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#they are literally in love but this was played as a joke which like i expect but also... :(
barblaz-arts · 1 day
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As someone who ships Chaggie as well, I want your opinion on this.
Someone made a kinda good point about Charlie and Vaggie’s relationship; the point being that there’s a power imbalance between them. Charlie is the princess of hell. She wouldn’t physically loose anything or be hurt physically if she breaks up with Vaggie. But Vaggie would loose both the love of her life and her home and friends if they break off. And so they see this toxic dynamic because Vaggie is “walking on eggshells” in order to stay in Charlie’s favor and not getting on her bad side.
So….thoughts?
The problem is people who say these things treat the terms "power imbalance" and "toxic" and "unhealthy" as the same things when they are not.
There is a power imbalance, yes, definitely. I constantly make jokes about the fact that Charlie and Vaggie have a forbidden love story in a Boss/Employee HR violation kinda way for pete's sake. It's just a lot more funny thinking about the fact that that probably has more weight than the demon/angel situation.
But the thing is, no matter what Charlie will ALWAYS have a power imbalance with whoever she dates because she is literally the princess of Hell, as they have said. Even if she dates a fellow hellborn royal, the fact that Charlie is in a higher position of power will always be a fact because her parents are literally the only ones above that. So what? Should she just not date anyone??? Also, isn't the one has a higher position of power but still loves the other a super popular ship trope? Rich x poor. Royalty x commoner. Goddess/immortal x normal human. Popular in school x the social loser. The list goes on. So why is it a problem now?
The fact that they think Vaggie "walks on eggshells" around Charlie is a bit...? I'm just a little confused you know? Vaggie is definitely not afraid of Charlie. When they had their fallout, she wasn't afraid of losing the things she was dependent on Charlie if they ever broke up(i.e. a home, her safety, money etc) because Vaggie damn well knows Charlie wouldn't do that. Everyone in hell knows Charlie goddamn Morningstar wouldn't do that. Vaggie was merely afraid of losing their relationship, which is a perfectly normal thing to be afraid of. Vaggie's dedication to Charlie isn't rooted in fear, it's rooted in devotion in the name of what she thinks the person she loves deserves.
The thing that makes Chaggie so great despite that power imbalance is the fact that Charlie is an absolute sweetheart. She isn't the kind of person who would take advantage of that power and Vaggie, as someone who knows her so well, is perfectly aware of that. Vaggie is safe with Charlie in every way that matters, and this is where toxicity and the unhealthy elements come into play.
Charlie and Vaggie as individuals have all the ingredients for an unhealthy relationship. As Husk so plainly pointed out, Charlie would rather fix everyone else's problems than help herself. Meanwhile Vaggie has deep self-hatred that seeps into how she feels about everyone but Charlie. They're both the type of people who would rather think about others rather than themselves. This is the root of their codependency, and why their relationship can be quite unhealthy. It's extremely evident with Vaggie, which makes perfect sense since she probably never saw herself as a person before Charlie.
Those flaws can so easily be taken advantage of in a relationship, but the thing is, do they do that? Do either of them think the other ever would? As Rosie did say...
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While Charlie likes to shoulder everyone else's problems, Vaggie looks at the love her life and decides she'll take some of that load so she doesn't get crushed under the weight of the world. Vaggie reels Charlie in by being the realist to Charlie's dreamer. Vaggie used to essentially be Heaven's living weapon, but she has now sworn to be the armor for someone who looks out for everyone but herself.
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On the other hand Vaggie's self-worth is shrewed because she's an ex-soldier who thinks she should always be under someone's service to be deserving of anything. But here Charlie is who constantly calls Vaggie her partner and blatantly treats Vaggie as an equal and still loves Vaggie "more than anything" and doesn't doubt that Vaggie loves her in return even after finding out Vaggie's lie and true origins.
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So are they good for each other? Maybe not, but there's still more of the show to see. They can be unhealthy, but not to the point that being together damages each other in any significant way. Their relationship is imperfect, which is fine. No relationship is. Especially not in fucking HELL. And perfect for a story because, yunno... They are still in an ongoing story. They aren't a lost cause yet. It's something they can develop from, something we can get to SEE them develop from.
Are they toxic though?? Are they harming each other physically, emotionally, sexually, or financially? Definitely not. Because although whether they're good FOR each other still remains to be seen, it is an undeniable fact that they are good TO each other, despite all the ways they could not be. The unhealthy elements are due to how they treat themselves, but their relationship can't be deemed toxic because of how they treat each other. And for now, that's what matters and that's why I love this ship.
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tanoraqui · 2 days
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In Which Space Orcs are Men
[AO3] A "what if humans are space orcs" take on Dagor Dagorath. (Aka the prophecied apocalypse of Middle Earth. Scifi story accessible to non-LotR nerds!)
Elves weren't really supposed to leave Earth. That's what they told us—the Elves, that is, told people thousands of years ago, when Elves could still be found here and there. When I was born, elves were nearly as much a fairy tale as they’d been on Ancient Earth.
Elves weren't supposed to leave Earth, the Elves said in the fairy tales, and in a few old scraps of records scattered around known space. They literally weren't made for it. They could only do it if they brought Earth with them—Arda they called it, leaves or dirt, water or a rare bubble of air, perfectly preserved in a white crystal. There are tons of tales about Elves losing their lifeline jewels—their hearts, their silimirs—and roping people into epic quests to get them back before they—the Elf—faded to nothingness. 
Even the jewels weren't enough, though. That's why there are also stories about Elves who fell in love with a person or a place and stayed there until they faded, or Elves who charmed someone into following them back to Fairyland on Earth...because whatever they said, Elves didn't really live on Earth. Humans have maintained their home planet as a monitored nature reserve since like the 40th century, open only to vetted research teams and serious Human religious pilgrimages. The most confirmed accounts of Elves that exist are of their ships appearing out of nowhere, with no trace of any tech that would enable it, at random, always-changing points within 100 miles or so of Earth.
Nobody ever came back from trying to follow Elves home. Mostly Elves tried to dissuade people from trying. But there are always crazy and curious people—and Elves usually attracted those, because any Elf who left the home they were "made" for was usually crazy and curious themselves. 
Those were the stories I grew up with. There was a cave near the orphans' creche which was supposed to be haunted by a faded Elf. I didn't really believe it—like I said, the last confirmed Elf was last seen like 5,000 years ago, and not even on my planet. People have met two dozen new sentient races since then. We've discovered that reincarnation is probably real (just functionally untrackable), prompting the Pan-Religious Reform Wars. The last person to see a live Elf was still traveling via natural wormholes—they literally didn't know that you could loop pi.
.
When the Human natal sun started to turn really red, it wasn’t that big a deal at first. It’s a very important, very sad event for any species, but it happens to everyone eventually. It happened to the Hectort just after we invented interstellar flight. There were some unusual gravatic waves around Earth’s Sol, but nothing worth noting to anyone who didn’t already care for personal reasons.
Then the Elves sent us a message.
The local Parks Service picked it up, of course. I bet the Humans meant to hush it up at first—though the Centaurian government still won’t admit anything—but someone leaked it immediately on the intergalactic net. It should’ve only been famous as a joke of a hoax, but…
It was basically just a metal box with rudimentary fire-thrusters soldered on the sides. It contained two things. The first was a recording/replaying device so antiquated that the only way they got it working is that it was already playing on loop, and didn’t stop until someone disconnected it from its power source.
The message was in Ancient Bouban, which some folklorist soon announced is the latest language an Elf could know, since the last known Elf went back to “Arda.” The voice somehow sounded melodic to every species with a concept of music, from the screeching Vesarians to the deep-sea sub-sonic Thinkers, even when translated through cheap, staticky speakers. And to most species, the speaker was audibly distraught.
They said,
This is the final message from the Firstborn of Eru to the Secondborn, and everyone else. The Battle of Battles has come, and we…are losing. If there are any who remember the ancient love and loyalty which bound our peoples, if there are any heirs remaining of Thargalax the Magnificent, of Nine-Fingered Frodo, of the noble Houses of Haleth, Hador and Beor—
The speaker drew a sharp breath, there.
—by great oaths and greater friendship I bid you now to raise your swords and ride to our aid. Ride as swiftly as you can!
We will hold for another year. We will, they said determinedly. After that, it is unlikely that…
Another, shakier breath. A smile forced into a voice which would rather weep.
Fëanáro and Nienna believe there is a way to destroy the Straight Road. If we must, if it comes to it, we will do so, and trap the First Enemy here in this dying world with us. Though I don’t know about—
Hair-aristocrat! a more distant, slightly less perfectly melodious voice called, in a language so dead that they needed computers to decode it. The walls are falling, we need to go!
