#and a man can be the most wild unhinged character ever and still be /kind/ and /gentle/

[fromtheseventhhell]

"Sansa = Ned 2.0 and Arya = Catelyn 2.0" is one of those takes where you can just tell people are more attached to the aesthetic than anything. "The Stark girls are most like the parent they look least like" sounds good on paper and people run with the idea, regardless of how it actually fits into the story. A majority of the justification relies on misinterpreting all of their characters + a healthy dose of fanon. What gets me is that this is the same fandom that insists that Lyanna, only compared to Arya in the text, is equal parts Arya and Sansa but Ned and Catelyn, two fully fleshed-out and complex characters, have to be more like one girl or the other? There's just nothing in the story to justify being so adamant about these comparisons. Arya and Sansa have parallels with both of their parents but at the end of the day, they are unique characters with their own stories. I'll never understand why people want to flatten these complex characters down to their most basic tropes and fit them into restrictive boxes just for a "poetical~" comparison.

[vaguely-concerned]

I’m on a Star Wars books roll so here we go with my — unhinged thanks for asking! — thoughts on Dooku: Jedi Lost, specifically the audio play. Short version: I fucking loved this one! For maximum emotional devastation, pair with Master and Apprentice and Padawan the way my stupid ass did and then be sad about it forever I guess that's what I’m going to have to do.

 Long (LONG oopsie) version:

- So. First of all, let’s get the most important thing out of the way on this here old man yaoi website. We all agree dooku and sifo dyas explored each other’s bodies right. Or at least definitely would have if not for the laws of this order etc., potentially. That’s not just me. Good. Thank you. We can now move on 

- Secondly. Well. Guess I’m just going to be inconsolable about Sifo-Dyas forever now. I miss the days in which he was just a throwaway line in AotC spawned by a random misspelling to me, rather than an eternal raw aching wound in my heart

- poor poor ventress just reading through all the proof that dooku absolutely does have it in him to be a good dad I mean master and just — idk got tired of that and went the force lightning route with her. I love the move of having her dead master hang out with her all that time as well (having her slip up and refer to ‘us’ did something to me, god this is so sad. Is he actually there in spirit or is it just her grief dreaming him up because dooku is awful and cold as a cliff  wall and she needs some kind of attachment figure even if she’ll have to reinvent him herself, rebuild him word for word, gesture by gesture. Pain. sorry about your terrible track record with father figures asajj) 

- Lene: (About Averross): He hasn’t changed. 

Dooku: (In the warmest fondest voice you ever heard) And I hope he never does

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MYSELF? MUST I SET MYSELF ON FIRE TO ESCAPE THE PAIN???

Another strong showing for Rael in general, btw. He’s so warm and charming as a presence even though he’s also a little chaos gremlin. (He’s quite similar to how Sifo-Dyas was when he was young in some ways, I can definitely start to see what Dooku responds warmly to in terms of character traits.) 

- the fact that good ol’ sheev showed an interest in rael, dooku and anakin… interesting huh! He’s just got a soft spot for the disaster lineage I suppose, maybe there’s an element there of luring yoda’s most direct lineage into the dirt with him without yoda even noticing for the longest time. Also cackling at the idea that he looked at qui-gon ‘too fucking stubborn and insufferable to fall to the dark side out of sheer spite’ jinn and went ‘...not that one tho’ fhdskjfa. And obi-wan is more like ‘that one blorbo all my little guys seem wild about but I just don’t get it guys’ 

IF rael’s refusal to join dooku at the end of ‘master and apprentice’ is the last word (which I am not convinced of ;___; be safe cowboy jedi we never see in mainline canon so far), then he’s the only one who has dodged palpatine’s attentions. Wonderful if true love that for him

ALSO rael is one of the few people we know to be on (or at least to consider himself on despite what palps might think lol) first name basis with palpatine. Hilarious. I concur with dooku never change rael 

- Sifo-Dyas: That’s insane. 

Dooku, deadpan: Yes.

Sifo-Dyas: The worst plan I’ve ever heard.

Dooku, somehow even more deadpan: Most probably. 

Sifo-Dyas: I’m in. 

Crying… weeping and dying………… what if someone could have helped sifo with his unfortunate prophecy propensity and they hadn’t drifted apart. Clone Wars averted methinks if dooku still ended up leaving the order he would have been too busy having tender gay sex with the love of his life (and only person who can call him out on his shit and have him actually listen) to be a war criminal (I am being extremely facetious of course this is very much a ‘time traveler killing baby hitler’ situation where the underlying forces causing this point in history are way too powerful to avert the catastrophe in one move. but at least palps would probably have had to pick someone else to wreck the galaxy through and sifo-dyas would be kissed & held instead of going slowly mad. A net plus some (I, me) would say) 

- I just wanted to applaud both the writing and the voice acting for the characterization of Dooku in this, from his young self trying so hard to be haughty and self-possessed but also being like, y’know, twelve and a dweeb and easy for Sifo-Dyas to pull into trouble, to the dry wit and warmth he shows with Rael and Qui-Gon or his sister later. It took me a little while to get into the voice acting specifically (the actor makes no attempt at going the full Christopher Lee, which in hindsight was probably wise), but now I love it. It gets a bit goofy in places but you know what, I am a long time lover of audio plays, that’s part of the charm 

- “Master, have I done something wrong?”

My heart is clenching… do you think… that master yoda’s deal with leaving his student to try fucking everything to have some kind of relationship with him until he just breaks down in tears of despair… is the kind of thing that maybe started a little bit of a generational trauma cartwheel through the ages. The point that bb!dooku is arrogant isn’t without merit and he strikes out incredibly ungracefully about it (in fact I would be a lot more worried than yoda seems to be that he decides to try to kill a tree about it, ‘I felt like destroying something beautiful’-style)  but I just don’t think a… fourteen year old? A teen anyway, Is going to learn what you think he learns from this. I simply don’t believe that silent treatmenting kids will teach them emotional intelligence I guess especially if they already struggle with that naturally lol 

(It is exactly the same mistake (in my opinion) that Qui-Gon makes with Obi-Wan, too, just leaving the kid completely alone and forcing them to come to you every which way for comfort or guidance instead of meeting them or reaching out to them. Especially once you see that really Dooku’s prime emotion/big core wound right from the beginning is loneliness. And that doesn’t only come from a feeling of superiority (which to be sure is also a big factor), because he has no idea where he comes from until he meets his sister. I don’t think the jedi as a whole were unsalvageable by any stretch of the imagination, but Yoda specifically… you are on such very thin ice with me at this point you little green fuck. You’re very funny and moving in yoda dark rendezvous and that’s all that’s keeping you in my somewhat good graces.)

- Okay, coming back a bit later I think I’ve found the right words to say this. more precisely dooku has two big issues which you can later see haunting all the way down his lineage — loneliness and control. (and not incidentally the intersecting elements of the two haha.) We see from his relationship to sifo-dyas that he’s not incapable of having close mutual relationships with an equal, but that kind of crashed and burned for reasons neither of them could really help and after that it seems quite telling that he has the easiest time with deeper connection in a teacher-student sort of form. I think his affection is unconditional and real, but you can’t get away from the fact that he also has the most control in that relationship structure by default, he gets to dictate what form it takes to a big extent. He doesn’t trust other people — the underlying idea ‘Only I can do this’ that eventually leads him down the Separatist path is there the whole way. It speaks both to a sense of superiority and an utter lack of faith that other people can or will help him. And then that echoes down through the master-padawan line: 

Qui-Gon with his self-righteousness and utter refusal to compromise leaving him isolated among the jedi (only he is right. Yeah the Force told him so. Don’t worry I’ve got a permit *insert parks and rec I can do whatever I want meme here*), Obi-Wan with his anxiety and perfectionism and incredible sense of shame and responsibility that he should be able to carry the whole world on his shoulders alone and beating himself up for failing, all feeding into not knowing what to do with Anakin and his complete lack of control of himself and his desperation to gain and maintain connection and love (which earns him the title of ‘Dooku’s least favorite family member’ fhdsa his immediate disdain for him is so funny and so in character. Repress and go slowly mad like a normal person anakin the way you’re carrying on is just undignified and that is much worse than being evil)… 

- Rael gently telling Dooku to take on another padawan soon… so sweet, so sad, local cowboy jedi looking out for his dad. Also highlights something about Dooku I think is true: that he does much better and seems to have an easier time holding to the light when he’s responsible for someone else. Again, I do feel like Dooku’s core problem is loneliness, but it seems like raising kids is the one point where that relaxes somewhat. Maybe if Sifo-Dyas had stayed in a better mental place and they kept in touch it could have been different.

- Lene Kostana is SUCH a character! Charismatic and deeply fucked up, when it’s revealed how her and Sifo-Dyas’ relationship remains long after his padawan stage is done I felt a little bit sick, to my surprise. Because that could just be kindness on her part, of course, it’s good that he has someone he trusts to look after him when he can’t himself, but also there’s something… queasy about the way it keeps him continually young, in a way. (Notably he still calls her ‘master’ even as an adult, when they’re working together. Not uncommon in Star Wars, of course, but together with everything else going on vibes-wise… hm.) The inherent unreliable narration of this story really worked for me in this regard especially — do we know that young Dooku was entirely wrong when he sensed the dark side in her? She certainly is willing to go to lengths that are… worrying! in her fascination with sith shit, she tempted children into a dangerous place they didn’t understand and couldn’t know the consequences of and she continually puts sifo-dyas in situations that are implied to be a risk to worsening his condition. Run of the mill incredibly irresponsible at best, sincerely sinister at worst. Did she choose Sifo over Dooku because he’s more vulnerable and shapeable? There is an undercurrent of something icky and emotionally incest-y going on with how she relates to Dooku and Sifo-Dyas in general (right down to the ‘NO, no one can know about this’ intensity after the… evil moss cave. I can’t believe I’m this emotional about a book with an evil moss cave). I don’t think she’s a proper sith in any way and I also believe there is real affection there on all sides, but idk something about the whole thing makes me deeply uneasy. Yoda where the fuck are you your son is out there with his irresponsible mom again they’re looking for dirty needles in haystacks and they’re not even wearing any gloves

- dooku telling sifo-dyas he can come back to haunt him if he likes as a joke… well well well I’m sure that doesn’t ring with some dramatic irony at some point down the line lmao

- honestly looking back at master and apprentice after reading jedi lost makes qui-gon's apparent lack of reaction to dooku leaving seem — let's call it highly suspect haha. rael asks him if he's spoken to dooku after and qui-gon is like 'no. why would I. it's literally fine. anyway this topic is done now'. (and rael seems to just go ‘*older brotherly knowing* uh-huh’) meanwhile he's thinking about dooku *all the time* trying to figure out his role as master to obi-wan, thinking about being a padawan himself, the parts of his life he shared with both dooku and rael. The jedi doth protest too much methinks  

ALSO how much of qui-gon thinking the council was too lenient with rael after he had to kill his padawan is about that actual situation, and how much is a ‘our family still likes my older brother more than me even though he Fucked Up so bad and breaks just as many rules as I do’ sort of deal mixed with his own neuroses about how he’s failing obi-wan (to which rael’s situation symbolizes the worst possible outcome, i.e. the kid dies and it’s basically your fault). Many thoughts. 

- moment of silence for jenza of house serenno. Girl your only sin was being surrounded by asshole male family members and I’m so sorry I think you did all you could with what you had to work with here.

Not… entirely sure how dooku’s claim to the title supersedes hers — is he a year older than her? (she’s eleven when they first meet, he might be twelve or older at that point I don’t remember haha) Does she just give up her place in the inheritance order? Are primogeniture and male heir preference factors in Serenno inheritance law? Not the most important thing honestly it works anyway thematically but could have been clarified quickly!

- interesting to see that the council’s restrictive policy against engaging with prophecies had a surprisingly big impact on how things went down. Kostana has a lot of responsibility in Sifo’s fate for insisting he keep it secret, but there is genuine fear for what might become of him if the rest of the order finds out he’s got 24/7 futurevision hovering over him threateningly… listen it’s not like the poor guy can help getting the future constantly pumped into his brain at nightmare resolutions, I think maybe if there had been more willingness to at least engage curiously with the concept of prophecy and how it works, even if you don’t put your faith in the particulars of what the prophecies say, this wouldn’t have had to be such a shitty isolated secretive life for him. hearing him slowly fall apart over the years considering how bright and lovely he started out... oof is all I can say 

- when dooku was a good jedi he was such a good jedi!!! The scene where they’re saving the kids from the collapsing hospital, every time he teaches his students anything…the impulse of someone has to do something about this! that made him so good at saving lives turning dark with the tarnish of frustration and rage over the years… nooooooooo problematic grandpa why did it have to be like this :(

- …do you think infant jedi can sense what’s going on around them in the Force. Because it makes a very sad kind of sense if dooku on some level remembers bodily or in the Force that he was not only abandoned but rejected in disgust as one of the first things he discovered in the world. Oh boy. With all the ways attachment relationships can go wonky in the first few years in real life I don’t even want to consider how much more wrong it can go when the baby is fucking psychic lol

- vaguely related: the way dooku seems to find the very idea of being truly reliant on anyone, emotionally or otherwise, personally offensive, terrifying and humiliating lol. Yoda saves him from being crushed by rubble and he is outraged because that means he can’t save himself (and his newfound sister) without anyone’s help like he thought for one glorious moment he could. The fantasy of perfect emotional self-sufficiency, doing away with all the messiness and risk of interpersonal relationships and cutting off the possibility of really being abandoned again. It’ll get ya every time. This is also a thing you see reflected in his lineage — they’re all quite inward-turning that way until you get to anakin, to different extents and with varying presentations but it is there I think. Qui-Gon turns to the Force, Obi-Wan to perfectionism and shame and rumination, Rael to the bottle and depression and hedonistic apathy, but they all struggle hugely with letting anyone in to help them. Dooku’s line are all much more comfortable being the helpers rather than the helpees, as it were.  

- “Thank you for everything, Lene. Tell Rael and Qui-Gon — tell them… tell them the Force will be with them, always”

Emotional terrorism against me specifically and personally. You asshole you just excused yourself from the non-attachment rules there’s literally nothing in the world except you to stop you from reaching out and telling your children you love them yOURSELF why are you like this

- the recurring theme of dooku seeing something beautiful (the tree in the temple, the tirra’taka as a child and an adult) and ending up lashing out to destroy it… but the tree was old and mighty and he was young and new and couldn’t truly harm it, so he was saved from his own impulsivity. And then when he sees the tirra’taka as an adult he loves it immediately. And in the end he still mangles and destroys it. He didn’t mean to, but he did. He woke it up and hurt it just by existing as a child and then he had to kill it as a mercy because he was too powerful at that point for anything to buffer his mistakes. The parallel with the bird he loved that he also couldn’t protect. He starts out with an aching loneliness somewhere at the core of him through no real fault of his own but by the end it is entirely his own fault that it’s worse, because he starts wrecking everything he loves in an almost absent-minded but definitely intentional way, like it’s a nightmare he’s listening to through the door as it happens in the next room over. He really IS the ‘I just felt like destroying something beautiful’ central of the jedi.

at the end qui-gon is dead and through dooku’s own influence, however indirectly. Rael has had to turn away from him. Sifo-Dyas is dead on Dooku’s own orders and so is his sister, he might as well have done it with his own hands. (though I think it’s very interesting that in each case he didn’t do it with his own hands, he consistently uses a middleman.) He lives within the coldness of his sterile empty castle and horrifically mistreats the one person he might have found something like connection with the way he did with his students before (Ventress), deliberately trapping her in a similar state of utter desolate isolation and telling her, essentially, ‘We’re like this as people and nothing can be done to change it. We can’t escape, we’re already doomed, stop trying, it’s too late. You are just like me (and if you aren't already I'll make you like me)’. And that’s the closest thing he gets to love anymore. When he accused Ky of using her ‘as a salve for his own loneliness’ and you’re like well well well mr projection man how’s that working out for you. He is completely, shatteringly alone and he is so entirely as a consequence of his own actions and he's too far gone to understand or care. I’m howling you useless fucking FOOL dooku  

- dooku 🤝 john gaius

“Hm. I have observed that there are in fact many flaws in our society and the government is deeply corrupt. So if I kill a few billion people here and there in order to fix it, is that not basically okay when you really think about it” 

Dooku making salient points about the political and ethical failures of the Republic and then, just when you think he’s onto something, he goes and makes The wildest fucking decisions about what to do about it. Sure. dark magic and genocide are probably the only ways out of this you’re so right bro. If we make enough minuses to add together surely we’ll end up in plus sooner or later

- *head in my hands once more* I can’t believe I am genuinely emotionally invested in someone called Count Dooku with the looks of a knockoff dracula and ultimate moral character to match right now this is terrible. hey. hey dooks. what you have to go and fuck everything up so bad for huh I’m so incredibly sad now

there is something to be said about how getting to see glimpses of what dooku looked like in the light makes it so much more heartwrenching that he never came back. he could have, a thousand times. and every time he chose not to.

[zannolin]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @beautyofsorrow ty sis <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

visibly? 64. including anon? 110. including orphaned ones, 113. BOY i've been busy.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

774,206 with another ~28k waiting to be posted :)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

actively right now, just narnia. previously in descending order, as best as i can remember because i've been doing this 15+ years at this point: stranger things, the karate kid/cobra kai, lockwood & co, beyonders, the copernicus legacy, fnaf, national treasure, the shazam! movies, superman & lois, ginger snaps, resident evil, arcane, the batman 2022, star wars (jedi apprentice era mostly), a fandom that shall not be named (iykyk), the penumbra podcast, the magnus archives, bnha, voltron, miraculous ladybug, moulin rouge, warrior cats, my little pony, doctor who, disney/dreamworks (rotbtfd and frozen specifically), h*rry p*tter when i was a kid unfortunately, maximum ride, the mcu, the 39 clues, and of course, lord of the rings.

as a bonus, ones i have written but never finished include the man from snowy river (1982), the IT movies, bendy and the ink machine, fablehaven, the lunar chronicles, five kingdoms, keeper of the lost cities, oz, and atla.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

only doing ones visible on my ao3 for this because i despise all the anon ones that are my top five: paper faces (fnaf), harm's way (stranger things), (dental) care (bnha), pyrrhic victory (shazam) and please don't hold me to it (stranger things).

