#alia is truly one of the characters for sure

[rusted-pipe-of-wisdom]

*inhales*

so I was put off by the use of tarot as a plot tool but at a closer look it actually makes so much sense-

okay so tarot cards were invented in Europe circa 15th century as a type of playing cards. using cards for divination is a long-standing practice, but the specific meanings of tarot as it’s known today came from a pair of occultists in 18th century France, who described tarot as an artefact linked to Jewish numerology and kabbalah. the word ‘tarot’ has the plural suffix -ot which is used in Yiddish (idk about Hebrew), making it sound like a Yiddish word... except it isn’t. basically, tarot are a scam that exploits the mystified goyshe view of the Jewish culture. it’s something goyim say we invented--but we really didn’t.

(side note: I love the aesthetics of tarot and using them for character development can be fun, but anyone who claims these cards have oracular powers is making themself look like a huge clown.)

so assuming Herbert was aware of all that (edit: I’m inclined to believe he was, but it's also possible he's ridiculing the 20th century's mysticism boom in general), we can see how the Dune tarot ties with the teachings of Bene Gesserit to form what I call The False Oraculum.

The False Oraculum represents the notion of, and attempts at, controlling the future. the Bene Gesserit’s breeding program, their use of spice as a way of preserving memories, Paul’s visions and his experiences of time, the aura of mysticism around Paul and the way different characters interact with it - all of these things are driven by lust to control the future.

and this is where the cards come into play. sitting alone in her cell, Mohiam uses them to read her destiny, but finds no comfort in what the cards tell her. merchants sell them to pilgrims: a fraction of their Emperor’s power turned into a commodity. Paul himself uses them to interpret his own visions, but the cards fail him too. and then, of course, the Tleilaxu face dancers put on a tarot-themed spectacle. all of this hints at one thing: the cards lie.

if the cards lie, then Paul and Mohiam and others are just a bunch of people grasping at straws, trying to comprehend the chaos of time. they lock themselves into a vicious circle of ‘seeing’ into the future - acting upon the visions - making that specific future a reality. they fail to factor in a simple fact: the future is undefinable. it cannot be read. it cannot be controlled. even if you do catch a glimpse of it, you can’t use what you see in any meaningful way, because your actions will pre-define the future that you saw happen. until the future has turned into now, it doesn’t exist.

the False Oraculum doesn’t make you prescient. it makes you blind.

of all people Alia alone expresses disdain for tarot, stating it ‘muddles time’. that’s because she’s chaos personified. unlike Paul, she doesn’t experience time as a vision but as an instinct; a natural, raw reality. and this is why she’s the one at whom Mohiam’s conspiracy is aimed first - she’s the wild card in Paul’s tyranny machine. it’s also why she’s objectified so much and constantly referred to as an abomination. as a character, she’s meant to showcase two things: one, how Paul’s oracular power is fundamentally flawed; two, how the Bene Gesserit’s view of humanity will never grant them the mastery of a human soul and how playing gods will be their downfall. if Paul is their success that’s turned against them, Alia is their failure.

(I have More Opinions about Alia’s writing and how Dune is mired in sexism, but it’s a whole separate can of worms)

[vadersassistant]

Hiiii

wo dering if you could do an enemies to lover anakin imagine. kind of like friends to enemies to lovers or something like that and it ends in them making out o whatever you are comfortable with.

Anyways thank youuu

Denial One Shot (Darth Vader x Reader)

Summary: After venturing into a Sith Temple to try and find an edge on the current war, (Y/N) meets her enemy, Lord Vader, the man who killed her best friend and secret lover. He has been hunting both her and her alias down for months, following her across the galaxy, but little does she know, he has no plans to kill her. Takes place in the temple seen in the Star Wars Rebels season two finale. Reader was previously a Jedi and is in hiding due to order 66.

Warnings: Make out session

A/N: (Y/N) does not know Vader is Anakin, and Vader does not know (Y/N) is the Fugitive he has been searching for. This is once again a mix of suited Vader and nightfall Vader. In which, Vader wears the suit and mask, but he can take it off and looks like the Anakin we know and love.

The temple was eerie, an odd feeling passing by with each step you took. It was the opposite of the one I grew up in, representing everything I was told to dislike, and yet I was here anyways. I had made up my mind to fight instead of continuing to run from the problem. I wasn’t a rebel, but I wasn’t an imperial either. I was the middle ground, a former Jedi with a new identity, a mask to shield my face so that I could live freely, but the saber still gave it away. I was good, too good to be a civilian having fun with an old relic, even though some still used them publicly. Some, as in him.

The Jedi fell and Lord Vader rose out of thin air. There was no preface, no foreshadowing, he just came, and everyone bowed their heads.

To outsiders he was a military leader trained in combat, who happened to use an imaginary power. To force users, like Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and I, he was a Sith. We all knew it the second he began hunting us down. He wanted the Jedi dead and made it clear when he began searching for my alias as well. Everyone knew who she was, I was put on every single imperial security watch available, but I evaded it all I could. I forged a new saber, so that they couldn’t track me that way, and told people about how the female jedi on the Holonets from the clone wars died. The only people who truly knew were Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, since they too had done something similar. He was Ben, she was Ashla, and I gained the name Fugitive, a mask being the only way to keep track of my identity.

I couldn’t count how many storm-troopers I had killed by now, just that I did. I was forced to, to keep myself alive, because he wanted me turned in. I was always told to run, to flee from Vader because of what he’s done, but all I wanted was for the man to wind up dead. A lust for revenge had developed ever since I learned what he did to my best friend, Anakin Skywalker.

I don’t even know how he could have killed a warrior like him, but he did and now he’s gone. Slaughtered like any other while trying to save people in the temple, something someone with his character would have done naturally. The worst part is that everyone he was trying to save is dead too, and that he could have escaped with us, had he not done what he did. He had a wife, Senator Amidala, a good friend of mine, who also died that night, although I wasn’t sure if they ended on good terms.

The two had been arguing for a while, he believed she was cheating on him with Obi Wan, although she continued to deny it along with everyone else. I was the only one who he talked to about his problems willingly, even Kenobi would have to go through reading his mind to talk about personal issues. It was only when Anakin died that the truth came out, that being that Anakin was right, and she was seeing Kenobi.

I hadn’t recognized him after that point. I knew he was afraid he would be kicked out of the Jedi order if we found out he was dating another woman. Even further, the fact he knowingly was allowing the affair to happen, but it occurred anyways, and he lost everything with it. That was consequence enough, he didn’t need me to yell at him any further for going that far.

Still, I was angry, because I cared about Anakin.

And also loved him.

I denied it for years, the helpless prodding’s from Ahsoka when the two of us would spend hours upon hours with each other. We carried out the entire war effort, working extremely close together on missions. It was no surprise that I liked him, he had even mentioned subtly what things would be like if he hadn’t met her. It sounded like he regretted it, but I had no clue, due to us being force users.

I now stood in front of the man who took him away, the one that gutted him in the chest like a fish with no care whatsoever. The man that had been hunting me down under both my names since the night of the fall, the one that was known for murdering everyone in his path. I don’t know how he found me, I had a feeling we were being followed, but I didn’t care. We needed the Holocron inside of the temple, and Ahsoka now had it in hand. I could sense their distraught, both behind me looking at the Sith in front of us. They didn’t want to fight him; they were afraid to fight him. I felt differently, looking at his mask through the visors of my own.

“It was foretold that you would be here, our long-awaited meeting has come at last."

“This meeting is over,” Ahsoka said.

“Are you so sure?” the Sith questioned through the modulated voice his mask provided him, as I stepped forward.

“What are you doing?” Obi-Wan asked me, his breath becoming short.

“Leave."

“No," he shook his head. "Don’t do this."

“Leave. Now.”

I looked up at the temple’s ceiling as the walls started to drop down. It was collapsing on itself, since the Holocron had been taken from the Obelisk. There wasn’t much to do, but I knew I didn’t want to pull them into this. I turned around and outstretched a hand.  

Ahsoka screamed as I force pushed both her and Obi-Wan back while the temple’s walls crashed down. I saw her figure fly back just before the drop and felt her gently land. There was a ship, they could leave, I would worry about myself after I killed him.

“We’re finishing this here,” I said. "I know you've been hunting me for the past months."

“You are courageous, unlike your friends,” the Sith mused. “Hateful.”

“You killed my best friend," I pointed out. "I want you to experience that same pain."

“Revenge is not the Jedi way,” he reminded. "Your confidence dilutes your ability to make rational decisions."

“I am no Jedi.”

“Then who are you? Your saber is unlike any I have ever seen, an identity successfully hidden behind a helm.”

“That’s none of your business, why have you been hunting me?” I asked. I felt the pressure of the Dark Side creeping against my mind's barriers, he was trying to invade.

“You would make a wonderful apprentice in the dark side,” Vader said. "You have already abandoned your training as a Jedi."

“I don’t side with murderers.”

“And yet you are one. I have seen your way of fighting Fugitive; you have killed countless of our troops and inquisitors.”

“Your Inquisitorious is an embarrassment, and I will never join you, not after what you did,” I called my saber to my hand, igniting it.

“Then you will die.”

There was this feeling of fear that attempted to wash over me, like he was attempting to throw me off, but I wasn't thinking about it anymore.

I ran full speed at him, force pushing myself up off the ground and into the air to try and put myself on the offensive. My blade met his right over his helmet, as he angled me back and I landed behind him. My automatic response was to try and swing for his legs, a move he evaded but had been surprised by. I knew I needed to be careful with how I played things. He would try and tire me out by just playing the defensive, but I also didn’t get that tired frow much stamina I built up during the war. Vader was also bigger, and stronger, meaning I’d need to use his weight to my advantage. I was quick, less stable, and grounded, and more agile in my movements.

We continued to take shots at each other, as he seemingly began to test me. It was a constant switch from the right to the left, bashing at each other from different angles and walking along with it. It was something Anakin and I always did, and it almost felt familiar. For whatever reason, I could feel myself getting into the rhythm Skywalker and I got into when we would train every day. After a certain point I would always switch my grip and force him to back off, and I did it purely out of muscle memory, shoving the Sith back.

“Your anger focuses you,” he commented. “Join me and I can enhance that power.”

“You killed him, the man I loved, do you truly believe I would ever consider that?”

“He is gone for a reason,” Vader said.

“He was the chosen one!” I shouted, interlocking lightsabers in a pursuit for power over the other. "You know why he lost his life?! Because he was trying to save everyone else, instead of actually caring for himself for once."

“(Y/N)."

I stumbled back immediately, hearing that name leave his mouth,

"What?"

My eyes widened beneath the visors, letting my guard down for just a moment.

It was all he needed.

