#and we’re created fully with the purpose to bring about horrible things

[lady-tortilla-chip]

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[magnhild]

Nora Valkyrie, Identity, and Purpose

Hey everyone, Blaire here, and almost exactly a year ago, I made this mess of a post where I laid out all of my thoughts on Nora and what I thought the show could have in store for her.

And honestly, most of my ideas were way off, and not at all correct. Also, the post kind of flopped.

Thankfully, Volume 8 has given me a chance to redeem myself, and write another, more coherent, essay about my favourite RWBY character; where this Volume seems to be taking her character, and what it means to me, personally.

Buckle up.

To the vast majority of people in the RWBY fandom, Nora is the least-developed character, and the one most lacking in dimension. Most of her character seems to be defined by two things; her energy and love for fighting, and her relationship on Ren.

Volume 8 took note of these conceptions, and addressed them head-on.

Of course, any keen-eyed viewer will have noted Nora’s hidden depths even before this volume, which I noticed in last year’s post. She is perhaps the most perceptive of the main cast, at least, when it comes to people’s feelings and relaionships. She was the only one to really comment on Pyrrha’s crush on jaune, and the first to bring up Blake and Yang’s growing relationship. It was also her level-headedness that resolved RNJR’s argument in Volume 4, Chapter 9.

Volume 7 also showed us her innate desire to protect the weak, and her disdain to those who have the power to help, but refuse. I personally get the feeling that this was her driving motivation in becoming a Huntress; to protect people who cannot protect themselves, perhaps because she doesn’t want anyone to have to grow up as she did. Nora’s fury at Ironwood in V7C7 is esepcially signifigant, because it’s the angriest we’ve ever seen her before, even more so in that this anger is directed at someone with much more authority than her.

But these little details were only the tip of the iceberg. These were traits she already had, and while they help to add layers to her character, they’ve done very little in terms of her actual development. 

This is where Volume 8 came in stronger than any other.

Volume 7 hinted to us that Ren and Nora’s relationship was beginning to get more complicated, between their bickering, Ren’s dismissiveness at Nora, and their kiss in V7C6. By the end of the volume, it was clear that they were still struggling, despite their clear love for each other. Volume 8 carried this thread along, having them split into different parties, and Nora giving Ren a bit of attitude we’ve not really seen her direct at him before. 

She’s frustrated with him, and disappointed that he can’t see what she sees. But despite her tough front, V8C2 then hints that she’s sadder about the split than she’s letting on, after May brings up Nora’s ‘friends’. C3 then brings this to a head, where we get a conversation that sees Nora opening up to Blake and Yang, and revealing a deeply sad truth about herself- that she has no idea who she is without Ren, because she’s spent so much of her life with him and him alone, and her feelings for him have shaped so much of who she thinks she is. We’ve never seen her so hopeless and lost, especially after she reveals that, as far as she’s concerned, all she’s good for is hitting stuff.

Right in these few minutes, the show takes how the audience percieves Nora, and reveals to us that those two core traits are the gateways to a far deeper insight of her character. She’s known for her relationship with Ren, but wait- what about when he’s not there with her? She’s known for hitting stuff, but wait- that’s all she thinks she’s good for. 

It’s revealed to us that, not only is this how most of the audience percievs Nora, but it’s how she percieves herself. And for all her energy and upbeat attitude, deep down, she thinks incredibely lowly of herself. For all her confidence in her fighting abilities, she lacks confidence in herself as a person. 

Surprisingly enough, the ‘who am I?’ character arc is one that was hardly explored at all up until this point, despite it being one of the most common and signifgant character arcs in fictional media. And I don’t think many of us at all could have imagined that Nora would be the one to get that arc, when she’s always seemed so self-assured on the surface.

And then, when Penny is in need of help, Nora takes Weiss’ advice to heart, and does the one thing she believes she’s capable of- being strong, and hitting stuff.

Nora overcharging her Semblance to take down the wall is seen by a lot of the fandom as some kind of win for Nora; as her ‘big moment’. But while it’s certainly a really cool and badass scene, it was far from a triumph for her.

This was Nora at perhaps her lowest point so far in the series. This was Nora figuring ‘well, if this is all I’m good for, I’ll do it to the extreme’. This was Nora thinking her only purpose was to greatly endanger herself for the sake of others, because she figured she was the only one who could. And she almsot got herself killed for it. 

While certainly a defining moment, it was far from triumphant. It wasn’t a win. It was a self-destrcutive act that reflected how little she thinks of herself; that she’s not worth anything unless she’s pushing herself to the limit doing the one thing she thinks she’s good at.

And to drive the knife in harder, it backfires horribly. 

Because now she’s bedridden and critically injured, with scars that are probably permanent; a reminder of her lowest point, forever marked on her body. She can’t fight now, can’t help at all, and Salem has launched her attack on Atlas.

And in her half-unconsious state in V8C7, she realizes this, delivering an absolutely heartbreaking line:

As far as she’s concerned, her last attempt at doing what she thinks only she can do- what she thinks is all she can do- has prevented her from doing anything of worth at all. She lost one half of herself when she split from Ren, and now she’s lost the other half too. The two things that she defines herself by are gone. And the worst part is, we don’t know if she’s awar of the fact Salem has begun her attack. We could very well see her fully wake up, only to realize that the world has begun ending while she was unconsious, and she can’t do anything about it.

Now, this scene, and Nora’s struggle in this Volume as a whole, hit home for me in particular.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’re probably aware that Nora is only of my hightest- and only- kins. And I’ve only been able to relate to her more and more after what we’ve got of her in this Volume.

I am chronically disabled. I have a connective tissue disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which fucks up my body in a multitude of different ways, but signifigantly affects the joints. For me, it hits worst in my back, ankles, and my fingers. The fingers are my main problem. To make matters worse, I’ve also been victim to intense pains in my shoulder, which came out of nowhere a couple of months ago and have only gotten worse since. The slightest movement aggrevates it. As any follower of mine would know, I am both an artist and a writer. I create both for fun, and I’ve studied writing as a profession. It is these things I’m known for being good at, and not much else. 

Thanks to my disability and my shoulder though, I have to do these things less. Even on perscription pain medication, it still hurts. It hurts to write this even now; my shoulder feels like it’s burning up from the inside. It will only get worse over time.

So, I’m finding myself in Nora’s position. I can’t do what I’m good at anymore, and I don’t know what to do with myself as a result. Not doing these things makes me feel lazy and unproductive, and makes me feel that the people around me will abandon me so long as i can’t keep providing them content. And I’ve gotta say, it hurts a lot, and I don’t just mean physically. 

Because of what I’m going through, it’s especially important to see my favourite RWBY character just so happening to be dealing with the same problem; the same loss of idenity and purpose. We don’t know who we are or what we’re good for without the things we think define us.

While I’m unsure of my own future though, I find comfort in knowing that Nora’s problem will be tackled and addressed; that her friends will help her to rediscover herself and find her true worth. And while we’ve got a while to go until we’ll be able to see the Volume continue, I’m incredibely excited to see where Nora’s arc goes, especially if we can get some backstory along the way. I find myself wondering if her life before Ren is part of why she thinks so little of herself without him- was it the way she was raised to think? Is this the fault of her childood circumstances? Or is this just something she developed on her own, after becoming too dependant on Ren for comfort?

Whatever answers we get, I have faith that Nora’s story will be told well, and I’m very sure that it’s only just beginning. Even if she finds her worth before the end of the volume, her story won’t be over yet, not when we’ve still likely got at least four more volumes to go after this one.

In just seven episodes, Nora Valkyrie has gone from one of the least developed characters, to one of the most interesting and relatable, at least, in my eyes. There is so much more depth to her character than having a crush on Ren, and being the strong girl who hits stuff. There’s a layer of tragedy to her character that we’re touching upon now, and I’m excited to dive into it.

Thank you all for reading!

[kirinda-ondo]

You know him, you either love or hate him (or are moderately confused by my sudden dive into this hyperfixation); we're talking about Orko because I have a lot of feelings.

As a disclaimer, I am not gonna claim to be some kind of superfan. I am not aware of every single iteration of the lore and all of its secrets. I don't know anything about the DC comics. I'm only halfway through the 2002 series as of me writing this. I am not someone you want to have discussions on the wider Masters of the Universe.... universe with. However, after watching Revelation, the entire Filmation He-Man (and some of She-Ra, cause he was there too), and going on a deep dive of storybooks, annuals, and minicomics courtesy of He-Man.org and the lovely people who submitted their scans there, I do feel pretty qualified to at least talk about Orko.

So, with all that being said, I'd like to get into a little bit of backstory, if only for my followers who came to this blog for completely different things and are wondering where the hell my love for this funky little wizard dude came from all of a sudden. Truth is, Orko is actually one of my earliest faves! Mind you, I only had limited access to Masters of the Universe as a kid, only seeing a couple of rented VHS tapes and later getting my hands on a small pile of the Golden Books from Goodwill, but apparently it was enough for Orko to  imprint himself into my brain. However, also due to my limited exposure, he kind of got shifted to the back of my head as I got deeper into other things. I still knew for a fact I liked Orko a lot though, even if I couldn't quite remember why anymore.

And then Masters of the Universe: Revelation dropped on Netflix. I'm not gonna get into my opinions of that show lest I open a flood of irrelevant discourse (for those uninitiated, it is a bit... divisive, to say the least). However my feelings on the matter did encourage me to go and watch the original and well, holy shit I love Orko more now than I could have ever comprehended as a kid. He is THE quintessential underappreciated comic relief character I tend to gravitate towards, and then some.

