#also the wanting to escape hunting their whole life but never being able to etc etc

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

mary and sam have so so much they could bond over why did we not see that in the show. both of them are killed traumatically and brought back from the dead due to supernatural forces outside of their control. and, specifically because dean needed or wanted them badly enough to bring them back. and both of them have the fear, the whole time, of what if i was brought back wrong.

[araminakilla]

Regarding Death Wolf...

Hear me out (NO, it's not the kind you are thinking)

We know Death has a job, right? To collect souls and most likely release them to the afterlife.

And for this job, he has to be there when somebody is about to die, as demostrated with him being there moments before Puss' eight death.

Supposing he is THE Death and he has been doing this since the beginning of time (or at least when there were enough stories of the Grim Reaper to adquire a physical form) that means he has seen a lot, A LOT of awful things.

Murders, suicides, massacres, death of infants, people who didn't deserve to die alone, animal cruelty, some other heavy stuff I won't mention here, etc etc etc.

And we thought "man, how is he able to cope with all of that? That job has to be utter torture for someone."

Probably many of you could think that he is able to do that because he is Death, and he was "born" with that purpose and only him can reap souls perfectly.

But while he is a force of nature, he also WAS a force of nature. Let me explain it well: He adquired a personality enough to be angry, excited, frustrated, amazed, happy, among other emotions.

While he has supernatural power and is most likely the most powerful being in the Shrek Franchise (or in Dreamworks as many say) he is also a PERSON.

Someone with a code of honor, morals, opinions, beliefs, etc.

Returning to the question "How can he bear all of that?" taking into account he is no longer an inevitable force, but a character of his own.

The answer is something you may relate to, and that is: Creativity and escapism.

To be the embodiment of Death, the guy is a very creative fella.

First of all, his design. I heard many people saying here and in Twitter that his design is something they would come up in their edgy, teen years of drawing their first fursona.

Guess what? They are right, the wolf form is someone's fursona. It's DEATH'S fursona. He clearly came up with this badass, piercing canine form to blend with the Fairy Tale Land assuming the form of the "Big Bad Wolf". He most likely had other forms he designed over the centuries and was able to present as them like if he were on a role play game in the living world.

His sickles? The weapon of choice with the little crossed cats on it to have a bigger effect of terror for Puss? Those who can become knuckles and join to create a scythe? Those are his creation, probably after thinking it for a while and writing all of those functions on a paper.

The way he presents himself? In the bar? The coins in his eyes as a "watching you" sign while being a cool reference to the Ferryman of souls? He transforming Perrito's forest into the background of a skull? The chilling reveal at the Cave of Lost Souls? The fire ring? It was all him.

As for the escapism part...

When the world becomes too heavy to deal with as real life issues tend to make us feel bad, depressed, angry... we tend to escape it somewhere. And in our time the common place would be the internet as in webpages or comics, stories, etc.

But what has to do with Death Wolf you may ask?

Well, while he would NEVER be able to escape his job entirely, he can have moments where he can enjoy a good hunt of people who don't appreciate life, like the whole plot of the Puss in Boots sequel could demostrate.

He managed to have a little time outside his eternal routine to chase an arrogant cat who took life for granted. He enjoyed it, it was thrilling, it was exciting.

It was a way to escape a monotonous, grim "life", if just for a short moment.

So, when the chase ended as his prey no longer feared him and now was ready to fight for his last life, the wolf retreats, happy for Puss' character development but resigned because he once again had to return to "The Eternal Duty"

And that's not even counting all the times Jack "I'm dead inside" Horner had to interrupt Lobo's hunt and remind him of his job even in his "spare time"

Death knew the chase had to end eventually, but he didn't want it to end.

He didn't want to return to his own world

And if we look at Death like that, then he is probably one of the most relatable characters Dreamworks has ever make.

In the Shrek Franchise:

Monsters can be loved

Princesses don't have to fit the perfect standards of beauty

Handsome guys can be possesive jerks

Love at first sight doesn't work like one would think

Happily ever afters had to be built and not just obtain them with magic

And Death is the most creative and "full of life" being in the world

Because he would absolutely go crazy with his life/work if he wasn't.

Because in a world of Kings, Poets and Soldiers, he's the Supreme King

And he's also a perky goth but none of you are ready for that conversation.

[teamhawkeye]

🍇🍍🍑🌽🍰🎂🍾 for Anna? :)

🍇: What sort of friend are they? Where are they in the group dynamic?

- Anna is a very caring and loyal friend. She likes to joke around and have a good time, but she’s also very reliable and will do her best to care for others and make sure they don’t get in too much trouble. The flip side is she’s fairly closed off, so the trick is getting her to open up enough to form that kind of bond, haha. She was closest to Pratt and Hudson pre-game events so they had the easiest

🍍: Where does your OC feel most comfortable?

- Out in nature. Whether it’s in a stream fishing or hiking on a trail, doesn’t matter, she likes being out in the open and being able to hear and see everything around her, far from the noise of the city or town.

🍑: What sort of traits does your OC look for in a Significant Other?

- Loyalty. Kindness. Affectionate to some degree. Sense of humor. Playfulness.

🌽: How does this OC feel about acts of affection? What’s their favourite act of affection, physical or emotional?

- Anna craves all forms of affection, but being walled off and paranoid, she’s not the easiest to get to accept it, haha. She’s more partial to physical acts of affection, since she’s not always the best at talking about her feelings or having other people say such heartfelt things to her.

🍰: What’s something your OC counts as unforgivable?

- Cruelty. Perhaps not all past cruelty, since she’s not innocent of that, but if she’s looking to form a partnership of any kind (friendship, romantic relationship, etc.) she will not tolerate needless death or destruction, nor abuse of any kind, both within and out of her sight. She wants to believe people can change and grow - has to believe it, honestly, for her own sake - but it’s soul crushing for her to have to turn a blind eye to any kind of needless suffering caused by those around her (which is such a struggle in her verse with John, or her FC3 AU, and plays a giant part in her character arcs in both)

🎂: Has your OC have any contradictory interests or traits to the first perception people have of them? How do they surprise people?

- Anna spent a lot of foster care in the cities, not out in rural areas, so people assume at first glance she’s a city slicker who can’t hack it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She’s an incredible outdoors-man, from her childhood spent out in the mountains, streams, and valleys with her parents and she holds onto her hunting, fishing, tracking, horse riding, and camping skills her whole life, honing them even more once she’s independent and living on her own.

🍾: Does your OC believe in luck? If so, do they have any charm or ritual they do before a stressful event?

- To a degree. She’s never going to fully rely on it, but she bets on it when the stakes are high and danger is very real. Her go-to stress ritual is taking hold of her father’s sheriff badge, which she keeps at all times on her person in a pocket, so she’d most likely whisper a little prayer while holding the brass and then diving headfirst into whatever shitshow she’s found herself in and needs to escape alive

[bcofl0ve]

LONG ANON ABOUT BIKERIDERS: Complete side note here, but a few days ago I sent an anon about Bikeriders. This is just something that's been bugging me for awhile, but I think Benny will most likely be murdered.

When living a life like his, escaping is very very low, it's scarily low how many people have escaped that life. The movie seems to be based around Benny wanting to leave the gang because he never wanted to be apart of said gang, just a club, said club turned into a gang, and he wants out, but he wants to keep riding, and to continue riding he must stay in this gang, so basically- to escape he needs a miracle. Which, is honestly spot on to how that life is. If you want to escape, you need pretty much a miracle. But, you can also take your chances or spend them.

Now you might be saying that Benny never wanted this so why did he join in the first place. The answer that is most common when it comes to such things is because he was lonely. Most people who join this line of work like Benny, do it because they were lonely. This group of people, see that you're in your most vulnerable stages, and they take you in. If not that, he definitely joined or got influenced. I can't say he joined at a young age, but most people who join this line of work do join at a young age. The youngest I've seen someone join is nine years old. So that's probably the reason as to why he joined, either lonely or influenced.

I won't say much about what I did during my time. But COVID low key helped me escape that life, it was an awful time but because of quarantine and etc. I was able to slip away. Can I say Benny will be able to slip by? No. I find it very unlikely. For me, neutrality was able to help. As involved as I was, I was still able to slip by because in the end I never took sides, not only that but I knew people who would help me slip. However, Benny HAS chosen a side, so neutrality helping him isn't an option. Not to mention his gang low key rules the whole town so him finding people to help him slip away is very low. 

In the life that Benny lives, escaping like I said is very very low. Whenever someone wants to leave that life, they will most likely be hunted down, unless they were neutral, or they're very trusted by their old gang. This being said, these options aren't popular, whenever I saw people trying to escape they always ended up dead. Only a few people I knew were able to leave, and the way they left was by enlisting. But, Benny most likely won't do that.

Not only this but I had noticed in the trailer that Kathy was actively trying to stop Benny from riding, she tells him, 'I want you to quit riding.' She even goes so far (as to what is implied in the trailer) that she meets Johnny so Benny could leave the gang and keep riding, or something like that. And I do not want to say this, but her going to Johnny is a HORRIBLE idea, and will most likely get Benny killed. You might be asking why? Well, this is because her going to Johnny and asking Johnny to grant Benny permission to leave the gang, or something like that, proves that Benny is a liability, and if he is a liability, he will get killed. The chances of him being killed isnt', "I wonder if he'll get killed." anymore, it's more or so, "when will he be killed?"

Adding onto that, now that Kathy has talked to Johnny. Johnny is now fully aware that Benny wants to leave. Meaning three things will happen to him (basing this off of what I've seen) he will either be killed, he will be tracked/jumped/tortured and killed, Johnny will approach him, say, "I need you." to him, manipulate him, use him, then kill him (which is implied)

Not to mention, Benny is in a biker gang. As someone who has seen all sorts of gangs. The biker gangs always tend to be the most disorganized, (disorganized crime) they even have civil wars, just overall chaotic. They have- no rules, and that's saying a lot. Just as an example to show how disorganized they are: I’ve once seen a dude jump another person because their motorcycle looked more expensive thank their Harley. (Ducati V4) I’ve also seen a group of these guys attack someone for not riding a real bike. If you interact with a biker gang and you, yourself are a biker, and you ride anything BUT a Harley, you are fucked. Why? Because to them, anything else but a HARLEY isn't considered a real or manly bike. That’s how disorganized they are. 

Earlier I had said that if Benny was neutral, and hadn’t picked sides the chance of escaping would be much more favorable and I will explain why. Being neutral means that you basically just get paid to do things, that’s all I can say. But since Benny does things for HIS GANG and not for THE MONEY, he is fucked. He’s pledged his loyalty to the gang not to the money. There’s no better way to say that. He’s just fucked.

Side note, but you asked if I sent an anon about Austin’s Harley earlier, and yes, I did send that anon.

Anyways, I dunno man, it's just not looking good for Benny right now. I get that this movie is based on a true story, so he probably lived. But dude, knowing the life he lives, the dude is gonna end up dead. (most likely)

friend i hope you don't think i don’t value your anons because i'm always forgetting to actually post them LOL i found this going through my inbox to queue things and was so ?!?! because i full thought i posted it. i value your insight and thoughts sooo much and am looking forward to your take on the movie just as much as i am seeing the thing! thank you for sharing what you do <3

[theghostofblackbunnymask]

Hi, can you please write a general yandere alphabet for Karl Jacobs from dream smp?

Author's Note- This has been just sitting here.

