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shoichee · 4 years ago

Note

ALSO CAN I ASK FOR SOME RANDOM GOM HCS U HAVE? like just random ones u have or if u want like some toxic hcs abt them :D

I’m assuming that I can include their negative traits of their personalities as well 👀 Also including Momoi in this… lots of analyzing for this hc, so I used my brain here pls appreciate AGAIN these are all headcanons/interpretations of possible toxic hcs about them and only a few are canon

[Headcanons]

Kuroko Tetsuya

Kuroko is the hardest person to find a “negative/toxic” trait in, and it doesn’t seem like he has any

kind, understanding, hardworking, and compassionate; he’s everything a good-natured protagonist is

but he’s only like this to people/hobbies he cares about/close with; anything else he’s quite apathetic and also very passive/neutral about

the biggest hint to this is when Akashi criticizes Kuroko for cherry-picking who the GoMs should “go all out against” and who to casually toy with

and Akashi is absolutely correct

most of the series is portrayed through Kuroko’s perspective, and Akashi is the first direct outside perspective who comments on his actions/attitude

it’s obviously not that Kuroko didn’t “notice”... he clearly sees and knows what these GoMs are doing; after all, he had a conversation with Aomine about how observant he is to everything around him

of course, if you were close to him, all your opinions and issues matter to him

it’s the fact that what’s not really important to him is suddenly now important just because someone he knows is involved

just an example: if someone was advocating climate change, he has no opinion on it until someone he knows cares about the issue

in other words, he has a subtle hypocritical view on things, especially when he interacts with others

another clear negative trait could be that he’s too idealistic or perhaps naive, seeing things in a clear black-or-white picture and not necessarily a gray area

WE know, as an audience, that the GoMs honestly needed therapy and a proper adult to guide their out-of-control talents

but Kuroko, in his eyes, had viewed them as “bad” and “evil” in their ways of basketball until they changed after their respective matches

he’s probably someone who doesn’t yield to other opinions once he forms his own, and this may make him unable to consider things in other people’s perspectives

which is again, ironic: someone who doesn’t have generally a strong stance but once they do, it’s very unyielding, which further proves Akashi’s comment about Kuroko’s tendency to nitpick which to care about

a final hc about a potential flaw he might have here in a different ask!

Kise Ryota

y’all… it’s as canon as day that he has a mean side

straight from the author himself, it’s confirmed that Kise is only kind to those who he respects, and to the rest, he’s cold-hearted

in the manga, it’s very clear that he’s super judgmental on every first impression on people he meets, boxing them into categories based on the way they look, act, and speak

only when they surpass his preset expectations (low or high depends on his preliminary judgments of them) is when he opens his mind to the rest of their personality

this is a very close-minded way of thinking, and I hope I don’t need to explain why LOL

this can be interpreted as him being two-faced by the majority of the people in his school

his way of speaking can definitely be very cruel and crass, and to sensitive people, his words can easily shatter hearts

Kise’s negative/toxic traits are pretty straightforward here, so let’s move on

Midorima Shintarou

his harsh words can be considered a “negative” part of his personality, but I think it’s a lot more than just that

it’s confirmed in the series that he’s a bystander and almost always minds his own business

on one hand, one can say he’s self-driven and that he constantly strives for self-improvement

on the other, it can be interpreted as him being very dangerously ambitious and selfish, in which most actions he takes are for the sole reason of self-improvement and not for altruistic reasons

for example, when he helped Kuroko and Kagami in the training camp, it was under the reasoning that them becoming stronger would be a good challenge for himself to test and learn

that’s not to say that he can’t have friends, but most friendships he’s built are with capable people who can potentially provide him with some new beneficial skill/goal to strive towards

after all, he’s only learned to trust Takao as a friend only after seeing him as someone capable

because he’s so focused on himself, he’s extremely likely to turn a blind eye to injustice, most also likely to use Oha Asa to justify their “misfortunes” as he continues on his day

he’s not cold-hearted, but altruism comes by Midorima a lot rarer than the average person

now, we know that his Oha Asa aspect is used to balance his serious side as the “comedic side” of him, but if we really think about it, his obsessions with the horoscopes could be a huge obstacle in the future, where he may refuse to listen/depend on others in favor of his own intuition and the stars; after all, no one knows everything, and depending on the stars as one’s next source of advice and guidance isn’t a sound decision to commit themselves to

he seems like the person who overthinks and jumps to conclusions when it comes to social situations, but instead of confronting the person, he turns to fate and fortune if Takao isn’t near to help

Aomine Daiki

I wouldn’t be surprised if Aomine had a skewed sense of beauty standards from all those magazines he consumed and from being around Momoi for the majority of his life

of course anyone can distinguish pieces of media from reality, but during the most impressionable years of life, without experiencing other types of people and physiques, he would have limited knowledge on what “beauty” is and whatnot

this probably would be more of a problem in his adolescence than adult

a very given negative trait is his short temper plus his tendency to turn to physical violence when someone nags him to a certain point, seen with how he’s treated Wakamatsu in the beginning (though this seems to almost disappear by the end of the series)

what I’ve noticed in every scene he’s in, is that everything seems to revolve around him and his hobbies of basketball and Japanese idols

what I mean is that everytime we see Aomine, it’s always Momoi approaching to Aomine or just him always being the center of attention; never once has he approached Momoi for anything and it’s always been the other way around

in other words, people have to cater to him in order to get along with him/be in good graces (additional example: Imayoshi letting him do as he pleases to get him to be cooperative and participate in the games)

we’ve actually never seen Momoi’s hobbies outside of being a manager for her basketball teams and just anything basketball-related

he can be quite apathetic, choosing to only pay attention and try in things he’s interested in… which is basketball and those magazines

he seems to mature in the Last Game though, so I’m not quite sure to what extent these headcanons would apply to older Aomine (these also don’t really apply to Puremine)

Momoi Satsuki

the author probably also included this type of anime trope as comedy, but belittling another female for her body is definitely a no-go in reality; I feel like this is something most people gloss over really lightly

her body comments on Riko are actually what made me skeptical of her character at first before the show really shows her entire personality

that being said, it seems that she always takes the opportunity to look down on other girls (especially to those she is a stranger to) as a sort of “competition” when there’s boys around

definitely at certain moments, she screams a “pick-me girl” type of person (real phenomenon, you can search this up!)

while Kuroko doesn’t seem to actively mind this, I think she also has no good sense of boundaries and what’s considered appropriate touch and consent; people can chalk this up to “oh it’s just infatuation,” but this definitely isn’t okay if we really think about this

her life also seems to revolve around either Aomine or Kuroko, and based from that, I’d feel like she’d have a difficult time forming her own identity/life separate from her “manager life,” especially once she graduates from Touou

can definitely be interpreted as too clingy at certain moments, while others may think it’s her way of showing that she cares

Murasakibara Atsushi

most people would chalk up Murasakibara as “lazy,” and on the surface level, it does appear to look that way…

I think his true negative trait is that he has a lack of intrinsic motivations to drive him to do things

it’s different from being lazy; someone can be lazy while still having a goal, and certainly someone can be lazy while they’re motivated by thoughts of “I want to learn more,” “I want to get stronger,” etc. (you guys, it’s me right now in college)

and he doesn’t have that

part of this was contributed to the fact that he’s already so gifted with genetics and thus, there’s never been a goal for him to have to work towards to when he’s already at the top

he doesn’t actively seek out, and while that may be a characteristic of sloth, it’s not exactly right either

he willingly does things if people around him give him the motivations/reasons to do so; a person of sloth wouldn’t do anything even with all the motivations and goals handed right to their face

snacks/food are examples of extrinsic motivations that fuel him to carry on daily life

Himuro is always the main motivator for Murasakibara to come out and watch matches, and he also does whatever Akashi orders in both Teiko and present days // a person who can give the giant the motivation to do tasks would get along with him the most

searching out for a challenge against his basketball skills is something that’s never crossed his mind

why? he grew to be like the way he is because of the lack of results from his “search” of a challenge throughout his games

again, it’s only when Murasakibara gets handed a silver-platter of a challenge, Jason Silver, that actively gets him pumped up and raring to go

as such, Murasakibara is equivalent to a rusty machine, extremely difficult to start up and find compatibility with, but very powerful and efficient once he finds that spark

Murasakibara finding any partner or friend in the future would be extremely difficult because he ticks a different tune from the rest

Akashi Seijuro

his entire Bokushi side was a giant-ass red flag for very obvious reasons LOL anyways, moving on…

it’s difficult to pinpoint a negative characteristic for Oreshi because he’s the pinnacle of a gentleman character… but that technically is also his negative trait

for him to maintain that perfect image for himself and others, he has always carried himself in such a way that doesn’t allow for errors or expressions of “weakness”

thus, bottling up his frustrations and emotions to the point of no return is something very familiar to Akashi, and I’d feel like Bokushi is the result of his overflowing emotions left unchecked in the first place

I also predict that if Akashi continues to carry himself without letting himself wind down and feel emotions on the spot rather than locking it up inside him, a day will come when he splits into two halves again with a “new” Bokushi to deal with his current life (and let the current Oreshi take a backseat in his psyche to take a break from the turmoil)

also will tend to overwork himself to manage people’s expectations as well as his own, and he’s not one to depend on people not because he sees them as inferior or incapable, but because he’s doing this out of habit from being in positions of authority and responsibility for much of his life

and so, he may tend to hide important things or just not speak about his problems in general to those close to him because he feels like he can do it all himself and spare everyone the work and stress associated with them (a leader mentality)

throughout the majority of his life being calm and calculated, his emotions would definitely escape from him in forms of uncontrollable lashes of anger… before he would realize what he’s done… that is, assuming that another Bokushi hasn’t form within his subconscious yet

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keilemlucent · 5 years ago

Text

lavender latte: iii

(T (for now!))

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

chapter 1 || chapter 2 || chapter 4

word count: 4.2k

a cheeky drink and some mutual sabotage.

warnings: oh no, they say s*x, fluff, pining, the usual, and a wittle angst on the side, reader smokes cigs bc its a salem trademarked fic thing

enjoy folks ;^) the whole of this piece is gonna be about? ten chapters. so. hold on tight!!!

beta read by @keiqos, heart EYES

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“Let that sit for a second or you’ll burn yourself—”

“Don’t need to tell me twice, angel. I know the drill.” Hawks replied with a wink.

You weren’t ever going to get tired of that.

You really expected Hawks to disappear out of your life. You really, truly expected him to run off for good. How many bigger, better, and more important things did he have to do? Even if you managed to speak to him and regard him like any other customer (or, perhaps acquaintance, and more recently, friend — ), your mind swam with insecurities that only seemed to get worse over time.

You were waiting for the metaphorical thread to snap.

You waited for the day Hawks simply would stop texting you flirty bullshit on a somewhat regular basis.

But, holy fuck, the dude didn’t.

You couldn’t think of why. You weren’t complaining about the attention, but you also were terrified of getting too used to it. Hawks was a part... bird (?) right? He was flighty by nature.

Despite this, Hawks continued to not only text you but also stopped by the shop fairly frequently for his special, quirk-fueled beverage fix. Politely, he’d text you the day before he planned to make an appearance to check and see if you were working, and then show up the next day like it was nothing.

He usually wouldn’t stay for long; the hero was ungodly busy and always on the move. But, he always took the time to flirt and get a full description of his drink before dashing out to save the world once more.

Most days he visited were his ‘hero work’ days. He’d appear in his costume, done up and dashing for a sip and a quick talk before disappearing once more into the skies. Every once in a while, Hawks had an ‘office’ day where he’d be confined to his agency to catch up on his insane backlog of paperwork. On these occasions, Hawks would talk (stall) at the tea shop for as long as possible. You talked and joked with him as long as he would let you. Sure, it put you behind on work, but no one at the shop was going to tell you off for fraternizing with the number two hero (whose repeated presence was drawing more customers anyways). You both reveled in each other's attention, drinking in the other’s slowly softening smiles and quick wit.

On this day, Keigo’s wings were the shittiest they had been in a while. Plucked and almost barren with how much he’d been working lately. Total exhaustion seemed like it was constantly on the horizon, tugging as his eyelids and weighing down his chest each morning.

It was easier to get out of bed when he got to think about seeing you.

Sure, your drinks were a perk. Very much so. He was getting so used to the artisan beverages you crafted that the taste of his normal canned coffee was starting to bother him.

But, what his real thrill in visiting the tea shop was that he got to see you, and that made his heart pound.

He sat across from you, looking down into your newest drink. It swirled between dark and milky, a heady, rich aroma billowing up with the steam it produced. He had requested something ‘surprising, new, and horribly caffeinated’ as deep fatigue was the worst villain he’d likely see that day. You had just nodded, cheekily starting to prepare his drink with a bounce in your step, pupils going wide.

“I feel like you’re gonna start running out of ideas one of these days,” Keigo laughed, adjusting himself on his stool, gloves and jacket removed. He almost looked like a normal patron.

You grinned to yourself, idly cleaning around you as you often did, “I dunno, I’ve got a lot.”

Hawks raised an eyebrow, “Tell me about them.”

“Nope, top-secret,” You shook your head, digging into your apron to flash him the small notepad you carried on you.

Scrawled in nasty handwriting, you carried your many ‘feeling’ ideas around with you. Different concepts and abstractions all scribbled down, a nice long list to look back on whenever Hawks would make his appearances and his own vague requests. Your backlog of ideas made it easy to find something more than suitable to make for him.

When Hawks saw your notepad his eyes widened, tilting his head and a devious smirk coming to his lips.

Your expression fell, and you stuffed the papers back into your pocket, hiding your hot face by idly cleaning some more.

You left yourself very open for teasing, it seemed.

(Not that you or Keigo minded.)

“You keep a little list of all of your ideas! I’m beyond flattered,” Hawks ran a hand through his hair, flashing a cocky smile for you.

“I have to stay prepared, can’t be disappointing my celebrity sugar daddy,” You winked as Hawks’s eyes went wide, half-hearing a choke get caught in his throat. (You loved it when you were able to get him visibly flustered. What a treat.) You nodded down to the drink, “Should be good to try now.”

Keigo really liked spending time with you. He knew it was always fleeting and short and consistently he wanted to find reasons to stay with you at the tea shop counter for longer and longer. Your quips and chides continued to get quicker and more clever and he was having an increasingly difficult time keeping his cool around you. Most of the time he smoothed himself easily, not showing a trace other than that which he neurologically couldn’t control.

But sometimes, you were bold enough and ballsy enough to get him to gag on his literal words and he was positive that you were the only person to ever have him break composure in such a way.

He covered his weakened poise by sipping the new drink, mindfully letting the taste wash over his tongue.

Increasingly, you’d been changing up the so-called ‘vibe’ of your beverages. It seemed like each time Keigo dropped in, you had something new and vibrant to show him.

This drink was particularly different.

The taste was rich, dark, and smooth, rolling into the back of his throat and down his spine. It coated his insides with a warm, low heat. Peeking through were sweet, light accents, warm but almost... teasing?

His dick twitched.

Hawks’s mouth dropped open, any and all professional veneers dropped as you just beamed so fucking smugly at him.

“What do you think?” You leaned a bit forward, bouncing on your toes with excitement.

“Is... Is this supposed to taste like sex?” Hawks asked, taking another mouthful to confirm. Based on the way his eyes briefly shut and some of the tension rolled from his shoulders, he thoroughly confirmed it.

“Technically, it’s crafted based on like... a late-night rendezvous. I left it fairly up to interpretation beyond that. The rest is on you.” You shrugged, still bouncing as Hawks took another chug.

“What the fuck, (Y/N),” Pleasant shock colored his features, but clear amusement stretched across his lips as he continued to drink.

“You wanted something surprising and horribly caffeinated. That’s a dark chocolate mocha with two extra shots, our in-house raspberry and rhubarb syrup, a bit of white chocolate syrup, and a few of my add-ins as well. It’s pretty different from what I’ve made you before,” You blinked at him, stomach twisting as his expression remained unguarded. “I... I probably should’ve asked before giving you a drink that definitely could’ve been taken as sex. That’s my bad. I can remake you something else if you’d like?”

Keigo shook himself from his stupor, shaking his head and quickly regaining his composure. He took another sip to emphasize his words, “No, nope. It’s okay. Definitely okay. The drink is really good. I’m just now wondering something.”

“And, what’s that?” You asked, reaching behind the counter to grab your own iced beverage.

“Can your quirk be used to manifest bad feelings and concepts, just like good ones?” Keigo asked. Normally, he’d add more nuance, but he was getting impatient and sloppy around you. He’d have to keep that in check.

Especially with the way your shoulders drew up and tensed. You turned a bit away from him, any and all potential for eye contact torn away.

He hit a nerve.

“The type of abstract feeling doesn’t matter, I can emulate it,” You replied, pulling at your nails. Keigo had long picked up that it was one of your habits when your anxiety spiked.

He dropped it, but didn’t forget. There were public files on quirks. Maybe he’d look into it. Maybe. It felt a bit invasive, but considering plenty of that data was freely accessible, it hardly was an invasion of privacy, right?

(Except for the fact that it obviously made you very uncomfortable to discuss the more unsavory potentials of your quirk.)

(He just wouldn’t tell you.)

Keigo switched topics, easily rolling away from the topic, “Any particular... event that inspired this one?”

You pressed your hands into the counter, leaning over it to glare at him, “Are you referring to something with that comment, Hawks?”

He shuddered when you said his name, but you don’t notice.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” Keigo shrugged easily, going for another sip.

The drink was inspired by the several day cinematic, wine-bender you went on a week or two prior. An entire weekend with just you, your cats, three entire bottles of wine, and a backlog of movies to catch up on. You tried to consume lots of different types of media, but what had been catching your eye lately had been anything with gushy romance for fairly obvious reasons.

(There was an embarrassing amount of ideas for drinks that were a bit too romantic to properly indulge with your quirk. You’d never tested the limits of how certain feelings could manifest, and you weren’t quite ready to face the reality where you could make people nut from caffeinated milk.)

“It is good though, the drink,” Hawks smacked his lips together as if it would make his coming analysis more credible. “It definitely does taste like sex, but more so complicated. Darker.”

“Deeper.” You smiled. “Your palette is getting more refined. I’m proud.”

“Are you saying it was bad to begin with?” Hawks pouted, flashing you falsely weepy eyes and a puffed out lip.

You rolled your eyes, “Yes, you yourself have admitted this. You drink canned coffee still, so I can’t even call your taste good.”

Hawks gasped, putting a hand to his chest, “I’m hurt, truly wounded.”

“I’m sure you are, tailfeathers.”

“I really thought I had reliably moved up to ‘birdboy’, angel.”

You snorted, covering your mouth with your hand, “Just goes to show how quickly the tables turn, tailfeathers.”

Hawks’s pager suddenly chimed, a familiar sign. He took a quick look at it and sighed, moving to re-robe. You were surprised by the speed at which he did so, and the way he became tense so quickly.

It made you realize that he was always tense.

(Unless he was talking to you.)

“I thought today was an office day?” You asked, a bit of a disappointment clouding your voice.

Hawks just gave a small smile, fully plastering back on his heroic facade, “Duty calls. Lots happening lately.”

He flicked his visor back over his eyes, slid you your normalized wad of cash, and whisked himself out the door, immediately taking to the skies from the streets.

He’s in a bit of a hurry.

He... didn’t even say goodbye.

Wonder what’s happening?

Truthfully, Keigo was a bit startled by the notice on his pager. The whole reason he’d started patrolling the particular neighborhood the tea shop was in was because there was word of a villain syndicate working nearby. It hardly seemed right for the neighborhood, but Keigo knew that villains hid anywhere. Whatever they were planning was still relatively shrouded, but it was clear that it needed to be treated delicately. That particular neighborhood was rife with pedestrians, businesses, and homes and any sort of villainous activity had the possibility of reaping a heavy amount of collateral damage. Keigo and the Commission had been on their guards about it, but things had been steadily becoming more intense over the past few weeks.

Plopping himself on a rooftop, Keigo took up residence to stake out his newest lead, watching figures and silhouettes in a nearby office building.

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Funnily enough, the rest of your week went horribly. Just downright shitty. You figured at some point, things would let up, brighten, but they didn’t. Each day brought some new, personal calamity.

The first was a trip to the emergency vet with one of your cats after she swallowed a hair tie. An expensive vet bill later, she was perfectly healthy, but you remained wracked with anxiety.

Another day, the owner of the tea shop paid a visit to chew you out for your newest tea blends not fulfilling his picky seasonal requests. You were relieved it had nothing to do with how Hawks monopolized your time. Still, getting yelled at easily within earshot of both coworkers and customers made your insides twists.

The final small disaster was when a particularly asshole-ish customer chucked a hot drink all over you and your cute white sweater. One of the younger openers had been dealing with a difficult patron and an incorrect order, nothing out of the ordinary. When you tried to step in and de-escalate the situation, the man ripped the lid from his cup and splashed you with the burning liquid. You held back any sounds of pain even as your skin stung like hell when you offered to remake his drink.

One of your managers luckily allowed you to go home early. Thank god.

By the end of your shitty week, you fell into your apartment and just cried. White sweater stained and day feeling fairly ruined, you let yourself have a good, solid sobbing session to just release how terrible things had been.

It would pass, you knew. But it sucked at the moment.

It also didn’t help that Hawks had been particularly absent after running out the last time he came around. He’d still managed to shoot you a funny text or two, but mostly, it was silence from him. You rationalized it by reminding yourself of how quickly he flew off at the end of his last visit, hero business forever more pertinent than you and the shop.

You reminded yourself to keep yourself grounded in Hawks obvious impermanence, even if you were starting to get used to (and really like) having the hero around.

You decided that your Friday evening would be good. You treated yourself to a hot shower, noting with a hiss the pink scalded skin that covered your chest from your collar bones to just below your breasts. You threw on a facemask and uncorked a bottle of wine you had been saving for a rainy day.

