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thebibliomancer · 2 years

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #17: OUTTA TIME!

February, 1987

How many new super-villains can you spot?

What a fun idea for a cover.

And the answer may surprise you.

But we’ll get there late.

For now it is time for the West Coast Avengers to start an eight issue arc, probably specifically to piss me off.

An eight issue arc is ridiculous in the year 1987!

But we’re embarking on one anyway.

Last relevant times on West Coast Avengers: There was a time when Hawkeye was really trying to get the Thing to join the West Coast Avengers. Credit where its due, it coulda been fun. But he was ignoring (somewhat intentionally) Firebird who was also hanging around wanting to be an Avenger.

By the time the Thing got drawn back to the Fantastic Four book, Firebird decided to take some time away from the team. But its been some time so Hawkeye figures its time to go bug her into joining.

Also, Tigra had been too horny and started dating Hank Pym (and other people simultaneously). But after a quest to hell and demon cat hell, her cat and human souls were more harmoniously merged and now she’s not horny. So she dumped Hank Pym.

Hank Pym was - unhealthily - pinning his entire emotional well-being after his robot son died on dating Tigra. So after she dumped him, he tried organizing a capture of his old enemy Whirlwind to prove that he was still a cool guy even if he wasn’t an action guy.

The plan went without a hitch except Hank falling off a building a little but Whirlwind also viciously mocked him for quitting being a superhero for mental health reasons. Now Hank is contemplating suicide.

And will attempt it. So this is a content warning.

The opening splash kind of sets the tone, I’m afraid.

The West Coast Avengers are living their best superhero lives, about to go off on a rollicking adventure.

Completely unaware of Hank’s dark mood as he chooses to isolate himself at the West Coast Avengers Compound.

Half of this issue is going to be a downer (although as I said last time the downer is going to get interrupted). The other half is going to be a bizarre random encounter with a quirky miniboss squad.

Since the Hank half of the plot is mostly quick one page checking in on how he’s doing, I’m going to do all the Hank plot together, after the West Coast Avengers stuff.

By the way: even with Tigra’s cat instincts not going haywire and making her hate all strange women, she still kind of hates Firebird.

She thinks she has a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Which is amazing, considering Firebird spent most of her panel time with Tigra confused why Tigra hated her so much.

Anyway.

Hawkeye isn’t taking Tigra’s opinion on Firebird into consideration (although how a group clicks interpersonally really should be his concern as leader of the team), he just finally wants a sixth team member dammit!

Off they go, living their best superhero lives!

Flying way too low, Hawkeye holy shit!

And to pass the time and for dramatic irony, Iron Man starts talking about how cool Hank Pym was in the old days, when he was Ant-Man. When the Avengers first formed. When he used his ants in cool ways and proposed that the team become a team.

Yeah, good ol’ Hank Pym.

Mockingbird wonders if Hank will ever come back to being a superhero which Tigra thinks probably not because of how comfortable he was at just organizing the fight against Whirlwind.

Wonder Man: “Well, anybody who’d choose an identity of ‘Ant-Man’ -- what can you expect? I mean, Hank’s a good guy, but not everybody in the old guard was cut out for life in the fast lane!”

Hawkeye: ‘So you’ve chosen death.’

No, but seriously, shit talking Hank pisses off Hawkeye, who tells him to knock it off, and Iron Man, who is starting to get irritated with Wonder Simon’s newfound confidence.

Like a lot of places Albuquerque just isn’t familiar with superheroes walking around the place. More familiar than some, since the Defenders used to headquarter in the Rockies.

But the Defenders left the area and its been back to normal for a time.

So the Avengers attract a lot of attention when they just start walking around town.

The West Coast Avengers don’t want to mess up Firebird’s secret identity (if she has a secret identity?) by having a bunch of superheroes show up on a Completely Normal Civilian’s doorstep.

So Tigra decides they should go in plainclothes.

Which she makes Hawkeye pay for.

I think she just wanted a new outfit but you know what, that’s fair. Extort Hawkeye for money. He’s the boss, that’s part of being boss.

The comic also does what comics sometimes do. Spend time thinking about how something mundane would work.

The other West Coast Avengers can just take off their costumes and look like Completely Normal Civilians. Tony Stark is a millionaire but I guess people don’t really know his face? Wonder Man is the only one who gets singled out as maybe recognizable but he can turn his glowy eyes off and sure he’s a movie star now but the movie isn’t out and he has glowy eyes in it.

(Its a nice touch that apparently everyone knows everyone’s identity so they’re comfortable doing this)

Anyway. Tigra is covered in fur and has bestial facial features like teefs and also a tail. So she gets long sleeves blouse and long skirt to cover her up as much as possible. And a shawl to cover her face. And she wraps the tail around her leg because I guess she can’t stop it from doing what it wants? Alas, she didn’t think of the Saiyan tail belt maneuver.

WAIT

DOESN’T SHE HAVE THAT AMULET THAT TURNS HER HUMAN FORM? MAKING THIS ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY?

Or does it not work at all now that her souls have been merged better?

Either is plausible.

Funny exchange happens where Wonder Simon mentions that covering his orange body by bundling up is what the Thing would do.

Tigra: “Thanks for the comparison, Simon! I’ll be sure and invite Sylvester Stallone to our next party!”

Tigra: ‘You two are basically the same, right?’

The West Coast Avengers head off to find Firebird’s place, her address being something that Tony or Clint learned off-panel at some point. Can’t tell, the panel where they’re discussing this is silhouetted but I guess since this trip was Clint’s idea, it makes more sense that he did the research.

Except when the team knocks on Bonita Juarez’s (Firebird) door, there’s no answer. And the landlord says she hasn’t been seen in about forty days.

Alllllso. He wants the rent she owes or he’s going to repossess all her stuff.

Tigra, who has claimed in this issue that she doesn’t really like Firebird, decides that they need to stay in Albuquerque until they find her, to make sure she’s alright.

Also (her tail twitching in annoyance with landlord man), she gets Hawkeye to pay Firebird’s rent.

Hawkeye grumbles about being treated like a piggybank but does it.

You’re a cool person sometimes, Tigra and also Hawkeye.

Next, the West Coast Avengers go to the Office of Social Services where Bonita Juarez works.

Huh, she did mention being a social worker!

Except she doesn’t work there anymore. She was fired a month ago because she missed a week of work. Or rather, she is fired if anyone manages to tell her she is because they also haven’t seen her for probably around the same forty days.

Playing off anything else they know about Firebird, they ask her coworkers about her priest, Father Ramirez and they direct the team to Sister Teresa’s church in Buena Vista.

Which is a very churchy looking church, with the huge buff Jesus on a crucifix hanging on the pulpit.

Father Ramirez also hasn’t seen her for a while, which is weird because she WAS one of his most devout parishioners but she stopped coming to confession.

But she saw someone who MIGHT have been her about forty days ago.

Gasp, the dates match!

He saw someone strange in the chapel late at night praying. And then there was a bright flare from the praying candles and she was gone. And he hasn’t seen Bonita since, if that was Bonita.

Having exhausted their leads, Tony suggests they check with the police. Maybe file a missing person report?

Tigra: “Much as I hate to admit it, guys, Tony’s right! Firebird may be a religious fanatic, but the Avengers have to protect everybody!”

Mockingbird: “I don’t know that I’d call her a ‘fanatic’, Tigra -- but I’m glad to see some signs of the maturity the integration of your two souls brought you!”

What??

Tigra is the one who insisted they stay and investigate the disappearance in the first place!

What is going on with the writing that everybody forgot what happened a couple pages ago?

Anyway, the group of villains teased on the cover show up and gloat that the Avengers won’t have to worry about Firebird’s well-being for long because they’re about to get beaten up by a dumb group of goofy idiots with silly names.

Editorializing a little but come on. One is named Butte.

But yeah, speaking of the cover, here’s the answer.

The rock woman is 1. The lizard was 2. The man hiding in the sun was 3. And for the trick answer, that innocuous cactus was actually a cactus man 4.

Four, four new vilains ah ah.

Despite it being me who was making fun of the names and not any of the in-universe characters, Sunstroke reacts like Wonder Man personally slapped Cactus in the face for having a stupid name.

Sunstroke: “I didn’t name him, Wonder Man -- but why don’t you laugh at him after you’ve fought him?”

Wonder Man: “Look out! He can throw his spines -- hard!”

And Cactus just machine guns them at Wonder Man, who has to defend his squishier teammates by blocking the spines with his invulnerable ass.

... Is Cactus just a cactuar from Final Fantasy? Yes or yes?

C’mon, he even looks like one.

HE PREDATES THEM THOUGH which leads me to the horrifying possibility that Cactuars from Final Fantasy might have been inspired by this... this supervillain de jour who only has five appearances.

Anyway, Gila starts tail whipping Iron Man.

Tigra jumps on Butte but is surprised to learn that the woman made of stone is hard to cut.

And Wonder Man tries punching off Cactus’ arm but the guy just grows it back.

Wonder Man is more than happy to test how often Cactus can regrow his arms (the one and only time that Simon has ever reminded me of Abridged Freeza) but Mockingbird calls for a CHANGE PLACES!

And steals Cactus from Wonder Man.

As she points out, she can.... she can bat his thorns aside with her battle-staves.

Really?

Even though he’s machine gunning them??

Okay, sure.

She tells Wonder Man to help the others.

Tigra says she doesn’t need help fighting Butte but she ditches the rock girl soon enough anyway.

Hawkeye remembers a fun science fact that Gila Monsters rely more on scent than vision. So he shoots a stink arrow at Gila.

Yes, Hawkeye has a stink arrow. Why wouldn’t he have a stink arrow? You sound like a fool.

And while Gila is disoriented by the sudden stink, Tigra ditches Butte and leaps on Gila.

Cat fighting a lizard. Hah.

Sunstroke starts narrating how Butte, Gila, and Cactus weren’t humans before “Dominus” created them “but Sunstroke was -- and Sunstroke created himself!”

So the West Coast Avengers know now that a “Dominus” is maybe behind this possibly.

But the fight is still going on so Iron Man doesn’t have time for 20 questions.

Sunstroke also brags about how he has “a man’s sense of strategy, melded with the molten power of the daystar -- !” and blasts Iron Man with waves of heat, trying to melt his armor off of him.

Except Tony has been fighting jokers like the Melter for years and Master Pandemonium recently, so he’s upgraded his suit’s coating to reflect excess heat and light, right back at its source.

Doesn’t help here because Sunstroke can absorb heat and light to get stronger. Which... wouldn’t that just bring him back to how strong he was before he blasted that energy at Iron Man? Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

Wonder Man has been impatiently trying to decide who needs help and he decided to just do what Mockingbird did and steal someone’s fight. So now he’s fighting Sunstroke.

Deal with it, Iron Man.

Iron Man deals with it by fighting Butte to prevent her from ganging up on Tigra with Gila. But he’s not happy.

Iron Man: I liked it when we started clicking as a team, but this is getting out of hand! Who does Simon think he is anyway? His ionic energy may make him stronger than I am, but we’ve never found that out for sure! It’s almost as if he lumps me in with the “old guard” he dismissed when talking about Hank -- !

Everyone just stealing everyone’s opponents here.

Sunstroke praises that the West Coast Avengers are impressive but claims to be more impressive still.

Sunstroke: “You people are impressive, Wonder Man -- but my veins are filled with fire! My very flesh sizzles and sears!

Wonder Man: “That’s only heat and light Sunstroke -- and I’m -- well, you know -- !

Wonder Man tanks that heat like its nothing. His clothing and jetpack also tank that heat like its nothing. Best not to think about it.

Then he shreds the wings on Sunstroke’s costume. Which he apparently needed to catch thermals and fly.

Sunstroke: “Impossible! You should be charred ashes!”

Wonder Man: “No way, lightning bug! You’re only a sun -- and I’m a star!”

Hah!

Now I’m pretty convinced Wonder Man is going to have a humbling pretty soon. They’re really playing up his ego in this issue.

Anyway, with Sunstroke grounded, Cactus caught in a net by Hawkeye off-panel, and Butte and Gila bonked together... well, look, I never bought these goobers as a threat to the West Coast Avengers.

Some very careful choreography had to be used to downplay the fact that the West Coast Avengers had these doofs outnumbered.

So they’re done. They’re so done that they get suddenly yoinked off the battlefield.

As the fastest on the team, Iron Man jets after them but finds that even at his full speed, the force yoinking them is slowly widening the gap.

But he’s not just a pretty face under a pretty helmet. Iron Man tracks the infrared of Sunstroke and tells the Avengers to get in the Quinjet and follow his signal.

While still tracking the villains, Iron Man finds himself flying into the middle of nowhere, Arizona. Three hundred and eleven miles southwest of where he started, I guess, and only twenty-one miles from the Mexican border.

These villains expeditiously retreating have taken him on a merry flight.

