#honestly only us agent actually makes sense lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

glaivenoct · 1 year

Note

( fanfic writer ask game ) ✏️ , 🎧 , 🔬 , ✍🏽 , 🌾 ?

Thank you so much for sending some in! ;u; (Fanfic Writer Asks Here)

✏️ The first fanfiction you ever wrote? (doesn’t have to be a posted fic)

Heh.. back in 2005, a show aired on Discovery Kids that became my favorite show in the history of ever. Wee 9 year old Brina did not understand or even know of the concept of Fandom or Fanfiction - but this show is what I consider my first Fandom ever.

Did any fellow millennials ever watch Flight 29 Down on Discovery Kids (2005-2007)? Man, I loved that show so fucking much. I wrote silly little fics for it in my spare spiral college ruled notebooks! AUs before I even know what an AU was lmao. My favorite was one I called "Agents in Action" where I pretended all the characters in the show were recruited as Secret Agents after being rescued lmao.

I also wrote fics for my favorite ship in the show. Again, I didn't really know what the word ship was, but I knew I liked two characters enough to write fics of them getting together and referring to them with a pairing name. I shipped Jackson/Taylor aka Jaylor! Jackson was the Tall-Quiet-Mysterious foster kid with a questionable past and a sense of being an outsider among his peers, and Taylor was the seemingly shallow rich Mean Girl, who turns out not to be as mean or shallow once you get to know her a little more and she learns some more empathy/self-awareness.

When I wrote these fics, I had no idea what fic even was. But man oh man was it such a happy place for me to write them at the time. I wish I still had them, but I don't know where they went. I used to draw pictures at the back of every page and everything. Good times, good times ;u;

🎧 A certain song you listened to while writing a fic?

MUSIC, YAASS. So! Rare is it for me to make a playlist for just a one-shot, but for my NyxNoct Masquerade Fic I really needed a decent chunk of songs that captured the right vibe to help me write it, if ya know what I mean!

Young and Beautiful is the star of that playlist. I not only imagined Nyx and Noct dancing to the song in the fic, but the playlist also features two different instrumental versions of it too! It was such a big help with that fic uwu.

🔬The fic you had to make the most research for?

Hmm.. there's honestly 3 contenders for this, and the Masquerade fic is definitely one of them - but that was research in the sense of looking up a lot of visuals for inspiration. Outfits/ballrooms/mask designs and things like that

The second has to be cagefighter AU because of the fight scenes. I looked up articles about boxing rings/MMA tournaments/different styles of martial arts and things like that. I think I put at some point in the fic that Nyx leans more towards a boxing style while Noct kinda knows a mix of things thanks to Cor. Come the next time I need to write a fight scene, I'll probably be looking up martial arts/self defense videos again. Which is usually fun for me!

The third would have to be my old and Very Incomplete NyxNoct Wings AU that only has one chapter and no proper plot to this day ;u; Researching wing anatomy and all that. Visual references for different wing designs too.

✍🏽 How much do you plan your fics beforehand?

If we're talking about outlines, never have I ever in my fic life done a proper outline ^^; I'm very "I have all the backstory in my head, the rest of the details of the actual plot will unfold as I go" :'D

🌾 A fic you really want to write but you haven’t (yet)?

So Many ;u; but right now, the main things on my radar after I finish the current WIP are: -An assassination attempt prompt that's been sitting in my inbox for too long -A new possibly probably definitely spicy NyxNoct fic ideally for Valentine's Day. Buuut there's a good chance I chicken out of that one and try writing the next chapter of Cagefighter AU instead.

If I add anything else, I'll be getting too ahead of myself and overwhelmed lol. To anyone who's sent me prompts in the last several months: bear with me please I swear. I either get them done sorta quick or... Not Quick.

Thank you again for indulging me with these! ;u; <3

#fic asks #scheduling this bc I should be sleeping rn

4 notes · View notes

fonulyn · 1 year

Note

I'm just curious, but how do you see Leon and Sherry's relationship? Cuz I've seen their relationship portrayed as sibling like and as father daughter, which is both great very cute, but at the same time Piers and Sherry are basically the same age. So, I was just wondering if you think Leon had like a bit of a crisis when it came to Piers' age?

honestly, I personally am not into the father-daughter thing. nothing wrong with it, if one likes it, so i'm not trying to say it's somehow inherently bad or anything! but it's not for me, for multiple reasons.

in re2 when they meet, Leon is only 21, and I have a hard time believing he'd look at a pre-teen he's just met and go "daughter!" it might be different if he was older, or if Sherry was younger, who knows, but as is I really can't see that happening in the short timeframe they spend together. it makes much more sense to me that he feels responsible for her and takes on a sort of a brotherly role. I've seen people say he must feel like her dad because he's protective and hell no lmao I'm fiercely protective of my brother and I certainly don't feel like his mom.

now if he actually got to raise her, if she had stayed with him and they would've become a some kind of a family unit, then I could definitely see him becoming a father figure for her, and it'd probably develop pretty naturally too. but he doesn't. the canon timeframe is a bit vague but they don't spend that much time together and I sincerely doubt that any kind of fatherly feelings would've evolved for him.

when it comes to Sherry, i could maybe see it more, because she's 12 and at that age an adult is an adult lmao she probably doesn't really distinguish strongly between 21 or 31 or 41. so she could more easily see him as a father figure than he would see her as a daughter, imo. but even then, in re6, Sherry says that Claire and Leon are "the best friends she's ever had" which doesn't exactly sound like she's describing something parent-kid like. not to say you can't be friends with your parents, i sure am friends with mine, but it'd be a weird way to word it idk.

SO this is my long-winded way of saying that I see them as a brother-sister type of deal more than anything :'D the whole canon is a hot mess when it comes to it because on one hand they try to make it sound like they're bestest friends and on the other hand Sherry is missing for six months and Leon goes "oh i heard u became an agent" which is so fucking weird okay. capcom learn to write better please.

and because canon doesn't give anything super definitive, I like to imagine either that they stayed in contact on some level or that at the very least they reconnected after some time and are actual friends. that is what i want for them. friendship. they both sure need friends and support.

but as for the rest of your question lol (sorry I'm rambly) it doesn't mean Leon can't have a bit of a brief crisis about Piers's age :'D I only have a few years between me and my brother but he will always be a baby to me (he is over thirty, fyi, lmao) so dating someone his age would be a bit of a "omg i'm seeing someone my baby sibling's age" before getting used to it :'D

#re answers #anonymous #ask and i shall answer #no shade if any of you see them as a father daughter type of thing #but i never did #and never will :'D #it doesn't make sense to my brain

4 notes · View notes

lunatriense · 2 years

Note

Ozpin for the bingo (I know you don’t like him, but I would like to know why /serious)

Oh man, okay, just remember you asked me to do this lmao 😆

So Ozpin. I'm not going to break this one down by square, because they all draw from the same things, so let's just dive right in.

Why oh why do I hate Ozpin so? He's the defender of Remnant, the sole protector in the long war against Salem, the only reason the world still exists, and the architect of peace, right? Weeeeeeeeell not so much if we look closer.

To begin with, Ozpin is an agent of the gods, the most evil beings ever to have existed. Now some people argue that he didn't know they were evil until Jinn showed everyone in The Lost Fable, but I don't buy that simply because the question asked of her was 'what is Ozpin hiding' which means (as far as I'm concerned) he had to already know everything that was shown.

Yes, RWBY is full of things that don't make sense, and yes, it's technically possible this could be one of them; that said, Ozpin isn't like Ironwood where he was doing pretty much everything good up until suddenly becoming cartoonishly evil. No, right away, as I'll get to below, he was already being his heinous self, so working for Johnny and Jerry Bagodicks fits right in with his other actions.

Like, say, allowing the existential threat of the relics to sit there on Remnant like a shiny sword of Damocles. All four of them have to be brought together to summon the gods back — something no one in their right mind would ever want — so why hasn't he gotten rid of one?

He certainly hasn't been using them to improve the world; on the contrary, he's actually made the world worse with them, (apparently) devastating Vacuo's environment with the Sword and using the Staff not to create infinite food or energy, or an instantaneous and safe transportation network, or defences to protect the world from the Grimm, but to lift a city into the sky and physically divide upper class from lower while simultaneously putting both in imminent danger of annihilation at any moment should anyone try to use such a powerful device for something actually useful.

What possible reason could he have not to rid the world of the threat the four relics pose? The Staff is amazingly useful — assuming someone other than Ozpin is using it, anyway — so sure, keep that one. Grimm are terribly dangerous, so maybe keep the Sword too if it can be used without turning the better part of a continent into barren wasteland in the process. And the Lamp being able to answer any question at all several times per century could be a wonderful boon to the world.

But the Crown? From what we know of it, that thing isn't so hot (and if it is, or if the Sword always destroys the land it's used on, it can go instead); it should've been on a rocket, or a cannon shell, or whatever, headed straight out into space the moment anyone could figure out how (oh look, something the Lamp and Staff would work great in tandem for!). And yes, I know Dust stops working somewhere around Remnant's equivalent of the Kármán line; that doesn't matter at all when you don't want to get the projectile back.

So why hasn't Ozpin eliminated the threat of summoning the jackasses? Because he wants to summon them. He wants to complete the mission he was given. But why? There are really only two possible reasons for that. One is that he honestly believes the world would be better off as it was before — under the thumb of the Bastard Brothers, where if anyone dared to question them it was be cursed or have their entire species wiped out, where faunus didn't exist, technology was medieval-equivalent, but hey, there was magic (not that it could cure the flu) so that made up for it, right? The other is that he just wants his curse to be lifted; he may have accepted it willingly, but he's tired of all this and he didn't really understand what he was getting into and he just wants it to be over, and this is the completion condition he was given. Hmm, where have I heard that before...?

Not from Ozpin, that's for damn sure! Because despite knowing his ex-wife is trying to do the same thing (apparently), only right fucking now because she doesn't have 'unite humanity' as a win condition, he doesn't bother to tell anyone about that! Now I wouldn't blame him for keeping his personal trauma to himself — that must've been horrible for him (as Ozcar) to relive and isn't actually relevant to the conflict at hand — but people need to know about Salem, her capabilities, her goals, and that she's immortal.

Not everyone — the shopkeeper doesn't need to know this, the waitress in Higanbana doesn't need to, Tukson doesn't need to — but decision makers and those involved in the conflict do. They need to know so that they can strategise, so they can build up forces and develop new technologies, tactics, and defences against her and against a Grimm horde that can assault them with intelligent command. They need to know so that they can prepare their troops and not have their morale shatter when they find out firsthand.

Nevertheless, Ozpin flatly refuses to tell more than a handful of people that she even exists, and tells exactly no one about her true danger, nor will he do much as consider a different strategy even when presented by one of the few people that know of Salem. Why? Is he trying to save face somehow? Is he the platonic ideal of paranoia? Is he just so arrogant he thinks he can handle it by himself? I don't entirely know — probably some mix — but whatever the case he's very, very wrong. The headmasters needs to know this. The councils need to know this. The hunters need to know this. The militaries need to know this.

Yes. Militaries, plural. As in, the ones that every kingdom had until King Ozforth of Vale in his infinite wisdom (/sssssssssssssss) decided after the Great War that they shouldn't have them anymore. Even though Remnant is full of soulless monsters hell-bent on eating every last person on the planet, that spawn infinitely and from all sorts of places, and that are attracted by negative emotions.

Y'know, the sorts of emotions that might be rampant in the wake of a massive war or, or I don't know, a world with widespread slavery and racism, or perhaps brutal capitalistic exploitation? Yeah, perfect, getting rid of militaries is a magnificent plan! I'm sure good ol' Ozpin must've had a great idea to fill that huge gap, right?

What? He did what!? He replaced the professional militaries with a system of child soldier indoctrination starting at least as young as 13, possibly younger. A system whose pinnacle of power he then placed himself atop — and designed in such a way as to be nigh impossible to remove him from that pinnacle — in a new incarnation so that no one would be any the wiser. A system which produces small numbers of very powerful individuals with no real oversight whatsoever, who Ozpin can use as his own personal minions while they attend his academy (and his lieutenants can likewise use at theirs) and can at least attempt to manipulate (and it would seem generally succeed if STRQ, RWBY, and JNPR are any indication) into serving in such capacity even after they graduate.

Speaking of RWBY and JNPR, hoo boy, Ozpin put on his extra bastard gloves when he saw them... at least, some of them.

The obvious one here is Pyrrha. Ozpin did poor Pyrrha dirty, almost as dirty as CRWBY did. He sees this wonderful, kind, pure hearted girl with incredible talent, who's been conditioned to believe that her worth lies entirely in being a hero and that it's her destiny to save the world. Being headmaster of the school she attends, he's supposed to nurture her growth and help her overcome her challenges, to look out for her, so what does he do?

He waits until she's already under intense pressure from the world's largest sporting event, which she's expected to win as the biggest celebrity in that field, and then tells her that magic is real, so are fairy tales, and he wants her to become the new Maiden and save the world, except to do it he needs to stick the current Maiden's remaining soul into a blender with hers and hit frappe and he's not really sure what will happen. That there's more going on, but she doesn't need to know it right now — not until she decides to try the soul smoothie experiment — and oh, he needs her answer by Friday.

Never mind that it's already Wednesday night, she'll def have a fight tomorrow and might have one Friday, she's already low key freaking out because the boy she's been crushing on all year finally noticed her, and oh yeah, Ozpin has another candidate right there who's a professional soldier, an elite fighter, the right hand of one of his lieutenants, and (according to recent volumes) was intended to be a Maiden anyway, potentially through this very process! So why not use her? Well, she's loyal to Ironwood, not Ozpin, and he can't have that now can he... besides, sweet Pyrrha is so manipulable.

