#about dave being 'monster dave' and how they like never bring it up
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guys i could talk forever about the things that give me chills in the ‘john dies at the end series’.
like sure there are creatures and creepy bloody gory things. but like. for me
imagine
your boyfriend struggles with depression. he also struggles with a lot of other things, like eldritch creatures and the existential idea of whether or not he is a monster (long story, and it’s much less metaphorical than you think), and you just want him to realize that you love him, and he deserves love. It’s a hard situation because how are you supposed to approach a subject like a psychiatrist when the last psychiatrist he had ended up being evil and was behind a large plot involving nuking your hometown. But one day he comes home, and he’s in a good mood. It’s nice. He’s got some energy back, he asks you about your day, he’s tidied up. And then! hey says that he’s going to call a doctor and see about maybe regulating his moods. he acknowledges all of the things you’re afraid of and reassures you. And then. He takes you to a lake where he’s hidden a kidnapped girl. He quickly tells you that he’s not actually your boyfriend. he’s a shapeshifter. he tells you that you deserve better. and then leaves. but in those moments before you knew it was your boyfriend, you were reconciling his actions. later on you learn that these shapeshifters get in your head, they twist your fears and your desires. and you flashback to those moments with “Not Your Boyfriend”. and you find that fear. that fear that one day, the craziness that overtakes your life, will overtake him as well. you feel guilty that your first reaction wasn’t disbelieving that your boyfriend had kidnapped someone. your first reaction was a feeling of inevitablility.
the true horror is that you find yourself so happy on this one day with your boyfriend and it’s not him. the true horror is that this thing shows you what you’re at your core afraid of. there’s a thing and it got inside your head, and sometimes the scariest thing is our own desires projected out in front of us, sometimes the horror is our perception of others. sometimes the scariest thing is that all you want is for your boyfriend to take control of his life, to be happy, and one day he is, except no he isn’t, it’s a monster, and this creature, a twisted creature from beyond dimensions tells you that you deserve better.
does anyone understand what i’m trying to say here, i’ve really started rambling on, but these scenes are just so striking to me. i am OBSESSED with the portrayal of their relationship in ‘What the Hell Did I Just Read’.
#jdate#what the hell did i just read#jdate3 spoilers#david wong#amy sullivan#i have become so obsessed with this series maybe i'll make more posts later bc i have sooooo many thoughts#i wanna talk about john and daves friendship#about dave being 'monster dave' and how they like never bring it up#about sometimes the scariest moments of the series are when the characters even just momentarily question their own sanity#anyways i binge read this book series LITERALLY a week ago and i'm on my second read through of all of them while i wait for the fourth book#it should be here by saturday and i'm literally so fucking excited
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Part 2: Dave
Oh shit. The coolest guy alive. A briefing of what he does in Act 2;
This here is Dave Strider, and he doesn't have any time for funny names.
After briefly contemplating bleating like a goat ironically and pestering John about the sick ass juice he found, he makes some sick beats on his sampler (which is another really cool way that HS uses its medium).
He allocates his katana to his Strife Specibus, nearly takes a SWIG of the juice (but doesn't because of monster piss, curse you Egbert) and then captchalogues the sword, spilling the juice on his copies of the SBURB Beta in the process.
He decides to hang them out to dry, before they get stolen by a RAMBUNCTIOUS BIRD.
After accidentally throwing his word out the window and ridding his copy of the beta in the process, Dave decides to venture into his brother's room to get his copy instead. He chills with Lil Cal for a bit.
He guesses the password to his brother's computer, and goes on Plush Rump, his brother's successful and ironic website.
Cal has mysteriously appeared behind him, Dave gives a nervous fist bump, and he moves towards the "kitchen".
By this point it's very clear to the viewer that someone is moving Cal around to screw with Dave. He captchalogues a variety of things during this time, including box of fireworks, shurikens, some nunchucks, a "wheeled ride", a battery pack, a jumble of unbelievably shitty swords, some red spherical salutes, and a whirling blade pitcher. Jesus.
However, Dave notices a note from his brother on the hatch to the crawlspace, a very obvious reference to a certain horror franchise. He makes a fort on the turntables, pulls the cord, and gets absolutely smothered in puppet ass.
Luckily, he bursts out of the pile like "The One" and reads a note from his brother, telling him to go to the roof and to bring Cal along. So he does just that, but really coolly and sickly.
youtube
(this goes fucking hard)
We don't really get much of Dave in Act 3, but the glimpses we do get are of him getting absolutely knackered by his bro.
youtube
"bro just kicked my ass" indeed.
In the aftermath, Dave mourns the tragic loss of Cal, shoves the beta into his sylladex, and tells Rose he's going to install it, which he will.
We get a brief lil' flashback on Dave's famous shades, the ones worn by Ben Stiller in the 2004 retro-mania remake of Starsky and Hutch. They were gifted to him by John, as a way of getting out of his bro's shadow and being his own cool guy.
In present day, Dave gets a troll message on Pesterchum, from a guy who definitely types like a total tool (but I feel they'll definitely come back later).
And then, with the help of Rose, Dave successfully installs the beta.
Shit is now taking place.
The last point in Act 3 we see (presumably) Dave install SBURB and help Rose in her own sticky situation, before he gets swarmed by more birds. How ironic.
youtube
Homestuck is becoming increasingly difficult to read because you can never pick a favourite character. But Dave is definitely up there. His overall chill vibes are admirable. His fight scenes, although his ass gets whooped every time, are insane. I really hope we get more of him in future.
On the topic of Rose (and John I guess)
She helps him out, John gets a prophecy and a sick new hammer, her house nearly burns down, she has a weird mutant cat thing named Vodka Mutini, her old cat becomes a Kernelsprite and gets saved by it, and then possibly blows up in the house's meteor explosion. I don't know. Maybe.
John does more RPG stuff, gets some new drip, and at the end of 1149 jumps through a portal, where Act 3 ends.
I feel like John and Rose are the best duo so far. Any time they interact, either through SBURB or Pesterchum they bounce off each other's conversations like nothing. It's very fun!
I'll talk about these three later.
#we probably will see more of dave#these are getting really hard to write#i shouldn't do whole acts#dave strider#lil cal#rose lalonde#john egbert#homestuck#gecko boy#Youtube#summary#review
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One Shots (T-Z)
A list of standalone one shots that do not form part of a series. Please check here for series you might be looking for
Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too - Emily and Aaron's love story, and how they never let go of each other's hand. (Young Hotchniss)
Tailspin - They only just got married and she might lose him. AKA the one where Aaron and Emily are in a car accident on the way home from eloping.
Tapestry - It was just a picture, but she wanted it to be perfect.
Tardy - They were running late.
Tethered - Emily and Aaron bring their baby girl home for the first time.
Timeless - Emily and Aaron go to the beach. Based on the photos Thomas Gibson posted of him with a surfboard, sending the fandom feral. (Smut)
The Aftermath - She loved her life, she really did, but there were times when the 'what-ifs' were heavier than usual.
The Beholder - She knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t help it. AKA the one where Emily is very pregnant, and feeling very insecure.
The City's Asleep - A sleepless night changes everything between Emily and Aaron.
The Cycle - Aaron finds out that Emily never learnt how to ride a bike, and decides to do something about it.
The Darkest Night - Emily has Lasik surgery to correct her vision, Aaron looks after her.
The Darnedest Thing - No one knows Emily and Aaron are together yet, not even Jack. Until he sees them kissing each other goodbye the evening before pasta night.
The Final Say - Emily wants to put the Christmas tree up in mid-November. Aaron does not. It's a good thing Emily is an expert at getting her husband to see her point of view. (Smut)
The Go-Between - Aaron and Emily both get hurt. Dave is tasked with looking after them at the hospital.
The Greatest - Aaron loves Emily more than he ever thought was possible, but he knows she could do better, and he dreads the day she'll figure that out too.
The Greatest Gift - It's Emily's birthday, and she spends it with the Hotchners.
The Hook of Your Splendour - The moment they arrived at the New York field office she felt the initial pull in her belly. Something she’d refused to call jealousy at first, even though she knew that's what it was from the start.
The Light in the Morning - Somewhere along the way, they became each other's safe space.
The Monster Mash - Halloween is a big deal in Emily and Aaron's house, especially because it also happens to be their daughter's birthday.
The Name of the Game - Emily and Aaron are having twins, a fact they decide not to share when they tell the team she is pregnant.
The Past Coming Back With the Light in the Morning - It was strange to think he’d spent his life chasing the violence he’d desperately tried to escape as a kid.
The Penthouse of Your Heart - All they wanted was a weekend away just the two of them, but as always life wasn't quite as simple as that.
The One You Reached For - She’d never believed in fate, had never allowed herself to, but in the soft moments at the end of a long day when she sat with Aaron in his living room, a glass of wine in hand as Jack slept just down the hall, she let herself wonder if maybe everything she had endured had led her to him.
The Ties that Bind - She couldn't lose him like this.
The Waiting Game - Their jobs were difficult and they faced death more often than most people, but this was the first time she could have genuinely lost him since they got together and she hates it. For a moment, a very brief moment, she hates him for it too.
The Wreckage of You - The comments from their friends that she knows were intended as playful had chipped away at her biggest fear of all, the pieces of it now laying at her feet. He was too good for her, and it would only be a matter of time before he figured it out too.
Threads of Gold - She puts the ring back onto its chain, and slips it over her head before tucking it back into her shirt. She presses the cool metal against her skin and closes her eyes, blowing out a shaky breath from lungs that felt stuffed with grief. She wasn’t Emily Prentiss here. Emily Prentiss was dead.
Time Went on For Everybody Else - Despite how much he would miss the place he learnt how to be part of a family again, he found himself kneeling on the ground where his blood had once marked the carpet, his eyes fixed on the spot where he had almost lost his life.
To End Up With You - Emily has a job interview and is nervous. Aaron helps her through it.
Took a Tour of the Stars - It happens quickly. A glint of the knife, a familiar grunting sound from her husband, and the flash of red against his shirt that spreads quickly. She barely has time to react before the men are gone with their belongings and Aaron slumps against the wall, his hand pressing into his lower abdomen as his blood spills out onto the ground.
Tranquillity - He was by the book, she knew that, that had already bent the rules a little for her anyway, letting her chase a lead over Matthew’s death that he was sure was nothing at first. He had to draw the line somewhere, even for her, even though he’d tear his heart out of his chest if she asked him to.
Trust - In which Aaron and Emily are trying to buy a house, and he says some things he shouldn't when she offers to use her trust fund.
Vulnerability - They’d fallen pregnant quicker than they’d anticipated, and despite the smell of Aaron’s cologne and coffee turning her stomach, everything seemed ok. Then they found out Emily was pregnant with twins.
Warpath - Emily decides to surprise her boyfriend, but a misunderstanding might ruin things forever. A Young Hotchniss one shot.
Warrior - She was going to make sure he was ok. Then she was going to kill him.
We're Simply Meant to Be - Emily looks after Jack, and he asks her a question she isn't expecting.
Wildflowers - He’d brought her wildflowers. A bouquet made up of poppies, daises, lavender and primrose, but they weren’t real. They were made of Lego. Emily and Aaron go on their first date
Wise - Aaron and Emily's 4-year-old daughter wants to go as the infamous demon clown from It for Halloween, but a bout of chicken pox ruins her plans.
What's in a Name - When she comes back home, everything around her fragile and breakable, the life that had once been her solid foundation shaking beneath her feet, she barely thinks about it. Right up until she starts to date Aaron, and he calls her ‘love’ too.
Wrapped Up in Love - Three Christmases in the life of the Hotchner family.
Yield - She knows he’s wavering, something she’d counted on as she watched Penelope force a third glass of punch into his hands only twenty minutes ago. He was always desperate for her, but anytime he was drinking his ability to hide it was diminished. AKA the one where Emily and Aaron hook up at Quantico's annual 4th July party, despite the fact no one knows they are together.
You Could Stay - He showed her that he loved her every day, and she thought that would be enough for her. But when it came down to it, it wasn’t. She wanted to hear it, to have the confirmation she hadn’t known she’d needed until she didn’t get it. Emily tells Aaron that she loves him, but he doesn't say it back.
You Drew Stars Around My Scars - Emily hadn't thought about the scar on her chest in a long time, but after an impromptu conversation with Derek, it is all she can think about.
You're Gonna Go Far - It wasn't any easier even though they'd been through this once before with Jack. AKA - the one where Aaron and Emily's eldest daughter goes to college.
#hotchniss#hotchniss fanfiction#aaron hotchner x emily prentiss#aaron hotchner fanfiction#emily prentiss fanfiction#doing some house keeping
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Dave Strider, Dirk Strider
Act 6, page 7917-7922
DAVE: damn
DAVE: and i thought our houses were pointlessly tall before
DAVE: it just doesnt stop from keep constantly getting more and more vertically enormous
DIRK: Shit is downright precipitous at this point.
DIRK: Like, upways.
DAVE: haha yeah
DAVE: we made sure as fuck not to come right out and literally describe that building as tall
DIRK: Hell yes.
DIRK: Who needs small and serviceable adjectives when the most ass-backwards way of saying a thing is right there, tantalizingly hidden within the vast ocean of language.
DIRK: Like a treasure in a huge shitty clam.
DAVE: we are way on the same page philosophically here
DIRK: Who is surprised by this?
DIRK: Zero people, is who.
DAVE: sounds like a club for losers to me
DAVE: theyre lucky they dont have any members, otherwise theyd all be lame as hell
DIRK: Yeah.
DAVE: so uh
DAVE: why do the houses need to be so tall again
DAVE: i never actually understood that
DAVE: except to reach the gates but once we all figured out how to fly and shit that became so pointless
DIRK: Yeah. After a while in the game, building kind of stopped mattering.
DIRK: Except near the end. Getting them to the top is just a point of completion.
DIRK: Then you dump the grist rig on top of it, apparently.
DIRK: That lets the thing spray out all the grist from the hoard in the planet's core, kind of like a huge oil derrick I guess.
DAVE: oh
DAVE: how do you know this
DAVE: do you guys have like a manual or
DIRK: I'm in communication with Arquiusprite.
DIRK: He's working on it now.
DAVE: so youre in communication with him like...
DAVE: RIGHT now?
DIRK: Yes.
DIRK: Via my shades.
DIRK: Which he incidentally used to be.
DIRK: Like, as a computer, which he lived inside as my Auto-Responder.
DAVE: right
DAVE: and
DAVE: uh
DAVE: why... did you make that thing again
DAVE: not that you ever told me before
DAVE: 'again' is just like a stammering tack-on to that sentence so as to try and not sound too fucking rude
DIRK: I don't think it's a rude question. It's perfectly fair to wonder what was going through my head when I made him.
DIRK: I've spent a lot of time wondering about that myself.
DAVE: so you just
DAVE: straight up programmed a copy of your brain
DIRK: There was some programming involved, but also a bit of cheating, through the mapping of a captchalogued ghost-imprint of my brain.
DIRK: I guess part of it was just about trying to understand myself.
DIRK: But I don't think I would have put it that way at the time. For a while I insisted he was meant to be a "debate partner" or some horseshit.
DIRK: I was pretty young, and had some stupid ideas.
DIRK: About irony in particular. But also a lot of mostly faux-intellectual thoughts on a wide variety of topics.
DIRK: Like philosophy, consciousness, programming, identity, history, ancient pop-culture... really it ran the full gamut of pretension.
DIRK: Not that I don't still find that stuff interesting. I'd just like to think I'm somewhat less full of shit about it all now.
DAVE: yeah me too
DAVE: i mean, about my interests and stuff
DIRK: Creating him was an interesting exercise I guess, but over the years I came to see his development as one of my biggest mistakes.
DIRK: He sort of turned into a monster. But I could never bring myself to get rid of him, or even really blame him for being an asshole, because he wasn't actually that different from me.
DIRK: Like, by definition.
DIRK: He seems alright as Arquius though. At least it keeps him busy, obsessing over his muscles, asking for milk and shit like that.
DAVE: hmm
DAVE: i guess i started some projects i regretted
DAVE: but nothin like making a milk weirdo eventually exist
DAVE: it sounds fucked up but is also kind of an awesome story in its own way
DIRK: I guess so.
DAVE: maybe im lucky i was never that good with computers
DAVE: now computer ART thats a different story
DAVE: ok it actually isnt i fuckin suck at that too
DAVE: but dammit i try my best and make some magic happen at least in my own mind so maybe thats good enough
DIRK: It certainly worked out for you in my universe.
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: i mean
DAVE: i DID captchalogue my own ghost brain once but i didnt know what to make of that and thought it was kinda weird so that never really went anywhere
DAVE: probably for the best
DIRK: It definitely is.
DIRK: Tinkering with your own mind, or identity or whatever... it's a dark road to go down.
DIRK: There are enough splinters of everyone running around out there as it is, just as a natural byproduct of our reality. For me in particular. Probably for you too, as a time player.
DIRK: That process doesn't need to be encouraged or fucked with.
DAVE: for real
DAVE: my bro did cool things with computers too
DAVE: i mean nothin like making a clone of his brain or anything thank god
DAVE: just some absurd bullshit with web bots and stuff mostly to help prop up his various "enterprises"
DIRK: You mean the porn stuff?
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: but with puppets of course
DAVE: it was always about the puppets
DIRK: Naturally.
DAVE: he made all these porn bots that would just talk to each other in a chatroom endlessly
DAVE: all like gettin each other riled up about squishy bottoms and whatnot
DAVE: actually it was pretty entertaining to watch them go at it for hours
DAVE: i think they may have been teetering on the threshold of SOMETHING resembling self awareness?
DAVE: except they only seemed to apply that faculty to reach even more heightened states of sexual excitement for a bunch of nude soft puppets
DIRK: That sounds...
DIRK: Oddly rewarding.
DIRK: I mean, not to say he wasn't still a douche.
DIRK: But as a pastime, cultivating a group of earnest, erotic puppet-loving chatbots sounds so much more relaxing than painstakingly constructing a version of your own brain, and then arguing with it for years thereafter.
DIRK: Almost like tending to a little flock of pigeons.
DAVE: yeah you know he did some cool things
DAVE: it wasnt necessarily all inherently terrible
DAVE: things i would really appreciate under better circumstances
DAVE: he definitely had a lot of drive and also some uh "ideas" that warranted a certain amount of respect i guess
DAVE: he just
DAVE: maybe should not have been allowed near a child?
DAVE: sall im sayin
DIRK: Sounds about right.
DIRK: We really don't have to talk about him anymore though, if it is going to stir up more bad shit for you.
DAVE: nah im alright
DAVE: i think that is all mostly out of my system
DAVE: i mean not forever because i dont think thats how things work
DAVE: i just mean my venting fit is over and im probably good for another 16 years or so and i can return to being mostly deadpan and rad
DIRK: Ok.
