#i refuse to let my two good friends die just because i can’t personally resurrect them (i should be allowed to!!!) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Hi, I was reading your post about Jason punching Dick in the face when Dick revealed he fake his death was bullshit ( which it was) and it reminded me of an issue/question that has bothered me for sometime.

Why did people believe Dick was actually dead?

I’m not the most avid comic reader so maybe I missed something but it was always weird to me that everyone just accepted this especially given how Bruce was acting or should I say wasn’t acting.

This is a man when his child died another child had to come along and told him sir you are being too violent and emotional you need supervision. When his other child died he went all over the universe to bring him back to life because he knew it was possible ( which was happening at the same time), so why didn’t anyone think it was weird he wasn’t doing that for Dick. Can you imagine Dick really dying that soon after Damian it would be injustice Batman Version. You are telling me that Tim, Jason or Barbara didn’t think it was weird that Bruce didn’t also bring Dick’s corpse to the bring Damian back to life mission or mention it to themselves. Like what more likely Dick dead and Bruce is handling it well or that he fake his death to do something stupid and Dangerous after his partner/brother/ little bit my son the feelings are complicated died after he was knocked out and woke up to his corpse.

Oh man, this is like, the entire nature of my beef?

(Slight derail just to emphasize the fact real quick that Dick DID actually die, he was just revived quickly, but like, the trauma of his death was very real and its not like anyone was clued into Luthor having a resurrection backdoor built into his literal murder of Dick in the actual moment of it happening. So Dick’s death wasn’t fake, and additionally, he didn’t have anything to do with like, telling people about it, because he was literally comatose in the cave and recovering while Bruce was telling people....by the time Dick woke up in the cave, we already know that Alfred at least had already been convinced by Bruce that Dick was dead, so I have a kneejerk need to pushback against the Dick faked his death narrative by reminding people wherever possible that Dick had no agency in the spreading of that narrative.

It happened without him being involved, and the only actual contribution he ever made to it was just not revealing he was alive before Grayson #12, after Bruce like.....emotionally, mentally and physically badgered him into accepting that doing so would be directly harmful to his family and he didn’t want to be the reason more people died when like, people had just died because he ‘let’ himself be captured and interrogated by Power Woman’s Lasso of Submission, did he?

SORRY TO BE PEDANTIC, just wanted to start this off on a clarification, even though I know the aim of your ask was very much in tune with the rest of my response. A lot of people don’t read the actual comics, so like, I’m never gonna skip over an opportunity to emphasize that the shorthand people use to refer to Dick’s death and the year he was with Spyral, is like, literally just shorthand for describing it. Its not actually an accurate description of how all that went down and who had the most hand in it).

BUT ANYWAY. BACK TO THE MEAT OF THE BEEF.

Okay so like, not only was the entire family and Bruce himself giving Dick shit for his death and Spyral, like, PAINFULLY egregious because it was literal victim blaming in every possible sense of the word....

None of it made a LICK of sense with ANY of their characterizations, and they ONLY all accepted it on face value because the Plot Demanded It, and when you're like, no, as a reader I say The Plot Demanded It is not a good enough reason for me to be like well sure, that makes sense......looking at the characters ACTUAL actions at face value pretty much just makes them all look like assholes?

Like, Tim has never gracefully accepted anyone's death. Ever. This is core characterization for him. He will go to the ends of the earth for his loved ones and to bring them back, prove they're not dead, refuse to let death be the final verdict for them. He was tempted to use the Lazarus Pit to bring his parents back to life. He refused to accept Bruce was dead long before he had any proof whatsoever of that theory. He tried to clone his BFF/future-husband Kon in his fucking basement like, dude was two whole inches away from going Full Dark Side in his quest to bring back a lost loved one no matter WHAT the cost.....and then you've got Dick unmasked onscreen, killed offscreen, and Bruce then reporting to the rest of them with zero inflection 'oh Dick's dead now. Its very sad' and Tim's just like, sure. Sounds legit.

I mean?!?!

And you're SO RIGHT ABOUT THE DAMIAN THING! Bruce LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALLY went BEYOND the ends of the Earth, like, he full on chartered a fucking space ship to fly his whole family out to APOKOLIPS to bring Damian back from the dead by going to EXTREME lengths.....WHILE everyone else thought Dick was dead....

And not a single person looked at Bruce and was like, okay, not that we're not down to do this for Damian because we miss Stabby Smurf something fierce ourselves, but.....what the fuck is UP with you dude? Why aren't you displaying ANY hint of this same kind of energy in regards to your eldest son that you said you watched die right in front of you?

Like....I don't know that we were actually ever told that Dick's coffin was empty or had a fake in it, but like....this family of detectives who refuse to accept death, defy death, COME BACK FROM THE DEAD....not a single one of them said like, okay, if I'm gonna like, ACCEPT accept that Dick is dead and gone for good, I need to at least just see him one last time? That's literally all it would have taken for someone to realize hey something's a little wonky here. Where's the dead body, Pops?

Since when has Jason ever missed an opportunity to prove Bruce is a) full of shit, b) acting like an emotionless robot and all his kids deserve better especially when they've just like....died, c) just factually incorrect and wrong and jumped to a conclusion before it was conclusively proved, d) lying like a liar or e) all of the above?

Nobody even ASKED if Dick's body could be put in a Lazarus Pit? Yeah, Jason wouldn't necessarily recommend it himself, given what it put him through, but actually fuck that, I take that back, because I'm NOT actually of the opinion that Jason full on hates his life and actively spends every second of every day wishing he hadn't been resurrected, even if it had come with a huge buffet of additional trauma and pain.

And that's kinda what's implied when people just take it for granted that he would never be on board with any scenario involving using a Lazarus Pit to bring Dick back, because it suggests that based even just on his own experiences and feelings, he honestly believes Dick would prefer being dead and not have ANY further opportunities to be with his loved ones, his friends, help save the damn world again at some future point.....that Jason, projecting based just off himself, legit feels Dick would rather be dead than have another shot at life even WITH the downsides of Lazarus Pit usage? Nope. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Speaking of not buying it.....you know what was missing from all those soliloquies the others monologued at Dick about how they felt and were hurt and just devastated by his death, to such a point they can't seem to muster a single shred of happiness that he's NOT dead still -

(seriously, Damian was the ONLY person in ALL THE LANDS OF EMOTION-HAVING who expressed ANY kind of positive reaction to having Dick back. We were so fucking cheated of like.....ANY opportunity to have the characters show just how much they valued him by just being fucking HAPPY he was alive, no matter what else was involved....and then most of fandom compounded that by for years being like mmmm, no, Dick didn't get yelled at enough by his family for what HE put THEM through. Needs more yelling. More punching too. Bad Dick. Bad. This is the only way you'll learn not to die and get shipped off on a mission that you don't want but at least is to protect your family after being beaten into it by your dad whilst victim blaming you for dying in the first place. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN TO THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR FEELINGS FOR A CHANGE, DICK?!?)

- But like, BUT I DIGRESS aside....you know what was missing from all those monologues about how hard DICK'S death and ensuing year of basically exile from his loved ones was for EVERYONE BUT HIM?

We never got a single line of explanation as to what everyone else officially thinks even happened to him in the first place?

Like, did Bruce straight up just say oh bad news kids, your brother umm. Expired. Spontaneously. There's no one to blame, he just keeled over, its all very sad.

Is that how that went down?

You're telling me that the explanation of Dick's death didn't come with a single pointed finger at someone for this family of blame-happy vigilantes to like, BLAME for the loss of this brother they all mourned oh so much, they just couldn't help but blame him for all the hurt it caused them?

The family that in every other fic is like OBSESSED with avenging and being avenged and all things vengeful and even tangentially vengeance-y....like didn't ask for a single detail on whomst the fuck deprived us of our brother-having?

Where were the attempts on Luthor's life by Jason (who I mean, yeah I know it was in a previous continuity, but erasing that timeline doesn't erase my awareness of the time Dick killed Jason's murderer so like.....mmm, just saying, woulda been nice)....where was the rage directed at the Crime Syndicate and references to how seriously and personally the Batfam took making sure that they were PUNISHED for all this and would never be free to wreak havoc on their world or their family again? What did they tell Damian when he came back to life, and how are you going to tell me that this fraternal little ball of fury didn't aim himself like a cannonball at whomever the fuck had DARED take HIS Batman from him when Damian wasn't around to have his back?

Not only does everyone else's desire to be avenged start falling really flat the second you factor in hey maybe Dick feels "mmm what about MY avenging" sometimes, and why doesn't anyone ever care about doing that for him.....but also, y'know what REALLY sucks about the ONLY person we actually SEE being blamed for Dick's death and ensuing absence being like....Dick himself?

Not only were his family all super keen on making all of this HIS fault and HIM the bad guy because of how it made them all feeeeeeel (and meanwhile fuck his feelings, am I right Batfam hfaklshfklahfkla).....

They somehow found a way to justify prioritizing this OVER ever even getting around to blaming some villain for his death in the FIRST place, in the entire year or so they thought he was still dead!

Like, you couldn't come up with a single target in all that time, but Dick's back two seconds, and you don't even give him a chance to EXPLAIN before you're punching him, shutting him down with 'I expected better from you' and turning away with 'I don't want to hear it, why am I surprised Dick Grayson disappointed me again'?

afshklfhalfhalfhla

Make it make sense!

And like, it won't, cuz it doesn't, and it never will, and like I said at the top, the ONLY reason it all played out this way is because DC doesn't give a fuck about character development and deemed it necessary to go down this way for the sake of the plot (which was totes worth it, I mean, glad we sacrificed characters for this A+ plot which was clearly the greatest plot of all time and definitely justified every story choice made or not made around it loooool).

BUT.

BUT BUT BUT.

The problem isn't JUST that DC is stupid, even though that is an eternal mood and quite the problem.

Its that the SECOND large parts of fandom decided to play along with DC and just accept the story at face value, only add to it and play into it exactly as it happened in canon with no significant deviations, and like, heaping on the LITERAL abuse from Dick's siblings while ignoring the LITERAL abuse from his father....

THAT....is when all of this becomes relevant.

Because the second people decided TO engage with the reasoning DC gave for what Bruce did and how and what Dick did and how and just not mess with any of that and have it all play out exactly like that...

The second people are like, okay we're FINE with not just dismissing this story as OOC writing that doesn't make any sense, and actually VALIDATING it to various degrees by engaging with it as is....

That's when 'OOC writing' stops being an excuse or explanation for alllll of the above gaps in character logic and actions.

Because its like, when you had abundant chance to REJECT this story and say nope, this was bullshit from start to finish and I'm not here for it, when you were just as capable of transforming literally ANY aspect of this story you didn't like into something that made more sense to you....

And you chose not to.

That's.....accepting it as valid writing. You were like, okay, I'm game to just treat this as a thing that happened, just like they said that happened.

For the chance to give Dick shit for it, see. For the angst, see.

And that's when I'm like okay cool, so when engaging with this story as is and accepting it on face value and just delving into the characters as they were SHOWN interacting with and around these events......for the angst or whatever....

You guys just all decided en masse to just hop, skip and jump over allllllllll the opportunities for angst inherent in examining even ANY SINGLE ONE of the above lapses in judgment or hypocrisy on the parts of the characters (who don't get to be excused by OOC writing if you're not going to call the story an example of OOC writing, whoops).

And its just like, uh, what's up with that?

#lol thank you for this ask tho #I havent gone on a good Spyral rant in months #it does wonders for my pores

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stxleslyds · 3 years

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Jason doesn't show up in DC's animated series (though the does "spiritually" show up as Tim Drake in Season 2 of Batman the Animated Series).

Jason has a strong presence in the video games, though. So what is your opinion on Jason's characterization for Arkham Knight? He is a DLC for the Injustice games as well. Judy be warned that I did watch some clips of Arkham Knight and the torture was too gruesome for me.

RED HOOD IN VIDEO GAMES.

Hey there friend, thank you for the ask!

INJUSTICE 2.

I had to do some research on Red Hood’s appearances in the Injustice games because I was never really in touch with that story. Here is what I knew about it, there are two games for PC, one of them is Injustice and the other is Injustice 2, the games also have the comic books that give context/background to the lore of the game.

I used to play Injustice: Gods Among Us on mobile phone, and I had Jason as a playable character there, I also found out way too late that “Nightwing” wasn’t really Dick Grayson, it was Damian because he took on the mantle after he and the rock killed Dick in the comic (forever mad at that ridiculous death and the kinda scary art that comic had).

I looked for information about Red Hood’s backstory in wikis and all that because I refuse to read an alternate universe book written by Tom Taylor, there are things that I am just not willing to do.

All in all, I think that this Jason was in surface level, the same as his canon comic counterpart up until the time of his resurrection. Given that the world was at war and the League of Assassins wasn’t working openly, he and the others had to live in the shadows, he seems to have been trained proficiently by both Batman and the LoA so he is a very hardcore opponent. There are some bits of his story with Damian and a place called Gorilla City that I do not understand because I haven’t read the comics but I am fine without it.

The thing is that this Jason is pretty cool, he sticks to his morals and fights for what he believes is right, he doesn’t look like the kinda guy that takes sides in this war which is probably the best idea. Both Batman and Superman seem to be on the wrong side of history with they ideals.

What I did see and I loved eternally was the ending to Red Hood’s story, I will link the video here! But I will also copy and paste all that he says there because I think it’s really important and where I was able to see more of his characterization.

"That. Felt. Good. Titanium composite hollow point bullets with a C4 kicker. Fastest, most explosive ammo in the world. I made them myself. With the invasion over, Bruce and Superman started fighting again. I wasn't down with either of them. On the one hand, the Regime's right. Scumbag murderers and rapists deserve to die. But on the other hand, I'm no fan of government authority. Especially the dictatorial variety.

So, while the world's finest fight each other, I fight for the people. The weak. The innocent. Anyone who can't protect themselves. When they cry out for a saviour, I'll answer. As for the criminals that threaten them? They need to know that their actions have consequences. That the Red Hood is coming for them.”

This is excellent, I absolutely love this, this Jason knows his morals and doesn’t bow down to anyone and in the end, he is truly a hero to the people that need heroes the most.

Him saying that he believes that some criminals have to die but that he can’t really join Superman’s side because he cannot associate with it because he isn’t a fan of dictatorial ideas, I love this man.

I feel like this is a fair characterization for Jason, I believe that if something along the lines of what happens in Injustice happens in current continuity then Jason wouldn’t join any sides, he wouldn’t be neutral per se but he will fight for his own ideals. And his ideals in most universes are protecting people and I think that’s great. I love to see a world where Jason is seen as more intelligent and put together than the Batman.

Something that I find quite funny and interesting from this game is the dialogues that characters have with each other when they fight, I found this video compilation where you can see all the dialogues between Red Hood vs Robin (Damian Wayne), they are so fun and I love the animations too.

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT.

Oh, ArkhamVerse Jason, my beloved.

He is, to me, the epitome of this meme.

I have actually watched the whole game playthrough, several times, and Jason had a DLC as the Red Hood for that game (Nightwing has one too and I will talk about it later because I love this version of him). And, yes, the torture scene is very gruesome, it was incredibly sad and it made me feel bad. But I also think that they made it that way so it could support the kind of storytelling they were going for.

The reality is that this Jason suffered his whole life, and was constantly introduced to lifestyles that he never wanted to be part of. The world around this Jason wasn’t kind at all to him and there is a long list of people who did him wrong.

Although ArkhamVerse Jason didn’t die, like his comic counterpart did, he suffered the most. And his suffering really drove him to be the best version of an unhinged Jason Todd. But it’s clear, his brutality and murder intent isn’t laced with his Red Hood persona or at least not on the same level as it is with his Arkham Knight persona.

This Jason’s characterization works to perfection, but it only works that way because he was well developed within the game lore and the comics. This Jason was extremely well trained, he is probably the smartest version of Jason, his mind and his level of preparedness are unparalleled when it comes to other Jason Todd variants (a little MCU Loki talk right there).

I would go as far as to say that this Jason would be an excellent match to peak Dick Grayson from before New 52 in comics. Those two would clash so immensely, but man, it would be one hell of an intellectual and physical fight. Two Kings doing what they do best.

Anyway, for now take my word for how well characterized Jason is in the ArkhamVerse, I will make a post were I deep dive more on his character both in game and comics. There is so much to say about him, he is truly interesting and very complex.

Now, I will be a little cheeky and I will use this ask as an opportunity to talk about my man, ArkhamVerse Nightwing aka Pretty Boy.

I love him so much! In the game when you get to meet him (I will link the video here! it’s five minutes long, and worth the watch) you get to see both Nightwing’s and Dick’s personalities. Nightwing is fun and relaxed, he is a little bit cocky and doesn’t let Batman be a pain in his ass, he is truly a beast. Although he is never seen without the mask in a moment when he is alone with Bruce you can really see Dick’s personality shine through. He obviously has had issues with Bruce in the past but there is also this palpable respect coming from both of them to the other. Bruce wants to protect Dick but he acts like a jerk instead of telling him what is on his mind. Dick wants to help Bruce at all costs, he refuses to leave Gotham until they solve something that he was already working on before Bruce needed his help.

There is also this sort of goodbye scene between the two (I will link it here!) that is extremely sad because Dick doesn’t believe Bruce when he tells him that he is proud of him. Dick cuts him off just when Bruce was trying to open up and I think that scene speaks volumes about how rough their relationship was. Dick never finds out that Bruce was “dying” after being infected with the Joker’s blood/gas, so it’s very bittersweet.

There is also the Nightwing DLC, where we get to see Dick being the best of the best, he is so skilled and funny and smart. It is amazing how much this game made me love their Nightwing even though he doesn’t appear much, his dynamic with Penguin is just perfect, Dick literally makes Penguin’s life very difficult. All of the people working with Penguin kinda fear Dick a little bit, some of them are even impressed by his skills.

Oh and, when Nightwing gets captured at some point in the game, Penguin’s men are saying something along the lines of “I was sure Batman will come in” “how come?” “what’s tied up downstairs and getting the crap beat out of it?” “Oh yeah, Nightwing” and that is so true, if I were Batman, I will also risk my life for Nightwing.

I just love Nightwing, he makes me so happy! He is the best here!

Anyway, enough of me loving Nightwing uncontrollably, I will make a separate post where I only talk about ArkhamVerse Jason so, yeah, be ready for that one because I love that Jason too, he is hot.

#jason todd #red hood #arkham knight #dick grayson #nightwing #arkham games #injustice 2 #arkhamverse #asksss

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dent-de-leon · 3 years

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Mollymauk, 4, 5, 11, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22 :D (feel free to trim down if this is too many)

asksjkdf I'm sorry in advance because I got a little carried away so this got a little long, but thanks for the ask! I love any and every excuse to talk about Mollymauk...

