#tempted to make a version of this for non canon but might as well be canon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hisui555 · 2 months

Text

Hazbin Hotel thoughts : Pets 2

"How are they with pets ?" Vees and other Overlords edition

(Pets 1 (Hazbin Hotel crew) here)

(Pets 3 (Heaven's side) here)

Masterpost here.

Aaaand my titles are still as creative as a rusting cheese grater on sale. Anyway, let's jump to it.

The Vees !

Vox did have an (now archived) Instagram that's also now loosely canon, where he put pics of his cute pet hammerhead landshark Vark (that's probably not in the show the same as it was in the Instagram, but made it in with another form : might be the hammerhead bio-shark we see in the tank in ep 2 and why do I get the feeling we got robbed from something ?) and given his interactions with it, he clearly loves it with all his heart, calling it "baby" and posting what he brought for him (in a handbag), so it's safe to say that Vark is spoiled. One pic even shows it jumping on Velvette with Vox doing a fist-pump, another has an out-of-focus one with Vox being the one jumped on, so the critter can be safely described as rather enthusiastic (and giant. Hell fuck is it big). Which, based on this, gives a rather good idea of how he would interact with a pet : it's kind of a special, non common animal of specific interest (shark), that he will coddle and spoil to high heavens, basically a pseudo-kid. Expect tons of affection, letting it run around to its heart's content with a whole room (or more) dedicated to the beast, and a Never Could Do Any Wrong attitude that might be even worse that Lucifer's in the previous post. He will also train and teach it tricks, complete with lots of praise and treats, and given his management skills vet appointments are no problems (well, for him. Given the animal, very much not so for the vet), even cooing to the tyker that I know, you don't like it, but we'll have to go. I know, I know, I promise it's not for long. Touch it and you're dead, your reputation is dead, your whole family is dead up to the 10th ancestor, even your ashes are dead.

Alternatively, given how Vox is in the show now (still secretely hoping we see that side of him I admit, but I wouldn't place any bets on it), he has multiple shark-like creatures in a GIANT fish tank (at least two of them recognizable as sharks, I've counted four beasties that are seen on the opening of Stayed Gone), which look impressive and silently drift by. So while there's still the affinity for sharks, they look less goofy and more dangerous than Vark by some metric magnitudes and go quite well with his cunning CEO image, even emphazing it ("I think I have... just the one." Ep 2). So it paints a picture of power and silent intimidation, grinning like a shark and tempting to trade into the waters, smelling weakness like blood in the waves and drowning people under false hope : which is pretty much how he'd probably like his pets - hunting, powerful, highly unusual ones, that make him think of, well, himself and his empire. He'll keep them well-fed, cares for them, and likes to watch them swim around, maybe to calm his nerves after a Valentino tantrum or whenever Alastor so much as breathes wrong, more like status pets than coddling pets like his Instagram incarnation with Vark (again, shame*).

*While I do go awww, too bad, the producers, animators and whatnot had to work with an 8 episodes season. Characters also evolve (5 years between the pilot and the first episode), and things get dropped or picked up considering the needs of the show, and the intends behind the characters. The retired character Instagrams (and the pilot) paint the big lines, but smaller details are either contradictory or true-but-in-a-sideways-way compared to the final product, hence why "loosely canon". Vox with Vark would've been adorable, but he's probably not supposed to be that likable in that precise way, and it would've probably not brought the show itself much. I can only speculate why they dropped Vark's previous version (if he's indeed in the show at all), but don't take it as me faulting the show's creators and workers for it : my word is far from being gospel. Or else I'd make a really shitty deity.

Velvette would probably like a small, handholding pet that she can customize and that accords to her tastes, but also cute, photogenic and personable, so expect something like Hell's version of a chameleon, a pug or a Yorkshire (wait scratch that, I said "cute and photogenic"), or something that other people would find hideous but she'll make it work (nevermind, this fits) to show off how good her fashion skills are. She'll parade around with it, and if it has the same bitchy disdainous attitude as her, gladly welcomed bonus. She'll train it to obey only her (to Vox and Valentino's consternation and frustration), but also perfectly : every command is fulfilled within the snap of her fingers, but if the pet does outstandingly well, she won't hold back the treats. In private, she might be softer and more affable to it, praising and baby-talking it, but at the very least it'll have a luxurious corner to live in, and when she's away, her assistants are given the tasks of taking care of it (however not to a keep-an-activity-journal point unlike Pentious in the previous post). Unlike Angel, she might go for multiple pets at once (again, they're taken care of by a whole flock of staffs - good for testing interns and all that), and bank fashion lines and trends on them, associating with Vox to push out new product lines about animal care and fashion.

She'll also have pretend "dialogues" in public with one of them (switching favorites often following her moods - Velvette likes to have a wide choice fan of options) about how ugly or stupid she finds something and what's that you say Pookie ? Yes, absolutely, this dress looks like colored by sewer waters, ugh, good thing someone agrees with me. Think we should fire her ? to someone she particularly despises or deems unimportant enough and won't address directly because she'll estimate it beneath her, or sometimes to have an outlet of her own to vent. Rarely if ever goes to the vet unless one of the critters ate something it really shouldn't, since she's counting on her assistants to be skilled in healthcare, and they better be. Naming will be themed after what she likes, supported by tons of nicknames, and only her will know which one is named what because no one can keep up. Will be more annoyed than sad if one of them is hurt or died, but there will be a pang of sorrow for her favorite ones.

Valentino, well, also had a loosely canon pet queef (those half chihuahua half horsefly thingies, which are two abominations put together to make a third one - kidding, Fizzarolli's are kinda endearing), named... Queef (worse than my title names, good job bud), and emphasis on had, since he shot the tyker dead because it annoyed him, according to his archived Instagram. A safe bet is that it didn't even lasted very long. Which... paints dead-on (...sorry) the picture of how Val would treat pets : it's like a fancy that strikes from time to time and goes away just as quick, the second he's bothered by the critter. He's atrocious with naming them (though Adam beats him for sure in terms of naming things), sometimes can't differenciate one from another because oh right, I killed Queefie last week, you're actually Queefrey (...look at what you've made me do, stupid moth), and doesn't really care in general. Vet ? What's that ? Seriously the only time he'll go to a vet it's to enrol them in his studio if he finds them sexy enough and uses the critter for it. To him, they're not animals, they're trending accessories : something that goes nicely with the fishnet stockings and mink coat for an evening or two, not longer - or a tool to pick up chicks and chucks. If it dies, either he's the reason for it, or he'll just be annoyed.

He might just give them away if feeling generous or in a good mood, mostly to Velvette or his employees (he was the one who gave Fat Nuggets to Angel canonically - which was when Hell probably got a sudden cold wave or something. My sarcasm is having a stroke today, damn, sorry. Often happens when I'm writing Valentino's section, wonder why...ah, shit.), but hates if it disobeys or doesn't do what he wants it to do. Given that he doesn't train them either and expects it to behave like he wants right off the bat, this happens often. The longest any pet has lasted by him ? I'd say a week, two tops.

The other Overlords !

I don't peg Zestial for a pet owner, but again, let's pretend. It'll probably be something silent and creepy, ancient and powerful just like him - I mean, can you see him pick up any sparkly eyed kitten ? Me neither. It would make for a hilarious image, though. But nope, he'll be more like Hagrid than Umbridge in that sense : the most horrifying the better. Given his motif of spiders, he'll have his own Aragog, or some giant chiropteric monster from the dawn of times, with its own gregorious Fancy Name The Nth, something that even Lucifer thought died out ages ago. It's more a mutually respectful companionship than anything else : there's no "owner", no "pet", it just happens to live in Zestial's basement (or wherever he hangs his spindly, spidery legs from) and hunt down nuisances for him, in exchange of the occasional chin scritches. Might also know how to play chess, because why the hell not. Zestial won't like it being hurt, but will let it lick its wounds on its own and wait for it to ask for help, and it'll show up to show support in a fight and some extra manpower if needed. It doesn't obey squat, just agrees with you from time to time. No vet is crazy enough to go near that beast.

Carmilla will probably not have a pet either (too bothersome), but her daughters just might, and she'll allow it (somehow). Strict rules, the animal can't go wherever it pleases, better be damn well potty trained, and girls, if you want a pet, I'm not the one taking care of it - and she will stand by this, unlike some Didn't Want The Damn Cat Parents who melt at the first purr (welcome to the club of cat lovers, I'm the self-proclaimed president, what can I do for you ?). However, she's not against the affection, enjoying some relaxing moments with the pet at her side. Also, just having it around sleeping while she does work is nice and stress-relieving enough. She appreciates whatever "help" it can provide (fetching stuff), and simply talks to it like she would to an everyday person, only repeating words to make it understand what it should or should not be doing. She doesn't like cruelty to animals, and will make very clear what she thinks of someone who does that, but otherwise won't blow a gasket (like Vox or Angel might do). Might favor guard pets to protect her loved ones.

Rosie would be more about some old fashioned and elegant pets like poodles or whatever frizz-furred (or hairless, or scaly, as long as its classy) critter this side of Hell has to offer. However, since Alastor doesn't like dogs, she'll either keep it at home, or simply have another pet altogether, but case in point, it's a home pet, not something to parade around the Emporium with. Having it on a leash in the streets, fan in hand (her, not the tyke), and taking a strut around while waving for her fellow citizens or stopping to chat with other pet-owners is really picturesque, and exactly what she'll do. She'll make sure it's well-behaved, and will just have to softly utter a single command for it to obey. The most questionable thing would be the... diet. One sure thing, that beastie is well-fed.

Part 3 will be Heaven's side. Hope you enjoyed !

Again, Masterpost here.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel carmilla #hazbin hotel thoughts #hazbin hotel valentino #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin vox #hazbin hotel velvette #hazbin velvette #hazbin vees #hazbin valentino #hazbin hotel overlord #hazbin overlords #hazbin hotel rosie #hazbin rosie #hazbin carmilla #hazbin hotel zestial #carmilla carmine #hazbin zestial

46 notes · View notes

intriq · 9 months

Text

✧ little moon

photo above

Content warnings: blood, death, mentions of firearms [guns], angst, fatherly!Alfred, bigbrother!bruce, genderneutral reader, no mentions of y/n [i try to avoid doing this in my fics from now on], possibly my shitty attempt at poetry, little bit of time jumps

.·͙̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩̥͙　✩　̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩͙‧͙ .

PLEASE note i literally know NOTHING abt the DC universe and got insanely tempted to write this because of Rosa's [fairybaby on c.ai] discord, bc vampire au bots were being discussed and then it divulged to me talking about father figure alfred teaching the user stuff and then to vamp hunter alfred getting rid of newly turned user, which lead to me writing this.

.·͙̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩̥͙　✩　̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩͙‧͙ .

TLDR: non canon compliant VAMPIRES AU DC Universe Angst Fic about VampireHunter!Alfred getting rid of NewlyTurnedVamp!Reader [genderneutral friendly]

.·͙̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩̥͙　✩　̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩͙‧͙ .

time it took to write: around 5 hours [started at 6:59 pm Central time, finished at 11:09 pm Central time]

.·͙̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩̥͙　✩　̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥̩̩͙‧͙ .

link to the song i wrote this to [i recommend listening to it while you read!]

☾ ��･ﾟ:⋆･ﾟ

The moon cannot stay in the night sky for forever, despite it’s gentle splendor.

You’d always been close to the quite famous vampire-hunting Wayne family, including Alfred, a closely trusted family ally who also just-so happened to be the butler of the family. To you, Alfred was like your father. Someone you looked up to.

And to him, you were like his child. One that he could never have in life.

The entire reason the Wayne family had become significant vampire hunters was due to the head of the family, Bruce Wayne.

It was a well-known tale of tragedy, known for every citizen of Gotham. For every civilian, every vampire, every vampire hunter.

because no matter how beautiful it may be,

Bruce, at the young age of just twelve [12] years of age, had been on an outing with his parents. They’d been walking amongst the street of rapidly darkening Gotham, streetlights flickering into life as the sun just barely peeked its gentle yellow-orange golden rays over the horizon of the city.

While there were different versions of the tale past this point, of how Bruce and his parents had even stumbled past a particularly vampire-infested portion of the city, it all leads to the same fate.

The fate of Bruce having to watch his parents be torn apart before his very eyes, helpless. Unable to do anything.

And to Bruce, fate was cruel enough to leave him alive. Just him. Forced him to sit there as his parents slowly turned cold as the blood drained from their bodies when the vampire that had attacked them scampered off when some random vampire hunter had shown up.

It all ends the same with Bruce having to literally feel the bodies of his parents grow cold in his grasp, as his hands hold theirs. Sitting with them as he cried.

But his tears, no matter how warm, could not bring warmth back to the cooled bodies of his mother and father.

That was the very tale that sparked Bruce to become a vampire hunter. All to make sure no other child would need to suffer such a cruel and cold fate.

The fate of watching their parents die before their very eyes.

Alfred had taken you in, too. For that very reason.

You’d only been the young age of six when one of Alfred’s vampire hunter buddies had come upon your family. Bodies already cooled, drained of blood that coated every inch of your home. But yet, somehow, you were safe.

You were “lucky” as some might say.

But no child is lucky in such a fate. There is no “luck” when it comes to being the only survivor of your families brutal massacre, leaving you with nightmares. Nightmares that would cause such a young child to wake up screaming and crying in the middle of the night.

With nowhere left to bring such a young child [this young child being you in particular], Alfred’s friend comes knocking upon the Wayne manor.

no matter how gentle she may seem,

It’d only been a week or two since the loss of Bruce’s parents, and when Alfred had opened the doors to find you cradled in his friends arms, sleeping with eyes shut and red, puffy from crying due to the nightmare that had woken his friend.

It’d been nearly midnight, too.

“Whose this?” Alfred had asked, reaching forward in just about an instant to take you from his friends arms. You don’t even stir from your slumber when Alfred takes you, cradling you in his arms. Your head rests on his shoulder as he holds you, and you even let out the smallest, softest little sigh.

As if you found Alfred’s comforting hold on you better than his friends.

Alfred’s friend gives off your name, and it makes Alfred’s brows furrow in recognition. He’d known your father. They’d served in the British military together, after all.

This was how Alfred came to know that one of his friends had died that same very night, and learned that his friend had even had a child.

You.

“I can’t look after a six-year-old with what I do, Alfred. You think you could..?” His friend’s voice trails off, and the question is clear. Alfred only slowly nods, giving him quick thanks before returning inside Wayne manor just as his friend turns to depart.

Bruce was still awake, too. He’d sat at the top of the stairs, just watching the brief encounter. And in that same night, Alfred introduces Bruce to you. Tells Bruce about your father, just in a few brief words.

Brief words that Bruce knew held a lot more weight behind them than Alfred could put on.

And from that night onward, Alfred raised you and Bruce.

Over the next couple of weeks after your arrival, Alfred would often be awoken in the night by your crying. Or your screaming, whichever one broke through your nightly terrors first. It would wake Bruce, too.

Bruce would always just stare up at the ceiling on these nights. Listening as he heard Alfred’s frantic, muffled footsteps come tumbling down the hall. Listening as Alfred opened the door to the bedroom you stayed in. [which was right next to Bruce’s, by the way]

Bruce could hear, from behind the wall his bed was against, as Alfred comforted you. As Alfred assured you that you were alright. Listening as your sobs and frantic gasps of air turned to sniffles after a long while, and then eventually quieted, with Alfred leaving exactly ten minutes after.

He’d even recognized the nickname Alfred had for you. “Little moon,” he’d always call you. Bruce wasn’t sure why, Alfred never explained.

One night, you’d awoken from a nightmare. But Alfred had been out on some personal business that day, and hadn’t quite yet returned. Bruce only awoke when he’d heard you open the door to his bedroom, your blanket hugged tightly under one of your little arms whilst you held some sort of stuffed animal that had been brought from your old home.

Even in the dark, Bruce knew you were crying. He could recognize those little sniffles, seeing as they kept him awake whenever you woke him by your screams of terror from your horrifying dreams due to your memories.

You’d asked him if you “could please sleep in his bed since Alfy wasn’t home yet”. And for some reason, despite how he’d ignored you at first, he couldn’t say no.

So you’d crawled into bed next to him, your little body huddled close to his. And Bruce hugged you, for some reason. Some sort of instinct, some sort of gut feeling.

It was like a natural reaction for Bruce, because he didn’t even process a thought before he’d done it.

And the moment he did so, your sniffles quieted faster, your tears stalling quicker than most other nights. And before he knew it, you were asleep again. And for once, you didn’t have a nightmare.

And from then on, Bruce saw you as a little sibling. And because of the loss of his parents not long before, he grew protective of you. Stepped into the role of your big brother without even a second thought.

After all, you’d both lost your family due to the same reason. The same way.

the sky does not have the room to hold the moon for forever, in all her silver glory

However, Alfred and Bruce did everything to keep you away from vampire hunting. And I mean everything.

Not once did they speak a word of it to you. Not once did they ever let you even notice how their presence left the Wayne manor at night to clear out the infested streets of Gotham.

So with that, you grew up mostly normal.

Sure, you got picked on and teased for how small you were in school. Sure, you’d come home battered and bruised from being shoved around a little too harshly by those kids who just easily towered over you.

You’d blame it on being clumsy. It was believable to Alfred. After all, you’d taken many tumbles in the years leading up to when the bullying started.

But Bruce never believed an ounce of it.

Sure, he’d try and ask you what really happened. But all you’d do is blink up at him, give him a forced smile, one that didn’t reach your eyes in the same bubbly and warm way it did usually. You’d always hoped he didn’t notice how forced it was.

But he always did. He just pretended not to notice it.

And when one day, Bruce happened to see the bullying firsthand. Seen it right before his eyes.

And that same day, after you’d disappeared from sight, Bruce got into his first fight. He’d come home just as beat up as you, maybe a little more-so, but he was victorious.

“You’re gonna get in trouble with Alfy if you get into fights, Bruce.” You’d whined, placing a cute little flower patterned band-aid on Bruce’s split knuckles. It wouldn’t do anything to help, but the thought certainly mattered.

And Bruce would only gently smile at you. That had been the first time, too. First time he’d ever smiled at you. He only ruffles your hair⎯ much to your disapproval and dismay⎯ and tell you that it was alright, that he didn’t mind if he got in trouble.

Because he truly didn’t. Not when it meant you got to live a more peaceful and normal life.

You were nine years old then, making Bruce fifteen.

He didn’t care if he got quizzical looks the next day for the fact he had those childish flower patterned band-aids on his split and bruised knuckles, or on any part of him that was bruised and battered. Bruce just didn’t care.

