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young-bev · 4 years

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An essay abt Fabian Aramais Seacaster

This is the essay that i wrote for my greek myth class. The assignment was to find a contemporary example of Hubris and Nemesis.Understand that some story elements are simplified and glossed over bc this was only supposed to be three pages and i wrote five. Idk like one person on tumblr wanted to see it and a few ppl on twitter as well. So enjoy??

In recent years there has been a rise in popularity in TableTop Role Playing Games (RPG), this is due to shows like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, Not Another DnD Podcast and Dimension 20. These shows have amassed large followings and have even gone and performed live around the world. Viewed as a collaborative storytelling medium, using dice to define the success of one's actions, it is only reasonable to wonder if the traditional storytelling devices seen in classic mythology translates into this medium. Examining the plot to Dimension 20 Fantasy High a clear example of hubris comes to mind. This hubris is shown by a Player Character (PC) named Fabian Aramais Seacaster in the second season of Fantasy High. To understand the significance of the hubris and Nemesis, one must understand Fabian’s personality in the context of this show and how that relates to the situation he was placed in. Understanding Fabian as a character will also allow the viewer to understand how cruel Nemesis was to him. Nemesis’ cruelty can also be examined as a part of games mechanics and reflected in the relations between Dungeon Master and Player.

For ease of understanding, I will first explain the context in which Fantasy High takes place. In the introduction to the show, the Dungeon Master (DM) Brennan Lee Mulligan explains that: “Now we can answer the age-old question of; What if John Hughes ran a tabletop RPG game?” The show follows a group of heroes who call themselves the Bad Kids as they attend the Aguefort Adventuring Academy: the world’s premier training ground for would-be Heroes. It is the first episode of the show that Fabian is introduced. He is a half-elven fighter raised by infamous pirate Bill Seacaster and Hallariel Seacaster. Played by Lou Wilson, Fabian is: “Everything [Lou Wilson] wanted to be in high school; rich and hot.” as he stated in an episode of Fantasy High: Extra Credit. It is here in Fabian’s very first scene that the viewer is given a key insight into Fabian’s hubris. While talking to his father before the first day of school, Bill Seacaster says to Fabian; “You’re my son, you’re a direct reflection of me! You and your glory is the same as mine and my glory! That’s how we relate to each other!” (Mulligan, S1 E1). This statement is important because it will directly play into many of the choices Fabian makes in the following episodes. In the very same interaction, Fabian is gifted by his father an Auguefort Owlbears letterman jacket, as Fabian hopes to make it onto the team with the tryouts happening later that day. The jacket becomes a great symbol for both Fabian’s hubris and identity as he does not initially make the team but still decides to wear the jacket to school nearly every day. As hubris is defined as someone viewing themselves as either above or below their true social rank. hubris is also seen as acting out of an overblown sense of importance. In a society where a social ladder is clear, Jocks and cheerleaders ‘rule the school’ and the nerds find themselves at the bottom, wearing a letterman jacket for a team that you are not a part of is very much believing yourself above your true position on the social ladder.

While the jacket is a minor display of hubris in the first season as Fabian does eventually find his way onto the Owlbears, it is not until Fantasy High: Sophomore Year that Fabian’s hubris is met with Nemesis. In sophomore year, the Bad Kids find themselves on a quest to retrieve the crown of the Nightmare King. Their journey leads them to the pirate city of Leviathan. Here the city is made up of ships roped and assembled together, it floats in the Celestine Sea. On their first night in Leviathan, Fabian separates himself from the party and heads off, now pensive as this city reminds him of Bill Seacaster. On his own, he meets members of his father’s cult. Warlocks who have given patronage to Bill Seacaster as he is now causing chaos as a devil in the nine hells after dying at the end of freshman year. Initially, these pirates praise and celebrate Fabian as he is their patron’s son. They believe Fabian their saviour. Their reaction changes, however, when they ask Fabian to describe how he defeated Bill Seacaster in combat. These warlocks believe Fabian to have killed his father in a grand and epic battle. Although, in actuality, Fabian killed his father in an act of mercy after their home was attacked by mercenaries. Fabian tries to explain this to these pirates and they immediately become frantic and fearful of the lack of potency and power of their patron. They believed Fabian a powerful enough swordsman to defeat Bill Seacaster, thus powerful enough to defeat one of Bill’s long standing rivals, a man named James Wicklaw (Mulligan, S2 E5). With a hurt pride and desperate to prove himself, Fabian declares: “I am perfectly capable of leading an army, Alright? I am my father’s son through and through. And I am as good as he is...” (Mulligan, S2 E5). It is here with wounded pride that Fabian sets out to prove himself in the eyes of his father’s cult. He leads them in an attack against James Wicklaw. Fabian’s hubris here comes from overcompensating for his hurt pride. He goes above his social standing, believing himself powerful enough to defeat Wicklaw on his own. This is however not true, as Dungeons & Dragons is a game where antagonists have challenge ratings and players gain levels in certain abilities. It is up to the Dungeon Master to balance encounters and choose antagonists appropriately. James Wicklaw was a Mind Flayer, listed in the Monster Manual as a level 7 challenge rating. Fabian at the time was a level 8 Fighter (Perkins, p.222). While this seems balanced, Fabian was immediately grappled and stunned, leaving him unable to do anything but watch, while Wicklaw and his crew slaughtered the 20 followers he had brought into battle. Nemesis comes to Fabian by removing his sense of identity. As Chungledown Bim, one of the warlocks says to Fabian before dying; “Ye ain’t no pirate and Bill would spit in your eye…I’m gonna shit in your mouth” (Mulligan, S2 E5). Ultimately these words would affect Fabian so much that they will come to haunt him in later episodes. Punishment in Dungeons & Dragons does play out differently then it does in classic Mythology. Where the gods of the pantheon are near impossible to reason with and are cruel and unforgiving in their punishments, the ones in control of the world of D&D are you and your friends. A good DM is on the side of their players but it is their job to react as the world in which their players find themselves. In this situation, Lou Wilson made a series of dangerous and reckless decisions as Fabian but these decisions were exactly the decisions that Fabian would make. He is prideful, he is overconfident, he is selfish and ultimately insecure when his pride is threatened. By losing his sense of identity, Lou and Brennan made the decision away from the table to push Fabian’s punishment past simply a character choice and into the mechanics of the game. At the table, we see Fabian shed his father’s eyepatch and sword along with his letterman jacket. These items are obvious symbols of Fabian’s sense of self. It isn’t until a later episode that the viewer sees the true effect that losing his identity has on Fabian. He suffers from exhaustion and pneumonia in the following episode and seems to have fallen into a depressive state. In episode 8, the Bad Kids go to face Wicklaw again, this time together as a team. It is here that the viewers and the other players learn that Lou and Brennan decided to remove all classes and feats Fabian had taken throughout the campaign. This leaves him with a single attack. Talking about this decision in the Fireside Chat, Brennan and Lou said: “[Lou Wilson]: A lot of it is a relationship and trust between you and your DM; in that your DM sees you make that choice, the less strategic choice…and meets you in the middle...It was so much more fun because...Brennan rewarded my choices with the reality and groundedness they deserve...’[Brennan Lee Mulligan]: ‘I think there comes a moment when playing D&D, where you can say: ‘I can really blow it and tell a better story’...I need to honor the danger Lou has put himself in and I need to put consequences here and I just can’t be vindictive.” This quote highlights the main difference with how hubris is treated in this media. Nemesis and the other Greek gods do not care, as characters, if their punishments are juste. They are particularly vindictive and often do not care if you die because of your hubris. Athena did not care about the importance of storytelling when cursing Arachne for boasting of her weaving skills, she simply cared that Arachne be punished for her hubris (Buxton, p.80). In opposition to this, a Dungeon Master and their players are more similar to the poets composing the myths. They make choices while considering the narrative, they enforce nemesis in a way that adds to the narrative. Using Nemesis allows the DM to enforce consequences onto the players allowing their decisions to feel more significant and raise the stakes. However, because of teamwork between player and DM, Nemesis will be much more forgiving to a Player Character then a Non-Player Character (NPC) or those showing hubris in myths. In conclusion, hubris and Nemesis still find their place in the world of RPGS. Fabian Aramais Seacaster is a clear example of this. He boasts of his abilities, believes himself a captain, when in actuality he is at his best when working in a team. Nemesis removes his sense of identity and confidence, forcing him to face his enemies without the skills he had honed in the past few years. She forced Fabian to realize that his true strength comes from the bonds he has with his friends and not borrowed from another's reputation. Nemesis forced Fabian to face his insecurities for which he was overcompensating, playing a key part in the larger elements of Fabian’s journey to becoming his ‘own darling man-boy’.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 fantasy high #dimension 20 live #dimension 20 spoilers #this is the second school project ive done about fantasy high #fabian aramais seacaster #Fantasy high #Lou Wilson #brennan lee mulligan #an essay

