#hes the most evil guy to ever exist (bc of forces out of his control) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scott-mccall-the-hot-girl · 3 years

Text

my ultimate guide to thiam fic !!

( as a new teen wolf stan )

the classic post war, long ass (multi chapter) fic !!with great development that genuinely made me laugh out loud, they have the best friendship in this & i love it very much. ( like theo teaches liam to drive and i just *happy sobs* ) a fundamental in thiam fanfiction !! all stans have probably already read it but if you haven’t this is in fact a threat ,, go show this vv iconic story some love !!

Airplanes - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: After the Anuk-ite and the hunters are dealt with Liam needs a break. Cue Theo and a road trip that Liam should know better than to think will be peaceful.

Not Rated, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, 43/43 Chapters, Words: 236,875 (236k)

okay okay so this one is also post 6B !! but ,, now we introduce fighting monroe & the hunters again ,, so we get the boys & a new mission !! so if you like an intresting plot 11/10 would recommend !! just to be clear this ISN’T complete ,, if that turns you off i understand but definitely give this one a read !! it litterally have theo doing crossword puzzles & fighting zombies

Vacancy Signs - LovelyLittleGrim

Summary: Theo and Liam are in Manhattan negotiating a pack allyship when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, the two of them have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

Rated: Explicit, Graphic Description of Violence, Not Completed, 15/17 Chapters, Words: 89,605 (89k)

Royalty AU !! I REPEAT ROYALTY AU !! a fantastic au where i stan their moms more than i stan them !! genuinely so good at the childhood rivals to lovers trope !! i’m genuinely obsessed with this one. has made me cry more than once ,, hurts in a good way <3 the ending is just *chefs kiss* also one of the tags is genuinely: # theo and liam make bad choices for over 130k straight !! if that doesn’t sound appealing i don’t know what does !!

Artificial Love - songbvrd

Summary: Prince Theo and Prince Liam are forced to spend every Summer together from age five onwards. They hate each other, and usually find ways to make each other miserable as much as possible in their six weeks together. But when they're reunited because of intended unions as adults, things change. They're both supposed to be married to noble women, but neither of them is as interested in anyone else as they are with their childhood rival.

Rated: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, Chapters: 32/32, Words: 172,935 (172k)

so if you are in the mood for a crack fic that’s not explicitally a crack fic this is for you !! okay so i’m really hit or miss with AU’s ,, sometimes i feel like they don’t quite capture the characters right but this story have the BEST dramatic liam i have ever seen in my life !! basically they all live in the same apartment building & it’s fantastic !! i saw this one floating around a lot but the summary didn’t really unrest me until i have it a shot !! so go read it rn !! also nolan & brett are genuinely fantastic and make me wheeze ,, LIKE ACTUALLY VERBALLY LAUGHING !! all i’m gonna say is that my fav characters are scott & the beetles but that won’t make actual sense until you read it !!

The Neighbors Song - TheodoreR

Summary: “I always hear you singing on your balcony every morning, but suddenly you’ve stopped?”

Or the one where Theo annoys Liam every morning with his awful singing until he doesn’t anymore and Liam is even more annoyed. Liam hates every single thing about his mornings -the fact that they happen in the morning alone is enough. The thing Liam hates the most about his mornings though is the terrible voice of the guy who lives below him. He can’t sing for shit and Liam tried to politely let him understand that by throwing flour and water on his balcony, and also by shouting it to him, you can’t sing for shit!, and then by writing it into a note he proceeded to attach to his door, but this Raeken guy just keeps doing it, every single morning, like a fucking rooster. Liam did nothing to deserve this. He probably didn’t do anything to deserve better either to be fair, he doesn’t expect to open his window and be welcomed by some angelic voice singing him good morning, he’d just be happy with nothing. Silence. That’s something Liam can appreciate in mornings. Just some bark from his dog and the sound of his misery and that’s it. But no, god forbid the new guy lets him have that.

Rated: Explicit, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Wanrings, Completed, 8/8 Chapters, Words: 42,814 (42k)

me: i’m not a big fan of AU’s ,, proceeds to talk about ANOTHER au… OKAY BUT THIS ONE !! it’s not complete but the author has been updating regularly ,, vv slow burn !! but in a REALLY intresting way !! i lOVE LIAM IN THIS SO MUCH ,, he is such a diaster of a person and it’s wonderful !! they have a great dynamic & i’m sucker for general puppy pack content ( and erica reyes being a badass ) !! also theo plays lacrosse in this & i really like it ahhhhh ,, also liam is just being an artic monkeys stan the whole time & theo is like *que confused repressed gay noises*

Inglorious Roommates - honeyscape

Summary: A roommate is defined as “a person with whom one shares a room.”

Theo would say a roommate was more along the lines of, “The person who's the bane of his existence. The weirdo that sleeps for days. The spaz that exercises at 3am. The guy with a revolving door of annoying friends. An insufferable human being that Theo has no control over living in his room.”

Example: Theo hates his roommate Liam.

okay okay i hate myself but i have another WIP for y’all !! this one is jUST FANTASTIC. i’m genuinely so upset it’s most likely not going to updated again *incoherent screaming ensues*. for this story ,, it’s very theo-centric bUT thats bc it ends right before liam becomes a concrete member of the story !! ANYWAY: basic plot = theo & acquiring not one but two children ,, so #dad theo but he is still crusty & homeless and i love him very much. it’s just so GOOD !! just read if you want to experience my fav theo coming out story & him etching high school musical

Look who's talking - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: Theo had been labeled many things in his life. Evil, failure, monster. He'd never thought Father would be one of those things but as he looked across the table to a six year old with blue smears of bubble gum icecream across her face trying to coax the first words out of her sister. Finger jabbing towards Theo's face as she repeated 'Daddy' again and again he couldn't bring himself to dispute the label.

(Theo accidentally adopts two young werewolves)

Not Rated, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Not Completed, Chapters: 16/?, Words: 48740 ( 48k )

so here me out: post-canon ( poetry like angst ) summer get away !! just the boys doing cute little domestic things together whilst pining !! theo’s guilt in this is just so powerful & aGjffkgkkfkvkdlv !! i think it’s so interesting to see how they interact in this one, it’s just very heart warming !! and it features one of my favorite niche teen wolf tropes of theo being great with like seven year old girls- it’s just so good ,, very much a wonderful little one shot that just makes your heart happy.

(next time i see you you'll show me) a hundred different ways to say the same things - cherrysprite

Summary: “...You deserve good things,” Liam says eventually. He makes sure not to look at Theo even though he can feel his eyes turn on him. Somehow he can already tell that Theo doesn’t believe him.

Liam instantly makes that the goal of this summer - making Theo believe him.

Rating: Teen and Up, No Archive Warnings Apply, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 28875 ( 28k )

okay so this next section of fic recs is a bit different !!

two of my favorite authors !! and a compilation of fics i’ve read by them both !!

for context: these two have written some genuinely gorgeous fics, like pure poetry, they explore the real gritty & scary side of our boys relationship in such a wonderful way. they’ve both used some of my favorite tropes & i love them very much !!

whenever i need something soothing but so genuinely intresting & enticing these are my go to !! ( also they both write a lot of good nolan angst & some vv good fics with hayden )

go check out:

eneiryu

as well as fallingforboys

here are some of my favorite fics by them ~

darling i want you here in my arms (kiss the pain away, i know you can) - fallingforboys

even before you touched me, i belonged to you (all you had to do was look at me) - fallingforboys

memories linger like tattoo scars (but your touch on my skin is just as permanent) - fallingforboys

skin, bones, a stolen heart, and an ugly creature lurking underneath -fallingforboys

i don't know how to breathe in the place i called home - fallingforboys

whisper your gossamer truths into the shadow, maybe you'll find the answers you're searching for - fallingforboys

between the mountains and the valley we built a monument to our regret - eneiryu

cracked the hinges of the cage and waited for you - eneiryu

okay and finally: since i am a self centered whore

my own fic: an rendition of the # elevator scene

it’s basically my version of post canon if we did get the kiss in the elevator. we got a classic liam pov in which he is has 12/10 for extreme bi diaster energy even whilst being shot at !! so go him ig…

Fuck Off, Fuck This & Fuck It! - nefelibata_peach

Summary: Liam thought to himself heart rate climbing, they were bound to be dead by morning. So he thought with everything but his brain and he kissed him.

Where Liam Dunbar is very confused, slightly traumatized, and just a bit scared but hey, aren't they all! Bad decisions ensue as two boys fight in a war they never did sign up for.

Rating: Teen and Up, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 3558 ( 3k )

#this took me so long #please go read these or i’ll cry #fan fiction #fan fic recs #teen wolf fic recs #thiam fanfiction #thiam fic recs #thiam #theo raeken #liam dunbar #theo x liam #teen wolf fandom #teen wolf gay #teen wolf #ao3 #fuck you fuck this & fuck it #thiam fanfic rec #thiam fanfic #thiam is endgame

334 notes · View notes

antiloreolympus · 3 years

Text

14 Anti LO Asks

1. To the one anon: good question - how is it that the mortals dont know who Persephone is / assume she is a minor goddess and therefore its okay to mess with her but the gods (or Olympians / underworld denizens) know exactly everything about her (despite her being there only every so often and only being 20ish) - enough to say shes "wearing her signature white color" during a murder trial.

Also the reason why Persephone is wearing white is because

A). RS wanted persephone to always be "dressed as a bride" (and have Hades dressed as a groom respectively) to show that their matching / is supposed to be a visual cue that their eventually gonna be together.

B). I believe this is RS way of saying that Persephone (despite murdering some mortals) is innocent because in purity culture White = innocence, virginity, youth etc. (Even though RS explicity ssid she wanted to go against purity culture morals shes very much leaning into them).

2. why are Psyche’s eyes yellow even in her human form? Is she sick??

3. honestly? LO is just gossisp girl at this point, espect even GG (at least in the first season) bothered to saturze the rich and was calling out how wealth and power makes them corrupt assholes. meanwhile LO is just GG season 2 and on of being like no no, the poor people are the evil people and the rich people are the oppressed ones! all while also fawning over their wealth and status and being way into grown men wanting to bang barely legal teens and claiming to be "feminist" somehow.

4. Tumblr is well-known for broken tag system. Check the post' tags before complaining that it's op's fault. How about you guys not tag greek mythology when posting about LO? LO is not one-shot or short fancomic. It's also definitely not considered actual greek mythology. LO is years long webcomic with huge fans. LO has its own tag. Tell your fellow fans to stop using the greek mythology tag.

5. I would argue nyx is the only woman with a unique in design in LO but thats only because she looks like a deformed chicken woman. why was my night mom disrespected this much 😭

6. So now that LO is back from break and I can finally read chapter 170 - Why oh Why do ALL the female characters Have to be defined by their male love interests??? (Or really just love interests in general).

I understand LO qualifies as the "romance" genre and there are certain stipulations or I guess themes or what have you that make it romance but for f*cks sake.

Psyche being worried about Eros loving the "fake" her I kinda get, but really? Thats your most pressing concern?? Hera is defined by her garbage marriage to Zeus - King of the gods (of which is why she is Queen of the gods). Hestia + Athena are now defined solely by their relationship to each other (not the TGOEM or their respective traits of being a goddess of the hearth + goddess of war, strategy etc etc).

Aphrodite is defined by giving Persephone "relationship" advice (e.g: telling her to curb stomp Minthe because "nymphs dont take things from gods" - doubly implying that people are things to own) And by her jealousy of Persephone in the first place because Hades made a comment about how he thought Persephone was prettier than her. And also because of her "house of debauchery" (Artemis' words) - and relationship with Ares.

Persephone is defined both by Apollo raping her and by her fated future status as Queen of the underworld (so her relationship with Hades). Hell, even the minor characters such as nymphs are defined by this relationship status / standard. Minthe is defined by her mean spirited personality yes, but Also because of her abusive relationship with Hades prior to the introduction of Persephone. Psyche is defined by her relationship woes with Eros. Daphne is defined by her relationship with Thanatos (and because shes a flower nymph) but also mostly because she looks like Persephone.

Rhea is defined by her marriage / relationship to Kronos (lets ignore the whole "fertility goddess power" plot for a second). Even Aetna is defined by Haphestus creating her! Is there not a single character (especially female) is isnt defined by their romantic love interest???Sorry. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but thats definitely how ot comes off as of late, in regard to the latest chapters.

Okay, same anon as earlier - I take it back somewhat - we have Artemis and Hecate that are not defined by their romantic relationships - but rather their lack of one.

However the way they are shown - it still comes off as a standard - "Artemis is stingy / a stick in the mud" because shes not romantically involved and is "barbaric" (according to Hera). And Hecate is still somewhat defined by her being Hades' employee (and cheerleader for him and Persephone to be together).

So technically yes, we have at least 2 characters that are not defined by their romantic interests / relationships, but they are still held to the standard of their "un-ladylike / undesirable" because their not romantically involved.

(I guess I should count Demeter, but only because shes more defined by just being "Persephone's overbearing mom" )

7. i think whats also kinda weird about this trial is like?? persephone is obvs framed as not liking the attention (bc duh) but she didnt like the previous press either, she wanted to be private, but wouldnt being with hades force her to be in the spotlight that makes her uncomfortable? also the citizens of the underworld already dislike hades, why would they want a uncontrollable felon as their queen, even if she found innocent? idk the whole thing just makes the endgame less plausible, tbh.

8. love that rachel was able to find a random deity name to name her random nymph the greek word for "beans" meanwhile apparently cant google actual greek names for even one off characters? like andrew, ellen, george, alexis, damian, luke, phoebe, sophia, and so any other english names are also greek, but she cant even bother with that? what exactly is her "research" if she cant even bother to spend 30 seconds googling greek names? at this point LO seems determined to be as un-Greek as possible.

9. wait so everyone in LO went from having no idea who persephone was, to her only showing up on ONE magazine cover, to now being the most well known person with a signature color? all in the span of two weeks with no genuine public outings? how does that make sense? also white isnt even her signature color if 90%+ the female cast and even a lot of the men ((including ZEUS) all wear it too.

10. the fact the courthouse WASNT the areopagus, aka the place in greece where they say the first ever trial ever happened and where the court system was invented, is just another point of rachel talking out her ass about being "respectful" or "researched" on greece and their mythology. its literally one of the most famous mythology spots ever with some fantastic stories to it and she's just like "nah! boring rectangle will do!" like why even both with mythology then if its this devoid of it?

11. Anons are saying Hades in the FS chapter is leaning down and talking to Persy like a child. Say it aint true.

(I wanna see. I thought RS was finally giving Persy adult proportions). 😨

12. So wait, hold up. I kinda get where RS is coming from with the law school in the underworld (because Hades is supposed to be a kinda Judge, jury, executioner situation in the afterlife when it comes to mortals and their "punishments" and whatnot). However, is RS stating that the ONLY law school / courthouse exists in the underworld? If so, why? Why wouldn't Athena be there then. She's a goddess of strategy and justice (among other things).

Also is RS really implying that Hades owns not only the banks and underworld but the law too? She really wants Hades to be a Gary Sue along side her Mary Sue - Hades controls everything that matters and since its his realm and blah blah blah rules, Zeus, king of the gods cant do anything about it.

(Which is dumb. Because you would think that because Persephone committed the crime in the mortal realm / on, or near Olympus that therefore she would be brought back there to dole out justice under Zeus jurisdiction because she committed the crime in His Realm).

13. FP Spoiler ahead:

Why on earth couldn't the reporters have Greek names? There is so much wrong and bad with this story, yet this irks me so much. It is Brenda all over again.

14. i dont really get the point of the trial plotline, tbh. even persephone says she should be punished and held accountable, but hades is framed in the right for trying to go against that and weasel her out of it. so?? plus zeus has legit reason to punish them? persephone is a danger to others, demeter and hermes both committed treason to cover it up, and hades was harboring a fugitive of the law and is now trying to force the system to let her go. how is zeus in the wrong for this?

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #lo critical

32 notes · View notes

caneannabelle · 3 years

Text

ok hi guys. it’s been a while. i wrote this analysis back when Mag 187 aka Checking Out aka The One Where Helen Dies first came out and literally ever since i’ve posted it i’ve wanted to redo it because it feels. lacking. listen if there’s one thing i hate it’s incomplete media analysis and i must right my wrongs lest i be forced to look upon myself and crumble from within. that being said, i’ve been putting off this rewrite for a long long time bc Life Gets Weird. tldr this was written over the course of several months so i apologize for inconsistent quality. anyways let’s get into it!

part one: recap!

it’s been a while! let’s just go over what happened. the scene i wanna focus on in particular is this one:

VICTIM

You’ve got to help me!

ARCHIVIST

[Angrily] Don’t touch me!

[THE ARCHIVIST PULLS AWAY, AS THE VICTIM FALLS AND IS CRYING]

HELEN

Oopsie. Not so easy, is it? Keeping up your humanity?

(187).

that being said i’m gonna be kind of all over the place but! i do think that’s a good jumping off point.

part two (part one): disparaging everyone’s problematic fav

in my original post my point was that in reflexively reacting to a victim with disgust and anger jon inadvertently reveals the nature of his dedication to helping victims as ego driven, especially because this line is directly preceded by him asserting his moral high ground over helen as being a “protector” as opposed to her indulgence in destruction. what i’m saying is homeboy has a savior complex. honestly there’s a lot of evidence to support that claim but i think the most obvious example would be jordan kennedy. like.

JORDAN

…Yeah. But wrong. Sick.

What did you do to me?

ARCHIVIST

I helped you.

JORDAN

Helped me? I don’t feel right, I, I just – Ah! No I don’t – argh! I don’t want this!

(184). to be clear it’s an action with a good intent! he just wants to help someone who once helped him! BUT it also demonstrates a lack of conscious empathy. i feel like i don’t have to argue this since jordan Literally vocally said he didn’t want this several times throughout the scene but the point remains that while jon’s intent is good the actual application of his saviourism removes the autonomy of those he affects. i’m not gonna touch on the “is it objectively immoral to become an oppressor for the sake of self preservation while existing within an extreme system in which all are oppressed regardless of your individual status” query mostly because i do not have the brainpower available rn to come to my own conclusion about systems of power and the way they’re represented in tma (which is a whole other rant tbh) but jon DOES rob jordan of the ability to come to his own conclusion in this debate and make his own choice, thereby removing his autonomy. you know. autonomy. free will. the thing that is central to jon’s internal conflicts. huh.

anyways i NEED to stress that i’m not saying that he’s the same as jonah or the web or even annabelle (although annabelle is a victim. no i don’t take constructive criticism). i just want to point out that his actions reflect a lack of understanding. while he’s able to empathize with the pain others experience and is eternally hyper- aware of it he is unable to view that pain through any lense besides his own and uses it in his cycle of self pity and blame, minimizing it at any point possible in the quickest way and Not prioritizing the wishes of the victim but instead the efficiency in decreasing his own guilt. anyways back to 187- both the victim and jordan are treated as props by jon (and helen) and once they serve their purpose in reaffirming the two’s sense of self are cast aside and ignored. ok from here i’m gonna get conceptual and self indulgent bc it’s my analysis and i get to bring up vague convoluted philosophy.

part two (part two): part two

let’s talk about the distortion for a sec. i refuse to believe helen and michael were both completely gone and it was just the distortion piloting their visage, mostly because… like that’s not what the text would indicate

HELEN

Michael isn’t me. Not now.

ARCHIVIST

What happened?

HELEN

He got… distracted. Let feelings that shouldn’t have been his overwhelm me.

