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thebeautyoffanfics · 3 years

Note

Idk if you already made this but Hanako, Kou and mitsuba jealous Hcs with their girlfriend that is quite popular among the students pls? thank u!!

hanako x f!reader, kou minamoto x f!reader, mitsuba sousuke x f!reader

a/n: sure thing!! No worries, I haven’t made it yet :D you’re so very welcome, and thank you so much for requesting!! I love jealousy headcanons tho I don’t think I’ve ever written them? I hope these turn out alright, and I’m so sorry for the time this took!

warnings: jealousy?

word count: 1,936

Hanako <3

Oh boy- can I do anything but wish you luck?

Hanako is already a fairly clingy and jealous guy, that’s practically canon. He’ll stand between you when you’re talking to anyone, and I mean aaaaanyone. He just can’t risk losing you!

(It’s got a whole lot to do with his insecurities, of course- while he wouldn’t admit it, not wanting to drop his “ah? I’m just an innocent little boy, free of issues and perverted thoughts <3” attitude, he does struggle a lot. He’s a ghost, a murderer, and imperfect in more ways than those. You’re popular for a reason. You’re so pretty, so kind, so lovable- you’re alive, and probably have morals. What are you doing with a dead murderer?)

Wow, ANYWAY- we’re here for jealousy, not Hanako’s issues, though they will probably resurface shortly.

Seeing everyone around you… always wanting your attention, always complimenting you…

You deserved it! He thought all of those positive things and more-! But… at this point, so many people admiring you, why were you still with him?

Even if you explain to him constantly that you love him dearly, and wouldn’t leave him for anyone else, he still gets somewhat possessive. Eventually putting the “but why does (Y/N) still love me,,” aside, he just wants others to keep their hands off you :((

It’s no fault of yours, and he acknowledges that! But it’s the fault of others getting so close to you >:((

Though they can’t see him, when people go up to you, talking joyfully- he’s standing there, arms wrapped around you, head on your shoulder as he glares daggers into their souls.

BRO IF SOMEONE FLIRTS WITH YOU OR TOUCHES YOU??

You’ve never seen him super angry, much less murderous. He doesn’t want you to see him that angry normally- but holy moley is he about ready to beat someone.

Yet, he’s still just a ghost- plus if he did something Teru would exorcise him, booooo. So, he settles for continuing to glare, standing between the two of you, hitting their arm if it’s resting on your shoulder. Once again, they’re completely unaware of it, but you aren’t!

“Hanako, you know I won’t leave you for them. They’re a classmate, I barely know them, really.”

“But they want to know you. And I don’t want them to know you… they’re gonna try and take you from me, (Y/N)!”

“I won’t let them take me, you big dummy. So, if you could please let go of me so I can get back to class?”

“No :((“

Not only does he cling to you, of course- though he hugs you bunches and squishes your face just because you’re cute- you can also expect a lot of kisses. Ranging from quick “hey, I’m here, and please don’t choose someone else over me”, “hey, my kisses are better than theirs!! Here’s proof!”, “you’re my girlfriend, not theirs, and if they keep treating you like you aren’t taking I’m going to stabby stabby (but I can’t stab cos Teru’s here, but I would if it wasn’t upsetting)”, etc, etc. It’s… almost strange how easy it is to understand what he means from the way he kisses you- but, I digress!

Overall, he gets jealous fairly easily, and gets very clingy when jealous. He’s not amazing with words, so he wants to show you that he loves you with actions!! However, those actions, more often than not, end up just being… clinging to you, and glaring at people who try to get too close to you.

(RIP Akane, Kou, and Nene for bearing witness to you walking around the school with a visibly angry Hanako. Though the worst the others get is the feeling that someone is staring at them, they get to witness his jealousy from off to the side.)

Kou Minamoto <3

He’s nearly completely opposite from Hanako, actually! He doesn’t get jealous very often, trusting you to actually tell him if something were wrong in the relationship. And, when he does get jealous, he does his best to not show it.

He’s not fond of being jealous. It makes him feel like he’s betraying you…? Like him being jealous is the same as him saying that he doesn’t trust you. But, similarly to Hanako, he trusts you. He just doesn’t trust others quite as much. Not with his very cute and very pretty and very sweet girlfriend :((

While it takes a lot to get him jealous, two things that really can make his temper cut short are (similarly to Hanako) when someone outright flirts or touches you. Especially if they touch you and the two of you aren’t at least friends-

If someone flirts, he’s going to casually slip into the conversation, if he wasn’t there already. A quick “hey, (Y/N)! Wait, sorry, I didn’t realize you were talking-“, then he’ll stand next to you, grabbing your hand lightly. One thing about Kou is, he does his best to be gentle all the time! Even when he’s jealous, he’d never ever hurt you intentionally-!!

If someone’s touching you, he’ll hop into the conversation as he does when someone flirts, adding a “I need your help with something, when you can.” This time, or any time really, if you’re uncomfortable you can use it as an excuse to get away!! Kou’s got your back!!!

If it’s been a day where people just constantly seem to be needing your attention, he’ll start to let his jealousy get to him a bit. It’s not even that some people like your attention- heck, he gets it! He likes having your attention as well. It’s more that… they constantly need your attention. Someone always needing something, even when he just wanted to have a conversation with you :((

In that case, he’ll be slightly clingy, and slightly pouty. Almost like a young child. His lips will be pouted slightly, eyes looking a bit lower to the ground than usual. His hand will be secured in yours, and your shoulder will be lightly pressed against his.

“Kouuu, tell me what’s wrong~,” You spoke, poking his cheek with your index finger. When he was like this, it was easy to tell he was embarrassed about whatever he was pouting over, and not upset over something too serious. It was the perfect time to mess with him.

His face would flush as it usually did- and he’d look away, pouting a bit harder as his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “It’s nothing, (Y/N), really.”

“You’re pouting. Come on, now, you really can tell me. I promise I won’t think of you any less!”

“…it’s just… well- well, seeing all those people around you all day, and I couldn’t really… even get to talk to you. You even had to leave early during lunch-! I’m not angry or anything- it’s dumb, it’s dumb, really-“

“Awwwwh, Kou! Don’t be jealous, sweetheart! It’s not dumb, I actually find it sweet. You know I’d choose you over any of those people. I’d much rather spend time with you than them, but it’s not exactly easy to say no… but, if it makes you feel bad, I’ll make sure they know that, at least, lunch is off-limits.”

“Y-you don’t have to, but… that’s up to you.” (AKA “I want you to, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to do something just for my sake.”)

Overall! Kou’s going to be a sweetheart, even when (not very often) jealous. He doesn’t want you to think he’s silly or not trusting of you when he does get jealous- so he does his best to hide it? Still, he fails, since he can’t help but want to be at least a little closer to you!! Plus the way he pouts- he’s easily read in most situations, and that type is no different.

Mitsuba Sousuke <3

Ahh, where to begin… I suppose the same way I’ve been beginning the other two-

Mitsuba is… a complicated jealous boy? He gets jealous rather easily- and… doesn’t admit it, but makes it painfully obvious. He thinks he isn’t being obvious, but it’s practically plain as daylight.

As he does all things, he masks his jealousy in insults at first! Making his way into whatever conversation or interaction your having, offering an ‘uninterested’ “what’re you doing?” After that, he criticizes every little thing the other person does- his levels of mercy depending on how much the person deserves it.

A quick question? Minimum amount of insults. Maybe one, two if they drag it out.

Just having a normal conversation? More than a short question, but not an excessive amount. If they drag it out too long, the insults go up.

Flirting? Lays the insults on THICK. Plus, after a moment, an annoyed and rather cocky sounding: “why haven’t you gotten lost already? Can’t you see I’m (Y/N)’s boyfriend? You idiot. Moron. Pervert. Who talks to a taken girl like that??”

Touches you? Doesn’t even happen. They reach for you, and he’s smacking their hand away. “Idiot. What right do you have to touch my girlfriend?? That’s invasive. Gross. You’re so weird, trying to put your sticky little hands on her.”

But! If it’s a situation he can’t interfere with, be it because he’s dead and the other person’s alive, or in which the people needing your attention goes on for too long- he enters Sulky Mitsuba Mode.

Don’t get me wrong, Sulky Mitsuba is still full of insults, just… sad. In those times, as a ghost, he can’t help but wonder if you’re content in the relationship. Look at you… popular with other students- other students who could leave the school, buy you things, and such. He was a cute ghost, but he was a ghost. He wasn’t even really Mitsuba- he wasn’t the classmate you once knew. How hard was it for you? Yet, you gave it your best to get to know him again-

Luckily, Mitsuba has the ability to tell himself “if (Y/N) did that much for me, she must at least care.” However, it won’t get rid of all his doubts- and he’ll still sulk once you finally catch up with him.

“Hey, Mitsuba! Sorry, I’ve been busy!”

“Mh? Have you? I’ve barely even noticed you were gone.”

Terrible acting skills, Mitsuba. He looks annoyed, his voice sounds uninterested, but… it’s still somehow easy to see through his little act. He’s jealous, and you’re bound to be aware of it.

Take a seat next to him, and he’ll scoot away. Be patient- when he’s jealous, it’s like approaching a stray cat. No sudden movements or you’ll scare him away!

“I’m sorry, Mitsuba. I know I’ve been caught up today, and I’m really sad that I haven’t seen you much until now. Did you have anything you wanted to do? I’m all yours now!”

“Tch, whatever. I don’t have anything I want to do, so just leave it be.”

Ah… do I even have to mention that he’s stubborn. Apologize a bit, he’ll dismissively forgive you, and go from there. Lighthearted conversation, asking him about his day, talking about yours- slowly move closer to him, and! Next thing you know, his heads on your shoulder as he rants about something that happened.

Overall, Mitsuba does get jealous rather easily! He’s stubborn as always, partnered with his insults constantly ready to be fired- it’s interesting when he gets jealous. He never outright admits that he trusts you, and doesn’t consider much more than “I’m feeling a bit jealous since this person keeps taking (Y/N)’s attention, but he’d never put the blame on you. Just… like I said, be patient, and don’t get too offended.

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

Doing some writing today off and on between errands and work, and jumping around various Kings of the Sky installments, specifically Dick, Jason and Cass stuff, so probably gonna post snippets from a bunch of them as I go.

(Kings of the Sky is an AU that goes canon divergent from the point of Jason calling Dick for advice for dealing with Bruce after the Garzonas case and where things end up going dramatically different from that point on. Including Jason not dying, being part of his own lineup of Titans between Dick and Tim’s, Dick being adopted not long after the Church of Blood incident, Cass being the third Wayne kid to be taken in and adopted and with Tim and Duke being next and then Damian coming along later once they find out about him. This is basically my ‘the family’s alright’ AU with largely ‘Good Dad Bruce’ except for Dick and then Jason yelling some sense into him about the other, respectively, in the first two installments, just FYI).

Anyway, this bit is from a story called “In Their Shadows Grow Trees Of Good and Evil,” set about a year after Cass has been adopted, when she and Jason are both sixteen and Dick’s twenty-one. Also just FYI, because canon has never been specific about what ways Cass is neurodivergent due to the comic-book style ‘rewiring’ of her brain so that she could learn to speak later in life, I tend to go with her being dyslexic and having aphasia. She sticks exclusively to sign language and being a silent presence in her costumed personas, so that there’s no chance of people connecting the dots between Black Bat and Cassandra Wayne, as she mostly speaks verbally in her civilian persona and doesn’t hide her aphasia. The reason there’s not likely to be any obvious signs of aphasia in the snippets of her I post is because I wait until I complete something to choose words at random to replace with aphasia-born mixups, so its more realistic and I’m not gearing her dialogue towards deliberately placed moments. Just in case you were wondering.

In Their Shadows Grow Trees of Good and Evil

“Hey Todd,” sneered an exquisitely obnoxious voice. “Why’s your sister so fucking weird?”

Jason sighed the sigh of a soul a mere century into its eternity of damnation as he rose from the lunch table he’d been studying at and crammed the rest of his books into his backpack. Then he pasted a cheerfully bland smile on his face and turned around, geared for academia warfare (teenage prep school edition).

“Hey Craig,” he said brightly. “Why’d you come out of the womb so ugly your parents had to tie a piece of steak around your neck just to get the family dog to go near you? Mysteries abound.”

The advancing junior slowed a step, momentarily rocked by his truly impressive return volley. The grimace Craig’s already gargoyle-esque features twisted into made his face even more unpleasant to look at than usual, which was quite the feat. Jason would have applauded if just looking at it hadn’t already turned him to stone.

But the bargain basement basilisk kept on towards him rather than turn tail and skulk off to pop his emotional blisters, so Jason sighed a sequel to his first one. Looked like it was one of those days where Craig felt up to powering through. Guess someone had eaten their self-esteem Wheaties that morning. Joy.

“You think you’re pretty hot shit, don’t you, Todd?”

Jason shrugged. “I mean, to be honest I kinda have a one track mind, so right now I’m mostly just thinking about punching you in your mistake.”

“My what?”

“Your face,” Jason elaborated with exaggerated patience.

“Huh?”

“Oh my god, I’m saying your face is a mistake. See, its not as fun when I have to stop and explain it to you. Ugh, you ruin everything.”

He neatly sidestepped the older boy as R2-Dumbass stayed frozen, smoke coming off of his internal CPU while trying to catch up. For a second Jason thought he was home free, but then he remembered the universe fucking hated him so haha, sucks to suck. Also, a small crowd had gathered to witness the verbal jousting match, and nothing invigorated an asshole like Craig more than an audience of like-minded peers. So there was that too.

“Whatever. Laugh it up all you want, you little shit,” the junior rallied. “But just remember, mocking your betters will never change the fact that you were born street trash and you’ll be street trash until the day you die.”

Honestly? Not his best effort. Jason almost felt bad using any of his good material. Seemed like overkill at this point. But he did have a strict Scorched Earth policy to maintain, so.....

“Yeah but my dad could buy out and ruin your dad so that means I still win, right?”

He smirked as the barb landed and Craig’s face set into a sunset vista of strangled purple and furious red. Bam. Direct hit.

“Listen, you - “

“Oh for fuck’s sake, it was rhetorical,” Jason interrupted. “I don’t actually care what you think even a little bit. Nobody does. You don’t matter. Please go be irrelevant elsewhere, you’re fucking dismissed, you loser.”

“Speak for yourself, charity case.” Oh goodie, Craig’s backup singers had finally arrived. Now if only he could remember to care enough to learn their names in the first place. Seriously, who told the extras they could have lines? “All the jokes in the world can’t change who and what you are.”

Jason shrugged and continued nonchalantly up the hill to where his sister was standing with arms crossed, staring down at something on the other side.

“True genius is never appreciated in its own time,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll be immortalized in song eventually.”

The mob of morons deigned to let him go without further incident. Though he suspected that had less to do with his scathing wit and more to do with him being headed towards Cass. She was immaculately presented as always, wearing the Gotham Academy uniform like she was born to it despite hating its uncomfortable stiffness every bit as much as he did. But that was just Cass for you.

For all that she still struggled at times to engage verbally or speak up in social settings, her mastery of body language remained without peer. She could chameleon-camouflage her way into matching poise and posture with anyone - a skill that had allowed her to walk into school on her very first day with her head held high as though she owned everything in her sight. Exuding so much Queen Bee Intimidation Factor even the other hive queens were afraid to approach her themselves. Sending forth their drones to try and woo her into an alliance, only to see her remain oh-so-casually above it all, a slightly contemptuous smile adorning her lips.

Basically, she scared the shit out of their classmates without them having anywhere close to a true understanding of why, and Jason was outrageously jealous. Rude. Unfair. Why did his siblings always get all the cool toys when all he had was his rakish charm, scintillating intellect and debonair.....nah, who was he kidding. He was fucking awesome.

“Sup, sis,” he said, cresting the hill to stand beside Cass. “Just FYI, I just took a popularity bullet for you, which means you owe me your dessert tonight. Its a family rule that’s totally a real thing and definitely not something I just made up right now because Alf is making chocolate soufflé.”

She made no acknowledgment and remained stock still, a Colossus at Rhodes peering down into the shifting shadows of the parking lot below.

He peered down as well, though with absolutely no idea what they were looking at. Solidarity, yo.

“So are we staring fixedly at anything in particular, or should I just pick my own spot and commit?”

His humor was totally wasted on her as always. Instead of laughing and telling him what a lovable goof he was, she just inclined her head in the direction of a blonde girl where she was standing next to the driver’s side door of a Mercedes-Benz, dictating final commandments to her peons before departing. Well, probably. Jason was just guessing, based on his own body language reads, and like, general disdain for literally everyone at this school that wasn’t related to him.

He made a face. An extra special one reserved just for this classmate in particular. “Ugh, Madison Dunleavy? She’s the worst.”

Cass raised a cool eyebrow. “I thought Craig Hendricks was the worst.”

“He is. They’re both the worst. Its a hotly contested position here at Gotham Academy.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded back down at the Queen of Air and Darkness. “So. You know her?”

“Nope,” Jason said. “Come to think of it, I’ve actually never seen her in my life. No idea who that is. Can’t help you, sorry. Shall we go home?”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition speared him with clear intent. Who the fuck needed words when you could pack the Encyclopedia Britannica into a single facial expression?

Jason sighed gustily.

“I had a slight altercation with her freshman year that led to her declaring her undying enmity for me until the end of time. The word nemesis may or may not have been thrown around once or twice. I can’t recall.”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition lowered nary an inch. Ugh, she wanted more? Why did everyone in his family hate privacy, with the obvious exclusion of himself when snooping through Cass and Dick’s rooms for blackmail material, which was actually intel-gathering and thus another matter entirely.

“Okay so basically what happened was my first week here I overheard her talking shit about me and not even twenty minutes later she was pretending to kiss my ass in homeroom, like probably because of Bruce, y’know? So I just busted out laughing and told her to fuck off and die and she has inexplicably loathed me ever since.”

Avoiding further Eyebrow Inquisition-ing, he made a show of peering around aimlessly. When the silence extended and it was clear Cass was absolutely not going to break first, Jason waved a hand in dismissal and took to peering oh so casually at his fingernails. "I suppose I was less tactful back in those days.”

He chanced a look up, finally, and saw his sister’s eyebrow had somehow managed to mighty morphin power ranger its way into a configuration evoking both judgment and disbelief, with the latter perhaps aimed at the idea he was significantly differing in the tact department these days either.

“I don’t love the implications your face is making right now,” he told her.

She ignored him, because of course she did.

“Does she know Dick?” She asked instead. Jason shrugged.

“I mean, maybe? She’s probably seen him around at one of those stupid galas we have to go to, and actually I think maybe she has an older brother who was either in Dick’s grade or like, one above or below it? I don’t know.”

Now both eyebrows were doing the dance of disbelief. Okay, so maybe that was poor situational awareness on his part, since it wasn’t like Gotham Academy was a big school with a ton of other kids and also he’d only been in the same class as Madison for like over two whole years, but whatever. There were extingent circumstances.

“Look, she’s a total snob who’s always looked down on me and in return I willfully ignore both her existence and that of everyone and everything even tangentially related to her. Its called equality, Cass.”