Okay, okay, it's pretty widely accepted that he did wrong by Pyrrha, but she's the only one right? Hahaha nope! There's also... Jaune! 'Wait, Jaune? But Ozpin let him stay even though he forged his transcripts', I hear you say, and to that I reply, exactly! Jaune had no business whatsoever being at Beacon, whether or not he wanted to be a hero, and letting him stay for even five minutes into the initiation exercise was negligent in the extreme.

Consider; Jaune was launched from the cliff to a height from which he easily reached terminal velocity in an uncontrolled fall. Now, at this point, giving Ozpin the benefit of the doubt, he didn't know that Jaune was so ill-prepared, however he and Glynda were supposedly monitoring all the students during the exercise. Even if they somehow didn't notice that he had no landing strategy and that he only survived thanks to Pyrrha's save, they most certainly should've seen that his aura wasn't unlocked.

At that point (if not before) he should've immediately been extracted and expelled, not to punish him but to protect him and every other student that would ever work with him. Instead, Ozpin knowingly left an untrained, unprepared boy — essentially a civilian — in the middle of a Grimm infested forest and allowed him to remain in the dangerous academy, and not only that, put three other hunter students under his leadership!

He even did this with Ruby herself, somewhat. Sure, she sees being let into Beacon two years early as a great thing, and her friends do too. Normally it might even be true, despite missing out on extra growth that should be rather important to a combat profession. But in this case, there's a catch.

See, Ruby isn't just any girl she's the daughter of Ozpin's previous agents, Summer and Taiyang, and the niece of Qrow, all of team STRQ. That matters because this family has already suffered from Ozpin's manipulations. Summer died for his shadow war, Tai lost both of his wives over it, Qrow has sacrificed most of his life for it. Now Ozpin brings Ruby to Beacon early? Immediately they must be expecting her to be sucked into things just like they had been, and there's nothing they could do about it.

But okay, Ozpin gave team RWBY special treatment that looked like it was going to lead into things, but he never actually drew them into the Salem conflict; they did that themselves. That's valid, cool. However, there's still a problem here, namely that Ruby and Yang should under no circumstances be on the same team.

'But why not?' you ask. They're sisters! They already have good rapport and they can look out for each other, right? Yes, that's true, but... what happens if a mission goes terribly wrong, like Mountain Glenn nearly did? There's a reason modern militaries stopped assigning siblings to the same posts, or even people from the same village. By bringing Ruby in two years early, and then putting her and Yang on the same team (he could have put them in different initiation batches even if he insisted on having Ruby come to Beacon right then, considering not all the people from the sleepover night went that day) Ozpin created a situation where it's very likely that Taiyang will lose both of his daughters at the same time.

Which he almost did twice in their first year because of Ozpin's gross negligence. Well, gross negligence if we're being generous, otherwise it has to be malice, but let's go with negligence; even so it's to a criminal degree. What might I be talking about? What indeed.

Could it be the safety of those under his care? He's most assuredly negligent there, horrifically so. Some of his offences have been discussed above, but let's explore a few others, shall we?

Hmm... Mountain Glenn? Sending four first-year students and their teacher to a Grimm-infested massacre site — the closest thing to a warzone Remnant has — to follow up on suspected terrorist activity... yeah, that's suuuper negligent, but it's not like he had any other choice or anyth-.

Oh. He totally had another choice. Ironwood offered to send the actual goddamn military to deal with that obviously military operation, but Ozpin doesn't like the military so he sent his kids instead. Oops. And it's not even like he was unaware of the danger, considering it was a mission he was originally only offering to upperclassmen, but instead of just putting a guard on team RWBY to keep them from going like a responsible headmaster would he overrode the restriction to let them take it. Double oops.

Still though, it was really mean of Ironwood to snitch on him to the council, right? I mean, sure he screwed up once there, but his security record can't be that bad. Oh you sweet, sweet summer child, witness the fuckery that is Ozpin's idea of security.

In addition to students (which you'll recall become the only defence against life-hating demon beasts for most of the world), Beacon's campus houses a CCT tower which, if compromised, allows complete access to secure infrastructure and the ability to completely stop international communication for the entire world. It also houses the comatose Amber, who is the key to one of the vaults holding the relics necessary to destroy the world because someone didn't remove that option from the table.

Now, you'd think that this would call for heavy security, especially considering that the CCT tower and its capabilities are public knowledge, right? And you'd think that if terrorist activity was known to be on the uptick and it was suspected that a major terrorist organisation was planning a significant operation, security should be heightened even moreso? And you'd also think that if one of Salem's affects had already attacked Amber, and you knew they would want to finish the job, that she would especially need to be under very capable guard at all times to prevent that from happening, no?

Well Ozpin wouldn't think so. Ozpin wouldn't have a single guard, not even a bored rent-a-cop on a scooter, anywhere to be seen! Only a few Atlesian guards — brought by Ironwood when he arrived, mind you — stood between anyone at all (it didn't even need to be Cinder) and the ability to cripple global communication, or infiltrate secure systems to, oh I don't know, plant a virus that spreads to every device that connects to it and allows backdoor access. Might be bad, that.

And Amber didn't even get that much! Even during the absolutely critical aura transfer process, when all of team JNPR (and more!) were right there and most certainly would've been willing to take a few minutes to go protect this vital procedure that held their friend's life in the balance, Ozpin took... no one, only grudgingly allowing Jaune to come because he insisted. His secrets were more important, obviously.

And oh yeah, so was his super special consumable item. See, it turns out Ozpin totally could've saved Beacon, like pretty much effortlessly, cause he has this nifty cane that's basically a directional nuke with adjustable yield and the ability to choose what targets are affected (including little to no structural damage if desired).

So if he wanted to, he could've popped that sucker off and wiped out the Grimm in one shot so that everyone else could focus on the White Fang and hacked robots. Or for that matter, he probably could've hit the Grimm and the robots. Hell, maybe he could even specify White Fang and hostile robots without having to individually identify them — I don't know tbh — and wipe them all out with no more collateral damage than some ringing in the ears. He most certainly could've vaporised Cinder, thus denying Salem her Maiden and allowing him to move on to also blast the wyvern. He just didn't want to.

He (as Ozcar) was awfully quick to use it to save only himself later on though, when he was falling toward the vault floor in Atlas. Think about that. He didn't use it in Beacon, when Salem was making her first overt move in... ever, apparently. Judging by her reaction to his reincarnation, it normally takes much longer for him to come back, which likely would've had him out of play entirely — with no one at all aware of Salem's true capabilities — for long enough that she would've had all the relics by the time he returned.

Maybe he's just that confident that she won't find the Crown, no one else will find it either (who knows what semblances might be out there?), and she won't figure out the Lamp's password. Even so, what could he really do if he came back to a world where Salem had three of the relics, could use the Staff at will, had a Maiden with the power of three if not all four (or possibly just all four Maidens), and his handful of followers were gone? No... I think it's more likely he knew he would come back quickly somehow (whether he caused it or not) and cared more about keeping his toy than saving all the lives lost at the school he was charged with protecting.

Besides, he hates fighting his own war, even though he's the only immortal one. Better to send a bunch of other people to fight it for him, and the less they know about it the better. It would only make them not want to fight his personal war using his bone-headed tactics that make it completely unwinnable, and who cares about something trivial like informed consent anyway? Much better to just send them out to the meat grinder blissfully unaware!

Or even better, bring the meat grinder to them! Which he can conveniently do with his shiny relics, all he needs to do is hide them in the middle of the academies and they'll attract the Grimm to the students! And also Salem and her agents, too! Oh, and to the cities where all the civilians who are completely untrained in combat and have no military to protect them anymore are, but whatever, who cares about them anyway right?

So yeah... Ozpin. Is he monumentally stupid, actively malicious, or some combination of the two? My verdict?

#ozpin #memes #answers #rwby #rwde #anti ozpin #ozpin bashing

6 notes · View notes

moonlightperseus · 7 months

Note

You're genuinely making me want to try reading them again so badly give me a sec to like, pull them up for motivation. (93 issues? Insane fam) (also again your comic site is great lmao, like just for instance I just pulled up the first issue of bombshells NO pop-up ads, NO leaving the page. If I'd used mine the second I clicked the search bar I would've been sent to a scam site I had to back space from before it could load, then when I clicked on the actual comic there'd be a 50/50 chance that would happen again, same as when I clicked on the specific issue, and then there would've been a giant pop up over the whole comic that I'd either have to read around or exit and if would send me to another site, or open another tab, and would only be gone for like 2 minutes tops, so again, you're a life saver lmao this is GREAT)

That all sounds very interesting!!! That's very exciting!!!

and Barda isn't as BIG as I like my Big Barda, that's a bit of a con for me, but she is still very pretty and I appreciate the mention she deserves to be in a wlw relationship all the time. (Is there a girl doctor light in DC like normally? That's a genuine question idfk)

I DO honestly mostly agree everyone needs to love things and it's so exciting. But I started talking about orcas for like 10 seconds and I shit you not the mental health worker said "hey have you heard of Asperger's?" (I also get asked "have you ever thought of being a marine biologist?" And I say "no that sounds really boring" and then I get yelled at)

I've never been to SeaWorld (or anything of the sort) bit as a kid I BEGGED to go to Marineland so I get it. I, obviously, do not support that anymore. I haven't done anything like that but I want to go to British Columbia SO BAD to go whale watching. All of my writing is set in BC (a place I've NEVER BEEN) just because I long to be by the whales lmao. I NEED to see orcas before I die. I would think it's stupidity. I GENUINELY wonder, if I was like swimming in the ocean and a pod of orcas came up to me, if I would remember y'know, COMMON SENSE and leave the water, or if I'd just be so blinded by love I'd be like !!! Oh my god hey guys!! Hey buddies!!! Wanna play fetch?? Wanna be pet??? Because I'm NOT dumb but I HAVE loved them my entire life so they should just also love me instinctively.

dude that sounds SO FUN we should become Spies. I can talk about whales forever. My phone case is called like "Canadian whales" or "whales of the Hudson's Bay" (I think it's the former bit it's just belugas and orcas and Canada has more whales than that but The Hudson's Bay doesn't???) But yeah it's covered in whales. I can go ALL day. And with an AUDIENCE of ORCAS THEMSELVES???

My mother and brother and an ex-bestfriemd all loved/ liked agents of shield so I get it!! And Peggy!! I love like her style and her everything honestly. I had to do an assignment where I wrote a diary as a solider years ago in school and I drew a portrait of his wife and everyone was like 'thay looks like the girl from captain america" as though that wasn't the point? Why would I draw anyone else??

It's volumes, I barely buy issues because they're so delicate and that scares me, but I bought a couple individual issues of SAGA this year as they came out and I think *they* were 4$ each? And as for bombshells, as a direct comparison I'll check mine to tell you bit a) I bought it years ago (proves have gone up since) and b) I just recently reorganized my bookshelves but don't really have space for my comics anymore so I couldn't keep it in alphabetical order and I have literally no idea where bombshells is.

Okay so it was under a lot of comics and it was very hard to get at and I need to figure out what the fuck to do with my comic collection. But I bought it at Indigo (Canada's main book retailer, essentially our Barnes and Noble) so it sold for normal retail value and it was 22.99$ CAD. I remember it being more expensive? But I also had no job then because it was many years ago so. The most recent one I bought was definitely either 30 or 40$ but it's also like half of the green arrow and black canary run. (apparently the Hardcover Injustice: Góðs Among us year four volume 1 should be 27.99$ and the paperback should be 19.99, but most of my paper back (I don't think that's what they're called in comics?) Are 22.99$ like bombshells. The green arrow and black canary comic was 45.99$ and so is my deluxe rebirth justice league comic that I bought from Dollarama bit again I only paid > 5$ for two of those)

That could be good!!

That's faid yeah I don't like when they don't that either. It's cool to know it's all cohesive ( unlike how the current BOP started with Dinah talking with Oliver when in current green arrow comics he's "missing" (I won't like spoil the rest that's literally the plot so it's not intrusive if you haven't read them: Dinah's a fairly active character so far if you were interested but obviously it IS a green arrow comic and I always get annoyed when he's the main character) but it IS frustrating (and, if I were buying them as they came out, more expensive I'd think?)

I didn't even know that it moved!! And I really just know her from Gotham city garage and Injustice 2, so not like,,, canon things) and I love that the three mom's were so important you mentioned it twice thats wonderful I trust that they're very good

It is now OPEN on my phone so hopefully I'll get to it bit I won't be starting it immediately since I have go work early tomorrow but hopefully that will be SOON and I absolutely will

Oh dw I will talk about my mental health relentlessly and do not mind when people do it back so you're good. But I actually get that pretty much exactly so maybe it's kind of a common thing? I don't know how I feel about libraries (the last time I went to one was a year ago for my friend and I just read a book on dolphins while he looked for dantes inferno) but the used book thing is a big one. I have issues in thrift stores entirely but my town has a big book sale once a year where it's all just used books and I go every year and buy SO MANY books but I have go wash my hands as soon as I get home and am now too scared to read any of them. (which sucks because one is called the doctor who lived in a house at sea- I love doctors and the sea!! But I cannot touch it) it's good that you made progress!!! Buying them for someone else was a good idea. And I'm glad that made it easier! And tbch I mostly just buy new books, but that's because I'm stupid. I do have an online library app that's wonderful but my old library card expired so I have to go to my local library and ask for a new one but I am scared :( so I just can't listen to audiobooks for free until I do that (or read the books)

I have no idea what kind of books you like but while I had Libby (my library app) I only listened to two and one was Wonderwoman War Bringér, which was honestly really interesting but I do chronically read YA so. And then a book called wild and wicked things that you might like? It's an adult book set after WW2 about witchcraft and lesbians.