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to! i don't often end up responding to every single one because it takes a lot of energy on my part, but especially if someone leaves a nice one that points out something specific they appreciated or noticed i like to try to respond and elaborate on it a little for funsies :) i try to let people know their comments are appreciated because maybe the positive reinforcement will spread the practice of commenting even more.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

probably still greek tragedy aka my batman 2022 fic where i just fuckin killed that guy (batman). i usually tend towards fixits so i think the only other fic that doesn't have any kind of hopeful hint at the end i wrote would be like. close encounters. but that's part of a fixit series? which is why i don't count good luck, babe! from the same series because it reveals the end of the first wasn't actually as much of a bummer as you thought even if the situation isn't resolved yet. you know.

WAIT i lied i also wrote a klance titanic au in high school which was SOOO funny like not even titanic the movie. titanic the historical event. and i killed those guys. high school me was so funny and for what.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

most of them. again, i'm a fixer at heart. but i would say probably wild blue yonder, my narnia wing au, 'cause literally everybody wins in that one. writing it made me able to listen to the prince caspian ost without crying for a solid couple weeks because i was like yayyyy fixit :) that's how powerful it is.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

no because i am overcome with secondhand embarrassment and shame and i dislike 90% of the vocabulary involved but sometimes i'm overcome with hubris reading bad smut and going "i could do better than this." like where is the eroticism. where's the character study. where's the unhinged vulnerability and intimacy. it's all so bad.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the wildest one you’ve written?

not at the moment, but i used to write rise of the brave tangled frozen dragons fic, and once i had an au where elsa was shipwrecked and lost her memory and washed up in america and made friends with spirit. you know. the stallion of the cimarron. i was an interesting child.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no but i've had people ask which is fine by me.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yeah i used to co-write warriors fics with my friend in high school, and then i was co-writing a horror au series (tho not specific fics) with some friends a few years ago, and tam and i never did end up finishing the coma au but we WERE co-writing it at the time. and i was also part of a collaborative story project for a vld zine back in the day.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

um i don't really know if i have one. i don't tend to focus on ships over everything else, though i have some beloved ones i'll always hold dear, like aragorn and arwen, quitahl, brileygail, the works.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i mean there's still the penumbra anastasia au on my ao3 so that's the easy answer. i'm also unsure if i'll ever get up the energy to complete the byler tsr au, or my reverse dawn treader au. i don't know. we'll see.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'm good with character voices and getting inside characters' heads + to the meat of their relationships i think. i can write a bangin' metaphor. i'm good at melding my own style with the source material's style to make it feel more authentic. i am very very good about consistency and accuracy in details. i understand canon very well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

too wordy. often spend too much time on introspection which jams up the pacing. plot.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i would like to be able to do it but i do not speak anything but english and a little spanish so i'm pretty sure i'll fuck it up lol.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

lord of the rings. i still have this fic. it's handwritten on tinkerbell notebook paper.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

i fear i am never topping north of desire and the national treasure polyfic.

tagging @thescrapwitch @wyverningx @brionysea if y'all haven't done this and you wanna :)

[utah-werewolf]

Warning: long post ahead

Why is Koba likely my favourite villain ever?

I've been rewatching the new Planet of the Apes movies and I think Koba might remain my favourite villain, if not one of my favourite characters in general.

Proximus Caesar is a strong contender, too, but I think two factors make him less fascinating to me - firstly, he is actually a very human character, which takes away some of the fun, and secondly - I don't think they gave my man Kevin Durand enough screentime. I can see he had a lot of fun acting as Proximus and he was perfect for the role, but he could definitely use more exposure. I think it's likely Proximus will return in the future and I sure hope he will, because I think this character has a lot of potential. Potential that - so far - has been wasted.

The colonel - great villain as well. You want to hate him, because he is so cold and cruel after all, but also you can't help but wonder what you'd do in his place. How can you be sure you'd be compassionate towards another species, one that is clearly about to become dominant over your own? Is morality stronger than survival instinct? Because in the long run, it's all about mankind's survival. The colonel is desperately grasping at the last options to ensure that humans survive, and even though his actions are objectively terrible - I just don't have the audacity to say I'd be a noble hero when the world I know is about to be lost forever.

But Koba, holy shit. Koba is on another level for me. First of all, I don't think Toby Kebbell gets enough credit. While Caesar is an amazing character and Andy Serkis plays him masterfully, I think it was actually Koba that was harder to play, at least in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Koba is wild, he's completely unhinged, so you have to find that balance of an insane, animalistic character that is as smart and complex as a human. Basically the wildest, most violent chimpanzee (yes, I know he's a bonobo), but add to this intelligence and motivations only known to humans. I have no idea how I'd do that, but I know Toby's Koba would be a perfect example for me to learn from.

He is both irredeemably evil and very easy to empathize with. Real life stories show that if you put the nicest, most peaceful human being through continuous abuse, they'll likely turn into a monster, or become extremely unstable at least. As much as it's not an unbreakable rule, it's perfectly natural.

Koba was abused for many years, in ways we can't even imagine. And initially when we see him, there isn't much about him to show the damage done to him. Sure, he's scarred and clearly doesn't like humans, but that's about it.

But oh boy, by the time he attacks the human colony, he goes completely downhill. This character becomes absolutely terrifying. You've seen him do "civilized" things, such as speaking, helping his friends etc. So you subconsciously start to treat him like a fellow human. But then he becomes increasingly vicious and animalistic, while still just as smart as before. You see that Koba can be pretty charismatic when he wants to. His hatred and determination will push him to do borderline suicidal things, such as charging at a tank through fire while blasting two machine guns at the same time. It's scary, incomprehensible and - let's admit it - a bit badass. You wonder how someone this insane can also remain cool-headed enough to plan this cunning scheme. There is so much poison and determination in the way Koba speaks it's crazy.

By the end of the movie you know he's too far gone and there is no redemption for him, at least not in this story. But it doesn't feel particularly satisfying to watch him die. It's a well-deserved end to his life, but everything that led to this moment was started by some abusive, power-drunk human. And also, you can't say Koba was entirely wrong about us - many of us are kind people, but as a collective we are truly a destructive, pointlessly cruel and incredibly selfish mass.

As they say, the end justifies the means. But only when it benefits OUR people.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

You have had character analysis for the show versions of Marc, Jake and Steven, will you ever analyze the comic versions?

Hey there Anon!

Well… I sort of already have! But not formatted like I did with the MCU, or in as much straightforward detail. 

I recommend that you check out THIS, which covers creating the characters as broken down by Moench himself and I get a bit into it there. 

It’s hard to break down the characters individually in these comics because each writer is going to treat them differently and build on what they took away from the original source or intent. Moench himself spent his OG run developing and taking them in different directions. 

I’ve tried to break down each character as they appear in that comic, but that’s a lot of info and it really does vary issue to issue to writer to writer. 

For instance, in Moench, Marc is beyond self hating, angry, violent, quick to seek out revenge, and disliked by just about everyone in the comics. In the 90s, the writers are quick to ditch Steven and Jake and focus on Marc. 

The 90s were all about ACTION and COOL GUYS. And Who was cooler than a Mercenary with a gun and an attitude? Marc Spector became the action man with a dark past and guilty conscious. 

Then they killed Marc (Twice) and Jake took over. Because Jake was cool and hip. He was the dirty cab driver who got things done and knew the way to get information. He also got a little gritty in the late 90s and early 2000s. 

Steven got left behind for a long….long time. 

It was around this time that Khonshu also took up a life of his own. Khonshu became an actual character. I’ll be doing a piece on that eventually so look forward to that one! 

Marc came back and things get….complicated…. The characterization starts to swing WILDLY as everyone took a shot at trying to make sense of where Moon Knight and the characters needed to be to be brought into the current modern era and still make him have that connection that originally made him popular. 

It was a wild ride. And we don’t see things settle until Lemire picked things up, dusted them off, and said “This is who these characters are.” 

And with two exceptions (BEMIS. AARON), MacKay has not stepped in and attempted to fix things again and provide a place to build on for Jake and Steven to come home again. 

But one thing is for sure…. Marc has ALWAYS been broody, self destructive, self hating, and quick to overt violence that makes him regret things later. 

Steven often bounces between vain and prissy to weak and wimpy to cold and standoffish. 

Jake …Oh boy Jake… My poor boy. From loving kind cabbie to violent unhinged psycho to uncaring cool guy to loving uncle Jake again. 

If we really want to get to the heart of who these guys are… You almost have to read between the comics. 

Even with Moench. You don’t properly see Marc Spector until you get the little after comic shorts “Adventures with Marc Spector” and so on. When you see him being goofy, having terrible luck, and making the most of his bad situations. 

With Jake, you see him asking Gena how the kids are every time he sees her. He buys Crawley a new hat and does his best to support Gena in her hard times. He’s friends with the homeless and druggies. He buys a guy a cup of coffee and chews the fat with people in the streets. 

Steven is charming with Marlene. He takes care of the body with the other two only beat it up. He puts all his wealth into charity events and things that he feels make a difference. 

They all care about their friends and take it personally when their friends are hurt. Or when their friends hurt them. Gena talks about leaving and you see Jake feel like he failed her. Marc’s oldest friend from his time working CIA is killed and he goes on a serious bender of revenge. Even Steven, someone threatens his home and he pays extensively to make sure it is fortified and can keep everyone in it safe. No one hurts his Butler or maid or threatens Marlene. 

It’s the things they can all agree on and these things that I think helps bring them together. 

Where at first none of them can understand Marc and want him gone. But the more you see them coming together to protect what they care about the most, the more you start to see them agree on things and start to work as a unit. 

At the end of the OG run, you see Steven accept Marc and his past after his father’s death. 

It’s these things that I look for in the comics. The moments when you can see who they originally were and what keeps them together. 

Marc’s need for stability and people he can trust. Steven’s need to feel useful and keep his people safe. Jake’s need to be around people that love him and his ability to keep them close and safe. 

While I am NOT going to review every single comics like I did the Moench run... I am going to find time to re-read all of the 90s comics that came right after and might do a few breakdowns of those. ...But they are often a chore to get through. Just saying. They go hard on Marc and I miss my boys. I miss seeing the love that was so obvious in the original comics and the theme of friendship that held them all together.

[jovenshires]

wait smosh taskmaster would be SUCH a massive slay wow. immediately my mind went to shayne as alex horne ! but greg i could see as diff options bc i don’t think any cast members embody that archetype personality wise as is but i could def see them put their own spins on em as a character if that makes sense ? would love to see what damien or chanse could come up with (bonus pts for being tall). but i also just realized arasha would be good too lmaoo. OH and that tommy as greg and spencer as alex would be SO good. and then for contestants would love to have angela, two that don’t end up in the above roles, keith, and than a rando crew member that we don’t see that often to shake it up - maybe vida bc they killed it in tntl and they do improv? wait also loved patrick making a reappearance so him as well. obvi would love to see most of the cast /crew participate as contestants if it’s like a recurring series ! ok clearly this show is perf for smosh considering i included a bajillion people in this ask pls kiana i’m begging 🙏 - spencersagnew

@spencersagnew YOU. YOU GET ME. i love your takes,,,, shayne as alex and arasha as greg specifically is everything to me. i'll put my cast out there but your takes are incredible and you've never been wrong.

tommy as the taskmaster. i think he just has that dry humor and can lean into the antagonistic nature really well while still being a fair judge and interacting well with the contestants. he's also just one of my favorite hosts of anything ever so ill let him do whatever he wants

garrett as the taskmaster's assistant. LISTEN. LISTEN. we need someone pathetic. someone who can be a punching bag. someone who's a little unhinged. someone who will get bullied by the cast and just take it, but also someone who has the Audacity. and That's Garrett. he fits the bill. i'll say honorable mention to shayne bc i think he would do this really well too but there's something about garrett that i think people would just take to using him as a puppet, a prop, whatever they needed for their tasks. and then get shit from him as soon as they're in the studio.

ian as contestant number one (The Grumpy Old Man). look, i have the taskmaster casting system boiled down to a science. i truly believe almost every cast can fit into these categories (almost! almost all!) and so i'm going by the same metric for smoshmaster. and we're starting off strong with the grumpy old man archetype. i think he'll be generally annoyed by everything. tommy, garrett, the other contestants, the tasks, whatever. he has a really dry sense of humor that'll balance everybody else out, and an above-it-all attitude that you can't help but respect. examples of this include julian clary, frankie boyle, and dara o briain.

angela as contestant number two (The World's Strangest Woman). every season needs one woman who just goes about the tasks in The Most Insane Way, and that's angela. point blank period. is she gonna win? probably not! but who knows! she's a wild card! she's the one who says her legs are basically just arms without fingers, you know. i think she'd just panic and do. whatever. no planning, go with her gut instinct. she'd also be super competitive and her reactions when she realized just how bad she fucked up.... incredible. examples include lucy beaumont, jenny eclair, and fern brady.

spencer as contestant number three (The Loveable Goofball). look. LOOK. you know him. you love him. he probably won't win. but god is it fun to watch. he's generally kind of pathetic, and while he fails miserably, you can't help but root for him, feel bad for him, and point and laugh at him all at once. he's going about the tasks either half-heartedly or putting his whole soul into it with absolutely no in-between. he might win an episode, but it's because the edit is throwing him a bone. spencer's really good at putting on that character of. miserable dude. the heel of it all. but also balancing that out with his quick wit and intelligence. he's perfect for this. some examples are susan wokoma, ivo graham, and john kearns

chanse as contestant number four (The Fan Favorite). he's hot. he's smart. he's funny. everybody likes him. he is the People's Champion. everyone wants him to win - even the taskmaster is a Little biased. he has electric chemistry with everyone, somehow, you can't really figure out how. he absolutely kills ALL the tasks but especially the prize tasks. i also think chanse would just have the funniest reactions to what everyone Else is doing. like i think he'd stand by what he did until the bitter end (even if he did something fucking insane) but everyone else he would relentlessly make fun of. god i want him on this show so bad. anyway, my examples for this are sam campbell, kiell smith-bynoe, and munya chawawa.

courtney as contestant number five (The Only Competent One on the Board). everyone else is fucking insane, but courtney is holding down the fort. she's always handling the tasks in a smart, efficient way that seems like the most logical way to go about it. they frequently outsmart the prompts and the competition. whether or not they win it all, they just seem like they deserve it most. her humor also brings a really nice balance of riding that line of silly goofy and smart and quick. i think courtney rounds out this cast really well (and is my personal pick to win <3). examples of this are sue perkins, mae martin, and sarah milican.

im flexible on the teams, although i think my personal pick is spencer / courtney / angela and ian / chanse bc. comedy to me. also i will say i think i could go on for like. at least two more seasons building different casts truly this is not the Only combo. anyway kiana call me i've got big plans

[the-stage-manager]

What the fuck is wrong with you? Why the hell would you write this? This is the most inappropriate, completely unhinged response to somebody sharing their opinions, that I've ever fucking seen. "I don't like these characters, I think they're annoying." "YOURE A MAN HATER WHO THINKS MEN SHOULDNT CRY. YOURE A WHINY BITCH. THESE PEOPLE HAVE TRAUMA AND YOURE CRITICIZING THEM SO YOU MUST BE UNEMPATHETIC AND HATE TRAUMATIZED PEOPLE." I mean, obviously I'm exaggerating, but the beats are still there. "Complaining about video game characters makes you whiny". "Sorry the victim and the slave inconvenienced you." "You strike me as the kind of person who thinks men should cry." OP, people like you give the fan base a bad name. Your response was rude, you made some WILD fucking assumptions with absolutely zero evidence to back it up and, frankly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

First of all, you know absolutely fucking NOTHING about anon. You don't know how far they've progressed in the game, or even what they're referring to when they call Gale and Astarion annoying and whiny.

Guess what! They ARE annoying and whiny! My very first time playing through BG3, before I knew either of their stories, Astarion drove me fucking crazy. He was constantly bitching about how his legs were tired, how he didn't want to be trekking out through the woods, he bitched every time I tried to extend kindness to someone, that stupid fucking "Astarion disapproves" when you offer to help people. These are very real criticisms extremely appropriate. He's calloused and cruel and completely unempathetic. Yes, when we learn WHY he behaves that way, our perspective changes, and maybe we feel we should offer him a little more compassion, but his immense, horrible suffering doesn't mitigate the fact that his behavior is kind of repulsive. You can acknowledge that somebody's behavior is bad and needs to change, while still empathizing with them and offering them compassion because of their circumstances.

As for Gale? He's annoying as fuck. I love him, I think he is so charming and so witty and so intelligent, and I love how talkative he is. But not everybody likes wordy, talkative people. In fact, lots of people don't like wordy, talkative people. And they don't have to! Not to mention the fact that Gale's ego is huge. And before you jump down my throat to bitch at me about how he was groomed, you're right! He was groomed! Mystra's relationship with him was abhorrent. He was emotionally abused, there is no way around it. He was lonely and belittled because his goddess gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. What self-respecting wizard would turn down the chance to be Mystra's lover? The power imbalance is absolutely unfathomable, and it breaks my heart because she didn't give two shits about him. HOWEVER, Gale's current predicament is 100% his own fault. I understand that he only wanted the orb to try and convince Mystra to give him more Powers so that he could be her equal. That's literally all he wanted. However, if the fucking GOD OF MAGIC, literally magic personified, tells you "Don't touch that, it's extremely dangerous," and you're response is, "No it isn't, I know better than you, so I'm going to touch it anyways and I'll be fine", then you have A FUCKING EGO PROBLEM. He is a flood character. And he's obnoxious! I mean, come on, his Yawning Portal story? It's not hard to see why some people dislike him. Not everybody is obligated to love somebody just because they've had a rough past.

Your response was so fucking wildly inappropriate. Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?!