DIRK: Well, in sixteen years, if you need someone to vent to again, let me know.
DAVE: sure
DAVE: assuming we havent been killed by like 10 jacks before that i will
DAVE: you certainly seem to be the right guy for that
DIRK: For what?
DAVE: i mean like the most suitable recipient of my hysterical fits on that particular subject
DAVE: there is no way i would ever tell karkat all that
DAVE: i mean maybe some stuff but not ALL the stuff its just too heavy
DAVE: i certainly wasnt gonna mention the stuff to rose or john or jade or whoever else
DAVE: if i was ever gonna do one of my patented acrobatic pirouettes off that particular handle to anyone it really only could have been at him
DAVE: except he was dead
DAVE: and even if he wasnt and i did say all that shit
DAVE: theres no way it would have resulted in anything resembling reconciliation
DAVE: which i think
DAVE: was something i kinda needed
DAVE: but didnt realize it
DAVE: so....
DAVE: thank you for being a really plausible stand in for him who i could rip to shreds??
DAVE: while still being basically innocent of all that terrible garbage
DAVE: so you end up sorta being like an avatar for him that is much easier to forgive
DAVE: i mean
DAVE: maybe FORGIVE isnt the right word because im not sure he deserves that and anyway it doesnt matter because hes been dead for years and at this point is just an irrelevant deceased weirdo who doesnt matter anymore
DAVE: i guess i mean coming around to a place where i dont have to feel rotten all the time anymore
DAVE: and i guess im lucky i got to blunder into a reality that just happened to have the exact right version of a dude which made that possible for me
DAVE: sorry this fuckin ramble is really getting away from me
DAVE: i have no idea if im making sense anymore
DIRK: I think I get it.
DIRK: And sure.
DIRK: You're welcome for me existing.
DAVE: hey can that be like
DAVE: the motto on our family crest
DIRK: I think it already is.
DAVE: all that melodramatic sadbabble aside
DAVE: i think its perfectly cool if youre still curious about your adult self
DAVE: and i dont mind tellin you more stuff about him if you want
DAVE: i know im still wondering about what my adult self got up to
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: Well like I said, any time you want to know more, feel free to ask.
DAVE: kay how about
DAVE: we do this thing
DAVE: when i met roxy we did a thing
DIRK: A thing?
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: its called the lightning round
DIRK: That does sound like a Roxy thing.
DIRK: Does it by any chance involve asking a rapid-fire series of questions, some of which end up being a bit too personal or invasive?
DAVE: well yeah when she does it
DAVE: we could be chill though
DAVE: when it comes to asking about each others secret crushes and shit
DIRK: Then I guess I will disclaim in advance that I don't have any, and I don't care about yours even if you do.
DAVE: it is settled then on the fact that we are a couple of cool dudes who know where to draw the line on certain topics
DIRK: Cool.
DIRK: So how do we start.
DIRK: Whose lightning round is this, mine or yours?
DAVE: it can be yours go ahead shoot
DIRK: Ok.
DIRK: How...
DIRK: Did...
DIRK: He, um,
DIRK: Come to "adopt" you?
DAVE: i was a baby and i came down to earth on a meteor while riding a pony with a pink heart on its ass
DAVE: he found me in a crater on top of a dead pony and gave me a lil baby pair of shades that look exactly like the ones youre wearin now
DIRK: I see.
DIRK: So you decided to ditch those shades for the aviator glasses?
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: years ago john got me these for my bday
DAVE: it might have been like an "ironic dare" to wear them i dont remember
DAVE: but when i got em i was like hell yeah im wearing these
DAVE: gonna rock these fuckers til the end of time
DAVE: they were ben stillers
DAVE: like literally
DAVE: they actually touched his weird sort of gaunt face in one of his films
DIRK: Wait...
DIRK: THE Stiller?
DAVE: yeah
DIRK: Incredible.
DIRK: Also, such a shame what happened to that poor man.
DAVE: wait what happened to him
DIRK: I can tell you when it's your lightning round.
DIRK: Or mine. Whatever. I'm still not sure whose lightning round it is when you're the one asking questions.
DAVE: dunno ask roxy
DIRK: Ok. Anyway, didn't mean to interrupt.
DAVE: but yeah we would send each other stuff sometimes
DAVE: me and john
DAVE: well we all would
DAVE: usually absurd birthday packages and such
DIRK: We did that too.
DIRK: Except I had to send things through time.
DIRK: Always had to figure out stuff small enough to send through the sendificator, even if it was piece by piece.
DAVE: nice
DAVE: one time it turned out we ACCIDENTALLY sent presents through time
DAVE: i mean not literally, more in a roundabout way
DAVE: we all sent john a rabbit
DAVE: but all three rabbits just turned out to be the same damn rabbit
DAVE: because of stupid time shit
DIRK: Once I deliberately and quite literally sent a rabbit through time.
DIRK: It was a robot.
DAVE: wow
DIRK: He was a loyal friend to Jane. I don't know what happened to him though.
DAVE: yeah i dunno what happened to johns rabbits either
DAVE: rabbits am i right
DIRK: I hear you, man.
DAVE: what next
DIRK: Hm.
DIRK: You say he owned Cal as well?
DAVE: yep
DIRK: Did he come down to Earth on a meteor with Cal too?
DAVE: i think so
DAVE: that was a long time ago
DAVE: kinda weird to imagine him strutting around with that puppet as a kid in the 80s
DAVE: or maybe just kinda funny actually
DAVE: he sure held on to it a long time
DAVE: must have gotten attached at a really early age and just never let go
DAVE: i guess you fell to earth with one of those things too?
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: But if I came to Earth on a meteor the same way you all did, then I guess I just got dunked right in the fucking ocean.
DIRK: Which makes sense. One of my earliest memories is of using Cal as a flotation device.
DIRK: So he sorta saved my life in a way. I guess I bonded with him too, the way your bro did, even if that sounds a bit stupid.
DIRK: Then again, it didn't help matters much that I lived alone in the middle of the ocean. He was my only real life friend. I mean, until I built some new ones.
DAVE: hmm wait we fucked up
DAVE: i asked you a question its not my turn
DAVE: keep firing
DIRK: Ok.
DIRK: How did your bro die?
DAVE: he died fighting one of these jacks
DAVE: at this point i almost forget which one
DAVE: no wait
DAVE: ok yeah it was the omnipotent dog one
DAVE: the jack from our session
DAVE: he was fighting like a lesser form of him and then jack got extra prototyped by dog powers and then got outmatched and stabbed with his own sword
DAVE: pretty sure davesprite was fighting with him and almost died too but then it turned out he didnt
DAVE: but now im at least 99% sure that davesprite is DEFINITELY dead and wont suddenly reappear as a stupid surprise or anything
DIRK: I hate stupid surprises.
DAVE: word
DIRK: So, you said he "trained" you.
DIRK: I'm guessing that means he knew what was coming?
DIRK: Or, some things about your future, at least?
DAVE: seems that way
DAVE: not sure what he knew or how he knew it
DAVE: all our guardians seemed to know bits and pieces of stuff and did vague mysterious things to prepare
DAVE: to this day i have no idea if he was training me to fight lord english or if he even knew who that guy was on any conscious level
DAVE: or it was more like general purpose training to be able to survive some hard shit after the end of the world happened
DAVE: youd have to ask him but thats impossible
DAVE: i do know he managed to get the drop on a meteor before i entered the game
DIRK: What?
DAVE: as far as i can tell he stood on top of it and split it in half with his sword
DIRK: Um,
DIRK: Not to be too much of a wet blanket on that rad as fuck anecdote, but that sounds kind of far fetched.
DAVE: yeah it does doesnt it
DAVE: but then again so does a baby getting dunked from space in the ocean then floating on a weird doll and then growin up by himself with no adults around
DIRK: That's not far fetched. It was pretty straightforward.
DIRK: I think I just found a building poking out of the water, climbed up, then I just started foraging for food in there like a feral infant.
DIRK: Supplies which I'm sure your adult self must have left behind for me, seeing as he clearly must have known some things about the future too.
DIRK: Speaking of which, maybe it's your turn now?
DAVE: yeah ok
DAVE: questions about me hmm lets see
DAVE: ok FIRST the fuck of all
DAVE: what happened to ben stiller
DIRK: He was deemed a heretic, and was crucified on the Washington Monument by some clowns.
DAVE: wow
DIRK: Due to his dedication to freedom and peace, he came to be seen as a martyr, and then a holy figure.
DIRK: He was left on the monument as an example to all, but thousands of faithful gathered below to gaze up at his pious, sort of gaunt face.
DIRK: For years thereafter, his followers would carve stone busts of him in his memory, capturing the piercing glare of his final expression.
DIRK: But they were all smashed to pieces by the presidential church.
DIRK: That religious movement didn't last very long.
DIRK: Rumor has it the batterwitch had a lot of experience crushing righteous insurrections.
DAVE: did my adult self get pissed about stiller
DAVE: i bet he got pissed
DIRK: Yeah. There was a whole series of final insults that led to his active rebellion, instead of just producing subversive media.
DIRK: At one point, the witch "remastered" all of his films to clean up all the shitty artifacts, and released them in stunning high-def quality all over the world, using a rational business model and everything.
DIRK: That REALLY set him off.
DAVE: what the fuck
DAVE: how fucking dare that woman
DAVE: so then he tried to kill the batterwitch right
DAVE: who is the same exact alien as the condesce in this session??
DIRK: Yes. Same one.
DIRK: And yeah, he teamed up with Rose from the same era.
DIRK: They supposedly put up a good fight, but both died.
DAVE: so...
DAVE: does john know that he is literally about to go fight betty crocker yet or what
DIRK: I have no idea.
DIRK: I really don't know John at all, or any of your friends.
DIRK: I know Jane was the heiress to the Crocker brand. Uh, obviously? It is her name after all.
DIRK: Was John the heir to that empire in his universe?
DAVE: nah
DAVE: i mean not to my or his knowledge
DAVE: he just fuckin hated that company for some reason
DAVE: i think his reason was literally as mundane as just being slightly overexposed to cake
DAVE: thats classic john though he doesnt get pissed about anything except for the absolute dumbest shit
DAVE: but i guess his instincts were right in this case
DAVE: maybe we should just
DAVE: not tell him
DAVE: that hes fightin crocker i think the poor dude has probably had enough mental breakdowns for one adventure
DAVE: we all have
DIRK: I'd like to get to know him.
DIRK: Not to mention Rose and Jade. Would have been nice to hang out and chat, in a circumstance where we weren't supposed to prepare for an imminent deadly struggle.
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: well i guess we could have hung out there a few minutes longer
DAVE: i mean you wouldnt have got much outta jade who is stuck in perma-nap mode
DAVE: just like old times i guess
DIRK: Huh?
DAVE: she used to sleep a lot
DIRK: Ah.
DAVE: but yeah there wasnt much time except for like a bunch of heys and oh nice to meet yous
DAVE: and also i think i would have still been a shitty train wreck socially if we all just hunkered down right then and there for another extensive round of freestyle paltalk
DIRK: Right, I was kind of nervous about lingering there for more than a minute too.
DIRK: Mainly because of Jake.
DIRK: I didn't want to make him uncomfortable.
DIRK: I think I have done enough of that.
DAVE: i guess jake was kinda like your john of the group huh
DAVE: wait that was a pretty dumb observation never mind
DIRK: Nah, sounds about right.
DIRK: Seems like John was your close buddy growing up, and Jake was mine.
DAVE: john and i never really had anything like a falling out
DAVE: except for not talkin to each other for a few years on account of being on a meteor and boat respectively
DAVE: but i guess you two had some buddy troubles or somethin?
DIRK: Yes. A lot of buddy troubles.
DIRK: I vaguely touched on it earlier. I was a really bad influence in his life.
DAVE: what happened
DIRK: A lot of things, that were mostly my fault.
DIRK: Basically, I think I bullied him into dating me.
DIRK: Although I had plenty of "help" from my Auto-Responder.
DIRK: There were a lot of insane plans that he hatched on my behalf.
DIRK: But in fairness, I went along with them.
DIRK: To this day, I can't really tell how much of that bullshit was his doing, and how much was mine, which I've just covered up through denial or selective memory.
DAVE: wait
DAVE: you
DAVE: you dated jake?
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: That didn't last long though.
DIRK: It was really lopsided and kind of forced.
DAVE: ...
DAVE: so
DAVE: you
DAVE: ...
DAVE: hmm
DIRK: What?
DAVE: nothing
DAVE: i think were breakin one of the rules here
DAVE: this tangent got too personal
DIRK: Oh yeah.
DIRK: I forgot we weren't doing that.
DIRK: Anyway, carry on. You were asking about adult Dave?
DAVE: yeah
DAVE: so that covers how he died
DAVE: taking a futile stand against some unbeatable foe
DAVE: cant say im too surprised about that cause what else is even new
DAVE: what about his early life though
DAVE: guess i arrived around the same year my bro did in my universe?
DAVE: just came down on the same dead horse i rode in on
DAVE: into a world full of opportunities
DAVE: how did i get started
DIRK: His early life isn't well documented.
DIRK: There's hardly anything to read about him until he broke into show business with a few obscure projects at the turn of the century.
DIRK: It all snowballed from there.
DAVE: i guess the one thing we know for sure is i didnt find a kid in a crater and take him under my wing
DAVE: that was probably for the best
DIRK: Heh.
DAVE: actually maybe its better that most of his story is left to my imagination
DAVE: kinda like how you said you spent a lot of time thinkin about him
DAVE: filling in the gaps of his ridiculous exploits
DIRK: Right.
DIRK: There's certainly a lot of lore to work with.
DIRK: Urban legends and stuff.
DAVE: like what
DAVE: actually wait
DAVE: dont tell me
DAVE: at least not now maybe down the road it would be cool to hear some
DAVE: i think id prefer to fill in the blanks myself for a while
DAVE: really it sounds dope as hell to imagine that sort of blank canvas life
DAVE: dropped on earth as a kid in the 70s or 80s or whatever with no bossy adult to reel me in
DAVE: and just having to figure stuff out
DAVE: especially knowing that many years later it all worked out ok
DAVE: really wonder what i did
DAVE: was i like some homeless eighties ragamuffin???
DAVE: jesus christ that sounds fairly adorable if so
DAVE: maybe i slept in an alley on a bed of rubix cubes and alf merchandise
DAVE: or maybe i offered my old school rap services for food
DIRK: Like, through a shitty cardboard booth?
DIRK: You know, like the one from the fuckin' Charlie Brown comics.
DIRK: "This is what the refrance," FYI.
DAVE: yes exactly
DAVE: this sounds like exactly the life for me
DAVE: what if without a penny to my name and the wind at my back i hopped a boxcar to the big apple
DAVE: because as a dumb child i naively believed thats where they made all the apple juice
DAVE: id be sorely disappointed when i got there but it wouldnt matter because id probably scrape together a living on off off off broadway like...
DAVE: making shitty cartoons
DAVE: on stage
DAVE: and saying
DAVE: you guys
DAVE: this will be SO much funnier once the internet happens TRUST ME
DAVE: then the aristocratic patrons of fine theater just shrug and dump their shillings into my orphan hat
DIRK: It sounds to me like you've been reading up on the urban legends already.
DAVE: hahaha
DAVE: i wonder if he had like
DAVE: friends
DIRK: It sounds like he knew a lot of people, at least later in life.
DAVE: sure
DAVE: i mean im sure he knew rose at some point because obviously they teamed up
DAVE: but as fairly old people?
DAVE: it sounds as though they only knew each other as a result of their notability
DIRK: This seems likely.
DAVE: i mean more like the friends i grew up with
DAVE: he couldnt have grown up with john or jade as friends because they were already old by the time he got there
DAVE: this cool 80s kid fantasy was probably just a lot lonelier than ive been picturing in my sweet daydreams
DAVE: i didnt even have the MAYOR god what a nightmare now that i think about it
DAVE: i wonder if all he cared about was making ludicrous shit and fighting evil pastry moguls
DAVE: do you know if he had any other interests
DIRK: Like what?
DAVE: i dont know
DAVE: did you ever read any urban legends about.....
DAVE: paleontology
DIRK: Paleontology?
DAVE: yes the scientific study of dead shit
DIRK: Not that I recall.
DAVE: hmm
DAVE: i guess he probably didnt do anything with that
DAVE: what a shame
DAVE: maybe he never even got the idea since he had completely different experiences
DAVE: but if i were suddenly dropped back in the 20th century id probably look into it at some point
DAVE: i dunno how though
DAVE: i think it would be mainly like
DAVE: some sort of theraputic interest
DAVE: something relaxing to think about instead of a bunch of ironic and stupidly ambitious objectives
DIRK: Yeah, like the porn bots.
DAVE: yeah exactly
DIRK: Maybe some day, when we're both old men, you can live a quiet life tending to your fossils, and I will do the same with my dear collection of simple-minded chat robots fixated on puppet ass.
DAVE: sounds like the fucking life to me
DIRK: What was the lightning round question this stemmed from again?
DIRK: I forget.
DAVE: dunno
DAVE: maybe were tapering off with the lightning round stuff anyway and its just naturally deteriorating into regular dudechat
DIRK: Maybe.
DIRK: You sure you don't have anything else before we say it's officially deteriorated?
DAVE: k heres a curveball
DAVE: what the fuck are you wearing
DIRK: My prince gear.
DIRK: You know. Leggings, slippers, the poofy asshole pants, a hood with some sort of cloth tiara deal embedded in it.
DIRK: Basic stuff for princes, apparently.
DAVE: huh
DAVE: gotta say
DAVE: some of these god tier ensembles really are...
DAVE: something
DIRK: I thought I hated it at first.
DIRK: But over the couple hours I spent flying back, with time to think about all sorts of stuff...
DIRK: It kinda grew on me.
DIRK: The asshole pants are pretty damn comfortable, so I dunno if I even care how stupid they look.
DIRK: And I *am* kind of an asshole, after all. So who am I to complain.
DAVE: i thought the same thing about my cape outfit at first
DAVE: felt like some bozo from the renaissance festival
DAVE: like maybe i should get on a horse and sing a shitty ballad
DAVE: but then it grew on me pretty quickly
DAVE: hardly ever took it off in three years
DAVE: youre right its comfortable and theyre fuckin magic pajamas or whatever and they start to feel like part of who you are after long enough
DAVE: i mean they are supposed to last you forever right
DAVE: kinda by definition since they come along with immortality
DAVE: maybe part of their magical nature includes this insidious quality where they grow on you
DAVE: or not i dunno maybe this is bullshit and ill just wear some normal person clothes when this is all over
DAVE: what about you are you gonna wear god duds forever
DIRK: Nah. I'm sure I'll wear regular stuff again at some point.
