#On one hand I tend to kinda feel bad for those villains that in-universe are seen as insane but *we* know are right | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bookofmirth · 3 years

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So I initially deleted this because I didn’t want to get into it, but I also think the question is genuine and I wanted to explain my thinking. CW for emotional and physical abuse and sexual assault.

I am tagging @silverlinedeyes because this ask concerns them and I don’t appreciate being vagued, whether it’s a blogger or someone answering an ask that mentions me. I try not to vague other people and I’m not perfect but... just getting this all out in the open.

So I can’t speak for everyone who was upset at the initial post comparing Ianthe and Gwyn. Personally, I kind-of grimaced and was mostly confused about what in the world they could possibly have in common and why such a comparison would be necessary. As people, they are fundamentally different. And to me, the comparison is incredibly thin. Eye color and priestesses? How many priestesses have that eye color? And to use that to connect them to a creature we’ve only read about in two sentences in the whole series, a creature we’ve never actually seen on page and know next to nothing about? Basically, the intention or purpose behind the comparison didn’t make sense to me.

Now I’ll be perfectly transparent - I didn’t read the whole post because I could tell that it wasn’t for me. I also didn’t go around vaguing it. It was mentioned in some asks that I got and I tried to limit my commentary on that post and focus on the comparisons I had made, intentionally. Because 1) I can’t speak from the position of a SA survivor, and those are the people that post concerned, and 2) I didn’t fully read it, and 3) I don’t want to vague people! This fandom is divided enough. I know I made a joke after acosf came out how we are all having separate, loud conversations in the same room and refusing to acknowledge the other conversations while somehow responding to one another. And it was kinda funny at first, but now it’s exhausting.

To me, comparing Ianthe, who is universally reviled as a r*pist, and Gwyn, who we know is a SA survivor, is unnecessary. That’s pretty much what it comes down to. Why do we need to do this? What is it telling us about any of the characters? About relationships? I know a lot of people found it anything from distasteful to downright offensive, and while I think that just about anything is fair game when it comes to fictional characters, I also personally think that the intention behind the comparison was confusing. I just personally don’t understand why we would need to talk about those characters in the same breath. What purpose does it serve? Someone who can speak from the position of a SA can please feel free to add on, if comfortable!

The reason that I compare Az and Tamlin is to analyze them as people, as characters, because I see a lot of similarities in who they are on a (currently) fundamental level - their anger, their loneliness, their attempts to restrain their destructive impulses. These are major parts of who they are as people and how they interact with the world. There were red flags present in acotar that I recognized from my personal life and that I can now see in Azriel. Frankly, it concerns me that people see Tamlin as a completely irredeemable villain, while not recognizing that Azriel shares some of the same personality traits.

Comparing a r*apist and a SA survivor is an unequal comparison. Emotional and physical abuse, on the other hand, tends to be generational. I’m not an expert on a professional or academic level, but I did a quick search on my university’s database, and found this from “Interrupting the Intergenerational Transmission of Violence”, and please note that these lines were the context or background - this article didn’t set out to prove these statements to be true, they are already commonly accepted knowledge and so their research was looking to solve the problem:

Children exposed to domestic violence are at increased risk for a wide range of emotional and behavioural disorders. Conduct disorder, in particular, may ultimately lead to the perpetration of further domestic violence in the next generation. Parental characteristics such as warmth and positive attributions may mitigate the risk for intergenerational transmission of violence.

I think that as a fandom, people really, really tend to mischaracterize Azriel. It bothers me. He’s not soft. I’m sorry, he’s just not. We have multiple examples of him being described, using words like “rage”, “cruel”, “temper”. One of the first posts I ever made in this fandom that got a lot of attention (over four years ago) was trying to correct these mischaracterizations. They keep happening.

There was an icy rage in Azriel I had never been able to thaw. In the centuries I’d known him, he’d said little about his life, those years in his father’s keep, locked in darkness. (ACOMAF)

One moment, Azriel was seated. The next, he’d blasted through Eris’s shield with a flare of blue light and tackled him backward, wood shattering beneath them. “Shit,” Cassian spat, and was instantly there— And met a wall of blue. Azriel had sealed them in, and as his scarred hands wrapped around Eris’s throat, Rhys said, “Enough.” (ACOWAR)

Az didn’t answer. I held his gaze, though. Held that ice-cold stare that still sometimes scared the shit out of me. (ACOFAS)

Az had a vicious competitive streak... quiet and cruel and utterly lethal. (ACOSF)

Azriel stiffened, an outright sign of temper (ACOSF)

These are just a few of the examples, but we can also think about acofas when he gets angry at dinner thinking about how his mother was treated as a servant, when he can’t handle being around people who are happy on Solstice. I could make a whole post but I’m kinda sick of talking about Azriel at this point.

I have experienced an emotionally abusive relationship much like feylin was. I made myself so small, for years, because this person’s anger and anxiety and grief took up so much space in the world. I felt like I had to overcompensate, to not make them feel jealous if I was having a good day, and to not take on my negative feelings if I had a bad day. So I just stopped feeling things. For years. It didn’t go well. I’m still dealing with the aftermath.

I have also witnessed physical domestic violence, as a child. I don’t think I need to explain further than that.

My fanfiction A Loveless Romantic deals heavily with the feylin abuse, and I only feel comfortable writing it because of my personal experiences. I’ve written posts about Nesta and alcohol and another post that I can’t currently find about why acotar is such a good book because it shows us all of those red flags for abuse before many people knew they were red flags. (If I can find it I’ll reblog.) My point is, when I go into analyses and metas like these, they aren’t just an exercise in “oh hey what if?!” It’s “here is my experience with this topic and so here’s how I read this with that background.”

The comparison between Azriel and Tamlin is deeply personal to me, and I didn’t exactly expect to have to disclose my personal history when making it, but when I see people vaguing about how the comparison “hurts people who have experienced abuse”, hi, OP knows exactly what she’s talking about on a personal level, thanks. So I’m going to keep talking about it, because I know what I’m talking about, and it bothers me that people can’t see it in fiction because I worry that they then won’t be able to see it IRL until it’s too late. I’m going to keep writing my “thinkpieces” because this is a topic I know a lot about, it’s important to me, and it’s something that I think a lot of people can and should learn more about.

#acotar #azriel #tamlin #cw abuse #acosf #ask #anon #i really need a moratorium on az #he no longer exists to me #nor tamlin #mor cassian nesta elain and lucien are the only characters to me

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mr-face-both-ways · 4 years

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Stex Appreciation Month: CB!

Can’t trust anyone these days, remember I can face both ways!

Ah yes, my url’s namesake, i finally had time to finish and post something lol i’ll post the others soon

Questions answered under the cut! This is extra long because he is my Fave and im Biased

Fave song: There’s Me hands down, the whole scene including That Was Unfair is just so good in establishing CB’s, Greaseball and Dinah’s characters so well, plus the melody is just*chef’s kiss* and the fact that its technically a villain song?? Love that, plus the parallels of him finding Dinah alone and upset and comforting and supporting her and lending her a hand up and sending her on her way after she’s cheered up, with post race 3 where he’s the reason Rusty’s alone and hurt on the floor, kicking him when he tries to get up (looking at you 1991 boot) and mocks and insults him, leaving him alone with his confidence broken as he leaves laughing. What an absolute bastard!! But when There’s Me is taken out, you don’t properly see his two sides, both the bad and good sides are important to his character! He’s a contrary dude but that’s just him! Plus the actual song has one of my fave melodies of the show, I can and do listen to the intro from the ost on repeat, plus that lil bit in the japan vid?? So cute?? And the contrasting styles to that and Wide Smile?? Amazing, love it

Fave actor: Once again my fave actor list is gonna be like 5 people lol, the great thing about C.B’s material is that his attitude and demeanour can change based on his inflection, movement etc so! Michael Staniforth is a given, his Wide Smile really demonstrates his range which imo not many others have been quite as good, plus what extremely little footage and photos there are of him he was extremely expressive and just fun to watch! I’ll also go with Peter Rees, Andrew Prosser, Hans Johansson, Oliver Rhoe Thornton (and what the heck let’s also go for early Kapa Kitchen and Daniel Ellison)

Fave ship: Ohh boy this is super self indulgent but CBGB honestly (has the fandom given it a nickname? Greaseboose?? idk) I love that in the older scripts him and GB high five (that us boot where cb does a lil jump to hit GB’s high five?? Adorable) and actually talk like friends?? Like Greaseball is a jerk to pretty much everyone and for him to be friendly with him is just sweet. Not to mention its Greaseball who tells his gang that CB’s a “mean machine”, is always calling out to CB in the races and a recent thing that clicked in my brain is that when CB says “what a race, what a team!” and GB’s like “shhh! ohhh you mean me and dinah?” like did he just think that CB was about to out that they were working together during the race to crash the other engines in front of Dinah so he shushed him, then realised he was talking about GB and Dinah?? then just the whole exchange after sabotaging Rusty?? Duet One Rock and Roll? That GB just lifts him up like its nothing then they just kinda sit on eachother?? Those two are in cahoots I tell you!! Plus to me i get the vibe that they’ve been working together for years?? I just love their dynamic haha (and CB’s the only one i think who calls him GB that’s so cute) oh and platonic CB/Dinah is top tier, I feel like Dinah’s a very emotionally honest person so CB would feel like he could actually trust her?? And thanks to the new megamix Canoose/Elektra can have one right, as a treat

Fave thing about him: His independence! All the other characters are very much driven by either winning the races or finding love (or both), and C.B. just...doesn’t care. What you “are” is a big deal in Stex, like the engines, coaches and freight all have their identities shaped by their titles, and that can influence how they feel about the above two subjects “nobody can do it like a steam train”, etc and looking at when C.B. does participate in the races him and his partner tend to take the lead so he is good at racing!! But he chooses not to in order to make his own fun (at the expense of pretty much everyone else). He also seems to have a level of self-awareness, take his verse in Freight for example, he knows that as a brakevan he has to essentially serve the freight train, perceptually at the back of the train. But instead he uses his “purpose” aka his brakes to not do what he’s been told and to disrupt the train, and gets away with it by presenting himself as the innocent helpful brakevan! He’s just doing his own thing, (poor Rusty but,,) good for him!! And of course I have to say again, his two sides, and the ambiguity of it?? Like is he good, bad?? He’s both and neither?? An absolute force of chaos, but it only really works when both sides are present. Plus he a cutie tehe

Random headcanon: I think he’s unnervingly observant, even moreso than Pearl, and has amazing peripheral vision. That and taking notice of things like vibrations on the rails he’s very good at telling whose around before they’ve fully come into vision. He’s always watching everything around him, and isn’t necessarily being creepy, he’s just trying to get as much info on the current situation as possible. I think he likes to have some control and be on top of things?? I also really like the ex-boxcar theory (I first saw this theory on the old bellesdomain forums, rip) and I think that maybe when he was converted it was very difficult for him, having to deal with people, and having the CB radio to control what he hears helps ground him and keep his thoughts less cluttered?? He might’ve also forgotten a lot of his boxcar days, so when he says “you know I’m to blame but you don’t know my name” maybe he doesn’t even remember his original name?? And never got a new one as just the Red Caboose, so he clung onto the CB radio to give himself a sense of identity when his previous identity was stripped from him?? IDK

Unpopular opinion: This wagon can hold so many spicy takes he’s not a murderer lol but at the same time i can see where people can think that considering the lyrics reference several real-life train crashes even if they don’t make sense for CB to be there which tbh I put down to Stilgoe going tehe railway incident reference! I think he’s travelled around a lot and done a lot of questionable things, and maybe he was responsible for those crashes in the stex universe?? or maybe he’s just lying?? he’s definitely responsible for some shit, but considering he crashes 5 (!!!) engines during that one race night and being publicly humiliated after race 4 he doesn’t get in trouble and besides, all those engines are back for light at the end of the tunnel, they’re fine lol. Another thing is that I haaaate how CB has like no agency anymore in the current version like everything he does is for money, he’s basically a henchman for the engines (and everyone knows what his deal is and he isn’t in train jail?? what??) and they got rid of the pre-race 4 bit “just for me, I’m in this just for me” (in that slightly twisted there’s me melody) and Electra desperately pleading “help me caboose, help me caboose” to just the generic “I’ll help you win” at the end and not really its own little bit anymore like he barely has his own motivations anymore, it actually makes me really sad :( it really just doesn’t feel like CB anymore, though his character has been really disjointed since like 2007 when they got rid of there’s me. He’s just kinda bland now, like before he instigated a lot of the conflict, now others tell him to do something and he does it. I could like him more if he had an ounce more depth, like why is he so motivated by money? Maybe go into that old vs new tech theme and bring up that now that there’s new tech that can do the job of a brakevan he’s now antiquated and has to go into crime to get by?? Idk just please give me something, I think CB’s always been a bit of a fan favourite because he had multiple layers to his personality but new boose just has a whole lotta nothing :/

Anyway let’s end on a positive note at least we got pride lighting and a solo in the megamix so that’s something I guess XD

#stex appreciation month #starlight express #stex #cb the red caboose #stex cb #my art #musicals

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storyplease · 4 years

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So I finally watched “Rise of the Guardians” and I have some thoughts about the major themes in the film...

Anyway, so I know this is a kid’s film or whatever, and I know that this probably WAYYY too in the weeds as far as thoughts are concerned, but what is Tumblr even good for if you can’t rant about fictional characters in peace?

Potential spoilers below cut...

Anyway, so the movie centers around mythical character such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, etc, who can be argued are literally and figuratively “unbelievable” beings that require the faith of children (not necessarily the actual knowledge of their existence) to exist. In many ways, they play by the same rules as the American Gods in Neil Gaiman’s story of the same name. But I digress (a theme in my writing, yes?). One of the biggest themes in the movie is the idea of a “center”- each mythical entity has a an unusual “spark” of something that makes them worthy (from what appears to be upon their death) of becoming more than human.

So for example:

Santa Claus: Miracles/Wonder

Easter Bunny: Rebirth/Hope

Tooth Fairy: Remembrance/Connection

Sandy: Joy/Peace

It is established that all of the characters used to be mortal at some point or other, so the universe appears to have a deus ex machina (the Man in the Moon, who appears to run everything, but more on that later) who “decides” when someone is to be bestowed with powers...but who is also rendered intangible to the human beings they depend on for their power to grow until they prove themselves (mostly to children, because children tend to easily trust and believe in all manner of thing without a shred of evidence, and would therefore be much easier to convince to pledge their loyalty to)...somehow.