I felt his immense force break through my walls and invade my mind, clawing through my memories and thoughts like a file. Not only that, but he immediately took me to the ground. It was quick, as he now straddled me, muscular thighs resting over my lower waist. Both my arms were pinned to either side with by the force, my saber in his hand.

I grunted, struggling under him and thrusting against his cod piece hoping it would make him budge but it barely made a difference. I couldn’t do a thing, as the Sith reached for my mask and pressed down on the sides. I felt it depressurize, as his gloved digits lifted it off my head, and I looked into his mask with my own eyes.

"How do you know my name?" I asked angrily as I fought underneath him to free myself.

There was no way of telling what he truly felt in that moment, holding the helm silently, breathing being the only indication he was still alive. I continued to try and do everything to get out of his grasp, but the Sith only sat there and took me in, his body heat lingering over my own. I felt like a mess, wondering where Ahsoka and Obi-Wan might be right now, realizing why Anakin lost his life to this man. I didn’t know how he knew my name, my real name, the one that no one had called me in months. I was fully pinned down, not giving up until I saw him reach for his own helmet.

"What are you do—"

My throat ran dry, amber eyes piercing through my body like a blade.

"Anakin."

It was him, with brown hair that held golden streaks just above his armor.

"(Y/N)."

Hearing his voice sent a shiver down my entire back, as I shuddered underneath him.

“I thought you died—they said Vader killed you—" there were tears welling up in my eyes, looking up at him.

“I am alive."

“Why did you turn?"

“The Jedi council was using us, Obi-Wan lied to me about Padme (Y/N), they were having an affair. But you know that already.”

“Obi Wan told us,” I trailed off.

“I know.”

“Do you plan to kill me?”

“No, that was never my intent," he emphasized lowly.

“So, what will you do?” I questioned.

“After separating myself from the order, I reflected much upon it,” Anakin started. "And came to terms with several of my mistakes."

“What mistakes?”

Still straddling me Anakin leaned down, placing his hands by either sides of my head and lowering himself to my ear.

“I was blindly dating filthy senator, when I had the love of my life right next to me the entire time."

"What do you mean?" I emphasized each word, my abdomen tensing as he got so close to me.

"There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of my future and imagine you by my side. I told myself it was our strong bond causing me to think of you constantly, due to the amount of time we spent together, but now, I feel completely different."

"Anakin," my heart was racing, as he continued to whisper into my ear.

"Maker, I missed you so much."

He was just trying to be friendly, that's all this was.

"Now, I know you are not that naive," he let out a deep chuckle, reading my mind.

"Is this your way of coercing me into joining the dark side?" I said softly, trying to play it off.

"There is no need to coerce you (Y/N), your heart is already doing all the work," Anakin told me. "All there is to do is to make up for lost time."

"No.."

"Continuing to deny it is only stalling the inevitable," he spoke in a playful way. "Your hatred towards the one you believed to be my killer only proves it more."

"I—" I cut myself off, as Anakin moved his head, now right over mine.

"What is it?" he asked me, his golden eyes flicking from my lips up to my eyes in quick fashion.

I gave in, nodding to his silent question and feeling the force lift off my hands.

Anakin pressed his lips to mine as I lifted my head up and met him midway. His robotic hand came down to my waist, the other combing through my hair as he helped hold my head steady. It was delicate and prepared, goosebumps crawling over my skin as his weight pressed me onto the cold temple floors. He was an expert in the way he worked around my mouth, the first time I had ever kissed anyone to begin with.

To think such a sacred place would be ruined due to our own shenanigans.

A Jedi and a Sith, making out in a temple with no care for sentiment.

His lips were chapped yet soft, and the more breaths we took between kissing the more swollen they became. Anakin didn’t seem to care though, continuing to go down on my neck allowing me to breath. He wasn’t going too far, but it was enough for the occasion, leaving marks I that wouldn’t leave for days.

It was madness.

Everything around us screamed in pleasure, the force happily chiming along with the two sides agreeing on something, even if it wasn’t an argument. Anakin had changed, and I couldn’t decide if it was for better or for worse.

If only those two could see me now, making love to the man that we had been running from for months. The copious amounts of rage had turned to attraction in a blink of an eye, rejoicing in his presence as my hand pressed against his tunic and I felt his abdomen underneath the fabric. He was such light and yet the darkness itself, drowning me in it as we sunk into a pool of ecstasy.

The cold stone floors were soon heated, as the temple grew humid and we both simultaneously agreed to take our tops off. It was the definition of multitasking, as I took off his armor and tunic, leaving behind a black pair of pants, and his boots. With the force he slipped my top off, gaining access to my collar bone and gracing it with his mouth. There was a possessive feeling in the air, as he took in my body for the first time with his own eyes as I did to him.

"You are so beautiful, it is intoxicating."

I felt myself smiling, sitting up and wrapping my arms around his neck, the both of us kissing deeply. This was it, holding our breath as we enjoyed one another, but the force was warning the both of us.

The temple shook, I almost forgot it was collapsing.

"We need to escape before we become trapped inside," Anakin said. "My ship is outside."

"And you assume I'm coming?"

"I know you are."

I laughed, acknowledging his foresight. We put on our clothes hurriedly yet thoroughly, as someone trained to handle life or death would. In truth, that was what we stood for, as Jedi and Sith both came together as one, in ways that would be frowned upon.

Except we didn't care.

We weren't denying it any longer.

Back in business since the recent Ahsoka episode. Hope you all enjoyed!

[dkniade]

But speaking of Liyue AQ Childe and names—

(He gives the Traveler the Sigil of Permission. Paimon wonders what it is. Childe says—)

Original: “谁知道呢？有时候用钱只能买到「东西」，却买不到「名字」。”

Official Localization: “I'm not sure, exactly. Sometimes, all money can buy is "things" and not a name for oneself.”

My Translation: “Who knows? Sometimes you can only use money to buy ‘things’ but not ‘names’.”

What’s up with this guy. What’s with his deal and names. Fischl chose her name from the novel series she loves which makes sense, but Childe didn’t even choose his two aliases huh…

Earlier in the quest, after he introduces himself as 公子(Gonzi)/Childe, and Paimon complains about him treating Traveler and her like servants, he says—

Original: “「名字」这种东西啊，只是代号而已。”

Official Localization: “It's an alias of sorts.”

My Translation: “Things like names are just alises, really.”

(Here’s a more detailed post on it.)

Considering the fact that he was given the (code)names Childe and Tartaglia as seen in his Character Story 5–

“Until at last, Ajax was chosen to be one of the Fatui Harbingers, donning the mantle of "Childe" Tartaglia and becoming one of the most powerful people in Snezhnaya.”

—Is he suggesting that names are like alises (roles?) that one has to earn instead of buy with money? That they’re more like roles presented towards the outside world instead of something he truly identifies with? The wording in the Liyue AQ lines even sounds a little sad to me but the way he says it is very straightforward and matter-of-fact.

[justalia]

Hi Alia!!!! I wanted to know about what are some signs of great self concept? I have been working on my self concept for more than a month now, and I have had a major mental shift, but today I had been feeling down and not that good, like as if nothing is working. I feel like crying and just not that great. (I am so sorry for dumping it like this). Maybe knowing the signs of great self concept would help me? I have had pretty good self talk as well, and everything coming out of my mouth or any thoughts have been in my favor too. I really don't know why I'm feeling like this today. Your help would mean a lot to me. I love you loads!!! Love, Mei Minatozaki ❤️‍🔥 (I am Japanese and I'm still learning english, please guide me through any mistakes I make, for I'm using a translation tool. Please take care of me, I'm in your care)

hi mei!

you sound like a truly kind soul and i would love to help you out of this pickle.

you see i’m sure you’ve done a lot of work on yourself, you may have incorporated new habits, new hobbies, a new mental diet, and you may have even seen the results of these changes meant to “reprogram” in some way your “self concept”.

the word “self-concept” has been severely misused in this community, “self concept” means “a conception of the self” and a conception of the self could be anything, you can conceptualize your Self to be anything actually.

there are no signs of a great “self concept” because the word “self-concept” is just neutral, it implies an idea you attached to your Self and it is just that: an idea.

“self-concept” does not mean being perfectly disciplined, perfectly confident, assured and having no bad days. “self concept” means “idea of Self”. an identity some might say.

if you feel like crying you are meant to be crying, if you feel like being sad you are meant to be sad in that specific moment. if any emotions come up you are meant to be feeling every single one of them.

see we are not meant to fight or try to control our thoughts and emotions, you can feel them and have your fill of crying for as long as you may need to.

check my last post on the self i made.

you are not who you think you are right now. you are not meant to convince Mei of being in a certain way having certain thoughts instead of others, feeling certain emotions.

you are not meant to convince Mei of being something that she obviously is not.

Mei is your ego, an identity you created of yourself and believed in it so strongly it came to be.

to “change your life” you’re only meant to let go of this Mei character you’ve created. listen you can truly go on forever checking your thoughts and your words until every single one of them is “in your favor”, but truly you will always find something to change about that character you have created because the ego is constantly creating fears out of the urge to “protect” you. you will always find something new to change, some new “belief” from this character comes up snd you’ll feel the need to fix it. fix everything that comes in your mental sight.

it is quite exhausting as you can imagine.

what if that wasn’t you?

what if there was nothing to fix?

[cybxr-nem3sis]

[UPDATE]

CALL OF DUTY: MW OC: Azura "Doberman" Lee

Former Navy Seals and also, trained to became CIA Agent by his adoptive parents, Doberman was one of the agents that CIA has ever had, He was highly effective agent with every mastery in every aspects. Until he graduated from Navy Seals and join CIA with his adoptive parents and take a second job as Cybersecurity specialist. For five years, Kate Laswell recruited Doberman to Task Force 141, to join them for another assignments.

GENERAL

Name | Adriansyah Saputra Nadhirizzky I Gusti Agung Putra Aditya Adhiarja Redjosentono

Alias(es) | Azura(nickname given by his adpotive parents), Ardi or Mas Ardi( by his neighbours and friends)

Callsign | Doberman

Occupation | CIA, Navy Seals(formerly, discharged) Task Force 141, Matrial arts instructor, Cybersecurity Specialist/hacker.

Gender | Male

Birthday | February 14th

Nationality | American

Race | Mixed races, half Indonesian-American, half korean-japanese

Rank | Lieutenant(TF141), Operations Officer(CIA)

Place of Birth | New York, USA

Spoken Languanges | English is his second languange, He is mr. worldwide himself because he's a polyglot.

Sexuality | Bisexual

APPERANCE

Eye color | Ruby red

Hair color | Natural black

Height | 7'0/213cm

Build | kinda-bulky muscular

Blood type | A

Scars | on right eyes, left cheek, and side of his lips

Tattoos | Full on both arms and hands, 4 on the waist, 1 on the chest, and full back tattoo on his back

Fancast | Hiroyuki Sanada

FAVORITES

Color | Red

Food(s) | Jjangmyeon and katsudon

Drink | Rosemary tea

Song | Doin' time by Lana Del Ray

Flower | Rose

Hairstyle(s) | Manbun for casual days, ponytails for missions, and untied for works.