If you never hear from us again, and no sudden discord arises among you, you will know we succeeded, the first speaker said quickly. If otherwise…I am sorry. Either way, I bid you all only, remember us! Oh beautiful flames, remember us, as we have ever remembered y— 
There was a sudden screech of tearing metal, a defiant, musical battle-cry, and a jarring silence. Then the message restarted.
And that wasn’t even the strangest thing in the box. The strangest thing was the recorder’s power source, which was powering the whole tiny rocket mechanism as well. It was an Elf-jewel right out of a fairy tale, a fist-sized, translucent not-quite-diamond—but instead of rock or water or a much-loved scrap of plant, the only thing it held was light.
...Kind of. It isn’t normal light. It arguably isn’t light at all, as we know it—scientists now think it’s technically some sort of plasmoid aether, except it only acts like a plasmoid aether about half the time. 
It has no detectable source within the jewel. It fully illuminates whatever space it’s in, no matter how big. Its visible radiation is a frequency, the scientists say, that matches a hyper-accelerated version of what the universe must’ve sounded like in the split second after the Big Bang.
It makes people remember things, when they see it in person or sometimes even across a holo. Some remember a similar light in a strange traveler’s eyes. Others, dreamily enchanted valleys where spring never faded, or tall castles, bright swords, and stern and glorious lords and ladies. And some of us got hit with a whole lifetime of memories in one go: an identical gem on the brow of a sober forest king, friends who slipped through trees like shadows save for their merry laughter, an impossibly beautiful gold-haired maiden dancing in a glittering cavern...
(And all the pain and loss that came with them.)
And some people just remember the sight of a distant star—in another world, in another lifetime.
Reincarnation was provable but untraceable…until now. 
The Thinker ambassador on Astrolax Station 5 was the first to kick up a fuss. Most Thinkers never leave their home planet, they're too huge and aquatic. But like I said, there's always crazy and curious people. The ambassador started bellowing the second che heard the message, without even seeing the light, because, "I know him! My Wisdom! We must send aid!" That made some news, and random other people shared their own, less dramatic revelations, and soon a compilation swept the net with timestamps showing that most of them were organically independent, not just jumping on the bandwagon….
Even that might've gotten written off intergalactically. The Thinkers are big in reincarnationist circles, on account of how they claim that deep in their planetary ocean they can hear echoes of their past lives. But being mostly planet-bound means they're not really influential on a big political level. Or it would've sparked another surge of the Reform Wars, and everybody would've remembered the rock, but not the recording. Or there would’ve been a fight over this potentially infinite energy source (though that is so last giga-annum)….
But first it was shown in person to the current Director of the Admiralty of the Astral Alliance, President of the X-ee Empire and Matron of the House of S,sh, Ch’ees/i’i S,sh. I was actually there—I was Captain of her ceremonial Alliance guards, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage my career after Zanzibus. Very ceremonial, considering the X-eee have laser-proof shells and pincers and I have, what, opposable thumbs? Vestigial tusks?
I wasn’t paying attention at first, too busy being suddenly assaulted by all my own memories. So I missed the President freezing mid-step and gasping (in X-eee), “Mother.” I also missed her rising alarm call of an attempt to speak Ancient Elvish without an Elvish tongue or lips.
I sure didn’t miss her snap back to X-eee for a sharp call to attention, and everything that followed: the call to arms! The rousing of the Alliance! A tour of the galaxy, to find anyone and everyone else in whom the Light could awaken ancient memories! And for the love of X'eeh, why had nobody figured out how to get back to Fairyland with this thing yet, and every warship in the quadrant?!
If I believed in the One Behind, or in any other creator god or gods—I'm not saying I do, but if I did, if there really is something out there all-powerful and all-kind—then it'd be because out of every soul in the entire universe, the probably one in the best position to act on the Elves' message turned out to have, from a past life, two parents and a much-loved twin still in Fairyland. Like, that's insane, right?
I stayed with the Director's ceremonial guards for the whole tour, actually more than ceremonial for once—it was the weirdest mission of my life, and I've been on a lot of weird missions. Or supposedly routine missions that got weird (and usually disastrous). My friends joke that I'm cursed. S,sh requisitioned an Inquiry-class ship, so the science boffins could study the Light and jewel along the way, and we started wormholing at weft speed, hitting a new planet every week. Sometimes every day. In each major spaceport and ground-city, S,sh stood with the jewel on the highest available point and gave a recruitment speech for going to save the Elves and fight the oldest enemy of all reality. 
Honestly, it seemed a little redundant? The Astral Alliance was made for this sort of rescue mission (and for escorting trade convoys). But I was...if not happy, then sure as hell more self-certain with my ancient memories restored, and most people who joined up seemed to agree. It was mostly people who remembered, when exposed to the Light, who joined—so before long, we had a whole tag-along trail of mostly civilian ships, trying to get up to Alliance Fleet standard on the road in less than a year.
Three different religious sects tried to kill S,sh for "profaning the mysteries." Five others tried to steal the jewel because we were apparently appropriating a holy object. The boffins announced that, bar the can't-prove-a-negative possibility, the evidently sourceless Light should be counted as an infinite energy source, and at least seven different groups, ruthless financiers and sustainability idealists, immediately tried to steal it for that. And I still don't know what the rival thief-queens of Likkiliani were about, except that I got tied up upside-down from a palmdar tree for two hours trying to stop one, the other paid me 700 cron then threw me off a cliff, and in the end they recognized each other from past lives and just made out on worldwide live-holo before joining our growing fleet. 
It turned out they were the Director's past life's great-grandparents, and a Canid pop princess was her niece. The Thinker ambassador was some sort of ancestor, too. Crazy extended family. 
Most people who remember just remember the sight of a star in the sky. A buddy of mine from Fleet Academy remembered looking up at it as a Human sailor. The historians—and you’d better bet we picked up some Earther historians on this mission as well!—say this jewel or one like it was probably astrologically conflated with the planet Venus by early Humans.
(The more time I spent around the jewel, the Silmaril, the more I remembered, of my first life and more. Lifetime after lifetime with bad luck dogging my steps, killing loved ones in my arms, destroying cities I was supposed to save… One restless, haunted night, I met a Rigilic in the cafeteria who’d been awake with some of the same nightmares, who’d been my dead older sister once.)
The tour was cut short when word came from the Earth system that there was a black hole growing in the center of their reddening sun. 
No, the sun wasn’t compressing into a black hole millennia ahead of schedule—one had just spontaneously manifested within it, like it’d teleported in. No, not literally—that was impossible. We were pretty sure. No, the sun wasn’t falling into it…somehow. Yet. The black hole was only 17 quectometers wide, but it was growing at an erratic but unceasing rate. If their best estimation of the pattern held, it would consume the sun 2 months before the Elves’ deadline, and the Earth 4 to 950 minutes later.
We pulled back to Earth—well, to the dwarf planet Eros, on the edges of Earth’s star system. That’s where the nearest shipyard of any note was, and we were gathering the whole Astral Alliance. This is exactly the sort of thing the Alliance is for. 
I was released back to ship duty. Zanzibus was still a black mark on my record, as was Jorab, and really everything on the AAS Endeavor…and that thing in third year of Fleet Academy… But no matter how bad my curse, I was an experienced captain and one of the best pilots in the Alliance. For this, we needed all the best.
The boffins had pretty quickly mastered limited manipulation of the Light, using modified aetheric resonators, and every day they came up with something new for us to test. They focused the Light into a laser cannon like no one has seen before. They laced it through plasma shields until a fully shielded ship glowed like a distant star. They managed to nearly replicate the Silmaril’s crystalline structure, so they could make “copies” that shone like the original for first a few hours; then, with refinement, a full week…
The one thing they couldn’t pin down with any real confidence was how to get to Fairyland. The frequency of the Light resonated with large bodies of Earther saltwater in a particular way, and models suggested that if the Light source moved horizontally along the water within a certain range of distance and velocity, the resonance would create a wormhole-like ripple in space—but wormhole-like, was the key word, and models suggested. The closest anyone had seen to that spatial distortion was in a logbook of dubious veracity from the Delta Quadrant, four hundred years ago. Alteia, my Academy buddy who’d been a Human sailor, took the Silmaril in an M-wing on a series of highly monitored test flights above the Atlantic Ocean, and space did repeatedly start to hollow in front of bom—so bo had to stop every time, rather than risk vanishing with our single, maybe-one-way ticket.
Then Earth’s moon stopped shining in the sky. Its albedo just dropped nearly to zero, from one night to the next. There was nothing wrong that anyone could figure out—nothing with the orbit, nothing with the surface rock, nothing with the artificial atmosphere. Inhabitants reported feeling colder by several degrees, but no measuring equipment recorded anything.