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yuissamidare · 5 years

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Send you a character? DANA of course!!!

anon you are a benevolent god

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: oh my god. oh my god. anon are you ready for an essay. i don’t even know how to describe how it... dana’s not the type of character that’s usually my type so i was Extremely confused myself when i started getting so Excited to see her... she stole my heart without me noticing. i thought i’d be neutral on her at first bc she’s such a rough and brash and vulgar character but... something i noticed a really early on is how hard she works and how much she loves and cares for others, despite her brashness. shes spiteful and petty and rude and yet is still doing whatever she can to yank the world in the direction of Slightly Less Shitty. she’s the woman who’s monstrous to the monsters and she’s so proud of that, and i love that about her!! hubris is so sexy

like... dana just Gives A Fuck about people. she cares about the people around her and the people not around her, Just Because they’re people who love others too, that dance and sing and cry. because somehow, against all odds, the world is worth it and it’s not like she can fuck off somewhere else. but she’s always well aware that the worlds always been on fire and sometimes Being Nice doesn’t cut it in the real world if you want to survive. sometimes when you fight, you don’t win; believing in a noble cause doesn’t mean you’ll prevail; sometimes people won’t change despite how many chances you give them. it’s nice to believe otherwise but sometimes the Nice Thing isn’t always the Right Thing if you know what I mean. (its 3 am im babbling so idk if this makes sense) you just gotta grit your teeth, bear the heat, dig your heels into the dirt and keep going. and isn’t that shitty? isn’t that infuriating?? don’t you hate that?? dana sure does, and she channels that into helping others bc there’s a lot you can do when you’re a stubborn motherfucker who refuses to die.

for dana, i think, work is never finished and will never Be finished, because there’s no such thing as winning forever, and i think that’s something she had to learn the hard way - bc sometimes the best we can hope for is five minutes of peace - but even then, the fight itself for a future where people aren’t so monstrous to each other is worth it to her. there’s no end to her work and it’s not like she’s doing it bc she’s a particularly noble or nice person. she just wants to help people. we always have a tomorrow and when tomorrow comes it’s another day to build a community and link arms with the people around you, bc entropy is real and it may be impossible to get rid of today, or tomorrow, or in ten years, but someday, so it’s important to her that she helps now, bc even if people aren’t great, even despite there being so many awful people, she chooses to believe in good and justice even if it’s not the Nice route that dune insists she takes. hope and strength come from the bonds we share with each other, holding hands in the dark.

she’s the type to go ‘fuck you, i do what i want and protecting people is what i want; i want a world where everyone can stand side by side, a world where justice exists, a good world that i can live in. im going to put my faith in others and believe in that world, even if ive never seen it, even if ill never see it.’ she does shitty, exhausting, backbreaking work and it never ever ends, and it’s not what she signed up for when she became a hero. it doesn’t matter if the glass is half empty or half full, but that there’s water in the glass at all, and as long as there’s that, she’ll make it as hard as she can for the world to tear her down! if there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, she’ll bring her own matches!! if no one’s going to speak for others, she’ll be the one to scream in their stead!!

least favorite thing about them: I can’t read suddenly what does this say. listen... dana has many, many, many, many flaws but they all contribute to why i love her

favorite line: oh there are so many she’s hilarious... but... “if there are people around never hesitate to call for help, and if people need help go ahead and help them - that’s why people live together”.

brOTP: guineung... those fuckers love each other so much they’ve been stuck at the hip for eight years. they’re family. she has great interactions with no2 and dune too... and her and yeomho have a really good understanding of each other..... then there’s raptor and haze and stell. Let’s Say Everyone At Spoon

OTP: osudana... i compared it to the ‘ta ta tah ra ta’ dynamic but it’s not really like that?? dana is so sweet to him and she loves him because ‘hes a nice guy’... on the other hand osu pays so much attention to her, and i do think he loves her (honestly that part in 32 reads like osu thinks she doesn’t need Him anymore and wants him to leave and that’s a part of the reason he’s so upset) but he has a lot of shit to deal with concerning his health and his family and that’s a bit more pressing to him than romance, just like with dana she loves him but sometimes he has to take a drop on her priority list

nOTP: there’s no western fandom but i see medudana a lot in the eastern one... i get it gay rights but medusa is literally so mean to dana, she intentionally does shit to make her angry then openly talks about killing her n going she literally laughs at dana when she’s talking to naga about going to therapy for depression n anger management. if you want dana to date a girl bidan is right there, and severely underrated. also i know guineung is incredibly touchy with dana and they’re horribly co-dependent but no.

random headcanon: the fact twitter says that she was timid as a kid, and that’s also repeated on the korean wiki so that’s canon so like... i feel like dune was her first genuine friend and the first person to tell her it’s okay to be angry and to have feelings, and not force herself to act in the way her mother wants. i think dune is the only person she’ll let herself cry in front of too, bc he won’t demote her to ‘child that needs to be soothed’ he lets her feel her emotions and doesn’t treat her like she’s falling apart when she needs time to herself to let her be vulnerable... i love dune.

unpopular opinion: me and @ryangha are the only ones here from what i know so all my opinions are valid.

song i associate with them: this cover makes me think of osudana and this is dana in general

favorite picture of them: this question in particular is going to kill me dana radiates such sexy in every panel she’s in how can i choose...

like... if i had to choose it would be this!!

danas not a gentle or soothing person, but people love and respect her and depend on her nonetheless because she’s so genuine. raptors someone who hides her negative emotions and the fact that she reaches out to dana to get comfort from dana after her the death of someone she loves dearly shows how much everyone means to her and how much she means to them (not to mention she check up on every employee after this?? and is dealing with the press beating her ass?? godtier. the perfect woman)

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oflgtfol · 5 years

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ALSO im thinking about The End again, aka the nano story i wrote in 2015 (very bad title for a casual reference like this)

so like . im just gonna spoil it honestly bc its been years and nobody cares. the whole point of the story was that everybody dies in the end. quite literally humanity goes extinct. the whole point of the story is that you get used to these characters, you root for them through all their hardships as their world comes tumbling down and they’re helpless to stop anything, and then they just die and it’s supposed to hit you really hard because you’re attached to these characters and it’s just so unfair

but honestly? i first thought of the plot in 7th grade and i wrote the story in 9th and i’m in a completely different mindset from then now. i really dont want to write that kind of story anymore. but it sucks because i do want to rewrite and post this story eventually. but i cant change that ending because the whole point of the story IS the ending. if i changed the ending then the entire tone, message, theme, EVERYTHING about this story changes

it’s supposed to tell the downfall of humanity based on our own greed and hubris. i cant tell that story if the characters triumph in any way at the end. we are our own undoing

the way this comes about is through warfare and refusing to care for the planet. my frustration at how full of hate this world is and peoples outlook that “oh we dont need to care for the earth bc im not gonna be alive in 50 years :)” was really what caused this, and back then i was..... so full of anger and indignation about the injustice in this world that i was like “You Must Reap What You Sow”

so here i wrote a story about a common family. theres nothing about them that makes them particularly worthy of telling this story other than the fact that they’re a normal family. i never even described any physical characteristics of the characters because like, thats not what this is about, i never even imagined what they looked like in my head because the whole point of them as characters is to just be normal people that anyone can see themselves in. and then when the world is taken away from them? it hits you hard. because you saw yourself in them and now they’re facing the consequences of actions we all partake in. the whole message is that unless we fucking change for the better then we will suffer the consequences and they’re not gonna be pretty, so fucking Get It Together

but now im in a different mindset. im still very much frustrated at all this but im.. a lot more adjusted to the idea of injustice in the world. by god i am full of anger but its no longer so.. all consuming as it was.

idk how to explain this but like if you read my posts about space and how humanity has the potential for good, yadayada, then like thats basically what i’m trying to get at. i’ve actually.. become a lot more positive over the years! i’ve sat back and realized that like... the issue with human greed and apathy is rooted in society, people are blinded to the impact of their actions and they never really realize what’s Up..... i think it’s just kinda a harsh way to get my point across, in the original story.

nowadays i want change to come about through hope and peace and cooperation with fellow humans.. i know it probably wont happen that way but ideally thats what i want. i’ve sat back and seen that like, god humanity has so much potential for good and it’s just so upsetting that we time and time again use it for evil. it really is upsetting that we’ve accomplished so fucking much and then we go and do heinous things. we destroy the earth, thousands (millions?!!) of species go extinct because of us, and then you look at the sins humans commit against each OTHER - genocide, murder, bigotry, its just, why the FUCK are you wasting all your measly time and space in this universe on such horrible horrible things when we can use this for GOOD like what is the POINT

and yes im MAD ABOUT THIS but now im .. not only mad but its GENUINELY upsetting!!! but it also gets me kind of hopeful, that maybe one day as the generations go on and learn from past mistakes, that we can put this violent past behind us and come together and achieve what humanity is truly capable of. and maybe this hope that i have is what i want to initiate this change in the first place. that maybe if people saw what good we’re capable of too then they would want change to come about, and maybe if we all realized this then we’d all be able to come together and see it happen for real

and like. that vision i have now conflicts a lot with the original story i wrote for the end and just. yeah idk.