PERSONALITY

James bond like Personality, ISTJ | Doberman is highly intelligent, exceedingly cunning and diabolically independent. He also sensiable, calm, mature and sly. Although everyone always saw him as stoic and intimidating indivisual.

Loyal and Strong | Doberman is someone who consistently demonstrates honesty, reliability, and integrity. By keeping promises, maintaining confidentiality and acting ethically.

Intelligent | He is a man who is flexible in his thinking and can adapt to changes, he think before they speak or act, snd able to effectively manage his emotions.

Intimidating | Doberman always described as intimidating figure often overly domineering and cause others to feel threatened, overwhelmef or even scared.

SKILLS AND ABILITIES

Fighting style | Taekwondo, Karate, Commando Sambo, Capoeira, Brazillian jiu-jutsu, Pencak silat, Krav Maga, Judo

Weapon | Glock and Beretta gun

Distinct weapon | M-9 Bayonet for a fast movement and agility

Special Skills | Flexibility, communication, Espionage, exploiting computer hacker, Translator.

FAMILY

Status in family | Second oldest

Adoptive siblings | Jessica Smith Anderson, Liam Smith Anderson, Lucas Smith Anderson, Oscar Smith Anderson

Father | Evander Smith Anderson, retired CIA Agent, and iscurrently working as bartender

Mother | Ava Smith Anderson, retired CIA Agent, and is currently working as Doctor

Relationship | Being second oldest after Lucas, Doberman truly loves his family so much, he always understanding and protective indivisual to them. as become CIA Agent to grant Evander, his freedom.

Pet | Has a Doberdane (Doberman-Great dane mix dog) named Bolt.

CHARACTERS THAT BASED TO;

James Bond from James Bond series

Balalaika[Sofiya Pavlovna] from Black Lagoon

Jotaro Kujo fron Jojo Bizarre Adventures

Yor Forger from Spy x Family

Caveira[Taina Pereira] from Rainbow Six Siege/R6S

Black Widow from Avengers

Jessica Rabbit from Who Censored Roger Rabbit

John Mclane from Die Hard

John Rambo from Rambo series

Kiryu Kazuma from Yakuza series/Ryo ga Gotoku

TRIVIA

Doberman is a man, who has big and unbelieveable appetite, he sure eats alot of foods, buy he also aware to keep his body stay healthy

Despite his intimidating and stoic exterior, Doberman is good with kids! They're always see him as father/brother figure

a big an of metal bands and kpops

He likes to cooks! he can LITERALLY cook anything, Doberman wouldn't mind to cook you a meal

Sly as a fox and smart as a snake, that is everyone say to Doberman's personality. He always cunning man, who always clever at planning what he wants

After graduated middle school, Doberman and his adoptive parents decide to moved to Indonesia, Jakarta. Where Doberman continue his Junior ighschool to University.

Join a Paskibraka in Indonesian when he was 15 years old.

While staying in Jakarta, when he was a little boy, Doberman always like to plays in the middle of the rains with his childhood friends, until he get sick.

Spicy foods lover, especially Seblak.

When Doberman accidently hurt or suprised, he always let out a cursed in each languages, mainly Indonesian or Japanese.

Doberman likes to tied his hair than let it rest on his shoulder.

Background Story

Born and abandonned in the Street of New york, Azura had always felt like an orphan, left in the street of New York City since he was a newborn. Growing up on the streets, he was no stranger to a life of hard knocks and never knowing where he would find his next meal or a safe place to rest.

He eventually joined the Navy Seals when he came of such young age. His skills and determination earned him a reputation of excellence, and a discharge with honors. He settled in America and soon enough his dedicated attitude was noticed by an unlikely source - ex-CIA agents.

The agents, impressed with his military background, saw the potential in him and decided to do something extraordinary. They adopted him. This was the start of a new, more secure life for Azura and a chance at a better future.

The missions he undertook were never easy, and his courage and skill saved thousands of lives. Thanks to Azura's converted status and adopted family, his life had come full circle.

Trained in the ways of espionage, Azura quickly rose through the ranks to become a full-fledged CIA agent. His ability to crack codes and negotiate peace was second to none. Yet, he felt something was missing. He decided to take a second job as a cybersecurity specialist. His work brought him into the public eye, and soon enough he caught the attention of Kate Laswell, the leader of Task Force 141.

Laswell begged him to join the elite unit and promised that his skills would be put to good use. Azura agreed and for the first time, he felt a real sense of belonging. Sworn to secrecy and honor, he worked alongside the greatest minds in the world, protecting the freedom of the people of the United States of America.

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

[hadesdancehall]

I also made this post on the BRC subreddit but unsure if it'll stay up there so I figured I'd also share here on the off chance it gets taken. Just had thoughts about the visual symbolism with Faux and Felix that I needed to get out of my system.

Spoilers ahead for Chapter 5 and BRC endgame!

When I was going into the final boss fight, my best friend had wanted to be on voice call because there was a particular shot after the fight that she really wanted me to see: the one where Solace became Felix's "one wing".

Considering Felix going solo catalyzed the contention between him and Faux, the way Felix's "I only need one wing" mentality evolved between his first All City to the end of BRC's narrative is one of the things that really struck me with this shot. Felix's one wing was initially something borne from his decision to break away from the Big 3 in order to go solo — relying on his own merits in order to reach the pinnacle of the streets. It's never explicitly said if he really thought of Faux as a burden ("Felix... you never wanted us to be a crew and why would you? You gained so much from dropping me.") but from Felix's perspective, there were "no hard feelings" which implies that there was no actual resentment on his side. DJ also certainly didn't seem to really care either way. But ultimately the choice to be on his own with his one wing is the thing that led to his death, since Faux took it hard enough that he... y'know...

But with this?

[ID: Felix with one of Solace's wings showing up behind him]

Sure, it's just Solace. But Solace represents more than just himself — Solace represents BRC, all of them. The entire narrative follows Felix as Red, back at the bottom of the rung with Tryce and Bel, as the three of them work to the top. As Red, he still had inclinations towards handling his whole "retrieving his head and finding out his roots" situation on his own. But it was through Tryce and Bel's insistence that they stick together and their constant support and care that overcomes those inclinations. As Red, he intentionally chose and was able to reach the pinnacle with other people, with a crew — something that old Felix thought wasn't possible even when Faux, one of the best of his contemporaries, had offered it.

I think about this shot a lot ever since I saw it in-game. But then I came across another one as I was watching another person's playthrough with the same friend:

[ID: Faux's introduction in Chapter 1 at the New Amsterdam Police Bureau, with the outer ring of the Police Bureau's logo prominent behind his head]

The above shot caught me so off guard because it truly is a "blink and you miss it" kind of moment since Faux zooms in from this particular shot pretty quickly. But the New Amsterdam Police Bureau logo makes a flipping halo behind him. Along with the alias, this could potentially be its own foreshadowing to Faux's real nature: that he's not who he seems to be, that he's your foe, but that he's also deified himself in his own head and eventually deified through Project Algo where he assumes control of the police force.

(And since Solace is sometimes called by other characters as an "angel boy" or Felix's "angel fan", you can potentially get some lovely interpretations stemming from religious iconography, but that's something for another day if not coming from another person entirely.)

Am I reading too much into this? Most definitely. But while the actual plot of BRC isn't revolutionary, a lot of the things that make it enjoyable for me is filling it in with things like this in order to enrich the world and the story more. So I figured I'd also share the joy that came with these random thoughts with others — and if you've made it to the end, thanks for reading!

[miss0atae]

The sign ep 10 was today and it is still one of my favorite series to watch right now. It keeps building up and up.

This episode was packed with more investigations, so our team of police officers can finally find a way to arrest Montree. Of course, nothing really happens like they want it, otherwise we would have nothing to watch next week. I was glad the inspector isn't truly a bad guy working for Montree, but instead he is also trying to apprehend him to avenge his older brother. I still don't understand why he couldn't trust Tharn, but let's admit he had good reasons.

At the same time, Phaya (who now know everything about his past lives with Tharn) must protect his lover from Dr. Chalothon. Thankfully, he has still not shown his face since he tried to kill Phaya, last episode (but for how long? He won't stop right now). However, Phaya and the Abbot think it is better to keep the secret of his real identity from Tharn. He is already so worked up about making sure Montree will be behind bars, it may be for the best.

Fortunately, we had some fun and cute moments thanks to all the secondary characters. It's a good thing because the angst can be quite heavy sometimes. Yai is still everyone's favorite (and if it's not, I don't understand how it is possible). Khem also had his moments.

I love this series! Next episode seems so promising with this new "enemy", the Tiger-man. I want to know if it's another deity or it's just an alias for a new/old bad guy. It also seems like Phaya will tell the truth to Tharn about Chalothon and I want to know how he will react.

[vanillahub]

GET TO KNOW THE MUN.

respond to the prompts out of character!

what made you pick up the current muse(s) you have? Obviously, I'm heavily influenced by a set list of characters I personally love, which means I come up with a take/portrayal as I delve deeper into the lore. I tend to have a preference for side characters, rather than protags or lore heavy ones, bc of the freedom I get... BUT at the same time I've had numerous muses that carry a lot of weight in their respective franchises (see: Seto Kaiba, Captain Rex, rival Barry, Richter Belmont and Sea Dragon Kanon just to name a few).

I mainly write as canon characters, I genuinely have little to no interest in making or RPing as an OC. At most, I have 1 OC in two out of the RPCs I'm currently part of. Which explains this huge disparity.

is there anything you don’t like to write? My hard nos are Incest, Adult/minor types of relationships. Bodily fluids/toilet stuff and fetish focused RPs. One-liners and really short replies aren't fun for me, sure, they can be fun for crack/joke interactions. But they won't last long. I really love working and expanding on the source material, so RPs for me really need to have that good plotting to back it up. While I'm totally open for exploring darker/taboo subjects (e.g.: adultery, toxic relationships, etc.), they MUST carry weight on the characters and be handled accordingly.

is there anything you really enjoy writing? GIMME ALL THE WEIRD COMBOS TO INTERACT WITH!!! Characters that never met or barely interacted with one another in canon but, they can interact in our RPs!!! My jam is doing worldbuilding and expanding on the source material!!! I also enjoy writing comedy, fluff, romance, slice-of-life, over-arching stories that connect/get refferenced in other threads.

how do you come up with headcanons? I look for plotholes or anything that was barely touched upon, in the source material, and I go off from it. I try establishing connections or make them clearer, to serve as future reference for me and my RP partners. I also love taking influence from other medias I'm into.

do you write in silence or do you play music? I used to be able to multitask a lot easier in the past. Now, I mainly prefer writing in silence. Only in very rare cases, I may play some kind of lo-fi beat or lounge music.

do you plan your replies or wing them? It depends on the thread in specific! Most of them have been plotted out, so I go off what we have laid out. Only in a few cases I try to wing it.

do you enjoy shipping? YES YES. GIMME. However, due to some bad experiences in the past, I'm really picky with platonic and familial stuff (popular fanons my beloathed).

what’s your alias/name? Vani

age?  27

birthday? 19th of July

favorite color?  Purple, blue, white, red-

favorite song?  Tô de pé - Maneva

last movie you watched?  I genuinely can't remember it LOL. It must have been Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary.

last show you watched?  Saint Seiya Omega

last song you listened to? Discoholic - Disco Soul (Mr. Hoosteen's "Disco's Revenge

favorite food?  Pesto Pasta

favorite season?  Summer

do you have a tumblr best friend? Check these fellas out <3

These ppl know me for the longest time Gen ( @gems-of-lirema ), Simone (@unchcsen ) , Shiba ( @celestiialnotes ), Retto ( @245s ), Bobo ( @roleplayersoul ) and Smeargle ( @ofpokemon ) !! Really special mentions to @radi0activesmile, Val and @mxlik you guys will forever hold a v special place in my heart!!

