#I didn't make a distinction between the two timelines because

[oscpstri]

but you like it | piastri

piastri x motogp!reader, 3.5k

oscar piastri was a force to be reckoned with, and you found that true when he made your heart go 250 miles per hour. it didn't make it any better that you always somehow found your way back to each other.

INCLUDES: use of y/n, reader and osc are the same, reader is a badass though, quad lock being the enabler, lando being the number 1 shipper, inaccurate timeline, fictional events, they're literally flirting man like just KISS ALREADY UGHHHHH, literally doing everything BUT making it official so annoying

NOTE: came to be when someone requested for a oneshot so why not! TWIN FLAMES acts as a prologue to this but it's not necessary to read that in order to understand this (but still do teehee its cute)

( masterlist | more OP81 )

Oscar wasn't supposed to stay this long.

Not in Austria, not at the track, and definitely not in your garage. But somehow he found himself leaning against a wall in the back, hand in his hoodie pocket, pretending to scroll through his phone like he wasn't stealing glances at you.

You were crouched by your bike, deep in conversation with your engineer, hands moving as you spoke. There was something about the way you talked— firm but relaxed, all fire with an ice-cold edge. Oscar watches as you cross your arms and tilt your head as you listen, nodding every once in a while in agreement.

You hadn't noticed him. Or maybe you did but acted like you didn't.

"You're back," one of your mechanics teases him, passing with a sly grin.

Oscar raises his eyebrows, playing it cool. "Here for work."

"Right. Want me to get you an autograph?"

Oscar smirks but doesn't answer, gaze already lingering back to you.

That's when you feel it. The distinct buzz of someone watching.

You glance over your shoulder, just in time to lock eyes with the Formula 1 driver. He gives you a small nod as your eyes meet, to which you narrow your eyes back. It was like a secret language by now.

You walk towards him, passing your helmet to a mechanic who offered.

"Can't get enough of me, huh?"

Oscar shrugs. "Just making sure you don't fly off your bike again."

You scoff, crossing your arms. "Weren't you the one that crashed last weekend?"

Oscar raises a brow, a small smirk on his face. "Almost crashed. I still won."

A smile threatens to grow on your face. Your eyes flicker to the logo on the hoodie he was wearing, looking back at him with furrowed eyebrows and a small smile. "You used Quad Lock as your excuse to be here?"

He glances down at his hoodie before looking back at you with a cheeky grin. "Can't have people knowing I'm here voluntarily."

You tilt your head in disbelief. "You're annoying."

"Yeah, but you like it."

You shake your head at his antics, turning on your heel and walking off. Oscar watches you go, lips twitching. God, he couldn't get enough of you.

The thing about you and Oscar was that you two were practically the same. Not just in the paralleling careers in different motorsports, but also in personality.

You were both calm under pressure, stoic even in high-tension moments. You were both precise and calculated with every move you pull out in races, nothing was done without reason. You two also had quiet confidence— you didn't need to trash talk another driver because the results you put in did all the talking for you. If they were giving shit, you wouldn't notice. You'd have to read between the lines in order to catch what they meant— shade with style. You two also were a media mystery. Never saying more than you had to, never giving more than what interviewers asked for, never revealing anything unless asked.

You two were mysterious, and it got the whole world talking. So much so that the moment you magically appeared in the McLaren hospitality in casual clothes and sunglasses, the entire paddock started whispering. Because you not hiding behind Quad Lock gear made everyone think that you were there, not for content, but because you wanted to be— which was true but no one needed to know that.

"Fancy seeing you here," a familiar voice says, plopping down onto the chair beside you. You look up to see McLaren's more experienced driver, clad in papaya.

"And not against your own will." Lando quirks an eyebrow, catching the absence of anything Quad Lock on your body. Your silence makes his face light up, a knowing smile forming on his lips.

"Oh my—"

"Don't," you snap. The Brit only grins more, a cheeky smile on his face like he was a toddler that was just told a secret.

"Y/N," he starts. "Do you like my teammate?"

Silence falls between the both of you, Lando patiently waiting for the answer. You only scoff, a smile growing on your face as you leaned back into the chair— that was enough to give him an answer.

"Oh my god," he whispers excitedly, shaking your knee like he couldn't believe it.

It wasn't until then when he noticed the familiar hat sitting on your lap. It was black so he didn't pay much mind to it, but when he finally got a close-up of the design, he gasped so loud the entire hospitality thought he was dying.

You catch what he was looking at, covering the hat like you didn't just expose yourself even more in that moment. You didn't care that Lando knew, but you did care if anyone else did.

"That's from when he won in Baku," Lando says under his breath, staring at the 1st place Pirelli hat like it was a pot of gold.

"Was hard to wash out the champagne but," you inspect the hat, "I got it clean eventually."

Lando continues to sit there like his brain just went into overdrive. "You two are gonna be the death of me."

You giggle at his words, eyes locked onto the hat like it was the key that uncovered every interaction you had with its owner behind closed doors.

You and Oscar weren't dating— not yet. But you two had an unspoken connection that no matter how far you two were from each other, did not go away. That's why you two texted everyday, that's why you two bickered through call, that's why you exchange reels on Instagram that reminded you of each other, that's why you would stay up until past midnight to talk to him, that's why he would set an alarm for 4 in the morning just to talk to you.

That's why you were in the McLaren garage, Oscar's Pirelli hat on, leant against the wall, arms crossed, eyes locked onto the man in papaya who was heaving like he would explode any moment now.

The media’s swarming, the team’s whispering, the cameras are zoomed in a little too close. But Oscar? He’s stone-faced.

No slammed steering wheel, no screaming into the radio. Just a tight jaw, a clipped 'I’m okay' to his engineer, and a quiet walk back to the garage.

But you know better.

His suit’s still half-zipped down, fireproofs around his waist, gloves stripped off with more force than necessary. His expression is blank — almost too blank. Like a dam holding back something sharp.

He doesn’t see you until he rounds the corner.

"Didn’t think you’d be back here," he says, voice dry.

"Didn’t think you’d throw the car into the wall," you counter, light enough to make it a joke— not a jab. He doesn’t smile.

That’s how you know he’s really mad.

You push yourself off the wall, taking a step closer. "How bad?"

He shrugs. "It happens."

"Not what I asked."

He's silent for a while, trying to distract himself from looking at you. Putting his helmet on the table, gloves somewhere else, tossing the balaclava wherever. When he realizes that there was nothing he could do anymore, he sighs, turning to look at you.

"I had the pace— I had it. Then I lost it because I pushed too hard. That's it. It was stupid."

You pause. He looks at you. Sharp but not angry. You reach up and tug at the collar of his suit— gentle, grounding. "Don't talk about my favorite driver like that."

He blinks. Something flickers in his eyes and eventually Oscar swears he could hear his heart in his ears.

"I'm your favorite?"

You let go of him, stepping back and shrugging. "By default. You're easy to beat."

A beat passes. A small smile etched onto Oscar's face.

"You're annoying," he says softly.

"You like it," you shoot back, already walking back to the front of the garage. "Now go fix your ego before I start sending helmet designs for when I switch sports and replace you."

He watches you go in awe. He lets out a long breath and forgets all about the rage he felt mere minutes ago.

It was late. The kind of late where the world was quiet, the air hung heavy, and the only thing louder than the silence was your own heartbeat. You were curled up on the hotel couch, hair still damp from a rushed shower, scrolling through race footage on your laptop when a knock echoed through the door.

You didn't need to check who it was. When you opened it, Oscar stood there— hoodie wrinkled, hair tousled, and a tired kind of weight behind his eyes. Not sad, not dramatic, just… worn.

"Couldn't sleep?" you asked softly.

He shook his head. "You?"

"Not really."

A pause.

"You wanna come in?"

He hesitated. Then nodded once, stepping inside.

The room was dim, just the warm glow of the TV playing on mute and the faint light from your laptop screen. Oscar took a seat on the edge of the bed like he wasn’t sure where to put himself.

"I keep replaying it," he said eventually. "That corner. That one mistake. It's pathetic."

You looked over from your spot on the couch. "It’s not."

"I had the pace," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "The tires were warm. I knew the entry line. And still, I turned in too early and… gone. Just like that."

You closed the laptop. Set it aside.

"I've seen that look before," you admit. "Usually in the mirror."

Oscar glanced at you, brows furrowed.

"That blank one you wear when you're pissed at yourself but don’t want to let anyone know. You were holding it all in like it wasn’t already written across your shoulders."

He didn't answer. Just looked at you like you had peeled something open without trying to.

"I get it," you added. "Everyone talks about how you're calm, collected. But no one ever asks what it's like to keep it all in when you want to scream."

Oscar's jaw flexed, but he didn't speak. You could tell he was still chasing the perfect words— still trying to frame his frustration into something he could take in.

You walked over and sat beside him on the edge of the bed. Not too close— just enough.

"If it helps," you said lightly, "you're still the best driver on four wheels I've ever met."

He snorted softly. "That's a low bar coming from someone who lives on two."

You nudged his shoulder with yours. "Careful. I might take that personally."

A beat.

He turned his head slightly, eyes meeting yours— calmer now. Less clouded.

"You're the only person I've ever met who makes me feel like I'm not already one step ahead," he said quietly.

The words settled in your chest like thunder after a flash. You tried to smile, but it came out smaller than usual. "That supposed to scare me?"

Oscar's gaze dropped to your lips for half a second too long.

"No," he said, voice rough. "It's supposed to scare me."

You didn't say anything after that. You didn't have to.

He stayed for a while. Just sitting there— side by side. No more racing, no more pressure. Just a quiet understanding between two people who had finally met their match and couldn't look away.

It started innocent enough. A quiet cafe somewhere tucked in Barcelona's backstreets. The walls covered in polaroids, espresso strong enough to fuel an entire grid.

You had found the place first. Hidden, warm, local. The kind of spot not even MotoGP fans would think to look.

Oscar showed up ten minutes late, hoodie over his head, sunglasses on like it wasn't painfully obvious who he was.

"You look suspicious," you said as he slid into the booth across from you.

"I look anonymous."

"You look like someone about to rob the counter."

He cracked a smile, fingers wrapping around the drink you'd already ordered for him. He blinked once, looking back at you with his mouth slightly agape.

"I don't drink coffee," he mutters, watching as you take a sip from your cup.

"I know," you start, "that's why that's a smoothie."

He blinks even more. “You remembered,” he muttered.

You shrugged, putting your cup down. "Was tempting, though. Figured the caffeine might help your cornering next time."

That earned a light kick to your shin under the table. You grinned.

The conversation wandered easily— racing, Netflix edits, who had the worse simulator setup. He leaned in closer when you teased him about still using traction control, and you found yourself tugging his sunglasses off just to prove a point.

You didn't notice the phone— not right away. It was only after you'd laughed— head thrown back and eyes scrunching— that Oscar paused, eyes flicking briefly over your shoulder.

Too late. Someone had already taken the photo. A fan. Smart enough to stay quiet about it— for now.

It wasn't until the both of you got back to the hotel when you noticed the amount of messages you were getting from fellow drivers and riders.

"I told you to sit facing the wall," Oscar muttered, scrolling through the chaos on his phone.

You flopped down on the bed beside him, snatching the device from his hands. "You also told me the disguise was foolproof."

He gave you a flat look. "I didn't think me wearing sunglasses would trigger a media meltdown."

"Please. You smiled. That's enough to spark a scandal."

He laughed. Quiet, barely there, but real. Then, softly:

"They think we're dating."

You looked at him, curious. "Does that bother you?"

Oscar hesitated. Then met your gaze.

"No," he said. "Does it bother you that it doesn't bother me?"

You stared at him, heart stalling for one stupid second.

