#and like. a teenager going through a period like this is naturally kinda defensive over questions from parents so she was scared to ask. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thejustmaiden · 4 years

Note

I’m honestly hoping with the current movement of #saveourchildren and the lgbtq community calling out pedos will give the sequel backlash if Rin is the mother. Also I hope none of those shippers are a part of the movement because than it’s just hypocrisy at it’s finest. I’m honored praying sunrise gets the backlash if they decide to do that, especially since it’s 2020, NORMAL and SANE people will be shocked. I’m pretty sure everyone’s sick of the “it’s normal in Japan.” People want change.

Hey, nonnie! I'm not sure if you're the same person who sent me the previous anon ask about what Jaken's VA sent during the livestream or not. I'm assuming that because I received them almost back-to-back, but maybe I wrong. Whatever it may be, happy to have you. 😊

It would be hypocritical in many ways, yes, but at the same time many Sessrin shippers say they would never condone acts like child grooming and the such in real life. I really believe them for the most part, too.

So where does that leave us? Well, what it all really comes down to is at what point do we start acknowledging the spaces both fiction and real life occupy and the (in)direct impact they're capable of having on each other.

In my opinion, Sessrin shippers refuse to accept their correlation- whether that be due to denial, lack of awareness, or a bit of both. Regardless, it's safe to say they simply don't take how linked these two are as seriously as antis do.

As has become a habit of mine in recent blogs/asks lol, I'd like to refer you to a great write-up by boycottyashahime. Read their thoughts on this very subject here. They always put it better than me anyway. Here's a preview excerpt:

"Predators have and continue to use fictional relationships to convince their victims that the abuse they experience is perfectly fine. I think that it would behoove the SessRin community to make sure that those in their midst who are young and vulnerable know the warning signs, understand when an older person may be trying to take advantage of them, and encourage drawing a clear line between the fictional ship and real relationships."

Sessrin shippers would respond to this by saying that shipping a fictional pairing- yes, even if it has harmful implications- isn't actually bad since it's not real and therefore can't be viewed in a negative light. A common misconception of theirs is that antis can't separate real life from fiction. Let me break down why these two reasonings lack support and are basically justifications:

1) Inuyasha is aimed at a young audience, and at no point in this series should a teenager watching be subjected to controversial dynamics closely reminiscent of pedophilia or child grooming. Period.

2) Most of us who have a problem with it CAN in fact differentiate between real life and fiction so please stop missing the point, be it intentionally or not.

The main issue we have is why are we exposing young minds to a heavy topic they are not mature enough to handle yet. Whether you agree or not, it's common knowledge that Sessrin raises a lot of red flags. Antis aren't overreacting because of dumb shipping wars or anything trivial like that. What we're reacting to is the typical Sessrin shipper's response to this pairing. Ship it if you want, but please don't tell us how we should frame our opinions according to your "historically accurate" portrayal, especially if it morphs the truth into something unrecognizable in order to fit your narrative.

Here's an example to give you a better idea of what I mean:

Let's say my favorite animal is the koala bear and yours is the kangaroo. Both are marsupials, right? Both lovable, but one is friendly and the other can be quite dangerous. Now imagine you trying to suggest a kangaroo is as friendly as a koala- so essentially something it's not. Shouldn't I correct you? Sure, you can love the kangaroo (Sessrin in this case) all you want, but shouldn't we stick to the facts presented to us? Accurate identification is the key to appropriate representation! (Say it with me! I like alliteration and rhyming, what can I say? lol) This way there isn't any confusion and we can help prevent our young ones from misinterpreting potentially threatening situations. By attempting to pass the kangaroo off in a category among docile species like the koala (aka healthy ships), you risk putting others in harm's way. Who's to say a child won't take your word for it and just run up to a kangaroo someday and get gravely injured (aka they've now exposed themselves to a real life predator). All this could've been avoided from the get-go if a certain group of people didn't refuse to admit that the kangaroo is indeed dangerous no matter how much they wish it wasn't. Trying to convince us that a kangaroo can be like a koala or something it's not is never going to happen. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that either so there's no need to get defensive. The kangaroo can still survive and thrive and so can your ship, but just in a different environment/genre.

(Did that analogy work? xD)

And nobody as far as I've witnessed (with the exception of maybe one or two occasions) has straight-up called Sessrin shippers pedophiles. Pedo apologists, perhaps, but those two aren't one in the same. Petty and ugly name-calling on the other hand? Well, that's taking place on both sides so you can't really use that against antis.

People do want change! Not only am I tired of Sessrin fans speaking on behalf of an entire country regarding the popularity of a ship despite a strong presence of antis there, nonnie, I'm sick of those same fans telling us we don't have a right to be critical of the content we consume. "If you don't like it, then stop watching."

Since when did it become wrong to demand we do better and improve in areas? It's only normal we care and expect our entertainment to be aligned with our real life morals, because how else do you think fans relate to characters? Of course fiction can push the boundaries as is its nature, but like with everything else in life there are limits. After all, the stories we make up are but reflections of the human experience and we're taught that there are some lines you must never cross.

I'd like to end this off by saying that I hope you're right, nonnie, and that Sunrise and everyone else involved in this sequel receive all the backlash they deserve if they decide to go through with Sessrin. It's possible that movements like Save Our Children can help people who are struggling to understand why making this ship canon is problematic. On top of that, it can help them re-evaluate their values and put them in better perspective in regard to this pairing's close connection to serious acts of abuse like child grooming.

Maybe this whole time we've just been underestimating Sunrise and Rumiko's ability for profound and consistent storytelling. *knocks on wood* All along maybe we had nothing to worry about, who knows? Don't break my heart, readers, and just let me be the half-glass full kinda gal I've always been. It ain't over till it's over. 🤗

Edit: I recently discovered that a right-wing conspiracy pro-Trump group by the name of QAnon is trying to hijack the Save Our Children movement as their own. As much as I support anything that brings more light to children's issues, I do not support Trump, this terrorist organization, and their conspiracy theories.

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #anti sessrin #save our children #anonymous asks #answered ask

18 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 5 years

Text

Okay, I knew Alistair the Dream-Keeper wasn’t the first time I’d written the idea of magically weaponized dreams, so I went hunting through old email accounts and found a whole fucking manuscript I wrote like, twelve years ago and totally forgot about. WHOOPS. (This happens with me more often than you’d think actually possible). I’m only a third of the way through my re-read of it, but it holds up surprisingly well IMO, I’m pretty pleased. I can actually do something with this, I think.

Course, it was apparently written back during my whole “every thing must be hetero otherwise there will be no publishing” period, before the beginning of my personal Age of LOL Nah, Fuck That, Everything Must Be Gay. So, first things first, Jez definitely needs a girlfriend, and also a different name. I can’t believe I named her Jez, like, wow, I was really trying to get YA Bingo, wasn’t I? In my defense, this was when I was twenty-three. Also, this first chapter here has a character named Scott and this was before Teen Wolf even premiered, so apparently I just like the name Scott? Huh. Did not know.

BURNING DAYLIGHT

Jez O’Neill knows she has three years, two months, and sixteen days to live.

She’s had visions for as long as she can remember. She knows they’re never wrong. And when the boy her visions say will someday kill her comes into her life, she knows to stay far away.

But somehow he gets close anyways. Because Nathan is perfect. He’s handsome, he’s charming, he’s utterly, unbearably sweet. And when he learns of Jez’s visions, he promises to cheat Death for her. An interest in New Age turns into an obsession with the occult, and that leads to tiny cracks in the walls of the world, where strange and untrustworthy spirits wait to barter with anyone desperate enough to try.

Magic, however, always comes with a price. The higher the reward you seek, the more you can expect to pay, and the spell Nathan thinks will change their destiny instead puts them on a collision course with Fate. It changes him, twists him in mind and soul, transforming the boy Jez loves into the madman who will someday take her life.

With only three years left until the day she now knows she can’t avoid, Jez discovers she and Nathan share the same zipcode again as he sows death and destruction in the streets of LA. But rather than flee for another city, Jez pits herself against the monster she once loved, the monster she helped create, determined to make sure no one else gets caught in the crossfire of their attempt to cheat their fates.

Call it redemption if you want. Jez calls it Tuesday.

Chapter 1

Dreams are doorways if you have the right key.

That’s why I’ve wasted a perfectly good Sunday night perched on the edge of Scott Kinley’s desk. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and I’m sure I look like a gargoyle in the pitch dark of the two o’clock hour, but every chair in his bedroom is covered in dirty teenage boy laundry. I’ll stick with my perch, thanks.

I kick my legs out and arch my spine, stretching my arms over my head with fingers laced together. Cramped and aching muscles voice their protest. Something cracks in my neck when I roll my head back. Meanwhile, Scott Kinley snores contentedly in his sleep in the bed across the room. I shoot him a glare that’s best described as withering.

Spears of pale moonlight slip through the slatted blinds covering the window above his bed. They stab the length of his body, highlighting a strong jawline and tousled blond hair, not to mention a chest and set of abs that frankly, I just find obnoxious on a fellow teenager. It’s L.A. in early September – code for unbearably hot – and he’s sleeping with the bare minimum of sheets, a loose span of cotton that’s only covering him up to his waist. I’d enjoy the cheap thrill more if it didn’t make me feel like such a perv.

After all, I’m a total stranger who broke into his house and has spent the last four hours going through his things and watching him sleep. It’s kinda hard to feel good about that. In my defense, I’m only here to save his life from a creepy magical serial killer. Course, I have strong doubts that would hold up in a court of law should he wake up and have me arrested for breaking and entering. But I still feel it’s worth mentioning.

A yawn and a glance at his alarm clock confirm that it’s 2:07 am and I have no life. I lean back on the desk and rifle through his homework some more as I go back to invading his privacy. My only defense here is I’m really bored.

His handwriting’s slightly more legible than your average garden-variety chicken scratch, but I’m still not one hundred percent his name’s Scott Kinley. The Scott part is clear, but the ‘I’ in what I think is Kinley could be a really jacked up ‘o’ I guess. Whatever. It’s a pre-calculus assignment, and the last yearbook on his bookshelf is from his sophomore year, so I’m guessing he’s a junior like me. Or like I would be, if I still bothered going to school. Hmm. Eleventh grade and already in precalc? Someone’s a smarty-pants. Interesting.

A row of trophies and a couple of team photos declare him a water polo jock, and not too shabby of one according to this MVP title. Explains the abs. I roll my eyes around the rest of the room. Small TV so old it has a VCR player built into it. An even older Sega Genesis console is hooked up to it, so either Scott’s big on nostalgia or his family’s not big on luxuries. There’s a couple of movie posters tacked to the wall, but the puddle of light leaking across the floor doesn’t reach far enough for me to make out any details. Then a freestanding bookcase, a good five shelves high, filled with actual books. Above it is a college pennant with a bear on it – I think that’s Cal Berkeley, right? Possible destination, I’m guessing….

God. And he was in bed by ten. Smart, good-looking, athletic and ambitious. Did his parents just win the baby lottery, or if I go down the hall will I find the altar they used to bargain with the Devil?

Not that it matters. I stretch my legs out again and dip my toes into the pool of moonbeams, watching them spill across my feet when I wiggle. It’s only been six months since my last boyfriend went all dark side on me and turned into a spell-wielding slaughterhouse. I’m kind of not dating right now.

So it’s only natural my visions would lead me to the most eligible teen bachelor in Los Angeles – I cast another quick look around the desk for the requisite ‘me and my girlfriend’ photo – nope, most eligible teen bachelor in Los Angeles. Ugh. It’s like announcing your diet and inheriting a pastry shop the next day. I feel a sudden urge to grab one of his dirty shirts off the floor just to make sure his one human flaw is real and not an illusion.

Wow. I can’t believe I just thought that. Apparently sleep deprivation makes me weird. Besides, there’s no way that smell could be imaginary.

I throw another withering glare in Scott’s direction. It’s his fault I’m a weird, sleep-deprived pervert in his stinky bedroom. My baleful stare bakes the air above his bed. It bends and twists like a summer heat wave on asphalt. Wait. That’s not right.

I shake my head, peering through the fog that shrouds my tired mind. Somewhere in my snooping I failed to notice Scott’s happy snores had turned into frantic whimpers. He’s writhing on his bed; sweat beads all over his restless body, glistening like fragile pearls in the faint light. The room is abruptly a sauna. Heat climbs the walls and steam mists the glass of the picture frames.

“Shit,” I whisper, and I’m in motion, leaping off the desk into a crouch. I dip my hand into my hoodie and whip out my knife, steel slicing moonbeams to ribbons as the blade springs free. A low keening shreds the silence, hoarse spectral shouts as faces flicker through the knife, reflected in the steel. I cross the room in three steps. Scott cries out. His fingers scratch at the air like crooked claws.

Somewhere a door opens, and something steps through. Between the space of one second and the next, a heavy silhouette takes shape on this side of the dream.

I slam into the figure with all my weight, blade aimed for the midsection where I’m hoping vital organs will be. The knife sinks in too easily. The sandman-born beastie is still in that transitive state where its dream wrought form has yet to shift all the way down the spectrum to vulnerable flesh. Then my knife catches and scrapes against bone. The nightmare screams as it sinks its roots into our reality and feels pain for the first time.

It’s tougher to pull the blade free, but I’m stronger than any normal seventeen year old girl has a right to be. More specifically, as long as I’m wielding that knife I’m as strong as all the monsters it’s killed combined. And I’ve racked up a decent body count. Blood and bile sprays in slow motion, a cresting wave of black tar. A few drops land on my arm. There’s a hissing sound and I feel like I’m on fire. I grit my teeth and swing again. It dodges and I miss. We both regroup, and I get my first good look at it.

Damn. Mr. Perfect Teen USA has one hell of a fucked up subconscious. I’m just saying.

The nightmare swallows what dim light comes near it, refusing to be illuminated. It’s thick, ridged with protrusions of bone and slick scales that shimmer with their own dark radiance. A trunk-like torso gives way to stocky legs. At certain angles they seem to merge into a single column similar to a snake. It has four arms, except for when it has six – and then two and then twelve and then they’re not arms at all, but tentacles. The head is a gaping chasm of teeth and forked tongue surrounded by a lion’s mane of mottled skin. It’s dizzying and hard to look at. Confusing and chaotic. The only constant is its ugliness.

I charge at it, because I’m just that dumb. Hey, only the good die young.

It dips to the side, cobra-quick, and its tail snaps out like the crack of a whip. I take the hit square in my ribs and I’m lifted off my feet, flying back across the room. My breath flees from my lungs, my head slams back into a wall. I bite my tongue and taste copper.

“Rude,” I gasp.

Scrambling up to snatch my knife from where I dropped it mid-flight, I steal strength from its macabre magic. Even still, regaining my feet takes effort and time I don’t have to spare. The nightmare’s turned its attention back to Scott. He’s finally awake and sitting up his bed. Pale, frightened, and totally out of his league. Considering we were dealing with his worst nightmare in every literal sense of the word, I cut him some slack. I’m a good person.

I roll forward and rake my cursed blade along the creature’s side on my way. It rears and screams again. Dimly I hear footsteps and distant shouting.

“What the hell is that thing?” Scott asks, eyes locked on the beastie like a man entranced. Oh good, he can talk. I was starting to wonder. I duck around the nightmare and stick myself in between it and him.

“Don’t ask me. It’s your childhood trauma,” I say, hefting my knife and gauging distance. “Now shut up, don’t die, and for god’s sake put on some pants.”

I lunge and bury my knife in the thing’s throat. I’m liking my odds less and less when it still finds the strength to knock my grip loose and drop me on my ass. More blood drips down on me, igniting nerve endings everywhere it touches my skin. Let’s recap. I have spunk, pizzazz, seven spells and a cursed knife on my side. It has burning blood, a build like a freight train, and claws and fangs that seem to multiply every time I look at it. It leans forward and roars its hostility right in my face.

Also, it has halitosis.

A swipe of its many tentacle-arms knocks me back and to the side again. I land on the floor, staring up at the bookshelf. It’s tricky reading the titles from my upside-down vantage point, but I hazily make out the collected works of one H.P. Lovecraft. That explains a lot.

“You know, there are worse things in the world than being a cliché,” I complain, glowering over my shoulder at Scott. He has the decency to look ashamed, over where he’s huddled on the other side of the desk. Course, I’m sure he has no idea what he’s ashamed of, but my tone conveys the point rather well, I think. “Seriously. The dumb jock thing. Just give it a try.”

Mano a mano isn’t working out too well for me so I switch tactics. I toss a quick ‘Hail Mary’ skyward, kick off my shoes and chant the most powerful – and dangerous – of my seven spells. It’s a nasty little sucker I bartered for in the second sphere, the Circle of Fire. I rattle off short, harsh syllables that climb reluctantly from the base of my throat, guttural utterances that were never meant to be made by a human voice. I dip my fingers in moonlight and etch glowing hieroglyphics in the air – they hang there for a moment, sharply luminescent in the seconds before they fade to black.