It made you feel helpful. So why would he stop you?

because the sun is a jealous twin, jealous of it’s sisters beauty, of her fragile elegance, and it yearns for that same beauty

So, yes. You were quite close with the Wayne family. You were practically an unofficial member of it.

In fact, you were close enough with them that all of Bruce’s children [adopted or biological] knew you quite well. All of them had a different nickname for you, one that they called you by. To them, you were just as much of a parental figure as Bruce was.

Maybe even more-so, since you’d take any opportunity to get them something. Even if it was a small little trinket.

But to them? That trinket was everything. It was worth more than any fine jewelry or expensive painting. To them, it was utterly priceless.

But hiding vampire hunting from you couldn’t last for forever, and you’d discovered it just after Jason’s disappearance. Why?

Because you’d gone looking for him.

Gone looking for him, and had accidentally caught Bruce in the middle of taking out a vampire. Which, unfortunately, caused you to relapse into memories of that night when you were six-years-old, due to how brutal killing vampires is.

You’d had another bout of nonstop nightmares for almost three months after that before they calmed, and Bruce had been there for each one, since you still lived in the Wayne estate.

Bruce never quite stopped feeling guilty after that, too.

and while the sun always feels sorry for it’s envy, the moon understands.

And now it was years later. Years later, and it was just a few days after you did something stupid. You’d slipped up, accidentally coming home much too late.

You were always quite bad at navigating Gotham, especially at night. So you’d wound up lost, in one of the worst parts of the city. One of the more vampire infested areas.

And you’d been bitten, and turned. You’d become one of them.

You didn’t mean to, you honestly didn’t. You tried to hide the signs from Alfred and Bruce. From Alfred, you hid it quite well. He just figured you weren’t feeling well, having a migraine.

But Bruce knew better.

He always could tell when you were lying.

So when Bruce had the confirmation that you were a vampire when you’d almost attacked him just the night before. He’d come home a little more beat up and hurt than usual, but nothing serious. To him, at least.

But to you, a newly turned vampire, resisting the urge to not attack when you hadn’t fed once just yet was impossible.

And that’s how Bruce found out. But he didn’t have the heart to kill you. No, he didn’t. He couldn’t kill the one person who he’d seen as a younger sibling for so many years. He couldn’t kill the person he’d tried so, so hard to protect from the infestation of Gotham.

So Bruce told Alfred, right after you’d fled Wayne manor.

And that’s what lead up to now.

she always gives the spotlight to the sun whenever it asks, as gentle or harsh or beautiful as it may

So here Alfred was, gun in hand. Stood before you.

Your gums burned and ached so badly due to how long you’d been going hungry. But you manage to hold yourself in, just simply standing there. Looking at Alfred, as you both stand in that trash filled alley, walls covered in graffiti.

“How long?” Alfred asks, finally breaking the silence that had been held for the pasty thirty minutes of you two staring at one another.

It’s hard for Alfred to hide the way his voice quivers. The way his hands tremble, nearly dropping the gun that was aimed right at you.

Your quiet for a moment, swallowing the forming lump in your throat. You can feel tears stinging your eyes, just like they did when you’d gotten the nightmares. You draw in a quivering breath, hands clenching painfully, nails forming crescent moons into your palms.

“Almost a week.”

Alfred is quiet. You can hear the way his heartbeat picks up, the way his breathing faltered for just a moment, as if he struggled to take in any air.

Alfred takes a moment to steel himself. To steady his emotions.

You and Alfred both have this thick weight in your chests. In your entire bodies. It’s like static, and it brings with it a bitter acidic taste to the mouth, makes the tongue go numb and heavy like metal.

Everything’s quiet, as Alfred steadies his aim again. He cocks the gun, too. But he closes his eyes when he does that, only opening them again after the click resounds.

“I’m sorry, Alfy. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.” You begin, eyes glistening with tears. And before you know it, they are falling.

The same tears that Alfred could remember wiping off your face when you were six-years-old. The same tears that would cause him to nearly trip and fall on his own feet when he’d heard you crying due to those night terrors when you’d first come to stay with him and Bruce.

The same tears that he’d spend almost an hour every night coaxing to a halt. Sometimes even telling you stories about your father. The stupid things they’d do together, the stupid things Alfred did when he was a teenager.

And he’d smile when those tears stopped, halted by your little giggles that made relief flood his chest, warming it.

And before Alfred knows it, he’s stepped toward you. Gun still ready to fire, of course, but he uses his free arm to bring you close. And he hugs you.

Alfred hugs you in the same way he did when you were little, gently patting your back as his cheek rests on the top of your head, his gaze watching as the sun rises in the distance. And you cry.

You sob into him, hugging him back. Hugging him back so, so tightly. All you can get out between your hiccupping, broken sobs is just the words “I’m sorry, Alfy, I’m sorry” over and over. And Alfred simply continues to console you, replying with a very quiet, broken words of his own.

“I know, little moon. I know.”

Bang.

You fall limp in his arms. And Alfred weeps, cradling your bloody body in arms. For the first time in a long, long time, he cries.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, my little moon.”

because the sun always rises, for the moon cannot lead with it’s gentleness for forever, for the world is not as gentle and forgiving. there will always be the light on the morning horizon, drawing your attention away, as the moon dips away from the sky.

#dc universe #alfred pennyworth #father figure alfred #big brother bruce wayne #angst #shitty poetry #reader death #non romantic oneshot #oneshot #no mentions of y/n #gender neutral reader #gn reader #non canon compliant #non canon compliant dc universe oneshot #i dont know the fandom im writing for #vampires au #vampire hunters #vampire!reader #newly turned vampire reader n stuff

25 notes · View notes

thenightling · 11 months

Text

My favorite "perfectly reasonable" reactions to finding out Jaskier in the Netflix series version of The Witcher is now canonically bisexual

I am going to quote some of the responses to the revelation that Jaskier is bisexual and give a rebuttal to some of them.

____________________________________

The most common unhappy response: "He's only attracted to women in the books! He's straight in the books!" A possible rebuttal. = You can be a womanizer and flirt who sleeps around with a lot of women and still be bisexual. Just because it's all you've seen doesn't mean it's all there there is.

______________________________________ "Another change from the books. This was probably the last straw that made Henry Cavill leave!"

This one is particularly annoying because it requires making Henry Cavill a thinly-disguised-homophobe. No. Henry Cavill did NOT leave because Jaskier was revealed as biseuxal. Jaskier's ballad about Geralt mentioning his "stupid hair" and "what for do you yearn?" existed in season 2. And Jaskier talking about applying chamomile to Geralt's "lovely bottom" was in season 1.

There is no official statement anywhere stating that Henry Cavill left because of deviations from the source material. Yes, Henry Cavill IS a fan of the video games and novels but there's no official explanation as to why he left. In fact the rumor that he left because they strayed from the books all originate from gossipy Youtube videos with no more substance than old supermarket tabloids.

There are countless other plausible reasons for Henry Cavill leaving The Witcher such as: 1. He wasn't happy with his Netflix contract. Netflix contracts are very restrictive and strict. 2. He thought he could return to playing Superman, unaware of the shakeup at DC / Warner Brothers that wound oust him from the role. 3. Henry Cavill has obsessions that become all-consuming he became fixated on the Warhammer franchise. 4. Henry Cavill might have wanted more pay.

That's just four of the many reasons that could be behind his leaving The Witcher.

Seriously, the moment people start claiming that Henry Cavill left BECAUSE Jaskier is bisexual I have to point out a few things. 1. There were far bigger deviations from the books in Season 2, including the creation of a brand new villain. A change to the ending of the Beauty and The Beast-esque story and how Geralt reacts to the revelation about why his friend was cursed. The changing of a chracter's personality and having him die when he lived in the books. And also having Yennefer tempted to sacrifice Ciri. If you think these things are minor changes but he'd quit over Jaskier being bisexual... Well, that says a lot about you.

2. Henry Cavill was still in the show and involved in the show when they decided to confirm Jaskier is bisexual. Henry Cavill is IN this season that shows Jaskier with Radovid. This was filmed before he left. Before. 3. Jaskier's ballad about Geralt mentioning his "stupid hair" and "what for do you yearn?" existed in season 2. And Jaskier talking about applying chamomile to Geralt's "lovely bottom" was in season 1. 4. Henry Cavill was in the movie based on Neil Gaiman's Stardust novel. I suggest you google the character Captain Shakespeare, who does not exist in the novel Stardust. Just because YOU can't handle the idea of your favorite manly man having a non-straight best friend doesn't mean Henry Cavill agrees with you. Henry Cavill is not your magical shield for being a homophobe.

________________________________________ "Only Andrzej Sapkowski can make him bisexual. He's straight in the books." Yes, so we've been told many times. But Andrzej said he doesn't mind the change. You don't need to keep reminding us that Neflix was the first place to officially have Jaskier as bisexual. Your own insecurity is showing in that you have to remind us that the version you are obsessed with is straight. We're strictly discussing the canon of the Netflix show. _________________________________________________ "He's not Gay!!!! He's attracted to women!" Yes, he is attracted to women. And men. And possibly a pretty androgynous elf. The character was confirmed as bisexual, not gay. _____________________________________________

"Nice headcanon bro." Except it's not a headcanon. This was confirmed by Netflix, Joey Batey (Jaskier's actor), the showrunner, and show writer. You might like it but within the show version this IS canon. Jaskier and Radovid (now played by thirty-eight-year-old Hugh Skinner. It may never have been said in the books (We know! We know!) but it is a thing in Netflix.

We're strictly discussing the canon of the Netflix show.

https://www.slashfilm.com/1309204/the-witcher-joey-batey-confirms-jaskiers-romance-season-3/

___________________________

"They turned Jaskier into a ped0!" Rebuttal:

Oh, they did not! This is not the Radovid of the novels. He's not a teenage boy. He's a thirty-eight-year-old man. Yes, *Gasp* another deviation from the books. Speaking as someone who just had to adjust to Interview with The Vampire's Claudia being portrayed as fourteen-years-old and by a nineteen-year-old actress... Grow up.

___________________________ "When you try to be a smart ass but the show shuts your dumb ass up. Try harder, Twink." Rebuttal: Umm... first, I don't think you know what a Twink is. It's not just a new replacement for the f slur. Also the show didn't shut me up. It's the show that confirmed the character is biseuxal. _____________________________ "Why is it always short haired, over-weight, ugly, middle aged, women who want this? ALWAYS!" I have the short hair but otherwise I don't think that really fits." ____________________________________ "I casually scrolled through TEN YEARS of your profile pictures to see what kind of person I was dealing with." Umm... What? Because I posted about Netflix confirming Jaskier is bisexual in the show and it wasn't negative?! Okay... ______________________ "They didn't even try to follow the books. For starters his name is Dandelion! DANDELION!" I got this particular one twice and I responded with "Actually, in the original Polish his name is Jaskier, which directly translates to buttercup. Netflix is using his untranslated Polish name. The novels were originally written in Polish." And for some reason that earned the response of "Oh! You're OLD!" I didn't realize there was an age restriction on liking a character who is meant to be in his forties but okay... (I'm forty-one and unashamed). ___________________________________

"Why is it always the weakling who can't even fight that they make queer?" Rebuttal: Umm... That's not true. John Constantine, King Shark, Deadpool... None of those characters are straight and they kick ass.

Also Jaskier has a persona now of The Sandpiper where he helps the oppressed and outcast, and smuggles people to safety. When I compared him to The Scarlet Pimpernel this person got very offended because the Scarlet Pimpernel protected French nobles and all the French nobles deserved to die. I tried to remind him that in the novel the Scarlet Pimpernel rescued children. I haven't bothered to see their reply after that yet. I have a feeling I'm going to end up having to block someone.

________________________________ "I am tired of people saying Jaskier and Geralt are a couple and husbands!"

Rebuttal:

Umm... Sir, this is a Wendy's.

That particular comment was on a Facebook thread that had NO ONE saying any of those things. It was just a conversation about Jaskier and Radovid. ________________________________________ "Another character RUINED by Netflix." If you think a character is ruined because a depiction of him isn't straight, that's on you. _________________________________ "The whole point of Dandelion is he looks and acts gay but he's not!" I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point but okay...

________________________________ "They made Jaskier bi for the normies." Yet again I find myself thinking: "That word doesn't mean what you think it means." Long ago, before the MCU, nerdom wasn't trendy or fashionable. It was specifically the refuge for outcasts and outsiders.

Fast forward to 2023 when nerdom has been relatively mainstream for the last decade or so. And now we have fans of The Witcher angry that "normies" have made Jaskier bisexual in The Witcher Netflix series.

Okay but... Despite the presence of general more acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, being bisexual or, as Jaskier's actor cals it, sapiosexual (attraction to intellect before gender) is still not considered normal.

People who identify as LGBTQ+ are still on the fringes of society. The very outsiders that nerd culture embraced and protected.

I have news for you, angry fan boys who are upset that the bard has been confirmed bisexual... you ARE the normies. When you start gatekeeping outcasts and outsiders (minorities) and whine about things being "Woke" because they allow in women, black people, or get upset and have a tantrum when they reveal a character might not be entirely straight... that's not the behavior of someone on the fringe. That's not original nerdom. I'm forty-one. I was a teen in the 90s and early 2000s. I've seen genuine nerdom. I was and am a Goth. We welcome and embrace those on the fringe, we don't shut them out because we don't want to think of our masculine manly man being friends with a non-straight medieval version of Freddie Mercury.

#The Witcher #Witcher #Jaskier #Buttercup #Dandelion

13 notes · View notes

deistarr · 3 years

Text

Tags I honestly appreciated on AO3 (various fandoms):

The Canon Did Not Spark Joy | So I Made It My Bitch

If The Canon Does Not Spark Joy Throw It Out

Scott McCall Can Have A Braincell. As A Treat.

Relationship Pairing: Albus Dumbledore/His Ginormous Ego

Lan Wangji's Canonical Inability To Tell The Difference Between Instant Hatred & Instant Attraction

LWJ Gets Sexually Aroused For The First Time | He Mistakes The Feeling For Murderous Rage | It's A Very Confusing Time For Him

Fix-It Via Accidental World Domination

Accidental Overlord Tony Stark

LWJ Can Punch JC In The Face. As A Treat.

JC's Canonical Torture Habit

Gender: Tired - Sexually Attracted To: Beds

Everyone Deserves Better | Except For JC | He Can Suffer

Fluffy Vore-Adjacent Behaviour

Please note that this list is by no means comprehensive. It just contains the ones I remember off the top of my head at this moment.

Some of my favourite tags that I have used:

(Not So) Secretly A Virgin

Tiny Time-Travel Hell-Child

LXC Has The Braincell | Oops | No He Doesn't

Now With A Hundred Percent More WangXian!

Albus Dumbledore Is Not Actually Evil | He's Just Very Bad At Being A Decent Person

OC Was Not Expecting Reincarnation | Again | She Wants To Know Why Fate Keeps On Giving Her A Penis

The Genitalia That Must Not Be Named

If You Didn't Want To Be Blackmailed | You Shouldn't Have Done It | Sounds Legit

Hello Alcoholism | My Old Friend

LWJ Tries To Be Good | He Fails | To Be Fair | WWX Is Terribly Tempting

For A Fic Without Any Sexual Content Some Of These Tags Sound Incredibly Inappropriate

Mostly Canon Compliant | Except That Lan Xichen Actually Got Laid

Lans Gone Wild(TM) | Featuring Nie Mingjue As: The Voice Of Reason

Body-Swap Gone Wrong | AKA | That Fic Where Wei Wuxian Pees Lan Zhan's Pants

It Doesn't Have To Be Biologically Possible They're Hybrids Karen

Lan Xichen Can Have A Little Harem. As A Treat.

Jin Zixuan The Beautiful Lan/Jiang Sect Concubine

Nie Huaisang Saves The Day | He's As Surprised As Anyone

I Wrote This Instead Of Sleeping | Then Fell Asleep Instead Of Posting It

LWJ Stabs His Father | Non-Lethally But Still | It's Surprisingly Cathartic

The Mortifying Ordeal Of Discussing Your Sex Life With Your Family

Trip To The ER With Something Stuck Inside Your Dick | Somehow Everyone You Know Shows Up | Thanks Huaisang | That Was Not Actually Helpful

That Moment When Everyone Learns TMI About Your Sex Life

Lan Xichen Accidentally Starts A Revolution In The Lan Sect | This Was Not Supposed To Happen | Rebel Leader!LWJ

Lan Wangji Needs Friends | Xichen Just Never Expected Him To Make Them This Way | This Is Not Going As Planned

Asexual Relationship | Where Neither Of Them Are Actually Asexual | This Is What We Call A Lack Of Communication

BAMF Nie Mingjue | Why Is That Not Already A Tag? | That's Basically His Entire Personality | I'm Feeling Very Insulted On His Behalf

Nie Mingjue Pretty Much Lives To Kick Ass & Take Names | If He Disapproves He Won't Hesitate To Let You Know | Loudly & At Length | He Practically Exists To Smite Evil-Doers & Fuck Their Shit Up | Anyone Who Says Nie Mingjue Is Not BAMF Is Lying | Or Else Really Not Paying Attention

NMJ Is Basically The Chinese Version Of A Spartan Warrior | Charging Onto The Battlefield With Baxia Held Aloft | Wearing The Blood Of His Enemies | "This! Is! Qinghe!!!" | When I Read The Novel My Brain Dubbed Him "Chinese Leonidas" | CQL Did Nothing To Dispell That Impression TBH

#fanfic tags #humour #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #harry potter #teen wolf #tony stark #ao3 tags #naruto #jiang cheng critical #wei wuxian #wangxian #lan wangji #lan xichen #nie mingjue #nie huaisang

15 notes · View notes

invitedeath · 3 years

Photo

SEPHIROTH — relationship & plotter call.

hello lovely isolians! it’s been actually ages since i made my first one, or my second one, so i’m coming back with new vigour & hopefully some new ideas to tempt you all into friendship ( or...enemy...ship) with sephiroth!

so liking this post means that you are 100% down with interacting with me in some fashion! ways this might happen may be... → me sending you im’s / tumblr asks to plot or chat! i can be quite a talkative person as a forewarning, as i love discussing rp things as well as getting to know my rp partner! → if we are already friends on discord or twitter, i might message you that way to ask you about plots or ideas or to run things by you. → exchanging ask memes / meme day things that might be a bit more personal than a general sentence meme. → possible random starters or musings dedicated to your muse, sometimes i get sudden inspiration for these things! i will always check first that you’re okay with taking on a new thread, but yes this is for just... if i get inspired & want to put something up for you! → general tomfoolery and shenanigans in character ( and ooc if you like )

you can contact me via the im system here, by the /ask feature or you can ask for my discord/twitter if you prefer those. just let me know. discord is the most private however so we’d need to chat a bit more elsewhere first just for my comfort! i am in the isola discord sever however so we can totally talk in that server for a bit too!