You clicked on one of your favorite shows, an older cartoon that brought you consistent comfort in times like those. Curled up with a knit throw blanket and your healthy cats, it did help soothe the burns, mental and physical.

That is until you got a bit too drunk on red wine and it turned into sad drunk.

So, you made your way to the roof.

You weren’t fucked up beyond belief, despite the fact that you were towing an open bottle of red in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the left. The cold would sober you up, along with the nicotine. You hoped it would force you out of your head.

Upon throwing open the door to your apartment complex’s rooftop, you were made very aware of its wintertime disuse. The gardens that grew during the summer were snowcovered. The chairs and tables for lounging were in a similar state. You didn’t mind.

The view was still nice.

You set down your bottle and zipped up your coat. Quickly, you brushed off the flurries from a rickety lawn chair and plopped yourself down. You threw on some music from your phone, playing some sweet, old songs that made your chest ache when you needed it to.

The city stretched in front of you, beyond the rooftop. You didn’t live in a particularly wealthy district, but there was no shortage of dazzling neon and bright street lights dotting the ground below. You watched how the rest of the city stretched far beyond your little pocket, still gleaming with multi-hued lighting and dazzling in the wash of the crescent moon.

You took a swig, fishing for your self-dubbed ‘sad cigarettes’ and lit up. With your exhale, you watched as smoke lazily swirled away, carried by the soft winter wind. If you were any less drunk, you’d be freezing.

A shadow, winged, fell across the snow.

“You know, I get nervous when I see pretty girls on rooftops with bottles in their hands,” You jumped at the voice, whipping your head to the source.

Hawks stood, scarlet wings fanned outwards, on the lip of the rooftop.

Your eyes widened.

You took another sip.

He gave an affectionate laugh, jumping down into the area where you were seated.

Keigo had just been out on his normal, nightly patrol. The leak had been correct and he’d been stealthily tracking the villains while completing the rest of his hero duties. He was able to laugh off his exhaustion, but it was starting to eat him. Several cans of coffee a day was hardly doing it for him. He hid his sleepiness and aches well, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t difficult. All the same, his typical roles had to be fulfilled.

He was surprised to see you, all alone on a rooftop with a lit cigarette between your fingers. Keigo let himself be surprised before noting that ‘ yes, you definitely probably live in this apartment building and you’re just outside to smoke’, but the sudden jolt of panic he felt was crushingly unbearable.

Mostly because it was personally protective and not heroically instinctual and he couldn’t start acknowledging that aspect of his feelings for you. Not yet.

Keigo walked towards you, asking, watching you blink blearily at him “You doing alright?”

Eyes downcast, you shrugged, “We all feel shitty sometimes. Just depends on how you cope, ‘ya know?”

“And how do you cope, (Y/N)?” Keigo asked, pausing before brushing off a chair. “Mind if I join you for a bit? I could use a second to rest my wings.”

You nodded, almost offering him the bottle, but quickly pulling it back to your chest before taking another inhale. Offering a pro hero alcohol while he was pretty obviously working seemed like a bad move, even in your tipsy state.

“Most of the time, I watch nice stuff and distract myself, like most people, ya’ know?” You exhaled as you smoked, relishing the nicotine buzz. “Sometimes, though, I just feel extra shitty and need to extra cope.”

Hawks hummed in agreement, sitting back in the chair. His wings were folded up and over its back, the longest feathers trailing in the small snowdrift behind him.

“Do you get cold, being in the sky all the time?” You asked, eyes going cloudy as you stared up at the lights of the city and higher into the sky.

“Most of the time,” Hawks chuckled, throwing his arms behind his head, “I’ve told you this, angel. It was one of our first conversations.”

Your eyes widened at the realization, mouth open with a hearty laugh.

It made Keigo’s eyes water a little. He blamed it on the wind.

“I’m silly, I can’t believe I forgot,” You nestled back into your chair, tracing the lines between constellations. “It’s the whole reason you came to the teashop in the first place.”

Your voice resonated, focus foggy. Somewhere else, old memories played in your mind, recounting your first few meetings with Hawks.

A warm, small smile stretched across your face as you traced the stars.

Keigo watched, enraptured. You were cute, especially like this. All bundled up in your winter coat, half-zipped. There was a lot less stress in your shoulders than he normally saw at the shop, especially as your thoughts were so far away.

He wanted nothing more than to commit the contours and shadows of your face in the white moonlight to memory, never forgotten in the blissful cold.

You interrupted his thoughts so beautifully.

“Thanks for talking to me.” You took a sip from your bottle just after speaking, half-drowning your words, but Keigo caught each one. “I appreciate you.”

“P-pardon?” Keigo couldn’t tell if you caught his stutter, but even if you did, you didn’t show it. The comment felt like a jab to his jaw, half-knocking the wind of him and turning him into a filthy masochist. He’d take any whiplash if it meant you saying such kindnesses to him.

How could you just say shit like that?

What exactly did you mean by that?

Why did your attention make his legs tremble?

You turned your attention from the night sky to Hawks, something like uncertainty bubbling in your chest, “I appreciate you, ya’ know? Coming by the tea shop still, teasing each other and shit, you humoring me—”

Hawks interrupted you, feathers tensing at his back.

“I’m not humoring you.” Hawks deadpanned, staring at you oddly seriously. The yolks of his eyes seemed even more intense in the neon and night light.

“You’re... not?”

There was utter disbelief in your voice, accented by the way your jaw was half-opened.

Hawks shook his head, standing in emphasis, feathers fluttering as he did, “ No, angel. Not at all. I visit because...”

I like you.

“Because I like your drinks.”

Because you make me feel good in a way I’ve never felt.

“You’re fun to talk to, too. Added perk.”

Because I want to hear your voice when I breathe and when I die.

“I enjoy it, you know? You're fun.”

Some feeling in your chest, something full of hope, crushed itself and compacted to the point of pain. You sniffled at his admission, blaming it on the cold. In a fucked up, sad way, part of you was so relieved.

He likes the shop. He likes your drinks.

He’s around because he wants to be.

But not because you’re special to him.

His words reminded you of your insignificance in Hawks’s life. No matter how much you craved his attention and words, and more recently found yourself staring at the plumpness of his lips and the curve of his cupids bow and daydreaming about how much you wanted to lean over the tea shop's counter and kiss the constant, teasing smile off his face—

But.

You don’t matter that much to him.

Sure, he likes you, but he’ll never feel the same way about you.

You made the decision then to make the most out of Hawk’s affections and sweet words. You’d take what you could get, even if it was fleeting and probably eventually heartbreaking. It seemed smart, to refuse to get your hopes up for someone so unattainable.

You let out a shaking sigh, “Thank you, Hawks. I appreciate you coming around. You really light up my day.”

Keigo saw the fall of your face and bottled himself up. Shoved down everything. Fuck his feeling, fuck how he felt about you, this was all fucking terrifying. It was getting to be too much and he had to try and control himself.

Just like he’d been taught so well.

He was just so happy to be around you. He could squash his feelings, even if they were fairly obviously somewhat mutual. God knows that he didn’t know how to handle anything like that.

On the gods, his pager beeped.

“Duty calls?” You said, standing up yourself and brushing off the stray snowflakes.

“Seems so.” Hawks sighed, nodding, “Thanks for letting me rest here. It was good to see you, (Y/N). I’ll see you soon, okay?”

You waved goodbye as Hawks disappeared as quickly as he came, launching himself from the roof with the heavy sound of wing beats.

Soaring away, Keigo risked a final look at you. He swore he saw tears in your eyes.

He forcibly repressed his feelings, reminding himself that your company, words, and quirk-made beverages were more than enough. The flutter in his chest when he thought of you wouldn’t rest, but he could learn to ignore it.

On the roof of your apartment, you felt fatigue in your bones and wetness on your cheeks. You ignored both in favor of smoking another cigarette, soft, melancholy music being your only constant, reliable companion.

You reminded yourself that he, Hawks, was a temporary fixture, more flighty than most and liked you just enough and for surface-level reasons. You could take that. You’d do anything to be around him more, even if it never amounted to anything.

You, just as Keigo did, pressed down any larger feelings.

(The thing about feelings, though, that neither of you was very good at remembering, was that they don’t go away. Sure, you can let them go, but that takes time or a practiced mind!)

(When you take feelings, big, aching, soaking feelings and shove them down into the deepest parts of you, they just tend to make you bleed. The ‘hidden’ feelings color your blood as it spills, even if you don’t notice when it falls and its change in hue.)

(One can only hope that both Keigo and you listened instead of lied.)

Both of your hearts ached, and neither of you fully understood why.

#salem writes #hawks x reader #mha hawks #bnha hawks #takami keigo x reader #keigo takami x reader #reader insert #mha x reader #keigo x reader #hawks x y/n #takami keigo x y/n #lavender latte #bnha x reader

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authoressofdarkness · 5 years ago

Text

Guide Me Safely To Shore

Only one thing ever made Tony Stark think twice about fulfilling his full potential. Two little words on the inside of his wrist, where his soulmark sits, ghostly, waiting for him to recognize his soulmate in some unredeemable way. He always knew he’d hurt them. But when he discovers his soulmate is none other than the feisty little Spiderling swinging around his streets, he realizes things are a lot worse than he ever could have thought.

Notes: So this just hit me in the middle of the night while reading fanfiction and avoiding hw the other night. I’ve got several ideas for it going forward, so this isn’t a one shot, but with midterms right around the corner I can promise nothing. Sorry. But I love you all and I’m hoping to get the next part out soon. <3 Enjoy, and I’d love to hear what you think!

This is unbetaed, so sorry for any mistakes.

Also, if anyone is interested, I realized while titling this that the song I took inspiration from is actually a lot more relevant to this story than I thought, and even more so the play itself. You can consider it the theme song for this story. The song is called “All That Matters,” from the Broadway cast of Finding Neverland. If you ever get the chance to see it, you most definitely should, or at least listen to the soundtrack. So listen to that if y’all get a chance, and do with that what you will.Okay, now enjoy! 💙

Only one thing in the world had made Tony think twice about fulfilling his full potential.

It wasn’t his friends. Or family — not that he really had any to speak of. Not his position at SI, not fear for his life, his work, his legacy, or anything of the sort.

It was the last thing someone would expect, honestly. Even for a man like Tony, an alpha with such power, who commanded such respect, had to have a soulmate. One he was expected to love, cherish, and yes, even a man like him craved that. He hadn’t met them yet, though, his soulmate, but the two words branding him, marking him with the words from his soulmate that will seal their bond, are there, have always been there, carefully hidden away from the public eye… and terrifying him in a deeper way than anything else could.

Please don’t.

Those two little words, branded onto his skin, reminding him every day of the horrors he may be wreaking on his soulmate without knowing it. There was no way to interpret them in a good light; and he knows that they mean, to some extent, he is going to hurt them.

And what’s worse, is that he hears them so often. People begging. It’s almost become part of his reason behind his cruel reputation — forcing people to beg, just to make them say it, just to make absolutely certain before he does something irreversible that it's not his soulmate he holds. Each time, he has to hold his breath, think about everything he’s ever done in that split second while he waits to see if hearing the words this time will change his life.

It’s the only thing that’s ever made him think twice about the things that he does. If there’s one person he doesn’t want to hurt, that he’d protect with his life at all costs, it’s his soulmate.

Yet he has no idea who it is, and the only thing he does know is he’s destined to fucking hurt them. Probably make them beg for their life before he realizes that they’re his soulmate. That he’s hurting his other half.

Most of the time he relishes the power, the fear and respect he gets from other people. But the idea of his soulmate being afraid of him just makes him sick to his stomach.

Tonight, the thoughts weigh heavy on his mind as he flies around the city in his suit.

In the years since he’s come to power — subtly, of course, then slowly less so — there had been little resistance from the masses. His influence is good for them, for the most part. It’s more peaceful than it’s been in years. Most people go about their lives business as usual. So long as they don’t challenge him.

Except there’s still a couple of people who challenge him.

The Avengers are, by far, the most pesky. But in recent times they’ve rather given up. There’s bigger problems in the rest of the world, still, and they can’t trick him or infiltrate him, can’t operate in secrecy the way they usually do. Tony is isolated — few friends, and none that would dare betray him, especially not after what happened to Obie. His company is firmly in his own hands, and his technology gives him virtually limitless access to information. He can see virtually anyone, anywhere, anytime he wants. There’s no way to hide from him. And what’s worse for them — he doesn’t try to hide what he’s doing. There’s nothing to expose when you’re honest from the start. He’s practically untouchable.

But… wait, did he say no way? That’s not… entirely true. He doesn’t know how, but someone has found a way around it.

Because there’s one person other than the Avengers that still bothers him.

Spider-Man.

He’d let him go for a while. It’s his own fault they’ve gotten so confident, if he’s being honest. Letting them run around and play vigilante. At first, they’d been a help, in truth — dragging in some of the street trash even he couldn’t control, and couldn’t be bothered to deal with personally. But then he’d started to get bolder. Bold enough to interfere with him. And while he couldn’t do any major damage, he sure was annoying.

Mostly because he was succeeding. In interrupting little things, at least. And, going back to his earlier thought, because he can’t fucking find him.

Whoever the guy is, he’s careful. Smart. Smart enough that Tony hasn’t been able to find basically any footage of him, anything to link Spider-Man with a normal persona. And he’s obviously just a normal person under the suit. He has to be. And there’s no way he lives in that thing all the time. Especially not with the way he’s avoided his detection so well.

He’s made all the harder to track by his erratic schedule. He can come out at night or during the day, every day for a month and not be seen again for a month the following days. The only consistency is that he tends to be out and about in the Queens borough. Even that is a wide enough area that he has a hard time using it to pin the man’s identity down. He’s narrowed it, certainly, but calculating the amount of people that could make it there every so many days, accounting for the inconsistent schedule and what it could mean, age, height, and hell, even gender — because really, all they would have to do is use a voice modulator and let people see what they wanted to for the rest — means that the number of suspects is still in the thousands.

Speaking of pinning the other man down…

He hopes to be able to do that tonight. He’s let the vigilante go unhindered for long enough. It was time for them to have a little talk. Preferably a short one. He’s tired and temperamental tonight. The day has been long, and all he really wants is someone to help bear the load, but… he can never be so vulnerable. Not with just anyone, particularly, and there’s no one he trusts around tonight. That’s part of the reason why he’d decided to come out and fly around.

That, and because he’d gotten a pretty reliable tip that Spider-Man was going to be out and about himself tonight. And they have some business to attend to.

He finds the vigilante, to his surprise, perched on the edge of the roof, legs swinging in the breeze, looking out over the city through his lense-covered eyes.

He descends from a distance, loudly enough there’s no way the other man doesn’t hear as he’s approaching. But he doesn’t move. In fact, Tony is surprised to hear it when he comes up behind him and he still hasn’t moved at all except to suddenly say, “I wondered how long it would take.”

“For what?” Tony can’t help himself; he bites, immediately, curious. Fascinated, he’d dare say. The confidence in his own abilities he must have to sound so calm, to stay put upon hearing him approach, is almost unbelievable. Either that, or he doubts his own ability to make a clean escape, and so didn’t bother. He’s not sure which option he prefers, but either way, this will be interesting.

“For you to come looking for me. Everything I’ve done to keep my identity a secret, I’m sure you’re dying to know by now.”

He says it so matter-of-fact, emotion undistinguishable in his voice. Tony tilts his head, unsure whether he should be impressed with his ability to sound so cool and self assured, or annoyed with the fact his assessment was correct.

It hardly matters. Part of the reason they had to have this chat in person was so that Tony could begin to work on figuring it out. The AI in his suit is no doubt already working on it. And he doesn’t sound like, for all his seeming self-assuredness, that he was smart enough to use a voice filter, so no doubt Jarvis is well on his way. Not that it would have stopped him, but it might have delayed the inevitable enough that he may actually have had a chance to escape this time before a verdict came in.

“I suppose you’ve got me there,” Tony finally says, after a long moment of deliberation. “I don’t suppose now that I’m here you’ll just tell me? I can go easier on you if you come quietly.”

Spider-Man lets out a bitter laugh and shakes his head. “Can. But you won’t. You could just let me go. But we both know you wouldn’t have come all the way out here just to do that.”

“Well you could go back to fighting low-level crime instead of infringing on my operations, couldn’t you?” Tony retorts. “And flattered as I am by your assessment of me-“ he can’t say much, as he’s not entirely wrong, “-I thought I’d at least give you a fair chance, first, before we go quite that far.”

“I don’t think your definition of fair chance and mine are the same.”

Tony ignores him, continuing on. “Go back to fighting your low level crime and having a good time and whatever else it is you do. Stop interfering with my operations. I’ll even give you my endorsement so the police won’t bother you.”

It’s a generous enough offer, all things considered, but the vigilante is having none of it.

He snorts. “Is that all you’ve got? Really? I expected some kind of bribe, at least.”

“Maybe if you show me you can keep your word, we could talk about it.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’m not giving you my word on anything.”

“Shame. Here I thought we’d make a good team.”

“In your dreams, Stark. Just because the Avengers have given into you doesn’t mean everyone else has.”

“That would be a dream, wouldn’t it?” Tony muses, then heaves a sigh. “Fine then. Have it your way.”

For a moment, neither of them move. Then, by some unspoken signal, Tony’s hand comes up, repulsor glowing red hot, just as Spider-Man shoots his first web.

The shot hits the web halfway, making them both disintegrate into thin air. Already moving, Tony flies up in the suit, only to feel a tug on his leg halting his upward momentum — a web. In the second it takes for his suit to disintegrate that one, as well, he’s being covered in more, the force of them pelting him back into the roof, feet sticking to the concrete and torso forced back against one of the light poles, sticky and irritating.

Of course he’d figured out a way to make it so the webs didn’t stick long to his suit as soon as the Spider-Man had made an appearance, but it wasn’t perfect, yet. Couldn’t be without the formula. So while he wasn’t pinned down for long, it’s just enough to get on his nerves.

Even more so because for all his big talk, he’s not actually fighting. Spider-Man pinned him down… and fled.

Well, that just wouldn’t do, would it?

Tony engages the full force of his throttles to just break through the webs faster, and gives chase. He can’t just let him get away with that, after all.

As he flies, he gives himself a minute to focus on the internal calculations flashing in front of his eyes. “How are we doing, Jarvis?”

“Nearly there, sir. Calculations based on body scan and public records have erased quite a few suspects. Cross referencing voice clips with all accessible video including the remaining suspects, but the sheer number is immense. I require a bit of time.”

“I’ve given you a bit of time. I need a name, Jarvis. Something for blackmail. I need to end this tonight.” He doesn’t have time for playing games with the Spider-Man, especially because he’s managed to disappear so effectively every time he tries to. He doesn’t know when he’ll find him again if he doesn’t tonight, and he has a lot of things happening in the near future he does not want messed with.

If he doesn’t find the information he needs, then this night isn’t going to end near as pleasantly as he’d hoped.

Spider-Man is fast, swinging through the city, but not fast enough to shake him. Especially not with his AI’s ability to analyze his every move and know where he’s going to turn next.

He lets him swing around for several minutes, pretending to give chase and hoping to tire him out. He has to just be waiting for him to get bored or lose sight of him so he can drop in somewhere and hide until he leaves or take off the suit to blend in with everyone else. Unfortunately for him, that trick isn’t going to work on him the way it probably does for normal people.

Tony just lets him swing around and tire himself out with him in hot pursuit, then, when he’s sure he has to be running out of energy — and webbing, he could hope — he flies up, into the clouds, dodging and weaving and utilizing his tech to keep an eye on the vigilante while staying out of his line of sight.

It works. Spider-Man drops onto a nearby roof, stumbling a little and bracing himself against a light pole. With a dangerous grin, Tony swoops down to meet him.

By the time he hears him coming and spins around, it’s too late. Tony closes the suit’s hand around his throat and flies him forcefully into the wall of the rooftop exit. Brick crumbles around his outline at the force of the impact, and the lenses of the suit go wide as he claws at his throat.

Almost at the same time as the impact, a picture flashes up in the visor of his helmet. “One almost perfect potential match, sir.”

For a second, Tony just stares at it. Looks through the analytics and double checks them. Then he laughs, unable to help himself. It’s just unbelievable enough that it explains so much. So young — hardly even a man. Spiderling, then, more so than Spider-Man. And even better — an omega. No wonder no one looked twice at this kid before as a potential threat.

He lets the helmet melt away, now, and looks down at the kid, grip around his throat tightening just a little as he watches him wheeze out a breath. His hand around Tony’s wrist is tight, tight enough his suit issues a warning, but not enough to actually dislodge his hand.

“So.” Tony tilts his head. “We meet again, Spiderling. Should probably stop doing that, hm?” He gets a strangled sound in answer, which is about all he could expect, really. He just shrugs. “Oh well. It’s not like it’ll happen much after tonight. Because I’m going to put an end to this, right here.” He leans forward, helmet reappearing— just in case he would do something like try to head butt him, because frankly, while it wouldn’t work, it would hurt — until their noses are almost brushing through their respective suits. “Last chance, Spiderling. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Are you gonna be a big boy about this or not?”

Tony releases his throat just enough for him to draw in a few breaths to answer. He holds his breath as the vigilante sucks in a few huge gulps of air before spitting out, “Go to hell, Stark.”

Tony just chuckles, clicking his tongue. “Oh, I will, I’m sure. But at this rate, you’re going to get there first.” He presses him a little harder against the wall, grip tightening again and ignoring the way the bits of brick and concrete pour down around them like rain. “I didn’t want to do this, kid, truly. But if you think I won’t kill you, you’re wrong. And if you think your loved ones won’t be targets if you don’t quit your shit, you’d also be wrong. I don’t like to be cruel, but I am what you make me, and I won’t stand for this any longer, Peter.”

