#but still it would have been an interesting central theme

[quibbs126]

What if the Ancients instead of being normal (if not general) flavors, were instead associated with the 5 tastes, that being sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory/umami?

(I thought spicy was one of them, but from what I’m told no)

I dunno, I think that would have been a neat idea, given they’re all food

Though I suppose the concept could also work for deities of the world, if the Legendaries don’t count as them

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #ancient cookies #I mean Dark Cacao already has bitterness and I’m pretty sure Hollyberry has sweetness #but still it would have been an interesting central theme #not sure how you’d tie Dark Enchantress in though #random idea #random stuff

[thekidthesuperkid]

No but actually I love how central Crystal is to the story. She's the only reason the group ever goes to Port Townsend and therefore the only reason most of the plot even happens.

Even if you're just watching the show with shipping goggles (a lot of people let's be honest) you still can't extract Crystal from the story. She's the only reason Charles and Edwin go to Port Townsend, but also her arrival into the boys' dynamic shakes it up enough for it to start changing. She's the one who finds out about Charles' dad and then pushes Edwin to figure out what Charles has been hiding from him. She's also the one who pushes Charles to recognize his own repressed emotions and to deal with them. She's central to Charles' character arc over the show, and even though she's not as central to Edwin's character arc, she's still a catalyst. Niko, the Cat King, and Monty are more directly important to Edwin's arc, but Edwin and Charles never would have met and helped Niko if it hadn't been for Crystal (Niko likely would have just died from the sprites alone and this is deeply sad to think about), and Edwin also would never have met either the Cat King or Monty without being in Port Townsend. (Monty probably would have never become human.) Maybe if things had been different Edwin still would have been dragged back to Hell, but Charles would have had to find a different way to rescue him. The Night Nurse was only there to open the door to Hell because Charles and Edwin were stuck in Port Townsend long enough for her to track them down, and on top of that she was only able to track them down because of their connections to living humans (Jenny) through Crystal. And then Edwin's confession on the staircase was only really possible because of the realizations about himself that he had beforehand because of the influences of Monty and Niko and the Cat King. Crystal called Edwin and Charles a dead married couple on acid and that basically what they were: they had been together for so long with just each other, and they were so familiar with each other that their dynamic had become habit and they were taking for granted the things they thought they knew about each other...Charles is the happy one and isn't haunted by his past the way that Edwin is, Edwin isn't interested in romance and connecting with living people, etc. Crystal, and then Niko and their other friends as well, showed up and brought in a new perspective on their relationship and their lives and their problems, which allowed them to develop their relationship in new areas.

Independently of the boys' relationship though, Crystal's story is really done so satisfyingly. Her character arc of figuring out who she is is unfinished, but already it's cool how the story builds the contrast of who she is now versus who she was before her memories were stolen, where one of the biggest differences between the two versions of herself is whether she has people in her corner who truly care about her and support her, and whether she has people she cares about in return. She's also the only one able to defeat Esther in the end. The Elemental would have just swallowed Charles and Edwin without her, and summoning Lillith was something only she could do. And it's really cool how her role in the story creates a theme of connection to other people being vital. She forces Edwin and Charles (mainly Edwin) to interact more with living people, through getting them to take cases for living people and by being a way to get information from the living more easily, which ends up causing some bad things for them but also causes a lot of good things too. Like she brings in Niko, who is the reason Charles and Edwin don't get separated after returning from Hell. And even her powers rely on being able to connect with her roots and her heritage and her self. The way that ties into themes of identity are very interesting as well.

TLDR: I really like way the story used Crystal and I'm excited to see where her story goes if there's a season 2.

#crystal palace #crystal palace surname von hoverkraft #dead boy detectives #my posts

[venomous-qwille]

hi qwille!!! I got questions for u! you have lots of characters planned out, and that’s super cool! but how do u usually go about that process? like all your characters are very unique, and I wonder about the design process, as well as how you make their personality distinct! how do you make character dynamics/relationships? because all the scenes I’ve read so far make the characters feel really organic, and mesh really well together! (sorry for all the questions! I’m super curious ^w^)

Hiya! Here is an answer I wrote for this question on discord recently ^^

I will try answer this as thoroughly as possible!

There was a LOT of kill your darlings involved in making characters for gitm. Originally I had a very long list of character ideas that I cut down and down based on the kind of things and themes they would give me the opportunity to write about. I love long ensemble cast stories, thinking back to ones I particularly enjoyed and the ways those characters gelled together helped me a lot. The most important thing when selecting characters was making sure they would give me something interesting to write about! I was also very keen on ones that let me explore the fics main theme of Family from a different angle. I'm not sure how helpful this all is! But yeah, I try to be pretty strict with myself about what I include. The only reason I would include two characters who were very very similar would be to emphasize a difference/divergence between them later on. Characters have to justify themselves by bringing something unique to the table, even if that thing is just a 'very different outlook on life' to the rest of the cast. Over time a lot of those character ideas became more fleshed out in my brain, and characters that were cut from the original shortlist made their way back in. They still have to be able to narratively justify themselves in order to earn a channel in the discord though!

For the gitm guys, while I dont have a literal sheet I fill out I do make sure to answer a couple of basic character work questions: What lie do they believe about themselves/the world? How does it impact the way they interact with others? What central theme do they embody most? What do they want more than anything else? How do they feel about humans? Who are they at their best and who are they at their worst? I found that by answering these sort of questions it helped me discover more about them, which creates more questions- rinse and repeat. The more questions I answered the further away they would get from each other in terms of similarities. The thing that really helped with the gitm boys, especially because their origins are so similar, was leaning in to how different their experiences were post-fazco. They are different people because the world has made them that way. Messing around with foils has been useful too! Characters are no fun in a vacuum, it's how they interact with others that makes them interesting. I like to create ones that will bring out the best and the worst in each other. I think about opposites a lot and I really like narrative symmetry- what lessons can the characters learn from each other? I find that stuff super exciting to read so I really wanted to include it. Some examples of character foils in gitm: Fool & Noon, Sombra & Sunspot, Misuta & Sol

When it comes to finding character voice, I do a lot of test drabbles (a couple of them are on this server), which I use to just fuck around until I find something that feels right. For instance- Sol was very very easy to find the voice of, where as Misuta took weeks of rewrites. Sometimes things take time. Spending this time figuring out their voices at the start really helps fic consistence in the long run, I think. Because of all that prep, I don't really have to do anything to 'get into character' when writing their dialogue (it's fairly second nature now).

In regards to coming up with a character's arc, I look at them and their themes and ask 'what the fuck happened to you, dude?' and then 'how has that entrenched a faulty world view on you?' 'what could you be driven to do because of that world view/misunderstanding?' 'what would it take to fix this world view/misunderstanding?' (the last question is the most important one!). Then voila, you have a very loose framework of a (hopepunk) character arc.

In regards to the actual planning of the fic/character arcs, I have a very big miro board (pic attached) that I use for all this! Most of the major character beats are marked out separately to plot beats etc etc. There are still a bunch of bits that only reside in my brain, but I do try to add them to my plan as soon as they become any kind of concrete. All of the characters also have a background chapter (or rather, a series of chapters that form a short story) attached to their arc, that will recontextualise everything you have learned about them so far! I am so deeply looking forward to dropping these (I already have quite a lot written).

I would say that- for your question on character relationships- the answer does come down to being really specific about what you include. Make sure characters are meaningfully different from eachother, give them goals and experiences that clash and then force them to live/work together in the same space. If you have put time into building your characters before that, then you just need to create opportunities for them to get into conflict and bring out the best/worst in eachother. I really do believe that characters are quite boring in a vacuum- which is why I put so much emphasis on including narrative foils ^^ Tyvm for the ask <3

#gitm au #ghost in the machine au #ghost in the machine #asks answered #fnaf dca #qwillewrites #qwillechatter

[eriexplosion]

So the main reason I think that TBB will have a reasonably happy ending is multifaceted but I think the biggest one is that a lot of the series it's compared to have entirely different focuses but only one requires minimum the majority of the characters to be alive.

It comes down to the central question of the work. Let's look at TCW - this one is super broad because it's essentially an anthology rather than an overarching narrative. It's literally just "what happens between attack of the clones and revenge of the sith." The only thing needed to bring it to a satisfactory close is to go up to the end of the clone wars and segue into ROTS. Which, as a tragic film, does necessitate a bit of a downer ending. But, the ending feels fulfilling even with the tragedy because it satisfies the central question.

Rogue One is much more narrow, how did the rebellion get the death star plans? The reason you can do a total cast annihilation in this one is because the central question isn't character focused at all, it's mission focused. As long as they move the mission forward, the characters dying doesn't make the ending less satisfying. The central question is answered.

So what's been TBB's central question? It hasn't been mission focused, it's not "how do we fight the Empire" and its not as broad as TCW's filling in a multi year gap between movies. It's asking "who are these clones if they're not soldiers" it's asking "how do you heal this family that's been broken by tragedy."

And killing off most of the main cast answers these questions as "nothing" and "You don't." It's like answering "what happened between these two movies" with 'nothing' or 'how did they get the death star plans with 'they didn't.' It negates the central question that we're introduced to, it would render the entire endeavor pointless. Why would we need three seasons to get Omega from 'alone' to 'still alone' why would we build up the desire for the family to heal just to say they never will? Why would we watch them go from broken to more broken to absolutely shattered in a trauma mill? It doesn't answer anything, it just trails off.

I don't even think that the question of how to heal the family can be satisfied if Tech is actually dead. MAYBE if we had more time we could soothe away the trauma of that and still resolve everything. Maybe if his loss was the only one that needed to be wrapped up and processed we could resolve that in the time we have left.

But needing to bring Crosshair home, bring Omega home, AND heal everyone from Tech's death in fifteen episodes that also require enough action to keep ten year old boys interested? Yeah, I don't think that's happening. I think the only way that this gets wrapped up in a way that actually holds to the themes of the show is an ending that has the family together, an ending that actually answers the questions we started with, one that said *they're not soldiers, they're family* and that the family is in fact capable of being healed.

#the bad batch #tbb speculation #idk idk i just can't doomsay about this one #maybe it'll all backfire on me but right now I'm an optimist #i do genuinely think it'll be okay #its almost 2 am so this might not be coherent

[flowering-thought]

I told myself "maybe this will be the last part!" Clearly I was wrong-

Now if you haven't played TOTK or at least gotten spoilers for the story I wouldn't recommend reading this. In Ganondorfs' story, I intended to carry out as much of the plot as I could to prepare for the next part of the ideas I have. Dw, there will be a happy ending! Eventually..

So welcome to part three! Sit back, relax, prepare for drama and a rise in obsessive behavior <3

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

WARNING - MINORS DNI

AFAB reader and reader is described as feminine and chubby/plus sized.

Yandere themes, spoilers for TOTK, slight imprisonment/isolation, violence, pregnancy, controlling behavior

Yandere Ganondorf x Archeologist Reader (part three)

Everything was perfect. You had grown so content being married to Ganondorf. He was so gentle with you and you loved seeing how warm he could be towards his people.

You knew that the other major village of the Gerudo was slightly sour about your union. After all, legends tell of a male being born every hundred years but they also have whispers about a curse of evil.

You were just glad that there hadn't seemed to be much fighting with the other major Gerudo village and that luckily everything seemed calm.

You loved bringing around your notebook, sketching the village's people and Ganondorf.

One morning he had asked about the scribbles in your notebook that accompanied your drawings and that may have been the catalyst for what was to come.

"These? They are my notes. My thought process is messy and unorganized at times and I don't like people being able to read my notes. It's like an inner look into my thoughts and it's scary to think someone can do that just by picking up a notebook of mine." You answered, returning to the notebook and looking up at your husband to continue sketching him. You loved how the light of dawn would look on his skin.

A part of him thought it was rational of you to create a code just for your notes. But the other part of him whispered and agonized his thoughts of what you could be hiding.

You only had three notebooks on the shelf in your shared room. The fourth you kept with you as it was still being written in as the days passed. He had never had an interest in them before but suddenly those thoughts of his made him anxious.