FRIENDS.

↪ honestly friendships aren’t typically on the agenda for him. he is arrogant beyond belief and considers everyone to be weaker than him or to some degree unworthy of his time or energy. he really does not have any interest emotionally in anyone besides himself, instead he is far more likely to use and discard people when they are no longer needed. HOWEVER, in 2020 sephiroth underwent quite a big character development stage, essentially his long-term goal came to a head and it backfired pretty back when he got all his powers back, so while he’s super strong again now, he’s also semi-content (i guess) with living in isola for a while, if only so he can figure out how the multiverse works (meta, i know). he talks to people now (wow!) and engages in mostly philosophical conversations, about... life. death. etc.

↪ i am down to... vague villain-alliance type deals with fellow power players here. he wont consider your muse a friend, but rather a pawn or even a means to an end, that end being his goal of generally using this island for his means, apologies. preferably the intellectual, over-powered, edgy types will probably gravitate towards him more, but i’m willing to throw anything at the wall to see what sticks. he’s not a nice guy, by any means, but it would be interesting to see how he has to play the game here to his advantage until he regains powers. i especially would like to interact with other villains who are kind of just chilling, maybe they’re veterans in spirale also and they can share a glass of wine over watching all the citizens running around like ants. we could also do a murder if you are into that.

↪ there are some cases where he might engage in conversation with non-villain types and these would likely be far more dialogue-heavy threads including metaphorical topics or debates. the conversations of life, death, mortality, good vs evil, frailty of existence, legacy, power and corruption, calamities, birthright and betrayal are just some of the topics possible to arise in discussion. that being said, whilst these topics would be of interest to him, the character themselves must meet his standard of what he considers worthy of his time eg. those just willing to argue with him will bore him whereas someone curious to his nature might be treated to an actual conversation. over time this has opened up into most people being capable of talking to him. he has less patience for over-eager plucky types, but anyone with a respectable manner who likes talking a lot will probably find an interesting conversation partner in this... ONLY SLIGHTLY CHILLED sephiroth. he’s not totally chill, he’s just a lil chill.

↪ warriors, outcasts, villains, intellectuals, fellow puppet-master type villains especially, those he ‘befriended’ in past events, perhaps even neighbours to his castle would all be likely connections. friends of those he has worked alongside or met, or those wishing to seek great power and know of his existence might seek him out also, but yes... ““““friends”“““ is a very difficult term for him. he’s getting better.

→ his most recent developments see him as a far more casual version of his canon self, over a year of living as close to a “domestic life” as possible have meant that whilst he is aloof and cold, he is also far more likely to be out and about, buying wine at some creepy gas station at 4:30am for example. he chats when he’s in the mood and might even stick around to cause some chaos for the sake of boredom eating him alive. so whilst he is still very much a dangerous inhabitant here in spirale, sephiroth is currently Domesticated somewhat.

ENEMIES.

↪ heroes of all shapes and sizes might feel threatened by the ominous presence of a monster who seems inclined to side with chaos as opposed to peace. he’s not outright starting fires here but he is present in the more morbid moments of isolian discourse, an omen of death lingering on the sideline. he has his plans and he may just mock you with them, but in general since he does and WILL cut down npcs ( or players ) alike, he makes for the perfect villain. BE WARY he has all of his powers unlocked and knows the island well. fighting him would not guarantee your victory, especially if you are a freshly applied character.

in feb 2020 he almost brought chaos to spirale too so i’m sure anyone holding a grudge or wary of a potential threat like that would be very aggro towards him.

↪ he has traumas. plenty of them. some of them originate from labs and white coats, meaning he might just view you as an enemy if you’re a scientist or someone who dabbles in human experimentation. his reasons are his own, but let’s just say that if you consider him a good candidate for poking and prodding with scientific equipment, you may just lose an arm.

↪ i LOVE fight threads especially really gritty, bloody types. i would prefer to plot these out so we know what’s going on beforehand, but feel free to develop these with me honestly i love a good old classic villain hero showdown. he’s less likely to get into these without a good reason but if we do one, the winner is randomly determined via generator to make it fair if your character is also uncapped!

→ police/law enforcers/general crime stoppers might remember him for causing a bit of trouble in the past! insert how bad me be gif. try and ??? get him to apologise i guess. arresting sephiroth sounds like the plot of a funny movie.

LOVERS.

↪ this man has a bf now, can you believe it? 2021...isola gay rights.

MISC.

↪ pawns and such would be a fun dynamic later. his general presence is pretty terrifying, so it wouldn’t be a stretch if you have an appropriate muse for them to be fearful enough to carry out some little tasks for him. this might be more common later on, but i’m down to discussion for it currently!

↪ places you may find him can include: ↪ near his residence ( personal housing; castle in the mistwood ) ↪ fibonacci ward ( levels 3 and 4 especially due to the museums and things. but also the lowest levels, he tends to wander around there as if searching for something... feel free to try and figure out what it is ) ↪ golden ward ( the university if only to borrow books from the library, he can read there for days at a time without sleep or food. he reads all kinds of things, both fiction and non fiction. ) ↪ archimedes ward ( pretty much everywhere in this ward, it’s my favourite. he enjoys music and art sometimes. hit me with that biblical shit. ) ↪ the mistwood ( 100% down to be that cryptic creature that leads you from your path to your likely doom ) ↪ the city of yesteryear ( typically the underground areas, just investigating really. any strange occurrences would likely draw him there as would any presence of a strong power. ) ↪ atop skyscrapers, looming at the ‘edge’ of the world we can currently explore, typically more active at night, perhaps at the scene of a murder / attack ( plotted ), if he’s feeling extra ballsy he might be found in a bar but its very rare. very VERY rare, wandering broken buildings, invading scientific facilities or buildings. he’s not going to be found in busy, socially strained areas basically.

↪ i’m down for any ideas you might have too for plots so feel free to just message me if nothing here caters!

STATS PAGE | APPLICATION | PLOTTING PAGE

#isola relationship call #isola plotting call #cw // long post #AAAYYY

4 notes · View notes

merlinholidays · 4 years

Text

Guide: Creating Prompts

Sign ups are going up soon and that means it’s time to fill in your likes and make your prompts. For some of us, the idea of making those prompts is a daunting thing, and maybe it’s sometimes tempting to just leave it blank.

But prompts are important for your gifter! So they can:

Understand you better

Find inspiration

Create something for you that you will enjoy

Even if it doesn’t matter to you what you receive, remember that a good set of prompts will give your gifter inspiration and drive to create! Think of it as a gift of sorts to the person who is paired with you!

For this reason, we’ve made a little guide to remind you of different types of prompts you can use. We hope it might give you some inspiration! We have split it into writing prompts and art prompts, since the two can be quite different.

Writing Prompts

There are many ways you can create writing prompts, and different writers like different things, but we have collected some tips/ideas for you:

Keep it short-ish:

Some people find it difficult to work with very long and detailed prompts. If the prompt outlines the whole story, it often feels very restrictive and allows no room for creativity. It’s more inspiring if your prompt leaves room for the writer to mix their own ideas with yours to interpret your prompt in a creative way. Try to create a prompt that acts as a guide rather than a complete story outline.

The One Word Prompt:

A simple solution, but a classic: the one word prompt. It’s simple and sometimes very effective and the gifter can easily combine it with another prompt if they want to. It can be:

Something sensory (like a color, a smell, etc)

Time-related (a season, a weekday, a certain time)

Interesting and uncommon words, or words from foreign languages

One thing to avoid can be extremely general words like “Christmas”. Instead, pick something about Christmas that invokes a more specific response, such as “mistletoe”, or “carolling” or “candles”.

The Poetry or Song Lyric Prompt:

Include a passage from your favorite poem or song lyric as an inspiration for a prompt, or link to the whole poem/song!

The Image Prompt:

One that we don’t see used as much anymore but image prompts are a great way to add variation to your prompts, and for many, the visual aspect triggers ideas. Maybe you can find an image that represents a mood you would enjoy, for example.

The Scenario Prompt:

Give a scenario that says something about a setting, a possible conflict, character traits, etc. How much info you include is obviously up to you.

Example:

Arthur and Merlin meet in the elevator at a hotel. When they exit it, everything has changed.

Morgana is tired of her city life and moves to a cabin in the woods to write a book. Enter Gwen.

The Trope Prompt:

Another tried and true staple is the trope prompt! Giving a trope or collection of tropes you like is a great jumping off point. Fake relationship with a side of hurt/comfort? Slow burn enemies to lovers? Was there only one bed?

Combine with a scenario to create a more specific prompt!

Variations:

Sometimes listing variations or further examples can spark more ideas. If you want a fic about dragons, you could include different versions of what that fic might look like.

Example:

I would love a fic about dragons! Maybe pet dragons are common. Or dragons suddenly return to the modern world after having been gone for hundreds of years. Maybe dragons are an extension of the magic user like daemons in His Dark Materials.

Art Prompts

Artists are unsurprisingly visual creatures, but sometimes it’s difficult to come up with prompts that are aimed specifically at inspiring an artist. Art is often a single image that captures a moment, and a lot of writing prompts that outline a story idea make it hard for an artist to pinpoint that moment. Here are some ideas for writing inspiring art prompts for those of you who are nominating art as a gift you would enjoy receiving.

The one word prompt works for art as well, just look at Inktober! Something as simple as “mermaids” or “wings” works well for art when used in concert with your favourite character, ship and preferred rating.

A strong visual idea is always good when you would love to receive a specific image, especially when paired with some context. Your artist can easily work with a prompt such as your favourite pair cuddling on Christmas morning, a feeling of happiness, forehead kisses and opened gifts, whereas an open non-specific prompt like “Christmas morning” doesn’t give your artist much to go on.

Open but contextual prompts are great for art when you don’t have a specific idea. Telling your artist that you would prefer art in a modern AU setting always helps to set the scene. If you add “meet-cute” to a flower-shop AU, your artist has a moment or a scene to work with. If you say that you want to see a missing scene from your favourite episode, your artist could come up with a canon-age visual you’ve been craving. Or perhaps you’ve always wanted to see your faves in a certain movie AU? Your artist could transform their appearance for your Yule treat.

Giving your artist the option to illustrate for one of your fics could also be a great way to inspire a piece of art. It should be a fic they can easily access and that isn’t too long, which they can read and get on with making a piece of art for you. It shouldn’t be anything that has already received fanart or that has been a part of a big bang or collaboration with an artist, so your gifter doesn’t feel like they’re competing with anyone. You could specify which stories you’d like to see art for, or give your artist free rein to explore your works and find something they’d be interested in illustrating.

Tropey prompts can also work well but it’s good to give your artist some guidance or context. Prompts such as “hurt/comfort” or “angst” are too open by themselves, but can work very well to inspire art of an intense moment when paired with some keywords like “animal/creature attack” or “post-battle bathing”, “being carried” or “huddling for warmth”. Prompts such as “fluff” or “first time” are also ambiguous, but paired with keywords like “ugly Christmas sweaters” or “teaching to ice-skate”, “frantic kisses” or “sex by the fireplace” can make all the difference to an artist searching for a visual flavor you would enjoy.

Poems and song-lyrics can work for artists, but can also be very open to interpretation and aimed at conveying a feeling rather than an image. Instead, you could write a short piece of prose or dialogue to inspire your artist.

Example:

“Sleep. I’ll keep you safe,” - conveys the visual of someone standing guard over their sleeping or injured companion.

“There are leaves in your hair, let me get those for you,” - conveys a fluffy moment or hair touching and blushy, shy smiles.

Mix it up:

This year we’re asking you to write at least 5 prompts to give your gifter plenty to work with and to choose from. As mentioned, different creators like different things so our best tip is to mix up different types of prompts. That way, it’s more likely that something will jump out at your gifter!

#Guide: creating prompts #guide

23 notes · View notes

seyaryminamoto · 4 years

Note

I feel like i'm gonna regret asking this but what is hiby

Oh. Ohohoho, oh. I recently answered this to someone else (not on this blog), I suppose there are so many newcomers in this fandom lately that HIBY has become slightly less known than it used to be.

HIBY stands for How I Became Yours, the most polemic and catastrophic fancomic in the history of the Avatar franchise. If you thought any of the official comics were problematic in any sense, woah boy, they’re goddamn flawless masterpieces compared to this thing.

Every possible angle of HIBY is problematic. Spot-on accusations of tracing were the main reason why Deviantart took down Jackie Diaz’s profile and comic from their platform. I heard Nickelodeon also got involved legally, not 100% sure on that front, but if true, they cracked down on her because she attempted to profit off this clunky mess of an inconsistent story by claiming it was somehow an official sequel to ATLA. To clarify, this last thing is something I was told, I can’t find actual sources to confirm it… so maybe I heard an exaggerated account of the tale of HIBY and it never went that far. Nevertheless, this comic didn’t need to escalate into a legal problem to be absolutely abhorrent.

In regards of art, HIBY somehow keeps discarding the asian-inspired setting seen throughout ATLA and instead favors showing the characters in European castles and outfits that don’t fit anywhere within ATLA’s world at all:

Katara is basically wearing a red version of Belle’s dress from Beauty and the Beast, if I’m not mistaken. The architecture of the place they’re at is so European it’s baffling (if I’m not mistaken, this is supposed to be Toph’s family’s house :’D). Also, it’s blatantly obvious that the background is a photograph, so she could’ve just as easily looked for photos of asian locations instead, but she picked european architecture because yes. Yet more blows against the possible artistic merits someone could offer this comic (if there’s any).

Now, though, the BIGGEST problem in HIBY is, of course, the story:

To recap: ATLA ends with Aang and Katara kissing at Ba Sing Se. Whatever problems someone may have with their relationship, or Mai and Zuko’s, or Sokka and Suki’s, it’s unquestionable that those three ships were canon by the end of the show.

Jackie Diaz’s SEQUEL COMIC doesn’t acknowledge this finale: somehow, Aang is in love with Toph but they’re not together despite there’s literally NOTHING in their way, since Aang and Katara weren’t together at all, according to Diaz. And Katara? Oh, she’s pining endlessly over Zuko, who somehow married Mai…

… Despite wanting Katara too.

… Despite he literally knocked up Katara back when the war was ending, which resulted in a miscarriage because of Mai’s wicked schemes~~!!

Can someone please explain to me in what world does it make sense for Zuko, FIRE LORD ZUKO, to be in a relationship with someone he doesn’t want, when the person he does want is RIGHT THERE, AVAILABLE, when there’s no real political consequences to ANYTHING that happens in this comic? You could say “oh no the Fire Nation people wouldn’t accept a Water Tribe woman…” … but then Zuko ends up with Katara anyways and the only problem is that Mai wants to kill them for that :’) so… no excuse works.

Basically there’s no real plot, the whole thing boils down to “I want these ships to happen and I need them to face hardships even if they don’t make sense”. The main hardship is that Mai doesn’t want her HUSBAND to carry out an affair with Katara. Zuko’s response to Mai’s obvious and reasonable complaint about their illicit relationship is to TURN VIOLENT WITH HER. And he’s the good guy :’)

Mai has a non-existent older brother Sho, who looks like a BLEACH character with Ozai’s hairstyle, and together they will try to kill Katara because, welp, someone has to give them trouble, I guess. In all fairness, the only character with a relatively logical flow of thought in this damn trainwreck is Mai. I mean, “my piece of shit husband married me for political clout, got his mistress pregnant, I didn’t want the kid to be a problem for me so I induced a miscarriage in Katara by poisoning her, probs just wanted Katara dead altogether but whatever, I only got the kid. Then Zuko threw me away despite I’m his legal wife and I’m really pissed about it so I want Katara dead” is the smartest writing in this entire comic. And no, that’s not a compliment, it’s still stupid as fuck but that’s how much more stupid everything else is.

So, the happy couples are, like I said, Zuko and Katara, who get together despite Zuko is married to Mai, Aang and Toph, who somehow weren’t together despite there’s nothing in the way, AAAND…

… Sokka and fake!Azula. Because I refuse to acknowledge that thing as the Princess we all love and adore.

Frankly, I consider it a miracle that HIBY didn’t destroy our ship completely when it was posted online, seeing as it was amongst the most talked-about fanmade content in Avatar’s fandom at the time. If people no longer associate Sokkla with HIBY immediately, we’ve definitely done a good job saving our poor ship’s face and showing it’s got a fuckton of potential compared to the shitfest that comic portrayed.

Why is Sokkla so problematic in HIBY? Because of fake!Azula, of course. Why is she fake!Azula? Because she’s got plot-convenient amnesia! Turns out that, for some reason, Azula forgot all the events from ATLA (let’s be real, so did Jackie Diaz so it’s not just her) and she shows up in this comic as a completely different character, so much that, upon hearing about the TERRIBLE THINGS SHE DID AND WAS, her reaction is…:

Fascinating, am I right? :’D She’s nice, sweet, shy and as good as brain-dead. And as she’s so sweet and cute now, somehow that becomes absolutely appealing for Sokka. And he falls for her, she falls for him, they bang dramatically, and so on and so forth…

Eventually Azula sacrifices herself in the final battle when Mai and her brother try to kill everyone and oh no! Sokka’s love interest dies again! Such a shocker, however, that Sokka goes to the Spirit World to save her, and unlike Iroh he succeeds… but what does Azula look like post-Spirit World shenanigans?

… Yeah, okay, fake!Azula calling anyone her “little angels” is just proof of how IC she is, if you had any doubts still.

But isn’t it FUNNY. Isn’t it HILARIOUS. That Azula not only undergoes an atom-deep brainwipe that turns her into a flat non-character, but that after dying she’s revived with WHITE HAIR, dressed in blue clothes and whatnot…?

My interpretation, and honestly, I don’t know if there’s any other possible interpretation… Jackie Diaz wanted Sokka to be with Yue :’) She fucking wrecked Azula’s character to turn her into a fake!Azula, who would eventually turn into fake!Yue after being resurrected because oh that’s just perfect to close off Sokka’s storyline, isn’t it? Only, he’s not with Yue nor with Azula because it’s neither of them. Just as it isn’t really Sokka either, or Katara, or Zuko or Aang or Toph.

Now, revisiting this trainwreck, there is a throwaway line where Ty Lee, in her (I think) only appearance in the story tells Katara that Suki and Sokka broke up. So um, Suki does exist, officially, in this comic, and she did date Sokka but it ended, and she’s back in Kyoshi Island with her team.

Which elicits the question… why the fuck is she Mai’s maid?

I assure you, if you decide to delve deeper into this mess, you’ll absolutely find a lot more things to laugh about, to be outraged about, and to facepalm about while you wonder how on earth would someone, ANYONE, create something like this and not die of cringe looking at the finished product. It’s baffling to me.

