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i-never-forgot · 4 days

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"In the Morning Light" Canon Timeline

In light of posting my fic(s), I wanted to clarify my AU for the sake of comprehension since there are some timeloop shenanigans that occur that may make it confusing, especially since I have somehow ended up writing it all backwards lol.

This is going to be a mess of bare minimum (but we know it's going to be long-winded—c'mon, guys, it's my writing we're talking about) plot points to explain the premise of my perpetual WIP fanfic, my OC(s), and the potential AUs that may be involved. Buckle in for a whole lot of nonsense, my dudes—this is really just me trying to get everything in my head on paper, so to speak, so I don't really know who will be interested in reading all this lol, but I appreciate all of those that do. This has been stewing in the back of my mind since 2015 so…yeah.

This outline is broken down into acts, so it follows the basic canon storyline of the game until the post-game's ending, from which it deviates. (As always, questions about any of this are more than welcome in my askbox! I relish any excuse to yap about my babies!)

[Divider credit]

"Past" Arc:

[The events of "A Stagnant Life" occur.]

Eliana wakes up in the paralyzed future and thinks she's dreaming. She rescues a terrified, treed Treecko from getting trampled by a rampaging Nidoqueen by distracting her, tumbling into a ravine and hurting herself in the process, then falling unconscious. When she wakes up, the Treecko is there and...talking to her, asking if she's all right, and trying to give her a berry. That's a lot to process with a concussion, but, at this point, after taking in the decaying scenery and strangeness of it all, that seems the least fantastical element involved in her current predicament.

He convinces her to go back to his cramped cave at the top of the other side of the ravine, afraid of being out in the open for too long, and asks her what kind of Pokemon she is. She explains that she's a human, he's confused. She tries to explain that she's obviously not from the area, but isn't entirely sure how she got there—the memories are...fuzzy, for reasons that she can't seem to fathom.

Treecko says, after some questions of her own about sleeping off their injuries for the night and figuring things out in the morning, that he doesn't even know what "the sun" is. It's always dark, always silent, and the vast majority of other Pokemon are feral and violent. The poor thing has no concept of time and is extremely timid and soft-spoken, and he's obviously intimidated by Eliana in general (but especially by her size and comparatively incredible strength), yet he seems to trust her despite himself for that one act of kindness she gave him...of course, that may also have to do with the fact that he looks like he's never gotten a full hour of sleep and seems cripplingly lonely and starved for touch and company, too.

Despite the grief and trauma surrounding the loss of her original childhood partner Pokemon, Eliana's initial insistence on only keeping an eye on the little creature that had inadvertently saved her life with oddly potent naturally medicinal fruit long enough to figure out what in the hell she was going to do quickly fragments when she starts teaching him how to battle to defend himself, rescues him from a couple more dangerous situations, and answers his endless questions to the best of her ability. (She's only known this Treecko for what should've been a couple of days and if anything happened to him, she would kill everyone in that fucked up frozen world and then herself.) She decides very early on that she would lay her life on the line for him, even if she doesn't openly admit to having an attachment to him to herself until much later on.

She learns about mystery dungeons when he runs out of supplies and she figures out that the only way to get fresh food and water is to enter these odd, labyrinthian structures and to emerge successfully on the other side because, oddly enough, things seem to have been “sealed” in a way that regenerates the feral Pokémon and the items. Treecko is terrified of having to go into them because of the other Pokémon since they attack anything that moves, but Eliana starts coaxing him to try. She figures out how to use throwing items, seeds, and orbs as means of defense since she obviously has no moves, and very slowly Treecko starts to get stronger and more confident.

One “day” Eliana finds a Dig TM before they emerge on the other side, and they pass a local pond on the way home. Eliana stops by the water while Treecko stays near the treeline with their finds, but she’s attacked by a Mightyena and gets pinned under the water to drown her. Treecko accidentally activates the Dig TM, learns it, and defeats the Mightyena by using it—it��s the first time he’s knocked out a Pokémon on his own. He’s frantic about whether Eliana’s okay and clings to her well after they fall asleep.

Eliana receives her first Dimensional Scream soon after this, although she doesn’t understand what it is and thinks she might be hallucinating. (*I haven’t decided what it will be yet, but for this “future” portion of the fic, I would utilize the “past” dialogues—just like the hero captures glimpses of Grovyle’s dialogue in the past, e.g. Foggy Forest.) They're staying near Treeshroud Forest, so this is what triggers it, but they don't realize there's a Time Gear there until later.

She grows too curious about the state of this world to stay put any longer, and she tells Treecko that she wants to explore it to see what happened—she’s explained to him how it should be, but he’s never witnessed anything different. He’s understandably wary about the idea of traveling long distances, and Eliana tells him that he doesn’t have to go with her—since he has a home here and feels safe, she could leave him with what they had gathered the last several trips to the local mystery dungeons and gather her own stuff as she goes along.

(However, she doesn’t realize that the reason Treecko feels safe now is because he’s met her—she’s boosted his confidence, has taught him how to battle, and has been his sole companion in almost all of his life. He owes her everything, he feels, so he decides to go with her in order not to lose her.)

[The events of the top half of "Cuddles" occur.]

They travel along an old path that leads, unbeknownst to them, southwest. Eventually they reach the coast and discover the ruins of a town. Eliana is fascinated and tries to uncover what's left, but anything valuable has already been looted. They find an underground base mostly hidden under brush pulled over its entrance. They creep inside and are attacked! But the scuffle doesn't last very long because their assailant is a) old and b) the only other sane Pokemon they've encountered.

It’s a blind, older, chronically wounded Lucario that refers to himself as the Old Master. Eliana and Treecko are uncertain what that means, exactly, and he doesn’t deign to explain it. After some convincing that they aren’t raiders, he offers for them to stay in the little underground haven he’s built. It used to be an exploration guild, he explains, and he was its master. Since the world fell apart most Pokemon either fled across the continent or were driven mad. He doesn’t admit it but Eliana can tell he’s been lonely and he’s relieved to have some company, even if he has to readjust to it some.

He starts explaining what he knows—which is quite a lot, actually, since he’s studied all of the old tomes in the Guild’s library for lack of better things to do while hiding out between ventures into local dungeons for food. He’s able to answer some of Eliana’s questions—including that the planet is paralyzed through time stopping. Eliana exhausts his knowledge and he diverts her to the library and proceeds to teach her how to read the written language(s) of their world.

Eliana is a quick study. She even uncovers and is able to read the ancient tomes composed in Unown runes since it’s similar to the alphabet with which she’s familiar. Lucario is amazed by this and by her and Treecko’s partnership. He mentions eventually that she reminds him of someone he used to know, but he can’t place it.

Eliana uncovers texts about Time Gears and their function. She proposes a crazy—but plausible— idea. It is no negligible task, but…Lucario agrees to help, tired of the world he’s been trapped in and that Treecko has been born into. They will need help if they have any hope of finding them. But even if they did manage it, since no locations were recorded in the records, how could they possibly reverse what had already happened?

They travel to what once was Capim Town on the opposite side of the coast—a long, arduous journey filled with peril. Treecko gets stronger and quicker all the while. They arrive and Eliana is met with suspicion and outright aggression—those who remembered humans before the cleansing did not approve of her presence, so she was forbidden from remaining in town. Treecko goes with Lucario when he speaks with the leaders of the town, but he’s rejected because they suspect that any tampering with the timeline would cause their erasure. Lucario declares that the world in which they live is nothing for them, nor their children, to suffer—what would it mean for them to lose their lives if countless others could be saved in the process? (Treecko adopts a lot of Lucario’s opinions on things after this, admiring him a lot for his steadfast rationale and ability to handle tense situations.)

When they leave the council chamber and return to Eliana, Lucario is discouraged. However, a moderate-sized group of townspeople follow them before they can depart and say that they're willing to help them in any way that they can to rectify the past. They end up forming the Planetary Investigation Team and start researching the cause of the planet's paralysis by uncovering other texts and such.

Lucario, Eliana, and Treecko return to the Guild and begin their plans. They determine that while their new team attempts to narrow down the possible locations of the Time Gears in the past, Lucario says that they need to find out a way to travel through time to start with. He has to work on that, but he has enough information by then to send Eliana and Treecko out into the continent to start the process of elimination on where the Time Gears might have been.

Unfortunately, all this hubbub and action has caught the attention of the spies scattered throughout the land for Primal Dialga. They report back what's going on, and Primal Dialga sends out his best henchman to determine the intentions of these insurgents and to stop them by whatever means necessary if he determines that they pose a veritable threat to the timeline. (They do, he finds.)

Eliana and Treecko start traveling around the continent counter-clockwise, first discovering the Time Gear below the Northern Desert and in Quicksand Cave thanks to another vision she receives from almost falling into the frozen quicksand. She trusts her gut, they go down, and find the first Time Gear suspended, frozen, and inert. [Since Temporal Tower had collapsed, the "feedback loop" powers they possessed went dormant. That's when they truly figure out that they have no choice but to travel back in time in order to utilize them effectively.]

They find the other Time Gears based on the possible locations Lucario marked on their map: Crystal Cave/Crossing's, Treeshroud Forest's, then Foggy Forest/Steam Cave/Fogbound Lake's. Eliana keeps having these visions, and she realizes that they're linked to the Time Gears, although she can't figure out who is in them (spoilers: it's Lu).

They have their first run-in with the Sableye when they discover the Time Gear in Limestone Cave, and Eliana and Treecko have gotten so accustomed to combat that they don't pose that much of a threat. Treecko has become confident, sure in his abilities, and he is proud that he's able to protect Eliana just like she has him.

They book it back to the Guild to report their findings to Lucario hoping he's found a solution. He has: Celebi, the Time Travel Pokemon. He hopes that they can find her if they find a Passage of Time, and one is located near the Mystifying Forest because it's a place of primordial, mystical power. There's no guarantee that Celebi will be there, but Lucario hopes to at least leave a note there in hopes that she might assist them.

However, just as they're getting ready to travel there, the Guild comes under attack. Several of Primal Dialga's servants have discovered the place and are trying to stop them...and Dusknoir is leading them. He demands their immediate surrender with a cease and desist order, stating that if they stop their plans to tamper with time that their punishment won't be as severe.

Obviously they don't agree to his terms. A tense and rapidly losing battle happens so they can fight their way back out, but Lucario sends Eliana and Treecko away while he takes on the rest of them and holds them off to buy them more time. Tearfully, they flee. Dusknoir pursues them, but they're faster since they're more familiar with the area.

They fly through the mystery dungeon and come across an old spring. Dusknoir and his Sableye ambush them there. It's a tough fight, and Dusknoir is merciless since he's decided to use force. Eliana gets hurt, Treecko gets pissed. Something about the energy that resides there reacts and Treecko evolves! Grovyle's able to beat them off and to knock Dusknoir down long enough for them to slip deeper into the forest.

He's struggling to adjust to his new form and they're both frantic at this point, on the verge of an inevitable and certain demise but he's just so proud of his new strength and Eliana's overjoyed that their bond is strong enough to afford him that, and they almost miss it when they're called into a barely-visible cave entrance. Celebi is waiting there, having known they would come because she's been watching them, wondering why Pokemon were suddenly looking for the locations of the Time Gears. She fully supports their cause and apologizes that she couldn't have been introduced to them sooner, but she was trying to avoid detection by Primal Dialga for defecting.

She leads them to the Passage of Time, explaining that she relies on its power for longer leaps like they require in order to reach the past. They're down to the wire: Dusknoir and the Sableye catch up to them just as they're getting ready to pass through. Dusknoir almost snatches Grovyle but Eliana dives in and tackles him through the Passage. Celebi flees once it's shut behind them, and Dusknoir is left cursing in their wake. (He's in deep shit with Dialga now.)

Due to the instability of the portal, Eliana and Grovyle struggle to cling to each other. It's violent, almost, throwing them about like they're in a storm. They're attacked in the midst of it, Eliana thinks it's Dusknor following them, and shields Grovyle. It sends her careening out of the Passage, freefalling over the ocean below.

"Present" Arc:

Eliana wakes up on a beach with only the memory of her name, the certainty that she should not have fur and paws, and little else save vague sensational impressions and gut feelings about certain things (and Pokemon).

A young, blind Riolu finds her and offers to patch up her wounds (after she was battered around by the storm, hit her head on a rock which resulted in a concussion and her amnesia, and nearly drowned as a result) despite his initial wariness of her rather unbelievable story, but his personal treasure is stolen by a couple of bullies and she is Not Having That Shit since he's so sweet and shy. It takes her a little bit to get used to her new body, but using items helps. Riolu is extremely grateful for her help, doesn't know how to repay her other than offering to help her in return, and offers for her to join him in going to Wigglytuff's Guild. Eliana doesn't know what else to do, so she accepts so she can at least have time to get her bearings.

She quickly trusts Riolu because of his sincerity and opts to give him a nickname. They make fast friends with the other Guild members, but Eliana is soft-spoken and reclusive, never really coming out of her shell since she's so shaken by her lack of identity and the mysterious visions she keeps having. She grows accustomed to Lu's innate and, at times, unnerving ability to tell her mood sine he sees using his aura reading ability.

[Regular plot happens, y'all know the drill. I'm trying not to make this too terribly long so I'll add anything else here if I think of anything.]

Eliana discovers that she has a passion for the historical aspects of exploration and, in order to understand the world around her, she starts reading as many books as she can get her paws on. (She's surprised that she can read all of their written languages, as well as Unown script, although she struggles with Footprint Runes). Lu tries to keep up, but a lot of times he falls asleep while she's pulling her secret all-nighters even after the Guild's curfew has passed.

They initially focus on small jobs that don't offer big rewards since those often get neglected, but as they get stronger they start focusing on ones that are more dangerous so they can help those that need it most. They ascend through the ranks rather rapidly this way compared to their peers.

Everything proceeds as normal until they return from the expedition to Fogbound Lake and Dusknoir arrives at Treasure Town. Everyone is immediately enamored with him upon their first meeting, including Lu, but Eliana senses nothing but Bad Vibes. Her hackles rise and her fur stands on end and she can't get out of the room fast enough. Lu wanted afterwards to meet him but he goes with her to conduct their business outside the Guild. They do their missions for the day and go to Spinda's to unwind.

[The events of "Inexplicable Dread" occur.] | [Here is some meta. And here is some more.]

Dusknoir shows up and Eliana panics and gives him a false name. Lu is trying to be accommodating while keeping up decorum for their visitor, so she tries to push down her anxiety for her partner's sake. Dusknoir notices her apprehension and tries to smooths things over, which makes her second-guess herself and her initial reading of him: he is kind, considerate, and interested in what she has to say. He succeeds in being the second Pokemon to get her to open up by asking her about her studies. By the end of the night she feels comfortable in his presence, but that ill feeling lingers in the back of her mind. They accidentally touch, and triggers another vision: of Dusknoir reaching out to them, stating "You two are coming with me." She runs out in fear, leaving Dusknoir concerned about her being hurt in the past (but little does he realize he's the one that did it).

Lu finds her already in bed, curled up tight with her fur on end. He manages to get her to calm down, but she refuses to share what she saw bc he just got through telling her about how nice and kind and concerned Dusknoir was about her and that he's never met anyone so sincere with such a clear, bright aura. She decides to give him a chance since Lu was able to tell Team Skull were bad eggs right away.

They start interacting with Dusknoir more, having conversations here and there, and Eliana and the ghost-type are able to have intense debates or discussions about hypotheses that surpass anyone else's realm knowledge. Dusknoir loves listening to her talk since she's so articulated and wise beyond her years (until she reveals she's older than she looks, being a first-form Pokemon) and he'll actually go full-throttle explaining things since he doesn't have to stop, slow down, and give extensive context for his subject matter bc she already knows what he's talking about. Eliana develops a fondness for the bass rumble of his voice, like thunder, and she falls asleep a couple of times listening to his veritable lectures. She adores his patience, gentleness, and willingness to share his vast knowledge.

[The events of "Trust" occur.] | [Here is its meta.]

When Dusknoir rescues them from Amp Plains, offering to carry them back to town because of their wounds and fondly murmuring, "You two are coming with me," Eliana decides that she trusts him completely. He has brought no harm upon them, he has helped the both to be more confident in their abilities, and he so obviously cares bc he threatened to rip Team Skull a new one for the dirty trick they played that might have cost Team Relic their lives! She diverts him to the beach and confesses her true name, her ability, and her amnesia being the reasons she was hesitant to trust him at first. She is relieved to no longer hide these things from him, but he is...decidedly not. He conceals his reaction well enough, but Lu notices an inexplicable shift in his aura that darkens him. He starts acting...different. He draws closer to them, claiming to try to help Eliana with her ability to they can find Grovyle, and yet he's more reserved. It's an odd mixture.

When they begin their manhunt for Grovyle, she teams up with Dusknoir to research where the rest of the Time Gears may be located. They spend many late nights like this, usually with Lu asleep nearby, and grow very close as a result. They end up on a "first name basis", so to speak, and no one else talks to him with such casualness and informality, as though he's an equal rather than a superior. He is surprised to find that he...almost appreciates the normalcy of it, despite the circumstances. Eliana respects him entirely by the time the events at Quicksand Cave occur, and she fully commits herself to helping Dusknoir capture Grovyle.

[The events of the former half of "The Hero and the Wraith" occur.] | [Here is some meta. And some more.]

They stop Grovyle at Crystal Crossing, almost at the cost of their own lives. Eliana thinks him cold, cruel, and is almost smug about his desperation once Azelf locks down the lake. Serves him right, she thinks, after everything he's done. She doesn't realize he's on the verge of breaking down, panic and terror and grief that he's been doggedly avoiding since getting separated from her all rolling into one and verging on the edge of a mental meltdown. He's had to relearn himself while separated from his most trusted partner and best friend, not knowing what became of her, whether she was dead (or worse). He's seen no sign of her thus far, getting the Time Gears, and he fears the worst. This is the last straw, and he's barely holding it together. That's why he lashes out with violence instead of deflection or defensiveness; he's hemmed up into a corner with nowhere left to go and he's just so very frustrated and afraid.

Dusknoir didn't have to step in. He could have let Grovyle do his dirty work for him. But...he couldn't stand the sight of Eliana and Lu getting wounded so mortally. He steps in before Grovyle can land the killing blow (on Eliana, because she managed to get up to shield Lu despite being on the verge of unconsciousness). He chases after Grovyle when he escapes, but it doesn't take him long to decide the thief is gone and he rushes back to scoop up the team and Azelf to bring them back to Treasure Town.