4.) Best places to kiss on their body

I think Molly is actually very partial to forehead kisses! I feel like he uses that to ground Caleb in part because it’s something that’s always been very comforting to him--for instance, when Yasha finally gets to embrace him again, she also kisses his forehead. I think I remember Molly doing this for the twins back at the carnival too, so I feel like it’s a habit he picked up from the circus? Just the kind of little thing you do for someone to show you love them.

Aside from that, I think he would really appreciate a kiss on the neck, where most of his blood hunter scars--and that haunting red Eye--are. A bit of loving tenderness to soothe the pain.

5.) Guilty pleasures

Oh I love this pick for Molly cause boY does he have a lot of these!! He builds a life off joy and hedonism, so he’s got this in spades. I forget where, but I’ve definitely seen someone theorize before that the reason base pleasures are so appealing to Molly is because he started out just feeling like an “Empty” body, so anything that’s very stimulating on a physical level is very grounding for him? I really like the idea of that. I think wanting to feel like he was really “alive” and “whole” is part of why he gravitated towards decadence and indulgence, anything that made his heart beat faster.

The episode where we get the famous “Long may I reign” scene definitely covers a lot of his favorite indulgences. But as much as he loves being spoiled, I think he also likes making sure the people he cares about are pampered like royalty too. Taliesin mentioned before that the reason Molly likes gold so much is because he’s got this very childish perception that money is Good because you can use it to get Nice Things that make other people Happy. Since Molly’s been alive for only two years, I feel like a lot of his guilty pleasures actually stem from this sort of sentiment. The fact that he’s still so young and everything in the world is very new and exciting and he just wants to be as happy as possible--and make his loved ones happy too. It’s a very endearingly innocent sort of view.

11.) Bad or petty habits

Hmmm I feel like the one thing that makes Molly the pettiest is when someone tries to tell him his tarot readings are bullshit lmao. Even if he mostly thinks so himself, he adamantly refuses to hear it from anyone else.

13.) What gets them flustered

I think whenever someone is being very genuine and having a real heart to heart with him. Molly is perfectly at ease talking bullshit or telling pretty lies. He’s also very comfortable being very sincere and compassionate when it comes to comforting others, like the little ways he’s always trying to cheer up Jester, the forehead kiss for Caleb, promising Fjord the Nein won’t let him die, bringing Yasha a four-leaf-clover with the wish that one day she’ll feel happier.

But whenever people are openly affectionate and trying to have an honest conversation with him? I think that makes him tense up and panic a bit. He’s not good with letting himself be vulnerable, dropping his showman’s performance. We actually see a lot of this when Molly is resurrected and starts going by Kingsley. He knows he has feelings for the Nein, but he’s definitely a little nervous and overwhelmed when he confronts that.

Several times, Caleb assures King he’s still welcome in the Nein, and that always makes Kingsley either defensive or very quiet, keeps catching him off-guard. “Well for starters, you are with friends.” “Perhaps this is your first time meeting us. It's our second time...Stick with us.” “We have a habit of taking in strays.” “This is the newest member of the band.” Being accepted just like that, loved by all the Nein so unconditionally, just like that? I think it leaves him a little shaken, because he doesn’t feel like he’s done anything to earn it. Like he doesn’t deserve to be this missed and wanted and loved.

14.) Ingrained habits/forces of habit

I think there are some nights where he keeps looking over his shoulder and feels like he’s being watched--when the Eyes of Nine start to itch and burn, when it feels like something’s crawling under his skin--and he looks at the mirror and swears he sees a face that looks just the same but somehow isn’t his. And for a while after he first wakes--and again when he’s resurrected--I think there are still moments when he’s scared or panicked and he’ll just keep repeating Empty over and over.

I also really like how Taliesin used to just pick a random card from his tarot deck to decide what Molly should do. I can definitely see Mollymauk doing something similar--just pulling a random card from his deck on a whim, trusting it’ll lead him in the right direction.

15.) What it takes to make them cry

I feel like Molly rarely cries, mainly because he hates feeling sorry for himself or ruminating on any bad memories. He’s kinda funny that way; he refuses to let himself be unhappy, especially when he feels like he’s always living on borrowed time. The one thing I can see really making him break down is seeing his loved ones hurting--he literally spits at the face of his own death, but I think he’s really terrified of losing someone else.

If there’s one scene where I can really see Molly crying, it’s when Jester falls in that final battle. When Caleb makes this desperate plea that breaks through to Molly for a single heart-wrenching moment, “You’re killing her, you’re killing her! You love her. You’re killing her!” The absolute horror of that shakes Lucien’s control for just a moment, and Molly claws at his own face in retaliation. You can just tell how much his heart is breaking just then, how scared he is, how much he must hate himself. I could definitely imagine Molly shedding a few tears right then, if he had enough control of the body to do it.

Having to watch Lucien use his body to kill Jester and Caleb, the amount of pain Lucien caused Yasha and all the others, the nightmares of his death and black chains that forever haunt him after--I think those are the kinds of things that would bring Molly to tears in his lowest moments. And when he finally reads Beau’s book and finds out about how Yasha suffered a similar fate under Obann? Yeah, I think he’d get choked up over that too.

21.) Turning points in their life

Oh, there’s so many interesting twists and turns Molly’s life takes in just a few short years. Undoubtably, I think every life, death, and rebirth left the biggest impact. The fact that he woke all alone that first time--and then found himself surrounded by so many loved ones a lifetime later--I think that had a profound impact on his sense of self worth and his attachment to others.

That first life, Molly convinces himself that he must have been someone awful before, to have been left alone in an unmarked grave on the side of the road. With no one who missed or mourned him. He believes he somehow deserves that fate. And when he’s taken in by the circus? Taliesin mentions he never spends more than 24 hours alone. He’s...very lonely, I think. Someone who can’t bear to be isolated again. So when he wakes up again to a whole family of people who love him? Who welcome him wholeheartedly and insist they’ll love him unconditionally, no matter who he is? It’s beautiful, and it means the world to someone like Mollymauk/Kingsley. “I’m looking forward to the future. And I hope to deserve to have woken up surrounded by such people.”

Molly’s also mentioned that it was the Moonweaver who helped guide him when he first woke, who gave him comfort in having a new start in life. “Can you imagine what it would feel like to not feel anything about anything that had happened to you so far?...It’s very freeing. It’s the best thing--It’s the thing that happened to me. It’s not the best thing that happened to me, it’s the thing that happened to me. I found peace in building a new person. The Moonweaver--” However he came to worship the Moonweaver, I think it was definitely one of the most formative experiences in all his lives. I also like to headcanon the woman in a red coat Molly/King met in his dream was another visit from the Moonweaver, and she was either trying to return his memories or offer him another chance at a fresh start.

22.) People who’ve influenced them greatly

Oh, pre-campaign I think Molly modeled a lot of his behaviors and mannerisms after others in the circus, especially Gustav. He’s the one who named Mollymauk and presumably the one who spent the most time raising him and caring for him in that Empty period.

Molly has his own set of morals he feels very strongly about, and it’s entirely learned from the circus, “Things came back quick, and the circus helped. They were good people. They did a lot for me, and joy can fill an awful lot of a person’s life.” “I may be a liar, but I’m never a betrayer. I’m honest in my work and I believe in doing a good turn...I stayed with that circus for two years, and I know how people treat each other. It’s important.” When Molly is resurrected again, I think all of the Mighty Nein have very much the same effect on him.

#i just...love this little tief a whole lot

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pixelsandpins · 3 years

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One of the Best Romances Ever Written is From an Action RPG

Because of my job(s) and the genre of game I write in, I consume an absolute unnecessary amount of romance. Sometimes willingly, sometimes as an adjunct to a larger story. And I often find that the placement of the romance in the latter condition creates a genuinely more effective emotional investment than one in which the romance is the central theme. Oh, Ashe, so you’ve got something poignant and insightful to say about the human condition and how the footprint of an inter-social narrative conveys the ways in which we, as people, desire to connect and experience the world?

No, I simply finished Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (the first time playing the trilogy stem to stern since Mass Effect 3 came out), and it left me with too many emotions to process on my own. So YOU get to do it with me.

I’m not sorry.

…

Okay a little sorry.

Because this is about Garrus Vakarian and Commander Shepard.

A Strong Core of Platonic Affection

The key to the ShepKarian romance is a deep and unwavering friendship built on mutual respect. Shepard doesn’t even move with romantic intention until halfway through the second game. At this point, as a pair, they’ve survived waves upon waves of AI soldiers, a galaxy altering event, a particle beam right through their ship, Shepard’s literal death and resurrection, a reunification in a mercenary combat hot zone, and about a hundred existential quandaries. Just prior to flirting with him properly the first time, Shepard prevents him from killing a man in revenge by refusing to leave the scope of his sniper rifle. These two are equals. She’s technically his commanding officer, but they are on the same footing in every way that matters. More importantly, they’re friends. They’re comrades. And those are the building blocks of a good romantic relationship.

And when it is time to start moving into romance? There’s no frustrating will-they-won’t-they (that we all know becomes a “they will” at the press of a button). No tiptoeing around with awkwardly built up sexual tension.

“Hey, Garrus, we should bang.”

“Okay. Sounds good, Shep. Let me go Google how we do that.”

“That’s not romantic!” you scream.

I don’t know? Maybe it’s not? But you know what it is? Perfectly sensible for these absolute idiots. They live bullet to bullet, catastrophe to catastrophe. There’s no time for “tee hee I like you, let’s smooch, maybe.”

No.

These are adults who have had adult relationships in the past and are facing down the possibility of their own death at every corner. They’re literally preparing for a suicide mission where one of them could actually die, in-game, if you don’t set things up the right way. They know what the hell is up, and they act on it without reservation or hesitation. They know what they want, and they’re going for it. Done. Deal.

Ludonarrative Harmony

You also can’t ignore the integral part the interactivity of video games play in the narrative development of their relationship. Shepard and Garrus don’t exist as passive characters that interact with each other in a set way. You, as the player, are Shepard, and from a meta-game perspective, you have to build a balanced team. Garrus, it so happens, is a mechanically well-rounded character, so there’s a high likelihood you’ll be bringing him on to your team for a large number of missions. He also appears early in the story in all three games (a slight advantage over Tali’Zorah, who despite appearing in all three games, as well, tends to be recruitable later). These things combined mean there’s a lot of time available for you, as a player and, therefore, Shepard as a character, to spend with the turian C-Sec agent/mercenary/military adviser.

Garrus becomes an active participant in the ever forward development of Shepard’s own personal arc. It’s not just scene to scene, passive elements in a romance on rails. They’re dodging gunfire together. Riding elevators together. Providing pithy, sarcastic commentary together. Their romance isn’t just about being together. It’s about saving the galaxy together.

The Pallor of Doom

And, okay, yeah, if you know what happens at the end, it’s like…okay then if it’s doomed from the start, what’s the point? And even if you don’t know what happens at the end, all three games go out of their way to make sure you’re aware how fragile the bonds holding up that sword of Damocles are at all times. But that looming specter of death is diegetic. It’s not just the audience lamenting with pre-broken heart that this romance has a dramatic expiry date. Garrus and Shepard know. They can wish for it. Hope for a future that expands out into the unknown infinity. But they know the odds, the real chances, that one of them won’t be coming out the other side. From the first proper I love you at the top of the Citadel to the last one at the base of the Reaper teleport beam, they always knew that they were living, and loving, on borrowed time.

But it didn’t matter.

Because a finite number of days being in that love was worth it when the alternative was never having it at all.

I think I need to go lie down, again.

#mass effect #monday blog #writing #game development #game writing #shepard x garrus #shepkarian

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littlefoxwithbighat · 3 years

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Hi! This is talking about the plot of the dream smp in a meta sense and its a bit negative. The person behind this blog wants to remind you that you can skip if it's not for you and they still love the SMP. :)

ALL DISCUSSION IS ABOUT CHARACTERS. DON'T ATTACK CCS OR I WILL STEAL YOUR KNEECAPS.

I can't lie; I'm really annoyed and worried at the way the writers are handling Tommys character at the moment, and am increasingly concerned about it messing up the plot.

I wasn't very happy with the finale. I don't think that means all is lost, I think they can pull it back but it's going to take some work. I was worried about the way that things were handled before but the green festival was actually very well handled, so my worries were mostly assuaged. But yesterday? I don't know.

The fact nobody lost a cannon death is kind of disappointing. The weight of blowing up an entire city/ (country?) brutally is somewhat lost if there is no human loss. Nobody was hurt physically and the only people this had a big mental impact on was Tommy and Tubbo, everyone else wasn't very attached to L'manburg or had gone rogue, or were detatched from the while situation. And maybe it's the fact it's happened to them before or that they still have each other or that it seems odd/ frustrating that they still care so much about this place or that it was always a losing battle and they knew it, but I dont find myself really pitying them like I probably should. And I think that comes down to character growth or lack thereof, which I'll discuss later.

Niki and Fundy have started a villain arc, or at least a violent nihilism arc, and I actually don't mind it, in fact I'm a fan but it wasnt really foreshadowed, or really just showing them cracking as much as it should have been. I would guess this has mostly been started for both of them to tie Niki into the plot and I can't blame her for wanting that. Fundys acting is very good, and I REALLY hope the writers handle this well. For Fundy, regarding the fact that his father is going to be resurrected and that Fundy is following in his footsteps... If the writers don't realise that connection and make this a big step in Fundys narrative I will scream. Also Funboo bros are very interesting character foils and I hope their relationship is maintained so that they can play of off each other and also man I just really want them to keep being friends, it's a generally positive healthy relationship that makes both characters sympathetic and we need that right now. As for Niki, her character motivations seem to be mostly centered around Tommy and on the one hand I'm like ehhhh, because Tommy's character already gets a disproportionate amount of attention in terms of narrative, and I get it, but recently he's been a bit TOO much of the protagonist for a multi-person POV improve server... and I'm apprehensive. However on the other hand this has potential for a nice confrontation between Tommy and Niki. If that happens I want Tommy to be aware that this is going to happen and not talk over Niki, and I don't want it to be brushed over. I think it would be best if it was just the two of them. This also gives a nice chance for Tommy to examine his trauma with Dream and explain his motivations and Niki to get her anger out. I also want it to end positively, because it absolutely can and lack of communication when the viewer knows how to fix it is OK as a plot device sometimes but incredibly frustrating if it keeps happening (cough, Tommy and Techno).

Ranboo is reacting to the plot amazingly and I have as usual only praise for him, go, you funky enderman boy, go.

Wilbur is getting resurrected which is a thousand percent because Will wants the plot back and honestly I don't really mind, I think he'll do a good job. However I really hope he speaks to everybody about their characters, particularly Fundy, Ranboo and Niki because I don't want their characterisation and arcs to be thrown away.

Tubbo is doing very well, and I don't have many complaints to be honest. I hope he continues to get in with the acting with no shame, because he's an amazing VA when he wants to be, but sometimes he undercuts serious moments a little too much by laughing. Same criticism for Phil actually. But both are doing good.

On the theme of that, while I don't mind tension relievers or humour in serious moments there are sometimes too many. It was a lot worse about a month back and it was improving, but it seems to be creeping back in and ehhh. It's kind of Marvel-esque and not in a good way? I think it has a lot to do with bloopers and for some reason there are loads at the moment? Like Wilburs arc had almost none and this arc there's at least 2 every moment. Which isn't always their fault but maybe they need to take more steps to prevent them.

Techno is doing OK, he's quite a meta character so I'm not too mad about him undercutting serious moments but sometimes he does do it too much or in the wrong place. Like making jokes about Connor completely over the top of Tommy and Tubbos reunion, you know an event which has been foreshadowed for yoinks, prevented them from getting a proper flow going and kind of ruined it. And that made the reunion really dissapointing, which is a shame because it could have been so cool. However his characterisation is consistent and dedicated, his goals and relationships are clear and he's getting humanised more which is nice, and his monologues are great. I'm curious to see what he does now NL'M is gone but I have total faith in him.

Now Tommy. Oh Tommy. His character is such a mess at the moment, which is a shame because there were moments I saw people doubting his character choices and I was behind him.

Firstly the relationship with Techno fell apart. That was inevitable. Tommy didn't care about anarchy and Techno didn't care about the discs and both of their goals would impede the others. But the way Tommy talks about Techno is so... No? And now I understand that Tommy is going to have a biased perspective on the whole situation, and that's fine and good, but his character is so wrong about Techno it feels weird and painful? Like even from his perspective it went down differently to how he talks about it. They don't listen to each other and it's like watching two people scream at a wall.

The issue is the relationship was fairly well developed. I struggle to see Tommy saying he saw Techno as a friend but Techno never saw him as a friend because hold on, what? Techno, here's a respiration helmet because of that one of thing you told me about your trauma, a disc because those make you happy, plus top tier armour and weaponry, plus I'm going to spend time with you, calm you down from panic attacks, hide you and protect you from Dream, let you wander around L'manburg and achieve your own goals and help you plan things out Techno and Tommy didn't get ANYTHING from that? Plus after Techno opens up about his goals and his trauma, do the one thing that would hurt him the most, (use and then betray him) and then directly oppose his goals after he helped me? Ugh. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I know he would never let Tubbo get hurt and thats fine, but there were ways around that. If you're framing this character as the protagonist, then he needs to be sympathetic or at least grow and Tommy using Techno again without remorse and then refusing to listen to his perspective or show any gratitude for anything makes it difficult for viewers to empathise with him in my opinion. Have him betray Techno and then listen to Techno when he explains why Tommys betrayal hurt him and apologise, fine. Have him listen to Techno and try and find a way to keep Tubbo safe regardless, fine. Have him betray Techno but apologetically and still trying to avoid Techo getting crushed or killed, fine. But THIS? Im sympathetic towards Tommys character but this throws away so much potential character development for Tommy, where at least he saw Techno as a person, and not only that but a nice person who despite everything has set aside everything to help him? And then for him to be exactly where he was at the end of season 1, both literally, and emotionally ? I understand this is a child soldier with trauma but this is supposed to be our protagonist and if he doesn't grow, and isn't sympathetic and destroys someone we care about, how can we root for him?

