#ILSA. headcanons

[stardustinthesky]

my mom joked about how it definitely wasn’t ethan and ilsa’s first time in venice during That Scene in MI7

and then added, ‘they got married in venice. the first time. the REAL one.’

so now they’re married sorry we don’t make the rules

[princesssarcastia]

ALRIGHT NERDS it's reveal time. here's the fic i wrote for the rare pair exchange, the very first fic exchange i've ever participated in. it is the second-longest thing i've ever written and published for fandom, which is crazy.

Fandom: Mission: Impossible

Word count: 14,491

Pairing: Ilsa Faust/Ethan Hunt/William Brandt

SUMMARY:

Ilsa "dies" and has to find a place to lay low, outside of the narrative. There, she finds Will. He's spent years trying to make a home there, unsuccessfully—until now. Meanwhile, with the ever-watchful eyes of the Entity trained on him, Ethan pines desperately, wordlessly, so hard he might as well put down roots and call himself an evergreen.

Written for the lovely and prolific @brendaonao3; i DID geek out a little when i got the assignment, ngl. big fan of your top gun stuff!

[iinsawdious]

team hunt pride headcanons!

ethan: adhd bisexual benji: autistic trans man luther: autistic aroace ilsa: queer

(free to use as icons, credit not necessary but appreciated! alternates and seperates under the cut)

[raethereptile]

Ethan and Ilsa are giving out amazing qpr energy in dead reckoning and I'll fight anyone that says otherwise

[faereun]

when the emperor first appears to ilsa, it is as kelemvor. because she is bereft of her memories, she does not recognize his visage, but her love for the lord death is so second-nature, the warlock warms to her "dream guardian" rather quickly. perhaps too quickly, if you ask some of their companions. still, it makes the emperor's reveal that much more painful even with their mind still riddled with holes. the familiarity of kelemvor is gone with the revelation of the emperor's true identity.

[the-woman-upstairs]

No thoughts, head empty except for Benji and Ilsa’s identical little shrugs when they all reunite with Ethan in Venice.

[polikszena]

I have this headcanon that Benji and Ilsa once find out that both of them know all those dance routines like the Macarena or the Ketchup Song and then they start making up new routines for random songs.

Ethan, in the meantime is standing by the bar, watching them until one of them drags him to the floor. However, despite all their efforts to teach him anything new or less weird, Ethan's go-to move is still the Les Grossman.

[bursterasure]

Ilsa considers Gran as the true captain, not the other as she was a stranger to Djeeta, regardless of who was the true singularity among them.

Even if she works under Society, he had to be protected against any harm like a normal skyfarer does.

Djeeta? same but relations remain neutral.

[cal-cium-the-nerd]

Eventually, Zorian ran out of mana and had to stop. What kind of shaping exercise was so mana intensive you can actually run out as you practice? The Xvim kind, apparently. Instead of simply sending him away, though, Xvim then proceeded to lecture him about the proper way of gathering ambient mana. Apparently there was a way to assimilate ambient mana faster if you sat completely still and focused on doing absolutely nothing else. So not very useful, all things considered, but probably crucial if he intended to complete Xvim’s newest exercise in any sort of reasonable time-frame. Then, as a parting remark, Xvim casually remarked that they were going to continue their lesson tomorrow. That tomorrow wasn’t even a school day didn’t bother Xvim in the slightest. “Good,” Xvim concluded. “We have a whole day, then. We will need the time from what I saw today.” It wasn’t an isolated occurrence. From that day on, Xvim insisted on practice sessions every single day, monopolizing every bit of free time Zorian had. Why did Xvim suddenly decide to do that, when he usually never interacted with him outside their assigned meeting times? Hell if Zorian knew. It was certainly annoying, though

(Chapter 23)

It's funny to realize that Xvim "monopolizing every bit of free time Zorian had" is actually "Xvim The Archmage dedicating every bit of free time he has to this random student". The man was probably ridiculously impressed in this restart.

On a different note, though, Xvim was mentioned to tutor mostly prodigies, right? So considering the fact that Zorian always gets Xvim as his mentor without a choice, and even attempting to change this took several years and surpassing a graduate's abilities... May I headcanon that all this time it might have actually been Xvim who chose Zorian as his mentee, seeing him as a potential prodigy even with his pre-time loop abilities, and therefore Ilsa never giving Zorian a choice by showing up "late" was a premeditated action done on purpose?

