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darkclouds-rainsounds · 10 months

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The above is a screenshot of one of tropes from Shadoo's section in the SPM TV Tropes page that caught my interest.

“Never mentioned to be killed...” Hm. If I go by my headcanon of how Dimentio fits into the story of the Pixl Uprising (i.e he's both the Magician's son and the surviving apprentice who defeated the Pixl Queen), then that would give another parallel of how Dimentio was once a hero who had a Pixl that could see the truth who stopped an antagonist who had the Dark Prognosticus who several thousand years later switched sides. And by another parallel, I mean it works perfectly alongside this.

The reason Shadoo exists (if they are the Pixl Queen) is because he couldn't go through with killing his sister; he cared for her too much and now here she is stuck at the bottom of the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials and wanting to exact revenge on the Ancients for sealing her away. Based on how Shadoo has a robotic text box and says that they were created by the Ancients, it can be presumed she forgot she was ever human. She forgot who she was.

Fast forward to the events of SPM and Dimentio's intended kill-shot for Count Bleck gets intercepted by Nastasia and knocks her unconscious in addition to injuring her. Either he had the power of that shot just enough to kill Bleck and no further and that's why Nastasia survived, because why waste precious energy? All he has to do is finish Count Bleck off who is already at death’s door thanks to the heroes.

Or Nastasia was just very fortunate to survive a full-powered blast. My money's on something like the former because Dimentio has well more than enough power to absolutely guarantee no one would survive an attack like that. (the average person who isn't a hero or built for combat— which Nastasia very much isn't— anyway.)

Then there's him saving O'Chunks and Mimi from what would have been certain death by teleporting them to Dimension D. We know they didn't end up in the same place as Peach and Bowser because neither they nor O'Chunks and Mimi make any mention of such. Pair that with the fact that the Void can't be seen from Dimension D and thus heavily implying that anyone inside it would survive the Void that would destroy everything else, and you're left with the only explanation of Dimentio having saved them. I do believe that Dimentio screwed up by not only "catching feelings" and he genuinely did care for the other minions deep down as much as he tries to deny that; and I have mentioned in a prior post about him putting all of the people who could have possibly done something about the Super Dimentio fusion in the same place.

If he hadn't cared as much as he did for them and just left them to their fates, he would have won. I feel that the reason why the floor came out under Bowser and O'Chunks is because of Dimentio— because why make a trap like that that is intended to kill any who don't make it out in time and then have it to where after a certain amount of time, it would give any of the heroes still inside who may somehow still be alive an escape and make a comeback? It makes no sense. And it's because of that, that Peach was able to survive by landing on top of Bowser.

Had he only teleported Bowser out and left O'Chunks, and teleported Peach while leaving Mimi, the minions wouldn't have been able to band together with Count Bleck and Tippi to recharge the Pure Hearts and destroy his invincibility. It was his inability to go through with killing them or just letting them die because he actually cared about them— cared too much— that caused his own undoing.

History literally repeats itself if one subscribes to believing Dimentio is both the Magician's son and the last surviving apprentice.

First Shadoo who may or may not be the Pixl Queen, was spared by her brother who couldn't bear to go through with killing her therefore causing future consequences for if she ever gets free. Then the minions— including Nastasia and Count Bleck who for the latter, Dimentio in his ever present wisdom decided to spare killing for later— with their love for each other that was allowed to continue existing all because he spared them for the time being, recharged the Pure Hearts and caused immediate consequences for himself and was the catalyst for his defeat.

In the first instance, he was on the “heroic” side. For the last he was on the “villainous” side.