Now all of this could be forgivable, not great, but forgivable, if Tommy had moved on from the discs. The Goddamn Discs™. And the worse part is all the dominoes were lined up to suggest he had! We had his moment of "he watched me" where he realised Dream was the villain and controlling him, "I've become worse than everyone I hated" good, amazing, I see where this is going, "The discs were worth more than you ever were!" and then he retracts and apologises and you think horray! Tommy has realised the discs were being used to control him and if he doesn't care about them, they hold no value! Now he's going to realise that his friends are more important and he's going to stop going after the discs. His new character motivation can be killing Dream and protecting his friends, especially Tubbo. It's clearly angled this way, and this way the plot progresses and Tommy with it. What marvellous character development. Look at him go.

And THEN, after everything that's happened he says the most important thing is the disc and I want them back!?!? EH !!? Why... Who... Who gave the OK on that writing decision? That's so static and boring and unsympathetic! And then he's back to asking people do fight for L'manburg? What?

I'll be honest I was kind go hoping either Tommy or Tubbo would die with L'manburg. I didn't mind it they didn't, there are a thousand ways to make the plot work without them dying, but this was not a great one.

PLEASE let Tommy have some growth. Yes he's had some from not caring about L'manburg to fighting for it in season one, but that was ages ago and he doesnt seem to have changed since then in any way that really counts. And I know this is harsh and he's traumatised but you have to understand I am talking about this in a sense of characters and narrative and NOT in terms of real life. Tommy needs to be better and dynamic because he is a charcacter and I want him to be a good one.

Having said all that, here are my thoughts on the future of the SMP.

Firstly, I am worried that becuse it is such a good source of content, especially for Tommy that they will never ever kill his character and leave him fighting with Dream for eternity. And I love the Dream SMP but I've seen stories that get dragged out for plot or content, and however much you think you want it to never end, let me tell you, yes you do. It will get stale and repetitive and I want the dream smp, or at least Tommys arc to go out with a beautiful and brilliant and fabulous plot ending instead of being dragged into the dirt. And then maybe new characters take the spotlight. Just please god give it a goode ending.

I also really hope they don't throw other things away to make Tommy the centre of attention, especially if it's destructive to the plot, or kind of weird and obnoxious.

Secondly, I am intrigued about the prison and Schlatts book to Dream and Technos favour and the egg and what that entails and I hope they really think through those plot points carefully and make them work, and don't forget them or throw them away.

Thirdly, I am intrigued for Wilburs return and hope that he manages to fix it cohesively without too crazy a change of pace and style and keeping characters (especially Ranboo and Fundy and Niki) consistent.

I hope they prep for the future and think things thought and communicate with each other.

It might be interesting to see other countries finally discussed but I don't know how much that would intefere with other plot points so we'll see.

That's all! Reminder that this is about characters and plot and this is just a few criticisms. I love the dream smp, but there are somethings I wanted to get of my chest. Please be respectful and feel free to discuss in the notes. Also, again, no hate to any CCs!

#mcyt #mcytumblr #dream smp theories #dream smp analysis #dream smp #dream smp spoilers #dream smp meta #tommy mcyt #negativity #negativity tw #dream smp plot

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dweetwise · 4 years

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day 21: i don’t feel so well

prompt from: whumptober pairing: felix x ace notes: the hanahaki au nobody asked for. i’m still a little confused about the trope but i tried <3 warnings: descriptions of illness, injury and blood, temporary character death word count: 3130

“That was awesome! She didn't stand a chance!” Steve cheers.

“That's what she gets for camping. What a bitch!” Nea laughs

Ace grins despite the pain, steadying himself against Jeff's sturdy form while the four of them are making their way back to the campfire after a successful trial.

His head is swimming and there's blood staining his teeth, his back stinging from numerous bloody gashes from the killer's katana. But he's alive, even if he had to crawl out through the exit, his teammates not letting the Spirit secure the kill on him.

When they get back to camp, Steve and Nea are off to spin the tale of their rescue to the others, and Ace can't help but smile when they generously color the experience; just like he would.

Jeff supports him to sit down against one of the logs, offering a somewhat awkward "There you go, buddy" in encouragement.

Ace sees Quentin hand Claudette one of his med-kits and then the group's resident healer approaches him with determined steps.

“Hey, sweetheart—” Ace starts with a grin.

“Stalling isn't going to work,” Claudette shoots him down quickly, seeing right through his act. So Ace sighs dramatically and shrugs off his jacket, and the girl immediately hikes up his shirt to start cleaning the wounds on his back.

Ace hisses from the sting of some kind of alcohol, turning his attention back to the others to try to distract himself from the pain.

Most of the others are listening to to Steve's and Nea's story while the rest are scattered around camp, doing their own things. Kate is tuning her guitar, Jake is stocking one of his toolboxes, and Cheryl seems to be practicing the card trick Ace taught her a couple of days ago.

And then there's Felix.

Finally giving himself permission to look at the handsome German, Ace's heart immediately starts beating faster. He's not even doing anything, just sitting by the fire engrossed in a conversation with Zarina, but Ace is so infatuated even just Felix breathing is almost enough to make him blush.

He thought he was too old for schoolboy crushes like these, but then again how could he not fancy Felix? The guy has some absolutely god-tier genes, a chiseled face and ice blue eyes and a body to die for. He’s also smart, and sophisticated, and filthy rich.

And god knows none of those qualities had ever been Ace's strong suit.

At first Ace had thought his hyperfixation on the man was jealousy, but then his body showed him that was definitely not the case; he didn't want to be Felix, he wanted to be in Felix. The realization didn't phase him as much as it maybe should have, because even the straight-as-a-board Ash had commented on Felix's good looks. And Ace sure as hell wasn't even straight to begin with.

No, his panic had come from when he'd caught himself looking at couples like Jeff and Adam being mushy together and imagined himself and Felix in their place.

Ace had a healthy amount of confidence, though the others might not describe it that kindly, but he wasn't blind. Felix was younger than him, maybe not by an impossible amount but still enough to be noticeable. He was also model-tier gorgeous with a body to match, and while Ace wasn't bad-looking he also had a crooked nose and a build solely used for drinking and gambling.

All in all, he recognized when someone was out of his league, and even though he couldn't resist a cheeky flirt ever now and then, he knew his feelings would never be returned.

But he still allowed himself to look; sue him.

He's in the middle of an indulgent daydream about laying his head on Felix's lap like Kate is doing to Yui on the other side of camp, all the while effortlessly keeping up small talk with Claudette tending to his wounds.

And then he starts coughing.

It's not a normal dry cough, it wracks his entire body and keeps going, and he curls in on himself because damn it’s making his throat hurts and his lungs ache something fierce.

“Ace, what's wrong?” Claudette's worried voice cuts through the attack. He tries to reply but it just makes him cough more, and it's not stopping—

Something slimy lands in the palm he's using to cover his mouth and then he can breathe again, taking sharp gasps of air while his throat tingles from the abuse.

He looks at whatever piece of his organs he managed to cough up, the Spirit's blade probably having rearranged some of his guts. He opens his hand and sees—

A flower?

It's absolute covered in blood, but there's no mistaking it, a single flower sitting in the palm of his hand with some loose petals surrounding it.

Why did he cough up a flower? Where did he even get it? It looks like some sort of cherry blossom, a far cry from the Entity's pustulas or the forest bouquets they pick and use for offerings.

“Are you okay?" Claudette asks, moving to kneel beside him in worry. When she sees the flower, she gasps in surprise.

“What happened?” Meg is quick to join her friend, coming up behind Ace to peer over his shoulder. “Uh… did that flower come out of you?”

“I… guess so?” Ace says, his voice raspy and throat protesting being used.

“So you just, like… ate it? Before?” Steve cocks his head in confusion.

“Come on now, I'm not that stupid,” Ace snorts, some of his worry giving way to amusement over the incredulous situation.

“Then what the hell was that?” Meg asks, scrunching her face up in thought while poking at the gross flower.

“I’m pretty sure I know what’s wrong,” Adam raises his voice from across camp, straightening his back when all eyes turn to him. “It’s an illness, I recognize the symptoms."

“Can't say I've ever heard of a disease that makes you barf petals,” Ash offers, clearly skeptical, and Ace shares the sentiment.

“Shh, hear him out!” Laurie scolds.

"It's a Japanese folk story,” Adam explains. “Flowers start growing in a person's lungs, causing coughing and bleeding and..." he hesitates.

“Well?” Meg demands.

"And ultimately resulting in death, unless the condition is cured," Adam says grimly.

“Are you talking about hanahaki?” Yui pipes up before anyone can question the weird statement. “You know that's just a shojo manga trope, right?”

“It's also mentioned in historical literature,” Adam argues, though from the way he refuses to meet Yui's gaze, he seems to be embarrassed over the subject.

“Dude, nobody cares if you read girl comics, just tell us what the cure is,” Feng snorts, and that's probably the most concern Ace has ever seen her display over his well-being.

“It's—” Adam starts, before faltering, awkwardly scratching at his neck while looking at the ground. “Supposedly caused by unrequited love.”

There's dead silence in the camp.

And then Nea bursts out laughing.

“Jesus, what a story!” the tagger snickers. “Can you imagine Ace as a fairytale princess?”

“Honey, I think you might have gotten some myths mixed up,” Jeff says diplomatically, patting Adam's knee affectionately.

“Yeah, you probably just inhaled a flower in your sleep or something,” Steve encourages Ace.

“I'm pretty sure this is just a practical joke from our dear spidery overlord,” Ace chuckles and pointedly doesn't look Felix's way. Come next trial, his injuries will have healed anyway, including the weird burn in his lungs.

But they don’t.

Trial after trial, the Entity resurrects him and heals all of his wounds but the coughing persists, more and more flowers following.

Even the others are getting worried.

“That's it, bud,” Ash offers, patting his back while Ace is wheezing for breath after coughing up some more petals. “It's just a weird flu, you'll be good as new soon.”

“At least the flowers go with my shirt,” Ace jokes, voice reduced to a rasp, clearing his throat. “Pink was always my color.”

He's trying to keep his and the others' spirits high, since there doesn't seem to be anything they can do to fix the situation.

“We need to do something,” Ace hears Laurie hiss to Dwight, apparently disagreeing with his sentiment.

“B-but how can we even help him?” their leader, bless his heart, looks genuinely upset over Ace's condition.

“Maybe we should try Adam's suggestion," Laurie says.

“Yeah, except you know he wouldn’t tell us even if he did like someone,” Yui huffs from beside them. “Good luck getting an answer out of a compulsive liar.”

Ouch, but also fair. Ace sure as hell isn't going to reveal his dumb little crush, especially since Felix has avoided him since this entire goddamn flower thing started. He knows there's only a slim chance that Felix realizes what's really going on, but it still feels like rejection nonetheless.

He can deal with this. Even if it kills him, the Entity will just bring him back anyway. It's not even that bad.

But then it gets so much worse.

After a week, Ace is laying on his side while black spots dance around in his vision and he struggles to draw enough wheezy breaths into his lungs. His chest hurts, and his throat is so sore even just the air passing through burns like fire. He hasn't been able to speak in days, and that's almost worse than the pain, not being able to use his only coping mechanism of running his mouth until something sticks to lighten the mood.

His head is cushioned on Kate's thigh and he gets a tiny bit of satisfaction from the knowledge that at least he managed to lay in one pretty blonde's lap before dying, even if it’s the wrong one. The touch is comforting nonetheless, though the fact that it’s accompanied by Kate's girlfriend practically screaming in his ear kind of puts a damper on the whole thing.

“I swear to god, I will make every single person in this camp kiss you, do not test me,” Yui threatens, one of the few who haven't given up on curing him. “Is it Jane? Bill?”

If Ace had the energy, he'd probably laugh about her choices, curious as to why those two were the ones she picked. As it stands, he merely stares at her, wondering if his eyes look as dull and lifeless as he feels.

“He's going to die,” Jake says from somewhere to his side, but Ace doesn't even bother turning his head or denying the statement. Hurried voices shush the saboteur while Kate starts humming a melody to distract him, Yui glaring absolute daggers in Jake’s general direction.

His next trial, Jake's prediction comes true.

Ace collapses to the ground in the midst of a coughing fit. The flowers are growing even bigger now, he can feel them tearing at his throat and vocal cords, retching when they trigger his gag reflex on their way out. His vision blurs and then goes black, body finally giving up as the illness consumes him.

He's not even injured from the killer, but the pool of blood he falls into is big enough to cover the entire side of his face. He lays there, not sure if he's even breathing, just thankful that the awful coughing has stopped for at least a moment.

When he comes to, he expects the small comfort of the campfire before he has to go through the same thing again. Instead, he doesn't have enough energy to even open his eyes, slowly realizing he's still in the trial.

It takes him even longer to realize he's being held partly off of the ground, his body hanging limply in someone’s grasp. He idly wonders if a killer is going to mercy hook him, but then he hears something.

Crying.

Focusing on the sound, Ace realizes he's not just being lifted, he's being held in someone's arms. Someone is holding his near-dead body and crying.

With both his mind and body broken from suffering for so long, he allows himself to imagine it's Felix, even though he knows it's not true. Felix has shown he doesn't care, not talking to him and being so grossed out by his symptoms he’s barely even looked at him—

“Das tut mir leid,” is whispered against his hair, and Ace wonders if he's hallucinating or if his brain has given up on speech comprehension, because that sounded an awful lot like German.

Suddenly, he gains some of his strength back, his chest not feeling nearly as tight as it has for the past few days.

“Felix?” Ace asks, and even though it comes out as a raspy whisper, it's impossible to miss in the stillness of the quiet moment. The surprised hitch of breath he gets in response sounds impossibly loud, and he manages to blink awake just enough to see the tear-streaked, wide-eyed face of the person he never thought he could have.

And that's when the Entity decides he's bled on the ground long enough and he blacks out from blood loss.

When Ace comes to, he's no longer in pain. He can breathe. And he wants nothing more than to get back to camp and be reassured that he wasn't imagining Felix being there for him in his final moments.

He runs to the campfire, panting from exertion once he's illuminated by the familiar glow and shocked faces turn to look at him.

“What the—did you run here!?” Meg exclaims incredulously.

“Yeah,” Ace says, eyes scanning the small crowd of familiar faces, so focused on finding a particular one he doesn't even realize the implications of managing to speak without issue.

“Your voice!” Kate exclaims happily, and Ace pauses to collect some of his thoughts.

“Shit, you're right,” he says, a smile tugging on his lips for the first time in what feels like weeks.

“Welcome back, you bastard!” Nea cheers and flings herself at him in a sideways hug, and Ace stumbles to catch himself from falling, chuckling at her antics.

Claudette is sobbing, looking impossibly relieved, and the others are cheering among themselves, though Ace can't make out the contents because he sees a familiar figure making its way to camp and his entire world zones in on that person.

Felix looks up at the sound of the commotion, and Ace's heart breaks a little over how puffy his eyes still look, but then their eyes meet and Felix looks so hopeful—

“Hey,” Ace says, and it probably gets drowned out by the others, but Felix's eyes widen in recognition and he starts walking faster.

“Are you…?” Felix asks, close enough for Ace to hear him over the others shouting.

“He's fixed!” Nea answers for him, finally letting go of the almost painful hug in favor of smacking Ace on the back encouragingly.

Felix glances at Nea but quickly looks back at Ace, waiting for confirmation.

“Yeah, I… guess I'm cured,” Ace says, and it almost feels weird to hear his own voice again. “Or... You know, I hope so.”

Because he's still not sure about Felix's feelings, and he has no idea where they're going to go from here.

But he doesn't need to worry, because Felix's face lights up in a way he's never seen before, letting out a disbelieving, genuine laugh. And then he's stepping forward and cupping his cheek and Ace only has time to blink in confusion before his head is tilted up into a kiss.

“Woah,” Ace hears Nea exclaim, her hand leaving his back like burned. “This, uh… this is new.”

Ace smiles into the kiss and tunes out the rest of her and the others’ surprised babbling, grabbing Felix by the collar of his dress shirt and pulling him deeper into the kiss.

When neither of them are making a move to pull away, their friends seem to be getting fidgety from the show.

“Why don’t we go for a stroll in the woods?” Kate suggests, and the chorus of “Sure!” “Great idea!” and “Oh fuck yes get me out of here” that follow are enough for a laugh to bubble up in Ace’s throat and get swallowed by Felix’s mouth.

When the last pair of footsteps have hurried away, Felix deems it appropriate to finally break away from the kiss. Though he doesn’t go far, burying his head into the crook of Ace’s neck and shoulder and wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug.

“Welcome back,” Felix murmurs against his skin, and the warm affection spreading through Ace’s chest is a welcome change from the constant pain he’s been in for way too long.

“Didn’t expect such a thorough welcome,” Ace can’t resist flirting, hands sneaking up to rest on Felix’s incredibly firm back. The chuckle he gets in return reverberates through both of their bodies due to how close they are, and Ace wonders if Felix can hear his heart frantically beating in excitement.

“I’m… shit,” Felix eventually sighs, lifting his head to meet Ace’s eyes. “I don’t know how to make up for being an idiot. I just watched you suffer and didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay,” Ace says, but now he’s curious. “Why did you avoid me?”

“Because I was afraid that I'd get the illness too,” Felix says, looking at the ground in shame. “I thought any one of us could get it, and because of how I feel about you… I was scared I was next.”

The confirmation that Felix had feelings for him even before this whole clusterfuck started is enough to make more butterflies dance in Ace’s gut, a flush creeping up his neck over how the other is openly spilling his heart.

“If I’d have known I was the one causing it, I would have done something sooner. I’m so sorry," Felix murmurs, looking at him with sad puppy eyes.

“Hey, it's not like I was being very cooperative,” Ace points out, giving his most encouraging smile. “It's not your fault, it's the dumb flower sickness.”

“I'm sorry you had to go through that, regardless,” Felix frowns. “But… I'm glad it lead us here,” he adds with a bashful smile that makes Ace’s heart do a couple leaps.

“Figures the best and worst things of my life would happen simultaneously,” Ace flirts, and apparently Felix enjoys being called the best thing in his life, because his sappy smile widens even further.

Ace can’t resist diving in for another taste, capturing smiling lips in a kiss that lasts even longer than the first one and makes their friends groan and complain about “Geez, you’re still going?” when they rejoin them at the campfire.

#whumptober2020 #no.21 #i don't feel so well #dead by daylight #fic #blood tw #death tw #riconti #ace visconti #felix richter #dweetwrites #dbd #dbd fanfic #prompt #felix x ace #illness cw #vomiting tw

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gofancyninjaworld · 4 years

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OPM Revised Manga chapters 99 - 100 Review: Not today, Satan

Hoo hoo hoo. When Murata said he had a bit of work to do for the volume, we had no idea just how extensive it was! There isn’t a single chapter appearing in volume 22 that hasn’t been edited or reworked. And the mighty struggle between Child Emperor and Phoenixman has changed unrecognisably! Shall we go?

