#at least not while their BFF/SO/Child/Whatever is on the opposite side

[feralrosie]

♘: Cuddling in a blanket fort for amelia/morgan

@bellarxse said: Amelia/Morgan, crying about something?

I mixed those two! Thank you both so much for the prompts ♥ it’s been so long that I don’t even have the list anymore, tho ASDFGHJK 

The Wayhaven Chronicles Bff!Morgan & Amelia Langford  Words: 2156 Rating: G for Girl Needs Therapy Tags: Hurt/Comfort Read on AO3

It was not unusual for them to disagree, but fighting was slightly rarer. The fiery red hair was not the only thing that Amelia had in common with her mother; both of them were very outspoken, unafraid of expressing their opinions and neither ever wanted to give up and accept defeat. That was how their disagreements turned into arguments, and how the arguments became shoutings.

Until, of course, Rebecca pulled the best cards from her sleeve—as always.

“You are staying here, and that is an order.” Her voice rumbled through clenched teeth across the meeting’s room in the Warehouse, striking like a thunder. “End of discussion, Detective.”

Detective. Rebecca had this special skill to detach the mother from the boss completely—that is, if she had a motherly side at all—but whenever this happened, the battle was over and she could claim her victory. And all of that, endless minutes of barking at each other, just because she wouldn’t allow Amelia to join Ava and Nat on a “too dangerous” mission that she was “not skilled enough” for.

Pressing her hands in fists so tight that her nails began digging into her skin, Amelia turned on her heels, heading to the corridor. “Fine!” She screamed before yanking the door open, “Do whatever you want, Agent.”

And, with the slam of the door, she was out. Thought her nerves would finally calm down, but the sight of two vampires perching against the opposite wall, one pair of hands hidden in pockets and the other crossed over a broad chest, was enough to snatch a grunt from her.

“Amy—” Nat tried to speak but was interrupted when Amelia held up her palm.

“I’m sorry you had to listen to this.” The professionalism in her voice was concerning, sounding too much like Rebecca’s, which could only expose how angry—hurt, even—she was. “Good luck on your mission. Keep me informed.”

Not wasting more of her breath, Amelia turned her back again, anxious to escape from the piercing green eyes frowning at her. Truly a pathetic attempt, given that it took nothing for Ava to launch herself from the wall and reach the Detective’s arm, holding her wrist with impossible care to spin her body around and face her.

“Amelia,” she whispered, choking on her concern, unsure of what to say next. She let her fingers drop ever so slightly with the burning wish of holding her hand, and for a moment the detective might have accepted such comfort, if it was not for Rebecca—always, always Rebecca—storming out of the office behind them, making so much noise with her high heels that Amy felt like she was stepping on her temples.

Nat was quick to prompt her in conversation, driving Rebecca away from the detective and allowing everyone to catch their breaths again. A ragged sigh escaped Amelia’s lips when she moved her hand away from Ava’s, placing it featherlight on the commanding agent’s cheek.

“I will be here when you come back,” she tried to sound as confident as possible, but knew Ava would not be so easily fooled by the bluff, “Be careful, Ava.”

The detective did not allow a reply, leaving for the common room right after; could only hear a defeated grunt behind her, followed by the imposing sound of combat boots marching away.

The warehouse was already huge, but for Amelia, it felt twice the size. Each new step was like walking on knives, and she needed to run to escape the anguish pooling in her throat, threatening to leak from her eyes. The air weighed in her lungs when she slammed the door behind her, finally safe in the solitude, and she needed desperately to let it out of her. Reached for the couch in search of a cushion where she could dig her nails, a much preferable alternative than to follow the same path of her mother down the corridor that lead both to the gym and the foyer.

But her plans of sinking her face in the soft fabric of Nat’s pillows and screaming her soul out were thwarted as quickly as her desire to punch something in the training room.

“What the—” In front of her, between the sofa, armchairs and coffee table, there was the largest, most elaborate blanket fort she’d ever seen. Nat’s couch was dismantled, its seat pillows serving as walls for the fortress, and what seemed like Farah’s duvet covered the entire structure as a ceiling. The thing was not like any child’s play, having two rooms, a window made with the blank space between two cushions and even a porch.

“Farah’s doing.” A voice came from behind Amelia, startling her to look behind. Morgan was standing by the doorframe, arms crossed in front of her chest, frowning at the detective. Amelia didn’t even hear her coming from the hallway or open the door. “Apparently she found out that this is something human children do and decided to give it a try, too.”

“Nat is going to kill her for destroying the sofa.” Amelia cursed under her breath her inability of maintaining a steady posture when her mind was so full of fire that made her voice crack. She turned away from Morgan, too embarrassed to face her, and shut her eyes closed, knowing too well that the deep blue of her irises was accentuated by the red markings of the tears that she could not contain anymore.

She heard the door click closed again and footsteps approaching, but keeping a safe distance. Amelia could feel the grey eyes on her back, studying every inch of her body, listening to her racing heartbeat and capturing the heat growing on her neck. Somehow, knowing that Morgan was just standing there behind her was worse than facing Ava earlier. She caught her breath and turned around, ready to blast whatever came to mind when—

“That was a pretty ugly fight you pulled up there.” Morgan was unusually close, keeping her gaze fixed on hers, piercing her with the intensity with which she stared. Those could be the eyes of a hunter, of an agent specialised in interrogations, but when Morgan sighed and let her shoulders sag, arms falling to her sides, her countenance was but of a friend’s. “Are you alright?”

The question alone was enough to get Amelia off-balance, hurting like a dagger cutting her throat open to let the bulging pain finally out—and she broke. Covered her face with both hands, hunching in her own weight, to let herself shriek as tears began to roll freely down her cheeks and between her fingers. Did not care if Morgan flinched with the sound, but could not be more thankful to feel a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“I just—” she tried once, twice, but the muffled words would not take shape. “It’s just so frustrating that—”

“That you still have to listen to your mother, now as a boss?”

“That she won’t listen to me.” She blurted, finally being able to look up back at Morgan. “She never did, never trusted me. She thinks I’m a child, incapable of doing my job. Won’t even listen to my opinion! Hell, I studied and trained all my life to be the best, and now that I have a chance to prove myself every day, she—ugh!”

Trying to regain control over herself, Amelia ran her fingers over her hair and let her hands rest on the back of her neck as she looked up at the dim ceiling lights. She inhaled sharply, wiping one last tear from her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, turning her face down to focus on the impressively soothing presence of Morgan near her. Embarrassment—for yelling, for exposing herself so much—was not new to her, but Amelia hated it every time. “I just need to calm down.”

“Take your time,” Morgan kept her hand on her shoulder, thumb tracing circles near her neck so lightly that Amelia doubted the vampire was aware of her own movements. “I can come back later to check up on you, if that’s ok.”

“No, please. Stay…” To plead with someone to keep her company was, somehow, even more embarrassing. As she felt her tears coming back to life, Amelia avoided the other’s eyes, turning her face to the side and touching the lean fingers on her shoulder with her chin. She tried—wanted—to not need anyone and was used to always being alone, so it seemed counterproductive to start needing people now. Yet, the thought of letting Morgan leave was terrifying.

But Morgan did not leave, and both of them kept their silence for a while. Amelia could feel her own heart beating heavy in her chest, and wondered how it sounded to Morgan. “If I tell you a secret,” she whispered, not moving her face away from the other’s hand, “Do you promise not to tell anyone?”

“Sure.” The word, despite being so simple, had a smile of its own. “But I can’t promise to not use it as blackmail against you later.”

Amy chuckled, her eyes roaming across the mess of pillows and blankets in the common room. “When I was a child, every time that I fought with my mother, I locked myself in my room and built a blanket fort. Not like this one, it was just a simple huddle of pillows. I don’t know why it felt so safe, but I spent so many nights like this… Of course, I had to tidy up the room all over again in the mornings, but at least it helped me sleep.”

Morgan was a great listener, so Amy did not hesitate to take the opportunity to keep talking, surprisingly at ease, “I think the last time I did it, I was quite old already—fifteen years old, probably, it was a big fight. But to this day I sleep with a lot of pillows all around me. I hope Farah didn’t steal any of mine to build this monstrosity.”

“Only one way to figure it out, princess.” Morgan prompted, smirking at the grimace caused by the pet name and letting her hand slip down Amy’s arm before heading to the blanket fort. She kneeled, ready to get in when turned her attention back at Amelia. “You coming or what?”

“You really don’t have to do this, Morgan.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” The vampire shrugged while a softer smile formed on her lips. “But I’m going to, anyway. Come on.”

As if the weight in her chest had vanished, Amelia chuckled, following her friend in. There was plenty of room for both of them inside, but Morgan didn’t mind when the redhead snuggled closer, hugging her like a giant plush toy. Amelia let her head rest on the agent’s chest and smiled when Morgan wrapped her arms around her. For the longest time, everything was silent and warm, shadows engulfing the room around them as the night finally arrived.

Amelia tried not to think about her fight, tried really hard, but the words—those spoken and heard—kept echoing in her mind. She replayed the entire thing over and over again, thinking of what she should have said and what should have kept for herself, but in the end, it was all in vain. She could not change the past, even if she wished the power to go back twenty years in time and tell herself to do different, do better. Even if she wished more than anything that her mother would finally see her—

“I’m sorry,” Amelia whispered against the dark fabric of Morgan’s shirt, tears flowing freely once again along her cheeks. Wasn’t sure what or to whom she was apologising for, if for the uncontrollable sobbing mess that she became when Morgan tangled her fingers in her hair or for everything else that she ached to change.

“Don’t be silly,” the vampire pressed her arms tighter around the delicate figure of her. “There is nothing you should apologise for. You did nothing wrong, Amy.”

I just want to be good enough, she wished to admit, to lay her heart bare like that in a silly blanket fort, but such bravery would require every last drop of her strength, a luxury she could not spare. Didn’t even want to scream anymore, and could only hope that Morgan would understand how grateful she was to have her there as her crying turned into the silent despair of exposing herself.

Amelia had been exhausted for too long, it was clear to her now, and yet she had no idea of what to do next. Was it fair to ask for help, when everyone else was already working so hard to keep her alive and well, protected from every supernatural being out there?

Whatever the answer, she would have to figure it out later. For the moment, she was satisfied to just feel Morgan’s fingers on her hair, and the warmth of the blanket fort around her.

#the wayhaven chronicles #agent m #twc morgan #amelia langford #my writing #i truly enjoyed writing this despite hurting my girl #gotta improve my angst game tho #alavidzes

[kendrixtermina]

The Recruitment Freebies: Thoughts on Sylvain and Felix

Now when it comes to recruiting characters, there are 2 who kind of stand out and are, in their own way, somewhat ‘easier’ to get.

Sylvain joins you automatically if you’re playing fem Byleth, whereas Felix actually requires high stats/abilities that no one else does but since your primary weapon is most likely going to be a sword anyways and he requires sword skill, he’s actually not so hard to collect. Given that they’re both handy units (Felix kicks butt like no tomorrow, Sylvain is pretty customizable and gets a relic early on) you’re sorta encouraged to snatch one or both.

If you’ve seen them in their original environment, you’ll easily notice why: They’re kind of the kingdom’s token cynics. 

[Longer Essay Under The Cut]

The Initial Situation

One thing that stands out right away is that the Blue Lions are one of the tightest-knit groups: The Black Eagles have sort of vaguely heard of each other because most the imperial nobility lives in the capital and the one commoner used to be famous, but that’s it, only Linhardt and Dorothea really express any regret over betraying Edelgard if they do, and their fates don’t differ that much by whatever faction they’re in - Ferdinand is certainly sad to see the Empire itself go down (see that amusing line about an ‘Adrestia-shaped hole in [his] heart’) and has a minor existential crisis when his family’s lands are confiscated after he spend his whole life preparing to rule them, but while he gets that line wondering what might have become of him if Byleth had chosen a different path, he pretty much always becomes a statesman no matter who winds up on the throne.

The Golden Deer, meanwhile, are from wildly different backgrounds and even Claude just showed up last year. If they stay together, they eventually become a tight-knit group under Claude’s leadership (except Lorenz, if Byleth’s not with them), and if you recruit em,  they will largely pursue their own interests as they were never too unified to begin with, with most of the commoners saying they were never that involved in politics, and most of the nobles acting out of self-preservation or opportunism.

By contrast, most of the Blue Lions know each other personally and will be pretty conflicted about defecting from the Kingdom if you recruit them, and it’s no wonder:

Sylvain, Felix Ingrid and Dimitri were childhood friends and all big weapons enthusiasts, Dedue has followed Dimitri everywhere he went for the last few years, Anette’s father worked for Dimitri’s, Mercedes is Anette’s BFF from magic school and while Ashe didn’t know the others before since he was a poor village kid before Lonato took him in, he becomes fast friends with the rest of them due to their shared admiration of knight stories.

So in this more idealistic and old-fashioned groups, Sylvain and Felix can be thought of as the token cynics or more independently-minded characters. This is most obvious with Felix: He sticks out like a sore thumb, vocally expresses his dislike of the others and their values and basically keeps to himself on the training grounds, and its only through the other’s doormatsey dispositions that they seem determined to ignore his hostilities and continue considering him a friend whether he wants to or not. He doesn’t fit in with the other Blue Lions at all.

Sylvain, meanwhile, doesn’t stand out that much at first glance, he seems like another fairly common character archetype in the silly childhood friends lineup and gives Ingrid plenty of cause to get into Mom Friend mode,  but the whole thing with him is that while he pretends to be a hedonistic oaf, he’s actually something of a brooding intellectual type underneath, very ‘byronic’ overall.

Ultimately, both of them are motivated by a desire for, and love of freedom. (which is probably why a lot of ppl think they’d be a compatible and interesting as a romantic couple - for all their outward difference, they have a common ‘core’ there)  Sylvain has been treated all his life like his life and power don’t really belong to himself and he desperately strains against those binds by acting out, and Felix finds his countrymen to have a bit of a grostesque lemming mentality and wants no part of that.

At the same time both show their ‘cynism’ in very different ways, and neither of them is a ‘complete’ cynic, but the areas where you find their residual idealism are also different. I would say that Felix’ cynism is more apparent, while Sylvain’s runs much deeper, but more on that later.

Though he cares little about maintaining a reputation and indeed seems to sorta seek out or get a kick out doing what his father would hate, calling himself a ‘good for nothing/scoundrel/ someone who’s going to hell’, to sorta go against that pressure to be a good kid, when it comes down to it he’s actually still pretty honorable and does actually believe in The Power Of Friendship (as noted by both Ashe and Dimitri - it’s probably why they like him) He’s inclined to be a Good Guy, he just doesn’t want the pressure that goes along with it.

It reminds me a bit of that one Fiona Apple song: “Do I wanna do right? Of course./ But Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to/  answer you?/ Hell no!”

Felix meanwhile - well. Some might say he’s tsundere, and I suppose he is, stock phrases wise, but to put it more specifically what he is is counterdependent.  Which is a word commonly used to describe that teenage behavior of always doing the exact opposite of what your parents or the mainstream do, thereby being just as influenced as a dependent person. It’s closer to being dependent than indepedent - He wants badly to be independent, but doesn’t really know how. He still very much has attachments to his father and his oldtime childhood friends, he just rejects them fiercely, because between Glenn’s death and his first deployment to Sreng, he came to see that attachment as something that will destroy him, something incompatible with self-preservation. He still dearly loves Rodrigue, Dimitri and the others, but he doesn’t want to be like them. He wants to be free, he’s a reasonable man and sees that they’re all walking off a cliff and he doesn’t wanna jump of of it, but his opposition is so absolute because some part of his kind of wants to.

At the same time he’s not entirely a complainer for complaining’s sake. Though very fighting-focussed he has his own strong code of ethics and standards- Dimitri markedly falls short of them. They’re not that different, Felix too feels the wide open wound of being still bonded and attached  to people who aren*t there anymore (”Training for a duel with a corpse”, as he puts it) - But while Dimitri let it eat his life (though there’s more complexity here of course but that would derail this into a whole different essay), Felix kinda errs on the opposite side of pushing down all attachment, but at the same time, he does it because he’s concerned with saving the ones who are still alive. That’s the point he stresses in his paralogue where he argues with his father, “We’re here to protect our subjects”. He wants to protect himself, yes, but he also wants to protect other people. He’s all about that.  He wants people to protect themselves not glorify throwing their lives away.

Which is why despite all his vocal complaining he still ultimately hangs out with the others, cannot help but worry about their wellbeing etc.  They might be negative bonds now but they’re still very much bonds.

Meanwhile, in Sylvain’s case the cynism comes not from rejection but disillusionment and distrust. He’s a good guy but his ability to form bonds is almost completely destroyed. All his life he got showered with fake conditional love while being presented with an example of what would happen if he didn’t stay in ppl’s good graces: His brother, who’d been dropped like a hot potato. I don’t think he can think of himself as good; He kinda got treated as an unfair existence the moment he came into the world.   At least if you get no love, you still have the hope that you might eventually get love. But fake love? Fake love poisons everything. It’s disgusting wrong, it’s not really for you and it just makes you wanna get rid of it by any means neccessary. Speaking from experience here.

Apart from the bonds he got with his childhood friend and those with exceptional people skills like Byleth, Mercedes and Dorothea, he doesn’t really trust anyone beyond a certain level.

But that’s a subtle distinction.