Then I'm always chatting with Ama ( @gwiazdowe ), who genuinely is one of the best ppl I've met!! Honestly, I couldn't feel anymore happier to have met you! Can't forget urs truly Mica, who lives rent-free in my walls LOL. Lea ( @todefendlife ) and Mars own my house smfh.

And also special shout out to folks I've met more recently, but still deserve a place here: @shouxryuuxha / @wayfaringstrangxr / @eternalstarlights / @triko-the-fluffy-artist <3 Love u guys!

TAGGED BY: @mayxthexforce TYSM <3333

TAGGING: Anyone wanting to do this!! Just say I tagged you <3 !

[daydream-cement]

The Cedars Have Eyes Ch. 10

Characters: Larissa Weems x OC (Fern Rogers)

Synopsis: Rowan and Fern get into a bit of trouble.

Authors Note: I was typing this so fast because I was so into it. Hopefully there aren’t any typos. Hahahaha

You wade to the edge of the walkway, pushing yourself out of the water. Rowan followed closely behind you. You tried to keep yourself silent, wondering if the people from your last dream world still be here.

Rowan whispered, “Where are we?”

“This is where the vines took me in those trances. This is the crypt.” You tried to keep your voice quiet, but the cold of the wet clothes clinging to your body brought a shake to your voice.

You glance around the room. You had never taken the time to truly look around in your dream. Behind where you usually landed after the vines dropped you to the floor was a darkened flight of stairs. You wondered where they led to.

“Woah…” Rowan knelt by an urn close to her, inspecting it closely. She moved carefully, looking at the next urn and each subsequent one after that. You followed after her carefully, keeping your eyes on the vault door. You didn’t hear any voices, but that didn’t mean anyone wasn’t home.

“Rowan…” You hiss, grabbing at her shoulder, but she shrugged you off, finding what she was looking for. She had found your missing name. Rowan dug her nails under the plaque, pulling harshly to remove it from its place. The age of the pottery made it an easy task and Rowan tucked the name plate into her pocket.

“We found them all.” Rowan pops up next to you, a big smile on her face, but her excitement fades when she hears the voices behind the door once again. Now that you were closer to the door than ever, you could hear that it was two men’s voices, one far weaker than the other. You wondered if one was Crackstone.

“I can feel her near… Check for her, Alias.” The one voice spoke and, when you didn’t think you could get any colder, your blood froze.

———

Larissa began her pacing. You hadn’t been back after an hour and she was trying to resist the urge to call you. Her eyes shifted to your phone that was left behind on the couch. Even if she wanted to she couldn’t contact you.

She tried convincing herself that you were okay, just enjoying your time with Rowan, but deep in the pit of her stomach she knew something was wrong. Larissa picked up her phone and selected Rowan’s contact. She was going to call and just make sure you were okay.

———

Rowan’s phone starting ringing. You thought you could have killed her. She pulled the phone from her pocked, smirking at her phones continued functioning even though they had just swam, “This is incredible. These phone cases are the real deal. This could be a damn commercial.”

Rowan’s mind wandered, not remembering the life or death situation you could be in, “Jesus, Ro. We have to get out of here.”

Footsteps grew closer to the door, you knew that you had been heard. You grabbed Rowan’s hand, pulling her behind you. You didn’t jump in back in the water, no, you decided to try the stairs.

The door opened behind you, flooding the dark walkway with light. The man in the doorway, who you assumed to be Alias, was ordered by the weak voice to chase after you, “She is the only way this will work. Get her and kill the friend.”

You pushed Rowan up the stairs in front of you and glanced over your shoulder. Alias was coming towards you, but he certainly was no spring chicken, moving at a much slower pace.

“Fuck!” Rowan yelped as a loud thump came from in front of you. It was pitch black, but you assumed that she hit her head. You had kept moving up the stairs, running into a stopped Rowan. You could see the shadow of Alias at the bottom of the stairs.

Rowan searched the ceiling above her that she had hit her head on. Much to her relief, she found an old handle, and with all the force she could muster, she gave the door a shove. With a horrible creak, the hatch gave way and Rowan began pulling herself through.

“Rowan!” You yelp as Alias kept getting closer. You had heard the creaking of a door, but you were pushing against her back anyway, trying to get her to hurry.

Alias was steps away from you. The panic in your body was so high that you wondered if your fight or flight was kicking in and you were about to pick freeze.

Rowan heaved herself up into the next space, hitting her head once again on an even harder surface. She wasted no time feeling that pain, rather she reached down for your hand. She gripped your forearm, giving you a yank towards her.

Rowan’s hand on your forearm pulled you from the trance. You turned, scrambled towards her. One hand grasped the ledge as you began pulling yourself up to join Rowan.

Alias grabbed your waist, pulling you downwards. You couldn’t help but scream. It was so dark and you couldn’t see anything going on around you. Your senses were thrown off and you were terrified.

Rowan seemed just a bit stronger and smarter than the man, however. You didn’t know if it was a a vampire ability or just if she had extreme grace under pressure, but she jumped into action. Both of her hands came to grip you, pulling you a little higher over the ledge. She swung a leg back down into the staircase and planted a wonderful jabbing kick to Alias, immediately loosening his grip and sending him tumbling down the stairs.

You took the opportunity to finish pulling yourself over the ledge, also hitting your head as you rose up. Rowan pulled her leg up and slammed the hatch shut. You both moved so you were sitting on the hatch and you finally caught your breath.

———

Larissa received no answer from Rowan, which made her even more worried. She wondered if she would wear a line in the carpet as her pacing continued. She was checking her phone every couple seconds. Double and triple checking to see if she had missed any calls or messages from you or Rowan.

———

You could sense Rowan’s growing frustration by her less than amused tone, “Where the fuck are we now?”

“No clue.” You were still too focused on how you could have been taken. That man almost had you. Would you have died sooner? Would they have hurt others sooner?

Rowan pulled her phone from her pocket, shining the flashlight around the room. You couldn’t even call it a room. You were in a stone box… You were in a coffin.

“Great. A coffin.” Rowan tried giving the lid a shove, but it was incredibly heavy. You took notice of her efforts and began shoving as well, but truly it wasn’t budging. After a few moments, you gave up, knowing that it wasn’t worth the waste of energy.

“I’m calling Larissa.” Rowan said, dialing Larissa’s number. You didn’t even have time to argue with her by the time Larissa picked up.

———

“You are where?” Larissa was furious. Not only did you say you would be safe, but now Rowan was calling to tell her that she assumed that you and her were trapped in a coffin.

“A coffin. Please don’t give me shit. We are looking at life or death here.”

Larissa knew that after she made sure you were home safe and tucked into bed, she was really going to give you a piece of her mind, “I’m on my way. Where?”

Rowan paused a moment. Truly she couldn’t be sure, but when taking into account context clues and where they had been swimming, she finally spoke, “Crackstone’s crypt, I think.”

“I’m going to hang up before I say anything I regret. Tell Fern I love her and if you get out of this alive, I’m going to kill you both.”

“Love you too, Rissa.” Rowan said before tapping the red disconnect button, “She’s on her way.”

Both of you sat in silence for a few minutes longer before the trap door below you began to shake with someone trying to get through. You thought you could throw up at the amount of pure adrenaline running through your system.

Rowan and you both repositioned yourself over the door and shifted so your feet rested against the coffin lid, using all of your leg strength to keep the trap door shut. He kept trying to get through. You felt like you were keeping it shut for hours. You just wanted to be back home with Larissa.

Tears stung at your eyes and you felt them began rolling down your cheeks. This was so scary. How were you going to save everyone when you couldn’t handle this amount of stress? At least the last time someone tried killing you, they kept you so dosed up on poisons that you didn’t have time to be this scared.

Finally, finally, you heard the faint noise of Crackstone’s main crypt door opening. Rowan must have heard it too when she began screaming, “Larissa! We are in here.”

You joined in too. Screaming for her to come save you. All of you and Rowan’s yelling must have angered the man below you and his shoved against the door were stronger than ever.

———

Larissa could hear the muffled screams from the coffin. Immediately she was at the stone casket’s side, pushing against the lid to free you both. It was no use. She alone wasn’t strong enough.

Good thing she was a quick thinker. Larissa shape-shifted into someone she had seen one evening while you were flipping through TV together: a professional body builder who was known to lift small cars. In the new form, the grind of stone against stone filled the air as the lid shifted away to reveal you and Rowan.

———

You were shocked at first to see an incredibly strong looking man, but you quickly put two and two together, remembering Larissa’s ability. You pushed Rowan out of the coffin first and yelled to Larissa, “You need to close the lid after me. Someone is trying to kill us.”

You could see the anger in your shapeshifted partner’s eyes. She moved around the coffin and prepared to move it back into place as she saw you exit.

Upon moving out from the coffin, you saw Alias finally burst through. You had a better look at his face now, the light of the crypt helping you study him. His face was distorted from extreme age, almost looking zombie-ish. His eyes were wild as they locked onto you.

You jumped from the coffin into Rowan’s arms causing the two of you to topple backwards. The lid of the coffin quickly shifted shut again and you could hear the frustrated screams of the man that still remained inside. When Larissa rounded the coffin, she was back in her normal form, she was fuming.

She stared down at you, seeing red. The angry haze left her when she saw your current state: still soaken wet and the terrified tears still stained your cheeks.

———

When you were back to campus, Rowan parted ways quickly, only wanting a hot bath and the safety of her own coffin. Larissa had you swept up into her arms from the moment she saw you in the crypt and hadn’t released you from her grasp until she had you in your home.