DIRK: If a shirt with a hat on it can be deemed regular.
DAVE: im cool with deeming it as such
DAVE: yeah maybe youre right and we should all stop dressing like tools from an infinite magic slumber party for floundering teens
DAVE: and just look like standard floundering teens
DAVE: some of the getups are pretty out there
DAVE: jakes tho...
DAVE: uh
DAVE: damn??
DIRK: I...
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: That page costume.
DIRK: I'd have commented on it, except that would've been casting a stone through a particularly fragile glass wardrobe.
DIRK: So... I just flew away.
DAVE: yeah there was uh
DAVE: some palpable awkwardness there
DIRK: Hm.
DAVE: sorry im still
DAVE: tryin to
DAVE: like
DAVE: wrap my head around
DAVE: ...
DIRK: What?
DAVE: uh
DAVE: dammit
DAVE: ok i guess i might have to break one of our lightning round rules
DAVE: only a little tho
DAVE: i hope
DIRK: About what?
DIRK: The personal stuff?
DAVE: yeah
DIRK: That's fine.
DAVE: ok maybe im not even asking you anything
DAVE: maybe this is just a starting point to ramble to myself
DAVE: on a certain topic
DAVE: i think...
DAVE: there is a SLIGHT chance...
DAVE: i may be the biggest idiot in the world
DIRK: ?
DAVE: when it comes to understanding some things about my bro
DAVE: some pieces i never really put together
DAVE: about him
DAVE: until maybe literally right now
DAVE: which i think makes me an objective dumbass
DIRK: What does this have to do with me and Jake?
DAVE: idk
DAVE: nothin
DAVE: maybe i dont wanna ask you anything about jake
DAVE: maybe ill just keep abiding by the code of basic dude manners on that
DAVE: if i bother skirtin the line of this rule maybe id rather ask you other stuff instead
DIRK: Like what?
DAVE: like
DAVE: um
DAVE: say one of your best friends is a knucklehead you havent seen in three years
DAVE: and unless you use ultra direct and explicit language he just wont put two and two together himself
DAVE: and also say ANOTHER best friend is a girl you feel like you had kind of a special relationship with but you ALSO hadnt seen in three years
DAVE: and shes asleep
DAVE: but at some point shell wake up and youll have to talk to her
DIRK: ...
DAVE: this is dumb im not making any sense
DAVE: lemme start over
DAVE: ok lets say
DAVE: way back whenever
DAVE: howww
DAVE: ...
DAVE: how did you tell your friends
#homestuck#dave strider#dirk strider#homestuck act 6#page 7917#page 7918#page 7919#page 7920#page 7921#page 7922#homestuck act 6 act 6#homestuck act 6 act 6 intermission 5
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Because @lo-batt is actually the first person to ever show interest in this one, this is FINALLY going to be an explanation of the Glitched Afton au!
Godspeed and good luck
So this one was created out of pure self indulgence, and then it took on a mind of its own.
Glitched Afton is just Glitchtrap! Except he's escaped the VR headset (thanks to your help) and he now lives in the various electronic devices in your home! (But mostly your phone since you use that the most)
Now the fun thing with him is that despite still being digitally tethered, he can manifest in the physical world. He doesn't always need to be around his tether, since he can bank off of any electronics in the area. Like genuinely once he got help to get out of the game itself he was no longer bound by code and gained free range. There's obviously a LOT of electronics in day to day life that he can draw energy from, so really the only thing keeping him in your house is the fact that he likes you.
ANYWAY
His default form is, obviously, the amalgamation of black goo we see inside Princess Quest, THATS what he is truly. But he can manipulate his form, and most often appears as himself, usually before the springlock incident ever occurred.
His ability to hold these forms though rely entirely on his emotions.
Sometimes he's having a really bad day emotionally, days where he feels every bit like the monster he was. Those are the days Springtrap is around.
Some days he's his usual, extravagant self. That's when he'll appear the most human, though sometimes he'll cycle between William Afton and Dave Miller. He was both of these people at some point, and while he exclusively identifies himself as William Afton regardless of which human form he takes, he refuses to deny what tragedy had done to him physically. That tragedy was part of him whether he liked it or not, he couldn't pretend that it never happened.
Some days he just doesn't have the energy to keep up a form at all, so he'll stay inside your electronics as Glitchtrap.
You never really see his true form. You'll catch it in flashes if his emotions become particularly unstable, but he ultimately does a pretty good job at hiding the amalgamation from you. Sometimes when the threads on his glitchtrap form come loose, you'll catch glimpses of something black churning inside, but you're kind enough to never mention it, opting instead to grab a needle and some thread to reinforce his seams. He's more grateful for this than you'd ever know, and it makes him trust you all the more.
You'll see a lot of Springtrap at first, since he thinks so lowly of himself. There's no denying that what he did was unforgivable, and while he has no intention of changing, he refuses to drag you down into it. So he keeps you as far removed from his sinister plans as possible. You know what he's doing, you know you can't stop him once his mind is set on something, your hands are tied. He doesn't bring it up around you, and you certainly aren't going to make it your business, not with the highly anticipated Freddy Fazbear Mega Pizzaplex opening very soon.
You don't know about Vanessa, you don't know where he is when you can't find him around the house or don't see him anywhere on your phone, you dont know he's doing something inside that pizzaplex.
You don't know he's building a new body. You don't know his physical body is trying to heal itself. You don't know the terrible things this man is capable of, you never have to see that side of him.
The worst you ever see of him is how he views himself, the moments when his physical form glitches out as years of repressed trauma start to catch up to him.
You know who he is, what he's done in the past, but he never once acted in any way that made you think he was up to his old ways. He treated you kindly, adored every little thing about you, never let anything happen to you when he was out with you. He loved you.
And that's why he couldn't tell you what he was doing when you weren't around.
Basically I just like the idea of Glitchtrap being able to control his form if he's taken out of the limitations of the video game, and I like the idea of that being tied directly to his emotional state because hoo boy does he have a lot of unaddressed trauma to deal with.
We love a highly unstable computer virus
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Survive the Night (i)
A/N: i wrote two chapters of this a long time ago and never posted it anywhere. Hopefully someone likes it lmao now that my obsession has come back full force
Tw:child murder, panic attacks, mc witnesses her sisters murder, depression, more warnings tba.
Wc 2.4k
Next Masterlist
Walking into the brightly lit place, as if nothing happened was already almost proving to be too much for Wren, and she couldn’t bring herself to smile even though it was her godson’s birthday. Being there was too painful, though it was technically a different place, an entire decade and a half later. At the age of 27 she should have gotten over the untimely death of her younger sister, no matter how gruesome it was, no matter that she saw it happen with her own eyes and escaped death by an inch. She shouldn’t still be waking up with nightmares, seeing that damned bunny suit everytime she closed her eyelids.
Her eyes immediately landed on the gigantic golden statue of Freddy Fazbear himself in the middle of the entrance, it took her breath away at how utterly expensive it looked, as if it belonged somewhere fancier than a kids entertainment business. ‘Wow’ she thought, letting herself stare, ‘He looks so much different than he did when I was a kid’. It surprised her at the difference in style; she had avoided consuming any Fazbear Entertainment content since that day.
Taking in a deep breath, she allowed herself to be dragged further into the building, which was more of a glorified Dave & Buster's. Her feet slowed the closer she got to the small party room, the place not big enough for any of the kids to run, but big enough for one or two of those stupid, monsterous animatronics to fit in and murder them all by trapping them within the walls. The screamed out bouts of laughter of children did nothing to compel her to feel as if the place was different, as if it was safer. She had heard about the children going missing recently, and though they obviously couldn’t tie it back to this place (like they couldn’t before) she knew that it had to be the same person that killed her sister. If only she had gotten to see his face. Somehow despite the rumors of children going missing and dying, the business never got closed down for long.
Forcing a smile on her face, Wren tried to pay attention to the words the newly turned six year old was saying, though looking at him made her sadder than she thought she would be. But still, barely holding it together is still holding it together nonetheless, at least she wasn’t sobbing in the bathroom after being inside the building for all of 10 minutes. His eyes were bright with excitement, and the gum where he lost his tooth was proudly on display as he quickly told Wren everywhere he wanted to play for his birthday. He gripped her hand and dragged her along to the party room, planting her in the chair to the left of his own grinning excitedly.
"I wanna go to Roxy Raceway!" He kicked his feet under him, eyes shining.
"Hun, ain't Roxy Raceway closed down still?"
The boy deflated with the news, his hopes dashed with the realization that he wouldn't be able to kick butt in a go-kart race. "It's fine though! We can go do other things, and whenever I babysit again we'll go gokarting somewhere else!"
"Really?"
"Sure thing bud, I promise."
"Okay, then I wanna go straight to Fazer Blast! I'm gonna kick everyone's butt!"
"Heck yeah!" She now smiled genuinely at the hyper six year old as he kept speaking about everything he was prepared to do before they had to leave. The place was like a kid's fever dream come to life.
"Okay kids, parents," Amanda clasped her hands together trying to get everyone's attention, "you are free to play until five! Then we meet back here so we can all go to the concert. After the concert there will be cake and food. So…go have fun!"
It took only two seconds for the children to disappear within the building, their parents chasing desperately after them. Amanda was already following after Joey, her being his actual mother and all, which meant Wren was left alone in the party room, still sitting in the same chair Joey had put her in. Now that the boy had stopped talking to her, she felt the calm that washed over her that her fondness and focus provided deflate, she no longer had the kid to keep her mind on him and his happiness only. Now she was free to wallow in her own regret and sadness.
Flashes of that night played in her mind and slowly they started to mix with the bright lights of the world around her, sanity was a very hard thing to keep in your grasp.
"Wren help me!" Cried the girl, her eyes slowly losing their light. Before she could move closer in any sort of effort, the head of the bunny suit slowly turned to stare at her. His mouth in a terrifyingly large grin, choking out an apology she took off, running for the closest exit.
There was nothing she could do.
"Ma'am? Are you alright?"
There was a boy in front of her, who couldn't be any older than 17. His uniform neatly tucked in, Ipad clutched in his hand. His eyes looked worried, and she could tell that she had probably been sitting there alone for much longer than she realized. Standing she nodded, wiping her cheeks and eyes before giving the worker a watery smile. "Just a little tired. Thanks "
He nodded and continued to work around the party room, setting up plates and cups for when the kids came back. The back of his shirt read Party Host, silently she hoped that he would be the only one even though she knew Amanda would have sprung to have all four robots singing Happy Birthday to Joey. She often overcompensated for his lack of a father in ways that made Wren's head spin. But what would she know? She didn't have any kids of her own.
"Aunt Wren! Come on, mom got tickets to play Fazer Blast!" Joey slowly came into view, his voice straining to be heard over the noise. Forcing her tears back down, she smacked her hands on the tops of her thighs, standing much too quickly.
"Alright! Let's play some laser tag!"
The game of laser tag went on for almost too long even if it was the most fun she had in years. Obviously she and Joey made the dream team and won king of the hill quite easily as she spun him around so he could shoot quickly. His laughs slowly eased her aching heart and racing mind.
She missed this.
The walk to the atrium to watch the concert was chaotic, the kids who were unhappy about being pulled away from the numerous attractions were simultaneously excited about getting to see the Glamrocks perform. It made getting them there difficult, and it made getting them settled even more so. Since Amanda had gone all out, their party was front and center for the concert, and being pressed up against the rails that separated them from the stage brought back memories of her and Amanda being teens at concerts of their favorite bands, God how times have changed.
Slowly the lights dimmed, and contrary to how Wren thought she would react, the child within her was simultaneously terrified at the thought of seeing the animatronics again, but also very excited at the thought that something in her childhood was returning, the good part of it before everything went to hell.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Fazbear Entertainment would like you to put your hands together for the one and only - Freddy Fazbear!”
Silently she applauded as the music boomed through the room, her heart picked up pace as the fog rolled in and the animatronic robots she hoped to never see again entered the stage. Her ears rang with the screams around her, it reminded her of her teenage years again.
After a couple minutes of standing through the concert, she hated to admit that the music was indeed pretty catchy. Her foot tapped in time to the beat as she felt herself genuinely enjoying watching the bots perform, they seemed more human than the old suits did, somehow this made her relieved and horrified. “Ugh, that bass player is hot,” she could feel Amanda’s breath fan over her ears as she tried to whisper yell loud enough for only Wren to hear.
With a grin and a quirked up eyebrow, Wren leaned into her friend, “the alligator?”
“He’s a robot, it's not weird!”
“Amanda!”
“What?”
“It’s definitely weird!”
“Whatever, I’m gonna see if he reacts to flirting.”
Laughing loudly, Wren struggled to keep herself upright. “You’re gonna flirt with a damn robot?”
“Might as well! You know they say the AI is, like, super advanced?”
“I heard. Still don’t think flirting with them is a good idea!” The two laughed hard, the sound of Amanda’s voice floating into her ears just under the music
After a pregnant beat, Amanda leaned in again, her eyes softer after the exchange. “You know I missed this?”
“What?”
“Us, hanging out. Granted it’s my kids birthday and we’re not slutting it up at some shady club, I’m happy you did decide to come here.”
“What else would I have done? Missed my godson’s birthday? He only turns six once, Manda.”
The woman nods and sends Wren a smile that she could tell was somewhat sad. A pang of guilt shoots through Wren’s heart as she thinks about the past few years, sure she had been depressed before, but nothing was the same after she heard the pizzaplex was being built and reopened. She fell into a pit of darkness and became an even worse friend to the only person she had, her only other one disappearing shortly after everything happened. She wondered for a short time if Micheal had heard that the pizzaplex was opened, and what he thought about it. It had been a while since she had heard anything about his family.
The concert ended much too soon as they were now being ushered out of the atrium and into their party room by the young party host. He seemed somewhat freaked out as they neared the room, sometimes looking behind him towards where the stage was. As the group sat down, his voice came out wavering, he wrung his hands together as best he could with an Ipad in between them. “Freddy and the gang will be in here in just a moment, they’re just charging up a bit before the party. The concert took a little bit out of them.” After seeing the parents nod all around he went to stand in a corner silently, pressing things on the tablet.
It was still a couple of minutes after his announcement before the animatronics showed up, the ground shaking with their steps. Wren could feel her heart racing before she could see them, she could feel the bile and the fear crawling up her throat at the thought of being face to face with the thing that killed her sister. Maybe not the thing exactly, but grief and fear weren’t really logical like that.
The closer they got she could feel herself having to fight the urge to scream out as if she were in a horror movie being chased by a slow moving killer. She could see Amanda looking at her worriedly out of the corner of her eyes, and though she didn’t want to ruin the kid’s birthday, she felt as if she would make everything very bad if she didn’t leave and hide in the bathroom as soon as she could. So, that’s exactly what she planned to do, hide in the bathroom for the remainder of the time that the large robots had to be in the party room. It’s not as if he would miss her when his attention is on them, hopefully everyone would watch him and the rest of the kids closely so they didn’t wind up like the others.
It was almost too much for her to be in the same room, though he didn’t look anything close to the Freddy Fazbear that she knew before. Thankfully, like she noticed on stage there was no Bonnie, though Chica was still part of the group. She looked totally different, cuter. Two new animatronics had taken the places of Bonnie and Foxy, and while the alligator was hot like Amanda had said, Wren wasn’t jumping at the chance of being in the same room as him, just one look at his claws and teeth made her more nauseous than she’d like to admit. These things were made to be dangerous, and no one would be able to tell her otherwise.
Her mind slowed as the things started speaking, and silently, she got out her camera to record, she at least wanted to remember singing happy birthday before she had her breakdown. “Hey little guy, I heard it was your birthday!” the alligator spoke with a vaguely cajun accent. Breathing out through her nose, she silently watched as the other animatronics went through their lines, trying their best to make Joey feel special. She quietly sang along, hoping her voice wouldn’t sound as frightened and hostage-like on the video as it did echoing in her ears.
As soon as the stomach hatch of Freddy opened she couldn’t stop herself from gagging. In a hurry she averted her eyes to look to the floor, she hoped no one would notice her strange actions. As Joey leaned in to blow out the candles, she had to bite her lip in order to keep from yelling out to him, and as soon as the candles went out, she attempted to make a bee line for the bathroom.
She could hear someone calling out to her in confusion, but she ignored them and continued to the bathroom with a silent prayer that no one would be inside. Forcing the doors open she headed straight to the sinks, uncaring if the water would ruin her makeup, most of it was waterproofed anyway.
Looking into the mirror she flinched at her own appearance, she looked more like a hollow shell than an actual person, her eyes puffy and tired. Frowning she splashed water on her face to cover the tears, her breathing escalating with each passing second.
"You're going to be okay, it's all going to be okay."
#fnaf#fnaf security breach#fnaf sb#five nights at freddy's security breach#five nights at freddy's#the glamrocks#fnaf fanfic#five nights at Freddy’s fanfic#fnaf monty#fnaf chica#fnaf roxy#fnaf freddy#monty gator#glamrock monty#montgomery gator#glamrock freddy#freddy fazbear#glamrock chica#chica chicken#glamrock roxanne#glamrock roxy#roxy wolf#roxanne wolf
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Dream Beavers Thoughts/Reactions
My poor boy Donnie, he doesn't even get to start the episode awake. Instantly we're in his nightmare as he flees for his life in a panic. Love the angst of it but my poor boy
Dude this nightmare of Donnie's is so fucking relatable , I have Being Chased And Can't Escape nightmares at least once a week.
Couldn't wake Donnie up and even dirty underwear didn't wake him... yeah, no cause for concern, I'm sure
OH GOD HIS LEG FUCKING BROKE AGAIN
Sleeping may not help, but you know what else won't? Walking on it after it popped out of place again
Oh when did I start watching Monsters vs Aliens lol
I like the hint that Leo's dreaming now too by having his dream take place at night, then cutting to Casey and April just pulling up to the store during the day.
Pffff "On purpose?"
Brown but it used to be yella candy... ew
He's got the fucking Necronomicon in his fucking store, just put the book in the back room if you don't want anyone touching it, dude.
Amount of stuff must be for 5 or 6 people? It's one box. Maybe they just like variety.
Leo YOU WERE ALREADY A SUPERHERO YOU IDIOT
Awww Raph and Mikey prank times, love when they get along- oh, and Mikey almost ruined it
Casey, hon? Sometimes people just nap.
AWWWWWWWWW DONNIE SNORES AND WHISTLES THROUGH THE TOOTH GAP IT'S SO CUTE
OH HIS NIGHTMARE IS NOT CUTE but the May I Eat You? You Look Salty! is very funny.
He's never even been to school and has nightmares about it anyway, that's how you know Donnie is truly a teenager.