She pursed her lips and went back to the peering, because of course in the mind of Cass it made total sense that the Grand Inquisition didn’t need to be followed up by any explanation on her part, what the hell. Like was he supposed to have inferred it?

“What’s this all about anyway?”

“I heard her talking about Dick earlier,” she said without peeling her eyes away from her personal recon mission. “I don’t know what she said though, I just heard her say Grayson, and then I was busy looking at what her body was saying. I know it was about Dick because she shut down when she saw me. And I didn’t like the way she....looked....before that happened. The way she was talking. It was.....”

Jason frowned but held back any follow-up questions while he waited - with total patience because he wasn’t an absolute cad, thank you very much - for his sister to find the word she was hunting for. It was a major source of frustration for her, that whatever neural map her brain followed put body language and spoken language in totally different regions of her brain, separated by a fairly great divide. Meaning she usually had to make a conscious choice to focus on body language or conventional languages - whether verbal or sign. But it tended to be one or the other; she’d yet to master taking in and comprehending both forms of ‘language’ at the same time. And none of them had quite figured out how to convince her that she wasn’t actually missing anything when she chose to focus on one specific form of communication - that she was still observing far more than most people ever would.

“Proprietary,” Cass settled on at last. She nodded her satisfaction with her choice of word, and Jason waited a whole two point five seconds before sticking his whole foot in his mouth.

“Proprietary?” He asked with a scrunched nose as he weighed that for possible context and implications. “You sure?”

She glared. He winced. It was a whole thing.

“Yeah, I know, sorry, sorry, I heard it the second it was out of my mouth. We don’t actually have to experiment with the legitimacy of if looks could kill.”

Cass rolled her eyes, but eh. That could’ve gone worse.

Jason swiftly redirected attention anyway. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all.

“So. The Queen of Air and Darkness was talking about our big bro, and her mood was.....proprietary, huh?” He recapped while digesting the info like a boss. “Well. Definitely not loving that, I gotta say. Hold please.”

Pulling out his phone and pulling up his most recent texts, he began typing furiously.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked.

“Texting Tom,” he replied, because duh. Hah, now it was his chance to have the answers that should be patently obvious and thus make with the ‘are you kidding me’ when she asked obvious questions she should know the answer to! How do you like them apples, sis?

“Why are you texting your boyfriend right now?”

Jason rolled his eyes, because fair is fair, but never ceased texting for a moment. Time was of the essence here, probably. Well, maybe. Okay probably not. But it’d still been like half an hour since he and Tom had last texted and that’s a very fucking long time in teenage years.

“To be our getaway driver tonight, obviously.”

She stared at him. He didn’t look up, but he could feel it anyway. He was very intuitive like that.

“What?”

Jason heaved another sigh, one keyed to tones of ‘oh my god, do I really have to spell this out,” exasperation. He was just racking up the bonus points here. It was really too bad this wasn’t an actual competition he could actually win and this was all just pettiness taking place wholly in his own head. Lame.

“Well, clearly we now have to go snoop in Madison’s house aka lair to see if its actually a house or a full on lair. Because she’s either a creeper or like, legit evil, and its important to know which one before we proceed, because obviously we can only bust her for being a weird creeper about our brother as Jason and Cass, whereas if she’s legit evil, that’s gotta go down as Robin and Black Bat. I’ll handle the snooping, you’ll take look-out, but we still need a wheelman and that’s why I’m texting Tom. This is all very mission-oriented, okay. I’m a professional.”

“Right,” she affirmed, while sounding anything but convinced. “Why don’t we just tell Bruce?”

Without looking up or breaking stride, he said: “I’m going to give you til I finish typing this sentence to figure out what was wrong with what you just said. Remember that we are talking about hypothetical danger to our brother, and also Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response to any of his children being in even hypothetical danger. And also our brother’s idea of a proportionate response to Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response. Look, you’re still new so I’m gonna need you to just trust me on this one. Its gonna be a no on telling Bruce without further intel.”

Cass said nothing in response to that, which meant that she was conceding the point and recognized the wisdom of his words. Or maybe that she was just gonna go ahead and do what she wanted anyway and just wasn’t bothering to fight about it, but it was probably that first thing.

“Well you better not just make out with your boyfriend all night,” is what she said at last, and that got his attention reeeeeal quick like.

“Umm. Wow. Okay. So, first off, you’re not the boss of me and who I make out with and when, so jot that down. And second, now I’m definitely going to make out with my boyfriend extra hard, with the exception of when we are actually on our recon mission because as previously established, I am a professional. And also, again, you’re not the boss of me.”

Jason ignored her Eye Roll With Extra Emphasis, and instead just held up his phone to Text With Extra Emphasis, as he read along with what he was typing.

“By the way babe, we have to make out extra hard tonight,” he said, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth while he dragged out his dictation with the kind of focus that usually led to Bruce asking why he couldn’t apply as much intensity to training as he did to pettiness. “Cass has suddenly decided she can dictate terms to me and I need to shut that shit down ASAP, so thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. Smoochies and other gay stuff to the best boyfriend ever.”

Jason frowned as a response pinged back seconds later.

TheCatsMeow: ....the things I put up with for the sake of your weird family dynamics.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah, yeah. You’re a saint among were-panthers. Must you mock? Why can’t you just tell me I’m pretty instead?

TheCatsMeow: Sorry. Let me try again. OMG you’re so pretty Jase how did I get so lucky xoxo.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: No. Its too late. It feels forced and unbelievable now. You’ve ruined it forever.

TheCatsMeow: Got it. From now on I will only tell you that you’re repulsive and hideous.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: I’m breaking up with you.

TheCatsMeow: But after I help you with your mission tonight.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Obvsly. I’m a professional. Why do people keep forgetting this?

TheCatsMeow: And also the making out to spite your sister.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah we should do that first too. I mean we already penciled it in.

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theyarebothgunshot · 3 years

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this is exactly how it went down in my head.

misha: hey, everything okay? do you need me to do something?

jensen: no, lay low. we’re figuring it out.

misha: got it.

— the next day —

misha: things settled. should i say anything? draw attention? stay neutral?

jensen: you don’t have to, but if you want, tread lightly. we’ve had enough chaos.

misha: say no more.

when nobody got your back you KNOW dmitri got your back.

ANYWAYS i turned my back for TWO MINUTES and y'all went the fuck off in my inbox so, you know the drill: more under the cut

NO BUT JENSEN’S RESPONSE LMAAAAAO honestly fallout theory is so on oh my God I can’t stop-

on god they are so loud like-

Worst damage control i've ever seen. god bles.

so true bestie

I think Jensen probably just wants to be done with this petty little drama, so if he has to pretend everything between them is okay he is going to be the bigger man and lay it to rest. Whatever is going on between them he definitely doesn't want to sort that out on social media and the earlier he pretends everything is sorted out the earlier people will forget about it again.

Also it's kinda funny how J*red Tweet was like implying they had a misunderstanding but still talk to each other regularly, while Jensen went full on the we grow apart a little bit, because we were busy, let's catch back up. Makes me wonder if they actually talked or if there managers just said hey that's not good pr, let's put that to rest. Also did J*red know before yesterday that they had a falling out or did he just not realize.

- 🐌 anon

literally jensen went out of his way to say 'uhhh we never talk, worstie' god if pr management is involved then they did a bad job. also j*red still does not realise they have fallen out. jshfjdsfh

Jackles was like God bless but we ain’t talking like this worstie

good for her.gif

csdsc heeft gevraagd:

All I need now is for Misha to tweet “ is it safe to come out now?” And I’ll be complete lmfao 😂😂😂

that would have been better than what we got lmfao

I have one fear and it's Jensen being forced to add j*red to his show and his other projects because he couldn't stop whining like a baby,,, ugh i hate him

i pretend i do not see

Kinda selfish of me tbh but i don't want them to be "friends" again, Jensen sweetie run as fast as you can

co-signed

Ok Jensen's answer to Jared tweet made me feel so bad for him. Like, I can see it's damage control and public relations (obviously) but there's stuff behind it. I can't name it, but idk, I felt terrible for texas man this time, I don't think that reply was written with a "love and light energy" or even without much care. I felt some heavy vibes.

- 🌻, who is now a fortune teller and a prophet apparently

yeah i feel hella bad for him to, for having to deal with this shit. nonnie please if you ever have anything to predict, lemme know sjdfhs

You know Jensen's tweet has the energy of like kindergarten wenn an other kid started a fight with you and the kindergarten teacher wants you to forgive each other and hung it out and you really don't want to, but your kindergarten teacher is being annoying and he isn't worth the annoyance either.

- 🐌 anon

you are not wrong

Incredibly thankful that I have the day off from work 😂 I'm with hatching chick anon, the 3 dots read as passive aggressive/insincere to me, and I love it! I haven't spent this many hours on tumblr since I first discovered cockles! (On a side note, the lack of fimmf posts today has me feeling like it's not friday lol) -🐢

i, too, miss fimmf but alas things happen, they do they do they do

I was right. :(

It got almost romantic...

👀

nonnie you know i love you but this is really not the case, like, at all??? idk how you could look at those tweets and think it was almost romantic. it was THEE most scripted, pr bullshit ever. it was staged and fake. idk what else to tell ya

Danneel liked Jensen's tweet

i saw

That is so so awkward I feel so sorry for all of us being exposed to this and so happy I chose to leave the Internet for half a day - tea anon

god bless your stance on that cause i would have hated missing out on this lmao

You know what? I think it’s okay being a 38 year old moron if you’re bringing us this type of content

im happy with the food but still think its not okay tbh

pspspsps Misha this is the perfect day for you to drop the gay Cas essay pspspspsp it is still pride month pspspsps

you know you want to king pspsps

So that JIB6 link (I think it was from your post, right?). I went and watched that bit, and a little more.

Jensen makes a comment about Jared being first on the call sheet because Sam was supposed to be the main focal character.

And that him nor Misha cared about what number they were, so in all that time it never changed.

And I’ll be… if that just doesn’t perfectly sum them up and their feelings on things. And how a certain someone can be petty… 🦚

idk if it was from my post? but maybe? my analysis probably? but yeah things are making more and more sense huh

Ohh that's also an alien? Welcome to the extraterrestial family then, purple alien anon!

Also it's probably because I'm coming off the high this drama gave me but I'm not looking forward to them trying so hard to convince us everything is normal between them. Even though we now Know, they will have to keep pretending. Today (yesterday?) was a shitshow but some masks fell off, at least for a moment and I kinda wish Jensen was less professional 😂

👽

oh for real, fallout theory IS confirmed and nothing they said today will change my mind, it only made me believe in it even more lmfao and with that in mind i am just gonna sip my tea if they try to be buddy buddy on main again

I THINK MISHA UNRETWEETED BUT HE TWEETED "LOVE AND MISS YOU BOTH" I'M LOSING MY DIGNITY HERE - tea anon

yeah he now answered them sjdfhsjfhsf instead of rt

MISHA COLLINS IS A KING I STAN THE RIGHT MAN

YOU SURE DO

I just know Misha’s process was oh crap I have to let people know I’m supporting them and I can’t choose sides. Ok. Retweet. NO. Delete. I love both of you. Yes, good.

sjdfsdfh this makes me think of that post that dissected jackles' birthday post for misha where he used the heart. 'call him bro, that makes it less obvious. nailed it.'

Lol I'm off for a few days and come back to total chaos... God I missed it here

Like the "et tu... #bravo" tweet? Made my day! Frikking hilarious (every time I see it I picture J*red with a pissy frech accent saying it out loud lol) it's just such an incredibly petty hissy fit he threw (I know he tweeted more later on but... Really all that stuff coming afterwards just sounds like damage control)

Missed you Rose

-🐻

LOVE the french accent detail im gonna do this too sdjfhsjfh missed you toooo!!!!

Oh man Misha is really gonna get hate for that I KNOW IT

sigh well. nothing he isnt used to by now, unfortunately

i mean i believe they feel like brothers, but constantly falling back on the “brother” thing to keep up appearances is really starting to feel like “#spnfamily” at this point.

honestly brothers can be very annoying, or so i have heard, so it fits with the fallout theory lmao

They actually said if we’re gonna make this gay we cannot have Jar*d Pad*lecki involved

oh my God this is the funniest timeline to ever exist God bless I’m just waiting to canon bi Mary

king shit tbh

#snail anon #csdsc #sunflower anon #turtle anon #eyes anon #tea anon #peacock anon #alien anon #bear anon #THAT WAS A LOT #anyways next time im just gonna spam you all fsfsgdsgd

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years

Note

What are your thoughts on Near and Mello (Death Note)? You don’t seem to like them as characters

I was about to say that I don’t necessarily dislike them, but, honestly, I do. I really really do.

And hey, look at that, I get to offend an entirely new fandom.

To be honest though I’m not even sure where to begin.

I suppose I’ll start with the concept of the orphan heirs to the title of L.

Wammy’s Dog Fighting Arena for Boys

Death Note is a fantastic and brilliant anime, however, every once in a while more general anime tropes sneak through and cause it to fall flat on its face. We have L, who for reasons is a sugar addicted man child (well, I actually have thoughts on L, who I quite like, but my theory is that he is the way he is because he’s a jackass who fully intends to be that off putting).

The Wammy orphan bit is the worst of this. We have an orphanage of... children competing for the title of L, an anonymous detective that Watari made up. These children are all super serial geniuses who are even weirder and less socially adjusted than L. Just, kill me.

Even the premise for why they exist is bad. The authors’ in the Death Note guide admit that, when they realized they were going to kill off L, they realized they had a major problem. They didn’t want a repeat arc with another L as a nemesis, SO THEY BROUGHT US TWO Ls, THAT’S COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

Why I call it anime derp is that the whole ridiculous Wammy’s concept is never addressed. Wammy’s existence, the little we do know of L’s backstory, makes Watari the level of skeevy reserved for manipulative Dumbledore.

The man uses these children and pits them against each other in a high stakes intellectual environment where they stake their entire worth on their still developing intelligence.

In canon, we see what this has done to Mello, L, Matt, and Near. All of them are completely messed up human beings and they either die or never get better. L is an utter jackass who cares very little about justice. Mello becomes an actual gangster and uses the Death Note to make hits on rival gang members (not to mention Sayu, but we’ll get into that). Matt also becomes a gang member and kidnaps multiple women. Near cannot function, at all, in society and when we catch up to him ten years later in that hilariterrible one-shot he’s gotten even worse.

If we’re taking LABB as canon then you have Beyond Birthday who becomes a serial murderer and lights himself on fire in a desperate, insane, attempt to show up L. We have reference to A who killed himself under the pressure of trying to become L.

We can presume there’s been other orphaned children, who had nowhere else to go and no one to protect them, that Wammy just destroyed so that he could have Batman.

Death Note, however, never touches this with a ten foot pole.

Instead these are our weird and quirky band of heroes who are so weird because... it’s anime and we like weird! Weird means you’re a super genius! Yay genius orphanage!

So, right at the very idea of Wammy’s existing, they already have to win me back. Mello and Near do not win me back.

Mello is a Thug

We’re supposed to feel very bad for Mello, he’s always been second to Near and this messes him up, and he leaves to try and find his own path. I’d say god bless him, you go Mello, except his own path turns out to become a gangster.

Mello’s not a remotely good guy.

Just because he’s pitted himself against Light, and tells us he’s sticking it to Kira and Near at the same time, does not make him remotely good. And that’s what irks me about him, Mello is a great skeezy character, but the story actively wants me to think he’s the hero.

It’s sort of like trying to convince me that Kylo-Ren is secretly a great guy. It’s really hard to sell me on that when we watch Mello in real time and, more, why are we even bothering? Let Mello be the scumbag he is.

First, Mello steals a weapon of mass destruction and immediately begins using it. It’s not about solving the Kira case for him, or at least, it’s certainly not about stopping Kira. It’s about showing up Near, L, and all those who never believed in him.

That Mello, first, not only steals the notebook from the government, but then gets it into the hands of gangsters, AND THEN USES IT TO ASSASSINATE HIS RIVALS. Well, suffice to say, you do you Mello.

More, this is a guy who tortures, murders, and probably rapes multiple people to get this to happen. Mello’s attempts to retrieve the notebook start with the kidnapping of Japan’s head of the police force. He then kidnaps Light Yagami’s younger sister and... Something very bad happens to Sayu.

We never get confirmed what happen, we don’t see much of her in captivity or much after, however immediately after the events we see her in a wheelchair. At the end of the series, Sayu is catatonic and barely able to express emotion.

It’s highly implied she was raped.

With the kidnapping of Takada, regardless of what you think of her... Nothing good was going to come of that. Mello resorts to the tactics of terrorists just so he can prove he’s a big man.

Further, Mello’s brilliance is never really that brilliant. Yes, he gets the notebook (though notably does not hold it long and loses his name in the process). However, his big win at the end is supposed to be him having realized Mikami would mess up were he to kidnap Takada. He had no guarantee of this, frankly, I think he was just kidnapping Takada in an act of desperation. Because that’s what Mello does when he runs out of ideas: he kidnaps people close to Light Yagami and sees what happens.

This gets both him and Matt brutally killed.

Near’s a Moron

Near is so weird and so maladjusted, my god, and he’s such a pretentious ass. He’s just... knock off L in every way. Which, granted, is kind of what he’s supposed to be. Except that the story never capitalizes on this.

We see hints of it, Near trying desperately to live up to L’s name and mantle, but it never really delves into it.

More, what we do see of Near’s plans...

I really want to go into the one-shot epilogue, because that said so much about Near, but I’ll resist.

Instead I’ll note that L was 13 days from proving Light’s guilt. It takes Near and Mello combined five years, and Mikami’s dumb ass, to get to the same place. And even then, they nearly all died if Matsuda had been a worse shot.

Near has no idea that he’s nowhere near as brilliant as L. Instead, he gives us the world’s most hamfisted, frustrating, lecture at the end of the series where he tells us that Light was so stupid and that together he and Mello triumphed over evil.

Good for you, Near, I’m so happy for you.

I Just Don’t See the Point of Them

The second half of Death Note, in general, is a slough. It’s not just me saying this, you ask the majority of the fanbase, and they’ll admit it all goes downhill with L’s death.

I think the authors desperately wanted to avoid writing the dystopian politics of what would happen if Light won unopposed. They wanted a detective thriller, the trouble was, that story ended with L’s death.

So they try to feed us the same, but worse, story twice, and it just doesn’t work.

Personally, what I’d rather have seen is Matsuda and company slowly but surely realizing Light is Kira and Matsuda, in the end, having no choice but to assassinate him as they just cannot get any proof. It’s a very different story, but it would have been such a good story of betrayal that, again we sort of got hints of, but never really confronted.

Alternatively, keep Naomi Misora alive, and have her be the spearhead of brilliance we need. As it was, I am eternally sad/amused that she was killed off because she was too damn smart for the series (the authors admit she figured everything out too fast and as a result had to be eliminated).

Just, please, not genius orphan children.

#death note #death note meta #death note headcanons #mello #anti mello #near #anti near #wammys #anti wammys #meta #headcanon #opinion

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sunsetcurvecuddles · 3 years

Note

(Because you know I’m all here for Bobby being forcibly perceived against his will) lobby or boggie nightmares/talking in his sleep

hi this is also sickfic because it’s you <3 ao3 link in the reblogs!!

i didn’t know just where i’d fall | 1.6k | lukebobby (platonic or romantic)

Luke's awoken in the middle of the night by Bobby muffling a sound into his pillow and kicking, hitting Luke in the back of the leg.