At first the most apparent difference, and the first contrast to come up in their support chain, is focus. Felix responded to the unpleasantness in his past with absolute laser focus, particularly on fighting and becoming stronger, whereas Sylvain avoids ever the appearance of focus like the plague, downplays his capabilities and chases distractions in a way that may be rather relatable to those of us who had the whole weird-ass Gifted Child Experience. Hence, Sylvain might come off as extravagant/frivolous while Felix appears disciplined, even ascetic.

This is also apparent in how its implied that they “jump ship” - Sylvain does it on a whim because of fem Byleth’s ample bosoms, (whereas man Byleth needs to impress him with reason skill which ties more into his hidden dephts) whereas with Felix it would tie into his pursuit of strenght and how he focusses on that more than anything else. Byleth stands out as a badass, so Felix juins his class or that’s his reasoning in the dialogue he gets.

But at the same time what we see here is that both were born with great natural power but don’t want that defining their lives. Sylvain downplays and refuses to use his, while Felix is determined to get straight that he actually “earned” through his harsh discipline and dedication, and vocally disavows conventional wisdom (”Crests, lineagle, knighthood... all trifles. Only strenght and skill matter”)

Post-Timeskip

So while a lot of characters like, say, Dorothea, get alot of the same dialogues in each route, others kind of get different little arcs depending on where they end up - for example if you recruit Lorenz for the empire he will at first join out of pure opportunism (that, and trying to get mercy for his corrupt-ass father), but then towards the last few months, he’ll actually come around to Edelgard’s way of thinking.

Felix is one of the characters whose dialogue differs the most by route - church & Alliance overlap a lot though with a few pointed differences, and his ending narrations are totally different depending on whether you recruited him or left him with the Kingdom. Of course, this would have to differ to an extent as he can’t exactly become Dimitri’s right hand when there’s no Dimitri, but the outcomes are starkly different to the point that even his paired endings with different characters all have two versions.

In the Kingdom route he generally succeeds his father whereas in the other routes, he typically renounces his title and becomes a mercenary unless his partner or BFF convinces him otherwise.

Unlike, say, Ferdinand, who does about the same thing regardless of who he ends up working under, for Felix the decision to ditch his classmates is a big big turning point, a choice

Sylvain by contrast has rather more similar endings wherever he goes and his dialogues are more similar - one highlight being how he has the exact same “history is written by the winners, whoever wins will say they’re right war will probably always exist...” lines regardless of whether he’s fighting for or against Edelgard. Whenever he isn’t commenting on the weather of their next destination or the general suckyness of the war, he remains mildly sceptical of whatever side he’s on, including one memorable instance where he refers to poor Hubert as “Edelgard’s idiot sidekick” and thinks they should try more negotiating, though he’s not blind to Dimitri’s flaws either when they go fight him.

Not really a big joiner or believer, this one, no illusions about how they could always be wrong, which perhaps makes it more touching how he invariably ends up becoming a peacemaker and activist after the war, basically becoming a fulltime do-gooder.

Since the inner mechanics with Felix are quite different, so are his outcomes. Sylvain’s gonna be like “I’m not optimistic but I gotta try doing the right thing”, no atter who he’s following, but you get a whole different Felix depending on what route you’re playing.

Because for him, wether to stick with Team Kingdom or not kinda represents a choice between his lingering attachment and his drive to reject that.

In the Kingdom route, he stays a lot more like he was in his academy days: Complains a lot, but still sticks with everyone to the end. He sort of fills the role of the contrarian number two, the one providing a contrastic viewpoint (while, Sylvain, while not optimistic, is no less stubborn about sticking with a friend in need than the rest of Team Kingdom)

He comes across as the Only Sane Man at times, esp. when he calls Titanic on the whole Revenge Trip to Gronder, “Iceberg ahead? ya’ll seeing the iceberg right?” but of course if you’re just complaining you’re kinda part of the problem - He muses that he must be crazy too, if he’s going along with everybody. Can’t bring himself to leave. Eventually that attachment wins out and he doesn’t even bother hiding it especially once Dimitri gets his act together. At that point he figures that the best he can do is to keep him on-course. Though they don’t go back to the same dynamic they once had, they go back to being BFF and the new dynanic is probably more useful to Dimitri as a counterpoint, they pretty much each succeed their fathers in proper Kingdom Manner and stay an A-team for the rest of their lives just like their das were. Idealism triumphs, though it’s a more matured, well-thought out one that is less about high standards and more about forgiveness/redemption.

It seems like he kinda became what he didn’t want to be early on (in the paired ending with Dimitri he even winds up in one of those chivalric tales he used to hate!), but it also looks like that made him happy. Maybe because it resolved the contradiction and tension within himself, all the energy he expends in rejecting his feelings of attachment, to like, actively not care about Dimitri.

I mean in their B support at one point he almost accidentally lapses back into Nerding Out About Swords Like Old Times - He needs to actively remind himself that he’s supposed to hate Dimitri now, and he does an even worse job at No Longer Liking the others.

Indeed when he gets what he ostensibly wanted, or rather what he wants to want, it doesn’t seem to make him all that happy - This was indeed the realization that prompted me to do this analysis. He goes full lonesome cowboy and marches off and he doesn’t sound all that happy about what he’s done, and his paired ending with Sylvain is one of the ones that makes it very obvious - In the Kingdom route, they stay Together Forever as they were in childhood, like they never got estranged at all. In the other routes it’s a sad, melancholic, darkly romantic thing about how Sylvain inherited his title, Felix came to help him out once and they never saw each other again, and Sylvain eventually gets a keepsake from Felix... and this is if you recruit them both. They get a sad enough dialogue if you grab only one and make them fight each other, but even if they run away together, essentially, they don’t become happy together.

The circumstances aren’t that different, if they still wound up in the same faction - But Felix is different.

Because he doesn’t just leave because of Byleth’s heroic charisma like many of the others - He  goes because, in essence, he is putting his pursuit of strength over his lingering attachments for his friends. To leave the kingdom means to actually become what he pretends to be. To actually become a lonewolf warrior who cares only about strenght rather than an ultimately loyal tsundere.

Which is where the above rambles about counter-dependency come to bear: He says he doesn’t care but he does, so much he can’t stop. So to take this step, which at the time seens reasonable and sane and free to him, is to cut off part of himself.

Though even here there are different gradations depending on where you recruit him to.

In the Alliance and church routes he simply jumps ship on the kingdom out of self-preservation. Sanity before Honor, just like he was always talking about. The kingdom’s in horrible shape, it can’t win, or so he sees it, Sylvain’s reasoning is pretty much the same but more resigned/sad (”There was nothing I could do”), after all for all they know, Dimitri is long dead (though Felix, always one with keen insight, suspect him to be alive a bit before he shows up)

Then Dimitri turns up alive, but promptly gets himself killed, and Felix regrets it. Every bit as much as other kingdom characters. He wonders if he could have stopped Dimitri if he’d been with him. He channels this into avenging Dimitri first on the empire and then on TWSITD, and starts using his name at this point.

Tellingly enough, he refers to the local afterlife beliefs that are so prominently featured in the Kingdom route. The ones that Rodrigue taught to both Felix and Dimitri and that likely played a role in the latter’s inability to forgive himself for all that Rodrigue is largely a good man who was a positive influence. He talks about “facing” Dimitri in the afterlife or allowing him to rest in peace much like Dimitri’s own talk about appeasing the dead - As much as he’d like to be Felix was not actually immune to his upbringing. basically he really regrets it.

The church and alliance routes differ somewhat in the dialogue before the last stage in a way that makes the church route seem “milder” - He considers working under Byleth once they become King/Queen, so he doesn’t seem quite as “lost”, whereas in the alliance route he expresses interest in dueling Nemesis. Not that far beyond his usual “must fight worthy opponents/ blood knight attude” but certainly more of an embracement of it and also very reckless, since as far as we knew the zombie horde is blazing an almost unhindered trail through the land and pretty much had Hilda’s renowned invincible brother for breakfast.

The empire route, of course, requires him to go even further - it’s one thing to evacuate a sinking ship, another to go a path where there’s a good chance that he’ll have to go against, and even fight/kill his former comrades. The game sure included tons of unique dialogue for this. You can even have his feud with his father end quite lethally, and Dimitri will even comment on it when you engage him. Ouch!

Right after the holy tomb scene most the recruitees’ dialogues are either some variation of “I’m scared but I trust you sensei” or “Now that she’s actually explained her reasoning, Edelgard’s got a point” - Felix’ is neither.

Though he’d presumably agree that Crests and Status are overrated, that’s not what he talks about. He says he wants to forge his own path, one that isn’t his father’s or Dimitri’s.  

He may or may not be doing the right thing but it’s for the wrong reason.

It’s a decision that’s perfectly logical if you feature in all factors except for his own heart - by which I don’t mean some bullshit 19th century “head vs heart” contrast but simply self-knowledge, which is necessary to make choices that you won’t regret, especially when the ‘correct’ path is ambiguous.

He wants to be free, deeply and desperate but, there’s also the counterdependency in play. He’s not going with the Empire because he wants to go with the empire, but because he wants to go against Rodrigue and Dimitri. Rejecting them to prove to himself that he can.

And turns out he can. He can cut em all down, with fairly unfazed Dialogue about how he’s going his own path, will never bow to the likes of Dimitri, will pursue strenght no matter who stands in his way etc.

They all curse him for betraying him, only Sylvain who’s not the sort to have much certainty about being right, gets more of a “sad/tragic” line about their childhood promise.

But that’s on the battlefield. Back at the monastery it’s a different matter. In this route he shows significantly LESS regret about what happens to the kingdom peeps - after all, he knew he’d be fighting them. He’s just completely embraced the ‘living to fight’ thing here and you get the sense that some other parts of his may have been lost in the process.

Ironically he says he killed more ppl than he can count and that he’s practically as bad as Dimitri now (”Your better world better be worth this”, indeed...) and while he’s completely unflinchingly resolute he’s not exactly unphased.

You can certainly understand why he’d end up as a restless sorta wandering mercenary  (interesting, too that if you pair him with Byleth they’ll go with him - interesting enough in its own right since that’s the sort of life they use to have before coming to the academy)

So I guess this could all  ultimately be seen as a parable on ‘be careful what you wish for’, or, more accurately, ‘know yourself before making wishes’.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem: three houses #sylvain jose gautier #felix hugo fraldarius

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

If you wouldn't mind Prompt: Hat Kid WILL force Mu and Mafia Boss to get along for ONE PECKING DAY ON HER BIRTHDAY... even if the month doesn't technically exist on this planet. And she WILL resort to blackmail and bribery. And maybe forget everyone else she invited while she's threatening them.

Thank you for the request!

Birthday Party

“You’re here!” Hat Kid said as she hugged Mu mere seconds after she’d boarded the ship.

“Of course I’m here,” Mu said. “You honestly think I’d miss your birthday party?” She was far too excited for it to miss it. It had been so long since she’d attended a birthday party.

Hat Kid stepped back, smiling wide. “No, I’m just excited. Almost everyone’s here now.” She leaned in to speak quieter. “Even Snatcher came. He’s disguised as one of the Subconites as if that could fool me. … Okay, maybe it almost did but I hugged them all and I could feel that one of them wasn’t a plushie like the rest so it has to be him. I pretended not to notice so don’t let any of them know I know though because then he’ll probably leave.” She rocked back, resuming a normal speaking tone. “Only the Empress and Cooking Cat aren’t here.”

“Yeah uh, Cooking Cat told me to tell you that she’d going to be like an hour late because she’s got like an important thing to deal with. But did you seriously invite the Empress? Don’t you hate her?” Everything Mu knew about the Empress, Hat Kid had told her and all of that info had come with a large dose of complaining and obvious distain.

“Yep, but it’s my birthday so everyone’s invited to have a good time. But she’s been kind of afraid of me ever since that time in the elevator when I almost killed her so I’m not really surprised she didn’t come. So I can accept this. Once Cooking Cat gets here the party will be complete unless the Empress shows up late too, that’d be cool.”

Mu doubted that would happen. She’d heard the tale of the elevator incident and following court trail, there was no way the Empress would come after that. It was for the best though because according to Hat Kid, she was a gang leader, a powerful one too. Not the kind of person Mu wanted to be around.

But speaking of people, there were lots of them here, filling the central room. Along with tons of balloons in a rainbow of colours, some floating around the ceiling, others tied in bunches around the posts on the railings. There was also a table filled with food and drinks. A large multilayered cake decorated with bright pink frosting was the center piece. … Mu wanted some.

“When are you going to cut into the cake?” she asked, pointing to it.

“Uh… we can do that now, I guess. It’s apparently like a thing here, right? Blowing out the candles and making a wish? That’s what Grooves told me anyway, he made the cake by the way. I don’t think we do that were I’m from. I don’t really know though because no one every invited me to their birthday parties back home. But let’s go get some cake, I bet it’s good.” Hat Kid took Mu’s hand and brought her along as she skipped over to the table.

 -

Mu was on her second slice of cake when she remembered to take it slow. She had more food than she could ever possibly eat right there on the table free for her to take as much as she wanted and it wasn’t going to be taken away and she didn’t need to worry about starving in general because she lived with Cooking Cat now who fed her well. So she could take her time and enjoy the cake instead of stuffing her face with it until she felt sick.

So, taking a deep breath, she looked up at it to look around the room again. She’d chosen a spot on the upper walkway to eat, by the later so she could dangle her legs over the edge. She could see pretty much everyone else in the room from up here.

The Subconites were the most tightly knit group, staying all together in the corner opposite the food table. Supposedly one of them was Snatcher himself. Which one, Mu couldn’t even begin to guess, they all looked nearly identical and none of them seemed to act any different than the others. Maybe Hat Kid was mistaken? … Probably not, she claimed Snatcher was her BFF after all so she had to know him pretty well.

The bulk of the guests filling the room was a mix of owls, penguins and seals. They were all mingling and chatting. There were some mountain people too. DJ Grooves stood out amongst them because of his weird shoes and large hair. He was hanging with the Conductor which was a surprising because weren’t they supposed to be enemies? Though Hat Kid claimed they were in love despite everything Mu had heard that contradicted that. But she did know them better than Mu did so maybe she was right. The ship captain was sitting by the table, the half that had the drinks, looking like he wished those drinks were alcoholic. Maybe miserable was just how his face looked though.

But also sitting at the table, unnoticed before due to Mu’s focus on the food on the other side of the table, were four Mafia goons – one of them was the green goggled one who was actually almost kind, letting Mu get away on multiple occasions, even giving her food a few times when no one else was around, therefore making him the closest thing to a good guy in the entire Mafia – and… the Mafia Boss. He even had his body back due to Snatcher shenanigans with the dumb Death Wish contracts – threat of death or no, Mu would’ve refused to participate in those if she’d known the Mafia Boss was too because it was almost like working with him, too late now though. Considering Hat Kid had invited the Empress, this wasn’t surprising. But that didn’t mean Mu was going to tolerate it; the Mafia was her sworn enemy.

She finished the last bite of her cake before putting the plate and fork down for now. She then hopped down, landing next to an owl and seal chatting. Ignoring their surprise at her sudden drop in, she started for the Mafia. What she’d say or do when she reached them, she didn’t know nor did she really care. What mattered was that she made her displeasure known and hopefully they would leave.

She wasn’t being sneaky so it was no surprise when the Mafia Boss’ eyes locked onto her as she stepped up to the table. “You,” he said with as much hate in his voice as Mu felt for him.

“Yeah, me,” she replied. “You’re lucky there are children at this party otherwise I’d be stuffing you back into a jar where you belong.” Honestly the fact that Snatcher had undone that was so unfair.

He growled as he stood up to loom over her. As if that were frightening, especially when there was a still a table between them. “You’re the one who’s lucky here girl. I’d have your head if there weren’t so many witnesses around.”

“Uh… Mafia think that this is probably not good place to fight,” the green goggled Mafia goon cut in. “Is hat child’s birthday…”

“Shut up,” Mu and the Mafia said in near unison, resulting in an angry snarl from both of them. Before either of them could say anything else though…

“Howdy,” Hat Kid stepped in wearing a smile. “I knew you guys would see each other eventually and would try to start a fight. I’m here to tell you that you’re not allowed to because this my birthday party and everyone is going to have a good time, that means you guys need to get along and be nice to each other.”

“Hell no,” Mu said. Hat Kid could do whatever the peck she wanted to but Mu wasn’t going to sit here and ‘get along’ or ‘be nice’ to the Mafia Boss of all people. “He’s a piece of shit, you know that.”

“She stuffed me in a jar,” the Mafia Boss shouted over her.

Not to be outdone, Mu raised her voice too. “He’s a murderer! He’s responsible for the deaths of everyone on the island and he tried to kill you!”

“You tried to kill her too! And your responsible for the deaths of like half the planet’s population!”

“That’s because I was killing you fuckers! And it was pecking undone so it doesn’t pecking count! And how dare you pecking compare me to you! You pecking…”

“Stop!” Hat Kid shouted, somehow making her voice louder than either of theirs, as she jumped up on the table to stand directly between them. “No more fighting. If you guys say even one more mean thing to each other or about each other I’m kicking you out of the party and never allowing you back on my ship.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me,” Mu said, glaring up at her. “I’m your friend.” Or at least Mu thought they were friends. Maybe they actually weren’t, not if Hat Kid wanted to consider the Mafia Boss a friend too.

