Prompt 198
Now Bruce was not expecting to reincarnate upon his death. At least he thinks he died, he’s pretty sure he did. There wasn’t any other reason for him to be a well, literal baby. Around two he thinks, which fits well with the fact that it’s around that time that babies start forming memory recall, if he, well, remembered correctly.
But while he knew about reincarnation thanks to Shayera and Carter, he’d never exactly given it much thought towards himself. Because seriously, what were the chances of such a thing as him being given another chance?
So he was quite surprised at his situation, experimentally opening and closing pudgy hands that looked well, just a tiny bit off. He’d never been that pale before, he thinks, even back when he never went outside like, ever.
He turned his gaze towards the mobile above him with a sort of idle curiosity- a mixture of bats (ha) and other trinkets he wasn’t familiar with. It also caused him to get his first good look at his parent, asleep on a rocking chair right next to the crib.
Huh. They had the same pale skin he did, albeit in the light it looked like it was slightly tinted blue, and while their hair was white they didn’t exactly look old. They looked surprisingly well rested for raising a toddler too, unless they had a nanny or something similar… He rolled over, managing to very shakily push himself to his feet with the help of the crib.
Why was standing so hard as a toddler? And why did he have his memories of everything except how he had died anyway?
His head whipped up from where they were staring at his feet when he heard a snort, finding his parent awake and standing. Somehow silently enough that he hadn’t noticed- or he was that easily distracted by the unfamiliar giddiness bursting in his chest.
“Morning little bat,” his parent easily picked him up and held him while he inwardly sighed at the nickname. Of course his bat motif would follow him into this life. A low rumbling almost caused him to jump, his body relaxing before he could fully register the sound. The… purring?
Oh.
He wasn’t human this time around.
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Hey do you think Jamil has trouble seeing people his age as peers?
Like, growing up having to be a caretaker to a guy literally a few months older than him, always expected to act like the adult in the situation, expected to work with adults and adopt their perspectives and pick up their slack. Do you think he just, forgets sometimes?
I mean we've seen him go into caretaker mode with other sophomores, and the only people I've seen him take seriously are juniors like Vil who also act much older than they should have to (his reactions to Leona look more like a trauma response and I don't wanna get into it here). People like Malleus and Cater still somewhat get the caretaker treatment. Like I just highly doubt that he subconsciously realizes he's actually part of his age group
Aaand that inevitably brings up Azul, who also acts like he thinks he's older than he is. Whether you're looking at it from a shipping angle or not, he reacts to Azul like an actual peer. With older students, he seems more in his element but there's still a status hierarchy which he compulsively reacts to. With Azul he doesn't acknowledge any status worth respecting or see him as someone who needs to be looked after. He just bickers like an equal, in a way that implies he actually does see Azul as a real peer, like subconsciously he's categorized this guy into the same group as himself, who was previously alone on that level (he gets like this more with the twins too, over time, but it seems to start with Azul).
And my favorite part about this is, while that response stems from them both acting more like adults in general, they elicit a pettiness from each other which drags them both down to actually acting their own age, and I just love that. Their characters are perfect foils for each other and it seems to make them both less isolated in a way.
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Am I imagining things or is Ozai about two steps away from having a mental breakdown identical to Azula's in canon. Seems like Zhao and Seethus are the only two people keeping him from becoming an unstable, paranoid wreck. Zhao also seems to be secretly getting less confident in Ozai and might even side with Azula in the future for the sake of The Fire Nation's future, helping her in some long term plot to get rid of her father. Yep yep, I thin Ozai is in for another betrayal in future, hehehe.
... Weeeeell, not exactly.
I mean, there's definitely several similarities in both character arcs, many of them accidental, some of them 100% intentional because ultimately, Azula's downfall in canon is a consequence of following her father's footsteps way too closely even when she knew, deep in her heart, that it wasn't what she truly wanted (at least, that's how I've always interpreted it). Hence, it's only natural that Ozai's philosophies would burn him back if the situation were reversed somehow... and you could certainly argue that it is reversed in Gladiator.