Warnings- Murder, Sadism, Panic Attacks, Mental Breakdowns, Gore, Breaching Personal Space

Yandere Karl Jacobs Alphabet

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Karl in game (And in real life) is very cuddly, so of course his way of showing love and affection would be physical touch, hugging, cuddling, kissing, pretty much any form of touch

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

He can be pretty messy, but Karl doesn't really do killing, he just prevents that person from being born

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Karl will treat you with love and care, cuddling you, checking up on you, making you food, making sure your taking care of yourself, the whole 9 yards

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Definitely going back in time and changing stuff from the past, like making sure you didn't meet one person or preventing someone's life

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Karl really wants to trust you, but Karl is smart enough to know that you'll have to earn it, since if he trusted you immediately, you can run off since he trusted you too soon

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Karl would be disappointed yet ashamed, ashamed of his himself for making you have to fight back as a defense, and with his memory it definitely doesn't help at all

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

This isn't a game to him, he would panic and look everywhere, he'll even go back in time to see when you eescaped and where you went.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Dark Karl. Karl has a side he rarely shows, and it mainly shows if he finds out you're taking advantage of him, taking advantage of his memory issues, taking advantage of his kindness. Karl could NEVER hit you, but, he will lock you in a blood room with blood covering the walls, organs pined to said walls with rusty nails, and dead bodies everywhere. You'll be left in their for days if not weeks, he won't feed you nor will he give you water, he told you if you got hungry, just eat the bodies or if you got thirsty, drink their blood.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Living together in peace, time traveling together, and maybe even adopting a kid

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Karl doesn't really get jealous, since he will most likely forget the encounter

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

He's very kind, caring and loving, yet also very touch starved and clingy. He loves hugging, cuddling and kissing you. He would even hold hands with you if you don't like hugs

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

He would invite you to picnics, time traveling trips, and sleepovers. He would want to become your friend first so you know who he is and you trust him

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Dark Karl is a completely different thing, if you've seen my college AU Karl, College AU Dark Karl isn't like DSMP Dark Karl, DSMP Dark Karl is a demon Karl got from time traveling, while College AU Dark Karl is a different personality, that was originally a coping mechanism, but it just got out of hand

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Karl doesn't like hurting you, cause when your hurt, Karl's hurt. He would punish you by locking you in a room for a few days, not getting much food, only some salty crackers and water, and some juice if you were doing well

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

He barely takes any, cause he wants you to feel comfortable and safe with him, and he doesn't want to break you

The only right he would take away from you is leaving him and personal space

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Karl is extremely patient. He could wait millions of years for you to love him, and he won't be mad about it

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

No. Karl would have mental breakdowns to the point he'd be so mentally and physically tired that he wouldn't be able to breath, leading to Dark Karl taking over, and he's going to hunt you down if you escaped

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

If you're not happy or extremely depressed he will, DSMP Karl loves you and wants you to be happy and healthy, but if you're not, he'll let you go and just watch you from a far, seeing you smile and laugh is much better than you cuddling him even though you're depressed.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Quackity leaving.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

He'd try and get you out so he'd can spend time with you. He'd good around to see you smile and tell you stories from his adventures

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Him actually taking you places.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

His kindness, this'll be very risky, but you can do it if you're smart about it

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Not on purpose.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

Extreme lengths, he'd try everything, Yandere DSMP Karl is the actual definition of a simp.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

9 months, man gets too excited

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

HE COULD NEVER.

[pickyourpoisonandevolve]

Good afternoon, I’m back on my bullshit. Here’s a DBD insert to knock off the ol’ cobwebs. I’ll probably be trying to write more nowadays, for other fandoms I’m into, just to practice writing more regularly.

——————

Down Time

Your scrambled off your hands and knees as you spotted a locker behind you. Cursing to yourself you do your best not to squeak the hinges as the heartbeat ringing in your ears got louder.

“This motherfucker gets faster and faster every time I see him,” you think to yourself as you see the Hillbilly and his crooked gait shamble by. Steadying your breath you ease out of the locker and start heading back to the generator you were working on. At least, you think so? You all have been running this whole match it seems, it’s getting hard to tell. Jane and Kate and their nerves of steel finishing a generator as Dwight and you zoom by with the Hillbilly hot on your heels.

Giving up, you found another generator, thankful for the action happening…elsewhere. For the time being. As much as you’d think having a killer hunt you down would keep you focused, you’ve been drifting in the brief moments of downtime. The thirty seconds of silence working on a generator without your fingers shaking, or the hurried footsteps of a survivor trying to do just that, survive. In your downtime however,

the look on Dwights face this trial has kept you distracted. It’s been hard trying to put a finger on what’s changed exactly. Coming into the entity’s domain after many had been established had you hitting the ground running, but you got the hang of it soon enough. And soon, you and Dwight had fallen into quite the pair, using some tricks Bill taught you two to make yourselves quite the escape artists. But Bill, as well as everyone else, spoke of Dwight as a meek, skittish guy that you didn’t seem to know. And weren’t sure existed. Well, not anymore at least. All you knew was the man with the the begrudging determination, the blood and dirt in his teeth as he pulled you off of countless hooks telling you the doors open, get out of here, his strong hands wrapping bandage after bandage over your wounds, the steady cadence of his run behind you as you….

“Oh fuck!” You exclaimed, feeling the metal slip in your hands and catching it right before it exploded. “Don’t fucking scare me like that!” You hissed, wanting to hit him, if you weren’t so close to finishing this generator. Dwight gave you a small smile as he settled in on the other side of you to help. “Usually you hear me way before you see me, you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, just a little distracted is all.” You say with a small chuckle. You both proceed to fall into the easy silence you usually do as you work together. A comfortable but nervous space, especially right now as you’re praying he doesn’t have the ability to read minds. But it did kind of work like osmosis, being able to know which direction to head towards without communicating, healing each other without asking, etc. Although you do catch a glance from him, as if he’s searching your face for something as the air horn lets you all know it’s time to leave. You both stand and look towards the distance. “Doors this way, I think he’s still chasing Kate, you ready?” He asked, putting a hand on your shoulder as he nodded in the direction. You nodded, fingers grazing his before both of you started off in a jog towards the doors. The usual adrenaline fills you as you all start your exit maneuvers, but also something else. Jane gets downed, you distract as Dwight and Kate try to get her up, no time, body block a hit for the last of her healing, a collective sprint towards the gate. Even in the throes of fighting for your collective lives you can’t help but notice the veins in his forearms as he pulls his fellow teammates along. His almost, aggressiveness as he shouts, curses at the killer, encouragement for the survivors. You take a hammer to the back as you fall into the ether of the gate, a hand grabbing you to ensure you make it out right as darkness consumes you.

You awake some time later at the fire, hard to tell nowadays, unharmed physically but still exhausted from the trial. Stirring as you hear his voice from across the fire, “Good morning, Sunshine.” You smile as you rub your eyes and focus on him. You’re a little surprised to see that you’re the only ones around the fire. “Jane and Kate are in a trial, everyone else is asleep or with Claudette looking for, uh, whatever herbs she’s looking for lately.”

“Sure.” You reply, searching to see if Bill left any of his smokes around. Nicotine buzzes didn’t exist within the Entity, but the thought was usually enough. After a few minutes however, you felt a hand at yours, and looked at him. That same searching look, this time followed with, “You should answer my question, for real sometime.” Taking a seat next to him, you forced yourself to look back, split between wanting to comfort him and wanting to hide in the nearest shack.

“We usually have a better. Rapport I guess. During the trials. N-not that you’ve been doing bad!” He says, shaking his hands in defense. “I just worry about you sometimes. And I … wanted to ask. Figured it’d be better than waiting.”

You exhale the breath you didn’t know you were holding, and some of the stress you were holding as well. “I’m fine Dwight. Really. I’ve just been, daydreaming a little bit, lately.” You retract your hand from his and twiddle your fingers to dissipate some of the tension. “I just … it’s dumb. I know there’s not a lot to hope for here but it’s nice to, kind of wonder what other stuff would be like, with people, you know? And it passes the time and I, it’s not worth mentioning so I’m not …”

As you stumble over your non-answer, Dwight was taken aback by your indecision and nervousness. It was almost funny, if he hadn’t thought about if this is what people heard when they asked him questions. But he never felt more certain in a decision than in this moment, it wasn’t a bet he was willing to lose to himself. He wouldn’t let you, his one bit of solace in this place, slip through his fingers. Your breath caught in your throat as you felt his hand cup your jaw, ever so gently, and kiss you. First gently, tentatively. Then with more certainty. You put a hand on his chest as he cradled your face with both hands, like he hadn’t felt anything so real, so tangible in his life.

You broke as you heard the rustling in the trees of the group returning, out of breath and warm in the face. When’s the last time you were this hot? Everything’s been so cold? Chest heaving slightly, you were eventually broken apart, Claudette asking you to help craft some tinctures for health kits and David asking Dwight to come look at a weird shack in the woods. You take a last look at Dwight, forcing your high beam smile down to a normal, not weird at all grin and waving a small goodbye. He gave a small wave back and started in a small run to catch up with David, fighting a smile but unable to fight the absolute bounce in his step as he started away.

You didn’t hear Claudette as she tried to tell you the locations of the pustulas, and you certainly didn’t hear the footsteps behind you as you felt a hand turn you around and the kiss at your lips. And surely didn’t hear Claudettes gasp, or David’s yell in the distance. What you did hear, as Dwight pulled back just a little, lips only an inch away, say “I forgot to tell you, I’ll see you later.”

[amaryllisblackthorn]

a lot of people have this idea that Annabeth's been like, a Luke apologist and in denial since the very beginning but it's not really true?. Annabeth was angry at Luke for his betrayal in the end of Lightning Thief and during Sea of Monsters. It's only until the end of The Titan's Curse that she starts the 'Luke really isn't that bad' kind of thing.

the end of Lightning Thief:

"I can't believe that Luke..." Annabeth's voice faltered. Her expression turned  angry and sad. "Yes. Yes, I can believe it. May the gods curse him...He was never the same after his quest."

"When I get back next summer," she said, "we'll hunt down Luke. We'll ask for a quest, but if we don't get approval, we'll sneak off and do it anyway. Agreed?"

 She was really angry at him during Sea of Monsters. Her vision from the Sirens does indicate that deep down she may believe she's able to save him, or at least wants to, but it doesn't diminish the hurt and anger she does feel.

"How could you?" Annabeth sounded so angry I thought she'd explode. "Thalia saved your life! Our lives! How could you dishonor her--"

"Liar!"

"I understand you want to destroy the camp!" she yelled. "You're a monster!"

"Because you have none of your own [intelligence]!"

"That's disgusting!" Annabeth said.

"You're insane," Annabeth said.

"Go to Tartarus," she said.

All those above are on the Princess Andromeda with Luke. Then later, to Percy:

She shook her head. "We made a dozen safe houses like this. I doubt Luke even remembers where they are. Or cares."

Even in the beginning-ish of Titan's Curse, she doesn't trust him. When he's struggling under the sky and asking for her help, she's hesitant. It's only when the sky begins to fall  that she goes to help hold it.

Annabeth had tears in her eyes. She reached down like she wanted to touch Luke's face, but at the last second she hesitated. "What happened?" she asked.

"Why should I trust you?" Annabeth asked. Her voice was filled with hurt.

Then the darkness above Luke began to crumble, like a cavern roof in an earthquake. Huge chunks of black rock began falling. Annabeth rushed in just as a crack appeared, and the whole ceiling dropped. She held it somehow--tons of rock. She kept it from collapsing on her and Luke with her own strength.