At first, Luke just feels disoriented, and mildly annoyed. It's very late (or potentially very early), and cold, and Luke has been sleeping poorly anyway out here in the studio instead of at home in his real bed, so he can forgive himself for starting out a little grouchy.

But then he registers the fact that Bobby's movement woke him up.

Registers that Bobby is sweaty and sticky and cold where his shoulder presses to Luke's, enough that Luke shifts back, feels his skin un-stick from Bobby's, and it's kinda gross but mostly concerning. Luke vaguely remembers Bobby looking exhausted the evening before, how Luke tried to kick him out to go back to his actual bedroom and Bobby had grunted, said, yeah, will soon and Luke had dozed off soon afterward. Now, Bobby’s whole body looks so tense, Luke sees as his eyes adjust to the dark, as Bobby twitches and kicks again, smaller this time, so Luke can dodge. Bobby's fist clenches in the blanket and he makes another sound — almost like a whimper.

The panic sets in, like ice down the back of Luke's shirt.

Obviously, he can see what the problem is. It's just a matter of what to do about it. But Luke isn't Alex, doesn't overthink things (sometimes doesn't even do the 'think' part, without the 'over'), so while it takes him a second to remember if not waking someone up is the rule for nightmares or sleepwalking, he's pretty sure it's the rule for sleepwalking. So he sits himself up, ready to flinch back if Bobby accidentally takes a swing at him, and says, "Bobby?" Then, a little louder, "Bobby!"

He gets no response. Bobby's breathing hard, but Luke still can't see his face, where it's buried in his pillow. After a moment, he assumes it didn't work. When Bobby makes another one of those awful, vulnerable sounds from the back of his throat, like nothing Luke has ever heard from him before, and Luke can't take it, the way his stomach lurches and his chest hurts at the sound. With as much strength as he can muster, he shoves Bobby's shoulder, hard.

Bobby gasps, coughs, scrambles, and sits up with a start, pressing himself up on one hand. His other arm shoots out and Luke was right to be ready to dodge, but the swing has no real direction, no heat, and Luke easily moves out of the way. Like it was muscle memory more than anything. Or like Bobby was aiming for something else, something that's not there anymore.

His face looks awful. He's way too pale, but flushed somehow, and he's covered in sweat, and trembling, and his eyes are wide. Now that Luke looks, really looks, in this light, he can see the dark bags under Bobby's eyes, the strain in his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

Then Luke remembers who he's dealing with. "Hey," he says, and does his best to keep his tone light and friendly, instead of terrified, and he succeeds on no counts because he's the world's worst liar. "You... okay?"

Bobby blinks, slow, like he's still trying to process what he's seeing, kinda like he's staring right through Luke. Then he blinks again, and looks... well, horrified, for just a moment, and then almost blank, like he used a towel to hurriedly wipe the expression off his own face.

"Fine," Bobby gets out sharply, and tries to push himself up further so he can get out of the bed, but he's shaking so badly that Luke instinctively reaches out a hand to steady him. Bobby really does feel warm, even through his shirt sleeve.

"You don't look fine," Luke mutters. Feels how Bobby's shoulders go tight and wishes he could eat those words right back up because it's Bobby he's dealing with, and he should know better. Less confident, Luke follows up, "Dude, what happened?"

"I just —" Bobby starts, and then stops, slumping back a little as his trembling arm gives way. "It's nothing," insists Bobby, and Luke would ignore it, but Bobby's tone is on the verge of pleading, and he ends it by coughing more into his elbow, a horrible, wet thing that makes Luke flinch back instinctively.

"Okay," says Luke, holding both his hands up in surrender. "Okay. Uh." Shit, what would Alex do? Luke’s own instinct is to flee, because there’s Feelings and Someone Being Sick and Gross involved, but he knows that’s not what Alex would do; Alex would suggest something helpful, without being too pushy, like… "You, uh. You want a shower?"

Bobby hesitates, and then grunts something semi-positive, shoving his sweaty hair out of his eyes and pulling the back of his hand across his nose. Takes a deep breath. When he gets up, he still seems shaky, and Luke can see the way his damp shirt sticks to his back.

They cooperate in silence. Luke runs the shower, gets it to a moderate temperature that hopefully isn’t too hot or too cold, though he knows he runs a little hot personally so he could be off. When Bobby gets in, he makes a groaning sound, and Luke hurriedly tells him, “Don’t change it, okay!”

He hesitates, not wanting to tell Bobby he thinks Bobby has a fever, because Bobby will get bitey and deny it immediately, do whatever he can to prove it’s not the case even if it means showering in hot water. So he doesn’t elaborate, and Bobby doesn’t protest. Luke digs around in the little bathroom in the studio for the spare towel he hasn’t really touched since he moved in, and leaves it on the counter.

Then, he goes out to rummage through his bag of belongings that he scavenged together before turning up on Bobby’s doorstep in the middle of the night a few weeks ago. He’s sure he has some flu medication in here somewhere, some Alex gave him the first day he moved out, when he turned up and angrily started slamming down a variety of bare necessities that Luke obviously needs, you moron on the table.

He also fetches a bottle of half-finished water from beside his guitar stand, and when he returns to the bathroom, Bobby has wrapped himself in the towel and is leaning on the counter wearily. His hair is wet with water, now, and he’s a slightly better colour, but the dark rings under his eyes are extra-pronounced. Luke offers him the water and the medicine, and Bobby raises his eyebrows, sceptical.

Luke does his best puppy-dog eyes. Please don’t fight me on this, he asks silently, because if Bobby gets worse Luke is going to panic and call an ambulance or something. Bobby rolls his eyes with a sigh and swipes the pills and bottles out of Luke’s hands. After he’s downed them, Luke says, “Should we… do you want to go back to bed?”

“No,” Bobby says, too fast. But his legs almost give and he fumbles to grab at the counter with one hand, Luke’s shoulder with the other.

“Yeah, okay,” says Luke, a little panicked, “let’s at least lie down.”

He helps Bobby back to the couch-bed, easing him down onto it. Bobby leans back against the pillows and huffs out a sigh.

Luke hops in next to him again, where he was before. Glances sideways at Bobby, whose eyelids are already drooping, but his jaw is gritted tight. They lie there for a few minutes, and Luke watches Bobby repeatedly doze off and then wake himself back up with force, shifting around and rubbing at his face. He looks so tired, more so as the flu medication must set in, his eyes going a little fuzzy and far-away, and so uncomfortable, and despite the help of the shower, Luke can feel the warmth radiating off him a little too much still.

“I think you should sleep,” Luke murmurs.

“Don’t wanna,” Bobby says, slurred. The flu medication was admittedly the strong stuff. And he’s still feverish.

Luke bites his lip. It’s so hard to make these kinds of calls, but it might be his only chance to ask, to make sure. So, he takes the chance. “Because of the dream?” he asks, swallowing his nerves down and keeping his voice relatively steady.

Bobby pauses, but only for a moment, to sniffle a little miserably. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Scared.”

It hurts Luke’s chest. Bobby’s never like this, never vulnerable or soft, is always the one who knows what to do. And if it’s not Bobby, it’s Alex. It’s never Luke left to manage these situations, because he’s too empathetic and too bad at understanding other people at the same damn time. “Can – shit, man, can I help?”

Bobby shakes his head this time, and curls closer to Luke, like he wants to … like he wants to cuddle up, but isn’t quite that bold. Luke breathes and opens his arms, an invitation. Almost right away, Bobby snuggles close, exhaling too-hot breath into Luke’s chest, tucking his head under Luke’s chin. He’s never seen Bobby like this, never expected to. But there’s something sweet about it, even if Luke feels bad for him.

“Just try and sleep,” Luke mutters, runs a hand up and down Bobby’s back, tries to think of what makes him feel better when he feels unwell and not about how likely it is that he’ll get sick after this, or about how cagey and embarrassed Bobby will be if he remembers any of this clearly tomorrow. Right now, though, Bobby shivers and relaxes against him with a little hoarse cough. He seems so much smaller than usual, but he isn’t nearly as tense as he was before. “I’m here. I gotcha.”

jatp taglist (lmk if you want to be added or removed!): @queenmolina @nickalicious @bi-reginald @malecacidd @burntchromas @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @cinnamonstickrayofsunlight @chickwiththepurpleguitar @fairylightsandrainydays @joyandthephantoms @fighttoshine @michelangelinda @queenofthequillandink @random-nerd-3 @silent-silver-slip @apolo81 @evashmz @bagoffriedrice

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #lobby #lukebobby #luke patterson #bobby wilson #chickwiththepurpleguitar

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nikkoliferous · 3 years

Text

Phase One: Avengers (Part Two)

Apparently I had so much to comment on this crappy book that I had to break this up into two parts (you can read part one here). No, I have nothing to say for myself. Lol

Let’s continue.

Clint Barton and Loki’s hand-picked strike team were in a stolen Quinjet with a faked S.H.I.E.L.D. call sign, 26-Bravo. That got them close enough that by the time the air-traffic officer on the Helicarrier knew something was wrong, it was already too late.

Whoa whoa whoa. I thought you said Loki didn’t care about the details. I thought you said such things were beneath him. Make up your mind.

With a last heave and twist, she freed herself from the fallen beam and ran. At that moment, the Hulk turned and saw her. She vaulted up a stairway and onto the next level. The Hulk swiped at the stairway and shredded it into scrap metal. Loki had gotten what he wanted. He must have been trying to time it so he could manipulate Bruce into becoming the Hulk right as his soldiers came to attack the Helicarrier. The Hulk would do at least as much damage from the inside as the rogue Quinjet could do from the outside.

Yes. Yes, he did. Lol

Natasha kept running, and the Hulk came right behind her. For a moment, she thought she’d lost him, but then he came at her out of the shadows, roaring. He was like walking rage, a single-minded engine of destruction. She shot a hole in the pipe over his head. Steam shot out of it into the Hulk’s eyes, stopping him for just the moment she needed to get a head start. She ran as fast as she could, but she knew she wasn’t going to stay away from him for long. He came after her, smashing through bulkheads and doorways like they weren’t even there and roaring the whole time.

Mood, though.

Steve got to the edge of the turbine mount about the same time as Tony. “I’m here!” he called out.

“Good,” Tony said, dropping into view and hovering in the Iron Man armor to survey the wreckage. He had the suit on, and Steve could hear his voice through the earbud microphone all S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel wore. At least that channel was still intact; if they lost communications, they’d be done for.

Convenient. Clint would absolutely know this, which means either 1) he's incompetent, 2) he's not as mind-controlled as we think, or 3) Loki allowed/arranged for his own team's semi-failure.Take your pick.

“What’s it look like in there?” Tony asked.

“It seems to run on some form of electricity,” Steve said.

Tony was shoving loose huge pieces of debris that prevented the turbine blades from rotating. “Well, you’re not wrong,” he said.

Steve fumed. He wasn’t here for technical support. But that was all he could do at the moment.

Ironic for Steve to call out Tony for being useless without his suit when Steve is apparently useless at anything other than beating people up. Lol

Tony stood inside the turbine housing, looking at the blades. He’d cleared most of the debris jamming the rotors. “Even if I clear the rotors,” he said, “this thing won’t reengage without a jump. I’m going to have to get in there and push.”

“If that thing gets up to speed, you’ll get shredded,” Steve said.

Hey hey hey now, I thought Tony wasn't the type of guy to sacrifice himself??

The Hulk stomped around the flight deck, roaring. He saw Thor and swung a fist twice the size of Thor’s head. Thor caught it in both hands, straining to hold both the Hulk’s arm and his attention. “We are not your enemies, Banner,” he grunted. “Try to think!”

Now, where have I heard that before...?

In answer, the Hulk punched him through the wall.

Jealous.

Thor got up and watched the Hulk coming after him. Now this was a fight! He held out a hand, waiting for Mjolnir to return to him. Mjolnir smashed through another wall and reached Thor’s hand just as the charging Hulk came within striking distance.

What's a little bloodlust between friends, amirite?

The Hulk caught the hammer, and a fierce grin spread over his face… then he toppled backward and Mjolnir pinned him to the floor of the hangar.

None but I can lift Mjolnir, Thor thought. Not even this giant.

Yes, yes. You're very special, Thor. We're all super impressed, promise.

“You like this?” Coulson asked, meaning the gun. “We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don’t know what it does.” He powered it up, and rings along its barrel glowed bright orange. “Want to find out?”

But Loki wasn’t there in front of him. Thor saw it too late to do anything. That Loki was an illusion… and the real Loki was behind Coulson.

Lokiception.

“You lack conviction,” Coulson said. He did not move from where he sat against the wall. Blood trickled at the corner of his mouth, and the enormous gun lay uselessly across his lap.

Of all the things Coulson might have said, this was perhaps the one Loki expected least. I have moved worlds out of conviction, he thought. Made bargains with beings who snuff out planets as an afterthought. “I don’t think I…”

"bargains"

“Tasha,” he said. “How many agents did I—?”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t do that to yourself, Clint. This is Loki. This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for.” Better than maybe anyone on the Helicarrier, Natasha Romanoff knew you couldn’t blame yourself for things you did while you were brainwashed. All you could do was try to heal and get things right the next time.

OH? DO TELL.

“Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I’ll give you that one,” Tony said. “But let’s do a head count here. Your brother the demigod, a Super-Soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend, a man with breathtaking anger-management issues, a couple of master assassins… and you, big fella, you’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.”

“That was the plan,” Loki said with a grin.

“Not a great plan,” Tony said.

YOU'RE RIGHT, TONY. IT'S AN OBJECTIVELY TERRIBLE PLAN. NOW ASK YOURSELF WHY HE WOULD DO THAT ON PURPOSE.

“You’re missing the point!” he said, and his tone got sharper. “There’s no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us… but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be sure we’ll avenge it.”

Weeeeeell...

With those last words, he tapped Tony on the chest with his scepter, just has he had Hawkeye and Dr. Selvig. Nothing happened. The Arc Reactor in Tony’s chest countered the scepter’s effect.

Loki tried it again. “This usually works.…”

“Well,” Tony said, “best-laid plans. You know the saying.”

Uncomfortable with mild swear words and dick jokes, I see. Lol

Look at this!” Thor shouted, holding Loki and forcing him to gaze out over the destruction in the city. “You think this madness will end with your rule?”

“It’s too late,” Loki said. Thor thought he was beginning to understand what he had done. “It’s too late to stop it.”

“No,” Thor said. “We can. Together.”

Loki looked him in the eye… and then betrayed Thor again, stabbing him in the side with a knife hidden in his sleeve. Thor dropped to the ground, clutching the wound. “Sentiment,” Loki said mockingly.

OH MY GOD. HE'S MOCKING HIMSELF, YOU ABSOLUTE KNUCKLEHEAD. I swear to god, this author sat down and went, "Hmm. How can I systematically erase any and all complexity this character possesses so he's as generic a villain as possible?"

CASE IN POINT:

On a bridge, Cap huddled behind a destroyed car with the Black Widow and Hawkeye. “Lots of civilians trapped up there,” Hawkeye said, indicating the nearby buildings. A flight of Chitauri went over, and Cap noticed something different about one of them.

“Loki,” he said. He was shooting at the civilians fleeing through the streets. “They’re fish in a barrel down there.”

It can be admittedly hard to tell because most shots of the Chitauri vehicles firing on people are from too far away to tell who's piloting... but I checked the clips from the Battle of NY and the only person Loki can definitively be seen firing at is Natasha. On another Chitauri whatever-you-call-them. Not even aiming for the street.

Thor was still watching the Chitauri zipping overhead. “I have unfinished business with Loki.”

“Yeah?” Hawkeye said. “Get in line.”

“Save it,” Steve said. “Loki’s going to keep this fight focused on us, and that’s what we need. Otherwise those things could run wild. We’ve got Stark up on top—”

Almost as if... according to plan...

Look, I have historically not bought into the full "Loki formed the Avengers so he could lose on purpose" theory because I feel that it contradicts the canon explanation that he was being influenced by the sceptre. But... you'd have to be an absolute moron to think he wasn't sabotaging himself, whether accidentally or on purpose. I suppose one could argue that just because it was amplifying his negative emotions, that doesn't necessarily mean it prevented him from working against his "allies". But if it wasn't affecting his actions at all, I don't know why they'd bother to confirm the theory as canon.

Also, like... according to this book, Loki is somehow targeting civilians and not targeting civilians at the same time ?? lmao

“Dr. Banner,” Steve said. “Now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”

Bruce was already walking toward the Leviathan. “That’s my secret, Captain,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m always angry.”

Same, tbh.

Thor reached the top of the Empire State Building and lifted Mjolnir. Storm clouds gathered and lightning struck down, hundreds of bolts reaching for Mjolnir. Thor turned the Empire State Building’s iconic spire into a lightning rod, gathering the force of the elements into it. Then he thrust Mjolnir in the direction of the portal. All the energy he had built up blazed out in a single forking bolt. It struck and destroyed every single Chitauri between the Empire State Building and the portal itself. Hundreds of them exploded and tumbled from the sky at once, including several of the Leviathans that tumbled down to smash into buildings below.

...so why didn't Thor just keep doing this for the rest of the battle? Too draining, or not exciting enough? Lol

Satisfied, Thor nodded and glanced over at the Hulk. Perhaps the scales were evened from their last fight against each other on the Helicarrier—

The Hulk shot out his left fist and smashed Thor all the way across the block-long gallery. Then it was his turn to look satisfied.

Jealous. Again.

Maybe that was just Loki, but Steve was starting to feel like the Chitauri were going to absorb every punch the Avengers could throw. They had to close that portal, or nothing was going to stop the invasion.

Well then. It sure is fortunate that Loki allowed Selvig to install a failsafe, huh?

Fury stood and listened to the World Security Council explain that they had decided to take the operation out of his hands. They were going to use a nuclear missile to destroy the Tesseract and close the portal—but at the cost of untold civilian lives. Fury protested as strongly as he could and one of the councilors cut him off. “Director Fury. The Council has made a decision.”

These crazy motherfuckers would have killed so many more people than Loki it's not even funny.

...and tbh, it probably wouldn't even have destroyed the Tesseract, so they would have killed them for literally no reason too.

The Hulk paused, confused.

“You are, all of you, beneath me!” Loki raged.

Not yet, sir, but I would very much like to be. 😏

She knelt next to him and said, “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

Selvig digested this for a moment and then said, “Actually I think I did. I built in a safety to cut the power source.”

Of note and as alluded to previously:

1) The mind control over Barton and Selvig was not absolute either; therefore, if they are not responsible for their actions over the course of this movie, Loki is not responsible for his either.

2) If The Other could hear everything Loki was up to, it's very likely that Loki could hear everything Barton and Selvig were up to as well. Meaning that, at a minimum, he knew about the failsafe and did nothing about it.

The missile had a lot of momentum built up, and Tony’s Mark 7 suit was not operating at full capacity after the amount of energy he’d expended in the battle already. It was no easy task to get the missile angled up sharply enough to clear the tallest buildings in Midtown—especially Stark Tower. That was where the missile seemed to want to go. So, Tony thought, the World Security Council is jealous of me, too.

