the inside, whether you call it captivity or repentance. Will you come to my heroic rescue once again, or will you let vengeance and justice be played out upon me?”

Fingon looked at him steadily. “If you are imprisoned I will some to your aid, if only to offer the arrow you begged for last time. I don’t think an eagle will help you escape the Valra’s own sentence though.”

“So if I surrender I am trapped between captivity or death, until at last I weary of holding back the Oath and am struck down for my arrogance at believing a son has a right to his father’s work. Whereas if I pursue the Silmarils now, I may be struck down or I may escape, but in either case I have at least chosen the hour and the manner of my fate. You’re making a very persuasive argument.”

“If all you care about is your own skin, and no thought at all for the lives ended beneath your sword if you attack, then perhaps what you have said is accurate. But I had thought that you were kinder than that once; perhaps I am mistaken and you care no more for elven lives than an orc would.”

Maedhros recoiled as if struck.

Maglor jumped into the conversation before his brother could find the words that would skewer Fingon’s weak point as thoroughly as his own had been. “You both speak as if there are only two options. We don’t have to choose between surrender and attack.”

“Oh?” Maedhros said,”What other way is there? Fingon made it very clear that fighting is for orcs and crawling back to the Valar is for good little elves.”

“I never said-”

Maglor interrupted Fingon before the two of them could get into it again. “There are men and dwarves in this world as well as orcs and elves, whatever we might have thought when we left Valinor.”

“Dwarves and men there may be, but little help it does us. We don’t get to change our nature like your precious peredhel princes, nor would I want to.”

“We don’t have to. I’m merely saying, we don’‘t have to choose between attack and surrender. We can retreat, regroup for another angle.”

“I am right here, as a messenger of the Valar, and can’t honestly report that you two are going in peace if you merely are waiting until you re strong enough to storm Taniquetil.”

Maedhros drummed his fingers on his sword hilt. “We don’t have to let you go. You say being prisoner of a kind master is a good fate, now would be your time to prove it.”

“Must the two of you be so literal? We retreat physically, but regroup spiritually for another metaphorical angle of attack.”

“You’re speaking in poetry when we need tactics.”

“Fine.” Maglor began ticking points of on his fingers. “We retreat physically by moving our forces away from the land that’s collapsing beneath our feet. Everyone is going east, but if we angle north-east, perhaps across the Grey Mountains, we should be able to establish a fortress without being bothered. We regroup spiritually by announcing to our soldiers that we’re not going to attack civilians again. We can spend a decade or two building our new home, farming and crafting and hunting rather than waging war. And our metaphorical angle of attack is diplomacy. You and I always were the best at it of our brothers; if anyone has a chance of convincing the Valar to return the Silmarils it’s us.”

“How exactly are we making diplomatic overtures with the Valar from another continent?”

“Letters should be able to get through. The Valar are creating an island for the Men that’s close to Valinor but still in Middle Earth. Elves from Valinor can visit the island, and the Men can travel here.”

“We tried letters before, three times now, and it didn’t work.”

“It didn’t work on Sindarin child-monarchs, the Valar are wiser and can understand more lines of argument.”

“They refused our last request and Fingon is right her telling us so.”

“Eonwe refused, because he considers it beyond his authority. The Valar themselves have said neither yay or nay.”

“You think they’ll decree us worthy of the Silmarils, when they condemned us for ever trying to leave their precious paradise?”

“I think if we’re on another continent they won’t sentence us to execution, an the rest of the details can be worked out without an audience.”

“I’m not here to spy on you,” Fingon said.

“No, you’re here to see if you’re still impulsive enough to kiss my brother if he looks at you sweetly.”

“That’s not it either!”

“I don’t care what you two get up to at this point, but Maedhros and I really do need to come up with a detailed plan, and we can’t tell you anything as long as half the continent is willing to shoot us on sight. So leave the tent so I can bring out the ledgers.”

“You still haven’t answered the message from Lord Eonwe calling for your surrender.”

“And we won’t have an answer that satisfies both your sensibilities and Maedhros’s paranoia for several hours. Go tend to your horse or something.”

Maedhros said, “If we discuss this for hours, he’ll won’t have time to return by nightfall, and we don’t have any spare tents.”

“I’m sure the two of you have shared a bed often enough, you can do so for one night.”

“I can sleep under the stars well enough,” Fingon said coldly.

“Like I said, I don’t care what you two do, as long as you leave now and let me speak with my brother in private.”

“Fine.”

Once Fingon was well away, Maedhros breathed deeply and practically collapsed onto a stool. He looked up at Maglor, “Do you really have a plan that could work?”

“I do. It was a mistake to ask for the Silmarils in the first letter to Eonwe, it shows our hand and makes us look greedy. The first letter to the Valar will be an acknowledgement that their prophecies of death in the outer lands were right, it will sound like respecting their wisdom...”

#russingon #fingon at the war of wrath #my fic #savior by rise against #fingon #malgor #maedhros #TW suicidal ideation #angst #silm #silmarillion #in case you're wondering yes this is a happy ending #Maedhros and Maglor establish a town with their followers and peacefully correspond with the Valar for several centuries #Fingon also writes to maedhros though he's not allowed to stay in Middle Earth #Reborn dead people are supposed to stay in Valinor until they're beterr adjusted to life

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imreallyhereforkataang · 4 years ago

Text

On The Southern Raiders

Several months ago, a fellow ATLA-consumer asked me the following in reference to TSR:

I came across a post (on tumblr, what a surprise!) the other day saying that Aang never seemed to care about Katara’s feelings revolving around her mom. […] Do you think people genuinely interpreted Aang’s actions like that? Simply by watching? Or are they purposely misconstruing it?

I responded with the vast majority of what follows. It was a while afterwards that I rejoined the fandom for long enough to see the massive spectrum of takes on The Southern Raiders that continues to be put out on the daily.

There seems to be this recurring idea that Aang’s actions in TSR demonstrate that, not only did Aang “never care about Katara’s pain” regarding her mother, but also that he was “forcing his morals on her,” etc. On the topic of whether people honestly believe this to be in Aang’s character or see him this way deliberately, I think sometimes they jump to the conclusion that Aang didn’t care because it stems from a misconstrued interpretation of Aang and Katara as individuals and their dynamic as presented in the show, which may extend to the belief that Aang doesn’t give back what Katara gives to him. In general, I can see how someone might form that impression, but they’re missing some key contextual pieces.

Just a quick disclaimer: This is (obviously) a look into TSR and dives into Katara and Aang, both as individuals and together. I try to make this fairly objective while relaying my own opinions, but this will subsequently hold pro-Kataang rhetoric, platonic or no. Additionally, because this is TSR we’re talking about, I do allude to elements here that mold into what I see as ‘specific common misconceptions about Z*tara’s romantic compatibility based off this one particular episode.’ Why are these relevant? Because there is a clear trend where the people trying to put Aang down or even demonize him for this episode are often pro-canon!Z*tara advocates. To be clear, I don’t have an issue with people who ship them for fun outside of canon, so if you like romantic Z*tara but also appreciate Aang, any perceived digs are not directed towards you! But I think some of these things are worth mentioning here in the interest of examining TSR and Aang-bashing.

(Also fair warning that this is nearing 7k words.)

So, with that out of the way:

I briefly mentioned how people can misinterpret Katara and Aang’s back-and-forths in terms of emotional support, and I feel like that starts with Katara.

Katara is a naturally caring person and earnestly reaches outward to empathize with people. She’s extremely perceptive when someone is hurting (the only one to look concerned when Aang showed gripes about killing Ozai in The Phoenix King) and is often seen as the nurturing character who will coax others to talk about their inner struggles (she does this with Toph in The Runaway and Zuko in The Old Masters, for instance).

Time and time again, when Aang has struggled on his Avatar journey, Katara has been the one to get him to open up and articulate his turmoil, ultimately supporting him or convincing him that there is still hope for better days. She’s been there for him at all times, from The Storm to The Avatar State to Bitter Work to The Serpent’s Pass to The Awakening and beyond, exercising patience and care. It’s a role she undertakes, and as Aang is our main character and undergoing, arguably (I guess? But to me inarguably), the most of everyone in the gaang, it makes sense that Katara, given her empathetic nature and their strong bond, will often be the one expressing true concern for Aang.

So we know that when Aang struggles, which we understandably see a lot of, Katara is his rock. But what about giving back when Katara struggles?

When it comes to Katara’s share of turmoil, the death of her mother and how it continues to impact her is one of her greatest sources of pain. Honestly, it might be one of the only times we actually watch her struggle on her own, as Katara tends to be a powerful self-advocate (see: The Waterbending Master). The thing is, even though Katara has mentioned losing her mother several times throughout the series, and of course she always sounds regretful when it’s brought up, she tends to keep the rawness of her associated sorrow bottled up. Almost every time Katara mentions the death of her mother, it’s been, in very Katara-like fashion, to express understanding towards others. With the exception of @Zuko in the crystal catacombs and TSR, she only brings up her own grief to empathize (@Aang in The Southern Air Temple to prepare him for the genocide and show understanding when he grieves, @Haru in Imprisoned when Haru talks about connecting with his father, @Jet in Jet when he talks about losing his own parents to the Fire Nation, and @Hama in The Puppetmaster when talking about losing members of the Southern Water Tribe). Really, The Crossroads of Destiny and TSR are the only times Katara actually brings up her own pain for the sake of bringing up her own pain, and it’s not often that we see her physically break down over it like we do in the former.

Katara isn’t the sort of person to bring up her turmoil simply for her own needs, or because she realizes it’s weighing on her heavily in that moment. It’s a sore spot that’s changed her behavior (as Sokka explains in The Runaway), making her grow up faster, and that she’s continued to carry for years and years. And yet, again, before The Southern Raiders, we never watched her actively cry over her mother except for when she was alone in The Swamp and with Zuko in The Crossroads of Destiny (and also perhaps when she was alone in The Runaway).

Thus, The Southern Raiders is an interesting episode because it’s where those feelings Katara has been harboring are fully brought to the surface and, in extent, it’s the episode where we see Katara at her lowest point. All of that pain is made fresh and present, the murder no longer feeling like something that happened long ago with, as she believed, no available ends to tie (“Now that I know he’s out there, now that I know we can find him, I feel like I have no choice”), and it causes her to lose sight of herself. That’s not only starkly reflected in her decision to bloodbend, but also in how she doubts that anyone understands her pain.

Katara undermines Sokka’s hurt at the same loss she’s experienced and forgets all the struggle that Aang has had to endure from the start. Not only does he know how it feels to lose a parental figure (Gyatso) to the Fire Nation and not have been able to help (“My people needed me and I wasn’t there to help”; “I’m not the helpless little girl I was when they came”), but he also knows how it feels to lose an entire culture (something only Katara and Hama have similar experience with). And Katara knows this – she’s the one he’s expressed the most of his grief to, and yet here she forgets that. So we can already see how this opportunity Zuko has given Katara, the chance to find her mother’s killer and the anticipation that she feels from it, is bringing out a darker side of her that, unlike the Katara we know and that she wants to be, does not empathize or pause to understand. She’s so engrossed in her own pain, for the first time in so long, that she can’t see beyond it.

In consequence to this episode being about Katara’s emotional journey, I think The Southern Raiders is the most opportune time to observe who will give Katara what she has always displayed towards others. When a character undergoes the level of hurt Katara expresses here, it’s usually she who reaches out to that person, but now it’s her turn to be emotionally compromised. Now we get to see who steps up to the plate.

A lot of people conclude that this person is Zuko. That he’s the one who will reach out to her and connect with her emotionally to help her deal with that pain. I do agree that Zuko played a vital role in Katara’s emotional journey here – he was the catalyst for it. He had an established motivation to get off her bad side and onto her good side, a possible solution alluded to him, and knowledge that comes with hailing from the Fire Nation to go forth with his idea. And he does, and he’s physically there to help Katara through its execution.

However, Zuko making the effort to give Katara this opportunity does not reflect a lack of effort on Aang’s part. Firstly, because, as explained, Aang didn’t see how raw this pain still was to Katara. At this point, Zuko had been on the receiving end of two beratements where Katara angrily mentioned her mother’s death. Aang was not, nor did he witness these incidents. Aang understood the significance of her necklace (Bato of the Water Tribe) and looked concerned for her when she mentioned her vision (The Swamp), but Katara never seemed to express to Aang just how raw her mother’s death still felt, just as Sokka never did. She mentions it in The Southern Air Temple, but their topic of discussion was the Fire Nation killing the airbenders, and Aang was trying to fend off the idea that they might have committed genocide against his people. Considering context, there’s no reason to fault Aang for any of the things he did on this issue, or a lack thereof.

Just as Katara and Sokka thought, Aang probably believed it was a concluded topic in terms of active response. It was something that happened years ago, Aang was in an iceberg at the time, and neither Katara nor Sokka nor Aang thought it was something to go back on and revisit. When Katara yelled at Zuko, she never suggested looking for the killer. And again with that quote, “Now that I know he’s out there,” I don’t think hunting for the man was on anyone’s mind. As a viewer, it was never on my mind, either.

What Zuko had that the rest of Team Avatar did not was direction and knowledge on how they could potentially track down this specific Fire Nation military official. Even Sokka, who could remember the emblem of the Southern Raiders and underwent the same loss Katara did, not only seemed to have no intention of tracking his mother’s murderer, but also took Aang’s side when Zuko and Katara explained what they were planning to do.

Which supports the next point – regarding how Aang responded to the idea once it was out there.

Quick tangent, but it’s a scene like this that shows how Aang’s feelings for Katara have matured. The way he reacts to Katara in The Southern Raiders conveys how he knows she’s not perfect, he knows she can make mistakes, and even if, to some, he comes off as trying to hinder her on this sensitive topic, he overtly wants what’s best for her.

Aang recognizes the change in Katara’s demeanor when she approaches him about borrowing Appa. He seems to notice that something is off about her energy, probably to this extent for the first time, just as for the audience, and his instinct is not to step out of her way and “stay on her good side,” but to try and assess the situation before he lets her go in the condition she’s in. Katara is undeniably not thinking clearly during this scene, nor for much of the episode’s proceedings, given her tone, expressions, words, and intent. She’s undergoing, just as Aang says, “unbelievable pain and rage” (callback to The Avatar State; “for the people who love you, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary”). Aang understands where Katara is coming from, and he offers her his two cents, but he doesn’t “force” them on her, either.

Watching how Aang’s expression changes between looking at Zuko and Katara, he appears intent and almost stern towards the former. But for Katara, he’s first treading the waters, then concerned and earnest. Aang doesn’t shame Katara for her dark rhetoric or tell her what she should or shouldn’t do, but tries to help her regain some control of her emotions (“Katara, you sound like Jet” – he knows this side of Katara isn’t truly her, or who she wants to be, and this comment might serve to give her insight as to how she sounds) and then offers Katara a choice. Aang makes light of an option that she’s overlooked upon having this opportunity, and he tries to explain why the road she’s going down, the way she’s choosing to handle the situation, is self-destructive. All in all, he’s looking out for her. In his own way, he’s doing for Katara what Katara would have done for him.

I think it’s made fairly clear that, had Katara killed Yon Rha, (who, while, yes, is vile and got away with murder, was also defenseless against Katara by the time she caught up with him), she would’ve regretted her decision. The frightening thing is that I don’t believe she would have accepted that regret from herself, either. It would always remain a blemish in her energy (mind you, not because murder will inherently do this to everyone in ATLA, but it would to Katara specifically given her nature), something that would make her forever carry a bit of that darkness we so rarely see from her, much heavier and more permanent than withholding forgiveness, instead of following “Let your anger out, and then let it go.”

Here’s the thing people seem to forget about TSR: Canon shows us that Aang’s method for handling the situation is beneficial to Katara. It’s true that Zuko was the catalyst for this journey and he was there to help Katara see it through, but it isn’t true to say that Aang didn’t do her a favor by reaching out and being honest with her before they left. Remember the ultimate note on this side story: “You were right about what Katara needed. Violence wasn’t the answer.” The narrative teaches us that Aang was correct on this front – maybe not for everyone, but he wasn’t trying to nudge everyone. He was trying to nudge Katara.

I recently acquired the official DVD commentary for The Southern Raiders. I’ve transcribed relevant points on the end of this post if you’d like to read them in full, but Bryan and Andrea Romano (voice director) talk about how “even though Aang is sort of not in this story very much, to me his presence is in all of these scenes ‘cause you know he’s like, the little angel on her shoulder”; “I agree with you, he is with her through this entire journey she goes through.”

The fact that what Aang said resonated with Katara when it mattered – Katara, who becomes stubborn when she feels strongly about something, who doesn’t let anyone stop her when she disagrees with them, who is going through the most raw, emotional turbulence we have seen her in throughout the show –, the fact that Katara ultimately agreed with Aang’s words, that his words were the aid she needed in realizing there was a decision in either killing Yon Rha or sparing him, hugely states that Aang was there for Katara. Aang helped her see she had a choice for her own sake when her mind was clouded by pain and rage. You don’t need supplementary commentary to see that – Katara was seriously considering revenge, Zuko was leaning towards punishing Yon Rha but, for the most part, staying out of the decision (though based on the two back-and-forths he had with Aang before they left and his reaction to Katara walking away from bloodbending the wrong man, he didn’t realize how detrimental to Katara killing Yon Rha would be – his intention when giving Katara this opportunity was ultimately to gain some ground with her, and while he shares a sense of her pain, he doesn’t foresee what the nature of this journey will do to impact Katara specifically, which I get since he hardly knows her), and so it was ultimately Aang who helped Katara find her path even when he wasn’t there with her physically.

People can argue that Aang was forcing his morals on Katara, but he wasn’t. He was offering valid wisdom, yet pressing enough to hope that she’d actually listen and maybe react, as she did, rather than Aang simply standing back. It would’ve been easy for Aang to do nothing (like he said) and not risk coming off as unconcerned about her feelings, like he did to some viewers, because we know how Aang feels about Katara and that he doesn’t want to create rifts between them. But he risked stirring them, in her volatile state, in order to get his point across, if it meant that in consequence there would be a better chance Katara wouldn’t make the mistake that he knows would haunt her after this foreign mood of hers has passed. Aang isn’t about to let her go without trying to help her, even when she seems to not want help. It’s not in Katara’s nature to seek emotional support, and the audience has never seen her like this, but Aang recognizes that she needs the nudge (which, had her mind been clearer, she’d apparently agree with over her idea of revenge) and gives it openly and hopefully, even when she isn’t in a receptive state (or so it seemed). Again, Aang’s “morals” in this case of murder turned out to be, as he suspected, compatible with Katara’s as well as Sokka’s, so clearly he did a good thing there.