ANYWAY so my main point here (god i started rambling) is that im thinking of .... now this may be a stupid idea LOL but maybe i could rewrite the original in its depressing bullshit, but then maybe do an alternate version where things do work out in the end.... like two sides of a coin, in one overall story... one timeline where things go wrong - what will happen if we dont change - and where things wind up right - what can happen if we work for it. it still keeps the original warning in my message intact - reap the consequences of your actions if you dont work to improve - but showing the flip side of how improvement is good may actually help that message even more in the end??? IDK im just throwing ideas out here but i’ve been thinking abt the end a fair amount lately...

also bc im a cliche bitch and love working with conflciting ideas i’d call the more optimistic outcome The Beginning maybe to play off The End lol

also im kinda thinking, because rewriting + writing a whole second part will take FOREVER, i might release the original draft of the end. it sucks whole ASS and i literally never even named a character or two because i didnt feel like it (since i was working under nano time constraints) but like, god just to get it OUT there....

#delete soon #this turned out so much longer than i thought LOLL idk if any of it makes sense . shrug

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sneakyhomunculous · 4 years

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RPT Phoenix Report: Back to Back!

Part 3: Crunch Time

So to recap I finished day 1 6-2

WWL WWLWW

This is a reasonably happy 6-2!

You have the

LLWWWWWW Ecstatic 6-2

WWWWWWLL So tilted you may not even show up for day 2 6-2

Mine fell somewhere in the middle of the extremes.

But of course, 6-2 is 6-2. And my breakers should be pretty strong + the tournament is quite small compared to recent PTs. Multiple X-4s should make T8

Myself Jarvis Allen Knox and Mark have dinner at a nice Thai place.

Unfortunately we waited like 90 minutes for a table, but in the end it was worth it as we just hung out at a bar next door. and the food ended up being really good.

We don’t get back to the house until pretty late, and we are greeted with Tom Ross laying out the UW Pioneer deck

“To fix it up for the GP Tomorrow”

Instead of going to sleep I watch Tom cut multiple supreme verdicts, go up to 4 mystical disputes main, add a horribly awry to the main, sneak a tomik in the SB, along with many other hilarious changes.

He ended up registering 4 disputes main loooool IDK what his list was exactly but he ended up playing vs tons of aggro and still going 7-2.

Not sure how he finished up day 2; some middling finish I think. Turns out mystical dispute is worse than supreme verdict against mono red and black.

I get to bed a bit late but wake up feeling good.

We get over the Breakfast Club earlier today with time to eat.

I already know I’m in pod 3 with Oli2 Efro Cain Lauphiette Bloody Sadowsky and Murahashi.

We get to the site right at 9 again and I find myself in a decent seat. I have Oli 3 my left and Efro 4 away. I’m being fed by Joel Sadowsky with me feeding Bloody.

I don’t know a ton about these players preferences or limited abilities, but I do know that Oli and Efro are both very good and I am happy to be seated away from them.

This draft was a bit wild; I open Setessan Champion and take it over who cares i forgot.

I 2nd pick Alirios over some weaker cards i don’t remember, a pretty weak pack. I think there may have been like a red omen and something else but it was easy Alirios and I always want to be blue anyway.

3rd pick I happily take Mire’s Grasp over nothing

4th pick I am greeted with a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. Not the best card or anything, but i have a setessan champion and love drafting 3-4 color UG decks so this got me excited.

I fill out this pack with an icthymorphosis, a satyr grovedancer, a late cling to dust, and i know a nexus wardens tabled. I also have a memory drain a brine giant and an altar of the pantheon to keep an eye on.

Going into pack 2 I’m not really sure if I’ll be UG or GB or some combo inbetween, but I really want to be green bc of Champion.

I open Thassa’s intervention in an otherwise unexciting pack so I take that. I like this card more than most people I imagine; I think it’s very good.

I am passed lots of really good cards, but I ignore them bc there is an illysian carytid.

I’ve drafted this deck enough to know how important carytid is; and my spidey senses just tell me that I need to be base green and stay as wide open as possible to playing the gooooods that I will be receiving much too late.

Unfortunately the rest of this pack is pretty weak. I pickup a nylea’s intervention like 5th and somewhere in here I get a riptide turtle a mystic repeal a relentless pursuit 2 omen of the hunts a hierophant a 2nd altar of the pantheon and a watcher of tomorrows. Nothing exciting but I’m realllllly set up to splash anything ever.

In pack 3 I open Eat to Extinction and nothing, easy pick.

I’m finally rewarded and passed Calix, Destiny’s Hand. I already have a ton of enchantments with a few of them being removal like ichthymorphosis and mire’s grasp.

Unfortunately the rest of the pack sort of fades, I get a late Drag to the underworld and tymaret, as well as a return to nature a 2nd relentless pursuit a Nyleas Huntmaster a 6/7 colossus and another brine giant.

When building my deck I end up waffling between a lot of different configurations, but in the end I realize to make my mana really good I need to cut tymaret and drag and just splash black.

Bc I’m lacking esape and ways to deal with it I splash the cling to dust, one of my favorite cards in the set.

My final deck is like 7 forests 6 islands 2 swamps 1 plains 1 carytid 1 dryad 2 omens and nyleas intervention for fixing. I have thassas intervention, relentless pursuit, setessan champion, cling, Calix for card advantage, and then i have grasp icthymorphosis eat to extinction mystic repeal for removal. Round it out with alirios dryad wardens turtle and some big dumb creatures; I quite like my deck and I even have lots of playable sb options.

R9 Joel Sadowsky

This match was a real banger and I wish i could remember the details better.

Joel was feeding me and he has a pretty strong RG deck. He has multiple incendiary oracles and is quite aggressive overall.

He draws his Mythic Phoenix in all the games, and he also has Typhon and maybe chimera as well (i think it may have actually been rage hound not chimera) But anyway he is beating down and escaping.

In g1 I think I assemble ichthymorphosis on one of the escape creatures and I get Calix going while eat to extinctioning a different escape creature. I just survive at a low life total and bury him in Calix cards.

In g2 I feel like I am constantly fighting to get on equal footing but if I can just put my foot down I will be ahead. Unfortunately things just keep snowballing with phoenix and then wings of hubris and I ultimately can’t deploy my cards fast enough and am forced to make suboptimal plays and blocks and eventually die to the wings.

G3 was just great.

There is a ton of back and forth and on the last turn I leave myself dead to phoenix with only a black up, and he has it and pumps it and goes to extend his hand to say GGs lol; but i cling a creature in his yard to stay at 1 life and untap and deal with phoenix. I have to fade wings for a turn or two but then I can cling again and on the last turn he ends up being able to put me to exactly 1 again after I cling for a 3rd time.

Clinggggggoat

7-2

I’m feeling good and hoping to fade Oli2 and Efro. I find out Efro lost but Oli2 has a busted white pious wayfarer deck, thats bad news.

I see the pairings and am relieved to see it is Lauphiette and not Oli, but that relief is short lived as Lauphiette begins giving me the business.

R10 Lauphiette Kincey

G1 is a really back and forth affair where Lauphiette sticks a commanding presence on a flier for a turn, but I peel the land I need to Nylea’s intervention it away. He then lagona bands the presence back, but I am able to keep his fliers at bay mostly and he seems to be taking things slow. Turns out he has Shatter the Sky and has been sandbagging a bit.