Look, I get that he's mostly just being witty, but seriously... this dude is out here accusing Loki of being an egomaniac? Lol

He got underneath the missile and angled it upward, straining against its stabilizers, which tried to keep it on course. But slowly he forced it up, and once he got its warhead pointed at an angle, pushing it into a steeper climb got easier. A little.

Steve Rogers’s voice broke his concentration. “Stark, you know that’s a one-way trip?”

So... you're admitting you were wrong, then? 🙃

The Avengers looked up. On the roof of Stark Tower, Natasha said, “Come on, Stark.”

They saw the explosion through the portal, brilliant as a new sun. There was no way Tony could have survived that.

I was wrong about him, Steve thought. When the time came, he did make the sacrificial play.

Thanks, Steve. That's really all I wanted.

Loki had just gotten himself put back together enough to get out of the hole in the floor. Painfully he dragged himself toward the door. Never had a mortal damaged him as much as that green monster. He would be healing for a long time.

He's literally in better shape now than when he came through the portal. And the author made zero mention of his health there.

But heal he would, and then he would have his revenge. Even though the portal had collapsed and he had lost the Tesseract. Even though his Chitauri army was destroyed. Loki would show the so-called Avengers they never should have opposed him.

Raise your hand if you watched Avengers and thought Loki was thinking about revenge right after getting Hulk-smashed. Why aren't any of you raising your hands??

Seriously, there are two emotions I felt from Loki at the end of Avengers Assemble: relief and anxiety. I have no idea why Alex Irvine is so intent on turning him into a boring, one-dimensional villain, but it made this book absolutely insufferable to read.

Anyway, that's it! I hope you all found this as entertaining and cathartic as I did. Lol

↩️ Back to Part One

#loki meta #loki #thor #tony stark #steve rogers #bruce banner #natasha romanoff #clint barton #avengers assemble #mcu #phase one: avengers

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ryoceann · 3 years

Text

I am so so so mad right now. Happened to stumble upon some more destiel shit now intertwined with The Boys- Jensen’s new show, and it’s the usual blah queerbaiting blah representation bullshit and like always they dragged Jensen into it ‘homophobe’ and whatnot. There is so much toxicity and negativity over in those posts(what else is new). I’ve seen some of the opinions of fans of The Boys and many are not looking forward to Jensen joining their fandom for no reason other than the fact that they don’t want the hellers in their fandom and I am LIVID. Jensen Ross Ackles does not deserve any of this bullshit. The hellers are making life HELL for Jensen. SUPERNATURAL IS OVER. YOUR SHIP IS NOT CANON, FUCKING GET OVER IT. STOP MAKING LIFE FOR SPN FANS, FANS OF THE BOYS AND JENSEN DIFFICULT. Let Jensen work on his new show in peace for fuck’s sake. The hellers are making such a terrible impact on the fans of The Boys who have only a vague idea of what is happening. There is representation on The Boys and just leave it at that. Jensen deserves respect and appreciation for playing one of the best fictional characters in this fandom, and for putting up with this destiel bullshit for so long. Let The Boys fandom welcome Jensen into their fandom properly. Keep your destiel shit in your own lane and DO NOT crossover it into shows that have absolutely nothing to do with destiel. Ship what you want but do it in your own mf fandom. Jensen is NOT a homophobe. Farthest thing away from it. Playing a straight character does not fall in the ‘homophobic’ category. Homophobia is a fucking serious issue. How sick and deranged do you have to be to call Jensen a homophobe when he has helped so many people come out, when he has done NOTHING BUT SUPPORT THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY. JUST BECAUSE HE DOESN’T SUPPORT YOUR STUPID SHIP DOES NOT MEAN HE IS A HOMOPHOBE. OPEN THE FUCKING DICTIONARY AND LEARN WHAT HOMPHOBIA MEANS.

Supernatural did not queerbait anyone(the only queerbating done was by Misha Collins) and there was plenty of representation on it. No one was silenced and half of the LGBTQ+ fans I know are just as done with the bullshit of the destiel shippers as the straight fans are. And don’t fucking come at me with the whole ‘Supernatural killed all it’s gay characters’ like stfu u moron. Did you even watch the show??? Supernatural killed ALL it’s characters. There have been 4 episodes in all it’s 327 episode run in which someone did not die. This show was never about romance, get that through your thick skull.

Yeah go on hellers. Go on about how you’re the gOoD part of this fandom when all you are doing is making life miserable for everyone.

#supernatural #anti destiel #anti destihellers #i so wanna tag this as destiel so the shippers can see the impact they're leaving #SPOILER ALERT: IT'S NOT A GOOD ONE #the boys #anti jensen ackles hate #destiel fans and their representation bullshit #fucking jump off a cliff #stan jensen ackles for clear skin #<3

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flightfoot · 3 years

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Maribat is weird to me; from what I've read of Damien in the comics, he and Marinette would NOT like each other. It seems really hard to earn Damien's respect and he's always bucking to take charge, and I don't see him accepting Ladybug's leadership in a team-up. And Marinette is a big romantic and the guys she likes (Adrien & Luka) are big romantics, while Damien has problems with intimacy and expressing affection, which was a source of tension in his relationship with Djinn in Teen Titans.

Yeah, their actual compatibility was never considered when coming up with that pairing. I tried several of those stories when it was starting out because I like Damian and I thought it could be an interesting crossover, but... yeah no.

I even tried the original story that started it. It just made Damian a reserved, but polite young man who fell madly in love with Marinette the instant he heard her voice, before even locking eyes on her, calling her an “angel”.

I’m pretty sure the author had little interest in what Damian’s actually like canonically and just grabbed the Robin who’s currently closest in age to Marinette, erased his personality, and then inserted one that was more suitable for romancing Marinette.

I’ve literally never seen a fic for Damian X Marinette that attempted to have the romance be in-character, even if they might’ve been before that point. As soon as the romance starts, one or both of their personalities are swapped out, they’re THAT incompatible.

Best guess for why it’s a thing, to the point that it’s attracting people who were never even really into Miraculous Ladybug in the first place? It scratches the same sort of itch that Twilight does.

A lot of people (especially teens) like fantasies where the poor, abused and mistreated girl is taken away to some other place to be with people who can TRULY appreciate her worth, who fall in love with her instantly and dote on her even though they're known for being withdrawn and broody, because the girl is just THAT special, and who shows the world how unbelievably talented, smart, and powerful she is so everyone else can gush over how amazing she is.

Honestly I wouldn’t care if it wasn’t derived from salt. A lot of people in that fandom don’t seem to recognize when one of their fics is maligning a character in a way that’s not even remotely justified, because the source material they’re drawing from are largely other saltfics.

So Alya seems to be considered to be at LEAST a Lila sycophant who ditches Marinette AT BEST as a baseline for those stories, and a violent, abusive, gullible moron who’s a useless leech on the people around her at worst.

Adrien... actually is occasionally treated more kindly? From what I saw, he has a better record of making it through OK than Alya and the class at least. I suspect because a lot of the people writing it care more about the “bullying by people who should have had your back” aspects than just being insufficiently helped by a friend, as often is portrayed in Adrien salt, or being sexually harassed, as occurs in Chat salt. Not that those things DON’T happen in Mari//bat, it actually has some of the grossest examples of it, but Adrien at least has a shot of being portrayed sympathetically without needing to grovel within the story itself.

Basically, the reason it doesn’t make sense is because you’re imagining that the characters within the story are actually, well, in-character, and aren’t simply OC stand-ins drawn from saltfics. Which means they import the same problems, like replacing Alya with a disgustingly racist caricature for the purpose of punishing her as extremely as possible. Though I’ll admit I’m not sure how much of that was because it was intended to be racist, and how much of it was more usual bashing because the author despises Alya and wishes to project their negative experiences onto her, and that ended up coincidentally coinciding with the “Angry Black Woman” and “Welfare Queen” stereotypes.

Either way those REALLY should be excised from depictions of Alya, especially since even the most hateful analyses I’ve seen of her that actually draw from canon can’t find support for them applying to Alya.

#ask #ml fandom salt #anti maribat

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solesurvivorpaigeargot · 4 years

Text

Okay but let’s talk about the opening of Fallout 4

And I’m not talking about the part where you gotta pantomime your way through a half-hour of BS at least before you’re actually allowed to step out into the world and get shite started [seriously Bethesda, if you’re gonna keep making openings like this, please include a ‘get to the point’ option and stop making modders do it for you. First time it’s interesting, second time it’s mind-numbing.] I’m talking about when you roll up on the museum and have to help out Preston and the gang-- and I’m just gonna rant for a few paragraphs here so here’s a read-more cut so I don’t clog up dashes too badly.

Fallout 4 never gives you the chance to value human life.

Fallout 3 had this issue as well, but it’s even more glaring in 4 because in 3 an order came down for your death. When you aren’t given a choice, what you’re doing can at least be penciled in as self-defense. 4 expects you to devalue raiders and treat them as unreasonable threats, to see them as a shooting gallery and nothing else... but there’s a serious problem with the framing.

You made me pantomime being a normal person for the first 30 min to hour of your experience, and now you’re telling me a normal person can just pick up a gun and start popping people with no moral issues.

This is required to even get close enough to talk to Preston. He might take out all the raiders if you’re willing to wait 20 minutes, but when you put yourself into the role play head space of a character, what kind of person ducks behind the sandbags and waits for the dude with the laser to pick everyone off? And there is no force preventing you from simply running away, this is true-- but doing so simply removes your ability to interact with what is a core mechanic of the game a-la the minutemen and establishing settlements. So if you wanna keep the game experience intact, and follow along with the mission? Murder is required, without any time taken out to consider the value of human life or if that murder is justified, or if your character is capable of that kind of violence.

To say I dislike this headspace in shooters, that whomever the denoted ‘bad’ group is are just okay to treat as squishy playthings, more so in shooters that try to integrate choice and morality, is a massive understatement. There are plenty of other things in the commonwealth that could threaten a group of settlers that aren’t people, and framing us as a normal person [PARTICULARLY IF YOU PLAY AS ‘NORA’ WHO WAS NOT A MILITARY MEMBER] who is just immediately ready for this is ASSUMPTIVE BULLSHIT. More so when you remember that if you played as ‘Nate’ this dissonance would be less-- it assumes a male audience who would choose the male protagonist, and his military service makes this opening a lot smoother. But when you don’t? It becomes batshit insane. Your average lawyer is not ready to just pick up a gun and wreck people, even when there are innocents on the line.

So, if ya like, I’m gonna propose an ‘alternate’ idea for what this mission could have been that would have kept all the same elements. The raiders, the power armor, the deathclaw-- but not forced the player character directly into murder.

Step 1: Finding Dogmeat.

When we find Dogmeat, he appears to be just... wandering the gas station? And yeah, he’s in our path, but Mama Murphy appears to think that Dogmeat went and found you, so let’s take that a step further. Let’s say Dogmeat actually ran and found you-- that he spawns into the world when you get past the footbridge, and no matter where you go from there Dogmeat will find and bark at you. That no matter how you treat him, Dogmeat will try to lead you to Concord and ruin your stealth by running in circles around you and barking if you try to go the wrong way. That this pupper is trying to find someone to help his group, he found you.

Step 2: The approach.

So say we follow Dogmeat, who leads us to where the raiders and Preston’s group are in standoff. And yeah, sure, we pass the main road where they’re all sandbagged up, but Dogmeat leads us around back to a rear entrance the raiders have not yet realized exists. Possibly a fire escape that has a ladder that could be released from above that was pulled up when Preston and co hunkered down. While, yes, the player could choose to engage the raiders at this point, deciding they’ve seen enough and take on the museum from the front? Going around, Dogmeat barking, and Mama appearing to let the ladder down because she probably knew you were coming gives you a non-violent in. Why haven’t the group left? There’s too many of them to just sneak out, Mama is old and slow, and Jun is nearly catatonic. No changes have to be made to the group to make that path out non-viable, it’s simply a way for you to get in, speak to Preston, and understand what the fuck we’re dealing with here without the one and only solution being kill everyone-- though the power armor is posited as something that might be helpful in a show of force to get the raiders to fuck the fuck off.

Step 3: The Raiders.

Banditry is not something ‘bad people’ do. It is an act of desperation. The idea that all the raiders are just the most repugnant people on the planet, and there appears to be no fuckin’ end to them is the same flavor of bullshit that’s used in all that war on drugs propaganda 50′s politicians were so high on. The idea of ‘Oh, the raiders are just bad people, so it’s okay to shoot at them’ ignores that they are people. People with lives. People with motivations. People who had their own path that led to where they are and what they’re doing. And what motivates a person to this kind of violence?

Starvation, usually. And I’ll be the first to say I don’t make great decisions when I’m hungry, either, but let’s dig a little deeper on this. Let’s step into the role of the leader of a raider group for a few seconds, get into this head space, and think about what’s going down with Preston’s group.

Imagine that I am a leader of a raider band. Let’s imagine that it started as me and a friend getting forced out of Diamond city, possibly given exile, because we couldn’t find work and decided to steal some food. The lack of work was no fault of our own; me and my friend may not have known the right people, or had the right skill sets, or been willing to take work that risked our lives as if we were worth nothing. Maybe we survived on good will for a while, but after so many hungry days got desperate, held up the Dugout for all the caps they had, or stole food from the general store, and tried to run with the take before we got caught. Whether we were caught, stripped of our gains, and then thrown out, or we got away-- we now have a place we can’t go anymore, and are at the mercy of the outside world. Are we bad? Are we bad because we were starving to death and desperate? Am I bad for coming up with a not great plan but at least trying to take action rather than just quietly dying in a gutter? I just wanted to eat. So now me and my friend are drifters, and we stick together because we’re all we got. And maybe we meet another drifter here, and another one there, and on some hungry night someone gets the idea that hey, if we all jump out from the side of the road and threaten a trader, maybe they’ll drop some of their stock without a fight?

We don’t want caps. We want food. We can’t spend the caps, and we don’t wanna get into a fight because none of us can get treatment-- we’re exiles and criminals. We don’t want blood, we want to eat.

So we threaten a trader, and that goes well-- we got supplies! But those supplies don’t erase our records. We still need to live, and this food is only gonna last so long. The traders know about us now, they talk-- even if we got money, who the hell would trust us? No one, that’s who. Even better, sounds like our little hold-up horned in on some other group’s territory that we didn’t even know about, and they ain’t happy with us. We all have guns, but none of us have ever killed anyone. None of us want to. We just wanted to eat.

So did the other group. They just wanted to eat, too, but they saw us horning in on their territory. Their take. Those supplies belonged to them. They have mouths to feed. More than us, probably. We stole from them, and all we wanted was to eat.

Whatever happens next is desperate, and it’s a baptism in blood. It’s a process of alienation. While there may be a select few who are actually out of their gourd and enjoy the violence, the majority of people who engage in banditry are desperate and hungry.

So what the hell does this have to do with the group holding up Preston’s group?

By all rights, Preston’s group does not have anything a gang of raiders wants. Even if they’re far enough along that caps have value to them again, able to do trade with their own network, injuries are expensive and often lead to permanent disability because these groups lack consistent access to medical supplies and knowledge, and fatalities means your crew is down an important and useful member. SO WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY WANT?

In the canon encounter, what they want is nothing. They want to wipe out Preston’s group because the game said so [I think there’s a terminal entry about it later, like they’re getting paid or something, but no payment is worth getting wiped out the way they did, and you don’t run a group that big on blind arrogance alone. Gristle woulda been displaced by then. All the caps in the world aren’t worth your life; you can’t feed dead crew members, and greed is useless when you’re blacklisted from all the settlements with any sense of luxury] They exist to shoot at. But when we ascribe motivation to them, what the fuck do they want?

The power armor.

It’s a tool; something that would change the balance of power in the area, make other groups think twice and lower the chance of losses when trying to gain supplies. Screw wiping these morons out, there’s only five of them left-- hold them at stand-off for a day or so until someone breaks and asks to negotiate, make them drop everything they’ve got as the toll for getting out, and then the group steps in to take the prize. There’s no need for anyone to get shot, just gotta starve ‘em out a little and then let them run with their lives.

Step 4: The Death Claw

So we have a stand-off situation that could... probably be pretty easily negotiated through without major loss of life. Your player character is a third party, after all. Opens up some non-lethal ways of doing things if you wanna convince Preston and co to give up all their stuff if it means getting out with their lives. Likewise, a high speech character could possibly go to Gristle and convince him that you’ve seen the power armor and it’s wrecked, no worth the effort he’s spending on bottling this crew up, and the men he’s probably already lost in the process. Or maybe a character with high intelligence could work with Sturges to sabotage the power armor, handing it over to the raiders knowing that in a day or two it’ll fall apart. All of these make for some interesting shades-of-gray choices...

Then the deathclaw shows up. In the middle of negotiation. Everyone gets forced up to the upper floor; no time to kill each other, there’s a giant murder machine prowling around the lobby and it is only a matter of time before it climbs up to the second floor and starts ripping out walls and doors to get at people.

This could have served to make the situation even more interesting-- if you’d gone aggro in the beginning and started killing raiders in the streets, you have less people to deal with a massive threat that could kill the fuck out of you. If you’d been in the middle of convincing the raiders to take a sabotaged set of power armor, you’d have to explain to them why the power armor isn’t gonna help you... or let Gristle take it and get murdered when it freezes up and leaves him stranded to get ripped out of the can and munched. Is that murder? How’s the player feel about that? Meanwhile, if you hadn’t killed anyone and were in the middle of negotiating a bloodless solution, you might have a chance of unifying everyone to take down the deathclaw-- possibly with a future bonus that Gristle and his crew wanna go straight and giving you the choice to set them up within your settlement system, or becoming yet another ‘civilized’ system that won’t work with them because they’re too far gone.

...................... I may have to write another fic just to explore these ideas in a modified canon.

#Fallout 4 #Preston #Raiders #Gristle #speculation #choice

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jazzforthecaptain · 3 years

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Hi! I'm here to bother you with more Harkstiel :)

I was wondering how you think Cas being an angel would impact the way Jack views him, especially toward the beginning when they first meet each other? After all the years of gruesome alien invasions, man-made/natural disasters, and loss Jack has experienced in his long lifetime, do you think he'd hold it against Cas and angels in general for not being there to save people? If so, what would be the turning point that makes Cas and Jack view each other with respect instead of holding their pasts against each other?

I can't say I've seen much of Jack's character outside of just Doctor Who, but he's never struck me as the religious type (at least, not in the christian sense), so maybe he wouldn't expect angels to be kind and merciful cherubs as much as others would.

Thank you so much for answering my earlier ask, by the way! I loved everything you wrote for it, and I never even stopped to think about live music in that way, but the way you said it was so in character for Cas and Jack <3

Hi again, you wonderful person, you! I needed time to think about this one, plus I needed a keyboard, because I wasn't going to tackle this answer with just my thumbs.