A bit of a difference, yes

Story: forget what you thought you knew

The first change comes nearly right away. Rather than leaving Waganma behind, Child Emperor keeps him in Brave Giant’s backpack, freeing both hands to fight. The fight between Phoenixman and Brave Giant is interesting, but it’s much lighter going than before for a very specific reason: the monster sees a connection between himself and Child Emperor and is hoping to keep the costume the hero is wearing intact so he can recruit a fellow costumed monster.

And now it gets freaky. Phoenixman can summon another costume-wearer to a timeless spiritual space in which they can talk. Don’t ask me how! Phoenixman latches onto Child Emperor’s desire to find someplace where he’s trusted and his efforts are appreciated right away, coming terrifyingly close to converting him into a monster -- until he harshes the vibe with a terrible name for the monster he’d like Child Emperor to become. It made my skin crawl, how close he came.

what a terrifying monster! Had he stopped speaking with the above words, he’d have created a monster indeed!

They resume fighting, and eventually Child Emperor smashes him through the floor as in the previous versions, which doesn’t have the effect of killing him so he can reincarnate. Instead, it ‘just’ launches them both through several floors, through the lake of death, and down lower still. The water sweeps Saitama along as well, and all of them fetch up in a charnel house, where all the dead Subterraneans have ended up.

Phoenixman makes a second attempt to persuade Child Emperor. This time he gets closer, sowing seeds of doubt about the goodness of the Hero Association higher-ups into Child Emperor’s head quite directly -- there’s no need for them to talk. Whatever it is he reveals to the boy, it is quite grisly. Thankfully, the spell is broken by Saitama who just bashes into their spiritual realm to declare his disapproval of what the monster is doing, which breaks the spell.

no traumatising children on my watch! Trouble is, Child Emperor isn’t going to forget whatever it is that he’s been told -- this is going to be trouble later.

Just as they snap back to the real world, another wonderful intervention occurs. Zombieman calls, ostensibly to tell Child Emperor about his speculation about the possibility of the Monster Association using the Metal Knight to build robots of their own proving right, but really to thank and encourage him. Giving him the very thing he’d been so desperate to hear from the start.

Since he’d been unable to persuade Child Emperor to turn into a monster spontaneously, Phoenixman tried the other way: by dropping a monster cell into the machine so that all the boy had to do would be to take a bite. It’s a good thing that monster cells cannot work unless they’re consumed of one’s own free will. Despite the pressure being applied to him by the monster cell trying to crawl into his mouth, the zombies trying to tear Brave Giant apart, and Brave Giant’s own time limit, Child Emperor holds firm and finds at heart what’s really important: that heroism is an inner quality, not an external one.

And then the true nature of Phoenixman comes out:

don’t be fooled: you can only trust a monster to be a monster

In keeping with his inner self-reliance, Child Emperor destroys Brave Giant himself, immolating the zombies along with it. Phoenixman tries to take advantage of the situation to kill Child Emperor, being fouled by Saitama long enough for the kid to slip a ticklebug into his costume.

I totally wasn’t expecting this to happen as a result!

the most pathetic monster ever -- please nobody kill him in case he can resurrect stronger

I was irrationally pleased to see Underdogman 24 come find his master, still functional enough to get them out of there (with a subtle push from Saitama). On we go!

Okay, Saitama will be back soon to find where the rude monster that tried to grab them en route came from. He still needs to find those noisy neighbours!

Meta: Not today, Satan

I get two big things out of this story.

First, at the beginning of the year, I mused that OPM wasn’t at heart a battle manga. Rather, it was a manga that had battles (link). Core is the relationship between the small jihad (the struggle against external enemies) and the big jihad (the struggle with oneself to be a better person and lead a good life). I’d used Saitama as the examplar of this struggle.

I was a bit (a lot) confused by the changes at first, but I think that fundamentally, the changes are so as to come back to that important inner struggle that so much of OPM is about.

I thought that Child Emperor's struggle is appropriate to a ten-year old. He's old enough not to have blind faith in adults, but young enough to really need good, reliable ones around and to know that his efforts are truly appreciated. It’s been an issue for several chapters now: right from the first time we saw Child Emperor, being told he was still a child was a great way to piss him off.

Phoenixman sensing that, worked so beautifully and sweetly on his insecurities that he seemed almost a friend. Surely no one could resist...

Thankfully, Child Emperor does have good adults in his life, ones who show up when most needed. Saitama shows up in the spiritual world when Child Emperor feels most cornered by Phoenixman’s spiel and lets him know that he sees what’s happening and it’s not okay for Phoenixman to be pressuring a child so -- giving him strength to resist without taking the struggle away from him. Zombieman called to thank him, and let him know that his efforts were seen and appreciated. Reminding him too, that there were adults he looked up to. It’s so awesome to see that even though he’s blindingly smart, Child Emperor still has some things he aspires to be.

ah, how much your divinely-timed words meant, Zombieman!

Previously, Phoenixman had been mocking Child Emperor for being a kid, for being misled by the adults, and had been fascinated by the possibility that he too could get stuck in his costume, but those were secondary themes against a backdrop of the terror of an ever-growing monster that just would not die. Fortunately, this rewrite, Child Emperor could only push Phoenixman to the point of death that first time, so he never got access to those bigger, scarier forms and thus the fight to keep one’s soul human could take primacy.

Too, I think that Saitama’s presence, lending the boy hero a subtle hand when he most needs it, was very important in grounding the story. Rather than being an all-but-perfect person who already had all the answers and has all the toys needed to enact them, Child Emperor may still need a hand, without it being a discredit in any way to his intelligence, determination, courage, or inventiveness. The threat posed to him by Phoenixman is just that potent.

whoops, can’t let you do that -- you won’t be eviscerating children on my watch

Second, the story has gone almost Buddhist about the sin of attachment. So many monsters are about the thing they're obsessed with. Even if it's a good thing (like justice -- eh, Amai Mask?), that attachment is what warps them. Phoenixman refusing to take off his Birdbrain costume because he was so invested in the character he couldn't accept it was over, literally refusing to take it off even if it killed him.

It's putting into context the thing I intuited about monsters (link) -- that they get rid of conflict and regret. It feels good to be a monster. Being human means feeling the pain, the regret, the conflict, accepting loss, and moving on. Monsters don’t have to do that. They get to get all that they want, at the expense of their humanity.

unhealthy attachment -- literally

Other Business

1. The Monster Association really does have scientists. Whether with Machine God G5′s help or not, they’ve wasted no time in finding out how to make Metal Knight-based robots. Thankfully, they’ve also copied the machine’s weak spots and don’t seem to have the super-resistant materials the original would be made of. Still... that’s worrying. Are the minds and hands that worked on this really dead? What else have they learned?

2. It was so wholesome to see Saitama provide support and encouragement to Child Emperor, stepping in whenever the boy was about to be overcome but otherwise letting him use his wits and courage to deal with the situation. How I wish he’d do so for his disciple! It’d mean so much! Even if it’s just to give an encouraging smile.

3. It took me a couple of rereads to see it, but the ninja duo have been strapped to the side of Underdogman 24. Saitama means to collect this bounty! More bbq meat for him.

4. Gosh, it’s going to be positively crowded at the surface! We’ll have two evil ex-zombie monster ninjas, the support heroes, Waganma, Child Emperor, Saitama, the mercenaries and the disciples all having a fresh air party. Doubtless various people will be departing for various locations soon enough, but this should be a fun mix.

5. Saitama is so absurdly over-powerful that even when he does his thing right in front of people, they can’t understand what happened. No wonder he gets no credit.

6. I really, really, really appreciate getting to see more of Waganma’s thoughts. Yes, they’re selfish, but his desire to keep quiet in order to not be plunged back into the hell he’s grateful to be leaving are very understandable! Previously, he’d seemed sociopathic.

7. So Child Emperor thinks that most of his fellow Class S heroes are either evil, evil-looking, evil-acting, or just plain weird? Not nice at all.

he still has some way to go in learning how to not judge by appearance

8. But Zombieman is just wholesome. Especially his promise to treat Child Emperor to milkshake afterwards. Let it happen!

#OPM #manga #meta #review #long #Child Emperor #Phoenixman #Saitama #wow what a chapter #both adventure and spiritualism in one #Zombieman #the distrust planted in Child Emperor isn't going to leave anytime soon #to the loss of everyone #just what things are the HA higher ups up to?#it may not be anywhere near as bad as the monster makes them out to be #but it doesn't have to be for a child to lose faith in them #the story talks about the need for a balance between self-sufficiency and interdependency #alone we cannot easily cope #but if we lean too hard then other things become a crutch

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deans-haunted-baby · 4 years

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Why I don’t think Michael will side with Chuck in the End

I know there’s theories floating around that Michael may have been deceiving the Winchesters in 15x08. Its true we have no idea what his agenda is or if he’s that interested in playing nice with TFW. They did trap him in Hell with their half brother for a long time so he’s not exactly warm & fuzzy about that. However this isn’t the psychotic, sinister version of Michael from the alternate universe nor is he the same steel cold obedient soldier back in 5x22. He’s changed massively. There’s more humanity in him now than he’d like to admit. In spite of what we’ve seen from Michael in the past, I don’t think he’s interested in harming Sam and Dean, at least not currently. And I just can’t see him running to Chuck, not after receiving all that alarming information. So I'm going to present the following reasons for why he probably won’t turn on the boys. Number 1 being the most important. Adam Milligan.

For however it happened the archangel bonded with a human. The formally resurrected 19 yr old illegitimate son of John Winchester. All those years spent in the cage these two managed to forge an understanding between one another; an unusual strong connection. They're friends and allies. Michael listens to and respects Adam’s opinions even if he doesn’t always agree. Allows him freedom to control his own body. And despite being the ruthless warrior that he still is, Michael’s been shown to be much more merciful, patient and compassionate compared to when the boys last faced him. Because of his relationship with Adam, Michael’s developed a newfound appreciation for humanity similar to his aunt Amara aka the Darkness. He truly cares about Adam and protects him. Like at the diner when he smote Lilith for posing a threat. Then instead of killing the witnesses in front of Adam, Michael chooses to spare their lives by erasing their memories. He even defended Adam to the Winchesters further demonstrating that he does consider his feelings. That’s beyond the person he was when he told Dean “Adam isn’t home right now” all those years ago.

So I have no doubt Michael will do what ever means necessary to keep Adam safe from Chuck, who is hell bent on destroying the world which Adam is part of. Even if that means siding with some old enemies to take him down so be it. As the old saying goes “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Of course that doesn’t mean Adam shares any love for Sam and Dean. Hell no. He made that pretty clear at the diner. He has every reason and right to hate them after ten years of failure to save him from Hell. Every reason to make them suffer. Adam deserves to be pissed at the Winchesters and the world for doing him dirty like that. But...for better or worse, Sam and Dean are still his brothers. Its for that reason and that reason alone that I don’t see Michael threatening to go after them later. He knows Adam wouldn’t want that unless (he really is a scheming crazy person deep inside) Michael’s friendship with him is just smoke & mirrors which I don’t believe for one second.

And Adam’s been presented as being a very forgiving, kind soul despite all the pain he’s been through. Revenge wasn’t even on his mind the moment he got out of that cage. It was human food on top of wanting to go back to school or get a job. Meaning he cared more about getting back to some sense of normalcy. Then when Castiel and the Winchesters pulled him and Michael into their crisis, Adam was willing to hear their side and attempted to convince Michael to help them. Why go through that whole charade if Adam just wanted Sam and Dean hurt or dead? They had every opportunity to double-cross TFW while being held captive but instead Michael & Adam chose to put aside their grievances, at least for the moment, and give the Winchesters something useful. Now whether or not the spell actually works (I doubt it’ll be that simple) is the mystery. However this definitely not the last time we’ll see these two characters which brings me to point number 2. Jack Kline.

This is a big one. Why you ask? Well lets go over that scene in 15x08 where Castiel shares his memories with Michael and Adam. There was so much foreshadowing in this moment (from Michael/Adam’s return down the road, to Michael’s unavoidable confrontation with Chuck and finally his eventual encounter with the young Nephilim himself) based on how that scene was shot and edited. The primary objective was Michael watching Jack die at the snap of Chuck’s fingers and reacting to it along with all the other nasty business his dad’s been doing behind the scenes. Talking didn’t seem to be enough to get through to Michael and neither did antagonizing him. His stubbornness and arrogance wasn’t surprising being he is the Prince of Heaven and has a blind idealized devotion for his father as his loyal son. So in order to open Michael’s eyes and get him to see the truth, Castiel focuses his energy on the most ruthless, evil act Chuck has ever committed. Murdering his grandson and Michael’s nephew.

Doing this Castiel shatters that righteous image Michael has had of his father forever because Chuck/God (father of all creation) is suppose to be the embodiment of light, love, hope, peace and benevolence. He created Michael to be his champion of humanity; the guardian protector of Heaven and Earth. Its Michael’s sworn destiny to defend good against evil. And Chuck crossed the line, several in fact. He represents everything Michael was born to oppose. Trying to mess with free will, attempting to destroy everything he created all out of spite because the Winchesters refused to play his games anymore. But above every horrible thing he’s ever done there’s no sin greater than taking the life of his own flesh and blood. A child born of a human (God’s greatest creation) and an archangel (Michael’s younger brother Lucifer whom, despite their conflict, he loved immensely). That is unforgivable. No matter how much he may still love him, Michael has absolutely no reason to trust his father; not after all those centuries of deception. And Chuck has shown he has no regard for human life let alone the lives of his own family which Jack’s death all represents.

Now Michael chose to leave at the end of 15x08 after giving our heroes the spell to trap Chuck and showing them the door to Purgatory. But what’s interesting about that is his reference to the Darkness. It’s unclear if Michael even knows Amara has been released and neither Dean or Castiel ever mention it. I wonder if he can sense her energy. So the question is where is Michael going? Is he planning to seek her out or leaving to confront his father (which I doubt since Chuck is preoccupied with Sam and Eileen at the moment)? What we do know is Michael and Adam can’t avoid the inevitable. They’re as much apart of this fight as TFW whether they like it or not. It all depends on which side Michael ultimately chooses. Will he align himself with the Winchesters or is he going to be on his own side? It’ll be interesting to find out when the show returns in 2020! And I’ve been thinking a lot about what Michael’s interaction with Jack will look like when they’re finally reunited because if its anything like what we saw with Gabriel (or better) that could be a good sign for Sam, Dean and Castiel.

Out of all his paternal family members Jack’s so far met his biological dad (that didn’t go over so well), his grandfather (that didn’t go well either) and one of his archangel uncles. He’s yet to encounter his great aunt Amara the Darkness or his most powerful famous warrior uncle. The original Michael. Those are interactions I’d very much like to see happen before the show ends. But for arguments sake lets say Michael does consider turning on the Winchesters. Not that he would or might but what if he still has doubts. Jack could be TFW’s best chance at gaining Michael’s trust, cooperation and alliance. He could tell his uncle that Castiel and the Winchesters had been raising him as their own; protecting him since he was born. Things I’m sure Michael might appreciate. Or Jack could confide his biggest regret (accidently killing Mary Winchester) as a means to bond with Michael and help him understand the Winchester brothers a little better. Reminding Michael and Adam of redemption and forgiveness. That any pain the Winchesters might’ve caused them has no comparison to what Jack took from Sam and Dean and yet they’re still a family.

It’ll be fascinating to see how they go about the dynamic between these characters considering what happened with AU Michael in S13 and S14. Jack may be a little hesitant of his uncle at first and Michael may be hostile (since he probably knows Nephilim are forbidden) yet curious or a combination of both. Or maybe their first encounter may be a bit softer than expected what with Adam in the middle of things. Michael could become very taken with Jack and protective of him. He was very distraught after seeing those horrifying images of his father killing his nephew. And I could see Adam being their ice breaker (oh the comedic possibilities of this!) he’s a very laidback, likable chill dude not to mention Sam and Dean’s half brother. Yah that little detail is probably going to be the most shocking for Jack since Adam’s never been a blip on the Winchesters’ radar.

Moving onto point number 3. Heaven. It’s dying which is why Jack was manipulated into creating new angels to power it up. After all the damage done by Metatron, Lucifer and the Entity it’s left in ruin and without proper leadership. We know as of right now Michael has no intention of going back there. He’s severely withdrawn since learning his brothers are all deceased and probably feels like a failure and a fool. But none the less he’s got unfinished business back home. By the time Supernatural ends someone’s got to be left in charge of things up there, my moneys on either Amara or Michael since he’s the heir to the throne of Heaven. It would be a fitting ending for either of them. Maybe Michael will somehow restore Heaven’s power (with Amara and Jack) and reopen it for the all the earthbound souls. Or maybe in the aftermath of the final showdown against Chuck, Michael will just hang around with Adam and whoever else is left standing on Earth. And finally we reach my last point number 4. Amara.

What do we know about Michael’s complicated history with his aunt? Not much either than the fact that he and his brothers were ordered by Chuck to seal her away centuries ago; with no intention of ever releasing her. Something tells me Amara wouldn’t harbor any kind of affection for Michael, not after what we saw with Lucifer. And we have no idea if she still shares that same connection with Dean as she did in S11 (though rumor has it they got an upcoming storyline together in the back-half of S15) or if she’s even interested in lending a hand in the Winchesters’ business of saving the world. However Amara has been shown, like Michael, to have developed a love for humanity. She’s having the time of her life vacationing all over and taking advantage of her freedom. I don’t think she’d be too thrilled knowing her brother plans to destroy all he’s accomplished and he’s not exactly her favorite person to be around. She’s completely done with Chuck’s crap. He’s alienated her to the point where she wants to be as far from him as humanly possibly.

And if she does still view Dean in a favorable light after what he’d done for her, that could be what persuades Amara into helping TFW. Michael would have to be an absolute moron to attempt an attack (if he decided to make them his enemies) if Sam and Dean manage to get the Darkness on their side. Its canon that she’s far more powerful than the archangels which is why it took all of them combined to lock her away. That said I don’t think Michael’s character is being set up as a villain. We already had AU Michael, been there done that. Nor do I see him and Amara at odds specifically because of their deteriorating ties to Chuck. Could their reunion be pretty heated and violent? Possibly. Its hard to say where they’ll stand with each other when they cross paths, there’s some bad blood between them for sure so they’ve got some family issues to sort through. But as of right now, what’s happening is bigger than both of them and their angst. Ironically Michael and Amara got more in common with each other than they realize.