The use of his name has a visible impact on the kid. He gasps, and his grip on his wrist tightens enough around the metal of his suit that it bends around his fingers and it actually hurts. Tony’s grip around his throat slackens a little automatically, and he frowns. It’s weird. It almost… burns? That’s not what a bruise or metal cut should feel like...

And then he hears it. The teen sucks in a breath, and in a broken, raspy whisper, gasps, “Please don’t...”

The effect is instantaneous. The slight burning in his wrist turns into a wildfire, like a brand, hot and burning and fuck does it hurt for that second. He responds automatically, jerking his hand back as if scalded, and watching almost in slow motion as the younger man crumples to the floor. It takes a moment longer than it probably should for him to realize exactly what’s happening, and then the suit melts off his body and he stares in horror as the color seems to settle in his soul words, now shining a bold black from where they sit on the inside of his left wrist.

Heart thundering in his chest, he stares for a long minute before snapping out of it and rushing to his side. He’s passed out, now, though from lack of oxygen or shock or what, he can’t be sure right now.

Carefully, so carefully, he tugs off his mask, both wanting to see his face for real and knowing he should see how bad the damage to his throat is. It catches him off guard at first, how gorgeous he is, and then how young, despite Jarvis already showing him both of those things earlier. He’s still marveling, though. Could this really be his soulmate? Oh, what is he going to do?

He forces the thoughts away for a moment, checking Peter’s throat. It’s ringed with finger-shaped bruises, but it doesn’t look too severe. He leans his head down, listening at his chest. Now that he’s got proper airflow back he doesn’t seem to be wheezing or otherwise struggling to breathe. So he should be fine.

Fine, physically, except for the fact that he’s Tony’s soulmate. That they’re branded together now, a link between their very souls keeping them from being able to end this in a way either of them would have imagined.

It’s funny. With how long he’d wanted this, he should be ecstatic. Instead he’s just… numb. A whole host of emotions rages inside him, and he can’t allow himself to acknowledge any of them until he figures out what to do.

For now, there’s only really one thing he can do. His soulmate is hurt, in more ways than one. He needs medical attention, to a certain extent, and they need to talk. Waiting around here until Peter wakes up isn’t going to be ideal for fixing either of those things.

So he bends down and scoops Peter up, cradling his unconscious form close to him. Then, with a tired sigh, he takes to the skies again, carrying them back towards the tower, glowing in the distance like a lighthouse in the sand, beckoning him to shore.

He has a feeling actually finding the shore is going to be a long time coming, but this is the first step he can take to finding it. He just hopes they’ll both be able to tread through these rough waters long enough to get there.

#starker #ironspider #iron spider #peter parker x tony stark #tony stark x peter parker #sim tony #alpha tony stark #omega peter parker #abo dynamics #starker fanfiction #starker fanfic #ironspider fanfiction #ironspider fanfic #soulmate au #soulmates #soulmarks #soulwords #peter parker/tony stark #tony stark/peter parker

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not-to-be-gay-but-holy-shit · 4 years ago

Note

Im kinda neutral about the tma metaplot but i really *want* to like it, id love to hear your thoughts on it!

Oh hi! I honestly didn’t expect anyone to want to hear my thoughts!! (Keep in mind I am dumb and am generally bad at literary analysis but it’s something I’m trying to get better at so like,, pls be kind) It’s under the cut because its a thousand words long. Sorry. 😬

First of all, I want to talk about my personal reason for enjoying the meta turn. The Magnus Archives, even from the first season, was written in the podcast equivalent of a found footage movie. Everything that we hear as the audience could, conceivably, be found and listened to as if we are in the same universe, and I’m a big fan of that trope. It’s the same reason I enjoyed Percy Jackson so much as a kid. Percy starting the story off with a fourth wall break, addressing the reader, like I found his journal on my own, made me feel like a part of the story. So that’s my indulgent reason for enjoying this twist. It felt like a nice progression from “everything you hear is recorded on a tape recorder as a plot device” to “this is a thing that happened and you get to listen to it”. Very satisfying, in my opinion. It’s also the reason I can’t finish the pilot of my own fiction podcast because I want it to be found footage so BADLY but I can’t DO IT non-derivatively fuck

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what it adds to the story metaphorically! Because oh boy does it have some implications if Jonny does it right!

We all know that The Magnus Archives is about capitalism and helplessness, right? Being trapped in your workplace and any attempt to escape or quit is followed with threats of violence (i.e. being evicted, starving to death) and upper management is manipulating you and using your labor to commit terrible crimes but you can’t do anything to stop it? Thanks to this blog post from 2019 talking about both capitalism and hopelessness in the narrative that initially got me thinking about that interpretation.

Even outside of the implications of being stuck at the Institute, characters find themselves helpless... a lot. In season one, Martin is trapped in his apartment and is helpless to do anything except wait out Jane Prentis. Again in that season, Sasha, Martin, and Jon are helpless to watch Tim unknowingly walk into a room of homicidal worms, potentially killing him. Season two, they find out after the fact that Sasha has been replaced and are helpless to save her because she’s already gone. Need I mention the amount of times that Jon has been kidnapped, and his autonomy taken away from him? Or how Jon spends the entire fourth season watching Martin fall in with the Lonely, unable to sway him away from Peter Lukas’s side (until the very end). Even Elias, at the end of season 4, tricking Jon into starting the Eyepocolypse follows this theme. Once he gets to “apologies for the deception”, Jon knows he needs to stop reading or something bad is going to happen but he’s helpless to stop it. Season five, on the other hand, is them trying to get back some of that autonomy. Even though they’re helpless to save everyone, they do what they can, killing a few avatars along the way, but it's not enough, and there’s still tragedies along the way. And these are all just things I could remember off the top of my head! There’s definitely more instances if you go looking for them.

This is my theory: With the implications of the meta twist, we, as the audience, are going to be forced to experience what it feels like to be truly helpless in the face of tragedy, just like the characters have felt through this entire experience.

Of course, we could, at any point, stop listening. The newest episode could come out and none of us could listen to it, but that’s not going to happen. Most of us, I’m sure, will listen to the next episodes, knowing we are going to leave the experience emotionally affected in some way. The Magnus Archives is a tragedy, and we all signed up to listen to that tragedy, knowing that nothing we could do will change the fact that our beloved characters are going to be hurt and traumatized and (possibly) dead by the end. All we can do is listen.

Meanwhile, the implications of Jonny hinting at a fourth wall break, including us as characters, means that, potentially, we could do something. If we exist in the podcast, we, who have the knowledge that something is about to go very, very wrong, could feasibly change something, fix something, save our favorite characters.

But we just can’t (firstly, because it’s not actually real, but secondly because that’s the point.)

We could take this another step further, too. Jonny could propose that instead of helping, instead of trying to change things, we the audience, were enablers to all the tragic happenings to the characters throughout the series, and we’re just using these traumatized people as our sick entertainment. That’s commentary in itself about the entertainment industry under capitalism, and it fits into that original theme of exploitation. Now, personally, I don’t think that’s the moral that Jonny is intending. It’s an awfully grim outlook, and, I think, a little harsh on your fans if the moral is you could have stopped this bad thing if you tried, especially considering most TMA fans are people oppressed in some way or another by the systems we live in. But it’s still a theory (and I want proof that I said it, just in case the narrative does go this way).

Anyways. I don’t remember where I was going with this. TMA meta good. Send tweet.

I’m a very inexperienced writer, so I don’t trust myself to formulate a good defense of whether or not Johnny is writing the meta correctly, but, on a gut instinctual level, I’m enjoying the twist so far, so we’ll see!

There’s also the potential for it being used as commentary on government surveillance, or social media, but when it comes to TMA themes, I’m a big fan of it’s approach to helplessness, so I’m biased to think that every new plot device is about that. Thanks for asking, this was actually a lot of fun to write!!

Tl;dr: imo TMA is about helplessness under capitalism and including the audience as a character will make it even more heartbreaking when the tragic thing happens and we can’t stop it.

#tma spoilers #tma #the magnus archives #mag 196

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god-fucking-dammit-mizutani · 5 years ago

Note

What are some of your favorite things about Taishiro?

I was about 2K in when I realized this could have simply been a short list but since I’m the Queen of Not Shutting TF Up, here’s some terribly rambly not-quite-meta:

1. Their characters! I really think as separate characters they’re really fun to sit down with and just consider what makes them tick. It’s been years since I dipped my toes back into the fandom and I have honestly never been bored of them. I love a lot about the other characters of course, but there’s something about Taichi and Koushirou and their stories and their growth and development that feels — I don’t know, timeless? To me, at least. I also just think Koushirou’s arc is Really Important in general, but that’s for another time. I also love the way they interact in the canon and how their personalities kind of work with each other which leads me to:

2. Their Dynamic! It’s easy to say they’re the quintessential Lovable Jock and Nerd archetypes, but overall I think one of the biggest appeals to me is how they don’t really fall back on typical tropes too much and they honestly compliment each other as characters rather than contrast. I think in the digital world specifically they were both on equal footing— they were both pretty important exactly for the reasons that made them different. Taichi was a people person, so he led them. He was a go-getter so he fought with raw power and heart. Koushirou was a thinker, a planner, and so he used his skills and knowledge to unlock secrets, to get them home, to understand their circumstances more. It could have led to a lot more fighting and shrugging each other off to see which side worked better: brawn or brains. Not to say they didn’t have squabbles, but the above was never really the exact conflict in itself iirc? There were quite a few times Taichi had to lean back on Koushirou’s skills and ask him for help, and there were plenty of times most of the kids relied on Taichi and Agumon’s strength— but that didn’t mean Koushirou shied away from fighting either (let’s not talk about the clown episodes pls). They fill in for each other’s weaknesses and I think that’s both in the digital world and just their relationship overall. Koushirou is more calm, more collected and strategic, more of a listener, and Taichi is the more brash, the more emotional one for better or worse, sometimes more optimistic to Koushirou’s realism, which I think evens out in some way. This also kind of feeds into how I feel that:

3. They better each other! Taichi has a bit of an impulsivity issue with a yo-yoing icarus complex. His heart is always in the right place, I believe, but sometimes his action takes precedent or he gets swept up or overwhelmed to the point of frustration-- which I think is where we see his occasional outbursts of anger or complete dejection. Personally I think he needs someone steady; more reasonable to even him out when things get too much. There’s a scene in the novels about the Nanomon part where Sora even thinks as much: “If Taichi didn’t have at least one person around to scold him and shake him up, he would never get back on his feet.” She thinks she’s the only who fits the bill in this particular scene at least (her attempt doesn’t work but overall I agree she’s a really steadying presence for Taichi, too), but I do also personally think it also spells out Koushirou fairly well. One thing I’ve kind of noticed, and it might just be my own poor interpretation/memory or something idk, is that he never really feeds too much into Taichi’s anger. He might be some part of the cause or the receiver of his frustration at times, but he doesn’t feed it back with the same level of anger and fists and I think that helps Taichi a lot. Most of the time Taichi seems to understand what he did wrong right after losing his temper, apologizes, lets out some of his frustration through venting maybe, and then they feel like they move on. Koushirou doesn’t throw it back in his face, but he doesn’t necessarily openly excuse it either (usually appearing more Stern I guess when speaking back), and Taichi doesn’t come off like he’s been secretly agitated by Koushirou for five hundred years— like it generally seems just a product of the time, like it stemmed from outside frustrations and internal struggles and they find a way to move on. And even with all the respect he shows towards Taichi, I don’t think Koushirou is blinded by it. For all his issues with people and believing he can’t know them without knowing himself, I think Koushirou is actually pretty good at reading people to a certain degree (maybe not all of their cues, but definitely them on a core basis). There’s a scene in the novels where Yamato tries to vy for the leadership position, telling Taichi he’s too soft-hearted, and Koushirou jumps up immediately to Shut It Down, specifically saying he won’t recognize anyone else but Taichi. Surprised by this, Yamato tries to spin it as Koushirou just being one of “Taichi’s fans”, to which he also Shuts That The Fuck Down with an accurate description of why Yamato could never replace Taichi (spoiler: it’s that he’s too emotional and Yamato concedes because he can’t argue lmao). There’s a specific line in that scene which says Koushirou, “wasn’t speaking out of loyalty to any one party,” so I think the point of it all is that, objectively, Koushirou believes Taichi is the best leader solely because of his qualities and not just because of Koushirou’s own personal biases. He’s loyal to Taichi because he knows him, trusts him, and believes in him as a person (and he’s so right to). I really don’t think it’s some sort of hero worship-- I think Koushirou can look at Taichi and see all the cracks in his armor, but instead of hollow space he sees potential; he sees the pieces welded together with gold and all the good Taichi wants to do, can do, will do, and Koushirou is willing to support him, which sometimes means telling Taichi when he’s faltered along the path and not just going along with it. I just think this is a pretty profound thing from a character who spends a lot of time distancing himself from others, including his parents up until the episode they hash things out. Essentially I think he wants the best for Taichi and he’s not going to pull the proverbial punches when needed, and I think that’s good for Taichi on an emotional level sometimes. Like his mellow compliment. He respects Taichi, and the thing is, I feel like Taichi respects him in kind. I know there’s a scene where Koushirou gets mad at him and Taichi is like, “No please don’t be,” in 02 but I’m drawing a blank as to the why right now (it’s been longer since I rewatched that than 01 haha)… but it’s a very big difference imho on how Taichi reacts to other people being angry at him. Like, he doesn’t want to disappoint Koushirou, like his opinion of Taichi matters to him. I think Hikari falls into this, too, and Sora probably, but just not the point of this post. But in general Taichi realizes Koushirou’s strengths and utilizes them. The biggest example is when they try to open the gate and Taichi asks Koushirou for his opinion on how to place the cards. This flusters Koushirou because he’s not exactly an attention seeker. Nothing he has done in the series has been towards the goal of recognition-- just simply knowledge. And Taichi knows this. He knows Koushirou is smart and lifts him up and literally tells him he’s important and the group openly agrees (here’s also how the manhwa interpreted it lmao). It is so much more blatant in the 2020!Digimon series lmao but I do think it’s sprinkled in the OG series, too, with the kids being a little less overt and little more Complicated regarding these kinds of interactions. Also on the subject of bettering each other, Taichi is the sole reason Koushirou decides to go to the camp in the first place. This is something that used to be explored in a looott of fics back in the Hay Day but essentially my point here is: Taichi is someone who will bring Koushirou out of his comfort zone, but I don’t think he’d actually intend or suggest something that would bring him discomfort. The camp itself is very blatantly not Koushirou’s Scene, but we know he doesn’t make decisions lightly. He doesn’t do it to advance his social skills, either. He does it because Taichi asked him to and he trusts Taichi enough to have his best interests at heart and I think it does in some way lend to Koushirou coming out of his shell overall. But again, that could just be me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4. They trust each other! I went through a lot of that above I think so I don’t have more to add at the moment, but it’s worth pointing out specifically.

5. They’re also not Perfect! Sounds counter intuitive from everything else I’ve said, but it’s true?? It makes thinking about their dynamic really interesting and fun to explore because they feel more like real people with flaws and their relationships with each other and others have flaws and I just love when shows can do that?? Like just give subtle enough nuances to characters and their relationships so they just feel more realistic— like you could meet another person like any of them off the street?? I digresssss. But more specifically for taishirou it makes wanting to explore their relationship more interesting— what would happen in this one scenario? What is it like when they grow older? I think for instance communication is probably an issue of sorts between them for a while. I can’t come up with the words for it right now and there’s been better stated meta before haha, but I do especially think that Koushirou would have a hard time opening up on a more emotional level for some years and Taichi would eventually begin to see that in some way as rejection until he felt the need to say/do something about it. Like I think, accidentally, Koushirou keeps some of his walls up and maybe while Taichi’s scaled most of them effortlessly, there’s like a glass left that if they’re not trying to see it, almost looks like it’s not there. If that makes sense? But this isn’t something I think is permanent, because I think there’s a section in the novels, too, where Taichi is elated that Koushirou speaks openly and honestly with him, something like, “It made me happy you spoke so casually to me, like you opened your heart to me.” So I think in a matter of time Koushirou would open up more, it’s just hard because he struggles with a lot of self worth and just… existential dread—this child I swear??? But I’m very interested in considering how they grow more, grow into each other, the way they’d learn to work better together not only on saving the world, but I don’t know like, splitting up the chores. Better people have put better words together, but I tried…!

6. Friendship is a wonderful basis for a romantic relationship! It doesn’t have to be the basis of every ship/relationship, but I think it’s a grand thing to forge as a foundation and merged with everything above just makes it better to me. They can be best friends and lovers haha. Also just childhood friends into lovers is still a good trope, yes, thank you. But, I do also love their friendship just as friendship. Again, I just really love their dynamic on the whole—I just also really love them being in love lmao.

7. They fit a “Quiet, but profound” love kind of feeling for me and it will be my end! Again this is personal interpretation, but the way I kind of feel about them is that they’re this very quiet sort of love. Like it’s There and it’s grand, but it’s not as loud as some others might be. It’s small smiles and the brush of their hands, it’s the silent, “Are you alright?” It’s dinner reheated and left by the computer; a small neck massage because Taichi sees the way Koushirou’s scrunching his eyebrows together and that means he’s going to get a headache. It’s Koushirou deciding to buy expensive tickets for a soccer match, not because he’s dying to go, but because he wants to enjoy something with Taichi that he enjoys and it’s worth the pretty penny (still not over this being technically canon). It’s the quiet stare when Taichi comes home and everything’s overwhelming and Koushirou just knows he needs to talk it out, for someone to listen. It’s looking at the other person, knowing them, seeing all the cracks and thinking, “I want to wake up to this every morning.” It’s a gradual thing, but it’s also a built thing. Years of self discovery and growth, of being at each other’s side, of integrating into each other’s lives so that it’s just all natural. Years of mutual pining. Because I’m human and I need this.

8. They fit this quote and it fucks me up:

Obviously none of this is to down play the enormous help that Agumon and Tentomon were to their respective growth. I also think the rest of the cast is wonderful and unique in their own way. Like I think Yamato pushes Taichi to Do Better in his own way, is the perfect foil, but also friend who much later on kind of Gets Him on a level others don’t necessarily, you know?? I honestly Love Them All So Much, I just…. feel like I need to point that out haha. But there is something special in the Taichi/Koushirou dynamic that has kept me invested for over a decade and I’m terrible at the meta/word thing but these are definitely some of the things I love about the ship.

#taishirou #taishiro #otp: the only exception #Digimon is a Fun Series #I always doubt things as soon I write or think them so I hope all of this makes sense hahaaa #Also thanks so much for the question anon it was definitely a fun thing to think about #Thank you so much!!#Sorry if this was completely off base haha

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notthatiwilleverwriteit · 5 years ago

Note

Your posts are always interesting, this could sound weird but, what do you think about the sexual orientations in 19 days? I know it is shonen ai but in this kind of comic is usually characters are just in love with someone but no anyone else. But with zhanyi it has being shown at least that Zhan had problems thinking about it, what do you think about tianshan's as well? I am not into Lgbt knowledge, so i'm lost about it

Good afternoon, dear anon-san! <(_ _)>

I’m sorry it took me a couple of days to get to your question. Thank you for your patience!

I’ve talked about my takes on the sexual orientations a couple of times by now:

Why didn’t HT want MGS to like him more and more?

Homophobia in 19 Days

Could HT be bisexual?

Could ZZX be quoiromantic?

Was ZZX a heterosexual prior to JY’s confession?

Zhanyi and emotional manipulation?

Was MGS HT’s first kiss?

My Tianshan “timeline”

I suggest you check out those previous answers to get a better sense of where I’m coming from. I’m probably going to repeat some of the things in this answer but not as comprehensively.

Also, before I get further into this, I realize this is a rather controversial topic in the fandom. However, I want people reading this to know that I am most certainly not against discussing how readers interpret the characters from this perspective. I know some people just genuinely don’t care one way or another - which is perfectly fine - but to me, it sometimes feels like “who cares” is used to shut people up. I don’t see why the aspect of sexual orientations can’t be discussed just like any other part of the story. Especially since I feel like it’s one of the major themes of 19 Days. And sexual orientations in fiction can be important peaks of representation and connection to many readers, so I do understand why people might want to talk about them.

In all fairness, though, I also understand why people might be annoyed by this discussion. Other’s interpretations can feel forceful to us, especially if they greatly differ from ours. Or it might irritate us if we feel like people are focusing on trivial things. I get it. I’m sometimes “guilty” of those feelings, too - I’m not trying to make it sound like I’m somehow above that. However, I don’t think the solution should be to make others feel shitty but rather to try and give room for all kinds of points of view.

Anyway. End of my usual rant when it comes to these things. (^_^ ‘‘)

“what do you think about the sexual orientations in 19 days?”

When it comes to sexual orientations in 19 Days, I feel like the most accurate answer I can give is “I don’t know”. I don’t think it’s possible to tell one way or another for sure, and anyone’s interpretation is as good as mine. The things I’ve said in previous answers - and what I will continue to say in this one, too - are merely based on the vibes I’ve personally gotten. I am not trying to make it sound like I have some kind of solid, concrete “evidence”. I want everyone to keep all of that in mind when reading this.

He Tian and Mo Guan Shan

I’m going to be fairly brief with HT because I’ve already talked about him in this sense a few times. In short, I tend to read HT as a budding bisexual. Partly because of the vibes I’ve gotten and partly because of my own bias as a bisexual. It’s a pet interpretation of sorts that I like to toy with.

