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daveeddiggsit · 3 years

Text

No Return

Note: so this is not a new fic. i actually posted it back in 2017 (but deleted all my smut from this blog about a year afterwards haha we love being impulsive). but i’m over myself now, so i’m reposting! a lot of you have been asking about it, so... here you go. posted for all of y’all to enjoy again.

Word Count: 4.7k

Pairing: Daveed Diggs x Reader

Warnings: smut. cursing.

Summary: Diggs loses a bet which results in him owing you a lap dance.

Parties at Rafa’s place were always the best; the drinks were great, the music was amazing, the atmosphere was never dull, but the best part about them were the incredible people that made up each one; you were never bored. There was always something to do whether you were talking to people, dancing, playing drinking games, or just drinking in general. And that’s why whenever you were told that there was going to be a party at Rafael Casal’s apartment, you never turned it down...even if you ended up showing up late.

“Well, look at who finally decided to show up.” You heard a familiar voice say as you walked through the door to Rafa’s place. Daveed grinned widely at you before he slid an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to him as you walked deeper into the apartment. “My favorite!”

Daveed was one of your closest friends and if you were being honest, it would have been a lie if you said you didn’t want him to become something more than that. The two of you often flirted and were constantly together (these occurrences happened so often that there were many times people believed you were dating), but neither of you had made a real move. You knew how you felt toward him, and he was giving you signs that he felt the same way, but no true actions were made by either party. So that’s why it stayed the way it was between you two: just close friends who often flirted with each other.

“Aw, I’m your favorite?” You asked, raising your voice so he could hear you over the loud music that was pumping through Rafa’s speakers.

“Uh, yeah,” he stated as if it was obvious, “but don’t tell anyone else. It’s a secret between you and me.” He whispered in your ear as you entered the kitchen.

Yeah, he had definitely downed a few drinks before you got here.

“Diggs, I’m pretty sure everyone heard you when you shouted it.” You laughed as you plucked the cup half-full of alcohol from his grasp, draining it of its contents. He pouted at you once you handed him back an empty cup.

“Y/N, hey! It’s been forever since I’ve seen you!” Adrienne said from beside Rafa who was pouring out a few drinks.

“Hey!” You pulled away from Daveed’s grasp to give her a hug. She’d been away in Canada for the last few weeks shooting for a new project she was working on. “I’ve missed you! Why’d you have to leave me alone to deal with these boys for so long?”

Adrienne laughed while Rafael furrowed his eyebrows.

“Oh, so you didn’t miss me? I see how it is, Y/N, I see how it is.” He feigned hurt, before pushing a couple of newly filled cups towards you and Daveed.

You rolled your eyes at him. “We had lunch a few days ago, Cash, it hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you.”

“But so much has changed since then.”

You chuckled before taking a sip. “Like what? Did you finally finish that song you’ve been working on?”

“No.” Rafael replied before he smiled at Adrienne beside him. “Unlike Diggs, I am no longer a single and lonely Bay Boy.”

Daveed’s eyebrows furrowed as he cocked his head. “Yo, who said I was lone—?”

“You guys are finally together? Oh my god, congrats!” You cut in with widened eyes.

They both grinned at each other before Rafa leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“Aww,” you gushed, “you two are couple goals already.”

A few seconds passed before you felt Daveed’s arm drape around your shoulders again.

“You know, we could be couple goals too.” He said, looking down at you with a smirk.

You rolled your eyes, pushing him away. “Ha, you wish, Diggs.”

You laughed it off because you knew he was too tipsy to be serious. He always flirted with you like this, but why did this time feel so different?

A few drinks later, you were beginning to feel the familiar light-hearted, buzzing feeling course throughout your body, giving you a boost of energy. You had drifted away from Daveed and Rafa to roam through the house and catch up with people you hadn’t seen since your Hamilton days. You were talking with Adrienne and Ari when you heard your name being called from behind you.

“Aye, Y/L/N!”

You turned your head to see Daveed standing next to a table a few feet away.

“Diggs!” You responded in the same playful tone.

He grinned at you before waving you over. “Come play Flip Cup with me.”

“Really?” You quirked an eyebrow. “You lose every time you play against me, D.”

“I’m feeling confident today. I’ve been practicing.”

You tried not to laugh as you rose from your seat and approached him. “Practicing?”

“Bruh,” Rafa snickered at his friend from the other end of the table. “You played a few games before this and won two in a row. That ain’t practicing.”

You let a smug grin show up on your face as you glanced back up at your best friend. “Daveed, I am the queen of Flip Cup, okay? You can’t beat me. Nobody ever has, and nobody ever will. That’s a fact.”

“I’m pretty sure I can beat you today, Y/N.” He said bluntly. Wow, he was forward when he was drunk. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“Ha,” you huffed out a laugh, “wanna bet?"

“What do you propose, oh mighty Queen of Flip Cup?”

You thought for a second. What was something you knew would make him think twice about challenging you? Something that would make him step down from this newfound cockiness he embodied.

When the idea formed in your head, you sent him a sly grin. “Winner gets a lap dance from the loser.”

You distinctly remembered an earlier conversation with him where he stated that he couldn’t dance. You knew it was untrue due to the times you’d seen him dance at the club or during some of the numbers in Hamilton, but you also knew that the wager wasn’t something he’d necessarily jump on (despite the confidence boost the alcohol had supplied him).

Rafa led the mini crowd that had formed around you in a chorus of “ooo”s.

“Deal.”

You looked up at Daveed in surprise. You hadn’t expected him to agree to the terms so easily.

“Diggs, that means if you lose— sorry, when you lose, you have to give me a lap dance.”

“I know.” He said seriously.

“And you’re good with that?”

“If it happens, which it won’t because I’m gonna win, then yes.” He stated, his mouth forming into a confident smile. “I’m good with that.”

Fine, he wanted a challenge? You were going to give him one.

“Alright, then.” You said, narrowing your eyes at him. “Game on."

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Daveed lost. Badly.

So badly, in fact, that you actually felt bad for him. So you tweaked it so it was the best out of five games...and even then, he still lost.

Oh well, it’s not like you didn’t warn him.

When the third game ended and Daveed realized his defeat, he threw his head back and groaned.

“Aww, don’t be such a sore loser. You lost fair and square, Diggs. ” You teased with a smile, wrapping your arms around his torso to hug him from behind. “I warned you. I told you I was the queen of Flip Cup, but you didn’t listen.”

“Those cups were rigged, Y/N.” He stated, turning around in your grasp so he could hug you back.

You laughed, rolling your eyes. “Say whatever you want to make yourself feel better. Nothing’s gonna change the fact that you owe me a lap dance.”

He was quiet for a moment before he murmured something. “You know I can’t dance, right?”

“First of all, yes you can. And secondly, lap dances are different, Diggs.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes they are. And if you don’t think they’re different, you dance at parties all the fucking time. You should be able to handle an easy lap dance.”

He lifted his head back up from your shoulder to look down at you. “But Y/N...”

You let out a laugh before you patted his cheek lightly. “You dug yourself into this hole, loser. Guess you’re just gonna have to figure it out because you’re not getting out of this one.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

The next day you woke up to someone knocking on your door. In sweats and an old t-shirt, you made your way over to unlock it, squinting your eyes to adjust to the bright light. The slight hangover you had wasn’t really helping you get out of your groggy state.

“Daveed?” You asked, realizing who your visitor was once your vision adjusted. “What are you doing here so early?”

He was dressed in a yellow Oaklandish tank top that showed off his toned arms/shoulders and dark blue jeans with a brown belt buckled just enough to let them sit loosely on his hips. You also noticed that he decided to rock his glasses today.

You snapped your eyes up to his and away from his figure that left you breathless. You totally had not just checked him out.

“If your definition of early is 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I think you may need to reevaluate some things and consider fixing that sleep schedule of yours.” He replied with his lips turning up into an amused grin.

“Shut up, I had a late night last night.” You mumbled, turning around to walk away, leaving the door open so he could let himself into your apartment. “And you did too. I’m surprised you’re not asleep right now.” You glanced back at him to see him shrug.

“I had to meet Bill and Jon at the studio at 10. I’ve been up since, like, 9:30.”

“Damn, Diggs, you’re gonna have to teach me your ways.”

“Caffeine.” He chuckled, putting on his signature grin. “It works miracles.”

You returned the smile, before sending him a curious look. “So, why are you here? Not that I mind or anything, it’s good to see you, but you haven’t been over in like a month and a half.”

“Exactly! It’s been awhile since we’ve hung out alone, so I thought it’d be dope if we chilled and watched movies or something.” He replied before he went to ramble on. “I mean— only if you want to. If you’re really tired, I can leave so you can get some more sl—”

“No, no, it’s fine! That sounds great.” You cut him off and placed a hand on one of his toned arms to reassure him.

“You sure?”

“Yeah!” You responded. “Just let me take a quick shower and we can start in like 20ish minutes.”

“A 20 minute shower counts as a quick shower?” He questioned with a teasing look.

“Yes,” you said, “or would you rather it be 45ish minutes?”

“20ish minutes is good. Have fun with your quick shower. Though, I think it would be more fun if I joined.” A tiny but noticeable smirk made its way onto Daveed’s face.

You laughed when he sent you a playful wink, dropping your hand from his arm to walk towards your room. “You wish, Daveed Diggs.”

“You have no idea.” He mumbled under his breath (inaudible to your ears) before he let his eyes follow your retreating figure.

“Maybe you could set up the movie in the meantime? It’s your turn to choose. The remote’s on the coffee table and you know where the popcorn and shit is in the kitchen. I’ll be out soon. If you need anything, yell.” You said before closing the door to your room.

Daveed sent a thumbs up in your direction even though he knew you couldn’t see it before he made his way to your living room.

Little did you know, Daveed had something else planned.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━ ♛ ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

When you emerged from your shower, you quickly dried yourself and combed through your now damp hair. After that, you exited your room and entered your living room to see that it was completely dark. Confused, you surveyed the room to look for your best friend, but there was no sign of him at all.

Did he leave? If he did, he didn’t text you or anything to let you know.

“D?” You called out, walking further into the room.

With each step you took, the more you realized how this seemed like a scene from a horror film. You weren’t a fan of them, but a few months back Daveed and Rafael had pretty much forced you to have a scary movie marathon with them.

“Daveed Diggs, I swear to God. If you’re trying to scare me right now, I will—”

You squeaked when a pair of arms snaked their way around your waist from behind. Daveed’s voice had come seemingly from out of nowhere. “You’ll what?”

“Kick your ass.” You glared at him, quickly turning around to push him away. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He laughed, smiling brightly. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“No, you’re not.” You grumbled, moving to sit on your couch. Daveed followed you.

“You right. It was so worth it.” He grinned at you, causing you to roll your eyes at him. You tried to stay mad at him, but it was damn near impossible when he was looking at you like that.

“We’re not friends anymore.” You stated, crossing your arms.

“What, why?” He asked, his grin dropping into a pout.

“You were mean to me, Diggs! How dare you scare me in my own home!” You were laughing internally.

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry for real this time. What can I do to make it up to you?”

When he asked, you contemplated it for a few moments before you looked up at him with a smirk.

“What?” He asked.

“Well, you still owe me that lap dance…”

He groaned, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back on the couch. “I thought you forgot about that.”

“Nope.” You said, your smirk forming into a smug grin. You had the upper hand now. “How could I forget you losing a bet against me, resulting in a lap dance from the great Daveed Diggs himself?”

After a couple of seconds, he sighed, opening his eyes and tilting his face towards you. “If I do this now, will I win back your friendship?”

“I’ll think about it.” You said, causing him to give you a deadpanned look. You laughed before you spoke again. “Yeah, I guess we could be friends again. But it has to be good.”

Daveed sighed again before he straightened himself up. “I don’t even know how to give a good lap dance, Y/N.”

“Improvise. C’mon, D, you’re great at improv. Treat it like you treat a freestyle. Just go with the flow.” You smiled widely at him.

“Fine.” He said, getting up from his spot next to you. “But I’m only pulling through with this because I like you.”

“Aww, you like me?” You asked teasingly to mask the actual feeling that was coursing through you. You continued to grin at him as he pulled out his phone to scroll through his music library. When he finally settled on a song by The Weeknd, he turned to you once he pressed play.

“Do I start now?”

“Yes,” you laughed. “C’mon, you know how a lap dance works. You’re not a novice when it comes to these things, stop fucking around.”

You could see him smile and rub his arm before he looked away for a second. When he started to slowly sway to the beat of the song, it was extremely hard for you to stifle your laugh. Your best friend was about to give you a lap dance and you could not take him seriously.

He continued to dance to the beat for a bit as he stared you down with a smirk. He was doing this shit on purpose. He was joking around until you couldn’t contain your laughter any longer.

“Diggs, I can’t take you seriously like this. I can—” You wheezed. “I just can’t.”

Your laughter and the slow, sexy beats of the music were the only audible things in your apartment until Daveed spoke again.

“Are you ready for me, Y/N?” His smooth, low voice washed over you.

You let out yet another giggle. “Don’t make it sound so sexual.”

“It's supposed to sound sexual, Y/N, it’s a fucking lap dance.” He chuckled, now standing directly in front of you.

“Alright, show me what you got, Bay Boy.”

You continued to laugh at him as you watched him, but the moment he straddled your lap, you stopped. His arms were on each side of your head, using the couch to steady himself over you as his hips began to slowly grind against you. That’s when the atmosphere in the room completely changed.

Your eyes widened slightly when you saw him bite his bottom lip in concentration. When you envisioned Daveed giving you a lap dance the night prior, you didn’t think it would be like this...it was flustering you more than you thought it would. Before you knew it, you were struggling to control your movements. Your fists were clenching and unclenching as you so desperately tried to keep them anchored to your sides.

As if he had read your mind, Daveed murmured, “You can touch me, Y/N. Don’t be afraid.”

If you weren’t turned on before, you definitely were now. His gravelly voice paired with his hot breath right next to your ear caused you to shiver, making goosebumps appear across your entire body.

Then, you finally let your hands wander. They traveled up his chest to rest on his shoulders, then back down again to move under the hem of his tank top so you could feel his bare and strong torso. Sure it was a bold move, but the more and more Daveed grinded on you, the less and less you cared. When his tank top rode up to the point where you could see all of his abs, he paused to stand up and quickly get rid of the article of clothing before he came back to straddle you again.

Your heart was beating wildly in your chest as you looked up at your best friend. He looked undeniably attractive when he was on top of you shirtless and with his glasses on. Every feeling you had ever felt for him came crashing down on you at that moment and that’s when you just about lost your self-control. Part of your brain was screaming at you, saying that you were about to cross a line that you could never cross again...but at the same time, all of your cares had disappeared.

You used your newfound courage to cup Daveed’s face in both of your hands and pull him into a deep kiss. He gasped softly, surprised at the sudden contact, but quickly eased into it.

You had just passed the point of no return.

You didn’t know what to expect when you decided to kiss him, but it was better than you could have imagined. When you pulled back, his mouth was slightly dropped in awe and one of the sides slowly twitched up into a soft smile. (It was kind of adorable.)

“Daveed, I like you.” You blurted, short of breath.

His face broke out into a full grin. “I like you too, Y/N.”

“No,” you shook your head, moving your hands from his cheeks down to his shoulders. “I mean like— like like you.”

“I know,” he chuckled. “I mean, I figured given what just happened a few seconds ago. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

You shrugged, breaking eye contact with him. You subconsciously traced one of your thumbs across his collarbone. “I was afraid of rejection, I guess.”

“Are you serious?”

“What?” You asked, sounding offended.

Daveed caught your gaze again, pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. “Y/N, I’ve had like the biggest fuckin’ crush on you since Ari introduced us.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mhm,” he hummed. “I’m actually really surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your crush earlier, Diggs?” You voiced, giving him a pointed look.

He gave you a shy smile when he moved off of you to sit beside you, still facing you. “Same reason as you.”

“You know what? I’m not even mad about not knowing sooner.” You said. “I’m glad we found out like this.”

“You’re just happy I gave you a lap dance with my amazing skills.” He teased with a laugh of his own.

You laughed again, and pushed at his chest so he could lay on his back and let you crawl on top of him to straddle his waist. “Not gonna lie, I didn’t think you had it in you, Diggs.”

His jaw dropped completely as he looked up at you. “But you said that I could do a lap dance when even I said I couldn’t!”

“That’s true, but to be fair, I never said you couldn’t do a lap dance. I just didn’t think you’d do as well as you did.”

Your response brought yet another smile to his face as you leaned closer to him. “I’mma take that as a compliment.” He said softly.

At this point, the song Daveed had chosen had ended a while ago and the lap dance was long over.

“Good.” You responded before you kissed him again.

This one was different from the first. It started off soft, but quickly turned passionate and heated. As your mouths moved against each other, Daveed’s hands moved from your hips up to the hem of your shirt, his fingertips grazing your bare sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. The only word you could use to describe this feeling was just complete bliss.

When you reached down to Daveed’s belt buckle, he shivered, causing you to smile against his lips.

Then he pulled away, panting. “Y/N…” he breathed. “Are you sure about this? You don’t have to— fuck.” He cursed as you pulled back completely to unbuckle his pants. “I don’t wanna push y—”

“Daveed,” You said, before pausing quickly to put a hand on his scruff, tenderly moving your thumb to caress his cheek. “I’m absolutely sure about this. Now please, shut the hell up so I can blow you.”

You smirked when you saw his eyes widen and when you crawled off of him to go in between his legs, you heard a quiet, “Okay.”

Wasting no more time, you removed his jeans and boxers to free his erection. You could see Daveed’s chest begin to rise and fall quicker when you took his length into your hand and pressed a kiss to the tip of it.

“Oh, shiiit.” He drawled softly when your mouth wrapped around him, slowly sucking your way down as far as you could. As you began to bob your head up and down, Daveed’s breathing increased with each suck and occasional flick of your tongue.

Now, he was fully panting. He lifted his head up to look down at you, causing him to groan. After a minute or two, he brought a hand down to move some strands of hair out of your face.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he babbled, “I...I shouldn’t...oh God, I shouldn’t be this fucking close.”

You slowly pulled off of him and he brought you back up to kiss him again.

“You,” Daveed breathed against your lips, “are way too fucking good at that.”

You grinned.

“And,” he continued, “this clothing situation is a bit unbalanced, don’t you think?”

His thumbs grazed the waistband of your sweatpants. When you nodded, you pulled them down along with your underwear. You moved off of him to take them off completely and remove your shirt and bra, leaving you just as bare as he was.

You climbed back on top of him, straddling his washboard abs, when he ushered you to move up. You obeyed, moving forward an inch or two, but Daveed shook his head and grabbed your thighs, moving you himself.

“Daveed, what are you doing?”

“Returning the favor.” He said simply, bringing you over to his face.

“Oh,” you breathed when you felt his tongue lightly touch your clit.

The man’s mouth worked miracles from between your thighs. Daveed kept you still above his skilled tongue, occasionally giving your ass a squeeze.

“D-Daveed,” you gasped, your mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ as his tongue lightly circled your clit before he brought fully into his mouth to suck gently.

This was the best head you’d gotten...well ever, actually. He wanted you to feel the best you’d ever felt and he definitely achieved that.