So one day when you were out roaming the village he picked up the first notebook and opened it. Sights of a village and tower with a large telescope sketched into its pages. And a young Hylian with an odd device around his waist appeared halfway through.

You then began to sketch through the travels, the monsters you saw, and the people you came across along the way, he saw many words repeated which he assumed to be names, and his brows furrowed at the frustration that came with not being able to decipher the code you created.

And then a misty forest scrawled through the pages, and a large tree with a kind face appeared. He thought there was no way such a thing could exist but then he saw the sword in the stone, and anxious characters drawn out in your notebook, small creatures gathered by the Hylian man that you accompanied on his adventures.

He noticed a map fall from the pages and noticed how different things were labeled in the usual Hylian text, including Gerudo Town. And a place called Kara Kara Bazaar. These places don't exist, so why would you create a false map? And the great plataue? And the kingdom of Hyrule in the middle of the central plains?

His heart raced as he looked through the pages, eventually going to the next notebook to look through the different sketches, needing to try and comprehend what your sketches were telling.

And midway through the second notebook he noticed you were celebrating Zeldas' return. As you sketched her and Hylian man that Ganondorf assumed to be reuniting.

And then tales of exploring caverns and different ruins, your sketches of places you got to see with Zelda and the Hylian man.

And the detailed sketch of a sword along with other writings.

And then came the third notebook. It was more details and sketches of people and what seemed to be plans of taking something back. And towards the end what seemed to be ominous clouds leaked out of a cave entrance.

And that was where the third ended.

He placed all notebooks back in their places, including the map into the first notebook.

He made it back to his study and shut the door, ordering everyone out. He sat on his chair and held his head in his hands, trying to understand the information he came across.

It was that moment when he started to watch you more closely as you wrote in your fourth notebook. He noticed you had a habit of mouthing the words you wrote.

You did it quite often at the end of the day when you would write whatever details you learned. But during the days when you were actively doing something you wrote without thought.

So he started to learn what you were mouthing, noticing each character you wrote and would write it down for later, figuring out each character and attempting to put it into everyday use so he could learn it a bit better.

And with that, he waited for another time when you would be out all day. He felt conflicted about sneaking around.

He wanted to ask you but at the same time, he couldn't handle it if you refused to tell him the truth.

And now he sat on the bed, your first notebook in his hands and he opened it up.

It took him a minute to slowly get the characters to line up in his mind and to apply it to the words but finally, he could figure it out.

He skipped to the midway section where the Hylian man showed up.

"One day I was headed up to the lab to see some man standing at the edge of the village where the lab is. Since the home my parents left me is in town I always stay there and make the trek upwards to the lab. Something doesn't feel right if I don't stay in my home. Like I'd be betraying my parents for leaving that home behind for another."

Ganondorf let himself breathe a bit, his mind berating him for thinking that something sinister could be going on. But he continued to read as he wanted to know more about you.

"The man told me his name was Link. He rarely talked but he at least told me his name! He mentioned something about needing to see Purah so I led him up to the lab. And that's where the commotion started. Turns out he's THAT Link!! The hero of Hyrule! The one that was a guard to Princess Zelda!"

"He held the Sheikah Slate on his belt too. And it was mind-boggling to know that he could travel with the use of it to other shrines that were dug up due to the calamity around 100 years ago. After some debate and worries about how Link will travel as he's lost his memories and everything, Purah let Link stay a night and told Link to stay with me for the night so she could adjust the machine that would update the Sheikah slate with some other features."

"She pulled me aside out of Links' view and asked me to accompany him on his journey. I thought it sounded ridiculous. I've never left Heteno Village. All my knowledge of the world was found in books and samples and everything I could get passed down by word of mouth as well. Wouldn't I just be deadweight to a well-trained soldier like Link?"

"But Purah told me that he's been asleep for a hundred years. That the Calamity took his memories and that waking in a world you hardly know is lonesome. And I understand that. To be lonely despite all these people claiming they know you. And for Link to be told he has to rescue someone he doesn't remember and to save a kingdom from Calamity despite not even remembering the kingdom itself."

"So I set out on the journey, assuring Link that when he would have to go after the four divine beasts I would stay behind and wait to not put any pressure on him to keep me safe."

Calamity? Divine beasts? What is happening? Ganondorfs' mind was spinning as he continued through the pages, your visits to the Zora and then the Rito, even the Gorons and the Gerudo people, a town with no men allowed and a girl he doesn't even know as chief.

He couldn't wrap his mind around it as he made it through the notebooks and then finally towards the end of the third notebook that details what you described as Gloom he decided he needed to get his hands on the fourth notebook.

Things were too much and he couldn't keep his anxiety at bay.

When you returned, you greeted him with a big smile, happily hugging him. "I've missed you so much recently! You seem so busy lately." You exclaim, happily sitting on his lap before leaving a kiss on his cheek.

He loved how affectionate you were, it nearly took away all his anxiety at that moment.

And his dark thoughts swayed and his intent to peak into your fourth notebook wavered.

You noticed his change in demeanor and looked up at him, you lifted your hands to hold his cheeks, forcing him to face you. You put your forehead against his and left a little butterfly kiss on his nose, "What's wrong Gan? You've been a bit off recently." you ask.

And how he wished he could just peer right into your mind without having to ask the questions he wanted to know. He wished he knew everything about you. Everything you weren't saying, every moment of your life he wished he had seen by your side.

And with that the question he had left his lips, "Who are you?" He asked, pulling away a bit to cup your cheek. He didn't have the heart to tell you he peaked into your notebooks and deciphered the code to them, he wanted to hear everything from your lips. You held his hand close as you looked into his eyes, trying to understand the meaning of his question.

He could see the frown form on your face and he could tell your mind was racing as the meaning of his question could only be one thing. He moved his thumb across your cheek as he waited for your mind to form words. "I'm the same person you met at the kingdom of Hyrule. I'm just..." He watched as you struggled to say the words you wanted to say, tears forming in your eyes as you leaned your head against his chest, "Please don't think I'm crazy. Don't leave me. Please listen without thinking of how bizarre this all sounds." You begged.

The sound of your voice when begging like that made his heart break. How your voice broke and how the tears rolled down your cheeks, he never wanted to see you in pain, so it was hard to hear. But he gave a hum of confirmation and you told him everything.

You told him you come from an Era where everything happening now is practically a legend of how the kingdom formed, that not much is known about this current Era, that something had happened while traveling and you grabbed Zelda before she fell into a cavern. And somehow she had taken you with her to the past.

He felt you weren't telling him everything. But at the time he understood why. It already sounded impossible to go to the past but the fact that Zelda is a descendant of the current King and Queen also explained the saying that Zelda was a distant relative.

You told him about Link and how he defeated the Calamity. And how you got to meet Zelda and how you were all trying to get the kingdom back on its legs for years until something started leaking out of the depths of Hyrule castle and infecting the people with illness.

But while you told him about the incident about falling and coming to the past, you didn't tell him about the mummy inside the depths. You didn't tell him that you suspected it was him. How could you? Nor did you tell him about the master sword, as a part of you wasn't sure how to explain it to him.

You had told him "everything", and he assured you that his love for you would not change. He held you until you fell asleep and tucked you in after some thinking on his part.

Just because his love for you would not change, doesn't mean he had any trust in others. He could tell you loved him. That you trusted him and believed in him and his capabilities to be a good leader. But he didn't trust anyone around you. If Zelda comes from the past she could figure out a way to bring you to the present again. To bring you back to your Era. He couldn't have that. And if Rauru and Sonia helped her get you back?

His mind raced and he reached for your fourth notebook. He needed to know the details you weren't telling him.

"Calamity Ganon has fallen and yet when we entered that cave and traveled to the past I felt just as stuck when Calamity Ganon was wreaking havoc. A mummy with long red hair and a hand that kept its power at bay. What could have happened? What could have caused such a thing to be underneath the castle? It doesn't make sense. So I'm going to research all I can about the Zonai while I'm here to figure everything out."

It detailed your time before Ganondorf had arrived at the castle. And then your first meeting.

"A Gerudo King called Ganondorf arrived today, a meeting for peace and prosperity. At first, I thought it was a coincidence. The name was all too familiar to a certain monster that plagued Hyrule for 100 years. And yet the mummy we saw bears a resemblance to him. Long red hair and piercing eyes. The jewelry it wore also looked similar."

"But how would such events occur? And he seemingly knew Link and Zelda! He talked about the master sword as well! But never called my name. Or did he even know I was there? Things aren't making sense and I'm afraid of what could happen. Yet I don't want to see the Gerudo suffer either. It seems as though his warriors admire him yet something about Ganondorf seems too ambitious to see exactly how much he is loved."

More entries later, he comes across your thoughts about marriage to him.

"Everyone is advising me to turn down the offer of marriage. I understand why. But I want to change things. Maybe I can stop whatever happens in the future now. While Ganondorf does bear a resemblance to the mummy in that cave and I can't confirm or deny anything, I have this urge to at least try. Plus the Gerudo people are suffering! I can understand the hatred in his heart when his people have to struggle in the desert when it seems as though the Hylian people don't suffer through the same trials they do."

He read it all and it clicked. He had to continue with his plan even if it meant upsetting you.

You wanted to change the future. You wanted to stay with him and keep him safe. You wanted him and also wanted to protect the people of this land. So shouldn't he try to change the future for you?

He needed that secret stone. With that he'd have enough power to make sure nothing could stop him, and that nothing could dare to get between you, not even Zelda or anything called time.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You awoke to the sight of an empty bed. It's odd because Ganondorf is always by your side with a smile on his face. After the conversation last night, your eyes were slightly puffy and you had a small headache.

Not to mention you felt sick to your stomach.

As much as you wanted to lay in bed and laze around you had the feeling you'd need to find Ganondorf and talk more about the future. You wanted to assure him that even if Zelda found a way back you wouldn't go. That you'd stay with him.

So you got up and got dressed, you looked around for Inesa, as normally she would come to wake you and Ganondorf up if you both were having a lazy morning. But she wasn't anywhere to be found.

You walked to the doors of your bedroom, reaching for the handle only to find that the door wouldn't open.

Your eyes widened and your heart began to race, you tried to keep calm but something in you felt as though something was wrong so you began to push on the doors, trying hard to get out but nothing was happening.

"Your majesty?" a voice came from the other side of the door and the doors opened, two guards on each side and Inesa stood in the middle.

"Inesa? Why is the door being held closed? Has something happened?" You asked, your heart beating far too loud in your ear for your liking.

Inseam glanced at the guards before leading you back into the bedroom. The guards closed the door behind you two, and she sat you down on your bed. "His Majesty has decided to visit the King and Queen of Hyrule. He set out before dawn, so I suspect he's already made it by now." She stated, her eyes showing concern as she watched your features to see how you'd respond.

You quickly got up, Inesa had already started on about how there was nothing to worry about but you couldn't hear her, you searched your bedside table for your most recent notebook only to find it missing. You then quickly searched the shelves and your first notebook. You found the map but it wasn't in the place where you had put it. You put it at the end of the notebook. You did that because it had significance and yet it was in the pages near the middle.

You felt even more sick now. Your head was pounding and you could feel your heart beating uncontrollably. You felt nauseous but also dizzy, reaching out to hold yourself up against your desk but you couldn't find the strength.

Inesa watched you faint, barely managing to catch your head before you hit the ground. She hurriedly called the guards and demanded one of them to bring a healer.

Somehow you had pieced together what Ganondorf was doing and Inesa was hoping you wouldn't. She was ordered to keep you in the bedroom and lie to you, yet somehow she couldn't bring herself to lie. She should have lied so you wouldn't be in such distress.

After you fainted you found yourself waking up on the bed, Inesa and an older Gerudo woman who you had seen healing the wounded before sitting by your side.

Inesa glanced at your face and smiled upon realizing you were awake.

"Oh thank the goddess you're awake. The healer said it was due to stress that you collapsed." She said, holding your hand gently in her own before the healer stood up to feel your head and check your pulse.

"You really need to keep yourself calm, it's not good to be too stressed out, especially in your condition." She stated.