She took you to the bathroom. Turning on the faucet to the bath and plugged the drain, beginning to run a hot bath for you. You were sitting on the edge of the toilet, waiting for her to begin scolding you. The scolding never came. The only thing that you were met with was a gentle touch and soft words, “I was so worried about you. Let’s get you warmed up first… Then we can talk about everything that happened.”

Link to Chapter 11

[daydreamtofiction]

Hello! Firstly, I wanted to say just how much I adore your writing style. There's just something ever so beautiful about the way it flows. And speaking of flow... I wondered if had any tips for making a story flow better, I've so many ideas but I just can't seem to figure out how to put them all together in a coherent way. Thank you!

Firstly, thank you so much.

This is such a good question but it’s one I’m having a really hard time coming up with practical advice for! I’ll try my best, but I’m sorry in advance if this isn’t helpful.

As always, I like to start with the disclaimer that I’m 29, I’ve been writing since I was a child, went to university at 18 for an undergrad in creative writing and got my masters in creative writing at 23. I’ve also had another 6 years since graduating in which I’ve been incredibly privileged to be mentored and supported by some amazing people and organisations in the literary space. So I’ve got a lot of years worth of practice and development under my belt. I’m not saying anyone needs degrees or training or anything to become a good writer, because you don’t, I’m just trying to emphasise how time is truly the best aid for anyone looking to hone their craft. And there’s never a set formula you can follow when it comes to improving your writing.

Funnily enough, I enjoy creating fics so much on this platform because it allows me to be a little more lax with my writing. Some things I’ve published under this alias would never fly with an editor and would probably be torn apart in developmental feedback. I don’t edit and redraft as much as I do with my irl work, I’m not as economical with my words and I try not to overthink things too much. So first and foremost, I’d say go easy on yourself. You write your fics for you, and you write them for free! Fanfic readers, on a whole, consume works that range drastically in author skill level. And for the most part, they will still enjoy and appreciate a fic despite its flaws.

That being said, let me try and actually answer your question lol.

When you say ‘flow’, I’m not sure if you mean the narrative or the actual writing itself. So I’ll give separate advice for both.

The narrative

Some good ways to make a narrative flow better is to think about pace, character and storyline.

Think about a TV show, I’ll use Fleabag season 2 as an example since it’s fresh in my mind from my priest fic. The basic premise is Fleabag meets a priest, fancies him, they hook up, but in the end he chooses God. If that’s all the story was, the show would be an episode long. What makes it so much more compelling is all the little ‘side quests’ she takes, the exploration of herself and other relationships, the time they take to allow that tension to build, little scenes that have no bearing on the main plot but add meat onto the bones of the story.

This helps control the pace; makes it feel more substantial and gives the readers time to bond with your characters and become invested in the story. It also stops you and your readers becoming fatigued by the main plot. Think about your day; you got up, went to school/work/wherever, came home and went to bed. But that wasn’t the extent of your day. You also might have noticed some new freckles while washing your face that morning, had an interesting interaction with a shopkeeper while buying your lunch, you might have found yourself dwelling on something that happened years ago which affected your mood, it might have rained when you weren’t expecting it to. All those little things are what make the journey from A to B truly flow.

So don’t be scared to divert from the main storyline with extra scenes, or create secondary plots that run alongside the main narrative. Not only will it help with the pace, but it will also force you to create more well-rounded characters. A well-rounded character is another great way to make a story flow, because they feel more real and less like a device.

Having lots of ideas and no idea how to make them flow is a problem I think many writers have. My advice for that is to not attempt to squeeze everything into one story just because you’re overwhelmed with a plethora of ideas. I know it can be hard when you’ve thought of a great plot point or scene but you just can’t make it fit, or you can’t figure out where in the story all of your ideas should go. That’s why it’s good to create a rough outline of your story in advance (either mentally or written out), piece together where all of these ideas might go before you start to write your story.

You can keep a note of your ideas in a separate folder/journal/document, that way you won’t feel as compelled to fit everything in one fic, because you’ll have this great selection of ideas you didn’t use that can be utilised in other projects.

If you’re still struggling to make your ideas flow into one coherent narrative, then it could be a sign that the story you’re wanting to write isn’t a fully developed concept yet. It might be worth taking some time to read other books/fics you like, watch tv/films and take note of how they’re structured, even daydreaming about your ideas can be useful, as the more you play them out, the more you may begin to notice how your mind naturally puts them together.

The writing itself

Read 👏 your 👏 work 👏 aloud 👏. It’s easier to detect issues in the flow of your writing when you speak it out loud - if you trip over your sentences, then you can almost guarantee a reader will. Pay attention to where you naturally take pause, that’s usually indicative of a comma being required or a sentence running on too long.

Be mindful of your story reading like ‘and then they did this, then they did that, then they went here’. Not everyone writes in a flowery way, but it should still have texture, some light and shade. Similarly, make sure you’re not repeating yourself. Nothing interrupts the flow of a paragraph like seeing the same words or descriptions over and over again.

Also, I know I said I’m less economical with language here than I am in my real life work. But I still advise trying to lessen unnecessary words/sentences. Give readers credit that they can fill in blanks themselves. Do you need to tell them the character is holding the phone in their left hand specifically, or can you just say they’re holding their phone? Do you really need to describe a characters appearance top to bottom, or can you just pick out a few defining features? Do they need to be described at all? Could you take a sentence like ‘I walked over to the table and picked up the camera, then I turned around and took a picture of the flowers in the vase.’ And turn it into ‘I took the camera off the table and snapped a picture of the flowers.’ It’s only a small difference, but in terms of flow, the key is making it require as little effort as possible to absorb.

I also just realised you could be asking about dialogue, which is its own challenge entirely. But I did give this advice to another person asking how to make dialogue sound more natural.

I really hope this helps! Sorry I went on a bit lmao.

[eternitas]

Unseen Varia - Profiles

Sergey Shouta

Basic Info:

Full Name: Sergey Shouta (last name is an alias)

Nickname: Ser, Sir Gay, Orca guy,

Age: 21 / 31 (TYL)

Birthday: 12th March

Gender/Pronouns: cis male, he/him

Sexuality: asexual demiromantic

Ethnicity: half serbian half italian

Height: 189cm

Flametype: Rain

Weapon of Choice: Rapier

Affiliation: Varia, Rain Division

Position: Second in Command, Squalos left hand

Languages: serbian, italian (+ Sign Language), spanish, japanese, german, french, english (+ Sign Language), russian, croatian, manadrin chinese

Strengths: lighthearted, has a pretty strong psyche, keeps calm during stressfull situations, observant and has a good eye for detail, speed

Weaknesses: can not be truly honest, secretive, easily to rile up when it comes to family or disrespecting women, physical strength, can't ask for help

Character Summary:

Sergey is someone who is usually seen to be carefree and outgoing, a lot of people call him a social butterfly and easy to approach. He is funny, and lighthearted and likes to take things not as serious, or overdramatisize them for effect. But as with Ava, waters are deeper than expected and this is especially true for Sergey. He can be very cynical and cruel, heartless even and fatalistic at times, the switch between his lighter persona and his more scary self being jarring to many. He harbors the belief that the world is tainted and has no point for salvation but that it is possible to make the small worlds that one person inhabits be bright and meaningful. He is very pc and makes sure to be as naturally inclusive as possible, as he learned this all from his extensive family. He has a special soft spot for women, especially younger than him, considering allmost all of his halfsiblings are women, especially younger than him. It seems to trigger some form of big brother instinct that he iron clawed follows.

Background:

[This section contains spoilers]

Sergey was born as the fourth child of a very specific man. A man that went all around the world impregnating women for a very insidious specific reason. It was a few years later that his mother, a serbian woman decided to reach out to the other women and offered them to all become a collective to help each other raise their children. almost all of them agreed and as if to form an initiative for the victims of this man they kept reaching out to whomever they could identify as their kin. This way Sergey grew up in a big household with multiple women and at first 3 older sisters before further younger sisters joined the family. This has led to Sergey growing up almost exclusively around women if it wasn't for his childhood friends, twins he met that lived in the same street, by the names Leonard and Luis. They became best friends quickly and Sergey was there for the both of them as Luis got sicker and sicker with each day.

[The information here has been redacted]

---which led him and Leo to the Varia.

Fighting Style

Sergey is known as the fastest Swordsman, which isn't a funny innuendo epiphet but the closest describtion one can give to this mans insane Speed. It seems that no matter what he moves at the speed of light, always able to zip around the whole place and escape opponents, while he makes his own attacks in return. This special technique is thanks to a specific trick that he figured out over a few years of practice.

He is a formidable swordsman, specializing in fencing and wielding a rapier which only makes his speed all the more annoying to combat for opponents, his strikes are precise and always aimed at vital spots in the human body. His technique is near flawless and despite relying mostly on his rapier he is also able to wield heftier swords.

A very vital point of Sergeys combat is his psychological play with his opponent, using his wits and speech to provoke his opponet into making mistakes.

In the most dire of situation Sergey uses one of his two additional boxes. "Oberon" is the name of his swecond sword, a more traditional european longsword that gives his swings more heft and changes his fighting style into being more confrontational. His second box is an animal box weapon, an orca, that uses a LOT of flame energy to be called forth which is why it is usually only used in emergencies.

Trivia

Sergey has collectively 10 half siblings of which 3 turned out to be trans. Before that it was a running joke that he was the guy with the 10 sisters for all ocassions. ("Ser you have the chance to be the funniest person in this family")

Sergey keeps close and good contact with all his sisters, especially his older ones.

Once for an undercover mission he pretended to get married to Leo, however it turned out to be a legally binding marriage and they just went with it. They don’t see any real issues with it.

Of his family 4 of his sisters have also relations with the mafia. The oldest Maria married a mafioso (and Ser is 2 steps away from committing murder bc the guy keeps neglecting his sister and their child), second oldest Chloe is actually a bodyguard of a smaller families heires, one of his younger sisters used to date a mafia heir, but they split up and she kept being friends with the guys friendcircle and one is actually in the inteligence branch of the Vongola

Despite Sergey always having his hair tied together he gets often mistaken for Captain Squalo for some reason

All of Sergeys hairties and scrunchies are presents from his siblings and he takes good care of them.

Sergey has been in an unofficial poll been voted place 1 on the most approachable ranking and place 3 on the "most aggravating" list

He has good relations with pretty much all his Second in Comand collegues.

Despite the good pay, Sergey always seems a bit short on cash, because he always keeps up with his siblings and friends birthdays, plus of course holidays like valentines day and the winter holidays

While Ser is regarded a social butterfly because he easily makes aquaintances and is a friendly soul, not many know much more about him than the surface that he allows people to see.