But Iron Man tracks Sunstroke to a hill that looks like a hundred other hills but is in fact a special hill because it’s a hidden base. Iron Man’s Iron Sensors can detect the hum of electricity and a magnetic field from the hill.

The other West Coast Avengers arrive and join Iron Man in storming the cave, expecting the villain group’s boss Dominus to be there to make it a five on five fight.

Dominus is there, yup.

And he’s apparently the successor to the alien Lucifer who Iron Man and I think Professor Xavier have dealt with before.

He’s here to enslave the planet and set up shop in Arizona.

He was worried that Firebird or the Rangers would discover his plan but he’s perfectly happy to eliminate the Avengers if they’re the ones who stumble on him instead.

So as soon as the West Coast Avengers cluelessly walk onto Doctor Doom’s time platform, Dominus just sends them BACK IN TIIIIIIME!

Dominus: “Gone! As simple as that -- gone! I spent months seeking the Latverian’s device in this endless desert -- and then, when I’d succeeded, I found it damaged beyond repair -- so that it only goes BACKWARD IN TIME! Those meddlers can never return to the present! They’re gone -- forever! HA HA HA HA HA”

Y’know what? Sure. I’ll give it to him.

Good job, Dominus.

Tricking the Avengers into walking on a specific spot and then sending them into the past forever? A good scheme.

I’m sure the West Coast Avengers will neverrrrrr be back to punch you.

But that’s the team’s subplot. Now what has Hank been up to?

So the reason why Hank decided to skip out on the Fun Arizona Adventure to put his affairs in order and kill himself.

Because Tigra broke up with him and because Whirlwind sassed him and because of other things. I guess recent events were more final straws.

But he’s going to leave everything perfect for when the West Coast Avengers come back so nobody can say he failed as manager of the compound.

One of the things we see him dealing with is the landscaping.

Yes, it’s been mentioned a few times and I think appeared once, yes there’s a landscaping team. And Hank had BIG PLANS for his vision of the West Coast Avengers Compound. A long-term plan. To make the place look as GRAND as it did as a silent movie star’s palace.

The landscaping crew is a little confused why he’s telling them this because there’s so much ground to cover on these grounds that any BIG PLAN is going to take six months to a year of work. They’re taking it one job at a time, the big picture is not really going to help them.

Which is fine! Hank Pym wrote down everything he wanted done and the order he wants them done in!

Just in case!

So if they ever need to know what to do when and he’s not available for some reason, he put the list in an envelope and put it in the desk in his bungalow! Just in case!

The landscaping crew is kinda weirded out by this conversation but also he’s the boss so they don’t really want to engage with it? Not their place to get involved and such.

With the grand landscaping plan scene serving to illustrate Hank putting all his majordomo duties in order, he next sits down to write letters to everyone.

Everyone except Janet van Dyne.

He can’t bring himself to just leave her with a letter and decides to call her and leave her with a cryptic, slightly ominous conversation.

She assumes he’s calling about Avengers business -- maybe the business with Tiger Shark and Whirlwind? Because the East Coast Avengers have just finished up with the Masters of Evil arc so those two were loose ends.

Hank mentions that Tigra and Hellcat beat the two villains, sending Jan asking about whether Hellcat is on the team now and how she’s doing. Hank just answering that Hellcat’s doing fine, she’s married. Annoying Jan because that’s not much detail!

Wasp: “Honestly! You never tell me anything!”

Hank Pym: “No -- I guess I don’t, do I? We never could communicate as well as we’d have liked! I was serious -- I saw the consequences of everything! You were flighty, and saw no consequences at all! Over time, we each grew to be like the other, so I lost sight of consequences and ruined myself -- while you because a chairman! -- chairperson!”

Wasp: ““Hank? Are you all right?”

Hank Pym: “Oh, sure! It’s just -- even when we’d each become the other, we were still in two different places!”

Wasp: “It happens to some couples, Hank! Divorce gets more common every year... I’m sorry to say!”

Hank Pym: “Yeah -- me, too! It was all my fault -- I’ve never denied that. And I want you to know I don’t blame you in the slightest -- for anything, honey!”

Wasp: “Well -- if I’d been a different sort of wife... I wish we could have made it work, Hank!”

Hank Pym: “That’s... that’s what I wanted to hear now! That’s a good way to end it -- !”

Wasp: “Hank? Hank, would you mind if I spoke with Hawkeye for a moment -- ?”

Hank Pym: “Clint’s not here right now, honey! None of them are. Goodbye! I love you!”

Not going to be surprised if Wasp and/or the East Coast Avengers show up at some point to check on Hank.

She was picking up on the vibe by the end of the conversation.

I looked ahead in the East Coast Avengers book and she definitely doesn’t do that there. In that book, she’s going to step down as chairperson to take some personal time after all that Masters of Evil stuff.

Coulda happened off-panel though.

Anyway.

Hank sits down with a gun, screws up his nerve, gets ready to shoot himself, and then gets interrupted by Firebird.

Or La Espirita now, I guess.

Nice new costume, Bonita.

It’s almost funny that if the West Coast Avengers had stayed home instead of going looking for her, they would have had a much easier time and still met her anyway.

Or maybe she wouldn’t have popped out unless Hank gave her the opportunity to play Clarence Odbody and maybe it wouldn’t have happened when it did if the Avengers were hanging around.

Anyway, of the ways I thought this subplot would go, I didn’t expect it to lead to someone sharing the good news about Jesus.

Follow @essential-avengers because I hit 20 followers and now I need to do that thing I promised to do at 20 and also I need to remember what it was. Also like and reblog.

#avengers #essential avengers #West Coast Avengers #cw suicide ideation #desert dwellers #yes thats their group name #feat. Butte and others #Hawkeye #Iron Man #Mockingbird #Wonder Man #Tigra #Firebird #La Espirita #Dominus #Hank Pym #essential marvel liveblogging

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ut-girl666 · 2 years

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Okay, okay. So we have (basically) canon Poet!Megatron. but, hear me out here - what about Author!Megatron?? Like, writes books, not just poetry.

Personally, I think of Fantasy Genre being what he writes, and he ends up with a good couple books. And like, they’re really well written. Beautiful plot, fantastic characters, gives plenty of development to each of them, and whole arcs, usually completed before the book ends.

Even better; he specifically tries to make them LGBTQ+ friendly. He makes lots of diverse fun characters, with different identities of all kinds. Particular interesting thing he does specifically for his repulsed readers, is he actually warns when there will be smut or something close in a chapter. This is because he’s a Repulsed!AroAce. And further more, when scenes like that actually happen (not in the first two, only implied), he actively admits, no, he didn’t write them, one of his ‘editors’ did.

He also tends to write his books with lots of warnings, and usually puts a page between each chapter, specifically so readers aren’t immediately tossed into something they weren’t alright with, because he knows that people have trauma, and PTSD, because he does himself, and doesn’t want to put his readers into a bad spot, because of his writing. He’s a very friendly writer.

And now into the funnies of Author!Megs.

One day Elita drags him onto Twitter and Tumblr. He effectively does normal twitter stuff, and he talks to some fans/readers, lets them ask stuff, etc. Tumblr, he talks, interacts a little more, and reblogs a lot, he also has a few little blogs - one for reblogging things, one for just his own talking and stuff (inc when he comments on his weblogs outside of tags - those go on both.), one where he is magical author man. Readers can talk to him there, and see when he makes new content just for fun. They love it!

And when they do the asking, it depends which he’s on. Twitter - he’s serious, mature, and very adult. Tumblr - it’s like he looked at his full ass inbox, and did some drugs before answering them. He is so fun on Tumblr.

“You said [Character] does [Hobby] in the first book, and they still do in [Later book]. Did they get any better?”

Twitter Megs: It depends. Time may only tell if they did. Full answer on tumblr - [link]

Tumblr Megs:

lol they still suck ass.

Also, Elita, being an Artist on Tumblr with her own characters, world, lore, and stuff, knows him. She loves to make him things, and has read his books. She likes them. Eventually once Ariel and Orion were bondmates, and she started having to spend more time with him (Orion and Megs shared a house for like, their v. of six years, basically- and they were gonna be in-laws, gotta learn to get along with the family. kinda. at least for dinner.), they got along. She became his beta-reader for the third book, and his editor. (She suggested the smut, and wrote it. The explicit part is on her tumblr/ao3, megs didn’t let that go through, only suggestive/implied! He got really hot and bothered by it… in the negative way. He likes it, until the actual sex. Then *scream* SLAM! So it all goes on ao3.)

She also stands up for him when people steal his shit. He doesn’t really do much besides say ‘hey, please don’t copy/steal my stuff’, as he’s new to the internet. She’s been around since he was fourteen, and she used to be like that, but now she’s aged up, and she will not tolerate theft!! So she screams it from the rooftops, and alerts people “hey! They steal/copy other ppl’s content! Stay away from them! >:(.” it’s something she does for a lot of people, and Megs is included bc she knows that just like her, he hold his blorbos close and dear to his heart.

Ppl also hate him in the second book/prequel, he does the thing, and kills a character for the first time, especially one that had become so beloved!! He didn’t like doing it. He cried, a lot. He hated having to bring them back home to him. But he happily put them out into the world for ppl to make fics about them.

That being said, he doesn’t like it when people make fics where they mess with specific established stuff (sexuality, race, etc.), but otherwise, if it’s just an AU (Cafe!AU, Royalty!AU, Highschool!AU, etc.), other little things, (fluff, angst, etc.), or even something else (fix-it fic, song-fic, slice of life, how a pair may have got together, etc.) he loves them!! He loves all of that, to see people being inspired, tossing his babies into scenarios, making what-if?s about them, maybe letting them have a break with some fluff, or whatever! It’s his favorite! And he loves to scroll and see the things. So every time his kills a character, he puts a tag around their neck, and gives them back to the fan base to play with.

I’m begging you lot, think about it!! Just an idea, but what if?! Wouldn’t it be fun?

#transformers #memes #maccadam #megatron #au idea #elita one #orion pax #ariel #writer megatron #author megatron

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greysfall · 3 years

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My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

- Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

- The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

- The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

- Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

- The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

- Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

- Still good music

- Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

- Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

- The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

- The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

- Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

- Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

- The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.

- I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

- The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

- The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

- Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

- Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

- Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

- Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

- Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild. Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.

#neotwewy #neotwewyspoilers #ntwewy #ntwewy spoilers #neo the world ends with you #twewy #review #meta #neo twewy #shoka sakurane #rindo kanade #tsugumi matsunae

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lunar-wandering · 3 years

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monkie kid winged au (flightless birds au) stuff, lets go

MK was born with wings that are a size too small, he can’t fly with them

Wukong’s wings were severely damaged by the mountain, to the point where he can’t fly. (his wings are the one part of him immortality/invulnerability doesn’t heal). he normally keeps them hidden for this reason, and most people who didn’t know him pre-havoc in heaven assume he never even had wings. (he can still use his cloud sail) (MK doesn’t know about Wukong’s wings)

Macaque only has one wing. He usually uses a glamor to make it seem like he has two.

MK originally started looking up to the Monkey King because “oh hey, it’s a hero that doesn’t need wings in order to fly”

Mei has hummingbird wings. she doesn’t really need them because of the whole Dragon and Motorbike and Being Fast thing, but they’re there

...everyone elses wings are up for debate/interpretation because i honestly know jack shit about birds

Wukong’s wings alongside being unusable are in uh. not all that good condition due to how he just. basically ignores them and hides them. (he uses a glamor to keep them hidden, but he doesn’t really....like remembering how damaged his wings are, so he doesn’t take care of them.)

Red Son only finds out that MK can’t fly when he knocks the other off a building and has to save him (....this happens in Bad Weather.)

the Sign Saga

basically theres a giant billboard within the city that people keep smacking into while flying (even Wukong smacked into it while cloud sailing once) and its seemingly indestructible. the sign also happens to have a drawing of Wukong on it with the slogan “the sky is a safe place to fly”

....the reason everyone keeps smacking into the sign is because a while back MK accidentally cursed it when he was upset over not being able to fly (and at the time was in possession of a cursed object).

Red Son finds out about this after he slammed into the sign hard enough he dislocated his wing and had to go to MK for help. (....this would be before the New Years special, so before Red Son’s redemption arc. have fun with that)

Red Son: what do you mean you cursed the sign???? MK: look, it wasn’t my fault, Red Son: YOU LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT YOU CURSED IT

Red Son smacks MK on the head using his uninjured wing because “you’re dumb Noodle Boy, I can’t believe you accidentally started the Sign Curse”

Wukong also hates the sign. for multiple reasons really, including the fact he did not get permission for it to be made (his lawyer has tried suing the company that put it up multiple times) but mostly because the sign having his face on it and saying “the sky is a safe place to fly” when he himself can’t fly with his wings is.....yeah. kinda upsetting.

LBD calls MK a “flightless bird”.....

“Oh poor little flightless bird who’s eyes are blinded by the sun... you were always destined to fall.”

as said earlier, MK doesn’t know about Wukong’s wings, so when Macaque shows Wukong as having wings in Shadow Play....well MK is understandably confused.