Luckily I have too, and after drawing a card from Shatter and for my turn I rebuild quickly, and I am able to hold off his presence + leftovers.

G2 and 3 are just a lesson in what happens when your opponent knows how to sideboard and u are playing a 22 land deck or whatever.

Lauphiette boards in multiple memory drains to go with his thassas’ intervention/denial/denies and I just struggle to resolve any of my good cards.

I fight my best, but in g2 he has deny for my t3 champion and then I have pretty awkward mana and never really get much going.

In g3 we hilariously play draw go for like 8 turns when he breaks first casting a big thassas intervention, i respond with my own big intervention but he counters it. I untap and go for champion which he counters, but i stick Calix.

Unfortunately Calix is not jace the mind sculptor and he just easily beats it with a bunch of fliers. Ultimately my deck was just too much air and he has all vexing gulls and counterspells and despite me fighting like hell thru all of it; he is going to kill me with damage while I also have 0 cards in my library and nowhere close to killing him.

7-3

I’m feeling a bit down after this loss as I know I can’t afford to lose again. It sucks that magic tie breakers work this way, but if I would’ve lost in like R12-13 instead I wouldn’t have felt as bad knowing I probably had another loss to give.

I regroup, convincing myself my deck is absolutely busted. (Deep down I know I just need to win this round bc I am not losing in constructed.)

R11 Brenton Murahashi

Brenton is also RG and his deck seems quite good as well, but it is a different kind of good. He is like multiple warbriars blessings and lots of escape creatures and he is just a RG removal plus large creatures deck.

The lack of aggression helps me in this match as I’m able to win the 2 games I do somewhat trivially.

G1 I just have a really strong start and have Calix going on an empty board for way too long, and feel like i am 100% to win from t6 until I actually win t18.

G2 I feel ahead but I just draw a lot of timely basic lands in a row and succumb to some medium beats after losing my good cards to warbriars blessings.

G3 I feel really ahead, but he has some serious suprise burst damage with Phoenix and I think wings as well; deja vu.

CLINGGGGOAT does not care.

As a matter of fact he actually has dreamstalker manticore with me at 3 life. Draws from no hand and smiles a bit and says go. I have cling in my hand but am just holding onto it for dear life always leaving up 5 mana and 2 black. In my upkeep he fires off an omen of the forge. I give a wince and he targets me with the dreamstalker trigger.

Trigger resolves, I am at 2. Omen resolves, targetting me.

one second.......

CLINGGGGGOAT!

I clean up over a couple turns always leaving up cling.

8-3

I am obviously feeling really good here as I know I am just 7 wins away from the trophy and I have 6 teferi’s 3 dig thru times 4 wraths 26 lands and ~20 opts.

I am immediately suprised to see I am paired vs Sebastian Pozzo. He was in Pod 1 and I thought he was 8-0 overnight, but I was mistaken and he was 7-1 then 1-2 the draft.

R12 Sebastian Pozzo on Sultai Delerium

Sebastian’s list looks pretty stock (Similar to Joel Larson’s) and one thing I have going for me is that he cares way more about world’s and probably spent a lot of time testing standard instead of pioneer.

G1 is a real banger as he t2 scavenging ooze and I just chill out and counter lots of things that matter like a grisly salvage and some planeswalkers. But meanwhile he is exiling all my dig food and I am stuck with a dig in my hand and my life total somewhat dwindling down around 10.

I wrestle control of the game but promptly get emrakuled. The unfortunate thing is I timed a T3feri poorly and left him able to bounce his Emrakul. I don’t think I made any obvious mistakes and I was aware of emrakul and my teferi, but I couldn’t help but think I may have fucked it off somewhere as he is taking my turn.

Luckily he can’t devastate me too bad. He does get to spew some of my cards then go for a dig thru time grabbing 2 lands (He almost had to give me a spell! first 6 we flipped were 1 land and 5 bangers). And he bounces his emrakul and says go to my own turn.

I draw a supreme verdict and am able to + teferi and verdict his emrakul away on the way back down.

He can’t really do much with my turn and I am sort of home free. His deck still has 2 URO a Ballista a tracker another JVP and maybe 1-2 other relevant cards.

Over the next few turns I am just blasting castle tokens into play 2 at a time then eventually 3 at a time. I finally find a t5eferi after he has cracked 7 clues and cast 100 uro. I counted his deck at some point and he had 23 cards to my 19; but he was worried (I believe incorrectly) too much about me ultimating my t5eferi and he was just maximizing every clue and URO with no regards for milling. I never came close to ultimating t5eferi bc he resolved a ballista for 4 or so with 12ish lands. But my 15ish castle tokens were doing just fine protecting my already high life total.

We fight over ballista with my t5eferi and other cards but he was still drawing with uro and trackers, until he finally counts his library and its 9 cards to my 12.

My deck still has 2 verdicts another t5eferi and t3feri (I have both of those in play as well with some reasonable amounts of loyalty but not really threatening ultimate t5feri bc his ballista still around with 3-4 counters)

Upon recounting his deck he gives me a big sense of relief by conceding. He checked the clock and it was getting around 15 minutes, and he knew he would just be wasting time trying to fight thru triple castle and all these tokens with no real good cards left in his deck.

I was pretty sure this was the case, but the way he had been playing really made me think I was missing something. I kept racking my brain for how he was going to get another emrakul or something but the 1 he had was already exiled to lantern and yeah, turns out he was drawing dead.

Open decklists are great, but when u are against a deck with a bunch of 1 ofs like sultai delerium, while also not having played the matchup that much, that 1 minute of review really shrivels up as u sit there wondering why the hell this man is drawing cards with NO REGARDS FOR HUMAN LIFE!

In SBing i try to go quickly as I don’t want Sebastian to feel I got him by wasting time in any way, and also bc if I get beat by a quick TS + Tracker/dispute draw I can fight to win g3 in 10 min or whatever.

G2 is quite interesting as well but the turns are complicated and despite time ticking sebastian is still having to take some time to think. The climax is with only a couple of minutes left he assembles the 4th type with fabled passage thru a lantern and is able to traverse for emrakul threatening to cast it next turn thru a castle garenbrig if he has a land. But i have a cycler plus a teferi in play and with my cycler i find a dig thru time which finds an ashiok and a counterspell and I know it’s over.

I ashiok his graveyard and he concedes (I would likely not be able to kill him in time this game, but I was up 1-0 and he just saved us all some time and conceded)

9-3

No breaks... Next round is up.

R13 Zachary Kiihne Rimrock RED

Zach is great. I don’t actually know him well, but we battled a lot on the ladder of Arena on the Mythic Invy qualifier month. He ended up making it I believe, while I couldn’t close and finished 13th. We played lots of my WW vs his GW tokens where he was inherently favored, but the games were always complex and large board states and he always played quickly and seemed to know where the games were going.

Keeping up that pace at the PT, Zach just fires everything right off!

in G1 I keep a sketchy hand and he has the exact start to punish me. He just plays creature creature creature shock and I do find my 4th land in time but the problem is I don’t have a verdict, and when i draw on t4 it is not verdict and i die. If it was verdict I would also likely die bc I was so low anyway. WTF M8??

Luckily Dream Trawler does not care what happens in g1

in G2 and G3 I use some 2 mana interaction to survive to trawler and I kill him with them. He did have to mulligan and keep a really land heavy hand in one of the games and it hurt him.

There was an interesting spot in g2 where i had both t3feri and t5feri and he had chandra torch of defiance, exiled a card and it was lightning strike. He lightning striked my t5eferi down, then plays another card. A Judge was nearby and came and stopped our game and informed us you can in fact NOT play magic cards exiled with chandra thru T3feri. What a dumb fucking card!

The judge decides we can just back up to the point of exiling, so instead I take 2. Either way I was casting Dig thru time end of turn and going to win trivially but this way I got to keep my t5eferi in play! Thanks Judge and T3feri!!

And yeah again g3 was just him flooding and me playing trawler at a really high life total.

10-3

I finally get a bit of a break as Zach played lightning speed and we got things over with quick. I get some food and get myself amped up for these next few crucial matches.

R14 Connor Cole

Connor is a local Texan who I actually met playing at I believe SCG Dallas recently. He won a PTQ and ended up joining our local Houston guys Slack team and then went on to crush the first 13 rounds of the PT!!!

Unfortunately he ran into the Buzz Saw here; and I had to show him what the last few rounds of a PT are like.

But no jokes aside, Connor is gas and plays really well. He ended up finishing 12-4 and tiebreaker stung into 9th :( But he qued for the final and I expect big things from him in the future.