I think some people believe that Aang “forces his morals” on Katara because they’re under the impression that Aang’s concern is the general idea that she will kill somebody, the persons involved being irrelevant. That he’s acting selfishly and, in the interest of aligning with his own ideals, doesn’t want the girl he loves to be “corrupted.” This sort of mindset that “he’s against killing, so he won’t let Katara have this” leads to the conclusion that he’s not giving her the free reign to make her own choice.

However, this idea is debunked again and again in the episode. Aang says, clear as day, “I wasn’t planning to [try and stop you]. This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man. But when you do, please don’t choose revenge” as Katara turns away from him to go, and Aang stands back and watches with concern. He’s not being “forceful” – he’s being honest, like Katara’s been for him, and even supportive. If Aang really wanted to ensure that Katara followed his own morals, if he were actually not giving her free reign, he would’ve either disallowed Katara and Zuko from taking Appa or gone along with them. Aang could’ve justified joining the mission – it is his bison and that would split up the gaang evenly. He could’ve forced himself on this journey and used the time before meeting Yon Rha to monitor Katara like a chaperone, believing he’s just trying to help and making sure she doesn’t get hurt.

And yet he doesn’t. He lets Katara do this, and his parting words continue to be what he hopes she’ll choose. But his final action, letting her set off with Appa and leaving him behind, means that he’s leaving the decision up to her.

I feel like people completely forget some segments of the episode. Like how Sokka says “I think Aang might be right” and doesn’t go on the journey that he has as much reason to embark on as Katara does. Or how Katara literally says right before departing, “Thanks for understanding, Aang.”

Aang’s stance on Katara getting revenge goes beyond Aang just being against killing – he’s not voicing his opinion out of defense of Yon Rha or because he doesn’t want to love someone who went against his morals. He’s doing it because he knows what Katara’s going through and he doesn’t want her to have to face the consequences of letting the pain get the better of her. He’s trying to help her from going down a dark road, not for himself, but for her, because he knows her and knows this is something she would regret.

So when Katara tells him later that she didn’t forgive Yon Rha, Aang doesn’t push her or ask questions. He’s glad – and proud – that she didn’t do something that would’ve permanently hurt her, and beyond that, she could dissent from his morals as she liked. When Aang saw Katara after her trip, the first thing he did was run to her purely to ask if she was okay, not to discover whether she killed; he already knew from Zuko.

Bottom line is that Aang cared about her feelings. Particularly the feelings of the Katara she normally is, the Katara she means to be, the Katara who doesn’t bloodbend or unempathize, the Katara who’s hurting and whose pain is getting the better of her. Aang saw what was happening and did what he could to help, nudging her on the path she needed when her vision was clouded (sounds like Katara helping Aang when he’s in the Avatar State. Again, The Southern Raiders provides an instance of Aang giving back to Katara what she’s given to him, like with The Desert/The Serpent’s Pass, his pain from which Aang pointed out in “How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa?”).

Overall, people might honestly interpret Aang as being unsympathetic this episode, and I can see how from a superficial standpoint. But by doing so, they’re missing the significance of Aang’s choice to reach out and the importance it played in helping Katara conserve her own image of herself. She bloodbends someone – not even confirming that it’s the right person, first – in a rush of pain and rage after practically swearing it off less than ten episodes ago, so she clearly loses some semblance of herself during this episode, and it’s Aang who makes the most effort to help her find balance without getting in the way of her search. Ultimately, Aang’s role in TSR demonstrates how well he understands her personally, as well as his ability to step back and let her make her own decisions while still offering a viewpoint that her pain prevents her from seeing.

—-

Okay, big breath. Halfway through. I’d like to talk in more depth about how Aang understands Katara’s position.

I was thinking once again about Aang saying, “I do understand. You’re feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?” As presented to us, those two incidents had several things in common.

Aang went into the Avatar State due to intense emotion, as opposed to a life/death situation, and caused mass destruction that risked placing harm on others. And both of these times, Katara was the one to pull him out of that state. An important thing to note is that there’s one other moment very similar, but not identical, to these, which took place in The Avatar State. Just like in The Southern Air Temple and The Desert, Aang entered the Avatar State due to intense emotion, out of anguish when losing Katara. But the difference here was the amount of destruction caused. When Aang lost control of himself, he went through with hurting the people in his vicinity, and when he came out of that state, he hated to see what he’d done. Aang told Katara that he hoped she’d never have to see him like that again, and he hoped it for himself, too (but, of course, she did see him like that again in The Desert).

What I’m trying to show here is that Katara losing herself to her “pain and rage” in The Southern Raiders parallels Aang losing himself to his “rage and pain” in The Avatar State, not just in The Southern Air Temple and The Desert, as he directly references. But why am I so adamant about The Avatar State as opposed to those other two episodes?

Because we saw the lasting effect that The Avatar State had on Aang. There are many analyses out there that explain how Aang has had to struggle with control over his vast power, oftentimes depicting it as something he’s afraid of. For so long, Aang fears the Avatar State, what he’s capable of while in it, and how he can’t regulate his actions when it occurs. This conflict comes up time and time again, and a huge part of his character arc is involved with that struggle.

But again, for the significance of The Avatar State episode specifically, I was thinking about chakras in The Guru. From his Earth Chakra, we see that Aang continues to fear himself in the Avatar State, and from his Water Chakra, we see that one of his two greatest sources of guilt is that he lost control of himself in The Avatar State due to his rage and pain, lamenting that he “hurt all of those people” (the other being that he ran away, which, as mentioned before, is tied with his guilt at not being there to help and isn’t unlike the anguish Katara must feel now at not having been able to help her mother, get her father’s help fast enough, etc.). Pathik tells him that, in order to open his Water Chakra, to absolve the guilt and let the pleasure flow, “you need to forgive yourself.”

So here we have this idea that forgiveness is the key step to opening a person’s Water Chakra. Water, symbolizing pleasure and healing. “It’s easy to do nothing, but it’s hard to forgive.” “Forgiveness is the first step you have to take to begin healing.” These things Aang says in The Southern Raiders reflect what Pathik taught him about the Water Chakra.

Forgiving oneself is (obviously) different from forgiving your mother’s killer, but with this insight it’s clear that Aang personally understands how it feels to let your pain and rage get the better of you, and how it hurts deeply to face the consequences of your actions once the moment has passed. He recognizes that Katara is in a state not unlike the one he’s in when he loses control (“I do understand”) and he doesn’t want that for her. He wants Katara to be able to regain control of her actions and navigate out of her clouded vision so that she can make the choice that’s right for her. Aang is trying to help Katara see the pieces she’s missing, like how Katara does for Aang when he’s in the Avatar State.

Forgiveness is a necessary step in order to heal, and maybe it wasn’t a choice Katara ultimately made, but that was a decision Aang accepted. She didn’t kill Yon Rha, she didn’t have to now struggle with guilt or having to admit to that guilt, and she didn’t have to be faced with the strenuous task of forgiving herself for something she definitely would not have wanted to admit needed forgiving for. She saved herself from the pain that could have resulted from her own actions, because Aang helped her see she had a choice. When it mattered, when she was about to deliver the final blow, Aang’s words helped her pull out of that emotion-induced near-equivalent of an “Avatar State.”

To me it’s really fascinating to see the connections between these incidents – The Southern Raiders plus the three episodes where Aang enters the Avatar State out of emotion/rage (almost four if you count The Storm, but he manages to contain it when Katara calls out). The way these arcs parallel each other (“I went through the same thing when I lost my mom”; “How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation?”; “Watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary…I can’t watch you do this to yourself”; “As you watch your enemy go down, you’re being poisoned yourself”) and ultimately culminate in acts of mercy. It’s incredible how Aang and Katara are able to reach each other when they’re in their emotional states, and know what the other needs and who they are when they lose themselves.

In addition, I also think Andrea’s point about how Aang “teaches” Katara is further reflective of the impact Aang has on the people around him. I’ve seen many circulating posts about how Aang hailing from the time before the war and being raised by the Air Nomads allows him to bring a unique, positive influence to those around him who, in contrast, grew up in war-time and were most likely (Bumi is an exception) never alive in the time of the Air Nomads. However, along with the lightheartedness and fun (see: The Avatar Returns and The Headband), this also includes the specific wisdom and peacekeeping ways of the airbenders that became lost in the war, and that Aang symbolically ends the war with: An act of mercy, thus showcasing the survival and triumph of the Air Nomads as well as the Avatar. In TSR, Aang shares this wisdom with Katara – that the choice exists, and there is strength in not choosing revenge and electing forgiveness if she so resonated with it.

[Click here]

—-

Back to the original question –

It may be possible that if someone were to overlook some characterizations and watch The Southern Raiders episodically, as opposed to as part of a whole arc, then they might genuinely form the impression that Aang is in the wrong here. I think I myself might’ve been a bit surprised by his approach when I was younger (though Katara’s attitude was also very surprising and even unsettling), but that was also at an age where I didn’t really understand the severity of the situation and just how much Katara was drifting from herself, or what killing Yon Rha could do to her, or, simply, in that volatile state, what she needed to hear.

I’ll be honest (drawing from personal experience, not sure if others relate) – I think as a child, one may not see the episode as intended because, unlike many other episodes, the takeaway lessons in The Southern Raiders are either expressed through words or an instance of not doing something (the instant where Katara doesn’t kill Yon Rha, since not doing something is less stark to a child than doing something). It’s a gray story in terms of right/wrong, and when you’re young, I can see why those lessons are misinterpreted because the viewer gets so caught up in the adrenaline rush of the action in this episode, the stealth, the bloodbending, the frightening amount of anger in Katara. It consumes most of the viewing experience, and within all that, the ultimate big lesson that “Violence wasn’t the answer” might get missed because violence or violent intent constituted almost all of the runtime. I see people who don’t remember this episode as a commentary on vengeance/forgiveness/the middle ground, but as “the one where Katara and Zuko got super badass."

Getting older, The Southern Raiders is such a gruesome episode. I now see the crucial, ‘quieter’ points that I overlooked as a child. Things like Sokka siding with Aang, Katara thanking Aang for his understanding, Zuko ultimately agreeing with Aang’s assessment of what Katara needed. Sad thing is that some people don’t appear to see this episode the way it was intended in time. TSR requests a perceptive mind from its audience, and some people don’t seem open to that.

I feel that this episode is often treated as shedding light on canon romantic Z*tara for similar reasons as to why people might miss the lessons – Zuko and Katara look cool and badass, on their way to kill a man. It’s exciting to see them working together, the nature of the mission is intriguing, but understanding subtext means acknowledging the tragic underlining of the episode, that it’s painful, that it’s Katara’s journey. It’s disappointing to me when some people chalk up Zuko and Katara’s relationship to being “badass” and “sexy” as a result of The Southern Raiders. It feels out-of-context, caught up in the “coolness” of this episode and misinterpreting physical synchrony as emotional, especially since their dynamic changes anyhow after Katara forgives him.

The episode presents very clearly that Zuko wasn’t right in his assumption about what Katara needed. Again, not necessarily his fault, although his comments about "Air Temple preschool,” “Guru Goody-Goody,” and forgiveness being “the same as doing nothing” display his skepticism of going the peaceful route (though this is curious to me given how often he showed mercy towards Zhao). He honestly didn’t realize the implications this journey would have on Katara, but by the end of the episode, I think it’s safe to say Zuko learned that Aang knew what he was talking about. Aang, whose whole nation and father figure were killed, and yet was able to forgive. Who could see how Katara was responding to the information Zuko gave her.

That’s not to discount Zuko’s role here. Maybe Katara did need closure, and Aang did say “This is a journey you need to take” (although, I do wonder, as Aang asked originally, what it ultimately accomplished. I get that Katara felt like she needed to take the opportunity once Zuko handed it to her, “Now that I know we can find him,” but if Zuko had never brought it up, would things be different? I hope it accomplished something in regards to Katara’s turmoil – perhaps she was able to forgive herself in that she could finally confront the man who did this, when all those years ago she came back with help “too late” – but at least she forgave Zuko in consequence), but this journey was so emotionally turbulent for Katara, heavy to the point where she wasn’t even herself anymore (as said in The Avatar State, “I saw you get so upset that you weren’t even you”).

Therefore, I personally find that simplifying TSR into “Katara and Zuko being cool” to the point where people glorify the way Katara acts in this episode insulting to her character, simply because I don’t enjoy watching deep pain morph Katara into becoming something she dislikes (see: Bloodbending and how it’s often glamorized in fandom). To me, it’s not as if she’s honing something akin to her inner strength. Katara is an extremely powerful character, which is shown time and time again, and her power comes from her physical capabilities as well as her inner strength. “Hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.” Bam, Katara right there. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to do it or if it’s because I’m strong enough not to.” As is a theme in this show, there is a strength in restraint.

In her right mind, Katara would be horrified by her actions in The Southern Raiders, or at least what her ultimate intention was, and if people more closely understood Katara as she is, then I feel like they’d agree. As Aang did.

—-

Do I think there are people out there who deliberately reimagine TSR as ‘the episode where Aang was a “self-righteous prick” to Katara’? Yes, absolutely. As for motivation, I can’t really think of any reason for trying to make Aang look bad besides trying to make him look bad in comparison to another character (i.e. Zuko here), or maybe people have their own personal reasons for disagreeing with Aang’s sentiment while forgetting that Katara ultimately does not (in regards to the killing). Or maybe people just dislike main characters who manage to uphold their morals and it goes in-hand with those who think Aang should’ve killed Ozai.

—-

Honestly, there’s a lot more that can be said on the topic in regards to what Katara learned about herself in TSR, as such might be reflected in her active choice to spare Azula in Avatar Aang (which Bryan notes in his commentary: “Katara also finding a peaceful means” in reference to Aang), but frankly I’m kind of exhausted so I’m gonna leave this half-baked copy-and-paste from something I wrote earlier this month:

I feel like the only people Katara has harbored legitimately murderous thoughts towards have been Yon Rha (her mother’s killer) and Zuko and Azula (Aang’s killers, indirectly and directly), indicated by that unique energy she’s carried around those three that we don’t see a lot from her, where her voice becomes lower and the weight of her words more threatening (also the fact that she issued clear death threats to the first two).

For the final Agni Kai, Zuko planned on ending Azula. He goaded her into using lightning and intended to redirect it at her (he didn’t want to, of course, as Bryke noted, but that was the decision). So it’s striking to me when Katara, despite having a very opportune chance to end Azula and knowing Zuko wouldn’t have judged her for it since he was about to do the same, makes the active choice to keep her alive. Katara could have unfrozen herself and gotten to Zuko immediately, but instead she took the time to restrain Azula and allow her to live. And I do believe that a part of the decision was made clearer to her after the events of TSR. Katara realized, subconsciously or no, what she isn’t, and that she’d try to preserve Azula if she could despite how much she might hate her for what she did last season.

—-

DVD Commentary for The Southern Raiders

[…]

Andrea Romano: This is where she does bloodbending, right? So scary!

Bryan Konietzko: It’s this dark skill that she reluctantly learned in episode 3x08. And there’s another important lesson – it’s like, once you have power over someone, are you strong enough not to use it? Or, use restraint in life?

Dante Basco: […] The thought of bloodbending is an idea that – it’s just crazy! Like, the average television or Nickelodeon show […] is not thinking about bloodbending. But yet it’s a very possible situation in this world, and I think that’s what makes it so exciting for people who watch the show.

Michael Dante DiMartino: Yeah and it’s not a skill that they take very – or certainly that Katara takes – lightly. It’s a very serious proposition to do that on somebody.

AR: And it’s not treated lightly. Here she is, she’s so close to being out of control. And that’s what adds so much to the drama of it, is, we think, she could really lose it here and really do something that she regrets for the rest of her life. But she manages to hold herself.

[…]

BK: We see that she’s unbalanced emotionally, and so that’s what’s coming out.

AR: […] But we can only hope she’ll make the right choice. (Imploringly) Use your powers for good!

BK: I love that, even though Aang is sort of not in this story very much, to me his presence is in all of these scenes ‘cause you know he’s like, the little angel on her shoulder-

AR: Absolutely, yeah.

BK: -y'know, that she’s ignoring at this time. And so, to me it really is a story about Aang because it’s like, it’s just about him trying to have influence over her actions from afar – just, by not telling her what she has to do, but just by gently suggesting what she try to achieve with this journey.

AR: It really is a juxtaposition there, where the young Aang sort of tells her, like a parent, go ahead, go out and do what you have to do, but please, I hope that you choose forgiveness rather than revenge. And here he is the young one, and she is the older one who should be, sort of, teaching him and in fact they switch and he teaches her. So I agree with you, he is with her through this entire journey she goes through.

BK: I think it’s also interesting that, if you look on paper, Aang has lost a lot more than Katara has, and he sort of gently reminds her of this. He’s like, 'Hey, my whole culture was wiped out. Everyone I’ve ever known was wiped out.’ And uh, but as we all know in real life, you can’t really quantify suffering. It’s really a personal thing and everybody…everybody’s situation, when your own world kinda crumbles, it seems like the whole world’s falling apart. You can’t really equate these things. And so, we just see Katara lost in a very human moment in this episode.

AR: I love that scene. So dramatic. You just go 'Oh no – don’t do it! Don’t do it!’