“But Monkey King doesn’t have wings!” “Doesn’t have- ha! Oh, bud, exactly how much has your so called mentor kept hidden from you?”

when LBD starts trying to turn MK to stone in the season 2 finale, she managed to get his wings. they ache and have lost some of their colour for some extent of time after.

on the ship, the others demand Wukong remove his glamors so that they can treat his injuries, and. this is how they find out about Wukong’s wings

said wings currently have some bloodied bandages wrapped around them, because whatever got the rest of him also got his wings. not to mention the fact his wings were already in horrible condition, so-

they lecture him about proper wing care

remember how Macaque only has one wing?

that wasn’t always the case

Wukong, at this point in time, thinks that he’s the one who did it, and is utterly horrified by it. this may or may not be why he won’t use the full extent of his powers

.....he’s not actually the one who did it

theres a reason Macaque knew about LBD

*(casually projects my fear of heights onto Macaque)*

i will not be elaborating on that other than the fact that when he lost his wing the fight did not occur on solid ground

in this AU when LBD possesses someone, their wings become skeletal

this isn’t necessarily canon to this AU, but if she were to possess Macaque, a ghostly see through wing would appear where his missing one is

...on a completely different note though. once everyone is on the ship some of them have to carry Macaque and Wukong around when they need to go someplace that requires flying (since, yknow, Wukong lost his ability to cloud sail)

Wukong resigns himself to it after 5 minutes but Macaque complains and struggles so much (fear of heights kicking in) that the only person who can safely carry him is Sandy

MK got a hoverboard so he doesn’t have to be carried. (Wukong wanted to use the hoverboard too but he Sucked Ass at it and none of them are taking the chance of him falling off)

Red Son and Mei both take MK for flights sometimes. why? because its fun, thats why.

and....thats about all i have for this au thus far. will make more posts when theres more hdkfjflkjslks

#Monkie Kid #Winged AU #Flightless Birds AU #long post

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silverechosandblankmasks · 3 years

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Platonic Polyam Bench Trio Marriage AU

You guys asked, so here I am to deliver! Platonic Polyam Bench Trio marriage au where Tommy marries into Tubbo’s and Ranboo’s platonic marriage. (focus on Tommy lol)

NOTE; These are about the c!characters and not the irl people, and I'm writing this like a poly queerplatonic relationship okay? None of this is intended to be romantic or anything else and anything that is in this list is PLATONIC INTENTIONS ONLY

Edit; Now called the Bench Husbands Au

-It kinda all kicks off when about a week or so after Tommy gets out of Prison. (Note, nothing after the first stream after Tommy gets out is canon in this au, as well as some things before)

-Tubbo and Tommy finally have a small fight and argument, before talking, like really talking and Tubbo invite Tommy to come live with them in the mansion in snowchester once its done.

-Tommy doesn't really want to... but he’s tired and lonely and still scared to death and Tubbo promises he’s safe with them, plus if they lived together they could plan on how to kill Dream easier as well.

-Ranboo doesn't mind but after that he tries to go talk to tommy more, but Tommy isnt... the most receptive? Tommy is suffering still and is feeling very replaced and lonely, but doesn't excuse his kinda snippy behavior with Ranboo

-This finally comes to ahead when Ranboo snaps and calls him out, leading to another small fight, before Tommy apologizes and they also talk. This one is more in depth though and Tommy talks about what happened in exile, in the prison, and just general shitty stuff that's being going on.

-Ranboo, in turn, talks to him about the voices and Dream’s voice and the sleepwalking and Tommy is very much more concerned about them then anyone else he told was, and validates the fear about it, and resolves to help Ranboo get rid of it somehow.

-After this, and both trying to convince the other they should tell Tubbo, that they both probably need to tell Tubbo. They want to keep him safe and not worry him, but... they both need help in different ways and they both love him enough to not do that to him.

-The night ends with lots of tears, Tubbo admitting his own traumas and tears and what he’s been not saying, and a promise to help each other.

-Its not a while after that actually Ranboo brings up the idea of adding Tommy to their marriage. He can tell the blond is struggling with feeling replaced and low-self esteem, and it would help him feel more equal and loved maybe? Tubbo thinks its a great idea and they go to ask Tommy.

-Tommy’s pretty uppity at first, he believes its just them pitying him and treating him like glass again, which he hates more then anything, but after they calm him down and explain they just want him to feel equal and that they both actually cared for him and wanted him to join in on their thing, he’s more contemplative. Ranboo nervously throws in a few other points, like how for legal reasons it could benefit him like it was for them, their allies had to leave him alone, plus Tubbo only started making his own hotel becuase he wanted Tommy to start interacting with him again, and-

-At this point Tommy just, interrupts and says yes, surprising them. They didn't exactly think he’d say no, but they thought it would be harder then that. He laughs at their expressions and says why not? Plus it stood to reason they’d want Tommy, everyone wanted Tommy.

-Ranboo and Tubbo exchange a look before bullying their now platonic fiancée. They agree to get married as soon as the Mansion is done, and till then Tommy can finish packing his stuff and a few other things he wanted to do.

-Also Tommy is totally not avoiding Michael because every pet he ever got close to has died and he doesn't want to get attached and risk Tubbo and Ranboo losing something they cared about because of him, no siree, why wouldn't you think that?

-Speaking of Michael!

-Its not all that strange to keep undead mobs like Zombie piglins as pets, in fact Zombie Piglins are the probably better undead mob to keep around due to their mostly passiveness if you want a pet and the fact they don't need much to eat and wont really be harmed if out leave them alone for long periods of time

-Though Tommy kinda thinks Tubbo and Ranboo’s insist on treating him like their child is weird, but he’s willing to let them have it, clearly it made them happy to play around

-Isn't until he finally moves in that he realizes that Michael is different then other zombie piglins and finds himself being pulled into the parent dynamic as well

-Though now that he thinks about it, something about Michael seems off… welp it's probably nothing :)

-When the mansion is done, he tears down the dirt shack and makes it a community garden and it becomes one of the only things that stays free of the red vines (who knew watering it with water from the holy land would make it untouchable? It's thanks to this garden later others figure out how to defeat the egg)

-They elect to not have a ceremony, not now at least but Tommy actually thinks a small wedding party would be fun at a later date. Ranboo doesn't mind much if they have one or not but Tubbo is actually very excited about planning it.

-Tommy wears his ring on a necklace most of the time, but occasionally wears it on his fingers, usually when he needs something to fiddle with.

-Ranboo wears his on his tail (the area right before to fluffy part) normally but also wears it on his finger sometimes when he feels like it. (If your version has horns, he also does that too) it just really depends on what he’s feeling and if he’s forgotten where he put it. He also like, never takes it off unless to move it around because he’s afraid to lose it.

-Tubbo wears his as an actual ring on his finger (though if he has horns, sometimes he puts it on one of em if he needs the ring to be off his hand.) Tubbo learned the hard way when building nukes or other machinery (since, if you can believe it, his husbands aren’t that comfortable with the nukes as he is) you can't wield or do high heat stuff while wearing metal and nearly lost his finger. He’s very lucky and he has a small scar from it.

-Each of them have their own rooms so they can have their own space and somewhere to go if they want time to themselves/store their stuff in, but there is a 4th room (directly across from Michaels) where they share and tend to curl up to sleep together. About 5 out of 7 days of the week, some combo of them are cuddling together at night, more if they're having a bad day or nightmares.

-There's multiple bathrooms in the mansion but there's one they all like the best and will fight over it/race to get into it first before the others and the other two will stalk off salty to use a different one

-They're all pretty tactile people but out of them, Tommy is the most tactile (once the fear of being hurt recess he practically attaches himself to the others) and Ranboo is the least (he won't seek out comfort and touch as much as the others unless he needs it, but is the best at telling when the other two need touch or need to be left alone) and Tubbo is in the middle of that.

-Tommy is the one that cooks most of the time, Ranboo is banned from it after The Incident and while Tubbo is okay at cooking, Tommy just knows more recipes and how to make things taste really good.

-Tommy picked up sewing from when he was a kid, even before he was found by Wilbur and adopted by Phil, it was useful to be able to patch the rags he called clothes, and just ended up continuing because his brothers and dad sucked at sewing. It then morphed into full tailoring because he found it relaxing and liked being able to make his own clothes. He can and will be insulted if anyone wears anything he deems ‘ugly’, especially his new husbands. He makes them clothes all the time, specially Michael.

-In fact he also cleans the most, he just gets bored and while he makes a mess, if the house gets to a certain point he gets really uncomfortable and overstimulated, so he cleans.

-DomesticInnit? In my au? More likely then you think!

-Gradually the whole ‘watching the prison’ and ‘planning to kill Dream’ starts to fade as he gets back into the groove of living again and therapy. He’s just… tired of Dream having a hold on everything Tommy does, he’s sick of it. So… he just tries to live these days one step at a time. (Healing arc baby! Dream can die mad UwU)

-Tommy dragged them both to Therapy with him after a while.

-Because of this he finds himself home a lot with Michael, especially if the other two are busy. They’ve pretty much decided that someone has to be home with Michael at all times, which is now 100% more doable with the 3 of them, and Puffy or Foolish babysit if there’s ever time they can't.

-Tommy is a lot less of a hovering helicopter parent then the others and was the one to finally convince them Michael cant live trapped in a room. Yes, they were all worried for his safety but… you can't raise a kid in a cell, even if it's a nice one. Tommy takes Michael out more

-Tommy started to sleep walking again once they moved in and he still gravitates towards water for some reason. Nothing more startling then waking up because you plunged into frigid below 0 temp water while sleepwalking. Ranboo also enderwalks/sleepwalks more as well and there've been some nights where Tubbo has had to track them both sleepily walking around and make sure they don't hurt themselves or drown or something. At least Ranboo is semi-aware when enderwalking and normally just does weird ender things, Tommy likes to apparently walk into oceans or climb the mansion and nearly fall off and wander hundreds of blocks away. Tubbo’s not salty at all, really.

-Sapnap, Quackity, and Karl are 100% salty the benchtrio got platonically married before they got married

-They fight about last names all the time despite none of them actally taking eachothers last name, and if they happen to pick and choose on which one they’re feeling based on mood, well they can do what they want!

-However its agreed Michael’s last name is hyphenated so he’s now ‘Michael Beloved-Underscore-Innit’

These are all I have for now, feel free to ask about it or use my ideas! <3

#dream smp #dsmp #tommyinnit #tubbo #ranboo #bench trio #benchtwt #mine #headcanons #au #my aus #Benchtrio platonic poly marrige au #NOW CALLED;#Bench Husbands AU

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grandinventor · 3 years

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Honestly the hypocrisy regarding Sokolov and Jindosh has always made me go ???? Because “Jindosh assisted the coup, he’s made terrible inventions.” K…what exactly did Sokolov do that was so different?? He EXPERIMENTED on people.

Right! Like yes, Jindosh is bad and Sokolov is old enough to start having regrets and trying to correct himself (but he is ~20 years older than Jindosh) but he was also...bad. (I have to put it under the cut it got Long)

For the record Sokolov: - experimented on people (for the Plague sure, but that's what we know of and he wasn't exactly nice about it, he had them locked behind a wall of light) - did some kind of vague disgusting rituals to summon the Outsider - Delilah did not like the implied sexual relationship she had with him when she was 20 or so years younger and had no way to climb from her bad life but being his "apprentice". - drove Roseburrow to suicide after he turned his benign inventions that brought prosperity to the Empire into military grade weapons that were used to oppress the people. - those include the guns and weapons, walls of light, arc pylons, arc mines and tallboys. - invented an electric chair used to torture the workers at Rothwild Slaughterhouse so they won't form a union (and said electric chair is lethal too). - invented a machine to electrify the whales and keep them alive for long so their whale oil can be harvested (this whole whale thing is very much implied to be Bad for the overall world state in the first game). - is a master at whale vivisection, you know cutting them open alive. - did assist Hiram and sided with him until we literally had to threaten and bribe him to help us did everyone forget this? - did invent a lot of the useful whale oil systems that did help the Isles go into the new era of technology but the majority of those can be attributed to Roseburrow himself. - found the cure for the Plague with Piero.

And speaking of Natural Philosophers, there is also Piero who has a far smaller list of shit but he: - was generally a creep and was creeping and peeping on Callista who is like 20 years younger than him (not that her being older would make it better). - has this very interesting and not at all concerning and fucked up audiograph:

- found the cure for the Plague with Sokolov - made Corvo's mask and the Heart for what's worth.

