#the end is literally also called terminus
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The Ones Who Live - Season Two
synopsis (in my head)
8935% Speculation
Rick doesn’t want to see anybody.
He is cocooning with his family trying to get to know the children and reaquanted with Michonne. He has become a house husband cooking and walking his children to school.
The Brave Man is now the “I don't want to be bothered man”. All he wants to do with his second chance is to love on his wife who is pregnant and care for his children. Let someone else be the HERO.
The community may have fond feelings for him but what he remembers from his last days is that Carol abandoned him on the bridge project and Daryl and Maggie colluded behind his back to kill Negan...setting him on a course of being impaled by rebar.
Rick and Michonne welcome twin girls Sasha and Rosita true female warriors. He joins a “Daddy daycare” group with Eugene.
Morgan arrives (harbinger of change) and tells him about Texas. Still Rick doesn’t want to know.
Meanwhile, in the background we see that factions of the CRM are reforming. Rick and Michonne are starting to put the pieces together of how the CRM has been entwined in their lives since the Sanctuary.
Inciting Incident
They are attacked , my guess they are at the Commonwealth. Someone close to them dies... Ezkiel, Eugene, Morgan...
Aaron finally come cleans because the CRM has been dismanteled, that he Rick was right from the start. The big revelation is that Alexandria was a CRM outpost. When he found them in the barn he was looking for people to trade to the CRM for protection and supplies. That truck Rick and Daryl found was meant to exchange for the A’s Rick, Michonne and Daryl. The ones that Deanna wasn’t going to give jobs. They literally stamped an A on Rick’s hand.
However, I think that Aaron talked Deanna out of it because he saw and heard how they worked together to save themselves, and how they saved his boyfriend. Instead, Deanna decided to have Rick and Co teach them how to survive.
Over in CRM ville, Thorn didn't die she is now helping to achieve order... but she is over her head and calls Rick to help. Sumptin sumtin happens and she is really killed this time leaving Rick in charge of the CRM.
Michonne sends her people out to find the Caravan people with Elle. She offers them an opportunity to settle with them in Cascadia and Portland. Just in the nick of time because the megaherd has changed course and was headed directly towards them.
Flashback: Nat teaching the others how to make incindiaries
Rick reaches out to old aquaintences like Carol but warns her that there are spies amongst them and sends her on a quest to find Daryl and tell him about the worldwide network that still exists with the leftovers of the CRM. That he needs to shut it down in Europe. This is why Carol was so matter of fact on the phone with Daryl.
Flashbacks: The photo that Jadis took of Rick when she was holding him in his underwear in the container marked with an A is seen in the hands of Okafor. Okafor knew who Rick was before he arrived and that is why he picked him out from day one. I think Okafor had a profile of Rick starting with the Terminus people who also were going to trade Rick to the CRM. They had put him in the railroad carriage marked with an A and they had marked Father Gabriel church with an A. Three times Rick was marked with an A: Terminus, Alexandria and Jadis. Okafor has been seeing Rick's name come up for years so was shocked that he finally landed in his hands... and this is why Jadis was rapidly promoted.
The season is filled with these revelations and the biggest towards the end is that Negan was also part of the CRM. Rmember when he put an A on Daryl and that his whole set up was eeirly simialr to that of the CRM. He hid his base of operations. They had fuel outposts. Delineation between that As and Bs and one Commander. He was trying to get all of his "wives" pregnant. I was rewatching and Negan said he took it from some "military guy". The big giveaway is if Okafor had Deanna’s video of Rick… last seen in Negan’s hands.
I think the real reason Negan killed Simon was because he had killed all the CRM in Jadis's camp. The reason Jadis hamburgered them was because she was taking a stand against the CRM otherwise she could have easly called them to collect "fresh specimens".
This season is going to take on a whole new tone. There will not be one big baddie but several smaller fires that need to be put out. Perhaps Beale's son could be seen as the Big Baddie but that is so "expected" that I think it will not happen. What I think will happen is a several groups acting independently which increases the stakes substantially, because it is no longer about getting rid of one person, cutting the head off of the snake.
They also have to deal with the mega hoards that the CRM created.
Rick has to come clean. He did something that he say he could never tell Michonne.
The first season already hinted how it is connected to TWD Daryl Dixon and TWD Dead City. The boat yard that Michonne was looking for I think is somehow connected to the Atlantic crossings to Europe and connected to Okafor “supposedly” finding Thorne in the ocean something about her story doesn’t add up. The midnight raid that Rick and Thorne did when they found the little girl I think is somehow related to Dead City. Dead City produces its own fuel and we saw the fuel trucks.
I was going to write several posts about the breadcrumbs Gimple has leaft over the years but decided to just do one speculative post on how they would be introduced. The interesting thing is I was writing this 8 years ago but I deleted my old tumblr account.
Thoughts???
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reasons why i wouldn't survive camp jupiter
octavian. everything ab him would freak me out or annoy me or both. he'd steal my owl plushie collection and i'd bawl my eyes out all the way home regardless of how many monsters may smell me
the tattoo thing. i have extreme commitment issues and what if it turns out ugly on me ?!?! also i have a low pain tolerance and i think octavian does them so another con
hannibal the elephant. id be on the tour of camp and see it and IMMEDIATELY run cz fym u have a war elephant
having to watch jeyna tiptoe around each other. very self explanatory.... if i were a camp jupiterian and jason came back w piper id end my life for reyna ✊🏼
the ghosts (i forgot what they were called). honestly i cant explain this one i just think they'd rly freak me out LMAO
terminus. he'd just make me incredibly anxious like yes i have no weapons on me but what if as soon as i cross the border a weapon magically appears in my bag ?!?! will he obliterate me ??? also what if theres an attack and im inside the borders weaponless like....
the whole process of getting into a cohort. wdym i need a letter of recommendation ?????? what if i had no idea this whole other world existed till now???? literally biased towards camp jupiter nepo babies. also the having to stand there and watch as people considered VOLUNTEERING to let me into their cohort... would rather die like imagine no one wants u 😣 j let me stay in my godly parent assigned cabin
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I think overall there’s one of two „big“ problems happening for people who have a problem with TOWL (racists and the likes aside… 🙄).
1- The misunderstanding that this was truly much more a Rick and Michonne story than a TWD one. This was not TWD S12. It was about telling the story of these 2 characters and being able to put a dot at the end (or a dot dot dot). And you’ve laid all of that out perfectly. Like yes, in TWD, Beale (& the CRM) would have been draaaaagged out. But this was much more of a Terminus approach than a Saviors one if we will…
2- TWD was never the most ..subtle show. They tended to hit the audience over the head with stuff. And I’m not sure I would go as far as calling TOWL subtle outright either (idk, didn’t think about this until right this moment lol -obviously elements of it are, sure -just as elements on TWD could be on the subtler side) but compared to TWD, it certainly is lol. And there has been a very big „media literacy“ and „basic comprehension skills“ problem happening for a minute now. And I really don’t say this to be mean or make fun of people or anything but these are just facts. Some people really struggle with getting the information when they are not being hit over the head with it, over and over and over again. After the finale I saw several posts on my tl of people wondering why this, that or the other was not addressed or how/why this, that or the other did happen… and I was utterly confused because those things they claimed were missing were very much shown? I was like, there was literally a scene dealing with all of this? And it didn’t require any reading between the lines to be honest, no subtext, it was very much the text of the scene?! So it seems like some people just didn’t get a lot of things that were happening 🫤
(BTW I don’t mean that even if someone didn’t have these specific problems with the show, they MUST love it then. Likes and dislikes etc etc. As much as I really loved the show as a whole, if I decided to put down the Richonne-colored glasses I wanted to and did watch to the show with.. I’d definitely have a few complaints lol, though still very much enjoyed the show even then)
That's definitely what happened. And to some extent, I get why, considering Rick and Michonne are 2/3 of the main show's Big Three. But when the press and promos started, and people were still talking about some Marvel-style meet-up, I was like...oh they're definitely not listening to what's being said, because it's six damn episodes, and also The Richonne story, not the Team Family jamboree. And then acting as if it's somehow 'insulting' to the rest of the characters if Rick and Michonne didn't talk about them. The man had PTSD so bad, he couldn't remember his own son's face. Why would you think it would be good time for him to pause in the middle of his wife telling him about a traumatic moment during her pregnancy to ask about anyone else? Please be fr.