"No," you said back, voice just above a whisper. "It really doesn't."

The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was charged— full of all the things you both weren't ready to say.

But maybe, just maybe, you were starting to feel ready.

The aftermath of it all was entertaining.

It starts with a Quad Lock conference, a sit-down with reporters and a new brand ambassador. The beginning to the crossover event where all the brand's ambassadors try out each other's sports.

They made you sit next to each other, you knew Quad Lock planned this all from the very beginning.

Your name is called first. You lean into the mic, perfectly composed— at least from the waist up. Oscar leans back in his seat beside you, arms crossed, face unreadable except for the faint twitch of his mouth.

A reporter raises their hand, grinning like they already know the answer. "So... that cafe in Barcelona. Cozy, wasn't it?"

You hum, chin tilted enough just to be smug, an eyebrow raised. "Should I be asking for your coffee order?"

Oscar's already smirking, mic lifted casually. "She rated it an 8. Don't think we'll be going back, though. What with the... unexpected company and all."

The room loses it. Laughter erupts, a dozen camera flashes, some even gasp at the subtle confirmation. You shake your head, trying to bite back the smile. Oscar doesn't even blink.

Then comes the real question:

"Are you two together?"

You and Oscar both pause.

"No."

"Not yet."

It comes from him and it silences the room. You turn your head so fast you almost pull a muscle. "Excuse me?"

He clears his throat. "That was supposed to be a thought."

You bite your cheek to keep from laughing. You whisper into your mic, "You're making this worse."

He glances sideways. "Am I lying?"

Another pause.

You look straight into the camera. "No comment."

Twitter dies, fan pages erupt, and you don't even bother checking your phone this time.

Then comes the inevitable team meeting. You're told to report to your team principal's office after the press conference.

You had expected a scolding, not Oscar already sitting there, arms folded, sipping from a water bottle like this was a casual debrief.

You stop at the door. "Is this… couples therapy?"

"I prefer public image management," he says.

Your managers stare at you like you've both just announced a pregnancy.

"Are you dating?"

You both glance at each other. Oscar sighs, adjusting himself in his seat. "I like her. I'm not gonna hide that."

You freeze. He's not looking at the managers, he's looking at you.

You swallow. Shrug a little. "I'd consider signing a multi-year race contract."

There's a beat of silence.

Your manager scribbles something furiously into their notes. Probably 'chaos imminent'. They finally look up at you and mutter: "Do we need to start printing shirts?"

Then it's the first race since the scandal. Your name is on every tabloid. Oscar's too. You figured he'd stay far away.

But there he is. Leaning casually against the garage, team pass hanging from his lanyard, sunglasses back on like that's going to stop anyone from recognizing him.

Your mechanics whistle when you walk into the garage and see him.

You raise an eyebrow. "You lost?"

Oscar just grins. "You'll crash if you keep staring."

You throw your towel at him. "You wish."

You win that race, obviously. Fastest lap, pole to podium, champagne in your hair, and gold on your collar.

When you walk back to the garage, Oscar is still there— a new team cap in his hand.

He tosses it to you without a word. You catch it. Thumb running over the '81' embroidered on the brim.

"Figured I owed you one," he says, a little breathless, like he ran to make sure he didn't miss you.

You tilt your head, playful. "You came all the way here just to even the score?"

He shrugs. "No. I came for you."

Your smile is slow, wide, unstoppable. And suddenly, it's not about press photos, or rumors, or what the media thinks anymore.

It's just him. It's just you. It's just the quiet, terrifying, electric realization that you've finally found someone who matches you beat for beat and it's the best thing that's ever happened to either of you.

Oscar was on pole. The McLaren garage was buzzing with the electric sort of tension that only came with race day. Tire warmers humming, radios crackling, mechanics pacing with tightly wound nerves. But the real reason everyone kept sneaking glances over their shoulders?

You.

Sitting confidently on the orange garage stool with a headset resting around your neck and the most deliberate papaya jacket zipped halfway over your MotoGP uniform. You weren't hiding. You hadn't even tried.

People stared, whispered, took photos. And you met every look with a raised brow and a smirk that said, yes, I'm here, and yes, I'm staying.

"Thought you said papaya wasn't your color," Oscar said as he passed you, helmet in hand, voice low enough just for you to hear.

You leaned back and smiled up at him. "It isn't. But you are."

He blinked. Almost stumbled. And for the first time in years, Oscar Piastri— calm, cool, unshakably composed— looked like he didn't know what to do with himself.

"You're going to ruin my race focus," he muttered, voice slightly higher than usual.

"I hope so," you teased. "Win anyway."

You watched every lap from the garage, headset finally over your ears, half-listening to strategy while keeping your eyes locked on that papaya blur carving through every sector.

He was perfect— composed, ruthless in defense, smooth on exits.

And when he crossed the finish line first, fists pumping in the cockpit, the entire garage exploded around you.

You didn't move.

Not until he pulled into parc fermé. Not until the camera caught him looking straight toward the garage before he even unbuckled. Not until he jogged in, helmet off, curls messy with sweat already on his suit.

And then you were moving.

He spotted you before anyone else did. Didn't wait, didn't ask, just walked toward you with that exhausted, elated kind of grin.

"I won," he said breathlessly.

"I saw."

"You wore orange."

"I know."

Oscar stepped closer. Close enough that the noise fell away. Close enough that his team was watching with barely-disguised grins and held breath.

You looked up at him. "Still want to pretend it's not a thing?"

He shook his head once. Firm. "No. I’m done pretending."

You smiled. "Good. Because I don't feel like hiding anymore."

He didn't say anything else. He just kissed you.

Soft at first. Gentle, almost unsure— like even now, he couldn't believe it was happening. But you kissed him back like you'd been waiting your whole damn life for it, and the paddock lost its mind.

Applause, camera flashes, mechanics howling, drivers wolf-whistling as they passed.

But none of it mattered. Because it was just you and Oscar. Two champions. One race at a time. Exactly the same. And finally, together.

[artbyblastweave]

🔥Punisher: Last Gun on Earth?

This ask is referring to the fairly-obscure 2010 zombie apocalypse Elseworld Marvel Universe Vs The Punisher by Jonathan Maberry, as well as the two prequels following Wolverine and Hawkeye at different points in the same timeline. I've been meaning to do a more comprehensive write-up on this for quite some time, as it was a series distinct from but very visibly in conversation with Marvel Zombies, which Maberry was also peripherally involved with. The elevator pitch is that a fuckup by the Punisher during a hit on the Russian Mob results in a cold war bioweapon getting into the biosphere, eventually turning almost the entire human population, and most of the superheroes, into adrenaline-fueled 28-days-later style rage zombies. Content Warning under the cut for discussions of racism

Despite its many, many flaws, there was a lot I enjoyed about this series, and alongside Marvel Zombies it had a not-insubstantial impact on my own aesthetic sensibilities, which I think probably comes through in a lot of my zombie artwork. The first mini, Marvel Universe Vs The Punisher, is a pastiche of I am Legend, with Frank Castle in the role of Robert Neville, an infected Deadpool in the role of Neville's abnormally sentient neighbor Ben Cortman, and with a zombified Spider-Man the white whale that he's spent five years hunting through the remains of Manhattan. Before I get into the rancid shit, I'm going to talk about what I enjoyed:

While the series succumbs to all-too-common Punisher Wank in terms of his efficacy in taking down a number of the A-list infected heroes, it ultimately comes out the other side as a pretty competent piece of character work for Frank; the series is grimly aware that a virus turning most of the human population into a shooting gallery of sadistic cannibal maniacs would be something like Valhalla for Frank, regardless of his pretensions to the contrary. Moreover, it's subtly implied that Frank's belief that he's immune is incorrect, and what's actually happening is that a virus that turns you into a vindictive, dogmatic maniac with a hardwired us-or-them mindset had no effect on him because he was already like that. There are ultimately revealed to be thousands of other survivors in New York, all of whom have spent five years studiously avoiding him because they think he's batshit insane. Even zombie Spider-Man, played up as the Biggest Bad, is ultimately revealed to have retained enough humanity to protect his uninfected family the entire time, whereas Frank is ultimately painted as unrelenting genocide machine whose psychological inability to give quarter ultimately makes him worse than the infected.

From there the series extrapolated some hilarious commentary on the genre as a whole; the zombie outbreak was going on for months before reaching critical mass, and nobody noticed because the baseline levels of random street violence and superpowered brawls are already so high in these settings that nobody realized a lot of the fights were occurring for rage-virus reasons until Spider-Man killed and ate a supervillain on live television. The whole series can be viewed through the lens of the usual spectacle-bait crisis-crossover contrived-battle-between-heroes routine, distilled to its purest form and escalated to the point of Ragnarök; the art frequently deliberately obfuscates which combatants are infected and which are uninfected people fighting for their lives. In this way it's playing with the pre-existing logic of the superhero genre in a way that Marvel Zombies didn't.

Maberry knows how to use Deadpool in a supporting character role without having him eat the entire goddamn thing. It's a fun dynamic!

Unlike Marvel Zombies, which was deliberately unconcerned with logistics as part of the gonzo fever-dream aesthetic, Maberry put some actual thought into a semi-plausible model by which a zombie virus could overrun a superhero setting. The responsible mutagen is air-and-waterborne, causing people to start turning at random months after being infected rather than through bites or fluid contact, and sneaks around healing factors because the mutations it causes are parsed as improvements rather than disease symptoms. Mass swarms of infected, unpowered civilians are as relevant, if not more relevant, than the superhumans are in spreading the infection, leading in turn to a lot of Left 4 dead styled set piece co-op fights like the one depicted above, and leading to the failure state that a superhero might be able to mince human wave attacks all day but at a certain point they'll have chewed through everyone they were ostensibly protecting by doing so, even if they themselves survive. This is a dynamic that, ultimately, only Frank Castle is really capable of thriving within, because with him it was never about protecting people, just hurting "bad" ones.

Which leads to another major positive points- the series is also a lot more concerned with rendering the setting's downward spiral. Eight prequel issues depicting the superhero community going down fighting over the course of months, rather than folding like a dixie cup in a trash compactor for horror value. Dead Days is the closest that Marvel Zombies ever got to rendering that same process, and while that was a very good oneshot it was still a deliberately compact one-shot. Here you get tableau after tableau of survivors throwing down with zombies. Unlikely alliances, second-string deep-cut z-listers crawling out of the woodwork- all interspersed with the growing realization among the protagonists that this is not business as usual, the status quo is not going to hold this time, it's just the actual apocalypse.

Here's Punisher, Hawkeye, Iron Fist and Black Cat trying to hold the Holland tunnel. Here's Dr. Bong, Howard the Duck Ruby Tuesday and Hit Monkey making a last stand in Central Park. This shit unironically kicks ass! This is what I think a lot of people are gesturing at when they say that they want to see a superheroes vs zombies story.

And, on that note, if you're going to tell this kind of story, Punisher, Wolverine and Hawkeye are objectively three of the best characters to have as the viewpoint characters- precisely the right level of competence and street-level scrappiness to survive without having a prayer of turning the tables outright. "Shit, Man, this superhero war is fucked-" the comic.

One additional minor thing I enjoyed about the series, aesthetically, is that while Marvel Zombies was a deliberately anachronistic mish-mash where every character was depicted in their most visually iconic outfits from across decades of publication, This series was very specifically working with the Marvel Universe status quo circa 2010 when it was published- The X-Men in San Francisco, Red Hulk on the Avengers, now-long-forgotten Avengers Academy kids in crowd shots. It grounds the narrative in a way Marvel Zombies was deliberately avoiding, acting as a snapshot and a time capsule in a neat way.