On the other hand Jindosh has a very similar list because he:

- tried to do or did some experiment on his peers that almost landed him in jail. - uses prisoners the Duke gives him to test his Clockwork Soldiers. - has used his electroshock machine on some baker (can't defend you here king). - has let people die in his house, by his house but in his defense he does tell you at the door that you shouldn't go in or you will die, which goes for most houses of nobles and important people anyway. - has dissected those that have died or were nearly dead in his house. - killed a cat when he was a kid so he can dissect it (people are so touchy on this one, all Natural Philosophers dissect animals, it's not the serial killer material y'all thought it is but you tried). - did not invent any weapons but the Clockwork Soldiers, however improved Sokolov's military designs to give Karnaca and Serkonos their own walls of light, arc pylons, audiographs and other devices so they won't have to import from Gristol. - invented a lot of harmless and GOOD stuff like the silvergraph (he was gonna make movies! and just having photography available to everyone is such an improvement to society), the carriage system in Karnaca and also he uses hydraulic systems as in hydropower to power his house instead of whale oil which is pretty nice given the shortage and the cruel methods of producing it. Also I think his company makes a lot of heating/cooling and ventilation systems too. - has made a replica of the Heart at the Academy. - made a machine that drank sea water and made sounds that drove people to tears (in high chaos it's a toy made of cat bones that worked on whale oil but it drove a girl to madness). - was expelled from the Academy for undisclosed reasons that are described as "a little accident" in "The Return of Daud."

And also to add, dissection is like a perfectly normal thing at the Academy, at least in the first game. I don't know why dissection and animal dissection was made such a big deal in the world of Dishonored, like yeah its morbid for us, but we don't operate on the same in-world morality.

So like in conclusion from all I listed, Jindosh was just as bad as Sokolov, or rather Sokolov was just as bad as Jindosh. Piero is also a shithead but he decided to die so he isn't my problem now, but both are just...bad scientist men trope. They both suck. The only difference is that Dishonored 2 decided to go with the spin that old Sokolov realized he was bad and tried to run away from it and make up for his sins while Jindosh is the dangerous, mentally ill coded """psychopath""" who loves killing and will never change or become good just so Sokolov can get the moral high ground. And after making sure they drive the point home that Jindosh is mentally ill crazy and mad inventor with no empathy who will kill for fun, they then had us lobotomize him. And then despite the people working on his level asking for a 3rd option where we don't harm him, creative direction said no and they realized his non-lethal was just a bunch of shock value crap, so they made his "canonical" fate to die. And like...all of this could be avoided if they didn't use Jindosh as a leverage to try and retcon or sugarcoat Sokolov's crimes and acknowledged both suck but they are fun characters.

I am sorry this got long, I am very passionate on the subject because Jindosh's non-lethal is one of the few things in fiction that upset me and this is coming from someone who love Jindosh AND also likes Sokolov a lot as a character despite all of his flaws. So it's not just me hating on Sokolov, I wish this arc was written better between them because the potential was there. Jindosh had so much potential as a character and they just threw all that good voice acting and amazing level design for nothing.

#kirin jindosh #jindosh #dishonored 2 #jindosh renaissance starts with angry posts in his tag

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gra-sonas · 3 years

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Was the year time jump because of the pandemic? To sidestep making that too central to the plot, or was that always the plan?

JEANINE MASON: That was always our intention and it was just sort of a saving grace in that way. We also don't acknowledge the pandemic in real-time on our show. There are no masks and that was just so wonderful just to get work in that way and have that time where it was a little more normal. Also, that's just our show — we want you to come to us the way you always do, which is for nineties nostalgia, sexy Cowboys, brilliant scientists, you know? CHRIS HOLLIER: So we wanted to drop our characters in a year later, let them stew in their individual decisions that were made last season. We want everyone to root for our poster couple but we want to honor what happens in real life, which is sometimes you step away from that person, even if you are entwined with them in a very particular way. So we wanted it to be a real enough time and distance so that they could live a little life on their own.

With showrunner Carina Adly MacKenzie departing at the end of season 2, has much changed? Or are you still working with ideas she had in place?'

HOLLIER: It's a little bit of both. There are things that Carina and I built that live all the way through and then once the story got up on its feet, discoveries were made with our new crop of people that we were like, "Oh, we're going to bend it this other way."

Jeanine, how is Liz doing in her new life in L.A. when we pick up this season?

MASON: Well, it's been a year and at this point, her life is actually pretty great. She just hasn't taken a second to acknowledge that. She's doing what she does best, which is just full head in her work and trying to figure out what she could use of her discoveries and her brilliance to save Maria. She has a great job, a really nice place, and an awesome partner at work who is a good time and a real match for her in terms of intellect and ambition. He begins to ask her to recognize that and to maybe give something a chance that she's been reluctant to because of how drawn she is to Roswell and to Max. It's a fun first episode. It's sexy. It's fun to find opportunities for her. She's our hero so she's got a lot on her shoulders and anytime where we can find levity for her is always a real treat for the writers and for me.

And no Crashdown waitress uniform must be nice?

MASON: Honestly, I miss it quite a lot right now. I have a note in my notes with Chris, I'm like, "I gotta tell him we gotta find him more opportunities for it."

Should Liz and Max shippers be worried about them finding their way back to one another after he destroyed her work and didn't follow her to L.A.? Should we resign ourselves to a season apart?

MASON: This season really is about these characters having themselves mirrored to each other. Max and Liz need some growing and ultimately they can't do anything but be orbiting each other. We found so many opportunities to have such a beautiful language around the cosmic element of their connection. They're asking, "Is this our decision, or are we just acting off of a decision that the cosmos made for us?" It was so fun to navigate that. I always have such a good time with Chris Hollier and with Nathan Dean, just finding the little tiny notches, a tiny bit of movement towards where they're going next. I really loved following them. It's my favorite Max and Liz season to date.

HOLLIER: It's not a season apart. I'll tease that they, in an unexpected way, end up in front of each other relatively soon. But it's really about when am I ready? And what does it mean to talk to my ex? When someone makes such a big influence in your life, when do you know it's over and when do you know you should fight again? We tried to give them real grown-up lives.

Steven Krueger (The Originals) also joined the cast as Heath this season. What can you tease about his character?

HOLLIER: He's just an awesome human being. I know him from The Originals and we were like, "If we're going to have to be stuck with people in the desert, who do we want?" You want to be stuck with a handsome and lovely and charming Steven Krueger. So really this was looking at, "Well, what did Liz want and what does it look like when you start to give Liz versions of what she wants?" Heath is somebody that is beyond being just a lovely person, he is smart and wants to advance science and that's appealing to Liz. It becomes, "What does it look like when the man that I hang around with all day is also into the same things that I am?" MASON: I love him. Heath is just such a fun, whip-smart, fantastic character. His humor was so fun. We've been having a good time with kicking the humor up really through season two and in season three, we just took it up another notch. There are some moments that are like, "Is this a drama or is it a sitcom?" Looking back on it, he was such a fun partner to spar with. They're both such intellectual characters and I love that there's a real meeting of the minds. It makes it competitive and sexy. I know a lot of fans are so excited because they know him from The Originals and he's going to be a great addition.

Technically, Mr. Jones is a new character too. Can you tell us anything at all about him?

HOLLIER: I'd say he's a new character — and a fully-fleshed interesting new character. Mr. Jones has an awesome beard. At some point, he might lose that beard. A lot of people are asking me, "Is Jones good or bad?" And what I would argue is that's a perspective based upon who you are in the conversation that you're having with him. He knows a lot about our heroes' story and he knows a lot about home. He'll be able to answer questions for them. This season our heroes will get to learn why they ended up here on earth. One of the things I think that people will love is that they're going to get to see that home planet this year. We asked ourselves a lot about this whole season, "What have we set up for the past two?" We look at these first three seasons almost like a trilogy so a lot of things are going to be paid off.

Has Nathan enjoyed pulling double duty this season? Or is he just exhausted?

MASON: He's exhausted, but he's such a champ. That really is the beginning of this mirroring thing that starts with Max and Jones with him actually getting to look at himself to a degree and those questions that come up. The self-analysis that it provokes in him is really the beginning of what is happening to all of our characters this year; everybody's being confronted with themselves. I loved that the Max/Jones of it was also a real sci-fi element.

Did he really grow that beard or was that not possible if he had to go between the two characters?

MASON: That was a prosthetic beard and our makeup team killed it. He was not accustomed to early mornings, which, of course, all of us babes are. It was a lot of extra time in the chair for him.

Can Jones dupe Liz into thinking he's actually Max since she doesn't know he exists?

MASON: You're totally on to something. It's a real and pressing threat. I mean, she's totally in the dark and he looks like her cosmic lover!

HOLLIER: What I will say is that, Liz — beyond her being number one on the call sheet — is integral to this story in a way that she and none of our characters are going to perceive when they start episode one. We're bringing [the characters] to a new crossroads moment in their lives and they're getting, through Jones, a mirror into their own lives to decide what they're going to become next.

How's Rosa (Amber Midthunder) doing this season?

MASON: By the end of season two, Rosa really makes the decision to start taking care of herself. She really becomes an incredible asset to the Scooby-Doo gang. It's something that Liz is in constant adjustment to. As much as she's the younger sister, she feels very protective of her sister and Liz has had to make adjustments in her trust and faith in Rosa. I loved it because it just felt like a real personal, authentic thing that sisters would go through, but also that Hispanic sisters would go through. I think we sometimes, culturally, have a tendency to baby our women — maybe that's the wrong word — but just to underestimate their physical ability and what they might take on, and sort of 'queen' our women in a way where we treat them tenderly. I hate that. I'm a tough bitch and so is Rosa. So Liz has to confront that and go, "I'm an idiot to underestimate you. You've done nothing but prove me wrong."

What about Maria and her visions?

HOLLIER: This year I think Maria has the most complete arc of any season, as she recognizes things about herself that cause more questions about who she is, who her family is, how she's linked to this story. We dive into it in the present-day and we dive deliciously back in time too.

In the exclusive clip above we see her have a vision of a funeral, can you tease anything about who potentially might be about to die?

HOLLIER: Maria is front and center in driving the first half of the mystery for us. She's burdened with trying to figure out whose death she is seeing. It takes a few episodes to unravel and we use it to ask, is this linked to our supernatural stories or real-world stories that are going on politically? Is it bad luck? Is it herself? There's a whole gambit at play. We joke that we solved a past murder, now we're going to try to stop one.

Can Malex (Michael and Alex) shippers have hope that this might finally be their time?

HOLLIER: What I would say is that I think that Malex fans are really going to dig this journey. We, as writers, put them at the same level of importance as Max and Liz. So we wanted to really honor the next step in what they may or may not be. How did they grow up and how did they have those hard conversations just like Liz and Max are going to have?

Is Isobel going to continue to date women this season?

HOLLIER: Isobel is going to go on a more personal journey. You got to love yourself before you can love someone else. We lean into those possibilities by the end of who she might love. It's not something that is dropped all season — it is something that you'll see. We play some romantic comedy stuff with her character this year and with Maria that I think fans are gonna dig. There's a lot going on in the world and wanted to pump some humor and hope into it.

Will see more of Liz fighting to challenge the perception of the Latinx community?

MASON: I think that just by nature of it being one of such few shows that are led by a Latin woman, it's always going to be, to an extent, a protest or an assertion of the space that I get to fill and that Liz Ortecho gets to fill on network TV. I was really excited to just have Chris as a collaborator. Over our hiatus, before the season started, I was doing a lot of reading. I chronicled the books that play into Liz every season on my Instagram. I was reading some Sonia Sotomayor. Her book is just incredible. I was texting him screenshots of pages of the book with things underlined. Ten episodes deep into season 3, he's like, "Remember that page you sent me?" He's a real dream collaborator. I loved him for that. A pressing struggle for people of color is going through the ranks in these big corporations and then sometimes coming to find out that those corporations are purporting to support marginalized groups but actually aren't following through. So how do you, as someone who's having your success, your dreams become reality, navigate supporting the company and giving so much of your intelligence and your work — that they often legally own, especially with science — to a company that isn't going to be for your people?

Roswell, New Mexico returns Monday at 8 p.m. on The CW.