[jaeclerc]

heyy, I loved the kingsman au!! i would read like 40k of that, I would love to see seb being a little shit just to see charles bitch at him 🥶 loved noisy max as well! I’m super curious if the relationship between seb and charles in this is purely platonic or is it going somewhere?? can’t wait to read more 🥰

omg 😭 thank you. there’s more being planned but i’ve hit a sort of slump in my writing just due to like. general life stuff rn so this has been sitting for a few days, i do apologize.

some backstory for seb and charles in this au:

charles leclerc is not your typical rich boy from monaco, he’s a generational monegasque. his family settled on that coast hundreds of years ago and were lucky to build their little grocery store and home and stay in those streets that slowly filled with the world’s elite wealthy. he was not one of them. his family survived, sure, but they were not rich by any standards, just the working class.

but he was valuable, with his citizenship and his family’s generations of living there. it meant he blended in, he was just background noise to the “main character” rich people. it meant he could slip in their pockets and get their money. it meant he heard everything going on in their lives and businesses. it’s amazing, truly, how happy the elite are to talk about their private matters in their ear pieces while looking at the aisles of specialty pasta his grandfather got from a special shop in Italy.

charles was too smart to not put this to use, to slowly manipulate the narrative and learn even more information, posting to anonymous sites about what environmental disaster this ceo was planning on attempting to cover up, how this sports star was having a disgraceful affair with his wife’s best friend’s brother, where their money was actually going, what activities they were getting involved with.

it’s also amazing how many of these people don’t turn their bluetooth on and don’t use encryption on their information. how easy it is to duplicate their phones onto his laptop that he’s “just using for inventory, papa!” and blast all over the web.

until, he accidentally duplicates the phone of a kingsman agent. of sebastian vettel, code name: Lancelot. until he scrolls through his information and is horrified by what he finds. until a strong hand is slamming his laptop closed, causing him to look up and see the man who he just saw in very interesting circumstances. his blue eyes amused as he evaluates charles.

charles is just a boy, at 19. sebastian doesn’t know why he’s shocked that charles is just a kid, when that’s the perfect cover for someone who has the ability to access information of the wealthy and blast it on the web like some internet vigilante, but also doesn’t have the ability to effectively cover his tracks well enough that he’s made virtually untraceable.

sebastian felt like he should’ve known; that speaks of someone highly highly intelligent, but also naive. someone who knows what power wields but not what the consequences are. sebastian, secretly, hopes that he never will learn those consequences. but he will if he doesn’t come with him, because the wealthy hate their gilded world being revealed and they’ll be even less amused that it was that shy kid down at the local store.

charles feels like he just realized how fucked he is. when that handsome man tugs his laptop close and tells him he knows who he is, greets him by his alias “ilpredestinato”. charles feels his world collapse in but instead sebastian, as he introduced himself (charles already knew), pulls him and his computer into a car and he says “charles. have you heard of kingsmen tailors?”

he has, they have one down the road. he’s never been, it’s too expensive.

sebastian takes him there. puts him into fitting room three, and shows him the world he’s capable of taking, tells him what he’s intelligent enough to achieve. the agent hired before him, had only discovered one state secret that his father had failed to cover, and blew open a whole government regulated arms rings. seb tells charles he’s highly capable of being one of the best agents with his background.

that’s if he can survive the tasks.

-

charles is lucky that he met seb. because nobody else’s mentor would help them but seb would help charles if he really needed it. maybe because seb was fond of him.

charles blows everyone else out of the water. charles blows even max verstappen out of the water, with how much he absolutely demolishes everyone else in his nomination class, how he scores high on every single task.

and when charles completes the final task and cradles his beloved bouvier that he affectionately named charlotte as she licks the tears from his face, he is looking right at sebastian to find sebastian looking right back at him, something more than the usual pride and mirth he usually finds in his eyes.

he sees a little bit of love and a little bit of need.

[coinofsilver]

CHARACTER INFO SHEET .

name . harvey dent

name meaning . the name harvey means battle worthy or strong in battle ; a strong and determined person who is not afraid to stand up for what they believe in .

alias/es . harv, golden boy, pretty boy, gotham's white knight, gotham's hope, mr. crazy-eyes, two-face dent, [...]

ethnicity . caucasian .

one picture / icon you like the best of your character .

[img. 1] - harvey dent , happily holding a dolphin shaped balloon .

three headcanons you never told anyone .

> harvey dent is extremely critical of the city he grew up in but if any outsiders decide to share some criticism of their own , the DA can get quite defensive . despite everything , harv is very proud of where he's from and has a contagious hope in what gotham can become in the future ; that won't ever stop him from pointing a spotlight at the darkest shadiest corners of the city . he'll be damned if he'll let any of those big shot metropolis snobs speak ill of his home though . > he wears reading glasses . but because dent is a bit vain ( and already very self-aware when it comes to his mismatched eyes ) he'll avoid wearing them in certain social contexts , preferring instead to squint and struggle . only those who stick around long enough for harvey to build some mundane familiarity with ( and also who are invited to stay the night over enough times ) get to see harvey dent in the morning , wearing glasses while hunching over a newspaper and having a hot cup of coffee . > despite his fairness and sense of justice , harvey dent's break-ups were never peaceful affairs . rarely mutual , harvey has a hard time verbalising why so many of his relationships fail . the common denominator is harvey himself and , though it is not clear to him , he does not feel comfortable sharing himself completely with others . and , after a certain period of time , he becomes uncomfortable with the perspective of commitment . harvey dent usually is the one who takes the initiative of ending relationships , not because he does not wish to get hurt but because he's afraid that , if those he loves truly get to know him , they might get hurt .

three things your character likes doing in their free time .

> watching sports ; dent will shout at the tv and jump off his chair if he's passionate about the game , doesn't really matter if he has an audience or not . he genuinely enjoys all forms of competitive sport and doesn't really hold any loyalty to any of them specifically but rather has small spurts of intense interest which shifts every few months . he has currently become hyper-fixated in rugby . > going for a run ; harvey usually goes for a one hour jog every morning . it keeps him fit , it keeps him sharp but it also helps him avoid overthinking ( another hobby he practices religiously ) . a lot of times , dent might feel the need to go for an extra hour . a more observant person might deduce that he's literally running from his problems . > reading pulpy crime novels ; dent doesn't own that many fiction books but , the ones he does , are rarely a good read . harvey sees it as a guilty pleasure ( since he doesn't really talk about these books with anyone , like , ever ) but you'll find small soft back books , worn-out and yellow-paged , often with brightly illustrated covers hidden in the depths of his nightstand's drawer . there's something nostalgic about these reads .

people your character likes / loves.

> bruce wayne ; despite dent's tendency to dislike the rich and powerful , he genuinely enjoys wayne's company and believes the guy has hidden depths . he's still not quite sure why bruce is hiding his more serious and righteous side from the public since that is probably dent's favourite thing about the guy --- but he can empathise with the need of having a public and a private persona . actually he empathises with a lot of what gotham's prince has gone through ... it's kind of unexpected how much he has come to value the boy billionaire's friendship but this is one of the few people harv feels he can truly trust . > his mother ; the lady has passed a few years ago but harvey says he owes all of his good qualities to ms. dent . despite all the trauma both of them inherited from the horrible years spent living with his biological father , harvey feels as if his mom always carried herself with a lot of dignity . and , had it not been for her and he wouldn't have the strong sense of justice which has led him down this path . although harvey is perceived a man's man , he has a deep sensibility and empathy for those around him , both of which are gifts left by his late mother .

two things your character regrets.

> not killing his father not standing up to his father ; plenty of episodes of his childhood are plagued with regret . he stood by and witnessed a lot of fights and ugliness between his parents . though he was a child and though he has spoken about it during therapy , harvey is tortured by the thought that he didn't do more to protect his mother ( and himself ) . he eventually did become more confrontational --- earning himself twelve stitches across his skull and a permanently dilated pupil --- and both him and his mother left that situation ... but there's definitively regret there . > harvey once became engaged but got cold-feet a month before the wedding . vicki vale was a renowned journalist in gotham and he broke the whole thing off the only way he knew how : horribly . harvey regrets a lot of things he said during that phase of his life going to the extent of suggesting his better half had only gotten into a relationship with him in order to write an extensive biography on harvey . after they broke up they never spoke again...and vicki never wrote anything about harvey .

one phobia your character has.

> atychiphobia ; harvey has a deeply rooted fear of failure which even he might not be completely aware of . much of his anxiety and mood swings derive from his desperate desire to " save the city " . dent isn't kind to himself when it comes to delegating or taking breaks ... that allied with the corrupt environment he operates in which doesn't exactly help in relaxing generates a lot of emotional and psychological turmoil . harvey's biggest fear is of letting gotham down . of letting everyone down . his job is stretching him thin and , eventually , something must snap .

tagged by @flmed ( thank you friend this was pretty fun fhnjm ) tagging @dehrdevil , @loneheir , @toxisley , @ecopoison , @amygone , @absensia , @arcticrime , @4ger , god i feel like i'm missing a billion people but if you're reading this , please , do it

[pluckyredhead]

Character Profile: Jennifer-Lynn Hayden and Todd Rice (Jade and Obsidian)

It’s time for another character profile, just in time for HankTodd Weekend! This time it’s a twofer, because Jennie-Lynn and Todd are twins, and doing two separate profiles for them would get really repetitive. Which means this is gonna be a long one. Sorry...or you’re welcome?

CONTENT WARNING: Child abuse, sexual assault, ableism, self-harm, and suicide.

Like Todd’s bestie Al Rothstein, Jen and Todd first appeared as members of Infinity, Inc., a team made up of the children and proteges of the original Justice Society of America. Specifically, they barge into a JSA meeting and announce themselves to be the children of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern. His reaction will never stop being hilarious to me:

“I seem to dimly remember having sex once...but I can’t quite...”

In fact, none of the three are sure exactly how this happened. Neither Jen nor Todd knew they were adopted or had superpowers until recently. Jen had an idyllic childhood in a middle class suburban home until one day the weird green birthmark on her palm started to glow:

Then she abruptly turned green, at which point her parents confessed that she was adopted - and oh yeah, she’d had a twin brother in the orphanage, but they couldn’t afford to adopt two babies, so...sorry, Todd.

[Side note: it was later retconned in that Jen actually lived in an orphanage until middle school-ish and her powers manifested when she was molested by the janitor, but we’re going to ignore that because it makes absolutely no sense with the rest of her backstory and was just added to be gratuitously edgy.]

Todd, meanwhile, had a significantly less idyllic childhood, growing up in a working class family with an abusive alcoholic for a father. Eventually his mother walked out on them, taking Todd’s younger brother and leaving Todd behind in an act of truly phenomenal cruelty. Todd became the only available target for his father’s anger, but lucky for him, his powers manifested just in time:

Yeah, his dad kind of left him alone after that.