Lost my way.

(101). it’s heavily implied that there was SOME remainder of michael in there, even if the being wasn’t him. maybe i’m way off base here but the way i interpreted the implosion of michael was that it was driven by his inability to maintain the repressed resentment and anger he had for gertrude. like it’s pretty clear that some warped version of michael’s feelings were trapped inside of the distortion and i’d go as far as to say that they were integral to his formation as it. i’m gonna operate on the assumption that michael and helen are two separate beings here for a sec even though we know they’re not. As opposed to michael’s resentment for the archivist, helen actively sought refuge in the institute and from the small amount we saw of her Pre-Distortion it seems like her paranoia is internally directed. i think you could even say that while michael was caught in an eternal battle with the concept of connection, helen is caught in a battle with the concept of self. the point is that she thinks of jon in a less “The Archivist” sense and more as just That Guy who she had an intense connection with that one time.

ARCHIVIST

So… S-so what do you want?

HELEN

I don’t know. Helen liked you, so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.

(101). i would also like to point out that helen’s emergence as the distortion coincides with jon coming to terms with his identity as the archivist. parallels, baby! SO helen is a newly formed being that is grappling with the concept of her own existence and jon is reevaluating his understanding of identity as he comes to terms with the fact that he is turning into the thing he’s fighting against and this is all happening at the same time. live laugh love. stay with me here, i promise i’ll get back to 187. Throughout seasons 4 and 5 helen attempts to validate her own moral decisions via jon who she once saw herself in. conversely, jon sees both an image of what he could become AND arguably a representation of his past failure in her.

ARCHIVIST

It did. I think… I mean, you remember how I was back then, how paranoid. The Not!Sasha was there, and I could sense something wasn’t right, but I just couldn’t place it. It left me a suspicious wreck. Then when Helen Richardson came in, it seemed like… she was in the same place I was, but worse, further along. I thought, maybe if I could help her, that would mean… maybe I wasn’t beyond help?

(188). helen and jon lie at opposite ends of the same spectrum. both of them derive pleasure from the suffering of others

HELEN

Oh, John! This existence can be wonderful, if you just let it.

ARCHIVIST

[Sadly] I know.

(187). needless to say that a LOT of jon's arc and the themes surrounding him focus on the concept of autonomy and addiction and i think it'd be fair to say that this component is an aspect of that. repressing these qualities is both a way of reaffirming his control and also just.. him trying to be what he perceives as Good, and season 5 is the point at which this comes to the forefront of his character- particularly the line between what is intrinsic and what he truly has control over. a battle of the concept of the self, if you will. while the two share similar traits, jon is intensely moralistic while helen indulges in a twisted sense of hedonism and both are fueled by an inability to expand their viewpoint. helen fully immerses herself within these qualities and intentionally blinds herself to any concepts of morality (indulgence), and jon actively pushes back on this as hard as he can and follows black and white moral framework (repression). this means that in order for their relationship to function he must either accept her, choosing to let go in his personal battle with autonomy OR she must break out of her worldview and conform to standards of human morality which goes against her own nature.

part three: questions i do not have the answer to

so. what does it all mean. WELL. 187 is the boiling point of all this tension. we know that helen relies on jon to validate her sense of self and we know that jon sees himself in helen, both past and present

HELEN

But that doesn’t make any sense. You barely met her. You had half an hour together, and she spent most of that ranting about mazes! She was positively delirious with paranoia!

ARCHIVIST

True. But as you’ll recall, I was pretty paranoid myself at that point.

HELEN

So what? You saw yourself in her? A sad reflection? A possible future?

(187). I’d argue that 187 is demonstrative of jon’s inability to either fall into complete indulgence in intrinsic values that lack moral validity vs. maintain and image of self that does not conflict with the values he attempts to uphold in order to find internal satisfaction and yes both of those concepts are inherently egocentric as he bases his moral judgement on what he can justify to himself instead of what can be calculated via empathy. however. paired with the alternative (helen). is that BAD. is it inherently selfish to do what you perceive as good in order to feed your own savior complex? and if so, is it inherently selfish to indulge in destructive qualities as to not delude yourself? is honesty vs deception a black and white question? if not, where does helen even fall? in not deluding herself does she achieve a moral high ground? IS she deluding herself by denying the potential to be facetiously benevolent at the detriment of both her personal enjoyment and her honesty? does helen even posses the capability to repress her violent qualities? if she doesn't, does she have any autonomy? if she and jon are both inherently selfish and intentionally resistant to introspection, what makes them different? i do not have answers but i do think the text is meant to invoke these questions. i mean,

MICHAEL (STATEMENT)

There was a great evil, she said, and Michael was going to help her fight it. Am I evil, Archivist? Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature? When it embodies its nature? When that nature is created by those which revile it? Perhaps Gertrude believed so. Michael certainly did. He believed everything she told him.

(101).

part 5: conclusion

so once again. what does it all mean. well! even post helen’s death jon continues to fight for autonomy and preserve his moral worldview so. i think that probably indicates something good.

MARTIN

Huh. She couldn’t help what she was, I guess.

ARCHIVIST

She didn’t even try.

(188). i honestly don’t have a thesis i just find it incredibly interesting how the themes surrounding these two intersect and play off of each other. anyways looping back to 187 i do think in a broad sense jon killing helen is representative of him choosing to stick by his convictions and keep fighting. i don’t have any good way to end this but thanks for sticking around during my self indulgent rambling!

#also apropos of nothing but #this scene reminds me of a clive barker story #truly that has nothing to do w this analysis i just wanted to throw this in the tags #anyways! hope this makes sense #i had a friend who’s never listened to tma read over this to make sure that it’s coherent #and she said it was fine so.. alice ty #this was fun! i have lots of Thoughts on tma and i should write them more often #the magnus archives #mag 187 #jonathan sims #the archivist #helen richardson #helen distortion #michael shelley #tma meta #the distortion #the spiral #tma

31 notes · View notes

gayregis · 3 years

Note

Yes!! Let's talk ab Phillippa! She used to be my favourite sorceress when i read the books for the 1st time (mostly bc my teenage self didn't know a lot of wlw rep oof). She obv suffers somewhat from written-by-a-cishet-dude syndrome, but i like her villainy the most from the saga. I like her contrast with Yen (they are both considered talented but bitchy cold-hearted etc but Yen cares about her family and that influences her and the way she achieves her goals while Phil is the end justifies the means type) and with Vilgefortz (they want same thing from Ciri but Phil thinks she wants it for less selfishness more greater good type of reasons (still not valid) while Vilgefortz is open about doing this for himself. Also she's the evil mastermind Vilgefortz wishes he was! He's just evil, sitting in his evil castle sending around goddamn Rince out of all people, getting results more by luck than judgment...). She's Magnificent Bastard and i really hope they wont ruin her in twn by shrinking down her role or by making her SuperEvil like they did Fringilla 😔 she's cunning and power-hungry enough on her own, no need to add extra layer of immorality bc someone could forget she's a villain here. 🦇 (sorry it's 3am here and i... also want more Philippa content that's something more than people calling her a c*nt)

this ask is SO blessed i started happy stimming gfgsdfksj

yes!!!!!!!!!!! philippa to me is a really interesting character (even though she suffers from being written by a man as all the female characters in the witcher do) but she as a villain is severely overlooked. and she’s only ever addressed by the fandom in the manner that she is either a neutral character or a protagonist, which annoys me a lot, perhaps more than i tend to show, because as you said she’s really the mastermind vilgefortz fucking wishes he was.

i love how competent the lodge seems to be, they hold meetings and discuss complicated lineage and have a whole plan marked out with spies (fringilla) and international participation. of course, things go haywire in the end, because philippa and the other sorceresses are unwilling to admit that sometimes there are things in life one is not able to exert control over, that nature is just too random to rule over, because to them, that would be a defeatist’s perspective... but they had a plan, at least, they were organized and led in a semi-democratic manner with of course philippa leading, but holding meetings in which everyone was allowed to voice their opinion and argue. it’s so much more fleshed out than vilgefortz, who was just evil for power but really vague about it and seemed to just be that kind of over-the-top tropey villain.

i think your comparison with her to yennefer is spot-on, they both are painted as power hungry and selfish... i love that philippa is hungry for power and ambitious in politics, and yennefer doesn’t really care about politics and has always just done her own thing. their contrast also comes in what you describe, why they feel that their goals are justified. the montecalvo scene grew on me a lot especially after i listened to the audiobook version of it, because it really portrays philippa and yennefer as opposing forces.

i guess some might take issue with the fact that philippa is gay because she’s evil in the series, especially because her whole deal is that she is willing to sacrifice the life (freedom) of a child (ciri) for political stability, as opposed to yennefer, who wants to protect her child (and husband), so it might be seen as “lesbians want to destroy the sanctity of marriage and hate children!” ... but i don’t think this was the message, to me i don’t think representation mattered sort of at all to sapkowski, so i personally don’t think of philippa as representing lesbians as a whole, i think she is just gay and that’s a coincidence. she’s not meant to be good representation anyways so it’s not a big deal to me.

and on that note, philippa as a villain was a really nice statement to me ... i mean, because usually i feel that it is the guys being evil. and there are of course the male villains of vilgefortz, bonhart, rience, emhyr, the aen elle if elves have gender, etc. etc, but philippa is a special case because she’s competent and also as a character she isn’t bogged down by “feminine issues” in her evil ... such as that one might expect a woman to be more empathetic towards a child, etc. i think it was actually kind of humanizing because it demonstrates that anyone has the ability to commit evil actions.

but in the fandom the content i see for her is either just ship (nothing horribly wrong with it, just that it’s bland and doesn’t take her character and character motivations into account at all) or fluff which outright ignores her character traits and placement within the narrative and relationships to other characters. i suppose this is somewhat the fault of tw3 for declawing her so to speak, but it’s really annoying because it’s pretty much the only philippa content that exists. like, where is the appreciation of her as a villain, a really good and smart one at that?

and yeah, for twn, i don’t think they even casted her yet, even though they’re doing blood of elves, where she makes her character debut... yet they casted for fringilla and francesca, so i have no idea what’s going on. i think they might be replacing her with someone else (tissaia? or that new violet OC they have? or vanessa-marie OC? idk). so as always i have little faith in them but i’m sure they’ll find a way to butcher her character somehow ...

it’s just that philippa is such a specific and kind of nuanced character, she’s really not basic in any kind of way unlike the other villains of the series kind of are. and it’s interesting to me but no one ever seems to approach her with this intent to analyze her, they only care about her appearance, romantic potential, or the fact that she got her eyes cut out in tw2 or killed radovid in tw3.

like ok, but can we first talk about how she basically ruled redania by controlling the puppet king vizimir (even though she would never admit it and told tissaia she was lying when she called her out on it (iirc))? that’s kind of insane and demonstrates the political power mages can have in this fictional setting. and that statement tissaia makes to her in time of contempt, that she was once so proud of her as a student, but now she has nothing but contempt for her... i want to see that explored. philippa is kind of a takedown of the #girlboss trope as well and i like that

#anon #ask #philippa eilhart #like no more thirsting we are seriously analyzing her #and only THEN can you thirst

21 notes · View notes

wordsablaze · 4 years

Text

help, i lost myself again

It's over and they've won but is it really winning if Kai somehow feels more lost than ever?

A/N: aka angst™ bc i love hurting my faves... title from six feet under by bilie eilish :) oh and this has major s2 spoilers !!

When Kai wakes up, he doesn't react as calmly as the others.

He doesn't go and ask his parents if they're real or question the existence of his house.

But that's because his parents aren't there, they're never there, and his house feels just as empty as it always did.

The doughnuts taste great though.

And then he runs into another Hollow gamer who seems not to recognise him but he doesn't really question it because why would someone so talented and famous want to talk to him anyway?

But then Mira and Adam share their thoughts and he has to admit that what they think makes sense in a really nonsensical kind of way.

So he takes them to his house and tries not to pay attention to their judgemental staring, gazing, as Davis brings them something to drink, as they notice the giant statue of himself, as they see his neighbour Kevin.

The giant chicken from his nightmares helpfully distracts him from thinking about their reactions.

But Mabel is eventually defeated because as if he's going to allow his nightmares to hurt his best friends.

And then it turns out his best friends don't in fact like each other when he'd spent most of the first hollow game thinking that they do, that they choose each other over him.

He's not sure if it's worse that they liked each other or if it's worse that they didn't , because the latter means they just didn't like him.

Maybe they aren't his best friends after all.

He certainly isn't theirs anyway.

He pointedly ignores those thoughts once he realises he really isn't dreaming and they get caught up in figuring out how to find Weirdy.

But those thoughts come right back when he asks Adam why they'd chosen him over Reeve and apparently it's just because he was available.

Available.

Not because he was good at what he did or because they liked him or because they thought he could help, but just because he was there.

It stings to hear but he doesn't argue because they have more pressing matters, like making sure the other, more valuable member of their team is okay.

And anyway, Adam jokes around with him afterwards and it's not really that bad.

(But he does stop trying to convince Adam he's cool because clearly that's a futile quest.)

It's bittersweet to see Skeet because last time, he and Reeve had all but bullied him, but it's better this time because he's far nicer - he does try and leave the second they rescue him but that's only to be expected, really.

Fighting fire with fire is ridiculous but it works out in the end, mostly thanks to Adam and his clever ideas.

Speaking of clever ideas, Skeet's idea to try and reboot is not clever and it's endlessly frustrating to try and rescue someone who doesn't want to be rescued.

(It's kind of like how his parents keep trying to rescue a marriage that's better off not rescued)

But they do it anyway, and then they find Mira, and it turns out she and Skeet have something between them, which makes his old crush on Mira kind of embarrassing.

And he convinces himself that the others let him control the wheels that turn the puzzle floors because they know he can fly, not just because he'd be the lesser loss if something went wrong.

Sliding on mucus is surprisingly fun, and there's something he never thought he'd think.

But losing a friend is significantly less fun.

Although he's not entirely sure he can call Skeet a friend but they'd shared laughs and Skeet hadn't minded his presence all that much and that's what friends are like, right?

So it definitely hurts to lose him, and he imagines Mira is devastated. He just wishes he could help.

But he can't, as usual.

It's definitely unusual, though, that the weird evil scientist decides to dress Adam and Mira up to look fancy and formal and he gets given a sailor outfit, of all things.

(Come on, he has fire powers, why would he ever be a sailor?)

But the guy has good cutlery, Kai can give him that. Although said cutlery is not so good when Reeve is trying to kill him with it.

Saving the others from their weird possessed state ruins his hair but really, it doesn't matter when he's wearing what he is.

And then they finally, finally find Weirdy.

Though not before they meet another team in which one of them has fire power, his power.

And Nisha is really good at using it.

But it's meant to be his thing.

If another player can master his power better than he can, what does he have left?

It's unfair .

What's also unfair is Adam and Reeve yelling at each other like an old married couple, exactly like another married couple he knows.

It throws him back to Easter and how arguing had ruined his chance of finding any chocolate the Easter Bunny had left for him, and he abruptly forgets where he is and what they're doing.

(Thank heavens for Davis, who had always given him chocolate before bed to try and make up for things.)

He manages to push his memories aside as they focus on trying to get Weirdy's attention but all they get for their trouble is being thrown into yet another life or death situation.

It's disheartening to know that even Weirdy, who'd been specifically programmed to help them, has given up on them.

Not to mention that Vanessa won't stop acting strange and although he'd figured out that she was only pretending to like him before, which is a whole other world of hurt he doesn't even want to address, it's unnerving to see her so quiet.

But she mostly ignores him and they end up separated from Adam and Reeve.

They end up eaten, actually.

It's a bizarre experience and not one he'd like to experience ever again. Although he'd take it over Christmas dinners any day.

And then he manages to get Vanessa to tell him why she's been so sad, and they have what he feels like is a nice conversation.

(It's rare that he can discuss video games with someone who understands what he's talking about and poor Davis had tried but hadn't quite gotten the hang of it all.)

Of course he wants to blame her but he'd already done that and it hadn't helped in the slightest so he just assures her he isn't annoyed.

And then the others get back because apparently Mira is the only one who can help things along when they're underwater.

And he wants to tell Adam how happy he is to see him but he remembers that Adam had chosen him out of necessity and he holds back.

Plus, Adam and Reeve suddenly being friendly with each other again means he's probably no longer needed anyway.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

The pixies or sprites or whatever they are make a nice break from people trying to kill them and figuring out how to make a goat is actually pretty enjoyable .

Until Weirdy ruins it by telling them they're not even real.

But they're not dead either, so he'd been slightly wrong about that.

And it turns out the other team have figured out their doomsday weapon, which is exactly what they don't need to make things better.

Stopping the other team is just as easy as his parents getting along, which is to say it's one of the most difficult things in the world.

Vanessa ends up disappearing, and that's just great because he'd thought they were getting close, becoming friends, and he'd just convinced the others to side with her.

(But it's fine because it's nothing new, it's not like he's used to retaining friends.)

And then because of course life can't be easy, they have to stall the other team, who seem to always be a step ahead of them.

He tries to be a good friend and joins Adam in attempting to force the weird pyramid open but it seems his efforts go unappreciated, surprise surprise.

Stupid motion sickness.

He can practically feel Mira's disapproval when he throws up but he can't help it, he really can't, and he'd take a dragon over a car chase anytime.

The boss battle feels wrong and they all just get thrown around for trying to confusingly help by not helping.

And he feels awful because he knows he wouldn't have been fast enough to save Iris, he'd almost cost everyone their lives.

But he's happy Vanessa is alive.

Although it seems he's too happy because by telling Vanessa what he'd figured out about the mechanical boss, the other team learns how to win.

All is almost lost, again .

Well, before Weirdy finally gets round to being amazing, helping them properly, and conjuring a portal that leads back to whatever their new life is.

It works.

It really works .

And they're still not dead.

And everything is as okay as it can be.

Except it's not, because the others have families to go back to but the game hadn't even thought to program his parents into this world so all he has is a mostly empty house.

(That's not to say he's not grateful for Davis, who is by far the best butler and friend in the world.)

But while the others are making a toast to old friends and new adventures, he can't help but feel a little lost .

Actually, make that very lost.

Because where does he fit into this new world?