He's frantic, the Guild members would say, worrying himself to death about their condition. He looms outside their room while Chimecho and the other healers on-hand patch them back up, and he stays with them through the night in order to monitor their condition. He has to leave the next day to keep up appearances, to hunt Grovyle down, but his inner turmoil distracts him more than anything. He shouldn't care. He would be forced to bring Eliana to her death anyway. Why would he be worried for her health now? (Why had it scared and wounded him so badly? Why did he allow himself to get involved with them in the first place?)

Eliana wants to go with him to trap Grovyle once he, Magnezone, and the Lake Trio decide on the plan. He refuses. He doesn't want to risk her recollecting anything about Grovyle, certainly, but he doesn't want to stay around her any more than what is strictly necessary anymore. He has to distance himself. He can't allow his personal feelings interfere with his mission anymore.

Eliana is anxious waiting for the update. She doesn't fully realize that Dusknoir will have to leave once he captures Grovyle. It hits her like a truck when they're in the town square and Dusknoir's imparting his goodbyes.

She doesn't expect him to reach out and snatch her (and Lu). Waking up in the frozen future is disorienting, to say the least. She and Lu are still a bit beat up from the fight in Crystal Crossing, and the last thing they want is to rely on Grovyle for anything, but...why is Dusknoir trying to have them executed? Eliana's in survival mode, realizing that her Dimensional Scream had tried to warn her and she hadn't listened. Dusknoir had betrayed them, he had lied to them, why couldn't Lu just accept that?

They argue before they decide to find Grovyle. Lu is already upset, and to see Eliana so angry scares him. When he cries, she softens back up enough for them to remind each other that they're on the same team and that they have each other, if nothing else. They don't trust Grovyle, but what he says makes sense, and Eliana admits that the "enemy of my enemy" mentality will work for the time being. (So why does she feel so safe in his presence?)

They fall into an instant rhythm. Something about him seems so oddly familiar, comfortable, and she almost knew what he was going to say before he said it or what he was going to do before he did it. They fight back-to-back effortlessly. Lu notices that his aura is pure, and murmurs such to Eliana at one point; he's sincere, and he has no malice for anyone. Something about that seems...right.

Celebi recognizes Eliana, but says nothing. She thinks Grovyle knows, and since she can see through the timeline a bit she doesn't quibble with it. She's just trying to focus on getting them back without bringing up the odd transformation.

Dusknoir reveals the truth and Eliana would've had a harder time believing it if it hadn't...felt right. It's difficult to reconcile in her mind, and she doesn't truly have time to process it, but...she realizes the voice in her past Dimensional Screams must have been Grovyle's. There was no possible other option. It's a much harsher truth to Grovyle, though, given he's been suppressing his emotions about the entire ordeal for so long. That's really what guts him in that moment, steals the wind from his sails: for a moment he truly thinks they're at the end of their rope, that there's no hope...and then Lu steps in and saves them all with his steady resolve and quick-thinking.

[The events of "A Dawning, Horrific Realization" happen.]

It's an emotional night, crowded around their low fire in Sharpedo Bluff and eating in near silence until they brave broaching the subject. Grovyle can scarcely contain himself, his relief overwhelming him to the point that he is reaching out to Eliana out of habit; but he'd hurt her and Lu, and while she felt some sort of vague bond with him, she was still readjusting and absorbing everything that she'd learned about herself and him. Despite him trying to hide it, she sees the hurt written plainly in his eyes when she rejects him politely yet apologetically.

He wakes her with a nightmare that night. She tries to wake him, but he reaches out to her again with a desperate mumble of her name. Heart hurting for him, and for the version of herself that he had lost, she caves and cuddles with him. They both sleep better than either of them had in a long, long time, finally reunited.

She builds a fast rapport with him despite their rocky start. They butt heads a little, since Grovyle had to learn the hard way how to make decisions for himself while Eliana is used to taking point with Lu, but they get everything done. When he departs to speak with the Lake Guardians, it's a tense, but temporary, goodbye.

They keep the note he leaves behind for them in Sharpedo Bluff.

The battle with Dusknoir is violent, brutal, and enraged. Eliana doesn't hold back against him, although she's limited in what she can do. She bites him on the arm hard enough that it scars. Lu and Grovyle have to volley so he won't target her specifically. He grabs her throat at one point in the fight using an Ice Punch, freezing and scarring the flesh to the point that hair no longer will grow there.

It nearly shatters Eliana to lose Grovyle at the temple in the Hidden Land, but she has to stay strong for him and for Lu. She can't let herself crack under the pressure now, not when they're so close.

She doesn't let it slip when she starts to disappear, trying to stay strong for Lu's sake so it's not as hard on him. He wishes she would have told him sooner, but it's the one time they agree to disagree.

Lu develops gray hairs on his muzzle in his grief, but Eliana's temporary absence matures him a lot. He doesn't let her out of his sight for months after they're reunited, and hardly out of reach.

The entire Darkrai ordeal breaks Eliana. Finally learning what happened brings all her grief of being betrayed but who she thought was her friend, then losing her best friend, all back again to the forefront. This is the weak spot that Darkrai tries to exploit, and it works. It's only Lu that's able to pull Eliana back out of it. She feels a sort of grim satisfaction that Palkia inflicted upon Darkrai what the Nightmare Pokemon had done to her so long ago.

Her and Lu work through their traumas as best as they're able, working through the ranks and becoming one of the most succesful exploration teams in the continent. They find a tentative state of peace in their routine, and they feel like they get a fresh start when they finally evolve. Eliana chooses to become a Leafeon in honor of Grovyle. It's an emotional moment for her, the closest she's felt to her long lost partner in months. She misses him terribly, and while Lu is able to settle, she finds herself restless still.

"Future" Arc: [WIP] {No spoilers!}

[The events of "That Poison, Reconciliation" occur.] | [Here is some meta.]

[The events of the latter half of "The Hero and the Wraith" occur.]

[The events of "Rest" occur.]

"AU" Arc(s):

Returning to IRL AU:

[WIP] Through some space-time shenanigans (whether divinely ordained or not, that's yet to be determined), Eliana is returned to the human world about years* after she disappeared from Eterna Forest. A missing-persons investigation had been conducted and ruled as a closed case when no signs of her were found. Her roommate put her belongings in storage, thankfully, never really believing that Eliana was truly gone. She struggles to get her feet back under herself, having to find another job and place to live and basically start from scratch...

Extra Information:

Team Relic:

Reference.

Meta.

Team Sunrise:

Reference.

#fisara’s scrawlings #pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #meta #eliana kouros #grovyle #lucario/lu #riolu/lu #dusknoir #celebi #ao3: in the morning light #longpost

11 notes · View notes

dapperrokyuu · 2 years

Note

Hyuna for character opinion bingo

In regards to this post! Feel free to send more~!

Thank you for asking about Hyuna, its a unique choice because I feel like shes both enigmatic but also gives a lot of material for how little we've seen of her! I ended up rambling, so let me just tuck this under a...

Thinking about her Even A Little Bit can send me into a spiral of character speculation, but I wouldnt say thats exactly headcanons--thus, I didnt mark that for her! And I really need to make my character speculation post, itll just be genuinely SO LONG for even one character, much less the six of them, lol, kdaljbnadfkjn- orz

I definitely have the feeling that Hyuna will be a very active in the plot, so thats why shes a BEAST, shes going to go ham somehow, trust me. Putting her in a salad blender is about the same as putting her in Alien Stage, and the squeaking and holding her gently in my hands pretty much sums of my feelings whenever I rotate Hyuna in my brain. Ultimately, IM GOING TO BE HURT WHEN SHE DIES, BECAUSE IM PRETTY CONVINCED SHES GOING TO DIE, LOL.

I actually genuinely thought Hyuna was going to live or even potentially take Mizi's place as the MC of Alien Stage, but due to this art and a moot pointing out thats MIZI and not Hyuna (due to the outfit), I can only assume Luka and Mizi meet (as implied in the art) because Luka BEAT HYUNA in their match, so.........

Its a fairly interesting twist if thats the case, because I think that based off Hyuna's apparent desperation to survive and disdain for Luka, itd be easy to assume she would win. Its just going to be sooo sooooo sad for me because I KNOW shes going to have a breakdown and/or try to lash out in her last moments against Luka when she loses. In her brief depiction singing in Sweet Dream, Hyuna looks like shes SINGING HER HEART OUT, and imo, that tells me that despite the hatred, Hyuna can possibly respect Luka enough to give them a fair match rather than straight up trying to murder them. I also think Luka is probably going to win in their match by virtue of Luka's been hinted to be kind of famous and the votes will be purely popularity rather than consideration of effort, quality, passion, etc....extra pain. c:

In my optimism, my current thoughts are: Hyuna vs. Luka happens and Hyuna dies (likely), Hyuna vs. Luka happens and Luka dies (not unlikely, just significatly less likely than I thought before), Hyuna vs. Luka happens with Hyuna losing but she manages to escape (Very Optimistic, Extra Badass Points For Her Tho), or Luka actually battles a rando in the first set of rounds, while Hyuna is an outside force for Alien Stage/trying to sabotage him (fun but honestly a stretch).

Expanding on the last option above, I think its too soon for Luka or Hyuna to die, especially since we dont know much about either of them. Hyuna being an outsider also would make every match in the first set of rounds unique in their own way, as Round 1 establishes, Round 2 has murder, and Ivan's round would serve as a baseline of whats normal (if it goes as I speculate, lol). I also think that Luka and Hyuna are both from an older generation of Alien Stage contestants; thus, one could argue that would make their round unique enough on its own. But I still think itd be perceived as a "standard/baseline" round too similar to what I assume Ivan's round will be. Thus, the last option would have Hyuna be an outsider with no risk of being killed, while Luka also lives by steamrolling their opponent, lol. As both of them provide backstory and thoughts on the other until they actually interact~!

BUT! I think the unique factor could also be fulfilled by the opportunity that Hyuna vs. Luka happens but she escapes, Ill definitely take that. Especially since it seems Hyuna is going to sing AT SOME POINT (Sweet Dream)... If Hyuna can escape, hopefully she can just survive the entire series afterwards, lol.....

Thats not even getting into how I think their dynamic is, how they view each other, and/or how they got to viewing each other that way, but nonetheless...I think a much of that is definitely more speculation and would honestly not find it toooooooo worth saying here because we just dont have that much info of them to work off yet. Thank you for asking, I hope you enjoyed~!

#ask game replies #alien stage #alnst #vivinos

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2centsoframblings · 2 years

Text

Two cents of ramblings on: “Saint Seiya Kogane Tamashī - soul of gold -” (Anime)...

...and why I recommend it to who enjoyed “Saint Seiya”.

GENERAL DATA

Title: Saint Seiya Kogane Tamashī - Soul of Gold - (聖闘士星矢黄金魂 -soul of gold- “Saint Seiya Golden Soul -Soul of Gold-”)

Media: Anime television series

Spinoff of: “Saint Seiya” anime based on the “Saint Seiya” manga written by Kurumada Masami.

Genre: Fantasy, Martial arts, Mythological

Directed by: Furuta Takeshi

Written by: Takeuchi Toshimitsu

Studio: Toei Animation, Animation Services: Bridge

Original run: April 11, 2015 – September 26, 2015

Episodes: 13

WARNINGS: There’s possession, manipulation, murder.

The plot in short: The Gold Saints who died in order to destroy the Wall of Grief are revived in Asgard. In an attempt to discover why it happened they end up involved in a battle against a foe threatening Asgard.

HOW DID I STUMBLE INTO IT

It’s “Saint Seiya”! It’s the Gold Saints! I love them! I could I not stumble into it?

THINGS YOU MIGHT WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE TACKLING THIS

I’ll reference “Saint Seiya” manga and anime version and the second “Saint Seiya” movie, “Saint Seiya - Kami-gami no Atsuki Tatakai” (聖闘士星矢神々の熱き戦い “Saint Seiya: The Heated Battle of the Gods”).

MY TWO CENTS ON IT

THE SHORT VERSION… or what I can tell you about this while trying to keep spoilers at the very bare minimum.

Opening & ending: The anime uses as opening “Soldier Dream” by ROOT FIVE and, as ending, “Yakusoku no Ashita e” (約束の明日へ ‘To the promised tomorrow’) by ROOT FIVE. Now… “Soldier dream”, sung by Kageyama Hironobu, was the old “Saint Seiya” opening used for the Asgard saga… which okay, is iconic and awesome but… I wish the anime has just gotten his own opening. The visual is not bad… but it’s nothing special either and it spoilers the series a lot. It immediately implies Aiolia is the main character/hero of the series, that he gets a ‘love interest’ and that his main opponent will be Gullinbursti Fródi, that Hylda is not well, that Miro and Camus fight, and that the Gold Saints, despite having died in order to destroy the Wall of Grief, are somehow revived in Asgard, that Saga, Dohko and Mu will do the Athena exclamation, that Athena will give her blood to turn the gold cloths into god cloths complete with visual of them, that there’s Yggdrasil and let’s not forget Andreas’ scar. Really, all we miss is a shot of who’s behind all this. There’s plenty of shoots of the Gold Saint. Well, at least the Gold Saint aren’t depicted as thin as the Bronze Saint while being in Asgard… The ending song is pretty nice. Visually it doesn’t show much, just the Fire Clock of the sanctuary, the gold cloths and then the Gold Saints standing in front a giant Athena but I like the touch of having one of the flames on the Fire Clock to extinguish in each episode until all are extinguished and the series has ended. It’s worth to say in the last episode they replace the panning on the gold cloths with scenes from the series… which okay, makes sense but it’s not great.

The plot: Credits when it’s due “Saint Seiya” never had this complicate of a plot, it’s just battle after battle racing against time because Athena got herself in troubles but here they tried to toss in also mystery and other stuff and… and they made a mess, there’s plenty of plot holes. However, what’s really good is instead that they tried to close the Gold Saints’ character arcs in a satisfactory manner and they nailed this one correctly.

The characters: Well, let’s see. The Gold Saints are definitely mostly well developed in this one, they all get a role, something to do and a good characterization. I loved them.

Lyfia… is not that impressive as a character, but she works. The God Warriors… they tried to give them some character and dept but they are a lot less impressive than the old God Warriors of the anime. Still, they aren’t bad. Andreas has no character and the real bad guy behind all this is… just evil and that’s all he is. Freya and Hylda? Oh yes, I caught a glimpse of them. They don’t do much beyond being in the background occasionally.

The visual: I love the shining colors used for the cloths and the attacks, the dynamism, the fact the Saints here don’t seem about to drop dead of starvation (yes, decades have passed and here I am, still hung up on how “Saint Seiya” made the Saints progressively thinner). The animation quality isn’t always great but it’s still nice and, although the background aren’t extremely detailed, they’re still well cared for.

The musical background: “Saint Seiya” BGM has a history of being good (Yokoyama Seiji made really epic music!). This might be not as epic as the previous BGM for the Asgard saga but it’s still a pretty good one so kudos to Mizutani Hiromi.

Overall: It’s a “Saint Seiya” spinoff about the Gold Saints. To enjoy it, it’s required to know “Saint Seiya” and it has all the sins and all the virtues of a “Saint Seiya” story, meaning you’ll love it if you like “Saint Seiya” and the Gold Saints and you might end up disappointed if you hate them or have no idea who they are.

THE LONG VERSION… or what I loved and hated about this with, of course, TONS OF SPOILERS.

For once I’ll start with the weak points of the series so…

Okay, as the series started my first thought was: “Asgard AGAIN?!?” because it’s not like they hadn’t already milked Asgard in an original movie and in an original arc of the anime, right? Do we need even a spinoff placed in Asgard? Isn’t there some other places with Gods in which they could place the story? I don’t know, Egypt had cool Gods, why not to use it just for a change of pace and of climate?

But yeah, it’s Asgard again, and they even fished up 7 new God Warriors that never showed up to fight Saiya and Co during the Asgard saga because… they weren’t created yet… same as Lyfia, this new character who, had she appeared in a fanfic, would have surely be accused to be a Mary Sue.

Officially she’s just a maiden of Valhalla Palace, but it’s clear she’s put in the story to become the love interest of Leo Aiolia (poor Marin, previously SHE seemed to be the one for Aiolia), the main character of the series. At first she kind of seem to have the role that belonged to Freya in the anime, asking for the Gold Saints help, falling for one of them despite having a special connection from childhood with the God Warrior Gullinbursti Fróði (Freya didn’t quite fall for the main character but for Cygnus Hyoga and has a special connection from childhood with God Warrior Merak Beta Hägen) while Freya basically exists but has a nonexistent role in the story since she gets imprisoned again but that’s not all Lyfia does. She also gets Polaris Hylda’s role as she gets controlled by the main enemy so as to resurrect the Golden Saints and it turns out she’s actually Odin’s representative on Earth… all while Hylda lies sick in bed, confined in her room and does nothing beyond putting all her faith in Lyfia, so as not to steal Lyfia’s chance to shine.

Note that if Lyfia wasn’t such a blatant rip off of two previous main characters she wouldn’t be bad… and the fact she’s a rip off of two main characters is… well excusable because it’s part of how the “Saint Seiya” animation works.

I mean the anime only “Asgard saga” was inspired by the 2nd“Saint Seiya” movie which was inspired by the special one-shot from the manga “Kōri no Kuni no Natasha Hen” (氷の国のナターシャ ‘The Chapter of Natasha, of the Lands of Ice’) so well, why should I be surprised if now the “Asgard saga” became the inspiration for “Soul of Gold”?

Well, at least the Gold Saints don’t have to save Athena, but just to stop Yggdrasil from bearing fruits and, in order to do so, they’ve to go into the 7 chambers of Yggdrasil and shatter the 7 Mammoth Pillars… pardon, the 7 statues in there. Yeah, no originality here either.

Of course the God Warriors are provided with Odin new Sapphires, though this time their purpose is just to let them get even more power from Yggrasil… and, surprise, surprise, Andreas Lise is actually also possessed by the new enemy… a God who was closed into a amphora… yeah, like Poseidon.

Should I also mention that, although the series tried to explain why Grani Sigmund, brother of Dubhe Alpha Siegfried and someone who knew Polaris Hylda was being possessed, never showed up in the Asgard saga (and the same can be said for the other 6 God Warriors) the explanation don’t really hold up very well… and they didn’t even try to explain why Fróði, who’s from a family who long served Odin, never showed up either… and yeah, it’s probably worth to mention the 7 God Warriors aren’t that well developed or original either… and it gets kind of ridicule how Odin always has to count on Athena’s Saints to solve Asgard troubles and give them his cloth when he actually should have his own God Warriors.

And let’s face it, Loki is definitely underdeveloped, he’s just there to be the bad guy and that’s it. Okay, it’s in the myth that Loki wasn’t actually an Asgardian but a Frost Giant but the series doesn’t even explain this, just calls him a false God.