Jen and Todd are opposites in pretty much every way: she is bubbly and extroverted, and everyone she meets likes her immediately, while Todd is painfully introverted, pessimistic, and paranoid, with a tendency to lash out defensively at the slightest provocation. They adore each other instantly despite this. (There is a LOT to say about the frankly classist and ableist assumptions being made about what kind of upbringings lead to what kind of personalities, and even some good old-fashioned anti-Catholicism - Jennie’s idyllic family is Protestant, Todd’s abusive alcoholic father is Catholic - but we don’t have time to unpack all that dot gif.)

Their powers are also opposites: Jen is essentially a Green Lantern without a ring, and if you’re keeping track, YES, that DOES make her one of the most powerful characters in the entire DCU, and NO, DC has never noticed, because she’s a girl! It’s fucking infuriating!

Todd’s powers are a bit more complicated: he can turn into a shadow form, above, which can change shape, pass through walls, and fly. He’s connected to a realm called the Shadowlands (more on that later). He can also sense evil and force a person to see the evil side of their soul, which fucks them (and Todd) up severely and can even drive them insane.

Jennie and Todd also have a low-level psychic connection, which they use to find each other upon discovering that they adopted. Due to Jennie’s powers, they assume (correctly) that their father is Alan Scott. But who is their mother?

Well. Oof.

Their mother is a woman named Rose Canton, who has an evil personality that she can’t control called the Thorn. Rose fell in love with Alan and married him under a third alias, but when Thorn emerged and tried to kill him, Rose realized he would never be safe while married to her, and fled into the night. When she discovered she was pregnant, she ultimately gave the twins up for adoption.

She finally reconnects with them after they’ve joined Infinity, Inc. Thorn emerges and tries to murder Alan, Jen, and Todd:

(Yes, Todd’s costume is in fact HILARIOUSLY SKIMPY when he is powered down.)

Rose manages to kill herself in order to protect her loved ones from Thorn. It’s extremely upsetting.

But for Jennie, there are compensations: early in the II run, she starts dating her teammate Hank, aka Brainwave, Jr., the psychic son of a supervillain. They’re very cute. Todd, um. Doesn’t handle it well:

HI, THAT’S WEIRD. YOU’RE ALL BEING WEIRD. PLEASE STOP BEING SO WEIRD ABOUT THIS.

I TOLD YOU TO STOP BEING WEIRD!!!

Okay yeah, that’s not Jen, that’s Todd’s girlfriend Marcie, who is secretly a supervillain who can cast illusions. But like...why did she think this was the move? The vibes in Infinity, Inc. headquarters must have been so yikesy.

Anyway, Marcie eventually manages to cause the death of the team’s leader, Skyman, and Infinity, Inc. disbands. It’s all extremely sad.

Jennie and Todd disappear for a few years outside of the occasional cameo, but then Todd and his II teammate Al join the Justice League! I’ve written about this relationship in depth before, but basically: this is where Todd started to be written as very clearly queer, even if it’s not stated in so many words. (Though looking at letter columns from the 80s shows that fans had been asking for this for years.) He is actively, visibly, canonically pining over Al, but when Al asks him about it outright, he reacts angrily and defensively:

(No, Al doesn’t need him to put a label on it. They hug it out. It’s nice.)

This is also when Todd starts struggling with his mental health, although it’s couched in extremely over-the-top, comic book-y ways:

Al, I recognize that you are an optimist, but that isn’t depression. Bless your big dumb heart.

This all comes to a head when Al finds Todd attempting suicide, although luckily (?) Todd is so disconnected from reality at this point that he’s attempting to stab his shadow form to death, which...isn’t possible. Al insists that Todd see a therapist, but Todd freaks out when the therapist turns out to be female and refuses. Luckily (again, ?), Todd’s extreme decline in mental health turns out to be largely due to a crossover even in which the legions of Hell have been unleashed on Earth and the presence of so much evil is basically doing literal psychic damage to him thanks to his powers. Once the demons are vanquished, he goes back to his usual pessimistic but manageable equilibrium, at least for a few years.

During this era, Jen was appearing in a book called Blood Pack where she was training a team of superheroes called Blood Pack who were starring on a reality show called Blood Pack. It was exactly as awful as that description sounds.

Anyway, both books ended, leaving the twins without a publishing home, though Jen quickly became a supporting player in Kyle Rayner’s Green Lantern book. Basically, she gives up on acting and decides to become a photographer instead, inexplicably, and also decides to move to New York, so Alan suggests she move in with Kyle. Because the Scott family is all lightly unhinged, neither of them says anything to Kyle about it, which means he arrives home to find a strange green woman in his shower:

Kyle, being an enormous pushover, lets her stay. Even though Todd shows up a few minutes later and attacks Kyle for “taking advantage” of his sister. Again, the Scott family? Not normal.

Further proof of this comes a little bit later, in the godawful Green Lantern/Sentinel: Heart of Darkness miniseries, when Jennie abruptly vanishes. Kyle tells Alan, who attacks Kyle about it (SCOTTS, WHY) before taking him to the...private asylum where he’s been incarcerating and basically torturing Jennie’s ex-boyfriend Hank??? I mean, Hank has become a villain since the Infinity, Inc. days, but it’s still a grotesque human rights violation which we’ll get into in the Hank profile, but which Kyle takes in stride for some bonkers reason.

Alan suspects Hank has abducted Jen, but Kyle’s like “No no, he’s obviously very busy being tortured, let’s go.” At which point Todd shows up to murder Hank, like you do.

“Medical torture is fine, but killing? I’m mildly disappointed in you, Todd!”

Todd’s erratic behavior turns out to stem from the same thing as Jennie’s abduction: the Starheart, which is basically a powerful sentient meteorite that’s the source of Alan’s powers, and thus, indirectly, Jennie and Todd’s. Todd, Alan, and Kyle are transported to what’s basically a Starheart dimension, where the Starheart, speaking through a possessed Todd, is like “These twins are my kids and I want them, fuck you Alan”:

The Starheart drains Alan of power, which leaves him suddenly dying of old age (even though running the numbers on this makes him about 80 here, which is elderly but not “you immediately DIE” old). In order to save her father and brother, Jennie accepts the Starheart’s offer of power - but then pumps that power into Alan, saving him and breaking its control over all of them. This also leaves her without any superpowers, because women should always have to sacrifice their power to save the men in their lives! Also she and Kyle are going to start dating soon, and he obviously couldn’t date a woman who was his equal. BARF. This miniseries is sexist and ableist and makes every character in it unbearable - Alan is medically abusing Hank, and none of the others care??? Throw the whole comic away.

Anyway. Kyle and Jen start dating. They’re cute!

Cute!

They date for a brief time, then break up, then get back together for a much longer time (a good three or four years). He gives her a spare Green Lantern ring for a few issues, then it disappears, then he tries proposing with a second GL ring like four seconds after they get back together, and she’s like “You’re so sweet. No. Gimme the ring, though.” Both times she has a ring, Kyle proceeds to extremely condescendingly train her on how to use it, as if she hadn’t had those exact powers for a decade before he debuted. ARGH.

Meanwhile, things were...less rosy for Todd. In that he was lured to the dark side (literally) by the Golden Age villain Ian Karkull and covered Milwaukee in darkness. You know, like you do.

Todd is specifically gunning for both his adoptive father, Jim Rice, and Alan, blaming them both for his troubles. He eventually winds up killing both Karkull and Jim Rice before vanishing into the Shadowlands, much to Alan’s dismay.

This storyline is also the first time Todd is given a specific, real world diagnosis: Alan says that Todd “inherited his mother’s schizophrenia.” I am absolutely not qualified to judge whether or not someone, even a fictional character, is displaying symptoms of schizophrenia, but from the (admittedly minor) research I’ve done, they include paranoia, delusions, irritability, and depression, all of which Todd has demonstrated almost since his debut. The symptoms would also have manifested right on track with the typical timeline for men, in Todd’s early to mid 20s. However, I suspect that’s just a lucky coincidence, and Geoff Johns chose schizophrenia because it was a “scary dangerous” mental illness and because of Rose’s multiple personas. Sigh.

A little while later, Todd teams up with more supervillains (Eclipso, Mordru, it’s a whole thing) and tries to destroy the world. This time Alan manages to talk him down:

(Please note Alan describing Jay and Joan’s inability to have children as “failing.” ALAN IS A TERRIBLE FRIEND.)

Anyway, Todd swoons into Alan’s arms at this mediocre profession of fatherly love, and the threat is over. And luckily, none of it was Todd’s fault at all, apparently!

“He was possessed so it’s fine I guess” - how Geoff Johns has resolved every heel turn he’s ever written. It’s still better than “his mental illness made him evil.”

Over in Green Lantern, Kyle briefly became the godlike entity Ion, which enabled him to reignite Jennie’s natural powers:

She’s Jade again! Hooray!

Shortly after this (and after Kyle gives up the Ion powers), Kyle’s teenage assistant Terry is beaten severely by gay bashers. Kyle is so deeply upset by this that he decides to leave the planet for a while until he hates humans less, and Jen agrees to go with him.

However, after a few months in space, Jen gets homesick and decides she wants to go home. Kyle stays in space, and is basically completely incommunicado, and Jen, desperately lonely, eventually starts dating another guy. Kyle’s...not thrilled when he gets back, to say the least:

This is complete character assassination meant to make us feel bad for poor betrayed Kyle, but like...he abandoned Jen for months. Even if she’d wanted to break up with him before dating this other dude, how could she? She had no means of contacting him! I’m not saying this is Jen at her best, but I am saying that it’s sexist writing and I hate it.

Anyway, they break up, obviously, but that doesn’t mean Jen is without a book, because she promptly joins the Outsiders! She doesn’t get to do a lot, plotwise, but she does eventually kick Nightwing out of the leadership position and take over for reasons of he’s being a dick:

Fuck yeah! (Roy continues to be the actual leader because he’s Judd Winick’s favorite, but it’s a nice thought.)

Meanwhile, Todd shows up in the supporting cast of Manhunter, dating a Los Angeles ADA named Damon Matthews:

Todd suddenly coming out in this very sweet, low-key way was a very big deal - queer characters were still extremely rare in the 2000s, and fans had been asking for this for 20 years. And look how happy he is!!! Yay Todd!!!

Of course, said happiness literally only lasted for a single issue, because the very next month, Jen was killed in the Rann-Thanagar War Infinite Crisis Special, of all things. You could not pay me to care about the plot of this but basically she goes to space and is zapped to death by giant hands made out of energy. IT’S DUMB, and this is even dumber:

The power was Kyle’s all along! Girls don’t get to have power, even if they’re born with it! They get to die tragically in their ex-boyfriend’s arms and then be cradled by their sad dad while the power that wasn’t really theirs is used to turn Kyle back into fucking Ion again! I hate everything about this, I hate it so so much.

