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tomwambsmilk · 2 years

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tell us about your daddy Tom headcanons 👀

Okay so what it boils down to for me is that I think Tom genuinely wants to be a father. I think part of it for him definitely is the checklist of like ✅ high-powered job ✅ beautiful wife ✅ beautiful kids that I think he’s mentally had since he was young. But I also think that as he’s gotten older he does genuinely want to be a dad. Matt Mac has talked about how part of Tom’s affection for Greg is rooted in a desire to be a sort of father-figure to somebody; I think Tom genuinely loves being able to lavish love and affection on people. With Shiv and with Greg it’s complicated by other factors, but kids are a less complicated bc they haven’t yet been battered into cynicism by the forces of the world (hopefully).

(Obviously within the context of succ their are other more strategic factors at play in terms of why he wants to have a baby with Shiv, but I do think he still wants to be a dad regardless.)

So because of all that I think that Tom would actually be an affectionate father. There’s been some discussion over whether a Shiv pregnancy plot line would be a good or bad thing; I see the potential pitfalls but I have faith in Jesse Armstrong handling it well if they went that route. And I would be interested in seeing Tom and Shiv have a kid in confluence with Tom becoming increasingly Logan-esque in the workplace. I don’t think it would necessarily transfer over to his home life bc I think he would be able to compartmentalize in a way Logan never did, but the contrast would be interesting. It also opens the door to the potential of his kids getting older and struggling to reconcile the loving affectionate dad they know with the morally bankrupt abusive boss they discover he is in the workplace.

Aside from that I think if he had kids in any context (tomshiv or tomgreg or any other Tom ship) he would absolutely spoil them. He would buy them all sorts of stuff all the time. He would need his partner to reign him in from actually legitimately turning them into spoiled brats by accident. He would HATE to be the ‘bad guy’ when it came to discipline. If he did have to do it (bc his partner rightfully objected to having to always be the bad guy) I think he would get very morose afterwards.

I also think he would be one of those parents who just. Legitimately believes their child is better than all other children objectively and in every way. Anything his kids are good at he’s gonna absolutely crow to other parents over. Other parents and teachers will all hate him. He’s also going to be SUPER effusive with the praise whenever his kids do even moderately well at something, and it’s not even an act! If little Ariadne brings home a B+ on her math test she’s doing absolutely amazing. If she brings home a C+ it’s probably just that the math was unusually difficult for her brilliant brain. It does have the potential to become a legitimate problem if he doesn’t have a partner who’s more grounded and can flag any actual issues that Tom would overlook.

(If Tom had a special needs kid I think he’d still be the same way. When they got diagnosed I think he’d be 😕 for all of five seconds and then he would go ‘okay but my child is still the best and smartest and most special of all the other children regardless’.)

I also think he’d definitely play with his kids and go all-in. To me he is one of those guys who tries to be all mAsCuLiNe and whatever in the workplace and then he goes home and lets his daughter use him as a pony in her Princess castle who is also the royal advisor in her surprisingly complicated make-believe games of political intrigue. If he’s having a conversation with another adult and Perseus interrupts with some nonsense about the state of centaurs in the magic kingdom Tom treats it with all the seriousness of someone telling him Waystar’s in a brand new PR crisis. One of them gives him a crown they made out of pipe cleaners and he solemnly accepts it and then genuinely forgets to take it off until he goes to bed.

As they get older I think he stays very supportive and engaged in whatever their interests are. I don’t think he would miss a recital or a game unless there was really truly an emergency he absolutely had to deal with. He’s also, unfortunately, the kind of parent that needs to be involved in whatever their kid’s hobby is. If one of his kids is into dance he’s gonna be a dance mom. If it’s theatre he’s gonna be a theatre mom. If it’s little league he’s gonna try and coach from the sidelines. Once again other parents are going to hate him. I do think it reaches the point of being embarrassing for his kids, and every time they complain he backs off for about a week and then goes back to being just as bad as before.

When they host sleepovers (which is very often) Tom needs them to be objectively the best sleepovers. He buys too much junk food, and then he does the whole ‘okay lights out’ routine while fully aware the kids are sneaking out to the living room to watch TV and he lets them so that they can have the thrill of rebellion. When they do eventually fall asleep in front of the TV he goes out and throws blankets over everybody. Then he makes pancakes in the morning and lets them go absolutely hogwild on the whipped cream and candy, and sends them home with a sugar high. Once again. The other parents WILL hate him. (This is a major theme in Tom's life as a parent.) They will keep sending their kids for sleepovers though because he hosts SO often and it's basically free babysitting.

I think in high school when his kids start dating he’s gonna get weird about it. He is gonna be the dad who’s like “no one’s good enough for my little girl” except it’ll go for all his kids regardless of gender. He has obscenely high standards for his kids and no boyfriend or girlfriend is ever going to meet them. He does resign himself to this pretty early, and he doesn’t forbid them from dating because he knows how that ends, but when SOs come over for dinner they always feel kind of like he’s subtly death glaring them. He lets his kids invite their SOs to family vacations, which the kids think is great but the SOs are always mildly afraid he’s gonna murder them. The kids think they’re just being paranoid.

He also gives good, thoughtful advice. Once they hit high school he starts making a deliberate conscious effort to be the kind of parent they feel comfortable going to about tricky or uncomfortable things. He’s not always good at not immediately reacting emotionally if they tell him something upsetting or they’ve gotten into some kind of trouble, but he makes a real effort to be non-judgmental and open, and to take the approach of ‘okay, so that was a bad decision but now I’m gonna help you fix it’, so his kids do feel comfortable going to him, and they know to just wait out the initial emotional reaction until he gets a hold of himself (which he gets better at doing more quickly over time).

Also I think he’s AMAZING at dealing with breakups. When his kids dump or get dumped it’s all-out, ice cream on the couch, a weekend of whatever breakup movies are most gonna help them. He does immediately jump to the ‘I always though you were too good for them anyways’ which is sometimes kind of annoying, but it is well-intentioned so they let it slide.

I think he’s going to try to be super in-contact with his kids as adults. The whole ‘saw a snail today, effervescent’ meme will be him but with his kids. They don’t always answer his texts because he texts them literally all the time, but they will try to do an emoji react or something bc if he thinks they’re ignoring him he will just start texting more. He sends them memes he thinks are funny, or that they’ll find funny. They generally are not funny to them bc they’re very much Gen X memes, but they laugh react anyways. They go home to visit pretty regularly and Tom always makes a production of it, like they haven’t seen each other in AGES, even though actually they saw each other 6 weeks ago at their cousin’s wedding wedding and then 4 weeks before for somebody’s birthday, and also they’re coming back to visit again 3 weeks just because they’re gonna be in town for work reasons.

And finally - he’s gonna cry when they go to college. He’s also going to cry when they graduate. And he’s going to cry at their weddings. And he’s going to cry when they get their first job and on their eighteenth birthdays and if they move out of the state and just. At literally any life event that reminds him that they’re getting older and leaving the nest. Not full on weeping, but definitely the kind of almost-crying we saw during his wedding toast. They all know to just pretend they don’t see it because he gets weird and defensive if you draw any attention to it.

#I got kinda carried away with this #I should’ve gone to bed a while ago but daddy Tom is just. SO precious to me #also he would definitely give his kids pretentious names from greek mythology

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recreancyrpg · 2 years

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WELCOME TO RECREANCY, BEE!

You have been accepted for the role of GWENOG JONES!

Diplomacy had never been Gwen’s strongsuit. She was more of a wildfire than a peaceful hearth to study beside. She was able to blow off steam by means of Quidditch. But after the Death Eater attack, that outlet has been stolen from her. So fighting back against the people who stole flight from her… it drives her. But it also puts the blinders up, it makes her sole focused at times. She needs to be reminded every once in a while that life is to be lived, not charged through with one sole focus.

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Bee (She/Her)

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE: EST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I am on the dash at some point almost every day at some point because writing owns my entire soul and I am trash for rp and plotting. So I guess very active? Very active.

ANYTHING ELSE: BRING ON THE ANGST. Also I’ve been rping for I think somewhere in the realm of 8 or 9 years on tumblr? I’ve lost count. Most of those have been in RPGs, and here is a link to one character that I still write on and off even though the group has since closed just as like… proof of RPGing. Idk. Also I’m a Hufflepuff if I were in a Hogwarts house.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Gwenog Jones

AGE: 20

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis Female, She/Her pronouns, Disaster Bisexual.

BLOOD STATUS: Half-Blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Ravenclaw

ANY CHANGES: N/A

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Gwen is good at tracking down answers. She always has been like that. When she couldn’t get the answer from a person, she would turn to a book. When she couldn’t get the answer from a book, well then someone had better start talking otherwise they would be ENDLESSLY badgered until she got her answers. As a result, one of her greatest strengths is her tenacity. She is driven by that determination in all things — hence the reason Professor Slughorn had thought she would have been better placed in Slytherin. And while, yes, Gwen had ambitions to see Quidditch change, to see women flying and playing and leading teams, she is driven more by the knowledge of the game to be the best. To know everything about something means you can fully understand it. Thus making you the best in the field.

As she’s gotten older, she’s gotten wise enough to know that not all answers lie in books. Some answers lie in the doing of a task. Quidditch practices were used as a learning tool — what to do in xyz situation. She could spend hours meticulously picking apart a scenario in her head days after having actually experienced it with the sole purpose of figuring out what made it work.

Gwenog’s greatest weakness might actually be her temper. It got her a detention or two when she was still in Hogwarts, and lost Ravenclaw a few points. But diplomacy had never been Gwen’s strongsuit. She was more of a wildfire than a peaceful hearth to study beside. She was able to blow off steam by means of Quidditch. But after the Death Eater attack, that outlet has been stolen from her. So fighting back against the people who stole flight from her… it drives her. But it also puts the blinders up, it makes her sole focused at times. She needs to be reminded every once in a while that life is to be lived, not charged through with one soul focus.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Gwen had been very close with her father, Lewis, when she was little. He was the magical one in the family, and he told her stories of Hogwarts. He told her about flying — he even took her flying when she was only two. But when he passed away, it felt like he took magic with him. She would go on to learn about him through her mother and through the things he left behind. Eventually, she would learn about Quidditch from a box of his old things and find his beaters bat, and she would go to Hogwarts determined to follow in his footsteps.

Gwen ended up being raised by her mother, Efa. A strong woman, an incredibly well educated woman, a professor of physics, of science. She instilled that gift of learning in Gwenog, the need to research and understand the world around her. As such, Gwenog went to muggle school and primarily existed in the muggle world. As such, when she got to Hogwarts, she felt very at home with students who came from the muggle world. Her magical family was a bit of a mystery to her — not that Gwenog really minded. She had her mum, and that was enough. Her mother’s world of science was something that Gwenog used on a regular basis with flying and quidditch — if she could understand the physics of flying, then she would know how to use it to her advantage. She’s still close with her mother, though she has tried to put some distance between the two of them for her mother’s safety.

OCCUPATION:

She got a job at Quality Quidditch Supplies on Diagon Alley — it drives her insane to be sitting that close to quidditch gear and not be able to play. But it pays… Hopefully, she’ll find a team that will let her coach, even given her age.

LIVING SITUATION:

In some little apartment on Diagon Alley — teeny tiny, but affordable. She might have a roommate? But obviously, this would take some sort of plotting.

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX:

Gwenog doesn’t necessarily have a specialty — once upon a time, she might have been able to fly things and people anywhere they needed. But now… Her specialty is dueling now. She’s good in a fight. But she’s probably feeling like she has to prove herself capable of being useful (which is, frankly, infuriating). Gwenog believes in the cause the Order is fighting for, but thinks they’re missing something. If they’ve been working as they have for so long and they’re still fighting the damn war, then clearly they’re doing something wrong. Yes, the Death Eaters are powerful, but so are they. If the Death Eaters are playing chess, then the Order has been playing checkers with a blindfold on this whole time. They need to start learning how to beat the bastards at their own game..