The black hole slightly off-center in the middle of Sol was now 844.9 zeptometers, and growing more steadily.
We didn’t have time to keep testing. We needed to raise our swords and make our ride, even if we only got one shot at it.
I was given command, for seniority, skill, and because I was the one who managed to talk S,sh out of leading the fleet herself. (If my lives had taught me anything, it was the importance of having someone, anyone, ready to be emergency backup.) Ironically, I was back on the Endeavor, with most of my old crew—though we got permission to rename the ship, in honor of the mission. A lot of people did. Alteia was now commanding the AAS Elendil on my right flank, star-friend in Ancient Elvish. That Canid pop princess had taken over a hospital ship and renamed it Rivendell. An Earth Park Ranger, of all things, remembered being my dad—briefly—and he was leading the Rangers plus my Rigilic drinking buddy on the EPSS Elfsheen. 
We weren’t sure if any ship but the one with the Silmaril would get through. The fleet numbered in the hundreds in battleships alone, not counting scouts and scuttlers. Twelve races had sent ships on top of their typical Alliance Fleet tithe, and S,sh had brought about half the full force of the X-ee Empire. We all just locked tractor beams and hoped. 
I was piloting as well as captaining, with the Silmaril between my forehorns. It was held in place by about a dozen wires and other connectors to the ship, like an old-timey pilot’s headset. We took off in orbit around Earth, as close as possible to the surface—not very close, in warships of Class S and higher, but within range of the oceanic resonance. A Likkilianian thief-queen stood at my shoulder, ready to advise if anything “Musical” started to happen.
Think about what you’re trying to get to, and why, the boffins had advised, so I did—bright-eyed kings and dancing maidens; lost friends, families, cities, planets and all. The jewel got warmer against my skin and shone brighter with every pulse of the engine, brighter than we should’ve been able to see through.
The silver-gold Light twisted and diffused as space did around us. But there was no familiar rippling wormhole boundary—instead, spacetime thinned to a curtain like driving rain, like Vesarian silver-glass.
A ghost appeared next to me. She looked like the oldest, grumpiest writing teacher at the crèche, though I knew that was only in my head.
“There you are,” she said, impatient and relieved like I’d been hiding in the sandbox again, rather than coming to class on time. Her sewing scissors went snip snip snip as she darted them around my body—and a chain on my soul faded into guiding threads.
Before she’d even disappeared again, I punched the engine and blasted through the silver-glass curtain.
Fairy tales said there’d be a peerlessly beautiful land on the other side, green with eternal spring, full of endless light and laughter. They said there’d be sunlit shores and shimmering waves, with welcoming docks for sea-ships, sky-ships and space-ships all…
We flew into the worst battlefield I’d ever seen, in any lifetime. It was more desperately vicious than Jerusalem V at the height of the Reform Wars, more ruined than Glaurung’s wake, more desolate than Zanzibus after the nuclears fell.
Either a massive supercontinent or a small moon had been shattered, leaving nothing but a roiling debris field. The brand-new meteoroids ranged from pebbles to rocks the size of a small space station, and included space-frozen corpses, forests, and what might have once been city blocks.
I gave the helm back to my Pilot Officer—zer had, I can admit, slightly better reflexes for dodging debris—and focused on captaining.
Most of the life signs were clinging to the larger rocks. There shouldn’t have been atmosphere for them, but walls of thunderstorm wrapped around every shard with even a single life sign—wind and water desperately hand in hand to safeguard the last of the Elves. The only thing visible through the impossible storms was the Light of a second Silmaril, on a meteoroid shaped like half a broken eggshell.
A corpse lay at the epicenter of the explosion—what might’ve been a corpse, if it wasn’t also shattered. The broken pieces of a massive stone humanoid, taller than my ship if it’d stood beside her, still bleeding lava so hot that it burned even in frozen space. Another titan knelt at the shards of its head, a figure of towering bark and leaves, wailing with grief even worse than the end of the world. 
A slimmer tree-woman stood with one hand on her shoulder, comforting, and the other wielding a skyscraper-sized club spiked with incandescent wildflowers. Guarding her sister’s heartbreak, she fended off a swarm of bat-sized monsters with wings of darkness and whips of flame. 
Bat-sized relative to the gods of Elves and ancient Humans. About the size of an M-wing, in flight.
Countless more of the bat-things flung themselves at the storm-bubbles, like carnivores chasing the prey hidden inside. They were fended off by an equal army of creatures with wings of light and swords of lightning, led by a towering figure who seemed to dance from one bloody battle to the next.
The biggest battle by far was the farthest away, over where the sun had been. In this dimension of stories over science, Sol was another woman-shape, smaller than the others but burning just as brightly as her star. Also just as blood-red. The light was centered on a fist she kept clenched at her chest, and instead of containing the black hole, the unseeable thing that it was here surrounded her, striking at her with a thousand hungry jaws and grasping legs, and she had only a one-handed whip of a solar flare to fend it off—
But she didn’t fight alone. A warrior tore at the Darkness’s spidery limbs with his fists, image on the cameras flickering impossibly between every hero I’d ever heard of. A snarling figure bit at it with jagged teeth, gored it with horns, shredded it with claws and talons, and generally made every ancient prey-instinct in me scream. And a queen with a crown of stars, a shield like the night sky and a sword like a streaking comet, stood dauntlessly at the sun-holder’s side. 
With all that, and with the speed of even her most exhausted strikes, I thought the sun-holder could probably have gotten away if she’d tried. But I knew how a person fought when they weren’t willing to leave a friend, and a smaller, silver figure lay at her feet, unmoving and drained of light.
But even the battle for the sun wasn’t what grabbed my eye. No—all my attention, all my guiding threads of fate and the quick temper that always used to get me in trouble, before (and sometimes after) I learned to leash it in an Alliance uniform— All of that took me straight to the fight happening orthogonal to the stone giant’s corpse.
It was another one-versus-many. Morgoth, the First Enemy of Elves and Men— Master of Lies, Maker of Chains, Sonofabitch Curser of Bloodlines—towered over even his fellow gods. His shape changed constantly, sickeningly, but it was always black-armored with eyes like dying stars that hated you personally. His maul dripped with lava and every other kind of blood.
He fought against three great gray figures who moved as one. The tallest wielded a star-studded scythe with swift, efficient strokes, and wore the dark gray of corpse-shrouds. The shortest shimmered with more colors than even a Stamotapadon could dream of, and his weapon shifted likewise. The third was the clear, clean gray of skies after rain or tears run dry, and fought with only a shield—and hit harder with it than either of her brothers.
Around their heads darted the only Elves on the battlefield, in small fliers more like sea-ships than aircraft. But they moved fluidly, pestering the Dark Lord like flies, pricking his skin and threatening his burning eyes.
Until Morgoth swung his maul with a roar of fury that traveled even though soundless space. My ship and heart both shuddered. The gray gods all staggered back, and the Elves fell from the no-longer-sky—all but their leader, more fire than flesh, who wore the third Silmaril. Morgoth caught him in one massive black hand and with sharp claws plucked the jewel away, as easily as a ripe berry from a tree—
“All power to fore-cannon and fire,” I ordered—and the jewel on my brow shone bright again as several stored months’ worth of infinite Silmaril-Light slammed into Morgoth’s chest with all the force that the best scientists in the Astral Alliance could engineer. 
He stumbled. He dropped both the jewel and the elf-king (who’d been trying to bite him). The Lady of Mercy tossed her shield to catch them, staying low and out of sight—though she needn’t have bothered. The so-called “Lord of All” had already found his next enemy.
“All ships, move forward and join shields,” I ordered, and met his burning stare though the viewscreen. “Then broadcast me on all external frequencies.”
The wires on my forehead shimmered as we shifted Light-flow to the shields—and to my right, so did the Elendil, and to my left, the Cosmian Blade, and all around us the Minas Tirith, the Elfsheen, the Muse, the Rivendell, the Heart of Zanzi, the Longbottom Leaf… They were still soaring out of the silvery distortion behind me, tractor- and Silmaril-towed: sleek Rigilic eels-of-prey and Centaurian cruisers full of Humans eager to fight for their homeworld, Betan mine-ships and Canid X-M-wings and my own Hectoan starlighters, a full third of the X-ee navy with their X-eee–shaped six-engine dreadnoughts, and hundreds more. 
“This is Captain Pel Cinia, once Túrin Turambar, of the Astral Alliance ship Gurthang,” I said. My words were broadcast from every ship on every frequency in every language that the people of Arda might know, as the Fleet assembled from forty-plus different worlds flew into position. Our Light-infused shields blazed and locked together, until we formed a seamless wall right in the Enemy’s face, with the Elves and their other allies safely behind us.