So, after all this you might wonder… then why should I watch “Soul of Gold”?

Because, let’s face it, originality was never “Saint Seiya” stronger trait but this series has some very good things. Although Andreas and the new God Warriors aren’t that developed and the new enemy is just evil and that’s it, this series take care to develop the Gold Saints, which is the main reason for which it was done. It gives all of them a chance to shine but also digs into either their past or their inner conflicts.

Deathmask finds back his good side and rejoin with his cloth, Aphrodite gets to show his connection with plants, Aldebaran and Mu’s psychology gets developed, Saga and Aiolos confront (remember? Saga tried to kill Athena and Aiolos had to protect her), Aiolia gets to confront with his feelings for Shura, the man who killed his brother, but also gets to work with his brother, and Camus shows us he used to have a friend in Asgard.

What’s more, Libra Dōko gets some development and… well, this younger version of the old master is interesting as a character… even if he feels pretty different for how I was used to him.

And hey, didn’t we all want to see Aiolos in action?

The episodes, more than plot driven, feel like a character study digging into them and giving them space to shine and this is SO GOOD!

It’s literally gold if you’re a Gold Saint fan, and should I mention the battles are well done, and you get to see all their special moves, and how they get those cool God cloths?

And, although I criticized the lack of originality in the plot, to be fully honest they tried to develop it a bit, even making it ‘mysterious’ as they kept the secret about who and why resurrected the God Saint and around Lyfia and Garmr Útgarðar, so they made an effort to make it more than just, let’s crash the 7 statues and beat the new bad guy who possessed someone…

It’s also worth to mention that, even if the God Warriors aren’t that well developed, especially compared to the God Warriors of the “Asgard saga”, let’s remember the “Asgard saga” counted 26 episodes, versus the 12 of this series and could take advantage by how Athena’s 5 Bronze Saints were already well developed so they didn’t need any character study. This gave the “Asgard saga” the time to take care of the development of the God Warriors and their backstories (they were awesome by the way), a time this series doesn’t have as it has to develop the Gold Saints.

So yeah, this is a good and enjoyable spinoff for the fans of the series, one I definitely recommend.

It might not work for people who don’t know “Saint Seiya”, they might feel lost and confused or just not being that impressed due to its flaws, but if you’re a fan is definitely a MUST SEE.

Also, even if it’s not something that touches me that deeply, I should probably mention it gives a lot of space to Aiolia, making him the new main character (in place of Pegasus Seiya) so, all the more, if you’re a fan of his, you should see it.

And now let's end this with an AMV about this series I recommend watching Black and Blue

youtube

#Saint Seiya #Saint Seiya Soul Of Gold #Toei Animation #Fantasy #Martial Arts #Mythological #Shounen #Recommended #2015

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zoeykallus · 1 year

Text

Ich habe 3.434 Mal im Jahr 2022 etwas gepostet

Das sind 2.895 more posts als 2021!

723 Einträge erstellt (21%)

2.711 Einträge gerebloggt (79%)

Blogs, die ich am häufigsten gerebloggt habe:

@kaminocasey

@superiorsniper

@zoeykallus

@moonstrider9904

@clone-whore-99

Ich habe 1.031 meiner Einträge im Jahr 2022 getaggt

#star wars – 483 Einträge

#the bad batch – 382 Einträge

#clonelove – 355 Einträge

#tbb – 353 Einträge

#clone force 99 – 339 Einträge

#sw tbb – 329 Einträge

#tbb tech – 269 Einträge

#tech – 264 Einträge

#crosshair – 247 Einträge

#bad batch tech – 231 Einträge

Longest Tag: 109 characters

#sorry but i scrolled down on this being muted with the dope's - playing on my headphones. it kinda fits ^^''

Meine Top-Einträge im Jahr 2022:

The Bad Batch x Fem!Reader – The First Time HC's

Warning: 18 + Strongly Suggestive /Sexual Content / Strong Language / Crosshair's Part a little rougher

_____________

The Bad Batch Guys with a female virgin reader, making first time experience.

____________

Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen

380 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 14. Juli 2022

Hunter - Animal

Hunter x fem!reader

(Short Onehsot)

Warnings: SMUT 18+

PiV/Fingering/Oral recieving/Grinding/Slightly Fluffy

__________

Author's comment:

Little to no plot at all, just Hunter getting animalistic on reader.

__________

Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen

381 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 2. Januar 2022

The Bad Batch x Reader – „You're Pretty“ HC's

Warning: Strong Language (It's Crosshair's fault!!)

How do the boys tell you they think you're pretty for the first time?

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

Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen

483 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 17. Juli 2022

Shy Tech

Tech x Reader

Just a short thing I had written down sometime last week. Wrote it down after a dream, wich is why it is so short and a little out of context. Nothing big. No Warnings. Just cute Tech being super nervous around reader.

Shy Tech

You had never been to Geonosis before. It was another desert planet, but this one was covered with red sand and rocks. It looked somehow even more inhospitable than Tatooine.

"Who would want to live here?" you asked to no one in particular as you waited outside the ship for Rex.

But of course, Tech took the opportunity to chat from his infinite store of knowledge.

"The Geonosians are a winged, insectoid species. Despite their insectoid origins, Geonosians have no skin armor, but smooth, thin skin. They have long arms with relatively small hands, crooked legs, and claws on their feet. Despite their gaunt frame, they are very strong. Geonosians are generally naked, except for a loincloth that sparsely covers their private parts. Upper body clothing is unnecessary for both men and women. Because they wear no clothing, they are more agile than most opponents and also use their clawed feet for defense. The Geonosian language consists of clicking and cracking sounds. They live in..."

"Oh my gaaaaawd, shut up, will ya?!" Wrecker interrupted Tech in his loud voice, "Nobody cares about that much information."

Tech was annoyed by this rude interruption, but he actually shut up and refocused on his datapad.

You rose from the box you were sitting on, walked through the red sand to Tech, and sat right next to him. He looked up from his datapad at you briefly, then focused back on the device in his hand.

"They live in...?" you asked him quietly.

Surprised, he blinked and looked back up into your face.

"Please don't encourage him," Wrecker muttered.

"Don't be so rude!" you fired back, silencing him in surprise.

Tech's ears went all red again, and to hide it, he hastily put on his helmet, despite the barely tolerable heat out here. It was interesting and amusing to see. Tech was the one who always kept a calm head in the most dangerous situations, but you always managed to shake him in some way.

Omega appeared at your side and gently tugged on your shirt to get your attention. Omega gestured for you to lean in with your ear to her, then whispered, "I think Tech likes you a lot."

You chuckled, at which point Tech shot a surprised and nervous look at the two of you. He couldn't hear what Omega was saying to you, but he was sure you were talking about him. He uneasily shifted his weight on the crate he and you were sitting on before finally standing up, pretending to be fully focused on the datapad again, and walking to the ship's ramp.

"I think we gave him the wrong impression," you sighed.

But you were distracted by an approaching small troop transport before you girls could discuss this topic further.

"Finally. Rex shows up," Hunter muttered.

As Rex came down the ramp, you were already running toward him, literally jumping on him.

Giggling, Rex wrapped his arms around you and lifted you off your feet for a moment. The other clones watched the scene in amazement. They knew you were friends with Rex, but they had no idea how close you actually were. If you had eyes in the back of your head, you would have seen the worried look on Tech's face. He was worried about how close you really were.

"Hey Firecracker," Rex greeted you teasingly, "How did you end up with these guys? I hope they're treating you well?"

You laughed as Rex eased you to your feet and back out of his embrace.

"They're all very gentle and decent to me," you replied.

"You'll tell me if that ever changes," he stated more or less jokingly.

"Yes, Captain," you replied playfully formal.

With a hand between your shoulders, he led you back to the rest of the crew.

Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen

484 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 4. Januar 2022

Meine #1 des Jahres 2022

Clones asking you for a date (approaching you) at the 79's:

Some Of Our Favorite Clones x Reader (pick up at 79')

Warnings: Partly slightly suggestive

Vollständigen Eintrag ansehen

574 Anmerkungen – Gepostet 11. Januar 2022

Hol dir deinen Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022 →

#tumblr2022 #Jahresrückblick #Mein Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022 #Dein Tumblr-Jahresrückblick #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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levmada · 2 years

Note

So I saw this post

On your profile

AND read your comment regarding if we wonder about what You think about Levi 🦋 The answer is yes.I personally think You being a psychology student makes all your perspectives even more interesting;and your talent with writing even Moore beautiful 💙❤️

Compliments aside though I would love to see your thoughts on Levi on a more personal level

Like why do You like him so much,is it because of his looks,his personality,maybe You have a more close to the heart (lol) reason for it? Because I personally relate yo him in a LOT of wats,especially his personality and the way he reacts to things.

Anyways I am not particularly great with words but i hope i got the point clear :c gimme your thoughts 😂😂😂

Nice to read You! byeee! 💖💖

BINGOOOOO🔥

i could write a whole dissertation on a thorough analysis on levi’s character tbh

i mean :( this man who quite literally came from nothing, fighting to live and losing everything he loves along the way, no matter what he does to protect them. because of his strength he feels SO much responsibility that even things out of his control are in the end his fault, things he needs to avenge.

like kenny leaving him?? levi thought it was bc he didn’t live up to his potential enough, he he became determined to be the strongest.

izzy and farlan?? he blamed his pride until erwin convinced him it was the titans. it became his mission in life to kill them all and make erwin’s dream realized.

his original squad?? levi was Very Clear when he told annie how he planned to torture her and make her regret what she did. this conflict was retconned in s4p2 convince me otherwise

he thinks the way eren turned out was his fault (him being levi’s responsibility from the start). his 30 comrades in the forest?? levi thinks he should have sussed out the poisoned wine. not to mention those times he let zeke get away.

baby feels he has NO worth other than his ability to fight. he is willing to become the worst person on earth if erwin’s dream can come true, and he even let erwin rest bc of the devil he was becoming even tho he believed it would doom humanity.

levi is simply. the most selfless character and also the most beautiful and brave and complex and badass. idek what else to say. ultimate blorbo status.

it’s SO much more than his looks dkvnsn canonically he looks so tired all the time and he’s so small that isayama cuts him off in most panels dkfnehfjr. ppl love to imagine levi tall but that’s just weird to me lmao. it doesn’t fit him at all. i think a large part of his character represents humanity’s strength itself as small but mighty hehe

i didn’t even Notice levi the first time i watched aot a million years ago?? but i think the type of person i am, i’m more attached to emotionally unavailable ppl who are v strong and v damaged. that’s mommy and daddy issues for u.

is levi my highest kin ever??? yes. abandonment issues? check. super awkward and cannot read social cues to save my life? also yes. emotionally constipated. loyal to a fault. always moving forward despite living thru a hell that would ruin other ppl?? this also. trauma. acts like the embodiment of a brick wall which behind waits the most sensitive person you’ve ever met?????? u bet.

i may or may not have latched onto aot in general when life was Awful so now aot is somehow my comfort show and him as my comfort character😭 i don’t think i can escape tbh

ONTO OTHER THINGS… the only reason majority of conflicts in aot existed (s2 as a whole, the rumbling fights, the yeagerists uprising in s4) was bc levi was somehow out of commission, injured, or had a plot excuse to not be there. such a waste imo.

absolutely got done dirty by fans who saw the 1 (one) scene from s1 when levi beat up eren TO PROVE THAT HE COULD HANDLE HIM as their sole proof that levi is a sadistic unfeeling asshole. those ppl watched the anime with their ass.

and please do not get me started on shipping levi with literal children and even incestually with his own cousin. gross.

lastly, irl i would be fuxking petrified to be around a stoic awkward person like him at first,,, but if shown 1 sign of who levi actually is i will fall immediately in love. i don’t make the rules.

my favorite character ever thank u for asking

#i have lots of opinions!#★play!★#levi ackerman #i’ve never mentioned my stance on proshipping but there it is

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wheredidhiseyebrowsgo · 3 years

Note

Hello! Thanks in advance. Do you have an recs for long sterek fics with an alive hale family?

AND

kevaaronday said:Hey, I hope youre well! Do you know any fics like "Indelible Marks" that has big alive hale family, idiots in love, werewolf reveals ect? I've tried looking for something with a similar vibe and haven't come up with anything

Get ready for lots of reading.

Didn't See That Coming by knittersrevolt

(43/43 I 83,838 I Explicit)

Stiles leaves Beacon Hills in the dust after he catches his husband cheating on him.

He finds his way to New York where he starts working for the Hale House Nursery, accidentally adopts a werewolf baby (through no fault of his own thank-you-very-much), and somehow starts training to be an Exorcist Emissary. So, in general, life was going good.

Then he hears that demons have found their way into his hometown. Can he face his inner demons and go back to save the day?

No Homo by orphan_account

(12/12 I 84,092 I Explicit)

Stiles' sophomore year starts something like this: 3 FourLokos + 1 peer-pressuring cat - 1 best bro to end all best bros = 1 Craigslist ad headline that reads "str8 dude - m4m - strictly platonic". Derek is the fool who replies

Puzzle Pieces by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)

(3/3 I 89,402 I Mature)

“Okay.” Stiles glanced at his phone, wincing at the battery being close to ten percent. It was probably time to call Scott. Turning off the flashlight, mostly to save battery and kind of freaking out over how dark it was—though the half-moon reflecting off the snow helped a bit—he opened his contacts with shaking hands and scrolled through to Scott’s name. Once he hit it, he put the phone to his ear, looking around, and froze.

The phone rang in his ear, but his eyes were locked on something big and moving through the trees.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

If that was a fucking bear, Stiles was fucked!

The line kept ringing and ringing, but Scott didn’t answer. Eventually his voicemail picked up and Stiles very slowly lowered the phone and hung up without looking, eyes still on the dark shape in the trees. He glanced down for only a second to turn on the flashlight function again, then lifted it ever so slowly upwards, and felt his breath freeze in his lungs.

It was a wolf.

It was a motherfucking wolf.

Three Marks by sanam

(1/1 I 113,736 I Mature)

"And then there was pain again, but this time it was in only three places—his arm, below his clavicle, and next to his heart, all on the left side. It felt like the skin was being sliced apart, ripped open, flayed off— And suddenly it was done. Derek looked across the room and saw the boy on the floor, looking about as bad as Derek felt."

Derek and Stiles learn that bonding is probably best done with ridiculous amounts of video games and maybe a little bit of time.

Divided We Stand by KouriArashi

(29/29 I 156,742 I Mature)

Derek is being pressured by his family to pick a mate, and somehow stumbles into a choice that they didn't expect and aren't sure they approve of....

At least the Road to Hell is paved, I'm not good with Stairways by lady emebalia (emebalia)

(80/80 I 170,037 I Explicit)

When Derek signs up on a BDSM dating site, he expects things to be straight forward. Turns out the road ahead has more unexpected turns than he thought. But at least Stiles comes well equipped for twists and turns.

I Hunt For You With Bloody Feet by CharWright5

(26/26 I 200,462 I Explicit)

“Mates don't always mean happy ever after.”

When twenty-year-old born omega werewolf Stiles Stilinski received that cryptic email from his twin brother—who'd been missing for two years exactly—in a language the two of them had made up, his drive to find Stuart is doubled. The search leads him to Oak Creek, the most secured and heavily fortified city in all of California, where he finds that not only is his brother dead, but also the literal alpha of his Dreams in Derek Hale—who just happens to be his twin's Mate and the main suspect in Stiles' eyes. Despite an agreement to fight mutual feelings, the two are still drawn to each other as they try to solve the case themselves, uncovering a plot that goes deeper than the murder of just one wolf.

Indelible Marks by billtheradish

(87/87 I 275,695 I Mature)

The house never burned. The pack is strong. Derek will never need to be the alpha, and his sister is a troll. (Actually, most of his family is like that.)

Derek is an apprentice tattoo artist, and Stiles isn't old enough to get ink of his own yet. But that doesn't stop him from being interesting...