RELATIONSHIPS:

Gwenog has never been one to sit on what they think for politeness’ sake. She never hesitated when she was in Hogwarts, and she’d even cracked a few people with bludgers when her words were seemingly not enough. But if one has a friend in Gwenog Jones, then one has a friend who would literally take a bludger to the face for you. Those on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team knew that she treated her friends like her family. She wouldn’t hesitate to call them out when they were wrong, but she would also do whatever it took to help them when they needed it. But trust is something to be earned for Gwen.

I will say that Gwenog has probably gotten a lot gruffer and closed off since the Quidditch Attack. So when she looks at people like Wila who seems to look at people as pawns within a chess match that she can win, when she sees people who do stupid things like James, she can’t always stop her opinions from coming out of her mouth. And friendships, as such, get to be complicated.

I think Gwenog thinks James would have been better off had he simply thought with his Quidditch Brain rather than dumping his whole self and optimism into the Order. It was a stupid move. Sure, he’d been a good captain, but a good captain knows when to delegate, when to trust their players. I think she thinks that James lived in a world where he and his friends could be heroes, where they would win, and bad things wouldn’t happen to them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the world they lived in. And now, Potter is starting to learn that lesson

Gwen respects Wila, her playing of the Chess match… but as much as she respects Wila, Gwenog cannot help but see a bad thing waiting to happen. She sees a bit of herself in Wila — Gwenog before the fall. When she was flying free, when she forgot that bad things happened to people sometimes, and sometimes there was no amount of planning or evading that could stop it. That sort of boldness could get someone killed. As such, any friendship that might have existed there has grown rather tense

And then, there’s Felicity. A Slytherin — pardon her — another Slytherin in the Order. Gwenog doesn’t know what to make of her. She’s clever, she’ll give her that. And one hell of a dueler. And she’s also a muggleborn — though why the hell someone would lie about their blood status was beyond Gwen. She isn’t sure she can trust Felicity yet, but whether or not Gwenog likes it, Felicity is now a part of the team. And Gwen looks after her team.

Outside of the connections listed, I feel like Gwenog would still be close to fellow Quidditch players, especially fellow Ravenclaws she had played with once upon a time.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I love a good ship just as much as the next person, but I usually just go with the chemistry. I think Gwenog encountering romance would be an interesting thing, given how she’s changed since the Quidditch Attack. She has fortress walls up, and to see someone pull those walls down? *chefs kiss* immaculate.

INTERPERSONAL STRUGGLES:

I feel like Gwen definitely has problems with the people-ing thing. It’s a bit of a pain when you want to tell someone ‘hey, what you’re doing is dumb and is going to get you killed’ and they just get defensive about it. Yes! Sure. They’re at war. The ‘going to get you killed’ part comes with the territory. But Gwenog is in such a position that she is young, and while she isn’t as experienced as others, what she has experienced has shaped her so totally that she cannot easily change the lenses through which she views the world. Until the fact is proven to be untrue, she will hold to it.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

I am not going to lie, my sister has not stopped talking about this group and how much she loves it. And one of the last groups I was in was just… ripe with drama but not the good kind. As such, I was a little hesitant to put an application in, but the more she talked about it the more I wanted to apply. And then I saw Gwenog… and oops, I’m here. I loved her a lot.

PLOT DROP IDEAS (OPTIONAL): My brain is absolute soup right now because I am BINGE WRITING this thing, bUT give me a few days and I am sure something will pop into my brain.

ANYTHING ELSE?: HEADCANONS AND A PINTEREST BOARD!

This might be silly, but I think Gwenog used her dad’s beater’s bat for Quidditch the entire time she played. Even for the Harpy’s. When she got hit with that curse, the bat got destroyed in the fallout. She still has the pieces though.

Gwenog has the most ridiculously large Maine Coon in the world, and she’s named him Slinky as he tends to act like one every time she picks him up. He will yowl until she gives him treats or holds him like the big baby he is.

If Gwen was in a relationship at all given the busy nature of Quidditch, I think that that relationship might have come to an abrupt end after the attack on the Quidditch game. She still cares about the person in question, but she was in too much pain, and she refused to be seen as anyone’s burden while she was still figuring out who she was without her life’s passion. If that relationship ever starts over again is really out of Gwenog’s hands- and frankly, with being involved in the Order, that’s just one more thing for her to worry about.

Gwenog isn’t sure what curse hit her during the attack. It all happened too fast. Whatever it was, it sent her flying off of her broom, already in pain, and toppling down, down, down... The mediwixes that saved her said she was lucky to be alive. She still has scars from where the curse hit her, as well as the marks from the fall that damn near broke her body. It was worse than any bludger that had ever hit her. Magic and potions could put things back together, but not perfectly. Not for that much damage.The worst of the damage was, ironically, not on her wand hand, but to the other side of her body. Her left arm still gets stiff from time to time, and she walks with a bit of a limp that she’s tried (and failed) to smooth out.

PINTEREST BOARD

Thank you for taking the time to read this! :)

#recreancyaccepted #gwenog jones app

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knowlessman · 22 days

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…idk, world heroes mission ig (bnha movie 3)? not clear on whether the Hawks minisode thing is before or after it so I guess I'll watch it after

"quirk doomsday…" k so they don't like quirks, they're like the non-bender faction in korra. Still kinda feels weird tbh when you got powered folks and non-powered folks and they make a faction that stands up for non-powered people and then make them unambiguously evil. Granted, I'm making assumptions because this group is ticking every box on the "evil cult aesthetic" checklist. -- "we, pure humans…" you, sir, are a vedalken. …uh, that is to say, blue. you are blue.

ho shit they got a death star? …oh, sewer gas or summat -- …a… mutagen thingy? no, it's boosting quirks… -- "you don't have a quirk, do you? and you didn't happen to randomly get murdered by the twenty-odd major disasters we just set off that demolished half the city. congrats, prolly half the people you know are dead but some of them had powers so it's fine"

"ohey, we don't have a hero from egypt yet" copies some clipart "there, now we do"

…WHAT??? HOW LONG HAS HE HAD THIS ALT SKIN? should I have got a few episodes in first? gawd, figuring out anime movie timing is flat-out impossible

ohey it's that guy from this movie that people like

dang, the animators are showing tf off with this chase stuff. the parkour's almost reminding me of mirror's edge 'XD -- pfft, then he just casually rail-grinds down a staircase bc I guess his quirk is being from a tony hawk game

why do I have the annoying feeling I should be recognizing this eyepatch gu - wait. spends ten years scrolling thru his own tumblr looking for his comments from the first movie okay eyepatch guy KIND OF sometimes has a similar face to the, I think, swordkil guy from the first movie, but the hair is not even close, nvm -- um. …shit what was even happening. marcellus wallace's soul, right. cept I think it was a jewelry store, so more like his pinkie ring?

ah k, so rody rhodepecker gets wallace's soul cuz he thought it was the gems he'd had before, so now rody's in the main plot and I guess eyepatch is dead and the chipmunks are gonna have fewer dolls to pick up -- (deku and rody fight over the case and it falls open) marcellus wallace's… tax returns?

"we gotta move somewhere safer. I know! THE TOP OF A MOVING TRAIN is the perfect place to set down this civilia - " okay fine, "suspect"

what kinda topsy-turvy world is this where midoriya gets on a country's most wanted list before God Explosion Murder? …I forget, Bakugo STILL never got hisself a hero name, right?

ah, so the local gov is all in the doomsday cult. …eyepatch seemed to think those papers were important, but deku found nothing of interest, why does everybody want marcellus wallace's tax returns? I guess it's got important inside cult info in code?

"he's going to klayd. bakugo, come on, we have another country we need you to endanger" -- you know you're important when they assign the stelfiest cops on the force to tail you. todoroki and bakugo better find a corner to walk around if they wanna lose these guys

not the sharpest rat on the street, this rody, huh. also, deku's a heavy sleeper apparently. had his hand all over that case and rody was able to just slide it away with no problem. -- you, sir, are an inuyasha villain

-- ("why did you protect me?") "saving people with a smile" is never gonna stop feeling like a brand slogan to me.

…okay, road trip montage ig. good stuff ig. -- "you have a quirk, right?" deku you were fucking born without a motherfucking quirk what the hell kind of a question is that. anyway clearly the farting bird is rody's quirk

(rody gets blasted off a cliff then ice jets show up and idfk stuff) wowee, dangit guys, you're makin me dizzy with the camera zipping all over the damn place -- under the blades bakugo UNDER THE FUCKING BLADES THAT HELI IS GONNA MAKE A SMOOTHIE OUTTA YOU HAVE YOU NEVER WATCHED AN INDIANA JONES MOVIE -- …well damn, Green Arrowette, dramatic enough?

aha, a sneakret compartment -- and obviously it's the puzzle toy from rody's childhood because cults are all about getting the kids involved -- bet the cult woulda loved it if rody had solved it way back when and fucking swallowed the data chip. …random question, where does nintendo get off putting an entire game in a choking hazard just because they can? irresponsible af

"I'm one of the scientists that the cult kidnapped yadda yadda yadda plot stuff final message" and. and they just. plugged this into a computer and hit play. with the speakers on. in a hotel lobby or wevertf this is. with civilians watching tv. FIVE. FEET. AWAY.

bakugo: "only an idiot would make a key without telling you where the door was! where's the place with no bombs… there! that's where their base is!" BULL. SHIT. BAKUGO. IS A HACKER. also bullshit because didn't the first bomb go off literally a hundred feet directly above their base? -- "I'm working on it, damn nerd!" - hackugo the hackerman who apparently is the only computer literate person in the room

okay these wobbly giggly sword-whip guys bakugo's fighting, them I kinda like tbh, designwise at least. …I guess because they just remind me of so many soul calibur characters at once 'XD

"they told me they'd stop the Otheon bomb if I give them the key" okay ten trillion percent he's faking this time, right? …right? -- ohhh, eddie soul. I musta been barely listening to… uh. um. eyepatch guy's audio log 'XD -- "my quirk is that silly pink bird with the mask that farted on you earlier" -- "and also dodging really good" - ohp, okay, not dodging good enough tho

HIS QUIRK IS THE FARTBIRD I WAS FUCKING JOKING. I mean like cool he has a ranger animal companion ig, hell, Minsc has kind of the same thing going for him and he ruined at least one Magic format with it

(bakugo finally won his match)(todoroki is still drowning) freeze the water dumbass, damn -- oh wouldja lookit that, he froze the water

"his quirk has a limit!" I mean, I guess. wobbuffet's only got so much hp. …I swear to god this guy was probably literally and actually and in fact based directly off of wobbuffet, it would explain everything about his visual design -- "you gave up on trying to get people to like you, heroes never give up" deku please just shut the fuck up and finish this fight, every single time you try to say something to somebody about their backstory, you just come off as an ignorant dickhead

"there's no explosion…" marvin martian: "where's the society-shattering kaboom?"

(the fartbird plugged the thing in, probably ages ago) go for the eyes, Boo! the one in texas goes off anyway because the power grid failed again and the disarm code didn't get transmitted to the bomb

oh goody, the not-corrupt police officers arrested the one that was. he was definitely the only bad apple in the bunch, yessiree

…ayup. movie movied. villain had paper-thin motive compared to all for one's easy-to-grasp god complex or the actual literal nightmare that is tomura's, but wever. and rody's fun.

the Hawks Soothe thing is five minutes, huh. -- I think bakugo listening to todoroki's "write 'people' on your hand then eat it" thing is the first hint of character development for bakugo I've seen in maybe this whole WHAT in the FUCK is THAT supposed to be

-- hawks just casually strolling up wearing the carpet from the Shining

jesus christ my guy, this is why they knew to put you in that hannibal mask

okay so this was literally just a prologue of them clowning around in the airport for a couple minutes and I shoulda watched it first, I had them in the right order in my notes. …dammit

anyway, on to s6 ig - wait no apparently there're two OVA bonus episode thingies for s5? huh, it's them playing baseball. lol shoji's got three bats in the cover image 'XD

#knowless watches bnha

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kvetchinglyneurotic · 5 months

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Do you have a process with your writing? It’s so good

Thank you! In practice it's not quite as neatly divided into steps, but the writing process basically looks like this:

Step 1: an idea approaches

I'm going about my day when suddenly I'm struck by a scene, a bit of dialogue, or — and these are usually specific to original fic ideas — a setting/magic system/historical event. Fanfic ideas can also come from questions about canon: The Hedgehog's Dilemma started with me asking myself 1) how Jamie would react to something like Wembley in season 1, and 2) how the relationship he's shown to have with Georgie in season 3 fits with what he says/is implied about it at the ghost bonfire.