Both of them were abandoned, lied to and used by Chuck on top of being imprisoned for many years. And they actually care about the world they're currently inhabiting which Chuck wants to end. That’s got to be worth more to them than some old discrepancies in the past. Enough for them to want to put aside their differences and work together to stop Chuck. Imagine how awesome this storyline would be, former enemy family members coming together because of a common threat they’re all facing. Michael and Amara along side TFW, that’s a pretty badass team. I WANT THIS. I want to see Michael get to be a good guy. Become an ally and the honorable hero he was meant to be. Saving humanity whom he now cares about with his human best friend. We deserve to see this version of Michael come into fruition before the show ends.

Anyway those are my thoughts on the Michael/Adam situation. I hope it comes true or most of it anyway. I know Supernatural is building up for a big finish. It would be nice if they didn’t waste two characters we haven't seen for ten years. I want to believe that they have plans for Michael and Adam that don’t include killing them off for shock value and/or villainizing them at the last second. They deserve better than that. 15x08 was a perfect example of how to utilize and develop these characters into the plot. They have so much potential and story left to tell. Lets hope the writers know what they’re doing.

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etherealwaifgoddess · 4 years

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But Then Came You - Chpt.1

Summary: Loki tries to plan his next moves after being dropped off in a post Decimation New York City. Master list can be found HERE.

Content Warnings: A sassy reader not afraid to call Loki out on his bullshit

Word Count: 3.2k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! The first chapter is here! Woo. I know I said 6pm but I literally have no chill when it comes to this fic. There’s no long build up in this one, just straight to our main characters meeting. I hope you enjoy! Chapters will be posted daily. XOXO - Ash

Chapter One

New York is a shell of the bustling metropolis it once was. Loki wanders the half filled streets quietly planning his next move, still unsure of what to do. The Eluskans had been kind enough to drop him off on Earth since he had nowhere else to go. The fall of Asgard still weighed heavily on his mind, his home planet which thrived for millennia gone in a fiery apocalypse. He had been given a few thousand dollars of US currency and a change of clothes to help get him on his way. They really were the kindest people. Loki had to perpetually bite his tongue so as not to lash out at them for trying to help. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t understand what they had done in bringing him back. Their intentions were good but it doesn’t erase the dreams and memories that have haunted Loki since his resurrection.

The city feels empty in the wake of The Decimation. It had taken Loki a full day of walking through the abandoned neighborhoods to fully understand what had occurred on Earth over the past few weeks. New York was doing what it did best though; the communities were rallying round each other, helping support those displaced by the loss of family and friends.

The summer heat wears on Loki and he starts looking for somewhere he can cool off for a bit. He’s hesitant to use his seidr to relieve himself of the heat as it’s been spotty at best since he was brought back. The healers advised it would take some time to return to its former strength after all he’d been through. They had encouraged him to practice with it daily to help strengthen it, like one would do for a weakened muscle. Loki wants little to do with his seidr however. It was the reason they had found his body, the incessant little spark that refused to die, and had also led to his resurrection.

The cafe is empty except for the two baristas who are deep in conversation when Loki enters. He’s running on three days of no sleep and needs the small relief caffeine will bring. The icy blast of air conditioning is helping his fatigue as well and Loki hopes he will be able to linger with his drink for a while without disturbing anyone.

“What can I get you?” The overly cheerful blonde barista asks him. Her name tag reads “Sunny” and Loki almost chuckles at how appropriate that is.

“Espresso, please. A quad shot.” Loki requests.

“Anything else?”

“No, that will be all.”

“Name for the cup?”

“Loki”

Your head snaps up at the name. It’s too rare to be anyone else. “Holy forking shirtballs you’re him! I mean, you’re… you.” You blurt out at an embarrassingly loud volume.

Loki stares at you like you’ve sprouted six heads. “I beg your pardon?” His tone is almost offended, but mostly baffled by your outburst.

“Sorry, I binge-watched The Good Place on Netflix last weekend. And I didn’t mean to call you out like that, I just… know of you. Never expected to meet you face to face like this though.”

“The Good Place? Netflix?” Loki is still lost, now bordering on irritated. You speak in the hurried way he’s come to associate with youth, your gestures animated as you talk. If he can’t be served his drink here he’ll have to trudge along for who knows how long until he can find another cafe or, Norns forbid, a Starbucks.

“It’s a show. And you know, Netflix. The streaming service?”

Loki stares blankly at you.

You’re certain your face is the same shade as a tomato as you continue to flounder for words around him. “Or I guess you probably don’t know. I’m sorry. You know that filter most people have between their brains and their mouths? I don’t have one of those. So I’m gonna go get your espresso and leave you alone now. Sorry, again, really.” You slink away to the espresso bar and start queuing up his shots, praying that the ground will just open up and swallow you whole so you don’t have to face Loki again.

Sunny gives Loki a grin and a half shrug, “You’ll have to forgive Y/N. I wish I could say she’s not normally quite that awkward but she totally is. She means well, you just got her a little starstruck.”

“Starstruck?” Loki raises an eyebrow at Sunny in disbelief.

“Yeah, totally.” Sunny nods enthusiastically, “You’re a literal god. Who wouldn’t be?”

“It’s not the reaction I get from most Midgardians.” He confesses.

“Oh right, because of the whole ‘trying to take over New York’ thing.”

Loki nods at her assumption.

“You don’t have to worry about that with us.” Sunny assures him, “Matter of fact, Y/N did a whole paper on it our first year at Columbia. I think she did it just to piss off our psych professor but it was some of her best work. She argued that it was proof anyone can be peer pressured into anything.”

“Peer pressure?!” Loki sputters incredulously.

“Well, yeah. I mean, Y/N can explain it better, but basically she drew parallels between Thanos preying on your weaknesses, ie. your desire to rule somewhere, and getting you to do his dirty work for him, to a bully preying on a weaker kid’s insecurities and pressuring them into doing something bad.”

Loki scowls over at your back, displeased to have a deeply traumatic event reduced to something so simplistic. “I don’t think it was quite that simple.” Loki grumbles.

You hear his grumble, unable to ignore the conversation going on behind your back. “It kinda was though.” You mutter beneath your breath. Or at least, you meant for it to be under your breath.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, was it?” Loki’s tone is bordering on venomous. “Please, come tell me how you know better about a part of my life than I do.”

The blush that had started to recede flares up again and you force yourself to remain calm and steady as you finish pouring the espresso and turn to face Loki. You spent a whole semester working on that paper and stand by your conclusion. Like hell were you going down without a good fight. “I’m not saying I know your life better than you do.” You clarify, “But I do think the whole ‘Battle of New York’ business is a prime example of peer pressure.”

Loki’s eyes widen, he’s surprised you’re standing by your preposterous notion even with him glaring daggers at you. “Do I look like an emotionally fragile child to you?” He demands.

“No, but that’s the point. It can happen to anyone. Maybe I’m wrong, but let’s get a few things straight first.” Your brain has gone into investigator mode and you’re in your element now. Loki waives a hand dismissively letting you continue, “Who sought out who? Did you go looking for Thanos or did he find you?”

“He found me.” Loki replies evenly.

“Before you met Thanos had you ever considered attacking New York?”

“No.”

“Would you have tried attacking New York or any other place by yourself?”

“Well, no. But…”

“Nope. No buts, mister.” You ignore his scowl, you’re on a roll. Excitement is thrumming through your veins, his answers lining up just the way you want them to. “And how did Thanos convince you to try? Did he by chance remind you of all the awful things your adoptive family did to you? Hiding your heritage, denying you of your rightful throne?”

“It was common knowledge.”

“Mhmm. And he offered you a place to rule. You only had to help him with one simple, little thing. You knew your brother favored Earth, right?”

“He is overly fond of this planet, yes.”

“And Thanos probably hinted that you’d be ruling the place that was special to your brother. The brother that was given the throne that should have been yours.”

“Thor and I have reconciled since…”

“But not six years ago you hadn’t.” You shot Loki a cocky grin, you had him right where you wanted him. “So let’s recap, shall we? A more powerful person reached out to you, reminded you of the alienation of those closest to you, played up your supposed right to rule, offered you a chance to do so, and get back at your brother in the process. He offered you everything you could possibly want and the means to get it. Despite the means being wrong and you knowing they were wrong. Sounds like a bully and peer pressure to me.”

Loki scowled harder to suppress the smirk that was trying to upturn his lips. You had impressed him more in five minutes than anyone else had in five hundred years. “Insightful little Midgardian. I don’t agree with your theory but you clearly put a lot of thought behind it.”

“I did, thanks. But how are you here? The news said you died in transit to Earth from Asgard. Not like you haven’t fake died before, but still. It seemed pretty legit this time.”

“The news was correct, I did die. And now I’m here. Waiting on that espresso you’re holding.”

You look down at the steaming cup in your hand, “Oh, right. Sorry. Here you go.” You pass the drink to him and his surprisingly cold fingers brush faintly over yours making goose bumps prickle along your arm. “So, what are you doing here in New York? Other than getting a caffeine fix?”

Loki takes a sip of his coffee, sighing softly in relief before replying. “I’m not sure yet.”

You give him a half smile and a shrug, “Well, enjoy your drink.”

“I will.” Loki nods and moves off to the table in the far corner by the window.

You turn your back on Loki to face Sunny, eyes wide, your face splitting into a grin. You mouth oh my god to her dramatically and she stifles a giggle. Loki is only across the room and you’re not too keen on making a fool out of yourself again in front of him. Unsure of how long he plans to stay, you busy yourself cleaning the espresso machine to pass the time. You’ll have a lifetime of gossiping with Sunny once he leaves.

Loki sits quietly watching people pass while he drinks his espresso. The dark brew hits his system like a gut-punch and he can feel the drowsiness retreating a little. It’s enough to keep him going a bit longer and that’s all he can ask for at this point. He knows he will need to sleep at some point soon, god or not he’s still flesh and bone. Sunlight hits the curly golden brown hair of a woman across the street and images of his mother blossom in his mind unbidden. The ache in his chest threatens to double him over but he steels himself, clenching the cup in his hand as hard as he dares without crushing it.

Your eyes keep wandering back to Loki who’s transfixed looking out the cafe window. You try to keep busy but it’s difficult with him so near by. You’d seen many pictures of him and learned so much while working on your paper; it’s no surprise he’s attractive but you had clearly underestimated how attractive he is in person. You notice the second Loki sees something upsetting, the way his eyes darken and his face takes on a haunted expression. You give up pretending you’re unaffected by his presence and head across the room, settling down in the chair opposite him at the table. “You okay?” You ask him softly.

Loki’s eyes remain staring outside and you wonder for a moment if he’d heard you. “I’m fine.” He says finally.

“I doubt that.”

Loki’s reply is a perturbed frown in your direction.

“Look, I don’t expect you to talk to me. But I’m guessing some shit went down or else you wouldn’t be sitting here sipping espresso and looking like you’re about to pass out.”

“Some shit indeed.” He bites out deprecatingly.

“Do you at least have a place to stay?”

“I’ll find one easy enough.”

“Not right now you won’t. It’s move in weekend for the colleges around here. Plus all the people displaced by The Decimation. There won’t be a free hotel room in the city until at least next week.”

Loki curses internally. He can’t just wander around aimlessly until he passes out somewhere like a homeless person. Showing up at SHIELD’s front door asking for a room isn’t an option either, he’s still persona non grata with the organization. He doesn’t think they’re still actively hunting for him though. Loki had been told Thor was unavailable when he’d tried to reach out the day he arrived on Earth and he didn’t push, mostly out of fear of rejection. He’s momentarily consumed with agony and anguish again, thinking of his brother and his current aimlessness in this changed world. This is what he had been brought back into, a painful, useless existence.

You watch him struggling internally and you can’t just sit idly by. “If you need a place to crash, Sunny and I live a few blocks over with our friend Chelsi. We had another roommate but she graduated and we haven’t found a new one yet. You’d have a bed and a safe place to stay until you find somewhere else to go.”

Loki looks at you then, meeting your eyes and it makes your breath catch in your throat. He makes a hum sound that isn’t a no and it spurs you on. “I know I’m a stranger but you probably don’t have many friends in the city and I really just want to help. Take your time deciding, we have books over there to be borrowed if you want to just hang out and read for a bit. My shift ends in two hours and….”

Loki cuts you off with a wave of his hand. “Stop talking for a minute, will you.” He knows he’s in a tough spot and you have managed to both intrigue and amuse him in the short time since he met you. It’s entirely possible you’re being genuine and want to help but you could also be an assassin. He can't be too careful and he has to be certain. Taking your hands in his, he stares into your eyes and lets his seidr flow through him into you. You feel a sight rush, like when you stand up too fast and your blood pressure drops, and you hold on tightly to his cold hands. Loki searches quickly through your memories and thoughts, digging deep down to the core of your being until he’s satisfied he’s seen enough. There are things buried deep he knows you probably won’t appreciate him seeing but he can be discreet.

Loki holds on to your hands just a moment longer than he needs to, letting your memories wash over him. You at five, running around the playground with your friends and inviting a sad looking little blonde girl to join you. You at ten, laying outside in the dark with the same little blonde girl looking much happier as you study the stars. You and the girl, recognizable as Sunny now, at fifteen when your parents died and you move your things into the guest room next to hers. You at twenty, moving into your first real apartment off campus, excited and terrified all at once. Hundreds of other memories flutter by as well, blurring together to make up your lifetime. School days and old friends, boyfriends and a few bad breakups, vacations and quiet moments spent at home. Loki is soothed by the simple ordinary memories distracting him from his own past. Regretfully he pulls his hands back, breaking the spell of the moment.

“What did you do?” You ask in a hushed tone. You aren’t angry, just curious.

Loki swallows hard, relieved you have forgiven his intrusion. “I had to be sure you weren’t a threat.”

“You could have just asked.” You point out.

“And you could have lied.”

“Touché. So, what did you find?”

“Nothing of concern. I’ll take that room you offered.”

You’re pleased he’s agreed to come home with you, hoping that you might get to know him a little while he’s there. “Okay.” You agree, unable to hold back your excited smile. “I’ll text Chelsi and give her a heads up. Sunny heard us for sure but,” you raise your voice pointedly, “she’s too damn polite to admit she was listening while she pretends to wipe down a perfectly clean counter top!”

Sunny laughs and throws the rag down. “Mi casa es su casa, Loki.” She calls back.

“Thank you, Sunny.” Loki calls back with an indulgent smile. He can’t help but be slightly amused by the pair of you. You’re both so young, the cheery optimism of youth still clinging to you and it's a breath of fresh air to him. He doesn’t look much older than you but he’s pushing 1,500 and after all that he’s been through he feels every single year of his age.

“Grab a book or play on your phone or whatever until my shift is over if you want. Alex will be in at five so we can head home.” You tell him as you stand up and head back to the barista bar with Sunny.

Loki wanders over to the bookshelf and pulls down a copy of the first book that catches his eye. Settling into a padded, dark blue velvet chair by the bookshelf, Loki loses himself in the book. He almost doesn’t hear you coming hours later when you stop over with a steaming mug of something topped with foam and sprinkled with cinnamon. “I figured you probably shouldn’t risk more espresso, god or not.” you tell him.

“What is this?” Loki asks, accepting the warm cup from you.

“Chai tea latte. I don’t know what you like but this felt like it might be a good fit.”

“And why is that?” Loki takes a sip and waits for you to speak before he passes judgement on the taste.

You feel your cheeks heating. You won’t dare tell him your thought process in choosing the drink. Spicy but sweet, complex, an acquired taste, just like the god sitting in front of you. You swallow past the lump of nerves in your throat, “Just a guess, I guess.”

Loki doesn’t believe your simple answer for a minute but he doesn’t push. “Well you guessed correctly. It’s good.” Loki takes a longer sip, enjoying the rush of sugar across his tongue. He would never admit to something as undignified as having a sweet tooth, but he will admit to himself that he’s enjoying the drink more than anything else he’s had since arriving back on Earth.

“I’m glad.” you say over your shoulder, walking away to help a new customer who just walked in.

Loki hums in appreciation, letting himself have just a few more decadent sips before his self control kicks in and he sets the cup just slightly out of reach on the table next to him.

#But Then Came You #Loki #Loki Laufeyson #Loki x reader #Loki x you #reader insert #female reader #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #post infinity war #post avengers infinity war

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lostsoulaltair · 4 years

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OnS Theories (8S). Second Theory - Nonhuman yet owning a beautiful human heart

Hello everyone! We’re getting closer to the date of release but before that, I’d like to share some thoughts I’ve come across different people, the story itself and so on.

First, if any of the readers have felt insulted or anything, I apologize, it is not my intention to offend you by any means; but I’d like to know what you think guys, I’ve had fun writting down the theories and I’m forever thankful that you read them so, please, don’t hesitate to share your views, thoughts about the story and more.

Let’s begin!

To start off with this theory, many have come to a resolution that many cast members within the story are not human at all, the case goes for Yu, Guren, Mika, Shinoa, Mahiru, etc.; of course, all of them had relation with certain experiments or even the way they were born but for now, let’s focus on those who are no longer labeled as humans.

What makes someone human?

First, if many recall, the song X.U, main theme of OnS stated that pain was part of being human but funny enough, every single member within the story have endured hardships, they’ve fought until they couldn’t keep going, which means their emotions faded away through time; but yet, their hearts that become cold still give warm towards those around them and the fact that others care deeply for them is a sign they’ve left a scar/a mark within the others in the story; therefore there are some exceptions of non humans such as:

Yuichiro Hyakuya, Mikaela Hyakuya, Shinoa Hiragi, Krul Tepes, Guren Ichinose and Ashera Tepes.

That being said, let’s start with each of these characters:

Yuichiro Hyakuya/Yuichiro Amane

So far, we’ve known that Yu was created millenials ago and until the current era, a new Yu was born, whenever he was born by natural ways or experiments it is unclear, and yes, many will state that he might have been created the same way but, the sole difference between the previous clones and the current ones, is the fact that the current Yu developed a soul, developed feelings of attachment, developed a warm heart, he is selfless, he doesn’t mind helping others, he doesn’t mind being used if the cause is for a greater good; the point he reaches can be scary and mainly because Mika, his last member of the Hyakuya orphanage left worries that Yu will do something reckless to the point of self sacrifice and indeed, it is not far from the truth but at the same time; he among the rest of the squad see Yu as someone wonderful, someone that even that gave away his humanity is pretty much considered a human being.

But, what makes Yu a human? Simple, Yu has endured a harsh path, he’s being painfully used to huge causes that remain as a mystery for now but despite that, he always tries his best to live, he seeks to reach that gold end along his new family, to the point he’ll risk anything to see them happy.

The fact that he transforms into a seraph is just a representation that his will stands strong for those he loves; and love among other emotions play a role within a human heart.