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #no hale fire #college au #anon #Anonymous

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crystal-moon-101 · 3 years

Photo

So I’ve got three AUs here with The Secret Generator 10 Trio, and I drew them all together because they are all connected based on the same idea. In these AUs, instead of receiving their powers from something, they are what their powers are. Basically, Zak is still Kur reborn, but was born a dragon who disguises himself as human, Rex is the Omega (His design is based off of my sentient Omega AU), and Ben is the Omnitrix who decide to become a living being, choosing a human body as his main form. I’ll go into a little more detail to explain each AU, and I hope you enjoy! If you have any questions about any of these AUs, don’t be shy to ask. 🧡 💙 💚 -Zur AU- In this world, Doc and Drew never had any biological kids, as Drew found she was unable to bare any. This did distraught the pair, as it had been one of their long life dreams, but they stayed strong and decided to focus on their work for a bit, deciding on future family stuff later. Eventually, they came across the Kur Stone with the rest of the secret scientists, and as the story goes Argost snatched it, and the secret scientists rushed into Weird World to retrieve it, losing many of their teammates in the progress. But things take an interesting turn when taking the stone back to base. You see, as the scientists were discussing what to do, now understanding what the stone really was, they all suddenly heard a faint crack...then another, then a few more, and before anyone knew what was happening, the Kur stone slip, breaking open into four pieces as a tiny, baby, serpent-like dragon crawled out. That’s when they realized that the stone was not a stone, but rather an egg, and putting two and two together, the group assumed that this was Kur’s child. Of course, they freaked out, not wanting something tied to the being said to desire to kill all humans to be wandering around the lab, but their panic caused the little infant dragon to panic too, and a chase sparked, with the little dragon rushing around the labs to hide and keep away from these strange people. The young dragon was confused, as it didn’t understand what was wrong, why these people seemed so scared, though one of these people did catch his eye, the woman with white hair. He had seen her first when hatching, and developed this strange attachment to Drew. She ended up being the one to corner the baby, who came up with a...odd idea somehow. Reaching deep within himself, he found the ability to shapeshift into a human form (Albeit with dragon like features), basing features off of Drew and Doc. This caught the two off guard, especially when seeing bits and pieces of themselves in this child. At first they thought he was trying to trick them, but when they started clinging to Drew, something sparked in the two, this need to protect this young one, who had clearly bonded to them so fast (Drew was quick to scoop them up and be ready to tell the other scientist to a back off). It was a longgggg discussion with the others, many having concerned and worries, but eventually it was agreed that they could not place Kur’s blame onto his offspring, as it was unfair, and since Drew and Doc handle cryptids for a living, it was best that they looked after him. So, they gave him the name Zak, and their little family began. Now, Zak is very well aware of what he is and who he is, and is very grateful for his parents for taking him in, despite what he was. The main plot of the series would most likely be the same, with a few differences, like people like the Nagas and Argost eventually thinking that Zak is Kur’s son too. But then the twist eventually comes in that Zak isn’t Kur’s son, he is Kur himself, just reborn like a phoenix. This leads into Zak’s anxiety crises about who he really is and what he could do, just like in season 2. Zak can also switch between his human form, and real dragon form, though he is able to summon parts of his dragon form, like wings or his tail, if that’s better to use at the moment. He’s quite the magpie too, often collecting ores, gems, jewelry and anything that catches his eye. His loves the outdoors quite a bit, and spends a lot of his time out in the woods or grass fields around his home, connecting with the local wildlife too. He’s also known to straight up hiss and growl, even in his human form. -Omega Rex AU- After the failures of the Alpha project, the crew on the nanite project eventually moved onto the Omega project, which was being lead by not only Caesar, but his parents as well this time. Based on Alpha’s designs, tweaking them quite a bit, they eventually made Omega, a much more friendly and kinder version of Alpha. Omega started off as mostly robotic, being tested on and merely hanging around the labs until needed for something. But like all of Caesar’s project, things started to change, and Omega started to become something more. It was little things at first, Omega asking little questions, curious about the world and people in it. Then Omega started mimicking people, copying human mannerism and even style of speech. People caught on quick, and become a little nervous, given Alpha was kind of the same when he started to change and eventually go rouge. They kept an eye on Omega, making sure nothing went down hill, but instead they went an opposite direction, taking a more wonder filled out look on life, wanting to know a lot about life and what it meant to be living. There were mixed responses to this, some telling Omega that they were just a robot and nothing more, others wanting to see where this would go. Omega seemed to follow three people the most, Caesar, Rylander and Van Kleiss, each peeking his interest in different ways, each one seeing and treating him differently. Caesar often regarded him as one of his great inventions, and was enjoying seeing where Omega was going, and how they were growing, and while there were moments that Caesar treated him a little more human they he would admit, he tried to keep it professional and just say Omega was a tool. Rylander was the kindness to Omega, and would be happy enough to answer their questions and let them understand life a little better, often thinking he saw a spark of a soul in Omega’s eyes from time to time. Van Kleiss was intrigued by Omega, especially when Omega seemed unphased by Van Kleiss’s off putting nature. Like Rylander, he was fine to answer him questions about the world and life, though his negative views on life due to past issues made things a little sad for Omega to hear, even trying to ‘comfort’ the man despite Van Kleiss telling him not too. Then, the nanite event happened. It all happened so fast, but that didn’t matter in the end as Omega awoke with no memories...not even their own name. Left wandering the world now being infested with EVOs, he eventually ran into the Hong Kong Gang one by one, where he started to developed a more teen like personality, and even got the name Rex from them. This made that desire to be something more, something alive, stronger, and that feeling stayed with them even after he left the group, lost his memories again, and got picked up by Six and Providence. At first, they had assumed he was an EVO, but once they realized he was something else, a living nanite it seems, they kept him around in hopes he could help, especially after seeing he could cure EVOs and talk to other nanites. Rex is very curious, and still mimics quite a bit, you often seen him copying gestures from Six and Holiday. Not in a mocking way, but more so like a little kid taking after the adults around him. He’s still learning a lot about being ‘human’ so he does stumble quite a bit, doing things like saying a phrasing wrong, not understanding latest trends, and sometimes forgetting the body limits of a normal human. -Omni-Ben AU- While Azmuth was alone, isolating himself in his work for the Omnitrix, he eventually managed to complete it. However, while he was having it do some test runs and look overs to make sure it was ready, he came to find that the AI may have been a little more advance than he was expecting, for the next thing he new, the Omnitrix shapeshifted into the form of a 13 year old human male. Of course, being highly confused, Azmuth questioned his creation, and the Omnitrix explained that, after looking through the DNA is had, seeing all the different speices in the galaxy and seeing how they live, how they work, they wanted to be like that too, wanted to be alive and real. They had picked a human as their man form as they enjoyed the idea of how humans grow, how individualized they are as a species. Azmuth thought about it, but finally agreed to let the Omnitrix try this out. For the next two years, still living in isolation, Omnitrix and Azmuth started up a simple life living together, Omnitrix even calling him father, which Azmuth was fine with and grew accustomed to. However, Azmuth never let Omnitrix out of the lab/base, for he feared what was out there that could try and use his creation for awful things, and with the Omnitrix alive and sentient, it made that fear worse. But, of course, things couldn’t stay the same forever, as one day Vilgax came knocking and demanded the Omnitrix. Azmuth was quick to tell his creation to flee, despite the Omnitrix’s hesitation. But, unable to deny orders from his father, the Omnitrix fleed as Vilgax followed after, taking Azmuth as his prisoner just in case. Needing somewhere to hide or run too, the Omnitrix thought back to some of Azmuth’s stories, recalling the tale about a human called Max Tennyson, who had once defeated Vilgax, and was well known by the Plumbers. Given the Omnitrix had a human form, and knowing Max’s history with the Plumbers and Vilgax, he decided to find him, making his way to earth and crashing there. He had been following Max’s Plumber signal (Which was in the rust bucket), and ended up being found by Gwen, who took him to Grandpa Max. After explaining his situation, Max agrees to help, and after some debate, Gwen could come too. The three begin to travel across the USA, going to old Plumber bases to collected needed weapons as Vilgax was on their tale, and looking for help in the matter. Needing to blend in with humans, Gwen helped Ben get an outfit that could hide him (Not quite the one up above), and used some make up along with an eye contact to cover up anything he couldn’t remove from himself, and eventually gave him the name Ben. Ben is quite...alien, for lack of a better term. Given he was isolated with Azmuth his entire life, there’s a lot he needs to learn and understand. He is quite smart and quick to pick up on things, but does stumble up in the moment. He’s found that the world outside it quite big, bigger than he realized, and now he’s experience so much, even new emotions he thought he never had, but...he does wanna see more of the world and what it has to offer.

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lucemferto · 3 years

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I talk about the current troubles of the Dream SMP.

If you want to help me out, please reblog! You can also retweet my tweet and upvote my reddit post. Thank you.

Script under the cut

I really hope Technoblade succeeds in breaking Dream out of prison.

Now why would I say that? Well, it’s because there’s this feeling in the fandom right now that Dream SMP Season 3 is … going slow. That there’s not much happening. Some have blamed it on the pace of how lore streams are doled out, saying we get too little lore stretched out over too much time. Others postulate that it’s the quality of the lore – that the individual plot points are badly told or that the high production value of certain streams prevent the story from gaining momentum.

Now, because I’m me, I think I identified the problem as something that’s structurally wrong with Season 3 as opposed to Seasons 1 and 2. In order to explain that we must look at one of my favourite narratological theories: the Three-Act-Structure.

But before we get into that, here’s your obligatory reminder to please like this video, comment your thoughts down below in order to help me with YouTube’s algorithm and subscribe if you really like my stuff. Please feel free to check out my social media presences and share my videos on there so that more people have the chance to see them. Thank you so much.

Let’s get back to the video:

Chapter 1: The Three-Act-Structure Explained

The Three-Act-Structure as a model to explain narratives finds its roots far in the past with its earliest recorded instance being in the fourth century by the Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus though similar ideas were also expressed by everyone’s favourite Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Since then, the model has been continuously evolved and used throughout recorded history. There are also alternative models such as the Five-Act-Structure, the Six-Act-Structure, the Eight-Act-Structure, the … Nine-Act-Structure, Jesus Christ. But the Three-Act-Structure has reigned the undisputed champion in modern-day creation and analysis of narratives.

The particulars of the Three-Act-Structure as we know it today were codified in Syd Field’s 1979 work “Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting”, which has since become the Go-To-Work when it comes being a screenwriter in Hollywood. You want to write a script? You need the read the “Screenplay”.

The modern Three-Act-Structure is comprised of the following points/sequences:

- The Backstory/Exposition: Exactly what it says on the tin. Sets up the Ordinary World that the characters inhabit, let’s us know about what character’s general deal is. It serves as an introduction to the story and world of your narrative.

- The Point of Attack: This one is not often talked about and doesn’t feature in every story, but it’s still worth mentioning. This is where the major tension/conflict/dramatic question (structurally, these terms fulfil roughly the same function) is set into motion. It usually doesn’t include the protagonists of the story, but rather the antagonists.

- The Inciting Incident: This is where the protagonists are sent on their way. We are introduced to their personal conflict and given a reason as to why they would have to leave the Ordinary World behind.

- The Turning Point: This marks the end of Act I, where the personal conflicts of the protagonists and the major conflict of the overarching story intersect and coalesce. It is the natural fallout of the inciting incident, the big dramatic status quo change that we need in order to get the story going.

This naturally leads into Act II, where all the minor character conflicts are resolved and integrated into the larger conflict. This is what is referred to as the Rising Action: through the resolution and incorporation of the minor conflicts into the major conflicts, the story gains momentum. The action rises.

This act has two big culminations:

- The Mid Point: The first culmination or Mid-Point sees some sort of shift in the major conflict. Maybe all the minor conflicts set-up in Act I are resolved and thus the major conflict becomes the full focus or the major conflict gains an additional factor. Instead of defeating the evil bad guy, the Heroes now have to defeat the Bad Guy and save the Damsel

- The Lowest Point: The Lowest Point marks the end of Act II. Here the villains are just short of victory or maybe even achieve victory. In a romantic movie, this is the cliché end of Act II fallout which naturally leads into chasing the Hero chasing the love interest into an airport.

With the Lowest Point, the Heroes begin the third act almost or fully defeated. The stakes are high and everything seems hopeless. But then comes:

- The Twist/Resolution: Usually, the twist coincides with either the protagonist or some sort of character having a eureka-moment or resolving their personal conflict – their Want vs. Need.

- The Climax: With their problems resolved, the protagonists can venture forth to stop the villains or antagonistic force or save their love life.

- The Dénouement: After the villain’s defeat/the resolution of the final conflict, the protagonist returns to the ordinary world, but changed by their experiences. The Dénouement is the one part of Act III, that can really drag it out – think the many, many endings of Return of the King for instance.

Up until now, I usually focused on that end of Act II/Act III-part when discussing the storytelling of the Dream SMP such as the Final Disc War, November 16th or Doomsday. Because Doomsday wasn’t just the Lowest Point in terms of storytelling quality.

But for Season 3, I instead want to focus on this section, The Inciting Incident and The Turning Point. Because this is where the current storytelling falters. The narrative has failed to pick up momentum, something that is achieved through a successful Inciting Incident and Turning Point.

So, I want to make the theory palpable and apply the Three-Act-Structure – with focus on Act I and early Act II – to all three Seasons of the Dream SMP to see where Seasons 1 & 2 succeeded and Season 3 failed.

Chapter 2: The Three-Act-Structure Applied

Despite being much less written out and planned and more focused on the roleplay-aspect, both Season 1 and Season 2 somehow stumbled into recreating the Three-Act-Structure pretty well (S2 had its problem, but on the whole, it was still generally discernible).

I’m not here to discuss why narrative conventions and tools of literary analysis are applicable to something as seemingly idiosyncratic as the Dream SMP, I will do that in a future video. For the purposes of this video, we will simply have to take it at face value that these tools are applicable.

Season 1, which was probably the most consistently and competently written out of the three seasons thus far, has a very clear major tension/conflict: Who gets to steer the fate of L’Manburg, whether that be through stewardship or dissolution. It ties deeply into the personal conflict of our protagonist Wilbur as well as the external threat as represented by our villain JSchlatt, the best character in the story.

And not just that, basically every character whether that be Tommy, Tubbo, Niki, Fundy, Dream or Technoblade is invested in seeing this major tension resolved.

All this is achieved through a wonderful inciting incident and turning point. The inciting incident, the personal conflict for our protagonists, is Wilbur calling a presidential election. He wants to solidify power; his personal conflict being gaining full control over L’Manburg – I will talk about it more in my Wilbur-video.

This leads to the Turning Point, which in this case is a very natural cause and effect: Wilbur loses the election his sense of self shattered and JSchlatt, best character, takes over L’Manburg declares himself Emperor and exiles Tommy and Wilbur. The protagonists are forced out of their Ordinary World and the dynamic of the server is changed forever. The Main Tension or Major Conflict has been fully established.

This has server-wide consequences that every character is impacted by. All the many personal conflict are now framed by this all-encompassing major conflict. Thus, everything feels like it’s building up towards the same climax. Whether that be Fundy’s personal conflict as a deep-undercover spy, Niki’s conflict as the resistance in Manburg, Quackity’s struggle for power under Schlatt or the threat of Schlatt trying to expand Manberg into Dream SMP territory.

This even applies to the most disconnected conflict in Act II: The War between Sapnap and Tommy. Because even here, Sapnap’s stated goal is to gather enough power to take over Manberg. Now, that the power dynamic has shifted once it has signalled to other antagonists that the power dynamic can shift once more. The Balance of the Ordinary World is disrupted.

And from the Pogtopia-side, this conflict serves as a great way to not only build up their team, but also as a mini-version of their major conflict. If they cannot defeat Sapnap, what chance do they stand against Big Bad Emperor Schlatt.

Season 2, in spite of all the problems that it has, also managed to pull off the inciting incident and turning point rather well. The Inciting Incident here being Tommy burning down George’s house – his intent being to gain some leverage to win his discs back – which then again lead very gracefully into the Turning Point: Tommy being exiled from L’Manburg.

Tommy’s personal conflict – regaining his discs – was folded into the major conflict: Breaking Dream’s grip over the SMP (and in effect creating a new power dynamic on the server).

Tommy’s exile led to Tubbo being pushed by Quackity to institute the Butcher Army – an antagonistic force intent on making L’Manberg the strongest nation on the server; in effect dethroning Dream. This would of course lead to Hog Hunt and Technoblade’s involvement; ultimately bringing a lot of momentum into the narrative.

Now, Season 2 doesn’t pull this off as graciously as Season 1: You will have noticed that both the Inciting Incident as well as the Turning Point are pretty exclusively focused on Tommy which leads to the major conflict revolving mostly around Tommy and the characters in his orbit – which is not ideal when dealing with an ever-expanding ensemble cast.

While Season 1’s Inciting Incident and Turning Point also had Wilbur as their centre point, they were open enough to allow for other characters such as Quackity, Sapnap and most crucially Schlatt to naturally integrate themselves into the narrative.

What also doesn’t help is that the Rising Action up until the Midpoint is almost exclusively focused on Tommy as I discussed in my Philza-video. There is dramatic and narrative momentum, but it comes at the expense of basically every other character or storyline. The Butcher Army and New L’Manburg are painfully underexplored.

But still, despite its flaws, Season 2 managed to get the ball rolling. So where did Season 3 go wrong?

The main problem that Season 3 has is that it presented us with a large number of potential inciting incidents, but no concrete turning point. We have a lot of personal conflicts, but are as of yet missing the big major tension or conflict that ties it all together; that gives the framework in which the personal conflicts of the characters can intersect and resolve.

I think just to showcase how scattershot Season 3’s storytelling is right now; I’ll have to list all the big plot points of the season as they happened:

1. Tommy meets with the Egg and shows an immunity to it. The Egg orders the Eggpire to kill Tommy in order to proceed with their plan

2. The prison gets into lockdown mode, while Tommy is visiting Dream

3. Tommy gets killed by Dream

4. Tommy gets resurrected by Dream

5. Technoblade and Ranboo come into contact with the Egg

6. Quackity comes into contact with the Egg

7. The Syndicate meets up and checks out Snowchester

8. Tubbo loses a nuke

9. The Red Banquet

10. Tommy breaks into the prison

11. Wilbur gets resurrected

Now, quite a number of those could have worked as either inciting incidents or turning point with some narrowing the scope of the narrative more than other. The early points involving Tommy for instance would have pushed him again into the role protagonist akin to how it worked in Season 2, while others like the Syndicate, the Red Banquet or Wilbur’s resurrection would have established the respectively involved groups or characters as the drivers of the major tension.

But none of these avenues are taken. All these conflicts are still insular; their resolutions don’t build to anything.

Tommy’s resurrection – which in my opinion is the first plot point that could have been used as the Turning Point relatively easily – changes the course of the prison and Las Nevadas-storyline, but has little to no impact on the Eggpire, Syndicate or Nuke-storylines.

Similarly, Tubbo losing the nuke could have led to the major tension becoming every faction hunting for the missing nuke in order to fulfil their personal agendas. But again, no dice.

And this just keeps adding up and up. Each new plot point subconsciously leads the viewer to expect that this will be the one to establish a major, unifying tension for the season – and then nothing comes of it. Though the volume of “lore” is still relatively high, the narrative momentum that is needed in order to make the viewer invested in the storyline is diminished with every potential turning point that is ignored in favour of more set-up.

And this structural problem of Season 3 when compared to Seasons 1 and 2 is made the most apparent when looking at …

Chapter 3: The Eggpire

Oh, my poor boys. Where did it all go wrong?

To give some context: The Eggpire or Crimson-storyline actually started in the middle of Season 2, where they managed the impossible: Establishing a storyline with some narrative momentum and impact outside of the major conflict.

So, how did they do that and do it successfully at that?

The first thing we need to understand is that the Season 2 Eggpire-storyline basically involved no one from the “principal cast”. As such, the story was not chained to the developments that were going on there – such as Exile, Hog Hunt, the Green Festival, etc. – and instead had more freedom to do their own stuff.

The Eggpire-storyline in Season 2 was for the most part self-contained. So much so, that people were viewing it not as a part of the on-going narrative, but rather in the vein of Tales from the SMP: A story that stands alone, the resolution of which would have no impact on the server as a whole.

And, to be fair, they could have gone that route. But the writer(s) behind the Eggpire-storyline decided to be more ambitious.

The Eggpire-storyline in Season 2 follows its own mini-version of the Three-Act-Structure, with BadBoyHalo serving as its protagonist. The big narrative movements coincide and are influenced with dramatic movement in his own personal conflict. He is the Wilbur of this storylines – the once good man (relatively speaking), who falls from Grace.

Now, the thing that makes the Eggpire-storyline in Season 2 quite brilliant is that they ultimately tied the resolution of their tension into the major conflict/tension of the Season 2.

Doomsday saw the Lowest Point of the main storyline of Season 2. With L’Manburg’s destruction and Dream’s future imprisonment, there was a huge power vacuum on the server – a power vacuum that BadBoyHalo, now fully under the control of the Egg, was ready to fill.