Staccato snaps and pops ring out. The alarm clock short circuits. Streetlights flicker and die. Every electronic in a fifty meter radius develops a sudden terminal illness and the air feels flooded. Thick and heavy with static as thousands of wayward electrical impulses conduct themselves through the atmosphere to me. I dig my toes into the heavy carpet and feel the hair on my head stand on end. Then I’m running, my nervous system supercharged with too much speed and power to contain long. I duck past the nightmare’s swinging arms – it might as well be lumbering at tortoise speed – and plant a single palm flat on its back.

My touch hits it like a thunderbolt, lightning barreling down the synapses in my arm and ripping into it with hurricane fury. It squeals and goes airborne, crashing into the desk and reducing it to kindling. Scott falls back, mouth open, and smoke wisps up from the creature’s motionless body.

For a second, I dare to hope it’s dead. It would be really awesome for me if it were. That was my most powerful offensive spell and using it comes with a one in ten chance of killing the spellcaster. So, you know. I’d really like to not have to use it again, please.

The nightmare heaves itself to its feet-tail, sending spears of desk turned firewood flying about the room. Some of the shrapnel heads my way and I cover my eyes. Splinters gouge at my palms. I peek past my fingers, and in a blur of motion the creature crosses the room and throws itself through the window. It rips through the blinds and shards of glass fountain into the hot summer night. The darkness outside swallows it whole.

“I hate you,” I casually inform the universe.

I pick past debris and make for the window. Or what’s left of it anyways. The house is on a hill, high enough elevation that glass from the window is still showering to the ground below. Chiming, delicate drops of crystal rain. City lights gleam from one horizon to the next. A pitch-black shadow makes its way across distant rooftops, dark even against the darkness, like a spreading oil stain spilling towards the downtown metropolis. Lovely.

“What the hell is going on?” Scott finally finds his voice again, but I have no time to soothe his shattered nerves or offer an introductory course on Things That Go Bump in the Night 101. I run my hands through my frizzy, static-damaged hair.

“That was disgusting, you need therapy, and the pants thing was not a suggestion,” I inform him, bending to retrieve my knife. Scott flushes and grabs the sheet off the bed. He doesn’t even try and peek at my ass. A piece of the Scott Kinley puzzle clicks into place, and I feel a tiny bit better.

“Hey, quick question. Are you gay?”

His jaw drops, but he recovers fairly quickly. “What – how did you – I mean, why?”

I shrug. “No reason. Just won a bet with myself is all.”

Hey, it’s the little things in life. I turn back to the window and track the nightmare’s course. Picking a rooftop a few buildings ahead of it, I prick my thumb and whisper a spell from the seventh sphere, the Celestial Circle. I sketch bloody sigils in the moonbeams cascading through the open window. They turn pale and faint and I grab their remnants like door handles. The silver light parts, a gauzy curtain opening on a window to a distant rooftop far below.

I cast a sigh at the bewildered boy behind me and step through. It’s probably for the best. Like I said, I’m kinda not dating right now anyways.

The curtain falls shut behind me and I resume my hunt.

#Burning Daylight #kalen writes things sometimes

5 notes · View notes

preserving-ferretbrain · 5 years

Text

One Man's Burning Hatred for Anime

by Rude Cyrus

Friday, 10 July 2009

Cyrus displays something that looks suspiciously like masochism.

Uh-oh! This is in the Axis of Awful...~

Dear god in heaven. I’m not prepared for this, but the rage and hatred have built to a point where I must let it out. There are some things I hate in this world, but none more so than pretension, especially pretension that is accepted by the masses as tortured genius. It’s frustrating to point out that something is obviously a dog turd wrapped in shiny foil, only to be met with derision, defensive bootlicking, and cries of “WELL, THAT’S JUST YOUR OPINION.”

The subject I’ll be talking about today is a well-known anime (if you don’t know what anime is, go look it up on Wikipedia or something). A fair warning: there’s going to be a gratuitous amount of cussing and spoilers – that is, if you consider a dead fly in the middle of a feces lollipop to be a spoiler.

A bit of background first, so I can delay this thing as long as possible: when I was an innocent, starry-eyed larva, I was exposed to anime by way of Speed Racer. The show is about racing and cars, or some such shit; frankly, it’s a poorly animated mess that’s interesting only as an experiment to see how much footage the animators recycled. I was left with the impression that all anime was shit, at least until a few years later when I discovered Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon– the former catered to my violent fantasies of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, while the latter indulged my masturbatory dreams of teenage girls in short skirts. Look, I was 13 at the time, okay? Oh, and I got caught up in something called Pokemon, although I don’t think too many people watched that show.

Eventually I matured (kinda sorta) and began yearning for something that appealed to my awesome intellect. My first taste of a “real” anime was Akira, a fun little jaunt into a post-apocalyptic Japan inhabited by shriveled, psychic children and motorcycle gangs. The film fell apart at the end and generally felt slipshod; it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it was an adaptation of a manga, and quite a bit of content had to be cut.

Then I watched Ghost in the Shell, another movie that takes place in the Future! This time, it’s about 100 times more confusing and talky, with characters standing around, pondering what it is to be human, blah blah blah. Interspersed throughout are scenes of the lead character, Makoto, running around bare-ass naked and kicking butt. The thing that stuck me is that Makoto has no genitalia – no pubic hair, no vulva, just a blank area of flesh. It disturbs me to this day.

I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing. I thought it odd.

After that, I went through what I call my Hayao Miyazaki period: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro – if Miyazaki made it, I watched it. This was followed up with Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (which I found to be superior to the film). Finally, I stumbled upon a series called Neon Genesis Evangelion, something considered by the anime community to be a complex, profound examination of human nature, combined with awesome giant mech action.

This series is the subject of this article.

A brief synopsis: in the year 2015, Earth’s population has decreased dramatically, thanks to a cataclysmic event called “Second Impact” that occurred at the turn of the century. To make things worse, monstrosities called Angels are threatening to destroy the remnants of humanity – the only things that stand in the way are giant, biomechanical creatures called Evangelions (or EVAs for short), piloted by three 14-year-old teenagers. The main characters are:

Shinji Ikari – a shy, introverted boy that was abandoned by his father after his mother died (said father being the commander of the organization that created the EVAs), Shinji wants nothing more than to be liked by his deadbeat dad. He’s a coward as well, something that puts him at odds with the enormous responsibility of piloting an EVA. He becomes a bit braver and more self-assured as the series goes on, before collapsing into a whiny, spineless piece of shit.

Rei Ayanami – this strange girl is almost emotionless and wholly dedicated to Shinji’s father, which is somewhat creepy when you realize that he’s twice her age; we later find out that she’s a partial clone of Shinji’s mother. Her interactions with Shinji lead her to become more in touch with her emotions and thus more “human”, at least until she starts fostering a death wish.

Asuka Langley Soryu – a half-German/half-Japanese redheaded girl that serves as the show’s LOUD WESTERN STEREOTYPE. Asuka is opinionated, bossy, overconfident, and thinks poorly of Shinji. She softens towards him a bit after he fishes her out of a volcano and the two are forced to train in unison (don’t ask). She becomes an emotionally shattered shell after being forced to relive childhood memories of her insane mother’s suicide.

Whee.

To be fair, it doesn’t start out too bad. The best parts of the series dealt with the interactions between the three main characters (when they were three-dimensional human beings and not cardboard cutouts, that is). As time went on, the tone became darker, the characters became suicidally depressed, and a somewhat coherent storyline devolved into madness. Episode 24 (out of 26) introduced Kaworu Nagisa, an Angel in human form that became insanely popular due to his homoerotic interactions with Shinji, and ended with a two-minute static shot of an EVA holding Kaworu’s body in its hand while music played in the background – no speech, no movement, just this single shot. Go stare at a picture for several minutes and you’ll get the same effect: mind-numbing boredom.

The final two episodes were bullshit from start to finish. In them, an unseen party questioned every major character on their motivations, which the characters responded to, all with bowed heads so the animators didn’t have to draw mouths. In between these interrogations, we were assaulted with still images and words and nonsense. The ending had all the characters standing around, clapping their hands and saying “Congratulations!” As if they were praising the viewers for making it through this festering garbage.

I would’ve purged this crap from my head and moved on, but then I learned that the creator, Hideaki Anno, was forced to give the fans that shameful ending due to time and budgetary constraints, and there was a film called The End of Evangelion that acts as the true ending to the series. So, I hunted down a copy and watched it.

Let me tell you something: the movie makes the series ending look like fucking Citizen Kane in comparison. I have never, ever seen such a bloated, pompous, insulting, nasty, manipulative, incoherent pile of monkey shit like End of Evangelion. I hear that Anno received death threats over the series ending, and after seeing the kind of petty drivel this man is capable of, I can understand why. Not that I’m condoning death threats or anything.

How bad is this film? Here’s a scene from the opening moments: Shinji is in a hospital room, standing over Asuka, who has been sedated following the mental trauma she endured at the hands of an Angel. Shinji, desperate to get her to respond, pulls at her and accidentally rips open her gown, revealing her breasts. Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

This is sick! What’s the fucking point of this scene, to establish Shinji as a future serial rapist? It’s disgusting, vile, inexcusable, and every other synonym for “bad”. Why? I have about a dozen other questions, like “Who thought this was a good idea?” and “What the fuck is wrong with Hideaki Anno?” but the best query right now is: why?

Later, Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time –

I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. WHY?! I’ve heard fans say that this is an example of Shinji hitting rock bottom, and besides, he expresses his contempt for himself immediately afterwards. Look, I’ve been clinically depressed at times too, but I don’t jerk off over unconscious girls. Know why not? Because that would make me a SEX OFFENDER.

Fuck.

Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time cowering in a ball in the corner, alternating between screaming and sobbing. Asuka is revived, but she and her EVA are literally ripped to pieces. Rei becomes a sort of god-monster and dies. Whee.

The second half of the movie is filled the same mind-fuckery and nonsense imagery that ruined the series ending, only it’s a billion times worse here. There’s also some well-written dialogue on display too:

SHINJI: Where is my dream?

REI: It is where your reality ends.

SHINJI: Then where is my reality?

REI: It is at the end of your dream.

That’s not a 100% accurate quote, but it’s pretty damn close. It’s deep, man.

And if you don’t hate Shinji enough, here he comes to bitch endlessly about how everyone hates him and he hates everyone. Gee, with that sunny disposition, I can’t imagine why he’s so miserable. Then Asuka steps in and tells him he’s a worthless turd, so he chokes her. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill a fictional character so badly in my life.

Then there’s some live-action footage of people getting on a train while Rei and Shinji continue to babble about human nature, all for our benefit, of course. After what seems like fucking days, the movie ends with Shinji and Asuka on a beach, the only two humans left on the planet. Shinji starts choking Asuka AGAIN, but is stopped when she caresses his cheek. Her oxygen-deprived brain must’ve mistaken him for someone else. Shinji stops choking her and, what else, starts crying. Asuka looks at him and utters a most appropriate line: “Disgusting.”

In case you don’t get it, let me spell it out: I HATE THIS MOVIE. I hate it to a degree I didn’t think was possible. Most of my anger is directed towards Hideaki Anno, who was the writer and director for the series and the movie. He strikes me as a pretentious, antisocial, petty person, and everything he does oozes contempt for his fans. From creating this giant middle-finger of celluloid to stating “Too bad” in English when a fan said he was dissatisfied with the original ending, he’s a man who has no idea how to relate to people.

*deep breath*

Here’s why I can’t stand him: he created characters that I related to, characters that had nuanced personalities (even though they would be pigeonholed at times), characters that I wanted to see happy, characters that I sympathized with…and then he slowly, gleefully tore them apart. He forced them to go through absolute hell, and they all came out as broken individuals, and that’s how they stayed to the end – alone and unloved. Whenever there was a glimmer of light, Anno snuffed it out. I have no idea why he was so cruel to his own characters, but I have some theories:

1. He started out liking what he did, but ended up hating it, so he tried to make it so no one else would be able to revive the series (this one appears to have been disproven – see below).

2. He planned this from the beginning, making him a sadist as well as a hack.

3. Something in his life caused him to become extremely depressed, so his work reflects that.

I’ve heard a lot of evidence (and by evidence I mean conjecture) to support C, but if that’s the case, why not just put things on hold until he got better? On the other hand, his “too bad” comment indicates that he didn’t really give a shit about the whole thing, so who knows?

The fans deserve a tongue-lashing as well. If I had a dollar for every comment that called him a “genius”, a “visionary”, or any of the things that he isn’t…I’d be able to buy out Microsoft. I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

Hilariously, Anno has decided his masterpice wasn’t good enough, or something, because he’s now remaking the series into four movies with witty titles like You Can (Not) Advance and You Are (Not) Alone and You Can (Not) Go Fuck Yourself. The ending to all of this is supposed to be totally new, which means it’s probably going to be even more frustrating and ambiguous. From the pictures I’ve seen and the reviews I’ve heard, it looks awful. Asuka’s last name has been changed to Shikinami, for some nebulous reason, and the body suit she wears is now translucent – she wears a bra underneath, but there are only a few inches of opaque fabric covering her cooch, so I’m guessing the design was built around fanservice. Which is always a great consideration, right? Plus, she’s supposed to wear an eyepatch in the third film, like a goddamn pirate.

On top of that, Anno has shoehorned in the loathsome Kaworu from the beginning, and added a new character named Mari, who is from the UK, I think. He’s packed 100 tons of shit into a 10-ton bag, in other words. Naturally, the fans are eager to fall all over themselves defending their messiah, bleating variations of “IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN” or “WE JUST NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THE END”. I don’t need to poke myself in the eye to know that it hurts, and I don’t need to watch these films to know that they’ll end just like the original series: no resolution, no closure, no catharsis, no satisfaction. The whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth, and no amount of brushing will get it out. The only way these movies could be more insulting is if they consisted entirely of Hideaki Anno flipping off the audience with both hands, pausing occasionally to grab his crotch and sneer.

Actually, that would be less insulting.Themes:

TV & Movies

Sci-fi / Fantasy

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

~Comments (

go to latest

)

Wardog

at 12:26 on 2009-07-10Oh good God.

I don't know what to say. My knowledge of anime is pretty much restricted to shows in which princesses turn into ducks and do ballet (or is that the other way round). I guess we need to get Jen along here as she's the closest thing we have to an anime expert.

Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

Well ... at least he didn't do it over her unconscious body? Right?

I feel generally a bit ambivalent about a creator's attitude to fans. I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans - since what satisfies fans isn't necessarily the same as what's actually good. In fact, the more consciousness of fandom there is, the worse texts seem to get. Although this seems like a really confused amalgamation of fan service and fan contempt. Weird.

permalink

go to top

Arthur B

at 13:23 on 2009-07-10I'm personally quite fond of

Evangelion

the series, at least the first 24 episodes. There is, as you point out, character development, gradual growing of a backbone on the part of Shinji and Rei, an interesting mystery revealed at a reasonable pace, and so on. I even like the way Episode 24 ended, with Shinji poised in a choice between killing a friend and letting the Angels get away with whatever it is they're trying to do, although to be fair I've only seen the expanded/tidied up version of the episode where they put in extra scenes and the last shot might not be so ridiculously long.

Then, as you point out, you have the different endings, neither of which fits what's gone before. I did enjoy

End of Evangelion

for the sheer trippy sadism of it all, but at the same time I couldn't really relate the characters we see in it to the characters from the TV show; there's this weird sort of inconsistency about it. Asuka is psychotic, Rei is even more autistic than she's ever been, and Shinji loses the balls he's been carefully growing over the course of the series; it's as if the TV show never happened. At a guess, I'd say the film is more about Anno's thoughts on the end of the series, and the experience of making the show, than it is about actually ending the story; the characters seem to be spoofing the fan conceptions of who they are rather than continuing the development shown throughout the series.

It's a fun ride, but it's fun partially because I think it's hilarious how Anno's trolled anime fans for years over this, and because I enjoy watching characters get raked over the coals and suffer for their most irritating personality traits. I'm interested in seeing the new movies because they're promising a proper ending this time, and even if they break that promise the results will probably be mad enough to be worth a look. I even think it makes sense to put Kaworu in from the beginning; the one thing I dislike about Episode 24 is that they insert Kaworu, have Shinji make friends with him really surprisingly quickly (exacerbating the homoerotic angle), and then have him betray everyone and have to get taken down. It would make far more sense if he were in it from the start. Even if the ending resembles David Lynch directing

Final Fantasy VII

again, I'd still watch it.

That said, my attitude to

Evangelion

probably stems from how I was introduced to it: at an SF all-nighter thrown by a local cinema, which incorporated a preview showing of

28 Days Later

(which is a

much

more effective movie if you go into it genuinely not knowing that it's a zombie film, as we did), hopped up on soda, watching

The Death of Evangelion

on the big screen. Watching 8 hours of TV series crammed into 90 minutes is hilarious, to the point where I could never take the show seriously after that.

permalink

go to top

Rude Cyrus

at 19:51 on 2009-07-10

I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans

From what I've read, his fans are satisfied enough to try to unravel the mess he's made. I'm not asking him to be all happy-go-lucky, but his attitude comes off as spiteful.