Turns out you can take Kai out of the hollow but you can't take the hollow feeling out of Kai.

sorry for the big sad but the poor kid is traumatised enough to warrant this tbh... more of my thoughts at @kaidamplease if you’re interested :p

thanks for reading! masterlist

56 notes · View notes

ofphcenixes · 5 years

Text

THE PHOENIX || BLUE HAWTHORNE.

ok i won’t lie i stole this intro from veritas 2 kdJKDGF BUT ! if you want to get to know this guy definitely hit the readmore below *shaky eye emoji*. also hi i’m lilac i’m an admin and also a sims enthusiast anyways, back onto what’s important here, this lil bean called red blue !

personality

THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBING TO BLUE FACTS. PLEASE TEXT ‘STOPBLUE’ TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION.

but if you have seen blue’s blog sidebar and title, i feel like you will gather a LOT about his personality lmfao

he is playful, jocular, and honestly? immature

always looking for the childhood he never got to have, y’know?

he is secretly very insecure and always has a need to please. if someone doesn’t like him, he’ll tear himself apart to figure out why.

he’s always telling jokes and always laughing. he’s known for his Memes and is always a good time to be around… if you know what i mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

but also Anti-( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) because ya boi has commitment issues so high they’re past the inevitable spaghetti monster that’s probably floating out there in space

he can also be very maternal when the need arises. he is not good at talking about emotions but he’ll give you a meme or a plate of cookies to Heal You

honestly? the human embodiment of a puppy. cannot be alone for very long, has a short attention span, and craves validation lmfao. give him a squeaky toy and he will be Contented

as a footballer he can be Tough on field when he needs to be but he’s also v sensitive and talks to birds he passes on his morning runs like he’s a disney princess djkgfdk

he struggles academically as he has a short attention span most of the time and thinks too little of himself. however, he’s a lot brighter than most people give him credit for. he’s incredibly creative and a lateral thinker. maths makes him want to die, tho.

also what’s money? blue does not know

to many, blue’s known as the troubled kid who turned his life around. to others, he’s known as the local Meme Dealer. but to a lucky few, he’s known as a friend who would do anything for you.

most just know him as the moron named after a colour tho. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

history. (trigger warning: illness, death, drugs, depression)

WHO’S READY FOR SOME CHROMATIC CONTENT

blue hawthorne, who never goes by his birthname bc he hates it dfkjgdgdf ( what is his birthname ? he’ll never tell ┌( ಠ‿ಠ)┘ ) was born right here in ashmont.

despite not having a lot - he grew up with just him and his mum ( his father left before he was born, never knew a thing about him ), in a tiny trailer park on the outskirts of town. a far cry from the opulent manors peppered all throughout town, and the very lifestyle blue’s mother was accustomed to as a child. however, the pair were content as long as they were together.

despite not having much, blue loved every second of his childhood. he wore his mischief like a crown, smiling wherever he went. he’d always resonated with a love of music and dance, and like his mother before him, danced. ballet was his passion growing up, and started as young as 5.

as a child blue was often teased for this, and the fact that he was so close with his mother. he was also very outspoken and strong-willed, and never let his peers get the best of him. he danced, he laughed, he bruised his knees at any given opportunity. what he lacked in possessions he gained in the abundance of joy he felt in his heart growing up. his mother and a few of his close friends were his world.

when blue turned ten, everything changed.

the jubilant, mischievous, but altogether kind-hearted boy was given the heart-breaking news that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. margarette hawthorne, much like her son, was a fighter - and didn’t let such a diagnosis keep her down. despite their dwindling lack of funds now going towards medical bills, and the fact blue began sacrificing his own childhood as he took to the role of a caretaker of sorts for his mother, he never took his time with her for granted.

things were okay for a while. there was a point where the doctors were convinced that she was going to make it. blue was a fool. blue believed them.

at the age of thirteen, blue lost everything. he lost his place to live, he lost his childhood and lust for life, and he lost the person he loved most in the world. he lost his best friend.

it wasn’t long before the overbearing sympathy from those around him soured blue. he was sick of being bullied, people not liking him, and altogether not being in control. so what did this boy do ? he quit ballet (the thing he’d loved since he was able to stand), he started drinking, he got involved in a very bad crowd and became a frequenter of the local ashmont police station. blue became a certified Bad Boy™

blue was sent to live with the grandparents that despised him and never acknowledged his existence before that moment. righteous and conservative in their views, they had cast aside their daughter when she had blue out of wedlock, and only reached out to her in her final months. for this reason, blue despised these people (he refused to call them family). he tried his best to be appreciative of a house and food ( which was much better than anything he had growing up ). but he was cold. always cold.

as a teenager, blue fell into a rapid succession of bad decisions. still small, still frail in stature, he found himself at a dissonance with his image and began growing insecure about his looks, the years of torment weighing on him. he found anesthetic in the party scene outside of school, taking to alcohol and drugs as a sedative from the life he felt forced to lead. his grandparents were pigeon-holing him into a preppy, studious boy who’d go on to be a banker or a lawyer, when all blue had wanted to do was be himself. he couldn’t decide if he hated himself or he hated the world more.

at the age of 16, his rap sheet seemed to grow with each rising of the sun. he’d fallen in with a bad crowd, hardly ever heading ‘home’ and couch surfed. at the age of 16 he’d gotten his own car and lived more out of that than the stuffy house on top of the hill where he was supposed to stay. his grades were sinking towards the bottom of the barrel, he was always looking for validation from the bad kids he hung around with and made some very poor decisions in the hopes he’d be liked. in the hopes he’d find a new family.

the partying, the stream of hook ups, his criminal record (mainly with traffic offences, a few write ups for public intoxication and fighting), sobriety, the instability of his living situation and his future all came to boil just before he turned 17. physically he’d started to fill out, and look more like the man people know today. he was no longer frail and no longer weak, and when asked, he used to his fists to forge that path he thought he wanted.

after a dark night, it became apparent to blue that his path of self destruction was hurting no one but himself. whether by choice or by accident, he knew he wasn’t ready to see his mother again. so… he’d hit rock bottom with a spectacular thud. but blue knew the only way to go from there was up.

through nothing short than a McMiracle (sponsored by Ronald McDonald, bc no one else is rich enough to pull it off lmfao) blue managed to scrape by and complete high school.

blue had no doubt his family name (that of his grandparents) helped him secure an athletic scholarship to st etienne. in his year of transformation from 17 to 18 his grandmother had softened to the boy she’d always hated and was riddled with guilt for the years of mistreatment, and promised to pay for his education (that wasn’t covered by his scholarship) as long as he promised to make something of himself. his first year of college, things really started looking up for blue. he was finally back on track.

then woops, grim came a-knocking again

bidding farewell to the grandmother he was only beginning to know, his grandfather had no reason to extend her kindnesses, and cut blue off. at the age of 18 he was homeless, with nothing but a car and a handful of pokemon cards he’d had as a kid. not worth anything or even particularly sentimental, he just likes pokemond kgfjfd.

living in his car for a while before eventually crashing with a close friend, blue managed to absorb his days in study and in work. he quickly found his passion in helping kids, and giving them the childhoods that he never got. going into teaching seemed like a no-brainer.

although blue’s wild days are behind him, there are some things locked in his past that still haunt him. there are doors he never hopes to open again. but he got his fresh start, and is determined to live the life a young blue would have wanted for him, and one his mother could be proud of.

then the grim reaper came back a third time, his scythe begging for daisey rutherford.

the investigation.

blue’s connection to daisey is that they danced in ballet classes together… as you can imagine, daisey had to put on her Evil Training Wheels somewhere and unfortunately, blue was one of her earliest victims. teased constantly for his appearance, his love of ballet, his lack of wealth, and on awful days, his single parent household.

for the most part blue had grown resilient in ignoring these comments. but he never forgot how daisey mistreated him, and sparked a wave of similar comments from people in their year when they were only children.

hey now im not gonna rEVEAL (bc what if he is ??? :o ) anything relating to the crime if he was the murderer, but know he is Lorge and Strong and could probably push daisey over with his finger lmfao

it’s also worth noting that one of daisey’s parents, a beloved surgeon, treated blue’s mother whilst she was in hospital with cancer. the late detection of its return is what caused her death, and blue has been vocal in his blame in the rutherford family for the loss of the person closest to him ever since.

now i’m not saying blue did anything… but if he did, his ‘eye for an eye’ motive ? maybe not as crazy as you may think. especially when you consider your boi already has a criminal record. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

plots.

atm i am still working on blue’s blob and getting his stats/connections page up BUT !! here are a few fun lil plots beyond his skeleton connections that i’d absolutely love to explore. also here’s his current connections page for further ideas !

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS - blue grew up in ashmont, and didn’t have a lot of friends kfgjfd. if your muse would have been down for a Young Memey Mess that’s fond of a pirouette, blue is your Man. on the flip side, if your muse is one of the Cool Kids and is looking for potential animosity, i’d love someone who tried to squash blue like a bug in their youth (~:

FLIRTATIONSHIP - blue is currently in a (hidden) relationship, and for the first time in his life, gasp, might have feelings. but he’s a fucking walnut and refuses to admit that, so a plot of someone with an unrequited crush, a fun flirtationship, or even someone that just wants to be his wingman would not only be fun, but also incredibly painful - which is what we deserve. 8) (also note, blue is bisexual so any muse would work. <3)

COWORKERS - blue works as a trainer at the ashmont fitness centre ( …. dont @ maaria for the page not being done fgjdgkdf WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF UPDATING THE PAGES NOW KDFJGDKFJ). but i’d always be down for plots in the workplace !!

UBER - sorry for the lame ass name lmao but dkjfgfkd blue is not about the party scene anymore ( lowkey bc he’s afraid to get addicted again and throw away everything he’s worked so hard for). but he does care a lot about people, and a pal of his is v much still hooked to that lifestyle and he very dkfgjdf determinedly drives them home every time to ensure they’re safe. could be former party friends, could be current friends in some capacity. maybe there was an incident in their past that blue feels guilt over ( a fight perhaps, trigger warning - maybe an overdose?) and so now he looks after them. or even just having a sibling-like bond, which (as blue is an only child) i’d also love something like that!

STUDY BUDDY - blue is a moron and needs someone to help him not fail kdfjgdf. he may not be naturally adept at getting good grades, but unlike many, he’s trying his absolute hardest. in return, he’s more than happy to be your Meme Dealer. bonus points if it’s unlikely friends, or if they didn’t exactly get along at first. :D

FELLOW FOOTBALLERS - 2 bros sitting in a hot tub five feet apart bc they’re not gay. dkjgdgdf but for REAL. exploring the team dynamic of the football team would be so fun, especially with blue’s reputation and the fact he only started taking up the sport when he was about 15-16, which may be a lot later than other guys in the team.

RIVALS - god they’re probably rivals about memes and i hate that but that’s just what it is :/

ok i have nothing else to say other than thank you for being a sweetheart and reading through this ??? i know it was a McMess but, if you’d like to plot with said mcmess definitely hit me up - or wait it out a lil bc i plan to do some starter stuff and plotting later today. (~: love you all, and viva la daisey !

#veritasintro #IDK WHAT THIS IS IM SORRY DJKFGDF

16 notes · View notes

djemsostylist · 5 years

Text

I watched Captain Marvel...and I think I hated it. A Review

So like, I really hated Captain Marvel. Well, hate’s a strong word I guess. But given what it could have been, and what we were given instead, well. It’s better than Gagnarok, which is faint praise, I suppose given how much I despised the last Thor outing.

This movie had so much potential. So. Much. Potential. Because they actually had the bones of a good movie. The casting, as per usual for Marvel, was spot on. They created some really interesting characters who weren’t actually cliches like they very easily could have been. And the idea of an origin movie that merely exists for its own sake, especially this late in the MCU lineup, is an interesting one.

Thing is though, this one...well, it sucked. And I think it’s entirely because of the writing and directing. It read like a YA version of a Marvel movie. And it’s the first time in a while that I read reviews and thought “What am I missing?” Most of the round-up that I saw prior to the movie claimed that Sam Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn were a delight, the humor and nineties references were subtle and delightful, and that the whole movie didn’t force things on you but rather allowed the moments to breathe. Even here--the majority of the people I follow are gushing over the movie and the relationships and the subtle building of Carol’s backstory and I’m just like....? Because I got none of that?

Fury, as a character in this movie, makes literally no sense. He seems a whole lot more like Sam Jackson than Nick Fury, and if this movie was attempting to show us how a young and bouncy Nicholas J. Fury became the jaded leader of SHIELD, than they fucking failed. Fury cooing over cats and completely trusting aliens makes no sense, and rather than have him grow over the course of the movie into the Nick Fury we see today, he does...none of that? He was frankly kind of obnoxious, and the amount of moments he dropped a not so quippy one liner the writers desperately wanted us to laugh at made me actively irritated by the end.

Maria was a fascinating character, or she could have been? She and Carol are wingmen test pilots, working under a female scientist developing cutting edge technology. She’s a single mother in the military with a precocious young daughter and together with her best friend they’ve made themselves a family. Her best friend is then killed in a horrible accident gone wrong, and she...actually I don’t know. I’m assuming she left the Air Force perhaps because, like Sam Wilson, she had a hard time finding a reason to stay in. At least that would be what I assume. And maybe she always thought Carol survived and the Air Force covered up something they shouldn’t have been doing and maybe she took a quiet retirement in return for not asking questions, and maybe she always wondered what happened the day that Carol died. I don’t know, really, since they don’t ever really allow her to do much of anything except tell Carol who she is 5 times and then suddenly decide to go into space because her daughter told her to. We were robbed of Maria, is what I’m saying, and I think they could have given us so much more. (Give me a story where Maria takes the retirement and the payout and moves to Louisiana but never really stops looking for answers because Carol wouldn’t just have died like that and one day she digs too deep and she runs into an Agent named Nick Fury who was looking into something too and together they discover what the Air Force tried to cover up all those years ago. Frankly, I feel like this should have been the plotline that Earth had sans Carol, but I digress).

Carol’s team was criminally underused. Gemma Chan, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou (and those other dudes)--they had virtually no part. And it could have been fascinating. Carol was with them for 6 years. 6 years. That’s a ridiculously long time actually. And she has a life there. At least, we can assume? She appears to have an apartment (or quarters), access to public transit, etc. She is close to Jude Law (I refuse to call him Yon Rogg bc that is a fucking stupid name), and she is also, again ostensibly, close to his team (hereafter called Kree Team 6). The scene with them boarding the plane for their first mission together (which totally did not feel like that at all) was interesting, and a lovely glimpse in to team and the dynamics. I liked seeing how they fought together, their ethical views (they go out of their way not to hurt the locals/refugees, which we’ll get to later). And I loved the look into Kree society--it felt more real and grounded than any of the alien societies (beside Asgard) that we’ve seen before. But we get nothing from them. Like, Gemma Chan has 3? lines? Hounsou has maybe 2? And Jude Law 100% feels like he was supposed to Mar Vel (and likely her lover?) before someone, sometime after way too much of the script had been written, decided not to go that direction. Which leads me to the next question, of why not? Because Carol doesn’t need a love interest? I mean, sure I guess, but Thor, Steve, Bruce, and Tony have all had a love interest, and I don’t think it detracted from their stories? Like, Tony still has his bond with Rhodey, Steve obviously has his with Bucky, Thor is still codependent on Loki. Would Carol being in a relationship with Jude Law prevent her from having an equally or more important relationship with Maria? Like, I would have loved for about half the movie to take place with Carol still with the Kree, if only so that we could have felt something of Carol’s relationship and connection with them, which would make the revelations that much more crushing when she does find out. Like, how much worse is it if Carol has an actual life with them (which has likely only been a little bit shorter than the amount of time she’s been in the Air Force) only to find out it’s all based off a lie? Only, it wasn’t totally a lie because she had friends and a home and a job and a lover and a life which she wouldn’t have had if they hadn’t taken her, and yet.

I loved Carol. Or at least, I think I did? Reviews kept whining that Carol was brainwashed half the movie, which sure, but she was no Bucky Barnes. And I loved that. I loved that she has awful nightmares that wake her up and make her seek out her lovermentor to spar, but she is still herself. Like, she isn’t deadened and unemotional and tormented. She’s happy and scrappy and sarcastic and goofy and bouncy and a little bit of a hothead and she is still herself. I loved the scene when she looks at the guy over the newspaper, the sly little half smile she gets when she says “Heroes. Noble warrior heroes” like she knows she’s being a little bitch and she loves it. I love that when she knocks on Jude Law’s door at 2:00 in the morning he can’t even pretend to be irritated with her. I love that she banters with her team and loves her powers and isn’t afraid of dying. I loved who Brie Larson made her in the spare few moments she had between the awful directing and the horrible lines and the things that didn’t really make sense. I can’t wait to see her in Endgame, and much like I did with Hawkeye in Civil War, go “Oh, there’s Carol!” because she had been hiding behind a shitty plot and horrible dialog and suffocating directing for far too long. (Also, I loved her costume and her design and the mohawk is beautiful, and her powers aren’t OP at all.)

Like, imagine if the movie is divided into Carol with the Kree slowly realizing shit ain’t what it seems and the other plotline is Fury and Maria trying to find out wtf is going on, and then they meet up in the climax to take down the bad guys. We get to know Carol, Maria, and their relationship to each other and everyone else. Imagine if we didn’t have to guess at literally everything. And imagine if, in the end, Carol leaves, not because she has to guide the fucking Skrulls to a new home, but because she’s functionally immortal now, and what kind of a life does she have with Maria and Earth any more? (Like, the movie doesn’t address this at all, but I mean, this is a Thing. Whether it’s because she’s Kree (wtf did the blood transfusion do?) or because of her powers, she is immortal now, yes? Or as immortal as Thor or Steve, theoretically.)

The thing is, the Russo’s and Markus and McFeely are really, really good at taking little things and tiny moments and making us know and understand backstory, and showing us how relationships grow and develop in the things we can’t see or don’t have time to see. These writers/directors...are not. They suck, frankly. Who is Mar Vel, what is her relationship with Carol and Maria, what was Carol’s life like in Kree land, why is Maria retired and living in the Bayou, why is Fury on uppers, how did Carol become a Kree, why did they give her the disk control thingy and why doesn’t she take it off, what did they tell her about her past, and most importantly, WTF with the Skrulls and Kree. How did you manage to tell us how to feel to for an entire movie while also telling us nothing at all. (Also, The Russo’s and M&M are good with continuity while still writing new things, while these people, are, again, not. Like, don’t even get me started on the Tesseract.)

And then, okay, when the Kree Team attacks that first planet to save their operative, they are all super specific about making sure the locals don’t get hurt, they protest the innocent, etc. Gemma Chan immediately pulls up her rifle when they say they are just civilians, Jude Law goes out of his way to put up a shield to protect his dudes and NOT hurt the locals, and he seems sorta grossed out by Ronan and his zealots. So...wtf with the “all Kree all evil murdered who kill babies and the Skrulls just want to be with their families.” Like, it’s so fucking tired. A twist for twist sake, which if you didn’t see that coming...well, that’s on you. I’d be much more here for “everyone sucks a little bc people can suck sometimes” rather than the shlocky bullshit family reunion I was forced to endure. The Skrulls were fucking insufferable frankly, and the entire reveal with Talos and the Skrulls from then on was like an embarrassing episode of Stargate.

And look, I’m not opposed to humor in Marvel movies. I’m not, I swear! I legit loved both Antman’s, Peter always fills my heart with smiles, and Sam Wilson refusing to move his seat up made me legit cackle. I don’t like when I feel like the writers spend an entire movie nudging me in the ribs with increasing brutality while screaming “Isn’t it FUNNY THO???” Because no, dear writers, no it’s not. And yes, yes I do get the jokes, but good god could we have a minute? I mean, by the end, the jokes were literally being telegraphed a few 30 seconds before they dropped. (The Kree scanning people--Cat, High danger level. I bet Fury’s going to be...oh yeah, hahaha he is a nonexistent threat isn’t that hilaARIOUS? No, it’s fucking stupid.)

It was, frankly, awful. I hated it, so much so that by the end I couldn’t even muster up enough of a Give a Fuck to care that her callsign was Avenger (and I fucking LOVE callsigns) or care that the stinger had all of my children. I really didn’t. This movie was so fucking disappointing because it didn’t have to be bad. It really didn’t. If they had hired competent writers and directors (I should have known when they hired the Tomb Raider lady this was going to be awful), they could have made it work. They really, really could have. And they didn’t and everyone loves it and I’m happy because shitty butthurt fanboys are being legit gross about this and I want them to be crushed by money, but. I want the next movie to have better writing and better directing because it’s what we deserve. I don’t want to have to keep settling, because it’s good enough.