Now onto the two big things I didn't like about this series, the latter of which sinks it really really badly:

One: Caption Cancer. Maberry is one of those authors who I like on balance but who also often lapses into Talking Just To Talk. How many times does the navel-gazey running commentary in the above excerpts double back on itself, and how much is it actually saying- particularly when contrasted with the story told by the art and dialogue alone? Either he felt a need to fill the space (bad) or worse, he thought that these were some kind of deep and compelling rumination on the human condition. In general the balance of exposition to action in this thing were.... all over the place, not always integrated gracefully. The best sequences in the book are the ones where the captions just shut the fuck up so we can watch these people clobber each other. This is not a problem the original Marvel Zombies had- one thing I like about Kirkman is that he's usually a caption minimalist, letting the art and the dialogue do the heavy lifting. You don't get a page as quiet and decompressed as the following in the entire 12 issue run of Marvel Universe Vs.

Two: It's Racist. Like, really really racist. The comic continuously lapses into extremely racist imagery with the infected, using the visual language of "primitive savage tribes" with seemingly zero awareness of the real-life groups that those tropes were used to propagandize against and dehumanize. It's one thing to have zombies that take human body parts as trophies- that's kind of a cool motif- it's quite another to have a zombified Hulk who braids his hair in an obvious caricature of Native Americans, complete with feathers. What the fuck, Maberry!

Moreover it's a comically unforced error- everything compelling happens outside of that imagery, it's adding basically nothing but an attack surface to the premise. 28 days later did this basic premise without the racism, Left 4 Dead did this basic premise without the racism, The Crazies did this basic premise without the racism, Fucking Crossed did this basic premise without using the same racist visual language, at least until after Ennis left the book. Congratulations- you found a way to make the zombies more on-the-face racially insensitive than Garth Ennis. Round of Applause, everyone. This specific issue is why I don't think I've ever brought this book up in depth unprompted, it's genuinely really gross.

Anyway, those are my unified thoughts on the Marvel Universe Vs. trilogy, hope you enjoyed.

[byemambo]

4Minutes EP. 6 - My Takeaways

Y'all...The way I was working OVERTIME trying to figure out how I wanted to explain my thoughts for this episode (this post is extremely long: take that as you will). So please welcome OG TymeGreat vs. NDE (near death experience) TymeGreat and their timelines (everything else under the cut!):

Great Version

Tyme Version

Key Events: Assessing the Timelines

I listed out key events that I felt matched up within each existing timeline (and I'm sure I missed more key events/details that aren't listed in my findings), no matter the person nor alternative reality they're in. For Great's timeline, the key events include:

Waking up to take his exam

Hitting Manee with his car

Receiving the call from Title

Korn being attacked

Great learns Tyme's identity as the attacker

Great confronting Tyme at the hospital the next day

Great confronting his parents for their crimes

Great renounces his ties to his family

While these events occurred regardless of the different decisions Great could make, what was striking to me was Great's distinct characteristics that existed in both timelines while also having characteristics individual to their respective timelines. For OG Great, he's extremely defiant and cynical, especially if he's able to get a rise out of his father for reasons prior to knowing about the business, I'm not exactly sure (except for him being the mistress's son before the first wife committed suicide).

Episode 6 vs. Episode 1

Given that we didn't get any scenes of him bonding with Korn throughout the episode unlike NDE Great, I can only imagine there's a bias towards Korn as the favorite son between the two where one listens and submits while the other vocal and disobeys. Along with being defiant and having the guts to gauge the wold with cockiness, he is also a coward that's easily persuaded and manipulated. This shows up most during scenes like the hit and run or when Title demanded Great to help get rid of Dome's body and in turn, become an accomplice to the crime.

Episode 6 vs. Episode 1

OG Great also operates on this mindset of being silver spooned his entire life more explicitly than NDE Great, and becomes hot headed when placed under immense pressure once he's unable to play mind games with his targets such as Tyme. Even though their hook up and Tyme leaking his sex tape caused a scandal with his dad's company, the amount of trauma Great has dealt with growing up (this kid never played a crane machine game so I can only imagine how lonely his upbringing was) resorts to him chasing after those dopamine hits and becoming shameless as a result.

One of the few times OG Great chose his own morals and acted upon them in the storyline was when he found out about his parents and their involvement with the scheme, but this decision only occurred when people he cared about died or got hurt, like Nan and Tyme. Because he had developed a short spanned codependency on Tyme (whether for more sex or because he found his serious demeanor amusing), once he had been left with nothing due to reasons beyond his control, he leaves his family behind after the confirmation of their crimes.

Unlike NDE Great, OG Great is self centered and only acts when pushed beyond his limits, but only if the consequences of that limit involves someone he genuinely cares about (this is the stark difference between Dome's demise versus Tyme's meltdown after Nan's death). Sure, people can argue that Great knows Tyme at a similar level of depth like he knew Dome (apart from being sexually involved with one another), but his interests peaks in Tyme once he finds out that he's seeking revenge against his father and finds that mere effort entertaining for him. In the OG timeline, Great's flaws directly causes his detriment in the end, getting shot by Dome's older brother Tonkla in vengeance.

Episode 6 vs. Episode 5

In Tyme's timeline, there aren't as many moving parts that we saw on screen as much as Great's (since their particular story is limited narrative through Great's perspective) but these events remain consistent in his story:

Tyme works a hospital shift

Den tells him about his NDE research

Tyme works the night shift with Great in his proximity

Tyme attacks Korn in search of Nan

Great confronts Tyme at the hospital the next day

What I found most interesting in OG Tyme's timeline was how linear and straightforward the events occurred in sequence, which would have been the case if Great never asked him about his occurring NDE symptoms like he did in the NDE timeline while being under Tyme's care. Tyme's prior knowledge to Den's research served as a seed planted in the back of his mind, which if Great hadn't asked him (if he chose to help Title get rid of Dome's body), Tyme would have went along with his plan and shelved Den's research with no intention in intervention. The difference in approach between OG Tyme and NDE Tyme was rooted in their initial encounters, both being Great bumping into Tyme and how it was handled.

If Great continued heading his way, Tyme's initial impression of Great would have been slightly annoyed (which we saw a preview of how he yelled at Great during the first cardiac arrest Great had when he bumped into Tyme and didn't help him). But if Great stopped to apologize and even help Tyme with the papers, there is a hint of consideration in that gesture, even if Great himself is a flawed person capable of doing bad things. For some, basic human decency isn't a mind blowing trait for people to fawn over, but this can be contrasted when Tyme asks P'Anne for his information and finally gets confirmation of Great's identity.

Episode 6 vs. Episode 1

Episode 6 vs. Episode 3

From the perspective of Tyme who's dedicated his personal life in bringing down the family responsible for the death of his parents, I'm sure having a painted image of what inhumane and vulgar things the family is capable of, Great's first impression as the younger son of the enemy is somehow normal? As if this man isn't capable of hurting a fly, let alone killing people like his father does (why did I think of fucking Lord Ozai and Prince Zuko when proofreading this loooooord someone send me to bed asap). Rather than treating Great as just a means to an end with no prior attachment and full intent in harming the family's reputation as OG Tyme would have, NDE Tyme's prior interactions with Great by him helping Tyme with his papers (the readiness to correct his faults while providing a solution to aid in the damage caused, big or small), Great bringing his hurt friend to the hospital without acknowledging his own injuries (a sign of selflessness and reliability) and asking Tyme about his symptoms related to his cardiac arrests and moments of NDE, there are layers being shed off of Tyme's preconceived notions about the family.

Episode 2

Episode 6

Not only are there layers, Tyme's curiosity peaks because why is the son of the family who killed his parents seemingly harmless and clumsy? Shouldn't someone of his background be more cautious and conceal himself more, especially when speaking to a stranger such as Tyme? Does he know what his parents do and the damage they have caused for countless families and victims? In comparison to OG Great who's callous and bold, NDE Great is soft and easily startled, therefore, needs a more calculative and somewhat honest approach to secure a connection to get closer to bringing the family down.

Episode 6 vs. Episode 3

Characterization: A vs. B

When writing my reflections, I found it interesting how TymeGreat's relationship develops within their respective timelines, especially how each encounter they had with one another fueled different emotions and residual feelings. In the OG timeline, their relationship is innately lustful with distance between them, their main objectives involve concealed vengeance, amusement in the series of events occurring between them and not being able to access the full story of the two worlds both individuals were a part of before their paths crossed.

Whereas in the NDE timeline, their relationship began with a curiosity that defied expectations and welcomed communication, such as asking intimate questions and offering valuable solutions to majority of their problems: Great asking Tyme about his cardiac symptoms, Tyme consulting Den about his research after Great's conversation, Great confiding in Tyme about his upbringing, Tyme revealing the cause of his parents' death, Great confronting his own family for their crimes and seeking accountability. All of these traits wouldn't have been present if that initial hit and run played out differently: they would have crossed paths regardless but their attitudes and motives would shape the state of their relationship.

Episode 6 vs. Episode 3

Episode 6 vs. Episode 5

However, there are innate traits that remained consistent in both characters. Great with his impulsivity and tackling his problems head strong, Tyme with his nonchalance and caring attitude towards the people he loves (such as his grandmother). What really caused the divergence of their whims were purely based in the circumstances they find themselves in during their initial encounters. When they met at the bar, Great's impulsivity charged the motion of their relationship, ending with his cowardice separating the two once Nan died at the hands of Samarn. Tyme's detached attitude that drove his girlfriend away from him and poses concern from Den as a fellow doctor in how he denies his patients of their own identity and autonomy, causes him to take advantage of Great's relations to the family, ending in his own death after denying the bribe by Great's father.

Episode 6

Episode 6

Episode 1

Despite it all, the most significant element that both Tyme and Great share is the leverage both have over one another through their emotional attachments, which may seem small in comparison to more flashy events within the storyline but for these two characters: it makes a world of a difference. When NDE Tyme reveals his identity during the ambush against Korn, which led Great to help Tyme find Nan and as a result, saving her life. This is critical as OG Great is inherently a coward with a dopamine deficiency and enjoys causing trouble for his father's reputation at his own demise.

Episode 4

When Tyme is willing to risk his life exposing Great's family to the press, Great reminds him of his grandmother, driving Tyme to accept the bribe from Great's dad and find safety at Aunt Ging's house together. Unlike OG Tyme, whose reserved and passive attitude enables his life to be filled with the absurd and mundane, that money is the driving force of life and the root of all evil that took his parents away from him, so what else is there to live for as long as he avenges his family?

Episode 5

Now for my questions for the last two episodes: if Great dies in the OG timeline and is actively dying in the NDE timeline, since Tyme's destined fate to die in the OG timeline has been altered once he's notified of Great's condition in the emergency room by Den, he has a chance of avoiding death that OG Tyme suffers from. It may be a stretch but look at the two hit men who targeted Tyme and Great.

Episode 1 vs. Episode 5

The hit man in episode 1 look significantly younger than the hit man in episode 5, but same facial hair? The shadow in the first image throws me off but it's freaky to speculate as it sent shivers down my spine whenever I got a better screenshot of them. If I put my two brain cells together: in the OG timeline, Tonkla targets and shoots Great but Tyme is also shot in episode 1, which makes me believe that their timelines are converging somehow as both of them enter their 4 minutes of limbo and their memories and experiences are warped.

In the NDE timeline, because Dome is saved and returns home to Tonkla, the only person reasonable in targeting Great would be Manee after she finds out which family is responsible for her son's involvement in illegal business (which her giving up her life savings and being given the 4th card during her ritual that calls for separation of loved ones). This separation in question is the separation of Tyme from Great as Great's fighting for his vitals to stabilize just as Tyme rushes to the OR?