At any rate, if you’d like to torture your own eyeballs reading this comic for yourself, there’s a Tumblr blog that gathered HIBY perfectly neatly for all curious eyes eager to torture themselves with this OOC fest. If you want more details than I care to remember about this catastrophic mess of a story, there’s always the TV Tropes page, which I think illustrates everything rather well.

So… that’s HIBY. While I don’t think it should be sentenced to oblivion (we had best never forget the lowest lows the fandom has reached, else someone might be tempted to outdo them), this particular fanwork is quite the trainwreck in just about every regard. I really don’t think there’s anything worth salvaging in it. So, if you wanna read the whole thing (I’d be surprised if you would xD), knock yourself out in the blog link I posted up there. Otherwise, have a nice day if you still can after reading my answer to your ask :’D

#anon #hiby #granted by the time I arrived here #this shitshow had already been done and gone for a while #so I had to ask too #but I saw more signs of it than I suspect most people do these days #which is honestly... a wonder #I'm happy for it #let the fandom be cleansed of the dark stain that is this garbage comic

153 notes · View notes

tothedarkdarkseas · 3 years

Note

What's your take on Plastic Beach? Do you think it was incredibly traumatic to everyone involved, an era of near-death and mental exhaustion, or do you think it was played up a little for interviews/the album? Also, do you think Murdoc actually wrote the album mostly himself?

Hi! I'm sorry for the delayed answer-- as you might imagine, "what's your take on Plastic Beach" is a question that requires more than just a brief rushed answer!

It is tempting to say Plastic Beach was somewhat exaggerated in order to better suit my "more realistic" universe-- one cannot deny that PB is the fly in the ointment there, it is so absurd that there is no way to tether the plot itself to reality short of rewriting it as entirely fictionalized-- but I don't really prefer to do that, as I don't want to give Murdoc an out for the worst thing he's ever done, and I don't want to deny Stuart the ownership of his trauma and rage. I only strip away (by omission) a few elements that I consider irrelevant to the story I'm telling, whether directly or just in the loose headcanon sense, such as Russel growing in size or Stu being swallowed by and subsequently eating a whale. The island itself, the captivity, the betrayal, the grief of a perceived loss, the near-death and mental exhaustion you mention, those are the elements I absolutely would not remove. I think PB is so interesting in that it is simultaneously glorified through rose-coloured glasses, and also thematically underappreciated as a true point of no return: it is always a bit disappointing to me when PB is treated as some vague difficult thing to bounce back from, as the starting point in a story of redemption which seeks to justify and forgive without acknowledgement that not forgiving is an acceptable response, and that they can find a place of functioning, of even needing one another without having to put a bow on it. This makes The Lost Chord (with the message focused on "all is forgiven" without ever attempting to show a process of forgiveness in the last decade, let alone allowing Stu and Noodle to keep their resentments) and the Almanac (which comically portrays Stu in the immediate aftermath and tells us he is missing Murdoc straightaway sans any fun funky vitriolic codependence) frustrating to me as far as "my take" is concerned, buuuut before I'm thrown into the ungodly pretentious pit, I'd clarify that of course it's not that serious and was never meant to be, so I can be neutral toward them as pieces of Gorillaz media by themselves. That said, I do think it's worth noting that the team apparently want to have their cake and eat it too: they seem to want to cash in on the "significant closure to a heartfelt redemption arc" via TLC as well as insist it's all a joke and shouldn't have been regarded as a character-significant event in the first place, as Stu freed of the island is entirely undisturbed in the Almanac. And I think it's fine that they want to make a funny comic about dumb Stu and his silly island hallucinations, I think it's fine that they wanted to give a bit of gravitas to the revisiting of PB and offer fans a more positive ending, but I can only be fine with those things because I have a very hands-off zen relationship with Gorillaz and don't mind them flip-flopping around and just chasing whims with their plotless, oft-retconned cartoon-band-marketing-experiment. If it's "my take" though, I will keep PB as the unchecked obsessive culmination of where things go wrong and never go right again.

Sorry, I've just dumped a mess of thoughts and opinions out and lost the question itself somewhere in there. Did Murdoc write the album by himself? Significant portions I would say, yes. I would be open to and interested in theories or headcanon you may have about this, but I haven't seen any evidence myself to suggest he didn't, and as such I have painted the broad strokes of my PB headcanon around the assumption that this is Murdoc's album he's forced Stuart to perform on, therefore Stuart holds a specific sort of resentment for the rum-soaked upper-driven grief-made-into-grandiosity of it; this resentment compels him to make The Fall and it influences his downer musical decisions, for better or for worse. I do think it's probable that Stuart consulted on the album's production at points, but that was well into their stay on Plastic Beach and would not necessarily have impacted the writing itself.

(Also, it may be gauche to plug my fic, but... to see my take on PB, as in a somewhat non-canonical version of events, I'd love for you to read On Oysters and Black Water. And as for my take on the aftermath of PB for Stu's psyche, please feel free to bully me every day until I finish the fic I've futzed around with for two years!)

#sorry that this is long and loses the plot-- i'm a bit zonked and so i'm giving you my stream of consciousness #thank you for the question!#headcanon posts #sourness re: 2020's revisiting of pb which was not relevant to the question... sorry!

1 note · View note

darlingrutherford · 4 years

Text

Back in October, I received an ask about Lana and Alistair sharing Cullen, which prompted me to think about what circumstances would have to happen in order for that to work in my DA canon. I started thinking about it deeply, which has turned into a lot of posts and, in November, I started working on the story version of how that would play out (or, rather, what would spark that first spicy encounter between Lana and Cullen, which could make way for more spicy encounters). I hit a rather big writer’s block on it (like most of my writing, thanks CFS) and was stuck writing a line here or there every week or so, but all this talk recently with @jellysharkbat about Cullanistair sparked something in my brain and I finally FINISHED IT.

This ended up being way longer than I had originally planned lmao. So, I’m uploading to Ao3 as well if you’d rather read on there since they format a bit better than Tumblr. Enjoy!!

“You look exhausted.”

The words flowed from her tongue easily enough. The past few months that she and Alistair had been at Skyhold putting together the pieces for the cure had found her and Cullen becoming even more comfortable around one another than back when she was a mage at Kinloch. As such, Lana hadn’t been expecting the almost put off glance from Cullen as his eyebrow quirked at her accusation, and her eyes widened as she quickly followed up her comment, silently wishing she could suck the words back in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean - It’s just, you seemed like you were almost falling asleep there for a moment.”

Cullen sighed as his expression relaxed in understanding. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes returning to the chess board in front of them before his hand quickly dragged against his face in an attempt to wake up.

“My apologies,” he said. He leaned forward, moving one of his templars on the board to take her pawn. “I have not been sleeping well these past few nights.”

“Is it the withdrawals still?” Lana asked. She kept her voice down when she asked the question, knowing full well that Cullen still had yet to make it known to many that his withdrawals were apt to keep him up at night. The corner of Cullen’s mouth quirked in a short lived smile as Lana pondered her move.

“Those have not been as frequent as they once were, thankfully.” He paused as he contemplated his next words, the silence between them filled by the sound of crows as they flew above to Leliana’s tower. When he finally spoke, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wake up more often, because of the memories.”

Lana nodded in silent understanding. She knew well what Cullen was referring to: of Kinloch, of the torture he had endured for days before she, Alistair, and their friends had rescued him and the few left alive by Uldred and the other blood mages who had taken over the Circle Tower. He had uncomfortably explained it to her weeks after she and Alistair had arrived at Skyhold together months ago, something he couldn’t have avoided when the initial sight of Lana had brought all those memories screaming back to him in his waking hours. Cullen had forced himself to make time for her, to help his mind realize the difference between her and the memory of the demon who used her image to torture him so many long years ago, but also for her. Lana’s guilt when he had eagerly left the room the first time had been clear as day, and Cullen knew she had no need to harbor it. Lana had saved his life, had protected the others he had so quickly wanted to condemn in his hysteria. She was not the same as the nightmares he so frequently experienced in his sleep. So they had spent time together ever since, talking through the past and making way towards the supportive friendship that had quickly grown between the two of them.

“I still have nightmares from my childhood. Vivid ones, of the night my mother died.” Lana leaned forward, moving one of her rooks before sitting back. Her hand came up to tug at the end of her long braid, fingers pulling at the loose copper strands. “I used to have them every night, back when I was first taken to the templars. I went days without sleeping once, hoping that if I went long enough they’d never return.”

“I remember you being caught once after curfew, sitting in the hall,” Cullen said. A faint smile grew on his face as he looked at Lana when a laugh escaped her at the memory. “Knight-Commander Gregoir threatened to cut off your library access because of it, since you spent so many hours there, but First Enchanter Irving talked him out of it.”

“The only time I ever got caught,” she laughed. “The apprentices who slept near me would chastise me until I’d leave to calm down after one of them. I was too loud, apparently. They weren’t nightly by then, but they did occur every week at the least. They were still awful when I first left Kinloch for the Wardens. I’m grateful they’re not as frequent now. A couple times a month, perhaps.”

“What helped?” He wasn’t looking at the board at this point. His eyes were focused on Lana, watching her as she stared off at a nearby shrub as if it held all the answers in the world.

“Time,” she finally said after a brief pause. “Time, and a lot of help. I blamed myself for my mother’s death. If I hadn’t come into my magic, she may still be… Well, but I know now that it wasn’t my fault. It took a long time for me to realize that, and I couldn’t have done it alone. That, and…”

Cullen waited for a response that didn’t come. Lana had closed her mouth, her cheeks turning pink. Cullen tilted his head, curiosity on his face.

“And… What?” He casually asked.

“Well… I…. Had a trigger, for the memories when awake… Kind of like how they came back for you suddenly when you first saw me arrive. The nightmares were mostly in my sleep, but also, whenever I used magic… It was like I could hear her again in my head, screaming. The nightmares got worse the more darkspawn we came across, the more I had to fight. I hated my magic and what it represented.”

“I assume you no longer loathe it, if your dreams have calmed so much?” Cullen asked. Lana nodded her head quietly. She chewed on her lower lip as she returned her gaze to the board in front of them. Taking his cue, Cullen moved his templar once more. Truth be told, he was more focused on their conversation at that point than the game between them. “How did you accomplish that?”

“We… Alistair figured, if I used my magic and something good came out of it, that my reaction may change. I always used magic out of self defense, to kill darkspawn and such. He suggested that using magic for another person who would have a good reaction to it, that I would think of that instead of my mother by association. He’s a smart man. It definitely worked, the more we tried it.”

“That is fortunate that you had a way to disassociate from those memories,” Cullen said. “Healing magic can be very helpful, especially for those who fight darkspawn so often, I would assume.”

“It, well… Wasn’t all that we did.”

“I can’t imagine there are many other kinds of magic that wouldn’t be harmful to the recipient?” Cullen raised his gaze to look at Lana, noticing the pink that had spread to her ears as she cleared her throat.

“Alistair is… very receptive to it, if, um… You know, it’s controlled….”

“I see.” Cullen’s face had gone red the moment he realized what she meant. The two of them averted their gazes from the other, both intensely staring at the chess board as if their game had suddenly become just that more serious. They went through a few exchanged moves in silence, waiting for the awkwardness to tide over - as if it ever could - before Lana spoke again.

“Do you think this has helped you at all? Us, spending time like this together.”

“I haven’t had any feelings of those memories when I am around you in quite a while, so I would say, yes, it has helped considerably,” Cullen said. Lana seemed to visibly relax at his words as a warm smile grew on her face.

“Is there anything else I could do to help redirect those memories?”

Cullen watched her as she moved her templar, taking his. The redness was returning to his face rapidly, well aware that she had no idea of the gritty details of the torture that involved her likeness. As Lana looked up and saw the almost shocked expression mixed with color on his face, her eyes widened again.

“Maker, I’m sorry, Cullen, I didn’t mean to make you think about it,” she said quickly in a mumble. “Do you want me to leave?”

“What? N - No, I… It’s, um…”

“I just, I know you said that a demon took the form of me. I don’t know what was said, what was done… Sometimes playing out a memory and changing the outcome, we’ve found it really helps me - Andraste silence me, I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?”

Cullen swallowed, forcing his eyes back to the board as he tried to formulate what to say. Maker, what could he say in a situation like this? Cullen’s boyish crush on the young, red-headed circle mage was a memory long since passed. Of course she was still beautiful - more so now, if it was even possible - but he had moved on... Hadn’t he? Besides, she was with Warden Alistair, and quite happily by the looks of it. But still, for her to be suggesting without knowing what she was suggesting…

“It’s… It’s not that simple, unfortunately,” he stammered out.

“Are you afraid of what might happen? That I’ll hurt you?”

“What? No, I’m - I’m not afraid of you, it’s… Maker’s breath, I was tempted, tortured by your likeness, Lana. Touches, and - and, visions of so… so much more… You have no idea what you… what you’re offering, or how I will… how I would... ”

Their chess game was all but forgotten at this point. Cullen’s breathing had become heavy, his grip on the armrests of his chair tight. He had turned his gaze sharply to the side, staring at the stone wall beside them as he tried to hold back the emotions that threatened to break through his usually strong resolve. Lana sat there quietly across from him, sadness filling her as she watched Cullen all but break in front of her, like a teacup slowly hitting the hard ground. Minutes went by and, once Cullen had allowed a few heavy breaths to sigh from him and the color had calmed in his cheeks, Lana finally spoke.

“What if we tried?” She asked. Cullen looked at her incredulously, and she smiled softly. “Nothing has to happen. A completely safe environment. We wouldn’t do anything more than you felt comfortable doing. You would be in control this time. No demons.”

“What about Alistair?” Cullen asked quietly, the question surprising himself. Maker, but was he actually considering this? Lana’s laughter surprised him even further.

“Alistair won’t mind. He’ll probably encourage it, once I explain. He should be there, too. So you have someone else reassuring you who doesn’t embody the face of your memories.”

“I… I’m not sure if… You actually think it would help?” Maker help him, he was considering it.

“It helped me a lot.” Lana nodded. “It wouldn't hurt to try, right?”

“I don’t… think you realize just how… How far some of it went.” Cullen’s throat had gone dry, his voice a bit raspy.

“Alistair enjoys sharing me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Lana said. She placed her closed hand gently against her lips, laughing lightly at the look that spread on Cullen’s face. “Believe me, he enjoys it. He often joins in. Although, obviously, he doesn’t have to. This would be about you, Cullen. About helping you. If reliving all that without the bad helps you sleep better at night, I’d be happy to do it. Just think about it. No pressure.”

No pressure. The words had left her so simply, so unironically, as if this wouldn’t be one of the more difficult things for Cullen to consider. It would sound perfect on paper, he was sure: taking a moment of trauma and reliving it with the ability to strike out what had gone wrong. Of course, he couldn’t strike it all out. There would always be the memories he couldn’t rewrite: of his friends, murdered in front of him after hours of torture; of the mages who trapped him and cut him before sending a demon to play with his mind. But she was there, in Skyhold - the mage he had secretly pined for all those years ago. The very person whose visage had been used to torment him again, and again, as they played her in his mind the way he had always wanted her back then: touching him, kissing him, just as he had imagined it might be, only for her to transform into the demon once more before they tortured him some more. If he had a chance to rewrite even just one part of it… After this long of trying to run from it all, he owed it to himself to try. After all the guilt she had felt since the moment she had rescued him only for him to look at her as if she had been the one to do it, he owed it to her.

“I’d say you won’t even know I’m here, but… I think we all know that would be a lie,” Alistair chuckled.

The three of them sat in a small room, the one Alistair and Lana had been staying in since they had arrived three months ago. Lana had suggested Cullen pick the location once he had agreed to their meeting, wanting him to feel safe wherever they were - one more way for him to be in control of the setting. Of course Cullen had his own room, but the hole in the roof and the possibility of interruptions was much too high. At least Lana would be comfortable in her own room, he had told himself.

“Don’t listen to him,” Lana sighed with a smile. She wasn’t wearing her usual blue armor that day. She sat at the edge of the bed, a tunic much too large for her hanging to her knees and breeches covering her legs. Alistair had gone without much of his armor as well, lounging in a comfy chair near the window and looking quite relaxed about the whole situation. Cullen felt a mess inside and, after the way he had blunderingly discarded his armor as he realized he was much too overdressed between the other two, he was quite sure his anxiousness was apparent as he sat in a chair near the small desk at the wall.

“I’m teasing, of course,” Alistair said with a smile. “But, not really, at the same time. I’m here for moral support. I know things like this aren’t always easy. It wasn’t difficult for me to redirect Lana when her memories became triggered early on, but, then, I wasn’t the focus of that memory. It’ll seem awkward in the beginning, I’m sure, seeing me in the corner, watching you canoodle with my wife -”

“Alistair…”

“What? You can’t expect me not to.” Alistair grinned at Lana as she rolled her eyes at him. “What I was trying to say is: I’m not going to deck you off of her at any point, unless you’re hurting her, of course. We’re all adults. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself. Anyway, it’ll get less awkward, and we have all the time in the world. So, chop chop, get at it, have fun you two.”

“Maker’s breath.” Cullen groaned as he buried his face in his hands.

“Ignore him,” Lana said lightly. Cullen looked up as he felt her hands on his, pulling gently as she uncovered his face. She wasn’t much taller than him in that moment, even with him sitting and slouching the way he was. It had been one of the first things he had ever noticed about her, how easy she would have been to hold in his arms. “Focus on me. Now, tell me… How did the demon tempt you with me?”

“I….” Cullen trailed off. He tried his best to keep his eyes on her, but he steadily found it more and more difficult as the memories threatened to return to him.

“I know it’s hard to talk about,” Lana said after a moment of silence. “Maybe start with the first thing?”

“You… I mean, it… When the deception began, the vision… I thought I had awoken in the tower by myself. I had almost thought they left, and then… I saw you. I mean… Not you, but…”

“Take your time, Cullen, it's all right.”

“I don’t want you to… To feel like you have to do this.”

“I wouldn’t have offered this to just anyone, Cullen. You and I have a connection that is unfortunate in one large aspect, and that’s Uldred. Let’s remove him from the equation.”

Cullen took a deep breath and nodded before continuing.

“You crouched next to me on the floor. I tried to warn you of what had happened, but you told me all was well. That we were alone. It had all been some awful dream. You touched my face…”

Cullen froze as Lana touched his cheek. First her fingertips, gentle and slightly cool to the touch. Then they slid to hold him, the calluses on her hand from years of wielding her staff rubbing softly as they went. Lana rested her hand there, giving Cullen a small and encouraging smile.

“How are you doing?” She asked softly. Cullen's eyes flicked towards Alistair, almost expecting him to become uncomfortable with the situation at any moment, only to find the man lounging sideways in his chair with his long legs hanging over the side.