One of the big parts of Jack Frost’s story arc is that he doesn’t have any memories of who he was before he awoke with his abilities. He doesn’t remember his family or have the ability to have connections with mortals directly, and yet some people do mention his name without seeing him, so it appears that he is able to scrape power here and there. It is also worth mentioning that all of the Guardians appear to be aware of and can interact with Jack, but that they have chosen not to for over 400 years other than a few times where Jack has tried to playfully interact only to be shut down or retaliated against.

When he finally finds his memories, everyone acts really surprised, but it seems odd that this would never have come up before, especially since the Tooth Fairy appears to swoon/love his teeth and might have brought it up (but we shall forgive her a bit as she appears to be absurdly busy running the tooth empire to end all tooth empires).

But the most important part of this revelation is that a lot of Jack Frost’s negative character traits are specifically because he is lonely and has nobody else. He spends his life interacting with a world that cannot see or touch him. Therefore, his center (fun/mischief) becomes twisted and he causes trouble.

When he realizes his past and is able to connect with both mortal children and the other Guardians, his character blossoms! He becomes confident, protective, fun and wisecracking but without malice or bitterness.

He comes into his own, and his power increases.

Which brings me to...you guessed it...the main antagonist of the film.

The character of Pitch is obviously the bad guy. He’s dark, scary, looks kinda like he’s never brushed his teeth unless the toothpaste was made of coal, and is in general menacing and terrifying. He harms the characters, terrifies the children and generally drives the plot for his own selfish ends. After all, he’s known as the “boogeyman.”

His main traits appear to be a penchant for darkness (creating it and hiding in shadow) and causing fear. His lair appears to be in a hole underground that is situated under an old and rotting bed frame. Now there’s a lot of this that could just be taken on the nose. After all, there’s a reason that “there’s a monster under your bed” is a semi-universal kid’s fear.

There’s even a terrible pun about Pitch having a great time in the “Dark Ages.”

The thing is, darkness can mean a lot of things. And so can fear.

Let me back up a bit so I can explain what I’m getting at:

Awhile back, I read an amazingly insightful book called The Gift Of Fear. It has a lot of very good advice on recognizing and using the fear response to protect your safety and your life. Fear is often overlooked as a silly, primal thing, especially when we talk about children and things that go bump in the night, but there is a very good reasons why humans feel a variety of kinds of fear, and many of them are actively useful in preserving your life.

Darkness is essential to life. The day ends, and night falls. Shadows follow our moves and do as we do. Even the human eye cannot bear blue light at night, and artificial lighting has been touted as all kinds of unhealthy by experts and doctors alike.

None of these things are actively evil or wrong, to be sure.

But Pitch has something in common with Jack Frost. And what is that? Why, he is ignored. Nobody believes in him (which I find silly to be honest because I know plenty of kids afraid of the dark or who have nightmares and such).

The whole thing- the theatrical posing, the big scary Villain speech...in the end, Pitch was doing just the same thing that Jack did when he antagonized the Easter Bunny by ruining the egg hunt with frost. He wanted people to pay attention to him, to like him. And because nobody would do so, he decided that negative attention was still attention.

This is backed up by the fact that none of the children are harmed by his nightmare horses when faced with him (they turn into golden sand when touched). They even say, even with thousands of scary black nightmares bearing down on them, that they aren’t scared of him and will protect the Guardians.

I feel like Pitch is overlooking a couple of things when he is trying his ridiculous plan to rule the world in darkness.

First off, he’s backed himself into a corner- he plays the bad guy, of course he isn’t going to win against the heroes. And to some extent, it’s pretty obvious that he knows it. For all his posturing, he often pulls his punches, and even when he destroys Jack’s staff, he still throws it down on the ground and does not take it with him because he is trying to get Jack to see beyond his limitations just as he himself has learned to harness the sand with his darkness.

Secondly, just because kids love Santa and Easter and gifts from tooth fairies, not all kids have perfect upper-middle-class lives like the children in this movie. There is a reason why there are a surprisingly large number of hand-drawn comics that deal with a child making friends with the monster under the bed or even being protected by said monster against an abusive parent or family member.

My feeling here is that Pitch hasn’t truly realized what his purpose is, and that he is actually being held back because....

Pitch’s center is fear.

There’s a reason he’s portrayed as having a lair under a shabby, rotting bed, in darkness. When he was human, his life must have been hellish. I can imagine him hiding in the shadows of his room, crouched under the bed in darkness because the fear of what his father or mother might do to him was eating him alive. In fact, he may have died in that manner, terrified out of his mind and knowing only the darkness to hide him. If this is what the Man in the Moon deemed worthy to change him into his post-mortal form, then is any of this truly his fault?

I might say...no. Being awoken from a hellish world where you are in constant fear to a world in which fear and darkness are the only thing that strengthen you would be its own sort of hell.

We don’t get to see Pitch’s past, but ostensibly the Tooth Fairy has it and knows of it. A tooth is knocked out at the end, so ostensibly it will go in Pitch’s box, or the box of whoever he was when he was mortal.

But furthermore, what if Pitch were able to change the way he thinks about his power and his strength? What if he uses his darkness to conceal children who are in danger, or helps those who are imprisoned to escape? What if he guides children away from danger by using their fear to guide them? What I am saying is that “playing the villain” seems to be the most obvious thing when you’ve only ever known an existence in which you are hated and told you are wrong and bad.

However, if we really sit down and think about it, colored eggs and toys are no more “good” than shielding the weak and vulnerable with your shadows and putting the fear of...something that bumps in the night in the hearts of predators while guiding the fear of the young from forks in outlets and jumps from high places.

In the end, locking a being like Pitch away is a foolish idea because in his loneliness in the darkness, his fear and terror will only grow, driving him into madness in his isolation. Pitch not only has to learn to conquer his own fears (fear or being rejected, fear of being hated) but to also realize that he can be more than a flat villainous character if he wishes to thrive.

He just has to get past the fear.

#rise of the guardians #meta #jack frost #pitch #on fear #on lonliness #tw for light descriptions of abusive behavior

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prose-for-hire · 4 years

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Roses are overrated anyway

Pairing: Gunn x fem!reader

Request: not requested. This is a sort of second part/after the end of ‘a rose between two thorns’ because I feel like Gunn was too secondary. Gunn and reader go on a date and end up stepping into an alternate dimension (because my brain wouldn’t let me just write a date without getting carried away with a backstory) 💖

Warning: Mention of falling from a great height. Reader feels nauseous (not sure if that needs a warning but better to be safe). One swear. Fighting.

You were still seething from the day you had, the only saving grace being you knew someone would be walking in that door in about 30 seconds time that would improve your mood. Your date.

He walked in, the same swagger he’s had since you met - the only difference now was that he dressed smarter now. You used to visit Angel investigations during your summer breaks from college - calling it work experience. You kinda missed how he used to dress - his hoodies had been very comfy. He used to let you borrow them when you had accidentally on purpose left your jacket in the office and you needed to go out and find a demon in the middle of the night. He gave you that smile that he used his entire face to convey. His eyes filled with you, someone he truly loved. So how could he not smile so deeply even if he was just saying hello?

“Hey, how’s my favourite girl?” Gunn asked with a smile that told you he really cared.

“Don’t tell me that, what if I fall in love?” You asked fake-swooning so that he slid a hand to rest on the small of your back as he chuckled. You giggled and pushed him slightly as a lighthearted warning. You tried to avoid the eyes that were boring into the pair of you from behind the glass of Angel’s office. Gunn’s eyes looked over at them momentarily and he gave them a why are you staring look but his attention was quickly on you again. He had always been heavy on the flirting, you were both used to speaking like that but now was the first time you had actually both been in the place to try dating. You were both attracted to each other and you basically told him everything - which is why you had both probably been so reluctant. You didn’t want to lose him, he meant a lot to you. “That would be a bad thing?” He asked before gesturing with his head that you should probably get going. He was already in a suit and you decided your work clothes would have to do. Nothing says first date like an outfit described as being meringue-like you decided. You had gone to vent to Fred about the constant and somewhat unwanted attention from Angel and Spike. Not that you weren’t fond of the pair, but their competitive streak was wearing a little thin. You could sense the sexual tension the way they could sense the blood beating around your body. Your talking eventually turned to Gunn. You and Fred were close and she has given you her blessing that it wouldn’t be weird for her if you and Gunn started dating (although she was a little disappointed thinking she had built Angel up for rejection with you as she had been so encouraging of him asking you out).

As if the Powers themselves had blessed your relationship, Gunn had run into you in the elevator and had taken his chance to ask you out. You almost fainted in excitement but chose instead to agree and plan something for tonight seeing as both of you were free and you really needed a distraction from your day.

He told you he’d come and pick you up from your desk and wished you luck for dealing with the vampires once you finally returned from the longest paid lunch hour in history.

“Where should we go?” You asked, smiling as he ushered you out of the building.

“I know a place” he winked, tugging you to follow him down the road. You had been walking for about ten minutes, Gunn had been filling you in on his day as you walked. Conversation always flowed so easily between you. There was a brief flash of light. Blink and you would have missed it. But both shrugged it off and carried on walking, you were so engrossed in the conversation.

He pulled you down a darkened alleyway that you thought nothing of, Sunnydale was a good 90% alleyways with little to no lighting. He stopped and turned, smiling. His face on one side and his nose scrunching that way that you loved. He turned and looped his arms around your waist, not able to stop grinning at you. That he finally had you to himself. You could just make it out in the dark. It made your heart quicken and butterflies erupt, making a home in your stomach. You had never felt so cared for before. He had no ulterior motives, he just wanted you for you. His smile making the corners of your lips quirk upwards too.

You both just stood there, your faces so close he could feel your breath on his face. He looked at your lips and then back up to meet your eyes. Your grin widened when his did. You started to lean in, hands sliding up his chest. Lips almost brushing his. This was already the best date and you hasn’t even arrived and sat down yet. You could stand there in his arms forever, savouring this moment for the rest of time.

Just as your lips were about to meet, a bright green light flooded the area. Much like the flash of lightning you had ignored moments earlier.

“Aliens? Do we have aliens now?” You asked, moving closer against his side.

“Nah, if aliens were real we’d be all over it. My implant and your crazy receptionist brain would know for sure” he said quickly. His implication that your receptionist brain basically knew everything there was to know about the supernatural and wolfram and hart. More than half of the lawyers, you might add. He has told you how good you were at your job multiple times (he found it especially cool as you just managed to adapt to anything). He would always compliment you that way and it never failed to make you smile. You always felt so appreciated by him. He always valued you, he never belittled you or saw you as “just Angel’s PA that everyone seemed to have a crush on”. He genuinely cared, no matter what the situation. You looked around, waiting for something to happen. And just as you started to give up, the ground shifted beneath your feet and you both started to fall.

You were both falling forwards, the surroundings a glowing neon light that you could see whether you closed your eyes or not. You reached for him, but he was too far away. You tried to shout for him, but no sound would come out. You couldn’t see, but he was doing the same for you. Trying to make sure you were safe. There were silver ripples of light, as if tearing the fabric of green light apart as you tumbled further down. The silver became more vibrant until it was the only colour you could see. The air whipped around you with such force you started to become dizzy. You were afraid you would throw up everywhere. the sickness took over your entire body until you were contorting in pain.

Then it all went black.

You were no longer in pain. There was fresh air. It smelt of salt and overturned soil. You realised you were looking down from above. You were falling towards a flat surface. Concrete. You panicked, trying to slow your descent. You had fallen into an alternate universe. You landed hard on your hands and knees, as did Gunn who had been right beside you the entire time. You both looked at each other, hissing in collective pain. You moved towards him and clasped a hand to his. He squeezed your hand, a comforting gesture. One you needed, as a figure made his presence known from the shadows.

He looked human. Except his skin was a deep purple, his eyes the shame luminous green as had surrounded you only moments before. He had visible veins popping out of his skin and he was wearing an old baseball cap and what appeared to be several items of smart-casual clothing from different human decades of fashion. As if he had raided the lost-and-found.

”Who are you?”

”Your worst nightmare” he smirked. You rolled your eyes, you had heard that one before. And thus far, it hadn’t been true.

”Kronak demon. Dimension shifting demon. On retainer for Wolfram and Hart since the early 1900s but lost their contract when- well, when we took over” he shrugged. Gunn had been the one to finalise the paperwork.

“Yes, you found the loophole to terminate our little agreement. If we don’t have the support of your firm, things tend to become a little... messy. Unfortunately, your mate shall be the first to pay”

“Hey! I’m not just his mate! I work too! I probably notarised the fucking document!” You insisted, although you realised halfway through your outburst that keeping silent probably would have been the better option. You looked back at Gunn sheepishly, who just smirked. You hadn’t denied being his mate.

“Your mate looks like a meringue and she... smells like one too” he stated, not addressing you directly. Apparently he meant this as an insult on both counts. You scowled, looking down at your work outfit and deciding if you ever got out of here, the first thing you would do when you got back to your apartment was burn it. You both just stared at the eccentric looking demon, so he spoke again, “Consider this your date with destiny” he sneered and both you and Gunn exchanged a look that read ‘can you believe this guy’. It felt as if you were in a fever dream. It felt like he was manufactured straight from the build-your-own-villain workshop.

“I’m from Sunnydale, my date with destiny has been permanently postponed” you stated as Gunn snickered at your phrasing. He liked how tough you could be married with the sweet-natured woman he has met those years ago. He had expected to have to protect you when he first met you but soon found out you had some moves of your own (you lived in Sunnydale it was that or just lay down in the street after dark and let the demons take you).

The Kronak demon started to back you both against a wall. The wall now grey fencing with barbed wire wrapped around it, rather than the usual brick that had been there before the dimension shift.

“What’re we gonna do?” you hissed, your hand still desperately grasping to his. You swore it must have been breaking his bones but he didn’t complain once. he just wanted you to know he was right by your side.

“It’s cool. I gotta plan”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah - Run!”

He pulled your hand with him and you did. You ran through the cobbled streets and narrow pathways. You jumped over turnstiles and ducked under hedges to try and find a way to well, anywhere. The most unusual thing you noted is that there were no buildings. No concrete structures. You could see land for miles. there were massive holes in the ground, as if gigantic moles had taken over. It was unnerving. The only thing in the entire area that was built up, was the cemetery.

You both turned into the gates, ducking behind a large mausoleum. You huddled together, whispering. You hated cemeteries. Sunnydale had been full of them and you had to excuse yourself if patrolling had brought you there for too long than necessary. They gave you the creeps and reminded you of not only any losses you had experienced, but of the loss that others felt whenever they had to visit. You told Gunn about this, so softly he might have missed it if he hadn’t been paying attention. But he was, even through his panting from running, he was focused on you. Only you.

