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spacedace · 9 months

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Reluctant War AU Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

More of the brain worm that has taken me over, gonna probably post it to Ao3 here before too long. Already got another part started and so many ideas for additional stuff, someone please send help I've been consumed by this thing lol

Sorry if Waller seems out of character, outside of fandom I'm mostly familiar with her through Justice League the animated show & Justice League: Unlimited and her vibe there has always struck me as "deeply incredibly unlikable character that also kind of has a point but also has done so much fucked up shit in the name of her goals that you don't really care about her point anymore." So you know, complicated lol. If she's completely unrecognizable let me know, but I'm hoping she feels at least somewhat like Waller.

Forgot to say this in the last update, but still feel free to use all this as an overly long prompt if yall want. Literally anything I throw out to the void should be treated as a prompt lol If there's anything at all interesting to you in any of this nonsense go for it <3 <3 <3

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Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Ruthless, heartless, vicious, cruel.

She’d been called it all. Wore the words thrown as insults as a badges of pride and valor. Because at the end of the day, when it came to the problems she was given to face, the issues she was meant to solve, those words meant she’d done what others had been too squeamish or cowardly to do. Life was a never ending slog of trolley problems and she the only one unshakable enough to pull the levers that needed pulling.

It wasn’t so simple as a matter of greater good.

Greater good was what the weak willed muttered to themselves after having feelings over doing the bare minimum. A justification used by people on all sides to do what they wanted with fractured, faulty logic thrown around like truth was a thing immutable. To assuage their guilt when they were forced to make a call they didn’t want to.

It wasn’t a matter of greater good. It was a matter of preservation. Of protection. Of digging through the filth to find the threats skittering beneath and crush them with ruthless abandon. Of facing a god and not blinking because if you did it could cost the world.

Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how underhanded or atrocious it was.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the throat of something that could threaten to destroy it all.

When the Ghost Investigation Ward had been shoved her way with it’s sucking wound of a budget, it’s bloated incompetent staff, its asinine methods she’d seen a rotted limb in need of hacking off. It hadn’t been until she’d been conducting her inspection, digging through the trash for a few pearls of effective agents she could snatch up and put to work elsewhere, that she’d truly seen what they were working on. The potential.

Potential to better arm themselves with in the forms of the strange new weapons being created.

Potential for threats far greater than anything even she had thought possible before.

The GIW as it had been when she’d first come across it was a fetid waste of time and resources. A laughing stock agency only secret because no one took them seriously enough to look. Made stupid and useless with its own conceited delusions of importance it didn’t actually have. Yet.

She went to work on it. Hacking away as she’d originally intended, but this time with a different goal in mind. She ripped out the weeds with bare, calloused hands and planted proficiency and loyalty in their place. She took over as director herself, tossing the self-aggrandizing fool that had been running the place into the ground to the dogs as the culprit for misappropriate spendings, saving the agency by tweaking things until their ballooning budget was pinned neatly onto the former director as an embezzling charge.

Then she got to work.

The Fentons were brilliant, if entirely insane. But Amanda could work with that. She’d reigned Harley Quinn in - more or less - she could do the same to the two deranged scientists that so eagerly wanted to be apart of the fight against the dead. Especially when the benefit came in the form of the inventions they threw together so easily, especially when those inventions were weapons.

It took very little to get them on board with her plans for the GIW. Keeping their focus could be a chore, at times, but she didn’t even have to really do much in the way of pressing to get them back where she wanted them. They craved knowledge and understanding nearly as much as they craved the eradication of the entities themselves. Letting them have the first look at a new subject here, free reign over a vivisection there, it took so little to fuel their fervor and keep them busy working on the projects she set for them.

Things had been going smoothly.

For a time at least.

Until Phantom.

He’d been the main focus of the previous director’s attention, the big fish he’d so desperately wanted to catch and put up on his wall. Amanda wouldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a tempting prospect, but not one she’d put above the other projects she had set in motion since taking over. No, Phantom was powerful, enough to be a real problem one day, but she could the awkward youth in the way he held himself, the inexperience in how he handled situations. She had time to get everything else in order before focusing on getting Amity Park’s would-be hero brought to heel.

And he would be brought to heel. One way or another.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands wrapped tight around the Core of a fledgling god and bending him to her will.