“F - Fine. I'm, ah, fine.” Cullen waited until Lana gave him a small nod, his cue to continue. He cleared his throat, giving himself courage to continue as he focused his gaze on her. “I tried to tell you again that we should go, but you… You were persistent. You told me that you - you knew, about my thoughts… My… My desires…”

“Did you desire me?” Lana asked sweetly. Color rushed to Cullen's face as she brought her legs to either side of his lap, settling softly onto him. Her other hand met the opposite side of his face to mirror the one that already cupped his cheek, and slowly her hands slid back to curl gently in his hair.

“I - I did, at the time.” The words were raspy as they left his throat. His eyes widened slightly as he felt his cock twitch once against his breeches, against her. A lilting laugh left her throat as she smiled.

“At the time?” She teased.

“He'd have had to be mad not to be,” Alistair commented casually from the corner. Cullen nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. Maker, he had already forgotten that Alistair was there. Lana's hand dropped to Cullen's chin, gently redirecting his gaze towards her.

“What happened next, Cullen?”

“You… It...”

“Did it kiss you?”

“I… Yes,” he choked. Cullen's heart pounded in his chest as time slowed down for him. Slowly, steadily, Lana began leaning towards him, her eyes gradually closing as her lips neared his. And then, they met, and he froze.

“Cullen? Cullen?”

Cullen blinked, finding Lana still on his lap but staring at him at an arm's length. There was a hint of concern in her eyes, and as his gaze slowly moved towards Alistair he saw the same caring, concerned look on the man's face. As Cullen began moving again Lana visibly relaxed as her warm smile returned to her face.

“What happened just now? Where did you go?”

“It was… Almost just as I recalled,” he breathed. Maker, but this was more difficult than he had thought it would be. His hands were shaking, and he gripped the arms of the chair to steady them. He couldn't even recall her ending the kiss, seemingly having lost that time in his mind.

“What was different, though?” Alistair piped in.

“What?” Cullen turned his head to look at Alistair. The man was still sitting with his legs over the side of the chair, however now he was propped up more proper.

“Before, when it happened. Did it feel like her kiss did? Could you feel the callus on her lower lip from her chewing it too much? Were the kisses before rough and forcing, or soft and sweet?”

“Ah, m - more rough, I… Looking back on it, perhaps it was trying too hard to convince me.”

“So focus on her, then. Kiss her again, but this time count all the differences. Starting with that lovely callus of hers.”

Cullen mentally prepared himself as Lana gently ran her fingers through his hair. Her touch was kind, soothing, not at all what he had felt back in Kinloch. She trailed her fingers over his cheek, tracing his features like a lover memorizing their partner's face. He watched her eyes, her gentle smile as she followed her fingers, and his body relaxed under her touch. Her fingers trailed over the scar above his lip, following it to his lips themselves. That was when her eyes met his, and for a split second a memory of those same blue eyes flashed in his mind, only younger than the ones in front of him now, smiling up at him as they stood talking about the Harrowing she had just completed with ease, and his heart skipped a beat.

“This is real this time, this isn’t a dream,” she whispered. “You're a templar no longer, and we are not in Kinloch. Kiss me.”

Cullen's lips were pulled to hers as if by some invisible force. His hands rested at the small of her back, gripping lightly as they kissed. He followed Alistair's instruction, focusing on every little difference. He found the callus Alistair had mentioned, right at the middle of her lower lip, born from years of nervous habits, something completely missing from his memory. Her kisses were soft, gentle, as kind as her fingers that snaked through his hair once more to caress him - a stark contrast to the gripping, needing pulls from his nightmares. She smelled of lavender and vetiver, of ink and the pages of very old books. She let him take the lead, kissing back only when he kissed her, leaving him in full control. At one point a whimper left her throat, high pitched and shaking, and Cullen suddenly realized that his hands had moved to grip her bottom.

“A - Andraste preserve me, I am so - so sorry,” he sputtered while removing his hands from her. He sighed as Lana kissed him once more, and this time he found his lips trailing after hers when she pulled back.

“I meant what I said before,” she said with a small smirk. “Whatever helps you heal this memory…”

“It… It never got quite that far,” Cullen said as he cleared his throat. “Or, at least…”

“What happened?” Lana asked. Her hands were busying themselves in his hair, brushing back strands just above his ear to help relax him.

“It… It got close. It was as if it was on a loop… Always… Getting to that point, with you - it - on - on top, and then, just before, everything became real again. And they'd… Start over.”

“That's terrible,” Lana said with a frown. “The way I see it, we have two options.”

“Which are...?”

“We can play this out exactly as you remember, only follow through. We break the loop. Or, if this is too much, we can stop.”

“And… What are… your feelings on that?” Cullen asked as he eyed Alistair. The man cracked a grin from afar.

“Judging by the look on her face, and the conversation we had last night about it, she's very excited about comparing templars, if you catch my drift.”

“You really don't mind watching another man… With your wife?”

“He likes it,” Lana said with a smirk. A groan left Cullen's throat of its own accord as she shifted herself against his straining erection that begged to be freed from his breeches. “He enjoys watching me being pleased. And I enjoy him enjoying it.”

“Well, if… If no one objects, we could always try to… See how far we can get.”

“That's the spirit,” Alistair said encouragingly. “I only have one rule - well, two rules: One - what's your watchword, my dear?”

“Wicker.” Cullen watched Lana's cheeks flush ever so slightly as the world left her tongue, then his eyes flickered back to focus on Alistair as he continued.

“That's right: Wicker. You hear that word, Commander, and you stop. You can use the same if you'd like. Rule number two: no coming in my wife. Yes, I realize we're wardens and wardens don't get pregnant often, but just humor me. Agree to those simple things and I'll let you in on a little secret - If you rub her ears too firmly a few times she'll come, so, avoid that. Unless you want her to come. In which case, it is a nice little trick.”

“Oh, Maker,” Lana sighed with a smile. Cullen chuckled nervously at Alistair’s suggestion. Maker, was he really going to go through with this? Would he even make it to that moment with her? Did she really want this?

As Lana leaned forward and took Cullen’s lips with hers he realized, yes, she did want this. Lana may have been rather obviously allowing Cullen to pick their pace, but she gave herself away in the way her hips gingerly rocked every now and then to rub against his straining erection, as if she couldn’t help herself. Cullen’s hands slowly snuck back to her waist. A strangled hum vibrated in his throat as he felt her breath shake against his lips, as if such a simple touch from him had evoked such a strong response. Memories flashed behind Cullen's closed eyes, little glimpses of watching her from afar so many years ago, always from afar. There were no rules now to stand between them, no blatant imbalances of power to keep his conscience from allowing him this.

Maker, he didn't think he could stop kissing her even if he wanted to. Each kiss from her melded into his subconscious, each further and further from the frightful memories he had associated her lips with before. He felt as if he were truly breathing for the first time in her presence, a clear headed feeling he hadn't felt since his last draught of lyrium, and he needed more.

“May I?”

Cullen's lips slowed to a halt as she spoke against them. He pulled back just far enough to glance down at her fingers that played with the lacing of his shirt. With a nod, Cullen watched as Lana slowly unlaced his shirt until it was nice and loose. Then she took his hand, directing his fingers towards the lace on the large shirt she wore. Cullen flushed crimson, realizing that doing so would reveal quite a bit more on her than it did on him. He swallowed as she molded his fingers to grip the lace, then he slowly pulled.

As her skin was revealed, inch by inch, Cullen felt himself seizing up. His eyes were glued to her, staring at her skin just below her clavicle as the fabric pulled away as slowly as his fingers allowed it to. He felt his mind going dark, everything around him swirling, Lana's posture slackened as she caught on to the change in Cullen's appearance when, suddenly, he saw the tip of an old scar. It poked out from under the lacing as it loosened, just on the right at the edge of the top of her breast.

Cullen's breath released heavily, and he let go of the lace. The rest of it fell, the fabric sliding from her shoulders with it. Cullen's eyes stared at the scar, unable to take his eyes off of it as she sat on his lap with the shirt pooled at her hips. He swallowed hard, raising his hand to draw his fingers over the scar. Its edges were rough, not the work of steel - no, a claw, perhaps? From the corner of his eye, Cullen caught a glimpse of another: one just above her hip, mostly obscured by the fabric of the shirt. He clasped his hands to her waist, causing her to squeak in surprise as he lifted her off his lap and set her to stand in front of him.

“Everything okay…?” Alistair's question went unanswered as Cullen gently slipped the shirt from Lana's hips until it pooled at her feet. Cullen remained seated in front of her, his face barely an arm's length from her as he hunched over to look at the scar. This one ran from her hip to mere inches diagonal to her navel. It was sharp, piercing, the work of something sharp and rounded - definitely steel, unlike the other. It was covered by a burn, almost hand-shaped in appearance, as if someone had placed their burning palm to her flesh to cauterize the first wound.

Lana's skin was reddening under his gaze and touch, standing before him in her breast band and breeches. Her head tilted as she watched him stare at her scars, trying to figure out what the significance was as he gently took her hand and traced the scar on her arm - the one that gave her the most nightmares of them all. She bit her lip as he focused on that one, setting aside whatever feelings she had of it for the moment. Then his eyes shot up to her shoulder and he spun her with his hands. Her eyes widened as she stumbled to keep her balance from the sudden movement, making contact with Alistair's gaze as his brows lifted. Cullen was running his fingers over the burn on her right shoulder, and Lana and Alistair's heads tilted almost in unison as they heard what sounded like Cullen laughing.

“Cullen?” His name was drawn out on Lana's tongue. Alistair sat up in his chair, craning his neck in order to see the Commander's face. His eyes were slightly watering, a look of almost disbelief on his face as he quietly laughed. If it hadn't been for the smile on his face, Alistair would have been more concerned. The two of them waited, giving Cullen a moment, before he finally spoke.

“You have scars.” The words left Cullen, and Lana felt the relief they carried with them. She relaxed instantly, smiling as she laughed as well.

“It didn't have scars, did it?” She asked, and Alistair instantly slumped back in understanding.

“None at all.”

Lana's body was peppered with them: big scars, little ones, each telling their own story, and Cullen had never known. The demon had drawn on his knowledge of her, filling in the blanks as he would have imagined: it had been unmarked; flawless light olive skin that had matched her face, save for the nail sized nick just near her left eye. Each scar was proof that she was different, that she was her, the one who saved him from that terror all those years ago, not the cause. Each scar was proof, and of them she had many.

Cullen stood as Lana turned and took his hand, pulling him from the chair. She walked him towards the bed, her legs barely hitting the edge before he pulled her towards him and bent low to meet her lips.

“Walk me through it.” Lana's words bounced off Cullen's lips between kisses.

“Through…?”

“What happened next?”

Cullen slowly parted from her kiss, the reality of everything coming back to him. His cheeks flushed as he straightened, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he glanced at the bed. He silently kicked himself in his mind as he felt his nervousness setting in once more.

“Well, I was… We were on the ground… You - I mean - It, r - removed my clothes, and its… Clothes...”

“Do you want to change that?”

“H - How so?”

“It removed everything… How about you do it this time? Let it be your choice.”

Cullen slowly nodded his head as he considered it. His eyes wandered down to her breasts, barely covered by the cotton that bound it back. He averted his gaze as he felt his face burn, quickly deciding to remove his shirt first. He grabbed the hem, pulling it over his head and taking his time setting it to the side. Cullen could feel the burning traveling down his shoulders and across his chest as his hands found the laces of his trousers. Chancing a glance at Lana, he felt his stomach do a bit of a leap as he watched her teeth bite lightly on her lower lip - right on that callus - all the while her eyes were glued to his hands as they pulled at the strings. Maker, she wasn't trying to hide how much she wanted him, and it made him more careless as he let the trousers drop to the floor at his feet.

As he tried to step out of the legs of his trousers, Cullen felt himself turn beet red as he realized one fatal mistake - his boots. He dropped down to crouch, sputtering apologies in his smalls as he tore at the laces of his boots and tried to kick them off as if doing so would curse their very existence.

“Alistair didn't even get his boots off our first time, if that makes you feel any better,” Lana said with a light and understanding laugh.

“Traitor, you're not supposed to tell people that,” Alistair scoffed, though the grin on his face gave his levity away.

“Not just me, then?” Cullen mumbled. He tried to take a breath to shake the embarrassment. The feeling faded away soon enough as he saw Lana's feet stepping closer to him.

“My turn, I believe?” She asked sweetly. Cullen slowly trailed his eyes over her form from where he was crouched, starting at her feet and moving up her cloth covered legs to the skin of her belly, all the way to her ocean blue eyes that sparkled down at him. Maker, he could crouch there all day, he decided. Boots shifted to the side and trousers with them, Cullen shifted to his knees as his eyes zeroed in on the laces of her breeches. He unconsciously licked his lower lip for a moment as he reached out to grasp the string. His heart was pounding, hand shaking ever so slightly as he pulled at the knot until it loosened, then placed a hand on either side of her hips, ensuring his index fingers were touching her skin to feel her as he pulled the breeches down.

Lana stepped out of the breeches one foot at a time as Cullen pulled them for her. Standing, he looked around the room as if there would be instructions written on the wall. When he met Lana's eyes again she merely smiled in a manner that seemed almost mischievous.

“I believe I'm still clothed, Cullen.”

Maker, but she was. Two strips of fabric kept her from being known to him. Two simple, measly strips of fabric, one which seemed a miracle it was holding her breasts back at all.

“Which… Um… Which one should I…?”

“I vote the breasts,” Alistair piped in suddenly from his chair. Lana shot a look at him that clearly told him to stop meddling, to which he threw his hands up in defense and added, “Just a suggestion. I apparently don't get a vote, sooo…”

“Whichever you prefer,” Lana cut in, turning her attention back to Cullen. Whichever he preferred… Maker, was there a preference to be had? In that moment, everything so very different from his traumatic past, it felt not unlike being presented with two gifts on Satinalia: two gifts which went hand-in-hand, each which would be opened eventually. Just… Which order?

Cullen let Alistair decide for him. It was simpler that way, though he wasn't sure he wouldn't have done the same in different circumstances. The grey breast band wrapped around her chest seemed to have a difficult task. It got the job done, if that job was only to hold her breasts in place long enough to get her armor on which would surely help with the rest. The world had seen plenty of advances in armor and weaponry, but, it seemed, these had scarcely seen an upgrade since the Exalted Age.

Standing and stepping close enough to reach around her back, Cullen peered over Lana's head to eye the knot. He fiddled with it a bit, gritting his teeth at one point when it seemed the knot had possibly gotten tighter, when suddenly he felt it pop free. He gingerly took a step back as it fell to the ground, his eyes shamelessly glued to her breasts. Cullen could tell Lana was blushing, but, Maker help him, he couldn't take his eyes off of her. He barely even registered the happy hum of approval from Alistair over in his corner, until Lana spoke.

“Would you like me to take care of this?” Her eyes were on his, watching his eyes follow her hand as she hooked her fingers in the corner of her smalls. Cullen managed a nod, and took a step back as she slipped them down.

A breath escaped Cullen as she stood before him. When first he had gazed upon the demon’s form - her form, twisted by what it had read in his mind - it had given off a feeling. Cullen couldn't explain it more than that. It hadn't felt right. It had felt conniving, eerie, like a dark, thorny path in the woods on an otherwise sunny day, riddled with tempting berries that carried an uncertain fate to whomsoever was foolish enough to pluck one and eat it. As Lana stood before him now, she seemed to glow in his mind. There was nothing eerie about her - her scars reminded him of that. And, Maker, she was perfect.

“Almost.” Cullen stopped in his tracks as Lana piped in after he had taken one step towards her. He furrowed his brows in confusion, only to catch her drift as her eyes trailed downwards on his body with a sly smile. “Not quite fair… Is it?”

“I suppose not,” he chuckled as he flushed once more. Cullen slid his smalls down, pink spreading across his body as his cock stood at full attention in the cool room.

“So…” Lana smiled, glancing eagerly at his length before looking back up at Cullen while she walked back towards the bed. She sat at the edge before sliding into the middle and patting the mattress as she continued to steal glances of him. “You were on the ground? I thought a bed may be more comfortable. I can move to the floor if you'd like.”

“No - No, you're right. A bed is… Better.” Cullen nodded as he followed her over. He slid onto the bed, suddenly aware of how strange the whole situation must have been. Here he was lying naked on a bed, with a naked woman, and her fully clothed husband sitting in the corner - and yet, there was a part of it that excited him, enough to keep him wanting to see how this would all play out.

“What happened next?”

Cullen took a deep breath as he prepared to answer her question.

“It… Sat on my legs, and began to… Situate. And that… That's when it all ended. And became… Then it turned, and…” Cullen sighed shakily, closing his eyes as Lana ran her fingers softly through his golden hair.

“We can take our time,” she said softly at his side. “We don't have to do this all tonight, Cullen. You're doing wonderful. If this is too much -”

“No.” Cullen said it firmly, shaking his head adamantly. He turned his head to the side to look at her, focusing on the scar on her chest, the top of the burn on her right shoulder, a cluster of freckles below her collarbone he had never seen before, all the differences. “I don't want to associate it with you anymore. I - I wasn’t certain before, but now... I want to do this.”

“Good.” Lana smiled, running her fingers through his shallow chest hair. “Because, I have to admit… Ever since you took your smalls off, I've been curious what you'll feel like…”

“Maker's breath.” Cullen nervously laughed, unable to say much else. He had never felt less suave in his entire life, he was sure of it. He blinked, watching as Lana straightened her body and slowly slid her leg over his side. Seeing her above him then, her hands on his chest, fiery copper hair in the candlelight, his mind began swirling. Lana watched as the color drained from his face, his hands gripped onto the blanket beneath him as if it were his only lifeline.

“Cullen?” She spoke his name softly. Placing her hands on either side of his face she could feel him beginning to sweat. His eyes seemed to stare right through her, as if he were lost in a deep memory. “Cullen?”

Alistair got up from his chair when Cullen didn't move. Cullen's breath was heavy, his muscles tense as Alistair crouched down next to the bed and put his hand on Cullen's shoulder.

“Come on, Rutherford,” Alistair said firmly, giving him a good shake. Alistair's voice seemed to snap him out of it, his voice and way of addressing him not too different from how he had addressed him when they were both Templar trainees. Cullen swallowed as he met Alistair's eyes, then he turned and looked back at Lana.

“Do it.”

“What?” Lana was shocked at Cullen's request. It left him more like a command than a plea, determination coursing over his tongue. Alistair had backed off again to his chair, trying his best to let the two of them work through it now that Cullen seemed to be back.

“I want it to end. Please.”

“Then end it,” Lana said. “You said this was where it changed… So change it. Take control. What do you want to do?”