I feel you on the comprehension thing, which is nothing new for this fandom. The fact that so many people legit thought Rick didn't know how to drive stick and questioned the 'realism' of it but never stopped to think that it was because he only has one damn hand. Y'all were fine with every silly ass moment that happened in the main show, that was either sheer dumb luck or handwaved away, but now we need a complete breakdown from experts on how Rick managed to fight off walkers one-handed. Now y'all want the realism, when you've been so giddy for weeks because you need one of them to die for the show to be 'interesting'.
I'm really not listening to people who need the narrative to hold their hand through everything, or need to see every piece of the plot onscreen for it to be considered 'legitimate'. (I'm officially banning the phrase 'plot armor' for the foreseeable future).
People didn't get things, because they don't take a minute to sit with the damn material anymore. From live reactions videos to live tweeting/blogging, people are just watching TV to make content and have an online moment, not for what's actually being shown. And yeah, TOWL isn't perfect, but the minor criticisms I have for it doesn't take away from the fact that it is very enjoyable and easily the best material from the TWD landscape in a long time.
(sidenote: I will say one of my favorite things from these past six weeks is everyone struggling to figure out the overall TWD timeline, lmao.)
#.answered#towl spoilers#twd: the ones who live#richonne#I am once again rambling#but I appreciate the message!
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As much as I love s1, this was infuriating. Empires s1 as tma entities. The explanations are longer because these guys were a lot harder to pin down.
Fwhip: DESOLATION (blows everything up, literally sets fire to all the empires, The Ravening Burn)
Gem: EYE (OBSESSED with knowledge and knowing things, even at a detriment to her own safety, not really sure on this one)
Sausage: SLAUGHTER (Xornoth tomfoolery, driven "mad with slaughter")
Pearl: EXTINCTION (catastrophic change/destruction of nature, god in a world where all her friends have already died, The Terrible Change)
Scott: LONELY (it's a Scott character, the ice, made SEVERAL attempts to isolate himself, alone in his duty to defeat Xornoth, The One Alone)
Jimmy: BURIED (how he makes alliances, chokingness of the Cod Council, world feeling closed in on him, I also just really like the contrast with Lizzie, The Centre)
Lizzie: VAST (expanse of the ocean, Book of Prophesies for all time even after they die and the existentialism that comes with that, The Falling Titan)
Joel: SPIRAL (colors, often called the Mad King, overall insane)
Joey: CORRUPTION (more Xornoth tomfoolery, the unhealthy obsession)
Pix: END (whole thing with the Vigil, Terminus)
Katherine: WEB (her communication with the Spring, web of flowers she can communicate with, The Hidden Machination)
Shrub: HUNT (gets hunted, hunts as the Wolf Spirit, wolf motif, Everchase)
#empires smp#tma x esmp#esmp x tma#fwhip#geminitay#mythicalsausage#pearlescentmoon#scott smajor#solidarity gaming#ldshadowlady#smallishbeans#joey graceffa#pixlriffs#katherine elizabeth gaming#shubble
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i had no idea there were more than two parts for red sky…
could you tell us what you had planned for it if you won’t write it anymore?
rip I guess you're an ao3 reader? I gotta upload the remaining chapters like actually 😭
yes I can try to give an outline based on what I can remember!! there were actually supposed to be three parts to this series:
red sky at morning was meant to keep following the series until the beginning of S3 (so when they just get to the prison)
a oneshot sequel called goodbye days was supposed to cover that one arc in S3 where daryl nearly leaves with merle
then a longer sequel called dark side of the moon was supposed to cover everything from the fall to the prison to alexandria, with terminus being the narrative focal point (😬)
the major events for the remaining chapters of red sky are as follows:
(warnings: pregnancy, sa, abortion, domestic abuse discussions)
lori reveals to you that she is pregnant with shane's child; she also reveals to you that shane assaulted her in the cdc and you become severely distrustful of him
you try to help lori with safely getting an abortion (rather than letting her attempt the self-induced one in canon); this would involve trying to get to a clinic in atlanta, which daryl strongly doesn't want you to do because it's too dangerous
rick discovers these abortion plans and blows up at you (just like how he blew up at lori in canon); this, in turn, provokes daryl into fighting with rick and lori (who he is none too happy with as he gets the impression that she has just been using you)
eventually this escalates into an argument between you and daryl (because you need him to calm down but you always just seem to accidentally piss him off 😔✌️), where he blows up severely at you and makes both you and sophia jump
daryl notices how much he's scared you both and essentially leaves the farm for the next 24ish hours to cool off
this is a crucial turning point for the both of you. for daryl, he has to confront his anger management problems for the first time, processing the fact that he has traits of the men who abused him (his father and his brother), and he comes to realise that he is afraid of hurting you in the way he has been hurt
on your end, sophia (herself a victim of abuse from her father) is voicing a fear that you desperately want to reject: is daryl an abusive man? can you trust him? if you are in love with him (this is when you realise you have feelings for him btw lol), will the two of you end up being as broken as her parents?
the answer is no! after a few days, daryl returns and apologizes very clearly to you for yelling at you, and vows that "he won't be that kind of man" to you [as in, the kind of man who neglects and disappoints his loved ones/family], and that instead he'll treat you right
this isn't a romantic confession, but it is supposed to ~feel~ romantic. it also kind of cements your relationship as a very intimate and soul-baring one, where daryl wants to be better for you... because he loves you... but he doesn't know that yet lol
further cementing this emotional intimacy: later on, daryl finally allows you to look at his arrow wound, which leads to you seeing his back - which is covered in scars from his father's abuse. he reveals to you that he was beaten as a child, and this is when you get a more complete understanding of him as a person
anyway. back to all the drama with rick and lori and shane! as I said before, you fucking HATE shane. bro cannot be trusted in your eyes. on the other hand, rick and lori now trust you a lot because you clearly demonstrated that you had their best interests at heart. (also now that lori is pregnant and actually intends on giving birth, they literally need you for prenatal care purposes, so 👍)
consequently, when shane tries the whole setup at the end of S2 where he pretends that randall(?) ran into the woods and they all need to go track him down... you call bullshit. you tell rick that shane should stay at the farm with the rest of you and that rick can take glenn and daryl instead, and rick actually listens to you.
at this point, it is abundantly clear to shane that you have it out for him so the two of you get INTO IT. the girls are fightingggg. t-dog intervenes and an altercation occurs where a gun is somehow accidentally fired. eventually the two of you manage to handcuff shane and lock him into the barn (lol).
the gunshot has the same effect as the original finale of S2 - the walkers nearby hear it and all converge on the farm. everyone needs to evacuate and gets split up during the process. you take the time to free shane from his cuffs, but he runs off after that. shane survives but his whereabouts are unknown at the end of S2.
at some point between this point and the prison, you and daryl get together. truthfully I never actually figured when/how. I know you definitely made the first move because his undersocialized ass could never 👍
in addition to shane surviving, lori ALSO does not die during S3 because you actually give her a proper c-section! sorry to the lori haters but miss doctor has a hippocratic oath to maintain 😔 but also note that the reader has been haunted the whole time by her inability to save the babies in the NICU at the outset of the apocalypse, but now you are able to bring baby judith safely into the world and keep her momma alive. it is a good ending, lori haters. I promise!
goodbye days
(no major warnings)
this was basically my way of covering the prison arc without fully covering the prison arc, which I couldn't do specifically because they got a fucking swine flu outbreak in the show that was extremely significant to the plot. miss doctor would not have let it happen though ahhldjdkfjajdsk she knows not to keep sick pigs and humans in such close proximity together 👍
anyway this does actually cover off on some significant plot points. the story reveals that shane is now at woodbury with merle and the governor; he is basically one of the governor's henchmen. incidentally, while lori survived her c-section in this timeline, she dies because of some kind of an attack from the governor, which shane is implied to have been involved in. merle implies that he ran off afterward, and now his whereabouts are unknown.
however, the main crux of the story is not shane LMAO. the actual focus is that one episode where daryl left the prison to stay with merle (who glenn did not allow into the prison). needless to say, you are gutted by it because it means you have to break up with the love of your life. daryl finds that he cannot simply abandon his brother on the spot and gives you a time/meeting place two days from now - you can meet him there either to join him or to say goodbye.