You sat up carefully and looked to your side, looking at the older woman with curiosity written all over your features. "Ah I'm assuming you didn't know? Well it's still early I doubt even the morning sickness has started yet." She said, looking over your features once more before nodding as though confirming to herself once more.

"You're with child little vai. Considering the whole palace and many of the people in the village know of the loud and passionate nights that you and his majesty share its no wonder you've already fallen pregnant. Thought it's good for a man to not be able to keep his hands off his wife no?" She stated.

She left some herbs on your desk and instructed Inesa on how to prepare them for you as it might be better for you to take extra care of your body for the coming months.

You sat there in shock, your hand going to your belly as you hunched over and tried not to cry.

What were you going to do? Ganondorf was undoubtedly going to do something you couldn't stop, something you didn't even know the plans about. You wanted to stop what was going to happen in that cave but what if you caused it?

And now you were with his child? You felt sick. But you also knew you needed to warn Zelda. Ganondorf was probably trying to look for something inside Hyrule castle under the guise of wanting to ensure peace. But you needed to somehow get out of the palace without anyone noticing.

You couldn't even fathom how to get out. You stood up and looked out the windows to Gerudo Canyon. You'd have to make it through there as fast as you could or else there'd be no chance.

As you glance over the palace and at the stables, wondering about how to quickly make your way without running into anyone. But as you looked out the window and took your time to think as night fell and the stars came out, you could see a sudden beam of red light in the distance, the clouds in that section turning a red hue as the same dark light that emitted from the caverns of Hyrule castle had shown themselves for the first time in this Era.

Your heart dropped as you watched, knowing that it had finally happened. You had no choice but to run. Something horrible was going to happen.

You gathered a few clothes and shoved them in a bag, bringing your notebooks as they were the start of this mess. You would need to burn them when you get the chance.

You'd have to escape early morning so you waited, listening by the door for when the guards would go on break or have a change in shift. And when you finally heard the telltale signs of the guards leaving you tested to see if the door would open and smiled when they did.

You quickly made your way through the halls, hiding in rooms or behind pillars if you heard or saw anyone before they saw you. And when you finally made it to the throne room of the palace where the grand entrance to the village sat, you nearly collapsed at the sight of Ganondorf standing there, a secret stone embedded in his forehead and a frown on his features as though he was waiting for you.

"I hoped it wouldn't happen but a part of me knew you wouldn't be happy with the sudden changes." He claimed, approaching you carefully. Your hands tightened on the strap of your bag, taking a step back.

"What have you done Ganondorf?" You asked, your voice wavering. He only shook his head at your stubborn actions, keeping still so you wouldn't try to run past him yet.

"I did what I had to do my love. They would have taken you from me. They would have used the power of their secret stones to trap me away. And you and I would never get to meet again. I won't allow what happens to happen. So isn't it obvious I need to destroy and rebuild so none of what happened in your time will never come to pass." He stated, saying those words as though it was a necessity.

You felt sick, your hand coming down to your stomach as you thought of who he could have killed. It couldn't be Zelda, right? But who on earth did he?

You felt dizzy as you leaned against the wall for support, keeping your other hand out as a way to try and keep Ganondorf away.

He was surprised at your sudden state. He knew the news would shock you but not to this extent. It wasn't until Inesa happened upon the scene and quickly came to your aid.

"Your majesty! What are you doing up? You only collapsed yesterday you need to rest." She scolded. She noticed the tension but her main concern was your health. Tears filled your eyes as your knees gave out, your hand covering your lips as you struggled to stifle the sobs your throat wanted to scream.

Inesa may hold fear towards Ganondorf but she didn't want to see you like this so she stood up between you two, holding her arm out as though to shield you, "Your majesty, please understand that I mean no disrespect but her majesty collapsed yesterday you see. She is under a lot of stress and it isn't good especially considering her condition. Please permit me to escort her back to her quarters.".

Ganondorf didn't want some maid getting in the way of talking to you, but he could see how your shoulders shook and how much you mourned and so he allowed it, watching as you were gently led away to the bedroom.

He called over another maid, asking to bring the healer to him. He had no doubt that if you collapsed the healer would know about your condition.

And when not even fifteen minutes later Ganondorf came barreling through your bedroom doors with worry and excitement you knew it would be impossible to escape.

You watched as he drew closer to the bed, kneeling next to where you lay and putting his hand over your stomach.

You wanted to forget. A part of yourself wanted to live not knowing of what Ganondorf had done and just bury yourself into his arms. But you couldn't. You couldn't live in foolish ignorance like that.

You turned your head away from him, trying to think of other ways you could get out of his grasp. You needed to make sure Zelda was alright, you needed to help in any way you could.

Ganondorf felt hurt but held back, knowing that you could get even more upset due to the state you were in. So he merely relished in how you allowed him to be by your side and he hoped that in the coming months that you would be in a more fragile state he would get you to love him as he took care of you.

But unfortunate for some, one maid who still held the sight of you holding back sobs would overcome her fear of the very King she served.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈���┈┈┈

Inesa took the time to watch for a week of the new schedules the guards were put on and how Ganondorf acted around you.

She watched as you struggled to look at him and how at night you would wander your bedroom, pacing back and forth as you looked to Gerudo Canyon, past its vast mountains, and to the plateau where another kingdom lie.

So she kept watch and one night when Ganondorf was rushed with planning and preparation to take down the kingdom of Hyrule she woke you up, watching as you sat up and looked at her curiously.

"Come. I'm going to get you out of here." She claimed, a bag already packed of your things and clothes, another with hers and rations to keep you both satisfied through the trip.

You gave her a look of worry, not expecting Inesa to help you as you thought she would always follow Ganondorfs' rules and conditions. But you shook your worried thoughts from your head and nodded, taking her hand as you both began to run through the palace, finally coming to the stables where the horses and sand seals lay.

She got the horse ready and you thought for a moment before you started undoing all the stable locks, setting the horses and sand seals free so it would take a bit longer for them to realize what horse was missing and also cause enough chaos to let you leave.

Inesa held you in front of her on the horse and informed you that you would be taking a different route than usual, not wanting to get caught yet.

She went as fast as she could watching over your features to check for discomfort. And luckily you managed to keep mostly calm as you and Inesa rode through Gerudo Canyon.

And when you had finally made it out of the canyon you told Inesa to go elsewhere, to the temple you knew as the forgotten temple was undoubtedly the place they would go in times of war and tragedy.

It took extra time to get there, and you constantly worried about the chance of Ganondorf catching you. The fear of what he would do not only to Inesa but to hyrule stuck in your mind.

But as you reached the temple, the sight of Mineru speaking with one of the sages made you tear up, Mineru was surprised by your approach, her eyes sorrowful as she opened her arms. You quickly jumped off the horse, ignoring Inesas' worries, and leaped into Minerus' arms, crying as suddenly Zelda came into the picture.

Zelda looked just as sad until she saw you, quickly taking you into her arms before glaring at Inesa.

But you assured that without Inesa you wouldn't have been able to escape.

And after making sure you were okay, eventually, you were told that Sonia was dead.

The news saddened you more than you thought, a feeling of shock and despair running into you like waves. You couldn't help but sob at the revelation, which eventually led to her grave where a sundelion lay.

You came across Rauru and apologized, his sorrow written all over his features as he embraced you, glad that at least you were safe.

And then the planning of a fight began.

But as things were revealed and intentions laid bare, Ganondorf had nearly destroyed the palace, his rage uncontrollable at the fact you were gone.

How could you? How could you leave him? He knew you wanted peace, but peace was something foolish! He needed to destroy this world and create it anew. He wanted it for you and himself and the new life growing within you born from the love that you and he shared.

With a world where only someone as strong as him could keep you safe and sound, keep you fed and healthy and protected. Where only those who shared his ideals would thrive.

And yet one maid ruined it by bringing you out of his reach.

His anger knew no bounds as he finally prepared for another battle. He'd kill that foolish King and Zelda that could take you away. He'd make you realize you only had him. That you will stay by his side and love him just as you did when you cried and begged him to not call you crazy at the confession of where you came from.

And so a drawn-out battle began, many Gerudo villages falling and many citizens of Hyrule falling in the crossfire. It had only been two weeks and Ganondorf was proving that his power was far too strong and overwhelming.

You tried to think of ways to get him off gaurd, or to persuade him! But you kept having doubts and worries, and finally, when a battle was agreed upon in the depths of the central plains, you overheard the conversation between Rauru and Zelda.

The confirmation of Ganondorf as the man they found in the cave and the worry of what would happen to Rauru and the sages.

Upon hearing the conversation you couldn't help but feel like you were at fault. But another part of you wondered if such a thing was fate? That time was rewound but perhaps it was destined to happen?

That maybe the goddess Hylia gave us this chance to change the outcome of the future hoping that Link could overcome Ganondorf.

You followed Zelda to the final battle, knowing that you were nothing but a hindrance as you could not fight you stayed at the back of the army, helping tend to wounded soldiers and hoping that the rest could manage to fend off Ganondorf.

But something felt off. You couldn't shake off the feeling that something was about to happen. Your intuition was screaming at you to run, to warn Zelda and the rest.

So you did want any fool would do, you ran down the steps leading to the depths, running as fast as you could without the risk of falling, finding that the sages and Rauru were at their limit you screamed-

"Ganondorf!". The single use of his name was enough for him to turn around, and without a second thought the sages hurled their weapons at the Demon King. He brushed them off with annoyance, Zelda using her power of time to make them rush back at him before he lost his temper.

"I've seen this all before! And now-" He shouted, expecting Rauru at his front but unexpectedly Rauru appeared below him, just out of sight to deal a blow to his gut, Rauru's power and third eye unleashed then and there, overwhelming the Demon King.

"You bind my heart and steal my magic? You plan to hold me here like a fool to solve your problems... But are you ready to pay the price for this?"

Rauru smirked, determination lacing his tone, "Don't be so smug, I know exactly what it will cost me.".

You held your hands together, the sorrow of realizing what was happening as the scene in front of you unfolded. Zelda crying out Raurus' name, you couldn't move, stuck in place as you watched history unfold.

Ganondorf laughed, a large smile etched on his face, "Thousands of years will pass in the blink of an eye. You'll only delay the inevitable.".

But Rauru's brows furrowed and he stood his ground, "Years from now someone will appear with the sword that seals the darkness. A swordsman with the power to defeat you - Link."

"Remember this name."

Ganondorfs' eyes widened at the familiar name, his interest peaked at everyone's confidence in a mere Hylian.

Ganondorf was reminded of your journey with him and smiled, "Interesting... I look forward to meeting him..." He groaned out, struggling as he was finally sealed.

The light of his power dimmed and his body frozen in time, all his power taken. And Rauru's eyes dimmed, his final action as the founding King of Hyrule settled as his life was taken only to seal Ganondorf away.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You and Zelda remained at the temple of time. You weren't sure what was to happen next, both you and Zelda mourning and comforting each other inside the temple.

You held your hand over your stomach, your heart aching at all the events that unfolded.

It was likely you would never see Ganondorf or Link and Purah, or let your child know the joys of the things you wanted them to know of the home you grew up in or the journey you went on.

You felt lost.

You and Zelda were in the temple of time when Zelda acted strange. You watched as she started going to the alter outside, as though being called by something.

"Zelda? What's happening what are you doing?" You asked, following her to the alter which glowed with the familiar light you saw only once when you and Zelda were brought back in time.

You watched as Zelda put her hands out, sensing something you couldn't as time turned before your eyes, and suddenly the decayed form of the master sword appeared in her hands.

You came close, startled by the sudden sight of the sword. That must mean that Link is okay! You smiled at the sight of the sword but Zelda looked solemn, something clicked in her mind that you didn't know.

"I know why I am here." Zelda claimed, her features full of determination.

She told you to stay there in the temple of time, quickly rushing off to who knows. But you stayed still, glancing at the altar before putting your hand down on the stone.

It was warm from the sun. You wondered why the master sword was sent back in time, why Zelda suddenly seemed so sure of what was to come.

Within the next day Zelda returned, you had slept inside the temple, sure that Zelda would return soon.