I didn't like the Harley x birds comic just because everyone but Harley seemed incredibly out of character but I do really like the way her relationship with Dinah was essentially just Harley being like !!!!! And Dinah being 😮‍💨 about it the entire time. I want that back. (honestly it's somewhat similar on Injustice too and it's just like bring that back please). I also hope it gets better!!! If worse comes to worst I'll take over and write it myself I can do it. We deserve it.

That's fair!! Hope you enjoy it!!

(I only know so many "good time of day" in Gaelic so you have to be reading this at the time I say I don't make the rules, anyway) Madainn Mhath!!

akalsjg i'm so glad the site is working well for you! and that’s very fair re:big barda. and yeah! dr kimiyo hyoshi exists as dr light in the main continuity too!! according to wikipedia she was introduce during crisis on infinite earths & has even come face to face with the villian who goes by the name dr light.

also like i don’t really know much about working in marine biology but i gotta say from my own personal experience in working in a career related to smth im passionate about (i work in the dog world) definitely has serious drawbacks in that im hitting serious exhaustion and burnout and it feels like my passion itself is kinda burning out. so yeah gotta say totally respect not wanting to go into a career specific to the animal you love.

ajsjdjsjs i did mention bombshells!kara’s three moms (four actually if you count her earth adoptive mother) twice huh. the silliest part is when i mentioned it the second time i even remember. going back and checking if i had mentioned it previously but clearly i didn’t read my own words throughly enough, whoops lmao

yeah supergirl was originally a cbs show for s1 and then i forget the details but it switched over to the cw for s2. thats why supergirl was set on a different earth from the rest of the arrowverse (up until they changed that with their version of crisis on infinite earths and they decided no more multiverse, which really is no fucking fun i love a multiverse)

i haven’t read the new green arrow run but i think i may give it a try bc i do enjoy comics ollie (he’s VERY much preferred to arrow oliver in every possible way ((which is kinda like saying i prefer pizza over a moldy slice of bread))) and i have a friend who’s really into green arrow comics so it could give me smth to talk about with them too.

also yeah!! thrift stores are hard for me too. it took me a long time but i can buy clothes from thrift stores now because they can go directly in the washing machine but anything else is a pretty hard no. i hope this isnt weird to say but its nice to find solidarity/similarity in struggling w/used items.

i actually own a physical copy of wonder woman warbringer!!! i got it as a gift, and then my dog decided to rip the cover of it and made me very upset (he has now been assigned Wonder Woman Hater-he also ripped up some wonder woman stickers i got as a completely separate gift) but yeah i really enjoyed warbringer, wouldve loved it even more if they let alia be diana's love interest instead of that dude who i barely remember (maybe i should reread its been a long time) i will have to add wild and wicked things to my to read list! one of my friend groups just convinced me to start the raven cycle series so i ended up listening to that on my drive to my parents today, i havent formed a solid opinion on it yet but ive been intriuged/enjoying it so far!

you know i actually dont remember if i read the harley x bop run or not. i feel like i probably did but i have no memory of it. alas such is the way my memory works

okay i kinda liveblogged my reading of injustice a little bit which i will put below the cut for you, its a little scattered bc i read a lot in one sitting last night after work and then fell asleep (on the couch lmao) but ive definitely gotten invested in it. but i have to ask, does dinah not come back until injustice 2? (she comes back right? i feel like i definitely remember seeing panels out there of her and other earth ollie). anyways. yeah here are some of my thoughts i had, a bit scattered, i might attempt more coherent thoughts later but i wanted to finally respond to this ask <3

okay i finished year one of injustice and i am continuing to read as i write this reply. i have to say it is by no means my favorite comic series and its a bit frustrating at times however..... the dinah of it all.... yeah. i was also really loving the dinahollie of it all, i did... forget that ollie dies in injustice. didnt know superman literally beat him to death. killing martian manhunter and green arrow really isnt a good look for superman i gotta say.

the hardest thing with reading injustice so far has been the whole wonder woman aspect of it but ive simply chosen to decide that its not really diana. like idk who that is but that is Not My Wonder Woman <3 i simply know her better. it is nice to see some of the other heroes working with superman questioning things and beginning to have Doubts about what superman is doing. (i feel so bad for shazam who is literally a fucking child he should not have to be a part of these horrors.) and im curious to see what reactions will be if/when they find out superman killed ollie bc like, sure he had a justification for killing martian manhunter (he was trying to kill imposter wonder woman) but ollie was just vibing (he... put an arrow in papa kent but papa kent was fine about it! and that was after clark starting attacking ollie) now if i remember correctly injustice brings in like an alternate earth version of ollie? looking forward to when that happens i hate when dinah is sad.

and okay just got to ollie's funeral and damn even hal's staying on superman's side huh. homoerotic friendship means nothing to hal i see. (i dont actually know that much about hal but from my understanding he does have a homoerotic friendship with ollie and i support that)

okay i just got to the beginning of harley & dinahs friendship and oughghghghghghghghghhghghghghg i love them (i had seen pretty much the entire interaction between harley & dinah that i just read previously but it still was so good and wonderful)

okay so its been a minute since the last sentence (more than a minute) i got home from work and literally.... read all of year two and year three. its 1:30am rn and i really need to not start year four but ouugh. year two was very good for me as a dinah fan. year three not so much however year three did have zatanna and i do love zatanna. (coulda been more zatanna in my opinion)

#comics anon #abby replies #anon #long post /

0 notes

aalbedo · 3 years

Text

injured!tartaglia x reader (part 2)

part two of this

request: Hello I absolutely loved your one shot of Tartaglia helping an injured reader sdjgksjfkf if you don't mind I'd like to request a part 2 where reader asks him the story behind that big scar he pointed out? Maybe reader finds HIM injured and returns the favor and asks about his other scars while they treat his wounds?? Ahaha reader's just like "fuck I can't just leave you here to bleed out but don't you dare think this means I care for you or anything" lmao

format: two-parter (again, read part one first)

ship: tartaglia x reader

tags: fluff, reader is the traveler-ish (a completely separate character from aether and lumine, but still the traveler, does that make sense?), author forgets basic wound care halfway into the fic

warnings: blood, mildly graphic depiction of injury, stitches and needles

words: 3027

notes: hey so uhhhhhhhh i kinda went off the rails with this one, i didn't really follow the prompt in some points since uh... the part about the stories behind the scars... i kinda forgot about that... or like... eh you'll see, anyway, - banner still fucked up it will be fixed i prommy

Despite the high number of hilichurl camps, abyss mages, fatui agents, ruin hunters and ruin guards, Lisha was still one of your favorite places to explore, it was full of treasure chests to open, sweet flowers to pick and ore to mine. Plus, the atmosphere managed to still be peaceful, the open fields where the sun would shine uninterrupted for hours and hours on end were your favorite place to sit down and bask in the sunlight.

Your leg was still recovering from the tough hit you had taken a few weeks prior, which meant that you had to take more breaks while adventuring. Not that you would complain, taking breaks, putting some numbing cream on your wound, eating some reinvigorating food and drinking fresh water was just as satisfying as exploring.

After resting for about half an hour, you decided to get up, careful not to put any pressure on your injured leg. You threw your bag over your shoulder and walked north-west, towards the road to the chasm.

In the distance, you started hearing sounds of fighting, and as you got closer to them, you could see a tall figure fighting not one, but two separate ruin hunters, with a bow. It was too far away to see the person’s face, but you had half an idea of who it could be.

Then, out of nowhere, a bright purple flash, and in less than a second the ruin hunters were both on the ground, completely destroyed. Yep, it’s Tartaglia.

You thought about turning away and changing your direction before he could see you. You had already reluctantly thanked him for helping you that day, as well as paying for your medication out of his own pocket, but you still felt like you owed him a favor that you really did not want to fulfill. He was still the guy that almost destroyed Liyue, and made you fight for your life, despite everything.

Until you saw him fall to his knees, and as he turned to face your direction you could see his chest covered in blood.

You acted on instinct, ignoring your brain telling you to leave him alone, that he could tend to his own wounds, and you sprinted towards him. He may be an asshole, but you just want to avoid him, not leave him to die.

He was resting his back on a wall, head thrown back. Even from far away, you could see that he was breathing heavily. That same backpack you had seen on him the day he helped you was now sitting next to him, his left hand already rummaging through it.

His head shot up, he had definitely heard you coming towards him, his eyes widened as you kneeled down right in front of him and got a better look at his condition. You could see a cut crossing his chest, from his right shoulder to the middle of his torso, right over his heart. His grey coat was soaked in blood, as it pooled on the bend of his hips and slid down to the ground.

“So you do care about me.” he broke the silence, struggling to talk through heavy breaths and groans. He was completely out of breath, covered in blood, definitely in pain, and all he could think about was joking.

“I don’t. Just because I hate you, it doesn’t mean I want to see you dead.” You didn’t have time to get mad at him. “Also - I owe you a favor, I guess.” The only thought in your head was to help him, so you did not think twice before quickly unbuttoning his coat and undercoat and moving them out of the way.

You got a look at his chest and through the blood you could see several other scars, most of them looked years old, a few of them looked pretty large, carving his chest and abdomen. You wondered if his entire body looked like this, and why his face didn’t.

“Like what you see?” he joked again, his voice sounded hoarse, strained, very clearly struggling to talk. You sighed, couldn’t he just shut up for a minute?

You turned to your own bag to pull out anything you might need to help him. Potions, numbing cream and even a stitching kit laid next to you. You had bought the kit after that day, and started learning how to stitch wounds.

“No,” you dismissed him again. He whined quietly, you weren’t sure if it was because of your response or the wound.

All of the sudden, you felt… fear? Fear of what? Him passing out? And anger, at the fact that he wasn’t taking the situation as seriously as you were. He could easily die from this wound and all he was doing was making jokes.

You quickly started cleaning the blood with a cloth in one hand, while holding a bottle of antiseptic potion in your left, ready to pour it on top of the cut. You were being quick, passing your hand over his chest as fast as you could, trying to gather all the blood while avoiding the open skin, but there was so much of it that in mere seconds the cloth was soaked and completely useless.

You looked up at him and he was staring at the ground, his eyes completely unfocused. “Childe,” you called him and he squeezed his eyes closed, “try to stay awake.”

“Easy to say,” he muttered. At least he was awake.

You threw away the bloody cloth, and poured the antiseptic potion directly on his scar with no warning. Despite knowing that you were just helping him, a wave of guilt washed over you as you heard him cry out from the pain and throw his head back, wincing again when he hit the wall.

Half a bottle of potion and another clean cloth drenched in blood later, the wound had completely stopped bleeding, and you finally breathed out all the tension you were holding in your body.

His face, and body, were completely pale from the blood loss. His mouth was agape, eyelids half closed - looking at you, he sighed, barely letting any air out. You glared back, but by the way his head was positioned, you couldn’t help but look at his lips, the way they moved slightly every time he breathed out, they seemed so… soft, sweet. You brushed aside a thought that had snaked into your brain. His mouth curled up and he barked a laugh, but he stopped immediately and groaned again. Had he noticed that you were looking?

“Don’t laugh, it’ll hurt you,” you reminded him as you threw away the second blood drenched cloth.

“Sure,” he replied, voice still strained. “Whatever you say.”

You find a third cloth, the only clean one you had left, used some water from your bottle to make it damp and used it to wash your hands.

“Don’t talk either,” you looked at him as you opened a small glass jar containing numbing cream. “What were you thinking, being here alone and fighting two ruin guards?” He opened his mouth. “Don’t answer, you’ll tell me later.”

“I was just collecting some debts when those two attacked me.” He groaned again.

“I said, don’t talk if it hurts.” You made it clear from your tone that you were annoyed at the way that he was acting.

You dipped a couple of fingers into the cream, and hesitated before placing your bare hand on his chest, carefully placing the cream around the wound, so that he would not feel pain when you would be stitching it closed. As you got a better look at the cut, you noticed how the skin had been basically mangled, it looked like it would not be an easy recovery.

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” he pointed out, before groaning again. You were starting to wish you had taped his mouth with something.

“Because I know what I’m doing, I’m not an idiot. And you’re making me regret helping you, just shut up already.”

“Make me.”

Your hand froze over his skin. You moved your eyes back up to him, trying to decipher his expression. Was that an invitation, or just teasing? He hadn’t even tried to put on a smug face, his expression just looked tired and worn out, which made it even harder to decipher.

The longer you looked at him, the weirder it would get, you would have to do something before it got awkward and that thought from earlier slammed back into your head.

You wanted to wish you had run the other way, but the truth was that you were glad you hadn’t. Maybe it was all of the tension you had accumulated while seeing all that blood flow out of him, maybe it was the heavy lidded look he was giving you, but you placed your clean hand on the side of his face, cupping his cheek. His eyes widened, mouth parted ready to say something, but, before he could, your lips were on his.

The kiss was fast, you pulled back almost immediately and averted his gaze right away. You could feel him staring at you as you put your hand back into the jar and picked up some more cream.

“I didn’t think you would actually-” he didn’t finish the sentence.

You quickly caught a glimpse of his expression before focusing on taking care of the wound. You contained a laugh as you saw him look absolutely dumbfounded and flustered, he had seriously been rendered completely speechless by what could barely be considered a kiss. If he hadn’t lost that much blood that day, his cheeks would definitely be red.

Honestly, you couldn’t believe what had happened either. You couldn’t believe you had even done it. You could’ve just laughed it off and kept medicating him in silence. But you were glad that you didn’t.