#long post is long #jeanine mason #chris hollier #liz ortecho #max evans #echo #isobel evans #rosa ortecho #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #rnm spoilers #maria deluca #rnm cast interviews #roswell new mexico s3 #roswell new mexico

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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years

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time travel aus, amirite? since we’ve all decided to start talking about our ideas, i thought i’d throw my hat into the ring. i’ve actually had this idea for a while, i just wasn’t sure what to do with it because i barely have the patience for one-shots, let alone the continuous plotted longfic this would need

it’s not my idea, of course, i’m incapable of original thought. it’s based off this can-i-really-call-it-a-genre-if-it’s-two-fics-with-the-same-premise where some combination of maedhros, maglor, elros, and elrond land in the blessed realm before - even the unchaining, in my take, when the ambarussa are still children and the world is blissful. it’s more specifically my take on this fic, which takes elrond and elros from very early in their captivity and maedhros from just before the silmaril theft and maglor from several centuries into the second age. i just plugged my own characterisations into it, and, uh. the specific setup this not-genre uses is that maitimo and makalaurë *~mysteriously disappear,~* throwing their extended family into chaos, blah blah blah, and then a few decades later -

well. with my characterisations, we have a nightmare hellbeast who’s burned up everything he used to be in singular pursuit of an unreachable goal and has carved his very self into a weapon, a completely drained beaten-up husk barely cognisant of reality past the screaming in his mind who’s so utterly broken it’s debatable if he even counts as an elda, and two extremely young extremely traumatised children in a completely unfamiliar land- and skyscape whose only adult they can maybe-kind-of trust is currently bleeding from the eyes and shrieking wordless notes of utter despair

yeah, this au’s Fun. elrond and elros have maybe eight words of quenya between them, most of which are obscene, maedhros will act completely normal until he suddenly stabs himself in the arm because can’t this stupid hallucination end already, he has a character arc to tank, and maglor seems completely unaware he’s not still on the beach having the same cyclic arguments with the ghosts of the people he failed. the elves of valinor aren’t completely unprepared to deal with this, at least not the ones who remember cuiviénen, but it’s still a massive shock to see two of the children they came to the land of the gods to protect twisted and scarred like the worst victims of the dark. especially since noone can figure out why

so yeah. i have trouble finishing oneshot collections, so i doubt i’ll ever write this out in full, but i do have a lot of Scenes. fëanáro staring in utter horror at the oath, whispering ‘i made this.’ elros and elrond’s somewhat hole-filled explanation of their backstory devolving into a sindarin argument, and when the family asks tyelkormo what they’re talking about he freezes before saying ‘they’re arguing about whether maitimo killed their mother.’ the moment maglor finally managed to get through what happened after they got the silmarils to maedhros, who immediately switches from off-the-cuff self-harm to well-planned suicide attempts. the five-minute period the family hellspawn’s working theory was ‘they’re maitimo and makalaurë from an alternate universe where we’re evil’ (‘is there an evil version of me??? does he eat kids???????’ - tyelko) finwë going full bulldoze taniquetil in the background. fun times, might write some snippets in the future

but i like to think through the mechanics of this kind of time travel story too much, so i started wondering where maitimo and makalaurë, yanno, went. i quickly came to the conclusion that they probably swapped places with their evil future selves, giving me three time travel aus for the price of one! technically four but (a) i’m not sure if or with who the twins would swap and (b) if they did their alternate selves are probably having a really bad time and i don’t particularly want to think about it. the stories maitimo and makalaurë are in... they’re not necessarily any happier, but they are a lot more wtftastic

maitimo falls asleep under the light of the trees, on a relaxing retreat from the demands of court life and family-induced disasters. he wakes up in a world that’s almost completely dark, surrounded by plants he’s never seen before and wearing clothing designed for a much warmer climate, the scent of death in the air. now permanently separated from all his old problems, maitimo rapidly acquires several exciting new ones, including but not limited to:

everyone he ever loved being dead or worse

the lone possible exception, his last surviving little brother, being an almost unrecognisable blood-drenched kinslayer who hates everything in the universe especially himself

said blood-drenched kinslayer almost immediately imprinting on him like a grouchy murderous duckling

his future self having apparently wanted to kill even more people, why

getting dogpiled by like thirty dudes in full armour the instant they showed up at the army of the west’s camp to surrender

getting soul-scanned by eönw two minutes later. not fun

arafinwë pulling him into an enormous hug and then bursting into tears

the subsequent explanation as to just what happened to him and his brothers, which somehow got worse after he’d already thought they’d hit rock bottom like four separate times

proceeding to lose a staring contest with findaráto

the way everyone in camp looks at him like he’s an incredibly dangerous wild animal that might bite at any time

how if half of what arafinwë said is true he can’t even blame them, fuck, fuck

the twin half-elven(?????????????) princes he and his brother apparently kidnapped and held hostage for years, inflicting unimaginable cruelties as far as anyone knows

his first meeting with the kids happening when elrond broke into where they were holding maglor to scream at him in very loud very fast very angry sindarin for like half an hour

maglor just staring at him, eyes wide, ears pinned back, the whole time, and then trying to maul the first guard who mocked him for it

getting saddled with kinslayer containment duties in the aftermath of that whole incident

elrond punching him in the collarbone when he tried to apologise, shouting ‘you weren’t there, don’t you dare try to tell me what it was like’

elros’ visible half second of pure terror after the blow hit home

elros then using recognisable techniques from maitimo’s debate team circuit during a speech to the edain

like, clearly some shit did happen, but it’s obviously not what the local leadership’s afraid of

this sour-faced scar-covered warrior slipping out of the shadows in an unpopulated part of camp, kneeling before him, intoning ‘the swords of the host remain at your disposal my lord’ and then immediately vanishing

he didn’t recognise them until after they’d left but they were definitely one of his philosophy club friends, what even

just generally having woken up in a future a thousand times worse than his darkest nightmares

his natural instinct is to try and fix things, but how?? what’s even left to fix????

maglor sometimes goes into these unhinged desperate spiralling rambles directed at the older brother who exists in his head rather than the one in front of his eyes. whatever’s left of maitimo’s biggest little brother is clearly in so much pain

all the things he’s trying extremely hard not to think about because if he slows down enough to he’s pretty sure he’ll collapse

all the people he’s never met who hate him for pretty understandable reasons and whose social structure he now has to learn to have any hope of making it out of All This

the edain’s collective insistence on calling him pasthros

curufinwë isn’t even a hundred how does he have a kid

makalaurë, on the other hand, wakes up on a beach beneath a giant glowing orb. finding himself in a land so much barer than what he knows, among people whose souls don’t even work like his, his initial working theory is he’s been abducted by aliens

#silmarillion #my terrible fic #maedhros #maglor #elrond #elros #house of feanor #suicide ///#self harm ///#or in other words #late stage feanorians #other mental images include:#nelyo getting stupidly drunk with a bunch of edain enablers #random human fisherman: better not go out to the shore by night. there's a wandering spirit that sings of death and devours souls #kano: wow. you got a lot of those around here or #nelyo and kano glowing like beacons (they were just in the treelight after all) and constantly being surrounded by curious humans #nelyo talking the elro twins into talking to earendil while they still have a chance #galadriel: how dare you show your face around here kinslayer!!!#kano: ... wait are you artanis #he subsequently meets elrond and then serves as a sounding board for elrond's maglor issues #elrond: you know you act a lot like he did when he was blatantly faking being happy #kano: ... WELP #honestly i do feel like nelyo hangs out more with the edain than the other elves #for fun at least. he is bodily dragging mags into lorien he's never going to see these people again ever #as for the political situation... bless him he's trying #idk how all these aus interact i suspect there's divergent timelines involved #one last image:#seeing as how if he continues how he is everyone and everything he's ever loved will burn and die #feanaro steels himself up for the impossible #making up with nolofinwe

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heavenfordoms · 3 years

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”Innocent“ Hug (Deku x fem! Reader):

Pairing(s): Deku x reader

Warning(s): 18+ minors DNI, cussing, manga spoilers, riding, death, semi-public sex, eating out

Genera: angst to fluff to smut

A/N: wait this was actually fun and easy to write for me wtf

Fandom: My hero academia (boku no hero academia)

Glossary:

Y/n = your name

Summery: Bakugou looses his life in battle and y/n goes to comfort Deku, soon Deku ends up forgetting about Bakugou as y/n rides him

You sucked in a breath, holding it for a while as you stared at the villain in front of you. You where crouched down low so you knew that he couldn’t see you. But you sure saw him. Your quirk was called memory, you could memorize anything that you wanted. The downside to this quirk is that while your mind was full of knowledge your body was weak so it was no good for battle-training, another bad thing (or more annoying then anything) is that we can’t forget it, ever, even if you wanted to. You remember every single detail of your life and every single thing that has happened to this point in grave detail. Not like you wanted to remember it, but you felt so worthless that it was almost blood to memorize everything. Like how there where five street lamps outside the bar. They where dimly lit and flickered every five second, each one after the other. The one on the very right was the first to flicker then it would go all the way to the left. Sometimes the one in the very middle would shut off at random times as the other lamps brightly shone in the night-sky.

“Could you stop mumbling?!” Katsuki whisper-yelled at you. You slightly cringed at the blonde male’s words before nodding your head in a form of acceptance (for some reason people saw that as acceptance so you did as well).

Katsuki is a young man of average height for somebody his age, with a slim, muscular build, and a fair skin tone. He has short, spiky, ash-blond hair with choppy bangs that hang over his eyebrows. His eyes are sharp and bright red in color. His hero costume is composed of a tight, black, sleeveless tank top, with an orange "X" across the middle, forming a v-neck. There are two dots along the left line of his collar, indicating the support company that designed his costume. His costume also has a metallic neck brace worn with rectangular ends that have three holes on each side. His sleeves reach from within his large grenade-like gauntlets to his biceps. His belt, which also carries grenades, holds up his baggy pants with knee guards, below which he sports black, knee-high combat boots with orange soles and eyelets. His mask is jagged and black, and as it goes around his eyes, a large, orange-rimmed flare shape protrudes from each side.

You focused your eyes off of Kastsuki and onto Dabi, the villain who was standing guard outside the bar. Dabi is a fairly tall, pale young man of a slim, somewhat-lanky build, described to be in his early twenties. He has white hair with a few red streaks at the crown that spikes upward around his head, hanging low over his eyes, which are thin, turquoise in color, and heavily lidded. Before the reveal of his true identity, his hair was dyed black. His most striking features are undoubtedly the patches of gnarled, wrinkled, purple skin that cover much of his lower face and neck, all the way down past his collarbone, below his eyes and on his arms and legs due to him having a quirk at a early age and not knowing how to control it. These appear to be attached to the rest of his skin by multiple, crude surgical staples or hoop piercings. He has several silver cartilage piercings in both ears, and a triple nostril piercing on the right side of his nose. He also seems to be lacking earlobes on both sides of his ears upon close inspection, he wears a dark blue jacket with a high, ripped collar, and matching pants, cut off above his ankles, a pair of dark dress shoes on his feet. He also has a plain pale gray, scoop-neck shirt, below which a gray belt with a circular pattern wraps around his waist, a leather satchel attached at the back.

Nobody knew his real name, until now, Dabi had revealed himself as Touya Todoroki. Everyone now calls him Touya but it never settled right in your gut to call him that. His name was Dabi to you and it will always be Dabi. It didn’t matter if he did a big entry and say that he is part of the Todoroki’s Dabi didn’t seem like them. The Todoroki’s where a strict family with ruled set in place. Endeavor, now the number one hero, had tried to welcome his family with more open arms. You could tell that Dabi’s opening was not out of grief for his family but instead out of spite. Like saying to Endeavor that he needs to take a chill pill with this whole anime redemption arc thing that he has going on for himself (and you didn’t quiet disagree with the oriole scarred man either).

You often thought of life like a anime, it was easier to explain. If somebodies life was broken they just ended up in the wrong anime. It also helped reminded you that every villain has a backstory. You never got to see their perspective in things. You never got to see what happened to the villains after they got defeated. Nope. You never got to see that, maybe if people saw the villain’s side. Everyone would hate the hero‘s and build their own path just as villains do. They make a path that no one has ever gone on, slowly making it a dirt road and them turning it again into an actual road that everyone can go on. Villains never got the roadwork. Hero’s probably always destroy it.

“So what’s the plan?” You leaned in close to Katsuki and whispered in his ear, Kastuki tensed up next to you and sucked in a breath before looking at you through pointy eyes.

”I will distract scar-man while you go and get Deku from the bar.” Kastuki explained, you nodded your head ‘yes’ before you pointing in the direction you where going to go. Kastuki grunted to himself as he crawled slowly in the opposite direction. Sending explosion at Dabi’s face before ducking behind a large wooden tool-box that had the words ”Back Bend Inc” on it in Ariel black font. Although it had been there for so long that the black ink looked to be a dark smoky gray. You quietly padded off into the opposite direction, your head ducked and eyes darting every five seconds to catch every detail around you.

Silently, you slipped into the bar. There was a wooden plank that held up the first stand, it looked to be pretty normal from here. There was dark wine stands that had a light brown color to them. The walls where colored with a sand tan. Over by the bar there was stacks and stacks of different liquor that people could have. Above was the general black chalkboard menu, there was smeared blue chalk that said “SPECIAL: Burbon” the strong smell of liquor and whisky hung in the air. There was a cigarette hanging off the ledge, still lit and everything. It looked pretty normal, but there was a slight piece of the cigarette where it was unwrapped and that told you enough to not say ’fuck it’ and have a smoke break. Turning your head slowly you walked up to Kurogiri. Information began flooding in your head about the villains and the bar. Unluckily for you everyone noticed the smartness you had and quickly found out your quirk. They began to flood your Brian with information. Information that a kid didn’t want to hear. You heard everything when you where just in High School. Now, everyone hated your quirk, everyone fucking hated it. The people who raised you said that you where a monster and that they didn’t know you anymore. But the sad part was you didnt do anything wrong. After hours of racking through your mind you couldn’t find a single moment where you did something bad. “I need to see Tomura.” You stared blankly at the mist villain. Kurogiri's entire body is made out of a dark purple mist, save for his eyes, which are glowing yellow. He normally wears a very elegant suit with a tie and has a metal brace that goes from around his collarbone to just below his eyes. It was pretty simple description of the villain, but there wasn’t much to him.