She laid the master sword on the altar and held the Purah pad in her hands, entrusting the item to a part of Mineru's spirit and then handing it to a helper construct.

You couldn't understand what was happening. Zelda had told you to stand at the front where the sword lay, telling you she was going to restore the master sword but she never told you how.

You watched as she stood in front of the sword, you staying by her side in front of the hilt of the blade.

"Link.. I will restore the master sword for you. I will care for it until the time comes. I will pour my power into it and it will be the weapon that defeats the Demon King." She stated.

You watched as she took the secret stone from her necklace, anxiety pooling inside your stomach at the sudden action.

You didn't understand until she spoke again, "You must..."

And suddenly she swallowed the stone, you took a step back, and the memory of Mineru discussing dragonification entered your mind, you covered your hand over your mouth in shock.

The skies turned grey and Zelda's power showed itself, the light coming off of her body enough to blind you, her power enhanced and she grasped the master sword before turning to you, a sorrowful look in her eyes as she pushed you, your back facing the ledge as you were pushed off, the similar light that enveloped you and brought you to this Era wrapped you once again.

And then you understood. To recover the master sword.. To send you back to warn Link.. Just before Zelda loses herself due to the overwhelming power and eternal life that would heal the master sword, she sent you back with the sudden enhancement of her power due to eating the secret stone.

Your body disappeared into a whirl of light and Zelda held the sword in a hug, looking to the sky, "Link! Protect them all!".

Those words you heard as time turned forward, tears spilling as your consciousness once again faded.

In the center of Lookout landing, among the newly appointed four sages and Link who discussed entering Hyrule castle with Purah, a sudden flash of light appeared, the familiar light made Link run.

While he knew it wasn't Zelda by the figure he still ran, catching you before you hit the ground. Your familiar sleeping face, your eyes slightly puffy still, and unfamiliar garbs.

Link was just glad to see one of you alive and held you close, his brows furrowed as he hugged you and then brought you to a place where you could rest inside of lookout landing.

Entering Hyrule Castle with the four sages would have to wait. He had to see what was going on first, as the tears and memories he picked up were yet to be complete.

He watched your sleeping figure and let out a small sigh, looking out the window of Purahs' room in Lookout landing and wondering where could Zelda be...

#yandere x reader #yandere x darling #yandere male #yandere male x reader #chubby reader #yandere totk #yandere totk x reader #yandere tears of the kingdom #yandere loz #yandere legend of zelda #yandere ganondorf x reader #yandere ganondorf #ganondorf x reader

[comradekatara]

if someone in the main cast besides aang were to be born the avatar, who would you want it to be? i think toph with access to all elements would be an unstoppable menace, but i’m curious to hear your thoughts

okay so obviously AUs that entertain an avatar during atla besides aang himself clearly have no interest in upholding the fundamental themes of the show, since aang is the only possible avatar/central figure of this show. it is explicitly structured in such a way that aang’s protagonism is no sheer coincidence or accident (ie, it’s good writing). so when entertaining who would make for a compelling avatar in an AU, we also must entertain how such a figure would necessarily shift the themes of the narrative, and whether such a transformation would be interesting.

1) katara wouldn’t be interesting, because her narrative role is too proximate to aang’s to change the themes of the show in any significant way, and even though seeing katara as the avatar would undoubtedly be cool as fuck, we already have korra, who is basically like if katara was the avatar (personality and skill-wise at least) and she is, indeed, cool as fuck. so not katara.

2) zuko is also proximate to aang, and his role as the avatar would be relatively similar to his role in the show already—unlearning the dogmas of his nation to align himself with justice and balance through learning the techniques of multiple elements. it is literally not different in any way.

3) toph would be extremely powerful of course, but she is already extremely powerful, so nothing much would change. her parents would attempt to restrict her, she would escape, travel the world, hone her craft, and defeat ozai. not very interesting.

4) suki would similarly not be interesting. she is an extremely diligent and talented warrior, so she would simply train and defeat ozai with no real obstacles in her way.

5) iroh as avatar also wouldn’t change much imo. azulon would see it as a blessing and wield him as a weapon in much the same way he does in the show. iroh’s failure and betrayal would maybe put a slightly bitter target on his back, but his emotional journey would be much the same.

that leaves 6) azula, 7) sokka, 8) mai and ty lee (yue and jet would also make for pretty interesting avatars, but you did say “main cast,” and we don’t have all day besides). they would make for interesting avatar AUs specifically because this role reversal necessitates a reversal of the show’s core themes.

6) avatar azula. she finds out as a child (perhaps ursa is there with her, perhaps she dies with azula’s secret), and is urged (by her desperate, terrified mother) to secrecy. no one, especially not her father, can know of her burden. she hones her firebending in broad daylight, and trains her other elements under the cover of darkness. her waterbending is more powerful under a full moon. her earthbending is so precise she can use it to pick a single flower from the garden without disturbing the feng shui. but despite ostensibly being her secondary element, her airbending still needs work (here is where she and korra happen to converge). then, one day, her precarious existence experiences a seismic shift—her older brother has been banished, and his task is singular and seemingly impossible: capture the avatar and return them to the palace in chains.

for all of zuko’s flaws, he is relentlessly stubborn, and azula knows that he will not rest until his task is completed. of course if she remains in the palace, zuko will never be able to find her or return home, but she cannot take that chance because she knows that iroh can sense what—who—she is. so she runs away. elegantly, of course. she puts it in ozai’s head that he needs to send her away for a special mission only she can complete, that will take an indefinite amount of time to accomplish. and she leaves the palace under ozai’s authority, disguises her identity, seeks out as many masters as she can find to train her, and plans her coup. she is able to recognize how palpable her fear of ozai truly is, because she has been hiding from him her whole life. and she knows that the only way to stop hiding is to defeat him. as you can see, this version proves a very different story, with different themes, different characters, and a vastly different ending. and so it compels me.

7) avatar sokka. sokka finds out he is a bender after katara finds out that she can waterbend, and after she is nearly killed for it, their mother in her place, and so he keeps quiet. especially because he first finds out he is a bender by lighting a fire in his palm. once all the men leave for war, sokka goes to the farthest outskirts of their land, under the guise of hunting, and trains with his firebending every day (of course he does also hunt. his village needs food after all). one day, while attempting a new firebending move, he launches himself ten feet in the air. and that’s how he discovers that he is also an airbender. as if being a firebender wasn’t enough of a hideous curse, he’s also the avatar. what a cruel joke life is.

one day, a fire nation ship docks in their village, and a scarred young soldier demands to know the whereabouts of the avatar. sokka clumsily fights him with his spear, his club, his boomerang. but when zuko attempts to burn him to a crisp, nothing happens. the flames merely dissipate inches away from his skin. then, in a moment of sheer desperation, sokka airbends him and his retinue back, all the way into the freezing waters of the south pole. of course, freezing waters are not enough to kill a firebender, but he’s also somewhat concussed by sokka’s boomerang, so iroh insists that zuko recover in his chambers until morning. zuko insists that he just found the avatar and has no time for recovery, but iroh claims that without his health he will never capture the avatar, and promptly locks him in his room.

sokka says a hasty goodbye to katara and kanna and makes his escape on a boat with enough supplies to last him until kyoshi island. of course katara somehow manages to stow aboard, which doesn’t surprise sokka in the slightest. after her initial shock wears down, she’s just like “so were you ever going to tell me you were the avatar???” and sokka’s like “uhhhhhh eventually…” they make it to kyoshi island, seconds away from being fed to the unagi until sokka reveals his true identity. zuko tracks them down to kyoshi island and sokka and katara are given a stronger boat and more provisions with which to escape.

since katara wants to go to the north pole, and katara always gets her way, that’s where they head, except sokka insists that he should at least find an earthbender while they traverse the massive continent before reaching the north pole. katara’s like “noo it has to be in order of the cycle!!” but sokka’s like “fuck that i’ll take what i can get.” he finds jeong jeong, and even though jeong jeong calls him an oaf, he turns out to be a pretty good student. he fears fire and values discipline, which is all jeong jeong really asks for. by some pure happenstance (because sokka and toph will always find each other) they find the perfect teacher in gaoling. she escapes with them as they head to the north pole, but once they arrive her feet are freezing and she’s forced to wear boots, at which point sokka agrees to carry her everywhere. then he meets yue and accidentally drops her.

pakku agrees to train sokka but refuses to train katara. at first sokka’s like “well it’s fine because you can learn from master yagoda how to heal and i’ll learn how to fight and then we can swap notes,” but he quickly realizes that this is a bad plan because they refuse to listen to each other, so instead he just demands that pakku teach katara. pakku is obstinate, so katara fights him, at which point he realizes that she’s kanna’s granddaughter so problem solved i guess. sokka also learns healing from yagoda, because having the ability to heal and not exercising it is silly. during the siege of the north, sokka goes to the spirit oasis to attempt to ask the spirits for aid, but the only times he’s ever been to the spirit world have been when the spirits allowed it, and as it turns out, he’s really bad at meditating. which is for the best, because it means he’s prepared for zuko’s attack, and he and katara work together to stop him. they don’t kill him, but only because yue is looking at him with fear and it makes him hesitate. then before they can stop him, zhao kills tui and yue sacrifices herself, and sokka turns into a giant spirit koi and goes apeshit in his grief.

sokka, katara, and toph decide to trust a general who will help sokka harness the power of the avatar state to defeat the firelord. sokka is all for it. he’s like “yeah i’ll be used as a weapon and kill as many people as it takes to end the war.” he’s fine with this. it’s his duty as avatar after all. so the war ends quicker than in the show. he finds a map of the fire nation, toph helps him enter the palace through a secret tunnel (cue the song), and alone he enters ozai’s throne room and fights him. he doesn’t even need to enter the avatar state to kill him. he just uses the waterbending techniques he picked up from yagoda to reach into his chest and explode his heart. sokka uses his influence as avatar and firelord-killer to end the war and navigate all the complicated postwar politics.

the end.

see? it’s not as good.

but there are still some elements that make this version compelling. for one thing, sokka would have to interact with the spirit world. a lot. and he wouldn’t be happy about it. he doesn’t like that they pose questions that don’t have answers. and so he decides to wield his power as a tool for war, rather than against it. he wields his cultural influence to exert control over the world. a story where sokka is avatar (and with no aang to temper him and make him laugh) is necessarily a story as cynical as sokka is. but if that’s what you want, then there’s no better candidate. (also, he'd come up with some really creative bending techniques, and that would be pretty interesting.)

(however, if that is really what you want, just read the kyoshi and/or yangchen novels. they’re basically just worlds populated with sokkas.)

8) finally, mai and ty lee’s stories as the avatar would be much the same, so it doesn’t matter which. they are both enlisted to join azula’s small, elite team to return zuko home in dishonor, and to capture the avatar. so they must hide in the lion’s den, obscuring their identity from those they keep closest. their world is already one of dual loyalties and secrets; what’s one more? mai and/or ty lee only reveal their true powers at the boiling rock, to keep the other safe. together, they defeat all the guards holding them back, go into the avatar state to reach the cliffside before azula’s airship departs to the western air temple. azula is outraged, shocked, and hurt. ty lee somehow talks sokka into letting them hitch a ride back, and that’s how mai and ty lee join team avatar. of course, one of them is actually the avatar, so that’s not what their team is named in this scenario. although it gets named that after they join. and mai and/or ty lee defeats ozai. the end.

this version is a version that, like azula’s, specifically explores the costs of lying and keeping your identity hidden. it is similar of course to their actual narrative, while also exacerbating the impact of aang’s initial introduction, but the stakes necessarily become even higher, and the story becomes focalized on their internal struggles in a way the show never truly did. so to any mai and/or ty lee fans, it’s compelling on those grounds alone.

in conclusion, even the more compelling alternate characters—exploring deception, secret identities, ruthless violence, and spiritual conundrums—do not actually make for more interesting protagonists than aang. i would say that azula definitely comes closest to being the most compelling alternate avatar, with sokka, mai, and ty lee being compelling insofar as it presents opportunities for their internality and cynicism to be explored. jet would also be pretty interesting thematically, but you know i hate his vibes. and yue’s narrative would completely reshape the story, so that could be compelling as well. but ultimately, aang needs to be the avatar for the story to work, and even in azula’s case, as a fascinating replacement figure, her original role in aang’s story is fascinating enough. without aang in the central role, the show just isn’t as good.