The issue with Jack Harkness is that while I think some things are consistent about him, quite a lot can't be pinned down. How Jack perceives Castiel and how he'd react to the reality of him would depend an awful lot on the context through which they're introduced, and where Jack's headspace is at the time. That's also part of the glory of writing these two: a coffeeshop meetcute is honestly just as likely as Jack obsessively hunting Castiel down is just as likely as Castiel obsessively hunting Jack down is just as likely as meeting on the same side of a fight for the universe and snarking their way into an eternal friendship. They've never met in canon, and that means they can meet a million different ways, and those first impressions will transform their relationship into something wholly different every time.

So, for this, I'll stick to the context you provided, of Jack meeting Castiel after years of grief and loss on Earth. I've written Jack interacting with Castiel for the first time in similar circumstances - when I wrote them meeting in Grace, Jack wasn't too far into his offworld sojourn, post-Children of Earth.

I agree with you that Jack's not inclined to be terribly religious. I'd go so far as to say he's not, at all. Jack's been cursed with the terrible, unwanted job of watching humanity go through its patterns of behavior over and over again, and humanity's search for Something More Than This is one of its oldest. Also, he's already aware of at least one species that the universe applies the 'angel' designation to. I expect that his reaction, when and if Castiel gets around to honesty about his origins, would be cynicism. I don't think Castiel will ever, ever convince Jack that he's an angel in the sense that Castiel means it. To Jack, Castiel's just another extraterrestrial. Another person from a species he's never met before. He's met people who could do incredible things and people who hold cataclysmic power, and they were all just... people.

With that in mind, I think Jack might air some frustration with the angels over their inactivity against the 4-5-6, and I think he'd have some questions about why Heaven - if it has all this power - doesn't intercede in things like plagues and wars. But to be honest, Jack's been the cause of some of those things, and sometimes a participant. He's had his turn as soldier, jailer, war profiteer, interrogator and spy. Out of anyone, I think he's the least inclined to be self-righteous or judgmental. He didn't yell at the Doctor about ditching them during Children of Earth and Miracle Day, even when he had the chance. I think his mentality is mostly 'do what you can, when you can, but shit things happen all the time no matter what and it's probably my fault somehow anyway.'

I actually think that if he has a real problem with Castiel and they're on good terms, it's going to be about his vessel. Jack's going to be all over that. Who is that, is this consensual, what does he think about what you're doing, how is this affecting him longterm, CAN I TALK TO HIM, etc. And his impression of Castiel will be informed by the answers - and the answers will be informed by whatever point in Castiel's timeline that they meet. I tend to have them meet after Jimmy's already been freed from sharing his body with Castiel, but their relationship would take a very different trajectory otherwise (also due to where Castiel's mindset was when Jimmy was still alive vs where it is after he perished).

In response to your question about when the turning point would be from wariness to respect, I think Castiel and Jack's difficult pasts would be a unifying factor, rather than something they'd need to overcome. I'll air a little bit of my saltiness here: I ship these two more than anything else I ship, and it's because Jack is the first person outside of Castiel's own kind who sees him as a person - not a monster, not a tool, not a weapon. When I first started writing them, I didn't know what a dramatic difference that would make. But oh, how it does. Castiel, approached with Jack's calm, neutral curiosity, becomes a very different Castiel. He unfurls. He trusts. He tells stories. And he has a lot in common with Jack, especially about that whole 'I was doing fine until this passionate moron came along and made me question everything I was doing,' thing. Jack loves to talk, more than pretty much anything else. I think they'd start unlocking the Tragic Backstories fairly quickly, although the process of completing that unlocking will take... a very long time.

And, I think they'd get each other. They'd fight - honestly that's part of why I love them - but not about who was a Bad Person for Doing X Thing. They both have committed atrocities, and neither one of them justifies any of it. I think they see themselves and their past motivations with a clarity that most people don't have, because they've had the time to realize what useless, dangerous bullshit self-deception really is. More than that, I think the thing that would weld them together is their commitment to helping people. They're stuck in this life, destined to live a very long time beyond this ephemeral present. They have to live those lives with the memories of all the horrible things they've done, and no way to find forgiveness for them. I think Jack would show Castiel that the only way is forward, and that giving up would be a waste of every person's sacrifice that brought him here. And I think Castiel would be able to give Jack the gift of understanding; of being seen, fully, by someone who's dealing with similar experiences. The one person who can hear Castiel confess to killing a sibling he loves with all of his being... is Jack.

If there's a turning point, it comes when they do the thing that makes me love them most: ask each other questions.

#harkstiel #friendlyneighborhoodheretic #superwood #superwho #long post

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hemo--goblins · 3 years

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I think a lot of the fandom headcanons Tyrian being good with kids not because it's true, but because it's objectively funny. I don't think it's done out of some malicious desire to infantilize a serial killer (whose neurodivergent status is headcanon-only, like many other things) so much as it is "lol imagine leaving your kid with Tyrian and you come back three hours later and he's teaching your kid how to throw knives." Unrealistic? Yes. But, I get the appeal. Nothing wrong with crack ideas.

... Did you just try to say the fact that Tyrian is neurodivergent is headcanon?? Are we watching the same show?? Do you understand what that word means?? He is very clearly mentally ill, that’s not a fan interpretation. He may not have an official diagnosis, and any concrete conclusion fans may come to on that front could arguably be considered conjecture, but there’s no debating the fact that he is far from neurotypical. I’m going to rant about this a little bit here, just to make sure that my point is completely understood, because this is something that is important to me and I feel it needs to be said.

I mentioned before that I don’t think people infantilize him out of malice, and that they don’t always mean anything by it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a prevalent issue in fandom that I’ve seen happen time and time again. People interpret characters with mental illness as immature. They interpret emotional volatility and rejection sensitivity as tantrums and childish attachment. Frankly, I don’t really care anymore if people don’t mean anything by calling the literal serial killer a baby, I’m just tired of people treating mentally ill adults as children that can’t wipe their own ass. I don’t think anyone wakes up and says “I am going to intentionally infantilize this murderer today,” I genuinely believe that this comes from a place of honest misunderstanding and a lack of recognition of how hurtful it can be to real people who struggle with these conditions to see them painted as immature and generally oversimplified.

I have ADHD, among a whole bunch of other undiagnosed conditions, and a lot of my symptoms match up with Tyrian’s. To see people translate traits that I work with every day into being a moron, incapable of critical or strategic thinking and better suited to the company of children than adults, is really othering and insulting. Tyrian is a smart person, we’ve seen it in the show. It’s part of what makes him so terrifying, that his instability doesn’t detract from his cunning.

Speaking from experience, people who have violent impulses tend to be especially wary of children because they can be so unpredictably obnoxious, and while that is no fault of theirs and not something they should be punished for, it can make it genuinely difficult to be around them because they are so easy to break and will undoubtedly trigger those impulses. And Tyrian does not have the same interest in restraint that most people that struggle with those feelings do. So the fact that people seem so interested in sticking him with children when there are plenty of other characters in RWBY that will teach your kid to throw knives and are exponentially less likely to snap at them, it really feels like people are interpreting his hyperactivity as “having the heart of a child.” And I’m willing to believe that they don’t mean anything harmful by that! But that’s why I’m writing all this, to hopefully help people understand the effect that has on people who live with these conditions.

In the original question, I was not asked to entertain a “crack idea,” I was asked how I thought Tyrian would do with kids, and I gave my honest answer based on what we have seen of his character in canon. If you want to play around with those ideas, I am not going to stop you, but I’m completely within my rights to say that I think it’s out of character and that I have no interest in the concept.

#tyrian callows #sorry if this came off as harsh its just #something that affects me personally #and i felt like it was time to make a longform post about why it bothers me #you can talk about whatever wild ooc shit you want #but im allowed to tell you i think its out of character #especially when you bring it directly to my inbox #Anonymous #hemo.txt

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toxicpineapple · 4 years

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now im just curious abt rantaros relationships w the v3 cast.... mwahaha spill everything 🦟🦗🦟

hi anon! sorry for taking so log to reply to this, i knew i’d have a lot to say and i didn’t have the spoons to go off until now. FLKDJSFLkj here we go!

hehe! okay. so just as a preface, i’m like. REALLY into rantaro pairings. like. the only rantaro pairings i don’t like all that much are am*cha, rantaro/himiko, amaguuji (sorry lgbt community), and ranmugi. the rest i’m either open to or obsessed with. so like. bear that in mind when you read this.

i’m going to rank rantaro relationships by how much i love them so i can get an order to this (and also so i can do amamota last because i have a lot to say).

rantaro + korekiyo (2.5/10) oh gosh. kiyo, i’m so sorry a dumb bitch like me would do you like this. listen, amaguuji is a good pairing, just, objectively. i used to be super into it. but then the fandom crabwalked all over me with their amaguuji hurt/comfort fics and i got so Tired of seeing rantaro get treated like a security blacket... eugh. amaguuji is a good ship. i have written amaguuji, and would write it again, without prompting. i’m just... so tired.

they’d get along! obviously they would get along, we’ve seen their canon interactions, we’ve all slurped up as much rantaro tdp content as we were able to get, we know the tea. rantaro is passive and not easily creeped out, so he’d be able to look past all the unsettling things about kiyo, and similarly, kiyo is understanding and not pushy, so rantaro would be able to vibe around him without being asked about his secrets, or his travels, or anything that he doesn’t want anybody else to know. i like the aesthetic of them sitting around and drinking tea together, just, vibing like bros. kiyo infodumps to rantaro. rantaro fucking loves it. they’re best friends.

also like. they travel together. or whatever.

rantaro + kiibo (4/10) to be clear, i’m like, they’re cute, it’s just. i don’t have very strong opinions on kiibo as a whole FLKDJSFKLJDSFKDF kiibo is one of those characters who i kind of close my eyes on because to me he is just, he is very boring! he is very boring and i am so sorry to the kiibo stans who follow me, i have so much respect for you, i just have never had a kiibo thought in my life. they’re fun to write, though, i’ll tell you that.

kiibo is one of those characters who i think engages with you based on how you engage with him. i don’t mean that he’s a code switcher, (at least not a notorious one), but he’s emotional, and he’ll give back as much as you put in. if you treat him poorly, he’ll respond with anger and indignity. if you treat him with kindness and respect, he’ll respond similarly. which is why i think he and rantaro would really get along! rantaro is relaxed and kind and non-judgmental, and kiibo is the kind of person who needs chill vibes, so i think they’d have a lot of fun hanging out. rantaro is also the type of guy to get his friends a lot of gifts, and i think kiibo would be overwhelmed at like, the thoughtfulness that goes into that, and would grow really fond of rantaro accordingly. they’re sweet! amiibo rights, even if the first time i saw it my gut reaction was “wait, huh?”

rantaro + ryoma (5/10) this is another one of those ones where the rating was cucked because i don’t see a lot of them interacting and there’s not enough fandom content for me to really be in love with it. five is like, a solid neutral rating. i could swing either way. probably more for the positive though; i fucking love ryoma.

another one of those duos where they kind of just, vibe. honestly i don’t know if they’d get too close, if only because rantaro is gone so often he doesn’t really have the time to work on tearing down ryoma’s walls, and ryoma similarly is so tired he’s like, he doesn’t have the energy to try and figure out what the fuck is up with rantaro. unlike with amamota, rantaro and ryoma both have things that trouble them from their past, but the difference is that like, ryoma is so open about it? he’s not closed off. he won’t let people get close, but sure, he’ll tell them exactly why they shouldn’t. rantaro is the complete opposite, all sunny smiles and subject changes. this isn’t to say that they wouldn’t get along! i think they’d get along fantastically. sometimes when rantaro is just feeling so fucking tired, he’d pop by ryoma’s dorm for a candy cigarette and a casual conversation, and they’d chill. or maybe rantaro tells people to let ryoma have his space sometimes. just. vibing in solidarity. they’re bros! they’re bros.

and sometimes they kis--

rantaro + miu (6/10) full disclosure: i love them. leila i am so sorry that a dumb bitch like me would do this friendship like this. i’m just looking at the list and thinking “oh no i love them all” and when it comes to like, my favourite characters, unfortunately, miu had to go on the chopping block. i love them. feel like shit just want egg rp miu and rantaro back.

god! this is another one of those where like, rantaro isn’t judgmental (but he is firm!) so he and miu would get along really well. rantaro is really patient and he like, goes with the flow, so he and miu would be able to have conversations and he’d either shut down or tune out the sex jokes, actually carrying the conversation based on what she’s saying. miu is pretty chill, like, at least i feel like she’d be a really chill friend? so rantaro would be able to make insensitive jokes about how he just got stabbed and miu would be like “KYAHAHAHA you’re such a fuckin moron come to my lab i’ll make you a drink or some shit” and they’d just be cool. they’d just be cool! i want them to be best friends. please. just. two pals who spill tea and come to each other to make dark jokes. also miu cries into rantaro’s shoulder sometimes and he braids her hair fuck you i doooo what i want.

also sometimes they k--

rantaro + gonta (7/10) hey! it’s SO fucking homophobic that the only amagoku fic on ao3 is fucking porn! i hate it here can you please give me some actual food? please? i’m dying. i’m dying here and you’re doing me like this. these two have so many rights! they have so many rights. i just, two special boys? thank you. thank you for them. i care them. if there was more fucking CONTENT for these two i would have given them a higher rating but i guess! i’ll fucking die!

damn i’m actually like... really tender, thinking about them. i just think they could take care of each other! that’s all. i feel like rantaro would be really patient with gonta but he would also treat him like! a real, intelligent person! idk! like not infantalise him despite being sweet and comforting. i don’t know! i think that’s important can you guys STOOOOP infantalising coded autistic characters that would be really sweet </3 but anyway. i headcanon that rantaro likes insects! or at least, he thinks they’re pretty neat! he thinks they’re neat and he likes them and even more than that he likes listening to gonta info dump, it’s just, it’s important. idk. i think rantaro would be really psyched by how excited gonta gets about insects, and of course gonta would be thrilled to have a friend who wants to talk to his insect friends.... hhhhHhh... and of course gonta would take care of rantaro, too, just, he’d respect rantaro’s boundaries and not ask him any questions, he’d offer space and let rantaro just, exist, and be. gonta is soft and he gives good hugs! and i think that he would just be able to let rantaro cry one out on his shoulder and that’s SO important to me.

also gonta is such a sweetheart so it would be like, hard, for rantaro to lie about stuff? i dunno, like, he’d do okay, and then gonta would ask him a question or something and rantaro would be hit with the Guilts... also like, rantaro employs a mix of like, slight coldness, and airheaded subject changes in making people back off, and i doubt he could really do that with gonta. why would you!!! he’s a soft man, just the softest!!!! these two soft green men :) i care them so fucking much can you imagine rantaro taking gonta to places to see bugs PLEASE they have so much potential can we fucking talk about this

rantaro + tenko (7/10) this one would be higher, but i deducted points because of how the fandom always sees rantaro as “fixing” tenko’s man hatred. that’s literally so gross can you shut up? please? i hate? men?

okay n e wayz. i like them! i think they’re neat, i think they’d be great friends... eventually LFKDJLKDSF like listen, okay? i think tenko really does have real fear of men. think about her backstory, like, her master dripping poison in her ear all her childhood, and then the way he had her working as a fucking VIGILANTE? HELLO? like tenko probably saw some horrible traumatising shit as a child that strengthened these beliefs. this is entirely her master’s fault and he is such a, clenches fist, i can’t even articulate this beanie has better master hatred thoughts than i do, but god he sucks? wow. and fuck tenko’s parents too, sending her off to a temple because she had anger issues. you ever heard of a therapist, chabashiras? hello?

i got distracted, but the main thing is, tenko wouldn’t like him at first. not even reluctantly! like rantaro very much looks like a playboy and that’s the epitome of the kind of guy tenko is against. obviously rantaro isn’t, but tenko isn’t getting close enough to see that! if a man so much as touches her she’s responding defensively, don’t you even think rantaro is going to get past that. and i don’t think rantaro would try Too hard, i mean, like, i think he’d be endeared to tenko because of how much she protects the girls, and how sweet she is when she’s like, not actively thinking about it, but i don’t think he’s so ready to get his ass kicked, y’know? FKLDSJFLKSDFJ

but then maybe like! an accident will happen, and tenko falls over, and rantaro reaches to help her but she freaks and grabs his arm and flips him over and then BOOM!!! neo aikido magic things and she sees all his fucking stress, all his distrust, just how much he really blames himself for everything, how afraid and angry and tired he is, and we all know tenko is super compassionate so i think she would absolutely be worried about it. and then i think she’d like! keep an eye out for rantaro, at the very least try and get confirmation on all those emotions because this pretty boy soooo does not act like it, and then maybe one time she sees him getting grilled on his travels, or he comes back injured and tenko finds him, and she bails him out, begrudgingly, and then they start to become friends.

idk! i think they have platonic potential. i think rantaro would see her as a sister and i think tenko would eventually ask rantaro if he’s really a guy. (which he would laugh off, if he was cis, but if this is nb rantaro.... i’m just saying, the potential for tenko to help rantaro with gender awakening.... fantastic.) get into these two as friends. do it.

if some MOTHERFUCKER reblogs this post with am*cha in the tags i’m going to kill. i’m going to KILL. i won’t even hesitate /hj

rantaro + tsumugi (8/10) (looks at ibuki poster) oh mioda, we’re really in it now. and by that i mean, god it’s so fucking hard to choose favourites from here FKJDSLFKJ i have almost all the girls just, up here, because i’m so fucking fond of their relationships with rantaro. and i know i said i don’t like ranmugi or rantaro/himiko, and it’s true, but i am obsessed with their platonic relationships with him. ESPECIALLY when tsumugi and rantaro are one-sided enemies.... that’s such good shit, holy crap.

okay, let me explain. i feel like rantaro and tsumugi can swing both ways, here. they can either be really good friends! like, rantaro is mellow so he lets tsumugi put him into cosplay (i think rantaro would make a really good n off the top of my head since they’re both green FLKJDSFKJ or light yagami..... handsome men) and since he loves listening to people info dump he just... lets tsumugi go fucking OFF about anime sometimes FKJDSLKFJ i think it would be sweet! i think tsumugi could give rantaro a place to unwind, because she’s so like, hard to phase, i guess? like tsumugi and rantaro share that trait where if you hit either of them in the face with a pie, they’d just go “oh, funky” and go to wash their clothes LMAO. power duo! they’re brother and sister! and i headcanon mugi as a lesbian so she talks to rantaro about ~girls~ sometimes. also u already know tsumugi got tea to spill so rantaro helps with her hair for a cosplay while she gossips KFJDLK honestly why aren’t she miu and rantaro a trio? i just think they’d be neat. good friends! best friends.

or tsumugi absolutely fucking detests rantaro with every fiber of her being. she couldn’t even tell you why! he’s just, he’s a normie! he’s a normie, and he’s like the flirtatious pretty boy stereotype except he isn’t even flirtatious, he’s just genuinely nice and he takes care of people and god tsumugi hates it when anime tries to be subversive! there’s a reason tropes exist, y’know! and he’s so smiley and innocent when obviously he’s hiding some kind of shit, why else would he be going on travels all the time, not that it matters because everyone knows how much she hates rantaro so they wouldn’t listen to her anyway... on rantaro’s end, he really doesn’t have a clue why she loathes him so much, like, he’d like to be friends? but wow she hates him, huh. well, whatever. rantaro’s got more important things to worry about.