There aren’t any solid extracts of the comic for me to base this on, either. Merely little details that had caught my eye and made me wonder (ch. 160, 190, 226. 307):

If someone says that none of those panels make HT a bisexual, I would wholeheartedly agree. But to me, as a reader, those little details muddy the waters. Reading magazines with half-naked women in suggestive poses on the cover doesn’t make anyone straight, bi, or anything, but it seems HT doesn’t at least mind that kind of content - perhaps he’s even interested in it since he’s supposedly spent money on them. Of course, it’s too hasty to judge a book by its cover so to speak but I’ve always been interested in that detail.

However, what has made me think HT might be bisexual more than that is the whole “I don’t want you to like me more and more” thing. I have somewhat mixed feelings about the note but regardless of that, HT felt the need to lie to MGS. Again, there could be many reasons for it - but I think one possible reason could be that he was conflicted. Initially, HT didn’t get interested in MGS for romantic reasons, but somewhere along the way his feelings shifted and developed. Was HT confused about his own feelings and that’s why he lied to MGS? Was it his first time discovering such feelings for another guy? Again, it’s impossible to tell for sure but I don’t see why that couldn’t be a possible way to interpret it.

In addition to all of that, we don’t really know enough about HT’s past relationships to tell one way or another. He’s only 15, so I doubt he’s had much experience whether it’s with girls or guys. How being a part of his family has affected him as a person is also something that should be taken into consideration when wondering about HT’s potential romantic past.

I haven’t really talked about how I see MGS’s orientation before. I think that MGS’s character was set out as straight, but it’s always been more like a like “default setting” rather than what he might actually be. I would say he sees himself as a heterosexual but I think that’s more about him just going with what’s considered “normal” without bothering to give it much thought (ch. 222):

That little conversation has always reminded me of the movie 40 Year Old Virgin. Like, if Buzzcut had asked MGS “what kind of boobs do you like?” and MGS had been like “yes” or “as long as she has them”. He doesn’t really seem to have preferences or a type when it comes to girls, and I think one reason for that is because he’s never really been that concerned about the matter. If someone asks, he’s into girls but that kind of conversation is over rather quickly with him.

One reason for MGS’s seeming indifference is probably how he’s been rejected by his peers, ultimately leading him to isolate himself and push others away by becoming even harder to approach. Girls wouldn’t be interested in someone like him, so why should he waste time thinking about them? I might be projecting too much but it seems to be like he’s basically rejecting that part of being a teenager. It’s easier to ignore it until you’ve become indifferent than feeling like you’re missing out on something.

In addition to that, it seems MGS is easily irritated and disgusted by the idea of another guy making a pass at him and aggressively guards both his body and image in that sense (ch. 160, 170, 249, 250, 285):

I’m sure a lot of that has to do with his history of being involved in gangs and being a delinquent. To survive in that world you need to exhibit rather aggressive and masculine behavior. In other words, to be the top dog. In those circles, being gay is easily associated with being the bottom as in submissive and easily overpowered. So, in addition to MGS not being keen on talking about girls and romance, he’s also had to keep up a certain image.

Do I think HT has discovered MGS’s “true” sexuality? I wouldn’t really put it like that. I would rather say HT’s persistent influence has “unlocked” the world of love and affection for MGS. He can experience that part of life with HT instead of rejecting it. I suppose the million-dollar question is does that make MGS straight or homosexual. And to be honest, I don’t have an answer. Personally, I read him more as a heterosexual than homosexual. I can’t really him being in a relationship with other guys than HT.

Jian Yi and Zhan Zheng Xi

I’ve also talked about these two quite a lot, so I don’t know how much I have left to say. Generally speaking, I think JY is someone who might actually identify as a homosexual in the future. It doesn’t look like he’s ever been interested in girls. More importantly, though, it seems that as he’s fallen in love with ZZX he’s also discovered himself in a broader sense (ch. 143, 158, 164, 187):

I think the theme of coming of age when it comes to sexuality is the strongest in JY’s character. ZZX might be the only guy he has a crush on, but JY seems to be thinking about being in love with a guy also as something that might defy him. He feels confused about being different and scared of how others could react to him being in a relationship with ZZX despite how open he also is about his feelings. He might happily want to hold hands with ZZX or kiss him in public but he’s not always that confident. JY is surprisingly good at hiding behind a happy-go-lucky smile and carry the hurt and insecurity caused by prejudice in his heart. Those deeper feelings occasionally burst out when his guard lowers.

Again, this is just an overall vibe I’ve gotten from JY’s character. But I’ve always felt like he’s processing the whole thing of being in love with someone of the same sex on a deeper level than the others. I feel like his feelings for ZZX are connected to his identity more explicitly and him coming to discover himself sexually in the same way that real-life people would.

Compared to the three other boys, I think ZZX has always been a solid straight to me. I think before JY’s confession he identified as a heterosexual. He just was the kind of teenage boy who found girls and crushes too troublesome and annoying (ch. 51, 52, 102):

I doubt the idea of being in a relationship with another guy had really popped into his mind as an option. JY’s confession and feelings for him as a guy came as a big shock to him. Their first kiss seemed to tumble everything down in ZZX’s head and force him to figure everything - JY, himself, and his relationship with JY - from the beginning (ch. 151, 152, 165):

I believe a lot of it was rebuilt the same way but there were definitely changes and also room for future changes. A lot of the feelings ZZX already had for JY - protectiveness, affection, deep sense of bond - could also be applied to a romantic relationship. I believe they’re also the building blocks that ZZX as a character would want to cherish in his romantic relationship. All ZZX needed to do was to shift his point of view a little when it came to JY and see how he felt about it.

As big of a mental turmoil as I’m sure ZZX went through, I think it’s safe for us to assume what his resolve was. I might be too generous with my interpretation but this moment made Zhanyi canon in my head (ch. 209):

ZZX didn’t exactly return JY’s feelings in the same sense but he accepted them. He might not be ready to give all the things JY wants yet but he made a promise that JY will have a future with him. JY won’t have to feel insecure because ZZX will always be beside him. He just needs more time, and JY has to be patient.

But I suppose that once again the question of ZZX’s current orientation remains. And I don’t have a solid answer this time, either. I still read him mostly as a heterosexual, though. Just like MGS, I can’t really see ZZX in a relationship with another guy besides JY. However, I think that ZZX is also the type of character who puts more emphasis on the bond of the relationship rather than his partner’s gender. But...still, I imagine it would be quite a hump for him to discover that he could have feelings for guys in general, too.

“in this kind of comic is usually characters are just in love with someone but no anyone else”

This is very true and also partly why saying anything one way or another is quite difficult. In the story, the characters are in love with one other person, but you can’t make assumptions or conclusions based on just that. Just because you’re in a same-sex relationship doesn’t mean you’re a homosexual. Whenever I wonder about the orientations in 19 Days, I try to keep this in mind but I also feel like the vagueness allows readers to make multiple interpretations. I get certain vibes that point me in certain directions but I completely understand if others end up with other kinds of readings.

However, this kind of “he’s only gay for him” is also something I’ve seen BL been criticized for. It makes it look like men being attracted to other men isn’t a real thing but rather something that happens under special circumstances. Personally, I don’t have a major problem with that - it is what it is, I suppose - but I can see why that would bother people in BL. Do I wish some characters (for example, JY) would come out as LGBT at some point in the story (if you don’t think he already has)? Sure, I’d be interested in seeing that. And I think it would be a natural development for his character. Do I think that’s going to happen? I’m somehow doubtful, not at least in so many words. But that doesn’t really mean the comic can’t tell a story about discovering oneself, as we’ve already come to see.

Thank you for your question, dear anon-san! <(_ _)>

#19 days #tianshan #zhanyi #He Tian #mo guan shan #Jian Yi #Zhan zheng xi #answered ask

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summernightskyy · 5 years ago

Text

My Top The 100 Men

So, @nomattertheoceans tagged me to post about my Top 5 The 100 Women, and while I was doing that, I got curious about who her Top 5 The 100 Men are (I’m almost positive I know at least one person who would be on her list, and I think he might even be number 1 haha). So I decided to do my own and then tag her in this! This was very hard, but in a different way from the women for me. I knew who my number one was, no doubt. But #2-5? I love every character on this list a lot, so really almost everyone else is tied for second place hehe.

1. Bellamy Blake

Oh Bellamy. My journey with him has been a long one. I started out the series nearly hating him, but then as we got to see the motivation behind his actions, I started to not only understand the character, but love him. Now, he’s one of my favorite characters across all media - potentially even my absolute favorite male character of all time. He’s an extremely nuanced character, and I love getting to see different sides of him. I love getting to see a lead male character express emotion the way he does (and not just anger); I love seeing a male lead get to cry, and not be portrayed as weak I think we need that more on TV and in movies. I grieve for the childhood both of the Blake siblings had, and I’m so proud of them (is it weird to say I’m proud of a fictional character?) for turning out the way they have. Bellamy, who was burdened with so much at such a young age, who probably never thought he would get to have a life outside of Aurora and Octavia, for fear of Octavia getting discovered. Octavia, who knew nobody outside of her brother and mother for what, like 15 years? Who probably thought she’d never get to have a life of her own either? (Ugh, I get so annoyed when I start thinking a little too much about Aurora and the decisions she made. She doomed both her children. I don’t know how she thought either of them, especially Octavia, would ever have normal fulfilling lives. If Octavia hadn’t been sent to the ground, they wouldn’t have.) Yeah, they’ve both lost their way at times, but I LOVE the Blakes (especially the eldest one haha). Season 7 has been pretty good so far, but I somehow became even more aware of just how much Bellamy (and B.ob, because he’s an amazing actor and portrays Bellamy so well B.ob antis DNI!!!! Regardless of what anyone thinks about him as a person, I think he’s a great actor) brings to the show for me with his extremely limited presence so far this season. I really enjoyed 7x11, even if it ended up with my boy being brainwashed. I stood by him even after he wrongfully and stupidly participated in the grounder army massacre, and I’m sure as heck gonna stand by him now too. @clarkegriffinlovebot said they would watch Bellamy Blake watch paint dry for 45 minutes, and I totally agree. (Is it weird that I’m tagging you? I don’t know you and I’ve never interacted with you past liking that post, but I wanted to give you credit haha) The show is just so much better for me when this adorable mythology and history nerd is in it.

2. Nathan Miller

Onto number 2! I chose Miller because although we *unfortunately* haven’t seen much of him or delve into his character that much, I’ve loved all the little bits we’ve gotten to see. He’s just so sassy and snarky, and I love it, in addition to him being loyal (sometimes to a fault) and trustworthy (lmao, that’s funny considering he’s a thief - but I don’t know, in my eyes he’s trustworthy when it counts 😂). I love him, and him hating all the planets they’ve been to is so, so relatable. I would be just entirely done and tired as well. I also really enjoy Millamy and Millarke as brotps (although I don’t think I’d mind if Millamy was a romantic ship haha). There’s quite a few things I would change about this show, but two of the things highest on that list would be 1) making Jarod Joseph part of the main cast so we could properly explore Miller as a character and give him his own full story line(s) and 2) making Miller x Monty canon, even if it was just for a little bit! Marper was cute, and Mackson is alright, but I think these two would have been cuter, and I’m so salty the show didn’t go down that route, especially since both Jarod and Christoper Larkin seemed to be on board.

Also, I really need to learn how to make my own gifs, because I was really hoping to find one with Miller saying “In other words, get the flock out of here!” I actually died during that moment. Maybe someone did make one, but if they did, I didn’t see it. That’s fine, though. I needed motivation to start trying anyways, because its something I’ve always wanted to do.

3. Gabriel Santiago

Everyone else on this list has been on the show since season 1, and I definitely didn’t expect to love a character who was introduced in the penultimate season as much as I love Gabriel. At the end of season 6, I was really hoping they’d keep Gabriel around, so I was super happy to hear they were going to, and I haven’t been disappointed. I love how he literally seems to thirst for knowledge. (I clearly have a thing for attractive, nerdy guys, okay?) I also find it incredibly brave that he pushed so hard for the Primes to stop what they were doing, because he had to know that all of them, including the love of his life, would turn on him. It was obvious that Ryker wasn’t fully okay with what was happening either, but he didn’t do what Gabriel did and fully renounce the practice. He clearly has a pretty strong moral compass, even if he was lead astray from it for awhile. I also really liked seeing him bond with Echo, Hope and Orlando. He’s smart, hot as hell, subtly funny, and not afraid to do what’s right even if that’s gonna end up making the people he cares about mad at him.

4. Monty Green

Monty has been one of my favorites from the jump, and I miss him so much. He’s just so adorable and kind, and literally one of the best people on this show. He suffered through and lost so much, and I wish we could have had more focus on him dealing with those traumas. I hate that we never really got to see how he dealt with what happened at Mount Weather. The focus tends to be mostly on Clarke and Bellamy, but even then mostly Clarke. I think it’s easy to forget that while, yes, they pulled the lever, Monty made pulling that lever possible so he could save his friends. We also don’t really get to see much about him dealing with the trauma of having to kill his own mother, and even Jasper’s suicide was relatively swept under the rug. I mentioned earlier that there’s quite a few things I would change about this show, and when it comes to Monty, I wish we could have seen him process these events and heal. I also think credit for saving the day tends to go to Bellamy, Clarke, Octavia and Raven - but Monty has been instrumental in many instances. Those five, in my opinion make up the core five characters of the show, and honestly, the show hasn’t been the same without Monty. I love Jordan, he’s adorable and genuinely good just like his dad (and mom) but Monty’s part of the soul of the show to me. Also, how cute is it that Monty taught Jordan Korean?!? (I really think Jordan might be onto something about Cadogan and the Disciples interpreting the text incorrectly - so look at that, Monty might indirectly save the day again)

Also, shout out to @thelovelylights for making this gif - it’s one of my favorite moments of Monty, I’ve been following her for a long time, and her blog is amazing.

5. John Murphy

Honestly, I didn’t realize just how much I’d come to like and care about Murphy as a character until this season. I’ve been sooo stressed out watching every single episode he’s been in, worrying that he would end up dying. I’m a sucker for well depicted character growth / redemption arcs, (I mean lol, there’s a reason that some of my favorite characters include Bellamy Blake, Zuko, and Jaime Lannister), and Murphy’s had a great one. He was such a dick in season 1 who, unlike Bellamy - who clearly cared about Octavia at least, really seemed not to care about anyone but himself. It’s been so amazing to see him grow into the person he is now; a person who cares so much about the lives of random people, who was genuinely scared when he realized Madi was in danger, who reassured to her that she was safe and helped calm her down. I really hope the theories about a Memori baby end up becoming canon, because Memori has grown sooo much over the course of this series and they would be absolutely amazing parents.

Honorable mention: Lincoln Kom Trikru

Lincoln was just such a great character. I miss him so much 😭

Tagging @nomattertheoceans and anyone else who sees this and wants to do this!!

#the 100 spoilers #the 100 #top 5 the 100 men #bellamy blake #nathan miller #gabriel santiago #monty green #john murphy #lincoln kom trikru #also just have to mention how large my crush on chuku modu is #being bi is great lol #i'm official bellamy blake trash

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inventors-fair · 5 years ago

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Art’s Second Chance - Group Commentary

There were a lot of great submissions this week, with every submission having some interesting things going for it! Let’s move on to the commentary! (It’s below the cut!)

@shandylamb - Essence Mage (Aura Extraction)

This is a very appealing design, and very strong as a potential three-for-one for just three mana. Flashing in a first-striking blocker isn’t a shabby backup plan, either. Limiting your ability to cast the spell to the lifespan of the creature is also a reasonable check on it.

The first strike may sort of be overkill on the card; I’m not sure if it was included to help make the card feel more red, but the card is already fairly potent without it.

Small formatting notes: Flash usually appears on its own line, and only the first word in a string of keywords is capitalized. Instant and sorcery don’t need to be capitalized either. “As long as you control ~, you may cast that card, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell” may be slightly more standard formatting.

Scorpio System - Queen of Putrefaction (Crawling Filth)

The delta on this card between the best case and the worst case is quite large; you need to be sacrificing several creatures to it for it to be okay, but past that it quickly becomes potentially game-ending. The home of this effect isn’t well-defined in the color pie, as there aren’t many cards that tap down multiple lands for an indefinite amount of time (for good reason). Black and green are plausible fits, as they can destroy lands, although generally on the rare occasions where mass land tapping has been a thing, it’s been in white or blue.

I do like that this design also produces a fairly large body in the circumstances where it does shut down the game, which can often serve as a finisher. The art is also a great fit for this effect.

@starch255 - Lord of Lightning (Frantic Purification)

I’m not totally certain exactly how the mechanics of the card are supposed to work; choosing a number uniformly at random between zero and the number of legal targets and then choosing that many of them at random and flipping a coin for each possible target both result in each target having a 50% chance of taking damage, but produce different distributions. The former is a little closer to what the text of the card suggests, but would be something of a hassle to actually do in play. Either way, it doesn’t hugely affect the overall power level of the card.

This is a very funny use of this art, and recasts a piece that isn’t inherently comedic into a comedic piece of art without undercutting it.

@emmypupcake - Deduplicate (Stitch in Time)

This is an excellent use of this art, reconceptualizing what it represents while still making perfect sense.

Blue is a bit of an odd home for this effect, although Leyline of Singularity provides some precedent, and every color has gotten a little bit of duplicate punishment here and there over the years. That said, the core effect is creature destruction, which is very unusual in blue; I think this may border on a break, depending on how one feels about Leyline of Singularity’s place in the color pie. The implementation also feels a bit less blue than Leyline of Singularity, which is arguably nodding toward’s blue’s ability to mess with types.

The power level also feels a bit low; while it has the potential to be a many-for-one effect, especially against tokens, and can bypass hexproof and indestructible, it feels pretty weak compared to something like Winnow, which was not particularly remarkable. (It also compares poorly to Maelstrom Pulse, but that’s an exceptionally powerful card, so it’s not necessary to measure up to that standard to be good.)

An interesting twist on this card might be to allow you to choose a creature not controlled by the player you target; that would give it synergy with clone effects. As is, it’s a narrow enough hoser that I’m not sure where you’d fit it into a deck. (Even as a sideboard card against token strategies, there are probably other options.)

@ignorantturtlegaming - Form of the Leviathan (Amugaba)

This is a cool out-of-the-box use of this art. While there’s nothing that specifically suggests transformation into a leviathan as opposed to just a leviathan-like creature, that’s true to a degree of the original Form of the Dragon art.

Much like Form of the Dragon, this card is something that certain decks just won’t be able to beat, but it trades FotD’s clock for a much more challenging one-turn damage threshold to meet, especially given that the card will be able to lock down all but the widest boards after the first turn.

I suspect that many games that involve this card will tend to drag a bit, depending on its owner’s own board presence and what answers, if any the other player has.

@ghost31415926535 - Rhorkahn, the Unified (Sigiled Paladin)

This card is certainly exciting; tutoring for two cards every time it attacks is very powerful, even with some deckbuilding restrictions, and its ability to find additional copies of itself makes it hard to permanently deal with. (Legendary is a very important check on this card’s power.) It’s hard for a four mana card in three colors that doesn’t generate any immediate value to be too powerful, but this certainly is a strong effect if it gets going. Making the cat the knight is a clever inversion.

@misterstingyjack - Lummi, Formless Friend (Shapeshifter Token)

Partner cards that interact with what they’re partnered with is an interesting design vein, and I like that this art feels like an actual friend. A card that only works if it’s your commander is a bit limited, but they’ve certainly printed cards before that make more sense as commanders than as part of the 99. (The entry specified that this card is for a Commander Legends-type set, where I think it makes a lot of sense.) The ability to sort of double-down on a single partner is also powerful and interesting, and the decision to make it a 1/1 rather than a full clone is also an interesting drawback.

This card is a bit of a design risk, as it potentially limits the space for very expensive partner creatures with powerful effects, but that’s probably nothing that the commander format can’t handle. Partner is an extremely powerful mechanic, and while the breadth that a deck gets out of having two functionally different commanders likely often outweighs the benefits of being able to double down, but this is definitely a card that with the potential for impact at many levels of the format.

@nine-effing-hells - Yaran-Shesh, the Keeper of Silence (Gloom Sower)

The first line of text is a somewhat risky one, but the ship has largely already sailed on it, and this card is somewhat safer than other cards with that text due to its high cost. The most comparable precedent for this card may be Novablast Wurm, but this comes with both a greater threat of coming down early and a greater risk of getting blown out. (As you lose your creatures first.) That it keeps creatures from being played productively effectively sells the hopelessness angle.

@milkandraspberry - Corpse Bride (Veiled Shade)

I’m not completely sure that I completely understand the story being told by this card, but the flavor text is strong and evocative.

While this can technically be a very large creature for just three mana with a little work, I don’t think that giving it a creature keyword or a slightly better base body would be out of line.

I also think that the triggered ability could be simplified a bit, if it only works on angel cards. Angels tend to, with few exceptions, have pretty close to equal power and toughness; the card could just always check the power of the exiled card without affecting its overall power level too much.

@hypexion - Angel of Lamentations (Angel of Flight Alabaster)

This is a great complete package, making great use of the art. It’s not a huge creative departure from either the concept of Angel of Flight Alabaster or the mechanics on existing cards like Ghoultree, but it makes a lot of sense together. At rare, given that it specifically counts creature cards in the graveyard, it could probably go to 5WW, but that’s very minor.

@dabudder - Peace-seeking Bracheweft (Briarhorn)

This card exists in the space of being a brutal anti-aggro card in what would presumably be an archetype that’s already very strong against aggro decks, making it fairly polarizing. This is a great use of the Briarhorn art, which does have pacifist vibes in its interactions with the little birds.

@abzanhero - True Righteousness (Soul Parry)

This card attempts to overcome the inherent weakness of auras with just brutal raw power. Even considering the limited range of legal targets, this card is almost unbeatable against many decks if it resolves, and if you’re on the play then your opponent may have as little as two mana with which to remove whatever you target with this before it does so. On the flip side, it still has many of the weaknesses that auras traditionally do.