Step 2: the world and characters

This step is definitely a bigger part of the writing process for original fic — this is where I flesh out the setting, the history, cultures, laws, and magic systems, draw the maps, create broad strokes character profiles, ect. — but it is also part of the writing process for fanfics, although it usually happens concurrent with or after step 3. The fanfic version is basically making a note of the timeline, coming up with or deciding on an interpretation of character backstories (depending on how much canon evidence there is), and just generally making sure I have a clear idea of who everyone is, what motivates them, how they see the world, ect.

Step 3: plot and character arcs

Before I start outlining, I let the fic percolate in my mind for a couple of days. If it didn't already happen during ideas phase, this is when I figure out what I'm trying to say thematically and get a sense of how the handful of scenes or the premise I have floating around would fit into a story. Once I have the main plot beats, and ending, and character arcs for the leads, it's outlining time.

Step 4: turn step 3 into an outline

If I already have a pretty good idea of the plot, I just get right to it and write all the scenes into a checklist, which is divided by chapters if it's not a one-shot. If I'm still working out some of the finer plotpoints, I write out everything I have so far in a list and then break that down into scenes. My outlines are usually general descriptions of a scene with notes on dialogue or the characters' emotions, and I'm not really strict about following it as I write, although I will go back and rework the outline if things are really going in a different direction than anticipated.

Step 5: write

For me, a lot of writing is about momentum: I enjoy it when I'm doing it regularly but I have a hard time getting back into it if I've taken a break, so I try to write every day, which I accomplish this by having a very low daily goal of 300 words. I'll often write more than that, but it's low enough to feel achievable when I'm busy or tired or just don't feel like it. Otherwise, my writing process is just to go through my outline in order and check off scenes as they're done.

Step 6: edit 😕

When I write fiction, I'll usually edit a chapter once or maybe twice before I post it. In my academic life, however, a solid 40% of the writing process is just editing, so here's how I do that in case anyone is looking for an editing process:

The read through: after I finish writing, I let it sit for a day if I have time, then read the entire thing. I'll usually fix minor grammar/spelling mistakes just to keep myself paying attention, but the goal here is to make note of structural problems. Is there a natural flow between scenes/ideas? Are there any parts that are repetitive or extraneous or, alternatively, is there anything missing?

Structural edit: fix the things I noticed on the read through.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until I'm satisfied

Line edit: this is where I clean up the writing itself — spelling, grammar, making sure there's variation in sentence structure and word choice, ect.

#asks #writing advice #i know writing out of order works really well for a lot of people but alas i am not one of them #kvetch oc

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bmaxwell · 1 year

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Hogwarts Legacy

Any discussion of this game has to address the transphobic elephant in the room. I’ve moved this bit to the end of this post.*

Much like Respawn with 2019′s Jedi Fallen Order, Portkey Games did the impossible with Hogwarts Legacy. They took an IP I was fatigued with and made a wonderful game in that universe. Both managed to be successful by being confident enough to tell a story in their world without going overboard referencing the movies and books we know.

The game is what you’d expect: you are a new student at Hogwarts, you get sorted into your house,*** you attend classes, befriend fellow students, and there is something special about you. You spend a lot of time exploring Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And the scope and detail of the school are dazzling. The school feels massive, with clever little secrets and details around every corner. There are no empty, lifeless corridors to pad out the space. I wasn’t surprised at the level of polish and detail with the school, but I was still impressed by it.

What DID surprise me is how much time I spent away from the school grounds. I figured they’d include Hogsmeade, but I didn’t expect a huge, sprawling countryside. There are some cool things hidden out there, and some checklist-y, videogame-y stuff (Hello, Merlin trials). But that doesn’t matter, because you get a broom. And flying feels so good that the traversal never feels like a chore. I probably spent 50% of my time away from the school.

All of that world building doesn’t mean anything without fun gameplay and good writing, and this game has both in spades. The main story isn’t anything unexpected, but it’s well written and kept me engaged throughout my time with the game. The plot summary of “You are quelling a goblin uprising” definitely raised an eyebrow, given the parallels between goblins and Jewish people in the books. Goblins are greedy, hunched little hook-nosed guys that run the Gringott’s Bank. The wizarding world doesn’t allow them to have wands because they don’t trust them, but they’re forced to have an uneasy alliance with them because, well, they control all the money.

...yeah.

Thankfully the game’s writers did a great job with this story. The writing is thoughtful, and the game treats any LGBTQ characters as a normal part of the world, nothing more. The goblins aren’t all painted as inherently evil monsters, and there are plenty of human witches and wizards casting their lot with the baddies here. On top of that, the game doesn’t treat the students from each house as caricatures. You interact with plenty of classmates from each house, and they all feel like regular people. You see some shades of the traits we associate with the houses, but they’re not being shouted through a bullhorn.

There are a few ways Hogwarts Legacy falls short of bringing the fantasy of attending Hogwarts to life. First, there are no familiars in the game; my guess is that this was cut in the interest of time. It would have been a nice touch. Second, there is no curfew in the world of Hogwarts Legacy. A big part of the fiction is the tension of being out of bed after hours, getting up to no good and the looming terror of being caught. The last, and most jarring one to me, is the handling of the world’s “Unforgivable Curses.” In the fiction, these are portrayed as being cruel, torturous, and well...unforgivable. Using one is a BIG DEAL. In Hogwarts Legacy they are sitting in your spellbook alongside spells that set fire to your enemies, freeze them, slash them, slam them repeatedly into the ground, and more. It feels like distinction without difference.

That said, the game does make getting these (optional)** spells an ordeal where you must inflict some pain (or be the victim of said pain). I’m not sure there’s a better way to go with it. In fact, the game is better for not having a curfew. As much as it would fit the flavor of the game world, the game would be decidedly worse if you had to watch a clock and worry about getting back to your dorm before curfew. The compromises the team made with the fiction was in service of making a fantastic video game that is still evocative of the book series I once loved.

There is so much in the game that you can engage with at your leisure, as much or as little as you like. There are hidden nick-nacks around the school you can collect to get a baller set of robes. You can take part in broom races to upgrade your brooms. You get your own room of requirement where you can grow plants, brew potions, and even breed animals. You can learn new spells by attending classes. There’s a dueling club.

In a delightful mash of good stuff, the game’s side stories are the highlight. Amit, Poppy, Natsai, and Sebastian all felt like real, fleshed out characters. I loved pursuing their side stories. Sebastian Sallow’s story was particularly moving for me. Sometimes you can see the heartbreak coming a mile away, but that doesn’t do much to diminish it.

And while combat isn’t amazing, it remains fun, challenging, and manageable throughout. They even implemented a parry system that a slug like me can work with. There’s a fair bit of freedom in the spells you choose to handle yourself with in battle. Again, not the highlight, but it doesn’t drag the experience down either.

Every aspect of Hogwarts Legacy hits. It’s a shame that it has Rowling’s stink on it, and that the entire discourse around game boiled down to jumping to conclusions and then picking a side for so many people. It’s a special, memorable game that I won’t soon forget.

*I believe JK Rowling has been actively harmful to the transgender community. I think this comes from a place of damage and pain from her past experiences. I can sympathize with that, but it does not excuse it. The “I don’t hate trans people, I just really really love CIS women” thing rings hollow to me; it’s similar to the tired excuse of every racist-in-denial I’ve ever heard from. She is a rallying point for hateful people who want to eradicate a marginalized community of people who just want to be free to live their lives.

How do I square my feelings toward Rowling with financially supporting her by purchasing this game? First, she was not involved in writing it. Second, JK Rowling is going to die fabulously wealthy regardless of the success or failure of any future Harry Potter projects. I’m glad I played Hogwarts Legacy, it’s a smart, thoughtfully written game. Also JK Rowling can shit and fall in it.

**Optional? I think the unforgivable curses are optional...

***The game suggests one, but ultimately just lets you choose. #Ravenclaw

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seasteading · 3 years

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so you're missing a plot

over the course of my 3+ years on writeblr and some time on writing twitter, i’ve noticed that a lot of people can come up with characters and worldbuilding, but then get stuck on creating a compelling plot around those characters. so, here are a few tips that have helped me, and that i hope will help you too!

note: this will apply mostly to fantasy and sci fi, since that's what i write and what tends to have more plot-heavy storylines.

these are also all my opinions! you don’t have to listen to any of this—all of these are tips that i’ve used in my own experience, and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you.

tone

this is one of the first things you want to decide. even within the same genre, you’re going to have a lot of variety in tone and atmosphere. the kind of plot that works for a fun fantasy adventure romp might feel odd and out of place for a darker fantasy with an emphasis on political intrigue. to figure out what kind of tone works best for your wip in particular, you want to look back at your characters. writing is a massive investment of time and energy, so you want to go in a direction that’s actually interesting to you. this is the very first step, and will help you decide what direction you end up going, and will most importantly give you a hint towards what ending will best suit the story you’re trying to tell. if you go with a more lighthearted tone, then suddenly having a tragic ending won’t make any sense since it’s the equivalent of a bait-and-switch. the same applies for having a darker tone—a happily ever after where everyone lives and gets therapy won’t necessarily fit.

worldbuilding

worldbuilding is important of course, but it doesn’t need to be completely developed before you start coming up with a plot. in fact, you should try to avoid dumping all of your time into worldbuilding, and instead get the basics down before moving onto the plot. i’m sorry to say it, but you’re not tolkien. you will never be tolkien, and you don’t have to aspire to be like him either. you don’t want to write yourself into a plothole because something in your worldbuilding ends up conflicting with the story, so generally it’s good to have a little bit of wiggle room. sometimes you also run into a situation where the plot itself inspires an important piece of worldbuilding that makes the story richer and more interesting. your worldbuilding is there to enrich your plot and inform your character motivations, not the other way around. however, you do want to establish any rules your world has before getting into the plot, since breaking them can itself become a driving factor in characters and their arcs. this is especially common in fantasy, where a frequent premise lies in the fact that everybody can’t use magic while the protagonist can, or the other way around. this isn’t a plot quite yet, but it can be a good starting point.

character driven vs. plot driven

you will also need to decide the main focus of your story. character-driven writing is common in literary fiction and shorter works, and it’s focused specifically on the internal conflict within characters, as well as their thoughts and personal arcs. few external events are going to happen in character-driven stories, which tend towards more towards slice-of-life where not much really happens but you’re still invested due to the characters. plot-driven writing puts emphasis on (you guessed it!) the plot, and this is a lot more common for longer works. the two can and do certainly overlap, but most works tend to lean a bit more one way or the other, and you can determine this by asking whether you’re more interested in the characters as people or in what happens to them.

motivation

so now that you have an idea of the direction you want to go, how do you actually come up with your plot? no matter if your story is character driven or plot driven, you still need compelling characters, and one way to find your plot is to look at their motivations. every one of your characters should have something they want to achieve or to obtain. your character’s want is going to be their main driving motivation. something is wrong in their life—if it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t be writing this story—and they think that obtaining what they want will fix it. this can be a macguffin-style quest for an object/place/person, the desire to climb the social ladder, solving the mystery behind a disappearance, etc. at this point, i would recommend taking a look at media with similar character motivations to yours and dissecting them to see what works and what doesn’t. you want to be genre-savvy and know what tropes are common to the type of story you’re telling.

gay is not a plot

repeat after me. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. there should be something to your wip’s plot other than “they’re gay, what more do you need?” (see this post). a romance isn’t going to be interesting if the characters aren’t interesting on their own, and that requires them to actually have their own motivations which (see motivation) themselves create the basis for a plot! in that same vein, having representation shouldn’t function as your plot or your primary selling point. representation should be a given, and making that the only descriptor for your work essentially boils down your characters to just their marginalization.

retellings

i know retellings of fairytales, myths, and shakespeare’s plays have gotten really popular, especially as of late. retellings are a great starting point since they already give you a base off which to work with, and instead of having to come up with all of your concepts from scratch, it becomes a question of putting your own spin on them. these tend to require some knowledge of the genre and common tropes, which you should have regardless of whether you’re writing a retelling or not. here, instead of having characters and a world first and a plot second, you’re working backwards from an existing work to reinterpret the characters and world surrounding a common plot. the important thing to note is that just because you have a starting point doesn’t mean that your work is done—i’d recommend researching other variations of the story you’re retelling and cataloguing similarities and differences, what works and what doesn’t, and moving things around/restructuring them depending on the changes you yourself want to make in your retelling.

prompts

i actually wouldn’t recommend relying on generators and prompt lists for your plots, since they tend to be extremely vague and difficult to get invested in, since you weren’t the one to come up with them. prompts can be really good for sparking inspiration, though, and once you get an idea for a few scenes, you can build off of them to figure out what circumstances lead to each one and what the pivot points are. prompts are a useful tool, but shouldn’t be used as the basis for your entire story.

final thoughts

if you’re here that means you’ve made it to the end of this behemoth of a post, and hopefully something here was helpful! at this point you should be able to find a premise, but it’s important to note that a premise is not a plot. here is where the real work begins—interweaving your characters and worldbuilding with your storyline, figuring out if there are any holes in your cast or if there are a few darlings you need to cryogenically freeze for now. you don’t need to fill in all of your plotholes; that’s a problem for when you actually have a draft down and more material to work with. for now, focus on creating a storyline that’s interesting to you. most importantly, don’t try to force it. you don’t want to treat a plot as a trope checklist, but instead let it come naturally so it actually fits the story your characters are made to tell.