“I wouldn’t banish you from the ship forever but I will kick you off for the rest of today and I won’t let you take home any cake or balloons. It’s my birthday so I want people to be nice and get along. I’ve never had a birthday party before please don’t ruin it by being mean and starting fights. You guys can go back to being enemies tomorrow but for just today could you please at least tolerate each other.” She’d started angry but by the end she looked at them both with puppy dog eyes that glistened with unshed tears.

It might’ve been a fake look to make Mu, and by the look on his face the Mafia Boss too, feel guilty. She might just be trying to manipulate them with tears and a sob story about never having had a birthday party before this one. … If so, it was working. That look made Mu feel bad. But… how could she possibly tolerate the Mafia Boss?

Silence hung heavy in the room. Everyone was watching now, with all the yelling that had happened of course they were. It was awkward and a bit embarrassing and yet no one did anything. Everyone was waiting for either Mu or the Mafia Boss to back down or resume the fight and get kicked out.

Mu wasn’t going to back down, she was going to wait to see what the Mafia Boss did. If he resumed being hostile, he’d be at fault and would get kicked out. There was no way he wouldn’t, right? He didn’t care about upsetting Hat Kid or being permanently banned from her ship. He’d for sure…

He sat back down. “Fine,” he said. “I shall try to get along with her if she tries to do the same in return.” He gave her a pointed look, putting the entire room’s attention on her as well. He was such a bastard. He exactly what she’d wanted him to do. Instead he wanted her to be the bad guy and get kicked out. Well she wasn’t playing that game.

“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms and lifting her chin. “I’ll be nice too.”

“Yay!” Hat Kid said, seemingly genuinely happy. “Thank you!”

Trying to ignore the eyes still on her, Mu turned and went back to the cake. She’d get another piece and then go back to people watching. Or maybe she’d go hang out with the Subconites and try to figure out which one was Snatcher in disguise. Or maybe she’d hang out with some of the seals, they were awfully cute and friendly. No matter what though, if she wanted to resume having a good time here, she was going to avoid the drink side of the table or anywhere else the Mafia ended up going. She was going to try to go back to having a good time though partly out of pure spite.

For this event.

#My Writing #ahit #A hat in time #Hat Kid & Mustache Girl #The Mafia Boss #The Mafia Boss & Mustache Girl

[skull001]

Personally, I think Cream the Rabbit is currently the one character out of the entire Sonic cast of characters that I feel was never needed.

Why do I come to that conclussion?

For starters, Cream was introduced with the idea of being Amy's equivalent to Sonic's Tails. However, an aspect that the people at Sonic Team did not take into account is that while Sonic and Tails are very different characters from each other than on top, not only complement each other but also hightlight each others positives, this was never the case with Amy and Cream.

The problem is not just that both Amy and Cream are very similar characters (both are sweet innocent girls) which by itself alone causes a situation where they overlap and in order to make one shine by being sweet and compassionate, the other has to take a dive... Guess which of the two took said dive and had her character be flanderized in the 2000's by playing out the other notable aspect that was left?

No, the other problem is that their dynamic does anything but highlight what makes each other special. Amy Rose is a very quirky and entertaining character who makes Cream look like a dull and one-dimensional charicature while on the other hand, Cream's impossibly nice politeness causes for Amy to be seen as selfish and pushy in comparisson. Definitively nothing like what happens with Sonic and Tails.

Cream was introduced to the series to work as a support character for a support character (Amy), yet I feel the idea was poorly executed not because of just the usual clumsyness from Sonic Team, but rather because the idea was flawed from the very beginning. It says a lot whe Cream, who was created to be Amy's BFF, then changes her for a cat princess who hails from Austral... I mean, the Sol dimension.

OK, it's been established why Cream as a character had a very poor execution, but why was she never needed?

A) IMO, any series that hopes to strike a nice balance between the members of it's cast needs to make them unique from each other so that they can all shine in their very own right and not overlap each other. Amy's contribution to the franchise is that she is the one character with the strongest compassion and empathy for others. How can Amy possibly go back to being the sweet kid from SA1 (or even Mania Adventures #6) if we're adding another character who also does the same thing? It's either one or the other and I don't think it's fair that Amy has to share (and be reduced to fangirl again) so Cream can shine when all the other major characters get to keep the thing that makes them unique to themselves. I don't think anyone would be happy if ST introduced a younger, cuter and smarter new character to eclipse Tails on his very own game. There is a reason why you never get two Han Solos in the Millenium Falcon.

B) If what they needed was a character who could keep in check Amy's more impulsive side by offering advise, why not use Tails instead? I think Amy would be more willing to listen to the one character that also advises Sonic over some little girl that's half her own age. Plus we get the bonus benefit of Amy being more involved with the main cast... as it should had been from the start. The only thing we got with Cream is to create more distance between Amy and the other characters.

C) If they wanted for Amy to have a BFF, then why not Blaze? In fact, with Amy and Blaze we actually get a dynamic between two characters with personalities that is not only actually different (Amy is bubbly, cheerful and optimistic while Blaze is serious, reserved and realistic) but which also complements for each other's in a way that highlights what makes them endearing characters (Amy can see in Blaze the kind of strong heroine that she aims to become one day, while in Amy, Blaze learns to see the best of any situation as well as to be more compassionate in how she exacts justice). Plus there is the twist the while in Sonic and Tail's duo the blue hedgehog is the oldest, here it's the pink hedgehogette who is the youngest  in her duo, a thing that IMO is more original than just trying to be "Sonic and Tails in girl form".

But if you want a short, more direct answer, then I would say the following: whatever Cream could add to the franchise was either better done by characters introduced before her, or can now be done much better by other more complex characters. Even the whole young child thing can be better pulled off by Charmy Bee and in a more entertaining manner.

Just like how I dislike when characters are given crap for very poor reasons/arguments that don't have a solid foundation, it annoys me when the very exact opposite thing is done for characters who show that they really don't have the potential to stand on their very own merit. Personally, I think Cream is this kind of character that hardly contributes anything meaningful at all. Not even when she actually does get the spolight, which often consists on a watered down version of what Amy did before.

Why exactly do people want Cream to return for? As a character, her strongest point is having one of the most cute designs, but to mee, looks aren't everything. Her personality is pretty basic. Worse, she's one of those type of idealized characters void from any form of flaws. As far as I know, Cream doesn't even have a purpose or goal to drive her character. Sonic likes Adventures, Eggman wants to conquer the world to build the largest amusement park and have it all for himself alone. Tails wants to be as cool as Sonic, Amy wants to win Sonic's affection and respecc, Knuckles wants YOU off his lawn, Rougue wants all them gems in the world, Vector wants to be a famous detective and make lots of money, Big wants to go fishing with Froggy for ever and ever, etc. All of them have something they want or like to do more than anything, no matter how ambitious, mundane or plain ridiculous. All of them, except Cream.

The things I feel Sonic Team really need to think before throwing a half-baked character should be the following:

What is the character's motivation/purpose?

What unique thing is this character going to add/contribute to the existing cast?

Does it overlap and/or take away from existing characters in any way?

And because I like to at least add some constructive criticism, these are the things that Cream needs to have fixed:

* Don't make her Amy 2.0. I can't stress enough how this is a disservice to both Amy (taking away from her character) and Cream (not being allowed to be her own unique thing)

* Don't make her an idealized perfect little princess with no flaws, as that is no character in any way, shape or form. Give Cream actual flaws with clear consequences that can be felt as well as offer an opportunity to grow. You can't win me over if I cannot perceive the character as credible and relatable. To me, this are the two most important things and why it's Amy and Eggman who are my two all-time favorites, since both of them feel "real" in their own unique way because they give a reason to become invested and care for what happens to them. A flaw I can think off is that Cream does not understand things that are normal to grown ups and which to her might come as contradictory, like for example, why sometimes it's better to say a lie than a truth that will hurt others. At six years old, Cream is supposed to be learning and trying to understand her world and how people interact, not giving moral lessons that require having the experience of living to understand them.

As she is now, Cream is not needed. However, I could change my perception of the character, even be more accepting, if Cream was changed from "discount Amy" into something unique... something that actually plays her young age in a credible manner, who pursues a goal and struggles to overcome obstacles being driven by that goal.

They got her design. That's like 50% of the character done right. It's only the personality and how her interaction dynamics are played that needs a major overhaul.

#Cream the Rabbit #Sonic the Hedgehog #opinion #very unpopular opinion

[mellz117]

Mellz plays KH Re:CoM, Reverse/Rebirth (Riku’s Campaign) part 3

Check out parts [1] and [2] if you haven’t seen them yet. Part 1 also has a link to Sora’s campaign

Below the Read More is the endgame and my final thoughts

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Riku is met with Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, yet again, who still can't fathom why Riku's resisting his advances. Close your damn jacket!

Final battle! I lost twice? I think? Not many times but I think it was 2. But god damn not as many times as I lost to Repliku. That sucked. I don’t get mad about dying multiple times in a final boss, that’s kind of the point of final bosses...

Ansem has a great voice btw, like if there’s gonna be a voice for G-Dorf in Breath of the Wild 2, I want Richard Epcar or Dave Boat (Lexaeus) to voice him. I doubt it’ll happen but those are my picks!

This guy sure does talk a lot for someone who's supposed to be dying.

Ansem explodes in a thick fog of darkness that envelopes Riku and Mickey comes to the rescue. Technically Riku won so he’s allowed to relish in his victoy AS WELL AS be carried off my a floating mouse.

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 IDK where the basement is supposed to exist here because the door Riku reaches the ground floor through is the same door Sora goes through to LEAVE the ground floor. Is it like a hill? Gotta go upstairs to go downstairs?

Idk. I wanna see the full interior of the castle, I want blueprints.

“What now Riku? You going home?” Your Majesty. Mickey, my dude. You can’t just GO HOME after killing a man. Riku’s got some shit to go through, he can’t return to a normal life after this. There is so much more tha nthis!

I’m glad a MOUSE can understand darkness is a thing that just exists, can coexist with the light. Good on him for keeping an open mind! It took how long for anyone to realize light and dark are two sides of the same coin? Twilight Princess was all about this. ...Riku is the twilight princess.

Mickey wants to follow Riku down his path of light and dark and they’re friends now. When did they get the time to bond between KH1 and CoM?

How old is Mickey? He’s BFF’s with a teenager now, how old is he? I’m not saying child and adult friendships aren’t and shouldn’t be a thing, I may use Tumblr but I’m not THAT Tumblr. I’m just wondering what kind of grown-ass adult WANTS to be friends with a teenager lol. Mickey tells Riku, since they’re friends now Riku should call him my his name, rather than his title. So... No one else gets this talk? Donald? Goofy? No? OK.

I deadass expected Simple and Clean to start playing after a hard cut to black despite actually remembering the final confrontation with DiZ.

Riku and Mickey don the black coats DiZ presented earlier then they leave Castle Oblivion behind. The duo meets up with him at a crossroads and immediately Riku’s on the defense. I love Riku, he’s tired, he’s annoyed, he knows the world isn’t black and white, light and darkness, and the literal path he chooses reflects that. He’s accepting the darkness and using it to fight for his friends. I’m so proud of him. I wonder where these paths actually lead.

THE SUN IS RISING I DIDN’T NOTICE THIS UNTIL EDITING THIS WHAT?KJVBLSDFKJVBDLJ

NOW Simple and Clean plays, albeit after a fade to black.

During the credits cinematics we see Riku and Mickey travelling through Hollow Bastion, the same location where the 1,000 Heartless battle in KH2 takes place if I recall correctly! That was cool to see. Riku is having a difficult time. Help him.

The next one we see Roxas again. He stops and looks at the Twilight Town gang when they pass him and Axel tries leading him away. I can only assume the following went down:

“I wanna try that”, Roxas says and gestures to the ice cream the aforementioned group was eating. So he and Axel buy some ice cream and go up the clock tower, Roxas seems to be enjoying himself but Axel doesn’t seem to like this treat at all. I think he just eats it now for Roxas’s sake, he pretends to like it to make him happy.

So I don’t know the timeline of this part of the game. Is Roxas not part of the organization yet at this point? Is Axel trying to recruit him? Is this after Roxas defects and is forgetting his time with them?

The third clip we see a very brief shot of Riku a few months later and he’s looking good. Doesn’t cut his hair.

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Final clip, after the credits shows Roxas and at this point he’s either friends with Hayner, Pence, and Olette or they’re inviting him for the first time to hang out with them.

“Beyond the path without you is a forgotten promise to keep. We may have walked side by side, but now we go on back to back. And though our paths may not cross, all paths are connected somewhere. When I arrive at where you are, we may not appear to be as we were...”

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So, final thoughts of the game overall. I enjoy longish games but when the length is just padded out with such shallow worlds I get bored really easily. I like to explore the map but I can’t do that in this game. Riku’s campaign is very short in comparison to Sora’s, for better or worse. For someone who just REALLY, REALLY wanted to move onto KH2, this was welcome lol. Sora’s half put me to sleep and I had a hard time trudging through it. Not that the story wasn’t engaging enough for me, I just didn’t want to play.

Didn’t care for the card based battle here. I preferred the combat more in Riku’s half because card management wasn’t really a thing which I ended up growing to appreciate for Riku once I got used to it. All I had to do was level up and get an extra card if I felt like it. The duel system was really fun and made boss battles go quickly, when I actually took the time to INITIATE them. Most of my frustration was just me NOT doing what the game aggressively suggested. At least I admit when it’s me and not accuse the game of poor gameplay like a certain grumpy gamer but that’s none of my business. I think this game may have felt better on the Gameboy Advance, I wouldn’t know.

I wanted to cry. I missed these kids so much. I love them so much. I’m a god damn crybaby now so a lot of moments just ended me and sometimes I needed a moment to sob while I hug my cat.

The (original) characters.

I can feel bad for Vexen to a point, he was a bastard but he just ultimately just wanted to do sciency stuff. A lot of questionable science but whatever. He creeps me the hell out. I know he hated Marluxia but was he really willing to spill Marly’s plans to Sora JUST TO SPITE HIM? Or was he actually trying to help Sora? That might explain some things later on down the road...

Lexaeus was always boring so no comment.

Zexion is a cutie pie, I don’t know why I think this I guess it carried over from 10 years ago. I have a soft spot for him. And I didn’t post a single picture of him so here’s one.

Axel, my favorite bastard. I will always love him. Chaotic neutral. He’s not much of an antagonist in this game, more of an obstacle, but he’s certainly working in favor of his own interests. I’ve been reading Inkheart and he reminds me of Dustfinger? Fire and all i guess.

Marluxia is also a bastard but as an antagonist I don’t dislike him. He mostly has his good looks to help him with that. I’m not sure why he wanted to overthrow the Organization but it got him dead so GG my dude. Not sure why Xehanort invited him and Larxene back.

Larxene.

Repliku. Brat, very much a brat. He immediately had beef with Sora because apparently it’s too unreasonable for Sora to “forget the quiet girl who moved away” when you were four and five years old. I could barely remember this game let alone any memories from when I was 4. I would have liked to see him interact with Riku during the time he thought he himself (Repliku) was the real one. Imagine the DRAMA. I do feel bad for him, his struggles with his identity and his jealousy towards Riku. I love how he is with Namine, so soft spoken and gentle. But we all know that’s based on false memories which is so sad. But like Sora said, the memories might be fake but the feelings are real.

Namine is a very good girl, a victim, a child who, when given the courage to, will stand up against her captor to protect her friends. She’s very sweet and smells like Kairi! (Riku, that’s weird) She’s brave as hell and I stan her. She just wanted a friend.

Sora... He’s so pure, so wholesome. He’ll do whatever it takes to save his friends. He had a little moment of weakness and cast Donald and Goofy aside but he got better pretty quickly. He was willing to give Repliku a chance despite their interactions being negative. He forgave Namine, knowing she had no choice but to do what she was forced to do. Sora. Just Sora. Love him.

Riku. I couldn’t stand him in the first game, he was just a punk-ass teenager (which makes me wonder why he and Sora were ever friends in the first place) with a super inflated ego who just, kinda does a 180 after you beat Ransem and is good? But my god. I just fell in love with this precious bean in Re:CoM. I remember the best of Riku from KH2 (let’s pretend KH3 doesn't exist for a second here because that is in my opinion the BEST Riku) and it was so welcoming and CoM really bridged the developmental gap between 1 and 2. It’s nice to see him struggle with this darkness and then learn to utilize it in a safe manner. We see a lot of vulnerability from him too, when he’s being constantly mocked by Ansem and the few embers of Org13 he meets here, his own doppelganger touting how much better he is, not having his one form of support physically be there on the majority of his journey. Riku’s super snarky throughout the game overall though and I love that. He’s the complete opposite of Sora at this time and he’s absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit.

Ansem is really persistent. He’s the guy who just can’t take a hint, I can’t imagine his dating life is very successful. I don’t like him but I don’t hate him either. He definitely makes more of an impact as a bad guy in this game, frequently showing up to harass Riku. Obligatory mentioning my mistake in saying that HE was guiding Riku in the beginning of the game when it was actually DiZ.

DiZ is formally introduced in this game and he’s cryptic as shit. I dig his design but what the hell made Ansem the Wise take this form? With all those bandages he looks like a burn victim (I haven’t played BbS if this is what happened Im sorry) but the call of fashion still rings in his ears. Why belts on his head though? That was this series aesthetic until KH3 pushed plaid. Anyway he is also a character I don't have any particular feelings towards

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I think I’m going to take a break from KH for a bit. I got the Spyro Reignited Trilogy the other day for XBOne, so I’ll be playing that. I’ve never played Spyro before, I hope I like it!

