#directionless. knowing that he has to exist for some reason but not the reason that everyone around him tells him he should exist for | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

meanbossart · 2 months

Note

I gotta ask this has been rattling in my brain for a while.

How did your DU drow react when Astarion asked him for help with the ritual? What were his thoughts? Or was he simply like stop it, no, we aren't doing that. OH, How did you picture your Astarion and DU Drow react after he "died" and was brought back? I know that we don't really get that much dialogue or reaction from the companions when that happens (Praying they add something later down the line in another patch)

Again thank you for sharing your beautiful art and fanfic with all of us its so refreshing to see!!! :)

OHOHOHO I'm glad you asked. I feel like that first question is very revealing of DU drow's character and It was a fun moment to ponder upon, because I think much of his behavior might lead one to believe he would be willing to go along with whatever Astarion wants, instead of pushing back at all, at least on the surface.

There's two factors at play here - first, DU drow knows of his heritage at that point, and thanks to the blank-slate treatment of the tadpole he's gotten a brand new perspective on it by the time he learns of the truth. Prior to losing his memories, accepting the fate that Bhaal had bestowed onto him felt like a choice and the best thing that ever happened to him in life, a confirmation that he was special and destined for greatness instead of just damned to the lowly existence he had endured so far. After his brain is scrambled however, DU drow got a taste of what true freedom feels like while unburdened by his upbringing; he's strong, he's powerful, he's self-sufficient, he enjoys the fruits of his labor without appreciating what got him here - he does not feel like he needs Bhaal, and the fact he ever did is laughable at best and violating at worse. This leads him to abhor the idea of depending on higher power to succeed instead of just raising oneself up by their own merits, or abiding by any mentality where you take orders from a source.

So when Astarion speaks of ascension, and especially after he learns of the source of that power (Infernal magic) he's disillusioned by it. While his memories are still hazy, the situation still feels awfully familiar to him. He doesn't think Astarion needs that higher power because he doesn't, either, and to take it would surrendering to fear and giving away even more of his autonomy than he already has.

And if that sounds a little self centered and like he's missing some of the point, it's because he is. While DU drow has fallen in love with Astarion by that stage in the story and wants what's best for him (he actually entertains the idea of him ascending up to a point - he wants him to be happy) he still has a difficult time empathizing with others. Ascending feels like a bad choice, but he can only justify that feeling from his own, narrow perspective.

(I mused on about characterization for too long again. So more under the cut - the sky is blue the sun is hot etc.)

Then there's the uglier, far more vulnerable and knee-jerk reaction to it. Now that Bhaal is no longer his purpose in life or the gift he once felt it to be, Astarion has taken it's place. Bhaal needed DU drow, in his eyes, much like Astarion does now. And as much as the vampire might have told him that his feelings on the matter changed (and that he was no longer manipulating DU drow for his own ends alone) he can't fathom a reason to be kept around unless he continues to be needed. He has slotted himself as Astarion's protector and devotee, and a vampire lord does not sound like they need much of either.

As much as he would never admit to it, DU drow does not know a life where he doesn't pledge himself, body and soul, to another purpose. He seems like he's happy to barrel through life directionless, but he needs something that anchors him or he has an inexplicable feeling that something terrible will happen. And honestly, maybe he's right - for a man who loves killing, he has a much easier time applying some strategy to that desire as long as he's doing it to some an specific end. Without Astarion, he probably feels like his choices are to either submit to his hedonism entirely or just lie down and die.

I don't need to spell out that this is pure codependency at it's finest.

So, when Astarion asks for help to complete the ritual he is conflicted. He wants to do whatever Astarion wants, but his brain is setting off alarm bells that, if he acquiesces, this will be the end for them and for him. And whatever comes after is a terrifying void of nothing. While he loves Astarion and ultimately does the right choice in pleading with him to give up on this power, his motivations are far from selfless or pure, as much as DU drow may not yet realize it.

This is why, after everything takes place, and specially once he severs his connection to Bhaal and his mind clears a little further, DU drow would go on to grapple with a lot of guilt for taking this opportunity away from Astarion, as I have touched on in the fic and will continue to do so. He's happy to feel like he has a reason to be kept around, but the inevitable hurdles that Astarion must continue to face as a spawn are obviously painful to witness. This is why he dives full force into trying to "fix" his vampirism instead, following that.

NOW, FOR THE NEXT AND HOPEFULLY FAR BRIEFER ANSWER TO YOUR OTHER QUESTION (spoiler alert, it's not brief at all, god damn it):

Yeah everyone just standing around in that scene feels little weird LOL not that it took away too much from how dope a cutscene it was (I probably watched it with the attentiveness of a sport's fan witnessing a footbal game turning in the last 10 minutes of a match) but If I were to embellish it instead of just going with something like "everyone is shell-shocked and paralyzed", I would say Shadowheart is the first to rush over to see if there's anything at all she can do to help, and probably the first (and only, in that moment) to break down crying. I think she very quickly composes herself after he's brought back, tells him he gave her the scare of a fucking lifetime and that he's the luckiest idiot in all of the realms - but that she's glad he's back. No hugs for him though LOL

Astarion is pretty much the opposite, that he would stand there in shock feels kind of apt to me. Like, holy shit, what just happened? Did one of the only good things in my life really just get taken away in the blink of an eye? Am I just cursed to have everything snatched away from my hand as soon as I'm growing comfortable with it? Yes, of course I am. What else did I expect. When DU drow pops back up he's probably like "Oh yeah I knew it'd be fine" (plus the little Twee comment, that was very funny to me.) and DU drow is similarly going "Oh definitely, it was my plan all along to be killed and then resurrected by an ominous house-keeper skeleton this whole time. Anyway, smooch for a dead man?"

This... Clearly very traumatic little incident is probably addressed by them only later. He gets a kiss and a hug at camp and a very stern "if you do that shit again I'm raising you back up just to kill you myself" from Astarion and Shadowheart's just down to drink in celebration and drown her trauma away for now lmao.

OH YEAH AND GALE WAS ALSO THERE. There was a whole Gale debacle in my playthrough but, the TL;DR, is that especially towards the end of the game he was Not in the best of terms with DU drow. Still, I obviously think he's an empathetic person and had his own "oh shit" moment. I'd say he takes this opportunity to try extending a very sincere hand out to him later that day, both for his courage in defying a god and dumb-luck - which DU drow completely passes on like an asshole and just gives him a cold-shoulder about, leaving feeling even more dejected than he already was and probably further cementing his choice to pursue the crown of Karsus later, despite DU drow's disapproval. Good job buddy!

Thank you so much for the ask and for your lovely compliments!!! Sorry for writing you a dang ESSAY 😬

#ask #du drow #DU drow lore #about time I start using a tag like that #bg3 spoilers

119 notes · View notes

sixteenth-days · 4 months

Note

Maybe a Watcher Scar? His Secret Life finale had very similar vibes to Grians Evo finale

Scar assumes that hitting the button, here at the end of everything, will send him home.

It just feels like it makes sense, right? That's how it should go. He's completed his task, so he gets his reward. And with nobody left to kill or fool or betray, what other reward could the secret-keeper possibly offer him? He's Dorothy with the slippers, Alice waking up on the riverbank. He played by the rules, and he won!

The secret-keeper is impassive, as stone as always, as he approaches. That's kind of a weird thought- why wouldn't it be? But there's something uneasy, here, with no sound in the world but his footsteps and no heartbeat in the world but his. It creeps him out, puts him on edge. He wants, abruptly, to not be here anymore, thanks very much.

Well.

"There's no place like home!" he says to himself, to the secret-keeper, and to the world.

He hits the button.

The world folds out of existence around him, everything goes black, and he's falling. It happens instantly, or at least instantly enough that he doesn't have a chance to scream before his teeth snap shut with the momentum of the drop.

He can't see anything. Not himself, not anything around him. It's all black, or something deeper than black, and cold, even with the heavy fabric of his shawl around his shoulders.

And then he hits something, and it all stops.

His fingers scrabble at the- ground? The ground beneath him, he decides. There's what's probably dirt, what must be grass. His cheek is pressed against the ground, reassuringly solid, and he lies still for a moment, catching his breath, orienting himself.

He thinks he can feel the sun on the back of his head.

...He still can't see anything.

It's, at first, almost more baffling than alarming. He reaches up to feel at his face, cautious, and finds his eyes open. He can't find any blood, any damage, at least not with this rudimentary investigation. Everything seems fine, aside from the fact that he can't see.

Well. That's not ideal.

Something is... itching at him. He can't place it, or articulate it. There's just a strange, directionless aching, like a limb that's been cramped in one position and needs to be stretched, lurking somewhere in the back of his skull.

He starts to unsteadily shove himself into a sitting position- he doesn't trust himself to stand, not in this darkness, but he doesn't think he needs to spend any longer with his face in the dirt. He still doesn't know where he is. He could still be in front of the secret-keeper. He could also be absolutely anywhere else.

He moves his head, experimentally, half-consciously trying to work out the ache in the back of his skull like it's a crick in his neck, and all at once the world explodes into color.

It's so bright and so sudden that he flinches, almost slams the eye that's just opened shut again on instinct. And it is just one eye- he's sure of that, somehow.

For some reason, though, there's no impulse to squint- only to stare. Everything is so colorful. He can see blue skies, green hills, a jagged rock formation rising into the sky- he's back on Hermitcraft, he realizes after a moment, and the relief at the realization is almost overwhelming. He is, undeniably, outside the front gate of Scarland. He's looking at...

No, wait. Something's not right. What is he looking at?

His field of vision is too high off the ground. He thinks it and then he's sure of it. He can still feel the dirt beneath his palms. He isn't standing. The view of Grian's base he has isn't right. He's sure it's not.

He looks down, and sees himself. Kneeling on the ground, staring blankly off into the middle distance, wind-ruffled and lost-looking. Him-on-the-ground is not looking at Grian's base. He doesn't look like he's looking at anything.

"Oh," Scar says aloud, giggles, presses his hand to his mouth, watches himself do that. "Oh, this is really bad."

#had a LOT of fun with this . hehehe #in case it isnt clear the main headcanon at work here is that the 'eyes' in a watchers body are not functional. theyre in spectator mode #in this au grians eyes are probably flat black to disguise the fact that they dont move or focus #goodtimeswithscar #secret life #hermitcraft season 9 #secret life spoilers #fanon switcheroo prompts #my writing #asks

192 notes · View notes

mymarifae · 6 months

Note

I'm starting to like akito more can you write something about him or give akito images to speed up my obsession

okay!

when it comes to understanding akito, you really don't need much. just this lyric from kashika:

like, the kid's been through some shit, right? both in terms of external forces he had no control over and shit he's inflicted on himself. he grew up in a... very difficult household, and while it doesn't seem like shinei goes after him the same way he goes after ena, there's only so many times you can hear your father tell your big sister that she should give up on the thing she loves most because she'll never succeed and she'll never be as good as anyone with "real" talent before you start internalizing that sort of thinking for yourself. this is (part of) why we see him quit soccer the way he did.

and then later, when he first started getting into music and the community of vivid street, he was bullied and hazed by musicians much older than him. he was laughed at everywhere he went, and everyone kept telling him that he should just give up - that he would never be good enough to fit in, much less surpass rad weekend. and you'd think with how quickly he threw in the towel over soccer and all the shit he's internalized thanks to sh*nei this would have been too much for him, but here's the thing!!

soccer wasn't exactly an ultimate passion for him. he just kind of had (has; he does still really enjoy soccer) fun playing and he was decent at it so he figured this must be his Thing. what he will pursue for the rest of his life. there's a few reasons why he quit so abruptly. part of it is because in the minutes after losing that one game, he fully understood what his father meant. he saw the gap between himself - a completely average kid who just played for fun - and these other players who dedicated their lives to soccer, and it overwhelmed him. he knew would never be able to keep up with people like that. and with that, we're starting to get into the other reasons why he quit.

he felt like he wasn't passionate enough. while other people lived and breathed soccer, he was out on the field just "having fun" and making a total mockery of their dreams. he didn't deserve to play. not if all he was going to do was play like some dumb kid. (super healthy mindset for a 10 year old to have, right? A+ parenting, shinei. but keep following this line of thinking and you'll see why he blew up at kohane in the main story.)

we can deduce that after quitting soccer akito was pretty depressed. it would be hard not to be! he just quit doing something he enjoyed and lost the majority of the friends he had at the time as a result. and also he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing with his life. because shinei has pushed this idea of needing to "succeed" at something in order for life to have any meaning at all onto him and ena. seeing ena and other kids his age find their niches early on probably didn't help either. it probably made him feel like there was something wrong with him for not knowing what he wanted to do with his life (at 10 years old. really spectacular job you've done here, shinei!!!!)

and then he ended up at that concert at the summer festival with ena, and she encouraged him to give music a try. and that really, really turned things around for him. even before he wandered into rad weekend, music was slowly becoming something he loved. way more than he ever loved soccer. despite being met with rejection and cruelty, he wasn't exactly keen on letting this dream go. he found something that he could call his. he didn't want to go back to a directionless existence.

and yeah, he was well aware of the gap between him and every other musician on vivid street. how could he not be? he knew he was never going to be on their level. he knew he didn't have any sort of natural gift for singing or an innate understanding of pitch or music theory or anything else. he was going to have to brute force his way through all of this, and he was going to face a lot more humiliation and bullying as he did. and maybe by stubbornly clinging to music he was directly contradicting his own beliefs about passion and talent and dreams, but that's the thing about akito!