And before you start bitching to me about trauma, or how I don't know about trauma, or some shit, shut the fuck up. I guarantee I understand more about trauma and abuse than you could ever comprehend. My life was fucking shit. And now I'm studying to become a neuropsychologist specializing in PTSD and trauma. I can back up anything I say with both empirical data and anecdotal evidence. So shut the fuck up. STOP TREATING TRAUMA VICTIMS LIKE THEYRE MADE OF GLASS. Anytime I hear somebody say "It's not their fault, they're traumatized" or "don't criticize them, they had a really hard time". It makes me absolutely livid. Because that's enabling behavior. That's how you make a mental illness worse. Recovering from trauma is just like recovering from a total hip replacement. If a marathon runner gets a hip replacement, you wouldn't expect them to get up out of bed and run a marathon the day after the surgery. There needs have changed, and you need to be accommodating in order to meet those needs. However, this doesn't mean that the former marathon runner gets a free pass for the rest of his life. It's his responsibility to do things that will help him get better, stretching and physical therapy and attending appointments with the doctor. Physical therapy is hard, it hurts. You have to push yourself. That pain is the only way to get better, unfortunately. You have to rebuild muscles and stretch and exercise The joint if you want to regain full mobility. The exact same thing is true with trauma victims. Obviously, we can't expect them to behave normally, because the trauma has altered the way their brains work. Learning to recover from trauma is a slow process, and it's painful, and it requires an excruciating amount of self-evaluation. If you push yourself too far, you'll get yourself hurt, of course, you never push yourself at all, you'll atrophy and get worse. "They're traumatized so you can't criticize them" will destroy them. In order to recover, traumatized people need to learn how to engage with and build a tolerance to their triggers. It happens slowly, and should be done under the guidance of a licensed therapist, and with heaps and heaps and heaps of compassion. But this infantilization of traumatized individuals, this stupid fucking notion that "I love them so much I'll never let anybody hurt them ever again", smothers people. It traps them, prevents them from growing. Its an enormous sign of disrespect—"I don't think you can handle it, so I'm going to make the decision for you." It's abusive.

Of course, we're not talking about real people. And honestly, I think that makes it worse. These are fictional fucking characters. They aren't real, they don't exist, they don't have feelings or souls, they don't need you to defend them because they DONT EXIST. Of course you're allowed to love them, you're allowed to be affected by other people's opinions of them, especially when they differ from your own. I think that's human, it happens to the best of us. But that anon? That's a real fucking person. And you attacked them—you called them fucking names. "Whiny"? Fuck off. You need to fucking apologize to that person. I don't give a shit if that person was trolling or not, the point is that you care so much about people who aren't even real, and you care so little about people who are real, you're willing to behave this way! You're willing to attack somebody, to insult them, to degrade them, to essentially humiliate them in a public forum by responding to them in such a belittling way. What the fuck did that and on do to you?! All they did was express an opinion that you disagreed with. And instead of just saying that you disagree, you attacked their character.

This is completely inexcusable behavior. Behavior that I don't think should be tolerated in this fandom. You are a toxic fan. You are making this fandom toxic. You are making everybody else look bad. I think you need to step away from social media and take a good, long, hard look at yourself.

gale and astarion are tied for most annoying companions both whiny asf

You strike me as the type of person who says "men shouldn't cry". I mean, you're complaining about the two companions who arguably have the most complexity and the worst pasts—the tortured slave and the groomed child—and acting like they have nothing to "whine" about. Gale is remarkably positive and well-adjusted for a dying, indoctrinated man who was isolated and then discarded by a goddess with a well known history of ephebophilia. As for Astarion, he can be an ass, but wtf does he complain about? He barely opens up unless you pry it out of him. Unless you're talking about his perpetual dislike of anything good/heroic in act one, but you can change his alignment by act two. Lae'zel also isn't a fan of you being nice to people, so how come she isn't being criticised? I don't really know what you expect me to say. Sorry Larian wrote imperfect characters with tragic histories and compelling narratives, I guess? Sorry the 🍇 victim and 🍇 slave inconvenienced you?

Ironically, coming onto my blog and complaining about two video game characters (both of whom are widely loved by most players) is pretty whiny. 😂

[cyberdragoninfinity]

ok it’s time for dana to hoot and holler about zexal

finished ygo zexal for the first time last week and i absolutely adored it and am STILL thinking so much about it (as i will be probably for. a While now if my relationships with the other ygo spinoffs ive seen are any indication).....time again for me to do my little personal rambly yugioh series retrospective post as the brainworms truly start to set in. kattobingu feel the flow high five the sky build the overlay network let’s goooo!!!

more under the cut. a lot more lol. spoilers for a decade old anime, naturally

GOD. YEAH. THIS ONE MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE YUGIOH SERIES IVE SEEN YET. HOLY SHIT. 2021 Dana was really out here thinking Zexal looked kind of annoying (based on mild DL characters/plot osmosis) and not terribly interesting and I want to go back in time and shake her shoulders and say NO. NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. ZEXAL FUCKING ROCKS. every yugioh has some degree of Danabait to it (probably because. watching Duel Monsters as a child was the catalyst to what Danabait even is lol) but JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH Zexal is like being hit by one nuclear bomb of shit genetically engineered in a lab to make me insane after another.

THE ART STYLE. OF ZEXAL, FOR ONE. makes me absolutely rabid animal bonkers--I LOVE seeing the way the ygo art style has been honed and developed and evolved over time. YGO influenced my art style more than I can articulate, and then zexal comes in swinging with the ygo art style at its Most Zany. The EXPRESSIONS in this show!!!!!!!!! Fucking rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A MASSIVE CHUNK OF THE CAST DOESNT HAVE MOUTHS HALF THE TIME AND YET STILL ARE SOME OF THE MOST EXPRESSIVE YGO GUYS EVER!!!! Constantly making expressions I LOVE to draw!!!! and oh my god the COLOR DIRECTION OF YUGIOH ZEXAL?!?!? genuinely absolutely phenomenal and one of my all time favorites i’ve seen in any cartoon, western or anime. you mean to tell me we got a lighting and color budget now??? we get yugioh scenes looking like this??!??

THE BEST. THE BEST. THE BEST. OBSESSED WITH IT. ABSORBING ZEXAL’S COLOR AND EXPRESSION PROWESS. STEALING ITS POWER.

ANYWAY as usual with my ygo watching i was primarily watching the dub (absolutely thrilled to have a Completed Yugioh Dub to watch for the first time since DM, MAN.) but I did end up watching...over half of Zexal II’s sub; stuff just gets so absolutely insane with the Barian Emperors that I desperately wanted every possible inch of their lore so I ended up watching both (sometimes back and forth at the same type like an unhinged wild animal) for the full picture. I like Zexal’s dub a lot!! its comedic timing is ON POINT, EXTREMELY FUNNY DUB. and really like..all of the main dub VAs are so, SO good (as they usually are.) There are a lot of bizarre things they cut though, a lot of childhood flashbacks and little character moments and the like. It’s a shame! I can only imagine a lot of them were cut to leave more room for ad time which. Sucks a bit 🥴A lot of duels do whip a lot harder in the sub too, especially in the back half..... still though, enjoyed my time with the dub. there’s a remarkable amount of stuff i am SHOCKED they actually did keep in?!??! The car crash that killed Shark’s parents is just straight up presented as is with like one or two small cuts. A LITTLE GIRL’S DEAD BODY IS SHOWN?? ON SCREEN??? ZEXAL DUB!! KIDS LOVE IT SO!!! MY GOD!!!

ok enough on that. some breakdowns/specific points like I usually do with these roundups:

Stuff I Didn’t Like: always get this one outta the way first. There really wasnt a whole lot I straight up disliked with this one!! It’s extremely solid all around. It does, of course, have some...Choices, being made, like. Girag’s lips. and. Girag’s backstory. Love the guy but oh my god why did they do that to him 😭Yugioh Racially Questionable moments ride again!!! At this point it’s just par for the course, definitely not the first time a ygo has. Done stuff like that. Ah well. Worth mentioning though.

What’s really a shame is that Zexal has some of the COOLEST, MOST FUN GIRL CHARACTERS, and time and time again they just dont do anything with them!!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S SO FRUSTRATING. i LOVE rio but the poor girl is fridged for literally 2/3s of the series!! She’s in the hospital like five times!!!! Rio and Anna and Tori and Dextra and Kari are all like, some of my favorite ygo gals YET but they have maybe 5 duels between them. Konami let your girls DUEL CHALLENGE. PLEASE.

hm what else. I guess also the final showdown with the series “Big Bad” was. uh. kind of let down lmao. But to be fair I was positively spoiled last series with the Z-one duel lol. Can’t win ‘em all. As cool as the concept of “the protag and rival team up to duel the Big Bad” is, and as cool as Don Thousands Entire toxic manipulative dynamic with the Barian Emperors is for like the Entire Rest of Zexal II is, they just....don’t. Do much with him for that last Donny T duel?? Would have loved more backstory elaboration or just like. Anything. It was over so soon and I was like “...that was it??” HDFHGSDFG thankfully the last two duels of zexal whip like hell so we bounce back!!

i also kind of wish don thousand kept his sick as hell demon armor form but c’est la vie i suppose. sad! well there’s other guys.

Favorite Season: I actually have no idea how Zexal is split up into seasons, so I guess Fav Arc would be a better term? Anyway I loved the World Duel Carnival Arc, I’m one of like 5 people who actually enjoy tournament arcs but i think theyre FUN and this one is a blast. There’s Arclight Family Agonies coming from every direction and there’s the INSANE DUEL ROLLER COASTER and Vetrix is bouncing around being a little freak, it’s GREAT

anyway and then Zexal II came in and grabbed me by the head and threw me into the drywall

LIKE. MY GOD. ZEXAL HAS THE FUCKING EMOTIONAL PACING OF MORAL OREL. YOU HIT Z2 AND SHIT STARTS GETTING REAL AND GOING HARD AS HELL AND IM OUT HERE GETTING MY BRAIN SCRAMBLED. I love like. All of the arcs of zexal II it’s hard to pick a favorite but I DO really like just that first third or so where the Barians are just starting to show up and the horrors haven’t quite begun and everything’s so silly and Ray Shadows is Very There. gives me gx season 1 vibes a little bit. it’s a delight.

Favorite Characters: oh right I should. talk about that. pained smile.

i joke about this a lot but usually every ygo series has like. A Character That’s My Actual Favorite, and A Character That Makes Me Absolutely Insane (syrus vs. zane, leo vs. aporia, etc.) but, uh. this time I GUESS THAT’S JUST. THE SAME CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SORRY. TO BE BASIC. BUT WHY DID THEY DO THAT TO ME. WHY DID THEY PUT A CHARACTER IN ZEXAL WHO ALREADY LOOKS LIKE MY ART STYLE. ALREADY LOOKS LIKE I DREW HIM. AND THEN MAKE HIM FUCKED UP AND SILLY AND A SAD LITTLE JACKASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ABSOLUTELY NEFARIOUS!!!!!!!!! 2021 dana had no CLUE they were hiding this fucker in the back of one of the ygo spinoffs. never could have predicted it. vector’s genuinely one of the best ygo characters of all time to me. what if a yugioh character had the most absolutely bonkers expressions youve ever seen and he was constantly doing little bits and acting like a little funnyman and then the devil fucking Kills Him. he’s perfect. the madness has only just begun to infect me i fear.

ANYWAY other than The Carrot in Question, I fucking love like...all of Zexal’s cast; I think this is the first time for any ygo where a series just didnt really have any characters I straight up Did Not Like. it’s such a solid, colorful cast that just checks so many boxes for my fav kinds of characters. I didn’t think I was gonna like Yuma but I ended up LOVING HIM!!!! I LOVE SEEING A YGO PROTAG THATS LIKE..ACTUALLY BAD AT THE GAME, THAT GROWS BETTER AND STRONGER OVER TIME BUT STAYS SO SILLY. I love what Zexal does to “traditional” yugioh character archetypes--Shark and Kite are both such cool rival characters and the shit they do with Shark especially?!?! NEVER COULD HAVE IMAGINED THEM DOING THAT. WITH A YUGIOH RIVAL. KAIBA COULD NEVER.

Narrowing down a top five fav Zexal guys is so hard, they really came in swinging with Catostrophic Families AND insane alien guys, but after pondering I think I’d have to say rn it’s Vector, Shark, Nistro (my fuckin  MAN!!!!!!!), Trey, and Alito. Immediate runnerup also being Tori. I fucking love Tori, new favorite main ygo girl. She bore witness to All That Shit and never folded. SHe’s Yuma’s FRIEND his CONFIDANT his EMOTIONAL SUPPORT!!!!! Absolute boss. Yuma would be dead in a ditch somewhere by episode 20 without her around.

Favorite Duel: BEEN GOING BACK AND FORTH ON THIS A LOT but I think my favorite duel was and still is the Trey vs. Yuma duel in zexal I, it’s just fantastic. The COLORS AND LIGHTING!!!!! The stakes!!! The SICK DUEL ARMOR!! Trey literally threatens a world-ending murder-suicide because he wants his family to be proud of him and well i’ll just explode into bits all up and down the road about it. Goes hard as hell. Trey and Yuma’s dynamic is one of my favs in Zexal but that’s it’s own post.

I also love all of Alito’s duels (especially the tag duel with Nistro, which is one of the most atrociously danabait duels ever (slash pos) and his last duel against yuma, which ALSO has some of the fucking coolest shots and lighting of any yugioh duel to me) and the last duel between Shark and Yuma. Shit rocks.

Zexal is also pretty unique to me in that it’s the first time i can really concretely say ive had favorite EPISODES as opposed to just favorite duels. There are so many episodes left and right that just make my fucking head explode. The BASEBALL DUEL FRIENDSHIP GAMES EPISODE. The EPISODE WHERE YUMA AND SHARK ARE IN THE HOSPITAL. The “VECTOR GETS STRAPPED INTO THE ALIEN GOD THRONE AND MR. HEARTLAND IS BEING INSANE AND THE ARCLIGHTS ARE IN A SUBMARINE AND ERAZOR IS GOING TO FUCKING KILL YUMA’S FRIENDS” episode. THE. UM. THE EPISODE WHERE THIS HAPPENS

^BROKE MY WHOLE DAMN BRAIN IN HALF. I AM STILL RECOVERING FROM THE DAMAGE zexal II comes in swinging with episodes that just knock your tits clean off and you LOVE to see it!!!!

Miscellaneous Other Zexal Gushing: IT’S JUST FUCKING GOOD!!!! THERE’S SO MUCH TO LOVE!!!!! I love the cast, I love Yuma and Astral’s dynamic and just how much love is there. I LOVE yuma’s friend group, they are SUCH perfect dweeby little middle schooler weird kids. I love the ways Zexal parallels Duel Monsters (and imo takes a lot of elements from DM and does them even better), I love Yuma’s grandma and Kari, ABSOLUTE REAL ONES!!! I fucking love Orbital 7. I love the Number cards and how theyre just completely thematically not related to each other at ALL (sometimes it’s a bug! sometimes it’s a guy! sometimes it’s an entire floating civilization!!!) I love the ABSOLUTELY BONKERS RELIGIOUS MOTIFS AND SYMBOLISM FLYING AROUND IN ANY AND ALL DIRECTIONS. THEY DID THAT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! ASTRAL CHRIST ALLEGORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I just...adore how fundamentally Zexal is about kindness and hope and love, and also about how it’s so important to not lose yourself or your sense of fun as you grow up!! That theme absolutely EVISCERATED ME when gx came out swinging with it in its last season, and it’s GETTIN ME AGAIN HERE!!! IT’S ABOUT HAVING FUN!! IT’S ABOUT THE BONDS WE MAKE WITH OTHERS!!! IT’S ABOUT HOW CEASELESS KINDNESS CAN BE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE THAT MAKES EVEN THE IMMOVEABLE MOVEABLE. yuma has SO much joy and love and forgiveness in his body and it makes me WAIL.

Duel Monsters really ends on this note of “goodbye” with Atem leaving, and it works well for that story’s themes of grief. Meanwhile I think it’s very special that while Zexal also ends on a goodbye with Astral leaving, it feels so much more like a “see you later.”  That hanging note of “we’ll meet again.” It’s so sweet. The themes of past and future at play really just make you root for these kids and hope they grow up into the best versions of themselves.

Also it’s so fucking funny that like All of the Cast That Died and Went to Hell Came Back Except Mr. Heartland Who Definitely Died For Real. gay WRONGS.

God. what else. I’m sure I’ll think of 8352389 more things I love about Zexal immediately after I post this. It’s just that good. So thrilled I gave it a go. I love you Xyz Monsters I love you Dyson Sphere I love you Vector’s dub and sub voices I love you Duel Monster Based Off of the Titantic I love you Dr. Faker’s absolutely insane character design I love you Barian World I love you Arclight family I love you Zexal II Dub Opening Song That’s Sung By Bruno 5D’s VA I love you YUMA AND FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!! ZEXAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cant wait to port all these kids to the college AU. it’s already happening. I love them so much

[am-artist]

sporadic the wilds s2 e3 thoughts as we go along

henry is so annoying i kind of love him & his emo boy scout creds

josh has a bernie tshirt on….. king

could not care less about the bad guys’ little corporate shenanigans. their plan is so objectively stupid that the less i see of it the better. gretchen is a terrible villain idc (‘law and order criminal intent’ lmfao get her)

seth being played by harry from the society (rip)….. she has the range ig??? but hes so Natural Leader he has to die or be evil

toni saved by the powers of being a good gf as she should be

love how bad the guys are at doing most things ever. got a whole secret food store but still basically starving by day 14

scotty is growing on me. do love the pairoffs so far him bo are v wholesome, seth and henry are very stepbrother awkward, and kirin / ivan are a fun choice to know each other.

fatin’s new mom energy is great actually love ya fatin

omg this man and his cursed dick…. please do not let this be a plot point any longer i beg. do love kirin and ivan’s extreme antagonism being bc they just cant stand each other and not some tired homophobia plotline.

oh yeah okay seth has ‘drown your brother in the ocean’ rage issues who would have guessed. me ten minutes ago i guess. nice turn-around speech though.

bo :( can no one in this show have an okay homelife. im scared for this child’s wellbeing already. wish we could see some of scotty’s own life back home though?

rachel and leah iconic pairup. unhinged but self-aware. also ‘hot carpenter’ hello?

kirin getting called a karen is so funny to me.

i do not buy any of these kids sharing the details of their personal fights with fucking gretchen.

i love the ickle lesbians but i hate when shows make characters in relationships only have relationship scenes and nothing individual. hope toni and shelby have solo moments too.

i love how gross everyone’s skin is in this show. the makeup artists do such a good job making them look like actual island wash-ups and not losties.

this cliff-side banter is rife with the potential for falling off. also seth is TOO GOOD at this group stuff once again i do not trust it!!!

we were due an injury for the guys. let’s gooo

LOVE rachel and leah’s musical act. also rachel is just. i love her i want her to have happy moments i cant imagine what she feels like

shelby do not fucking do this.

scotty is so sweet.

i love besties pulling through in horrible situations. good for them.