this is a terrible time 💔 for you 💔 and also the rest of the prison 💔 because they have to listen to you cry and wail over your impending breakup 💔 and it is especially sad for sophia because lowkey you and daryl are her godparents. this man is giving her hella abandonment issues atm
anyway you do come to a realization eventually that daryl has only left with merle because merle is family - but equally, you are his family. not just you, but the entire prison. so when you meet him at the 48 hour time point, you give him a bunch of supplies and food, but you don't go with him, and you don't say goodbye - you tell him instead that you'll wait for him at home.
daryl is very surprised by this. he does eventually go back to the prison (as per canon) and he asks, then, how you figured he'd come back. you tell that it's because "I know you're not the type of man who'd run out on your family or hurt us like that" and it's a big narrative deal okay I am doing those season 1 callbacks . DARYL SAID HE WOULDN'T BE THAT KIND OF MAN TO YOU AND HE ISN'T!!!!!!
okay onto terminus. this is where shit starts getting kinda unhinged.
dark side of the moon
(MAJOR trigger warnings for rape, pregnancy, miscarriage, and shane walsh lol. also cannibalism because... terminus)
so the governor blows up the prison and everyone scatters. daryl and beth get paired off together like in canon; you and sophia are once again together as well! unfortunately, your S4 time together is much worse than your S2 time.
possibly the most agonizing thing about this time around is that you are pregnant with daryl's child (like month 2, so you aren't showing yet), which ordinarily would be a GOOD thing!!!!! but not when the baby daddy and the rest of the group is literally missing and your home has been exploded rip. daryl also does not know that you're pregnant btw my apologies this is already so messy
I can't remember the details anymore but I think there were a bunch of biker jackasses in S4 who tried to assault carl and I think daryl rode with them at one point? I don't remember. anyway, they unfortunately come across the reader and sophia at one point. like every twd fic in the fandom's heyday, there is an attempted sexual assault on the reader.
unlike every twd fic, as well as the actual show itself, they actually do rape her. I hate this "attempted rape" as a plot device kind of trope that was literally everywhere in both the show AND the fandom lol and thus I decided to go all in for my own story... apologies for making you suffer due to my creative whims.
anyway. what ultimately saves the reader is actually shane, who has been living in the area and I suppose just kind of following the movements of you and sophia ever since the prison scattered? he intervenes, stops the rape, and helps sophia kill the assailant.
this puts you into a very weird conundrum. you do not want shane around because you remember that he is a psycho who tried to kill his best friend and also attempted to rape his best friend's wife. on the other hand, shane just saved you from a rapist, and you are not in a position to be rejecting his help.
ultimately, it is sophia who convinces you to let shane stay with the two of you. she has no visibility into all the drama with lori and rick in S2, so she has no reason to dislike shane. what she DOES remember of shane is that when she was a little girl in that quarry, he was the police officer who was always trying to look out for her and her mom because he knew something wasn't right with her dad. she has an exceedingly good impression of him and weirdly enough? he wants to live up to her perception of him as a good person.
you really could care less what shane wants like you still want this man to choke lmao but sophia feels better with him around and you're additionally having. a mental breakdown from the various traumatic things you're going through so you're like "sure he can stay 👍"
so the three of you make your way to terminus, and the whole fic becomes "how the fuck do I as a pregnant person stay healthy during a zombie apocalypse!" and it is very, very sad because it makes you think of lori, and it makes shane think of lori, and he gets acutely emotional over her, which intensely disgusts you at first but eventually you come to realise that shane regrets his actions when it comes to her.
he also develops this strange fixation on you. I don't want to call it feelings per se, but I think he thinks they're feelings lol and it makes him very obsessive over keeping you safe/alive. it is literally because he is projecting all his regrets over lori on you, which is intensely uncomfortable, but you tolerate it because you are not in a position to reject his help.
unfortunately, right before you get to terminus, you start to miscarry. shane manages to get you there, and they provide medical aid, but at great moral cost: while you are incapacitated, he agrees on your behalf that the three of you will join the terminus community. later on, the two of you show your commitment to terminus' ideals by sharing a meal with its leaders and eating human flesh.
anyway it isn't all that bad 😎 because when rick & co are captured at terminus it means that you and shane (and sophia) can actually help them escape. so shane sort of gets into the group's good graces.
rick does NOT want shane around tho godbless. he wants to kill him legit. but sophia vouches for him, and unfortunately you now have to vouch for him too. so shane rejoins the group (on thin ice) and shockingly doesn't cause problems. (I will also say right now that negan kills him instead of glenn later 👍 yes that is my long game reason for keeping shane around. TAKE HIM, NOT GLENN!!)
you, however, are causing problems in your relationship </3 it is not your fault but you have a lot of very severe intimacy problems with daryl. you have a lot of difficulty telling him that you were pregnant, and that you were assaulted, and also that you had to fucking eat human flesh. though he does figure out the last part pretty quickly by himself and literally does not care (lol). he also easily figures out that you were assaulted, but he understands that he needs to let you talk about that at your own pace.
I don't think you are able to properly open up to daryl about everything until you're settled in alexandria - when you actually feel like you've actually made a home together with him. this is partly because you've otherwise been too focused on survival, but also because you've been afraid that he will see you differently after having learned of all these things that you were forced to go through, and that he may not want you anymore. you are a very different person from who you were at the outset of red sky at morning; the apocalypse has changed you in a way that scares you.
but - after hearing daryl refer to your shared house as a home, and hearing him say repeatedly that you are his family, his wife, his own, and also being repeatedly counselled by sophia and carol that things will be okay - you do remember that daryl promised that he wouldn't be the type of man who would leave you or hurt you. so very, very quietly - under a red sky at night - you start to tell him about the daughter you would have had, and how she kicked every time you whispered daryl's name to her, and how sophia named her rose after the cherokee roses that daryl used to give her mother hope.
(yes. we are obsessed with narrative in this household. and with keeping glenn alive)
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Time travel in Hi3 works differently though. The entire reason everyone was panickedly trying to stop Otto's plans was because he made them believe he was going to bring everyone in Kolosten at the time to the past, except by doing so he'd also be completely erasing the current timeline. The plot twist ended up being that Otto arranged everything and grabbed a stupid amount of power, turning himself into a being who was able to channel Herrscher Authority directly through the Imaginary Tree just for the sake of using a method that would give his Kallen her own timeline while leaving the current timeline unharmed but it also took all of that power and literally erasing his own existence. I think it was even implied that past-Otto was also erased but I'm not sure. There might be beings and technology in Star Rail that could allow more seamless and less catastrophic time travel but the only one we know for sure who could do that for now is Terminus, who's said to move backwards in time and has been implied to change the present from the past.
Otto and Kallen's relationship is so interesting. What Otto feels for her can't even be called love anymore. Yet, it also isn't an obsession. To Otto, Kallen is sort of like the personification of all that is good in the world. Otto erased himself from existence just so that he could give Kallen a future, even if he wouldn't be there to witness it. In my opinion, a more accurate word to describe what he feels for her isn't "love," but "worship." Unwavering faith like how you'd worship a god.
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Oooh tell me your backstory for Rob
*cracks knuckles*
I'm going to give you the shorter version because I've literally scripted out scenarios at random locations and shit 😭 also for clarification I'm talking about the TV show twd rather than the comics, I'm too poor to get the comics 😔
so rob and my oc (calling her irene/kane from here) meet for the first time during their amazon expedition. Basically, it's the same starter plot from extinction just without the dinosaur lmao. So, about two weeks into the expedition is when the outbreak begins, the group gets a panicked radio message from one of the plane operators or something that we can barely understand.
A couple group members get freaked out and run off to the vehicle, leaving irene, rob, and professor what's his name behind.
They begin heading to Mexico, avoiding cities, around the thinner area between Brazil and Mexico rob and kane end up losing the professor. They continue to head up to the states, taking a pitstop in Texas because kane was always wanted to see the Houston Museum of Natural Science and Rob is such a boyfriend 🥹
The continue heading up to Washington D.C and end up getting captured at Terminus with Rick's group, they help Rick's group escape and get welcomed to travel with them, where they end up going to Alexandria. The two of them don't actually get together until after the vist to the museum, because I'm a whore with daddy issues and needed to have an age gap (21/22 - 33-34 roughly) so rob never made a move until she was around 23/24 making him 35/36, around the time they meet Rick's group, around 2 years into the apocalypse.