An artifact, old an powerful, recovered with some effort. A means of controlling specters, of chaining them to the will of the artifact’s wielder. Dangerous in the wrong hands. Dangerous in the right hands.

It was shattered, and even whole and functional Phantom was resistant to its power. But Amanda Waller prided herself in her ability to see the potential in things. It could be repaired, be made better. Even gods could be bound, be made to kneel, with the right pieces, with the right application of force.

It was just a matter of time to gather everything needed.

Phantom didn’t know he could single handedly destroy every last member of the Justice League. The baby fat, the innocent eyes, the split-second hesitations when he fought. He knew enough to be confident in fighting the usual ghosts that haunted Amity Park, but he still very much saw himself as a little fish. Maybe it was the part of him that was still Daniel Fenton, gangly teenager not quite sure what he was truly capable of yet.

She had time before the Fenton’s son truly became an issue. Time to judge if his parents’ obsessiveness would overcome their - rather shoddy, by Amanda’s estimation - parental instincts and continue to hunt him once they knew the truth. Time to get as much out of them as she could before hand, should they falter at the idea of attacking their own son. Time for the staff to be repaired and returned to working order, to get the other items needed for the truly big fish hidden on the other side of the veil between worlds.

She had time.

Until she didn’t.

Pariah Dark had not been something she thought she’d have to account for - not yet, at least.

If he wasn’t already dead, she’d ring the Ghost King’s neck with her bare hands. His arrival had opened Phantom’s eyes to what he was capable of, of just how big of a fish he was. Worse still, Phantom’s defeat of the war mongering King changed the state of play. Phantom was no longer an impressively powerful half dead teenager.

He was King Infinite.

He was an Ancient.

He was getting on her last damn nerves.

Phantom’s rogue gallery were now firmly under the boy’s control. Still distinct nuisances around Amity Park, but no longer considered true concerns. They were loyal to their boy king, delighting in ruffling his feathers but never crossing the line into treason or attempted regicide. Which meant that the GIW was the only thing that held his attention.

Amanda took the time to send a care package to the former GIW director in his tiny, dank prison cell. As thanks for his carelessness in revealing to the entire town - both living and dead - of the agency’s existence and their intentions. Had he stuck to standard protocol, Phantom would have been none the wiser to their presence. Would have scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders at the ghost that went missing upon occasion. Would have been boredly uninterested in the people his parents had begun working with. Would have been taken by surprise when they finally came for him.

But no.

No that self-obsessed, fame chasing imbecile had to go and announce to everyone and their dead mother that the GIW existed and exactly what it was they were in Amity Park to do.

Phantom knew what they were there to do.

They could only count on his naive certainty that he could broker peace with them for so long.

Peace. As if he and his people weren’t the invading force, the monsters slipping in through the cracks between worlds, the latest threat that had to be accounted for. As if he himself hadn’t rent their world asunder himself in another world, another time. No. Peace was not something they could hash out with this baby-faced monarch with his too-big crown. Peace was the assurance of safety, security. Of control of the situation.

There could be no peace.

The higher ups were somehow surprised when Phantom took that to mean there would be war.

Amanda Waller was not.

The Fentons, as suspected, took the right side when all was revealed. Steady hands and flinty eyes as they crafted the weapons that would be needed for the coming fight. Minds even sharper in their maddened grief, hearts set on revenge for the son lost and the entity that stole his face and friends and sister in his garish pretense at humanity. They were blinded to the reality of the situation in its entirety, the potential in what their son truly was, but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter. They did what she needed them to do, they could believe whatever it was they wanted so long as they did.

By the time the boy king and his armies marched upon the Amity park facility, preparations had been put into place. The base in Amity had been stripped back to bare essentials, everything of importance moved to more secured locations.

The weapons labs.

The artifact.

The girl.

All tucked well away from the front lines where Phantom and his motley crew could not reach. Their time to be put in play would come, but not yet. First she needed to gauge what Phantom and his people were capable of, what they were willing to do in the name of what they wanted. Amity Park was a pawn well sacrificed on that front. As were the other facilities she’d left easy to find.