he's made up of contradictions. truly i don't think we're ever going to get an event song that encapsulates him as well as kashika did because it's the only song that's really tackled this aspect of his character. he loves music, and he doesn't believe he's worthy of pursuing it. but he doesn't want to give up, because he loves it so, so, so, so much. but yes he does want to give up - why do you think his fragment sekai gave him amnesia? in so many ways his life has become so much more difficult since he decided to pursue music and this dream of surpassing rad weekend, and a part of him wishes he had never gone down this path. it would have been so much easier to just drift along, wouldn't it? and after discovering the truth of rad weekend, that part of him got a little louder. for the first time really since vivid bad squad formed, he wanted to give up; he regretted not doing so sooner and dedicating so much of his life to this. he could have spared himself a lot of pain. but he still loves music so much... like an idiot, really. as painful as it can get, giving up feels unfathomable - even though it's so, so tempting. the mini amnesia episode and the sandstorm he has to pass through to get his memories back is a reflection of this inner turmoil.

when akito truly loves something, he loves it. his love is all-encompassing and fierce. he loves music. he loves vivid bad squad. he loves vivid street. he loves life. it's this love that pushes him through all those feelings of wanting to lay down and die. he is equal parts despair and hope. he is despair because he believes himself to be inherently inadequate in everything he does, and he is hope because he's stubborn and foolhardy enough to hope that if he keeps trying he might be able to overcome this inadequacy somehow. it's this tug-and-pull of these contradictions that's kept him going. this is something that even ken has acknowledged! if akito didn't have this unique way of knocking himself down only to pull himself back up a little higher each time, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did.

but that leads us into burn my soul, where we see akito beginning to let go of this. what has kept him going for so many years is no longer serving him. he has a strong support system now and he has developed a real skill for singing and performing, so his previous coping mechanisms have turned into chains. if he wants to keep growing, he needs to start singing from the love in his heart instead of that wild, desperate hope.

it's really incredible to see him realize this - to see how bright he shines when he believes in himself. his passion is contagious. rad weekend and vivid street gave him new life when he had all but lost his, and now he's come full circle and is giving back to vivid street that same life. passion. joy. love.

this is why i love akito so much. i'm always drawn to characters made up of love. like, the above paragraphs aside, akito's really got a big heart, you know? he loves vivid bad squad so much it's ridiculous. you can see it in the way his gruffness goes soft around the edges around them, and his protectiveness over them. he really loves his friends outside of vbs too - kotaro and mizuki being the most notable examples. he loves his big sister. he loves ken, the father he wishes he always had but at least he has him now. he loves the virtual singers. he said meiko could put carrots in her dishes and he'd still eat them. he is amazingly tolerant of rin and len's hyperactive shenanigans when you consider how grouchy and irritable he is any other time. he is truly such a sweetheart.

his favorite foods are desserts and he likes his coffee as sweet as possible but he gets embarrassed ordering it this way in front of others. he gets the biggest goofiest happiest smile on his face when he eats pancakes. he's scared of even teeny tiny chihuahuas. he's physically affectionate - it's hard to get this across with the live2d models but we see their attempts at trying to show him slinging his arm around toya's shoulders. and he is literally constantly leaning on toya in just about every official art they're together in. he hates carrots with the ferocity of a spoiled toddler.

he likes hoodies and jackets that cover most of his hands. he once gave mizuki his lunch because he noticed she didn't have anything to eat. he sings and talks in his sleep. i cannot stress enough how adorable that is. he shields kohane from the wind so she can safely change her contacts. he pretends to be scared when luka jumps out at him from alleys because he didn't react once and she was sad. he teaches len how to play soccer. he lets ena drag him to the mall and just about everywhere else and even though he complains he could very easily refuse her if he actually didn't want to spend time with her.

he purposefully deepens his voice when talking so he seems cooler. he has the most blushing live2d models out of all the "boys." he gets flustered so easily it's so funny. he's very, very bad at math. despite the fits he used to throw at the start of the game, he now seems to carry toya's mountains of arcade plushies for him. he hates doing anything "cutesy" but unfortunately for him he is very cute. he's so special and i love him dearly

#he makes me so happy he's my little guy... *punts him like a football*#project sekai #akito shinonome #mailbox #thanks for asking :) i love talking about prsk so much UGH

76 notes · View notes

heaven-said · 3 months

Text

{{ Morning! If you'll let me get out some rambling before I start doing replies-- Super late to saying thoughts on hazbin hotel but mostly just talking about the opening few seconds because I'm just fixated on angels in the show lmao SO

I do want to say, I'm a little happy to see Charlie describe the angels in a surprisingly favorable light? " Beings of pure light that worship good and shielded all from evil " . And that there was indeed a state of being without evil at some point. Like-- it sounds like they do at least have a reasonable motivation, which is nice lol. If you existed without evil for a while and humans just started inventing nightmarish shit to do to each other you would be pretty desperate to stop them from behaving that way as well, I would think. Just from seeing that progression happen instead of being born into it.

It's really all a matter of perspective. To Gabriel for example, these are magical forces at play, not quite as interpersonal as a human would perceive their own thoughts. He knows a time from where humans simply existed without suffering where the divine had to invent good into existence. So there was nothing more innately worse about an existence that was nothing but light-- even if now we might perceive it as duller and less colorful. That's just an okay way to be to him. There was no reason to perceive the lack of free will as a flaw, because the joy that existed without it was identical to our current perception of joy. Does that makes sense? Like-- technically, there may be a state of being that has heightened pleasure beyond what we can comprehend even now, but you wouldn't consider it a moral imperative to achieve that state of being and your current state to be a flaw, right? Especially if you knew for a fact that heightened state of pleasure would bring yet known misery and pain along with it. And so the darkness reaching the Earth is going to obviously read as catastrophically bad to the angel for these human beings that clearly.... are not very good at taking care of themselves lmao.

And that's another thing-- it's the responsibility angle. Where Gabe is like I am not separate from you, you are not simply individual, I am responsible for your existence and in turn you are the CAUSE of my existence. ( he was made to defend against the dark forces, both biblically and in hazbin's verse ) Maybe he's not protective in a family-like way, something more cold and calculated, but his existence is intrinsically tied to the humans, whether he has free will to decide his own purpose or not.

He's not a person that lives and dies, he's an archangel with specific skills and abilities designed for a use and he exists forever-- on a higher plane of existence, at that. What exactly does one even do to pass the time if they don't have a purpose in this immortal state with this specific a design? How can you not feel indefinitely out of place, directionless? Almost... antiquated by design?

I cannot explain my endless fascination with trying to understand the state of mind of an angel i'm sorry fdkghsdkd }}

#{{ I'm going to expand a tiny bit on Gabe's Hazbin verse page just to give away his motivation a little clearer }}#✟ → { o.o.c. } ⋰⋰#✟ [ 1. ] → { 𝕲𝖆𝖇𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖑. } ⋰⋰ hazbin / helluva.#✟ [ 1. ] → { 𝕲𝖆𝖇𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖑. } ⋰⋰ headcanon.

2 notes · View notes

rlyc00l · 2 years

Note

Hi ! Your posts about Tales are very interesting, I was wondering if you were to make improvements to Rhys' character development, what would you change about the story or even write for him specifically? I was trying to think about it myself because I love fixing flaws in certain stories, but it's been a while since I last played so my memory isn't serving me well haha

okay first off, he and Zer0 fall in love and he moves in with them on Sanctuary and-

(Okay omg, I had a lot of thoughts about this, sorry if this turns into a wall of text. It’s also been awhile since I’ve last played through, so maybe Tales did a better job of some of this than I remember, but, yeah.) First off, a lot of the issues with Borderlands comes from writers who do not know their own themes. I think this is a case of scifi taking from older explicitly political scifi without actually understanding it, but still picking up a lot of the political elements with everything else. This doesn’t become SUPER apparent until BL3 (what with the Elon Musk gun and good guy corporations) but there’s elements of it within the other games (especially in Tales).

There’s other issues presented from the Telltale game format allowing people to resist Rhys having any character growth even when the story implies it, but I’m just going to ignore that here because playing like that requires Rhys to be unreasonably stupid (or, let’s just pretend these changes are for playing the better versions of Rhys).

Anyway, if we want to fix Rhys within Tales itself:

-In canon Rhys comes to Pandora already judgmental about people who live there, but he never actually seems to reckon with the fact that Pandora is how it is, with trash and bandits everywhere, specifically because of megacorporations exploiting the planet. Given that Fiona and Sasha are right there it would be really easy to have someone open his eyes about that instead of just “Hyperion and Atlas specifically were being evil”.

-Goes with the last point, but considering that Rhys has Jack in his head, there’s plenty of opportunity for Rhys to realize “oh part of all this evil stuff wasn’t even just Jack being abnormally monstrous, it’s just a normal part of getting super rich”. Like the eridium mining? (But again, the writers apparently did not realize this. I think they legit believed Rhys could have all that power and money without doing anything too horrible.)

-We need to throw out the Atlas deed. Either it doesn’t exist or, Rhys happens upon it after Helios’s fall, the ticket to his dreams, and rips it up, disillusioned (which would be a pretty good moment to demonstrate character growth). If Atlas needs to come back in BL3 it comes back it’s under another’s leadership. (Or, stupider, but we could still give Rhys Atlas but have him use its resources in a non-megacorporation-y way while still manufacturing guns???? Doesn’t really make any sense but IDK the whole “he has a piece of paper and now everyone in this ancap hellhole galaxy accepts his ownership of this corporation’s properties” thing is kind of nonsense. I don’t like this idea but this was kind of what I expected them to do with Rhys back in the day.)

-Seriously, just let Rhys lose–or at least don’t reward him tangibly before we’re in the Tales framing story. Make him kind of directionless and desperate (more reason to want to make amends with Fiona and open that Vault). By the end of the story make him actually go on his own path, with new goals than what he started with. He can be disillusioned with corporate life, but realize that his ambition and skills can be used elsewhere and he can still find fulfillment. (IDK a solid place to go with this, and IDK if it even needs one more than the implication that Rhys is going to figure things out and feels some optimism about it. Rhys obviously has a variety of useful skills and traits.)

You can also fix Rhys after Tales:

-Maybe Rhys tries to get Atlas running out of some misplaced sense of “After all I’ve been through and all the people who died because of my ambitions I can’t just throw this away”. It’s rough going and his heart isn’t really in it. Either he fails or something happens that makes him realize this isn’t the right path. -Let him LOSE in BL3. He escapes with his life and just hangs around Sanctuary and is really depressed and pathetic (but like, in a funny way). In the end he starts getting his shit together and finding a different path. -Or, dumbest option, just don’t put him in BL3 while putting Atlas there? Keep shit vague lol.

The main point I have is that Rhys as a character would be really benefitted by failure.

(For the record I don’t want Rhys to be a completely good and benevolent person in the end because that’s not very Borderlands and part of the reason I love Rhys is he’s a bit of an asshole.)

#I DIDN'T PROOFREAD THIS FORGIVE ME #there's a lot of little things too that could have an effect on Rhys's outlook too #like his bff's character growth or the horror of jack piloting his body (and the implications that Hyperion #put more in his head than he bargained for)#tftbl #not zerhys

19 notes · View notes

baronessblixen · 9 months

Note

I think the Essence script revealed a few things:

CC had tried to build up a Scooby Doo gang-- Skinner closer than ever to Scully and Mulder, no longer bound by fears for his job and acting on their emotional behalfs, etc; Doggett the new recruit who goes above and beyond the call of duty and wins Scully's then Mulder's trust enough to justify Mulder's actions in Existence; and Reyes wedging in last minute to win an irreparable trusting part of this dynamic by delivering William.

...All of that didn't happen because:

The material S8 explored was cheap in comparison to the HUGE new dynamics and moral quandaries/questions it constantly posed.

S8 is all about the human element of The X-Files: characters confessing fears, crying, clinging and leaning on each other, etc. outside of the bubble of Mulder and Scully. The PROBLEM is that would require greater shifts in dynamics that would bleed heavily into the plot once Mulder came back.

To all of these actors' credit, they made mountains out of script molehills: they work their tails off to emit the emotions that aren't written down or spoken. This bleeds into the crucial point:

The season finale hinges, strangely, on Mulder and Doggett's relationship: which isn't surprising, really, as this is about the new recruit getting trusted by the established veteran on the files. Add to that Mulder's caustic distrust, PTSD, and a host of other complications and that could have been a JUICY dynamic. But... for each opportunity the ensuing episodes present, the circumstances never GROW their relationship like Skinner and Scully's grew: instead of understanding and learning to trust each other's judgment (like Scully did in Within/Without and TINH w/ Skinner), Mulder and Doggett just... rotate around each other while solving the plot. And they were given AMAZING opportunities: Empedocles, Doggett comes around to a Mulder belief that affects his son and Reyes; Vienen, Mulder gets to see Doggett's street-style cop methods work in tandem with his X-Files edge then has to hand the files over (which is never touched on but that would be HUGE); and Alone where Mulder ditches his family man routine to save Doggett. All of this only softens Doggett to Mulder but never changes Mulder towards Doggett except for some professional respect... ish. And because of that, his extreme and sudden blind faith in Existence with Scully's location makes NO sense, especially because he arbitrarily decides this guy he tolerates should know where his partner and son are and not him and for no real reason.

It's... bizarre. This is my favorite season of all time; and the writers really, really worked magic with what they could. But the directionless steering post Without-- which had established a tighter narrative than previous seasons because it bled directly and daily into the characters' lives in a way that mytharc eps that happened, concluded, and moved on didn't-- and especially post TINH was a mad scramble, imo.

I don't blame anyone; but Essence (and probably Existence) scripts reaaaaaaally highlight the poor handling of those juicy, complicated, and more important than ever character moments that were left on the cutting room floor, sadly. (Though I'm so happy @x-files-scripts is uploading them; because I can overly dissect them~.)

I agree. I think he built up that Scooy Doo gang knowing season 9 would have to be different with DD gone.