This is a very nice use of this art, and does what I was hoping many entries would do (and what many entries did), which is to call attention to a cool piece of art that folks may not have seen.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Corpsedance Duo (Grave Exchange)

There were many cards this week that interpreted a creature card’s art as a noncreature or vice versa, and, of them, this is one of the biggest reaches - it’s somewhat unusual for creature art, which makes the final product more striking.

Mechanically, I feel like this card has a lot going for it. The second ability has never appeared in that precise form on a creature card before, and it’s a nice combo with the first ability without that combo specifically representing a huge spike in the card’s power level. The substantial mana cost on the ability hampers most of the easy combos you’d otherwise get out of this as well. This card only narrowly missed the winners’ circle.

@demimonde-semigoddess - Demon of Darkening Skies (Archdemon of Paliano)

This card is a really cool concept, but I feel like it’s held back by the fact that in almost all circumstances, your opponents will just sacrifice lands. By the time you’re casting a six-mana creature spell, a land will often be pretty expendable for them, and it denies giving Demon of Darkening skies any protection. It’s still a decent card as a flying trampler that forces them to lose something on ETB, but the unique part of the ability will rarely come into play.

@sorustyitshines - Angel of Mourning (Defiling Tears, Original Full Art)

I love this full art, and the card itself is powerful - a conditional Ravenous Chupacabra with an easier mana cost (and playable in monowhite) and substantial additional upside. In that regard, it might even be a little bit too powerful. The total package definitely services the art better than Defiling Tears does, and the flavor text is very clever.

@tmstage - Truesight Maskmaker (Agent of Masks)

Very clever use of this art. I’m not certain whether “instead it doesn’t” is intended to keep the permanent from entering the battlefield at all, or allowing it to enter the battlefield, but not as a copy of anything, but the latter is cleaner rules-wise, and because most of the time a permanent would enter the battlefield as a copies of a thing, that permanent is a 0/0 creature or an otherwise blank permanent, this effectively blanks most such cards either way.

You note that this card is designed for a Commander supplemental product, and it certainly makes the most sense in a format where clone effects are fairly common. That said, this is a quite narrow hoser, and could likely have a more competitive statline for its cost. Hoser cards also tend to be fewer colors, to increase the number of decks they can be played in, although that’s far from a hard rule.

I very much like the flavor text and the overall theming.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Dungeon Follower - (Pay No Heed)

Improbably, this week saw two entries built around the creature types used as part of Zendikar Rising’s Party mechanic, both designed to punish other players for using them. Counting creatures that your opponents control in general is relatively lightly used design space, and while there’s probably good reasons it doesn’t turn up too too often, this is an interesting application. (I’m assuming that, for the sake of this mechanic, “the enemy’s party” is defined by the rules to mean something like “the largest party of the parties of your opponents.”)

Given that it explicitly uses the Party mechanic, this card presumably exists in an environment where a substantial fraction of the creatures are one of the specified types, but even then, the power level on this card is fairly low. That’s totally fine for a common, however. The card could probably be mono-blue; while counting enemy creatures to determine your size doesn’t feel super blue, it doesn’t really have a defined home anywhere, and I don’t know that this card is powerful enough to justify the asks that multicolor cards make in a limited environment.

@gollumni - Death of a Comrade - (Funeral March)

The second of the two cards this week that punish your opponents for playing cards of the Party creature types, this is a savage three-for-one removal much of the time. In an environment with Party (which I’m assuming this exists in), this will generally have a target of one of the appropriate types, and isn’t blank even if it doesn’t. This is probably a bit slow for constructed, but always makes the cut in limited.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants - Striking Enlightenment - (Idle Thoughts)

Of all of the submissions this week, this card was one of the hardest to evaluate. The idea of a card where the Overload cost is a drawback because it does something that you wouldn’t want to hit all targets is an interesting ones, and very Modern Horizons-y.

On the play, this card has the potential to just end the game when cast on turn two, as it will often leave an instant-light opponent with one land in play and four random cards from their deck, which is a game-losing position much of the time. As this effectively undoes the mulligan process while mulliganing down to just a few cards, there’s a very good chance of mana flood or screw happening from such a position. This does carry some risk for the caster, but the caster at least has the benefit of getting to play a second land first. Ticking the overload cost up to three almost completely solves this issue, however.

@snugz - Faithful’s Respite - (Angelic Curator)

Up until a few days ago, I would have said that this card was a bit of an issue because they don’t make cards that are just better than basic lands - that lacking a basic land type and being non-basic weren’t considered sufficient drawbacks to justify a land having upside over a basic land. They’ve since demonstrated a shift in that philosophy with the Pathway lands in Zendikar Rising. That said, I think this clean level of upside on what’s otherwise as good as a plains may be pushing things a bit. Lands don’t need a ton of upside to be playable over basics even with small downside, and this card significantly changes the way white decks play in formats that it’s in.

@shakeszx - Seedsinger - (Renewal)

The power level on this card is high despite adding the mana at a somewhat awkward time purely for the draw power it represents. Generally, cards don’t add mana during your upkeep unless the card is an odd gimmick like Braid of Fire, although there’s nothing about doing so that isn’t functional.

@dimestoretajic - Repay Evil (Evaporate)

This is one of the most interesting submissions from an art-repurposing standpoint, as it’s a white spell that depicts a spell being cast by a character that is very far from how white-aligned characters are usually coded in Magic - it’s an orc or goblin-like character in dark robes. (That’s not to say that there aren’t white-aligned Magic characters that are slightly monstrous and wear dark robes, but it’s a less common look.) On one hand, it’s a bit jarring, but it’s also a bit imagination-stirring.

The technique of making a permanent extra-vulnerable by making it an aura when it otherwise has no reason to be isn’t one that Magic uses often, but it’s reasonable here, and the flavor text does a lot of work in tying the whole package together.

@socialpoison - Oath of Service (Commander’s Authority)

Commander’s Authority was one of the cards that inspired this contest in the first place, so I was really excited to see it here. I like that the effect chosen is one that has above-average synergy with the Rancor recursion clause.

@mardu-lesbian - Daring Defiance (Thunderous Might)

This card feels a smidge odd in red and perhaps odder in black, but the most interesting thing about this card to me is the decision to make it a sorcery, rather than an instant. The “obvious” version of this card is for it to be an instant, because that makes it much easier to engineer situations where you loot for a larger value than two, in several ways. Making it a sorcery makes it significantly more puzzle-y to try to get that extra value off.

--------------------------------

I had a lot of fun with the designs this week, and I’m looking forward to the next! I believe that I’m the last of your guest judges in the rotation, so I think we may be getting back to your regular hosts next week. Looking forward to it!

- @teaxch

#inventors fair #group commentary #arts second chance #teaxch #mtg #magic the gathering #custom card

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bluepenguinstories · 5 years ago

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Happiness Overload Chapter Sixty-Four

I bobbed my head to and fro. Then I decided to practice my speech in front of the designated villain:

“So you have me in your sights. Nowhere for me to run. You can complete your goal, become all-powerful, and more than anything, be satisfied.”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” he muttered as if he were in a Tom Waits song. “I’m supposed to work for this. You’re just giving in.”

“Are you mad that I haven’t experienced the full extent of despair and hopelessness? But you should have known that me having Euphoria within me, that it would be impossible for me to feel anything other than happy.”

“That’s not it. I need to earn it.”

He spoke with such clarity as if all of his jumbled thoughts had been formed because during every moment of his existence, he longed for the one he found himself in.

“You have! You’ve worked very hard and your efforts should go rewarded! You should know, vore isn’t one of my fetishes, but I’m open to try new things.”

“Heh,” his smile once again rest plastered on his face, and I could make out a faint whiff of a chuckle. “It’s as if our personalities have reversed.”

“Not at all! I am, after all, the blank slate!”

“I don’t get it. I must have won. I already know you won’t try to resist. I’ve done everything up until this point and once I devour you and take your power, I can finally rest. But then...why does it feel like I’ve lost?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I almost wanted to shout with glee, but it wasn’t quite time yet.

“I’d say ‘sometimes you just gotta take that L’, but...it’s not really like that. As we speak, The Flashbulb is dissolving. They were an enemy of yours, weren’t they? And if not for the events which you orchestrated, their plans for this world wouldn’t have been foiled. So you won.”

In fact, seeing as things were about to end, I was more than a little curious how things were going back there now that I wasn’t able to support Velvet or any of the other friends I might have made along the way.

That was it, huh? Blanc was gone once again, and in their place was the reality of the situation: that things weren’t quite over yet. No, I already knew that. I was a fool to believe that things would be so easy. As soon as Blanc left, the fight was back on, with a glint of smugness in the eyes of the Flashbulb members. I knew I had to act, but I was still trying to process everything. My friend, gone once more. How many times has it been? Hell, it didn’t even matter. The impact was the same each time.

“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s go ahead and turn back time,” Dr. Humble declared, and that was the moment when I was broken from my trance. I jumped in front of the two Flashbulb members, and whether they were in charge of the whole operation or not didn’t matter much to me. In its own twisted way, it seemed like every member was equal measure all powerful and powerless against the other members. Less a check and balance and more two magnets in the same direction, unable to connect.

Look, the metaphor was better in my head.

Either way, I snatched it out from Dr. Humble’s grasp, and while Dr. Asparagus (or Modest. Potato, tomato. Same difference) tried to fight back and restrain me, I fought back and shoved my elbow into his stomach and stomped on his shoe. Both of them gasped now as I held their device in my hands, and I retreated back toward Coriander.

“What’s the deal?” Dr. Humble protested. How ironic, considering the position of power they held.

“You said yourself that you couldn’t turn back time until the ‘celestial’ or whatever you wanna call it this time is dies along with Earth!” I fired back at them. I didn’t know how to use their time travel device, nor did I care to. Perhaps if my endeavor proved fruitful, however eventual, Coriander and I could work together to find a new purpose for the device. As much as I didn’t want to fixate on it, there was a certain air that things were much less certain ever since Blanc departed.

“Please, that world of yours will come to an end whether we create a new timeline or not, so why not just start now?” Dr. Asparagus argued, his voice with the same smugness one would expect from a moldy piece of asparagus.

“I’ll be the one to decide that!” I declared, and maybe I didn’t have a reason to and maybe he was right, but damn it, this wasn’t just a battle over time preferences, but a battle over power.

When Coriander finally spoke, having been in the background the whole time, motionless, just as dazed as I was sure that I was, she sounded the least confident of all.

“What are we supposed to do now?” She asked. “I wanted to be able to return to the world.” She sounded like she was about to get choked up.

Now’s not the time to lose confidence, I wanted to tell her, but it wasn’t like I was any more hopeful.

“Velvet?” Her voice came in once more.

As soon as Coriander said that name, a screen popped up in the air with my likeness, as well as a series of writing.

“Ah, so that’s who you are,” Dr. Humble was now the one to sound smug. Quite a big deal of humblebragging, I’d say. “You’ve been a nuisance throughout your adult life, haven’t you? Governments have embellished stories of you, making you out to be some larger than life threat, when really, you’ve just spent much of your time with reckless impulses. All of your feats seem to be nothing more than lucky breaks. So insignificant to us, that when figured into the dangers of humanity, you’re not even a thought.”

Sheesh. You get your own Wikipedia page and all of a sudden everyone thinks they got you figured it out. Much of what that profile says about me could be applied to The Flashbulb themselves. Embellished? Check. Larger than life? Check. Nothing but lucky breaks? Also check.

“Is any of that wrong?” He asked me, as if he already thought himself correct.

“I mean, sure, I’ve definitely thought that way about myself,” I shrugged. Maybe it was the whole “nothing left to lose” attitude, but hearing such an amusing report gave me quite the ego boost. “People thinking I was some badass secret agent, when really, I just got where I was through a series of fuck ups. It could be that everything that has brought me here was due to countless lucky breaks, as well.”

They both laughed. I didn’t dare look through the corner of my eye, but I suspected there was a great fear and apprehension from my dear lover.

“I can’t believe this! We were scared over nothing! Nothing!” Both of the two men began to cackle, less like witches and more like they just discovered fire. An ever-widening crooked smile crept on Dr. Humble’s face as he spoke: “I’ll tell you two, hell, if Dr. Katsushika can hear us, I’ll tell that damned wild card as well! We as an organization are eternal! Countless others before you have tried to defeat us, all ending in utter failure to the point where we started to view having enemies as routine! And with that in mind, you thought you had a chance?”

True, they had an impressive track record against their opposition, but something about their speech of villainy just irked me.

“You’re right on that count, too,” I conceded. “We may not survive, either. Hell, I’m willing to bet our chances are slim to none.”

“Velvet!” Coriander scolded. Or maybe that’s what I interpreted from her tone. My head could be a real mess sometimes. But I knew why she would have scolded me, if that was the case. I mean, she didn’t want to die. Nor did I. Plus, it probably sounded to her like I was giving up or admitting defeat. Easy mistake to make, especially when I was less focused on communication and more focused on what should come next.

“That said, even with low chances like those, I’m still going to try and I’ll keep trying so long as I live. You’re probably thinking that all my luck has run out, but I have to ask: are you willing to test yours?”

Without so much as a reaction, Dr. Mumble (err...not Humble, but the other one) reached for one of the buttons on their console and spoke into it.

“Guards, dispose of these two intruders at the front.”

“Loud and clear,” a guard at the other end responded. At once, my heart both ceased to beat, for even just a second, and then it beat way too fast.

“It shouldn’t take them more than a few minutes to get here,” Dr. Microbe (like hell I was going to dignify that Flashbulb goon with their name) explained. “Especially with their numbers. You made a valiant effort, but when all is said and done, it won’t be so much as a footnote in a small section of our history.”

“How?” I balled my fists. They shook and I had to be careful not to crush the time travel device I held in my hand. It wasn’t like I knew how to use it, nor would I turn back time. As lucky as I may have been at times, I still preferred to do things on my own terms. “Popsigirl should have disabled all communications!”

“You’ll find that much like the code to Dr. Etna, much of our system constantly rewrites itself and corrects any errors along the way. Even if communication was temporarily cut off, it was never going to last long.”

Tenser than before, Coriander once again asked, “what do we do now, Velvet?”

I turned to her. As I did, I noticed something else. Call it keen eyesight, or potential for yet another lucky break, but I had to take any chance I could.

“I’m not going to ask you to trust me,” my words were just as shaky as hers had been. “Not when things are looking the way they are. But I will ask for you to check that wall next to you. If you find a panel, well, you know what to do.”

At first she gave me a baffled look, like “English, motherfucker!” But then she nodded.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“You’re as capable a hacker as I.” While I knew her specialty was more hardware than software, there was a certain amount of blind faith that I had to employ. Not to say I doubted her abilities, but that I had my doubts that anything could have helped us at that point.

While Coriander got to work with visible frustration, it appeared that Humble and Modest (screw it, just this once) weren’t living up to their names.

“Even if you two manage to figure a way out of here, what then? Like always, the predator becomes the prey, and here you are, on the defensive,” one of them spoke. Did it matter which one? I sure as hell didn’t think so. “Even if we were to lose all of our members, we could just recruit new versions of those same people in another timeline! You could kill us right now, in fact, and so long as one of us lives to bring new members in, what can you do? You’re fighting a losing battle!”

Talk it up. Every second you guys waste running your mouths gives me that much more time.

“Got it!” Coriander declared. I turned to see an opening beside us. Hell, as soon as I saw that, I couldn’t help but show off a sly grin.

“Well, not to be as cliché as you guys have been, but as they say, ‘we’ll deal with you later!’”

I shoved the time travel device into my pocket and ran into the opening along with Coriander. As we did so, the wall closed behind us and the two of us were surrounded in darkness. I’ve spent many nights by her side with the lights off, so that moment seemed like nothing to me.

“Good job, bae,” I put my thumbs up. Being as dark as it was, I had to be careful not to stick my thumb up her nose on accident.

“I’m surprised I managed to figure out something, I mean, it was tricky and even then, if we hesitated even just a second more, it might have closed on us.”

“Ugh,” I felt nauseous with what I was about to say next.

“What?”

“It really is the case that every second counts,” I said, just as I knew I would. Oh, the cliché. Oh, the disgust that was mediocre dialogue.

“Oh yeah. Gross,” she dismissed. “I think we’ve got more on our plate than rhetoric.”

We continued to move forward as we spoke. Any second, those guards would enter the room, and I was sure that both her and I knew that it would only take an instant on their end for that same wall to open up for them. We had to be on the move and figure out a strategy. I was aware of the real possibility that they could hear and catch every word we said, but I think our greatest asset was that we didn’t really know what we were going to do next. Really kept them on their toes.

“We can’t return to the world we knew,” her worries spilled forth. “It will still end, regardless of what we do. We can’t even get rid of the angel without having the world be destroyed in the process. I can’t stop thinking about this. How there’s nothing we could do. Bitterly, I already knew that, but I wanted so bad to believe there was a solution where we could reverse course and come out victorious. So what now?”

I gulped. My, how easy it was to give in to despair. I didn’t think she was quite there yet, but I wouldn’t have blamed her if she was.

“It’s easy,” I spoke up, at last thinking that I had an answer. “I know we didn’t get the most satisfying outcome, so now we try for the next best thing.”

I couldn’t tell whether she nodded in agreement, or if my words didn’t inspire much confidence, as with the total darkness, there was any number of ways one could interpret silence. Regardless, we continued to move forward.

We were on our way to bear the bad news when we both heard the announcement. It meant nothing to me, but it shook Dr. Hepburn to her core. She did a little jig, then turned to me and began poking my shoulders with such intensity and I was left wondering why I kept letting her.

“Hey. Psst! Hey.”

“Yes, HR lady?” I smiled. I couldn’t help but imagine that if I were in her position, I’d act the same way.

“You know that feeling when you go around giving people false hope but then you find out that hope is even more false than you realized?”

I shook my head.

“That’s how you’re feeling right now, huh?” I replied.

“Yeah!” She pumped her fists. “Everyone wants to be Grandmaster Flash, but there is no Grandmaster Flash, so everyone’s been vying for a false position at a false top!”

“Right, and I only like true tops,” I joked.

“Sorry,” she looked down and shook her head. “I’m not a fan of hierarchy. In fact, in some ways, this is quite a relief to me.”

“How so?”

“Because now everyone’s morale will be shifted from super low to super high...in your guys’ favor! They’re probably all pissed right now, like they’ve been cheated! Well, the ones who weren’t driven to despair, anyway.”

“Hmm...that’s one way to look at it, I suppose,” I wasn’t sure if that’s how things worked with people, but it seemed like a possibility.

“You know, I was always rooting for you guys,” she snapped her fingers.

“You were?”

“Well, once it turned out you guys were winning, anyway. If you guys were on the losing end of things, I’d be like ‘I wish they’d protest in a way that didn’t affect us’.”

“Gee, thanks,” I scoffed.

“Don’t mention it!” She held her thumb up and grinned.

Soon we entered a room and Dr. Hepburn had me sit next to her as she addressed a group.

“Greetings, I hope all of you in the Design Department are well,” she began. “I regret to inform you that going forward, your department will be laid off. The Flashbulb wishes you all the best in your future endeavors.”

All around the room were blank stares. I’m pretty sure I could be counted as one of those blank stares.

“All right, Hepburn. Cut the bullshit,” one member finally spoke up. Some gruff guy with a gray pompadour haircut.

“No, no, she’s serious,” I waved my hands out. That proved to be a mistake as the guy turned his attention toward me.

“First of all, no she isn’t. Everyone knows none of us get fired or laid off here. We’re stuck here ‘til the day we die, which usually entails us getting killed by someone. Second, who are you?”

Before I could answer, Dr. Hepburn tapped her pen away at her clipboard until his attention turned toward her instead, to which she took over.

“She is my auntie assistant,” she explained.

“What kind of sick roleplay…” I heard him muttered. I wanted to defend myself and go, “It’s not sick! It’s perfectly healthy!” But why would I when it wasn’t even roleplay?

“Anyway, I don’t know why you’re wasting your time with such an excuse when we already know the big secret. Hell, now that the cat’s out of the bag, a big lot of us are asking ourselves, ‘what was ever the point?’ I mean, the obvious point should have been, ‘to help each other improve one another’, but with this sham of a competition, it’s clear we’ve not really been a help to anyone, let alone ourselves.”

Hepburn’s tapping continued with such a frenzied intensity that I imagined she would make a great drummer, if she wasn’t already one to begin with. Maybe if I got the chance, I could convince her to take up the drums. But then maybe she wouldn’t be into that sort of thing. It’s the thought that counts, anyway, right?

Then the tapping stopped and she smiled a big smile.

“Good! Now you know why you’re being laid off!”

“Oh for crying out loud!” He got up from his chair and flew into a rage.

“Anyway, now that you’re no longer with the company, wanna burn it down?” Dr. Hepburn suggested.

He froze in place.

“You know what? Yeah. I do. I’m sick of all the micromanaging and the way every department can’t seem to help but do more harm than good. Worse, I’m sick of hearing ‘Grandmaster Flash told you to’ when no, no they didn’t. That’s just an excuse to make me do something you didn’t want to do.”

I was glad he seemed to be on our side. Now there was just the matter of the rest of the Design Department…

I shot my hand up.

“Hey, is there someone here named Dr. Oz?” I looked around and asked. One of the members, a sheepish looking young man with mutton chops and a wool sweater turned to me.

“That me,” he bleated. I couldn’t help myself, I was beaming at the prospect that I could be a matchmaker.

“I met Dr. Phil!”

His eyes widened, like he had just seen a wolf. Jeez, I didn’t mean to put him on the spot like he was some sacrificial lamb.

“Did he say anything abaa-t me?”