Before you knew it, you were reaching your high, climaxing as you shouted Daveed’s name, not caring how loud it echoed throughout your apartment. When you crawled back down Daveed’s body, the two of you shared a sloppy kiss as you both breathed heavily.

Although you just came, you weren’t completely satisfied. You still wanted him... needed to feel him inside you.

You moved to position yourself above his cock, but he made you pause before you could do so.

“Y/N, stop,” Daveed panted. “Condom.”

“Don’t need it.” You replied quickly. “I’m on the pill.”

“Oh, fuck yes.” He replied, releasing you so you could resume what you were about to do.

You breathed out a laugh before you slowly sank down onto his length, making both you and him release a groan.

“You are so fucking gorgeous,” he gasped. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”

Your fingers ghosted along his stubble-ridden jaw. “I think I have an idea.”

When you adjusted to his size, you began to bounce and he helped you, meeting each of your thrusts as he guided your hips onto him.

Your lips met Daveed’s yet again and you captured every moan that fell from his mouth, he did the same for you. As your pace quickened, so did each grunt, pant, and moan. You felt your pussy begin to clench again like it had when you came before.

“I’m gonna come,” Daveed said quickly against your mouth.

“Fuck.” You groaned. “Me too, D.”

“Come for me, sweetheart.” He breathed, bringing a hand up from your hip to cup your cheek. “You can do it.”

And you did.

Your walls clenched around him and you gasped, letting your orgasm wash over you in waves. Daveed came shortly after you, and continued to thrust, riding the both of you through your highs.

As you came down and pulled yourself off him, you collapsed, exhausted, halfway leaning on him and halfway laying on your couch. You moved a hand up to rest on his chest again, closing your eyes in bliss as you relaxed against him.

After a minute or two of silence, Daveed broke it.

“Wait, so...does this mean we’re friends again?”

You looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. He was still on that? Wow, what a dork. “After this? Everything that just happened?” You asked bewildered. “God, I hope not.”

“Fine,” he said letting his signature bright smile show up on his face, still breathing heavily. “More than friends?”

Your heart fluttered in your chest and you grinned widely back at him. You leaned up to softly kiss his jaw before you gave him your answer.

“Way more than just friends, D.”

#daveed diggs x reader #daveed x reader #hamilcast x reader #daveed diggs fanfiction #smut

194 notes · View notes

imreallyhereforkataang · 3 years

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hello, i don’t know who to ask about this but i’m new to the fandom and saw that you really like kataang. what’s your interpretation of katara’s glance down after the kiss before the invasion? i’m not a fan of the surprise kiss trope but even with that said, i had thought she liked him back. it didn’t seem like she did at that point or through the rest of book 3, and then next thing we knew they were endgame in the finale. sorry for being a bother, i’m just a little confused (like katara i guess haha)

Hi, Anon! Welcome to the fandom! Hopefully it treats you nicely lol.

Ah yeah. I've seen this talked about a lot over the years. And, y'know, I get it. It can seem a little out-of-place at first since, as you noted, Katara shows signs of being romantically interested in Aang beforehand, and now that they've had their second kiss, she doesn't look too happy about it. As someone who ships them, I initially would have loved to see them happy in that moment, to take another minute to themselves just to share grins and maybe laugh a bit because they've taken that step, put their feelings out into the open, and they're both glad for it. To a shipper, or to someone who's rooting for our protagonist to express his feelings, this does feel like a celebratory moment. I'm taken out of the context of the scene for a second because the pretty music has shot in and I'm still surprised at Aang's move and I'm happy to see an actual, mutual (as Katara leans in) kiss between them.

Then again, this situation is a lot realer for them than it is for me. I'm the viewer, I can hear The Cave of Two Lovers' theme, I can see this being painted in a positive light because we see these two come together for a brief moment, and the narrative is, in a sense, praising that. In-universe, though, it's a bit more complicated, and Katara looking sad really isn't so out-of-place.

Remember where they are and what they're doing, what they were saying moments before and what they're about to risk. For them, this is the quiet before the storm, their possibly final goodbye. Aang is about to fly off and face his destiny, confront what he's been training for over most of the year, "since the day we met" as Katara puts it, and determine the fate of the world based on whether he wins or loses. Whether he comes back or not. And he puts the reality of the situation out there. "What if...what if I don't come back?" It's the threat of that possibility that spurs him to kiss Katara. And she figures as much.

Despite the music suggesting otherwise, this isn't a happy scene (and perhaps that's why we don't get the full score until the finale, because this kiss is only foreshadowing what could be). It's tense, and bittersweet, and pretty tragic imo. Aang knows he could die. He says so. And then he kisses her. And I feel like Katara breaking out into a great big smile in that moment, even though she does have feelings for him, would just seem off. Idk, personally I'm not sure how you (impersonal) can celebrate finally kissing the person you like when you remember that what drove them to make their move just now is the very real possibility they might never see you again. That they're about to leave and face that risk, and there's nothing for you to do about it. Seems like an upsetting situation to be in.

There's also the fact that I'm skeptical Katara didn't already know Aang had feelings for her. I'm not saying it was always on her mind or that she paid much attention to it, she may have been putting all that stuff on the back burner or pretending it wasn't there as much as it was (including her own feelings) to focus on more important things, but I think she at least knew it subconsciously. I mean, Aang's not very subtle sometimes lol, and they've shared plenty of moments. So when Aang kisses her and Katara jerks back and her eyes widen in surprise, it's not because she didn't expect Aang to have these feelings (at least imo), but because she was in the middle of talking and is taken aback that Aang broke the unspoken barrier between them.

They're touchy feely throughout the show. Katara's kissed him on the cheek plenty of times, they've even kissed on the lips before now. They have sparks, and they've been dancing around them quite a lot, from the Book 3 premiere at the latest. But they haven't gone that extra step to put it out there too far, where there's no mistaking the meaning behind these gestures. I think, on Katara's end, she would have been okay with putting off making any official moves for a while, given the war and several other possible factors preventing her from feeling able to spend too much conscious thought and emotion on it, and so she's surprised that Aang's kissed her because they'd been keeping their more romantic intentions implicit up until then. She won't be realizing afterwards or celebrating in her head that "omg, the guy I('ve sorta been avoiding my feelings for but actually do) like likes me back," because she’s known this, but it’s been left unsaid and kept slightly quiet in Katara's musings. Now, it's out there in the open, they're past the safe zone, there's little room for ignoring the feelings anymore, and it sucks so much that they had to make their way there now. It's such tragic timing, a kiss that doesn't stem from a smiles and rainbows conversation where they sit down to talk about their feelings and where they want to go from there, but a kiss done out of desperation, out of the possibility that Aang doesn't come back. Through that lens, it's almost like they kissed "too early," especially for what happens next.

See, my impression is that Aang's kiss was meant for two possible scenarios -- Aang loses and thus doesn't come back, which means there's obviously no future for him and Katara. Alternatively, the day is won, the war is over, he comes back and the world is finally at peace; they can stop running, they can celebrate and breathe and talk about where they're going from here in an environment more appropriate for that. And since Katara kissed him back, it seems like she affirmed that there's something there for them, given he returns. But instead, something happens that I don't think they anticipated. Aang does come back, but he didn't win. So, in terms of Katara and Aang, they're now at a bit of an impasse, a situation that their kiss wasn't intended for, and it leads to this semi-awkward limbo because Aang's still alive but ideally that kiss between them wouldn't have happened yet.

Everyone needs to regroup, start it all over again, keep grinding and come up with a new plan. There's no time to get sidetracked, now more than ever. And, to me, that's reflective of what happens to Katara after Aang kisses her and takes off from the sub.

Katara's reaction is to dwell on the kiss. She wants to, but Sokka reminds her that there's no time to. So Katara snaps herself out of it, and she moves on. And then they survive the Day of Black Sun, but the fight isn't over for them yet.

You asked about the DoBS kiss, so I'm not gonna waste your time hyper-analyzing Ember Island Players because there is a lot that's been offered and discussed about that episode. But if you were to simplify the reason for Katara's stance there, it's pretty much just holding up what was established in DoBS.

At the Invasion, while caught up in surprise because she had an expectation that they wouldn't broach the subject this way, if at all, for a while, Katara kissed Aang back, and she kissed him back because she wanted to. But since then, she's had more time to think, and she won't be so caught off guard next time. Aang expresses during EIP that he wants to try a relationship with Katara sooner rather than later, and that he'd thought she felt the same since she kissed him back (as well as the moments they shared before), but Katara is adamant now about this not being the right time. She fully intends to keep her head in the game, like Sokka reminded her at the Invasion. That's essentially what she thinks Aang needs to remember now, too (and yeah, like I said, there are other ideas that can be brought in that contribute to the articulation, but this is the primary point being conveyed here).

Whatever the reason, her response causes Aang to reevaluate his conclusion about where they stand. Even though the war isn't over, he thought that, because he survived and Katara accepted his kiss before, maybe they could try anyways. But Katara still feels stuck in limbo, and she makes that clear. It's also significant to note that Katara doesn't make Aang any promises about being together after the war, which imo was a good move on the writers' part (I have a wip about this but idk when that'll be done lol). Anyways, Aang backs off, following her lead and putting romance aside.

I do want to talk about the second half of Book 3 as a whole, though, not just EIP. I've seen people criticize this portion of the story in terms of Kataang, but I think that, besides the substance of these episodes, it's important to keep in mind that the last 10 episodes of the series (The Western Air Temple and on) originally aired 7.5 months after Day of Black Sun. Not only that, but these episodes all aired within the same week. It was a big, hyped-up event on Nickelodeon dubbed "Countdown to the Comet," and it took place over the course of 6 days. That sort of schedule for finishing a show is...unusual. But it was also intentional here.

Even though the episodes don't have to be watched that way, the final 10 episodes are, in a way, all together the final big bang of the series. They're majorly dedicated to the most critical elements of the main story, including Zuko finally, after 2.5 seasons, joining the gaang and him finding his place in it. I'd say that The Western Air Temple to The Southern Raiders are most generally about that, about Zuko being accepted and making amends especially to the original three members of the gaang (who he's hurt much more than Toph). The viewer is gratified by watching Zuko do what we all hoped for him, forming relationships with Aang, Sokka, and Katara after all this time, merging our most important A and B plots. The other major things the last 10 episodes are for are the final battle, of course, because that's going to be our conclusion to this journey, and Aang's preparation for it.

So yes, onscreen interactions between Aang and Katara are fewer, but by no means does that make the rest of Book 3 an undoing of what they have. All their setup has been established, we're good on that, and we're going to leave that relatively be for now while we delve into the action until we're ready to revisit. And besides, imo, they still have extremely critical moments in the last 10 episodes that I am deeply, deeply happy exist. They're more subtle and less explicitly romantic -- a lot of them take place when they're not even around each other, but they speak volumes to me about how Aang and Katara have influenced each other, and how important the other is to them.

These 10 episodes are like a refocus of our largest priorities, and Kataang coming together is put on hold (again, I think that benefits the main story) for the end. But even though we watch less scenes where they're together, with more scenes of Zuko joining and hanging out with each of them individually in place, there's hardly indication of Katara and Aang avoiding each other after their DoBS kiss, or even post-EIP.

They're still friends first. What they're avoiding is not each other, but a new possibility for themselves, because right now they're choosing to ground their feet in what they have. Basically, around each other, they're pretending what unfolded between them never happened until, possibly, on Katara's say so, it's appropriate to resume that aspect of their relationship.

And after the war, probably into a few months of peace (based on the state of Sokka's leg), she decided it was. She felt ready, and they dove right in.

I hope that clears things up! And don't worry, you weren't a bother at all! I love talking about these two, but unfortunately I became really busy the past couple days (plus this response got deleted and I couldn't salvage it because I saved a copy of a cursed screenshot of Aang and ig it was scary enough to erase my clipboard history :3). Thanks for your patience lol!

#i hate tumblr it happened again #id in alt text #kataang #kataangtag #atla #avatar the last airbender #katara #aang #irhfk replies #oh yes and btw i have LONG been aware of the other storyboard lol #i have also listened to the official commentary for this ep #the girl is sad for him yk #and she been knew he has feelings for her #so i'd appreciate if ppl would not rb the other storyboard. seeing as it's not canon it's irrelevant to the conversation

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ahiddenpath · 4 years

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If you could give Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori their own crests, what would they be?

This is a really tough one! I do love that they “inherited” crests; the whole “these kids gets mentors” was so cute? A great way to bring back the older kids in a meaningful way. I personally think the 02 crew “had it together” in ways the original crew... kind of didn’t, lol! But they did have a lot of benefits (ability to go home, Koushiro as an advisor, mentors, two members who already knew what was going on, etc).

I also really love the observation that Adventure emphasized individual development (finding and earning and internalizing their crest traits, evolution is triggered by understanding yourself) and 02 emphasized team development (jogress/evolution triggered by strong bonds between teammates, inheriting wisdom from the ones who came before). So... I guess I hate to mess with that? But I do also see the appeal of giving them their own traits...

THIS GOT INCREDIBLY LONG, but it’s a really cool post, I think! So please read on beneath the cut!

Daisuke

Honestly, I think miracles works pretty well? I’ve heard people say that Daisuke just... Does whatever he wants/follows his gut, and it tends to work out; ie he’s more “lucky” than “an effective leader.”

Personally, I... Truly admire Daisuke’s faith and optimism and just... Just raw belief in everyone? I have anxiety, so sometimes my brain loves to tell me that a thing I’ve done a million times with no problems will somehow explode in my face. Can you imagine just... Choosing to always believe, and acting like everything will be okay? I don’t mean “sticking your head in the sand and going LALALA THIS IS FINE,” I mean taking action without hesitation, even when things are scary.

Like, yeah, maybe that’s not always valid IRL- you need to plan and be realistic and accept and reevaluate when your plan isn’t working- although I’d argue that Daisuke learned to do that over the course of the series (I remember him saying the team should rest at some point, and everyone was surprised that he didn’t want to press on, except Ken).

But I also maintain that Daisuke’s ability to believe in himself, his team, and just a general “things will be okay” is what creates success that almost seems... miraculous!

Also, I think he is suuuch a great meld of courage and friendship, because he pushes on when things are scary (courage) and is able to do so because he believes in everyone (friendship).

So, I’m thinking something like faith/confidence/trust. And having listed some similar-ish words...

I’m going with trust.

What incredible things you can do, when you believe in yourself, your team, and the future.

Miyako

I’ve seen other people assign her the crest of “passion,” which I think is great!

I think the thing about Miyako is that she’s, like... Always on, always 150%, so dynamic and vibrant and just... her cup overflows with energy and... Miyako-ness.

It’s clear to see how she relates to her “purity” side. It took me a long time to understand what I think the crest of purity means, thanks to a lot of... ickiness around the word “pure” in western tradition, which is also why I am loathe to throw the word “innocence” into my definition. Basically, I think the crest of purity means that Mimi and Miyako don’t dissemble/hide how they really feel. You’re always getting their raw, honest truth. And, because Mimi in particular is spoiled, she can come off as childish- which is where people like to throw in the word “innocent.”

[The general selfishness of children is related to them not knowing yet that they aren’t the center of the world- psychologically; Freud would call it “being ruled by the id.” It’s just a developmental stage, and doesn’t really indicate actual selfishness. You know how Winnie the Pooh is a sweetheart, but can make things miserable for other people by just assuming he can help himself to everything?]

But Mimi also displays a child’s heart in terms of being kind and sweet and sensitive and wanting to help... and then swinging back towards the id at the drop of a dime, lol!

Like Mimi, Miyako is very comfortable giving her opinion and drawing attention to herself, and she doesn’t seem to be holding herself back... But we do eventually see that things can weigh on her, and that she’s sometimes putting up a front when her energy actually isn’t at 150%.

I think the “love” part is a bit harder to pin down, but then... The word “love” is incredibly vague, and means a million different things to different people, which is why I kind of hate discussing the crest of love! I like to think of it as “the crest of compassion” to focus discussions; sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

It’s kind of funny to think of Miyako with the crest of love compared to Sora. Sora tends to show love by watching over people, being kind and supportive and brave even when she’s struggling and hiding the signs of her struggle/dismissing her own struggles, doing things for others, often without even letting people know she did anything.

In comparison, Miyako shows compassion by being present for people she loves, telling them bluntly when they need to shape up (which, frankly, a lot of Digimon characters really need. We need waaaaaay less staring into each other’s faces and never answering concerned questions and waaaaaaay more *slap* GET IT TOGETHER! God, ilu Miyako), and being honest and open about how much she cares for them.

So yeah, passion!

Iori

One of my favorite Chosen, this sweet good boy that I lovelovelovelove!

So one thing about Iori is that, while I can write big honkin’ analysis of how Daisuke and Miyako show their inherited crests... Um, I think Iori is his own thing. Like, I don’t... super get honesty and knowledge off of him. I mean, the honesty thing, sure. His Grandpa taught him not to lie, we had a whole ep based on that alone. As for knowledge, yes, he wants to know the truth and get to the bottom of things.

But... Neither crest ever felt like a slam dunk for him? Even though it’s easy to see how “honesty” and “knowledge” coalesce into “a desire for truth,” which is further illustrated in his career as a (presumably upright and truth-seeking) lawyer. Like, it’s right there in front of your face, Hidden!

BUT LEMME PULL UP A CHAIR, CAPTAIN AMERICA STYLE, AND HASH WITH YOU.

The thing that, to me, stands out about Iori most is that he’s grounded and centered. Have you seen that post recently that explains how Daisuke tried, just one time, to treat Iori like a little kid (he says, “shut up, little brat”)? And Iori- who is about three years younger than Daisuke, and much more withdrawn- politely but firmly replies, “Please don’t talk to me like that.”

AND YOU KNOW WHAT? DAISUKE APOLOGIZES AND NEEEEVER TALKS DOWN TO IORI AGAIN.

Iori is like... He’s like eight, my dudes! Rolling with a bunch of eleven-ish year olds! He’s personal friends with Miyako, a twelve year old, before Adventure 02 even opens! And we don’t often see him being doted on and protected like Takeru and Hikari were in the same situation.

YOU WANNA KNOW WHY? The simple answer is that he’s mature, but I wanna say that he’s grounded, the ultimate earth sign type (I think Digmon is a pretty clear metaphor). He doesn’t get flustered or swayed. He knows where he is, where he stands, what he must do. On the one hand, this makes him mature beyond his years, reliable, able to stand up for himself and be an equal team mate among kids who are older than him.

The downside is that “that which cannot bend must break.” I’m sure you’ve read a zillion metas about how Iori sees in black-and-white originally and has trouble changing his world views and learning to forgive... But he does all of those things, maturing further into possibly just... just... Can you even imagine him as an adult?! HE’S TOO POWERFUL.

So, if he were an Adventure character, I’d say that his crest is integrity, and he has to go through his adventure to learn what that really means for him- to develop from stubborn, black-and-white thinking to true integrity.

THANKS FOR THE ASK!