However!! There's a shift in her feelings by the time Percy and Thalia rescue her and I personally think it's because she's aware that Luke 'saved' her life for the time being after Atlas ordered him to kill her after Artemis took the sky -- even though he was super complicit in her being in that situation in the first place. Compare:

Luke hesitated. "She--she may yet be useful, sir. Further bait."

and

"We'll bring Luke back," Annabeth pleaded. "To Olympus. He...he'll be useful."

I don't think it's a conscious parallel on Annabeth's part per se, but Rick Riordan using the parallel to indicate the connection. I think that's when Annabeth discovers that Luke does still care deep down, and that deep down the person that she knows is there. which is fair, because before this point he hadn’t given her any indication seeing as he literally directed  Oreius to eat her. that’s a whole ‘nother write-up, though, i think. i digress.

Once she knows this, she starts to view him as someone being manipulated and taken advantage of by Kronos, someone who was able to manipulate Ares, a god, in the first book, -- she's not wrong! He is being manipulated. That doesn't absolve him from his horrible behavior especially towards her, but she understands that Luke is a troubled, traumatized young man being taken advantage of by the evil King Titan, and she's also aware that literally no one else cares enough to try to save him.

like, the language Annabeth uses to describe Luke in the end of Titan’s Curse is the same that Percy uses to describe the demigods on the  Titans’ side in Last Olympian. 

"You don't believe me about Luke," Annabeth said, "but we'll see him again. He's in trouble, Percy. He's under Kronos's spell."

vs

I tried to wound his men, not kill. That slowed me down, but these weren’t monsters. They were demigods who’d fallen under Kronos’s spell. I couldn’t see faces under their battle helmets, but some of them had probably been my friends.

there’s another callback with the language Percy uses to describe the opposing demigods in Last Olympian. this time, to what Percy says to Luke at the end of Lightning Thief.

“He’s brainwashing you, Luke.”

“You’re being used, Luke. You and Ares both. Don’t listen to Kronos.”

vs

This kid was getting brainwashed—trained to hate the gods and lash out because he’d been born half Olympian. Kronos was using him, and yet the kid thought I was his enemy.

Poseidon put his hand on my shoulder. “Percy, there were only a few demigod warriors aboard that ship, and they all chose to battle for Kronos. Perhaps some heeded your warning and escaped. If they did not . . . they chose their path.”

“They were brainwashed!” I said. “Now they’re dead and Kronos is still alive. That’s supposed to make me feel better?

Percy has sympathy for the demigods manipulated by Kronos to be on the Titan’s sides; he sees them as victims. the reason he doesn’t for Luke, I feel, is because Luke’s betrayal made it personal. I think this is where Percy’s fatal flaw comes into play, honestly, with the personal loyalty. both in regards to the personal betrayal to Percy, as well as Percy’s loyalty to Annabeth (and thus Luke’s betrayal of Annabeth, too). and i feel this also applies, to a lesser extent, to Ethan. but that’s a whole ‘nother write-up, too (one day!)

there is, admittedly, the factor of Luke’s age in comparison to Percy, Annabeth, and most of the other campers. there’s definitely a power imbalance -- especially with Annabeth, which isn’t okay, obviously.  so even though he’s a victim and young himself, that power imbalance in regards to his actions, manipulations, etc is messed up and not okay. 

even so, Luke is still pretty young himself -- not as young as the others, but still young. like, i got into this series when i was younger than Percy and Annabeth were, so Luke, like most early 20 year olds, seemed very old to me in that regard; it’s only as i got older and closer to his are that i started to really realize that heck he was really young. so while Luke is definitely an adult in regards to the relationship he has with Percy, Annabeth, and other younger demigods -- which he should have been mindful of and makes his manipulation etc very messed up and not okay -- he’s also young himself which is something to keep in mind. like, Luke is only around 19-22? in the series. That puts him at a power imbalance in regards to Annabeth and Percy, in which he's very much an adult in the relationship, but outside of that he's still pretty young! he’s a college kid, which when you’re younger seems pretty old but then you are one and realize differently -- his brain hasn't even fully developed yet. but i’m like, seriously digressing. 

my intended point was that i disagree with the interpretation that Annabeth was blinded by emotions and a toxic relationship which led her to make excuses for Luke and unable to see him for what he really was etc,--  because Annabeth was angry at him after his betrayal and had even thought he was different, that he didn’t care anymore. The ‘Luke apologist’ behavior only starts at the end of Titan’s Curse, the third book in the five book series. I just feel like her ... feelings? perspective? position? idk the right word.... is often misrepresented? 

she becomes very defensive over Luke’s ‘inner goodness’ and stuff because she’s literally the only one who wants to save him and knows it. she knows what he’s done isn’t okay, but she keeps driving it home that he’s being manipulated because he is! it doesn’t excuse his actions but it doesn’t have to. by the end of titan’s curse, annabeth sees luke as someone terribly lost and no one trying, willing, or caring enough to save him. and like, she’s right when she sees luke as someone who isn’t beyond saving, who’s extremely lost and being manipulated through his trauma and anger -- it doesn’t excuse what he’s doing but that doesn’t make him someone not worthy of saving. despite what he’s done, luke is still her family and she will fight for him. she sees luke the same way percy sees the other opposing demigods in the last olympian and she’s right. she’s not making excuses for him, she doesn’t think he’s done nothing wrong, she’s just not willing to give up on him and she was right. as the child in the relationship/dynamic, it wasn’t her responsibility to be the one to save him and shouldn’t have been, but she wasn’t wrong in how she saw Luke.

 like, their was definitely a power imbalance in their relationship and it’s definitely important to acknowledge that, but i feel like people tend to like, erase annabeth’s agency, for lack of a better word, and attribute her desire to save Luke as being tragically misplaced? like, Luke has totally wronged Annabeth and mistreated her terribly, but like...I find her not giving up on him mostly admirable and not pitiable, though like I said as the child in their dynamic it wasn’t her responsibility.  i’m rambling though.

mostly this post was made to remind people that Annabeth was angry towards Luke, and rightfully so, until near the end of Titan’s Curse, which is where her defending Luke and insisting he could be saved really started, likely with Luke indicating he actually still cared deep down for the first time being the catalyst.  especially since it seems a lot of people give like the impression they think she’s done it from the very beginning? idk ive definitely rambled a lot and lost my main point sometime ago or something. enjoy this anyway.

[sidespart]

For the fake fic title, if you're still doing it: Why do you hate me? (I honestly don't know where I came up with this lol)

X-Men AU!!! Found Family + Anxceit friendship. TW: child soldiers, child endangerment, abuse etc

(So typical X-men universe set up: some people are born with the X gene, which typically triggers during puberty, giving that person a mutation which normally results in cool powers. Many people hate mutants for their differences (/ bad press of people using their mutant powers for the evilz) and so most mutants live in hiding. The Xavier Institute is a school set up by an extremely powerful mutant which seeks to provide a safe space for young mutants to learn to manage their powers, get a regular education and hopes to see peace between humanity and mutant kind. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is a group of mutants who believe humans will never let mutant live in peace and do various anti-human, pro-mutant vaguely terrorist-y actions (there’s like a billion version of the x-men and these details may not be correct for all the versions all of the time because comics but this is the vague idea))

ANYWAY PLOT - Containment breach at the Super Secret Child Soldier Lab (SSCSL) - Subject VII has escaped. Subject VII is only 6-7 years old but his mutations were artificially triggered much younger than is normal. He can warp reality and create very sophisticated illusions, but has very limited control over his powers.

Cut too - Virgil and Dee, a couple of teenage mutants living on the street. They find a little boy with a buzzcut wandering around The Bad Part Of Town and Virgil immediately decides they need to adopt/help him (Dee makes more of a fuss about how this is not their responsibility and the kids barely even talking and do you know how hard I work just to keep you and now you wanna add another mouth to feed?? Huhh?? but obviously does not actually say no) (Dee is like. Barely any older than Virgil he’s just dramatic). 

Naturally, just as the three of them have had time to bond, the SSCSL and other assorted bad guys show up to try and take VII back. There’s a big fight, Virgil and Dee have a lot more experience with flight and would probably have ended up dead if the X-men (Patton and Logan) hadn't shown up to save them. 

But they lose VII.

Patton and Logan take them back to the Xavier institute to recuperate and offer to let them stay. They can go to school there, get some training and help the X-men track down VII and the whole SSCSL. Virgil says yes, Dee says no.

(So, reasoning - Virgil's mutation developed when he was 12. It was not pleasant. Various students at his school were injured and the media set up a which hunt for the mutant that caused the chaos. Virgil ran away from home because he was worried about the backlash on his family and about hurting anyone else again. So to him, this school full of mutants who can help him control his power, can offer him stability and a return to normal structures and routines, who are promising to help him get in contact with his parents if and when he’s ready?? This is like every fantasy he’s ever had come true

Unlike the other characters, Dee’s primary mutation is physical. He was born with it, its very obvious and its resulted in him being rejected for most of his life. He bounced around increasingly disturbing foster homes before running away when he was very young, so most of his memories are of living on the streets and surviving on his own. So, to him, number one: all adults are inherently untrustworthy idiots and number two: stay at a school? where they expect him to have a curfew? and, what - write essays? follow all their random arbitrary rules? rely on them for food and heat and all that shit? Completely ludicrous.)

It doesn't occur to either of them that the other one isn't going to agree with them. The resulting argument is epic and cruel, both hurling accusations at the other (Ungrateful /controlling are two of the big ones..) and both basically feeling hateful and 100% betrayed. Dee leaves and although they look for him, he’s got a lifetime experience of hiding and they cant find him.

CUT TO - 5 years later. Virgil is a (semi) well adjusted 19 year old junior X-men. He’s still a bit withdrawn, but is very close with Patton and Logan. He’s still holding out hope of finding VII one day and still firmly pretending he’s not listing out for any possible news of Dee (there were rumours some years ago of him joining the brother hood of evil mutants but then it all went quiet) who he, of course, hates for his betrayal. 

BUT THEN - mysterious knocking at the door in the night. Dee, now wearing a hat and cape and calling himself Janus, has returned. And he’s brought with him a little boy with a buzzcut and a tattoo of XXII on his foot.

Janus and Virgil need to put aside their resentment and work together to help XXII, who really does not seem interested in helping them, and hopefully use any clues he can give them about the SSCSL to track down VII. But that's difficult when they’re both still struggling with their own trauma and have no idea how to reconnect - both of them want to ask why do you hate me but are a bit too scared of the answer. ...

This already got way to long so mutant power/ extra back story descriptions under cut!

Patton - 22/27 years old. An extremely powerful telepath/empath. It takes him serious concentration and focus to not hear peoples thoughts and its almost impossible to not feel their feelings. Some people dislike him because of this as they feel he's spying on them. Grew up in the Xavier institute and 100% believes in and is committed to the future where humans and mutants live in harmony. Has pretty limited life experience in the real world. Sometimes floats. (inspired by professor X)

Logan - 21/26 years old. Fires destructive laser beams from his eyes. Was in a car accident when he was younger leaving him with permanent but apparently harmless brain damage - until his mutation developed and he slowly realised that no matter how much he trained he just couldn't control his power. Has to wear specialised eye guards at all times to keep himself from accidentally destroying everything around him. Had big plans to go to university and was angry at his mutation for a long time for getting in the way of that. Eventually enrolled online and is now a very dedicated teacher at the Institute. (inspired by cyclops) 

Janus - 15(?) / 20(?) His primary mutation is  lizard/snake like scales over most of his body, but especially the left side. Has oversized fangs, and yellow eye and a short lizard tail. His secondary mutation makes him immune to almost any sort of mental based mutation (so Logan could still knock him on his ass with his lasers, but Patton cant sense anything form him and Virgil cant whammy him). Spent a lot of his life on his own and got by being sneaky, cunning and charming. Initially took Virgil in because he saw that his powers could be useful for keeping them both safe, but eventually Virgil became his first real friend.