Todd, of course, is very sad. Then he turns into an egg. Really:

That’s Alan holding him. The JSA doesn’t know it’s Todd, they’re just like “What’s up with this egg?” It turns out to be part of a convoluted supervillain plot to use Egg Todd to power a doomsday device and the whole storyline is idiotic, but this aspect is very funny to me so I’m sharing it with you. Todd later refers to it as “the crucible of my egg time.” It’s incredible

Anyway, Jennie came back about four years later at the end of Blackest Night, when a bunch of random dead heroes are resurrected for...reasons. She idles around in space for a bit before inexplicably crashing to Earth encased in part of the Starheart. This causes the Starheart to take control of Alan and turn him evil, and also merge Jennie and Todd into one being:

The JSA and JLA team up to defeat the Starheart and Jennie and Todd are...de-merged...but they can’t be in close proximity to each other or they will merge again, which Todd is extremely histrionic about. I don’t know how DC managed to bring back the weird incestuous vibes with these two when Todd doesn’t even like girls, but they did! Also, this had something to do with Swamp Thing somehow? Sure.

Anyway, Jennie winds up joining the JLA after all of this, while Todd stays with the JSA/Alan’s new alien kingdom he built on the moon (don’t ask), but it’s all moot because shortly afterwards, the New 52 came along, and Jennie and Todd were wiped out of existence.

See, the New 52 JSA was young and sexy (and garbage), which meant Alan was too young to have adult children. So presumably to make up for erasing a gay character, DC made Alan gay instead! And then LITERALLY IMMEDIATELY killed his fiancé! Truly a shit sandwich all around.

(There is a version of Obsidian in the New 52, who shows up only briefly. We never learn his real name, so we don’t know if he’s still called Todd Rice, or if he has any connection to Alan. He’s now Black (and a professional criminal, because no one at DC in the early 2010s thought about the problematic implications of anything for even two seconds before they wrote it down)...at least in his first appearance, because he is miscolored as white in every subsequent appearance. And he’s definitely supposed to be Black, because someone is racist to him in that first issue, so...yeah. The New 52 has so much to answer for.)

The version of the JSA people actually like was restored at the beginning of last year, which means that Jennie, Todd, and the crusty old version of Alan returned pretty much exactly as we left them a decade before, with Todd still dating Damon and everything. DC was smart enough to keep Alan gay, and we got a lovely scene of him coming out to his kids (well, officially - he’s clearly already discussed it with Todd before this):

Awwww I love them.

And that’s pretty much it! The whole family appears in Infinite Frontier, but nothing that happened there was super significant for them, and they recently showed up with the rest of the JSA as part of Dark Crisis. Hopefully DC will continue to use them, but it’s hard to say when they have SO many characters to choose from. For example, Alan and Todd had a very sweet story in the 2021 Pride anthology, but didn’t even appear in 2022′s because there are so many newer and/or more prominent queer characters to feature instead. Which is a good thing, mostly, but...I want to see this messed up family more!

Anyway, that's Jennie and Todd! Stay tuned for a Hank profile very shortly, and some HankTodd fic from me this weekend!

[spirit-x-ing]

— character info sheet.

(repost, don’t reblog)

name: Lorelai ??? ( May/Vivian) Lee

name meaning:  LORELAI - Alluring Enchantress/Siren LEE: Clearing in the Woods / Meadow

alias/es:  n/a, - warden, wardeness

one picture you like best of your chara:

three h/cs you never told anyone: -- ADVANCE LORE/STUFFS

Her soul and other Wardens were a result of Angelic War where the Fallen Celestrials fought with those who served above. Many of the Angels that fell for good, their energy ~ souls: shattered. Death who could not bear witness to see these fragmented souls of their brethren reaped them up and put them in the cycle of life along with other mortals over and over until they were practically new complete entities, almost as strong as their original Angelic forms. ( Similar to tumbled gems ). So technically Lorelai's soul had been reincarnated numerous times until Death thought she was strong enough to elevate. ( She doesn't know any of this. )

I originally created Lorelai and her story to be published for Vertigo.

Lorelai's creation was based on various characters and people I was fond of throughout my life. <3

three things your character likes doing in their free time: 

Stealing. She's extremely good thief. Though, usually does not steal really expensive things or from people who need the items.

Scaring people, every once in a while. Sometimes she gets bored and uses her abilities for not-so-good causes.

She likes to dance a lot. So if there's a club, party, or someplace full of life and dancing she'll haunt there. She likes to even dance by herself when no one is around.

eight people your character likes / loves:

Her Exes

Her Mentors and Friends.

She's a fan of other superheroes even though she'll never openly admit it. RP WISE

@magaprima She really admires Lilith and sees her as a friend and confidant. She respects her above all stronger entities and gods she deals with occasionally.

@arkhampsych Lorelai has a love/hate relationship with Doctor Jonathan Crane. But has grown close enough that she's willing to protect him from harm regardless of the consequences (even though she shouldn't. :P)

@myersbprd She really cares deeply for Mr. BPRD ~ John Myers even though she's not sure he'll ever accept her completely for who she is, including her various flaws. A part of her truly thinks she's not "good" enough for someone as virtuous as him.

@veleluuu Lorelai thinks that the Dullahan has much wisdom and common sense. Deep down she believes when it comes to certain choices Borna will make the right choice. She also appreciates that she can come visit her house from time to time without being kicked out. :P

@talesfromahs For Stan, she truly wishes she can save Stan regardless of his tragic fate. She sees it as one of the souls and painful lessons in life that will cling to her through her Wardenhood.

two things your character regrets:

Being so afraid of love and relationships, not knowing how rare a true connection and love really is. She feels like she's let her fear of loss, pain, and immortality has led her to cut off those she shouldn't have. She regrets not accepting happiness even if it was for a short time.

Not searching for her current family sooner.

two phobia your character has:

Putting some much effort into something, someone, or saving someone for not. She's afraid of failure to some extent.

L 0 V E & R O M A N C E ~ if you haven't figured by her interactions she can come off flirty but if someone actually reciprocates she tends to mess up or playfully side-step from it.

TAGGED: @arxchnoverture ( Thank You! ) TAGGING: JUST STEAL!

[fincalinde]

For divergences, I'd love to hear your thoughts on scenarios where JGY gets away (and maybe comes back?)

Oh sure! This is something I've thought about a lot actually.

Part I: Run, Baby, Run

By all appearances JGY was intending to flee with SMS, a good chunk of his own loyal disciples, and the body of his mother. He was not planning to escape with his little bindle on a little rowboat and go solo. So we do need to consider two basic scenarios: a JGY who escapes with all the trappings (less MS), and a JGY who has to flee alone because his escape plan has gone that badly.

Let's say JGY's escape plan goes off more or less without a hitch in that he has a good cohort of disciples and some material means at his disposal. In theory it would not be particularly difficult for him to establish himself in Dongying even if he would have to be very careful in terms of what rumours might cross the sea about him and how he can play that. It's possible he'd use an alias, but he's got quite a lot of distinguishing characteristics (nationality, physical appearance) so I think it would be easier for him to sell a story of persecution.

His problem is that whatever the plan (and remember he's had to put this together within the space of a few days, though he has probably always had an escape hatch in mind), his last minute Burial Mounds scheme failed and the other clans are not decimated and too busy with their own problems to pursue him. They are intact and they are righteously outraged. Whether JGY has his disciples and his resources as planned, or whether he only has Hensheng and the clothes on his back, he has to keep running because the other clans are going to hunt him to the ends of the earth.

And yes, I do think LXC is going to be leading that hunt. He wants the full story and he wants to make sure justice is done if he was indeed wrong about JGY's character. Plus, of course, his very personal stakes in wanting to see JGY again. So I see this as a sort of race to catch JGY, with one of two outcomes: LXC gets there first, or JGY realises LXC is not going to get there first so he throws himself on LXC's mercy as a gambit.

Either way, Xiyao get their chance to really hash it out and LXC will get all of his answers and if not infinite time then more time to consider the full story (which, given the amount of information he has likely received at the temple, he has also had time to think about while on the hunt). LXC ends up in an impossible position but I don't see him turning JGY in. I can see LXC doing that and following through with the consequences (i.e. execution) immediately post-temple when he's still shell-shocked and there are others around to take over and limit his power to influence the outcome, but when the decision truly rests in his hands I do not believe he would kill JGY. Remember it took a lie from NHS in the immediate aftermath of the revelations to get him to do it in canon.

I think Xiyao would fake LXC killing JGY and part ways—LXC to go home and JGY to parts unknown. And I think they would both say all the right things about this being their final meeting. But I don't think either of them would believe that, and neither do I.

Part II: I'm Back, Baby

Of course JGY will come back. He wants to live so he had to run away, just as at other times he's had to flee or submit in order to survive, but it's always in the moment and he always keeps his eyes on the prize. So his comeback, to me, depends strongly on the state of the jianghu, which he absolutely will be monitoring from afar. And I'm sure he will also be planning various ways he can discredit the revelations about him and find another target. Like, oh, say, NHS?

It might take a long time, but in canon we get a good look at the state of affairs after JGY's death, and with JGY living in exile there wouldn't be a huge difference. The Nie are on the rise, the Jiang are trying to hold the Jin together, and the Lan are destabilised. Once the big hunt for JGY is over things will certainly settle down into the new, worse status quo under the auspices of NHS.

If JGY is out there alive somewhere, NHS has a very big problem. If JGY is alive out there and NHS thinks he is dead, NHS has an even bigger problem in that NHS himself is going to be dead within the near future at the hand of the assassins JGY sends after him. While I'm sure JGY would in theory enjoy taking NHS out personally, his pattern generally is to use third parties when it is safer and more effective. Maybe NHS suspects or believes JGY is still out there, but the only reason he was able to outplay JGY in canon is because JGY didn't even know there was a game going on. A JGY alert to NHS' true nature and intentions is a JGY who is going to outclass him.

So the way I see it, sooner or later NHS is gone and sooner or later the jianghu is in some kind of crisis that the mostly-weakened great clans cannot overcome and/or stabilise off their own backs. JGY's peaceful and prosperous reign is going to start looking better in hindsight. Maybe all that stuff they heard about him wasn't true? Yeah he married his sister but it sounds like it was an accident, and there were certainly fewer monsters and corpses wandering the countryside. Over time it is absolutely possible to shift the narrative—look what happens to WWX! He is still widely feared but he no longer has the entire population out for his blood. JGY is far more adept at playing the game than WWX and is more than capable of engineering a comeback once the stars align.

I like to imagine JGY showing up to rescue a jianghu in crisis, perhaps with cultivators at his back to win some crucial battle or take out some existential threat. He has his foot in the door and he can go from there. The SLYs of the world have no shame about retconning their own opinions, so he'll be fine there. I just like thinking about the moment when he and LXC lay eyes on each other again.