He understood and so he opened up to you. he hated cemeteries too. Because of his sister. She didn’t get a proper burial. He had to stake her. You almost choked up, you had never heard this story before. He told you about it all. You wrapped your arms around him as he spoke, willing him to feel the comfort. He spoke of how it made him feel while you hid together. Only the light of the moon guiding your path to this place of death. You started shivering and he took his suit jacket off, draping it around your shoulders. You shrugged it around you as best you could and moved to rest your head against his shoulder. This could be a long night.

You had both fallen asleep, leaning against each other. You had both agreed to take it in turns to keep watch but one of you must have dozed off during your hour. You were woken by a horrific shriek, one that almost burst one of your eardrums it was so piercing. You both jumped awake, getting up to find three purple mole-men squaring up.

You both stood, back-to-back, your fists raised ready for a fight. If you were going down, you were both going down fighting. With any luck, the demons would be distracted by your horrible outfit and allow you to get some offensive attacks in.

Gunn started to attack any that he could reach, his well-practiced punches landing almost every time. You traded blows too, even took off your shoes and threw them at the demons that had been lunging at you.

You slowly walked a circle, still with your backs facing the other so that you could defend each other the best you could. One ran to tackle you but you grabbed him by the t-shirt and tugged. This left you with a handful of soil-stained material and the demon slightly colder than he was before. There had been at least six joining the fight, but you had thinned the original three.

”That thing - in there. We need it” Gunn dropped his voice for you, before going back in with a punch at one that had run at him. You looked and he had gestured to the bare chest of the demon you had just ripped the t-shirt off of. His chest had an opaque circular compartment, as if you should be able to see his organs. It looked like one of those glass cases that you were supposed to break in case of an emergency. Inside this compartment, was a golden sceptre. The kind royalty would hold whilst sitting atop a throne. That was the key to leaving here.

Of course, the one thing you needed would have to be some impossible to access object that you would have realistically not chance in reaching now that it was a six-on-two fight.

You manged to duck at the right moment and send one of the demons flying into the other, knocking them both to the ground. One popped up straight away but the other was leaking a bright liquid, like a faulty glow-stick. Must be blood, you figured.

Gunn had taken a shovel from one of the grave sides and used it as a weapon as you carried on using your fists. You had managed to kill the rest through working together. The final mole-man, the one that held the dimension key (the sceptre inside his chest), was now on the floor. Decapitated by Gunn’s shovel. He pulled a face, but still reached inside the demon, his arm now dripping with glow-stick coloured goo. He pulled the golden sceptre out and handed it to you, to your dismay.

“Should get us back” he gestured with his head to the sceptre you were holding that was now glowing an unnatural neon green.

“Roses are overrated anyway” you started to smile, inspecting the object.

“You know it” he said, but he was frowning slightly. He had wanted things to go well, or at least better than tonight had. He knew he had feelings for you for a while, finally able to ask once he found out from Wesley that you weren’t trying to pick between Angel and Spike but instead hoping for the affection of someone else. But the fight never seemed to stop, and he couldn’t even have one night off to explore your feelings together. Although, tonight had showed him that you trusted him implicitly. That you had at least wanted to kiss him. And that he could trust you beyond anything he had ever let himself before. You were the one, he was sure of it. Nevertheless, he was still frowning slightly.

“Hey, I mean it. This, just being here with you - I wouldn’t want to spend my time almost-dying with anyone else” you insist - smiling that smile he had always loved.

“Yeah?”

“Definitely”

“We could stick around check out the bars?” You both looked around at the now desolate land that surrounded you with no buildings in sight - let alone bars.

“I think it’s time to go...” you smile softly, his eyebrows raised at your words. He leaned in, his lips catching yours. The adrenaline still pumping through you now slowly becoming replaced by something new. A light, airy feeling as if you had both discovered something new, that in reality had always existed between you. A sweet, all-encompassing love. You gripped the sceptre in one hand - you had to, but the other hand slowly slid round his side and up his back. He moved in further, cupping your cheek with one hand and holding the sceptre with the other. You were both now subconsciously gripping each other tighter than the glowing object. The most important thing in any dimension being this kiss. This heavenly revelation. An enlightenment only the two of you would ever share. You knew instantly that you loved this man, you couldn’t even attempt to hide it.

By the time you broke apart from your kiss, you were back in the alleyway you had been when you had almost-kissed earlier. You both pulled apart, somewhat reluctantly and slightly breathless. You had felt butterflies whenever he looked at you anyway, but now there was an entire colony inhabiting your stomach. it was fate, you had never been more sure of it.

Something about the way he looked at you after that kiss would remain ingrained in your mind forever, as if you were his entire world. Perhaps this really had been your date with destiny.

#Charles Gunn #Gunn #Charles Gunn x reader #Gunn x reader #Charles Gunn imagine #Gunn imagine #ats #angel the series #btvs #ats x reader #ats imagine #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffyverse #female reader #sequel #mention of spangel #Charles Gunn x you #Angel #buffy the vampire slayer imagines

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davidmann95 · 4 years

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Superman & Lois Pilot Script Review

I’ve been reliably informed that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and indeed as my laptop and everything on it have been unusable for a couple months after a mishap, I went from ‘maybe I’ll write something on the pilot script for Superman & Lois’ to ‘as soon as I can get my hands back on that thing I’m writing something up’. I’m actually surprised none of you folks asked about it when I’ve mentioned several times that I read it; I was initially hesitant, but I’ve seen folks discussing plot details on Twitter and their reactions on here, so I guess WB isn’t making much of a thing out of it. Entire pilots have leaked before and they just rolled with it, so I suppose that isn’t surprising. Anyway, the show’s been pushed back to next year, and also the world is literally sick and metaphorically (and also a little literally) on fire, so I thought this might be fun if anyone needs a break from abject horror.

(Speaking of the world being on fire: while trying to offer a diversion amidst said blaze, still gonna pause for the moment to add to the chorus that if opening your wallet is a thing you can do, now most especially is a time to do it. I chipped in myself to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and even a casual look around here or Twitter will show people listing plenty of other organizations that need support.)

What I saw floating around was, if not a first draft, certainly not the final one given Elizabeth Tulloch later shared a photo of the cover for the final script crediting Lee Toland Krieger as the director rather than a TBD, but the shape of things is clearly in place. I’m going for a relative minimum of spoilers, though I’ll discuss a bit of the basic status quo the show sets up and vaguely touch on a few plot points, but if you want a simple response without risk of any story details: it’s very, very good. Clunky in the way the CW DC shows typically are, and some aspects I’m not going to be able to judge until the story plays out further, but it’s engaging, satisfying, and moreover feels like it Gets It more broadly than any other mass-media Superman adaptation to date.

The Good

* The big one, the pillar on which all else rests: this understands Lois and it really understands Clark. Lois isn’t at the center of the pilot’s arc, but she’s everything you want to see that character be - incisive, caring, and refusing to operate at less than 110% intensity with whatever she’s dealing with at any given time, the objections of others be damned. Clark meanwhile is a good-natured, good-humored dude who you can see in both the cape and the glasses even as those identities remain distinct, who’s still wrestling with his feelings of alienation and duty and how those now reflect his relationships with his children. The title characters both feel fully-formed and true to what historically tends to work best with them from day one here in ways I can’t especially say for any other movie or show they’ve starred in.

* While the suit takes a back seat for this particular episode, when Superman does show up in the opening and climax it absolutely knows how to get us to cheer for him; there’s more than one ‘hell yeah, it’s SUPERMAN, that guy’s the best!’ moment, and they pop.

* While the superheroics aren’t the biggest focus here, when they do arrive, the plan seems to be that they’ll be operating on an entirely different scale than the rest of the Arrowverse lineup. Maybe they scripted the ideal and’ll be pared-down come time for actual filming and effects work, or maybe they’re going all-out for the pilot, but the initial vision involves a massive super-rescue and a widescreen brawl that goes way, way bigger in scope than any I’m aware of on the likes of Supergirl. I heard in passing on Twitter from someone claiming to be in the know that the plan for Superman & Lois is that it’ll be fewer episodes with a higher budget, more in line with the DC Universe stuff if not exactly HBO Max ‘prestige TV’, and whether it’s true or not (I think it’s plausible, the potential ratings here are exponentially higher than anything else on the network so they’d want to put their best foot forward) they seem to be writing it as if that’s the idea.

* This balances its tones and ambitions excellently: it’s a Kent-Lane family drama, it’s Lois digging in with some investigative reporting to set up a major subplot, it’s Superman saving Metropolis and battling a powerful high-concept villain, and none of it feels like it’s banging up at awkward angles with the rest. There are a pair of throwaway lines in here so grim I can’t believe they were put in a script for a Superman TV show even if they don’t make it to air, and they in no way undermine the exhilaration once he puts on the cape or the warmth that pervades much of it. This feels as if it’s laying the groundwork for a Superman show that can tackle just about any sort of story with the character rather than planing its feet in one corner and declaring a niche, and so far it looks like it has the juice to pull it off.

* While the pilot doesn’t focus on him in the same way as the new kid, Jonathan Kent fits well enough for my tastes with the broad strokes of his personality from the comics, albeit if he had made it to 14 rather than 10 without learning about his dad being Superman. A pleasant, kinda dopey, well-meaning Superman Jr. - the biggest deviation, one I approve of, is that he can also kinda be a gleeful little shit when dealing with his brother in ways that remind you that this is very much also Lois Lane’s boy.

* We don’t know much about the season villain as of yet, but it’s an incredibly cool idea that I’m shocked that they’re going for right away, and I absolutely want to see how they play out as a character and how they’ll bounce off all the other major players.

* The way this seems to be framing itself in relation to the Superman movies and shows before it feels inspired to me: there are homages and shout-outs to and bits of conceptual scaffolding from Lois & Clark, Smallville, Donner, and more, but they’re all shown in ways that make it clear that those stories are part of his past rather than indicators of the baseline he’s currently operating off of. We get a retrospective of his and Lois’s history right off the bat with most of what you’d expect, and combined with those references the message is clear: this is a Superman who’s been through all the vague memories that you, prospective casual viewer, have of the other stuff you saw him in once upon a time, but this series begins the next phase of his life after what that general cultural impression of him to date covers. It strikes me as a good way of carrying over the goodwill of that nostalgia and iconography, while building in that this is a show with room to grow him beyond that into something more nuanced (and for that matter true to the character as the comics at their best have depicted him) than they tended towards. Where Superman Returns attempted to recapture the lightning in a bottle of an earlier vision of him in full, and Man of Steel tried to turn its back on anything that smelled of Old and Busted and Uncool entirely, perhaps this splitting of the difference - engaging with his pop culture history and visibly taking what appealed from some of those well-known takes, while also drawing a clear line in the sand between those as the past and this as the future - is what will finally engage audiences.

The Bad

* This is the sort of thing you have to roll with for a CW superhero show, and that lives and dies by the performances, but: the dialogue varies heavily. There are some really poignant moments, but elsewhere this is where it shows its early-draftiness; a decent amount is typical Whedon-poisoned quippiness or achingly blunt, and some of the ‘hey, we’re down with the kids!�� material for Jon, Jor, and Lana’s kid Sarah is outright agonizing. I suspect a lot of it will be fixed in minor edits, actor delivery, and hopefully the younger performers taking a brutal red pen to some of their material - this was written last January and the show’s now not debuting until next January, they’ve got plenty of time for cleanup - but if this sort of the thing has been a barrier to entry for you in the past with the likes of The Flash, this probably won’t be what changes your mind.

* There are a few charming shout-outs to other shows, but much moreso, Superman & Lois actually builds in a big way out of Crisis. Which is a-okay with me, except that what exactly that was is rather poorly conveyed given that lots of people will be giving this a spin with no familiarity with that. Fixable with a line or two, but important enough to be worth noting.

Have to wait and see how it plays out

* The series’ new kid, Jordan Kent, is so far promising with potential to veer badly off-course. He’s explicitly dealing with mental illness, and not on great terms with Clark at the beginning in spite of the latter’s best efforts, the notion of which I’m sure will immediately put some off. Ultimately the commonalities between father and son become clear, and he’s not written as a caricature in this opening but as a kid with some problems who’s still visibly his parents’ boy, but obviously the ball could be fumbled here in the long term.

* Lois’s dad is portrayed almost completely differently here than in the past in spite of technically still being her military dad who has some disagreements with her husband. There are some nice moments and interesting new angles but it seems possible that the groudwork is being laid for him to be Clark’s guy in the chair, and not only does he not need that he most DEFINITELY doesn’t need that to be a member of the U.S. Military, especially when one of the first and best decisions Supergirl made when introducing him was to make clear he had stopped working with the government any more than necessary years ago. Maybe it can be stretched if his dad-in-law occasionally calls him up to let him know about a new threat he’s learned about, and maybe they’ll even do something really interesting with that push-and-pull, but if Superman’s going to be even tacitly functioning as an extension of the military that’s going to be a foundational sin.

* As I was nervous about, Superman & Lois has some political flavor, but much to my delighted surprise, there’s no grossly out of touch hedge-betting in the way I understand Supergirl has gone for at times. As of the pilot, this is an explicitly leftie show, with the overarching threat of the season as established for Lois and Clark as reporters being how corporate America has stripmined towns like Smallville and manipulated blue collar workers into selling out their own best interests. Could that go wrong? Totally, there’s already an effort to establish a particular prominent right-wing asshole as capable of decency - without as of yet downplaying that he’s a genuinely shitty dude - and vague hints that some of the towns’ woes might be rooted more in Superman-type problems than Lois and Clark problems. But that they’re going for it this directly in the first place leaves me hopeful that the show won’t completely chicken out even if there’ll probably be a monster in the mix pulling a string or two; Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder’s Action Comics may justify Superman punching a cop by having him turn out to be a shadow monster so as to get past editorial, but it’s still a story about how sometimes Superman’s gotta punch a cop, and hopefully this can carry on in that spirit of using what wiggle room it has to the best of its ability.

So, so far so good. Could it end up a show with severe problems carried on the backs of Hoechlin and Tulloch’s performances? Absolutely. But thus far, the ingredients are there for all its potential problems to be either fixed, subverted, or dodged alright, and even when it surely fumbles the ball at junctures, I earnestly believe this is setting itself up to be the most fleshed-out, nuanced, engaging live-action take on these characters to date. And god willing, if so, the first real stepping stone in decades to proper rehab on Superman’s image and place in pop culture.