[…]

—-

DVD Commentary for Avatar Aang

[…]

Bryke: It’s sort of like a multi-stage thing. He releases his emotions, these raw feelings of anger and wrath, and then learns to control them and rise above them. […] We obviously wanted a cool moment of Aang in the Avatar State, and it was kinda finding that right story beat for him. And in this case it was him being the totally wrathful, vengeful version of the Avatar […] But it’s really not Aang. It’s really this energy that has kinda taken over him. He’s not in control at this point. […]

So, can kind of recognize this Kung Fu move he’s doing. It’s what he was having nightmares about in 2x01, as he feared being this sort of wrathful, y'know, Hand of the Avatar. That was that same kind of […] chopping motion in those 2x01 nightmare scenes. […]

I feel like that’s his defining moment. That’s why we call this episode Avatar Aang. […] He’s finally learned to control the energy. […] He’s controlling it, he’s not letting it control him. […]

#atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #the southern raiders #aang #aanglove #katara #kataang #kataangtag #sorry for reposting #anti zutara #i hope it's not that bad but this way you can filter if you want

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slashthedice · 4 years ago

Note

I’m not sure if you would count this as a request (just ignore it if you do) but how old do you think all the dead by daylight killers are?

Not at all! This is a really good question! I hope it’s alright if I only do the original killers since most of the licensed ones have established canon ages. These are just my thoughts based on what I got out of the character’s lore and the lore of their associated maps.

Evan MacMillan - The Trapper: 30-35 years old

The first age we hear discussed for Evan is 14 in the Archives (yes, I know I dislike and mostly ignore the horrible retconning the Archives do, but sometimes they offer a good baseline). Based on the lore and the appearance of his unmasked character model, I would place him in his early to mid thirties.

Philip Ojomo - The Wraith: 24-27 years old

I believe that Philip was probably young when he moved to Canada, maybe between the ages on 19-23. It seems like he worked for Autohaven Wreckers for quite some time before he found out the awful things that were going on and he had unwittingly been apart of, but I would still guess that he was fairly young.

Max Thompson Jr. - The Hillbilly: 20-25 years old

Max is absolutely still relatively young. I would say he’s probably similar in age to Philip. I headcanon that the Entity “spoke” to Max for a long time before he finally killed his parents, easily influencing his thoughts and feelings since his parents had never nurtured him in any meaningful way. The Entity would want him in his prime, but I’m not sure if his physical condition affects his health in any way, and if it would affect his lifespan, so the Entity may have taken him while he was still young.

Sally Smithson - The Nurse: 40-48 years old

So, we know that Sally was married before she went to Crotus Prenn. We also know that based on the style of her nursing uniform she was likely working sometime between the years of 1895 and about 1910, so I would guess that (based on trends of the time) that she was married in her twenties, likely early to mid. Her lore states that she worked at Crotus Prenn for two decades, which would put her somewhere in her forties.

Lisa Sherwood - The Hag: 25-35 years old

Because of the connotations of her title as “hag” and the Grandma’s Cookbook offering, I always thought of Lisa as being older. However, as I take a closer look at her lore, it seems to me that she may be much younger than I originally would have guessed. The cookbook belonged to the family of cannibals that kidnapped her, it was not her own. Her lore also mentions “the elders” who taught her the symbols, on which basis I would guess Lisa is not apart of those considered to be elders, meaning she’s at the very least not elderly. There is also no mention of Lisa having any family. She’s a difficult one, and if I knew from where she was heading home when she was kidnapped I might have better insight, but I would say that she could be anywhere from mid-twenties to thirties.

Herman Carter - The Doctor: 31-40 years old

So the first thing we are told about Herman in his lore is that he was published in high school and then fast tracked into the advanced neuroscience program at Yale within the year, likely making him 18 or 19 at the time. He was then transferred to Léry's Memorial Institute where he was trained and mentored by Stamper, which I’m guessing took place over a span of time that was likely a few years. Based on this I’m guessing that he was between the ages of 24-27 when he was given his own office/experiment space and Project Awakening was approved. It’s stated that over the years he became known as The Doctor. I’m not sure for how long Herman worked within the bounds of the MK Ultra project, but since I’m assuming his use of ECT and Project Awakening are based on the Montreal Experiments which took place between 1957 and 1964 I think it would be safe to posit a timeline of 7 years which would place Herman somewhere between 31 and 34, although I believe he may be as old as 40 based upon renderings of his character model without the headgear and the real life ages at the time of those heading projects within the CIA funded MK Ultra.

Anna - The Huntress: 23-25 years old

So, I had hoped to find more information about Anna from the origins of her lullaby, but unfortunately I could find little information about its origin. We know that she was very young when her mother was killed, I’m guessing between the ages of 7 and 10. It’s stated that she “got older and stronger and practised her hunt”. By that time I would have to guess she was between 16 and 18. Once she began to hunt humans, she had to have time to collect multiple little girls and unfortunately watch them die, putting her (by my best guess) between 21 and 23. Her lore then describes German soldiers coming into her territory which I believe would have been in 1916 and that she disappeared by the end of the war which was 1918 (unless we’re talking Russia’s exit from WW1 which I believe was in 1917). That means that by the time the Entity took her, she was 25 at the oldest.

Kenneth Chase - The Clown: 58-61 years old

For some reason my brain is telling me that Kenneth is 61, but I can’t find anything concrete to support that. So here’s what we know definitively: Kenneth was born in 1932, and he left home in 1954 when his father found his collection and he was 22. He then integrated himself into a traveling circus where he stayed for the next decade, putting him at 32 years old. After that he roamed and acted as a parasite until the Entity took him. However, a clue comes in the form of his VHS add on. The distribution of pornography on VHS tapes was popularized in the 1980′s, which means he was at least 48 when he acquired said tape, though its description as “an all time classic” leads me to believe that he had it for a decent stretch of time. So I would probably place him between the ages of 58 and my original guess of 61.

Rin Yamaoka - The Spirit: 20-22 years old

Rin is stated to be attending a private university at the time of her father’s mental break and attack on both her and her mother. There had to have been time for the bills to pile up between her university costs and her mother’s health expenses, which leads me to believe that she had been attending classes for at least a couple years. This would place her between the ages of 20 and 22.

Frank, Julie, Susie, Joey - The Legion: 19 (Frank) & 18 (Julie, Susie, and Joey)

I’ve discussed this one before, but I base my HC for the ages of the Legion based on Frank’s canonically established aged, and the devs stating that all of their characters are over the age of 18.

Adiris - The Plague: 19-22 years old

I could talk about Adiris for hours, but I’ll try to keep this one short. Adiris’s lore states that when she came of age she attended to the priests that were performing rituals and services to worship the Sea-Goat. Chronological age was not of particular importance to Babylonians so on the basis that “coming of age” is used in reference to a time when a young woman is ready to be married, I referred to Martha T. Roth’s paper Age at Marriage and the Household: A Study of Neo-BabyIonian and Neo-Assyrian Form and concluded that Adiris would likely have been between the ages of 15-18. After this, Adiris assisted in many rituals and cleansings as plague spread through the city of Babylon. I’m guessing that it was a couple years before all of the priests at the Temple of Purgation were unable to continue their duties leaving Adiris as the only one able to carry on. She would have needed time to amass her devoted followers and treat them before she herself began to show signs of infection. She then went to great lengths in an attempt to purge the plague from her body, which would have taken time. By the time of her self-imposed exile and subsequent death, I would place her between 19 and 22.

Kazan Yamaoka - The Oni: Thirties

I admittedly have not had as much time to do research and develop a concrete headcanon for Kazan’s age, but there are a few bits of his lore that can help to formulate a basic age range. We know for a fact that Kazan was married and had a son, and that his son was old enough to climb and play in order for him to have his accident. Based upon this and renderings of the Oni without his mask, I would guess that he’s in his thirties.

Caleb Quinn - The Deathslinger: 44-48 years old

Caleb is another character that I have not spent very much time with. In his lore, the only set amount of time that we are made aware of is the 15 years in which he was imprisoned, and then the six years in which he led the Hellshire gang. That’s at least 21 years of his adult life. I’m assuming that Caleb was a young adult when he first began working for Bayshore (probably between the ages of 18 and 21). It would have taken time for Caleb to create his inventions, and then for Bayshore to sell the designs and for those designs to be put into production. I’d guess sometime between 5 and 6 years, which would put him at 23 at the youngest when he attempted to kill Bayshore. He then spent 15 years in prison, and then 6 years heading the Hellshire gang. Therefore, I believe that he is at youngest 44 and at oldest 48.

Again, these are just my opinions and interpretations of the lore with which we have been presented, and I would be thrilled to hear any other ideas and headcanons!

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blueluneacy · 4 years ago

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Commuted Sentence

So I created an Emperor Diavolo Au. Haha happy turkey day heres some dinner

Warnings: not sfw, deep throating, serious dub con, implications of an older person teachin someone younger than them, inexperienced reader, imprisonment, slavery. This one is a doozy

You whimpered as you sat in your small cell, looking up at the tiny window that you would never be able to reach, trying to take in warmth from the little sunlight that came through the bleak little thing.

It all happened so fast. You woke up to the smell of smoke, finding your home to be in flames. You had to jump out the window to get out, and you were the only one. You mourned the loss of everything, your possessions and loved ones alike. And then you were swept up by royal guards, claiming that you were being arrested for arson and the death of your family caused by said arson. You thought that the justice system would clearly be on your side, since you obviously hadn’t done it, but your trial absolutely blinded you, and you were sentenced. To death.

Your face went pale when the judge gave the verdict, carrying you off to a holding cell where you would wait for your sentence to be carried out. You waited for days in that little holding cell, trying to think of a way that would be able to survive, to avoid what felt so inevitable. So you sat, trying to look out at the sunlight, what felt like the only freedom you had left.

You barely noticed when someone came to visit your cell, too occupied with your own despair to really look over to see who had entered the room, looking at you beyond the bars that held you in your cage.

“Are you this disrespectful to everyone? I should have you hanged just for your refusal to acknowledge my presence.” He spoke out. You turned quickly, your eyes wide as you saw the emperor standing right in front of you. You quickly bowed your head, but your eyes still looked up to try and see what you could of the illusive man.

The emperor himself was not one many had ever actually seen. He would often send one of his strange assistants out for public events, and he refused to be on any official coinage like past emperors, so it made it practically impossible for the public to know who he was. Perhaps it was to deviate from the old lineage. Emperor Diavolo had taken the throne after the last emperor died with no heirs, causing a great power struggle. The people thought that perhaps a civil war would appear among the nobles, until Diavolo swooped in with some papers claiming he was the great nephew of the former emperor. Without anyone else having any claim, he was able to take the throne for himself, though rumors still persist that perhaps he isn’t even of noble blood.

Well, noble blood or not, he was still beautiful. His hair was long, a vibrant pink that was pulled back and put into a low ponytail, his body lean and muscular, hidden by the extravagant clothing he wore, his eyes bright green, piercing into you. But even his good looks couldn’t hide how his face was set into a scowl, as if dealing with a petulant child rather than a prisoner accused of murder.

“Apologies, your Majesty. I… I didn’t notice that you were there.” You replied, looking down at the ground in your attempt to seem polite. But more than anything, you were confused. What the hell did the emperor want with some lowlife prisoner on death row? Diavolo just hummed as looked at you, reaching through the bars to grab you by the chin, forcing you to look up at him. You gulped as he stared right into your eyes, examining you so closely it made you want to roll over and die right there.

“I can’t tell if you’re stupid, or stubborn.” Diavolo spat in return, practically throwing you as he let you go. You fell back and whimpered, easily pushing yourself onto your knees.

“I-I’m sorry, your grace, please! This is all one big misunderstanding, really!” You cried out, bowing your head, then quickly changing your mind and pushing your entire body to the floor. Diavolo just scoffed at you, watching as you prostrated yourself in front of him, easily hiding his amusement at your fear.

“What is? Your disrespect, or the fact that you’re here in the first place?” Diavolo asked. The question caused you to raise your head up curiously. Perhaps the emperor was just the man for you to plead your case to.

“Um, both of them, actually, your highness. See, I believe there was a grave misjudgement in my case. All of the witnesses were people no where close to where I lived, and I have reason to believe that there may have even been people lying on the stand-”

“Enough. I already know everything about that, you don’t need to continue to babble on.” Diavolo’s booming voice cut you off, leaving you to instantly go silent, looking at the ground. He chuckled, pulling out a key from his pocket and unlocking your cell, opening up the door instantly.

“I’m going to leave this open as I come in here. If you try anything to escape, the guards will kill you before you can get down the hallway.” Diavolo warned, before stepping inside the small cell. He audibly scoffed as he looked around at the poor conditions.

“I’m here to make you an offer that I don’t think you’ll have trouble refusing. Just a little bit of labor in exchange for your life.” Diavolo explained. You immediately perked up, staring up at Diavolo with huge eyes. While just moments ago, you felt fear in the presence of the Emperor, already were you ready to sing his good graces, to thank him endlessly for his mercy.

“Of course, your majesty, anything! I’ll do anything, oh my god, you don’t know how much this means to me-” You started to babble, the Emperor’s eyes just narrowing as his fist tightened.

“You will speak when I give you permission to do so. You will do well to learn not to speak in the presence of your betters. I will not warn you again.” He growled. You whimpered, curling in on yourself before nodding. Diavolo visibly relaxed a bit, before continuing.

“I doubt you’ll have any qualms about the arrangement. Your sentence will be commuted, and it shouldn’t be very difficult for you.” He told you. You sighed a bit. You supposed searching in the palace wouldn’t be too difficult, all things considered. Anything to get out of this cell. You just nodded in response, looking up at Diavolo but kept your mouth shut. “I knew you would. It’s the deal of a lifetime, after all.” A small smile came over Diavolo’s face as he reached over, patting your head a few times before tangling his fingers through your hair and forcefully pulling you closer to him, pulling your face close to his pants. “Now then, I believe I’ll start your work right now. You may begin.” You gasped, started to squirm as you tried to break free of Diavolo’s painful grip.

“What’s going on?! What do you mean, I thought I was going to work-!” You were cut off by Diavolo’s hand slapping your face.

“That’s the third time that you spoke out of turn, dear. You really need to learn to mind your manners.” He seemed actually amused, delighted even, that you did break his rule, however, letting you wince and hold your tender cheek. “I’m surprised you can be this dull about these things. But since you don’t understand, I will spell it out plainly to you.” He let go of your hair in favor of taking your chin in his hand and forcing you to look up to him.

“You will take care of my physical needs without complaint. If I find any bit of noncompliance, I will have no problem sending you back here.” He told you. You swallowed, feeling your eyes start to tear up as you nodded, looking away. You felt so humiliated, stuck on your knees in front of this man as he held your life in his hands, able to throw it away on merely a whim. Diavolo hummed, letting go of you and moving instead to unzip his pants. He easily pulled out his cock, leaving you to swallow as you saw it. He was big, a lot bigger than you had imagined, thick with a gentle curve. You felt your face flush with embarrassment as you put your hands on your knees, trying to figure out what exactly you were supposed to do with that.

“You’ve never done a thing like this before, have you?” Diavolo asked, assumed by how embarrassed you were about the whole thing. You just gulped, trying to figure out some way to save this situation.

“I haven’t, b-but, I can help you in other ways if you want! I could cook, or um, clean, I’m really good at ironing clothes-”

“No need. I’m more than happy to teach you what you need to know, pet.” Diavolo pulled you closer, letting his cock nudge against your lips in a way that made you squeeze.

“Go on. Try using your tongue.” Diavolo’s voice was laid back, but you could tell that he meant that as an order. You gulped and nodded, trying to keep yourself from falling apart as you stuck out your tongue, just letting it run over the tip. It was what was closest to you, after all, it had to be the right call, right? Well, it made Diavolo shudder, hand on your head gently rubbing your scalp in a way you guessed was meant to be soothing.

“You may be worth something yet. But try running your tongue over the whole thing rather than just focusing on there.” He instructed. Every time he spoke you just nodded, not wanting to be hit again for responding. You started to make broad licks across the whole of his cock, looking up at Diavolo to continually gauge his reaction.

“That’s it, good. Now take it in your mouth, nice and slow.” He hummed, continuing to pet your head as he guided your lips to the tip of his cock, nudging you to open your mouth. You gulped, but did as he asked, opening up your mouth if only to save yourself from what might happen if you refused. You started to take him into your mouth, slowly as far as you could without choking. When you realized you had only taken in half of him, you looked back up at Diavolo, not wanting to do anything before he had told you explicitly what he expected. He sighed and rolled his eyes at your hestitance, gripping your head harder.

“Is that really all you can take? I don’t think you’re trying hard enough.” He growled, pushing himself down your throat and leaving you to choke. New tears sprung for your eyes as he started to guide your head back and forth. You whined in return, but kept your hands on your knees, trying to take deep breaths through your nose. God, you couldn’t imagine what would happen if you threw up on the Emperor.

“There you go, that’s much better. You’re not very good at this, but you make up for it by how tight your throat is.” He chuckled. “Now take this, and I promise that you’ll be out of this cell.” You looked up in confusion, as if to ask what he meant, but Diavolo just let his sharp nails dig into your scalp, beginning to fuck your throat with reckless abandon. You groaned as you began to sob, your nose clogging with your own snot as you tried to keep back your own bile.

It didn’t last long, if you were completely honest. The Emperor was obviously pent up in a way that you found rather shocking. Sure he had concubines or something that he could take his frustrations out on, right? Why did it have to be you? But still, you could tell that he was probably getting close as his thrusted were getting jerky, his growling becoming more like a low groan.

“That’s it, you’re going to swallow everything. You’re going to take everything that I’m going to give you, and afterwards, you’re going to fucking thank me for it.” Diavolo’s voice was low practically in a hiss as he thrust into your throat one, two, three more times before forcing himself as deep as he could, your nose forced to take him the musky smell of his pubic hair. He let out a small sound when he finally came, your entire senses becoming overwhelmed by the taste of salt from his cum. He didn’t pull out until he felt you swallow, forced to take him in. When he finally let you go and pulled out, you took large, deep breaths, gasping as you swallowed what was left in your mouth with a shudder.

Diavolo just looked down at you expectantly, his already thin patience wearing as you collected yourself. You caught his harsh look at you, and gulped, looking at the ground.

“T… Thank you, your Majesty.” You mumbled. It was pathetic, sure, but it was enough to satisfy, giving you a small pat on the head that you supposed was meant to be affectionate.

“Good, you did well for your first time. Now clean me up and tuck me back away.” He hummed. You just whimpered and nodded, moving to try and clean Diavolo off with your hands, but before you could even touch him, he grabbed your wrist, shaking his head.