The climax of the Eggpire-storyline in Season 2 saw the rise of the Eggpire as they spread the seeds of the Crimson in the L’Manburg-crater, intent on taking over server – thus adding onto the dramatic tension that Doomsday already established, making the Lowest Point feel even more foreboding and successfully linking their erstwhile separate storyline to the main tension of the overall narrative. The villains for Season 3 seemed to be perfectly set-up.

And then Season 3 rolled around and they … bungled it completely.

Though the Eggpire eventually came into contact with almost every active character in Season 3 – such as Tommy, Tubbo, Ranboo, Technoblade and Quackity – they completely failed at driving the major conflict and establishing themselves as the main antagonistic force of the storyline the same way Schlatt and Dream had done in the Seasons prior.

The biggest missed opportunity in that regard is without a doubt the Red Banquet. Now, I talked in the past about how the Red Banquet failed just on its own – at least a specific aspect of it – but now we’ll have to talk about how the Red Banquet fails in the context of Season 3.

Because this was the moment that all the storylines could have been brought together. The Eggpire could have succeeded in their endeavour and established themselves as the most prominent force on the serve. This event would have impacted the server as a whole and thus the entire storyline.

Immediately we would have had a major conflict to drive all other storylines – such as Tommy’s storyline, Snowchester, the Syndicate, Kinoko Kingdom and Las Nevadas – to stop the Eggpire from fully taking over the server. All the character-specific conflicts could have then happened within the framing of this major tension.

Maybe Tubbo and the rest are hunting for the nuke, because they think it’s the only way to stop the Eggpire. Maybe the Eggpire wants to free Dream, because he could be of use for the Crimson. Tommy could get abducted by the Eggpire because he is some sort of chosen one or whatever and the onus would fall on the other characters to save him and stop the villains – so Tommy would become the damsel effectively.

Maybe they decide that the only way to defeat the Eggpire is to bring back Wilbur and that’s how that storyline gets integrated. Maybe the disparate forces disagree on that or other plot-points and there’s some infighting between them.

But still: All conflicts would be unified by this one major tension. The Red Banquet would have been the Turning Point to lead into Act II of Season 3, where all the problems would be viewed with the knowledge that the Eggpire and the Crimson was looming in the distance.

Alas, we did not get that. Instead, the Red Banquet turned out to be just another plot point in a long line of plot points that promises more in the future. Smaller personal conflicts are resolved just within the limited scope of their individual storyline and a major tension is yet to be seen.

When Bad says that there’s just one more Egg-stream planned, I hope he’s either misleading or not being clear enough on what he means. Because if this was it; if the Eggpire-storyline just kinda dies here – too connected to all other storyline to be seen as standalone and yet too separated to be enjoyed in the context of Season 3 as a whole – then it would be a worse writing choice than Doomsday.

Epilogue: How the Prison Break can bring it all together

To bring it all back to the sentence I opened this video with: I hope Technoblade succeeds in breaking Dream out of prison, because this could finally be the Turning Point that introduces a major tension to the narrative of Season 3.

I hoped that Wilbur’s resurrection would fill that role, but disappointingly that plot point is again relegated to driving the tension of a few chosen storylines instead of providing a major tension for all players involved.

And with five months into Season 3, this Act 1 has gone on for far too long! For comparison, the entire written storyline of Season 1 encompassed 4 months. Season 2 took place in only 2 months. Season 3 has already exceeded both their runtimes and still seems to have yet to truly start.

Whether Technoblade breaks Dream out or Quackity succeeds in trapping Technoblade in Pandora’s Vault – there needs to be a turning point somewhere in sight.

Because my biggest fear is that we’re already past it. That the Eggpire-storyline will just fizzle out and that some other plot point will retroactively reveal itself as the turning point – because that would mean that Season 3 would have a horrifically unfocused, saggy and just generally unengaging second act. And that would be a shame.

Thank you so much for watching. Once again, please feel free to like, comment and subscribe. The links to my social media are all in the description down below. I have a bunch of stuff planned for the future including a very long video on Wilbur as well as two videos that have nothing to do with Dream SMP.

Until then, please be excite.

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retroyousei · 3 years

Text

Female characters in retro shojo [70s edition, part 1]

Ah, the 1970s (and early 80s), where a majority of the shojo manga stories took place in a distant European country or in America, surrounding either orphan girls from the 19th or early 20th century, who remain cheerful and have adventures, trying to find out who they are, making friends and falling in love, or epic historical stories filled with war, scandals and larger than life characters. If the manga was taking place in Japan, the plot was somehow more down to earth -though most of the time it restrained the same amount of unrealism- and it was either about following the journey of a girl who pursues the career of her dreams and evolves into a notable person, or a high school story filled either with melodrama and angst or a more heartwarming romantic comedy. But in this two-part article I won’t talk about plot tropes of the shojo manga of that era -as this topic deserves an exclusive article-, but about the female characters (I will dedicate an article on male characters some other time). Those characters are very important, as they set the standards of today’s manga and anime. But it should be noted that back then the formula of their design and characteristics are different from today’s. Those are the categories that I’ve noticed, regarding the appearance and personality.

The “average” protagonists

They are the most common category. Usually, they come from middle class and they are presented either as cheerful and a little dense schoolgirls, or plain looking and unrefined, as oppose to their antagonists or rivals who are well educated, beautiful and more talented, but this may serve as a determination for them to improve. Other times they are presented as headstrong heroines, ahead of their time, who refuse to compromise and for this they are a pain to their old-fashion society. Either way, they are kind, good, well-intentioned and want to help the others, that’s why they make friends easily. The thing that really works with these characters and makes them much more interesting than they may seem, is that they are independent and built their future on their own and they never give up, no matter what happens and what someone might say about them. Even when they are not sure of themselves, they always keep trying, until they reach to their dream. They use their obstacles as strength and determination to go on, proving that they are not average at all.

Maya, the protagonist of “Glass Mask” is a great example of this. She starts as a good-for-nothing daughter of a poor family, who isn’t particularly accomplished, but has a hidden passion for acting which she hadn’t realise it herself at that point. But when she is discovered by Tsukigake, a former legendary actress, she realises how much she wants to be an actress to a point that she lied saying that her mother allowed her to study to sensei’s acting school and ran away from home. Not even when her mother told her that she doesn’t consider her as her daughter anymore, she didn’t gave up, in spite of being very hurt by this. Her path towards acting wasn’t easy. Many times she has to face many who say that she doesn’t belong to that industry, or who are jealous of her talent and means her harm, but with her faith in herself, she always overcomes those obstacles. An admirable thing about her is that she dislikes fame, being shy, as she just wants to act and that she does not gives up, no matter what and even when she does, she quickly stands up. The most interesting dynamic of the story is her worthy rivalry with Ayumi, that is clearly a case of the trope “technician vs performer”, with Maya as the performer, as her standard method to learn how to play a character is to become that character. As the story progresses, Maya evolves from a girl with a hidden talent, to a young actress who portraits an original take to classic characters, but who still had much to learn, to one of the greatest actresses of her generation.

In “Yokohama Monogatari”, Uno starts as a plain, poor, orphan girl, who is ignorant about the world, as she hasn’t even seen the sea before and she believed that westerners were vampires who could drink people’s blood, that’s why they had blonde hair and blue eyes. She starts to work as a companion in a rich family to their daughter Mariko, who is the same age as her. Besides their differences, they become quickly best friends. While Mariko is a little spoiled, Uno, despite of her ignorance of world, can be more considerate and responsible in some matters. She also has a lust for learning and soon her and Mariko pursuade her family to go to school. There, she meets many people, among them there are a few foreigners too, she makes a lot of friends, and she excels at all of her studies, being hardworking. As the years passed by, Japan changes and allows exchange of ideas from many cultures -it’s Meiji era we are taking about, that means the last quarter of the 19th century- and Uno evolves from a poor, -many would say- hopeless for her situation, clueless of the world girl, to an open minded, educated and refined woman, surrounded by many people she loves.

In “Tokimeki Tonight”, Ranze -well except of being the daughter of Dracula and warewolf and having her own vampire powers as well- is an average girl who is friendly, sweet and little quirky girl who goes to school and falls in love with Shuun. Some may say that she is pretty basic, but in fact, she knows her self worth well, so even when her parents were disappointed with her not having any power yet, at the beginning of the story, she wasn’t particularly bothered by it. Also she is very headstrong that she falls in love with a human boy, while she knows well that a creature from the demon world and a human cannot be together. But in spite of all of that, she decides to stay true to her own feelings and even though she’s not so sure about Shuun’s feelings for her either, she doesn’t give up and waits for him, because she hopes and deep down knows that he likes her too and she is right. And even when her parents want her to marry prince Aaron of the demon world and even the king- learn that she likes a human, in spite of that being against the rules, she isn’t afraid to stand up for her beliefs. Later though, we learn that Shuun is the lost prince of the demon world, so he is not a human after all, but that’s another story.

In “Aim For The Ace”, Hiromi is a typical schoolgirl who struggles to get better in tennis, when she gets selected as one of the club’s main players in school by the new coach, as he saw potential in her. Some of her seniors are jealous of her because of that and at first she thinks that she is not worth such a discrimination, but soon she improves and realises how much she loves tennis. There’s also a very similar rivalry dynamic with “glass mask” between Hiromi and Reika who grow to be worthy opponents.

In “Haikara San Ga Toru”, Benio is a headstrong young woman who studies Kendo, drinks sake and prefers reading literature and feminist ideas, rather than being interested in housework. She also likes to dress in western clothes, rather than the traditional kimono and strongly believes that women should have the right to decide for their future on their own and they should marry for love. But her world turns upside down when her father announces that he has arranged a marriage for her. The one that he indends for her is someone she knew before, very briefly and accidentally, a lieutenant named Shinobu. Of course, she refuses, being loyal to her ideals and she goes out of her way to avoid him, just to satisfy her pride, in spite of actually starting developing feelings for him. When she moves to his grandparents’ house to get prepared as his wife, she purposely fails in all of her duties as a housewife and constantly argues with his grandparents, but all of that only makes Shinobu fall for her even more. It’s only when he leaves to go to the war, when she realises her feelings for him and during at that time when everyone thought that he was dead, she matured and became even stronger, remaining loyal to him and determined to work as a journalist to support his family, but also tracking him down, hoping that he’s still alive. Of course, at the very end, they live happily ever after together. Benio’s character development is admirable; starting as a clever, but headstrong girl, to an independent and wise woman, proving that you don’t have to disagree with everyone in order to prove that you are the one who chooses how to live your own life.

The villains

Their extreme pride and vain is their common nature. Most of the times they come from a wealthy family, so they are either oujo-sans who are always dressed elegantly, are seemingly refined and they tend to have curly, blonde hair -as blonde hair seem to be associated with wealth and sophistication in Japan-, or they are just spoiled brats that demand that everyone will do as they say. They are the main antagonist of the story for different reasons. The most common one is that they are jealous of the heroine, either because they are their love rivals and they are jealous of the heroine’s relationship with the love interest of the story, or because they are just pathologically jealous of the heroine because of her looks, her happiness, her luck and her loving nature. Another reason they act the way they do is because they want power and success, or they just want to secure all of that. The worse and least complex reason of all is that they are just mean for no particular reason.

Eliza, from “Candy Candy” is the typical alpha b*tch who is pathologically jealous of Candy. At first, she along with her brother, makes her life miserable, by blaming her for the bad things they do, such as hurting the horses in the stables, provoking her and then telling to their mother that she’s wild and leaving her alone in a town she doesn’t know and locking her in dark rooms. After that, during their time in London, Eliza says to everyone that Candy is an orphan who made her life miserable, even blaming her for Antony’s death. Later, having the habit of falling in love with the one that Candy likes too, school, she falls for Terry and constantly tries to turn him against her, failing miserably. She also writes a fake letter to her that it was supposedly from Terry and to Terry too, to meet each other in the stables at night and with this, she blabs them to the teachers and Candy, having no choice, leaves school. Later, when Candy was pursuing a career as a nurse, she continues her cruel ways and her mother also threats the director of the hospital where she was working, that if they won’t fire her, the Leagan family will withdraw their funds for the hospital and she also made sure that no hospital from Chicago will hire her, leaving Candy in a difficult situation. Those are only of few of the things that Leagan family did to Candy. The worst part is that they don’t pay for what they did at the end.

Fukiko from “Oniisama e” fits well this image; She is a refined lady from a rich family, the president of the sorority and very educated, that’s why she is admired by everyone. However, in reality she is manipulative, proud and very possessive. She wants to control everyone and she’s even willing to go out of her way to achieve what she wants. For instanse, she’s jealous of Nanako because she is close to Henmi Takehito, the one that she (Fukiko) is in love with, so to control her, she chooses her to be a member of the sorority and demands that she will stay away from him, even by pulling her into the lake and attempt to drown her . She also makes Rei’s life miserable, by stepping into her weakness, refuse to accept her as a member of their family and constantly manipulating her with the cruelest of ways. Also, it’s revealed that her friends from the sorority are feeling pressured because of her. Later, with the death of Rei, along with her realisation that Henmi and Kaoru No Kimi are truly in love, surprisingly, she regrets, gives up on her cruel ways and matures, growing even more beautiful for all of that.

Yoko from “Tokimeki Tonight” is a different case. She is the love rival of the story and the have loved Shuun ever since they were little. Being the only daughter of a rich businessman, she is spoiled and when something doesn’t go as she wants, she is is angry and demands that everything will go the way she wants. She envies Ranze for her close relationship with Makabe and ever since she accidentally saw her transforming, she tried desperately to prove others that she (Ranze) is a vampire. Her character is less dramatic and more comedic, as she is often grumpy and clumsy. But she isn’t really a bad person and she doesn’t really cause an awful lot of trouble.

In “The Rose of Versailles”, Madam Du Barry, the king’s mistress, wants to sustain her place in the court and demands that Marie Antoinette, who was at that time the dauphine, will speak to her. She also have tried to poison one of the court ladies. Countess De polignag becomes the queen’s best friend, for her own benefits and manipulates her without her (Marie Antoinette) knowing, like telling her to lie about being pregnant and also persuade her to start gambling in the court, which was illegal. She’s also Rosalie’s biological mother and accidentally kills the woman which raised her daughter and she’s the reason that her other daughter suicides, because she cannot handle the marriage the she arranged for her. Besides of her daughter’s death, she doesn’t seem to regret for any of her actions as she tries to make Rosalie merry the same man. Luckily Rosalie escapes. Also, she tried to sabotage Oscar many times and all this was just for the sake of power and money.

In “Glass Mask”, Norie Otobe, befriends Maya and she is supposedly her assistant, but in reality she just waits for the right moment to strike and steal Maya’s role and career. Unfortunately, she succeeds and it costs a lot for Maya, for a while. Luckily Ayumi discovers this and punishes her with the best way ever.

The tomboys

They are either mysterious, or lively, but one thing is for sure; they are dressed in clothes that are considered to be “manly”, they are handsome and they are constantly mistaken for a boy. They are also very elegant and educated and their image is that of a prince. That’s why they are admired by both women and men. Some may say that even though they are trying to be like a man, they are still weak, but they point out that just because they dress more “tomboyish”, doesn’t mean that it makes them less of a woman. After all, when they want to, they can transform into the most feminine girl of all. They also prove that their sexuality is not associated with their looks, as a “masculine” girl has the same possibilities of being heterosexual or homosexual, with a more “feminine” one. So, they break all the stereotypes regarding women. Many times, they are portrayed as headstrong heroines who stand up for their beliefs and their friends.

The most famous character that supports this image is Oscar from “the Rose of Versailles”. Oscar is one of the daughters of the Jerjeyes household. Not having any son, her father decided to raise her as a boy so that one day she will succeed him. Oscar dresses in boys’ clothes and learns activities like fencing and archery. When she was fourteen, she was tasked to serve as Marie Antoinette’s bodyguard. The manga often pointed out how different those two were regarding appearance and character, even if they were in the same age. Oscar has a strong sense of justice and she always protects the weak and is not afraid to challenge someone that she believes that isn’t right. Of course, she is admired by men and women alike and she is also a great and loyal friend. At one point she falls in love with Fersen, who loves Marie Antoinette. But because of her respect for the queen and her love of Fersen, she helps them, despite being heartbroken. At the end, she realises that she loves her childhood friend, Andre. She loves medieval combat, drinking heavy drinks, talking about politics and playing violin. Many pointed out that being a woman she was weaker but she always proved them wrong, pointing out that women can do anything and that it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, only how skilful you are. She was hiding her femininity not because she wanted to be a man, but because that if she acted like a woman, the society might think that she was weak and she wouldn’t be able to have the access and the freedom to do what women normally wouldn’t do back then, because women were alowed to limited things. In the early 1970s, by the time this manga was ongoing, the second wave of feminism had already started and women started fighting for equal legal and social rights, so Oscar’s character was influenced by all this.

Rei from “Oniisama e”, is admired by her fellow classmates and is also called “saint Juste”, named after one of the leaders from French Revolution, due to her physical resemblance to him. She is very charismatic, excelling to sports, piano, guitar and theatre, she is very elegant and dresses often in a black suit. Unfortunately she is drug-addict, she smokes and can be suicidal, carrying always pills and a sharp object with her. She is also obsessed with Fukiko, the sorority’s president, for many reasons, causing her to be controlled and abused by her. She also lives alone in a depressing house filled with mirrors and this also causes to be depressed. Her best friend is Kaoru no Kimi, who’s also a tomboy, but they are entirely different and she befriends Nanako and her friends. In the end she suicides, taking too many sleeping pills, having everyone, especially Nanako, left devastated.

Also from “Oniisama e”, Kaoru, is a tomboy who is strong and energetic. She is athletic and excels at basketball, but she is also very cool and doesn’t seem to care that she is the best at something that she’s doing, that’s why she is admired by her fellow classmates who gave her the nickname “Kaoru no Kimi”, from a Japanese classical novel; “the tale of Genji”. She also has a great sense of justice, as when she sees classmates being bullied, she defends them and put the bullies on their place. She is also very loyal and supportive and cares deeply about her friends, helping them when they are in need, especially her best friend, Rei, for whom she is very concerned. But in spite of her energetic appearance, she suffers from breast cancer and tries to keep it a secret, pretending that she is healthy and that everything is under control. But in fact, she pushes away her beloved, Henmi Takehito, concealing her true feelings, in order for him to be happy without her and not suffer anymore, showing how selfless she is and how much she loves him to a point of sacrificing her own feelings. At the end, it pays off and they end up together, living happily.