But before I get into that, let me back up a bit and explain. Orko is a Trollan, a race of magical little dudes that are basically floating sweaters with hats and covered up faces. Out of these Trollans, Orko is an incredibly fucking OP archmage. Like, they straight up call him Orko the Great, he's so powerful. But then, he gets caught in a freak storm that whisks him away from his home dimension and into Eternia. Immediately, he runs into a young Prince Adam, who is trapped in a swamp/tar pit and needs rescuing. Orko, being the upstanding lad that he is, uses his magic to save him but in the process loses the item that allows him to focus his magic to the swamp (in the 80s version, it's a medallion, but in the 2002 series, it's a wand). Worse yet, the magic (and dare I say the very laws of physics) in Eternia works pretty much the opposite as it does in Trolla, so he's been incredibly nerfed.

So basically, Orko is trapped in a topsy-turvy world away from friends and family, a world with magic he is fundamentally incompatible with. Ouch. He's not completely screwed, however, as he is rewarded by the king and queen for his heroism and appointed... the court jester. Double ouch. He surprisingly doesn't seem to mind though. He genuinely does enjoy entertaining people, even when his tricks only ever work like half the time because he's basically a Mac program trying to run on a Windows computer.

It's not all horrible though, as he does quite literally get adopted by the royal family  and thus sort of become the entire palace's weird son/little brother (despite being older than many of them. He's very, very child-coded largely for the purposes of being a stand-in and example lesson to the actual children watching). But also, more importantly, he becomes one of the very select few to know that Adam and He-Man are one and the same.

But outside of secret-keeping, he is actually a pretty valuable ally to have against Skeletor and his dudes because even though his magic is kind of screwed up, when it does work, he's still one of the most powerful mages on Eternia. In various materials, he's created floods, a second winter, and hell, he can literally explode himself and still be perfectly fine. He's also really clever and can weasel his way out of a number of situations. In one episode, for instance, he manages to convince someone that he's He-Man and Adam is his "assistant" in order to free him from captivity so the day has a better chance of actually being saved.  He's also got the ability to just be really frustrating and incomprehensible to the point that villains who capture him sometimes either don't want him or don't know what to do with him anymore, which is honestly really funny. In an episode of She-Ra, the villains tried to scan his brain but because the inner machinations of his mind are that much of an enigma, he got diagnosed a weirdo and broke the entire machine. Absolutely delightful.

However, there's a lot more to Orko than just comedy and bungled magic. He's actually surprisingly complex!

See, going into this, I expected Orko's whole situation be played entirely for laughs while the sadder implications of his existence go entirely unaddressed. Coming off the heels of characters like Cobalt and others I enjoy, I'm used to this sort of treatment by writers. But they actually don't do that. The depressing subtext is for once, actually TEXT, which was INCREDIBLY surprising to me. We actually get to see another side of him, a side that hates that he can't be taken seriously no matter what he does, a side that is well aware of all the trouble he causes and feels like a burden to those around him. He actually runs away on multiple occasions, fully believing that he's unloved and everyone would be better off without him, even if that couldn't be further from the truth (a point which the Sorceress hammers home with multiple straight up magical video presentations, and in the 2002 series, a literary adaptation, of why he is loved and important).

Underneath all the hyping himself up that he does, there's a lot of insecurity. He's someone who desperately wants to be loved and respected and feels that without funny magic tricks to entertain people, he has no inherent value (which is incredibly relatable if you are also known by people as The Funny One). At one point he agrees with the notion that he doesn't feel like much more than a pet, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Even when he gets the ability to go back and forth between Eternia and Trolla, his feelings of inadequacy now extend toward his family, worrying that his own uncle, the one who taught him everything he knows and greatly contributed to him being Orko the Great back home in the first place, wouldn't be proud of him. Being on Eternia highkey wrecked his shit, man.

However, even when given the opportunity to go back home for good, he always chooses to stay because he's loyal as hell. Even if he needs some reminders, he does know he's needed not just in the fight against evil, but just because his friends and newfound family genuinely love him. It's heartbreaking, but also incredibly wholesome. I did not even remotely expect a comic relief character like this to get this much depth and respect from the writers, especially not from the incredibly campy and cheaply animated 80s series. I am genuinely so unused to this.

But I think that's also what separates him a bit from his fellow Silly Kid Appeal Characters That Kids Fucking Hate ala Snarf Thundercats or Scrappy Doo. He not only makes a concerted effort to be an actually useful ally, but he's also in fact very self-aware of his status as one of these characters. He knows he screws up a lot but he actually tries to accept responsibility and fix it. It makes me wanna root for the lil dude. Now I understand if someone isn't a fan of the brand of humor he brings to the table, or feel like he's simply a distraction from the Cool Buff Dudes Fighting Each Other, but I hope you can see why he might also be a really appealing character to other people, both kids and adults alike. I mean, he was popular enough to be embedded into the canon despite originating from the cartoon and not the toyline for a reason, after all.

Orko is a fun, entertaining, but also complex, heartwarming, and relatable character. I know there is a faction of people that would disagree with me, but I don't think you need to change him all that much or make him a super serious character to be more appealing. He's already got a lot going on that a writer could easily work with. It all just depends on where you decide to focus. Take a lesson from the show and accept that he's fine just the way he is.

[libermachinae]

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise 29. Prowl, in profile, looks to the right. Prowl: “I lost my best friend, Prime. Megatron stood at his side and only one of them walked away.” End ID.]

I’ve never stopped thinking about this line, so! What the fuck is up with Prowl and Bumblebee’s relationship? (Spoiler alert: I do not think Bee is another ex 😔)

They first met millions of years ago when Bumblebee went to Orion Pax for help regarding horrible dream he’d been having, and from there remained in each other’s orbits, though not really friends.

[ID: From Robots in Disguise #32. Prowl and Bumblebee stand with their backs to the reader, watching Metroplex lift off in city form while a battle rages in the sky around him. Bumblebee: “Nobody said war’s logical, bud.” Prowl: “That’s my point. We’re going to do stupid things until we die.” Bumblebee: “Primus, Prowl. Lighten up. We’re not like the Decepticons!” End ID.]

During the war, they got along fine, but in the one snapshot we see there’s not a lot of friendliness between them: Prowl is talking about the futility of their war and Bumblebee happens to be someone nearby. There’s a familiarity to the way they talk to each other (I doubt many people would bother or could get away with calling Prowl “bud”), but it’s more like coworkers who have been stepping on each other’s toes for a long time than real friends. The conversation begins and ends with Prowl’s internal monologue, while Bumblebee’s perspective is just a device used to draw out more of Prowl’s thoughts. Little is shown of their relationship because at this point, it just isn’t there.

[ID: Screenshot from The Transformers #21. Optimus stands with his back to the reader in the foreground, with Bumblebee and Prowl in the Background. Prowl’s caption: “That’s when Prime filled in the ‘Bee. He took it better than I expected. Smart questions. No whining. Focused the anger. He’s going to be a great leader one day. If he gets the chance.” End ID.]

(”the ‘Bee” lol Costa’s Prowl is a specimen) Half a million years later, they’re on Earth, Bumblebee has been elected and then demoted, and Optimus is leaving with most of the Autobots while assigning them to investigate the illegal weapons trade. Prowl has thoughts on Bumblebee’s leadership, which will be the ongoing theme of their relationship for the rest of the series. In typical Prowl fashion, he will never speak these particular thoughts aloud. (continues under the cut!)

[ID: Screenshots from Spotlight: Bumblebee. Panel 1: Bumblebee points offpanel with his cane and at himself with his thumb. Bumblebee: “No, wait, hang on, Prowl—I’m in charge here.” Panel 2: Prowl points a stern finger at Bumblebee, offpanel. Prowl: “What? Come on. This isn’t about being in charge, it’s about being right.” Panel 3: Prowl, flanked by two other Autobots, walks away from Bumblebee. Prowl: “’I’m in charge.’ Optimus Prime would never put up with that kind of procedural nonsense.” End ID.]

Spotlight: Bumblebee is basically a story about Bumblebee trying to impress Prowl. It opens by showing us how little respect Prowl holds for Bumblebee, ignoring his orders and taking bots he had already assigned to different tasks. We already know that Prowl is no Optimus fan, making the dig at Bumblebee extra cutting. It also doesn’t hurt that Bumblebee’s whole story so far has been about trying to live up to Optimus, Prowl’s words coming as long-anticipated confirmation that he has failed to do so.

[ID: Screenshot from Spotlight: Bumblebee. Prowl smiles. “Means the little guy’s got more spark than I gave him credit for, these last couple million years. Taking down five bad guys on his own— and blaming himself for not stopping a hundred more? And then coming home and taking control?” End ID.]

“That’s what Prime would do.”

Recklessly endangering himself for the sake of taking down a few “bad guys”? Yeah, that actually sounds exactly like Optimus.

Bumblebee proves himself taking command and earns a little respect from Prowl, even finding the confidence to bite back for Prowl’s “procedural nonsense” comment. It marks a big shift in their relationship, and by the time they’re back on Cybertron in time for Death of Optimus Prime, they’re working together by choice rather than decree. If we’re looking for a point where they become friends, I think this is it, a whole three years before the “best friend” panel above. All it took was a “couple million years” of just tolerating each other.

And this takes us into Phase 2!

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #1. Bumblebee waves a cellphone-like device in Prowl’s face. Prowl: “They’re not my friends.” Bumblebee: “Whatever they are—you keep them in line or I will. You understand?” End ID.]

And also into an ongoing conversation about friendship! 

The pair is back on Cybertron following the events of Death of Optimus Prime and trying to figure out how to bring order to their home, and immediately disagree about the best way to do that. Bumblebee refers to the newly deputized Decepticon enforcers as Prowl’s “friends,” using the word to highlight the unprofessional, independent nature of what is essentially Prowl’s personal anti-neutral militia.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #1. Bumblebee: “Rodimus and his crew died. They were our friends—we can’t—can’t not eulogize them.” Prowl: “They were my comrades—dammit, my friends, too.” End ID.]

This leads into a conversation about the recently-departed Lost Light, for which Bumblebee thinks a memorial should be held. This time, when the word “friend” is used, it’s more sincere. Bumblebee also doesn’t say “my friends”—he extends an invitation that Prowl accepts, albeit clumsily.