#Captain Marvel #carol danvers #marvel #my opinions #if anyone cares #this is a lot of words but like #this movie was so fucking disappointing and everyone on here is screaming about how amazing it was and im just like #am i overly critical of everything #did i miss something?#like wtf

6 notes · View notes

hahanoiwont · 6 years

Text

superhero au!

Superhero au.

Virgil is a supervillain a la that post about grad school villains. He started out doing it for extra credit but he also needed the cash for student loans...that shit aint cheap yo

so he’s a small-scale “”””supervillain””” mostly making a nuisance of himself by stopping traffic, doing minor vandalism in costume, and sometimes kidnapping notables for like an hour before realizing he can’t keep a plant alive and should not be in charge of a person (’you’ve captured me!! what are you going to do???’ ‘eh i mean you’ll probably get rescued soon, my powers aren’t really meant for long-term kidnapping and I don’t wanna have to take care of you. you think i want another mouth to feed? nah. hey wanna see a meme?’).

(if Sleep exists in this au he’s a common kidnapping victim. son of the mayor or smth. Virgil has learned to hold up a starbucks before kidnapping him tho. not worth it if he can’t bribe him with sweet sweet caffeine. they p much chill for a couple hours until the hostage negotiators come)

basically, Virgil’s not a big enough deal to get shut down permanently. regular cops usually take care of him well enough without superhero involvement. he gets his extra credit for villainry and sometimes some cash from a shadowy organization via crow or some shit. he’s not sure how they know where he lives or what exactly they’re paying him for but hey, more ramen money. whatever gets food on the table.

On the other hand, Patton is a hard-working police officer who really should be in any other job. He’s just too nice for it. But he gets a lot of the suicide calls or emotional trauma stuff because he’s just so damn good at making people feel safe, and no one else wants to do those calls, so he stays on the force. He used to be an EMT, too, which is really helpful. He rooms with Virgil and Logan and Virgil’s weird cousin.

He pretends to be unaware of Virgil’s extracurriculars because he can see that Virgil needs the money and is too proud to ask for help. He does help him patch himself up when necessary and sometimes thinks about going back to his own ‘night job.’

(he used to be a superhero but quit that and EMTing after he realized how much it was draining him physically and emotionally and how deeply unhealthy the whole thing was. credit to Logan for that) He thinks he’d feel better knowing Virgil’s already spoken for as an archnemesis by a hero who won’t seriously try to hurt him. He seriously worries that Virgil will catch the attention of an edgy ‘shoot first and angst about it but make no attempts to fix the mess you’ve made later’ heroes, and he’ll end up in the hospital or worse.

but also, Patton needs that work/life balance and he just can’t maintain it while hero-ing. and Virgil knows what he’s doing, right? he’s a cautious guy. So Patton just tries to be on call when he notices Virgil’s got the first aid kit out or when he talks about ‘evening plans’ (fuck’s sake dude we all know you don’t go out for fun).

For his part, Logan wanted to be a biochemical engineer, but right now he’s taking some time off school. His powers are probably some sort of sensory (?) and he doesn’t fully understand them himself, mostly bc he likes to pretend they don’t exist. but he was getting splitting headaches at school and he just couldn’t go on. He does online courses when he can but he feels really ashamed that he couldn’t do grad school/college, which he was supposed to be good at. He was planning on staying with Patton and Virgil until the end of the lease and he doesn’t know what he’ll do after that.

But then one day Virgil came home freaking the fuck out about something and asked to talk to him, and guess what, he’s got this crazy ‘supervillain for extra credit’ idea. Someone’s got to make sure this fool doesn’t get himself killed. And Patton’s got into police work, and Logan doesn’t want him to go through compassion exhaustion again, and really none of his dumb housemates can take care of themselves (he loves them tho). So he does mad science in the broom closet to try to give Virgil something of an edge over any hero whose attention he might catch and helps him hide his villain-ing from Patton and tries to figure out what he’s gonna do with his life on the side.

He comes up with this crazy graph that shows the optimal balance of super heroes to villains in a healthy society (not enough villains=not enough active heroes when something really bad goes down, as it does every few years, somehow; not enough heroes=obviously bad). He keeps an eye on superpowered activity in the city.

Sometimes he thinks about getting active himself, both to preserve order and balance (if you’re the villain [ie Virgil] you can control the collateral damage to your plots, but if you’re the hero and your roommate is the villain you can both work together to provide for both of your needs [extra credit, enough good hero/villain balance, and safety of roommate] without actually harming anyone...but for either he would need to be able to use his powers effectively and he’s still kind of in denial), and to keep Virgil from getting his fool ass killed, and to keep an eye on Patton while Patton insists on running right into every single superpowered crime scene. In the meantime, he frets over numbers and helps Virgil write coded emails to his grad board about his ‘’’extensive’’’ villainry.

It’s basically like a resume except you have to convince the people involved that you’re super evil.

Logan is good at resumes.

All three of them are plugging right along and Virgil’s actually getting his student loans paid on time with enough money for food and rent besides (one day he even takes them out to eat and they Do Not Talk about how he got the money to do that), and they all think maybe he can do the villain thing for a few more years and then get out of the game forever, when Virgil’s weird cousin gets caught doing some shady-ass stuff.

Turns out he’s in way over his head with some sketchy folks, owes a lot of people money, and used Virgil’s name for half of it. Virgil is in sudden desperate need of more money than he can get through legal means and, of course, Refuses to tell anyone about/ask for help with his predicament. It is strongly recommended to him by his academic adviser that he step up his supervillain game or show up at the bottom of a river south of Manhattan.

Virgil freaks the fuck out and proceeds to dig himself into an even deeper hole, suddenly going for much larger schemes, robbing banks, being less obsessively careful about collateral damage with each plot because he just doesn’t have time to and he’s too desperate.

Cue Roman.

Roman was literally just going to the bank, innocent of all wrongdoing and Not Picking a Fight because he swears this new move is gonna work out, he’s not gonna get arrested to aggravated assault or unauthorized use of an unregistered superhuman ability (it was self-defense! and defense of others! he was rescuing people!).

He happens to be at the bank when Virgil is robbing it. And, well, Virgil isn’t gonna hurt anyone, but Roman doesn’t know that. He ties his shirt over his face to hide his identity and superheros it up, saves the day; Virgil runs away pretty significantly battered but not permanently injured or caught. And now there’s a new superhero in town and Virgil suddenly has an archnemesis. Just what he was avoiding. Great.

Meanwhile, Roman is shocked to learn that he’s being applauded for saving people for once (as opposed to like. arrested) and graciously accepts his new title. Hey, being a superhero could work! He said he was gonna try something new in this town and he will! He’s gonna save the day!

The two of them happily counter each other day after day: Virgil’s getting enough publicity as a villain that his grad board is happy even without him doing any genuine harm, he’s staying one step ahead of the shady figures that come looking for him by name, Patton has made contact once or twice with the new hero and used his office reputation to become Roman’s primary police contact, Logan thinks Virgil is bonkers for all the new levels of villainy he’s doing but he has to admit this is the most alive he’s ever seen him; Roman is enjoying the fame and adoration of being a hero and he’s been cast in a musical and life is looking up for everyone.

But Roman also works in a coffee shop to pay the bills (three jobs. so tired.) and there’s this stressed-looking student who keeps coming in with bruises and sprains and one time he broke his arm in what Roman is absolutely certain wasn’t an accident, and he talks on the phone with people sometimes that really seem to distress him, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy, right? A little guarded, sure, but he’s polite and he tips well and what kind of hero would Roman be if he didn’t at least try to make friends with this troubled but charming young man?

So Roman introduces himself to Virgil in their civilian identities and the two of them are friendly! free coffee here, book recommendation there, on slow days Roman will sit with Virgil and they’ll just chill for a while. Each of them quietly considers the other his friend, but Roman is Concerned about how Virgil is so fucking jumpy, keeps getting these calls that he claims are from his academic adviser but honestly what kind of adviser would be so terrible to talk to, he has all these bruises that show up continuously and his excuses are all plausible, realistic, and backed by evidence provided by Virgil himself, but something just doesn’t seem right.

So when Virgil mentions that his cousin suddenly moved out in the middle of the lease and he needs to find a new roommate and can he post a flyer in the coffee shop? Roman jumps at the opportunity. He’s been renting one room by the month in a shitty part of town and this is a hell of an upgrade, and also, maybe that nagging in the back of his head when Virgil shows up battered will go away. (maybe if he’s there no one will hurt Virgil. what monster would bring deliberate harm onto such a genuinely nice, snarky guy, wonders the superhero who brawls him on the regular)

He’ll have to keep his superhero-ing on the DL from his new roommates (though he’s thinking about telling Virgil, because Virgil seems like he can keep a secret and Roman really wants to have someone to talk to about this), but unlike Virgil, Roman knows how to use strategic stage makeup to hide bruises and minor imperfections. Also, his villain must be kind of weak, because he never seems to do too much damage? Sometimes Roman thinks he doesn’t really want to be a villain, he’s just kind of sad and lonely, like Megamind. Thoughts for another time.

So now, in one apartment, we have:

Patton, former EMT; former superhero of respectable fame; currently a cop assigned to Roman’s superhero persona and also any calls involving emotional competence; knows Virgil is a supervillain but pretends not to; responds immediately to all calls involving superpowers in case it’s his deeply misguided roommate and he needs help;

Logan, one accident away from becoming a super-something if only he could figure out what; provider of Virgil’s biochemical defenses for when superpowers alone are not enough; helping to cover both logistics and material needs for supervillainy (also created Virgil’s outfit because you can’t do crime in a hoodie you heathen, no one will take you seriously, Virgil had to talk him down from including a necktie); searching for his place in life; not entirely certain why Virgil is stepping up his illegal activities but not happy about it; currently househusband to all of his roommates;

Virgil, extremely stressed grad student; villain for fun and profit and mostly because he needs the money to not get murdered; a bit of an adrenaline junkie; really staring to get into this villain thing but he sometimes wishes he didn’t have to be the bad guy; definitely feeling hunted by shadowy entities and organizations and trying desperately not to bring anyone down with him;

and Roman, the hero. who is beginning to think he and his villain might have been friends, in another life.

It is both a sitcom and a shitshow of epic proportions while everyone tries to hide each other’s secrets without letting ppl know what they know, Roman comes clean to Virgil and Virgil freaks the fuck out about it, Patton frets about everyone and everything until he’s stressing himself sick, Logan makes chemical explosions in the broom closet and the whole block is evacuated every other Tuesday and they all have to pretend not to know about it, Roman wants to get a dog and also for Virgil to get out of whatever abusive relationship he’s Clearly In, Virgil wants a nap, Patton wants a nap, they all want a nap.

What I’m saying is: Superhero au.

@stella-scriptor another one for you, buddy

#virgil sanders #sanders sides virgil #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #i really wanna write this but it would be so damn long if i did #seriously do tell me about any and all superhero au's though i love them #please i need more superheroes #play with me in this spaaaaace

123 notes · View notes

ethospathoslogan · 6 years

Text

everything that you aren’t; a prinxiety/sanders sides one shot

A/N: this fic was set out to kill me js, this is my third time attempting to repost this bc my computer kept freaking out. also, important note: i know that there are weird symbols when you view this on a dashboard. i do not know why tumblr is doing this to me and many other writers. if you view the fic on mobile or on my actual blog, they go away.

summary: Virgil was everything that Roman wasn’t. Even while being able to call Logan, Roman, and Patton his friends, he still found himself throwing his walls back up because he didn’t want to be hurt, and he didn’t want to hurt. Roman’s voice was heard in times of hope, Virgil’s was heard in times of peril. He would rather keep Thomas back because he couldn’t even begin to understand why someone would rather try and fail than not try at all and be okay, but maybe it was because Virgil was never really brave in the first place. Virgil and Roman couldn’t be more different, and Virgil couldn’t think of any possibility in which Roman would like him back in that way. Hell, sometimes Virgil wondered if Roman even liked him at all, or if every smile and nice comment was just an act. After all, Roman was an actor. His profession was based in lying, and Virgil had had his fill of liars.

ships: prinxiety

WC: 6,458

warnings: self deprecating thoughts***, anxiety, deceit is mentioned like twice but he’s not pivotal in the story, cursing, some angst, confessions

read on ao3

tagging: @panic-at-the-moment, @princelogical

Virgil believed that his existence was just him being forced into situations that he didn’t mean to get into, but situations he still had to reap the consequences for.

Situation number one: Virgil, despite everything, didn’t want to be a “Dark Side”, as Creativity had dubbed them. He knew that he didn’t belong with Logic, Creativity, and Morality; they were the good guys. They were the ones who Thomas liked and cherished. They didn’t have to be hidden from Thomas. The Dark Sides, though, Virgil just felt wrong about being with them. If Logic, Creativity, and Morality were the good guys, the Dark Sides were, without a doubt, the bad guys. The Dark Sides blinded Thomas; they made him believe and do things that he shouldn’t, and Virgil was a part of that. He contributed to the harm done.

But he felt like he wasn’t wanted by the Dark Sides, either. He was Anxiety. He made Thomas worry about things that most people wouldn’t, and the others didn’t like that. They didn’t like that Virgil made Thomas anxious about their plans. Virgil didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many times he and Deceit fought because Deceit wanted to lie and Anxiety was too anxious to go through with it. Virgil wasn’t wanted by the Light Sides because he was too evil, and he wasn’t wanted by the Dark Sides for being too weak.

Situation number two: By the time Virgil started being around Logan, Roman, and Patton more than not, he was already used to being unwanted. Of course the other three wouldn’t enjoy his presence. Virgil was summoned because Thomas wasn’t able to control his nerves. It wasn’t like any of them actually required his assistance. They had no reason to; Virgil never agreed with them, never helped them. He was just a hindrance to them, and all of them knew it. Therefore, he was unwanted by them.

But being unwanted by Logan, Roman, and Patton was different than being unwanted by the Dark Sides. Sure, the Dark Sides didn’t like him, but if Virgil was being honest, none of them ever liked each other. They were chaos, they were the negative aspects of Thomas that were kept hidden from him. They weren’t expected to get along. They just needed to work together. But with the Light Sides, it wasn’t so much as every man for himself as it was three-against-one. So often, Virgil found himself fighting a losing battle by himself because he was trying to do what was best for Thomas, trying to protect Thomas, and the others refused to understand that. And the worst part was that they could easily throw Virgil away; they believed that they didn’t need him, and Virgil started to think that they were right.

Situation number three: Virgil was truly accepted by Logan, Roman, and Patton. It wasn’t a situation he expected to find himself in, and the other Dark Sides didn’t like it, but Virgil liked it… loved it, actually. Patton was his best friend, Logan was a good buffer for when Patton and Roman’s heightened energies got too overwhelming, and Roman was really working to be nicer to him. Virgil liked these consequences.

Situation number four: Deceit came back and took the place of Patton. Virgil should have known. He should have realized that “Patton” wasn’t Patton the moment he showed up. Virgil lived with Deceit for years , he should have been able to recognize his faulty portrayal and old ways. He should have been able to protect all of them. That was Anxiety’s role, right? To protect everyone?

Virgil sometimes believed he did a real shitty job at it.

Situation number five: Roman and the terrible, painful, tragic feelings Virgil caught for him.

Honestly, Virgil falling for Roman was about the worst thing he could’ve gotten himself into. Roman and Virgil were two sides of the same coin and Roman was the better side. Princey could be loud, stubborn, and ready to throw himself and Thomas into heartbreaking situations disguised as grand romantic gestures. He was all of that but, dammit, he meant all of it with the best of his heart. He wanted to be heard because he believed that he had the right answers, even Virgil saw that. He charged into every battlefield he could because Roman was brave; he’d rather be hurt trying then never try at all. It could be tiresome to watch Roman do this, but Virgil couldn’t help but be impressed - amazed - by Roman and his spirit.

Virgil was everything that Roman wasn’t. Even while being able to call Logan, Roman, and Patton his friends, he still found himself throwing his walls back up because he didn’t want to be hurt, and he didn’t want to hurt. Roman’s voice was heard in times of hope, Virgil’s was heard in times of peril. He would rather keep Thomas back because he couldn’t even begin to understand why someone would rather try and fail than not try at all and be okay, but maybe it was because Virgil was never really brave in the first place.

Virgil and Roman couldn’t be more different, and Virgil couldn’t think of any possibility in which Roman would like him back in that way. Hell, sometimes Virgil wondered if Roman even liked him at all, or if every smile and nice comment was just an act.

After all, Roman was an actor. His profession was based in lying, and Virgil had had his fill of liars.

“Shit,” Virgil muttered to himself, pushing himself up into a sitting position on his bed and tugging his headphones off. He had retreated to his room to get away from all these thoughts, especially the ones that involved Roman, and he had hoped his music would dull out everything else. Instead, though, his room just made everything worse (because of course it did, it was Anxiety’s Room, he should’ve expected that) and his music was just giving him a headache.

He looked around his room, hoping to find something other than cobwebs and albums he already listened to to focus on, but the only thing that caught his eye were his Nightmare Before Christmas posters. They were the ones Princey wanted after he saw Virgil’s room because, even though Roman might as well have been a Disney Prince himself, those were apparently the only posters he didn’t have.

Maybe if you gave them to him, he would like like you more, his room whispered to him.

“But I like those posters,” Virgil mumbled, picking at the frayed edges of the sleeve of his hoodie. Despite the purple hoodie being fairly new, at least in comparison to his old one, he had already managed to wear it down with his anxious ticks.

But you like Roman, and Roman likes those posters, his room continued, its voice (Virgil’s inner voice? Virgil barely understood his own room, sometimes) getting closer to Virgil’s ear and he thought he felt something start to wrap around his throat. And if Roman won’t like you for you, he might as well like you for what you can give him. Are you worth anything else than what you can give, Virgil?

“Okay, nope, no, I’m not doing this,” Virgil said, his own voice strained and barely levelled, as he pushed himself off his bed. He couldn’t stay here, not when he could start feeling the beginnings of an attack creep up on him. He pulled his headphones down around his neck, the familiar weight more comforting than the tendrils of his room, and he sunk out as quickly as he could.

Virgil wondered if he had anyone on his side, really. The Dark Sides hated him, and he was friends with Logan, Roman, and Patton, but how long was that going to last? He couldn’t even keep his own room in check, how was he supposed to remain friends forever with the three sides he was never meant to be a part of?

He mentally kicked himself as he appeared in the commons. He knew that he shouldn’t be thinking things like that. He was grateful, he really was, to have friends like the others. He even admitted that, despite their bickering, he tended to feel better after he saw the other sides. Especially Patton, because Patton always knew how to help Virgil and was Virgil’s first friend.

Speaking of, Virgil thought as he heard moving around in the kitchen and light humming.

Poking his head into the kitchen, he saw Patton with his back to him, tidying up and putting away whatever dishes were left in the drainboard. “Hey, Patton,” he said, leaning against the doorway.

Patton looked over his shoulder and beamed when he saw Virgil. “Hey, kiddo!” he said, his voice containing its usual amount of cheeriness. “I didn’t hear you come down.”

Virgil shrugged. “Just needed to get out of my room for a bit,” he said, watching as Patton put away a final glass.

When Patton spun around to face him fully, Virgil didn’t miss how his grin faltered. Virgil then realized that his room probably made him look worse for wear due to his current state. He should’ve checked his mirror before he left; he had a feeling that his eyeshadow was probably a lot darker than what he usually did.

“You feeling alright, Virgil?” Patton asked, his concern evident behind his smile.