“With your tongue, pet.” He warned you. You swallowed, nodding a bit and immediately darted your tongue out, cleaning up Diavolo the best you could before tucking him away.

“That’s it. I think this arrangement will be extremely… Agreeable. The guards will show you to your new living quarters as soon as I sign the paperwork to commute your sentence.” The Emperor spoke, already walking out of the cell and closing it behind him.

“I do hope that we’ll keep up this good behavior. I really have no qualms about making sure you end up right back here.” He told you, leaving you alone once again. As soon as he left, you couldn’t help but start to sob, slowly crying yourself to sleep.

You woke up to the sound of your cell opening again, guards coming over to you and easily picking you up. You were dazed, trying to make sense of the whole thing, before handcuffs hit your wrist.

“W-Wait, what’s going on? I thought I was being made into a servant!” You asked, but the guards just pulled you along, taking you out of your cell and up a long staircase to the palace.

“It’s customary to transport a slave like this. You should get used to it, the Emperor had the good enough graces to change your sentence from death to slavery. I wouldn’t complain if I were you.” The guard grunted, your face falling flat as you realized your circumstances.

Maybe dying would’ve been easier.

#NOT SFW #jjba imagines #jjba x reader #jjba/reader #writing #My writing #mine #diavolo x reader #diavolo/reader #dub con

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lestcat-de-lioncourt · 4 years ago

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I personally find it really weird when you’re pro one minorities rights but boycott or ignore and don’t bother about any of the rest, but that’s not my mindset so that’s probably why I don’t understand not being empathetic or bother too much supporting all of them. So now I will go into the seriousness of what is happening.

In 2020, HRC tracked a record number of violent fatal incidents against transgender and gender non-conforming people. A total of 44 fatalities were tracked by HRC, marking 2020 as the most violent year on record, and at least 12 and its only just hit April.

These victims were killed by acquaintances, partners or strangers, some of whom have been arrested and charged, others still haven’t.

It wasn’t even been a month since Diamond Kyree Sanders, a black trans woman was killed on March 3rd (it’s only April the 4th now) before the 12 was recorded.

It needs to stop.

I experienced personally my first physical assault after years of verbal experiences, the night after the last Bristol Pride was held before COVID, in a house surrounded by people who pretended to be my friends, but 1 of whom joined in, and the other who turned the other way and proceeded to relentlessly harass me after because I didn’t want to be near them anymore. I am thankful I got “lucky”. I use that term because I got my life and these others did not, but that life got taken over by trauma for a long time afterwards.

Trans murders have jumped 266 percent from last year. It was already bad, but COVID has been seeing us a burning hand on top or this horrible virus that’s sweeping us already. The governments are not doing enough because most of them do not need to care, as it’s trans to cis ratio is obviously completely out.

But as we unfortunately know, often, it doesn’t affect you, a lot choose to not be wrapped up into it because they perhaps will never have to.

People run from it, and I wish it was so simple to be able to do that for the rest of us, the ones who wont be protected by the law, the ones who won’t even be hired for jobs we need just over something like what minority we are, we can’t run from the knowledge of all we may face, or the prospect of being beaten, being accosted in a bathroom, being threatened if we choose to have a family, losing family, losing people we care about over something like this, something that is innocent, what we were born as that we can’t change.

I just hope in the future I see more about trans rights, a lot of people shy away from that. There’s been a lot of seriously bad stuff happening this year that people either haven’t noticed or refuse to listen to, refuse to try hell with stopping, and the government is digging us holes from all sides again, and have throughout the COVID epidemic because they decided to use this already tremendously difficult historical event to appear to sprout an attack on trans people.

Far right organisations here and across the pond have been ripping us and our safety apart and I’m seeing bare minimum about it if I’m honest.

https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/breaking-2021-becomes-record-year-for-anti-transgender-legislation

There have been 81 anti-trans and lgbtqia+ actions lead in only the past 4 years that I’ve recorded from Trumps reign. Legally imprisoning us into discrimination and targeting without any form of punishment, leading many to live life in fear or to shut themselves away, knowing that whoever walks around the corner could be ready to do anything, and nothing will be in place to punish them for it so we would’ve at least had the safety from the law.

https://transequality.org/the-discrimination-administration

It needs to stop

During COVID officials and police all over the world have been misusing the law with the restrictions to abuse trans and lgbqia+ people.

In Uganda police detained some 20 LGBT homeless youth on spurious charges of breaking Covid-19 restrictions and tortured them in prison.

In the Philippines, village officials humiliated LGBT people while enforcing curfew.

In South Korea, social media users scapegoated LGBT people after some media linked an outbreak to gay clubs.

In Panama, police and private security officials discriminated against transgender people while enforcing a gender-based quarantine.

Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orbán used Covid-19 emergency powers to rush through discriminatory legislation against transgender people.

Our Boris Johnson scrapped plans to make changing gender easier, as if it already wasn’t hard enough. The waiting list is now around 4 years, I was promised two, I’m in my third year, and now it’s more unless we all manage to get rich enough to pay for it ourselves.

Let’s not forget how he also scrapped important funding for anti-bullying programmes and protections in schools, something which I’ve witnessed through my brothers time in schoool during this time, affected him and others to have the support and respect they needed to and LGBT+ person being cut from being allowed to stay as a prefect with the excuse of “we need to make it more visibly diverse”... so they fired the lgbt+ person out of the other non-lgbt+ people????

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/11/19/lgbt-anti-bullying-programme-uk-schools-boris-johnson-government-funding/

Johnson’s government appears to align itself with increasing anti-trans rhetoric.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/trans-self-id-gender-recognition-act-lgbt-rights-b528630.html%3famp

2021 has already seen 12 trans people dead, and 350 trans people were killed in 2020 (that I’m aware of, please add if you know more), children being allowed to be bullied because their safety isn’t worth protecting, and the police are not on our side and neither are many places or circles. Let that sit with you if you read this far.

I hope this might spark the seriousness to someone who hasn’t already taken it seriously because:

IT NEEDS TO STOP.

#transphobia #trans rights #trans day of remembrance #transgender #trans #transphobic hate crimes #hate crimes #transphobic #trans murders #war on trans people #against trump #u.k. government #boris johnson #death tw #murder tw #transphobia tw

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amythedvdhoarder · 4 years ago

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Protection - Part 10

Pairing: Bucky x Reader, Steve x Reader (platonic)

Story Summary: Bucky cannot bear that Y/N was hurt because of him. He has to find a way to keep her safe. Forever

Chapter Summary: Bucky returns and you decide to keep your pregnancy a secret from him. Will you ever be able to forgive and let him back into your life?

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of pregnancy and labour plus whole lot of angst.

Word count: 3.8K

Author’s note: Gif not mine. Sorry it has taken me ages to update this, I have been busy writing Bucky one-shots for the flex your writing muscles challenge. I can’t quite decide whether to write a full other chapter and an epilogue or just an epilogue. Please let me know of you have any thoughts. Feedback always welcome, it is lovely to see who has been reading this story. Enjoy x

series masterlist

masterlist

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Bucky’s POV

Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he got a good night’s sleep. That was a lie. He could. But the memory of you curled up against him made his heart hurt. Echoes of your screams played on a loop in his head. The betrayal in your voice as you had begged him not to leave made him physically ache. All he wanted to do was find his way back to you. But would you even take him back after all the lies he had told you to try and protect you? His eyelids felt heavy, sleep threatening but he had to try and focus. He was close now.

It had been 6 months. 6 months away from you. 6 months of hunting down Zemo, the head of the Sokovian death squad. The man who had nearly killed his best friend and the man who had threatened to tear his adopted family apart. Bucky had been taking out members of Zemo’s death squad as he tracked them across the world. He had been careful about it though. It was a fine line; he wanted Zemo to know he was on borrowed time but didn’t want to draw the team’s attention. Now all that remained was Zemo and the last of his cult.

Bucky watched as the light turned off in the tower block across the street from his hiding place. Zemo and his goon were in there and there was no way they were leaving in one piece. This was one the few times that Bucky could remember being grateful for his skill set. Zemo was going to pay, unfortunately the price was his life. He waited in the darkness, took a deep breath then headed towards the tower block, gun tucked in the back of his trousers and cap pulled low over his face.

Readers POV

Subconsciously your hand fell to your stomach and rested on the swelling bump. It had been 3 months ago since Dr Cho had told you about your pregnancy. 6 months since Bucky had left. You were sat watching Steve paint the walls in what would become your baby’s nursery. You were excited about becoming a mother but you still couldn’t shake the sadness that had lingered around you since Bucky had left. Steve had been your rock during the pregnancy; he came with you to every scan, he helped Tony organise new living quarters for you in the compound for when the baby arrived. Not to mention how he had moved into the room next to yours just in case you needed anything during the night.

Steve’s phone rang, he put the paintbrush down and quickly yanked the phone out of his back pocket. “Sam what’s up?” You couldn’t make out what Sam was saying but could hear the urgency in his tone. “We’ll be right there.” He walked over to you calmly, held out his hand for you to take, helping you out of your seat. “Steve, what’s happened?” He sighed. “Zemo.” Just upon hearing his name you could feel your heart hammering in your chest. If they had something on Zemo, then maybe there would be news about Bucky. Your mind was racing at the prospect of some information, so much so that you didn’t pay attention to where you were going allowing Steve to lead you all the way to the conference room.

Sam was waiting for you both when you arrived, his expression unreadable. “I’m just going to come out and say it. We found Zemo” Steve looked at him for a second frustrated “and…” Sam glanced at Steve and then at you. “He’s dead. It’s not a pretty sight I will warn you now.” An image flashed up on the screen. It was hard to identify Zemo; he looked like he had been attacked by a wild animal. Whom ever had done this had been consumed by pure rage and any form of self-control had vanished. You looked away in shock, the image bringing up the terrible memories of finding Steve after he had been kidnapped. You didn’t need to ask who had do this, it was Bucky. Bucky had finally taken his revenge. Steve cleared his throat, he knew what this meant. “Any sign of Buck?”

As Sam explained how there were still no signs of Bucky, Steve automatically placed his arm around you and ran it up and down your back. There was no evidence that Bucky had any involvement, but it was obvious to those of you within the team. Now Bucky had completed his mission, would he come back? A glance at Steve’s face told you he was thinking the exact same thing; he was biting his bottom lip and had one eyebrow raised in thought.

For the next few days everyone on the team was quiet. There was no easy flowing conversations and any interaction was an effort. All of you were anxious about what was going to happen now. Would Bucky suddenly reappear as if nothing had happened or would he stay away? Either way, you had made a decision. If Bucky did come back, you didn’t want to see him. Yes, you may be carrying his baby but he didn’t know that. How could you trust him not to run away again? He had hurt you and you didn’t think you would recover if he walked out on you again and this time on his child as well. Steve took a bit of persuading to come around to your way of thinking but ultimately agreed with you, at least until the baby had been born. Dr Cho has already warned that due to the super serum from Bucky, the baby was developing faster. Any stress could potentially harm the baby or even cause you to go into premature labour. So, it was agreed, you moved into you flat in the compound that week with Steve taking the guest room.

It was the middle of the night about a week later FRIDAY sent out the alert. The AI’s voice rang through your flat. “Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes is at the door to the compound.” You struggled to sit up, in the last week your bump had ballooned leaving you feeling like a beached whale. As you flicked on the bedside lamp, Steve appeared at your door still fighting his way into a t-shirt. “You ok?” he asked through a yawn. You gave him a half smile “I guess, least we know he’s safe.” Your gaze lowered to your bump and your hands ran over it softly. “Look Y/N, I’m probably going to be a while dealing with this. He doesn’t have access to this floor so you want wonder in to him by accident. I’m not going to tell him anything. Ok?” When you didn’t answer him, Steve walked over to you. He wiped away the tears that were rolling down your cheeks with his thumb and leant down to place a kiss on your head. “It’s going to be ok Y/. I promise.” He lifted your hand to his lips and with that he left.

Bucky’s POV

He knew it was wrong to just show up now after everything that had happened, but he wanted to be near you again. He had done what he had set out to do. Zemo was dead; he didn’t pose a threat to any of the team anymore, to you. He saw Steve walking towards the door, his jaw was clenched and he looked thoroughly pissed. Bucky braced himself for what was about to come. Steve punched in the code to open the door and motioned for Bucky to come in. “Steve…” Steve help his hand up “Don’t” he growled. “Follow me.” In the conference room Bucky was met by several pairs of disdainful eyes; Tony, Nat, Sam and of course Steve. There was one pair missing, the pair he longed to see regardless of the hate for him that they probably contained. Steve pointed to a seat and Bucky sat, he glanced to the door wondering if you were going to walk in. When everyone else drew up a seat, he knew you weren’t coming.

“What the hell were you thinking Barnes?” Nat started. “What part of ‘team’ don’t you fucking understand?” Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. Of course, he had thought through what he could say to everyone, but now he was here he didn’t have a clue. “Look I’m sorry. I just thought…” Nat got to her feet now, anger taking over taking any semblance of professionalism “No you fucking didn’t. You didn’t think at all. Steve was a mess and Y/N well …”. “Nat” Steve cut her off. She shot him an apologetic look. “You left Bucky because you and your jumped ego thought you could handle this on your own. Sod everyone else.” Nat shook her head, her hand trembling with the rage currently coursing through her. “I don’t often say this but I can’t do this” Nat walked out of the room, the men left behind stunned into silence.

Sam started next. “She has a point man. Zemo threatened us all, hell he nearly killed Steve. Do you not think we were all in this?” Bucky just glared at him. No one was ever going to think he had might the right choice, maybe he didn’t but the problem had been dealt with. What had been done and how it was done couldn’t be changed. “I did what I had to do. I did this for years, it’s not something I am proud of but I’m different to all of you” Tony’s fists clenched on the table in front of him. “You would have arrested Zemo, he didn’t need imprisoning he needed getting rid of. I did what none of you would have done. Did I enjoy it? No. But it had to be done.” Steve ran a hand through his hair. “Buck, it wasn’t your choice to make.”

Bucky knew it was pointless arguing. “Obviously there are going to be consequences Barnes. 6 months suspension and house arrest. I don’t know what consequences there will be from other agencies. At the minute they have no idea your involved so maybe you’ll get lucky” Bucky nodded at Tony, accepting his fate. The punishment wasn’t as harsh as he thought it was going to be. He thought for sure he was going to be kicked out onto the street or put in some max security facility. Tony left the room leaving Bucky with Sam and Steve.

“I know I don’t have much right to ask this but where’s Y/N? I need to talk to her. Apologise I was an arsehole.” Sam scoffed “Got that right”. Steve’s face hardened “She doesn’t want to see you. You hurt her Buck. She’s gonna need time.” Bucky didn’t trust his voice to hide his emotions so chose to nod. “Sam is going to get a detailed account of everything that happened whilst you were after Zemo.” Steve stood up, his hand on the door handle. “Buck, she’s still here, she’s safe. But please don’t go looking for her. When she wants to see you, she will.” Steve stood staring and Bucky, waiting for a response. “Ok Steve.”

Bucky sat in the room for hours with Sam, patiently recalling the events of the last 6 months. Every location, every stakeout and every killing. Sam didn’t have to prompt Bucky for any information, he just let Bucky regurgitate the facts. “I did it for Y/N” Bucky said suddenly, “I just wanted to make it safer for her, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.” Sam smiled sadly. “FRIDAY, stop recording” The AI confirmed and Sam cracked his fingers then looked up at Bucky. “Look man, I can’t tell you how torn up she was. But I think part of her understands. She loves you, that doesn’t go away but you have to admit what you did was brutal. You can’t expect it to go back to the way it was, for her to trust you.” Bucky bowed his head into his hands. What did he expect? He told you he had lied to you, that he didn’t love you, that he had used you. All he ever wanted to do was protect you, but to do that he had hurt you in the worst possible way. He didn’t deserve your forgiveness, he knew that, but he needed to be around you, to show you how he really felt. Sam stood up and rested his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room.”

Bucky followed Sam up to his old room. Bucky felt his heart break as he walked past the door to your old room; it was clear that you weren’t there anymore. All of your belongings had been cleared out, the only trace that you had been there was a faint lingering scent of fresh cotton and lavender. Once closing the door to his own room, he realised it had been like he never left. The memories of the last time he had been in the room flooded back to him. Your cries still seemed to echo around the walls and hurt evident on your face as you screamed at him. His final act in this room had been one of betrayal; severing ties to the one person who meant the most to him. Going after Zemo had been the right thing to do, but the way he had pushed you away, the malice in his words. Well that was unforgivable. Bucky threw himself and screamed into the pillow. The emotions he had worked so hard to keep at bay for the last 6 months finally poured out until he was exhausted.

Over the next few weeks Bucky kept himself to himself. He didn’t venture out of his room during the day. He couldn’t bare the disappointing and judgemental looks from the others, the self-hatred was enough. In the middle of the night, he would venture from his room, got to the gym for a bit, walk around and eat some food. He always lingered in the places he knew you used to go, he wanted to see you, to just run into you accidently. It wasn’t as if it is breaking Steve’s request, he wasn’t actively looking for you he just hoped that before he shut himself back in his room, away from the world, he might just catch a glimpse of you. It was selfish really but he just needed to see you. It was killing him knowing that everyone else got to spend time with you, he would catch snippets of hushed conversations as people walked past his door. Just the simple mention your name would make him run to the door and look for any sign of you. He even smelt you on Steve a couple of times when he had come to visit and he couldn’t help but feel jealous. For now, he just had to accept that you didn’t want to see him and after everything he had done he couldn’t blame you.

Readers POV

You were sat waiting for Steve when he came back from seeing Bucky, a mug of tea clutched in your hand the other placed on your bump. Steve came and sat down next to you and sighed. “Y/N, you should be sleeping.” Placing your cup down, you shifted, with some difficulty, to lean against Steve who automatically wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “I couldn’t.” Steve trailed his fingertips down your arm. “How was he?” You tilted your head up to look at Steve. He pinched his nose and scrunched his eyes up before meeting your expectant gaze. “He’s not injured.” You pressed your hand to his chest. “You know that’s not what I meant.” He groaned. “I know Y/N. He seems lost. Nat had a proper go at him and he just took it. Didn’t fight back when she screamed at him.” Steve knew what you wanted to hear and couldn’t deny you. “He asked about you Y/N. I think he really regrets how he treated you.” All you could do was nod in acceptance and nestle tighter into Steve’s chest. Despite the fact that he had hurt you so much, you couldn’t help but feel comforted by the fact that he was back, that he was safe. Your brain was telling you to stay clear of him but your heart, well it knew that he had lied. He had said those things to protect, even if he had to hurt you.