Neither of you uttered a word for a while, and even though the atmosphere wasn’t explicitly awkward, you wished he would say something. After a thick layer of numbing cream and several minutes of silence, you finally gathered the courage to look back at him. He was clearly pretending to look away, as if he hadn’t spent the entire time looking at you working.

“Is the pain gone? Can I stitch it now?” Your voice came out unexpectedly soft. You touched the skin around the wound, waiting to get a reaction from him.

His head snapped back to face you, and he nodded. “Can’t feel a thing,” he said as he touched his own chest. “I can stitch it though, if you wa- Ah!” He lifted his right arm, the injured one, and immediately stopped mid-air, “fuck- shit, not this,” he almost yelled.

“You ripped a tendon.” You gently took his right arm, putting it back down for him, and looked at his shoulder. “I’ll stitch it, don’t worry - I’ve learned.”

He didn’t say anything, and you took it as permission. You opened the kit you had bought at Bubu pharmacy weeks prior: recurved needle, thread and tweezers. You could feel Tartaglia’s gaze on you as you struggled passing the thread through the needle, but in the end you managed to do it.

As you hovered over the wound, your gaze fell on a large scar, the one that would normally be visible from over his coat on his neck, and it went down over the left side of his body down until his hip. It looked pretty old, but it was still very visible.

“Can I ask you… how did you get that?”

“Mh?”

You pointed at the scar with your pinkie and slightly traced over it, “this scar, what happened?”

He followed your finger with his gaze, and kept his eyes on the scar even as you moved back to the still open wound. “Oh, that?” You passed the needle through the skin and pulled it out on the other side. “I was 14.”

You saw some blood trickle from the cut as you carefully pulled the thread and passed the needle through one more time. By the way he had spoken, you felt like he was going to continue talking, so you didn’t interrupt.

“Uhm, when I was 14, I-” you heard him pass his tongue over his lips, “the Abyss, you know.” You nodded quietly as you passed the needle through a few more times.

“You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” you reassured him, you knew that it was a pretty sensitive topic, or at least you imagined it would be. You stitched a few more loops with ease, getting progressively more comfortable with what you were doing.

“It’s fine, I- I was in-” his voice was starting to shake the slightest bit, but you noticed the change of tone in his voice.

You finally reached the end, and you cut the thread, tying it tightly at the end. You put the needle and the tweezers back into their container.

“I had to fight this… huge- and when-” once you looked up at him, you realized how lost in thought he was, looking at his scar, unable to take his eyes off it, he was probably getting some flashbacks. “I-” his voice cracked, his lower lip trembled ever so slightly, and you could not bear it anymore. Without even thinking about it, you grabbed the side of his face and dragged him in for an actual, proper kiss.

He fell right into it and reciprocated immediately, placing his left hand on the side of your waist. It was sweet, and tender, and you got a better feel of what his lips were like: just as soft as they looked.

You pulled back first once again, and as you got to look at his surprised face, eyebrows raised and everything, your mind started racing. You had just kissed not just a Fatui, not just a Harbinger, but the Harbinger that had tried to kill you, that manipulated you and that nearly destroyed Liyue for the second time. And he was sitting in front of you looking like an idiot.

You couldn’t figure out what you were feeling, but there was something going on deep in your chest, and stomach.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” you quickly clarified before he could say anything. “Neither of them do, they were just to shut you up.”

“Were they?” he asked. And just like that, he came full circle back to the false smugness.

You really, really did not want to think about the weird feeling that was growing in your stomach. “Look at what I got from Baizhu.” From your bag, you pulled out a thick strip made out of cotton and a small vial full of Slime concentrate.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“What do they mean to you?” you bit back, waiting to see if he would face the question himself, or back out like a hypocrite.

“What did you get from Baizhu?”

You both chuckled, and you noticed his bare chest rising and falling back down as he laughed. “He said it’s a new type of bandaging, you use slime concentrate to stick it to the skin.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t love the sound of that, actually.”

“I was skeptical too the first time I tried it, but trust me - it’s much more comfortable.” You heard him sigh in defeat as you already spread some of the slime condensate over the strip, and set down the half empty vial. “It won’t hurt.”

“Do you promise?”

He looked into your eyes with a relaxed expression, you looked right back. “I promise,” you replied with a kind smile, before turning your attention to the strip and stuck it over the wound, carefully placing it so that it would cover the entire cut.

“All done,” you said as you started getting up, but you felt a hand grabbing your arm, another one grabbing the side of your face, and tugging you back down, and before you could realize it your lips were once again on Tartaglia’s.

You couldn’t help but reciprocate the kiss, his lips were still soft, and at that point you felt like you could get used to them. The kiss was exactly as gentle as the one before, you could feel your fluttering in your chest as Tartaglia’s thumb started gently rubbing your cheekbone.

He pulled back first this time, and as you opened your eyes back you could see a wide smile on his face.

“Sending me mixed signals, huh?” you pointed out.

“I told you, I never had anything against you personally,” he said as he put his clothes back on, trying to fix them as much as possible, despite the very clear cut on his chest and the blood covering them completely.

“I’m gonna need some time before I’ll believe that.” You got up and reached down a hand for him to get up. “You’re gonna need to prove it to me.”

He grabbed it with his non-injured hand and stood up beside you. “While you take your time, care to walk me to Bubu pharmacy, so I can buy some of these sticky bandages?” he asked, a wide smile still on his face.

“Sure,” you simply replied, picking up both of your back and tossing them over your shoulder.

You watched him move his injured arm slightly, to figure out how much he could move it. Unsurprisingly, not much.

He hummed. “I’m gonna have to take some time off from duty, hopefully they won’t kill me for it,” he said in a joking manner, but you could sense that he wasn’t kidding about the killing part.

“Well,” as you both started walking back to the harbor, you got an idea, “you could use the time off to show me that you truly don’t hate me.”

“Like what?” You could feel his gaze on you.

“Like, we could go out for dinner,” you suggested, keeping your eyes in front of you. “In a completely neutral way, and then see what happens from there.”

“Sounds good.”

“It’s a plan, then.”

#likes; comments and reblogs are incredibly appreciated!!!#next one is gonna be albedo x reader again lmao i cant leave the man alone #i'll try posting once a week i guess #more than that i just cannot do #genshin #genshin impact #genshin childe #gi #genshin tartaglia #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact childe #genshin impact tartaglia #tartaglia x reader #childe x reader #genshin childe x reader #genshin tartaglia x reader #how many fucking tags #x reader

280 notes · View notes

actualbird · 3 years

Note

PLEEEASEEE AARON BEING REALLY FRUSTRATED AND EVEN ANGRY WITH LUKE AS HIS DOCTOR.... AND THEN REALLY UPSET AND CONCERNED ABT HIS ABSOLUTE LACK OF CONSIDERATION FOR HIS HEALTH.... as his friend.......... the layers. aaron: as your doctor im obligated to bring you back to life every time you do smth stupid. as your friend im obligated to make you do a little treasure hunt :) by literally robbing you. -🦝

hi, Raccoon!!! and YEP, AARON IS ONE OF THE FUNNIEST FUCKING CHARACTERS IN THIS GAME IN HINDSIGHT.

like aaron is a good dude, no doubt about that. his job is to medically save lives and the game has shown us that hes successful at that. hes also shown us that hes REALLY GOOD for luke's shitass mental health, he pushes luke to be hopeful, to keep fighting, to not give up. and also (hc) He Really Loves His Wife, i know wifey was only brought up for 3 seconds in one line, but look at aaron, you cant tell me thats NOT a guy who thinks shes his entire world and is grateful every single day of his life AND ALSO I THINK THIS WOULD MAKE SENSE AS TO WHY AARON IS MATCHMAKING LUKE, aaron believes in love!!!!

sidenote: luke is a little shit sometimes, so if aaron is annoying him too much, all luke has to do is "stop it or im telling your wife" and aaron is like "YOU FUCKING WOULDNT" and luke is like "wouldnt i? :)" it's very tense

BACK ON TOPIC, aaron has wonderfully good intentions. his execution of those intentions tho???? ABSOLUTE BATSHIT ENERGY. in aaron's defense, he's going against luke pearce who is also batshit as hell. like luke, when it comes to his illness and feelings, is sooooo stubborn. also hes a crazy good special agent. how the hell do you get somebody like that to listen to you???? aaron needs to take his methods to ridiculous lengths because, quite honestly, thats the only thing thats going to make luke PAY ATTENTION.

wait....if im remembering correctly, aaron wasnt the one specifically who robbed luke. i think he said something along the lines of "i had to convince a coworker to rob you" wait lemme check YEP YEAH HE SAID THIS, AND THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES AS SUCH

WHICH, OKAY, FIRST OFF, AWWWWW!!!! wait this is really cute and tender, aaron told.....a bunch of colleagues.....luke's secret illness and secret feelings which he very very very intensely keeps as a secret.....okay, aaron is keeping up with the "what the hell" methods LMAO. but moving past that, those colleagues helped because...they like luke. IT MAKES ME VERY EMOTIONAL, HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE ON LUKE'S SIDE, HOW MANY PEOPLE WANT HIM TO BE HAPPY AND TO KEEP ON GOING!!! ;_;

second off, this is still hilarious to me actually. because as much as those colleagues agreed to rob luke because they like luke, they must also still be very aware that luke Is Agent Raven and theyre terrified the entire time theyre robbing his most precious keepsakes.

colleague 1: he wont....raven wont kill us for this, right?

colleague 2: he wouldnt...shouldnt...we're doing this for good reasons...

colleague 1: what if he doesnt KNOW THAT THO?

colleague 2: .....well, i hope aaron can save us on the operating table, then

#tears of themis #luke pearce #xia yan #Raccoon!anon #asks

92 notes · View notes

lauras-collection · 3 years

Text

✮ electric love | part 1 ✮

Harrison Osterfield x fem!reader | fwb!roommates au

|| Masterlist || Series Masterlist ||

Summary: Living with your best friends Tom and Harrison is all fun and games until one drunken night alone with Harrison, you give in to your attraction to him. You tell yourself you should leave it at that, forget about the night you spent with him and move on to not ruin your friendship, but neither of you can stay away from each other. So without considering the possible consequences, you make a deal. But how are you supposed to keep your shenanigans from Tom? And how are you supposed to not break the number one rule of an arrangement like this: do not fall in love.

Words: 2.4k

Warnings: SMUT 18+ [protected sex, drunk sex], alcohol consumption and being drunk, reader and Haz being horny idiots? (this kinda goes for the whole series lmao)

A/N: Ahhh I'm so excited for this (mini) series!! I hope you guys like it!

Feedback is always appreciated ❤️

Growing up, your dream was to go to university and have the time of your life with your best friends. It wasn’t until about a year ago that that dream started to become a reality. You and your best friends Tom and Harrison all got accepted to the same university. A university all three of you had dreamed of going to for years. So without having to think twice about it, you registered for the fall semester and started looking for a flat together.

You’d had countless sleepovers with the two boys, and went on holiday together, so you had an idea of what you were signing up for moving in with them. They weren’t neat freaks but knew how to keep a place clean. That was all you were asking for. No way were you going to be their maid and clean up after them.

What you weren’t prepared for, however, was that the harmless attraction you had felt towards Harrison for a while now got increasingly more prominent. Yours and Harrison’s friendship and the way you interact with each other had always been flirty. But ever since your final months in school you’d been a little confused by your feelings towards Harrison. You never did anything to explore those feelings, though. He’s your best friend, and there are always consequences when you cross that line with a friend. You told yourself it’s just a phase.

Anyway, living with Harrison presented itself as more of a challenge than initially anticipated. The guy has no shame running around the flat half-naked. Neither does Tom, but that doesn’t affect you in the way that it does with Harrison. Both of them are attractive, yes, but your belly does somersaults whenever you get the slightest view of Harrison’s naked skin. You hate it. And you start to wonder if moving in with him was as good of an idea as you thought.

Besides the inner turmoil, you’ve honestly gotten used to over the past couple of months, living with Tom and Harrison is a blast. You always have someone to talk to, to vent about how annoying uni homework can be, and always someone to cheer you up at the end of a stressful day.

Whenever one of the three of you is down, the other two are always there to make it better.

Tom had taken up a bartending job a couple weeks into the first semester, which ended up being beneficial to all of you. For Tom, the obvious benefit was earning money, for you and Harrison, it was discounted drinks. The pub he worked at quickly became your go-to spot even when Tom wasn’t working.

Right now, however, Tom was working and you and Harrison didn’t feel like going out. There’s no party or at least none that you are interested in going to, so you decide to throw your own little private party. And by private you mean no guests, you couldn’t be bothered to clean up after dozens of people who don't give a crap what they keep lying around.

Plus, both of you had a stressful week with tests and deadlines, and you’re looking forward to just chill for a bit. Harrison got the booze, and you took care of the snacks and movies, so now you’re sitting on the couch watching one of the most ridiculous horror films you’ve ever seen while guzzling down one can of cider after the other.

"Oh my gosh, no! Don’t go in there!” You shout at the TV, not that it makes any type of difference. “And he went in there. And now he’s dead.” You say matter of factly, causing Harrison to laugh.

“He’s not dead yet.” He points out, but it doesn’t take long for the music to get more intense. And ten seconds later, the guy on screen is, indeed, dead. You give Harrison a look, but he just keeps laughing.

“Why are people in horror films always so stupid? Wouldn’t it be much scarier if they were super smart and always did the right thing and end up getting killed anyway?”

“But then you wouldn’t be shouting at the TV. Don’t you think it’s kind of cathartic?” Harrison asks with a raised brow, “Honestly, I feel like you’re bottling up all your frustrations and then let them all out when we’re watching horror films.” You can see the amusement in his face, and all you can do is roll your eyes.