Virgil - 14/19. Shadow manipulation and ‘draining’. Virgil can make himself (and with practice, people he touches) literally disappear into the shadows. He can also direct shadows as powerful energy ‘blasts’, but in order to do so he has to drain any surrounding living things of their energy. When his mutation first developed  he took out half of the school hall where his exam was being held, leaving 15 students in a coma. (inspired by rouge/shadow cat)

VII - 6? / 11? Reality warping/illusion powers. One of the institutes first successful subjects. He was able to escape by changing the wall of his cell into a door. He finds it hard to talk but can project his ideas as lifelike illusions who can talk for him. One of his best is the image a handsome grown up Prince and he will often use this Illusion as an avatar to communicate. When he was 6 he did have some hazy memories of outside the SSCSL and expressed a desire to go home. Current status is unknown. 

XXI - 7.  Illusion powers  (reality warping has been removed from the program by his time as subjects proved too difficult to control). Has no memories of outside the institute and is extremely uncooperative with his new captors/guardians. He does not understand the affection they’re trying to show him and lashes out a lot, often by creating a lot of extremely disturbing and graphic illusions. Bites. 

[veliseraptor]

So this is in NO WAY PRESSURING, get to this whenever you're bored and have nothing better to do, but I (have still not watched The Untamed) would love to hear any disorganized rambles around your fic 'Punitive Measures', like your thoughts while writing it, how you view Xue Yang's fight/flight/freeze instinct, and/or where you would take the plot if you ever came back to it (again, not pressuring, I'm not asking for a sequel, I'm asking for director's commentary. Also I know the mysterious flute was implying Wei Wuxian, I know that much and not much more.) It's a really fun, quick fic that I enjoy reading through while I keep circling around your longer, more intimidating stories. I aspire to write like you.

oh boy, well, I don't know that I ever have nothing to do but here I am answering this ask anyway, because I like talking about my fic even if I get self-conscious about it.

this entire fic falls solidly into the genre of fic I write that is legitimately just “I’m gonna fuck up this character I love because it’ll be fun and I love to do that” and then just kinda...went for it. actually harder than I was initially planning! my vague sense of what I was going to do with this fic didn’t have Xue Yang down an eye at the end of it.

but when inspiration strikes, what’s a girl to do, etc.

I actually thought recently about writing a sequel to this fic (or, well, continuing into the AU it started, more like) because the concept of Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang being bloodthirsty vengeance brethren is a very good one for me, personally, and at the point their paths would be intersecting in this AU a more plausible one than it would be at pretty much any other time (I would argue, at least in CQLverse). And that’s where I think this would be going. Because Xue Yang would see Wei Wuxian, in his bloodiest frame of mind, powered up with a gorgeous flute of bad vibes and go “fuck yes” even if he wasn’t in a place where he really needed the help.

The question I had was whether Wei Wuxian would be interested in accepting company, and I feel like Xue Yang on that front could be convincing. And the way that the latter would both enable and egg on all the former’s darkest fantasies and impulses...I’m just saying, Wen Chao and everyone he has ever known is in for a very bad time, possibly even worse than they already were.

I invite you to picture in this AU the part where Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji find not just darker and edgier Wei Wuxian at the end of their scavenger hunt but darker and edgier Wei Wuxian with a friend. A familiar friend! Now down an eye and practically picking his teeth with Wen Chao’s finger bones. :D

since you asked for disorganized rambling I went back to reread and I’ll give you some director’s commentary on a few things

And he’d kind of hoped Wen Ruohan would be too busy figuring out how to deal with his brewing war to dedicate much attention to looking for one absent retainer. And even if he did, Xue Yang had sort of figured that finding him would fall to Wen Chao, who’d probably struggle to find his own ass with two hands.

kicking off this director’s commentary with Xue Yang’s brutal assessment of the competency of Wen Chao.

tbh one of my favorite things about CQL’s involving Xue Yang in the whole Sunshot storyline, despite the merry hell it plays with timeline stuff later, is how obviously little regard Xue Yang has for the Wens, even when they’re at the height of their power. He shows Wen Ruohan himself very little respect, and I can’t imagine anyone else getting more (except maybe Wen Qing, because Wen Qing is competent and if nothing else Xue Yang can respect competency).

and he just like. ditches them. walks out! promises to deliver very powerful magical artifact, and then gets what he wants and is like “smell ya later, peace” and they never catch him.

that’s just a kind of gutsiness and casual disregard for very powerful people that I really both love and respect about Xue Yang. and also that he has in common with Xiao Xingchen, tbh. and Song Lan (though him I think to a slightly lesser degree, partly because he has a little more tact and sense of societal norms as something relevant to be thinking about)! they can all vibe on that.

They took Jiangzai. Well. One of the Wen disciples took Jiangzai in the stomach and Xue Yang didn’t get it back.

this isn’t an important line or anything. I just like it a lot.

Wen Chao gestured again and he went down in a hail of fists and feet. Xue Yang tucked his chin down to protect his throat, curled his hands into his chest, and drew up his knees to guard his stomach.

He knew how this worked. Sure, it’d been a while since someone had beat him like this, but the lessons stuck. It was almost boring, really. If Wen Chao was going to play torture games then he could at least do Xue Yang the favor of trying to be creative.

He checked out the part of his brain that registered pain as anything other than a thing that was happening and focused instead on opportunities. Weaknesses in his assailants. Escape routes. Getting away would be the first thing. Nice if he could take a piece of Wen Chao with him on the way out - arm, or maybe even a head - but the priority was freedom and survival.

okay, this I feel like cuts into some of what you were talking about regarding Xue Yang’s fight/flight instinct, and also a lot of what if, I was feeling pretentious, I feel like this fic is digging into on a level under “what if I just tortured Xue Yang a whole bunch,” which is something about the relationship Xue Yang has to (a) pain and (b) his own body. Specifically, the relative indifference he has toward both. Or...not indifference, exactly, because it’s not like he’s enjoying himself, it still hurts. It’s just...expected.

unremarkable.

which is a lot of what I was trying to convey with Xue Yang’s narration during the whole torture sequence, with the commentary on methodology and how things are mundane or boring, because the suffering itself is mundane! as far as Xue Yang is concerned that’s exactly what suffering is! other peoples’, for sure, which is part of why it doesn’t matter, but also his own.

the world hurts and that’s just how it is and you learn how to cope with that. pain as...a thing that [is] happening.

I also, since you mentioned the fight/flight instinct, think a lot about how Xue Yang is, while he’s very proud and very stubborn, absolutely not someone to pick fights (in general) that he knows he can’t win. Xue Yang will almost always be on the side of “run and come back another day” over “stand and fight when all is lost.” survival, first and foremost.

which feeds into the weird paradox that I kind of hint toward at the end of this fic about Xue Yang as someone who has a definite death drive, who is profoundly obsessed with his own death in a lot of ways, and simultaneously is attached to staying alive above pretty much all else.

“Snap and snarl all you want,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere. And the only part of you I need intact is your tongue, so you can tell me where you hid the Yin Metal you promised. Everything else is optional.”

A prickle of fear rolled down Xue Yang’s spine and he flicked it away, baring his teeth.

I actually do think that, even before they get around to hand-specific trauma, permanent mutilation is one of those things that still scares Xue Yang. which is a short list! there isn’t much that actually either gets to or scares him, but I think the prospect of (further) mutilation does, because I think Xue Yang is very...acutely aware of the fact that his physical capability is a major factor in what has kept him alive and what, in all likelihood, is going to keep him alive moving forward. anything that threatens that capability, that limits him in terms of strength or mobility or otherwise has a disabling effect, is consequently going to be a short road to death, and Xue Yang would much rather die painfully fighting than die as a consequence of not being able to take care of himself.

for Xue Yang, the idea of a return to the kind of helplessness that is tied to his trauma is one of the worst possible prospects to contemplate. in my head this is exacerbated further by the fact that I figure Xue Yang didn’t get much if any medical care post hand incident, meaning that the recovery period was absolutely nightmarish and a whole stretch of time beyond the event itself where Xue Yang was struggling to survive because he’d been damaged.

in some ways I think that period of time probably did more to shape Xue Yang than the moment itself.

Wen Chao grabbed one of the branding irons from a disciple’s belt and pressed it to his stomach. That hurt. More. He clamped his back teeth together so he didn’t make any sound, absorbed the burn, owned it. His. You only hurt if you were alive. And anything you survived made you stronger.

Not that this was actually going to make him stronger. It was probably just going to make him dead. But then again, the worse this went the more resentment he’d have built up. He could use that. Would.

Dead didn’t have to mean finished.

obviously this is pulled almost direct from what Wei Wuxian himself says to Wen Chao. deliberate echoes based on character parallels! we love those.

and yeah, again here about Xue Yang and his relationship to pain, but in a less mundane way this time where it’s about pain as a tool, pain as something he can use. which is another thing about coping, I think - when pain and suffering are a regular part of your life, one way to deal with that can be to convert it into having some kind of purpose or benefit.

which in this case it definitely can. Xue Yang is definitely someone who, I think, has thought a lot about trying to arrange it so he becomes a ghost after he dies. or at least has thought a lot about what he’d do after dying to the person who killed him. 

and when you’re a necromancer by trade death really isn’t the end of the line anymore, just the start of a something new. Xue Yang’s relationship to life itself: about as jacked up as his relationships in general.

He felt the snap of bone in his teeth. Pain shooting up the side of his hand, all the way to his wrist, and Xue Yang couldn’t keep himself still enough not to try to wrench himself away. He swallowed his scream and turned it into a laugh. It was funny, wasn’t it? Funny, that he was back here, again. It wasn’t as bad, though. He knew how to take pain, how to breathe it in, make it part of himself, later turn it outwards magnified tenfold. They were old friends. Practically lovers. 

two things here:

1. the thread throughout this fic of Xue Yang making things funny so he can deal with them, here brought to you by reliving trauma! because it’s funny! right? laugh about it! just fucking hilarious.

I have a thing about characters basically deciding for themselves to make very unfunny situations funny because it makes them less awful.

2. and look, now he can deal with it better this time! he’s Learned. :) :) :)

Everything splintered. Splintered like bones under a wheel, and first thing he tried to struggle to get away but that just hurt worse and then old old old instincts kicked in and he went still, limp, dead.

“Did he faint?”

Someone nudged him with their foot. One part of him roared to grab that foot and rip it off along with the leg it was attached to. Immediately the same thing that’d made him play dead told him to wait.

at an end point where fighting is impossible and running is also impossible, the only thing left to do is play dead and wait it out. this is very much, in my head, a reversion to a tactic Xue Yang hasn’t used in a very long time and does not want to be using now, because it is absolutely the recourse of the extraordinarily helpless with no way out.

which he has been! and is now, but he really really really doesn’t want to be. Xue Yang has built his life around not being that, ever again.

but here it’s not a move he makes planning to turn it around the way he does, not at first. he gets there, but when he first does it I think it is literally just instinct that goes enough is enough and shuts down.