I guess I'm just overreacting, but I still have an intense dislike for the man; he's my own JK Rowling.

permalink

go to top

Wardog

at 22:38 on 2009-07-10He sounds like a worthy target of your bile :)

permalink

go to top

Rude Cyrus

at 23:20 on 2009-07-10This may sound silly, but I still like the general idea behind the show and the characters (when they aren't being emo or one-note).

permalink

go to top

Guy

at 04:42 on 2009-07-11I only watched a bit of Evangelion, but my impressions were coloured by the lengthy scenes displaying static scenery with loud cicada noises in the background. At first I thought they might be in there for atmospheric reasons I didn't quite understand, then decided they were in there for financial reasons (animation ain't cheap) and shortly thereafter gave up on the show. I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence... but I guess I'll take what I can get. :)

permalink

go to top

Robinson L

at 18:00 on 2009-07-14I used to be a fan of

Dragon Ball Z

and

Sailor Moon

because for an early (and even not-so early) teenager, they seemed pretty cool. Then I noticed how stupid and repetitive they were and kinda lost interest.

At this point, I'm struggling to think of any Anime I know of that I actually think was any good. Well, the first season of

Digimon

, and at least one episode from the second. And Miyazaki's version of

Howl's Moving Castle

. And I suppose

Princess Monoke

, although it never particularly appealed to me.

Anyway, I've been hearing a lot about

Neon Genesis Evangelion

for a while, but nothing that's really excited me after the series. This review, I think, clinches my decision not to subject myself to it.

Personally, I tend to empathize with main characters even if most people dislike them. Apart from Mal, I can't think of any main characters I know of who I think I'd enjoy seeing put through that kind of torture. Maybe not even him.

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

This may be just me fishing for an excuse to pull out my own pet hate, but it seems to me from the description that an alternate or complementary explanations might be that

because it's so dark and depressing, fans (and critics) have deluded themselves into thinking this is somehow insightful.

This is a trend in popular entertainment I've noted and lamented for a couple years now.

Last night my younger sister and I were discussing the contemporary

Battlestar Gallactica

(of which I've seen a couple episodes, they've seen the first three seasons). At one point, one of them said that "if the character only lost about twenty pounds of emo they'd be all right."

While this may be true, I suspect it's the current vogue for death, despair, doom and gloom which made the 2004

Galactica

so popular. To take an even more contemporary example (and borrow a metaphor from my sister's upcoming review) witness Kirk's and Spock's and Nero's Inigo Montoya Syndrome in the latest

Star Trek

movie.

For a while,

House

did a pretty good job of balancing its angst, but it seems like circa Season Four the writers began seriously to crank it up. After the one-two-punch finale (Amber dies and right afterward Thirteen discovers she does indeed have Huntingdon's) I was asking "Geez, you think you could lay it on any thicker? Maybe find a way to reveal that Cameron really did contract HIV in Season Two after all?"

I've yet to see Season Five, but from what I've heard of the spoilers (don't read this if you haven't seen it and mind spoilers), Wilson is broken up over Amber's death for a long period of time, which means House is going to be even more miserable than usual; Cuddy goes through a whole lot of crap before finally getting a baby of her own, and that only when the mother ups and dies; and Kutner commits suicide/gets murdered/somehow ends up shot dead. What fun.

The new

Doctor Who

started out pretty emo, but it feels like Davies and the rest of the team take every possible opportunity to twist it in just that little bit more.

And being the Star Wars fan that I am, I have to say the stuff that the Expanded Universe went through during and especially after the prequels ... let's just say most of it is not pretty. Not in the slightest.

There's probably more, I just don't pay much attention to what's popular at the moment. Anyway, my point is that I suspect anything as depressing as

Evangelion

is by all accounts in the current tragedy-obsessed atmosphere is bound to be considered deep and meaningful and insightful and all that simply because it puts its characters through so much crap.

permalink

go to top

Cressida

at 04:16 on 2009-11-18

I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence...

Guy:

Try

Porco Rosso!

permalink

go to top

http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 23:05 on 2009-12-18

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

I think you're onto something here, but as someone who enjoyed Evangelion, let me propose a more charitable version of the psychology.

I'm a student of ethical philosophy and religious history at college, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the "deep" issues that fans will tell you Evangelion (, Donnie Darko, The matrix, ...) addresses--Destiny, choice, purpose, hope, knowledge, or whatever the hell.

Let me be clear and say up front that I don't think Evangelion makes a coherent statement about any of these issues. I'm not going to claim that you're "not getting it" if you don't see any "there" there, and I'm not saying that Hideaki Anno is some kind of visionary genius.

BUT

I'm a very visual, fictionalizing person. I do a lot of free association, and try on ideas by putting them in the mouths of imagined characters. Something like Evangelion is, for me, excellent raw material. It gives me a *context* to think about these issues. the incoherence of the actual show forces me to go to a lot of effort to try to figure out "what is this show trying to say?" and since that question is, I think, largely unanswerable, this also becomes an exploration of what *I* have to say.

Something similar happens because I write fiction. I'll eat up many stories--Evangelion, The Matrix, Harry Potter, even some of Star Wars--that have, in my opinion, glaring flaws, because they *make reference to* ideas I find interesting, even if they don't do them justice. Frequently, while watching the show even for the first time, my mind drifts to possibilities and alternate timeliness, with the result that I am actually watching a movie that exists only in my head, that (I like to think) *does* say something coherent. for this reason I consider Revenge of the Sith, for instance, to have been worth the price of the ticket even though it was (IMO) absolute shit, because by about a third of the way in I had stopped watching what's on the screen and started watching the movie *I* would have directed.

I mention this because before I became really conscious of what I was doing, I would frequently walk away with the impression that a movie was in fact "deep" when is fact it was just thought-provoking, and then only for people with preexisting interest in the issue who are prone to free association. I don't know how many people like me there are, but there's a strong tendency in all humans to assume that they're "normal," and that may be where some of the "you just don't get it" responses are coming from.

permalink

go to top

http://luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com/

at 23:31 on 2010-10-12//I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing.//

...What? o.O There's no kissing in Gundam Wing. There are barely any established romances.

permalink

go to top

http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 19:02 on 2010-10-13That was Macross/Robotech. Similar giant-robot-thingies-piloted-by-superteens plot -- possibly the originator of the entire trope. The giant-size humanoid enemies of Earth didn't have sex to reproduce, or something, and so this display of humanity was too much for them and made them stop fighting. Until one or two of them discovered that they liked it.

Aw, that was my very first anime. I'm all verklempt now.

permalink

go to top

Gamer_2k4 at 22:41 on 2010-10-13Neon Genesis Evangelion is actually my favorite anime series, but I think that's more because of the concept and because of what it did to me personally than anything else. I mean, I've taken a look at some of the episodes recently and they look OLD. A lot of the content is boring or unnecessary filler, the animation switches between "pretty alright" and "did they not pay you or something?", and overall, there's a lot not to like.

However.

I've had a very limited exposure to media (besides the some of the popular stuff), and NGE completely changed the way I looked at storytelling. I had never seen a character like Rei before, and I loved her. The idea that the mechs were actually giant feral humanoids barely restrained by their armor blew me away. The fact that the Hallelujah Chorus was played as an Angel mind-raped Asuka, and it WORKED, stunned me. The cast and plot are both remarkably tight; EVERYONE is involved, somehow. But finally, the thing that struck me the hardest, was the idea that a big giant robot action show DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING.

Consider Asuka. She's this hotshot pilot, showing up a third of the way into the series reading to kick some butt. Her first appearance is quite dramatic as she handily and elegantly dispatches an Angel. However, her next victory requires the complete support of Shinji, and she barely plays a part from that point on. Battle after battle happens with this pilot, the one who was literally genetically engineered (in the manga, anyway) to be perfect, just failing with every attempt. Nothing goes right for her.

Rei's an interesting character, too. Generally you'd think the stoic, silent character would play the support role, ending up as the person the others always rely on. But she's not that great of a pilot! If memory serves, her Eva spends half the show out of commission, and in the other battles Rei plays a very minimal role. For as much popularity as she has among fans, you'd think that she had done a lot more in the series than she actually did.

And let's not forget Shinji. Here's a kid whose dad runs an organization that sends out giant robots to fight the bad guys, and HE gets a chance to be a pilot! In any other show, Shinji would've jumped in and started owning face for the rest of the series. But you know what? He acts like a kid could be reasonably expected to act: he's scared, and doesn't want to do it at all. But more than that, he wants love from his father, and realizes this might be his only chance to get that.

Right away it's clear that these aren't cookie-cutter stereotypes, but real characters with real problems. I personally found it refreshing that someone decided to make something where the good guys don't necessarily win. I was so familiar with "happily ever after" stories that I was shocked when this wasn't one of them. I like NGE, not because "true art is angsty," but because "holy balls, this is what a show can actually be like!"

Anyway, that's the anime series; let's get to End of Evangelion (you know, the subject matter of this article). It really did feel like some tacked-on supplement to the real thing. Furthermore, Shinji was infuriating, and the battle scene was just the opposite of what I'd come to expect from NGE: rather than an original conflict, it was just a beat-em-up royal rumble.

The second half of the movie left me in shock, and I went away from it thinking that was a good thing. I had never been exposed to the stream-of-conscious approach before, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I think Anno was trying to convey just what Instrumentality (the merging of all souls and minds) would feel like, and it SEEMED like he did a good job. I didn't understand it, so I assumed it was beyond my understanding, so I assumed it was good. That's probably not the right mindset, though.

Oh. In the first scene, Shinji sneezed into his hand. He just didn't have a tissue. Never mind that you can't hear the sneeze. He's allergic to nudity. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

permalink

go to top

Melissa G.

at 22:53 on 2010-10-13*Shameless self plug alert!*

A certain Ferretbrainer debuted with her first article by

defending Evangelion

. It was written late at night and not researched (by which I mean I hadn't seen the series in a while) or proofread much, but an article in favor of Eva does exist on this site! ^_^

permalink

go to top

Fin

at 19:02 on 2010-10-14Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

permalink

go to top

Melissa G.

at 19:29 on 2010-10-14

Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

:-D

They are actually remaking the series as a bunch of movies. The first two (?) have come out already. I've only seen the first one, but I liked it a lot. I just don't know how much one would like them without having seen the series first. But the animation quality is way better so you could always try watching the first new movie (You are (not) alone, I think it's called) as a taste test type of thing.

permalink

go to top

Gamer_2k4 at 22:51 on 2010-10-14I agree that the first movie was pretty much spot on. They left out the stuff that could be left out, played up the stuff that could be played up (most notably the battle against the third Angel), and everything just felt right. (My only complaint, actually, is that in the English dub, Rei is played by a new voice actor. I thought her old one was perfect, and it was a real shame for that voice to be missing.)

However, the second movie just seemed a little...off. It was darn COOL, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching Evangelion without all the stuff that made Evangelion special. Maybe it was just that I was so familiar with the story that there wasn't quite that sense of wonder. You know, the sort of "sure it looks nice, but it's been done already" feeling. Yes, that's ridiculous, because the only reason it's been done before is that it's a freaking remake. I don't know.

Perhaps the thing that really did it was all the seemingly unnecessary changes they made. New pilot, changed surnames, different (and missing) Angels, a LOT of new scenes...It's possible I just felt that the makers were trying to do more and ended up with less.

Anyway, Melissa, you should still check out Rebuild 2. Remember when they had to catch that falling Angel? The weirdly shaped flat brown one with all the eyes? IT'S FREAKING AMAZING IN REBUILD 2. Like I said, the movie is still very, very cool, and the ending actually has traces of EoE in it. It's nuts. Watch it.

permalink

go to top

Melissa G.

at 05:06 on 2010-10-15I definitely want to see the second remake movie, I've just been lazy and haven't gotten around to it. I saw the first one in theaters in Japan because I happened to be living there when it came out. Seeing it on the big screen was something special. ^^

permalink

go to top

TheMerryMustelid

at 18:37 on 2012-04-21I am a terrible animation snob. When it comes to anime, there isn't much I like outside of Miyazaki, save the studio that did

Tokyo Godfathers

What puts me off most anime is it's obsession with mecha, robot girls, and post apocolyptic premises. Yes, Miyazaki sounds the environmental apocalypse gong in practically all of his films, but at least he puts Nature above the usual anime love affair with all things machine and keeps the damn robots to a minimum. How I hate this obsession with the ensouled machine.

On the American side, that includes

Transformers

up to

Wall-E

. I just find it sad that the idea of emoting robots is considered more 'cool' or even more

realistic

than emoting animals.

Say what?!

So teens 'outgrow' cartoons with talking animals while anything with a chrome surface is just friggin' AHW-some, man.

(what's that? what's that I hear in the background? Is it my axe grinding? Why yes, it is!)

permalink

go to top

http://kitsune9tailed.livejournal.com/

at 02:57 on 2015-07-28@TheMerryMustelid

Unfortunately, it sounds like you have had a very slim experience with anime and are using it to make a blanket assumption of the whole medium. Remember, animation is just a storytelling method, it's not a story in and of itself. Mecha and machine anime are actually a very small slice of the whole. Unfortunately, this is the slice that is made especially for 6-12 year old boys, and as such, is the primary genre exported to the US (since the American public feels cartoons are generally only for young boys, they freak out over any anime that doesn't settle nicely into that demographic).

But, you can still seek out other genres. You've already seen Miyazaki (almost a genre in and of itself), but you have high-school romance, film noir action/mystery, artsy (you might like Paprika if you haven't seen already, it's from the same studio as Tokyo Godfathers), magical girl, drama, slice-of-life, comedy, etc.

So, I'd definitely sample the waters a bit and find anime in a genre more to your tastes before swearing off altogether :)

permalink

go to top

Orion

at 08:03 on 2015-07-28I think you've been mislead by the headline, which really should be "one man's burning hatred for an anime." It's pretty clear from the text that he likes a decent amount of anime and is open to more.

#Ferretbrain #Rude Cyrus #Neon Genesis Evangelion #The End of Evangelion #Anime #Axis of Awful

1 note · View note

ninjakitty15 · 3 years

Text

Chapter 18: Spiderman With a Plan (Loki x OFC pairing)

May came back before Loki could teleport us away or Peter could even hide us. It took a bit of explaining and convincing to let an alien war criminal and a walking, slowly healing corpse stay but between Peter telling her we had in fact been staying with Tony up till now and she trusted Tony almost as much as she trusted her nephew, and me swearing they aren't in danger as Hydra doesn't want Peter, only me, she seemed to yield at the end. Loki then offered a better place for them if they didn't feel safe with us being around but the two of them turned down his offer, stating that if Spiderman's enemies didn't even know where he lived, ours wouldn't either. Loki then promised if that wasn't the case and they came after them, to have Spiderman find us and Loki would fix the damage for them. I had to look at him then, being all generous and gentlemanly when the world pegged him for a narcissistic megalomaniac war criminal.

"I kinda get the sense you were a bit like him when you were...a kid? I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with Asgardian years, is it like dog years? No wait are humans like dog years compared to you lot?" I asked Loki.

"What do you think I was like as a child that you see with Parker?" asked Loki in amusement.

"Quiet, eager to please, exceptionally clever compared to most your age there, desperately wanting to find your place, maybe a little bit awkward but still quite gifted though few see that last quality or care enough to notice."

Loki was quiet for a moment, probably trying to remember what he was actually like way way way back when he was a wee bairn but the slowly creasing brow seemed to imply I was at the very least not off the mark that bad. "Why do you think I'm like him?"

"I'd say more he's like you as you were here eons before he was. But to answer your question...I can't say how long I've been around but I do know I've been around long enough to study people and see details most might miss in interactions and reactions. When you're around anyone like Thor, you kinda have this aura of irritation, even though it's not him all the time, the kind of person who charged head and fists first into any kind situation, all about action and making a great mess. When it comes to interacting with someone with more wit, more intelligence, more analytical and less physical stuff, you're more reserved in reaction, more curious and intrigued. The same kind of qualities I see in you, you see in others and I know there's plenty of self love in that icicle of a heart you have, maybe not at first, but it's definitely there now." Both Peter and Loki stared at me with damn near identical expressions of something between "wtf" and "how the hell did you figure all this out, who are you?". "What? You think I didn't notice between the jokes and the constant commentaries? Just because I'm physically and legally dead, doesn't mean I'm brain dead too."

"You sure I'm not just rubbing off on you," teased Loki.

"I told you I'm not terribly fond of that action to begin with, it's gross. Also and more importantly, I find your lack of faith disturbing, as you should recall even in your ancient age, I was muzzled when you found me and I don't always need to use my mouth when calling the dead so..."

Loki was about to retort I assume but as he opened his mouth to do so, Peter beat him to it. "Hydra muzzled you?"

"Initially they didn't but when you're me and hoping they get so annoyed by your jokes and taunts that maybe they'll let you go because nothing else they did to me worked like they wanted, they decided a muzzle wasn't just for dogs. In my defense, I had been stuck in that cramped glass cell for apparently 5 years with no outside contact, I honestly don't know how I'm still somewhat sane after all that time alone."

"Well maybe it's because time has no effect on the dead, right?" offered Peter hopefully.

I opened my mouth to object but damn if he wasn't a mortal, Midgardian version of Loki always being on par with his points. "Okay, you win that round. It felt like a few months to me, color me shell shocked when I was actually told how long I was down there and how much stuff I missed out on."

"I'm still not completely sold on you actually being dead when you're walking and talking in front of me though," Peter muttered.