Because NDE Tyme goes with his grandmother to Aunt Ging's instead of sending her on her own as OG Tyme does, both of them are technically off the radar from being targeted, or at least bought enough time to make a safe escape if Great's father goes back on his word outlined in the proposed bribe. Seeing as Tyme's wearing the same shirt in both timelines at this point, we're now waiting to see how this will play out, and I'm literally so excited to lose sleep all over again.

Episode 1 vs. Episode 6

If you made it to the end, pat yourself on the back! And if you've been actively reading my previous posts regarding my takeaways, I really appreciate the love they've been getting! I'm more than happy to hyperfixate on this series and help out with really digging deep in the details that could help those who are having difficulty following along with the series. Idk, y'all got to yell at Bible on Twitter then because he thinks he's so funny tweeting this:

If y'all would like to read more, check out my tags and thank you again for sticking around, see y'all next Friday or whatever day my brain finishes finalizing its thoughts to share with y'all :)

[neverchecking]

More Sage Hc's

Because I miss him :(

And this is a wonderful half-collab with @angry-trashcan. I love you so very much and thank you for letting me yell ideas at you.

CW: Mentions of child abuse, child soldiers, Zelda slander, Sage

・❥・Welcome back. :)

・❥・So, we've established Sage as his own character at this point. I think it's safe to say he is not Wild. They are similar but two very distinct characters. That is something I'd like to clarify.

・❥・But we'll step into that later.

・❥・For now, let's talk about his entire timeline from start to finish.

・❥・So, Bailey and I talked about his parents and this is the conclusion we came to:

・❥・As everyone knows, Link in the AoC/BotW/TotK timeline was in the knights by a staggeringly young age. Either four or twelve or fourteen. I've seen them all, but I'm not sure if there's a canon age.

・❥・For Sage, we're going with four.

・❥・Now, let's start with his father. Sage's father was in the knights as a commanding officer, which is why he was okay with Link joining the knights. However, because of this a lot more expectations were placed on a very young Sage. And if he failed the punishments were much harsher and much less justified.

・❥・There were nights when Sage/Link was left on the ground outside because his father didn't deem him worth the effort and forbade people from helping him.

・❥・He'd walk past and spit on this terrified child because he didn't live up to expectations. "Your mother would've been so disappointed."

・❥・(shout out to Bailey for ripping out all of our hears with that line.

・❥・Because of this Sage finds much more comfort sleeping outside. Even a a century later, he prefers the comfort of a constant rather than a bedroom he was never allowed the privilege of knowing.

・❥・When he gets his house in Tarrey Town, he builds the stable extension first and slips outside with Epona.

・❥・We also agreed that his mother most likely died during the birth of his sister, which is probably why they had to move out of the Hateno house and closer to the castle, if not on the castle grounds.

・❥・If I had to make an assumption on his mother, she was probably a timid woman that never stood against his father.

・❥・This is really just my lil tidbit but because of that headcanon it's why I made Aaliyah such an abrasive character because I feel Sage would feel too much like his father with someone who reminded him of his mother. Or the little bits he remembers of her.

・❥・Anyway, his mother was probably a seen rather than heard woman,

・❥・Now, you're probably asking about his sister. We decided that she would've ended up as a maid/servant in the castle.

・❥・This is for two reasons:

・❥・One) It adds to hatred Sage has for the Royal Family. As a knight he would've had no choice but to watch this happen and would feel that burning guilt as a bystander, ignoring the fact that he has no choice in the matter. Maybe that's why he fought so hard pre-Calamity. Of course, he still fought because it was his duty, but I also like to imagine he was trying his best to protect his sister before it could ever hit her. Even if it was a fruitless endeavor.

・❥・Two) When Sage remembers this fact, it's probably before Tears of the Kingdom. The bridge between TotK and BotW probably is Link/Sage unravelling a lot of the trauma he tried to ignore regarding the royal family. So this is almost a catharsis to the entire feat. Moreso with Zelda/Natura's reaction.

・❥・She'd be flippant and almost ignorant to the entire ordeal.

・❥・Before anyone comes for my throat, let me explain Natura's character okay?

・❥・So, as far as I'm concerned, Natura hasn't learned anything. She's very much still the same character she was in AoC which is a spoiled individual with little regards to the woes others are facing. She had a tough time, yes I understand that and she was young, but she had no reason to act the way she did with Link. I don't care, argue with the wall.

・❥・She went digging around in the remains of what was left of her people post BotW trying to figure out how the guardians worked. She puts more emphasis on her studies and research rather than her people. Remember this is Natura. Not Zelda. This is my characterization in the same way that Sage is my characterization of Link.

・❥・Anyway, she didn't go looking for a way to solve the Gloom issue, she went looking for a way to capitalize on it. Like the pharmaceutical industry.

・❥・So you can imagine her reaction knowing that.

・❥・"We kept her off the streets like a worthless rat. You should be thanking me."

・❥・Yeah, it's not great.

・❥・So then TotK happens, yadda yada.

・❥・Sage loves animals. Let me get this straight. He's not heartless, he's angry and he's vengeful. Animals never wronged him. He finds comfort with animals as they can't lie to him. He can earn their trust and they'll remain loyal.

・❥・Because Sage is a dangerously loyal man. He still carries the loyalty of the hero's spirit, but it's amplified. Once you're his, you're his forever. Nothing can drag him away from you as he won't let it.

・❥・He's so loyal it turns from a positive attribute to a flaw. :)

・❥・He's possessive and protective and doesn't see an issue with it. Everything else has been torn from his hands but his fingers will be broken and bloody before he lets what's his go.

・❥・I bring up the animal thing just to say Sage gets a dog. You know that stable that closes down in the desert? And how all the stables have stable dogs? Well, this one follows Sage all over Hyrule. And if he goes in the depths thinking he's lost it, the second he's out the dog is sniffing his ass out.

・❥・Yes, he keeps the dog and feeds it the nicest cuts of meat, don't worry.

・❥・It's name is Droolius Caesar.

・❥・Timeline wise, let's talk about that.

・❥・So again, Bailey, and they're gorgeous fucking brain, brought up the idea of him being on a different timeline then Wild. I ran with it.

・❥・I don't see TotK falling on the timeline nicely no matter what we do. Not with the Zonai and not with the other game.

・❥・So what if it doesn't fall on the same timeline as BotW? The same events happen but now it's different.

・❥・Here's how it goes:

・❥・So when Time splits the timeline we get the normal one where, yay! he saves the day! and the other one where he doesn't. Call it the downfall timeline, the fallen timeline, the failure timeline, I don't care. For the sake of argument it's the Fallen Timeline here.

・❥・So there's an idea that the timelines merge somewhere between Wars timeline and Wild's. But let's say they don't. Because the Fallen timeline goes to Legend, then Hyrule. Then what if it doesn't fix itself and just continues. which is where it then leads to Sage's era.

・❥・Only this timeline is on hard mode at all times. Legend's adventures were difficult, Hyrule's era is absolutely brutal, so it makes sense that Sage's is just as hard.

・❥・We toyed with the idea that because this timeline is so hard, the heroes that reign from it are just that much more advanced. It's shown through Legend and then Hyrule, both of whom have wielded the full triforce at one point or another (I think). Somewhere between Hyrule's world however and Legend's, the goddess' didn't like this idea. They didn't like the idea of the hero having this sense of power, so they stripped it away entirely. They knew that somewhere the hero's spirit would be tainted and took away the power that could be used to dethrone them before it could manifest with Sage.

・❥・In turn, the hero's spirit carried on and grew stronger to overcome this. Sage still has the hero's spirit, but it's not like an actual spirit. No, it's more like the fallen hero carrying on and trying to amend for his sins.

・❥・Which Sage hates. He hates it so much, but it propels him before he can stop it. In the beginning of TotK? It's what propels him to jump in after Zelda. After however? The gloom is what finally kills that spirit. Rauru can save him, but fails to save the spirit.

・❥・And from there Sage evolves and arises into the rat we all know and love.

・❥・All of this to give my own lil headcanons on Epona.

・❥・So there's a theory that Malanya (Horse god) Is actually Malon and I like that. (Because she gave Link Epona OG and they sound similar) So in Sage's Era? Guess what?

・❥・Anyway, I imagine Malanya and Sage had a better connection because of this. Malanya goes out of their way to care for Sage and his horse because they feel they failed their Link.

・❥・So Sage gets an Epona in a way to apologize for their first failure.

・❥・Epona is a very good horse <3

・❥・So in the wise words of bailey to end this off,

The hero's spirit is dead. Long live whatever the fuck Sage is.

[felixcloud6288]

Dungeon Meshi Chapter 73

This is a new meaning to "Eating your words"

Look at that giant pillow! This has probably been the most comfortable sleep the party has had in weeks.

Laios offhandedly mentioned he's borrowing some clothes from Thistle. Delgal was wearing something similar but I didn't find any panels of anyone wearing that specific coat. I bet Laios chose to wear it because it has a fur-trimmed collar. He seems to have a light preference for that design element, maybe because it was normal to wear it in his youth.

So. Many. Pillows.

I take it Marcille never drank alcohol before, or at least not in large quantities. She doesn't know what a hangover is.

They're talking about their journey almost being over (again). At least this time, we can already tell how things are going to go horribly wrong. Becoming dungeon lord is not a good idea at all, and we still need to see how the Canaries screw everything up for them.

Laios has developed an understandable fear of the dungeon rabbits. He got spooked by the bird because he thought it might be a rabbit jumping out of the bushes.

Y'know, Laios did refer to Kabru correctly back in chapters 38 and 52 so he remembered Kabru's name for at least a week. First time I recall Laios getting Kabru's name wrong is chapter 66. I want to say there were two distinct days between chapters 52 and now (57-60 and 63-72) but there's room for several days to have passed between them since the party was near the start of the seventh floor in the first day and they had climbed all the way to the bottom the next time we see them.

I wonder what was going through Kabru's mind when he saw Falin. It would indicate the party must have come into conflict with Thistle and very recently too. So now he has to be concerned about whether or not he's too late in stopping Laios from becoming the new dungeon lord.

Kabru pulled his sleeves down to hide his cuffs.

Now that I think about it, Kabru wasn't wearing his armor when he left the dungeon in chapter 38, but he had his equipment on in chapter 53. Maybe someone else carried it back through the portal or maybe he had to buy a new set when he got back.

Laios shook Kabru's hand back in chapter 38. He's not good at remembering names or picking up on people's intents, but Laios has proven he can pick up on behaviours. So even if he can't tell why something is off, he can tell Kabru's handshake is not the same as last time.

Is that what a succubus actually looks like?

I love how Pattadol's fairy always expresses Pattadol's emotions.

Chilchuck is making everything worse. He might as well have said "We used black magic on this journey." And then he never says anything else or tries to stop Laios during the rest of the interrogation.

In an alternate timeline where the lion didn't warn the party about the Canaries, this entire interrogation could have gone differently. The Touden party still needs to be concerned about the elves finding out about Marcille using ancient magic, but they wouldn't have any reason to believe the Canaries are a threat and might be willing to explain the situation.

The Canaries are a task force designed to prevent demons from escaping the dungeons, so the last thing the Winged Lion wants is for its pawns to work with the group that is specially-trained to stop it.

Why is one of the ingredients for bavarois "That one milk"? The only milk I can think of is succubus milk.

Never stops being funny watching Kabru suffer the consequences of his attempts to manipulate Laios.

That slime is the one from floor 1? They've been traveling for about a month now!!

I think Otta does have a point about the slime coming from a graveyard. Who knows what kind of bacteria is inside it.

I'm disappointed Cithis managed to hypnotize them that easily.