#02 crew #digimon meta #crests for daisuke miyako iori #faves #daisuke motomiya #miyako inoue #iori hida #Anonymous

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sevdrag · 3 years

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dreamwidth update: thinking on drawing

ever since the beginning of this year when i made it one of my goals to get better and more prolific with art, i've been really, really having to reevaluate my approach. overall i think i've made some pretty significant progress with art, and i need to tell myself that, because part of it is just still disappointing to me.

what i want to be able to do with art is sit down and draw something that's in my head and have it come out more or less like what i want. it doesn't have to be total realism -- i'm sure i'll have a style. it doesn't have to be neat - my art is messy by default. but i want to be able to, like, draw a comic panel or something, in a reasonable amount of time. mostly, it's drawing people that i want.

yeah, im nowhere near that.

my FIRST big adjustment this year was finally getting through my own head that using references isn't "cheating." once i got established in my little corner of the good omens fandom and talked to more and more artists, i finally got it through my brain - and i mean this has been years in my brain rent-free - that using references is something a lot of artists do. some of them will even trace a generic pose before going on to make it their own. this is what has substantially improved my art - FUCKING SURPRISE, SURPRISE - because as it turns out, i can draw nearly anything with a reference, and draw it rather well -- or, well enough to satisfy my internal monologue.

but i know not all artists have to look up 4-5 references and mash them all together if they want to make a piece of art? and i know a lot of artists can sit down and do a doodle that looks great in like a half hour with no refs at all? and that's what i want to be able to do, because sometimes, looking for a reference that fits perfectly is exhausting - takes as long as the art lol - and even then there's something about it that doesn't always feel "yours."

the thing is that for me, art takes time, and whine delayed gratification is haaaaard. but i think i have to get it through my head that at the stage i'm in, art is going to take time. if i could work on one piece a week i could probably put out some pretty good stuff, but my brain is still like "we sit down every night and draw A Thing and then judge it" and like .... jklsdhgksjllgk im not sure what i'm trying to say here. lkashflksahgsdhklg coming out wrong.

i think this is the point on that learning-scale graph where you're in the plateau that you can see what's good and what's wrong about your art (and others' art, which is surprising!) but you aren't good enough to get there. which of course means practice, but it's really hard to practice when you're absolutely failing at your actual goal, which is to sketch (let me reiterate - PEOPLE) reasonably well without a reference.

so i think my SECOND art adjustment of 2021 has to be learning that a lot of good art takes a lot of time, even for 'real' artists, and i should allow myself that time when i'm trying to create things of a certain standard -- and also to learn that the more i draw FROM references, the better i will get at being able to draw WITHOUT them.

i've already come this far just with practice, and for the first time ever i signed up as an artist for the GORBB (reverse big bang) (you can see it here: https://ift.tt/2L0PKsS) which was a big milestone too. and the work was in the middle in regards to detail and time put in (i'm not going to say, nor judge, on the quality of other people's works, but i was happy with how it ended up, even if there are still things i'd change). i've done a ton of color studies and portraits and things like that, and it has resulted in actual improvement, so i know it works.

it's just stupid, because my brain is whiiiiiining about it, and i know the answer is "art more and learn", but boy howdy do we not want to.

anyway that's thoughts whats the haps anyone want to gimme an art prompt i guess lmfaoooo

comments Comment? https://ift.tt/3fwgYnW

#crossposted #dreamwidth

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monst · 4 years

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T’is the season Day 30

Day 30 Shoveling Snow

Wow we’re already on day thirty O.O It’s really gone by quickly. I’m excited that I finally get to write for flame daddy ^.^ And, my girl Yaomomo :D and, I guess yay for Sero to…. Jk He’s great :3 Warnings: Dirty jokes and innuendos Without further ado Amari’s TDS presents:

Yaoyorozu Momo

You were sweating. In below freezing weather! Why were you outside sweating in such weather? Well because of her. You really hated how you could never say no to her. Her cute smile and her adorable excited bouncing had gotten you hook line and sinker. It would have dragged down others, but they seemed to be busy. Your mood was beginning to sour with every pile of snow you moved over to the side.

“Why the fuck is her driveway so damn long.” You hissed under your breath. You loved Yaomomo you really did but you were going to murder her.

“Hey, (Name) I got us some hot chocolate.” She beamed. And, suddenly it wasn’t as cold out…..

You took the thermal she held out to you and smiled. She really could get away with anything. You were honestly whipped for your friend. Friend being the key word. You thanked her or the warm drink and sighed.

“Something wrong?” She asked her brows furrowing.

“No, Just wished there was a faster way to do this.” You half-confessed. “I’m freezing”

Yaoyorozu frowned, she hadn’t noticed how much of a burden this could have been for you. She really felt as if she had been selfish. She began to remove her coat and your eyes immediately caught the action.

“Momo! What are you doing?!?” you shrieked. “Put your coat back on you might get sick!!” You fretted.

She didn’t, instead you saw her produce some strange gun ray. You looked at her in confusion but, backed up when she motioned for you to do so. With a squeeze of the trigger all the snow surrounding the driveway was cleared. It was easily melted away with the hot temperature the ray emitted.

“Woah” You gawked. “Why didn’t you do that earlier?!?!”

“I-I’m sorry?” She teared up. You began to panic. But before you could say anything she held her hand up in interruption. “I was being really selfish, In all honesty the hired help usually does this but.. B-but I just wanted to spend some more time with you and, I didn’t know how else to ask. I’m so sorry. Now your probably going to get sick and then you’ll hate me and, I don’t know If I-“

You cut off her rambling by moving closer to her and buttoning her coat. You didn’t say anything as you continued your task.

“(N-Name)?” She stuttered. And you sighed, moving your gaze to her dark eyes.

“Momo for someone so smart you can be pretty dumb.”

Sero Hanta

You were ecstatic. You had been shoveling snow since the first flake fell trying to earn some extra cash. You were saving up to take Sero on a date! You had been crushing on the hero since the two of you met but, you’ve always been to shy to ask him out. However, you weren’t a child anymore and with enough pushing from your friends you had gained the courage to ask him out.

Well that was until you realized you didn’t know how to ask people out…. So, you thought up the next best thing. You were gonna invite him out and make it seem like it was just a normal quiet sober friend thing. Your current job didn’t leave you with any splurge money, so you had decided to gain some change doing what you were doing. Moving snow.

That was until said man walked down the street and spotted you. Sero was a bit confused as to why you were shoveling snow when you could have been home all warm and cozy preferably cuddling with someone. And, as you were his friend he decided to go and say hi.

“Someone’s working hard.” His grinned watching as you jumped in fright.

“Hanta!” You squeaked the shovel in your hand swerving upwards making the snow on it fly off and smack him across the face. “Oh shit! I’m so sorry.” You apologized. But you were more amused than sorry and couldn’t help the snort that escaped your lips.

“Oh, you think that’s funny now?” He grinned moving to grab an armful of snow.

“No, W-wait!” You pleaded “Look you can get me back for it later, but I really need to finish this yard.”

“Oh? Speaking of which what’s this about?” He asked motioning to your shovel and the lawn.

“I’m saving up.” You smiled feeling butterflies churn in your belly.

“What for?” He mused “Must be important if your out here freezing your ass off.”

“I-It is.” You stuttered. “I’m saving up to take the guy I like out.”

“Oh.” He muttered. “Sounds like your real serious about him, if your doing all this work.”

“Yeah.” You smiled.

“Hmm maybe we can double date!” He grinned.

“W-what?” You asked incredulously. He couldn’t be saying what you thought you heard.

“Yeah, I’ll bring my girlfriend and you can invite this guy.” He smiled flicking snow of his shoulder.

“You…..you have a girlfriend?” You asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, what? Thought I couldn’t get one.” He teased. “What day were you planning it?”

“Friday.” You mumbled dejectedly. “You know maybe I shouldn’t ask him.”

“Nonsense (Name) You’re a pretty great person I’m sure he’ll say yes.” He encouraged. “Or do you not want me to tag along.”

You didn’t say anything. You could feel your throat tightening in the telltale sign of impending tears. You didn’t want him to see you cry. And, here you thought that your feelings were obvious. They we’re probably nothing but a burden. Maybe this was his way of turning you down….

“Earth to (Name)” he waved his hand in your face. “So, see ya Friday?”

“W-wait!?!” He didn’t give the chance to speak as he used his tape to propel himself through the air. “I…Guess I’ll come clean on Friday.”

Come Friday you walked to his house in trepidation. You just wanted to call him and tell him you were sick but then you’d never get over it. You figured you needed to rip the band-aid quickly. So when you stood at his door you knocked before you could pussy out. The girl who opened the door was everything you feared. She was undoubtably beautiful.

“Can I help you.” Even her voice was lovely.

“H-hanta Sero.” You squawked.

“Oh Han! Your girlfriend is here!” You heard her yell.

“Shut up Hana!” You heard him call, then heard the sound of him tumbling down he stairs. Once he was at the door he smiled at you and narrowed his eyes at the woman at the door. “You can leave now.”

“What aren’t you going to introduce me?” She grinned….A very familiar grin. He tried waving her away. “No? Tsk Shitty little brother have it your way. (Name) was it? He humps his pillow at night crying out your name.” She scoffed walking up the stairs.

“T-that’s a lie!!” He shouted up at her. You rose a brow all nervousness gone.

“So ‘Han’ where is your girlfriend.” You teased a bit pissed at how he went about things.

“Well I thought she’d never show but she’s finally here.” He joked with a shaky grin on his flushed face. “And where’s your ‘crush’”

“Right in front of me looking like a tomato….”

Todoroki Enji (Endeavor)

He sighed when he noticed you outside of his agency building. You really didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. You were hard at work using your quirk to clear the area of natures jizz. You were always within view and in all honesty, he was tired of your ridiculousness. You had tried everything to get his attention and he was not willing to give it to you. At least not at the beginning of the….Endeavor…..

You wanted his attention. Craved it. You wouldn’t lie to anyone you were obsessed with the beefy redhead. You wanted him to notice you. So, you did everything in your power to get that. It was the reason you worked so hard to be able to make it into his agency. But he didn’t give you the time of day…. It was in the cold elements that you began to reevaluate your choices up until that point.

Was it really worth it? It was clear that he didn’t need you or want you. Hell, the man was trying to fix his issues with his kids. Should you really be meddling. These were your current thoughts as you ditched your snow clearing task and went for a walk. ‘It’s not like he’ll notice I’m skipping work.’ You thought walking further and further. On your walk you began to question your feelings. ‘Why do I like him? What does he mean to me? Can I continue wasting my efforts on someone who looks to me as if I were nothing?’

When the pro hero looked outside his window, he expected to see your smiling face gazing up at him. He was looking for your waving hand and your curved-up eyes. He didn’t see any of those things. Instead he saw something red staining the snow. His azure eyes widened, and he disregarded the window and hopped out of it. When his feet hit the ground he quickly took off towards the red stain. He followed the trail until he turned the corner and saw-

A child dropping his Kool-Aid pouch onto the snow…. Well at least it wasn’t you he mused as he wondered about where you could have gone. ‘Maybe it’s a ruse.’ He sighed thinking that it was a new tactic of yours to get his attention. He figured that you were probably around the corner laughing and gushing at how cool it was that he jumped out a window for you.

Except that, that wasn’t the case. And you were nowhere to be found. You also weren’t picking up your phone…. He was worried. It was beginning to grow dark and he was still out looking for you. He’d check every single place you had claimed to be your favorite. He had raced to your apartment. He asked your neighbors. But it was like you just vanished… Or worse. You could have been actually harmed or nabbed by villains.

By now he was frantically yelling your name desperate for a reply. It was when he turned to run past a playground that her caught sight of your form. You were sat at a bench looking at the pigeons that had gathered for the bread you had brought in a convenience store. He had never been so relieved.

“(Name)” His hoarse voice gasped startling the birds. “*Sigh* I finally found you. You had me- Everyone worried.” You looked over in confusion.

“Endeavor?” You looked at the breathless hero up and down. “What are you doing here?”

He was taken back by what you called him. You had never called him by his hero name. It was always ‘Todoroki-Sama’ I public or ‘Enji-kun’ when you were alone. It felt strange and cold. He didn’t like it.

“What am I doing here?” He scoffed “What do you think your doing here?? You think you can just skip out on the job?” He seethed.

“Does it really matter.” You sighed in your feelings.

“What?!” He sputtered his face growing red with anger. He had looked for hours, he was worried for hours and here you were as if it wasn’t a big deal!! “This is unacceptable an employee of mines should never-“

“Then fire me.” You sighed. “I’d be out of your hair like you want..”

“….I…That’s not what I want (Name)..*Sigh* you have no idea how worried I was, I thought something horrible happened. I don’t know what I would have done if something did happen to you..” He confessed. You gawked at him. And with wide eyes and a slack jaw you spoke:

“Nani!?!?!”

Banner will be up later this shit is about to die and i’m at work with no charger!!

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ddixons-angel · 4 years

Text

Fated: Season 1

Summary: Gloria Rhee narrowly escapes Atlanta with her brother as the outbreak reaches the city. Luckily, they find a camp outside the city and together, they fend through encounters with the living and undead.

Starts a little before Season 1 and then follows the main storyline of the show.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Glenn Sister!OC

Warnings: major TWD spoilers, language, violence (the typical TWD stuff)

To be Updated every Monday!

A/N: Hi hi! I’m super duper late to this bandwagon, aren’t I? Hehe. This is my very first ever fic based on The Walking Dead and it is basically a rewrite of the entire show with a character insert. This fic will revolve around this character so there will most likely be some major points that change or be omitted to fit the story. I’ve never actually written a fic that follows the set storyline of a show before, so please bare with me!

I’ll most likely split this into segments based on each season of the show. Like one season will be posted in a consistent timeframe and then I’ll have a break, then post the next season, so on and so forth. Or if any of you have a better idea of how I can split this, please let me know!

Chapter 1:

A hot summer day in the middle of August, screams of terror and pain are heard all over the bustling streets of Atlanta, Georgia. People running for their lives, some trying to get into cars, some abandoning their already crashed cars; it’s a complete disaster. Police and ambulance sirens echo throughout the city, the service workers doing their best to put an end to the violence and rescue as many people as possible. Injured civilians are rushed into the hospital, cries of pain and fear sound through the halls of the emergency ward.

“Seriously, what the hell is going on…” Gloria Rhee exclaims to herself as she rushes down the hall to the emergency ward where she was called to assist.

“Gloria! Come here, I need your help.” an older woman beckons her over as she is wheeling a patient on a gurney to a room.

Gloria rushes over immediately and assists in pushing the gurney, she glances at the patient and isn’t able to ignore the patient’s injury; it looks as if they’ve been bitten.

“Doc, I don’t think they’re going to make it.” Gloria tries to say calmly, “the wound is still bleeding and by the looks of it, they’ve already lost a lot of blood.”

“That doesn’t mean we give up.” the woman gives Gloria a stern look and they push the gurney into the designated room.

Once the patient is in the room, the older woman gets to work with Gloria assisting her. They attempt to stop the bleeding and stabilize the patient, but soon realize that their attempts are futile; Gloria was right, they had lost too much blood. The older woman looks at Gloria with sad eyes and announce the time of death.

“Come on, it’s a complete mess out there, they need our help.” The woman says as she puts her hand on Gloria’s arm and starts to lead her out of the room.

Gloria nods and takes one last look at the patient and stops, “Wait, doc, look!”

The older woman looks back at the patient and is shocked to see that the patient had woken up, but they seem different. Before Gloria could say anything about how empty the patient’s eyes look, the older woman had made her way to the patient already to check on them. To their horror, the patient is unresponsive to the doctor’s questions and instead snarls as they grab the doctor and sink their teeth into her, causing an agonizing scream.

“Oh my god…” Gloria watches, horrified and unsure of what to do as the patient devours her now dead superior.

Fear and panic take over her as she runs out of the room, screaming for help only to stop in her tracks as she takes in the scene in front of her. Patients, doctors, nurses, are all screaming as they are being eaten alive. Gloria looks around her and takes off to the nearest emergency exit. Once outside the hospital, she looks around only to see a similar scene out in the streets.

“Glenn…” Gloria breathes the name of her brother and runs off to find him.

Dashing down the streets and jumping over cars, she reaches her first destination, Tony’s Pizzeria. Gloria opens the door to the restaurant to find that it’s completely trashed, the owner of the place on the ground and bleeding out.

“Tony!” Gloria kneels down beside him and sees another bite on the man’s collar, “you have a first aid kit in here somewhere, right? We gotta get you patched up, come on.”

She attempts to help him up but he stops her, putting his arm on her shoulder, “No, you can’t, I’m already done, they got me.”

“What are you talking about?! You’re bleeding out, we gotta-”

“What you gotta do is find Glenn and get the hell outta here! Watch out for those undead freaks, once you’re bit..” he looks at his own injury and chuckles bitterly, “you’re a goner.”

Tears threaten to fall from Gloria’s eyes as she registers his words, “where is Glenn?”

Tony coughs and breathes heavily, “T-the last order I-I told him to make…was to that warehouse by N-Nelson’s. You know where that is?”

Gloria nods, “I do…I do, thank you…”

All the life in Tony’s eyes leave him as he breathes his last breath, smiling softly at Gloria. She sniffles and stops her sobs, getting up, she rushes into the kitchen to find something, anything, to arm herself with. She finds a large knife and comes back out to the front of the restaurant. She freezes when she sees Tony’s dead body starting to move and she hears a familiar snarl.

“That’s what he meant by undead freaks…” Gloria whispers the realization and watches the undead corpse slowly getting up and finally notices her.

Knife in hand, Gloria prepares to run by the corpse without getting touched. She dashes between tables, only to trip on an already fallen chair and the corpse reaches for her. It’s jaws snapping at her while it’s hands grab hold of her shoulders. Gloria struggles, stabbing the corpse in the chest and shoulders but to no avail, it just kept trying to bite her. She uses all of her strength to hold him above her.

“Come on, think….” Gloria glances at where she had stabbed.

It’s lungs are punctured and multiple stabs in the heart; Gloria looks up at Tony’s dead face and makes one last educated guess, the brain. She lets out a battle cry and pushes the corpse off her, then gets up and plunges the blade into the head of the corpse. It stops moving instantly.

Gloria collapses back and reevaluates what just happened, “Holy shit…”

She composes herself again and yanks the knife out of the head of Tony and steps outside the restaurant, back onto the streets. Chaos is everywhere as everywhere she looks, there is blood and gore.

“Fuck… I gotta find Glenn…”

—

Gloria makes it to the warehouse that Tony had told her to go to find Glenn, but she isn’t able to get close to the warehouse as there are undead corpses roaming everywhere. The last thing she wants is to get caught in a crowd of those things. She thinks for a moment and decides to take a chance and head back home, thinking that Glenn might be there waiting for her already. Taking one last look around, Gloria heads back to her and Glenn’s apartment building, doing her best to avoid the undead on the way, only killing them if absolutely necessary. Thankfully, the lobby of her apartment seems clear of the undead, although there are smears of blood on the wall.

“Glenn?” Gloria calls out when she opens the door to her apartment.

She sighs when she finds that the apartment is empty. Their apartment is still relatively clean, no sign of any rummaging through their things which tells Gloria that Glenn hadn’t come back to pack anything either. Gloria quickly goes to her room, grabbing her large duffle bag and any essentials. Before exiting her room, she catches her reflection in the mirror. Her nurse scrubs splattered with blood. Gloria decides to change out of her work uniform, just to prevent Glenn from running the opposite way when he sees her in bloody clothes. She packs her bag with clothes, water bottles, and any food she can find in their fridge and cupboards. With a full bag and the sheathed kitchen knife set her father gave her, she heads out of her apartment.