For the next few weeks you never seemed to get a minute to yourself. It was like the team was babysitting you. Steve was obviously staying with you in the flat, but when he was busy then you had Nat, Sam, Tony or Clint keeping you company. All you wanted was peace and quiet, time to be on your own. You knew what they were doing; they were trying to keep you distracted, but to be honest you also suspected it was partly down to Bucky’s return. Maybe they thought you were going to go looking for him or he was going to come looking for you. Every time there was a knock on the door your stomach flutter in anticipation. Even though Steve had told you that Bucky had no access to the floor you still hoped that Bucky would try to find a way to see you. But he didn’t, as far as you knew he had no idea where you were or in fact you were carrying his child.

After 8 months the pregnancy was really taking its toll on you. It was becoming more and more difficult to sleep due partly to how much your back hurt but mainly because of how active the baby was. Walking around seemed to alleviate some of the pain and also stopped the demon child kicking the hell out of your internal organs. So that was how you found yourself wondering around the compound at 3 in the morning. Steve had told you to stay on your floor at all times; it made you feel like a prisoner. Plus, the likelihood of anyone being awake was slim to none. You had heard the snores coming from Steve’s room as you snuck out and figured what he didn’t know would hurt him.

Exhausted from the short walk you sat at the breakfast bar in the communal kitchen sipping on a cold bottle of water. You hissed at the sharp pain coming from your abdomen, the baby still very much active despite the time of day. “Do you ever sleep?” you mumbled down at the bump. “Y/N?” You froze at the voice in the doorway. It was a voice that stirred a lot of emotions within you; love, sadness, anger, fear, longing and at the minute you couldn’t decide which emotion was winning. You turned your body, hiding your stomach from view and turned to look at Bucky. He took a hesitant step into the kitchen. “Am I alright to come in?” he asked quietly. You nodded, you didn’t quite trust yourself to speak yet. Bucky leaned against the cabinets on the other side of the room, giving you space.

It wasn’t difficult to notice the changes; his hair had grown out, he had lost a little bit of weight and the spark in his eyes was gone, he looked lost. As he shifted on his feet slightly and toyed with his fingers you witnessed just how nervous he looked. “Look I know you never want to see me again, I can go if you want?” His eyes met yours from across the room and you couldn’t help but feel your heart break a little. “No Bucky, it’s ok.” His name sounded foreign as it left your lips, it was a name you had barely uttered for over half a year. Bucky couldn’t squash the small smile forming on his lips. “Look Y/N I don’t even know where to begin. I am really sorry. I didn’t mean any of what I…” The bottle you were holding slammed into the table, the anger getting the better of you “Don’t you dare try and apologise, you still said it Bucky. You fucking abandoned me. You … Arghhhh”

Your hand flew to your stomach as you cried out in pain. “Bucky, get Steve” Bucky stepped towards you unsure of what was going on. His eyes filled with concern as he took the final steps around the counter. “You’re…when?” Bucky’s eyes were now glued to the bump peeking out from your tank top. Another cramp hit you. “Bucky get Steve, I think the baby’s coming.” You said through gritted teeth Bucky was frozen. His mouth open and shut as words failed him. “FRIDAY, wake up Steve and tell him to meet me at the medbay.” A warmth began to spread down your legs. “Buck, I know you’re in shock but I need to get to the medbay. I’m a month early. BUCKY HELP.” The shouting seemed to snap him back. He held out his hand for you to take and helped you off the stool. “Doll, you ok to walk?” You glared up at him “Don’t fucking call me that.” He pulled an apologetic expression. “I can walk, just need you to help.” Bucky held your hand in his and wrapped his metal arm around your waist. It was a slow walk down to the medbay, having to stop as contractions hit you. Bucky let you squash his hand in yours as you rode out the pain. He couldn’t help but look at you in admiration, you had always been beautiful but pregnancy suited you. It’s no wonder you hated him. He had abandoned you and his child.

Steve glared at him as you arrived. He strode towards the pair of you. He immediately pointed at Bucky. “You. I…” You cut Steve off by putting your hand on his chest. “Steve, it wasn’t his fault. I went…” You gasped as another contraction hit you. Steve pulled you away from Bucky to the delivery room that Tony and Bruce had set up. You turned back to look at Bucky, his hands fisted in his hair, conflict written all over his face. “Bucky, I don’t want you in here” you gestured to the room and his face fell “but, you can wait out here until it’s over.” He nodded, tears in his eyes and took a chair as Steve closed the door behind you. He took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to steady his heart rate and breathing. How could he have ever left you? Your invitation for him to wait gave him a small ounce of hope though. He knew he didn’t deserve to be in your lives but all he knew is that nothing else mattered now. The only things that were important to him now were in the room his was banished from. You and your child.

taglist: @broco8, @mela-noche

#bucky x reader #bucky imagine #bucky x you #bucky angst #bucky #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #marvel #marvel fanfics #avengers #steve rogers #sam wilson #natasha romanoff

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bytheangell · 4 years ago

Text

Beneath the Surface

(Read on AO3) (inspired by this beautiful art by jesssssah <3)

Jace is with Alec the night everything goes wrong.

They’re on patrol with a small group of soldiers when they spot a mermaid child who pulled herself up on some flat rocks by the beach. She’s alone, looking up at the stars, lost in her thoughts and not paying attention to her surroundings. Jace watches what happens next play out in slow-motion, unable to stop it, as Victor takes his sword and silently approaches her from behind. He watches Alec hesitate just a moment before taking off after him, catching up quickly since he isn’t making any attempt to stay quiet or hide his approach. In fact, Alec shouts, “stop!” which startles Victor into pausing in surprise to look backward, buying Alec enough time to intercept Victor which allows the mermaid girl, suddenly aware of her attacker, time to slip back into the ocean and out of sight.

Except she isn’t alone like they thought. A woman appears in the water by the rocks, a woman with striking blue skin and a shock of white hair. They see her a moment too late to defend themselves against her retaliation and Victor falls, hit with her magic before she too flees beneath the water.

They rush to Victor who is unconscious but still breathing.

“You’re going to regret that, Lightwood,” Raj snarls. It isn’t an empty threat and they all know it.

Raj and the others take off ahead carrying Victor’s body between them, leaving Jace waiting to trail behind with Alec.

“I’m sorry,” Alec says. He isn’t sorry for saving the girl, Jace knows, but rather sorry for the inevitable fallout of it back home.

Jace takes his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I know,” he reassures him, wondering if he would’ve stopped Alec if he saw it coming fast enough… if he would’ve let that mermaid girl die to spare his partner the hardships of whatever might happen next. “You did what you thought was right.”

Jace tries not to think about what Victor might do in retaliation. He tries not to be too upset with Alec for always putting others first at his own expense.

“If something happens to me-” Alec starts, but Jace cuts him off, unable to bear the thought.

“I won’t abandon you, don’t worry,” Jace promises.

“No,” Alec says quickly. “I know you support me. You don’t have to show it. Please, don’t show it. I don’t want them to come after you, too. I-” he hesitates.

“You don’t have to-” Jace starts, already knowing what Alec wants to say, what he feels. He’s always known, but saying it now, under these conditions, makes it feel heavy and final.

“I do. Just once. I love you, Jace.”

They’re words he’s always wanted to hear, but they feel tainted by the circumstances and the fear gripping his chest.

“I love you too,” Jace says.

The words fill the silence between them the rest of the walk back.

---

When Alec stands in defiance of the Council, speaking out in defense of the merfolk, Jace is both immeasurably proud and selfishly upset. It’s such a brave thing to do, and he admires Alec’s sense of what’s right and just as he opposes the laws that allow the merfolk to be hunted and killed without punishment under their classification as a second class species. It’s also a foolish thing to do because going against the Council is unheard of and Jace doesn’t want to see Alec punished for his insubordination.

Still, Alec stands tall and resolute, firm in his beliefs. Jace listens to him speak and knows that he’s going to change the world one day, and can’t wait to be by his side to support him every step of the way. He imagines the worst of Alec’s punishments to be unfavorable duties, perhaps a few physical lashings… he doesn’t expect to hear a decree that Alec is to be imprisoned for what is being deemed treason against the laws of their people.

Jace thought he knew pain, he thought he knew loss, but nothing compares to the way his entire chest constricts at the sight of Alec being lead to the holding chambers, heart full of dread at the idea of what they might do to him there.

Hands hold him back as Jace tries to fight his way through to the guards, to Alec, who turns to shake his head sadly at him as he’s ushered off. Alec’s words echo in his head. ‘I don’t want them to come after you, too.’ Jace stills and takes several steps back, watching helplessly as they usher Alec out of the room.

---

Rumors of Alec’s punishment reach Jace too late. To make an example of him for any who would stand against the Council, and especially any who would advocate for the Merfolk, an arrangement has been made for a curse to be placed upon Alec, turning him into one of the merfolk and leaving to spend the remainder of his days alone in the depths of the sea. It’s a fate many of their people would consider worse than death… but Alec isn’t like most of their people. Jace has to believe he can handle this. He’ll be fine. He has to be fine.

By the time he finds out where they’re going Alec is already on the ship and heading out to sea, and for the second time Jace is helpless to do anything but watch. When the ship returns some hours later Alec is no longer with them.

He doesn't know what to do with himself in Alec's absence. He tries to continue on, knowing that Alec would want him to stay, to live his life without regret or hesitation... but he can't. He can't bring himself to simply move on as if Alec never existed, as if he didn't just lose the most important part of his world.

It takes Jace a long time to find a witch who would be both willing and able to perform a spell as complicated as putting the same curse on him as the Council placed on Alec. It takes him even longer to save up enough to offer in payment. Picking up side-jobs as often as possible to make up the extra coin. he does whatever he can, whatever he has to, in order to make this work.

It's nearly six months after Alec's punishment was carried out when Jace stands with the witch on the edge of the shoreline.

"This cannot be reversed," she warns him, not for the first time. "It isn't too late to turn back. I would even return your payment in full."

Jace should take her obvious reluctance as a sign but he doesn't. He can't, not when he's so close to being able to reunite with Alec.

"You have what you asked for," Jace says resolutely. "Please, continue. I will not change my mind."

She hands Jace a potion, one that's nearly black in color, and only upon closer inspection turns out to be a deep, shimmering midnight blue. He takes the cork out and empties it into his mouth, making certain to swallow every last drop. It takes several minutes for the potion to take effect and when it does he feels a tingle begin around his hips, moving downward, his legs fusing together and covering in scales, shifting from human flesh to golden scales that gleam in the moonlight.

"Thank you," he says to her. "Truly."

She nods and leaves without another word, eager to be done with the whole business, taking her hefty payment with her.

Jace allows himself one last glance up the hill toward the village he once called home and the land and people he swore to serve and protect. Not anymore, though. His home left six months ago, and it's time for him to find it once again.

---

Jace is overwhelmed the moment he dives into the sea. The deeper he goes the darker it gets, and for some reason, he hadn't stopped to consider the sheer vastness of it all until this moment. He doesn't know where to begin, which way to turn... for all he knows Alec could've started to travel away the moment he left and is six months of swimming away by now.

For all he knows Alec may not even be alive.

Jace pushes the thought from his mind and urges the panic down as his body propels forward, slow and unsteady as he acclimates to the new way of moving.

He travels until he's too tired to continue, and then stops for a short rest. It feels strange to be so entirely unguarded - he hadn't thought to bring any weapons with him, the idea of wielding a blade underwater something he imagined wouldn't work very well. It takes a long time for his constant alertness to quiet enough to properly rest. He isn't sure how much sleep he gets before he wakes again, either - he dove down deep enough to block the worst of the morning sunlight from keeping him awake, but that means he hasn’t been paying mind to its passage above, either.

Not that time matters much anymore. He has nothing to wake up for, no schedule to keep, no duties to perform. His only drive is finding Alec, and he'll take as long as he must.

As luck would have it, it doesn't take long. Jace stumbles across a small group of merfolk entirely on accident, following the sounds of an unusual echo in the water to a small series of carved out rock formations that look like proper shelter. And that's when he sees her - the mermaid girl from the rocks.

She sees him and freezes, noting first the black ink markings on his arms and chest that tell her he's a foe, before then noticing the golden scales of his tail that mark him as one of the merfolk. Jace is so overcome with excitement over his first proper lead, someone who might have seen Alec or know which way he went, that he rushes toward her. Which, of course, scares her away and sends her darting off towards the caves.

Jace curses and follows behind, his size and inability to properly control his movements allowing her to get away. He's afraid he lost her entirely when an imposing figure armed with a spear emerges from the direction the girl vanished toward. Red magic crackles at the fingertips of his left hand, the one not holding the weapon, and his hair moves in fluid spikes above his head, holding form in a way that defies normal gravity. His eyes, yellow with slit pupils, narrow.

Jace freezes.

"What brings you here?" The merman demands. "Why do you attack my people?"

Jace notices the curious way his gaze lingers on Jace's tattooed markings.

"I don't - I didn't mean to scare her. The girl, right? I simply wanted to ask if she's seen someone. Someone else like me, with my markings," Jace says, his tone pleading. "I'm sorry," he adds, hoping it might help his case.

The Merman considers him for several very long moments. "Who is this person like you that you seek?"

"His name is Alec," Jace says quickly. "Dark hair, bright eyes... he was once human, but was turned into one of you," Jace says, then pauses. "One of us," he corrects quickly, because Jace is one of them now, for whatever that’s worth. "I need to find him."

"Why?"

Because I love him. Because without him my life is too empty to bear the thought of living.

"Because he means more to me than anyone else in the world," Jace settles on finally. "And I'm afraid it took me too long to find a way to reunite with him again. If you have any information at all I would be most grateful.”

The man considers him a moment longer before saying, “Wait here. Right here. Come any closer before I return and my guards won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Jace nods and waits. And waits. Until finally--

“Jace?!” Alec’s voice reaches him from below. Jace’s tears mingle with the water around him, an odd sensation he doesn’t have time to consider as Alec swims towards him in swift, practiced movements, wrapping his arms around Jace and sending them both spinning to the side with the force of the embrace. They hold each other tight, faces pressed against shoulders, laughter and quiet sobs of joy and relief and surprise filling the space around them.

The first merman follows close behind but hangs back just enough to give them space.

“I didn’t believe it when Magnus described you, I never thought-” Alec’s words cut off sharply. “How?” Alec asks instead of continuing that thought.

“I had the curse placed on me as well. I couldn’t stand to be apart from you, Alec,” Jace confesses, taking Alec’s hands in his own. “I don't want to live in a world without you in it.”

Jace senses the shift in Alec at those words, the way Alec tenses and looks back at the other merman, some unspoken communication passing between them in those glances.

“Bring him back,” the other man says finally.

“Magnus-” Alec starts, but the other man - Magnus - only smiles kindly.

“Please, Jace, come. I’m sure the two of you have much to discuss,” Magnus insists, already swimming back toward the caves.

Jace glances at Alec who nods, though Jace can see the nervousness behind the action as he takes Jace’s hand which is still clasped in his and leads him down to follow.

---

They do, in fact, have much to discuss. Starting with the fact that Alec and Magnus are engaged. Jace feels his heart shatter at the admission, one that Magnus has thankfully given them privacy to discuss.

“I never stopped loving you, Jace. I just never thought…” Alec sighs. “If I ever imagined I’d see you again you know I wouldn’t have-”

“I don’t blame you, Alec. I’m glad you’re happy,” Jace says, though he isn’t sure gladness is something he’ll ever properly feel again, not now. “You are, aren’t you? Happy?”

Alec seems well enough, and if the number of jewels adorning Magnus’ neck and fingers are any indication of his status, if nothing else Alec must be well off here with Magnus.

"I am," Alec admits, but the look on his face is troubled, guilty.

"If you're happy then quit looking so goddamn sad about it," Jace snaps. He doesn't mean to, he just doesn't know what else to say or do. He came here to find Alec. To be with Alec. And to find Alec in a serious relationship with someone else...

"I should go," Jace says suddenly. He tries not to think of the fact that he has nowhere to go, that he'll be entirely alone once he leaves, that he gave up everything to-

"Don't," Alec says. "Stay. Please?"

Jace hesitates.

"We'll figure something out. I promise. I don't want to lose you again, Jace. I can’t." Alec says, and Jace knows the feeling. As much as the idea of watching Alec with someone else hurts, the idea of losing him entirely for a second time hurts more, so Jace nods, and he stays.

---

Things between the three of them are odd at best, and strained at worst. It's obvious that none of them know where they fit now that Jace is in the picture. Part of Alec's heart belongs to both of them, and they all know it, which leaves Jace and Magnus teetering between a need to get along because they know it upsets Alec when they don't, and a need to compete to be the one most in Alec's favor at any given moment. But Alec and Magnus kiss, share lingering touches, they likely do much more than that in the bed they share while Jace stays in a spare room that, Jace suspects, is farther away than strictly necessary. Jace hasn't so much as held Alec's hand again since their reunion - he knows he's the outsider and it doesn't matter that he's known Alec the longest, so he begins to back off before withdrawing entirely.

Surprisingly, it's Magnus who approaches Jace about it first.

"Move in with us," Magnus offers.

"What?" Jace asks, sure he heard wrong.

"Move in with us. There's plenty of space, and I think we both know Alec would be happier if you were closer," Magnus points out.

"And what about you?" Jace asks.

"I'm not unhappy when you're around," Magnus says, a coy smile on his face. "I think I could even grow to like you if we made a proper go of it."

Jace hesitates. He thinks he's reading into Magnus' suggestion but he isn't certain, and this he needs to be certain about. "When you say like me, do you mean..."