[quietrainfan]

Do you have any headcanons about Brotherly Dukeceit? I’ve always imagined them as being closer than any other pair of Sides because they only have each other to rely on, especially after Virgil abandoned them.

(I’m also really excited to have found someone else who sees the Sides as brothers :D)

Oh, honey, I have tons of brotherly Dukeceit headcanons! So glad you asked! Also yes, I'm super glad to hear someone else share the same interpretation as me!

Janus keeps a lid on Remus's chaotic energy.

Really, he's the only one that can.

That doesn't mean Janus restricts his creativity or doesn't let him go wild at all. Far from it.

A big part of their bonding together is blowing things up, cutting things down (or up), and experimenting with dark magic.

Dark magic is their oxygen. They can't live without it.

It's something that is apart of everything they do.

Power comparing? Favorite pass times. Dee always large open fields in the mind palace to go all out on.

Theater? Come on. You think they're not going to utilize their deliciously dark gothic abilities with over the top musical numbers and songs they've made up on the fly?! Child, please!

Do you know how dramatic they are?

The Disney Villains were their favorite characters for a reason.

"They may have invented the performance but we perfected it! Eat shit, Scar!"

"We don't disrespect the King in this house, Remus."

"Sorry, Dee."

"But you're right. We're better."

Remus is high key terrified of Janus.

As loving as the snake man is, he'd be the first to run when he's angry. Especially if it's to the point where Janus uses his powers.

He keeps on his big brother's good side. Definitely.

Remus also has tremendous respect for Janus as well.

He values his input on things and really is the only one he'll ever follow orders from.

It comes from his acknowledgment of how strong and smart Janus is. He loves his ruthless cunning inner nature. Even more so if he gives him orders based on it. It gets his blood pumping. And you know how much of an adrenaline junkie he is.

But it is also because Janus will listen to him. He values his input. He never makes him feel stupid, unreachable or something to be "tweaked".

He accepts his opinions as they are. So long as it doesn't result in getting himself or the others hurt. Janus won't judge. He loves that about him.

Remus always used to rest his chin on Dee's lap when they were little. He still does it whenever he feels sad or lonely or really any sort of vulnerability he can't share with anyone else.

He always shows this attitude of an unhinged, unbothered quirky mad man. No one would really take him seriously if he came forward about these things. Roman wouldn't even look at him.

But he could confide in Janus.

He'd always gently pet through his hair and look down at him with a soft, warm smile. Silently reassuring him everything was going to be okay. Never shaming him for being an adult and still coming to rest on his lap.

Perks of being the little brother: Getting spoiled rotten whenever you're down and always having someone there to help rile up some chaos to help you feel better.

Oh, of course Remus returns the favor whenever the shoe is on the other foot.

Remus hypes Janus up nonstop. Saying he's the best big brother he could ever ask for, he's a king, his levels of ruthless cunning is something he can only dream of, his amount of power is beyond his understanding, he's so smart, so handsome, he's a great leader, he's so gentle and kind but stern at right time, he never would've kept his creative drive without him!-

He just goes on and on. His cool elder brother is not going to think ill of himself. Ever!

Remus attaches to Janus like a koala at random times with zero warning. For hours.

Janus just rolls with it.

Janus will literally just walk around with him there like it's the most normal thing in the world. Like, he just goes to the kitchen with a cup of coffee and looks in the fridge for the something to eat?

"Um...Salutations, Janus....you do know there's a-"

"Yes.", He just takes his snack and leaves.

He may or may not get Remus a snack as well and toss it over his shoulder for Remus to catch it in his mouth at times.

The two could rule the world with the amount of zero fucks they give, honestly.

They definitely have the whole dynamic duo thing going on and they steal every room they're in.

Feel free to add, I have many more and would love to hear from others!

[sparxwrites]

*shakes you like a bottle of champagne* YOU. HOW DARE YOU. HOW DARE YOU PERFORM VIVISECTION ON MY HEART AND LEAVE IT OPEN FOR WILD RATS TO FEED UPON IT?!?

I literally cannot. I was going to read the fic a bit later but then I read the warnings and I was like "oh?" AND THEN I READ IT AND I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN. I adore it. I still wish I could grind planets into dust to give you as gift of gratefulness for such breathtaking writing. Alas, all I have are words and compliments and I can only hope they suffice.

Some details that will live rent free in my head for some time:

Jellie!! Jellie appearing as she always does, and even at the end, immediately!

The Moon is the Moon and yet it is not and Grian is the Moon because he is not. And the Moon does not come to pass for Scar anymore just as Scar himself does not reach the desert's morning the day after.

Grian and his grain :D And longer hair pulled into a ponytail!!

Scar's two metaphorical hearts, like an angel and a demon on each shoulder! And since Scar himself is more of a con man than a bloodthirsty gremlin, he manages to soften. An opposite to Grian's own - maybe not increasing, but definitely persisting - wish to go all trigger happy.

The thing that hurts the most: Scar not remembering Hermitcraft and then not remembering 3rd Life & Grian. Memory loss as a trope will never not deliver!!

Once again, thank you so much for the amazing food. Def will not go crazy and scour all of tumblr for more scarian after this, nono, nuh-uh!!

- immac anon

once again i am delighted by a) mcyt's collective inability to send me remotely normal asks, and b) your brand of unhinged ask specifically. consider me shooken like a champagne bottle and very grateful for it, anon <3

jellie!! my headcanon with jellie is that it takes her a while to find a new server when scar moves. not so much in a "she has to break in" kind of way - the universe makes way for her, generally, though third/last life is an exception to this - but just scar never leaves her a map or address. so she goes on a little void wander for a while, yowling indignantly at the general absence of her idiot human who's left her without any little kissies on her sweet and perfect head as she so clearly deserves. eventually the universe gets sick of her shouting, and opens the metaphorical bedroom door to scar's newest server. so it takes her a while to find scar, on third life - but when he ends up on hermitcraft, she's back there basically at the same time he wakes up, because she knows where that one is already so it's a much shorter trip.

i had a lot of fun with the weird eldritch moon bullshit. i love writing weird eldritch bullshit (you may have noticed). i love the moon. ideal combo. i also had a lot of fun being disgustingly self-indulgent with my character descriptions, and grian's freckles and ponytail were part of that :3

the "two hearts" thing kind of just. happened. i do not remember consciously coming up with it, i just wrote it and then went. oh that's a good idea. what the fuck, me?

usually i hate any stuff that involves mind fuckery - a very specific brand of it skates as close to being genuinely upsetting as fiction ever gets for me, which memory loss is adjacent to - but... i know how this one resolves :3 so i didn't feel too bad about putting it in there, and i knew it would kill readers on impact which is always the goal, so! glad it worked.

as always, you are very welcome, thank you so so much for the extremely lovely ask, and good luck on your eternal scarian hunt (which i am with you in... there's just not enough out there for me to devour with these two ;-;) <3

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

AIGHT Y’ALL I wasn’t tagged but I’m doing this anyways because f u c k  i t

It's the year 2021 and you're obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Deadasss weird as fuck, my dude. Like...out of all the things I could’ve predicted happening in our lord’s year 2021, it definitely was NOT getting hyperfixated on a hammy gay ship with a punk and a nerd from a goddamn karate soap opera. And yet...here we are??? I will never understand hyperfixations, my guy. But I’ve met a lot of really cool people in this fandom, so I can’t really complain.

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

I have never seen a single Karate Kid movie in my entire life. When I was a kid, it looked kinda dumb so I never got into it XD But then I saw my roommate watching Cobra Kai on Youtube Red one day (he has every streaming service known to man) and I was hooked. And...here I am!

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:  

Literally EVERYONE except for Kreese, Yasmine, Kyler, and Tory, sorry stans

Okay but if we gotta pick, Johnny Lawrence is my Problematic Fave. Also I love my boy Daniel, he’s trying his best!!! And Amanda LaRusso, we stan a queen!!!

Among the kids, definitely Miguel, with Demetri as a close second. I also love Sam, Aisha, Moon, and Hawk (pre- and post-Bastardization Arc, anyways XD)!

Favorite ship:  

Take a look at my username and take a WILD FUCKING GUESS lmao Yes it’s Eli/Demetri because DUH, every interaction they have is so fucking gay and Eli fucking saved him!!! And came back to him!!! And betrayed the world’s most terrifying dojo with a WAR CRIMINAL SENSEI all for Demetri!!! And how Demetri was willing to forgive him for everything at the drop of a hat because he always had faith there was still good in his best friend??? That’s TRUE LOVE motherfuckers. Please let them kiss in Season 4. I will sell you all of my limbs. Sam/Miguel is a close second because they’re cute as shit and it’s just so lovely to see two people so unapologetically smitten with each other. They are in LOVE, and I will RIOT if they break up again!!! Keep Sam and Miguel together 2k21!!!

Underrated character:

SAMANTHA LARUSSO!!! The amount of hate my girl gets for acting like a normal teenager and fucking up occasionally JUST like the rest of the cast makes me want to start punching things. She cares SO MUCH about her friends!!! And she loves the shit out of Miguel!!! She hasn’t always been the best friend but you know what??? Neither has Hawk, and we still forgave his ass!!! Also LET HER BE FEMININE but also kick utter ass, my god!!! Femininity should not be synonymous with being weak, y’all! ALSO DEMETRI, like yes, he likes to complain and occasionally run his mouth, but guess what else he likes to do??? Never give up on the love of his life his best friend Eli Moskowitz and refuse to lose faith in him no matter how much of a little shit he’s become, and I for one think that’s very badass of him. Also the way he takes care of Eli pre-Cobra Kai in his own snarky bastard way makes me absolutely Weak and needs more appreciation. Like the dude has charisma and COULD have probably made other friends and left Eli behind if he wanted, but did he??? No, he wants the weepy loser with the lip scar in the polo shirts and dorky sweaters and will protect him as much as his wimpy ass is able!!!

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):  

Among the adults, Daniel/Amanda!!! Like maybe I just don’t watch that much tv, but it seems kinda rare to me to see a happily married hetero couple, and it’s just nice to see a married couple who genuinely love each other and where there’s not like...lingering resentment or some shit. I feel like this ship gets overshadowed by Lawrusso a lot (which like--okay, fair!!! Daniel and Johnny do have a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and the gay undertones are undeniable, so I get it), and it makes me kinda sad. I do love Lawrusso, but I don’t like when Amanda has to get her heart broke for it to happen, you feel? Among the kids, honestly YasMoon. Like I really love the idea of Yasmine trying to better herself because of Moon’s influence on her and because Moon like...inspires her to be a better person, I guess? With their pretty strong friendship, it just makes more sense to me for Yasmine to get a redemption arc through Moon than through Demetri. ALSO girls DO often pull the whole “mean girl” shtick to cover up being closeted lesbians, and Moon IS canonically bi, so it could work!!! I just think this one could be a really interesting Friends to Lovers take, and could make a really nice coming-out arc for Yas. And MoonPiper too, honestly!!! Like they only got 5 seconds of screentime so I understand WHY it’s underrated, but I still love what we DID get and loved that there was a canon gay ship (even if only for 1 scene lmao). I’m really excited to potentially see more of them in Season 4!!! Please, I’m begging!!!

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the Leg because it will always be deeply hilarious to me how Demetri took note of the first move Eli ever used on him and spent presumably weeks perfecting it OUT OF SPITE just to get him back with it at the soccer game MONTHS later. Just goes to show how OBSESSED Demetri is with Eli and their little karate rivalry which is just NOT straight, I’m sorry

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

There’s something so funny about this pretentious little fuck walking around in fancy suits once he becomes a #SuccessfulBusinessman, and still occasionally trying to do karate in a full-ass suit (take THAT, Tom Cole’s boba!!!) I’m also a big fan of how he looks in his gi with his little headband. Still killing that look as a 40-50-something!!!

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Tbh I have still never seen a single Karate Kid movie (they took them off of Netflix, RIP), so...I don’t really care if they bring anyone else back??? I’m invested in the characters we already have in the show, I don’t need some rando from the movies to make a cameo to have a good time XD The only character I really wanted them to bring back was Ali, and they already did, so like...I’m good??? That’s all I really needed, I can die in peace now XD

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Basically any fluffy Elimetri scene, but 5 in particular: ~Miguel first meeting Eli and Demetri at the lunch table, and Eli looking at Demetri like he hung every goddamn star in the sky ~Demetri going off at a terrifying, “unhinged” karate sensei on the first day of Cobra Kai because he made fun of Eli’s lip and Demetri is not about that shit ~ELI STEALING DEMETRI’S NACHO AND SMIRKING AT HIM, LIKE EXCUSE ME SIR PLEASE BE A LITTLE LESS HOMOSEXUAL IN FRONT OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND ~Eli yanking Demetri onstage during Valley Fest to hold a board, and Demetri being visibly like...extremely turned on when Eli breaks said board ~ELI SAVING DEMETRI DURING THE CHRISTMAS FIGHT, ELI APOLOGIZING, DEMETRI AND ELI KICKING COBRA ASS TOGETHER AKSBDCUWYVCBU

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

I hope not! He’s kind of a funny meme character to pop up now and again but I don’t think he deserves a serious plotline when there are so many more interesting characters to follow.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Miyagi-Do because Cobra Kai would eat me alive. Also I’d probably straight up get stuck and die in that cement mixer, if I even made it that far XD Besides, being salty that your friend who you have a crush on likes martial arts better than you and starting martial arts to impress them but also being too lazy to join anything TOO intense is a Big Mood and I am certainly not speaking from personal experience here, no sirree

What’s your training montage song?

"Shut Up and Drive” by Rihanna for a weight-training and bicep-flexing montage, “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons for a more intense punching-and-kicking-shit montage. I don’t know why this is, I just feel it in my heart.

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

*Briefly panics because I don’t actually watch that much TV and most of the stuff I do watch is fantasy/sci fi shit that absolutely would not work for a CK crossover*

Hmmmm okay but ACTUALLY

You know what would be fucking funny as hell would be an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia crossover. Allow me to elaborate: ~The Gang goes to LA on vacation during the height of the Karate Dojo Wars. They literally can get barely anything done without all these goddamn karate-fighting teenagers getting in the way. ~They are all very annoyed by this. Even the most obscure of tourist attractions is eventually intercepted by karate fights. ~Mac tries to join Cobra Kai because he sees all this karate fighting on, and wants to unquestionably prove both his badassery and masculinity. Both Johnny and Kreese are like “Wtf are you doing here? Aren’t you like 30?” ~Mac gets a planet-sized crush on Johnny after all of 5 minutes and endlessly gushes to the gang about him. The gang mercilessly roast him about this and about how much of a pathetic loser with his life together in no way whatsoever Johnny sounds like. They proceed to have exactly 0 self awareness about this. ~The Waitress is in town visiting family or something, and Charlie is stalking her, as per usual. However, every time he’s about to go up and talk to her, a pack of battling Miyagi-Dos and Cobra Kais throwing punches and kicks everywhere blocks his path. One times, Mac is among one of these packs and Charlie is like “???? He didn’t get kicked out of that teen karate dojo yet???” ~Seeing how much the Kids These Days seem to like fighting, Charlie drops by a local high school to try and sell Fight Milk to the kids doing karate. Only Kyler and Brucks buy into it, and subsequently get the entire West Valley High wrestling team sick. Charlie is inevitably arrested, as Counselor Blatt thinks he’s selling the kids drugs. ~Dennis makes a plan to have sex with every hot chick he can in Los Angeles. He meets Ali on a dating app post-divorce, and inevitably tries to bang her. It doesn’t work. ~Frank crashes the rental car, and inevitably the gang ends up at one of Daniel’s dealerships. Dee quickly takes a liking to Daniel and is like “Watch, assholes--Imma homewreck this guy’s marriage.” She starts frequenting the dealerships to attempt to flirt with Daniel, until one day she walks in on him having sex with Johnny in a back room and she’s like “Is that the guy from Mac’s goddamn dojo?!?!” ~Dennis, of course, tries to sleep with Amanda. Amanda is not having it, and rebukes him in the most snarky, Amanda-esque way possible. Dennis is just like “Oh not AGAIN--the women in this goddamn diva city have too high of standards!” ~Later on, the gang is at the beach and Dennis spots the blonde lady he went out on an ill-fate date with, and decides to give it another shot--that is, until he sees her go up and kiss another woman and he’s like “IS THAT THE LADY FROM THE CAR DEALERSHIP??? STUPID-KARATE-KICK-COMMERCIAL’S WIFE?!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” ~Dee complains to Dennis about her lack of luck getting laid, and Dennis is just like “Oh come ON, is everyone in Los Angeles gay???” Smash cut to Hawk and Demetri having sex, Moon and Piper making out, Bert and Nate holding hands, Chris and Mitch doing oral, and Amanda, Ali, and Carmen having a threesome. ~Frank tries to scam Kreese into buying cheaply-made karate equipment for his dojo. The gang ends up having to leave LA because Kreese is quite literally plotting all of their murders.

For tagging, uuuuhhhhhh @jackonthelongwalk @soe-leo @max-eagle-fang @cc-tinslebee @backawayfromthegay @asphodel-storm do the thing, if y’all haven’t yet!