Does he mean it, though? Prowl is not so socially bankrupt to not understand how friendships are supposed to look. Even if we dismiss his attitude to the Lost Light as general Prowlishness, this scene is followed by a conversation with Arcee in which he says he doesn’t trust anyone, which is a pretty major hurtle to get over. It’s not a stretch to assume Prowl is lying.

He never makes a move like that without a purpose, though. By referring to the Lost Light crew as his friends, he gets Bumblebee to relax and see things from his own perspective, giving him an opportunity to talk about the more pressing security issues they are facing. This, in fact, is Prowl’s go-to strategy: identify the person in power and get close to them, thereby giving him the ability to watch over how that power is wielded.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #1. Prowl speaks to Bumblebee over his shoulder. Prowl: “Look. every day, I watch the sun go down and wonder if we can make it another night without them. If I even want to.” Bumblebee: “Huh. I mean, yeah. Me, too.” Prowl: “I’m not emotionless, Bee. I care about Rodimus and Magnus and the rest as much as you do. But look at the situation logically.” End ID.]

That said, I don’t think Prowl is lying here. Despite how warped his worldview becomes, I do believe that at his core, Prowl wants what is best for Cybertronians (well, Autobots). Many of his darker plans were created with the intention to keep people alive, so regardless of his personal feelings to them, he is not “emotionless” and does feel something over their deaths.

[ID: First screenshot from Robots in Disguise #2. Bumblebee smirks at Prowl, holding up his electrocuting cane. Bumblebee: “Heh—same old Prowl. Wheeljack whipped it up the other day.” Prowl: I’ve got to have a talk with Wheeljack.” Second and third screenshots from Robots in Disguise #3. Panel 1: Bumblebee frowns at Prowl. “Enough! Prowl—shut up. Metalhawk has a point.” Panel 2: Prowl looks furious. Bumblebee is holding him back from lunging at someone off-panel. Prowl: “Bad move…” Bumblebee: “Down, Prowl.” End ID.]

I don’t have much to say about these scenes, except that I like them as an illustration of their dynamic in this part of the story. Cold, confrontational, and yet with a degree of familiarity I would’ve thought more fitting to a much older connection. I really can’t imagine the Prowl from half a million years ago, talking at Bumblebee about the folly of their commander, allowing himself to be held back and calmly talked down. Through their work together, something is developing that we might almost mistake for genuine friendship.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #4. Arcee: “Come on. I know you didn’t destroy it. You’re not that hard. But you are cold and calculating. Enough that even Bumblebee—even your only friend—thinks you might’ve.” Arcee: “Bee won’t say it. But you know that’s what he’s thinking.” Prowl: “It doesn’t bother me. Bee doubts everything. Even himself.” End ID.]

“Even Bee—even your only friend—thinks you might’ve.”

“Bee doubts everything. Even himself.”

The same phrase is used twice in the conversation to distinguish Bumblebee as an outlier (not the superpower kind, though maybe his ability to tolerate the Worst People should be considered). For Arcee, it’s in his proximity to Prowl. Prowl’s use of the phrase is a little more ambiguous, though. Is he saying that one should have faith in oneself if nothing else? It definitely fits in his worldview. Or is he saying Bumblebee is worthy of being trusted, believed in?

If so, what does that mean? Bumblebee would take Prowl’s endorsement as faith in his abilities as a leader, but we already know Prowl doesn’t view leadership that way. He needs to get an Autobot elected, and Bumblebee specifically, because he needs someone in power he can get close to and control. Bumblebee’s leadership, though perhaps not Bumblebee himself, offers Cybertron a path towards peace. So, actually, Arcee and Prowl mean the same thing: Bumblebee is special because he’s the person Prowl is closest to.

This is also the first indication we get that Bumblebee does not trust Prowl so fully as Prowl wants. As sneaky as Prowl is, it’s easy to forget sometimes that Bumblebee is his own agent with his own ability to measure the facts. He wants to trust Prowl, but that doesn’t blind him to Prowl’s reputation.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #5. Ironhide and Prowl cluster around Bumblebee, who looks contemplative. Prowl: “Think about what they’re say about you in the future, Bee! The Autobot that let the Decepticons go free?!” Ironhide: “He’s right—a little. Think about what the future can be. Cybertron’s our world,and tomorrow’s our day…” End ID.]

We get to see more of Bumblebee soon after, since Prowl gets cerebroshelled. Bomb-Prowl is much more ruthless than the genuine article, expressing little care for the lives of any Cybertronians, but nobody notices it around Prowl’s standard prickly persona. Bumblebee experiences growing unease with Bomb-Prowl’s methods, though interestingly does not dismiss him for it. Consider the above scene: a fight has just broken out. To resolve it, Ironhide, Starscream, and Ironhide recommend removing the Decepticons’ ID chips. Prowl is the sole voice of dissent, and Bumblebee chooses to ignore him while also maintaining their partnership.

Bumblebee can think for himself and say no to Prowl. This situation is not just Prowl manipulating and taking advantage of Bumblebee: the latter is fully capable of making his own decisions.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #11. Bumblebee stands on the left and Prowl on the right. Bumblebee: “Am I wearing blinders because you’re my friend? Are you even my friend?” End ID.]

When Omega Supreme is attacked, Bomb-Prowl accuses the Decepticons, opening himself up for scrutiny: Metalhawk accuses him of killing Ratbat. Bumblebee starts to express his doubts openly and he questions not only Prowl’s innocence, but their relationship altogether. (Also, though literally Bumblebee is asking, “Can I consider you, Prowl, a friend?” his question can also be read as, “Are you who you say you are?”)

Bumblebee’s question doesn’t imply he trusts Prowl. He doesn’t even trust himself: he’s wondering if their friendship has installed in him an implicit bias in Prowl’s favor. There is a possibility his feelings regarding Prowl are strong enough to warp his perception of reality, and he’s worried that he can’t see what's obvious to everyone else. In contrast to previous leaders Prowl has watched over, Bumblebee is aware of his ability and willingness to manipulate those around him. He’s not under any illusion that Prowl is honest with him all the time, but he also isn’t confident enough in himself to remove Prowl’s influence.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #11. Bumblebee: “Then I want to get back to finding Ironhide and the others, because he’s my friend and friends look out for each other.” End ID.]

There is also the matter that he does consider Prowl a friend. Not a good friend (as in caring, respectful, thoughtful), but nevertheless one he does not want to lose.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #14. Panel 1: Bumblebee shoves Metalhawk aside and reaches for Prowl, who is collapsing to the floor. Bumblebee: “Prowl—I—” Panel 2: Prowl lies on the floor. Prowl: “Bee… it wasn’t… wasn’t me… How could you not… see that?” End ID.]

I think the feeling is mutual. Prowl’s not angry at Bumblebee for falling for the Decepticons’ trap.

He’s hurt that his friend didn’t notice he was gone.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #16. Ironhide helps Prowl up. Prowl: “…I’m me.” Ironhide: “Got too much of an ego ta be anybody else.” Prowl: “I—I needed to hear—” Bumblebee (off-panel): “Later, Prowl…” End ID.]

Their relationship starts to go downhill from here. After breaking free from Devastator, Prowl actually tries to talk about his feelings, and Bumblebee dismisses him. To be fair, there are other things going on that need their attention, but Prowl is never given an opportunity to process what he has been through. Bumblebee, who excels at talking to people and helping them through their problems, never offers a space for Prowl to open up about his experience, and it’s the internalization of his trauma that leads to Prowl’s emotional degeneration through the rest of the series.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #18. Panel 1: Bumblebee hunches over his cane, struggling to stand. Bumblebee: “It’s *kaff*… Well, I don’t want to know *kaff kaff* what’s going on in his mind, but… Prowl didn’t do any of the *koff* terrible stuff.” Panel 2: Bumblebee stands in front of Prowl, facing the reader. Bumblebee: “He was *kaff* being controlled by Bombshell. I mean obviously he didn’t *koff* kill you guys—he didn’t blow up the Decepticon pen. He *kaff kaff* wasn’t running a secret war. He didn’t *koff* have Ratbat eliminated.” End ID.]

I don’t think Bumblebee is being intentionally malicious, though. Consider all the times Prowl has had to say outright that he feels things and has emotions: I think it’s more accurate to say Bumblebee didn’t believe him. The doubts he felt about Prowl were never with regard to his intentions, but rather the way he interacted with and understood the world around him. Bumblebee, going by the reputation Prowl made for himself, doesn’t believe Prowl processes events the same way he does, and as a result falsely assume that his mind control and forced combination will have no greater impact on Prowl.

And then even Bumblebee’s faith in Prowl’s intentions is shaken when Arcee reveals he did call for Ratbat’s assassination. Bumblebee is so betrayed he passes out.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #18. Panel 1: Ironhide grins to the side while Bumblebee holds a fist to his mouth, coughing. Ironhide: “Aw. An’ everything was goin’ so well…” Bumblebee: “Prowl. Why—what—*kof kofff* *koff kaf*” Panel 2: Bumblebee’s hand reaches up as he collapses. Bumblebee: “*kaf kaf* Nnnggggh…” End ID.]

The next time they interact is in Dark Cybertron. Getting close to the end, here!

[ID: First screenshot from More Than Meets the Eye #23. Bumblebee points his gun up to the off-panel Titan. Prowl stands beside him. Bumblebee: “What?!” Prowl: “You talked a good game with the Dinobots. But you need to act, too. When you were in charge of the city, you were paralyzed.” Second screenshot from Robots in Disguise #23. Panel 1: Prowl, yelling: “You’re hesitating again! Look at us! We’re teaming up with the enemy and letting Starscream do whatever he wants?!” Panel 2: Bumblebee, with a steadying hand out, stands in front of Soundwave. Bumblebee: “Prowl, shut up for once. All your attitude ever got us was… was the Constructicons.” Soundwave: “The Constructicons stand with you?” Bumblebee: “Long story, Soundwave. And this isn’t a team up. We just happen to have the same objective.” Panel 3: Prowl points at Soundwave. “Then do something! Don’t just let this—this—Decepticon control you!” End ID. Third screenshot from Robots in Disguise #23. Prowl holds up a struggling Arcee while yelling at Bumblebee. Prowl: “You let this happen, Bee! We attack now!” Bumblebee: “Prowl, get your priorities in order—” End ID.]