For someone with a bad sense of direction, Mithrun is very good at showing up where he's not wanted.

Nothing replaced Izutsumi meaning she was teleported to an open space.

back

[tobiasdrake]

thought: the whole "genki dama/super saiyan fusion thing" that trunks did in the anime would make way more sense on a mechanical and thematic level if goku did it. specifically in some au where goku didn't train with beerus or. 1. goku actually knows the genki dama. there's the mechanical sense right from the get go. 2. goku has a form that would both be a bigger spit on zamasu's godly face and would probably synergize with an external power source pretty well: super saiyan three. mechanical sense again.

3. in this thought, goku would've rejected two entirely different forms of godhood in two meaningfully distinct ways. yet while goku has embraced his own mortality in both the past and present, he also once moved past it through death. super saiyan three is both dependant on and symbolizes this for goku. thematic. 4. goku fighting black forces him to contend with both forms of godhood that he rejected at the same time in a unique context. he's long been made earth's real guardian despite rejecting the actual position, and black would still wield some form of the god ki goku chose not to pursue. thematic. kind of a turles situation? goku's mortal martial arts bolstered by divine techniques, tools, and the raw life of the planet he was originally charged to protect by the god of his world clashing with black's brutish divine might that exploits goku's saiyan biology through the abuse of cosmic power. Goku is welcomed into the domain of gods through his exceptional qualities and ability to develop genuine friendships, black invaded a mortal body for the sake of power and believes in only himself to such an extent that he partners up and fuses with himself.

I do kind of like it as a Trunks power-up. Modern Dragon Ball is trying to diversify the characters' powersets but doesn't seem to have many good ideas for how to do that. See: Vegeta's Super Saiyan Blue-er and Ultra Ego, Orange Piccolo, and Gohan's latest unique form Super Saiyan 2 2. The spirit is willing but actual good ideas for things that can be "This character's own unique power-up that belongs just to them DO NOT STEAL" are few and far between.

The idea of Trunks, as the hope of the Earth/future/all of time drawing in a Genki-Dama and incorporating it into a transformation seems pretty killer. Trunks is one of the few characters in Dragon Ball that are genuinely heroic in an uncomplicated way. A pure, unapologetic White Hat just like Gohan with few flaws or wrinkles compromising his goodness.

And also, like... I think the original Trunks epilogue had it right when they had Trunks take what he'd learned from the past to go fix his future himself. If Trunks stayed weak but Vegeta went with him to blow up the Androids for him, it wouldn't really mean anything.

The Zamasu arc shits the bed in a lot of ways and one of those is that it's fundamentally flawed from its very conception. "Goku and Vegeta, come to my future and defeat this bad guy that showed up there because I'm too fucking weak to protect my timeline!" is a bad premise. If we're going to center Trunks in this story then his growth and development should be critical to its resolution.

Trunks should be the one who grows in strength, ability, and will and ultimately saves Trunks's future. That is in keeping with Dragon Ball's themes of personal growth and self-improvement.

The main problem I have with it is...

Like.

Trunks didn't learn the Genki-Dama.

...

It's even a plot point that he studied in the world of the Kaios to defeat Majin Buu.

But he didn't learn the Genki-Dama.

...

Just.

Say he learned the Genki-Dama.

Just. Make that a thing. And then it's fine. Why hinge the climax of the arc on Trunks using an ability he had every opportunity to learn but not establish that he ever did.

The Genki-Dama Super Saiyan Spirit Sword thing should be something that Trunks does on purpose.

God, the Zamasu arc is so bad.

[gorgeousgalatea]

A friend of mine introduced me to Death Note the Musical about a week ago and it's been devastating to me.

I grew up loving Jekyll & Hyde the Musical and you're telling me that guy went on to make a musical about Death Note???

And it's actually good. (I admit I have that prebaked musical bias though)

General bulletpoints of reflection (and spoilers) under the cut

They tried to make Light more relatable by giving him an opening number about the shortcomings of justice in the system. He particularly rants about lawyers cutting deals for their clients a lot, which makes me want to look for an Ace Attorney crossover so badly

He still has a god complex by the third song. This is because he isn't in the second one.

Rather than undergoing the daunting task of making Ryuk look character-accurate, he looks and acts like the trashy drunk uncle you hope doesn't show up to family dinners. And the guy owns it, genuinely the funniest character in the show.

They made the most of MisaMisa's idol career and two of her musical numbers are in-universe pop numbers that would be perfectly serviceable love songs if she hadn't actively dedicated them to a serial killer

The second one is full of innuendo that, to her credit, would only be obvious to someone else who knew what Shinigami eyes were ("I'll give you half my years", "I'll read your name and see your face"). Meanwhile in the Yagami household, Sayu is trying to annoy her brother by blasting her favorite pop star's new single in his room while Light tries not to have the world's most ironic heart attack.

Misa and Light don't have a single duet. He has at least four with L. Misa does, however, get a duet with Rem. Who in the play does expressly come to not only understand love through Misa but fall for her. Misa honey you could have done so much better

Ray Penbar is replaced by Haley Belle and Naomi Misora never comes up so I choose to believe that means she's alive and well in this universe. And dumped him.

L still dies (L always still dies in the end, huh), but due to the compressed timeline Light has Rem script a confrontation between the two of them where he shoots L in self-defense to distance himself from the distinctiveness of the whole heart attack thing. L spends part of a number monologuing on his realization that he's being controlled and exactly what it means and it is...really kind of a messed up way for him to go

I wondered how they'd end it since they did kill L and didn't have time for part two, and hilariously the answer was Ryuk channeled the entire original audience and decided that the exciting part was over when Light killed his greatest nemesis so he writes Light's name in the Death Note literally moments after L dropped dead

And it's all on Youtube! I think I have a post with a linked video coming up in my queue but here's the link if anyone wants it: https://youtu.be/bGci1ixhveI?si=okM0UELO6ymGndMy

[its-all-papaya]

Processing for the nutcracker suite? 👀👀👀

(I’ve been randomly thinking about this fic so much lately idk what sparked it but it’s been bouncing around my head for days) -og

from here!!

omg kissing you on the MOUTH og.

i've said this before, but in my opinion, the nutcracker suite is the best thing i've written. like maybe ever. in my humble opinion, it's simply a much more polished and satisfying final product than overwinter is. i looooove that people love overwinter, but nutcracker fic is - in my heart - my magnum opus.

what was it like to write... weird. because a) tns was written in two distinct phases, and b) it was written mid-dad lando, and c) it was written at a very weird time in my life in general.

i came up with the idea as an answer to that trick-or-treat ask game on halloween, and then i just could not stop thinking about it. however, because i was in the throes of dad lando, i didn't originally want to commit to writing nutcracker fic, because i knew it would be between 10 and 20k, and i knew that i wanted it out before christmas if it was going to be published, so once i started writing it properly, i was putting myself on a pretty strict timeline. and i was also low-level afraid that if i stopped writing dad lando to write something else, i'd kind of lose my brain space and forget the vibe of dad lando where it was at (which - from my memory - was somewhere around the aquarium date at the point i stopped to write nutcracker fic).

so basically i wrote the first scene in early november and then dragged my feet about it until the end of that month. because of my job, i haven't been home for thanksgiving in... many years... so wednesday to sunday of thanksgiving weekend i was alone in my apartment not really interacting with anybody (minus brief excursions for work), so that's when i finally locked in on it bc i had nothing better to do. but THEN literally right after that, my stupid fucked up work situation started and completely derailed my headspace (and like. my life.) so. brief week to two-week pause. and then i got home for christmas break and was like "fuck work, they hate me anyway" and spent so much time the first few days i was home grinding to finish. my most vivid memory of writing nutcracker fic is the evenings of december 21st and 22nd, i stayed up late watching old movies with my dad and working on the fic. i remember trying to finish the last scene before the movie we were watching ended bc i knew he'd go to bed when it did, and i didn't want to finish the fic alone (even though he obviously had no idea what i was typing). SO. first phase was alone on thanksgiving, second phase was with my parents at christmas. which i did not think about poetically until typing that all out.

okay, that's the practical answer! and because it was a frankly traumatic month of my life, i really don't have distinct sequential memories of most of what my headspace was like while writing. i will say that as soon as i thought about ballet dancer lando, i was immediately so extremely attached to the idea, because ballet and f1 just made sense as mirrored opposites in my brain. and because i did ballet for over a decade myself, i am intimately familiar with the places that sport makes your brain go. and so writing nutcracker fic was really another lando thing (i literally forget there's oscar pov in it, like... routinely). it was easy to write lando's headspace and fun to write oscar's.

my favorite part about nutcracker fic is that because i've been both a ballet dancer and a barista, i had to concentrate very, very little on the specific immersive details. tons of times during overwinter i had to think hard about what a parent might be doing at a certain time of day, or how a certain situation would affect a three-year-old. with nutcracker fic, i had endless wells of personal experience to draw from. every time i needed to put one of the boys in a Situation, my brain offered up like five options at will. and both ballet and barista are very, very beloved eras of my life, so it was honestly such a treat to get to write about them in the way i did. in a lot of ways, both boys saw the thing they were doing the way i did: oscar's sort of fondly indifferent about barista-ing, it's a job that he vaguely enjoys that's getting him through school. lando loves ballet but also hates ballet. sometimes both at the same time. and again, those feelings didn't take a lot of effort for me to translate for this fic, because i've had them all personally. i just really, really loved writing this fic, and i really, really, really loved - more than any other fic i've published - interacting with readers about it. answering comments on nutcracker fic is genuinely my single most rewarding experience as a fanfic author in what is now close to a year of publishing. like GOD. i just love this fic an unfathomable amount.

okay, last thing i'll say in this ridiculously long-winded ask: the last important element of tns' writing process is that it's the first fic i'd ever written with a proper cast of characters. everything else had been basically JUST lando and oscar (minus maxf in overwinter), so it was intimidating at first to start writing other people actually doing things, instead of just haunting the narrative. BUT. i really loved it. i've been gagging to write lewis again since christmas because i fucking loved writing him for this fic. franco and abbi were also delightful, and nico is kind of just an OC with a real person's name, but he was fun too. i brought this up in one of the comments on the fic, but tns' lando pov sections ended up being basically a bunch of mirrors for lando to stare in. and building all those different dynamics (lando/oscar but also lando/lewis, lando/franco, franco/lewis vaguely, lewis/nico) was so rewarding. and i think that's what makes the nutcracker suite feel well-rounded to me in a way overwinter probably never will. BUT. that's not to say i have regrets about it at all, because i don't really, they're just different. and nutcracker fic would never exist how it does if i hadn't gotten to know myself better writing like 60k of dad lando before i started it.

okay sorry that was a BOOK, but i feel so, so passionately about this fic. i genuinely think about it once a week. it's such a cozy universe to return to - even in the summer - and i have hopes of reprising it in some way next christmas, because i think it made my holidays so special this year :)

THANK YOU OG <3

[princess-of-the-corner]

Glad the Imago stuff was of interest! Its fun to play with different Miraculous powers running wild. The Butterfly is best for it, but Trixx's illusions becoming real can be good too.

Speaking of the wily fox, an idea I had for like 1 AU that spread to many, especially those closer to the canon timeline but still distinct. Volpina, is a genuine Miraculous Holder,

Hear me out XD

So in anything with a revised Butterfly, there's room for another lost Miraculous or two if one wants.

& while I like 1 or more ending up with the Tsurugi's who claim to want to supersede Fu as Guardian & to respect the Kwami as deities, though how genuine Tomoe is can vary. They aren't the one that is becoming default, Lila is.

Long story short, Trixx was lost before the order even fell, possibly for the first time or one of many being a trickster. It was easy for them to slip the leash or find a new wielder. As a result they've been bouncing around for centuries in-between long naps; usually causing mischief and doing some good on the side.