“Now?“ The male inquired, a hint of annoyance traced his smooth and calming voice. His voice sounded a lot like a gently sea softly rippling in the waves. But in actuality he was more like a thundering storm as the large ocean waves crashed harshly against large dark-gray-almost-black rocks.

“Yes, it is important.” You answered, putting a fake smile across your face. You still heard the faint sound of explosions from Katsuki and knew that you didn’t have a lot of time. Katsuki only could hold off for fifteen minutes before he went full on battle mood. And the villains would definitely think at something is up. Kurogiri hummed thoughtfully before nodding his head in agreement and holding out his purple misted hand.

”Come on dear…” The man whispered soothingly and smiling up and down at you.

“Thanks!” You chirped getting up and going behind the bar, following the villain down the stairs that creaked underneath your feet.

“BOSS!! Somebody wanted you!!” Kurogiri called, you took a deep breath before flinching as you looked into the villains base.

It was the same red bricks that seemed to be different colors every brick that was placed down to make the wall of the bar. There was smooth fake wood counter with clean royal red plush bar stools with the smallest backs on them. There was a few hero posters scattered around the base, one medium sized All Might poster hung to the right of a small screen TV. The dull gray light picketed on and off as the headlights didn’t provide much protection against the dark loom of everything. Different types of bottles hung on narrowed shelves behind the bar. Right next to the bar was a metal door, the window had cages around it and a long shiny knob that went down the left side. To the right of the door was a old faction radio station with LED lights surrounding it. It was currently playing Take Me to Church, apparently just starting to play it seeing how the introduction was still on. You narrowed your eyes before leaning against the red brick wall and giving everyone a swept gaze. All of the villains names that where forced to memorize came to your head all of a sudden.

Himiko Toga was standing in the farthest left, spinning in the red barstools.

Himiko is a relatively petite, fair-skinned girl who is very prone to blushing and is frequently described as to having a rather pretty face. She has slightly inward-tilting bright yellow eyes with thin slits, making them somewhat resemble those of a cat, and her wide mouth is also rather feline, as both her upper and lower canines are more pointed and longer than the rest of her teeth, giving her a vampire-like appearance. Her hair is a pale, dirty ash-blonde and is styled into two messy buns, with numerous wild strands sticking out at all angles from their centers and where they’re fastened, a straight fringe and two chin-length side bangs to frame her face. Himiko’s outfit consist of a plain seifuku with a Kansai collar, both the skirt and the shirt dark blue with a double white trim, which is paired with a red scarf that she ties loosely below. Over this, she wears an oversized beige cardigan with a rather long hem and cuffs, and pockets on either side, the right one shown to hold a number of trinkets on either a keychain or a cellphone strap. She sports knee-length black socks and dark brown dress shoes with thick heels, the same as the outdoor uniform shoes students traditionally wear in Japanese schools.

Tomura was standing next to Himiko, a bored expression clouding his features.

Tomura is a slim man with deathly pale skin, tinged yellow, and wrinkled a great deal around his eyes. His lips are chapped and uneven, a small mole on the right underneath, with visible scars on his right eye and under his lip. He has messy grayish-blue hair of varying lengths, the longest clumps reaching to about his shoulders, left hanging over his face in uneven waves. His eyes are normally obscured, but when visible, they are usually stretched wide in a rather maniacal manner, their bright red irises are very small.

Interestingly, when Tenko was at the age of five, he bore a striking resemblance to Izuku Midoriya, with his blue hair originally being dark black in color, while also having dried patches of skin around his eyes, though his lips were shown to be healthy in appearance. After his Quirk manifested, his appearance changed giving him a wrinkled face and changing his hair color.

Nobody else was in the base, the rest of the villains where busy surviving customers or dealing with Bakugou.

Then you saw him

Deku…

Deku has been a classmate of yours for a while, although you guy’s rarely talked to each other you always admired his strength and wisdom. Soon he became the number one hero and you became the second, Bakugou and Todoroki following closely behind. The only real reason you where able to make it to number two was due to the popularity votes for citizens. Everyone liked you, they loo up to you. So rationally you often teamed up with Deku. He was not good with the citizens since he never got a chance to talk to them due to the fact that he broke his bones in battle often but his quirk was amazing. And you didn’t have a lot of strength so that gave you time to connect with the citizens. The two of you working together helped everyone live a better place. Now seeing him tied up and helpless, it made you pretty angry.

“I would love to sit here and chat, but I got a hero to save!” You smirked as you raced on ahead and grabbed Deku, pulling him out of the chains before the villains had any time to react. Standing next to the hero you where slightly taller (mind you he hasn’t grown since high school so that wasn’t really anything to brag about being taller then him).

”HELLPPP!!!” A scream shouted from Kastuki, your eyes widened as you sprinted off to get the number three hero. Deku closely followed you as he got his quirk ready. But by the time that you rushed out you knew it was too late. Katsuki had been crushed by the blue flames that wrapped around his body.

“KACCHAN!!!” Deku screamed, DabI whipped his head around and started at the number one hero.

”You idiot!“ You hissed as you grabbed Deku’s arm and made a run for it. Dragging him out into the open where a bunch of other hero’s where’s standing just in case something happened. You noticed that they where busy on their phones and probably didn’t even hear Katsuki screaming for help. You rushed Deku to the side of the red brick building and waited for a ambulance to come pick Deku up. Once they carried him away you narrowed your eyes at the pro-hero’s.

”I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I AM GOING TO KILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY IF YOU ACT LIKE THAT AGAUN!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH STRESS YOU PUT US THROUGH??? DYNAMIGHT COULD HAVE STILL BEEN ALIVE IF YOU HAVEN’T SAT ON YOUR ASS ALL DAY AND ACT LIKE A BUNCH OF FUCKING SLUTS!! I SWEAR TO GOD I AM GOING TO RIP ALL OF YOUR HEADS OFF, FEED THEM TO MY DOG, MAKE MY DOG SHIT OFF A BRIDGE AND SEE THE SHIT SMEERED ON THE TIRE, GET A LIGHTER AND BURN THE CAR DOWN, TAKE THE ASHES AND PUT THEM IN A GROUND, I WILL TAKE THE GROUND WHERE THE ASH IS AND MAKE IT A STRIPER CLUB, AND THEN GET A EXORCIST TO PUT YOU TO HELL!!!” You started cussing them off, the pro-hero’s shuffled uncomfortably and looked at each other with weird stares. They knew that they where in shit when they pissed you off. You weren’t very easy to piss off so when somebody pissed you off they knew they were in deep horse shit.

*** You rushed into the hospital bed where Deku was at. Your breath coming out in short puffs as you stood on the edge of the male’s bed and watched as thick tears streamed down his face. You grew soft and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Calm down baby…I am here…” You reassured, slowly climbing on the bed and getting on him. Deku gulped thickly at the closed distance between the two of you and began sweating nervously.

“Y/n!“ You yelped, trying to scoot back. You looked up at him and gave the male a cocky smile.

“What? Are you suggesting something?” You leaned in and whispered in Deku‘s ears. Deku whined before nodding his head ‘yes‘ you rolled your eyes and began to unbutton your shirt. Popping out a few buttons in the process. Gently, you pulled down your panties and threw them to the side, lifting up your skirt and showing your ass to Deku. Deku trembled slightly and started licking at the entrance, slowly, he began eating you out. You moaned quietly before bucking Your hips backwards. Deku gasped before moaning also and continuing to do his work. Once Deku are you out for a few minutes you pulled away and Deku looked at you with large puppy dogs eyes. His Greek emerald eyes blown wide in lust.

You leaned down and took off his pants with your teeth, dragging your nails up his clothed hero uniform shirt. Deku bucked his hips up and whimpered. You smirked into the material. Once you actually got the pants down you slipped off his boxers and starting to get settled on Deku.

You and Deku had this off and on thing. You guy’s weren’t dating each other and fucked other people but it was always a delight when you got to fuck him. A smile always formed on his lips when you topped him. He always thought that everyone was going to leave him to be the top, so it was reassuring when he saw that somebody cared about him enough to dom him and show him who is in control.

You where snapped back into reality when Deku gasped in shock as you took him all in, groaning slightly at the fact that you took him with such ease because he has been in you so much. Slowly you waited for yourself to adjust (which didn’t take that long) before you started bouncing up and down. Deku threw his head back and moaned loudly as felt your walls clench around him. You kept bouncing on him up and down in a rhyme pattern.

“Come on baby, thought you liked it…” You pouted, looking down on the green haired hero and smiling cockily.

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hollypunkers · 4 years

Text

reasons Mako is really really great and should be appreciated so much for how he raised Bolin coming from just watching Republic City Hustle:

He made robbing people fun. It was a necessity, and clearly a dangerous way to live but their only choice, so he not only clearly picks a target that isn’t a threat but turns it into a game where Bolin can play the Good Guy and fool around, be a hero, and have fun.

In that same vein, with almost every chance he gets he compliments Bolin (“nice grab little brother” etc. a trait he continues until adulthood with people he cares about, it’s stilted and awkward later but clearly Mako’s trying) this is probably why Bolin’s confidence is basically through the roof.

Bolin recognized Toza and calls him his “hero” indicating he has been to pro-bending matches before, later we see them both working at the match while Mako has to remind Bolin he is working too. Mako also doesnt recognize Toza on sight. I think it’s safe to imply Bolin working with Mako is new (some evidence for that later as well) and Mako would normally work while letting Bolin have a fun night watching the matches.

Bolin is sad to see his hero lose, Mako tries to reiterate a lesson that basically boils down to “they wouldnt help us, why should we care?” It’s a lesson that rings true for Mako, the caretaker, but doesn’t for Bolin because Bolin always had Mako and knows what it’s like to be cared for.

When Shady Shin threatens to send them back to the streets Mako’s first instinct is to give Bolin a reassuring pat on the back and tell him not to worry.

While Bolin is doing his antics we always see Mako just behind him, watching and keeping an eye out. The only time he isn’t is when it is implied Mako was doing some work on his own (after Bolin got mad) and Bolin snuck away, after which Mako immediately finds Bolin the moment he’s in danger to save him.

Bolin wants an adorable pet, Mako immediately tells him “No. The last thing we need is one more mouth to feed.” Again, Mako as the parent having to juggle being the good guy and the bad guy, taking all the responsibility of caring for them on his own shoulders. And he has a point. Mako is clearly struggling just to keep Bolin and himself fed (“We didn’t eat anything yesterday.”) and the last thing they need is a pet.

Bolin begs Mako (typical kid stuff wanting a pet “aw he’s so cute!” “Ple-ease??”) and is suprised it doesn’t work and sad when Mako tells him to toughen up. Bolin begging is interesting because it tells us it often probably works, Mako giving Bolin what he asks for; and in this instance Bolin is very much acting like any normal child while once again Mako is the (reasonable) parent.

From what I inferred earlier where Bolin helping with the work being new, Mako has just started to get Bolin into this criminal world with the Triple Threats and is clearly worried Bolin is too soft for it, while at the same time interestingly never brings up how Bolin is five years older than Mako was when Mako started taking care of them. I think one of the arcs of this series was Mako realizing Bolin, because of who he was and how sheltered he’d been, couldn’t survive in the same environment Mako was. Mako has earned the respect of Shady Shin, meanwhile Bolin can’t even handle this one job. (Mako, a pragmatist, realizes by the end that if Bolin stayed in this work he’d have to become more like Mako, and so Mako takes the out Toza offers.)

Bolin. Is. An. Optimist. Bolin grew up living on the streets, hungry and poor, and he’s an optimist. Why? Just jump back to the scene with Shady Shin where the moment things seems scary Mako immediately reassures Bolin. Mako is hypersensitive to Bolin’s emotions, even when chastizing him he falls back to a kind voice and explains why, so it’s no small leap to say Bolin always thinks things are going to turn out okay because that’s what Mako has told him his whole life.

“Maybe I’m not as mean as you! Maybe I just can’t turn my back on people when they’re down!” Bolin calls Mako mean and uncaring, and Mako.... sighs. He doesn’t respond, just takes it in, lets Bolin have his emotions and even say cruel things to him and just internalizes it and leaves it alone.

Mako weirdly knows exactly how to handle a dangerous snake. I don’t know what this means. Either he has experience or it’s pure Mom Instinct where he sees Bolin in trouble and just wrangles a dangerous snake and flings it back into its cage in seconds.

Mako relents on the Pabu business right after Bolin puts himself in danger to save the animal and Bolin gives him puppy dog eyes (also after Bolin called him mean). Maybe he thinks having a pet can teach Bolin responsibility, or maybe he doesn’t want Bolin to think he’s mean, either way, Mako knows it’s not a great idea to have a pet but still gives up, apparently not able to say no to Bolin twice.