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My Re-Watch of Ghosts, Part 4
@wdway:
I can't wait to read your next Carol/Beth timeline segment, @galadrieljones! It fit well with @twdmusicboxmystery's thoughts from Ghosts. The photos below I believe was to emphasize the white cross on the black crate (that also has diamond shapes) and the black car white cross car that carried away Beth from the funeral home.
I don't know if you realize though that there is another tie with Carol's car and Beth, on top of the crate is a IV bag. Which would connect to Beth's IV bag and foreshadows Carol at Grady being watched over and protected by Beth. I can envision the scene and hear Beth telling Carol, "I just want you to know I was here," (paraphrasing.) Loving all of this!
@galadrieljoness:
Oh I forgot about that line. I feel like the fact that Beth speaks to Carol solidifies that Carol was embedded in her timeline, even if only for a little while!! I’m actually super relieved my thoughts are coherent lol. I was so tired when I typed this and I feel like I reordered it and reread it like three times before hitting send so like my brain had gone to bits and I was like “Welp here goes nothing!!”
@wdway:
I've been thinking about how Carol somewhat has no time nor physical boundary. I just wanted to point out that that Maggie, Glenn and Company came in the front. Rick and Company came in the back and reunited in the A train car, but even though we saw Carol shooting rockets into Terminus, we never actually saw her enter nor did we see her leave. It is as if she didn't physically come or go. She was simply there, suspended in space and in time. See, I have been reading and thinking about what you are saying about Carol and time.
@galadrieljones:
That’s super good! It’s true. She just sort of materializes inside and then suddenly she’s in the woods taking off her camouflage. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about!!
I mean honestly Carol really is sort of like a ghost. Her entire strategy for survival is basically to remain as invisible as possible. It makes a lot of sense based on her past abuse. Daryl exhibits similar tendencies but while Daryl will literally just disappear or simply stay quiet, Carol is more of a chameleon. She can be anyone, fit in anywhere. The ruthless killer, the happy homemaker. She infiltrates the CW via her connections with Lance. She infiltrates the Wolves, infiltrates the Whisperers by manipulating Negan. She infiltrates Terminus. If and when Melissa returns she would be the perfect character to infiltrate the CRM.
@wdway:
I think I have mentioned this before but I'll tell you about it again it concerns codas. There are two others I think we could call them official TWD coda's although they're not in season episodes.
The first coda I believe that we ever saw in the series was in the official trailer for s5 that aired at Comic-Con that summer. The trailer ended and then we had a coda of Beth being slapped by Dawn. Of course we didn't know who the officer was at the time or anything other than that Beth was in hospital scrubs and a policewoman slapped her.
The other coda came the following summer during Comic-Con in the official trailer for s6. Again it was after the trailer ran and then credits came up or the TWD logo if I remember correctly then it went into the coda of Daryl being tied up by Dwight. We found out later when it aired that it was from e6 Always Accountable. I don't know if this would mean anything to you but I just thought I would tell you or remind you of these two other coda's. Now I'm going above and read what you just sent.
@galadrieljones:
Ever since the TTD guy (I think?) referred to the WB coda as a “coda” I feel like this is all really important.
I want to come back and talk some more about Ghosts. I also think I might rewatch The Same Boat now. I honestly think I’ve only seen that episode once lol. I don’t remember liking it that much. But now, with a better lens through which to view the episode, I have a feeling that might change.
The whole theme with Ghosts is “seeing,” or “not seeing.” We just got done talking a lot about how Carol has seen something others have not. She’s the only person who was inside Grady with Beth, who was in Beth’s story and may have witnessed what happened, and how this is connected to what’s going on in Ghosts. Everyone in Ghosts is “not seeing” something, aka they’re in denial, except for Carol.
As I said earlier, Carol is “unstuck.” I think because of this she lacks the blinders that many other characters seem to have, in terms of the truth. In Ghosts, everybody has the thing they want to believe, and the thing they can’t see. The main thing is the question as to whether or not Alpha sent the walkers. Mary says it isn’t Alpha and so does Lydia, but this can’t be true, because then who could it be? The actual truth is too much to handle. It’s too big and the possibilities are ferocious. This is just a precursor to a lot of other ways the characters are in denial.
Michonne and Daryl are repeatedly appeasing Alpha to prevent further bloodshed, and to prevent another war, but the thing is, they need a war. Their inaction or indifference, while simultaneously having overstepped their bounds with Alpha and her “rules” causes them to lose more land, only pushing things further to the brink. The Highway Men are right, in that Alexandria needs to fight. But Michonne and Daryl are like a snake with its head cut off. They aren’t the leaders the community needs. They are still mourning Rick.
Aaron, meanwhile, is in denial about what happened with Eric. Eric fought willingly in the war with the Saviors and died per his own choices to do so. Aaron blames Negan, so Negan projects on Aaron in an uncomfortable way, which is to say, he didn’t protect his wife, and she died. Negan, too, is still in denial about his role in what happened to Lucille, something he doesn’t let go of until Here’s Negan.
But Negan doesn’t really see clearly either, not until he has to face Maggie in 11A, when he reminds her that it was Rick who started that war, and he doesn’t regret his actions. He regrets that Glenn had to pay the price, but he commits that no matter what, somebody had to. That it was Glenn, that’s just fate, and for this, he is sorry, but he wouldn’t go back and change a thing, and he’s not going to grovel.
But Carol. In Ghosts, Carol is having bad dreams but she is able to see the whisperers because her subconscious, cracked open by drugs and lack of sleep and a lack of inhibition or greater purpose, leads her straight to them. Carol sees Alpha for what she is. She knows that Alpha needs to die, and she is sick of the dance they’re doing to appease her. Carol is RIGHT about this but her approach is all wrong, bringing that gun to the meeting, because, just like always, she’s brash and selfish.
Even in Find Me, I want to point out that Carol is right to question Daryl’s sanity, his emotional stability, and what went on with Leah. It’s just, she already fucked that up with what happened to Connie, so nothing she says or does will ever reach him. She was also right btw to try and pursue Alpha in season 10 after what she did the Alexandrias, but again, she did it all wrong. Because rather than find a way to lead, Carol tries to do everything on her own, and it just doesn’t work that way. Carol’s intentions are often right. Her instincts are often spot on. It’s just her approach that causes so many problems.
In Indifference, she grovels to Rick. She says she had to do something, because Rick wouldn’t. She earlier says, “You can be a farmer, Rick. You can’t just be a farmer.�� I think in the episode, we are drawn to think of Carol as the indifferent one, because she seems only to be out for herself and what she thinks is right, and this might be true, like what Daryl accuses her of during their fight in Find Me; however, I think Rick is also truly indifferent. He drives Carol away because he can’t commit to dealing with Tyreese, dealing with what to do when somebody does what she did. He can’t make this choice so he just…removes it.
When she says she had to do something, Rick says, “No, you didn’t.” And he’s technically right. But where he’s wrong is that SOMEBODY had to do something. Maybe not THAT, but something. But Carol is selfish, always focused on her own point of view and her own objectives. She’s not a leader. She’s a mother, protecting her young above all others, only her young are all dead, so she has nobody on whom to project this ruthless, selfish mechanism.
This is what causes people to disbelieve her, including Daryl. They assume she’s only out for herself. Carol is not beholden to anyone or any one set of ideals, just as she’s not beholden to any one timeline. She is, however, highly intelligent, and this is something that we see play out in season 11 a little bit, when Carol is sort of past her internal conflicts and her selfishness, and when she’s no longer putting pressure on herself to avenge those she’s lost, but instead, she makes it her entire life goal to help and protect others, like Kelly, like Ezekiel.
In Hunted, for example, she gets flack from Magna for fuelling Kelly’s hope that they will find Connie, and Carol struggles because she’s not sure: Is she actually doing this for Kelly, or is she only trying to make herself feel better? In the end, after everything that happens with the horses, Carol decides that she’s doing it for Kelly after all, and so she defies Magna. Once again, she’s right. They do find Connie. And because her approach is unselfish, everything is okay.