#long post #anyway #r.writing #writeblr #writeblr advice #again take all of this with a grain of salt AHSDFKJLHASF

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yelena-bellova · 3 years

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Safe Haven: tfatws!Bucky Barnes x fem!reader - Chapter Two

chapter one -Chapter Two: According To Plan - chapter three

Series Masterlist

Plot: Y/n and Sam leave for Munich, gaining the surprise addition of Bucky Barnes to their team.

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader, Sam Wilson x platonic!reader

Warnings: spoilers for ep.2, language, violence, squint for fluff in between all the chaos, Y/n and Bucky ain’t feeling each other yet, protective big brother Sam, nobody likes Walker

Word Count: 7.5k (ya’ll, we had to split episode 2 into two chapters because I use too many words lol)

A/N: OKAY, thank you to everybody for supporting the first chapter. I didn’t really think anything would come of it but I was clearly wrong. Hopefully you enjoy this one just as much, each episode will probably be divided into two chapters if the rest of the season continues on like it is.

----

The government hadn’t just failed Sam, they were rubbing his face in the fact that they thought their knockoff Captain America was a better candidate than him.

I followed my brother down the halls of the New Orleans air force base, trying to ignore the paraphernalia that hung on the walls. John Walker was everywhere you looked; the internet, televisions, posters were plastered all over the city announcing his new appointment. Each time I had to read the words ‘Cap Is Back’ I became a little sick to my stomach. Sam stopped in front of me once we’d reached the hanger to stare at one of the posters. Though he tried to keep his face neutral, the sadness bled through in his eyes.

“Seems like a good guy. You met him?” a man who I assumed was Sam’s military contact asked.

“No,” Sam answered before changing the topic, “Thanks for doing this on such short notice.” “Yeah, no sweat. I’m just finishing up the checklist, you two’ll be all good to go once you land in Munich,” he looked to me and reached a hand for me to shake, “Joaquin Torres.” “Y/n Y/l/n. Thanks for not making any noise about me coming along for the ride.”

“Hey, I trust an Avenger’s judgement on who to bring to a fight,” he smiled, stopping at the top of the steps to allow me to go before himself.

I elbowed Sam as we descended the stairs side by side, “Hear that? You’ve got good judge- why’re you making that face?” Before he could answer, a foreign voice announced its presence. “Shouldn’t have given up the shield.”

My eyes fell to the floor below us and climbed the looming figure waiting at the end of the staircase. I didn’t need to have any history lessons on who he was or why he’d come to talk to Sam about such a subject. James Bucky Barnes, the second 100+ year old man to walk the earth without a single wrinkle. The tragic tale of HYDRA’s bloodthirsty history. The man Sam had fought to protect and been sent to prison for.

“Good to see you too, Buck,” Sam passively greeted the man, swerving around his body to continue on our path to the jet. The hint wasn’t taken.

“This is wrong.”

“Hey, hey, look, I’m working, alright? So all this outrage is gonna have to wait.” Bucky fell into step on the other side of Sam, pointing towards yet another poster of John Walker, “You didn’t know that was gonna happen?”

“No, of course I didn’t know that was gonna happen,” Sam’s tone became more emotional, “You think it didn’t break my heart to see them march him out there and call him the new Captain America?” “This isn’t what Steve wanted,” Bucky pushed. Sam was growing tired of the questioning, “What do you want me to do? Call America and tell ‘em I changed my mind? Huh? Yeah, right. It’s a great reunion, buddy, be well.” “You had no right to give up that shield, Sam.” I could no longer stay silent and let him try and make a good man feel guilty. “Okay, you’re out of line with that one, Barnes.” Bucky finally took a second to register my being there before looking back to Sam, “Who the hell is this?” “She’s none of your concern, but let me tell you what you’re not gonna do,” Sam stood in front of Bucky, “You’re not gonna come here in your overextended life and tell me about my rights. It’s over, Bucky. Besides, I have bigger things to deal with now.” Emotions I couldn’t fully understand took over Bucky’s face, “What could be bigger than this?”

Sam fished his phone out of his back pocket and held it up to the Super Soldier, “This guy. His connections with rebel organizations all over Eastern and Central Europe and he’s strong. Too strong.” “And?” Bucky asked, unimpressed.

“Well, he’s been connected to this online group called the Flag Smashers. Now, Redwing traced them to a building somewhere outside of Munich so that’s where I’m going,” Sam turned to me to signal we were walking again.

“Well, I don’t trust Redwing,” Bucky continued his pursuit, “Hold on a minute.” “You don’t have to trust Redwing,” Sam said firmly as we paused again, “But I’mma go see if he’s right. ‘Cause I have a feeling they might be a part of the Big Three.”

Bucky’s eyebrows lowered in confusion, “What ‘Big Three?’”

“The Big Three.”

“What Big Three?” “Androids, aliens and wizards,” I answered before Sam could. “That’s not a thing,” Bucky shook his head. “That’s definitely a thing,” Sam nodded. “No, it’s not.” “It really is,” I set my bag down on the ground and crossed my arms, there was no indication we’d be leaving any time soon.

“Every time we fight, we fight one of the three,” Sam insisted.

“So who are you fighting now, Gandalf?”

Sam inhaled to continue arguing before snapping his head back in surprise, “How do you know about Gandalf?” “I read The Hobbit,” Bucky answered confidently, “In 1937 when it first came out.”

“So you see my point?” “No, I don’t. There are no wizards.” I pointed to Bucky and tilted my head towards Sam, “Now there, I agree with him.” Sam looked offended that I didn’t automatically back him up, “You both are wrong…Doctor Strange.” “Is a sorcerer,” Bucky finished.

“Aah!” Sam laughed and poked Bucky’s firm chest, “A sorcerer is a wizard without a hat. Think about it, right? I’m right. I just came up with that, it’s crazy.” Bucky’s face read that he was thousand shades of done with Sam’s childish argument, even if he’d fought just as immaturely. I was beginning to see why Sam didn’t recount his brief time spent with the ex-Winter Soldier that fondly but I’d also forgotten how easy it was to push Sam’s buttons sometimes. There was some unwitting dynamic between them that I didn’t want to be in the middle of. “So glad we’re wasting valuable time on arguing over whether or not Harry Potter’s real,” I spoke up, tapping my foot out of impatience.

Sam was the first to snap back to reality, “That’s not the point. These guys aren’t magical, alright? They use brute force just like you, the incredibly annoying guy in front of me with the staring problem,” he reached down to grab my bag and hand it to me, “Let’s move.” “I’m coming with you,” Bucky called, the sound of his combat boots hitting the hanger floor behind us. “No, you’re not,” Sam answered harshly. “Oh my gosh,” I groaned before dropping my duffle bag again on the tarmac and spinning around to face the two men, “I don’t know how you two could have possibly saved the day as much as people say you have if you’re always like this! You,” I pointed to Sam, “Stop trying to do this on your own. You,” I moved my finger towards Bucky, “No more talking about the shield. If anybody needs me,” I wiggled my fingers and let the blue energy lift my bag into the air, “I’ll be waiting in the jet.” ——

Bucky and Sam stood speechless as they watched Y/n march across the tarmac, her bag magically floating behind her. “Who is she?” “My sister, Y/n,” Sam answered, “I didn’t know she could do that till today. She twisted my arm until I agreed to let her come.” Bucky’s eyes hadn’t left Y/n since she took control and ended Sam and his bickering. There weren’t many people who met him for the first time and didn’t give him a second glance. If she was Sam’s sister then she sure as hell knew about his past. Yet here she was daring to order him around and advocate for him to join Sam and her on their mission. It also went without saying that she was gorgeous. But she had proven that she didn’t understand the seriousness in which the situation with the new Captain America needed to be treated with, and that irked him. Still, his feet automatically wanted to carry him to the jet once she’d headed up the ramp and he’d lost his view of her. “Can’t decide whether I like her or not.”

——

Not having a suit to wear, I had changed on the jet from my sweater, capris and sneakers to a black shirt, jeans, booties and my favorite blue leather jacket that matched the blue that flowed from my fingertips.

When I stepped out of the jet’s bathroom, I expected to find Sam and Bucky fighting again. The whole flight so far has been filled with the same tension that had begun in the hanger and we’d been sitting in uncomfortable silence ever since. I was sure that the second I left, they’d be going at it again like children when a parent disappeared. Instead, they were quietly sitting on opposite sides of the jet with their eyes trained on one another.

“Can you guys quiet down for a second?” I sarcastically remarked as I walked across the room, “I can’t hear myself think.”

I deposited my bag in the corner of the jet near where Torres was climbing down the ladder, “One minute to drop off, Sam.”

I expected to turn around and see both Sam and Bucky up and preparing themselves, but the two men were still embroiled in a stare down. Sam and I had always cheesed each other off in a typical sibling fashion, but Bucky and his relationship seemingly consisted of nothing but that.

Sam finally rose from his seat and Bucky quickly did the same, I brushed past him to stand on the other side of Sam. “So what’s the plan?” Sam ignored the question and handed me a small black device, “This is your comm, don’t lose it.” I nodded and placed the small ear piece in my ear, the faint hums of the jet coming through it.

With no direction from Sam, Bucky sat back down unhappily. “Great. So no plan?”

“Thirty seconds,” Torres shouted over the wind coming in from the open hatch.

“Enjoy your ride, Buck,” Sam remarked from beside me. “No, you can’t call me that.” “Why not? That’s what Steve called you.” “Steve knew me longer and Steve,” Bucky tilted his head to Sam, “Had a plan.”

I shook my head to shake off the ridiculousness of arguing nicknames at the moment. “I’m sorry, are we really playing the name game when we’re literally about to jump out of a plane? I get this is my first mission and all but- Bucky’s eyebrows shot up his forehead as he looked to Sam, “This is her first mission? What the hell were you thinking, bringing her?” “She,” I took a step towards Bucky, “Is more than capable of handling herself. First mission or 100th, I know what I’m doing, Barnes.”

“Fifteen seconds to drop!” Torres’ announcement ended any further arguing between me and Bucky.

“Listen to the woman,” Sam smirked as he put on his goggles, probably thinking back to a few hours ago when I’d body slammed him into the roof, “And I have a plan.”

“Really?” Bucky spread his arms out as we watched Sam walk away from us, “What is it?” Sam had already told me that he’d drop in first and I was to follow once he’d cleared the area. Bucky had not been privy to hearing that discussion and Sam had made no effort to fill him in. Without giving Bucky a second look, but winking at me, he dove headfirst out of the hatch and activated his wings, flying gracefully downwards towards the forest. I had never gotten to see him fly and felt a sense of pride as I looked out to see him glide above the trees.