It had never happened before. In his nightmares, reliving that hell he had been through, it played over just the same as he had experienced: everything but, her soft legs wrapped around his torso, melting away into purple and horror before he could even experience her. He knew exactly what he wanted to do to change it.

Cullen grasped Lana by the waist, holding her in place as he rolled them until he was on top of her while she squeaked shortly in surprise. Lana hummed as his lips crashed to hers, whimpers bubbling in her throat as his fingers delved between them to test how wet she was. Maker, she was soaking, clearly having been ready for this since the moment she sat on his lap what seemed like ages ago to him.

In normal circumstances, Cullen would have liked to have taken his time. These were anything but normal circumstances. Desperate to break the cycle, to have something new to add to the loop, Cullen slid up slightly, groaning low in unison with Lana's loudening whimpers as he rubbed his cock against her heat, coating it in her quim. He sat back just enough to glance between them, taking his hard cock in hand as he guided it to her entrance.

Cullen's breath was loud, relieved as he felt her heat surround him. It was as if glass had been his prison and it had shattered all around him the moment her mouth hung open with a moan that echoed throughout the room. The sound made him shiver, and he watched Lana as her brow furrowed near her shut eyes, hands gripping the blanket as she fought the urge to roll her hips until he was ready. She was waiting for him to be ready. Cullen pulled back with his hips before gently thrusting back into her. His eyes rolled slightly at the feel of her, quickly opening again to watch as her chest arched slightly with each thrust. Maker, she was already making so much noise, and he was barely doing anything. The thought made Cullen feel warm, stroking his ego as he moved one hand from her hip to balance on the mattress near her face.

Lana arched towards him, her mouth hanging open as her lips curled into a smile. Maker, Cullen felt different than Alistair. Alistair was gifted when it came to his size - she knew that from the few she had been able to compare by then. Cullen still filled her well, though, very well, in a way that didn't stretch too much for comfort. Oh, Maker, and that slight curve Cullen had to him - that was new, that was very nice.

Her arms reached up, wrapping around to Cullen's back as he pressed his chest closer to her. Lana took advantage of Cullen's shoulder being level with her lips, pulling him closer to moan loudly against his skin as his thrusts became more purposeful. His hand slipped down to her thigh, pulling until her legs were wrapped around his hips. Cullen slid his hand over every inch of her he could reach, memorizing the feel of her, embedding the memory of her and this moment deep in his mind: he felt the difference between the soft skin of her breast to the scar his thumb ran over; the curve over the peak of her nipple, the way she shuddered and gasped as he grasped over it; the dip over her navel, down to the rough and smooth of the burn that lay over the bump of the long, deep scar just near her hip; and the sweet, sweet way his fingers could dig into the flesh of her bottom, the way her moans became louder and louder as he pulled her towards him while he became totally and incandescently lost in her.

Time slowed down for Cullen, and at the last possible moment he suddenly remembered one of Alistair's rules. His abdomen was tightening, his body practically lifting as he felt his end near so soon after only just beginning. Grasping her legs Cullen peeled her from his body, pulling out of her and grasping his cock with his hand as he sat up on his knees. He groaned loudly, covering the tip with his palm as he pulsed and spurted into his hand. Cullen gasped, suddenly finding the room less than full of air to him. He gave himself a few hearty, slow strokes, ensuring that he had been emptied of every last drop before falling back to sit on the bed.

The sound of Lana's happy humming made the corners of Cullen's mouth twitch into a lazy grin. He lifted his head to look her over, finding her still in the position he had left her: on her back, practically spread eagled with a wide grin on her face and flushed skin all over. As her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze, Cullen felt his insides flip for what felt like the hundredth time that night.

“How did we do?” She asked breathlessly, and Cullen couldn't help but chuckle.

“I would say… We did a perfect job.”

“Think you'll have better thoughts in your mind when you see me now?”

“I - Yes, I... I think I have quite the image to think of now.” Cullen flinched slightly as a cloth hit his shoulder. He looked down, picking up the light blue handkerchief Alistair had tossed at him before looking at the warden questioningly.

“I promise, it's clean.” Alistair winked as he lifted himself off the chair. Cullen nodded in sudden understanding, flushing as he used the handkerchief to clean his hand off. He looked up as Alistair approached the bed, watching as the man looked over his wife with a sparkling interest and a smirk that even made Cullen blush. “I hope you haven't been tired out just yet… My turn, yes?”

#spicy #lana surana #alistair theirin #cullen rutherford #cullanistair #lanistair #cullana #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #my ocs #my writing #fanfiction #the start of a beautiful friendship lmao

22 notes · View notes

luminousbeansarewe · 4 years

Note

what are your takes/version of how the sequel trilogy went down? because i also have my own version in my head, not.... that, but im really interested in the ideas other people have had for it

hoo boy there’s a lot of ground to cover here lmao i will try to keep them as short as i can... i also enjoy multiple versions of events and outcomes for the sequels as long as they’re in-character so i’m not trying to say no other version of the sequels is good or cool bc only a sith deals in absolutes amirite? (i won’t apologize for that dumb joke.) first the jumping-off points:

first of all, i fully support Force-sensitive Finn. even if he didn’t become a full-blown Jedi, if the entire concept of the Jedi was reforged and we don’t see him become the kind of Jedi we saw in the prequels (more on that later), i see him as someone who was attuned to the Force in a way that is similar to how i conceive of Barriss; empathetic to the suffering and joy of others. this would drive him to defect from the Empire and fear it, too. i also saw him becoming a reluctant leader for the rebellion, and there’s a GREAT fic which i’ll link here that riffs on the idea that he creates a spark within the stormtrooper ranks and more and more of them begin to defect... which i love

Rey being a nobody is cool to me. the ONE character moment where she became super relatable for me was when she realized how frightened she was of her own Force abilities. but i don’t think she has to be the legacy of Palps to have that. she doesn’t need supercharged powers to be spooked by them in a post-Jedi Order world where the most recent memory anybody has of the Force is Vader. (also Rey being a Kenobi seems more out of character for Obi-Wan than anything else lol he was pretty committed to the ways of the Order even after they were destroyed, plus he already had one kid to furtively watch over... just imo). this also ties into my expansion on the Force.

Poe being not a carbon copy of Han. i think Leia looked after him, found him somehow after she sent Ben to the Jedi Academy and was a motherly figure in his life. i like the idea that he was a little shit, and she’s the one who taught him to turn his reactive defiance of authority into bravery when fighting for the rebels. i think he looked up to her, wanted to be a leader like her. i saw him in the position of generals like Akbar by the end, as he learns to balance risk-taking with steady leadership. I wanted to see that growth, how those leaders are formed, see Leia get to impart her wisdom to someone. (also i fully support Finn/Poe and Finn/Rey/Poe, i’m not a committed shipper so i’m down with no romance at all between them but those ships are choice af and Stormpilot is all Oscar Isaac wanted anyway, so...) plus can u imagine the dichotomy of Ben the fallen son with Poe, the “adopted” son who became what Ben couldn’t? the guilt of Leia for not knowing how to teach her son about the Force, doing better half-raising a nobody who had the same shitty attitude as Han when they met but no Force ability? THIS IS JUICY CHARACTER CONTENT

Rose was given cheesy lines to introduce an important topic: that fighting is all well and good but throwing away your principles defeats the purpose of the fight in the first place (an important theme in the Clone Wars era, too.) she was there to be the voice of the truly little people in the gffa, who we don’t hear much about in the other trilogies. Finn’s sensitivity puts him at risk of the sorrow-to-hate arc i described for Barriss; Rose is there to be the empathy that sustains hope rather than becomes a crushing weight. i love the idea that she might rally volunteers from blue-collar places (like... Lothal, for example?) and spearhead the notion that the New Republic should be very different from the old one, calling out the fact that working conditions didn’t change with the shift from republic to empire and the First Order simply took it to an extreme that left her and her sister with nothing else to lose.

Ben Solo, hoo boy. so here’s the thing, we don’t KNOW Ben Solo. we were expected to want him to be redeemed because he was the son of Han and Leia, and that’s it. that’s lazy as fuck. him killing Han in the first movie (if it happened it should have been in movie #2, that’s how fucking second acts work) was an excuse to shock people, subvert the ‘i can’t kill my own father’ thing, and make sure we knew he was “evil” even though we’re supposed to also want a redemption arc? you have to read the Rise of Kylo Ren comics to learn that he was a) hounded by the voice of Snoke in his head from childhood, manipulated by it, which is horrific bc it’s like grooming... or b) that he felt HUGE pressure as a legacy Force-user to save the galaxy, lead the New Jedi Order, etc. these are much more empathy-generating and we should have learned them in TFA. echoes of Anakin much? which is why i think him being redeemed in a way other than self-sacrifice (which made sense for Vader given his long history of being a terrible person, knowing it was too late for him in the end, and really just wanting to save his son rather than “become good again”) is more interesting than him just falling (which is too much the same as the prequels.)

it should have been Finn’s call, a moment of Truth that held the balance of Finn as either falling prey to darkness or learning forgiveness, whether or not Kylo got redeemed. Finn and Rey working together to get to that point while Rose and Poe took on the military aspect of the Big Finale would have been great. Finn with a lightsaber to Kylo’s throat, feeling the temptation to murder him instead of making him face what he’s become in a meaningful way? Rey trying to urge him away from darkness as she’s been tempted before, but this is the first time Finn’s really been tested, and he was the one who so often reminded her of her own humanity? Rey calling up Rose’s point of creating a new paradigm instead of recreating the old one, of Poe’s growth or Leia’s willingness to take Ben back showing it’s possible? shiiiiiiit

the rest is going under a cut!

SO... given those things as a basis...

there being no scene where Force-ghost Anakin bops Kylo on the head (but you know, more subtly and with gorgeous metaphor ofc) was a travesty. we needed some version of that, also imo that reaffirms that Anakin was the chosen one... as him redirecting his grandson away from that path would be restoring hella balance

Snoke should have had his own fucked up backstory, if he was even there at all. a dark sider fucking with Ben Solo is reasonable to me, but Snoke could have been someone who looked up to Palps as much as Kylo supposedly looked up to Vader. that would have been interesting... maybe there are multiple “nobodies” who are being touched by the Force, just like there always were in the prequels era, but some are going dark with no Jedi to try to convince them otherwise? or, maybe Snoke’s life was ruined by the Empire and he chose to become the beast that harmed him, whereas Kylo becomes the version where you think you want to do that but then realize that it’s just as bad and you still have empathy and regret what you’ve done?

Thrawn being the main military antagonist, since they couldn’t be arsed to make Hux into anything but a sniveling baby fascist (despite his really upsetting backstory of an abusive father, also found in the comics... noticing a trend here?). Thrawn was already established and beloved in the legends. why would you not use him. whY?? he’s like a foil for Tarkin. contention between him and the Force-users in charge (Snoke and Kylo) would have been VERY interesting, esp with the character of Thrawn in the new canon seeing the Empire as a ‘necessary evil’ and now maybe having the potential to make it into something else? how’s JOINING WITH THE NEW REPUBLIC for a subversion of the classic tropes, Rian?????? you fucker????

if Thrawn’s history is “too storied” for a bunch of cowards to "fit” into a new movie trilogy, invent another antivillain to take Thrawn’s place whose history is a little more concurrent with the sequel era... you cowards

Luke fucking off after his failure isn’t out of character IMO. he was THE STRONGEST JEDI EVER and his star pupil still fell? maybe he broke under the same pressure Ben did. maybe that’s what allows him to reach back out towards Kylo and reconnect, admitting his failure. i want to hear more about him cutting himself off from the Force bc i LOVE KOTOR 2 and Kreia, but maybe that’s too much for one trilogy to delve into meaningfully, i dunno

Han fucking off after Ben wrecked the temple isn’t OOC either. i think Han was always a little frightened of the Force, the way many non-sensitives are. I think he was critical as a father, because he was critical of himself and Han is the king of projection. i wanted more of the dysfunctional relationship between him and Ben.

if Kylo kills Han, the scene needs to show more of the fact that Kylo actually regretted it, which Snoke only alludes to in TLJ, foreshadowing his future. i rewrote Han’s death scene for a friend and got a lot of good feedback about it so maybe i’ll post it here sometime. i can get behind a version where he doesn’t die, too, i just haven’t fleshed it out in my own head.

i like the idea that the Jedi Order needed to be remade, and that Luke saw the failure of the old order when he saw Ben turn like so many of the Jedi in the Order did. i like that Rey and Finn might spearhead this, and maybe Kylo’s role is to know the dark side intimately enough now that he can actually teach how it works, how to deal with it... how inevitable its temptation is. because...

in this canon, i don’t think the Force has light or darkness. i think it’s Force-users who do. it is their internal landscapes which cause them to “fall” or be redeemed or not, after all. Finn can attest to the same, so can Rey and Luke... so like, all the Jedi need DBT therapy or something i guess. lmao hold the dialectic, you nerds

the Force has shown time and time again that it cannot be “balanced” so maybe it is ourselves who need to become balanced instead

the Force is chaos, a never-ending series of colliding butterfly effects that to us will always and inevitably be seen as turmoil, cause and effect on a cosmic scale. if you drink too greedily of its power, or try to exert total control over it, by its nature it will consume you because it is beyond your mortal ken. whatever you hunger for, the force will give you more and more of it until you are overwhelmed, drowning in it

this is why peace was a central teaching of the Jedi... peace, the antithesis of chaos, which can only ever be created from within, the eye of the storm which must be sought time and time again

anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk? i’m always down to hear other people’s ideas for these characters tbh. and always down to get more into these topics if you want to know more... esp as it relates to the failure of the Jedi Order, or KOTOR 2 and Revan and Kreia, or OF COURSE my OCs because Sol has a very interesting relationship with the Force.

thank you for this ask lordimperius!! ^_^

#star wars sequels #this got way deeper into my meta than i meant for it to but i can't help it #my headcanons #asks #if you read all of this or even most of it you're an actual angel

10 notes · View notes

ateddieadaykeepsthedoctoraway · 4 years

Text

posting this here before i forget again but the more i think abt the hk au im like… hm…

ANYWAYS WARNING THIS IS ME GOING VERY STREAM OF THOUGHT NONE OF THIS IS FLESHED OUT YET MOST OF THIS IS ONLY HALF FORMED CONCEPTS n ill prolly delete this once/if i work it out further

p4 would work so well in a post radiance sealed away setting w p3 having been the seal . like. minato/the hollow knight sealing up their respective gods rlly do be out there

the problem is that idk if id be into the idea of him being made a vessel? maybe somehow hollowed himself out n became a vessel as sacrifice? idk i haven’t seen p3 in years he just doesn’t fit the idea i have for the vessels (read later but im mainly reserving them for the non humans)

idk what that’d make the rest of the p3 cast but im here to talk p4 so like sh

anyways. tempted to make the radiance less nyx exactly n more just… a vague concept for all the gods

so her leaking out again /the infection starting again as stand in for izanamis fog spreading n ppl going not great over that

all i know is that this au or whatever would prolly start at the start of it starting to spread? so its not like the game where everythings already gone to shit

all i have is for ted mainly is that he’s a vessel ! cus the abyss felt like it could work for him n also the anti shadow suppression weapons (yes im lumping the shadow and the anti shadow weapons in together here its mainly just bcus they all work w the idea of not being supposed to have ‚real’ personalities)

i kind of want him as a mask maker! maybe not the mask maker but i like the idea of tiny vessel escaping the abyss and as he finds his actual personality more actually making other masks for himself to fit the self he wants to be towards others more (to mimic him creating the bear costume n human body to fit in as well skjdhfjks)(also as a small nod to him making glasses for others ig! mask maker)

im not entirely sure if i want to keep the dreamers? well. im keeping them but not asleep. was thinking of making them the velvet attendants? having sealed away, the seal. they aint sleeping n will actively fight u tho. my main reasoning for this one was I Think It Sounds Cool

dont know how to deal w the pale king n stuff tho so

im thinking abt kind of. getting rid of them? which prolly sounds like a major element to remove but the kings/queens/wyrm god stuff translates over a lil harder w the actual persona gods being like that (i wouldn’t know how to distribute the persona gods over radiance pale king white queen n grimm so i will just not do that i think (ik grimms not a wyrm but im not gonna lie folks his lore confuses me so i will just ignore it for this one) so instead the pale king could just be the entire kirijo group? creating the vessels to battle the radiance/the persona gods p much

as for the rest of the cast…. yosuke as a mantis? still has his wings. fast n jumpy to fit w him being fast n air based. speaking of the mantises- adachi possibly as the traitor lord?? not necisarrily a lord like in canon but just someone who accepted the infection willingly to gain power

design wise speaking i like the idea of chie as a bee? warrior bee. for yukiko- idk wtf isma was bug wise but cus her ability grants acid immunity n the acid i think could fit yukikos fire/n immunity her healing powers i wanna say smth like isma. maybe a giraffe weevil (like willoh) as species since idk what isma was and their long necks kinda remind me of yukikos bird shadows neck. yes thats fairly vague but im doing my best. giraffe weevil who has weird acid powers i dont even know. (THO I DO ALSO KINDA LIKE THE IDEA OF WEAVER YUKIKO. HM. MUST THINK ABOUT THIS SOME MORE IM JUST THROWING SHIT AT THE WALL RN)

kanji as whatever hegemol was. big scary towering bug. (who ends up actually being not scary!) for rise… wanna give her a design kinda like ze’mer maybe? traveling bard bug (which could be why she’s useful as a backup person moreso informing the team? she knows abt stuff cus shes been places)

naoto and yu as i genuinely have no idea . i dont know. help me. maybe naoto as a moth??? removing the moth tribe as inherently connected to the radiance. cus i removed the other worms/gods n jut replaced them w kirijo group radiance is kind of an outlier here n would prolly be a weird force of nature fuelled by emotions thing to fit in w persona more. can still take the form of a moth or whatever tho i might change that but the point is the moth tribe isn’t connected to r anymore n she wasn’t some ancient god already being worshipped that got angry shes just a force that suddenly started existing now

anyways. they all meet up bcus of infection starting to spread n start investigating and end up facing off w izanami version of the radiance (again. radiance is more a general concept of all gods so for the p3 cast it would’ve been more a nyx version. for p4 shes more izanami cus i make the rules in this house)

the dream world still exists and its where most of the major fights take place! like fighting the attendants- they’re not asleep but they can access the dream world n can only be fought in there (they dont die if defeated they’ll just be like yea i wont stop ya anymore do your thing)(defeating them prolly required to progress into certain areas besides them just protecting the seal)

teds still the one in charge of portalling them between worlds! when he was scouring the land still forming his personality he got access to a dream nail he can use to not only enter dreams himself but also let the others come w him. why? how? i dont know that yet. this is still just me throwing shit at the wall

#not art #ok thats enough me going batshit #half of this probably does not make sense but #OH WELL #ill flesh it out n work out the actual details #like #one day.#im sorry for this not being art my ass is being very depressed rn #drawing hard

10 notes · View notes

yunoteru4ever · 5 years

Note

How are you? I would like to share a question. Do you know why Yuno has so much skill in using weapons? I have read that she did training with special forces throughout her youth, but is that a canon? By the way, congratulations on the page, greetings.