The problem with making children gods, with giving them crowns and calling them King and giving them armies to play with, was that they thought there should be rules. That even in the trenches tearing apart their enemies, there was a certain level of playing fair that everyone was held to. They thought there was a way the world worked, of how things should be that blinded them to more effective options even as time stretched on and desperation set in.

It was the Dead’s problem though, not hers.

She reached out to the Justice League. Sour faced, unhappy, bitterly reluctant to accept that she needed their help. Stone faced and barely containing their rage at what little they knew of the situation, they agreed to a meeting.

She didn’t let herself smile until she was well and truly alone in her office.

Greater good. A lie people told themselves. A fairytale told to children. A means of convincing the weaker willed that they had no choice, that they had a noble duty to bend to. A belief that could be wielded like a weapon if the fantasy of the idea had dug in deep enough. And there were few it had dug into so deep as the members of the Justice League.

Amanda Waller was someone who did what needed to be done.

Hands dirty.

Hands red.

Hands clenched tight on a victory long in the making.

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Part Four

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #danny fenton #amanda waller #GIW #ghost investigation ward #Jack Fenton #Maddie Fenton #bad parents jack & maddie fenton #cause none of this is angsty enough yet lol #tw references to vivisection #tw references to death #waller out here playing 3d chess #of course she wasn't surprised by the inevitable war she was just hoping she'd have her secret weapon ready before it actually kicked off #oh well she still has plans B - J to get through #and all the variations for each #gonna take care of her ghost problem and her justice league problem in one fell swoop if she gets her way #just throw some GIW agents into the meat grinder for a bit while she gets stuff in order & so she can see just what Danny is willing to do #anyway wonder what Elle is up to during all this #i'm sure she's fine and there's nothing to worry about #waller playing the long con yall

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skyloftian-nutcase · 1 month

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TotK DLC idea!

The screen is black. You don’t hear anything for a long time. Then, faintly, in the distance, you can hear it.

Link. Link. Open your eyes.

While the line echoes familiarity, the voice does not.

Or. Well. It does. Because while it isn’t Zelda, it’s a familiar man’s voice speaking gently, so gently you almost don’t recognize it because there’s no way he ever spoke like this in the main game.

But he is now. And instead of a golden light being the first image you see before the screen shows Link awakening… you see gloom floating in the air. The image cuts to a Hylian waking up who… doesn’t look like Link from TotK?? He’s different, still small in stature, with slightly tanner skin, platinum light blonde hair, and red eyes. But… something’s wrong with his forehead. There’s a weird line on it.

This new character you apparently are gonna be playing in the DLC blearily blinks his eyes open, clearly groggy and too weak to really move. But then that line on his forehead moves a hair, it splits apart, and you realize it’s a freaking eye, red and yellow and it’s like the ones on gloom hands and oh gosh what the hell is it doing on his forehead—

Link realizes something is off and his eyes blow wide, his hands reach for his forehead and he screams in agony and terror, only for someone to scoop him into a hug to soothe him.

And suddenly you realize why that voice was eerily familiar.

It’s Ganondorf. He resurrected you from the era of the Imprisoning War. You, who have a history with him and his family. You, who he wants to protect, who he views as his kid, who he calls a prince and says he’ll keep you safe by controlling your body with his dark magic if he has to.

Welcome to Tears of the Kingdom: Hero’s Shadow.

You have to play a long gone Hero who was resurrected. Ganondorf, who is still recovering his strength in preparation for killing the current Hero, tasks you with finding your betrothed, his daughter, as well as his wife. They’re buried somewhere in the Depths like you were. He wants you to find their burial sites so he can use his secret stone to resurrect them like he did you, and control them as well. Which is doubly bad when you realize his wife was the original Sage of Lightning. He gives you free reign to wander once you go through a tutorial (he tests you to see if you’ve recovered enough strength), because he knows you love wandering and collecting things. Your own personal objective, however, is trying to help Hyrule from the Depths, to break free from Ganondorf’s control, because Link would rather set himself on fire than let Ganondorf resurrect and control the love of his life and his mother-in-law. Your best hope is to find shards of the shattered Master Sword to try and stab the eye on Dark Link’s forehead and break the control Ganondorf has on you. Until you can, though, the monsters are your allies, you can teleport across the Depths by manifesting out of the gloom created by gloom hands (just like what Phantom Ganon does), and the world below is your oyster. If you get too close to sword shards when gloom hands are nearby, Ganondorf can see your attempt and immediately takes control of your body, and no matter what button you press Link just walks back to Ganondorf’s location and stays there until you get a chance to try again.