Evidence of Prowl’s trauma starts to become more visible. The comradery they shared before is gone; Prowl’s methodical approach to problems is gone. Instead, he is scared and impulsive, and he takes out his new anxieties on his “only friend” because Bee is the one thing he’s supposed to be able to control.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #26. Panel 1: Bumblebee and Prowl stand amidst flaming wreckage. Hound (off-panel): “Where’s Megatron?” Bumblebee: “He’s… I think he’s gone. He took the thumb and ran.” Prowl: “Dammit. You should have never done back for him, Bee.” Panel 2: Bumblebee grabs Prowl’s neck. Bumblebee: “Prowl, you smug piece of—” Prowl: “Uk!” Panel 3: Bumblebee releases Prowl. Bumblebee: “I’ve had enough of your self-righteous second-guessing…” End ID.”

But he can’t. Bumblebee has gotten used to ignoring Prowl or refuting him. Add to that Prowl’s heightened emotional state, and Bumblebee responds to his criticism with open aggression. Stuck in crisis mode like they are, there is no way for them to reset and calm down until the Titan is finally taken down and everything comes to a standstill for a moment.

[ID: Screenshot from More Than Meets the Eye #27. Prowl leans close to Bumblebee, gesturing to his head. The Constructicons linger in the background. Bumblebee: “Oh, good. I was hoping your friends would could out of hiding.” Prowl: “They weren’t—I mean, they’re not—They just shared my memories. The Decepticons exploited my—my—my head!” End ID.]

And with this, we cycle back to their first conversation in Robots in Disguise. Before, Bumblebee used the word “friends” to criticize Prowl’s Decepticon enforcers and the freedom they were granted to terrorize the neutrals. Prowl, known to circumvent the chain of command, decided to forgo it almost entirely in that case, creating a violent, lawless group that did not fit into the military structure the Autobots still relied on.

Now, he uses “friend” to refer to the enthusiasm the Constructicons have for Prowl. Prowl’s deceit has been brought into the open, legitimizing Bumblebee’s fears and forcing him to question all over again his role as a leader. The doubts he had in himself and Prowl are tied together, so that even with the knowledge that everything that happened to Prowl was out of his control, he still feels threatened by the Decepticon presence Prowl now carries with him.

And even though he’s met with this kind of hostility, Prowl still comes back to Bumblebee to continue work as his advisor. He’s got a group of bots literally right there who trust him and support him without reservation, but he chooses Bumblebee because he still believes in their power to do right by Cybertron.

[ID: Screenshot from More Than Meets the Eye #27. Prowl stands on the left, Bumblebee on the right. Prowl: “Bee—we stopped his plan, but Shockwave is still out there.” Bumblebee: I know, and you’re totally right, and anything less than a perfect attack plan and we’re sunk—so I need you to come up with one. In the meantime—mingle. There has to be somebody you want to say ‘hi’ to.” Prowl: “Actually…” End ID.]

This is the last time they talk to each other. Prowl reminds him of the impending danger, Bumblebee is grateful for his expertise, and then he encourages Prowl to go relax. There’s something to be said for the fact that upon leaving Bumblebee’s side, Prowl immediately seeks out his ex, but I think it’s mainly just that he’s lonely rather than anything nefarious. He’s lonely, and despite their distrust and criticism and generally poor treatment of each other, Bumblebee is someone who accepts his company, a rare thing that’s he’s going to lose very soon.

When I first read the words “best friend,” I assumed Prowl was lying. I also assumed, even if that was true, it would not hold in the reverse. I think I’ve changed my mind on both counts. Prowl didn’t pursue Bumblebee with genuine intentions, but they both ended up getting something out of it. It’s not a healthy relationship, but at a tumultuous time in their lives it might literally be the best they can do and in their own ways, they trust they’re going to look out for each other.

[ID: Screenshot from Robots in Disguise #18. Bumblebee, with his cane, leans on Prowl as they leave the ruins of Iacon. Their plating bears obvious damage, and ash and dust float through the air around them. End ID.]

[killianmesmalls]

On your comments about Jack: ye-es, in the sense that Jack is a character who definitely deserved better than he was treated by the characters. The way Dean especially treats him reflects very badly on Dean, no question. But, speaking as a viewer, I think the perspective needs to shift a little bit.

To me, Jack is Dawn from Buffy, or Scrappy Doo. He’s an (in my opinion) irritating kid who is introduced out of nowhere to be both super vulnerable and super OP, and the jeopardy is centered around him in a way that has nothing to do with his actual character or relationships. He’s mostly around to be cute and to solve or create problems — he never has any firm character arcs or goals of his own, nor any deeper purpose in the meta narrative. In this way, he’s a miss for SPN, which focuses heavily on conflicts as metaphors for real life.

Mary fits so much better in that framework, and introducing her as a developed, flawed person works really well with the narrative. It is easy for us to care about Mary, both as the dead perfect mother on the pedestal and as the flawed, human woman who could not live up to her sons’ expectations. That connection is built into the core of SPN, and was developed over years, even before she was a character. When she was added, she was given depth and nuance organically, and treated as a flawed, complex character rather than as a plot device or a contrivance. She was given a voice and independence, and became a powerful metaphor for developing new understandings of our parents in adulthood, as well as an interesting and well-rounded character. You care that she’s dead, not just because Sam and Dean are sad, but for the loss of her development and the potential she offered. So, in that sense, I think a lot of people were frustrated that she died essentially fridged for a second time, and especially in service of the arc of a weaker character.

And like, you’re right, no one can figure out if Jack is a toddler or a teenager. He’s both and he’s neither, because he’s never anything consistently and his character arc is always “whatever the plot needs it to be.” Every episode is different. Is he Dean’s sunny opportunity to be a parent and make up for his dad’s shitty parenting? Yes! Is he also Dean’s worst failure and a reminder that he has done many horrible things, including to “innocent” children? Yes! Is he Cas’s child? Yes! Is he Dean’s child? Yes! But also, no! Is he Sam’s child? Yes! Is he a lonely teenager who does terrible things? Yes! Is he a totally innocent little lamb who doesn’t get why what he is doing is wrong? Yes! Is he the most powerful being in the universe? Yes! Does he need everyone to take care of him? Yes! Is he just along for the ride? Yes! Is he responsible for his actions? Kinda??? Sometimes??? What is he???

Mary as a character is narratively cohesive and fleshed-out. Jack is a mishmash of confusing whatever’s that all add up to a frustrating plot device with no consistent traits to latch on to. Everything that fans like about him (cute outfits, gender play, well-developed parental bonds with the characters) is fanon. So, yes, the narrative prioritizes Mary. Many fans prioritize Mary, at least enough that Dean’s most heinous acts barely register. To the narrative (not to Cas, which is a totally different situation), Jack is only barely more of a character than Emma Winchester, who Sam killed without uproar seasons earlier. He’s been around longer, but he’s equally not really real.

I debated on responding to this because, to tell the truth, I think we fundamentally disagree on a number of subjects and, as they say, true insanity is arguing with anyone on the internet. However, you spent a lot of time on the above and I feel it's only fair to say my thoughts, even if I don't believe it will sway you any more than what you said changed my opinions.

I'm assuming this was in response to this post regarding how Jack's accidental killing of Mary was treated so severely by the brothers, particularly Dean, because it was Mary and, had it been a random character like the security guard in 13x06, it would have been treated far differently. However, then the argument becomes less about the reaction of the Winchester brothers to this incident and more the value of Jack or Mary to the audience.

I believe we need to first admit that both characters are inherently archetypes—Mary as the Madonna character initially then, later, as a metaphor for how imperfect and truly human our parents are compared to the idol we have as children, and Jack as the overpowered child who is a Jesus allegory by the end. Both have a function within the story to serve the Winchester brothers, through whose lens and with whose biases we are meant to view the show's events. We also need to admit that the writers didn't think more than a season ahead for either character, especially since it wasn't initially supposed to be Mary that came back at the end of season 11 but John, and they only wrote enough for Jack in season 13 to gauge whether or not the audience would want him to continue on or if he needed to be killed off by the end of the season. Now, I know we curate our own experiences online which leads to us being in our own fandom echo chambers, however it is important to note that the character was immediately successful enough with the general audience that, after his first episode or two, he was basically guaranteed a longer future on the show.

I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure why the perspective of how his character is processed by some audience members versus others has any bearing on the argument that he deserved to be treated better overall by the other characters especially when taking their own previous actions in mind. I’m not going to tell you that your opinion is wrong regarding your feelings for Jack. It’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it, it harms no one to have it and express it. My feelings on Jack are clearly very different from your own, but this is really just two different people who processed a fictional person in different ways. I personally believe he has a purpose in the Winchesters’ story, including Castiel’s, as he reflects certain aspects of all of them, gives them a way to explore their own histories through a different perspective, and changes the overall dynamic of Team Free Will from “soldiers in arms” to a family (Misha’s words). In the beginning he allows Sam to work through his past as the “freak” and powerful, dangerous boy wonder destined to bring hell on earth. With Dean, his presence lets Dean work through his issues with John and asks whether he will let history repeat itself or if he’ll work to break the cycle. Regarding Cas, in my opinion he helps the angel reach his “final form” of a father, member of a family, lover and protector of humanity, rebellious son, and the true show of free will. 