Like you said, the season has so much human element in it, and therefore so much potential, but for the most part it remains potential. CC likes to remind everyone that the show has never answered questions and remains vague. That's all great and fine when it concern a government conspiracy or the mytharc in general.

Mulder coming back from being dead and him just being like he always was, Scully turning into a passive bystander who has things happen to her and decided for her, needed more. The fact that we got anything remotely emotional fulfilling is thanks to the actors. It seems as though CC sees his characters as static. They're a certain way and no matter what happens, they remain that way. And that worked in the earlier seasons maybe, but in season 8 it's ridiculous.

Like you said, we could have had so much witj Mulder's PTSD and him and Doggett, but that was never anything that CC was interested in telling. Which- fine. But then don't turn it into an emotional story for the characters.

#lovely asks #i know it's cc's shows #he wanted to tell a story #and not explore the characters #but like #then don't tell a story like a pregnancy and coming back from dead and what not

3 notes · View notes

sos-amchespin-sendhelp · 1 year

Note

(@pokentomology)

Hey. Sorry you're, uh, trapped in the freakiest fucking place ever. Never been to That World, but I have a small amount of experience and knowledge regarding the Mystery Dungeon worlds—which is why I know this old story. I think it might shed some light on your Candle-something Phantom.

Do you remember Alola? There's a ghost-type Pokémon there—Alolan Marowak, unique from the Marowak the rest of the world finds. Its story is sad but important. Behind your candle-thing is something that looks remarkably mechanical, and...well, the flames surrounding it remind me of an Alolan Marowak—something lost and found again.

...

A long time ago, or maybe in the far future for me and you, a trainer caught a Treecko in the jungle and loved them very much. So much so that Treecko found it within himself to evolve, and be henceforth known as Grovyle.

Grovyle and his human lived in a world where time was beginning to fail. I don't mean it slowed, or stopped, or even reversed, I mean it failed. Plants did not grow, wind did not blow, the Earth did not turn, and Pokémon ceased to be born or die. Time as a concept no longer existed; it could only be measured by the few who somehow survived its inexorable grasp and forced their way out of the mire.

Grovyle and his human discovered that the reason time was acting so oddly—or part of the reason, anyway—was that the gears that pushed time forward had gone missing, and the Tower of Time had collapsed. The gears needed to be retrieved and put back.

Or replaced.

With some difficulty, Grovyle and his human sent themselves Elsewhere. They were separated in the journey—and like you, Grovyle's human found themselves to be a Pokémon.

Grovyle didn't know what had happened to his human. But he knew their world had to be saved, so he set upon their mission—to collect Time Gears so they could be used to restore the future.

His human, lost and directionless with no memory beyond their name, found themselves taken in by an Explorer's Guild.

Some time passed. The gears went missing from this world one by one and, alarmed, the Pokémon of that world sent their explorers to go find its cause.

The story skimps on details here—there are, apparently, a lot of differing opinions on the real name and actions of Grovyle's human—but eventually, they all culminate in the same thing:

Grovyle's human finds him again. And though they start on opposite sides, they quickly come to realize that Grovyle is not the enemy, and join him on his quest to restore Time.

Time is not just a force of nature—it's a being, and can be influenced by people and events just like you and I, and in the struggle to save Time from dark influence, Grovyle is...lost. Sent back to a future that, thanks to the brave efforts of his human, ceases to exist.

And so, of course, do they.

That's where the story ends—the world saved, the heroes lost—but there's one version I really like, where Grovyle's human befriends a Pokémon in the past. This new partner accompanies them throughout their whole journey—some say this partner is the reason we know this story at all, as by all rights if it's true, its events should never have happened...but.

If Time is a Being, then maybe Time has the capability to feel love and despair as we do. Perhaps It even felt gratitude, and believed the risk acceptable to return the heroes of a shattered timeline to reality. That's how the story ends in my favorite version—the Time Being (Dialga as it was told to me, because I'm from Sinnoh) restores Grovyle's human to life as thanks to them and respect for the human's new Pokémon friend.

So your picture made me remember that story, and then—well—if somehow it was true, and Time did restore the human to life...

Memory is a powerful thing. The universe is vast and unknowable, and powers exist beyond our imagination.

If the dead can return to life like Marowak, or the erased returned like Grovyle's human, who's to say Grovyle is still gone?

And sometimes, stories are just stories.

"Here ya go," Leland responded blithely, lobbing the odd device over to their companion. The Grovyle caught it deftly without taking his eyes off Alger's silhouette, still a ways off from their encampment. Even with only a sliver of moonlight, the way it gestured wildly to the shadow with the lightning-shaped tail called to mind a harborside puppet show. Leland half expected one to pull out a stick and start beating the other over the head. "Honestly, if Alger weren't blowin' a gasket about contacting a Voice of Life, this would'a been a bitch to take off his hands," she added, probing for a response from the stranger. (Play up the dumb hick angle, examine their half-truths and dismissals of you, and they'll let slip all the ammunition you need.) But Grovyle was too busy fiddling with the phone trying to power it on. "There's a button on the back. Or just tap the phone screen twice." "...Thank you," came the abashed reply. Was that a blush? Was he blushing? "I thought you said you knew how to write with one of these things? You know English?" "Reasonably well. You'd be surprised at how many, er..." the Grovyle hesitated, "bloggers fall to this world of ours. Cell phones like this can fetch a good price at dark auctions." "Careful. This one's a bit finnicky. S'posed to be a Rotom innit, but there's not anymore." "Really?" the Grovyle's face lit up with a sort of childish wonder. "You really aren't the Grovyle I was thinkin' of, are you?" "I just have one of those faces, like I said. Only evolved last year." "You're, like, even younger than I am!" "How old do you think you are?" "Beats me." "I think..." the Grovyle thought for a moment. "I think I easily could have been. But that future never came to pass, so..." he shrugged. "Or it never happened, if you take Auburn's word for it." Grovyle hummed non-committally. "What kind of ask did you want to answer, anyway?" asked Leland. "Nothing important."

#pokemon #pkmn irl #pokemon irl #mystery dungeon #pokémon mystery dungeon #pmd #cryptid #grovyle #candlewick phantom #ask blog #pokeblogging #pokeblog rp #prose

2 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 2 years

Text

Bitch Fight, Ch.15 (Multi; Jela) - Lita

Welcome to the world of Femme Fatale Wrestling. The future is female, and we're here to prove it.

A/N: Sorry for the HUGE break in posting, I've been in uni deadline hell for the last month but we're out of it now and we're celebrating with this HORRIBLY depressing chapter lmao. Okay, it's not all grim, but I sure do like making Dela sad, huh? Enjoy loves <3<3

CW: disordered eating; lots of body image talk including weights/numbers

CHAPTER 15: PLEASE DON'T GO

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Looking at you like what?” Dela asks, sincerely confused. Jinkx sits across the table from her, her hands clasped around her mug of coffee.

“Like I smell bad or something,” Jinkx gives a small laugh.

“It’s not you - I have buyer’s remorse,” Dela admits, apathetically pushing her half-finished egg white omelet around her plate with her fork. Oh to be twenty-one and able to exist primarily on french fries and vodka without spilling out of her clothes again. “This is really gross. I miss bread.”

Dela’s eyebrows crease as she puts her fork down. She’s a little over a week into some bullshit low-carb diet thing, and it’s obliterating her will to live.

“Then eat some fucking bread - you wanted the French toast. Nothing’s stopping you.”

“I can’t.”

“Dela, I don’t know why you bother with this shit. You’re torturing yourself for no reason,” Jinkx says, emphatically taking the final bite of her pancakes.

“It’s not for no reason,” Dela says, not entirely sure she believes herself. “Nobody wants to look at a gross forty-year old in a singlet - it’s damage control.”

“You’re not gross. And since when did you wear singlets?” Jinkx looks puzzled.

Since Bill had told her she was getting too old to be wearing two-pieces about six months ago. Not like she was going to tell Jinkx that. He had a point. She was pushing a hundred and ninety pounds; despite constantly arguing with herself that muscle mass had to account for some of that, it still made her feel a little sick.

Jinkx nudges her from across the table, trying to prompt her to answer the question.

“French toast before working out feels counterintuitive,” she eventually says, aware that she’s not even come close to giving her a real answer, and hoping that Jinkx doesn’t press the issue.

“It cancels out,” Jinkx shrugs, wiping her mouth.

Dela looks away from her, her mouth downturned. Jinkx reaches for her hand under the table. The most meaning is always in the notes that aren’t being played. Jinkx smiles a little as she runs her thumb up and down the back of Dela’s hand, but her silence is telling. Dela swallows a little of her guilt, idly twirling the spoon in her coffee cup and staring out across the street. She hates it when Jinkx picks up on this shit. It’s embarrassing when she notices that big, dirty heap of shame Dela has been carrying around for most of her adult life. It’s for her to deal with in silence, not to be seen by other people’s eyes.

When Dela had been going through her usual motions of bugging Jinkx to get out of the house as she packed her shit for a training session that morning, she had been surprisingly willing to play ball for once. Miracle of miracles, she’d actually succeeded. The little cafe they’d ended up in was cute - all natural light and warm colors, potted plants on every table. It felt nice to be somewhere with her. Like their life together had been before everything went wrong.

But Jinkx seems a little uncomfortable, like she wasn’t really ready to face the world - wearing a long-sleeved black t-shirt that fits her like a dress, and the leggings she’d slept in the night before; continually pulling her sleeves down over her hands like she’s trying to hide herself from the world. She hadn’t bothered to put her contacts in, her glasses resting on the end of her nose; her hair thrown into a bun with her unbrushed bangs poofing out in a directionless mess. Dela had a sneaking suspicion that Jinkx had only agreed on going out to eat somewhere because she’d noticed that she’d skipped breakfast.

Dela had cycled through little bouts of issues like this for as long as she could remember. She had spent most of her life in environments that fostered ruthless self-critique and self-hatred; beauty pageants when she was a young teenager, then acting in college, and now - when her body was constantly on display in the ring, just to be gawked at by a crowd. It was far from constant; she’d be fine for months, and then some kind of reminder that she should be viewing her weight as a problem would smack her in the face. That would be at the forefront of her mind for the next few weeks or so, until she got so sick of depriving herself that she couldn’t keep it up and rationalized herself back into ambivalence. It was waiting for the cycle to repeat itself that somehow hurt the most.

It wasn’t like she ate like shit the rest of the time; the guilt and shame and fear every time she even contemplated eating between meals or ordering dessert was always there. She gained weight every time she tried to quit smoking, so she’d stopped trying. It felt like there was nothing she could do. No matter what she did, feast or famine, her body refused to shrink. She’d tried every potential fix out there - keto, veganism, paleo, meal replacement shakes, intermittent fasting, calorie-counting, carb-cutting, and every miracle weight loss scheme under the goddamn sun - to less than no effect. She never learned, always winding up right back at square one - still miserable, still a size fourteen.

Dela would rather be thinking about literally anything other than food right now. She pushes her plate away, pursing her lips.

“Who are you training with?” Jinkx snaps her out of the downward spiral, squeezing her hand.

“It was meant to be a few of us - but Bianca messed her knee up again, so she’s at home on ice. Since she bailed, Adore isn’t coming either, and apparently Court is busy, so now it’s just me and Trinity.”

“Is Bea okay?” Jinkx furrows her brows.

In miraculously the first major incident of a two-decade career, Bianca had gotten hurt in a pretty bad way a few years ago, in a match against Chad - she’d taken an awful landing off of a shooting-star press; tearing basically every possible ligament and shattering her kneecap. It put her on the shelf for nearly ten months, and any knee problems with her since tended to be a little touch-and-go.

Dela had elected to just not mention that Adore and Courtney were both refusing to come just in case the other showed face; Adore paranoid that Courtney was mad at her, and Courtney too embarrassed by the last couple of weeks to want to be around the other girls. Dela couldn’t deny that she was getting worried about Court; whenever she went MIA like this, Dela couldn’t help but assume the worst. She'd been trying pretty much daily to get ahold of her, to basically no avail, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do about any of it.

Bill had been told that not booking her wasn’t an option, so pulling her from two consecutive shows had pissed Dela off. Not that there was much point in her saying anything - her going up to bat for Courtney would make him more likely to keep screwing her over just out of spite, and probably get Dela herself booked into another dogshit public humiliation feud to boot.

She wasn’t even sure if Jinkx knew, or remembered, that Courtney had dropped the title. She wasn’t about to bring it up to her now.

“She’s fine - her physio checked her out, it’s just bruised and swollen, but she’s in the main event on Saturday so she’s trying to rest up.” Dela says. Jinkx nods, not saying much more. “Manila’s gonna be at the show by the way.”

Jinkx doesn’t respond. Her face twitches a little.

“Mateo’s off TV for a few weeks - they’re taking the kids to Disneyworld. She called me a couple of days ago to ask if we had space on the card for her,” Dela continues, trying to fill the silence.

Manila Luzon was a former two-time tag champ who had left a few years back. Her husband, a luchador who went by ‘El Idolo’, had been signed to a major televised promotion that ran out of Nashville, prompting their move and consequently her departure from Femme Fatale. She’d found her feet since - settling into motherhood with two young daughters, and she’d recently started doing the weekend warrior thing on the side after two years out; wrestling a few times a month for local indies. Dela was excited to see her.

“You guys always got along really well,” Dela starts. “Do you wanna-“

“Dela...” Jinkx purses her lips, averting Dela’s gaze and letting go of her hand. “That’s four days away - you can’t spring this stuff on me. If you’d told me sooner, I maybe could have…shit.” Jinkx trails off - overtaken with a twitchy, nervous energy. She puts her head in her hands.

Fuck.