Gloria pushes the door to her apartment building open, rushing out and not noticing that there are undead outside roaming and once they see her, one of them grabs her arm, pulling her towards them. She lets out a yelp and quickly stabs the one who grabbed her in the head, freeing her of it’s grasp and she runs away. She reaches a quieter street with less undead corpses, most of them distracted as they feast on other dead bodies.

“Glenn!” Gloria yells out in desperation for her brother.

She looks around and soon realizes that she should not have yelled. The undead corpses which were originally busy feasting on their kill now have their attention on her, fresh meat. They all start to make their way towards her, snarling and groaning, attracting more undead to the area with noise.

“Shit..” Gloria mutters under her breath as she tries to find a way out of this mess she brought upon herself.

Looking behind her, she finds a somewhat clear pathway and retreats through there, putting down and pushing away any undead that come close to her. Her path gets blocked off by cars and many more undead corpses, her only exit is to climb the cars and jump to the other side. Before she’s even able to climb on the hood of the car, hands grab at her legs and pull her back. Gloria struggles to break free, kicking at anything that comes close to her, attempting to stab at the ones holding onto her. She plunges her knife into the skull of the main undead corpse holding onto her, she frees herself but is unable to take her knife out of the skull. Giving up on the knife, she tumbles to the other side of the car where more undead are waiting for her, she dashes at any opening she can find through the hordes and finds herself backed into an alleyway, the horde blocking all exit paths for her.

“Gloria! Gloria! Up here!”

She knows that voice. Looking up to find where the voice is coming from, Gloria sees her brother looking down at her from the roof of a building. Relief washes over her as she finds that he’s alive.

“Climb the ladder! Now! Hurry!” Glenn instructs her, his eyes glancing back and forth from her to the horde.

Without any hesitation, Gloria grabs onto the ladder mounted at the side of the building. She quickly climbs up, escaping the grabbing hands of the hungry undead in the alley. Glenn reaches out to her as she closes their distance and helps her over the ledge of the building.

“You okay?” Glenn asks, his hand patting his sister’s back.

Gloria nods, out of breath from the near-death experience, then pulls him in for a tight hug, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Me too. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Glenn takes the lead.

“Wait,” Gloria stops him, she begins to dig into her bag and pulls out two knives that she packed from their apartment, giving one to Glenn, “Here, and don’t make any noise, they’re attracted to sound.”

Glenn takes the kitchen blade from her and chuckles, “you brought the knife set dad gave you?”

“Yeah, well, they’re finally coming in useful.” Gloria zips up her bag and puts it back on her back and starts walking with Glenn.

“Not really, those things are already dead, what good will a kitchen knife do?” Glenn exclaims, his voice full of worry, “how are we gonna stop them?”

Gloria points to her right temple, “It has to be the brain, something probably respawns there when they die so destroying that must kill them permanently.”

“Wow…they teach you that in Health Sciences too?” Glenn laughs.

“No, you dumbass. Let’s just say, I found out by killing your boss.” Gloria said as she looks down to the streets on the other side of the building, “this part seems clear. Hang on…where the hell are we even trying to go?”

“Well…we wanna get away from all of this, so if there are no people, there won’t be any of these dead…undead things.” Glenn suggests.

“So we’re leaving the city.” Gloria concludes.

She looks over at her brother and then back down at the streets. Glenn turns serious and tucks the sheathed knife into his belt, lightly pushing Gloria out of the way and climbs first over the ledge, carefully climbing down the ladder. Gloria follows him and soon they’re running through discreet pathways through the city. As Glenn was a pizza delivery guy, he knows all the best and quickest routes to anywhere in the city, including out of it.

“Never thought that delivering pizzas would give me such a useful skill.” Glenn grins as the two made it to the outskirts of the city.

As Glenn had predicted, the outside of the city didn’t have as many undead corpses since there weren’t that many people there either. There were more abandoned cars scattered along the roads, and one with tinted windows catches Glenn’s attention.

“Woah! Look at this!” Glenn gleems excitedly, running over to the car, “It’s an RX7! I’ve always dreamed of driving one of these.”

Gloria rolls her eyes as she follows him, “Glenn, now is not the time for you to nerd out over your dream cars.”

“I’m not nerding out! We won’t be getting far by foot, but this baby will take us to the next state! I’m gonna try to hotwire it.” Glenn says excitedly and goes over to the driver’s side.

“Do you even know how to? Just because they make it seem easy in the movies, doesn’t mean it is.” Gloria follows him, looking around in case their conversation attracts any undead.

“That’s where I think you’re wrong si-” Glenn opens the door to the car and is surprised by an undead corpse in the driver’s seat lunging out at him, causing him to fall with the corpse on top of him.

“Glenn!” Gloria shouts in panic, about to take her knife out from her belt when she hears the loud bang of a gunshot.

The corpse on Glenn stops moving completely as he pushes it off of him. Gloria rushes over to help him up as they both look around for their saviour.

“You two okay? He bit?” a voice calls out.

The siblings turn in the direction of the voice and see a man holding a handgun walking closer to them. Gloria looks over to Glenn at his question, holding her breath in fear as she searches his body for any injuries and lets her breath out when she doesn’t find any.

“I’m good, I’m good." Glenn reassures both of them, “Thank you, you saved my life.”

The man nods and smiles at them, “No problem, saw a guy who needed help, and I helped. Name’s T-Dog.”

Gloria chuckles, “T-Dog?”

“Well, okay real name Theodore Douglas, but everyone likes to call me T-Dog.” he laughs.

“Glenn.” he introduces himself and offers his hand out for a shake.

“Gloria.” she does the same, “so, where are you headed?”

T-Dog shrugs, “I don’t know, honestly, anywhere but here. What about you two?”

“We don’t know either, but like you, we don’t want to be anywhere near the city when it’s crawling with those things.” Glenn explains.

T-Dog nods, “Hey, tell you what, I got a van and we can travel wherever together, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think traveling alone is the best idea.”

“You’re right, traveling alone is good for stealth and being quiet but with company, at least you have people who can watch your back.” Gloria says, crossing her arms and looks at Glenn.

He nods, “alright, I guess we’re a group now.”

T-Dog leads the siblings to his van that he parked between a rummage of cars, disguising it as a broken down van so that no one would try to steal it. They get in and T’ starts the van, and they start to drive down the road heading to God-knows-where. Gloria and Glenn ask T’ questions to get to know the man better; it turns out that he used to play football and just before he found Glenn and Gloria, he went around rescuing the elderly from the undead. Then it’s T-Dog’s turn to ask questions, letting him learn about Glenn being a pizza delivery guy and Gloria an intern nurse studying to become a doctor.

“So uh, I don’t mean to make this awkward but, are you two a thing or nah?” T-Dog questions hesitantly.

“Sister! She’s my sister!” Glenn is quick to answer causing T-Dog to laugh.

“Sorry! Sorry, I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to jump to conclusions just because you’re both Asian.” T-Dog defends himself.

Gloria chuckles as she starts to rummage through her bag, “It’s alright, honestly, we get that a lot. Mainly because people think we don’t look anything alike.”

T-Dog glances over at them and back at the road again several times, “Nah, I can see the resemblance now that I actually look.”

Glenn and Gloria laugh at this, then she pulls out three water bottles from her bag and a few snack bars, handing them over to Glenn and T-Dog. The three of them drive while eating and talking amongst themselves for what seems like hours until T’s van runs out of gas. Fortunately, Glenn tells them that he knows that there is a gas station not too far away and the siblings volunteer to go scavenge for gas as it’s T-Dog’s van, he needs to stay with it. They head off and find the gas station Glenn was talking about. Glenn starts to pump gas into containers while Gloria goes to scavenge more food and supplies. After getting as much as she can, Gloria rushes back out to meet with Glenn.

“Stop right there!” a deep voice calls out.

Glenn looks over in the direction of the voice and sees a man with bushy hair wearing a sheriff uniform pointing a gun at Gloria. He quickly puts down the can of gasoline and raises his arms.

“W-we don’t want any trouble man, we were just getting gas.” Glenn tries to stay as calm as possible.

Gloria stands still, eyeing the man as he also analyses the two of them.

“You guys got a group? A camp?” the man asks, his gun still pointing at Gloria.

“No. No, we don’t. We have a van and owner of said van.” Gloria replies, sarcastic and snarky remarks are her go-to defense mechanism which sometimes drives Glenn completely crazy especially given the situation they’re in.

“Is that what the gas is for?” the sheriff asks, his gun gestures to the canister of gas Glenn had gathered.

“Yeah, we were trying to get away from Atlanta but then ran out of gas.” Glenn explains, thinking that if they answer truthfully, this sheriff might let them go unscathed.

The sheriff doesn’t seem to see them as a threat anymore as he puts his gun back into its holster, “My name is Shane, I have a camp at a quarry with others and we’re trying to build up our group. Safer in numbers, you get the deal. Would you two like to join us?”

Gloria glances at Glenn and when he’s about to accept the offer, she speaks up, “how do we know we can trust you, I mean, you literally just pointed a gun at me.”

Glenn mentally facepalms as Shane chuckles, “you’re right, I did just point my gun at you, but you have to realize that I did it because I don’t know you, there are dangerous people out there and I’m not even talking about the walkers.”

“You’re right! But you can trust us, we’re both good.” Glenn butts in, hoping his sister will shut up.

Shane smiles and nods, “let’s get going then,” he turns around and starts to walk them the way to the quarry.

“Wait,” Gloria calls out, “we weren’t lying about us having a van, our friend is back there waiting for us, he’s good too.”

“Okay, let’s go get him, then.”

Shane leads the siblings back to his car and they drive to where they had left T-Dog and his van. After explaining the situation to him, he agrees to go, liking the fact that they will have an actual camp to stay in. The four of them head off to the quarry and Shane introduces them to the inhabitants of the camp. Dale, an older man who owns the RV, gives them two tents and welcomes them to the group and camp. They get to know a few of the people living there and learn that they all refer to the undead as walkers, a term that they became used to as well.

A few days after the siblings got settled into the camp, Gloria finds that the group is almost out of water bottles. One of the members of the camp, Amy, told her that there is a stream in the woods that carries fresh water to the pond, and so Gloria went to fetch water for the group. Easily, she found the stream and starts to fill up water bottles and soon enough all the empty bottles she brought with her are now filled. Gloria starts to head back to the camp with the water in her bag when she spots something on the ground, a dead rabbit with an arrow sticking out of it. She leans down and picks it up, frowning at the death of such a cute animal when a voice cuts through her thoughts.

“Hey! Tha’s my rabbit!”

Gloria looks around the woods, trying to find the owner of the voice and apparently rabbit, when her eyes land upon a rough looking man holding a crossbow aimed directly at her. And if looks could kill, Gloria was sure she’d be dead with the way those piercing blue eyes bore into hers.

—

Next Chapter

That was chapter 1! A long one but I wanted to set the flow. I know there was barely any Daryl in this chapter, but I promise there will be more in the next one! It actually starts with Gloria talking to Daryl. Anyway… Hope you all like it!

I would really appreciate any comments left for me! I’ll be replying to any comments in a new post because this is a sideblog!

#Daryl Dixon x OC #TWD fanfiction #Fated: S1: Chapter 1 #The Walking Dead fanfiction #Daryl Dixon #Glenn Rhee #Fated: Season 1 #Daryl Dixon x Original Character #Glenn Sister!OC

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arlingtonpark · 4 years

Text

SNK 124 Review

I’m calling this maneuver the Full Eren, in which your mounting resentment gets the better of you and you to do crazy shit.

Connie’s…been through a lot. Like, everyone here has been through a lot, but for him, it’s… a lot a lot. He lost his home, his family, a couple of his friends, had to kill people against his better nature, lost his best friend, and then Eren started working with Zeke.

He’s lost a lot, and it seems to have finally gotten to him. Sasha’s death seems to have done it. He’s become more and more bitter recently and he’s become more and more resentful. When you get shat on by the world, it gets easy to think you deserve a break.

Your toilet clogs, your car dies, and your girlfriend dumps you all on the same day, and so you start expecting things to start going your way again. Maybe you even expect people to start showing some kindness to you. Because you’re going through a lot.

Then, when things don’t really start going your way, you get pissed.

Connie’s entire freak out here basically amounts to this:

It’s not fair!

Armin got to come back to life by eating someone. And he’s Armin. They were originally going to bring back Erwin, but they went with Armin instead, the bright but inexperienced one.

Now there’s a repeat of that happening, but this time Armin tells Connie they have to choose strategically, not with their emotions.

It’s not fair!

Connie’s definitely being irrational here. Armin never asked to be brought back; Connie’s anger should be directed at Jean or Mikasa.

And of course what Armin is saying doesn’t imply that Connie’s mom is unimportant. I’m sure Armin does value her life, it’s just that he’s not thinking in those terms. In terms of bettering Paradis’ current situation, bringing back Pixis has more value than bringing back Connie’s mom. That frame of reference is what’s relevant here.

No one denies that choosing Armin over Erwin wasn’t strategically sound. Even Armin himself. But going against this logic before doesn’t mean they should just ignore it completely now.

It makes sense to revive Pixis instead of Connie’s mom. That doesn’t say anything about her value as a human being.

But now, Connie’s decided he’s entitled to some kind of break and he’s going to get it, and fuck you if you try to stop him.

People can do cruel things when they’re aggrieved.

What Connie is doing is awful. He’s going to revive someone by killing a kid. Doing that to bring back Pixis would have some sense to it, but here, Connie is just being selfish.

He’s not doing this for the sake of everyone around him; he’s doing it for his own sake and his mother’s.

Compare this to Eren.

Eren is doing this for the sake of everyone around him, but that is outweighed by the cost of all the people who’ll die. Killing billions for the sake of millions will never not be wrong.

Meanwhile, sacrificing Falco to revive Pixis would arguably be fair, since Pixis would be better able to help people than Falco. Or Connie’s mom for that matter.

He would be Paradis’ new leader, and he’d clearly be good in that role. He’s smart, personable, and fair. He has expertise, but knows when to let other people, even completely inexperienced people, take the lead, as he did when defending Trost. These are all things you need in a leader.

He’d be the best person who could lead Paradis.

But this is Attack on Titan, so of course they had to kill him instead.

Speaking of Eren, I love how the end of the world is mostly a background event in this chapter. Apparently we’re getting every loose end out of the way before the main action begins!

I for one believe that killing billions of random people is a bad thing. Many would disagree with me, but whatever.

The best part about this chapter is how it systematically deconstructs every brain dead argument fans are making to justify Eren.

The very first thing this chapter points out is that Eldians will die too. There are Eldians all over the world and they’ll be crushed with everyone else. And because this is Attack on Titan, we can clearly see a mom crying with her baby on just the second page.

But I guess Eren considers them race traitors or something for hating Paradis.

Oh, yeah, and also he just assumes they hate Paradis.

Connie isn’t the only irrational one in this chapter.

Next thing is Jean victim-blaming the people Eren is about to kill. That’s what it is, victim-blaming, and I’ve actually seen it thrown about to justify the Rumbling.

These people are going to be massacred, but…they brought it on themselves! They started this fight! They can’t complain about dying, they chose to hate on Paradis!

The chapter rightfully casts this as fishing for excuses. “They” is a very broad term here. Most of the people in that “they” are not involved in the fighting and are just people living their lives. Lots of them probably hate Paradis, but so what? They’re just random people with no power to harm Paradis.

Those people probably also hate Eldians, and many Eldians are clearly hurt because of that bigotry, but who cares?

Eren clearly doesn’t, because he’s killing the Eldians too!

Eren is killing everyone outside Paradis, regardless of whether they’re Eldian or not, regardless of whether they hate Paradis or not.

That’s the final thing the chapter points out. Many of the people who’ll die are not involved in the conflict, like Onyankopon’s country.

Conflict is a bad thing because it hurts people and destroys lives. To limit this destruction, soldiers are required to distinguish between civilians and enemy combatants. Shoot at the enemy soldiers, not the guy who just happens to live down the street. The point is to limit people’s suffering. Otherwise…you end up with what Eren’s doing.

Slaughtering people because they’re not on your side.

Almost everyone who’ll die are just people living their lives. Eren is killing them because for all his talk about the value of life, he actually rejects that idea. As I’ve said before, Eren is basically a nihilist.

He has no morals. He has no principles. He has no ideology. He just wants his friends to live. That’s a good cause, but it is not tempered by anything that you’d call “thought.”

Eren’s problem is that he has no vision.

He has no vision for himself, the world, or even his friends, the very people who’s doing this for. He wants them to live, but not being dead isn’t the most visionary life goal.

He wants his friends to live long lives, but he doesn’t seem to care about what they do with those lives, not even in a friendly “Hey, so what’ve you got planned for this week?” kind of way.

He can’t imagine people having dreams because he’s never had any himself, aside from wanting other people to survive to live their dreams. Eren is what you could call “thriving-challenged.”

I don’t know if Eren will succeed, but the story clearly does not support the Rumbling, and that’s good.

The Founding Titan’s power is apparently a lot cruder than most assumed. Eren unhardened the walls, but he had to cancel all hardening to do it. And he apparently cannot control all titans. Come to think of it, Eren’s speech last chapter was broadcast to all Eldians, not just the ones on Paradis, even though he has no reason to tell Eldians outside of Paradis what he’s doing.

I don’t know where Isayama is going with this, but it makes for an interesting limitation. Wielding the full power of the Founding Titan has been compared to being a god, but now the Founding Titan isn’t looking so omnipotent anymore.

That’s not much of a limitation, since Eren can still flatten the world at will, but that just makes him like the Death Star. An imprecise, hulking planet killer.

But, just maybe, vulnerable to a smaller-scale attack.

So Annie’s back. Isayama had to do it if he wanted to make it up to the fans for a mostly Gabi-centric chapter.

I don’t really get the anger people have for Gabi. Yeah, she’s been an ass before, but…that’s the point?

Her character arc is that she learns how to not be an ass.

She’s already made up with Falco and Kaya, and it seems she’s going to be on at least neutral terms with Armin and Mikasa, all that’s left is to make nice with Connie for killing his girlfriend.

That may not be possible, but it’ll be a sign of how much she’s grown to even try it.

Gabi’s arc is a good sign for where this story is going. She was a brainwashed warrior, but by being shown kindness and mercy, she’s realized how wrong she was. In that way, she’s a better person than Eren.

Eren never could see past the hatred the outside world had for Paradis. It never seemed to occur to him that people could be made to think differently. It was pretty lazy of him.

That’s a pretty good word for it, actually. Lazy.

Everyone else was actually trying for a peaceful resolution, meanwhile Eren was just bumming around not helping. He sort of seemed to be waiting for a solution to fall into his lap. He must have forgotten he’s the main character of Attack on Titan.

Eren never fought for peace; he gave up too easily.

Gabi, meanwhile, has actually changed. She was shown the humanity of her supposed enemies and she’s reevaluated her worldview.

Eren has said he understands his enemies now, but that’s such a shallow change. He understands they have lives they live through, but he clearly doesn’t value their lives any more than he previously did.

So, yeah, Gabi’s a pretty good character, and a pretty good person. I hope she lives.