In the modern day Trixx wakes up, so to speak, in a second hand store Lila is screwing for exotic looking items to sell her stories & masks for her collection.

She finds the greatest mask of all and Trixx finds a new wielder.

Being a concept first & person second, & a tricky one at that Trixx is not the most pearl clutching moralist, & Lila didn't get up to anything above mischief and petty crime. Thus any worries someone may have had, like say about her compulsive lying and identity issues were either not quite noticed or seen as long term problems.

Then Nooro starts being used to terrorize Paris & Trixx is loyal to family & Lila is not a horrible person, she likes Trixx, she thinks using the true names to command Kwami is vile & she sees how adored Ladybug & Chat Noir already are.

She wants that.

I like to picture them both eating fast food in a fancy hotel at the end of Origins, staring boggle eyed at the tv with food halfway to their opened mouths as the news reports on Stoneheart XD

Anyway, she eventually makes her way to Paris, has a good debut and actually joins the team for awhile. Fu is searching but finding them is not easy even with Lila's penchant to use Glamour and illusions for some petty fun on the side.

Things do trn bad though because:

Her desire to get more attention leads her to potentially staging some stuff to stop.

She prioritizes a personal matter (Saving Adrien) over the mission & they almost lose as Chat Noir is not there.

She neglects the plan in favor of trying to show off and makes things worse.

She gets careless with her identity so she can be a celebrity already.

She's 14, what can one expect XD

The result of this causes her to be found by Fu & her Miraculous taken back. He's not horrible about it, but he is stern and the reaction of Ladybug & Chat vary depending on context though at best/worst they grudgingly go along with it. If they know at all.

Cue Akumatized Volpina perhaps and her becoming one of Hawk Moth's prime targets for ongoing 'observation' like Chloe is. Where things go from there... Well who knows.

Honestly any kind of Lila being a hot mess of fun but like. In the realistic way of 'teenager with issues finds magic jewelry' is GREAT

[furinana]

Reviewing SMT's 30th Anniversary Event in Yokohama

In 2023 (the year of Nanashi's birthday!) I spent some months in Japan so I lucked out when they announced a Megaten concert right before my departure.

This is a compilation of thoughts from tweets and messages I sent to friends that I decided to turn into a public post for archival purposes.

Disclaimer: unless stated otherwise, none of the pictures I'm using here are mine. Most of them were taken from the event's official account.

May 6th. From Kyoto (the city I was staying) to Yokohama was approx. two hours by Shinkansen. Like how a close friend of mine says, "The thing about Japan is that you ride one train and you just become the biggest car hater immediately".

[I ended up taking an overnight bus for the back trip however, took around 7 hours. Cramped on your legs but your pockets hurt way less]

How is Yokohama at the moment? A bright sunny noon and like this user illustrated, windy as hell (my cap came off once and I had to run in the middle of the street to rescue it).

[KT Zepp Yokohama]

I arrived 4 hours before the concert's schedule so I fucked around Yokohama's cozy Chinatown for a bit, among other places I don't remember. I didn't take into account that you could arrive hours prior to the event to purchase the limited merch line and stare at concept art of mainline games in an exhibiton placed in the entrance. The merch would get sold out in a matter of minutes in the gap between the opening and when the concert would start! Don't underestimate scalpers, folks.

A beginner's mistake, this is how life teaches you to be smart.

[For every 5,000 yen you spent, you got the chance of receiving a colored bookmark of one of the protagonists. A lot of items involved abysmal luck to get. Fortunately I was able to grab what I set my eyes on in the later online raffle so things turned out fine on my end (although I'm currently having to deal with a lot of dupes much to my annoyance. But hey, I have official merch of Flynn and Nanashi now)]

Regarding the exhibition: Not a lot of stuff to comment on. They made a timeline of sorts for each mainline title (except the NES games because fuck 'em I guess) and pretty much most of it was available in official artbooks published previously. Nocturne for example, they displayed the writing process & how they sketched cutscenes and attacks prior to making them 3D etc, which was no-news if you browsed the Ayakashi Monthly book before.

[We weren't allowed to take pictures so I can only show the previews from the official account. We had to stay at a long line to look at each piece in a chronological way so it felt particularly... uncomfortable. I don't like the feeling that I might be slowing down other people so I end up rushing what was supposed to be a serene activity]

The actual exclusive never-seen-before art was regarding beta character & demons concepts from SMT4A:

[Top: Drawn from memory by me. Bottom: The "mermaid" is a reference to the Starbucks logo that interestingly, is also present in Nanashi's room (which could mean there was an intention of Nanashi's only reference of a mermaid being the logo of a cafe that wouldn't exist in-universe anymore. For those unaware, the mermaid in question is actually a siren!]

Here are the descriptions I typed on my phone right after I exited the exhibition (and would use as base for my own sketches a day later):

Chironnupu had two beta forms with the face as it is now where one walked on four legs and the other his legs faded out in a ghost-like manner. He also had a third and more distinct from his current design where he was dressed in Ainu attire on 2 legs and was smiling to the viewer (a Youkai Watch sort of vibe, very cute).

Nanashi had an unseen sketch where Doi drew him with a suspiciously big waist. Yeah, I know it's minor but I wanted to comment on how unhinged Doi is in drawing girly boys. Go off king

Cleopatra had a form where she had dark skin, dark green hair and emerald green eyes (...huh? I just realized I painted her hair with brown instead of green lmao I became fixated in making her look similar to Maria Torres from Trauma Team). Considering how some demons get color variations (such as Vishnu or Moh Shuvuu), some even getting darker skin in adaptations (take Rama in the Devil Survivor 2 anime), perhaps Cleopatra getting an alt that is closer to this beta depiction isn't an impossibility. I can dream

Vishnu-Flynn had a version where his face was the same as how Flynn normally is.

Mermaid had a form where she was supposed to resemble the Starbucks logo where her palette was red&other color (I don't remember if it was blue or green) and showed an alluring evil smile.

Now let's talk about the concert. The structure of how it went was basically alternating between the band playing remixes of soundtracks with gameplay videos on the screen and then pausing for the hosts to talk with the audience and share some free-talks with the musicians that worked on the titles.

Fans used this menorah they sold in the booth as a glow stick (the ones you see in idol events).

[Event announcers Mafia Kajita and Chiaki Matsuzawa in day 1 and 2]

At the end there was a little quiz with gameplay-specific questions, for example what a certain skill does. You had to answer with this little cardboard thing that had a Jack Frost in one side and Black Frost in the other.

Regarding the free-talks, a summary of what I was able to get (take those with a grain of salt):

Kozuka never played any Megaten before composing for the games (he thought they were too dangerous)

SJR composer played all of them

Tsukasa said the songs for the SNES games were a lot longer and better-sounding but unfortunately they had to chop off a lot

Meguro makes sound effects before making the music, finished SMT2 before starting composing but doesn't play games anymore

By the end, Kajita wishes Megaten games were released more often so events like this could happen frequently and Matsuzawa says she's a big Digital Devil Saga fan.

By the way, you could easily recognize the western fans from the audience from how louder and cheerier they were compared to the local ones. Japanese fans are the types that respect silence to a scary degree. For another example, I was able to watch The Boy and the Heron right in the opening week and nobody from the session I went to laughed or made any perceptible reaction to other viewers. The only one laughing in the entire room was my, notably, non-JPN roommate.

When the concert was nearing its end however, the hosts allowed everyone to be as loud as they wanted to thus letting the atmosphere at long last turn closer to the spirit of Megaten... chaotic.

[Going personally to the concert was a totally unique experience compared to seeing it from a screen with diluted audio. You truly had to be there to have your stomach twisting from the echoes coming from the band's instruments]

My personal favorite remixes:

SMT1's Ginza

SMT2's Disco Theme

SMT4's Boss Theme & Map theme

SMT4A's f6 Godslayer (when they showed Vishnu-Flynn on the big screen... 😳)

[darklinaforever]

Sylki is not incest / autocest / selfcest :

So… I risk repeating myself, but I really hate hearing that Sylki is incest, or autocest. Quite simply because it's not true.

Incest : Sexual relations between close relatives (marriage is prohibited) ; incestuous love.

Sylvie and Loki are not close relatives, for the simple reason that they do not share the same blood / DNA. (Variant = genetically distinct) Beyond that, they didn't even grow up / live together, so also can't be bonded like Loki is with his adoptive family.

Autocest : The act of cloning oneself and having sexual relations with said clone.

First of all, Sylvie is not a clone of Loki. She was conceived naturally and born naturally. And even as a variant of Loki she is not him. Once again, she does not share the same blood / DNA as the latter. Beyond that, in terms of pure personality, no, she's not the same as him. They act differently and think differently. Episode 3 is probably the one that illustrates this best during season 1. The number of times Loki points out that he would not act the way Sylvie acts and she replies that, well, she is not not him. Which is completely normal, since the two have not had the same life experiences. What shapes who we are as a person is the trials of life, our experiences. And Loki and Sylvie definitely didn't have the same ones.

“My interpretation of it is that they're both Lokis, but they aren't the same person. I don't see them as being like brother and sister. They have completely different backgrounds… and I think that's really important to her character.” - Kate Herron.

So in summary, they don't share the same blood / DNA. They also don't have the same experiences, so as a result they have different personalities.

So… literally, this incest and autocest bullshit has no backing.

The whole series spends its time reminding us that Sylvie is not Loki. She says it herself several times. Moreover, to clearly reinforce this trait, “Sylvie” is literally a name that she chose for herself, precisely to differentiate herself from Lokis. It's hammered home throughout the series, Sylvie is her own person. This is also why Loki reminds Mobius that Sylvie, well, her name is Sylvie, when he tells him that he has fallen in love with himself, in 1x04. To remind the viewer that no, Sylvie is not Loki, she is again her own person. And it's problematic for me when so many people try so hard to reduce her to being a Loki. Even from those who love her. Simply because it's something Sylvie hates : Being called / cathegorized by Loki. (Probably because it removes the impression of being a person and brings it back to the fact that the TVA only sees her as a variant, and therefore that she should not exist, knowing that she just wants to have a life and live it)

“Also, Sylvie's not Loki. Sylvie is Sylvie.” - Tom Hiddleston.

The only thing Sylvie and Loki really share internally is being the deity of mischief. Which translates into a role / identity given to them within the universe / timeline they came from, with the same power base ; the witchcraft. Something that is learned and not transmitted by genetics in the MCU universe. So there is nothing biological about it that could relate to incest and even less to autocest.

“They sort of have the same role in terms of the universe and destiny, but they won't make the same decisions.” - Kate Herron.

Are Sylvie and Loki alike ? Yes. But no more than other fictional couples are capable of being. That they resemble each other in some way is not proof that they are the same person. Especially since as said previously, they do not have the same personalities / lived / dna / blood...

Once again, Reylo is the perfect example in terms of comparison to Sylki : - Different, but complicated pasts which return them to their feeling of loneliness. - Their problem of opening up to the world because of there traumas. - The feeling that no one else really understands them. - Similarity in combat techniques and synchronization of movements at various times, etc.

Then, something else that both annoys me and makes me laugh a lot… It's those who use Sylvie's line during episode 5 from season 1, namely “we're the same”, the only one of its kind you will notice in Sylvie's mouth, but ardently use by the antis to prove themselves right in their argument that Sylvie is absolutely the same person as Loki, so that the relationship is considered incest, or autocest. So… I don't know what these people's consumption of cinematic media is, but they must have missed a lot of romances… No, because it's a classic phrase / expression in this area, to express that two characters are alike ! Example :

Telling another person “we're the same” is not a contradiction to “I am not you”. And I can't believe this is something I have to explain / needs to be explained to some people.

