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soundcrusher · 2 years

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Cages are not for birds

Part 13 of Phoenix's story on board the sentient SG/Lost Light from @cuppajj

Honestly, I'm not quite happy with how this turned out, but that might be because I wrote this when I wasn't feeling well.

Either way, please enjoy.

Trigger Warning: Manipulation

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Phoenix was, yet again, staring at an Energon Cube. A full cube he didn’t want to consume, but he knew that throwing it against the wall and watching it shatter wouldn’t help him. No, he would only get a new cube the next time he closed his eyes.

So, Phoenix did his best to distract himself.

But there was only so much he could do in a room he didn’t know. After all, this wasn’t his room. Phoenix didn’t have his data-pads or his model ships in here. He did have that one bouncing ball he got from his mother once. And he did play with it. Making it bounce against the wall, before catching and throwing it again. But he made the mistake of not putting it back in his subspace before recharging, and now it’s gone. It just disappeared, as if it never

was there in the first place, and that only caused Phoenix to start crying again. And crying he did. It took him two days before he finally managed to calm himself down.

Two days he spent not recharging or refueling.

Two days that made the youngling even more exhausted.

And Phoenix was sick of it. He wanted to get out. He wanted to get back to Rodimus, because he knew that Rodimus would at least make him feel safe. Something the youngspark desperately needed.

But he didn’t have that safety now. So, Phoenix did the next best thing. He tore the hab-suit up again and used the pieces to create something similar to a pillow-fort. It was uncomfortable and small, but it made him feel less watched when he was resting underneath it. And, in a way, not feeling like he was being watched made him feel safer than before.

After 6 more days of being alone, Phoenix started to mutter and sing to himself. Swaying his head in a rhythm only he could hear while trying to find a way to get out of the room. But seeing how there was only one door that could lead to freedom, or at least to the concept of freedom he developed on this ship, he stopped looking for a way out. Instead, he concentrated on keeping himself entertained.

But after another 6 days of constant singing and no refueling, Phoenix could feel his voice slowly slipping away. It was, after all, just as exhausted as he was. Maybe that’s why he forgot when exactly he slipped into recharge. But when he woke up again, he found another fresh cube of Energon resting next to him.

And this time, he downed the whole cube like a starved turbo fox. Slightly choking on the contents, but not enough to be of any danger. At least, he thought that it wasn’t dangerous. He still got to finish the cube, and after refueling, he went back to recharge.

And that was the start for his new routine. Wake up, refuel, distract himself with something that wasn’t singing, he mostly started to stack things, and then recharge.

On the 12th day, Phoenix believed it was the 12th day, he lost count, maybe, 20 days ago? No, wait, 20 days are too long… yes… but at the same time, him being in here feels longer. Maybe it was 10 days? But that didn’t feel right either. Not knowing which day it was really made him wish that his tally marks wouldn’t disappear every time he scratched them into the wall.

Either way, on the, presumably, 12th day, Phoenix heard the hab-suits door open, and was quick to scramble out of his little fort and up on his feet.

“Have you calmed down?” Phoenix, if his voice wasn’t as damaged as it was, would have said yes, but instead, all he could do was nod viciously, while trying to keep the coming tears from spilling.

By Primus and Unicron together, he felt stupid. He felt stupid for lashing out all those days ago. Phoenix didn’t mean to yell at Lightlost. Well, maybe he did, but he didn’t think it would come out that bad. He just felt confused and alone and… and… And Phoenix could feel that those feelings weren’t gone completely. Seeing Lightlost more or less reawakened them, but the youngling wouldn’t say that. No. He would be a good kid now. No more yelling, no more throwing things and no more saying mean things. Yes, Phoenix would be a good kid now. He would be the best kid on the ship, if it meant he no-longer had to stay in this hab-suite.

“Oh my poor little bird.”

Lightlost was careful as they approached the youngling. They could see how Phoenix was flinching away from them. And that wouldn’t do it. No, they didn’t want their little bird to flinch away, as if they were a sparkeater.

So, they held out one of their servos while smiling softly, waiting for him to take it. And as soon as Phoenix placed his servo in theirs, they pulled him into a warm hug. “It’s okay. I’m not mad anymore. I’m more worried about you. Did you overuse your voice too much? Oh little bird, that’s why you shouldn’t scream. It only causes damage.” They said while softly patting the youngling's helm. "But you wouldn't know that, now would you? You're still so young after all. Aren't you? Just a small youngling who doesn't know better, but thinks they know everything."

Lightlost's words caused Phoenix to shed his tears quietly. Maybe they were right, maybe he still was a little youngling who didn't know better. But then why was he allowed to join a crew and travel the galaxy? Wouldn't you need a certain age to do so?

"B…. Bu….tttt…" Phoenix tried his best to say something, anything to counter Lightlost, but even saying one small word caused him pain. He probably shouldn't have overused his voice, but there was nothing better to do. It was either that, or going crazy from boredom. And, to be honest, Phoenix didn't want to become crazy. He would probably be a weird crazy.

"Ah, ah, ah. Phoenix," Lightlost said while fixing Phoenix with a disapproving stare, "I hope you aren't over exerting yourself. Because if you are, you would be acting like a bad youngling. Which means I would have to leave you here, until you learned your lesson."

As an answer, Phoenix was quick to shake his head. No! He would be good! He would be!

"Good. Now, how about I take you to Swerve's for some refueling? Sounds good, right?"

Phoenix didn't protest when Lightlost started to lead him away from the hab-suite and down the still unfamiliar halls, because he knew, if he did, he would be back in that room.

And Phoenix didn't want to be in there ever again.

#sentient sg/lost light au #sentient sg/lost light #phoenix #cuppajj #only phoenix is my character #damn #I'm gonna be honest #I was just as confused as phoenix when writing this #like #I think I pushed myself too hard today #either way #can't wait for rodimus to take things into his hands and get the kid and himself out of there #they need a vacation after escaping #heard earth was looking nice #maybe Delphi too #who knows?

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whetstonefires · 3 years

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heavier than a mountain, lighter than a feather

[my take on @misskirby's not-prompt about obi-wan beating palpatine to death with an office chair]

Obi-Wan had once touched the cold-burning edge of the Dark Side to give himself the extra edge he needed to cut down the Sith who had cut down his Master. He had fought with rage pushing him, he had fought with all the fear that Qui-Gon lay expiring on the reactor floor, that he might yet win and find himself seconds too late to bring the emergency med-treatment necessary to survive a lightsaber to the chest.

(Not that it had mattered; all he’d gotten from his desperate, hasty win was a few seconds of farewell bereft of comfort, and the burden of Anakin hung around his neck, and oh, he wished his padawan was not a burden. There had been no option but to take him and thus taking him must have been right, but no one should take on a student they did not feel ready for, and he had.)

If he had fought that way this time, he would have lost.

The Sith Master would have done what the apprentice could not, and twisted the Dark Side within him as it rose, and snared him in it, so he could not find his way back to the Light, and used that grip to bear him down with Sidious’ greater power, because the Sith said the Force will free me but it was the way of the Dark to place one will over another by pure force, so even what narrow freedom there was on the dark path was offered to one alone. Even in the best case, he would have been overwhelmed too heavily to fight for more than long enough to finish him.

Perhaps he would not have been killed. Perhaps he would have been kept alive to be used as leverage against Anakin. But assuredly he would not have been able to win.

Obi-wan however had what he would have thought of, if he had allowed himself to think about it, a trick for using his attachments and the desire not to lose them as fuel without reaching into the destabilizing, consuming whirlwind of the Dark Side. It was a dangerous, stupid trick, really, at least the way he used it, although Obi-wan thought of that way as fundamental to being a good Jedi, which would have explained a great deal about him if anyone had known.

The trick was this: it was easy to push yourself to where your limits should have been and beyond using your attachment to a person, without falling into the hungry selfishness of the Dark Side, if you simply did not intend to survive.

When he was thirteen, he had tried to persuade Qui-Gon Jinn, who had not yet been his Master, to use the bomb in his recently fitted slave-collar to blow open a door, killing Obi-wan but allowing him complete the mission, which was not Obi-wan’s mission

It was not difficult to return to that place, that space in himself where serenity came easy because soon there would be nothing left to go wrong or to lose—Anakin had made it difficult, for a long time; Anakin he was obliged to raise and train. Anakin who needed him.

All his obligation to the war and the Council and all the men under his command had not pinned him to himself the way his duty to Anakin had, and—knighting him had been helpful. It had been a relief, to finally cast off that weight. There is no death, there is the Force was much easier to believe of oneself than of those one grieved, and some weeks Obi-wan breathed it in and out with every breath, and there was no fear.

He knew several things, as he entered the Senate through an entrance that was technically, perhaps, a window. One that did not open, at that. That the Chancellor had some kind of failsafe embedded in the GAR’s brains. That the Chancellor was a Sith Lord. That the Chancellor had been using his access to Anakin all these years to hurt his Padawan.

That if he took the time to assemble the rest of the Council and try to stage this as a proper arrest, word would have time to reach Palpatine of Obi-wan having been publicly informed, because Maul was the least subtle sentient Obi-wan had ever had the misfortune of meeting more than once, and that if Palpatine knew the jig was up he would use his fail-safe.

So Obi-wan needed to do this alone.

It was possible, of course, that it wouldn’t be difficult. Sidious was a creature of stealth and insinuation. He spent most hours of his life maintaining a posture of harmlessness. When could he have found the time to do regular lightsaber drills, let alone practice live combat?

But Maul probably feared the man for a reason. So Obi-wan was going to do this as quickly as possible, but he wasn’t going to be hasty.

Spring the trap.

He’d closed himself down in the Force before he got near the Senate building, jumping through the hole he’d sliced into the window with only his physical strength and no Jedi edge, and only when he got near the Chancellor’s office did he reopen his senses just a thread, to make sure there was no one in there meeting with Palpatine whom he needed to keep alive. The Force didn’t slam into him with a warning, which would have to be confirmation enough.

Obi-wan yanked the door open, hurled five primed thermal detonators in the direction of the great ship-like slab of an occupied desk, slammed the ornate portal shut again, and threw himself to the ground at the foot of the wall, as far away as he could get, head tucked under his arms. He was fairly sure he’d seen Mas Amedda in there, standing beside the desk as the Chancellor in his thronelike chair raised his head with a gratifyingly startled look on his face.

Pity. The Vice-Chancellor could probably have explained so much of what had been going on behind the scenes, all this time.

The blast left the office door half-shattered, belching smoke, but Obi-wan escaped with just one splinter, not terribly large, in the back of one calf. His robes and boots had absorbed the rest of the shrapnel that had made it that far. He tugged it out as he got up—no time to do anything more, it wasn’t bleeding much. He drew a deep breath of half-clean corridor air and dashed into the opaque ruin that had been the Chancellor’s office, senses fully unfurled now that the time for stealth was over. Though in the interest of not being an irresistible target, he did not ignite his lightsaber just yet.

The Force guided him through the smoke, and he brought his sword to light even as he swung it through the murk.

It stopped, humming, against a bar of red light that hissed into being at the last instant, and that felt equally inevitable.

“You.” Sheev Palpatine’s face looked like a Sith Lord’s now, twisted with hate and lit red from below. And, gratifyingly, somewhat scorched. His hair had sizzled from the heat, and his left arm seemed to have something at least mildly wrong with it. Obi-wan hoped the explosions had affected at least one of his legs, as well, since his own maneuverability was cut by the shard of door to the calf.

“Me indeed, Chancellor,” he said, taking advantage of his two-handed grip to bear down against the block with extra force. Palpatine bore up admirably, but as his snarl tightened it was clear that it was not without cost. “Or should I say, Lord Sidious?”

The smoke was starting to thin, leaking away out of the shattered room. Sidious was still behind his ruined desk with its weakly sparking console, which seemed to have taken much of the impact for him—he was standing, anyway, sadly. Mas Amedda’s corpse, on the far end of the desk from the one Obi-wan had circumnavigated, was one of the things that was still smoking. Most of the brocade and other decorative fabric in the room must have been thoroughly treated with fire-retardant, but he had not been.

“I thought you might have learned my true name,” Palpatine said, far too complacently for someone whose long deception had been uncovered and who was staving off death one-handed. “But what brought you racing here in such haste?”

“Well, you see, they used to call me Sith-killer because of Maul, and since that’s been proven regrettably in error, I thought I had better—” Sidious tried to fling him back against the opposite wall with a sharp jerk of his wounded hand, and Obi-wan had to push back with the whole of his will and stance to slide back only a few feet.

This had freed their lightsabers, though, and Sidious chopped low with a terrible speed. Obi-wan leapt clear, knowing the blood soaking into the pale fabric of his pants was betraying the weakness in his leg—Anakin had had a point, he admitted grudgingly, about black hiding all kinds of stains.

For better and for worse.

He tried to catch Sidious with an overhead slash while he was up, to keep that red lightsaber busy for the most part, and when it was intercepted used the force of that impact to somersault back in a momentary return to his master’s old Ataru style—not too far, though, at all costs he must prevent the Sith Master’s escape.

Sidious wouldn’t need to get far, just to a room with a working holo transmitter, to destroy everything.

He flung himself back in.

Palpatine sidestepped his next attack, parried another, stepped back with the third. His single arm was telling against him, and while he was regrettably fast his movements were stiff enough that he had clearly taken at least one other hurt. Probably somewhere in the right hip. Obi-wan stayed on the offensive—it was how he’d beaten Maul, after all, though he was at pains to avoid overreaching to the point of recreating Anakin’s loss to Dooku.

His attacks did more damage to the sparking desk, bisected the thronelike monstrosity of a chair, which turned out under all the gilt, padding, and chromium to be mostly of durasteel, got close enough to put additional charred rents in Palpatine’s ornate sleeves. Nearly a minute had passed since he threw those detonators, and Sidious was still alive. Too long.

“Really,” said the politician, dropping his stance to one that would allow him to parry more from the shoulder, his first hint of fatigue. His style was not quite Makashi even as he adapted to the one-handed approach that was clearly not his preference, but there were some notes to it that rang so strongly of Dooku they could come from nowhere else. “What do you hope to achieve?”

“You won’t have Anakin,” Obi-wan said, the plot that had been in retrospect laid so horribly bare with just a few sentences from Maul, supported by a few more from some of their most trusted troopers, put together with a hundred hints and oddities and he should have guessed on his own.

Sidious grinned, the amiable wrinkles of his face lying deeper and more correct, somehow, in this attitude of wild, infinite gloating. “Possessiveness, Master Jedi?”

“No,” said Obi-wan, and it was true because he had given Anakin up, given everything up before he came here. He was holding onto nothing, he was an object in free-fall but not falling, because he was at exactly the right place and momentum at the outer edge of a gravity well that would let him remain at a constant height.

Orbits degraded, given time, if not carefully maintained. And if they were disrupted sharply enough it meant a violent, flaming spiral down into explosive doom, or sometimes out into the fathomless dark. This was not a true, secure serenity like a Jedi should strive for. But it would serve. For today, it would serve.