But, this being said, Ozai's thought process is quite different from Azula's. He's a lot less prepared to doubt himself, even if at times there's a sliver of opportunity that he'll do a minimal amount of self-reflection... but in his case, that doubt, that self-reflection, only arrives AFTER he's done his worst. So... imagine Azula not having any moments of vulnerability in canon, no mirror scene, nothing of the sort, and only after utterly defeating her brother and Katara would she go "... wait, why don't I feel 100% happy about this?" That's, more or less, what Ozai's path of devastation looks like. The man's just... unhinged as hell right now. I honestly never imagined I'd hate him as much as I do after writing this arc x'D I always took him on as an interesting challenge of a character due to how messed up he is, I never shied away from showing him at his worst... but damn, the way he's betrayed Azula while pretending she's the one betraying him just makes me see red every time I think of it.
So, after that digression there, Ozai still has a lot to offer the story, there's much character exploration to be done still, so we're really not going to simply retread canon's footsteps by just switching around the characters taking each role... nah. There's a few points in common with canon for sure, a few concepts I've definitely tampered with and played around with in order to sort-of challenge canon in my own way, but I wouldn't inflict a fate like Azula's canon fate upon a character, not when I have pleeenty of story left to tell about said character, for better or for worse.
Zhao... well. I fear Zhao's relationship with Ozai is getting messier and messier, but... that doesn't necessarily mean an alliance with Azula is in the cards for him. As will be demonstrated once Part 3 begins... Zhao is actually a little bit more spooked by Azula (and Sokka) than he ever had been before. Even after growing to respect her some more, deep down he continued to treat her as a child when it came to her big "betrayal", he saw it as the whims of a young woman who fell in love carelessly, so on and so forth... never did he expect she and Sokka would be able to not only escape Ozai's wrath but get Combustion Man killed in such a brutal and dangerous way. So... he's apprehensive. Rightfully so, I would say, because he's finally seeing Azula and Sokka as more than just younglings without common sense... no, now they're fully-grown assholes with no common sense and a very strong attachment to each other that seems to have convinced them to set the whole world on fire if that's the only way they'll save each other.
So... to put it simply, Azula, Ozai and Zhao are in for a veeeeery messed up dynamic going forward. There's an underlying tinge of affection in a few of those relationships (... not really in Azula and Zhao's case, I'll admit), but more than anything, there's a toooon of resentment, hostility and fear of whatever the other one will do next. It's kind of like that scene in PoTC where everyone's aiming guns at each other? Yeeeeah, that's what these three will be like, going forward...
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OOC musings
I gotta be honest, I don't see Jason as a villain in the slightest. Is he set and written as an antagonist role? Certainly, but not a villain, and I hold those two words to very different definitions.
But, he has no idea what the hell is happening. From his perspective, the government is leaking chemicals into society and killing people, the crops all rotted, and the mall was razed to the ground. And now, culminating that with Chrissy, his girlfriend, the person he loves, being found mutilated in the trailer of a family that is KNOWN to be habitual criminals? And then he witnesses himself what happened to her, happening again to one of his closest friends.
He is TRAUMATIZED. He has ZERO context to what is going on, all he knows is that people are dying and the how's are only getting worse with no answer to the why. Of course he'd jump to the conclusions he did: when your life is mundane and the only spiritual things you hold faith in (as he's clearly religious) are unseeable forces of good and evil, to see all of that shattered would not make sense. Especially in the middle of very, VERY fresh trauma and grief. And he suffers both. His love was mangled horribly to death, his friend lifted midair and broken in so many ways before Jason's eyes. And there was no time, nothing he COULD do, but watch. Just like Eddie!
Even though it was not the right answers, the ones he came to make perfect sense to me. If you weren't around for it, the Satanic panic was a legitimate thing people were concerned about, and there were actual such cults (one lived in the woods right behind one of my childhood home).
To Jason, it was real, and it was the only thing that would have made any feasible sense to him. His perception of reality and how he'd have to live through it with the sudden shift in his personal life and the life of his town as a whole was completely flipped and knocked off the table, of course he'd go on a hunt to avenge his loved ones. Wouldn't you?
Also, watching him finding Max and Lucas, the first thing he does is try and help Max. He is SCARED, but all he wants is his friends and everyone in this town they all live in and know one another to be SAFE. He reaches to hold her PROTECTIVELY. He might not understand what's truly going on, and he's certainly still too overwhelmed by all the painful emotions to be fully capable of reason. Are you reasonable when two people you care deeply about die horrifically? When you see it happen?
Jason deserved better. I wish hed been given such understanding by the writers, and honestly the fandom, is all I'm saying.
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