Our match was a feature, but we were the backup and they had some audio issues.

I actually just threw away the first game being overconfident in my deck. It’s funny when playing a deck like UW control my instincts are to just man up and trust the shit out of my deck. By that I mean I maximize my mana and effeciency even if I am not getting the most out of my cards, bc i trust with all these teferi’s and digs and cyclers I will be able to gain some advantage/find what i need later so long as I am surviving and hitting lands.

My mistake was maximizing mana and a dig thru time where I exiled my elspeth. At the time I was at 9 life and I had already cast a dig hitting some weak sauce, so I figured I would find my absorb or 2 counters and lock the game, but instead i found opt and charm and i fluttered around with my t5eferi as well and could not beat his running burn spells putting me to exactly 0.

If I would’ve just taken 2 seconds to realize I am in no real rush (he was on E or maybe had 1 card) I should’ve just realized I was almost 0% to lose if I just didn’t exile my own Elspeth.

Moral of the story is don’t trust your stupid deck when you already have everything you need!!!

G2 is an absolute nailbiter as I play elspeth and think I’m cruising to Trawler, but chainwhirler eats it promptly.

I then have my 2nd elspeth but 2nd chainwhirler dashes that as well.

I still slam trawler and think It’s mostly very safe, as connor just has chainwhirler kari zev and soul scar mage with me at 9.

But he slams Chandra and minuses on my trawler. I count it up and thank the lord somehow he only has 8 damage. So i give my trawler hexproof keeping a dig thru time, and he puts me to 1. I untap and attack chandra draw and dig before damage, and I have a lot of combo’s that will keep me alive easily. Any interaction should be good enough and I leave myself 5 mana. I find a verdict and something else gassy so I just go up to 6 from trawler, verdict and then untap with elspeths ready to come back from the yard and I gain 5 and am out of range and clean up shortly after.

G3 is a bit less scary. He does put up a fight but I feel miles ahead at all points having 2 mana interaction and then also hittings lands and playing cards before trawlering on 6 while still quite healthy.

11-3

Now I’m really feeling hyped as I know I have a win and in and I’m just 4 wins from the Trophy!!!

I refocus and am very confident I will win the next round.

R15 Raja Sulaiman WB Gideon Midrange

I don’t know my opponent, but I do know he has a sweet deck. I am looking at the list trying to figure out if I’m extremely happy or a bit sad and can’t really tell. I lean towards happy but could totally see getting annihilated as well.

Luckily the match is mostly uneventful. I lose g1 to double TS Heart History Gideon...

But again,

Dream Trawler does not care what happens in g1.

12-3

We did it! Back to back PT T8s!!

Unfortunately the next 20min were very unpleasant instead of happy, but that’s ok.

The pairings for R16 makeup for it!

I’m at table 1, paired against my teammate Allen Wu who has enough wins to T8 this PT and the next!

I know Allen does not care much for any bullshit, so I am actually a bit worried he is going to want to play me.

Yes we are teammates, but Allen cares [almost] solely about maximizing his chances of winning the tournaments. I respect him a lot, and I also respect this approach.

One of 3 things happened;

-Allen valued his time too much to battle me here for extremely minimal gains.

-Allen thinks there is some chance losing would make him the 2 seed while drawing just locks the 1 seed (I think he was locked 1 seed even if he played me and lost);

-Allen thinks I/my deck suck and he wants me in the T8

I’m leaning towards some combination of all 3, but who cares he offered to draw and I ACCCCCCEPT!

The final standings shake out with Allen 1 Jacob 2 Me 3. I am playing the 6, Huey, and my teammate Tommy is 7 battling Jacob on my side of the bracket.

My other teammate Corey is battling PETERRR in the 4/5 match.

Our team has 4 people in the T8!!! I know we are like 7% of the tournament, but thats 50%!

Also shoutout to Mark who I believe lost a win and in R15 or so.

Our squad obviously had a really strong showing, with 4 in the T8 and Corey winning it all. But we also just had really solid winrates in limited and constructed despite playing lots of different decks.

This is getting obscenely long.

This night was actually really annoying bc I spent it telling the same story over and over;

And also on twitter watching lots of people I’ve never met talk about how much of an asshole I am, or how much I cheat, or how bad I am, or whatever is getting the most likes.

I mostly shook it off. I got to tell the story to all the people I care about, and have dinner with a large portion of my team. I had already played my QF matchup post board a bit with Allen before the tournament, so I knew my plans.

Unfortunately it didn’t help me in the games.

I get to bed at a reasonable time and have to be at the site for like 9:15. I’m there before 9 and when I ask if I can go to starbucks I am told yes of course go ahead, but please stay around. And then immediately someone else tells me I won’t be playing until around 11 probably :0

I get starbucks and get back to battle Jacob some in his QF matchup. Mostly to just warmup and help him out, but also to get a feel for he and Tommy’s decks incase I beat Huey.

We only get a few games in before finding out my match is actually 3rd not 4th, and these BO3 are going quick and I’m about to be up.

While the other match is finishing, we present and draw our hands and get ready to start right when the other match finishes.

I am greeted with 2 censor Opt Farmland Hallowed Fountain Glacial Fortress Supreme Verdict. Not quite the nuts, but a solid A. I’m on the play and Huey mulligans to 5.

We finally start our game and this one hurt. I opt t1 and hit a teferi and keep it, then immediately draw my 4th land so i say go with censor up ready to cycle farmland, huey goes for sylvan scrying before playing land after t1 grazer got him to 2, and i censor it and he says go missing a land drop with 3 cards in his hand.

From here I play teferi to get the jayemdae tomb one every 4 turns going; Huey draws a thespians stage but can’t muster anything else, so he now has 2 UG lands a stage and 3 cards vs my censor cycle land another land and teferi.

Over the next 3-4 turns I draw 2 cards with teferi cycle this farmland and another, opt and charm, and the only playable card I find is a mystical dispute. I draw seal away and all 4 of my verdicts lol.

Huey goes for Granted with 3 mana up, and i have no choice but to dispute and hope to censor after he pays 2 for 1ing myself. I can’t be granted for distortion without a t5eferi in play or any pressure at all.

He responds by cycling vizier to make a mana, and pays for dispute with 1 mana still up. This now means I have to cycle censor looking for a hard counter but i brick. He gets distortion.

The game weirdly goes on for like 8 more turns. He just keeps making more fields with stages but I amass narset elspeth t3feri t5feri. He finally has to go for it despite not having a way to kill me, so he goes for distortion into string strings last card granted for ugin to wipe my planeswalkers; but I’m able to make a 1/1 and chip ugin down to 2. Unfortunately I draw a land, he +s on my token and i make another then draw another land. ANd now I am dead to the fae coming into play, back to hand, finding Jace and having double walker going. I just got beat at my own game!!! He didn’t even breach me!

But yeah, I am feeling a bit frustrated to lose the game despite knowing how bad G1 is.

When he mulled to 5 and got his scrying censored I believe I was a massive favorite, probably somewhere in the 70s or 80s at least and I just drew only the dead cards.

But now we board in 9-10 cards and regroup!

G2 was really great, and I made like 1 mistake a turn.

I asked a lot of really good players what they would do on all these turns and almost all of them would make the same mistakes I did.

Except for Allen;

and Drunk Tom Ross!

Tom let me know how bad I fucked up, and I really appreciate that.

Tom said many different things like “awww u really fucked up. U fucked it up bad. Damn u fucked it up”

The games are obviously on camera, but in G2 Huey goes for field + copy it with stage, I field of ruin the stage.

So his board is forest untapped Lotus Field tapped with 4 cards in hand.

I have T5feri my 4th and 5th land, 2 mystical disputes and absorb.

I untap and draw Elspeth.

The question is should I play it?

Huey has 4 disenchants, 2 disputes, 1 ugin, 1 jace, 1 thought distortion and maybe 1 more card he could bring in.

For the most part his plan is still the same, build up his mana and try to find a window to either thought distortion me, or strings my lands/his lands to make sure he resolves his key card(s).

But I just felt with the 2 disputes and t5eferi I was going to be able to apply meaningful pressure fast enough to not risk tapping out here.

In my head he could just granted for distortion then sort of ignore elspeth for a few turns and fire a distortion then kill me, but that is so unrealistic. First he has to not board the distortion in (I was thinking he like 80% brings it in. Allen brought his in and we felt like that was just correct so I assumed Huey likely would) and then he also has to somehow have perfect mana to get to 6 and then distort me and kill me before dying to this SIX MACHINE elspeth? Its stupid and I shouldve just probably played elspeth.