Mikaela Hyakuya/Mikaela Shindo

Mika is one of the characters that many readers love, but what makes Mika a human when he’s a vampire that is slowly losing his emotions?

First of all, we learnt throguh the story how he grew up, how he ended up at dead’s gates until Krul saved his life by turning him into a vampire despite his sole refusal of it.

After he turned into a complete vampire, we’ve seen how he slowly became methodic, careful, cold minded unless something happens towards his last family member; but still, the fact that Mika tries his best to understand Yu’s view, the fact that he hangs around Yu’s family despite how he sees human in the current time...what vampire could do that?

Current vampires don’t care about human bonds, nor care about what they think or feel yet, Mika tries his best to support his sole family and his new friends despite him not trusting them; indeed, there are reasons why Mika doesn’t trust humans but within those reasons, there’s a part of him that, to certain extend, values the fact that Yu’s friends are there with him.

Mika has been a special kid mainly for holding two traits, the Michaela trait and the seraph trait; the efforts of Rigr for bringing a new Michaela to Earth but of course, Mika can’t be that Michaela and why’s that? Mika harbors his own soul, he is no one else but him, despite being a vampire, his soul lingers within him which is why he expresses his emotions comapred to other vampires, he still values life itself despite the harsh past he had to overcome.

Shinoa Hiragi

Many will wonder what makes Shinoa human despite being possessed or more likely seeing a character so detached until meeting Yu and company, (no, this is not focused on shipping). Shinoa’s existance was of someone to be used as a vessel for the first which in fact, has been the fallen Michaela that gave blood to the vampires making them crave for it; to certain extend it is almost clear that Shinoa’s creation was not of a conventional way and this is mainly by a sole expression Noya left within chapter 85, when Shinoa called Mahiru elder sister, Noya seemed confused about it, stating that he didn’t see Shinoa as someone instead something that took a physical appearance of a human but well, what makes her human?

If the experiments within her never happened nor Mahiru died, she would have grown in a rather more confident person with vivid emotions; but due to many issues, her emotions had to be sealed in a way and this was thanks to Mahiru, she wanted to let Shinoa live her lfie without a worry of what went beyond the Hiragi family, but no one can’t escape from their duties or fate itself. We’ve seen someone that was detached to someone who cares deeply towards her squad.

The fact that she developed emotions towards others, the fact that she is willing to help those around her is a proof that her human heart is constantly evolving even if it’s little by little.

Krul Tepes and Ashera Tepes

These brothers are the cutest within the story for how close they were and yet, despite the distance that have been taken to the current time, the fact that Krul cares and tries her best to find her brother and bring him back is one of the proofs that she has a human heart despite being alive over thousand of years.

Krul can be perceived as someone who might be detached, cold, and merciless but despite that, there’s a soft side of her, she knows that among vampires, she can’t trust no one in particular specially that many of her actions have been labelled as taboo but despite that, she found solance within Mikaela; Mika has been a figure of her trust despite how she has treated him; in a way she cared for him, and that trust is well reflected on how she gives information about the decisions that would eventually lead them to war, how with just her looks can give signs to Mika remarking their bond.

In case of Ashera, that level of trust can be reflected with Yu, at the beginning Ashera behaved pretty much like other demons, trying to possess its host but with time, Ashera’s heart changed so much, it evolved to simple relation of demon and host to friends; Ashera cares deeply about Yu and that is reflected in the past and the present, their bond has been forged with trust;

Even before becoming a demon, Ashera as a vampire cared deeply about Yu’s well being, he didn’t mind expressing his emotions despite becoming a being whose years wouldn’t matter any longer, he tried to live through inmortality along with his sister; and the fact that the first person he recalls is his sister just gives how much meaning she left within his heart.

As a personal thought, If Ashera manages to break free from the cursed gear, I’d like to see them interact one last time before anything happens.

Guren Ichinose

Lately, he’s the character who has been most controvertial mainly for the actions he has taken towards Yu who the same one considers as family since Guren have helped Yu to stand up, to fight up for all he holds dear, but at the same time, Guren’s someone who has suffered enough, he has to keep as a remembrance the fact that his friends won’t live for long, their time is counted and the only solution for that is to resurrect the whole world.

Guren’s evolution as a character comes from someone that tried his best to not get involved with those who served the Hiragi family to the point he ended up making bonds with time, until the inevitable end came; Guren was allowed to finally cry after the end of the world came, but he knew very well that it was just the beginning of a new chaos that would eventually unfold to the current time inside of the story.

What makes Guren a human being?

His suffering? Indeed it is a part of it but the fact that makes him human is the fact that he still tries his best to save those around him even if it means going alone, even if it means breaking more and more in order to make those he treasures to keep living a little longer; he’s well aware of what Yu means to him, he knows what kind of reaction Yu would have if he were to die and he’s aware that Yu will do his best to save him in order to keep living but at the same time, he has had enough, he has fought for so long, his human heart has gotten tired but not tired in the term of giving up, he’s a fighter who has endured many hardships alone and the fact that the current chapters show him again as an antagonist it’s just a proof he’ll give Yu something which is valued as a final lesson; it will be the cruelest but he’s pouring all the hardships in order to make Yu understand what it’ll be like to face the final enemy of humanity.

What do you think guys? I want you to share your thoughts about these characters, what other things make them human for you? Who else comes to your mind!!

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #sote #ons theories 8th season #ons theories #second theory #yuichiro hyakuya #yuichiro amane #mikaela hyakuya #hiiragi shinoa #shinoa hiiragi #guren ichinose #ashera tepes #krul tepes #asuramaru #a character analysis

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gleam-and-darken · 4 years

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Zelda AU #2: The Triplets

The sketch is rough at best, but Zelda is supposed to look like she does pre-calamity, Tetra looks like the girl from the BotW 2 trailer (because it is her, I might explain that later if anyone’s interested), and Sheik has his design from Smash Ultimate. This is really just my take on the twins AU which was originally created by someone else (rockingthegraveyard, I believe).

https://triforce-princess.tumblr.com/post/627266504652668928/this-is-awesome-your-brain-is-so-good

Anyways, I was thinking of what this might actually look like as a fleshed-out story, and I decided that Zelda’s twin could be named Tetra. And then I thought, “hey, we can’t leave Sheik out!” And so here we are. Basically, thanks to her siblings, Zelda is able to stop the calamity and (almost) everyone lives happily ever after. I don’t actually plan on writing this into a formal story so this is a long post where I just dump a lot of my ideas concerning the trio. I will not be writing this into a story, because I’ve never played BotW and I fear I would get everything wrong, but you’re welcome to! If someone ends up writing something based on this, I’d love to know so I can read it. I also have lots more ideas about this, so if you want more content (aside from this ridiculously long post), just ask!

Zelda is technically the oldest, although it hardly matters since they’re triplets. Thanks to this, she is arbitrarily the one who had all of the responsibilities heaped upon her. She’s pretty similar to how she appears in BotW, except Link isn’t even a potential love interest for her. He’s just her knight whom she’s gradually grown close to - as a friend.

Tetra is the middle child, and by far the most troublesome. She is outgoing, adventurous, brash, and basically everything you don’t want in a princess. King Rhoam tried to raise her to be proper, constantly reminding her that it was the hero’s (Link’s) duty to be the courageous one, not the princess. This often resulted in her running away and threatening to join the gerudo. She and Revali got along like a house on fire, often bonding over how overrated Link is. She absolutely hates Link, because to her, he represents not her failures, but the failures of her country and family. Why can’t a princess with no triforce be the hero as well? She makes no attempt to hide her distaste for him, although she might have changed her perspective a little if she realized that Link actually greatly admired her. It’s too bad that he was too scared of her to tell her himself. Speaking of being too scared to admit things, the one thing Tetra can’t bring herself to say aloud is that she has a huge crush on Princess Mipha.

Sheik is the little brother, known as the quiet one. Unlike his eldest sister, he knows how to fight, but hates doing so. He would much rather prefer to be exploring the lonely areas of the wild, or researching ancient tech with Zelda. He’s trans, and while his sisters support him and his father respects that, King Rhoam also saw that as an excuse to ignore him. After all, the legends never told of princes doing anything noteworthy. Thus, the king, and by extension almost everyone in Hyrule, more or less forgot about their quiet prince. The champions knew about him and were varying degrees of nice to him, especially Lady Urbosa, which was more than almost everyone he met could say. He didn’t mind it too much, and didn’t even realize that it was wrong until after his father was dead.

Link had a varied relationship with the triplets. Originally, both Zelda and Tetra despised him, because he reminded them of everything wrong in Hyrule - Zelda’s own self doubt, and Tetra’s failed attempts to become her own hero. Since his two sisters were always talking about how much they hated having this royal knight follow Zelda around, Sheik grew to dislike him as well, despite having never met in person. However, there was a time in the castle when Tetra practically kidnapped Zelda and whisked her away to an unknown location in Hyrule, sending everything into chaos. Sheik was pretty sure that they were both in on it and were simply trying to prove how well they could manage without Link, but they hadn’t informed him of their plan before they left, so he really had no idea. What he did know was that they left Link behind, and now the royal knight was panicking because he thought the king would blame him for letting his daughters vanish, and feared he’d be at the very least jailed.

Link, to his surprise, was not punished - the king was too busy cursing his own tomboyish daughter - but was sent to go find them alongside a team of Hyrulean soldiers. Not wanting to look useless, Sheik joined the quest. In their travels, Sheik discovered that Link was actually a lot like himself, just in completely different circumstances (and much more reckless, unfortunately), and the knight found that the prince was one of the few people who didn’t meet him with impossibly high expectations, for which he was thankful. They became fast friends, although since they both said an average of ten words a week combined, their friendship often looked more like them being present in the same room.

Much later, after both princesses had returned to the castle (“of our own accord,” Tetra had reminded everyone within earshot), the king doubled down on Zelda discovering her powers. She and her knight were rarely seen around the castle, always visiting springs and whatnot, while Zelda’s siblings were left at the castle doing... basically nothing. They were both training constantly for a battle that they were beginning to believe would never come.

Their seventeenth birthday started like any other day. They were at the castle while Zelda and her knight were off at another spring to pray, along with the champions. Then all hell broke loose. (Literally.) Something monstrous decided to rear its ugly head from under Hyrule Castle, and it took over the guardians to boot. Of course, both Tetra and Sheik became extremely concerned for their older sister, since she probably couldn’t fight a bokoblin, much less corrupted ancient technology. This, combined with the fact that the castle was probably the worst place to be right then, prompted the two to bolt into the field and find their sister. They had to fight guardians the entire way, and Sheik recieved a nasty injury, but kept denying how bad it really was.

Despite the storm, she wasn’t that hard to find, thanks to that explosion of what they guessed was her divine magic that had finally decided to say hello. They found her as opposed to the sheikah, but arrived on the scene a bit to late for the hero. He wasn’t dead (or was he?), or at the very least he could be saved/brought back, but he was clearly not about to help them fight. (Still, Sheik absolutely lost his mind when he saw the state Link was in, to the shock of his sisters. Neither of them knew he was close friends with the knight.)

Zelda quickly explained her plan to her siblings, where she would return the sword to the forest and face Ganon herself, to which Tetra said “hell no.” The Master Sword was right there! Hyrule needs saving, and the princess found herself to be a perfectly competent hero. The sword could be fixed. Somehow.

This part is where I’m a little on the fence about what happens. The sword’s health and power does seem to be tied to Link’s, as evidence by how it heals with him over 100 years and can only shoot sword beams when he’s at full health (I think), but since Tetra actually was worthy of wielding the sword, Fi could have been restored when she accepted the blade. Alternatively, Tetra and Sheik could have been the sages of earth and wind without realizing it, and we’re able to restore the sword on the fly. You get to decide how the sword repaired itself.

So now Tetra has roped herself into fighting Ganon with the Master Sword, Zelda by her side, while Sheik is losing his mind over what is basically the corpse of his closest friend. It’s at this time that Zelda realizes just how injured her brother is. She knows that he can’t fight the calamity like that, so she tasks him with taking Link to the Shrine of Resurrection, like Fi said. Initially, he refuses, but he soon decides that it’s all he can do and agrees.

The triplets go their separate ways. Somehow, the sisters are able to get to the castle very quickly, and start to challenge the Calamity. Zelda uses her new sealing powers to force him into a mortal form, while Tetra beats him up with her new weapon of choice. Ganon originally shrugs them off, more or less, but as they start to win he activates Panic Mode and summons all of his blights back to the sanctum to fight the sisters. Luckily, the blights were snatched right out of their battles with the champions, who were beaten and shaken but still alive.

However, thanks to his new allies, Ganon starts to win. Just when the princesses think they’re about to die, the divine beasts - which are under the control of the champions after the blights left - strike, finishing off the Calamity. Naturally Ganon has a few tricks up his sleeve and transforms into Dark Beast Ganon, moving to Hyrule Field. By Hylia’s (late) divine grace, Tetra and Zelda are teleported to the field as well, alongside Sheik, surprisingly. He’d just set Link up in the shrine before getting pulled here. Zelda is able to summon the Bow of Light, which becomes his weapon.

Together, the three of them are able to take out the dark beast. Zelda creates weak points, while Tetra and Sheik shoot them with Master Sword beams and light arrows, respectively. (Maybe Tetra DID die, but her health was restored by a fairy, or she’s at full health for some other reason.) So now Ganon is dead. Castle town is in shambles, and multiple people are dead, including the king. But don’t worry - Urbosa quickly makes herself the new parental figure of the triplets.

Hyrule is rebuilt. The people celebrate the defeat of the calamity, and the guardians are restored to their former abilities. Tetra becomes the new Champion of Hyrule Castle, wielding the Master Sword and the Sheikah Slate. For an extra happy ending, maybe she and Mipha formally become a couple. Sheik pioneers work on improving ancient and modern technology, showing a special interest in ways to reverse aging. After many years, Queen Zelda’s son, Daphnes Link Hyrule, becomes the ruler after her reign ends.

And so, the people of Hyrule live happily ever after.

... and 100 years later, Link wakes up.

#legend of zelda #link #zelda #zelda au #the triplets #featuring low effort doodles #breath of the wild #botw #botw 2

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sage-nebula · 4 years

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Do you have headcanons about which characters Alan meets in each region?

Brock — I feel like Brock would be a very good friend for Alan to have. They’re the same age in canon (15), which makes them peers, and aside from that Brock has a very soothing, nurturing nature, which is exactly the kind of friend that Alan needs after everything that happens with Flare. This is especially true since while Brock is kind, his kindness is true kindness in that he’s also firm when he needs to be, i.e. he’s not an enabler of untrue, self-deprecating thoughts. If Alan tried to blame himself for things that weren’t his fault, Brock would put a stop to that right quick, ripping the shovel from his hands and refusing to let him dig himself deeper. That said, I honestly imagine their meeting would be by chance; perhaps Alan goes to Professor Oak’s lab to run an errand for Sycamore and ends up hearing about how a couple of the Gym Leaders in Kanto have mastered Mega Evolution, and so he decides to check that out on his own before returning to Kalos, and that’s how he meets Brock. But either way, I think it’d be a good friendship for him and one that’d last for years.

Gary — I mentioned this in another post, but Alan and Gary already have so much in common that I just think it’d be neat to see them interact. They’re both nerds who care a lot about pokémon, they both love battling, they were both raised by regional professors, and so on and so forth. Mega Charizard X vs. Mega Blastoise Round II would also be really interesting to see. Though their areas of study are different, I think they’d have a lot to talk about, and the fact that they’re both fond of fieldwork would also be another point in favor of the two of them meeting. If Alan did that errand to Oak’s lab that I mentioned above, this could easily be how he meets Gary, who is perhaps home from his own travels for a little while.

Professor Oak — I mean, let’s just continue this “running an errand to Oak’s” thing, which means that he obviously meets Professor Oak. Alan is a studious young man who’s quite experienced in taking care of pokémon and I think Oak would appreciate that. I don’t think they’d get particularly close, both being focused on the research end of things (and Oak not being one to poach other professor’s assistants, generally), but they’d get along well enough, particularly since I’m sure Alan has a lot of respect for Oak given all his accomplishments in the field.

Tracey — RESURRECT TRACEY SKETCHITT 2020. Honestly, Tracey is Oak’s assistant and so it’s completely bewildering why he is nowhere in sight ever the few times we’re allowed to actually go to Oak’s ranch in the anime. In my world, though, he’s there, and while obviously Oak is his hero I imagine that he’s also very curious about Sycamore’s research as well and would probably jump at the chance to ask Alan all sorts of questions about it, and would be even more excited to draw pictures of Lizardon. Alan would be very happy to let Tracey draw pictures of Lizardon because it gets Tracey out of his personal space bubble and to stop asking him rapid-fire questions. (He doesn’t mind Tracey, but Tracey is very enthusiastic when it comes to gaining knowledge and that would make Alan feel kind of on-the-spot and uncomfortable.)

Delia — When what he has to do at Oak’s ends up having to run into another day (or another couple days), Delia, who happened to be visiting at the time and recognizes Alan as one of Ash’s friends (because Ash told her about him and showed him the picture that was taken of everyone at Sycamore’s lab) “invites” Alan to stay the night, and by “invites” I mean “insists” and so he gets a home cooked meal and a nice place to sleep (in Ash’s room) and also gets mothered for the first time ever in his life. Like, Sycamore is his dad, obviously, and Fulbert was his grouchy uncle, but both of those things aren’t quite exactly the same thing as having a mom, especially one who (though she won’t say it) knows you’ve been through a lot recently and can tell you’re still kind of going through it and so makes extra sure to give you a warm hug when you leave and also a bento with lunch and an extra pack of sweets to take with you. (And when he tries to apologize to her for putting Ash in so much danger she won’t hear of it because Ash told her that Alan saved him multiple times and that’s all that matters to her.) Alan won’t think of her as “mom,” of course, because he’s only known her a couple days and she most definitely is not his mom, but he does wonder, when she hugs him, if that’s what being hugged by a mother feels like, and it sticks with him for a while. All in all, Alan likes Delia, although he and Lizardon both don’t know how they feel about Delia calling Lizardon “Li-Li.”

And wow, this is getting really long, so all the rest (and there are a lot more) are going under a cut!