Wen Chao, Wen Chao, Xue Yang thought. My body’s going to give out before I do.

someone should remind me at some point maybe (or not) to write something coherent about my Xue Yang vs. his own body thoughts. specifically the way that, while Xue Yang is very physical and very grounded, I think he has a somewhat antagonistic relationship with his own body, actually. not completely! he definitely respects what it can do for him! but I think he also treats it a little as a slightly separate entity that’s capable of betraying him rather than as a fully integrated part of himself.

not always! but it’s a little bit there. this idea that sometimes his body, and its capacity to be hurt or damaged, is a weakness that he’d like to be able to forgo entirely, if only it wouldn’t mean losing all the good things about having a body. and that’s present here in this line, for me, where he thinks about himself and his body as slightly separate, and his body as something weaker than its Xue Yang core.

[ofbloodandbullets]

So it’s recently come to my attention that not everyone in the world has actually watched The Old Guard (WHO KNEW?!) so I’m going to try and do some info dumps about the world, the general canon and Andy’s history, personality, powers etc.  This will ... probably get kinda lengthy. 

Also: MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR COMICS & MOVIE.

The first thing you need to know is that for the main part, the history and the world that TOG takes place in is the exact same one as the real history of the world.  It’s set in modern day, though the plot points stretch back to 7k+ years ago.  It’s also important to note that there is a lot of historical inaccuracies and some things in canon that conflict themselves so it’s best to just take it all with a grain of salt and just go with what works best for your particular preferences etc. 

The main difference between reality and TOG is that in TOG there are a very minute like .00000000002% of the population that are immortals.  Now, it’s important to note that these people can die but they resurrect pretty close to immediately after they die no matter the amount of damage done.  Now it can take some time to fully heal or reform, depending on how extensive the trauma (being blown to bits or burned etc. will take longer to fix but there’s no amount of damage that we know of that can actually keep them dead).  

There are times when, for reasons unknown to the characters in character (or to us as readers  of the comics / viewers of the movie etc) that the immortality just stops.  There’ll just be a time that they suffer injuries that just don’t heal, and they die.  There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, be it age, number of times they’ve died, whatever.  Now, I have my own entirely headcanon and personal preference based theory which you can find HERE but it’s totally just a random idea that I had that I liked to explain the loss of Andy’s immortality in the movie (that doesn’t happen in the comics) and lets me say that she regains her immortality post canon so that I can nudge things back in the direction of the comics for post movie plots and so on.

Andy is, as far as we know, and as far as she knows, the oldest (human) immortal, coming in at around 7,000 years old.  She was born into a tribe, the Scythia (hence what she’s generally called: Andromache the Scythian).  A nomadic warrior tribe that I headcanon to be a matriarchy, Andy was betrayed by the ‘queen mother’ when she was sixteen and killed in battle because the leader feared that Andy posed a danger to her continuing rule.  This person was practically a mother to Andy and it was a horrific betrayal.  What was almost as shocking to Andy was the fact that she got back up again after being literally stabbed in the back and killed.

In the vein of trying to thwart prophecies making them happen, Andy killed the matriarch and took her placce ruling the tribe, eventually becoming a God King to her people and ruling over them for hundreds of years until her loneliness absolutely overwhelmed her and one day she just vanished.

At some point after this, she began to dream of a woman, feeling a pull towards this stranger that she couldn’t begin to explain.  After dozens, maybe hundreds of years, she managed to track down the woman in question (Noriko in the comics, Quynh in the movie) and realized that they’d been dreaming of each other.  (In the comics she meets Lykon before Quynh/Noriko, whom she had also been dreaming of).  

Now, the connection between these immortals isn’t explained in canon, and for a long time, Andy, Lykon, Noriko (and eventually Joe, Nicky, Book) thought they were the only ones but there is a scene in the second set of comics that implies that there are other ‘packs’ of immortals.  I headcanon that it’s a ‘like calls to like’ / kind of Sense8 simpatico type thing - like minded souls drawn to each other, which is why Andy and the others didn’t know about the other immortals, but again, that’s just entirely my thoughts on the matter. 

Lykon is the first to succumb to the loss of immortality, a short couple hundreds years after he and Andy find each other.   He dies on a battlefield, one that he and Quynh/Noriko and Andy fought on like a hundred/thousand before, champions for the abused etc.  Skip forward a couple hundred years again and enter Joe & Nicky, a Knight and a Muslim warrior who kill each other on the battlefield only to both wake up and spend (an unspecified amount of time) hunting and killing each other before eventually Andy & Quynh/Noriko find them.  In time, Joe & Nicky realize that they love each other.   (Important to note that Quynh/Noriko and Andy were also lovers).  In the movie, when the first major surge of witch hunts began, Quynh/Noriko and Andy go to help the women that stood accused, only to be captured and accused of witchcraft themselves.  After being hung, drowned, burned at the stake and coming back to life every time, the witch hunters settled on locking Quynh into an iron coffin and dropping her into the ocean.  (In the comics, Noriko is lost at sea during a massive storm that had thrown their ship entirely off course with Andy having no clue where they actually were at the time.) 

Joe & Nicky arrive in time to rescue Andy, but Noriko is already gone and despite spending decades tracking down every person even remotely involved in the so called ‘investigation’ into the women’s inquisition and punishment, Andy wasn’t able to find anything about where Quynh could be. 

Cue angst & depression & guilt for ages after.

The trio still steps in over the following decades, trying to help prevent the worst of atrocities, but Andy quickly begins to spiral into an, at best apathetic, at worst, entirely distant and withdrawn mindset and steadily begins to lose hope that they’re actually making any difference at all.

Skip ahead a century or two and enter Book; a Russian conscript who had been forced into the fight after being convicted of forgery.  Hung for desertion, Book spend days dying over and over again as he hung there, unable to attempt an escape until the troops finally packed up and moved on.   He and Andy, Nicky and Joe meet up and Book kinda reluctantly joins their little group.  It’s revealed that Book dreams, still, of Noriko/Quynh and while he can’t tell where hse is, dreams of her still dying, drowning on the floor of the ocean over and over and over like she had been for the last hundred or two years.  

Book returns at some point to his mortal family which ended in disaster when his last remaining son was dying of cancer, cursing and screaming at Book for ‘choosing not to save him’ by making him immortal too, even though it’s something Book had no ability to transfer or make happen.  Between his nightmares, losing his son and a number of other factors, Book decides he wants to end it all but no matter what he tries, doesn’t die and stay dead.

Eventually he’s approached by a pharmaceutical company that has figured out what he is and wants to run tests on him to see if they can unlock his healing / immortality for other people.  Merrick’s company works in league with an ex CIA agent whose wife died of a horrific terminal disease who hopes that they can find a way to keep anyone else from dying if they don’t have to.    Initially it was just supposed to be him, but he’d set up a display to stream for proof of what he was / they were and the corp decided they wanted all of the immortals.   Book ends up betraying the team, and he and the others end up locked up and tested on / killed / experimented on etc.  

There’s another character introduced in the meantime, the first new immortals in centuries, an American soldier named Niles.  There’s a lot more that goes on here, but the main point is that in the movie, Andy stops healing from her wounds shortly after she tracks down Nile and is put into incredible amounts of danger when Merrick (the leader of the pharmaceutical company) captures Andy, Joe, Book, Nicky.  Book is devastated, Nicky and Joe are furious, Andy’s just tired.

Eventually, Andy and the others break free with Niles’ help, destroy the lab they were originally held in etc and set out to try and hunt down any other proof, lab results, anything that Merrick got his hands on during the tests.

The group meets and settles on a hundred year exile for Booker (which I think is one of the stupidest things - like, the man’s clearly desperate and depressed and lonely and mentally unstable so by all means let’s isolate him for a fully century) and at the end of the movie we see him stumbling home to his apartment six months later to find Quynh standing in his apartment, pouring and drinking a glass of water which is a whole power move considering how many millions of times she died by drowning.

In the comics, Quynh/Noriko was driven entirely mad and to the point of wanting vengeance against Andy for abandoning her and spends a while gaslighting Andy and torturing her physically and emotionally and what not until she manages to isolate Andy from the other immortals and scoops in to ‘rescue’ Andy.  IDK what they’re going to adapt this to in the second movie, 

Again, via the link posted above, my Andy slowly begins to regain her immortality (again, IDK what they’re going to do with the next movie).  

Uhhhh yeah.  So I .. think that’s the majority of what you need to know for canon info about Andy.  THIS is also an important PSA regarding my Andy’s history & her longest lasting relationship that has nothing to do with canon at all but that is part of Andy’s bg in every verse, even if it never comes into play.

[thegeminisage]

Here's something I'd love your take on: I read a meta recently (would link it but I can't remember where, ack) that suggested that Sam is able to forgive John in later seasons because a) he's had the whole "family making unilateral decisions for your own good" thing repeatedly shoved down his throat, and b) whatever John did under this umbrella in their childhoods, Dean has done far worse by that point, and Sam HAS to forgive him so by extension he can't really be mad at John anymore (1/2)

(2/2) As someone who has admittedly only seen bits and pieces of the later seasons, this seems to jive with Sam losing a lot of his characteristic early-seasons anger, letting Dean call the shots almost all the time even when he thinks it's the wrong move, and moments of sympathy for John (contrasted w/Dean's growing resentment, which is so interesting!). But! I got some big ol' gaps in my spn comprehension, so was curious if you had any thoughts on this dynamic

wow okay long answer warning! i got carried away and forgot how to use punctuation. nobody is obligated to read all of this lol and the biggest part of the answer is behind a cut. anyway!!

first things first: i think a big thing to remember with sam’s characterization in later seasons is that it’s like...not there, and when it is there, it’s sometimes flat and inconsistent. because dean became sole the main protagonist after the first 8 (arguably the first 5 or even first 2) seasons, sam sort of got demoted to “side character we don’t know what to do with” along with cas and crowley. they all had good arcs pop up now and then (sam had some fun stuff going on with lucifer in s11 and s13) but most of the time the writers either don’t know how to give him a meaningful characterization or don’t care (or both). so we have to do a lot of that work ourselves. 

so, for example, when we talk about sam losing his anger, i like to read it as him OVERCOMING that anger to avoid becoming his father (which may even be where some of the seemingly sympathetic comments come from, because he’s trying to be forgiving instead of angry), but really...it’s that the writers forgot he had anger issues. in-universe explanation vs irl explanation, yk? and i think pretty much all meta about sam in late seasons is written through that lens, whether the writer of that meta knows it or not. including this one! i can’t prove any of this shit, it’s my personal reading, i’m making it up. like there were just SO many different people involved in the production of supernatural that there was a lot of conflict and contradictions in things like continuity and characterization. (most of the writers room hadn’t even seen every episode!) so there’s not one definitive way to go about it. in many ways it makes the characters more nuanced and in many other ways it makes me fucking insane.

as for sam and john and whether or not sam forgives him, i’m actually glad you asked because this has been driving me nuts for a long time and it took me SO LONG to pin it down - sam’s relationship with john is very different to dean’s, and i couldn’t figure out WHY. it’s not that he was “abused less,” it’s not that he loved john less or was less hurt by his actions, so why doesn’t he seem as INVESTED in everything that happened to them as kids? like he says in season 14 he had to learn to let it go and that it was all a lifetime ago for him. meanwhile i think dean still deals with it every day. he’s still stewing in it to some degree 24/7. so like what’s the difference??

i think it comes down to two things. firstly, that while dean didn’t have anybody parenting him except john (and mary, but only for a very short time that he could actually remember), SAM’S parents were john AND DEAN. most of the time dean was the one raising sam, and in fact he arguably did way more parenting of sam than john did. so the person that made dean feel safe and like he could fight back against monsters, the person he was grateful to, was john. but the person who made SAM feel safest was dean. he doesn’t have that same gratitude towards john that dean does and he never will, because of how john made him feel alienated and excluded from their family growing up. dean’s resentment of john is so tangled up in this very deep and unconditional love and gratitude for him that sam just doesn’t have. 