in other words, i fucking love them in any form, please give me content of these two they’re so fun.

rantaro + angie (8/10) i love these two and these rankings are? so difficult for me, i am going to cry, you guys get the idea about me being a rantaro stan, right? i hope you do because god i love him so much. and i love him with angie! man. okay. okay.

so like. first of all. angie climbing onto rantaro’s back? perfect. she’s in need of piggy back rides and rantaro will gladly give them. rantaro is so patient and like, hhh i don’t want to use the word pliable because of horny people but that’s the best one i can come up with? like, he just goes with the flow, y’know? angie is so high strung, platonically i think she works really well with people who are patient and indulgent. i don’t know if rantaro would be much for her as far as fulfilling her loneliness, because angie is sort of looking for someone who Wouldn’t indulge her that much, but i’m absolutely weak for their dynamic. just, angie bringing up wacky ideas, rantaro responding with mild skepticism but also listening to her. i think she’d cause some trouble and he would be entirely here for it. bless them, honestly.

also angie painting rantaro’s sisters? please they’re so cute

rantaro + shuichi (8/10) before you come at me like “but toxic! amasai is your otp!” it’s not, okay? it used to be. but due to negative associations i can’t really write it (or shuichi ships as a whole) that much anymore and it’s really frustrating so uh, yeah. amamota supremacy.

that being said, god the potential of these two. they’re a great balance. shuichi is anxious and rantaro is laid back, shuichi is reserved and rantaro is outgoing (to an extent; he definitely doesn’t have any issues voicing his opinions). i think rantaro would be really gentle with shuichi! he matches the quiet, less overwhelming vibes, and just. feels inclined to take care of him, y’know? and spend time with him. i think they’re sweet! i think they’re really cute. the other part of the amasai dynamic that i used to be obsessed with his shuichi’s natural curiosity. shuichi would be so curious about what’s going on with rantaro and why he’s traveling, and rantaro would want so badly to tell him, but he can’t risk it happening again, he can’t... oh!!! rantaro is is really good at comforting people i think so he’d be able to like, support shuichi when he’s upset, and shuichi has great communication skills! or at least i like to give them to him. so shuichi would nudge rantaro into being honest, and talking about his feelings. i just want to see them do well together, that’s all! i think that shuichi is earnest and emotional and he cares very dearly for his friends, and he would try really hard to take care of rantaro. he would also probably worry a lot about rantaro after figuring out he gets injured a lot in trips, which, like, FLKDJSFLKJ rantaro might not be so big on but honestly? the guy needs someone to worry about him.

also they FUCKING TRAVEL TOGETHER!!!! shuichi is a detective!!!!!! he can help rantaro search! cue post-salmon mode amasai slowburn as they travel the world together finding rantaro’s lost sisters. i really need to finish writing search, it’s been four months.

rantaro + kaede (9/10) hhh. oh man. oh geez. amamatsu, huh. amamatsu. i just. think about kaede having a little crush on rantaro after he painted her nails, because he’s so reassuring and patient and observant, and she knows he’s sketchy but she believes in him anyway because he has to be trustworthy, he has to, and then she sees him dead and is at first betrayed, horrified that he was the mastermind, only to realise he wasn’t, and she just killed an innocent person for no reason...

now that that’s out of the way, GOD I LOVE THEM! there are things about this relationship that prevent it from working out in the long term (at least in my opinion) but i don’t even care they have such a lovely dynamic and they look so good together... hhhhh i’m also so into them, just, platonically? god. okay. they just! like they already have that canonical dynamic of like, kaede bringing concerns to rantaro and him reassuring her or providing insight, and it’s so tender! the way he talks to her about miu or kiyo or kiibo (depending on who you choose) is so like, i dunno! he doesn’t judge her for having bad first impressions but at the same time he calmly looks a little more into why they behave the way they do? it’s just sweet! it’s just sweet, and i think rantaro can really help kaede like that, and help her to let her barriers down a little and feel not so pressured to be like, perfect all the time, y’know? to be a leader and take care of everyone 24/7. kaede really needs that.

and kaede! believes in him! she believes in him and looks to him for guidance and that’s so important for rantaro too, just, feeling trusted and knowing someone has faith in him... i really genuinely think kaede would encourage rantaro to keep on looking for his sisters, and urge him to trust other people and believe in himself, and it’s that same thing where she wants him to trust and open up to her and he wants to as well but it’s so difficult.... hhh!!! i think they’re so good!!!!! i just think they’re so good. they would take care of one another.

(the reason why i don’t think they’d be sustainable in the long term is because kaede like, she worries. and not in the way shuichi does? i just feel like she needs more stability and vulnerability than rantaro can actually bring to the table. i think kaede would try so, so, so hard to get rantaro to open up, and try so hard to take care of him and make sure he takes care of himself, and rantaro wouldn’t be putting in the same effort, because he can’t, and i don’t think kaede would blame him for it, but i do think that eventually she’d see it’s not. healthy. and it’s making her upset all the time. and she can’t keep up like this. they hurt me but i love them so much and i live in a world where they’re forever teens and never have to break up.)

also love them platonically! sorry i have amamatsu brainrot at all times but i really do love them as friends! i love rantaro painting kaede’s nails and doing her hair and kaede teaching him a duet on the piano, and she comes to him for advice and he brings her souvenirs and kaede makes sure he’s welcome in the class, and saves him cake after parties... also he calls her a brat and ruffles her hair a lot HEHEHE.

rantaro + maki (9/10) what? what? two people who never interacted and who have almost less interactions than gonta and ryoma do with rantaro? why, tox? why?

... because i’m a simp. that’s the only reason! that’s the only reason. i think they look good together, i’m really weak for maki and rantaro, and that’s the only reason. that’s the only reason! i have a crush on them both and i want to see them interact. there it is. boom. get your “make fun of tox” juice. before i ramble about how much potential they have, i just want you to know how utterly biased i am towards them.

there! that’s out of the way! biases admitted. i think rantaro and maki have the potential to really balance each other out. rantaro is really mellow and maki has a bit of a temper, rantaro is airheaded and maki is focused, rantaro is sociable and maki is closed off. at the same time, though, they like, handshake on a lot of things, y’know? they’re both secretive and distrustful, they both don’t want to let other people get close out of a fear of losing them, they’re both so FUCKING sad please i just want to hold them. i think there’s a lot of potential for them to be like, coming back to hope’s peak late or something, rantaro coming home from a trip and maki coming home from an assassination, and to run into each other and both be curious but also neither of them asks anything because they’ve both got so much to hide...

(that’s actually the exact premise of my amami week day one oneshot, stay tuned, gamers.)

but!! then it happens more often and they start seeing each other a lot more, and slowly they start to get like, a sort of companionship? like they’re not close or anything, but they’re united by their like, distrust of other people. and maybe maki tends to a wound of rantaro’s, or like with tenko tells people to lay off of grilling him, or maybe RANTARO tends to a wound of MAKI’S, or sticks up for her in a conversation. and fuck!! maybe a mission goes wrong and maki is upset and she trusts nobody at this goddamn school (because kaito hasn’t taken her on as his sidekick yet) so she goes to rantaro for, fucking, something, for comfort, and it’s embarrassing and vulnerable and absolutely terrible but he’s so gentle and sweet maki can’t help but let her guard down for just a second. also love the aesthetic of like, rantaro coming home from a trip disheartened and running into maki and she calls him an idiot or something and he just starts crying while maki stands there, not sure what to do, before stepping forward and awkwardly patting his arm FKLDJSFKJd i just think they’re neat. strictly speaking he’s not maki’s type (read: optimistic and stupid) but i love them for each other.

love them as friends! love rantaro to be maki’s go-to friend when she needs her empowering haircut, and them tending to each other’s wounds is not an inherently romantic thing, and they just stick up for each other and vibe... hhhhh.

if none of this happens then idk rantaro is a bit intimidated by maki, and maki thinks he’s unreliable and untrustworthy. that’s probably more likely FLKDJSFKJ BUT I CAN DREAM OKAY? CRIES

rantaro + himiko (9/10) these two are brother and sister, full stop. there’s nothing morally wrong with shipping them, it’s more just that like. i don’t know! himiko is so childish, like, the epitome of a younger sister, and rantaro is the epitome of an older brother... they vibe so hard platonically and then romantically my brain just restarts itself. but anyway!

magic is himiko’s special interest!!!! it means a lot to her and she’s very adamant that it be called magic and not tricks, like, even to the point of slowing down a trial and making herself look guilty in chapter two. i think rantaro is very used to playing along with his sisters’ stuff, and i think he would absolutely humour himiko. and like, they both know it’s not really magic, but it’s the effort that himiko appreciates, and in like, a no-pressure way like rantaro does it? yes please.

i think he would give her piggyback rides. like in chapter five when they’re climbing the stairs to kaito’s lab and himiko goes “someone give me a piggyback ride!” you already know rantaro would be volunteering. (side note: read whattheskyknows’ fic “missing (isn’t always so bad)” because it has that scene and i’m emotional.) i think he’d really take care of her! idk i know i’ve said that about a lot of these but rantaro is very caring. he’d look after himiko and make sure she’s taking her depression meds and carry her to her room when she falls asleep and tell people off when they overwhelm her and hhhh... and himiko would support him too! like with his travels and stuff, she wouldn’t really care about knowing why he’s traveling because it’s not her business and also like, asking about that stuff is a pain, who cares, if he’s gonna travel he’s gonna travel. rantaro would buy her books about magic while traveling and read them to her if she wants, and she would perform magic tricks for him and remind him of what it’s like to have a younger sister again. they matter to me. they should matter to you, too.

rantaro + kirumi (9/10) now i KNOW you weren’t expecting me to put amatoujou any lower, do you know who my favourite person in this fandom is? you are legally obligated to go check out Storyflight’s ao3 and read all of their amatoujou fics because they’re phenomenal and story is too. story ilu. amatoujou week is coming up on october third. participate or die.

anyway! i just think like, in general, rantaro has a lot of respect and appreciation for kirumi. she takes care of everyone! she works so hard all the time and she can really do anything and she’s so composed and calm all the time, and she has this sweet smile and this little laugh and this relaxing, patient energy, and hhhhhhh. rantaro respects her so damn much! so damn much. and maybe he simps a little regardless of whether they’re romantically involved because she works so hard. they get along! pseudo-parents of the group as people always make them. rantaro wants kirumi to kick back every so often, y’know? she matters to him and he’d like to see her being true to herself and enjoying herself. i also think he’s pretty stern with people when it comes to her, and just like, respecting her boundaries, the kinda guy to calmly and casually go, “hey, ouma-kun, she told you not to call her your mother, maybe you’d better respect that?” and kokichi goes “simp” but nevermind nevermind, i’m covering oumami on the next bullet.

idk! i think they’d look after each other! i think rantaro would make sure that kirumi is actually Taking Care Of Herself and of course kirumi would notice him coming in injured all the time and she would absolutely tend to his injuries without asking any questions at all. she would make sure he’s eating and if he requested, she would even tell everyone to Back The Fuck Off on his secrets and leave him alone FKJDSKFj i think she would always emphasise to him that she’ll do whatever she can for him if he so much as asks, as is her duty as a maid or whatever, but rantaro will refuse because like!!! hell’s no, he’s not about to feed into her complex my dude!!!!! but anyway.

i think it would... i just think it would be neat if he told her about his sisters! that’s all. kirumi is a fucking powerhouse, even if rantaro didn’t request it, she would totally help him find all twelve of them and bring them home. honestly? prime slowburn material, just, rantaro requesting that she help find his sisters and they slowly fall in love along the way... hhhhh if i wasn’t a fucking coward i’d write it myself, what a fantastic multi-chapter concept. i am so smart.

rantaro + kokichi (10/10) romantic oumami i go back and forth on but these two are really high at this specific moment in time because i love them SO much platonically, my god.

kokichi is a fucking brat! he’s such a brat, just, an absolute menace, a troublemaker and buffoon. i care him a lot but he’s so tiring to deal with, and if you don’t have the patience it’s hard to like, try and understand him? like with the shorter fuse members of the class (read: kaito and maki) it would be really hard to actually, get to the point where you can see past his bullshit KFJSDLFKJ but rantaro is patient! he’s a patient boy, and he’s hard to menace, and he grew up with twelve younger sisters. twelve!!! he takes care of them, bro, he can handle a little shit gremlin in his life. i think he’d be endeared to kokichi because of this reason, like, the immaturity, it just reminds him of his sisters, and if kokichi pulled out the “onii-chan”... hoo, it’s over. rantaro will do whatever this guy wants. just, a total enabler. absolute goon and enabler. i love them so much.

on a more serious note, they both have a lot of baggage, and similar to harumami it’s like, they’re both really distrustful! they’re distrustful, they just deflect in different ways. i think they’re both observant and intelligent enough that they could bounce off of each other really well. i do think kokichi is a bit smarter than rantaro is, if only just because it’s really hard to be smarter than kokichi, but i still think rantaro could keep up with them. and i think they could be a safe haven for each other! like rantaro gives him a place to truly feel safe, y’know, which is SO rare for kokichi the way he believes everyone is out to get him, and kokichi could give rantaro a place to just, stop smiling. unwind and be himself a little bit. be a little mean! bitch a little! be openly distrustful!

they take care of each other is all!! care them.

rantaro + kaito (20/10) you think you know a simp’s rating system and then she pulls one of these. i’m honestly a little worried about how long this will be because i’ve literally been writing this for three hours but KFJDSKJFDK i’m going to try my very, very best! so here goes :3c

kaito and rantaro have... so much in common. look at these two emotionally constipated, constantly smiling, constantly putting on a brave face, never letting their guard down, never relying on anyone but themselves, always taking care of other people, always taking the burden onto themselves... yeah. it’s like looking in a mirror. and in some cases that’s a really terrible foundation for a relationship. but with these two, when their unhealthy similarities are so reliant upon the other person being willing to just let themself be helped... it works out.

because they’re sweet! they’re sweet people, and rantaro will probably notice the way that kaito takes so much crap from people, including his sidekicks, while working so hard to take care of everyone, and kaito will of Course notice how rantaro is gone all the time, and how he kind of takes himself out of group interactions and makes himself an outcast, and how subtly closed off he is... there’s interest! and they’re both so inclined to help each other i feel like they’d get close! kaito would probably have a bit of a squish on rantaro anyway because he’s the fucking ultimate adventurer and what the hell, that’s so fucking cool, kaito’s destiny obviously lies in the stars but knowing someone who’s going to conquer the earth... that’s awesome. he probably sees rantaro as an equal even before they start getting close. (aka he thinks rantaro is totally above him in every way, like, the ideal almost, but “an equal” is something the luminary of the stars would say, so there he is.) and rantaro thinks kaito is a little silly, but he’s sweet! it’s sweet how much he takes care of other people and just, like, looks after them. rantaro’s weak for a good dork.

and maybe kaito asks rantaro to train with him sometime, or challenges him to a fight, and of course rantaro goes for it because he’s a Man or whatever (and if they do fight it’s homoerotic as hell FKLDSJFK) and plus he’s been meaning to get to know kaito anyway, and then they make a habit of it and start like!! spending time together. and kaito drags rantaro into the larger group and makes him interact and rantaro quietly tells people to lay off kaito, or else makes sure that he’s actually taking care of himself, and then they’re both trying so hard to just, help each other, and they keep like deflecting it back onto the other person, and it’s frustrating! and rantaro is sitting there like “man i really wish momota-kun would open up to me!!” before realising fucking... wait. i do the same thing. like how can he expect kaito to open up to him if he wont do the same thing, y’know? and then he ponders that, and is like, well maybe the relationship just isn’t worth it like vulnerability is for gay losers, but rantaro is, inevitably, a gay loser, so...

there’s just something about seeing your own flaws magnified on another person who you really, really want to take care of, that makes you realise how uncomfortable that is. obviously kaito doesn’t realise he’s upsetting people by pushing them away, not until rantaro closes the door in his face during a breakdown, and then he seriously needs to reevaluate the way he takes care of other people.

idk! i think they’re fantastic. i think kaito’s fervent belief in people would lend itself well to rantaro’s task, like, who doesn’t want to be believed in, y’know? and kaito is so strong about it, even when rantaro doubts himself he’s so encouraging and it’s nice. and rantaro gives kaito space to stop being the hero for a second and just! be kaito! and kaito can tend to his wounds and rantaro can take care of him when he’s sick and hhhHhHhHhhhhHh i care about them SO fucking much.

also? amamota baking sessions? absolutely fucking flawless. these two are so important to me.

hahahaha. sorry for such a long reply, anon. i have a lot of feelings about all of these guys. especially rantaro :) thank you so much for the ask, this was a lot of fun to answer. hope you’re doing well.

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illusionlock · 5 years

Text

pazam: a mess, truly a mess

so i usually dont do these kind of posts, i guess you could say its a call out of some sort? but i never liked that word, i prefer rather to just compile sources on WHY people would believe that a certain person is not truly as nice and understanding as they seem. consider this more of a psa post, detailing on whats going on with pazam on the sfm community, why so many people are against them.

So, a while back, tumblr user jymble made a post on the main tag stating that pazam was transphobic. they linked back to this post, which contains screenshots of pazam in a group chat stating that they do not feel comfortable with the idea of trans people. now, this did happen 9 months ago, true. however, for the record, pazam is already an adult, 24 years old, so they should have some tact. and as further and more recent events will show, they actually havent changed that much at all, at least not as they claim.

the screenshots should be in the post, but here is a transcript

[Screenshot one]

Pazam:

What????? Why?????

I literally HAVE NOT been doing ANYTHING malicious to them

And if it did I apologized

Yes I do have discomfort about them but I keep it to myself

Why are you doing this????

[End screenshot one]

‘Them’ here refers to trans people in general. Notice the defensive and victimizing stance they almost immediately take upon being confronted about their feelings on trans people.

[Screenshot two]

elliott:

of COURSE you dont

sammaku:

Like specifically

Elliott hush

Pazam:

This whole concept of transness and changing your gender physically

I hate to say it again but it weirds me out and it makes me question my own gender which flings me into anxiety, depression, and obsession

sammaku:

Its fine to not understand but are you willing to learn about it

Pazam:

I don’t want to talk about this anymore

sammaku:

That depression anxiety and obsession just comes with gender issues

(the rest of the text is cut off)

[End Screenshot two]

notice once summaku asks them if they would at least be willing to learn about it, pazam immediately deflects it by saying they dont want to talk about it anymore.

[Screenshot three]

Pazam:

Seriously??? That’s all it takes????

Wow I’m a moron

I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused to you

@.aziraphale @.elliott @.sammaku

I just don’t get this stuff period

And I’ve gotten into trouble with this stuff before

I’ll probably never understand it for the rest of my life but I’ll try to be more tactful around y’all

Especially since you’re all young

And I’m like an adult

[End screenshot three]

While at first this would seem like they had finally learned their lesson and apologized, the things they add on after the @s become quickly worrying. Not only do they admit to ‘have gotten into trouble with this stuff before’, meaning they have probably shown their transphobia in other places and been called out, but they also stand firmly on the fact that they will never understand it or ‘get’ it.

And of course, as jymble points out, the implication that the people they were talking to were only acting like that because they were young.