In his dream story, Daryl says something like, even tho his dad was a drug addict, it doesn’t mean he was wrong. This is right. It’s like Carol talking to herself. Just because I’m a selfish co-dependent ruiner doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Some other notes, related. In his dream story, Daryl’s dad sees a girl being hit by a truck, who disappears. Odd that this is what Carol’s mind would invent, as, back to Grady, she was hit by a car and disappeared. “There was no girl,” Daryl says. Is this some sort of allegory? Is this some sort of story Carol is telling herself about what happened? Intriguing.
Carol is seeing things. They’re real, but not in the way it seems. She’s being lead around by her subconscious. In Fear, we see this happening with Grace in “In Dreams,” very obviously, and also with Siddiq in Open Your Eyes. The subconscious is a storyteller and a truth bomb.
Per Siddiq, he’s REALLY not seeing. He’s traumatized. Siddiq is having flashbacks, when he is with Dante. It’s like Dante’s voice is triggering him, but he doesn’t know it yet. He isn’t seeing. He’s only hearing.
Per the other storylines: It’s important that Negan is the one who sees, while Aaron is blinded. Negan’s act of tough love helps Aaron see again, literally and figuratively, but it also forces Negan to make a choice. Is he loyal to these people? Yes, he is. Or else he would have run. He wouldn’t have helped Aaron. He might have just killed him or let him die. It’s the same with Rosita. She helps Eugene to see. It’s hard but it sets him free, gives him his “crushing moment of clarity.”
Seeing is akin to waking up. Opening your eyes. Eugene talks about how when one is sleep deprived this “enhances impulsivity” as if one is drunk. “Drunk minds speak sober hearts.” Dante brings Siddiq the moonshine. Dante was also a field medic, same as Bob.
In the end, Daryl is smoking a clove cigarette and for a second I thought it was a cinnamon stick.
Idk why they have him smoke that clove cigarette with the brown paper. I don’t know that they’ve had him do that before. He doesn’t smoke a lot in those seasons tbqh.
I think it’s obviously meant to call us back to Alone, and to what Carol saw that he didn’t see. But ofc I am biased.
The ending dream with Henry is weird, because it seems unsettled. It seems like he’s still waiting for her. The compass calls us back to the day she was unstuck.
Carol’s cast. Why did she get a big old cut like that in her arm? This episode is full of broken glass. “Did you have to break the glass?”
The callbacks to Indifference intrigued me, too, because in Indifference, the B story has Daryl and Michonne’s group traveling to the school to find drugs and supplies. In Ghosts, they also go to a school, and the bleeding eyes is consistent with the theme of “not seeing.”
Like at some point, Daryl says something to Michonne about what they need to do about the walkers and she snaps back, “I have eyes.” Aaron goes blind. I’m wondering now if the bleeding eye disease is just a symbol meant to communcate to us that there is something majorly unseen at work.
There’s also something weird, too, about Judith sitting by the window. She just sits there, the whole episode, and RJ is fast asleep. He sleeps through the whole ordeal, like the little Red King. Had me wondering if he wasn’t just dreaming the whole thing. Made me think of how Michonne isn’t seeing them, or like they don’t exist when she’s not there.
She says something like, “It’s not smart to go to sleep unless it’s safe.” This recalls Carol, who is obviously feeling unsafe. Henry told Daryl that story about the reason she used to cut her hair, because Ed used to grab her by the hair, and the fact she let her hair grow out showed that she finally felt safe enough to do so.
Continued tomorrow...
#beth greene#beth greene lives#beth is alive#beth is coming#td theory#td theories#team delusional#team defiance#beth is almost here#bethyl
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xiao :3c
HELLO SORRY, i had to take three to five business day to reply to this because. you know. you know it was gonna be long. anyways!! under a cut!!
First impression
so unfortunately xiao is like. My Type. he is extremely distant and a bit haughty but on the inside he has this sense of wistfulness, nostalgia, and all around gentle aura. he is self-possessed but his flaw is that he cares a bit too much for others as opposed to too little. and also when you tease him he squawks like a little bird. also he is physically very beautiful in a feminine way, and yet has masculine features (triangular body, well defined muscles typically associated with men).
so all that is to say. i liked him from the jump and i wanted him so fucking bad when he first came out.... he is still one of my best built units, despite that i play on mobile and he is very hard to use there!!
Impression now
BASICALLY exactly the same, except the chasm quest made me have a deeper appreciation for his calmness and also his whump potential.
Favorite moment
THE CHASM THE CHASM THE CHASM THE CHASM!!!!!! LItERALLY THE BEST CUTSCENE IN THE GAME!!!!!!!
i know that's dramatic but i mean it, his attempted sacrifice at the end of the chasm quest where he saves everyone and is ready to die is like. quite literally the best cutscene in the game for me, and it will probably never be outdone. i think what i love so much about it is that like. ok hold on.
not to praise genshin's writing but like, something they've been doing recently, particularly with xiao and now wanderer, is they have quests that read like they're character end points up until there's a bait and switch. with xiao, the entire chasm quest is about him trying to find bosacius, the lost yaksha, and remember what happened to him--it's the promise all the yaksha made with each other, that they would see each other's lives through to the end. and xiao DOES find bosacius, he gets to recreate the battle that happened all those years ago--the one that finally ended bosacius's life, and while it isn't exactly the same, he still gets to fulfill his promise.
and throughout the entire quest, xiao is putting up all sorts of death flags right: asking about creating a will, arguing with everyone about sacrifice, yelan saying, "you only sacrifice yourself when you know for sure it would save everyone; otherwise it's needless" or something to that effect.
so like when xiao does the thing where his power is waning and he realizes he could get everyone out if he sacrificed himself, of course he does it. and narratively, this works REALLY well with everything going on in the scene: we see him repeat the words that he did when he was a yaksha, calling out "general alatus, falling in!" we see his memories with zhongli. we see that he's made his decision. and when the platform breaks and he starts to fall back into darkness, there is a look of utter relief on his face... true peace dawning upon him, knowing his friends are okay, and also--based on everything we've seen--that his suffering can be over.
and then zhongli goes in and saves him.
there's something really really heartwarming about it. like this whole story should be the terminus. he has lived a life of pain and he has been ready to die for it and now he gets to die for it. except zhongli intervenes. and suddenly this event is not documenting the end of his life, but the beginning of a new one. and it just. MAN. EDJHEFJEDSHJS
sorry i knew this answer would get long but i think about this like five times a week. xiao is so beloved in teyvat and it doesn't occur to him for so long that maybe he's allowed to have love. man.
Idea for a story
i rly rly want to write a post chasm fic where he and zhongli go on a walk. like there's a couple of lines that i can see in my head and i just want to write the rest. i want that heartwarming good stuff with xiao.
Unpopular opinion
LOL so i am full of unpopular opinions about xiao but the big one is that i don't think he sees he hates himself the way people categorize self-hatred. he has an ambivalence towards himself and his life that is painful to witness, because the passive suicidal ideation intrinsic in that is very loud, but the very big "omg he hates himself so much, he is so sad all the time" emotions people project onto him make me feel vaguely uncomfortable, because he isn't like that.
the way his repression works as well is very matter of fact. like he does not conceive of these things as pain points, they are straight up facts of life. adepti are above desire, so therefore he does not have any. yaksha were meant for war; therefore he is a weapon, nothing more. if he is around people he will kill them. he needs to keep his distance. the kind of sadness he has is very understated and it isn't something he readily talks about NOR is it something that i think he even acknowledges.
Favorite relationship
VENZHONGXIAOOOO!!!! VENZHONGXIAO!!!! i'm usually not an ot3 kind of guy in fandoms; i've just never had three relationships that i felt were equally interesting to one another. but i like. can't pick between venzhong, venxiao, and zhongxiao; all three of them are so good and interesting and they're even better when combined.
Favorite headcanon
bc xiao is my little skrunkly i unfortunately am obsessed with him being very sensitive like everywhere. not being used to soft touches, i imagine he's quite ticklish. i also think it'd be cute if he had allergies to non-liyuen plants because he's not used to being outside of the country. imagine the traveler takes him to inazuma and he's incapacitated for a few days because he can't stop sneezing LOL
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Empty Names - 2 - Back From The Looking Glass
Author's Note: The second chapter rough draft and second core cast intro for Empty Names. The previous chapter can be found here. Masterpost with table of contents here.