#Superman & Lois #Superman #Lois Lane #DCTV #Opinion

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mamthew · 4 years

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A Final Fantasy Ranking

Over the course of the quarantine, and because I had such a good time with the Final Fantasy VII Remake, I've ended up blazing through a ton of Final Fantasy games. Since April, I've played IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and XIII. 6, 7, 9, and 10 I'd beaten before. 4, 12, and 13 I'd played to some capacity before. 5 and 8 were completely new experiences. I had no interest in going further back than IV, since it was the first one to really put any effort into character work, and I didn't play either MMO because MMOs don't really appeal to me (I'm planning to try XIV whenever this new update drops that makes the story mode more accessible, but it keeps getting pushed back so oh well). I also didn't replay XV because I've played XV three times and watched other people play it in its entirety twice, so I have a much better handle on it than any other game in the series.

Anyway, I didn't really have any plans for what I'd do with this, besides get a better understanding of the series as a whole, but I was kinda inspired to do my own Final Fantasy ranking. I'll probably be a bit more detailed than I should be because I tend to overanalyze my media and end up having too much to say. I’m actually not placing VII Remake in this ranking half because I regard it as a spinoff and half because it’s not yet a complete story, even though Part 1 is unquestionably a complete game. If I were to put it somewhere, it would probably be close to the top, possibly even in second place. Also worth noting that this is gonna have SPOILERS for every game I discuss here. I really just wanna use this as a place to nail down some of my thoughts on these games, so they’re pretty stream of consciousness and I didn’t bother avoiding any details from the plots.

10: Final Fantasy VIII.

I don’t think there’s another game in the series with a more obvious corporate hand in it than VIII. It’s kinda the Fant4stic of FF games; there are the bones of a substantive game in there somewhere, but every aspect of the game is such a bald attempt at checking off a 1999 list of “things gamers want” that the whole affair feels hollow and sickening. A major trend I’ve noticed throughout this series is the extent to which FFVII’s success pushed the architects of almost every subsequent game to try to recapture whatever it was that worked about VII, and VIII got the worst of it. It’s got the sullen guy with a special sword. It’s got the sci-fi. It’s got the terrorists with hearts of gold fighting against an oppressive state. It’s got the train scenes. It’s got the case(s) of amnesia that hides the true premise of the story. It’s got the ability to give any character any loadout.

Besides that, they kinda crammed in just a bunch of stuff popular with kids at the time. Jurassic Park? It’s in there. Beauty and the Beast? Here’s the ballroom scene. Hunchback of Notre Dame? Here’s that carnival. Alien? Now you’re alone on a spaceship running away from a horror monster. Saving Private Ryan? The party shares brains with war veterans and dreams of their experiences at war I guess. Half of anime? It’s all about a high school for mercenaries and the party is trying to get back in time for the school festival. Fandom culture? Zines are a collectible item, and each one you find adds an update to Selphie's Geocities page. It also has astronauts, and transformers, and a haunted castle, and a prison break, and Rome, and Alpine Wakanda, and war crimes, and lion cubs that have attained enlightenment, and there’s almost no connective tissue from one idea to the next.

Also the junction system is convoluted and terrible, using magic makes your stats worse, all enemies level up every time you do, and I couldn’t tell you which character excelled in what stats. The characters were all very flat, and the first time I felt like I was seeing the characters interact in ways that helped me to understand them was in the cutscene that plays during the end credits.

Also the female lead’s role in the story changes entirely with no warning every five hours or so. She’s a terrorist, oh no she’s aristocracy in the country she’s terroristing against, oh no she’s jealous of the others because they grew up together and she didn’t, oh no she’s Sandra Bullock in Gravity, oh no she’s the villain and it’s too dangerous to let her out, oh no it’s actually fine and they were bad for locking her up.

It’s an absolute disaster of a game. However, the music and background art is absolutely beautiful. Maybe they never gave me a good enough reason to be in an evil time traveling haunted castle, but damn is it a gorgeous rendering of an evil time traveling haunted castle.

9: Final Fantasy XII.

I’ve known for years that FFXII had issues in development. The writers came up with a story for it, and execs got scared because there were no young characters and they’d convinced themselves that young protagonists are what makes games sell. So two more characters - Vaan and Penelo - were added, one was framed as the protagonist of the story, and the entire story was rewritten so it could feasibly be from his perspective.

While the two characters they added are egregiously tangential to the plot, XII honestly has no protagonist. The writers originally wanted Basch to be the protagonist, but his entire arc is really just following Ashe around and being sad about his evil twin. Ashe is probably the most important to the story, but doesn’t have much presence for a good chunk of the story, and makes her most character-defining choice offscreen before having it stolen from her by a side character. Balthier has the largest presence in the story, and is most closely related to most of the events of the story, but has pretty much no role in the ending.

Honestly, if I were writing FFXII and told it needed a young protagonist, I would have aged up and expanded the role of Larsa, the brother of the main villain, who shows up as a temporary party member from time to time. The entire game is about family ties, and a journey spotlighting Larsa could have involved his learning about Ashe, Basch, Balthier and Fran’s family situations and using their experiences to grapple with his own. Damn, now I’m sitting here thinking about how good that could have been.

As it is, the game feels disjointed and aimless, and the ending is so bad it’s farcical. When I reached the ending, I watched Basch and Ashe forgive Basch’s evil twin for his villainy rampage, harking back to the moment earlier in the game when Ashe turned down the chance to gain powers that would have allowed her to avenge her country because she realized that those powers could also drive her to hurt innocents in the crossfire. In this moment, I realized how Vaan fit in as the protagonist of the game. “Oh, he’s going to realize that violence begets violence, and that he must break the cycle by forgiving Vayne for the death of his brother. He’s going to let go of that hatred he’s been trying to push onto someone for so long, and it’ll finally allow him to heal.” I realized that even though the road to this point was rocky, the writers had managed to craft a satisfying ending from the seemingly disparate pieces of this uneven plot.

And then Vaan picked up a sword and screamed AAAAAAAAAAA and charged Vayne down and stabbed him, and Vayne turned into a shrapnel robot dragon and exploded all the star wars ships and I threw my controller aside and laughed uncontrollably while my characters beat him up and completed the game on their own without any further input from me.

Oh yeah, the battle system is also incredibly boring. Instead of battling, the player writes up an AI script for each character, then lets them act based on those scripts. I would straight up put the controller down and watch youtube videos whenever a group of enemies showed up. I was pretty excited about the job system, but then there didn’t really feel like much of a difference between jobs, and my characters all behaved pretty much the same as each other.

The hands-off battle system, unfocused story, lethargic voice acting, and tuneless music all left me pretty uninvested in the whole affair. The art style and locations are beautiful, though, and it did make me want to eventually check out some of the Tactics games, which take place in the same universe but are supposed to have excellent stories and gameplay.

8: Final Fantasy XIII.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had two such opposing opinions of a game’s story vs. its gameplay. This game is the only one that plays with a bunch of story elements from FFIX, which did a lot to endear it to me. It’s sort of a game in which the protagonists are Kuja, the villain of IX. Like Kuja, they are created as tools by an uncaring god for the purpose of fighting against one world on behalf of another world, and are subsequently forced to grapple with the horrors of having an artificially shortened lifespan.

The story actually has a lot of Leftist themes, too. The gods of that universe spread ideology among the populace, and the people unquestioningly believe these false stories, as the gods have provided for them for as long as there has been written history. Much of the character arcs center on the characters being forcibly removed from their places within those ideological frameworks and having to unlearn what they’d always believed to be objectively true about the world.

So the story actually is pretty good, but it’s held back by some really clumsy storytelling; it constantly uses undefined jargon, has almost no side characters with which it might flesh out the world, actively fights against players trying to glean information from environmental details, and maintains (at least for me) a weird disconnect between the characters in the gameplay and the characters in the cutscenes. I think this partly stems from Square’s original failed plan for FFXIII to be the first game in a much larger series of games sharing themes and major story details. Despite these issues, however, the characters are all likeable and (mostly) believable, and their interactions are grounded in real emotional weight even while their universe feels intangible.

This all got dragged down by the gameplay, which is total dogshit. It’s got the worst battle system I think I’ve seen in an RPG. The game only stops being doggedly, unflinchingly linear about thirty hours in, the whole game took me about fifty hours, and I spent the last fifteen hours beating my head against each individual battle, waiting until the system hiccuped long enough to accidentally slide me a win. That meant I had about a five hour window of euphoric play, convinced that I actually loved this game, thrilled with every new experience it gave me, and excited to see what would happen next. I guess those five hours are what pushed this game over XII in my ranking.

7: Final Fantasy V.

Until FFXV, this game was the last of the “Warriors of Light” games, in which the game follows a party of four set characters for its entirety. To this day, it’s the last of the “Warriors of Light” games to let the player customize which character holds which roles through the job system.

FFV’s job system is the reason to play the game. Its story is mediocre, and its characters are all fairly flat, but there’s something viscerally satisfying about building party members up in jobs that might enhance the role they ultimately will fill. For my mage character, I maxed out Black Mage, Blue Mage, Mystic Knight, Summoner, and Geomancer. Then at the end, I switched her to a Freelancer with Black Magic and Summoning, and she kept all the passive skills for those jobs and also the highest stats across those jobs.

It was super fun and kind of a shift of focus for me, since I tend to place story above anything else in games. Despite the story not being special, though, the game’s writing is actually a ton of fun. It’s definitely got the most comic relief in the series, and I came away loving Gilgamesh as much as everyone else does.

And while it’s nothing special graphically, it does have some really cool enemy designs, and the final boss design is one of the most memorable ones they’ve ever done. Which is impressive because I keep having to look up Exdeath’s name because the character himself is super forgettable.

6: Final Fantasy IV.

This wasn’t the first game in the series to feature actual characters with names and depth, but I have no interest in playing FFII, so it might as well be. I actually played the DS Remake for this game, so it definitely had some quality of life improvements, like full 3d characters and maps, voice acting, an updated script, the ability to actually see the ATB gauge, and the ability to switch to other characters whose turns are ready without using a turn.

Apparently one thing the remake didn’t do was rebalance the difficulty for more modern sensibilities. Instead, this remake is...harder? It requires more grinding than the original? Why??

Either way, though, the story is actually solid! The game opens on its protagonist, Cecil, committing a war crime on the orders of his king, who raised him as a child. The first ten hours of so of the game follows Cecil as he tries to understand why he was ordered to kill so many innocents, turns his back on his country, and works to redeem himself.

This arc is reinforced by the game mechanics, too, which is super clever. His redemption is marked by a change in job from a Dark Knight to a Paladin, which also resets his level. For a time, his life is considerably harder because he’s finding his footing as a new person, which is marked by battles which had been easy becoming much harder for the player for a time.

This game places storytelling over gameplay more than I think any other game in the series. Each character is locked into a job, which I much prefer in my RPGs to games where characters function pretty much interchangeably. I dunno if it’s because I cut my RPG teeth on Tales, but it really bugs me when I can give Tifa the exact same loadout as Barret. I want the lives of the characters to bleed into their functions as gameplay devices.

However, the developers clearly had a ton of different jobs they wanted to add to their game, but hadn’t figured out how to allow for the player to switch in and out party members in standby. To fix this, they increased the in-battle party to five characters rather than or four (or the later constantly frustrating three), rotated the roster a ton, and had a ton of characters who straight up leave permanently. One character dies and never comes back. Two characters die and only are revived after it’s too late to rejoin the party. Four characters end up too injured to continue traveling.

This let the developers make a ton of jobs, but it doesn’t let the player exploit these jobs to their fullest. Characters’ stats reflect their role in the story, as well. One character is quickly aging out of adventuring, so his magic stats increase on levels, but his attack and defense stats actually decrease, signifying his failing body. Another character has already achieved some form of enlightenment, so he gains no stats when he levels up at all. The purpose of IV is the story, over any other aspect of the game, which makes it even more mindboggling that the remake would have increased the difficulty.

Besides that, the biggest issue I had with this game was the overbearing constant drama of it. While there were a few more lighthearted parts, they were mostly relegated to NPC dialogue and sidequests. The characters in this game don’t become friends so much as they become companions who bonded over shared tragedies, and this makes for quite a few scenes of every character separately wallowing in their own immeasurable sadness. I played FFV directly after this game and the light story and jokey dialogue was a much-needed palette cleanser.

5: Final Fantasy VI.

Before the unexpected success of FFVII irreparably changed the franchise, Square constantly mixed up the story formula for the series. IV, V and VI all handled their stories really differently from each other, and what I remember of III also felt fairly different from the games that came after.

Every game from VII on had a very clear protagonist (except XII, whose botched protagonist was still clearly marketed as the protagonist). The concept of the Dissidia crossover series is built on the idea that every FF has a protagonist at the center of its story. FFVI’s Dissidia character is Terra, but Terra is not the protagonist of FFVI.

Apparently while developing FFVI, the directors decided they didn’t want the game to have a clear protagonist, so they asked the staff to staff to submit concepts for characters, and they’d use as many as they could. This game has fourteen characters, each with their own fun gameplay gimmick in battles. Three of the characters are secret, and one can permanently die halfway through if the player takes the wrong actions. Of these fourteen characters, the main story heavily revolves around 3-6 of them, while five more have substantial character arcs.

There’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether this game or VII is the best one in the series, and I can see why; this game is absolutely fascinating. No other game in the series has done what this game did, which means it’s one of the two FF games I really want to see remade after they complete this VII remake.

The first half is very linear. It breaks the beginning party into three pieces, then sends each character to a different continent, where they meet more characters and build their own parties before everyone reunites. Once the story has taken the player everywhere in the world, the apocalypse hits. The villain’s evil plan succeeds and tears the entire world apart.

The second half of the game picks up a year later with one character finally getting a raft and escaping the island on which she’s been marooned. In this half, the player navigates the world, which has all the same locations, but in completely different parts of the map. The driving factor for much of the second half is to learn from incidental dialogue where each party member has gone in this new world, to track them down, and to try to fix some of the bad that’s been done to the world before finally stopping the villain who destroyed it.

It’s unique and clever and occasionally legitimately tugs at the heartstrings some, which is impressive for a poorly translated SNES game. The final dungeon is a masterpiece all on its own. It requires the player to make three parties of up to four characters, then send them in and switch between them as new roads open. This way, the game manages to feel like an ensemble piece up to the very end.

4: Final Fantasy VII.

As I previously mentioned, there’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether FFVI or FFVII is the best game in the series. Neither is the best game in the series. FFVII is better than FFVI. Oops.

When I was first drafting up this list, it was before I’d reached my replays of VI or VII, and I tentatively placed them next to each other, with the strong assumption that I’d end up placing VI a bit higher than VII, since it has so many strongly differentiated characters with solid story arcs, beautiful artwork, great music, etc. etc. Then I reached FFVII and not even four hours in, I realized it would have to be higher on my list than VI.