[prahelika]

Some MI headcanons I've been thinking about recently, considering the fact that DR said that IMF recruits are former criminals:

Claire Phelps was a thief, much like Ethan was. She got into the crosshairs of Jim, on a mission. He brought her in, cleared her record. He never let her forget that she owed him. It formed the basis for their relationship. Jim often joked about it in public. (Ethan remembers this, at least subconsciously. He goes to great lengths never to manipulate Nyah or coerce her into anything. When he convinces Swanbeck to clear her record, he does so with no strings attached.)

After the events of DR1, Alanna is offered the Choice. She accepts, reluctantly. (She's seen what having to make a deal with the CIA cost her mother. She intends to escape the IMF as soon as possible. How..? Well, she'll see. John Lark seems like he could help...)

No one knows how exactly Luther got offered the Choice. He's good enough to have deleted all records pertaining to such information. Rumours abound in the IMF, but no one knows for certain. Except for Ethan, no one ever will.

A brief flash of Sarah Davies' file in mi1 shows that she was trained by Ethan, as well as Jim. I think some supplemental material also says that she and Ethan were friends from college, so here's how it might have gone down. She got herself into some trouble shortly after Ethan completed his IMF training and joined Jim's team, she contacted him for help (they'd been through their fair share of shenanigans in college, so she was fairly sure he wouldn't turn her in), he brought her in and she was trained on the job, officially by Ethan and Jim, unofficially by all of them. (When Ethan has nightmares about Prague, he often imagines Jim saying you brought her here, Ethan.)

Ilsa would never make the Choice. She no longer wants to give anyone (especially the government) that kind of control over her. If she does alone, fine. But at least she'll die free. Ethan knows this, which is why he never suggests it even vaguely to her.

[callmearcturus]

I find the idea of Benji having like 20 exgirlfriends, boyfriends, and personfriends; while Ethan has dated like 3 people in his entire life, to be hilarious, and now I'm going to integrate it into my headcanons for both of them.

I MEAN I tend to think that before the Prague Job, Ethan was an ethical slut, and it's implied he's having a threesome with Jack and Sarah. (I mean, I literally do not know how else to interpret that line, I have put on my Straight Person Goggles and that line does not make sense unless they are all three dating.) He's flirty and openly teases people.

Then the Prague Job goes fuckways, and Ethan's entire demeanor feels like a very sharp object that neither he nor anyone else knows how to handle. He def fucked Max in the back of that car (I feel like this is even implied by her later dialogue). But its not friendly and fun anymore, it's sharp and dangerous and almost his barricade Ethan is using for his own protection.

AND THEN THERE IS CLAIRE. Claire is trying her best to manipulate the shit out of Ethan, to keep his attention on her and her 'mourning' of Jim rather than the fact Jim is alive and both of them are toying with Ethan.

That extended sequence where Ethan and Jim are talking about "what happened in Prague" intercut with Ethan figuring out what actually happened in Prague-- there's a moment when Ethan pegs Claire as having killed some of the team, but he changes his mind and casts Jim in the role instead because... he doesn't want Claire to be part of this.

TAKE ALL THAT and marry it to the fact that Claire keeps initiating touch with Ethan, tries to get him to comfort her-- that scene with her sleeping on the floor and taking his hand to kiss it is tremendously fucked up.

(I once listened to a podcast that mentioned claire was kind of ethan's love interest and like WOW no. nope. that's not what's happening even a little.)

oh my god i'm rambling but WHAT I AM SAYING is that Ethan has immense trauma that is fueled by sexual manipulation and it honestly feels like it. Twink Ethan as an ethical slut had fun and didn't have to worry about this shit and was all about fair play. Then he has a brief stint as a bad boy that goes badly because robert towne can't write a movie. Then the next we see him he's GETTING MARRIED and leaving the game.

This post is already too long so lets continue. MI3 is fascinating because it's the one I hate the most but Julia and Ethan are tremendous, and the work put into humanizing him is amazing. He's enjoying playing as a doting husband (and 'playing' is inaccurate, he's not lying) and it actively trying to carve himself out of the IMF while multiple people (INCLUDING HIS BEST FRIEND LUTHER) undermine him.

But he still tries, and he leaves, and he's out.

And it all goes to shit. Which is this tremendous tragedy of Ethan Hunt frankly. He put in the work and-- you know the phrase "he's got skin in the game"? Well Ethan had a lot of skin in the game and he let it flay him on his way out just for a chance to actually be out.