[jokerfan99]

My Top 10 Favorite Anime Villains (Updated) by DarkChild316

In a different time and a different world, I did a list of “My 10 Favorite Anime Villains”. I am older now, and hopefully much wiser and now thanks to the global pandemic and my new subscriptions to Hulu and Funimation I’ve had the opportunity to go back and revisit so many classic anime that I feel like I should re-do it. Plus I’ve gone back and looked at my previous list and shook my head thinking to myself: “My God man, what in the f**k were you thinking with some of these choices!” So, I’ve gone back and redone the list, now this list is strictly for the men only. If you want to see a list dedicated to my favorite female villains, check out my list of “My Top 10 Favorite Anime Villainesses.” But for this list, here is my updated list of My Top 10 Favorite Anime Villains:

#10. Shishiho Makoto (Rurouni Kenshin): Growing up as a kid, Ruroni Kenshin was one of the first anime I had ever watched, and this guy was someone who I hated with a passion. Looking back at it years later, I realize now what an amazing villain and foil to Kenshin that Makoto was. Unlike a lot of villains on this list, Makoto wasn’t just evil for the sake of being evil, Makoto’s evil came from the worst type of trauma: betrayal! In this case the betrayal came from Makoto’s own government, where Makoto survived not only multiple gunshots, but being doused in oil and burned alive, leaving him in complete and utter agony. What puts Shishio on my list is what he manages to do after surviving death. He compiles an army of the best fighters Japan has to offer and plots to overthrow the entire Meiji Government. While in complete agony. Who else can claim that? Did I also mention he’s topping the list of the best fighters in the show? His swordsmanship is second only to Kenshin himself as he proves in their absolutely epic fight.

#9. Hisoka Morrow (Hunter x Hunter): Hunter x Hunter is a show with several great villains that truly stand out, and while Meruem was memorable, pardon me for believing that Hisoka was the standout villain from that show. A devious killer and master Nen user, Hisoka is driven by little more than his desire to find and kill strong opponents. Be they young children or master criminals, he’ll pursue them to the ends of the Earth with a bloodlust on par with that of a wild predator. Likewise, he doesn’t care what happens to himself or others in this pursuit. Mass civilian casualties, the loss of his own villainous allies or even the loss of his own limbs barely phases him, so long as he gets to fight with someone that tests his limits. As a result, he more often than not embodies chaos incarnate, wreaking havoc in his pursuit of battle and leaving a mountain of corpses behind him. Needless to say, this puts him at odds with the series’ protagonists at regular intervals. Not only do Gon and his friends fit the bill for what he seeks, but they often take on enemies that prove to be exactly what Hisoka is looking for. And yet, this also serves to make him all the more interesting. Where other villains might strike out at the protagonists and heroes immediately, Hisoka schemes, allies himself with and double-crosses people regularly, always finding the best angle to work in order to reach his goals. He may not be a world-ending anime villain on the level of a Meruem with seismic ambitions, but he’s undeniably the most interesting and brilliant villain in Hunter x Hunter to see at work.

#8. Izaya Orihara (Durarara!!): If you think of a list of top anime villains and this guy isn’t one of the first people who comes to mind, please raise your hands so I can have a few words with you in private with no cameras or eyewitnesses. The crazy thing about Izaya is that he doesn’t even realize he’s evil, and that’s what makes him great. He loves humanity; from the depths of his bones he loves us all. This is why he makes it onto my list; he does progressively more cruel acts against humans, putting people in situations that generally lead to their deaths. He is also a master of parkour and highly skilled with a switchblade in his hand (as evident in the above picture), which he generally only uses in dire situations or fights against Shizuo. In short, I absoulutely love this guy. I thoroughly enjoyed the way he manages to manipulate an entire populous, and that’s why he’s more than earned a spot on my list.

#7. Dio Brando (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure): You might have thought it was someone else, but it was me, Dio! All meme-worthy jokes aside, Dio Brando is unquestionably one of the most iconic anime villains of all time and, thanks to his series’ late-blooming popularity outside of Japan thanks largely to the 2012 anime adaptation, one that still feels modern in our minds. Dio is a tenacious bastard that takes advantage of the generosity of the Joestar family to further his own power, being intolerably dickish to Jonathan by constantly tearing him down, trying to make him look bad in front of his dad, spreading rumors to sully his reputation, and sabotaging his relationships. This escalates into killing his dog (his f***ikg dog of all things!), poisoning and later stabbing his adoptive father (I mean WTF!), and becoming a freakin vampire. Even after decapitation, Dio gets his revenge and sets in motion many of the events of the series, making a formal return in Stardust Crusaders as the main villain once again. With raw ambition taken to the extreme, iconic lines, poses, and outfits, incredible abilities from Aztec mask-induced vampirism and the time-stopping power of The World, Dio’s menacing presence towers over his series and over anime as a whole, which makes him MORE than deserving of a spot on my list.

#6. Light Yagami (Death Note): Yes, he’s a VILLAIN, get over yourselves Light Yagami fanboys! Anyway, there are a number of different adjectives and superlatives that could be used to described the lead character of Death Note: Diabolical, calculating, and determined to make the world in his own image all describe Light who was easily the most clever man in  Death Note, as evidenced by the layers upon layers that composed his elaborate plans.  Light started out as a good kid, doing well in school and heading to a bright career in police work like his father. But when he gets possession of the death note, he begins a remarkable descent into a disturbing mastermind who becomes judge, jury, and executioner for the entire world. But what truly makes Light's character stand out remains complicated throughout the story. His ultimate goal is to make the world a happier, safer place; a noble but perhaps misguided goal. His idealism and nobility still shine through when he doesn’t have the Death Note. When he temporarily relinquishes ownership of the death note to throw L off his trail, Light loses all memory of the death note and he reverts to his normal personality. His sense of morality returns and he shows more compassion for those around him. He even refuses to use Misa Amane to get information out of her when L asks him to. These qualities help to create a complex character who ends up being a detestable villain, yet you still kind of root for him to come out of this story as a winner. Light’s progression through the series is marked by his sheer brilliance. He's got a calculated and strategic mind that would make the great philosopher Machiavelli jealous, and the power of the death note adds a callousness that makes him free to use people in whatever way necessary to accomplish his goals. It’s highly entertaining to see his intricate plans play out. But Light’s messiah-like ego is just as big as his brain, and that arrogance ultimately leads to his tragic downfall.

#5. The Major (Hellsing): An evil Nazi Scientist, I know everyone is just rolling their eyes right now thinking I’m reaching for the low-hanging fruit for this one, but just hear me out here. While he may seem like an obvious pick for a list like this, The Major’s goals, however, are somehow far more unhinged than what may first appear. Despite being an impassioned orator and uncompromising strategist willing to sacrifice countless soldiers, the Major himself had no especial loyalty or passion for the cause of Millennium. His sole obsession is to plunge the world into an unending conflict to the point of endangering not only the lives of others but also his own. The Major’s leadership of Millennium, his decades espousing the genocidal ideology of fascists, and subsequent war against the Hellsing organization, the Vatican, and the entire world serve only as a pretext to satiate his insatiable bloodlust. The Major is one of anime’s most insidious villains, a charismatic, nihilistic sociopath driven purely by his sadomasochistic death wish.

#4. Shou Tucker (Fullmetal Alchemist): Now, you may be recalling that in my previous version of this list, I had Envy listed as my choice as my favorite villain from this show. Well after careful reconsideration, I’ve had to reevaluate my decision and give that spot to this creep, because while Envy’s actions were despicable to a point, they PALE in comparison to this guy! He only really appears in one episode if I remember correctly, yet in that one single episode, he made more of an impact then most villains make in a lifetime, which really says a lot about this guy’s character. What was it that made him so memorable you ask? Well, it could have something to do with the fact that this man transmutaed his own dog and daughter to create a talking chimera, which hadn’t been done before, and for what other reason…all in the name of recognition in the world of alchemy! That mere fact alone made this guy the most hated man in all of anime, the fact that he sacrificed his own family for the sake of fame, with absolutely no hint of remorse, made this guy the definition of an absolute living piece of shit and the only thing worse is how the episode ended, but I won’t spoil that one for you if you haven’t seen it.

#3. Gendo Ikari (Neon Genesis Evangelion) Up next is a man competing with the likes of Medusa Gorgon for the title of “Anime’s Worst Parent”, Gendo Ikari, please step up to the front of the congregation. Now Gendo is a man who’s list of atrocities throughout Evangelion is far too many to name, but I’m going to try my best to list them here: You have being actively complicit in the premature instigation of a biblical apocalypse, resulting in a near extinction-level event that caused the death of nearly two-thirds of the human population. Emotionally neglecting his own son Shinji estranging himself from him for over twelve years, only to offer him up as a sacrificial pawn in his bid to artificially bootstrap humanity’s ascent into evolutionary godhood so that he could be reunited with his dead wife. Cloning said wife’s DNA into a harem of emotionally dependent albino ingenues who share a dogged infatuation for their creator. And that’s not even mentioning the horrific emotional abuse and mental manipulation he inflicts on Dr. Ritsuko Akagi and her mother Naoko. All-in-all Gendo is proof positive that love not only has the capacity to overcome any obstacle, but sometimes it can truly make monsters out of us all.

#2. Griffith (Berserk): Griffith did nothing wrong; at least, not by his own drives and ambitions. A peasant who grew to become the leader of his own mercenary band, Griffith was a self-driven man who pursued his desires with unparalleled efficiency. No matter the situation or obstacle, he found a way to overcome them, whether that meant facing down an army of thousands or assassinating a country’s leaders. All the while, he amassed a legion of friends and followers who would follow him to hell and back, caring for him as much or more than he cared for them. As a result, they were dragged down with him when his ambitions saw him imprisoned, tortured and maimed. They cared little though, risking life and limb to save him and help him salvage a life with what he had left. That wasn’t enough for Griffith though. When given the option to become a demon and continue the pursuit of his dreams, he whole-heartedly accepted it; even though it came at the cost of sacrificing the lives of each and every one of his friends and allies. But that wasn’t the worst of it, to further spite the early desertion of Guts, Griffith proceeds to rape Casca, Guts’ love interest, in front of him as Guts is held down by demons. So yes, Griffith did nothing wrong by himself. By everyone else though, he did them the worst of injustices, and continues to do so with each breath he takes, all of which makes him a compelling and infuriating villain.

#1. Johan Liebert (Monster): I’ve covered a wide variety of monsters (pun fully intended) on this list, but THIS monster (again, pun FULLY intended) truly takes the cake when it comes to anime villains. A serial killer who would fit in well in any blockbuster film, Monster told the story of a man who had truly become monstrous; a charismatic, intelligent sociopath with no other goal than to kill everyone else in the world. Johan didn't just kill people, he made other people into monsters just like him. This skill of his corruption is first displayed in his youth, when he used stories to convince the other boys in his orphanage to kill all the staff, and each other. Johan is often compared to Light Yagami of Death Note, but the two couldn’t be any more different. Light's fatal (and genius) flaw is his own ego, which leads him to put his own life above all else, even his goal of changing the world. But Johan has never been afraid of death. Quite the opposite, he welcomes and embraces it, being more than willing to put his own life at risk, and one of his signature traits is how he challenges people to shoot him. Another of Jonah’s signature traits is his skills as a masterful manipulator. Where Light and other on this list had to resort to supernatural means to get what they wanted, Johan just used his own wits and knowledge of human nature. He's easily the most frightening villain on this list because he’s the truest to life villain on this list and he exposes the base human nature of his victims and of human society. Monster's remarkable story was almost entirely due to Johan alone, and it’s why he’s #1 on my list.

So that's my updated list, what did you guys think about it? Love it, hated it? Go on and tell me what you think and let me know who your favorite anime villains are. See you soon!!!

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/darkchild316

[themonkeycabal]

Wandavision Ep 6 Spoilers

No really, spoilers. 

Previously on Wandavision — Wanda told SWORD to shove their drones right straight up their asses, Vision woke up to the reality that his utopian sitcom life was in fact a dystopian hellscape, their children were extremely creepy, and Agnes was being bizarre as hell and super sus. In the real world, Acting Director Dick was a dick, and Darcy and Jimmy welcomed Monica into their sciencey weird-crime-fighting team. Monica also mentioned an aerospace engineer she knows, which some suggest may be the first mention of Reed Richards in the MCU. I have conflicted feelings about the Fantastic Four. Mostly I never liked them. But, I'm open to revising my opinion.

Oh, and also X-Men 'Verse Pietro showed up suddenly and that was fun.

Anyway. the roommate and I tried to sort out a timeline — so Monica unBlips and goes back to work at SWORD three weeks later. AD Dick tells us Wanda stole Vision's body nine days previously. That means, just three weeks ago Wanda was in the middle of a battle, lost her boyfriend, was Snapped, was then unsnapped to fall right into the middle of another battle. Lost THREE additional teammates. And then sometime in the following week found out a shady government agency had Vision's body and she probably went "OH HELL NO". Because that's what I would say. So she goes to SWORD, dents a few doors, takes Vision's body and swans off to New Jersey. Look, she's been through a hell of a lot in the last couple weeks, is what I'm saying. I don't blame her a tiny bit. But, also, I don't think she's entirely behind this.

10-year old boy plus video camera = the 90s. Obnoxious opening credits. But, you know, I kind of liked them (as a one off). WAYYY better than last week's.

It's Halloween, and *sigh* Billy is breaking the fourth wall and narrating to the camera. There's childish twin bickering as you expect, Tommy's the wild and crazy twin, and Billy's the buttoned up twin. And Pietro is passed out on the couch at 4 in the afternoon. Living his best life. He teasingly scares the boys, chases them around, and there's awkward child acting.

Wanda comes down the stairs in the classic Scarlet Witch costume, and says she's a Sokovian Fortune Teller. Sokovia was more wild than I realized.

Genuinely funny flashback to Wanda and Pietro trick-or-treating in Sokovia as kids, 'the year we got typhus'. lol. Was it the fish that gave them typhus? Or was that just a special treat? Wanda doubts this version of events, and Pietro suggests she suppressed the memory due to the trauma. This gives Billy the chance to tell the camera that mom's been weird since uncle Pietro turned up to crash on their couch.

Next it's Vision's turn to appear in the classic Vision costume. Yikes. Wanda thanks him for humoring her, and he says there were no other clothes in his closet and they have a very weird second where he's not playing along and she's not sure what to do, and then he breaks into sitcom character says something about "just kidding, i know how much you love mexican wrestling" like it's a luchador costume, and then there's some super weird flirting. TMI you two.

Meanwhile, Pietro is a large child and the kids love him, of course. So there's that.

Back to Wanda and Vision, she's ready to take the kids out trick-or-treating, but Vision says he can't go, he's on the neighborhood watch and must patrol the streets ever-vigilant for wild gangs of child hooligans who might TP trees. He's gone off-script and it takes Wanda a second to figure out how to play this. She says it's the boys' first Halloween so he has to be there. Pietro breaks up the almost argument and says he can be a father figure-type and he'll help with the boys. Vision's still pretty off-script but Wanda doesn't fight it but looks uncertain, and he goes off to protect the night — or early afternoon.

Pietro is a child hooligan and wants to go do hooligany things with the kids. Wanda says he doesn't have a costume and he grabs Billy and they speed off only to return dressed in classic Quicksilver duds. Well, cheap-looking, thrown together Quicksilver duds. I laughed. The hair. lol. Good one.

Outside in the real world. The Hex field is still kind of glowing red and making bad force field noises. It only started doing that when Wanda got pissed in the last ep. Oh, goody, it's Acting Director Dick. I've learned his name is Hayward. I don't care.

Blah blah Stompy Mc-I'm-In-Charge blah. Monica is not pleased about the whole trying to kill Wanda with a missile while she was talking to her plan. AD Dick just says "now we know who we're dealing with". Um … what? You tried to kill her and her response was to tell you to go away. Yeah, boy, she's a monster.

Darcy is there to helpfully remind AD Dick that Wanda made him look like the fool he is. ILU girl. "Hey, there he is; the guy who almost got murdered by his own murder squad." Jimmy just makes a 'i'm so disappointed in you and your choices' face at him in the background.

I despise characters like Hayward. They are so tedious. Narratively they are there to incite conflict, but given the situation conflict naturally exists, surely there are other ways to bring up/drive that tension without the trope of the government heavy ready to solve the problem with the most extreme amount of force available to him. OH no! Our plucky heroes will have to find a way to save the day and fight the Man! Can they do it? Boring. It's too bad General Talbot went insane and then died; he could probably give tips on How Not To Be That Guy.

Anyway

Hayward wants to know if Darcy works for him and she's like "dunno my dude", Monica claims her, AD Dick says "which one of you is the sassy best friend" and Jimmy's like, that is quite enough Acting Director Not Very Nice Man. "There's no time to diminish your colleagues when you're about to start a war you can't win." AD Dick just wants to take out Wanda so the whole nightmare ends. Monica's like um, we literally do not know what's going on. Like, for real we have no clue. So that might not, in fact, end the nightmare, Director Murder Britches.

They argue a lot and Director Dick goes off the rails. Dude's like more unhinged than seems warranted. Unless he's just so embarrassed that he pissed himself when Wanda returned his murder drone to him, he's decided SHE MUST BE DESTROYED FOR THE GOOD OF … NEW JERSEY AND MY SOILED UNDERWEAR OR SOMETHING. 

"Captain Rambeau, you are an impediment to this mission!" Oh no! He's gonna tell her all about how hard it was to survive in a post-blip world, all those lucky blipped don't know what it was like! You just can't understand! Monica tells him not to use that as an excuse to be a coward. I'm so bored with this scene. Let me guess, the trio will have to go behind his back to save the day.

"Maybe it's a good thing you weren't here with your mother died. Because, clearly you don't have the stomach for this job." … non-sequitur much? Or is he saying she would have inherited the Director-ship (which should probably not be how that sort of agency works, let's be real). Is this scene five hours long, or does it just feel that way?

The Dick banishes the trio from his base.

"Hayward is way over-stepping his provisional authority". Jimmy Woo, you're so great. Monica says he's up to something. Yeah a tactical nuke and murder. Clearly he doesn't want to actually solve the problem, he just wants the problem to go away with a big show of macho explosions and whatnot. I suspect he might be in over his head, like he was not meant to be Acting Director, let alone Director. Also, he's a boring cliche stereotype and I loathe it.

JIMMY! I legit did not see that coming. He just pure hauls off and clocks one of the soldiers escorting them off the base, to a transport truck or something. Monica seems just as surprised for a second but then she's like "hell yeah!" and jumps in. Darcy sort of stands back and watches. lol. "Why didn't anyone tell me the plan?"

Oh look, it's my shipping container! They put the soldiers in there. Guys, it was for Hayward. Come on.