I’ve never felt more proud to recite the most cliché line in the Fleet:
“We got your distress call. We’re here to help.”
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catchuuu · 3 days
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Okiee friend roommie gojo takes you on a motorcycle at midnight to random places like the riverside or some food stall or whatever. Especially when you aren't feeling good (my current mood <3). There's less to no people at night, which is perfect!... Taking a walk with him. Orrr simply sitting on his motorcycle and chatting with him while he stands front to you.. ykwim😭
HELLOO????? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE A MASSIVE BRAIN, HMM????? THAT'S SO DELICIOUS????? see, i don't think i would've really even considered roomie!gojo owning a fuCKING MOTORCYCLE???? YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH THANK YOU FOR THAT MY LOVELY
btw you guys literally have matching helmets!!!!! he immediately bought one seeing how excited you got after seeing the bike. not to be a basic bitch but how fucking sexy is a white and blue bike?????? my eyes just rolled back into my head holy shit. anyway. matching helmets matching helmets matching helmets!!!! i think he'd love the ones that have the ears on them too lmao he's a little cutie. he also bought you your own racing jacket too!!!!!!!!! i mean he has the money so he didn't even blink an eye at the thought of buying you your own gear bc like... he would never even think about having you on the bike without atleast a helmet!!!! he's not a reckless driver at all and i genuinely don't think he'd speed at all (maybe only a little on highways and only when there isn't a lot of ppl)(he would rather die than to put you in danger like that)
and he'd 100000000000000% go on late night drives with you!!!! he sees you moping and his heart sinks:((((( at first he just tries to ask about it but when you're still looking so out of it, he offers the drive. he helps you put on the helmet and then gently headbutts you after putting his on. he loves the way your eyes smile through the small glass opening and he just already feels a bit better, a bit prouder to have made you smile.
he offers you his hand as you're taking a seat behind him and he always gets so giddy when your arms circle around him. he loves it, he really does. he waits for you to get comfortable and rest your head against his back before even turning on the engine.
you have a code that whenever you want to say something, you squeeze his thighs. when you need to stop, like stop stop, you slap his thigh. he made that rule and he didn't even let you onto the bike before making you repeat it three times for like the first five times. he doesn't play around, i'm telling you. sometimes, you like to tease him for it, for being a pussy but he isn't fazed at all. he just smiles at you and calls you his precious cargo.
okay, so i like the idea of him taking you somewhere extra quiet - maybe you even already have your spot, too? maybe a more hidden part the riverside, somewhere it's certain that you'll be alone. he parks the bike and ofc offers you his hand when you start climbing off. he smooths your hair after you pull the helmet off, making a quiet like jokes about you looking fucking insane and no matter how stupid his comments and jokes are, he always gets a laugh out of you. even if it's the smallleeeest teeniest tiniest little smile.
he takes your hand and tugs you to the lonely little food stall. the person who's managing it has seen the two of you so many times and they're fully convinced that you guys are a couple btw. gojo always pays. ALWAYS. he literally gets upset when you try. sometimes at home he whines about always paying but when you actually get to the paying part he just pushes you away??????? smh he's an idiot but he's OUR idiot.
he let's you eat before asking about your day again. he let's you rant his ears off if that's what you decide to do. he leans against the motorcycle as you pace back and forth in front of him and he's so invested!!!! no matter whether it's work drama, uni drama, some sort of friendship drama or something more personal - he's all ears. he tries to crack a few jokes here and there but he keeps it low as he's gauging your emotions. yk if you're laughing a bit more, he turns the joke machine up a notch but if not... he just let's you talk it out.
btw if you're not in a talking mood at all, he probably does the talking himself to try and distract you from whatever is bothering you. he's telling you about the new parts he wants to put on his bike, he's telling you about his day, about the people he saw on the streets, about the new comic he's reading etc etc etc. he probably invites you to rest against his chest as he does so, faintly swaying back and forth. he watches the streetlamps reflect on your skin as you rest your eyes, breathing in his cologne.
and after a while he offers to go back home. he tells you that he can take the long way or the short one, whichever suits you best. it could be 3am and he wouldn't dare rush you. he is prepared to do anything to make you feel better!!!!!!!!!!! he's such a good roomie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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mid-nightowl · 5 months
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untitled lil fic #1 (jason todd and gotham war)
here's some gotham war rewrites i needed to get out of my head, the brainrot was killing me omg
warnings for violence, cursing, whatever the hell Bruce is doing (just Bruce as a full warning tag, the man is more unhinged than Joker in this)
---
“Oh Jason. How I’ve missed you, my sweet boy.”
The words are sickeningly sweet, poison-saturated words falling from bloody red lips. Delivered with a crooked smile, Joker looks up at him, uncaring at his position. His fingers curl in the clown’s suit collar, lips curling with a snarl.
Jason punches him again, the clown’s jaw cracking and his body straining against the ferry railing. Joker merely giggles, head lolling around through the air before his mismatched eyes meet his mask. 
“Shut the fuck up!” He snaps, unholstering his gun and digging the muzzle into Joker’s cheek.
His murderer raises his hands, waggling his fingers in surrender, grinning and smirking and smiling. 
He hates it, he hates it, he hates it. 
“I want you to think about this real carefully,” He digs his gun into his skin. “This could be the last joke you ever make, you understand? That’s what you want to go with?”
“You know,” His nightmare giggles, chuckles like a wind-up toy before he wipes the amusement off his face. The clown looks up at him, head tilted, pleased and patient and thoughtful. There’s not a single sliver of hate and destructive menace, or anger or disappointment or suspicion. 
Wrong, wrong, wrong, he thinks. There’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong with Joker—and not in the usual way. 
“The best jokes deliver a difficult truth, but hide it with a fun fiction,” Joker explains, smushed but coherent words strung together despite the gun halfway in his mouth. “Without humor all we have left is being mean and lying.”
“What?” He can’t stop the words before they stumble out of his mouth. He doesn’t let the gun go lax in his hand despite the way the clown’s words throw him off guard. 
Off-kilter is a genuine feeling that digs into him, shocking him to the core. The clown does this, he knows it. He knows this is how he does things, how he worms his way out of every situation and every attempted manslaughter, he knows how the clown operates, intimately. 
Jason knows him. 
Joker, historically, has been so many things. But he’s always been a psychotic, impulsive mass-murderer. Someone without restraint, without limitation. 
It’s why he’s always been Batman’s true nemesis. Bruce, he needs a fine-tuned control of everything and everyone. He is someone who has limits and restraint. 
Controlled, focused, and without limitations—Jason is almost the happy medium to both of them. 
Almost.
The three of them are similar, different, opposites and identical. It’s like walking in one of those mirror mazes where you can’t tell who the real you is. 
Who is the real Bruce Wayne? The man who cherishes his children or the one who maims them?
Who is the real Joker? The cold, purposeful mass murderer or the dumped-in-acid man who can’t tell the difference?
Who is the real Jason Todd? The bloody crime lord or the declawed crowbar wielding vigilante?
Joker simply smiles and pats his arm, as if Jason’s not trying to kill him.
He slams the clown against the railing again, snarling. 
“Enough games!” He growls and flips the safety off. The noise doesn’t even phase Joker, if anything he grins harder. His mismatched eyes—one red-brown, one green—flick above them before returning to his. 
“Are you really going to use that big bad gun of yours with Daddy watching? He’ll be so mad at you.” His murderer grins, letting his head hang limply in his grasp.
“What? Batman-!” He jerks back, head snapping up to the ferry roof cover. 
Empty. No looming monster demanding a painful compromise is here.
Joker’s hands push him back, and he grunts, stumbling into the ferry wall. The clown tumbles over the railing, disappearing from view. His laughter haunting the air. 
“No!” He shouts, dashing to the railing. 
The clown is gone under the waves and ice, sinking into the dark of Gotham Harbor. 
He’s not dead. He can’t be dead, Jason thinks, gripping the ice-cold railing, I haven’t killed him yet.
He’s not dead.
But that was mean. 
--
The last words Jason hears remind him of his grave. 
No, not the one he was buried in. Six feet of dirt above him and smothered in satin, watched over by that stupid weeping angel.
There’s a memorial in the cave with his name. ‘Good soldier’ and nothing else but his name. Both of them: Jason Todd and Robin. 
A monument to Bruce’s failure, his greatest mistake, a grave to his complicated teenage years, his love. 
“You’ve always been a good soldier. Rest now.” Bruce told him, jabbing him in the neck with the needle. 