VI has a better battle system, its characters are much more differentiated by their gameplay, its character sprites have aged much better than VII’s character models, and it has four party members in battles instead of three. But I couldn’t overlook VII’s gorgeous artwork, sharp character work, and character-driven story. In the end, I had to give it the edge.

VII is a strange beast. It simultaneously really holds up and has aged horribly. The story is excellent and I love the characters, but the actual line-to-line writing is pretty bad, making the whole experience of the game a bit like swimming upstream; you’re getting somewhere good, but the age of the game is still pushing you back the best it can. Similarly, the background artwork is fantastic and gives the game locations a sense of place incomparable to anything that had come before it, but the character models are so low-poly that the two are constantly at odds with each other.

Still, the game is more a good game than it is an old one. I think it’s managed to duck the absurd level of hype around it by actually being very different from what the most popular images of it make it out to be, if that makes sense. The super futuristic techno-dystopia city only makes up a very small portion of the larger game, and most newcomers to the game won’t have seen Junon, or Corel, or Cosmo Canyon. Heck, I didn’t know Cait Sith or Red XIII were characters before I played the game for the first time. One of the many reasons I’m excited for the rest of this remake is to see newcomers to the story learning just how much variety there is to the world, events, and characters of this game.

FFVII also began (and pulled off really well) a number of storytelling trends that continued in subsequent games in the series. Obviously, almost every game since this one has a clear protagonist with a cool sword for cosplayers to recreate, and an androgynous villain whose story is closely linked to the protagonist (or one villain who is linked to the protagonist and a second one whose purpose is to look like Sephiroth), but it’s started broader, more quality shifts, too.

FFVII is the first game in the series to try to give all its characters arcs based on a similar theme, for example, a trend that has helped give it and future games a sense of thematic unity, especially in IX, X, and XV. Heck, that trend was why I almost came around on XII before they nuked it. It was also the first game in the series to have a real ending, rather than closing out with essentially a curtain call featuring all the party members, like they did in IV through VI (and I assume earlier).

Another common feature of FF games that it didn’t start with VII but certainly was canonized with it was the mid-game plot twist tying the protagonist to both the villain and the larger story. FFIV had this as well, of course, but I feel like the orphanage twist in VIII, the Zanarkand dream twist in X, and the time skip twist in XV were all meant to recall VII’s twist of Cloud’s…very complex existence (IX’s two worlds twist actually is a clear homage to IV, but it’d be hard to argue that Zidane’s connection to Kuja - and the character of Kuja generally - weren’t more influenced by VII).

2: Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XV.

Sorry, this one is a two-fer. I’m not gonna spend too much time on why I placed these two together in the #2 spot (I wrote a long thing on it here, if you’re interested). In summary, the games kinda mirror each other, in story and design. Each game can be seen in the negative space of what the other game leaves out, and at the end, the characters react to similar situations in completely opposite ways. For this reason, and that they’re of comparable quality, I think they’re best viewed as companion pieces.

FFX was the first mainline Final Fantasy game I ever completed, six years late. It was the first FF game with voice acting and many fully modeled locations. It also kinda marks the beginning of the series’ constant changes to the battle system.

That’s not to say the previous games’ battle systems didn’t also differ from each other, but they all had the same setup, with levels and an ATB gauge. This was the first game since III not to have any real-time element to its battle system, nor numbered levels gained through experience points. Since X, no two FF battle systems have been remotely comparable, which is cool and innovative and keeps things fresh, but also means I’ve been starved for just a regular ATB FF game for too long.

In many ways, FFX feels like a bridge between the PS1 games and the later games. It feels much more streamlined than VII, VIII, or IX, in terms of both storytelling and design. The game is very linear, pushing the player from one area to the next and not allowing much backtracking until the very end. It also loses the aging look of the PS1 games’ menus and UI, finally updating the classic font and the blue menus with white borders to fully modernized and sleek graphics.

However, movement still feels very similar to movement in VIII and IX, the music definitely evokes the PS1 games more than the later games, and most locations are portrayed with beautifully painted backgrounds, rather than modeled in (which I actually prefer, and I was glad to see that VII Remake has gone back to that in some places).

Voice acting in this game is phenomenal for 2001, and honestly on par with many contemporary games. I can’t think of a voice actor for the main cast who didn’t do a great job. Tidus’s narration, especially, is emotional and evocative in all the right ways. Grounding the plot in a very personal story about Tidus’s difficulty coming to terms with and proving himself to his abusive father keeps the story relatable and real.

Something interesting about my experience with X is that because it was my first Final Fantasy game, I thought for a very long time that the series was about organized religion, and the ways it is used to justify evil acts. This might be the only game of the ones I’ve played that is about organized religion, or even prominently features a religious doctrine, which really sets it apart from the rest of the series.

The game’s thematic unity is on point, even if there is a scene where they state the central themes a bit too plainly. Every character, and even the entire universe of the story, is held back by the past, and every subplot and the main plot revolves around finding ways to move forward and leave the past behind.

I love FFXV. It feels like a return to form after XII and XIII. It’s also probably the furthest any game in the series has strayed from the original formula. Battles are entirely real-time, and the game is a straightforward action game. There is very little time spent with menus, and even the leveling system has been stripped down to a few skill trees. It’s immediately obvious that the game was originally created to be a spinoff, not a main title.

FFXV is also probably too much a product of the current era of microtransactions and payment plans. The full story is spread out across *deep breath* a feature film, an anime series, an anime OVA, a standalone demo, two console games, four DLC story chapters, a multiplayer side game, a VR fishing game, four phone games (though really three phone games because A New Empire straight up isn't in that universe and also is terrible), an expansion including several entirely new dungeons, and finally a novel set to release sometime this year. That’s a whole lot of story. I’ve not played the phone games or the VR fishing game, or read the novel yet, but I’ve experienced all the rest.

But I also played FFXV when it first released, before any patches, before I knew there was a film, just the game all on its own. So you can believe me when I say that without any supplementary material, the game is still great.

It goes back to the FFI, II, III, V “Warriors of Light” system, where the party has four characters who do not change at all throughout the game. While this bugged me at first, I soon came to appreciate having a story where almost all character interactions involved these four characters. It meant I came to understand them well enough to feel like they were my friends, too. Most characterization in this game is understated, presented through small shared moments, dialogue, and body language as they travel the world together. Much like X, the overarching story might be expansive and far-reaching, but the real show is in the personal journeys the friends have.

Much of the first half of the game is spent exploring an open world, driving along the road and getting out of the car for pit stops or to explore the forests nearby. This is one of the very few games where I don’t mind just exploring an area without the promise of an upgrade or a new scene, just to see what’s around the corner, or to hear whatever banter the characters might engage in next.

The entire world of this game is gorgeous, and the orchestrated music is some of the best they’ve ever done. The main plot is beautiful, too. It’s bittersweet and emotional, with a charismatic villain and a twist that blew me away the first time I reached it.

The supplementary material is also mostly really quality. I’d recommend the Royal Edition over the original edition for sure, and to watch Kingsglaive as well. The anime series is quick and fairly fun, and Comrades expands on the universe in some great ways, but neither has as much bearing on the overall plot as the DLC chapters and Kingsglaive. I’m so in love with the DLC chapters, actually, that two years ago I wrote a piece just on how much Episode Ignis affected me (here if you care).

This is definitely getting long, so I guess I’ll move on after saying I’m upset that they patched Chapter 13 to make it easier, and I’m angry at everyone who complained that Chapter 13 was too hard. It was a brilliant piece of storytelling through game mechanics, and it’s mostly been stripped of all that, now.

1: Final Fantasy IX.

It’s IX. It was always IX. I actually did come into this with an open mind, wondering if one of the new games I’d experience (IV, V, VIII, XII, XIII) might end up hitting me harder than Final Fantasy IX, but as I replayed my favorite game in the series I quickly realized that wouldn’t be happening.

There are only a handful of games that make me cry. IX is one of two without voice acting. There are several songs from IX that make me tear up just when I hear them.

The story of the black mages gaining sentience, learning that they can die, and trying to force themselves back into being puppets just to lose that knowledge really moves me. The same goes for the story of Dagger no longer recognizing her mother, setting out to find a place to belong, learning that her birth family is long dead, then watching her mother return to her old self a moment before losing her forever. And Zidane’s story, where he has nowhere to call home, finally discovers the circumstances of his birth, and realizes that had he stayed in his birthplace, he would have become a much worse person than he ultimately did.

More than any other, though, Vivi’s story will always stick with me. He was found as a soulless husk by Quan, a creature with the intention of fattening him up and eating him, but each of them awoke something in the other, and Quan ended up raising Vivi as his grandson. When Quan passed, a rudderless Vivi went to the city to find a new home, and eventually learned he was created as a weapon. Other weapons had also gained sentience, but none had the worldliness that Vivi had gained from his loving relationship with Quan. When Vivi discovers that most weapons like him die after only a few months, he grapples with the possibility that he may die at any time, and eventually decides that he can only take control of what life he has by living each moment to the fullest. He ends up becoming an example for the other weapons to follow.

FFIX is a game about belonging: both yearning to have somewhere to belong and learning that the place where you think you belong is actually toxic and harmful to you. Even the menu theme is a tune called “A Place to Call Home.”

IX ran counter to the trends of the series in a number of ways. It was a return to high fantasy after the more sci-fi VII and VIII, and was also much more lighthearted than those games, while still being heartfelt and occasionally bittersweet. Gameplay-wise, it locked each of its characters into a single job, gave them designs based on their jobs, brought back four-character parties, and introduced a skill system in which characters learn skills from equipment. It also had a much softer, less realistic art style, and mostly avoided the attempts to recapture VII that have plagued most other subsequent titles (besides Kuja’s design, I guess).

The story is also structured so well. It regularly shifts perspective for the first thirty hours, allowing the player to spend ample time with each of the party members, and shaking up character combinations for fun new interactions. It introduced a system similar to the skits from Tales games, showing the player often humorous vignettes of what’s happening to other characters at the time. Once the characters have all come together in one party, the game has earned the sense that all of them (except for the criminally underexplored Amarant) have become a family.

The supporting cast are a blast as well. Zidane’s thief troupe (who double as a theater troupe) are likeable and fun. Kuja’s villain arc allows him to be sympathetic without losing his edge. The black mages are tragic without being overdone.

The development team for this game put so much more work into this game than they had to. The background artwork was all made in such high-definition resolutions that the act of downscaling them to fit in the game removed details. Uematsu traveled to Europe to make sure he’d get the feel of the soundtrack right, and has said it’s his favorite score he’s ever done. Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, says IX is his favorite game in the series.

FFIX is one of the two games I would like them to remake after they finish the VII Remake, but I’m terrified they’ll mess it up in some way. Honestly, the game’s only flaws (which I do desperately want them to fix) are a lack of voice acting, the underdeveloped party member Amarant (and to a lesser extent Freya), the dissonance of Beatrix never getting punished in any way for her hand in a genocide, and the fact that very few of the sidequests are story-related because so many of the smaller story details that would normally be relegated to sidequests are covered in the main plot.

Despite the danger, though, I think revisiting IX is absolutely essential moving forward. It represents so much of what made older games like IV and VI great, and its story is much more grounded in real emotion than many current Square stories tend to be. Remaking VII will be good for getting VII out of Square’s system. Remaking IX would be good for putting IX back into Square’s system.

Here’s a IX song as a reward for getting this far. I’m gonna go listen to it and tear up again.

#final fantasy #final fantasy iv #final fantasy v #final fantasy vi #final fantasy vii #final fantasy vii remake #final fantasy viii #final fantasy ix #final fantasy x #final fantasy xii #final fantasy xiii #final fantasy xv

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nerdylittleshit · 4 years

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Thoughts about Spn 15x12

SPOILERS AHEAD! BEWARE!

And here we are again. And I know I repeat myself (again) in pointing out that this is still the most meta season we ever head… and that I love every minute of it. We have an episode that ties up what “Wayward Sisters” probably would have been like, which again feels like fanservice, but in a good way. We also learn some important truths about Sam and Dean, their roles within the story, and Chuck, who is both author and part of his own story.

But, as always, let’s take a closer look.

Carry on my Wayward Sisters

I’m not sure if this was the last time we saw Jody (and if we will see Claire again), but they made sure to tie up the Wayward Sisters plot, or what would have been the plot of the spin-off (in an episode that starts with Chuck talking about failed spin-offs nevertheless). Personally I would love to see them all one more final time – Jody, Donna, Claire, Kaia, Alex and Patience. Still I appreciate that for now they at least brought this particular subplot to an end (and again we had Chuck at the beginning who told us that from now on there would be no more subplots).

The story itself was simple enough and perhaps felt a bit rushed, then again it was supposed to be told over the course of an entire season, if they had picked up “Wayward Sisters”. They intervened it with the current big plot of the season – Bad Kaia’s world turns out to be one of the many other ending worlds, Jack’s loyalty to Death is tested, which ultimately leads to Billy telling Sam and Dean about their destiny.

Bad Kaia turned out to be… not that bad. She never meant to hurt our Kaia, she made sure she would survive in her homeworld, and now she does everything she can to save her. She is not a villain per se, so her death would not have made sense in any other way than her choosing to stay behind, to choose death, on her own terms, in her home.

On the other hand we get our Kaia back and we get a confirmation that Claire loves her, and by the way Kaia asked about Claire surely the feeling is mutual. Dreamhunter is official canon.

I also loved that Jody and Cas finally met and how they bonded over Claire. Cas is still aware how much pain he brought to Claire, that there is no way to redeem himself fully, but also that Claire found a new home, a new family, and that she needs Jody in order to survive. Cas has come a long way, he sort of became a parent himself with Jack, and he knows that Jody would do anything for Claire, but also how important it is to keep yourself safe for the ones who need you in your life.

How to kill God (a step by step tutorial)

I already mentioned Chuck’s entrance scene, with him mentioning subplots and spin-offs, with the episode finishing a subplot that was supposed to be a spin-off. The big news we learn within the first minutes is that our Sam and Dean are the original Sam and Dean. That all the other worlds are just versions of the same story, the same characters. Which is a very meta-ish statement. Because it somehow puts the audience in the same role as Chuck – to us our Sam and Dean are the original ones as well, and the other worlds we saw are just Alternative Universes, the same way every fan fiction is just another version of the same story, the same characters. (And clearly Earth 2 is a “fix it”-story, where Hilary Clinton became president and the Paris agreement gets restored) But the Chuck the only story that does count is the original story. It does not matter if Sam and Dean get the ending he wants in all those other worlds, as long as they don’t get the ending in the original world. I’m not sure how to interpret this in terms of the audience and transformative works, if it says the stories/endings we create don’t matter as long as the source material does not have the ending we want. Then again Chuck is the villain, so perhaps we should not listen to him.