The trio disguise themselves with ponchos, which is a big step up from the usual MCU disguise of "baseball hat". That was a good bit in Ant-man and the Wasp "it's not a disguise, it just looks like us at a baseball game" (I watched that like last week. I missed Luis). Anyway …

Back in the sitcom world. The kids are ready for their early afternoon trick-or-treating. They're still talking to the camera. It's so awkward. I'm not a fan. I get it's meant to reproduce the very 90s Nick-era sitcoms and so, you know, it's spot on. Still, though.

Pietro is encouraging and supportive. "Unleash hell, demon spawn!"

Dang there are a lot of kids in that neighborhood. Wasn't Vision wondering last episode why there weren't any kids? Is the program correcting itself?

Wanda tries to test Pietro, asking him about some kid at an orphanage when they were kids. Pietro calls her on it, and says he knows he looks different. Wanda wants to know why that is. He says, "You tell me. I mean, if I found shangra-la, I wouldn't want to be reminded of the past, either." Hmm.

The kids speed off with uncle Pietro. Wanda wanders over to talk to neighbor Herb, who has a g-man earbud in and is clearly part of the neighborhood watch. In the background Pietro is stealing all the candy and smashing pumpkins and spraying the place with silly string. The hijinks are so wacky. Wanda tells Herb maybe Vision can help out with the chaos, and Herb says Vision isn't on duty. Oh no, he lied to her!

Herb goes weird "is there something I can do for you, Wanda? Do you want something changed?" Hmmm.

Elsewhere Vision is wandering the wild streets of Westview. He finds people caught in some type of weird decorating loop, the woman seems trapped but aware.

Commercial time!  What the fuck was that. "Yo-magic! The snack for survivors." No, really, what the fuck.

Night has fallen, the twins and the twins walk the streets. Wanda's making the boys give back all the candy they stole. She says Pietro is a bad influence. He says "I'm just trying to do my part, kay? Come to town unexpectedly, create tension with the brother-in-law, stir up trouble with the rugrats, and ultimately give you grief. I mean, that's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What happened to your accent?"

"What happened to yours? Details are fuzzy, man. I got shot like a chump in the street for no reason." AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA! no really AHAHAHAHAAH! Thank you, Pietro! Holy shit, perfect. That's some delicious shade. I expect to see this gif'd fifteen different ways when I load tumblr today.

"Next thing I know, I heard you calling me. I knew you needed me."

The kids interrupt. And now all of a sudden Tommy can zoom. Character development!

Everyone is so careful to give Wanda what she wants. Why? She's not cruel. Who wants to keep her pacified? And whoever it is cannot possibly be pleased with AD Dick messing things up. Assuming it's an outside or outside-ish force/entity, of course. I mean, I don't think she's doing this entirely, she might be the battery powering it, but despite her thing last episode to get SWORD to leave her alone, she does seem a little confused about the where, why, and how things are going.

"Don't go past Ellis Avenue." Just a kid thing or a boundary of the sitcom control world?

In the real world, our heroes are sneaking through a tent city and into the server room. The scene with Pietro and Wanda discussing his accent is playing in the background. Darcy seems put-out that Pietro was recast. lol. "He brought the wrong face."

Darcy hacks into Hayward's devices. "Hayward figured out a way to look through the boundary." "And he didn't share it with the group." I don't like Hayward. 

Something is blipping on the map on the computer. Jimmy asks if it's Wanda, but Darcy says "it's tracking the decay signature of vibranium". So Vision. Monica wants to know why Hayward is tracking Vision. Well, I'd super like to know what SWORD was doing with Vision in the first place, because they weren't just storing him, they were doing something. So …

Jimmy notices that there are other dots, the ones closest to Vision, who are other residents. Jimmy says the ones near the edge of town are barely moving.

Back to Vision. He's found a cul-de-sac to patrol. Everybody's frozen in place, the street lights flicker. Eerie. They're all dressed for Halloween. Does this mean the field is shrinking, or the effects spreading and so it's closing in, slowing and then freezing people who were earlier moving about just fine? Vision is unaffected by this whatever it is. He turns himself into himself and flies off, up above the town. part of the town is dark, and part alive with voices and laughter.

He spots a car at the edge of town. It's Agnes. She seems frozen-ish, but when he asks what she's doing there, she says "Town Square Scare. Where is it?" all robotic like. Vision helpfully tries to give directions. lol. "Took a wrong turn, got lost" she says.

Vision touches her head and she wakes up. "You! You're one of the Avengers. You're Vision. Are you here to help us?" "I am Vision. I do want to help. But, what's an Avenger?"

Hmm. Well, I guess he did say last week that he couldn't remember anything before Westview.

"Am I dead?" she asks. "No, why would you think that?" "Because you are."

What was news coverage after the Snap like, do you suppose? I mean, ridiculous, of course. But, like, I think they had bigger problems then wondering about snapped/dead Avengers, didn't they? Well, maybe not. "WHERE ARE AVENGERS TO HELP US?" or "HOW DARE THE AVENGERS NOT HELP US!" "TOTALLY THIS IS ON THE AVENGERS!" "WE'D ALL BE DEAD WITHOUT THE AVENGERS!" "NUHUH! BOO AVENGERS!" "EXCEPT VISION WHO DIED HEROICALLY, WE ALL LIKE THAT AVENGER!" "TONY STARK AND PEPPER POTTS SHARE THE DECORATING TIPS THAT TRANSFORMED THEIR RUSTIC RESTORATION PROJECT INTO A CHARMING FAMILY HOME".

Agnes starts screaming "Dead" at Vision. She's not coping well. Vision says he's going to try and reach outside town and try to figure this all out. "How? No one leaves. Wanda won't even let us think about it." I SUSPECT YOU, AGNES! Why would Wanda keep everybody trapped and miserable? I could see if she did it on accident, but this implies she's purposefully hurting people. I don't buy it. Agnes, again, seems to be in the right place at the right time to make Vision doubt Wanda. You're a very suspicious character, Agnes.  

She starts to laugh. "All is lost." Vision touches her had and she resets to sitcom Agnes. Somehow she can move again, she turns the car around on Ellis Ave and heads back into town. So, that answers that.

Vision walks across the Eillis Ave to the field beyond.

Meanwhile, Darcy continues to hack. Monica gets a text and says "that's it! My way back into the Hex will be here in an hour." Jimmy's all ready to boost a ride to take her to meet her aerospace buddy. But, Darcy says, nope. Can't do it. Monica's been through the Hex twice, and it's rewritten her cells. "It's changing you." Monica is undaunted. "I know what Wanda's feeling and I won't stop until I help her." Alrighty then.

Jimmy's finally going to get to hotwire a car! But wait, Darcy's not going with them. AD Dick has something hidden behind one last firewall. Darcy thinks it's big and can help them. She's going to find it.

I don't think Jimmy had to hotwire that humvee. It just started right up. Motorpool, pfft - they always leave the keys.

Back in Westview. Halloween continues at Town Square. Pietro asks Wanda where she was hiding all those kids. Whu? Says Wanda. "I assume they were all just sleeping peacefully in their beds. No need to traumatize beyond the occasional holiday cameo, amiright?" What is Pietro. "Hey don't get me wrong, you've handled the ethical considerations of this scenario as best you could. Families and couples stay together. Most personalities aren't far from what's underneath. People got better jobs. Better haircuts for sure."

"You don't think it's wrong?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm impressed. It's a pretty big leap from giving people nightmares and shooting red wigglywoos out your hands." No, really, what is Pietro? "How'd you even do all this?" Hmmm.

"I don't know how I did it. I only remember feeling completely alone. Empty. Just endless nothingness." She looks back at Pietro and for a second he's dead Pietro. Poor Wanda.

Darcy continues to hack Hayward's systems. Cataract classified weapons something something. They're still tracking Vision. Who continues his walk across the field and comes to the hex. He tries to push through it. Looks painful. SWORD rolls out to go overreact at him. He makes it through the barrier, kind of. It's a struggle.

Hayward standing there looking like a jackass "he really does want out, doesn't he?" Like he’s just amused by this turn of events, or watching a lab rat try to get out of the lab. 

Darcy's standing behind watching all of this. Bits of Vision sort of fly off and back into the Hex. Darcy says "oh no!" and runs towards him, screaming for them to help him. Way to give away your sneaky hiding, girlfriend.

In Westview. Billy looks up, he can hear what's going on outside. "I hear daddy in my head. He's in trouble."

Vision calls for help, while SWORD prioritizes arresting Darcy. Phil Coulson would never have behaved like this. Boo to SWORD. Vision is dissolving. It's kind of gross and sad.

Wanda asks where Vision is, and Pietro interrupts "Don't sweat it, sis. It's not like your dead husband can die twice." Wanda wallops him with some red wigglywoos.

Billy sees soldiers and thinks Vision is dying. Wanda stops everything and makes a big red boom. The Hex appears to be expanding. Whoops, now you've done it AD Dick. He runs away like the brave brave guy he is. They leave Darcy handcuffed to a jeep. "Are you serious right now?"

The Hex overtakes Vision and then Darcy. Trapped soldiers become clowns, and we're in the circus. Well, SWORD seems like a circus, so Wanda's not wrong. I'm pretty sure Jimmy and Monica made it, but sadly the bravest Director who ever braved also escaped. He deserved to be a circus clown. Better luck next week, Wanda.

Credits.

Well, I just don't know anymore.

Hayward doesn't care about Wanda, except where I think because of this someone will figure out what he was doing to Vision's body. And Vision is ultimately the thing he cares about in all this. I hope Wanda drops a house on him.

Hmmm.

Quit suggesting I watch Age of Ultron next, Disney. It’s not happening. 

[orbitariums]

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 (𝟓)

note - once again, thank you for reading!! it took me a while for this chapter and i wanted to execute it properly. it’s long so i hope y’all got a place to sittt!!! srry if it has typos i didn’t go thru in depth!!

i introduced a new character in this named alex. i see him being portrayed as alex turner or oscar isaac, but you’re free to picture anyone!!!

let me know what y’all think of this chapter!!!!! i love some of the scenes in this, i feel like i structured it differently than how i usually do and you get to see their lives a lil more <3

new taglist

playlist

warnings - angst, stucky mission!, angst!, cigarette smoking, hints of 2013-2014 tumblr vibes for sure 

word count: 9.7k

𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞: 𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐬 | 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬

    "Back to working late nights, I see."

As Steve looked over his shoulder, he was met with the sight of Natasha leaning against the jamb of the open door to his office. The light from the hallway flooded into his dimly lit office, the only lighting being the lamp on his desk. She had her arms folded, a small smile on her face as Steve looked up at her.

    Locking eyes with him, it was no surprise that he had the same tired gaze that had been lingering in his eyes for the past three weeks since he'd stopped talking to you, almost a month. And while Nat may not have been surprised, she, like everyone else, was concerned. Steve was different from the man he had been just a few weeks ago, the man who seemed suddenly uplifted. He had rose up from his bad mood only to re-enter the slump he was in before, only worse.

    This time, the slump Steve was in wasn't irritated and unnecessarily aggressive due to pent up sexual frustration, but it was lethargic, a melancholia that creeped in slowly. He seemed sad and gloomy, "not in the mood." Before any of Steve's mood swings, he was just the kind of calm and serious person that Steve Rogers was.

Then you came along and he was Steve Rogers in Wonderland. Now that you were gone, it was like he'd buried himself into a dark and deep hole, and not the one that Alice fell into. He was just sort of somber and quiet, too quiet. Isolated, like he was now - deep into his work, but not in a good way.

   Steve didn't even muster a smile. He just slumped back slightly into his chair and sighed, the cold gloom in his eyes unwavering.

   "Working on something from the Sokovia unit."

   Nat offered a small, sad smile,

    "Need anything? You're missing out on movie night."

    Steve shook his head. He knew that Nat was checking on him for other reasons, but he didn't want to be the one to address it. He hadn't talked to anyone about it, not even Bucky, who was the only one to flat out ask what was happening. The others sort of danced around the topic. But it bothered Natasha greatly. She had to ask, because even she couldn't figure it out.

    "Don't need anything. Thanks."

    "Steve. What's going on?" Nat asked, fed up. She walked in further and closed the door behind her. "You're acting strange again."

    Steve mustered the tiniest of smiles, shrugging,

    "Just been busy these days."

    "No, you've been purposefully making yourself busy. You're all cooped up in here. You're by yourself all the time, even when you're around us. What's going on?" Nat sat on the edge of the table, looking down at him with her eyebrows drawn together. "No one else is asking, but we're all wondering it."

    Steve sighed. He'd been isolating himself, burying himself in work to distract himself from the thought of you. The two of you had ended on such a rough note, and it was hard for him to even process it. It scared him, how much more he thought about you now that he had stopped talking to you, thinking that would be the solution.

Thinking that leaving you alone would stop things from escalating. And they had, maybe in the way of your actual relationship with each other. But for Steve individually? The feelings were worse than they had been. He was hurt that he had hurt you, and it was like leaving you only exposed how much he really did need you.

    And to think of it that way felt like his biggest defeat. Like he was letting his responsibilities down. He couldn't feel this way about someone he met online, not in the way that he met you. He couldn't let it get to this point, and yet it was impacting him so strongly, much more than he'd expected.

    So he retracted, recoiled to be alone. He hated the way it had gone down - hated the fact that he had scared himself, hated the fact that he had even allowed things to feel that serious. But mostly he hated the fact that he couldn't be honest with himself - or maybe he hated the fact that now that he was being honest with himself, he was depriving himself of a good thing out of fear. And he had virtually no one to talk this out with, because he'd have to tell the full story, and he still forbid himself to do that.

    It was over, and he didn't want to put this on his team's plate, even if it was over with. Now that he had ended things, he didn't have anything to hide anymore, but that didn't mean he was just going to reveal everything. He still felt like his leadership would be at stake if he were to, although not selfishly. It felt like something so private. He needed to think this out with himself.

    So while he knew why Natasha was checking in, and knew that she was right to, because clearly something was happening, he still couldn't open up. So he just dismissed it with a wave of his hand and a false smile,

    "Don't worry, I've just been tired." Steve hopped up from his desk, allowing a burst of energy, even if ingenuine, to take over.

He didn't want the others to worry about him like this. The situation was a big enough deal already. He didn't want them in on his own personal pain, which he had fully decided to take care of himself - though he wasn't doing a very good job of it. He continued, grinning.

   "I'll join you guys for movie night," he decided.

He hadn't magically gotten better, but if this was what it might take to ensure his team that he was fine, he would bring himself out of his little hole, just for a few hours. He needed a break anyway, he'd been starting to drift when Natalie came in, thinking of you specifically.

    But Natasha wasn't buying it, the fake smile, the sudden burst of energy. It was like he was putting on a show, but she wasn't a fan of his performance.

    She stood up and sort of blocked him, staring him down with a dead serious look in her eyes, her arms folded. She wasn't angry, but she was disappointed by Steve's behavior. The past few months had been so topsy turvy with him, his changes in mood weren't making any sense. Out of anyone on the team, she felt like he understood her, had made the effort to make a true connection with her, rather than just gaze on, intimidated by her.

    "I know you, Steve. You're not fooling anyone." As Steve's smile turned into a frown, Natasha turned around, walking out of his office. On her way out she followed with, "Come back when you're ready to be honest."

♡ ♡ ♡ 

     "Can we get another round of mimosas, please?"

     Aaliyah's voice brought you back down to earth. The spring air bristled against your dewy skin, the sun shining down on you from where you were both sitting in the seating area outside the cafe. If anything, you were grateful for California's sunshine. It kept you sane, and reminded you that no matter what, you'd always have the sun.

      You were sitting outside you and Aaliyah's favorite brunch place (with bottomless mimosas), just to catch up and talk. You'd been busy dealing with school work and your personal life. And just now, you were a bit distracted, thinking of all the things that led you to this point. You were thinking of Steve, who still came around the wild landscape of your mind once in a while, like the shadow of a maintenance man who you never quite met. It had been almost a month since you stopped talking to Steve.

     It still hurt sometimes when you thought about it, because you missed the rush of talking to him - your experience with Steve was so unique to your experience with any other customer. But it wasn't all about the rush - you missed really talking to him and getting to know him. Even though it felt like it had been all for naught, you felt a warm feeling in your chest when you thought about him.

     You hadn't felt that way with a customer, and while you realized it was silly and irresponsible for the both of you to get as caught up as you had, you still loved every moment of talking to him. It took a special person for you to want to talk to Steve as much as you did - doing private shows for him, requesting him instead of the other way around. It was truly one of the more wholesome experiences you'd had with a customer. The rush was a part of it - it was exciting and thrilling.

     But it was also calming, full of comforting conversation and freeing interactions. It was like this unhinged pleasure you were inviting each other to share, in every sense of the word - it wasn't just you servicing him, though that was a part of it. It felt like in a sense, he also served you.

    The feelings were mutual. You listened to each other, you felt like you knew each other. So, since you were being honest with yourself, you could admit it hurt. But you didn't let it drag you down, especially now that it had been over three weeks. Mostly, when you thought of him, it was nostalgic, like you were waking up from a dream and only remembering traces of it. Just remembering, not grieving.

     Aaliyah noticed your silence and offered you a tiny, shy smile. Ever you had been focusing on yourself, you hadn't been talking to Aaliyah nearly as much. Now that you felt comfortable being in the same spaces as before, you were together, talking it out.

     You'd only told her bits and pieces of the story - that meant she only really knew about the situation with your ex and schoolwork. As for Steve, you kept most of that to yourself.

       "You good, babe?" she reached over and squeezed your shoulder, clad in a loose blouse top.

You grinned, and it was genuine, biting down on your straw as you shook your head playfully,

      "More now than ever."

Aaliyah's smile widened. She knew when you were being genuine, and she was glad to see that this was one of those times. You'd been withdrawn recently, but with good purpose and even better intentions. You were taking all that time to heal for yourself. And amazingly, you had never been more honest with yourself in your life. Ever since Steve, you went through it for a few days.

    You were saddened by the abrupt loss of Steve, even if he was only in your life for a short time. But you didn't lose sight of the realities of your relationship - it would never work out that way. You let yourself sink into sadness only for the first few days afterwards.

     You knew that to let your sadness continue would be extremely unhealthy, and would only cause you to question whether or not you were really fit for this job, where making connections with strangers was pretty important. This couldn't happen frequently, or at all.