“I think he realizes, and she realizes, that while they're the same, they're not the same.” - Tom Hiddleston.

I mean... No one is seriously going to say that the spidermans of the Marvel shared universe are the same person. Are they ? Because I've never seen anyone do it. Normal. Since that would just be completely stupid ! No ? Also, directly in the case of the MCU we were treated to Thor and Jane, both being thunder deities, which didn't bother anyone, according to my memories !

The fact that Sylvie is a variant of Loki with whom he falls in love is specifically there to bring about the rather clear metaphor / symbolism of Loki learning to finally love himself as a person (besides loving someone else entirely), even though he considers himself a monster. Because yes, Loki's narcissism is essentially just a cover to hide how monstrous he feels, something I feel like a lot of people forget.

Loki “falls in love with himself”, as Mobius describes it, is not proof of vanity / narcissism which would prevent any evolution of Loki as Mobius and some antis claim. On the contrary, Loki's love for Sylvie not only leads him to see himself differently, but also allows him a real positive evolution.

“to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki's first real love story.” - Michael Waldron.

“I don't think Loki's relationship with himself has been very healthy,” Tom Hiddleston explains. “Trying to accept those aspects of himself, which he's been on the run from, was a way of thinking about that in a really interesting way.”

Besides, in the end, to rephrase in a clearer sense, Loki falls in love with Sylvie as much because he sees himself in her (the metaphor of the dagger in 1x03) as he finds her amazing as a person (Loki discovering Sylvie's story at the start of episode 4 on Lamentis).

Something that is once again nothing surprising in a romance. Many couples fall in love because they find themselves in the person they love, in addition to for the differences they share. Even if Loki's metaphor for love with the dagger is not entirely correct, the aspect of seeing oneself in it is for some a truth.

“Love [...]. You can see yourself in it.” - Loki, 1x03.

“When Loki meets Sylvie, he's inspired solely by curiosity,” reveals Hiddleston. “He wants to talk to her and understand her and try to discern what was similar about their experiences, and what was different. He keeps asking her questions because he wants to see if his experience was also her experience. I think he realizes, and she realizes, that while they're the same, they're not the same.”

So, not only does the incest and autocest argument not work, but the similarities these two share (which seem to bother so many people) and the reason(s) they fall in love, well are in is more of a classic fictional couple coding question designed to represent either the complementarity aspect or the soulmate aspect.

Sylki is essentially two sides of the same coin, or mirrors of each other, like many fictional romantic relationships. (Reylo again for exemple !) Which consequently causes their influence on each other. Because yes, not only does Sylki falling in love influence Loki, but also Sylvie.

Loki obviously learns, as I have already said, to love himself, but also to love someone else unconditionally, to trust them fully. He also learns a new form of magic, and in the end, he even starts playing the hero. Sylvie learns for the first time in her life to trust someone, to open up, to form a team and above all finally develops her first good memories. People often say that Sylvie is incapable of sacrificing herself for anyone, but the truth is that she literally scrambled herself to have a chance of finding Loki, when she wasn't even sure that It would work and perhaps simply kill her, therefore indirectly committing suicide. Additionally, it is also emphasized how Sylki is stronger together than apart.

“They are a mirror to each other. They challenge each other, and out of the challenge, they grow together.” - Tom Hiddleston.

With everything I have just explained / demonstrated, I really have a hard time understanding how this ship can be so controversial / misunderstood…

I don't find the series very subtle on the message for Sylki and beyond that, the writers and actors themselves have already explained these same things in a more condensed way in several interviews.

I mean, I am aware that sometimes the words of directors, screenwriters and actors can be stupid and incoherent (the case of the HOTD series being the perfect example of that…), but here, don't mess around, the series (at least season 1) was very well constructed and visibly thought out.

Really, I don't understand. One of the reasons why people are so uncomfortable is surely and simply maybe the term variants (and again it's because I'm nice...), which for these people necessarily equates to being the same person in all the meanings of the term, which, as we have demonstrated throughout this post, is absolutely not the case… Which can be verified by the series itself, the interviews with the writers and actors which agree with what is shown on the screen, etc. Knowing that in addition I have seen tons of people on tumblr with absolutely remarkable analytical skills (and therefore also in terms of symbolism) yet surprisingly not understanding what the Sylki relationship is, defining it instead as a incest / autocest…

So I can only at this stage, for me at least, deduce that this kind of talk about Sylki is willful and stubborn ignorance from people who simply don't like the ship, trying to justify it from a more “reasonable” and or perhaps “intellectual” way, no idea… than a simple “I don't like it, because tastes cannot be controlled”. Which is OK, because everyone has the right to like what they like / want !

On the other hand, spreading or saying bullshit / false things about the ship in question, to persuade people not to / no longer like it, is something I can't stand.

Please note, everyone is free to say whatever they want, as long as they clarify once again that it is their personal opinion. I am talking about people who speak of their opinion about this ship (or any ship) as fact while making fun of others who like it, make them feel guilty / horrible, or trying to change people's tastes…

Is Sylki weird ? Yes, of course. We are talking about two variants with the same identity falling in love ! Obviously the viewer will find this strange, because it's a concept almost never seen before after all in tv, and complex. But it doesn't necessarily mean bad, toxic, perverse, immoral or unhealthy relationship as the antis argue (knowing that in addition it is in contradiction with the positive message about love for oneself that the relationship transmits), notably to try to take down the ship, especially since Sophia di Martino said she found Sylki “weird”. Which is infuriating, because they act as if the actress's opinion is dominant over those directly writing the story, and that her simple opinion will change the minds of Sylki's fans or should condemn the ship to any possible future ! But also it is mostly infuriating because, well, beyond that, as @where-theres-smoak-2 so well pointed out :

“when you actually look at the definition of the word weird it doesn't necessarily mean something bad. The definition from Cambridge dictionary is : very strange and unusual, unexpected, or not natural. The Merriam-Webster definition is : of strange or extraordinary character, of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural. Which lets be honest fits Sylki, they are unusual, strange, unexpected, extraordinary and you could argue with the whole variant thing its got that supernatural element to it as well. I mean them being weird is what makes them fun and entertaining to watch so honestly I'm not mad that she said they were weird.”

But in itself, is the relationship incest ? No. Because not the same blood / DNA and in no way grew up together like Loki was do with Thor / his adoptive family. Autocest / the same literal person ? Neither. For what ? Because again not the same blood / DNA, and they have not the sames experiences, therefore different personalities which influence their behaviour. Being variants, for Sylki, simply mean (once again) being the deity of mischief, a role / identity given to them within the universe / timeline they came from. That's all. (Damn, some will also tell me while we're at it that the crocodile Loki is the same as our Loki ?! Be a little objective people…) There is nothing bad, toxic, perverse, disgusting, immoral or unhealthy about the Sylki relationship.

Fuck the antis !

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Loki's Genderfluidity in the MCU: A Theory

So I'm going to preface this by saying that generally my answers to any questions that are not answered by canon have two sides: why I think the writers didn't answer the question (or how they may have thought they answered the question), and my theory relating to the canon answer. Within these two sides there might be multiple reasons (i.e., Side one may have been caused by script cuts or homophobia at some level of writing/editing, and both could easily be the case simultaneously, as maybe the writers included it and the studio demanded a script cut at a certain point, etc.).

So as to why Loki has not been explicitly shown to be genderfluid in the MCU until (technically) a split-second shot of a TVA file, is probably more because of erasure/fluidphobia or a disinterest in incorporating his comic gender into his mainstream movie character at some level in the production process. Why the half-hearted "representation" was included in the show without anything more explicit was likely A) a continued fluidphobia or disinterest at some level, B) a distinct lack of understanding of what genderfluidity actually is, and therefore probably only placed in the file as a bit of foreshadowing to Sylvie's gender reveal, or C) a laziness and disinterest in doing any research whatsoever in either genderfluidity or the source material (Agent of Asgard, etc.). Likely a combination of these.

But that's boring and disheartening. So I'm going to ignore the IRL reasons why Loki's genderfluid rep fell flat, and focus on why Loki hasn't been shown to be genderfluid in the MCU until technically the show but not even really then.

I've seen theories that he hasn't figured this out about himself yet, and while that may be true (I didn't discover I'm genderfluid until I was about 22 or 23), I don't usually subscribe to that theory.

My genderfluidity (and that of other people I've met) tends to change between genders by the day, though occasionally I go multiple days in a row as the same gender, or my gender changes within a single day. However, I'm also human, and (as far as I'm aware) have an average human lifespan of less than a hundred years, or only a few years past a hundred if I'm lucky. So daily changes between genders is pretty reasonable, but even other real-life genderfluid people sometimes stay the same gender for whole months or years or even decades.

Loki, on the other hand, is not human. I don't know what the average Jotun lifespan is, but I think he's currently about 1500 years old, and Asgardians live about 5000 years, I believe. So it makes sense that things might be less permanent for him than they are for other people, and things that may change more quickly for humans may change more slowly for him.

Therefore, I think Loki in the MCU (ignoring for the sake of this that any inclusion or omission in media is a decision made by writers, in other words, pretending for a hot second that Loki is real in the context of his story) is genderfluid, and that he's aware that he's genderfluid throughout and before the events of the MCU. The reason he only presents as Tom Hiddleston's likeness, and is referred to as he/him and Thor's brother, is that it is currently a man several decades for him. (If this does not make sense to you grammatically, compare to how I describe days when I am a woman as woman days; days when I am a man as man days; likewise, Loki is having a man decade and a half.) At the least, his current period of being a man has lasted 12 years, from Thor (2011) until now (though, actually, Loki season 2 Loki is technically 2012 Loki, so maybe he's only had a man year? Which would make the original timeline Loki's period at least 5 years as a man. God, I hate time travel). This is assuming he was not a man before 2011 (consecutively; I don't think this is the only period he has been a man in his life) and would not have continued as a man following his death (if he died) in Infinity War. But (aside from very short flashbacks) this is the only period of time we see him, so he could conceivably have had periods of other genders. (And we don't know for sure that the flashbacks came after he learned how to shapeshift; maybe he wasn't a boy in those scenes, but was either not yet out or unable to make his body match his identity and so we as the viewers made incorrect assumptions about his gender.)

I also wonder if the moment we see from Sylvie's childhood, just before she's taken in, could have also been part of Loki's past. Either A) it is just after they both come out and begin socially transitioning (Sylvie as a transgirl, Loki as genderfluid and a girl at that moment), and Sylvie gets taken in for having a good heart but perceives the reason as being that she's a girl (see previous theory post), whereas Loki isn't playing Save Asgard and so there's no reason to arrest him in this moment (I think the game was less the main reason and more the last straw for Sylvie), or B) The entire memory, including the Save Asgard game but not the arrest, is shared by both Sylvie and Loki, and Sylvie was arrested for a different reason. The point is, Loki could have had a time as a child when he was a girl and learned to shapeshift so his appearance fit his inside feelings (or Frigga did it for him when he was really little to ease the dysphoria).

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

📂 + freedom force as a team

Absolute disaster. I would so love to see an Archer style comic about their missions. None of them are the "voice of reason" on the team, even though Mystique, Crimson Commando and occasionally Pyro all think that they are.

Pyro believes he is Mystique's second-in-command. He is not. He never is. It is either Destiny or Crimson Commando.

During Spiral's brief time with the team, the boys (meaning Avalanche, Blob and Pyro) all liked to drunkenly brag about how they could "take her." (In a fight....not the other way.) Fortunately for them, they are all too smart and/or cowardly to actually try. None of them hit on her, she is too creepy.