It also seems like Chuck is afraid that Dean is perhaps right in saying Chuck does not gets the ending he wants. We later learn that Chuck is not only the author of the original world, but also part of the narrative in order for the world to work. He is not omniscient, he does not known what is written in Death’s book about him, which is why he has not the full control over this world. (But it seems this ‘mistake’ happened only in the original world, so he can end all other worlds easily)

Sam and Dean (but especially Sam) still don’t know whether they can trust Jack and Billy. They know too little about the plan and jack of course still has no soul. Cas reacts a bit different. He trusts Jack, and therefore trusts Billy. He believes in Jack, that this is Jack’s destiny, that this what Kelly saw in her son, that when Jack died he felt his story was not over and this is the proof. Of course from a narrative point of view he is right. Jack’s story indeed felt not finished when he died, there were to many open questions surrounding his character and story arc. Cas tries to see the bigger picture, though he calls it destiny, which is always a difficult thing in the Winchesters world. They tend to screw with their destinies.

Jack himself turns out to be a true Winchesters. He is aware of his own value, knows that Billy’s plan only works with him, so he uses Merle for his own advantage. He is trapped between his loyalty to Billy, knowing that their plan only works if he does not use his powers, and doing what he feels is right. He feels responsible for what happened to Kaia. He tries to find a way where he can still save her, without risking to be exposed. Billy reminds him that he risked their plan, the bigger picture, in order to save one life. But this is… well… Winchester stupid, risking everything in order to save one life, because no one gets left behind.

Billy is portrayed in this episode almost like God. Jack mentions to Merle that when the Grigori trapped him and he prayed to her she did not show up. Merle only tells him to trust Billy, that she must have known he would handle it, that Cas would help him. Billy is therefore omniscient and given that she inherited Death’s knowledge and library, she kinda is. She knows things Chuck does not, because she knows how everyone will eventually die, even God himself. Even though she did not write the books in Death’s library (they write themselves), she is the only one able to read them, making her the true author. She alone knows what role Jack, Cas, Sam and Dean will play in God’s death. She tells Sam and Dean that they are the messengers of God’s destruction, which are big words, but we still don’t know details. Sam mentioned the fact that some sort of cosmic balance has to exist, that Amara can’t exist alone without her brother. Dean’s trust in Billy is based on her playing by the rules, but I’m not sure she still does. But for now all we can do is wait and see what they have in store for our boys.

Until then <3

#supernatural #galaxy brain #spn meta #my meta #spn 15x12

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brooktrout96 · 3 years

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The Dream That You've Always Dreamed is Suddenly About to Flower.

Chapter 1 of The Deeper The Darkness The More Dazzling The Light Shines!

Part 1 of The Zero to Hero Series

AO3 is here

Zero had been traveling all over the universe and even the multiverse. He had see many things like the beautiful green emerald like crystal of Esmeralda to an alternate earth where his arch-rival's son lived and protect. In all his (long) life, he never expected to land in a world where have superpowers was the norm until he did and taking a host with one of those superpowers

Izuku Midoriya was Quirkless and he was told by many that he couldn’t be a hero, that he was useless, until one day his idol and the number one hero told him that he could be a hero, that he was useful. He knew he had to work extra hard to be able to become the best he could be and become a hero that everyone believed in. But no one said that he would be meeting a 49-meter-tall alien that would have to share his body with as he works towards his dream of becoming a hero as he fight giant monsters that seem to be right out of a pre-Quirk TV show

"Midoriya!” His eyes snaped open as he awoke to All Might standing over him but he couldn’t move. It felt like his body wasn’t his own, like he was under someone’s control but there stood his mentor, if a Villain had use their quirk on him to see why the No. one hero had taken an interest in him, they would find out that his mentor was injured and that would make him an easier target. He had to protect All Might and his secret as he fought for control of his body and won control

“So, you’re more like Leito or Taiga then Run then.” Izuku heard a voice say as he looked around. All he saw was All Might standing in front of him with a concern look on his face

“My boy, are you alright?”

“Yeah All Might!” Izuku said with a smile on his face. “I just wore myself out move the junk; I think I’ll call it a day today. See you later.” All Might gave Izuku a smile as he took off and toward home

“Geeze, I thought I was a real bad liar.” The voice from before spooked Izuku as he looked around as he noticed that there no one there, as Izuku return to walking as a transparent ‘person’ appeared in front of him. It was red and blue with silver accents with two strange horn things on its head. On his chest was a blue light, that a lighter shade of blue then the blue on its body

“What!” He squeaked as he looked the ‘person’ that just appeared in front of him and spoke as he studied it. “What are you? Who are you?” He begins to mutter as it let out a sigh.

“My name is Zero, Ultraman Zero.”

Izuku looked at the ‘man’ as he introduced himself. “Ultraman? Zero? What’s a Ultraman?”

“So, it seems that Ultras don’t exist in this world.” Zero muttered as he then look at the young boy. “You’re heading home, right?” Izuku nodded his head. “I’ll explain on the way and then you can explain to me what this world is about.” Izuku continued to walk as Zero sit on his shoulder, explaining to him what an Ultra was.

~***~

Izuku moved the last piece of trash to the pile that he had made and he paused and took a deep breath as he set down to study his hard work. The beach was completely clean, there was no trash at all. He smiled, exhausted as Zero set on his shoulder with a grin on his face. “You did it kid, when your mentor get here, he’ll be so proud and maybe a little confused on how strong you are but you did it.” Izuku laid back as he let out a long-exhausted sigh as he closed his eye to relax and regain a little of his strength as he waited for All Might to get to the beach

“Yeah,” Izuku thought more to Zero then to himself. “I don’t think he was expecting me to finished cleaning until closer to the Entrance Exam.

All Might in his true form made his way to the beach where he knew young Midoriya was. He paused as he took in the beach

“Oh my.” He looked around the beach in shock as he puffed up into his hero form. “Oh, my GOODNESS.” Izuku stood up to greet his mentor but he looked like he was drunk as he stumbled in exhaustion toward him. All Might caught him. “You’ve earned a rest.” He said with a (real) smile on his face.

“All Might! I… I did it… I did it!”

“And you did an astonishing job of it, too! Especially for a teenager!” All Might put Izuku back down on the ground as he pulled out his phone and showed him a photo from seven month ago

“What’s this…” Izuku trailed off as the exhaustion continued to hit him hard as he looked at the photo on the phone.

“This is you, seven months ago!” All Might looked at Izuku, who looked like he could keel over if the wind blew right. “You did really, really good. We’ve only just reached the faintest mirage of the path that lies ahead but you’re a bona-fide vessel now.”

Izuku looked down at something in his hand as Zero had swapped shoulder to sit on, from Izuku’s right to his left. He let out a sigh.

“I feel like…. I’ve cheated somehow.”

“I mean you kinda did.” Zero chimed in as Izuku began to cry as the emotions began to take over.

“All Might, you went so far for me, and I feel too blessed!”

“What’s this all of a sudden? All Might thought in confusion. “It was all you, kid.” All Might let out a sigh as he shook his head as he pluck a strand of his hair as he spoke. “You know what they say, right? There’s a difference between something you were born with out of pure luck and something won after busting your ass for it! Puff out your chest and be proud. This is the power you earned fair and square kid. Now eat this.” All Might held out a strand of his hair out to Izuku

“Come again?” Izuku had a look of confusion on his face as Zero had fell from his perch on Izuku’s left shoulder in shock

“Technically the way you take my DNA doesn’t really matter but this is the easiest way to do it.”

“This isn’t really what I had in mind.”

“Even us Ultra have less confusing/disgusting way to transfer our powers.” Zero muttered to Izuku. Izuku took the strand of hair from All Might as he let out a sigh and put the hair in his mouth and swallowed (not without gagging but that was a given, it was a strand of hair for crying out loud).

He didn’t feel any different but he assumed that unlike the boost that he got as Zero’s host which was noticeable as soon that evening as his mom had a klutz moment while the two of them were doing dishes, she tripped and lost one of the plates out of her hand and he caught it before it could hit the ground. He at first thought that it was a side effect of his training with All Might but afterwards he questioned the Ultra that he shared his body with and he explained that being his host gave him a boost in all aspects of fighting and that if he needed, that he (Zero) could take control of his body if need be.

“Young Midoriya, take the day off to recover and adjust to the power of One For All. We’ll continue training tomorrow with it and the rest of the three month. For now, just rest and take time to get acquainted with the power but don’t try to use it.” Izuku nodded his head as he turned to look at now clean beach with a smile.

~***~

Izuku hadn’t even started on his way home, when the ground shook and Zero let out a sigh as he looked up, Izuku followed his gaze and he noticed a huge yellow and black narwhal looking creature that slowly lumbering threw the city

“What is that thing?” Izuku mumble as he pulled out his notebook as Zero floated in front of him.

“It’s a Kaiju called Gubila, Izuku I honestly didn’t think that Kaiju existed on this earth, a earth with no Ultras to protected it.” He paused. “Izuku I need to borrow your body, unless your up to fighting in my body.”

Izuku shook his head. “No, I’m so exhausted from cleaning, go ahead.” Zero took control as Izuku’s hair became more wilder as he pulled out the Zero Eyes and put them up to his face and hit the button as his arms spread outwards and Zero's body forms via ribbons of light.

He then appeared in front of the Gubila as he got into a fighting stance as the Gubila charged at Zero as he sidestepped the attack and grabbed the Kaiju’s tail.

Izuku watched in awe from Zero’s Inner Space (Zero kindly explained the first night what the space he would be in when they transformed is called, his form changes and what might be needed of him as his host) as he wondered if he could apply the moves Zero is using on the Gubila to fighting a villain.

Zero chopped the tail with his hand as the Kaiju let out a roar and quick swung it tail send Zero flying into one of the nearby building. “Shit! Oh, that’s right!” Izuku heard Zero mumble as if he just remember something. He quickly got up as he switched over to Luna-Miracle. All of Zero’s red colorations had disappeared and he became completely blue with silver highlights

Zero, I thought you said that Luna-Miracle was mostly speed and healing based, so it doesn’t do any real damage.”

“Right but the thing is Gubila are native to most earths I’ve been to but they tend to hide further under ground then most human would be willing to dig. Most of them rampage because a earthquake tends to wake them up. I try not to kill if I can help it and right now it’s not trying to attack the city on purpose. It just confused and wants to go home. Isn’t that what a hero do, help people in need?”

Izuku nodded as the bracelet on Zero’s wrist began to glow as he generate a soft ray of light that calmed the Gubila and he pick it up and took off flying trying to find a spot for the Gubila to be safe and away from civilization that it and the human won’t bother each other before it could return underground.

“He returned and saw a voluptuous young woman with purple eyes and white pupils, with elegantly long eyelashes. She has long, voluminous, creamy blonde hair reaching her waist, with two shorter strands curled to frame her face, parted slightly to her left. She was wearing a purple and pale tan-colored skintight bodysuit, accented with orange stripes, purple gloves with orange accents on the edge of the cuff, and she also wearing a purple domino mask with horn-like protrusions on the sides.

“Izuku, who’s that?”

“That’s Mt. Lady. She debuted seven month ago, and she has a Gigantification Quirk.” Zero took one look at the short (at least compared to him) hero as his Color Time began to beep as he let out a sigh as he looked toward the Hero

“Stop right there vigilante.”

“Vigilante? I’m no vigilante, my name is Zero and Kaiju are my specialty.” He said quickly as he took off before any hero could do anything to him

~***~

Izuku had spent the remaining time before the entrance exam sparring as much as he could getting use to the strength of One For All and Zero’s powers. It seems that he could use all or most of Zero’s skills outside of being transformed. He had the speed of Luna-Miracle and the strength of Strong-Corona but none of the abilities that came with those forms as far they could tell and he was glad, he could deal with the boost of speed and strength as saying he just got the boost from One For All

Izuku paused at the gate to Yūei as he took in the spectacular building that is the number one hero school in Japan, he took one deep breath as he made his way to where the exam were being held and then tripped as he was save by a girl’s Quirk as Bakugo shoved him out of the way as he yelled. “Fuck off Deku!” Zero almost took control right then and there. He hated villains who hide behind a heroic façade, essentially bullies, those who attacked the people who were weak and unable to fight back but Izuku was able to wrangle him back from taking control as they made it to the exam hall.

“Zero, I’ll let you take control for the exam, so you can let off some steam.” He muttered as he set down as Zero grinned as the duo watched other student hopefuls enter and set down. The protractor enter the hall and greeted the exam takers

“Welcome one and all to my live show! Everybody say Heeey!” Zero thought the man looked like a cockatoo dressed in black leather as he shook his head as Izuku began to mutter to him. “I’ve got shivers down my spine, too, Listeners! I’m gonna give you the low-down on how this will go down! Are you ready!? Yeah!” The room was silent as could be as Izuku was muttering to Zero in his thoughts

“That the voice-type hero ‘Present Mic.’ We listen to him on the radio every week.”

“Ah! That is why his voice sounded semi-familiar.”

“Now pay close attention, Listeners! We’ll be testing your mettle by running a ten-minute practice run at our replica city-district!” The others let out a small bit of sound as Mic continued to explained. “We’ll be sprinkling a large number of ‘villains’ over the battlefield and they’ll appear in three different varieties, with point values scaled according to difficulty!! Using each of your individual Quirks, dispatch as many ‘villains’ as you can. Your goal, Listeners, is to rack up a high score.” Zero tuned out Mic’s speech as he continued to explain the exam

~***~

Izuku was excited as he looked at the mock city that he was at because it was time for him and Zero to show how they were worth of becoming a hero.

“Zero.” He thought to the Ultra

“Yeah, Izuku?”

“I’m going to tell you which bots to go after to maximize our points.” Izuku said as he let Zero take control. Zeku (Izuku started to refer to himself as this when ever Zero would take control) had a grin on his face. Robots created by humans were nothing compared to the Darklops Zero that the Alien Salome created and then Belial mass produced.

Zeku zoomed off as soon as Present Mic was finished and he was destroying any bots and helping other hopefuls as he

“I think we got about thirty points from the bots but I don’t think we can get any more though.” Izuku said to Zero as Zeku zipped threw the cityscape looking for more bots to take care of while he was searching or more injured or trapped applicants as they eventually heard a loud woman’s scream as Zeku turned and followed the scream and saw a girl on the ground as the Zero Pointer

“Zero, what are you planning on doing?”