Thank you! And since you first sent this in Spanish, I was really tempted to try and answer it in Spanish. I started to do that at one point, but I haven’t used in my Spanish in like a decade or something and now I am pretty bad, honestly. I can read it better than I can write it or speak it, so there was probably going to be some messy “Google Translate” work at some point. :) Heehee.

ANYWAYS... great question!

Short Version: No, there’s no evidence that she went through any combat/self-defense training as a child. There’s no evidence she didn’t have that kind of training, but it’s only “fanon” as far as I’ve seen. However, there IS canon evidence for at least some the skills and talent she exhibits that lets her defeat her enemies... some of which is just kind of logically derived and some of which is clear-cut. And some of her combat talents are just utterly unsourced and unexplained - especially one in particular.

But to get into all that, I’m going to have to get really wordy and try to lay out what we know and how we know it, provide some info that might’ve helped her beat some of the security/police she battled, and THEN call out the one big thing that we can’t really justify.

So.

Long Version:

What we know Yuno has going for her (and what her enemies have going against them) based on the canon and official supplemental materials is this:

1. Yuno was already considered a top athlete in school even before the survival game was thrust upon her (the charts on the walls in the Gasai house certainly imply that this was part of the the expectations her parents forced on her to become the ‘ideal citizen’ and all that). A lot of her innate physicality and muscle control probably stems from that.

2. For the first half of the series, Yuno sticks pretty religiously to wielding a variety of kitchen knives - she does pull out a box-cutter at one point in the first half, but she never uses combat-specific blades until the later part of the series. Furthermore, the majority of her knives are specifically ideal for carving meat. Based on all that and the fact that we already know that her mom forced her to learn how cook extremely well (and apparently that training worked out if Yuki’s mom is any judge), I feel like we can make a conclusion that isn’t completely stated/proven to be “canon” but is still logically derived from canonical evidence: Her knowledge of how to skillfully handle knives and where to strike with them to do maximum damage likely comes from her cooking and butchering experience.

3. At least one supplemental piece of content mentions that Yuno spent the months between her arrival in the Second World and the start of the second Survival Game attending school, following Yuki, and “preparing/training” for the coming game. That’s the only official mention I know about that mentions her “training,” and it would only be for... what, I think it’s four months at the most? (I don’t currently remember the exact timeline... need to go back and look that up.) She knows the game is coming even if she no longer remembers many details of what will happen due to Murmur 1’s memory erasure. But what kind of training did she go through? What does that mean? We don’t know. :(

4. The main weapon she uses is usually supposed to be her intelligence and her ability to understand the mindset of her enemies. It’s something she uses most overtly when she puts herself into Fifth’s shoes and figures out where his diary is, but you can also see it in how she outmaneuvers Akise towards the end. She’s most easily blindsided by people she doesn’t know very well, and she most easily outwits opponents that she’s spent significant time around.

5. In the manga, Yuki at one point dismisses 11th’s security force as “rent-a-cops,” indicating that those guys in the Quad Towers are not entirely a trained police force, at least - some (maybe all...?) are merely paid security guards and personal bodyguards. So they probably go down more easily than actual police forces would since they don’t have that same kind of training. (11th did have an official police detail protecting him when they “attacked” his limo, but they also obscured that assault with some kind of gas grenades, so I don’t know how much the police mattered since “surprise” was the key factor.)

...............and okay, that’s what we have to go on in the official canon that might help us out. It’s also worth mentioning that the general element of surprise being on her side in some situations, but I don’t know if that always is enough to explain things away.

The Big Hanging Question: Even if Yuno is just using her wits, some knife skills, her physical capability and a limited degree of training + surprise to defeat her enemies, there’s still one thing that isn’t explained at all: What about her capability with guns?! Particularly the fact that she even manages to take out a group of Special Assault Team (i.e., “Japanese SWAT”) officers with a pistol at one point!

Kurusu/Fourth thinks about her fantastic ability to aim during the arc where he turns against our leads, and his inner monologue notes that it’s “not likely” she’s using a gun for the first time. And... okay... but like, where did she use them before? More specifically, where did she ever learn to be so damn good with them?! Citizens can own guns in Japan, but it takes a lot of screening and clearance to do it. No way is some teenage girl going to get one in any legal way.

She usually winds up using a Smith & Wesson Model 37 Airweight — a pistol that was reasonably popular with both police forces and non-government security guards in the mid-’00s. Maybe her parents’ banks/armored trucks had security teams that exposed her to this pistol in some fashion?

Maybe the SAT squad wasn’t expecting the teenage girl to run right at them with her gun blazing away. But even if the element of surprise helps her to win, that doesn’t explain her amazing aim. So where did she get firearm experience? You have to draw your own conclusions on that one; there is no canon justification that I’m aware of.

#asks #gettin' SUPER geeky over here #mirai nikki #future diary #anon #the future diary #anime #yuno gasai

31 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 5 years

Note

Whats Nightwing and Deathstroke's dynamic? Why does it make you wince? Im not very familiar with it.

Nightwing and Slade actually have a really interesting and compelling dynamic in a lot of ways, that can be really good when written well and really terrible when not. My biggest issue is it is that its not sexual in the comics (Slade is a good thirty years older than him) or in other adaptations that have a version of it, like the Teen Titans cartoon. But fandom being fandom, Dick/Slade is a bigger ship than like, half his actual canon ships, so any new take on it always comes with a big sigh at all the new Dick/Slade shipping that’s gonna crop up or have a resurgence cuz of it. And I’m annoyed enough with YJ right now that I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’ll do anything new or interesting with it that’s worth having to wade through pages of new Dick/Slade noncon in the months afterwards. Its a ship that generates a lot of non-con fic in particular, or at least my old favorite, ‘dubcon’, with the dubious part of the consent referring to the fact that it usually involves mind control or brainwashing, both tropes that show up a lot in their interactions anyway. (Not that there’s anything dubious about this NOT allowing for consensual anything, just that people love to call it dubcon because….fuck if I know).

But anyway….in the comics, Deathstroke is a mercenary who’s one of the Titans’ earliest and most iconic enemies. Though at various times and depending on who’s writing him, he’s sometimes an antihero and even a semi-trusted ally of the Titans (usually with Dick specifically), other times a villain but with his own personal code of honor that means he won’t help the Titans or other heroes but he’ll refuse to take jobs that would pit him against them, and other times he’s full on remorseless and sadistic villain who hates them all and wants them all dead.

He also had three kids, his son Grant (the first Ravager), his younger son Joseph (Jericho) and his youngest, their half-sister Rose (the second Ravager). Basically, the first time he interacted with the Titans was when the supervillain group HIVE put out a contract to have the Titans all killed. Slade turned them down cuz of his personal honor code and how young the Titans were, but his son Grant accepted the contract in exchange for HIVE giving him superpowers to help him fulfill it. The process didn’t work right though, and when fighting the Titans, Grant’s powers overloaded and killed him.

Slade blamed the Titans for this, and vowed to finish the contract and kill them as some twisted way of honoring Grant. He doesn’t do Logic so good, well no, its more like he doesn’t really do parenting so good, as in he tends to have fuck all to do with his kids 364 days of the year, but then something bad happens to one of them and suddenly he thinks he’s Dad of the Year and going 0 to Homicidal in six seconds flat is the way to make up for all the times he’s let them down or screwed them over, instead of just…not Doing That.

So Slade recruited a young meta named Tara Markov (yup, that one) and trained her as his apprentice specifically to help him get revenge on the Titans. At his prompting, she joined the Titans as a spy for him, feeding him intel and plotting against them in one of the best known comicbook storylines of all time, The Judas Contract. It was up there with some of the X-Men’s best known stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. (In the 80s actually, the Titans comic book was almost as popular as Uncanny X-Men at the time. Like way more than the Justice League. They were DC’s big hitters, popularity wise - specifically the lineup that for the most part was centered around Dick, Donna, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg and Raven, with other members like the original Titans and later ones like Pantha and Wildebeest coming and going at various points in the 80s too).

Ultimately, Tara made her move and betrayed the Titans, enabling Slade to kidnap each of them one by one and turn them over to the HIVE….all except for Dick. In the meanwhile, he was approached by Slade’s ex-wife Adeline Kane - who has an equally all over the place dynamic with Slade, like sometimes she’s his worst enemy and other times she’s manipulating events behind the scenes to help him without him knowing, because she still loves him…it basically just depends on who’s writing her, same as with Slade. Also, Kane is Adeline’s maiden name, she’s distantly related to Kate Kane aka Batwoman in some extremely complicated manner I can never remember, but that’s mostly just trivia. I can’t remember a time its ever been relevant to a story, and it has nothing to do with Slade’s interactions with Dick.

ANYWAY. Point being, so Adeline, who blames and hates Slade at this time for their son Grant’s death, along with their other son Joey, seek out Dick and offer their help rescuing the Titans and defeating Slade. Joey is a metahuman as a result of Slade’s altered DNA (he has regenerative powers and is actually immortal, due to experiments the army did on him while he was a soldier). So Joey was born with powers although they didn’t activate until he was a young adult. His codename was Jericho and his power lets him possess peoples’ bodies. He’s also mute, and I’m half expecting him to show up in YJ fairly soon. If not this season then hinted at by the end of it. Also wouldn’t surprise me if they had plans to have him be gay in the YJ universe. He’s a character who was coded as gay practically from his debut. Joey/Dick is actually probably Dick’s oldest and most enduring slash ship, for the record.

So Joey works with Dick to rescue the Titans and defeat Slade, who’s captured and goes on trial for kidnapping the Titans. Joey ends up joining the Titans in the aftermath, and Adeline’s yay good, this was my Sekrit Plan all along, I did all this solely in the hopes that you would end up a superhero and have positive influences and not end up a murdering douchebag of flexible morality like your dad cuz fuck that guy, am I right Titans?

Did Adeline really just do all of that because she wanted her son to have more friends? Like…idk honestly it could go either way. Like….it IS the kind of thing she would do, tbh, so its as likely she was telling the truth as it is she just wanted to screw Slade one last time to avenge Grant and then was like hey if I take credit for my kid ending up a Titan now, I could probably play the “you owe me one” card later if I ever need to. Addy does like handing out “you owe me one” cards, just to be safe. Never know when you might need one.

The thing all this has to do with Dick is like, so it basically ended up being Dick versus Slade in the big finale, while Joey was rescuing the others and helping them face off against Tara. And for whatever reason - with multiple takes on this offered by multiple writers in the decades since - something about Dick just stuck with Slade and he’s had a kinda fascination with him ever since. Like he’s always talking about how much more he could teach Dick than what he already learned from Bruce, trying to convince him he’s got a killer instinct that Bruce just suppressed and its holding him back, blah blah, like saying he’s good, but Slade could make him great, so he surpasses both Bruce and Slade. TBH, he spends WAY more time obsessing about Dick and getting Dick to join him than he bothers paying attention to his own kids.

It really isn’t inherently sexual though, its a weird kinda pseudo father/son, pseudo mentor/mentee type thing. And its not entirely one-sided, because Dick at various times IS…tempted? Kinda? Like whenever Dick’s having some kind of crisis of conscience, or he’s pissed at Bruce or is questioning the effectiveness of superheroes or why they do the things they do or what does it all matter blah blah blah like omg I love you Dick, I really do, but sometimes you are such a drama queen, my god, blast some My Chemical Romance, experiment with drugs and chill out already, its not that deep. (LOL I kid. Well mostly). But point being, every once in awhile something happens that puts Dick in a funk and makes him second guess himself, and he spends like….a month being convinced he should reinvent himself as the anti-Bruce, that’s the solution, and this usually sends him in search of Slade except he’s always like ‘OH FANCY MEETING YOU HERE, THIS IS TOTALLY RANDOM AND NOT ON PURPOSE’.

And Slade likes to take any opportunity to try and convince him like BE A BAD GUY DICK, KILL PEOPLE FOR MONEY, ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT. Except inevitably Slade does something that pisses Dick off and Dick snaps out of it and is like NO, IM A HERO AND THIS IS BAD, I REMEMBER NOW AND I’LL NEVER JOIN YOU, YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD I HATE YOU! And then they fight again, but with swords, not words, and then they’re like crap, we’re too well matched, this is going nowhere, you’re a worthy opponent, the only one I can truly respect, blah blah and then they call a breather and Slade’s like hey kid, wanna grab a beer and Dick’s like yeah but only if you promise not to kill anyone. And Slade’s like ugh fine.

And then Slade’s all, look kid, its been fun but its time you went home to your real family and your real life, this isn’t you, you’re a hero, I can’t try and turn you into something you’re not, its Wrong. And Dick’s like….umm yeah, I know, I literally JUST said that, how hard did I hit you? And Slade’s like NO SHHH, DONT TRY AND ARGUE, GO, YOU GO NOW, GO ON, LIVE YOUR LIFE, YOU DONT BELONG HERE IN THE DARK WITH ME, YOU’RE ONE OF THE GOOD ONES, GO BACK TO YOUR OWN KIND.

And Dick’s like no seriously dude, I already called my dad to come pick me up, what are you even on right now, are we having the same conversation?

Slade, sobbing paternally: I HAVE TO LET YOU GO, ALL I EVER DO IS HURT MY KIDS, I’M A TERRIBLE FATHER, ITS NO WONDER JOEY HATES ME.

And then Dick awkwardly slips out while Slade’s mid monologue, with his head thrown back yelling up at the sky and shaking his fists like WHY GOD WHY IS THIS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN WHY - because the thing about Slade is he’s actually even MORE of a drama queen than Dick, he just hides it better. Most of the time. But seriously tho.

Anyway yeah, this is like…a pattern with them basically. And Slade’s like, you’ve inspired me, I see in you the man I could’ve become, maybe even that I can still be, and he like doubles down on his personal honor code and becomes a Mercenary With A Heart for a couple years and even helps out the Titans every now and then (basically just whenever Dick’s in trouble and he goes on a killing spree, like NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO MURDER MY KIDS BUT ME - also by this point in time, Joey had died because Slade literally killed him, I forget why, it was a dumb story, but its okay Joey came back, its not like his name is Uncle Ben. But yeah, killing his kids is kinda a thing with Slade too, and he’s very proprietary about it).

And then he falls off the wagon and is like fuck, I forgot how much I like murder, ugh, you should have never tried to make me change, THIS IS WHO I AM, and Dick’s just like….I literally do not know where you’re getting these conversations from, like am I there when you think we’re having them, am I just blacking out…do I need to see a doctor??? And Slade’s like YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU EVER MET ME, GRAYSON, FROM NOW ON I AM THE TITANS’ MORTAL ENEMY and runs off all dramatically while Dick’s like…..wut, and all the other Titans are like srsly, dude, what is WITH you too, and Dick’s all I DON’T EVEN KNOW, HE’S JUST LIKE THAT.

In all seriousness though, ultimately my take on their dynamic is that for Slade, Dick’s a combination of seeing himself and Grant in Bruce and Dick’s dynamic, and its like….all about his regret and missed opportunities. Like, he tends to be super judgey of Bruce and critical of how he trains (and raises Dick) and passive aggressively like *I* would never do that and Dick just kinda lifts an eyebrow and is all, you’ve literally killed two of your three kids.

But like, Slade kinda views himself as the anti-Batman and thus Dick is inadvertently cast as Grant, but its like Slade can never decide if he thinks Bruce is actually holding Dick back from his full potential and he wants to push Dick the way he thinks Bruce refuses to, or if like, he blames Bruce for getting Dick involved in this life, the same life that got Grant killed, and wants to protect Dick from Bruce and from the same thing happening to him. So its this weird mix of Slade manipulating Dick sometimes and pushing him way further than even Bruce ever does and saying its for his own good, but also randomly mixed in there are these bouts of extreme protectiveness, and there’s like zero rhyme or reason to which he is on any given day and there’s never any way to predict where Slade will land and so it always fucks with Dick’s head in a big way, he’s like…I’m getting whiplash.

And then on Dick’s end, like, the thing about Dick like I’ve mentioned before is he’s a huge people pleaser? Like he’s a very empathetic caretaker type personality who sinks a huge amount of his identity into being everything for everyone, to the extent that he tends to lose sight of himself in the process, sometimes. And he’s also a perfectionist who was raised with the most demanding father of all demanding fathers ever, and has a lot of abandonment issues and insecurities that Bruce’s mutant power is to trip over and set off in the worst possible ways.

And so I think the reason Dick keeps seeking Slade out every now and then is not because he ACTUALLY wants to ever take Slade up on his offer and genuinely become his apprentice or partner and like, turn his back on how he was raised. I think the point of it for Dick is the fact that each and every time he ends up affirming for himself no, wait, this ISN’T actually what I want, I just needed to be reminded of that, to remember that. That he always pulls himself back before going too far. And at the same time, I do think on some level he likes that Slade is this kinda constant in his life, that at the end of the day Slade is like…so fixated on his potential and his achievements and his worth as a fighter and a hero, because like….Dick Grayson is a person who craves validation but will never ask for it ever.

And he’s one of those people who everyone is just so USED to liking without even thinking about it that it never occurs to them when talking amongst themselves about how great he is, that they forget to say this to his actual face? And so he never hears it? And never asks for it, because gasp, then people might think he’s needy, and that would be bad, so he mostly just goes and sulks in his apartment about how nobody likes him and he’s terribad. Except for Slade. Slade always compliments him on what a good fighter and what a good planner and what a good leader he is, so hmm wonder what he’s doing. He hasn’t committed any crimes in six months and I can’t find any reason to track him down and bring him in? Ugh, that asshole. Okay, ummm, I guess I could tell him I’m thinking of turning evil again, I haven’t done that in a couple years, he’d probably buy it.

And then later Bruce is pacing around the Batcave wrathfully shaking his fist, like “Damn that man and his sick hold over my son, if only I knew how he keeps getting his hooks into you!”

And Dick basically shrugs and plays games on his phone. “He mostly just tells me I’m special, and that’s nice to hear.”

Bruce, still pacing and ranting and fist shaking: “What kind of evil genius is he, how master a manipulator he must be to be able to get inside your head and upend your normal views of right and wrong, to make you entertain these ideas of working with him, learning from him…”

Dick: No its seriously just the saying nice things about me bit. I like that.