#mellz plays kh recom #kingdom hearts series #kingdom hearts re:chain of memories #kh recom #PlayStation 2 #kh re:com #square enix #mellz post

[ocular-intercourse]

OC MASTERPOST

Alright, putting this together you really notice how old most of these characters are, theres a lot of cliched and coincidental stuff in there that i & others came up with when i was 15-21. Finn got the whole brunt of my edgy scene teen angst phase... but then again Asher is brand new and not looking any better so there’s that. Sorry children, i love the drama. Also all of them being queer men is absolutely just teenage me living out my queer male identity through them before i even knew it hasghj.

NAME/NICKNAME: Finnegan Bastien Jeong-Bak / Finn, Junebug (by his fans) (his terrible mish mash of a name is product of his parents forcefully pushing their heritage away to make it easier for Finn to fit in, once they reached his sister they were more relaxed about the problem)

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 27 years / 17.04.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: French Canadian / Asian (South Korean)

BASED ON: /

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis male / bisexual (probably pan if he’d be more informed)

FAMILY: FATHER | Jin Hee Jeong | 48 years | janitor | very difficult relationship, for most of his life he considered his father to be a good dad till the drinking started and then the abuse, hes still not quite ready to let his relationship with his father go, so he keeps in contact, which often led to fights with Shawn, as well as the fact that Finn still has not outed himself in front of his father out of fear of rejection

MOTHER | Yeon Soo Bak | 47 years | owns a café | similarly rocky, they are now at a good point but he knows his mother struggles with his identity and life choices, so much she tried to manipulate a lot of things in the past but learned to leave that be, he is grateful towards her for leaving his father when she did. he bought her a café cause he loves her so much

SISTER | Sun Marise Haywood, née Jeong-Bak | 24 years | stay at home mom | he was always close to his sister, she just assimilated into his friend group in high school, and still is an important part of his life, or is again, they had a phase of not talking after some jealousy issues regarding his relationship with Shawn and her friendship with him, Sun is very protective over her brother and his mental instability and does her best to keep him healthy. That includes a very strict anti-Shawn stance, regarding the pain he has caused her brother in the past. Sun is happily married and has a daughter, a fact that somewhat relieves Finn, at least someone in the family that fulfills their mother’s wishes.

NIECE | Molly Florence Haywood | 4 months | A literal baby. Finn famously is not very keen on children, especially babies and goes out of their way. His niece however managed to steal his heart, plus he can just give her back to her mother when she becomes troublesome, the ideal arrangement. He likes to spoil her.. not that she would care at this point.

HALFBROTHER | Bryant Cole Reno | 7 years | student | His father’s illegitimate child with an American prostitute. Classy. But not Bryant’s fault. Finn learned of his existence when he was 3 and has since then sort of taken part in raising him, not that he would ever consider that to be true. He is very sensible to his brothers living conditions considering the bad stuff he himself experienced growing up, and does his best to ensure him to grow up happy and healthy, which includes denying him contact with their father (despite not pulling the same measures for himself). Bryant is a smart kid, overachieving, Finn already feels like he is dancing circles around him, and truly does not know where the kid gets it from.

FRIENDS: Noteworthy are on the Canadian side: His childhood/youth best friend Kitty (deceased), almost equally important Logan & Colin (all three of them share a brain cell), his ex-girlfriend of 5 years Emily (rocky long distance friendship atm), ex-affair & close friend Raphael (his voice of reason). On the American side: Close friends Randy (trashfire bff) & Jade (cinnamon bun), his ex-boyfriend of ~4 years Shawn (heartbreak!!).

S.O.: No one atm cause he is, even after 2 years apart, still very much desperately hung up on Shawn and not getting over that breakup anytime soon. Learning that Shawn is in a new relationship has thoroughly pulled the rug out from under him and left him questioning why Shawn managed to move on so much quicker (and if the other guy is more attractive than him). He also struggles very much with the fact that Shawn has made extremely positive progress in the two years without him (unable to see that the same is applicable to himself too).

I guess that still deserves an entry here:

Shawn Alexander | 28 years | currently Barkeeper & Musician | Shawn comes from a rich family and therefore has the polar opposite starting conditions to Finn, but nonetheless experienced many shared interests, but also miseries, from abusive fathers to drug use. With two general distinctions: While Finn’s mother acted after discovering the abuse, Shawn’s mother stayed complicit. While Shawn escaped into his heroin addiction, Finn developed an strict anti-drug stance after Kitty’s death. They were a volatile mixture, the good times were extraordinarily good, the bad ones catastrophic, with Finn quickly acting out when cornered and Shawn reacting aggressively, their fights were often ruthless. Finn has considered many times since they broke up that maybe people who love each other, even this strongly, are not necessarily automatically meant to be together. That does naturally not have any impact on his feelings or his lacking ability to act reasonable when it comes to emotions.

OCCUPATION: Professional Tennis Player (out of spite)

CHARACTER: self-confident | loving (to ppl close to him), mostly distant or rude to ppl he does not know | does not hide his moodiness or discontent just to be polite | charming | energetic | passionate | ambitious | helpful & loyal towards his loved ones | savior/helper syndrome | self-sacrificing | engaging | resourceful | proud | vain | irritable | competitive | playful | needy | keeps problems to himself | mayor problem with authority figures | moody | hyperactive | has NO patience for stuff that does not interest him/seem unimportant to him | messy | unforgiving | stubborn | struggles with feelings of guilt towards many things | has bipolar disorder and changes between episodes of excessive confidence, an appetite for risk, high motivation and sex drive, and episodes of apathy and depression with reoccurring suicidal ideations, but he has in later years learned to manage these mood swings better with a mixture of medication and rigid routines

ABILITIES: highly athletic, good cook, excellent singer & musician, good technical understanding (esp. towards cars), fluent in french (native) & english, minor knowledge of korean

INTERESTS: cooking, music, sports, cars, video games, podcasts about movies, games, techincal innovations and whatever obscure topic interests him at the moment (podcasts, games and other media is stuff that he only recently discovered for himself, since his job does not allow for a lot of time with his friends, so that’s his compensation)

APPEARANCE: 6′3″ tall and muscular (but too lean for his liking, he cannot built up mass for the love of it), dark brown eyes and nearly black hair, currently a little over chin long but worn in a bun or ponytail (he feels like short hair makes him look like a child, but he’s also just too busy/lazy to get haircuts every couple of weeks), a prominent scar runs through his left eyebrow, he has multiple tattoos, a flower pattern on the inside of his right arm, a skeleton with a laurel wreath on the inside of his left arm, a geometric pattern just above his ankle on the inside of his right leg, more geometric patterns on his shoulder blades and a moth in the middle just below his neck

PLOTPOINTS: born in Montreal to south korean parents | best friends with Kitty (Catherine) | best friends with Logan & Colin | struggles in school because of growing up with multiple languages, hyperactivity and later problems with authority figures | free time either spent on the streets with his friends or with his father at his job as a mechanic | relationship with Emily age 13 | growing behavioral issues at first misunderstood as ‘only’ adhd | starting music (drumming, later other instruments) & sport (tennis) to make him tired | dedication to sport & music as compensation for bad schoolwork, to show he’s at least good at something | father loses job, becomes driving instructor | move to poorer area of town | added stress in family setting | with 15 diagnosis BPD after behavioral issues became increasingly dangerous | Finn becomes aware of his father’s drinking problem, often being the one to take care of him during and after these times | with 16 affair with 25 yo Raphael (in hindsight Finn finds this somewhat alarming) | more time spent away from the family, more time on the streets with minor criminal activities & drug use (in varying degrees, Kitty taking heroin being the strongest) | school work evens out through good grades in subjects he was interested in vs bad grades in everything else | with 18 family vacation in New York, Finn meets Shawn, they have an ons | break-up with Emily, after she finds out about his affair & one-night-stands | after Finn & the others were away for another vacation they come back to find out that Kitty has used the opportunity to kill herself with a planned overdose, Finn never reads the good-bye letter, he spends the next months in a state of emotional crisis and gives up on finishing school, when he can get out of bed he spends his time with sports as an distraction | Jin-hee’s alcoholism & job clash as he and a student get in an accident with alcohol in Jin-hee’s system, he loses his job and the trial, now having to pay heavy compensation for the damages, pushing the family further into poverty | Finn and his father start to fight more and more, with Jin-hee’s condition worsening and Finn provoking him, either actively, or by choosing not to carry his weight in the family and generally being an undesirable son, resulting in Jin-hee venting his anger by hitting his son | with Finn turning 21 his mother definitively discovers what had been going on, she leaves Jin-hee in an ugly divorce, takes her kids & moves to New York | despite everything Finn keeps contact with his father and has somehow managed to mostly forgive him | Finn & Shawn meet again & quickly end up in a relationship | when Finn learns about Shawn’s heroin addiction he wants to end things, but decides to give him a chance | what follows is 4-5 years up and down with two break-ups, one after a series of misunderstandings and meddling from Yeon that end up with Finn cheating, another one after a burned Shawn learns, after giving it another chance, about things that Finn has hidden from him, such as Jin-hee’s illegitimate child that Finn himself has only recently met, and a row of events unfold that lead to Shawn attempting but failing suicide | when he learns about it Finn declares Shawn as dead in his eyes and tells him he never wants to see him again | another emotional crisis for Finn and again he throws himself into sports to drown out the bad thoughts and make himself too tired to think, only this time he meets the right people and with the right support ends up gliding into the professional sports world | he spends the next two years building up his carrer like a madman and thoroughly enjoys being occupied at all times, as well as for the first time in his life having a stable and strict rhythm to his days, a healthy sleep cycle & positive reaffirmation that help with his mental stability.. oh, and he’s pining for Shawn of course

BONUS INFO: I created him when i was a wee teen but wrote him in different RPGs almost till today, so there were a lot of different versions and revisions. Originally he was a caucasian redhead, it was only years later that i put it together that much of his family dynamics and some of his character would very much fit a minority/immigrant narrative. He was always french-canadian, but in the beginning he moved to England instead of New York (fun fact: it was Canterbury, which is why i later used the city for Teddy instead). Really sad to have lost Shawn’s accent, but honestly it makes much more sense for the city to be so much closer to home. If i would call any of my OCs my main OC it would definitely be Finn, he is my obsession, there’s next to no days where i don’t imagine him in some sort of scenario, AU or canon. I am however hesitant to use him for anything, since part of his story, meaning Shawn’s character, belongs to my friend Mel, who i’ve lost contact with. When i was last writing him in a RPG i used korean actor Kim Bum for his faceclaim, and i still like to reference his pictures, look him up and you’ll see what i mean with Finn looking younger with shorter hair.

NAME/NICKNAME: Wendell Theodore Parker / Teddy

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 19 years / 23.09.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: British / Caucasian (or whatever the god side counts as)

BASED ON: originally comes from a Percy Jackson RPG

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis Male / gay

FAMILY: FATHER | Julien Samuel Parker | 45 years | cardiologist

MOTHER | Demeter | goddess of harvest, agriculture & fertility of the earth

STEPMOTHER | Katherine Marie Parker | 44 years | lector

HALF-BROTHER | Bradley Howard Parker | 24 years | author (alias J. B. Baxter)

HALF-SISTER | Amanda Carrie Parker | 20 years | student of cultural sciences

+ a shitton of half-siblings on Demeter’s side

FRIENDS: Rufus Whitmore | 19 years | Son of Apollo | Actually Zeke’s best friend and No. 1 in the ‘kick Zeke in the ass to make him stand by his feelings club’ which is why Teddy is phenomally thankful for the support. Maybe due to his dad Rufus generally has a very healing, hardworking and good-natured personality, though combined with a bit of a superiority complex.

Caspar Renier | 19 years | Son of Dyonisus | With Dyonisus practically being the party god and all Caspar is very much the agent of chaos in Teddy’s life. He lives for experiencing new and exciting things and likes to incite the same in others. While Teddy loves all things safe, Caspar brings the risk, but somehow the two manage not to annoy each other, but to balance things out. Caspar is Teddy’s best friend since the early days of the academy and reason for many good things that Teddy would have otherwise been too timid about.

Riley O’Donovan | 20 years | Son of Ares | Basically Teddy’s arch nemesis since the early academy days. For some reason he has decided that Teddy was just the right person to push around and pick on, supported by his twin and another half-brother. Teddy, being the pacifist that he is, and generally trying to avoid confrontation, did his best to stay out of their ways, telling himself that fighting back would only make them fight harder. Teddy was with them when the academy was attacked and Riley’s brothers died. Together they fought and survived. At their next meeting they quietly recognized that the experience had connected them and to let bygones be bygones. They are developing an akward friendship with lots of guilt and grief, that’s mostly consistent of helping each other out and, weirdly enough, unquestionable trust through shared trauma.

S.O.: Zeke... i don’t remember his surname, since Teddy is a RPG character he is obviously another person’s character, i’ll try to think back on more info. As a Hermes son he is the charming wayfarer type person, with a guitar on his back and a taste for freedom, i believe he was a year older than Teddy. The relationship is rocky at best and Teddy feels unloved most of the time but his intense feelings for Zeke make him want to hold on and hope for the better just for a little while longer.

OCCUPATION: Student

CHARACTER: honest | childlike | naive, gullible & foolish | clumsy | ambitious | enthusiastic | family oriented | safety & harmony loving | loyal | nervous & talkative when unsure in social/new situations | sulky & stubborn when unhappy | imaginative | resourceful | huge need for affection & validation | unknowingly competent in dangerous situations | meek | kind | helpful | justice loving | superstitious | clingy | hyperactive | chaotic | defensive | diplomatic | jealous | emotional | caring | empathic | curious | fair | friendly | happy-go-lucky | generous | sociable | lively | manipulative | self-indulgent | open | pushy | romantic | tolerant | impatient, but unpunctual | fear of loss | playful | wavering | brave when it counts | pacifistic

ABILITIES: [supernatural] control over plants and weather in the immediate vicinity, too much use of his abilities quickly causes hunger, headaches, nausea & exhaustion | an integral instinct about the beginning and natural end of lives, when he concentrates he can tell a person’s age, or if they are close to the end of their lives in case of a natural death. he chooses not to use this ability | his control of plants is quite trained, changes in the weather are mostly out of his control & follow violent mood swings. They show themselves as changes in temperature in his immediate vicinity

[other] low abilities in sword fighting (he shows little motivation because of his pacifistic nature, but has good instinct when it is necessary), slightly better at archery & hand to hand combat, good at riding & general animal handling

INTERESTS: monsters, he has an affinity for anything monstrous and creepy, in fiction & reality, as a unusual choice for Demeter children he wants to work with monsters in some capacity in the future | animals | plants

APPEARANCE: unkempt wavy to curly blonde hair in various states of darker blonde to bleached to grown out color, darker blue/green eyes, 5′10″, cycles through being slightly underweight & healthier depending on his mental state, his clothing style has no apparent rhyme or reason and consists of anything he likes, mostly color- & youthful, wears a leather necklace with a coin pendant at all times. he chooses to be mostly clean shaven, but has a surprisingly strong beard growth

PLOTPOINTS: born, officially, as the 3rd child of the parker family based in Canterbury, happily growing up in a loving upper to middle class family | only trouble so far is the inability to sit still and concentrate on school classes | with 14 he learns of his true nature and the world of gods & demigods | spirals into thoughts of being an outcast and disruptive in his family, considering his father’s infidelity and his ‘mother’s’ will to live with her husband’s illegitimate child | decides to run away after witnessing a fight between his parents while on vacation in America | gets picked up by Zeke, another runaway child, and as it happens another demigod | after sharing their stories Zeke reunites Wendell with his family against his will, Teddy initially resents him for it | the family reconciles, Wendell’s ‘mother’ confirms how much she sees him as her own son | Teddy starts to visit Gaia Academy during his regular school holidays, where demigods get educated and trained according to their special circumstances eg. myths, monster attacks & magical abilities | his brother begins to write about a fictional character based on Teddy’s life and has success with a series of children’s books | reconciliation & later close friendship with Zeke | big homesickness | a bad first romantic/sexual experience, the adjustment to the world of myths & the stress of constant change between regular school & academy life leads to an overwhelming sense of loss of control, which results in an eating disorder that he learns to control via therapy and his family’s support | dreams of becoming a monster herdsman despite his lack in battle prowess due to his strict pacifistic beliefs | is bullied by 3 Ares sons during most of his time at Gaia | gets in the awkward situation of falling in love with his close friend and self-proclaimed heterosexual Zeke, feels the situation is too hopeless and the friendship too precious to do anything about it | pines for years | drunkenly kisses Zeke after receiving a thoughtful birthday gift (aforementioned necklace) | panics about said kiss after Zeke steers clear of him for the rest of the week | turns out Zeke just had a whole week of gay panic™ and needed some time to come to terms with maybe possibly being in love with a guy despite not usually being attracted to men | Zeke confesses & agrees to a relationship | the thing is messy, with lots of sneaking around and no pda, even in private, allowed as Zeke struggles with a religious upbringing and acceptance of his new identity | as a whole Teddy deals poorly with this behavior but endures for the chance of being with his hopeless yearlong never gonna happen crush | meanwhile the world of the demigods is in chaos with wars between different pro- and anti-god-fractions | when an anti-god-organization attacks the academy, Teddy is forced to fight and kill to survive next to his longtime bullies | he & his loved ones survive but afterwards he is not only traumatized by his own actions and the things he has seen, but also the fact that he of all people survived while better fighters died | while the academy reorganizes itself he spends time at home and struggles with the discrepancy between his vs his family’s experiences and not being able to share what happened with a medical professional to work through his trauma | disillusioned he decides it is time for him to mature, when the academy reopens at a new location he dedicates himself to more battle training and after reconciling with the one surviving bully through their shared experience even asks the ares son for personal training