Maybe a month before Manila had left, Raja - her long-term best friend and tag partner - had taken a horrifically botched buckle-bomb from Magnolia Crawford, which had essentially retired her; splitting her head open and giving her a massive concussion that she was still dealing with the aftershock of two years later. A pretty monumental detail that had somehow slipped Dela’s mind.

Jinkx had spent all night in the emergency room with her - and then when Manila’s move had been confirmed and she’d met up with Jinkx to ask to be released from her contract, they’d exchanged some pretty choice words over the fact that Magnolia not only still had a job, but was the current World Champion. She’d won the belt in the same match where she’d injured Raja, and getting it off of her had proven no mean feat, thanks to a barrage of threats to trash the promotion’s name, and the fact that nobody was willing to get in the ring with her. Jinkx had never really forgiven herself for any of it. How it had all ended for Raja; losing Manila under the circumstances they had; or the state of Courtney’s face after the match that eventually got Magnolia fired.

Getting in touch with Dela to ask about a match was the first that any of them had heard from Manila in nearly two years.

“I’m sorry,” Dela says, trying to keep her response to a minimum as she fidgets with her shirt. Jinkx doesn’t look mad - just upset. Dela would rather she was mad. That would be a little less heartbreaking.

Jinkx chews agitatedly at her bottom lip as she waves a waitress over to ask for the check. Dela is kicking herself internally. There’s tears in her eyes as she stands up to leave the cafe.

The car ride to the gym is horribly quiet.

*****

“Finally!”

Trinity shouts over the loud crash as she drops the weight bar, dusting away the grip chalk from her hands against her shorts and taking off her headphones.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting,” Dela says through slightly gritted teeth as she closes the door to the gym behind her. She didn’t want to acknowledge the last twenty minutes of awful, stilted silence. Or that Jinkx had been outside, but didn’t have the mental energy to come talk to her.

Trinity wipes the sweat from her brow, picking up her water bottle and taking a drink. Dela sits down on the bench to get herself ready as Trinity catches her breath.

“It’s all good, baby,” Trinity says with a small smile, tightening her ponytail. There’s got to be nearly 300lbs loaded up onto that bar, Dela notices. Trinity’s level of athleticism frankly kind of scared her. “At least you showed up.”

Dela just nods. Her gym bag is barely-organized chaos, and she has to pull an empty energy gel wrapper out of her shoe. She lays out all of her stuff on the bench beside her - wrist wraps, belt, water, protein shake that makes her gag.

The temptation not to bother had been strong, but by the time she’d talked herself out of it, they were already at the gym. As usual, Dela was the one person not to bail - everyone else got to focus on whatever other crap they had going on, everyone else could take a break and fix their own lives, but not her. She showed up, she was reliable, she was there for other people, she was the shoulder to cry on. It was the only thing she had ever been certain she was good for.

“How’s your day going?” Dela asks as she kicks off the clean gym shoes she’d been wearing, changing them out for the wrecked black Converse she used for weight training. She desperately needs some kind of distraction from the noise and bullshit inside her own brain.

“Pretty good. I’ve been camped out here with my mom since ten. She had shit to do - I think she’s recording a podcast or something? - so she left like, twenty minutes ago. Which I’m not mad at, I get more work done when she’s not here.”

“You let your mom use the gym?” Dela says with wide eyes and a half-laugh.

“Oh, I don’t let her. Crazy old lady does not ask anybody for permission to do shit. She just decided it was happening - her words, ‘why pay for a gym membership when you have keys to a free one?’” Trinity laughs.

“Trinity, we have rules,” Dela says - trying to tell her off out of a sense of obligation, but struggling to keep a straight face. Faking being mad was hard.

Dela had idolized Latrice growing up - a multiple-time champion on GLOW, followed by a poorly-booked stint in WCW and subsequent retirement when she was around forty, thanks to an accumulation of back injuries and having four young kids. She was long-retired nowadays - Dela guessed she had to be in her early sixties - and made the bulk of her living on the convention circuit, doing autograph signings and occasional appearances at indie shows - something that had really picked up in the last few years thanks to a renewed interest in the promotion where she’d made her biggest mark. Dela had been a little starstruck when they first met; turning straight back into that excited six-year old who’d begged to stay up late on a Saturday night and sat glued to the TV watching her with awe.

“What? She doesn’t do much - spends five minutes on the elliptical and then sits around shit-talking people I don’t know and telling me my form sucks,” Trinity smiles with a roll of her eyes, re-chalking her hands and starting another round of reps.

Dela watches as Trinity blitzes through her deadlift set like it’s nothing - barely breaking a sweat. She’s controlled, face focused. Dela hasn’t even finished tying her shoes.

Dela thinks that training with Trinity is, in its own way, kind of relaxing. Bianca was a nightmare in the gym - far too competitive; by contrast, Adore was too laid-back, and tended to just stand around doing nothing until somebody - usually Bea - told her off. Courtney was fine, but she was never on time, and had a tendency to be a little preachy about the benefits of yoga and how caffeine was the devil; and being anywhere one-to-one with Pretty Dope felt like accidentally walking into a party that she hadn’t been invited to.

The occasional workouts she’d done with Bill back when Jinkx was still wrestling and they had been kind-of friends had been hell on earth - he lapsed into this embarrassing, hyper-masculine performance of asserting dominance over her, or whoever else they were with, usually to disastrous effect; always intent on lifting heavier, or finishing a set faster, than the other person. She had, in two separate incidents, watched him shit his pants and tear a quad as a result of feeling threatened and overdoing it.

Trinity was easy-going - focused, but not to a fault. Critical where she needed to be, but never for the sake of being mean; she knew her shit without being arrogant. Pro wrestlers are very seldom the chillest group of people to be around; even within the women’s scene, there was more bitchery and posturing than Dela really cared for. Trin didn’t give a shit, and it was refreshing. If people like her were the future of the industry, Dela figured it would be in good hands by the time she called it quits.

The weight bar crashes to the floor again.

“You wanna try it?” Trinity asks airily, taking another drink of water with one hand on her hip.

“I would die,” Dela says matter-of-factly.

“Pussy,” Trinity teases with a smile on her face, racking the bar up and removing the weights.

Dela stands up; bending at the waist and grabbing her calves, stretching her back out. She’d designated this session as leg day - they were her favorite part of her body to work, and the one that she defaulted to when she was feeling crappy about herself. Most of her strength had always been in her lower half, earning her the nickname ‘thunder-thighs’ as a teenager - that had specifically made her life hell when she’d still been doing pageants, the other girls barely bothering to conceal their giggles behind a hand during the swimsuit category. But said thighs were practically made of steel, and they had served her well in her wrestling career; she couldn’t bring herself to hate them that much.

She moves onto her quads, steadying herself on one foot and grabbing the other, pulling it upwards to stretch out the band of muscle at the front of her thigh. She feels an uncomfortable and irritatingly familiar twinge in her ankle. Figures. She wasn’t sure how much of it was in her head, but it always seemed to pick its moments - like when her mind was at odds with itself, the rest of her body felt the need to contribute something to her general suffering too. As she puts her foot down on the floor, the twinge becomes a steady, uncomfortable ache. Dela purses her lips, returning to her gym bag and rummaging around for her athletic tape.

“Fuck - that’s gnarly.”

Trinity is kneeling on the ground to scribble the details of her last set into her training log, and she grimaces as Dela slips her shoe over her heel and pulls her sock down, inadvertently showing off the six-inch scar to the side of her leg. She wasn’t wrong. Every wrestler Dela knew past a certain age had their one particular crappy master-stroke of an injury - Jinkx’s neck, Bianca’s knee, Raja’s head. That was hers; a nasty tib-fib break about twelve years ago that had never felt totally right since.

Funnily enough, it was Bill’s fault. Just like every other problem in her life. Back in the days before Femme Fatale, she and Jinkx had worked a mixed tag match against him, and some guy he’d met on the night, at a fairly high-profile show in Memphis. Their original opponents had bailed on the night - their car had broken down three hours away from the venue - and Jinkx and Dela had been supposed to wrestle each other. Dela had been more than okay with that prospect; they’d had enough matches together that they could call one on the fly in their sleep, and there was something about sex after a match when they’d been across from the ring from one another that was specifically really hot…

And then Bill stepped in and ruined everything. He’d been booked to lose to one of the promotion’s comedy jobbers in the curtain-jerker, so he’d jumped at the opportunity to be pushed up to the semi-main, grabbed the nearest guy to him in the locker room, and graciously volunteered to step in and fill the hole in the card

Once they got to the ring, the match had been clunky and unrehearsed - the crowd had popped off for her and Jinkx, seemingly because they were the only team with actual chemistry. Pissed off that they were getting all the attention and desperate to pull something impressive out of his arsenal, Bill had attempted to lift Dela up for a jackhammer, despite being told that the move was a bad idea. Dela was taller than him, and fairly bottom-heavy, two things that were already working against the potential success of the spot; they hadn’t had time to run it in training, and he wasn’t great at pulling it off at the best of times.

As predicted, he’d screwed it up in spectacular fashion, landing on top of her with her leg bent the wrong way under her. She remembered hearing something snap; the pain white-hot and immediate.

She really didn’t award him many points for ring awareness, given that his next move had been to put her in an ankle-lock - refusing to let up, despite the fact that she’d tapped out before he’d even cinched in the hold; apparently convinced that she was just selling. She didn’t think it had been malicious - he was just stupid. And a crappy wrestler. How he and Jinkx had been trained by the same people was beyond her - but it had no doubt made the injury worse. If he hadn’t done that, maybe she could have had a few weeks in a cast, rather than the titanium plate, six screws, and five months out of action she’d finished up with.

To this day he’d never really apologized. Jinkx had been incensed by the whole situation, and resolved that the two of them were finished. Dela had made her patch things up with him.

“I know, right?” Dela says through partly gritted teeth as she finishes taping up her leg “You’re looking at your future here, Trin - wrestling sucks.”

“Mm, sure,” Trinity says skeptically. Very recently twenty-three, and with all the promise in the world, she was still kind of in the ‘I’m going to live forever’ honeymoon period of her wrestling career.

She’d come from a general athletic background - varsity track and field, lacrosse, softball - which she’d been freakishly good at; six feet of insane strength and stamina. Latrice had started training her when she was still in high school. She’d worked her first match for Femme Fatale at eighteen - as soon as she legally could - and Jinkx had been umfathomably hot on hiring her as soon as possible; aware that she was going places, and intent on snapping her up in case those places got ahold of her before they did.

“Your turn - quit slacking,” Trinity says with a grin, nodding to the squat rack. Dela pulls a face.

She stands up somewhat reluctantly - resetting the squat rack to her height, loading up the barbell with an easy 150lbs. She feels like a robot as she goes through the motions; her head is floating six inches above the rest of her body, and her midsection feels hollow with guilt and worry. Trinity is half-watching her between glances at her phone. How soon is too soon to throw in the towel and go home?

Dela inhales deeply as she rises to a standing position, barbell behind her shoulders, and drops into a squat. When she pushes herself back up, her knees are already shaking - shit, her head really isn’t in this today. She tries to force her way through another couple of reps, but her body is reluctant to let that happen. Her hands are in a dumb position, and her feet are offset, and her ankle is killing her, and it doesn’t feel right. She bails on her fourth attempt, dropping the bar. Trinity jumps as it crashes against the floor

“Girl, come on. You can do better than that - and stop locking your knees.” Trinity says. Dela doesn’t respond, her hands covering her face as she tries to pull her thoughts together - her brain is making too much noise for her to concentrate. “Hey, are you okay?”

Dela doesn’t really have an answer for her. She pushes her hair out of her face, letting out a heavy sigh.

“I’m fine,” she eventually settles on. “Crappy morning - my focus really isn’t here.”

“I can tell,” Trin observes. Dela slumps down on the bench. Trinity flinches at the sound of ripping velcro as Dela tears her wrist wraps off, throwing them down on the floor and pressing her hands into her face. “Okay, fuck the workout for five minutes - talk to me.”

“I don’t think there’s much to talk about,” Dela shrugs, still agitatedly messing with her bangs. Her hair is at a fantastically annoying in-between stage where it’s too short to stay tied up, but long enough to be a pain in her ass. As much as she’d hated it, at least when it was shaved, it wasn't in the way. “I just…everything feels weird.”

Trinity sits down by her side. She smells like fresh sweat and Monster Energy - that weird sugar-free lemon one that Dela tries to force herself to like, even though it tastes like battery acid.

“Weird how?”

That was a big fucking question. Having to run a show with someone who was permanently at odds with her for no apparent reason and being the one to take the fall for all of his shortcomings; feeling like she was watching her life’s work take its dying breaths as the quality of shows deteriorated and more and more people quit, but not knowing what to do about it. Feeling permanently alone without Jinkx by her side in wrestling, and a different kind of alone at home where she was there at home, but notedly different. Knowing that Jinkx was suffering, but not knowing what to do about that either, and her every attempt seeming to make it worse. Feeling like a foreigner in her own body - a feeling she knew well, but still couldn’t stomach. Hating wrestling, hating dragging herself through matches without any kind of long-term goal - and yet in too deep to get out, with no exit in sight. But she couldn’t say all of that. Dela sighs.

“I don’t know. I just feel…I don’t know. Kind of over it.”

“‘Over’ what?”

“Wrestling. It’s just…I feel like it’s causing more stress than it’s worth. I’m struggling with my own matches - I don’t know how to be a singles wrestler. Nothing works, nothing’s fun - I don’t think I wanna do it anymore,” Dela says with a heavy sigh. It felt like the words had just fallen out of her mouth - no real thought behind them, but far too much truth for her linking.

“No - fuck that. You quit, I quit. And so do half of the roster, Dela. You’re the only person left that’s on our side.” Trinity shakes her head, clearly trying to shut down any level of doubt that Dela was expressing. All it’s really achieved is making her feel guilty - and a little selfish.