He fell on Sidious again in a flurry of blows, pushing his physical advantage, but although the Chancellor was clearly straining to keep up this defense, his stamina continued to fail to run out or even noticeably decline, as though he had learned to subsist on some constant well of the Force alone.

Probably he had, because it was welling up out of him, filling the room, an endless pit of the Dark that had lain concealed like a trap under pinned canvas and scattered leaves all this time. He was drawing heavily upon the Dark Side now and that wasn’t precisely goodbut it was promising.

He was beginning to develop something that was not quite optimism or confidence but approached both by the time the progress of the humming, crashing process of the duel took them past the far end of the desk, back into sight of what had been Mas Amedda. Palpatine angled his next fractional retreat toward the corps, away from the cracked and blackened windows, avoiding the treacherous footing of a shattered vase that had probably been a valuable antique.

Obi-wan tried to take advantage of the change in angle in the next rapid, whirring clash of lightsabers.

Unlike every other time they had crossed blades this duel, Sidious simply—shut his off in the moment before contact.

Obi-wan had committed a little too much of his weight to the blow to abort it entirely. Sidious ducked away from the remainder with a sinuous grace even as he activated his weapon again, now on the inside of Obi-wan’s guard—trakata, executed with terrible excellence.

The need for the dodge was the trakata maneuver’s great weakness, and gave Obi-wan time to avoid the worst of the stroke, but even still the red lightsaber clipped him across the wrist—not a clean sweep slicing off the hand entire, but a glancing blow, that seared through the skin and flesh and took a significant bite out of the ulna.

Obi-wan didn’t try to repress his strangled scream, and Sidious leaned into it in the Force, pressing at the pain, stoking it and encouraging it to drag him down into the Dark, where he would be the Sith Master’s plaything. He was smirking now, more deeply and honestly than ever, a laugh rising into his mouth, for if Master Kenobi had had a slight edge in their fight with two hands to one, with the Jedi’s primary weapon-hand incapacitated, the Sith would surely dominate.

In that moment, Obi-wan moved to rebalance the odds. His blue lightsaber chopped down—not onto Sidious’ flesh, which it was clear he guarded with the preternatural awareness of a being whose own self was as valuable as all the Galaxy else, but to sheer through the emitter end of the crimson lightsaber.

It spat and burst but, unfortunately, tragically failed to explode.

As Sidious raised his eyes from the ruined weapon looking like he might explode in its place out of pure outrage, Obi-wan brought his sword back up to go for the decapitating blow now that the Sith had no weapon to block with, but in that moment Sidious’ burnt and broken hand jabbed up, and shot a gout of lightning into his face.

His back arced so violently it threw him off his feet, and it was all Obi-wan could do to keep hold of his lightsaber in his good hand and deactivate it as he went down, to avoid doing himself a worse injury than Sidious had yet managed. The lightning followed him down, scouring its way from just beside his left eye down every nerve ending he had in a screaming, jerking chorus of pain.

The deep lightsaber burn on his right wrist somehow hurt more now than it had to receive, but the force of his constant convulsions kept him from screaming again.

Then it stopped. He had no idea how long it had been, and wondered if Palpatine had become too fatigued to keep up the electrocution. There had to be a limit to how long he could maintain that kind of power output. His chest was heaving, trying with animal need to make up for lost oxygen. Smoke and the scent of dead Chagrian weighed down his sensory world, since his eyes declined to open and most of his body would only say pain.

The whisper of expensive Senate slippers crunched toward him over the rubble of the ruined office with a surefootedness that no one would have expected of the elderly Chancellor. At least he was still here; Obi-wan had angered him enough to bother sticking around to kill him rather than running off to activate the troops.

Or maybe he was confident he could spin this whole event to his benefit—Obi-wan had destroyed the security cameras that would have recorded his Sith activities, after all. Maybe he would say Master Kenobi had been tragically killed defending him from the dreadful Sith Lord. Maybe he would ask Anakin to become his constant protector in Obi-wan’s memory. Anakin would do it.

He was struggling to turn his lightsaber back on and raise it, though getting it between him and the next round of lightning seemed unlikely when he was exposed in a supine position, when Palpatine kicked it. Kicked his hand, actually, so hard at least one bone cracked and the lightsaber went flying.

This weapon is your life.

“Should I summon it back and use it to kill you?” Palpatine murmured, with a deadly, vicious good humor that suggested he knew very well Obi-wan had no backup coming, that the only interruption they could expect would be Commander Fox and his men in red, here to protect the Chancellor. “Or should I step on your throat until you breathe your last? Or should I keep you alive and put you on trial, and drag the name of the Jedi in the mud through you, so that when your Order falls it will be your name that the Galaxy uses to call the killing just?”

Horror twisted in Obi-wan’s chest and Palpatine chuckled, a whispering foul sound that still resembled his polite politician’s laughter. “Yes, very good. I’ll make young Skywalker believe you tried to kill me out of pride and greed and because you despised him, until he curses your memory. Everything that happens now will be your doing.”

The rage and the fear that he had left behind when he entered were flaming up now in Obi-wan, the orbit deteriorating, the gravitational pull of abandoning them and letting the Order down and ruining everything and too little, too proud, the same hopeless arrogant padawan and of that terrible, world-tearing no dragging him down to shatter in fire against them, like he had on Naboo all those years ago but so much more utterly and irrevocably and--this wasn’t all him.

He sucked in his breath, shaking through teeth still clenched too convulsively tight to pull apart for a witty retort to all that poison, and melted away inside himself.

Over him, Sidious frowned, feeling the Jedi escape his grip in the Force. “Are you dying already, Master Kenobi?”

He thought Sidious had mentioned summoning his lightsaber through the Force to encourage him to try it. It wouldn’t be impossible. He knew the feel of it in the Force like he did few other things in the Galaxy; he didn’t need sight to reach for it.

But it was too small, and too far away, and his senses were too scorched and blasted by that awful lightning. Long before his weapon could make it to his hand, Sidious could kill him, even with no working lightsaber of his own. He couldn’t win that way, or even (that far lesser goal) live.

Instead, Obi-wan grabbed for the closest large object he knew to look for that wasn’t a corpse: the sliced-loose upper half of that baroque monstrosity of a desk-chair, conveniently bulky and only a few long steps away, just behind the desk he’d fallen from behind.

It came, and in coming swept Palpatine’s legs from under him, knocking him not quite sprawling, and then the curve of it had smacked into Obi-wan’s outstretched left palm, jolting the broken bone which did not matter in the slightest, and he rolled up onto his knees, graceless but fast, the slab of steel and leather still moving with the momentum that had dragged it to him, and clobbered the sitting-up Sith Lord across the face with it.

One of Obi-wan’s many faults was his tendency to take a vicious glee in striking low his enemies, but he did not think he had ever taken quite the joy from any beautifully executed maneuver that he did from watching Palpatine knocked to the floor by a slab of office chair. Obi-wan lunged after him, not bothering with niceties like getting to his feet, and brought the chair-slab down on his face again, this time with the strength of both arms—his right hand was mostly numb but for hurting, only the thumb and forefinger would move at all, and it was very weak, but none of that interfered with placing his whole forearm against the upholstery and slamming the searing-hot, bare metal inner side down.

There was a crunch, probably nose, and then instead of diminishing the awful seething presence of the Dark Side rose like a hurricane, and Obi-wan felt his throat close as from a powerful phantom hand, cutting off all breathing.

This caused him not an instant’s hesitation, because he had come here fully intending to die.

He raised the sheered-off slice of chair, adjusted the angle so the sharp edge where he’d cut the durasteel was pointing down, and aimed for the throat.

The ensuing explosion threw him after his lightsaber, and he knew nothing after hitting the wall.

#star wars #my writing #obi wan kenobi #fanfic #darth sidious #blows up on dying #it's canon #i feel like this wasn't #quite the intended timeline #but anyway here we are #chairdeath au #i gotta logic things #hoc est meum #i love a fight scene #i wanted to make this one more acrobatic than it is #but logistics intervened

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blackkatmagic · 3 years

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Mace (undercover as stripper) gives Slick a lapdance. Slick is too shell-shocked that the high general is apparently working as a stripper and Mace is far too amused

“Recruited by the kriffing Jedi and all I get is watered down drinks and a heart attack,” Slick snarls, hauling off the hat that looks like it was stolen from Cad Bane and flinging it across the room with more force than is probably strictly necessary. It’s not a bad hat. It’s actually kind of dashing. But he needs to throw something, and somehow he doubts the kriffing Jedi will be amenable.

Also, that would require looking at said Jedi, and Slick’s already losing his mind.

“It was a decent opportunity to establish a connection,” Mace karking Windu says, following Slick into the tiny, rented room. He’s shedding glitter everywhere, not that he seems to notice, and Slick is not noticing either.

“I wanted to call your bluff!” Slick snarls, rounding on him, and—well. There goes the not looking. Once he starts, he can't stop. “You didn’t have to accept the challenge!”

Mace raises one precise brow, like he’s not wearing about six square inches of cloth and plentiful smears of glitter and nothing else. Slick wants to punch him in the face. Or maybe throw him down on the floor and see if he can't get the most maddening Jedi he’s ever met to finally crack his composure.

“I thought it was a clever undercover move to make sure our story holds up to scrutiny,” Mace says, and Slick is not thinking about the moment Mace slid into his lap, all smooth dark skin and dangerous muscle and depthless eyes, hot even in the stifling closeness of the club. The club had rules against grabbing, but if it hadn’t, if Slick had been willing to risk his freedom as an undercover agent for one second of pure pleasure—

He almost was. Almost is. There are smears of hot pink glitter across Mace's shoulders, gold and purple around his eyes. He’s the prettiest kriffing thing Slick has seen in his whole damned life, and Slick wants.

“Should leave the Temple and start stripping full-time,” he says spitefully, like he’s a normal, functional Human and able to pull his eyes away from the gold dusted across Mace's ribs, exactly where Slick could put his hands. Could put his hands, and pull, and try that lapdance again, but this time with Slick a full participant and entirely focused on making Mace as out of control as possible. “It’d be a net gain for the galaxy.”

Mace snorts, though he doesn’t look offended. “If I thought I could do more good as a stripper than a Jedi, I would already have left the Order,” he says, because of kriffing course he does. He’s the one who got Slick out. He’s the one who’s been trying to get Boba out, even though Boba killed his men, tried to kill him. Did kill his commander, however indirectly, and Slick has seen Mace mourning Ponds.

Slick just wants to hate him in peace. Wants to hate himselfin peace. He doesn’t need some noble twice-damned Jedi trying to helphim. Doesn’t want to know, bone-deep, that when Mace says he means to help as many people as possible, he means it.

“Good thing Neyo wasn’t there,” he says, derisive, because it’s hard to forget the way Mace's new commander pulled Slick aside and right into one of the most terrifying conversations of his life, and Slick used to talk to Ventress. Neyo seems to have some pretty set ideas about his general’s dignity and grace and poise, and—

Well. Tonight might have made Neyo's head explode, but it wouldn’t have contradicted any of those ideas. Mace makes being a stripper look like the most dignified profession in the galaxy. Kriff, that’s half the appeal.

Mace's sound of amusement as he gets himself a bottle of water is almost enough to make Slick glance over, but—Slick’s sanity is hanging by a thread as it is. Watching Mace bend over won't help. “Neyo doesn’t take to undercover work as well as you,” he says, and with literally any other sentient, Slick might think it was a dig at his past as a traitor, but not with Mace. They had that argument already, and Slick is…convinced. Against his will, but all the more so for that fact.

“Guess not,” Slick says, a little raggedly, and pointedly turns towards the bedroom. One bed. Of course. But he knew that already. This is supposed to look like him taking a stripper home for a night of fun, not like one undercover operative meeting another.

Slick closes his eyes and counts to twenty. He’s not thinking about making their cover a reality. He’s not. And even if he were, every clone who feels attraction beats off to Mace Windu at some point in their lives. Slick did, back when he was young and stupid. Stupider.

“I assume,” Mace says from about six inches behind him, almost startling Slick out of his skin and his fantasies in equal measure, “that it will increase your credibility if your coworkers find glitter on you in the morning.”

Slick knows exactly how to get that glitter on him. He could pin Mace down and—

“Yeah,” he says, and turns. Grabs Mace by the shoulder, shoving him back and right up against the wall, and holds his gaze like a challenge as he slowly, deliberately drags a hand down Mace's chest, right through the glitter there. It’s easy, right now, to ignore the way his lastchallenge ended. “Probably would. Got any ideas for sharing?”

Mace just raises that brow at him again, perfectly steady, perfectly unwavering. “I’ll admit,” he says. “I did. But you seem to have plenty, and they're very clear.”

Slick flushes cold, then hot. “Karking empaths,” he says viciously and slams his mouth to Mace's with lots of force and little finesse.

If Mace minds it at all, Slick can't tell from the way he kisses back.

[On AO3]

#drunk drabble fills #my writing #slickmace #sergeant slick #mace windu #star wars

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative

This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).

One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.

Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.

Nokia’s background and personality

If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.

A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.

Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.

While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.

Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”

Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.

Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.

With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.

Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:

Agumon: Umm, who are you? Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.

Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.

Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.

In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).

Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.

(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)

In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.

Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:

Agumon: Um... who are you? Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you? Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon! Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon. Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names! Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird! Agumon: You're the one with the weird name! Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!

Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.

In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.

Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.

And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.