"I mean romantically, yes. Pulling Alec in two different directions isn't going to work forever, and he's too kind to ever suggest anything else. But I think it'd serve us all to... cohabitate properly, don't you? I think we both love him enough to try, at least I know I do."

Jace knows what Magnus is doing but takes the bait anyway because it's true.

"I do, too," he agrees. "But what if Alec doesn't want to?"

"What if Alec doesn't want to what?" Says a quiet voice that catches them both by surprise as Alec approaches from around the corner.

"I regret giving you those stealth gliding lessons," Magnus mutters.

"Is everything alright?" Alec questions, glancing between the two of them anxiously.

"Everything is just fine, darling," Magnus reassures him. "How would you feel about Jace moving in?"

If Jace had any doubts before, the way Alec's entire face lights up at the prospect wipes them away immediately.

“You mean it?” Alec asks, unable to keep the hope from his tone. “You’re both sure?”

"Of course I do," Magnus says, then glances at Jace. “And we are.”

"We are," Jace agrees as if he and Magnus are best friends entirely on the same page now rather than two people who stopped viewing one another as lowkey enemies a mere five minutes ago. “As long as it’s what you want.”

"It sounds perfect," Alec beams, moving forward to tug Jace in closer to Magnus so he can wrap them both in a tight embrace at once.

It isn't perfect, not at first. It takes a few weeks for the three of them to be comfortable around each other, to feel out boundaries and limits. It's easier for Jace to be with Magnus while Alec is around, but the more they're left alone with one another the more they talk and the faster they begin to connect. They both care for Alec, an obvious starting point, but it turns out they have much more in common than just that. Magnus can keep up with Jace's sarcasm quip for quip and both of them have more than a few issues with their fathers to bond over. They find that after they stop looking at one another as potential competition they actually get along surprisingly well. If Jace could get past the mental hold-up that Magnus is Alec’s, he might find it easier to admit that he can see what Alec loves about him, because Jace finds himself falling for all the same things.

The first time Jace and Magnus kiss is one early morning when Jace passes by Magnus' open door to find him struggling with the clasp of a necklace.

"Here, let me,'' Jace offers, situating it into place to snap the clasp shut, settling it gently around Magnus' neck. His eyes linger there for just a moment before he impulsively leans forward to bring his lips down to place a kiss where Magnus' neck meets his shoulder, right where the necklace rests. It's tentative, a test almost, and when Magnus doesn't move he places another just above that, then another on the side of Magnus' jaw, before Magnus turns his head to catch Jace's lips against his own. It's nice. Jace is surprised by how soft Magnus' lips are, and how smooth his skin is as Magnus’ hand reaches up to cup the side of Jace's face.

Jace pulls away first, a look of mild shock sprawled across his face.

"Are you alright?" Magnus asks.

"Yeah," Jace admits, but his voice is quiet while his mind processes what just happened.

"And you aren't only doing this because you think I expect you to?" Mangus continues.

"No. I wanted to. I've wanted to for a while if I'm being honest. Is... is that alright?" Jace knows this is the agreement, that this is what they've been working towards all these weeks, but he still feels like he has to make sure.

"It's more than alright, Jace," Magnus says, and Jace can barely return the kiss Magnus pulls him into for how wide he's smiling.

---

After that things start to fall into place. The three of them work surprisingly well: Magnus and Jace remind Alec how much he's loved when he's down on himself; Magnus and Alec remind Jace that his place in their relationship is as an equal, not just someone they 'let in'; and Alec and Jace put all their effort and attention into knowing Magnus as well as they know each other from their years on land.

It's great, and most of the time it feels as close to perfect as Jace imagines anything in his life will ever feel. But that doesn't mean there aren't bad days. It's on one of those days he quietly slips out while no one is paying attention and goes for a swim.

He doesn't think anyone noticed him slipping out, nor does he expect them to notice him missing and find him later. This is far from the first time he’s done this. Whenever Jace feels overwhelmed, or angry in that way where talking won't help and he just needs time to cool off, he always goes to the same small stretch of plain situated behind a seamount, giving it a private, secluded feeling while still being open. Sometimes his soldier instincts make the caves and reefs feel too claustrophobic, but this place is perfect.

Jace is humming a bit of a song to himself with his eyes closed, the notes ending abruptly when he hears the sound of someone approaching.

"Want to talk about it?" Magnus asks. Jace wonders when Magnus realized taking a subtle approach to asking him questions rarely works.

"Talk about what?" Jace attempts to brush the concern off.

"I know you come here when you're upset. Alec normally swings by to check on you without letting you know," Magnus adds when he sees the surprise on Jace's face at this not being as much of a secret as he obviously thought it was. "He knows you come here to be alone but you know how he worries.” Jace does. In fact, he even feels a little better knowing Alec secretly checks in on him, and the thought brings him comfort.

Magnus continues. “But you've been here much longer than usual today. You don't have to talk, of course, but you can. If you want to."

Magnus lingers but doesn't press further. Jace knows he'll leave if he asks, and he also knows he'll stand there in companionable silence, too. Today, though, Magnus is right - what he feels is a bit worse than usual, and maybe ignoring it isn't going to work this time.

"I know it's stupid, but sometimes I miss things from-" Jace almost says home, but realizes he hasn't thought of that place as home in quite some time and the word feels wrong. "-before," Jace settles on instead. "Whenever I was upset or needed to think things through, I'd play the piano. Sometimes I'd sit there for hours getting lost in the music..." Jace's words trail off, his thoughts lost in the memory for a moment.

"Is that what you were humming? Something you used to play?" Magnus asks.

"Yeah," Jace admits. "It isn't quite the same."

"No, I imagine not," Magnus muses.

---

The next few weeks pass and Jace doesn't think of it again, until one afternoon he hears the sound of music. It's one note at first, then another, tentative sounds as if whoever is playing them isn't sure what they're doing. Jace follows the sound of the music until he comes across Magnus, blue magic in his palms tinkering with the inner workings of a black harpsichord.

"Magnus?" Jace asks, coming up beside him.

"Surprise!" Magnus says, closing the top of the instrument.

"What's this for?"

"It's for you, obviously," Magnus says. "You said you missed playing. I thought it might help, you know, when you need it. And it'd be nice to hear you play. Alexander tells me you're wonderful."

Jace shakes his head. "Alec exaggerates."

"I do not," Alec says, coming up to join them. "I thought I heard actual notes playing, so you got it to work?" Alec aims the question at Magnus.

"You knew?" Jace accuses, unable to believe they both kept this a secret from him, but more than that, that they both went out of their way to even get this for him.

"I may have advised on the idea," Alec admits. "Go ahead, give it a try!"

Jace does, reaching his arms out to press down on a few of the keys, one at a time to start and then in chords, and then in sweeping scales. Alec sits himself on the top of the casing while Magnus lays himself down on his stomach next to Alec, both watching and listening, fully enraptured by Jace's playing as he attempts the opening lines of an old, classical piece.

It's such a simple thing, having this piano here, with Alec and Magnus listening to him play, but it means the world to Jace. To have people who care enough about him that they'd go out of their way to arrange this just for him... he's never had that before. He did with Alec before, in a way, but it was always secret. It was never like this, it could never be like this, not before. Jace wonders now if he and Alec were ever truly 'cursed'. After all, anything that brought them here, to each other and to Magnus, had to be more blessing than curse.

For the first time since the night Alec left, everything strained within him seems to settle, falling into place all at once. For the first time in his entire life, Jace feels entirely at peace, not just with himself but with his life, what he's doing with it, and the people in it.

This is it. This is what home feels like, he realizes. And now that he has it he's never going to let it go.

#malace #jace herondale #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters #hmdiscord #magnus x alec x jace #a fic inspired by beautiful art you should absolutely check out!#it was just meant to be the bit at the end #then i gave it a bit of backstory #then a whole story #and now here we are #long post #elle writes a few deadbeat lines #elle talks too much

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robotnik-mun · 5 years ago

Photo

So, what happens when I decide to throw caution to the wind and mash together as many fucking Sonic Continuities as I possibly can? You get a big ass tangle of a family tree that needs to be split up into five separate images, that’s what.

It’s ugly, it’s unpolished, and I made it on a whim. Because the mental image wouldn’t leave me. And because I actually started developing this godforsaken nightmare of a family tree, born of merged continuities, headcanons, and sleep deprivation.

Now keep in mind that this thing is pure crack- it implies a world where Sonic eventually collapses from exhaustion of having to fight TWO Robotniks. It’s a mish mash of what-if’s, continuity mergers and personal ideas glued together. And I wanna stress it has nothing to directly do with my current setting- this is just like, The Path of Insanity.

Anyway, yeah. Against my better judgement I made notes for this insanity. Also, you may notice pictures of characters from other franchises being used as portraits for various characters. Those are basically faceclaims of sorts, meant as abstract representations rather than the literal idea of what they looked like... since, honestly, even I’M not cruel enough to inflict my ‘art’ on you.

Anyway, let’s get the ball rolling-

“Robotnikhotep”

-Robotnik Ancestor in ‘Mobigypt’. Was probably some big important muckity-muck.

“Julius Robotnikus”

-Probably Mobius’ answer to Caligula. His family eventually fell out of power and was forced to re-settle in what would eventually become Overland.

Ivo Kintobor

-Yeah, that whole ‘House of Ivo’ thing? This is the guy responsible. Most likely a douchenozzle, as there is a high concentration of that in the bloodline. Basically a minor warlord who unified a bunch of clans to form his own Kingdom, that was subsequently absorbed into Overland during the unification.

Brutus Kintobor

-Oh wow, a SKINNY Robotnik/Kintobor. This douche canoe attempted to conquer Angel Island for the Overland, but failed miserably. Sent back home in disgrace, a failure.

Gerald Robotnik

- Originally born Gerald Kintobor of the House of Ivo in Overland. He was more interested in science than politics, and after completing college he left that mess behind and immigrated to the United Federation. He changed his name to signify the break from his family history.

-Explored Angel Island in his youth, where he learned about Chaos Emeralds and the like from the various ruins there. He was even friends with then-guardian Janelle-Li.

-Started up Robotnik CORPS. He founded it as a way to disseminate his technology to the people of the UF and earn money to fund more experiments.

-You know the rest. The ARK, Maria, NIDS, Black Doom, Shadow, yadda-yadda-yadda.

Olga Robotnik

-Gerald’s wife. Duh.

-She met him while he lived in a spare room her father was renting out. She’d collect his rent. They grew close and eventually had kids and started a family.

-The shit this poor woman endured is amazing, but she managed to remain unbroken by it, and tried to remain close to her surviving grandchildren.

Grigory Robotnik

- The first son of Gerald. He wasn’t a genius, but he pursued a career in academics and became a doctor of physics. He had two children, Warren and Maria.

-After the ARK incident he became paranoid and accused the government of covering up what really happened. The obsession to uncover the truth destroyed his physical and mental health, and he died a shunned outcast ranting on pirated radio stations about various conspiracies.

-Died in a halfway house, but he managed to get ahold of Gerald’s diary before biting it. While he never got to use it to bring down GUN, it still paved the way for Eggman’s eventual use.

Amelia Robotnik

-Maria’s mother. After the ARK incident and the supposed death of her children, she fell into a deep depression and eventually committed suicide. In case you haven’t noticed, the story of the Robotnik family is depressing as fuck.

Warren Robotnik, ‘Warpnik’

-Maria’s brother. What a tweest!

-He was with her on the ARK, and demonstrated a similar scientific gift to his grandfather. He wasn’t close to Shadow the way Maria was.

-When the ARK was raided, he was captured and subjected to brainwashing treatments by GUN in the hopes of turning him into a loyal, in-house mad scientist. All it did was make him batshit crazy.

-He escaped some time during the Great War, and is now loose in Mobius, a lunatic geneticist fixated on continuing his grandfather’s ‘great work’... or at least his own warped perception of it.

Maria Robotnik

-You know her. You love her. Her life is a tragedy. She’s Maria! Nuff said. Years later, and she still weighs heavily on Shadow.

Ivo Kintobor

-And here is where things get a bit confusing! Ivo was born ‘Ivo Robotnik’, the second son of Gerald. Long story short, he was a douche more interested in politics and profit, and as such did not get along with his father, who bequeathed the family company to his younger brother.

-Despite this, Ivo SOMEHOW managed to reproduce. And when the ARK incident happened, he bought the government line hook line and sinker. He changed the family name back to Kintobor and moved everyone back to Overland to start anew.

-He’s like 50% responsible for Julian winding up the way he did.

-And yes- he DOES want to bulldoze the puppy orphanage to create a combination oil rig/toxic waste dump.

-Was murdered by Julian, who disguised it as an accident.

Lydia Kintobor

-ICE BABY ICE.

-Julian and Colin’s mom.

-She 100% supported her husband’s douchery, and was an active participant in tormenting her secondborn son in the hopes of ‘breaking’ him out of being a genius.

-Killed in the same ‘accident’ that took her husband’s life.

Colin Kintobor Sr.

-Born in the United Federation, but moved to the Overland as a child and grew up there.

-Major league Nationalist and Human Supremacist. Prick.

-Hated Julian basically forever and was encouraged by his parents to do so. He became their ‘golden child’ and was pushed to succeed at everything.

-Pursued a career in politics, law, and the military, and eventually served as a general in the Great War.

-Was eventually murdered by his own brother

Miriam Kintobor

-Colin’s first wife, via arranged marriage.

-She was pretty much his opposite, yet despite that fact the two came to genuinely love one another.

-Died giving birth to their son. Have I mentioned the Kintobor/Robotnik family history is a trainwreck yet?

Angela Kintobor

-The second wife of Colin. She probably met him while serving as a military functionary during the Great War. She is also the mother of Hope Kintobor.

-Other than that, I got nothin’. She likely died when Hope was young, by way of Swatbot invasion. Seriously, do NOT become a Kintobor Love Interest.

Colin “Snively” Kintobor Jr.

-You know him, you hate him! It’s the Snivster, bay-bee!

-His mother died giving birth to him. His dad blamed him for this. You can guess the rest.

-You know most of the story- crappy childhood, admired his uncle Julian, helped him take over the Kingdom of Acorn, spent a decade as his punching bag, etc etc.

-After seemingly offing Julian during Endgame, he briefly took over the Robotnik Empire.... and promptly lost it to Naugus, forcing him to flee for his life. In exchange for information about Robotropolis’ defenses, King Acorn spared his life but sentenced him to be imprisoned forever.

-Was busted out by a returned Julian so that his uncle would be able to properly ‘thank’ him for losing his empire. Helped the FFs to escape Robotnik’s revenge, and after spending time bumming around with them (and hating it) decided to throw in his lot with Crazy Uncle Ivo.

-He’s regretted it ever since... though he sticks with him because its either Ivo or Julian, and Julian will ensure his death is cruel, messy, and lingers for years to come.

Hope Kintobor

-The second child of Colin Kintobor. She was born during the later years of the Great War and spent much of her early life living in siege conditions as Overland tried and failed to stop the advancement of Robotnik.

-Eventually she witnessed the death of her father and remaining family at the hands of Robotnik before being saved by Sonic. She had an extended stay in Knothole afterwards, where she slowly learned that much of her people’s views of Mobians was innacurate.

-She eventually moved to the United Federation as a ward of GUN, serving as the technology expert for Team Dark. She is close to all of them.

-Seeks to redeem the name of her family so that it’s legacy won’t be one of bloodshed, conquest and madness. She’s got a waaaays to go, to put it mildlry.

-Despite everything she still cares about her awful, awful half-brother.

Dr. Julian Robotnik

-Had a REALLY goddamned crappy....well, life, basically. Take my word for it.

-Has basically murdered his entire immediate family by this point.

-Prior to the Great War he aided the Overlander Ministry of Conflict in toppling the legitimate government of the Kingdom of Amunopolis (Aleena’s Kingdom), forcing it’s royal family to flee to the Kingdom of Acorn and re-settle under new identities, with crown princess becoming ‘Bernadette Hedgehog’. That’s right- he’s indirectly responsible for Sonic existing.

-Blah blah blah evil experiments blah blah war crimes blah blah sentenced to be executed by Overlander government during the Great War and blah blah blah coup.

-Took over a large swathe of Mobius and expanded to conquer more, and for a time seemed like he might conquer the entire planet. The Robotnik Empire is.... not a fun place. Then or now.

-Then Sonic and the FF’s happened. Then Endgame happened, and he was... indisposed for a while, leading to his empire being diminished. While he has returned, he has suffered numerous setbacks since then, and the Robotnik Empire is now greatly diminished from its peak.

-That being said, he still rules a pretty big part of the planet, and is still the biggest danger to the world at present.

-Hates his cousin Ivo.

-REALLY goddamn hates That Hedgehog.

Laura Kintobor

-That’s Doctor Laura Kintobor (nee Ellison) to you, buster.

-She and Julian both worked as scientists with Overland’s science ministry, where they met and befriended one another. She eventually managed to coax Julian out of his shell, and their friendship bloomed into a romance, which led to the two marrying.

-She worked in the organic sciences division and was an expert on biology and zoology. In contrast to most scientists, she was very much an outdoorswoman. Even managed to convince Julian to partake.

-Much like her unfortunate sister-in-law, she died in childbirth... giving birth to a stillborn daughter.

-Yeah, this shit is grim.

Theodore Robotnik

-Third son of Gerald. Blatantly named in reference to Theodore Roosevelt, who was used as a visual reference for Eggman.

-Basically a professional beancounter who later inherited Robotnik CORPS. He chose to stick with his original name even after the ARK incident, and struggled to keep Robotnik CORPS afloat in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

-Set up a trust fund for his son Ivo, and tried his best to raise him to be a contributing member of society.

-Sufficed to say, that didn’t work. If he’s still alive, he has a REALLY tense relationship with his son.

-Named his son after his older brother as a passive-aggressive act of spite for abandoning the ‘Robotnik’ name.

Dolores Robotnik

-Mother of Ivo. She was a professor of chemistry who decided to put her career on hold in order to be homemaker.

-Was much closer to her son than Theodore was, and often wound up having to play peacemaker between the two. ESPECIALLY during Ivo’s tumultous teenage years.

-Sufficed to say she is not exactly pleased with how he turned out, assuming she’s still alive even.

Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik

-HE IS THE EGGMAN. HE’S GOT THE MASTER PLAN! Really, do you NEED to know any more?

-Well, okay, you do. He was born very shortly before the ARK incident and never knew his grandfather.

-His childhood wasn’t horrible, but it was rough in areas due to his high intelligence making things more difficult for him than they should of be. Loads of disagreements with his dad over pursuing science. Spent years plagued by the derogatory name of ‘Eggman’ due to his weight problems.

-You know how you fantasize about ruling the world as a kid? He never really left that stage of things.

-He initially worked as a research scientist in the fields of AI and energy. During the Great War he was approached by GUN to develop weapons for them. His research would go on to form the basis of the robotic soldiers later used by them in the Robotnik war.

-Began his plot to take over Mobius during his time there, and secretly began to appropriate resources and machines to build a hidden base on the distant South Island. Eventually his schemes were discovered by GUN, but he fled.

-While his cousin conquered portions of Mobius elsewhere, Eggman began his long term Death Egg scheme as a means of conquering Mobius in one fell swoop with the aid of the Chaos Emeralds.

-You can guess how it goes from here- he encounters Sonic on South Island and in the Scrap Brain Zone and is defeated, thus setting the tone for MANY other defeats in the future. He eventually took on the name ‘Dr. Eggman’ as a way to differentiate himself from his cousin, and to make the insult that dogged his life into a name to be feared ala ‘Penguin’.

-When his cousin Julian was seemingly killed and the Robotnik Empire in dissarray, Eggman started new bids to take over the world. He established the Metropolis Zone as his ‘capital city’ and founded the Egg Army to help supplement his Badnik Horde. The Eggman Empire now exists as a terrorist army at the beck and call of Dr. Eggman, though he’s still got a ways to go.

-Has four sons by three different women. Slut.

???

-Haven’t got a name for her yet. She was a random girl that a college age Ivo knocked up, which putty much put an end to her collegiate ambitions. She gave birth to two sons, one of whom she bitterly named ‘Ivan’ as a reminder of his origins after failing to get child support out of her babydaddy. She re-married and is currently leading a comfortable enough life. Humors her son because she knows it annoys his biological father.

Ivan Eggman

-The oldest of Eggman’s sons. In his mid 30s or so. Scientifically gifted, as his father was.

-Has numerous, numerous issues pertaining to his stepfather, a hard and strict man with little toleration for nonsense.

-Idolizes his biological father and desperately wants to be acknowledged by him, even changing his original surname to ‘Eggman’. Eggman the 1st was NOT amused.

-Eventually founded a company, Eggman Industries, and grew rich rapidly. Settled by the Bygone Islands where he pursues life as a ‘villain’ now, though really he’s more like a public nuisance than anything.

-Honestly he’s basically living a ‘second childhood’ of sorts using his scientific know-how and riches, and has vowed to one day impress his father and earn his acknowledgement. As you can imagine, it is.... not working out at all, given that he’s even more of a goober than his pop.

-Ironically, he isn’t naturally bald- he SHAVES his head.

Steve

-Yeah, he ain’t a robot here- Steve is the organic, younger (by about a minute) twin brother of Ivan.

-Utterly unconcerned with science or any of that jazz. He’s basically a bohemian beach bum, complete with californian accent- he spends much of his time surfing and earning cash from side jobs.

-Really mellow and easy-going, and doesn’t really dwell on stuff.

-Utter himbo.

Mrs. Robotnik

- Ex-Wife of Ivo Robotnik. Haven’t given it too much thought, but she and Ivo met while working in acadamia, and eventually married.

-Initially the relationship was pretty solid, and they even had a child together. However things swiftly deteriorated between the two as Ivo’s immaturity and increasing anger at the world strained their relationship, along with him being a lousy parent to their son. She eventually divorced his ass.

-After going through a rough patch with her son, she has begun to re-connect with him after his years a delinquent, and now happily supports his endeavors.

Ivo Robotnik Jr.

-Middle son of Dr. Eggman. Had a nonexistant relationship with his father while growing up, which combined with the divorce eventually turned him into a juvenile delinquent.

-He roamed with a biker gang for a while, and prefers to be called ‘Junior’ rather than ‘Ivo’.

-Fell in with Breezie for a while, the both of them unaware of the other’s connection to Eggman. They eventually went their separate ways once Junior began to turn over a new leaf. He still carries a torch for her, though is painfully aware it’d never work out. Their relationship is... complicated, these days.

-Has since become a software security engineer, making a living providing Anti-Eggman/Robotnik software to companies.

Lindsey Thorndyke

-A famed actress. She and Ivo had a drunken tryst at a wrap party where he’d been invited to act as a consultant on scientific accuracy. To avoid scandal she informed her husband, and they passed off the baby as their own.

-What more do you want. Its LINDSEY.

Chris Thorndyke

-The youngest son of Ivo Robotnik. Spent much of his life completely unaware of his true parentage.

-Eh, what can I say, I kind like the theory of him actually being a Robotnik in some capacity or the next.

-When he was a boy, he befriended Sonic and his friends and even hosted them during the days when Eggman’s schemes for global conquest caused him to haunt Station Square for a while.

-Admired his grandfather Chuck and pursued science to be like him, studying physics and engineering.

-Thanks to his mom he’s something of a film buff.

-In college he learned the truth of his heritage. This has put a strain on his relationship with his parents.

Francis Kintobor

-The youngest of Gerald’s sons. Pursued a career as a schoolteacher. While he changed his name in the aftermath of the ARK incident as his older brother Ivo had, he chose to make a small joke at his brother’s expense over the ludicrousness of the name change by naming his own son ‘Ovi Kintobor’.

-Named after Francis Mao, aka That Guy Who Made That One Comic Adaptation From 1991.

Elizabeth Kintobor

-Dr. Ovi Kintobor’s mother. A career veterinarian with a strong love of animals. That’s about it.

Ovi Kintobor

- Grew up on Westside Island, among Mobians. Had a pretty happy and contented childhood, and like many of the other various members of the Kintobor/Robotnik clan developed a pronounced interest and skill in science at a young age.

-Developed a particular interest in researching Chaos Emeralds.

-A Concientious Objector, he served as a medic during the Great War.

-Deeply, deeply shamed by the actions of his more notorious cousins, he has essentially hidden himself from the world to pursue his research and evade their notice, while helping against them in whatever way he can.

-Has secretly transported people threatened by his cousins to safer places, and once caused a mass sabotage of their respective robotic forces through the ‘Nicenik Virus’.

-An ally of the Freedom Fighters.

-Deeply distrusts GUN (which frankly isn’t a bad call).

-Bit of a hippy, but really is a genuinely nice guy who wants to help others through science.

-In some villages he is known as ‘Mr. Tinker’.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Dr. Robotnik #Dr. Eggman #Colin Kintobor #Chris Thorndyke #Gerald Robotnik #Hope Kintobor #Snively #Warpnik #Maria Robotnik #Robotnik Junior #Boom Eggman #Steve Eggman #Robotnik Jr #Truly this was the best way to spend the finite thing known as my time on earth

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beautifulterriblequeen · 5 years ago

Note

It’s discussed a lot about how Callum will react to Runaan when he gets out of the coin, but how do you think some of the other human characters would react to him? Like Soren, Amaya and Gren (it’s unclear if Gren ever actually *saw* Runaan, but for argument’s sake, let’s say he did.)

Ooh what a fun question, anon!

Let’s see, Soren. Well, by the time Runaan is freed, Soren will probably have had months or years as Rayla’s ally, even if he spends all his time with Ezran as his Crownguard. I also hope that Soren gets some real-world experience and education at the Storm Spire and in Lux Aurea before he returns to Katolis, if Ezran’s going to return to being king (which, idk, technically I think Soren’s king now, actually, as VIren’s heir, but that’s a whole ‘nother post).

Soren is a genuinely warm guy. If he gets some time to learn about what Avizandum and Zubeia’s side of the war has been like, as well as Khessa and Janai’s, he’ll have a pretty balanced viewpoint on the conflict as a whole, which will make him a really solid adviser for Ezran, considering the training and actual battle experience he already has.

He may even contribute to the chain of events that frees Runaan, since he’s the one who put Runaan in the dungeon in the first place. His piece of the puzzle is that Runaan isn’t dead, and was imprisoned instead of being killed, and he knows exactly where and how, and also what Runaan looks like. He got a fistful of that long white hair, which is Runaan’s most distinctive physical trait (out of several, okay), so if anyone ever brings up that hair–Soren included–it’ll be obvious who’s being referred to, and that could direct various characters in their hunt/quest to free/locate him.

But what would he do upon seeing Runaan again? They’ll definitely remember each other. I think the key element will be this: time has passed eventfully for Soren, but it won’t have passed in the same way for Runaan. He’ll be stuck, trapped out of the world, alone with the same thoughts over and over again and no new input to help him grow and change. So Soren will probably have come a long way in his personal development, while Runaan won’t have done much more than spin in circles and rethink his choices.

I think the first thing Runaan would do is go on the defensive–or the offensive–with any weapon he can possibly get his hands on, and the first thing Soren would do is to hold up his hands and say, “Whoa there, Rayla’s Pointy Dad Number Two, I’m not gonna pull your hair this time. Promise.

“And uhh, look. I wanna apologize on behalf of my dad. Viren. The old High Mage who kept you prisoner? I made some bad choices when I listened to him. And what he did to you was wrong. And I was wrong to help him. I thought I was helping my country when I did what he and my sister told me to do. But I ended up hurting people who didn’t deserve it.

“And Rayla–she’s great, by the way, taught me how to sweep the leg and everything–she’s helped me understand a lot about myself.. Because she and I, we have a lot in common. Trying to do the best we can for our dads being one of those things, and all.

“So, what I’m trying to say while you’re still deciding if you’re gonna stab me is this: I’m sorry. I’ve been to the Storm Spire, I’ve lived in Lux Aurea, and I, I get it now. The whole war thing. And, who we are inside it. People like you and me. Warriors, fighting to protect people we love. I’ve learned to see more than I ever thought I could. More than my dad wanted me to.

“So… really please don’t stab me, because I’m just trying to do what my king says: we don’t have to fight back. We don’t have to continue the cycle. You killed my last king, and I couldn’t stop you. And, yeah, that still hurts, not gonna lie. But Ezran’s my king now. And I’d follow him to the ends of the earth. If… the earth… has ends. Geometry wasn’t my best class. Anyway. So how about we talk, you and me, okay, just a couple of badasses, and we’ll try not to fall back on old habits, yeah? Cool. And… how many pushups do you think you can do?”

And Runaan hasn’t said a single word the whole time. He’s just let Soren go on and on and on. But Soren’s been paying attention to Rayla, trying to understand his new ally whenever he can. So he’s been very slowly stepping closer to Runaan, keeping his hands in sight and open, using Rayla’s mannerisms. And that whole message hits Runaan just as hard as hearing Rayla’s name on Soren’s lips. Soren does know Rayla. Knows her well. Things have changed. And he’s going to need to go slow so he doesn’t make a mistake. He’ll never let Soren into his blind spot, but he’ll play along after that show of information. He’ll look Soren up and down and say, “More than you can,” and Soren will grin like a little kid, because he’s just made peace instead of war, and he’s so proud of himself!

Aww, Soren is like hay. He’s great.

Amaya: afawk she hasn’t met Runaan directly, so unless they have some clashy backstory, Amaya’s attitude toward him will be a combination of “This dude killed my brother-in-law/king” and “this dude is my nephew’s girlfriend’s dad”.

By the time Amaya meets Runaan, she’ll know about Rayllum and how strong and steady it’s become. She’ll have Janai by her side. She’ll know about the power of love, and that overt aggression toward Runaan for taking Harrow won’t go over well with Rayla, and maybe not with Callum either. Plus, they’re all trying to move forward in peace, and her relationship with Janai is a big symbol of that. So on one hand, she’s a walking symbol of peace through love. And on the other, she can offer Runaan an olive branch to achieve peace through forgiveness.

A big influence is going to be how well Amaya and Rayla get along. I’d love to see Amaya teaching Rayla ASL because Rayla wants to be able to send silent messages. It’s a very Moonshadow form of communication, and Runaan talks a lot with his hands already, so Rayla’s primed for a new language there, I think. And the more time they spend bonding, the more Amaya’s tolerance will rise.

She may have the hardest time forgiving Runaan, out of everyone. Callum has a huge heart. Ezran is a soft boy through and through. Soren would identify with Rayla pretty strongly, with their dark dads. Gren’s too nice not to feel for Runaan. But Amaya’s whole job has been defending Katolis from elves. And she failed, and her brother-in-law died at Runaan’s hands. So part of her hangup with him will be her own guilt. I’m not sure they’ll ever be friendly.

Callum has more reason to hate Runaan than Amaya, but he’s young and in love with Runaan’s daughter, so he’s got motive and ability to be emotionally flexible. Amaya, for all her love of Janai, might not be quite as flexible toward a Moonshadow assassin whose actions put her nephew on the throne and destabilized Katolis, leaving it vulnerable to a coup and warmongering at Viren’s hands.

So, I think their meeting might go a bit like this: Amaya sees Runaan for the first time after he’s freed. It’s probably not immediately after. He’ll have a chance to find some shirts and eat something, probably heal up as much as he’s going to. And then they’ll come face to face. They’ll warily study each other for a long moment. And then Amaya will shrug and smirk, and Runaan will narrow his eyes, and she’ll punch him as hard as she can, and he’ll let her. Everyone will get caught off guard. Janai and Ethari, if they’re there, will step forward immediately to see to their partners and eye each other warily. But it’ll be Amaya and Runaan who tell them to calm down. Everything just got worked out, as much as it’s ever going to be.

Unless someone attacks Rayllum. Then I’ll get my cherished hc of Runaan and Amaya fighting back to back. It won’t matter what they’re fighting against. They’ll both be all in. Trusting Rayllum’s other stabby parent would definitely bond them more than anything else ever could.

And now for my sweet boy Gren: Gren is really empathetic, and he knows what Runaan’s last days before the coin were like. Gren had it easy--food, water, light, getting to stand up, not having to endure the odd magical experiment. Runaan wasn’t so lucky. We all saw the level of concern Gren had for his fellow prisoner down the hallway when Runaan started screaming. We saw his horror as he realized what Viren had done and how Runaan was still alive inside that creepy tiny prison coin.

Gren probably didn’t get a very good look at Runaan in the coin, but he’s very good with voices, and he’d recognize Runaan’s in a heartbeat. He could hear everything he and Viren said down the hall. He knew to ask about Xadian fruit, which means he overheard the “Moonshadow elf thing” comment. He knew darn well that Runaan was a Moonshadow--could easily guess that he was one of the assassins--and he was still horrified at his fate. Gren doesn’t carry a weapon--he prefers to talk. And talk and talk and talk. I bet there are plenty of things Gren wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, and getting coined is one of them now.

So this poor soft dungeon boy, who called down the hall trying to get Runaan to chat and never got an answer, only heard him talking to Viren, what would his reaction be upon seeing Runaan again? Upon hearing him?

Gren would wait for all the “more important” people to speak to Runaan first. Janai, Amaya, Rayla and Callum. And then he’d step forward when Runaan was available and try to have a quick word. He’d stand mirroring Runaan, trying to use Moonshadow body language as best he could. Maybe he picked some of it up from Rayla. And he’d want to speak, but have no real idea what to say.

“Hey. I’m glad you’re okay. What Viren did to you was... wrong. Really wrong. No one should have to go through that, no matter what. I... just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I... would’ve helped you out... but...” And here Gren gets caught up in his own memories. He’d tried to stay positive in the dungeon, and he could help himself all day long, but he couldn’t help the guy screaming down the hall. Gren’s no pushover, but that whole experience was really hard for him. The walls of that dungeon start to close in around him again.

“You did,” Runaan says. Reluctantly, but not unkindly. He was too busy trying to hunger strike to appreciate Gren’s overtures of friendliness, but once in the coin, Runaan had ages to contemplate every tiny detail of his imprisonment and what led to it. And Gren would be a bafflingly bright spot. No discernible motive. Just a soft, genuine human who tried to cheer Runaan up despite knowing who he was and what he had done.

And that’s all the encouragement Gren needs. He got to be helpful and communicate and do something good, and that’s all he’s ever wanted to do. He’ll glue himself to Runaan’s side for as long as the elf will put up with him, trying to learn as much as he can about Moonshadows. And Runaan will let him, for the most part, because the true measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do nothing for them. And when Runaan could offer Gren absolutely nothing in the dungeon, Gren offered him kindness and consideration. That’s worth a little bit of Moonshadow trust, and Gren will eagerly use what he leans from Runaan to aid in his ability to make peaceful overtures between Xadia and Katolis.

I think that in general, human reactions to Runaan will be muted by the existence of Rayllum. If Rayla weren’t his daughter, and if Callum weren’t her boyfriend, then I do think some characters would react more angrily to him. But Rayllum is bringing peace and holding it together as the first link, and no one wants to challenge that and cause war again over an enemy combatant who was doing his job by taking out a kingkiller. In the face of Rayllum’s peace and love, Runaan will probably get a bit softer of a landing than he deserves. The humans will get a chance to do what Ezran did: to forgive instead of striking back.

#soren #amaya #gren #runaan #tdp speculation #tdp #asks #janai #ethari #callum #rayla #ezran #viren

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jayxscripta · 3 years ago

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The Mahaigner - Chapter Seven

When you're not sure what to put but you want to put something:

hi :)

Madeline was jolted awake as the aircraft shuddered. And it took her more than a few frantic moments to realize that she was causing the turbulence.

Shooting up, she uncurled her left arm and leg. Both were buzzing like a television with no signal. Despite that, she guessed she hadn’t been asleep for long. “You okay?” Rogers called from across the jet. He was strapped in a seat—as was everyone else, she realized.

“I think so,” she replied, nodding. She rubbed her arm and avoided looking at them again. “That’s never happened before.” In all the times she’d known about her powers, they’d only ever manifested when she was awake. Assuming, of course, that she would know if she had used them in her sleep.

“That was you?” Ivanoff asked. She didn’t seem too surprised, just as if she wanted to confirm a suspicion. “Told you it wasn’t wind.”