#super paper mario #spm #spm theory #dimentio #shadoo #pixl queen #this is ofc just a theory since dimentio is an enigma but i see parallels and go 👀#and also ofc things like nastasia surviving dimentio's kill-shot is just my interpretation of how she did so #and then there's the (fairly popular?) fanon that dimentio teleported mimi and o'chunks to dimension d rather than them flip in on their ow #but we know that they couldn't have done so on their own— at least not o'chunks who is consistently shown to be incapable of flipping #and flipping seems to /only/ work on the person themself and can't be used on selected targets (if that makes sense). dimentio is special #bc he's the only character who is shown to always /teleport/‚ not flip. and we are explicitly shown a scene of him clearly using his #teleportation on peach (he uses his teleportation on mr. l and the other heroes when he explodes them but it's disguised by said #explosions due to how distinct it is and considering how for many years a vast majority of the spm fandom believes he /actually/ killed the #when jaydes herself literally says otherwise‚ those examples of him teleporting people other than himself doesn't count) anyway. point is:#even if mimi could flip in on her own‚ o'chunks wouldn't have been able to get in. probably. bc tippi /does/ show the ability to flip #both herself and the heroes to flipside on several occasions‚ but this ability isn't displayed by /anyone else/ throughout the game so #it's not farfetched to believe that /only/ tippi can flip other people in addition to herself #so i still firmly believe dimentio was responsible for mimi and o'chunks getting into dimension d at the end (plus it's /his/ dimension‚ i #think he has full control over whether someone can or can't enter it)#i did not mean to put an entire essay in the tags oh no

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softguarnere · 1 year

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Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 9: An Inconvenience

Summary: Then the word reaches them: tonight.

A/N: A stormy day, but tumblr actually let me upload the moodboard, God bless 😌🙏🏼 I managed to make some progress in my term paper, so here's an update that I've been anticipating for a while. This chapter plus the next two have been giving me brain rot for months, so sharing them has me feeling like I can breathe a sigh of relief 🤭

Warnings: mentions of war and death

Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @mrs-murder-daddy @latibvles @lieutenant-speirs

England, 1944

The verdict is in: those who hadn’t already thought Sobel to be an inept leader lose faith the second that he gets Winters transferred into Battalion Mess. Hopes had started to sway after Luz’s little prank with his Major Horton impression, but the court martial against their favorite officer sends them all over the edge – the kind of edge that they can’t come back from: a mutiny among the NCOs.

A mutiny they get extremely lucky with. Sobel gets shipped off to a jump school, Winters returns, and Lieutenant Meehan of Baker Company gets put in charge of Easy. Most importantly, Zenie doesn’t have to watch any of her friends get taken out back and shot for their bravery and audaciousness. Whatever or Whoever they all believe in must be working overtime.

Lieutenant Meehan is a good leader. Very fair. Shifty tells her that he thinks their company goes back to normal under his leadership. Zenie is inclined to agree.

As normal as they can get, anyway.

The longer they’re in Aldbourne the higher their tensions climb. Like a plane, inching higher, higher, higher into the sky until the green light comes on. Paratroopers drink like it’s the last drop of alcohol they’ll ever taste. Fights break out in the pubs. Girls are picked up. Hearts get broken. It’s all a blur of hurry up and wait while they wonder what’s coming.

The whole of Easy Company seems to breathe a sigh of relief when they get the orders to move out in late May. The night before they leave, a few of them who are quartered in the stable carve their names into its wood as a sort of farewell. After everyone else has fallen asleep, Zenie rolls over in her bunk, flips open her pocket knife, and carves hers up near the roof. Zena B McGlamery. The first time she’s written it in a while. Now no matter what happens to her, someone, one day, might look at this and know that she was here, just like all these men who surround her. She will have left her mark.

Uppottery is a different kind of blur – of orders and plans and preparations and studying. The mood shifts from restless to excited as the realization hits them that it’s finally happening. Luz gets plenty of practice with his Colonel Sink impression as he takes to quoting the man’s, “Three days and three nights of hard fightin’!” the way that people back home quote Bible verses when they have seemingly nothing else to say.