“We can’t let her die.” Izuku and Zero knew exactly what needed to be done as they jumped into action as the green sparks surrounded him as he jumped into air. Zeku went flying into the air toward the Zero Pointer. Zeku then punched the damn Zero Pointer and damaged it enough that it fell to pieces

“Ultra Zero Punch!”

It was in that moment both Zero and Izuku realized that they weren’t in Ultra form, so they didn’t have the innate ability to fly and that is when they realized that the hardest part would be landing, no matter what happened or how they land, it would probably end with something breaking. In their frantic effort trying not to die, they didn’t notice the young woman that they had save floating on a piece of the Zero Pointer and she slapped him as he felt his decent slowing as he ended up floating maybe an inch off the ground as Present Mic call the test

Zeku turned to the girl as he gave her a smile. “Thanks’ for saving me.” He notice she was looking a little green around the collar. “Are you alright?” Zeku heard a woman voice asking if anyone was injured or need any help. “That must Recovery Girl, come on let get you over to her so she can check you over.” Zeku greeted Recovery Girl as she looked over the girl who had save him, gave her a kiss and a gummy. She then turned to look at Izuku as Zero had give him back control as soon as the exam ended. “What about you, are you alright?”

“I feel fine but it wouldn’t hurt for you to look me over, Recovery Girl.” Izuku said with a smile on his face as she looked him over and saw nothing wrong with him, all she did was hand him a gummy. “Thanks Recovery Girl.”

~***~

Shota Aizawa was many thing, a Underground Hero, a teacher at Yūei and a loving husband. In all his years teaching at Yūei, he had never see a kid take off quickly and then efficiently take down the bots, it was like the kid was training all his life to fight. He listen as his husband ended the exam a as he head to the staff room and his desk as he studied the top ten applicants

Izuku Midoriya: Villain points, 30, rescue points, 60, total 90

Katsuki Bakugo: Villain points, 77, rescue points 0, total 77

Eijiro Kirishima: Villain points 39, rescue points 35, total 74

Ochaco Uraraka: Villain points 28, rescue points 45, total 73

Ibara Shiozaki: Villain points 36, rescue points 32, total 68

Itsuka Kendo: Villain points 25, rescue points 40, total 65

Tenya Ida: Villain points 52, rescue points 9, total 61

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu: Villain point 49, rescue points 10, total 59

Fumikage Tokoyami: Villain points 47, rescue points 10, total 57

Yosetsu Awase: Villain points 50, rescue points 6, total 56

Aizawa was pondering the top ten as he thought back to the top two applicants. “Though he earned zero rescue points Bakugou came close to taking 1st, if it wasn’t for Midoriya saving Uraraka from the Zero Pointer near the end there and gaining those sixty rescue points, he probably would have with his plan.” He let out a soft sigh as he knew that if Midoriya ended up in his class that he found his problem child for three years. “Then there Midoriya. We’ve had entrants face off against the Zero Pointer but it has been quite a long time since someone’s sent it flying.”

“So, what do you think of the top ten entrants?”

The voice came from down and to the left of Aizawa as he looked down and saw the principal of Yūei, he was a stout ‘man’ who appears to be a possible combination of several different animals, including a dog, a mouse, and a bear. He has the head of a mouse with circular black eyes, a large scar over the right one, relatively rectangular-shaped ears with pale pink insides slanting outwards from the top of his head, and an elongated muzzle with a small round nose. His fur is white and has large, dog-like paws with pink pads and a thin tail like that of a cat. He sports a white dress shirt, a dark red tie around his neck, a black double-breasted waistcoat and matching dress pants and he’s wearing orange lace-up sneakers with incredibly thick soles which seem to be quite large on him.

“Midoriya seem to be a puzzle, Nezu.”

“What do you mean, Aizawa?”

Aizawa pulled up Izuku’s attack on the Zero Pointer on his tablet. “Right after the punch, it seems like he wasn’t expecting to fall, that is what puzzling me.”

“You’ve heard of the new vigilante called Zero, right?”

“Yeah, he has some sort of Gigantification Quirk and first appeared when that weird narwal monster appeared.” Nezu put a piece of paper on his desk and Aizawa looked down at the paper and then back to Nezu. “So, do you have a plan?”

“Aizawa, you’ve taught at Yūei for how long now?” The principal of Yūei smiled. “I always have a plan.” Nezu let loose one of his iconic laughed as Aizawa let out a sigh and a shiver. No one should get the eyes of Yūei’s principal on them

#my hero academia #boku no academia #ultraman #ultraman zero #my hero academy fanfiction

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glambitions-a · 4 years

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hunger burns through you, and yet you stay.

prompt: what if doug had told on the core four after they spelled ben? (featuring the imprisonment of a prissy pink princess) i made this post a while back about this fic.

tags (open): @cherry-bxtch, @cosmosstarstudio

a gloomy day on the isle is everyday, but today there is something in the polluted air that hasn’t been here in two months, opportunity. it was only here once before, when the letters came. but the four of them were alerted far too late, they were whisked away as soon as the villains came to a decision. (which apparently took a week) and of course, even with the immense pressure the four children were placed under, they failed. they fucking failed.

but today, there is rumor of a tower in the thick, dark woods and apparently, an auradonian is enclosed inside. mal doesn’t believe that, it’s obviously a lie, nobody from auradon would ever come here. and there’s no way out to take somebody away. it’s bullshit is what it is, but no matter how many times she had told her mother, she insisted that the four of them (once again) put themselves in danger to satisfy her.

and the truth is, mal hasn’t talked to any of them since they were thrown back into the barrier. and she assumed that each of them will be covered in bruises by the time she sees them again. (well, evie less so but she’ll have no meat on her bones and frail as can be.) mal hasn’t spoken to anyone since the coronation, the most she does is growl if someone gets too close. she doesn’t even have the energy to go outside for a long periods of time, let alone fight with uma about turf.

so, mal sends her mother’s henchmen (her own had been snatched by uma, and she can even find them laughing at her if she sees them. nobody is scared of her anymore, and she doesn’t even care.) to get the three of them, and she half-expects them to refuse. she can’t threaten them anymore and she certainly wasn’t their friend anymore. when the four of them had gotten back, mal had told them that all of this was their fault. (she definitely didn’t miss them or anything, that would be pathetic.)

on the contrary, she hears the henchmen talking about that the three of them were practically shaking. (and together but that hurts a little too much so she ignores it.) they were telling her mother that the ‘jafar boy’ had tried to threaten them but it had fell flat.

she had laughed it off and pretended like that was so funny, but really her stomach twisted. if jay couldn’t even threaten anyone, had mal really gotten the worst of it. yeah sure, her mother degrading her self worth felt sort of bad, but was it worse than what jay got? the three of them hadn’t been friends forever, carlos was always a target and evie became one too. and jay and mal sorta’ had this ‘mutual bully’ thing going between them. they never really talked about their parents, but mal saw the bruises and the lack of food. and she heard evie’s ramblings about the other’s parents, just not her own.

today, her mother instructed her to go to the hideout to get them and then go see the tower. mal hadn’t found a way out of this yet, it seemed maleficent had new allies, so eyes were everywhere.

mal hates the feeling of dread pooling in her stomach, she felt like it has to be a trap. when she arrived, evie was twisting her hands together nervously and carlos was shaking next to jay as said boy tended to the cigarette burns on the younger’s wrist. their eyes snapped to her and evie made a move to get up but she stayed still, as if she just remembered they couldn’t hug anymore.

“are you guys ready?” her voice is clipped and neutral. she’s met with silence and curt nods, and everybody's looking at her with wide eyes. “good, the woods are pretty far from here but i think once we get through those we’ll be fine.”

“fuck you, mal.” jay was giving her a dirty look and carlos was tugging at his sleeve to get him to stop talking. but jay just wrapped an arm around the boy’s waist to pull him closer from where he had tried to run away to, “fuck you for coming back after two months and deciding that we have to go back to being your stupid fucking mind slaves.”

mal hears the tiniest ’jay please stop’ from carlos but he stands up but pushes him away making the younger squeak. “you don’t get to do this shit.”

“actually jay i can do whatever the fuck i want.” her tone is pure venom, and the faint warmth in evie’s eyes fades as her brow furrows. she looks at evie, pale as can be with bony hands. she wants so desperately to hold them in her hands with the tenderness of a princess, but she thinks she’d snap them in half.

“no you fucking can’t, uma is sending her wharf rats for our asses and nobody takes us seriously anymore. unless we can score whoever or whatever is in that fucking tower, we’re so dead.”

mal growled and stepped forward, and of fucking course jay stood up to meet her, sizing her up. evie stood up at this and fisted her hands at her sides, “that’s enough!” mal and jay turned to look at her and she took a deep breath, “okay, jay’s right. if we’re ever gonna get any of our power back, we need to go to the tower. so can we please go?”

jay gave her a look that said, ‘i’m not backing off until you are.’ and mal shot one right back. evie must’ve taken notice because she stomps her foot and crosses her arms. “guys!”

the taller boy puts his hands up in surrender and walks backward to get carlos up and off of the ratty couch. (he flinches against him, what had cruella done to him this time?) evie makes a move to put a hand on mal’s shoulder, but instead she hesitates and brings it back down. mal pretends not to notice the pang in her heart.

it only took an hour for jay to whine about how hungry he was, and how conveniently they were nearing the smell of rotten fish and salty water. “shut the fuck up jay, i’m not risking my life in uma’s turf just because you need a snack.”

jay snarled, “i’m not the only one that needs something.” mal hears a tiny gasp from evie as she hisses something at him, “you know eve’s mom doesn’t feed her, and carlos hadn’t had time to do his chores, so both of them are starving. to be fair, i’m not even hungry, but they are so i’m going to put up a fight for it.” he looks at her with a nasty gleam in his eyes, “because i’m not a selfish bitch like you.”

mal huffed, she had tried not to notice the bones seemingly poking out of the skin on evie’s and carlos’ frail bodies. but she wouldn’t let them go hungry now that she knew for sure. she groaned,”fine, but we have to steal rags off to keep hidden. we don’t have the resources to start a turf war right now.” she turned on her heels, trying to act like she’s still in charge and she didn’t just act out of pure pity.

the other three nodded (jay had a stupid little smirk on his face but she chooses to ignore that) and followed behind her, which results in her feeling the warmth of familiarity. sure enough, jay disappears and comes back with dark colored cloths big enough to cover their bodies.

the slop shop was too far away, and mal knew enough that carlos and evie needed food that could hold them together. and despite how sick it made her feel, the only real option was ursula’s fish and chips. mal doesn’t like the taste of fish, but on the isle you really can’t hate any foods. she’ll deal with it as long as it keeps her alive. and unlike her, carlos has thrown up eating stolen fish before. even smelling it could make him hurl. but evie had been trying to teach him how to hold it in, even if it didn’t work.

their faces were hardly visible, so to be fair they could’ve faked accents and snuck into the restaurant. but instead they went around to the alley with the intention of stealing something from the crates that the staff kept at the back.

nobody was there to witness (although mal was in a bad enough mood that she would’ve wanted to beat someone up) so that certainly made things easier. jay was currently trying to break open the wooden boxes evie was leaned against the wall keeping watch, carlos was somewhere and mal, well, mal was fiddling with the switchblade she kept with her.

carlos’ capture was completely unplanned. it happened all too sudden with maniacal laughter and a squeak from the small boy that now had a hook held to his throat. jay had nearly jumped on the older teen that had carlos, but he wasn’t without injuries, and therefore he faltered.

“oh jay, looks like you’ve lost your touch.”

ʚĭɞ | if you want to be on my taglist, all you have to do is like this post. i had so much planned for this chapter but i wanted to keep it shorter because i kinda liked the way it ended. - rory

#and finally their wish was granted series #mal descendants #evie descendants #jaylos if u squint!#jay descendants #carlos descendants #carlos devil #evie grimhilde #mal bertha #descendants fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #core four

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nellynee · 4 years

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FowlPlayAU (aka Miraculous Peacock Marinette AU)

Literally no one asked but I don’t care. An AU in which Marinette holds the Peacock Miraculous

This actually developed from a few different threads that I tugged on over the course of a few months.

I guess the starting point for this was probably the season 1 episode “Simon Says” with the very short but profound moment of understanding between Gabriel and Ladybug over the pedestal they both placed Adrien on and the subsequent really, really heavy handed comparisons everyone kept making towards everyone else about who resembled Emilie the most

Basically I thought this episode was the heaviest seed in the narrative of the parallels between Gabriel and Marinette, both fashion career focused workaholics who take way to much responsibility on their own shoulders and get obsessive to the point of destructiveness over their respective, similar love interests, and using those parallels as a point of interest in showing both Marinette's growth as she moves beyond that destructive mentality and towards regarding Adrien as a person and how Gabriel’s “love conquers all” mentality isn’t an inherently positive thing but no. *sigh* no, they needed more screen time for one time characters. It fleshes out the world,yes, but not the characters. LOTS of interesting long term threads were dropped in favor of broadening the cast to try and shoehorn that “kid superhero group” into the show that was originally tossed. Basically I’m saying that I do think Gabriel and Marinette have enough in common to surprise some people, including each other, and I’m a sucker for intergenerational friendships

The second main factor was the small subplot at the time of Gabriel suspecting Adrien of being Cat Noir. I got really interested after “Gorizilla” about what might actually happen if Gabriel did figure out that Adrien was Cat Noir at that point in the series (I have words about Cat Blanc, trust me. No those words aren’t “throw the whole mess out the window” because I actually love it. But many, many words) Going off the heavy handed implications that Emilie was the former Peacock, I thought it would be interesting, and in character, for Gabriel desperately analyze his son’s behavior as Cat Noir, trying to figure out WTF Adrien thinks he’s doing, only to realize that Cat Noir has some pretty obvious affections for Ladybug. This is unacceptable of course, but understandable in a “he’s a hormone ridden, teenage boy, and Gabriel was once too the same sort of boy in love with the same sort of heroin” sort of way. The obvious answer to getting rid of what is the only possible obstacle for his son’s cooperation (I was going off the pilot with the potential of Cat Noir as a Hawkmoth agent because of their familial connections) is to get rid of his affections, and since it has to be shallow, he’s too young and also Gabriel controls his whole life so it can’t be love, then all he has to do is shift his son’s affections. Cue an uncomfortable number of episodes in which Gabriel subtly inserts a B plot into his Akumatized villains by trying to push various girl together with his son in carefully controlled circumstances. Because this is before Kasumi, and again, those nice parallels between Marinette and Gabriel himself, he eventually after trial and error settles on Marinette as the perfect candidate. Thus, we get a series of hilarious situations in which Marinette and Adrien are pushed more and more into high pressure uncomfortable and intimate situations, losing time and ability to turn into their superhero personas as a natural deterrent to power creep and justifying the use of other Miraculous users a lot more.