A grave, a memorial, a monument. It makes him sick. The reminder that he will always be the dead Robin, the sad Robin, the angry Robin. 
Dead, dead, dead.
The violence done to him, inflicted and imprinted into his skin and bones was more important. The guilt and the lesson were more important than his cries for justice, for his life’s blood.
The monument and altar, raised after his murder, were never for him, but for Bruce.
He was dead, why would he care?
The story Bruce will tell would never be the truth, just excuses and wrong-doings. He would take accountability after the fact, but not before. 
Bruce would let his murderer walk and let him rot. 
Maybe that was why he buried Jason six feet under, so he wouldn’t have to face the decay and decomposition. That he could keep this golden, blurry image of him as Robin, as the straight A student, the good son. And not a weightless body splinted a thousand different ways to look human. 
But now that he’s resurrected—not in Bruce’s image, but as something broken and jagged, something lost and filled with dirt and green-green-green—Bruce refuses to acknowledge him. Refuses to believe this is who he is. 
Refuses to believe that he remade (destroyed) himself from the ruins, from the broken bones and empty veins and black thread that mended his corpse back into the image of Jason Todd. Refuse to think that if a girl can come back as a soothsayer, that a boy can come back as a gun. 
“Hnnng…Bruce,” Jason groans softly, heaving himself off the couch. 
Batman turns to him, looming with his face mask in his hands. The fluorescent lights, a nauseous lime-yellow, cut over his figure, his face, his mask. Almost a green-green-green, almost a pool of rage, almost a pit of madness.
His mask crackles alive in Bruce’s hands, Selina’s voice wavering between annoyance and worry. 
“Red Hood? Hood, please check in and let me kno-” Batman clicks his comm off. 
The resounding silence smothers him. 
His exhale comes out shaky, his heart beating too fast behind his bruised ribs, a chill crawling over his exposed skin. 
Something’s wrong. Something is very wrong. 
“...Batman? You…” He swallows roughly, mouth filled with dirt and blood and thread. “Wha…What did you do?”
“Nothing I’m proud of, Jason.” 
His heart sinks and skips a beat at the same time, stomach twisting with anxiety and fingers trembling against the ugly brown couch cushions.
Inhale. 
He pushed too much.
Taking Selina’s side?
He went too far.
Hood didn’t kill anyone?
Exhale. 
“Hh! Ho…” Jason croaks, getting his boots on the ground. “Y-you…you..”
“Take deep breaths, Jason.” Batman turns back to the computer hub glowing behind him, ignoring his attempts to speak, to demand answers. 
His arms shake as he holds himself upright, but when he tries to stand instead he chokes, falling to his knees in front of the couch. Gasping for air, he lays his palms flat against the cool tiles. His legs are quivering, heavy and unable to hold his weight. 
His whole body trembles with it, this feeling unfolding through his blood and bones, engulfing his head and voice. 
Fear, fear, fear.
“Years ago I created my backup personality, Zur, using techniques I learned from an old mentor and this machine that I built,” Batman starts, monitoring the screens in front of him with one hand on the keyboard and the other on his belt.
Bruce doesn’t turn to look at him, to face him, someone he calls son, someone he considers family, and explain what he’s done to Jason.
He never has. 
“I can’t change your personality with it, Jason…” Batman sighs, low and quiet. “But I can add to it. A small thing: your failsafe.” 
Failsafe. He slams the heel of his palm on the floor, cheeks tingling with his telltale sign of tears. A failsafe?!
Because Red Hood needs a failsafe instead of justice.
“What?!” He tries to snarl, to hiss and yell and scream his rage. But his voice fails him, anxiety chewing at his throat and tongue, voice tilting too high, too unsteady, too weak. 
“Now when you have heightened adrenaline, when you’re about to do something dangerous, your fear kicks in,” Batman continues explaining. “It…I’m sorry Jason. But it’s the only way.” He clenches his eyes shut—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale—and tries to ignore his rabbit heart battering against its cage, pounding to the frantic rhythm of fear, fear, fear.
“I love you.” 
The words feel like gunshots, the knuckle prints on his skin after the two of them fought over Penguin, the smack of Selina’s whip against his fingers, the crowbar on his skull, his legs, his ribs, over and over and over. 
“I love you, but you are a murderer,” Bruce condemns him, over and over again. “You’re a bull in a china shop and I go round after round with you, trying to figure out how to help make you a better man, to heal you.” 
“H-heal me?” He whispers, rage cut off at the roots. “This isn’t…this isn’t you, Bruce.”
Batman, finally, turns to Jason. He looms, tall and foreboding, darkness dripping around him, drenching him in fear, fear, fear. 
Batman takes a step forward and he crashes back against the couch, spine digging into the wooden frame painfully. 
He can’t breathe. Batman moves and he knows it in his bones, knows it down to the scars Gotham and its guardian have left on him, that he’s not here to save him, to help him. 
“I got you a new identity. A place in Metropolis.” Batman keeps walking forward, despite Jason’s growing hyperventilation, despite the way his blunted nails scratch at the floor. Despite the way he shakes, black stitches snapping apart, the pieces of him falling to the floor of this slaughterhouse, at the feet of his butcher. 
“B-bat…Batman,” He whimpers, hand twisting into the fabric of his suit. 
“You can live a normal life. Fall in love, do meaningful work. This isn’t punishment, Jason,” Batman kneels in front of him and removes the cowl. “I love you.” Jason shrinks back, shoulders back and legs curled to his chest. Bruce’s face is sharp and pale, with bags under his eyes and days old stubble on his jaw. 
His eyes are dark with absolute rage. 
Batman is going to hurt him. Batman is going to hurt him.
Bruce is going to hurt him again. 
“This is a gift. Any way you look at it, you should be in prison for all the people you’ve killed,” He chokes at Bruce’s words, barely smothering the terrified cry in his throat. “This is me saving you from that. Save you from yourself.”
Jason can only stare at the man before him—the man who took him in, who raised and trained him, who loved him—does his best to bury him.
fear, fear, fear. 
--
“Please..don’t…please,” Jason pleads, covering the girl with his frame, caging her in with his bruised and burnt arms.
“Let’s begin.” Scarecrow’s voice reverberates, it shakes through air to match his erratic breathing.
“P-please, I’ll do anything you want, anything,” He begs, fear, fear, fear burning in his veins. “Please. Just stay…stay away.” 
Scarecrow closes the gap between them, rocking back and forth on his crooked, long legs. His mask distorts and mutates, a familiar green-green-green splashing over the darkened void of his gas mask.
“You’re going to die tonight. I know you know this,” Crane looms over him, green-green-green trickling out his eyes, gushing out like an open wound. “But we can still have fun, can’t we.” 
The girl trembles underneath his chest and Jason tries to smother the whimper begging to pour out his lips. It’s gnawing at him—rabbit heart frantic in his chest, hands trembling from the burning pain and anxiety, smoke and ash gathering in his lungs—fear, fear, fear.
He can’t think of anything else. 
“Those fools were right. Your terror…it’s real and it isn’t mine,” Scarecrow sneers, kneeling in front of him. “There is no thrill in driving terror into the heart of a baby bird.” 
Scarecrow takes his jaw in his hand, needles tickling at his exposed skin, forcing Jason to look at him. He can’t help but jerk his head at Crane’s touch, needles pricking into his cheek when Crane holds him tighter, another inescapable cage around him. 
His chest heaves with every shaky inhale-exhale, his anxious fear fanning over the rogue’s mask. Scarecrow leans in closer, the glass over his eyes gleaming, reflecting the fire roaring around them. Jason can hear the screams in them, watching the shadows morph around them and the straw on Crane’s shoulders wiggle. 
“This is my moment of triumph, and it is snatched away from me by..by him?!” Scarecrow shakes Jason’s head in his hand, needles scratching into his skin but still not drawing blood.
Scarecrow lets his head drop, needles disappearing from his sight before they’re clawing at his throat, wet and cold against his clammy skin. Jason whimpers and clenches his eyes shut, unable to do anything but beg. 
He knows praying for someone to help him is futile. 
No one is coming to save him. 
“Never let it be said Scarecrow has no pity,” Crane says, voice cutting in and out his head like radio static. “I will quickly finish what your daddy started.” 
“Doesn’t mommy get a say?”
A voice slices through the flames licking at his skin and the fear smothering him. And when Jason’s gaze finds him, he can’t help the tears. 
“Step away from the vigilante, pervert.” Joker grins, dark red lips stretched too wide, too thin. Ash rains down on his green-green-green umbrella, rolling down the crooked dark patches and shamrock-colored nylon. 