#ecothroat #asks #the gaang and #AUs #azula #sokka #(mostly) #had to put most of it under the cut because i started rambling for way too long #even though the short answer here is simply: no. aang must be the avatar #that was a lot of words to dismiss the question entirely huh?

[luna-rainbow]

Thanks for your answer for the last ask.

What is wrong with the writers of the new MCU material? Do they just hate Bucky, especially the writer of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier (he's NOT the Winter Soldier anymore!)? Did Bucky kick their cat or something? This hatred and victim blaming is not justified! "Oh Bucky's just a cray-cray psycho killing machine with cool metal arm but probably belongs in a padded cell. Lol he says he had no choice such a lame excuse..."

Soo…I don’t know if people still remember the rumours from back in 2021 and I don’t know how much of it is true, but my guess at it is this: there were supposed to be two main writers on the series. Spellman was supposed to take Sam’s story, while the other guy wrote Bucky’s story. For whatever reason, the other guy quit before he finished, and didn’t give the writing team enough time to put things together.

From a story craft point of view, Bucky’s story in TFATWS reeks of first-draft-ism. It’s a scattered plot of events that don’t quite string together, and a self-contradictory characterisation that hasn’t yet been smoothed over (but was made a little more believable by Sebastian’s efforts). You can tell some central character themes had been planted in the first draft — the PTSD, the guilt, the messy way he’s trying to relearn how to interact with people (Yori, Sam and later the Wakandans), the struggle with breaking free of his past. These were all strong, interesting character beats for Bucky to work through, and it honestly could have been a good story. And I think that’s when the original writer bailed.

When Spellman picked up this draft, he was pressed for time, he hadn’t watched CATWS and he never thought he’d needed to know about Bucky’s story, so he reads TheMovieSpoiler summary of the movie and tries to piece the rest of the story together. But Bucky’s not his priority nor his interest. There’s already beats of the story that were planned and have to be there for IP reasons. So beyond what was already in the first draft as mentioned above, Bucky is made to be the fall guy to make the rest of the plot happen. Zemo’s release — well we can’t make Sam help break out the criminal that killed an African king so we’ll make Bucky do it, who cares if it makes no sense for his character. The counselling session — the show’s few moments of levity, doesn’t matter that it makes no sense but hey, forced homoeroticism is hilarious, isn’t it? The Wakandan three-way fight — I may be remembering this wrong but I think Skogland said it was one of the first scenes that she had planned for. That fight had to happen, and again Bucky was made to provoke the Wakandans to the point Seb had to step in and say, almost literally, “he would not fucking say that” to make them wind back the animosity between Bucky and Ayo. Sam’s suit — oh no we can’t have Sam asking for it himself that would be too egocentric, we also can’t have Wakandans offering because well, not like the plot actually made Sam a strong ally for Wakanda, so we get Bucky asking for Sam’s suit to be made minutes after he fixes his mistake of releasing Zemo. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense if it’s Bucky doing it, cos I really think by this stage Spellman didn’t give a shit about a character that wasn’t supposed to be his responsibility in the first place. It’s like when you’re doing group project and your teammate bails on you, you’re gonna do just enough to get that pass but you ain’t putting in the effort for a distinction cos just looking at the unfinished work is pissing you off. So then Bucky also becomes the token white male who pushes all the wrong buttons during the few token racism scenes cos we gotta make Walker have some redeemable qualities and he’s already a dick so we can’t make him racist too.

So instead of having a thoughtful story about a veteran trying to grapple with his guilt and PTSD and lack of agency and making some mistakes along the way, you get a weird disjointed plot of some guy…with some bad dreams…who randomly does things for no good personal reason…who gets made the butt of the joke for the stuff he’s experienced cos he’s got a metal arm and super soldier serum how hard could it have been he just needs to go and apologise for killing people while simultaneously having multiple poignant scenes portraying his lack of agency.

Every writer who tells you “a hero is only as interesting as the villain” just secretly wants to write a simpable villain. And when that writer isn’t very skilled, you get the disaster of TFATWS where a lot of effort is spent on making Zemo funny and personable, and Walker nuanced and sympathetic, instead of making either of the titular heroes funny or personable or nuanced or sympathetic. And yeah, I really don’t think Spellman ever cared enough about Bucky to want to make him sympathetic…or a hero. Remember when he said Bucky pulling open the van door was the first time Bucky has ever been a hero? Fuck right off with that.

#bucky barnes #tfatws critical #asks

[hephaestiions]

author reclist: wolfpants

over the last few months, i've been devouring @wolfpants' works. ever since reading pages of you in two days, their rendering of harry, draco and a vast array of incredibly compelling side characters have irrevocably hooked me.

wolf is an author in enthralling motion. their fics often feature places, temporalities and contexts far removed from where canon holds & leaves us, while simultaneously being tenderly familiar, like coming home. wolf's sense of & grasp over setting leaves me breathless and dumbstruck. their different spatialities inform & infuse character in admirable ways, at various levels of craft, enjoyment and inspiration. this fandom knows and loves the draco and harry they give us, but we delight in discovering new dimensions & aspects of these characters. it's always done brilliantly believably, especially in the framework of the worlds they construct— a breath of fresh air in a forest where the trees still know your name.

wolf's works also demonstrate, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, a really significant political sensibility. most of their fics are set against backdrops tight with political tension bleeding into the characters' circumstances and interpersonal dynamics. whether through a spectrality haunting the narrative or the crucial central diegetic thread, wolf's works are layered, interrogating and collapsing delineations among private, public and political, between history and contemporaneity and between narrative and commentary.

in the interests of length & theme of this list, i've specifically selected some fics that, for me, showcase wolf's mastery & playfulness with setting, understood as deviations in place, time and universe. the broader recommendation is, of course, to check out everything wolf has ever written!

nightcall (E, 1k) ft. a long distance phone call

On a top secret Unspeakable misson, Harry calls Draco from a remote phone booth on the Isle of Skye.

a stunning portrait of desire, longing and familiarity that uses distance as a device to intensify every element. it's unbelievable how much character & context 1k words of (mostly) smut can pack in. the slivers of backstory demand your investment, inform the dynamic in crucial ways and set up some delicious stakes and tension. and some absolutely fantastic dirty talk. see also: @getawayfox's gorgeous art for this fic!

long haul (E, 8.6k) ft. plane rides, mile high club, nyc

The last person Harry expects to run into on a long haul flight to New York City is Draco Malfoy.

the way wolf writes movement— between places, between people— strokes its way up your spine, warms you, walks with you. draco and harry, buoyed in the air, let preconceived notions fall away, to be replaced by startlingly rapid and exquisite intimacy. the liminal settings, specifically, allow mature, open-minded, desirous characterisation & some of the most glorious, soft, tender sex to fall into like a warm bed.

look for me in the sun (M, 8.7k) ft. americana, roadtrip/on-the-run vibes

Harry and Draco are on the run in America after a mysterious string of werewolf-like attacks in the Muggle community causes the Ministry to impose new and harsh anti-werewolf legislation.

atmospheric writing dialled up to eleven, like the smell of ozone in the air before a thunderstorm. the sense of limbo— transience, out of place and time, the complication of home— that afflicts the circumstances of draco & harry here is heart-wrenching. a taut rumination on otherness in a variety of ways, rendered through some of the most tense and subtle writing i've encountered.

under giant mountains (E, 33.7k) ft. norwegian dragon reserves & rampant escapist tendencies

Harry doesn't know where he's going. Everyone else has their life paths figured out; he doesn't even know where his map is. Who'd have thought Draco Malfoy bathing in a Norwegian forest would be the guidepost Harry needed?

opens with harry, stuck in the same place for far too long, and draco, avoiding fixity like the plague. this fic looks at both stagnation and escapism as iterations of each other & treats them with the gentlest empathy. the norwegian dragon reserve setting, whose visuality wolf's writing captures beautifully, becomes the canvas to explore both. desire, here, was simultaneously so evident from the outset and took its time to build— longing tinged every interaction & payoff, in the form of a sequence of some of the most emotionally fraught sex scenes i've ever read, was that much sweeter.

romp and circumstance (E, 35k) ft. a historical au set in the 1800s, regency era england

Since the war, Harry Potter has gone from Saviour to Scoundrel—not that he’s complaining. With a schedule full of gorgeous men, alcohol, and late nights, why would he want to change? Enter Draco Malfoy: beautiful, sharp, and completely untouchable. When Draco comes to Harry with a proposition to help him attract an engagement, Harry’s up for it—after all, how hard can it be not falling for his former nemesis? Very hard, apparently.

the very first wolf fic i read, in a brief little fandom interlude back in 2022. i remember thinking, then, what an author, i'm really missing out these days. one of my favourite post-war harry characterisations— raucous, promiscuous, messy and at heart, a hopeless romantic. also one of my favourite draco characterisations— pristine, a little uptight, cool and distant and untouchable, except what he really wants is to be unbuttoned, messed up. the transforming sentiments of their relationship were so compelling, the build of harry's feelings was perfectly achey and tender and this draco was a complex, nuanced, frightfully sexy version that i just couldn't turn away from.

pages of you (E, 101k) ft. a 1980s non-magical au

Summer, 1980. Harry is floating between university and becoming a Real Certified Adult. He's not ready. He really isn't. In a desperate attempt to have the Best Last Summer ever, he takes a casual job at his godfather's bookshop in London, starts an illicit pen pal affair with a wordy posh boy that he's catching feelings for, all while dealing with the son of Sirius's business rival, one Draco Malfoy, insufferable know-it-all extraordinaire.

gosh, what a fic. sensitive and sprawling, this work brings the spatialities of london, sirius and remus' queer comfort of a bookshop and harry's room at the residence halls to pulsing, colourful, splendid life. i can still close my eyes and imagine the spaces this fic occurs in, how important they are to the push and pull, ups and downs of the dynamic between harry and draco. a coming-of-age/sexual awakening & exploration story, summer romance and queer political fiction rolled into one, this is a fic that's hard to summarise and easy to obsess over. perfect characterisations, writing that burrows into your soul and a plot that unfolds with the slow and steady depth of gentle lake.

and lastly, a fic that's on my tbr:

terrible people (E, 52.7k) ft. cruises, beach holidays and more of @getawayfox's masterpieces

What happens when Harry and Draco end up on the same Muggle gay cruise? They certainly didn't plan for it to happen (but their friends might have). They're stuck with each other for a week, they might as well make the most of it, right?

in conclusion: vivid, descriptive, immersive storytelling from an author who understands the intricacies of different narrative elements and leverages them masterfully. can't wait to read the works i haven't, and for everything wolf writes in the future!

#wolfpants #drarry rec list #geets recs #drarry fic #drarry fanfic #drarry recs #draco malfoy #harry james potter #hpdm fanfic #hpdm #draco x harry

[the-eeveekins]

Why The Witch From Mercury is Important to Me

This will be a long, somewhat rambling and mostly personal thread. It's not about the show's quality or any issues I had about it (and YES, the show is flawed and has issues), but about why G-Witch's characters and themes were important to me and I think many others. Most of this I've already shared to a degree, but I wanted to expand my original thoughts, and put them all into one post.

I've been a Gundam fan for over 20 years, I got into the series with Wing on Toonami and have watched the vast majority of the animated series. As a woman, I longed for the day Gundam would have a female main character in the spotlight of a major show, but honestly at some point I'd given up on it. I just thought that if they hadn't done it by now, they never would.

Then, last March, they released this short 30 second trailer revealing The Witch From Mercury, and showing off Suletta and Aerial, and I was ecstatic! Finally, a female MC in a Gundam series, I was so excited for a new Gundam series for the first time since 00! I watched that short clip countless times over the months in anticipation of the series airing, I even grew addicted to the little song that plays during it.