A while after this post was made, Pazam had posted an apology, and went onto contact jymble asking for the post with the evidence of their transphobic to be taken down. The reason? They were afraid people would see it and think they were still transphobic and not give them a chance.

In this more recent post, you can see the conversation play out between Pazam and jymbles. Long story short, Pazam feels that it’s unfair that that post is still up after they apologized, and jymble of course said they would rather not take it down, people deserve to know what they did and take their own conclusions, even if that involves avoiding them. How does Pazam respond? By flat out deleting the apology post. I’d love to show the apology post to give you both sides of the story but I cannot anymore, because Pazam in a very bizarre move just deleted it because they got mad a trans blogger wouldn’t take down their post with proof.

Here’s the transcript of the screenshots:

[Begin Conversation]

rebloggidy (Pazam’s personal):

I’m by no means transphobia-free after learning what I’ve done but at least I know my actions and am making an effort to be a better person towards trans people.

rebloggidy:

Hi again. So I hate to be that person but would it be ok if you took down that post about the transphobia claims? I know it took me 9 months to apologize but if people only see your side of the story and not realize the post I saw they’ll take it out of context and still think I’m transphobic. Do you understand?

jymble:

... i already told you im not taking down the post.

[jymble sends a screenshot of her own message in a previous conversation, the screenshot reads as follows:

however, i dont think im taking the post down, nor am i entirely comfortable with you interacting with me either. people deserve to know how you acted with this stuff, until youre really and truly *better* with it instead of just trying, and i was a direct target of it]

jymble:

you oughright told me "im by no means transphobia-free", word for word sorry, but i told you before. im not taking the post down.

rebloggidy:

I remember that. But what I'm trying to say to you is that if people who read it out of context will immediately think I'm still transphobic without the other side of it (my comment)

And I don't want people to think that in the future

jymble:

if people make assumptions without looking at the entire situation, thats on them

i am not deleting the post and thats final. people have a right to know what youve done, and they have a right to be uncomfortable

rebloggidy:

I'm ready to take down my post because frankly, I'm sick and tired of having to justifiy something that I did 9 months ago, and that people grow and learn even not 100% during that time and I'm ready to move on.

I'm still into smile for me and feel free to make a blacklist of my name so anybody who rbs my work on your dash can have it hidden or something.

Take care.

[End conversation]

a lot to unpack here, but perhaps most notable is when jymble simply stands her ground and tells pazam she wont take down the post, pazam straight up decides, without being told to or anything, that they should take down their apology. later on, they made a post stating why they deleted the post, and saying they had ‘been forced to’.

I also would love to link it here, but as of now of writing this, like, not even an hour or so after I had seen that post, it got deleted. The only memory I have of it is a conversation I had with my boyfriend about Pazam, in which I copypasted a fragment from that post that read:

“ So for those wondering where the apology post went, I was forced to delete it. I wanted to archive it in some way so I could pull it up for reference, but there was no way I could. Also I didn’t really want to see it every time on my blog because quite honestly it’s upsetting to look at.”

There are some lies and twisting of truths here. Pazam wasn’t forced to delete it, they decided they should do it as a way to somehow get back at jymble. And the excuse that it was upsetting for them to look at is just inexcusable, what matters most, letting people know of what youve done and that youre sorry, or just never addressing the situation?

But, well, I’m just hoping you’ll take my word for it. As you see, Pazam has officially deleted ANY traces of acknowledging this situation on their blog.

This worries me. If Pazam is truly as concerned that they will be seen as transphobic as they claim, why are they deleting anything that could give them a chance of showing their own side of the story?

Now, that is the end, for now, of Pazam’s history with transphobia. However! It is not the end for some other very shady things.

Namely, Pazam has consistently whitewashed characters from Smile For Me, specially Kamal, and when called out on it, simply deletes the asks.

Want to know how I know this?

I sent them an ask myself. I had come across this picture of Boris and Kamal:

And I knew that this wasn’t right. I can understand using light colors and doing watercolor, but if they can make Boris’ hair brown and vivid enough, why not Kamal? He looks like another character completely, or like he’s deathly sick!

So I sent them an anonymous ask, perhaps a bit exhasperated, true, and my wording could be better. It went something like: “i am begging you to draw kamal with darker skin”.

I waited, checked. But nothing came of it. They never answered it.

Pazam flat out ignored when they were told they had drawn a canonically brown man with skin way too light. Not even a lone text post saying ‘hey anon, i dont agree with you’ or ‘hey anon im sorry it wont happen again’. Nothing. No word, no opinion.

And with this situation going on with them evading responsibility, I can’t say I’m fully surprised.

And, yet another thing. People had expressed concern over the fact they had drawn their Flower Kid, who is 17, in very intimate and close positions with Dr. Habit. It included nuzzling faces, cuddling in bed together, wearing his coat...

And they did hear the claims this time. As of now, their Flower Kid is 24, according to them.

Except... They do not look 24. At. All.

this is a 12 year old. at best. short body, stubby legs, big head. those are all attributes of a very young character, usually children. like, legitimately, thats how childrens anatomy is in real life. the younger the person, the bigger their head is in proportion to their body.

We have already had an adult trying to justify drawing their flower kid who barely looked like an adult if at all in intimate situations with Habit. Let’s not let it slide by again.

And yes, I’m aware Pazam claims that those pictures were not supposed to be interpreted as romantic, ‘only platonic fluff’ and that they intend to keep it that way, but I have talked to my boyfriend who is a survivor and he said it very well could be a case of someone just trying to cover their tracks.

BUT, all that being said, maybe this one particular instance could be just us being wary. Still, it does not diminish all that they have done, specially ignoring the whitewashing claims.

What you are going to do with this information, I do not know. Maybe you don’t care and will keep reblogging their content. Maybe you’re disgusted by them. But I’m just here to give you the facts. Personally though, I’m not willing to give them much of a chance after the way they’ve behaved. They are 24 years old, three years older than me, and I think I could do a better job of handling a situation like this, frankly.

#don't be scared. i am here with you.#smile for me #smile for me game

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years

Text

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-02-24

IT’S ONLY BEEN TEN FUCKING DAYS HOW OFTEN ARE WE GONNA GET THIS STUFF

IT’S NOT EVEN A BONUS IT’S SOME MAINLINE THING

Alright, clicking the log to find my place as usual (while squinting so I don’t see too much), I see... one new page... THAT’s ominous. Unless they’re doing the thing Andrew used to do and only showing the surface link so as not to spoil the update length/contents in the log, which would be nice given the new site format. (Also I’ll be covering the commentary for the previous chapter here that went up on Patreon.)

...um. what?

Well, it doesn’t say [S]...

> Chapter 5. YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D

CONTENT NOTE: This chapter contains Discussions of Suicide.

Thanks.

...I kinda understand the need for inclusion of this, though. Not the trigger warning, that’s genuinely appreciated, I mean the working-through of many of these characters’ probably suicidal-verging thoughts given the bullshit the Epilogues have put them through, and the leadup events thereof. Or, from the looks of this page trying to lay out how to create these new alien races, clearly based in part on pages of her Zoologically Dubious grimoire...

...the creations THEMSELVES wanting to commit suicide, if I had to guess.

(Hooves? Dirk. Don’t let this become a Musclebeasts VS Horrorterrors session. Whoever wins, we clearly lose.)

*scrooooll*

Ohh, I get it. It’s a single really long-form story-image to montage the process to us, instead of a series of panels. THAT’S why it’s a one-page upd8.

What are you clowns doing? (And that architecture and teal road below it is looking kind of Land of Thought and Flow-y too.)

Hah, poor Rose, just float-noping on out of there cause Dirk’s pushing his whole Cave-shadows-on-the-wall allusion. Are you getting bored of this monstrous process, Rose? Yes? No??

Taking a floatwalk across the gorgeous alien landscape? (Wait, your robot floats without rocket boosters? Neat. Is that technology or God-Tier flight? Did it need to be a fancy robot to integrate the latter or was that just yours for free?)

What will she run into to make sense of the title of this chapter-panel?

...Wait.

Did Terezi run back to the ship to snoop on that thing Dirk had been hiding while he and Rose were distracted?

I hope that’s what she did.

Eeeewww. It looked MUCH cooler when your human eye did a magic sun thing.

Yes, yes, you have a technosight HUD, that’s no excuse, your magic was still cooler.

The whimsical wandering angle of this shot makes it unclear whether Rose is flying ahead while looking into the sky, or has suddenly flopped forward onto her face on a pale patch of ground.

Ooh, and now we have text! ...Which makes it unlikely that Terezi successfully snooped anything important unless Dirk would narratively let her. Shit.

Wait, the command for this page might make sense if she was using the command terminal in the ship to mess with Dirk or someone else, possibly to give her the opportunity to pull something. Right?

The soft whitenoise ringing of the extensive ventilation network sounds, if she closes her nose just right, like the rustle of wind through the leaves of a treehive universes away.

...closes her nose. ¬___¬

but Terezi isn’t distracted from the main object of her focus — the unconscious body of Rose Lalonde, bathed in dim light, chest rising and falling in an artificially-induced slumber.

Good. Her body had better fucking stay alive for a while. They killed Davebot’s outright, since he was an “extra”, essentially -- Rose’s needs to stay alive if we’re to have fucking hope that Kanaya can snatch her up in a comfortable non-robotic embrace and get her out of this self-centered, brainwashed nightmare.

Wires and tubes run up from her plinth to the ceiling of the chamber, keeping her alive, yes, but too much just for that purpose. Something about the tangle of intravenous tubing and fiber optic cable makes Terezi think of the old stories about the Ψiioniic.

Mhmm. She has to stay connected to and pilot her body.

ROSE: There you are. I haven’t seen much of you. TEREZI: IV3 B33N R1GHT H3R3 FOR HOURS TEREZI: BUT YOUR 3Y3S H4VE B33N CLOS3D TH3 WHOL3 T1M3 >:[

--Oh. I’d misremembered the chapter name as “your eyes are NOW closed”. So it probably wasn’t some sort of trick. (Unless she’s lying here, and tricked Rose into THINKING her body wasn’t kind of half-awake for a moment, potentially rebelliously? .....nah.)

Better question, though...

Why does Terezi care so much?

I can imagine the old Terezi getting attached enough to Rose (and Kanaya) to look at this and feel bad enough to stare, but...? She used her emotional distance from most of her remaining friends to vamoose with these people a long while ago. (Which was a pity.) How did those feelings and that empathy get resurrected way out here?

Rosebot turns her head to look back at the frail, failing vessel that once housed her consciousness. She doesn't even dispatch a fake laugh to her behavioral display matrix in pity of this half-joke.

Fuck you. Dirk is writing half of this.

ROSE: Your attachment to my comatose body is unexpectedly charming, as well as slightly sinister. ROSE: She isn’t going to do anything. ROSE: She isn’t coming back from where she’s gone. TEREZI: YOU N3V3R KNOW

Does Terezi really care about Rose that much now?

Also, fuck you, Dirk-manipulating-Rose’s-worldview.

I mean, I know she’s probably really deep into all her new power and foresight, even as herself, but she wouldn’t be nearly as dismissive and comfortable if Dirk hadn’t been shaping her with mind control for years.

ROSE: Yes, I suppose that’s true. ROSE: Anything can happen, you can’t see the future, etc. etc. ROSE: Except I can. I can see the trajectory the story needs to take, and thus I know the trajectory it will take. ROSE: And resurrecting my meat puppet would not only be difficult to the point of being worthless, it would also be extremely lame. ROSE: Not that it would be out of character for this story. We live and breathe on the stupefyingly mind-numbing, and the mind-numbingly stupid.

They’re REALLY pushing her as a full fucking villain here. Benefits of transcending human flesh aside, she’s being WAY too dismissive of what she’s leaving behind, here. What came with this body besides the body itself. The attachments and Blood it means relinquishing and severing.

TEREZI: 1F WH4T YOU'R3 S4Y1NG 1S TRU3 TEREZI: 1F 4 STORY H4S TO B3 COMP3LL1NG TO B3 C4NON TEREZI: DO YOU R34LLY TH1NK D1RK 1S TH3 TYP3 TO T3LL 4 COMP3LL1NG STORY

A compelling story, yes!

But a heartless one.

TEREZI: H1S T4ST3 1N 4N1M3 4LON3 1S CONC3RN1NG TEREZI: 1 D1D 3NJOY TH3 ON3 4BOUT TH3 HORS3S THOUGH ROSE: I don't think that counts as "anime."

MLP is pretty colorful.

TEREZI: PL4Y1NG W1TH 4 WHOL3 WORLD L1K3 1T'S SOM3 K1ND OF SQU34KY LUSUS TOY DO3S SOUND L1K3 1T H4S 1TS MOM3NTS TEREZI: 1 M34N TEREZI: MY FR13NDS W4NT3D TO RUL3 YOUR L1TTL3 WORLD 4S P3TTY TYR4NTS 4FT3R W3 WON TH3 G4M3 OURS3LV3S TEREZI: BUT DO YOU TH1NK TH4T WOULD'V3 B33N FOR TH3 B3ST FOR YOU 4ND 4LL TH3 OTH3R M4MM4L14N W31RDOS ON YOUR PL4N3T >:/ ROSE: It didn't happen because it didn't happen. TEREZI: 1F 1 H4V3 TO H34R ON3 MOR3 T4UTOLOGY FROM 31TH3R OF YOU 1 4M GO1NG TO MOV3 TO TH3 WOODS 4ND PL4GU3 YOUR N3W SOC13TY 4S 4 H3RM1T BOG MONST3R FOR3V3R

Rose has stared into the sun so hard that she is LITERALLY BLIND. “It didn’t happen because it didn’t happen” is the worst, most basic and wrong level one Seer of Light thing she could possibly believe. She has completely fucking FORGOTTEN that she played through an entire game session that was clearly trying to TELL her something. TEACH her something. And is dismissing everything at play back then, everything that MADE reality and the final timeline what it WAS, as something at worst meaningless or just plotpoints in a subpar story, and at best a failed moral tale that she thinks she would write better in her sleep. She’s like... worse than inverted Rose right now. Where’s all this new Lighty wisdom she’s supposed to have? Jasprose is showing more foresight and prudence in the bonus chapters than she is as a PURE ultimate self, thanks to her own twisted ambitions and Dirk’s horse-blinders.

TEREZI: JUST B3C4US3 YOU'V3 3L3CT3D TO 4B4NDON TH3 CONC3PTS OF "GOOD" 4ND "B4D" 3NT1R3LY DO3SN'T M34N 1 DON'T ST1LL H4V3 MOR4L R3S3RV4T1ONS

...Yeah. I’d like to think that Rose would never do that on her own without Dirk’s twisting, but...

TEREZI: 1'M T4LK1NG 4BOUT TH3 B4S1C 4B1L1TY OF 1NT3LL1G3NT B31NGS 1N 4LL R34L 4ND HYPOTH3T1C4L PL4N3S OF 3X1ST3NC3 TO G1V3 4 SH1T TEREZI: 1 DON'T G1V3 4 SH1T TEREZI: 4ND HON3STLY 1 H4V3 4 H4RD T1M3 UND3RST4ND1NG WHY YOU DO

I didn’t expect the “Why would anyone read this crap?” line so early in the story. Still, this sequel WAS designed to both ask and answer this question... I shouldn’t be so surprised.

TEREZI: YOU D1DN'T DO MUCH "WORLDBU1LD1NG" WH3N YOU FUCK3D OFF FOR 3ONS 4ND L3T CH3SS P3OPL3 BU1LD YOUR PL4N3T ROSE: That approach failed. ROSE: Without an organized antagonistic force, the planet became fundamentally unsuited to relevance.

YOU FUCKING MORONS

THE GOAL OF MAKING A NEW UNIVERSE OUTSIDE OF CANON WAS TO ESCAPE RELEVANCE FOR PEACE!

Everything New Rose says makes me want to throttle her. :(

ROSE: We only know of one way to perpetuate canon for sure. To play and defeat the game, and continue the life cycle of the genesis frog we cling to parasitically.

WHY is “perpetuating canon” EVEN A GOAL

WHY if it isn’t even WORTH anything???

ROSE YOU SOUND LIKE A CASH-IN-HUNGRY MOVIE PRODUCER

ROSE: Now it is protected, in the steady hands of a duly-elected ruler, sure to have a boring and uneventful perpetual term in office.

Oh my GOD, Rose. You thought leaving Racist Jane in charge was going to just be peachy?

ROSE: As the sheer number of doomed universes our actions in the game spun off should show, we barely understood the design at the time. ROSE: Truly, we stumbled through the tape of the finish line ass-first, cheating all the way.

I suppose I can agree on a small sliver of this, a tangent -- one of the same reasons I was so surprised when Homestuck’s finale closed so few threads:

You all clearly didn’t have time to learn enough lessons.

ROSE: But there was no table of judges waiting to adjudicate our performance by holding up little placards with numbers on them. ROSE: We are the observers, and we are the judges. ROSE: We won, and to the victor go the spoils. ROSE: If you want a hand in making the rules of this new world, then don't storm off.

Terezi knows better than this. The trolls “WON” with this attitude, and were hoisted on the resulting petard. Ah, there we go, and she’s saying just that:

TEREZI: YOU'R3 TRY1NG TO L34D M3 TO 4CC3PT YOUR MOR4L FR4M3WORK TEREZI: WH4T 1F NO ON3 SHOULD CONTROL 4 UN1V3RS3 TEREZI: 4LL W3 FOUGHT 4G41NST W4S MONST3RS WHO CONV3RT3D POW3R 1NTO CONTROL TEREZI: 4ND NOT 3V3RYTH1NG W3 LOST F1GHT1NG TH3M W4S 4 M1ST4K3 TEREZI: TH3R3 W4S 4 LOT S4CR1F1C3D FOR TH3 1D34 OF "GOOD" TEREZI: WH4T'S TH3 PO1NT 1N CONT1NU1NG TH1S STORY 1F TH4T W4S M34N1NGL3SS TEREZI: 1F LORD 3NGL1SH W4S JUST HOLD1NG UP TH3 WORLD TEREZI: 1F 1T T4K3S 4CT1NG L1K3 H1M TO K33P 1T 4L1V3 TEREZI: WOULDN'T 1T B3 B3TT3R TO JUST L3T 1T D13

...but that crazy, ruled-over multiverse they ended up escaping is exactly what we think they’re going to end up CREATING in this story, right? A contained loop of countless universes that follow the same rules they fought so hard to shrug off, many enslaved and miserable under Lord English’s rampaging thumbs? In trying to do it “better” her own way, Rose is going to possibly end up creating the exact system she once tried to reject.

Congratulations! You’ll have created a prison. For your Ultimate Villain, AND yourselves. I just hope you come to your senses and dodge getting trapped inside there again.

Rosebot looks over at the plinth where her body sits, kept alive, sure, but atrophied and weak, dependent on this machine to continue projecting consciousness to the abiotic enclosure keeping the realization of the Ultimate Self from tearing her apart.

Wouldn't it be better to just let it die? Terezi isn't asking new questions. Rose had first threatened suicide when she was eight.

Ah, damn. That’s the route we’re going with this conversation, huh.