“I mean…” Dela stumbles over her words. Trinity’s response really caught her off-guard. “Look, this isn’t out of nowhere. Us winning the titles was meant to be our last big run before we started winding down. We were gonna retire when Jinkx turned forty.”

“Seriously?”

“Except we never got a title run, so we never got that. And now everything is such a goddamn mess, and I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going.” Dela says - anxiously fidgeting with the waist-tie of her shorts. “I’d already made my peace with being done within the next couple of years. But I still have goals, I still have shit I want to do. What I don’t have is the person I’d planned to do it with.”

“Shit, Dela.” Trinity breathes, putting a hand on Dela’s knee. “Is everything okay with you guys?”

“It’s as good as it’s been for the last year. She’s struggling - a lot.” Dela admits. She keeps chewing over their conversation in the restaurant in her head - agonizingly aware that it was entirely her fault, and mad at herself for somehow not having learned yet. “I’ve never done anything without her. I nearly quit last year, back when she had to retire. There's nothing left for me that’s possible without her.”

“Look, I get it. Well, I don’t, but like…Bill won’t book me for anything long-term. I don’t think he fucking likes me. And training, and showing up, and putting yourself through all that shit when you don’t know what it’s for sucks. So if it makes you feel any better, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here either.”

“I’m sorry,” Dela frowns. Trin is yet more collateral damage in this whole ridiculous situation, and she feels horrendously guilty about that too. This time last year, she’d been lined up for a world title run. “It’s bullshit, and believe me I’m trying my best to do more for you. You’re incredible in the ring - he’s wasting your talent.”

“I suck at cutting promos,” Trinity says, her voice deflated. “He keeps telling me that’s why - he says I talk like I’m stupid. I’m never gonna get anywhere - if I quit Femme Fatale, I’m done. Nowhere else is gonna hire me.”

Something about that really isn’t hitting Dela’s ear right, and the frustrating thing is how easily she can picture those words in his voice. She’d heard similar things during the conference call she’d had with Vixen and the other girls when they’d walked out; insulting their intelligence had been one of his personal favorite means of shitting on their self-esteem.

The rest of what she’d said was flat-out absurd - they’d been pretty solidly convinced that they wouldn’t even have Trin a few years from when they’d hired her. She knew that other promotions would be paying attention - Impact had shown a shit ton of interest in her after she’d debuted, and the only reason they hadn’t picked her up at the time was because she was only nineteen, therefore not allowed to compete on TV. She’d turned down an offer from World of Stardom two years ago; she hadn’t particularly wanted to move to Japan, and Latrice had agreed that a few more years of indie experience before jumping to TV would serve her well. If she walked out the door, she’d be guaranteed other offers - better offers, really.

“He’s talking out of his ass,” Dela says. “Trin, do you have any idea how hard we have to try to keep our hands on you? You being here is gonna be a footnote in your career one day - and your promos are fine. I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to be nice - it’s true,” Trinity’s face falls. “I mean, shit - my mom offered to drop all of her convention stuff so she could be my manager. That’s how I know I fucking stink.”

“Sweetie, there are plenty of people who’ve been mega-stars that don’t do their own talking. There’s no shame in it.”

“I can do it on paper,” Trinity says, sharply defensive. “I know what to say, and how to say it - it just never goes right in front of people. I had a really fucking bad stutter when I was a kid - I got the shit bullied out of me for years. And every time I try to get on the mic, I freeze up. I’m right back there; I’m still that scared little girl getting laughed at cause she couldn’t get her words out right.” Trinity explains. She’s wringing her hands as she talks.

“I understand - it’s nerves, it happens. I could try and coach you a little? I was a manager for years, I used to write all of Jinkx’s promos - talking is my thing. If there’s anything you think I could help with, I’d be happy to.”

Trinity gives a slight nod, not seeming to have taken in much of what Dela just said. Dela can tell she’s thinking about something.

“Dela, I think I have an idea. You can say no if you want, I get it, but…” Trinity pauses for a second. “If you’re looking for a new tag partner, I’d be down.”

“Are you sure?” Dela raises her eyebrows; caught off-guard by the question and unsure how to feel about it. From where she was standing, it looked a lot like Trin voluntarily kneecapping herself. Dela can’t see herself being worth it. “I mean like, we work really different styles - I’m old enough to be your mom.”

“That doesn’t matter. We could be like, the Rock ‘n’ Sock Connection with better boobs.” Trinity says, a laugh playing about her voice.

“Is that really what you think of me?” Dela laughs, rolling her eyes. “Because it’s obvious that you’re The Rock in that analogy.”

“I’m serious, Dela - please,” Trinity looks at her, her gaze firm. “I know it’s been a minute since we last had a match together, but I like working with you. I don’t wanna see you quit, and I need a mouthpiece. It would help both of us out.”

Dela turns the offer over in her mind. The idea of a partnership between the two of them felt doomed to be a comedy deal. Trinity had nailed it with the Rock n’ Sock comparison - young megastar in the making meets chubby outcast, the brains and brawn in one while the other stood cheering at the sidelines. But they had been a brilliant team. Maybe she was selling Mick Foley a little short.

Dela had a lot more control over what she did and didn’t do in the ring than the other girls. Maybe Trinity wasn’t tying herself down with her, but securing herself an ally. She deserved better than the lot she was getting, that was for certain.

Dela nods quietly to herself.

“...Okay.”

#rpdr fanfiction #s6 #bendelacreme #jinkx monsoon #jela #trinity k bonet #angst #lesbian au #glow au #wrestling au #lita #bitch fight #femme fatale wrestling au #tw disordered eating

7 notes · View notes

miamoo27 · 8 days

Text

Life has been work the past couple day. I feel directionless. I’m doing great at my job but lacking in school and I’m my “professional life.” Right now my heart isn’t in it I’m feeling connected to work and the kids making a different. I feel impatient with school like I’m waiting to be done despite mt enjoyment in learning. But the pressure feels horrific lately. I was sick for two days still feel it. Work has been disgustingly stressful due to my co worker. Being horrific with the kids. And then I have my lab mentor telling me “it’s unprofessional to have an unexpected absence without notice” ummm so sorry I was asleep and not feeling well once. It isn’t a pattern.

The pressure is fucking on and I wanna roll in a ball. I can’t help my restless ways it’s mt nature. It’s hard to be under this much and try so hard yet be fearful of telling others what I need. I overplease until I can’t do it. Now I have this dumb fucking stupid party tomorrow SORRY. That has to do with my dads family coming here. My stomach still hurts I’m getting my period and I don’t need this. I hate the voice in my head that says stop complaining stop worrying. My parents are fighting don’t blame my mom. She doesn’t want them here. I don’t really but he is my father. He knows how I feel. I’m not passive aggressive with how I feel or “fresh” I just say it. Probablt a reason some don’t like me. I care what others think but I’m also not going to “fake” it to make others comfortable. I hate doing that and I need to stop doing that. I need to just be completely honest with mt feelings. I hate putting on a mask. This morning I didn’t. Adam my conworkee noticed it immediately. Saying he noticed when she came in I was upset. Not with the kids but at here. He said he knows I care a lot. It shows. I do care a lot it’s one of mt faults. I deeply devote myself to one thing and forget about everything else. (This is a new personality character because I used to mindlessly do too many things). I forgot about school for a good two weeks. I stopped replying to emails, texts, calls. I also hate texting people consistently. I’m exhausted I have no time for me. I don’t wanna do this shit and go to appointments but sadly we live in a world where appoints exist. Weirdly I’m amazing at staying on time at work. I take care of 18 4 year olds and clean up after them feed them love them nurture them and teach them. Yet I can’t text someone back something doesn’t add up. Even my therapists texts intimidate me. Yet I can Literallt fight someone in real life. But that’s only people I don’t respect. Which unfortunely I respect all my professors.

To give myself credit I’ve dealt with a ton of shit while doing all of this. So I haven’t processed my moms addiction or really my feelings around men in general. I’m afraid to be in love. True shit. I have high standard now which makes my red flag alarm go up everytime I encounter a guy. One has a gf one has a baby one has an addiction one can’t commit and one is gay. The world is insane. I feel like Janis Joplin “one good man”. Where they at tho? It’s been a long ass day this is an insane rant and probablt makes no sense but I need to write it. Apart from all these downfalls I’m genuinely a good person I think I care about people animals pets children everyone. Yet I don’t trust men romantically. I have barely any trust in the world and I’m nervous.

How could I be two things at once.

Someone who loves the universe and nature. Believes in peace and tries to show it. Feels connected spiritually to the earth.

Someone who doesn’t trust people. Is afraid of love. Disgusted by pda.

It isn’t the world I don’t trust it’s the people and what they did scares me and I’m afraid it could happen again. I get so hooked to someone quickly. When I love i reallt love. Nick showed me that he didn’t bring me the same. He knew that so he broke my heart more by even knowing he didn’t have the same love for me. I tried to stay and make him love me but that’s the worst type of love. I needed him. To love me. It made me feel like shit for so long I couldn’t speak. He broke up with me I felt like my world fell apart. I couldn’t see the reality. He didn’t feel what I could feel he wasn’t capable of having the love I have.

I used to think those were things people tell them selves to feel better. But truthfully what is actually true. They aren’t in your life anymore so does the way they feel actually matter? You will never know how they feel because they don’t so what’s the use in figuring out. It’s been a waste of time one I needed though to get through the storm on the side of independence I went from serial dater/sex to being single for almost two years. I needed to go through nick. To see what it’s like to love someone who can’t do the same to break my heart. It did but in the end I got smarter.

0 notes

triple--a--threat · 11 months

Text

so about voltron

idk where this post is gonna go, but i have thoughts and feelings about this show and needed to get them out. so. rambley post it is.

i dont think it's new information for anyone that voltron and its fandom suck major ass, unless you've been living under a rock, and in that case, get back under that rock sweetie. this show sucks a fuckton and this rambling will be nothing more than critique and bashing. anyways

at the end of season 2 shiro was going to die in the original "plan" as far as we know. we were gonna get a heroic sacrifice and the team would go back to its 1984 setup with allura piloting the blue lion. except of course the machinations of the universe are beyond us so shiro did not in fact. die. he was the most popular character and his merch sold the most, so he couldn't possibly die this early on. who else would've made dreamworks their pure gold bars?

so as daddy dreamworks demanded, the writers delivered and un-unalived shiro, completely disregarding their original flimsy shambling excuse of a plan in exchange for among the worst plotlines i have ever seen anywhere. possibly the worst that exist in all of television ever. we got 4 seasons (well really 2) of completely directionless, contrieved, contradictory, and mind-numbing bullshit. stuff happens because someone wanted it to. 2 eps later something very contradictory happens because someone else wanted it to. i cannot stress this enough it feels like the writters were split into factions each of whom had very different ideas about literally everything in this fucking show. some of the dialogue actually feels like someone just wrote down the arguments and fighting going down in the writer's room. shit was made up along the way as the show went on for far longer than it had the right to, and for each and every fucking plotline the writers were divided and kept on shooting themselves (and the others too don't forget) in the foot for the sliver of chance that their story will be canon. just completely backstabbing each other for the sake of it and no regard for what is actually happening. it would be hilarious if it hadn't destroyed my sanity. and for a bit of a personal opinion, a liitle ymmv, none of the writers had any good ideas actually. even ignoring the nonsense opposite fuckery happening, none of the plotlines were good lmao. please end this and me oh god.

as a result we got a completely wish-washy, flip-flopping, self-contradictory, reductive mess of a show which never had any good original ideas or story much less a fucking plot or even a plan in some direction. the writers had no goal except to get their plot on the paper disjoint from everything else with jackshit regard to the overarching storyline. well if there was anything resembling an overarching storyline in the first place.

ig i'll talking specifically about the some of the worst offenders in the "the writers never thought of anything" situation - the allura racism arc, the clone shiro arc, and fucking lotor. oh my fucking god motherfucking lotor. holy shit they fucked him up.

i dunno where to begin with the allura racism arc except for the fact that it was DUMB. completely out of the blue and so fucking forced. for a princess of a diplomatic people she sure is fuckin racist for no fucking reason. even if she doesn't trust any and all galra (ig they didn't have unity in diversity activities in altea), she has no reason to not trust keith. like. my guy what. he proved himself as a paladin of voltron and has directly and indirectly saved her ass. why is she racist oh my god. and why doesn't coran hold any animosity towards the galra? he also lost his homeworld (and alfor)? and he lived on altea for far longer? ig women are emotional or smth. man. i also liked (absolutely despised) the the fact that it kinda took a #notallgalra turn and i was jesting about it and then they actually said that in the fucking show. hey allura not all galra are bad. hey allura stop being a bitch. and then the writers forgot about it btw and made allura racist again 2 seasons later. hmm. wut. also they never checked their own internalised racism or whatever as *points to zethrid's design*. lmao. WAIT also the conflation of racism with speciesism. yknow. using anti speciesism messages as anti racism messages. classic white person living in california moment.

alright the clone shiro arc. because its the keith and shiro show and we can't loose half of our money milking cow. and we shan't make them explicitly gay. only allude to it and sprinkle in family brother stuff so nobody actually thinks they're gay. that would be blasphemous. we shall continue with our pseudo-incest for the rest of the show and give shiro a last minute husband so they don't haul our ass for gaybaiting and burying our gays because we somehow managed to do both of them. anyways where was i. oh right shiro died but they had to bring him back blah blah but they made a clone of him for? reasons? while the real shiro is in the subconscious of the black lion or smth for unexplained reasons. i have absolutely no idea why they did that. they have a carbon copy of shiro in terms of everything - personality, fighting capabilities, homoerotic scenes with keith - for jackshit reasons while they could have the actual real shiro running around but i guess not. the clone is the exact same as the real guy until he isn't. because. we need more drama in this over extended bullshit show i guess??? clearly we don't have enough stuff going on we must make it more exhausting and confusing to watch. also clone shiro is as good and noble as normal shiro until he got a headache and now he's evil at the flick of a switch and retains none of his previous personality and is therefore irredeemably evil and nothing can be done to save him. he's bad and evil and must be forgotten. they never mention him again later on except for a throwaway comment on how evil he was except he wasn't evil guys you're not gonna fool anyone. oh and btw the real shiro's soul or whatever got supplanted in the clone's body because idk man where his original body went and he retained all the memories of his clone self because isn't that convenient. fuck everything. also this arc culminates in the best episode of this show despite everything wrong with the events leading up to it and the way they handle lotor in this episode. more on him later. it's literally among my favourites now 10/10 would watch again it was so fucking good. kill me. i.