#digimon #digimon story cyber sleuth #shiramine nokia #nokia shiramine #shihameta

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bornesorrow · 2 years

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listen, i have zero time cause of an event coming up this weekend and i’m technically still over on @ofsquadrons but i HAVE to get this out of my head. this may be preaching to the choir, but on the off chance it is not, here it is:

(under a read more because this is longgggggg and y’all might not want to read an essay about femininity)

i truly believe the reason why padmé is both so adored and ignored (or hated) in and out of universe (honestly the parallels are astonishing) is because of her femininity. those who dismiss her often seem to do so because of the visible signs of this: her appearance namely in both, but out of universe this idea that she is, on some level, vapid, that she thinks she can ‘fix people’. they think she is weak, that her connection to those around her is not as strong, not as genuine, as those of the men. now, this is not to put down the men (or more masculine women for that matter) in star w.ars because dammit, we DO NOT advocate for hypocrisy here. and i love them all, so if you think i’m attempting to put them down, shame. however, as often is, even in more female dominated fandom spaces, there is a focus on men, both masculine and feminine, (and if we’re lucky, more masculine women) at the cost of, at best, dismissal of anything outside of that.

padmé would not have been able to accomplish even half as much as she did without her femininity. no, not the aesthetics of that. not the clothes, though i may love them, not her beauty, which is undeniable, but what really is at the core of that, beyond the stereotypes of what a feminine woman looks like. femininity, at its core, strives to nurture. it wants to bring beauty into the world, for things to live and thrive, and it will do anything to create it. that, along with her humility, her compassion, and her vulnerability are all what makes padmé the force to be reckoned with that she is. yes, she is a politician with real power who can kick ass and take names, but that’s NOT what makes her a strong female character any more than just that would create a strong male character.

she wants the republic to live, to thrive, even as she recognizes its faults. and if you think she is blind to its faults, then you really must think her vapid. she knows them, has witnessed what they do to the beings she personally represents, let alone countless others. she’s the daughter of the president of the galaxy’s most effective refugee aid organization and has been involved since she could barely walk. she’s seen the worst, and she knows where those stem. but she also sees where, without what the republic should be, what the galaxy would become. so she pushes, constantly, uncompromisingly, for the republic to become that entity. she did that on naboo as its queen and continued to do so as the sector’s senator.

her humility, her ability to accept that she was wrong brings people over to her side constantly. that’s how she made friends in the senate, even amongst those who were afraid she was some sort of puppet of palpatine. it’s how she prevented rodia from siding with the separatists. it makes her friends out of people who are wary of her, as well as makes people willing to work with her.

however, her compassion and her vulnerability are what make people loyal to her. she cares, truly cares about what happens to beings across the galaxy, not just those in her sector. she fought for clone rights, for self determination, for freedom, for general sentient rights both for humans and non-humans because she cared. and for those she felt even a morsel of safety in doing so, she was vulnerable. she might hide things, but she would open herself to harm just so others could see her care, could see that she was just another being.

without these, she wouldn’t have known as this beacon of justice by both loyalists to the fallen republic and the empire after her death. they both would not have coopted her in their own ways for their messages without these key parts of her. and more importantly to her, anakin likely would not have fell in love with her at the very least the same way without them. padmé never thought she could fix him, but if she loved him, cared for him, allowed herself the tiniest of selfishness for once, maybe, just maybe, like she had with so many others, anakin might find the space, the support to grow into the person he wanted to be. and he probably would have if it wasn’t for palpatine mucking up everything she did.

padmé is the amazing, literally galaxy changing woman she is because of her femininity, not in spite of it. and any attempt to minimize or dismiss either the impact she had or the importance her femininity had in those is just sad, because it displays a fundamental misunderstanding not only of her character, but of what it means to be feminine.

#· ooc ╱ entranced by navy burnout silk velvet.#does this make sense? who knows #all i know is i feel very strongly about what feels like a trend of dismissing the strength of femininity and i've been #seeing so much recently especially regarding padmé in this regard #and it is infuriating #sure don't distill down to her being the tragic mother of the twins either but #man oh man why #go the entirely other way #?????#she is soft and she is kind and she could've lead the entire galaxy one day because of it #and if there isn't strength and power in that #what is there?

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itsnothingofinterest · 3 years

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So with the end supposedly approaching (relatively speaking), people have started giving some thought as to who the final threat is really going to be; Tomura Shigaraki or All For One. It’ll definitely be one of them, they’re the strongest and most established villains by a mile; but both have their own reasons for people to think they’ll be the “final boss” of the series. And far be it from me to keep my opinion to myself; I really think it’s going to be Tomura.

I’m not sure if that’s some level of controversial among the fans hoping for Shigaraki’s redemption, as I do believe the alternative’s gotten a lot of traction lately. Because understand that I’m still expecting his redemption too, and don’t expect his hypothetical final boss status to really prevent that. (Practically nothing can, it’s as much a guaranteed outcome at this point as Deku getting his sixth bonus quirk.) Realistically, the only difference would be if he & Deku then team up to fight the evil potato head, or to...just start fixing stuff I guess.

On that note, the eventual redemption is actually one of the reasons I think he’s the better choice. Almost every point of comparison between the two villain I can think of makes Tomura seem like the better choice, actually...with maybe one or two exceptions. So I wanted to go over all those points of comparison & everything they’ve got going for them as endgame villains and why the comperrisons overall seem to favour Tomura as the final boss.

1. Someone who was defeated to the power of just one man

For one, just looking at pure power levels, AFO’s just not as threatening as Tomura; and there’s not really a way to bridge that gap.

Like, Tomura’s obviously more of a threat personally; he’s got the stronger body that was scientifically enhanced, and only he has Decay on top of the AFO quirk and the collection that came with it. It is just a fact that right now, Tomura is far more powerful. And before anyone thinks that AFO could become an equal threat by just taking over & fighting in his body; that’s not true because, along with just more combat experience that doesn’t rely on an arsenal of quirks, Tomura also has that Shimura trick where you remember your origin and become super bad ass. You know, the trick that All Might used to beat AFO in Kamino. In other words, the most dangerous individual in the series right now is the AFO!Tomura body with specifically Tomura in control.

And as long as the slight edge in mentality in Tomura’s favour exists, there’s not really a way to bridge that gap and have AFO take Tomura’s place as the biggest potential threat. Restore or enhance AFO’s original body? That’s just catching it up with AFO in Tomura’s body, which is still behind Tomura in Tomura’s body. Have AFO boost Tomura’s body with him in control? It would still be better with Tomura in control. There’s no scenario where Tomura isn’t the most powerful character in BNHA.

(Well, except maybe AFO weakening him by, say, stripping him of his quirks; but if he has to make things easier for the heroes to become the most powerful, I think that kind of proves my point anyway.)

But one person can only be so dangerous, so lets talk followers. Tomura has a close knit group of friends & allies on top of a vast army super loyal to him specifically that reaches a six digit figure, and AFO...just doesn’t. And I’ll get back to this later; but I don’t think he wants one either. He sticks to just a handful of people useful to him and what’s left of his Nomu. And while maybe that is the better way for him to accomplish his own personal goals, it’s simply not as threatening as the force which Hawks thought could’ve conquered the country if the heroes hadn’t struck first.

Tomura is a country ending threat, who in the right circumstances could fight literally all of the heroes with a chance of winning, and AFO simply isn’t.

2. His own little world

And to return to what I was talking about earlier, I’m not sure he really cares to be either. Like, people say he wants to conquer everything, and I imagine he’d think regaining lots of money & power would be great down the line; but evidence seems to suggest he doesn’t really care much for the country as a whole or any of the major themes being discussed by the actual main characters at the moment.

I mean if he did, he’d probably have rescued the PLF, that army capable of competing with all of hero society. And he probably wouldn’t have told ~10,000 dangerous and powerful villains indebted to him for their freedom to just run amok while he keeps contact with only the ones useful for his personal goals. And he definitively wouldn’t be laying low & sleeping through his enemies lowest moment & giving them a month to recover, also in service to those personal goals. That activity seems to imply those personal goals matter a whole lot more to him than societal conquest.

And what are those goals? Seemingly, taking over Tomura’s body so he can finally steal One For All. To what end, we’re not 100% sure of, but I believe it’s either a) a weird pride thing where he finally has control over his brother who’s rebelled against him for decades upon decades or b) an attempt at immortality as a sentient & transferable body-controlling quirk. Either way it’s some selfish personal thing he just gets others wrapped up in.

He’s incredibly disconnected from the greater themes and conflicts of the story. He seems to have no opinions on heroics besides how people are stupid for attempting them, and no opinion on society besides that it just naturally sucks. He’s mainly just a nuisance for the actual main characters. This self-important old man stuck in his own little world is supposed to be Deku’s final opponent?

Oh, and on that note-

3. Deku who?

We’re also talking about who’s going to be the final obstacle for Deku to face; and the problem with the being AFO is that...they don’t really have much to bounce off of with each other. You might be able to argue slight foil-ment, but they don’t really know each other, nor do they have any kind of connection to each other besides Deku having OFA so he’s AFO’s enemy by default.

(In fact their latest & 2nd convo, which came out as I was drafting this post out, kind of proves that with how AFO basically just shallowly made fun of him for trying to be a hero. That’s basically the extent of their antagonism.)

In fact, I’m like 80% sure this is a major reason for the Dad For One theory existing; just to give them some connection, something to talk about. Because otherwise AFO is just an evil guy known by people Deku knows/wants to save. He’s basically just another, more dangerous Overhaul; who Deku's already fought. And to AFO, Deku’s just another OFA holder acting all high & mighty; which we also already saw him face in the Kamino fight. So what little they do offer each other has already been done for both of them. And there’s nothing wrong with that for carrying a fight, I just wonder if that can really carry the final fight.

Compare that to Shigaraki, who foils Deku in ways so numerous & obvious it’s almost hard to talk about, such as: their position as successors, strategic thinkers, very similar origins, very similar core characters, team players, red shoes, they looked really similar as kids...just to name a few parallels. Contrasting AFO, there is a lot to work with here that would contributed to a good fight that’d double as a battle of ideologies. And admittedly, we know this because it already has, this is also something we’ve seen before; but there’s a lot more unexplored with their conflict, a lot left unsaid that we could see from them arguing their viewpoints. A lot more than from Deku & AFO anyway.

I mean for Pete’s sake; All Might & Shigaraki have more in common and more to talk about than Deku & AFO. That’s a major problem if those two are meant to carry the final battle; which is why I don’t think they are.

4. Just punch him

There’s also the fact that AFO doesn’t really challenge Deku in any real way; and I’m not just talking about how All Might solo-ing him (twice) should logically mean endgame Deku should also be able to solo him. I’m more talking about how...that’s kind of all he’d need to do. If you can just beat AFO up enough then...that’s it, threat over. Wrapped up in a neat little bow.

To compare, Shigaraki is the greatest threat the heroes have ever faced, the victim most in need of saving, and to top it off, he’s got the gall to be both of those things at once. What’s a hero supposed to do with that? That’s a serious question characters are going to have to think about when deciding how to deal with Shigaraki. His position is that of, not just the greatest challenge, but a set of the greatest challenges a hero could face. And that’s before you get into his side representing those oppressed by serious systemic issues that need to be addressed as well; quite possibly simultaneously.

No one needs to address systemic corruption or prejudice to beat AFO though. They just need to punch him real hard. The biggest challenge AFO presents the heroes is “how do we make sure this guy stops being a problem for good when neither our most secure prison, nor removing his head, did the job?”

(Personally, my answer is to have Tomura do it. Because unlike Deku, Tomura actually does have a proper antagonistic relationship with AFO, so he has reason to be the one to end him besides just being the protagonist. Plus he’s under no obligation not to kill, so there’s that.)

And like yeah, that does make AFO the easier guy to deal with, and thus write an ending around (to say nothing of how he's also the most satisfying person to see punched in the face); but does that really mean Horikoshi would want to use him instead of the more interesting option of Tomura? I mean I guess we can’t be sure, there is merit in writing the easy resolution; but I’d prefer the complex finale if I were in his shoes.

5. Horikoshi’s favourite

And lastly there’s just the issue of which of the two Horikoshi’s put more work into. Spoiler alert: it’s not the guy that spent like 200 chapters in jail being menacing every one in a while.

Tomura is by far the more developed between the two, having constantly evolved over the course of the series. And more than just as a character, as described above he’s been developed as the more threatening and challenging conflict for Deku while also reflecting him in a lot of important ways. We’ve seen the growth of his power & influence, we’ve gotten to know & understand his motives, we’ve seen how he’s been failed by heroes before. Everything about him has built him up as the ultimate villain, the most desperate victim, and overall greatest challenge for Deku and the story as a whole to face.

And AFO is...nearly one of those things. Which is pretty much what he was from his first appearance. He has not developed at all over the series, and from what we can tell from his flashbacks, he hasn’t developed at all over the past ~200 years either. (I’m half tempted to call him more inciting incident then character.) What we have with AFO, as far as a character and a villain goes, is pretty much what we’re getting until he’s done. And, well; if Tomura is a better villain & a better pick for final boss than he was then, that gap’s just going to keep growing.

Like, I doubt it really needs stating how Shigaraki is probably the character Horikoshi has put the most work into in the entire series. And a lot of that work, a lot of his development, has gone to the idea of him surpassing AFO or being a villain foil to Deku, who himself is mean to surpass All Might. For his roll to be usurped by the guy he’s meant to surpass just feels like it’s going against that. Like, it’d feel almost as wrong for his character and the story around him than it would for Deku is All Might got his powers back and took over for him as main protagonist. It just doesn’t feel right for Tomura not to be the final villain, is what I’m getting at.

6. ...One saving grace

Okay, but I will admit one thing AFO has going for him that I would be remiss not to bring up. Besides being the most hated character in a series that also has Endeavor in it, I mean. He’s got this one trait that makes him an effective antagonist to anyone in the series; his complete disregard to pretty much every major theme in the series.

I mean think about it; the major themes of Shigaraki’s circle all revolve around trying to fix the society that rejected them; but AFO believes Society just naturally sucks that way as part of human nature, so their cause is doomed. And the heroes’ major themes all revolve around how to become/what it means to be a hero; but AFO believes trying to do good in that society can’t really be done & also it’s ridiculous to believe comic books are real, so their cause is also doomed and they look stupid doing it. So despite not really interacting with anyone’s core conflict or goals in favour of wrapping them up in his own, he still manages a one-sided ideological opposition with nearly every major player in the series; and that’s not nothing.

But, and I completely understand that this is just a matter of opinion, that kind of just leaves him feeling to me like a good antagonist, not a good final antagonist. I’d still prefer it be Tomura even from this perspective, because he’s able to oppose the ideologies of his opponents on purpose & with proper ideologies of his own.

To summarize:

Shigaraki feels the better choice for final boss because he’s more threatening, more interesting, both as a person and as an opponent for Deku specifically, he’s far more directly tied into the themes of the story and their resolution, & he’s had far more set up. AFO is more hated, and his callous disregard for everything everyone else holds important is something I guess, but that’s pretty much all he’s got going for him in compression. I don’t know about you, but I know who I think would carry the conclusion to the series better.

But I also know this isn’t the most popular take among my villain fan colleagues right now. So if anyone disagrees, I welcome any civil discussion about these two & their viability as final boss.

#bnha #bnha manga spoilers #all for one #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #league of villains #lov #paranormal liberation front #PLF #all might #my stupid long term predictions

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ramblingguy54 · 3 years

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True Colors: An Emotionally Fantastic Serious Game Changer.

If we’re to look back at Reunion as Season 1′s dramatic pay off for Amphibia’s message of toxic friendships, as Anne & Sasha’s conflicting dynamic showed us, then True Colors is a colossal expansive note on this big theme of the series. True Colors makes Season 1′s finale look like a walk in the park for what angst goes down between our three main heroins in Season 2′s climatic resolution. Everything that can go wrong does go oh so painfully wrong for these three kids. Anne, to no one’s surprise, gets double crossed by Sasha leaving things between them a Hell of a lot more bitter than they were previously, as if that couldn’t already be topped when Sasha tried to kill the Plantars before. Anne has had enough of her lies and manipulation not being afraid to tell Sasha straight up how awful of a friend she’s been in general, even hitting her where it hurts most of all saying, “No, I’m done listening to you! I’m done trusting you! You’re a horrible person and I am done being FRIENDS with you!”, going so far as to get a shaken reaction out of Sasha dropping her brave face act, making this girl try to wipe away the frog family.