Another honourable mention is Rei, from “Glass Mask”. Rei is the older student of Tsukikage sensei’s company and one of Maya’s best friends. She is a tomboy who wears those characteristic 70s jeans and for some reason is mistaken by a boy -much to her dislike-, despite of being obvious that she is a girl. Being an actress, she can transform into a beautiful princess in no time, but she also portraits very well a prince. In the first volumes, she portrayed Jo, from “little women” which was a role very suited for her. As a sister figure for Maya, she is loyal, friendly and the responsible one who helps the theatre company stay organised and is a very strict teacher to Maya, helping her because she knows her potential. Also from “Glass Mask”, Keiko from the “Ikkakuju group” is also mistaken as boy, but she can transform into a pretty princess in no time.

Note: At the first half of the 20th century “Little Women” were very popular in Japan, particularly Jo, who was tomboyish and outspoken and her character had inspired the first female mangakas of the 60s for their stories and characters.

#retro shojo #shojo manga #70s manga #80s manga #glass mask #Tokimeki tonight #haikara san ga tooru #Oniisama e #the Rose of Versailles #Candy Candy #Yokohama monogatari #aim for the ace #character types #Shojo

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

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After that gorgeous sequel rant, would you be willing to share your thoughts on reylo?

Ugh.

Once again, that is the most succinct, easiest, answer I can supply. But it's so short, and that just won't do.

I mentioned in a recent post that Dramione comes in a myriad of disguises. Every fandom usually has at least one Dramione ship, you can usually guess which characters the ship will consist of, and while you might not be able to articulate exactly what about it makes it so damn similar to Dramione you will recognize it on sight.

Usually, to me, a Dramione ship features a strong, independent, female lead who may be varying levels of sexually empowered, varying levels of intelligent (Hermione loves to tell us how smart she is but it's not the heart of the ship), is strong, courageous, and noble who depending on the story du jour might slide into depravity. The real give away is her love interest, always a man, usually a young man of comparable age, who has the bad boy appeal that's not too bad boy where he often is redeemed to the good side for 'reasons' in the course of the story.

Reylo is such a Dramione pairing.

You don't believe me? Look at the authors who write it, I haven't done this too often myself, but I guarantee you that a not small majority of them will either write Draco/Hermione or will have it all over their favorites and bookmarks. It's the same damn pairing.

But worse.

Because Kylo-Ren and Rey aren't really characters.

"Whoa, hold up!", you say, "That's just slander and uncalled for!" Well, change my mind. Rey Palpatine and Kylo-Ren are a series of character tropes and archetypes thrown to us by Disney screaming "LOVE MY CHARACTERS".

Rey is our noble, very Luke like, hero who is a scrappy desert rat with overwhelming mystical powers only acknowledged when the movies feel like acknowledging them (guys, admit Rey kicked Kylo-Ren's ass every time they fought with 0 training, come on, it's not hard).

However, there is nothing underneath her surface. Her hero worship of the resistance feels dull and given to her because it's expected. Of course Rey likes the resistance! The resistance is great! Sign her up! Rey has been living in the desert at the edge of nowhere for presumably 15 years, I'm shocked she's even heard of the new republic let alone the resistance. Despite essentially starving and only having a home that's a broken down old fighter, Rey saves a random droid. We're not really given a compelling reason of why she would do this, that she has a deep respect for droids/is horrified by their use, really really really hates the random trader she sells things to, or really really really hates the empire (if she even realizes it's them behind the bounty). She does it just so that a) the plot keeps moving b) to show Rey is... noble... I guess?

Remember that even Luke (who I have some problems with as a character) started his journey with more backstory and personality than this. Luke loved the empire and desperately wanted to become a pilot. He was very put out that his aunt and uncle kept saying, "Uh, no, bad idea." Luke was ready to skip town and sign on up for flight academy, he just got distracted by pretty women, er, his sister.

So, Rey is never given a compelling reason to do any of the things she does in the series. Just vague feelings of hero worship. And, of course, the drama over her parents. Just... I feel like Disney took out a hat, put a bunch of pieces of paper with words on them, and drew out the one that said "orphan angst about parents" and said "See, now she's conflicted! What a character!"

So yeah, Rey is your cardboard generic hero who is so generic she's not even a person. She has no hopes, no dreams, no fears, just these vague things we're told as an audience she cares about but never shown in any legitimate manner. Rey likes the resistance and rando droids, Rey imprints on Han Solo as the father she never had, Rey has this thing about her parents, Rey is attracted to Kylo Ren.

And that last one, oh boy that last one. It sold me less on the attraction to Kylo Ren than... oh... I don't know... Palpatine's secret Sith planet of doom. I mean, we all saw it coming, The Last Jedi it was very clear where that was going and then Abrams went for it even harder. But what we had was a series of skype conversations where Rey went from "Gr, you killed my pseudo father!" and Kylo-Ren responding, "Yeah, well he was my real father AND HE WAS SO MEAN" to "Oh Ben, I will fly to you through space and we shall save the galaxy together!"

I am given no reason to believe Rey's change of heart. Han Solo's death just suddenly... doesn't really mean much to her anymore (the man was murdered by his son in cold blood so that his son could feel better about himself). She believes Ben Solo is good now because Luke is a dick (never mind that, no matter what a dick Luke is, Ben Solo still murdered dozens of children and then went on to gleefully massacre his way through the galaxy). We're told there's a Force Dyad, which is um... not this thing the writer's made up because they were too lazy to convince me that Kylo-Ren and Rey would end up together in any organic way.

So, yeah, why does Rey like Kylo-Ren? Because the Force told her too? Because it was somehow all Snoke's fault in a way that's never properly described? (Indeed despite us spending quite a bit of time on Kylo-Ren's decision to remain Kylo-Ren being a very internalized thing) Because we saw him shirtless in yoga pants this one time?

It's bad when that last is actually the most legitimate reason I can think of out of the whole lot.

Now let's go to Kylo-Ren. If Rey is boring and nonsensical then Kylo-Ren is a dumpster fire and non-sensical. The guy reminds me a lot of Commodus from the film "Gladiator", the man is cowardly, vile, and murders his father in despair that his father never will be capable of loving him/passes him over for the throne. Kylo-Ren's murder of Han Solo is extremely similar to the murder of Marcus Aurelius in "Gladiator". Han Solo is a flawed father, trying to make his peace with his son, who approaches him unarmed and Kylo-Ren decides to murder him in order to solidify his place in the dark side.

Only, the films never acknowledge that every action Kylo-Ren takes is horrifying.

We're told "oh, Kylo-Ren exists because evil Snoke corrupted him" but also shown repeatedly that Kylo-Ren chooses the darkest path again and again and again. He "struggles with the light" but I don't see it. His opening scene, he has massacred a village and is torturing a man for information (this is presumably a daily routine for him). In the same film he later tortures Rey for information. He serves on a Death Star which wipes out billions in an instant. He murders his father to feel good about himself. He dresses as a man who was reviled and feared throughout the galaxy, a man who murdered countless children, and a man who dressed the way he did because he was barely hanging onto life, because Kylo-Ren thinks it makes him look like a badass. Think about it, this is like if a fully abled Kylo-Ren is wheeling around in a wheel chair, perfectly capable of walking, because he thinks that Professor X is so cool. Now, replace Professor X with Hitler, this is what the movies gave us.

Yet, the films seem to take it for granted that Kylo-Ren is a redeemable character. He's just lost and misguided, he's really struggling with the light and dark side! They don't just tell us this over and over again (which they do) but also just assume we know it.

And base the entire Reylo pairing off of it. Reylo believed Kylo-Ren could be redeemed, they battle Snoke together, then Kylo-Ren stabs her in the back and continues the assault on the Resistance and asks her to be his Dark Queen (TM). Reylo is shocked and appalled, I'm just wondering what movie she thought she was watching, because that was coming a mile away.

Later, when Kylo-Ren is redeemed, we're never given a reason why it happens. Leia just gives him a nagging, one word, phone call and then Han Solo shows up to go, "Ben, are you going to do the right thing?" and Ben goes, "Mumble, grumble, fine" because there's only an hour left in the last film.

Kylo-Ren, like Rey, is the writers' desperate attempt to create a compelling anti-hero with all the anti-hero sauce we love. They just won't admit they made an overgrown genocidal toddler.

Wow, this turned into why I hate both Rey and Kylo Ren, but, uh, back to the ship. Basically, the films give me 0 reason to ever believe it, and even if I wanted to, even if I said "Alright brain, let's make these characters real people for once", I still wouldn't like it. Because the ship itself is just as flat as the characters. It's spicy but not too spicy bad boy gets together with strong female lead.

I know a lot of people enjoy this, and I won't say it's any less legitimate than any of the weirdness I ship, but I'm not one of them. And the whole thing just makes me go "ugh".

#ask #anon #anti reylo #anti kylo ren #anti rey #anti star wars sequels

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angelsandarsenic · 2 years

Text

Wilbur x Sally Little Mermaid AU

Sally has the ability to turn into a full fish or a person after the magic and she uses it to mess with people and make them think Wilbur is actually talking to and falling in love with a salmon in a fish bowl

prince Wilbur who’s more concerned with his music and living his life than finding a partner like everyone wants him too (because Techno is aro/ace but the throne needs heirs)

ocean queen Niki who forbids human interaction because of an old romance with royal ship captain Puffy that went horribly wrong

Tubbo who dreams of sailing the seas and interns (or smth) with Puffy, and Schlatt as Grimsby who hates the sea

Tubbo and Ranboo adopting a piglet from a slaughterhouse Book of Life style

sally nicknaming tommy kraken

sea witch dream??? but doesn't necessarily have to make him the villain (I took some lines from the disney movie but it doesn't have to follow that plot)

Quackity as Scuttle

Beach picnics

Sally stealing some of Wilburs clothes even after she could easily get her own

sally telling Wilbur that merpeople eat sand (they don’t)

sally being a general menace now that she has legs because she's discovered she loves climbing and jumping off of high things

mermaids with fangs because they're carnivores and eat other fish

——-—

(Ive written some bits for it for fun. They're definitely missing parts though like where the (...)s are) ===== is breaks between the random blurbs. Some suggestive dialogue but that's it.

Tommy Bigman Innit Minecraft was tired.

He was tired of Tubbo and his "marriage" to Ranboo that Tommy wasn’t apart of, and he was tired of their fawning over their new adopted (and decidedly not adorable) pig-son that he was also not apart of, so he would go find his own “son” thank you very much! He would go down to the beach, and he would find a child, and he would name it Clementine (or something equally awesome), and-

-and that was how he caught his brother kissing a fish.

——————

Yes. A literal fish.

Well, of course it was literally a fish—fish live in the ocean and the prince’s palace happened to be right next to the ocean. Also, mermaids weren’t real, so a fish was the most interesting thing to see in the water.

It was a salmon from the looks of it (he didn't know fish as well as the sailors). Wilbur had tripped over a silly little salmon somehow washed up on the beach. The poor thing must be nearly dried up by now if it had been here since the storm ended last night. Wilbur gently picked it up, brushed the sand off making sure none got in between the delicate scales, and placed it back in the shallows of the ocean, tiny waves lapping at his exposed ankles.

The water felt nice, he decided. Maybe he would stay here forever instead of going back to the castle to meet more suitors. The last thing he wanted was to put on that stiff fancy coat and kiss more random hands and sit through awkward dinners and mind numbing turns around the garden that his father insisted on, with someone he already knows he's not into. He's not looking for a relationship at all, frankly. But no, Phil insists.

Wilbur dropped his jacket, letting the slow sea breeze ruffle his hair as he plops down on the sand. The sun was setting--he'd have to go back eventually. It wouldn't do for the crown prince to be out late, not to mention Tommy's incessant nagging when his brother does anything even hypothetically suspicious (not that he ever does).

======

"I'll tell you a tale of the bottomless blue..." The crew sang as they went about their tasks, pulling ropes and climbing the mast. Wilbur grinned. He didn't know the words to their shanty, but he loved being out on the ship regardless.

Schlatt didn't seem to agree, ducking his head over the starboard side of the ship as if he might be sick. Wil hurried down to the main deck to help the captain hoist the sail. "An excellent breeze and a following sea," Puffy remarked. "Queen Amphitrite must be smiling on us today!" Despite her cheerful tone, her eyes saddened as she looked out over the waves.

"Queen Amphitrite?" That name had never come up in any of his studies before. It sounded familiar though...perhaps Techno had mentioned it before?

"Yeah!" Tubbo piped up from beside him. Unlike his father, the royal advisor, the young man seemed perfectly at home on a boat. "She's the Queen of the merfolk! Didn't you know that?" His gleeful laughter caught in the wind and flew away to some far off place beyond the horizon.

"Tubbo! How many times have told you--enough of that nautical nonsense! Merpeople aren't real. Don't mind him, Wilbur, he's just a boy." Schlatt snapped.

"But it's true!" He protested.

======

"And now...presenting her royal highness--Queen Amphitrite!" The little merman rushed out of the way as the kelp curtains drew back, but there was no need. The graceful Queen was plenty careful to avoid him, coral pink hair fanning out behind her majestically.

"There's no need to be so formal. Just call me Niki!" She settled herself on the throne. "Now then, who was first?"

Sally smiled and swam forward.

(...)

BOOM!

A wave sent the merfolk flying into the walls of the palace and shook the throne. Whatever that was, it was far more than just a storm. As soon as Sally recovered, she was swimming full speed for one of the upper windows.

"Sally! Sally! What are you doing!? Get to shelter!" Niki called. She hardly knew what she was doing, to be frank. Pure recklessness morbid curiosity had taken hold. She had to find out what was going on!

Deadly orange and yellow swam in her vision from above the water and a massive shadow of sharp, jagged edges and flapping sails listed violently from one side to the other.

(...)

Ok! Time to go! I've seen what I came to-

Her tail hit something big and hard and suddenly couldn't move enough to swim. She thrashed, realizing that it must have gotten tangled in some fabric and net attached to the solid thing (and also that maybe this wasn't a good idea the water was heating up and the storm was practically throwing her and the thing out of the water maybe she shouldn't have come up) She twisted, muscles straining in order to reach back in the midst of the world trying to toss her around, and it was a human she was attached to.

Sally could see the faint sheen of blood washing away from his face in the lightning's flash, and in some one in a million chance, his billowy shirt had looped around her fins. Dammit dammit dammit she shouldn't have come up here- She would just have to try and swim with the poor man attached and try to bypass the fact that humans float when they drown.

Stupid humans.

With some struggle to bring the man closer to her chest and a mighty push, she finally started to gain enough force behind her to move away from the wreck, sloppily trying to maneuver around the body stuck to her, and the strange angle it forced her body into. Luckily, the typhoon was pushing them away, but in a manner only slightly less dangerous than being near the flaming debris. Sally and the man tumbled over each other the whole way to calmer waters.

After what seemed like hours, they reached the edge of the raging storm. Sally caught her breath in large gulps, trying to ignore the burning of muscle strain and bruises that would surely appear in the morning, gaze drifting over to her unwanted passenger.

Now staring at the man, she noticed he was familiar. This was the man that saved her from the beach! He was notably less attractive when half dead.

Well, life for a life. Let's get you back on the beach pretty boy.

======

It had been almost two weeks of the prince coming down to the beach to meet Sally. They talked and Wilbur played for them and Sally would splash him with muddied sand until he finally taught her to play as well. It easily became the highlight of their day, and as much as Sally savored the free time when she was alone to use her voice, it was always better with him, no matter how many times they played the same songs. She realized she was getting comfortable with the prince--too comfortable if you had asked her any time before this. She found herself wishing she could walk around with him in his daily tasks as a person, rather than the occasional day out of the ocean as a fish in a bowl.

Niki would never allow it. Despite acknowledging that fact, this evening they swiped the guitar immediately, and began strumming the tune to their favorite song. Without missing a beat the singer began, perfectly on cue, as always.

"The cute bomber jacket you've had since sixth form, adorned with patches of places you’ve been-"

"-Is nothing on my khaki coat that I got from a roadside when I was sixteen." Wilbur stopped when Sally joined in, but after a nod he started again, hesitant.

"..The roads are my home as horizon's my target; if I keep on moving, never lose sight of it. Treating my memory of you like a fire, let it burn out, don't fight it and try to move on." It only took a moment for their voices to meld in comfortable harmony, and Sally could feel herself getting lost in the music like she used too, listening from the water at night to the melodies floating out the prince's open window. "It's been sixty weeks since I saw Vienna. A bandage and a wide smile slapped across my face. I'll pick up my hiking boots when I am ready, and I'll put down my roots when I'm dead."

There was a moment of silence when the song ended where the last notes hung in the air between them, slowly fading until they weren't sure if they were still hearing them or just remembering.

“You’re…a good singer.”

"Thank you. I don't sing a lot though, and I definitely haven't had any proper lessons, so you don't have to say that. I know I'm not re-"

“No, I mean it. Why haven’t you been singing officially?”

She could no longer hide her smile at the praise. “I used to be in the kingdom's children's choir when I was little but…well you know, stuff happens. I didn’t enjoy it anymore so I quit. I haven’t gotten any opportunities to sing since. Not to anyone but myself at least," they chuckled sheepishly. Wilbur made a dissatisfied "hmph" and frowned. "But...I liked listening to you. Before we met I used to be able to hear you from all the way out there," They motioned vaguely to the waves stretching along the horizon.

=======

"Wow. You're a real rambunctious, kraken of a child, aren't you?"

---

Sally laughed, and it was as if the sunrise glittering on playful ocean waves was a sound.

=======

That's it. He was fucking done. He was sick of everyone pressuring him. Half these people he didn't even know and half were distant relatives that had never had to deal with the stress of preparing the kingdom for the future--what right did they have to comment on his situation!?

"Look at you! You've gotten so handsome! Don't tell me you still don't have a partner!"

"I've done my best to find him one, but he's being stubborn," Phil mentioned.

"Come now, Wilbur, give it a chance! You can't focus on songwriting forever! Techno may be taking the throne, but you still have to--"

"I AM!" He shouted. That shut everyone up real quick. "I mean, I do have a significant other. And I am getting married! It's just been a secret." Oh no, what was he getting himself into?

"Why has it been a secret? This is great news!"

"Because I'm not marrying a royal. Her name is Sally. I met her on the beach..."

"...On the beach?"

"Yes."

"And where does this 'Sally' come from, Wilbur?"

Why did they have to ask that?! "...I don't know. She won't tell me," He lied, reluctantly. "But I'm marrying her!"

A chorus of "WHAT!?" rang long and loud throughout the dining hall, making the prince try very hard not to purse his lips and squeeze his eyes shut and turn away. What the hell did I just say!? No one will accept that! It's so sketchy! None of them even blinked as a fire haired woman plummeted from the ceiling, crashed onto the table and rolled directly into Wilbur's lap.

"What the fuck Wilbur!?" (Now their audience gasped.)