From strictly the story, he has several arcs that work within themes explored in Supernatural, such as the argument of nature versus nurture, the question of what we’re willing to give up in order to protect something or someone else and how ends justify the means, and the struggle between feeling helpless and powerless versus the corruptive nature of having too much power and the dangerous lack of a moral compass. His goals are mentioned and on display throughout his stint on the show, ones that are truly relatable to some viewers: the strong desire to belong—the need for family and what you’ll do to find and keep it. 

With Mary, we first need to establish whether the two versions of her were a writing flaw due to the constant change in who was dictating her story and her relationship to the boys, which goes against the idea that her characterization was cohesive and fleshed-out but, rather, put together when needed for convenience, or if they both exist because, as stated above, we are seeing the show primarily through the biased lens of the Winchester brothers and come to face facts about the true Mary as they do. Like I said in my previous post, I don’t dislike Mary and I don’t blame her for her death (either one). However, I do have a hard time seeing her as a more nuanced, fleshed-out character than Jack. True, a lot of her problems are more adult in nature considering she has to struggle with losing her sons’ formative years and meeting them as whole adults she knows almost nothing about, all because of a choice she made before they were born. 

However, her personal struggles being more “mature” in nature (as they center primarily on parental battles) doesn’t necessarily mean her story has layers and Jack’s does not. They are entirely different but sometimes interconnected in a way that adds to both of their arcs, like Mary taking Jack on as an adoptive son which gives her the moments of parenting she lost with Sam and Dean, and Jack having Mary as a parental figure who understands and supports him gives him that sense of belonging he had just been struggling with to the point of running away while he is also given the chance to show “even monsters can do good”. 

I’d also argue that Jack being many ages at once isn’t poor writing so much as a metaphor for how, even if you’re forced to grow up fast, that doesn’t mean you’re a fully equipped adult. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I believe Jack simultaneously taking a lot of responsibility and constantly trying to prove to others he’s useful while having childish moments is relatable to some who were forced to play an adult role at a young age. He proves a number of times that he doesn’t need everyone to take care of him, but he also has limited life experience and, as such, will make some mistakes while he’s also being a valuable member of the group. Jack constantly exists on a fine line in multiple respects. Some may see that as a writing flaw but it is who the character was conceived to be: the balance between nature or nurture, between good and evil, between savior and devil. 

Now, I was also frustrated Mary was “fridged” for a second time. It really provided no other purpose than to give the brothers more man pain to further the plot along. However, this can exist while also acknowledging that the way it happened and the subsequent fallout for Jack was also unnecessary and a sign of blatant hypocrisy from Dean, primarily, and Sam. 

And, yes, Jack can be different things at once because, I mean, can’t we all? If Mary can be both the perfect mother and the flawed, independent, distant parent, can’t Jack be the sweet kid who helps his father-figures process their own feelings on fatherhood while also being a lost young-adult forcing them to face their failures? Both characters contain multitudes because, I mean, we all do. 

I can provide articles or posts on Jack’s characterization and popularity along with Mary’s if needed, but for now I think this is a long enough ramble on my thoughts and feelings. I’m happy to discuss more, my messenger is always open for (polite) discussion. Until then, I’m going to leave it at we maybe agree to disagree. 

[sassooda]

Worlds Away JJK AU / Chapter 23 - Control

w/c - 6,439

               Shoko is standing on the left side of Satoru as he lays unconscious on the medical table. The room is bright under the fluorescent lights, the walls white to match the tiled floor.  “I never thought he would be one to wind up in here…” She looks up to Toji and Nanami, “I can definitely fix him up but are the seals really necessary?”

               “That fucker lost his mind and went after Megumi.” Toji huffs as he looks down at Satoru. He’s still shirtless after using his wings to fly to the scene and then to fly the bastard back to the academy. Blood still on his off-white pants.

               “They are indeed necessary because if he wakes up in that same state, we won’t be able to control him.” Nanami finds himself extremely torn on the idea of sealing Gojo’s powers, he really would rather get through to him if that were possible.

               “So it was that bad, huh?” Shoko switches her gaze to Satoru as she continues to heal him. “This is just a hunch but I’m guessing there are certain levels of your newfound abilities Toji…” She runs her hand across Gojo’s forehead, brushing his hair away, “His infinity doesn’t recognize Elska at all, her transmitted wavelengths of energy disrupt their continuous flow.” She now looks back to Toji. “Did you feel or notice anything different when the attacks landed on him?”

               Toji crosses his arms as he leans against the wall a few feet away, “It did feel different…almost like an additional surge from within packed the extra punch.” Some of his chest muscles twitch as he relives the powerful feeling.

               “Megumi also reported that the exchange happened because Satoru was targeting the city…” Nanami’s voice minimizes knowing that he’s being put in an impossible situation in regards to other’s safety. He’s taking off his tanned suit jacket to become a little more comfortable.

               She walks over to the table that has Elska’s bloodied wing and runs her hands along the metal feathers. “Toji, how are you feeling right now?”

               “I’m fucking on edge what do you think?” Toji didn’t mean to be so snippy, he’s just feeling out of sorts.

               “When was the last time you fed?” Shoko seems to be thinking heavily as she walks across the room for sample scraping tools.

               “Two days.” Toji clenches his fists as he thinks about Elska being in the hands of the enemy.

               “That’s not good.” Shoko is still completely composed after taking in all the information. “I’ve worked with Elska on this in the past, I may be able to create something to hold you over. This wing right here is the key to it all.”

               All three of their eyes take to the wing. Toji winces as his eyes meet it.

               “If I can’t though, you’ll have to feed from someone else…” She looks over to Gojo, “We know his blood suffices for Elska so maybe that would work too.”

               “He tastes like SHIT I am not interested.” The very thought of having to find nourishment through Gojo makes his skin crawl. “Please do what you can but I’m planning on rescuing them.”

               “Her original purpose for being brought to this world was to eliminate Satoru…” Nanami finally chimes in, “…but now we know anyone else like her might hold the same capabilities as well. What I don’t understand is, if there was an entire world of people like this, why choose her when she wasn’t willing?”

               “That is strange, I wonder why as well…” Shoko is now leaning over the wing on the waist high white countertop, scraping away tissue into a petri dish. “I’ll get on this right away Toji, just don’t go losing your cool too!” She winks at him as she applies the lid to the dish and sets it by her row of microscopes.

               Toji is trying his best to remain calm due to everything that has happened but his heart breaks at the thought of the kid and her being in Getou’s hands. “We have to get them.”

               Shoko is now back to healing Satoru, using her energy’s wavelengths to assist Gojo’s reverse technique to improve the rate at which it takes. “I’ve got this covered here if you two have other business to handle.”

               “We are not leaving you alone with him until we know he’s mentally stable.” Nanami’s tone was law in this accord, his mind made up.

               Just then Satoru shows signs of stirring. Toji jumps from the wall and is ready to strike if Gojo isn’t well. Nanami takes a step forward to be beside Toji with the same intent in mind. They all have to turn their eyes from the blinding blue light emitting from the talismans wrapped around his body, acting like restraints to assist the metal ones over his wrists and legs.

               “What…what the…” Gojo’s eyes open slowly as he tries to move his body, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!” Upon recognizing that he’s restrained he’s thrown into a wild reaction, jolting his body around trying to break free. “NOT AGAIN!!!!!!” He roars as his wounds begin to reopen, not having been fully addressed by this time.

               Shoko hurriedly moves back to the side of him and slaps him across the face. Toji and Nanami gasp before charging over to the table.

               “Gojo, what the FUCK do you think you’re doing acting this way?” Her voice is stern, almost motherly as she expresses her disappointment to his recent actions.

               Gojo didn’t feel the pain from the slap but the action was enough to catch his attention. He glares up at her hatefully for a few seconds before his eyes water, following his features softening. “Why…why do you guys have me sealed like this…WHY?” He struggles a little more but not as rapidly as before. “WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS?” He snaps his head over to Toji and Nanami as he fears he’s been betrayed.

               “Satoru, do you not recall trying to level the city?” Nanami is calmly walking towards his friend and even grabs his wrist gently. “You also tried to hurt Megumi…”

               Gojo’s eyes are panicked as he listens to Nanami’s words. He doesn’t recall at first and thinks this is some weird psychological punishment of some sort so he yells like a mad man while flailing in the restraints, throwing his body against the metal table. “I wouldn’t attack Megumi!!! What the fuck!?”

               “But you did shit head, you put my boy in your domain…” Toji’s face is completely burned over with discontent. “I had to break in to get him out.” Toji is snarling at the memories.

               Gojo has a flash of realization as he does indeed remember doing the things he’s accused of. His eyes take to the ceiling, ignoring Shoko to his left and the men in the room. He tears up as he recalls viciously trying to end both Toji and Megumi. “Fuck…”

               “You are far too powerful to lose control like that Gojo, you know better than this.” Shoko is wiping his tears away as they spill from the corners of his eyes. “You are one of my closest and oldest friends, I know you. What do you think Elska would say to that?”

               Immediately Gojo begins to cry as the overwhelming facts of his Elska and Itadori reclaim his thoughts. “I didn’t mean to… I just…” He takes a second to breathe and control himself, “Getou is going to do horrible things, he already has.” He exhales heavily through his teeth as he looks to Shoko, “I’m sorry…” He then turns his head the best he can to look at Toji and Nanami, “Her wing…he ripped it out of her…” He wails in frustration as he considers his predicament. She is in trouble and he’s once again unable to move. That alone breaks him slightly. “I just want them back…”

               Nanami squeezes his friend’s wrist with concern. “We’re going to get them Satoru but we need your help.” He frowns as he looks over the talismans that are still slightly glowing blue where the kanji ink sits. “You can’t do that again, I probably shouldn’t even risk letting you out of this.” His brow furrows further and he removes his tinted glasses to look into Gojo’s eyes.

               Gojo is clearly agitated by Nanami’s words but understands where he’s coming from. He’s just in an odd post-traumatic state from when he was sealed before. His pain that he was able to ignore from the sudden adrenaline begins to set in. “God damnit, why am I hurting so bad?”

