|| part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4 coming soon... ||
man sabo really thought he'd get away from ace that easy, huh? well tough shit buddy you just got the attention of one of the most stubborn men on the seas. i do wonder how this'll play out now that sabo's cornered... hehe >;3
textless versions below the cut for those who want to look at. pictures <3
(skipped page 5 due to. y'know. it not having any dialogue)
so I was watching this documentary about a professional bodybuilder last week. and it diverged into this segment about how she used to make part of her living by making home videos with guys who would pay to get wrestled into submission by muscular women. and I need to let you guys know that in this segment they showed of one of those guy’s home videos (that is seemingly an 80′s era precursor to the Lemon Stealing Whores clip?) and it just absolutely clocked me in the guts.
i stand by that a better, more sensible, and more intriguing plot for TSATS would have been, instead of retconning literally everything:
Bob is dead (because he was very explicitly absorbed/killed by Tartarus Himself in House of Hades, alongside Damasen), and nobody is going into Tartarus to save him. He made his sacrifice and is gone. However. Remember how the Titans, including Bob, were just kind of kicking around for several years? Particularly. On a cruise ship full of mortals. And Bob happened to be kicking around in general for an extra year versus all the other Titans. And he mythologically sometimes has a mortal demigod son who partook in the Calydonian Boar Hunt (Dryas of Calydon). Yeah.
So turns out, Bob/Iapetus leaves behind a demigod (demititan?) child. And because Nico was pretty much his only friend, he named Nico his child's godfather. And while he's not being left in charge of the child, as a son of Hades and godfather to this kid, Nico is duty-bound to fulfill Bob's last will and go find this like 2 year old to make sure they're safe. So Nico has to undertake this very unusual quest (that raises many questions, such as "demititans are a thing?" and "DOES THIS MEAN THERE'S POTENTIALLY MORE-?!" and "SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS?") and is kind of freaking out because. He's the son of Hades! He's notoriously bad with living things, and animals, and definitely small children! Even if he does find this kid and assure they're safe, he is the last person who should be undergoing any kind of quest involving even potentially having to babysit. Fortunately, his boyfriend is the human embodiment of sunshine and calmness and good vibes, and also once helped a nymph give birth, so he feels Marginally More Confident in theoretical demititan babysitting and offers to come along on this Epic Journey of Figuring Out What In Hades' Name Is Up With This Demititan Baby Business.
Proceed with wholesome epic shenanigans quest of Nico and Will scurrying around trying to locate this random OP baby while Nico has an existential crisis about the nature of his powers because he doesn't want to let Bob down! Both for Hades Kid Honor Reasons and because Bob was his friend! But what if he's destined to fail this quest just because of who he is? Because he's simply not built for hanging out with the living/mortals? And Will reassuring him that He Will Probably Not Traumatize The Weird OP Titan Baby And It'll Be Fine, and simultaneously getting a peek into the weird other life Nico leads hanging out with immortals much more than the average demigod, which Nico considers his norm. Bonus shenanigans of both of them getting caught off-guard and culture shocked from where each other's respective worlds (Nico's mostly-immortal versus Will's mostly-mortal) cross over and learning to navigate those for each other - Nico finally starting to make some mortal connections and get glimpses at modern mortal American life, and Will trying not to get his brain literally incinerated while Nico's happily casually catching up with some of his old friends who happen to be literal gods.
"Do you require assistance?" Phantom perked up at the mans voice. Red Robin was the guy multiple ghosts had recommended to him even though he was still alive. Okay, so they kinda did it in a half joking manner, but Phantom was desperate!
The nine year old came out from the shadows and could immediately feel the man in front of him cataloging everything about his appearance. Wierd. But he had dealt with Weirder. Besides, he was glowing, so he guessed the human had a right to be curious. "I heard you were really good with machines."
Red Robin looked somewhat tense, like he was ready to fight if need be. Why does everyone wanna fight him? He's nine!
Phantom quickly brought out a little silver sphere with an OwO face from his bag and quickly began speaking, "This is my friend Livvi, she started acting wierd a while back and I haven't been able to fix her."
To his credit, Red didn't attack him. He just looked gobsmacked. "You came out to Gotham, in the middle of the night and tracked down a vigilante to ask for tech support?"
"Livvi is different!" He fumed, "She's my friend!"
A sigh escaped from the mans lips and Phantom looked up to see him pinching the bridge of his nose, "Okay, you're probably not going to go away until I fix her. Just promise me you'll try to be safer."
Phantom hummed as if contemplating, "I'll try."
With that, the vigilante took Livvi from him and began working on her from the blanket Phantom had laid out. Red Robin began to look more and more curious about Livvi as he worked on her. He even took out one of Livvis ectoplasm powerbanks to examine it more thoroughly. "Can you explain to me what problems she's been having?"
The kid bit his lower lip, clearly worried about the little robot, "Shes having trouble maintaining flight and producing shields. Her speech sometimes comes out glitch or warped despite me not finding anything wrong with her voice box or programming. A few times she's just turned off mid flight and dropped."
The man looked thoughtful for a few seconds before asking, "Have you ever heard of the Lazarus Pit?"
"I've heard of Lazarus, but I don't know what it is. I've only ever heard of it in passing. Why?" The ghost was genuinely confused by the change in topic
"Can I text a friend about this?"
"I don't see why not. The more help Livvi gets the faster she'll get better right?" The bird wasted no time activating his coms and whispering into it telling some unknown people about "an unknown glowing meta child with futuristic tech that runs on Lazarus water"
Within the next ten minutes a guy dressed as a bat landed on the rooftop alongside a boy around his age dressed like a trafic light and scowling as if he had just been told that he was grounded from ever having ice cream again. The big goth dude introduced himself as batman and offered him a lollipop. "I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers." Phantom said seriously, "Unless its Halloween."