secondly, i think dean has a serious case of “i can fix him” re: john that sam doesn’t have and possibly never had. john just never showed sam the same kind of inclusion and warmth and trust that he showed dean (however rarely he showed it, and however fucked up it was). i think sam figured out very very early on that their quest for yellow eyes was either a long shot or straight up impossible, and that they couldn’t waste their entire lives doing it, and that even if the demon died, john was never going to change. dean 100% drank the koolaid - he really truly believed in a world where someday they’d kill the demon and all retire from the life and be normal and be a family again, because that’s what john said and dean took his father’s word as gospel. sam knew better.

so i think what sam did was just disengage. partially because he felt he couldn’t afford to nurse that kind of anger and not become either his father or lucifer, and partially because even though sam loved john, still loves john, he never needed him the way dean did, because sam had dean. so it doesn’t hurt him as much to just “gray rock” it. i think if sam stopped and really dug into it he’d find that he’s still quite angry (probably more angry on dean’s behalf than his own, at least at first, because in his mind he was able to move past it and dean was not, dean had it worse, HIS OWN trauma isn’t real etc etc), but he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t want to be that angry, and possibly even thinks that if he brought it up dean would jump to john’s defense and it would cause a fight, which the opposite of what a gray rock does.

as for being forced to forgive john because if he didn’t he would also have to condemn dean...i don’t think i buy that at all. sam is fine making dean his exception and he allows dean to get away with a lot of deeply horrible shit he would condemn other people for. partially because he’s dean and sam loves him, but in my ~personal reading~ of sam, this is also because once sam became an adult the weight of everything dean did and had to give up to raise him really sank in, and part of him felt guilty (even though sam arguably didn’t have a childhood either). you know how kids take care of their parents in old age to repay them for raising them? that’s sort of how sam is with dean in later seasons - he implies multiple times that he would leave the hunting life forever and not look back if it weren’t for dean.

and as a side note - sorry, this is only tangentially related - dean implies several times in later seasons that the job is where he finds his sense of accomplishment and self-esteem and meaning - he believes the world is a better place because of what he and sam do, and even though he doesn’t always like DOING the job, he likes the outcome. it’s weird because this is as close as we see dean get to even HAVING self esteem. sam, emotionally intelligent, would have picked up on that - and since he and dean have both tried to leave the life multiple times and have always come to regret it, i also think part of sam believes you CAN’T escape - certainly SAM could never escape so long as dean was still in it, because whether he meant to or not dean would always pull him back in. and part of dean doesn’t really want to escape because he’s made his peace with it. so sam stays, and i think even if he can’t find the same meaning in the job that dean does, he finds a lot of meaning in being there for dean. (this, like gray rocking, is also consistent with the seasons where sam’s sole character trait is caring about dean lol. but i’m happy enough to read it in a kinder and less bitter/resentful way.)

it IS worth noting i think that the most forgiving sam ever was about john was in the adam episode, where he said he understood why he was the way he was and why he did what he did, and when dean said they were alike sam decided to take it as a compliment. sam in season 4 is arguably at one of his lowest points - struggling with addiction, consumed by anger and hatred and the need for revenge. he WAS like john in many ways, and i think he justified what john was doing because it also justified what HE was doing. but what he was doing led to breaking lucifer out of hell and the apocalypse that followed, which is why i like to think sam worked so hard to reign in his anger afterward - both to avoid his fate and avoid becoming his father.

in short: i don’t think sam has actually forgiven john so much as disengaged from him and moved past it. because if he DID engage with it, it’d bring up a whole lot of stuff he didn’t feel prepared to deal with. one of the risks of gray rocking things is doing it to the point that you lose touch with your own wants and needs and personality, so i think by late seasons sam’s repression, which is much more sneaky and quiet than dean’s, has settled in to the point where he’s like “yeah whatever” about dad out of sheer self preservation - because otherwise, he’d end up going crazy about it like dean does. i think it’d do him a hell of a lot of good to be able to get to shout at john and finally say his piece/ he’s really afraid of his own anger, but i think it’d be healthy for him to get back in touch with some of it.

[spn masterpost]

[itsclydebitches]

Um one thing i wanna ask is why do you want penny to stay a robot? She would have been hacked again as it wouldn’t make sense for someone not to try it again... ignoring the pinnochio allusion thing cause of course RWBY shouldn’t follow fairytales like a script, but just thinking about practicality as the problem would just occur again.

Also, people complaining about how its a problem they cured her illness (having the virus)... why would you want her too keep the virus when its literally about to kill her and the cure is right there???? I dunno some of the complaints have me a bit confused and i need clarity on them.

Like, If they didn’t grab the relic for themselves, they would have been hunted by ironwood for penny, she would have been killed for the powers to open the vault etc... if they went to the vault with penny without their plan, she would have died... its all a lose lose for penny to me at least

Questions are genuine and I’m not trying to be rude or anything :)

Happy to explain, anon! :D

I’m going to break this up into three parts: The claim that people are upset about Penny’s virus going away, the idea that she’s in more danger as a robot, and the assumption that she had to be made human to fix this problem. 

The first is the easiest to tackle simply because I haven’t seen any of this myself. I don’t know why someone would “want her to keep the virus when it’s literally about to kill her.” My guess would be that there’s been some miscommunication at play. I’m not saying just because I haven’t seen these takes doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but rather that I have seen a lot of critical takes since Saturday and they all boil down to the fans being upset that Penny’s android identity was removed, not that the virus was removed along with it. Of course we’re happy about that additional outcome, we just believe it would have been possible  — even easy  — to achieve that same outcome without taking a core part of Penny’s identity along with it (more on that below).

Secondly, if one of the main arguments for Penny getting a human body is “It’s less dangerous” then I personally don’t find that persuasive. Yes, it means no one can try to hack her again... but it also means Penny can die all the horrible, messy human deaths that she was previously immune from (within the boundary of how long Pietro can give her aura, anyway). We saw it happen on screen. Penny was able to go from this

to this

purely because she was an android. Penny, due to her synthetic body, was able to be torn apart and then  — pretty casually it seems, based on Pietro’s comments  — be put back together, given more aura, and booted up with absolutely no downsides. Penny shrugged off death with a smile! No human body can do that. So yes, she’s vulnerable to hacking as an android, but she’s vulnerable to everything else as a human, things like Nora’s scars and Yang’s lost arm, things that android!Penny would have shrugged off. Each body has its benefits and its downsides, with my personal belief being that, from a combat standpoint, a synthetic body has far fewer downsides and far greater benefits. But that opinion aside, objectively I don’t think a human body is intrinsically safer for Penny in the long run, especially not after her biggest moment in the series was coming back from the dead. She can’t do that anymore. 

Which then touches on our third topic with the question: Why couldn’t the show have fixed android!Penny in a way that ensures she can never be hacked again? See, we have to remember that RWBY is a constructed, fictional story. Nothing “has” to happen. Or rather, nothing has to happen until the writers impose limitations on the text that the viewer expects them to adhere to. For example, if you impose the implied rules of 1. “Our four main characters will make it to the end of the series” and 2. “A character, without aura, will die from a spear through the gut,” then RWBY has to find a way for Weiss to survive Cinder’s attack (rule #1), but that solution can’t be, “Weiss is just randomly okay after a deadly injury, I guess” (rule #2). Hence, we get the solution of “Jaune unlocks his semblance and heals Weiss for her” and it works! It’s a solution that viewers like because it obeys all the rules, both overt and implied. Meanwhile, the problem with Penny’s solution is two-fold. The first is that it contradicts the entire journey she’s been on of “Android girl learns that she’s real and human just the way she is,” which I’ve already spoken about extensively (there are other posts on that), but the second problem is that the show ignores other possibilities and makes up new rules solely to reach this ending. 

Why is Penny made human? Because of Ambrosius’ rules. Why do those rules exist? Because the writers said they do in this episode. It’s not that they introduced these rules episodes or even whole volumes ago, thereby requiring that they adhere to them once Penny’s life is suddenly caught up in them (like with the Jaune example). Rather, the viewer only learned these were limitations while Penny was being fixed. So the writers could have just... not included those. There’s no reason why, in developing Ambrosius’ abilities right then and there, the show couldn’t have made them into something a little different. Have Ruby go, “We want you to magic up an anti-virus program that will heal Penny completely, with no chance of the virus returning. Thus, when you create something new, it doesn’t matter if that program disappears. The virus is already gone!” If the response to that is, “But Clyde, Ambrosius can’t create something he doesn’t understand” that’s a rule that the writers just made up. No one forced them to suddenly impose that limitation. It was a choice. Or even if we have to have it for some reason, you’re telling that the group gets to have the schematics for their escape route  — essentially inventing a teleportation system because Whitley looked at airship flight paths for a few minutes  — but they can’t have Penny or Pietro draw up an anti-virus program? There’s no reason why these rules couldn’t have been tweaked to cure android!Penny. 

There’s also no reason why Ambrosius needed to be involved at all. As just mentioned, Pietro exists and many fans (myself included) thought he would be the solution. Imagine for a moment we had a slightly different version of these events. Penny’s virus is briefly halted by Jaune and, finally given a moment to breathe, she asks where her father is. Last she saw, he was floating in a dead Amity after Cinder’s attack. This reminds Ruby that hey, Pietro made Penny! He’s just as smart as Watts and is far more knowledgeable of her systems. Maybe he can help? So the group heads to Amity and, due to the same techno mumbo jumbo that launched Amity in the first place, or had Klein heal Penny after her crash, Pietro says yes, he can get rid of the virus. Better yet, he can slightly redesign Penny so that she’s made un-hackable in the future, using (again, mumbo jumbo) parts from the now useless Amity. But it will take time. It’s then that the group receives Ironwood’s message and learns that they don’t have time. The reality that Penny will not be cured before the hour time limit necessitates that they come up with a creative way of dealing with Ironwood. Enter Emerald. Her semblance can make it seem like Penny is there, despite her being fixed by her dad miles away. We get an extended fight with Ironwood and, at episode’s end, the new and improved Penny catches up, ready to open the vault for them, this time of her own free will. 

Now, obviously I just made this up off the top of my head  — far from perfect  — but a scenario like this: 

Remembers that Pietro exists and lets him/Maria as an assistant do something for the plot

Re-uses Amity now that it’s just a floating pile of junk metal 

Creates a scenario where we get to see Penny and Pietro confront the fact that she was created to be a tool (sorry I originally made you so easily hackable/put a self-destruct in your brain) 

Maintains all the main story beats like Penny’s near escape, Ironwood’s message, and using Emerald’s semblance

Makes space to tackle other issues like the complaint that Ironwood was taken down too quickly 

Achieves the desired result of healing Penny without taking away her android identity 

Proves that, because we can easily come up with another solution, the idea that she “had” to become human is inaccurate. There were always other options 

Hell, we can even ask why the story bothered with a self-destruct threat in the first place. Seriously, why did Watts do that? I have my own headcanons, but the show never says. This act is the entire BASIS for Penny’s conflict and the show didn’t bother to a) say why he’d do this or b) explain why he’d do this when Salem would presumably like having a Maiden to control. It’s counterintuitive and the show never grapples with that. We have no canonical answer here. More importantly, what else changes if Penny’s self-destruct order is taken out of the narrative? Absolutely nothing. She’s still hacked and struggles to keep Amity afloat, still flies to Ruby, still wakes up and needs to be calmed down by Nora, still tells Whitley her order, still fights the Hound, still tries to escape, still tells Ruby to kill her so she doesn’t open the vault, and Ruby still realizes that opening the vault might be the answer. They could have taken Penny to the door and nullified the virus by letting her do what the virus ordered. Penny is fine now, they snag the Relic, and the group proceeds to save all of Mantle and Atlas. The only thing this self-destruct sequence brings to the narrative is a reason to give Penny a human body. That plot-point was introduced solely as an excuse to give Penny a human body. That never had to happen. It’s not that the writers had a story where, by the rules already in place, they truly had to change Penny to ensure they didn’t lose her, it’s that the writers carefully crafted a story that existed to justify their desire to change Penny. That was always the end goal. They decided they wanted this to happen and that’s the problem here. That they took a character who has spent her entire, fictional existence learning to love herself as she is and crafted a bunch of unpersuasive, needless, and contradictory scenarios specifically to get Penny to a place where they could erase all that. 