“Yeah! He said that he thinks it would be great if you two worked together to rally up more departments! He said his department’s sick of this shithole and he bet he isn’t the only one!

“Did he really say that?” The pompadour guy interrupted, ever the skeptic.

He said some of those things. Look, I’m improvising here.

“Sure did! Who are you, anyway?”

He grunted. “I’m Dr. Toto. What about you? No more games, either.”

I bless the rains down the yellow brick road – no, now’s not the time for that. I have to think of how to answer. Probably not a good idea to make something up, but what else can I say?

“Dr. Hepburn, go ahead and tell them the truth. I’m still a little shy,” I tugged on her sleeve.

She looked down and smiled. She must have known just what to say.

“The truth is, Juniper is best girl.”

I just about fell back in my chair. I was rooting for you, Dr. Hepburn! We were all rooting for you! “Back in her original timeline, there was a contest all around the vote all around the world, and it was decided at the end that she was best girl. The company caught wind of this and just had to find out what all the hype was about, and so she was brought here. There was a raffle in the cafeteria with the grand prize being to meet her. Needless to say, I won.”

That had to be the among the top ten most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

“Yeah, okay. Seems legit,” Dr. Toto grunted as he nodded.

There were two other members of the Design department, one of which had long, flowing fuchsia hair, and the other had short, iridescent indigo hair. Both of them were pretty, but if I had to choose one over the other...no. That wasn’t what I was there for.

The one with fuchsia hair turned to me.

“How did you do it? Become best girl?” Fuchsia’s voice was soft and soothing.

Way to put me on the spot, Hepburn.

“By starting a revolution!” I declared. Hey, if Dr. Hepburn was going to make a bold claim, so was I.

“Cheers, sis, I’ll fucking drink to that,” Indigo added, and if Fuchsia’s voice was beautiful, then Indigo’s voice was hot, with the way it was husky and self-assured. Still, I didn’t mean to compare the two.

“Anyway, we gotta get a move on and lay more people off. If you guys can work on getting the word out, we should at least have a few more departments on our side,” I explained. Dr. Hepburn gave me a pat on the head.

“You did well as an auntie assistant,” she told me.

“Thanks,” I blushed, though really I didn’t want my hair messed with.

As we left the room, we heard the siren call of an alarm.

“The guards…” I heard her mutter, and before I could react, she took me by the hand and we ran.

Well, wasn’t that just swell?

I mean, I should have expected it, really. If it happened just as planned, then I wouldn’t have found it to be such a masterpiece, just a simple work of art, instead. So revise, improvise. After all, you couldn’t spell painting without ‘pain’ and you couldn’t spell drawing without ‘aw’ and without a doubt, you couldn’t spell revolution without ‘vore’.

Once the alarms outside of my head went off, the alarms inside my head did as well.

Soon, I could hear the click-clack approaching the door to the command room I was in. Which command room? Did it matter? Why did we have so many command rooms? Beats me, but I was sure going to miss this place once it was all over. Which, ‘over’ was just an anagram of ‘vore’. I felt that was worth pointing out.

“Wah! Ha! Ha!” I let out a proud laughter as the door to was busted down and fine chiseled armored specimen stormed in with their suits of shiny metal and their heavy weapons. Each of them fell before they could even pull their itty bitty triggers. Turns out I was right to hold on to Cilantro’s laser backpack. That thing could pack a PUNCH with a capital ‘UNCH’.

As the three guards lay on the ground, I stood over them in triumph and announced:

“It’s just like the tools of the ruling class to be anti-creator. Well I’m here to tell you that I’m pro-creator, and I plan to procreate for as long as I live!”

I couldn’t just stand there over them, as much as that would have made for a fine work of art, as I wasn’t quite sure if they were dead. Yes, I could have fired another shot or three, just to make sure, but there was a beauty in the uncertainty of it all that I just had to relish in. I sniffed the air, which mostly smelled of the smoke produced from that laser blast.

“I was really hoping to catch the whiff of a charred corpse,” I sighed with disappointment. That mood didn’t last, and soon I was back on the drawing board. “Anyway! As they say in Spain, Seeyanara!”

If my calculations were correct (and while some may have thought calculus not to be my strong suit, they would be wrong, as not only was I not good at calculus, but calculating was an art, so being good or not was irrelevant) then Velvet and Lil C should be close. Good! I could return the cute backpack to its rightful owner.

We were still alive, but at a disadvantage. Sure, I could hack into stuff as well, although if someone were to ask me, Velvet was still better in that department. She could roll with the punches and think fast on her feet. Me? I needed total concentration.

At the moment, as we moved forward in pure darkness, concentration was the one thing I did NOT have. It’s not like I wanted to admit it, but it was the reality we were in: at any moment, the walls we found ourselves between would be blasted open and the two of us, shot down. It got me thinking about what our impact would have been. The “close, but not cigar” in terms of success stories of those who went against The Flashbulb? The little clone that could, until she didn’t? It’s not like I cared how I was remembered, if I was remembered at all, I just expected a little more.

Well, my worst fear came true: in front of us, a blast tore through the walls and we both jumped back.

We’re gonna get raided and we’re gonna get shot down without so much as a fight and we aren’t going to have any romantic last words between us it’s just going to be violent and bloody and –

Instead of an army of guards, only one figure entered, one who I wished I didn’t have to see again so soon: that mad artist.

“Smart thinking, you two! Making out while the enemy’s looking for you!” Were her first words upon us meeting, and I was not amused. In fact, I’m pretty sure I growled without so much as a word.

“Ha. I wish,” Velvet joked back, though by now I could tell that was just how Velvet acted when she was tense.

“Anyway, you two should get out of there. Don’t worry, I took care of the guards that were after you. Though there’s going to be a buttload more.”

“Is that the scientific term or…?” Velvet shot back.

Disregarding the useless small talk, we walked forward, through the new hole that was formed. Velvet first, me just behind her. There was no way I was going to trust that popsicle stick lover. Then again, she hurt Velvet before, too. Ugh. Just the thought of either of our wounds was enough to send shivers.

Light illuminated us (get it? Because...oh, who gives a shit?) as we stepped out. I still wanted to keep as much distance from that...you know. I selfishly wished that Velvet would do the same.

“Jeez, I can’t believe you guys didn’t defeat the bad guys yet? How hard could it be?” You-know-who (or you don’t, and if you don’t, lucky you) began questioning. Although not quite accusatory and more playful in tone.

“Gee, I don’t know. Army of guards, code that self-corrects, time travel devices, the list goes on,” Velvet was incensed, no longer playing around.

I didn’t look that artsy fartsy helper in the eye, but I was still compelled to speak up.

“I-It’s not just that!” My fists were balled. We didn’t have time to stand around and argue, but dammit, someone had to set the record straight gay. “So long as one Flashbulb members wishes to stay in power, then we may as well consider the whole thing a loss! They can always go back in time! This is the problem with the organization as a whole! Those guards may as well be members too, because even if they aren’t official members, they have a vested interest in killing anyone who threatens their power! What’s to stop them from forming a new Flashbulb? We can’t just go 75%!”

I began to huff and puff. Hyperventilate. Even though I didn’t see her face, as I refused to, I could just tell that she smiled in return.

“I see your point, and that’s why I’m saying, it’s easy to beat them! You just gotta send them back to their own time and leave them nothing in their possession! I don’t see what’s so hard about that!”

I didn’t give her a reply. I never wanted to speak to her, or around her again in the first place. But I spoke once and that was already too much.

“Now, this is a big organization, so there’s bound to be plenty of departments that don’t care about the lack of a Grandmaster Flash. In fact, they might have been elated when they heard that! You guys will probably have to deal with them. Well, you guys, or the ones who defect. I suspect there’s been a few departments who have been unhappy with this company for a while now, and probably want to tear the whole thing down. So you got that going for you.”

I heard every word, but none of them meant anything to me. Maybe they held significance, but I just let them flow in and out.

“I’ll be real with you guys, you’ll probably still need to kill some guards, unless you can strip them naked and send them flying to some deserted island. Either way, their bodies will have to go somewhere. I’m going to go help out these other departments who are on your side! I’ll be sending plenty of doctorates flying home!”

I looked down and noticed Velvet reach into her pocket and pull out the time travel device that she stole from Dr. Humble.

“I see what you’re saying, but I don’t even know how to use this thing,” she must have pointed to said device as she told Dr. Popsicle.

“Well gee, I’d help you figure it out, but I can already tell there’s more guards approaching.”

That was weird. I didn’t hear any. But then, I heard a little tap-tap sound in the back of my mind, and that could have been them in the distance.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’re good at figuring things out under pressure. In fact, you should go back in that room you were in and kick those two men out.”

“Really? After we just left with our lives?” Velvet interrupted.

“What better way to practice a craft? As for you, Coriander…” Popsigirl spoke, and I felt like screaming for her not to say my name, but instead I said nothing. “I’ve come to return your backpack.”

I didn’t take it. Instead, Velvet took it and handed it to me. For what seemed like an eternity, I stood in place. Then, arms wrapped around me, the familiar arms that I’ve felt many times before, and I looked up.

“I get it,” Velvet whispered while still in her arms. “She’s gone now. You’re safe.”

“Right,” I nodded. “Let’s just go back there and show those two what’s what.”

At least if Twee-humble and Twee-modest wanted to put up a fight, I could fire my lasers. So for their sake, they should have played nice if they knew what was good for them.

In all my years, I never understood the hype with Audrey. Katharine, however, she was worth all the hype and then some. Really, where was the Katharine fandom when you needed them? If they wouldn’t show up, I would just have to be Special K.

Okay? Okay. Focus. OK? Right. Rikki-tikki...tic-tactile.

My auntie (no relation) assistant, Dr. Not-a-Doctor Juniper was right beside me as someone who just happened to be right beside me. Where were we? I think we were in hiding. In a closet or a broom room. Something about guns and guards and not wanting to die. That sounded about right.

“You look scared!” Junie B. Jones commented. Really, I heard that name somewhere before. Probably in a newspaper somewhere during some time period.

“I’m more than scared,” I assured her. “They probably don’t like traitors, just like they don’t like intruders.

“Well...that makes sense, I guess,” she gave it some thought. “I’ll be honest, I wish I had some kind of plan. I thought things were going pretty well back there with the Design Department, but now I’m losing hope again.”

“I know what you mean. It’s like a civil war here. Flashbulb vs. Flashbulb. It’s like we’re trying to pin each other down, but neither of us wants to be underneath the other.”

“...Did you have to phrase it that way?” She sounded concerned. I didn’t understand, and more than that, I didn’t think there was any other way to phrase it. It was just the reality of the situation.

Even in the darkened room, I could tell Juniper was sullen.

“The truth is...it seems like everyone’s doing their part, but I feel like I haven’t really done anything.”

“Don’t think of it that way! You came up with suggestions that probably wouldn’t have been implemented! I can tell you have a desire to help others, and sometimes that desire is good enough!”

“Gee, that’s real nice of you to say, but…” she looked away. “Is that really enough?”

I shrugged. “Who knows, but sometimes it is, so maybe one of these days, it will be!”

I pressed my ear against the door. From the sound of things, it seemed like all the commotion died down. Though the alarm kept sounding, there was nary a threatening aura to be heard.

I opened the door.

“I think we’re safe for now,” I told her.

Then, as if I just tempted fate (which hey, if I did, that’s pretty cool, I mean, it would have been bad for us, but it would also be just like one of those ironic lines in a movie), other faces met ours.

“Dr. Phil?” Juniper noticed one such face. Some chubbyish guy who looked ready to hit the hay. That was, until he smiled a big smile and right next to a human-shaped hay pile was Dr. Oz.

“Hey! Dr. Juniper! Look! Dr. Oz and I are a couple now!”

Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz shared a passionate kiss and everyone in the Marketing and Design department cheered.

“Don’t worry, I’m not a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Dr. Oz reassured us. “In fact, Dr. Phil and I have been spreading the word, just like you suggested, Juniper! We’ve got the Agriculture, the Housing, and the Clothing Department coming over to help us with possibly others on the way!”

Juniper smiled and I thought I saw a tear roll down her cheek, but she wiped it away, whatever it was she wiped away.

“I’m glad for you guys. I’m glad to have made some friends, even when I thought I’d make enemies and be scared for my life.”

I watched as those two departments and Juniper shared a hug with one another. Meanwhile, I had a No. 1 pencil in my mouth (a rarity. Most of them had been eked out of existence in favor of the inferior No. 2).

“Yeah, yeah, soak it in,” Dr. Toto cut the heartwarming moment short with a cross of his arms. “But we still gotta deal with those guards, as well as the departments that don’t want to defect.”

“Right. Good thing Dr. Glinda and I have constructed a shield to block any artillery,” Dr. Ozma declared.

“Dr. Glinda?” Juniper asked.

I pointed my tender pencil at the member of the design department with fuchsia hair.

“Oh! Fuchsia! So who is indigo?”

I wanted to burst into laughter. I never thought to call Dr. Ozma ‘Indigo’ before. I couldn’t help but think, “my name is Indigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to –” but I didn’t know where I was going with that.

“That’s Dr. ozma, Junebug.”

“Oh! Junebug! That’s a cute nickname!” Juniper grinned. With much brighter spirits, we charged on. I thought to let everyone know that it seemed like none of us had a clue where we were going, but I kept my mouth shut because nobody liked a buzzkill.

Anyway, things seemed to be going pretty fine and dandy. Some guards rushed in and after warning us to go back to our departments. Dr. Glinda and Dr. Ozma raised the protective barrier around the two groups. The next logical thing was the guards opening fire, but after their artillery was depleted, Juniper seemed to gain a new set of confidence and declared:

“We have gay and anime on our side!”

Those same guards ran up to us and tried to break the shield down by bashing their weapons against the shield. It seemed like that was actually working as I noticed our shield start to break. But before it broke fully, each of the guards fell to the ground. Dr. Toto looked confused, but once everyone saw who had taken the guards down, we all froze in fear: the dreaded Dr. Katsushika stood, with several giant marionette dolls beside her.

“Who let her out of her cage?” Dr. Glinda asked as she trembled.

“Coming out of my cage and I’ve been...doing...just…” Juniper muttered, her teeth chattered. Must have been a nervous tick of hers. Cute.

“Nice revolution you have there. Shame if something were to happen to it,” Dr. Katsushika grinned. We all got ready to scream and run, until that same artist laughed. “I’m just messing with you guys! I’m on your side! Let’s go!”

Relieved, we followed behind her. I recall Juniper asked Dr. Katsushika something like, “why’s everyone so scared of you?”

To which Dr. Katsushika replied, “People tend to think I’m evil, that’s all.”

“Aw, I’m sure you’re not that bad. You’re probably just misunderstood.”

“Right!” Dr. Katsushika agreed. “Just give me five, no, ten years, and I’ll be a full-fledged artist!”

It was really nice to see everyone come together, even if it was for the purpose of making us all break apart. Would our organization really be no more? And if so, what would that make me, then? That thought was fraught with a frailty I couldn’t fathom. Some eternal entity, falling. I hoped at least one of us could see the end, if not me, but for the moment, I chose to close my eyes and wait for whatever outcome.

Two figures sitting. Both of us humanoid. Both of us eager for it all to end. Neither of us human. Well, one may be, but at times I knew better. Then at times I knew worse. Even to the bitter end, I couldn’t keep myself consistent.

“I never really cared whether The Flashbulb was defeated or not,” I said once I managed a split hair of clarity. “I always considered them too easy a target. Anger was fine, but anger wouldn’t last me. My true frustration was finding something that would.”

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, or none of the above, looked down on me. Not with pity, not in contempt, but just because they sat on a rock while I sat on a flat surface.

“Is it frustrating?”

“I can’t...be happy...if I don’t find something...that will last me...until death...but...being immortal...makes things...all that more...difficult.”

I didn’t need to space out all of those words. I think I just wanted to for dramatic effect.

“I see, then!” That bright light beamed.

I couldn’t help but smile, even after everything that happened. All that I caused, and all that I didn’t. What I let happen and what I perpetuated. I still never found what I thought to be happiness. Soon, even the dissatisfaction would be gone.

#happiness overload #penultimate chapter #woo #writing #scifi #action #drama #comedy #reference overload #fiction #stories

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greyias · 5 years ago

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FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 12

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something’s rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won’t rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic’s top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Author’s Notes and Spoilers: See Chapter 1.

Chapter Index: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | Crossposted to AO3

Theron glared at the bright sign over the bar as another minute on the display’s minuscule chronometer ticked by without any sign of his asset. He checked the urge to let out an annoyed breath, and instead swirled around the contents of his glass to occupy his waiting time. The off brand whiskey from Soccoro was considerably cheaper than Whyren’s Reserve, but it still had the woody notes he enjoyed in the beverage.

The bartenders here on Carrick Station tended to water down drinks more than usual, although whether that was a request from Republic Command, or just a way to extend profits he didn’t know. However, it was still alcoholic, and right now that’s what mattered. Besides, a watered down drink suited him just fine at the moment. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be here, and he needed to keep up appearances on the off chance anyone was watching.

The likelihood of that was low considering he’d been careful to keep his suspicions of Darok to himself — unlike some people he could maintain a low profile. Not that Theron wouldn’t have relished the chance to openly glare at the bastard, but sometimes it was better to be subtle. Especially when it came to tailing and observing targets. He wasn’t sure what role Darok had played in the invasion of Tython, but he’d find that out soon enough.

Thoughts of the Jedi Temple in ruins inevitably led his mind astray, and he tried to flick the mental query about the status of the Grand Master to the back of his mind for what had to be the fifth time. He was pretty sure there would have been mention from his Knight Errant if she had seen any sign of Satele during the battle to retake the temple. If her reaction to the family resemblance was anything to judge by (not to mention the amount of times their names cropped up together in the dossier), they had to be at least familiar with each other. Or at least more so than the average Jedi was to the Grand Master. After all, her first reaction on seeing him was to latch onto the family resemblance.

Satele could take care of herself, Theron knew that. If she wasn’t on Tython at the time, then she was likely engaged in some important business elsewhere. It was inevitable that she would be briefed on what had happened at the temple and likely already be on her way back home. It didn’t make much sense to call in a professional sense, and he definitely wasn’t going to just ring her up to say hello.

He took another, very shallow sip of his whiskey and glanced at the chronometer again. Perhaps he’d been too subtle in his invitation to Highwind, and she hadn’t realized his comment about the drink was an excuse to talk to her away from Darok. She seemed fairly sharp, even for a Jedi. Hopefully she hadn’t decided to keep trying to press Darok on her painfully obvious suspicions. Theron frowned into his glass, wondering how he kept getting pulled into jobs with Jedi.

It certainly wasn’t the will of the Force. If the damn thing had ever given him any sort of favor he would have been on Korriban and Tython right alongside the little blonde with a lightsaber of his own, rather than stuck being the voice in her ear. His efforts may have been crucial to the overall success of the mission, but being cooped up in a room while someone else did the heavy lifting wasn’t his style.

While he preferred sneaking into the back door to kicking down the front, either of those options would at least have him in the middle of the action. It would have given him first-hand information on what had gone down at both locations, rather than him having to interpret the conversations Highwind’s earpiece had picked up.

Information was key. And honestly, it was of utmost importance to the ongoing war efforts to know the status and whereabouts of the members of the Jedi Council, especially the Grand Master. And damn it, if something had happened to her, someone was going to have to tell Jace. Not that the two were an item anymore, but still. That wasn’t the sort of thing you just heard in a report.

Not that Theron was volunteering for that thankless task.

And since he had no idea whether the Hero of Tython was going to grace him with her presence, he could at least kill some time and answer that stupid question nagging at him. Without another thought about it, he pulled out his holo and keyed in Satele’s private frequency. She had given it to him after the Duros mission, for whatever reason he still couldn’t figure out. He’d committed it to memory immediately and destroyed the physical copy, as a direct line to the head of the Jedi Order was information that needed to be carefully controlled.

Almost immediately the other end picked up, and the fuzzy blue image of the Grand Master sprang up from the small device. He felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease a little at seeing her face frowning in confusion, even if the quality of the call obscured the finer details of her expression. Judging from the flickering image, she was quite a distance away.

“Theron,” she said in greeting, her tone measured and careful, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting a call.”

Maybe he should have led with something else, but apparently the small amount of whiskey had removed at least one brain-to-mouth filter. “I’m guessing you weren’t at the temple.”

“No,” she said, “I’m acting as an emissary to the Drayvos League.”

“Have you heard?”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes briefly. Even over the call it was obviously she was trying to gather a measure of calm. “I felt Master Traless’s passing through the Force, and the rest… I felt them too.”

He probably should have passed along something along the lines of condolences, but those words stuck in his throat. He washed that away with another sip of whiskey, trying to control his expression as the woman on the other end of the holocall seemed to collect herself.

“We got it back,” he managed to get out tersely. “I’m sorry it wasn’t soon enough.”

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I’m sure you all did the best you could.”

Maybe it was just that small glimpse of vulnerability that she let slip through, but his ironclad desire to maintain professional distance slipped away, and suddenly he wasn’t just another SIS agent confirming the security of high ranking Republic personnel. For a moment, they were almost something resembling mother and son. Maybe not like a normal family, but still close enough that he wanted… he didn’t know. To offer reassurance? Let her know he was going to find the truth? To ask for her help? No. That was crazy. Not only had the Council not been informed of the Korriban op beforehand (that would be a fun call for Jace to have), but this wasn’t a secure line. There would be too much for him to explain. And honestly, would she even believe his crazed conspiracy theories?

No. Of course she wouldn’t.

And even if she did, there were too many potential ears listening in around them. Before talking about anything classified he’d have to determine who around him was actually drunk and who was listening. What she needed from him was the actual truth on what had happened today. What she deserved was the real reason that her home had been ransacked, and why her people had been killed.

“I just thought you should know,” he finally said.