Another A+ goes to Kaya this chapter, who’s finally come around to Gabi.

I’m not sure how I feel about how quickly she changes her view on Gabi, but I get the logic. In that moment, as Gabi was standing over Nile’s titan, Kaya saw the same daring selflessness she saw in Sasha. That’s what wins her over.

That leads to the talk about people having devils in them. I like how the series talks about this here. Everyone has a capacity for wrongdoing. We all struggle with it sometimes.

What’s great about this is that the series is talking about the faults in human nature in a way that allows for choice and free will.

This is a more complex understanding of human nature. It’s not like what you see in places like 4chan or Reddit, where people just say that humans are selfish and we can’t do anything about it. People have no free will because we’re just slaves to our “violent nature” and that’s why war is inevitable and blah blah blah.

According to this scene, people struggle to not do evil. Implicitly, this means that some people choose to do evil. They give in. This notion allows for ideas like responsibility to exist. That’s good, because it’s true!

Compare this to Frieda’s worldview, which is similar but subtly different. She believed that the world’s cruelty meant we needed to be kind to others to the point of subservience.

Frieda saw kindness as a response to the world’s cruelty; in 124, kindness is framed as something that can directly change the world and make it less cruel. It is proactive, ironically by not doing something. Not giving in to the devil inside you.

I really hope Tia Ballard plays Yelena in the English dub of season 4. She’d be great in the role.

I can say that with more confidence than Yelena can say Zeke is special, that’s for sure. She’s just now starting to realize that Zeke isn’t all that special, or really even all that smart, and now she just wants a chair to sit down in.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, but it looks like Floch is going to try and take over, so she’s probably toast.

I don’t expect Floch to get anywhere far, since he’s presumably doing this to keep the throne warm for when Eren gets back, and Eren doesn’t want it. Floch will dispose of the volunteers but will be himself disposed of when (if?) Eren returns to Paradis and inevitably rejects the role of king.

…Is Historia even technically still the reigning monarch? Her Prime Minister was murdered and her government was overthrown by a coup with popular support.

Jeez, this probably shows how much she’s been a nonentity more than anything else. Her majesty’s government was deposed in a coup with the backing of the people, and she just…wasn’t a factor!

At this point, there has to be something big going on with Historia if we’re being made to wait this long for her to enter back into play. Set ups and payoffs are a basic part of any story. The longer Historia’s inevitable role is withheld from us, the more payoff there will need to be.

I don’t doubt that there could be a satisfying payoff, but the curiosity is starting to become palpable.

...Crap, so this what it’s like to be powerless in the face of something you have control over.

The outside world has my sympathies!

#snk 124 #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #spoilers #snk chapter 124

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zionangel · 3 years

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All the WandaVision spoilers, beware.

No cut on mobile, sorry. Swim away!

I am in an elaborately constructed magical case of emotion, I am tired and have had a hard week and may or may not have eaten a special cookie or three. So please bear with me as I ramble incoherently. (Please Stand By...)

But like I straight up cried. I never cry. I have literally cried over a movie or show two other times. But those I cried for bad reasons, but this time I cried for very very good reasons. Like an amazing plot and the best fucking acting and writing and everything. Like the writing was so good it retconned a good deal of shitty writing and unfortunate choices by past creators. Fucking amazing.

Additional thoughts:

Motherfucking Hayward. I don't know if that bitch is Mephisto or an evil Skrull or a what but someone needs to cut that bitch.

The title and synopsis made me think it would be more catchy fun times with showtunes about all the shit Agatha has been pulling but nope. That shit got dark and I was not ready for that. Like they did a good job with the story and everything but also I think that shit maybe toying with the line with what's too gorey to put in a family friendly show maybe? I mean I'll be watching this again when I'm well rested and sober so I guess I'll reevaluate then. Moing on.

Yikes Agatha. But also like yeah that's definitely the sort of thing that will turn you into a supervillain. So. Also how dare you fake us out with a ridiculously catchy tune and then turn around and go all dark. Rude.

OMG baby happy Wanda with her happy family I am a mess. And I totally called it why it's all a TV show.

As a matter of fact, I was annoying my very sweet and patient cat by blurting out my theory about what something was or what would happen next. And I feel like I guessed a lot correctly, which is a sign of really good fucking writing actually and it was very refreshing. Like so many fan theories that seemed contradictory are proving true. Last week Team Agness got an awesome song, but then this week it turns out yeah it was inadvertently Wanda's fault but only because she was unknowingly carrying the thing that's definitely not the Phoenix Force. YOU get your theory validated, and YOU get your theory validated---

Also there's only one more episode, and absolutely no way they can possibly wrap up all the dangling plot threads in that period of time. Which means they won't be and we have to wait for another season or something. Silver lining: maybe another season probably?

They made such a point of Wanda being a volunteer and there were no indications that Pietro was there at the time. I don't think Pietro volunteered like she did. He either got captured and they forced him to participate because it works so well on Wanda and that kind of thing might be genetic, or they corerced him into participating to spare Wanda's life or something. She probably feels insanely guilty about that. Like she's the reason he got into it, the reason he ultimatley got killed.

OMG UNLEASH THE GODDESS WITHIN. That's what that commercial was hinting at. Whatever they decide the Scarlet Witch is.

OOH OOH OOH!!! THE SHARK!! "Feast on Yo-Magic" it's about what Agatha did to the other witches. They even shriveled up into skeletons. Fuck this writing is amazing.

So basically Not-The-Phoenix-Force, on account of being trapped in the Mind Stone all that time, could like, hack the cloud storage account of the Mind Stone, dowwnload Vision's brain and soul and shit and recreate it for Wanda, apparently For Realsies if that batshit CGI is to be believed. Either that or she accidentally split her own soul in half to make a convincing copy (hopefully not).

He bought her a fucking plot of land so they could build their cute little suburban house together and live happily ever after I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THESE FEELS HOW DARE YOU

When the house was glitching in the last episode there was what looked like snow on the stairs but I now see it was rubble. And the broken house was probably a memory of the bombing too.

Did Wanda go back and get Vision's body later, or were those videos of Wanda stealing it edited to look worse? If she didn't, what was Hayward tracking that Darcy thought was the decay signature of Vibranium? Was she somehow tracking the soul or whatever that was created during Wanda's nuclear meltdown? Is some other Vibranium something walking around town? Is Sam out there with Cap's shield magically converted into a cool jacket like Monica's bulletproof pants?

Could Vision have always been (or maybe been posessed by) some other unpleasant entity that was preveiously trapped in the stone too? Could Ultron have been?

"I CAN'T FEEL YOU" FUCK YOU MARVEL FUCK YOU.

Oh hey what if Wanda actually like absorbed Vision's consciousness and soul into her own body when she was killing him? And spit it back out during the big red boom? Also hey, bonus, new cool body ready and waiting to house that soul if you can steal it from Hayward.

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iphoenixrising · 5 years

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For 900 Followers! Dr!Tim: Arkham Breakout

So, there was once upon a time this Ask aaaaand then this Ask. Then babe asked how things are going for a certain Dr. Drake, so...you know, it’s really a standard Wednesday when he’s literally caught in the middle of a massive Arkham breakout :D

Some day, he’s really going to have to reevaluate his life choices.

Volunteering for rounds at Arkham Asylum is definitely going to be on the list for review.

Sure, at the time, no one else from Mercy General was stepping up to volunteer (honestly, you’d have to be a patient here to willingly step up for this assignment. It’s fine, he’s been called worse).

Sure, he might have gotten friendly with some of the less insanely deranged inmates because really, considering how many times some of them had come through his ER to be patched up after a confrontation with one of the Bats, it was only a matter of time before they knew him by name.

Sure, he actually started to like wandering around the halls, talking with the inmates when they weren’t clutching stab wounds, contusions, and broken everything.

Sure, he might have been doing some side research on MacGregor's Syndrome (just some fun with genetics and incurable diseases), so the guards let him talk with Victor Fries a few times. And though short, their conversations were amazing, giving him a second thought about cryogenics.

Sure, maybe he enjoyed sitting outside Poison Ivy’s cell to ask her questions about her publication on cellular regeneration in plant hybrids.

(He brought her a sad, droopy orchid in thanks. She was actually smiling when he left, so he’s already got a resource when he needs it.)

Sure, he didn’t think it was dangerous enough to mention it to Dick or Jay.

The sounds through the Bluetooth in his ear, the lowly muttered curses from the Red Hood, the muffled boot falls, the rev of a massive engine, all of it is soothing in the fact they’re on the way to help him out here. Ass-kicking vigilantes for the win. But, still.

He’s well aware there’s going to be some conversations about why the hell he’s in Arkham in the first place once this is all over.

None if it makes him feel any better about the current sitch, not when the Joker, Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, the Clock King, and Poison Ivy are moving through Arkham Asylum’s cafeteria, looking like a whole lot of shit has hit the proverbial fan in the works.

How do I keep getting myself in these situations? Is the real question here.

But Dr. Drake just focuses on the emergency at hand, fumbling through his doctor’s bag for more gauze with one bloody glove since what he’s pressing against the awkward stab in Jim Newman’s belly is already saturated, and his other hand is in mid-stitch.

He gives a customary glance to where the Mad Hatter is rolling around on the floor after someone took out his face with one of the trays.

The mashed potato mess is going to be such a pain in the ass to clean up later. Tim is pretty sure the perpetrator is one of the Hatter’s previously employed thugs, probably pissed off his 401-K got cancelled when the last heist didn’t really pan out.

Really, bad guys don’t have good medical insurance. Shouldn’t that just be, you know, a requirement?

He stays hiding behind his circle of protectors with the snatch-and-stich, most of whom are still tensely watching the progression of the Rogue Gallery through the general population, probably wondering if even one of those crazy fucks has some kind of mind-altering drug, high-test explosive, or some other painful way to die hiding in their jumpsuits.

Tim tries to make it fast, feels the pressure of the situation just by glancing down at Jim’s terrified eyes rolling back while he gets his side sewn back together without general anesthesia. It probably beats bleeding out all over the floor, but Tim knows that’s little consolation. At least the scar won’t be too bad.

(Probably.)

The guard with the nasal fracture in the circle with them is crouching low, fingering his side arm, looking pretty on the edge of terrified himself at the group of other guards with their hands up, prodded in the back with their own guns by some inmates that have obviously chosen crazy to side with.

Perfect.

They’re probably all going to die.

“Well, well, boys. We have a golden opportunity here,” the Clown Prince of Crime chorts with his sickening smile, makes Tim literally cringe with two more to go.

Even if his hands are shaking and the comm in his ear blanks out because they must be on the way (please, God, let them be on the way), Tim is quiet about it when he presses a fresh gauze pad from the already opened package and tapes that sucker in place without drawing too much attention to himself.

Mike Monohan, an inmate in his circle of protectors, plays a mean game of Uno, and flicks his fist open to a flat hand, the international sign for stay back and shut up.

Staying back and shutting the hell up it is.

“We could have so much fun now that we have the Warden here with us,” the Joker is saying, gesturing to the narrow-eyed Warden thrown down on the floor, right on top that wasted pasta salad.

While the rest of the formerly-fighting, raging inmates are wary and listening, Tim crab-walks back, finger over his mouth aimed at Jim. Sliding his arms under the inmate’s, he slowly, quietly, starts pulling his patient back in short bursts, trying to get them under a table without catching anyone’s eyes.

Dr. Crane has found his mask, is pacing around the frozen inmates and guards with the creepy mask, and the Clock King is standing behind the Joker like some kind of Enforcer.

Dr. Fries is leaning against the wall in his suit, the freeze gun holstered.

Dr. Isley is close to him, the two of them talking low whenever the Joker’s back is turned.

Harvey Dent shoves the Warden down on the floor, gives him a very pointed No moving, or it’s curtains for you.

Shauna Belzer waits serenely behind the Joker, the sock puppet on her hand snickering, eyeing the inmates over his shoulder.

Temple Fugate is tapping his foot impatiently, the glint by his right side is a pocket watch.

The inmate’s face is almost white with the effort to slide under the heavy table, even with Tim to help push him under.

“Fun, boss?” One of the inmates eagerly pushes through the frozen crowd, “is it the kinda fun what might break us outta here?”

“Chucko!” The Clown seems happy to see his previous henchmen, and from his point crouching by the edge of the table, Tim can see that sick smile gets wider. “If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hiya, boss,” the orange-clad henchmen seems just as happy to see the villain, “M’ sorry Mister Joker, but the cops took away my mask.”

“That’s all right, Chucko! The Gotham City Police never did have much of a sense of humor, but we’re all going to have a little fun before we break out of here anyway, huh huh huh.” It’s kind of sick how the Joker pats the henchmen on top the head like a dog, even worse considering the henchmen grins dopily back.

“As long as we stay on our time table,” Fugate interjects, “we have approximately one hour and thirty-seven minutes before the next shift arrives. Less if anyone makes it to the control room and radios for help. The, we will have Police and Special Forces descend upon us. Not to mention the Bat and his brats.”

“Hu-hu-hu, I guess you’ll have to keep an eye on the time, then, won’t you, Tempy?”

The Ventriloquists’ sock scrunches up, “we need to be out of here as soon as possible, Clown. I have a very important person to pick-up out of a locker in the bus station.” Which explains the sock instead of the creepy puppet, Ferdie.

Two-Face sneers at the circle of inmates effectively shielding the shaky doctor from first glance, turns to look at the gathering of other super villains, “I want out of this shit-show, Joker. I don’t get out, you are gonna have a bad fucking time on the inside. Any questions?”

But unruffled as ever, the Clown Prince of Crime just smiles at the group, eyes taking in the terror from half of the inmates, “of course, of course, Harv. We all want out, don’t we? And we’re going to do just that!...After we have play a little game with the Warden and his numbskull guards. Won’t that be worth sticking around?”

A hand tugs at Dr. Drake’s scrubs, and he glances down at the injured inmate, his eyes probably wide and terrified as he feels hearing the Joker talk about shit like games–

(Not fun for the whole family. Really, just your faces getting cut off, no big deal.)

“– gotta get to the infirmary and hide,” Jim hisses up at him, “who knows what they’ll do to ya. All of ‘em are nuts.”

“I can’t just leave,” he whispers back, eyes for the real problems here.

“Doc, there’s nothin’ you can do against these guys. They’re the real deal, and they will straight up murder you. I work for Two-Face, and you don’t wanna dick around with him.”

He’s listening, but his eyes are all for Fugate helping Jervis Tetch to his feet, trying to see if he’d broken his face in the first round of rioting–

And the idea, the plan, on how he could get everyone in this cafeteria out of this alive is right in his brain pan. Risky, but really the only shot he can think of.

“Stay down no matter what,” he tells Jim, pats the inmate’s hand gripping the hem of his scrub top, “I think I’ve got a way out of this.”

His legs shaking, knees knocking, Tim pulls away from Jim’s grip and takes a few steps closer to the inmates hiding him. He pockets the comm in his ear, leaving it on for when his vigilante boyfriends might actually make an appearance.

He takes a deep, trembly breath, watches intently as Fries walks over to look at what is obviously a very broken face.

“He probably has a nasal fracture,” Tim says loudly, cringing internally when everyone, everyone turns and stares right at him. “I’m a doctor. I can help.”

Mike is glaring at him, eyes narrowing in displeasure that he gave himself away, but, you know, thwarting break-out attempts means he needs to be able to move around the baddies.

None of that stops the painful lurch in his chest when that sick grin is absurdly delighted.

“Oh! I guess that answers that question, doesn’t it?” The Joker throws his head back to start laughing.

“What question?” One of the inmates interrupts the maniacal peals of laughter, looking around confused.

The shiny barrel, one of the guard’s side pieces, goes off like a bomb exploding, and the body drops with a hard thud in the sudden silence.

“That’ll teach you. Never ruin the punchline!”

And that sickeningly delighted grin turns on him, the barrel with a whisp of smoke still curling from the barrel.

“And as for you, well, I suppose there is a doctor in the house!” The laughter is loud and manic, echoing off the walls, a cacophony of insanity.

But.

Tim sees Victor Fries straighten noticeably, and hopes that maybe he can play his cards right to avoid getting himself killed.

“This is really going to hurt. There might be pain meds in the Infirmary, but I have no idea. I’m not permanent staff here,” he tells Jervis Tetch and Temple Fugate, gloved up at, looking critically at the mess that is currently the Mad Hatter’s face. “We can also check if they have a portable X-Ray because you are seriously going to need it.”

Tim clicks off the penlight and palpates the swollen area gently, “from what I can tell without any secondary evidence to support it, is you have a crack in the maxillary, which is why your eye is almost swollen shut. Yes, the swelling will go down, but cracking a bone this close to your eye could mean shards are going to cause more problems than you would want to deal with if you like being able to see.”

And even if the Mad Hatter is–

One. Scary. Mind-Controlling. Psychopath.

– his squashed face is obviously panicked.

“If you are a doctor as you say, then you will fix it – or you shall pay.”

“Mr. Tetch, I don’t know if Arkham is even equipped to do major surgery. Without the right tools, I could run the risk of permanently blinding you.”

He finally releases the swollen area, completely bullshitting with a straight face and intense eyes (he’s done more complex surgeries in a few back alleys and rooftops, but no one really needs to know those details), pointedly takes the villain’s pulse while glancing at his watch.

“Not to even mention your risk of infection here. Considering the number of organic material that could get into an incision on your face, it’s too much of a risk here at Arkham. There’s a reason why the Warden stopped allowing major surgery on inmates twenty years ago. One of them being nearly impossible to keep a sterile enough room in tact after the many escape attempts.”

Temple Fugate makes a strangled noise he covers up with a cough.

“Next issue is appropriate staffing. You’ve got RN’s, psychiatrists, one other medical doctor. But to be honest with you, Dr. Isley would be the best choice to keep you under during general anesthesia, taking her knowledge of chemicals into account, I mean. But, we run the risk of infection since her current state was caused by a combination of pesticides. That is not enough people to assist during major surgery and monitor your vitals while you’re under. If you code while you’re on my table, I don’t have enough qualified people to bring you back.”

While the Mad Hatter goes pale, blinking his good eye, Tim folds his arms over his chest and gives the villain his most sincere look.

“Your best bet to save vision in that eye is to take two inmates in an Ambulance and have them drop you at the hospital. They can say you got in a fight and the on-call here told them to get you to Gotham General immediately. Their OR has more state-of-the-art equipment than Mercy, and they could reconstruct your ethmoid flawlessly.”

He breaks a disposable ice pack and works it with his gloved hands, gently applies it to the area, and picks up the villain’s limp hand to hold it himself.

Jervis tries to slouch his eyebrows down, but flinches at the pain radiating from his injury, holds the ice pack tighter.

“After all those fights with the Bats, this certainly won’t be my last.” The neuroscientist mutters to himself, “Very well, Doctor, I’ll take my business into the city as you suggest, but don’t think this gets you any immunity from that pest.” And well meaning head nod to the Joker, gun still at his side while the Warden of Arkham is tied to a support pole in the center of the cafeteria.

“Perish the thought,” he closes up his doctor’s bag, giving the villain a wave before going back to where the inmates injured in the dinnertime scuffle were laid out on tables waiting for him. He figures it’s fine because he’s pretty sure he know how to handle that guy.

(Again.)