Bolin never apologizes or is asked to apologize for calling Mako mean and uncaring. In fact, considering the sequence of events, Mako is the one who apologizes by letting Bolin keep Pabu even though by all accounts Mako was right not to want a pet. When Mako does admonish Bolin it’s only in ways Bolin needs to act in order to survive, otherwise Mako seems unwilling to defend himself or make Bolin change in any way. (Mako models this type of forgiveness despite being the wronged party which interestingly, Bolin shows later throughout LoK and it is something people love about him, but the origins are here, coming from Mako.)

“You really have a habit of getting in stupid situations” Mako tells Bolin, indicating this type of behavior, Bolin getting in trouble and Mako coming to save him, happens a lot. (Even in the end, Mako finds out Bolin bet all their money on a fixed match, like c’mon Bolin.) Bolin just says “I know” and Mako leaves the conversation at that without rubbing it in. A surprising amount of maturity for a fifteen year old.

Bolin can’t keep his mouth shut and gets them in trouble, shouting and excited during the match; as Mako looks embarrassed and worried, another indication that this, Bolin being present with the Triads, is a recent development and a clear indicator Mako was right telling Bolin to toughen up or he wouldn’t survive, as they instantly find themselves running and fighting for their lives.

“Can we, Mako? Mako, can we? Mako, please!” Mako is so explicitly the parent to Bolin it’s sad. He is fifteen, he’s been on his own with Bolin since he was eight and literally witnessed his parents die, and throughout the series we see him comforting Bolin, suppressing his own emotions, and being a parent over and over again. Meanwhile Bolin acts like a child, who had a normalish childhood, who plays games and laughs and is optimistic and confident and wants a pet, so despite everything they went through, and how hard it was, Mako was clearly a very good parent to Bolin.

Shady Shin miscalculates in the end by telling Mako “don’t go soft on me”, the same thing Mako was telling Bolin; which goes all the way back to my earlier point that Mako knows Bolin won’t last as a Triad and needs something else. “I do have to take care of my brother, and I think this is what’s best for him.” There, explicitly, the only reason they become pro-benders is because Mako thinks it’s right for Bolin, ‘what is right for Bolin’ is the basis of all his choices, what is right for Mako isn’t considered because what Mako wants is for Bolin to be happy.

In conclusion, if you hate Mako and love Bolin, I think you need to take a step back and remember who raised Bolin.

#hollypunkerspost #i dont know why i wanted to write this i just did #i love mako 2020 if anyone wants to know why here we go #mako #bolin #mako and bolin #legend of korra #100 notes

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robinrequiems · 3 years

Note

Now that you mentioned it, can I have some track star player! Damian and basketball captain! Jon 👀

👀

• Baskebtall November-march, & outdoor track & soccer is March-June. pspspspspsps! I know Jack shit about sports (:

• in freshmen year, damian found himself bored, he had so much built up on energy that he needed to release. damians not a.. team player, so he joined a sport that didn’t really require you to be a team player. track.

• damian could run okay? he could run fast. so it was perfect, so now, as a junior, he was known for winning the school track trophies but Damian wasn’t as well known as jon. captain of the basketball team, a boy cherished by the school for bringing home a trophy for the first time in years. their basketball team was bad, but then, little freshmen jonny joined

• he just joined for fun, he didn’t expect to get in, he also liked played basketball with his brother, so he just tried out. ( that’s what he said at least ) sure, at the start he wasn’t the best player, but then, during their first game? he was playing amazingly. apparently the boys great under pressure

• he slowly rose up in the team and became well known, there was always a girl or two chasing after him in the halls ( jon didn’t really care for them.. he was more interested in the track star )

• jon fell in love with damian. no.. well.. jon had a crush on him since freshmen year. why, you may ask? ..he likes his personality, jon remembers getting lost in the falls as a freshmen and then sophomore Damian going to help him. was he laughing at him? definitely.

• people said damian was rude, jon said otherwise. he may not know damain that well, but he could see kindness in him

• his team members called him a simp. he.. no.. he wasn’t a simp? all he did was defend damian

• people said jon didn’t even know damian, but jon feels like he’s known him for years.. like they were partners or something ( am i hinting at reincarnation and a potential reincarnation arc in this au 👁 or am I hinting at doing a reincarnation au? the world will never know)

• jon believes there’s more to Damian than people think

• Maya is the captain of the girls soccer team, Tai is apart of the basketball team, Kathy is a cheerleader, and billy is a football player

• damian is friends with maya and sorta friends with tai due to club activities ( art ), & an acquaintance of Kathy because Maya is dating kathy ( today is a date I ship kathymaya )

• jon is friends with tai, Kathy ( childhood friends ), Maya ( Kathy’s gf so he knows Kathy’s gf ), & billy

• damian often saw jon in the halls, jon tried to smile at Damian, but damain just ignored them. he didn’t know Jon. stranger danger

• jons last game was coming yo, the championship, damians track season was about to start soon, the school was amped up

• it was the final game and jon was so hyped

Jon: Hey! Damian!

Damian:

Damian: what.

Jon: the um.. my last game.. it’s.. it’s friday.. and I was wondering if.. if you’d go?

Damian: I was already going.

Jon: really!

Damian: yes, tai invited me.

• a slight lie on damians part

• but he briefly heard tai ask Maya if she would come, and Maya normally brought Damian along ( much to his dismay.. )

• jon eyes lit up when he heard the name tai. Damian knows tai. TAI KNOWS DAMIAN

Jon: TAI

Tai: Jesus Christ, jon-

Jon: you know Dam— d a - frick - Damian

Tai: yeah?

Jon: set us up! match make! okay cupid!

Tai: are you sure english is your first language, ‘cause..

Jon; tai!

Tai: why do you even want to go out with him???

Jon: he’s pretty…

Tai: he’s mean

Jon: he is not!

• tai did not know what world jon wad living in

• but. tai was one of jons best friends so, he of course, tried to help:)

Tai: hey, shithead

Damian: oh my god, don’t talk to me

Tai: I need a favor

Damian: no.

Tai: you owe me.

• damian did owe him, tai took him to the er one time when he he fucked his ankle up after doing something stupid

Damian: what.

Tai: I need you to wear the number 3 to the game

Damian: 3– that’s - the boys- jons. why?

Tai: don’t ask.

• so that’s how Damian ended up wearing a shirt with the number 3 on it, Maya laughed at him

• oops. but Damian didn’t really care that much. but him wearing jons stupid number started rumors

• damian didn’t really label his sexuality, jon was openly bi, do that wasn’t the problem. the problem was that they thought they were dating

• damian didn’t like that and found it annoying. you see, damian didn’t really know of jons crush, he didn’t pay enough attention to the boy, it wasn’t like he was in any of his classes anyways.

• ( tai and Damian are sorta actually good friends, they have that insulty friendship and share a lot of classes, Maya is senior, along with Billy, Kathy’s a junior w/ tai n billy )

• damian really didn’t care for jon. at all.. until he actually saw him. the last time he saw jon. he was.. noodle like.

• now? he was not. he didn’t really fully pay attention to jon before. sure he’s saw his smile and face, but oh my god.

Damian: hes hot

Maya: what?

Damian: n.. nothing. Sorry.

• he did not mean to narrate his thoughts there. Damian didn’t care for team sports, but looking at jon play? wow.

• the way jon ran around, he was so. Elegant.

• damian was seriously ogling jon. Damian has never felt more embarrassed. he hates when people focused on his looks and here he was. doing the same. he wanted to commit mass murder. on himself. right now.

• meanwhile, Maya was just trying to watch her girlfriend who was sitting on the bench while Damian was having a mini breakdown on how shallow he was being

• ( told you guys, Damian will always be dramatic in any universe )

Maya: you good there-?

Damian: no.

Maya: great, it’s half time, I’m gonna go say hi to kathy

• he couldn’t believe Maya was leaving him in his misery

• meanwhile, jon was fsngirling. Damian was here. Damian. Wearing his number. Oh shit.

Jon: tai tai tai tai!!!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!

Tai: yeah yeah, you owe me

• jon played so well that day too, they ended up winning the game. no one knew where jon got that sudden burst of energy when he was beginning to get tired, but he did

• and he got the winning shot

Kathy: geez, jon! good job!

Jon: thank you!

Maya: thought you guys were gonna lose

Tai: thanks Maya

Maya: anytime <3

Jon: I’m gonna say hi to damian, wish me luck!

Maya: luck wished

Tai: don’t combust when he looks at you!

• tai is the best wing man <3

• but anyways damians still in the bleachers, trying to hide from the world

Jon: Damian!

Damian: yes?

Jon: thanks for coming! I think you were my good luck charm

• jon should have not said that out loud, but he did.

• and Damian chose to just: not comment on it.

• a week or something later and it’s damians track meet

• he has started looking forward to jons smiles in the halls, but he still pretends that he never sees it. he learned a few things about jon, how he’s truly a sweetheart, probably the nicest person in the planet— as long as you don’t mess with his friends, and failing English class

• but damian doesn’t have the time to pine, he spends his hours now running, jumping hurdles, jumping, and yadayada.

• he was excited. he was. he was just: wow. he was hyped up, energy was building up in him as anticipation built up for the first meet. It was currently Monday, the first meet will be Wednesday. Three days.

• and in those three days, he was his own enemy. sleep- sleep did not come easily. Not at all. His thoughts kept him up and awake, thinking about the possibilities, it was absolute garbage.

Maya: geez, you look like a zombie

Damian: feel like one

Tai: hey dude did you bring th— ooh yikesss

Damian: shut up.

• damian was 100%my grumpy that day and glared at all passing bystanders

• but jon had began sitting at Damian’s table, along with Tai ( 😡 )

• damians table consisted of Maya, sometimes Kathy, Maps, && Colin. Colin was also apart of the track team

Jon: uh, D- are you okay?

Damian: mmhhhshshshjsnm

• jon and Damian started calling each other by D and J, they don’t know why, it just happened

• jon wanted to go to damians meet, but he didn’t exactly know if Damian would like that? it was.. complicated

• he didn’t even know if him and damian were friends, they barely even saw each other minus the small times in the hallway and lunch

• but he did go to damians track meet, damian would never admit that he liked that Jon was there

#damijon #unfinished but #captain j and track star d #Damian wayne #au #rambles #Jon kent

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crystal-moon-101 · 3 years

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I wanna hear your take on Benlie and/or Benkai. You don’t have to ship them, just say a few things you could have done to make them smoother and healthier, friendship or romance. You could even have both if you have an idea on a better, cleaner break up story.

Ok, so I’m a Benlie person, 100%, and while I don’t ship Ben and Kai, I definitely think they deserved to be handled better. So I have rewritten how those relationships, along with a few others of Ben’s love life, have gone, and I’ll share it here. Warning, this does get a bit long, and does have some violence at a certain point, but I hope you enjoy my take on it!

So the start of Ben and Julie’s relationship in Alien Force is mostly the same, though I did adjust it that they somewhat knew each other before hand, having seen each other in school, especially since Ben’s soccer practice took place at the same time and same kind of area as the girl’s tennis practice. Ben asks her out, Ship appears and becomes her pet, Julie starts understanding the alien better, sees Ben have 14 moth children, the basic stuff from canon. However, my major changes start during season 3 of Alien Force, the part of the series that took quite the nose dive in terms of character arcs. I still have it that Ben and Julie start to have issues and argue, but in believable ways, and they still clearly love each other. The issues arise when Ben does start to get cocky a little, due to all the praise he’s getting from saving the galaxy from the High-Breed, and his accomplishment surrounding that are huge, since he hasn’t won something like that before. Again, doesn’t help that half the galaxy keeps praising him and treating him like a God, but Ben does still be a hero, and even starts to get anxieties since now he’s starting to deal with bigger issues, more people demanding for him to help their planets around the galaxy, and Ben wants to be that hero for them...but there is only so much he can do. He does love the admiration from everyone, feeling special and all that, but he does start to make him feel different, in and odd way...He’s struggle to connect with his human grounds now, due to constantly turning into aliens and spending time out in space, his relationship with earth just isn’t the same anymore. And even them, aliens around him treat him as something else too, like he’s not human or an alien, he’s something else, and not knowing what makes him nervous. To mask all of these fears, he uses his over-confident nature like a mask, and it does get pretty bad for a month or two until Gwen, Julie and Kevin make him see reason. Meanwhile, Julie is struggling in her own right after the High-Breed war. She was happy to have fought in it to protect her home and people, but after seeing a proper glimpse of the alien worlds outside of earth...she will admit that scares her. She didn’t go off world like when Kevin, Gwen and Ben did, mostly waiting for them on earth and did missions there with them, even lending them Ship when they needed it. While she didn’t judge Ben and was willing to live with idea of aliens after their first date, like adopting Ship, she still have a lot to process about there being alien life. It’s much harder on her than it was for Ben, because he learnt about it when he was young, his entire family knew about it and could support him through it, and even the Omnitrix provided better understandings for him. Julie...she didn’t have any of that. It was just her dad, Ship and her, and while Ship was a good start, he was still just one tiny piece of the outside world around her. She knew she’d have to accept it over time, now that she knew the truth, and especially when earth starts learning that truth too, but at times it felt like she wasn’t allowed to process. She doesn’t blame Ben for it, as he’s so use to it all by now, but there have been many moments where he seems to forget she is very early to this whole alien concept compared to him. She was afraid she couldn’t catch up, and even has moments where she didn’t want to take a step forward, afraid of what she might find. So she started joining less and less missions with Ben, Gwen and Kevin, and while she still hanged out with them, she tried not to get involved with their alien business. She will admit, maybe a part of her wished she didn’t know about alien life at times, to have a life back when things seemed more simple.