Not doing so was playing scared/too safe. But it really isn’t that bad or that big of a deal. If huey has a natural 2nd stage into strings I can easily just be dead. But it’s really low % and this is a tough matchup of magic the gathering vs a great player where you can’t just tiptoe around making suboptimal plays bc it makes you feel safe.

Lots of people hesitated and said don’t play it. Tom would have blown like a .40 BAC minimum when I asked him, and he immediately said to play Elspeth.

Anyway Huey untaps and just plays a temple scryland and keeps the card on top, and says go.

So now he has forest lotus field untapped and 4 cards with a banger on top.

My turn.

I draw damping sphere!

I have t5eferi damping sphere elspeth 2 dispute absorb and my 5th land.

Now a a few things go thru my mind here. Huey has 2 disputes but the way he’s played this game make me feel like it’s somewhat unlikely he has one.

However, if I go for t5feri and he does dispute it’s really ugly. I can go for elspeth with dispute up but that feels too weak.

My options I am actually considering are just jam sphere and counter a disenchant, or jam teferi and have double dispute up if he doesn’t have dispute.

I think it’s somewhat close, but in hindsight it’s actually just an easy T5feri.

Unfortunately I go for damping sphere which is where Tom says nooooooo u fucked up bad, u really fucked it up.

And Huey immediately floats 3 GREEN? I say ok and he natural states my damping sphere.

Now this is a bit weird to me. I mean he floated 3 green immediately; but he has a forest up. And he has 2 disputes in his deck...

So now I am paranoid that he hasnt a 2nd disenchant.

But it’s Huey, and it’s a PT T8. I start thinking maybe he is leveling me and trying to get me not to counter it bc he has no dispute and no 2nd disenchant.

Ultimately my plan when playing it was to just fire off a counterspell on disenchant bc if he does have a dispute or 2nd one he will only have 2 cards, and i can just untap t5feri with counterspell. But if he doesn’t successfully kill sphere I am just going to win easily.

So I absorb.

Huey bins the natural state and before he can cast his other one a judge intervenes.

There is a damping sphere in play when i absorb; so obviously I can’t do this bc it should cost 4. I just totally forgot that part of the card even existed. I haven’t cast it in the entire tournament, and in my mind it was just strip mine lotus fields to wastes.

Even with the speed of everything and huey snap disenchanting I could have seen myself forgetting to count the sphere tax to itself, but I literally just forgot it even had that text for a second there.

Huey also forgot it. The judges stopped us and then asked me what I was thinking, so I just repeated a lot of what I just typed; all the shit I was thinking about him floating green instead of blue etc. then they came back and gave us warnings and said to carry on. Huey apologizes after the game bc he said he totally forgot himself but it looks bad bc he wanted me to absorb bc he had another disenchant.

Anyway, we backup and I have a dead damping sphere and 3 mana up with absorb Huey now knows about. I also have the 2 disputes.

Huey untaps and immediately taps field and forest and plays hidden strings. THen he looks at me lol. I say are you targetting your lands?? He says yes

So yeah, now I am looking at this absorb he knows about. He only has like what 3 cards behind this strings. It’s going to put him to 7 mana. What can he even do? There is no way he’s killing me thru 2 dispute. If he has breach natural i let it resolve, then i dispute strings. If he pays he has 0 mana left and i dispute again untap teferi + and have absorb gg yo

If he has the natural distortion then obviously I need to counter this. But he has ONE and i just showed him absorb. I am thinking to myself, dont be a fool! his hand is probably granteds and pore over the pages and hes trying to bait u into countering this stupid strings!

So I let it resolve, and I get distorted.

This was not a good play!

I could have just disputed the strings. This virtually counters it bc he only had 1 field. So while he couldve paid for dispute, it wouldve tapped him out, and strings resolves untapping only 4 mana. So from there i still have another dispute and he can’t reasonably do anything.

Instead I am empty handed and in dire straights. I do peel t5eferi immediately but i hit land off of it and draw only lands next turn as well, meanwhile huey sets up to kill me over 2 turns and does so.

what a tilting match :(

It really hurts to make such critical mistakes in these high stakes matches, but Magic is really hard and I forgive myself pretty quickly.

I had good reasons for making the plays that I did, but they were just a bit faulty;

WRONG!

I feel like if I had more time to think things through, or if there were less pressure of the stakes I maybe would have just slammed T5eferi and even Elspeth t4. But i definitely don’t have a good excuse for not disputing strings. Just Huey being Huey and somehow levelling me into punting it all off after i showed him my absorb.

But yeah GG’s YO I ended up 6th for 10k bc Allen lost too :( and 18 points.

I have a really good shot at Rivals now so I am pumped for the PT final and next RPT!

Shoutout again to Corey for winning and all of team 5% for crushing and being gas.

Also shoutout to all the grinders out there still on the outside looking in.

I see you!

Hopefully I’ll have more reports soon...

PT Finals Victory Report, RPT2 Victory Report...

Let’s get it!!!

0 notes

aeroknot · 7 years

Text

here have 1,740 words out of 17,600 words of narusaku headcanon

.............i’m goin’ in deep y’all sry not sry (ok i AM kinda sry to those on mobile who have to scroll past this....... i wish mobile didn’t suck like that so you can avoid watching me be a huge dweeb instead of pro’lly what you decided to follow me for hnnnnggh)

these are 2 separate moments I came up with that I eventually tied together after some editing (/fantasizing about my own ideas) passes:

at a gathering with their friends, they both got insufferably cocky about a game involving pairs against pairs, and the stakes kept rising, eventually hinging on some pretty risky bets. when they lost, they were mortified in having to eat the brightly colored crow their friends (conspirators, the useless lot of them!) came up with. they had to temporarily dye their hair the other’s hair color, and couldn’t wash it out for a whole week (or use a genjutsu?). so sakura had to work around the hospital with blonde hair, and pink-haired naruto was at the mercy of his sharp-tongued genin students. people wonder if sakura meant to and if she wants to look more like her shishou, which is cool and all, but most everyone says they like her pink hair better, which is a relief. The most annoying part is the humiliation she feels since she had to do it as the result of her own hubris. he complains about the relentless teasing savagery of his genin students while they’re walking along the canal on their last evening of this punishment, but admits to sakura he doesn’t mind the hair so much and shares he’s often wondered what it’d be like to have his mother’s hair, and pink is similarly distinctive and beautiful and in the same color family. It’s the first comparison of one of her features to his mother’s he speaks aloud, and his heart starts racing because he momentarily forgets she doesn’t know about his mother’s words to find a girl like her. Completely unaware of his thoughts and sudden nervousness, she serenely replies, “I’m sorry she’s not here to experience how sweet her son can be to her… I wonder if she would have liked me? I think I’d have liked her” she actually doesn’t take his silence personally, sort of because she doesn’t think what she said requires a response, but mostly because she’s distracted. they get around some trees at the edge of the pathway right at that moment, allowing a beautiful view of the brilliantly warm-toned sunset. she makes a noise of appreciation and with a childlike wonder he hasn’t seen on her in a little while, she cheerily says, “this sunset has all our colors, Naruto!” “Yeah” he says, a little breathless. “All our colors.” He watches her until she notices (trrrooopey as fuuuuuuck, i know, shut up) and smiles real big at him but humorously admonishes, “Don’t look at me, weirdo! You see me all the time, but you don’t see the same sunset twice” then she faces it again. So he puts his hands in his pockets to stop their quivering as the scene soaks in and suddenly it’s just really hard to see her green eyes with his blonde hair. he turns to take in the sunset too, and he thinks, “she would have loved you, Sakura… we can bet on it” (originally all i’d written here was the first paragraph, and then I think my subconscious LEAPT OUT AT ME the next time I read it to provide this sunset scene -- they’re my rainbow sherbet fighting dreamers ninja family!!!)