The prince realized dully that he had automatically brought up his arms to support Sally's legs and shoulders so they didn't roll off onto the floor. He pleaded with them with his eyes to just go with it, knowing their incredulous glare was well deserved. "I promise darling, the proposal I planned was much nicer, I didn't exactly expect...well, that." He wasn't even trying to lecture them right now, he had no right. Sally didn't seem to mind that he mentioned her roguish climbing in places she shouldn't be. They were grinning now, and only Wilbur could see the diabolical glint in their eyes. "But please, would you do me the honor of marrying me?"

"Hmm...I think I shall!" The knowledge that Sally was planning something devious made sparks shoot along his nerves, but at least she agreed. It took most of Wil's remaining self control not to pull her into a kiss right there. After all, that is what the couple was supposed to do when they get engaged, right? Only for that reason, of course, but nonetheless he didn't want to push them into more o--

Before the crowd could stop cheering and egg the pair into a kiss, the mermaid did it herself. Despite their awkwardness from before, despite being in front of so many people, despite the fact that it was fake, he couldn't help but melt when their hands tangled in his hair and pulled him down. It may or may not have been one of the best kisses he had ever had. (So that was their plan? Make him a complete mess in front of the dignitaries and relatives?)

Knowing Sally, that was only a taste of their plans to get back at him.

---------

Wilbur stared at Sally as the mermaid scrutinized--or rather, admired--her fangs in the prince's mirror. The gleaming canines weren't sexy at all, and Wilbur definitely doesn't think about them often. Wil wanted to be mad that Sally had stolen his pants--he should be mad, but they looked amazing on her with that corset top and he definitely wasn't too busy staring at their pale exposed shoulders and graceful neck to actually care.

"Sal, those are my pants."

"Yep." You little shit. He loved it.

"Take them off or I will."

"I would love to watch you take your pants off, or let you take off mine, but I believe we have a ribbon cutting to go to." They smirked and he blushed violently. I walked right into that one.

"You know that's not what I meant."

Sally stopped putting on their eyeliner for a moment to meet Wil's eyes in the mirror with a suggestive look. "Perhaps you could mean it that way later?" Delicate chiffon pooled halfway down her arms and lengthened into sleeves matching the cream of the top and ribbon holding it shut behind her back, accentuating her powerful build and the way her thighs and hips widened in not quite a womanly way but something unreasonably attractive.

By the time he was about to answer, she had finished her makeup and fluffed their slightly curled hair as they turned to him. Their amused smile made his pride swell up in a rush to quell the raging embarrassment, and let them grab his hand. "Come on highness, they're waiting."

"Th-" Don't stutter! "You can't keep stealing my clothes Sal. You have your own and we can get you whatever else you want. People are going to realize, and then what will they think!?"

Their face went serious. "Fine, sorry. You're right..."

"Thank you."

"...We can't have people thinking that before it's actually happened. What a scandal."

"SALLY!"

The mer cackled and fixed him with a glowing smile. "I'm just messing with you, calm down. If you really want to me stop taking your clothes then fiiiiine. It's just no fun that way. Besides, yours are nice."

Wil sighed. "...It's ok, you can keep taking them." Dammit. I'm such a sucker.

"Haha! Yes!" The prince smiled despite himself.

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wonda-cat · 3 years

Text

Some Thoughts on Tommy’s most recent stream (4/29)

(For the record, this isn’t going to be like my other formal analyses. I’m genuinely just ranting here, possibly unedited too. I’m only referring to the characters, unless stated otherwise.

Also obvious warning, this will be fairly negative/critical of the DSMP’s writing, so scroll past if that might bother you. I tend to criticize the media I love, so this is just par for the course in my case.)

Let’s start off with—

The Things I Liked

All of the comedy at the beginning of the stream was wonderful. Ghostbur was incredibly endearing and entertaining as usual, as well as the moments between bench trio. Tommy’s change of plans made sense and the entire journey through the prison was tense and fun to watch. As well as the moment Tommy got caught (it was inevitable.)

It goes without stating, but cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy’s acting was wonderful—they knocked it out of the park. I liked the little moments of Tommy calming Ghostbur down as Sam screamed at him. I also loved Wilbur's speech about his time in the afterlife when bench trio found him.

As well as the moment with Wilbur admiring the sky and calling it ‘his sunrise.’ I’m also glad that the afterlife was explained to be caused by the Revival Book’s existence and not some general eternal torture every character will be sentenced to regardless of anything they did in life.

But, sadly, that’s about where I stop and have to go into what I didn’t like as much, which is—

Everything Else

I’ll be talking about my major gripes with this particular stream in later bullet points down the line, but for now I’ll bring up the little things that annoyed me. This is all basically nit-picking and isn’t as awful or badly written as some of the others I’ll be discussing later.

First off, Why is Ranboo There? In the stream before this one, Tommy had Tubbo promise to not tell anyone else about their plan. Did he just decide to tell Ranboo anyway? Why? What was the point of asking him to keep it secret if it didn’t matter?

Adding to this, Tubbo and Ranboo were rather unnecessary for any of the other scenes that took place. They didn’t have any meaningful conversations with Tommy besides Ranboo asking why he was dreading Wilbur’s revival so much, as well as Wilbur’s comments to Tubbo about him being president. But other than that they have little to no notable speaking lines.

They don’t Do Anything? Sure, they’re nice to have present so Tommy can vent to someone else and find comfort but, in the end, Ranboo was oddly angry and accusatory with Tommy and Tubbo was practically absent from the scene. The impression I got from Tommy and Tubbo’s conversation in the previous stream implied that Tubbo would be serving a larger role as a distraction, but I guess they changed gears or something?

Then we have Ghostbur’s involvement, which, yeah, makes sense. Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo are not allowed inside the prison, so it’s best to find someone else who can get in without suspicion. But my first assumption, upon seeing Ghostbur with the group was, “Oh, he’s gonna go in there and Dream’s gonna use him to revive Wilbur. That’s the only reason why Ghostbur is here and not anyone else, who would also be willing to kill Dream. It’s not like they’re in short supply right now.”

And I ended up being right, which only frustrated me more. I wanted something unexpected. Something new. Something interesting. Yet, I got the most predictable outcome instead—Tommy fails, Wilbur is revived.

Next, we have another big serving of ‘Tommy gets blamed for things he has no control over’ part 241. I am so, so sick of characters getting unreasonably mad at and blaming Tommy for anything and everything. It’s not new, it’s not interesting, it’s not fun. It’s just miserable.

It is,, awful. And it’s highkey frustrating. I refuse to sit through another arc of Tommy being endlessly hurt and blamed for stuff he didn’t do or cannot control. Pick a new event in the plot.

Try something out of left field. Do something, anything different to this. I’m begging you.

Now, we get into the major writing pitfalls and shortcomings. Starting with—

We Need to Talk About Sam

I have no idea what is going on with Sam’s character right now. It is so genuinely confusing. I have no clue why Sam reacted the way he did to Tommy because it just doesn’t make any sense. Sam’s entire inner conflict is about him trying to cultivate and protect his humanity and morality while upkeeping a strict, closed-off demeanor.

He follows the rules, even if it hurts the people he loves. Even if these codes force him into a position to be unethical. He feels it is his responsibility should anything go wrong or if Dream escapes, because it puts others in danger.

His strict approach got Tommy killed, and it also took a life and an arm from Ponk. Both of these people are precious to him. So why on earth would he threaten to kill Tommy when, in their last interaction, he was glad he was alive—after he promised to never let something like that happen again?

He respected Tommy’s wishes to stay away from him, and rather politely too. Why would he then threaten to kill him just after weeks of saying Tommy’s death was his biggest regret? That’s not even touching on Sam saying, “This is why I let you die,” as well as blaming Tommy for something that was directly a result of his own refusal to act.

Why didn’t he have Ghostbur also hitch a ride on the same platform with Tommy? Why did he even let Ghostbur into the prison in the first place if he:

A.) Told Ranboo he wasn’t going to let anyone in there after what happened to Tommy.

B.) Also wouldn’t let people in lest they find out about Quackity’s plan.

C.) Couldn’t even kill Ghostbur because he’s incorporeal and thus cannot fully upkeep the contracts he is signing.

There’s also the issue of Sam breaking the rules he abides by when he decided to not kill Tommy after he snuck into the prison, despite it being in the contract. Why is it different now? He went against his own protocol but was also following it by refusing to let Ghostbur come back to the other platform?

Why does Sam refuse to listen to Tommy? Their argument is mind-numbingly ridiculous. Sam refuses to hurt Dream, despite him only being alive because Sam claimed Tommy wanted him alive.

But now Tommy is there, begging Sam to let him kill Dream, and Sam just goes, “No. We’re not killing Dream.” Fucking why??? Sam! You said you wanted to kill Dream at least four times by now! Maybe more!

You were on your way to do it with Quackity and the only thing that stopped you was your promise to Tommy. But now Tommy’s here, telling you to kill Dream and you fucking won’t???? I am absolutely baffled.

No matter how you spin it, it makes no fucking sense. However, if I tried,,, I could possibly come up with a reason or two. Maybe Dream is blackmailing him. Maybe Quackity is forcing him to keep Dream alive until he can get the info he needs (even though,,, why would he trust Quackity over Tommy, who he’s outwardly stated he trusts just as much, if not more?)

It feels like these plots are dancing around each other, trying to keep up this faux sense of conflict that doesn’t exist. But, here’s the thing, contrived conflict is never compelling. I can’t overstate it enough.

Dream’s Plan is Complete Nonsense

The method to revive Wilbur makes Dream seem even more short-sighted than I remember commenting on, during the stream where Tommy was brought back to life. He told Tommy that his plan was to test the book to see if it worked (which, okay fine, I can buy this.) But then he says all along he was planning to revive Wilbur in order to break out of prison, which is ???? This is baffling if he needed Ghostbur in order to pull this off.

Which,,, I can’t even begin to explain how ridiculous it is that Dream’s entire plan hitched on not only the book working on people to begin with (which he tested on Tommy,,, for some reason, even though he would’ve lost his ‘favorite toy’ if he fucked it up. Which,, why even take that chance in the first place? there are other visitors he could’ve tried this with, surely. Like Sapnap and Bad,,) and it also relied on Ghostbur voluntarily going into the prison just to visit Dream?? And if he didn’t need Ghostbur after all, then why didn’t he bring Wilbur back weeks ago?

That’s not even getting into the issue of Dream assuming that Wilbur, once brought back, would:

A.) Want to be alive in the first place.

B.) Actually be willing to help Dream, instead of telling him to fuck off.

C.) Be even slightly capable of helping him at all when he has no allies, no PVP skill, no weapons, no armor, and no knowledge of the prison or its innerworkings.

Why are the current DSMP writers so committed to making me think Dream is a fucking idiot? I don’t enjoy this. I used to like his character and think he was smart. Stop.

ALSO, why did Tommy or Tubbo or Ranboo not think of the possibility that Ghostbur could very well be necessary to revive Wilbur? Why did that not cross any of their minds? It was the first thing I thought of when I saw him.

Another big thing that irks me is Tommy and Sam saying they saw Dream physically holding the Revival Book, which,,, how? Why? Dream said in previous streams that he burned the book and that was entirely the thing that kept him from being killed outright. If there was a book still in existence, did he hide it somehow?

How did Quackity not find it? Why did Sam not take it from him when he was first arrested?? What?

Also how the fuck did Dream kill a ghost?? They’re incorporeal? How does he not need the body to perform necromancy? That seems almost redundant.

Also it took a matter of seconds to perform? It took,,, ?? nothing but words and sheer willpower to bring someone back to life? Why does it seem so easy? My mans just,, uses his vibes to bring people back from the dead???

Unless the book has instructions regarding that or has a proportional price in order to use, then I’d be more forgiving. But I’m guessing it doesn’t have too steep a cost if Dream could offer Tommy immortality despite that. But I’m sure we’ll get more information on this once Quackity (inevitably) gets his hands on the book. Hopefully…

Which brings me to my last point—

Wilbur’s Revival (Derogatory)

Since the Revival Book was introduced, I have been actively dreading Wilbur being revived. It is the most predictable, low-hanging fruit of a plotline I could possibly conceive of. I understand that he’s a fan-favorite with a large audience (I love Wilbur more than you’d expect. cc!Wilbur is actually the reason I got into the DSMP in the first place), but there are other characters who could be developed more—utilized more.

Unpopular opinion, I know, but I am just so incredibly unenthused about this plot development. In fact, I’d almost go so far as to say hate it.

The Revival Book in and of itself is my least favorite thing the DSMP has ever introduced. It is a lack of consequences simplified. It’s also a lack of commitment to those mortal consequences.

It is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for when they kill off a character and don’t want to deal with the hole that character will leave behind. Or a way to work around the reason they shouldn’t kill Dream on the spot.

With Wilbur back again, I no longer feel compelled by his arc the way I used to. There is nothing to really leave a lasting impact anymore. Of course, there was a cater where L’Manburg once stood, but that was dug even deeper later on. You can’t make the death of a friend, of a loved one, worse than it is. It is death.

The thing I found extremely interesting about Wilbur’s death is the way the other characters portrayed loss. It has consistently been the thing that was most comforting to me, oddly enough. When people die, there will always be loose ends.

There will be holes left behind and things left unsaid. An unfulfilled promise. A forgotten relationship. A hollow memory.

What I always found compelling was the way Tommy and Fundy and Niki took this mutual loss and had to live with it. How they had to come to terms with the fact that Wilbur was gone and he wasn’t coming back. That they had to make peace with his memory, his legacy, and their connection to him.

That they’d miss him and love him or hate him and try to forget him. It is a tragedy that someone like Wilbur wanted to die for so long, and in the end, he did. Because in reality, the people you love will die.

There may be someone in your life that leaves you behind and all you’re left with is the broken pieces. And it is how these characters move on that brings me bittersweet company as someone who’s lost a lot of people. There is nothing more irritating than a story going back on its establishments—to have their cake and eat it too.

All I want is the bare minimum—a story with narrative stakes and consequences.

The only way I could ever see myself enjoying this plot development is if Wilbur has a redemption arc and attempts to make amends with Tommy, Fundy, Niki, and Eret. OR if he aids in Dream’s downfall in some way and enjoys the simple realities of life and wants to live for the sake of living. I’d find that at least new and somewhat interesting.

But if he’s just here to be a moustache toiling villain (or somehow worse than after his previous downward spiral), when the market is already so deeply oversaturated with antagonists, then I will probably drop the series altogether.

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that because I love the Dream SMP and I want to keep loving it for as long as I can.

I will hold onto more reasons to stay, so long as they keep giving them to me.

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snyoonsu · 2 years

Text

happy opening day! i’m jin (s/h, 21+), the writer behind nam ‘elias’ yoonsu (aka ‘the comeback kid’). modern day prince charming living life on cruise mode, decked out with cheat codes, but currently going into overdrive, rogue mode. and i’m super excited to meet all of you and your muses!

you can find more about yoonsu in these links (bio, profile) and below the cut as well. last but not least, hit this with a ♡ if you’d be interested in plotting! sadly i did not have my shit together enough to list out premade plot ideas, but swear i am much better at brainstorming one-on-one! i’m around on here and discord (if the tumblr im sounds also terrify you) and always down to chat. now without further ado...

background

heir to the nam family’s immense generational wealth and raised in nyc like a classic upper east side trust-fund kid (à la ‘succession’ & ‘gossip girl’). but ~global~. the nam family has roots and connections all over the globe, so he grows up traveling all over to become more ‘worldly’ and ‘cultured.’ plot twist, five-star hotels are nice in every country.

very much a leo (if ur into astrology!). really big personality, thrives under the spotlight, natural showman, and good looking to boot. that kid in school who somehow had an in with every social group, from the snobby elites to the scene kids to the nerds. just very, very good with people. could probably smooth talk a wall for hours if need be.

currently a part-time venture capitalist (b/c sprinkling money at people’s dreams and life endeavors = fun. only being partially sarcastic here) and part-time socialite (b/c flying around looking pretty and partying also = fun). tbh he’s very good at both things.

so yeah, life is honestly pretty easy for eli. too bad he gets shipped off to the fucking middle of nowhere (ahem, daegu... which in his worldview might as well be nebraska) and is basically on probation / on the verge of being demoted as heir. and he is surrounded by his distant relatives (whom he finds insufferable) and is just drowning in cultural vertigo and having an existential crisis :)

woah woah woah, okay taking a step back on how he ends up there. tldr; he gets his gf pregnant, his parents freak the fuck out (which is an understatement... plus who are they to talk? having gotten married for purely power purposes), and there’s a very messy abortion + break-up with his gf and then his parents. psst, don’t ask if he truly loved her or wanted the baby. at this point it’s a convoluted mess b/t him actually being quite the lover-boy, being afraid of commitment, and also just hating being told what to do by anyone. like wtf???

anyways, he’s rotting away on the countryside when this pretty little invitation from choi yong comes bouncing along. he views it as a soft reset, the start of his redemption arc, a chance to prove his actual worth and capabilities (b/c everything in life is just handed to him on a golden platter, no?). oh, and a big ‘fuck you’ to his parents. so yeah, despite the charming smile and smooth manners, he’s not fucking around for once.

personality / traits

at the end of the day, he has a big heart. his warmth and sincerity attracts a lot of people and can draw all sorts of people out of their shells. he actually can feel drawn to those who are relatively more shy, reserved, or guarded than him too (possible plot dynamic?). he’s also very much ruled by his heart, ambitions, instincts, and what is ‘right’ (by his own standards... which are mostly good?).

as you might expect, he has a lot of friends. well ‘friends’ with asterisks attached. turns out once you get to a certain level of wealth, it’s hard to find actual friends who aren’t just hanging around b/c they want something from you. again, he’s very good with people and can pick up on even the subtlest shifts in another person’s mood or expression. all this makes him often overanalyze his relationships and actually quite lonely inside.

loves to be the center of attention, but is also secretly self-loathing. he wants to feel deserving and entitled to whatever praise and attention he gets; and like all people, he does have his own demons (which the world just trivializes). because to his critics’ point... umm he really did just waltz right into much of it. like talk about living life on easy mode... so a lot of his debonair charm serves dual purposes as a defense mechanism, carefully constructed to compensate for his innate insecurities.

while he is very much a ‘good guy’ nine times out of ten, push him to the edge and he’ll default to anger and cutthroat tactics as a protective wall to hide his vulnerabilities. again, overall nice and outgoing but has scary flashes of being more cold-hearted and calculating, especially when provoked — the type that makes you questions whether if it’s even the same dude you’re dealing with. can’t run from the parents’ dna, i guess.

hates being bossed around. very much wants to be in charge of his own destiny, which is kinda at odds with what he’s born into. also hates being told what to do, but if you can get him to listen, he can actually usually be persuaded.