GP Ethan is a wildly changed man, but in a way that honestly makes perfect sense to me. The trajectory of his character by design or by accident is an easily tracked arc. (I think McQuarrie gets me on this, or I get him, either or.)

After GP, there is simultaneously an emotional honesty to Ethan... but there's a physical distance. He's older, he's wiser, he's tired, and he's not dragging Benji or Ilsa into a pharmacy closet to have sex. That's not him anymore. But also, there is more raw emotion to everything he does. He feels like he's always on the back foot.

(He comes across as incredibly asexual to me honestly.)

Compared Twink Ethan flirting his way through MI1 to Fallout Ethan getting kissed by the White Widow and having ZERO reaction.

/clutches Ethan to my chest. i love this tired old man.

MEANWHILE: Benji is hot and has a hot bossy streak and has amazing fashion sense. He can get it, he just can't keep it because when Ethan has a job, so does Benji, sooooo yep. lmao.

[your-blorbos-are-queer]

character pride icons pt. 42: misc. tv/movies (again again!) pt. 3

queer headcanons

amos burton (the expanse) - gay | shawn spencer (psych) - bisexual | rebecca bunch (crazy ex girlfriend) - pansexual

max mayfield (stranger things) + heather mcnamara (heathers) + veronica sawyer (heathers) - bisexual

ben gates (national treasure) - pansexual | riley poole (nt) - bisexual

gwaine (merlin) - aromantic | ilsa faust (mission: impossible) - bisexual

ethan hunt (m:i) - transgender + bisexual

luke patterson (julie and the phantoms) - asexual + pan

feel free to use these for any non-commercial purpose, as long as proper credit is given!

if you'd like to see a different combination of character + flag, my ask box is always open for requests

[jolenes-doppelganger]

Main Masterlist

Key:

[🕊️: Fluff][ 💔: Angst][❤️‍🩹: Hurt/Comfort ][❌: No romantic pairings][🌑 : Dark]

*Minors who interact with NSFW content can and will be blocked.*

Miscellaneous- Rebecca Ferguson x Reader

Ilsa Faust

Gentle Hands Series: NSFW- 18+

Part One (Gentle Hands) 🌑 NSFW- 18+

Part Two 🌑💔 NSFW- 18+

Part Three 🌑💔🕊️❤️‍🩹 NSFW- 18+

(Possible) Singletons:

Innocence ❤️‍🩹💔❌ (sort of)

Rose the Hat

One shots:

The Debt (request) 🌑 NSFW- 18+

Belligerent Collector (request) 🌑💔 NSFW- 18+

Doomsday 🌑💔🕊️❤️‍🩹

Reverend Mother Jessica/ Lady Jessica

Shooting the Messenger Series (Complete): NSFW- 18+

Part One 🌑💔

Part Two 🌑 NSFW- 18+

One Shots:

Phantom Frequency 🌑💔❤️‍🩹

Desert Storm 🌑💔❤️‍🩹 NSFW- 18+

Riptides 💔❤️‍🩹

Rearing the Muad'Dib

Juliette (Jules Nichols)

Headcanons (Part Two)

-Part One written by @ilovehotactresses (collab)

Miscellaneous- Gwendolyn Christie x Reader

Larissa Weems

Twisted Motives Series:

Chapter One: Caught ❌

Chapter Two: Cat and Mouse 💔

Chapter 3: Insipid Qualities 💔

*Discontinued until further notice.*

Lucifer Morningstar

Reflected through the Looking Glass Series: NSFW- 18+

Part One 🕊️❤️‍🩹

Part Two 🕊️❤️‍🩹💔🌑 NSFW- 18+

Part Three 🕊️❤️‍🩹💔

*Discontinued until further notice*

One Shots:

Bet with the Devil 🌑 NSFW- 18+

[saltyfilmmajor]

Lost dog anon here.

*Blinks at you seductively* Talk to me more about Solomon Lane and how Ethan gets exploited for his big dumb heart (and also how he’s such a fucking sub oh my god just look at him).

None of my friends care about MI. So I just have to sit here with my thoughts. But I’m bad at articulating things so it’s just flashes of scenes from the movies superimposed on top of each other.