I saw someone comment in one of their author’s notes on a fic a long time ago that they hated the trope of Marinette being an emotional Atlas and my instantaneous internal response that that kinda WAS Marinette's character early series, especially the origin episode, and that a lot of the most prevalent fics were written in that time period, and that really intense response from me really stuck.

Peacock aesthetic. yup, that alone gets an equal piece of the pie

So yeah, if any of that interests you, keeping in mind that on top of potential sympathy and understanding of his actions, Gabriel is still absolutly a shitty person, then the actual (canon divergent) AU is under the cut.

The actual thing diverts during Stone Heart, in which the moment Marinette decided to become Ladybug for realsies rather than try to faust it off Alya doesn’t happen. Rather than deciding to put on the earings, Marinette distracts the monster enough they can get away. Alya finds the earings, and takes up the Mantle of Ladybug.

This decidedly marks a regression in Marinette. Where as Ladybug, and with Tiki’s constant assurances and influence, Marinette learns to work past her urges to take responsibility for everyone’s emotions, Marinette has now lost that constant companion, and has to deal to with her new best friend’s time being diverted

Cut forward to “Stormy Weather” and Marinette has fallen into a vicious cycle of guilt. The little creature had told her it was her destiny to be Ladybug. And while we know that the situation with Hawkmoth is not much different than it is in canon, Marinette is totally convinced that the only reason Hawkmoth is still around hurting people is because she rejected the call. That guilt has built into a feeling of impotent inadequacy that convinces her that she’s no longer deserving of the Ladybug roll, and so she’s both unable to do anything, and responsible for Hawkmoth still being around.

The most prevalent of episode changes is Lady Wifi. It’s Marinette who’s akumatized, not Alya, and it’s a fairly traumatizing, but empowering experience for Marinette.

The ultimate culmination of this is this universe’ “Volpina” episode, where, in the background of main battle events, Marinette gains an understanding of the suspicions that Gabriel might be Hawkmoth, and in the climax of the battle, believing Adrien in danger, she confronts him, confirming his alter ego.

In a scene I have no time to actually extrapolate on, if your curious, just ask, Gabriel and Marinette come to a tentative understanding. He’ll give her the powers to protect his son, and she’ll actually have some sort of control in her life again. This akumatization takes the form of a faux Peacock Miraculous.

This marks the first half of her partnership as an antihero with Hawkmoth. (and yes, I do have the mechanics of how he can akumatized more than one person at a time without Catalyst, which will be extrapolated upon request, but this is long enough already)

Again, I wanna draw attention to those Sweet, Sweet Marinette and Gabriel parallels. Gabriel, through half truths and carefully peppered moments of emotional manipulation and practiced vulnerability, attempts to B plot Marinette into stealing the Miraculouses. Believing herself to be at least somewhat in his thrall, Marinette allows herself to empathize with his plight, and they build a surprising, if strained, raport.

After discovering that she is not, in fact, under Hawkmoth’s control Marinette rebels just long enough to have Hawkmoth take back his Akuma, and Marinette caves the next time Adrien is in Genuine Danger, stealing the real Peacock Miraculous and using it.

This marks the second half of their partnership, and Hawkmoth reveals that the miraculous is broken, and Marinette is now dying from it’s use, and that her only choice of survival is to help him make his wish. This evens out the power balance, at they both now have the same goals and powers independent of each other, but also ups ante.

That’s the most tldr general of overview, with other more specific highlights like

Ladybug!Alya having to reach her own emotional maturity, her earlier stint as a hero leaving her with a much bigger ego in terms of how she perceives her impact of the morale of the city and where her priorities lie in trying to boost that morale vs her personal needs. Ladybug!Alya tries too hard to take notes from already established heroes and public images. She still runs the Ladyblog, Spiderman style.

After quickly realizing (after some confusion) that the Ladybug he fought Stoneheart with the last time is not the same as the one he fought the first time with, Adrien gets a big old case of the pining sighs

Early series Adrien and Alya are both not the type to value secret identities, and so yes, they do reveal said identities to each other fairly early.

They also can both keep a fucking secret, so it works. They are secret BFFs

After the first time Adrien is rescued by the mysterious Peacock Holder, he figures out that whoever she is, she’s the original Ladybug, and more and more ends up distracted and drawn away from fights by her, the perfect reason for Alya to have to bring in other miraculous users. (the interactions tend to take place on moonlit balconies. There’s heavy Pilot influences here)

Marinette does this thing where she spreads her fan when she’s startled and hides her face. Mostly because Cat Noir wont stay out of it. The miraculous’ memory means she tends to fan speak a lot. Symbolism

Speaking of symbolism, the character designs are rife with them. I know exactly what Peacock Marinette looks like and there’s a reason for everything.

The subplot where (inspired by the pilot) Cat Noir finds out that there used to be a curse on the ring that could only be lifted by a kiss from Ladybug (thanks to her creation/retcon powers). Cat Noir convinces (inaccurately) himself that his destruction powers can totally do something similar with Hawkmoth’s mind control now all he needs is to kiss the Peacock user and she’ll be free! She’s totes not a bad guy!

Yes, Marinette does get a different miraculous ala being an episode helper, and her emotions are complicated about it

And other fun tidbits. This got way to long but I’m more than willing to extrapolate on anything more specific that anyone is curious about

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous au #peacock miraculous #mlb #peacock marinette #FowlPlayAU

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f4liveblogarchives · 4 years

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Fantastic Four Vol 1 #205

Sat Sep 7 2019 [02:15 PM] Wack'd: Previously on Fantastic Four: Reed, Sue and Ben went into space with an alien lady named Adora to save her world from Skrulls. Meanwhile Johnny checked out a college for the rich and famous, where he is unknowingly targeted by an assassin who shoots lasers out of his camera and has atrocious facial hair [02:16 PM] Bocaj: Did they meet catra [02:16 PM] Wack'd: No [02:16 PM] Wack'd: It'd be better if they did [02:16 PM] Bocaj: They did meet Tigra though [02:16 PM] Bocaj: It’s a similar concept without all of the same trauma [02:17 PM] maxwellelvis: And to also recap, this is like the first time the Four have gone up against the Skrulls since the Lee/Kirby run, and their old enemies have gone up in the galactic food chain since then. [02:17 PM] maxwellelvis: They also no longer look like goblins. [02:17 PM] Wack'd: They're just in time for the end of the world!

[02:17 PM] Bocaj: If they don’t look like goblins the. What’s the point? [02:17 PM] Wack'd: Agreed [02:17 PM] maxwellelvis: See what I mean? [02:18 PM] maxwellelvis: This is the Skrulls at their peak. [02:18 PM] Wack'd: Skrulls are a superstitious and cowardly lot

[02:19 PM] maxwellelvis: This must be before the Skrull Emperor and/or Empress [02:19 PM] Bocaj: A lot of things have a Supreme in marvel [02:19 PM] Umbramatic: SUPREME [02:19 PM] Bocaj: The Kree, the skrulls, the sorcerers, the AIM [02:19 PM] Wack'd: The SuprAIM [02:19 PM] Bocaj: Nice [02:20 PM] maxwellelvis: No wait, that cannot be. [02:20 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the Skrulls are using hit and run tactics. Show up, fuck shit up, retreat from weapons range before the enemy has a chance to retaliate, launch another attack, repeat [02:20 PM] Wack'd: The upshot is that this buys Reed, Sue, and Ben a little bit of time before things get too bad [02:20 PM] Bocaj: I mean, good tactics if you can get it [02:21 PM] Wack'd: Yeah this is actually a clever way to establish stakes while still giving the team a chance to get their bearings [02:22 PM] Wack'd: SCANMAN! WITH THE POWER TO...SCAN!

[02:23 PM] Wack'd: I give Keith Pollard a 6/10 for wacky hat effort

[02:23 PM] maxwellelvis: In that big spread, I just noticed, you can see that the artist took pains to show that Adora's people aren't getting entirely curbstomped; you can see that they've managed to down about three Skrull ships, if you can figure out the color coding on the lasers. It's just, that's three ships out of... a lot more than that. So it shows that they're fighting courageously, but are still outgunned, outmanned, and almost out of time. [02:23 PM] maxwellelvis: S'a Kirby original, Dorrek's hat. [02:23 PM] Wack'd: Pollard's kinda toned it down but I guess it's the same general idea as this 60s one [02:24 PM] Bocaj: Skrulls have dogs [02:24 PM] maxwellelvis: I can't find a picture of him from then, but have this screenshot of Dorrek from the 1967 cartoon [02:24 PM] Bocaj: I want to believe in green shapeshifting doggos [02:24 PM] Bocaj: That’s not green [02:25 PM] maxwellelvis: Nobody was the right colors in that cartoon. [02:25 PM] maxwellelvis: It's got coloring errors worse than Star Trek: The Animated Series up the wazoo, and I'm pretty sure this show doesn't have the excuse of a colorblind guy doing the colors. [02:26 PM] maxwellelvis: Also love that Dorrek says it's not fair that the Fantastic Four are here when the way he's been waging war here hasn't given the illusion of any sort of fair fight. [02:26 PM] Bocaj: Love those giant ears [02:27 PM] Umbramatic: ye [02:28 PM] Bocaj: Apparently one of the skrulls reed turned into a cow (which was later turned into hamburger and eaten) was a relative of Dorrek’s [02:28 PM] Bocaj: To put it lightly he hates the fantastic four with all his hate [02:28 PM] Wack'd: So the Watcher creates the illusion of an incoming Earth starship, freaking the Skrulls out and causing Dorrek to point all his troops at it. And then the Watcher mopes a little about breaking his oath again [02:28 PM] Bocaj: All he does is break his oath [02:29 PM] maxwellelvis: I'll reiterate, Uatu is like the Doctor but lacking the backbone to actually chew his people out for their total non-interference policy. [02:29 PM] Wack'd: Meanwhile back on Earth...Johnny's already moving into a dorm! Things move fast at Security College [02:29 PM] Bocaj: Like the doctor I think he got put on trial once [02:30 PM] Wack'd: well that's not creepy

[02:30 PM] Bocaj: Wow that’s very illegal [02:30 PM] Wack'd: So it turns out this was all a Batman Gambit [02:30 PM] maxwellelvis: Wait, that’s illegal [02:30 PM] Bocaj: I can’t believe Johnny rebellious youth supports the police state [02:31 PM] Umbramatic: oh no [02:31 PM] Wack'd: That random lady who insulted Johnny for being intellectually uncurious and immature a few issues ago was hypnotized into doing so by The Monocle because by weakening his ego and making him doubt himself he'd be easier to convince to go to this school [02:31 PM] Bocaj: .... [02:32 PM] Umbramatic: oh [02:32 PM] Bocaj: Villains sure have incredibly specific plans sometimes [02:32 PM] Wack'd: He didn't have hypnosis last time we saw him but "murders people with camera lasers" is kind of a weak gimmick so I don't mind [02:32 PM] Wack'd: Also: Lanie had a point! Johnny should be more interested in the fact that he got go literally go to space numerous times [02:33 PM] Bocaj: Hypnotism is one of those powers villains tend to get for free [02:33 PM] Bocaj: I think super Skrull has it [02:33 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey another shadowy mastermind. Not sitting in a chair facing away from the camera though

[02:34 PM] Wack'd: What's the point of video calling if you're not going to show your face? Just call him on the fucking phone [02:34 PM] maxwellelvis: This doesn't surprise me. The Monocle just doesn't have the presence to command an entire story by himself. [02:34 PM] maxwellelvis: @Wack'd Ask the Sovereign [02:34 PM] Wack'd: Eh he was a hired goon in his original story too [02:34 PM] Wack'd: He's an assassin for hire [02:35 PM] Wack'd: So Johnny goes to bed. And then he and every other student on campus hear a compelling voice that leads them to the administration building. HYPNOSIS [02:36 PM] Wack'd: Also the compelling voice is calling Johnny "John" and. Nope. Wrong. never gonna get over that [02:36 PM] Wack'd: MEANWHILE BACK IN SPACE [02:37 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey this weird bubble city of survivors are from Xandar! [02:37 PM] Wack'd: Their planet it looks a lot less destroyed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe [02:37 PM] Bocaj: Yeah I don't think Xandar gets destroyed until 200something with the Annihilation story [02:38 PM] Wack'd: ...but it's [02:38 PM] Wack'd: it's already destroyed [02:38 PM] maxwellelvis: COMPLETELY destroyed [02:38 PM] Wack'd: this bubble city is all that's left [02:38 PM] Bocaj: I just realized that Xandar might be a riff on Kandar [02:39 PM] Wack'd: Aliens love brain uploading

[02:40 PM] Bocaj: What a perspective [02:40 PM] Wack'd: hahahaha ben points out they stole this shot from *forbidden planet* [02:40 PM] maxwellelvis: That's a heck of a way to preserve your culture, but I sure hope the brains are happy in there. [02:40 PM] maxwellelvis: Metahumor, or Marv Wolfman ribbing the artist? You decide. [02:41 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the Skrulls want this computer, or more specifically the fucking metric ton of power it takes to operate it, to give themselves an upper hand against the Kree [02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Or, with the changeover in how comics are made, would that be more like directing the artist? [02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: And there we are. [02:41 PM] Wack'd: Probably conscious homage [02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Gotcha [02:43 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the Skrulls come back! Fight scene! [02:44 PM] maxwellelvis: Anyways, I should have figured that this was motivated by either expansion or asset acquisition. [02:44 PM] Wack'd: Kinda weird that the Skrulls have ground troops (or, uh, anti-grav troops) rather than just using spaceships for everything [02:44 PM] Wack'd: But it gets us a fight scene, so [02:45 PM] maxwellelvis: It's a fool who commits all his resources to one branch of his military. Don't know if that's an actual saying about war and warfare, but I feel it's true, at least from my limited strategy gaming experience. [02:46 PM] Wack'd: I mean this is a little like if Germany sent troops into Britain during the Blitz. Really you're just risking blowing up your own dudes

[02:46 PM] Umbramatic: SPLAM [02:46 PM] Bocaj: Spinel [02:47 PM] Wack'd: Yes [02:47 PM] Wack'd: So! Reed, Sue, and Ben are knocked out and taken to the Skrull ship [02:47 PM] Wack'd: And so we cliffhanger into...*sigh* [02:47 PM] Wack'd: Nova #25 [02:47 PM] Wack'd: Dammit

#1979 #Marv Wolfman #Keith Pollard #The Main Book

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