Misty — Because if Alan goes to Pewter Gym to battle Brock due to Mega Evolution, then of course when Brock tells Alan that the Cerulean City Gym Leader has also mastered Mega Evolution, he’s going to go there as well. Given that they both get pretty fired up for battles, Alan and Misty would get along pretty well right off the bat. Misty would be particularly interested in battling (and beating) him since she knows that he beat Ash at the Kalos League, and as much as she loves Ash, she wants to be able to have that one over on him because they’re rivals just as much as they’re best friends. Unfortunately, this battle doesn’t go so well, because when Alan learns that Misty’s Mega Evolution partner is a Gyarados, that gives both him and Lizardon trauma flashbacks pretty much right away. They both try to shake it off, but Brock can tell something’s off and all but insists they stop the match . . . which neither Alan or Misty are really happy with, but, well. Alan can’t say he’s exactly upset to see Mega Gyarados go back in its ‘ball.

Casey — She ends up being the Johto Champion, so of course he meets her (and in specific they meet as Champions). Alan and Casey don’t really talk very much because they don’t really have anything in common. She’s not interested in “nerd stuff” like his research and he has 0% interest in baseball (when she mentions The Electabuzz he legitimately thinks she’s talking about the species of pokémon and has no idea why she’s so offended when he says he’s never heard of the sports team). Casey does get on really well with Manon, though, since the two have very similar energy, even though Manon also knows nothing about baseball. (She does know how to join Casey in making fun of Alan’s “nerd stuff” while he rolls his eyes, though, so there is that.)

Morty & Eusine — Counting these two together as they should be. I don’t think this would be a long-lasting relationship by any means, but I could imagine a scenario where Alan travels to Ecruteak City to learn more about the legends there since he’s interested, and he goes to Morty to learn about them, and Eusine either happens to already be there or barges in while the two are talking, and the second he hears that Alan has some interest in Suicune (and that Alan has interest in hearing about Eusine’s findings once he learns that Eusine is the Ultimate Expert On Suicune™ (according to Eusine himself), well. Alan regrets asking only 30 minutes into that 4 hour lecture. Morty leaves partway through and brings back some tea for them to share because, well. Alan really did it now, didn’t he.

Lance & Clair — In a timeline where Alan studies his heritage (and learns that his heritage links back to the Blackthorn dragon clan), he meets both of them. He might meet Lance in a standard timeline anyway since Lance is always vying for Kanto’s Champion seat and held it before Ash did, but nonetheless he wouldn’t get on with either of them, honestly. Clair has an imperious attitude and is prone to fits of temper when she doesn’t get her way, which would annoy Alan, and Lance can be pretty arrogant and his sense of morality often clashes with Alan’s own. On the flipside, Clair would think Alan an upstart brat who has no right to think he could be on her level, while Lance would find Alan naive and foolhardy. So while they hail from the same clan (albeit distantly, in Alan’s case), they would not consider each other friends, let alone any kind of family.

Wallace — Alan is friends with Steven, and Steven is dating / engaged / married to Wallace, so it’s pretty inevitable the two would meet. I think they’d get along well enough in the few times they were around each other, but honestly they wouldn’t see / talk to each other enough to have any kind of real relationship.

Zinnia — In my head my Delta Episode AU 100% happens and they meet and bond through that when Zinnia tries to mug him for his Key Stone, fails, but then actually succeeds in stealing Sycamore’s Key Stone and so Alan goes tearing after her to get it back. This whole thing culminates in Zinnia revealing to Alan what Devon Corp has been doing with Infinity Energy (which puts a severe strain on his friendship with Steven, very nearly shattering the trust between them, and it takes a long time to heal), and Alan helping Zinnia summon Rayquaza despite his own trauma associated with it and also riding with her into space to help Rayquaza + pulling her off the great sky dragon at the last second so they can be caught by their dragons and both survive. (In other words: Unlike how the actual Delta Episode played out, Zinnia does not have her thunder stolen here. She is the one who summons Rayquaza, teaches it Dragon Ascent, and carries out her destiny as Lorekeeper. Alan just helps her survive the experience, even though they both still almost die, and end up laughing hysterically about it on the roof of the Sky Pillar because, after falling from space and almost dying, what else is there to do?) Their relationship definitely gets off on a rocky start due to the mugging and theft and Zinnia’s habit of being deliberately vague about important things and also talking in circles to avoid answering questions directly (not to mention that Zinnia knows that Alan is friends with Steven and figures, at first, that he must therefore be like Steven in all the ways Zinnia dislikes, such as using pokémon as a means to an end and not caring about lives that he can’t see), but after getting to know each other through the journey to save two universes from a giant Deoxys-infested meteor, they come to a mutual understanding and end up realizing they’re something of kindred spirits. Even though they can still be prone to teasing and bickering whenever their paths cross again after that, there’s also a very deep foundation of trust that can only be gained when you realize you have met your match in attempts to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the world in death-defying stunts that you will never, ever learn your lesson from no matter how many times you tell the people who care about you that you have most definitely learned it this time, you promise. (Not that Zinnia has many of those people left, but she does have her grandmother and others from the Draconid clan, plus she now also has Alan, so. There’s that. Also, no, she and Steven never, ever come to like each other, and Alan does his best to hang out / talk with each of them separately to save himself the headache of trying to mediate.)

Cynthia — She’s the Champion of Sinnoh, so obviously he meets her once he becomes Champion himself, and given that they’re both nerds they get along pretty well as a result. I think I’ve talked about this before, that she kind of becomes like a Cool Aunt for him, in that they can talk about legends and mythos and go on ancient ruins explorations together. Like if one of them discovers some ancient ruins, they’ll send the other a message to see if they want to go spelunking together and the answer is almost always yes. The only times Alan doesn’t appreciate spending time with Cynthia are the times when she teams up with Steven to try to “improve his wardrobe” because Steven and Cynthia are the designated Fashion Icons of the Champion Squad and both think it’s “such a shame” that Alan doesn’t care much about clothes. Otherwise, though, he gets along great with Cynthia and is always happy to have a new message from her.

Tobias — Alan doesn’t actually know Tobias, in that he never got Tobias’ name and probably wouldn’t recognize him again if he saw him on the street (and vice versa), but it’s my headcanon that the first time Alan and Lizardon ever successfully used Mega Evolution, it was in a battle against Tobias. They still ended up losing the match (I mean, the man has a team of legendaries, there’s only so much anyone can do), but given that they successfully used Mega Evolution for the first time, Alan and Lizardon still considered it a victory overall.

Iris — Iris becomes Unova’s Champion, obviously, but I’d like to think that they actually met before that, when Iris traveled to Kalos as part of her training (and the cameo episodes that she DESERVED but NEVER ACTUALLY GOT), and Iris saw Lizardon and got so excited because cute dragon!!! and as a result introduced herself. She makes a remark about how she knows that Charizard isn’t actually a dragon-type, and then Alan tells her about the X form of Mega Evolution and she decides to write Ash a letter right then and there telling him that he was WRONG and she was RIGHT and he should STUDY MORE, MAYBE, or something along those lines. Anyway, I like to think that they battle (with Iris using her Dragonite, or perhaps Haxorus if Axew has evolved by that point), and perhaps even run off some criminals / protect the lab together, or some such. You know, bonding time. Iris and Alan get along pretty well given that they both love dragons and enjoy battling and adventure. She’s the one who always most appreciates when Alan posts pictures of Lizardon into the Champion messenger.

Emma — So this one is sort of an AU idea, considering that much of Alan’s story was clearly based on Emma’s story from the XY postgame, and as such it makes sense to think that they might not exist in the same world. But I love the idea that they were, perhaps, childhood friends; they both would have grown up in Lumiose City, after all, and I could imagine them having a sort of odd friendship over the years, wherein Emma teases Alan for always having his nose in a book or wanting to study and do homework, while Alan just wants to research in peace, and all the while Sycamore is trying to encourage Alan to make friends. Emma, I like to imagine, would have been adopted by Looker around age 7, so they didn’t get to know each other for too long before she was whisked away with her own adoptive parent. But perhaps they met again at the Summer Camp, and perhaps years later Emma — now running the Lumiose branch of the Looker Bureau — helps uncover evidence that gets the police off Alan’s back for the Flare incident somehow. I think it could be a sweet relationship for them. (Alternatively, I’ve also imagined an AU where perhaps she’s his younger biological sister, despite them being roughly the same age canonically, in that his biological parents had another child a little while after abandoning him and decided to keep this one. This AU is more sad because Alan wants nothing to do with his biological parents, and he wouldn’t consider Emma his sister even if they were related by DNA, so I don’t like it as much. It’s still one I’ve considered, though, since design-wise they still look pretty similar and, as I said, they’ve got quite a bit in common even if there are notable differences.)

Louie — We actually do see these two interact in TSME 1, as well as the Kalos League, so this isn’t a headcanon per se. What is headcanon is that Louie considers Alan to be His Rival, while Alan — despite his eidetic memory — always forgets Louie exists the moment they’re done battling. I actually like to think that perhaps they met at the Summer Camp, too, and that they got off on the wrong foot perhaps because Louie was envious that Alan, a kid like him, was Sycamore’s assistant, and Alan got irrationally upset when Louie said that he’d be a much more deserving assistant and would prove it (irrationally because Sycamore would never kick Alan out for another kid, and Alan should theoretically know better at age 10, but also Alan was a child who was already abandoned once and also abused before Sycamore found him so maybe we can give him a pass on this one), and so they spent the whole three day camp hating each other. But then after the camp, Alan forgot about him. And when they met years later and battled, Alan didn’t recognize him (even though Louie DID recognize Alan), and then Alan forgot him again. And Louie felt he’d have his revenge at the League . . . but of course, he didn’t win, and also Alan didn’t know who he was. All in all, this video is a perfect summary of how Louie feels about Alan vs. how Alan feels about Louie.

Hau: Alola’s Champion in the future, and that’s how the two meet. Hau and Alan are pretty neutral toward each other. They have very different energies (Alan is quiet but not laidback, while Hau can be loud but is very laidback), and while this doesn’t make them dislike each other, it also means that they generally don’t talk very much outside of necessary business / the occasional exchange in the Champion messenger. It’s like a very coworker relationship between the two of them, even though they aren’t exactly coworkers. (And before anyone gets in a tizzy, in my headcanon Ash becomes Kanto’s Champion, so no, I’m not “demoting” Ash, please relax.)

The rest of the Alola people he would know I’m leaving out because I wrote those relationships before the games were even released, much less the anime, and so they ended up VERY different from canon. And while I could write in canon-accurate relationships, it’s honestly hard for me to shake what I’d already created out of my head, so it’s just . . . not something that I’d really want to fight with. So if you’re curious about Alan’s relationship with the Aether family, Aether employees, etc, that can go in a separate ask, and will be specific to my Alola AU (which, again, has characterizations from before the games were released even, so the Aether family isn’t IC in it, among other things that I just plain got wrong from the trailers, but whatever, it is what it is). That said, I will say that the comment about “poaching assistants” that I made in Oak’s section was actually kind of a reference to my Alola AU, in which the idea is that after the big climax, Kukui tries to “poach” Alan by inviting him to come be his assistant, because hey, he’s got a pretty impressive resume (and also Ash told Kukui about Alan and especially about all the newfound trauma he has as a result of the Aether AU and asked Kukui if Alan could come stay with them for a while). Alan can be Kukui’s research assistant and also a student teacher at the school and roomies with Ash, it’ll be great. He actually does this right in front of Sycamore, which Sycamore thinks is pretty rude, but when Sycamore asks him about it later Kukui’s like “it was Ash’s idea” and shrugs because he’s got no stakes in this tbqh. (Yeah, I didn’t characterize Kukui completely accurately either because I was working with pre-release info, let me live.) As for whether Alan would say “yes” or not . . . well, we’ll just have to see (I say as if I’ll ever finish that fic this century).

Leon — Galar’s Champion, and as I’ve talked about before I think they’d definitely be friends, plus a little extra, (also they love each other). They’re both Charizard specialists, they both love battling with all their hearts, they love traveling and exploring, they know what it is to have a lot of responsibility foisted upon them at young ages, they’re both very protective of others, valiant and brave, so on and so forth, I’ve already talked about this in another post, haha. They meet as Champions, hit it off immediately, and the relationship forms from there.

Hop — Hop has a tendency to hang around Leon, so I imagine that Alan would meet Hop when he meets Leon. He and Hop don’t talk / interact much after that, really, but Hop and Manon do become rivals, both in whose big brother think they is the best, as well as in battling and the like as well. Just like Alan and Leon are very similar, so are Hop and Manon. I definitely enjoyed the similarities in the Galar games, I won’t lie.

Sonia — I do imagine that Leon would introduce Alan to his friends, which would include Sonia, but at the same time I could also see Alan and Sonia meeting because, like the situation with Gary, they have some commonalities in their backstory. Sonia wasn’t raised by Professor Magnolia, exactly, but clearly her grandmother was a steady presence in her life and she decided to be her assistant. Of course, she ends up taking over the practice by the time she and Alan meet in their 20s, but nonetheless, all that means is that they’re both nerds who would enjoy talking about their research together, and even though Sonia isn’t as big on battling, that wouldn’t stop she and Alan from having a nice friendship and comparing research notes on the differences between Dynamax particles and Mega Evolution energy.

Raihan — As I said, Leon introduces Alan to his friends, and Raihan is still his best friend and rival even though they are also ex-boyfriends. I think that Alan and Raihan would really enjoy battling against one another, would definitely respect each other as trainers, and hey, they both love dragons, so that’s another thing in common. But Raihan is also a social media influencer whose Rotomphone is always snapping pictures, while Alan highly values his privacy and basically isn’t even on social media outside of a rarely updated Instagram that’s purely pictures of scenery and also occasionally Lizardon, never himself. So how they each tend to exist in public spaces is something that puts them at fundamental odds (Alan doesn’t want to be in the pictures and is kind of annoyed, honestly, by the constant snapping of the camera; Raihan thinks Alan is comparable to a caveman for not being on social media and not liking it). They don’t dislike each other, per se, but they also don’t tend to hang out much at all, and when they do it tends to be in small doses (particularly on Alan’s end, given how introverted he is compared to Raihan’s extroversion; Raihan wears him out).

Bede — I’m actually not sure how these two would meet, but while I played through the SwSh games, Bede’s devotion to doing whatever he had to in orde to help Rose achieve his goal (all the while being manipulated into doing so, albeit by Oleana rather than Rose) felt uncomfortably familiar, and I think if Alan was made aware of that he’d try to steer Bede away from that and would definitely not be friendly at all to Oleana. Of course, the primary difference between them is that Bede is a snotty brat while Alan is not and never was, so Bede would not want to listen to Alan at all, and Alan’s help would thus fall on deaf ears. But he’d still try, even as Manon would personally be of the opinion that, hey, maybe Bede is just an annoying jerk and you should just ignore him. (Bede would pick on her just as much as he picks on Hop and so she would not like him one bit. And honestly, Alan’s not too fond of him either, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see another kid manipulated and used like he once was. You don’t get a pass out of doing the right thing just because you don’t like someone, in Alan’s eyes. And that sense of justice and want to do good is really annoying in Manon’s (particularly as she gets older), but is also one of the key things that made her like him so much to begin with, so it’s like. She doesn’t want him to change, but also, Bede is really annoying and mean, though.)

Chairman Rose — Since Alan would participate in tournaments in Galar, and also since he’s Leon’s Special Someone, of course he’d end up meeting Rose at some point. To be honest, Alan wouldn’t trust Rose right off the bat. The fact that a megacorporation owns and runs everything in Galar, including the League, wouldn’t sit right with Alan and he’d be suspicious of it. This is especially true considering that Fleur-De-Lis Labs held considerable influence in Kalos (and look what happened), and Devon Corporation still holds considerable influence in Hoenn (and look what they do re: Infinity Energy). But the thing about Rose is that he’s a natural fit for the public eye and is legitimately a philanthropist / humanitarian, and he’d brush off any distrust that Alan has and always be cordial with him, and over time with him not doing anything wrong to anyone and Leon’s assurances that Rose is all right, Alan would relax around him. A little. Bit by bit. Look, he has a lot of trust issues, okay? He’s hypervigilant. And it doesn’t help that Rose’s second-in-command is, well . . .

Oleana — Oh ho ho these two would not get along at all. While Rose is genuinely friendly and likes talking to people and enjoys battling etc, Oleana is all business and, on top of that, she decides to make some of her business manipulating and using a literal child to do her bidding and then throws him away like used garbage when he goes too far on her orders. To most people she’s cold, calculating, and ruthless (and I say “most people” because she shows the most warmth toward Rose and even that’s not too much). And like, that bit’s fine, she can be how she wants to be, but when she uses and manipulates a child and then discards him like trash, that gets under Alan’s skin. And the thing is, Oleana doesn’t care about that. What she does care about is that she has, of course, done her research on Alan, and she knows that he is Very Likely to interfere with Rose’s plans if he finds out about them, given his past actions (and I believe she’d be of the opinion that he bit the hand that fed when it came to turning against Lysandre, and she’s the type who might bring that up in an argument against him so oh boy), and she’s not about to have that. (To that end, him being around Leon so much, when Rose needs Leon for Eternatus? Hmm. She doesn’t like that.) So there would definitely be a strong and mutual dislike between them, even if they Keep It Together during public events, and Rose and Leon either don’t notice or pretend not to because, well, they’re keeping it civil and don’t have to be around each other for long, so it’s fine, right? Right??

. . . oh boy.

#like don't get me wrong Oleana wouldn't have agreed with Lysandre's plans AT ALL and would be glad the genocide was stopped #but also loyalty is a HUGE part of her characterization and clearly something she values very highly #given the way that she sticks by Rose No Matter What after he believes in & listens to her #so Alan NOT doing that for the man who gave him the means to Mega Evolution the first time around? she'd look down on him for that #also just in general she Knows he will interfere if he finds out Rose's plans and she Won't Have That No Sir #if she has to kick him off the top of Rose Tower or w/e it was called then so be it #if it's for the Chairman it's Justified #(it's really not but try telling her that. she will not cede)#pokemon #trainer alan #trainer alain #champion alan #there are too many other characters here for me to tag #it's a LOT people #and it's late and my hands hurt so #i'm not tagging them all for now #Anonymous

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multi-fandom-imagines8 · 5 years

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Fate

Part 6

Summary: Daenerys refuses to accept the fact that you are dead and sends Daario on a mission to find a way to resurrect you. What will happen? Will he succeed? Will you come back? Will someone else die? What happened to the rest?

A/N: Alas, there’s no Jon this chapter, but at least Daenerys finally made an appearance in the current times.

Warnings: Angst, death!

Fate Masterlist

Taglist

Word Count: 1660.

After your death, Jon was exiled. The North was independent with Sansa as the new queen. Bran was elected to be King of the Six Kingdoms and Tyrion became his Hand. Yara and the new prince of Dorne wanted to oppose but they wanted peace more, so they accepted him as the king.