Over time, the characters and key art were revealed and I saw some people float the idea that maybe Suletta and Miorine would be love interests. I didn't pay it any mind at the time. I was sure they'd milk their relationship for bait along the way, but there was no way they'd commit to Gundam's first female MC being gay. Even after the first episode aired I was still skeptical: There was the bait I was expecting, they're not seriously going to go through with it though.

And here we are, almost 10 months after G-Witch started airing, and Suletta & Miorine are married. It not only wasn't bait, but they committed to it in a way I never would have imagined coming from a franchise I loved like Gundam. It was done with care and respect for the characters, it didn't feel like it was exploitative or added just for fanservice, but was a very real relationship.

I'll admit, I was initially among those disappointed we didn't see a kiss or the wedding at the end, but my greatest fear was the ending would be as ambiguous as possible, or even worse, walk back what we'd seen, so as not to offend people. Instead we got the sister-in-law line, the matching wedding rings, how close they were and they way they looked at each other with love and talking about going home together. We didn't see them kiss or see the wedding, but we got to see them married, and I think that's incredible.

As a gay woman, and a Gundam fan of over 20 years, Suletta is an immensely important character to me. Suletta and Miorine's relationship, and it being a central focus of the story, is immensely important to me. They're things I dreamed of having in Gundam, but never really thought would ever happen. I've been so happy about them for a long time now, but these last two days I've been so unbelievably happy that I was given their story. I love them so much and I'm never going to forget these two.

And this ties into why I think G-Witch has been important to so many people, regardless of how they feel about it's quality, because of it's representation and themes. Suletta, the main character of the show, is a queer, neurodivergent, disabled woman of color. She was well written, and she got to have a happy ending married to the woman she loves, where she's thriving and happy despite her mobility. She's not treated with pity or remorse, and she's still pursuing her dreams of making a school.

And not just Suletta, there were so many characters belonging to different minority groups that got strong representation and happy, satisfying endings. If you're a woman, if you're queer, if you're a POC, if you're any sort of ND, if you're disabled, The Witch From Mercury not only gave you good representation, but also said you're deserving of love, empathy and happiness.

With regard to it's themes, I absolutely love how G-Witch stressed love, empathy, compassion, acceptance and forgiveness over hate, vengeance, punishment and karma. Suletta and Miorine made many mistakes during their journey that they could never take back, but they accepted each other, including their mistakes, and resolved to move on together and makes amends for them if possible. Suletta never got mad at Miorine, Prospera or Eri for the things they did to her and she never blamed them, all she did was understand and accept why they did the things they did, and move forward with her love for them. She accepts the people she loves, mistakes and all, because of her unrelenting love and compassion for them.

Even Prospera, the main antagonist, ultimately rejected revenge for the sake of saving her daughter. She was a less than stellar parent to Suletta, and her actions lead to a heavy death toll, but ultimately Suletta accepted her and her actions to save Eri. And rather than go for an easy karmic death, she was allowed to have a happy ending: Eri was saved, and she's living a peaceful life with her family. A life that was robbed from her 24 years prior.

And ultimately, those themes are why we had an ending where literally no one died, and nearly every character got to have a happy ending. Gundam has always said that violence is bad, but The Witch From Mercury was the first to say "Alright, then we'll solve the problem without violence." We got a big magic spell that was a Gundam Pride Parade in space, and combined with Miorine's actions, events were resolved peacefully.

That's why G-Witch is important to me. It gave me and many others representation in ways you almost never get from a major franchise like Gundam, and without feeling like it was doing it to just check boxes off on some executive's diversity list. It stressed themes of love, empathy and acceptance and rejected hate, revenge, karma and even death. And I think that's incredibly important in this day and age. Representation Matters. Love Matters.

I've been very emotional over this show the last two days because I've been loving it for a while now, and while I'm sad to see it end, I'm so grateful that it happened, flaws and all. I've been crying on and off since the last episode ended and I've had trouble sleeping, but I've been so unbelievably happy over what this one show did and how much it's meant to me. The characters may not be real, but the happiness Suletta & Miorine have brought me is very much real.

For me; Suletta, Miorine, and The Witch From Mercury were truly a blessing.

#gundam the witch from mercury #g witch #the witch from mercury #sulemio #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #Youtube

[milkytheholy1]

It's my favourite colour

Request: I don’t really know if your ask box isnopen so I really hope it is.

could I maybe ask for a rise Donnie x reader (female is preferable but Gender neutral is alright with me) where the reader’s favorite color is purple and she always wears it. Then one day she’s sitting in the lab with Donnie when he can’t stop staring and eventually the reader makes a joke like: “what? You wanna kiss me or smth?” And he just takes it seriously and nods.

I dunno. Brain doing brain things.

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

The lair was oddly quiet to say it was so close to the weekend, while the two days off didn't really mean anything to the turtles, it meant a lot to you and April. Those two days would give you a break from school and work, allowing you to chill out at home and in the lair with the boys.

Speaking of which, you couldn't see any of the turtle brothers as you entered their underground home, which was weird, to say the least. Your black detective coat hung around your form, protecting your insides from the cold blizzards up above. The edges of the coat swayed romantically as you stalked around the lair; assuming the teens to be pulling another prank on you.

However, no prank came. They were simply nowhere in sight, not even Splinter or Draxum were around. But the tell-tale sound of machine parts roaring in the distance alerted you to where one turtle could be; your favourite turtle too. You skipped towards Donnie's lab, you had actually been meaning to talk to the turtle, you drastically needed someone to reread your English paper and Donnie was just the guy.

Walking into the wide metal doors, the smell of oil and burnt iron invaded your senses. Over in the corner of the room, with his shell facing towards you, was Donnie. 

"Hey, D." you beamed, already giddy by his presence. You strolled up to his side, watching as he tinkered with parts you couldn't even name, "Greetings," was all he said. You looked around the expansive lab, searching for something specific in mind, "If you're looking for your chair, it's over by Shelldon." Donnie stated, not even looking away from his project. 

You blushed, he knew you so well or were you just becoming predictable. Patting Shelldon's lifeless head, you picked the chair up, knowing better than to drag it across the floor. Once it was perched not too closely to Donnie's side, you shimmied off your coat and draped it across the back of your seat. 

Donnie gave you a side eye, studying yet another purple outfit. Did you know how much you were killing him by wearing his colour? Did you even know what it was doing to him? You had been wearing purple all week, coming down in extremely fashionable outfits that all followed the central theme of purple.

It's like you were playing some game, a very sick and sadistic little game. But Donnie couldn't help to swoon over your accidental actions too, well he assumed they were accidental. He knew you shared a similar interest in the colour purple, but at the same time, he never knew one person besides himself could own this much purple fabric.

"What're you looking at?" you mumbled, dusting off some lingering fur that lined the inside of your coat. Donnie stuttered, flailing the small drill in his hands around, "N-nothing, absolutely nothing!" You quirked a brow at his behaviour, you know someone doesn't just stare at you if they didn't have anything to say.

"Oh, ok." Donnie relented, he placed down the drill, still trying to act aloof, "You- you look good in purple, I've seen you around the lair wearing that colour, my colour, all week." you remained quiet, unsure what this meant. Was Donnie trying to make a move on you or monopolise the colour purple?

"W- thank you, I think purple looks good on you too." you hummed, priding yourself on seeing his cheeks deepen in colour. It was like Donnie had been shot by Cupid's arrow, his eyelids had drooped, his smile had become wobbly and his sighs became louder. He was totally, utterly, stupidly in love with you. 

"What?" you threw out a nervous giggle, your own cheeks turning rosy at the look he was giving you; full of care and warmth. You pulled at the sleeves of your shirt, fingers fumbling to distract the onslaught of nerves that took over your mind, "You wanna kiss me or something?" it was meant to be a joke, something to pull you away from the glistening pool in his eyes.

But when Donnie just nodded along, completely at ease with the reality of the situation, you felt your brain stutter. With wide eyes, you pointed a shaking finger at yourself, "Wait, really? With me?" you questioned. Donnie held back a laugh, but the notorious smirk he was known for graced his lips, "I believe I do, w-would you like to do...that with me?"

He wished he could have said something sweeter than that, but thoughts about feelings and actually feeling feelings weren't really his thing; not that he really tried to make it his thing either. 

Fortunately, you recreated his previous actions and shook your head rapidly. Donnie's dopey grin grew larger in size, his cheeks stinging with just how much he was smiling. You both leant forward, perhaps too eager as you hit your foreheads together. But with the awkward laugh aside, you eventually melted into each other with ease. 

"Hey, D, we're bac- WHOA!" Leon gasped, the pizza box in his hands dropped to the floor, "Oh ho hooo," he began laughing, not really caring that this was a very private moment for his brainiac twin brother. Donnie yelled at him, throwing random nuts and bolts until Leo fled the scene. Though he did poke his head back in to deliver one more line, "If you dress up in blue all week will you kiss me too?"

"LEO!"

#fandom #fan #fanfiction #fanfic #tmnt #rottmnt #rottmnt donnie x reader #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #donnie tmnt #tmnt donatello x reader #tmnt donnie x reader #tmnt donnie #tmnt donatello

[rooksamoris]

I just read your thoughts about Scarabia and Leona's arc development in game, and I got very interested.

There's very little info on Arabian culture online, at least that I've seen, and also African. A thing that makes me very curious is about their mythologies, folklore, and also music. We know a lot about food, since it's something so universal, but the rest is hard to get info on, unless it gets popularized or romanticized by someone else.

The scarabia arc is one of my favorites for a reason, and that is because I'm very sympathetic with Jamil, and very sad how his and Kalim's story together got so "twisted" so fast (ehe). Honestly there are so many layers to it that it would take many many chapters, and events, to close the situation. But I think it's good they left the future open like that, since it's something that can't be fixed overnight.

And also, *gets down* PLS PLS PLS PLS 🙏 I love the fluffy fics, are you going to also add Bolllywood songs? They are so good seriously it's so dancing and fun! I love Jamil so much and I MELTED with the headcanon short fic where we are taking care of him. I wanna hold his precious handsome face and just kiss it all over! He is so cute I will go FERAL-

hey qamar 💕 this was a pleasure to read! honestly, i feel like both the scarabia and savannaclaw chapters were too short? of course, we were introduced to the themes and then the whole conflict—resolution mountain for stories, however i just feel like they could have done more with the both of them.

also, i think the reason why the southwest-asian and african themes aren’t covered is because the source material is literally disney films 💀 like we get a warning before rewatching aladdin since they just now realized it was kind of racist (still a major part of my childhood though 😭 “a whole new world” in arabic is delicious). based on how yana has written other characters that are meant to be from south asia, there’s a big chance it would have been disappointing anyways.

plus, with scarabia in particular, there’s too many cultures trying to be represented due to how colonizers deemed all of the countries to be the same thing in different fonts 💀 you’d never confuse a nepali with an omani, but winston churchill sure did not care.

the original aladdin movie was meant to take place in baghdad, a city in iraq, but due to political conflicts at the time (george bush a war criminal regardless of saddam hussein’s crimes. the usa literally gave saddam weapons to kill kurds and then turned around and invaded when he wasn’t convenient anymore 💀). baghdad became agrabah—but the culture is still an amalgamation of west asian, south asian, north african, and like eurasian/turkish culture. im sure they’ve got stuff from central asia too 😭

the issue with this is that from ethnic group to ethnic group/country to country, the culture varies a lot. yemenis and palestinians are both arabs, but our cultures are vastly different, with yemenis having more eastern african influences and palestinians having mediterranean influences. i personally headcanon the scarabia duo as arab, but honestly, they could be from anywhere. for all we know, kalim is afghan and jamil is tunisian—it’s all up in the air due to the original source material. but i digress!! i rambled a lot 😭

ON THE BOLLYWOOD NOTE! omg this brought so many good memories back. we used to watch bollywood films with shitty arabic dubs 🥹 i miss those days. i love that idea and ive always wanted to write bollywood inspired fics, like based on the crazy and unrealistic romantic moments in bollywood. it’s just so much fun lmao. honestly, i think that’s a great idea especially when so many bollywood songs just lead the listener through a story anyways. im so glad you enjoy my fics!!! that’s very sweet 💕 have a great day, qamar, and take care of yourself