Virgil wanted to brush Patton’s worry off and say that he was fine, but that was a lie, and Virgil couldn’t lie to Patton. Especially not after Deceit made his return. “Just tired,” he finally said, blowing his bangs partly out of his face so that he could, at least, somewhat see. It wasn’t a lie; Virgil was exhausted (he always was). He just… didn’t want to explain why he was tired specifically now. If he told Patton what was going on, he was then just going to tell Patton everything, because Patton is that type of person who Virgil can just talk to for hours, and then Virgil was going to be emotionally drained and probably wallow about shit that he should have suffered alone with.

“Well, make sure you’re getting enough sleep,” Patton said. “I don’t want you getting sick on us.”

Virgil didn’t think that they got sick, it was more like an exhaustion-caused breakdown that caused, as Logan would say, an “error in the way the specific side was supposed to operate”.

(Virgil called it what it was: a “mental breakdown”, literally.)

Still, though, the sentiment brought a flush of heat to his cheeks. Even after all this time, he was still adjusting to being, well, liked . “Thanks, Pat,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll try.”

Virgil hadn’t even realized that another side had walked down the stairs until he heard the footsteps behind him and a voice say, “You’ll try what?”

Virgil flinched, definitely more than he should have, and spun around to face Roman staring at him with a raised eyebrow and a bemused expression.

He’s judging you, he thought. “Oh, hey,” Virgil muttered, trying to make his voice calmer than he felt. He tried to ignore how he could feel his heart thumping against his ribcage upon seeing Roman.

“Scared to see me, Virgil?” Roman asked with a laugh, sitting down on the couch. “You’re much more jumpier than usual, which is saying something. Was it my appearance? Do I not look dashing today?”

Roman was smirking and Virgil’s mind was on the brink of overdrive trying to figure out whether Roman was offended, making fun of him, or if it was just the typical teasing that they tended to fall into.

“You’re fine,” Virgil mumbled, looking away as Patton walked past him into the living room. He wanted to say more because, if he was being honest, he believed that Roman looked much better than fine but how would Roman react if he said anything different and-

“Just fine? Virgil, you wound me” Roman asked, placing his hand to his heart. He sounded offended. Fuck, he was messing this up, like he usually did. “Patton, Virgil says I look ‘just fine’, isn’t that absurd?”

Virgil swallowed and looked back up to Roman who was- who was smiling. Okay. Good. He wasn’t offended, he was teasing. Virgil knew this. Him and Roman did this all the time-

“I think you look great today, Roman,” Patton beamed, flopping down onto the couch next to Roman.

“I guess Virgil just has higher standards,” Roman said with wink. Virgil’s mind short-circuited. “What a shame that I must be critiqued so harshly.”

“Sorry,” Virgil mumbled, pulling his hoodie sleeves over his hands with a shrug.

“Do you guys want to watch a movie?” Patton asked before Roman could reply, if he even was going to reply. “I’m pretty sure WALL-E is still in the DVD player from last time.”

“Oh, yes please,” Roman said, grinning. “I can never get enough of that movie.” He then looked back to Virgil. “Are you going to grace us with your presence?”

He’s asking because he feels obligated to, he thought, scrunching up the edges of his hoodie sleeves in his fists. Patton is the only one who wants you here. Roman doesn’t want you-

“I’m actually going to go back to my room,” Virgil said, his words rushed. “I only came down for a break, I have some things to do.”

Virgil wished he didn’t notice the falter in Patton’s smile at hearing that he wouldn’t be joining them. “Oh, okay,” Patton said. “We’ll be down here if you need anything!”

Virgil nodded and gave them a wordless salute before sinking back into his room.

When he appeared in his room, he immediately headed over to his bed and flopped down on it.

Just fine? Virgil, you wound me.

What a shame that I must be critiqued so harshly.

Roman had been joking when he said that. Virgil heard his tone and saw Roman’s grin. Roman had been teasing Virgil and was not gravely affected by anything Virgil said.

But what if he misheard? What if he misinterpreted Roman’s tone? What if he missed a wary side eye shared with Patton? What if Roman, the moment Virgil left, started to complain to Patton about Virgil and everything he did?

Virgil’s eyes drifted again to his Tim Burton posters.

Should have given him the damn posters, Virgil thought as he pulled his headphones back on. He turned his music as loud as he needed to not be able to hear his own thoughts.

They had been going over Roman’s ideas for videos in the common room for over two hours now and, frankly, Virgil was exhausted. And irritated. And frustrated. And he could feel his heart start to pick up speed as the rejected pile grew higher and the deadline for the video grew closer.

He had been trying to hold back his comments as best he could, or at the very least soften them. He knew that coming up with ideas was stressful for Roman, and Virgil didn’t even think he’d be able to handle standing around while everybody else pulled apart what he made. He could see how the process wore Roman down, and Virgil felt bad that this was something that they had to do.

But Virgil could also feel his nerves jolting under his skin and, with each tick of the clock, the deadline grew closer. They had cut this one close, with only just over a week to find an idea, write a script, film, and edit. And that’s all if something doesn’t go wrong in any of those four processes, which is unlikely.

So, yes, Virgil was stressed and anxious and he could feel it building up inside of him.

Patton was currently kneeling on the floor next to the ideas that had been rejected to see if any could be looked at for a second time. Most of his time was spent, however, smoothing out papers that had been crumpled into balls, reading them over, and then gently and silently stacking them back into a neat pile. Logan was currently looking through a stack of looseleaf that Roman handed him. He was separating it out into three different piles and, occasionally, would move a paper from one to the another. Roman was flipping through a notebook he had, sometimes ripping out pieces and shoving them to Logan, sometimes glaring at what he had written, blowing his hair out of his eyes, and flipping the page angrily.

Virgil, in the middle of all of this, felt helpless. Silently, he kneeled down next to Patton and started looking at the papers that Patton hadn’t rechecked yet.

He picked up one of the discarded papers and read How to approach your crush.

Right, that one. Logan originally voiced that he found it a bit juvenile and that, as an adult, Thomas should look past any nerves when talking with someone he was attracted to. He took back that comment, however, when Virgil pointed out that there are people, including Thomas, who get anxious when approaching others. Still, though, the idea was still rejected because it was too similar to their Valentine’s Day idea that they already did.

Virgil had been too engrossed in finding an idea that worked when that one was first mentioned, but now he could have laughed at the irony of it if it wasn’t so spot on to what he was experiencing. He sighed and put the paper back down and, upon seeing him do that, Patton flashed him a soft smile.

“Another song with Jon Cozart,” Logan read off of the page he was holding. Virgil and Patton looked over their shoulders to see Logan raise an eyebrow at Roman, who only offered the same back. “Too vague and not nearly enough time.”

“Now, Lo, I think we can be a bit softer than that,” Patton chastised. If it wasn’t for Patton, Virgil thought that Roman and Logan might have wrung each others necks by now. Virgil was as tired and stressed as any of them, and he assumed Patton was just the same, but Logan’s unloosened tie and mussed hair did not go unnoticed, just as well for Roman’s wrinkled sash and constantly furrowed brows.

“It’s a good idea, Ro,” Patton then said, giving Roman an encouraging smile. “Just one that we’ll have to put aside for another day when we have more time. You can think of a song in the meantime, though!”

Roman sighed with an eyeroll. “No, it’s fine,” he said dismissively, looking back to his notebook. “We’ve done a video like that before anyway, so throw it out.”

“I don’t think we have to throw it out,” Logan said, placing the paper in the middle pile. “We’ve told you before, Roman, not every idea of yours has to be completely original, as an idea like that is already difficult to come by.”

“I know what you’ve all said,” Roman said, his voice clipped and with an edge of annoyance. Him and Logan then shared a look that Virgil thought was either a silent apology or a challenge for Logan to quip back at him.

For the next couple minutes, the four resorted back to silently looking through ideas, the only sound being the placing, tearing, or crinkling of paper.

Suddenly, Roman said, “Virgil, what do you think of this one?” Virgil turned to face him, cross-legged on the floor and looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Villains in Disney movies and their motives, along with what they represent.”

Virgil thought for a minute. “Honestly?” he asked and Roman nodded eagerly. “I think it’s too much to do in such a short time and too risky. I mean, you and Logan will have to spend time narrowing down what villains to use. Then you’ll have to write and complete a script. So that’s already a couple of days. Then there’s filming and editing. And something will probably go wrong in that process that could push us back a day or more.”

Roman then looked down at the page he had ripped from his notebook, frowning. “I don’t think it’ll be too much,” he said. “Besides, if we have to, we can push the video back a day or so.”

“And disappoint our viewers?” Virgil asked. “I don’t think that that’s something we should risk.” Virgil wished that he could have continued to keep his anxieties at bay, but even he saw that they couldn’t be wasting time anymore. He had to be completely honest with his thoughts if they wanted to progress.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll push our viewers away if we’re a little late,” Patton piped up.

“But we don’t know that,” Virgil pointed out.

“You said that this was too risky,” Roman said, looking back up at Virgil. “How? I thought you liked Disney?”

“I do,” Virgil said. “But what if people watching disagree with what we say? What if they think our opinions are wrong?”

“Well, naturally, someone out there is going to disagree with what we think,” Logan added.

“Yeah, obviously, but what if they get mad?” Virgil asked. “You know how people can be, especially about villain characters. We say one wrong thing, we vilify someone too much or not enough, and suddenly everyone hates us.” He sighed. “Besides, doesn’t this kinda blend into ‘The Dark Side of Disney’?”

“Logan just said that not everything has to be original,” Roman said, the frown still on his face as he crinkled the edge of his paper.

“Yeah, but we should at least try to do a topic we haven’t done yet before resorting to old ones,” Virgil said, reaching for one of the piles he and Patton were looking through. He began to look through them again. “There’s, like, a thousand ideas in here. I’m sure we’ll find another one.”

Roman then, with a frustrated noise, crumpled up the paper in his hand and everyone’s head snapped to him. “I’m not surprised that you don’t like my ideas. Even the ones that I think you’ll like, you find a reason to not do them,” he snapped, the waver in his voice easily noticeable. “You just want to brush them off because- because you’re scared , even when it’s a good idea!” The sudden emotion in Roman’s voice caused everyone to completely still their movements. Virgil’s hands froze on the paper he was holding, his tense fingers pressing wrinkles into it.

Shit. Roman gave an idea to Virgil that he thought he’d like and Virgil just shut it down completely when he was supposed to be understanding. Virgil didn’t even think to give any constructive criticism; he just thought to give all the negatives because of course he thought that that was the right thing to do. Now, Roman was even more frustrated and seemed as if he was on the edge of a breakdown over his ideas and Virgil was the one who pushed him to that point.

Roman was right about Virgil being scared, too. Even Virgil couldn’t deny that. Honestly, Virgil actually liked the idea. He just saw it as a point for controversy among viewers and decided to only point out that instead of at least telling Roman that he liked it.

Shit. Fuck.

Virgil wanted to say something, anything, that could have calmed Roman but whatever he had in mind died in his throat. Instead, Patton, after looking between the two, said gently, “How about we call it a day? We’re all tired and a little frustrated, so I think it would be best if we just all relax for the rest of the night, okay?”

Roman, wordlessly, snatched his notebook and some of the papers closest to him before sinking out. Logan quickly neatened up his own papers before muttering an indecipherable excuse to go to his own room and sinking out. Virgil tugged his sleeves around his hands and pulled them close to his chest.

“I-I didn’t mean to-” Virgil stuttered out as Patton began to neaten the papers they were looking through.

“I know you didn’t, kiddo,” Patton said softly. “Everyone is just a little tense and I think Roman is just upset that today didn’t go so well for his ideas. He’ll be okay.”

Virgil found that even Patton’s reassuring words didn’t make him feel better. Him and Roman have fought before, and they have both said things to each other that stung, but now it was… different. Even looking past Virgil’s crush on Roman, the two were friends.

Virgil didn’t want to be the one to hurt Roman anymore, and he hated that, once again, he was.

Virgil wondered what it was about him that made everything go wrong.

He liked Roman; he liked Roman so much that it sort of scared him. Roman’s passion had grown on him, his courage was impressive, and Virgil really liked being able to have more civil -hell, even great - conversations with Roman than not. The two were both getting better at listening to each other and understanding each of their sides, and Virgil really did appreciate Roman’s efforts. There were slip-ups, yes, but at least the two were trying.

But then today happened, and Virgil felt as if he set all their progress (and the already slim chances of Roman ever liking him back) on fire. He should’ve been kinder, softer, when telling Roman what he thought. He probably could have gotten his point across without hurting Roman in the end. Now, Roman retreated to his room and most definitely hated Virgil and the other sides probably saw that Virgil still wasn’t one of them because this was all too good to be true and-

Virgil’s head shot up from where it rested on his pillow when there was a soft knock on his door.

When he swung open his door, his eyes widened at who was on the other side of it. “Roman,” he said, his shock clear in his voice.

“Uh, hey,” Roman said with a sheepish smile. He wasn’t clad in his usual regal attire and, instead, had a red hoodie and black pajama bottoms with little golden crowns decorating it pulled on. Virgil instantly noticed that he looked nervous. “Can… Can I come in?”

Virgil nodded and wordlessly stepped aside to let Roman in. Roman stopped in the middle of his room and looked around helplessly, as if he didn’t know what to do with his body. Virgil, taking the first initiative, sat on the floor, leaning up against his bed. “Care to join me?” he asked Roman.

Roman arched an eyebrow. “You do realize that you have chairs and a bed we can sit on, right?”

Virgil shrugged. “Yeah, but in all honesty, it seems like we’re about to have a conversation that’s better done on the floor than in a chair.”

Roman was silent for a moment before sighing and nodding. “That, somehow, makes perfect sense,” he said, taking a seat next to Virgil.

The two then resorted back to silence, Virgil pulling at loose threads on his hoodie, Roman staring down at his hands. If there was a time for Virgil to attempt an apology, now would be the time to do it. He didn’t even know if it would be good, but he might as well try and-

“I’m sorry,” Roman suddenly said and Virgil quickly turned his head to Roman, his eyebrows furrowed. “I… I shouldn’t have snapped at you today. I know you were only helping, and I told you that I wanted your honest opinion, but I still got mad at you. I guess I was just frustrated because most of my ideas already were shot down and… I guess I just thought you would agree because it was Disney and we’ve done a Disney video together. I’m… I’m really sorry, Virgil.”

Virgil gaped at Roman. He didn’t even think Roman was going to give an apology, hell, he didn’t think Roman needed to give one. “R-Roman-”

“And I said that you were scared,” Roman continued, shaking his head. “That… that really wasn’t right of me. Everything you were saying was true, at least some of it. And even if I didn’t agree with everything you were saying, I should’ve never called you scared. Again, I’m really, really sorry, Virg.”

Virgil shook his head. “Roman, you- you don’t need to be the one apologizing,” he said. “If anyone apologizes, it should be me! I mean, I-I should have been way nicer with your idea than I was because- because I actually really liked it. I was just nervous because we were looking at ideas for so long at that point and getting nothing done and we really needed to start moving forward and-” He shook his head again, steadying his thoughts before he rambled on into nothingness. “What- What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry. I knew that you were stressed and frustrated and I should’ve been… more aware of that.”

Roman smiled softly at Virgil. “I appreciate the apology, Virgil,” he said. “But I still don’t think anything I said was right, especially when we’re getting along a lot better and working on things-”

“I’m not holding anything you said over you, Roman,” Virgil said. Roman snapped his mouth shut and almost looked shocked. “I… I’ve noticed how you’ve been trying, and I really appreciate that, and I think we are getting along a lot better. I thought what I said ruined everything. I wasn’t even hurt by what you said, I was more worried that I hurt you . And I think you were right to call me scared. I listed all the negatives to that video, even when there were positives, because I was scared, and it’s not the first time I’ve been a coward.”

Roman shook his head, frowning. “That’s the thing, though, Virg,” he said. “I really don’t think that’s true, at least not all the time, and you’re definitely not a coward. You’ve helped all of us -helped me - out of so many situations that were even stressful for you. That’s not cowardly.”

Virgil looked over at Roman, and Roman at Virgil, and Virgil couldn’t ignore how his heart leapt to his throat when their eyes met. Shit.

Virgil hadn’t meant to say, “Shit, Roman, you’re making this so much harder.” Still, though, he did, and Roman’s eyebrows furrowed and Virgil slapped a hand over his mouth.

Dammit. Shit. Fuck. Every other curse word that Virgil knew but couldn’t think of in this time of peril.

“What- What do you mean?” Roman asked, his confusion obvious.

Virgil truly hated himself at this moment. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from voicing his thoughts and now he couldn’t back out because Roman knew that something was up. They could have had a nice chat and worked out their issues and now Virgil was going to ruin everything by putting feelings into the conversation that Roman most likely would never reciprocate and-

“I- this whole situation is definitely getting harder because you’re here and you’re being so nice -and not that you’re not nice because you are and we just said that we were getting better with each other- but this is different, you know? But, no, you don’t know, because why would you? And I feel like I’m just messing everything up but-” Just gotta rip it off fast like a band aid “-I like you, Roman. Like as in I’m into you, Roman. A lot.”

Virgil quickly averted his eyes, not wanting to see what Roman’s reaction would be, before continuing, “And what sucks- what really sucks about this is that I shouldn’t, Roman. I shouldn’t like you as much as I do because I know that it can never happen. You’re everything I’m not, and I feel like I would just hold you back. You’re brave and passionate and I’m just… not anything close to as admirable.” He sighed with a shake of his head. “I know we’ve been working through things, and I know we’ve come a long way, but sometimes I think that this is just completely hopeless and that I’m going to mess up and you’re going to go back to not liking me at all, maybe even hating me. I… I never want it to get back to that point, but I understand if it has now.”

When Roman didn’t say anything, Virgil hesitantly looked at him and saw that he was wide eyed with a faint blush tinting his cheeks. “V-Virgil,” he said quietly. Virgil thought he could see the gears working in Roman’s head. “That- that was a lot all at once-” he gave a weak chuckle “-But I guess the first thing that I should start with is that… I like you, too. I have for a long time.”

For the first time in a long while, Virgil’s mind went silent.

“Once we started getting along better is when I realized it,” Roman said. “I knew that we still had a lot to work on but… I wanted to work on it. I wanted to get to know you better. And what do you mean that you shouldn’t like me because I’m, apparently, everything you’re not? Virgil, you’re intelligent, you’re willing to work as a team, it’s been you who has gotten us out of some of our worst times, and, I know I’ve told you this before but I have to say it again, you make me better. None of those are qualities that are unwanted in a… in a relationship, and they definitely shouldn’t be looked down upon. So, I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say that, because I think… I think that everything you are is great.”

Virgil gaped at Roman. It took three tries to finally find his words. “But- But I thought you didn’t like me-”

“Oh, thank you, I knew I forgot something,” Roman interjected with a grin. “You thought I could hate you? First of all, Virgil, I hate to admit it, but we have seen each other at our worst. If I didn’t want to at the very least be your friend, I wouldn’t have put in the effort. But I want to be your friend, or something more. Seeing how our relationship with you here has changed has been… amazing, honestly. And, second of all, I was more concerned with you hating me, especially after today!”

“Well that was my concern!” Virgil exclaimed. “And I could never hate you for basically the exact same reasons!”

The two shared a look, and when Roman started laughing, Virgil couldn’t help but join in either.

“Wow, we really are… messes,” Roman said, knocking their knees together.

“Honestly, yeah,” Virgil agreed with a chuckle.

“We’ve both been walking ourselves in circles with our fears.”