MY BOY FIGURED IT OUT BUT STUPID BEAVER MAKES HIM THINK HE DIDN'T HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO HIS CONFIDENCE
Casey- where did you just kick him?!?!?!?!?!
Donnie is having the worst time I think, but Raph's got prize for second worst nightmare, this shit is fucked. He's trapped in an endless metal music video
Meanwhile Mikey is just in Mabel Land from Gravity Falls...
Draining the life out of them... that's just what nightmares do even without the Beavers
GO FUCK THAT BASTARD UP CASEYYYYYYYYYY I SUPPORT YOU EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU COMMIT VIOLENCE
Yesssssssss love the transition into Donnie's dream again, love his scared expression as he runs through the twisting sewer, love how desperate he is! Good shit!
Don't like Big Boob Coffee Can April though.
Man, Leo can't even avoid having his ass beat in a dream
YESSSSSSS THE WAY IT ALL STOPS AND THE BEAVER SAYS "AREN'T YOU GOING TO ANSWER" THE VIBES ARE IMMACULATE ON THAT
Raph's is just like, someone on the crew wants to direct a metal video and hasn't had the chance yet.
Hi, Mickey Mouse Lolipop, why did you break the mold of it being April's voice and none of the other ones did?
So this bitch thinks the Dream Beavers have heralds and minions in the waking world now?
Yeah Casey. Dream Beavers. And shockingly? One of the less goofy villains in this show.
BEATNIK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
OH DONNIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE MY BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
He figured it out a second time! But he still can't win! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
GOD I LOVE THAT SLICING EFFECT AND HOW IT BRINGS ALL 4 INTO THE SAME DREAMSPACE GODDDDDDDDDD THIS EPISODE IS SO FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Dude, Big Brain Raph figured it out! He got to shine! Whoo!
Pffff what was that giggle Donnie?
So Dave is the third Gidorah head of the Dream Beavers
Casey is just playing Resident Evil 7 now. Motherfucker's sawing through walls and shit...
THAT IS A QUALITY BAT JEEPERS WHY IS IT SO TOUGH
40 years, sir? You shouldn't be able to talk.
This guy is just. Ford. This is Grunkle Ford's backstory.
CASEYYYYYY I LOVE YOU MY LOYAL CARING DEPENDABLE BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YES SAVE YOUR FRIENDS YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
YESSSSSSS THIS COMIC THING I LOVE ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT I LOVE THIS EPISODE SO MUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THEY'RE RIPPING THROUGH THE COMIC BITS AND NOW THEY'RE UPSIDE DOWN YES MAKE IT TRIPPY MAKE IS STRANGE MAKE IT DREAMLIKE YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THIS EPISODE IS INCREDIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Oh Dave is a Minecraft Slime, or Ratchet & Clank Zyphoid.
Hehehehehe them with only their heads and shells look funny
Oh this is supremely fucked up, but like, in a way that's more fun than horrifying and gross like the Mom Thing was
I like that he immedietely assumes the turtles were sleep deprivation hallucinations
DONNIE'S NOT BREATHING NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LEAVE MY BOY ALONEEEEEEEEE
YES CASEY YES RISK THE WHOLE WORLD FOR YOUR FRIENDS/FOUND FAMILY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU SO MUCH CASEY YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
HA bitches are the size of real beavers. I like that Mikey and Dave still wanna be friends.
Pfffff "April. Casey. Giant talking turtles." And then WHAM HITS THE FLOOR WITH THE FORCE OF A THOUSAND TONS OF STEEL
Hey Donnie? Yeah, you died. Like you stopped breathing and your pulse stopped like, two seconds ago. Maybe let, anyone else, help Casey carry the sleeping man away
Awwwwwww Leo and Raph friend moment!
Casey, a little soon for the "Dream on" comment, sweetie. They. Donnie just died. Everyone else, almost died. Maybe not the time for thematic puns.
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Youngling Slayer 9000
Watching Jar Jar save Grogu from Anakin's Jedi genocide in the last episode of Mando, was surprisingly cathartic. I abhor Jar Jar Binks. I thought he was a thinly veiled, overtly racist, caricature of my people. That punk ass Gungan rubbed me the wrong way for years and, apparently, did the same for A LOT of people. SO many, in fact, that the actor who portrayed him, Ahmed Best, contemplated suicide. People were absolutely cruel to this man because of a character he played in a bad film. Listening to him recall the utter torment he suffered over the years because of that role was heartbreaking. I felt awful because i was apart of that mob. Never once did i wish ill or curse the name of Best, himself, but i would sh*t all over Jar Jar to anyone who would listen. It took this man years to come to terms with that hate so to see him don the robes and wield a lightsaber in service to saving Baby Yoda? That was dope. I am glad Best was able to get his shine, even if it’s three decades late. Dave and Jon have been redeeming Star Wars through Mando and other series. They have a plan to redeem the entire franchise after Kennedy did her very best to absolutely destroy. It’s wild to think that, in just a few years, we might be looking at Star Wars with eyes of joy and wonder and not trepidation and contempt. I am very happy for Ahmed Best and hope we get to see more of Kelleran Beq.
I wanted to say all of that up front because we are about to get into some sh*t right now and it was absolutely necessary to give Best, Mando, and Favloni their flowers. That sh*t was dope and it got me thinking about the real topic of this essay: Vader’s Redemption. If you’ve been around these parts for any number of years, you know i adore Star Wars. It’s a staple in my life and, while no as prominent as the three pillars of my childhood, it’s still a big part of it. My favorite character is, and will always be, Darth Vader. Also, just for transparency, a lot of the things i love about Star Wars are Vader adjacent. Ahsoka is my second favorite character and Dr. Aphra is a distant third. The Dark Lord of the Sith was just this imposing, malevolent, force of nature. His rage drove an already overpowered monster of flesh and steel that, to this day, is rarely topped as a cinematic antagonist. I love Vader so much. Just from a visual perspective, dude is overwhelming, but when you get into his canonical feats? Bro. That, however, brings me to the point of this entire goddamn post; How the f*ck does Anakin Skywalker get redeemed at the end of Jedi?
Darth Vader has so much goddamn blood on his hands. Like, WAY too much. And he did it with intent. His goal was to inflict as much harm on the Jedi, as he had inflicted upon himself. It’s insane how strong he hated and how much he slaughtered. The Yunglings were just the beginning but more than enough to bar him from the Force Ghost Paradise his previous Masters achieved. How many randoms did Vader kill? How many Empire Officers did he Force choke just for the hell of it? Bro, even before he had that inhaler strapped to his chest forever, mans was a whole ass problem. He slaughtered and entire camp of Sand People! As a teenager! He left no one alive! Men, women, and children! And that’s just the sh*t e see on screen. The stuff he gets up to in the comics is vast and horrifying. Vader in the comics is just a relentless machine of pure malevolence. Comic Vader’s entire being is violence. The whole time. All of the time. I mentioned Chelli Aphra as one of my favorite characters, right? Well, go read her introductory story in Star Wars: Darth Vader. That whole arc is a study in pure, savage, criminality on the part of Vader. It was insane. And that was the first goddamn story! You’re really going to tell me chucking Papa Paps down the poop chute of Death Star part deux, is enough to wipe that blood soaked wake Vader left behind? Really? Bro, there are no Jedi in the galaxy because of his very focused efforts! Why does he get let into Force Valhalla like dude was the best among them or some sh*t?
Don’t misunderstand me, i love Vader. I love Anakin. But realistically there is no redeeming this dude. He’s a monster and deserves to be remembered as one. Like, Vader committed genocides. He was part of the crew that destroyed a planet. Mans literally blew up Alderaan and then defended the giant murder moon responsible when the Rebels rightfully tried to destroy it. You don’t come back from that. If Himmler decided to take his service pistol and personally blow out Hitlers brains, he would still be a war criminal for his complacency in the goddamn holocaust. Vader was complicit in literally turning an inhabited, into a f*cking asteroid cluster. When you look at it from that perspective, Darth Vader has one of the highest body counts in all of fiction. There’s no way one life wipes that much red out of your ledger, even if said life was that of Space Wizard Hitler. And it wasn’t even like the decision to assassinate Sheev was a selfless one. Vader didn’t kill Palpatine through altruism, he did it because dude was torturing his son. He was being a good dad after literally being the worst. His daughter’s adopted family were from Alderaan. Vader cut off Luke’s hand after beating the sh*t out of him with random objects. Bro, killing Palpatine means nothing if you did it to effectively preserve your own self interest. What the f*ck? It’s almost like the Force doesn’t give a sh*t about any of this because it’s just this vague, enigmatic, energy which exists in us all and it’s when very human ideals are ascribed to it that it becomes tainted with contradictions. Wait...
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The Dehumanisation of Dave Miller
So, I was RPing as Henry Miller and had an internal dialogue comment of Henry musing about how William Afton was not a person. My RP partner, @plushmenace , had put in the tags of their reply basically asking "what is Henry's definition of a person"?
So! I'm finally here to explain my reasoning behind writing him that way. :')
And as a bonus, this’ll also explain why I write Dave with abysmal self esteem and body image too wahoo. :’)))
Talk of abuse and trauma + DSAF spoilers under the cut.
First off, Henry literally says so before the ending fight.
Now, you have been kind of lead to accept and probably think "Well in this series, William Afton *is* a literal Purple Guy so of course he's not a human."
But... Henry isn’t either? For the sake of this essay, I'll refer to the "brightly hued people with black scleras and white glowing irises and pitch black maws" as "Amazing Technicolour Void Produce People™" or ATVPPs.
Henry acts like William is this huge freak while basically being the same as him, just pink instead of purple.
But here's the thing: like with most of what Henry says and does, what if this is on purpose?
First off, William may be self conscious about his appearance:
For starters, William blames the fact that he's an ourple ATVPP for why he was never adopted.
Which is possible for sure. However, from what we see in the series? Nobody seems to really care or mind William's appearance.
Except for Henry (who hates William and is an abusive POS towards him), and depending on player choice, Jack (who is just Henry 2: the Sequel also depending on player choice).
Further backing up that this is a sore spot for him, he gets pretty upset when Jack reminds him of it (despite commenting and joking about it often himself).
Example 1:
Example 2:
Secondly, from how he acts, Henry probably used this as part of his abuse towards William:
I find the first reaction pretty telling tbh. Usually when picking an antagonistic dialogue option, Dave’s response will be anger and telling you to fuck off (closer to the second example). Yet in the first one? He tears up and just meekly points out with a stutter that he’s hurt.
( Also important to note too: from the second conversation, we can see that in this universe, “human” refers to “fully sentient, emotionally and intelligently complex beings with free will” (or however you want to word or spin it). Which would def include ATVPPs. Certainly makes what Henry says above even worse lol.)
Next up, something I’ve referenced before because bo y I think it’s one of the most well written parts of the series tbh -- meeting Davetrap in the third game.
Considering it’s been established that Davetrap is the “feral” half of Dave’s soul; the part that is bitter, angry, and can’t let go of things, I think his dialogue can be very insightful into his character.
Anyway, you can have this exchange:
He is clearly hurt by that term, pleading with Jack not to say it and taking on a cowering stance– turned away with his hands up defensively— and then reinstating that he’s “still a person”.
And guess who else refers to him as a monster?
This lines up with how passive we see him around Henry (the fight at the end of DSAF 3, the flashbacks in DSAF 2), so I think it’s easy to put two and two together and say Henry belittled him for his appearance, and that bringing it up makes him regress to how he was around him.
And again, in DSAF? This is apparently not anything that weird. I could be also be looking too much into it (but hey, death of the author bby), yeah, but the fact that nobody knows that Dave = William Afton kind of means being a purple ATVPP isn’t *that* unique in this world.
One thing I find interesting on that point is this exchange. Dave claims "kids loved drawing him because they were fascinated with him". Jack challenges that...
And then Dave basically shifts the conversation to, "Well they like me because I'm not scary and weird like you lol!" Even though he's joking, he does switch from making it about "what's inside".
I definitely think he may be making light of things to cope considering that he makes this quip in DSAF 2 which is definitely meant to be a joke and... yeeeaaah...
Anyway, some more examples of how Henry talks about William in a dehumanising way:
Furthermore, Henry has every reason to do this. From what we can see in the short story and some of William's dialogue, he seems to often belittle William to create co-dependency.
Ex: "Everyone is trying to hurt you, and you're weak, so you need to stay with me and do what I say so I can 'protect' you."
However, since the dialogue in the Void is him speaking his mind honestly, and combined with the tapes,... I'd argue it's completely possible he really may have literally not seen William as person. My guess is because of William being, you know, a weird form of undead. Maybe he started out demeaning him to easily control William, and began to sincerely believe it over time. Henry could also just suck like that.
And finally, William... kind of admits it himself in the bad ending, just like how Henry does in the good.
As I've pointed out before, he says Jack was the only person– he excludes Henry despite, in this route, still adoring the man.
... At least that's what I think! Wahoo!
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Youngling Slayer 9000
Watching Jar Jar save Grogu from Anakin's Jedi genocide in the last episode of Mando, was surprisingly cathartic. I abhor Jar Jar Binks. I thought he was a thinly veiled, overtly racist, caricature of my people. That punk ass Gungan rubbed me the wrong way for years and, apparently, did the same for A LOT of people. SO many, in fact, that the actor who portrayed him, Ahmed Best, contemplated suicide. People were absolutely cruel to this man because of a character he played in a bad film. Listening to him recall the utter torment he suffered over the years because of that role was heartbreaking. I felt awful because i was apart of that mob. Never once did i wish ill or curse the name of Best, himself, but i would sh*t all over Jar Jar to anyone who would listen. It took this man years to come to terms with that hate so to see him don the robes and wield a lightsaber in service to saving Baby Yoda? That was dope. I am glad Best was able to get his shine, even if it’s three decades late. Dave and Jon have been redeeming Star Wars through Mando and other series. They have a plan to redeem the entire franchise after Kennedy did her very best to absolutely destroy. It’s wild to think that, in just a few years, we might be looking at Star Wars with eyes of joy and wonder and not trepidation and contempt. I am very happy for Ahmed Best and hope we get to see more of Kelleran Beq.
I wanted to say all of that up front because we are about to get into some sh*t right now and it was absolutely necessary to give Best, Mando, and Favloni their flowers. That sh*t was dope and it got me thinking about the real topic of this essay: Vader’s Redemption. If you’ve been around these parts for any number of years, you know i adore Star Wars. It’s a staple in my life and, while no as prominent as the three pillars of my childhood, it’s still a big part of it. My favorite character is, and will always be, Darth Vader. Also, just for transparency, a lot of the things i love about Star Wars are Vader adjacent. Ahsoka is my second favorite character and Dr. Aphra is a distant third. The Dark Lord of the Sith was just this imposing, malevolent, force of nature. His rage drove an already overpowered monster of flesh and steel that, to this day, is rarely topped as a cinematic antagonist. I love Vader so much. Just from a visual perspective, dude is overwhelming, but when you get into his canonical feats? Bro. That, however, brings me to the point of this entire goddamn post; How the f*ck does Anakin Skywalker get redeemed at the end of Jedi?
Darth Vader has so much goddamn blood on his hands. Like, WAY too much. And he did it with intent. His goal was to inflict as much harm on the Jedi, as he had inflicted upon himself. It’s insane how strong he hated and how much he slaughtered. The Yunglings were just the beginning but more than enough to bar him from the Force Ghost Paradise his previous Masters achieved. How many randoms did Vader kill? How many Empire Officers did he Force choke just for the hell of it? Bro, even before he had that inhaler strapped to his chest forever, mans was a whole ass problem. He slaughtered and entire camp of Sand People! As a teenager! He left no one alive! Men, women, and children! And that’s just the sh*t e see on screen. The stuff he gets up to in the comics is vast and horrifying. Vader in the comics is just a relentless machine of pure malevolence. Comic Vader’s entire being is violence. The whole time. All of the time. I mentioned Chelli Aphra as one of my favorite characters, right? Well, go read her introductory story in Star Wars: Darth Vader. That whole arc is a study in pure, savage, criminality on the part of Vader. It was insane. And that was the first goddamn story! You’re really going to tell me chucking Papa Paps down the poop chute of Death Star part deux, is enough to wipe that blood soaked wake Vader left behind? Really? Bro, there are no Jedi in the galaxy because of his very focused efforts! Why does he get let into Force Valhalla like dude was the best among them or some sh*t?
Don’t misunderstand me, i love Vader. I love Anakin. But realistically there is no redeeming this dude. He’s a monster and deserves to be remembered as one. Like, Vader committed genocides. He was part of the crew that destroyed a planet. Mans literally blew up Alderaan and then defended the giant murder moon responsible when the Rebels rightfully tried to destroy it. You don’t come back from that. If Himmler decided to take his service pistol and personally blow out Hitlers brains, he would still be a war criminal for his complacency in the goddamn holocaust. Vader was complicit in literally turning an inhabited, into a f*cking asteroid cluster. When you look at it from that perspective, Darth Vader has one of the highest body counts in all of fiction. There’s no way one life wipes that much red out of your ledger, even if said life was that of Space Wizard Hitler. And it wasn’t even like the decision to assassinate Sheev was a selfless one. Vader didn’t kill Palpatine through altruism, he did it because dude was torturing his son. He was being a good dad after literally being the worst. His daughter’s adopted family were from Alderaan. Vader cut off Luke’s hand after beating the sh*t out of him with random objects. Bro, killing Palpatine means nothing if you did it to effectively preserve your own self interest. What the f*ck? It’s almost like the Force doesn’t give a sh*t about any of this because it’s just this vague, enigmatic, energy which exists in us all and it’s when very human ideals are ascribed to it that it becomes tainted with contradictions. Wait...
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What If...? (Big Hero 6 Edition)
So the next Marvel series set to release is What If...?, a series of nine episodes that will focus on alternate events and timelines that occur within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series, based off of the comic series of the same name, will premiere on August 11th, running straight through October 6th.
The show was suppose to have ten episodes in both Season 1 and 2 (which is already being worked on), but producer Brad Winderbaum mentions in an interview that they had to push an episode back because of, you guessed it, the pandemic:
"We had to push an episode into Season 2. It was just, honestly, like everything else, that was a COVID impact," Winderbaum told Collider. "There was an episode that just wouldn't hit the completion date, but luckily we do get to see it in the second season of the show."
youtube
Judging by both the poster and the trailer, we know of a few scenarios: Peggy Carter becoming Captain America, an alternate Avengers lineup battling at New York, Black Panther as Star Lord, Marvel Zombies (of course there’s zombies), and Spider-Man as the Sorcerer Supreme. Inverse has an article breaking all of the possibilities down.