"Seeing isn't always believing, hun. Here, check for a pulse or any way to tell if a person is dead or alive these days."

"Then how are you here? And also, if you are in fact a necromancer, aren't you susceptible to being controlled by another necromancer since you're dead too?"

"Under normal circumstances, maybe, but alas I'm anything but normal so nah."

"What are you then?"

I gave the kid a sinister smile. "Pray you never find out because when you do...you'll wish you never met me."

"You can't be that bad if Tony Stark took you in."

"Tony Stark means well and is insanely smart but mostly just insane, I mean he did essentially invent his own supervillain with Ultron on Slovakia and then more or less help in making an infinity stone with Vision, didn't he? More recently though he gave insanely expensive superhero equipment to a teenager too smart for his own good. Think of it this way, Hydra wants Capsicle dead because he's too good to be made useful to them, nothing they can do will make him the next Winter Soldier. A good heart will almost always be a good heart unless the ones let into that heart break it which won't be Hydra ever, that's for damn sure. Hydra can break many things but a heart ain't one. Now take a heart that's not all good, one that has no strict moral compass or doesn't lean toward one end or another, that one more than a good or even an evil one, can be useful. They want me alive because I'm useful and now they know how to make it theirs through Loki. If they really thought their efforts in extracting stuff from me was fruitless, they'd kill me any way possible or at least leave me for dead or let me go even but they didn't as Loki can attest, I was still chained down and muzzled in a glass cell when he found me."

"Are you seriously trying to convince me that you're actually a chaotic neutral?" Peter asked incredulously.

"That is exactly what I'm telling you I am. I mean yeah I try my best to keep the peace and natural order between me and the others like me but look how fucking well that's going when they're either dying out or switching sides. I'd say I'd like to be more toward lawful neutral but then I'd be lying because lawful is fucking boring having to follow the rules so blindly."

"What's wrong with rules?"

"Nothing, they're just meant to be broken is all and no one seems to get that."

"Nothing's made to be broken though," Peter argued.

"I disagree, Reginald, pinatas are, glowsticks, karate boards, pasta when you have a small pot, those party crackers. Loki, can you think of anything?"

"Glasses or goblets for really good drinks you want more of, good riding horses that haven't been trained yet, new footwear, a lady's hymen," Loki continued.

"I'ma stop you right there before you get too graphic."

"You asked, don't get shy on me now."

"Shy? I'm sorry, have you met me? I joked about oral when we first met, how the fuck is that shy? I'm censoring you for Peter's sake as we're guests and don't want to overstay our welcome."

"Seriously?" squeaked Peter. "I'm sorry, you're trapped in some base and the first non Hydra person you see, who just happens to be a war criminal from another planet that attacked this city not too long ago, and you blatantly flirt with him?"

"'K first of all, back off on the judging, buddy, you don't know what it's like being trapped with the same ugly assholes for an extended period of time and wishing for a new face regardless of their intentions. Secondly, he's hot so there's that and just cuz I'm dead doesn't mean I don't have some needs left in me, a few select things make me feel alive again, he turned out to be one of them. Also, did I mention he's hot and he really pulls off the green god look in all leather and stuff."

"You weren't the least bit worried?"

"What's he gonna do? Kill me? Good luck, he ain't the first to try it."

"Okay, you are way too casual about being wanted dead or deader."

I snorted. "Very little fazes me these days, if I got myself worked up over every little obstacle I would be a cold mess and never leave the grave I crawled out of."

"Wise words from a dead girl," teased Loki who got punched in the arm again, this time my fingers didn't break but he was still made of solid ice so it pretty much bounced off him.

"I'm curious which of the two of you has more secrets, I mean Loki is kinda known for that kind of thing but then there's you who's been dropping hints there's a lot we don't know about you, you're just so casual about them whereas if Loki drops hints he comes off completely devious and cunning about it, like he's flaunting it almost."

"That's because Loki is the god of teasing," I mused. "In many ways. And he's had many many lifetimes in his old age to perfect it. Yeah that's right, tease me about being corpse all you want, but remember you're basically a cradle robbing necrophiliac for shacking up with a dead girl that's not even a fourth of your age."

"I might be over a thousand or so years old but between that being still young in Asgardian years as you call it and no one outside you and the Avengers knowing how old I am just by looking at me, that's not actually that much of an issue. Nice try though."

"You're over a thousand?" questioned Peter in shock. "How long before you actually get gray hairs?"

"I'm working on that," I joked.

Loki scowled at me then and shook his head. "A few more thousand I should say, might be different for me being a Frost Giant rather than actual Asgardian."

"Do you age at all?" Peter asked me.

"My body is in a state of dead stasis, it can't change or age and always returns to the same state of death. It's how I heal like I do."

"But didn't you say Loki's magic could undo that?"

"He's probably the only one that can at the moment, him and the wankers that stole some of his power to use against me. I don't know the specifics but I'm guessing because I'm a source of death magic and his is either exactly or closely related to living magic, the two cancel each other out."

"I'm still not happy about them doing that nor do I know how," muttered Loki.

"Like you said, that part doesn't matter at this point, they have it and unfortunately they know how to use it. We just gotta figure out how to undo that so I don't get shot full of rocksalt again, that shit stings like swallowing an angry beehive."

"I-I might have an idea if I remember your other powers correctly," Peter spoke up, looking at Loki eagerly. "Also, random question, which of you is actually more powerful?"

Loki and I looked at each other for a moment then both at Peter at the same time.

"He's been around eons longer than I have and acquired a fuckton more power over time than I have but the power I have isn't remotely like his so I'm not even sure the two are comparable, he built his up over time, I earned it another way entirely and not all on my own like I'm willing to bet he has."

Loki then looked back at me and I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head, knowing he had picked up more of the many hints I've dropped about myself to collect and analyze later. "Are you ever going to tell me the whole story?"

"If that's allowed but ultimately it's not up to me to decide that," I replied softly. "So this plan of yours, Pete, do tell!"

"Well first, Loki, would you be affected by your own magic hitting you."

"If it came from me, no, if someone else can wield magic like mine then yes."

"Then I got an idea that should work."

#loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki romance #peter parker #avengers #zombies #necromancy #necromancer #loki x ofc #loki x original female character #nell the necromancer #loki x nell

0 notes

simkjrs · 7 years

Text

msa asks (chap. 4 & onwards)

masterpost of msa asks that have been piling up, starting from when chapter 4 was published. thanks for your patience everyone...

answered in chronological order (first sent to most recently sent). i might have missed a couple, sorry about that

Anonymous said: IT'S OUT IT'S OUT IT'S OUT IT'S OUT IT'S OUT IT'S OUT IT'S OUT IT'S OUT

Anonymous said: *INCOHERENT SCREECHING AND FLAILING*

ah, the halcyon days of innocence, before everyone finished reading the chapter

Anonymous said: *just finished chp4* uh Yeah about that what the fuck? simk whAT THE HELL DID YOU POUR GUNPOWDER ON YOUR PC? LOAD 14 BULLETS ON EVERY KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARD? SEND KILLER ZAPS TO ANYONE WHO SCROLLS UNTIL THE END OF THE CHAPTER? I WAS SO EXCITED ABT THE UPDATE THAT I COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT U WERE ACTUALLY A MURDERER IN DISGUISE? ANOTHER BEGINNERS MISTAKE, BECAUSE EVERYTHING U WRITE FUCKS ME UP ON EVERY FUCKING LEVEL? SO YEah what i wanted to say is that i love you

to date this is still one of the funniest asks i’ve ever gotten and it’s going in my testimonials

Anonymous said: me @ the new msa chapter:👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit

thank you, i do my best

Anonymous said: OH MY GOD! YOU REALLY PUT THE SNAKE FASHION THING!! :DDD :OOO

it was too good to pass up!! if you want to message me w/ ur name or url so i can credit you for inspo/the prompt, feel free :p

Anonymous said: I actually thought in the middle of the chapter that temple-dog would help Izuku escape so he would get captured by the other side of the coin and now i'm just crying

fjdlfkjsldf im sorry im like this. i do this

Anonymous said: in just a few hours the comments went from 5 to flipping 23 25

yeah im very lucky to have so many people follow & support my writing!! im grateful to everyone who comments.

Anonymous said: I wonder how being sick works for MSA Izuku. In that odd state of not being as aware as usual and your mind being foggy, would he hear that star song easier or any other odd spirit shenanigans?

he’d just be kind of out of it and more susceptible to... things

Anonymous said: SCREAMS?? I LOVE YOUR WRITING SO MUCH AND THIS CHAPTER WAS ABSOLUTELY STELLAR, THANK YOU FOR IMMEDIATELY BRIGHTENING MY NIGHT! I HOPE YOU HAVE A FANTASTIC TIME!!

ahh im really glad you enjoyed chapter four that much!! thank you!!!

Anonymous said: IM HOLLERIN THE NEW CHAPTER WAS SO GOOD WTF??

fjldkfsldf thank you....

Anonymous said: When I first commented on Ao3 I felt like looking at the other comments and I noticed all of them (at the time) had a line along the lines of "he needs a break" so I ended up imagining him just sunbathing on some tropical beach (read deserted island) sipping coconut Juice and sighing happily with noone to bother him.

that would be ideal. i think izuku also would not know what to do with himself

Anonymous said: MSA Izuku ch.4 summary: Kirishima: Hey are you ok? Izuku, literally on fire: Why, what's wrong?

GHFLKDFJLSDF IM LAUGHING!!! YOURE NOT WRONG

Anonymous said: I just finished msa ch4 and im?? Its 0 dark 00 and I have a 7 hour shift later Toda but I had to put it down and gnash my teeth over how GORGEOUS and HEARTBREAKING this chapter was before picking it up and finishing it. God im so stoked that it came out. Alright my pal, I hope you have a good time period of indeterminate length; take care of yourself yo!!

thank you im so glad you enjoyed it!! and i hope things have been good for you!

Anonymous said: ffuuuUUUUCK THAT TEMPLE-DOG YO WHAT AN AWFUL ICKY THING TO DO

correct, although in its defense, if izuku had just been another spirit, their connection would not have had that kind of effect

Anonymous said: Uh, sorry if this bothering you, this has something to do with Msa Izuku, but not the new chapter (love it BTW, poor Izuku got captured by Overhaul. The cat is a new bar.).So, I would like to ask, just for fun, what would Izuku sees if he meets C/astiel face to face and how would the spirits react?

i think my worldbuilding and spn worldbuilding would conflict in so many terrible ways, but... izuku would prob be able to see c/astiel’s wings and true form? only for a bit before his eyes started getting itchy, and then started bleeding... dont think the spirits would like angels very much. spirits are a very prideful and arrogant bunch who don’t like to be intruded upon or interfered with

Anonymous said: who is Senshajou other than an amazing creature which I love already

senshajou is plato’s ideal cat. they are not exactly a spirit. they just are

Anonymous said: I'm suuuper curious about what the One for All spirit looks like in MSA, because my first thought is that it'd have to be this massive chimeric mutant due to the nature of it's creation and the fact it's been bonded to eight separate people.

coming back and reading this is incredibly funny because like. yeah. ofa is a chimera. not quite for the reasons you think, but yeah

Anonymous said: You know what I'm thinking right now? What of kiri and deku met in public after The Arrest™. The sheer chaos it would bring. The Confusion ™. I'm sure deku would just take one look at kiri and just. Book it. Also ch4 helped inspire me in my endavour to write about my etheral starlight dragon god for a original story i've been thinking up. You're really good at describing creatures beyond Imagination, you know.

you have correctly predicted this scenario.

also im glad ch4 was able to help you in your writing endeavors!! best of luck!!

Anonymous said: whenever i read msa i always picture izuku wearing like, some kind of grey cloak, with the hood always up and shadowing his eyes no matter the context/location/surrounding temperature. It doesn't make any sense given the general fashion in bnha but I can't help it- msa!izuku is a cloak kinda guy imo

you’re right but msa izuku would also hate the attention that would come with wearing a cloak. he is definitely a hood-up kind of guy

Anonymous said: msa au in which Deku escapes the villain alliance, breaks into Kirishima's home, and just, fucking collapses on the couch. Kirishima gets up the next morning to see the fucking cryptid he'd hunted for days just, sleeping on his couch like a giant cat. What the fuck. What the fuck.

hold that thought

Anonymous said: So I'm reading ch 4 and listening to "I appear missing" by queens of the stone age and it works ridiculously well ngl (also like gd this chapter is so good the hype is real👍👍)

thank you!! this is a p cool song

Anonymous said: In MSA does everyone have a spirit? Have people always had spirits? Do you know how quirks started? Do even quirkless people have spirits? Why don't they have quirks? Could Izuku open their channel, or is the quirk canceling bullets different from quirkless people? So many questions!

most everyone has a spirit but not everyone, people have not always had guardian spirits, i do know how quirks started, quirkless people have spirits, they don’t have quirks because their bodies have not adapted to channel their spirit’s energy adequately, and izuku can try something with unlocking quirks, but it depends on what there is to work with already. quirk cancelling bullets rewind the bond between spirit and human but they don’t erase the adaptations to the body. quirkless people dont have that adaptation in the first place... hope that makes sense

Anonymous said: dunno if this's been mentioned/acknowledged or asked about before, but wheres izuku's guardian spirit?

he ain’t got one. but why...

Anonymous said: CHOO CHOO IT'S THE UNRESOLVED EMOTIONAL ISSUES TRAIN COMING IN AT 242379 MILES AN HOUR THERE ARE NO STOPS THERE ARE NO BRAKES WE DIE LIKE MEN ON THE HELL EXPRESS ~bakugous spirit

this is a joke but actually, yes. actually, this is very applicable to msa izuku himself, and so many characters i write, actually. this is an icnredibly funny ask and i love the phrases you use and i would not be surprised if i subconsciously absorb this phrase and accidentally use it in the future. thank you for this

Anonymous said: question: if msa izuku and kirishima were in a dangerous situation and izuku almost got hurt very badly/died but he managed to escape. BUT kirishima didnt see him escape and didnt know he was okay. how would kirishima react

in typical kirishima fashion he would be very worried about izuku and would probably try to figure out a way to rescue him

Anonymous said: im ppl have been talkig abt izu's guardian spirit lately, but wht abt allm's? i like to imagine that when shimura died, she became toshi's guardian spirit

shes not allm’s guardian spirit but shes Around

Anonymous said: ok but the part where msa izuku says release it rly reminded me of cardcaptor sakura just sayin

never watched cardcaptor sakura but thats p cool

Anonymous said: I'd like to think if MSA. Izu/ku got hit with a quirk erasing bullet it wouldn't kill him, just like knock him out for a good day or so until he wakes back up through spite and the universe just hating him and being like "man thanks for the nap gun guys gotta get me one of those"

Anonymous said: I had a dream that msa!izu/ku was standing in his cell and staring at a nearby guard and the guard is wondering wtf why is he staring like that but actually he was just really tired and fell asleep. Standing up. W/eyes open.

HEY THIS IS INCREDIBLE AND INCREDIBLY FUNNY AND IF SOMEONE WROTE A SNIPPET WITH IZUKU DOING THIS I WOULD ABSOLUTELY BELIEVE IT

Anonymous said: I'm sorry but I have to tell you “Would you like to sit?” “No.” is the funniest interaction I have ever experienced in my life I woke up my grandmother at 3 am cause I was laughing so hard and she's doesn't even live on the same floor as me

im so glad that izuku being a bullheaded and troubled teenager can bring some amusement and laughter to your day

Anonymous said: i guess you could say that in the lastest chapter, msa izuku is kicking ass... /and taking names/ BA DUM TSHHHHHHH

HGJDFKJSDLGSDF IM LAUGHING!!!! STOP THIS

Anonymous said: In the MSA verse when someone doesn't like their quirk for example like your OC Mitoki and they don't use their quirk how does that affect their spirit?

doesn’t really affect their spirit except like, psychologically or emotionally, because they would Like for their charge to be able to use their powers in order to defend themselves, but their charge Is Not

Anonymous said: What would Mitoki think of MSA Izuku?

msa izuku: says Anything msa izuku: pulls Those Stunts msa izuku: does stuff of gray legality without bothering to explain himself, ever msa izuku: also is grudgingly a good person mitoki: this guy is hilarious and a fucking RIOT, i have to adopt him immediately

Anonymous said: i imagine after hearing the music of the universe msa izuku doesn't like human music anymore, huh?

i think he isn’t very fond of any music that reminds him of that experience, and how he nearly lost sight of his sense of self. normal, mundane music with absolutely nothing out of the ordinary is probably a relief

Anonymous said: Just wanted to drop in and say that I really love MSA!!! It's a super refreshing read, and I LOVE how you write everyone. I'm so hooked, you have no idea. Thank you so much for all the work you put into it!!

thank you for dropping in and letting me know!! i love feedback like this, makes me happy to keep writing and sharing stuff. i hope you enjoy the next chapter!