Right off the bat, True Colors makes it highly evident this isn’t just another story of stopping a bigger threat, but one hitting much closer to home, overall. Yes, King Andrias is certainly a dangerous villain, who makes his presence and intimidating nature known to the others by True Color’s final act, which despite this Amphibia isn’t entirely putting him at the forefront, rather focusing on a more intimate study of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy’s big emotional conflict. This finale knows exactly where to put its focus of importance on, so I love that instead of it being action packed we’re getting the spotlight shined on just how screwed up these three of a friendship have, in spite of Marcy claiming in The Dinner episode, “We’re supposed to be friends for life. We don’t split up!’ . Very ironic stuff right there, indeed.

True Colors’ most powerful strength it adds to Amphibia’s ongoing profound story about healthy friendships is the thorough deconstruction of these girls defined “ideal relationship” as people. Before Anne came to the world of Amphibia this kid was afraid to stand up for what she believed in, even knowing especially well that stealing the calamity box was morally questionable, but did it anyway. Sasha was super manipulative, abusive, and used her power to control people, like she did a lot of toward Anne in their lives. Marcy, while very smart, wasn’t the most competent physically, who soon grew into being more independent without needing to rely on Anne always having to be there for her. These three were changed immensely by the events of being thrust into this world of sentient amphibian creatures. Anne benefited morally most out out of all three in taking up the mantle of responsibility and ironing out her own issues. She’s become a much stronger person all around.

This episode asks us an important question though in nutshell with, “Have Sasha & Marcy truly changed for the better?”, since Anne has reached a point in her arc feeling genuinely content with who she’s become and the bonds that have been made with the Plantar family shown most notably with Sprig Plantar. Hence the whole purpose behind the song, It’s No Big Deal, with Anne feeling proud for who she is, yet not noticing a bigger issue right underneath her nose. That previous episode was meant to bring Anne’s happiness up only to bring it all crashing down in a devastating display of new revelations in True Colors. Every dramatic emotional beat isn’t just earned. Each significant moment is completely knocked out of the park by terrific voice acting, beautiful animation, and music composition that gave me serious emotional goosebumps. True Colors did exactly as Not What He Seems accomplished for Gravity Falls in shaking up its own respective dramatic stakes just when you thought it couldn’t get any higher for these protagonists. Shit seriously hits the fan here.

Did it ever occur to you, Anne? Sasha? That one of you knew more, than she was letting on? That ONE of you might’ve gotten you stranded in Amphibia on purpose...?

The big bombshell twist of Marcy playing a part too in getting them into this whole debacle completely flips everything upside down. Sasha pushed Anne into taking the Calamity Box, yes, but if Marcy never sent that photo because of her desire to stay with them together forever, then they wouldn’t have been stranded in basically a world full of dangerous creatures and who knows what else. Easily my favorite part of the episode, considering it adds more nuance to a situation that defined Amphibia’s story. It wasn’t just one person’s fault at the end of the day. Sasha bullied Anne into taking the box, Anne didn’t put her foot down to make a stand for something morally questionable, and Marcy took advantage of them both to benefit her own selfish desires for supposedly a “happy ending” not involving them staying apart, due to her parents moving away for a new job. All three girls played an important part on why they got landed into Amphiba. It’s why Anne’s statement to King Andrias, “The three of us may have made some mistake, but you...You’re evil and I’m gonna stop you!”, holds such a real weight to it, as this story continues to solidify how genuinely fleshed out their dynamic is.

Marcy’s super desperate plea to be understood by Anne & Sasha when Andrias revealed her getting them thrown into Amphibia purposefully was hard to watch. On one hand, I felt for Marcy because she didn’t want real life circumstances to tear apart that close connection she had to Sasha & Anne. Sure, she could’ve just kept in touch with them over the phone or chatting online, too. However, Marcy had known them since very early childhood. When you’ve been so attached to someone it can be a devastating thing, depending on just how vulnerable you are emotionally, to start drifting apart. Marcy represents that embodiment of toxic need for togetherness and couldn’t bear to let a possibility, like moving away, throw a wrench into her happiness and friendship, as well.

Never mind Marcy wanting to stay permanently in a different reality, rather than face her’s, but it made this person feel like something more. It gave her a chance to feel truly special in being able to live out a fantasy dream of having such power and freedom that a kid, like herself, couldn’t have had. The freedom to know she is plenty capable of making it out there on her own without Anne having to watch this kid like a hawk. So, to have someone, or something, try taking it away from her terrified Marcy of facing a terrible truth. That she isn’t strong enough after all to live a life without Anne & Sasha by her side completely, where Marcy will never feel truly worthy enough to blossom into her own person. It’s why that line, “I just...didn’t want to be alone...”, carries such a deep pain to it all. Marcy just crumbles into pieces accepting her greatest weakness. As much as Marcy fumbled the ball big time, it’s so easy to empathize with her on the idea of feeling competent enough. Marcy never meant to hurt Anne or Sasha, but the sad crushing punchline is she very much did.

Speaking of which, Anne had every right to be upset and mad, obviously. Anne has been missing so many things from her life before everything went off the wall. Hopping Mall especially highlighted Anne’s emotional desire to give anything just to hear her mother’s singing again. This teenager has been really dealing with a lot of grief in general quite honestly. Anne got into a high stakes battle against Sasha to save new friends, who’d practically became like an adopted family, which left the poor girl traumatized and heartbroken over the end result. She thought finding Marcy would help compensate for it and eventually be able to mend those complications with Sasha to boot. It’s simply painful to see it all blow up in Anne’s face to know not only Sasha betrayed her trust yet again, but realizing Marcy also played a part of responsibility in getting them thrown here. Matt Braly really just decided to slap future trust issues onto Anne finding out Hop Pop, Sasha, and Marcy were all super dishonest in their intentions at one point or another. Damn, I feel so bad for her.

It makes their embracing hug back in Marcy At The Gates so much harder to watch. Anne was super glad to see her again. Anne had wondered what became of Marcy or even possibly started to think she could even be alive at all. Then come to find out later on Marcy having intentionally ripped her away from a normal life must’ve felt worse then what happened with Sasha. Anne, already done with all of Sasha’s bullshit, thought she could at least expect better from Marcy not letting her down, but that too wasn’t the case. Marcy is very much as flawed as Sasha in what she has done. To think, Anne wanted so badly to get back home, yet she’s staring the very person dead in the eye, who ripped her away from it to begin with. Marcy knew Sasha would talk Anne into taking the box from that thrift shop, even if she wasn’t completely certain it would successfully teleport them away. Regardless of whatever good intentions someone can have in why they did what they did, it still doesn’t absolve them of said mistake. Fact of the matter is, Marcy tragically made her own bed, by choosing to mess with forces she couldn’t begin to comprehend and now has to face consequences, in spite of her not deserving them.

What really got to me was when Marcy tried to spin around Anne’s personal growth and close friendship with the Plantars as all entirely thanks to her. When she said, “I gave you this! I gave you everything!”, I was like, “Nope, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.”, seeing everything that has culminated in Anne’s journey of bettering herself. Marcy didn’t give Anne anything, but a one way ticket to cutting the kid off from her family, presuming she’d be fine with this idea. It’s all kinds of messed up, however what it boils down to is Marcy undermining Anne’s independence and agency. Anne’s moral judgement in decision making was what allowed her to create this new life she made for herself in Amphibia. Anne’s honesty as a whole led her down a path of togetherness, while Marcy’s lying landed her in a result of not wanting to be alone, costing her so much.

“I don’t believe this. We were so focused on each other we couldn’t see what was right in front of us!”

True Colors excels at earning each of its emotional beats because they line up with character motivations down to the last letter. Anne doesn’t want to trust Sasha anymore because of their already rocky past, which leads to her helping King Andrias regain control of his kingdom. Sasha not keeping a lid on her temper, wanting to rule over Amphibia, and trying to reinforce that power dynamic with Anne & Marcy only made things worse for her image of a changed good friend. There wasn’t a chance in Hell Anne would hear Sasha’s reasoning after she flat out tried to take away her frog family, by attempting to use the Calamity Box a bit ago in the episode. Marcy wanted to believe there was a happily ever after in seeing this world traveling idea as their only chance for salvation as friends for life, but it turned out to be something much more sinister, when learning of Andrias’ backstory and his true scumbag nature. All three of their motivations come clashing together, blinding them from a much bigger danger. Something that effectively puts everyone at stake.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale works so excellently, given it covers important dramatic elements it’s been stirring around since Season 1′s early rumblings. Amphibia is a story centered around people’s need for emotional connections. True Colors builds miraculously off what Reunion already did quite well in showing friendships can become rough and they are never easy to deal with. When you have to make a stand it can be a tough pill to swallow on the reality check of maybe this “good friend” of your’s isn’t as nice as you previously thought them to be. Anne having been hurt one too many times now by her former friend sends that message close to home, so much so even Sasha begins to question her morality as a human being. It poignantly encapsulates how this trio’s complex friendship is a serious growing issue needing to be reexamined, overall.

What if Anne’s right..? What if I am a horrible person...?

Something I absolutely love to pieces about True Colors, also a testament to Season 2′s darn good writing, is how much introspective we get from each character on what they’re feeling. We’ve seen plenty of Sasha’s vulnerability before in other episodes centered on her issues, but now we’re getting to the root of it. Sasha is really taking everything more to heart, little by little. Sasha’s understanding what kind of an effect she has on people, seeing the damage it has caused made evident by Percy and Braddock in Barrel’s Warhammer. Grime once told her, “Some dreams have a price and not everyone is willing to pay it.”, where she’s questioning that idealism every passing minute the invasion plan proceeds further into reaching success. Sasha isn’t sure what to do with herself anymore feeling aimless. Those previous episodes had a real impact on her priorities more than she cared to let on with Sasha’s typical tough girl act. This kid has let her guard down more, which scares and confuses Sasha. She’s always used to playing the role of protector it contradicts everything Sasha stands for when the roles are totally reversed because now Anne has made her feel the tremendous change in their growth as individuals.

Sasha’s lifestyle has been all about control that after somewhat learning to be more considerate to Anne & Marcy’s feelings she feels beyond conflicted about what truly matters to her. The most screwed up part of it all is Sasha didn’t want to fight anymore, taking up a pacifist approach after seeing what King Andrias had been hiding from everyone. It’s a fitting punishment for Sasha to try bringing Anne over to work together once more, but getting her pleas for companionship outright ignored. Anne was correct that Sasha had wasted all the chances to be reasonable. Boonchuy tried to hear out Sasha before at The Third Temple. One wanted to start things over again to iron out their serious issues, but the other was driven by bitterness, while only remorseful to a degree at best, of seeing their once weak friend become so independent, mature, and stronger that it drove her up wall. Sasha wanted to take away that “problem” being the Plantars, since in her eyes they’re the source of Anne’s strength, driving a wedge further between the two girls in their heated Reunion 2.0 battle.

True Colors demonstrates the horrific price of no trust, communication, nor teamwork from the three main girls that Andrias smoothly took advantage of, as if they were fiddles.

“That’s the thing about friends isn’t it? The more you love them, the more it hurts when they go.”

King Andrias is quite literally what I wanted Lunaris to be, where DuckTales’ Season 2 finale didn’t impress me on doing. He’s a serious big baddie to the main cast, who follows through on his threats of violence to demonstrate his wide array of arsenal and power. Andrias doesn’t just emotionally manipulate characters, like poor Marcy, but utterly crush them without an ounce of remorse for his actions. When he dropped Sprig out that window after Anne willingly let him have the Calamity Box back I thought they were legit gonna kill this boy off. The way Anne’s flashback montage of her good times with Sprig were eerily shot really didn’t help either on that note. Anne’s Calamity power finally activating is easily up there among stuff, like Dewey risking his life for Della’s disappearance in Last Crash, where the cinematography is shot and animated brilliantly. You feel Anne’s blind raging sadness in every hit she landed on those robots and Andrias. If anyone didn’t believe Sprig was like a little brother to Anne, then I dunno how anyone couldn’t view their bond anymore as such after this hugely defining scene. Anne went bloodthirsty when she believed Sprig to be dead further evidenced when she hugged him in relief afterwards exclaiming, “Sprig!? You’re alive!? Oh, thank goodness...”, which cuts deep so damn much.

Anne was ready to fight every one of Andrias’ troops in that castle to the death, if need be. Before Sprig came back from falling, thanks to Marcy’s quick acting, to comfort Anne, her only goal was to slaughter every opponent in that throne room, along with making Andrias pay dearly for even daring to lay a single finger on anyone of the Plantars. I’m not gonna lie, this pivotal power up reminded me so much Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2 after Cell curb stomped Android 16 into pieces with a smirk on his face. Anne Boonchuy’s maddening outburst is a classic testament to the idea of, “Piss off the nicest person and they’ll make it their mission to instill the biggest kind of fear/terror into you.”. showing this kid at her most vulnerable mental state, yet. Sprig & Anne’s cathartic embrace really messed me up in reinforcing just how these two respect, love, and would go above any of their limitations to help the other out. Sprig’s “death” scene was a masterful bait by the writers into making us think someone was gonna die and it was gonna be a poor kid, no less.

However, it was actually all just a bait and switch for the real, “Oh, shit. They really just did that”, moment with Marcy unexpectedly getting run through with Andrias’ gigantic sword. In a last ditch effort, Marcy wanted to atone for what she had a hand in getting them all into. Marcy was ironclad determined in making her own stand for what was right trying to save the people she endangered. Akin to what Sasha did in Reunion for saving Anne’s life, Marcy does the exact same here. Although, unfortunately this time, no one is here to protect Marcy from escaping death, like Grime catching Sasha from plummeting at Toad Tower. Marcy couldn’t react in time because she was so focused on helping her dear friends out. She wanted to prove to herself at least one time, “I’ve screwed up so much stuff with my friends. Maybe, just maybe. If I get my friends back home, it’ll prove I’m not an entirely crappy person for setting these events into motion.”. Marcy’s own deep seeded remorse is what saved Anne & the Plantars, while being the cause of her own untimely demise at Andrias’ hands.

This scene is what no doubt encouraged the warning sign for younger viewers Disney decided to make for them. It’s impressive how far Matt and his crew are willing to go for intense dramatic content. Andrias trying to crush Polly with his fist after destroying Frobo with casual ease, dropping Sprig out of the window from up sky high, and stabbing Marcy with his powerful sword displays his cold blooded brutality. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you get in the way of Andrias’ plans for multiverse domination, then he’ll throw anyone into their own grave, be it man, woman, or child. That’s the mark of a truly terrifying antagonist.

Andrias didn’t care who had to be hurt or manipulated to get back the box, so he could invade other worlds with Earth being his next prime target for invasion. Marcy’s fate is a horrifyingly poetic statement, since Sasha stated to Anne in a flashback from Marcy At The Gates, “One of these days, she’s gonna get herself killed.”, with True Colors tying back to this line in a disturbing manner. Something that sends chills down my spine is we get to see the full extent of how far Andrias shoved the sword through her body. We don’t just see the entry point of where it hit her, but it even zooms out to show the whole thing. Real talk, I got serious Avatar The Last Airbender vibes from this scene. Reminded me so much of Aang getting suddenly zapped with lightning by Azula when he tried to enter the Avatar state. Marcy didn’t want to be alone so badly she ended up inevitably dying alone trying to send Anne back home to their reality. One Hell of a way to close off Marcy’s last moments in Season 2, until her inevitable resurrection happens in Season 3 now that King Andrias has her in a tube tank that looks tied to his master.