“Shut up.” You throw a pillow at him, which he, unfortunately, catches. Watching bad horror films was sort of your and Harrison’s thing. Tom wasn’t really a fan of them, so whenever he was gone, it was an unspoken rule that you and Harrison would be watching a horror movie that evening. There might be a limited amount of good horror movies, but for every good one, there were at least fifty bad ones.

“You want another drink?” Harrison asks as he gently moves your feet out of his lap and gets up from the sofa. He picks your empty can up from the coffee table and takes it to the kitchen along with his own empty can of beer.

“Yes, please!” You call after him even though your living area is an open space, so you can still see him as he opens the fridge. “There's only so much I can take while being sober.”

“You’ve already had two drinks, there’s no way you’re still sober.” Harrison chuckles, plopping down on the sofa next to you before handing you a new can of cider.

You make an undistinguishable noise as you open the can and take a sip.

An hour later, you’re both proper drunk. The movie has long since been over, but neither of you have been bothered to turn off the TV or put on a different movie. Harrison is slouched next to you, his arm loosely thrown over your shoulder, his fingers playing with your hair as he watches you intently while you try to explain to him why you think that one of your professors is actually working undercover for the MI6.

"It makes complete sense! Why else would he be late and unprepared all the time, huh?"

Harrison just raises his eyebrows “Maybe he doesn’t take his job very seriously?”

“No, he takes his job too seriously. Because he’s a secret agent for MI6 and spends his whole time fighting the bad guys instead of preparing his lessons!”

“But didn’t you say he’s undercover? Why would he neglect his teaching if that’s part of his job for MI6?”

“Shhhh” You shush him, placing your pointer finger over his lips “Don’t question my logic”

Harrison gently wraps his hand around yours to pull it away from his mouth.

“I’m sorry to say this, but there isn’t much logic behind that theory, love.”

“You’re mean” You push your bottom lip forward in a pout.

“I’m not! I’m just stating facts here” He’s still holding your hand in his and you’re suddenly hyper-aware of every inch of your skin that’s touching his. So in an attempt to stop the shivers running down your spine, you try to pull your hand out of his hold, but his grip just tightens. When you look up, he’s already looking at you, a challenging glint in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” You ask your voice barely above a whisper.

“Nothing” He shrugs his shoulders, the corner of his mouth kicking up into a smirk. And then he tugs on your hand, pulling you on top of him, and in a movement that has your head spinning, he rolls both of you over so he’s now hovering above you. You don’t even have the chance to say anything before he’s got his hands on your sides, tickling you.

“Oh my god, Haz, no” You press out between laughs, your stomach already starting to hurt. You try to curl up into yourself to get away from his wiggling fingers, but it’s no use, Harrison’s got you pinned down.

You hadn’t even been aware that he’s positioned between your legs, and the sudden realisation makes your breath catch in your throat. You try to get a grasp on his arms to push him away, get him to stop tickling you, but he’s too strong, taking your hands and pinning them above your head. The motion has his face only inches from yours, his breath hitting your lips, and it takes everything in you to keep still. The air between you is charged, his eyes flitting over your face, and you can feel his chest touch yours with every breath.

By now, he’s completely covering your body on the couch, and all you want to do is wrap your legs around his waist and pull him closer into you. But you can’t move, kept in place by Harrison’s pale blue eyes. And then everything happens so quickly it takes your breath away.

Harrison makes a noise in the back of his throat, and then his lips are on yours. He takes your top lip between his, then your bottom lip and then you’re finally registering what’s happening and lean up, chasing his lips.

His grip on your wrists loosens, allowing you to wrap your arms around his neck as you open your mouth, inviting him in deeper. You bury your hands in Harrison’s soft hair, tugging on his dark blond curls.

Harrison groans and rolls his hips into yours, and the feeling of him against you makes you throw all caution into the wind. You’re overcome with desire. With a swift but clumsy movement, you tug his shirt over his head.

Meanwhile, Harrison’s hands have also found their way under your shirt, his fingertip trailing over your skin, causing goosebumps to rise wherever he’s touching you. Your breathing’s uneven as he moves his lips to your neck, placing open-mouthed kisses all over your skin.

Arching your back you press yourself closer to him and wrap your legs around him. You run your hands over his toned back, feeling his muscles contract with each of his movements.

It’s been a while since you’ve been touched like this. And all of the sexual frustration you’ve been bottling up is threatening to spill over with the way Harrison’s hands are caressing your skin.

It almost feels like your brain shuts off completely when Harrison finds your sweet spot and starts sucking on it. You feel a tingling sensation in your lower belly, and then your clit’s throbbing, and you lose all sense of rational thinking.

“Fuck me” The words leave your lips without you even realising, and for a moment both you and Harrison pause. He lifts himself up to look at you, searching your face. And he must’ve found whatever he was looking for because in the next second his grip on you tightens, and then your shirt is pulled over your head.

“Gorgeous” The word falls from his lips with a hushed breath, as if he’s in awe, his eyes roaming over your half-naked body.

With frenzied movements, you both undress, not without getting tangled a couple of times. But then you’re naked, and if your mind wasn’t so foggy with desire, you would take a moment to appreciate Harrison’s handsome form as he positions himself between your legs. He’s got his hard cock in his hand about to enter you when he pauses.

“Fuck. I need to get a condom”

You let out a soft whine, but Harrison is back so quickly you hadn’t even really registered he was gone.

With one hand on your bent knee, he runs his fingers through your slick folds and lets out a low hiss.

“You’re so wet, this all for me?” You can hear the cocky smirk in his voice, and it takes everything in you not to roll your eyes.

“Yes, now please fuck me already.”

And then you feel his tip against your entrance. Harrison doesn’t give you much time to prepare as he starts pushing into you. You’re not complaining though, the feeling of his girth stretching you out is better than anything you’ve ever experienced.

When he’s completely inside of you, he halts his movements, resting his forehead against your shoulder.

“So tight” He murmurs against your skin, then places a sloppy kiss on your shoulder. Your cunt is throbbing, and in an attempt to get him to move, you roll your hips against his, causing Harrison to curse. “Fuck, you’re needy, aren’t you?”

You don’t grant that with an answer, and you don’t need to because the next thing you know, Harrison starts thrusting, moving in and out of you, his movements getting quicker and quicker every time he enters you.

The living room is filled with the sounds of skin hitting skin and breathy moans.

“Right there” You throw your head back with a groan when Harrison’s cock grazes your g-spot, and then Harrison seems hellbent on hitting it over and over and over again until you can’t think straight anymore. Your whole body is tingling, the coil in your stomach about to snap as you try to spread your legs even further, to feel him deeper.

You barely notice Harrison’s strained groans as he places his thumb on your clit. The sudden stimulation makes you cry out, your walls spasming around his cock as your release washes over you in shuddering waves.

You dig your fingernails into whatever you can hold onto as you cum around Harrison’s cock.

Your release pushes him over the edge as well, his cock twitching inside you as he orgasms with a deep groan.

You both need a moment to catch your breath. Your skin is sticky with sweat, but you don’t have the energy to get up and take a shower. Especially not with Harrison sprawled on top of you.

He pulls out of you, and before you can even register the cold air around you, he pulls the blanket from the back of the couch and covers you with it. He tugs on his boxers and gets up, probably to dispose of the condom, before he joins you back on the couch.

He squeezes himself between you and the back of the couch, pulling you close to him so you won’t fall off the couch.

“How was that?” He whispers as he joins you under the blanket and tangles his legs with yours.

“Good” You hum “Very good”

Harrison’s grip on you tightens a bit, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, placing a kiss there.

“It was, wasn’t it” You can feel him smile against your skin, and you let yourself sink into him. You’re starting to feel the energy draining from you.

And with nothing but Harrison filling your thoughts, you fall asleep.

A/N: here it is! the first part!! I hope you liked it! Let me know what you think!!! <3

everything taglist: @spidermanlondon // @duskholland // @tutuabby28 // @missevrythingg // @in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh // @thenoddingbunny-blog // @emilykjh // @clara-licht // @hollandfanficlove // @calltothewild // @crybabyalexxx // @hazardosterfield // @calsthomas // @quaksonhehe // @sinisterspidey // @thirzaholland // @tombrina // @outshineallthestars // @serendipitous-amor // @soincredible // @trustfundparker // @localfangirlx // @writertoo18 // @viagracex // @skamlover200 // @wonderlandfandomkingdom // @wehavetomakeourheartssitstill // @thearchersupremacy // @itstaskeen // @camimndess // @allyz // @technosoot // @fanficscuziranout // @parker-hollandx // @givebuckyhisplumsnow // @dangerouslovefanfic // @ertherealrose // @i-married-a-pineapple // @miraclesoflove // @bi-girlwrites-2000 // @seasidetom // @katcontrreras // ** // @fallingforfics // @destinedbooklover // @parkerpeter24 // @selfcarecap // @moonphoric // @just-a-littlebit-of-everything // @emistrash // @badreputationlove // @turtoix // @haloxmendes // @anjalika03 // @iamsherloki-wholocked // @the-fan-18 // @white-wolf1940 // @aidinniram // @heyhihellowhatsup0 // @blackbat2020 // @keithseabrook27 // @annathesillyfriend // @hoodpankow // @practicallylivesonline // @millennial-teenybopper // @beautifulrose0809 // parachutepanties // @jamiealenaa // @hallecarey1

harrison osterfield taglist: @hjoficrecs // @lolychu // @hazardosterfield // @hollandbroz-n-haz // @emilyg453

series taglist: @softholand // @svturtles // @cloverrover // @goodgirlgonetom // @justafangirlduh // @thegirlwiththediary // @beyond-the-ashes // @parkerbunny // @bearsbeetsbarnes // @keithseabrook27

electric love taglist: @blueraindrops // @spideyssunshine // @defensive_sarcasm17 // @captainbucky13 // @frenchfrostpudding // @the-fan-18 // @hotforharrison // @osterfieldvol6 // @castawayclaires // @littlebookbengal // @bigbootyjudys-blog // @abcxrandomx // @74limelight // @lolooo22 // @justsayk // @mountainsforwords

#harrison osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield smut #harrison osterfield au #harrison osterfield series #harrison osterfield fic #harrison osterfield reader insert #self insert #uni au #roommate au #fwb au #electric love

260 notes · View notes

dreaming-of-assclass · 3 years

Note

Omg Reaper 2.0's misogyny? I'm intrigued LOL especially since I don't remember a lot of details about him. So if you'd be willing to spill the tea... 👀

Ok everyone buckle up, it’s tea spilling time 😌🍵

Meta: 2.0’s Misogyny and Views on Gender Roles/Sociology

⚠️ TW: child abuse, domestic abuse ⚠️

So the specific instance I think of is during the Reaper arc, when the kids are breaking in to save Irina. And they first come face to face with him, and have to engage in combat. He takes them down effortlessly, we all know.

But...there’s a moment in which he purposely hits Kayano especially hard with his knee, and believes he has broken her ribs. He callously remarks, “Females are so fragile.”

Let’s break this down:

A. Kayano is literally the smallest girl/student. She is very petite, and everyone knows this. It's obvious even when she's wearing their uniform.

B. He knocked down everyone so easily, but seemed to take a particular joy in brutalizing her. A petite girl.

C. Given that he's been watching the class, he must've known that she was actually stronger than she seemed. But again, I question this particular violence and the comment afterwards.

For a while, I thought maybe he had just said that to be cruel for no reason. To rile them up and be an asshole. I mean, it would be fitting, right?

No. I came to the eventual conclusion that this man is a misogynist, for sure. And there are indicators that Koro, his only role model, might bear some resentment towards women himself.

There's also proof in the way that he treated Irina, even when they were "allies." He seemed to really disrespect her and look at her like a joke, despite her accomplishments as an assassin. And whatever worth he did believe her to have, he only thought it came from her sexuality.

Like...why else was Irina dressed down to only lingerie in the arc? Because it was part of his plan, and he looked down on her and her profession.

Expanding the context a bit, it really also does prove how he looked down on women. He had Irina appear half-dressed, upset, and completely weak before she tricked everyone. The embodiment of female fragility, and how sexuality is tied into that. I hope this is making sense omg

Now, moving onto his past~

I really recommend you read this awesome meta by @akamayumura (sorry for the tag!!) They delved into his childhood and psychological state very well, in my opinion.

We can infer that 2.0 grew up in a terrible household, and that is an equal contribute to his behavior, as well as the possibility of him having an anti-social disorder. I mean, he was so happy to see his father get killed in front of him...

Not only that, but he literally romanticized the killer. In that moment, he didn't experience grief, but gained a rose-tinted view of death. He literally begged Koro to go with him and grow into someone like that.

Clearly, there was some psychological reason for this. But that isn't unordinary for abused children to feel, having such a disconnect. He didn't view it as his father being murdered, but rather: a person he hated finally leaving his life.

And then he gained loyalty for the person who was responsible -> The Reaper.

I cannot find it for the life of me, but there is apparently a moment in canon where 2.0 describes his father as "tyrannical."

And you know what?

Usually in a household with an abusive tyrannical father, there is a weak, complacent mother.

This is so interesting that we're on this topic now, because I just read a book detailed all about this. It's called "Men Who Hate Women, and the Women Who Love Them" by Susan Forward. Please read it omg, it's so good and informative on how misogyny is engrained in childhood, relationships, etc.

But yeah!

This exact dynamic is a formula for men who grow up to be misogynistic because their first example of a woman in their lives is their mother, who is the victim in an abusive dynamic.

Here are some pictures from the book to help explain.