BONUS INFO: Oh, Teddy boy! He also went through several RPGs and rewrites. The first one was a pretty basic Percy Jackson RPG, with Camp Halfblood and all. In that version Teddy was a child of Hebe, and chose to leave his home in one of the many Springfields in America for the safety of his family, since monster attacks suddenly started happening. On his way to the Camp he met Zeke, they had a little road trip and fought their way to their destination. It was a lovely story of hurt/comfort with Teddy being helplessly lost and scared and Zeke taking care of him. An unlikely team that strangely worked out. The whole runaway thing in his current story might not make a lot of sense, but it was our way of incorporating the original runaway/road trip story that was near and dear to our hearts. I’m not sure why i ended up making him a brit when we switched forums, maybe because i missed British Shawn and had to make up for it. The new RPG obviously had a lot of changes on the Percy Jackson Story, it was just inspired by the idea of demigod children but that was about it. Again, since Zeke is not my character i am hesitant to work with this, also i would like to make the setting more original, though i guess there’s only so much you can do with demigods, maybe creating an entirely new pantheon idk. That’s the problem with RPG characters i suppose, they are rarely uninfluenced from other people’s creations, and often based on preexisting works, but i refuse to give up on him. When i first created him i had Boyd Holbrook in mind. (Which is very fun considering his look in Logan, i imagine later Teddy to look like that and what a big fucking ooc contrast that would be to him rn.) Here is an avatar that captures the Teddy feel during the original road trip very well, bonus the matching Zeke ava (obviously portrayed by Jackson Rathbone), bonus bonus a Rufus ava, ft. Aaron Taylor-Johnson:

NAME/NICKNAME: Avery Sanders / Ace of Spades (a sort of artist’s name), Ace

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 22 years / 15.05.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: American / Caucasian? (or whatever, the god thing, plus he does not know his dad)

BASED ON: said Percy Jackson inspired RPG

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis male / asexual (/ poly/panromantic?? he does not know either or really care honestly it’s all just whatever)

FAMILY: FATHER | Michael Hide | deceased

MOTHER | Nyx | goddess of the night, daughter of chaos

HALFBROTHER/LEGAL GUARDIAN | Dale Sanders | 42 years | ?? occupation: lying bastard weasel?? | Their relationship sure is something. In short Ace IDOLIZES his brother big time, though he would never say those words out loud but it is very fucking clear to everyone. He is like a miniature Dale, or trying to be, or trying to surpass him. This makes the last developments in Ace’s story very very complicated. He’s still kinda brainwashed enough that he’s still holding on to the hope that he’s just not informed enough to understand his brother’s motives.

FRIENDS: Benedict Bovine | 21 years | Son of Morpheus | Ben & Ace were roommates in the academy, and no friends for a long time. The Morpheus son was just too much for him, too happy, too optimistic, too intrusive, too annoying. But that’s probably exactly the personality you have to have to stick with Ace and not give up on actually truly befriending him. Somewhere along the way they ended up being best friends which Ace is secretly desperately clinging to because not too many people bother with trying to get close to him even with him being actively unapproachable. Ben has gained a special status in his life and therefore special treatment, namely experiencing Ace’s more positive characteristics and rare insights behind the mask.

Elisabeth Fendi | 22 years | Daughter of Nike | As a Nike daughter she likes challenges, and befriending or even dating Ace certainly is just that. But she had positive reinforcement by looking at Ben’s & Ace’s relationship and knew the goal was achievable. Long story short Ace lost a bet and had to go out with her, and actually kinda enjoyed her ambitious, competitive nature. She whittled him down to becoming friends at least. They certainly do not treat each other overly tender, but that suits both of their nature’s just fine. Elisabeth just kinda started hanging around Ace & Ben and the three are now sticking together.

S.O.: Well not sure actually, there was one version of the Story where Ace dated a girl named Liz, and Elisabeth certainly has some of her characteristics. But it definitely occurred to me that Ace himself has no desire to actually pursue a romantic or sexual relationship of any kind, but has no problem having sex if it just happens to happen. In another version of the story Ben, Ellie & Ace end up having a threesome under somewhat dramatic circumstances and i’ve been playing with the idea of both Ben & Ellie looking to enter a polyamorous relationship with Ace and him just kinda going along with it cause it’s whatever to him and he loves and trusts them and likes being close to them so it’s not a huge difference to him anyways.. which would just be Ace clumsily trying to show his genuine feelings for once and learning how to express affection, both physically & romantically and probably failing a lot. I think i’m sticking with it but i’m not sure about the circumstances yet.

OCCUPATION: Student

CHARACTER: callous | unimpressed & unfazed | has built up a pretty impenetrable unapproachable wall & layers of alter-egos before anyone can end up actually getting to know HIM | lone wolf | slightly misanthropic traits | paranoid & suspicious | fake superiority complex, talks himself into feeling superior to cover up insecurities | cool | hardy | streetwise | casual, mostly outwards to reaffirm his cool, relaxed persona | stoic pokerface | disrespectful unless respect is earned (mostly through undeniable talent in skills he considers worthy) | rebellious, tactless, provoking | trouble with authority figures | might not show his emotions but has no trouble speaking his mind even in unhelpful ways | critical, towards himself and others, actively looks for flaws | show-off | willing to learn & commit himself to bettering his abilities at all times | proud (of his abilities and his reputation) | long-sighted, analytical & strategic thinking | intuitive | resourceful | has talent to lead but decides not to, does not want responsibility over the actions of others | keeps his word always, to a fault, even when joking | persistent | humorous, ironic & sarcastic | underneath his fake persona actually awfully sincere, it just takes time to get there | pathologically loyal | protective, self-sacrificing & caring towards close friends | despite everything and unbeknownst to himself actually undeniably morally good & heroic

ABILITIES: [supernatural] control over shadows | sensing nightmares | Ace is rather trained in hiding in or concealing his movements with shadows, depending on the time of day and the contrast in shadows he can completely hide his presence, the later it gets in the day the easier it is. The control over seeing other people’s fears and nightmares on the other hand is completely out of his hand, it usually happens against his will and leaves him with an aftertaste of said fear that he then carries around for a couple of days.

[other] excellent speed & sword fighting | years of hellish training with his brother have left Ace with an uncanny reaction speed and instinct towards incoming danger, his battle prowess has led to many monster encounters that at this point are neither hard nor surprising.. and honestly kinda fun | musical talent | Ace has lost his heart to electronical music and uses much of his free time to create his own tracks under the pseudonym Ace of Spades. They are mostly rap & electronic mash ups and remixes of popular songs with his personal spin added to them | composure | at any given time Ace has trained himself to stay calm and not show his feelings, so much that at this point he can hardly stop it, which leads to many frustrated people in his life who constantly have to guess what he’s feeling or if he’s even feeling anything at all. It has also made him a practically unbeatable poker player

INTERESTS: music | big city life | close quarter combat | technical gadgets esp. for creating music  | challenges | irony | birds | movies & games & writing reviews | dumb irony, he lives for it, he has picked the elective prophecy class that is meant for the demigod children that actually have some sort of fortune telling ability, just because he thinks it is funny to sit between these actually clairvoyant people as a clearly non-gifted person trying to read something in tea leaves or whatever that has no reason to be true, he goes very long ways for stupid jokes & stories that might end up amusing just himself

APPEARANCE: light blonde hair cut into a buzz cut for convenience, almond shaped light blue/grey eyes, with his 5′8″ a little under average height with a broad build, average weight, his athleticism is countered by bad eating habits and most of his hobbies consisting of siting around for an extended amount of time, almost perpetually wearing a pair of ray-ban sunglasses (he’s light sensitive and likes to hide his eye-movements, but also just thinks it’s cool, as an added bonus it seems to provoke people), his clothing is mostly athletic and casual but he also enjoys throwing people off with unusual pieces, often seen with baseball-caps front or backwards facing, generally not a lot of effort put into his appearance aside from maybe considering what would make the look ironic, also owed to lack of money, lots of his clothes are worn out hand me downs from his brother peppered with the weird shit you can get at thrift stores

PLOTPOINTS: Since his father died while his mother was pregnant she had to improvise and ended up leaving the baby at one of her other son’s doorsteps | Dale, probably rather incompetently, improvised and with lots of peculiar quirks, raises the kid in a tiny, rundown Chicago apartment supporting both of them with occasional part-time jobs | With his knowledge of the world of the gods Dale decides to prepare his half-brother early | Once he learns that that is not normal Ace spends some time worrying about his brothers sanity, regarding the unusual habit of teaching a kid sword fighting and testing his abilities with surprise attacks, but enjoys himself too much to question it (he never thinks about that the constant vigilance and dedicated training might be considered somewhat abusive living conditions for a child - might not have been healthy but it DID make him stronger and that was surely a good thing Dale had in mind, very normal, totally okay.. he is incapable of seeing, or wanting to admit to his brother’s flaws) | They live off fast-food or anything they can get their hands on, with occasional unpaid electricity bills or similar poor conditions, but with a strong sense of solidarity | School was not his favorite thing, he had to get out of his - in his eyes - fun unusual living conditions to sit still and be well behaved and listen to weird stiff adults, and the children made fun of his ragged clothing and general otherness | Spends his free time exploring Chicago, roaming the streets, getting into minor trouble here and there, or with his brother, fighting or watching him make music or play around with electronics, or watching movies, playing games | As is tradition, learns he is a demigod with 14 which honestly does not really come as a huge surprise to him, at least his brother did not turn out to be some weird doomsday nutjob and had a reason for all the sword fighting | Gets kinda excited in hopes of getting along better with other demigods than he did with the other human students.. turns out him being a demigod was not the problem in the first place. Does at least find some like-minded people in his half-siblings. | At home he starts part-time jobs to support his brother, starts making music himself, has several blogs with movie and game reviews, and of course the usual duels between him and Dale, which he never once wins | After graduating regular school with 19 he is not very motivated to continue his training at the academy, but is basically tricked into finishing it anyways, by his brother suggesting he would win this one since he himself has never graduated Gaia. At last, something to be better at than his brother! | When the academy is attacked by an anti-god-organization Ace fights easily and competently.. till he is faced with fighting the one person he has never beaten, his brother. He fights him anyways, conflicted by the feeling of betrayal and sheer disbelief that this could actually be happening. Naturally he loses and ends up skewered through his torso by his brothers sword. When he is unconscious he gets saved and healed by Apollo children, and the fight is over when he wakes up again. He first of all tries to find out if his brother was maybe captured or killed, but finds no trace of him. | When he returns home while the academy reorganizes he finds the apartment empty, half hoping for his brother to come home so he can confront him, his top priority being to learn why his brother has been acting that way because he still refuses to believe that he actually tried to kill him, and rather wants to think that Dale must have had SOME kind of reason that would make all of this okay. | Dale never returns. Ace bitterly sells all of Dale’s belongings to pay for the bills of the apartment that he is suddenly sitting on all by himself, which makes his home very sad and very empty | Ellie and Ben visit him, well aware that Ace’s entire worldview has been shattered and not trusting him not to do something reckless [enter possible threesome here?] | Ace starts to obsessively try to find out about Dales whereabouts and the group he was working with, both Ellie and Ben being annoyed and worried about him doing this on his own refusing any help or interference | Ace manages to find what he believes to be a temporary hideout for the organisation and some documents that he hopes to find further clues in | When the Academy re-opens Ellie & Ben convince him to go back there, with Ace secretly just hoping to hear more about the official measures of the demigod world that have been put in place to find and stop the organization | He shares the found information with what is basically the equivalent of the police in the demigod world, and exclaims to be eager and capable to join any deployment, but is of course refused | Instead he silently plans to take off on his own again, hoping to find his brother for answers or revenge, depending on the outcome

Okay, but here’s the FUN part of the whole story, something that Ace is not even aware of anymore: When he is 18 he finds out about his brothers activity in the anti-god organization (their name is rubicon by the way) and is as always immediately willing to copy his brother and join them, regardless of their shady morals. Thing is, they have a selection process where they have an oracle check potential candidates, turns out the oracle decides that Ace’s heart is just too good and pure in the end to make him an effective member. They alter his memories, fill them with a normal summer of an 18 year old Ace, and send him back home none the wiser that he would have absolutely done the exact same things he found so impossible for his brother to be doing that it ruined his entire conception of the world. Fun. I hope he does not find out.

BONUS INFO: I cannot begin to describe how funny it is to read Ace’s character sheet. Sounds conceited maybe, but every time i reread it, which is maybe once every couple of years, i make myself cry from amusement. It’s so stupid. It is completely written in his voice and it is fucking hysterical, he is such an idiot wow. His vita starts with a rewrite of Will Smith’s Prince of Belair rap, and that’s just the beginning. I wish i could show you but it’s in German so that’s probably useless for most of you. But please know that i really fucking love it and am amazed that i wrote that at some point. I always had trouble figuring out how i want him to look. I believe i used Garrett Hedlund as a faceclaim on the RPG site, but it was not 100% fitting. Dacre Montgomery’s portrayal of Billy in Stranger Things has some Ace vibes, but also not entirely. Imagine their lovechild i guess. I also never planned on him being asexual, the connection to his name was not planned at all, it just hit me a couple of months ago out of nowhere and i immediately knew it was true. Of course he is asexual!! Also i have not yet decided whether his brother is an absolute cold bastard, or if Ace’s instincts about him having reasons are right. Regardless, Dale’s treatment of Ace is not okay from the very beginning. That’s where this whole story started, cause i found it so interesting for the idealized bigger brother that just seems to be cool and fun to actually be somewhat or very much abusive, e.g. Dave & Bro Strider in Homestuck who were very much the stepping stone here. I really liked Bro when i first read it as a baby teen, and then later saw the discourse over him being abusive, and only then did i realize shit you’re right in actual real life that stuff would be ptsd inducing wow, in that very moment i myself was Ace and had my weird idealized image shattered, so i wanted to make a character that could show how easily it is to overlook this stuff sometimes. Also totally just forgot for a while how sad a lot of his character is, ppl did not like him even before he made himself hard to be liked so he’s very distrusting and negative towards people for a long time.😥 Better make up a weird persona for people to dislike at least they’re not disliking my actual self cause they never actually get to see it. WHELP most of my other characters are either fun or tragic depending on the situation, Ace is just both simultaneously at all times

NAME: Asher ? [he is still unfinished since i never used him for anything so don’t mind the questionmarks]

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 21 years / 06.07.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: American / Caucasian

BASED ON: /

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis male / gay

FAMILY: FATHER | ? ? | 42 years | multibillionaire business man / sociopath criminal | their relationship can very much be described as a hostage situation, there is nothing pleasant here, his father obsesses over his legacy and the idea of what he wants Asher to be and Asher resents him with a burning passion

MOTHER | ? ? | 41 years | unfortunate trophy wife | there is not much of an actual relationship here, since he started art school they have pretty much not talked a single word, he resents her for being distant and quiet and complicit in his father’s behavior

SISTER | Claire ? | 22 years | various creative part time jobs | the one that luckily got away!! Claire dodged a major bullet and got out of there as soon as she could, living her dream as a independent artist in various fields from writing plays to performance art, Asher adores her & would never tell her about the truth of his situation since she got out of there unscathed, they call each other regularly, but don’t see each other as much as they would like to, she is a big reason for his own interest in art

SISTER | Stella ? | 5 years | Kindergartener | Stella is loud and quick and knows no boundaries, a happy energetic little girl. Asher probably spoils her. 

BROTHER | Leo ? | 5 years | Kindergartener | Stella’s twin brother but the polar opposite. Timid, soft-spoken and kindhearted. Asher probably spoils him too. Asher is also fiercely overprotective in regards to his brother, cause he knows how his father likes to treat his sons. Luckily he also knows that his father would takes his sweet time before revealing his true self, but he dreads the possibility of his father involving his brother earlier nonetheless.

FRIENDS: May ? | 21 years | photography student | awfully loyal, May comes from a rich family herself and can therefore understand or excuse a lot of Asher’s less pleasant traits, she is too stubborn to let him push her away and is glad he has mostly given up towards her, now she just has to get him to treat others the same way. knows he has troubles with his father, but does not know the specifics since Asher would rather take that info to his grave to protect her. is worried, always, since Adam disappeared, but has no other solution but soft encouragement for Asher to move on

S.O.: Devin ? | 20 years | animation student | Half Mexican/Half Afro-American. Anxiety kid, moves to his father’s new family & his sister because they live closer to his future art school, falls in love with the wrong white boy. Big nerd, big introvert, all about anime & games, spends more time on the internet than anywhere else (sound familiar anybody?🙈). Romanticizes the wrong behaviors. Draws, a lot, any given time, super talented, Asher envies him. Big cuddly, kind, somewhat shy and self-conscious, cannot say no or be mean most of the time. Just 100% good soul. Shows Asher the wonderful world of fiction and other entertainment cause that guy apparently grew up in a cave. Asher is 100% hurt and Devin is 100% comfort, Asher feels bad about that. Devin is impressively patient and supportive and the sole reason Asher can breathe again. Sometimes. Asher does not know what he could possibly be bringing to the table but Devin seems content, Asher does not understand why.