I was wondering whether keeping Rose’s body alive was “necessary” for the functioning of this particular level of robo-self tech, or whether it’s the last vestige of her vacillation, refusing to cut it off completely yet only because some NON-FUCKING-BRAINWASHED piece of her is wondering if she’ll eventually decide that all this isn’t “right” after all, that she can accept being “less” if it makes her happy.

Explaining things to someone not aided by the exponential increase in processing power Rosebot has is tedious. Terezi's hesitation won't be swayed by explaining more of the universe. There's another source at work.

Source? What?

ROSE: You said it yourself, that you don't give a shit. ROSE: This melancholy, this meaninglessness you're feeling? ROSE: I think there's another explanation for it. One having little to do with the structural soundness of our plan.

Oh, THAT kind of source. Fuck you, psychoanalyzing anybody else when you’re like THIS right now.

ROSE: You are fucking depressed. TEREZI: OH TH4NK YOU DOCTOR SC13NC3 TEREZI: L3T M3 T4K3 OUT MY HUM4N CH3CKBOOK TO P4Y YOU FOR TH3S3 1NV4LU4BL3 HUM4N 1NS1GHTS

How would you have the slightest impression that Terezi ISN’T completely aware of this, Rose? Why do you think she CAME with you???

ROSE: The constant insistence that everything is as it ought to be isn’t just counterproductive, it’s pathetic.

Oh, you think she’s projecting. Fuck you.

ROSE: From one seer to another, we both know how bad you’ve gotten in the past. ROSE: Or, if not in the past, in some past. ROSE: I have no desire to meet that Terezi, no matter how doubtlessly sticky and charming she might be.

Eugh. It’s interesting that you know so thoroughly about non-blind faygo-chugging Terezi from that timeline (who Terezi fully knows about too), but using it against her is pretty low.

TEREZI: W3 4R3N'T FR13NDS TEREZI: GO 4H34D 4ND DO YOUR 4RTS 4ND CR4FTS PROJ3CT W1TH P3OPL3'S L1V3S

But she DOES keep staring at Rose’s life-support body... so she DOES care somehow.

ROSE: Your life is going to be short, compared to mine and Dirk’s, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. TEREZI: TH3 TWO OF YOU R34LLY 4R3 M4D3 FOR 34CH OTH3R

Just, a tragedy what an asshole she’s been transformed into.

TEREZI: 1S TH4T WHY YOU L3FT K4N4Y4 B3H1ND TEREZI: B3C4US3 YOU KNOW SO FUCK1NG MUCH 4BOUT "F4M1LY" ROSE: I would be careful if I were you. ROSE: The weight of what I know and you do not is enough to overwhelm a mortal frame. TEREZI: UGH SHUT UP TEREZI: STOP PULL1NG TH1S MYST1C4L BULLSH1T 3V3RY T1M3 TEREZI: DON’T YOU M1SS H3R? ROSE: Don’t you? TEREZI: YOUR CONST4NT D3FL3CT1ON 1S 4S PO1NTL3SS 4S 1T 1S 1N3FF3CT1V3

Yeah, Terezi looking at Rose’s body and seeing constantly that crime committed against Kanaya is enough excuse to stare at Rose’s floating body, if she cares about Kanaya.

Too bad Rose is incapable of even THINKING about Kanaya properly as long as Dirk’s influence persists, and Terezi practically or literally knows it.

ROSE: We are obliged to act. To save the concept of meaning itself by continuing to spin the narrative loom into new tapestries.

Said the movie producer plonking down for the creation of Fast 7.

TEREZI: D1D YOU W4NT 4LL TH1S? TEREZI: OR D1D TH3 PR1NC3 >:?

Abruptly, Terezi is lifted from the ground with a glidingly-smooth effortless motion. Metal is so much stronger than flesh. She flashes a sharp-toothed grin as her feet dangle uselessly in front of the lithe metallic form of her counterpart Seer. Inspiring a reaction like this from Rose's robotic placidity has been like squeezing blood from a stone on this years-long journey.

Delicious, candy-red blood.

Oh hell fucking yes. Is THIS what you were after, you beautiful troll? Terezi just proved that SOME deep level of Rose has recognized that she’s being manipulated, and refuses to accept it for the sake of her own ego. She couldn’t possibly get so ANGRY otherwise. :D

ROSE: I know what I have lost. I have taken a full account of it. I cannot and will not forget it. ROSE: But to cling to it as it faded to nothing would be a meaningless capitulation to entropy.

Why do you value “perpetuation” so much? She asked you before, and you barely gave a straight answer.

ROSE: Someone must sit atop Olympus and propagate the fabric of reality upon which these memories sit. ROSE: That is the task we have taken on. The game does not feel. The game does not mourn. The game must be played, and we must guide those who will play it better than we ourselves were guided.

DID it need YOU though? You already had a universe under your belt. YOU didn’t have to be the one to cause all this. But I suppose it’s too late now -- you will be, and you might end up regretting it.

ROSE: Just as I have remembered the good, I can recall the terror that consumed me and overwhelmed my body. ROSE: The visions of dissolution. The narrative unspooling. A thousand voices shouting contradiction. ROSE: What value is a marriage, temporary domestic bliss, if all is lost? ROSE: You understand this bargain.

Yeah-- it’s pretty clear here now.

The heroes’ goal in the initial comic, and the reward they earned -- while unclear on paper and DEFINITELY not spelled out -- was to “stop being Homestuck”. Was to escape the bounds of the comic, to almost KILL the comic.

But that was a little vaguely put, before. HS^2 has done us the favor of making it an EXPLICIT GOAL of the heroes.

ROSE: Is your resentment towards my choice about Kanaya, or about V–

BONK. Rosebot's even metallic voice is interrupted by the bang of skull against metal, and Terezi's headbutt collapses the both of them into a crumpling heap of metal and flesh.

That was a step too far. Tensions that once simmered under the surface have found the catalyst for a boil.

Terezi’s barely holding on if she’s going to get so dramatic so fast.

Or Dirk’s writing this so dramatic, anyway.

Rosebot finally has Terezi pinned to the ground by the throat. A cool metallic knee is pressed hard between her legs, holding her down. A natural pause in the staccato squabble is found, and two pairs of red eyes are locked on each other.

Oh God, don’t <3< please.

TEREZI: 1 T4K3 1T B4CK TEREZI: TURNS OUT 1 ST1LL 3NJOY T4LK1NG TO YOU >:]

Ah, shit. Weakness for Light players, huh.

Rosebot leans in close. Terezi can smell the licorice-black lipstick, the same kind as always, applied now to synthetic polymer lips inches away from her own. Rosebot's metal fingers close just a little tighter around her neck–Woah, woah, woah.

I fiddle with some advanced speciation machinery for a few hours and then come back to this?

...yeah, you can’t get into Terezi’s sex life without a bit of choking and breathplay I guess.

You people are here for logic. Systems. Weird plot shit. Lore. Not this.

Hm.

I have mixed feelings about this possibly-sarcastic point of view of his. And that’s coming from someone who was fuck deep in those systems and frustrated as hell that Andrew worked them out but never explained them or made their (at least I believe) hidden importance clear.

Quit out of your browser, slam the laptop closed and punt it into the ocean. That shark is probably hungry after all the jumping.

You won’t, though. If you were going to quit you would have quit before this. We’re in this for the long haul, you and I. We’ll all go down together. Welcome to ‘Nam.

...yeah. :C

I'll just get a head start on my species, then. It's only the fate of a new planet on which the weight of saving the universe lies.

Did Dirk never get the memo that Calliope and fucking Caliborn were born on Earth C millions of years hence???

Your universe’s “relevance” is safe, my dude. You’re just making excuses to rule the narrative.

And... that’s it! For this update, anyway.

Let’s cut over to the commentary for the last one, which I expect will be touching on and lampshading just how much of an amoral dick move Rose and Dirk are making with the entire live-draft species creation process.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 4, The Contest

Oh, two members of the writing team are discussing this one.

Plenty of appreciation of the art of the alien planet, apparently art-ed by Gina.

--Yes, I agree, Terezi probably wouldn’t be the best at parallel parking.

Oh right, I should skip most of the fluff y’all would see if you paid and get just any plot important discussion, let’s skip past some ogling of Rose’s pretty well-designed robo-form and its first onscreen appearance...

(Xam’s designs are GREAT all around.)

A1: The imagery is, admittedly, a little heavy-handed. Terezi leaving the cave for the light, the other two remaining in the darkness to talk endless circles around each other.

Heh.

...There are some seriously good jokes here.

--OH! I finally get to figure out why Dirk’s hand was glowing all weird when he slammed the “map”: ......nope, they just talk about how big his yaoi hand is.

A1: I guess this means we’ve sort of canonized Dirk’s Texas accent? a2: yeah, but i think this was a foregone conclusion. the dude lived in post-apocalyptic texas, and he's ABSOLUTELY the sort of person to adopt a long-dead accent for no reason other than historical accuracy.

That’s fair. (Yes, I included that for plot relevance. Totally. ...I really need to be a lighter touch with how much I include of these things that isn’t helpful to actually understand what the fuck is going on with the actual plot/characterization, here, this was real borderline.)

i think we could stand to talk more about the writing at this point.

JESUS CHRIST THANK YOU

we sort of go in drunken circles of Dirk and Rose trying to out-bullshit each other and convince themselves they’re doing the right thing.

--which was obvious to everyone, but. Still appreciated to see it spelled out. Seeing our points of view validated like this helps us stay sane through the bullshit, a golden promise of eventual reprieve and vindication.

a2: we tried something a little different for the writing process of this update, which is that for large sections of the dialog we just rp'd the characters a2: andrew copied large sections of early homestuck from personal chatlogs with friends, and i always thought that lent it a special kind of humor and rapport that can be hard to capture by yourself. i think this approach worked pretty well for us.

It REALLY is an effective way to write dialogue for these sorts characters in particular! Heck, I’m kind of helping someone else do exactly that. It’s pretty fun! There are chapters and chapters out by my understanding, having diverged from such a focus on the central character I’m playing but using our logs as a guide... none of which I’m allowed to read, not even the FIRST chapter, so as not to spoil me with the surrounding narration and added revelations.

...What?

You expected me to tell you what it is? Where to find it?

No. :)

(Maybe later.)

A1: Moving right along. We see more of Dirk’s casual manipulation of Rose’s mental state, that he rationalizes away. It’s not actually that bad if she was going to agree anyway, right?

Mhmm. Hard to watch.

a2: [...] but it's a large part of what this chapter is about. a2: what is the right thing to do when you're functionally omniscient? a2: or omni...whatever these kids are. A1: Yeah, the question of whether morality actually has anything to do with running a system like this. Can god be moral? a2: and of course, that's kind of the same question that i ask myself a lot when writing. authorship is a peculiar thing.

That last part is pretty key about the story this entire thing is trying to tell. A story about the morality of how one goes about creating a story. A just story. And if what’s created even has value.

a2: i was responsible for the animation on the sprite panels, which was fun. it's obviously imitating andrew an awful lot, but i think that lends it an aura of homestucky authenticity. andrew is low-key really good at animation.

Yeah, he really, really is. His keyframing and the devices he used to communicate what was physically happening were really tight. I always appreciated that.

a2: aaaaand one last gina panel to finish with. rose may have had her doubts about this contest at first, but as soon as dirk made a little creature with tentacles she's like, fuck it, this is all i've ever wanted actually.

A bit sparse on the detail I was looking for once shit started to get horrific, the implications and such... but I can understand that.

Maybe when we get to the second and third place draft aliens, we’ll actually see a hint of a moral crisis in them. At least a tiny one.

Arrite, that’s it. See y’all next time. I’ll wait to blog the commentary on the past bonus chapter whenever the next bonus chapter is up for blogging.

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots #spoiler #spoilers #Homestuck Commentary

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eisforeidolon · 4 years

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Episode: Atomic Monsters

I watched this at least a week ago, but just didn't get around to rewriting my notes into a post 'til now. I did actually find this the best episode so far, but lets be real, that's such a low bar to clear at this point it says basically nothing.

The opening sequence is really fun! I found the whole thing genuinely enjoyable, both the action itself and that it included exactly the kind of return cameo I can actually get behind. No retcons or resurrections that make death somehow even cheaper or ruin the original finish to the character's story! Not even to mention that, instead of existing just for the sheer fanservice of it? A sequence like this is actively improved by giving us a familiar face we have investment in to keep it from being all just random unfamiliar cannon fodder getting offed.

Unfortunately, this isn't the rousing endorsement it could be when we know that both expanding to a big action sequence and bringing Benny back for it were actually Jensen's ideas. Not even to mention that the thing which really works best in the episode? It's the dream sequence that's not actually connected to anything else and doesn't have to worry about continuity to work. This is my surprised face.

I enjoyed the exchange between Sam and Dean in the kitchen. The meat man conversation over the bacon was rather silly, but in a fun way. I've seen some people reading things into it (it's insulting Dean doesn't know the slang, Sam is randomly vegetarian now) that I didn't really see there. I did appreciate how Sam was weirdly jumpy and had trouble meeting Dean's eyes after the creepy alternate world dream. I thought it worked really well for both slice-of-life and Sam’s reaction.

In terms of the Winchester's case, well, for the most part it could have been worse. I don't honestly believe even if I hadn't been spoiled that I wouldn't have immediately suspected the parents from their introductory exchange about how Billy playing in the big game was more important than a cheerleader's death. I think it was supposed to be a retroactive subtle clue, but it was more of a clue-by-four. So the “mystery” of tracking down the monster was pretty lost on me. I did like that the one girl having braces was a clue! But I also thought the scene with her rehearsing her speech on a live mic in an empty auditorium was weird and contrived. I straight out cannot forgive that a girl was literally abducted from the school campus and NOBODY checked the security footage near her car fucking IMMEDIATELY well before Sam & Dean. C'mon. Then, of course, a couple random middle-aged suburbanite humans get the drop on Sam and Dean, because Dabbernatural really just loves to make them incompetent so plots happen.

Then the big reveal and blah blah blah, kid accidentally ate his girlfriend. WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO??? Um, maybe try not being scumbags? Idiotic scumbags at that, abducting a second girl from their son's own school instead of somebody that wouldn't be missed or even, hey, maybe encouraging him to try harder not to eat people. Don't try to sell me on this pseudo hallmark 'but they just love him so much' bullshit. At least the kid has more self-awareness and conscience than his fuckwad parents.

Then we get to the infuriating character assassination part of the programme. Having Sam and Dean say that they'd do the same thing as the dad for Jack their “son”? Fuck you very much, show. I could maybe, maybe, see Sam or Dean kidnapping and draining the life out of an innocent to save the other at their most desperate worst. Though I think the only time they even really get close to that kind of an actively, knowingly evil choice is with Doc Benton. Not only do I not buy for a second that they would do that for the totally-really-their-actual-child-for-reasons albatross Dabbernatural has shoehorned into their lives? Struggling to do the right thing even when it hurts used to actually mean something – it was always a very important qualifier that while Sam or Dean might make that choice, the other would not let them. So having them both agree this kind of straight up villainy would be a-okay for oh-so-totally-loveable-no-really-woobie-blob Jack ...

Like carelessly assassinating every human in the BMoL headquarters, it fundamentally fails to understand what it is that keeps Sam and Dean from being the monsters. Hint: it's not just that the show centers around them. “We do the ugly thing so that people can live happy” - these moronic hacks seem to be actually trying to parallel Sam and Dean saving innocent victims and the world to human monsters that were going to selfishly help their son eat his way through the entire goddamn cheerleading squad. Am I getting this wrong somehow? Is there some other, less appalling, reading here that I'm missing? This whole scene honestly made me nauseous.

They talkity-talk on for a while longer, but it's really not much better. Sam declaring that God was totally done with them was the writers putting those words in his mouth based on nothing. At it’s very best, it was Sam’s bad habit of convincing himself conclusions he’s come to are true because he wants them to be. So them both just deciding to believe it's true after Chuck has admitted to orchestrating their entire lives … I'm not sure if we should conclude the Winchesters have brain damage or if that's just the writers. Especially when the underlying reason for it is nothing more compelling than , “Watch the Winchesters see-saw on the angst fulcrum completely at random! Yay!” If this was actually well written, there would be some precipitating reason for Sam to suddenly be the one being all fatalistic while Dean is accepting. Instead, the writers just slap some coin-flipped angst angst angst on the page and meander on in a supposedly forward direction.

So then there's the other half of the episode, the Becky storyline. Am I the only one a little disturbed that Becky's first reaction to seeing Chuck was to look scared and try to run away? Like, they're exes and all, sure, but she doesn't know any of the god stuff yet – I think the only thing she even says about their breakup is that Chuck dumped her. Is that reaction supposed to be yet another bit of “new canon” showing how Chuck was just that terrible all along? But then she does let him in, so maybe we're just supposed to take it as Becky still having a tendency towards dramatics? I honestly don't know, but it was weird to me.

I do genuinely love that they had Becky go to therapy and realize just how absolutely fucked up what she'd done was and ultimately sort herself out to become someone who seems to be a well-balanced adult. A well balanced adult that didn't have to give up being a fan for that! Seriously, kudos to the writers for this, because 7.08 is such a loathsome episode that otherwise ruins Becky as a character. Though I do have to nitpick a bit – while I get that they wanted to put SPN merch in Becky's home as a callout to her still being a superfan? In the show's universe, Chuck's books were never that popular, so I'm having some suspension of disbelief issues that there would be Funkos for them. We could pretend they were customs, but she's got at least one Impala, so even that doesn't quite work. I'm not entirely sure who “people only want them sitting around doing laundry anyway” is a dig at, but I'm giving it the side eye.

I also am not entirely sure what to make of Chuck's whole no one needs me I kinda hate me I'm all lost and don't know what to doooooo shtick. Is this a game he's playing? Is he really that wishy-washy? Did some of Dabb's sad internal monologue as showrunner somehow end up in a script by accident?

He goes on like that and laments he's lost the Winchester's trust and had words with them or whatever, and then he zaps Becky and her family away at the end. Like, if he cared enough about Becky to care about her opinion, why does he turn on her, too, just like that? I guess we're supposed to see it as him having found his mojo in her space and vanishing her because taking over her space that's working for him currently is his latest whim. I suppose they're intending to show Chuck as just being that capricious and flighty, but I don't know that it works for me. The way they've been writing him he's acting so randomly and impulsively that it's kind of unbelievable he can even sit still at a keyboard long enough to write another Sam and Dean installment. Again, I definitely find it unbelievable that the Chuck they're giving us now would be capable of playing the long game that he would have had to for him to be actively behind everything. Until he suddenly got impatient and lazy and popped up in the cemetery at the end of the last finale ... for reasons … and is now just … like that … because.

Not to mention that his powers are, big shock, just as arbitrary as everyone else's in the current show. He can't actually see what is happening to Sam and Dean because of the bullet sapping his power or whatever, but we're supposed to be worried about the ominous ending he's writing for them because … he's got those god powers to make it happen, I guess? Uh...

I will grant that the ominous bobbing of Sam and Dean Funkos' heads to Chuck's furious typing was a wonderfully foreboding shot to end on.

#negativity for ts #long post #anti dabb #anti jack kline #writer incompetence #spn season 15 #spn 15x04

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