               “I had to put a few holes in you before you stopped you obnoxious cunt.” Toji hasn’t made any effort to come closer now that he sees Gojo speaking, he doesn’t care to offer him any comfort either. “Next time you go after my boy though, that’s it…I’ll fucking kill you. We now know that I can too.”  

               Gojo’s eyes darken as they take to Toji’s direction. He doesn’t appreciate being spoken to like that, he’s still the strongest after all.

               “Toji, that’s not helping but Gojo,” Shoko directs his chin to face her, “You understand the position you’ve put us in, right? We need to know that you’re good before we let you out of this.”

               Gojo grunts and closes his eyes to regain his composure. That collected state of mind almost feels foreign to him as the recent events have skewed time, making it seem like 2 days were actually 2 years. “I get it.” Is all he says

               “Now let me heal you up, it’ll be faster than your own technique that’s not used to healing you.” She smiles at him lovingly, knowing that he has to feel incredibly small like this. She has a lot of love for Gojo, they went through the academy together and have been the right kinds of strange to mesh well in a friendship. She’s also very taken by Elska and Itadori, as people and as scientific anomalies.

               Nanami looks down to Gojo and smirks, “Maybe we need alcohol again.” A little chuckle leaves his lips as he brushes his own hair back. He sees Satoru smile briefly as well and it brings him a little more at ease. “I know you care about them a lot Satoru but we need to go about this as a team. You can’t just go around hurting people, you’re past that now.”

               Gojo’s eyes water slightly to this as he knows Nanami is probably the only person that is completely familiar with Gojo’s evolution of becoming a better man. He knows he messed up severely and also recognizes that if he doesn’t get his shit together soon then they’ll have that much less of a chance to save the two of them. “I know…” He takes in another deep breath, grasping more sanity and the room seems to relax as the talismans finally stop glowing.

               “I do know that they want to enlist Sukuna as one of their own so Itadori might not be as in much danger. Getou hates Elska though which is why I think he did what he did…” Toji looks to her wing instinctually and feels a pit in his chest. ‘Master…” echoes through his ears internally. “Naoya contacted me recently…” He sees Gojo’s eyes dart in his direction, “It was before all of this obviously you dumb fuck. He was asking for my help with making her a Zenin…he doesn’t seem to trust Getou’s intentions either.”

               “They’re both irreplaceable to us and in many ways.” Nanami is now leaning against the metal table with his back by Gojo’s legs. “What of your inside man Toji?”

               “I’ve tried to contact Choso and Naoya both, they aren’t answering.” Toji unfolds his arms and walks to the foot of the metal table, being the last one to surround him. He grabs Gojo’s ankles firmly and says, “Are you going to make me save them by myself you fucking fool?” His mannerisms are unkind but there’s a trace of friendliness as well.

               “I want them back…” Gojo looks to Toji, not acknowledging his hands on his ankles.

Toji may not necessarily like Gojo but knows they have a common goal. “I wish I could say that Naoya would be protecting her but I don’t understand how Getou got ahold of her wing if he was…I actually fear the worst there.”

               “I hate to say it but I don’t think Naoya would’ve allowed that either.” Gojo is trying his best to remain calm as they discuss the severities further. “I know he cares about her, it was written all over his face when we last met.” Gojo proceeds to think of that weird dynamic and situation from when Elska and everyone saved him before. A part of him begins to imagine Naoya wrapping his arms around her protectively and for some reason he’s not enraged by it but feels saddened. ‘God Damnit…’

               “I do know that Naoya and Choso are likely to break away from Getou but he’s strong. If we do succeed in defeating him, then we’ll have to worry about the Zenin clan immediately afterwards.” Toji has since removed his hands from Gojo and is folding his arms again, “But perhaps we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

               “I’ll kill them all if I have to.” Gojo’s voice wasn’t erratic or even emotional but it disturbed everyone in the room.

               “If you want to make her situation better then you absolutely cannot just fucking kill everyone Satoru, what the fuck is the matter with you?” Nanami is losing his patience, knowing that Gojo is capable of controlling himself but is wondering if Gojo’s just declining to do so.

               “I JUST WANT THEM BACK DAMNIT!” Gojo tries to lift up from the table but his neck will only bend so far while laid out flat causing him to give up and hit the back of his head.

               “Take a few to cool off Satoru. We’re not letting you out until you do.” Nanami is always so forward but knows it’s for the best. Sugar coating this for him won’t do anything but bite them in the ass later.

               “Fuck you.” Gojo is back to staring at the ceiling.

               “I love you too buddy.” Nanami cackles to Gojo’s response. He felt the truth in his words but also understands his friend pretty well, knowing that he’s just reeling in the fact that they lost Itadori and Elska. Everyone is upset about it so he knows Gojo being her protector is especially fueled.

               “Shoko, can’t I at least kill them?” Gojo’s eyes are no longer dark as he shoots them somewhat playfully to her.

               “You crack me up Gojo!” She’s laughing at his deflective behavior as she rests a hand on his shoulder, “No you may not.” She’s serious but is still giggling. “There’s one more thing though…” Gojo is curiously looking to her, “I need some of your blood.”      

               “Well I’m not really in the position to refuse now am I?” He keeps trying to sit himself up as he grows more frustrated with being pinned lying down.

               “It’s for the greater good, I promise!” Shoko smiles to him widely as she decides to hold off on explaining that it’s for Toji. Their relationship still seems pretty tumultuous at the moment.

               “Go ahead then…” Gojo is fighting his anger as he comes to terms with the fact that they’re trying to help. “Do we have any plans in the making? How the fuck do we even find them without Choso?”

               “I’ll work on that angle.” Toji is determined to contact one of them.

               “And I’ll start putting a team together.” Nanami is grabbing his folded suit coat as he seems to be leaving the room. “Can I trust you Satoru?”

               “I’m fine I promise…I won’t attack anyone…” Gojo tries to look over to Nanami but can’t. “Just get me out of this PLEASE.”

               “I’m going to finish healing you first so why don’t you just sit back and relax for a few.” Shoko smiles to him again and is relieved to see that Gojo will comply. “Alright boys, do what you have to do, we’re ok here!”

               Gojo’s eyes meet Toji’s again as the massive man stares him down. He can tell that Toji is still unsure about him and figures there was no getting around that. Instead of inciting more aggression from him though he just scoffs and looks away, not liking the feeling at being to their mercy at all.

               “I’ll be back in a little bit to check on everything.” Toji now goes to leave the room.

               When left alone Shoko grabs Gojo’s hand and holds it with both of her own. “Sweetie, you really have to be mindful, ok? Especially now that we know that Toji can hurt you… I don’t want any of that so please…please just get along alright?” Gojo’s eyes are expressing annoyance but she continues, “I know you miss them and are worried about her but we will get them back.” She now squeezes softly to administer more emotion to him. “She would be devastated if anything happened to you, is that what you want?”

               “I just want to know they’re ok… I need her Shoko. I always have…”

               “I know, I know… and we’ll fix all of this but you’re imperative for the rescue so knock off the villain shit alright?” She now brushes up and down his arm as she feels him relax more. “That’s not you anymore...you have to control it.”

               He tears up again to hearing this, knowing he’s still actually quite evil on the inside but she knows this too. She’s merely asking him to keep himself in check.

               “I will…but when I get my hands on Getou, I’m ripping his fucking body in two.”

               “Now that I won’t argue against, he’s a lost cause.” They both smile at the verbally murderous exchange and he quietly thanks her as he breathes deeply to let her continue her healing.

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               Naoya is heading back to Elska’s room with haste, not liking the idea of her being unguarded for even a second. He holds in his hands traditional styled yukatas threaded by his Zenin blue. He meant to already have clothes ready for her but completely forgot to incorporate that into the design of the room. He remembers how a couple of hours ago she asked him, “So, Naoya? Am I to just remain naked here or what?” She was half kidding but her shaman uniform that she arrived in was completely trashed by that point. He felt so embarrassed at missing such a huge detail, hoping that she knew he didn’t do that on purpose.

               As he walks down the hall towards her room he catches Choso heading the opposite direction. “Cho!” He calls out to see the being halt and turn around. By the time he makes it to Choso, he’s standing a few doors away from Elska’s room. “Hey so how did it go with Ita-…”

               “Naoya, cease your words!” Choso seems on edge and Naoya starts to worry that perhaps their reunion didn’t go as planned.

               “There’s a Titer here, I can feel their technique.” Choso whispers cautiously. “I don’t know what they’re watching or doing… but someone definitely is. We can’t talk right now.”

               Naoya’s eyes widen to this, thinking Getou enlisted one to force Elska’s cooperation and he darts to and through her door quickly. “ELSKA! Are you alright?!”  He runs into the room in a frenzied state but finds her sitting on the couch with a book, unharmed and alone. “Holy SHIT, my heart!”

               “I’m…fine?” Her look is of confusion as she sees Naoya’s demeanor ease and looks at all the fabric he’s carrying. “What is all of that?”

               “Clothes!” He smiles and sets them down on the arm of the couch before going back out into the hallway to look for Choso but he was gone already. He fears he’ll be unable to openly speak to Choso about this now but figures he’ll find a way to communicate with him. He now shuts her door behind him as she’s already standing up and trying to figure out the cloth.

               “You brought me bath robes?” She giggles as she holds up the top one, it looking too large to fit her.

               “They’re traditional in my family and are called Yukata’s.” He smiles as he catches his breath and walks towards her, his anxiousness dissipating. She puts in on around her body, discarding the top silver sheet from the bed that she originally was wrapped in for modesty. He notices that she has not the first clue as to how to wear them. “That’s not at all how it goes,” He chuckles as he lifts the bundle of cloth to remove the under robe from the bottom of the pile the goes beneath it, “You can’t just be nude underneath this!!”

               “Show me the way then Master Naoya” She jokingly offers a bow as she’s interested in learning exactly how to put all of it on.