True Colors ends on a deeply bittersweet cliffhanger leaving the fates of Sasha & Grime totally unknown if they’ll get away by the skin of their teeth, or get captured by Andrias’ soldiers and robots. Anne finally returned home with the Plantars, but at a deadly cost of leaving her other close friends behind in Amphibia. After all the isolation, heartbreak, and endurance she went through with her frog family Anne finds herself at a total loss for words. Once again, Anne is in a state of solitude of not knowing if her friends are really okay or not, mirroring the start of Season 1 when she landed into Amphibia’s world. It’s safe to say to say that, “Finally me and it’s no big deal.”, lyrics have aged terribly for Anne’s realization of finding her own identity came at the expense of getting separated from friends she’s known since kindergarten. Definitely see Anne becoming a lot more protective of the Plantars now more than ever after watching Marcy drop to the ground from being stabbed in front of her eyes.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale is exactly how you capitalize on a winning story telling formula of dramatic writing, lovable characters with layered depth, and increasing the stakes of your story in an organic manner. True Colors is a finale that should be talked about for a long time to come, as it not only showed how worth the wait it was, but reinforces why Amphibia is a truly great series. It’s unafraid to take its characters to dark places in a way that feels totally earned.

Amphibia Season 2 is everything a sequel to a first film should be.

#amphibia true colors #amphibia spoilers #amphibia season 2 #anne boonchuy #marcy wu #sasha waybright #sprig plantar #polly plantar #hop pop plantar

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rise-above-the-grave · 4 years

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[smashes down door] who is Bail and why do you like him? I could look it up but I'd rather you gush over him

OH BOY.

So first off, a quick (canon) history lesson: Bail Organa was the Senator and Viceroy (aka Prince Consort) of Alderaan. If you don't know what that means (because old titles are Weird - I'm not judging the only reason I know this is because of this very character), it means that Breha, Bail's wife, is ruling Queen of Alderaan and was the heir to the throne. She married Bail, making him a ruler by marriage, though technically she still held the crown. He, at some point, was also elected Senator of Alderaan, and was Senator leading up to and during The Clone Wars (and after, but we're getting to that).

So Bail, we come to find out, became (best) friends with Padmé Amidala. We see him in a couple of scenes in Attack of the Clones with Padmé, just kinda vibing and making the occasional commentary. We know he stood with her on the Opposition bill (the bill Padmé was nearly killed over at the beginning of AOTC, which was against the formation of a Republic military), though we don't learn much about the rest of his politics until later.

So he's kinda...there, but obvs isn't the focus of the story, and is really just a minor background character. The first real insight we get into Bail is, actually, a really tiny character moment right at the end of AOTC, when Palpatine and some of the Senators are looking down at the Clone troops loading up onto the ship, watching their new military gear up for war.

Bail looks away. While everyone else is staring down at the (slave) army, some of them smiling (like Sheev), some of them just serious, Bail looks away from them and makes this tiny little hand gesture: a simple, closed fist knocking against the banister of the balcony.

It's this, I think, that first piqued my interest in this character. He was the only one not triumphant in that situation. He was the only one who saw things for what they were: a tragedy, and a horror, and that this wasn't something to celebrate but to mourn.

Then we come to Revenge of the Sith, and boy howdy. The man may have like 10 minutes of screen time, but does he make those 10 minutes count!

A quick bullet point of the Important Things Bail Does in ROTS:

When the Jedi Temple is burning, what does Bail do? He flies to it to figure out what's going on and see if he can save anyone. He then watches as a youngling is shot and killed by Clone Troopers, and manages to escape because he's a fucking badass.

Please note, to our knowledge, Bail is the only one who actually goes to check on the Jedi Temple.

As soon as he escapes the Temple, Bail immediately - like immediately - takes his ship and goes to find any surviving Jedi. He is almost certainly the reason both Yoda and Obi-Wan don't walk into the trap that is the Jedi Temple, or are captured - and even if that's not true, he most definitely is the reason they manage to sneak safely onto Coruscant and figure out what happened.

He's the one who rescues Yoda (again) after Yoda's failed duel with Palpatine in the Senate. Which, let me rant about the SYMBOLISM of that for a second please. Because holy shit, the entire duel between Yoda and Palpatine takes place in the Senate, with the Senate building and pods. Here Palpatine proves to Yoda that yes, he is the Senate, he controls it, the new Empire is under his control and no one can stop him. But then - but then - Yoda escapes, and who saves him? Bail. Bail sneaks in with a speeder, saves Yoda, and gets him back to safety. Which is such a huge fucking metaphor for the fact that Bail will be the one who, ultimately, is responsible for Palpatine's defeat. But, more on that later.

Bail is there when Padmé (remember, his best friend) gives birth to Luke and Leia. Bail is literally one of 3 sentients in the galaxy who canonically knows about both Luke and Leia.

Bail instantly offers to adopt one of the children, saying "She will be loved with us." (And then she absolutely is.)

And he does all of that in line 10 minutes of screen time.

He shows up again briefly in Star Wars Rebels, and again in Rogue One, but I'm going to take a trip down a side alley here into a territory that is grossly unused in the SW EU: the founding of the Rebellion.

So we don't actually know much about how the Rebellion got started. What we do know is that Bail was one of the (if not the main) Founders. Bail was the mastermind behind the Rebellion, by all accounts knowing...everything about it: who was who, who did what, where they were located, etc. He knows (and controls) Fulcrum in Rebels, as just one example, and Fulcrum is considered by that text to be one of the most powerful Rebel operatives at the time. In Rogue One (regardless of whether you liked what they did with the Rebellion which, side note, I did not), we see he certainly has a position of great authority and power. People respect him, and listen to him, and he's on an even footing with Mon Mothma (or Mom Mothma as my autocorrect tried to say) who is canonically one of the most powerful people in the Rebellion, according to ROTJ.

More than what he did, though, we can look to his character as a reason I love him. He is a good, kind, honorable man who does (or at least tries) his best. We see again and again, throughout all of SW media he's in, that he consistently chooses the right path, regardless of whether or not it's the easy one. He fights corruption, fights for justice, fights for freedom, fights against tyranny.

He is also, canonically, an amazing father and (according to EU content, since Breha literally doesn't have a spoken line in any media content) an incredible husband. We know he's well-loved by his people, and by the Rebellion, by the extraneous texts and mentions about him in the wake of his death on Alderaan. He's also respected by many Senators during his time in the Clone Wars (Padmé makes a comment in a TCW episode about how he's the best and most respected speaker and Senator she knows), and regardless of how people felt about him after the Rise of the Empire (which is, unfortunately - or fortunately maybe, because I don't trust Disney to do it right - up to headcanon), the fact remains that Bail played an incredibly tricky position as an Imperial Senator, having to balance fighting for his people, the people of the galaxy, and setting up the Rebellion, with not making himself too much of a nuisance, or too much of a traitor, that Palpatine straight up had him executed.

Which, speaking of that, can we also take a moment to appreciate the fact that Bail knew almost every single secret that Palpatine and Vader wanted??? He knew where Obi-Wan was, and possibly where Yoda was. He knew where both of Anakin and Padmé's children were. He knew everything about the fledgling Rebellion. Like...that man, had he been captured and interrogated (and had he broken) would have damned the entire galaxy. Yet he never was. He played his cards perfectly, and was either never suspected, or was able to somehow hide all of the information they wanted to know from being found. Personally, I suspect a mixture of the two.

Furthermore, Bail Organa is a great father and husband. He is directly responsible for Leia being the amazing woman we know and love. The one shot we get of Breha, you can practically see and feel the love and adoration Bail has for her radiating off of him through the screen. Literally the most unproblematic ship in Star Wars. I have never seen a single person say they aren't amazing (unless they just want to break them up to make Bail gay? Which, come on, bisexual and polyamorous people exist, y'all. But that's a talk for another time).

If you're still not convinced, the only thing left that I can say is: I'm a raging lesbian and like, while I definitely wouldn't fuck him, Bail/Jimmy Smits (his actor) is handsome. Have some pictures that I have saved on my phone for when I'm feeling sad.

Tl;dr: Bail Organa is singlehandedly responsible for putting into motion the events that secure the galaxy's freedom, not only by being one of the founding fathers of the Rebellion, but also by reaching Yoda and Obi-Wan before the new Empire can, and getting them safely to Coruscant. He is a good, kind, and noble man who does his best in shitty times, and even if he has to make hard choices, he always makes them for the right reasons. He is a loving father, husband, and ruler, who does right by his people and his family. He fights for what's right, even when that fight is nearly impossible. He's a badass, and arguably a literal genius (you'd have to be, to do the kinds of things he does in canon).

Anyway, Bail Organa is great and I love him - and you should too.

#bail organa #breha organa #leia organa #obi wan kenobi #yoda #padme amidala #sheev palpatine #anyway i love him lots #also for any lotr peeps who read this (or at least are reading the tags)#he's basically elrond in space

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years

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I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IDEA. But may I also propose: Magnus cursed from a young age (probably bc of Asmodeus) that anyone who touches him is hurt by a blast of magic he can't control. (This may result in his mother's death). He locks himself away of his own will. Alec teaches then that it's fear that makes him lash out. Featuring: touch starved Magnus.

this idea is GENIUS actually and i love it. tbh me and my friend have a similar idea that we talk to each other about (lol) but it isn't a B&B thing, its more of an adventure AU. anyway, lets go!

so in this universe i guess magnus banished asmodeus like in the original sh verse but asmodeus cursed him with the "everyone you touch will be in indescribable pain" thing. maybe just as revenge, maybe to try and use it as bargaining chip because okay magnus, is it freedom that u want? u want to be able to have ur own friends and ur own life? fine. get me back, and ill leave u alone, and ull be free to have friends again. if not, ull be still isolated just like before. so is it gonna be win-win, or lose-lose?

but magnus doesn't budge because he knows that if he lets asmodeus free things will only get worse not only for him, but for the whole world. he is too dangerous to be out there. so, magnus resigns to his fate

and i guess in this version he wouldnt have a lot of close friends because he had been with asmodeus his whole life before he was cursed, so he was just. alone in his self-imposed isolation with no one to talk to. maybe he enchants the furniture so they gain sentience but they can't really feel pain, so at least he has someone to talk to. god im so fucking sad already

so is the furniture his friends in canon? im not entirely sure how i feel about that but also the idea of ragnor as that clock from the original movie is great. thats my most important thought on the subject ngl

btw its 4 degrees Celsius in here so im typing with gloves on so ull have to excuse my typos i am a mere brazilian and i want death

anyway okay so i guess his friends are like pieces of furniture that he spelled into sentience and they aren't his servants or anything cuz that's gross but they just like, hang out. wow im actually managing to type pretty well all things considered

so at least magnus has people to talk to but he's still touch starved because you know... a clock can't hug you and that'd just be weird. maybe them becoming sentient was an accident? lmao like magnus just wanted to automate some functions like having the clock talk to tell him the time or something and it turned out that they became sentient. possibly his magic is a little fucky because of the curse so that's why that happened? or maybe he just is way more powerful than he realizes and we all know he invented the spells he used to try and automate the things anyway. but if he gets people to talk to, well, he's not complaining

im focusing too much on this. anyway. id also like to note that im making rapha the cook/stove thing because i mean, come on. it's right there

and ok i guess alec comes into this because he uhhhhhh no u know i might go with that izzy thing. so izzy ran away from home because of maryse's bullshit and alec was sent to bring her back. so he was going after her but in the middle of the path there was the whole wolf attack thing that scared off his horse and LUCKILY magnus' house/tower/whatever was right next!!! so of course they take alec and his horse in but also WHOOPS there's a huge snowstorm that lasts for days (par the course for where magnus lives, actually. he DID want somewhere people would avoid. but also i think maybe his magic being fucky has something to do with it) so i guess alec is stuck at magnus' for the foreseeable future

which is HELL for magnus because he is terrified out of his mind that they will accidentally touch and alec will be hurt. and like.... his Constant Crave For Touch is already bad on a regular day, but having someone who could actually hug him in theory just makes it worse, you know? he hasn't interacted with other human beings in so long, just having one there is enough to make his need for touch almost unbearable and just... completely constant. it's hell

so magnus is scared, which means that he keeps to himself. so he tells alec not to go into his room, he tries not to eat at the same time, and other stuff like that, bUT his friends keep sabotaging his plans because they want him to have another friend, jesus christ!! (rapha being like "come on now magnus, you don't want my soup to get cold, do you? i'll be deeply offended. i guess you have no choice but to eat with alec". so magnus goes but the first thing he does is magic his regular table into a gigantic rectangular table with 41908410 seats and seat on on the side opposite to alec. alec just sighs

so like he's constantly coming across as rude because he is trying to avoid alec, alec just doesn't know why

but alec is also a stubborn bitch who goes stir crazy and refuses to just sit around isolated doing nothing while they wait for the stupid storm to finally be over so he can go get his sister. and magnus saved his life, so it's the least he can do to repay him in some way. besides, this is what, the first time that he's been completely away from his mom? for such a long time too? and he's finding that he feels... weirdly free and just relieved and he doesn't want to waste that opportunity with standing idly around alone all day. he had enough of that at home, thank you very much

besides yeah magnus is being rude but alec is used to straight up assholes and abusers (jace. i'm talking about jace. also maryse ofc but mostly jace) and magnus is not that. in fact he makes very polite conversation and is actually pretty fun during dinner, all things considered. he's just.... super private, i guess