Anonymous said: someone: *gives izuku positive attention* izuku: you come into MY HOUSE

yeah that’s pretty much exactly it

Anonymous said: This might be a little weird and specific, but how would MSA Izuku react to someone who does similar stuff to him? Meaning, constantly does weird eldritch shit while sassing away any attempts to figure it out. And also assuming that they keep crossing paths no matter how either party feels about it.

probably kind of uncomfortable, but if this person is reacting to said eldritch stuff the way msa izuku reacts to spirit stuff, i think he’d just recognize this person as someone else who’s going through a lot of stuff and just wants to be left alone, and then msa izuku would proceed to leave them alone. maybe quietly give them a coffee if they look like they need it, then leave.

if this person was enjoying eldritch stuff, i think msa izuku would be kind of envious of them, and resentful, because hey, this person gets a way better deal than me in terms of eldritch mysteries, why do i get stuck with all the bad stuff?

either way i don’t think msa izuku would spend a lot of time with them, he has a lot of his own stuff to deal with.

Anonymous said: Holy hell. Did Izuku, like, frickin ABSORB afo or some shit??

Anonymous said: Did izu/ku discover afo's spirit's name? And then proceed to destroy afo

Anonymous said: If I was Aizawa, or any other clever member of the hero crew, my assumption would probably be that Izuku is the product of a quirk that makes physical manifestations of other people's quirks. The person with said quirk probably used it on themselves, thus Izuku. It would reasonably explain why he's so dodgy about his identity, can fix/alter quirks, talks strangely to nothing, and is so effected by the eraser quirk. (It's fun manufacturing wrong but reasonable theories!)

oh thats a really interesting theory!! hmm yeah... it could work, but if i was aizawa i would wonder why izuku didn’t just disappear if he was just a temporary manifestation of a quirk. i’ll deffo consider this though and if it proves useful to the story i hope you won’t mind if i use it?

thank you for writing in!

Anonymous said: Goodness, I love your work. A part of me silently lives for the day when MSA!Izu and All Might spend time together and AM's just?? Immune to all of Izu's snark, while still being such a dad. Like "Deku my boy, where's the hoodie I gave you? It's getting cold out."/"Based on the trajectory of the moon and sun, in a garbage bin somewhere."/"Oh! Well it *was* my old highschool hoodie. It was probably getting too old to wear anyway"/*Cue frustrated-mortified screams of the little cryptid child*

frankly i don’t think msa izuku would be able to handle someone knowing About Him and genuinely looking after him at the same time, he’s only ever had one or the other at a time, if all might did this msa izuku would short circuit and have a minor crisis because he doesn’t know how to accept affection from someone who accepts him for who he is. this thought hurts me and i regret thinking about this. really good ask, thanks for sending it in

Anonymous said: Your fic ‘know what i’ve made by the marks on my hands’ is a power move in of itself.

fndlfksldkf THANKS, im putting this in my testimonials

Anonymous said: Ever since the beggining of MSA I can't get rid of a certain though. Bakugou's Quirk something horibly adorable and comepletely enamored with Izuku. Like, the moment it sees him, it just jumps at him with hugs and kisses, possibly some purrs. Izuku avoiding the duo because he's so done and tired of the vilent love and explosive heatred mixture.

izuku hates it because both of them are giving him some form of attention and he just wants them to forget about him and be done with it

Anonymous said: Idk whether this was asked but how do names come across in the second intonation?? Like if izuku was saying senshajou (?) would the name come out in japanese or does the second intonation have a way of saying names without actually saying them? Basically would listening in on their conversation reveal a bunch of static and then just "carwash" in the middle of the sentence??

intonations aren’t a new language, just a manner of speaking, where the fourth intonation takes the most energy and the first intonation (normal speech) takes the least. effectively, izuku and all the spirits are speaking japanese, but the intonation they speak in will take their words to a different energy level. if that makes sense. so, no, ‘carwash’ would not show up in the middle of a sentence

Anonymous said: SIMK IM CHOKING!!!!!! YOUR ART LEFT ME SPEECHLESS ITS SO GOOOOD!!!!

thank you so much!!! this is very flattering, and makes me very happy as well

Anonymous said: Hey have you ever played OFF?? Idk the first pic you drew for MSA rly reminds me of it

i have not! but i love the art i’ve seen for it

Anonymous said: so are the guardian spirits in msa bound to their humans in a distance sense? like can they just wander off to somewhere far away from their human or would they hit a boundary somewhere?

yes, spirits are basically bound by proximity! they can leave their charges behind and go gallivanting to another continent but it’s Not A Good Idea for a few reasons and becomes very unpractical. they can travel pretty far from their charges if the necessity arises, though.

Anonymous said: there is a lot of things i could say about your my spirit academia art but the first thing that i thought of was "wow izuku looks good with nail polish"

fjdlkfjsldf

everyone looks great with nail polish!

Anonymous said: msa!izuku's flirting: you're slightly less terrible than everything else happening in this situation right now

izuku says this stiffly and without looking at the other person because expressing emotion and vulnerability is difficult for him

Anonymous said: Honestly msa!izuku is the most relatable au Izuku. I too wish I could just fade from everyone’s collective knowledge and become the local ghost story middle schoolers dare each other to test. *izuku gets ding-dong-ditched but only because local children are too terrified to stay to see the beast that lives in that apartment*

Wait what does Izuku do for halloween anyways?

i accidentally deleted the second half of your question so that’s just a paraphrase sorry!! but yeah, i’ve infused msa izuku with some of my more cryptid-longing tendencies, i find it hilarious that this has carried through. i love the proposed scenario. it’s incredibly funny and absolutely something that would happen to izuku

i dont think halloween is very widely celebrated in japan? but if it was, izuku would probably just shut himself in his room for the night because he doesn’t want to deal with any aspect of the holiday

Anonymous said: heya!! i just read your msa fic and i absolutely adore it! the whole idea is just awesome in the every sense of the word and ive found myself already completely immersed in it! your writing of izu/ku is very relatable for me and it only makes me love the fic more?? ahh im just head over heels for it!!!!

ahhh im really glad to hear that!!! i hope you continue to enjoy future chapters, as we explore more of izuku’s character, and possibly, his past :^)

Anonymous said: u have probs already gotten this question before, but was msa izuku (or his soul) merged with his guardian spirit at birth? Cause izuku basically says that something went terribly wrong at his birth... so I'm thinking he somehow merged with his spirit????

something like that! there was spirit fuckery involved.

Anonymous said: I cant help but think prototype!izu/ku's hair would match msa izu/ku v well

im laughing because ive actually drawn msa izuku with a hairstyle DISTRESSINGLY similar to prototype izuku’s hair. msa izuku has got that unhappy, emo vibe about him that just naturally attracts the kinds of vibes that prototype izuku’s hair gives off

Anonymous said: is izu/ku's guardian spirit like nessie or bigfoot or something? cause i swear to fuck he's such a cryptid omg

HRNGLDFLKSDF IM LAUGHING

nah, izuku doesn’t have a guardian spirit. only... himself

Anonymous said: Did All Might give Mirio One For All in MSA?

no idea, haven’t thought about it, won’t figure it out until i actually need to address it

Anonymous said: I just wanna say that I love msa and kirishima is trying

kirishima *is* trying and we are all loving and supporting him for the amazing work he does

Anonymous said: Say, would Shinsou’s quirk work on MSA!Izuku?

you will find that out in, sports festival msa au, wherein msa izuku accidentally takes his canon counterpart’s place right after he’s finished the obstacle course event in the sports festival. i need to get through the end of the sports festival before im satisfied with publishing it... but i’ve finished the shinsou fight. so! you’ll see :p

Anonymous said: Hey I sent you an ask a while ago but idk if you saw it or not, but I just wanted to say that I really liked your latest chapter of msa! The music that you described in the chapter was really amazing and it made me think of this song called “the heaven’s flock” sang by the Texas all state choir. Obviously it won’t be anything close to the ethereal other-worldly music that you describe in the chapter, but it’s what came to mind while I was reading it. You can find it on YouTube, hope you like it!

hey im super glad!! i spent a lot of time editing those paragraphs for Maximum Spiritness, it’s always gratifying to know someone enjoyed them. and yes, i checked out the song on youtube, and it’s pretty cool! choral pieces usually don’t interest me a lot but this one was fun. thanks for telling me about it!

Anonymous said: i just found your ff and I love them! Tired(tm) Midoriya is great and I love him.

thank you!! izuku who is tired of this bullshit and calls it out when he sees it is definitely very fun.

Anonymous said: where is msa!izuku's physique in comparison to the cannon timeline? is he closer to how he was at the very start of series, or while he was training with All Might before he got One for All?

he’s pretty lean and wiry with plenty of stamina, so i’d say he’s about on par with canon izuku after training with all might pre-yuuei. he probably doesn’t have as much raw strength but i think he has more stamina

Anonymous said: Msa izu/ku escapes from the Precepts' clutches and starts booking it around the tunnels and just. Stumbles upon Eri. Stops and takes the time to fuckin wrangle her spirit to stop it from unexisting him and just books it with her "I'm taking her now bye"

this is hilariously close

Anonymous said: you used a lyric from meet me in the woods for the 4th chapter of msa and god thinking about it that song fits the au?? at least as much as i've seen about it.

thank you!! and yeah, i’ve actually got that song on my msa playlist. specifically, my msa kiri/deku playlist, because it fits so well. [sips that heart hurting juice] im happy someone caught the reference!

Anonymous said: just read the quote from Morrison 'she utilised violence in a purely feminine way' by chucking hot pokers at people and all I can think of is msa!izu/ku being so done with everything and being violent 'in a purely deadpan way', chucking his collection of spray paint cans/ art supplies/ occasional chair at the spirits because he's just so done and LET HIM SLEEP OR AT LEAST TURN UP WITH COFFEE GODDAMIT.

you are not, wrong

thats what his scripts are for!

Anonymous said: Msa! Izu/ku's laugh sounding like a dead rustling/ raspy monotone that is simultaneously eerie and extremely concerning to the point you want to wrap him in marshmallows.

msa izuku’s laugh sounds very, very tired, which is arguably the same thing

@iamlikecain said: Hi ! I juste wanted to say that I love your fic My spirit academia and sassy Izuku is what I now live for. Btw, he doesn’t deserve to suffer omg that poor baby and uuugg I hope he’ll be happy ;—-;

haha thank you!! i’m glad you like msa izuku’s shenanigans!! and yeah. he really doesn’t deserve any of this. things will, hopefully, look up for him soon! i am not setting out to write a pessimistic story, eventually things will get better

Anonymous said: Your my hero academia spirit AU is super frigging interesting??? Im dying to read more :DDD

thank you! im super glad you enjoyed it

Anonymous said: What are your favorite msu!izuku headcannons?

just the fact of him existing in this unrestrained, unintentionally chaotic state of being wherein he does what he needs to and may even do what you want him to, but in a way that makes him and you and everyone else involved feel like you’re all just a bunch of clowns. heres a couple more facts about him though

his goal in life is to become a famous reclusive calligrapher who has retired to the isolated countryside to do calligraphy, where no one can bother him

secretly still really passionate about heroics but kind of embarrassed about it so if you find out or bring it up he WILL try to kill you

messy and not very good at cooking, but doing his best

knows some kind of weird trivia that you wouldn’t really expect

Anonymous said: b r u h what would inko's quirk spirit creature look like?? soft and playful and curious about all sorts of smol trinkets/objects??? would they be combative w izuku too??? ;-; or reach some sort of grudging acceptance of their presence??? smol green abomination belongs to my beloved human, so no fighting little abomination

honestly i haven’t given a lot of thought to inko’s guardian spirit, other than that it’s probably pretty small and not one of the most powerful spirits out there. it’s kind of distant from izuku, bc izuku makes it uneasy, but it cares about izuku in its own way.

#some of these asks are incredibly funny to read after writing & planning ch5 #ask compilation #ask #msa stuff

127 notes · View notes

nhlhoser · 7 years

Text

On The Rocks - 21

Part 20 Masterlist

Word Count: 2689

probably a lot of swearing

iPhone ringtones are annoying no matter the situation but when you're 1. Asleep and 2. hung over, it's satans creation. The high pitch tone of the ringer pierced through my sleep but also my over sensitive ears. Shoving my head under the pillow- careful of my nose- trying to block out the sound that's rattling my brain now that all the alcohol is out of my system.

"Answer it," My voice came out hoarse but also muffled by the pillow, a mix of sleep and being hungover preventing me from doing it myself. A deep groan and the bed moving follows after a swift kick from me to Auston's legs. He audibly struggles to find the source groaning loudly when he has to open his eyes to find the damn thing.

"Hello?" His morning voice deep and gruff, deeper than I ever heard and it made me feel all the ways. I peeked my head out from the pillow as I felt him turn to face me, carefully to watch as he balances the phone on his ear eyes remain closed.

"She here-yes my apartment," He blinked his eyes open catching my curious stare, whispering it's Steph. Rolling my eyes I stick my head back under the pillow, returning to dreamland but was difficult with Auston being on the phone and me being nosy.

"She's fine," His tone becoming more agitated.

"She's here-yes not dead," I can imagine him rolling his eyes as he releases a breath through his nose. A sign that he's getting mad rather than just annoyed now. Peeking my head out from under the pillow my suspicions are confirmed as I catch him mid eye roll as his face sets into a familiar look of anger that is usually present on the ice.

"You left her at the club, Steph. She's alive and hung over as am I. So, I would appreciate it if you'd let me sleep," There was a clear finality in his voice but Steph was still talking into his ear through the phone but was quickly cut off when Auston hung up and dropped the phone between us, which promptly began ringing again before it hit the fabric.

"I'll bring her home. You go and get her stuff from Marty's." He answered then hung up again this time dropping the phone beside the bed before face planting back into the pillows.

"You're supposed to be mad," He mumbled into the fabric of his pillow before he eventually fell back asleep, his back rising and falling as his breathing got deeper. All I could muster was a weak shrug before readjusting my pillow under my head, Falling back asleep myself.

Finally waking up for the day, it was the afternoon turning to face Auston his dark hair sticking out from the thick duvet as soft snoozes signal that is still asleep. My need to pee is more prominent than my level of comfort forcing me out from under the warm covers. A shiver running up my spine as my sore bare feet touch the cold flooring.

Looking in the mirror as I wash my hands, my bruised nose still purple with yellow undertone a hint of healing but still throbs. There are bags under my eyes from the weird sleep I was able to obtain, my hair falls past my shoulders and breast in natural waves with extra fluff from falling asleep with wet hair. In short, I don't look as hungover as I feel, my brain throbs as the rest of my body aches. My poor feet ache with raw blisters from my heels last night and over use on the dance floor.

Limping back to the bed crawling into the warmth careful to not disturb Auston but fail as he starts to wake as I finally get settled back into the warmth. He turns from facing the wall to me eye still closed.

"Afternoon," He grunted roughly as he begins to blind open his eyes, fully opening them when there is no assault to his retinas as the room dimly lit by only the slightest of the sun that poked out at the bottom of the curtain. He rubs the sleep from his eyes as he stretches out like a cat complete with a moan like a purr into a yawn.

"I shall call you scruffy," I muttered unintelligently unable to stop myself from commenting on his cat like behavior. His yawn gets stuck in his throat as he laughs at me clearly confused.

"What are you talking about?" He yawned out.

"You remind me of a cat and your playoff beard is starting to come in and your hair is wild- hence Scruffy," I lazily motion to the stubble starting to grow on his chin as the hair on the top is head flops in front of his eyes and sticks up in every direction. He narrows his eye as he drags a hand through his dark locks in an attempt to fix the mess but it flops back in front of his eyes a mock pout on his lips.

A grin starts to take form on his face as something clicks in his head as he lays back on the pillow looking slightly awestruck by what ever it is running through his mind. He sighs loudly staring at the ceiling for an extended period of time a genuine smile of happiness stretching his lips wide showcasing his pearly whites.

"Well, you've officially lost it," I clapped his bare shoulder before getting out of bed, my body getting restless and sore. I slightly regret leaving the bed as the cold air wraps itself around my bare legs a shiver raising up my spine, grabbing the discarded hoodie from earlier sliding it over my chilled skin.

My joints loudly pop as I venture out of the room with a limp to the kitchen, leaving the dazed Auston to himself. My mission caffeine and a lot of it than I can begin to think like a normal human again. Walking into the kitchen I am instantly greeted with the sight of an expensive looking espresso machine sitting on the counter near the sink.

"Perfect," I whispered lowly for myself before continuing my new mission of locating the supplies necessary to make the espresso. Finding an unopened bag of espresso grounds in the cabinet above with the cups too. By the looks of dust on top of the machine, Auston doesn't know how to use the machine.

A couple minutes later the smell of coffee fills the air as espresso is dispensing into two clear espresso mugs simultaneously. My mouth waters as I lift my steaming cup to my lips blowing on hot liquid eager to enjoy my work.

Carefully sipping the strong coffee, I investigate my surroundings as hunger starts to claw at my stomach as I start to feel more normal. The fridge is barren as I expect from a teenage man but the freeze is loaded with pre frozen meals made by a company that specializes in athlete nutrition but I still do not approve of the lack of fresh nutrients he much is missing out on.

"You made coffee? how?" Austons voice breaks my train of thought on his diet. Grabbing the still steaming glass from the machine he makes grabby hands for it. Leaning my sore body back against the counter I watch him blow on the coffee carefully before taking a sip, savoring the flavor. Austons now wearing long sleeves with the same pair of sweat leans against the counter mimicking my stance.