Word Count: 3,043
Content Warnings: Violence/combat in the form of a wizard duel. What might qualify as mild body horror as a part of said wizard duel. Frostbite. Probably nothing in here that would be worse than a PG-13 rating.
Once again, if anyone reads this and sees something that I should have included a content warning for, let me know and I'll go back and add it.
Here goes my first attempt at writing a fight scene.
<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->
“I hate anime,” Ashan grumbles to himself for the second time that day.
No, that was not quite fair. He had some vague recollection of enjoying some show or another as a child. What was it called again? Something with magic cards and a girl on roller skates. An interesting concept for quick casting of spells, but unlikely to be practical with its reliance on bound spirits. There was also the one with the talking hamsters. That one had been fun.
Perhaps it is not so much anime itself as anime conventions that bother him. Even after being back on the world of his birth for a few years now, he is still not used to the sheer density of the crowds. And the novelty of convention goers stopping to ask him who he is supposed to be wears thin quickly. Even worse are the ones who mistake him for a favorite character and ask for a picture. And while he is used to being mistaken for a woman - and even finds amusement in it so long as the mistake is not repeated after correction - the well-intended compliments mistaking his white robes for a dress are beginning to test his patience.
All that is secondary though to the fact that such concentrated escapism and suspension of disbelief makes for a Masquerade breach waiting to happen. Coupled with the sheer number of cosplayers making it easy for outsiders to blend in, it was no wonder that there is nearly always an incident at these events.
An incident like one in one hundred event pamphlets listing an event in a room that the other ninety-nine in one hundred mark as not being in use.
At last, he finally extracts himself from yet another group wanting a photo - this one with costumes unsettlingly similar to his own raiment - and waves them off with a practiced smile. Almost always best to play along and blend in. Alone in the crowd once more, he double-checks the pamphlet.
Room 322. 2:00pm.
Get Isekai’d!: An interactive panel to kickstart your magical journey to another world (without being hit by a truck).
Just around the corner and several minutes to spare yet.
Turning said corner feels like stepping into a new building. Empty and unadorned, save for two doors flanking the terminus of a dead end hallway. Through some quirk of acoustics the constant background noise of the crowd fades to a distant murmur after only a few steps down the hall. Even the lighting is perceptibly dimmer without the floor-to-ceiling windows of the main concourse. Room 322 has no sign outside to proclaim the event yet the door remains cracked open enough to catch a glimpse of the small audience already seated inside.
After a quick glance to verify no one else is coming down the hall, Ashan stretches to touch a finger to the top of the doorframe and begins tracing esoteric symbols. Wherever he touches, the surface takes on a glassy sheen.
Tapping the center of his work a final time, his breath mists in the air as he makes a quick chant with no literal translation. The drawn symbols shimmer in response then fade, now invisible to the untrained eye.
He blinks, observes his ward, finds it satisfactory, and rubs some warmth back into his hands before stepping into the room.
The room is a small one by convention standards. Only a few dozen plastic chairs lined up facing a small stage set against the far wall. Less than half the chairs are occupied, making for a lower attendance than Ashan had feared. Good. Fewer people to worry about getting hurt.
Up on stage a tall man in a turtleneck that strains against his bodybuilder proportions paces in front of a freestanding wooden door with a polished white stone inset into the top of its frame. The stage rattles with the weight of his every step. As Ashan takes a seat near the front the presenter checks his phone then walks over to a podium with a laptop. A projector comes to life and throws the title of the panel across a screen next to the stage.
As the presentation begins, Ashan only halfway pays attention to the words being said or the slides on the screen. Watching for signs of hostile spells and workings takes up too much of his focus for that. And besides, the history and greatest hits of a genre about normal people going on adventures in other worlds can only hold so much interest for one who has actually lived it. Although in his experience the real thing involved significantly fewer women of dubious proportions in impractical and revealing outfits.
Twenty minutes into the scheduled hour-long panel, Ashan begins to wonder if this is simply a case of a magically-inclined nerd using his abilities to skip out on paying the panel booking fees. True, the presenter’s body is obviously modified, but it would hardly be the first time a new mage transmuted himself in an ill-conceived attempt at “improvement,” and he has not really done anything incriminating yet. Still, the “interactive” portion of the panel’s title is worrisome and the door’s function remains forebodingly elusive.
“Show of hands: who here wishes you could get away from this life and start over as a hero in a new world?”
The sight and sound of a score of hands going up around him jolts Ashan’s focus back to the speaker’s words.
“Well then, do I have the chance of a lifetime in store for all of you.” The presenter saunters over to the door in the center of the stage and leans on the frame. A murmur of anticipation goes through the crowd. With a theatrical flourish, the presenter knocks four times and the door swings inward.
The door does not come out from the backside of the frame.
On the other side of the doorway everyone in the audience can see a trail coming out of a forest and meandering over rolling grassy hills. A castle can be seen in the far distance, white walls gleaming in the sunlight. A breeze blows into the room carrying the scent of flowers.
Several people gasp. Others start whispering, asking what is going on. Someone starts clapping at what they think to be a clever trick.
“Yes, yes, it’s amazing, I know,” the presenter says. “And to answer the question I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves right now,” he steps in front of the door and begins walking backwards, “this is very real.” To drive the point home he steps to the right, disappearing out of sight entirely before coming back into view from the left before coming back through the door and walking a circle around it on stage.
“So, who wants to go first?” he asks with a smug grin.
Hands shoot up. Chairs get pushed back as audience members jump to their feet. The questions of what is going on get louder. A couple of people with stronger survival instincts start edging toward the door.
Ashan sighs, gets to his feet, and calmly climbs onto stage before any of the over-eager fools can beat him to it.
“Now that’s what I like to see!” the presenter says as Ashan approaches the door. “Can I have your name miss…ter?”
“My name is mine to keep,” he replies, “but perhaps you would not mind answering a few questions? I imagine it would set the rest of the audience at ease to know more precisely what awaits them.”
“I’d be delighted. Although I assure you all that this is perfectly safe.”
“As we saw with your demonstration, I am sure.” Threshold wards rarely affect their casters. “But what about language? Will we be able to understand the people we meet on the other side?”
“Obviously. The portal auto-magically applies the standard multiversal translator spell used by all travelers. Would you believe I’m not even speaking English right now?”
“Fascinating.” Ashan mentally runs through the signs of the seven different translation practices common in this local cluster that he can recall off the top of his head. This man is showing none of them. “And what of the Autogenesis Principle? Do you have any advice for those here wanting to escape their failures from physically manifesting their own internalized inadequacies?”
The presenter’s smirk falters. “I’m not sure what fandom you’re roleplaying at right now, but that’s not anything anyone here needs to worry about. So either go on through or get out of the way so everyone else can get their adventure underway.”
“Just one more question, if you would kindly humor me.” Ashan places a hand on the doorframe and closes his eyes for a moment. He opens them and asks “Does this essence siphon function on infernal or necromantic principles?”
The presenter’s smile disappears altogether. “How did you - ”
“Necromantic then. I cannot imagine a patron willing to aid a novice who would fail to even recognize another mage in this blunder of a Masquerade breach.”
The necromancer regains his composure and shrugs. “Okay, you got me. But hey,” he snaps his fingers and spikes of bone erupt from the floor, barring the mundane exit from the room, “it’s not a Masquerade breach if the witnesses are all dead. So what do you say we split the haul seventy-thirty and you look the other way.”
The room goes silent for a moment before the dawning realization of the situation finally breaks and the audience starts shouting and rushing the barred exit, trying in vain to escape. Except, of course, for the handful of stubborn skeptics mocking them for freaking out.
Ashan looks at the crowd pressing themselves into the bars of bone and makes a tsk sound. He should have noticed that on his way in. Returning his gaze to the necromancer he says “I shall never understand people like you.”
“Fine, sixty-forty and that’s the best you’re getting unless you wanna help me herd the sheep in here.”
“I shall never understand those who believe the possession of knowledge and power makes the lives of those without expendable.”
The necromancer begins to back up. “So that’s how it is, huh? Fancy yourself some kind of hero?”
“No one has yet been hurt. I shall give you one chance to leave now and never try this again.”