So these deep feelings from both Ben and Julie spark arguments, because both are unsure with themselves, thus unsure in relationships with others, especially each other, with Julie thinking she couldn’t keep up with Ben, and Ben thinking he couldn’t slow down for her. And it all eventually led to a point where things had to stop... And unlike Omniverse’s god awful handle of the break up, I instead had it like this. Julie is the one who starts the conversation, having called Ben over to her. She’s honest with him, saying that it’s just not working out, and that they should find different people that work for them. Ben does beg a little at first, saying he’ll try better, but Julie knows that right now they can’t be a happy couple and need space, and Ben eventually agrees, but it still hurts. It hurts more when Gwen and Kevin leave too, and Julie also goes on a tennis tournament in France, so Ben has to deal with the loneliness he feels for a while, even when Rook joins his side. Meanwhile, Julie meets Herve in France, who was taking photographs for sport magazines. The two talk and eventually hit it off, Julie somewhat clinging a little as Herve is very much the down to earth and normal human guy she thought she wanted, someone who wasn’t related to any alien business. She does miss Ben, a part of her not letting go, and while the two agreed to remain friends, they did drift a little over time. They would still voice chat, send some text and Ben would check up on her tournaments when he could, but both of their lives got rather busy and they drifted away for a couple of months, though still dearly missing each other. Ben takes his time to heal, still dealing with all the other problems he’s facing, especially the whole “Am I human, am I alien, am I something else?” and “How much of a hero am I without the watch?”. His friendship with Rook grows pretty well, and he settles somethings with Gwen and Kevin since they moved to university. So most relationships of his are going well, expect for romantic relationships... He struggles to settle and commit to most of them, and mostly dates around for a bit, spending some time with people like Looma, Rook Shar, even Attea on one date. He does eventually settle with Ester for a bit, and the two seem like a good match. Both fun loving, eager for adventure, and enjoy each other’s company. And Ben did try and make it work, he really did, Ester was a great girl and he wanted the best for her but...again, it was hard for them to keep up with each other. Ester is a girl full of energy, and very much wants to do something 24/7, and while she doesn’t fault Ben, she will admit she does get lonely when he spends so much time off on missions she can’t join in, and the two break it off when Ben couldn’t be what she needed. But they are still close friends and hang out pretty often. Again, alone in his love life, Ben felt hopeless in it. Was he cursed to be single for the rest of his life? So when Kai came back into his life, his first proper crush he can remember, he will admit that maybe he jumped into things too quickly. There was no Kenny time traveling nonsense in this version, no fate tying to together, rather just two young teens jumping into a relationship neither ended up wanting. But they stuck with it for a while because they felt like they had to, despite the arguments and bickering. Both were scared to be alone, as Ben couldn’t lose another girlfriend, and Kai realized just how lonely her work made her feel. They didn’t hate each other, they just weren’t in love. It didn’t help that, since Julie returned to Bellwood with Herve, Ben felt jealous at Herve. Which annoyed him, because Herve was actually a really nice person, and gave Julie a lot of love. Really, it was more Ben angry at himself that he couldn’t provide the things Julie needed...And while Julie and Ben did talk and hang out from time to time, Ben was distance often, even when Julie reached out to him. It was just...seeing her so happy, living a normal life, Ben didn’t want to taint that with his presence. It wasn’t until one fateful day that things started to turn around, though the start was pretty bad. It was another day, another fight with Vilgax, who was rampaging through the streets, clashing with Plumbers, Ben and Rook. Julie and Herve had been nearby when it started, and the two decided to help get civilians to safety, splitting up at one point to cover more ground. Julie ran into Rook and Ben, who tried to usher Julie away, but unfortunately Vilgax noticed her, and saw Ben’s panic of worry for Julie to run. It didn’t take long for Vilgax to remember who this young teenage girl was, and decided to use her as hostage against Ben. Seeing his arch nemesis using someone he secretly still loved as hostage, not to mention he had a pretty bad week before hand, Ben just...kind of snapped. He didn’t go easy on Vilgax for once, switching between multiple aliens rapidly to stomp Vilgax into the ground. (Side Note: I have the headcanon that, while Ben can do rapid transformation, if he does so many in a short amount of time, he does get a mild side affect of his emotions being amplified, due to his brain having tumbled around from the quick transformations.) By the time the Plumbers and Rook arrived, the two city blocks had been trashed and Vilgax was burred into the road. Due to the side affect of multi rapid transformations, Ben was protectively holding onto Julie, who had passed out from some injures from Vilgax (Nothing major, but the stress of it did make her lose conscious). They managed to pry Julie away, while Ben was taken away to calm down, needing to give his body and mind for a rest. Julie was taken to a Plumber hospital, and she woke up fairly soon with mild injures that wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to heal over the next few weeks. Many visited her, including Herve, her dad, Gwen and Kevin, along with Ship her stayed by her the entire time. It took a long while for Ben to show up, mostly because he was nervous and felt ashamed by how he acted, but Gwen gave him a good peep talk and convinced him to go. It started off a little awkward, but simple, Ben checking how she was feeling, with her also making sure he was ok too. They catched up a bit, even laughing over some old memories, which eventually lead into a small discussion about their past relationship, both finally properly apologizing for how they acted, even clearly up a few things that were worried over, like Ben admitting that he had been avoiding Julie because he thought it was better for her, and not because he hated her or anything. Buttt, one thing lead to another and well...the two kissed in the heat of the moment, both going in for it, and for a few seconds it was bliss...until they both realized what they were doing, and understanding that one, Julie was still dating Herve, and second, Ben was still dating Kai. Flustered, Ben rushed out of there, with Julie panicking over what they did.

The two keep it a secret, not wanting people to know what happened between them, and when Julie got out of the hospital, they kind of awkwardly avoided each other, needing to think about things. They clearly still held feelings, but they were both dating other people and were scared to mess up with each other again. Cue them somehow almost always bumping into each other, like the gods themselves were trying to make them suffer, and their feelings becoming more and more obvious, but neither making a move of any kind. Ben confides in Kevin, Gwen and Rook, even admitting to his feelings and the kiss to them, and while they give him advice, they know it’s up to him and Julie to sort things out.

But Ben avoids it again, not ready and unsure in himself. He already messed up many relationships before hand, including with Julie, so what if it all went downhill again...And Julie questioned herself, she had been avoiding space and alien life for so long, thinking it would make her happy, but she starts to realize that no...it’s not making her happy, trying to deny something outside of her bubble just wasn’t working anymore, especially with her feelings towards Ben. However, after some long thinking, Ben decides to at least do one thing. So he organizes a get together with Kai at a cafe, needing to talk to her. The two have a sit down and Ben explains that this relationship isn’t working, and that they shouldn’t keep trying to make something that isn’t there to happen. Kai agrees, both feeling some stress loosen from their shoulders, and they still decide to be friends, feeling much more comfortable with a relationship like that, even sharing a nice hot chocolate together at the cafe. And so while Ben goes to deal with the other problem in his love life, Kai may or may not end up catching up with Ester in the process~ While Ben makes plans on what to do next, he and Rook are ended up being called over to a Plumber Prison base, to make plans to move Vilgax finally. Little did they know, Vilgax prepared for this. You see, a part of him already knew he’d be capture again, sent to this base to await movement, so the last time he was here, he built up some allies on the inside, and eventually the outside. He also knew Ben would show up, so he made a plan to make sure the Omnitrix wouldn’t get in the way. After how Ben stomped him into the streets before, Vilgax was looking for some nasty revenge. Not really kill Ben...but something more traumatic. So when Ben and Rook show up, surprise surprise, Vilgax isn’t in his cell. While Rook talks to some of the guards, Ben searches Vilgax’s cell for clues, only for it to suddenly turn on, along with it’s defenses, including an electric shock that surprises Ben, and causes the watch to bug out, unable to be used. Rook check on Ben, but next thing anyone knows, alarms start blaring and almost all cells open, and prisoners start running while. Since Ben’s watch is down, and many people here hate him, Rook wants to keep him safe and tries to escort off the base. But Ben being Ben, he wanted to help, and rushed off to try and help some injured guards here and there, with Rook following. However, some prisoners, who were secretly working under Vilgax, skillfully guide Rook and Ben away from each other, and eventually trap Ben in a lone room, but not by himself. There, Vilgax was waiting for him, and since Ben didn’t have the watch to help, he was screwed. Vilgax knocked him around a few times, though being careful enough to not instantly kill Ben with his strength, before deciding finally to make the hero suffer. (Warning here for those who are squeamish) He does so but taking the tip of one of his claws, and dragging it down Ben’s arms, damaging his nerves. He would have done more, if not for Rook, the guards and some Plumber bursting in and chasing him off, saving Ben before he could bleed out, but the boy did pass out and wouldn’t wake up for a long while. People were, of course, scared...particularly Ben’s friends and family, who visited him everyday, mostly Max and surprisingly Azmuth, who also fixed the watch to help in Ben’s recovery. Gwen and Kevin ended up being the ones to inform Julie what happened, when she noticed Ben wasn’t around, and hearing that Ben almost died...it scared Julie. She didn’t want to lose him, of course, but also the idea that he could have died while they still had issues to fix...she didn’t want it to end like that, for things to be so messy and unclear. So when Herve saw her look down and upset, and getting her to explain what happened to Ben, the two talked. Herve admits that for a while he knew Julie still had feelings for Ben, and could tell that things weren’t so cut and dry between them, especially when he got to met Ben himself. He also admits that maybe Julie and Herve are, in a way, maybe a little too perfect for each other. Their relationship is stagnant at times, with not a lot of growth because never healthy challenges the other. So with no hard feelings whatsoever, Herve says that if Julie wants too, the two can break up but still remain friends, and Julie thanks him, agreeing too and even asking that she hopes he can still be her photographer. And for the next few weeks, Julie visits Ben with some of the others from time to time, hoping he’ll be ok so they can talk... Eventually, Ben wakes up, Azmuth having been there when he did so, and helps to catch the young boy up on what happened. Ben notices that, while his arms have been healing finely enough, his nerves are a little slow in the process, having not fully recovered, shown by him unable to keep his arms and hands steady, constantly shaking when moving them. It scares him, even when Azmuth reassures him that they’ll heal thanks to the watch...Ben just can’t help but feel like if they don’t heal, then he may have to give up the hero business in the end, even if that’s just his fears playing tricks on him. So during his recovery, people come visit him, making sure he’s ok. Until eventually, Julie shows up, wanting to make sure he’s ok, and knowing they had to talk. They couldn’t keep putting it off, especially after something like this, and Ben finally agrees to stop running and to finally clear things out. They discuss a little more about their past relationship, about their insecurities during it, and where they go from here, both mentioning they’ve broken up with Herve and Kai. They talk some more, relaxing in each other’s company, and admit to their feelings, both deep down knowing they want to give it another go. And since they’ve had time apart, learnt from new experiences, they decide that maybe they can try, taking it slow and see where it will go. And the two kiss, and for once in a very long time...it feels right. As said, they take things slow, and after everything that happened in the past few years, things actually go well for them. There are, of course, hiccups there and here, but they’re matured enough to know how to talk things through, and solve problems together. Ben does start to recover more and leave the hospital, and while he nerves aren’t fully healed by them, they will eventually. And while the two go one small dates during his healing, catching up and being blissfully happy with each other, they end up bumping into Kai and Ester, who appear to also be dating now. One thing led to another and the four end up going on double dates fairly often, having fun times together, Ben 100% supporting his two exs dating, seeing how happy they are. Julie, Ester and Kai even like to share cheesy stories of when Ben was their boyfriend, and he loves to play alone with it too. And that, is my take on Ben and Julie’s relationship! 💚💗

#Dear god I didn't mean to make this so long...#But I didn't know how to shorten it #So cheers to those that actually read this whole thing #Hope you enjoy #Ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #B10 #ben tennyson #julie yamamoto #Kai Green #Ester #Ben 10 Benlie #Benlie #EsterXKai #KaiXEster #Ben 10 Rewrite #My Answers

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