You start with three hearts, all empty looking like when gloom hurts you, and if you get injured they just shatter. Whenever they all shatter, you respawn at Ganondorf’s location because his gloom hands came and rescued you from dying. The only way you can get more hearts is by collecting poes and offering them to the statues in the Depths. You can communicate with the spirits of soldiers, who may give you combat tips or info about the area. If you gain enough of Ganondorf’s trust, he’ll let you command monsters, and he might even let you wander the Surface (under his supervision) during a blood moon.

You learn of Link’s and Ganondorf’s history through discovering ancient relics/texts that trigger memories. This connection between you and Ganondorf stems back to time before the war, well over ten thousand years ago. Link was engaged to Ganondorf’s daughter, but during the Imprisoning War the family fought against the demon king. Ganondorf did love his family, but he loved power more. Link sacrificed himself, letting himself get mortally wounded to save Rauru from a killing blow. Gan held him as he died, and it allowed Link to both beg him to stop and stab him in the heart with a light shard. The shard didn’t kill him, but it was what Rauru connected with when he hit him in the chest, allowing him to seal Ganondorf away. Ganondorf still wants the world, but his love for his family is still present, though now twisted, so he thinks he can control Link and everyone else with his dark magic in order to keep them safe and in line. Once the threat of the current Hero is eliminated, the world will be his, and his family will be safe. As such, he treats you, Link, the player, like a stubborn child, reeling you in, but does so in a horrific way, torturing Link by controlling him.

You have to break free of this and stop him, and the only hope you have is the distant call of a sword spirit…

#tears of the kingdom #totk #I think it would be pretty neat to play someone who is “allies” with the bad guy #but you still have the objective of stopping evil #But you have to manipulate Ganondorf and work around his watch #So you get to play double agent #And possibly see a more complex Ganondorf #Like the dude is still being evil; he’s using his love for Link as an excuse to control him #He does care about him but he’s expressing it in the worst way #and he wants to do the same to his wife and daughter #So still a bad guy but a far more interesting one #One day you’re on the Surface with him and you see the Light Dragon and you’re not sure who it is #Because Link died before Zelda ate the secret stone #But Link can kind of guess #And Ganondorf almost noticed her so Link has to hug him or say something to get his attention #You have to manipulate Gan as best you can #idk how it would end #Like once you break free what do you do #But the idea tickled my mind so I wanted to write it down #Yes I’m just playing with my Imprisoning War blorbos #no I don’t care #legend of zelda #skye time travels through the queue #hero of shadow

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sittinginsunflowers · 1 year

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okay, I’m going full red string over the last episode. mainly because if queen amangeaux (put some goddamn respect on her name) had a child with her husband, wouldn’t that have solved all her problems? Sure, it would make her a target but the bishop was already warning her to lay low at the festival, and at least this would’ve secured her place on the throne until her child came of age. Unless she knew she was pregnant and then she decided not to say anything in trying to follow the bishop’s advice? Or she didn’t know at the time and then everything popped off. But that makes the baby at least a year and 3/4 months (if we use human pregnancy as the timeline??) and the baby read more as a newborn to me? Also in the adventuring party when they discussed the bishop’s secret, Anjali pointed out that he could’ve been poisoning her or her husband with the tea leaves to stop her from producing an heir. which could be a red herring, or could mean that the baby belongs to someone other than her husband, hence why she’s hidden him away. which would make sense since the coloring is a little different. So either the baby isn’t hers biologically and is just in her care, she had an affair while her husband was still alive, the baby is the true heir, or she got pregnant in the two year time jump.

how the fuck am I losing my mind over a mango’s sex life how did I get here

#anjali bhimani #the ravening war #the ravening war spoilers #dimension 20 #d20 #acoc and trw will really have you deeply invested and emotional in the inner lives of characters only for you to remember halfway through #they’re fucking food #also I really sat there and did a pregnancy timeline with a mango before being like???#do they do the whole 9 month thing or??#like what’s the lore there #also it was amazing storytelling for aabria to sell her out #I’ve never seen Anjali before but she’s fucking incredible and such a great presence at the table #I hope we get to see her more!!#but also I’m sad about them considering how much amangeaux really seems to care for karna #and also it’s just a poor baby!#these characters all have such good secrets I can’t wait to know more

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musclesandhammering · 6 months

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I need there to be an emotional scene in Secret Wars or Thor 5 or whatever when, after Loki’s out of the tree and the war is won etc, Thor expects Loki to stay in New Asgard with him, but Loki declines and says he’s returning to the TVA.