A lot of the actors who portray their characters in live action will reprise their roles for the animated series, including the late Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther/Star Lord. Star...Panther? Black Lord?
That last one sounds wrong.
Among those not coming back are Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, and Dave Bautista as Drax. Bautista was, according to the man himself, wasn’t even asked to come back to voice Drax. Others include Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Tom Holland as Spider-Man, James Spader as Ultron, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Elizabeth Olson as the Scarlet Witch, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Gweneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and various members of the Dora Milaje. They have all apparently been confirmed to be appearing in What If...? in some form or another, but voiced by different people.
It will certainly be an interesting show, but I hope you can see where I’m going with this.
The Big Hero 6 fanbase has a lot of burning questions for the show and movie, and it’s not all just unanswered ones about what happens after the show ended. I think collectively there are a few common “what-ifs” that we have in our minds about the team. I think the most obvious one involves one of the Hamada brothers, and that branches off into other what-ifs as well.
Granted, not all of these are reality-altering hypotheticals like there are in the show or comics, but they can still change the course of the movie or show in a huge way.
1.) What if...Tadashi had survived the fire?
Tadashi being a survivor of the fire that takes down the exhibition hall brings up a few interesting conundrums. Would he be scarred for life? Would he even be able to complete school?
And if Hiro still made the team, would he end up becoming Sunfire like a lot of fans theorize?
The thing is that Callaghan knows that Tadashi died in the fire. If he knew that he didn’t, would that change his motivations? Would he still be using the Microbots knowing that the person that was trying to “stop” him was still alive?
Alternatively, you also have...
2.) What if...Hiro had died instead of Tadashi?
Hiro was probably about two seconds away from being fully engulfed in that giant fireball. It’s entirely plausible that he (or possibly both Hamadas) could have perished in the fire instead of his brother, which sort of leads to the same circumstances as the first question, just with different powersets. Tadashi would no longer be tied to fire-based powers but the magnetic equipment that that Hiro currently uses.
But one has to think about whether Tadashi would be in the right state of mind to be a hero long term. Seeing his kid brother perish in the accident would probably cause him to go insane, and perhaps the rest of the team would have to reel him in.
3.) What if...Baymax had killed Callaghan?
It’s worth noting that if Honey Lemon had been about three seconds later on getting the healthcare chip back into Baymax, this wouldn’t have been a “What If?” question.
And sure, the team would have saved the day, but at what cost? The permanent scarring of a fourteen-year-old? And what would have come of the major revelations after that fight concerning Project Silent Sparrow and Abigail?
Maybe they would have been the ones to build the portal to the other dimension to try to save her. That would similar to what happened in the original manga (where Tadashi actually helps with the construction of the original portal and got sucked in as a result).
4.) What if...Baymax had saved Obake in “Countdown to Catastrophe”?
Obake dismissed Baymax after his hideout started collapsing near the end of Part 2, and you could tell that Baymax was seriously considering rescuing him before leaving him in his chair amongst the rubble. Ultimately, however, he did leave him behind after Obake’s insistence.
Imagine what would have happened if he had gone against his programming and saved his life.
The relieved group hug on the beach would have been replaced with a disheveled (and probably a little damp) Obake. Hiro would have been staring hiim down in disbelief. Perhaps there would even be another fight, or at least the makings of one.
And then Obake would give himself up for arrest.
Maybe that’s where Chief Cruz could have been introduced. It would have given a good lead into the next season, and it would give Megan’s meeting with Hiro in Season 2 a little bit more meaning.
And finally, because I’m a shipper and we have to go there:
5.) What if...Karmi had never left SFIT at the end of “City of Monsters”?
We know from the boards that Bob Schooley posted that “City of Monsters” was originally going to end very differently than what actually made the final cut. It seemed that Karmi, in addition to getting a nonsensical boyfriend named “Flammarion”, was not suppose to leave SFIT in the early draft.
So what if Hiro had shown up to her lab, and instead of seeing this...
He saw this?
Or...something a little less dramatic? Maybe just her packing up stuff because she’s in the process of leaving? And Hiro had to say something in order for her to stop what she was doing?
And how exactly would you achieve that?
See, if that scenario happened, I think that this particular point would be where Hiro told her about being in Big Hero 6. And of course Karmi wouldn’t believe him, even though she’s now in love with him crushing on him.
Then, he takes her to the base.
And she turns back to him with an incredulous look.
And roll credits. What a cliffhanger to go into Season 3 with.
I vaguely remember fanart depicting that exact scene (Hiro taking Karmi to the base), but I don’t remember who did it. I would like to give them the proper credit.
Season 3 would have looked totally different if that took place. Maybe it would have been an actual season and not a bunch of mini stories. Also...perhaps Karmi would have joined the team proper.
And maybe we would have finally had a giant canonical Karmiro moment.
...Now that is a big “What if?”.
(Marvel’s What If...? premieres on Wednesday, August 11th on Disney+.)
#big hero 6#big hero 6 the series#big hero 6 season 3#hiro hamada#tadashi hamada#big hero 6 movie#karmi#karmiro#marvel's what if#obake#liv amara#countdown to catastrophe#city of monsters#baymax#yokai#professor callaghan
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Old Times All Over (Part 1 of 2)
A very special thank you to @sequinsmile-x for the beta!
Exactly six months pass before he can’t stand it anymore.
Aaron takes a risk and goes to Emily while she's undercover in Paris.
Rating: M
Exactly six months pass before he can’t stand it anymore. The weight of her absence is unbearable; it follows him around as if lingering in hidden shadows and settling deep in his soul, an indelible stain that doesn’t fade as the days pass by. He bears the team’s grief, shoulders it and doesn’t let himself handle his own. It feels wrong to mourn her as if she were actually dead when in reality she lingers somewhere very different, another kind of hellish existence. He often finds himself wondering what she’d say about all of it. Emily would have scoffed at the ornate casket, rolled her eyes at the formality of the Catholic service the Ambassador insisted upon. He’d been the one to make the call on the flight back to DC. Elizabeth knew right away why he was calling, and the detached coldness in her tone was merely a coping mechanism, for the older woman’s grief seeped through the phone as he relayed the news. Aaron could scarcely reach her eyes as he offered condolences in person, the words heavy and thick on his tongue. Elizabeth’s questions were answered with the vague formalities that were constructed as part of a grand lie, held together with threads that ran the risk of being unraveled with the slightest misstep.
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Emily’s life depended on the sanctity of those lies, as did his own.
No one can ever find out about this, JJ had whispered to Aaron and Clyde behind a firmly closed door in the depths of that hospital in Boston. It was eerily dark, their heads bent together in near silence as initial plans were laid. For her safety, and all of ours. It felt oddly conspiratorial to plan her disappearance as she laid just feet away, oblivious to it all and very much alive. But Doyle escaped into the night like a ghost, and that meant Emily had to go too whether they liked it or not. It didn’t matter that they hunted monsters like him every day. They knew the moment her heart started again, that she would pull through, that she’d never be free. He’ll never stop looking for her. Clyde’s voice was like rubbing salt in a wound that burned through his skin.The tension between them was thick, laden with the unspoken tension of a tentative truce and a keen awareness of the pain that coursed within each of them. He will go to the ends of the earth to find her.
Aaron disliked Clyde Easter from the moment he laid eyes on the man. Perhaps it was his closeness to Emily - she trusted him, more so than she did Aaron, as was being made abundantly clear. It still stung - that she’d gone to him in her moment of need without even once considering just maybe the team could have helped. Maybe it was the way Clyde knew her so intimately, almost as well as a lover would - a delicate balance of adoration and indignance, a fierce desire to protect the oaths they’d sworn years ago, loyalty and trust woven from years of brushes with peril only to do it all over again. But it was more than that; he knew from the moment Clyde sat before him in an interrogation room in Boston his loathing ran deep. Only later would Aaron realize they both paid a similar price for loving the same woman.
The idea to go to her comes to him once Dave has finally disappeared for the night and the bottle of scotch is empty once again. It’s a ritual they share now, unspoken yet expected, an attempt at burying the worst of their grief. It never quite hits the mark, because Dave doesn’t know the truth. His words are wise and well intended, but he speaks of loss in terms of death, and it’s one thing Aaron can’t think about for too long. But it’s some of the only company he has once the building quiets down, so whenever he shows up at the door, he doesn’t object. Most nights they leave together after a round. The echo of their shoes striking the marble floors is the only noise between them when they pass the framed photos of agents long gone on the walls, now with Emily among them. He wants to shake someone, tell them she doesn’t belong there. “Don’t look,” Dave tells him every time. “It won’t bring her back.”
He always looks.
Tonight Aaron lingers, the idea now an intrusive thought reverberating through his weary mind. It’s dangerous - violates every rule of her disappearance - and puts anyone who knows at risk. He shuffles the files on his desk only to do it once more, rearranges the pens in the cup and flips through a few reports that still require his signature. His phone rings; he doesn’t have to turn it over to know it’s Jessica asking where he is, that Jack is asking for him. He was supposed to have been home a few hours ago. Instead of answering that phone, he digs for a different one. This one has stayed hidden in his desk since the night they returned from Boston. Clyde had pushed it into his hand at the last possible moment before he boarded a flight, his face stony and solemn. “If you ever need to reach me, use this.” It might be the closest thing to a friendship they’ll ever have, a twisted kind of bond that comes along with a shared secret they very well might take to the grave.
“I was wondering when you would call,” comes the lilting British accent on the other end when the line connects. “I thought for sure it would be sooner.” Clyde’s voice is haunting; it takes Aaron right back to Boston when it was just the two of them in that interrogation room, piercing blue eyes up against his darker ones as the pieces fell into place. If you want to stop that man, you have to put a bullet between his eyes yourself. He barely recognizes his own voice; it strains when he explains exactly why he’s calling, once the doors of his office are firmly shut. Even then, it’s a near whisper.
“You do realize what you’re asking of me?” Clyde demands. He’s not exactly surprised by the request, though. After all, he and Aaron had a few things in common. “The risks of all of this?” He’s whispering, the hiss of his voice biting even from thousands of miles away, wherever the hell he might be. “I thought you did things by the book at the BAU.”
“Can you make it work or not?” Aaron’s terseness matches Clyde’s hostility, a thinly veiled shield for his grief that consumes him.
There’s a pause on the other end, followed by a contemplative inhale as if he’s considering his answer, like he holds the power in his hands himself. “You should have more faith in me, Agent Hotchner.”
...
It’s all a little too easy to coordinate once the initial call is made, much to his surprise. For two weeks, things continue as normal, or as close to normal as possible, a period of limbo-like freefall. A case takes them to Portland, another to Providence. While the team is across the country, Clyde takes care of the multiple identities and aliases Aaron will use in Europe, along with a reservation at a nondescript hotel and God only knows what else. He’s barely back in Virginia for an hour when a text message on the burner phone reveals a series of coordinates, a meeting location.
“A direct flight to Charles de Gaulle might seem suspect,” Clyde whispers, nestled amongst the shadows along the Potomac River three nights before Aaron slated to leave. “There’s a flight from Regan to Heathrow, then to Paris. You’ll have a different identity for each, so best not to get confused.”
Aaron bristles at the snarkiness in his tone. “And my cover story?”
Clyde scoffs, as if disgusted by the question. “You’ll tell your team you’re being called to London to consult with Scotland Yard as a favor to a friend. I’ve already taken care of those details as well - a fake case report. Familiarize yourself with them so they don’t suspect anything.” He passes over the thick envelope, holding onto it for just a moment too long.
“How will I find her? Once I’m there?”
“Leave that up to me, Aaron. She’ll be waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” is all Aaron can say once he holds the weight of it in his hands. “I know you took a huge risk to do this.”
Clyde stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and shuffles his feet awkwardly. “I love her too, you know.” It’s certainly the most honest he’s ever been, something that looks like hurt flooding his features. But he stiffens a few seconds later with an authoritative clearing of his throat. “Bloody hell, Aaron, for all of our sakes, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
...
Aaron drops Jack off at Jessica’s. He relays the same details he told the team a few hours before with the same feigned degree of calm assurance and mock annoyance - just a few days away, work related. No one suspects a thing. In fact, the rest of them seem almost happy for him to go. “A change of scenery might be nice,” Dave says as they walk out of the BAU.
It’s risky, inherently a bad idea and yet, it isn’t enough to deter him. There’s an element of betrayal he feels for lying to the team, for they’re still reeling from their collective loss. They miss her just as much as he does; none of this is fair. He drowns it out with a pair of headphones and a stiff drink as the plane roars to life and lifts into the sky as the sun sets.
He wakes up hours later in London with a headache and an all too familiar ache in his chest.
…
It’s another few hours of travel before he actually lands in Paris. He’s completely focused, determined as he collects his luggage and leaves the airport. He destroys the first passport moments after the plane touches solid ground and tucks the next one in his jacket pocket for easy access, the others will stay safely in his travel bag. Aaron calls Clyde on a new burner phone, one of several included in the envelope of documents that was passed over in a shadowy spot by the Potomac. He answers on the first ring, doesn’t even bother with a greeting. Instead he rattles off an address Aaron commits to memory and adds, “she’ll be waiting for you,” before the line goes dead. The address, he soon finds, is a small cafe in the fifth Arrondissement, the Latin Quarter. At first it seems risky, to meet in public, but it’s probably safer than somehow having a record of her address.
The woman at the small table in the back of the cafe is inconspicuous, but he spots her immediately upon opening the door. She could be anyone; she fits right in. One slender leg crossed over the other, a chic knee-length boot peeking out under the table. A simple raincoat, hair cut just below her chin. It’s lighter than it was the last time he saw her but still a rich shade of brown.The only giveaway is the state of the nails on her right hand - not manicured, bit down and ragged. It’s her, exactly where Clyde said she would be. He doesn’t make a big show, just simply sits in the empty seat across from her, his heart pounding in his chest when he sees her face for the first time in months. Emily’s hand is unsteady as her fingers wrap around the espresso on the table. “I’ve been waiting.” It sounds formal; she makes no move to shake his hand or hug him, or display any bit of emotion, but her lips tremble and her eyes well up a little.
“I got a little lost along the way,” Aaron shrugs a little, keeping his tone light for any ears privy to their conversation. She smiles, probably picturing him lost on the maze-like streets of Paris, the streets that still don’t feel like home to her either. “I’m here now.” It carries more weight than it ever would; all he wants to do is touch her to prove to himself this isn’t just part of the fucking nightmare he’s lived since March, one he’ll wake from wrapped in sheets damp with sweat and a pounding heart. She’s very much real, very much alive in front of him, but what the Emily he sees isn’t the Emily he remembers. Paris might be beautiful but it hasn’t been kind to her. She’s thinner and paler, shades of exhaustion on her face. Over the years Aaron has seen her sleep deprived more times than he could count - the toll of back to back cases added up - but this is something else entirely. It’s the culmination of fear from constantly looking over her shoulder, the toll of the unknown. Would Doyle ever stop looking for her, or would the rest of her days be spent on the run, alone, days that blend into weeks into months and years? Would she ever come home, to the only family she’s really ever had?
Emily studies him too, undoubtedly shocked at what she sees. Time hasn’t been kind to him, either. He’s a shell of what he used to be. A subtle shadow on his face that’s new, he’s weary eyed and tense. She knows it’s not because of the better part of a day he’s spent traveling - it’s much more than that. It’s a haunting look, with the memory of how quickly things spiraled out of control. He’d been helpless to stop any of it; Emily knows the blame he places on himself. If their hurried goodbye in the hospital was any indicator of the torment of what he’s been through the last six months, then she knows it’s been hell for him. Just like it’s been for her. She pushes another espresso, this one untouched, in his direction. “How much time do you have?” English feels foreign on her tongue. It’s been weeks, months maybe, since she’s had a real conversation not in French. It’s an act. This is all an act, but one her life depends on. Every minute she spends walking the arrondissements is a risk. The fear curls around her spine a little too tightly. She glances around the coffee shop, eyes scanning through without spending too long on any one thing. It can’t look obvious, only effortless.
“Not nearly enough.” Aaron wonders how much she knows about this, just what Clyde told her about the logistics of his visit. “We have about forty eight hours.”
He doesn’t miss the longing, wistful look in her eyes when she nods, the slightest tip of her head. It’s not enough time, it never will be. But it’s all they have, all they might ever have. They speak in short sentences, vague and cryptic, as they sip the espresso. It’s stronger than he expected, she seems immune to its effects. She doesn’t call him Aaron, and he’s careful not to call her Emily. He doesn’t know her new name, either. Not even Clyde could give him that information - it was probably better that way. They make superficial conversation - the rain here and the heat there, the bakery on the corner with chocolate croissants and the headlines on the newspaper that sits on the table. He plays along as she explains, as if he fits into this world she’s had no other choice but to assimilate into. To anyone in the cafe, they could be old friends, lovers even, with years of history between them, a casual intimacy spun like a web. The ease of lulls in conversation, a subtle glance every so often, the comfort of the proximity of someone else.
And hidden somewhere in their conversation, behind a facade of lies, is something else. What no one knows, what they haven’t quite managed to forget themselves, is something happened between them once before.
...
It was spring, after the dust had settled from Foyet and the world started to turn again, albeit slowly. Only when things settled into a new kind of normal - the humble experience of single parenting, relying on Jessica like he never had before - did Aaron realize something had changed between them. Perhaps it was the unwavering way Emily stood by him even when he wouldn’t admit to needing it, or how she picked up his loose ends without making him feel like his life was unraveling before his eyes. It was the way she mourned Haley’s death, a steadfast presence at her funeral, and her attentiveness to Jack in the months after.
He’d been divorced for more than a year, separated for at least two. Aaron no longer mourned his marriage, but the loss of his son’s mother, the woman he’d shared more than half of his life with. But someone else started to preoccupy his mind - dark hair, a blinding grin, a wicked sense of humor. It was becoming harder to ignore; she was everywhere. So a few months later in the spring, when he found Emily, nursing a drink at the hotel bar that had clearly seen better days, after a particularly brutal case in Scranton, he knew exactly how the night would end. It would cross a line - railroad through any professional boundary they still maintained. But an unsub had walked free earlier that night, a child was dead, and while it wasn’t her fault, he watched any trace of composure vanish from her face when they got back to the hotel as she retreated into herself.
It shouldn’t have happened that way - definitely not how he imagined it would. But Emily was desperate in her need to forget, he was desperate to help her do so. It was frantic, the clash of her teeth against his an ironic reminder that this was the first time he ever kissed her. Aaron pressed her back against the wall, sucked a bruise into her neck, and buried himself inside of her with one smooth push. He swallowed her moans with his mouth, the snap of his hips brutal and sharp. She reveled in it, her need for him and this, legs hitched over his hips as she clenched around him.