AND magnus' friends are all being a nightmare with the making them interact so you know. they end up interacting. and alec makes it a point to help him take care of his house because it is a certified Depression Lair™. magnus can take care of it magically but it's like... so dark and almost suffocating at times and there is stuff like bad painting and piping problems that he never bothered to fix because it isn't affecting the functionality too much but it DOES makes life harder and alec "everything must be at 100% always" lightwood is not here for it so for a few days they are working on fixing the house and... magnus actually feels a lot better when the place has actual sunlight and looks inviting and like a home, he has to admit. when he says that to alec it might be the first time he's given him a real smile and man, is alec smitten

sidenote i guess this means that magnus doesn't exactly... dress well in this au lmaoo i mean it makes sense too because canonically magnus uses dressing up as a way to convey an image of power and untouchability and he doesn't really need that in this AU since he is completely isolated. so i guess he is a bit more like twi magnus - bare-faced and wearing comfortable clothes and the like. this isn't a twi au i'm just saying that it makes more sense for him to dress like that in that context

anyway. after the whole house fixing thing, they officially become friends. it turns out that alec also knows a bit about what it's like to feel isolated and touch-starved (altho he's always had izzy to help in that department, but still) and also what crappy parents are like. magnus shows alec his little mirror that he's enchanted to be able to show him anything he wants and how he uses it to be able to see all the places in the world he'd like to visit - he loves people, he loves culture, and sometimes it's all he can do to watch what's going on in Mumbai and it makes him feel a little better, so, he does that. he also admits that sometimes he catches on some drama happening and uses the mirror to see the people involved and make sure they are okay. kinda like a soap opera of his own but he has the means to interfere and help because of magic, so he will have someone who's struggling with money suddenly find hidden cash or have an "unknown dead relative" give them a lot of money in their will, or something like that. and if he also watches some of their personal drama that unfolds, well. he is lonely and it's not hurting anyone

but magnus doesn't tell him about the curse, and he still makes sure to keep his distance. it stings a little to alec, but it hurts magnus the most because fuck, maybe he just desperately needs someone who will give him the time of day, but he likes this guy and that only makes it harder to keep his distance. he makes it a point to always be at at least two arms length from alec, which alec thankfully respects and doesn't try to get him to breach, but. shit. it's still so hard to not want to just rest his head on his shoulder or get a hug or even fucking touch pinkies like stupid children and he can't. alec even once jokingly suggests that they have a ball since magnus doesn't know how to dance and magnus is actually excited for a second before he remembers that he can't, it would have to mean that alec touches him, and he can't

someone - maybe ragnor - even suggests that maybe he could try gloves and heavy clothing so alec isn't really touching him but magnus refuses to try because he doesn't want to risk it not working and alec getting hurt, because he'd never forgive himself. besides, getting a taste would only make it hurt more. he can't. he can't

but it's alright because at least he has some human company - he loves his friends, he does, fiercely, but it's different when they kind of have no choice but to be with him and also are enchanted creatures. he doesn't even know if they aren't nice to him just because he enchanted them into life, even tho to be fair if he had a choice ragnor wouldn't be that grouchy - and alec makes him laugh and gets him and helped make his place feel more like home, a little bit. and he can pretend that he feels the warmth from alec's body when they are sitting by the fire and feed these crumbs to his desperate need for touch and company

and then the snowstorm ends and it's time for alec to go

honestly, alec himself is kind of heartbroken, but- he loves his sister, and he can't just leave her alone in god knows where, even if he dreads the thought of coming back home now that he's been away from his family for so long. but magnus doesn't want to keep him, and doesn't want alec to feel pity for him, so he's all but pushing alec out of the door (not literally, of course. he can't do that, it would mean touching him) all "go, go, you never know when another storm might start. go see your sister. take my mirror, you can find her more easy". and alec's all "but it's been the only thing-" and magnus waves him off, of course, all "i can always make myself another one. besides, you'll have something to remember me by. now go"

so.... alec goes

and hooo boy magnus is heartbroken and a mess because even tho he knew how much having someone else there helped he had almost forgotten what it was like to be the only human in the house. he just feels extra lonely and even kind of bad about it because hey, his friends are there - not that they begrudge him for it, of course. it's not like they don't also hope for the chance to get out of the house and do other things, but well. they can't. so they understand him. and they know how awful he's feeling right then, but what can they do?

meanwhile alec finds izzy pretty quickly - she's living with this one insufferable villager named clary that alec absolutely can't stand, but- she's happy. and she doesn't want to come back, which alec expected, but he finds that he can't actually insist for her to come back. how could he, when he himself doesn't want to go?

and izzy insists that he stays with her - there's no reason for him to come back. they can stay in the village, and work, and build a life for themselves. alec is the only thing she's been missing ever since she left, and in here the both of them can actually be happy. and do it together, like they're meant to

and when he first gets into the village is the first time since izzy ran away that he was hugged and fuck, it's hard to say no to her

but also... he misses magnus already

and he doesn't know if he can just stay and leave him behind

and of course izzy is like "who is magnus?" so alec tells her the story, how he was attacked by wolves and rescued by this house that miraculously was in the middle of the single most inhospitable placealec had ever seen in his life. and the kind but wary stranger who always keeps his distance but seems so eager for connection, who made alec feel welcome and laugh and feel like he built a life for himself there

and clary tells him that she's heard of the story, but she never knew it was more than a legend - no one really remembers what happened. some say that magnus made a sacrifice to rid the village of a demon, and it turned him into a beast, forever locked in his castle. some say that he himself is the demon, and it's the tower that's containing him and keeping the village safe. some even say that he died battling the demon, and it's his ghost that keeps watch on the tower

she wants alec to explain which one is true, but it's all alec can say that none of these are right and he knows nothing because magnus never told him. all alec knows is that he doesn't want to leave magnus behind

and clary is like... well, if he's not a demon or a ghost, maybe we could bring him to the village too. he has magic, right? he could bring the tower closer. and maybe the other villagers could, you know, visit him and hang out. and he wouldn't be as lonely, and then alec and izzy could both stay

driven by this failproof plan, they decide to go back to magnus and tell him their great idea

except they are IDIOTS and forget about. you know. the damn wolves

and like holy shit is this pack big or what? like no seriously why are there infinite wolves in that one singular pack in beauty and the beast. like holy shit dude there's more wolves near the beast's house than in the whole yellowstone park

anyway there are Many Wolves and while alec is a good archer, izzy is a fantastic fighter, and clary is Fucking Crazy if you give her something stabby, there's only so many wolves they can take on at the same time

good thing magnus is a pining idiot who did in fact make himself another magic mirror and was watching alec with it. so he knows that the dumbass is in trouble and for the first time in years, he uses the portal (his own invention, and he had never gotten to use it before!) to get to them and fight off the wolves

so magnus saves all their lives, at the cost of getting severely injured and passing the fuck out. izzy, who's the one closest, runs to get to him and help put him on one of their horses... and is immediately hit by a blast of magic that almost makes HER pass tf out too

which is when they finally learn that, oh. that is the curse

izzy is fine, of course - the pain ended as soon as she was away from magnus

but it does pose the problem of How The Fuck Are They Getting Him Back To Safety, because they can't exactly wait for magnus to wake up (it's freezing, for starters) but with this amount of pain it won't be physically possible for them to hoist him up and get him on the horse. shit, will the curse work on the horse?

they bring alec's horse (by far the strongest of them because alec is huge buff mcgee) and try to get him to touch magnus and the spell does NOT work on the horse because in order to be dramatic asmodeus was like "you shall never feel human touch again" when he cast the spell, which accidentally gave a LOOPHOLE for non-human animals. so magnus could have had cats the whole time, which he had always dreamed of, but he didnt want to risk testing. besides, his house would be a poor environment for a cat and [self torture noises]

anyway thats one less problem to deal with, 99 to go, so they use some ropes to hoist magnus on top of the horse and bring him back to the tower (it's closer than the village) so they can tend to his wounds. thankfully, as the assigned Big Brother of a very irresponsible izzy, alec has experience with first aid, altho he never really dealt with anything quite this bad. and magnus' friends help, too, as much as they can. inevitably this means that alec ends up touching him even if by accident sometimes, but he knows what to expect so he Powers Through It because he won't let magnus die, damn. and as horrible as that is alec has experience with powering through pain, so. he's gonna bandage him up god damn it

izzy can't stand to see him dealing with that himself tho, so she helps, and clary ends up helping as well because they figure sharing the pain makes it easier and alec doesn't have to be too hurt. minimal touching accidents for alec! good

*narrator voice* And Then Magnus Wakes Up And Alec Hugs Him

full on launches on top of him and brings him into his arms and Magnus screams like NONONO OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING ALEC NO GET OFF ME YOU'LL BE HURT and his shock and distress at the whole thing sends another whole blast of magic that explodes that whole mf before it can touch alec and alec feels no pain and magnus is like.............. did i just COUNTER the spell? and everyone's like well! it looks like u did!

which earns him ANOTHER hug (oh my god alec stop he's so stressed out by this) (who knew alec was so touchy?) and this time he's paying attention to that gut reaction and because magnus is a Certified Magic Genius he realizes what it is that he's doing to counter the spell and immediately starts working on a way to turn this into unhexxing himself for good

which he DOES after some time idk how long but alec stays with him meanwhile and maybe izzy and clary do too, because magnus needs all the company he can get and besides, izzy has always wanted adventure and clary has never left the village before, so this is interesting to them at least. and magnus gets to meet new ppl which is nice

eventually the Begone Spell spell is performed and it works and turns out that when it does that it also unfucks magnus' magic and perfects his sentience spell turning all of his friends into humans WOW WHOD HAVE THOUGHT. so all of them are free to leave the tower as ppl at the same time and GROUP HUG!! and magnus cries like a baby in the group hug because holy shit hes been needing something like this so bad for so long and he never expected to have that with his friends but here he is :)

and then yeah they all move to the village to live a simple but fulfilling life and Magnus and Alec start living together in a little cottage and become husbands the end <3 this is so long too rip me

#sh #shadowhunters #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #izzy lightwood #lightwood siblings #clizzy if u squint #beauty and the beast au #part 2 i guess lmao #ask #shum-baby #long post #abuse mention

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spn-romantica · 3 years

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So I watched SPN for years, right up until the end of S11, when they brought back Mary. I heard that S15 would be the last season, and I was like ‘oh ok I’ll rewatch (for like the 8th time) and finish SPN then’ BUT THEN 15x18 happened and I was violently pulled back into the SPN fandom. I still haven’t caught up fully watching yet, but I’ve read so much discourse now...and I have thoughts. Hypotheses currently. I’ll wait to finish the whole show for real to call any of this theories but, I wanted to record my thoughts.

They’re about Chuck. As a villain. Which weirds me out. As an antagonist? Sure. As evil? No. Can’t envision it. I just finished my rewatch of S5 and, damn, but if Chuck is the ultimate villain, S5 reads very differently. :0

But I recently saw a post comparing Dean’s reaction in 1x18 (I believe) to his in 10x05 (for sure) about when someone mentions his mother’s death. In 1x18, it’s Sam when they were children and Dean gets angry. In 10x05, it’s a group of high school girls and Dean just bops his head along to the song. The post was framing it as 10x05 not understanding Dean’s thoughts about his mother, but I think that both episodes understand Dean. When Dean is a child, the trauma over his mother’s murder is still fresh. By 10x05, the event is 70 years in the past. Of course it still affects Dean. Of course. You never really get over something like that. But I’d argue that after 70 years, Dean has moved through the stages of grief to acceptance. It still hurts, but like an old ache, not a fresh, still-bleeding wound.

Interestingly, 10x05 is when we see Chuck, after a long absence. He’s watching the play, probably happy that someone loves his work enough to even make a musical, but he is also watching the Winchesters. The actual episodes of the show, aka the books Chuck writes, are what Chuck knows/cares about regarding the Winchesters. Despite being God, I’d argue he doesn’t pay attention to every second and all the little minutia of the boys’ lives. So, here in 10x05, we have confirmation that Chuck is around to see that Dean has healed from his mother’s death.

Later, in S11, Dean acts as therapist/life counsellor to Chuck/God, regarding Amara and Lucifer. And it works! Dean teaches God about family and about healing. Why does God listen to Dean Winchester, a random human? Perhaps it is because of S1-5. Perhaps it is because Dean and Sam were part of God’s test, as God himself describes it in 5x22.

What was the test? Was it God’s experiment about choice and free will? About freedom vs peace? Or, perhaps, was God trying to understand sibling relationships? He and Amara are two faces of the same coin. They are siblings, but with very different outlooks and it caused a rift between them, caused Chuck to seal Amara away before she could destroy his creations. Chuck regretted this, but saw it as a necessary betrayal. But then, some time later, Chuck’s angelic children experience their own betrayal and sibling rift. Lucifer tries to turn the angels against God, rebel and reject God. He makes demons, for sure, and maybe even Hell. But why? God figures that Lucifer was maybe jealous of the new baby (humans) like others in the show postulates. Or maybe Lucifer had beef specifically with Michael, because humans are little more than amoebas from an angelic perspective. Aside from Castiel, Anna and a handful of other angels, angels consistently view humans as humans might view dust mites. Maybe humans were the cause of the rift between Michael and Lucifer, but it was Michael and Lucifer’s relationship that needed fixing in the end, regardless.

So God is left with the sad conclusion that maybe close siblings will inevitably betray each other and be unable to forgive and heal. He wants to heal with Amara. But he also wants Michael and Lucifer to be able to heal. (It doesn’t occur to God that maybe Lucifer’s problem was never with humanity or Michael; it was with God.)

So God has research to do, to see if it’s possible for siblings to experience such deep betrayal and still heal. He turns to his little hairless apes, the only sentient species on Earth with potential to parallel the angels. He starts testing siblings. Cain and Abel are first up. Needless to say, but the betrayal was too strong and left no room for healing. But on down the line of Cain, God continues testing. Eventually, we come to Sam and Dean.

God has scheduled Michael and Lucifer’s family counselling session for 2010. All the data up to this point says it can only end badly. Maybe it’ll half-kill the Earth, but it’s finally time for Michael and Lucifer to meet and for one of them to die. God isn’t happy about this conclusion, but it’s what the data says. So, finally, the last test subjects, the last in the line who will be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer’s showdown, arrive. Sam and Dean Winchester are to be the last sibling test. The conclusion seems foregone at this point, but there is no point in cancelling the last bit of the test after so long, so it continues. God watches. And Sam and Dean surprise God. Siblings after siblings had failed for millennia to heal. Betrayals too strong, healing too little, too late. But Sam and Dean. no matter how badly they hurt each other, find a way to come back together and heal. They don’t give up on each other, despite millennia of data to the contrary. Still, the angels and demons push and push at Sam and Dean until their rift is as wide and as deep as Michael and Lucifer’s, as God’s and Amara’s (in late S4). It seems, despite the brothers’ best efforts earlier on, it’s all for naught.

But there is a further element of randomness, something God couldn’t foresee. Castiel. God hasn’t had occasion for romantic love in his own experience, so he is entirely blind to what choices Castiel is likely to make. He provides an element of randomness to the experiment, an essential part that gives Dean the ultimate chance to go back to Sam and begin to heal (4x22).

Throughout S5, Sam and Dean heal. There is hurt, still, of course, but they love each other and forgive each other. By 5x22, they’ve surprised everyone. Even the angels have given up on turning them against each other, and have shrugged and settled for using Nick and Adam as the vessels for the showdown. Sam and Dean passed their test. They were siblings who betrayed each other and healed from it. God reconsiders how family counselling will go with Michael and Lucifer. He figured it would be the Apocalypse, the end of the problems between Michael and Lucifer, as one of them dies, as had always happened before. But, Sam and Dean showed God, that though it is rare, it is possible to heal. So God gives Sam and Dean an out. He gives Sam the strength to seize back control from Lucifer, should things go south.

Finally, the showdown arrives. Michael and Lucifer meet. They talk things out. To God’s surprise, Lucifer reveals that he never had a problem with Michael. He had forgiven Michael long ago. But Michael couldn’t forgive Lucifer. He had to be a ‘good son’ and do what he thought God wanted him to do. But Michael didn’t realise, that God doesn’t give orders. Free will all the way, baby! But the whole thing comes as a surprise. Apparently, all this time, the problem relationship wasn’t siblings, it was parents.

Oops.