“Where’s the chute?” Bucky called out.

“We’re at 200 feet, it’s too low for a chute,” Torres stated.

Bucky stalked towards the door, “I don’t need it anyway.”

“Neither will I,” I said, taking a step forward to see just how high we really were. I was confidant in my ability to keep up with Sam and wanted to prove my capability, but I was human. It went against every natural instinct to step out into the air and catch myself. Bucky moved to stand next to me, the two of us turning to face each other. This was the first time we’d actually made more than fleeting eye contact and I was finally able to get a good look at him. His features were sharp, his cheekbones and jaw were extremely prominent. Something more than scruff and less than a beard covered the bottom half of his face. His eyes were cerulean blue, just nearly matching the shade of my energy. Complete with a short, scruffy haircut, I wasn’t sure if handsome was a strong enough word for just how good looking James Barnes was.

“Ladies first,” Bucky nodded towards our exit, never breaking eye contact, “Sure you know what you’re doing?” I smiled smugly, matching the amount of sass radiating from his words, “Do you?”

Not wanting to give him the opportunity to think up a come back, I turned away from him and threw myself out of the plane. An unavoidable scream flew from my lips as I free fell, somehow managing in the chaos to threw my arms out at my sides and expel my energy to control my descent. Once I got a hold on maneuvering the winds, the act actually became almost enjoyable. I found myself laughing as I weaved between the trees, until my laughter was accompanied by a fast approaching scream above me. A shower of branches began to rain down around me forcing me to swerve to the side just in time for Bucky’s figure to come crashing through. He landed harshly on his back, limbs spread out and a pained groan escaping his lips.

I floated directly above him, “I stand corrected, you definitely know what you’re doing.” “I have all of that on camera. You know that, right?” Sam’s voice came through our comms. Redwing flew up from behind us and zoomed in on Bucky’s face.

“Get out of my face, Sam, or I’ll break it,” Bucky uttered, exhaustion filling his voice.

“Okay, head north. Come on.” I snickered at the exchange and lowered myself to the ground close enough to Bucky to extend him a hand. He accepted it and I helped pull him to an upright sitting position, trying to hide the fact that I struggled with his weight. “Thanks.” “Well, my mom taught me to always help my elders,” I said with a smirk, earning myself a scowl in response. “You’re as bad as Sam, aren’t you?” he moaned as he rose to his full height.

“Okay, okay,” I ceased my soft laughter, “I’m sorry. Seriously, are you okay? I know you’re a super soldier but still-” “I’m fine,” Bucky confirmed quickly, brushing the dirt from his jacket and turning north, “Let’s go.”

The two of us fell into a silence that wasn’t necessarily uneasy but certainly not relaxed. We weren’t enemies, we weren’t coworkers and we definitely weren’t friends. We’d spoken all of about five sentences to each other since meeting and none of them had been particularly chummy. “Sam only mentioned one sister,” Bucky broke the non-verbal spell.

“Sarah,” I stated, “We’re not technically related but they’re family. Sam told me he reached out to you and never got anything back. I think he was wondering how you were doing.” “Yeah, well…” he mumbled, stepping over a particularly large boulder and avoiding my gaze.

I decided not to push the subject, not only were we nearing the warehouse, Sam could hear us through the comms and Redwing. But I made a note of the lightning quick wave of emotion that crossed Bucky’s eyes. Sam was definitely a trigger for him, but I had a feeling this was something much more complicated. Something I didn’t have time to get too curious over.

We made it out of the forest and Redwing led us to the back entrance to the warehouse. The graffiti and wrecked roofing made me want to believe that nobody had been there in ages, but Sam’s intel contradicted the setting. My brother, the esteemed military man, was also contradicting his age as he maneuvered Redwing just above us to provoke Bucky into taking a swing at him. “Oh-ho-ho, don’t hurt him,” he teased as Redwing quickly avoided the assault.

Sam stood in the next room staring down at the screen on his wrist, scanning the building through Redwing’s camera. He took a quick look at me to assess that I hadn’t been injured in the fall before turning back.

“You’re doing the staring thing again,” he commented without looking up. That one I’d give him, Bucky’s smoldering stare game was intimidating especially when he wasn’t saying anything. “They’re in there,” Sam tilted his head towards the nearest open doorway and stretching his arm out so Bucky and I could see what Redwing was seeing. There was a truck with two people loading in containers of something.

“Where’s the guy?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t know. I think they’re smuggling weapons though.” “Well, I think you could be right,” Bucky’s voice lowered. “Hmm,” Sam nodded.

“But there’s only one way to find out,” Bucky turned towards the doorway, “I see a clear path, I say we take it.”

As soon as his boot hit the ground in its first step, Sam reached for his arm. “We’re not assassins.” “Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, observe from a distance rather than attack straight away?” I offered.

Bucky’s eyes flicked to me when I spoke and promptly back to Sam, throwing away my suggestion. He probably thought me naive. “I’ll see you inside or not.”

He pulled his arm out of Sam’s grip and went ahead, leaving Sam chuckling to himself. “Hey, come on, man. I’m just messing with you, come back,” he called softly. “‘I’m just messing with you,’ the Avengers’ official slogan,” I dryly jested, “Here I was thinking we were doing serious work. Is Redwing still surveying?” “Yeah,” Sam was still smiling to himself as he turned to watch Bucky stalk down the hallway, “Look at you. All stealthy. A little time in Wakanda and you come out White Panther.”

“It’s actually White Wolf,” Bucky responded in our ears.

“Huh?”

When we lost visual on Bucky, Sam snapped his fingers and nodded towards the hallway. We made our way through the various openings until we’d caught up, Sam held up a finger to his lips as we caught sight of Bucky and our steps became even softer.

“All right, I’m inside. Therefore way ahead of you,” Bucky bragged, turning back to where he thought we waited, “It’s not great but very doable.” His peripherals must have caught the red and white of Sam’s suit, he turned to see the two of us at his side. “Hello. How are you?” “Good. What did we miss? Nothing,” Sam replied.

“All right, let’s go,” Bucky moved to step forward again.

“No, wait,” Sam protested.

Bucky held up his prosthetic vibranium arm I had heard so much about. “I got a vibranium arm, I can take them.” “And I can fly, she can make things float, who gives a shit? Wait. I want to see where they’re going.” Bucky pointed towards the truck that was still being loaded, “There’s two people.”

“You only see two?” Sam started. “That’s what I saw,” Bucky confirmed.

“Let me see what Redwing sees.” “All right…” “Let’s see what Redwing sees…”

I held two fingers to my temple and rubbed, “My gosh, it’s like working with children.”

Sam fiddled with a few controls on the screen and activated the x-ray feature on his beloved drone, “Oh, look at that. How many people you see now? One, two…Oh, here it comes again.” Bucky sighed, unhappy to admit he was wrong, “Four. Five.” “Yeah, five.” “So they’re strong, whatever,” Bucky brushed off not only the math but our group’s capabilities. “Let’s go.”

“Barnes, wait,” I hissed as Sam reached out and took hold of his arm, his elbow hitting the metal shelves we were hiding behind and rattling something.

“Shit!” Sam whispered, he pulled me to his side to block me while Bucky ducked down. The group turned to investigate the noise but disregarded it at the lack of visible culprits. The trucks started and their doors were closed, each person getting into their designated vehicle. Sam started tapping on Redwing’s controller again, “There’s an eighth person. I think they have a hostage.”

With one look from Bucky, the three of us snapped into action. I raised myself into the air ahead of Sam who took off slightly behind me, looking down to see Bucky running impossibly fast. “Y/n, with me,” Sam called through the comms, I listened and hung back until he’d caught up. Bucky continued on his way until he’d climbed onto the back of the truck. I followed Sam’s lead as we flew to the side of the road.

“Shouldn’t we be helping him?” I asked as the two of us landed.

“They’re stealing medicine, vaccines,” Bucky’s voice filled my comm.

“He’s got it, we’re staying here and waiting for him to come back with the hostage. Then you and I are gonna keep following the trucks and see where they’re heading,” he explained, “I’m trying to keep you out of as much of the fight as I can.” “That’s the whole reason I came, Sam,” I argued, gesturing towards the road, “To help, to fight.”

“Bucky, talk to me,” Sam favored to ignore my desire to do dirty work, “What’s goin’ on?”

“Found the hostage,” he reported, followed only seconds later by a loud exclaim of “Shit!”

Adrenaline set every nerve alight in my body, something had gone wrong. Without asking for Sam’s permission I took off running down the road. I used my energy to lift towards the sky and flew the same way the truck’s had gone. Distantly, I heard Sam yell my name but made no effort to stop. “Barnes, talk to me,” I yelled over the winds I was flying against. As I spotted the trucks I saw the small silhouettes of figures standing atop one of them. Once I got closer, I could see that the one being aggressively pinned by two of them was Bucky. I landed on the vehicle’s roof just in time to see someone leap into the air, grab Redwing and break him with their knee. Between my want to help Bucky and my second hand protectiveness over Sam’s gear, I was pissed. The masked figure looked up at me, two brown eyes peeking out of eyeholes and marched forward, making me their next target. I created a ball of blue energy and aimed it at her, knocking her down but only for a second. She leapt towards me and landed a punch across my cheek, I went down with a groan and cradling my cheek. Now I was really pissed…

I opened an eye to see the shadow of Sam’s Falcon suit above me, he touched down on the truck and landed a kick to my assaulter’s abdomen. He quickly helped me to my feet as our enemy rose again and took a fight stance.

“Good of you to join the fight, Sam,” Bucky yelled before kicking one of his captors in the leg.

The person who had given me the shiner threw Sam aside to the second truck like he was weightless. She was far too small to be that strong, it was inhuman. I decided to hold back a little less and raised my hands toward her, extending waves of the blue energy and raising her up into the air. She struggled to try and escape my hold, grunting and groaning as she flopped around in the air. I was about to throw her into the trees when I was tackled from behind. We skidded towards the front of the truck till the boot of one of the thugs holding Bucky down hit me in the shoulder. Another masked figure, this one I suspected to be a man, had his arms wrapped tightly around my abdomen. He flipped me over and raised his head to slam into mine. Luckily he hadn’t thought to pin my arms down and his mistake allowed me to throw them in front of my face and create a force field that even the thickest of skulls couldn’t penetrate. I looked briefly to see Sam being pinned down as well on the second truck but couldn’t free myself to go help him.

And then, in a conflicting twist of events, a red white and blue shield came flying through the air.

As I struggled to keep the force field up and my arms locked, I made out an equally patriotic suited man throw the shield at the one who had punched me earlier. A second figure swung in from a helicopter and kicked her off the truck, leaving her clinging to the edge of the roof. The shield flew in the direction of the people holding Bucky down and hit one square in the back before bouncing back to its wielder. The guy holding me down was struck next and rolled right off of me, I sent a significantly bigger blast towards his chest that sent him flying off the back of the truck. Bucky reached down and helped me stand up, he pulled me out of the way when the shield came flying by our faces to hit his other attackers.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I panted.

John Walker stopped briefly to introduce himself to Sam, like he hadn’t been living rent free in our minds since that damned tv broadcast before sending the shield flying past Bucky and I again. As it bounced off our enemies and back towards Walker, Bucky’s metal hand snapped up to grab it only for Walker to retake it. The time for anger or sadness wasn’t now, though the forlorn expression on Bucky’s face said otherwise. I broke from him and launched myself across the gap between trucks to land near where Sam was being attacked. Bucky followed suit and we began taking out each person one by one till Sam stood and turned too fast, hitting and sending Bucky plus one of the masked thugs over the side of the truck. Sam and I turned to face our last attacker who was stalking toward us, Sam glanced over his shoulder quickly before looking back ahead. “When I say ‘now,’ you shoot up,” he ordered, “Now!” I blasted upwards and over the overhead road sign he’d known would hit our attacker. I was too high to drop down suddenly but watched as Sam touched back down on the truck to be punched off the truck, activating his wings and catching himself in the wind. I flew downwards and lined up with the side of the truck, searching frantically for Bucky while trying to dodge the cars to my left. Bucky was clinging for dear life to the underside of the truck. His attacker stomped his metal arm with his boot till Bucky lost his grip with it and it dragged along the road creating a flurry of sparks.