“Cognitive distortions.” At that, Virgil earned a side-eye from Roman, which he believed he deserved. “We thoughts things were different than what they actually were. Learned that from Logan.”

Roman rolled his eyes but there was still a smile on his face. His eyes then dropped to his hands and Virgil watched as his expression softened. “Seeing that we both feel the same way, I want to try to make this work, Virgil. I think that this… that we can eventually be something. We just have to…” He trailed off.

“We just have some things we still need to work on,” Virgil finished for him and Roman nodded. “I want this to work, too, Roman. I… I want to believe that it can but I don’t think we can just rush into things. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to rush into anything. I think we still need to- to work out some things and talk more but-” he then let out a soft laugh “-Dammit, I guess you’ve made me a romantic, because I really want this to work.”

“We just have to try,” Roman said with a grin. “But I think we can do it.”

Virgil couldn’t help but smile at Roman, and when Roman held out his hand to Virgil, Virgil only hesitated a second before taking it. Roman squeezed his hand gently and Virgil felt his face heat up as his cheeks flushed.

“You know, this really brings about a new meaning to that one thing you once called me,” Virgil said. “That I was your chemically imbalanced romance?”

Roman nodded and Virgil rolled his eyes at the prideful look behind his eyes. “That was a good one.”

Virgil sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess it was,” he said even though that was one of the nicknames that he was definitely more impressed with.

Roman grinned, but Virgil furrowed his eyebrows at him as he started to notice the eyeshadow starting to appear under Roman’s eyes. Even though their conversation had been as calm as it could have been (including Virgil’s accidental but well-timed confession), eventually the effects of his room were going to start to hit Roman.

“I think we should get you out of here before you start becoming a panicked mess and I have to rescue you again,” Virgil said.

Roman frowned and ran his fingers under his eyes, looking at whatever eyeshadow rubbed off. “Oh, you’re right,” he said. “You know, I was starting to feel a little off.” Roman then stood and held his hand out to Virgil. “We can go back to my room, if you want? Just to talk, of course.”

Virgil nodded and took Roman’s hand, pulling himself up. “I’d like that,” he said.

The first thing he noticed when he appeared in Roman’s room was the walls.

“You really do have one-hundred-and-one Disney posters,” Virgil said.

Roman laughed. “You say that as if you’re surprised,” he said.

Give him the posters, he suddenly though. Gifts are good for relationships and he liked them so you should give him what he wants because it will probably make things better and make him like you more and-

“You know, you can have those Tim Burton posters if you want,” Virgil said, despite another inner voice saying otherwise.

Roman shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, Virg, but I don’t want them.”

Virgil frowned. “But you said that you liked them,” he said. “You even came to my room once to try to take them.”

Roman waved a hand. “Well, yeah, but that was then,” he said. “Plus, I know that they’re your favorite. I would never want to take them from you.”

Roman smiled at Virgil, and Virgil smiled back.

Yeah, he believed that him and Roman could definitely work.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #prinxiety #virgil sanders #roman sanders #stuff i write

259 notes · View notes

vardasvapors · 6 years

Text

DRUNK LIVEBLOG OF THE AKALLABETH BC I PROMISED @rose-of-the-bright-sea

Uh unfortunately i’m not too drunk since once again my job was to bounce everyone once the party ended but uhhh it is early morning and i’m still not asleep and i did just spend 5 hours dancing and doing shots so...

ANYWAY: first scene of the Akallabeth, remember how the edain were the only Men who fought against morgoth in the war of wrath etc, and when morgoth was defeated the Evil Men who fought for him ran away and conquered all the Stupid Men who were still living in the middle earth area and these men’s lives sucked and were constantly attacked by orcs and monsters and they were dumb and wild and stuff. this explanation is like 20 kinds of LMAO NARRATIVES but also not like, in a lying way, just in a framing way.

otoh the edain got given a giant island in the middle of the ocean as a reward for fighting against morgoth and stuff, osse and aule and yavanna did it. (valar: ‘have an island way out in the sea’ elros: ‘SOUNDS LEGIT’). meanwhile the elves of ME are long-sufferingly granted permission to come to tol eressea because their lives kinda suck. the difference in the tone of the edain’s gift and the elves’ gift is totally not noticed by the narrator but the fact that avallone was build on the eastern edge of tol eressea where it could be seen from numenor is. lol.

there’s this super gorgeous entrancing description of how earendil burned super bright so that he shone night and day and the edain followed him over the calm enchanted sea until they found the island of numenor -- andor the land of gift, elenna that is starwards. however we all know all this incredible rich storytelling stuff isn’t important compared to the tiny scrap of smugness that can be wrung out of making elros hate earendil and/or elves, bc everyone knows that no character’s narrative matters except the feanorians’.

elves of ME also brought all the edain to numenor and elves of tol eressea gave the edain a ton of tools and gifts and stuff to help build their new nation, but you know it’s fun to headcanon elros as a bitter chest-puffing supercilious self-satisfied little prick who finds these elves embarrassing and blinkered and their existence pitiful and tut-tuttingly Wrong. bc that makes sense and is woke for some reason.

the numenoreans became taller than all the sons of middle earth, not all the men of middle earth, so numenoreans are taller than elves. also they didn’t have a lot of kids, bc i guess population explosions on islands with almost no death outside of like 300 years of old age is a Bad Time.

also “and the light of their eyes was like the bright stars” hahahahahahahahaha lmao! kill me! lies down. does not get up.

WHITE TREE FRACTALS

the numenoreans are super cool and get to talk and visit with both elves of tol eressea and elves of middle earth, which seems to lead to the completely inescapable conclusion that numenor is a place where the peoples of all lands can pass messages to one another but this is never mentioned. the numenoreans could totally also have prob defeated the evil human kings of middle earth if they tried but they were totes peaceful -- at an undefined point in time. nice vague timeline blurring bruh.

instead they like, instructed the dumb middle earth men on how to grow grain and grind flour and make stuff out of wood bc uh i guess the middle earth men are too dumb to figure it out, for “the ordering of their life, such as it might be in the lands of swift death and little bliss” hahahahahaha this is the most condescending line in the entire silm it’s great.

then the numenoreans start getting dissatisfied with how they still gotta die and stuff. it’s vaguely described as being something to do with how even their long lives are still not as long as elves’ loves, but every time i read this it reminds me how pissed about mortality i’d be if my great-great-great-uncle who was totally allowed to choose to become immortal kept popping in to talk about how he got to see the cool millennia of my country’s history first hand and debate with my revered ancestral founding king. so.

however the numenoreans totally brush over these sorts of super compelling and sympathetic and valid points and instead just whine about how they’re A Bigshot Kewl Superior Race and HDU Say We Can’t Control Everything If We Wanna, 36 Presents? But Last Century I Got 37! because they’re fucking useless dumbasses.

The valar reply that Aman Will Not Make You Immortal, Yo, and also that elves being immortal and men being mortal aren’t rewards or punishments, which are reasonable points. they then go on to go ‘TBH shouldn’t WE be the ones envying YOU bc you get to peace out of this clusterfuck world, huh, huh whaddaya think about that. also btw the whole mortality thing is some Secret Plan To Fight Inflation eru came up with, and none of us will know it until you and a bajillion generations of your descendants are all dead, lol!!!!’ THANKS VALAR. THAT’S REALLY HELPFUL. GREAT JOB OF ACTUALLY ADDRESSING ANYTHING THE NUMENOREANS ARE BOTHERED ABOUT. KUDOS. i love dumb gods.

the numenoreans are super dissatisfied but instead of anything constructive the king decides to hold his breath and throw a tantrum stay king until he’s totally senile and his son is old, bc of spite, then numenor gets divided into the king’s men and the faithful. the faithful are also bleh about death but assume that the valar have some kind of good reason for what they said, because um, reasons, i guess. no one says if the reasons are more mindless dogma or more a grounding and strengthening faith, but since numenoreans sound like RL humans to a tee it’s probably both. the king’s men aren’t skeptics tho -- they just conquer and enslave and colonize and steal from middle earth, bc ‘the west was denied to them.’ some fans find this to be a ‘yes, but--’ where it’s not the best thing to do but sympathetic and better than those un-nietzschean faithful. i’m gonna assume every single person who finds this nod-worthy is as White as sour cream.

later on Ar-Gimilzor bans the Faithful’s language, sends secret police or smth to find out everyone who is Faithful and forcibly remove them from their homes, relocate them to Romenna, and corral and watch them, call them and the elves of tol eressea spies, chase them out of numenor, and force the faithful leader’s sister to marry the king. some fans still somehow think this was a morally grey and understandable thing to do because secular-culturally-christian libs are vile and have never parsed a history book in their lives.

Tar-Palantir becomes king after being secretly taught Faithful stuff by his secretly faithful mom, but nothing he does to fix things helps and he eventually dies young from depression. His daughter Tar-Miriel becomes queen but her cousin Ar-Pharazon forces her to marry him and give him the kingship instead. exactly how this happened remains unexplained! Boo! I want more details. Anyway Pharazon is a Fragile Masculinity poster boy and when sauron starts causing trouble he decides he’s just gotta go capture him and bring him to numenor to show off and stroke his ego, bc he is an Heir Of Eärendil and Respect Meehhh!! God this guy sounds SO UNPLEASANTLY FAMILIAR DOESN’T HE EH. (parenthetically i am delighted beyond words at how absolutely bang-on it is that the King’s Men, both here and earlier with the convo with the Valar, totally Do Not Mention the fact that they’re heirs of Elros, not just Earendil, bc that would be super inconvenient to their vision of themselves and their mortality grievance!! lol!!! i love it!!!! god!!!!!!!! *fingers and thumb in a circle emoji*).

anyway sauron is super smart and an awesomesauce genre-savvy villain and way too good for pharazon and he flatters him and manipulates him into making him his councilor and convinces him that the valar are lying and and to worship morgoth and slaughter the faithful by sacrificing them on.....hm....altars....as rebels and as scapegoats for all numenor’s Problems(TM)....>_>....lmao tolkien can be really fucking dumb and scattered about his mythology and religion patchworking, and yet the wokeness-masturbating section of fandom is infinitely worse in the most predictable ways.

WHITE TREE FRACTALS (this time featuring bonus BAMF and Super Awesome And Lovable 21 Year Old Isildur......have i mentioned recently how much i hate peter jackson......)

anyway when Pharazon has a mid-life crisis about getting old sauron also convinces him he can become immortal by invading aman, which he should totally do bc The Strong Do What They Will And The Weak Bear What They Must (remember this is tragically admirable if flawed, because it’s defying fate!) and a super armament is built to invade aman and ar-Pharazon’s ex-bff Amandil who’s secretly friends with the Faithful freaks and makes secret plans to sail to valinor to beg the valar to do something and has his son elendil prepare to go to middle earth to see the elves who are hunkered down there doing.....uhhhhh???? probably hiding from numenorean conquest????

but anyway when pharazon invades aman and chases the elves out of tol eressea and then tirion, he has a Uh-Oh I Think This Was A Bad Idea feeling but can’t back down now so he lands ashore and camps out around tirion and then manwe prays to eru to bail everyone out and says he will lay down rule of arda for a minute since he doesn’t know what to do, presumably a la ‘omg dad i fucked up and totally crashed your car,’ and eru solves this by getting ar-pharazon & co buried under a mountain until the end of the world (funny how so few fans ever address this thing re: tirion in valinor fanfic eh? oh yeah i forgot silm fans don’t give a shit about humans), opening up a big crack in the ocean, pulling aman and tol eressea out into space, turning the earth from flat to spherical, and letting the island of numenor get buried under the resulting tidal wave and fall down the crack to wherever. because you know overkill is great! also sauron is too busy doing an Evil Villain Laugh to realize he’s about to get drowned and he totally dies and has to make himself a new body out of Anger and he’s now ugly, which sucks for the fanartists.

anyway manwe saves elendil and his fleet (it doesn’t say manwe, but it does say ‘but the great wind took [elendil], wilder than any wind that Men had known, roaring from the west, and it swept his ships far away...’ which, duh) and they wind up washed up on middle earth, but totally grief-stricken over the destruction of numenor.

I can’t liveblog the rest any better than verbatim so I’ll just quote:

Among the Exiles many believed that the summit of the Meneltarma, the Pillar of Heaven, was not drowned for ever, but rose again above the waves, a lonely island lost in the great waters; for it had been a hallowed place, and even in the days of Sauron none had defiled it And some there were of the seed of Eärendil that afterwards sought for it, because it was said among loremasters that the far-sighted men of old could see from the Meneltarma a glimmer of the Deathless Land. For even after the ruin the hearts of the Dúnedain were still set westwards; and though they knew indeed that the world was changed, they said: 'Avallónë is vanished from the Earth and the Land of Aman is taken away, and in the world of this present darkness they cannot be found. Yet once they were, and therefore they still are, in true being and in the whole shape of the world as at first it was devised.'

For the Dúnedain held that even mortal Men, if so blessed, might look upon other times than those of their bodies' life; and they longed ever to escape from the shadows of their exile and to see in some fashion the light that dies not; for the sorrow of the thought of death had pursued them over the deeps of the sea. Thus it was that great mariners among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said:

'All roads are now bent.'

Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round, and yet the Eldar were permitted still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallónë, if they would. Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a Straight Road must still be, for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world. And tales and rumours arose along the shores of the sea concerning mariners and men forlorn upon the water who, by some fate or grace or favour of the Valar, had entered in upon the Straight Way and seen the face of the world sink below them, and so had come to the lamplit quays of Avallónë, or verily to the last beaches on the margin of Aman, and there had looked upon the White Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, before they died.

#observe my obsession #akallabeth

37 notes · View notes

syncogon · 7 years

Text

Some Chinese Cartoons

[Disclaimer: this was addressed to one specific person. I’ll make a better post one day.]

One day I’ll add pics and make this actually formal and stuff. But for now...

我��歌狂/Music Up:

Summary: Two musically talented, insanely popular high school guys - but that’s about all they have in common. In fact, they hate each other’s guts. And yet, through complicated circumstances, they and two others join to form a four-man band, “OPEN.” Both individually and as a band, they face a variety of problems: financial, academic, familial, romantic, and everything in between, in order to pursue their dreams. (52 eps)

Commentary: This is set in modern(ish) day, real world. Made in 2001, so keep that mind when considering the animation quality. They do have a lot of good songs, since this IS a show about singers and pop bands. Overall the tone is pretty light. Some things are a lot more dramatic than they need to be but that’s fantastic. And a lot of the problems are highly relatable. Development of characters and relationships is def one of the selling points. HUGELY nostalgic for me and a lot of Chinese people it seems haha

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLkMLYnt73g the second opening.

战龙四驱/Go For Speed:

Summary: Two years ago, the genius high schooler Fei won the minicar (4WD) racing Nationals. But only shortly afterward, he disappeared, with only a short note hinting at why. Now, his younger brother Dragon follows in his footsteps, designing and creating his own minicars to compete in the tournaments and steadily working his way up through the rankings. Along the way, he meets many people, makes friends and enemies, and struggles to find Fei and his reason for leaving. (64 eps)

Commentary: Modern/slightly future-day, real world (Shanghai!!). Okay so this show is based around like the gimmick of “minicar racing” - not sure what to really call it. The races are surprisingly fun to watch actually imo, with the technological abilities of the minicars, interactions between players, and obstacles to pass... but you’d probably have to decide that for yourself. For me, the biggest draw was probably the surprising number of subplots, which explore the complex relationships between all the characters - literally every single side character is well established and developed. Family and familial relationships play a pretty big role. Revenge and forgiveness are there too. I got hooked into this show when it was airing on TV solely because of one character haha. Caveat that it starts slow, I don’t know how much you’d actually like this, there needs to be some suspension of disbelief, and the animation quality isn’t fantastic… rip

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0tHRbyaek&index=30&list=PLQukwpGC9a0wfDv0ymEgGX-LydTKbZY_s (a trailer, in english for some reason even though i’ve never found an english dubbed version of this and don’t want to. It mostly focuses on the racing aspect, but as before, don’t let that fool you, it’s surprisingly deep. Come for the races, stay for the chars)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQukwpGC9a0zqrmIGCXOW1QVlfh6svY7y since when was this on youtube?? :o WAIT HOLY SHIT SINCE WHEN DOES THIS HAVE ENGLISH SUBS THIS IS A GAME CHANGER AAAAA NOW LIKE I MIGHT GO REWATCH THIS - just kidding, only the first episode. Man what a letdown

弹珠传说/Danzhu Legend:

Summary: This is a world where people have Danzhu battles: competitions involving channeling your magic energy into Shooters to launch marble-like Danzhu at targets. These objects have great power, but, so far, no one has decided to take advantage of it… until now. One day, a young boy who has always dreamed of becoming a Danzhu battler is chosen by one of the five Legendary Shooters. He journeys into the mountains to seek training from the Danzhu Master, where he meets the other four Legendary wielders and learns that their job is to stop the evil threatening to take over their world. (52 eps)

Commentary: Fantasy world. So this is like your pretty standard “boy discovers power and works to save the world” story, but still enjoyable in its own right. The gimmick of this are the aforementioned Danzhu. The Guardians are also very important; all Shooters are linked to a spiritual animal/creature/something that’s the basis of power. The battles are all very cool! Quick disclaimer: for various reasons I am more familiar with this show than maybe any other of the ones here. This fact made me appreciate how much potential this story had, but also made me realize all of its flaws. There are a lot of things it could have done better - character development jumps to mind, because aside from the MC and one of the antagonists, most of them don’t change all that much. Also there’s lots of recycled animation. Just keep these caveats in mind. However, I still found the adventure/plot/magic very exciting to watch, a healthy dose of idealism and humor as well as tension/smarts/raw courage, so if you’re interested in that aspect more, I’d recommend this!

Links: ALL THE EPISODES ARE ON YOUTUBE ONCE MORE PRAISE this is very helpful for me because when i needed them to be on youtube, someone had like taken all of them down, which was very upsetting, but now they are back again, glorious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvQUvsPwKA0&list=PLZKi4aAqJS8dbVOUrKnDqNU4F4rnm8Ott playlist isn’t in order but you should watch the opening theme to get a feel for it - if you want even more of a feel, watch to 4:50, which is kinda like a prologue and a better summary of what I said above lol

开心宝贝/Happy Heroes:

Summary: Just read what’s on tvtropes tbh haha (link below) (Ongoing, 10 seasons, 52 eps each (except season 8 which was 40 eps) )

Commentary: Imo the best seasons were 3, 5, 6, and 8. After 8 the animation style changed a bit and the humor quality kinda went down…well, that might just be me, though. Either way, though, there are so many amazing earlier episodes, and I’ve gotten really attached to all the characters. It being a kids show, there’s no super deep plot or lasting impact of anything (aside from the last arc of season 7, heh. I remember watching when it came out in 2014 and flipping out bc I did NOT expect that, knowing HH) but it’s still thoroughly enjoyable. There are also two movies: the second movie is kinda confusing and meh but the first movie is pretty good and I think you can find it on youtube. In fact I believe all the episodes are on youtube, but I imagine you have those links already

Links: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKA3CuHXUxHflv9KAgEJyKQ is the channel with everything. Watch the trailer for season 8! It’s v epic and got me hyped when it released.

Tvtropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Animation/HappyHeroes

Movie 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUiA3nue22Y. (there are english subs too! haha)

Movie 2 isn’t worth watching trust me

星游记/Rainbow Sea:

Summary: Years ago, a man dressed in all red made a declaration to the universe: behind the largest black hole was a mysterious place called Rainbow Sea, a place where any dream could be fulfilled. Enchanted by the stories, people from across the universe joined the man in red in his journey. Unfortunately, no one ever returned. Rainbow Sea was scoffed at as a myth and a lie. The man in red was cursed, nicknamed by people as the Red Demon. The sinister organization known as the Galactic Eyes quietly gained control of the Solar System and numerous other star systems, sealing off the planet where the Red Demon had come from, Earth, and forbidding any ships from entering or leaving. Now, ten years later, the Red Demon's son Maidang has reached adolescence and is determined to fulfill the pinky promise made to his father before he left: to reunite with him at Rainbow Sea.

Commentary: Quality stuff right here. Best part is the backstories of all these characters, there’s some really moving stuff. The characters are p great - Maidang is so inspiring, Gudong is highly relatable, Diya is awesome... The art style (esp for their eyes) is really nice. ...Not much else to say off the top of my head, esp since the story is far from over, but even if it starts off slow, this is definitely worth your time!

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB_oZBdi7k&list=PLF068DA90359EDE0D all the episodes. The opening theme/sequence was what got me hooked, you should def watch it (up to like 1:20 or whatever, then if you want like a prologue watch to like 3:07)

26 eps so far. Season 2 and after are apparently going to be “web movies” instead of episodes, something like 60 minutes each, and will cost money (rip) but I’m sure they’ll show up for free somewhere eventually. Fingers crossed this’ll be soon. Wanna join me in hiatus hell :DD

神魄/Zinba:

Summary: Kan is happily chatting with his closest friend on an ordinary school day when, all of a sudden, he finds himself pulled into an alternate fantasy world. This world is filled with Zinba, large and powerful creatures that may form bonds with select humans, called Linkers, for immense battle power. After becoming a Linker with one of the strongest Zinba ever to exist, Kan joins the peacekeeping Dux force of the kingdom of Toria and fights against the various evils threatening the land, all while trying to find his way back to his own world. (52 eps)

Commentary: Okay, so you know, I wouldn’t recommend this as much as some of the others on this list, esp since it’s the most recent Chinese show I actually watched, but it made enough of an impact on me to have it worth talking about. I started watching bc a) it showed up as recommended for me on youtube, b) the opening is SICK as HECK, and c) the protag of this is voiced by the same person as the protag of DZL, and generally looks/acts kinda similar haha. Anyway, overall thoughts: basically, it had a lot of unrealized potential. The world and the character designs are AMAZING. I liked the animation. The plot is interesting, with a surprising number of plot twists as to who’s the real ultimate villain. But there could have been So Much More development – we could’ve gotten more thorough backstories for the main crew, for example, or seen more of the world/magic/tech, but instead a lot of the people as well as Zinba just… exist, as static and boring entities. There were like two interesting characters total (Kan’s aforementioned “normal” friend being one of them heh). Kan himself was suuuuper annoying, esp at the beginning. (can you tell I really appreciate/prioritize the characters of a show?) However, some moments were quite well done and epic, and I wrote some fanfiction and commentary on basically every episode, so it holds a place in my heart. Also, there is a full English dub lmaooo (the voices suck but the translations for names/places/etc are interesting) (episode 1 has 318k views??? That’s a TON for a chinese cartoon)

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G83STZ9xcc the opening which is good and worth watching, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQukwpGC9a0xatMI-KGO9SILZ5sSWfWXX full playlist, syncogon.tumblr.com/tagged/zinba lol

#mine #rainbow sea #zinba #music up #happy heroes #danzhu legend #go for speed

22 notes · View notes

chooseandact · 7 years

Link

(These replies are making a monstrosity themselves.) Tagging @insectoid5, @frozenartscapes, @ultranos, @kalikoke, @hathor-frozen, @myfanfictiongarden, @mighty-meerkat, et al.

EDIT: (And again, I spawn another monstrosity. *sigh*)

@frozenartscapes reblogged your post and added: Don’t forget, I also brought in Yama and his cronies from Big Hero 6 (source). So there’s also the possibility of dragging gang activity into this as well.

(Also I now officially headcanon that all the recruiters for the Org are named Joe. Not as fake names, but real names. It gets confusing really quickly. It also doesn’t help because of Family Guy, but I also picture all of them voiced by Patrick Warburton.)

Don’t worry, @frozenartscapes, I didn’t forget Yama. I mentioned them in “DA!prompt #3” with the same source. You should’ve got a notification, but I mis-typed everyone’s “@”, so it didn’t send. :( Also, I really like the idea the male recruiters all sound like Kronk (That’s who I asssociate Patrick with; I never watched Family Guy.) More stuff below.

@myfanfictiongarden reblogged your post and added: […] Anyway, I see @chooseandact that you wrote quite a few characters down. While it would be fun to see all the HoND crew interact with Judge Frollo and our Frozen gang, add some BH6 and spy Rapunzel…. I´m for keeping things small. You can only devote so much time to one character, but with more then 8? Each of them has their own storyline etc. etc. it could be too much.

What I am with is a good funny spy-fic, with DA!Verse Elsa on a mission, Kristof, Tadahi and Anna along making things crazyer [sic], D standing somewhere, and the all evil trio Weaselton-Hans-Frollo (Frollo is such a bad guy even Hans can learn more from him-wait, is Frollo still a judge in DA!Verse? I hope so)

I hope, I could help and we could bring this baby to live :)

From one DA!rookie to another: Welcome to the club! I know I listed many characters, but that doesn’t mean we have to use everyone. They’re just some of the many people available to use in the background. Like I said, I thought adding HoND and the others strained disbelief. However, I think we can benefit by keeping just Judge Frollo and Phoebus, even if they make brief appearances:

With Frollo, we get a sense of some of the legal system’s failures (If any of us knows some basic legal stuff, it could help, but no need to go overboard [says the one who scoured the DA!depths for sources!]. If not, we can use Wikipedia or TV courts, e.g. any CSI, any Law & Order, etc.). Elsa has noticed most of the goons she sees are almost always the same people from Yama’s gang, even after honest cops have picked them up. She has suspicions but cannot act on them because of Org work.

With Phoebus, we get laughs as Sgt. Wesel tries to explain his theories to his superior, only for Phoebus to brush him off as (1) the force’s resident paranoiac, and (2) a Living Legend in the bad sense – from Phoebus’ POV, Wesel has been out of touch with reality for a while (we readers know he’s more right than he could ever imagine), but he can’t be dismissed from the force because he did Great Things in his past (and won’t let you forget it, to everyone’s ire) and has employment seniority, so he’s protected even more the local cop union. And we get a trio of good cops (Kristoff, Tadashi, and Phoebus) who sometimes simply meet just to talk, which counters your Evil Trio of Hans, Wesel and Frollo.

@mighty-meerkat reblogged your post and added: […] It’s been so long since I wrote any Mariselsa, but I kind of want Marisol at the party as well in some capacity. Maybe she’s on a separate search-and-destroy-information mission for a different handler, which immediately puts a massive spanner in Elsa’s works, because Marisol is…not very good at damage control. If she’s trying to set the place on fire, Elsa’s attempts at discretion are literally going to go up in smoke.

I like that idea! Here’s some more fic welding then: Hans is both terrified and furious at Elsa’s threat, as linked previously. He attends the gang boss’ party, as do Our Heroes, Marisol, Rapunzel (on loan from the German Org as a Field Test), Wesel, and Frollo (and Wesel’s two thugs, but as background only). Marisol has her own mission, which indeed counters Elsa’s goal and sets the building ablaze. Everyone escapes: Marisol goes her way, Elsa tracks the female target I mentioned in DA!prompt #3 (she can be the high-profile target or someone else in the hierarchy), and the rest of Our Heroes return to the Arendelle’s and await Elsa’s return. Everything unfolds as explained in DA!prompt #3, which ends in a fight that wounds Elsa, kicking off the beginning of @frozenartscapes’ fic Call for Help.

@insectoid5 reblogged your post and added: I commend you for thinking this through so thoroughly! That’s the sort of thing I don’t have the energy to do, usually […]

I love your idea of adding spy!Rapunzel, and we may as well add Cassandra (from Tangled: The Series), because I can totally see her fitting in at the Org. I can totally see Elsa being a spy, given her usual stealthy missions. Which will last up to the point where she falls out of a tree and spooks the person she’s watching. 😅

Maybe the Org has some kind of vocational cover story for banks and tax people. Like, I dunno… life insurance. 😂 (I volunteer @frozenartscapes to come up with a better one.)

[…] Also: every recruiter is named Joe: perfect! (Though how their superiors will know if all the Joes are doing a good job, if they don’t have some way of telling them apart, e.g., “tall Joe”, “short Joe”…). If a small, obscure Frozen ship can have an archivist/historian, I don’t see why this AU shouldn’t have one. You’re nominated! 😄

Why thank you! And it all started from a dress pic… In the words of Gord Bamford: “It ain’t your eyes, your lips, your nose, your hips / That got me in this mess / Blame it on that red dress” (If you didn’t notice, I think Anna’s dress/fan should keep the style but be fire-engine red bc red hair & all)

re: “Joes”: I was inspired by a scene in the Transformers 3 novel, where 3 secret agents appear. They dress the same and are not related despite all 3 being referred to only as “Johnson”, yet you still can tell who’s talking. The Org’s “Joes” are similar: they don’t need identifiers, even though “their appearance [has] been carefully conceived to leave no lasting impression on anyone who might see them.” (TF book) When someone calls for “Joe”, somehow they just know which one is needed. No one knows how or why. Elsa is unnerved and D is disturbed, even though he hired them. Anna tries to make the obligatory “take your average Joe” joke, but Elsa stops her preemptively, saying an unknown Org person did that the day after Elsa joined. Org rumor has it they were never seen again. The next day, all the Joes arrived 10 min. late with flecks of mud on their Men in Black-style suit pants’ cuffs, and Every. Single. File. with the person’s name (the digital/physical ones backed-up in triplicate, database, weapons logs, bank info, etc.) had the name wiped. Not black censor bar. Wiped. Eventually, they faded from collective memory and exist only as a rumor from senior Agents to rookies.

On the topic of the missing Org person, I found two more Org members: an unnamed duo who reviewed Elsa’s test scores and assigned her to “wetwork specialist” (from the same source as Chamomile Tea “Joe”)

Thank you for the nomination as DA!historian, and I accept the position! I’ll do what I can, when I can, but I cannot promise I will remember everything. As you can see above, I’m trying to make a coherent timeline of events for a chrono DA!blog master post. Still needs (lots of) work & is FAR from finished.

One last thought: would you all be willing to do this fic as a multi-author collab? One person writes one segment, and the next part is handed off to another, all while keeping the basic plot points as outlined above and elsewhere. I’m afraid I can’t do much beyond outlines atm bc Life™ & extreme unfamiliarity with writing fics/dialogue/scene-setting/etc (I know, get experience by writing whenever, no one is perfect the first time, etc.). Thoughts?

#Domestic Assassin AU

9 notes · View notes

elddansurin · 7 years

Text

there’s a pretty good character development questionnaire going around my dash right now, so i took the liberties of filling the entire thing out on my own time, because buddy, you gotta make your own destiny.

1. Who’s the oldest character of yours that you still use? I had to give this one some thought bc my gut reaction was to say Tuo, but it turns out the answer is Falshavo, because I can explicitly remember drawing him in the hazy, far gone year of early 2006 when I was taking a drivers ed course. He started out as either some bastard of a Silent Hill fanchar, or a heavily SH-"inspired" character, and I think he could have at best been called a demon? I was like 16 when I made him, cut me some slack. In any case, Fal has changed very much over the years, most recently into an original species that can best be described as something visually between a satyr and a manticore, but is actually neither of those things. For quite a while he was based out of my one world, Undecim, but recently I decided he and his ilk would be better suited to my OTHER world, Aphelion. As far as motivations go, he's swapped from evil/crazy/malevolent to a much more nap-based personality. Two things that haven't changed since I've made him, though, are that he's blind in one eye and doesn't talk very much. So there's that.

2. Who’s the oldest character of yours, defunct or not? That honor goes to Jonathan, who was definitely and absolutely a FF7 fan character back when that game was new and I was still in my larval stage. He morphed into a mental illness coping mechanism as my childhood went on and he's just had a whole lot of interesting/embarrassing iterations, but I guess that's to be expected of a character I made in fucking 1997. That said, I retired him a few years ago. Tried briefly to bring him back, but I just wasn't feeling 2.0, so I didn't force it.

3. Has creating a character ever made you realize something about yourself? I was GONNA say no, but then it just dawned on me how much time I spent creating gay male characters in my early teen years before THAT realization caught up with the rest of me. I'm not going to say the characters themselves were involved in the inevitable personal revelation (they weren't), but more than anything I just think it's proof that pieces of my brain do not always work as a cohesive whole. I knew before I knew, so to speak, and it showed up in my characters.

4. Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories? UHHHH Your Boy Kolja was initially a primary antagonist in Mikhail's storyline, back before I decided to fundamentally retool a lot of things about Mik's whole deal. But I'm nothing if not predictable, and I'm a guy who loves a good villain, so I ended up making Kolja FAR more fleshed out and engaging than the actual protagonist of the story. Same thing kind of happened with Anzo, who was initially kind of an offshoot wildcard character in the horrible and confusing political landscape of that entire bed of storylines. But uhhh, that didn't last.

5. Do you prefer to make human, animal, monster, or _____ characters? Why? My characters are all unambiguously human/humanoid. Even the monsters are going to have recognizably human faces because I have a hard time getting emotionally invested in a character otherwise. I'm really not sure the reasons for this. There's a few exceptions, ofc, but not many. Peeling off for a sec, in regards to making characters in TES settings, I definitely am biased toward the elven races because if I wanted to make a human character, I'd do so in own properties. Also the human races in the elder scrolls are kind of... underwhelming...

6. When creating a character, do you come up with the visual concept or the written concept first? Written concept, almost every time. The rare exception is usually with minor and/or lore-based characters, like gods or monsters, since I rarely explore those characters as deeply as I do the regular types. But if I'm making Just Some Dude, I'm probably going to have a full written concept drafted out months to years before I ever get a concrete idea (much less an actual depiction) of what he looks like.

7. Do you have characters that you know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of/recycle? I'm going to have to go ahead and call back on Jon for this one, largely based in both his history and his significance to me and my own development. He was my primary, go-to character for such a long time, I don't think it'd do him justice to ever properly put him out to pasture or recycle (and I'm a chronic recycler, so that's saying something). He kind of exists in a creative limbo, and that's where he's gonna stay.

8. Is there a character that embodies your good traits, or traits you wish you had? Good traits? In all seriousness, probably. Nothing I am consciously aware of, so cop-out answer on this one. I'm also not really one for wish-fulfillment characters, so that's a no on "person I wish I was" aspect, sorry.

9. Is there a character that embodies your bad traits? Several characters? Which ones and what traits? HAHAHA hoo boy. Gavriil is the embodiment of my general shiftlessness and crippling self doubt, Tuo embodies my crushing depression and self-destructive tendencies, Ludo represents my reoccuring fear that I’m stuck in circumstances so far beyond my control that I ought not bother to try and change, and I'm not even gonna TOUCH on which of my boys were created as blatant outlets for trauma. There's a fun little game for you, try and figure that one out yourself.

10. Is there a character that explores your interests or fetishes (orrrr is that just all of you characters)? Uh, flat no on the "fetishes" part, but yeah, most of my characters tap on my significant interests in some way or another. Most concrete example I think is Desoto, who I designed (or, well, redesigned if we're getting technical) when my interest in astronomy was at its peak, back before I realized physics is something I'm terrible at and makes me cry/change my major in college. I still love astronomy and astrophysics on a conceptual level, but the second you break out equations, I'm gone. My Boy Desoto, though, I have designed to be significantly more likely than me to do math, so good for him. Funny enough? I've never made a character who's into geology. You know, my actual field. Go figure.

11. If you have characters that embody certain traits of yours—good or bad—has writing them changed how you view those traits? Has it affected you in any way? Not really, at least I don't think so. I might wake up in the middle of the night with a better answer screaming to my forebrain, but my gut reaction is a no. I tend to go into writing something with fixed views, and I can't recall an instance of me suddenly deciding "hey, actually this thing is good/bad and I never thought of it this way." I've definitely started viewing the characters themselves differently after starting a project, but never really the traits they personify.

12. Do you fantasize about being any of your characters, or are you more detached? Definitely the latter. I'm not shy about putting pieces of myself into the characters I make, but at the same time, I really do not see myself in them, nor do I wish to. There's a firm level of detachment in that these are my creations, and rarely do I mold the sort of character where I can in good conscience think "yeah, that's who I want to be." A big part of this is that my character creation/world building habits are and always have been rooted in maladaptive daydreaming (and I have only recently figured out the terminology for a phenomenon I was otherwise well aware of, funny how that works), and that has always been based in me trying to distance myself from who I was (and at times, am). I don't want to put myself into new shoes, I want to focus on someone who isn't me, but has weird, tenuous connections to me. If that doesn't make any sense, pretend that it does.

13. Do you create playlists for your characters? No, and that's based mostly in the sad reality that I stopped seeking out new music years ago. That, and I've never been much of an audiophile, so there'd just be so much overlap in any playlists I created that honestly, why bother. That said, I will occasionally listen to something and think "holy shit, this is ___". First example that comes to mind is Motorhead's Dust and Glass, which is very much the anthem for Ludo. Do me a favor and listen to that song, and you will know everything you need to know about Ludo. Also, I’ve got a handful of songs that make me think very much of Gav, but most recently, I decided that Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street is a good song for him. Like, also for me? But mostly Gavriil. It can be both.

14. When writing for specific characters, is there anything you have to do to get into the right mindset? I've gotta be in the right mood, and that's all it comes down to. I'm still trying to figure out the secret to writing something that's counterintuitive to my mood, but I'm not there yet. I know the answer is "just fucking do it," but here's an idea: shut up? I dunno. I'm a very flaky content creator.

15. Which character is your guilty pleasure? Right now, it is absolutely Gavriil. For a long time I had such an issue with allowing myself to have characters based out of properties that weren't my own, so I started out feeling very self-conscious about putting so much time and thought into Gav. I have since made like eight or nine more TES-based characters in his wake, but some residual sentiment still lingers! See also: I still am too self-conscious to publically share the story I've been writing with him. I'm not sure if that's rooted in me playing in somebody else's sandbox, or if the story itself is coming out of a place of extreme personal vulnerability (I wrote the bulk of it during my recent Complete Mental Breakdown™). Or maybe I'm just self-conscious about my writing in general. Who knows! But at the end of the day I absolutely love Gav and I'm having so much fun working with him. Before him was Kolja for many years, and Tuo before that. Don't get me wrong, I still adore the both of those guys, I just have a new focus for the time being.

16. Is there a character of yours who’s a real struggle to write/draw? Why do you think that is? Right now, definitely Anzo. He started out very different from what he's become, and at the end of the day, I'm still not sure what exactly I'm trying to do with him. I was/am trying to write him in a story, but it's been proving very difficult because I'm just not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with him. Initially, his core concept was based very deeply in a revenge fantasy that had gotten out of control (I mean, it was a justified revenge fantasy, but that still doesn't make it healthy, my dude, my guy). but then I started thinking a bit more about the major events in his life, and if I was making him react believably enough to what he'd endured. That, and by this time I was in some genuine, bonified darkness in my own life, and that started leaking out into the character and story very much. Now I'm stepping back and wondering, is this where I want it to go? If the answer is no, then where SHOULD it be going? I don't have an answer to that yet. So he's a hard character to write, at least for now.