^ 2.0’s hatred towards his father

^THIS.

Either 2.0 grew up having to provide emotional labor for his mother, or there was none at all between them. Overall though, there is a sense of resentment and abandonment given that the father was so dominating, and his mother was a victim too.

Men who lived in households like this, often grow up into believing that women are to be controlled, because this is the example they had to go by for so long.

On top of that, there's a layer of resentment and distrust towards women because his own mother didn't stand up for herself and protect him. Why would another woman do so?

But to sum it up:

2.0 believes women are weak, fragile, easily controlled, and cannot be trusted at all.

There's evidence in his attack on Kayano, and the way he treated Irina.

Ahem, also notice how he seemed to act more professional around Karasuma, and took him much more seriously. Like yeah, Karasuma is more serious, but why on Earth would one of the best assassins in the world regard a government agent over another top-notch assassin?

If Irina were a male assassin, I definitely think the treatment and attitude would be different honestly.

ALSO.

2.0 loves flowers, we know! But there's another reason why he possibly used a flower shop guy as his cover.

To easily manipulate women, the target customers of flowers.

Hmmmmmm.

Anyways, yeah, we can deduce that his misogyny was born from his childhood of having an abusive father and seeing his mother as a victim.

Not to mention, that he spent most of his life with Koro, who definitely didn't treat him to respect women lmao.

I actually feel like Koro has his own personal resentment towards women/femininity...but before I make a post about that, I'll have to do more research.

Anyways, we all knew 2.0 had dad issues, but there are a lot of mommy issues on top of that.

This isn't me trying to cancel him or anything btw! He's still one of my favorite characters, I love him. I just find this characteristic of his to be pretty interesting and worth diving into. (Although I will admit, that Kayano rib scene upsets me a bit.)

So yeah! Hope you enjoyed this meta! And I hope this tea is hot enough 🍵🍵🍵

#assclass #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assassination classsroom #meta #post #nidaime #nidaime shinigami #2.0 #reaper 2.0 #korosensei

65 notes · View notes

maschotch · 2 years

Note

I couldn't agree more with your thoughts about JJ. I wanted to ask what do you think about her in later seasons? Like why did she became the most important team member? Specialist in everything? The right hand of Hotch and then when Emily is the chief JJ wants to rule so badly. Like I hate she is so gready for power and leadership. When Barnes suspends Emily and JJ gets to be the chief she's like I always wanted this position but not like this?? First of all since when she wanted this, second of all like half of your friends lost their jobs and you are happy you get your dream job? It always bothered me she like immediately moves to the Emily office, when her name plate is still there while both Morgan refused to use Hotch's office at all and Emily waits few episode before she moves there. But yeah for JJ Emily losing her job is dreams come true. Also like in seasons 8-11 she never was the most experienced FBI agents with Hotch, Morgan, Blake and even Reid having seniority but she acts like she's the best at it. Calm down you are only profiler for two years and after a week lasting course at Quantico. And at the end JJ the sniper?????? Like what?? We actually saw Matt using once similiar weapon so it would make sense seeing him doing it again but they just needed to make her stereotypical badass women - the one who will kick you ass and can use every weapon, while in my opinion she was doing just fine in that field while being media liason. I hate what they have done to her. Like you said she's extremely arrogant and I doubt she have much respect towards her team members and her husband :(

yeah it definitely felt like they just tried to give her a bunch of shit to be good at. i hate to say ‘mary sue’ bc it’s smth that’s been used to diminish ocs and individual aspiring writers just tryna write a cool story or (like rey in star wars) pretending like a female character doesn’t have a perfectly reasonable in-world explanation for why she’s good at stuff. but it’s exactly what they did to her bc they didn’t know how else to write a “strong female” character than to just make her good at everything

her arrogance is something that kills me and honestly it’s the way she’s acted this whole time. “it’s not my first party boys” as if she doesn’t fuck up half her job as liaison. that being said.. i haven’t noticed her being ‘greedy’ for power necessarily. she’s ambitious, but she also seems content to stay with the bau. idk ig i just haven’t looked at it that way before but i’ll keep that in mind w my rewatch. the part where she gets promoted right when everyone else gets fired aksdhgl that definitely resonates… like she said “this isn’t how i wanted it” but she doesn’t make near enough a big deal about it considering her family is getting torn apart. but again i havent watched that part in a while linda barnes in general was just such a stupid redunant fucking part of the show so we’ll see when i get there ig

truthfully? as much as i loathe to say this lmao i think it would’ve made more sense if hotch had asked jj to be unit chief. like i guess they wanted to bring paget back and i’m not gonna complain ab emily coming back lmao but i think that promoting her from liaison to profiler to unit chief in quick succession would’ve made the transition to profiler seem more significant. by then, luke and tara are still new at profiling. spencer’s still not well-rounded enough, and rossi’s already turned down the job. having jj as unit chief would’ve been the next step for her. besides, it doesn’t really make sense for emily to go from being in charge of an entire international taskforce to one unit in a branch of the fbi.. it's such a huge demotion

#i mean.... there IS a reason emily would still take that job.... but we're not gonna talk about that aksjdhgdljks #asks #endgame spoilers

7 notes · View notes

subwalls · 3 years

Text

Tales from the SMP Presents: The Pit

Another Tales, another Kingdom Hearts comparison post! “The Other Side” is a mix between the soundtrack The Other Promise and the cinematic “Another Side, Another Story” (both of which come from Kingdom Hearts, of course), which evokes a very specific KH character that... yeah. So let’s get into it.

Karl gets stabbed by the king’s new general and finds himself back in the Inbetween. A cool new logo pops up as we enter the Inbetween, which actually is a... very typical example of a Kingdom Hearts world logo / intro card / name card? I honestly don’t know what it’s called, it doesn’t have a name, it’s just a thing that happens every time the character enters a new world.

Castle Oblivion is just one (1) example, but if you just look up “Kingdom Hearts worlds” and scroll a bit, you’ll see what I’m talking about, haha. This doesn’t really change anything, it’s just another little wink and nod to the Kingdom Hearts series.

... Except, of course, the fact that there’s a title placard for this world implies the existence of other worlds. Which we eventually find out is, in fact, true. Fun! There’s a number of associations I could make based off the aesthetic of the logo (the castle reminds me of Radiant Garden, etc) but honestly they’re not worth much without more information.

So, the Inbetween is vividly aware of Karl’s straying from “the path”. It makes a huge attempt to still be pleasant and “nice” and whatever, but we can tell quite obviously that there’s an undercurrent of threat under all those pretty quartz blocks and smiles :]

Speaking of the :] smile, the reveal of Quackity’s previous lore stream actually doesn’t push me to think that it’s directly related to him in any way. It’s not impossible that c!Quackity achieved such heights as... becoming? The Inbetween? Because he’s got reason to be invested in Karl’s powers and keeping him in line. But it’s a reach or long-term thing at best, honestly, so I’m shelving the Quackity-smile association until further evidence appears.

(I could go bonkers and say that this is the culmination of c!Quackity’s ascension after ripping Information out of Dream or even XD, but that’s well into AU territory, so it’s all just shrug emojis for now.)

Which, of course, leads to the question of who that smile actually is associated with, and I think as clear an answer as we’re going to get is... The Inbetween itself. Clearly.

There’s a lot of meaning I could take from that; is it associated with Dream or XD then? Or maybe is it tapping into Karl’s memories of c!Dream doing the :) thing and it’s appropriating that for itself? Why? To intimidate Karl into obeying it?

Mayhaps. Mayhaps!

Anyway, Karl goes up to the tree, and as he approaches, the video feed distorts as the game abruptly switches to a higher-level shader like BSL or something.

Now, I haven’t confirmed it, but the way the audio shifts makes me think it suddenly started playing backwards, too. It’s just the way it sounds; it’s got that... sucking effect that’s pretty typical of musical tracks played backwards.

Karl swims down to the hidden room, which is very dark now. There is a book that tells him to go up the ladder for a surprise.

Also, by the way, I’m back on my wither rose pot association brainrot, because I can’t help but notice that there isn’t one here. There was one in the previous Inbetween segment, but it’s gone now. Now there’s a new book with the :] smiley, which of course should set the audience on edge, since we just saw the first book use it in a... mildly threatening manner.

We know that in Dream SMP it’s a pretty common thing to use redstone as blood. Other characters have used it in bits, some more seriously than others, and I think that’s what this room is trying to emulate.

If I had to guess, I’d... hm.

A part of me wants to say that the blood is probably from the different versions of Karl wandering around. Nobody’s going to notice if a few abruptly take a swerve to bleed themselves out in a room or something, right? But that carries a lot of implications, namely that of control so perfect it borders on possession. So either the Inbetween can control Karls, or it has some other agent capable of dragging something into this chamber to bleed it all over the room.

Neither of those options are particularly nice, I’ll admit!

There’s no Kingdom Hearts associations here, by the way. Due to being so closely tied with Disney, KH is deathly allergic to portraying blood in any way lmao. Not so many messages carved into the walls.

Or painted onto the walls with blood, if that’s what that is. Color correction gets a bit odd with shaders, so I’m not saying anything for certain; the closed books don’t look enchantment-purple, for example.

What does catch my eye are the torches, which will later be the flickering lights that guide Karl to the portal. The fact that they are here makes me think that this was definitely the scene of either a battle or some other conflict between the two sides to this story (haha, get it, Another Side, Another Story, because that’s a Thing in KH—), or at least proves that an influence from The Other Side was here at some point in time.

Karl quickly gets the fuck out of there, and when he swims back to the surface the shaders/music switch back to normal.

Oh, and for all you people who like to point fingers at anything vaguely false and scream “that’s gAsLiGhTiNg!!!1!!111″ about it, here’s an actual attempt at gaslighting. Note the language used here: “Your mind seems to be playing tricks on you :]”. It’s explicitly trying to convince him not to trust his own senses and mind. It’s saying, let me think for you. And that is a very dangerous thing.

Wither rose pot exists again, yay. Definitely a Inbetween voice, this book.

More wither rose book, this time in the, uh, grand entrance hall? The lobby? Yeah.

This book basically goes on a spiel about how the Inbetween is so great for Karl (a declaration, by the way, rather than a hope) and says that he is doubting himself or being less like himself, which is odd, because what he’s really doing is doubting the Inbetween and the path it has laid out for him. In a way, by questioning the Inbetween, Karl is being truer to himself than anything else.

The malicious way this place frames its words becomes more and more obvious with each passing page; it again reminds him that it’s a place to be “feel at ease”, which is super sketch that it has to tell him outright rather than actually being that place. It continues attempting to gaslight him, telling him that his imagination is getting away from him and that he can’t trust himself or anything else but this “path”.

I’ll get back to the “path” thing in a minute, but I really want to drive home that this is the truest instance of gaslighting we’ve ever had on the Dream SMP. Nothing has ever so clearly declared that it must be trusted over the victim’s own senses, practically infantilizing the victim’s concerns and trying to make them think that their worries are just flights of fancy. Please, please keep this in mind any time you want to accuse a character of gaslighting in the future; not all psychological abuse is a form of gaslighting. Sometimes it’s just... abuse. It’s not any more or less worse than gaslighting, it’s just different.

Anyway, about the “path” that the Inbetween is so obsessed with. No idea what the fuck that’s talking about.

In Kingdom Hearts, the only paths that are really of import are is a specific character’s “road to dawn” (redemption without fully yielding his edginess, essentially) or the “paths” that characters take to traverse between different worlds. I really don’t think the Inbetween has anything to do with either of them, but I’ll leave the options there if you want to peruse the possibilities.

What’s more likely, I think, is that this is a vaguely more subtle version of control/possession. The “path” is just “whatever the Inbetween wants you to do”.

Our next book is from the other side, and is plastered nonchalantly but boldly against the wall with no flower pot or anything.

Karl picks it up, puts it in his inventory (which probably indicates that he’s keeping this particular route close to his heart, rather than whatever the Inbetween is trying to make him do), and then the video stutters and he teleports back to the main entrance.

There’s a new book. It’s spooky as fuck, and hilariously hypocritical.

The tone shift is immediate, of course, aided by the abrupt change in background music since he got teleported back here. (I can’t quite nail it down; I assume it’s a slowed KH track like the others, but it doesn’t quite ring any bells for me.) The way the Inbetween speaks through these books has changed too, though; it addresses him by name without any attempt to cover up its intentions with flowery softness.

It does a cool fun thing where it says that it knows more than Karl, and knows what’s right, and then goes on to say that those visions shouldn’t dictate his opinion on the inbetween. (I’m keeping an eye on that lowercase, by the way. Not sure if it’s a typo or intentional, since it’s still one word, but.) As though he should trust the Inbetween’s opinions of itself rather than his own brain? A’ight. Sure, Jan.

Again it tries to tell him that it’s safe here. The lying is getting more transparent now.

He puts this book back, the previous book back, and runs after a double of himself until the shaders and music glitch again.

Fun thing about shaders is that they make dark areas... much, much darker. Especially since we saw that Karl’s got night vision (the effect, for cinematic purposes) on.

The music has a few notes that again sound as though they’re being played backwards.

The book on the tree in this courtyard does not come with its own little wither rose pot, and neither does it seem to come from the Inbetween, since it’s telling him some awful things about these other versions of himself.

It confirms a few things about the mystery other selves, namely that they’re definitely condemned to walk the castle forever, but it doesn’t really tell us why this happens or why the Inbetween (probably) wants this to happen. What’s the end goal?

We’re probably a bit early in the story to figure that out, but they’re questions worth keeping in mind as this storyline progresses.