Good thing God had a back-up plan.

Sam throws himself and Lucifer (and Michael and Adam) into the Cage. Michael and Lucifer have an eternity to figure things out between each other now. But that’s beside the point. The point is, now, that God has to start testing all over again. Not how to fix sibling relationships, but how to fix parent-child relationships.

God restores Castiel, perhaps for a few reasons because God exists outside of time, but originally it may have been just for one. He likes Castiel. He is impressed that Castiel invented free will for himself, broke free of angelic programming (multiple times over), and did it all for love. It’s novel. It’s interesting. God might even think it’s sweet. But God has had time later, and thought about it, and he has a plan. And Castiel is essential.

But Dean Winchester is the key.

Sam and Dean’s relationship with their own father has been strained, but both boys find a way to forgive John his flaws and failings, and love him. Whenever they do get a chance to see him again, post his death, they don’t hate him. They’ve healed. John’s relationship with Sam and Dean is one point of data, Abraham and Isaac another. There are many data points that God can reflect back on and consider.

But as S6 through S10 roll on, God watches Sam and Dean and Castiel. He even watches Crowley and Rowena for another data point. Dean is his main focus, however. (This is a little meta, but as the story focuses more on Dean than Sam post S5, it ties in. Prior to S6, both Sam and Dean were essential - the sibling test. Now, post S5, the parent test, Dean is the most essential. Of course, Sam and Castiel are important too. But Dean is key.)

Dean is a good father. He was a good father to Sam, even when he was only 6 years old himself. He was a good father to Ben. He was willing to die for Bobby John. He’s always good with kids. Not only that, but Dean is blunt enough, brave enough, and crazy enough to tell God to God’s face what he thinks. God needs Dean’s advice, his perspective and opinion on family relationships, but he also needs to see what Dean would do if he were in God’s shoes.

[Edit (1/04/21): After seeing Michael and Lucifer (mostly) heal, and after seeing Sam and Dean heal their relationship, God finally has hope for him and Amara. So God logically wants to retrieve Amara from her prison. But how? Well, he could just wander on up to Cain and do it himself, but what would Amara say? “So I see you’ve come crawling back, eh, Chucky?” She wouldn’t be impressed with God. She wouldn’t understand, because she’s hopeless too. SO how to give her hope? How to make her see that she and God can be okay again? Why, stick her near Dean Winchester, of course! So God sets things up for Dean to get and lose the Mark of Cain, thereby ensuring that Amara will feel a connection to Dean and stick around him/keep him alive long enough for Dean to work his life-coach magic.]

In S11, God and Amara heal their relationship because of the hope Sam and Dean gave God, and also the direct advice Dean gives God. God and Lucifer, not so much.

God needs more data. He needs to see what Dean would do. In comes Castiel’s relevance. God sets things up so that Lucifer can have a son. A nephil. Jack. And God points Castiel in Jack’s direction, trusting Castiel’s ability for unconditional love to keep Jack alive long enough for the experiment. Castiel becomes Jack’s father. But Castiel will never betray Jack, the way God betrayed Lucifer. And, besides, Castiel isn’t the target of this experiment. But it is Castiel’s relationship with Dean Winchester that provides the link needed to get the experiment rolling.

Because Jack is Castiel’s son, he is therefore Sam and Dean’s nephew. Except, God has been watching Castiel and Dean. And, frankly, their romantic love for each other is so obvious even God cannot miss it. Through Castiel, Dean sees Jack as his son too. He loves Jack, exactly like a son. In this way, Dean parallels God, and Jack parallels Lucifer.

But God knows Dean would not easily turn on any child, let alone his own child. So God had a plan for that too. One that Amara helped him with.

They brought back Mary Winchester.

Mary is the one person in existence whose loss would hurt Dean enough to spur him to action. So, she was brought back to die. It was a matter of only a few years of gentle prodding to get everything in position. Jack causes Mary’s death. Dean is faced with a horrible decision. If Jack can kill Mary, what’s to say that Sam and Castiel wouldn’t be next? Mary’s death is like everything beginning all over again for Dean as well. Her first death set off a chain reaction, a series of unfortunate events that spanned decades and nearly caused the ruination of not only Dean’s life, but Sam’s and John’s and even the world. That scar, which had healed as well as it could after 70 years, that God saw was healed in 10x05, has been violently opened up again. It’s the only thing that could force Dean’s hand, that could get him to betray Jack and try to kill him. If Jack had killed Sam or Castiel, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Both Sam and Castiel had died and come back so many times, and while it would hurt Dean and make him doubt Jack, their deaths would be a sacrifice that Dean would feel obligated to respect, to give Jack a second chance like they would both want. (And God has been laying the groundwork for Dean, convincing him that Jack is evil, will be evil like Lucifer, can’t be allowed to live. All things God has thought about Lucifer over time. Was Lucifer inherently evil? Was their rift inevitable?)

So, here it is. The big test. Will Dean kill Jack? Will he betray Jack and cause an unhealable rift? Or will he find a way to heal, like he did with Sam against all the odds?

And, once again, Dean impresses God. He refuses to kill Jack.

But now we’re in the endgame. Sam, Dean and Castiel are aware that Jack’s life was only on the line because of God. It’s not something they can forgive, or understand. They’re all God’s guinea pigs, and while he loves his guinea pigs, he knows he’s hurt them in the name of science, of knowledge. or healing, and God can’t undo what he’s done. Free will is linear, after all. So it is time for the Winchesters, Castiel and Jack included, to be done with God. God is done with them, too. It’s time for them to be free and at peace. The experiments are done. God has decided not to kill Lucifer. He has decided to try to heal. He can get Lucifer out of the Empty and talk and try to fix things. He has forever to fix things, now that he knows he can. (The last element of this, Jack forgiving Dean for trying to kill him, is something I have limited knowledge of, but I am under the impression happens so... To be added in the edit once I finish the series.)

But the only way the Winchesters will be able to rest, is if they think God, the last and greatest villain, is out of the way. They know they’ve been manipulated their whole lives, first towards the sibling experiment and now the parent experiment, so they need to think God is gone so they can feel secure in their free will once more. Truthfully, God never took their free will. He set them up in situations, maybe even gave a bio-chemical nudge of anger (Dean) or attraction (Sam and Eileen) every now and then. But the choices were always theirs. Still, God knows they won’t see it that way. So he sets things up so that they can defeat him.

He lets them win. He wants them to win. They cannot defeat God, after all. It’s not God’s time, and Death is the only one who can claim God in the end, as the two embrace as friends and walk to the next existence. But the Winchesters need this, and so God allows it. A last gift, to the beings who have been such help, hope and inspiration to him.

With an eye for an eventual S16, 15x20 is written to be ‘an ending’ but also one that could easily be reframed as a bad dream.

For example...

Unfortunately, after Jack, suped up on a extra Grace God lent him, restores the Earth and expends all the Grace (”giving up the mantle of God so that their is no God, no plans, only Free Will”), and Dean, Sam and Jack head back to the Bunker to regroup and gather the ingredients to do the spell to rescue Castiel from the Empty, they’re jumped by monsters who are angry with how much God has fucked with them on behalf of the Winchesters. 15x20 is all a djinn dream Dean is trapped in.

16x01 is Dean waking himself up from the djinn dream, Sam and Jack escaping their own monsters, and then the end of 16x01 is Dean saying something about waking Castiel up from his own dreams in the Empty. The rest of S16 sees the boys save Castiel, reunite with Eileen, start a monster-hunting Bobby Singer/Men of Letters-esque organisation, Dean and Castiel getting together and getting married on Valentine’s Day, Jack getting to live a normal life, going to school, making friends, etc.

If their is no S16 ever (which would be criminal), then 15x20 makes no sense, unless it is plainly a recount of an old, hopeless ending written by God. However you spin it, 15x20 is not the way it seems (like owls).

All things being said, God is an antagonist, but he’s not evil. He’s an asshole, sure, but he never once worked against the Winchesters, never bet against them, never tried to erase or end them. He wanted them to win. He wanted to see the fruits of free will be love, second chances, hope, forgiveness, healing, and happiness, not just betrayal, pain, selfishness, jealousy, disappointment, and hopelessness.

Why is the ending he shows Becky ‘hopeless’? Because God is. He has spent his long existence losing his most loved family members. Amara, Lucifer. How can things end well for God, when they can’t even end well for humans? But Sam and Dean defy the script, again and again. They surprise God, defying the statistics, defying the hypotheses, throwing the experiment into disarray. Giving God hope. Sam and Dean were okay. Dean and Jack were okay. If God had a romantic love, he would find hope from Dean and Castiel being okay. But when God wrote the book he showed Becky, he was writing what he thought would happen. In the end, surely, not even Dean can be enough to hold Sam and Cas and Jack together. But in the end, as we see, as God sees, he is proven wrong and he’s happy to be wrong. He’s hopeful. And he can leave Dean, Sam, Castiel and Jack, and all the angels and all the humans, to rule the Earth and the Heavens. He doesn’t need to learn anything more from them, so he heads to the Empty, with Amara, with Lucifer, with Death (Billie or not, Death is there for God in the end), and they can all depart for a better existence of their own.

If you read all of this, thanks! I eagerly anticipate watching the remaining 10 seasons so I can come back and edit the heck outta this, but until then, if y’all have any thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them~

TLDR: God is a morally bankrupt scientist and the Winchesters are his guinea pigs, but he’s not evil and he does love his guinea pigs, even if he could really treat them nicer.

#supernatural #spn #dean winchester #sam winchester #jack kline #castiel #god #chuck #amara #lucifer #mary winchester #destiel #deancas #this is what i get for living on spn tumblr in a post s15 world while rewatching s5 and having memories ranging from hq to 8bit about s1-s11 #be kind i haven't finished my rewatch/finished the show so i probably have stuff wrong #what if god isn't evil just has no inherent moral compass because he has to teach himself everything #and he's taken to using the winchesters as his guinea pigs/life counsellors

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maulusque · 4 years

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ok so i know a lot of people have criticized the episode “heroes on both sides”

and those critiques are valid but i just realized that the phrase “heroes on both sides” is literally pulled directly from the opening title crawl of Revenge of the Sith. RoTS directly states that there are heroes on both sides. woulda been cool if they actually showed some of those separatist heroes, no?

ok that would actually be dope, i want an episode focused on a freedom fighter who is fighting to free their planet from unfair taxation and neglect.

i wanna see someone who joined the separatists after the Republic invaded Umbara in direct retaliation for seceding (which they only did because their senator got assassinated) because they couldn’t stand behind a government that punished member states for peacefully refusing to participate.

i wanna see a group who joined the separatists because they couldn’t condone the Republic’s use of a slave army. I want to see moral crusaders trying to sell the republic battle droids, i want to see separatist clone rights activists dropping pamphlets from gunships onto battlefields trying to get clones to desert the Republic and guaranteeing them rights- WITHOUT it being a lie.

actually it would be SUPER DOPE if the separatist senate passes a clone rights bill, and it would actually be realistic since it would cost them nothing (they wouldn’t be losing their army, or admitting to wrongdoing, or signing themselves up to provide housing, education, and retroactive pay to millions of freed clones), and it would be a massive moral superiority bonus for the separatists to hold over the Republic- look at us, WE have guaranteed that YOUR slave army will have basic sentient rights, what are YOU doing for them?

basically i want the separatists depicted as real people with real values, some of whom are fighting for honorable causes- just like the Republic. I feel like too often, canon gets caught up in depicting the Separatists as “the Sith side” when the Republic was JUST AS MUCH the “sith” side. the whole WAR was a Sith war.

and i want this kind of nuance without ignoring the atrocities committed by the separatist armies. Show me the media repression on separatist worlds. Show us the propaganda Dooku is selling the citizens of member planets. Show me how many separatist senators, exactly, are aware of how the army operates. Show me a huge scandal that erupts when one of general grievous’s “kill all the civilians” campaigns is made public on separatist worlds. Show me separatist senators and citizens calling for Grievous to be fired, show me Dooku having to do damage control because he NEEDS a general who is easy to command, doesn’t mind that he’s a sith, and has zero moral concerns. Imagine if Grievous was replaced by a separatist general who actually whole-heartedly believed in the separatist cause. Oh my god that would be a NIGHTMARE for dooku and sidious.

anyway i appreciate that TCW tried to do nuance but they really sucked at it and could definitely have done better

#maulusque's stuff

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harley-style · 4 years

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@hiccups-peg-leg, this is for you (your fuckin username man, its glorious)

HI AND WELCOME TO 100 + 1 REASONS I'M BEGINNING NOT TO LIKE HTTYD:THW

Disclaimer: It might not actually reach 50 reasons because I have a healthy amount of concern for my fingers

It makes sense as the final part of a trilogy, for them to separate, but the whole set up of how the separation goes was...blargh.

Hiccup was not acting like himself.

Neither was Toothless, actually.

Astrid was weaker in supporting Hiccup. I mean, don't get me wrong, she was still as badass as always, but never have I been more uncomfortable with her way of "supporting" Hiccup throughout this entire movie.

"You gave him his freedom, what did you expect?" BITCH WHAT

THIS IS NOT SOME CALL OF THE WILD BULLSHIT WHAT THE FUCK

part of the reason Toothless STAYED even when Hiccup presented him with an automated tail was because he preferred BERK. you know, a civilised, NOT WILD settlement even if Toothless himself was a wild dragon prior

in fact NONE of the dragons were being forced to stay there. Which means they CHOSE to stay with humans.

Why was there no internal conflict between Berk? Why are they all just following Hiccup after some discussion about "Berk is not a place, its the people and our dragons!"??? Just???? They didn't feel like a village at all, is what I'm saying.

For the record, I think Valka and Cloudjumper would have been harder to separate because these two were together for like twenty years why wouldn't they stick together???

Toothless should not have been the King of the Hidden world. there are several reasons.