There’s no version of Penny that exists who truly had to get a human body to survive because Penny is a fictional character. Everything she does and experiences is thought up by our writers. Thus, at some point they thought up the idea to erase her android identity for a completely human one instead  — the part a lot of people are upset by   — and then made some messy attempts to write a story to justify getting that ending.  

[eyayah-oya]

Was wondering if you had an opinion on an aspect of TBB - the chips and choices. Most of what I know of TBB is from Tumblr, but I gather Howzer decided what the Empire was ordering them to do was wrong, and talked some number of other clones into agreeing with him. Crosshair got his chip out but decided he liked the Empire better than his brothers. An article described this as "Star Wars has always been about people's choices." But if a clone can choose to disobey, to think, to choose, (1/2)

This is an excellent question and thank you for sending it it to me.

The main overall theme of Star Wars is Hope (which I personally think TBB is lacking, but that's me so take my opinion with a healthy dose of salt) but one of it's other themes is that of Choices. In the Original Trilogy, it's Luke's choice to talk to Vader and then Vader's choice to turn on the Emperor. Han chooses to return and help Luke destroy the first Death Star. Luke chooses to go with Ben instead of staying on Tatooine. Leia chooses to fight instead of remain a politician. Etc. The Prequel Trilogy continues this theme with Anakin's choices leading up to his Fall.

The issue of Choice in TBB is interesting to think about. I do not like the idea of the clones willingly betraying the Jedi. There might be some that would be willing to, based on various appearances in TCW, the novelizations, and fanon, but it would be very difficult to convince me that Cody or Bly or even Gree would voluntarily try to kill their Jedi. Let alone someone like Rex or Jesse who was extremely close with Ahsoka and would never voluntarily hurt her. And I doubt Appo would want to kill the younglings in the Temple.

Which leads to some very interesting possibilities for Howzer, the Bad Batch, Grey, and Crosshair. (This is going to be a long post, so more under the cut)

First, Howzer. I thought about the issue of his chip when the episode first aired and this is what I came up with for Howzer:

I don't think Howzer had a Jedi. The way Cham and Eleni trust Howzer so completely would not happen if they watched Howzer and his men kill their General. I think they were one of the Jedi-less companies that worked directly with General Syndulla. (It makes sense from Palpatine's perspective, too, since he needs the Jedi to be involved in the war to wear them down. They would be a bit safer stationed on Ryloth indefinitely.) Ryloth is in the Outer Rim Territories, on the edge of Hutt space, and so news of the Empire and what the Empire was doing would not make it out there. As far as Howzer and his men were aware, the Empire was just the Republic under a new name and with Palpatine gaining even more power (big surprise to everyone involved). It's not until they see what's going on with the refinery and how Hera is treated that Howzer realizes that things aren't right. Especially when they were tasked with hunting down Gobi and his followers.

Howzer's chip was never activated and neither was his men's. That's why his speech was effective for some of them. For the others, I think it would be difficult for them to defy and betray the very institution they fought and died to protect. They were able to choose for themselves.

Crosshair, however, is another thing entirely. I'll admit, I haven't watched either finale episodes, but I've seen a lot of spoilers to get an idea of what happened. That being said, if I got anything wrong, let me know.

Crosshair's chip was removed at some point (not sure if it really was with the Empire or if the Bad Batch removed it) but he had the opportunity to work with the Empire. And for some people, the Empire is great. We've seen that with Admiral What's-His-Face that was one of the villains in this season, Tarkin, the hundreds of Imperial officers, and the thousands of Stormtroopers and other soldiers that went to the Imperial Academy. Crosshair feels betrayed by the Batch and has found his purpose with the Empire. He made his choice. (I personally think it is ridiculously lazy writing but I've also thought that about the entire show so far. Lazy writing and poor characterization.)

The other clones, however, are probably a mix of being under the chip's control and being free. The ones who had Jedi are controlled and the others are monitored closely to make sure they're loyal to the Empire. But the longer the Empire rules and the more Stormtroopers start filtering in and the more atrocities they're forced to commit, the more the clones will be likely to rebel. A clone rebellion is very likely in the future and I would be very interested in that plot. BUT. This also leads to the possibility of both a clone rebellion as well as Purge Trooper Cody.

One last comment on TBB. I think it's really weird that Echo still had his chip. It doesn't make any sense. The whole point of the Bad Batch's chips not working at first was because they were created different. Echo is a reg. Echo's chip should have activated instead of Crosshair's. It would make more sense and I just want you to imagine how terrifying it would be to have Echo hunting down the Bad Batch. They would not be able to hide on Ord Mantell, that's for sure. Echo would be one step ahead of them and they'd barely be able to escape. Also imagine how horrible it would be for Rex to see Echo being controlled for the second time in his life. I plan on writing a one-shot with Imperial Echo at some point.

TLDR: Clone chip activation depended on Jedi presence and TBB has really lazy illogical writing that isn't consistent.

[kekoma]

— hinata as your boyfriend.

for the simps who like this life size orange. hope you enjoy.

me oh my, he’s sweet like apple pie.

hands down one of the sweetest people to have as your boyfriend.

however i do wanna put out, there’s no doubt... hinata is inexperienced when it comes to dating.

you’re most likely his first official girlfriend.

reason i say official is because he may have dated a few times (literally 2, maybe 3 times) back in middle school, but would you really consider them a relationship when they ended fairly quick?

AND we all know the only thing on this boy’s mind is... volleyball.

so dating in general was never a true thought in his mind until you came around.

most definitely asked noya, tanaka and coach ukai about the feeling he’s experiencing when you two weren’t together yet.

probably won’t ask for advice on how to approach you since his personality naturally draws you towards him and he’s able to take care of the rest. 

really don’t think he’ll be a huge stuttering mess around you but hinata will probably blush and trip up on his words just a bit.

besides the whole crushing stage, boyfriend hinata is a truly a ball of sunshine.

constantly loves to compliment you whenever he gets a chance.

“you look beautiful~”

“hm? you tell me that everyday silly.”

“well yeah! i want you to know that you’re always gorgeous to me.”

will never let you be insecure about your looks.

literally finds you beautiful no matter what. you could literally wake up with your hair all over the place, somewhat puffy face and etc.— dude is already in dream land thinking about how cute you are.

don’t try arguing with me about this because it’s true. i refuse to be WRONG.

definitely the type of boyfriend who checks up on you. 

and i’m not talking about the occasional, every few months; “hey, how are you feeling?”

shoyo CHECKS UP on you. every few weeks, he’ll ask about how you’re feeling, what you’re doing and etc.

he deeply cares about you and always wants to make sure you’re doing perfectly fine along with the fact, he wants to make sure the relationship isn’t causing any tolls on you as well.

it’s not like hinata causes any issues within the relationship since he tends to avoid inflicting any stress on you but he just wants to make sure you’re still satisfied with your relationship.

or seeing if anything he has done made you feel some type of but you just didn’t bring up. 

which brings us to the fact... arguments between you two are very rare.

he doesn’t like fighting with you nor does he like seeing you upset over something he did that wasn’t on purpose.

but if you two do end up fighting then he’s going to take time to reflect on the issue at hand, talk it out with you, apologize and mentally keep a note of the mistake that was made that day.

besides that and going back to the checking up part, if you’re ever having a bad day then be prepared for your supportive boyfriend to use those motivational words of his to get you back up and running.

and don’t think about hiding it either because he going to figure it out regardless.

hinata doesn’t ONLY observe volleyball and rivals, he studies you too since he refuses to be the kind of boyfriend who’s blind to emotional signs that you aren’t okay.

but if you’re the kind of person who isn’t interested in hearing him talk and want to be left alone then he understands.

won’t leave you alone though but he’s going to end up comforting you physically (if you allow him to) and wait until you’re ready to tell him what happened so he can proceed to uplift your spirts again.

most likely... you have better scores than him when it comes to school so be prepared to help him out.

he might complain just a bit yet he won’t pass up the opportunity to have you as his tutor and spend more time with you.

remembers some of the information you’ve taught him, promoting him to do better in school.

yet beware when it comes to study dates. shoyo may be listening sometimes but his eyes won’t hesitate to drift off, admiring and studying everything on your face rather than the information.

definitely the type who likes to FaceTime often if you aren’t able to come see him/he isn’t able to see you.

and yes. falling asleep on ft is apart of his package deal. just don’t think about hanging up because the end call sound will wake him up quicker than anything.

useless he had a tiring practice then go for it— he won’t even notice.

he can be a bit smothering but if you’re someone who isn’t into all that then tell him.

he’ll cut down on it and give you more space.

heh don’t be shocked when he asks you to set for him.

“come on babe~ just a few! it won’t be long. i promise.”

“you said that the last time and we spent roughly 12 hours doing the same thing.”

“what if i offer to buy us ice cream after.”

“only if i get to eat some of yours too...”

“deal! now come on.”

“you’re lucky i love you.”

pda freak.

let me say it again. PDA FREAK.

not even gonna separate them (public and private) because he carries the same energy in both departments.

not ashamed if the team gets on him for it because at least he has a girlfriend who he can touch and love on.

plus his love language is through physical touches anyways.

so be prepared for those smooches at random times, hand holding, cuddles and all that good stuff.

side fact: not pda but you’ve met his little sister and mom— they both you. it’s to the point, they’ll ask if you’re coming over and constantly ask him how you’re doing.

you’re already the apart of the family and there’s no escaping. (although why would you.)

probably been waiting for this one but shoyo always invites you to his games along with practices.

get extremely excited when he spots you in the crowd too. almost to the point you start to become concerned for his checks from all that smiling.

loves when you give him compliments and assurance that the relationship is perfect.

something about your praises gives him a boost, also makes him feel like satisfied that his efforts of keeping you happy is working.

there’s no need for you to ask him do to the same because hinata is a simp.

he’s leveled from the simp card to the CEO of simps.

can’t change my mind about this. no no non. 

hinata the ceo of simps and you’re number one simp at that.

it’s evident in the way he talks about you to his friends/teammates, the way he texts you and even with the way he looks at you.

he truly only has eyes for you too btw.

vv loyal and he just can’t see him being happy with anyone else but you anyways.

now nicknames.

of course the typical ones, babe and baby, are in there but he also likes to call you; cutie, lovely, his star and sunshine. 

mainly it’s just a lot of cutesy nicknames and he’s always testing out new ones to see if you like them as well. 

as for dates.

there’s no specific energy to them. meaning they’re not constantly energetic or super super chill.

shoyo is the kind of boyfriend who wants to try every and any kind of date.

sticking to one concept is just boring to him and he doesn’t want you to get bored either which is why he’s tries new things.

even going as far to create his own such as making a scavenger hunt that lead to you both to a rooftop that has it’s own mini garden and lights all set up with food on the table.

dudes creative when it comes to dates (and again, no arguing with me about this because i firmly believe he goes all out for you... even if he’s inexperienced— still giving it his all so it’s memo for the both of you.)

could literally go on and on about this lovely life sized orange but i’ll end it here.

dating hinata is worth it and each waking moment with him could never be regretful.

we stan and love boyfriend hinata over here.