“Sam, what do we do?” I yelled into my comm. “Now when I say ‘drop,’ you drop.” “Are you insane?!” I screeched, looking down at the asphalt and trying to calculate how fast I may be going. “DROP!”

Putting the most trust I ever had in Sam, I stopped the energy flow and was tackled mid-air by him. I twisted in his arms to wrap my legs around one of his and my arms around his back. Without warning, he flew us under the nearest truck before letting go of me with one arm and tackling Bucky. I readjusted my grip to have one arm around both of them. We dropped out of the air and crash-landed, rolling like a grunting and groaning wheel through a field of yellow flowers. Eventually we ceased our tumbling with Bucky on top of Sam and me to the side still clinging to both of them.

“Could have used that shield,” Bucky ground out tauntingly in Sam’s face.

“Get off of me,” Sam strained, shoving Bucky off with another loud grunt. I rolled to his other side and coughed loudly, having had the wind knocked out of me during the crash. The three of us lay on our backs trying to regain our breath, Sam and I more than Bucky but I chalked that up to the fact that he was just as strong as the people we’d just gotten our asses handed to us by. “Those were all Super Soldiers, Sam,” he stated in awe.

“I know,” Sam confirmed, “You’re welcome, by the way.” He pushed himself up painfully on an elbow to lean over me, “Are you okay?”

I was finally starting to feel like I could get some semblance of a normal breath in. I’d have wished it was running around with AJ and Cass that would have showed me I was out of shape and not losing a fight to Super Soldiers. “‘Big Three’ my ass, Wilson,” I wheezed, making no effort to sit up yet.

“I said ‘might be’,” Sam weakly fought, “‘Might be.’ Clearly I was wrong.”

“Will wonders never cease?” Bucky winced as he sat up, “We need to get to the airport and reformulate.” “Oh, do we now? Do we need to reformulate?” Sam mocked from the ground, “I hadn’t thought of that yet, Bucky, what an incredible-“ I groaned loudly and forced my torso up, “Dear God above, if you two don’t stop acting like twelve year olds, I’ll catch a Delta flight home.” “Good, that’s where I wanted you,” Sam reprimanded as he rose to join me, “I told you if you took some stupid risk, you were going back home and what did you do? You took off on your own towards those trucks!” “I was trying to help him,” I threw my hand out towards Bucky, “One way or another I would have gotten hurt, Sam, whether I’d have waited for you or not. And now that I’ve actually seen what we’re dealing with? No way am I going home.” I rolled onto my knees and got to my feet, my muscles aching with each movement I made to stand in front of the two men. “When you two decide to start acting like adults, I’ll meet you back at the jet.”

Holding in each groan that wanted to escape my mouth, I started my trek back towards the road, not making it very far until I heard two pairs of footsteps behind me.

We walked that way for most of the way, Sam and Bucky muttering something every once in a while to each other and me ahead of them trying to wrap my head around the situation. I had gotten myself tangled in the world of super soldiers, ones who weren’t using their advanced capabilities to save the world from one of the actual Big Three. Not only that but we’d had the displeasure of being rescued by the person the three of us had wanted to see least in the world. I had started the day out having coffee with Sarah on our back porch and by eastern standard time zone’s definition was ending it in Germany mid-afternoon with a killer bruise developing on my cheek. Whatever I had expected to come from joining Sam, it sure as hell wasn’t this.

A car honk summoned me out of my thoughts, an open roofed vehicle came up beside me and I was quick to identify the passengers. John Walker and the helicopter soldier.

“So that didn’t go as planned, huh?” Walker attempted to make friendly conversation, specifically with Sam and Bucky but I could sense I was also welcome to answer. I didn’t cease my movements and neither did Sam and Bucky which only caused Walker to instruct the driver to get ahead of us again. “Look, at least we know what we’re up against now, huh? And we’re pretty sure it’s one of the Big Three, so…” “Aliens, androids, or wizards?” the unnamed soldier double checked with Walker, who responded that he was still almost certain.

“There’s no such thing as wizards,” Bucky grumbled from behind me, sounding like the old man he biologically was.

“Then it’s aliens, or androids,” Walker shrugged. “Or Super Soldiers,” Sam corrected.

“Shit, Super Soldiers, for real?” Walker’s sidekick asked before turning in his seat to face, “Do you believe that?” “I believe that you two don’t know how to take a hint,” I frustratedly smiled at him, “But yes, I do.”

“Wow. All right, well, then we gotta work together,” Walker said. Bucky scoffed, “That’s not happening.”

“I think we stand a much better chance if we all just-“ Bucky finally lost his patience and said the thing we all were thinking, “Just ‘cause you carry that shield, it doesn’t mean you’re Captain America.”

Walker was quick to defend himself, “Look, I’ve done the work, okay?”

Bucky was equally as quick to prove him wrong, “You ever jump on top of a grenade?” “Yeah. Actually, I have. Four times,” Walker explained, “It’s a thing I do with my helmet. It’s a reinforced helmet. It’s a long story, but, look…It’s 20 miles to the airport, you guys need a ride.” A sudden cramp tore through my shin causing me to sharply inhale and grab the leg. Through the pain I managed to exhale and begin limping back along the path, “We’re good, thanks.”

“At least let us take her, she’s injured,” I heard Walker attempt to convince Sam and Bucky, knowing that I was probably a means to an end to get them in the car.

I didn’t get very far before I felt Sam’s arm wrap around my waist, “C’mon…” As much as I wanted to fight him on it, I knew I wouldn’t make it more than a few steps before I was bent over again in pain. The adrenaline had worn off and my whole body was starting to ache deeply in a way that made even breathing hurt where it shouldn’t. I dropped my head in frustration and nodded, putting my arm around Sam’s shoulder to let him brace me. He helped me limp back to the car where Bucky gently handled my other side, the two of them lifted me into the vehicle where Walker and his friend tried to help me sit down. I shrugged off their unwelcome hands and used the roof’s poles to lower myself into a seat. Sam jumped in and sat on one side of me, gently lifting the leg that was really bothering me onto his lap to try and massaging my shin. Bucky climbed in on my other side and gave me a once over, trying to assess if I was in any further pain that I wasn’t letting on to.

“Okay,” Walker began as the car rocked to life again, “So we’ve got eight Super Soldiers on a bulk supply run. Why?” “They say their mission is to get things back to the way it was during The Blip,” Sam explained, “Maybe they’re just trying to help.” “They had a funny way of showing it,” Bucky commented.

“That serum doesn’t exactly have a great track record,” Walker quickly looked to Bucky, “No offense.” I tried not to judge people too harshly upon first meeting them, but I had no problem deciding right away that Walker was an asshole.

“We need to figure out where they’re going,” Sam spoke up before an argument could break out, “How’d you track ‘em here? The Flag Smashers?”

“Uh, no, we didn’t track them. We tracked you, uh, through Redwing,” Walker’s friend answered, dipping his head down to avoid Sam’s stony gaze.

“You hacked my tech?” “Sorry,” Walker laughed, “It’s not exactly hacking. It’s government property,” he gestured to himself, “Kind of the government.” My lips parted and I tilted my head, ”Are you kidding me?”

“I’m sorry,” Walker extended his hand out to me, “John Walker, Captain America. And you are?” I glanced between his hand and him, “Not impressed.” He awkwardly retracted it and turned away from me to Bucky, “Does he always just stare like that?” “You get used to it,” Sam replied, suddenly he had no problem with Bucky’s habit.

“Okay, look,” Walker cleared his throat, “You know things have gotten kind of, uh…” “Chaotic,” his friend finished for him.

“Yeah. The GRC, they’re doing the best they can to get things up and running smoothly, post Blip.” “Reactivating citizenship, social security, healthcare. Basically just managing resources for the refugees who were displaced by the return.”

“The Global Repatriation Council does all that, I get that,” Sam said impatiently, “So why exactly are you two here?”

“Well, they provide the resources and we keep things stable,” the soldier answered.

“Yeah, violent revolutionaries aren’t usually good for anyone’s cause,” Walker said. “Usually said by the people with the resources,” Sam looked up from the work he was doing on my leg to look dead at Walker.

“We got a lot of resources,” he stated confidantly, “If you guys, if you joined up with us, we could-“ “No,” Bucky and I said in unison, now having agreed on two things. Walker was a phony and wizards weren’t real.

“I got mad respect for both of ya’ll,” Walker’s friend complimented, “You too, ma’am. But you were kinda getting your asses kicked till we showed up.” Bucky finally dragged his stare off of Walker, “Who are you?” “Lemar Hoskins.” “Look, I see a guy hanging out of a helicopter in tactical gear, I need a lot more than Lemar Hoskins,” Sam commented.

“I’m Battlestar,” Lemar reintroduced himself, “John’s partner.” “‘Battlestar?’” Bucky echoed the ridiculous nickname, snapping his head suddenly toward the driver, “Stop the car!”

The driver obeyed and quickly halted in the middle of the road, giving Bucky the opportunity to jump out of the car. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for me to join him but I wasn’t about to leave Sam’s side. I held a hand up to him to which he responded by closing the back door and starting down the path that veered off the main road.

“Look, I…I get it, okay? I get the attitude, I do,” Walker started, he couldn’t come close to understanding how insulted all three of us were for one uniting reason, “You don’t think that the shield was gonna end up here. I get it, Bucky,” even the call of his name wasn’t enough to make him stop, “And I’m…I’m not trying to be Steve. I’m not trying to replace Steve.” “Could’ve fooled me,” I snorted, removing my leg from Sam’s lap as he’d stopped rubbing it long ago. “I’m just trying to be the best Captain America I can be, that’s it,” Walker focused his eyes on my brother, “It’d be a whole lot easier if I had Cap’s wingmen on my side.” Sam scoffed and looked out of the corner of his eyes at me as if to make sure he hadn’t heard incorrectly. He hadn’t, and I was about two seconds away from putting my powers to good use and beating Walker with his own shield that he could never truly hold ownership of. “It’s always that last line…”

Sam climbed over me and hopped out first before helping to lower me to the ground. A defeated Walker ordered the driver to leave and we watched to make sure they actually left for good. “Torres said he’s nice?” I asked sarcastically as we resumed our familiar posture of Sam helping me walk. “Torres is young, impressionable and follows every order he’s given. Guys like Walker have a problem with anyone who doesn’t take their every word as gospel.”

“Well, your mom made us attend enough church when we were kids for me to know that right there,” I pointed back to the car that was now a dot in the distance, “Is a false prophet.”

I trained my eyes ahead of us, Bucky hadn’t gotten too far and it looked like he had actually slowed his pace for us to catch up easier. While I was angry with the government for appointing Walker and the man himself, I knew that the pain Sam and Bucky were feeling was exponentially heavier to deal with. They’d already lost their friend and Walker was the salt being rubbed in the wound.

When we did eventually make it to the plane an hour later, I was biting back tears at how much pain I was in. Sam took notice of how I was trying to conceal them as we approached the tarmac and carried me the rest of the way.

“I gotta check for any internal bleeding,” he said as he set me down gently on the seats of the jet, “And you’re going home.” “No, I’m not,” I moaned. “Yes, you are,” he scolded as he lifted up my shirt to the bottom of my bra so that he could get a clear view of my abdomen, “Sarah’s gonna pound my ass into the ground as it is for bringing you back bruised.” My eyes could no longer stay opened, further fluttering shut as I didn’t hear Sam state that he saw anything concerning. “Get some sleep,” he ordered, “I’ll take care of anything I find.” Just before I drifted off, I heard a second body kneel down next to Sam. “She okay?” “Yeah, she’ll be fine,” he answered Bucky, “I just should have never brought her.”

————

When I did wake up, the plane was dark except for the minimal lighting towards the cockpit. I attempted to sit up, biting back a groan as I did. There was a blanket draped over my bottom half and my jacket was now folded underneath my head as a makeshift pillow. Sam was sleeping upright near my feet, arms crossed and snoring quietly.