Grey Worm, the Unsullied and the Dothraki sailed back to Essos, but not in defeat. They were coming to get reinforcements from your mother Daenerys Targaryen.

Before they arrived, Drogon and Rhaegal had already delivered your corpse to her.

“No, no, no! Wake up! Y/n wake up” she held your dead body closer to her chest and embraced you.

“Your grace!” Daario entered the hall.

“I should’ve been with her. A mother shouldn’t see her child dead. I should’ve gone with her to Westeros. I sent her there inexperienced and alone. I see that now. One of the reasons I stayed was because of you, Daario Naharis and what did I get in return? Is that the price I have to pay for being a little bit happy?”.

“Your grace I-”.

“You what? Leave and don’t come back without a way to bring her back” she ordered.

“But it’s impossible”.

“Is it? Then you will never see me again. Now leave!”.

After a week of asking and travelling non stop, Daario finally returned with a red priestess from Volantis.

“What are you doing here? I thought I asked you not to return unless you find a way” Daenerys asked.

“I believe I have, your grace” he informed her.

“You believe? Believing is not enough! I need you to know. I need it to work, before I can have hope again-”.

“If I may speak, your grace?”.

“And you are?”.

“My name is Sashare. I was gold that you lost someone dear to you and looking for a way to get her back”.

“You can bring back the dead?”.

“No… but the lord of light can”.

“You’re of the faith of R’hllor?”.

“You know who he is, your grace?” she was surprised.

“I’ve heard about him and I’ve seen other priests and priestesses in the city before”.

“How long has she been dead for?”.

“Two weeks if not more”.

“Two weeks?! I’m afraid I cannot help you”.

“So you’ve come all this way to tell me that you cannot do anything?” Daenerys started losing hope.

“I am sorry! The Lord of Light wanted me here for a reason. Although I cannot help you, someone else may”.

“Who?”.

“The first servant of the Lord of Light, Kinvara”.

“And where do I find this Kinvara?”.

“To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow" she repeated to her what Quaithe once told her, a mysterious shadowbinder from Asshai who she met while she was in Qarth.

Daenerys was shocked by her words “Asshai? Is the priestess there?”.

“She’s waiting where the Faith of R’hllor originated from. Where the first and last dragon eggs were found. But I must warn you, it’s a dangerous place. You could lose more loved ones and the longer you wait, the chances of her resurrection decrease”.

“The shadow Lands beyond Asshai! I will get there in time. I have dragons or have you forgotten? But if you’re lying to me, I’ll have you executed for it” Daenerys warned “as for you, Daario Naharis, you may accompany me”.

“Me? On a dragon?”.

“Yes. Or are you afraid?”.

“Not at all. It’ll be my pleasure”.

Daenerys rode on her Dragon Rhaellys and Daarior rode behind her. Rhaegal didn’t allow anyone to ride him, not even Daenerys. The only person who did ride him other than you was Jon Snow. But now he has lost you both. Drogon carried you all the way to the Shadow Lands, but when it was time to put you on the ground, he was skeptical and refused at the beginning until Daenerys assured him that she wouldn’t let anything happen to you- or your corpse.

The place they landed in was dark and full of terrors that they didn’t know about. The three dragons were on guard, while Daario carried you and followed Daenerys into the first temple of R’hllor.

As they entered, they saw Kinvara praying to the fire “At last! I’ve been wondering when you’d arrive”.

“You knew we were coming?” Daenerys asked.

“Of course. The Lord of Light informed me of your arrival. I have a hard task ahead of me. Y/n has been dead for some time now. It might not work, but I will try my best and if the Lord of Light wills it, she will return to you. You can put her here” she signaled Daario and started working.

She washed your body from the blood with a wet cloth, cut a braid from your hair, threw it in the fire-pit, placed her hands on your chest and started reciting an incantation in Valyrian while “Zyhys oñoso jehikagon Aeksiot epi, se gis hen syndrorro jemagon. Zyhys perzys stepagon Aeksio Oño jorepi, se morghultas lys qelitsos sikagon. Hen syndrorro, oños. Hen ñuqir, perzys. Hen morghot, glaeson” ( We ask the Lord to shine his light, and lead a soul out of darkness. We beg the Lord to share his fire, and light a candle that has gone out. From darkness, light. From ashes, fire. From death, life). She repeated the incantation several times but it didn’t work. It may have been, indeed too late.

Suddenly, the three dragons started screeching and Daario immediately left to see.

“Go! I can finish this on my own, but I need time… take the flame with you” Kinvara ordered Daenerys and she did what she asked.

When she went outside to see, there were scary creatures that she’s never seen before. They attacked the dragons and when they saw her and Daario, they were headed for them.

Luckily, Rhaellys managed to stop one of them, but it ended with her death.

“No, no, no! I cannot lose another child” she was on the verge of a breakdown.

“Stand and fight for your living children. You can mourn later” Daario tried to motivate her.

“You must leave now or you will never make it” Kinvara exited the temple.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with her” Daenerys reminded.

“I did what I could. If you want to leave alive with your remaining children, now is the time!”.

“I’m not leaving without my daughter” Daenerys insisted.

“Tell the dragons to leave and get on one, I’ll get Y/n” Daario ran inside.

“I will give you as much time as I can” Kinvara started reciting another incantation and then a circle of fire appeared, keeping them out for the time being.

Unfortunately, Rhaegal was badly injured and flew away. Drogon kept fighting from inside the circle with Daenerys on his back.

“Go, go, go!” Daario managed to put you and himself on Drogon’s back.

“Come with us!” Daenerys offered.

“My time is over. Remember, from death comes life and from ashes, fire” those were Kinvara’s last words before the creatures devoured her.

---

“You think she’s still in there?” Daario entered your room where your corpse lay on the bed. Daenerys was sitting next to you and mourning the death of her other child.

“I know she is. I can feel it. She can’t be gone for good. I can’t take it”.

“I know that you don’t want to hear anything right now, but I have some news for you”.

“What is it now? Someone else in the city betrayed me?” she had dark circles under her eyes, her hair was loose and she was in despair.

“No, I come bearing good news. Apparently, Rhaellys has laid three eggs before we left for the Shadow Lands” he informed her.

“What? Who knows about this?”.

“Just me and the Maester”.

“...of course”.

“Of course what?” Daario was confused.

“I know what I have to do now”.

Daenerys prepared a funeral for you, just like the one she did for Drogo. She laid the three dragon eggs next to you and hoped for one last miracle as she burned your body.

---

“Your grace, Grey Worm and your army have returned” Daario informed her.

“My queen, it been too long. I am sorry I failed you. I deserve to die. You should punish me for my betrayal. I must inform you that queen Y/n is murdered by a man called Jon Snow. It is my fault. I not be there to guard her and when I find out, it be too late. Drogon take her somewhere, I not know where” Grey Worm informed her with his eyes never meeting hers in a shame.

“Grey Worm, you, Ser Jorah the Andals and Missandei were my friends and most trusted advisors. Now only you remain alive. How could I execute you? You never betrayed me, you just did not know that this man was going to betray you and it’s not your fault. As for Y/n, well…” she signaled with her hand and you came out.

“My queen!” he immediately knelt and looked at the ground, not able to make eye contact with you either.

“Grey Worm. I’m glad you’re safe” you hugged him and he was shocked but hugged you back.

“I am sorry. I not protect you. I not kill Jon for you. But Tomorrow I sail back, avenge you” he promised.

“It’s alright Grey Worm. Like my mother said, you didn’t know. Neither did I and he fooled me too. Tomorrow we sail to Westeros again. This time to Winterfell. We will take back what is ours with Fire & Blood” you smirked.

This time you were not alone. Daenerys was coming for them all, to show them what happens when someone messes with her daughter.

Tags: @disneyprincessbuffyannesummers @simonsbluee @marvel-addict-95 @capsheadquaters @bucky-blogs @octaviareina @winterscommander @patdsinner @doctorswife221b @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @queenmxndes @simplyfandomish @coltonparayyko @blonddnamedhandz

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woodedcove · 4 years

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All These Things Will Give Thee Experience

This abstract was given to us by a wonderful friend and hangs on our living room wall. Unfortunately I don’t know who it was painted by.

The past couple of days I’ve been having problems with Trigeminal Neuralgia. Some have described this pain as one of the most severe that a human can suffer. I don’t know if that’s true but I can say it doesn’t feel good. Imagine a Kitchen Aide mixer scrambling your brain while a cattle prod polks your face, now imagine it happening at random moments throughout the day and you’ll have the idea. I’ve struggled with this pain off and on for the last two and a half years. It could be a complication of Ankylosing Spondylitis or a side effect of the neck surgery I had a couple of years ago. It also could have developed all on its own.

So why, on top of all the other forms of pain that I experience, do I have this? Perhaps some might think God is angry with me because of something I've done. Others might wonder how I can believe in God when the things that have happened in my life has been so unfair. I’ve had one person tell me once that all my trials had made her lose faith in God. But my faith in a loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ allows me to have hope and teaches me humility. Let me explain.

Faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a wonderful thing. It is a miracle. But the miracle doesn't end with Christ's resurrection. Jesus Christ suffered and died so that we may live again. That's so amazing that words just don't cover it. My faith in Jesus Christ teaches me that I will live again and I will be pain-free. My body will be restored to me but it will be renewed and perfected, with no Crohn’s, or Ankylosing Spondylitis or Trigeminal Neuralgia. I will be able to turn my neck. I’ll be able to run and I won’t be fatigued all the time. My body will be able to regulate itself and hot summers and cold winters won't bother me anymore. What's more is I will be able to be with my loved ones, hold them, talk with them, and share eternity with them. All of this gives me great hope and that hope carries me through the hard times.

But how does pain teach me humility?

Job was a righteous man, yet he lost everything; his children, his property and his health. Even his friends turned against him and his wife told him to curse God and die. But when Job finally did complain to the Lord, the Lord said to him:

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding.

“Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

“Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof?

“When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7)

Job repented and humbly replied " ... I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me which I knew not." (Job 42:3) In the end, the Lord blessed Job with more than he had in the beginning.

Sometimes, though we’ve been trying to do everything we can to be good people and to live according to God’s commandments, things still go wrong. But Our Heavenly Father sees the big picture. He knows the experiences we need to help us reach our full potential.

Another example is Joseph Smith. From the time that he saw a vision of the Father and the Son, he was persecuted. Joseph was beaten and thrown in jail without cause, he was tarred and feathered several times, and he was dragged from his home and had poison shoved down his throat. All of this persecution would have stopped if he had simply said that the vision he had and the Book of Mormon were lies, but he never did. And because he refused to deny what he knew to be true, he was thrown again into jail where he, his brother and two other men were kept for four months during the coldest part of the Missouri winter. Finally, in Joseph’s darkest moment he pled with the Lord:

“Oh God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covered thy hiding place?

“How long shall thy hand be stayed and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?” (121: 1-2)

The Lord’s reply to Joseph was:

“My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

“And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.” (Doctrine and Covenants 121: 7-8)

The Lord reminded Joseph that he was not yet as Job because his friends hadn’t turned against him. Then the Lord instructed Joseph with words I have clung to throughout all my life. He said:

“If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea;

“If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;

“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

“The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” (Doctrine and Covenants 122: 5-8)

The prophet leader Benjamin explained to his people what Christ would suffer for us this way:

“And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than a man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and abominations of his people” (Mosiah 3:7)

And Christ himself described the suffering He went through while offering His atoning sacrifice this way:

“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent.

“But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

“Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit - and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink -

“Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16-19)

I have gained a lot of experience in this life even as the Lord told Joseph he would, through the things that I’ve gone through. And maybe, in the very tiniest degree, I have experienced a pain that is about as close to our Savior’s suffering as I can get. Maybe. When I think of this and think of the unimaginable, unfathomable pain my Savior has suffered just for me, my heart is humbled and I am convinced of His incredible love for me. Maybe that’s what all my pain and suffering is about. To help me understand, to become convinced, and to be converted to my Savior’s love, His gospel, His good news. If so I will be patient, try to be humble, and pray that I learn my lesson well.

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immortalpramheda · 5 years

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The 100 6x11 ‘Ashes to Ashes’

Sheidheda is still taunting Madi. As she faces him in a game of chess, he tells her what it is he wants from her. He wants her to get revenge for Clarke, and kill anyone who gets in her way. He wants her to rule this world, just like he did the last.

I’m thinking more and more that he might be Cadogan. From what we’ve learnt previously, Cadogan burnt Becca alive and it’s seems very likely he then took over the Grounder culture and made it what it ultimately became. There’s a huge possibility that he could be the Dark Commander. Maybe now being in Sanctum (a new world), it’s awoken him and he wants to rule this one and turn it into something more twisted, just like he did to the last world.

“Mistakes are forgivable, not learning from them isn’t.” Miller and Gaia were two of Bloodreina’s most loyal followers in the bunker, but we’ve never really seen them interact before. They both feel regret at how they stood by and didn’t do anything to stop all the horror that transpired. Miller in particular still feels immense guilt. But as Gaia points out, they can be forgiven as long as they learn from their mistakes.

Miller goes back to his roots as a thief and is the reason they manage to escape. He steals a knife from a guard, but he doesn’t use it to to kill, he uses the wire to pick a lock. He’s learning from his mistakes that violence is not always the way. If there is another option, then they should take it. These two together were gold and I’d love to see more of them!

Echo is to be the first new host, using bone marrow extracted from Madi. She’s turned into a Nightblood the same way that Clarke was. She’s terrified of being mind wiped, and we learn why. Because she’s been erased before.

When Echo was a child she was being trained by Queen Nia to become an assassin. When she fails to kill a man, she is instead tasked with killing her friend, Ash. If she fails at this too, then they both die.

She’s hesitant and refuses to put up much of a fight, even begging Ash to fight back and show there’s value in her too. But Ash ends up killing her instead. Nia gives her the name of Echo and Ash is erased.

Ash’s whole life up until then was forgotten and she was forced to take on the name and life of her best friend. And how fitting is her name, she’s an echo of the friend she had to kill.

This is something she has never confided to anyone before. She’s ashamed, she feels like an imposter. Her whole life was upended and she’s always struggled with her identity, never quite knowing who she is. That’s why Spacekru was so important to her. It was the first time she felt like she had a family and knew her place. It’s a sad backstory, and explains a lot about who she is as a person.

She told Ryker, a stranger, because that’s easier than telling a close friend. Killing him also means the secret dies with him, but I wonder if she’ll ever be comfortable opening up to anyone else.

The big question is, why was she turned into a Nightblood? She could still become Simone or another Prime. Or maybe she could take the Flame and becomes Commander? But that doesn’t really check out, because the Grounders think synthetic Nightblood is a betrayal of their culture. I doubt they’d follow her. But there must be a reason.

Bellamy’s plan was to bargain for peace with Josephine’s mind drive, but the drive is empty. So she is gone for good. She can’t resurrected again.

A lot of really subtle, sweet moments between Clarke and Bellamy this episode. Comforting her after waking up from a nightmare, how he apologises for not protecting her, and the way he’s hesitant to let her put herself in danger again.

“You’re my sister. But you’re not my responsibility. Not anymore.” The Blake siblings are finally on their way to mending their relationship. Octavia is determined to do whatever it takes to earn his forgiveness. Bellamy loves her, but the truth is that their relationship was toxic. They can’t go back to the way things were, it wouldn’t be healthy. She is not his responsibility anymore. They’re adults and need to take responsibility for their own actions. Hopefully soon they’ll have the chance to just be brother and sister, rather than this unbalanced relationship they’ve had their entire lives. It seems that we’re heading that way and I’m very much looking forward to it.

The Children of Gabriel have not been sure whether Gabriel (the Old Man) is actually alive or not. It seemed that they’d abandoned him. They’re surprised, and relieved, to see Xavier again. One of them is his sister. Layla. He reveals he is Gabriel, and has been for the past ten years. His sister is furious that this imposter has been living in her brothers body for that long, fooling them all. Introducing Xavier’s sister is an interesting addition, I hope we get to see more of her.

Bellamy suggests they make a bomb with Red Sun Toxin and let it loose in Sanctum. Causing everyone to go mad and use it as an opportunity to kill the Primes. Clarke isn’t completely on board with this plan, it reminds her a lot of Mount Weather. These people have been brainwashed, they’re innocent, and they shouldn’t be punished. She has another idea, make the bomb strong enough to only effect the bugs. Force an evacuation instead of a mass psychosis, while she poses as Josephine to bring down the shield. If they have the chance to save innocent lives, then they should.

Bellamy is hesitant to let Clarke go on a dangerous mission because he doesn’t want to lose her again. Their goodbye was bittersweet, there’s no guarantee their plan will work. But he acknowledges this is the best course of action and lets her go. “For Monty.”

Despite everything that Clarke has been through, having her body stolen and almost dying, she is the one determined to keep Monty’s wish. Revenge isn’t the way. Saving their people and freeing the innocent people of Sanctum from this false religion is how they do better. Even if it means putting herself in danger, because that’s what Clarke Griffin always does.

Clarke does a great job of playing Josephine, complete with the hair twirl and nonchalant attitude towards torture and death, and Russell seems to completely buy that she’s his daughter. Murphy buys it too (I think? He seemed to believe she really is Josie but maybe he’s just playing along).

She almost breaks when she sees Madi strapped to an operating chair, but she keeps her composure. She has no choice but to play along or risk blowing her cover. (Kudos to Eliza Taylor for playing many different iterations of characters this season - Clarke, Josephine, Josephine playing Clarke, and now Clarke playing Josephine, she’s absolutely killing it!)

Gabriel mentioned that Simone is the one who originally weaponised the Red Sun Toxin. She and Josephine were intrigued by the visions of those who survived being caught out in the eclipse, and they began leaving test subjects outside to study. The believers of the Primes reported seeing the Primes as ‘gods’ in the hallucinations, and their aggression was almost always aimed at the less faithful. And so the ‘Adjustment Protocol’ was born. Every once in a while they let loose a bomb of the toxin and let the believers kill the non believers. A way for them to ensure Sanctum is full of only loyal followers.

Considering ‘Adjustment Protocol’ is the name of the next episode, I’d say it’s likely that things won’t exactly go to plan. Not just the bugs will be affected, but there will probably be a mass psychosis and it will be mayhem. Maybe Murphy will be the only person who isn’t affected again?

Another great episode! It pushed the plot forward in some really exciting ways, and Bob did an amazing job at directing! Only two episodes left now, and I can’t wait to see what happens!

#the 100 #the 100 6x11 #6x11 #ashes to ashes #the 100 recap #the 100 review #the 100 spoilers #bob morley #t100recap

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