again, i don't know where to begin with lotor - such an interesting character who got the short end of the stick. the worst victim of the writers' squabbles. i genuinely liked him a lot and then. such a shame. well there are other characters- oh no. there aren't any other even remotely interesting characters. not good, no no, no one is good in this show, but just fun to watch.

he starts off as an antagonist to team voltron but he's not actually a threat. he maybe wants to use them to further his goals but really he isn't the villain per se. which sucks because there aren't any villains in the show now cause the previous main villain is out of commission for who knows how long. and then whoops lotor has to kill one of his generals and then the other generals betray him and now i guess he's with voltron now. sure why not. interesting turn of events. at least it isn't boring. i'm having fun can't you see. then he kills the previous villain (who is his father did i mention that) in episode two of season five. yes s05e02. i dont know any more than you do. and now it sucks even more cause theres literally no fucking villain rn. then he and allura start working on quintessence or whatever because she learns that he is half altean and btw do you remember she is racist. now since he is not 100% galra (bad people) but half galra half altean (good people. her people) she smooches him and stuff and. also btw all this fuckery is happening alongside the climax of clone shiro arc. yeah this show may suck. whatever evil shiro who wasnt evil is defeated and lotors really helped team voltron and the galra empire is going to stop conquering worlds and the show is going to end on a mid note. well.

EXCEPT SIKE BITCH LOTOR IS PURE CRAZY EVIL FUCK YOU FOR EVER ROOTING FOR HIM. FUCK HIS WHOLE CHARACTER BEING ALL "IM NOT MY FATHER" AND THEN AT THE END 180ING MAKING HIM JUST LIKE HIS FATHER. FUCK EVERYTHING FUCK THIS SHOW YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SOMEWHAT GOOD. WELL FUCK YOU IT AINT EVEN SOMEWHAT GOOD.

i. im just so disappointed in his character and the plot twist for the sake of twist that i cant even express how disappointed i am except for shouting through the use of all caps. one final fuck this show

#voltron #voltron critical #idk the tags man #sorry for the paraghraph breaks #well lack thereof #and copious amounts of 'btw' 'and' 'also'#i don't know any other conjunctions apparently #or how to transition between ideas. idk don't be mean to me about it.

0 notes

regsenny · 2 years

Text

Phases Then and Now: Delivering Narratives in the MCU

If you’ve spent any amount of time on Marvel Twitter/TikTok/Reddit/etc., you’ve likely seen the following few takes said in some way:

1. “The MCU is pumping out too many projects as of late, and I’m tired.”

2. “These Disney+ shows are way too short and none of them connect to the greater MCU.”

I’ve personally found myself bouncing back and forth between wholeheartedly agreeing with these critiques and completely refuting them as baseless complaints. As the MCU has been moving forward, I’ve been using this post Ms Marvel hiatus as an opportunity to look back on how the MCU has structured its stories in the past, and if that structure still fits the ever-evolving new cinematic universe.

Firstly, let’s talk about the phases of the MCU. As of this moment, there are four. In general, each phase has a central theme in which it exists. Phase 1 establishes the origins of our founding Avengers, concluding with their first team-up film, The Avengers, in 2012. Phase 2 depicts the fall-out from the Battle of New York in more solo projects like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man 3. Phase 3 set the last pieces into place for Avengers: Endgame and, for some reason, closed Spider-Man: Far From Home despite that film’s story fitting much better if it opened Phase 4- but I digress. Point is, they all fit into their respective themes: origins, consequences, and the ultimate battle.

So... what’s the theme of Phase 4? Based on what I’ve seen so far, I have no guesses- and I feel like that’s a problem. As of right now, we’re 12 movies and tv shows into Phase 4 and I can’t catch an overarching narrative to be resolved in another phase or two. And I know, I know, I need to be patient and give Marvel time to set it up but I have. I mean, Avengers teased Thanos 6 years before he completed his gemstone collection in Infinity War, and he showed face several times after his original debut. And while I’m not necessarily saying we need another central villain to root against, we do need something, some larger plot, some... direction. What Phase 4 feels like is right now is a superhero draft, but with no upcoming game, you wonder why you’re even building a team in the first place.

That being said, I love the character work being done this phase. The revisiting of existing heroes like Clint Barton and Wanda Maximoff with new arcs and the introducing of new heroes like Stephen Grant and Kamala Khan is being balanced quite nicely, but the idea that I have no clue where any of this is going is constantly in the back of my head. Like, what is the next team-up movie going to look like? Is Avengers 5 and 6 just going to always Scarlet Witch, Photon, Captain America, The Winter Soldier, Shang Chi, Hawkeye 1 and 2, Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, Ms Marvel, Thor, AND company sharing the screen every time? Who knows! Will there be Young Avengers? Beats me! I have an equal lack of understanding of the overarching plot or theme of Phase 4 when I started WandaVision in January 2021 as I did finishing Ms Marvel a couple days ago.

Another bummer that comes out of this mass of seemingly directionless content is that I see a lot of people failing to recognize the quality of these projects. It’s generally agreed upon in the fandom that WandaVision is a genre bending work of art and it dominated Twitter’s top trends for days at a time, but as we continued getting more shows, their support from fans decreased. So much so that I only found tweets discussing the Ms Marvel finale by actively looking for them. Which is a shame, because Ms Marvel and WandaVision are both wonderful! It’s just that the fatigue of keeping up with all these projects and the frustration from lack of cohesion is appearing to catch up to fans.

So why isn’t the new MCU working? Why isn’t this new content resonating with fans as much as the old stuff? Looking back one more time, Kevin Feige announced at San Diego Comic Con in 2019 that Phases 1 through 3 would holistically be called The Infinity Saga. Makes sense, the biggest point of those movies was to gather an all-star group of the Universe’s Mightiest Heroes to fight Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet. The grouping of the movies by phase then saga makes sense for what Marvel’s storytelling was doing then. But does it still makes sense to call everything we have so far one “phase”? 12 projects in, there doesn’t seem to be a stopping point or transition in theme coming anytime soon as there would be between phases 1, 2, and 3. I see general ideas like multiverse exploration and themes like grief and identity popping up, but a general story? Not really. So why is it still considered a phase? Is this what future phases in the MCU are going to look like in the future? Because, if so, we’re in for a concerningly large amount of content that will quickly get overwhelming, as it’s proven to be.

Marvel Studios’ SDCC slot is next week, where there are rumors and leaks galore about new information that will be announce and as usual I’m super excited. But more so this year, because I’m holding out hope that the creators at Marvel will give us a better idea as to what to expect going forward into the franchise. Because, right now, I’m kind of getting tired.

Anyway, I’m going to go start my rewatch of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Put some respect of Captain America’s name.

#mcu #phase 4

0 notes

darkcircles4lyfe · 3 years

Text

Death to All Might, Rebirth to Yagi Toshinori

So about All Might. I’ve been extremely wary of talking about what could happen to him because straight up saying “I don’t think he’s gonna die” is asking the universe to spite me. Plus it also feels like a room full of people turning to stare at me as if I said the Sun isn’t a star. Man has death flags everywhere, I know.

But, okay, *Bill Nye voice* consider the following:

Mr. Yagi here, if he overheard everything, just received the final nail in the coffin on his career. His time as the symbol of peace is not only over, it was in fact partially responsible for the current state of things, since he once did so much on his own that his absence now makes heroes and civilians alike ill-prepared to cope. I think it was very apt for that one guy to be wearing an All Might shirt--he was acting as a mouthpiece for the latent societal problems embedded in All Might’s legacy.

We know already that he’s been feeling useless. I love this scene and although I’m not gonna talk about it right this second, remember what Aizawa says about just “being here” being enough:

And we know from conversations with Inko that Toshinori is also reframed his purpose around looking after Izuku. But in the end, Izuku rejected his help, and it was his classmates instead who were able to save him. Now the very progress of humanity is rejecting him too. You may me wondering how on Earth I don’t see the logical conclusion of all this being his death. Hold on. It actually has a lot to do with the fact that we’re all expecting it. Nighteye himself saw it, and despite any contrary convictions anyone might have, the plot doesn’t seem to be veering away from that end. All Might Is Gonna Die, says absolutely everything.

It’s occurring to me that I have previous experience with this kind of plotline that probably little to no one else in this fandom shares, being that I’ve read a certain book series in which the main character is told in no uncertain terms that he will die (no, I’m not talking about hp). The series in question is T*e Und*rland Chronicl*s (censoring so it doesn’t get put in their side of tumblr) and I’m sorry but I’m about to go on a shameless tangent about it and spoil the ending for you.

So in this series there is a prophecy in every book, each one having something to do with war and conflict, and so far all of them have been right. In the last book [mc] finds out that it’s prophesied that he will be killed. Lots of the things in the prophecies are convoluted and metaphorical, but no, this one literally says “when the [mc’s title] has been killed.” He spends the whole book coming to terms with this, and he gives into it, only to find himself waking up in the hospital instead. “Wow, plot twist. /s” you may be thinking, and yeah sure, the mc in a kids book survived, big shocker. But it doesn't end there. After the war, there are peace talks, but they escalate until the two sides are on the verge of declaring war again. And [mc], bless him, has just been caught in the middle of all of this the entire time. He’s sick as shit of fighting, of watching the suffering and death of people he cares about. He draws his sword against both of them angrily, gives a speech saying he won’t take a side, and then promptly breaks his sword across his knee: “There. [mc’s title in the prophecies] is dead. I killed him.” He’s giving a huge middle finger to everyone there, to the man who wrote the prophecies, to the entire fucked up culture of it all. And so something that was taken literally turns out to be metaphorical. That is, if you still believe in the prophecies at all.

Hopefully you’re catching my drift here. What I’m saying is, even though this other series has nothing to do with bnha, it goes to show sometimes it’s the most absolute certainties that are red herrings, and a “death” can consequently be a symbolic one. In All Might’s case, it could be the death of hero society and a rejection of his own past. In other words, character development for Toshinori himself that reflects on the way the world is changing, too. Also there’s the fact that the mc from that other series I’m trying not to name has an honorary title, and I’m imagining that role he occupied “dying” could correspond to something that amounts to, “All Might is dead. I (Yagi Toshinori) killed him.”

And here’s another thing: we also have to ask ourselves what good a dead Toshinori is to Izuku, narratively speaking. Yes, Izuku has spent his whole life idolizing even the more toxic parts of All Might, and his idealized vision of his hero does need to “die.” But how about Toshinori as a father figure? Izuku regretting that his last interaction with Toshinori was to reject his help may drive home the fact that he shouldn’t go off on his own, but at this point it’s kinda redundant. If anything it would negate some of the progress that was just made because it’d make him extra paranoid about losing other people too. To be honest, the whole “Uncle Ben” trope, the mentor/father figure who dies and gives the mc a reason to do better, is so tired. Experiencing the death of a loved one really doesn’t deserve to be romanticized like that. I might as well admit that I’m speaking from experience, and let me tell you, losing someone you love suddenly, when you weren’t around, and with unfinished business--it makes you paranoid as hell that it will happen again. It literally gives me nightmares. Y’all, I cannot stress enough that trauma does not equal character development. Granted, just because I know this doesn’t mean Horikoshi does, but in general he does seem to lead his characters toward healing.

Okay, back to the present. Toshinori is turning away from UA. He likely feels useless and rejected. We can infer that what happens next will involve Stain, and we have a couple of extra clues to go with it: Stain considers All Might a true hero, and has stated that he would let All Might kill him. And since Horikoshi loves his parallels, we also have this fight between Endeavor and this random villain who admires him so much that he wants to die by Endeavor’s hand:

This suggests a confrontation in which Stain challenges All Might to live up to himself as he once was, so that as a hero he can vanquish Stain and symbolically overcome society's perversion of that role. But based on what All Might has learned about the system he upheld, Stain is wrong. All Might is not a “true hero” in the sense that the societal issues Stain witnessed exist not in spite of All Might, but (in part) because of him, because he took too much of the responsibility for himself.

Stain probably had no idea about the personal cost of All Might’s lonely burden until after the fact. Maybe he’s seeing it now. So then perhaps the confrontation would be more about Stain claiming he’s just as fake as the rest. Either way, Toshinori has the opportunity to denounce himself and be rid of “All Might,” to stop living in his own shadow. Nighteye’s vision has been defied before, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the combination of society shifting + Toshinori’s own conviction is enough to do it again and work fate in his favor.

He is not All Might. He is Yagi Toshinori: quirkless, worn down, and directionless except for his dedication to Izuku. If he survives his interaction with Stain, he can resolve his imperfect mentorship by confessing about his shortcomings and simply supporting Izuku as a part of his family, not as his teacher (as Aizawa said, just “being there”). And that’s how you really get character development, for both of them. I mean, shit, imagine Toshinori straight up telling Izuku to stop calling him All Might.