~ & ~

In my headcanon world, Naruto and Sakura have five kids, two of which are adopted and three conceived. * I want to note here that I almost never go the “lots and lots of babies” route w/ my otp’s. 3 out of my top 5 do not go on to have kids in my interpretations of them. But for Naruto and Sakura it makes sense, and this is especially based in my conviction he would want to adopt and he would want a big family to experience the exact opposite of his childhood. So, yeah, 5 makes a lot of sense to me. I tend to think they are resistant to the idea of kids for a while bc of the threats to their lives, but they eventually decide they both really want to have kids after fostering two boys and it’s so hard to eventually let them go on to their adoptive parents. Sooo.. their youngest are twins; they’re named Konohana and Sakuya. And my reasoning for this, as well as for all the other names, is pretty in depth. Here: I first heard about Konohana from @yellowflasher‘s great fanfics. She has a Konohana and Kae (not twins), and I asked her once if she named Konohana after the myth, and she said she actually hadn’t seen or heard it before. It obviously stuck with me tho!! Uzumaki Konohana = from the Konohanasakuya-hime mythology. I just discovered with this name theme of using myths I coulda inadvertently referenced Kushina and Minato as well!! -- Kushina’s name could have been derived from Kushinadahime, a goddess of rice/life, and Susanoo is her husband, the god of STORMS aka Namikaze Minato. (Maybe other peeps in the fandom already knew this but I’m late to the party. Oh well! I was shocked when I learned this yesterday.) And it honors Konohagakure, and honors Sakura: ‘flower’ is part of the name. Konohana was conceived (twin to Sakuya)

Uzumaki Sakuya = from the Konohanasakuya-hime mythology. And see above for the comments about the possible Kushina/Minato connection. And it honors Sakura: it’s literally 2/3rds her name; one different ending syllable. & naruto calls her Momo-chan, and I explain why below.

After deciding all this, I came up with this moment: Naruto and Sakura love the names from the princess myth but also love they are referring to Konoha and Sakura. tho, because Sakuya can sometimes sound too similar to Sakura, confusingly so-- and as Naruto’s the only one who has to say both names in the household (y’know, because it’s either “Sakuya” or “mom” said by everyone else, the kids don’t call her Sakura) -- he often calls her “Momo-chan.” as a kid she’s not sure why but just rolls with it and then one day in her later childhood it dawns on her: orange + pink = peach (note: momo means the fruit and momo-iro means the color but I think naruto would just keep it short and simple as momo-- he’d probably argue an orange plus a cherry equals a peach anyway, somehow……... hahhh! I actually looked it up and peaches are in the same genus as cherries and apricots, and apricots are orange :P not that naruto would know this but sakura would be like me and probs research it lol). Sakura expresses concern that Konohana will feel jealous or excluded if he doesn’t give her a nickname too, and he forlornly / guiltily (at having not even thought of that) approaches Konohana with this. She’s rather young to be considering this so thoughtfully -- maybe 4 or 5 -- but her answer never changes as she grows up (though the vocabulary / phrasing she uses might mature…. But I say might, haha); “don’t change me; I love my name!! it is like our home so it means I will become hokage like daddy!! and it is like flowers like mommy’s flower so it means people are happy and have a party when i show up!!” (she’s talking about hanami) naruto immediately bursts into tears bc holy shit he just loves this kid so!! much!!! ( ᵒ̴̶̷̥́ _ᵒ̴̶̷̣̥̀ ) sakura’s doing better at keeping it together, tho not by much, lmao

Some months into the nickname of Momo-chan settling in, there’s a morning where it’s brought into question again. while sakura and naruto are folding laundry, the twins rush in from the backyard to show them something they’re excited about in their grubby cupped hands. “Look! loo~oook! polli-wolly-wogs!!” (tadpoles-- i have great affection for this term for them bc mei in the english dub of totoro calls them that, and totoro is a defining touchstone of my young childhood) naruto intones, “eeehhhh? How cool, konohana-chan!! Momo-chan! Maybe uncle Gamakichi knows ‘em, huh?” and they laugh and stick their tongues out at him, “he’s not our uncle! He’s a toad!” yet they’re making ribbiting sounds as they run off to return the tadpoles. Sakuya trips and just narrowly regains her footing at the last moment to prevent toppling herself and the tadpoles across the floor. “careful, momo-chan!” Naruto offers in a loud voice, but calmly-- he holds back his concern, as he’s learned that a lot of the time kids decide whether they should cry based on their parents’ reactions, namely whether they freak out a lot, and he’s done a lot of freaking out, and is trying something new now, pfft. He watches her right herself, check on the tadpoles in her hands, nod once firmly and give a determined “mm!” in acknowledgement of his caution, and they scamper off.

So then Sakura asks, with some humor in her voice even tho she’s going for annoyed: “naruto, why’d we even name her sakuya if you’re just gonna keep calling her momo-chan?” “aahh, sakura-chan. She’s just little momo to her daddy. Out in the real world she’ll be called the name inspired by her mind-blowing mom.” the tinge of pink on her cheeks does not get past him and the side of his mouth starts to twitch into a smirk. He roguishly continues with, “I thought about making you the one I address with a nickname instead, but all the ones I could come up with aren’t appropriate in front of the kids” she tries to look aghast but she’s fighting her mutinous mouth starting to veer into a big smile, and to distract his gaze away from this very visible and losing battle across her face, she twists a towel and snaps it at him. They play fight until they fall onto the bed, halfway into the now half-undone laundry. They rest a little bit, soaking in the calm moment, his upper body on top of her lower body-- resting his head on her stomach and holding her around her waist. Her eyes are closed and she’s absent-mindedly running her fingers through his hair. Then he softly voices, “little peach... she’s our colors, Sakura.” and she does vividly remember the sunset he’s recalling. She answers with his words from years ago: “Yeah. our colors.”

(god i’m really driving home this rainbow sherbet ninja family theme aren’t i???? Don’t care!!!! I love it!!! They are my faves they deserve everything I have to offer!!!!)

THE END.

(....except not bc..... there’s...... uh..... 15860 words left...... yeah those figures..... weren’t hyperbolic, i am actually that much of a dork)

#narusaku #narusaku head canon #narusaku headcanon #narusaku haters don't interact X #naruto #uzumaki naruto #haruno sakura #aero shoots herself out of the canon and into her own #aero talks to herself #head canon #headcanon #konohana #My writing #i spend this much time just writing the ideas how the fuck you think i'm gonna have the attention span and stamina to ACTUALLY #creatively string the words together in a story format????? fuuuuuck #that being said i.... like these ideas a lot #and hope others may enjoy them too even if it's not all fancy fic-like #rainbow sherbet ninja family

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wingheadshellhead · 7 years

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Hi, I love your blog! So I've been reading a lot of 616 stevetony lately, and I've noticed that in both canon and in a lot of fiction, Steve seems to really dislike Extremis (even before superior iron man). Why do you think that is? Even without looking at this with shipper goggles (which I always am), I think it's really strange that Steve has so much disdain for something that essentially saved one of his best friend's lives.

(THIS HAS TAKEN ME 5 BILLION YEARS BUT HERE IT IS FINALLY)

i used to be in the same boat and automatically assumed steve’s dislike of extremis was one of those fandom headcanon things that was so commonly accepted it’d basically become fact, but it’s really, actually, all 100% canon. but the comics that deal with it happen right before civil war so i think many ppl have simply forgotten or skipped over that part of tony’s timeline.

execute program is the 6-issue arc that comes right after extremis and it’s the main thing i tell everyone they have to read if they’re putting themselves thru the ringer that is 616′s civil war. it is so so important to understanding tony’s headspace and where he’s at before the events of civil war occur.

READ EXECUTE PROGRAM. a) bc it’s absolutely crucial to tony’s side of civil war, b) the follow-through from the extremis arc is just… amazing, virtuosic. i really genuinely think it is a fascinating, excellently-written arc, c) when it gets gay it gets very gay. truST ME you do not need your shipper goggles for this at all bc guess which of the following things are canon: the sound of steve saying his voice being the only thing that snaps tony out of (likely a dissociative episode) trying to murder a villain that nearly kills peter, dyeing his hair blond when he’s going on the run, tony stopping his heart to save steve’s life. all of them !!! all canon !!!!!!

extremis is, basically, terrifying. to the average human being, hell even the average superhuman. it’s p much unfathomable the sheer level/magnitude/scope of extremis. extremis allows tony to access and control any piece of technology on earth and even in earth’s atmosphere, he can hear satellites. it’s like having the singularity as a superpower.

so part 1, iron man vol. 4 #7 (2006), opening issue and we have tony stopping a villain with lethal force, all while counting down the milliseconds and bidding on priceless artefacts.

now, avengers don’t kill. and tony doesn’t, he stops the man’s heart, then restarts it, basically performing defibrillation.