     And on top of that, you had been drowning in stress from school and stress from your personal life: morose after the situation with Steve, feeling so much emotional turmoil from your situation with your ex boyfriend. But after a while, you were able to lift yourself up. You knew how unhealthy it would be if you let yourself stay sad because of Steve - you didn't even know him and he had proven that he was just a customer.

     Though that didn't mean you doubted your connection for one minute. You just hated the way you had underestimated what that meant when it came to boundaries, both for you and Steve. You had overshared. It just reminded you that there seemed to be a certain pattern in the relationships in your life, and they all taught you one thing: don't get too comfortable.

But after about a week of beating yourself up over that, feeling stupid and naive and embarrassed for opening up, you moved on to the more important things that needed to be handled - your school work, and how you would successfully move on from your toxic ex. You already had, but when you got that text, it felt like you were relapsing.

    This wasn't just moving on, it was moving on completely and fully. It wouldn't be done by magic, through a divine snap of the fingers. But instead it was a process, an incredibly healing process, one that you actually wanted to find your way through.

     It felt like despite all the progress you had made- all the patching up you'd done as a result of not just that one, but many toxic relationships in your life - you cracked so easily just being reminded of one of them. You didn't want that to be you anymore, even if it didn't mean you weren't strong. It just meant you were human.

     You didn't dismiss all the growth you had made ever since you broke up with your ex, all the bad habits you had broken and the new spaces you had welcomed yourself into. But you didn't want to be the kind of person who cracked under pressure. Part of those toxic relationships was acknowledging the fact that those people will try again to get back into your life after realizing their loss.

    And you understood that now. Your ultimate goal now was to get back on your feet and allow yourself to be as strong as you were and work on how you dealt with personal stressors such as these.

     Your campus offered professional mental help and you took advantage of it as much as possible. You didn't disclose everything, especially not the details of your other job, but you talked about your emotions and your relationships and how you felt like you needed to learn how to handle times of duress. So, you got into therapy; it was a life saver. It wasn't that the incident with Steve had triggered you so much that you needed to get therapy, but the context of the incident and the feelings that roused you to that breaking point on screen with him made you realize you needed help.

     You had done everything yourself before, all your healing, all your growth - but it wasn't shameful to get help. You realized that while you felt sated being a lone wolf and doing everything yourself, that while it was what you were used to and you never complained about it, you didn't have to go through this alone.

     Part of why you never did before was because you didn't realize you could, too. That therapy wasn't just for people who were in situations much worse than your own. You could have a place to healthily let out your feelings, instead of letting them overflow inside of you, or to strangers.

     "Therapy's helping," you nodded, and Aaliyah sat back and listened. "It's helpful for situational things like this, but I think I should've been in therapy like, a really long time ago."

      "I'll drink to that," Aaliyah nodded intensely and raised her mimosa glass to clink with yours before bringing it to her lips and taking a sip.

You laughed, and you were almost surprised to hear the sound of your own laugh, so uncaring and so free. Not the kind of laugh you let out when you're restricting your joy. Just full, pure, laughter. You didn't have to become this hysterical ultrasad woman just because of your experiences - you were proof that things could and did get better.

       You were living just fine before the crash of life came down upon you, you were satisfied with life. But now you felt like you had accomplished some form of ego death, and realized there was more than just being "satisfied." You hadn't thought there was before.

     "For real though, I'm proud of you," Aaliyah nodded, making direct eye contact with you. "I'm glad you took this time to yourself. You glow better when you're happy."

     "And when I'm not being bothered by idiotic men," you rolled your eyes.

Multiple, your brain reminded you - your ex-boyfriend, your idiot professor, and Steve, to an extent. You appreciated what it was that you two had, an undeniable chemistry, but he reminded you of most men - afraid to open up. Though you couldn't feel spiteful towards him. In this context, it made perfect sense that he didn't want to open up.

     "Oh yeah, update me on that? I know it's over with your ex-"

     "Yup. I told him not to contact me again. Then I blocked him," you replied with a heaving sigh - a sigh of release. It felt good to say that out loud again. It felt good to know that your response was final, and that any further badgering you received wasn't as a result of your invitation.

It was as easy as that, even though it took you days just to even figure out what kind of message to send. You could've met up with him, talked things out - at the worst, gotten together again, but you knew you'd never let that happen. You could've listened to whatever he had to say.

    But you had decided that whatever he wanted to tell you, whatever apology he was going to issue, could've been avoided had he just treated you right, instead of constantly dismissing you, instead of reacting to everything with nonchalance. So you didn't need to hear it, and you didn't need to light yourself on fire just to decide whether or not to forgive him- you didn't need to decide at all. So you left it alone, and left him blocked.

Aaliyah just smiled softly at you, so grateful for your steady energy and your strong presence. You were such close friends, it felt like your experiences were mutual. Everything you went through, she was by your side, and vice versa. She was so proud of you for making the decisions you made, and so proud that you came to that result.

     "As you should!" Aaliyah squealed, reaching over and squeezing your hands excitedly. "You really are that bitch. And your project... he said it's a go?"

You smiled bashfully as you squeezed Aaliyah's hands back.

     "Yeah, we talked it out. I still have to modify it which is a huge pain in my ass, but I can manage. So it's fine. At least I'm not dealing with a million other things on top of that."

Aaliyah smirked, again raising her glass to tap it against yours,

     "Cheers to that, babe."

So you had been on this journey, and you had sought out help where it was most valuable - in yourself, in friends, in professionals, and in the world around you. And in return you had learned that you didn't have to be strong all the time, that it was okay to break sometimes - as long as you knew how to cope. And that advice went such a long way.

    Things were looking up from here.

♡ ♡ ♡ 

    Ever since his confrontation with Natasha, Steve had been in deep thought. He was disappointed in himself for letting it get to the point where his interactions with his team felt hostile. Where he appeared so lonely and even sulky. It wasn't like him as a leader, and it wasn't who his team looked up to.

    He didn't want his interactions with people to feel so unfulfilling as a result of his own personal catastrophes, especially when it came to someone like Nat, who was the only one to boldly address his change in mood. He felt like a loser for allowing himself to go as dark as he had. It was something he should've had more control over, something he should've never let creep into his life the way it had.

     Steve wasn't some creepy old man slowly dilapidating in a lonesome one-bedroom home, with no friends and no lovers. He had gone onto the site to find some kind of sexual release, because he had nowhere else to realistically take out his pent up energy, at least not in his eyes. He wanted that connection, and he found it with you.

    He should've been satisfied. The only problem was that he was in for more than he was prepared for. And maybe it was because he was old fashioned and really wanted that kind of connection, because Stark easily went through girls like Moonrose like it was nothing, no strings attached. It only further proved that Steve wasn't built for that.

     He figured that as long as he was distracting himself from the problem by burying himself in work and isolating himself, he at least wasn't doing his job any harm. That was the most important to him - his work.

    But the people that mattered most to Steve were beginning to point out to him that ignoring a personal problem wasn't going to solve it. And Steve should've known that naturally, because one of the biggest elements of his job was to solve problems. He was a logical person, he loved answering the unanswered and finding solutions.

     But that was his job. This was a personal issue, and it was unlike anything he'd been through. He supposed he'd never known how to cope, and that talking to you was just a sliver of one of the ways he did cope.

    He didn't put everything on you, nor did he want to - that was why he'd stopped talking to you. You knowing everything he was going through would be dangerous for the both of you, for obvious reasons. Though you felt like you knew each other, you didn't really know who he was, and maybe that wouldn't have been such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that he was Captain America.

    So when he stopped talking to you, it was like a part of him stopped coping. Lucky for him, not everyone was just going to let him sulk around.

    "Alright, Steve. What's this all about?" Bucky asked, walking beside Steve while they were on a mission together. This may have been the worst time for Bucky to bring this up, considering Steve was focused on nothing less and nothing more than his mission. He thought of you a lot, sure, but not during times like these.

    "What's what all about?" Steve replied gruffly, mindlessly elbowing some approaching Hydra member off the ship they were infiltrating, the sound of splashing water resonating in the distance.

    "You know," Bucky grunted, sweep kicking another member and sending him flying.

The two of them often talked to each other side by side on missions, so disciplined and highly skilled that they could easily do both at once, but not about things like this, and not conversations that required much more attention. Bucky continued,

    "You've been all sad lately."

Steve sighed and shook his head, latching his shield back onto his back,

    "Is that what we're going to be talking about?"

    "Are you gonna answer me?" Bucky raised his brows, cocking the gun he had tucked under his arm and firing ahead of him.

    "Can't really talk right now, Buck," Steve grunted, preparing himself for what was ahead.

    "I think I know what it is!" Bucky exclaimed, jumping away from Steve as he took on a combatant in front of him, Steve doing the same.

     "Please, enlighten me!" Steve called out sarcastically, going hand to hand with another guy, flinging his shield out in front of him.

    Bucky aimed a kick at his guy's crotch, sending him flying to the floor, then standing over him and continuing to pummel him, all the while yelling over at Steve.

     "You think you don't have anyone to talk to about how you're feeling so you're isolating yourself! I know you. It's a very Steve thing to do!"

Steve sighed, shaking his head. He wasn't too keen on having this conversation at all, but especially not now. But he knew once Bucky got started, there was no stopping it. Even in the midst of a fight, in the midst of a mission. But Bucky wasn't entirely wrong, and that was the dangerous part about it - Steve knew Bucky could figure him out if he really set his mind to it. And he was constantly being reminded how much other people knew him, whether it was you, Natasha, or Bucky.

     He may have masked himself as un-phased and even tempered, but anyone could see past that now. Natasha had been close to figuring out just what was going on, and although she was one of the smarter Avengers, who could figure anybody out, Bucky and Steve were the closest of friends, twin flames. Steve knew Bucky would have him figured out in a minute, and he was getting dangerously close.

     "Buck, not now!" he had to at least try.

     "You still talking to that girl?" Bucky ignored Steve's pleas and continued - he had came to his own conclusion, putting together the pieces.

     Steve sighed again, kneeling down on the floor and hanging his head. His silence, his lack of a response, told Bucky all he needed to know. He was in his head, thinking about you, something he never did on a mission. He was thinking of how before this, you were one of the people he actually talked to to cope, even though he didn't delve too deep into his personal problems. But still, you had been there.

     And now that you weren't, he was thinking of all the reasons why you weren't, almost all of them rooted in his own silly fear. The fear he'd been letting go for weeks until you asked him that question. Before you opened up to him to that extent.

     Bucky got up, dusting his hands off. Both him and Steve had knocked their guys clean. Bucky signaled into his ear piece that the coast was clear and they were leaving the building, before heading over to walk next to Steve. Bucky had a sort of victorious smile on his face, knowing he had cracked the code.

       Steve had been withdrawn before you, then excitingly different when you came around. It would make sense that he'd be withdrawn without you again. Especially if things had ended harshly. Since Bucky was the only one who knew about the connection Steve felt he had with Moonrose, it was easier for him to guess. The others might have known that Steve was using the site, but Steve made sure they didn't know all the specifics.

     Although, Bucky did. And he wanted to know just what was going on. He put his arm around Steve's shoulders as a way of letting him know he was there, and that he did have someone to talk to besides you.

     "You know, Steve, whatever happened, you've got me. You've got all of us."

Steve shook his head and looked down at the ground, mustering a small smile that was one of the more genuine smiles he'd shown in the past few weeks,

     "I know."

     "Then why didn't you talk to any of us? You've been like a hermit for the past month almost," Bucky inquired.

     He wasn't attacking Steve, but he still had questions to ask. He wanted to have an honest conversation. He didn't want to have to sit back and watch as Steve alienated himself because he didn't know how to properly deal with his own issues. As an Avenger, it made both him and Steve look irresponsible. And as a friend, he physically couldn't watch any longer.

He didn't think he'd seen Steve so withdrawn, not even when his parents died, because Bucky forced his way in every chance he could get. When Steve was alone, things got dark. Bucky decided he'd be the one to actually help guide Steve out of it, by any means.

     Although, he was surprised that all this was caused by a girl who Steve hadn't even met. A girl who Steve had expressed his worries about to Bucky. It seemed as though Steve wouldn't let things get this far or impact him this much. He had been so quick to deny Bucky when he asked if there was anything more there, and maybe it was because it scared him to think about because it was true. Was it expected, though? Not entirely.

     "I didn't just want to air this out to everyone. It felt like something I shouldn't be doing, not in the position I'm in... I didn't want to disappoint people. And I feel like I have just by acting like this, even though they don't know why I've been this way. It's bad, I know, and I feel stupid for it. It's embarrassing to feel like this. Like... like I don't know any better," Steve replied, and Bucky understood, nodding.

      "I get it. It's like, why would boss man have some strange attachment to a naked stranger?" Bucky responded, not realizing how crude he sounded, making Steve glare over at him with his brows knit together.

      "Well, especially when you put it like that, Buck," Steve said, but he couldn't help but chuckle.

     "Sorry," Bucky smiled, shaking his head. A beat, then he continued. "So you've stopped talking to this girl. For what reason?"

     "I was afraid. It just... got too serious. And I guess it shows, because I've been acting like this as a result," Steve laughed bitterly. "I can't say I expected this to be the result. I think it hurts, but I've really been acting this way because..."

     Steve took a deep breath. It felt like a lot to express his feelings or emotions on any given day, but especially when it came to this. He had been keeping nearly everything associated with you to himself. It felt like such a big deal to express something out loud when he had intentionally been keeping it extra personal. Even if it was Bucky. It felt like something so close to him - he still felt slightly idiotic for the entire ordeal.

    He continued,

     "I guess because I've been trying hard not to think about her as much as my mind does when I'm not distracted. So I have to keep to myself and do work so that I'm not thinking about it as much. And I guess in the process I just neglected my own self care."

    Bucky nodded with a hum of assurance.

     "Mm. Well you're right. Maybe it did go too far. But that can't always be a bad thing."

    Steve cocked his head,

     "What do you mean?"

     "I mean, it's like me and Nat. No one would've trusted us years ago, but here we are now. On this incredibly elite team, fighting injustice with the best of them. I get it, you have to be safe, you can't let strangers get too close, you can't just do anything. But that doesn't mean you have to be so afraid all the time. You care about her. I knew that the minute you asked me about her. Because if it wasn't destined to end up this way, you would've never said a thing. You're good at keeping things to yourself, Rogers. The fact that you even asked me for advice on this, all those weeks ago. It says something. And maybe this all means that not only can you not stay away -  but that maybe... you shouldn't."

♡ ♡ ♡ 

    You hadn't been out out in a long time. You had been using the past three or more weeks to focus on yourself, to fully heal and regenerate and learn to cope. This was your therapeutic week, your week of release.

     But now, you were going out. You made an effort to look extra cute, because it had been a while since you got all dolled up. You couldn't be out super late, you still had a show later tonight, but you'd go out and enjoy a few drinks with friends. You were also going to be meeting new people, which was something you didn't do regardless of your emotional situation, unless it was for work - but those were colleagues.

    These were people who were potential friends, and potential lovers. But you couldn't have made it more clear to Aaliyah, who was tying this all together:

     "I'm not looking for a relationship right now! You know that!" you exclaimed, shaking your head, but she just smirked at you, and pulled the straps of your dress tighter as you both walked into the bar where you would be meeting some friends and new people tonight.

     "Mhm," Aaliyah said dismissively, slinging her arm around your shoulders. "That doesn't mean you can't meet someone and you know..."

     "Aht aht," you chuckled, though you appreciated her vigor. "I don't do random hookups unless it's online."

    Both of you cackled at that, but it was true. You were very put together and determined, especially when it came to actual relationships. Your sex life outside of your job on the internet was sort of quiet at the moment, and you liked it that way. You enjoyed sex and the sensual, pleasurable and freeing feeling that came with having sex in real life, or performing sexual acts on the internet for money. But it wasn't everything to you, you still navigated the world like any human would, except maybe you were hyper aware of your mindfulness, even more than people with conventional jobs.

You didn't let just anybody in, emotionally or physically, not when it came to real life. Though maybe Aaliyah had a little bit of a point. Not wanting a relationship didn't mean you couldn't have fun. You wouldn't force it though. If it were meant to be, it would be.

Tonight, you were going to be watching a local band play, sitting at a table in the audience with some friends, ordering drinks and just having a good time together. You were excited - it felt good to get out, good to be back on your feet. You were getting the normality back into your life, and you were enjoying it, as well as the healing process that came with it - no toxic ex, no hardships with school... when it came to Steve, you still missed him. But it didn't interrupt your ability to function, not anymore. You weren't quite preoccupied with him in this moment.

You were glad to be sitting down with friends, and meeting new people as well. It felt almost strange - you felt out of the loop, like you were getting back onto the scene for the first time in years, when it hadn't even been that long. You figured it was just the fact that there had been such an intense shift, and you had matured so much in just less than a month. You felt excited for the endless possibilities.

The bar was dimly lit, the band was tuning their instruments, drinks were going around, everyone seemed to be in a good, vivacious mood. It was very lively in a way you could appreciate, because you liked the spontaneity and eventfulness of life just like you enjoyed the organized, pragmatic parts of life that you endured in all of your careers and your lifestyle. You liked to have fun, there was no doubt about that. It was just a matter of when you had time for it.

As you sat down at the table, reunions and introductions went all around. Everyone was friendly, and everyone was a college student. You were excited to be with this specific group of people, full of friends and new faces. But there was one new face that truly intrigued you, belonging to a ridiculously attractive guy with a rockabilly quiff and a strand of hair styled at the front, a knowing look in his deep brown eyes. He didn't have to say he was cool, the oversized leather jacket he wore practically spelled that out.

     He leaned across the table to shake your hand, his eyes sparkling when he looked at you, his smile bright and charming,

       "Hey. I'm Alex. It's nice to meet you."

It must have shown on your face how immediately taken you were - he was hot and the energy he emanated was good, and purely sensual. Aaliyah took notice, smirking over at you and watching as you took his hand. You blinked, and smiled. He felt it, you felt it. There was no use in hiding it.  You thought about how much you insisted to Aaliyah that you weren't looking to hook up - but this one guy may have changed your mind, just by his smile.