OCCUPATION: Student of Photography/Economics Night school

CHARACTER: i feel like Asher needs two separate character descriptions since he’s living in extreme circumstances that have greatly changed his characteristics over the course of a year or two, but i’m sticking with Asher today, just know that he used to be happy, carefree, outgoing, a huge charmer, even a flirt, remnants of some of these more positive traits can still be found if you catch him in the right moment.. and then there’s the things he mostly pretends to be that don’t really belong there either, but i guess that shows how others perceive him

mean | snobbish | intelligent | dedicated | disciplined | hard working | gloomy | moody | prone to breakdowns & panic attacks | snippy | judgmental | cocky | angry | volatile | creative | a good eye for aesthetics | charming if needed | standoffish | pushes people away by being deliberately cruel | generous | righteous | pacifist | caring | puts other’s safety before his own to extreme measures, self-sacrificing | puts others first in general | detail oriented | meticulous | fussy | spoiled | controlled when he has to be | overtly loving & affectionate when possible | excitable | goes to extremes in anything | quick & easy liar | hedonist | tense | intense | stands up for others in threatening or unjust situations | thoughtful | pathologically vigilant, paranoid & distrustful | enduring | ambitious | careful | cynical | unboastful | on a dnd alignment scale i would actually put him on either lawful or chaotic good, he wants to do the morally right thing in all situations | guilt riddled & self-punishing | loyal | devoted | confident

ABILITIES: His father’s irrevocable antiquated notion of how a person of his status has to be educated resulted in a flashflood of tutors from the moment Asher was capable of learning things, involving classical music, several languages, riding, sailing, debating and the more exceptional choices of self-defense through various ways including knife and gun handling, owed to his father’s choice of a rather dangerous lifestyle. The only ability that grew out of his own interests is anything regarding photography. He also has the uncanny ability to switch personas in an instant, he can go from cold asshole to so charming that it puts others at ease, to collected proud superior son in a second, depending on what is needed, these different modes are crucial for his survival.

INTERESTS: Art | Music | Culture | Traveling | Minor Drug-use | a budding interest in manga, anime and video games of all things, thanks to Devin

APPEARANCE: Groomed snobby rich boy that looks down on you. Black hair, pale blue eyes, 6′0″ tall, lean. Judging by his clothes alone obviously wealthy. Mostly somewhat sophisticated with lots of dress shirts and classy cuts. A serious young man! Contrasted by more relaxed clothing choices in his personal space. Mostly black & darker colors. Tattoo of a dead raven on the inside of his right underarm, he hides it in front of his father who hates it. Unquestionably a pretty boy™ but Asher has grown to detest his looks, avoiding mirrors or photographs. He looks too much like his father. Has dimples if he smiles brightly but nobody gets to see them anymore.

PLOTPOINTS: The most entertaining way to start the story is probably through Devin’s POV, and then explaining Asher’s behavior with his life story. Very quickly: Devin, moving to his father to visit the art school in an nearby town, is searching for a new therapist he had been visiting for social anxiety, through a work connection his father organizes an appointment with an prestigious therapist before the schoolyear starts. He gets curious about this well dressed tense looking guy he sometimes meets in the waiting room, and starts to hope to see him more often, but never manages to work up the courage to say anything, till one day the guy storms in mid breakdown to interrupt Devin’s session and demands that the therapist had to see him immediately. Devin uses the opportunity to get his attention for once and earn some bonus points, graciously offering him his session. He even gets a thanks later when they meet at the pharmacy, so he’s happy, and hopelessly crushing on this dude. With help of his sister he figures out that the guy is actually local celebrity, billionaire son Asher, that just happens to visit the very same art school Devin will be visiting soon. So Devin very much looks forward to that and spends lots of time daydreaming about getting together with Asher, who actually kinda seems pleasantly surprised to see him again in the school setting. Asher is distant, but friendly at first, and thanks to Asher’s  friend May who is welcoming and inviting in Asher’s stead, Devin somehow luckily gets roped up into the group that sometimes hangs out with Asher, with him graciously paying for any expenses. Devin manages to overlook Asher’s more unpleasant sides, willfully focusing on the good stuff instead, not wanting to give up on his little fantasy just yet, with Asher warning that he would and should come to hate him eventually. What follows is a wild up and down of Asher either being sweet or an complete asshole and Devin being thoroughly confused yet intrigued, the guy is obviously troubled, often leaving class early in a panic or not showing up at all and generally looking like a nervous mess on some days, which just makes Devin want to get behind the reason for everything. On one of the sweeter nights he manages to get a kiss out of Asher, only for him to show his cruelest behavior yet the following days, either ignoring him completely or reacting aggressively.  [Cue Asher’s Story:]

Born in a cozy coast town to a filthy rich family. | Firstborn son therefore in his old-fashioned madman of a father’s brain his legitimate heir, instead of his two years older daughter (lucky her tho) | Father puts every breath of his being into grooming Asher to be his successor, which includes high pressure, expectations and next to no free time from an early age. No failure allowed. Knowing nothing but this high pressure environment Asher just complies and honestly somewhat enjoys putting maximum effort into things to please his father and his own ego. | Somewhat sheltered upbringing due to wealth & little free-time | Easy time in private elementary school where a lot of pre-existing effort lets him relax a little more. He makes a row of superficial friends, but still spends most of his time studying, only socializing when socially expected. | Still very success-oriented in high school, but learns to relax a little more around newly made friends of less stressful backgrounds. | Gradually without really realizing when it began ends up in a relationship with lower upper class boy Adam, they later discuss and decide they started dating somewhere around age 15. | The relationship is accepted and free-time allowed as long as Asher continues to perform exceptionally well in everything. | Both boys share their love for art, while Asher starts getting interested in photography, Adam focuses on painting, both inspired by and potentially aiming to later visit the prestigious art school in their hometown | The twins are born! Asher is instantly smitten with the little creatures and proceeds to be a loving brother | Asher’s father starts to take him to business meetings and other professional settings as insight into his later life as his father’s successor. | Asher, most likely not unaffected by his wealth & prominence of his family, has some successful exhibitions of his photographs and gains a small amount of recognition in the art world. He decides to pursue the profession full-time in the future, not entirely revealing the decision to his father just yet, who lets him play around with his hobby as long as he brings home achievements in that area as well | goes into prolonged discussions with his father regarding his wish to study photography, who eventually caves under the condition of Asher simultaneously visiting business classes on weekends or in the evening | Both Asher and Adam get admitted to the art school (it needs a fancy name i just dont have one yet) and study there after their graduation from high school | The meetings Asher’s father brings him to start to kinda rub Asher the wrong way, as some criminal elements get revealed, his father’s comment being that it was time for him to learn about these essential things as well. Asher is morally appalled, but has not even begun to realize the extent of his father’s criminal activities, to which he begins to introduce him more and more in the following years. | Asher eventually fully understands that his father is head of a self-built mafia-like organization that seems to reach most of America in some way, and that that is the true succession his father is grooming him for. While Asher might be able to agree with some of these duties, he soon realizes that most of what his father is expecting him to do from now on are things Asher is not willing to do under any circumstances, like brutally punishing people for offenses against the family in varying ways, that Ashers father insists on carrying out personally to further his ruthless reputation and control over his underlings, partners or rivals. | For the first time in his life he fails to meet his father’s expectations and actively goes against orders which results in his father pressuring him in any way he can. When Adam suddenly disappears without a trace when Asher is 18 he immediately has the uneasy feeling that his father was involved, he did not however anticipate his father actually truly murdering his son’s boyfriend to set an example of what happens when Asher disobeys. | Asher has a complete breakdown, spends some time at a mental health facility, and comes to the decision to tell everything to the police, only to have them call his father and have him pick him up. Further tries to tell any authority about what happened end in similar ways, his father seemingly having control over everything or always being one step ahead. Eventually he threatens Asher that if he continues, he would have him convicted of Adam’s murder, having plenty of psychiatrists to falsely attest to his guilt. Asher refrains from trying to out his father, half because he was scared of the consequences, half because if he truly would go to prison - which at this point did not eve sound bad to him - his father would most likely just shift his attention to his younger brother instead, which ends up as the main intervention to Asher being able to escape the situation in any way. | From now on Asher spends his time terrified and traumatized, trying his best to please his father in ways that do not include physically harming other people. At the same time he starts violently pushing every friend or acquaintance away, to make sure his father would not find another person to use as motivator and punishment. May being the only remnant of his former friend group that refuses to leave his side despite him lashing out against her here and there in hopes for her to finally get it and leave him alone. | A year later there’s this black guy about his age that apparently has the same therapist and ends up in the same class at school and is genuinely nice to him without asking for something in return which hasn’t happened in a while and feels so nice he forgets himself and gets carried away, being nice right back, and unfortunately can’t help himself having lapses in his self-control towards this guy over and over again, cause he’s just so kind and warm and welcoming, and it feels so so nice, but instantly regretting it as Devin gets clingier and bolder, but still not being able to stop entirely, till he stupidly kisses him one night and immediately has nightmares of his father murdering Devin, which allows him to draw the line and finally be as repulsive towards the guy as he should have been from the beginning. I have various potential scenarios in mind for the following  but they mostly go like this: Devin, trying to figure out why Asher is like THAT, learns about his long-time boyfriend disappearing last year and never being found, with the police claiming there were signs of him just running away to a bigger city, but Asher and Adam’s family believing that something must have happened to him. He deduces that Asher has developed a massive fear of abandonment (which in a way is true but way understated) which is why he keeps pushing him away when he gets too close. When he confronts Asher he just gets furious at the mention of Adam and eventually gets so worked up that he starts talking about Devin not understanding ANYTHING and that he has no idea in what kind of situation he could end up in when he sticks too close and that he should just fuck off, but Devin naturally just picks up on the weird shit and Asher sounding increasingly scared, so he keeps poking at the topic till Asher finally breaks down and tells him that his father is basically a sociopathic criminal mass-murderer and being Asher’s friend let alone boyfriend paints a big fucking target, and then he just ends up having to explain the entire situation in hope that Devin learns and just stays quiet but most of all stays the fuck away. Long story short: he doesn’t. He vows not to leave Asher alone with this any longer, and now that he knows that Asher actually likes him there’s no way he would stay away anyways. Asher still very much tries to convince the other one to leave him be, but to no avail. The rest is them finding an arrangement that works out with lots of secrecy and sneaking around and pretending to not even know each other (more or less successful), Asher panicking a lot, and dealing with a shitton of guilt, but kinda learning to live again and not just function miserably, and them trying to find a solution to Asher’s problem that does not involve people potentially dying, and Asher just dreading the next time his father calls him in and what he might expect him to do then. I have more plot points planned out but i’m just gonna keep them for myself for now. 😋

BONUS INFO: First i gotta say Asher is very much a character i created to cope with stuff when i was feeling really fucking low last fall. I made a character that’s hanging on by a thread, because i was, so i could at least use these feelings for more lifelike daydreams and give them more of a purpose and direction. The initial idea that sparked the storyline was a person falling in love with a clearly unwise choice, which ended up being Devin crushing on the dude having a mental breakdown at the therapist’s office (genius boy). Somewhere along the line the main character shifted to Asher because of the aforementioned reasons. Devin’s POV is probably really more entertaining though, since he gets to unfold all the mysteries that Asher is keeping from him. Inspirations? Uhm, i guess Life is Strange (a mixture of Nathan & the Prof, and the art school setting), the general John Wick world and Veronica’s family in Riverdale, god also laurel’s family in htgawm

#here have this #personal #ocs #teddy #asher #ace #finn #draws #oooof #oof that took way way longer than expected #might edit some things when necessary #adding friend descriptions for finn and family descriptions for teddy #but not n #ow #probably linking this on my page idk

[elizabethrobertajones]

14x02 watching notes

I appear to be fully booked for the whole weekend through to Tuesday so this may be the only thing I post about the episode until then, hope you all are having as much fun as Cas will at the party he’s apparently gonna throw to prove he’s cooler than all the other angels.

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*readjusts my beanbag chair from Professional Sloucher to Serious Typing Mode* It's 5:13am and I've been awake 45 minutes watching this thing download and paused the new Adventure Zone episode for this... Mittens assures me it's well-recieved, so I'll go ahead and assume we burned enough sage to ward off the worst of whatever happens to their episodes...

Or, of course, Speight is directing.

So, expectations are pretty nebulous, because at this point in the story I really don't have demands, hopes or fears, except maybe that Buckleming don't handle or if they do, don't maul having Dean back. I DO miss Dean. It's very possible if he showed up in this episode everyone loves it because Dean-o is back.

I've never voluntarily called him Dean-o before. I think Gabriel's influence over the season is contagious.

Speaking of which... *hits play*

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Are we getting a recap of Christian Keyes getting smushed because he, also, is alive? (er, the vessel, I mean) It would balance out Nick a great deal but it's also almost too much to ask I feel

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14x01 recap: good, no sign of wirework. 14x02 recap: bad, everyone is levitating.

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Also hilarious - no recap whatsoever of the past episode, because we have entered the Buckleming AU. Which is either Speight's shade or Buckleming's hubris that they don't need no canon to tell them what to do.

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Nice. Creepy. Good start, sir. 10/10 would immediately go over and try and play that cursed piano despite my fear I would die instantly.

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asdhdjsfkdsf the detail that Mikey took  his hat off and a dramatic shot of it sitting there with the same reverent detail as the other spooky things from the rest of the intro shots

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Interestingly the vampire that Mikey is bleeding is presented in much the same way as Lucifer was in 13x21, left to just stand there and dribble essence from the neck which making small choking noises. This is either stuck pig imagery, or the suggestion from unknown powers that be directing this to suggest that the entire Lucifer concept is being bled dry by wringing Nick out of it too.

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This isn't going to end well.

While he's doing that, I would like to ask if that's a smidge of his own grace, or if he went and found Metatron's or something.

It also is very reminiscent of Lucifer creating demons - experimenting and playing to create the worst of the worst. Alastair and Lilith had white eyes and Lilith could do some sort of evil smite. The first demon, and the only one we've ever seen do that. Fandom long headcanoned that Lucifer used his own grace to make her, and it makes sense in a weird way that as he gets more corrupt, so do his creations - from pure white-eyed demons to murky yellow eyes to red and pitch black. Also: get more stupid. Azazel is the best and smartest, and each YED we met, if we assume they're in age order... Asmodeus is so dumb as a pile of rocks that you have to assume Lucifer realised that whatever he did to perfect the recipe in Azazel was tapering off and the good good stuff was over, so no more YEDs before you find out what Asmodeus's little sibling would have been like. His next known canonical attempt to make a demon isn't using his own grace, but using the Mark of Cain to corrupt, er, Cain.

Mikey is falling into this exact same nonsense from the opposite direction of his brother, AU or otherwise - humans are bad, corrupt evil things are better because they're less complicated and as an angel, humans give me a headache. Michael seems at least to have believed that there were good people - if he could just flipping find them - and that if he smote all the sinners maybe some good people would be left. It's coming at the same conclusion from opposite problems - he has earnestly sought out the best in humanity and then ended up scouring even the worst like Kip and those killers he mentioned, and finally settled on monsters, Eve's corruptions of humanity into bloodthirsty creatures motivated only by hunger. And now he's playing with them and using his own power to corrupt them further.

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PS: Eve is going to be SO PISSED

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That IS a very effective way to smite a vampire.

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He's very clean and efficient and while he's "getting his hands dirty" in the metaphorical sense, there's a very careful remove in the actions we see on screen, of him standing watching very impartially.

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He also sounds a shade more Dean-ish in that quip, and let's just go ahead and assume that the quip unlocked Dean a lil, or else that being in this vessel so long is beginning to wear on Michael - the influence goes both ways, and it's like seeing Captain Holt from B99 crack and quip, except this is the lawful evil version.

Plus, the flippy flippy and all... He's getting comfortable. I bet Michael might have been able to do SOME cool flip with a knife but trust me, you're possessing the second most blade flippy guy on this planet, second only to his husband, so that's a full perk of being in the Michael Sword and nothing else.

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No one has asked Cas how he feels about AU Bobby, which is weird because he and Bobby were BFFs back in the day.

Trust me, it happened off screen. Sometimes Cas flapped up smelling like whiskey and cigarette smoke and Dean would be like dammit did you just come from poker night with Bobby and I wasn't invited?

(True behind the scenes details from season 5)

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AUBobby wants a beach vacation as much as Dean does, though. Well, he wants to hunt by the sea.

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Okay I never knew "veracity" could be used as a synonym for "voracity" but google assures me that people are literally just really lazy about it because I THOUGHT AUBobby meant voracity, but he SAID veracity, and I was like, why is he saying angels aren't known for telling the truth??? and then my other part of my brain that is more sensible but works slower caught up with the context... This language is stupid. I apologise to second language speakers for that line. It was said "veracity" but it means "voracity" because we are a garbage culture, as english speakers as a whole.

So yeah, angels aren't known for their partying, no offence, party!Cas.