“Wanted you for so long,” he growled as she came around him. Her fingers were like vices around his shoulders, clinging to him as he fucked her through it, unrelenting. “Thought about you, about this.”
“Me too,” Emily gasped, the simple admission triggering his own release until he came apart and took her with him one more time.
Aaron had to carry her to the bed in the middle of his hotel room. It was the most gentle he’d been all evening, gingerly placing her in the center of it, following her down and pulling her into his arms. She was bruised and sore, he wore the scratches of her nails on his back and shoulders. Emily curled into him like she’d been doing it forever, snuggling into his chest. “I still can’t feel my legs.”
“We should have done that a long time ago,” he mused into the darkness, dragging his fingertips down her spine, listening to her slow, even breaths. It’s an admission more than an observation, and the low laugh that comes from her is all the confirmation he needs to know she thinks the same thing.
It happened again hours later, in the middle of the night, this time softer, slow and unhurried. He made her come twice with his mouth, coaxing her through each one. Aaron took his time, marveling at her and whispering praises into her skin. She beamed under his touch, besotted under his gaze. He studied the sharpness of her ribs, the curve of her waist, the length of her legs. And then he held her hands in his own above her head, rocking into her, metronomic and even. He kissed her like a lover should, his lips still wet with her slick, her legs pressed tightly wrapped around his waist as she crested against him. He collapsed against her shortly after, grappling for her hands, leaving kisses along her collarbones - anything to be as close to her as he possibly could.
But it was over after that.
Timing once again failed them. Not because they didn’t have the chance, but because they were both afraid something would change, whatever friendship they built over time, and they wouldn’t be able to take it back. They never talked about it, never even acknowledged anything had happened in that hotel room in Scranton once it was over. It lingered between them, the awareness of it sometimes all-consuming if she got too close or they somehow ended up sitting beside one another on the jet. But things happened - JJ’s untimely departure, coupled with Seaver’s arrival, the grueling toll of case after case. It was buried, hidden behind the burden of their jobs and the baggage they carried, both too stubborn to admit what was right in front of them.
And then she slipped away, shortly after a case in Montana. Emily’s typical professionalism, her unmatched level of skill was marred by uncharacteristic lateness and a short fuse, as if something had settled into her mind that she couldn’t shake. She was secretive and jumpy, slowly withdrawing from them all before his own eyes. And he’d been too caught up in what they weren’t saying, what they were hiding from, to even ask what was wrong.
Aaron never saw it coming. Until it was too late.
…
The cafe suddenly feels suffocating, the four walls trapping them in. What started as an alluring scent of coffee beans and freshly baked pastries now feels cloying, overwhelming. It’s just a little too loud as their conversation fades into silence. After all, there’s only so much small talk that can be made when he only has one question. Why? Across from him Emily shifts in her chair yet still wears her pleasant smile, still playing the act she’s perfected over the last several months. But she’s tearing at her fingernails, a sure sign that she’s nervous. He knows her tells by now, all of them. “What do we do now?” She asks, her voice barely audible. Whether it’s intentional or not he isn’t sure,
He leans in, takes her hand in his own. “Let’s get out of here.”
#hotchniss#hotchniss fanfiction#aaron hotchner#emily prentiss#aaron hotchner x emily prentiss#so not canon#hotch x prentiss#I love these two idiots so much#but I will make their lives angst and hell for a little bit#and slow clap for Clyde Easter#angsty but no one dies I promise
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I hope three characters is okay for one ask. For the yan alphabet, could i ask for D, S, I, Q, S, K and V for Strider clan (bro, dirk and dave).
You wrote S twice, and I didn't know what you were trying to write so I just did D, I, K, Q, S, and V
D, I, K, Q, S, and V for Dave, Bro, and Dirk
Dave
Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?
No, he wouldn't. He doesn't want to do anything you don't want him to, and even abducting you took him a while to get used to.
Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?
He just wants you to love him, even just slightly. He wants you to appreciate his presence, and accept the fact that he's not going to be leaving anytime soon.
Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?
He's always trying to be around you, and spends most of his time with you, even if you aren't doing anything together. He'll talk quite a bit, and tries to be physically affectionate with you whenever the situation allows it.
Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?
He wouldn't be able to move on. If his darling dies, he'll reset the timeline as many times as it takes to get you to survive. Of you successfully escape, he'll spend as long as it takes looking for you, trying to track you down, too paralyzed with the fear of knowing that you could be hurt, or dead, to go back in time to keep you with him.
Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?
His childhood is probably what caused this. With how Bro raised him, he was used to being picked on and attacked by people he was supposed to be cared for by, so when you meet him, and when you are so nice to him, he can't stop himself from obsessing.
Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?
If you act like you love him consistently for a long time, he might start to bring his guard down around you, but it will still be difficult to escape with all of his time powers.
Bro
Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?
Yes, he would do pretty much anything he feels like, whenever he feels like it. He doesn't care if you consent to it or not, because it's not going to change what he does.
Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?
He doesn't have much of a plan of what he wants, other than having you belong to him. He would be satisfied with just having you and being able to do whatever he wanted to with you.
Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?
He acts very aggressively towards you, and any affection he gives you is very rough. He only visits you when he wants to give you affection of some kind or make fun of you, so almost all of your experiences with him will be negative.
Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?
If you die, he'll probably find someone similar to you, and torment them instead. If you escape though, he will try to find you, and he will not give up.
Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?
He didn't have a real reason in the beginning, he just thought it might be fun to try, and he got a little bit too deep to stop.
Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?
There's no personal weaknesses that would be visible to you, but he might occasionally "free" you, just so that he gets to capture you again and see the hopeless look on your face. It would be hard, but you may be able to fully escape during these times. He would still keep looking for you, so it might not be a permanent escape, but you may have enough time to tell someone what's happening.
Dirk
Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?
He might try to do something from time to time, but he's never able to actually do anything against you. He always stops himself, and will probably apologize to you before he even starts to try it.
Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?
He wants you to live with him, and have you fully rely on him. He also doesn't want to have to worry about you leaving, but he doesn't want you to be there involuntarily. That would be his favorite outcome, but he knows that would probably never happen, so he would be satisfied with any of that happening.
Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?
He tries to act casually around you, because he doesn't want you to hate him. He tends to overthink what he's doing, though. Because of this, he'll go through periods where he's completely silent and rarely visits you, only stopping by to drop off food and water. Most of the time he tries to make up for that by spending even more time talking with you.
Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?
No. He would spend the rest of his life searching for you if you escaped, and he would use all resources at his disposal to find you. If you died, he would try to make a robotic version of you, so that he doesn't have to be completely without you.
Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?
He's always worried that you'll leave him, and it's the constant thoughts of you hating him that convince him to abduct you.
Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?
If you consistently told him that you had no interest in being there, and that he was a monster for keeping you there, he might eventually let you leave out of guilt, but he'll probably still stalk and obsess over you.
#yandere homestuck#homestuck#yandere#hs#hs dave#hs fanfic#yandere dave strider#yandere dave#yandere dave x reader#yandere fanfic#yandere fanfiction#yandere writing#yandere alphabet#yandere bro#bro strider#homestuck bro#hs bro#dirk homestuck#homestuck dirk#dirk strider#yandere dirk strider#dirk x reader#bro x reader#x reader#yandere x you#yandere x reader#homestuck fanfic#homestuck fanfiction
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The Empire of the Petal Throne, printed first in 1975, was the first real “campaign setting” ever created in the early days of roleplaying games, at least as we would recognize it, e.g., the idea the setting has unique characteristics and history, magic has certain rules, the tech level means a wildly different equipment list...as opposed to just being a platform for campaigns, discovered as the characters explore and move around, which was often the default in most early tabletop games. You can’t think of the first generation of tabletop gamers without seeing the huge influence of Empire of the Petal Throne in nearly everything; in the 70s, at the scale games worked at, this was a big deal.
As for the setting itself, it’s often fascinating to me how divergent thinkers tend to diverge alike. Nearly all “weird and different” tabletop settings (e.g. Talislanta, Skyrealms of Jorune, heck, even Synnibarr, the Uwe Boll of this subgenre) follow the blueprint of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth books, in that it usually is a setting of impossible antiquity that at one point was starfaring but reverted to barbarism, so a feudal society is surrounded by alien artifacts and superscience they barely understand, with ruins of 20,000 years and so on. That’s the world of the Empire of the Petal Throne, an earth colony that reverted to barbarism when it was sucked out of the planet’s orbit 40,000 years ago and into a dimension with vastly different physical laws. It led to impossibly stratified, priest-ruled cultures where social standing had to be factored into everything, more like precolonial India. Artists tend to make it look vaguely like precolonial South America, as their overly busy ornamentation seems to be visual shorthand in the western mind for “culture that is truly alien and wildly divergent.”
The creator of the setting was M.A. R. Barker, a professor of Indian and Middle Eastern studies who was a white Midwesterner who converted to Islam and changed his name to Mohammed Abdul Rashid (before weebs and Japanophilia, the culture nerds tended to obsess over most was the Middle East, India, and Persia, just ask Harold Lamb, John Milius, or even Lovecraft, who gave himself the “Arab name” of Abdul Azhared and wrote “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath”). Barker was essentially every single teen dungeon master, myself included, with dozens and dozens of marbled composition books with all kinds of detailed notes on their settings. The interesting part is that as he was a linguist, he created artificial languages for his settings, and with Tolkien, who Barks is often compared to, it’s challenging to discover whether he started setting-first, or created the setting as a vehicle for his constructed languages. The amazing thing is, when he started writing about his setting, there was no tabletop gaming; he first saw it as a vehicle for a novel, then wargaming, then when D&D came into existence, he started running games there that lasted for decades and were published.
Barker ran a famous “Thursday night game” for decades in Minneapolis set in the Empire of the Petal Throne, one of his players was D&D founding father and co-creator Dave Arneson. The fascinating thing about early D&D in these days is how cliquish it was; everyone knew everyone through personal connection. Professor Barker was in the right place at the right time - the midwest wargaming scene in the early 1970s - to befriend the first circle of D&D gamers, impress them with the sheer shocking depth of the worldbuilding he created at a time when that wasn’t anywhere near close to normal, and get a release of a boxed set of his world setting in ‘75, making it the first true game world setting as we know it.
Details in worldbuilding are great but eventually, there’s a point of diminishing returns. M.A.R. Barker reminds me of a documentary I saw called Jiro Dreams of Sushi where the guy who runs one of the most famous sushi restaurants in the world insists octopus be massaged for 45 minutes before serving. All while reading about Barker, you ask one question: does he care a lot and is he detailed, or is this unhealthy compulsion or obsessiveness? The line between being detailed and “caring a lot” vs. truly obsessive behavior is kind of blurred sometimes, like for instance, when you hear that Barker had a collection of over 2,000+ miniatures he personally created for Empire of the Petal Throne (rather like how sometimes the line between collecting and hoarding is vague). I mean, I don’t even think I can answer that because the line between the two is blurred: was Barker a genius who created a towering achievement, maybe the most detailed fantasy world of all time....or was he an obsessive eccentric with an unhealthy fixation, like a slightly less reclusive Henry Darger?
My personal approach to worldbuilding is to start story first and build the world around the story. Don’t create any details you don’t intend to be important or to create a conflict. If it doesn’t come up, it might as well not be there. Story comes first, not setting. If you want the finale of the first adventure to be in a volcano, put a volcano next to the starting town. Only bring up that trolls once invaded the world from another dimension if you intend for Trolls to return and their dismantled gates to reactivate, and so on. If you create a rule that sorcerers lose their powers when they fall in love, have one get in danger of falling in love. If you have a rule that all clones go insane, but cloning doesn’t come up at all, what was the point of that mental energy and effort, anyway? My point is, you can get away with flimsy worldbuilding and good stories, but never the opposite.
The danger of truly strange settings is that as there’s nothing to mentally compare it to, it all comes off as insane and disconnected - and that’s more a problem with tabletop games than any other, which have to have 6+ people “on the same page.” That’s why games are at their best at genre simulation and it is difficult to do truly unique concepts, e.g. “you’re all superheroes in Marvel Comics.” Someone, I think it was James Rolfe, once pointed out that nobody ever finds it weird or strange that Godzilla has atomic breath, because he kind of looks like a dragon, and breathing fire is a thing dragons do. But when Gamera, another monster, tucks his head and limbs in and starts flying like a pinwheel, it looks crazy and kind of hilarious because that comes from absolutely nowhere.
Here’s one final question to ask about the first true game setting: can you run a game in it? I’ve found that in my case, the answer is no. It’s such a product of the distinctive genius/insane mind of M.A.R. Barker that it’s hard to see how anyone else could do something with it or approach the material. I admire and love Empire of the Petal Throne, but it’s the only game setting I ever got I haven’t used. It’s interesting that D&D never revived Empire of the Petal Throne; I suppose it was too much of a product of a single stubborn vision to be absorbed into the D&D cosmology or multiverse. You will not see the armadillo men with 8 sexes who defecate in public get a listing in the Monster Manual in any future edition.
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neptune’s ocean (wash this blood)
Okay so, I ended up on the part of TikTok that has A Thing for Hotch’s hands, and I decided to make it angsty. And then it had a happy Mortch ending? I don’t know...
The title is a reference to Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s wash this blood from my hands? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” It’ll make sense when you read.
This was cathartic to write, especially given the conversation I had today. I hope it is somewhat cathartic to read. You can heal. You can move on, you can be happy, and your biggest fears may never come true, no matter what your brain says. As usual, no proofreading, or dialogue.
Word Count: 2486
Trigger Warnings: child abuse, blood, vomit, guns, death, grief/mourning, intrusive thoughts, survivors guilt
read on ao3!
He can’t bring himself to look at his hands. They’d never been something he’d actually focused on. He’d never thought they were cute the way Jack’s were, or hated how slender his fingers were, so unlike the stereotypical hero. He didn’t pause his life to watch them carry out household tasks the way Haley always had.
Haley. Haley who is dead, and gone and cold, and whose blood coats his hands like a second skin. She loved his hands. She always told him how she loved everything about him, but his hands were her favourite thing. She loved how soft they were. How strong they were. Everything about them.
In their first apartment, with the random photos and multi-coloured walls and traces of themselves and love everywhere, she had confessed this love to him. He had laughed when she couldn’t explain what she loved, or why. Haley had thrown a pillow at him in retaliation. But when they ended up laying on the sofa, both claiming they would go and clear the kitchen in a moment, she had linked their hands over her chest and kissed his knuckles.
And confessed that part of the reason she loved them was that they were so much bigger than hers. When Aaron asked her why, Haley turned away and said it was embarrassing. He convinced her to tell him. How, he wasn’t sure. But she told him.
It was because they made her feel safe.
But as he sits in the living room that had once been full of love and life and joy and her, his hands being wiped of all of his sins as though they were as easy to bury as her body, he thought about how those same hands she loved had only hurt her.
He looks down, needing to see the traces of blood before they’re removed forever. As he does so, the limbs start to blur before his eyes. His eyes swim with tears and his throat starts to close. How many times before today has he washed them? Scrubbed at the pain until the skin turned red and raw?
How many times had he succeeded at rubbing it away? At hiding it, not just from everyone else, but from himself? And how many more times would he have to repeat the motion before his hands were clean? Would they ever be clean?
He wipes the tears from his eyes. He doesn’t deserve to cry. Not now. Not after everything he has ruined.
Moments flash through his mind all at once.
Aaron Hotchner is eight.
His father is drunk- but that’s not an excuse, not now and not ever, although he will only learn that at thirteen in a boarding school meant to destroy him- and he does not understand what is going on.
But his father has taken the belt from his trousers and brought it down on too small for his age hands until he sees blood. His hands tremble uncontrollably. Tears stream down his face, but there is no sympathy or kindness waiting for him. Not this time.
The next day, he can hardly hold his pen. Nobody seems to notice or care. So he grits his teeth and bears the pain. It is the first time he finds himself doing such a thing, but it will by no means be the last.
Aaron Hotchner is fourteen.
Someone insults his mother. And they aren’t wrong. He will realise this in a few years: that his mother was just another victim, but in that moment, he is just a teenager angry at the world for letting him live. But whilst he knows it to be true, Sean does not. Sean does not understand that their mother is not perfect, and is just as broken as his brother’s spirit.
Sean is scared. No, he’s terrified that their mother is going to be taken from them and that they’ll never see her again. Aaron feels guilty for wishing that would happen- that both their parents would be taken away, and they would be carried off by someone that can love them the way a parent is meant to be.
Sean is scared, and Aaron is meant to ensure that never happens. He punches the boy.
It hurts his hand more than it hurts the other boy’s face, but he still ends up being suspended. His father hurts his hands again. It’s in that moment that he finally makes a wish: that he would never be like his father, even if he was his mirror.
Aaron is seventeen.
Somehow, he finds himself at Haley’s home. Her parents are away for the weekend. His are still in that wretched house, playing roles in front of their guests and destroying the set behind closed doors.
His hands are covered in blood because his father hit too hard.
Jessica, who is back from college, and the reason their parents are not at home, answers the door. She starts to close it when she sees that it is him. But then she sees how scared he looks, and finally understands why Haley is so protective over this boy.
She lets him in, and does not let him apologise. She summons her sister. His girlfriend.
Haley hugs him. She has suspected this for a while now- everyone has- but she’s going to be different in the way that she is going to act. His fists remain clenched at his side as she makes this decision. Because this is a mistake. He cannot ruin her as well. He needs to walk away.
But Haley and Jessica don’t let him. Haley takes his hands and in the same way Derek will twenty years later, wipes the blood away without blinking or flinching. And then Jessica bandages them up, making sure to use antiseptic to prevent infection. It stings. He doesn’t react. It’s nothing compared to his father.
He tries to ask them how they know what to do, and they both shush him. When Jessica wipes her eyes, and Haley pats her back, he remembers the days they would spend at the church, and the women that would spend hours with them, only returning to their homes when the sun went down.
It is enough to make him vomit. They clean that up without judgment.
And then, and then-
Aaron is twenty-six.
He is graduating from law school, just like he is supposed to. His hand is shaken. He does not flinch away, even though he wants to. He doesn’t recoil because Haley and Jessica are sitting in the audience, the only people he even wanted to watch him walk across the stage.
Their cheers are the only thing he can hear.
When Haley hugs him, and Jessica tells him how proud she is, he knows it isn’t just because he made it.
Aaron is twenty-eight.
He is dancing with Haley at their wedding.
Her hands are so much smaller than his. So much gentler. So much softer. So much more human. And so beautifully void of scars. So perfect.
He makes one final vow that he will never say aloud. He will always keep her safe. No matter what happens.
Hotch is thirty-two.
He shoots someone dead for the first time. The medics come running in to check the injuries on the hostages. To confirm the time and cause of death.