               He was in the process of wrapping the underwear robe before stopping to her words. ‘She said it…she said it!’ Hearing it felt better than he ever would have imagined, even if was in a different context than his fantasies. Seeing that she was bare he continued to help her with the dressing, smiling widely behind her as he adores this moment.

               “No bra huh? I like this already!!” She places her arms through the sleeves and sees there’s two separate areas on both sides to tie it. She manages to figure this part out but as she’s tying the second knot, his arms wrap around her from behind.

               “I’m so glad you’re alright…” he lowly speaks into her ear as he holds her there.

               “I’ve not had any unexpected visitors if that’s what you’re worried about.” She places a hand on his forearm that’s draped above her chest.

               He turns her around to face him and places a hand under her chin to lift her head towards him. “That’s good, it shall remain that way.” He leans in to kiss her lightly before grabbing the dark blue yukata. He opens it, outstretching his arms, allowing her to slide her right arm in first and then the left. She takes the robes and wraps them around her but he stops and corrects it. “The left side should always be on top, you wrap the right side against your body first.” He smiles as he shakes his head and positions the yukata properly. “Here hold it like this.” He waits for her to pinch the cloth on her right hip before he reaches for the first of two separate ties. “You first secure the robes with this!” He maneuvers the tie around her hips and waist before snugly knotting it on that same side. “You then have to either tie or tuck the rest of it. Now here, lift up your arms.” She does and he brings a second fastening cloth tie around her but this time beneath her bosom.

               “You just wanted to touch me!” She giggles as he shrugs as if to agree but she knows there was more to this than just that.

               “I always do” He finally retorts with kindness in his eyes. “You can put them down for now.” He’s shifting the fabric underneath the ties he’s made so that it overlaps in the front, hiding the fasteners. He then holds one hand on the front of her yukata while loosening the collar, “It’s also traditional to show off the nape of your neck but with class of course.” He creates the slack in the back of her collar and hums to how seductive she is, even with being fully clothed now. His lips meet her nape gently before he circles her again to grab the silver and black two-toned obi. “Typically this would be much more vibrant but these are what I was able to grab on short notice.”

               “This is a lot of work!” She’s amazed by the process and how intricate donning traditional wear is. “I’m not so sure I would’ve figured this out on my own.” She’s laughing as he holds the thick long obi out in front of her, “That’s so long!”

               “That’s what she said” He chuckles at his own joke nervously until she picks up on the meaning. He’s relieved she understood. He hangs and end of the obi over her right shoulder as he ties it from the front. “This goes behind you but if you’re really willing to learn I’ll demonstrate.” He gets down on his knees as he wraps it around her twice. The piece lying over her should now becomes orderly folded three times, to which he then grabs the other end of the obi to wrap it around the fold, creating an extravagant bow. “Now we just twist this behind you…” He’s back up to his feet as he shimmies it to the back. He backs away from her to take in the full view and finds himself overwhelmed with joy. “You look beautiful…”

               She strikes a few little poses for him, finding that this was way harder to maneuver in than her normal clothes. She walks over to the mirror and stands back to see as much of it as she can. Naoya walks behind her and engulfs her body into his arms, them crossing underneath the obi. “Just like a princess…” He whispers behind her as he kisses the side of her head and cheek. He’s completely fine with seeing this for the rest of his life.

               She turns around to face him and lean into the sink. Her hands cup his face as he leans down into her, their lips meeting passionately. The moment their tongues touch she feels her body temperature rising rapidly and her eyes glow through their lids. She feels him abruptly stop and instead of being met with his lustful eyes, she see’s that he looks concerned instead.

He pulls away after noticing the heat and the faintest trail of the scent. “Elska…” He fills his lungs with it while trying to remain focused. “We have to get that under control. It’s not safe for you if we don’t.” His words are almost at whisper volume again and she’s clearly picking up that there’s something more going on than she’s aware of.

“I don’t know if I can Naoya, you set them off randomly for me…” He brings her gaze to his chest as she lays her head against it. She just needs to be near him and loves it when he expresses the same urge.

“Well, we start training today then.” He grabs her shoulders and pushes her back a few inches so he can see her eyes. He’s back to whispering completely, “Getou doesn’t know about the pheromones or how your bite feels, it was an agreement Toji and I made months ago…” His hands start rubbing her shoulders, “If he finds out, I’ll be forced to kill him now…he’ll not let you go at that point.” Naoya wants her of course but knows that if they don’t figure that out soon then he won’t be the only one. ‘Getou knowing would spare her life automatically but at what cost?’ He’s not willing to find out.

“How exactly do we train for this then?” She’s not even sure how to go about that. “Even when I feed from you, it releases sometimes….” The hopelessness on her face is evident as she considers feeding less.

“If you react so rashly to me then maybe I shouldn’t be so handsy.” He immediately withdraws his caressing of her shoulder only to feel cold as he leaves her there standing without his touch.

“But I want you to be, you feel so good to me Naoya…” She’s upset that he’s right even if its not what she wants.

“Let’s try feeding for today then…maybe drink slower or something.” He’s realizing he doesn’t know how to train for this either. He’d probably feel a little more defeated about the whole thing if she wasn’t so pretty before him in his clan’s colors. “You really do look stunning in the Zenin blue.” His hand caresses her left cheek as the words leave his mouth. “I want to give you everything that I am but we have to survive this first my dear…” She nods in response and he feels a little less weighted about the situation.

He grabs her hand and brings her back to the couch as he sits down and guides her above. He’s sitting on something hard and pulls it out from underneath him. It was the book she was reading called ‘Lilith: The Best Mutual written by Nakiich.’ He smiles to her love for books and shifts their weight so can carefully place it on the cushion beside them. “Is it a good read?”

As her legs find their way on either side of him under her, she smiles and explains, “Yes it is! It’s a book that one of my favorite writers wrote about my other favorite writer.” She sees him not fully understanding, “It’s adult stuff Naoya, you’re too young for that.”

He wraps his arms around her and pulls her towards him as she squeals to his soft attack. “I’m pretty sure we’re about the same age my little minx.” He laughs, “You’ll just have to read it for me one day.” He’s still smiling but begins to unbutton his collar entirely so she doesn’t have to worry about working around it. She helps him by finishing the buttons while listening to the silence that’s only weakened by their breathing. When she’s finished he looks up to her glowing eyes and runs his hand up her left arm as she grabs his bicep for stability. “Remember to try going slower this time, we need to see if that’s a variable at all.”

She nods to him before aiming for neck. She stops as her face passes his cheek and pecs him on it before using her fangs to pierce him. His taste instantaneously forces a moan out her like it always does, the perfection that is his flavor has always swooned her. The sweetness of him, the care, the loyalty, his thoughts concerning her… everything was just so attractive.

He tries to hold his moan back but was unsuccessful as her draw from him feels nothing short of incredible. His hands find themselves gripping her thighs as she takes from him. “Go slow baby, we have to figure…figure this out.” He’s trying to remain level headed but is struggling to do so. He hears her whimpers and it causes him to grow beneath her. ‘No no little man…knock that off…’ he thinks as he fights so many urges at once. Her body temperature starts to rise as he feels his bulge nudging her. ‘Shit!’ He pulls her away as she pants above him, blood slowly spilling from his neck. She reaches down to close and heal the wounds and then opens her eyes.

She feels her heat regulating itself as she stares down into Naoya’s. She was close to releasing them but hasn’t fed enough nor is her other thirst quenched. Her physical thirst for him. “Naoya…” Her eyes are half lidded, her voice purposefully trying to entice him.

He looks up to her and hums as he battles himself. Of course he wants to take her to the bed but he’s worried about another incident like before occurring. He barely was able to lie his way out of that situation with Getou and isn’t even convinced that Getou believed him. “Elska… I don’t know if we should yet.”

She disagrees initially and bounces on him a few times, resting herself into his pitched tent. She whines his name again and she can tell he’s trying to hold back.

After her pressing the issue he shifts them both until he’s able to stand, her legs wrapping around him. She grins so widely and leans in to kiss him. He kisses her back but presses her back against the wall near the door. “Once we leave here, I swear by all that is good in this world that I will fill you as many times as you need. Whenever, wherever.” He kisses her cheek as he sees her understanding that he’s not going to have sex with her. “If I am to keep you safe my princess, then we have to be smart…now more than ever.” Her legs slowly release from around him and he sets her down gently onto her feet.

“Naoya, what else aren’t you telling me?” She’s frustrated with him but can’t be too angry. ‘He really does cherish me…’

His face is twisted in anger, “There’s a Titer somewhere on the premises… we don’t know what is being watched but I can almost guarantee it’s Getou using them, trying to figure you out…” He sighs as he engraves this moment into his brain, wanting to use this hatred for the man when the time comes to take him out.

“A Titer?” She knows she’s heard that before but asks him anyways for clarification. ‘That beast is watching us?’

“They’re a clan with mind altering capabilities and more… Gojo used them to manipulate your memories…” His eyes take to the wall beside her as he hates even speaking of that. He feels her hand cupping his face bringing back to face her own.

“That makes sense…” Is all she says while looking at him but her demeanor is still one that’s attentive to him. “Ok…I’ll stop pushing the issue…”

“It’s really difficult to refuse you Elska, I hope you understand how much I detest not making you happy.” He’s noticing that her yukata is already messed up and chuckles under his breath as he goes to reposition it.

“I don’t know how we’ll get through this part,” She laughs, “Because I am dripping over here.”

Naoya sighs heavily to this, knowing that he wants to check for himself but there’s no way that’ll end with anything other than melting into each other. “God damnit…why?” He throws his head back slightly as he tries to refrain from making any moves that may cause him regret. He thinks he has an idea of how to lessen the sexual tension but isn’t sure how to word it. She’s still looking at him caringly, her hands traveling around his arms. “Maybe…and just hear me out…” He feels himself blushing at the words he’s articulating while she curiously waits for what he has to say. “Maybe you should try…ummm…taking care of yourself before I come to see you.” He can’t even look at her and is embarrassed that he just suggested masturbation.