“Glad to see you’re okay,” a quiet voice startled me, I turned to see it was Bucky. “A little out of my depth,” I remarked, rubbing one of my eyes, “But yeah, okay.”

Bucky nodded and looked back down at his folded hands, for some reason the contrast of the gold and black metal meeting the pale flesh fascinated me. He must’ve sensed I was staring because he peered up at me through his lashes. I quickly looked away, “I’m guessing we’re on our way back to New Orleans.” “Baltimore, actually,” he replied.

“What’s in Baltimore?” I whispered, trying not to wake Sam. “Someone that Sam needs to meet.” “Okay,” I slowly swung my legs off the seats to properly face him, “Who’s in Baltimore?” Bucky gave me a tired look, “Just someone, you’ll meet him too.” I bristled slightly at his answer, shooting him a half smile. “You don’t trust people, do you, Barnes?”

I wouldn’t call what his lips did was a smile, but maybe a sarcastic knock off of one. “You ask a lot of questions, you know?”

“Only when people don’t give me any answers,” I fired back in a contradictorily easy tone, “Look, you don’t have to trust me. That’s fine, I’m going home after whatever surprise you have for us anyway so you won’t have to deal with me slowing you guys down anymore.” “Sam was endangering you by bringing a civilian to an Avengers level fight,” he quickly said, “That’s on him, not you. And none of us were exactly at our best today.” A supercut of the three of us each getting slapped around silly on top of the trucks played in my mind. He was definitely right, nobody could have predicted that we’d be thrown for such a loop. Not even the man pretending to be Captain America. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Walker,” I offered as softly as I could, “I’ve watched him parade that shield around on tv for days and I’ve gotten angrier each time. Not saying it’s the same as what you’re feeling but…I’m just sorry.” Bucky didn’t respond, he actually looked away from me and back down at his hands. “You should get some more sleep, we’re still a ways out.” It was clear I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, not that I felt any burning desire to try to get him to open up. I’d only tried out of politeness and the slight glimmer of curiosity I held when it came to what lay beneath his hardened surface. “Goodnight, Barnes,” I said, laying back down and rolling over so I didn’t have to look at him any longer.

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A/N: Let me know what you thought and/or if you’d like to be tagged! There’s still a lot of surprises that are coming...

Safe Haven taglist: @tanyaherondale @wanniiieeee @asoftie4bucky @edencherries @i-reblog-fics-i-like @ttalisa @gcfty @withyoutilltheendofthismess @rinaispunk @weirdowithnobeardo @felicityofbakerstreet @godlypotterwhodiaries @eternalharry @voguesir @mizz-kraziii @okayline @smellmymisunderstoodfluff @wanderin-stories @nicklet94 @intricate-melody @aesthethickks @stumbleonmywords @simplybarnes @21bruhs @lostinwonderland314 @superbookishhufflepuff @themaddies-obx

#bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x fem!reader #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson x platonic!reader #marvel imagine

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pyrrhiccomedy · 4 years

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Tabletop Stuff: How To Create A Good Player Character

So you’re a player starting a new campaign, and you need a new character! Or you’re part of an existing campaign, but your last character just ate shit fatally, or otherwise left the party. You want your new character to be fun to play, loved by the DM and the other players, and to contribute positively and dynamically to the action. But character creation makes you sick to your stomach. You’re worried about creating a character who is unlikeable, boring, or who somehow, despite your best intentions, never really gets involved in the plot.

“Yes, thank you, I feel nauseous with dread.”

It’s mad easy to make a quality PC. But first you have to realize that the characters you like to read about or write about are not necessarily the same characters you will succeed at playing. The table is a totally unique creative environment where you, the player, do not control any variables in your environment, you don’t have a lot of time to think about what your character is going to say, and you don’t have any control over how other characters respond to you.

“So what does that mean?”

1 - Don’t make a point of “challenging yourself.”

This is not a novel!! Or your fanfic drafts!! Or any other space where you can hem and haw and agonize over every line, in the name of creatively stretching your wings! You are at the gaming table, other people are waiting for you to take your turn. Your character should be someone you can quickly and comfortably slip in and out of.

Do you feel stupid or bad when you try to act cocky? Then don’t make your character cocky. Do you hate chatting people up? Then don’t play a face character. You may have many favorite characters, in media and in your own writing, who act totally against your own social impulses. That’s great! That’s a wonderful escapist fantasy! But you have 2 seconds to think of something to say at the table, and then you’re committed to it and you roll your dice.

There are thousands of great and distinct characters who don’t specifically do things that you, the human being who has to say all the stuff THEY say, hate doing and are bad at.

2. For God’s sake, make them care about stuff.

Jesus. Jesus. Emmanuel. Lord God. “My character has a hard time trusting people.” “My character has a hard time lowering their walls.” “My character is an aloof loner.” “My character doesn’t like other people.” “My character is fixated on one goal and doesn’t care about anything else.” “My character doesn’t get emotional.” Stop it. Stop it. I’m dying. You’re killing me. Look at me, I’m turning blue. Stop.

The only thing - the only actual thing - your character has to do is care. No, not about themselves, or some shit from their backstory that doesn’t involve anyone else. About everything! They should have an opinion about everyone they meet, and every situation they end up in! Don’t make it a battle for your character to get emotionally invested in the other characters in the campaign, don’t make a character who will consider a lot of the events and institutions in the world irrelevant to them.

If you find yourself saying “my character just has a hard time connecting because [FILL IN ANY REASON AT ALL],” you fucked up. Make them care. Your DM created a whole world for you to care about it. You and your friends give up hours every week to go on an adventure that’s meaningless if you don’t emotionally buy in. There are plenty of ways to play a character who’s damaged, or has trust issues, or has an overriding singular drive, that doesn’t preclude them from making quick emotional connections.

3. Give them the drive to act.

Make them active. Make them brave ( “I’m terrified but I’m determined to overcome my fear” is also brave).

Caution is your enemy. Adventures are not cautious endeavors. Heroes are not cautious people. Put your finger on the scale of action vs caution to make sure that they are always talking the other party members into action, not out of it.

4. LIFEHACK: HOW TO MAKE LOVEABLE FLAWS.

I recently figured out how to trick my players into giving their characters serious, but loveable and relatable, flaws. I said, “Hey, haha, what’s something that’s funny about your character? Like, something that’s just kind of ridiculous about them as a person.”

Comedy is rooted in tragedy. But comedy is tragedy you can get your arms around. Ask yourself, during character creation, what you could make fun of this character for. What’s something genuinely absurd and garbage and self-destructive about them, but in a way you can laugh at? You’ll come up with an achilles heel for them to overcome that will make the other people at the table fall in love with them, instead of just feeling frustrated with their constant bullshit.

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AND THAT’S IT ACTUALLY?

- Don’t deliberately make them hard for yourself to play

- make them the kind of person who gets emotionally invested about stuff

- make them people of action

- give them a flaw you can laugh at

If you want to bounce a character concept off of me go for it, but if you just treat this like a checklist, I think you should be fine.

#dice matters

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philip-ks-dick · 3 years

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Philip K. Dick, For Dummies.

I’ve been researching PK.D for a few years now, as he’s my father’s favourite author and I’ve been watching movie and show adaptations of his work for the longest time. I have personally only read the books listed, here’s the order (I think) you should read them in, based on difficulty level and the knowledge you need of the PKD canon to understand the books that follow. This is purely my opinion based on knowledge of the author. by philip-k’s-dick (lol)

Beginner. (These books and stories allow readers to explore Dick’s pet themes and stylistic quirks without falling too far down the rabbit hole)

The Short Stories: Over the course of his life, PKD wrote somewhere in the range of 150 short stories. Naturally, it would be silly of me to dump all of them on you at once, but undeniably, the shorter format allows the big ideas of Dick’s work to come through more clearly, and even the screwier stories conform to relatively coherent shape, making them an excellent jumping off point, especially for an author who wrote almost nonstop throughout his life.

My Favourites:

In The Days of Perky Pat - In this novel, survivors of a global thermonuclear war live in isolated enclaves in California, surviving off what they can scrounge from the wastes and supplies delivered from Mars. The older generation spend their leisure time playing with the eponymous doll in an escapist role-playing game that recalls life before the apocalypse — a way of life that is being quickly forgotten. At the story's climax, a couple from one isolated outpost of humanity plays a game against the dwellers of another outpost (who play the game with a doll similar to Perky Pat dubbed "Connie Companion") in deadly earnest. The survivors' shared enthusiasm for the Perky Pat doll and the creation of her accessories from vital supplies is a sort of mass delusion that prevents meaningful re-building of the shattered society. In stark contrast, the children of the survivors show absolutely no interest in the delusion and have begun adapting to their new life.

(Elements of the story were later incorporated into Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, written in 1964 and published in 1965, in which a Perky Pat simulation game is induced by drugs and miniature models instead. Palmer Eldritch is not a continuation or sequel however.)

What the Dead Men Say - Death is followed by a period of 'half-life', a short amount of time which can be rationed out over long periods in which the dead can be revived—so that, potentially, they can 'live' on for a long time. When attempts to bring back important businessman Louis Sarapis fail, it's clearly more than mere negligence. Sure enough, Sarapis starts speaking from beyond the grave. From outer space, in fact. Yet no-one seems terribly bothered, other than those directly concerned in the plot mechanics. Eventually entire communications networks (phones, TV, radio) are blocked by Sarapis' broadcasts

(Philip's later novel Ubik is a continuation of What the Dead Men Say)

Autofac - Three men wait outside their settlement for an automated delivery truck. Five years earlier, during the Total Global Conflict, a network of hardened automatic factories ("autofacs") had been set up with cybernetic controls that determine what food and consumer goods to manufacture and deliver. Human input had been lost, and the men planned disruption to try to establish communication and take over control. They destroy the delivery, but the truck radios the autofac and unloads an identical replacement, then prevents them from reloading items. They act out being disgusted with the milk delivery and are given a complaints checklist. In a blank space, they write improvised semantic garble—"the product is thoroughly pizzled". The autofac sends a humanoid data collector that communicates on an oral basis, but is not capable of conceptual thought, and they are unable to persuade the network to shut down before it consumes all resources. Their next strategy sets neighbouring autofacs in competition with each other for rare resources and seemingly succeeds, but there is a hidden level

Beyond Lies The Wub - Peterson, a crew member of a spaceship loading up with food animals on Mars, buys an enormous pig-like creature known as a "wub" from a native just before departure. Franco, his captain, is worried about the extra weight but seems more concerned about its taste, as his ship is short of food. However, after takeoff, the crew realizes that the wub is a very intelligent creature, capable of telepathy and maybe even mind control.

Peterson and the wub spend time discussing mythological figures and the travels of Odysseus. Captain Franco, paranoid after an earlier confrontation with the Wub which left him temporarily paralyzed, bursts in and insists on killing and eating the wub. The crew becomes very much opposed to killing the sensitive creature after it makes a plea for understanding, but Franco still makes a meal out of him. At the dinner table, Captain Franco apologises for the "interruption" and resumes the earlier conversation between Peterson and the Wub - which now has apparently taken over the Captain's body

Human Is - Jill Herrick and her husband Lester are in the middle of an argument. Lester deflects his wife’s claim that he is “hideous” with cold indifference. He tells her that he will not allow their child in the house and will have him removed to government custody because he is interfering with his research. Before the distraught Jill can pass this onto their son Gus, Lester gets news that he will be taking a trip to Rexor IV. Despite Jill’s desire to go there and see the planet, Lester insists that he will go alone.

Later Jill tells her brother Frank and she is going to leave Lester. She explains how happy she has been with Lester gone and how he seems to be getting worse every year of their marriage. More cold and more “ruthless,” not to mention the incessant working.

Lester comes home a very different man. He praises Jill’s cooking and expresses disgust with his work on Rexor IV studying toxins. He says he prefers Terra and being home with his wife.

Jill reports these changes to Frank, while Lester is playing in the room with Gus. Frank has Lester brought to a lab for more studies under the guidance of the Federal Clearance agency. Before long they realize that Lester has had his body taken over by a Rexorian.