1 - he was already a bad fucking leader when it came to priorities. he chose his MATE over his FLOCK. what the absolute fuck. 2- in coming to the hidden world, he promptly forgot about the BERKIAN FLOCK THAT HE HAD RESPONSIBILITIES TO. 3- it just doesnt make sense for all dragons to have bowed to him accepting him as their king. Night Furies are deadly, but they are not of the Dragon king breed. Toothless only managed that title because he FOUGHT a fucking dragon of that SPECIFIC breed. 4- he's horny as fuck. I'm sorry, it had to be said. He and the Light Fury have met for, what, a week at most? And already he's in love? Give me a fucking break. but anyways, my point is, if he dropped EVERYTHING HE KNEW AND LOVED for a person he BARELY GOT TO KNOW, then he should not have been made leader in the first place. 5- this is more personal, but fuck the fucking fact that he left hiccup for this unknown stranger. its like his human didnt even MATTER to him at all. which brings me to my next point.

why the ever loving FUCK did the team EVER imply that hiccup and toothless were SOULMATES if all they were gonna do is separate them and have toothless forget hiccup entirely.

are the dragons intelligent, sentient creatures

or are they just wild animals capable of replicating human behavior without understanding the deeper implications of it

because if the latter was true, then what the FUCK was the first two movies for?

the hidden world cannot exist in a geological scale. it cannot sustain itself either. if toothless did somehow recall EVERY dragon, then the ecosystem of the hidden world is suddenly shot to fucking hell.

the movie basically spat to our faces that romantic love is stronger than the power of friendship. and family.

im pretty sure GOTNF was canon, and THW just spits all over its message and story.

what happened to my badass dragon riders, dreamworks?

okay ill be honest A LOT of my issues with this movie are centered around toothless and hiccup

berk did not need to be separated from its dragons. in fact, dragons leaving berk, realistically speaking, would actually be detrimental to berk.

for one thing, theyd be totally cut off from the rest of the world -- they suddenly relocated without any warning, to a place where no one had actually explored thus far. traders would not have known where to find them and, if they were in the merchant thinking mode, would cut their losses and find some other village to trade to. so new berk isnt gonna get any support for a long while.

berk chose an island than can only be safely accessed via dragons. do you see where im going with this?

by choosing to LET DRAGONS GO, hiccup and toothless have now condemned Berk into a generation of hardship, one that will make its people struggle with getting supplies, rebuild their homes, and basically a lot of their basic survival needs.

and MIGHT I ADD, hiccup has REVOLUTIONIZED the viking way of life by INCORPORATING dragons into it. what happens when that system suddenly loses a big chunk of what made that system work?

may i also add that hiccup has also REVOLUTIONIZED the term BIG DUMBASS when referring to decisions that were made.

im also salty about how quickly toothless forgot about hiccup when entering the hidden world. like, holy fuck, i cannot even begin to explain how dreadful i felt when toothless was just "oh fuck yeah" in that glowing neon underground while poor hiccup was like "do you think he's okay?"

if it were me, toothless would at least be having a moment to himself, looking at his tail, and you can clearly see in his eyes, "what about my human? what about berk?" before getting distracted. I would have accepted at LEAST that.

nope. we get a toothless reluctantly going back to hiccup and new berk, resentful and somber as he longs for, what, a home?

goddamn it i hate the hidden world in the movie the hidden world. i like the movie, i really really do, but that fucking plot device grates my fucking brain.

RTTE handled a dragon haven a lot better.

Vanaheim was a perfect place for wild dragons to settle but dreamworks fucking abolished that idea

i KNOW vanaheim is like a resting place for sick dragons but like

if hiccup was half as smart as he was the first two movies thw wouldnt have been a thing in the first place.

its really, really hard for me to defend a movie i liked the first time i watched it when the only things i can see from it are toothless not caring enough about hiccup and hiccup making the niggest mistake of his life.

this movie honestly felt like emotional manipulation. watching it i always remembered the other two movies, which should NOT have happened. when i watched the second movie (and may i add i barely remembered a thing about the first movie at the time) i was so MOVED to the point of TEARS. i had no context and i was moved to tears anyway. THW constantly pulled at my nostalgia strings and indirectly and directly called back to the first two movies and that just....what???

and that's it.

i mean if youd like to add more feel free to, probably missed some there

and there are a couple of ao3 essays that depict the same reasons i have. just put the tag "the hidden world" in your filters uwu

one last thing: despite the reasons i mentioned above i did enjoy watching thw, im just sayin it took me a long time and a lot of reading to figure out that, no, thw wasnt as great as the hype made it seem.

this isnt meant as an attack to people who like THW. i understand that this movie is special to you and I have no right to take enjoyment from you. im just laying out the reasons of why I personally don't agree with what happened in THW.

#httyd #the hidden world #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #toothless #httyd thw #how to train your dragon #the salt of the hidden world

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dikiyvter · 3 years

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23 & 31? :eye: for either or both

Of course aid anything 4 u <3

Uncommon Questions [ accepting ]

23. How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

For Gio: Envy is... kind of a scale of ugliness for Gio, to be honest. First and foremost his envy is typically not something ugly; It's typically something that turns more into a hopeful longing other than any sort of truly resentful behavior. Just because he wants what someone else has doesn't mean that he needs to take it from them necessarily; the world is not a pie to be split among it's inhabitants. He views the world as an endless wealth, and if he wants something someone else has, all he has to do is work to get it himself. Ultimately his longing to be human and to take a quiet role in human society spawns from envy of the lives that humans lead.

... And then there's the far uglier envy. Gio is a rather childish individual who experiences emotions very strongly; In part this is subconscious acting, and in part it's genuine truth; He's really never been good at things regarding emotions primarily because he's never been taught a whole lot in regards to control of ones emotions or ways to manage them. He's a bit... emotionally stunted but more in the 'seems like an erratic mood swing-y mess because he feels very strongly' sense and less, you know, [gestures at Baal and Zhongli]. There is thus always a chance that when Gio becomes envious of something, his first reaction is that of intense resentment towards whoever it is that has what he doesn't- This is partially true even for his love of humanity. Even though he starts off with the thought of "this is beautiful" it was still interlaced with a lot of bitter resentment that he would never really have that; Coming to terms with his worldview is what got rid of that. But it's a bit harder to have a mentality of 'the world isn't a pie; someone having a bigger slice than me doesn't mean i can't have more if i want it' when its... say...

A person whom you love whose fallen for another or is having all of their time taken up by them.

For Riga: ...Riga gets a much shorter paragraph and for that I apologize, but I have a lot more thoughts regarding Gio on this subject considering that lil clowns got a lot of conflictions and nuance to ramble about. Riga, on the other hand, tends to be far more simplistic in the things he is feeling and how he is feeling them; though this isn't to say he feels any less strongly or erratically than Gio does.

Rigatello typically feels envy as a genuinely ugly awful emotion that typically results not just in resentment but in a very, very intense form of frustration. A major part of his character is that he is someone who wants very little, but the few things he does want are things he perceives more as needs; Case in point being he doesn't perceive wanting Gio to care about him as being a want, he sees it as a need, and when your needs are denied you become... what? Angry. Frustrated. Depressed. Envy turns him violent, because why should others have what's rightfully his? Why are others entitled to the few things he truly needs? Why is he not deserving of these things? There's a tangible cycle to a lot of Rigatellos emotions, and it's that he is confronted with something ( or someone ) he wants; He becomes reliant, he thinks he needs them ( using gio as an example; He cannot imagine who he is without Gio nearby. He cannot imagine himself in the hierarchy that is set between them both and Dottore without Gio there, because Gio has always been the one to provide a release of tension, even if the relationship the two of them shared was at times very far from healthy; The change of something he sees as being integral to his identity and his place in his little corner of society is something that throws him VERY badly; Rigatello is someone very afraid of any meaningful change because the fear of what comes next and that change leading to potential failure is one that haunts him ) ; They move away from him, and he panics, because he has very little and thus clings desperately to what few things he has; Cue the cycle of seeing that which he 'needs' with someone else, being angry, being frustrated, falling down the rabbit hole of wondering why he isn't worthy, arriving at depression, resparking that frustration, and... repeat.

A lot of his envy spawns almost purely from a place of this frustration-depression loop of wondering why he isn't good enough-- something that ties in heavily with the way he was 'raised', where threats of being scrapped were thrown freely, and any failure could potentially result in his literal destruction.

Wait this wound up being longer than Gios. Whoops.

31. Who are they the most glad to have met?

Okay here's where we ease into me being able to make coherent sentences again bc i'm not bound purely by my muses emotions <3

For Gio, It would be Venti, in more ways than one. First he had technically met Barbatos. The ideal Barbatos gifted to Mondstadt that rubbed off on the freshly-created and quite impressionable Gio; It was Mondstadt and their talk of freedom that lit the little fire that eventually turned into Gio pursuing his autonomy and humanity. Then was the archon; Barbatos gave his vision to him, and without that Gio never would have managed to escape Dottore, and if he didn't currently have it he wouldn't have been able to evade capture for this long. It also served as a constant reminder of Mondstadts ideals -- And not just that, but the special shape that the vision takes has always been a symbol that although Snezhnaya was his home-- Mondstadt was where he belonged. Then came Venti; Someone who made him feel welcomed in Mondstadt when he was initially very nervous about being there. He and Venti became dear friends ( possibly more ) and now that's someone he looks forward to every time he's on his way back to Mondstadt. The city truly feels like home to him now, and that's mostly because of Venti-- and even if his friend doesn't wish to be seen as Barbatos the archon, Gio cannot help the appreciation he feels for those previous actions, nor for the general ideals that Venti / Barbatos inhabit.

For Riga, that would be Lio, no contest. It.. it would take me ten years to explain all of Rigatellos feelings towards Lio there's so much shit at play they mesh so fucking well together their traumas and mentalities are such similar echoes, Lio is literally the only person in the world that Rigatello has felt genuine love and affection for and not in some way panicked and tried to burn the bridge before it could burn him; He feels genuinely safe and happy with Lio, and the fear that constantly haunts him is eased in their presence; He trusts not just Lio but himself, the fear he typically fears when he touches others is gone because they trust him so thoroughly that in the midst of their love it's hard to be afraid of himself. He feels for once that he can be something that protects instead of something that exclusively does damage; He feels cared for, wanted, loved, when all his life he's felt rejected and constantly on the brink of destruction. Where he once was told his wants and thoughts don't matter he has now found someone who cares very much for what he wants and what he thinks and FUCK I have a lot of thoughts about these two.

40. How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

Oh god, here's another thing I can't fully explain.

For Gio: Immensely. Gios current mentality is essentially that if he just closes his eyes and refuses to think about it then he doesn't have to deal with his flaws, and if anyone points them out he can just get mad about it and avoid them until he dies because he does. not. want. to. think. about. it. He HATES feeling bad, he hates feeling negatively about himself, he doesn't... know how to genuinely change things about himself; And I think that. That itself can be very much shown in how he treats the fact that he's not human? A person? Yes, he's a fully sentient person with his own thoughts and expressions and free will, a human? Not exactly. He's made out of metal and circuitry and artificial materials, and this is simply a factual statement, its not opinion; But he almost treats it like it is. He sees this idealized version of humanity that he wishes to be a part of but he cannot fathom how he can be apart of it if the core thing about himself isn't changed, but its NOT something he can change; Instead of accepting that, however, and still going on with his goal to pursue his autonomy and humanity despite this, Gio would... honestly rather stick his fingers in his ears and go "lalala" because he doesn't really have the toolset to mentally deal with the contradiction of "I want to be human but I can't". He perceives a need to change that isn't there, and instead of trying to address it he ignores it entirely in hopes that... it'll just stop being an issue that he needs to address with himself at some point. The same mentality applies to a lot of his flaws. Does he know hes being avoidant of his problems? Does he know that it's going to cause more issues in the future? He does. But he can't even address it with himself because it makes him feel bad, let alone with someone else who could actually provide him with skills that he needs to change his behaviors and mentality.

For Riga: Okay he genuinely gets a shorter paragraph this time because in short? Rigatello doesn't care. Admittedly he kind of wears his flaws on his sleeve. He's a "says it right on the tin" kind of guy most of the time, where he's typically mostly open about the less positive parts of himself-- If not exaggerating them as a means of keeping people away. There are of course the flaws that he hides due to them stemming from traumas, and his general desire to hide all things relating to his personal thoughts and feelings-- But this in and of itself could be perceived as a flaw, though one very unexplored considering Lio is his first close relationship with another person where he's been in any form open about his own thoughts and feelings, away from the influence of Dottore or the Fatui.

Rigatello does have... slightly less healthy perception of what counts as flaws in himself, though, such as having his own thoughts and emotions. He perceives his traumas as weakness, and weakness is a flaw, to him-- So too, then, are his traumas. He's not sensitive about this in the sense that Gio is where he's willfully ignoring something he's doing wrong; Riga doesn't... know that this isn't a good mentality. He.

Riga is kind of hard to explain this regard because of how severely impacted Rigatello is by the traumas hes endured, the people he was 'raised' by, and the current lifestyle that he leads. His emotional understanding is extremely limited and always has been, and I'm not entirely sure how to put it in coherent wording; Because typically when I try to talk about Riga and emotions it devolves into word vomit because his thoughts are just... nonsense screaming pain mush that he doesn't know how to cope with so he tells himself to toughen up, shoves it in the closet, and goes on with his day until he can lay down at night and have a meltdown--

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

Honestly? The general rule of thumb is that I don't typically write people that I myself would get along with, if only because I know way too much about my own characters and their flaws? When. I look at people that I get along with, its primarily people who are patient enough to deal with my memory issues and my general lets say... low iq, to be nice. They're mostly laid back people who don't give too much of a shit one way or the other, but are friendly and fun to talk to because they have interesting ideas to contribute to a conversation, give room for others to contribute, and don't mind a bit of chaos when things inevitably devolve.

When I look at the characters I write... They all have some sort of flaw that directly contradicts the core things I typically find in someone I get along well with?

Gio is someone who I think I could get along with for a while; But inevitably his flaws, his distress regarding those flaws, and his subsequent refusal to acknowledge them in any meaningful form would inevitably stress me out and it would start to get tiring.

Bluntly put Riga is scary and I feel like I'd be stressed out 24/7 that I'm going to irritate him... And his general mindset of emphasizing his own flaws to push people away would just make me angry and I'd probably wind up letting him isolate himself because, having once been someone who was very much that way, I no longer deal well with that degree of self-pitying behavior b/c it pisses me off.

Outside of this blog, Ku Shen and I could probably get along pretty well, but I think the issue is that he's a massive introvert who would go Weeks in-between texting, and I have the memory of a goldfish and i'd inevitably find myself in a position where i have a text from him that's been waiting for me to answer for the past week and I'm too nervous to reply because I feel awkward being like 'hi i have untreated adhd sorry', and then suddenly three months has passed and I just can never talk to this man again.

...I'm going to include my Morax on here as well even though it's blog isn't super active; Look I might actually be able to chill with Morax if only because we vibe in either 'i am listening to you ramble for 3 straight hours with occasional questions or commentary' or 'we have both been dead fucking silent for the past 3 hours' and these are both my ideal ways to exist in someone elses presence. Also I feel like it'd wanna do fun shit and likes going on walks or smth. 10/10 I think I could get along with Morax.

H) What trait do you admire most?

Ah fuck okay. Uh. For Gio... I admire his optimism and hope. I consider myself to be a generally hopeful person but I'm not typically the kind of like... ~ * direct action * ~ person, and Gio VERY MUCH IS in most regards. He's generally super fucking ambitious and if he WANTS something he will GET IT and you cannot STOP HIM and I just wish I had that level of

I. Dedication II. Energy III. Optimism in actually completing the goal

For Riga? I guess it would be his general tenacity and endurance. He goes through. A lot of shit. Constantly. And he just keeps trudging on forward without pause. He does what he needs to do, and if you get in the way of him and what he needs to get done, then he'll make you fucking regret it. Top tier shit 10/10 good for him.

#❄ ⤚ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴊᴏᴋᴇs ( ooc. ) ⇾#❄ ⤚ ᴛᴏss ᴀ ᴍᴏʀᴀ ( inbox. ) ⇾#oh... my fucking god this is a long post im so sorry

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