"My first job was at a cafe when I was 15," I finished off my coffee setting the cup into the sink before continuing my tale. "I was absolutely horrible with the machine at first I burned my fingers on the regular trying to master that damn machine," I shook my head at the memory of countless failed drinks and bandages covering my poor fingers every time the steam or hot metal caught me.

Auston stared into my eyes with a weird look in his eyes as he finished his coffee.

"What?" I question breaking eye contact, burying the lower half of my face in the fabric of his hoodie.

"You don't talk about yourself, ever." He admitted with wonder.

"I'm not the most revealing person, which you probably noticed. Steph didn't even know I was Italian let a lot spoke it until a couple days ago," I tried to shrug off the topic of me, becoming uncomfortable pushing my hair away from my face a nervous tick.

"Kinda speaking of, I saw what happened last night. He must of really said something to get you that mad," Auston revealing that he actually witness my outburst makes my heart drop into my stomach as my face pales.

"You saw that," I groaned rubbing my hands over my eyes embarrassed.

" I know what that guy said when you went to walk away, Amelia," My defense rise as tears gather in the corner of eyes as knot forms in my throat. My eyes must convey my question as Auston pulls out his phone and opens his safari app still on google translate where the words that slashed my heart last night in Italian are now in perfect English.

"Spanish is sometimes quite similar to Italian," He tried to lighten up the tense air but It was too much. I slid down the cabinets to the floor as silent tears turn into sobs. Repressed emotions clawing out of my once prefect confines.

"You're so selfish, Amelia," my mother lecture if I cried. "Somewhere someone else has it a lot worse than you," she would sneer into my face.

I am being selfish.

Auston got into playoffs, he should be dealing with my petty problems. He should be celebrating with the guys or his family. Not having to deal with my lack of the ability to take an insult.

Clenching my eyes and jaw shut I push my emotion down and out of my head, my breath is still jagged but the tears stop as I swallow the painful knot in my throat. Tilting my head back expected the hard wood but instead I'm met with hard yet soft chest as the world comes back to me that I didn't even realize I lost.

Auston has his arms tight around my waist as he sits behind me, his head in the crook of my neck whispering "Its okay," in a soft voice. My hands are gripping tightly onto Auston's hands that lay on my stomach. My heartbeat is pounding hard against my rib cage as my breathing is distressed and uneven.

Panic attack, I haven't had one in so long.

"I thought I grew out of these," I didn't fight as Auston arms tightened, I let my body relax into his but only for a moment before I start to pull away and when I was free and standing I started again.

"Come on we've got something to be celebrating," I pulled a expertly practice fake smile on my lips as I help Auston from the floor, who does not look happy, clearly not ready to drop this topic.

"Amelia, we need to talk about this, you're clearly hurt," His voice firm and frustrated.

" Auston, It was just some guy that something that I guess I couldn't take," I shrugged but i had to turn and walk away before I could cry again. I walk back to Auston room start collecting my belongings quicker than necessary, grabbing my phone from Austons side I head back to the grumpy looking Auston now sitting on the couch.

"Can you please take me home?" I silently pleaded with my eyes for him to drop it , he luckily didn't say anything as he nodded and went into his room to grab what he needed. Still grumpy when he returned shutting the door to his room harder than needed.

The elevator ride down to the underground was sufficiently awkward and tense, it only gets worse when we go into his car and his slammed his car door shut like he did with his bedroom door and as he speeds out onto the road. He gripped the stirring wheel with poorly hidden aggression.

I was fed up with his pouting and childish behavior when he nearly hits another car but swerves just in time.

"Auston, If there is something you need to say, FUCKING SAYING IT!" I hissed venomously, violently jerking forward when the car is abrupt pulled over to the side of the road and stopped, Auston whipping his head to me pissed.

"SO NOW YOU WANNA TALK?!" His voice boomed around my head as his eye are in slits glaring.

"WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING FAKE? GOD AMELIA. why can't you let me in?! You're so frustrating sharing so much than nothing. DO YOU KNOW HOW SHIT I FEEL KNOWING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT YOU, YET YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT ME?!" He blew up rapid hand motion matching his verb assault. He breaths heavy as he stares into my emotionless eye, a skill I master long before I hit puberty. A deep anger sets in my chest, not at him at myself.

"Nobody cares," My voice choked.

"WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!" He sneered pissed.

"IT MEANS, NOBODY CARES FOR ME. WHY CAN'T YOU I'M NOT WORTH IT," I lose it as let it out. "EVERYONE FUCKING LEAVES IN THE END. Everyone leaves me, Auston. Can't you see I-I'M not wor-worth it 'cause everyone leaves. I can't handle it anymore," Fat tears roll down my face as I scream at the now speechless man.

"Thinking someone might actually love me and care just to- to-" I cried hard smashing head back against the seat. "just to leave. They always do," I dropped my head into my hands and cried.

I cried hard and long,

I cried until my body couldn't anymore and fell into a dreamless sleep as Auston still wordless started the car and driving again.

I woke again when I was being set onto something soft and familiar, my bed. I could hear Stephanie's worried voice somewhere as Auston trying calm and get her to leave. It took something Mitch said for her to leave and the door shut softly.

Opening my sore eyes I spot Auston's figure leaning his head against the door.

"Auston?" My voice hoarse.

"Amelia, I am so sorry. I didn't mean it , you're not fake. You're reserved for a reason you don't have to tell me," Auston rushed to sit on the bed grabbing my hands into his rough ones. "I shouldn't have pushed you, fuck. I'm so selfish," My eyes widen in wonder as this boy just keeps apologizing. Removing my hands from his I sit to grasp the sides of his face.

"Will you shut up?" barely over a whisper. "I'll tell you. I'm not ready to, can we start with smaller stuff," I smiled sadly as my voice remained soft.

"Yes, okay how about I ask question and you just answer," He suggested more nervous than I ever seen him.

"I think I can manage that,"

"okay," We sat in silence as we stared into each others eyes before I break giggly.

"Are you gonna ask me something?" I raised a teasing brow, smiling when a deep shade of pink marks his cheeks.

"Ah, yeah, uhm. What's your favorite color?" He smiled shyly looked young.

"Purple,"

"Favorite food?"

"Gnocchi but the way my Nona would make it for me. The dough was always perfectly flavored and texture but honestly I think it was just because she made it I loved it so much," I reveal fondly as Auston nods encouraging me.

"Are you close with her?" His tone so soft as he's scare to startle me.

"Yeah but she moved back to Italy when my Nono- her husband passed away. It was easier for her as most our family is still there," I freely enjoying telling Auston some of my background.

It was a great start.

#auston matthews imagine #auston matthews #on the rocks #482754

51 notes · View notes

kendrixtermina · 7 years

Text

Baby Reacts to: “Voltron Legendary Defender”

I’m not familiar with either of the show’s previous incarnations but from what I’ve heard they completely overhauled the characters anyways - supposedly Pidge was once an annoying tagalong kid (and a boy), Keith was a standard issue “hot-blooded mecha pilot”, Shiro was not there, or killed of in the first storyarc, and Allura was a completely different character with a wholly different design, more of a ‘princess classic’ with the looks & personality to macth, supposedly they redesigned her to make her more alien & then threw in the skintone as a hommage to her voice actress. In any case only the name is the same.

I’ve seen some clips and it seems they had a much more outwardly fantasy-aesthetic going on with carriages & period costume, sort of more like Star Wars or Sailor Moon, whereas the newest version seems roughly Star Craft esque in terms of their particular blend of Magitek.

Otherwise it’s pretty straighforward: Evil Empire, Ancient Artifacts, Giant Robots, Space Fights, timefrozen hightech city left behind by the precursors etc.

The evil empire has a renegate splinter faction but that too isn’t so exceptional (though welcome), the BoM reminded me somewhat of the Tok’Ra from Stargate in their reclusive, slow-to-act approach in that they have tons of futuristic tech but limited ressources & had to be won over first & there still being a lot of mutual distrust on both sides, at least at first.

Rare in this day and age (and very refreshingly IMHO) the show unapologetically sticks to the basic genre & tropes without falling over its own feet trying to be clever & meta - sure, they evened out the gender ratio a bit & made the structure of the battles less monotonous but we’re not beaten over the head with any of these things/fit them in naturally & the show never seems like it has something to prove & just lets its story be a straightforward giant robots & explosions kinda thing.

It helps that the artwork is great.

The best summary of my general impression is that I’ll pobably tune in for season 3. My favorite character so far would be Keith closely followed by Pidge, and Shiro, but AFAIK everyone likes Shiro? I’m prolly b/c I’ve heard it’s terrible (The Umbridge effect is probably in full force...) also I’ve been told there’s a trailer out and I’d rather see season 3 unspoiled.

Clearly there needs to be some payoff for Shiro grooming Keith as a potential sucessor but I’m hoping that after a few drama-filled episodes, they all go rescue Shiro from wherever he’s gotten to, Keith hands him back his helmet and they all go home together. I mean, he just got his own Bayard. It’s unclear what happened to him in any case, perhaps he was absorben Evangelion style.

That said one of the show’s strenghts is the clear aversion of the “annoying comedic sidekick” even though it has many characters that has could theoritically fit that description - They try their best to give each of the characters something to do & various skills & likeable traits - Like you get why each of them is there and why they’re our heroes - they also took the time to make sure everyone got a few character establishing moment in the first episode (Shiro’s arrival, Pidge & Keith were already on their own quests by their own means, Hunk & Lance served as the PoV characters etc) and throughout the show they try to bring out everyone’s personalities through reaction shots etc. Like, ALL of them are awesome.

Also apparently this fandom has brutal shipping wars? Some ppl I was sitting next to kept cracking jokes about how [random yaoi pair] was obvliously into each other and after a while it got annoying through sheer persistence.

I don’t think the show as a whole is going for that like if there was going to be a decent/central romantic subplot they’d have introduced it by now they seem to be content to simply be an action show & there’s not much content like that at all except for the occassional teasing for the sake of humor & Lance’s flirting (which is really more there to exposition his being a bit of a showoff) - the most that will come out of it is that when we see some epilogue telling us what became of everyone, Lance will be shown to have found a girlfriend after returning home to his mom & impressing his siblings with his heroic stories.

To begin with they seem to be going for a different vibe with the main characters, with how all of them (including Allura) refer to each other as “family” or “brothers” all the time like I get the impression we’re supposed to interpret them more as simply comerades or quasi-siblings with Shiro as the big brother and Coran as the kooky uncle.

Like I hate it when ppl dismiss already existing romantic subplots as “uneccesary”, “silly” or “pandering” but at the same time it’s not like every show needs to have one or like it immediately needs an explanation when one character doesn’t get a love interest(that they must be gay, ace etc... nothing wrong with those type of characters, or headcanon, but “we’re not doing romance genre RN/ the characters are busy fighting a war” should be a sufficient explanation in and of itself whatever the characters’ orientations are.)

General Character Impressions:

Their secret seems to be rolling with the basic tropes but connecting them into an interesting structre, so it comes off neither overly in your face nor one dimensional.

Lance - ‘Average Joe Relatable PoV character’ except they made him not-boring by making him the snarky/funny one & giving (he’s got ice powers & is the designated long range fighter, both very cool powers, pun not intended but retroactively appreciated) as well as drawing logical consequences (He’s the most attached to earth because of his relatively ‘normal’ background & wants to prove himself because it seems he was the midle child among numerous siblings, hence the rivalry with the local ace pilot.) Sorta calls to mind the likes of Kyon from Haruhi or Sokka from Avatar.

Hunk - For once the “all around nice heart of the group with the more intuitive, roundabout type of reasoning” isn’t the token girl but I’m glad that role’s still there because niceness & group cohesion is a valid attribute. The “nice person” is typically the healer or magic user but making them the defensive fighter makes just as much sense, especially with his personality as the more cautions common sense-y one who becomes committed to the mission through the desire to protect innocents.

Pidge - The “secretly a girl” thing is kinda trite but it makes sense as a reference to the original and they still eschewed the tropes by how she was badass well before & doesn’t get treated any different afterwards - The plot twist is more that she’s related to the scientists from the prologue. Otherwise another potential spirit animal of mine, VERY relatable in ways I can’t count, fro the nerdy reactions all the way to the short stubby arms XD I’m also grateful that they didn’t give us that trite old “nature vs science” contrast but instead portrayed these as connected. It’s like Kensuke from Evangelion, except as a girl & she actually got to be a pilot.

Keith - The Rival Character. Second-best fighter of the paladins, sort of a ‘larger-than-life’ superhumanly good ace pilot, to Lance’s ongoing chagrin (and indeed he turns out to be part warrior alien), also, predictably, the local cynic. Seems to have the least ties to earth/ have been looking for a purpose in life anyways. Not quite a ‘stoic number two’ though - He’d probably like to be but he absolutely doesn’t really know when to shelf it, hence his being highly suceptible to Lance’s provocations & flunking out because of a “discipline issue” despite his aparent talent.

Shiro - Former Ace Pilot & personal hero for both Lance & Keith. Got alien abducted & subjected to the full repertoire (gladiator fights, experimented on, augmented etc.) & is understandeably still rather shook from it. Serious disciplined military type & natural leader, hence ends up taking over almost immediately wheen stranded with a bunch of ragtag space cadet rejects and, as a result, becomes everyone’s beloved big brother figure./mentor. Supposedly just as loved by the fandom? Actually still pretty young, he just looks mature in comparison to the others but he’s not above getting in a snowfight.

Allura - There’s the “sweet princess classic”, the “fierce alien warrior princess” and the “glittery plot magic princess” and in Allura’s case they seem to have been thrown in a blender & put together in such a fashion as to make a more complicated character - She’s certainly fierce, somewhat agressive, suspicious & hellbent on her mission but she also has the diplomatic grace one would expect of a royal & ultimately she does have a sweet side (hinted at early on with her adorable animal companions) - The basic gist of it is that she’s a regular teenage girl somewhere, but has been trained for asskicking & diplomacy all her life, & now she’s the last survivor & feels the pressure to carry on her father’s torch & stop the evil empire so she affects a comanding presence most of the time.

Also there seems to be some meme about calling her a racist (Ugh tumblr) ? This seems to me as one of this stuations where people want complex characters but cannot handle it if they’re not perfect or fitting into easy boxes.

The whole point of her is that she comes from a different time & culture with it’s conlicts outside of the human character’s PoVs. Like point me at any angry alien princess who is NOT suspicious. Both being unfrozen and heck, even Zarkon’s betrayal are still relatively recent for her, and in the end she was just kinda avoiding Keith (granted, in what must’ve been a confusing uncertain time for him) more than actively being mean and she came through on her own & apologized. Like, it was just like Hunk said: She just needed processing time, something she’s been afforded preciously little of at any point ever, I mean she goes straight from realizing everyone she ever knew (except Coran) is dead to launching an offensive.

Bonus: I shall attempt to MBTI the bunch

(In Order of certainty)

Hunk - most obvious ISFJ to ever SiFe

Allura - ESTJ

Pidge - INTP

Keith - ISTP or possibly ISFP, certainly Se-aux tho. One the one hand he uses Fi-ish language in places (”If I don’t do this, I’ll never find out who I am...”) on the other hand he tends to prioritize the mission & is the most cynical/pragmatic of the bunch & tends to be stoic & objective unless provoked (”The rest of the universe has families too.” “Yeah but can we afford to rescue the princess?”) - His relative reactiveness when provoked is sufficiently accounted for by Se.

Zarkon - ESTJ

Shiro - ISTJ (though his instant commanding presence makes me doubt the I somewhat that said politician/leader ISTJs do happen. He seems to have been serious & dilligent even before all the trauma tho.)

Lance - ESFJ or possibly Se-dom, ESxx for sure tho.

Coran - Clearly has Si and Ne but not sure in which order. If I had to guess I’d say he’s either a very dutiful ENFP or a very quirky ISTJ.

#voltron legendary defender #Voltron

8 notes · View notes

profxisajerk · 7 years

Text

Maximoffs Disassembled

So, this occurred during a session of IC CAH last night. I wanted to post it because I really enjoyed writing Charles’ reactions to this situation - I feel like I don’t write Charles being compassionate and helpful very often, and I thought I pulled it off pretty well. Although there is one line where Charles outright lies in order to make himself look better - see if you can spot it.

Wanda - @scarlxtisms?

Tommy - @odoktor

Billy - @apprcnticesuprcmc

CubedCutie - @unparalleledpower

Rahne - @wolfrahne

Pietro - @dad-neto

Vision - @visixnaryx

<Charles Xavier> -parks his wheelchair next to her- Wanda . . . is there something wrong? More than your children being reckless?

<Wanda> They don't like me, Charles. I wouldn't too if what I did to them happened to me.

<Charles Xavier> They do. They were just being young. Young men are fickle by nature. I should know - I was one once, as hard as that may be to believe. -smiles slightly at his own joke-

<Wanda> Charles, you do have an idea how much I love them. All I want is to make this work.

<Charles Xavier> And you will.

<Wanda> How?

<Charles Xavier> No one could blame you for what happened. You didn't even know that they existed - in their current incarnation - until they were teenagers.

<Charles Xavier> And you couldn't have known.

<Wanda> -sighs- I missed their golden years

<Charles Xavier> They're young, and so are you. There'll be more golden years.