#disclaimer: I have a lot of emotional investment in dadmight #so I am hella biased #but hopefully I also have some unique insight to share #all might #yagi toshinori #bnha #mha #bnha meta #bnha 325 #bnha 326 #lin speaks

574 notes · View notes

deathoverdignity · 3 years

Text

Really enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 (even half finished & by God the staff better get the biggest bonus ever seen in gaming development for the abusive shite CDPR put them through) but the story is what makes it. Almost an Odyssey flavour to it but the character development between V & Johnny is just *chefs kiss* Like, how after trust is built without either of them noticing “I” becomes “We”

“How much would this set us back?”

“We couldnt afford it!”

“We asked you out on a date”.

This is both beautiful & devastating. Them giving in subconsciously to what’s happening to them, losing their individual identity but not fighting it anymore without even realising it because of a genuine connection built through the positive & negative, hardship & codependency intertwined.

And the bittersweetness of it all. Johnny finally developing empathy & genuine care & love for another human being while at the same time his existence is literally killing them. When he describes how sometimes when he wakes up and feels empty until he remembers that V is always there & is filled with relief....I have too many feelings!

I love “enemies to friends” trope, but the relationship between V & Johnny is more than that. Sad Boi/Gurl V reeling from the loss of the only person in the world that cared for them and finding connection again where they never expected it. Johnny finally peeping out from behind the gargantuan cocktail of narcissism, justified rage & depression that defined him to realise the surface level friendships & love he had before were just that...shallow. Even the relationships he though were real, like Alt, he’s forced to face the truth that they didn’t really exist. Alt herself said Johnny’s memories of her rescue are basically lies he tells himself. Johnny doesn’t know HOW to be a good person but he’s trying so damn hard & Vs magnanimity is the catalyst of it all.

The inherent darkness too to the ending connected to having the “best” connection with Johnny. If you say all the right things, Johnny offers the secret ending which is so much fun, storming Arasaka together, not having to sacrifice your friends. This is bittersweet though too because the V that’s left behind seems lost, disconnected even from their lover, leaving them to chase glory & the faint opportunity to live. But really, I felt like V doesn’t really believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This is going out in the blaze of glory, V doesnt know how to live without Johnny in their mind anymore. Sadder again is the Johnny ending here. Johnny has already said how empty he feels at the thought of V not being there beside him, together in their head.

It’s telling that Johnny doesn’t contact anyone, not even Vs love interest, even if that love interest is Kerry who knows about Johnny, to tell them about what happened. That’s pure shame. Johnny isn’t free. Johnny is directionless, stuck with the emptiness. I love Rogues voicemail with this ending; the disappointment. She’s done with him. The implicit criticism being that Johnny somehow tricked V, this kid who loved him and Johnny took advantage when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

No one understands them after this, they’re forever changed. There is no more V or Johnny, just some residual emalgamate that’s bereft in the absence of their unity.

I wonder if a true happy ending would have been for both of them to go into cyberspace together with Alt, or live out the rest of their lives together even if it would be for a short time. Cruel but kinder ultimately. In a way, that’s the choice in the “secret” scenario that they chose.

As Johnny said; “He’d be honoured to join you in a wild suicide run”.

V expressed astonishment when they successfully reach Mikoshi. They DID NOT expect to live. They made their choice to die a legend like Johnny, together, saying one last fuck you to Arasaka. They never counted on what comes next. That’s the reason the credits roll if you die and it’s the same voicemail reactions that you get in the rooftop suicide scene. Vs loved ones perceive the end result to be the same, only Johnny and V know there was a difference between giving up on the roof or exploding like a volcano at Arasaka HQ.

“I will not yield

I will not fall

I will eat dynamite

And one day I will explode

Like a volcano”

When V meets the fighter twins who’ve tried to merge consciousness, they’re dismissive and cruel. I wonder if the V later towards the end of the game understands them just that bit more. Okay that’s my obsessive thinking done.

Love it! Can’t wait for the DLC!

#cyberpunk v #cyberpunk johnny #cyberpunk spoilers #cyberpunk 2077 #johnny silverhand

379 notes · View notes

autisticandroids · 3 years

Note

I appreciate you being Dean concerned and not Dean critical. I’m sure you’ve already answered this before but what do you genuinely like about him? A lot of his good traits get twisted in your meta (and in the show) which is really interesting! But like. What about him do you just think is neat?

Also, you don’t talk about Sam a lot but I’m rewatching season 8 and it really feels like both a continuation of preseason one -> season one (Sam has a normal life, Dean is gone -> Sam wants to return to his normal life but Dean coming back gets him back in the game) which also gives it finale vibes :(

Besides the fact that the stuff with Amelia is really boring, it all just feels ooc and like a step back for Sam. Not to go on a rant but Sam seemed to finally make peace with his life back in season 7.

The stuff with Amelia also has both the same and the exact opposite energy as the stuff with Lisa. During his time with Lisa, it was always like Dean had one foot out the door back to hunting. During his time when he goes back to hunting with Dean in season 8, it feels like Sam always has one foot out the door back to Amelia.

That and I just can’t bring myself to give a shit about Amelia (maybe because she’s boring and inconsistent, maybe because info about her is drop fed instead of presented mostly all at once like with Lisa in season 6, maybe because she’s just shoved in for something for Sam to be up to and it feels ooc to me idk)

I thought I’d like season 8 (and I do really like a lot of Cas’ stuff but he’s always my favorite anyway so that was basically gaurenteed) but a lot of the stuff just makes my brain feel like a white noise machine. I’m only on episode 10 so I’m sure it’ll get better for me once the Sam stuff gets resolved but for now it’s very.... eh.

Thoughts?

okay so, what i like about dean. hm. that's hard! i love dean, for all sorts of reasons, and i know i'll miss stuff, but: - he charms me, on a sort of pure, animal level. he's very charming, that's true within the show but it's true for the audience, or at least me, as well. he's funny, he's affectionate, he's sweet, and he tries so hard. and it makes me love him - he's compellingly tragic. like dean is a fucked up guy, he hurts both himself and everyone around him because of patterns of trauma an neurosis he can't break out of. no one wants to be a bad guy, no one wants to hurt the ones they love, least of all dean, but he can't stop doing both those things. like his self-made cage of ideology, emotional repression, and control is killing him, and it's killing everyone who doesn't get away from him, and that's sad! it's awful! no one is winning except dean's self-image. he will sacrifice everyone and everything he loves on the altar of never having to re-evaluate himself. or, i hope he won't. but he might! and that's sad! it's the perfect tragedy! - second hand deangirlism due to cas kinnie disease. men will be the first person who was ever nice to castiel and then me and castiel will love them forever about it. - he is my little puzzle box and i will solve him - straightmarried gf i liked that sam ran off and tried to escape The Life in s8, that makes sense to me. i think sam really fundamentally doesn't want to be a hunter and the only reason he gives up on trying to leave post s8 is that it is impressed upon him that he's completely trapped. he can never be free. dean will always drag him back, kicking and screaming. i actually feel like sam's equivalent to lisa isn't amelia, it's jess. i talked some about that here but like. both jess and lisa were kind of synecdoches for a false ideal of the american dream, each in their own way. they're both images of suburban perfection, and what draws the winchesters to them is the desire to fit into that image.

but comparing lisa and amelia..... like, dean promises sam that he will go try to make a normal life with lisa, and then he does, because that obligation is all he has left to cling to. like dean is nothing but a miserable little pile of duties and tasks, he doesn't know who he is without a chore (see: demon!dean's total directionlessness) and lisa is the last promise he made to his brother, so he fulfills that. she's an idea to him, not a real woman. the thing he's clinging to, in sam's absence, is not lisa, but the idea of a normative suburban lifestyle. but then the moment sam shows up and voids his own last wishes, dean is like okay bye i don't need to fulfill this obligation anymore. like he was never all that interested in lisa. he didn't love her and his relationship with her was built on obligations, normative images, and anxiety over her safety, which finally resolves itself in dean horrifically violating her by asking cas to wipe her memories.

whereas sam is with amelia because he like, meets her and they form a connection. they hit it off. and sam has a pattern of like. when he wants to get away from something, especially if dean isn't around, he jumps into bed with the nearest girl who smiles at him and then forms a super intense with her. his early season one-off love interests, ruby, and now amelia. (amelia is actually kind of the last time he does that, because after season eight he gives up trying to escape for real). but what he's clinging to there isn't an image that he's trying to fit into. it's the girl herself. like he likes amelia and he wants to be around her and he dives into like. spending time with her and building a relationship with her. and like amelia is a real woman and sam sees her as a real woman. like she's a fucked up mess and so is he and they connect. like she's a bitch and she clogs her drain with limes. also #MyGirlfriendsHusbandFightsForYourFreedom. like samelia is a little boring but i don't begrudge sam that. it's almost compelling because it's boring.

i'm actually not a huge season eight guy myself but my issue with it isn't samelia.

actually, and this is a complete tangent, can i bitch about season ten for a second? like. okay. seasons eight and nine are about sam learning that dean will never let him go. that he's trapped forever in the hunting life and trapped forever with his brother, that dean will do horrific things to him in order to keep them together. and slowly just... giving up. deciding to relinquish his dreams of getting out once and for all.

and then season ten rolls around and suddenly sam makes a hypocrite of himself? suddenly sam is the one who will go to any lengths to save dean, even against dean's own wishes? NOT believable. like sam should be like. sad and fucked up about it, but letting dean go his own way. if anything, cas should be the one trying to save dean against his will, that's way more cas' move. like there's definitely a certain level of cas -> dean :: dean -> sam that exists in the show, at least in terms of protective fixation. cas is somewhat more respectful of dean's boundaries and autonomy, but he's the one with a pattern of blowing up at dean for being self-destructive etc etc.

like, sam should have been way different in s10. i don't know exactly what i would do with him, maybe give him his own distinct plot? or maybe have demon dean last somewhat longer and make "demon dean tries to kill sam" a whole multi-episode arc, i think that would slap. and then the relationship fallout from that can be many more episodes.

like imo this happened because jeremy carver got his start in season three, when sam legitimately was trying to save dean against dean's wishes, but in s3 that made sense. like, one, the brothers were much closer then, dean wasn't quite as much of a prison guard for sam, but two, much more importantly, dean's deal was sam's fault. he blamed himself. he wasn't just trying to save dean from dying, he was trying to save dean from going to hell because of him. like girl, it made sense in mystery spot. but this is not the energy you should be bringing to the table with sam in s10. ooc!

#spn #asks #anonymous

145 notes · View notes

cienie-isengardu · 3 years

Note

Can you do headcanons on SubScorp (Kuai Liang / Hanzo Hasashi) and the evolution of their relationship, please? ♡

Sure, just please keep in mind that rock has a better romantic sense than I ever will. I’m not a shipper in general and SubScorp has a lot to overcome in my mind to even get close as friends but I will do my best! In advance, sorry for the long text and especially opening. My hand slipped but I needed to build the romantic headcanons on something.

Oh, and I kinda threw away the canon timeline here and there and went with how I would write their relationship (and story, I guess) if I was given the chance.

At the beginning, Hanzo and Kuai were bitter enemies and their hate for each other was the exact reason why Quan Chi kept them working together. The revenants were creatures of vivid emotions, twisted and corrupted by Netherrealm fire. So the stronger they hated, the mightier were their unnatural powers. But there was also a more sinister reason: Quan Chi kept them together, day after day, because it amused him to watch how Sub-Zero and Scorpion wanted to hurt each other but always were defenseless against his magic, always blindly obedient. To have two deadliest of enemies as slaves under his power was the best perk of necromancy.

When they were revenants though, Quan Chi’s cruel joke meant nothing. Kuai Liang had no free will, no remorse, only hate and pain to go on. Hanzo could - should - run away, but didn’t. He was broken in thousands of little ways and it was easier to follow orders, to not think than take responsibility for his own choices, to face the utterly devastating feeling of failure. It wasn't a good life - it wasn’t a life at all, but it was all they had.

After so many days turned into weeks turned into months, the constant presence of each other became the punishment and the salvation at once. They hated each other and this hate never truly left them for a moment, never let them feel peace of mind. They hated each other but it was an emotion that bonded them together, grounded in reality, made sense in an otherwise senseless world.

Hanzo and Kuai Liang got used to each other that the presence of mutual disdain was as normal part of their cursed life as breathing for a living person.

But then Quan Chi lost and suddenly they both were brought to life against their will. The first weeks were the worst. They were victims of dark magic, everyone was saying but none of them was a killer responsible for thousands of brutal deaths. Not like Hanzo and Kuai Liang and because of that, the burden of guilt was their alone. A burden they didn’t want to share among themselves, so they sought out different paths to find some solace.

For Hanzo, there was nothing to come back. The home of Shirai Ryu was destroyed, devastated beyond any measure. He still heard clearly Quan Chi’s voice in his head, how he failed his clan, how shamed his wife and child. Hanzo felt dirty and unworthy and utterly lost. The once mighty Scorpion was now a wreck, a directionless nomad.

For Kuai Liang, the home was Lin Kuei but it was taken by cyber monsters without souls. Once he returned to living, those monsters hunted him restlessly. For years he ran and hid and killed and killed and killed and killed until he was ready to face Sektor and reclaim what was once his. An honor and a purpose in life, so he could find Scorpion and kill him for brother’s death. But then he learned dark secrets of the clan and even darker truths that changed everything.

Because of that, Kuai Liang invited Hanzo to Lin Kuei Temple, offered peace and a new start, a way to atone for all crimes and sins they committed arm to arm during war. Above everything else, offered the truth that finally set them both free from their cruel past.

They did not keep in touch then though. They met sporadically, when Raiden asked his Champions to assist in this or that little crisis. To hunt the demons that somehow survived the war, to find oh so rare, mystic artifact or two, or do a quick job in the Outworld. They were assassins after all and Special Forces the heroes who shouldn’t dirty their hands.