“You’ve already killed him once. It’s time you learned to share, Clown.” Scarecrows speaks with thin, razor-sharp disdain, glaring over his shoulder at the newcomer. 
“You should know this by now, Doc. I don’t play well with others.” The clown throws aside the umbrella, knife materializing from thin air as he descends upon Scarecrow.
“You’re not even really him, are you? Do you think I don’t know about you? Delusions and megalomania with-” Scarecrow baits and taunts the clown, before the two of them are ducking and weaving and slicing at each other with barely concealed rage and annoyance. 
“Blah, blah, blah. Do you know why you’re always going to be a C-List villain, Johnny?” Joker jokes and Jason can imagine the sharp grin on his face. “Because doctors aren’t scary. They’re annoying.”
He ducks his head down and curls tighter around the girl. She cries underneath him, hiccups soft under the roar of flames closing in on them, the screech of metal on metal and creaking of deteriorating wood. 
He can’t move. He can’t do anything but try to breathe. But all he tastes is smoke, choking him, billowing down his throat and in his lungs. His heartbeat is so loud, jumping under its bone-cage, a heady, heavy thing—badump-badump-badump-badump. It’s too fast, erratic, out of control.
“You’re a bull in a china shop and I go round after round with you, trying to figure out how to help make you a better man, to heal you-”
Always out of control. Jason whines, hands scrambling against the wood below him. It burns, seering through his fingertips. It hurts-it hurts-it hurts, he can’t do this. He can’t.
He can’t breathe.
“Ahhhh! Ack! Achhhhh!” Scarecrow screams, guttural and wobbly and when he looks up, Jason can only watch as Crane crashes through the fifth story window. 
Tears continue to stream down his face, his heart trembling in his chest and the realization strikes him then, cracking down on his skull like a crowbar, over and over and over. 
Joker saved him. Joker saved him. Joker saved him. 
His murderer saved him.
 “A-are you real?!” Jason cries out, fingers curling into the withering floorboards. “Is this real?!” 
“Oh, don’t worry about him. I didn’t even give him a real dose of Joker Gas. I ran out. Heh!” Joker laughs, rubbing at his jaw. Blood and green-green-green stain the edges of his mouth, smeared down his chin and throat before disappearing under the orange sweatshirt he’s wearing. 
“But now, it’s just you and me. And…your daughter? Did you have a daughter and not tell me?” The clown tilts his head in question, tucking away the green-green-green gun in his hand. He steps closer, uncaring of the flames licking over his pale skin.  
Jason can’t tell if it's real or an illusion, can’t tell if his murderer is here and saving? rescuing? tricking? him. He can’t tell if this is just another nightmare he’s trapped himself in, or if this is the real punishment Bruce promised him. 
“She’s just a kid. Please…don’t,” He pleads, the tears searing down his ash-stained cheeks. 
Joker leans down, bringing his face close to Jason’s. His mismatched eyes—one green, one red-brown—bore into his and the clown smiles, too wide, too cracked and broken, too bloody and green-green-green. 
He sobs, cracking under everything. He can’t do this, he can’t. 
“My, my. Even like this you still think you’re the hero. Batman would be proud if he didn’t hate you,” His murderer says, before his bony hand is cupping Jason’s face, calloused fingers dancing over his skin. 
Jason clenches his jaw when it threatens to wobble and tremble, but knows the fear is shining in his eyes. Knows the clown can see it, knows he recognizes it in his baby-blues. He’s been here before.
They’ve been here before, together. 
“But don’t worry my sweet boy, I’ll find a way to fix you. Nobody is going to hurt you. I won’t let them. Because I need you.” His voice is honeyed and threatening, curling and clawing and cloying into his head like a sickness. Joker pets his hair, gentle and caring, and Jason knows he means it. 
He’s going to fix him. He’s going to heal him. 
He’s going to save Jason.
“Don’t worry, sweet boy. We’ll see each other soon,” Joker pats his cheek with a crooked green-green-green smile. “I promise.” 
His heart beats frantic to the words—fear, fear, fear—eyes unable to look away from Joker.
Jason believes him.
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airbenderedacted · 8 months
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So who’s your favorite character in Wander Over Yonder? And what’s your fav ship(s)?
Oh, I love playing this guessing game!! ♡ ~('▽^人) ✨
Favorite character? Well...
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[🎨📺]
As for ships, I wouldn't exactlyy say I ship anything in this show tbch, but I'd say I'm especially fond of Sylava, in a strictly fanon kinda way.
#Wander Over Yonder#Lord Dominator#woy is funny bc the core four are all so shippable but nothing rlly does it for me. i think nearly all possible pairs there have some charm#when considering *all five* of the mains not a whole lot changes bc dominator's a lesbian and sylvia is the only other main who isn't a dud#(i'm not a pr.o.shi.pper so bigoted type stuff grosses me out when it comes to shipping. we don't go there eugyhgfghhs)#tbcch i'm of the firm belief that lord dominator shouldnt be shipped with anyone in a srs sense. like as far as staying true to canon goes#she's made it extremely clear that she's not into that kinda stuff *and* that she's wAy too horrible for any kinda relationships anyway#but when it comes to lighthearted silly fanon stuff (or any degree of au stuff where *GASP* D isn't a demon & they Work) sylava makea me :)#(in whatever way ppl wanna imagine them. i'm partial to ''yes homo no romo'' qpr type goodness w/ them but i love seeing Everyone's takes!!#partially bc it's nice to see people actually. care. about what dom is and is not about (sexuality-wise). which is THE BARE MINIMUM but wel#a lot of people Do Not do that! sadly sexism and homophobia exist and it seeps into a lotta things in a lotta small ways and *sobs*#SO YEAH IT'S NICE TO SEE. NOT THAT. it's nice to see as a light shining through the darkness that is the internet & 2010s show fandoms sks#ah & partially bc sylava is like. literally the only ship ever kinda-sorta-teased in the show in a way that wasn't just played for jokes#which i think gives us neat things to work with when it comes to the whole ''what if'' kinda stuff- so!!! yea i just think it's neat :]#in both an ''in another life...'' not-so-hypothetical chemistry kinda way AND in an 'im a real stickler for Canon Goodness' kinda way too#haha#as for other ships i'm especially partial to... mmmmm.. 🤔#deathglare in the context of hater learning to cherish & appreciate peepers and treat him RIGHT makes me happy. i like that :)#and skeleton dance is always fun!!!! a real delight both on and off the screen hehah#most everything else makes me go ''oh cool. yea that's cute.'' 👍#ships involving minor characters are pretty take it or leave it. i dont think there's any i have any strong feelings about#except ig that it was pretty sweet when people were shipping lord hater & ripov. tbh i like how many ships people came up with w/ her#that was really swag. she was a fun character!!