and then we get this conversation:

and after tony jets off leaving the new avengers to sort out the aftermath, we get this disturbing reminder:

a proper reread might prove me wrong but i don’t think the writers ever clarify whether this transformation in tony’s personality is due to extremis or outside manipulation (which is the culmination of execute program’s arc as i’ll go into in a bit). but when your brain is literally a machine and you Have Become more machine than human, this is the natural progression of tony’s humanity – the aspects of compassion, empathy, etc. – fading into the background to accomodate for extremis.

extremis brings out everything about tony that steve (and possibly the world) fears most. it makes him cold and calculating, and with a brain like tony stark’s elevated by the superhuman capacity to think and react at the speed of a machine, he’s unstopppable.

part 2, iron man vol. 4 #8, we have tony nearly straight up burning a man alive for almost killing peter and laughing about it.

he’s so deep in Destroy Mode that he doesn’t even register steve’s warning, and here i think he acts entirely out of instinct –– like extremis is thinking for him rather than his brain prompting him to do this.

extremis is also the cause of tension between tony and the newly-formed new avengers (one of my favorite line-ups!!), he almost gets into a fight with logan and jessica has to break them up. it turns out tony is missing time in his memory, which is extremely worrying for someone w/ his level of power…

what’s so fascinating about extremis, and why we have so much to thank warren ellis for (the writer of the extremis arc), is that it is the perfect and the most logical climax of the modern iron man story. tony’s worst villain, as we’ve known since the very beginning really, has never been anyone else but himself. and in the case of extremis, it’s a highly technologically advanced version of himself that can do and be everything he’s ever dreamed of being able to achieve vs. him.

the question extremis asks is at what cost? at what cost does technological advancement, bleeding-edge breakthroughs, and the spirit of human innovation come at? how far would tony go to become the Ideal version of himself that he sees as superior in every way? what would he sacrifice for that?

extremis represents basically the pinnacle of sci-fi tech in iron man comics, it’s why even god awful superior iron man used a 3.0 version of it as the foundation for tony’s sins. it’s the farthest point he’s ever reached, and it’s also the lowest in terms of the damage and fallout that comes from it. because ofc, tony stark can’t have nice things like this, but also bc the hubris + nature of extremis allowing its host to play god can’t exist without there being negative consequences. really b ad consequences.

huge respect to danial & charles knauf, the authors of execute program, too, because they find a way to perfectly bring the arc full circle as ellis did with his extremis. the central villain plot revolves around ho yinsen’s son. the kid hacks extremis and uses it to control tony, sending him to subconsciously assassinate a bunch of people on his kill list, i.e. a list of all the men involved in yinsen’s death. i mean like, HOLY SHIT, an iron man plot where a literal ghost from tony’s past – a direct victim of events tony was involved in, the son of the man that sacrificed his life so iron man could be born and so tony stark could live – shows up, weaponises tony’s own body + technology and uses him to murder people who are scheduled to participate in a peace summit despite the blood on their hands and the human cost of their involvement in the weapons industry.

DRAWING PARALLELS BETWEEN YINSEN’S LIFE’S WORK AND TONY’S LIKE DEATH AND DYING WOULD BE KINDER. again bc of my memory or even regardless due to constant retcons + reruns of the iron man origin story, i don’t know if it’s ever been explicitly stated before that yinsen also got into the weapons industry in order to get the funding necessary to support his other revolutionary work. but his son literally conflates yinsen with tony here, blending them into one + the same with that final panel and it becomes very obvious that at least a small part of him blames father for entering into weapons design. if he hadn’t, he might never have been captured by the the terrorist group that wanted him and tony to build them missiles.

also, yinsen + villains involving yinsen are a recurring theme in iron man history but can we talk abt the fact that tony has never ever let himself forget the man bc jesus christ

yinsen’s kid is killed by a SHIELD sniper, activating the dead man’s switch and unleashing all the peackeeping units tony built that are now compromised. now, tony’s no jean grey or wanda maximoff but if this arc shows anything it’s not to underestimate him bc intentional or not (lmao) if he put his mind to it there’s literally no limit to the damage he could do.

we see various heroes fighting off the peacekeeping units, and the new avengers are at the peace summit fighting a hulkbuster.

and here it is people !!! the 23989485th time tony kills himself so steve can live.

JUST. THE LOOK ON HIS FACE. AND THEN THIS ABSOLUTE LACK OF HESITATION:

so, yes. extremis was traumatising for pretty much every single person involved. steve has extremely good reasons for HATING extremis, even in the early stages or even if a fic is taking place before the events of execute program.

if you read the full arc, you’ll see tony running himself into the ground with his new abilities (world’s greatest multitasker can now multitask 192483958 things at once? ofc he’s going to use and abuse and exploit that), you see him spiralling and losing his grip on reality (mainly because he’s actually having dissociative episodes and losing time due to being remotely controlled to assassinate ppl but also bc of the Effect extremis is having on him). i brought up wanda and jean earlier as a casual reference but like, to put it in that kind of perspective, people just weren’t made to have this much power.

on a smaller scale, apart from eating up all of tony’s time and attention and mental health in a really bad way, it just Distances him from everyone. especially from the team. it’s Isolating, having this much going on in his brain and no one else in the world to fully understand it.

and on steve’s side, you also have the fact that tony’s genius is both one of the things he loves and lowkey resents most about him. he has this deep-set anxiety about tony with all his brilliance and intelligence leaving him behind in the dust, or worse, laughing at him and how outdated and dim-witted he is in comparison. this is steve’s version of tony’s “i’m never going to be good enough for him”, a sentiment summed up in a quote from him as early as tales of suspense vol. 2 (1995): “yes, tony stark, a man of today and tomorrow is the man i’ll never be.” he’s so afraid of being abandoned + alienated by tony’s mind and the future that tony’s worked so tirelessly to build that might render him irrelevant. he’s scared of a future where he has no purpose, but more or just as importantly, he’s scared of becoming obsolete in tony’s life, of not being needed by tony anymore. one of the things that endeared him so much to tony, and which laid the foundations of their lifelong friendship, was the fact that from Day One (1), tony made him feel At Home. he never let him feel ashamed or isolated as The Man Out Of Time, he actively worked to make steve feel comfortable and to give him the things he needed to acclimatise and to fit himself into this brave new world.

extremis undoes all of that. it propels tony so far and so fast into the future that it makes tony untouchable to steve. all of the ‘i can hear satellites’ stuff renders steve helpless and even more out of his depth than usual. it presses all of steve’s secret buttons and then some.

to sum this all up, and to finish my extra rambling abt tony bc u asked me about extremis and i couldn’t not finish with this:

here we have, ladies and gentlemen, everything u need to understand abt tony going into civil war. and it’s not on any of the official civil war fucking reading lists which really pisses me off because whether or not they did it on purpose the knaufs basically wrote all of execute program as the perfect precursor and characterisation groundwork for an antebellum tony stark.

a tony stark who was just very recently manipulated against his will into assassinating people and causing a world-threatening incident that could have resulted in the deaths of thousands, including his own friends and teammates (and the love of his life), is a very different tony stark to the one ppl see in civil war #1.

what happens in stamford was an accident, too. no one meant for that to happen. tony knows first fucking hand what that means and what it feels like to carry that responsibility and guilt. his position in civil war supporting the SHRA is not only to protect the potential lives that could be lost in another stamford incident but also to protect superhumans and superheroes from ever being exploited against their will by villains to kill and hurt and destroy.

superheroes are inherently susceptible to being used, it’s just part of the narrative convention –– a superhero is brainwashed or mind controlled or otherwise forced against their will to do something awful. and even if it’s not their fault there needs to be accountability for the victims. both the victims that suffer directly because of superhuman incidents but also the superheroes that become victims of ppl who abuse their powers. it’s abt protecting superheroes not just from civilians but from themselves. and if u’ve read a single comic u kno that this kinda shit happens way too often and way too easily.

sO YE S T hIS iS W HY. AND IT Ex PL AINS SO MUC H AND i j UST WISH P PL WOULD GODDAMN REA D THIS. LIKE EVERYONE WHO EVER WANTS TO SAY ANOTHER A GODDAMN THING ABOUT TONY STARK IN CIVIL WAR NEEDS TO FIRST READ EXECUTE PROGRAM FIRST OR PAY ME $10

anyway…………… one last time, i’m so so so sorry this took forever to get to. hope the wait was worth it!

#mod: answer #averageapplepie #stevetony #stony #extremis #text: meta #universe: 616 #comic: iron man v4 #original: meta #i'm so sorry u had to wait so long like #i should warn ppl that ever ask me a meta question that i might take half a yr to reply #......not to deter u tho bc i promise that my answer will be as well thought-out and in-depth as i can make it

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