During those meetings, Hanzo and Kuai Liang tried to stay as far as possible without making a fuss about it. During missions though there was no one who could safely separate them, and thus save them from painful memories of the past.

It was terrifying to Hanzo how much he missed Sub-Zero’s cold presence at his side, even if the so well known hate for Bi-Han’s death still hid beneath the cryomancer's skin like a furious, wild beast, always present, never forgiving, kept in check only by Lin Kuei’s iron will.

It was terrifying for Kuai Liang how well he still understood Scorpion’s body language even though the ninja tried so desperately to hide scars left by Quan Chi on his soul, all those unsaid horrors he experienced, all the doubts and pain and self-hatred that burned as hot as Netherrealm fire that twisted them both.

But those sporadic joint missions alone weren’t what helped them connect once and forever.

Ironically, it was the guilt that let one understand so well the other, to know when it was a good time for jab and when not to speak - not to see - raw pain that both so hard tried to bury under their respective masks, of cold politeness and hot devotion to the past. Surprisingly, it was also the arrogance of united governments that wanted to use them to expand Earthrealm’s control over wild Outworld yet did not see them as human beings. To be seen as a useful tool but never truly welcome wasn’t anything new for any of them. Kuai Liang and Hanzo were a relic of a dark past that should have died years ago yet were too stubborn to just yield and blindly follow orders even again. This burning desire for independence and search for their lost humanity built a common ground, the bridge between past hate and empathy.

This, and their shared disdain for Johnny’s never ending jokes. In the past, every time the Champions of Earthrealm met in the same place and Cage opened his mouth to talk Hollywood's weirdness, Hanzo got closer and closer to Kuai Liang. There was no word of recognition or permission - one look at each other and they understood perfectly it was either stay strong together and endure this senseless, annoying wave of words or do something regrettable.

And because they already had enough guilt to worry about, Sub-Zero and Scorpion simply stood arm to arm, like they did during war. Somehow that comforting familiarity grew up into something much stronger; not yet friendship but unity anyway. Time did not heal them but the mutual hate faded little by little, day after day until pain was nothing more than bitter ache they simply learned to live with.

Despite everything and everyone, Hanzo and Kuai Liang got to trust each other, to rely on a bond that was once a cruel Quan Chi’s joke.

Sub-Zero was the person that accompanied Hanzo to the Shirai-Ryu clan’s ruins, so he could finally bury dead ones left there forgotten by the world. Hanzo should have done that long ago, he knew, but the claw of fear clung to his heart for years and would not let it. The fear that Hanzo Hasashi never truly existed and he was a fraud, another lie begotten by Netherrealm. That there was no Harumi nor Satoshi and in the end he clinged so desperately to a nightmare that never was true to begin with. A nightmare for which he murdered the wrong person and brought someone else this maddening pain.

Seeing the ruins of home - the once so familiar bodies now just flesh spread out, glistening bones scattered everywhere, ripped and crushed, forgotten - was like dying again. Hanzo broke down and for the first time in a decade allowed himself to cry. Kuai Liang was there by his side, offering no wise words, nor comfort. He simply sat there, back to back with Hanzo, so he could know he wasn’t truly left alone this time yet quietly like a shadow to not disturb his grief. Hanzo would never forget this kindness for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t forget the sacrifice made that day by Sub-Zero to come to mortuary ruins, to bury another clan slaughtered without mercy in the name of madness and spite.

But with pain came also relief, that his memories were truly his and not another sweet lie whispered to his ear by a twisted sorcerer.

(Kuai Liang came here because it was the right thing to do. To pay respect and melt the dark past into a better future in which Shirai Ryu and Lin Kuei could be an ally, maybe even brothers in arms. He came for Hanzo, because no one did that for him, when he had countless bodies of comrades to bury after Sektor’s defeat and no one should be forced to do so alone. He came there also for himself, to see and be sure Bi-Han wasn’t part of the heartless crime. The hallmarks of a frontal attack, chaotic destruction and coarse, devoid of surgical precision violence were proof it wasn’t Bi-Han’s work. His brother would never be so sloppy, so random in his attack. He even told so Hanzo, in this moment of relief and social clumsiness and Scorpion just looked at him with the reddened eyes and did not burst in flame of anger, just… accepted the truth and Kuai Liang said no more about it.)

Scorpion was the person that stayed at Kuai Liang’s side when Frost betrayed her master and disappeared without a trace. He never liked the cryomancer girl - she reminded him too much of Sub-Zero who sought him for brother’s death. Young and brash, untamed, always snarling, spitting with venom in their face. But above everything else, Frost’s anger burned too hot like his own and he hated to look at her and to see himself.

Maybe losing such a precious student - an heir - was like losing a child. Hanzo understood this crushing feeling but there were no right words to offer. Even if he knew them, Sub-Zero did not want pity, did not want to talk. All he needed was a space to unleash fury and pain, the excess of emotions too large to bury them in the tomb of a cold heart. And so day after day, night after night, the ice and fire clashed over and over again until all muscles burned and the ache brought finally some peace. Not much, but enough to let Kuai Liang not dwell on his failure and focus on Grandmaster’s duties.

(There was something off about this whole situation but Hanzo couldn’t pick on what exactly. Kuai Liang had secrets he didn’t share, not yet and Hanzo respected his wishes, trusting Lin Kuei’s word. So far, Kuai Liang never had let him down. Scorpion trusted and it was terrifying on its own).

Those were the little steps into a path that brought them closer. It wasn't love for each other then, not even romantic infatuation, but love for the lost one, for family that was once but no longer. They understood this grief too well.

The first time Hanzo felt the pang of love, he and Kuai Liang were debating about the proper course of the upcoming mission. They were sitting in Hanzo’s room, with an open door leading to the Fire Garden. Then, without warning came spring rain and both looked out on instinct. The air was filled with the freshness of trees and flowers coming back to life; a freshness they breathed in greedily to wash out the taste of Netherrealm ash forever.

On that day, everything seemed to be in the right place. Just the two of them, sitting arm to arm delighted by the simplest things in life; a warm rain, nourishing garden, a steaming mug of tea between all of this. There was a peace Hanzo did not feel for ages and the sound of the rain and steady breath of his companion lulled him into half-sleep, half-awareness.

On that day, Hanzo wished to keep this moment forever.

The second time Hanzo felt something toward Kuai Liang, it was on Lin Kuei’s training ground. They spared, like they always did in their free or stressful time, but for whatever reason, Kuai Liang smiled at him, this soft, weirdly cocky smile he rarely shows in company and Hanzo looked at it for a few seconds too long before he understood how fast his heart beat, how warmness filled him - not the Netherrealm fire that burns through his muscles and bones, but warmth that he felt only around his wife and child. He wanted to kiss those lips, to feel its coldness on his own. It was wrong on so many levels and he did what he always does in times of overwhelming emotions he didn’t like. He disappeared into flames and ran the hell away from Sub-Zero’s smile. The burned holes to this day were the proof of his shameful panic.

Where did such obscene thoughts come from, he did not have an idea. But the guilt for having them even for a moment about Kuai Liang - any man, really - was too heavy, too suffocating to face Sub-Zero. So Hanzo avoided him for weeks.

And yet, he came back to Lin Kuei Temple. And again and again and again. Despite the burning shame, he sought out Kuai Liang, because only around him, the Netherrealm’s cursed fire cooled down enough to allow him to breathe.

So he danced, between disgrace and this weird feeling of happiness, of living again. Of seeking out the cryomancer and running away from horrific emotion he didn’t know how to get rid off, how to tame.

(Hanzo loved Harumi with all his heart. How could he love - desire - anyone else? And a man whose brother he unjustly killed?)

Kuai Liang decided to not discuss Scorpion’s emotional swings until Hanzo figured it out for himself what he truly wanted. There was no point to get involved into some sentimental drama if there was no hope for sensible agreement.

The Lin Kuei always desired a new generation of warriors, so sex wasn’t any taboo. Some warriors sought comfort in the arms of strange women and men, some between each other. Sex wasn’t forbidden but the emotions were. To feel loyalty or worse, love, to a fellow warrior instead of trusting the masters was a crime.

Kuai Liang did not feel any sudden pang of love toward Hanzo, nor any desire for physical contact. Romanticism never was part of any cryomancer’s nature. He missed his brother and Smoke, but year after year the pain of loss dulled enough to leave him with nothingness. Kuai Liang knew only this: somehow Scorpion became the only source of warmth that kept his heart from freezing completely.

Kuai Liang didn’t have a proper name for what twirled in his soul - a friendship or a love, how one could tell those apart? He wished his older brother or Smoke was there to tell him it was alright to like - care for - Hanzo, but both were dead and twisted into monsters. It was just him and his fragile, scarred heart to judge what was right and what was not. And hope Bi-Han would forgive him the weakness.

They find the balance that keeps both safe, warming the frozen heart and cooling down the neverending flame of anger. For a decade or so, it worked well.

But then Hanzo killed Quan Chi and ruined the chance to free revenants from sorcerer’s curse. The Champions of Earthrealm never liked Scorpion to begin with, now he was persona non grata. Rightly so. Imprisoned, he awaited their judgment. Scorpion could easily escape but chose not to - he was ready to face the consequences yet there was no court nor punishment. The Grandmaster of Lin Kuei came for him and made it clear to all representatives of the united governments and army that he will with Hanzo at his side, over their dead bodies if need be.

Twenty years was not enough time to forget what they together were capable of in fight. How dangerous and experienced murderers they were. No one dared to stop them when they left military base together.

Kuai Liang did not rely on words to show his feelings. Deeds always spoke more than any pretty speech. He was disappointed yet he still came for Hanzo. He saw Scorpion’s arrogance, egoism, breaking point and still came and that only made Hanzo love him more. For the first time, he did not feel shame or guilt for loving - and being loved - by another man.

Hanzo Hasashi’s choice almost brought destruction to the world yet somehow, this tragedy made them inseparable for good. It wasn’t always easy - they argued, for fun and for real and there were still rare days when it was only wise to stay away from each other. Like the day of Bi-Han’s unjust death and the lost chance to bring Harumi and Satoshi to life. They were beyond the primal hate yet some instincts were too strong to risk destroying what they built for themselves over the years.

Somehow through the years they changed from Sub-Zero and Scorpion to Grandmasters of their respective clans and from those to just Kuai Liang and Hanzo.

Hanzo wasn’t used to being so casually called by name but he liked the change. It was Sub-Zero’s voice, he suspected, that made him feel so attracted. At the same time, he felt honored when Kuai Liang told his birth - forbidden - name. He knew it already, for years, but it was different to know and be told, allowed, to use it freely.

Hanzo’s turbulent relationship with other Champions got worse once his student, Takeda started dating Jaqueline Briggs. The Champions distrusted and disliked him and he didn’t feel any need to reconcile with them. Kuai Liang was disappointed in him for treating the girl coldly but everytime asked why he still bothered to deal with Shirai Ruy Grandmaster, the answer was one and the same - he is my equal. For Hanzo it was the most beautiful and terrifying declaration.

(At the same time, everytime Hanzo heard someone accusing Sub-Zero of being cold, heartless, untouched by trauma, the anger burned him wholly. Who were they to judge, to mock Kuai Liang’s pain that hid so well under polite words and calmness? He did not care what people said about him, but would not stand any mockery against those he respected - loved - so much.)

Then of course another immortal being decided to screw up everything and messed up timelines. The younger, brash and mad version of Scorpion wasn’t something that Hanzo and Kuai Liang actually wanted to see, nor the repeat of Cyber Lin Kuei. Then Hanzo died and woke up, again trapped in Netherrealm. So he ran at the first chance, thinking more about Kuai Liang than about his own fears of burning alive in hell forever. The sight of Sub-Zero in hell should have alarmed him - and it did, for a moment, scare Hanzo that the other man died too which was an unbearable thought. But Kuai Liang was alive and so, so determined to bring him back home. If that wasn’t the loudest, the most tangible declaration of love, what else could it be?

And so, like twenty years ago, they fight side to side, like one body and soul. And destroyed, killed, tore apart demons and hellspawn, everything and everyone that stood in their way to freedom, to safety of Earthrealm’s boundaries. First time in ages, they could unleash their anger at those who hurt them, enslaved, and used. It felt so good, so right to be a storm of vengeful fury that frightened even the mighty Netherrealm. They were alive and together and nothing, no gods, titans or destiny, could stop them.

Kuai Liang and Hanzo did not talk much about their last visit in Netherrealm. What happened there was their and only their moment to relish, incomprehensible for bystanders. It was weird though, to come back to live and face his younger, stubborn self. Kuai Liang did not like this Scorpion much and to be honest, Hanzo did not like this version of himself too. It was Scorpion from the darkest time in their past, when only mutual hate connected them. At the same time, there was something amusing to see himself so awkward and uneasy everytime when Kuai Liang and older Hanzo sat so closely, relaxed and calm, like it was the normalest thing to do. When they acted like halves of the same soul.

Kuai Liang never was keen to show any romantic gestures but sometimes he took Hanzo’s hand to emphasize clearly what they were. Hanzo was always surprised by Sub-Zero’s openness and filled with joy, whereas his younger self was confused as hell. Hanzo suspected he would soon need to talk and explain to his younger self what he and Kuai Liang were to each other. Why they needed each other so much and how loving someone else other than Harumi was not dishonor. After all, love wasn’t sin nor weakness.

#mortal kombat #my replies #kuai liang #hanzo hasashi #sub zero #scorpion #my headcanons #long text #not sure if this is enough about romantic aspect of their relationship #and i will forever see kuai liang as asexual aromantic sorry not sorry at all #hanzo is emotional wreck #kuai is depressed and somehow they could work i guess?#thank you for ask!#i have more to say about the mk11 storyline but the text was already too long to bring bi han into the emotional life of his lil bro

29 notes · View notes