I hope in part 2 they reveal that Ilsa is alive (I refuse to believe she’s dead. They can’t just kill her off that’s rude) and Lane somehow shows up again too and the three of them get to have a nice little Spider-Man pointing session. And then idk. They throw Lane back in jail I guess ���

Hello Lost Dog Anon!

Sorry it took a while for me to reply I’ve had a response drafted and then forgot to post haha.

With regard to Lane, I know that McQ stated that that Sean Harris was definitely interested in returning so maybe we will get a Spider-Man pointing meme 😂. Before he nuked his twitter McQ also said that he “knows how He wants [lane’s] story to end” so the it’s likely that Lane could return. I hope so at least, I’d very much be interested in seeing how he would react to Ilsa’s death for like narrative head canon reasons.

As for the potential of Ilsa’s return, I wouldn’t count it out of the realm of possibility but personally I actually am very compelled by her staying dead and how that affects the team.

With regard to Ethan, I have written some sub ethan smut which is very fun to be honest. And I’m most people who subscribe to this headcanon do so for similar reasons as I, being that he has to be able shut his mind off for a little bit at least.

I’d very much be interested in seeing how Lane and Ethan would interact in Dead Reckoning Part 2 given their shared history, and how Lane is really the only one established in canon to be similar to the entity (in terms of being described as being omniscient almost) . Ethan’s team have always said that “x happens because Lane wants it to happen.” Similar to The Entity.

They’re both able to exploit Ethan’s pattern of behavior to their advantage. I’d argue that Lane is more effective given that he is human compared to an ai that cannot account for the unpredictability of human nature.

[faereun]

ilsa nereze was born to two ordinary humans in neverwinter, her father a blacksmith, and her mother a seamstress. growing up she'd always been a very shrewd, calculating girl—her parents oft referred to her in passing as their little ice princess. they were an obedient child nonetheless, agreeing to an arranged marriage with a nobleman from baldur's gate to ensure their parents' welfare. only, this nobleman was a vile, wretched creature. he was a slaver, which is where his riches had come from, though he'd managed to hide that from ilsa's parents. he intended on making ilsa a slave of his own—trapped in the kitchen or the bedchamber, her life never to be her own again.

yeah fucking right. ilsa is nothing if not diligent—she'd always studied well, always had an innate knack for magic too. they dig through the alcoves of the nobleman's library until they find the tome they're looking for: an ancient, leather-bound monstrosity on pact magic and rituals. the ritual she finds requires a number of frivolous things, but the most important one is this: the still-beating heart of an arrogant man. quickly she begins planning her husband's demise and her own rise to power, eager to see him claimed by the rot, her own veins surging with magic enough to protect herself. when the time comes and he is fast asleep in her bed, they arrange the binding circle and slit their husband's throat. she utters the incantation and tears his heart free from his chest, where it beats in her palm still. she completes the rite and the air surges with magic, her blood like white-hot fire in her veins. 'it is done.' an ancient, ages-old voice rumbles in her ear like the crash of a thousand waves. she shivers, and her fingertips spark with the weave. this is it. this is her freedom—she is power.

when death comes for the man lying bloody and bereft of heart on his bed, he comes in person—eager to judge the soul that had claimed so many lives. curious to see that which had ended such a life so brutally. lord kelemvor, the judge of the damned himself comes to collect the nobleman's soul, only to stop short, finding himself struck speechless by ilsa's beauty—ilsa's unfettered, rapidly growing power. their soul burns so bright he has to blink away the spots of light behind his eyelids. he sees the ring on her finger, and the corpse of the unfit fool she'd called her husband. his self-restraint wavers. i can bring him back to you, he offers, unsure of the words even as they spring forth from his lips. his death was unnatural, i can tell. it wasn't his time yet, so if you wish it so... he trails off as ilsa barks out a cruel, guttural laugh. she tugs down the sheets and reaches for something to show kelemvor—it is the fool's heart, crimson red and still beating weakly. i think you'll find i am quite pleased with this arrangement, she says with a wicked grin as she crushes the heart in her fist.