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i’m so obsessed with a jason todd who actually HATES killing but does it anyway, a jason who is horrified by the selfishness of the other bats (and of course bruce in particular) bc they repeatedly choose to put their own moral code over (what he sees as) the good of the community and gotham and the world at large. every time jason kills someone it destroys a part of the child, of the *robin* that he was, and he KNOWS that. he knows that and he chooses it over and over again because that is what he BELIEVES is the only way to truly make a difference to people who are suffering. (whether or not he has a point (especially in the context of gotham) is a completely different conversation). but jason and his relationships to the other bats to me are at their most compelling when killing and violence are not fun to jason but in fact pretty much active self harm. whether the other bats recognize this (and which ones and to what degree) is such a fun concept to play with immediately AND it adds this tragedy of sunk cost fallacy to jason as well where like “rehabilitation” as it’s mostly referred to in batfam content (aka jason no longer killing and murdering and sometimes selling drugs) becomes less and less possible for him the longer he clings to this philosophy of death and destruction bc if he ever wants to truly change he must then reckon with all the damage he’s done not only to other human lives but also, crucially, to his own soul
#and of the course the concept of souls in gotham is like. another incredibly fun concept to play with#especially in the context of jason and cass and steph and damian and literally all of them at this point#i think only tim and babs HAVENT died and come back ? losers#oh i don’t think duke has died yet either but he’s much newer so he’s not a loser for it#babs also had the whole killing joke thing so i guess tim is the biggest loser here#ANYWAY#jason for whom violence is cathartic but killing is like excruciating#jason who cannot separate joy and love from pain and fighting bc his robin years were his only moments of peace and safety#jason who cannot speak to bruce bc he has only ever made his choices from his castle and throne#whereas steph and cass and dick can really get under his skin bc they can Understand him and really engage w his views#in a way that bruce can and will never allow himself to#also i love playing w this idea that jason is Right in a way but specifically abt bruce and his reasons for making the choices he does#vis a vis killing and maiming#there’s just so much more here like this is the most coherent jason i can imagine ya know ?#otherwise there’s so much contradiction and like… almost aimlessness ? like what is he living for what is he fighting for in canon#if killing is just. no big deal to him#cuz if it’s no big deal he also shouldn’t care thag the others won’t ?#which some writers lean into in order to very easily put him back into batfam stories cuz of his popularity#but like… that’s so boring ? and also doesn’t address the issue of how the other feel abt him being there#or they’ll just gloss over his ‘rehabilitation’ entirely and be like if he’s done killing now actually ! LIKE just like that ?? rly ???#like after ALLLLLLL THAT he’s just done now ?? no way#he’s dead and he’s back and he never came all the way back and they never buried him right in the first place so he was never at rest SO#he should be in eternal purgatory in the story as well !!! endlessly arguing w ‘siblings’ he barely knows#in the shadow of the father he cannot speak to#ugh there’s just SO MUCH there and it is left untouched… SAD !#journalog#jason todd#batfam#dc comics#idk what to even tag this as BYE
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todayisafridaynight · 8 months
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haunted by the knowledge that sega loves referencing their franchises and how many missed opportunities there were for kiryu to meet sonic the hedgehog
#snap chats#//me three seconds before making this post// im going to make a post SO niche#NO LISTEN TO ME sega all star tennis.... sonic riders...... ok those are all the examples i got BUT STILL#like in sonic riders you get to play as three non-sonic sega ips AND the sega carnival levels are literally just love letters to sega ips#MY BROTHER IN CHRIST THEY GOT OPA OPA THERE !!!!! they even have vehicles based off of Super Hang On and Hang On#and when you equip them the ost changes to those games' themes !!!!!!!#shaking and crying cause at the sega carnival they have a spot for crazy taxi WHICH#AGAIN I HAVE TO REITERATE THE AMOUNT OF LOVE SEGA SHOWS FOR THEIR IPSLK i love...#anyway i have a reason for this mention. sit and hallucinate with me kiryu having to Be A Taxi Driver#and then he gotta drive sonic bitch ass around. durin a fuckin race#the urge to make a comic of that is so strong.... and the fact kiryu and sonic are in it means it'd be funny to a lot of people...#SURE the enjoyment of sonic riders is niche APPARENTLY but everyone like kiryu... eveyrone like sonic...#and itd only be like two panels lol.... im not doing that now tho. or ever maybe idk we know how my motivation is#it'll be there red hot one minute and then gone never to be seen again#it doesnt even have to be a comic it could just be a silly lil doodle#RIP all those comics i have collectin dust in my folders...#ok im done bobmarding eveyrone with Hyper Specific posts. tonight. i promise :)#theres a bonus joke here about daigo being in kiryus taxi again. lol <- please shut up#bye bye now
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meatmensch · 24 days
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Just saw a post that said "not fair that the cuntiest woman in this world is a muppet (ms. piggy)"...I have actually spoken extensively on this topic and it is my belief that to regard Miss Piggy as anything other than a stunning woman on the same level as any other beautiful woman is disrespectful to the Muppet artform and the suspension of disbelief that we as a society join in when we think of the Muppets and Miss Piggy as a pig and a woman. It's not unfair that the cuntiest woman in the world is a Muppet...of course she is. Who the fuck else? Why would it be unfair?
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sevicia · 3 days
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I wanted to make a cleaner summary of last week's classes and also review the classes I have this week since the material is already uploaded beforehand but I was feeling so horrible throughout the day that when I sat down I was just gonna look at the ones for tomorrow but I think I'm just gonna go to bed because I just gave my little numbers game a few tries and not even the joy of tribial elementary school-level math games is bringing my brain cells and/or full sentience back
#diary#accessing it through the CMD thing and not just running it from the IDE made me realize a few things about it though so I'll hav#I'll have to maybe jot them down somewhere when I'd normally just be rly excited and try to fix them straight away like I am truly fucked r#I do wanna make an eng version of it sometime soon so I can share it even tho it's literally the simplest little thing. it's fun if you're#an easily amused nerd that loves playing with numbers in a truly useless manner. if that makes sense#also very obviously text-only I am NOT torturing myself with any graphics of ANY kind rn#it closes immediatly as they do and also when it comes to having double/triple digit starting numbers it becomes a lot less fun I think tho#though I haven't used it much with those yet#I still wanna figure out a way of making it better when it comes to 2/3 digit starters. and my original idea included maybe keeping track#keeping track of how many steps you took even between different rounds but I made the simplest version for now. I also think making like a#''this was the least amount of steps possible!'' type thing would be very very cool but that is FAR too big brained for me rn#cause I can figure out how to do the record keeping thing but that last one is like. let's stop talking for a little while.................#oh but adding an actual interface sounds so fun even though I have very little clue on how to do that rn I could probably STOP typing becau#because I can feel my stupid ass self start getting excited about this which will make it so I start working on it instead of going to bed#NO. DOWN !!!!!!!!!!!!!! auhgh............ oh man I had a lame joke to make but I completely forgot what it was#I have coding class tomorrow in which I normally just do the exercises as fast as possible before playing around but the only Python editor#I could find installed on the school computers was Visual Studio Code and I have no clue how to use that shit like I don't need so many#so many buttons. probz. OKAY GOODNIGHT
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petorahs · 2 months
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The Answer as P3Re DLC rumors are basically confirmed true now... as a Day 1 The Answer believer/defender this is huge but also. wtf Atlus. is this fucking why they're not releasing a Switch version for P3Re. help.
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fastfists · 3 months
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I will say it once and I will say it again, I love issue #87-90 of Sonic Universe for the sheer fact that we get so much FOOD. Like, we get some Knuckles and Amy goodness...we get Knuckles and Shadow moments of bonding...we get to see Knuckles and Amy interact and play off Team Dark so well, especially Knuckles...the fact he seems to be so chill with Omega...Rouge being concerned about Knuckles's solitude and 'freedom' as well as her and Amy interacting... There's a reason I have it be canon here UwU
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vounoura · 5 months
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to be clear I love the champion point system bc it's a fun spin on the MMO-standard of raising the overall level cap and it's nice to have something with actual effects on my character to progress on (the much, much faster leveling at veteran rank doesn't make it a slog either, and it's obviously something you're meant to gain passively doing what you were normally doing) even after the 'soft' level cap and gear stat cap and doesn't make me feel like I'm wasting exp doing things like questing, world bosses, delves, etc bc technically I'm still leveling.
but tbh the main reason I like it is bc they had the genuinely good idea to make cp points a) account-wide and b) usable by every character on the account even if they're not high enough level to actually level cps themselves, and I like that you're tacitly rewarded not just for doing things on your main but for having alts and having them at max level bc every cp level makes every single one of your characters stronger even at level 1.