This is now 2x between here and 13x20 that Cas has been directly accused of not partying, plus how he went to a party in 13x22 even if he stood stock still the entire time, so I have to assume that the rise of party!Cas is gaining narrative and symbolic momentum and we WILL see him kicking back by the end of the season.

"None taken, I tend to agree with you." TEND, as in, other angels are stuffy assholes who never party, but I, party!Cas, have stood with my arms by my side and a stoic expression, all through your welcome to paradise!earth party, so *I* am in fact, cool.

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He misses those poker nights. Ellen and Jo taught him well.

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AUBobby has a perhaps Jim Beaver-honed response to "it's Dean" when worrying about what's up with it. Or, of course, as much as he may have come to like the guy since the AU rescue, this was still a lil test of why they had to be concerned, leaving it to him as the one guy in the room who is still getting to know him, to say what is unspoken by everyone else.

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Sam then prompts Cas to give us some clunky exposition on why he can't come, because Michael will sense him.

Buckleming, you literally are the ones who say Cas down in a chair and had him tattooed to ward him against angels. That was your thing. You did that. You.

It may be a sign of improvement that Cas is being left behind with specific explanations for why, but it's still hard to read Misha's expression as between Cas Is Sad He Can't Go Near Dean, which is crazy he's not putting up a fight and going anyway, and I Have To Say This Line To Explain It And They Don't Teach You How To Say Bad Exposition In Drama School.

"Yeah sorry"

This deserved at least 2 more lines of contention and scowling, or, of course, Sam proposing this to Cas on the spot, or Cas himself regretfully announcing that he had to do it to give them the best chance in a self-sacrificing way, then rationalising it with having to stay behind to babysit.

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Cas just said Jack wasn't an infant. He's a year old. He's barely even a toddler yet. You really read that many parenting books and don't know that?

Okay yeah. Anyway lumping Nick and Jack together as charges to watch - a suggestion somehow that they're a joint burden? It demeans Jack to Nick's place, in the context. Cas hasn't actually had a great deal of on-screen parenting to Jack except like 2 nice moments basically bookending the entire time they've both been alive on the show in 13x06 and 14x01, and I'm going to have to chalk this up to a lil anxiety about bonding with the sulky teen Jack that it's something Cas now feels apprehension about. He's the father who's rarely home and clocked in the least time nurturing Jack directly, while Mary has a wild lead and Sam and Dean both also a good chunk of it, with Sam pulling weeks ahead of Dean, of course.

A sense of Dad Who Is Always At Work Forced To Bond With Child While Mom(s) Are Gone, to use some heteronormative tropes, feels like it's at play. The dad who is always away on business trips is forced to spend time at home over Christmas with the kid while the other parents are on a wild vacation to Florida... What fun scrappy bonding experiences do they get up to?! :D

Of all the tropes flying around, to stick to heteronormativity, Cas has always been "the father" to Jack while others around him waver between maternal roles or not. But even in the very start, he "completed" the parental "set" with Kelly.

Is that enough airquotes to be clear I support non-traditional family structures? :P

But it puts Cas also in a place of having some of these toxic masculinty types of fatherhood, of being away for work all the time and not putting in the work for the kid or being too eager to fight and sacrifice himself than to be there. Hard as he works to protect them all, his connection IS that of the guardian angel who watches over, the one sworn to protect, who most often talks about his bond to Jack under that obligation and that promise to Kelly, the sense of a duty to protect Jack, but very little in the way Sam especially fell hard on the side of "nurture" in the nature vs nurture debate and put in all the emotional labour associated with the mother in traditional parenting structures.

(This was good for Sam to do considering Dean had done it for him, and because Dean did it for him - being both mother and father - he's largely exempt and can dip in and out of how he parents Jack with impunity, given he had his moment about this in 12x22, days before Jack was born, and was therefore freed from character arcs grappling with it in the same way)

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Cas is like "Nick is a MESS" same, buddy.

"He was housing, he deserves a shot at rebuilding his life" Sam is talking about himself here, which is weird because Nick was the topic of discussion a moment ago

I feel weird that Sam is admonishing Cas here, because Cas has not lain on the floor and thrown a tantrum about not going to save Dean, as ungrateful as he is being about babysitting Nick... it's making a weird conflict between Cas and Sam which is now veering into a philosophical argument about Nick, which makes me feel that if this is not just weird Buckleming dialogue issues where they find it hard not to write things as a conflict, Sam and Cas haven't had the rosy bro bonding time together while Dean is gone that it seemed, or that, like with Sam snapping at Mary about her optimism, Sam's in a Mode about this where he's on his last rag with everyone secretly because of lack of sleep. And Chief!Sam may also be struggling with being an authority figure among his own family, as every single one of them "outranks" him in age, parenthood, experience or scowliness, and Sam once described himself as "the least of all of you" meaning Bobby and Cas specifically of the people who in this room he'll find himself naturally deferring to. Sam's leadership is natural among the AU peeps but perhaps a struggle that with his family, he's still the leader, but there's no Dean to have the final word, and that in itself is an awful reminder, when he finds himself being the last word on a subject without Dean's input.

I have to assume this is like 5am and AUBobby showed up early to work to see Mary and the rest of the AU peeps aren't around yet

-

Cas then throws in the line about how all he can see is the supreme agent of evil, which is fuckin hilarious that it was Sam's trauma yesterday and we know angels are much more likely to relate to the glowy blob possessing a face, and anyway most of Cas's worst Lucifer trauma came from being POSSESSED by him, seeing him wearing Sam's face, or being beat up by Vince fucking Vincente. You only really ever saw Lucifer as Nick in 12x23 and the last few episodes of season 13, bar like one encounter back in 5x10. That is a very very recent association.

Unless, of course, he's still MIGHTILY PISSED that Lucifer killed off 2/3rds of his poker game and that's where his "supreme evil" trauma comes from.

Let's go with that.

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Do you think Eugenie forgot that Lucifer was an hallucination in season 7, and also that Cas was dead during that?

(don't @ me about him seeing hallucifer in 7x17, he said in 7x21 that he stopped seeing hallucifer pretty quickly and I'm going with Edlund canon when in doubt :P)

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"You talking about my dad again"

Jack. Hon. You have absolutely no relation whatsoever to Nick, except via whatever family line ties him extremely vaguely to Sam as a similar vessel of Lucifer. I don't even know how to describe where that puts him on your fucked up family tree, but trust me, you don't need to worry. Biologically, you are the son of an ex-president of the united states.

But yeah, snarky!teen Jack is here in full force. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with the baby's angsty melodrama years :'D

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Do you think

and I ask this hypothetically while full of dread that I am right

do you think Eugenie has forgotten that Jack is not Nick's biological son

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Jack getting the good good framing of standing with his back to the war room, trapped in the library, as he's grounded. This central framing demands the eye to seek out wings, but in this case they're kinda furled behind him, if you see them as the dark shadows of the room beyond.

Of course the war room/library symbolism is always a thing, that action is the former, home the the latter, so this is clever to show Jack's desire, but also that he is stuck, and we see the bar patterned lights on the floor in the war room which are used as prison imagery. Jack's effectively locked out of the war room with a baby gate.

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"Let's move," Sam says, with a virile pump of his gun, leaving Cas and Jack to feel impotent at home.

-

Sam does not get the dick imagery often enough

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Blargh Nick again. Hello fuckface. Listen, I just wanna say before we get into this scene, that I've almost universally seen Mark P eyerolled at but said "at least he's a really good actor so the scenes were really good even if he sucks as a person and we hate Lucifer". I do not agree. I think he's a ham who over-acts and it was annoying as Lucifer but by this point expected and had at least transitioned slowly, but seeing Nick do the whole routine of standing up from bed, and then blowing on his stab wound and wincing and fanning it? That whole thing was just... too much for me. Nick should have been still and quiet and sad, but as soon as he started doing that it harked back to Lucifer in 13x13 when he was cold and hungry and over-acting rubbing his poor empty tum tum and rubbing his freezing arms. What made Mark P so good in season 5 was that Lucifer had a slow, cold and STILL menace to him, that while he might have gestured widely and been violent, especially in his dramatic scenes he was still and menacing. That's all gone by now and he acted Lucifer as a clown, and fair enough as an acting choice I guess when this isn't my favourite character or actor, but now it's salt in the wound that Nick was supposed to come across sad and vulnerable, and instead of bestowing some gravitas on him and taking us back to the start and actually TRYING, Mark P fell into clowning as if he thinks doing these funny things is what his fans who are apparently out there want to see, and my stretched to breaking point lie I repeated to myself about "oh he's a good actor at least" shattered because he was just playing the fool again, over-acting as if to gain cheap sympathy points, when his stillness and sadness and NOT overacting was literally the only way to have pulled Nick off without it being annoying.

This is a cake and eat it, well Lucifer is dead but I'm still here, and now I will act almost exactly the same, kind of dealio and I'm pissed and not standing by that self-comforting lie any more because every single step of the Lucifer journey so far since 11 we've placated ourselves with various phrases and concepts to make it okay to do all this but keeping Nick around is where the story breaks and so too does my patience for forgiving it.

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*Cas employs his Anti Nick Shoulders* I deeply approve of these shoulders

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Could they not give Nick, like, a sudoku book or something? He is just sitting here wallowing in having been Lucifer.

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Omg Cas is getting to use this to actually talk about himself. I'm actually liking this. Cas self-reflection is a wonderful thing. Everyone can relate to Nick, even if they hate it. Every single person will file in here and talk about themselves to Nick at some point or another.

Nick's like "why am I heeere" and Mr Giant Teddy Bear is like "I know right?"

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Wait is Nick's son called Teddy? That was unfortunate mind-melding with BL I just did. *shiver*

Also hilarious: a chosen flashback to Nick holding a teddybear beside the crib and I swear to all that is holy that Speight is deliberately implying after reading the line "Teddy" that Nick said yes to Lucifer on behalf of his wife Sarah and this bear.

I can SEE his face making a note here about what flashback to cut to.

His sparkling eyes are reflecting off this screen so much I'm getting glare from it.

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*Mark P cries a lot* There are a few little leaps in this conversation to get to the point too quickly but overall this wasn't a bad scene... Perhaps because Cas carried it enough with his sinscerity that Nick wailing was at least balanced and the directing matched the intensity of it all. Speight really is good at making things work and this was pretty brutal which means that the overacting is compensated for, and Cas inserted enough genuine emotion from an empathetic character.

It's all hovering unspoken about family where Nick does it for his wife, even if he regrets it now and feels like he has become a monster and is wracked with a guilt Cas can heavily relate to as it drove his season 12 early actions intensely, and his child. Cas also did it for family, and they give this definition of family where it could be anyone beloved in the family, so that platonic overlap is there between Cas and Nick's motivations. But implicit is that Nick's wife was the one that made him say yes, and Cas stands over Nick in much the way that Lucifer stood over him in 5x01 when appearing as Sarah. Cas is/was the wife in the scenario in a weird way to Dean, for whom he chose to be possessed to save from Amara, aka the monster that had come into the house and would kill his beloved ones in their beds.

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Promo scene! Aw AUBobby and his rusty FBI skills.

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The coroner talking about a spree killer harks to Dean's issues balancing being a serial killer with a saviour, as I talked about pre-episode with the themes connected to Dean being possessed by Michael, and channelling all the worst of him. In this case, the torture AND the wantonly killing vampires

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God damn Mary's red suit is awesome though.

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"neck wounds" I thought Mikey healed those? I guess I can see residual scarring on this body so maybe healing vampires isn't as neat as healing people, because corruption...

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"Why is an archangel hunting vampires in the first place" HAVE YOU MET DEAN? This is how he blows off steam when he gets a HANGNAIL. You think being possessed by Mikey will stop him?

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"Huh" Sam says. "huh," I say, because they actually did some Smart Detective Work to come to that conclusion and perhaps this is just because BL needed the next lead but we've never actually seen them ask this specific question about people coming to identify mystery bodies to find the next lead ever. And perhaps because even if it happens off screen it's a dead end in all their other cases, but this was still something BL wrote that put a clever concept in Sam's head, and I am at the bottom of the barrel with them when I'm complimenting them for not making the characters act like complete idiots.

The other thing is, this cuts out an entire scene of them in a motel opening a laptop and googling surveillance footage, and I don't know if they have been banned from writing the everyone sits around and googles the monster scenes, at least since they made Crowley pop in and google a photo of the president in 12x08, and then Dabb openly mocked them for it in 12x23, but it's a pacing GODSEND to have the characters act intelligent and ask questions that solve problems instead of relying on the magical answer box to tell them where to go next.

See again: low low low expectations. Whether it's Speight clean up work or they've been told off, this is great stuff, and files off a lot of the edges that make their episodes wearing on a cosmic, soul level, that between the weird content, they're also just clunky and poorly paced.

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Cas n Jack sceeeene.

It's Jack's desk! I'm so happy!!

I asked hypothetically the other day on a promo pic and I'm so happy to see Jack has his own lil desk in the library. He looks like a kid doing his homework

my heart is swelling

with all the table meta - it's another thing where they've changed stuff around to give Jack a space, a place he calls his own in this large weird Bunker. That table had to be dragged from one of the side offices or store rooms and set up for him because it's never b een there before, but now Jack has an alcove of the library he calls his own and he can sit there and do his research... And the alcoves give a sense of an enclosed room space, something comforting and like... library womb like.

The Bunker has adopted him :')

It's so weird seeing a character in this show who habitually doesn't wear a ton of layers around the Bunker - he's been in a t-shirt with nothing over it in both episodes, grey. He's young, open, honest, but hasn't found his way yet, hasn't got a tribal colour scheme. No plaid, and has only worn beige and blue in neutral Cas colours, his main father figure in a sort of aspirational sense, even if Cas is the dad who's always out on work and not there to raise his son.

Jack's identified as human in 13x23 but in a way he is a homunculous - the concept of what was originally believed to be how babies formed in a sort of medieval/rennaisance time (perhaps still is by BL) that the sperm was a tiny weeny complete person and they just got put in the womb with no other input from mommy and grew there. There's definitely a weird shade of homunculous implications in how Jack's parenthood is talked of, and of course he was then born as a fully formed man, which is a sort of transliteration of this nonsense belief, but the concept that he practically was a small adult Jack and then a big adult Jack and at no point an actual baby. Even in the womb in 12x17 we saw him turn and stare at the camera, betraying a sort of primal intelligence, the idea of a bored god waiting in the womb to be born, learning and acting from within.

And only now is he sort of set up to stop being a baby and start being a man when it comes to handling adult intellectual stuff and he's not learning from scratch but is treated like he has a more solid baseline for the world around him these days. He's learned enough to join society, but not enough to have carved his place yet. It's a very strange cusp of growth, and perhaps a good metaphor for being a teenager, in a way: that you realise you have been very stupid up to this point but now you are very smart and ready to be an adult (except, unfortunately, adult peoples will look back at this unformed humonculous version of themselves with the greasy hair and poorly understood radical political opinions and whatever, and be like, WOW, I was an idiot.)

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Oh my god are BL really going to keep writing Good Cas Lines this episode? This stuff where Cas schools Jack gently and lovingly with knowledge Jack has been up all night reading then Cas is like yeah this is stuff angels know from angel sunday school but I'll be kind about it and validate what you just read... Like, the lesson is the act of the research, more than the knowledge. It's up to Jack not to feel stupid that he did all that work and Cas was like, yeah. I knew that. I'm an angel.

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OH MY GOD Cas is actually having the chat I wanted with Jack about how he felt when he lost his grace

*shoves a fistful of popcorn in my mouth*

Jack all hurr blurr you don't understand I want to go run to my room and slam the door because I'm a teen and I have just discovered human tragedy and angst, NO ONE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER HAS SUFFERED AS I HAVE

and Cas is like, *ruffles his hair* it's okay little buddy, I too was a homunculous in season 9, which Lizzy has a weird deja vu feeling she wrote about but would not for the life of her know where to find that because it was probably buried in watching notes

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"what did you have left?" "well I had Sam and Dean... but I had something else"

me: *clutches chest, gasps, hangs on tenterhooks*

Cas: "I had myself"

me: FLAILS WILDLY

Sorry, this isn't very meta, I've just written so much on the nature of grace and of Cas, and whether he has a soul or not still, but he is very much talking about the time when as a human he had a soul and was "himself" without his grace, and though he felt the loss of his POWER he didn't feel a loss of his CORE SELF, of who he is (which is an ongoing question they're all answering about themselves, with Jack Homunculous Winchester as the main example to channel the others through). It's really important to me that Cas has this core self, this certainty of who he is beyond his duty, his grace, everything that is forced on him by Heaven, but that this part of him who he may or may not know is his soul is there and filled with, well... Cas's nougat centre. Because Cas has been playing THAT game far longer than Jack has :P

"The basic me. As Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles"

Dean is reaching through Cas to mock him for us when we don't have him in the room to directly accuse Cas of having a harp, and I love that Cas loves Dean so much that he lets Dean drag him for having bells and whistles (which Cas will take literally) even though he's not here.

That's true love.

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They share what is possibly the grossest smile ever and I am going to weep to see all this fondness for each other and for Dean being expressed. Like, ugh, families loving each other and being all wholesome and sweet. What is this garbage.