He leaves Fugate and Tetch to talk out the details, relieved neither of them realizing he dropped the tiny tracking device from his stethoscope in the band of Tetch’s hat when he turned the villain’s face to look closely at his injury.

He’s on his way to his next emergency because Jim is breathing hard and rapidly losing color, surrounded by four other inmates, but the dangerous gangster slash lawyer hovering by Jim’s hand is the real danger, not the muck they call potato salad still painting the walls.

“All right, let me through,” while he’s sliding between Rodney the Hammer (for obvious reasons) and poker-playing macrame enthusiast, Big Earl McCalister (a name from Jay’s life in the Narrows).

He re-gloves, puts his Arkham-specific bag down by Jim’s shoulder and unwinds the steth to check the usuals.

“Doc,” is the deep rasp of Two-Face’s I’m not happy tone. “This is one of my guys, you get me?”

“Read you like a book,” he replies without looking up, checking the skin around his stitches, “none of that changes the fact I don’t have what I need to help him.”

Tim curses softly, eyes going to Jim’s, noting the profuse sweating. The blade went in at least two inches, so they could be looking at intestinal perforation, which he is in no way equipped to handle in the fucking cafeteria of Arkham Asylum. He could possibly do a peritoneal lavage verify fluid out of his bowel is spilling into his abdominal cavity, but the slight swelling and discoloration are sure signs Jim needs laparoscopic surgery.

Now.

“I need you to listen to me,” he starts haltingly, but a hand on his forearm stops Dr. Drake cold.

Like he’s in a horror movie, his eyes go to where Two-Face has leaned over the injured thug on the table, and the ruined side of his face is prominent enough for him to see the excessive scarring.

“Yer gonna tell us what you need to take care of my man here,” is a not-fucking-around kind of dangerous, making Tim suck in a deep, deep breath just to try and keep himself calm.

(They’re on their way. They’re coming for him. They wouldn’t leave him here.)

“He needs an actual hospital with medical staff,” falls out of his mouth firmly, “I don’t have the people or equipment or the surgical staff I need to operate on him here. What I can tell you is that his lower intestines have probably been punctured, and he’s going to die of sepsis shock in less than an hour if we can’t get him into an OR.”

The sickly yellow eye narrows on him, assessing, and the pilfered gun in the gangster's other hand makes a soft click.

“There’s an ambulance here somewhere. Arkham has one for emergencies. Your guys can take it to Gotham General and no one would be the wiser,” Tim shrugs and looks back down at his patient. “As is, you can threaten me all you want, but attempting surgery here, is only going to end up in infection and probably death. I have no supplies of blood, IV fluids, antibiotics, or qualified staff. The nurses and MDs you do have here are good, but not trained at all for major abdominal surgery. There’s no way I can open him up and repair the perforation without killing him.”

And it’s a tense moment when Tim finally looks up at the gangster’s face, his own jaw set

“Then we gotta get ‘im out,” and Two-Face looks down at Jim Newman’s face.

Jim, eyes glassy with pain, reaches out a bloody hand, “ ‘Face?”

“Yeah, yeah. No worries, Jimmy. We’re gonna take care a’ ya.” And in what is an impossible-to-predict move, the burned side of the gangster’s face tries to lift up in a half-smile.

“M-My little Tracey, ‘Face. If I don’t–”

“Hey,” and it’s Tim drawing the sluggish eyes, “we’re going to get you taken care of, right?” And he glances up at Two-Face, swallowing hard, but keeping his gaze steady.

“Yeah,” the mass murderer looks back at him, an assessing something in his bulging eye, “yeah, we are. You, Doc, you gonna tell my man Vinnie what ‘cha need, and he’s gonna get it.”

The hulking thug still in his orange jumpsuit steps up to Jim’s side while Two-Face makes his exit, going straight for the laughing mad man gleefully shoving pies in the Warden’s face.

“Is your real name Vinnie?” Because honestly, his mouth is going to get him every damn time.

The thug just smiles.

Welp, okay then. “I need a gurney to transport him to the ambulance. I’m going to check his wound and re-wrap it.”

He’s already reaching in the bag for more gauze pads, pulling back the layers he’d already applied, checks the skin around the stitches, wishes he had a cuff to get Jim’s systolic pressure but estimates it’s down to 80 and dropping.

All it takes is for Vinnie to nod and two lackeys are scrambling to get down to the infirmary.

“Thought...thought I told ya ta get gone, Doc,” Jim wheezes, gritting his teeth as Tim gentle presses just his fingertips against the slight swell.

“Couldn’t leave you,” he replies without looking away.

After long seconds when he hurriedly pulls a syringe and antibiotic, hoping to give them some time then scrambles for a notepad and pen, scribbles instructions quickly while muttering aloud, “administered augmentin...probable perforation of intestine or bowel…”

He scribbles something at the very bottom and tears the paper off his notepad, slides it in Jim’s jumpsuit pocket.

“Make sure the ER doctors get that. It tells them what I’ve already given you so they don’t mix other antibiotics or painkillers.”

He pointedly ignores the fight breaking out between Two-Face and the Joker, but notices Vinnie turns completely away to watch the proceeding shouting match ending in guns pointed at other another.

“Fuckin’ stand down Clown, or I’m gonna make ya a stain.”

“C’mon Harve! Where’s your sense of humor? Ha ha ha haaa!”

“He’s going to get us out of here you ass!” Crane shoves his creepy mask right in Two-Faces peripheral, something probably dangerous clenched in the fist behind his leg.

“We can get ourselves out,” Belzer replies serenely, “we’ve all done it before after all.”

“That means we need to get going,” Fugate is pulling Tetch along with an arm over his shoulder, the other holding the ice pack against his face. The pocket watch makes an appearance, and Tim tapes fresh gauze pads down, mentally preparing to roll Jim off the table and shove it over if bullets start flying.

(Please, please, please hurry.)

Vinnie seems to get the tension suddenly in the room, milling inmates all freezing in place, eyes for the boatload of crazy in the center of the cafeteria by the salad bar.

“But we were just starting to have some fun!” The Joker almost screams, gesturing wildly with the gun to the hacking Warden.

“As usual,” Dr. Isley sighs, calmly walking in the middle of the two villains in the middle of the showdown, “you aren’t using your brain.”

“C’mon Red! I know you want to get out and visit our little Harl, but we have a golden opportunity here!”

Tim sucks in a hard breath when Dr. Isley’s eyes narrow dangerously, and oh God, oh God, oh God.

His eyes dart to the corner of the salad bar where Dr. Fries is leaning, the goggles over his eyes not showing at all what he’s thinking. But, but, Tim notices the ice gun is not longer in the holster at the side of his leg, instead it’s in hand with the doctor’s finger on the trigger.

A subtle shift, upper body moving because that suit has got to be heavy, and Tim isn’t imagining Dr. Fries is looking right at him around the Joker’s back.

Tim’s eyes shift down to his patient, muscles tightening in preparation for something.

“That’s enough,” is robotic through the suit’s speakers, kind of like Jay’s syths Tim thinks crazily when his heart starts to pick up when the Joker tilts his chin down and narrows his eyes right back at Poison Ivy and Two-Face.

If he wasn’t suddenly terrified about a Rogue Gallery Throw-Down, he would be fanboying right through the mashed potatoes.

“Stay out of it, Freeze Pop,” the Joker’s voice is low and utterly fucking terrifying.

“This accomplishes nothing but waste precious time,” Freeze deadpans, “it gives us less time to get far enough away from the Batman.”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to remedy!” And the Joker straightens, easily lowers the gun, smiling right at Two-Face’s shiny .45. “We just take some hostages along for the ride.”

Because, of fucking course, the Joker’s head swings over to stare him right the fuck down.

“Especially Gotham’s little darling, here! Why my stars and garters! I believe it’s the indomitable Doctor Drake! AH HA HA HA HA HA HAAA!”

And his heart jumps right up into his throat, choking him on his next breath.

Leaning to talk out of the corner of his mouth, the Joker’s eyes are all for the frozen civilian, “He was on the news, Harve, remember? The little do-gooder on the bridge.” The low drop of the Joker’s tone on that word, on bridge, hits Two-Face in the right way, making the gangster’s attention shift.

(Oh shit. This is bad, getting more bad, getting so, so, so bad.)

“That was you?” The other gun falls and Two-Face turns on him while the Joker is doing that cliche steeple-fingers-and-look-insane kind of thing, and that just really makes him want to take a step back. He should probably run, but it’s more likely Two-Face would shoot him in the back if he tried, so he’s got no other choice but to improvise.

With the copper taste in the back of his mouth, with the possibility he’s about to die horribly depending on the level of utter crazy in the room right now, Tim Drake straightens his spine, crosses his shaky arms to hide the fact.

“There were children, Mr. Dent. Children that didn’t deserve to die on a collapsing bridge.”

Jim Newman tenses on the table under him, still going pale, still on a ticking clock, and some of the other inmates are cowering back. The Ventriloquist looks eager to see what happens, her sock puppet whispering in her ear; Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, and Clock King are looking at him intently, uncomfortably so. Poison Ivy sighs and arches a put-upon brow.

“I patched people up and put them in cars to get off the bridge. Your bombs did what they were supposed to do,” is more accusatory than he feels. “I just tried to keep the victim count down.”

“The other one didn’t go off. You have something ta do with that, Doc?” The question suddenly very, very important to how the next six seconds are going to go.

So Tim calculates what he’s going to say for a split second, “I was being hit with debris and pulling little girls out of cars,” which is true, “I only saw the Batman for a few minutes, and I didn’t have anything to do with another bomb.” Mostly true. B already knew it was Two-Face before Tim ever got a surprise ride on the Batplane courtesy of the blood-loss-and-shock express.

The new train leaving the station is I-might-die-in-Arkham-Asylum.

All Aboard

“Now Harve,” the Joker starts, tisking.

“Shut-up, Clown,” because the glint is the famous coin appearing in Dent’s unblemished hand.

Some crazy instinct makes him step away from the gurney, eyes all for the inevitable flip, hoping, praying his luck is going to hold out long enough to get a message out to the ER staff and stall long enough to keep them here until the vigilantes make a dashing, in-the-nick-of-time entrance, and really just save the day.

(Please please please save the day.)

“Got a fifty-fifty chance, Doc. I’m hoping ya got some extra luck.”

His breath gets caught in his chest at the twing when the coin rolls off Two-Face’s thumb into the air, is hyper-focused in the moment, doesn’t even notice Victor Fries straightening from his slouch to watch the proceedings. Fixes his eyes on the palm of that ruined hand–

–and the arm holding the gun slowly, surely rising.

The coin doesn’t make it back to that hand, gets slapped out of the air instead, and the gangster actually chokes.

“You-you son of a–!”

“Harve, Harve,” and for the first time, Dr. Drake can say he’s seen the Joker actually frowning, miffed that his plan is going sideways, anger simmering under the insanity, but it just goes to show he’s special kind of psychopath when he stretches his neck out to put his face less than an inch from the ruin side of Two-Face’s, and smile.

It’s telling how the Joker doesn’t even flinch at the cold rage across from him.

“He has more potential in the ‘hostage’ category, than the ‘dead’ category, Harve, and we need a nice little nest egg.” One white finger carelessly, comically pushes the barrel of the gun down to the ground with that sickening grin in place. “You and I both know–”

The he-he-he literally makes Tim’s skin crawl.

“–those caped do-gooders roll over for a nice hostage.”

The stare-down is like something you read about– the Joker is intense while Two-Face glares silently back, that yellow eye fixed.

The inmates around the Rogue Gallery are shifting, trying to stay out of the way in case the guns come back into play, and everything Dr. Drake has been trying to do seems to go immediately, irrevocably sideways.

The stand-off is interrupted when one of the inmates hurriedly scoops up the coin and brings it back, holding the scratched surface up, presenting it like a gift.

Two-Face doesn’t bother looking at the inmate, just snatches the coin, eyes narrowing on the Joker’s grin.

“As much as I fucking hate you, Clown, you got a point. We’re gonna need some leverage.”

“Oh, you flatterer. You don’t have to hate so much that I’m right, hu hu hu. Good! Now we can get this show back on the road and execute the Warden, right?”

The childish stomp jars Tim out of panicky brain-freeze, lets him suck in a choking breath at the crazily entertaining back-and-forth, and his knees wobble a little in weakening relief.

(He keeps himself calm by running through the last year of crazy shit he’s gotten his hands into since he’s been dating certain adorable, entertaining, and very, very late, vigilantes. He’s been up against some of these psychopaths, ninjas, and is the go-to guy for every kind of strange alien bacteria Booster Gold could possibly pick-up during his travels.)

Out of his peripheral, he sees Dr. Fries slouch back, head turned and looking at him, utterly unreadable with the goggles and glass dome.

The Ventriloquist, however, is pouting like she’s missing out on a good show. Great. At least someone wants to see him dead in the next few minutes.

“You have approximately forty-five minutes before the next shift will begin showing up for work,” Temple Fugate inserts, “and we need people to drive our Hatter friend to the hospital along with Dent’s right-hand man. It’s a perfect cover to get us through the gates without alerting authorities. Thus, whatever you intend to do, do it now.”

The impatience draws the Scarecrow’s attention, “expediency is preferable, ladies and gentlemen. I still have reserves hidden in Gotham, and I don’t need Bats on me before I get to them.”

“Fantastic!” The Joker laughs loudly, back arched, “then we get to–” and he spins on the heel of his spat, finger out to point at the Warden still tied up in the center of the cafeteria, pie remnants dripping off him.

But the Joker trails off with a “eww,” when the Warden is obviously gasping for air, his lips turning an unnatural shade of blue.

Like his life wasn’t hanging in the balance a few seconds ago, Tim snatches up his bag without looking away from the distressed Warden and takes off around the table while the guys waiting for Vinnie’s signal with the gurney move in to load up Jim Newman.

He skirts around the inmates, and already has his stethoscope in his ears, listening to the sickening sound of arrhythmia.

“He’s going into cardiac arrest!” Tim turns to shout at the gathered criminals, and his eyes slide up to the panicked Warden.

“...heart attack...last year,” the Warden gasps weakly, leaning into the ropes.

The Joker sputters, “I can’t kill him if he’s already dying! Where’s the fun in that?!”

And it’s a terrifying moment when the villain stalks up next to him to glare in the distressed Warden’s face, pointing a finger like he’s berating a naughty child.

“You’d better not shuffle off this mortal coil until I have the perfect joke to send you out!”

Tim ignores the villain fairly vibrating with anger, and keeps calculating, rooting around in his bag for a similar medication to the one he gave Nightwing back when the fear gas almost killed him, one that will help thin the blood and hopefully make sure the Warden survive the night.

He fills the syringe and quickly injects the Warden in the side of the throat, not bothering to waste time untying him to look for a vein.

“This medication is hopefully going to put him back to a normal rhythm,” Tim fills in as Dr. Crane, Dr. Isley, and Dr. Fries join their little pow-wow. “I don’t know any of his history to know if this is going to even work–”

Dr. Fries gets closer to the Warden, goggles seemingly fixed on his face, “do you have a history of arrhythmia, or a family history of heart problems?”

Still gasping for air, the Warden just nods.

“Give me a few details,” the villain demands. “Start with your parents.”

To Tim’s surprise, Dr. Isley and Dr. Crane listen intently to the Warden’s details about his family medical history while Tim keeps two fingers on the Warden’s pulse and listens closely, hoping the uneven pitter-patter evens out to at least under 100 beats per minute.

“I doubt they have an echocardiogram here,” Crane snarks to Isley when the Warden is gasping and Fries turns to a random inmate, demanding water and aspirin immediately.

“Of course not,” Dr. Isley sighs with a shake of her head, “anything more involved than a bandage is too much for these nitwits to handle.”

Multitasking like a boss, Tim looks at the biologist, psychologist, and geneticist over his shoulder, “there’s not even an electrocardiogram here to monitor his sinus rhythm. There might be defibs in the infirmary if we hit worst case scenario–”

“Those were removed the last time we broke out,” Scarecrow shrugs nonchalantly. “I think someone used it on a guard.”

Ivy steps up, fingers moving in a gimmie motion until Tim hands over his stethoscope. “It’s still faster than 100 per minute. What was that you injected? Beta blockers?”

“Yes, Dr. Isley,” he accepts his stethoscope back, not mentioning how there was a little more than just Beta blockers in that syringe.

“Good,” and she turns back to her fellow non-medical doctors that seem to have opinions on treatments. “If they get him to Gotham General in time, they can perform–”

“For now, we must get him down and elevate his feet. The staff can take necessary measures from there,” Fries is already behind the Warden, untying the ropes. “It will give them time to escape without impeding treatment.”

“Agreed,” Crane and Isley turn together and very pointedly stalk toward the mass of inmates still standing around the cafeteria waiting for how this little sitch is going to pan out.

The Joker and Two-Face flank them, making it an utterly terrifying meeting of bad guys.

“Listen up,” Crane makes a terrifying figure even still in his orange jumpsuit. “You are going to let the medical staff treat the Warden. If any of us find out he died, then there is going to be a reckoning.”

The Joker’s laugh punctuates the severity of the message.

“We’re the ones that get to kill him, understand? And once he’s back to his normal, healthy self, we’ll give this another go!”

“Until then,” Poison Ivy’s eyes glint dangerously, “we expect everyone to behave.”

Tim is helping Dr. Fries lay the Warden on his back, “since when has everyone been moonlighting as MDs?” He asks breathlessly while Ivy heards the full-time medical staff away from the general population and closer to the panting Warden.

“You would be surprised how much time one has for reading in here,” Fries fills in. “On a different note, I am impressed with your latest article on McGregor’s Syndrome.” Fries holds a hand down to help him stand, “Nora’s case is too far advanced, but your preliminary findings are exciting nonetheless.”

Shaky, Tim allows the medical staff he’s familiar with take over with the Warden and accepts Dr. Fries’ hand. “Everything is based off your research, so really, I’m the one that should be grateful for your help.”

The supervillain makes a humming noise and squeezes his hand, “whatever you do,” is low, just between the two of them, “do not antagonize any of them. You will make it out of this alive if you are careful, Dr. Drake.”

The hysterical laughter bubbling up in his chest really has nothing to do with things that are hilarious.

“Staying alive is my top goal tonight,” but the bravado doesn’t cover up how badly his hands are shaking.

“We shall see if you manage to accomplish it,” Fries deadpans as the huddle of supervillains breaks up.

While he’d been assessing the Warden, Jim Newman has been loaded onto the gurney, already prepped for the ambulance ride, and the Mad Hatter’s ice pack finally melted, so he’s really feeling the need to be in a hospital with plenty of nice narcotics.

“We are out of time,” Fugate flips his watch closed, facing the rest of the escaping Rogue Gallery, “we leave now or risk getting caught.”

“Well, when you put it that way–” and the Joker turns on him, reaches out to wrap bony fingers around Tim’s wrist, clenching down tight. “I suppose you’re out of time too, right Doc?”

Two-Face has no problem getting close enough that Tim can see the residual scarring, can trace the deep grooves, wonder if a second try at plastic surgery would be helpful or destructive at this juncture in the supervillain’s life. “You don’t make trouble, you’ll see tomorrow. We have an understanding here?”

“Yes,” he replies breathlessly in the face of two utterly terrifying murderers. “I’m going to do what you say.”