Something along the lines of “I’m not your Loki, your Loki is dead. This was his home, not mine. I’m sorry he never got to see it. But I have my own home, and they’re waiting for me by that time door. So..”

I just think it would annihilate me :)

#I love the idea of their reunion #but I also love the idea that they (especially loki) have grown into new people and have found their own packs so to speak #because a huge part of their codependency issues before was that Loki really didn’t have any connections outside of Thor #and now he does and he’s happier and better for it #and yeah I want to see the sun shine on them again #but ultimately THIS Loki HAS a family. and they’re a bunch of silly time cops #and he deserves to not have his happiness hinge on his family #the one he grew up with I mean #loki meta #Thor #Thor 5 #loki series #loki finale #brodinsons #loki and thor #avengers secret wars #kang dynasty #secret wars #avengers kang dynasty #loki #loki spoilers #loki finale spoilers #TVA #tva fam #TVA family #Mobius #sylvie #anti Thor #it’s not but apparently it is according to some angry repliers lmao

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pyreo · 6 months

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warning: spoilers in this post for secrets of the obscure

I thought of making a post about the expansion when I finished it, but I didn't - I didn't have a whole lot to add. It is very much a new start with a new cast and I think they made the correct decision in cutting us off from the former characters and locations completely for now, to give everyone room. Everything is introductory and that's fine.

With the first post-patch update, something became clearer to me. Zojja is very much the Commander/Wayfinder's emotional companion through all this. She's the only character in SotO we already know, making her feel like a lifeline. Her experiences mirror ours - she feels estranged from her home (there's no way we don't, after travelling so much and so far), and she suddenly loses her beloved mentor far before she learned as much as she wanted from him (just as we've lost mentors during the early dragon cycle).

And specifically, the expansion begins with the Commander being completely out of place. It's small and it's kept light, but it's really important. They try to call all their allies, people who faced death with them multiple times to restore balance to the world, and nobody is available. It's not on purpose, it's just one of those things. They're busy. They all had real lives to return to, positions of authority to use to put the pieces back into place now the dust has settled. They're starting new relationships, even. The Commander has nothing. The Commander felt like they were born for the purpose of healing the world, born in the right place and time to be the one to carry the torch, continuing the plans mapped out by Glint, the Forgotten, the Exalted, the dwarves, everyone who set things in motion knowing they would never even see their work completed. And what is the Commander without this? Because now that your work is done, you get a brief moment to think oh. Maybe. Maybe nobody needs me any more.

And that's what Zojja confides to you. She felt that way, after the Mordremoth campaign left her severely wounded and traumatised. She needed time to recover, and once she had... did it seem like nobody really cared, now she wasn't necessary to fixing their problems? Did anyone come to connect with her, while she had nothing to contribute? Just like the Commander, she felt that, then she resented it, and she withdrew out of spite.

I feel like Zojja and the new Wayfinder are going to diverge on this emotional road. Suddenly, Zojja has in fact decided to accept the wizard promotion... and her memories of her former life are gone. You promised her you'd be there to help her regain her footing, be by her side as she began a new phase of her life, and then Zojja's... gone, not even greeting you, not looking up when you talk. The person who understood you most, right now, has left, and you truly are alone.

Zojja couldn't find enough positives about her life during the dragon cycle to want to keep it. I think the Commander will be the opposite, they'll probably receive an offer to join the wizards too and decline, because that price is too high. They trust their friends still need them. And then the other previous characters will return, apologising for missing your call, and maybe we'll re-introduce Zojja to them too. I think this is a strong lane to take her character. But it's a strong way forward for the Commander too, because we're unsure of our identity, changing our old name, outside of a resolved crisis, wondering if anyone we know truly wants to be our friend now that we aren't central to saving the world.

anyway

Worms...?