He drops the gun. Dave’s words- don’t let them see you break- echo somewhere in his mind, but he cannot help the display of vulnerability. His knees buckle. He hits the ground with trembling hands. He pulled the trigger that released the bullet that ended someone’s life.
On the train journey home, he pretends to be fine. Jason and Dave pretend to not notice that he is silently falling apart.
The door to his home- the only one he has ever known- closes. As Haley holds him, he cries. And then he tries to push her away because is going to destroy her. It’s in his blood. His father destroyed him, and his father destroyed him, and it is a vicious cycle that he cannot break.
But Haley does not let go.
When the tears stop, she asks. He manages to force the truth out. Haley tells him everything is okay, and that he did the right thing, that he will move on from this. Aaron pretends to believe her, and pretends he doesn’t see her shift away from him ever so slightly.
Perhaps this is the moment their marriage starts to end.
Aaron is thirty-four.
A nurse is placing his son in his arms. Haley is watching them both with a smile. He mirrors that smile. so in awe at her for giving birth.
He’s in awe of his son as well. Jack- named for Jacqueline, the mother Hotch gained from and lost to the job- is tiny. Aaron cannot quite believe he is real. Jack Gideon Hotchner is so small, but so trusting that the arms holding him will keep him safe.
So just as quickly as the awe overwhelmed him, the fear sets in. What is he doing holding a baby so small and precious? He will ruin this child. He needs to let go.
He hands the baby to Haley, and runs to the bathroom. His meagre dinner- fear for Haley had stopped him from eating properly- makes a second appearance.
Haley knows what happened- she always does. She doesn’t force him to explain what went through his head, nor does she tease him about not being able to handle the sight of childbirth like the nurses do, so blissfully unaware of the monsters that haunt his nightmares.
Instead, Haley lays Jack down in the cot beside her bed. And then she takes Aaron’s hands, covering them with her own. She presses a soft kiss to his knuckle. Almost like she is silently promising him the same thing: that he will not hurt this child the way he was.
Suddenly, he is in the present.
Aaron is thirty-nine.
He is sitting in the living room of the home he had built with Haley. The home they were supposed to raise Jack in. Together. But now she is gone. She is gone and it is all his fault.
He let George Foyet escape. And then he took too long to work out his final plan. He took too long to get to the house. So now Haley is gone. Jack will grow up without a mother and a father that cannot trust himself to touch him without causing harm.
How can he?
He has killed a man. A person. A person who had surrendered, with nothing more than his bare hands. He killed the man that had murdered Haley, in order to save Jack, but what kind of person does that make him? How is he supposed to comfort his son by hugging him and holding him when the blood would never be washed from his hands?
How could it?
He is worse than his father.
Derek leaves him after he finishes with the bandages.
He returns a few seconds, minutes, hours- Hotch doesn’t know, time has become nothing to him- later. He returns to Hotch sobbing over all the things he has loved and lost since he was born.
Derek doesn't say a word. He doesn’t need to. He knows nothing he says will make the situation better. Instead, he takes Aaron’s hands and lets the man cry.
Healing- physical and emotional- takes time. Rationally, Aaron knows it will, but it’s still a difficult thing to accept. It takes longer than he wants it to.
It angers him- that it’s taking him so long to get back to normal and move on. The grief counsellor (the one Derek urged him to see, if not for his own sake, then for Jack’s) reminds him that it’s normal. If it were anyone else, Hotch would tell them to let themselves feel, and to give themself time to mourn.
But he is supposed to be the leader of the BAU. And although he can hardly look at Jack without tears forming, he is a father. He needs to be there for his son. So whilst everyone- colleagues, family, Jack’s counsellor, his own therapist- tells him he needs to take care of himself as well, he just can’t.
He can’t bring himself to eat. He can’t bring himself to let go of the guilt. He can’t bring himself to mourn. He can’t bring himself to accept that Haley is gone, nothing more than a casket, a headstone, photos and the memories and stories her loved ones cling to.
There is so much he cannot do. Too much that he feels.
Yet no matter what seems to happen, no matter how sad he feels, how angry he gets at the world, Derek seems to stick around. When Aaron is terrified of hurting someone he loves, Derek is there to remind him he won’t. When he is so tired he can’t even sleep, but Jack wakes from a nightmare, Derek stays awake and reads to him.
When he forgets to eat.
When counselling drains him of his energy.
When his hands shake too much to point the gun at the target during his re-certification training.
When he can’t even look at his hands because of all the harm they have caused.
Derek stays, even when Aaron cannot hug his son.
Aaron Hotchner is forty-three years old.
It has been three years since Haley’s death.
Two years ago, he let go of his guilt. One year and nine months ago, he let go of his fear of moving on, as he realised he could love someone and remember her all at once. Seven months ago, he built up the courage to tell Derek how he truly felt.
Derek had kissed him, soft and gentle and perfect. It had been exactly the same and completely different to the first kiss him and Haley had shared. Because it had been perfect, and it had been unexpected, but it had been less desperate and less messy.
Derek had kissed him, and Aaron had felt peace. He knows Haley is proud of him.
Derek is watching him. The man who had lost everything and then found a way to carry on. The man who put everyone above himself, but is learning to care for himself. The man who still wakes up screaming, but who has learnt to breathe without fear of timing running out.
The man he loves.
Jack is holding an ice-cream in one hand as he and Hotch walk side by side, down to where Morgan is waiting to surprise the boy- not so little anymore- with a trip to the bowling alley for his birthday.
Jack holds his hand out for his dad to take.
And what does Aaron do?
He takes Jack’s hand in his own, without a single ounce of hesitation.
#criminal minds#aaron hotchner#haley hotchner#derek morgan#hotch x haley#mortch#hotchgan#criminal minds fanfic#tw child abuse#tw blood#tw vomit#tw guns#tw death#tw grief#tw survivor's guilt
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OKAY, IF I’M GONNA DO THIS, I’M GONNA DO IT PROPERLY. WHICH MEANS YEAH IT’S GONNA GET REALLY LONG.
A couple of things to say ahead of time: Lucasfilm’s Story Group has always said CANON > WORD OF GOD when it comes to these matters, so when I quote canon examples from supplementary materials that contradict what he says, that’s LF’s official position, but that doesn’t mean that an influential person like Dave’s views couldn’t affect how things will be shaped in the future, like Deborah Chow listening to this may be influenced by it on the Obi-Wan show, despite that Master & Apprentice contradicts him. It’s an incredibly murky area! Mileages are going to vary.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Dave Filoni never worked on The Phantom Menace, that was long, long before his time at Lucasfilm (which I think he joined sometime around 2007? and TPM was released in 1999), that he has worked with George more than probably anyone else, but we cannot and should not treat him as infallible or the True Authority on things, because even Dave himself has said things like:
“I mean, I know why I did that and what it means, but I don't like to explain too much. I love for the viewers to watch stuff and come up with their own theories -- and they frankly come up with better things that I intended.” --Dave Filoni, Entertainment Tonight 2020 interview
Or, in the same episode as the above Qui-Gon interpretation:
So, when I dig into this, I’m not doing this out of a sense of malice or even that I suddenly hate Dave or don’t appreciate all the incredible things he’s brought to SW, but in that I disagree with his take, Dave understands that he doesn’t always get it right, that he enjoys that fans come up with different things than he does and sometimes he likes those even more. There’s room for both of us and, for all that Dave mentions George a lot (and, hey, fair enough, the guy worked with George and I’m just quoting what George Lucas has said) doesn’t mean that this is straight from George, especially because I have never seen George Lucas utter so much as a peep about how the Jedi were responsible for Anakin’s fall. He has explicitly and frequently talked about how Anakin’s fall was his own choice, as well as I’ve never seen him say anything Jedi-critical beyond “they were kind of arrogant about themselves”. I have read and watched every George Lucas interview I could get my hands on and maybe I’m still missing something, but that’s literally the extent of him criticizing the Jedi I have EVER seen.
(It’s from the commentary on AOTC where he put in the scene with Jocasta to show they were full of themselves, but I also think it’s fair to point out that Obi-Wan immediately contradicts this by going to Dex for help, showing that it’s not necessarily a Jedi-wide thing.)
Before I go further, I want to say: this is not a post meant to tear down Qui-Gon, he is a character I actually really do love, but the focus is on showing why the above interpretation of him is wrong, which means focusing on Qui-Gon’s flaws. He has many wonderful qualities, he is someone who cared deeply and was a good person, I think things would have been better had he lived! But Anakin’s choices did not hinge on him, because Anakin’s choices were Anakin’s, that has always been the consistent theme of how George talks about him, the way he talks about the story is always in terms of “Anakin did this” or “Anakin chose that”, and the Jedi are very consistently shown as caring, they believed very much in love and Dave’s own show (well, I say “his own show”, but honestly TCW was George’s baby primarily and he had a lot of direct, hands-on say in crafting it, through at least the first five seasons) is plenty of evidence of that.
I’m not going to quote the full thing because this is already a monster post, I’m just going to focus on the Jedi stuff, because I like the other points a lot, but if you want the full text, it’s here. The relevant part is:
“In Phantom Menace, you’re watching these two Jedi in their prime fight this evil villain. Maul couldn’t be more obviously the villain. He’s designed to look evil, and he is evil, and he just expresses that from his face all the way out to the type of lightsaber he fights with. What’s at stake is really how Anakin is going to turn out. Because Qui-Gon is different than the rest of the Jedi and you get that in the movie; and Qui-Gon is fighting because he knows he’s the father that Anakin needs. Because Qui-Gon hasn’t given up on the fact that the Jedi are supposed to actually care and love and that’s not a bad thing. The rest of the Jedi are so detached and they become so political that they’ve really lost their way and Yoda starts to see that in the second film. But Qui-Gon is ahead of them all and that’s why he’s not part of the council. So he’s fighting for Anakin and that’s why it’s the ‘Duel of the Fates’ – it’s the fate of this child. And depending on how this fight goes, Anakin, his life is going to be dramatically different.
“So Qui-Gon loses, of course. So the father figure, he knew what it meant to take this kid away from his mother when he had an attachment, and he’s left with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan trains Anakin at first out of a promise he makes to Qui-Gon, not because he cares about him. When they get Anakin, they find him on Tatooine, he says “Why do I feel like we’ve found another useless lifeform?” He’s comparing Anakin to Jar Jar and he’s saying “this is a waste of our time, why are we doing this, why do you see importance in these creatures like Jar Jar Binks and this ten-year-old boy? This is useless.”
“So, he’s a brother to Anakin eventually but he’s not a father figure. That’s a failing for Anakin. He doesn’t have the family that he needs. He loses his mother in the next film. He fails on this promise that he made, “mother, I’m going to come back and save you”. So he’s left completely vulnerable and Star Wars is ultimately about family. So that moment in that movie which a lot of people I think diminish, “oh there’s a cool lightsaber fight”, but it’s everything that the entire three films of the prequels hangs on, is that one particular fight. And Maul serves his purpose and at that point died before George made me bring him back, but he died.“ --Dave Filoni
I’m going to take this a piece at a time to show why I really disagree with the content of both the movies and The Clone Wars supporting what Dave says and, instead, contradicts it a lot.
The rest of the Jedi are so detached and they become so political that they’ve really lost their way and Yoda starts to see that in the second film.
He doesn’t explain what this means, but I’m pretty sure that he’s referring to this conversation:
OBI-WAN: “I am concerned for my Padawan. He is not ready to be given this assignment on his own yet.”
YODA: “The Council is confident in its decision, Obi-Wan.”
MACE WINDU: “The boy has exceptional skills.”
OBI-WAN: “But he still has much to learn, Master. His abilities have made him... well.... arrogant.”
YODA: “Yes, yes. A flaw more and more common among Jedi. Hmm... too sure of themselves they are. Even the older, more experienced ones.”
MACE WINDU: “Remember, Obi-Wan, if the prophecy is true, your apprentice is the only one who can bring the Force back into balance.”
OBI-WAN: "If he follows the right path.”
None of that has anything to do with being “detached” and, further, I think this is something that’s come up with Dave’s view of Luminara a lot, because he’s described her (re: the Geonosis arc): “We were trying to illustrate the difference between the way Anakin is raising his Padawan, and how much he cares about her, and the way Luminara raises her Padawan. Not that Luminara is indifferent, but that Luminara is detached. It’s not that she doesn’t care, but she’s not attached to her emotionally.”
Here, he says that the Jedi care, in the above, he says that the Jedi don’t care, which makes me think there’s a lot of characterization drift as time goes on, especially when fandom bombards everyone with the idea that the Jedi were cold, emotionless, and didn’t care. However, look at Luminara’s face in that arc, when she’s talking with Anakin:
That is not the face of someone who doesn’t care. She even smiles brightly in relief when Barriss is shown to be okay, that this really doesn’t convey “detached” in an unloving or uncaring way. (We’ll get to attachment later, that’s definitely coming.)
(I’m also mostly skipping the political thing, because I think that’s just a fundamental disagreement of whether Jedi should or should not lean into politics. My view basically boils down to that I think ALL OF US should be leaning more into politics because we are citizens who live in the world and are responsible for it, and the Jedi are no different. This is evidenced by:
- M&A’s storyline has Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan saving the day specifically because they play politics, that’s how they manage to free the slaves, through playing politics and being part of the Republic/having Senate backing.
- The Clone Wars has shown that the Jedi believe “lasting change can only come from within” and “it’s every citizen’s duty to hold their leaders accountable” when Ahsoka teaches the cadets on Mandalore, as well as that politics are not inherently bad, given that Padme and Bail are working to make the system better or “create lasting change from within [the system]”
- "Trying to serve the greater good does not always make you popular” says Padme Amidala in a very caring speech
- Star Wars Propaganda makes the case that the Jedi might have won the war had they leaned more into politics.
- Sometimes the Jedi get unfairly accused of playing politics when there’s just no good choice and they still have to choose one or the other.)
But Qui-Gon is ahead of them [re: caring and loving] all and that’s why he’s not part of the council.
This is flat-out wrong in regards to canon. Mileages are going to vary, of course, on how much one takes a novel into consideration, but Dave Filoni is not a fan with the luxury of deciding what is or isn’t canon, he works on Star Wars where canon is canon. Now, does that mean canon will never contradict itself, especially if Dave gets to write something for Qui-Gon? Of course not, SW isn’t immune to continuity errors and they themselves have never said otherwise, even when fans want to hold them to that standard.
However, this is still pretty much a big “that’s not what happened” instance. In Master & Apprentice, the Jedi Council offer a seat to Qui-Gon on the Council, specifically BECAUSE he has different opinions from them and they welcome that. (Excerpt here.)
“We hope it will also be our gain,” Mace replied. “Qui-Gon Jinn, we hereby offer you a seat on the Jedi Council.”
Had he misheard? No, he hadn’t. Qui-Gon slowly gazed around the circle, taking in the expressions of each Council member in turn. Some of them looked amused, others pleased. A few of them, Yoda included, appeared more rueful than not. But they were serious.
“I admit—you’ve surprised me,” Qui-Gon finally said.“I imagine so,” Mace said drily. “A few years ago, we would’ve been astonished to learn we would ever consider this. But in the time since, we’ve all changed. We’ve grown. Which means the possibilities have changed as well.”
Qui-Gon took a moment to collect himself. Without any warning, one of the turning points of his life had arrived. Everything he said and did in the next days would be of great consequence. “You’ve argued with my methods often as not, or perhaps you’d say I’ve argued with yours.”
“Truth, this is,” Yoda said.
Depa Billaba gave Yoda a look Qui-Gon couldn’t interpret. “It’s also true that the Jedi Council needs more perspectives.”
Ultimately, Qui-Gon is the who turns them down and gives up a chance to shape the Jedi Council because he doesn’t like the shape they’re taking. That he does become less political, but this is after he’s argued that the Jedi should be working to push the Senate harder, so when he has a chance to help with that, he turns it down. It has nothing to do with caring and loving, it’s about Qui-Gon’s desire to not have to deal with the work himself, when he wants to be more of a hippie Jedi. (I’ve written a lot about Qui-Gon in M&A, why I actually think it’s really spot-on to someone who can be both really kind and really kind of a dick, but it’s not the most flattering portrayal, even if narrative intention likely didn’t mean what came across to me. I think this post and this post are probably the most salient ones, but if you want something of an index of the web that’s being woven with all the various media, this one is good, too.)
So he’s fighting for Anakin and that’s why it’s the ‘Duel of the Fates’ – it’s the fate of this child. And depending on how this fight goes, Anakin, his life is going to be dramatically different.
I have only ever seen George Lucas talk about Anakin’s fate in one instance and it’s this: “It’s fear of losing somebody he loves, which is the flipside of greed. Greed, in terms of the Emperor, it’s the greed for power, absolute power, over everything. With Anakin, really it’s the power to save the one he loves, but it’s basically going against the Fates and what is natural.“ –George Lucas, Revenge of the Sith commentary
I’ve made my case about why I think Anakin’s fate is about that moment in Palpatine’s office, and so I’m not fundamentally opposed that “Duel of the Fates” is about Anakin’s fate, but here’s what George has provably said about the “Duel of the Fates” part of the story:
- In the commentary for The Phantom Menace during “Duel of the Fates” and none of Dave’s speculation is even hinted at, there’s more focus on the technical side of things and the most George talks about is that it’s Obi-Wan who parallels Luke in going over the edge during the fight, except that instead of a Sith cutting off a Jedi’s hand, it’s a Jedi cutting a Sith in half, drawing the parallels between them.
- He does say of the funeral scene that this is where Obi-Wan commits to training Anakin and how everything is going to go (though, in canon we see that Obi-Wan still struggles with this a bit, but Yoda is there to support him and nudge him into committing even more to Anakin, because the Jedi are a supportive community to each other). This is some solid evidence for that Obi-Wan is already caring about Anakin beyond just Qui-Gon.
- Then here’s what he says about the “Duel of the Fates” fights and themes of them in "All Films Are Personal":
George Lucas: “I wanted to come up with an apprentice for the Emperor who was striking and tough. We hadn’t seen a Sith Lord before, except for Vader, of course. I wanted to convey the idea that Jedi are all very powerful, but they’re also vulnerable — which is why I wanted to kill Qui-Gon. That is to say, “Hey, these guys aren’t Superman.” These guys are people who are vulnerable, just like every other person.
“We needed to establish that, but at the same time, we wanted the ultimate sword fight, because they were all very good. It sort of predisposes the sword fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan later on. There’s real purpose to it. You have to establish the rules and then stick with them. The scene illustrates just how Jedi and Sith fight and use lightsabers.”
“So Qui-Gon loses, of course. So the father figure, he knew what it meant to take this kid away from his mother when he had an attachment, and he’s left with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan trains Anakin at first out of a promise he makes to Qui-Gon, not because he cares about him.