death and the girl fall in love that night. when can i see you again, they ask, to which the lord death does not answer. i should not be with you, he says instead, it will upset the balance of nature. the balance of life and death, that which i am tasked with maintaining. and with a cool kiss 'pon ilsa's brow, he vanishes, leaving her dizzy and wanting and full of emptiness. she begins chasing traces of death, trying to catch him at the scene of the crime but to no avail. they follow him to the executioner's block, to the bedsides of the sick and the elderly, only for him to slip in and out unnoticed every time. still, she persists, and one night she is greeted by a visage of death in her dreams. she thinks it to be lord kelemvor, but eventually she will realize the trick. lord myrkul had begun rising to power once again, as all gods with worshippers and believers did eventually. and so myrkul disguised as her love, the lord death, bade her this: continue to chase me. if you cannot find death, create it yourself. with every soul you have slain you can take with it their lifeline. and with those lifelines you can tie a string that will guide you to my domain, where death comes to rest, and i will welcome you by my side—as my love.

ilsa is whip-smart and unusually sharp for a human woman of her age, but she is also blinded by devotion. she falls easily into myrkul's trap, and begins her massacre of souls in order to sit proudly by her love. at first she only kills those whose death was inevitable anyways, or rather deserved. slavers like her husband, corrupt nobles, rapists and racists and all manner of their ilk. but slowly all of the blood and death and gore and viscera begins to feed something inside her, a soul of a soul wedged inside her own that begins to flicker and grow with every kill. and soon she does not care who she kills, only that she bathes in the crimson red and comes closer with every slash of her dagger and spark of her powers to her love death. for this is not just myrkul's cruel trick on ilsa and death, but mykrul's prank on bhaal. what would the lord of murder think if the new god of death took one of his children for his chosen?

soon enough, ilsa has killed plenty, and she begins her descent into her love death's domain. the damned souls which she had razed herself chase her down the endless halls and sprawling darkness until she reaches the throne room, where kelemvor is waiting for her, eyes glittering with sadness but a steely resolve. it is then that all is revealed to her—myrkul's betrayal, her own mortal folly and foolishness—and she feels her heart shatter to pieces. but surely you understand this isn't my fault, she begs, but to no avail. it is then that kelemvor reveals the final truth to ilsa—she is a child of bhaal, a divine fragment of the lord of murder's soul wedged deep within her own. slaughterkin, bhaalspawn. she is destined for darkness, for evil and malice and blood and she cannot be saved. will not be saved. kelemvor punishes her as a deathless thing—rips her death right from her soul so that she might never be free from this cycle she's fallen prey to, a cycle created by the very gods she'd fallen in love with. she's thrown out of kelemvor's realm back into the mortal plane without a shred of remorse or an inkling of pity. ilsa hardens her heart that day, and swears revenge on all the gods who'd played her for a fool.

verse notes: ilsa is the dark urge but can easily be reworked as a durge sibling due to the extensive flavoring ™ of her backstory. also, with the mindflayer parasite and their memories wiped, ilsa's personality reverts to something closer to who she was before she began chasing death. she is actively fighting the urges, and trying to be a better person than who she'd become at the hands of the gods.

[phoebehalliwell]

Very random but as someone who has Been Struggling with avoiding reusing next gen kid names for AUs (like what if I just Give Up and name every kid some variation of Pen/Penny/Penelope (or Persephone, which I did not realize would end up being such a go-to name for me on this lmao)), I love how creative the names that you come up with are! Just everytime, it makes so much sense for the character to name their kid that but it always fits so well into the verse you've built as well. (Shoutout to Halli Matthews because that is so fucking clever, dude, like!! Halli for Halliwell, fucking perfect.)

aww ty so much!!!! i will say my go to methods are

family tree + variations (so penelope & patty & prudence obvi but also like. brianna & melinda & charlotte), i like to do p names for phoebe specifically bc she’s the only one in canon who stuck with the tradition

last names (halli & warren & sheridan)

a couple off brand themes (tamora & kat (whose full name is headcanon to be katherina) are both from shakespeare so sometime i sift thru shakespeare names for characters (i had one demon character/family who never actually made it into any writings in which they were all named after tragic heroines from shakespeare e.g. desdemona & ophelia))

names that are referential to canon (paige has a clear love for film noir as evident in charmed noir so i gave tamora the middle name of ilsa after ingrid bergmans character in casablanca)

names that are referential to stuff outside of canon (kat’s middle name is riley after tatum riley, rose mcgowans character from scream, in the dark future, the cupitches end up living with relatives of sheila morris, who i gave the last name prosper after sandra prosper who plays sheila)

so i hope this lol cheat sheet helps u find a couple more names haha bc i know how difficult it is to find new ones esp like bc. with tumblrs tagging system characters really can’t share names so its all difficult haha