It was almost too hard to tell over the weak connection of the call, but he thought he saw the normally composed expression soften just a faction. It was probably his imagination. “I’m glad you called.”

“Right,” he said awkwardly. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “My mind is a little more at ease now.”

Her attention was pulled away as two officers walked into view of the call. He saw her eyes flick over her shoulder, possibly sensing their approach. Without saying anything to him she turned to address them. Something about the way the two held themselves, glancing at the private communication their commander was viewing struck Theron as odd, and he tried to suppress a frown.

Satele glanced back at him, already reaching for the disconnect button. “I’m sorry, Agent, but something has come up. Besides, it appears that you have company.”

He didn’t break from his position, but flicked his eyes over towards the bar to see one blonde Jedi Master approaching him, obvious curiosity on her face. He gave Satele a curt nod of acknowledgement, and she ended the call before anything else could be said.

“That was Grand Master Satele, wasn’t it?” Highwind asked as she approached.

He gave her a small measure of his usual annoyance for someone so casually broadcasting that sort of thing, which apparently was a little too subtle for the Jedi to catch as she just kept staring at the space where the Grand Master’s image had been a few moments before. Like spies, a lot of Jedi were fairly guarded when it came to their inner-thoughts. This one apparently was a bit of an exception, because Highwind was fairly obviously broadcasting concern.

“Yeah, that was her,” he said. “She wasn’t anywhere near Tython.”

“Theron, I’m sorry,” her voice dropped, the note of contrition contained within entirely baffling, “I should have let you know that I didn’t find any evidence of her while I was there.”

“You had other things on your mind,” he said, trying to impart a note of finality into his voice. “Like not dying on the other end of a lightsaber.”

“Still, she’s your—“

“We’re not that close,” he interrupted, and straightened up in his chair so he could catch her eye. “Your Order’s pretty particular about that point.”

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she said quietly. “If I have, I apologize.”

“Forget it,” he muttered, “it doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t have your particular talent as it turns out.”

She gazed at him curiously, cocking her heading to the side as if trying to slot in a new piece she had just found to a puzzle she had been working on. It made him feel itchy and uncomfortable, and he immediately looked into the depths of his glass of whiskey. He swirled the liquid around, watching as the sugars of the alcohol clung to the sides and slowly worked their way down the side of the glass.

“I’m going to guess she gave—“

“I’ve got a tab open at the bar,” he interrupted the query before she could even finish, “go order something.”

“I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Get a drink,” he said insistently. “Before you start getting any looks standing there looking like a Jedi.”

“I am a Jedi,” she reminded him.

He motioned to the bar. “So go get a refreshment. I assume your lot is still allowed to do that aren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said tersely.

“Then help yourself. I’m not going anywhere.”

She frowned ever so slightly at the dismissal, before turning on her heel and approaching the bar. He watched her surreptitiously, pretending he was more interested in the glass in his hand. Whatever she was saying seemed to confuse the server for a few moments, before he apparently took in her attire completely. The dramatic eye roll was obvious even from this far away, and he had to go into the back before he returned with a tall mug of a steaming beverage, and handed it over

She walked back, shoulders back, and mug tightly gripped between both of her hands to keep any of the liquid from spilling. He expected to see the strings of some sort of tea bag over the side of the mug, but as she took the chair opposite to him, he could just make out the telltale aroma and dark brown color of caf.

Interesting choice.

“I have a drink,” she said with finality.

“That’s caffa,” he said blandly. “That’s not a drink. There’s no alcohol in it.”

“It’s liquid and you drink it,” she corrected primly, “therefore, it’s a drink.”

“Well, if you want to be literal, sure.”

“Besides, I try not to drink alcohol.”

He almost, almost asked what she meant by “try”, but stopped himself at the last moment. They were already getting sidetracked to his reason for coming here.

“I apologize if I was prying,” she said carefully. “I did not mean to speak out of turn on what might be a difficult subject.”

“It’s not difficult,” he said flatly. “It’s just a closed one. People in my line of work don’t really discuss that sort of thing.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, and took a sip from her mug as if to busy herself. It wasn’t usually the Jedi way to act so… casual around others. If that was the right word.

The normalcy of the whole act caught him a little off guard, and he found himself adding without really thinking, “Everything worked out for the best, even if it’s different than what I first thought. I’m good at what I do.”

“If you ask me, I think you turned out pretty well,” she said, glancing up from her mug of caf, a small smile playing across her face.

His brain frizted out for a moment as he tried to interpret that statement. From anyone else he would have assumed they were trying to flirt with him. Considering her background, he couldn’t completely dismiss the fact that she was likely oblivious to that sort of thing. He decided to chalk it up to that so he could tackle the subject at hand. “Well, if that’s so, hopefully you’ll keep listening. At least, as long as you have a drink in hand.”

“Well, you were quite insistent that I grab one.”

He probably should have apologized for his brusqueness earlier, but he just shrugged. “I like to keep up appearances.”

“For the bartender?” She took a casual sip from the mug, but the look she shot him over the rim was contemplative, not confused. “Or are you concerned about other eyes?”

“You catch on quick.”

“You are not the first SIS agent I’ve had a meeting with under false pretenses.”

“Is it really a false pretense if we already made the arrangements before there was a need for one?” he shot back. “Besides, I bought you that drink, as promised.”

“So you did, and I still have a way left to go in this mug.” She leaned back in the seat, cupping the beverage between both of her hands. “Was there more you wanted to speak about, other than just the merits of what constitutes a ‘drink’?”

Touché. Apparently she knew how to duel with something other than just lightsabers. His first instinct was to return fire with a sarcastic remark, but he caught himself. While not normally one to back down from a challenge, there was a bigger issue here. Something was rotten on Carrick Station, and he needed to get to the bottom of it.

He ran a finger along the rim of his glass, looking at the Jedi’s guarded expression. Any lingering doubts on her being part of Darok’s scheme had been pretty thoroughly put to rest by her practically trying to interrogate him on the spot. The amount of planning and forethought to somehow arrange that for Theron’s benefit was, quite frankly, paranoid. More paranoid than the spy’s current line of thinking. Also, Highwind’s record spoke for itself. Not to mention her performance on both of the missions. There was no telling what was going on, but if anyone could handle the unknown it was the woman in front of him. It would be stupid for him not to recruit her into this.

“This conversation is off the books,” he finally said. “Does that bother you?”

“I had a feeling it might be,” she returned. “Is this in regards to what I’m thinking?”

“It might be.” Theron sat his drink down and folded his hands together. “I don’t need the Force to do simple math. Things add up here. Something’s off.”

She nodded. “The timing of both attacks was too convenient.”

“That’s not all.” He frowned, doing quick calculations on how much of his hand he should play, and decided it would be beneficial to put most of his cards on the table. “Darok and these ops… there’s something being buried here.”

She pursed her lips. “Do you remember the Sith I spoke of? The one on the holo?”

“Oh, you mean the one our buddy Darok didn’t want you talking about?”

“You noticed that too?” She tapped the side of her mug, but he couldn’t tell if the comment was genuine or sarcastic.

“I’m surprised you did with the way you kept going on.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I was trying to properly debrief after a mission. No one wanted to listen to me.”

“I was listening,” Theron said, catching her eye. “I’ve been listening to you all day.”

She fixed him with a look. “Why did you not say anything?”

“Because there’s this thing called subtlety,” he said, “you ever heard of it?”

Her nostrils flared as she snorted out a breath. “Of course I know what subtlety is. What am I supposed to do? Use some sort of secret spy signal to let you know I want to talk?”

He stared at her for several beats, hopefully letting the ridiculousness of that statement sink in. “Yeah, of course you are. It looks like this.”

He used his thumb to trace the shell of his ear in an exaggerated gesture, like some sort of cliché spy from a holodrama. She narrowed her eyes, before quickly mimicking the motion. “Like that?”

Stars. She was just so… so… so… Whatever. It didn’t matter what she was. “Yeah. That’s the secret SIS signal for needing to pass along sensitive intel while someone else is listening in.”

“Really?” She tilted her head at him.

Okay, he was going to have to work on broadcasting his sarcasm more clearly. Also, they didn’t have time for this. So he returned to the more important subject at hand. “What did the Sith say?”

“Not much.” Highwind stared into the depths of her mug. “He spoke of a package that had been secured. To a ‘Lord Goh’, I presume that was the Sith I fought in the library. I could not determine what the contents of said package were.”

“I guess they wouldn’t just let that slip,” Theron muttered annoyed, mostly to himself. “Might defeat the purpose of doing their raid.”

“I suppose so,” she allowed. “When the Sith realized I was not his compatriot, he said something odd.”

“Odd how?”

“That I was ‘running a little bit ahead of schedule’.”

“That’s… yes. That’s very odd,” Theron agreed. “Although maybe not so much if the timing wasn’t so much of a coincidence as we’re supposed to believe. Did he say anything else?”

She was quiet for a moment, still staring into the contents of her mug. “When I pressed him on the reason for the attack, he said it was for ‘the vindication of history’. I don’t know what he meant by that… but I really don’t like the sound of it.”

Theron nodded, trying to fit the new snatches of information into the odd picture that was starting to form in his head. There were still too many gaps in the larger picture. He’d have to file them away for now.

“What are we going to do?”

“We?” Theron quirked a brow. “So I take it that means that you don’t want to just hang up that shiny new medal of yours and head on home?”

Her head snapped up at the challenge, for a moment the perfect Jedi calm broken. The brightly colored lights of the cantina threw a strange wash on everything, but the defiant blue of her eyes still shone through clearly. It made for a very striking image. “A Jedi does not have need for bloodstained trinkets.“

He raised his brows. “I’ve seen some that do. Wasn’t sure if you were one of them.”

“I have enough medals,” she leaned forward, meeting his stare. “If you say something is being buried, I would like to know what that is.”

"It’s going to require some digging.”

“The truth usually does,” she said. “I’m out of shovels, but I’ve got a Seeker Droid on my ship that’s really good at digging up things.“

“That might be a bit overkill right now.” Not to mention way too literal. “I think we need to go for a more subtle approach.”

“If that’s what you think.” She leaned back against the cushion of the chair, eyeing him curiously. “What exactly is your line of thought?”

“Well, hypothetically speaking of course, I’d start by making a new friend,” he said casually, “someone I might be able to count on.”

“Friends are a good thing to have.”

“I’m thinking of a really good friend, one who’d be willing to face down the Emperor himself if it came to it,” he said, watching her carefully. “You know of anyone like that?”

At the mention of the Emperor, something flashed across her expression, so quick he almost missed it. Brows drawn together in a deep frown, and something darker in the eyes, but it was gone too fast to tell exactly what had been there.

“I might know of someone,” she said.

“Yes, well, then hypothetically after we exchanged friendship bracelets, I’d go off on my own.”

“That’s not very nice after making a friend.”

“My friend’s a busy lady. I wouldn’t want to bother her until I found out everything I could about Darok and the Sith Lord she talked to.”

“I thought you said you needed help.”

“Hypothetical help, but only after I checked and double-checked all my information and found all the connections.”

“This is a lot of hypotheticals,” she grumbled into her mug.

He couldn’t check the grin at her repressed annoyance. “I like my hypothetical proof.”

“Your new friend must be a very understanding and patient person.”

“I wouldn’t know, I just met her.”

“I do. She has the patience of a Jedi.”

“Fancy that,” he tossed back. “But I might give her a call—”

“Good, she was starting to get lonely drowning in this sea of hypothesis.”

“I’ll toss her a hypothetical lifeline.”

“My hypothetical hero.”

“And then after she stopped being hypothetically sarcastic, I’d see if she’d be ready to get to the bottom of all of this.”

“She’s ready now.” Highwind twisted the mug in her hands.

“That’s not being very patient,” he admonished lightly. Despite the gravity of the situation he had to hold back a laugh at the petulant look on her face. “And I’m good, Master Highwind, but I’m not good enough to be able to do all that without leaving this seat.”

“I thought you said we were friends,” she shot back.

“Hypoth—”

“Don’t even think about finishing that word,” she muttered dangerously.

“Fine, we’re ‘friends’.”

“Then drop the formalities, unless you want me to call you ‘Agent Shan’ from here on out.”

She made sure to say the last part a few decibels louder than the rest of the sentence. Luckily the cantina was pretty much deserted at this time of day, but he fixed her with a look all the same for attempting to attract attention.

“Now, Grey,” he lowered his voice in an attempt to get the conversation back under control, “if you’re annoyed you don’t need to shout.”

“I’m not annoyed,” she said, “but I don’t enjoy speaking in vague riddles either.”

“I thought you Jedi loved that.”

Highwind—no, Grey—shot him a look, and he was pretty sure that whatever curiosity she had held for him at the beginning of the conversation had been beaten out by irritation at this point. “It’s been a long, very unexpected day, Theron.”

“Okay, that’s probably fair.” The image of that unguarded moment he’d caught a glimpse of flashed in his mind. He could still see that glimmer on her cheeks, and the way she’d tried to dash them away before anyone else could see. The tiniest hints of something that could have been a thread of guilt wound through his chest and he busied himself with his glass of whiskey. “You did do all the heavy lifting.”

“I had help,” she corrected, and the curious quality of steel and compassion drew his gaze up to see her staring at him resolutely, “and I appreciate that. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

A tiny flare of warmth lit up in his gut, warring with that thread of guilt. He had no idea how to reconcile either of those conflicting feelings, which made it difficult to form a proper response. “I was just doing my job.”

“And it was a good one, judging by the fact that I’m here.” That really shouldn’t have made the little flare heat up into a small fire, but for some stupid reason it did. At least it burned away some of the guilt. “Even without the friendship bracelet, that goes both ways.”

“I don’t follow.”

“If this is off the books,” she leaned forward, voice dropping further, “then you’re going to need backup.”

“I work best alone.”

“That’s not how being ‘friends’ works.”

“I’ll call you once I know something,” he clarified, “but I can sneak around better without you waving your lightsaber for everyone to see.”

“I can always not pull it out.”

“The whole armor and cape getup is kind of a dead giveaway too.” He waved his hand at her attire vaguely. “Besides, I’m just going to do some low-key surveillance and scour the HoloNet. You’d get bored very quick.”

“I can do more than just wave around a lightsaber,” she pointed out.

“I’m sure you’re very talented,” he took a sip of his whiskey, “but not as much as me when it comes to my job.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re not overconfident. Nothing bad has ever come from that.”

“Is that sarcasm I detect, Master Jedi? Very unbecoming.”

She pursed her lips together, cheeks turning the slightest shade of red, but didn’t drop that intense gaze. “If you run into trouble, what happens?”

“I’m not,” he said finitely, setting his glass down on the table and rising to his feet. “But I promise to write, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s not what I said—“

“Look, it’s been fun chatting, but I’ve got a shuttle to catch.”

“Aren’t you going to finish your drink?” She pointed to the half-consumed glass of whiskey. A bead of sweat trickled down the side, pooling on the table below it. “Such a waste. The bartender will talk.”

Theron slid a glance to the bartender, who was busy wiping down the bar, then back at the Jedi staring at him placidly. He met her gaze evenly, and grabbed the glass and tossed back the entire contents in one smooth motion. To his credit, he didn’t choke even as the alcohol burned a trail all the way down his throat.

She shrugged at him lightly, and lifted her mug up as if in cheers. “Have a good flight, Theron.”

“See you around,” he tossed back, before slipping away.

If his ears weren’t deceiving him, he thought he might have heard a quiet huff of laughter as he walked away, the whiskey still burning in his throat, and the odd warmth still bubbling in his gut.

#swtor fanfiction #theron shan x jedi knight #Theron Shan #Female Jedi Knight/Hero of Tython #oc: greyias highwind #otp: adorkable #smoke and mirrors #SoR Fic O Doom #swtor #fanfic #greyfic

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human-enthusiast · 5 years ago

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Antagonist: Buggy (East Blue - And Before This Time Frame)

At first, I was still on and off about my decision on whether or not I would make an analysis on Buggy at all. My analysis pages aren’t necessarily about the villains of One Piece in general, but more towards humanitarian or misanthropic topics reflected in their world from ours. In the first few appearances, I thought I had nothing to go off from, at least in context of World Issues. But I started writing out his characteristics and anything known about his past that could reflect on it, and then I started writing on something to reflect later after writing out other analogies with other villains and their world.

Characteristics:

Stereotypical behavior of a pirate

Narcissism: Blames others for his mistakes (Shanks)

Treats a majority of his underlings as replaceable/worthless

Alignment: Chaotic Evil/Neutral Evil

Worthy Notes

He was one of the recognizable characters who witnessed Roger’s execution up front.

Before this, he knew him personally and grew close with his captain.

To me, he and Shanks are friends/crewmates that had similar circumstances but different outcomes - two sides of the same coin (Important Distinction).

Buggy is a character that I both dislike and love for various reasons. If there was a person, who had a striking resemblance to him (in both looks and especially personality), there is a 100% chance I would not get along well with him. The arrogance, laugh, and overall characteristics of a narcissist that gets his ass handed to him in nearly every encounter is annoying to the point of wanting to punch him personally.

However, he also handles many of his problems and the crazy reality that is their world with great comic relief like a majority of the characters. He himself has great one-liners and funny encounters that make him a great antagonist towards Luffy and an overall character of One Piece.

He’s one of the few designated antagonists of the East Blue Arc that popped up later, not only in the same arc, but in other arcs afterwards. Alvida does as well but she isn’t treated very much like an antagonist after Loguetown. More mild and laid back as Buggy’s vice captain, without straying from her original personality.

The thing about him from the beginning is how iconic of a character he is, mixed with some stereotypical personality traits as the main character’s villain. With the listed traits above, he actually isn’t the most original kind of villain under a broad definition.

I use the moral alignment chart for these analysis and/or characters because it’s one of the easiest ways to place and understand the foundation about them. For Buggy, he could go either way for being neutral or chaotic in the evil row. He does things for his own gain. But he also does evil acts because he is under the notion that he can with no other reason. Many of the East Blue antagonists are essentially like this.

Before knowing anything about Buggy later on, and even after, I would put him in the same boat as Krieg and Arlong. These are very chaotic pirates who also display typical pirate personas. Greedy, foul playing, captains without any remorse or care for others (although Arlong, towards fishmen and crew mates, tends to be an exception). They appear to not have an underlining motivation to be the way they are. Just regular, run-of-the-mill pirates.

But taking in consideration his past affiliations on being a cabin boy to Gol D. Roger, his attitude, in tune with Arlong’s, makes a lot of sense.

The start of the Pirate Era sparked a grand affiliation to the massive sweep of pirate crews to take to the seas. A historically popular phenomenon done in a way that no other sailor accomplished the way Roger did: conquer the Grand Line. When an ever-changing event like this occurs, you have a mix of on-lookers who are changed by this. Characters like Luffy are filled with adrenaline. A need to seek adventure, making him the perfect predecessor for Roger’s Legacy, but in a way where he can call it his own.

Then there are characters like stereotypical, unnamed pirate crews, a majority of which mainly focus on the prospect of Roger’s treasure One Piece. They physically have nothing to tie them down, so they feel it necessary to pursue that challenge. This sparks greed or a search for infamy, something that actually connects to Ace’s motivation the most, but he has a more dynamic change that alters his motivations. Compared to others, this change is due to an instance where he is showed an alternate approach on life and dreams, a somewhat more healthy version. But when this alternate approach isn’t introduced to others, they are bound to the same mindset, installing more harm along the way.

The known reactions are like two sides of the same coin. They’re broad chances of what someone will turn out in response to this freedom on treasure hunting and adventure seeking. And the two characters that are on those sides are Shanks and Buggy.

Personally, I find this to be an excellent coincidence. Now whether Oda intended for there opposing characters to mean anything significant is up for debate. But my interpretation proceeds them as the differing approaches when they (1) lose something significant in their life and (2) in retaliation against the unfair advantages life threw at them.

Buggy takes on the evil, greedy and infamy route in response to Roger’s execution.

As selfish as he is, Buggy did care very much for his past Captain. Most likely as a father figure of sorts considering he was rather young when he first joined as a cabin boy. He was able to make bonds with the crew mates, showing the more humanistic side of him.

In the events of Roger’s untimely sickness and later execution, I say it created an unfathomable emotional downfall on Buggy. In love and loss, it can have a negative influence on someone. He doesn’t seem to stray away from a greedy persona even with the Roger pirates. However, they acted as a sort of buffer, suppressing that intent need enough where it tends to affect only him.

With instances like Orange Town in Episode 5-8, his greed has an outward impact on the people and environment. I doubt he had any monetary reasoning for docking in the small town. There could have definitely been some looting, but that probably wasn’t their main purpose. It seems more along the lines of a power move.

Throughout his stay, he ultimately uses his Buggy Balls to obliterate different sections of the town, describing it as “his idea of fun.” Now whether because he lacked the resource or motivation, he never seemed to be this destructive as a younger cabin boy. He was still capable of violence and only doing so when needed.

He offers insight about the potential in taking on negative behaviors against the world, in combination of this obtainable freedom. He takes it with a motivation in the form of retribution.

Now how does Shanks play into this?

I said before that these two are like the sides of the same coin. And this is how far it goes:

They, literally and figuratively, were on the same boat. That being the Oro Jackson’s crew and witnessing first hand Roger’s execution.

Unlike Buggy, however, Shanks wasn’t affected in a downward spiral of vengeance. Where Buggy took on the active persona of a vindictive route, he took to Roger’s will. The concept of inherited will within One Piece is a powerful notion. Especially with how it plays into the influence of a character and the world around them.

Roger’s will is directed more towards the importance of adventure and unbridled freedom. Doing something for yourself and “destroying” the world in a round-about way.

He is the opposite of Buggy by choosing the path of piracy in leniency. He isn’t necessarily upright and morally good in all regards. Because I’m certain he could have done bad things. But his outlooks on life make him move forward from the past.