“Don’t seem like a problem,” Shifty says that night at dinner. He seems sincere enough, in that completely and honestly earnest way that he has of expressing himself. He shrugs. “I reckon a man can make it through just about anythin’ as long as it’s only three days.”

Popeye cracks a grin. “As long as we throw everythin’ we got at ‘em, those Krauts ain’t gonna last even one!”

His proclamation earns cheers and laughs of agreement. Somehow, Zenie finds that she laughs the loudest. If she and everybody else had that much gusto, then maybe the Virginian’s estimation will prove to be correct. All they have to do is make it from the plane to the ground, stir up some trouble to take German attention and resources away from the beaches, and stay alive. Simple. It’s the moment that they’ve spent years preparing for.

Then the word reaches them: tonight.

The airfield becomes a flurry of activity. Once again the tension climbs higher, higher, higher, with no sign of release in sight.

All around, men are streaking their faces with paint to darken them so that they won’t reflect in the moonlight. Some are staring watery-eyed at letters that they tuck close to their hearts before pulling their gear on. Prayers can be heard in between the sounds of laughter and barely controlled chaos. Joe Liebgott is giving people mohawks.

“Hey Tommy,” he calls out as she passes. He gestures towards the hair of the man sitting under his scissors. “You want one?”

For the second time since commencing this whole charade, she’s faced with the choice of cutting her hair. Sure, Liebgott has trimmed her hair for her throughout their time in the army, but this is more than a trim. Suddenly she’s a child again, sitting on the back porch watching Granny trim Matthew's hair and telling her, "But never yours, Zenie. That's where you keep your knowledge. That's where you keep your strength." Ironic, how cutting her hair to run away had taken the most strength and courage out of anything she had ever done in her life. But to cut it again?

She watches the paratroopers around her, all securing their equipment and darting around with adrenaline. She’s one of them, until the end. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Liebgott catches the change she flips him with ease as she takes a place in line. "Do your worst."

And she would let him do it, if it weren’t for Shifty nodding to her as he passes by.

She steps out of line and falls into step with him. “Where ya goin’?”

“Gotta sign my life insurance policy. You signed yours yet?” The question is much deeper than the one that he presents. The real one is written in the curious look he gives her: can a person committing fraud commit even more fraud without getting caught?

Zenie waves it off. “Nah. I figure if I die, they won’t be too keen on giving my family any money. Someone’ll probably send ‘em a letter of condemnation instead. If, you know . . .”

Shifty frowns and she immediately feels bad for joking about it. In her defense, she’s already accepted things as they are . . . For the most part, anyway. That little crease appears between Shifty’s eyebrows in a way that tells her that he’s puzzling through this.

“But your family should get the money somehow.”

Making sure Mama gets the money would be nice. But her father would probably get ahold of it somehow. Magician that he is, he would have no trouble making it disappear to God knows where. He would probably blow through it before Mama could even think about getting Zenie some sort of marker up in the Bird Town cemetery by Granny. If she doesn’t hate Zenie for what she’s done, anyway.

My family doesn’t know I’m in the Army, she had explained to Shifty once in a half-truth. She hadn’t been able to tell him why at the time, but the fib must make sense to him now.

“Zena,” he says her name – her real name – quietly so that no one around them will hear it. Her heart beats so uncontrollably at the sound of it that she’s sure it’ll bring everyone’s attention to them, but no one seems to notice. “If somethin’ happens to you –“

McClung brushes past them, cutting him off. “Hurry up, slow pokes! We’re gonna be late to the feast!”

For this night only, they’re treated like kings. Steaks, potatoes, milk. Even ice cream for dessert! They all make the most of it, vaguely aware that this might be their last meal, although everyone has the decency not to point this out.

Toye snickers as he digs his spoon into his ice cream. “As long as they don’t make us run Currahee after this.”

Running Currahee. Sobel. The spaghetti. It all seems like so long ago. All that time to prepare her for being here, today, for this jump.