We’ll get to the “attachment to his mother” thing in a bit--but, for now, let’s just say, George Lucas’ words on this are not that attachment to her was a good thing.
Fair enough that “not because he cares about him” is up to personal interpretation, but canon has also addressed the topic of Obi-Wan’s treatment of Anakin and Obi-Wan stepped up to the plate on this. In addition to how we see Obi-Wan REPEATEDLY being there for Anakin and being concerned and caring about him, they specifically talk about Qui-Gon and overcome this hurdle.
No, Obi-Wan is not Anakin’s father figure, on that we definitely agree. Anakin never really even treats Obi-Wan like a father--he says “you’re the closest thing I have to a father” in Attack of the Clones, as well as he says Obi-Wan practically raised him in The Clone Wars “Crystal Crisis” story reels, but Anakin has never actually acted like Obi-Wan is his father--”then why don’t you listen to me?” Obi-Wan points out in AOTC--as well as Obi-Wan glides past those remarks, which I’ve always taken that he doesn’t want to reject Anakin’s feelings, knowing that Anakin can be sensitive about them, but neither does he want to confirm them.
This does not mean Obi-Wan was not supportive, caring, and loving. He says, “I loved you!” to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, he asks after him and if he’s sleeping well in Attack of the Clones, and even George Lucas himself said that the elevator scene was set up TO SHOW OBI-WAN AND ANAKIN CARE FOR EACH OTHER:
PUTTING THE REST UNDER A READ MORE FOR A BETTER LENGTH REBLOGGABLE VERSION, IF YOU WANT.
This is further evidenced by how the Jedi do see themselves as family, they just don’t need to put it into strict nuclear family dynamics:
- “You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!” [–Obi-Wan Kenobi, Revenge of the Sith]
- “We are brothers, Master Dibs.” [–Mace Windu, Jedi of the Republic - Mace Windu]
- “Did your parents bicker?” she asked. “The adoptive ones, I mean.”
A slow smile broke across Ashla’s face, curling first one side of her mouth and then the other. Whatever she was remembering, Kaeden could tell it was good.
"All the time,“ Ashla said, almost as if she were talking to herself. [–Kaeden Larte, Ahsoka Tano, Ahsoka]
- Vos, brought to the Temple even younger than most, felt that he had hundreds of brothers and sisters, and it seemed that whenever he went into the dining hall he ran into at least half of them. [Dark Disciple]
- “It was not his birthplace, exactly, but the Jedi Temple was where Quinlan Vos had grown up. He’d raced through its corridors, hidden behind its massive pillars, found peace in its meditation hall, ended-and started-fights in rooms intended for striking blows and some that weren’t, and sneaked naps in its library. All Jedi came here, at some point in their lives; for Quinlan, it always felt like coming home when he ran lightly up the stairs and entered the massive building as he did now.” [Dark Disciple]
Brothers, sisters, and other more non-traditional kinds of family are not lesser and Obi-Wan and Anakin absolutely were family, just as the Jedi are all family to each other, so, no, there was no “failing” Anakin, except in Anakin’s mind, perhaps. (In that, I can agree. But not on a narratively approved level, canon too thoroughly refutes that for me.)
Rebels as well pretty thoroughly shows that non-traditional families are meaningful and just as important--we may joke that Hera is “space mom”, but she’s not actually Ezra or Sabine’s mother, Kanan is not actually their father, and even if they sometimes stray into aspects of those roles (as the Jedi do as well in the movies and TCW), that they don’t need that traditional nuclear family structure. Mentor figures--and Kanan is Ezra’s mentor--are just as meaningful and needful as a “dad”. And I’m kind of :/ at the implication that anyone without a dad/father figure or mom/mother figure is being “failed”.
When they get Anakin, they find him on Tatooine, he says “Why do I feel like we’ve found another useless lifeform?” He’s comparing Anakin to Jar Jar and he’s saying “this is a waste of our time, why are we doing this, why do you see importance in these creatures like Jar Jar Binks and this ten-year-old boy? This is useless.”
Whether or not Obi-Wan is being genuinely dismissive in this movie (I think you could make a case either way), the idea that Qui-Gon is better than Obi-Wan about this, as shown through Jar Jar isn’t exactly very supported given how Qui-Gon and Jar Jar first exchange words:
QUI-GON: “You almost got us killed. Are you brainless?”
JAR JAR: “I spake.”
QUI-GON: “The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.”
Qui-Gon is just as bad as everyone else to Jar Jar, he’s not somehow elevated above them.
It’s also baffling because, Dave, I have watched your show. The Jedi are specifically shown to be kind to people and creatures, not considering them “useless”. Henry Gilroy (who was the co-writer for The Clone Wars and frequently appeared in featurettes on the same level as Dave Filoni) explicitly draws this to The Jedi Way, that “life is everything to the Jedi“, when he said this about the Ryloth episodes:
(Caps cribbed from Pan’s blog, because I cannot make another gif, save me, please.)
Henry Gilroy in an Aggressive Negotiations Interview: "Obi-Wan truly is a Jedi in that he’s like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to murder these creatures [in the Ryloth arc of The Clone Wars]. They’re starving to death. They’ve basically been unleashed against these people as a weapon, but it’s not their fault. They’re just doing what they do. They’re just animals who wanna eat.’
"So the idea was–and I think there was an early talk about how, 'Oh, yeah, he’ll go running through them and slicing and dicing them and chop them all up or whatever, and save his guys. And I’m like, 'Yeah, but that’s not really the Jedi way. He’s not just gonna murder these creatures.’
"And I know the threat is [there], to save one life you have to take one, but the idea of him [is]: why can’t Obi-Wan just be more clever? He basically draws them in and then traps them.
"It says something about who the Jedi are, they don’t just waste life arbitrarily. And someone could have gone, 'Oh, yeah, but it would have been badass if he’d just ran in there with his lightsaber spinning and stabbed them all in the head!’ And 'Yeah, you’re right, I guess he could be that, but he’s trying to teach his clones a lesson right then, about the sanctity of life.’
"That is the underlying theme of that entire episode. Which is: A tactical droid is using the people as living shields. Life means nothing to the Separatists. The droids. But life is everything to the Jedi. And even though he doesn’t have to say that, it’s all through the episode thematically.“
It’s also Obi-Wan who teaches Anakin about kindness to mindless creatures in the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic:
"These beasts are nearly mindless, Anakin. I can feel it. They are merely following their nature, they should not die simply because they crossed our path. Use the Force to send them on their way.”
Now, fair enough if you want to say Obi-Wan was taught by Qui-Gon, but also Qui-Gon is dead by that point and Obi-Wan growing into being more mature is his own accomplishment, not Qui-Gon’s, especially given that we see Qui-Gon himself being pretty dismissive to Jar Jar in TPM.
This isn’t unique thing either, Padme is incredibly condescending to Jar Jar in “Bombad Jedi” and expresses clear annoyance with him to C-3PO when sighing over him. Jar Jar is a character you kind of have to warm up to, pretty much the only one we’ve seen consistently being favorable to him is Yoda (and maybe Anakin, though, Anakin doesn’t really interact with him a ton) and Mace Windu warms up to him considerably in “The Disappeared” and even specifically is shown to be teaching him and helping him, which is a huge theme of the Jedi and how much they care.
So, ultimately, the point I’m winding my way towards is--the other Jedi do show kindness and consideration to Jar Jar Binks, including characters like Mace Windu, so if you’re judging the Jedi based on that, the conclusion of Qui-Gon somehow being more compassionate and loving is really pretty thoroughly disproved by The Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars themselves.
So, he’s a brother to Anakin eventually but he’s not a father figure. That’s a failing for Anakin. He doesn’t have the family that he needs. He loses his mother in the next film. He fails on this promise that he made, “mother, I’m going to come back and save you”. So he’s left completely vulnerable and Star Wars is ultimately about family.
You could be charitable and say this is just from Anakin’s point of view that it’s a “failing”, but within the context of what Dave’s saying, it’s clearly meant as a more narratively approved take, not just Anakin’s point of view, and I really, really dislike the idea that Anakin--or anyone, really--needs a traditional nuclear family, ie a “mom” and/or a “dad”, or else it’s a “failing” for them.
Setting aside that the idea that Qui-Gon would need to be Anakin’s dad to be kind to hi (which is ?????) is contradicted by The Clone Wars as well. Yes, Qui-Gon is warm with Anakin in several scenes, which is what Dave is presumably drawing on to show that Qui-Gon believed the Jedi should be caring and loving, but you know who else is warm to younglings? OTHER JEDI COUNCIL MEMBERS.
Those two scenes have the exact same kind of warmth to them. Ie, THE JEDI ALL BELIEVED IN BEING LOVING AND KIND, NOT JUST QUI-GON. The things evidenced to show Qui-Gon was loving and kind are evidenced just as much in other Council members, in Dave’s own show.
As a bonus--have Mace Windu, known Jedi Council member, being super kind and loving towards a young Twi’lek girl he just met in a canon comic:
But I know that this is about the way the Council treated Anakin in The Phantom Menace testing scene, but here’s the thing--when I go back and I watch that scene and the Jedi aren’t ever mean to him, they’re neutral in an official testing situation, where they are trying to determine if he’s able to adapt to the Jedi ways. They never once say he’s bad for holding onto his fear, only that he does--which Anakin digs his heels in and gets angry about, he can’t really even admit that he’s afraid and that’s a huge deal for the Jedi.
I’ve made a longer post about it here (and here), but the basic gist is:
- That scene has Yoda giving the famous “Fear leads to the dark side” speech which is almost word for word how George Lucas describes how the Force works, showing the Jedi are narratively correct
- “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi” may be from the sequels, but it is thoroughly supported by the movies and TCW and Rebels and even supplementary canon material, including that the Jedi literally design their tests around both Masters and Padawans for it (Ilum, the Jedi Temple on Lothal, etc.
- Anakin cannot admit to his fears in that TPM scene
- We have examples of Jedi younglings do admit to their fears and the point isn’t not to have them, but to face them--the younglings in “The Gathering” are the most blatant example of this, but it’s also pretty much the entire theme of Jedi: Fallen Order, especially when Cal goes to Ilum to face his fears and get another kyber crystal.
The point isn’t that Anakin--who has very good reasons to be afraid! nothing in the story or the Jedi have said he didn’t!--is wrong or bad, but that he’s not a great fit for the Jedi life because he is “unwilling to accept [Jedi philosophy] emotionally”. And they’re right about this, because this is how George Lucas describes Anakin in commentary:
“The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.” --George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary
And so this brings us to A T T A C H M E N T, which, yeah, we’ve been having this discussion forever, but I’m going to state it again: Within Star Wars, ATTACHMENT IS NARRATIVELY A BAD THING. It is consistently tied to possessive, obsessive relationships, to greed and an unwillingness to let things go when it’s time (letting go is a huge theme in Star Wars) and equating love with attachment is fundamentally wrong according to George Lucas’ Star Wars worldbuilding:
“The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth,” he continues, “They’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people-- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.” --George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith
If attachment and love were the same thing, then he would be saying, “They should love their enemies, they should love the Sith. But they can’t love.” The way George makes the distinction shows that, no, attachment and love aren’t the same thing at all, attachment is not caring. Further, there’s another instance of him showing there’s an important distinction between relationships and attachment and the association of attachmets with possession: "Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.” --George Lucas, BBC News interview
So, yes, when Anakin is attached to people, it is directly tied to obsession, possession, and greed, all things of the dark side:
“He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.” --George Lucas, Time Magazine
“But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.“ --George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary
ATTACHMENT IS BAD IN STAR WARS AS THEY DEFINE IT.
Finally, I’m going to circle back to:
Because Qui-Gon is different than the rest of the Jedi and you get that in the movie; and Qui-Gon is fighting because he knows he’s the father that Anakin needs. Because Qui-Gon hasn’t given up on the fact that the Jedi are supposed to actually care and love and that’s not a bad thing.
Here’s the thing about this: You know who else, by this logic, Qui-Gon should have been a father to? OBI-WAN KENOBI.
This isn’t said as “Anakin specifically needs a father” (which I think would be an interesting idea to bandy about and I’m not disagreeing, though, it’s complicated because of what Anakin refuses to accept emotionally), it’s said in a bigger context, that Qui-Gon is better than the other Jedi because he understands the need for fathers (and thus this ties into Return of the Jedi) and he’s ahead of the other Jedi, who apparently think loving and caring about people are bad things, but Qui-Gon does not treat Obi-Wan like his son. Or, if he does, he’s not exactly a stellar dad about it.
Within Master & Apprentice, there’s an incredibly consistent theme of how Qui-Gon thinks supportive things about Obi-Wan, but never says them aloud. He thinks he should talk to Obi-Wan about the upcoming decision to be on the Council and then never does. He could have explained why he kept Obi-Wan training the basics but he never does. There are multiple instances showing that Qui-Gon is actually really, really bad at actually handling a young apprentice who needs him to talk to them about important things. Qui-Gon continues this in From a Certain Point of View where he still never talked to Obi-Wan about everything that happened, even after he became a Force Ghost.
Damn, damn, damn. Qui-Gon closed his eyes for one moment. It blocked nothing; the wave of shock that went through Obi-Wan was so great it could be felt through the Force. Qui-Gon hadn’t thought Kirames Kaj would mention the Jedi Council invitation. It seemed possible the soon-retiring chancellor of the Republic might not even have taken much note of information about a new Council member. --Master & Apprentice
That comment finally pierced Qui-Gon’s damnable calm. There was an edge to his voice as he said, “I suspected you would be too upset to discuss this rationally. Apparently I was correct.”
“I thought you said my reaction was understandable,” Obi-Wan shot back. “So why does it disqualify me from hearing the truth?”
Qui-Gon put his hands on his broad belt, the way he did when he was beginning to withdraw into himself. “…we should discuss this at another time. Neither of us is his best self at the present.” --Master & Apprentice
Obi-Wan walked toward the door, obviously outdone. “At the beginning of my apprenticeship, I couldn’t understand you,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s just as true here at the end.”
Only yesterday they had worked together as never before. How did Qui-Gon manage to get closer to Obi-Wan at the same time he was moving further away?
Just before Obi-Wan would leave the room, Qui-Gon said, “Once, you asked me about the basic lightsaber cadences. Why I’d kept you there, instead of training you in more advanced forms of combat.”
Obi-Wan turned reluctantly to face him again. “I suppose you thought I wasn’t ready for more. The same way I’m not ready to believe in all this mystical—”
“That’s not why.”
After a long pause, Obi-Wan calmed to the point where he would listen. “Then why, Qui-Gon?”
“Because many Padawans—and full Jedi Knights, for that matter—forget that the most basic technique is the most important technique. The purest. The most likely to protect you in battle, and the foundation of all knowledge that is to come,” Qui-Gon said. “Most apprentices want to rush ahead to styles of fighting that are flashier or more esoteric. Most Masters let them, because we must all find our preferred form eventually. But I wanted you to be grounded in your technique. I wanted you to understand the basic cadences so well that they would become instinct, so that you would be almost untouchable. Above all, I wanted to give you the training you needed to accomplish anything you set your mind to later on.”
Obi-Wan remained quiet for so long that Qui-Gon wondered if he were too angry to really hear any of what he’d said. But finally, his Padawan nodded. “Thank you, Qui-Gon. I appreciate that. But—”
“But what?”
“You could’ve said so,” Obi-Wan replied, and then he left. --Master & Apprentice
"I owe you that. After all, I’m the one who failed you.“
"Failed me?”
They have never spoken of this, not once in all Qui-Gon’s journeys into the mortal realm to commune with him. This is primarily because Qui-Gon thought his mistakes so wretched, so obvious, that Obi-Wan had wanted to spare him any discussion of it. Yet here, too, he has failed to do his Padawan justice. --From a Certain Point of View, “Master and Apprentice”
(Further, in Master & Apprentice, Qui-Gon thinks that the Jedi give Rael Averross--who is HUGELY paralleled to Anakin--too many exceptions, were too soft on him because he came to the Jedi later than most and has trouble thinking of them as his family, and he thinks they should have been stricter with him.)
It’s also readily apparent within The Phantom Menace itself:
You can take some charitable views of this scene, that Qui-Gon was pushed into a corner where he had few other options (and this is the view I generally take even!), but this is after the entire movie where he’s never once indicated that Obi-Wan was ready, has instead indicated that he still has much to learn (not just of the Living Force, but in general), as well as made it clear that he’s still teaching Obi-Wan, like on the Trade Federation ship.
And I do think Obi-Wan got over this because he understood, because Obi-Wan actually is a very selfless person, he clearly cares (which is furthered by how we see him warm up to Anakin very quickly), but look at their faces.
This was not a good moment, and they do somewhat make up, where Qui-Gon says that Obi-Wan has been a good apprentice, that he’s wiser than Qui-Gon and he’ll be a great Jedi--but if we’re counting that as Qui-Gon being this great Jedi, then you can’t say Obi-Wan failed Anakin, given that we show him doing the exact same thing, except better. He tells Anakin, “You are strong and wise and will become a far greater Jedi than I could ever hope to be.”, echoing Qui-Gon’s words, but also he never threw Anakin aside for someone else.
This is kind of a major undercurrent throughout The Clone Wars, where Obi-Wan never takes another apprentice, where he continues to teach Anakin, to support him, even to the point of occasionally co-Mastering Ahsoka with him. “This has been quite a journey for our Padawan.”
Qui-Gon’s treatment of Obi-Wan in this scene isn’t the worst, he’s kind about it later (though, he never actually specifically apologizes for this), but we can see that this is a moment where Qui-Gon hurts Obi-Wan and knows it.
And you know what George Lucas has to say about Qui-Gon? This:
“So here we’re having Qui-Gon wanting to skip the early training and jump right to taking him on as his Padawan learner, which is controversial, and ultimately, the source of much of the problems that develop later on.” –George Lucas, The Phantom Menace commentary
There’s nothing about Qui-Gon being right or better than the other Jedi, but instead that Qui-Gon’s actions here are a source of much of the problems that develop later on.
So, ultimately, I liked some points Dave made in that speech, it’s a beautiful and eloquent one, but I thoroughly disagree with his interpretation of George’s intentions for Qui-Gon and I thoroughly disagree that that’s what the movies, The Clone Wars (DAVE’S OWN SHOW), and the supplementary canon show about Qui-Gon and the other Jedi. I still stand by my appreciation of Dave’s contributions to SW as a whole, I think he does a really good job at making Star Wars, but he doesn’t always get everything right and this is one thing where I think the canon and George’s commentary show otherwise, as much as I love his desire to defend the prequels’ importance in the story. Because, my friend, I have felt that every single day of my SW life.
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