<Wanda> Let's go back in, Charles.

<Charles Xavier> All right. Ladies first.

<CubedCutie> Vision, you should, uh, maybe try to get your kids in line . . .

<Tommy> Uhuhh . . . spent a while being a disappointment anyway.

<Tommy> -returns to sipping juice- Anyway. No big deal

<CubedCutie> Guys, can’t you two try to get along? There must be something you two have in common . . .

<Tommy> Our looks and soul?

<CubedCutie> Okay, but maybe you two should try to act like beings . . . Not two toddlers who can’t get along. Your mom loves you and does what she can for you. Brother, maybe you should tell them how much you care . . .

<CubedCutie> I mean, I know we don’t see eye to eye, but we at least act civil, right?

<Tommy> I don’t do feelings. I think I get it.

<Tommy> -crosses his arms and leans back-

<CubedCutie> *starts drinking again* So, boys, are we going to apologize to your mother and father?

<CubedCutie> Or am I going to have to keep threatening to send Thanos to you?

<Tommy> -eyes Billy at the comment-

<Vision> Well - we should not have expected the adjustment of being brothers to have settled easily.

<Wanda> -walks inside, and immediately sits on the couch-

<Tommy> Granted, I’m not use to family life at all

<Charles Xavier> -follows, his expression serene-

<Tommy> I don’t really talk about it . . .

<Vision> Understandable. It was too much to expect you to fall into this family without some <Wanda> You should. I'm here now, I'm your mother.

<Wanda> You'll never forgive me, I know . . . but I'm trying.

<Tommy> Being my mom doesn’t make me wanna talk about it

<Charles Xavier> Life is never that simple. People need time to adjust. ALL of you need time to adjust.

<CubedCutie> *watches from afar* Yeah, time heals things . . .

<CubedCutie> Maybe not fast, but it does.

<Tommy> It hurts things.

<CubedCutie> What do you mean, Tommy?

<Wanda> I can't turn back time again, Tommy! I wish I could . . .

<CubedCutie> Hey, the past shapes what we become - without it, well, we couldn't move forward.

<Wanda> You can. Past didn't change the essence of me.

<Tommy> Shapes us in ways that won’t change, yeah. And it’s not always good.

<Rahne> It does both. Just depends on what you do with it. An' Wanda's been doin' a damn good job with what cards she's been dealt in this life.

<Charles Xavier> All of you have.

<CubedCutie> Hey, I was used as a weapon for years, and I am not that anymore. I let that shape how I am now. I know that’s not what I am. I become who I want to be. Try and think - who do you wish to be?

<Tommy> You’re being really quiet, William

<CubedCutie> As a mortal once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world . . . I think that’s right.”

<William Kaplan> Yeah . . . I know. I - This is all my fault.

<Charles Xavier> This is NOT your fault. This isn't anyone's fault.

<CubedCutie> No, it’s not - It’s no one’s. Ok?

<Tommy> ---!!

<William Kaplan> Yes . . . Yes it is. I should have known better. I . . . I'm supposed to---

<Wanda> Billy. Come here.

<Tommy> -looks away. Oh No-

<CubedCutie> *hugs William* It’s ok, we can all work through this.

<Wanda> Tommy, you too.

<William Kaplan> I-- [tears up] I didn't mean to make everyone so upset---

<Vision> -just stays far away because never helpful-

<Wanda> Sunshine, no. Don't cry

<Wanda> Just come here. Let me hold you.

<Tommy> -kill bill sirens play in his head-

<William Kaplan> I just w-wanted us to be a f-family and... And now--- You're all talking about how it isn't working and---

<CubedCutie> William - it’s ok, you didn't mean it. Don’t worry, things like this happen - Vision, come help - You’re their father.

<Wanda> We're trying. I know I am.

<CubedCutie> William, I think you are good for this family . . . And I think that it’s just going to take some time . . . Being a family isn't easy . . .

<Tommy> -just gonna tiptoe out the window. he’s gonna take a breather-

<William Kaplan> N-no I'm just making things harder for everyone.

<Wanda> Billy. Come to Mama.

<CubedCutie> *sighs* No. William, you aren't. I don’t mind you . . . Living is hard and living with others, even harder. But we truly care about you.

Pietro came in and Wanda told him to hold her, so he did. She started crying and told him he's all she has left.

<Tommy> I don’t even remember why we fought. Probably that stupid . . . but gosh, aren’t I? I guess it’s natural, baby bro. You’re my perfect twin.

<Tommy> - ruffles his hair- I didn't want to make you cry.

<William Kaplan> It's not your fault. I was worried that I'd upset you. You're worth more to me than any stupid fight.

<Tommy> -he laughs- No one has told me that . . . Means a load more than you think . . . I hope nothing makes me lose you . . . Again. I . . . love you . . .

<William Kaplan> I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to, Tommy. You're stuck with me because I love you, too.

<Tommy> That’s good! I’ll hold it against you. Now let’s cruise back in. Walking this time.

<William Kaplan> Yeah, walking would be best. I'm kinda still a little dizzy from the drinking earlier and speeding around doesn't help.

<Tommy> I knew you’d get buzzed - he laughs as he walks to the door- I’m all fine. I wish I knew what hammered felt like.

<William Kaplan> It's not that bad. I can still walk . . . Kinda. [follows him] Maybe we can work on something strong enough for you eventually . . . Trust me, it's not as fun as it seems, though.

<Tommy> Maybe that Asgard stuff . . .

<Charles Xavier> -re enters, quietly-

<Wanda> I only have you now.

<Vision> -wellok-

<Vision> -phases away forever-

<Pietro> -scowls- What'd the little idiot say?

<CubedCutie> No, Vision! DON’T!

<Wanda> -you should be there for your wife dork-

<Charles Xavier> Be kind to the young man, Pietro.

<CubedCutie> Come on. I still care about you, and you shouldn't just leave when the pressure is too much.

<Wanda> I want to disappear. I really do.

<CubedCutie> Why, Wanda? Don't . . .

<Wanda> It's for the best. -sighs-

<CubedCutie> No, it’s not . . .

<Pietro> Wanda, please! Is there anything I can do?!

<Wanda> Take care of my twins. I'll be back sooner or later.

<CubedCutie> Wanda, no . . .

<Pietro> You know I can't leave you. Not like this.

<Pietro> -squeezes her tighter-

<Charles Xavier> Where are you going, Wanda? -frowns-

<Wanda> Come with me, then. -holds- you'll make me feel better.

<Wanda> I don't know, Charles. I don't know.

<Pietro> Of course! -will say anything to stay by her side, guess the boys gotta fend for themselves-

<Charles Xavier> You can't run away from your problems, Wanda.

<Wanda> But I can try, Charles.

<Rahne> I tried runnin' from mine. Came back t'bite me in the arse.

<Tommy> -he opens the door- We’re bACKK!

<Tommy> Aww sweet, it’s Uncle Pete!

<Charles Xavier> Or you could face your problems. Take care of your children.

<Tommy> Oh . . .

<Pietro> -scowls at nephews-

<Tommy> . . . Evening to you too . . .

<William Kaplan> [peers around tommy] What's going on?

<Tommy> I don’t feel like knowing . . .This feels like Genosha all over again

<Charles Xavier> Let's not take this out of proportion.

<Pietro> -snaps at Tommy- You don't understand Genosha.

<Tommy> We’re talking about a different time period.

<Tommy> The time you lifted Billy and ran off with him

<Tommy> Was it called Genosha? Uh

<William Kaplan> No, we visited Genosha, first. You're thinking of Wundagore, I think.

<Tommy> Transia! Yes. My bad my bad

<wanda> Let's go, Pietro.

<William Kaplan> Wait, Mom . . . Where are you going?

<Vision> Are you truly leaving, Wanda?

<wanda> I am. What's there for me here?

<Vision> Your family.

<Tommy> oH snap

<Pietro> -sets Wanda back on her feet-

<Vision> Or would you rather run away again rather than find a solution?

<wanda> You and William can come visit me and Pietro.

<Tommy> Well . . .

<William Kaplan> [nudges past tommy to stand in front of her] Wait . . . Don't go.

<Pietro> -defensively- She needs some time away.

<Charles Xavier> Does she, Pietro?

<Vision> She always chooses to have "time away".

<Tommy> She always runs off

<Vision> Every time there is something wrong.

<Tommy> She cried ‘cause we had a teenage boy fight.

<Tommy> And now she’s being dramatic. I’m not trying to be rough, but honest.

<Tommy> We already made up.

<wanda> You can't judge me. You're the one that runs away from your problems.

<William Kaplan> Mom, please . . .

<Tommy> Maybe I learned it from someone?

<wanda> You don't care about me, Thomas

<Charles Xavier> Wanda!

<Charles Xavier> Please. Don't say things you'll regret.

<wanda> Don't make me stop caring about you.

<Tommy> Everyone stops caring about me.

<wanda> You push them away.

<Tommy> Just like you.

<William Kaplan> No, that's not true, guys . . .

<Pietro> -stunned, then defensive again- She just needs someone to listen to her.

<wanda> You always are saying how has life treated you. You and all of the world. I didn't have a happy childhood either.

<wanda> But I don't hate my father for what he did.

<wanda> He had his reasons.

<Pietro> -grumbles- Oh, Father had selfish, immoral reasons.

<Tommy> What? I never even TALK about it

<Tommy> So stop asking like I use my past.

<wanda> I'm not asking.

<wanda> I'm telling you.

<wanda> Wake up and smell the coffee.

<Tommy> I meant acting

<William Kaplan> Guys, you both have reasons to be upset . . .

<wanda> I did too.

<William Kaplan> But there is no reason to be turning on one another like this . . .

<Rahne> *shakes her head lightly*

<wanda> I created life because that's what I wanted! I had a selfish dream to be a mother . . . sorry for being selfish.

<Charles Xavier> Magneto had his reasons. But that doesn't absolve him.

<wanda> I had mine too. And here I am, condemned for being selfish.

<Tommy> You’re no help. I’d rather have Billy console me.

<Pietro> -stays silent during this conversation about children and selfishness, feeling condemned himself-

<Tommy> We had a fight, you started to bitch. I wasn’t even saying anything bad to you. Only Billy. But for a kid who raised himself, of course I’m not fucking adjusting quick.

<Charles Xavier> Wanda . . . listen to me. You told me earlier you were afraid that you'd abandoned your children when they needed you most.

<Charles Xavier> Don't make that fear come true.

<wanda> I am tired of him silently judging me for what I did.

<Tommy> Stop it! Stop assuming!

<Tommy> I looked for you. Just like Billy!

<Charles Xavier> -sharply- He's your SON!

<wanda> I am assuming because you don't fucking talk to me!

<Tommy> THEN FUCK YOU

<wanda> I've tried and tried, and tried and tried - !

<Tommy> FINE

<Tommy> STOP GUILT TRIpping me! I’m not meant for this! Just like how I couldn’t live with Billy’s family! FINE

<wanda> I'm not guilt tripping you.

<wanda> Stop assuming I am

<William Kaplan> Tommy, you belong here as much as any of us.

<Pietro> -uncharacteristically quietly anxious-

<Tommy> I know what guilt tripping is

<Tommy> "Oh, I’m SELFISH!! YOU HATE ME,” putting words in my mouth and making me feel bad!

<wanda> I know what accusation looks are.

<Tommy> I know what a dramatic lady is

<wanda> Do whatever you want, Thomas.

<Pietro> -quietly- Wanda, please don't ignore your children. Believe me, you'll regret it.

<Rahne> Be grateful ya have a mother who cares! That ya HAVE a family that doesn't want'a condemn you to hell at e'ery chance they get!

<wanda> I'm done. -walks away-

<Vision> This is no solution.

<Pietro> -dashes after Wanda and grips her arm- Wanda, believe me. You don't really want to cut off your children.

<wanda> Like Dad did?

<Pietro> Father's a monster. I just know I couldn't live without Luna.

<Charles Xavier> Tommy . . . Billy . . . I'm so sorry this is happening to you two. I hope you know that neither of you deserves this.

<Tommy> She’s getting mad . . . for all the times I never talked about my feelings

<Tommy> I haven’t even told Billy my feelings.

<Tommy> I’m aggravated . . .

<Tommy> Or my past. Someone shouldn't stick you up for being closed off for safety.

<Charles Xavier> She's not really angry at you. She's angry because of things that happened before you even came into her life, and it's not fair of her to take it out on you.

<Tommy> But she doesn’t get mad at Billy.

<Tommy> Just me

<wanda> Charles, stop.

<wanda> You're not an angel.

<Tommy> He’s better at talking

<Tommy> I want to listen

<wanda> Well, listen to him. You never listen to me

<Charles Xavier> Wanda, this is beneath you. You sound like your father right now.

<Pietro> -snaps- Stay out of this, Xavier.

<Charles Xavier> -gives Pietro that 'i love you, but I'm Very Disappointed In You' look-

<Pietro> -snaps at Xavier- As if you know what it's like to be a parent.

<Charles Xavier> -raises his eyebrows faintly at Pietro, but otherwise doesn't rise to it-

<William Kaplan> Mom, that's not fair.

<Vision> Wanda, you are accusing him of things he has not done.

<Vision> You expect too much of him too quickly.

<wanda> I expect much of everyone. I give too much to be pushed away by my mistakes. You know it, Vision. Didn't you push me away?

<Tommy> You're literally blaming everyone

<Tommy> It’s in the past. Be civil. Rational.

<wanda> I'm tired of blaming me.

<wanda> No one knows what it’s like to wish and lose

<wanda> No one knows what it’s like to be looking for something that was ripped from you.

<Tommy> Dad’s right. What do you want from me?

<wanda> Nothing, Thomas. I don't want anything from you anymore.

<Pietro> -frowns at Wanda-

<Tommy> Uh-huh . . . That’s a first.

<Tommy> If you say so.

<Pietro> -folds his arms over his chest, irritated-

<wanda> If you buy a lottery ticket to win money day after day and you never win, you'll end up letting go.

<Tommy> Fancy way of disowning me

<Tommy> After you provoked me so much.

<wanda> I'm not disowning you.

<wanda> Stop putting words in my mouth.

<Tommy> Then say them clearly

<Vision> You are choosing to run away, however.

<Vision> It is nearly the same.

<Charles Xavier> -heads out into the kitchen-

<wanda> -just looks at Vision-

<Pietro> -gestures broadly- She's only asking for a break.

<Tommy> If she says so . . . Let her have it

<Tommy> I just try and fit in.

<Tommy> I don’t want anyone mad at me.

<Tommy> I am just . . . no good . . . at this.

<Charles Xavier> -there's a crash as if someone dropped and shattered something. Charles sticks his head out of the kitchen, apologetic- I'm sorry, I appear to have broken a glass.

<Charles Xavier> Tommy, do you think you could help me sweep it up?

<Pietro> -rolls his eyes-

<William Kaplan> [pulls tommy towards the kitchen] Yeah, we should help, come on.

<Tommy> Yeah, sure. On my way -comes over after finding the broom and dust pan-

<Charles Xavier> Thank you so much, boys.

<Charles Xavier> -shuts the door to the kitchen behind the two of them once they get in-

<Tommy> No problem, Professor. It’s all good . -entering and motions the broom- Now, is this just about the glass?

<Charles Xavier> To be honest, Tommy, I didn't see any point in you having to stand there and listen to that. I can't talk Wanda out of saying and doing whatever she wants. But I thought at least I could offer you an out.

<Tommy> Yah . . . I try to fit in. Me and my dad are on good terms after meeting. Me and Billy? Excellent ones. But me and my mom . . . always seem to bump heads.

<Charles Xavier> -shakes his head- I had the same problem with my father. My brother was the apple of his eye . . . and I always got blamed for not living up to him. But you see, it wasn't my fault, or my brothers.

<Charles Xavier> It was his.

<Tommy> Uh-huh . . . I can relate to you, then. But then aren’t you comparing her to your dad?

<Charles Xavier> Yes.

<Charles Xavier> My father had his own reasons for acting the way he did. But he was still in the wrong. And he still hurt me and my brother.

<Tommy> Really? I don’t blame her . . . for what hurt her. But I’m just too insecure to be open. I barely knew her and she expected too much. She thinks I don’t want her, but she made me feel really bad.

<Charles Xavier> You didn't do anything wrong.

<Tommy> I had parents before her in this life. They were no good. And her introducing herself like one puts me on edge. -he sighed-

<Tommy> I don’t know, but she’s turning my uncle against me

<Tommy> I wonder what my dad thinks.

<Charles Xavier> I'm sorry. I know what it's like to have two sets of parents hurt you.

<Tommy> You . . . You’re more understanding. She makes it a suffering game . . . Because she had more life trouble, I should be able to open up quicker

<Charles Xavier> -quietly- I wouldn't be surprised if her father did the same to her.

<Tommy> It’s messed up. Grandpa really hurt them both. I just don’t understand why she’s mad at me and not Billy too. Not that she should be.

<Tommy> It makes me feel like I keep doing something differently. Wrong.

<Charles Xavier> Pain makes people irrational. That's all. It has nothing to do with you.

<Tommy> I’m really awful at talking about my, uh . . . feelings. But . . . you’re right. I just don’t think I can make it up to her. Or her to me. I feel too out in the open after it all. But that’s exactly what she shamed me for.