Meanwhile, Buggy is situated into his past persona, and possibly due to the loss of his captain, by striving to be the King of the Pirates. Buggy has a connection to it that many others wouldn’t have known about until around Sabaody and Marineford. This need with the title is one of the defining elements of being greedy to an unexpected turn in his life.

This plays in well with his narcistic attitude in blaming others for mistakes he’s made in the past. Specifically where he blames Shanks for “making” him accidently eat his devil fruit. While he does find a use in his powers, he remains to be bitter about it. A reaction like this shows a character that ties himself with things he wish were different, believing that acting on them in the future will somehow change it. And about the only way he finds some use in it is fulfilling his desire to be at the top. A familiar form that ties him to Roger in the past.

Of course, I’m not implying that Roger’s death sparked his greed, because it is quite obvious he was always like that. No, it’s more of he represents the expected type who find satisfaction in titles. The expected results of Roger’s last words that the world paints into perspective. Buggy’s the negative aftermath that people expect when the world changes.

Because in simplistic sense, change begets destruction.

Change creates numerous responses that guide people, and it can be interpreted in broad groups. The results of these events divide people and their motivations, creating a diverse but also destructive world within One Piece.

~~~~~~~~

#one piece #analysis #themes #manga #world issues reflection #antagonist reflection #honestly this is me rambling trying to make a clear point #one piece analysis

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meanwhileinthebroomcloset · 6 years ago

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Mhm... This post was meant to be much shorter, honestly. Not to mention it got super personal, which was not my intention. It actually made me a bit teary-eyed and I’m usually an emotional constipated dumbass.

Am I ready for the potential backlash this is going to cause? Eh, probably not. Am I going to engage in the discourse this can cause? Ah, you wished. I have more to waste my energy on. I didn’t write this post to argument with anyone, anyway.

Gonna risk it, still.

-----------------------------------------

Isn’t it kind of ironic that it was witchcraft that made me fully return to Catholicism?

I mean, I kind of never left, hence the ‘’fully’’ in that sentence. But now I really know who I am. Although I don’t think Catholicism is the most accurate label (Christo-pagan, perhaps?) it’s the one I grew up with, and the one that comes more naturally to me.

Studying the beginning of it all, the commentaries of Pagans and Jewish writers at the time are just so fascinating and honestly beautiful.

Then everybody started chasing and killing each order, and it sure wasn’t fascinating anymore.... ‘’Stop being murderous revenge-driven assholes’’ I angrily mutter into my book, while frying my brains for High Middle Ages exams.

And then it split into Catholicism and Arianism (not that Arianism! The no-holy-trinity-on-my-watch one), and that was a totally different can of worms. Then Rome got pissy and the Orthodox Church officially became a thing that existed.

Man, why is religion so messy?

Faith is such a strange thing. So much power, so much potential for good and evil and everything in between. I started losing mine some years ago.

Contrary to some horror stories you may hear, especially from people who are now no longer Christian, I was raised in a pretty open environment.

‘’Don’t be mean, have faith, give second chances... Here are the commandments. They’re perfectly acceptable, see?’’

‘’Yes, there are different religions, but you should always respect them and the people that believe in them. Remember, Jesus was Jewish. Here’s some historical context... ‘’

‘’What the hell kid, nobody here is going to hell. Also, you’re five, there are no children in hell. No, the cops also won’t... Lord give me patience... Are you sorry? Did you apologize? Are you going to try to not repeat it? Great! Then it’s all fine and dandy!’’

‘‘Man, we are definitely all going to hell... At least since we’re all gonna be there, we could form a basketball team. The devil can be the referee. He will be an awful one, but hey, we’re in hell’‘

‘’I know the bible says the earth was created in seven days, but when that story was written, people didn’t know dinosaurs were a thing. Science is cool, and we are not in the middle ages. ‘’

‘’Blind faith is dangerous, kid.’’

‘’Thinking thoughts and acting upon them are two very different things.’’

‘’Yes, the second mom in that Solomon story was willing to see another kid die for the sake of an argument... sometimes people are that bad.’’

‘’God is perfect. People aren’t. That’s the world we live in and it’s okay.’’

‘’There are people who do terrible things in name of religion or say they’re doing it because the bible says so. Don’t believe them. There’s no excuse for murder and abuse.’’

‘’Yeah, Portugal is very enthusiastic when it comes to Catholicism... ’’

Pretty good summary of religion in my childhood.

Still, I found my faith waning. I didn’t really know why and I’m still a bit iffy talking about that.

‘’What did witchcraft do, then?’’

Well for once, it reinforced my ideas on how faith worked, and how strangely powerful it can be. Being skeptical is healthy but completely closing yourself off because something isn’t completely clear is too radical and you're just doing the equivalent of closing your eyes to the less brighter lights.

My god, I can hear the hardcore atheists coming...

Can I remind you there are more things in life that will not provide the proof you want, but that won’t mean they aren’t there? Relationships. Relationships are too complicated to have straight answers, a lot of the times. People hide their feelings, they fake them, express them and react to them differently. There are so many things we don’t understand or know about yet, like space and organisms that live on this Earth.

Sometimes what you need is a different approach to see they exist! It’s one of the things I learned with witchcraft.

There was also the religion itself. As I worked on my magic, I started seeing magic around me again. Not just with gods I had never considered and the one I was leaving behind, but with the faith I had always known.

The affection when someone says ‘’Our Lady’’ when talking about the Virgin Mary, my family calling upon Saint Barbara when thunder comes, children screeching excitedly because the Compasso has arrived to give us the news that Jesus has come to life again in Easter, the marble cemeteries, the comforting prayers, the masses I couldn’t ear because the local church’s echo is terrible, those boring long-ass weddings (oh my god, how many blessings do two people need?!), the loving dedication I see in every saint carved, my church's priest’s good humor... I never owned a rosary, but I always like the ones my aunts and grandparents keep.

I found Christian and Catholic witches on this site and I finally got to my conclusion. It’s really there. I just needed a different approach to it!

These things made me believe again, but also in new things.

‘‘But you can’t do that! You can’t combine magic and christianity’‘

Oh, watch me. And also watch the centuries of cunning women and witches in European history and those still alive today. The women that make ‘’mezinhas’’ and other types of favors in Portugal sure as hell are doing witchcraft, but you can bet your ass they don’t think they’re any less Catholic than anyone else. They don’t care about your opinions and I will hopefully do the same.

Relationships with deities are personal, and my relationship with God, Jesus and all of them is no different in that regard. I am a witch, I am human, I am catholic. I’m a follower, not a fucking mindless sheep.

You know what? I always compared God to Aslan. The lion wasn’t always there for Narnia, he wanted his people to solve their problems on their own. Get their independence, as a good parent does. They both don’t come up all mighty, that’s a posture reserved for evil and people who need a good slap in the face. They come to your level. God may come through one of the less eldritch abomination looking angels, though...

‘‘Well, if you have god, you shouldn’t need anything more. He's everthing. Why are you also a witch?’‘

Excuse me, do I look like a goddamned saint to you?! What part of human did you not understand?

And before you bitterly start quoting the Old Testament, let me remind you that it’s Old for a reason. Christ came to this earth to give us new rules since he technically saved us and things became different. That’s why Jewish people follow the Old Testament, for them, the messiah hasn’t arrived yet. Not to mention that to them that testament is not Old, it’s just the Torah.

You can keep quoting the bible to me all you want. But in my short twenty years of life, I was thankfully able to learn a few things. One of them is that the world isn’t black and white. Yes, I know this sounds obvious but there are some really dumb people out there. Also, this is the hellscape that we call tumblr.

Anyway, as I have mentioned several times before, I’m a never-ending knowledge seeker I found the world beneath my feet is not pure myth and I want to explore it. Look at me go.

I keep a critical mind with everything. Faith and religion are not an exception. I’m not overly skeptic about faith itself, but I am of its writings, interpretations, translations and etc... I study history, it’s a skill you naturally develop.

And there’s quite a few plot-holes, characterization differences and much more. It was written by humans that couldn’t do a cohesive collaboration even if their lives depended on it. Godphones sometimes don’t get a good reception. There’s a ton of cultural context to unpack. I hear people saying all the time that taking the bible’s words literally is one of the most stupid things you can do.

And when I say people, I mean priests, clergy, theology students, etc... I didn’t hear this from my drug dealer in the street corner..

...... I don’t have a drug dealer.....

Anyway...

There are many problems with the catholic church. There are many problems with a ton of catholic and christians out there. I will never deny that. Shit needs to get fixed and maybe even chucked into the trash.

But I still believe in God, I still believe in the saints but I also still believe there are more gods and spirits out there. And those things are separate.

I have no interest in converting you. I’m just yelling into the void.

If you are one of those that no longer is a christian, or catholic because some dipshits banged self-hate onto your head, I’m really sorry. I hope you heal well and get the help you need in your new faith or lack of it. Banging the ten commandments back onto their heads repetiedly and tell them to actually read the damn book is optional, though.

In the end, if you are (or are trying) to be good, you deserve respect and freedom to worship whoever or whatever you want. You don’t need to be perfect, you can just strive to be the best you can be in your situation.

--------------------------------------------

And now back to our schedueled programing.

#well #that was a thing #rant #christian witch #catholic witch

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ilusionis · 5 years ago

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THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ this meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. multi-muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

my muse is: canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO.

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

how strictly do you follow canon? — closely, especially if we’re referring to general outline of Bleach lore and making my headcanons / metas fit in its scheme. i follow canon events but I’m not opposed to exploring aus (i have a few in mind that i definitely wanna write down); i try to stay true to aizen’s personality and psychology at the best of my capabilities, but all of us are bound to look at a character through our own distorted lenses, so i’ve kinda made peace with the fact that my interpretation of him might have strayed from his original portrayal by the author. still, i hope whatever i add of mine contributes to enriching aizen as a character, rather than just twisting him into a fan version. i am only adamant about all my stuff fitting in and making sense to the complex landscape of the bleach universe, and yes, i can be strict about that.

SELL YOUR MUSE ! aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. — oh worm? aizen is a visionary. he makes you see the things no one would notice, makes you doubt what you’d otherwise take as granted, makes you (the reader, but also the character he interacts with) reconsider every truth. he provides conflict and mystery, which are the core of adventure, and he’s a multi-layered, polymorphic character you never stop learning about and from. aizen, as a character, takes and takes - but he also has the potential to give endlessly. i realize this is a weird rambling but i could fill essays on why aizen is spicy ... i mean, sometimes bleach does fit into the dystopic genre, and aizen is the key to understanding most dynamics of the bleach universe. if you rp a bleach character, especially, it comes without saying interacting with aizen is always a good chance at character development.

now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?). — i’m biased but i don’t think aizen is ever uninteresting. if anything, sometimes interactions can feel stagnant because he’s extremely secretive, and also because he’s on a wildly different level than most ... idk, lieutenant-level (or lower) muses around. it’s not just strength that can act as a barrier, though; disinterest on either ends of an interaction can be a tough obstacle. aizen doesn’t really make small-talk, interacting with him requires commitment.

what inspired you to rp your muse? — i don’t really remember anymore. i started bleach because i was curious to learn more about aizen, and the love for this character made me appreciate the overall story even at the first quick read. strictly talking about rp, i guess it was just the curiousity to explore and understand him better? plus an old friend of mine enabled me lol.

what keeps your inspiration going? — i’ve only recently returned after a long hiatus and i was surprised to find myself so full of energy to pour into this character. i wouldn’t know how to explain it tbh? he’s a tiring muse, but one that fills me with pride. that’s a good reason to keep going. also, i love the bleach universe, i love to extrapolate themes from it and aizen is one of the richest characters it has to offer, one of the most complex and complete. my biggest inspiration is the aizen himself, looking at him from all possible angles and perspectives, finding literary / musical / other media references to get an always better grasp on him.

some more personal questions for the mun.

give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO.

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO. (i gotta change this tbh, i got one brewing)

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO.

do you accept criticism well about your portrayal? — i guess it depends on the wording; it takes nothing to be mindful and polite, and if you are, i definitely won’t mind the criticism. expect it to rouse a conversation, though, i’m quite rooted in my portrayal and what i feel is my understanding of aizen’s character by now, and i need the criticism to be in-depth.

do you like questions, which help you explore your character? — absolutely! i might be slow with them because i don’t like half-assing my answers, but i dearly appreciate every question i’m sent.

if someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? — i crave feedback on my headcanons / metas, positive or negative. if you disagree, tell me why! i might have made a mistake and you might be saving my life, or still it could prompt an interesting confrontation, make us both notice new stuff, etc. if by the end of it we still disagree, good.

if someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? — peace. i’m always open to discuss disagreements, but if they really don’t like my interpretation, i’m sure there’s plenty of fish in the sea 😌

if someone really hates your character, how do you take it? — i’m protective of aizen, don’t hate him or get ready to throw fists, ao.

are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? — prepositions are my recurring nightmare. sometimes i post replies without thoroughly proofreading them and you might spot grammatical errors or typos; please point them out or fix them for me. especially if u spot a recurring error.

do you think you are easy going as a mun? — i am, i’m chill, but i can strike as somewhat distant, not gonna lie. i’m terrible at smalltalk because i’m not super inclined to disclose stuff about my private life unless we’re friends or i feel really comfortable doing so. i’m slow, somewhat careless, and i like my boundaries respected. that said, i consider myself friendly and i’m game to talk about anything as long as you give me a topic. i don’t think i come off as intimidating??? unless we talking about food.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @skyvar i don’t know you but you seem nice! :D Tagging: 🤏🤏🤏

#snow makes the best memes uwu

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rankakiu · 6 years ago

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Thoughts of the Droid: Joker (2019)

Hello people from Tumblr! How have they been in all this time? As always, I hope very well. I will begin by saying that it was really in my plans to see the film of It: Chapter II; however, due to various circumstances, I could not see in the cinema. However, I compensated, watching another movie that shares a feature with It: both films have a clown as a great antagonist. Only the latter is more disturbing, since it does not need an extra dimensional being, but a human disguised as a clown, which in itself is more disturbing. On this occasion I bring to you all my impressions and opinions of the Joker movie, the second film that Warner and DC have released this year and which (obviously) has a plausible origin for the villain and nemesis par excellence of Batman.

Could it be that this movie continues with the hit streak of DC and Warner? Or is it a movie that had a very high expectation and ends up disappointing own and strangers? Stay in my review to find out.

WARNING: NOT SPOILER-FREE. Read at your own risk.

To start, what did I think of the movie? Short answer: simply magnificent and fascinating. Now let's go into the review in more detail.

Characters: What to say about this thing? Each of the characters has been thought carefully and although we do not see much of them, at least they fulfill very well their function of being support characters and even some of them serve as a catalyst to further explore the mind of our protagonist. None of these characters will leave you indifferent and also make the movie a more pleasant experience, due to their good performances.

Of course, I could not ignore our protagonist, Arthur Fleck, played by the great Joaquin Phoenix, who once again consolidates himself as an actor of excellent quality, in addition to demonstrating his talent to his full potential.

In this movie, he interprets (as I mentioned lines above) a man in his forties named Arthur Fleck, a poor unhappy man and that life does not treat him at all well. To top it off, he suffers from a peculiar disorder: he laughs uncontrollably when he suffers certain levels of stress and / or anguish. Basically, when he laughs, it is when he ironicly manifests his pain and suffering. And certainly, in the scenes where he laughs that way, it is where Phoenix's acting quality is most noticeable, since while he laughs, his face is disfigured in gestures of extreme bitterness and pain.

If there is something that the film does quite well, it is to explore the tormented psychology of the character, while offering a possible origin and reason why it became the iconic “crime clown” of Gothic City. Throughout the film, we see him resisting as much as he can the attacks and ill-treatment he suffers from a society that cannot and does not want to understand him; we see him slowly succumb to his madness and dark desires, pushed more than anything for days full of disappointment, bitterness and disinterest on the part of his fellow men. Thus, the film knows how to balance these two aspects that manage to give the character its own mythology, while paying a well-deserved tribute by taking certain elements of comics and stories that are already legendary in their own right.

Story: A story, which despite a somewhat slow pace, manages to keep the viewer's interest for about two hours. And it is not for less, since the history has been meticulously planned and well conceived and carried out. It's a story that doesn't bore you at all, and that really leaves you wanting more. It's funny, since, even long before the trailers, we all knew in advance that it would be a story of the character's origin, so we knew that eventually Arthur Fleck would become the Joker. What really left us intrigued and made us go to the movie theaters was the premise of seeing how he became the clown of crime, whose motives he had to let himself be carried away by his madness and had such a unique metamorphosis. Again, the film tells that story precisely and brutally.

And how to start a story with so much potential? Simple, through a scene, where we see Arthur make up as a clown to go out on another work day and while preparing, we see our protagonist break emotionally for a few moments, where he forces himself to smile and while he smiles he spills a Treacherous tear, shows palpable suffering that has to deal with daily and somehow manages to resist almost heroically. But reality and life constantly inflict wounds on his being.

Throughout history we see many evidence of this: we have that, while Arthur does his job, a band of brats steal a sign and Arthur pleadingly asks people for help, who ignores him in that dehumanized way and not according to that, the same band of brats beat him up.

Or how about the scene where one of his co-workers, Randall, gives him a gun so carelessly and that he lost his job - that despite everything, he loved - and his partner decided to wash his hands , before admitting his mistake?

We also have the case in which Arthur fervently tries to fulfill his dream of being a comedian and unfortunately not only does not succeed, but also Murray Franklin, his idol and role model openly mocks him.

But without a doubt, the hardest blow he suffered was when he learned that everything, ALL OF HIS LIFE, until now had been a lie. Finding out that he was adopted only to satisfy a narcissistic desire of his adoptive mother, that his own guardian allowed him to be abused in various ways and that his origin is completely uncertain create an emotional dent in him, since it has been given realize that his life - in his own words - has been a joke in its entirety. In my opinion, this is one of the most emotional and heartbreaking scenes of the film, since that is where we see Arthur laugh more uncontrollably than ever, while shedding tears and his gesture is of such extreme disappointment and pain, that one as a spectator, you can feel a total empathy with the character, despite knowing that he will become a murderous villain.

Another scene to highlight in the story, is when Arthur, already become the Joker, is featured in the show of his now former idol Murray. That is where The Joker, stopping to read for a few seconds a thought he wrote long ago ("I just hope my death makes more sense than my life"), is that he finally decides what he wants to do and what being he wants to become .

And is that previous scenes, Arthur is seen rehearsing his entrance and his act to the show, where we clearly see that he aimed to commit suicide in order to end his life so tragic.

In my opinion, when he reads those lines of his thought, he changes his mind and decides that he will now be forcefully heard and will do what he pleases and brings his own happiness and control of his life. It is also in this scene where there is a monologue that seems quite interesting to me, since Arthur rants against society that abandons not only the patients with mental disorders, but also the poor and the most needy people. It is, in its purest sense, a passionate speech, full of anger and resentment against society that, unconsciously, led him to become an executioner, now free from the bonds and ideas of good and bad with what society intended to retain him. And now the executioner intends to torture this society, which ironically now cries out for mercy when never had it in the first place with a human being like him.

Also in this scene is where the Joker gives another equally interesting speech, and it is that to some extent he is right in describing society as easily manipulable, since in his own words, that society was shocked by the death of the three Wayne business employees, without even knowing how they really were. Recall that behind the scenes, the three subjects were behaving like real patanes, harassing an innocent woman. In part, their deaths are brutal and to some extent an exaggerated punishment. But this must also be considered: at what point would these three have reached if Arthur had not been present? What limits would have been exceeded? An interesting reflection that gives a lot to think about.

Another point in favor of history, is that it not only focuses on the psychology and evolution of the main villain, but also manages to sustain, showing a dark side of society and especially the eternal struggle of social classes, especially The poor against the rich. Just remember that in the movie, these social classes make their position very clear: the rich condemn the crimes that they have done against them. The poor are full of joy for those acts that they consider pure and expeditious justice.

But…

Did it really happen everything that defined Arthur as the Joker?

Because in fact, in the same movie (and in various theories hanging around the internet) there are several clues that would confirm that the whole story we witnessed as spectators would be false. Some say that all their history is false and others maintain that only parts of it. And one might think that that little detail ruins the movie completely.

In this case, I would not think so.

And it is because of how the character is designed from the beginning. Basically the Joker is one of those characters who, as long as we knows less about his past, is much better, since it is part of his essence, being an entity of chaos whose origin is enigmatic and mysterious, a whole unknown. And if in truth his whole story is ambiguous or it didn't happen the way him told us, his past doesn't matter. What matters is precisely that we have been shown how his madness dragged him into becoming a criminal.

The story definitely gives a lot of fabric to cut from and is very worthy of analysis in many facets. The story, along with the characters - especially the protagonist - is the best of the film, and therefore it is a film that has no waste of seeing again and again.

Action and Visuals and special effects: Well ... where to start? Because if you ask me, I doubt that this film has been a great edition of special effects. I do not deny that I have one or another, but most of all the film is beautifully guided with the environments, the color palette and lights and especially a great script, so it is not necessary great effects. As for the action, the film has good sequences but they are very scarce and when they occur they are usually ephemeral. But do the film need action? Of course not, since it focuses on the character and his circumstances.

In conclusion, Joker, is a film very worth seeing and that has already become one of the best DC films, showing that in truth, when they want, they can achieve these wonderful results and that even overshadow their eternal rival Marvel. Therefore, I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 jokers. Beyond that, this film presents a new scheme that, if exploited in a good way, will create a genre in the superhero films: supervillain movies. And that is one of the greatest achievements of the film.

Definitely a highly recommended movie to watch and a very deserved achievement for DC and Warner. Hopefully they stay on this good path.

Greetings

Rankakiu

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