#🩷 — chats with amora #🌷 — politics #🧞‍♀️ — genie bottle asks #twisted wonderland #jamil viper #kalim al asim #orientalism #disneys aladdin #iraq #george bush is a war criminal #if the icc mattered he’d be on trial #twst x reader #jamil viper x reader #bollywood inspired fics 😭 my dream

[rebornrosess]

going to be terrifyingly sincere about greg for a moment here sorry but the dynamics between greg, logan & ewan are so fascinating to me and even if they can’t explicitly explore it anymore due to obvious reasons, this one short sequence from the funeral is soo catered to me specifically. even in death, logan overshadows ewan in greg’s eyes. and yet greg didn’t need to tell ewan that he gave a good speech. he could’ve given him the cold shoulder after he cost him his deal with roman. but he doesn’t. and either greg is in too deep that he doesn’t realize what ewan said about logan closing men’s hearts and feeding the dark, hard, mean, hard-relenting flame in them (that melts their wax wings in the end) was most likely pointedly directed at him (thus proving his point)—or maybe greg did a little bit. he still goes to mencken at the wake but he still tells his grandpa he did a good job. it was a good hard take that he gave.

i think of this a lot but something that truly sets him apart from everyone else is that HE’S at the intersection of the brothers’ decade old feud over family, betrayal, ambition, integrity, and greed—central themes of the show but also, crucially, to his arc over the last few seasons. he has that dual connection to the past that the others don’t. a past that has stayed nebulous for so long until ewan’s eulogy. in previous seasons, we’ve gotten some really interesting scenes with him in which ewan sees the danger of power and ambition for greg because he’s seen it in logan, but it would have been so interesting to explore it more between greg and logan too (like in 2x08 when greg tells logan ewan is cutting him out of the will. i like you greg). i do think that ewan’s point about logan and masculinity and meagerness in his eulogy is particularly relevant though. maybe ewan was saying “men” in the way old history books use “man” as the default, but the performance of masculinity at ATN is one best embodied by tom, which trickles down to greg, but is evidently shown in roman too. and he fed a certain kind of meagerness in men. perhaps he had to. because he had a meagerness about him. (and maybe i do about me too. i don’t know. i try. i try.) i selfishly wish greg and logan could have had more than just one scene together this season (even though logan attempting to emasculate greg by pointing out his lack of a traditionally masculine father figure as a final interaction is very funny). i don’t think my threshold for second-hand embarrassment could have survived an on-camera take of greg trying to explain the whole rummaging situation from ep.1 to logan but logan being oddly chill about it is. interesting???????? what greg wants, greg must have.

but before s4 at least, logan’s awareness of greg’s connection to ewan, his estranged brother, has informed their interactions and it’s always fascinated me because logan doesn’t quite treat greg like his own kid but he’s still a kid that he’s trying to win over by being “uncle fun” rather than “grandpa grumps.” logan last saw his mother at age 4 and greg has been on his own for some time now too. marianne made her first appearance since the PILOT in the before last episode of the fourth season. i’ve found his interactions with ewan reaaally interesting because the brothers didn’t come from wealth and, when compared to the siblings, greg didn’t either. the hirsch’s financial situation is never fully delved into but i’ve always found it a bit peculiar given greg’s inheritance is like. 250 mil he’s sleeping in a youth hostel and a chapel in s1 and tells his mom while on his flip phone that shiv took his last $20. at the beginning of s3 he’s helping his mom get a new credit card because she maxed out the last one. i feel like ewan did the celebrity parents thing where they don’t spoil their kids so they learn real world skills or something, which iirc is something logan regrets not doing. yet ewan also seems to regret his use of his wealth, which he voices in his eulogy when he states maybe he has a meagerness about himself too, but he tries, and is disappointed in men who do not try harder (and the camera pans to the siblings. ouch.) i sometimes wonder if ewan hadn’t withheld his wealth, would his daughter and grandson have become so desperate that they turned to his brother? or would they have turned out like the siblings too if they had enjoyed wealth since birth? are the throes of capitalism inevitable? marianne is the sibs’ first cousin but they never really acknowledge that. if anyone has thoughts on her absence and/or exclusion from the family tree, i’d love to hear them.

anyways. i could 100% be overanalyzing this but i do love how much information succession packs into each of their shots. greg will forever be seeking approval from both sides of a broken brotherhood and will never receive it from either. you beautiful ichabod crane fuck you. what greg wants, greg must have. i don’t want to see you hurt. one big happy family. “greg?” he’s an addendum of miscellaneous matters in pencil with a question mark.

#is this anything #i finally finished this draft that has been sitting in my drafts for weeks #sorry for being sincere about greg but it will happen again #i can make him interesting #he's a mishapen egg. not a full roy but not spared from fate either #greg hirsch #succession #media analysis #maya.txt

[39oa]

have you ever asked yourself: “hey, wouldn’t it be nice if i could quickly browse all the special warm-up jerseys that nhl teams have worn in collaboration with local or independent artists?” the answer to this is probably no so Don’t answer that, but... if you were ever to randomly stumble upon this train of thought, you would now be able to do so @ nhlwarmups.github.io! 

i created this website out of personal interest and an enduring love for beautiful jersey designs; i love art in all forms and really just love looking at it, so in my inability to find an existing project that fulfilled my desire of browsing through all these jerseys in a centralized location i somehow... singlehandedly motivated myself to take on the task? LOL but otherwise i also wanted to make this database because... well, i feel like even though a lot of league-wide inclusion initiatives ultimately rely on/benefit teams’ commercial interests, and even though it feels like there’s recently been an overabundance of dialogue re: player action or inaction, theme-night dissent and sociocultural pressure, the culminating breaking points of bisected fandom, etc.... art still kind of matters! to me, to the designers, to real people who attend games and who coordinate events and who run media platforms and do what small facets of work can still be done.

Anyway. this site itself is sort of meaningless and doesn’t really accomplish much at the end of the day, but i guess i wanted to (try to) refocus the concept of a “warm-up jersey” back on the people who actually create them, and ultimately to reattach the positive components of theme nights in a way that felt slightly tangible and concrete. the site itself isn’t very complicated so hopefully it’s fairly self-navigable, but some quick notes on content and functionality:

as of april 4, 2023, this database displays 82 special jerseys from 21 different nhl teams

i’ve currently only included special jerseys designed with a highlighted artist in my set. that is, while some teams have worn different pride/heritage night/etc. jerseys with either stock-template designs or artwork otherwise created in-house, those jerseys weren’t logged unless an artist was specifically named. for example, the penguins pride jersey from 2022-23 isn’t included but the ducks lunar new year jersey (which was created by a ducks graphic designer) from 2022-23 is.

there are different sidebar options to help quickly search for a specific type or style of jersey: you can sort by team/event/date and filter by category/team/season/base color

lastly, clicking on one of the preview cards will bring you to a details page with additional information on each jersey, including social media links to support the artist, notes on charity benefits, an image gallery of the design, and embedded tweets highlighting the artist when available:

that’s basically it! this was a labor of love so i tried my best to not make the entire experience a functional piece of garbage, but at the end of the day i am Just Some Guy and i never know what i’m doing so please lmk if anything is super wonky. and also if your team has a past design that fits the criteria but i missed it :)

#Is This Anything (← guy who only does completely useless things) #idk but it did force me to learn javascript so there's that #hockey stuff #code #*m

[kradogsrats]

A Song of Love and Loyalty (and Loss): General Miyana

So thanks to @raayllum I have been thinking about Miyana. Miyana is a very interesting figure in the cast of a story where the central conflict is shaped around what an individual will do for the sake of love, whether to themselves, to others, or to the world—because Miyana, in her initial arc, is characterized by what she won't do for love. She's very much a facet of the same theme, but in a way that people are liable to find unsympathetic: she doesn't support Karim when he's relatively harmless, to the point that could be considered a betrayal of him, but then she does when doing so means doing serious harm in a definite betrayal of "the good guys."

But I love a complicated woman, so why not do a deep dive on the motivations, story arcs, and thematic future of a character most of the fanbase probably can't name and most of the rest likely hate?

So What is Miyana's Deal?

Miyana is one of the "Six Horns," the best and most respected of the Sunfire generals, named for the six horns of Sol Regem. The Six Horns, as at least part of their duties, form a tribunal that is is implied to be the highest level of Sunfire justice. Their role appears to be determining innocence or guilt, and the sentencing is left up to the monarch—however, they are also powerful enough to completely displace the monarch if they unite in intent to do so.

In their role as judges, the Six Horns adopt ceremonial regalia that hides their emotions and gives at least a symbolic curtain to their identities, creating a sense of impartiality... but it does not appear to be any kind of secret who they are. Miyana is still one of the Six Horns when out of "uniform," and she and her colleagues freely mingle and discuss things among themselves.

From her role, we can assume that Miyana is smart, politically astute, likely good at reading both people and situations, and has demonstrated loyalty to the Sunfire kingdom (... empire?). It's difficult to tell whether being a warrior is also part of her skillset, because she doesn't demonstrate any combat ability or inclination in her appearances—ex. she does not walk around armed. The "general" title would seem to imply some amount of combat experience, especially with our one other "general" example being Amaya, an extremely hands-on commander. However, given the intertwining of government and military there appears to be in Sunfire elf culture, the position is more strategic and advisory in nature than front-line combatant.

Miyana and Karim: a Secret vs. a Symbol

Miyana and Prince Karim are engaged in a romantic relationship that is secret... but also not particularly subtle, at least on his part.

When Karim bursts into Miyana's... office? Quarters? Whatever, she's the one who is disturbed and slams the door behind him. He doesn't really appear to give much of a shit.

This makes sense, because Miyana is the one with something to lose if their relationship gets out. She's meant to be an impartial judge, even against the monarch—an entanglement with the royal family significantly compromises her. Presumably, if she wanted to be with Karim openly, she could relinquish her position... but she does not, either because she doesn't want to, or because Karim doesn't want to make things official.

Speaking of...

Karim, somewhat hilariously, suggests to Janai that she keep Amaya as a permanent consort, rather than officially marry her and have that marriage be a "symbol" of what he perceives as the beginning of the end for Sunfire power and culture. This suggests that it could be Karim who insists on maintaining secrecy over his and Miyana's relationship, assuming he feels the same way about making sure his own eventual marriage is appropriately symbolic for his people.

Personally, given the way Karim behaves, I think it's Miyana who isn't willing to abandon being one of the Six Horns for him—whether because of the power and status it affords her, or because she values being in a position where her service to her people has a strong impact, or because it took her a fucking long time to climb the ladder. Who knows.

But basically, Karim? Not subtle:

Look at this guy, he might as well have literal heart eyes. He also doesn't avoid openly socializing with her:

Not to mention that they have matching earrings, for fuck's sake.

Anyway, he doesn't even respond to Miyana's concern about them being seen together when he barges into her space. He's not exactly behaving as if he's committed to the secrecy.

Season 4 Arc: Gently Convincing Your Royal Boyfriend that He's an Idiot

Miyana is introduced in the s4 Sunfire arc when it pivots toward Karim moving directly against Janai. Immediately after being dissatisfied by the result of Lucia's trial and Janai revealing the Sun Seed to him, Karim meets with Miyana and their relationship is revealed to the viewers. She does appear before that, with Karim (the three previous screenshots are from before that point), but this is where they are formally connected.

This scene, immediately before Karim tells her that he has seen "the truth" that Janai must be removed, is the last time we see Miyana smile until the end of s5. She spends the entire rest of the season going through various stages of concern and doubt about Karim's... frankly unhinged plans.

She questions him at basically every turn, but never goes so far as to say outright that what he's proposing is a bad idea. She acknowledges that the others of the Six Horns might be sympathetic to his take on Janai's direction, but more than once cautions him that she does not believe they will be willing to turn against her.

So how does she really feel? Karim certainly implies that he sees her as his "woman on the inside," secretly feeding him information on the Six Horns and influencing them in his favor, in turn. There's a cut segment that has been referenced in interviews in which Karim cautions Miyana that she must not be the first to vote in his favor, because that will possibly reveal their relationship—which, while he may be thinking about her preference for secrecy, would also kind of invalidate the entire vote.