<Charles Xavier> You don't need to try to put things back together right now. You need time to heal.

<Tommy> -he does a very out of place laugh derived from how nervous he was- Yeah I.. I’ll keep it in mind. You’re uh . . . Real good at this . . . talking thing

<Charles Xavier> -laughs- It comes of being a teacher. You learn as much as your students do.

<Pietro> -glances at Wanda-

<Pietro> Wanda, you know I'll go wherever you want to go.

<Vision> Best not encourage her to leave her children.

<Vision> -casually floats outside-

<wanda> Let's go, Pietro. There won't follow us now. -she holds his hand, and disappears

<Pietro> -disappears with Wanda-

<wanda> Thanks for doing this with me, Pietro. I love you so much.

<Pietro> -glances around, startled- I know what it's like to have a child taken from me, and then to be rejected by the same child.

<Pietro> I love you too, Wanda. I just don't want to see you in pain.

<wanda> He was so happy when he was a baby. He was my sun and stars. He was happy and . . . I deserve it.

<Pietro> You deserve to raise your children.

<wanda> They're not mine. I'm like the horrible mother that gave their children I'm adoption because she can't raise them.

<Pietro> -frowns- No, you're nothing like our father. And there's nothing wrong with their adoptive families. You can still provide extra care to them!

<wanda> You know what I want. I want to wake up to the times where he was a toddler and tugged on my skirt to ask for a drink.

<Pietro> -sighs and gestures frantically- Ialwaysbelievedyouwouldmakeagoodmother,Wanda. AllIcansayisthatIwouldneverlivewithmyselfifIgaveuponLuna!

<wanda> -leans and kisses his cheek- You didn't. Crystal did.

<Pietro> Iknowhowyoufeel,butyou'llbemissingoutonsomuchmore...!

<wanda> He had the cutest cheeks, remember? He was always fighting for me with William. I was a good mother back then. Until I left him with those people.

<Pietro> -shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair- Idon'tknow. ItfeelslikeCrystalwastheonethatdidn't.

<wanda> You can leave whenever you want. I'll stay here until I die. I won't come back.

<Pietro> -startled- Where is 'here'?

<wanda> No idea. -shrugs-

<Pietro> And what about the Avengers?

<wanda> They'll figure out what to do

#visixnaryx #aprcnticesuprcmc #odoktor #unparalleledpower #wolfrahne

1 note · View note

bigskydreaming · 8 years

Text

I want it on record that this is all @quicklikelight‘s fault, because she said wing fic and then she said Scydia and then my brain did a thing.

Scott McCall didn’t show up to class on Tuesday.

Normally, this was not something that would be on Lydia’s radar. Normally, Scott McCall was not something that would be on Lydia’s radar. But AP Bio was one of the only two classes Lydia allowed on her schedule that possessed at least the potential to challenge her. Nobody else whose opinion she cared about was in it, and neither were any of them in the pass/fail History of American Literature elective she’d selected to be her alibi in case any of them ever asked what class it was she had that period. (They never did).

Ergo, when forced to partner up with a classmate for an assignment worth half of one of the only grades she actually cared about - despite her best articulated arguments - she’d done her research before selecting Scott McCall to be hers. Perfect attendance, rarely volunteering answers but always having them once actually called upon, no extracurriculars or social life whatsoever as far as she could tell. In summation, reliable and unlikely to stand in the way of her ending the class with that A she damn well better end this class with. The perfect patsy.

Partner. She meant partner.

Point is, when one Scott McCall both failed to be reliable and stood in the way of that A by failing to show up to class two days in a row, Lydia figured she deserved an explanation for that. Some might call that entitled. She called it - fine, it was entitled. Sue her. Her dad had good lawyers.

And so here she stood in a part of town she hadn’t really ever registered existed other than in a vague, abstract sort of way, standing on the porch of the McCalls’ house. It was small, picturesque and possessed of a quality she didn’t know how to describe with any word other than ‘cozy.’ She had no idea what to do with that, so she got back on task and knocked, sharp and brisk enough to bruise her knuckles on the wood paneling. She could hear the echoes resonate through the house on the other side of the door. She heard nothing else. She knocked again.

When she tried the doorknob after further knocking produced similarly ineffective results, it was simple frustration, really. It wasn’t like she expected the door to be unlocked. Who leaves their front doors unlocked?

Apparently the McCalls, however, because a simple twist of her wrist was all that stood between her and access to their home. Maybe they were the kind of people who counted on basic human decency to keep uninvited strangers on the other side of that door? Hmm. Can’t relate. Food for thought though.

Lydia ventured down the darkened hallway towards the stairs cautiously, because there was always the other possibility she’d accidentally stumbled onto a crime scene. One could never be sure. And when she made her way up the staircase, it was less about being entitled and intrusive and more about following the trail of photographs chronicling the evolution of Scott McCall from chubby-faced baby to gangly adolescent. It was slightly adorable. Don’t quote her on that though, she’d sue. Her dad had good lawyers.

And when she saw the door to the bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall ajar with light from a lamp spilling out into the gloom, then of course she had to check to make sure everything was alright, because why would somebody be at home and yet not answer the door if everything was alright? It was just basic mathematics at that point.

Whatever Lydia Martin expected to find when she pushed open that door, however, it was definitely not Scott standing shirtless in front of a mirror, with large, brown, gray and tan wings sprouting proudly from his back while he awkwardly tried to trap them against his sides with an ACE bandage. Feathers littered the floor; evidence this had probably been going on for quite some time.

In retrospect, that was the moment where Lydia Martin’s life got weird.

Look, she wasn’t just some small town girl who thought the world began and ended at the state line. She’d been to Paris. She’d mastered archaic Latin because she was bored. She actually understood Euclidean geometry and she was well aware that the world was bigger and stranger than anyone could possibly imagine.

All of that did nothing to prepare her for the sight of a classmate with actual wings, actual functional wings, if the haphazard flapping of the twin appendages were suggestive of anything.

So having absolutely no prior experience, knowledge or frame of reference to fall back on in the face of something THIS bizarre and inexplicable, Lydia did what she did best. She compartmentalized.

First off, they were massive. The tailfeathers drooped down to the carpet and they peaked a good foot and a half over his head, she put him at about five foot ten, maybe five foot eleven, did some quick calculations of the height by the approximate breadth of the wing folded tight against his body…Lydia whistled softly. They were looking at a fifteen foot wingspan, easy.

Lydia also whistled out loud, she realized belatedly. Mostly as a result of Scott whirling around with a startled gasp, hands scrambling to hide both wings behind his body, tucked behind him like a shield. Totally futile, of course. But precious. Definitely precious.

“Jesus,” Scott yelped. “Don’t you knock?”

“I did knock. Twice,” Lydia said, still tracking the curve of his wings with her gaze, comparing and contrasting the shape and hue of the feathers with a lifetime’s worth of nature documentaries. At a glance, she wanted to guess they most resembled the wings and feathering of bubo virginianus, aka the great horned owl. Not a species native to this part of California, but then again, teenage boys with wings weren’t exactly native to any part of California so she might just be parsing semantics at this point. “I think you were…preoccupied.”

That put Scott back on the defensive, even though it hadn’t been her intent. He shifted his weight from foot to foot awkwardly. Arched his back as though to try and shove the tips of his wings lower and more out of sight, but really all it did was make his nicely toned chest jut out more. Not that she was opposed to that angle either.

“It’s not what you think,” he tried.

“I think you have wings, Scott.”

“Okay, so, I can explain.”

Lydia tilted her head. “Can you? Really?”

Scott deflated. “Well. No. Kinda? I don’t know. Look, not that I’m complaining, but why aren’t you fleeing in terror right now?”

She shrugged. “You have fluffy brown wings, McCall, not fangs and claws and smoke coming out of your nostrils. Should I be fleeing in terror?”

“No, of course not, its just…I don’t know. Look, its not like I have an instruction manual here. You’re the first person to even see them.”

“I’m honored.” Weird thing is, she actually was. Okay, let’s be real, the weird thing was still the classmate with giant wings sticking out of his back, but relatively speaking. “So not to be crass or anything, but elephant in the room. How is it you have wings, exactly?”

Scott cocked his own head, a surprisingly bird like motion given the appendages framing it, and he shot her an odd look. As though he had any right to be the one acting like there was something strange about this Twilight Zone scene she’d found herself in. “How, huh? Kinda figured your first question would be why do I have wings.”

“Why implies there’s a reason or purpose for your having wings, which is an assumption with no practical basis. How implies simply that there was some mechanism or event by which you developed wings, which is a certainty given that I am one hundred percent confident you didn’t have those last week. Hence, how takes precedence.”

He continued to scrutinize her, and she resisted the urge to fidget, because fuck that, ladies don’t fidget, they make boys fidget. It wasn’t like Lydia was unused to the sensation of all eyes and attention in the room being focused on her after all, but there was a weight to this inspection that was not exactly uncomfortable, but wholly unfamiliar.

“You know, you’re not at all what most people expect.”

“Neither are you, McCall,” she said dryly. “Yes, I have a brain, you have a wingspan, shocking revelations all around. Back to my question please.”

He sighed and flopped onto the edge of his bed. She took it as an invitation to sit next to him. She had a suspicion they were going to be there awhile. Plus it increased her chances of accidentally brushing up against those wings and getting a sense of their relative softness. Purely for the purpose of adding to her mental notes, of course. Look, it was literally for Science.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Scott tried at last. She gave no ground.

“Five minutes ago I wouldn’t have believed what my eyes are telling me. Yet here we are. I’m a believer. You were saying?”

“It’s kind of a long story. A weird story,” he said, trying again. Lydia progressed to full-fledged eye rolling. God, it was like pulling teeth with this one.

“Let’s start with the Cliff Notes version. Once upon a time there was a boy with no wings. Then he had wings. How?”

“I was bit by a werewolf, okay?!”

Lydia blinked. Okay, point to him for that one. Her snark subsided ever so slightly.

“Okay. So. Werewolves are a thing, apparently. How does that equal you having wings instead of claws and an insatiable hunger for human flesh?”

Scott shrugged and scratched his head, a fresh downfall of feathers cascading to the floor following his motions. “I’m not sure I get it entirely myself, but according to this guy, Derek - he’s a werewolf, but not the one that bit me - so like, there’s some old werewolf proverb or whatever about how the shape you take reflects the person you are? I dunno. But apparently, turns out, I am not a wolf.”

He turned pensive. “I’m still not sure if I’m offended by that or not. Derek seemed to think that’s a bad thing, but he’s kind of a dick. So. Yeah.”

“Huh,” Lydia said as she digested this. “So rather than lycanthropy being a contagion that replicates exactly in each new host, its more like the bite of a shapeshifter is simply a catalyst for transformative magic the new host’s spirit provides the blueprint to follow. Fascinating.”

She refocused on Scott in time to catch him staring at her. “What?”

“You got all that from what I just said?”

She blushed before she had a chance to body check her basic physiological response to flattering male attention and since when was Scott McCall flattering male attention. Eww. Weird. Focus, Lydia.

“What, like its hard?” She joked, falling back on Legally Blonde quotes as her eyes drifted back down to his still bare chest and she remembered oh no, he’s hot.

“No,” Scott said, corners of his mouth twitching. “Just that I knew there was more to you than met the eye, but from what I picked up while working on our AP Bio project, I figured it was all science oriented. But you’re really running with this whole ‘magic is real’ thing, huh? I mean, it took me a second and I’m the one with the freaking wings.”

“Magic is just science we can’t understand yet,” Lydia shrugged, averting her eyes to the floor. She resisted the urge to twirl a lock of her hair. She. Would. Not. Fidget. Dammit.

“You read Asimov?”

“Who doesn’t read Asimov?”

“Touche,” Scott laughed. He ducked his own head. “Umm. Okay. Maybe it’d be more productive if we both just agreed to stop assuming things about each other?”

She studied him. “I can work with that.”

“Cool.” He grinned and held out his hand. “So hey, I’m Scott McCall, and I’m part bird, apparently.”

She smiled and took his hand. “I’m Lydia Martin. I like birds.”

“While we’re at it, any chance I can get you to stop eyeing me like I’m the blue ribbon at next year’s science fair? I mean, I totally get it, its just…yeah.”

Ooops. Busted. Lydia recovered with a casual hair toss. “Well, you’re just going to have to prioritize there. I can look at you like a marvel of the modern scientific world, or like a shirtless teenage boy who makes for great eye candy. Dealer’s choice.”

Scott blushed again. Point to her. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “Me having a boyfriend doesn’t negate you having nice pecs. Kudos on those by the way. You should consider wearing tighter shirts.”

That was the wrong thing to say, apparently, and the playful climate they’d cultivated evaporated.

“I can’t even get a jersey on with these things, let alone anything tight,” Scott said, turning pensive again. “My mom thinks I’m just sick and holed up in my room but that’s not gonna work for much longer and if I don’t figure out something soon, I really am going to be next year’s science fair exhibit.”

“So there’s no way to get rid of them? They’re just part of being a…were…owl?”

They were definitely going to need to come up with some more expansive terminology, just for the record. Lydia Martin flat out refused to make it a habit of regularly saying things like wereowl with a straight face.

“I don’t think they are, but I honestly have no idea. I don’t think Derek even knows, like…he tracked me down after I was bitten and the fact that I’d already healed proved I was a shapeshifter, but then when he tried to teach me how to shift, like…this happened instead? And he pretty much lost interest then because apparently a werebird or whatever the fuck I am doesn’t help with whatever it is he wanted me for,” Scott said. With no small trace of bitterness.

“But he shifted into a werewolf form, right? And then changed back?”

“Yeah. So I mean I figure its gotta be possible for me to change back too, I just…don’t know how. Nothing I’ve tried has worked.”

“Well, that gives us our basic parameters to start with,” Lydia said briskly, standing and stalking over to his computer. “Clearly, we have two immediately available courses of action. Figuring out how to shift you back, knowing that it is theoretically possible, or else figuring out how to disguise your wings until we figure that out, acknowledging that it might take longer than we’d like to figure out the proper mechanism. Which direction should we tackle?”

“Umm. We?”

“Yes, Scott, we. How did you think this conversation was going to end? A fist bump and me leaving with a ‘cool story, I gotta get to the mall, see you in class if the government doesn’t cart you off to some black ops lab first?’”

“Have you ever given someone a fist bump in your life?”

“Not the point, Scott, I was deliberately emphasizing the ridiculous. Focus.”

He hesitated, standing, but still clearly uncomfortable and undecided. His shoulders slouched, his wings drooped…he definitely should never play poker while shifted, she noted absently. Those things were absolutely a tell. Who knew human-proportioned wings could be so expressive?

“Look, don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m really grateful that you didn’t go fleeing in terror the second you saw me like this, but…why are you trying to help me? I mean, I’m trying not to assume the worst here or anything, but its not like we’re friends, and I have a lot to lose here, so how do I know you’re not just interested in writing a paper about me or turning me over to some science lab for a cash reward and a byline?”

“I have money, Scott, I don’t need more,” Lydia answered abrasively, not knowing how to address his perfectly valid concerns any more delicately than that. For all her varied skills, handling with care was not something ever likely to appear on her resume. So she fell back on playing to her strengths. When in doubt, steamroll them. “And as for the rest, you’re right, I absolutely could turn you over to the science community and solidify my place in history for all time. Fortunately for you, not all of us are attracted to science for altruistic purposes and because we want to spread and share knowledge and information with all for the betterment of mankind. Some of us are just smug bitches who like knowing we know more than anyone else, and knowing I’m the only one who knows all this right here? That’s my catnip.”

“Now sit,” Lydia patted the edge of the bed closest to his desk, having already claimed his chair for herself. “I’m thinking our initial approach should be delving into psychosomatism and the effects of the id and the superego on our physiologies. Obviously there’s a mental trigger involved in the shift from human form to your altered state, and such triggers frequently involve psychological factors like confidence and self-esteem, both of which, no offense, I don’t suspect your cup overfloweth with, so it seems worth a try.”

Scott shook his head and resumed his seat on the bed, albeit closer to the desk. A bemused smile played across his lips. “You’re kind of a force of nature, you know that? Hurricane Lydia.”

“Mmm,” Lydia said absently. She booted up his browser, gratified that his search bar didn’t autofill with various porn site selections. What a treasure. “I prefer to be classified as a tropical storm. It leaves me the option of upgrading to a full scale natural disaster when appropriately pissed.”

“Noted.”

“I always knew you were a smart boy, McCall.”

“No you didn’t,” he scoffed, though he seemed more amused than offended. Curious. “You didn’t even know my name two weeks ago.”

“An oversight on my part. Don’t worry. I learn from my mistakes,” Lydia assured him. They exchanged sidelong classes, complete with smiles. Something shivered along her spine. In retrospect, the wings were the moment Lydia Martin’s life got interesting. This right here? This was the moment Lydia Martin’s life got very, very complicated. That awareness would come later though. For the time being, she simply turned back to his computer, fingers poised above the keyboard, ready to begin the search of a lifetime. “Now in the immortal words of every teenage boy in the history of modern English: Let’s do this already.”

#scydia #scott mccall #lydia martin #kalen writes things #kalen writes fanfiction

60 notes · View notes