Karl gets teleported back to the main lobby, which looks very dark and spooky, though in the transition we do see a glimpse of that portal. There are torches around the wither pot book pedestal, and the audio really kicks into high gear with the creepy notes and the visuals get stretched and glitch quite a bit as he opens the book.

Funnily enough, the audio kind of reminded me of some pokemon encounter music, but I think that’s just because I’ve got those notes wired into my brain from years of playing those games. Anyway! The book tells him this is not a warning, and that they’re gonna fucking come for him to make sure he sticks with their path.

“We”.

Who is “we”? Is the Inbetween a collective? Is the Inbetween just part of a different whole? Maybe it counts all the different Karls as a part of it.

Either way, it’s creepy and threatening. Karl starts running; the screen glitches and tells him to follow the torches, which at first I was kind of leery about trusting, but the next series of words helped clear up exactly what side those words are on.

Also, you’ll notice that some other text kinda skitters across the screen before the English, like it’s getting translated. I think it’s Galactic, which is something different from the thing that Ranboo uses for Ender? I think Ranboo uses the Alien language thing or something? I’m not 100% sure on that, feel free to correct me and I’ll fix this portion.

It certainly implies that the speaker isn’t communicating in the server equivalent of “common”, however. Not sure if they’re translating into English or if Karl inherently understands it and it’s translated into English for the audience’s convenience, but either way, the other speaker might be linked to something completely different.

Karl runs on with encouragement and creepy music until he finally arrives at the portal, which is not barred off like it was last time. Thanks, whoever’s responsible for that!

The music dies for this final book.

The Inbetween’s last-ditch attempt to make him stay. It calls him silly a couple of times, and smiles at the end with a :]

Problem is, we and Karl already know that staying with the Inbetween will keep him from his friends. And the voice tells him to leave for his friends.

Karl looks around at this place that calls itself his sanctuary, and makes his decision.

He arrives at The Other Side.

The music appears to be drawn from parts of either The Other Promise or Roxas’ Theme, both of which are heavily tied to the character known as Roxas. The version that Karl uses is slower and lower, the same as with the Dearly Beloved track he uses for his Inbetween segments.

Honestly, I’m not as certain on this as I could be, because I couldn’t find the exact variation on Youtube and there are parts that could just be Emotional rather than Roxas-related, I’m not sure. I’ll probably come back and fix this if it’s untrue.

EDIT: Yeah, uh, it’s Ven’s theme, not Roxas’, but the world itself is still heavily associated with Roxas in naming themes.

For now, I’m going off the assumption that the decision to make both the name and the theme of this world relevant to Roxas is purposeful, which means I’m... going to attempt to explain who Roxas is and what his story is.

Oh boy.

To grossly oversimplify the situation, Roxas is a “part” of Sora who develops his own sense of identity, is betrayed, gets coerced into murdering his best friend, gets kidnapped, gets memory wiped, and then—when he gets his memory back and realizes he super hates his captors—is convinced by those same captors to give up his existence because he “isn’t a real person” and if he lives then Sora will never wake up. So he “dies” and becomes a part of Sora again until later.

(Sora, by the way, is asleep due to the events in Castle Oblivion, which you might recognize as That Place I Keep Associating The Inbetween With.)

He’s also a fan favorite lmao. Take from that as you will, and, I don’t know, flip through his wiki page or something. Can’t guarantee it’s all understandable though.

My point to bringing Roxas up is that his arc... kind of parallels Karl’s. He did his job working for superiors he didn’t really understand in a white castle, with the higher-ups trying to control him, until he realized he was losing his friend/s to them. At that point, he defects. I think this is the point that Karl has reached, in his own storyline. He’s pulled away from the thing that’s made itself known to him, and now he’s wandering down something that hopefully isn’t as awful as the beast he’s just left behind.

Roxas also doesn’t get his happy ending for a long, long time.

Let’s hope Karl is different.

Off the top of my head, I can tell you that the mood this world creates is very reminiscent of some areas that the Kingdom Hearts games explore in 0.2 (yes, zero point two, that is the number of that game. This fucking series, man), specifically Castle Town, in which the player character has to smack a bunch of clock gears to make time go backwards in order to proceed, which is fun. But no exact inspirations come to mind the same way that Castle Oblivion did for the Inbetween.

Until we get a better look at the interiors, I’m going to gently claim that this build is more original and doesn’t take inspiration quite as directly from a Kingdom Hearts source, so there might not be an exact parallel. There isn’t a black castle in Kingdom Hearts that I can think of, honestly.

Also, I will say that I’m going to take this episode as confirmation that the wither roses are associated with the Inbetween and appear next to books that come from / are related to the Inbetween, especially since The Other Side associates itself with a completely different flower: the white tulip.

Anyway, The Other Side tells him he’s home, and that they’ll explore more soon.

This... eerily parallels the Inbetween, which told him that he’s safe, and has lots to explore.

I can’t say that I immediately trust The Other Side, but neither can I say that I inherently distrusted it the same way I did with the Inbetween. We’re going to have to wait and see how this place behaves in future episodes to get a good grasp of it. Who built these places? Are they alive, and writing the books, or is there a mastermind behind them? We still don’t have a lot of the answers, but that’s okay.

For now, I’m content to know that Karl is away from the more obvious perils of the Inbetween.

It could still be a trap, but for now, it’s a refuge.

#dream smp #tales from the smp #tftsmp #im exciteeddddd #general thoughts

64 notes · View notes

multimetaverse · 3 years

Text

Riverdale 5x04 Recap

Reggie getting lines is the first sign this must be a dream sequence

The Saving Private Archie sequence was well done. The twist where Hiram shoots Archie was a good one I’ll give RAS that

When discussing Archie in the army with some friends last week I said that they would only refer to Archie having been in a war and would only refer to the enemy as the enemy and lo and behold

Archie reading a book is already the most unrealistic thing abut this ep

Archie reading a Farewell to Arms is in keeping with the writer’s usual subtlety

The Second World War style army uniforms work great with the show’s aesthetic

Toni’s pregnant! And the White Wyrm is Pop’s basement!

RAS said we’d probably find out who Toni’s baby daddy is in 5x08. Presumably it’s someone we know which doesn’t leave a long list of potential father: Reggie or Sweetpea would be at the top of the list

Pop Tate better not be dead

Trash bag killer sounds nice!

A Fargo name drop

Is Betty sleeping with her instructor? That’s so unethical

Oh god they’re going full Silence of the Lambs with Betty having been kept in a pit by the trash bag killer

So the Trash bag killer captured an FBI agent and instead of killing her he held her captive for 2 weeks until she either escaped or was rescued or was let go? Unless there’s gonna be some big twist that really doesn’t sound likely to me

That serial killer brother (along with her serial killer dad) is exactly why Betty would never have been let into the real FBI

Chadwick is such a douchey name ( and he lowkey dresses like Hiram). He wants kids after just a year of marriage and wants Veronica to work less? Lotta red flags already

I’m going to quote an interview RAS did with E News regarding the timeline:

"Yeah, we're definitely in a time paradox," he says. "I think it would have been less jarring if we'd had the organic season break. But yes...the show's timeless so that's what we're hanging on to, to be honest. Like yes if you if you really, if you really analyze it it's like we're either in 2028, or we've been seven years in the past...there's a discrepancy there for sure." And yes, he also acknowledges that Veronica claimed post-jump that it is still 2021."Yes, she says it's 2021," he agrees. "But I think in the graduation episode it was also 2020...there's a discrepancy there for sure."

I have extremely low expectations for the Riverdale writers but fucking around with the timeline you’ve already established is just a slap in the face to the audience. Better shows than Riverdale have botched their timelines and it’s always a symptom of big problems in the writers room when they can’t even handle that basic task. Not to mention the contempt it shows to the audience

Graduation was in 2020 so it should be 2027 now. Even if they didn’t graduate in 2020, Fred’s tombstone said he died in 2019 so how does that math add up? If it’s now 2021 and the kids graduated back in 2014 then that would mean that Riverdale High’s first graduating class was in 1939 rather than 1945 which would mean that those classmates who inspired Archie to join the army were enlisting months before the Second World War broke out and two and a half years before the attack on Pearl Harbour caused the USA to enter to war

All strong marriages are built on deception (was that a reference to Katy Keene from the now cancelled Katy Keene show?). This accident better have really been serious if they keep bringing it up

Nice to see Hermione again

They look fine for surviving a helicopter crash

Chadwick collects faberge eggs just like Hiram... and Veronica decided to sell it... methinks Chadronica is not gonna last

Ah yes Fitzgerald and Hemmingway, two writers known for their happy lives and peaceful deaths of old age, really good examples to live by Jughead

Lmao! Only Jughead would be seduced by a chick wanting him to read her book

Good on Kangs for staying together this whole time

Cheryl is straight up living in the 19th century and I’m here for it. Thank god Nana Rose is alive

Reggie working for Hiram is an interesting twist

Kinda weird that Toni is trying to get back together with Cheryl when she’s pregnant with some dude’s kid. Honestly it makes perfect sense that Cheryl would believe that she’s cursed

Omg is Cheryl gonna get into art forgery?? That would actually be so great

Of fucking course we’re circling back to Hiram’s real estate deals

Thank god Pop Tate is alive

Man how stupid do you have to be to hitch hike nowadays especially when the truck that pulls up has a fucking skeleton on the front!

Once more I’ll quote RAS on the serial killer plot:

"As that mystery unfolds, it starts enveloping all of our characters," Aguirre-Sacasa says. "And in some ways tragically, including a character we've known and loved since season one."

That’s a vague statement that something bad will happen but if he means that a character we’ve known and loved since S1 is dying then it won’t be any of the mains. Sheriff Keller would be a good tragic death, the last of the good dads left in Riverdale

In another interview focusing on the ships RAS mentioned that Bughead would still have a lot of trauma from the Barchie kiss to work through, that Barchie would have a deep connection, and that Varchie still have a spark but Archie wouldn’t make a move on Ronnie while she’s still married

I would be surprised if Chadwick doesn’t meet a violent death at some point so I don’t think he’s a long term obstacle. If Hiram is the big bad for the remainder of the series then there’s a path to get Varchie back together as they team up to take him down

RAS also mentioned how nice it was to not always have to write couple scenes, to be able to have Betty scenes without Jughead and Veronica scenes without Archie and vice versa. An odd statement to make as no one was forcing him to keep those couples together. The writers could easily have broken up Varchie after Hiram’s numerous attempts to kill Archie or used the fact that Bughead had a shared half brother and their parents were living together in a romantic relationship to sink them

Well until next Riverdalers

#Riverdale #Varchie #Bughead #Barchie #Archie Andrews #Betty Cooper #Veronica Lodge #Jughead Jones #Choni #Toni Topaz #Cheryl Blossom #Riverdale Recaps

84 notes · View notes

iamanartichoke · 3 years

Text

[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]

Yes, I did just watch episode 2 at 5:30 in the morning.

No, I am not sorry. Not at the moment, although when I inevitably crash later this afternoon, I will be.

Just some very, very quick - and scattered and messy - thoughts: That is a straight up lie; they’re definitely scattered and messy but not very quick at all.

Under the cut for spoilers and length.

I’m going to start with Loki’s characterization. My honest opinion is that Loki’s overall characterization feels like a fic characterization. He definitely is not Avengers Loki, like, at all. I don't know if Tom just, like, forgot how to play that Loki or ...?? That, or Loki was so much more mind-controlled than we realized and getting hulk-smashed just completely reset him back to zero but also fucked him up a little bit and affected his personality, kind of like how some people completely develop weird new personality quirks after a traumatic brain injury.

… yeah, I think that’s where I’m gonna land for now. TV series!Loki feels like a more-or-less canon version of Loki, but if that Loki got hit in the head really hard and now he’s just a little bit fucked up but overall no worse for the wear. Which - it may be that it’s so early in the morning, but that’s actually really fucking funny to me, lmao. God, I kill me. It’s not funny.

No, but, that’s pretty much how I feel. He’s ooc but he’s also ic, and the reason I’m not particularly bothered by the inconsistency, for lack of a better word, is because that’s what pretty much every fic Loki already feels like to me? (Including my own, so I’m not, like, saying that in a derogatory way.) Which is why I say Loki feels like a fic!Loki and to try to explain it better - there is always, for me, a little suspension of disbelief that I employ when I read fic. The reason for that is because the context, the plot, and the dynamics of the fic are usually pretty different than what we ever get in canon, so it becomes a matter of taking film!Loki and, like, bending him a bit in order to fit him into the perimeters of the fic.

The result ends up being that I don’t see the exact Avengers!Loki or TDW!Loki, and thus by definition the portrayal is ooc, but the version that I do see feels like a genuine extension of the canon version, possessing enough of Loki’s overall traits and characteristics that he feels authentic, albeit a bit pretzeled for the new context.

I honestly think that’s something that’s unavoidable, just due to the fact that in fic - and now, in this series - there are a lot more variables at play than there are in the films, wherein Loki is not just a supporting character but also the villain/antagonist and is therefore very limited in what he does/what the narrative allows him to do. When those limitations are taken away, what are we going to see? Probably a lot of different things, and yeah, a lot of them are going to feel a little ooc. And, like in fic, even if the characterization mostly lands, there are definitely bits and pieces (some fics more than others lean this way) where the author didn’t stick the landing or got carried away or otherwise probably forgot for a while that they were writing Loki, not their own OC.

That’s the point where it strays into cringe territory for me (and where the ‘heh, he’s Loki but with a brain injury’ aspect comes in), but while I had to consciously decide to just ignore those moments, overall the tone in this episode felt a bit more balanced between the new, the old, and the cringe, and less whiplash-y from the beginning of the episode to the end.