#saint.txt#long post#a good example to contrast ig is ff.xiv#which VERY strongly does not want you to have alts. everything abt it is designed so that you don't need to.#you can replay the story whenever you want - no need to remake a character.#the class system is designed so that one character has free access to every job that you can switch between#freely at any time and even your gear is shared between different classes.#so you don't need to make multiple characters to test out that job that looks cool which is a blessing and a curse#bc imo trying new classes or builds is a major reason for why you make alts.#great if you're a raider or smth or just don't like juggling multiple characters bc everything is convenient! I love it for that#but ff.xiv's system SUCKS if you're say. an avid RPer or just someone who likes to make alts and level them through content#or just someone who likes to make multiple characters for literally any reason.#want to try playing a different player race? well your options are make an alt and spend no joke at least like#a hundred+ hours getting them caught up to your main#....or spend real money and buy a fantasia or a level skip. all of which suck.#or most other MMOs are like. we want you to get to max level asap. but once you do that's kinda just it. you have an alt that sits there#masteries in g.w2 are similar and it's why I like those too. but eso's lasts a lot longer than masteries#I think the alt problem in MMOs is kinda unsolvable tbh pretty much no matter what you do the bigger#an MMO gets the more tedious the leveling process of alts goes when you don't have the novelty of new content#and learning new systems to distract you but I like that ESO rewards you for trying by making your alts much much much#stronger and more effective which makes everything faster w/ champion points#and that if your alts are at max level you can still make meaningful progress on them for your main#idk. am I making sense here
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biblicalhorror · 6 months
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Yknow that post that's like "when someone points out the wrong flaws in a character you hate so you're put in the unfortunate position of having to defend them" because that's me with the beloved 00s sitcom Friends
#'its so awkward without the laugh track!' first of all its not even a laugh track#its a live studio audience#google it#thats why the bloopers also have people laughing#secondly like. yeah???#shockingly the media that was designed around a certain sound element is more awkward and clunky when that element is edited out#'its homophobic/transphobic' this argument ill give a little more grace towards#bc like yeah a lot of the ways that the characters reinforce gender roles/stereotypes on one another is by threat of homophobia#and some of the jokes about chandlers parent are offensive#but it was also literally the first ever show to have a lesbian wedding onscreen in 1996#(roseanne did an episode on a gay wedding like a month before)#& w all the issues the show has dealing with trans people/drag it was a helluva lot better than almost anything else coming out @the time#for example chandler's trans parent is misgendered by other characters literally constantly#but when we do finally meet them theyre played by a cis woman in drag rather than a cis man in a wig#which yeah isnt perfect but is also much better than most trans representation onscreen at the time#and the character is allowed to be just as complex and sympathetic as any other parent on the show#i would even say moreso than the other parents tbh#'they put monica in a fat suit' yeah thats bad#and especially because of all the demeaning jokes monica is put through even after shes skinny#but the show again also takes the time to explore fat monicas humanity and how shes deserving of love#and explicitly states that her weight/body image issues were explicitly caused by her parents' emotional abuse/neglect#and even if she had stayed fat forever chandler would have still fallen in love with her#bc the show acknowledges that fat monica is not anywhere near deserving of the vitriol she receives from the ppl around her#which again for the time in the 90s/00s was pretty progressive#'theyre all functioning alcoholics' first of all theres an ep where theyre all shocked that the 6 of them went through 2 bottles of wine#and the reason for that is because one character finished one by themselves#secondly point out to me any mainstream sitcom from the last 30 years that doesnt have flagrant alcohol consumption#'they have like 2 black characters in the entire show and poc are treated terribly'#YES!! now we're talking#'ross sucks and ross/rachel is a romanticized depiction of emotional abuse' 10000% agree
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andthebeanstalk · 7 months
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youtube
Dear horror youtubers who write video essays explaining and examining extraordinary works of horror that I deeply want to see and understand but will literally never be able to safely watch due to my own trauma - thus providing me with a way to learn from and connect to works of art that would be otherwise forever inaccessible to me,
I love you.
#original#horror#final girl studios#if this youtuber is on tumblr someone should tag her#LOVE the idea of a girl coming of age and becoming monstrous but now obsessed with how they described this movie as#'a girl coming of age and finding that the people AROUND her have become monsters to her'#fucking. brilliant! thank you for giving me a way to learn from and enjoy this movie! i am more sure than ever that i should not watch it!#but i am so grateful to you for giving me such a gift! how wonderful!#that said - folks please be very cognizant of the warnings at the beginning of the video. there were still parts I had to look away from#also it was cathartic experiencing this movie from this POV bc 'the horror of girlhood being validated' is healing tbh#it was HORRIFYING being a little girl who became a teenage girl! and no one seemed to care what girl-children went through!#I mean folks were dismissive of kids in general but teen girls and little girls are like. a Joke to a lot of people.#everything we liked was ridiculed. and our fears held similarly little weight to adults. and yet. The Horror of Girlhood is so Real.#I Can Only Imagine how much more girls of color were dismissed and targeted and dehumanized.#and then you've got the little Trans girls and teens - who were playing The Horror of Girlhood on like. Nightmare Hard Mode.#the specific horror of girlhood for me as a transmasc AFAB person meant that the existential horror of being seen as a girl#meshed with my gender dysphoria in a way I did not have the language for and would not for many years to come#like the internalized misogyny and the gender dysphoria were literally impossible to parse apart. i couldn't tell which was which.#i just knew i HATED being a girl and i wanted it to STOP. and it was mostly because of how people treated girls.#like it probably took me longer to figure out my gender because of that.
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reachexceedinggrasp · 2 years
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blah blah blah, I ramble about stuff. today, this:
Knox's film career and how he was underutilised for a bunch of it
A problem I have with some of the parts he's been put in is that they feel like casting directors not understanding him as a screen presence. A lot of them seem to want to cast him as straightforward sleazebags or douches who are effective characters/funny because they are awful, sleazy, obnoxious assholes with no redeeming qualities. And I understand this impulse from people who know about Jackass but do not watch it. They think that's what's going on there, that it's a bunch of dudes being irredeemable assholes and that's the appeal. They think they're casting him to his persona and taking a shortcut to the effect they want.
But it's a mistake. The reason no one has been able to replicate the huge and enduring success of Jackass despite loads of other pranksters and daredevils being available is that there's more to it than that; it has a deep sense of joy and camaraderie and incongruous innocence which people who dismiss it out of hand don't get. It's special because of the people and the spirit they bring to it, not least the man himself, who sets a unique, cohesive tone nothing else has. It should probably go without saying that Knoxville is also a massively charismatic person, because the entire franchise would almost certainly never have existed if he weren't. People putting him in movies know this and that's often why they want to cast him. The thing is, he doesn't have 'magnetic asshole' charisma, he has 'effortlessly endearing' charisma. His most profound quality is a disarming air of affability which gives him this irrepressible boyish charm. People want to like him.
He comes off as a loveable mischievous scamp and not a menace to society, even when doing things that are pretty borderline menacing to society, and that's because of his deportment and like... aura. The innate vibe he has is just super positive and personable, his attractiveness is weirdly wholesome. So, what I think they've missed is that any time you cast him as someone we're not supposed to like, he is actually playing against type. It requires more effort on the film's part, not less.
He can still be a bad guy if that's really what they want, he does great shady, but he doesn't work in those flat heel roles that are just meant to be instantly and thoroughly detestable. He's fantastic as a conman where he can be using his natural allure to manipulate people and he's also good in the sort of 'harmless lackey' villain roles (like Big Trouble or MIB2) because those characters are allowed to be endearing. Dirtbag is fine if it's a lovable dirtbag, though having him play idiot clowns can be kind of waste imo. But idk, it seems it isn't very often that someone in Hollywood realises you need to put him in a role that acknowledges he's handsome and charming rather than insisting the audience instead accept he's repugnant or gross or gormless. Because he's really handsome and charming. It will be the first thing you notice. You want to look for something redeeming or secretly sharp in his comic characters even when it is not intended to be there and film makers should be aware of this.
tl;dr I rewatched failed screwball comedy Life Without Dick for the first time in years and remembered how sick that movie feels because it totally relies on you being so repulsed by his character that your sympathy is with the leads while they get into a bunch of sociopathic romcom shenanigans surrounding his murder. Doomed from the outset. The comedy isn't consistently black enough to cross the threshold while still being deeply fucked up, played with a silly tone. Dick, we're reassured as we reveal the reason she killed him was a misunderstanding, was still just the worst (and thus deserved it?), but he's too humanised for us to laugh at his death. The absurdity is generally grim instead of funny, the leads are not likeable, and the assumption we could cheer for them was very misplaced. That and the poor direction, which makes everyone seem super awkward.
And also Harry Connick Jr's acting is real bad. But Craig Ferguson was amusing. I still quote his 'do you like them lattes?' line. That's funny.
#and also also HCJ in a scene with Knoxville where HCJ is supposed to be the handsome prince to Knoxville's evil ogre#and I'm sorry#I won't say it but I'm very sorry#no.#johnny knoxville#life without dick#so many of these roles are just so... like he got the attention to get here bc he is the most charismatic and was just born with star power#I have literally never seen someone describe meeting him for the first time without mentioning how charismatic he is#but then they cast him in roles that don't acknowledge that at all as shit like 'generic gross asshole'#'generic man child'#'generic someone's idea of what the kind of dudes who would be on jackass would be like'#without realising 'wait this guy is becoming/is a legit ICON bc he has a very specific dichotomous genteel energy ppl love'#(and is no joke extremely funny and talented as well as being marquee leading man hot)#'maybe we should play to that'#and then there's Barry Sonnenfeld who understands he is funny and cute but does not understand that he is sexy#watching an interview with Preston recently where he said he told Knoxville Jackass was a terrible idea and he should do a talk show#because 'he's charming as hell'#which: true#but can you imagine the format of a talkshow where he was in charge?#tune in next time if I ever post my stream of consciousness ramble about Rosy and how I wish I knew what the point of it was#I review movies almost exclusively with long tangents about themes and random commentary on details I noticed I'm not sorry#some of his middling films only work as well as they do bc of his charisma- why r we rooting for DC in Action Point? it gives you no reason#at face value he should be in jail and we should not like him at all#but we do bc it's him and he's just loveable- drunk negligent danger to the community? nah! champion of fun!#that is the kind of part he's a huge asset to- just let us root for him and he can carry a whole movie on his back
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southerngothicaf · 1 year
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NOT HER SENDING ME "MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU" BY KELLY CLARKSON
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