#(⤨ ooc)#sn intro #(excited to be here!!)

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katsidhe · 3 years

Note

could you do 9.10 and 9.13 for episode reviews.

Love your takes btw.

9.10 Final Thoughts

well, well, well, if it isn’t my old friend season 9. God I love season 9. buckle in.

Plenty of what season 9 tries to do with angel drama falls flat, but plenty of it doesn’t. It’s at its strongest when interrogating the ways that the angels are looking for personal purpose, rather than folding themselves into various suit-clad factions. In this episode, we have Gadreel, Abner, and Thaddeus, all with very different takes.

Thaddeus is the most boring of the three—a straightforward narcissist and sadist. (Lucifer will follow in his rockstar-impersonating footsteps in s12. SPN clearly has a dim view of the music industry.) We don’t care when he dies, and we aren’t meant to.

Abner’s found a family, and he’s let go of revenge. He’s clearly found peace and happiness—but it’s stolen. I’m ambivalent about this. I guess I could take his word that his vessel was abusive and therefore deserves to have been permanently body-snatched, and I guess I could believe him when he says his new family loves him, even though they clearly don’t know what he is or what he’s done. His regard for humanity as something other than a project is… uncertain. Even if everything is as sunny as he explains to Gadreel, there is fundamental selfishness and short-sightedness here. Get what you want, Abner says, and never let go.

Gadreel asks Abner if his vessel is happy. This reveals both Abner’s scorn for his vessel, and Gadreel’s uncomfortable awareness of and respect for Sam (and his bartender vessel, who Gadreel stares at, and who accepts Gadreel back easily).

Gadreel! OF COURSE Gadreel’s gotta be the scapegoat for Lucifer’s release, HAHAHAH. I love him to pieces, oml. Seriously, the Sam parallels could not BE more blatant. I’ve talked about this before, that it makes the earned antipathy between them all the more alarming, all the more visceral. The big sticking point is that Gadreel’s years of pointless torture came prior to his “redemption” arc, rather than as a consequence of it. Gadreel has all of s5 Sam’s despair and helpless anger and self-loathing, all of his drive to set things right at any price, and all of it is amplified by his trauma.

Sam and Gadreel’s relationship is defined by its liminal spaces. Gadreel threatens to tear Sam apart, but he does not, even when he is tortured. He locks Sam away in a dream rather than force him to watch him kill, or to suffer. But when Sam forces Gadreel out, Gadreel leaps instantly on telling Sam he is weak, reciting back Sam’s fears and Gadreel’s own. This reads like Gadreel is aiming quite a lot of his own self-pity and self-hatred at Sam.

Cas’s murderous rage at Gadreel when his identity is revealed is fun. It shows that Heaven’s PR team did a good job, for one thing. But Cas is furious because it’s specifically Lucifer. And the Apocalypse, and all the attendant suffering, his and Dean’s and Sam’s. It’s a personal wrath.

“Stupid for the right reasons…” oh, Cas, your scarcity of positive human role models is showing. Also, Cas’s particular brand of reassurance here isn’t actually something Dean has a problem with. He expresses regret over having been tricked—he says he’s stupid, he says he got played—but he’s never in doubt that his intentions were good. He’s never in doubt that he did the righteous thing. He’s never in doubt that he’d do it again.

Dean apologizes to Cas for barring him from the bunker. (Sam will not receive an apology.) Cas compares what Dean did to Sam to what Cas did by trusting Naomi. There’s a key difference here. Cas’s moral compass is not the problem; it’s his critical thinking skills.

Crowley, Cas, and Dean are a hilarious trio. (Also, I really hope that Cas’s pimpmobile got to Heaven too, like the Impala.)

Crowley being genuinely sorry that Kevin’s gone and his willingness to risk his life to help Sam are the best two moments of the generally weak Crowley-has-human-blood plot line. They feel earned. [also Crowley’s ‘I told Kevin he should’ve run!’ is both accurate, funny, and sad.]

Let’s talk 4.21 parallels! I mean, first, the glaringly obvious: Sam locked down to be purged of something supernatural; Sam suffering; Dean unable to bear Sam’s tortured screams; a very atmospheric fan. Dean walking away.

and then, of course, there’s “at least he dies human.” Right off the bat, Dean tells Cas he’s going to kill Gadreel. Cas, concerned, says that this will kill Sam too; Dean, sounding tortured, says he knows. Now, obviously, Dean doesn’t kill Sam. He doesn’t even get particularly close. But it’s really interesting that this is the first thing Dean brings up! He declares unprompted that he’s ready to kill Sam rather than leave him possessed. Which is both a recapitulation of the save-him-or-kill-him mantra, and an ironic twist on the decision Dean made in 9.01. Then, Dean knew Sam would rather die than be possessed, but had him possessed anyway. Now, Dean has decided instead that Sam must die because he is possessed. Obviously Dean’s opinion on the possessing entity has changed in the meantime: Sam’s hasn’t, but Sam’s isn’t what matters.

Dean reaches new levels of PEAK IRONY when he declares that Cas should possess Sam too. Cas has to actually point out that Dean can’t, in fact, volunteer Sam’s permission. Because apparently Dean had forgotten, lmaooo. Crowley, on the other hand, is happy to oblige. Dean directs Cas to burn Sam’s tattoo off.

The language of this entire scene is so sexual. I mean, it’s Crowley, of course it is, double entendre is his first language. But this theme recurs again and again. Here it is just more pointed than usual. It is queasy.

Gadreel has Sam trapped in a Dean-type happy place—a hunt with ghouls and cheerleaders, no organic produce to be found. And I don’t think it’s because Gadreel doesn’t understand what Sam likes. I think it’s because Gadreel’s aim was for Sam to feel comfortable, not blissful. It smacks of Hallucifer, just a bit—using the verisimilitude of Dean’s louder moods rather than trying to appeal directly to Sam’s contentment, because of his always questionable, always a question, sense of reality. If things were too smooth, too cheerful, Sam might just be suspicious. Sam is easier to trick by proxy.

The HORROR of this episode for Sam: Gadreel washing someone’s blood off of Sam’s hands. Crowley pushing needles into his brain. Sam’s body and life as a bargaining chip as Gadreel threatens to kill him, and then as Dean threatens to kill him right back. The quiet heartbreak as Sam remembers Kevin’s death, as he realizes the magnitude of Dean’s betrayal. But the worst part of it, I think, is somehow still Sam’s face when Crowley comes to get him in the dream where Gadreel stashed him. How his expression just crumples as Crowley tells him he is trapped in a lie, that his mindscape is once again a prison, that he truly cannot trust his reality. The sheer devastation of this on top of Sam’s history, plus the knowledge that Dean did this—and he pulls himself together and puts his foot on Gadreel’s neck and casts him OUT anyway. Sam Fucking Winchester.

and then the Bridge Scene. The lighting, the staging… it’s fucking gorgeous. It’s one of those scenes where I knew as I was watching it for the first time, seven years ago, that it was going to be something. I held my breath and still hold my breath. I can’t take my eyes off the way that Sam is shaking slightly, the entire time. The way he can barely meet Dean’s eyes but he does it anyway. He SAYS HIS PIECE, says it clearly, says it with an even tone despite what he’s gone through, despite the holes in his head that were healed seconds ago.

I love the gentleness between Sam and Cas here. I love knowing that 9.11 follows this. I love that there is no question that Cas will leave with Dean—he is staying with Sam, to heal and support him, even after he spent this episode mostly reassuring Dean.

Dean does not start this conversation to apologize. He starts out with the intent to DELIBERATELY egg Sam on: “come on, let’s hear it.” It’s an incitement, because Dean wants Sam to act angry, so that Dean can feel more justified in leaving. Sam does not rise to the bait.

Dean has an excuse for every point Sam has: I had no choice, you were dying, it’s not in me, he saved your life. He says, “I did a bad thing with bad consequences and I would 100% do it again, anyway, bye.”

And then the most infuriating thing: Dean is in the wrong, so he tells the person he’s wronged, ugh, I’m just such an awful poisonous person, I’m going to burn for this. It’s so clearly wrong-headed. Intentional or not, it’s such an obvious invitation for Sam to comfort him that it might well have been embossed. If this were in e.g. season 15, or if the crime he’d committed had been less awful, I can easily hear Sam’s reassurance: no, Dean, I promise you’re a good person, we all make mistakes. It is the most toxic way possible to frame a potential apology.

The textual theme of Dean-as-poison (and, for that matter, the consequence of Kevin’s death vs. the initial crime of the possession) is an intentional muddying of the waters: Crowley, Cas, and Dean himself all bring it up in some fashion, linking some fundamental aspect of Dean himself rather than Dean’s choices to Kevin’s death. Crowley is trying to be cutting; Cas is trying to be supportive; Dean is both excusing himself and camouflaging that fact in his exhausting self-loathing. There is a complicated interplay of what the text says about Dean’s guilt and what it condemns; this pattern continues throughout s9, and reaches its apex in the next several episodes. Dean’s love as a condemning feature rather than a redeeming one is one of my favorite things about SPN, and s9 has it in HIGH gear.

But, here, at least, Sam doesn’t rise to this bait either. “Don’t go thinking that’s the problem, ‘cause it’s not.” The problem is obviously, achingly, exhaustingly clear. Sam’s spelled it out in this very conversation: you tricked me. You lied to me. You got me possessed when I was willing to die. But Dean, and a fair portion of the audience, can’t hear it. So he doesn’t. And they don’t, and they pretend that this line is some sort of puzzle! a cliffhanger on a conversation unfinished! when it was the conclusion, not the beginning.

image that is now inextricable from 9.10

#9.10 #final thoughts #I have even more to say tbh #sam and cas #sam and dean #dean and cas #sam and gadreel #sam and crowley #sam and possession #sam and abuse #dean and self-hatred #sam and forgiveness #sam and mindscapes #sam and trauma #blahdose

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thosewickedlovelies · 3 years

Text

we could be Dreamers - Prologue

Pairing: Marcus Moreno x GN!Reader

Rating: T

Summary: How this world came to be

Word count: 1,671

A/N: Hiii friends 🤗 soo there’s not really a lot of plot or Marcus Moreno :( here, but consider this a prologue/worldbuilding for a Marcus Moreno x reader fic I may eventually write lol. I’m really interested in how this universe got from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl to We Can Be Heroes, because like. Sharkboy and Lavagirl were literally just some kid’s imaginary friends that somehow magically became real, so what does that mean for the other Heroics? Where did they come from?? So I kinda wanted to write something that would make you Think :) and explore the ramifications of such a transformed universe.

Consider my previous Marcus Moreno fic a prelude to this prologue 💗

It was a little unnerving sometimes, being in a room with so much power. No matter that this particular training arena at Heroics Headquarters was at least the size of an American football field- when all of the Heroics are gathered in the same confined space, focused on a single purpose, you can feel it. Like their power prances tauntingly in the corner of your eye, slipping away when you try to look directly at it. Like it winds through the air, worming its way into your veins, so your very blood breathes at you to run, run, run.

Not all of the individual Heroics gave off such uncanny vibes; some were simply ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. Techo-No, for instance, and his gift for creating fantastical gadgets. The implications of his works relevant to the world at large could be worrying, but he had limits. He was just a man. Determined, and creative (even more so with his son throwing ideas at him), but ultimately human.

Not like those with powers who’d been Dreamed.

Take Sharkboy. The temper for which he’d been infamous in his youth had cooled, but when he snapped, he did so literally- blade-sharp teeth an audible clash when he bared them in a ringing snarl. Any water in the room would roil and froth- but the most hair-raising sight was his eyes, tinged with the unreadable, abyssal blackness of his namesake. Focused with a predator’s calculation on the object of his fury. (It made you think that, ironically, his temper had cooled too much- concentrated into something as icy and merciless as the depths of the sea. Just as well his wife was a lava goddess).

It was well-documented that Sharkboy could influence his oceanic kin, seeing as he was half-shark himself. Some marine biologists postulated- in low voices- that fluctuation in his emotions could unknowingly influence shark activity no matter how far from the sea he was. But nobody at Heroics Headquarters had ever dared suggest attempting a study.

That you knew of, anyway. You wouldn’t be surprised if there was a classified government branch somewhere which dealt solely with more insidious studies of the Heroics. Their weaknesses. Ways to defeat them.

Just in case.

Sharkboy and his emotions had stabilized as his Dreamer matured, but not all Dreamers were so invested in the well-being of their creations, or of the world they inhabited and could inadvertently affect. It was suspected that not all Dreamers knew that they had Dreamed at all, that they unintentionally brought Dreams into being far from where they were located and simply never became aware. This resulted in some Dreamed individuals being...unstable. Incomplete, really. Brought forth from a child’s mind, a young person who didn’t yet fully grasp the complexities of existing in this world, or indeed, the intricacies of what made one human at all.

Dreamers were children, more often than not. Their imaginative abilities generally far outstripped those of adults, worn down as they were with the grind of building a real life. The younger the person, the more time and creativity they maintained. The fewer methods they possessed to process their struggles which were grounded in reality, and not their imaginations.

Despite the years that have passed, nobody quite knows what happened to lead up to the Incident. How a single young boy had imagined so powerfully that it had warped reality; how his imaginings had given him the ability to design the universe at will.

The Daydreamer.

Max, as he later insisted on being called. An almost disturbingly innocuous name for a boy who had changed the world. Who had all but envisioned himself into having terrific powers- and enabled others to do the same.

In the years following the Incident, Sharkboy and Lavagirl continued to visit him in secret (Later, scientists realized that this why they recorded occasional, inexplicable disturbances in seismic and marine activity). But it wasn’t long before a larger threat to the entire Earth appeared- and so did they. To defend the place which they declared to be their new home. Though they had been willed into existence to protect Planet Drool, as Max determined to relinquish his daydreaming abilities and by extension, his dreamworld, so did the planet and its life diminish. Their presence there was no longer required, they’d explained. But earth could still benefit from their protection- especially after the reality of the threat came to light.

Someone else had Dreamed.

It wasn’t clear who, or how, or what their intentions had been. But once it had been said, everyone was forced to acknowledge the truth of it- or at least, admit that there was no other explanation. The villain’s origins were not terrestrial in any previously established sense.

Anyone who had ever met a child could have a predicted it. Too many young people ended up feeling outcast, overlooked, by both their peers and adults in their lives. It should have been obvious from the way they whispered his name. Not Max- a moniker far too average and relatable- but what they reverently regarded as his true title. The Daydreamer. A near-holy figure who had changed the game for youths everywhere. Now they had a way to combat those who plagued them. A way to create or become the superheroes who previously only existed in comic books and TV shows.

Or some did, anyway. Individuals with the strength of will and heart to Dream weren’t rare, but they weren’t quite common, either.

The only truly neutral positive of the Dreamer evolution was that governments everywhere suddenly accepted the need for increased mental health resources. Designed to increase healthy socialization for all ages and give young people ways to process and communicate their emotional needs, such programs were approved seemingly overnight in schools from elementary to university aged. “Small town life” flourished, and many city quarters and apartment buildings took to implementing “community builders” or, less charmingly, “social facilitators”- positions designed to create cohesive areas of living and minimize the kind of isolation and negative feelings that could leave someone to Dream of improving their life.

Nowadays, not all super-powered individuals were Dreamed. The second generation of Heroics was a testament to that. As if the universe itself had reckoned with the self-inception of the Dreamers, and seen fit to provide reality-warping countermeasures of its own.

Less than a year after the Incident, babies with...unique qualities began to be born. Few and far between, it seemed at first. Whispered reports swept from far corners of the globe, a phone tree branching from frantic parents to anyone who could provide even the slightest bit of reassurance. It seemed like doctors everywhere were swapping glances, no one willing to admit what was happening- until a second Villain appeared.

Every incident report said the same thing: a baby started crying, and then the hostages were saved by a power outage. A wash of sparks that darkened half the city.

Webbed with red lightning.

You sneak a look at the fully grown Heroic now, the long braids of her ponytail slipping over the shoulder of her characteristic red training outfit. Red Lightning Fury flexes her fingers as she listens to the head trainer explain today’s exercise- the usual sort of ‘heroes versus villains’ battles, with you and your fellow specialists assisting as villains- but judging by the lack of the smell of ozone, she isn’t yet using her powers. Blinding Fast, on the other hand, appears to fritz in place every few seconds, and you guess he’s running invisible laps to pass the time. It’s hard to tell if that’s what’s causing Lavagirl’s hair to tendril like neon pink smoke even though she’s standing still; usually the hypnotic heat shimmer of her lava flow causes the effect naturally.

You stretch in place while team arrangements are announced. As the majority of the Heroics filter into the stands to wait for their match, the buzzing, writhing presence of their power fades, and you can breathe more easily.

A figure flickers into being beside you, and you jump. “Jeez, Visi! How many times have I told you not to do that?”

Having anticipated your reaction from the countless previous times she’s snuck up on you anyway, Invisigirl laughs. “You think you’d be used to it by now.” Your closest Heroic friend grins at you, all pearly teeth against smooth brown skin.

And she’s right, which is why you were so disgruntled. Having been caught unawares too many times by the invisible hero’s silent movements, you had once asked her to give you lessons. Her instruction had improved your own stealth immensely, and now that you knew what kind of signs to listen for, her attempts at startling you didn’t work nearly as often as they had. But- “It’s hard to focus on anything with all of your powers clogging up the air,” you grumble. The birthed heroes understood what you meant- they felt it too, the nagging hiss of something other in the Dreamed heroes’ energy.

Across the arena, it looks like Miracle Guy and Marcus Moreno are waiting to be your opponents. Interesting. Miracle Guy, with his Dreamed up Superman-like abilities, was the only one who had a way of seeing Invisigirl. What it was precisely, you couldn’t recall. You make a mental note to ask Visi later.

Marcus, however, telekinesis aside, is clearly meant to be the counter to your strengths. The two men are discussing intently, but as if feeling your assessing stare, Marcus glances over. He lifts his eyebrows at you in playful challenge, a hint of a smile quirking his shapely lips before he’s pursing them at his duel-mate again.

Suppressing the pleased flutter down your spine, you turn your attention to the task ahead as Invisigirl dips her head toward you. Planning something clever, you realize, intrigued by the glint in her eye. “Let’s talk strategy.”

When the starting bell rings, your partner vanishes, and your smile curves as sharp and gleaming as the blade in your hand.

#marcus moreno #marcus moreno fic #wcbh fic #wcbh #we can be heroes fic #we can be heroes #pedro pascal characters #marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno x you #let me know what you think!!!#🙈🙈🙈#and if anyone wants to help me dream up a plot for this...i have Some Thoughts

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