“How very generous of you,” the necromancer replies. The words drip with sarcasm and venom. “With an offer like that I can only say…” he reaches the edge of the stage. “Get boned!”
The surface of the stage splinters and cracks. With a flick of the wrist Ashan has his pearlescent wand in hand. An ivory spear hurtles up at him from below. A quick looping motion with the wand and a transparent shield appears in the air. The spear is deflected through the portal. As are the next three after. Ashan follows up with drawing another, larger shield over the door. It would not do to fall in himself.
That precaution proves timely as the necromancer lets out a bellow of pain and rage and his right arm explodes into a tendril of muscle and bony spikes that darts across the stage before slamming into Ashan’s side. He manages to get his free hand up, palm out, in time to keep the tendril from making direct contact but now finds himself squeezed between two of his own barriers. Stabbing the wand into the barrier holding back the tendril he wills his conjuration away and up. The tendril swings away from him and out over the heads of the audience before retracting back into a semblance of an arm.
The audience is screaming now. Even the most skeptical have been made believers. The bars on the door still hold. Ashan’s breath mists in the air grown cold around him.
The necromancer wastes no words as he charges the wizard. As he runs, his other arm shreds its sleeve as it bulks up and grows talons over its fingers. A morbid parody of dance ensues back and forth across the stage. The necromancer rains down crushing blows and Ashan casually deflects them with shields that flicker in and out of existence. More spikes erupt from below and Ashan gracefully sidesteps. The necromancer’s face twists in rage and Ashan’s remains placid.
Eventually, the necromancer grows frustrated with this game and changes tactics. He extends the tendril of his right arm once more, sending it plunging toward the one audience member still seated. Ashan makes a slashing motion with the wand followed by an upward flick and a wall of what looks like glass rises to cut the stage off from the rest of the room. The tendril crumples on itself as it slams into the newmade wall.
The fact that the seated man in the yellow vest did not so much as flinch at nearly being impaled distracts Ashan enough that the followup swipe from the left claw manages to graze his cheek. Enough playing around to wear the brute down then.
Wielding his wand like a brush, Ashan visualizes the chains running from the floor to the necromancer’s limbs and then paints them into being. The next blow comes to a rattling halt midair. The necromancer has just enough time to look at his wrist in surprise before Ashan makes another gesture and the chains pull him down, forcing him to his knees.
“You have lost,” Ashan says in an even tone. He is no longer the only person in the room whose breath is condensing into mist. Every surface in the room now bears dewdrops from the rapid drop in temperature over the past few minutes. Ashan resists the urge to shiver before continuing. “And still, no one has been hurt. Come along quietly and I imagine you can still negotiate a lighter sentence than you deserve.”
“Who the hell are you? Some kind of cop?” The necromancer pants heavily, pausing for breath between sentences. “How did you even know I was here? And why is it so damn cold in here?”
Ashan cocks his head at finally hearing a question from the novice mage he might deign to answer. “Tis but a slight twisting of thermodynamics. Absent a local concept for ambient energy such as aether or mana, one must needs improvise. Only the inexperienced and the foolhardy draw from their own metabolism,” Ashan nods toward his shaking opponent, “as you seem to be.”
“Oh really…”
“Indeed. Although I would not advise such a technique to the untrained.”
“Cocky bastard, bragging about your secret techniques when you think you’ve won.” Frost begins to form on the stage around the necromancer.
“It is hardly a secret. And really, you should not attempt it. Especially in your current state.”
“You know.”
The spikes of bone scattered about the stage begin to shake.
“Where you.”
The necromancer begins shivering violently.
“Can take your advice.”
The spikes rise into the air.
“And shove it?”
The spikes all turn to face Ashan.
“‘Cause I’m about to show you!”
The spikes begin to move in on Ashan, gathering speed.
The necromancer falls over with a thud and the spikes clatter harmlessly to the stage. Ashan walks over to him and notes the white and blue patches of frostbite covering the fallen man’s skin. He bends down and checks for a pulse. He finds one. Unconscious, but alive. Beginner’s luck.
Ashan stands back up, exhales, lets his remaining conjurations dissipate, and allows himself to shiver.
A slow clap from the sole remaining audience member disrupts his reverie.
Wait. Sole remaining? When did the screaming stop? Where did everyone go? He whips around to see the man in the yellow vest leaning against the wall next to the exit door. The bars of bone now lay shattered on the ground.
“You certainly live up to your reputation, Ashan Glassheart.” The man stops clapping and looks around the ruined stage. “Well, maybe a little more collateral damage than I expected, but credit where credit is due, the rookie knew what he was doing with stashing unenchanted raw material for his trap.” He pauses to stroke his goatee in consideration. “Or maybe just dumb luck on his part.”
“Do I know you?” Ashan asks.
“I should hope not,” the man replies. “I try to keep out of the spotlight. The name’s Sullivan Bridgewood. At my service.” He gives a flourishing bow as makes the introduction.
“I thought the sorceress Bridgewood was a woman.”
“That would be my dearly departed wife, Void rest her soul.”
“My condolences, but that still does not explain what you want with me.”
Bridgewood puts a hand to his chest and feigns an offended gasp. “So suspicious. And after I helped and set all the normies free while you were giving your lecture. Nice job on the amnestic ward by the way. Always fun to watch them go from running for their lives to milling about confused.”
“You are avoiding the question.”
“Oh, lighten up will you, I’m getting to that.” He walks over to the stage and leans an elbow on it, looking up at Ashan. “Have you ever heard of the individual known as Road?”
Ashan arches an eyebrow in surprise. “The guy who runs around in purple armor fighting subway dragons and saving goth kids from vampire cults?”
“Among other things, yes.”
“From what I have heard they are a noble fool who just happens to be skilled and lucky enough to back up their reckless actions. But a fool whose heart is in the right place. Supposedly they used to be a big deal before disappearing several years ago.” Ashan stops himself and gets back to the still unanswered question. “Why?”
Bridgewood chuckles. “Because,” he drags out the word, “said noble fool just so happens to be an old friend of mine and recently got back to town. They’re looking to put a team together and could use a proper spellslinger.” He smiles just a little too widely and reaches up a hand. “So, interested?”
Ashan feels a shiver go down his back that is only partially related to the cold.
“Help me clean up in here and get this villain to the authorities in Crossherd and I shall consider it.”
<-Previous Chapter Masterpost Next Chapter->
#writing#original fiction#urban fantasy#Writeblr#WIP#Empty Names#serial fiction#writing practice#writers on tumblr#creative writing#literature#prose#writers#web novel#novel#fantasy#fiction#my writing#emptynameswriting
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"Actually, there are 15 stated, 13 in the Archives:
Qlipoth, the Preservation
Nanook, the Destruction
Aha, the Joy
IX, the Nihility
Yaoshi, the Fertility
Lan, the Hunt
Erudite, the Nous
[ ], the Arcane
Akivili, the Trailblazer [Presumed Dead]
Terminus, the End
Oroboros, the Voracity
Xipe, the Concord
Idrila, the Beauty [Deceased]
Tazzyronth, the Propagator [Deceased]
[ ], the Remembrance
Remembrance has 2 factions within the Archives but no mentions otherwise. Welt talks about the Aeon of Arcane in a dialogue."
I copied this from Reddit but here are the Aeons of Star Rail! Someone mentioned that Akivili are the Twins [Since Traveler=Trailblazer. They're literally the same just different timelines/Universes] who was trapped in Teyvat so that's why they're called dead [So Yeah Unknown God clapped an Aeon—]. Traveler [Personally prefers Lumine bc girlboss— But Star Rail Fem!MC is superior] coming back to Star Rail Universe to find Prime and slowly summons all Acolytes to Star Rail. They are getting used to the modern technology [Albedo is VIBING] and are trying so hard to find Prime.
Meanwhile, Prime is hiding from fellow Aeons since two are in a war and they're trying to recruit Prime. Also, they sensed Akivili coming back and knowing Akivili are The Twins/Traveler.
First, those names are epic as all hell.
Second, can we all just agree that whoever they are the Unknown God is completely terrifying in terms of the sheer power they have and just how casual they are about it, I mean it doesn't even look like they were trying when they fought the Travelers the first time. I like to imagine that they are some type of bodyguard or zealous enforcer to the Prime or Creator, and see the twins and jump to the conclusion that they are a threat and they need to be dealt with and quickly before they threaten their superior, and that the reason they don't show up again is because they are worried that they made a mistake and are going to get lectured by their superior/prime for screwing up. when all they want is to ask just why they jumped to that conclusion.