“Stay smart and I’m not gonna have to flip for you again.”

And as Tim manages to snatch his doctor’s bag while he’s pulled behind members of the Rogue Gallery, he closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath, hopes Dick and Jay can follow wherever in the hell the villains are taking him.

Which is to the ambulance bay where two rigs and a car with Arkham Asylum on it are housed. He almost facepalms when the keys are hanging up on a wall hook.

Temple Fugate is already dressed in EMT clothing while Crane takes off his mask to put on another set as Jervis Tetch and Jim Newman are loaded in the back.

Shuna Belzer hops in the driver’s seat of the other ambulance while Tim is shoved up into the rear by Joker and Two-Face. Dr. Isley and Dr. Fries join him, sitting on the opposite bench with the empty gurney between them.

“Now, now, good Doctor,” the Joker’s manic grin is even creepier in the lighting, the madman holding the doors almost closed. “If you try to misbehave, our Plant Queen and Freezy Pop are going to have to spank you for being naughty. And trust me, kid. You don’t want that kind of spanking.”

Tim’s eyes are wide as the doors close, his chest getting tight when the Joker locks him in, and for the first time since this whole mess started, his eyes feel heavy and hot without an emergency to focus on (but he still has a plan). All he can do is blink rapidly, try to stop it before it starts, before he gets a little hysterical about everything.

(What if they just leave you here?)

At this juncture, he has no idea what their plans are for him, if he’s riding along just to get shot in the head and left in a ditch somewhere outside Gotham City limits, or if the nice psychopaths really might let him go.

With all of them, it’s a 50/50 really.

(A toss of Two-Face’s coin...)

So he doesn’t feel bad leaning over, bracing his forearms on his knees, one hand over his eyes to keep Dr. Fries and Dr. Isley from seeing it while the ambulance roars to life and jerks forward.

“You did well back there,” Poison Ivy’s voice floats over his head, makes him look up with his nose still pink and eyes still watery. “Most doctors are intimidated around criminals like us. You are...a refreshing change.”

“Everyone is a person when they’re sick or injured,” he replies lightly, scrubbing at his face.

He doesn’t see her mouth curl up in a smile. “Criminal or not doesn’t matter in my line of work.”

“He is quite accomplished,” Fries isn’t looking at either of them, idly staring out the windows in the ambulance doors. “Anyone taking on genetics would have to be.”

“Hm,” Dr. Isley hums, “a simple medical doctor also taking on genetics–”

“Botany isn’t that much different,” he defends lightly, eyes narrowed.

It’s telling when the terrifying criminal leans forward, one fist braced on her knee, and draws him in with the history of Physiology and the mind-blowing chlorokinesis.

She pauses when he calls her Dr. Isley respectfully when he disagrees, and eventually even Dr. Fries joins them on the discussion when they move to microbiology.

It’s close enough to talking with colleagues that he almost forgets about the whole hostage thing for a few minutes while the ambulance rolls down from the mountains and splits ways with the other rig going toward Gotham General while their rig is heading toward Midtown, probably to pick up that puppet the Ventriloquist was yelling about.

He’s in the middle of arguing mitosis with Dr. Fries when the obvious sirens cut through the air. The ambulance jerks forward, accelerating.

Tim doesn’t hit the floor, but only just.

Dr. Fries opens the small window to the front, “what is going on?”

“We’ve been made, Tasty Freeze,” the Joker snarls with the EMT cap pulled over his forehead. “Someone ratted us out!”

“Step on it, Bells. Get us gone,” Tim hears Two-Face saying.

The sock puppet on her hand turns to look back at Fries. “Might wanna buckle up, kids! It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

In a creepy movement, Fries and Isley turn to him.

“Sit down down and hold on,” Isley tells him, wiggling her fingers. Something up her sleeve moves, worms down her hand and fingers while Tim watches with clinical curiosity.

Tim gasps, watching the small plant growing under her mental coaxing, the long stem dividing, wrapping around the bolted legs of the bench he’s sitting on and form a makeshift harness around his shoulders and chest.

When he expects the vines to be thorny and coarse, terrifyingly restrictive, it’s actually kind of okay. The plant is warm and alive almost a heartbeat against his chest and arms, securing him to the bench.

The sirens on their ambulance start to wail and the Ventriloquist shoves her foot on the gas to make the rig lurch and speed faster, dodging around traffic.

“Where are you going?!” He can hear the Joker shriek, “the docks are that way!”

“I told you,” is the nasally voice of the sock puppet. “We’re going to get Ferdie first!”

“Oh no,” Dr. Isley mutters a second too late.

Because the Joker reaches over and jerks the wheel out of the Ventriloquists hands, yelling “getting away from the cops first, idiot!” and the ambulance careens sideways, skittering across the busy highway and smashing into a sedan minding its own business, and a tire on the rig blows while the villains in the front are fighting over control.

So Tim expects the rig to to smash into something, maybe even flip over and skitter across the pavement while the plants keep him from being thrown all over the back. He doesn’t expect Poison Ivy to lunge across the empty gurney just before the ambulance is airborne, throwing her arms around him, and shoving his face in her shoulder to protect him from the next few minutes of grinding metal and breaking glass.

The side of the ambulance splits on impact, twisting metal cuts through the vines holding him, severing the makeshift harness, and not even the remaining tendril could keep him and Dr. Isley from being thrown out of the rig onto the hot Gotham street.

The jolt of the landing drives the breath out of him, is when he slams his head hard enough that moving immediately is a real bad idea. The road rash is going to be shitty, but the blood in his eyes and woozy quality to life once he can raise his head probably means he’s just hit concussion city.

“D-Dr. Isley? Dr. Fries?” Sounds rough from his throat, sounds choked.

He’s dizzy when he pushes himself up, trying to keep from vomiting at the abrupt turn his stomach takes when he sits up, blinks at the the too-bright street lights.

Dr. Isley is laying a few feet from him on her side, breathing but not moving.

“No! No, no, no,” but his limbs feel heavy and sluggish when he tries to stand up and fails. He settles on hands and knees because at least he’s not going to throw up now, so he’s already winning for the night.

“Dr. Isley!” But he’s already assessing before he even touched her shoulder to roll her over, shaky hands assessing her neck, cracking open her eye lids, and by some miracle, he’d been wearing his Arkham-Only medical bag when they were thrown from the ambulance in the first place.

It proves to be moot when Pamela’s eyes flutter over while he’s taking her pulse and blinking rapidly to keep his vision clear, trying to be gentle but firm when he presses on her belly, and looks over every inch of her jumpsuit to make sure he hasn’t missed any indications of injuries.

“Oh thank God,” he whispers when her eyes dart up to him, and Tim leans back just a little to swipe his forearm over his eyes to make sure he doesn’t, you know, cry all over a patient.

“Dr. Isley, are you able to sit up? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?” He doesn’t realize he’s gone from taking her pulse to holding her hand.

“No,” she replies faintly, pushing herself up, “I believe I’m all right.”

“Okay...okay, that’s good. That’s so good, but I’ve got to check on Dr. Fries and the others. Just-just call for me if you start to feel worse, or sleepy or anything! I’ll be right back.”

Standing the second time is really a win when adrenaline hits him somewhere in the spine, and that small secret smile of hers convinces him she doesn’t have any serious injuries. But the vines flattened and slightly writhing under her makes him hope they cushioned her fall.

He uses all the strength in his weak arms to pull at the ambulance doors until they damn things open, and he can see Dr. Fries laying in a sprawl of metal suit and limbs, weakly gasping since the glass dome of his helmet has been broken.

“Dr. Fries!”

And the concussion has to take a back seat for the moment because time really isn’t on their side.

His brain starts working while he makes his way back into the ambulance, stumbling before righting himself, and gripping the villain under both arms, straining to drag him out of the ambulance and lay on the Gotham street.

The dome has a broken piece with frigid air escaping, and with the goggles askew, he can see the pupils are almost blown.

“Hold on, hold on,” he’s chanting and pulling everything out of his bag, searching for–

Duct tape and a Bolin Chest Seal.

Without any idea if the seal can stand-up to the frigid temperature of Dr. Fries’ suit, Tim makes his hand stop shaking to peel the backing off and apply it around the broken area, ripping the duct tape with his teeth to help reinforce the cracks.

Dr. Isley falls to her knees beside him abruptly, watching him apply a final strip. Together, they hold their breath while his breathing evens out and the visible eye flutters.

Luckily for them, police cars and a legit ambulance are quickly closing in on the carnage, so he can finally, finally, rest.

–or would have, but Two-Face kicks the door to the front of the wrecked rig open and stands out with the gun still in hand.

“It was you,” the gangster is dragging one foot, snarling wildly, “you got us caught. I shoulda gutted ya back at the nut house while I had a chance!”

The Joker woozily climbs out after him and just face plants into the street, something slurry like “anyone get the number of that bus?” while Shauna Belzer is already running away from the scene with the sock puppet leading her way.

“Harvey,” is a warning in Dr. Isley’s tone.

“Shut up, Pam. You know it was him!” The gun is wavery, but Tim is still one hundred percent sure the shot is going to be accurate enough to be bad news for him. “There ain’t no other way!”

“I was in the back the whole time,” he tries, subtly sliding an arm up in front of Dr. Isley, and the other over Dr. Fries. “There’s no way I could have alerted anyone about anything.”

“I ain’t taking anymore chances on you, no more flips, no more hiding, just curtains,” and the hammer goes back–

The next second, a blast of light takes over the sight of the gun barrel pointed at his chest, and the gangster’s hand and weapon are instantly encased in a block of ice.

“What the hell!?”

Dr. Fries pushes himself up, his freeze gun in hand, the seal around his domed helmet still working to keep him breathing. “It would be in poor taste to allow you to kill the young man that saved my life, Dent.”

Wearily, Dr. Fries drops the freeze gun while Two-Face falls to his knees with the heavy block encasing his fist and the gun.

Tim automatically winds his arm around the shoulders of Dr. Fries’ suit, helping the villain stay upright while the slamming of brakes and opening of doors signal the GCPD to the rescue.

Commissioner Gordon himself questions the young doctor, eyeing him critically when he insists Dr. Fries and Dr. Isley weren’t really trying to escape, but went along with the Joker’s plan to make sure he, the civilian, didn’t wind up dead.

“I’ve worked with Dr. Fries before,” and even though he told the young uniform no about the blanket and ride to Gotham General, he’s regretting it now because he’s starting to get cold his head is aching, “I published a paper about McGregor’s syndrome a few months ago. Early stage treatment. He helped me with the background, so yeah, he didn’t want me to get hurt. And Dr. Isley protected me when the ambulance flipped over. If there were trying to escape, they wouldn’t have saved me, or stopped Two-Face from killing me.”

“All right then, Doctor,” Gordon eyes him while he closes his little notebook, “I’ll have a word with the judge and the Warden. He’s fine by the way, and asked me to thank-you. He’s in Gotham General, about to go into surgery.”

“What about Jim Newman?” He asks quickly, rubbing his arms when a light dusting of rain makes him even colder.

“They were still working on him last time I checked, but everything looks good from what they said.”

And since the Commissioner is taller than him by at least a few inches, he can look over Tim’s head to signal another officer to their little pow-wow on the back of the intact ambulance.

Tim had immediately waved the gaping EMTs off to pick up Two-Face and Joker, had slapped a bandage on his own head and did a quick saline wash of his road rash.

He’d personally helped Dr. Fries and Dr. Isley into another ambulance, his expression troubled when the double-doors closed on them, and the rig took off through Gotham. It had been enough for him to seek out the Commissioner and tell him exactly what had gone down tonight so Poison Ivy and Dr. Freeze wouldn’t face further jail time.

(The flutter in the night, gold and black of Robin’s cape, or well, maybe he’d just imagined it. He’s got a pretty rocking concussion after all.)

Detective Renee Montoya is someone he’d worked with on more than one occasion. When she whistles low at the obvious damage, he knows the bruises are probably going to be beautiful tomorrow.

“Montoya, Dr. Drake doesn’t want to go to the hospital. Can you give him a lift when you head back to the station?”

“Absolutely, Sir–”

“To Arkham,” he interrupts blearily, “my car is still there. I need to pick it up.”

Both cops arch a brow at him, but Tim just stares back without further comment.

“All right. To Arkham it is.” Montoya grins at him and crooks a finger, leads him to her car sitting on the outskirts of the accident.

And really, Detective Montoya is a kind soul, stops long enough to get awful drive-thru coffee for him to sip on while they drive back to the Asylum, and she listens intently as he tells the story with a little more depth the second time.

“I’m glad you aren’t badly hurt, but you still should consider going to the hospital, Tim–”

“That’s not necessary, Detective.” Concussions not withstanding, he thinks as he sips his coffee. “I would probably go to work instead of rest anyway, so moot point even I went to Gotham General instead. But, I mean, how did the GCPD get control of Arkham and come after us so fast? I didn’t expect anyone to come after us.”

Except certain masked vigilantes, but, you know, prison breaks are really time consuming.

Montoya side-eyes him again. In her career, she’d brought more than one perp into Mercy Hospital’s ER, guarding handcuffed suspects, usually sporting a variety of injuries tangling with the Bats of Gotham. More than once, it was her or Bullock or another cop on one of Dr. Drake’s gurneys bleeding out, and the guy was absolutely unshakeable, pulling miracles out of his ass.

So yeah, she knows the Doc and his odd tendencies to get tangled up in too many...situations. Many of which lead right back to the city’s resident vigilantes.

(As a detective, she put together at least seven incidents in the last 24 months connecting their good doctor with the Bats. Crane taking over the hospital, kidnapped by the Joker, the bridge. Reported sightings of JLA members in Gotham hovering over Mercy General, and she would bet her badge it was the superheroes bringing their Batman to see Drake. Then the question as to why else would the Batman come out during the day and save what appeared to be one person? Unless that person was his personal physician. Not to mention that time someone got a few pieces of security footage with a Robin that was...taller, not as smooth jumping from rooftops. Oddly enough, some unknown masked crusader running with the Red Hood chasing this, what, fourth kid wearing the tunic? Given the evidence, Renee has theories.)

She might smirk a little at his very obvious deflection, but it also triggers every instinct she’s cultivated as a cop in Gotham City.

“Well, I’ll be honest with you, Doc, but it looks like the night crew had a hand in settling down things at the Asylum. Not to mention we got a call from the Head Nurse of the ER at Gotham General about a note you apparently left. That was probably after an anonymous tip to the station made us aware the Clock King, Mad Hatter, and Scarecrow were on their way to the hospital in disguise.”

He smiles into his coffee and appreciates the blasting heat all the way back up to the madhouse on the hill. She notices he doesn’t ask who the night crew is, and just adds it to the list of evidence.

It nice when Montoya walks him back inside, apparently not trusting him to get through to the infirmary at the back of the Asylum and get the keys to his car without another incident.

(She probably has a good reason.)

He makes an effort to keep it together in front of the detective when they make their way through the throng of police officers, extra guards, and personnel filling the hallways. The itch on the back of his neck could be the events of the night catching up to him, the anxiety on the edges of his consciousness that looks a lot like smeared cream corn and stab wounds, aching palms and exhaustion in every bone of his body.

It could also be how closely Montoya is watching him while they walk further into the compound.

His keys are on the same hook by the keycard access door, and it’s finally a spark of luck when a uniform on the premises catches her on their way in, pulls her aside to talk about something. (“They were here from what the inmates say,” the uniforms tells her low, “Red Hood and Nightwing were pretty brutal this time. The Bat had a hard time wrangling them in.”)

He gives a small wave with keys in hand to let her know he’s on the way out.

She puts a hand on the uniform’s shoulder to pause their conversation and give him another long look. “You should get some sleep, Doc. Take a few days off. I’ll bet you’ve got some… people looking out for you that will agree with me.”

For absolutely no reason, his face starts to get warm. “Thanks again for the ride, Detective.”

With her card in his pocket (not that he doesn’t have a collection of them from GCPD back on his desk at Mercy), he calmly adjusts his bag over the blood stains on the side of his scrubs and makes sure his badge is visible.

He keeps it the fuck together when he walks out of Arkham through the thinning throng like nothing is out of place, like he hasn’t just gone through half of the Rogue Gallery and lived to tell about it.

He absolutely doesn’t notice the vigilantes going through a particular vent as he starts down the maze of hallways to get the fuck out.

His battered Civic (because the nice car is only for special occasions, why chance getting it blown up?) looks more like safety than he’s ever associated with it before. Maybe that’s why his knees abruptly go out on him when he’s at the driver’s door, but it’s fine, fine to just take some time to sit, get his lungs full of air for the first time since this shit-show started.

(They had to take care of things like good saviors of the city and he survived, he’s good. He’s good. He’s good. He’s going to go home, make coffee, get a shower, and wait up for them to ask how the night went on their end. Just as soon as his knees get strength again–)

The crunch of gravel somewhere behind the car is what shakes him up from the blank time since he sat (fell) down to now. Before he can be up and moving, it’s Jason, his boyfriend, kneeling there beside him instead of the dangerous vigilante, the Red Hood.

He barely registers when Jay reaches for him, wraps him up in a tight embrace, talks gently against his hair

(“S’all right, Baby. Gotcha all caught up now, don’t I? Time ta go home, yeah?”

“J-Jay, what-what are you...?”

“Sorry, Timmy. They already gotcha out by the time we got here, n’ by the time we got those fuckers back in their cells, we gotch word there was an accident and GCPD was on the scene! Dick lost his fucking mind when we heard it over the radio.”

“O-Oh. It’s...it’s okay. I’m okay. I-I’m okay.”

“Mmhm. We’ll be the judge a’ that, won’t we, Baby?”)

It’s so easy to slot himself against the front of Jay’s body, the leather against his cheek is cool and worn and the smell of brimstone, gives him a reason for another deep breath.

It’s so easy for Jay to slide the driver’s seat back to make room for longer legs, to maneuver Tim in the passenger seat and buckle him in without complaints, stupidly lifting him instead of helping him stand.

E - we’ll go with Edmund, he thinks lazily when exhaustion sets in and the movement of the car keeps him aware enough to know Edmund isn’t going to be the worst concussions he’s ever had, so the night ends on a high note after all.

It’s better because Jay drives with one hand while the other has a grip on his wrist that is just this side of a little too tight, just what he needs to be able to drift because that hold is safe. At some point he’s burrowed down in the Red Hood’s famous leather jacket with the belt over his chest, and it smells like Gotham and brimstone enough to keep him grounded, so all he has to do is stare at the comm in Jay’s ear and drift.

“I got ‘em, Dick. He’s movin’ but he needs one hell of an aftercare hour if ya know what I mean.” Pause.

“Get the fuck off this wave, Demon. Ain’t nobody asked yer ass nothing anyhow.”

Another pause and a side-eye.

“There’s blood on ‘im, Alf, don’t look life-threatening, bruises n’ scrapes more n’ likely. Prob’ly a concussion ‘cause he ain’t trackin’ well, are ya Baby?”

He’s down in a soft, sleepy place, doesn’t feel like he really has to answer if it brings him closer to the surface. He manages to wiggle his fingers up to rub at Jay’s wrist, checks in as well as can really be expected.