Miyana, on the other hand, expresses a lot of concern for Karim. She's very worried that he's misjudged the situation and will fail—possibly because she knows she cannot rescue him if he's wrong. And she doesn't, even when he cries out to her, specifically:

I bet that was real fun for her to try to explain. It's possible she could have helped him more after the fact if he hadn't implicated her that way, but it's also entirely possible there's nothing she could do—the monarch, after all, is the one who sentences the guilty.

Even if Miyana is 100% behind Karim's vision for the future of the Sunfire people, at no point does she appear to agree with the way he's pursuing it, and in the end she refuses to go down with him. (Contrast with, say, Sarai... who firmly expresses her disapproval to Harrow about his approach, but then backs him 100% with action.)

Season 5 Arc: Can You Even Trust Yourself?

Miyana does not appear a single time in s5 until she reports Kim'dael's infiltration of the camp to Janai. At this point, Janai entrusts her with concealing and protecting the Sun Seed.

This is an interesting exchange, since on Janai's end it indicates that she and Miyana probably don't know each other well. Janai at least suspects what they are facing, based on the description of "a ghost"—if she suspects that it's Kim'dael specifically, she would be aware that the only person who could have sent her is Karim. It's not clear whether some of Miyana's involvement with Karim might have come out after s4, but even if it did, it was probably brushed off because she didn't stand with him in his ill-judged coup.

Also, like... what does Janai expect her to say? "No"? This isn't really a question—Janai has decided that, absent other immediate options, she can trust Miyana as a member of the Six Horns to safeguard the future of their people. She's indicating to Miyana that she is being given an incredibly important, secret responsibility.

And personally, I fully believe that Miyana thinks she is being 100% truthful in her answer. I don't think she's been sitting around waiting for the perfect moment to run off to Karim—she loved him, and still loves him, but she chose being able to continue having a role in shaping her people's future over throwing away everything for him. She has no idea where he is or what he's doing. He's gone. Exiled. No longer a factor.

So what changes? The ransom demand:

Karim sends Pharos with a message that says, simply:

He has Janai.

He wants the Sun Seed in exchange for her life.

He wants Miyana to come to him with it.

For Miyana herself, this potentially changes everything, because what she's hearing is:

Karim is alive.

He is still fighting for his vision, and has gathered allies powerful enough to overcome Janai.

He has some kind of plan requiring the Sun Seed, which likely plays to his actual strengths (he's a mage, the Sun Seed is a powerful magical artifact).

He wants her at his side.

Personally, if I was her, I'd be at least a little worried that he wants her as the delivery person so he can punish her for her betrayal of him... but he's also such an unbelievably soft boy that I can see why that might not cross her mind. Like, his reaction to seeing "Miyana" riding toward him is unrestrained joy and affirmation that his belief in her was correct—if anything, what he's expecting here is that Miyana will convince the others of the Six Horns to agree to his demands, thereby getting him the Sun Seed and reuniting them.

Miyana, for her part, is now in a position to significantly shift the balance of power. She still loves Karim, and she presumably still believes in his direction for the future. She can bring him the Sun Seed. She can bring him her segment of the Sunfire army. Both of those will significantly weaken Janai's position, while putting Karim much closer to success. Unlike Karim's s4 plan, this is a good bet. This is worth throwing away what she has, in favor of something she could gain.

Removing the Mask: Miyana's Final Turn (So Far)

Bear with me for a moment, because we're going to briefly circle back to s4 and Miyana's position as one of the Six Horns. Throughout s4, there is demonstrable tension between her role and her relationship with Karim, for both of them:

Each of them, in a private moment, contemplates the mask she wears as tribunal judge—a symbol of what keeps them apart. Both of them know that this is her central choice, between her love for him and the duty (loyalty?) to her people that she won't let go. Karim, poor fool that he is, thinks that those will never come in conflict. Miyana spends all of s4 knowing that they will. Maybe even knowing what her choice will be.

In Amaya's deception to rescue Janai, she puts on Miyana's clothing and mask, pretending to be her in order to get close to Karim. Karim completely falls for this, and thereby suffers a second emotional betrayal from the "General Miyana of the Six Horns" mask.

He's so happy that his faith in her wasn't misplaced, and then he gets literally hit in the face with it:

So that sucks for him. However, when Miyana ultimately returns to him, she has stripped all aspects of her Six Horns role, wearing neither her tribunal mask/robe nor her usual fancy tunic and adornments (what Janai was wearing):

She professes her loyalty to Karim having only the most basic layer of her personas: the bottom-layer red tunic and pants that go under both outfits. She has, it is implied, completely discarded the position that previously held her back from Karim.

She also claims that her loyalty has never wavered (debatable), and equates her loyalty to Karim with her love for him, also unwavering (probably true).

This, the moment when Karim receives her (after literally starting to cry), is the first time she smiles again. She continues to smile through the end of the sequence, revealing to him both the Sun Seed and the army she has brought. She appears to have zero conflict about this—she has shed it all with the shell of her identity as one of the Six Horns.

So What Does This Mean for the Future?

Miyana has explicitly equated her love for and her loyalty to Karim. And what is love, in this series, but something to be tested?

Even having stripped away all the aspects of her dedication to her people that are related to the Sunfire mainstream rather than Karim's rebellion, Miyana is still going to have to reckon with whether Karim's vision is the future she wants and whether she can support how far he may go for it. She has handed Karim, and by extension Pharavos, a great deal of both magical and martial power. When Karim's ambitions collide with Aaravos's, he will almost certainly double down—accepting what Aaravos offers and/or foolishly believing he can somehow come out on top.

Miyana is the only one of this trio who is potentially even a little clear-eyed, though she could absolutely be blinded by love. She may follow Karim to the bitter end and self-destruction. She may try to save him. She may try to save others from him. She may realize she can only save herself.

Of the characters with close relationships that carry this loyalty/love tension of loving someone but not necessarily being able to support their decisions and actions, we have:

Soren, who was unable to continue following Viren's downward spiral and instead chose loyalty to his king. His father may be a lost cause, but he still believes he can save his sister.

Terry, who has been left by Claudia with the aggressive guilt that she has robbed herself of his support because she believes he will eventually abandon her, and has several directions he could go: doubling down on his loyalty to Claudia and aggressively following her descent, prioritizing his love for Claudia and focusing on finding a way to save her, or he might cut his losses and fuck off completely (unlikely).

Lissa, whose precise situation we don't know the details of, but who left behind everything she loved and never looked back (or was never allowed to).

While I'm sure whatever resolution they write for Miyana will be fine (*grits teeth*), at this time I think the best one for her would be a Lissa-style ending. Janai's path may lead to the end of Sunfire history, as Karim put it, but his path will lead to the end of their future. Miyana will eventually recognize that, and that like in s4, she can't save him from himself. However, this time she has already irrevocably cast aside her former position—leaving Karim also means giving up her chance (or perception of her chance) to be someone who actively shapes and safeguards her people's future. If she returns to Janai, she faces exile at best. Might as well skip the painful part of that and just... go. But in having given up her complex loyalty to Janai, and finally separating her loyalty to Karim from her love for him, she's left with an opening where loyalty to herself and her own principles can blossom.

#the dragon prince #miyana #karim #janai #sunfire elves #did she seize my interest JUST because i suddenly thought 'oh she's like lissa?" SHUT UP DON'T LOOK AT ME

[eriexplosion]

So. I think Omega is force sensitive with the potential to be trained because otherwise why even bring it up? And I think that it will be relevant that the boys now, and especially Hunter, now know that when she doesn't.

But I don't think that we're actually going to see Omega leave to get trained. I think she'll consider it. She might even decide to do it. But I think in the end she'll choose to stay with the Batch. Look at the rest of the show - its all been about sticking through tough times with your community, loyalty and belonging with your family, the efforts to bring the batch back together.

Specifically I'm thinking of Tribe too. Gungi was our last featured force sensitive character, and he gets returned to Kashyyyk because "Jedi or not, he's still a child. He needs his people." We get that line from the elder, "When a young one leaves the trees weep, but when they return the trees sing." It doesn't sound like a show that eventually plans to have Omega leave her family that she's tried so hard to stay with.

(And isn't it interesting with that quote that the tree Ventress sends her to is the "weeping" maya tree?)

Much like the first two seasons push to reunite the family fall flat if Tech is dead for good and we never see the family together, Omega leaving in the end would utterly obliterate most of the central theme that the first two seasons spent all that time setting up. It turns from a family fighting to stay together to a story about how Omega really needed to separate from them all along for everyone's own good. It's a complete dissonance from every other theme that we've seen, and I just don't think they set up that you need to stick together with your people to survive just to use season 3 to knock it all back down and say that actually isolation and permanent separation from your loved ones is the way to go.

So why introduce the idea? Because for Omega's choice to stay to have any weight, she needs a viable alternative that she could have chosen. She needs to see another path at all, maybe even needs to think she's going to choose it at first, but I think that in the end she's going to return to the batch and to the family that she's grown so much with.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers #also Omega being force sensitive makes it even more Suspect that her first reaction waking up after Tech fell was 'he could be hurt' #JUST SAYING

[ravensvirginity]

I think Titans #10 actually exemplifies a lot of what has weakened about Raven's character over the years. Take this panel:

This would be shocking if NTT Raven said it! Her pacifism is so well established that this would be an immediate glaring red flag that something is wrong with her! It is meant to be out of character for her here, as this is her demon side speaking, but it loses a lot of impact because there has been no attention paid to Raven's pacifism. We don't even know if she's even meant to be from Azarath in this current run.

Because they've distanced themselves so much from Raven's original backstory and vital parts of her characterization, this moment falls flat. While what she did (cutting her brother's arm off) is more brutal than her usual attack style, there's been nothing in this run to suggest she shies away from offensive attacks. It's not even particularly egregious by superhero standards: he's a demon, and we can assume his arm will grow back or otherwise be magically healed, and he was threatening a lot of people when she attacked him. It's even less dramatic than NTT's ongoing conflict of Kory thinking the Titans should kill their enemies and everyone else having a more merciful approach.

Then there's the distancing of actual Raven (I refuse to call her Rachel) from anything her demon side does. She's literally imprisoned in a gem. It isn't even her body committing these evil acts. A lot of the impact in the original Terror of Trigon arc is that it really is Raven doing all this; Raven, who's been worn down for years both in universe and out of it, finally snapping and becoming a villain.

This, in contrast, has about as much impact as if Trilogy was the main villain of this story. I do like the angle this comic is going of having demon Raven pretending to still be her normal self among the Titans, but having normal Raven be a physical separate person who's in magic prison really weakens it. It's not as far as I can tell that it's meant to be a trapped aspect of her soul, it seems like she's just an entirely separate person from her evil self. Demon Raven even calls normal Raven her sister.

It's meant to be more figurative (at least I sure hope it is) but it just drives in how severe the degree of separation between normal Raven and demon Raven has gotten. Nothing about this story would change if demon Raven was Raven's shapeshifting half-sister. Contrasted to something like Terror of Trigon, where Raven being the same person, just corrupted into something unrecognizable, is so central to the entire plot and theme, it feels a lot cheaper and less impactful.

I just think this arc could be so much better without the weird complete division of Raven and demon Raven as separate people. Instead of having both Raven and demon Raven be physically separate people, they could've still gone with the gem thing as a sort of projection in Raven's mind, with her good side locked up in it. They still share the same body, it's just different aspects of her soul fighting each other.

I don't hate this story, but it's frustrating because it feels like it could be so much better if just more care was put into it. I wish there was more time to show the Titans' friendship, so the betrayal of Raven siding with her father could be more devastating. I wish they'd paid more attention to Raven's pacifism earlier, so this issue would actually be jarring. I'm interested in Trilogy, but they haven't shown us enough of him to really get any feel for his personality and motivations other than a vague jealousy over Raven being Trigon's favorite. Hopefully more will be revealed in the future, but with the way this comic has been going so far I'm not too hopeful.

#raven #raven dc #titans 2023 #tuesday spoilers #teen titans #trilogy dc #dc comics