… I have no idea if that makes sense, but what I’m basically saying is that while I am enjoying this version of Loki, I do recognize all of the ways he’s ooc but, unlike how I feel about Ragnarok!Loki, the ooc-ness feels genuine and unavoidable rather than just a fundamental and careless misunderstanding of the character altogether. In other words, I feel like any ooc-ness here is happening despite the writers taking care to do their best, and isn’t just a result of Loki being lazily written by a person or persons who just doesn’t want to bother with him at all.

Again, I don’t know if that makes sense, but fuck it, there we are and I’m moving on.

I liked all of the little details, including again, things that felt straight out of fic, like Loki asking Mobius why he has the jetski magazine. (Also, if any of my thorki friends read this, was I the only one who noticed that when we see Loki reading the magazine, it just happens to be open to a page with a picture featuring a jet skier who looks like Thor? l.m.a.o.)

Loki interrupting things to explain the difference between illusions vs the other power (I can’t remember which one, off hand, and if I stop writing to go look it up I will lose my train of thought and not finish this) was great, but his overall input and contributions to the missions inspired very mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, I loved that the narrative, via Loki, is reminding us of all these things that he’s capable of that the films generally left out or brushed aside or ignored - but, every time he spoke, he was met with eye rolls and sighs and just a general feeling of “someone please shut this guy up” and I didn’t like the narrative treating him that way.

But also, it’s understandable bc none of the people on his team are actually on his team. None of them want him there (story of Loki’s fucking life), none of them trust him, and none of them are particularly interested in hearing what he has to say. So it’s like, I understand why they reacted the way they did, and I don’t think their reactions are meant to support an overall narrative undermining of Loki’s skills and input - but, the tone is hard to read for me bc I am very defensive and protective of Loki. I can’t quite determine the line between the TVA agents being unreliable narrators (ie, they’re annoyed by Loki bc of who he is to them, but that doesn’t mean the audience is supposed to feel the same) and the TVA agents validating that Loki is just being a nuisance (and, thus, the audience is supposed to feel the same).

That is, I know how I am consuming the narrative (that they’re unreliable narrators), but I’m not sure if that’s how tptb are intending for me to consume the narrative - and I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it’s worth mentioning.

In general, I really liked, again, Loki existing in his own space and watching the way he carried himself. I especially found it interesting that his hands were almost always in his pockets - for one thing it's a stance I tend to imagine him taking often in fic, but also it’s kind of a weird choice bc pockets don’t seem to be a thing in Asgardian clothing. It makes me feel like Loki is the kind of person who never knows what to do with his hands but is always conscious of them, as is common among anxious and self-conscious people, and I just find that relatable on a weird level.

I am really kinda torn on Mobius in this episode; when not interrogating Loki, he’s much less antagonistic toward Loki and therefore I’m more inclined to take-him-or-leave-him but I’ll go ahead and take him I guess. Yet at the same time, bc he’s not interrogating Loki he’s also not trying to put on a show for Loki and when you take that away, he really doesn’t seem to like Loki at all. It supports that Mobius only wants what Loki can do for him and doesn’t actually particularly care about him as a person, which is fine and more or less what I figured, but it contributes to me not really being able to decide how I feel about him in general. Idk, though, I kinda like their dynamic? Like I want them to end up friends?

Regardless, Tom and Owen have amazing chemistry and it’s really funny to me bc (not to be a jerk) I honestly didn’t know Owen Wilson could act. Like, I’ve never seen him in a role where he wasn’t just playing Owen Wilson. So for him to not only be playing Mobius so well but also having such chemistry and a sense of holding-his-own against Tom Hiddleston is like, color me surprised but pleasantly so.

I like B-15 a lot, even though she obviously hates Loki, so idk why I like her but I do. I like Renslayer less, but meh. (Side note - when I was in undergrad in Syracuse, I took the Amtrak from Syracuse to Boston and back more than a few times, for reasons that aren’t relevant, and that route always had a layover at Albany-Rensselaer and every single time I see Renslayer’s name, I want to call her Rensselaer instead.) Shout out to the guest appearance by Casey, sorry Loki stole your juice lmfao.

The moments from the trailer that were very cringe were less so in context (though still kinda cringe, tbh). I think we’ve seen most of the content from the trailers in the first two episodes now, though, which means going forward, it’s going to be like 95% previously unseen material (aside from the brief apocalyptic shots and so forth).

One thing I fucking loved was how Loki, reading about Ragnarok, was visibly affected and even teared up a bit, and you could tell he was in his feels about it, but then later when Mobius expresses sympathy, Loki is just like, “Uh huh, very sad, but anyway.” It was a subtle (well maybe not that subtle) but effective way to remind us that what Loki presents to other people is more often than not a mask and he keeps his true feelings close to the chest. It makes last week’s breakdown have even more of an impact, I think, bc clearly Loki was at the end of his rope to allow himself to show that much raw emotion and vulnerability, but also - for me - there’s a niggling little doubt there that wasn’t there before, in that there was probably more performance in it than I thought.

By which I mean, I think his reaction to the film of his life when he was alone was genuine but, while I previously thought his admission to Mobius later was also genuine, I now think was probably half genuine and half performative. I know others already figured that out, but I’m a little slow and, also, I don’t mind changing my opinion and interpretation from week to week.

Along the same lines, I wasn’t exactly surprised to see that Loki is “undercover” in the TVA, but it was nice to see it acknowledged fairly quickly. Not sure I buy that Loki wants to overthrow and rule the TVA - it’s still a little too “Loki only wants a throne” for me, but again, just because that’s what he told the variant doesn’t mean that’s actually what he’s after.

And, finally, I like the variant, I love Loki’s reaction to seeing her, and while I realize that the show has acknowledged Loki’s gender fluidity and we’re meant to assume that Lady Loki (I guess? Not sure if we’re going with that or not here) is Loki, I saw a theory somewhere about how this is actually not Loki-Loki, but - I wanna say her name Sophie but that’s the actress, again I can’t go look it up bc I will lose my train of thought - but it’s a character who is similar to Amora and who was created by Loki and models herself as Loki but she’s actually someone else.

Ugh I can’t remember the details of the theory, but I am kinda going with it bc I don’t think that Loki would look so - not surprised but just kind of “oh, well, I wasn’t expecting that” if he were seeing the female version of himself. Like, he doesn’t seem to recognize her the way I assume he would recognize himself, male or female. Not only does that make me feel like she’s actually someone else, but also not recognizing her as the female version of himself doesn’t necessarily mean Loki doesn’t recognize her at all. He may very well recognize her as this other Amora-similar character and, if so, I really want to see how that character fits with MCU Loki (as I think she’s a comic book character but, again, I’d have to go back and find that theory).

Edit: I found a version of it here.

Overall score, B-. Mostly solid, but needs moar Loki breakdowns and tears. (That's just me, don't fucking judge me.) Also, I really hate that we have to wait a week between episodes. I wish they were following Netflix’s method of dropping the entire season at once but, then again, if they did that, I’m not sure any of us would survive.

I gotta get ready for work and I deleted and rewrote so much of this and it still seems nonsensical to me, lmfao fml. Anyway feel free to interact/send me asks/whatever, it’s going to be a long fucking day with all of this on my mind. I’ll be working my way through my dash as best as I can.

Oh, also! Loki is so fucking pretty in this episode! The TVA suit is ugly, but he makes it work, and his hair's combed nicely and he looks like he finally got an opportunity to sleep and shower and eat something and, yknow, it's working for him.

#loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #loki spoilers #loki pokey artichokey #also thought it was interesting that as soon as mobius gave him the jacket #loki barely took it off and didn't go anywhere without it #lending even more credence to the fact that he likes to be as covered up as possible at all times

26 notes · View notes

makeste · 4 years

Note

1.) I'll dislike it if it turns out that Best Jeanist is still alive since I don't see a scenario where Hawks not killing him makes sense, unless of course if it turns out that it was all staged before hand for the villains (for some reason). The reason why I think this is that Hawks pulled out his swords on BJ after saying "how unfortunate" when BJ say's he'll be going public again. To me this reads as the equivalents as you and a "friend" being together alone in your home.

see, I see it differently. to me, what doesn’t make sense is for Horikoshi to not show us the conclusion of that flashback scene even after Hawks kills Twice. like, if he originally intended for it to build up suspense at the start of this arc, back when we weren’t sure whether or not Hawks would go through with it, that’s one thing. that actually played out beautifully. but to leave Jeanist’s fate up in the air even after Twice’s death makes no sense to me in a scenario where Jeanist is actually dead. at that point there’s no reason to keep it hidden anymore. we know Hawks is a murderer; we know how far he’s willing to go to complete his mission. so at that point there’s no longer any narrative purpose in leaving it ambiguous, right?

like, so we’ve got this mystery. did Hawks kill Jeanist or not? and there are only two possible outcomes. either the twist is that he did kill him, thus stunning the readers with the reveal that a hero would actually go so far as to kill another hero; or the twist is that he didn’t kill him, in which case the payoff comes later, when Jeanist makes a surprise entrance revealing that he’s still very much alive.

as far as the first of those two outcomes is concerned, there’s no longer any reason to keep Jeanist’s death a “secret” now if that’s the case. we’ve already seen his body. we’ve already seen Hawks kill someone else. what possible reason is there for Horikoshi to still be cryptic about it? we already know he’s not above showing us VERY detailed and gory and plain fucked-up things in character flashbacks, so it’s not like he’s barred from showing it to us because it’s too controversial or disturbing. there is just no reason I can think of why he would be so deliberately wishy-washy about it for so long only to have the eventual twist be “yes actually he really has been dead this whole time.”

but if the payoff is instead meant to be “surprise he’s actually alive!!”, then it makes perfect sense to not reveal it beforehand. in this case Twice’s death only adds to the twist and makes it that much more of a surprise. and imo it’s a much more satisfying outcome, and much more consistent with what we know about Hawks’s character. there’s all this talk about how this twist makes him “less morally gray”, as if moral ambiguity is something all characters should aspire to, but what this shows instead is that his morals are consistent, which is much more important to character-building in the long run. Hawks is someone who can see and understand the big picture and figure out the best action to take for the objective, logical greater good. but he is also someone who’s still fueled by his emotions enough that he’ll put the Greater Good at risk in order to try and do what he thinks is the right thing. and so he almost blows his cover at Fukuoka because he helps Endeavor battle the High End Noumu, and he does blow his cover at Gunga Mountain and is nearly killed by Dabi because he tries to arrest and capture Twice rather than killing him. it’s not until he has no other choice that he finally does the deed, and he pays dearly for it.

it is entirely in character for Hawks, when faced with a situation where the Greater Good requires him to make a sacrifice that doesn’t sit right with his conscience, to instead attempt some risky and convoluted “fuck it, let’s see if we can fool ‘em” solution which puts the whole operation at risk, but which allows him to spare the life of a man who’s done nothing wrong. the hubris of Hawks’s character is that because he’s so clever and is usually one step ahead of everyone else, he tries to have it both ways, and attempts to simultaneously stick to his principles and be faithful to his mission, and eventually that’s what does him in. you can’t be a walking, talking Icarus allegory and not expect your wings to eventually be burned off by the metaphorical sun.

anyway. so this outcome ultimately makes a whole lot more sense to me, ngl. as for why Hawks pulled out his feather sword when he was talking to Jeanist, I don’t know! we literally cut off right after that! almost as if whatever action or line of dialogue immediately followed that scene would have explained everything, and so is being withheld from us for exactly that reason lmao. it absolutely is a very odd thing to do while chatting with your friend; but speaking of said chat, let’s take another look at the dialogue here.

Jeanist says he’s planning to step back into the public eye shortly, and Hawks replies with, “that’s too bad.” of course we’re immediately meant to jump to the conclusion of “WTF, JEANIST, RUN,” but there’s another possible interpretation, which is that Hawks is apologizing because he’s about to explain to Jeanist that he’s gonna have to put a rain check on those plans. the sword might simply be his not-so-subtle way of saying “okay you better listen up you beautiful bedenimed man, because shit’s about to get real, and you’re either going to have to go along with the completely ridiculous plan that I am about to propose, or else I am going to have to straight up kill you, which I do not under any circumstances want to do.”

at which point Jeanist is presumably all “okay calm down kid wtf”, and Hawks proceeds to explain how they’re gonna take some random John Doe body from the county morgue and have one of the HPSC’s people use their quirk to transform the body into a perfect clone of Jeanist using a sample of Jeanist’s DNA or something. or whatever secret agent bullshit they pulled out of a hat in order to fool Dabi and the rest of the League. only we don’t see any of it, because Horikoshi does not want us to see any of it, because it would have removed too much of the tension and suspense from the Hawks spy arc.

this to me makes sense. it makes sense with what we know of Hawks’s character, and doesn’t sacrifice all of the work that Horikoshi put into writing his arc for the sake of cheap shock value. it builds on the conflict between Hawks’s own personal morals and the things he is asked to do by the HPSC for the sake of the Greater Good that don’t always sit well with him. it leaves room for the continuation of that arc as more of the HPSC’s secrets come to light, and as the heroes face widespread criticism in the wake of the Jakku disaster, which seems more and more inevitable. and, as a bonus, it provides an unexpected yet plausible last minute save for the heroes against Gigantomachia and Tomura and the rest. because it’s honestly going to take a miracle for them to make it out otherwise at this point lol.

anyway, so I think it works! we’re still missing some pieces here obviously, but all in all I’m more than willing to give Horikoshi the benefit of the doubt until he fills us in on whatever we’ve missed. I just wish we didn’t have to wait two weeks until the next chapter yet again sob, but such is manga-reading life.

#bnha 288 #hawks #best jeanist #bnha meta #hawks meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #long post

146 notes · View notes