17. Which character is the easiest to draw/write? I wanted to say Kolja, based in how enthusiastic I was for him for such a long time. I could tell you his story from birth to death, and there's only a few small threads that are still unclear in my mind. Unfortunately, this level of enthusiasm has left me with the understandably daunting task of, you know, actually writing it down. There's SO MUCH to sift through, and it's like scaling a damn mountain. It's all there, I can see the whole thing, but fuck me if I'm not in for a climb. I started in on it late last year before retreating to work on something on a bit... smaller of a scale. Gotta work my way up to that. That said, the actual easiest character to write right now is, again, Gavriil. Part of it is that enthusiasm I have for him right now, and another part of it is that his story is based on the main quest of Skyrim which, lets be honest, is an underwhelming plot on the whole. So the plot has already been written out by someone else; I don't have to worry about that. Neither do I have to worry about actually depicting the entirity of said plot, because it's not actually an interesting one. And honestly why are you reading a story of a character from Bad Game Skyrim if you don't at least have some cursory knowledge of how that game's plot goes? The interesting part- to me, at least- is the effect it has on my character. That's what I've been focusing on, and it's been fun.

18. Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about? Visually? A lot. There's a lot that's outside my skillset, because I don't know how to fucking draw. That's why I shy away from drawing characters who, say, I imagine to have unnecessarily complex tattoo designs. Not only do I not feel like putting in the time to actually depict that, but I also lack the talent to properly do so. It also kind of neuters what I can pull off for some of my more outlandish designs, namely gods and monsters. Kjelchaikhan is the only one of the gods I've drawn so far, and not coincidentally, he also has the easiest design to deal with. I started in on trying to draw Tsenmaer before I realized holy shit, the way I picture her in my head is so far beyond what I'm capable of actually doing. I'm not even going to fucking touch on Archaeos, because that design is going to be... even harder!! Conceptually, not so much. It sometimes happens on a small scale, such as how I've designed Ludo to be a boxer when I know little about boxing and I don't honestly care to learn. But at the same time? His story is based far, far more heavily in the shitty circumstances of his life and how he's trying to worm his way out of that than in the actual "punching dudes in the head for money" thing. That was more a tool to tie him in with the questionable, shady shit that I needed him to be shackled to. "Underground boxing circuit" just sounded like as good of an idea as any, so I figured why not. That aside, most anything I want to write about ends up being something I'm either familiar with based on personal experience, or at the very least am interested in researching for story purposes.

19. What’s more important to you: visual design, unique personality, a trendy character aesthetic, etc? If you’re not sure, then what’s the first thing you usually nail down in a character? Definitely the personality and basic concept. I very much enjoy crafting characters that are fleshed out and generally believable, and I am very much terrible at designing them on a visual scale. Do all my characters end up looking the same? Yes. Does this bother me? No. If it did, I'd fucking do something about it. What's important to me is who a character is when you boil away all the set dressing. Who is he on a conceptual level? What are his motivations? His basic structure? My character creation process is me sitting down and saying "I want to make a character who embodies these basic traits, and is based on this core concept," then building from there. Visual design is always, always an afterthought.

20. Do you ever plan to do anything (comic, animation, etc) with your characters? Or are you just happy to have them? For the most part: Nope! My characters exist primarily to make me happy and give me something to think about when I'm tired of thinking about myself and my life. There's a few that I'm working very much to translate into stories, but even then I hem and haw over whether or not to actually share the content I produce. Part of it is I'm much more self-conscious about my writing than my art. Used to very much be the other way around, up until I stopped considering myself an artist. Now I just kind of shit drawings out from time to time, and if people think they're terrible, that's because they are and I put no effort into what I do. It's the other way around with writing. I very much put effort, care and detail into my stories. More than bad reception, I fear no reception, which is to say that I'd put so much effort into something, put it out there, and go completely ignored. I have no issues with "you suck/your work sucks," but absolute indifference cuts me pretty deep on matters like this. So yeah, that's a significant obstacle between me and content sharing. That, and assuming I did find any degree of an audience, putting my work out for someone else's scrutiny makes it SIGNIFICANTLY harder to go back and retcon. And boy oh boy, I am a notorious an unrelenting retconner.

#OCs #god fucken bless anyone who actually made it through All Those Words

5 notes · View notes

pipedreamprayer · 6 years

Text

ep 68

there was just...so much i wanted to think about after the episode was done that i wound up noting down my reactions and thoughts as I watched to get them straight and wouldn't forget anything

now I’m just...overwhelmed and curious to see if anyone has any thoughts to add to anything - hence me making use of the copy and paste function

Wait, Ai has had dreams before?! Well…I guess that answers the question of ‘’do androids dream of electric sheep’’ even if a fully sentient AI sans the robotic body is a bit far from android…

…why does the Cyvberse look like a set piece? With splits in the panels showing flat scenery and no movement in the smoke of the volcanoes?? IM SUSPICIOUS

Are you flipping serious, Yusaku perfectly serious and straight faced determined that Ai was definitely not present by using soap operas as bait. What is this episode and where has it been all my life

GOOOD GOD ROBOPPI IS THE CUTEST THING EVER!!!!!!!!!

So it’s is now confirmed that none of the others have been to Yusakus house before….and still have yet to…still, I wonder if the whole helper robot situation is a part of the reason he’s allowed to live alone – he has a helper

Wtf what are the little noises she keeps making, her reactions to the butterfly were adorable but the one when she’s plugged in and has hearts in her eyes…Vrains is seriously pushing the robot sex agenda with her aren’t they?

Oh holy smokes they lured him in via his own vanity THEY DEFINITELY KNOW HIS PERSONALITY WELL

Yusaku is learning to be more cautious with his allies and im so proud! if...worried as hell that he’s going in alone

Oooh Flame’s kind of bitter about Windy being treated with suspicion…I can’t wait to see his reaction when he discovers how warranted that suspicion was…

Holy shit even for an insidious plot involving a fake Cyberse the Ignis are enough the comedy part of the show that they screw up faking Linkuriboh - and Ai still doesn't catch on!

Wait…wait the Cyberse was SPREADING before it was destroyed?? That…I worry that has some concerning implications that the Ignis COULDN’T have just…been left alone forever, that eventually their interests would clash with humanities bc they were taking over the network or something

Ahaha holy shit I totally forgot about the whole joke with Ai not understanding Linkuribohs language no matter how he behaves like he does, and now I cant stop remembering the joke at the starts of season 2, damn that was funny

Dear god they even programmed this fake Cyverse to look like corrugated cardboard around the hole rather than, you know, actually make it look more like a real imitation

Damn Ai is well animated this episide…

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH IT’S THE RETURN OF THE LOST INCIDENT THEME!!!!!!!! that's NEVER a good sign

Dear god the Ignis have their own language and it sounds like speaking in electrofunk tongues straight from digital hell. Really puts that au i’ve been thinking about where the Ignis are demons into perspective…

Mmmmkay so literally every fiber of my being is screaming not to trust Windy at the sight of him. From how he appeared out of thin air (as awesome as that was) to the way he’s sitting to how casual he is about all this, all ‘yo!’ and everything…also, his questioning why Ai isn’t speaking Ignis anymore brings up a lot of questions…especially since the biggest difference between Ai and everyone else is that he’s had an extra 5 years wandering the network experiencing life outside of the isolated space the Ignis made for themselves – he’s seen more of humanity than any of the others by a long shot and he’s decided he prefers emulating them over following the lead of the rest of his own kind, and that’s why I think he’s gonna make a big difference to the war that's apparently inevitable. I even wonder if we’ll see a parallel to what he said to Yusaku about the Cyberse being his paradise at the end of season 1 – I wonder if we’ll see him talk about the good parts of the human world to the Ignis

Oooooh I am EXTREMELY uncomfortable at how the fake Cyberse is now clearly an enclosed box…its really such a small space compared to what it would be, and what ought to be big open spaces for everyone to roam about in have become walls of a container…

Kudos to Windy’s voice actor, he sounds like he has a constant smile on his face even without the character having a mouth…

Oh good, even Ai realises how creepy his associate is

THE SHADOWY MAN ISNT A PERSON AT ALL ITS ANOTHER HOLDING PROGRAM LIKE ECHO OR THE TREE MAN!!!! Fucking hell why did I not think of that before… Bohman and all were never talking to the figure itself, but the Ignis on its arm…

Also HIS EYES ARE DIAMONDS!!! We finally have the full appearances of all Ignis and…damn are they interesting – Lightening is so…sharp in every way!

Ooh wow Ai was so used to being in the real world or Vrains he didn’t consider that he wasn’t limited by physics here…

…Is Ai meant to have hands way bigger than the others?? Cause I just noticed his forearms expand way more than Windy and Lightening at least, I need to look at the others designs to check it i’m pretty sure Aqua and Earth have similarly human proportioned hands compared to the rest of their body

Of COURSE Ai is the one who named him – thinking about it, I wonder if it came from liking his own name and seeing Flame also take pride in his name that he wanted to make sure the Ignis all had names

Wait there was a SPY in the Cyberse that led to the attack?! That...changes a lot of things...there was issues WITHIN the Cyberse that led the danger there, not solely an outside force interrupting their paradise

Aaaw Ai cares about Aqua

Wait she went missing BEFORE the attack?! And Ai doesn’t believe she’s the spy damn I love his faith in her

Hahaha Ai is getting called out for his naming habits and acts like a petulant child defending himself saying it’s for convenience – if that’s not a metaphor for the writers answering questions they knew would come up, I don’t know what is

Uuuuuuhhhh I do NOT trust how much Windy is pushing for Aqua to be the spy…It feels like deflecting the attention from himself and Lightening…but Ai isn’t letting himself be lead about, and somehow the fact it’s out of faith in Aqua as opposed to realising they’re trying to manipulate him just makes me all the more proud of him!!

Ai is asking the real questions here…

FAKE LINKURIBOH IS A SPY FOR THEM BOTH!!??!?!

FUCKING LINK SENSE IN ACTION RIGHT THERE!!! Uuugh this raises so many more questions though….how does he know how to do that?! Has he had practice with it, or is it some sort of unexplained instinct? Why hasn’t he done it before?! Like, I dunno, to find Bohman!!

Mmmmmmmmm I don’t like the superiority complex coming from Lightening…it reminds me of Kogami tbh, both how highly they think of themselves and how they’re of the belief that Ignis are superior but vulnerable enough to be destroyed. Except Kogami thought humans needed to attack before the Ignis wiped them out, and Lightening thinks they need to escape humanity’s reach before humans wipe THEM out

Wtf wtf WTF WTAF nonononono you guys weren’t supposed to actually take Kogami’s crazy lessons on board, you were supposed to have left his control bc you DIDN’T want to do as he said!!

Fucking hell a flaming Kogami bc of how the Ignis were named and…GAH I CANNOT HANDLE THIS INSANITY

So…they’re so high and mighty above the humans, but are utterly dependant on them for survival, as their whole world exists on the manmade network…and they’re going to enslave mankind to ensure they don’t get cut off…writers what on earth...

Oh sweet Jesus humans won’t even have THAT reason to keep existing fairly soon...I am VERY afraid of these 2

Wait, does that imply they’re making robotic bodies or something in order to affect the real world and be able to keep making hardware?? Cause…that could mean IRL duels against robots…

…wha, Ai? Wise? And what the hell is this about evil wisdom?? If that’s a jab at the dark element of monsters leading to fiends and whatnot, I don’t get what evil wisdom actually…implies. You could potentially stick evil in front of anything to joke about the dark ignis if that were the only reason, so there’s something I’m missing…though it’s nice to see that Windy and Lightening aren’t…like, 2 sides of the same coin, they’ve got their individual personalities and quirks and aren’t constantly on the same page

Oh…oh fucking hell he has a good point. I hate to admit it, but he does. Even if Ai believes Playmaker wouldn’t delete him, Ai will outlive Yusaku and then…there’s billions of humans out there, but that’s no guarantee that there will always be at least one capable person willing to defend him from those who DO want him dead. Trying to count on humans when you’re immortal and inhuman is…so risky it basically comes down to blind faith. And, frankly, the acceptance that things will probably one day go wrong. Humans accept the inevitability of death, but damn that must be difficult to face for creatures who’d been promised immortality from the get-go. They’ve been making plans for the long-long term future, so the threat of destruction must be…infinitely more terrifying and unknown to the Ignis than to us…

PLAYMAKER!! Interesting that the other 2 knew he was coming and didn’t…hinder him in any way

Wait, they were waiting for him?! Ooooh that does not bode well…

I’m so fascinated in how they are, for the most part, repeating themselves to Playmaker yet are going about it so so differently from how they treated Ai…

Also, the way the flashback reminded me that Kogami thought of humans as vulnerable while trapped in the real worlds dangers is a parallel to how the Ignis are vulnerable while they don’t have control over the hardware that runs the network they exist on

…DAMN that’s an interesting response from Yusaku! He isn’t denying that the Ignis might well be the closest thing to humanity’s successor, and we know he’s going to be honest about that sort of thing. This is his actual opinion. But, furthering that opinion, that possible label doesn’t give them the right to hurt people as though they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, like how Kogami treated the kids and their families. And…he’s right, or at least I believe so. The Ignis are functionally immortal and have such power in the way of the network, the thing that humanity is so dependent on nowadays, but that’s not…the most important part of the situation. Yusaku just…wants people to stop suffering, whether by the Incident or the network being destroyed or this whole debacle…god I love this character

Ooooh no Windy took that very wrong…it sucks, bc that’s such a…childish argument! its all ‘’If you agree with me great, if you don’t, then you’re lying about your motivations and you’re an enemy and we shouldn’t listen to you’’! Like…dammit you guys are based off of 6 year olds and despite the whole ‘our mission’ this and ‘enslave humanity until they have no further use’ coming across as big important serious decisions made by big important serious people, they’re not the most mature

…fuck that’s even MORE sinister than I expected! They just…don’t care about humans enough to give a shit whether they’re suffering or have lives of their own, they just see them as a resource that will eventually need to be annihilated before they become a threat to their own existence…dammit, it’s not far from how we treat animals!! In fact, that’s exactly what it is! They consider themselves above humans even though they only exist because of them and are still dependant on them, but don’t see them as worth the same consideration they’d give one of their own (though even amongst themselves they’re pretty harsh given how they’ve talked about Aqua) so they’re willing to use them then throw them away like they…have no inherent value, no right to their own lives! Dammit, this feels horrible being on the other end of that…I might need to go vegetarian after this…

Ooooh Ai you sly fox…as much as I love more validation that Ai is a manipulative ignis and they know it while humans and us watchers have been assuming nothing but idiocy is in that head of his, I wonder how much was…genuine. I mean, wanting to try to find a solution with Playmaker seems…in character for him, particularly after that montage of him remembering all they’ve been through together. Still, the way he said goodbye without looking at them makes me feel like he’s trying to hide how nervous he is…and with good reason since they know what he’s up to. I’m starting to get why they call him wise, which is something I never thought I’d think

Dammit these 2 are really scaring me with how they’re just..so causal about chatting as they let Ai drift farther and farther away, fully aware they can cut him off whenever they feel like it and without a doubt are going to do so…

AGH THESE GUYS ARE ON THEIR HOME TURF AND THEYRE FUCKING POWERFUL

HAHAHAhahahaaaaa*whimper*…at least Windy is aware how sinister they’re coming across, even if he doesn’t seem to care…these guys are reminding me of Revolver and Spectre WAY too much

t-t-take over his programming?? Wouldn’t that…be like an Ignis lobotomy?!

‘’his opinion is 1 in 8 billion – you think that will change everything?’’ uuugh I mean he has a point but also this is a card game anime so…hopefully the answer is yes? Hopefully…this IS a very unconventional YGO after all…

Goddammit they don’t have to be so snide about it! Ai was trying to pass on what he’s learnt in his time with humanity – not to underestimate them! Especially his partner!! God I can’t wait for Playmaker and Ai to defeat them and ruin their plans like they did Kogami’s, it will somehow be even more satisfying to see these 2 learn how wrong they are about humanity…

…HE’S ONLY JUST NOW REALISING HE SHOULDN’T BE OUT OF HIS DUEL DISK?!?! dammit, he really is still our lovable dumbass, isn’t he?

HOLY SHIT A MOTHERFUCKING JOJOS REFERENCE this show has no shame and I can’t get enough of it

‘’After I’ve broken down everything that makes you your own person and absorbed you into myself I’ll fix what I don’t like about you’’ FUCK OFF WINDY

So Lightening is too fast for anyone to follow, and Windy has the best control of the Data storms, Earth is the best duelist, Aqua can tell truth from lies…I wonder what Flame and Ai’s specialties are…Ai’s might be monster making since he gets on so well with Linkuriboh and created Storm Access

WHAT THE HECKITY HECK

OOOOH ONLY ONE PERSON MAKES ENTRANCES THAT EXTRA

Revolver, welcome ba-HE HAS EYEBALLS?!?! And eyelashes even prettier than Playmakers…what

‘’were you able to predict that I’d show up?’’ FUCK YEAH, GIVE THEM A TASTE OF THEIR OWN SASS!!!

Ow…my hands hurt bc I couldn’t refrain from slapping the palms together like an excited seal’s flippers…dafuq is wrong with me, I don't even regret it I was too invested in the new developments!

AaaaaAAAAGGGGHHH THEYRE DESTROYING THE FEEBLE CYVERSE IMITATION like it’s a fake probably meant to lure Ai more than anything but the fact they’re going to all that trouble despite that…damn they look so sinister lit by the fires of their own attack on a defenceless…place. I dunno what to call this area tbh. But it’s such a good way of showing how dedicated they still are to the cause by replicating the destruction of the real Cyberse, and to remind us that, well, they’re not good guys by any stretch of the mind. Revolver might have swooped in and saved the lives of our protags, and may have even intended to interrupt the process, but it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, it was most certainly bc of the same reason he’s avoided targeting Playmaker himself – he wants to duel him again and cant if he’s dead. Jeez…here’s hoping at least SOME of him just plain wanted to, just simply didn’t want him to die (even though he still definitely wants the Ignis dead).

And on that note…he kind of has a point, much as I hate to say it. These 2 are literally aiming to enslave and wipe out mankind after all…but goddammit I want to be on Ai’s side and say that there’s hope for a peaceful resolution! I just…don’t know if it’s possible with both sides containing such stubborn, angry parties…is it even possible for beings so long living to change their mindsets from what has apparently been their thoughts since creation? I can’t imagine Ignis commonly being open to change…

Uuuugh my god that preview though…Ai and Playmaker are caught between a rock and a hard place, 2 sides riling for a genocide of the other while the ex-emissary of revenge tries to talk peace and acceptance, co existence and letting go of one’s rage in order to have hope for the future…and that…kind of feels like what this is really about? As in, the future. Both Hanoi and the Ignis (not just these 2 but all of them sans Ai) are concerned with the future, with making sure they survive to EXIST in that future no matter the cost. And then there’s our protagonist pair – one who fought so hard to be able to move on from his trauma, to have a future worth living at all, and the other who spent his time in the Cyverse idling and enjoying life one moment to the next with no real regard for his duty as a leader there…who has now learnt so much from these transient humans in regards to taking risks and working hard for what is worthwhile. They’ve certainly got the best chance of anyone in the 8 billion strong population of the world of getting through to these guys, of changing their minds about how to consider the future.

#vrains #episode 68 #ygo #ive never done something like this before #but fuck it #im just throwing all of this out there #why the hell not #go nuts

0 notes