Actually, given that the Arcane one is not named and the Unknown God is just that, unknown, maybe they are the Aeon of Arcane or something like it, or perhaps something similar to it.
Also, we agree with you about Lumine being a girlboss, she is our Traveler and we will stand by her. Perhaps the Star Rail female mc can be her real form and Lumine is simply a form she took when she was traveling to avoid detection from her fellows because she and Aether are just trying to find their Prime and not get roped into some conflict.
Also, Albedo is having the time of his life while everyone else is trying to learn what this button does and why they should not touch it lol. Meanwhile the Prime is just trying to have a nice and quiet life without being dragged into a war and is wondering just why two of their fellows are leading a rather odd group in a search for them. Also, imagine that the reason the two Aeons are throwing down is because they are trying to prove that their way best serves the Prime or something like that and the Prime just doesn't want to upset them and is as such trying to be neutral in their dispute.
We will have to look into this game soon, these ideas are already quite interesting.
Once again, thank you for the information and for the idea, it sounds like a very good one and we are curious as to if you intend to use it in a work of your own? It sounds like it would be something very interesting to read.
Either way, stay safe and have a good night.
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Dream of 11/11/23
⚠️ Gross detail. Helminthophobia ⚠️
Ok so of course I have yet another dream about worms but ok I don't even remember how it started really I just know I had a tapeworm and ... the feeling was so vivid I hate it so much because I remember the exact feeling but you could feel the worm in you at all times and I'm freaking out I'm trying to tell everyone to drive me to a hospital but no one would fucking do it so I literally walked myself to it and it was like an absurd amount away like an hour. The feeling of the worm was like. You swallowed sewing thread and anytime it moved you could feel the entire worm move inside you IDK how to describe it really it was awful. At some point I have multiple worms inside and they weren't all in my intestines no one was in my arm and leg it felt abysmal. Whenever they attached themselves against a muscle or lining of something it felt like being burnt. I eventually make it to the hospital and I'm like DUDE help ASAP and I don't really remember what they do but eventually they just die and dry up. And I'm sitting there thanking this doctor like they saved my life. Worst feeling ever for real hated every second of it I tried calling out to Terminal to help but he wasn't there.
Dream Shift
I was home and the layout of the room was very weird. It was exactly like gym bleachers but there were two doors with two code locks on each and you could only close them for a short period of time (FNAF) and so whenever someone got close to a door a really loud alarm would go off it was startling and actually really scary each time. I remember at some point that it turned into a zombie survival type of thing and I was like oh, I'm a zombie guess I'll join the zombie side. So I turned on everyone and started ripping them up hunter style but also I was eating them.
dream shift
A person that I dream about a lot sometimes despite hating them is like a staple in my Dreamworld but ok this one was that I don't know where I was I think it was some school or event but they wanted to go with me and I was actively evading them and trying to lose them. I'm like hiding and even hiding under desks at some point but they find me and I'm just like this is a bunch of shit. I tried calling out for terminal again but he wasn't there. I think I ended up running away and trying to make it home before they could find me. I also remember just being so over it
- Been having a lot of dreams where I either forget Terminals name or can't remember how to say Terminal. I'll say something like Terminus or Thermius. Of course the worm dreams are back... 😖
- Also insert that l4d dream shift I posted about earlier here
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im going to try and polish off the rest of these before the end of the podcast so get pumped but also who knows if ill manage that oops. anyway heres end
Beholding | Buried | Corruption | Dark | Desolation | Flesh | Hunt | Lonely | Slaughter | Spiral | Stranger | Vast | Web
#not a palette#Playlists#tma#fun fact i would have put bodys by car seat headrest on here#but there wasnt a good place for it#also#bones in the ocean is for oliver#im not getting excited is for georgie#and candy is for nathaniel thorp my beloved <3#oh and 6 feet is for gerry#and terminus is just there for flavor i think its more of an extinction song but like#the end is literally also called terminus#and my extinction playlist did not fit that vibe#also i think hurry hurry is a really jon sims song and i think everyone should be aware of that#my last thing is that im vv proud of this playlist for one reason and one reason only#and that is the train imagery#is it only in there like 2 times?#maybe#im i still happy to have 2 death train songs?#hell yeah
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If you’re not listening to The Bifrost Incident and having a semi-hysterical meltdown at your partner about Terminus and the Inevitability Of Death and Fighting Anyway and the Human Need For Connection, are you even really living
#the mechanisms#the bifrost incident#absolutely no prizes are being given for guessing what i did this week#i'm not. innately prone to strong fits of emotion. but occasionally i'll start talking about something#like terminus. for example. and that section of the mayday calls.#and i will start out making completely legitimate points about the technical excellence of an album#and end up twenty minutes later tearfully shouting 'they give up time to escape in order to try and reach out!!!!!!!'#i will occasionally talk myself into mild hysterics is what i'm saying#and oh boy howdy is the bifrost incident designed to Get Me#loki and sigyn are the MOST romance actually#that conversation between loki and thor????? EVERYTHING about loki and thor?????? i'm obsessed#i haven't shut up about 'loki deserved to die in her right mind' in literally multiple weeks#also i've discovered that i can one-hit-kill anyone who knows about this by saying#'what if [your favorite ship here] but make it loki and sigyn'
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No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son
and
Yes, I Will Die On This Hill
I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.
I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.
I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.
And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.
“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”
I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.
But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.
Dialogue + Narration
There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.
Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?
The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.
Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.
Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.
I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:
Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.
Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.
So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.
Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)
There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.
Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.
And then we have the anime website.
So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.
So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.
Timeline
The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.
So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?
Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.
We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]
The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.
Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.
The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.
I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.
Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.
Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.
This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:
The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”
The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.
Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.
Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.
Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.
I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.
…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.
MLA Social Dynamics
It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.
They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.
Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”
Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.
A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.
------------------------
FOOTNOTES
[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.
[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.
[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.
[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.
[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.
#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#bnha#bnha meta#yotsubashi rikiya#yotsubashi chikara#re-destro#destro bnha#meta liberation army#my writing#i have thoughts on the anime's nonsense too but#hahawow#that's gonna take a little longer to get coherent#preview: it's not about capitalism#it's about fear
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I’m so short on sleep and I made the mistake of going on Twitter and now I want to cry because rational thought is no longer possible. I need reassurance that we can trust AK to do right by Caryl. That’s where I’m at. HIT ME PLEASE.
Hello there,
Yeahhhh Twitter has never been a good place to be a Caryl fan so try and stay clear of that in the future. The only spoiler I have seen says that once Daryl is back at Alexandria, he spots Connie, he is shocked to see her, he drops what he is doing and he runs over to give her a hug.
If this is true and this is what happens… I think this is a completely fair thing to happen? Like it makes sense? Think about it - your friend went missing and is presumed dead, your stood around doing jobs and suddenly you see them again. Of course you are going to immediately stop what you are doing and rush over to give them a hug and ask them what the fuck has been happening to them.
I think everyone is presuming that this reunion is going to look a lot like our terminus reunion. I call bullshit. Nothing will compare to that. The spoiler says that Daryl seems excited to see Connie (which again, is a completely plausible reaction) and is talking with her and Kelly afterwards. Now think back to the terminus reunion- would you describe Daryl as excited? No. I don’t even know if there’s a word to describe the emotions in that scene but excited isn’t one of them.
I also think it’s VERY telling that this scene is said to be filmed from Carols perspective. The spoiler says that it shows Carol watching on. Interesting filming choice of you ask me- makes me think that this whole reunion is more about CAROLS feelings rather than Daryl’s or Connie’s.
And at the end of the day, if for some strange reason they decide to try and squeeze in a Connie and Daryl romance before s11 ends (I highly doubt it… it just doesn’t seem like it could happen in the time we have left.) …. We have the spin off.
No matter what happens between Daryl and any other character WILL NOT MATTER come the end of s11. He is dropping everything to run away with Carol. That IS LITERALLY WHAT THE SPIN OFF IS. Daryl and Carol running away together on his motorbike. No other characters involved
Stay strong my friend. Caryl is coming. Believe in the spin off
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