Bruce: If only I had a code word or phrase I could use to snap you out of whatever brainwashing he seems to be able to affect you with any time you come near him, perhaps some kind of alien tech….

Dick: You could try “I’m proud of you, son.” I mean if you’re taking suggestions.

Bruce: There’s also the possibility of a magical component to consider, blast, I hate working with magic so of course he WOULD do something like that, ugh I suppose I could ask Zatanna or Jason Blood for help there…

Dick: Cool cool, well this has been a fun and productive chat as always, so you keep doing…all that…and meanwhile I’m gonna go ponder my fixation on father figures who are 100% more committed to obsessing over their failures as a parent than like…actual parenting of their actual kids.

Bruce, ten minutes later: Dick? Where are you? DID SLADE GET TO YOU AGAIN? RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE? CURSE THAT MAN AND HIS UNNATURAL SKILLS, HOW DOES HE DO IT??!?

Anyway, that’s Slade and Dick. There’s also the whole Renegade thing, when Dick asked for Slade’s help in infiltrating the Society of Super Villains in his fake villain identity as Renegade, with you know, lots of Slade trying to corrupt him and also trying to murder any supervillains who looked as his not!son the wrong way.

And then there was the time Slade brought his daughter Rose to Dick to train and said he couldn’t teach her himself because his track record with training his kids and them not ending up dead is like, not good, and he’s superstitious or something? Idk, I forget his logic, it was probably bad though.

And Slade was like, I only trust you to be a competent teacher for my daughter, I want you to teach her everything you know! Except for like, being a hero. None of that nonsense. I FORBID you from trying to make my daughter into a hero or the deal is off. (The deal being that if Dick did this, Slade would not do crime in Dick’s city for a year).

And Dick was like, you got a deal. I will train Rose but there will be NO trying to make her a hero, I swear. /he said while crossing his fingers behind his back because duh.

And Slade was like okay, fine, you got a deal, I will absolutely still do crime and be villainous but only in every place except for Bludhaven specifically. /he said while crossing his fingers behind his back because duh.

And then Dick tried to make Rose a hero and then Slade blew up Bludhaven and that was definitely a thing, so…yeah.

In summation, Slade and Dick are weird but also very interesting but also if we get another rehash of the Renegade/apprentice arc aka the Teen Titans cartoon adaptation of that story aka the single most popular Dick Grayson fic trope of all time, like….I swear I will probably get a brain bleed.

#Anonymous

31 notes · View notes

ganymedesclock · 6 years

Note

So did you see the "ice popsicle" teaser? It's supposed to be foreshadowing one of the darker moments of Season 7. Do you have any theories on what it could mean? There are people who think it's foreshadowing that Pidge will betray the team, but I can't bring myself to believe that's true.

I saw the ice pop thing, and the version I saw was hypothesizing that Pidge would be captured, which I find far more likely than Pidge turning traitor.

Let’s just, for the moment, take every other reason Pidge wouldn’t- solidarity and teamwork and friendship and how much Pidge loves her friends and loves her family and would have every reason to resent anybody still fighting for Zarkon’s cause- clear the table of all that, and just poke at the practical.

What’s the empire got right now that Pidge wants bad enough to sell out her second family for it?

‘Cause just from where I’m sitting... not much.

Earth’s safety? Oh, pshyeah, like Sendak and Haggar are gonna actually keep their word and not get itchy fingers for the keys to Voltron. Pidge specifically has been around that song and dance especially when it comes to her family, and what she learned from that was that Zarkon is a dirty liar and it’s fair to assume his lovely wife and the person he practically raised as his own are gonna be about the same.

Heck, that kinda puts a damper on Pidge even seriously considering any olive branch Haggar or Sendak might wave at her- because the last time Pidge even considered taking them up on an offer, it was baited with probably the most valuable thing Pidge could ever imagine, and they burned her, bad. That makes me pretty sure the only time Pidge would really go for an offer Haggar would seem to make would be if she’s also seeking to fulfill an unspoken term of “and in return you will conveniently put your back in my taserin’ range”

Especially if the empire tries to pull a hostage situation with Earth... that’s not gonna be surprising or shocking to any of the team. They’ve been taking it as a given since season 1 that the empire is factually going to come for Earth. The word Allura uses in the very first episode is “inevitable”. Pidge hugged her dad goodbye and sent him home because everybody’s on the same page that the empire’s gonna attack Earth. And if they try to suggest hostage swaps... again, Pidge is the last person who’d look seriously at that bait because s5e2 is basically a case study in “Zarkon is a double-crossing cheat”.

And Sendak? Sendak’s literally named his faction the most blatantly white supremacist sounding bullshit ever- the “purity” he’s touting is no non-galra, no mixed race galra- and definitely no galra who ideologically disagree with Sendak’s game plan, either. There’s nowhere in this ideology that even the most fawning sycophant who’s not a “pure” galra could survive. And Pidge is the furthest thing from a fawning sycophant. She’s done a lot of damage to the empire and to Sendak personally- he’s not going to forget for a second how much of a threat she is. Even if he had any intention of genuinely negotiating, he’s not going to be satisfied until Pidge is muzzled and defanged in every conceivable way.

Pidge betraying the team isn’t a plot twist, it’s a stupid mistake. Her selling out Lotor in s5e2 was understandable because Zarkon was demanding someone she didn’t trust or care about and threatening the safety of someone who’s been half her driving motivation since the first episode in exchange- and that made her desperate enough to overlook how obviously likely it would be that Zarkon would double-cross them. If you’re not convinced she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, I’d rewatch s5e2 and the way Pidge screams when she passes through the hologram of her father.

Pidge is going to do things that work or that at least seem reasonable from where she’s sitting. She’s gonna do something that she has a reason to believe or at least hope it’ll work out in her favor.

Right now? Empire’s got nothin’ on her.

Now, it is possible Pidge might cut an under-the-table deal with someone else, however.

The generals can nicely dodge a lot of the problems that Pidge would have with the main empire- namely the one where “I have no reason to believe you’re not immediately gonna double-cross me within point five seconds because you hate my entire existence and I’m your number one enemy.”

The whole of Team Sincline dances an interesting line of antiheroics- unlike Zarkon, Sendak, and Haggar, Sincline is able to prove reasonable to the heroes’ sensibilities, and depending on how the situation is, and where everybody stands? We’ve seen that long-term alliances between members can hold pretty strongly- at least, strong enough Allura, who’s nobody’s idiot, actually tried to start a relationship with Lotor.

And the Generals actually have some pretty good rep at this point- because when Lotor went hog wild attacking the paladins, the Generals disengaged. They backed off where he didn’t- and that’s something they could point to, if they had to thaw the heart of someone holding Lotor’s actions against them.

The generals could also have an easier ratio of offering Pidge something she couldn’t otherwise get, something really worthwhile- because they’re all about procuring unusual resources through sneaky channels.

Of course, the other side of this is it could be the Generals involved... but they might not be asking. Or offering.

It’s canon that magical entities, like the Black Lion, to save someone from death by taking their spirit into themselves. Presumably Black could do this for Shiro because he was right with them when he died and they had a mind-to-mind connection.

When Narti was killed, the camera lingered heavily on Kova, to the point that it returned to showing him next to Narti’s body at a point when every other character had abandoned the cruiser and was far away from it.

Kova also has a mind-to-mind connection with Narti and was right there with her when she died.

Narti is pretty clearly Pidge’s opposite number out of Team Sincline- the infiltrating, stealth-based “hacker”. This is something I’ve found suspicious for a while- since they obviously went out of their way to invoke her with Sincline’s final assembled form, and set her up parallel to a paladin, but her arc “seems” incomplete- which I don’t think is a testament to bad writing since no other dead character in the series, even ones who could have had interesting potential like Trigel, Gyrgan, and Blaytz feel unfinished in this way.

Especially because, again- Shiro’s return raises significant implications on Narti.

Double especially because the ships that shoot tethers at the paladins in the s7 trailer are a specific, recognizable party: both the opening that fires the grapple, and the tether itself, are obviously from the rotating-wing fighter ships used only by Lotor and the Generals.

Since the four surviving members of Team Sincline took the Sincline ships with them when they fled in s4e3, they left those ships behind on the cruiser. We haven’t seen them since- just like we haven’t seen the cruiser, implying it wasn’t retrieved.

This would imply that in order to get those fighters again, the generals would have had to return to the ship, finding Kova.

Kova, who has a decent chance of being a living phylactery for Narti, now that we know that’s possible.

So, okay, you might be saying, but what does this have to do with Pidge?

Well, I’ve already aired my theory the generals are going to be trying to steal the Lions and use them to enter the rift to retrieve Lotor. This would be emphasized if they’ve got Narti back- because Kova was specifically shown reacting with what looked like kitty concern to Zarkon declaring Lotor an enemy of the empire. If Narti’s in there, the implication is she’s worried about Lotor, even after he cut her down.

Pidge loves little cute animals. Her dog at home, the bunnies on the Green Lion’s planet, the fluffballs from the trash yard- she even adopted a few of them! She’d at least be likely to drop her guard around Kova.

And in s4e2, a repeated emphasis was placed that the Holts trust their minds, more than anything else- because as Matt smugly tells Pidge, you can hack a computer, but not a mind.

This always stuck out to me as a piece of dramatic irony... because before that episode, we’d seen Narti do just that.

Throk didn’t have the passwords for the Ulippa system base written down anywhere, or stored in a computer. He kept them in his mind. Narti used that. Because as Pidge’s counterpart, Narti is the specialist of Team Sincline when it comes to getting information- but she cracks brains the way Pidge cracks computers. And all she needs is a touch.

The paladins, of course... have no idea Narti can do that. During their allegiance, Lotor would have no reason to warn them about the powers of a woman who he personally knows died, and we don’t have much evidence he talked about the Generals at all.

It’s fair to assume if Narti escaped death by fleeing into Kova’s body, then she took her powers with her. So you have a cute, harmless looking cat, you have Pidge who is unlikely to look an unexpected friendly kitty in the mouth, and- just that easily you could have a paladin controlled. Which I think would be a much more effective shock because rather than “oh no a paladin’s being Tempted To The Dark Side” which they’re not really gonna get far on because these guys are basically tethered together to the waist by the Power of Friendship and there’s only so far you can toddle away from the group before you get bungee’d back, it’s “oh no our heroes are not as invincible as we’re comfortable believing they are and we have no idea how generous the responsible party is feeling.”

#voltron legendary defender #vld #Pidge #Narti #readmore #thenorthernphoenix

148 notes · View notes

dontcallmecarrie · 6 years

Note

Hello! I hope your day is going swell. I know that you're probably very busy, but I want to see tony go all out Merchant Of Death from the beginning of this arc also. If its not going into TWiFFON and if you have the time, would you consider either doing a mini fic or even just an outline of how that would play out? Thank you!

This has been sitting in my askbox for a while, but…well, another test, another round of post-test stress-related jitters, and it’s been a while since I’ve done a shatterpoint, hasn’t it? Especially since things are getting serious in TWiFFON in a way that makes it tricky for me to get into the mindset necessary for writing it.

As an fyi, crackiness incoming, especially since this is my post-exam rambling [plus minor profanity of the ‘fuck my life’ variety]. Do not expect seriousness here, but some spoilers for what’s going to happen to Ross might show up. Under the cut, because RIP mobile users otherwise.

So. Tony Stark, the Merchant of Death.

It’s not a title he’s proud of, is the thing. Especially now that he’s out of the game, and all; he’s about as proud of it as Bruce is about the Hulk, and for similar reasons, only Tony was 100% alert and sober when casually discussing weapons of mass destruction with generals during the Merchant of Death’s heyday.

He’s not proud of it. But he’s also not above keeping it in reserve, if push comes to shove because his patience can only go so far. In TWiFFON, the first time the Merchant of Death officially made an appearance was after the JCTC breakout, because he finally hit his limit with Ross.

However, I’ve mentioned earlier that I was very tempted to bring him out earlier. Far, far earlier—as in, the first time Ross makes an appearance.

So, in one. life, Tony noticed he was like a hair away from going Merchant of Death, when Ross was presenting the Accords, and dialed it back.

Here, however…

Tony Stark hadn’t had any coffee that morning.

It may not have sounded like a major detail, but given it was who-the-fuck-knows in the morning, and he’d just finished all of his planned politicking for the week when Ross decided now was the best time to present the Accords to the team, it meant his patience was already flagging since before he saw the asshat’s stupidly self-satisfied smirk, and so when Ross decided to try and pull the same shit he’d done as a General, that was it.

Because he may not trust the Avengers, and odds were they’d like him even less after seeing the Merchant of Death, but right now he was out of fucks to give. He’d been trying to decide if he was more indifferent to the team than he disliked Ross, but this last round made his choice for him.

Here, he goes full-on Merchant of Death when Ross presents his version of the Accords, and the team gets a front-row seat to seeing what happens when Tony gets serious.

He pulls absolutely no punches whatsoever, doesn’t break eye contact with Ross when he pulls out his phone and calls his legal team right there and then. No details, but enough to prove he’s not messing around, and then hangs up with a vicious smile that basically has Ross running because in the span that brief, one-sided conversation everyone in the room heard, they’ve realized just what it meant to piss off Tony Stark.

Specifically, why it was a bad idea, and how obvious it was that Ross hadn’t thought this through—because, in the span of a few minutes, he now has a multinational corporation gunning for him, with some of the best legal teams on the planet.

Ross pretends he doesn’t flee, pretends he’s not on the defensive and trying to figure out how to take on the Merchant of Death. [He fails miserably.] The minute he’s out he door, Tony’s expression doesn’t change when he turns to the team, and with that same smile, says, “He won’t be a problem soon, taking him down shouldn’t take too long.”

Then he visibly warms up and approaches Rhodey to go in for a hug, teases Vision for forgetting the other Widow’s Bite, and leaves soon afterwards, complaining about coffee—and leaving the team to reassess everything they knew about Tony Stark, because what the hell.

Things are only downhill from there, really.

Within the next week, headlines are being made, as the encryption of SHIELD’s files on anything related to Ross ‘mysteriously’ get cracked by an ‘anonymous hacker’, and go viral. The timing could not have been worse, as world’s getting wind of what the UN’s talking about possible Accords. Specifically, someone manages to get his version of the Accords online. It may not sound that bad, but this is Ross’ version of the Accords, aka the US’ official version—and it does not look good, especially when compared to the one being pushed for by a record-breakingly large international coalition.

All in all, Ross is not making his country look good, and combined with the incredibly-intimidating-and-still-growing lawsuit Stark Industries is filing against him? Well, President Ellis isn’t a fool—he drops him like a hot potato, to the applause of basically the entire world.

In the back, the team’s seeing all this go down, and quietly going “what the hell”, because they’ve never seen Tony this way, have only seen him messing around or in mission mode before. This is their first encounter with the Merchant of Death going all-out against an enemy, and in that moment, they all quietly decide they do not want to get on his bad side. Ever.

Also, they’re getting slightly less Lex Luthor vibes from him, what with being distracted by all the media’s attention about the Accords, and, since Ross’ visit to the team was made public what with the clusterfuck surrounding his version of the Accords, soon they get inundated with legal counsel to actually explain how the Accords’ll work.

[and thus averting the bulk of Civil War]

Talk about the clauses and how it’s an international thing, about how if they try to barge into other countries to fuck shit up [the way Ross did Brazil, the way they did Johannesburg and Lagos] they’ll be persona non grata too, and basically drilling it into the team’s head about how the Accords actually work. Ross’ situation is quickly turning into a cautionary tale, now, because the lawsuit’s a monster and there’s rumors several countries’re thinking of joining in.

The more time goes on, the uglier it gets, too, especially because…

Tony is not a happy camper, and he hates everything, how the fuck is this his life. Because this is the latest storm in a series of them, just the last round of paperwork he’s had to deal with, and the fact that he had to bring out the Merchant of Death to get shit done is actually not a good thing in his book [again, he’s not proud of it].

The only silver lining is that there’s a finishing line to this mess, and that he can vent his frustration via the legal battle going on. And even that’s mired in a snarl of issues he doesn’t want to think about, because the longer this goes on, the more the world’s seeing the Merchant of Death and thinking he’s a responsible adult who knows what he’s doing when really he just wants some coffee and maybe a nap, and that leads to…weird consequences.

Specifically, there’s quite a few people looking at him, now. Even more specifically, some of those people are looking at him working with his company, coordinating with Pepper and Legal and PR and the Council and various other countries, and the newly-vacant position for Secretary of State, and going “hey, there’s an idea”.

[I did mention this was crack, right? Yep.]

So, no. Tony is not a happy camper at the moment. At. all. Especially since the press is now in on it too, and wasn’t that an embarrassing headline? And it comes up again and again, in interviews and articles and Thor knew what else—”Tony Stark for Secretary of State?”

…yeah, that’s a no. Hells no, haven’t these people ever heard of conflicts of interest?!

Made even worse, since it turns out the speculation wasn’t actually bs, and Tony hadn’t even finished his coffee when the goddamn President of the United States of America called him to ask about it, how the fuck was this his life.

Suffice it is to say, Tony is so, so tired by the time the lawsuit’s over.

On the plus side, at least shit got done? Ross’ career is now dust, the Avengers are now no longer his headache, they’re some committee’s problem now. Danvers, the head of said committee, looks like she has a good head on her shoulders, and Tony wishes her luck. [All the luck.]

Even better, now that people’re taking him seriously, he can finally work on a global planetary protection program without getting laughed out of the room [looking at you, Avengers], or having to resort to do it all on his own.

[that being said, this is still going to happen in TWiFFON, albeit for different reasons]

Thanos arrives to an Earth that is ready for war, with the Merchant of Death as its first line of defense.

Things that didn’t really come up but happened in the background:

—Zemo tried to frame Bucky, but his plan was contingent on a time crunch provided by Ross, which didn’t happen. The UN didn’t get bombed, since the scandal surrounding the Accords made for more interest in it, and tighter security.

—That being said, Tony still finds out about his parents. Somehow. Probably thanks to either Steve or Natasha being the ones to break the news to him, because now that they’ve seen how he is with enemies they’d much rather keep him as an ally.

—Irony is, for all that Tony’s not proud of the Merchant of Death, it’s also just about the only way the rest of the team’ll respect him; Tony playing nice just got him dismissed as a guy who doesn’t take things seriously, but the Merchant kicking ass and taking no prisoners? Another thing entirely.

Basically, the main difference here from TWiFFON is that canon gets derailed even earlier, and the team is actually on the table after the Civil War arc ends, instead of in prison or what-have-you.

#I got an ask!#behind the scenes #shatterpoint #The War is Far From Over Now #behind the scenes mini fic #kinda #Naught replies #replies #Naught rambles

83 notes · View notes