The Hanging Stranger - The protagonist, Ed Loyce, is a store owner who is disturbed when he sees a stranger hanging from a lamppost, but finds that other people consider the apparent lynching unremarkable.

He finds evidence that alien insects have taken over, manages to get out of town, talks to the police commissioner, who believes him, and after getting all the information about what Ed knows, explains that the body was hung to see if anyone reacted to it, anyone they didn't have control over. He then takes Ed outside and hangs him from a lamppost.

The Commuter - Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. When he is selling rail tickets at work, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a destination called Macon Heights that is not listed on any map.

The Minority Report - In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never met, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot

Full Books:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department, is assigned to "retire" (kill) six androids of the new and highly intelligent Nexus-6 model which have recently escaped from Mars and traveled to Earth. These androids are made of organic matter so similar to a human's that only a posthumous "bone marrow analysis" can independently prove the difference, making them almost impossible to distinguish from real people. Deckard hopes this mission will earn him enough bounty money to buy a live animal to replace his lone electric sheep to comfort his depressed wife Iran. Deckard visits the Rosen Association's headquarters in Seattle to confirm the accuracy of the latest empathy test meant to identify incognito androids. Deckard suspects the test may not be capable of distinguishing the latest Nexus-6 models from genuine human beings, and it appears to give a false positive on his host in Seattle, Rachael Rosen, meaning the police have potentially been executing human beings. The Rosen Association attempts to blackmail Deckard to get him to drop the case, but Deckard retests Rachael and determines that Rachael is, indeed, an android, which she ultimately admits.

Clans of the Alphane Moon - War between Earth and insectoid-dominated Alpha III ended over a decade ago. (According to the novel, "Alphane" refers to the nearest star to our own system, Alpha Centauri). Some years after the end of hostilities, Earth intends to secure its now independent colony in the Alphane system, Alpha III M2. As a former satellite-based global psychiatric institution for colonists on other Alphane system worlds unable to cope with the stresses of colonisation, the inhabitants of Alpha III M2 have lived peacefully for years. But, under the pretence of a medical mission, Earth intends to take their colony back.

Against this background, Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife Mary are separating. Although they think they are going their separate ways, they soon find themselves together again on Alpha III M2. Mary travels there through government work, Chuck sees it as a chance to kill Mary using his remote control simulacrum. Along the way he is guided by his Ganymedean slime mould neighbour Lord Running Clam and Mary finds herself manipulated by the Alphane sympathiser, comedian Bunny Hentman.

The Man in the High Castle - In 1962, 15 years after Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have won World War II, Robert "Bob" Childan owns an Americana antique shop in San Francisco, California (located in the Japanese-occupied Pacific States of America), which is most commonly frequented by the Japanese, who make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts. Childan is contacted by Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese trade official, who is seeking a gift to impress a visiting Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan's store is stocked in part with counterfeit antiques from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation, a metalworking company. Frank Frink (formerly Fink), a secretly Jewish-American veteran of World War II, has just been fired from the Wyndam-Matson factory, when he agrees to join a former co-worker to begin a handcrafted jewellery business. Meanwhile, Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado (in the neutral buffer zone of Mountain States), where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinnadella. Throughout the book, many of these characters frequently make important decisions using prophetic messages they interpret from the I Ching, a Chinese cultural import. Many characters are also reading a widely banned yet extremely popular new novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II in 1945, a concept that amazes and intrigues its readers.

Frink reveals that the Wyndam-Matson Corporation has been supplying Childan with counterfeit antiques, which works to blackmail Wyndam-Matson for money to finance Frink's new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays any real business as they await an expected third party from Japan. Suddenly, the public receives news of the death of the Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann, after a short illness. Childan tentatively, on consignment, takes some of Frink's "authentic" new metalwork and attempts to curry favour with a Japanese client, who surprisingly considers Frink's jewelry immensely spiritually alive. Juliana and Joe take a road trip to Denver, Colorado and Joe impulsively decides they should go on a side-trip to meet the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, who supposedly lives in a guarded fortress-like estate called the "High Castle" in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon, Joseph Goebbels is announced as the new German Chancellor.

Intermediate. (These are the books to pick up once you have the basics of what makes a PKD novel down. They’re obtuse enough to hit a little heavier, but don’t provide the full dose of surrealism Dick was capable of serving up. This is also good spot to jump in if you’ve experienced weird fiction before.)

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the United States' democratic institutions. The National Guard ("nats") and US police force ("pols") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a "Director" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. The black population has almost been rendered extinct. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are "Sixes", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility.

Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed.

Time out of Joint - Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper contest called "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent, and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words "SOFT-DRINK STAND" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor "Vic" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a civil defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before.

Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: "Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel

Ubik - By the year 1992, humanity has colonized the Moon and psychic powers are common. The protagonist, Joe Chip, is a debt-ridden technician working for Runciter Associates, a "prudence organization" employing "inertials"—people with the ability to negate the powers of telepaths and "precogs"—to enforce the privacy of clients. The company is run by Glen Runciter, assisted by his deceased wife Ella who is kept in a state of "half-life", a form of cryonic suspension that allows the deceased limited consciousness and ability to communicate. While consulting with Ella, Runciter discovers that her consciousness is being invaded by another half-lifer named Jory Miller

Difficult. (This section comes with a caveat: within these novels you will encounter numerous hallucinations, drug trips, an entire trilogy about gnostic spirituality and mental illness, and more than a little unabashed nightmare fuel. It’s normal to get tangled up in what goes on in these books. It’s also normal to be weirded out. But with proper grounding, you’ll make it though with your faculties intact. Probably.)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.

Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug Can-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible.

The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precog, has received a "draft notice" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds—but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite.

A Scanner Darkly - When performing his work as an undercover agent, Arctor goes by the name "Fred" and wears a "scramble suit" that conceals his identity from other officers. Then he is able to sit in a police facility and observe his housemates through "holo-scanners", audio-visual surveillance devices that are placed throughout the house. Arctor's use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently or "compete". When Arctor sees himself in the videos saved by the scanners, he does not realize that it is him. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. They do not know his identity because he wears the scramble suit, but when his police supervisor suggests to him that he might be Bob Arctor, he is confused and thinks it cannot be possible.

Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients

(If this one seems difficult to wrap your mind around, that's because its a fictionalized account of real events, and you may need to read about Philip's life at the time to understand the autobiographical nature of the book.)

The VALIS Trilogy

(Fictionalized account of religious experiences in PKD’s life.)

VALIS - In March, 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest; it also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August, 1974. Kevin turns his friends onto a film called Valis that contains obvious references to revelations identical to those that Horselover Fat has experienced, including what appears to be time dysfunction. The film is itself a fictional account of an alternative-universe version of Nixon ("Ferris F. Fremount") and his fall, engineered by a satellite called valis. (The plot of the fictitious film Valis was that of Dick's then-unpublished novel Radio Free Albemuth.) In seeking the film's makers, Kevin, Phil, Fat, and David—now calling themselves the Rhipidon Society—head to an estate owned by popular musician Eric Lampton and his wife Linda. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia Lampton, who is two-years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom (Pistis Sophia) anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. In addition to healing Phil's schizophrenic personality split, she tells them that their conclusions about valis (which Fat had previously termed "Zebra") and reality are correct, and more importantly, that we should worship, not gods, but humanity. She dies two days later due to a laser accident caused by Brent Mini. Undeterred, Fat (who has now resurged) goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia.

Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent theophany, acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.

Characters:

Phil (Philip K. Dick): Narrator (first person), science fiction writer, author of Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Three Stigmata.

Horselover Fat: Narrator (third person), a schizophrenic modality of Phil himself. (Philip in Greek means "fond of horses"; dick is German for "fat".)

Gloria Knudson: Suicidal friend of Fat's who Fat is unable to save.

Kevin: Cynical friend of Fat's whose cat died running across the street, based on K. W. Jeter.

Sherri Solvig: Church-going friend of Fat's, eventually dies from lymphatic cancer.

David: Catholic friend of Fat's, based on Tim Powers.

Eric Lampton: Rock star, screenwriter, actor, a. k. a. "Mother Goose"; a fictionalised version of David Bowie.

Linda Lampton: Actress, wife of Eric Lampton.

Brent Mini: Electronic composer, a fictionalised version of Brian Eno.

Sophia Lampton: Two-year-old child (personalised incarnation of Holy Wisdom within some variants of Gnosticism), said to be the daughter of Linda Lampton and valis and the "Fifth Savior".

The Divine Invasion - After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.

In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.

With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.

Things do not go as planned. "Big Noodle", Earth's A.I. system, warns the ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian-Islamic church and Scientific Legate about the divine "invasion" and countermeasures are prepared. A number of failed attempts are made to destroy the unborn child, all of them thwarted by Elijah and Yah. After successfully making the interstellar journey back to Earth and narrowly avoiding a forced abortion, Rybys and Herb escape in the nick of time, only to be involved in a fatal taxi crash, probably due to the machinations of Belial. Rybys dies from her injuries sustained in the crash, and her unborn son Emmanuel (Yah in human form) suffers brain damage from the trauma but survives. Herb is critically injured and put into cryonic suspension until a spleen replacement can be found. Baby Emmanuel is placed into a synthetic womb, but Elias Tate manages to sneak Emmanuel out of the hospital before the church is able to kill him.

Six years pass. In a school for special children, Emmanuel meets Zina, a girl who also seems to have similar skills and talents, but acts as a surrogate teacher to Emmanuel. For four years, Zina helps Emmanuel regain his memory (the brain damage caused amnesia) and discover his true identity as Yah, creator of the universe.

When he's ready, Zina shows Emmanuel her own parallel universe. In this peaceful world, organized religion has little influence, Rybys Rommey is still alive and married to Herb Asher, and Belial is only a goat kid living in a petting zoo.

In an act of kindness, Zina and Emmanuel liberate the goat-creature from his cage, momentarily forgetting that the animal is Belial. The goat-creature finds Herb Asher and attempts to retain control of the world by possessing him and convincing him that Yahweh's creation is an ugly thing that should be shown for what it really is. Eventually Herb is saved by Linda Fox, a young singer whom he loves and who is his own personal Savior; she and the goat-creature meet and she kills it, defeating Belial. He finally discovers that this meeting happens over again for everyone in the world, and whether they choose Belial or their Savior decides if they find salvation.

Characters:

Herb Asher: audio engineer

Rybys Rommey: mother of Emmanuel, sick with MS

Yah: Yahweh

Elias Tate: Incarnation of Elijah

Emmanuel (Manny): Yah incarnated in human form

Zina Pallas: Shekhinah

Linda Fox: singer, songwriter, Yetzer Hatov

Belial: Yetzer Hara

Fulton Statler Harms: Chief prelate of the Christian-Islamic Church (C.I.C), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

Nicholas Bulkowsky: Communist Party Chairman, Procurator maximus of the Scientific Legate

VALIS: agent of Yahweh, disinhibiting stimulus

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost.

Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality).

The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert.

On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon institutionalized. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record (Koto Music by Kimio Eto) that Edgar offers her.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law.

Characters:

Angel Archer: Narrator, manager of a Berkeley record store, widow of Jeff Archer.

Timothy Archer: Bishop of California; father of the late Jeff Archer and father-in-law of Angel. Dies in Israel, searching for psychotropic mushroom connected with Zadokite sect. Based on James Albert Pike, Dick's personal friend, who was an American Episcopalian bishop.

Kirsten Lundborg: Timothy Archer's secretary and lover. Dies from barbiturate overdose after loss of remission from cancer.

Bill Lundborg: Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia, and who is obsessed with cars.

Edgar Barefoot: Houseboat guru, radio personality, lecturer. Based on Alan Watts.

Jeff Archer: Son of Timothy Archer, and deceased husband of Angel. A professional student who was romantically obsessed with Kirsten.

Thank you, if you read all of this. it took me six hours today to write this all

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ot3 · 3 years

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i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey.

anyway. here you have it.

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith. I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it.

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene.

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land.

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass.

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area. In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.

#long post #really long post guys. look out !#rvb

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