     "I'm YN. Nice to meet you too."

Even as he let go of your hand and sat back in his chair, he didn't break eye contact with you, a small, playful smirk on his lips. But two could play at that game. Your job, doing what you did, made you ten times more confident than the average person. Just because you weren't on the dating scene didn't mean you didn't know how to flirt.

    And just because you weren't interested in dating didn't mean you couldn't get to know someone in a different sense of the word. Just from looking into his eyes, reading the smirk on his smooth lips, you knew you would definitely be getting to know him tonight. With no strings attached.

| | |

     "You smoke?" you asked Alex, standing in front of him outside the bar as he lit a cigarette. You were both standing in the alleyway beside the bar.

The both of you had ended up here, not completely on purpose, but Alex couldn't say he didn't notice when you excused yourself so that you could make a call to confirm another therapy appointment. You ended up out there for longer than intended as you started scrolling on your phone. But it was Alex who kept you out there, the night sky starry and clear above you. It was quiet, except for the faint sound of indie rock music coming from inside the bar. But it was a calming, comforting atmosphere. It felt like it was just the two of you, and in a sense, it really was.

     "Yeah," Alex smiled almost shyly, unsure how you might approach that. People usually turned up their noses.

You in particular didn't see cigarette smoking as your idea of a good time- recreational marijuana, in moderation. You only ever really drank or smoked socially, but sometimes you could have a lot of fun drinking wine alone. In the heat of the moment though, it wasn't a very big deal to you. That was the other thing about you - you were spontaneous but well balanced, and let people live their lives how they wanted to, even if they were living just a bit on the edge. You knew people definitely would have choice words for your own lifestyle, and that just made you more open minded.

     "Hmm," you hummed, simply thinking to yourself and nodding.

Alex shifted slightly, as if he were unsure of himself, but took a drag anyway.

      "Nasty habit, I'm sure."

     "Can I try?" you asked, leaning up against the brick wall behind you, and gazing up at him.

Looking into your eyes, he could see the glint of innocence and anticipation there, but there was something more- this sort of hot and flashy desire. The chemistry in your simple introduction was undoubtable, and it led you both to think there could be something else. But if there was, there was already an unspoken agreement in Alex's smirk and your smile - whatever it was would be purely physical.

You were too deep into your process of healing to fully put yourself out there, to even want to share yourself with another. Ever since your last relationship, you weren't looking for any one - no one to be your baby, no one to depend on, and no one who depended on you. You didn't want that. But this, whatever it was, was just a little bit of fun. You only ever really engaged in this kind of banter on the internet. It was about time you got a taste of it in real life.

Alex raised his brows at you, surprised. You didn't strike him as the type, and honestly, you didn't strike yourself as the type, either. You were just going with the flow. He just glanced at you and cocked his head to the side,

     "I don't know if you really want to do that."

     "What makes you say that?" you challenged, quirking your eyebrow quizzically, and tilting your head up at him. He wasn't wrong though - you almost immediately questioned why you asked if you could try.

     "You don't strike me as the type. And you're a very pretty girl," Alex eased closer to you, and you felt his rough, wide hand against your cheek, caressing gently as he looked down at you, looking intently into your eyes. You felt his thumb against your cheek, running against your soft skin in smooth, slow circles, and you couldn't help but grin devilishly at the sense of danger it gave you, the kind of danger you only found deep within layers of pleasure. He continued. "Wouldn't want your... skin to fall off."

You couldn't help but chuckle at his anti-cigarette warning, shaking your head and laughing quietly, him joining in. He couldn't ignore the brightness of your smile, how genuine it seemed, how much it struck him. For you, laughter felt like medicine right now, like it was pushing you through this transition phase you were in.

     "Really, is that what's gonna happen?" you smirked playfully, never looking away from him. He smiled, nodding,

      "Yeah, that's exactly what happens."

A beat of silence passed between of you, but the tension emanating between the two of you was louder than ever, pulling you to each other with a tantalizing magnetic force. You watched his lids flutter gently as his eyes traveled down to your lips, the thumb that had previously been on your cheek drifting to your lips, hands moving languidly against your skin. A shiver ran all through your body, resonating in your core, just at the feeling of his touch, and at the knowledge that eyes were on you.

Real, human eyes, eyes that you had summoned through the power of your divine sensuality. You could find these connections online, but in real life it was so electrifying, so genuine- almost like it had been with Steve, though he was the last thing on your mind right now.

     "Pretty girls have the nastiest habits," you blinked, letting him toy with your lips until you gently took his thumb in your mouth, wrapping your lips around it, all the while never breaking eye contact with him.

You knew exactly what you were doing, and you knew your intentions while you were doing it. They weren't anything good, but they weren't bad either.

Alex nearly shuddered, taking in a deep breath. You both had amazing sex appeal and an instant connection, but you were taking him for a ride that he didn't even expect. He nodded slowly, his eyelids heavy, watching your lips around his fingers.

     "Mm," he hummed.

He placed his hand on the wall above you as he towered over you. You felt covered by him, in a good way. He was all over you in the only way either of you wanted to be. His fingers left your lips and now held his cigarette. He leaned in and lifted your chin up, the cigarette smoke lifting up from his cigarette and swirling around your nose, just before he pressed his lips against yours.

    Your lips were hot against his, which were smoky and tasted like his own vice, an open mouthed kiss with nothing but passion and craving within the little space between your lips. The kiss lingered, his hands then beginning to travel all around you, not just your face, but your entire body. You felt his hands on your sides, traveling up your thighs, his body and his lips smashing into your own. There was nothing wholesome about it, and yet you couldn't help but want more.

You only pulled away, panting, to remind him of one thing,

     "You know this is it, right? I'm not looking for a relationship."

He shook his head, reattaching his lips to yours, breathlessly replying,

      "Me neither."

He couldn't care less for the clarifications - he was caught up in you, he just wanted more, in whatever way you would allow. It was quick and fast paced, that seemed to be the basis of your newly forged relationship. Not much thought went into your very needy motions, all abrupt and reckless.

But you pulled away again, placing a hand on his chest,

     "And we're not having sex."

     "Fine. That's fine. I just want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?" he asked, unable to keep his eyes from flickering between your eyes and your lips.

You smiled, nodding eagerly, sated by his needy disposition and the sexual prowess you had over him. He didn't even know the half of your nasty habits. In response, you cooed,

      "Yeah, you can kiss me."

♡ ♡ ♡ 

      Ever since the mission, it was both lucky and unfortunate for Steve that all he had left on his hands was time. All that time consumed him, and you were on his mind all through it. He also thought about what Bucky had to say. Bucky's words were a reminder that he couldn't let things consume him out of fear. It reminded Steve that while he was right to feel weary, he was right to trust, too. Trust was a big part of the Avengers Initiative.

     They all depended on it, and it took a lot of trust in individuals that no one else would probably ever take under their wing. But placing that trust in each other worked, and formed the greatest group of justice defenders on this earth. The people Steve considered his closest friends still had yet to gain true trust from some of the most important figures in the country. That didn't mean Steve trusted them any less.

      He'd had the revelation many times before, but he was having it again. The two of you had something- you had almost everything except for trust.

     It was a big leap he was taking, a big contrast from the way he felt beforehand. But he'd spent all his time thinking and worrying and letting fear and irrational darkness take over him for too long. It was time he took the matters that involved his feelings and personal health into his own hands. And to start, he had to take that big leap of faith.

      Was he making a stupid decision? Likely. But was it rash? No, it was the result of so much reflection and thought. It was like he took a look inside of himself and realized what he had to do. And even though this wouldn't solve the problem entirely, it was at least a start. A promise to himself and an apology to you. If this was how it was without you, then he didn't want it to feel that way ever again, by any means.

     You were more than the controversy of the relationship you had with him and the context surrounding that relationship. Loyalty was one of the most important qualities to Steve. He didn't want a friend if they weren't loyal, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized that you were a friend, no matter how much he tried to push away the legitimacy of the connection.

     Months ago, he would've never done this. On any conditions. But that was before he met you. So now, he was sitting in his room after a shower, falling back into the old routine. It was Friday. You'd be live in a few hours.

♡ ♡ ♡  

You came back home from the bar exhilarated, the touch of the man you'd been so close with lingering on your body, and in the best way you could imagine. You knew he wanted more physically, but you weren't at an emotional position where you could give it to him.

     And he had respected that, even though the yearning was so clear. The thrill of the moment felt like it would never dissipate. The spontaneity of the moment and the heat of it all reminded you how powerful you were.

     He had practically whined into your mouth for more. Sure, you had men online who would give up all their belongings for you, but it felt different when you were experiencing this with a man who you could touch, a man who you could genuinely feel that zing! feeling with just by looking at him.

     You weren't sure when you'd see him again, or if you ever would. And that was the beauty of the entire situation. You didn't feel like you had some type of emotional obligation to him, or like you would have to follow up. You could leave it at that and hold this moment in your heart guilt free. It didn't matter that you didn't know him well - all that mattered was that you still felt whole afterwards and not trapped, that it brought you just as much pleasure as it brought him. And it did. It was like your hot girl summer was starting early.

And you had enjoyed your night out, ending it on a positive note as you watched the bands close up. You filled Aaliyah in on your little detour with Alex. You came home so amped for your performance. This was the most excited you had been for a show since Steve left. You loved your work, but the knowledge that Steve would be watching or would be talking to you afterwards made your shows just a little better.

But now, Steve wasn't on your mind, and you couldn't even say Alex was either. So what was on your mind? Mainly the joie de vivre, the sudden burst of energy you felt after a night out, the invigorating feeling that you were returning to normalcy.

     So when you logged on that night, you were more than ready to give a show, not knowing that you were in for a big storm.

     Steve got the notification that you were on, but he decided to wait it out. He didn't necessarily want to watch the show because he wanted to talk to you. He didn't want to feel awkward, watching you perform overtly sexual acts when all he wanted to do was talk to you. This way you could talk alone. So he didn't watch the show, just waited until you were off. He did some things to occupy himself while he waited, leaving his screen for a moment.

       Your show went by smoothly. It was quick, and mainly full of interaction. You didn't do anything too crazy that night, except for parade around on screen in your lingerie and strike suggestive poses, and make conversation with your regulars as well as welcome new comers. You appreciated the simple life — no extra special connection with anyone made your life a lot easier, even though you had to say that special connection felt like a bonus. But this was nice. Just sitting and talking about the most mundane of things. Dry eyed, cute, and paid.

       You read a few comments as you prepared to finish. Almost everyone was talking about how happy you seemed, how you were glowing more than usual. You just chuckled as you read them, and thanked each commenter.

      "Okay guys!" you cooed into the camera, smiling and giving a three fingered wave as you prepared to sign off. "I'm gonna get going, but it was so great talking to each and every one of you. I hope you guys have a good night. Private sessions tomorrow!"

     You blew a kiss into the camera, and ended the show for that night. You would've logged off completely and gotten ready for bed had it not been for the notification you received, and boy did it grab your attention.

Grant Rogers would like to chat.

    You made a face, blinking as you looked at the screen. It had been about a month since you had last talked to Steve. You thought for sure he was a goner, and you had gotten accustomed to the fact a long time ago. You were surprised he was coming back to talk to you at all, though you were glad your reaction was solely surprise and confusion. You weren't reacting in a way that would send you into another spiral, and you also didn't expect yourself to.

    But you couldn't help but think of the odd circumstances that you had left on, and wonder if it was worth the stress of reconnecting.

    Fuck it, you thought. You'd been through so much. What was a little more? You had the skills you needed to react accordingly, to keep sight of who you were and who you were talking to. You could cope. So you pressed "accept."

    Again, you were met with a black screen. You weren't sure why some part of you expected anything else, but for some reason you had this little voice in you that was cheering to see what Steve looked like. You swallowed that voice down though, and listened to his own, which came after moments of an awkward silence.

    "Hi," Steve said, and you flushed at the sound of his voice, remembering the things it did to you, the way it made you feel — remembering the sound of his voice when he decided to cut things off.

Don't get emotional, you reminded yourself. It doesn't make sense.

     "... Hi," you replied, still confused, not able to hide your furrowed brows and slightly open mouth.

    "I know this is weird of me, and maybe even selfish..." Steve sighed, and in that sigh was his final decision. Even when he decided that he was going to go through with this, the whole time he waited for your show to be over, he went back and forth with himself.

Was this even a slightly plausible idea that he was going through with? He wondered. He had to reassure himself that it wasn't as dangerous as he had convinced himself it was, because you weren't dangerous, because he trusted you. As scary as it was to say. And lastly, what were the consequences?

     It wasn't like Bucky told him to do this, but his talk with Bucky made him realize that it was what he had to do. He didn't want anybody else taking the blame if there was a major fall. It was all on him, and the knowledge of that make him panic. Yet, not enough to stop.

So in that sigh, he was making that final decision to really follow through with it. He was already speaking, so he finished his thought, letting the weight lift off his chest.

      "But I felt like it was only right. We left off on a strange note, and that’s entirely my own fault. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I didn't mean to shut you down, and it's not about me, but I feel... terrible for letting that happen. I shouldn't have let you open up like that if I knew I wasn't even accepting what it was that we had. If I was going to be scared."

      You were starting to become worried, furrowing your brows as you gazed into the black screen ahead of you. It didn't make any sense, what he was saying. It was verging into the same kind of conversation that had made him uncomfortable. The kind of unnecessarily emotional conversation that neither of you were ready to have with each other.

    And you didn't know exactly what he was saying, but you had an idea. He was going back to try and reignite this connection, but it felt like he was overthinking it. Like he was about to blow things out of proportion. And for your own safety, you didn't want to let him.

    "Steve, I don't think-" you started, shaking your head as your face morphed into further confusion, but he cut you off.

    "Just... let me show you what I'm talking about."

    This conversation couldn't get anymore confusing. He was being so unnatural and cryptic, so randomly opening up to you. It scared you, and it didn't feel like the conversations you had with Steve before all this. You were rethinking everything, ready to just call it a night and take a break for a few days just so you could process what he was even saying and why he was coming back after nearly a month.

    It was irregular before, but in the way that you liked — irregular in the sense that you felt such a strong connection with a customer that you'd never felt before, irregular in the sense that you wanted to talk to him so often, irregular in the sense that it made you happy, but it didn't take up all your time. Now it was just strange. And you almost laughed at the way the universe seemed to be taunting you - of course right when you were feeling free, of course right when you were ridding yourself of your emotional baggage, taking your sexual freedom into your own hands, this would happen. It felt like a compromise right now, even if a part of you was happy to be hearing from him. 

    And then, a pause. The sound of shuffling. And then he turned his own camera on. And you weren't looking at a black screen anymore. Confusion, a blur in your mind — were you mistaking exactly who you were looking at? A brain hiccup, followed by clarity. An abrupt realization that you weren't mistaken.

    The sight in front of you when that camera turned on made you sit right up, your eyes nearly popping out of your head. There was no fucking way. It was some sort of sick joke. Because the man behind the camera simply could not be who you thought it was.

    "What. The. Fuck."

note: ummm!!!!

!!!

i told y’all it’d be getting crazyyyy

yes there will b a part six!!!

give me all of ur thoughts !!! gimme all of them !

will be adding tags in reblogs <3

[bukojuiice]

babe babe jsjsjs i hope this aint awkward but like do u have any tips when it comes to writin the characterizations of the genshin boys?? :0

mima my labs ! ! ! my bae !!! hi hi no no ofc not !! 🥺💗

ok first of all, your genshin hcs are i m m a c u l a te. i love love the way you write the genshin men, the layout of everything, and most esp. the cute little details and references! you capture them so well! your work is amazing and i hope you know that! i'm your supporter for life! no cap! ily you deserve the world! 😤💓

feeling insecure and unsatisfied w/ our work at times is normal! it's such a valid feeling and although it sounds and is still such a shitty feeling to experience, i feel like it's a stepping stone to how we can improve too! (trust me it happens to me a lot. sometimes i contemplate whether or not all of my written works are even worth posting at all tbh qwq)

but but but if i were to give some tips for characterization, i have a few! <3

1. it's up to you to expand on their personalities! it's up to you to build on all that sexy genshin boy foundation and just go wild! (ok typing this sounded better in my head HAHAHA)

- the first things that come up in my head when let's say, i'm writing for diluc; in canon he's known to be cold and unapproachable to everyone in mondstadt (exhibit 1: klee calling him the weird adult!!) but once you get closer to him, (ok i'm basing this from his voice lines and as a diluc main 😋) he's such a softie. like a literal softie. he's very gentle, poetic, and would be such an amazing bf honestly?? like imagine him constantly telling you that he will always be there for you, will always protect you and even invites you to play chess which he never does? gaWd he's such a hopeless romantic behind that rough exterior 😫✋

then there's childe. he's absolutely unhinged. a himbo and a smart-ass at the same time. he's lowkey the embodiment of chaotic evil (as portrayed in the game and whatnot) yet there's so much good left in him. he's such an amazingly written character and it just goes to show that despite being an anti-hero and perceived as "villain", that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to have normal qualities, have care, and love for others. (his family, the traveler, etc.) just because you're an antagonistic character, doesn't mean you're stripped of your rights to be a normal human being?? like,, mans loves cooking, caring for his siblings, and even cleaning the house! he's husband material! 😌

there's so much groundwork for you to get creative and to expand on their personalities! with a little research, that is! there's so much sprinkled in lore, character stories, and character voice lines. you're in for a treat honestly and having to research all these things about them make me fall in love with them even more! (marupok ako hhshshsh)

2. don't let their canon personalities limit your characterization on them !!!

- ok this is kind of contradicting to my first point, but still- HSHSHSH

although writing an OOC character is a writer's worst nightmare, i do believe that there's so many things you can do when writing headcanons for a particular character if you think outside of the box. aside from all the facts that mihoyo has given to us about them, did they ever tell us how they would spend a day at a beach? how they would be like as dads? nope nope nope. and i think that's the best part! because our imagination is limitless and it doesn't hurt once in a while to claim something about their personality that otherwise would never be confirmed right? 🤷‍♀️

you can still keep their canon personalities intact when writing for them but don't let that hinder you from going wild with hcs! like,, i will die on this hill with my headcanon of xiao being a punk rock tony hawk-esque sk8er boi in a modern au!