Seriously, it’s been a rough fucking night.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. S’okay, baby, ya done good t’night, yeah? Me n’ all the Bats are proud as fuck, you feel me? Some a’ the worst of the worst n’ ya kept the body count low. Whazat? Naw, Dickie, we’re almost there. Gonna be waitin’ on us? Not you, Rob, got school inna morning, ain’t cha? Time fer little birdies ta go back ta the nest.”

Tim cracks his eyes open when the soothing roll of movement finally stops, but Dick is already there opening his door, barefoot with sweats and a hastily thrown-on t-shirt, bodily lifting him even though he’s all kinds of awake now.

“Oh my God,” and those arms get so, so tight.

(It feels so nice.)

“C’mon, put me down,” is huffed more by habit than conviction because really, he’s good with the damsel in distress act this time.

“You’re taking years off my life, Tim, and I’m a seasoned vigilante,” is about as deadpan as mother-hen Dick Grayson can get.

“If I ain’t a’ died already, ya’d be getting me close t’ it,” a soft kiss to his forehead, “no more gettin’ caught up with murderin’ psychos.”

“I think we’ve already had this conversation.”

“Apparently, it ain’t been stickin’.”

He hums a little and lets his eyes flutter closed again, lets them talk over his head while they take the fire escape up just to slide in his window.

He rouses enough to get a shower, tries pushing them bodily out the door to stop hovering, but it’s not like that’s going to happen.

It’s still feels really nice when they’re absolutely gentle with him, sliding his clothes off, touching the bruises and road rash with soft, hurt noises. It gets worse because he takes the time to really wash in case there’s residual debris, finally gets pulled under the hot water with a wall of muscle and security bracketing him in.

Jay washes his hair while Dick holds him by the hips, the two of them talking gently about what happened after they left the Cave and headed to the Asylum for pound the baddies into pudding time.

They had just worked their way to the cafeteria when they get word some of the Rogues escaped in ambulances, alerting the GCPD while they wrangled inmates back to their cells and took care of the captive staff.

B himself took the Warden to Gotham General once they had things well in hand, and the bats monitored the police radio when mentions of the accident heading toward Dixon with Gordon on scene. Rob jumped outta the big car fast enough to intercept GCPD to see Tim moving. It’s more hilarious than it should have been when Jay clucks his tongue and tells him to stop making friends with bad guys.

“I ain’t saying Pam n’ Vic are bad ta have on yer side,” a wet kiss to the top of his head, “but why don’t cha stick wid’ Ives and leave ‘em ta us?”

Dick is kneeling down gently washing his battered knees, “not to mention the conversation we’ll be having tomorrow about why we didn’t know you were moonlighting at Arkham and working with Victor Fries.” The warning in his tone makes Tim just sighs and lean back against Jay’s chest to let the two of them hold him up.

“Demon brat’s got something ta say ‘bout it, too,” said in his ear, “little asshole was worried as fuck. Don’t let ‘im tell ya any different.”

“I’ll call him tomorrow, let him know I’m okay,” and he absolutely will, if anything, to avoid Robin showing up at Mercy with another sandwich and soup to shove at him.

“Good idea, Baby. He was fighting like hell until we found out you weren’t even there.”

He doesn’t laugh at the insinuation, but he might just snicker a little.

He manages to step out on him own, but Jay takes the towel from his hands to get his back and Dick lifts him by the hips to set him on the sink so they can put salve and gauze on his injuries themselves.

They keep him distracted through the process with easy kisses and updates on Jim Newman, Hatter’s face, and Fugate’s excuses of coercion because, “I’m clinically insane. Of course I went along for the ride.”

They tell him they’re sending Pam a nice fern and Victor some data sets from B’s own trials with McGregor’s since it’s just good manners to thank supervillains for saving innocent civilians. He mumbles back about pasta salad and guns in his face. How playing Uno with some of the inmates has somehow made him cool enough not to die during a breakout, which they should take as a win considering the circumstances.

He must look about as bad as he feels because they get more gentle when he finally gives them what they desperately want, details about what went down. It’s woozy ramblings more than his usual high-level short and sweet because Shauna Bellzer is probably still out there looking for Ferdie, because the Joker apparently remembers him and is actively checking out shit like YouTube, and because now Two-Face is probably going to want him dead since that whole bridge fiasco is a point of contention.

He might wobble enough or sound shitty enough for Jay to take it as a reason to steer him toward the couch and cuddle the hell out of him, do that thing where he kisses the back of Tim’s neck in the right spots to make him shiver.

Dick runs a hand through his hair while he answers B’s wave with the last tag-up of the night, listens to the Dark Knight ranting about the clean-up at Arkham and going over the damn place yet again to check how the crazies keep escaping. But whatever Dick says in reply is lost on him when the world around him gets fuzzy at the edges again. He doesn’t realize how tight his hands are fisted in Jay’s shirt until fingers are trying to massage them open.

He might mumble something payment in kind because really? He did the job for them this time. One less shit show for them to fight (you’re welcome), so he really does deserve cuddles and warm showers dammit.

He totally earned it this time.

Dick eventually hangs up and unapologetically smushes him further down against Jay and coos softly, so he might have said it out loud, but can’t be bothered to care when he finally sinks down, comfortable and safe with that he’s just suddenly–

–out.

When he blinks again, arms over his hip and warm bodies bracket him in. It’s still early enough for him to sigh and sink back down for a few more hours, the ache in his bruised muscles secondary when his bed is full. It’s enough for him to sleep without nightmares of guns in his face and echoing laughter.

And if they wake him up with kisses to his stomach and chest, with bare hands sliding under his pajamas, with oh so gentle lovemaking, with talking against his throat and hip about how relieved they are, how brave he is, how strong he is, how he really oughtta have a Kevlar suit all his own and a domino on his face just on principle.

If they coddle and cuddle him, demand he tell them everything again from the beginning, take him back to the bedroom when his chest stutters at the most frightening parts, if they make him stay close until nightfall when they have to move into the shadows and be the protectors Gotham City needed. If they argue with him about resting instead of leaving to run the Gauntlet at Mercy with Steph and his team. If they check in on him half-way through the night and maybe just kidnap him for an hour to check his knees and the road rash. If they make him take two aspirin and drink a bottle of water, claim mid-patrol sandwiches for the win.

If they tell him they love him before they go back to it and leave him on the roof of the hospital with a fully belly and stars in his eyes, mouth still swollen from their kisses–

–then he’s going to to back to work with a stupid smile on his face and fight harder to save lives, to beat back the darkness of Gotham in his own way. He’s going to run until his lungs are on fire and his legs are wobbly. He’s going to answer calls from fucking space, and race the clock when the heroes of their world are facing mortality and need a doctor with hobbies. He’s going to keep track of the ninjas spying on them and be a safe place when the night life is killing his most important people. He’s going to do everything he can to keep moving. He’s going to fucking fight the good fight and it’s going to be by his choice every time.

Because this?

This is his life.

#winter writes #900 Followers #dr!tim #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #Rogue Gallery #dc comics #dickjaytim #I'm so proud of this fic #I can't even tell you #bad ass civilian tim #my fic #my writing #long post

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theexistentiallyqueer · 4 years

Text

I really hate waking up to see that there was good meta that was circulating during the night and I have so many things I want to say but I have to go to work like a responsible adult in this capitalist hellscape. I’m specifically referencing this, this, this, and this, and I just got home from work and it was balls to the walls fucking crazy today, so excuse me if I seem incoherent and disjointed.

All of this made me think of a few very specific theories I have, which I’ve already mentioned in passing, but now I feel the urge to lay them out all together in one post, which are:

Loki is Goro’s original persona, and Yaldabaoth hand-picked him for a reason

Yaldabaoth, disguised as Igor, served the function of psychopomp cognitive guide to Goro that Morgana serves to Akira, Teddie serves to Souji, and Mitsuru serves to Makoto

Goro used Loki’s berserker power on himself so he could kill Wakaba

Robin Hood is the persona born from Goro’s bond with Akira and represents the justice he wishes he believed in

Goro is not a true wildcard and never was one

Plus some other ones reading today’s meta made me think about

So, without further ado.

Loki as Goro’s original persona aligns most strongly with two things: 1. actual dialogue during his boss fight, and 2. the larger framework of the game Yaldabaoth was playing.

For his boss fight I’m referencing specifically the JP-ENG comparison of that scene. One of the things the anon who did the comparison repeatedly references is that “psychotic breakdowns” is an incredibly erroneous translation of what Call of Chaos actually does:

!! 暴走させる means “to make [something] run wild/rampage/act reckless,” not to drive the psychotic. While it can be used to refer to someone wildly lashing out at others, it can also be used for a runaway car, losing control, acting without regard or just being reckless in a potentially dangerous way. In the Persona series, this term has also been used in reference to losing control of one’s Persona, and to a Shadow going berserk (for those who’ve played Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the JP name for Shadow Frenzy, シャドウ暴走, also uses the term).

Goro’s ability makes people act recklessly without regard for others; it doesn’t make them outright psychotic. (Strangely enough, the first scene at Leblanc in the game translates the incidents related to this ability as “rampage incidents,” which is closer to what it should be, yet they consistently screw it up in later scenes.)

And the original dialogue follows up on that:

Makoto (JP): あんな、人を操ったり狂わせたりする力を、自分自身の心から生み出してたなんて…(“To think that the power to manipulate and drive mad others was born from his own heart…”)

And more subtly:

Futaba (JP): なのに人生ソロプレイだったから、目覚めた力は、自前の『嘘』と『恨み』の、たった２個だけ… (“Even so, ‘cause you went through life in single player, the powers you awakened were just your "lies” and “resentment”…“)

I feel like the original text upholds this argument, especially considering Goro consistently refers to Loki as his “true” power, and he is way OP with Loki in a way he’s not with Robin Hood–almost as if he’s had more time to level-grind with Loki than he has with Robin.

As for Yaldabaoth, I think the context of what Yaldabaoth actually wants is very clear: Yaldabaoth wanted Goro to win. He created a blatantly unfair “game” modeled after the normal “game” played between Philemon and Nyarlathotep, and the first thing he did was give a persona to one player two years earlier than the other. Yaldabaoth wants to destroy and remake the world, and he would have cherry-picked the angriest kid in the barrel to make that happen. Goro didn’t have some psychopomp cognitive guide in the form of a talking cat to explain the metaverse to him, and I think it stands to reason that Yaldabaoth groomed Goro as much as Shido did: Yaldabaoth was Goro’s psychopomp cognitive guide. Goro’s not-dumb enough to be immediately suspicious when a random app installs itself on his phone; it stands to reason that he only paid it any attention because some half-bald fucker with a nose longer than Goro’s Robin Hood mask planted the idea in his head of what it could be used for. Akira tries to delete the app twice, and it’s only after Ryuji accidentally triggers the Nav that he stops trying to get rid of it.

(I’ve seen the Goro was a subject in Wakaba’s research theories too as an explanation for how he could know so much of the metaverse without Morgana around to catsplain it to him. I’m not a fan of them, mostly because I think subtle writing is a concept Atlus is very much not at all engaged with, and if he really was a research subject that would have been dumped on us with all the subtlety of trying to assassinate someone by dropping roof tiles onto them, and I like my HCs and theories to be as in line as what can be explained most comprehensibly with canon until I decide to throw the entire baby out with the bathwater and say MY PLAYGROUND NOW. It’s a cool theory, it’s just not one that I’m into. The people who play with this theory are smarter and more valid than Atlus will ever be. And who knows, maybe Royal will prove me wrong. I am open to being proven wrong and Krist is already starting to feed me food from Royal that has me second-guessing, but I’m going to wait until the international release in March to have takes on this.)

As for Goro himself–I’ve always, from the first time I played P5 when I thought Goro as interesting enough in concept but wasn’t really ready to be a Goroboy, thought that Goro represented the Justice Arcana in reverse, which is interesting in that this Persona game you can’t reverse confidants’ cards. Goro is reversed Justice in and of himself within the main context of the narrative.

I don’t really jive with the idea that Goro started out with Robin Hood as representative of his ideals before he was manipulated and twisted by Shido, because it contradicts the context in which he had his awakening and it removes whatever degree of culpability or autonomy Goro did have in what he ultimately became. Goro is full of rage, and Goro acted on that rage. Goro got the slightest taste of power and went from 0 to acting on a desire from revenge in about thirty seconds flat. He definitely didn’t realize he was signing on for murder and Shido definitely groomed him into being his psychopomp hitman, Goro is the one who took the initiative to approach Shido in the first place because Goro wanted to destroy the man who destroyed his life and who did, in some sense, kill his mom. Not that I think it’s disingenuous to say that Goro did originally believe in a justice that was, well, more just, but there’s a vast chasm between the boy who used to pretend to be a hero of justice and a boy who decided what he wanted most was to humiliate his fascist of a father. Goro’s sense of justice was already hugely warped by the time he awakened to his persona. Justice is exposing Shido publicly and holding him accountable; justice for Goro was making Shido’s life a living very personal hell.

Loki’s power isn’t even necessarily to make someone go berserk. Goro actually explains how Loki’s power works at the start of his boss fight, and it’s carried through pretty well in the English translation.

Goro (JP): ちっぽけな存在でも、心の枷が外れると、桁違いの力を得る事がある。 ("Even a tiny being, once you remove the bonds on its heart, can gain unimaginable power.”) Goro (EN) Even the feeblest existence can gain tremendous power once the chains on its heart are broken. !! 枷 has a double meaning of both literal restraints (shackles/chains/etc) and more metaphorical ways to bind someone (such as relations to others, or societal restrictions on what you’re allowed to do). While “chains on its heart” is a valid translation, it fails to maintain that wordplay in English, and given how the power he’s talking about works, it’s almost certainly on purpose.

Loki’s power works by shattering the restraints on a person’s heart that stop them from acting recklessly in ways that hurt other people. I think a case could very much be made that the reason this seems to always result in violence on the part of those of Goro’s targets (and Goro himself) is because when you’re in that state, you stop feeling sympathy or empathy, and the dark impulses you bury deep inside (which everyone has) can reign unchecked.

When I first started to choochoo along the “Goro went berserk to kill Wakaba” train, one of the first things I started to speculate was that he was the first person he used Call of Chaos on. I started to reevaluate that today when I read all of that delicious food and found myself rethinking how Goro would have approached Shido, and I found myself drawn the conclusion that Goro brought Shido two things–the ability to gather secret knowledge and the ability to drive people berserk–but Shido would have wanted proof. And Goro’s an idiot, but he’s not dumb; he would have had that proof ready in advance. Goro would have been causing some psychotic breakdowns on a smaller scale before he approached Shido, just enough to make the news and catch Wakaba’s attention in her research, but not enough to cause widespread chaos on the scale that’s referenced in game, before he stepped foot through Shido’s door.

I find it very hard to believe that Goro didn’t know the basics of Wakaba before he killed her: single mom, no father in the picture, daughter roughly his age. Goro is the type to hoard information because it makes him feel in control, so he’d be given this name from Shido and want to know everything he can uncover about his target first–also he’s the one with the metaverse nav app and he’d need to know as much about her as possible to figure out what her distortion is.

(This is assuming Wakaba had a palace as opposed to residing in Mementos. I have no grounds to base this theory on, but I think she did. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but I HC that Wakaba’s palace was modeled after the Library of Alexandria, and Wakaba’s shadow was Hypatia. I’ll save the thematic whys of that for another post because they’re neither here nor there.)

I have a hard time buying that a teenager would just go from zero to being okay with murder without having some pretty critical hangups in the process, especially a teenager who kind of thinks of himself as a hero who has to get his hands dirty. You can’t really justify murdering an innocent woman who did nothing wrong when you measure her against people like Okumura. Especially when so much of that single mom’s life story should probably logically resonate with you.

(This is another reason I get upset that nothing in canon ever has Goro actively acknowledge his murder of Wakaba, because if it did it would have to grapple the between Goro and Futaba and the fact that Goro did to Futaba was exactly what was done to him, but way more directly. Atlus is not subtle and is also not capable of nuance or depth.)

So the logical line of thought is that Goro used Call of Chaos on himself to break the chains on his own heart (the feelings that would make him sympathize with Wakaba and see his own mother in her) so that he could kill her. I’d also argue that layered on top of of all of this is that Goro didn’t know killing her shadow would kill her, because Shido guarded her research closely and Yaldabaoth wanted a boy who would be willing to smash things. They were both grooming him to be their perfect little murderer.

By the point we meet him in the game Goro is heavily tied up in Shido’s conspiracy and all that that entails. His already jaded sense of justice will by this point have been warped beyond repair–until he meets Akira. Akira is probably the first person Goro has ever bonded with in his entire life, and a wildcard’s power is rooted in the ability to form bonds. Positive bonds specifically, because it’s only through those that their power can grow. I think we can all look at Goro’s life and agree that his relationship with Akira is the only positive one he’s had since he was like…….never years old.

And I specifically think that it’s through his relationship with Akira that Goro starts to reawaken to his true sense of justice. It’s textually canonical that Goro is jealous of the fact that the Phantom Thieves found a way to achieve their goals without collateral damage. I think that bonding with Akira–in a way Goro has literally never bonded with anyone else before–is what caused Goro’s second awakening and his tentative re-embrasure of the belief that justice is about helping, not hurting. Except he’s in two such different places at this point. I’m very on board with the BPD!Goro hc that’s become a thing lately, thanks to Krist and the goroboys discord server, but I’m not going to go into specifics because I’m not BPD. I just think that from what I’ve read of BPD it sounds valid, and if a person who is BPD says they get that mood from him, that’s extra valid

But Goro’s sense of self is clearly very split between Loki and Robin Hood and what they thematically represent. He wants to be a hero, but he still dresses like a tokusatsu villain half the time. He wants to be a hero, but he’s also a murderer. He can’t reconcile these aspects of himself.

Goro isn’t a true wildcard because he lacks the ability of connection. While the wildcard ability is granted by a cosmic entity (Philemon/Igor/Yaldabaoth/etc.), the degree of its manifestation is dependent upon the wildcard’s ability to connect with other people. The case could be made that Adachi and Namatame are wildcards because they’re both selected as game pieces by Izanami, but only Souji manifests the wildcard ability because only he is able to connect with others. The implication to be taken from that is that a cosmic force can grant an individual a persona and the corresponding wildcard ability, but that ability can’t manifest itself unless the individual is capable of wielding it–which Goro is not.

And very much unlike a wildcard, if you take the necessary steps Goro’s two personas do fuse into an ultimate whole. If you complete the development of Goro’s character to the extent the game requires, then Loki and Robin Hood fuse to become Hereward. I have some thoughts about this in relation to the fact that I can’t find any evidence that Hereward is tied to the Robin Hood myth, but all that aside: Goro’s warped sense of justice and his true sense of justice fused together in a way that’s, uh——-

Robin Hood is very bara and Loki is very twink. Hereward looks extremely similar to Robin Hood, but has a dark grey, an almost black, color design. Hereward literally represents Goro embracing that justice is grey, and that it’s okay for Goro to both want to be the hero and to want to see people struggle with the hard questions of how the hurts they’ve inflicted, intentionally or not, have impacted the people affected by them.

Goro was never a true wildcard to begin with. Yaldabaoth chose him because he was isolated. That he found his other half in Akira was dumb luck of the draw.

#persona #persona 5 #p5r spoilers #goro akechi

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