Batman...well he didn't smile exactly but he didn't seem angry. "Do you know where you're parents are?"
"No. But thats okay. They don't like me."
Batman maintained a cool pokerface, "why don't they like you?"
"I don't remember. I think I knew when I was older-"
"Older?" The other boy interrupted, "Is this not your true age?"
Phantom pouted at him, any hopes he had of making a friend he didn't construct himself were flung out the window, "Yeah, but I don't remember it. Appearently I ate a time god and lost six-ish years from absorbing his powers."
There was a beat silence, then: "You ate a time god?!" Red Robin looked horrifed
"In my defense, I have no memory of what was happening at the time. All I know is that the place i used to live is in ruins and I'm dead."
okay so we all know the "cole, is that you?" line but. angsty proposition for the "why are you dressed like a pirate?" line.
jay had been tortured ruthlessly by nadakhan and his crew. not only had he lost half of his vision but he was clearly incredibly disoriented when cole showed up.
one of his first proper escape attempts was just a set-up by the crew to destroy his feeling of security (what little of it he had at least) that just ends up in him getting beaten again. but i doubt it was the last time that he tried to escape. and all the same, with how much they laughed, i doubt it was the last time they pulled something similar.
did he ever find a forged response letter saying his friends were coming for him and cared just for the pirates to laugh at his pathetic tears when he's told it's a fake?
did he ever hear their voices, only for it to lead him straight to the scrap and tap ring?
his trust is broken off piece by piece, not just for the crew of course (that shattered right away), but also for his friends as the crew begins to convince him that they don't care about him. that they hate him. nadakhan read jay so easily and saw through his mask he'd been wearing for years as if his face was bare, so why wouldn't he believe the pirates couldn't be right about other things, too? even if he didn't want to admit it.
that they hated him for what he'd done and left him for dead.
as each day passes by and each glimmer of hope ends up just another ruse for the pirates to laugh at before they slam his head against the wooden floor, the more it'd set in. bit by bit.
what are the chances that in the moment he sees cole, in that pirate uniform, his first thought wasn't genuine confusion or relief, but fear?
Even though the fandom usually sees 42Aaron as a "bad influence" on Miles G or (less often) an ideal father figure or actually a replacement for Jeff, I'm very interested in his characterization as a good person who really wants to help, though not a perfect uncle.
Because, listen to me, 1610 Miles saw Aaron as some kind of unwavering image of coolness, lightness, an alternative way of looking at the world, looking to him more than his own father. And yet Aaron was not the way Miles saw him - he was much harder, much more difficult, much more complex than just a "cool uncle" in the eyes of a rebellious teenage boy.
Now imagine. Jeff has died, and - although they haven't spoken in years and will never be able to again - Aaron knows that the only thing he could ask of his brother is to look after his family, his wife and son. And so Aaron does. Aaron comes to their home almost immediately after the news of his brother's death, he tries to talk to Rio, brings his nephew a couple of old tapes as a gift, and pushes his own heartbreak far away because it is the only way he can thank his brother and shed light on his memory.
He becomes a loyal helper and friend for Rio, and for Miles G, he becomes a mentor, a role model, and a father figure.
But there is a small problem here - Aaron is not a family man. Aaron is not a father. He really thought that he was a good uncle, a cool uncle who could make a child happy, but all of that shattered as soon as he had to actually LOOK after this child.
Because it's one thing when he comes to your house once a month, you eat popcorn, listen to music and talk about school and girls, and then go out to paint graffiti. And it's completely different when you see a little boy literally falling apart and breaking down before your eyes, when you know that he can't sleep at night because he's afraid of nightmares, when you see him exhausting himself, reaching for some unknown goals, trying to grow up as fast as possible to become a person he was never meant to be... and there's nothing - nothing - you can do about it. You don't know how to approach him, how to open up, how to talk to children. Because you have never been able to deal with your own feelings, let alone the feelings of a small child who is just quietly suffering in front of you.
Of course, this does not mean that they do not have good relationships. They have their own local jokes, gags, and inventions. Miles G can spend hours at Aaron's apartment practicing something, and he will pass on his knowledge to him.
But (and Aaron has made sure of this) this does not make him a really good uncle. Because he just doesn't know what it's like to be a full-fledged father figure, a supervisor, how to be anyone beyond being a "cool uncle" - and he blames himself for this more than anyone else, but he just can't seem to learn. He tries to talk to Miles, but every time he meets an iron wall with the code words "I'm fine" that he just CAN'T break through.
He had no experience. He had no normal parents. There was no one who could explain to him how to do it, and the only person who really cared about him all these years is six feet under the ground.
How often do you think he stood by Jeff's mural, muttering a quiet "I'm sorry" to him? Because for the first time in his life, just making and giving money was not enough. Because he can't be the help he wants to be. Because he hates seeing Rio so tired, too, and he knows Jeff would hate it as well, but he can't do anything but hear a clear "no" to every his suggestion about her resting or taking a day off from from work.
How often do you think he's thought Jeff would be angry at him If he knew the role he gave his child, seeing the scars on his face and soul?
How often do you think he's wondered if Jeff would hate him if he found out what he's doing, even though he's doing the best he can.
How often do you think he thinks his "I'm sorry" doesn't mean anything anymore?
thinkin about when tmn met cad and nott was like “do you need any help there, mr? mrs?” .like Let me get this bitchs pronouns before i call him strange and frightening and then shoot my friend to check if he has healing powers