The old man trio of Crimson Commando, Stonewall and Super Sabre never fully meshed with the team, and although there was some bonding and camaraderie, there were definitely two distinct cliques of Old Man Trio and Brotherhood Guys Trio.

Blob loved how Pyro and Avalanche were united with him in being disdainful of "the new guys," because previously it had been Avalanche and Pyro generally united against him, and now they were a trio against these new outsiders.

Despite nastiness and snark, Pyro was generally the friendliest and most outgoing team member. I say this not just because he's my favorite, but because we actually see him palling around and forming friendships with different people - Avalanche, Mystique, Blob, Stonewall. He's the only Brotherhood guy who we see being friendly to Stonewall, and showing regret over his death.

Avalanche is not friendly, but he is usually not openly nasty either. He has moments of temper (like fights between him and Blob), but he generally just wants to do his job and be left alone. He gradually forms friendships and is very loyal to those he cares about, but it takes time.

The Old Man trio think of themselves as "good guys," but in many ways are just as vicious and nasty as the Brotherhood Guy Trio. They literally hunted criminals for sport, including Storm, who was picked up just for "looking" like a criminal. They are also often more competent than the Brotherhood guys on missions, as actual WWII veterans with combat experience.

Pyro is the one who wound up telling Crimson Commando and Super Sabre about Stonewall's death. Mystique was (understandably) distraught over Destiny and couldn't be bothered.

Mystique and Destiny slip away for date nights, which Mystique excuses as "special mission briefings" or occasionally "needing to get away from you morons for a few hours."

Speaking of Destiny, the Brotherhood guys are all actually considerate and protective of her, in their own ways.

Blob organizes movie nights for everyone. Sometimes they actually manage to choose and watch a movie without the evening turning violent.

Pyro and Avalanche have this unspoken thing where they will wind up sleeping together if neither of them has any luck picking up women at a bar. Pyro will find excuses to turn women down just to spend the night with Avalanche, and unbeknownst to him, Avalanche sometimes does as well. I honestly imagine them both being somewhat secretive and closeted because Freedom Force happened in the 80's in Marvel's original timeline, it wasn't a good time to be gay, especially working for the government. Of course, Mystique and Destiny know, Blob probably has figured it out, the Old Man Trio may or may not know. Pyro likes to flirt with women just for the attention and to puff up his ego, Avalanche is actually bi.

@shofarsogood also had the headcanon that Mystique set up Pyro and Avalanche with each other because neither of them was going to make the first move, and I love that idea.

Once, at Avalanche's suggestion, he and Pyro hired a sex worker for a threesome, then wound up ignoring her the entire time and just banging each other. The sex worker didn't mind, she just watched TV and got paid anyway.

When the group goes out to a bar, Mystique makes the Old Man Trio and Brotherhood Guy Trio responsible for the behavior of the other group. Left to their own devices, both groups will wind up egging each other on to do really stupid shit. If they have to babysit the other group, they will keep an eye on each other, and send someone over to act as the "fun police" (usually Commando or Avalanche) whenever one trio is heading into dangerous territory. Pay gets docked for property damage or bar fights.

[tolkienocweek]

This is also in regard to the Elboron question because thinking about it is bugging me too!

The definitions that make sense to me are:

A blank slate character is a character whose name and role are clearly defined, but about whom we have little to no information in terms of their personality or specific life events. For instance, a fic writer could write Elboron's personality however they imagine it and give him whatever plot arcs they're interested in, but they can't make him the child of someone other than Aragorn and Arwen, or have him be an elf, or place him somewhere else in the world or the timeline, or have him break the line of succession, etc. without breaking with the canon. There are, theoretically, ways to depict him that would make the depiction incompatible with the information Tolkien gave about Elboron, because Tolkien left a decent number of building blocks behind for a foundation.

A textual ghost is a character we only know exists because there's a person-shaped hole somewhere. Curufin's wife, for example? Presumably she existed because Celebrimbor exists, but we know absolutely nothing else. No name, not a whit of context around her, no canon to break with. Anyone depicting her has to do it out of whole cloth. There's technically no way to depict her that would make the depiction incompatible with the information Tolkien gave about her, because he didn't give any.

I feel like there's a distinction between those two categories in how much of the character is an original creation, and how much is drawing on what Tolkien himself put down. For the purposes of OC Week specifically, the idea of people "claiming" a character with the amount of information Tolkien gave Elboron as their personal OC would make me feel a bit iffy, personally.

In fact, Curufin's wife doesn't even have to be a woman, if you headcanon one of them as transgender.

I actually considered using blank slate characters as a prompt, but thought that was pushing the concept too far.

[leo-regulus]

Ok friend you have my curiosity where is this fic you speak of. I am SO ready to have my brain chemistry fundamentally changed

Start here. My recommendation is to read that, maybe read the rest of Turnabout NaNoWriMo, and if you want to know more after that, I can hand you some 200k of fic that is properly formatted with the interludes, because Ao3's formatting really doesn't work with the Sagiverse anthologies. (So what you see here is maybe like a quarter of what we've got. We have a lot, and also lots of art.)

Turnabout NaNoWriMo is the first of three-and-a-half anthologies I've written, and it's only after reading and enjoying all of them do I let people at my fiance's anthologies, which are excellent but a bit more private. (Turnabout Runaways, which was this year's NaNo challenge, is incomplete but at least 50k. I will be slowly working on it probably for a few months, and eventually it'll be done.)

These anthologies take place in a greater crossover AU we refer to as Sagiverse. It started in 2020 in Saint Seiya, and now hosts several different series, eight hundred some-odd characters, upwards of thirty different fantasy worlds (of which Earth is only one), and more plotlines than we can keep track of properly.

Here's the two-sentence pitch: seven hundred years ago, there was a giant war between various magical factions on Earth that ended in a mostly-forgotten pyrrhic victory and the gods choosing to seal magic away from the world. So magic began to slowly die out, and as of present day, magic is rarer and rarer, and mage society is dying out, but it's still holding on as best it can, until one day the gods finally allow magic to return.

Ace Attorney gets involved with this very very simply. Miles Edgeworth is a mage. To be specific, he's a necromage, one of the most powerful currently active on Earth. His father, Gregory Atticus Edgeworth, had never found proof of magic while he was alive. His mother... well, no one knows who his mother is, or anything about the man at all. After DL-6, Miles was taken in by MvK as a ward just as canon says, but the von Karmas themselves are magi of a kind. After DL-6, Atticus finds the proof of magic's existence that he's been looking for all along, and he is not going to leave his son and missing fiance alone in a world that so very much wants the both of them dead.

And so begins a thirty-five year trainwreck to put their wayward, way-finding family back together. They'll do it, no matter what it takes. It just turns out their family's a little bigger than they think it is.

The fic I linked pretty much opens with the identity of Miles' mother, which you learn pretty much as I did, because I didn't plan jack or shit, only let him tell me what was going on. You may raise an eyebrow at the canon ages, don't worry about that. We had to fix the timeline anyway (because the forensics tech was all twenty years out of date so we just changed the years to be twenty years earlier, setting DL-6 on December 28th 1981) so we just didn't pull him back as far. Atticus died at 39, his fiance was 33.

This is because when I first got into AA, I found the IS-7 picture of Gregory and Ray, and I sort of mistook 18-year-old Ray as Atticus' wife. My fiance pointed out the age gap, paused, and went "but they're cute so I'm sure we can make it work" and then we did. If you hesitate a bit on the ship but don't immediately hate the idea, I promise I can sell you on it. At the end of the day, everything comes back to Atticus and Ray's tragic romance. This I can promise you: it ends happily. We're just still writing everything in between.

Sagiverse!Ray is a pretty distinct character from canon!Ray, but they're close enough that if you like one you'll probably like the other. I gave him way more trauma and it's fun. :3c

If you're wondering what happens to other characters, I can answer that. Apollo is dead for a few months, Phoenix a little bit longer. Robot!Athena has Issues. Franziska changes her career from Interpol to Magica Underground mostly because it's a better use of her legal talents. Miles gets to be the chosen one and lead a war against one of his university friends who unfortunately (and semi-accidentally) stole Phoenix's corpse and ran away with it. (Phoenix is fine, don't worry about it.) Atticus gets to be a bounty hunter on the ghostroads with Mia and they do a lot of shooting MvK and causing problems. Ray, uh. Well, at least he only got shot in the head twice?

[whistlingstarlight]

I got one: rate Zelda games you've played in order of preference?

Haha so here's the thing-

I've only actually beaten one Zelda game (two if you count the spinoff Age of Calamity)😅

I'm notorious for being terrible at actually playing the games despite loving the series, most often because puzzles are not my strong suit.

So this list is gonna be focusing on my overall liking of the game and it's content, regardless of how much I've actually progressed through it (otherwise it would be a pretty boring list)

1. Skyward Sword. I love the artstyle of this game and the locations are beautiful. Skyloft is one of my favourite hub worlds in a game, the characters are all very unique and distinct, and I love exploring a land before Hyrule.

2. Breath of the Wild. I've got so many hours in this game, there's so much to do! Whilst I personally think Zelda is stronger as a linear series than open-world, I had a ton of fun exploring this open Hyrule and the Champions (new and old) are some of my favourite characters from the series. I completely got the wrong end of the stick as to what the plot was going into it, so it was fun finding out the real plot.

3. Phantom Hourglass, for one reason: Linebeck. He's one of the most well-written and distinct characters in Zelda (and probably my overall favourite), I love his progression from selfish coward to a hero in his own right. And that final boss fight omfg-

4. A Link Between Worlds. Lorule is a super interesting concept to me, and whilst I didn't play ALttP I'm aware of how this game continues on from it. I love this version of Hyrule's overworld, and it's always neat seeing the more hostile Zora.

5. Minish Cap, mainly because I love the Minish as a race and Vaati as a villain. The tiny world is super fun to explore, and I love seeing how the different groups of Minish live.

6. Spirit Tracks. For a very simple reason: I'm a railfan. I'm absolutely terrible at this game but I love the introduction of trains, the completely new Hyrule, and a unique villain is always a plus! I love Zelda's more (physically) active role in the story, and I'm a big fan of Byrne as a character.

7. Majora's Mask. I did atrociously trying to get through this game too, but I absolutely love its premise. Termina is a very unique world and despite a lot of the character models being recycled, still feels completely independent from Hyrule. Skull Kid is one of my favourite Zelda characters, and the heavy emphasis on death and loss makes it a very unique game

8. The Wind Waker. I initially thought this game was kind of overrated ngl (and I still think it overshadows games that deserve more praise), but I had fun with it. The concept is very unique, and whilst I found the sailing a bit boring at times I loved exploring the islands.

9. Tears of the Kingdom. I... set myself up for disappointment with this one. That's not to say it's a bad game! I've had fun with it for sure, but there was a lot of wasted potential imo. Whilst I love the unique styles of each dungeon (and the respective bosses), they were infuriating to get through because it's the same shit every time. Use Sage ability to open five locks, rinse and fucking repeat. Same reason I didn't enjoy the Divine Beasts. The exploration in the open-world Zelda games is phenomenal, but it comes at the detriment of story and dungeons. (Not to mention it's sort of a soft reboot and I'm... not really a fan of those).

10. Ocarina of Time. This one is so low basically by default (and because I'm kinda tired of hearing about it so much). It's a good game, don't get me wrong. But it's weird the timeline split came from this one and not.. idk, the game with an actual canon game over (Minish Cap)?? I love the Kokiri as a concept and really wish they'd returned, and the group of sages introduced in this game are probably my favourite.

And I don't really know where to rank it as it's a spin-off, but I had a huge amount of fun with Age of Calamity. A significant improvement over the original Hyrule Warriors imo.