There is no running Currahee after their last supper. Instead the tension that’s been steadily building all day deflates like a popped balloon when it’s announced that the jump is cancelled.

Despite the cocktail of excitement, resignation, and adrenaline pumping through her veins, Zenie breathes a sigh of relief as she sheds her gear and heads off to watch a movie with the others. So much for tonight being the night of nights.

She’s just about to step into the tent with the movie screen when someone shouts for her.

“Tommy!” Sergeant Lipton’s light hair weaves through the crowd as he pushes his way toward her. He’s a kind man, and always looks at each in their company with solemn eyes that seem to take in everything. Absolutely inscrutable himself, though. Now that he’s trying to catch up with her, Zenie wishes more than ever that she could figure out what’s going on in his head.

She offers him a salute that he waves off.

Okay, so she’s not in trouble then.

“Been looking everywhere for you.” He brandishes an envelope and holds it out to her. “Got stuck in between some of my mail. And we all need some words of encouragement from home before we go.”

Bobby’s usually neat slant adorns the outside of the envelope in letters that are darker and spaced closer together than usual. The envelope feels thicker than the other ones that he’s sent her in the past. It’s rushed, just restraining itself from frantic, the way that he used to write on his homework in between serving tables at the diner.

She nods her thanks, expecting the end of it.

“Tommy?”

“Yes?”

Lipton eyes the letter in her hand. “You didn’t fill out the life insurance policy.”

There’s no question mark at the end of his words – it’s a statement of fact. How does he know? Then again, how does he know any of the things he always seems to have knowledge of?

“No, Sir.”

“There’s no one back home that you want that money to go to?”

She wants the money to go to her mother. But there’s no way of sending it to her without giving herself away. After all, Tommy Driver’s father’s name appears on every form she’s filled out up until now. Asking a Lily McGlamery to receive money in the event of her death might raise some eyebrows.

“There’s no one that I can send the money to.” Before he can gain the upper hand by asking something she might not be able to answer, she tries to explain it away with a conclusion she’s reached on sleepless nights of waiting. “If I die, it won’t be an inconvenience to anyone. They won’t need money to fill my space.”

A frown tugs at Lipton’s mouth. His eyes dart back to the letter in her hands. “I’m not entirely sure that’s true. I think that someone would miss you.” When she doesn’t respond, he turns to go. “Maybe just reconsider it, Driver. After all, the money doesn’t have to go to a direct family member.”

He leaves her by herself to consider it. A direct family member. She could leave it to Bobby, maybe. He could make sure that the money goes to her mother.

Quiet – the first quiet that she’s experienced since coming to Uppottery – settles over her little solitude as the movie inside the tent starts up. She stands, alone, outside of it, a slight breeze whipping at her hair as she watches Lipton retreat. Silence has never been her friend. It’s always allowed her too much time to get inside her head. Especially back home, in her room – a reminder of siblings that have gone, family that have passed, and friends that did not exist.

Before it can consume her, she tears open Bobby’s letter. She’s watched everyone else get letters from loved ones. Watched as the men soaked up their words and carried them like a badge that will fortify them through the big jump. Hell, Tab even got sent a gun by the cops in his town as a gift. Part of her, she can admit now, was jealous in knowing that she wouldn’t have that.

Well, now she does. Good old Bobby.

Multiple pages slide out of the envelope. But it doesn’t seem like Bobby has all that much to say. Because the top page is a short note written in his rushed, anxious handwriting:

Dear Tommy, it begins. Please don’t be mad. I swear I didn’t tell anyone.

#Zenie's mom name reveal hehe #the fact that everyone in her family gets a name EXCEPT her father is so important to me actually #also the urge to write a chapter from Zenie's mom's pov is so strong 🤌🏼👀#band of brothers #band of brothers fanfic #band of brothers x oc #shifty powers x original female character #shifty powers #shifty powers x ofc #band of brothers imagine #oc zenie mcglamery #like a girl (like a man)#my writing

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