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"You know, Sam and Dean... they weren't born with their expertise" yeah because they're not fuckin homunculi

Cas is basically equating Jack to going back to the start that they had, a do-over on his life, that he lived his first year as a magical all-powerful baby, but in a weird way, losing his grace makes him more settled, gives him a chance to understand himself without his power and learn that he still has a core self, a soul with all the good stuff in it, and to begin again and learn things the slow way, but a way in which he will grow more naturally and take the lessons that are needed to form the real edges to a character that turn into maturity.

"They've been at it since they were children"

and so have you. filed under: ow.

Literally no one on TFW had a normal safe happy childhood free of monsters metaphorical or otherwise.

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Anyway Cas then reminds Jack that he has to do things slow to be as good as Sam n Dean, and moves on to it's important not who you were in your past - because this fuckin one and a bit year old already has a gritty past - but who you are and what you will do with the FUTURE. And Cas still wholeheartedly believes in Jack because of Jack once showing him a vision of the future that they might have - the happy ending, world without monsters, all that jazz that Dabb era is eyeing up  hopefully.

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Oooh Mikey's going to a partyyy.

That fuckin ring on his little finger. It's coded especially in media that he's either in a cult or gay. It's such a weird lil detail for Mikey to have added to the ensemble that I almost wonder if he smited a guy to borrow it wholecloth and took every detail. Though he's a fucking fashionista so maybe he can't resist adding a detail like this.

After all he wore dirty war-torn clothes for years in the AU, but even then had a sense of grandeur about it, an over-dramatic flair with the long coat that said that he dressed well, even for the scenario, and different, standing out from the rest of his minions.

Now he's here on paradise!earth, with all the tailors you could ask for, so he's going to dress like the lord of this planet it's begging for, in all the finery you can drape his fine sword in.

Sword does not approve of bowtie.

DEAAAN! HEY! I'VE MISSED YOU ILY

"GET OUT"

"I don't think so"

WOW, RUDE. There's rules about this, buddy!

"You can't!"

"oh but I can, because, see, I own you." It IS Michael who punches the mirror... I was certain it would be Dean, but it's Michael lashing out at his angry reflection, shattering the image of Dean. What a metaphor. In the Mark of Cain arc sometimes Dean looked at himself in shattered mirrors but it was a passive shattering. This is a statement from Michael that he can see Dean and he's shattering his entire self, refusing his right of consent - in a BL episode it's ironically hilarious so long as nothing else dub con happens, that this is the actually seriously applied good use of consent stuff. And Michael talking about owning Dean - it's that presumptiveness about others' consent that was Dean's biggest downfall in putting Gadreel in Sam, the cosmic karma lashing back out at Dean that he can't punt Michael out like Sam heroically punted Gadreel out, because Michael OWNS him. Dean is historically, cosmically, always for eons before his birth, been "the Michael Sword" - a true vessel with this guy's name inscribed on the hilt, and Michael has calmly taken full possession of his ultimate weapon, because well, why not.

UGH and then Michael takes control again by way of talking into the mirror and his reflection behaving normally because he's wrangled it back into control. A+ DIRECTION, SIR.

(Also because it's not Dean - maybe it's not so much a meta detail but the expectation might be that Dean would lash out at Michael BECAUSE he's angry and lashes out and smashes mirrors so many times, but he has no control to even move an arm to lash out... He's utterly trapped, just like Cas was tied to that chair.)

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I love seeing Cas storming confidently around the Bunker running stuff while the others are out, being the one who is looking over Jack, taking the calls about their findings, and now dealing with Nick wandering in to angst some more. This is Cas at home and although it's still weird the AU peeps are ALL taking a day off coming into work after seeing how embedded they were in the hub, it's wonderful to see Cas here and without the AU peeps it is more cozy in the sense of being more like the home they privately kept.

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Nick comes in like I WANT TO SOLVE MY COLD CASE THIS IS MY RANDOM DISTRACTION FROM THE PLOT

but then Cas puts his hand on his shoulder and he flicks back to Lucifer in an instant, trying to dissolve Cas in a panic from being touched. Cas is understandably completely and utterly freaked out.

And for all our talk of Rowena and Sam and their trauma from Lucifer, of course Cas has had a lot too even though I'm kinda eye-rolly about him talking about Nick as the face of all evil, of course this episode has been about his Lucifer trauma so far. It's really interesting to see Cas rattled by something because he is so solid most of the time - last episode he exuded "fuck you" from every pore for every moment except briefly when Jack was dragged into the room. But Nick has him on edge and now there's some Buckleming fuckery afoot with ongoing vessel issues, we're seeing the very strange visual of a Cas who is legit freaked out.

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Anyway I really like how smooth this was, even with camera changes. Speight is really wringing excellence out of them, and the script, weirdly, and maybe because it's Nick so Eugenie is focused, is actually contemplative and full of interesting emotional conversations, which they often seem to blow off whatever the brief. Even with the dialogue hindrances, the real meaning and depth is being plumbed by the scenes as a whole.

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So yeah, here is where I have to grudgingly say MarkP can play evil kinda well but also considering, again, FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN CAPITALIST PARTY? This is his calling, and he is a caracture of the man who plays the devil.

And this is something rather scary and sinister about what's going on with him which genuinely is played with some of that season 5 gravitas, which is super weird to see because I have got so used to him being a clown, even in his previous episode.

I have to say, due to that, I give Speight a lot of credit because he's really, really good at his job.

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"What went through your head just now?" I ask that a lot, and thanks for the reaction gif, Eugenie.

I need very little prompting to assume you are writing Nick and Brad is writing the rest.

Nick is a fine line of guilty and confused, and hiding his intent, either because he doesn't know, or he DOES. It's good. Credit where credit's due.

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"Some of his influence still within you" it's CRUEL to give that line to misha.

Kinda meta that there's a cockles joke from an old JIB or something about "influence" as jizz and 13x21 and all the jokes about Gabriel's grace.

But we're getting to a 9x11 parallel in the structure of the episode, but Cas is left behind with Nick rather than Sam, and Sam gets to be out there looking for his brother... And of course Dean within Michael experiences a shattering greater than the Mark of Cain did to him...

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"Lucifer may have inflicted more damage on your psyche" yeah no shit we were warning you he would have the Hallucifers

Cas does the most terrified slow shoulder touch ever - there's a real right shoulder wrong shoulder thing going on. Last episode he clasped Jack on the correct (left) shoulder, and this time he tries to touch Nick on the right and nearly gets smote, and then this touch is on the same, as he discerns what's wrong with Nick, and I get a mirror of 11x11 where Lucifer did the wrong shoulder touch to Dean, and have him the only inkling something was up with Cas, that Dean shrugged off because, ow.

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Anyway white man has angst. Nick has the Hallucifers and he has to find out who killed his family. He's got like his entire own TV show premise of nonsense going on here and it's going to be crammed in between everything else.

Bet you anything real monsters did it

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"And then what

Dude's got nothing to live for

we're so over these murdered wife revenge arcs

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The old flipperoo of it being terrifying for a monster when 3 scary hunters bust in weapons drawn. The vampire has a terrible apartment and she didn't even get a new car - it's like she went from one crappy life to the next and the only thing that changed was she was now a miserable vampire. I'm sympathetic to her for now :')

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Oh look how surprising, this side of the story is being 2x03 still - aside from AUBobby snarking that vampires "never do" anything wrong, in the position of one who never learned a grey area because lower Winchester exposure, the vamps are feeding on animal blood, and mourning the loss of their nest. This is another Lenore. Of course we started the episode with them in the morgue finding vampire teeth on seemingly human victims, as in 2x03, and the killer is the deadliest hunter in the universe - the heavily Gordon themed side of Dean which has been symbolised by vampires the whole time from Lenore to Benny...

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OH this is the girl from the cold open. So I assume she's going to explain how she got away. We have to assume the cold open was several days ago - long enough for her to lie low, Michael to ditch all the vamps, AND for them to be discovered again and moved to the morgue and then for this branch of TFW to come out here. Which explains that Michael must have already moved on and be ready for his party in the present day, which is a stretch of time enough to form his next plan.

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"I-if you let me go!" yeah AUBobby lunges at her when he assumes the conversation is over, because he never dealt with this before, but looks over to Sam now, and then Mary does.

We cut away before we find out if Sam decided her fate, so that current silence on the subject may be left ominous or may explain a lot about Sam when we find out whether he had her killed and has turned ruthless, or is still soft Sammy who dealt with Lenore and knows how it goes.

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Mikey, what are you up to?

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He's tapping Dean's charm but with a hint more of Jensen's whiskey smoothness in his voice than Dean's coarseness, so this is legally defined as assault.

This is horrifying. GIVE IT BACK.

I'm calling the police. Michael has made off with Dean's entire seduction routine to trap this monster, and I am horrified.

Weirder still hearing him just casually called Michael. Brrrr.

Ooh she's a werewolf. Somehow I hadn't managed to work that out in the glimpse in the promo and thought she was a new monster type.

I guess Mikey is shopping around.

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Wow she really has prominent teeth. I wonder if that's a sexy trait in werewolves.

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He takes a drink as he menaces towards her - he's still got that calm drifting through kinda attitude that Michael had even in the AU when he was Christian Keyes, and he's starting to have fun, which is really really bad.

I don't think Michael has ever had fun in his life.

He's like the perfect little kid who does well in all his studies then sneaks off and drowns the family cat in the back of the garden as an outlet.

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"Now. Summon your master."

Is this the elusive Werewolf Alpha who survived even season 6 because the show just Could Not Figure Out What To Do With Werewolves until season 9

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Nick  has an ENDLESS series of white shirts to indicate he's a sweet innocent dude now

because,  you know we have a hard time dealing with that

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Nick is ranting like a privileged white man

I mean his family is dead, I just struggle with Nick for obvious reasons

and as soon as his mannerisms cross a line, he loses me again

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He's kinda weird with Cas as well because he knows Cas, kinda, and he has to be 100% on board with all the nonsense, so he's just A Bloke dropped in this life now but casually chatting to an angel. it's weird. "You know what a cold case is, Castiel?" liike, he knows Cas doesn't always know stuff but he is also just going off on one.

I think poor Cas has decided since the Nickifer moment that he needs to spend more time actively watching over Nick, and once more is trapped with a ranting annoying man

this is his curse.

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"But you're not dead. You have a second chance."

"you don't understand"

Ah, teenagers, such a problem :P

but seriously, this is hilariously the third converastion this episode Cas has been in where he directly relates to the very specific weird metaphysical problem that Nick or Jack is going through because there's literally NOTHING that Cas hasn't already been through. He might yet make an excellent therapist just because of how many weird torments he's endured.

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Cas speaking with fondness of Jimmy :') Such a feeling of Jimmy being a good man who went to Heaven, and for Cas, raised as an angel like this, being in Heaven with your soulmate is the ultimate happy ending for good devout people - in 4x20 when he's still in Claire he tells Jimmy he served well and will go to Heaven like it's a reward, and despite everything he still seems to default to that, especially for the comfort of knowing this about Jimmy of all people, because of how directly responsible Cas is for destroying their lives, and knowing that at least they got this is a WONDERFUL coping mechanism for angels to tell themselves it's all okay, when they get the correct vessel with the proper permissions and they're a good and pious person who prayed for it etc etc.

Cas and Lucifer remain the only angels we've ever seen actually court their vessel properly, although it's implied Anael did similar. Most others have hopped right in without securing full and informed consent. Er, not that Lucifer does, but at least he has full and informed bullshit trickery, which, um. Is a thing?

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Nick how DARE you call Cas a "stone cold bodysnatcher" who's no better than Lucifer. Jimmy is gone and Cas has had this vessel remade for him like six times since then. It's the Jimmy Model Vessel mk.VI, as sculpted by God or the Empty.

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*sobs about Cas saying what happened to Jimmy was his greatest regret*

SUCH GOOD CAS STUFF this episode

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The alpha werewolf is a white guy in a suit, surprisingly.

Michael, also a white guy in a suit, sits opposite him, and they're pretentious about their cognac.

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"She thinks you're a god" that's the second time that's happened. He kinda liked it when it was applied directly to him but not an accusation of BEING Chuck, just that that's how he comes across.

-

Oh good he's just the leader of the pack, not the Alpha.

Still wanna know who that is

-

His sales pitch is about their purity in wanting to kill to eat to live once again. I find it hard to believe a werewolf with snooty opinions about alcohol who wears a suit like that doesn't have some human sins, but it seems that Michael is judging them by their monstrousness first, and waving aside their other habits in favour of the big picture of how they live their lives.

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"Fully tested" you fucking liar

He's talking around the truth... It's fascinating watching him threading the line of judging people for sinners without falling into that himself.

-

I do wonder how he knows about wine unless his previous vessel did... or he's taking from Dean's pop culture and deadpan bullshitting it. Sorry, I'm still stuck on that detail. Character stuff always entertains me so much more than plot :P

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"Believe me, it's an absurd dream" He's passively observed at least like 3 attempts to enslave the human race for food just in the last few years. He knows.

Mikey, you can't go around promising that, they know it doesn't work. Dick Roman couldn't pull it off, and you don't have his business acumen.

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"Why be the huntED when you can be the huntER"

ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN AAAAAH turning over EVERYTHING he works for

UUUUGH

-

Okay, Jack's wandered off and found his grandparents without a single warning and I am WOUNDED.

-

They seriously need to put more warning in for these things because ow ow ow ow ow

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Oh my gooood he's named after Kelly's daaad

-

Look at these nice grandparents

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"So you were like her intern" oh ne the intern jokes of last summer have come around and stabbed me

I repent

-

Oh NO nerdy little Kelly

this is awful

where is this episode coming from? I can't believe someone's managed to wrangle Buckleming into doing good stuff with everything so this is actually emotionally well-told

this is probably their best episode yet and i'm half an hour in

-

"We have a grandson!"

This is emotionally mauling me like an angry bear

-

"Jack kind of looks like her!"

*Jack attempts to speak from a lump the size of a planet in his throat*

*Lizzy types from within the bear's mouth, as it tries to stuff my down ITS throat*

-

NOUGAT GOT HIS HUG

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Sam spared the vampire girl!!! YAY

-

She's called Lydia. You assholes literally used that name before for the Amazon Dean hooked up with

-

I can't believe Michael took the time to change his suit. He has a suit for business and a suit for meetings.

-

"the hunters" Oh that's cold. Dean, can you hear how he dismisses your FAMILY?

-

Oh nooo he metatroned her. This was a traaaaaaap and she was bait

-

Aww Lydia :(

-

He smites like Lucifer killed demons with his mind

it's so scary

-

How can Cas be mad at Jack I just nearly cried at a Buckleming episode

anyway he and Jack are having the equivalent I am your dad and I  set curfew, vs I am a grown up I can go out when I want argument for his teen son he's unfortunately not engaged with much.

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"the only real family I have left"

Cas gets SO PISSED

I AM YOUR DAD, SON

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But he pushes it down and asks if it helped because Cas is good and nice and loves Jack

-

Once Jack reveals that he looked like the weirdly photoshopped Kelly on a horse (oof) Cas gets mauled by the same Feels Bear and relents completely because he's legally not allowed to cry but he wants to

-

"I suppose there are worse ways to be human than to be kind," he says as speight exploits the fuck out of the bunker set, having them sit either side of the door between war and home, tables in the centre, them on the pillars flanking it. It's a wonderful image. I'd go into it more but I suddenly think I have no time at all

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"So they're going to kill him," lil Hamlet of Nougat says all firmly, re: Michael

Cas switches gears from "this precious child" to "uuuh" immediately

-

"And if he doesn't leave?"

I can see Cas being that meme where everything is an action blur around his face to express deep horror as Jack keeps prodding worst case murdering Dean scenarios

-

Listen, when this little ball of damp feathers you call your son is joining in with the entire universe challenging you if you have the guts to see Dean killed for the greater good, you have a problem that EVERYONE can see

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"Dean doesn't matter!"

*shock lines intensify*

"You're all so focused on trying to save Dean"

Yeah, he does the same for all of you.

This is the pier conversation from 11x14, but 1000x more intense.

-

Cas is like "?????????????? HOW DARE?"

-

Cas can not comprehend a world where Dean dies, but our lil Shakespearean hero is determined that it has to  happen because he WILL kill Michael, it's been put on his shoulders and he WILL DO IT DAMMIT.

(later)

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Cas did not have this in the parenting books

-

"Do you think he'd want it any other way?"

"no but i love him"

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I can not BELIEVE Jack got a flounce off stage left and Cas is the one left shook

damn, kids are hard

-

Nick has also wandered off to meet some relatives.

Cas is the worst at keeping his chickens in the coop

what was he doing

lying on Dean's bed sniffing the pillow

-

Oh dear, but it's the neighbour who as this conversation goes on I'm starting to assume was the one who killed his family.

Is he gonna go all Lucifer on this guy?

-

Uhoh, bulletproof werewolves

man I am gonna miss my bus if anything else happens

-

Mary saves AUBobby <3

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Hi Deanchael, come to torment this poor family

You know you coulda brought Cas because he knew you were here the whole time anyway

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DEAN! HI!

That was a really cool move Dean.

"Sammy"

<3

-

"It's me"

Unless it's NOT

-

"He just left"

"why"

"i don't know. I don't know!"

me too bud

-

Hey look Nick killed the guy with a hammer

What a surprise

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Welp now I have to take my 3rd choice for bus to yoga but I finished and now I will be gone all weekend byeee love you yell about this later <3

#14x02 #season 14 spoilers #my stuff