© all content belongs to kekoma 2020. do not repost, modify or translate.

[twilightofthe]

(oops a little late to the game) Unpopular opinion! Although I think that Padme's death in ROTS wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility (i.e. she absolutely could've given up the will to live, that's a thing that can kill humans!), I also think it was pretty sexist for LF to kill her off because her emotions were too strong/she didn't have the will to live without Anakin anymore.

(Ask game found here)

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Thank you for this one! Ok so this is definitely a very complicated answer for me

Firstly, we gotta address the matter of the fact that Padmé, narratively, unfortunately needed to die in Revenge of the Sith. She needed to die because the sad truth was that she was dead, canonically, by the Original Trilogy, as both of her children confirm her as dead. This was a good 8 years before the Disney purchase. There were no other streaming service shows or lesser known comics coming out at this time that would show us what was going to happen in canon after this movie. If you wanted to give Padmé Amidala, one of the three main characters of this movie trilogy, a solid ending to her character and story, she needed to die in Revenge of the Sith.

So yeah, Padmé did HAVE to die here.

Now did Lucas do it well enough to give her character justice? No, in my own opinion I wouldn’t say so. He cut most of her written plot that was about her forming the Rebellion and standing up to Palpatine and actually finding herself on a different side than Anakin, all of that was cut out of the movie. I feel that was detrimental to her character, as what we have left is pretty much just her being the distressed mother to be that Anakin obsesses over. I feel her remaining plot that was left for her in the movie revolving near-entirely around a man is definitely on the sexist side, and her death also revolving completely around a man can be seen as a part of that larger issue.

But Padmé’s death on its own, without the rest of the movie in context? I don’t know if I would call it a particularly sexist death. Like, I really don’t think I could call her death a fridging like I would say other prequels-era Star Wars ladies’ deaths were— notably Shmi, Satine, etc. —because while yes, Padmé’s death did make the male main character sad and drive his motivations afterwards, she was not killed off just to make the male main character sad and drive his plot.

Padmé was killed off for story continuity as she had already been canonically dead before the original trilogy for at this point around 25 years, so she needed to die. Of course it was gonna upset Anakin/Vader because the dumbass decided to pull all his violent murderous bullshit that most male characters with fridged women pull while the woman in question was still alive.

So no, I wouldn’t say Padmé’s death is a fridging. You however mentioned specifically the whole “lost the will to live” part, which is something else, and I don’t know if I would call that sexist either.

Yeah it fuckin’ sucks that in a universe where any old Darth Spite can survive falling down a hole after getting chopped in half/blown up, where the universe personally pulls time travel fixits despite continuity to save you if the director the universe likes you too much to let you die, where the woman in question’s husband just got triple amputated and flambéed and is up and kicking like an hour after getting fixed, where Breha Organa and Fennec Shand can just get brand new roboguts to replace any of their internal organs getting destroyed— it SUCKS that in that universe, Miz Amidala unfortunately cannot escape the diagnosis of Terminal Sad.

But they never say that she can’t go on just because of her emotions over losing Anakin; in fact, her last words are a fervent belief that she hasn’t lost Anakin, that he can still come back, that she still loves him even after he tried to kill her and destroyed her life’s work. I think it’s a combination of all of the different kinds of heartbreak. Her husband helping commit a genocide, yes her entire life’s work she put all of herself into burning to the ground around her, Jedi who were likely her friends all being dead, ALL of that weighed on Padmé. ALL of that was likely a part of her just not having the strength to take any more of this bullshit. Yeah she had two new babies, yeah there was the Rebellion. New children aren’t all sunshine and roses, especially when you’re a newly single parent and your not-so-deadbeat father is trying to hunt you down and is also a murderous fascist. Being part of a rebellion against a corrupt authority??? Fucking SUCKS. Activism and standing up and doing the right thing and fighting to take down the authoritarian power structures is WORK and it’s HARD and it is EXHAUSTING. It’s not a shining crusade of light and hope. It’s gritty and dirty and time consuming and it kills people. Padmé’s been throwing her entire sense of self into serving others, fixing the government, since she was twelve years old. She’s been conditioned to it. It’s all she’s BEEN doing. She has never seen a therapist in her LIFE. She just went through a grueling labor after being strangled by the one she loved most.

The more and more I watch this movie and the more and more I’ve looked back at my own mental bullshit, I can’t help but watch her death now and be like “ok yeah, I get that. I get just not being able to fight anymore, even if it’s The Right Thing To Do to pull yourself back up no matter what.”

I personally actually do subscribe to the theory that Sidious drained Padmé’s life force and used it to save Anakin because I love how it’s a painfully ironic end to the unhealthy and tragic Anidala relationship, that it’s sad for both of them, just because that’s the exact kind of Star Wars bullshit that is fun and makes sense to me. But even if Padmé just genuinely died from not being able to go on, just, I can’t really see that alone as anti-feminist anymore

[morethanonepage]

what would you say are the dynamics and themes that interest you most? Also frankly I'm surprised you read any star wars fic still, I agree on just wanting to read some good finnpoe but that has gotten increasingly futile.

i mean the thing i potentially like so much about finnpoe is that they BOTH have very specific, in some ways very different traumas (finn being a child soldier and growing up in such a highly regulated way where he had basically no bodily autonomy VS poe being mind-raped AND seeing his inability to stop it as having betrayed his own people AND seeing so many of his friends & comrades die in quick succession AND still recovering from the loss of his mother as a child and Muran when he was commanding Rapier Squadron) but they both have a tendency to compartmentalize that and continue to function on their own while being loyal (Finn’s devotion to Rey, which gets a lot of flack in fandom but like -- that’s one of the first people he’s been able to form a connection with!! AND I think he lowkey feels that it’s his fault Rey got dragged into -- everything, so he feels a great deal of responsibility for protecting her) and passionate about a cause (Poe basically killing himself to keep the Ideals Of The Republic Alive, be it through trying to hunt down the FO before he’s even part of the Resistance, to doing everything he can to keep the Resistance afloat once he is). 

like they have those similarities -- a real sense of duty and responsibility toward their friends and those they’re fighting with -- but they have fundamental differences in approach that the movies did a shitty job of extrapolating on when it could’ve been such an interesting conflict: Poe is the idealist and thinks of duty to a higher ideal first and foremost (like Leia and his mother, tbh) whereas Finn is more of a pessimist and a cynic and believes protecting your friends and loved ones from the substantial evil is hard enough without setting up to FIGHT ALL OF THE BAD IN THE UNIVERSE like Poe wants/believes he has to do. and both of these things are based so much on their upbringings! Poe grew up with those ideals and freedoms and parents who fought, successfully, to protect them, and believes he owes it to them to live up to their example and protect them as well; Finn has SEEN the evil of the FO firsthand and seen everyone around him subsumed by it, believes it to be omnipotent bc for him and his squad mates it literally was. escaping all of that was an act of powerful resistance on its own!

idk i just think a lot of the fandom’s take on this is, if you focus on finn ~running away~ in canon or not wanting to join up with the Resistance just ‘cause it’s ~the right thing to do~ you’re feeding into this idea of black men being cowards and/or selfish when it’s like no! that’s the consequence of his trauma: he’s running away from an abuser who controlled every aspect of his life, who’s set up to hunt him down and destroy planets and take over the universe in a way that’ll mean he’s NEVER safe, and he knows every single person he grew up with and had some affection for are a part of it too, which on the one hand he might be reluctant to fight them, but on the other they 100% won’t be reluctant to fight him AND they know him well enough to know his weaknesses. 

all of this is A LOT and it’s heavy and dark stuff, which i GET can be hard to work into like, light fluffy fic about finn finally being happy or learning what sex is or w/e, and not everything about fanfic has to be a ~deep exploration~ of character’s inner turmoil but like -- idk. there’s ways of dealing with these elements of finn’s backstory without making the whole thing drudging tragedy porn (which is ANOTHER fanfic trend i can’t stand -- neither Finn nor Poe are characters entirely without hope and fics that treat either of their tragedies [lbr it’s mostly poe’s that get dealt with] as the focus or main characteristic of either also bum me out) and I just really wish fandom had more interest in it. 

Another factor that KILLS ME is how Poe has (justifiably) developed OBVIOUS distrust for the force and force users, and would have such a fundamentally hard time dealing with the fact that Finn is one. Canon didn’t even let Finn be explicitly force sensitive, and fandom is like YAY FINN IS FORCE SENSITIVE, NOW HE CAN USE THE FORCE TO BONE (POE), and any fic that does touch on it makes Poe out to be ~unreasonable for not trusting Finn, or having his distrust be a consequence of his PTSD alone, and a sign he has to deal with his shit VS a very real issue that Poe might genuinely not be able to get over: the force CAN be creepy and is too easy to abuse, and a lot of what Poe’s seen it used for WAS bad. 

the other dimension of all this is, accidentally or not, these dynamics take on all sorts of real-world implications given both actor’s identities -- the explicit parallels between Finn’s upbringing and chattel slavery (taken from his family at an early age, losing all connection with his birthplace and culture, seen as useful but dispensable by an oppressive, mostly-white empire)  & its legacy for Black Americans (that lack of connection with a historical homeland and the loss of a cultural connection that came from it) VS the first generation latinx immigrant narrative that Poe and his family embody (the sacrifice for and long separation from a child in the service of giving them a better life, the burden that child takes upon themselves to make that sacrifice worth it by excelling in certain spheres, the drive to be the VERY BEST representative of their new culture, the embrace of that culture’s ideals bc they don’t want to think their parents sacrificed everything for a lie [with the creeping knowledge and experience to know many of those ideals are flawed and not always lived up to]). 

and the canon ignores that bc addressing it would require world building that couldn’t center/come back to the Skywalkers in some way (and the only family dynamics it’s interested in is DADDY ISSUES, fucking Free Fall), and fandom doesn’t care about it bc it’s mostly white girls who, AT BEST, decide to focus on the potential ~sexuality conflicts (coming out, family rejection, etc) when writing real world AUS, without dealing with the intersectionality of a black and a brown man, their respective cultural context, and the resultant conflicts those would create beyond, idk, “POCs are always homophobic so finn and/or poe’s parents kicked them out or w/e”.  and like I really don’t WANT these people trying to grapple with the complexity of a queer, interracial relationship where neither participant is white (i’ve seen enough just watching them grapple with either character’s sexuality tbh). 

but idk, that’s what’s interesting to me: finn and poe’s backgrounds and how those set up fundamental conflict points for both of them, both in canon (Poe’s devotion to the cause of liberty and democracy for the whole galaxy VS Finn’s duty to the people he loves over anything else) and in a real world au (Black people have a fundamentally different relationship to the American Ideal than Latinx immigrants do, for very good reasons). And I want those things to be significant elements of the characterization for both, but not the ONLY elements of characterization for both: stories should, in even some small way, be about what characters WANT (even if it is just “to fuck,” as it often is when I write [ok it’s usually “to love but be able to show it without saying it, hence the fucking”]) and so few fics, these days, give me any sense of what finn and poe want besides, vaguely “each other” (”because the author feels like they have to write them bc the actors are hot/for woke points”) and that is just -- boring to me. 

also god i would just love to read some dialogue that isn’t just twitter/tumblr memes and/or mcu level mean quips. like, just in general.