“I don’t know if I should be relieved or more worried,” Wilson said. “Can you control it?”

Madeline considered her options: lie or confess that there was a strong chance she might drag them right out of the sky. “It’s touch and go,” she settled.

Ivanoff’s brows lifted. “We’ll have to work on that. But we’re almost there, so hopefully that one was just a fluke.”

Madeline blinked, her curiosity piqued. “How do you control your powers?”

The ex-Avenger hesitated. “It’s complicated,” she said finally, “A combination of things. I’ve been practicing keeping them down for so long it’s second nature and using them doesn’t require a lot of work. But it’s like a part of me is always concentrating on them, even if I’m not actively thinking about them at all.”

“Do you ever slip?”

She nodded briefly. “Yeah. When I’m really cold, or sick. Or pissed off—” her eyes flickered to Loki “—that can affect them. At least a little.”

“Would it ease your mind if I stopped breathing?” Loki asked, a blasé edge laced into the rhetorical proposition. Apparently, he had also noticed Ivanoff’s side-eye.

“No, it would just give me guilt, unfortunately,” she said matter-of-factly. “But tell me, did the last person you tried to kill forgive you so quickly?”

“My brother has the gift of being incredibly forgiving and also stupid at the same. So yes, I suppose,” Loki answered, his bored tone wavering.

“Yours is a strange family.”

Wilson snorted, evidently paying closer attention to the conversation than Madeline had previously thought. “Says the woman who faked her own death to avoid being imprisoned by her cousin,” he said, sounding unfittingly amused.

Ivanoff looked almost affronted. “Excuse me. I did almost die. It’s not my fault that him and everyone else thought I actually did,” she returned. Wilson stifled another laugh.

“Could’ve called him. He has that old ass phone Steve gave him,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Steve,” she declared, pointing to Rogers, “could just have easily told him I was alive in that letter.”

Rogers sighed, quite loudly, head buried in a tablet. “Please, leave me out of this.” He sounded less than thrilled. Judging by the nature of the conversation, it seemed to be one they had had many, many times before.

Madeline got the distinct feeling this was usually how the topic was shut down. There was a nagging voice inside her head saying that Ivanoff was wrong—she was dodging the issue, as if she thought Stark didn’t care. Or that she thought he shouldn’t know she was still alive. That if he had known she was alive he would never stop trying to throw her into some maximum-security prison.

She didn’t have much experience with these types of family problems, but Madeline could recognize regret when she saw it.

Somehow, though, this didn’t seem the time or place to say such a thing. Ivanoff may have deserved to know, but she probably didn’t want to. So, despite her better judgement, Madeline muted her conscience and turned her gaze away to a nearby wall that was suddenly looking a lot more interesting.

“When we land, I’ll let Shuri know to have a look at you,” Ivanoff said, changing the topic. “Make sure they didn’t do any permanent damage. They looked like a different version than what I’ve worn.”

“Well, upgrades and such,” Madeline murmured, shaking out her arm one last time. Finally, the tingling was gone.

Rogers looked up from his work. “Are we close, Sam?”

“A minute, according to these coordinates. You sure about this? Crashing a plane into the side of a mountain isn’t really how I want to go,” he answered, staring suspiciously at the forest in front of them. Madeline gulped and strapped herself in, feeling as though she were in some sort of game, racing against a clock. Quick! Fasten your seatbelts before you crash into the hillside!

“I have to say, I agree,” Loki commented. “This doesn’t seem all too safe.”

Rogers stared out the cockpit window stoically. “Just wait.”

Madeline squeezed her eyes shut in nervous anticipation as the jet neared the hillside. But the impact never came, and when she opened her eyes, she saw a futuristic city nestled in a valley instead of a bright white light.

“This is Wakanda?” she asked, astonished. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”

Ivanoff smiled a little. “It never gets old.”

“I’ll speak to T’Challa, explain the situation, since they were only expecting us to bring Loki,” Rogers spoke, directing his statement at to his companions. “Make sure her powers are handled as quickly as you can, just in case.”

“Let’s take her to Shuri’s lab, then,” Ivanoff responded, but she didn’t sound extraordinarily concerned. Madeline hoped her powers wouldn’t manifest and knock somebody out again before that. The last thing she needed was to be arrested again.

The jet banked ever so slightly in response to Ivanoff’s words. Madeline had a good guess where she was going now.

There was barely a shudder from the plane as they touched down. The ramp lowered, and the sun blazed into her eyes. She squinted and fumbled with the release to her seatbelt straps. Was that sunrise or sunset? Probably sunset, but regardless, the jet lag would follow.

“We’re here,” Ivanoff said, breaking into her thoughts. “You’re ready, I hope.”

Madeline rose from her seat and looked cautiously out the door—she always knew, deep down, she’d end up in a laboratory eventually. “Should I be worried?”

Ivanoff shrugged. “Probably not.”

They exited the jet, the laboratory looming before her. It reminded her more of a monument than anything—an architectural feat, a unique work of some type of metal, rising like a dagger into the golden sky.

A stiff breeze lifted Madeline’s hair off of her shoulders and into her eyes, and she had to peel it away from her face just to see the ground beneath her feet. What exactly awaited her inside? She was staking most of her hope for safety on the assumption that the ex-Avengers wouldn’t lock her in a prison or lab out of fear that she was evil or dangerous. Given their history with superpowers, she didn’t think they would. But she figured she had every right to doubt.

After navigating the bright hallways of the building, they entered what she assumed was the laboratory. No sooner had they stepped foot inside then they were greeted with a cheery voice. “And what do you bring me this time, Miss Ivanoff?”

“Hello to you to,” Ivanoff said, rolling her eyes in a way that was somehow playful, as opposed to the usual condescending way Madeline had picked up on. She presented Madeline with a small flourish. “I bring you another broken white girl.”

“I appreciate the challenge.”

Ivanoff bumped fists with the young girl who stood waiting for them. “I think every time I come, I bring some new project, Shuri. But if you’re okay with it—”

“Okay with it?” Shuri echoed. “I love it. Gives me reason to look forward to your visits.”

“Ouch,” Ivanoff said, feigning hurt, though it didn’t last very long. The corner of her lip quirked up and she passed the power cuffs off to Shuri. “You’ll have fun with this one.”

She examined the cuffs closely. “Are these what I think they are?”

“Yep. Power draining cuffs.”

“Better than the ones they put on you,” she nodded to Ivanoff, “they’ve improved the quality since then. But they’re still too dangerous.”

“I noticed. I passed out just a few minutes after they put them on,” said Madeline.

“That makes sense. But it isn’t a side effect of your powers going away. Think of all the times Tori used drugs to suppress her powers and never had any lasting effects.”

“Except for the withdraw,” Ivanoff reminded.

“Yes, except for that.”

“So, then what made me pass out?” Madeline asked, puzzled.

“These cuffs are designed to slow your heart rate and put you in a sort of comatose state, so you’re physically unable to use your powers,” Shuri explained. “It’s beyond dangerous for long term use, as we’ve seen before,” she nodded again to Ivanoff. “Unfortunately, the UN is perfectly okay with killing enhanced people if it means they can’t use their powers.”

“That sounds about right.”

“After Siberia, when Captain Rogers brought her here, I was able to take the cuffs they used on her and adapt them into a prototype so that they work without killing the person they’re on. But if you’re okay with waiting a little longer, I’d like to make some adjustments as needed. I’m sure Tori’s abilities and yours are very different.”

“Wildly,” Madeline muttered.

“What can you do, exactly?”

Madeline shrugged. “Pull the souls out of people?”

Ivanoff stopped short. “What?”

“I’m not entirely sure how it works, that’s just how Dr. Strange explained it to me. And I can’t control it—it just happens.”

“How many times has it happened?”

She mentally recounted the incidents. “Three, now. But it’s gotten more frequent.”

“And on the quinjet? What happened there?”

Madeline’s memory flickered back to her last day at the compound. “I think that I can animate things. Mostly jets, it seems.”

Shuri sifted through the various items lying on her worktable, brows furrowed. “Like psychokinesis?”

She shook her head slowly. “I think it’s different than that.”

Shuri directed her towards a chair, holding her selected equipment. Madeline eyed it critically. A thermometer? A blood pressure monitor? This was starting to seem more like a doctor’s visit than anything. “Not gonna lie, I was expecting something a little more…” she hesitated, “probey.”

“Later we can run more extensive tests,” Shuri assured her, eyes bright, “MRIs, blood tests, cellular evaluation. But right now, you need to rest. And there are many ways to detect enhanced abilities. Even through something as simple as your heartrate.”

Shuri pressed the cold end of the thermometer, which looked more like a tiny handgun than anything, against her forehead. After a few seconds it beeped, and the young girl scribbled something on a chart that was on the table. As she was taking her blood pressure, Madeline took the opportunity to look around the lab.

Though the walls were mostly dark, and the windows peered into a dimly lit cave, the laboratory was still bright. But not in the harsh way she would have imagined a lab would like. This seemed more… welcoming, with a clutter of projects spread across the various workbenches. She made a mental note to ask Shuri all about them next time she was in the laboratory.

She was startled out of her admiring by an insistent beep. She looked down to her arm, but it wasn’t the blood pressure monitor. It was Ivanoff’s pager, and by the look on her face, it was something important. “That was Steve—he says we have to get back. Now.”

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atlantisresource · 5 years ago

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Atlantis Injuries List

Here is a repost of both the S1 and S2 lists. Tumblr removed the originals because “there might be adult content.” It’s a family show, quit deleting all the fandom resources!! Anyway, I apologize if anything got accidentally missed while putting this back together. Feel free to poke me.

LONG POST!!! (we’re looking at you, Jason, sheesh)

Injuries - Season One

Ariadne:

1x01: hit in the face

1x05: drugged unconscious

Medusa:

1x02: sliced hand (to save Hercules)

1x06: possibly enchanted by the song of the sirens when Hercules attempted to put her under a love spell (since it was actually a trap, we don't know that it worked - Medusa's feelings may have been her own - but Hercules is still an arsehole)

1x06: cursed by Circe (Hercules' fault)

1x09: cursed by opening Pandora's box (also Hercules' fault)

Pythagoras:

1x01: fell and hit his head

1x06: clawed on arm

1x09: fell from balcony, then knocked out (long enough for a fire to spread through the house, be put out, and then for Jason and Hercules to be declared dead and hauled away)

1x09: sliced hand (he needed blood to wake Jason and Hercules)

1x12: drugged unconscious

1x12: drugged to sleep (again)

Hercules:

1x02: hand bitten

1x06: shoulder injured while wrestling (it looks like there's a cut when Pythagoras is tending to him, but there's clearly no cut directly after the fight - Pythagoras is also doctoring the opposite shoulder)

1x06: turned into a pig by Circe

1x08: injured back due to being thrown against a rock wall

1x09: knocked unconscious

1x09: knocked unconscious again

1x09: drank poison that "will slow your heart until only the faintest traces of life remain“ in order to enter Hades (you threaten a man’s life to get information, he gives you a vial of poison while going “yes, here’s how you get to Hades” and refers to you and Jason as “the bodies” - and you actually drink it?! WTF is wrong with you?!)

1x09: whacked and tossed against a rock wall (but I don’t know if this counts, because he wasn’t physically there)

1x09: smoke inhalation

1x09: buried (I’m calling this an injury because who knows how long he was without oxygen)

1x12: drugged to sleep

Jason:

"stabbed through the arm there in the third week" - this is actually Jack’s scar, gotten during filming

1x01: woke up on the beach (meaning passed out while in the water)

1x01: shot with arrow (caused the scar on Jason’s upper, left arm in every episode)

1x02: struck on back of head/neck, momentarily dazed

1x03: voodoo-dolled by Pasiphae

1x06: magically burned by Circe

1x07: kneed in the stomach by Hercules (might have gotten the crotch a bit also)

1x07: tossed around by Hercules and Pythagoras to train him for the Pankration

1x07: kneed in stomach again and separated shoulder

1x07: separated shoulder fixed by Hercules

1x07: “feverish”

1x07: smacked around in the arena, injured shoulder was targeted

1x07: smacked around in the arena again - Heptarian went for his injured shoulder also and added yet another blow to the stomach, then went for the other shoulder and punched him in the face

1x08: punched in the face

1x09: drank poison that "will slow your heart until only the faintest traces of life remain“ in order to enter Hades (you threaten a man’s life to get information, he gives you a vial of poison while going “yes, here’s how you get to Hades” and refers to you and Hercules as “the bodies” - and you actually drink it?! WTF is wrong with you?!)

1x09: smoke inhalation

1x09: buried (I’m calling this an injury because who knows how long he was without oxygen)

1x10: axe, sword, or knife wound (knife assumed, although there was no blood on it, but Jason definitely stabbed somebody with it, so the lack of blood means nothing) - healed by Atalanta

1x11: cursed into being a Kynikoi (oh, who are we kidding, I’m just gonna say it: werewolf)

1x11: knocked out

1x11: bitten and tossed against a wall

1x11: drank silver to cure the curse

1x12: arrow again (the amount of blood on the arrow goes from rather serious to “OMG, how is he not dead?!” between shots)

1x12: grazed by spear (even though it looks like it misses him by a good couple inches - serious enough to require bandaging)

1x13: scratched arm (bonus points for continuity since this must be the wound from the previous episode, however I’m taking those points away again because this is clearly not the same mark)

1x13: knocked unconscious by blow to the head

Injuries - Season Two

Pythagoras:

Seems to have managed a full season streak (see post: somebody explain this). However, if we counted emotional pain, all the acting awards to Robert Emms, because damn.

Medusa:

2x09: cursed again

2x09: fuck it, I refuse - nothing else happened to Medusa; she went to live on a farm in the country with lots of space to run around and other Gorgons to play with

Medea:

2x04: fell down a cliff with a rock-slide (knocked out for a bit, but basically just walked it off)

2x06: knocked out, wrist cut

2x12: grabbed by throat, possibly choked a bit

Ariadne:

2x05: fell and got a cut on her arm

2x05: stabbed by Medea (we learn in 2x06 that the blade was enchanted)

2x06: knife wound from previous episode still bleeding

2x07: hand sliced

2x09: held prisoner by Pasiphae and tortured by Medea (using magic and a voodoo doll)

Hercules:

2x02: punched by Cyclops and smacks into stone wall

2x02: injured arm during the battle

2x06: clawed by a frickin' pterodactyl (after being bit by a mosquito)

2x08: hit in back of head by jug then sword hilt (unknown if he was knocked out by the second blow - the first was part of a staged fight, although unplanned)

2x09: drugged to sleep

2x10: punched by Jason

2x10: sliced with sword by Jason (wound was tended to by Pythagoras)

2x12: cut when Pasiphae’s men attacked the temple (this is the only time I’ve ever seen an “it’s nothing” that was never mentioned again - I thought “it’s nothing” in tv land was code for “I’m going to collapse in the next scene”)

Pasiphae:

2x04: shot with an arrow by Ariadne (being able to just yank those suckers out must run in the family)

2x06: strangled with a chain

2x12: poisoned with the nectar of the passion flower to neutralize her powers

2x12: sliced hand

2x12: knocked out from blow to the head - and stays out a long enough to carry her to the camp

2x12: forced to drink more poison

2x12: stabbed to death

2x12: dropped (this happened while she was dead, but a fall like that had to do some damage)

2x12: most likely got burned while being brought back to life (injured while being healed, what irony)

Jason:

2x01: seizure (from drinking the Oracle’s vision-inducing kool-aid)

2x01: yet another arrow (I hate to break it to you, Jason, but with the amount of blood on that arrow, you are dead)

2x02: "You fainted; the fall reopened your wound." (and he was out long enough for them to drag him from the river into the forest and make a fire)

2x03: sliced with spear

2x04: not certain if a sword got him or he was just smacked around with shields (but Ariadne felt the need to tend to his wound - and I might have to give huge continuity points to the writers here if this mystery injury is actually a shield hit to his spear wound from last episode)

2x04: fell down a cliff with a rock-slide (knocked out for a bit, but basically just walked it off)

2x05: broken leg (wait, you were unscathed in the epic cliff fall, but being knocked down broke your leg?!) - healed by Medea

2x06: knocked out

2x07: hand sliced (they say “blood sacrifice” and you’re all “okay sure” ... is there anything you don’t just go along with anymore, Jason?)

2x07: knocked out (by men sent by Pasiphae in an elaborate scheme to kidnap the Oracle, get Medusa to kill her, frame Jason, and cause Jason to be sentenced to death with the help of Melas who’s only a traitor because they’ve also kidnapped Cassandra -- good thing they decided to stick with that plan instead of just killing him while he was unconscious on the floor - seriously, do none of the bad guys ever hit people with the other end of their swords? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO USE THE POINTY END, GUYS!)

2x07: hit in the face

2x08: this is the only ep in season 2 that he makes it through uninjured - however, I thought it worthy of note that he’s imprisoned and sentenced to be slowly burned to death as a traitor, so it's not like his luck has changed

2x09: heart blackened by learning the truth about Pasiphae being his mother - I’m not sure how this works, but it does seem to have been mind-altering, so it goes on the list (although frankly I’m calling it good old regular trauma from slicing off the head of a dear friend... in order to kill his own mother - I mean damn, that would fuck anybody up)

2x10: stabbed with sword (magically healed, at least partially, by Medea)

2x11: wound from previous episode is still bleeding (so it wasn’t fully healed by Medea’s magic)

2x11: presumably beaten up by Pasiphae’s men when captured, has multiple cuts

2x11: sliced in the arena

2x11: sand tossed in his eyes in the arena

2x11: kicked around in the arena

(my personal opinion is this is self-harm with a bit of a death-wish after killing Medusa - it seems he let himself be captured and he doesn’t really fight back until it’s Diocles’ life at risk)

2x11: drank poison in order to appear dead (dammit, Jason, what is this, the forth time you’ve trustingly gulped down poison?)

2x11: shoved and smacks into a rock

2x12: whacked with a sword hilt (they never did learn to use the pointy end)

#BBC Atlantis #injuries #bbc jason #bbc pythagoras #bbc hercules #bbc ariadne #bbc medusa #bbc pasiphae #bbc medea

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