She quickly finds herself bellowing out laughter at how awkward he’s being. She doesn’t mean to tease him but she doesn’t want him to feel uncomfortable either, it was actually a legitimate possibility that could help. “Maybe if I do it to the thought of you.”

He quietly gasps at this and feels that didn’t hinder his erection at all. Unsure of how to react to her response he just looks at her and slowly smiles…he can’t even keep the straight face. “I will carry my weight and do the same…maybe to you as well.” The excitement in his words was painfully obvious to and he is now feeling awe at how easily they can communicate to each other.

“Maybe a bath will help to right now.” She sees his eye twitch after she spoke.

“You…you are killing me right now…” He says this but his vision is already taken by tub. He raises an eyebrow as he wonders if she’ll even be able to get out of the yukata by herself.

“I mean for you to join me Naoya…” She hugs him, resting her head into his chest as she doesn’t want to let him go, doesn’t want him to leave. “I swear I’ll stop trying to seduce you!” She’s back to giggling as this predicament is so strange altogether. She’s technically his prisoner but you wouldn’t guess that by their mutual affections, they seem almost domestic. “Don’t you want me to wash you again?”

“Arghhh, yes…yes I do…” He takes a deep breath to strengthen his resolve as he then grabs her hand and leads her towards the tub to turn on the water. ‘I can do this…no problem…’ He reaches around her to undo the obi, fighting with the damn thing for a minute, even with his expertise. One article of clothing at a time she’s reaching her bare state again. She looks up to him with an attitude as he’s yet to undress himself in the slightest. “Yes ma’am” He cackles as he doffs his own clothes. He feels her eyes scanning his body and although he loves that she’s so drawn to him, he wishes that fate would be less cruel. He steps into the tub as it fills, and holds her hand so she can do the same with ease. It’s such a large one but they seem to have found a single spot that they utilize, it’s the same one from the first bath together. As he sits back completely and follows her with his eyes, she leans over him to reach the small towels behind him tickled by his clear frustration as her breasts range in his face.

She starts with the blood on his neck from where he pulled her away earlier. He closes his eyes as he enjoys the feeling of his intended slowly wiping it away. He feels utterly relaxed as she kneels before him while the water fills their surrounding area. After she’s grazed almost the entirety his body with the towel, she goes to sit in his lap but in a curled-up manner that brings her head to his left shoulder and her knees near his right. His arms secure themselves around her and she begins to settle into him herself, also completely relaxed.

She wonders to herself how long this wonderful time with him will last. She’s tried not to think about the marriage part, she’s barely able to enjoy him without the guilt of knowing Toji and Satoru are probably worried sick. What would they think if they knew of how she spent her time there? She nuzzles into his chest deeper as she tries to forget the anxiety riddling her mind.

“Naoya…” she smiles into him as they soak in the filling tub.

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[lotsofdifferentfandomimagines]

Homelander, Sir

Pairing: Homelander x female! Reader

Warnings: smut, dub-con, swearing, oral sex, overstimulation, degradation kink, daddy kink, cream pie (I think that’s everything)

Summary: Y/N used to know “John” well but once he became Homelander that changed. Until he comes by because your life is in danger. You don’t want him to be there so he makes you be a good girl

A/N: sorry for any typos, I wrote this on my phone. Also I’m sorry for doing a Homelander fic, I just can’t deny that I find him horribly attractive. Also I feel like it started out kinda cute but then I was horny so it got real dirty lol

————

Vought.

They owned him. Always had. Always would.

You knew that there was no chance they would ever let you near Homelander again. Especially now that Stillwell had her claws in him.

—

You were “John’s” only friend growing up. Your father worked for Vought and was involved in creating Homelander. And he just happened to have a child around the age of the supe they created in a lab.

John wasn’t really allowed to go outside of Vought’s compound or have any real life. So, every other weekend they brought you in to visit John and to play with him. They believed it would be important to his development that he had a friend. Especially one as ordinary as you. They assumed that this would help him to develop compassion for others — particularly for the ordinary people.

John actually really liked you. You were kind and compassionate when he was not. If you saw him stomping on ants you’d stop him and tell him that ants had family and friends too. This was a hard concept for him to grasp considering he didn’t have any family and you were his only friend. But he decided that he would be quite upset if someone were to stomp on you. So instead of stomping you both settled down on the pavement and watched the little ants going to and from the ant hills.

—

Over the years your friendship grew. You developed a bit of a school girl crush on John. He was quite cute and sometimes he would even take you flying. He’d have you jump on his back and then the next thing you knew, you were no longer on the ground.

You didn’t think he reciprocated your feelings. He believed he had a higher purpose. That he had been chosen by god to protect mankind. He took his purpose very seriously and bought into every lie that Vought fed him.

—

When you went off to college, the regular visits ended. Vought didn’t want you to see John anymore. They thought that you were becoming a distraction.

—

Every other year they’d let you have a supervised visit with John but they were busy turning him into a real super hero, into Homelander. You would only get in the way of that.

—

The last time you saw him was at 26. They had introduced Homelander into the world. He was a real super hero now. They made merchandise and everything.

You tried to tell him that you were worried about Vought manipulating him. You tried to tell him that you cared about him and you wanted to remain in his life. Instead he thought you were doubting his purpose. Doubting him.

He told you he didn’t want to see you anymore. You would get in the way of his purpose.

—

You were beyond pissed at him. Homelander. How dare he just barge back into your life and act like he’d never left.

He showed up at your house one night saying that he needed to come in and talk. Then he just sat there and didn’t say anything didn’t even try to apologize.

Eventually you couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Why the fuck are you here right now?” You demanded. He finally looked up from the floor to meet your eyes. He’d been avoiding looking at you all night.

He looked like he was tearing up but you knew it wasn’t real. He was so good at faking that shit. “I’m so sorry,” he paused and looked away again. “For everything”.

“Bullshit. If you were actually sorry you wouldn’t show up out of fucking nowhere and try to fake some emotion to get my sympathy,” your eyes teared up from anger and from all of the pain Homelander had already caused you. “Tell me why you’re really here.”

He sighed, “You’re in danger. Don’t ask me how I know —I just do”.

“I don’t care if I’m actually in danger, I would rather die than have you stay here to protect me”. Now that hit a nerve. You could tell you were getting to him, finally.

He was right in front of you in an instant. His eyes flashed red and in that second you were scared, maybe you had pushed him too far. You didn’t really know him anymore.

Homelander backed you into the wall and glowered down at you. Then he just started laughing and honestly that was far scarier.

Despite your heart racing and the actual terror you felt, you couldn’t help but find him attractive again. His head was thrown back as he laughed.

“Now, we both know you’re just being dramatic,” he tsked. He leaned in close to your ear and whispered harshly “And I can tell that you are actually happy to see me. Don’t forget that I can see inside of you”. He chuckled again.

You cursed your body for still reacting to him so positively. You both knew that his little intimidation game had turned you on and you could feel your core aching now.

He always had this affect on you but he used to be too shy and inexperienced to act on it. Clearly that had changed.

Homelander wrapped one of his gloved hands around your throat, mildly restricting the flow of oxygen to your lungs. “Now are you going to be a good girl and let me do my job? Or will I have to make you be a good girl?”

You couldn’t really speak due to the lack of oxygen so he loosened his grip a tad. “I want you to leave my home,” you tried to demand. Although it came out hoarse and unintimidating.

“We both know that’s a lie”. He sighed again, “Guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way”.

Homelander lifted your legs and shoved you harder into the wall. He started furiously grinding his spandex covered hard on against your pelvis. You accidentally let out a moan at the contact and he smirked.

It only took a bit of friction for you to cave and start begging him for something more. “John please, need more” you whined out.

“Don’t call me that. You will call me Homelander or Sir”, he demanded harshly. “And if you want more then you’re going to need to show me what a good girl you are”. He glanced suggestively down at his straining erection and then back to your lips. You nodded slowly in understanding.

He let you down from the wall. You quickly went to work on unbuckling the lower half of his suit and bringing it down his thighs. You then tongued gently at the bulge in his briefs. He took a fistful of your hair and shoved you in closer and grunter out “more”.

You nodded against him. Lowering his briefs and letting his erection spring free. It was thick and aching so bad it was purple. You teased the head a bit with your lips, gathering up some precum with your tongue. You heard Homelander hiss above you. Then he shoved you all the way down his cock and started a fast pace fucking your mouth. You were gagging and could barely breath. Your eyes brimmed with tears but you tried to keep your lips open and soft for him. You could hear his moans above you and despite the bruising that was definitely happening in your throat you could feel your core dripping. Your panties were fully soaked by now.

Just as you thought he was going to come he pulled out.

“Be a good girl and strip for me”, he demanded. “I want to see all of you without any of that clothing”.

You did as he said. You didn’t try to make a sexy show of it, you knew being quick was more important.

“Now get back on your knees” Homelander demanded. You obeyed. He started furiously stroking his cock above you. He told you to open up. He was definitely close, his breath was labored and his strokes were more erratic.

Seconds later he came. His hot seed spurted all over you. Some of it landing over your face and tits. He took a second to come down from his high before seeing the pretty picture of you bare and covered in his cum.

“Come up here,” he beckoned. “I want to help clean my good girl up”.

You rose from your knees. Homelander still towered over you but you were actually close to him now. He slowly pulled the gloves from his hands before beginning to trace his fingers across your body. It sent shivers down your spine.

It took you a moment to realize what he was doing. He was collecting the cum with his fingers. Once he had scooped up enough he brought it to your mouth. “Open up,” he cooed.

You took it. Swallowed mouthful after mouthful of his spent.

“Was that delicious baby girl?” He asked expectantly.

“Yes, sir. So good” you responded.

“Mmm good. I think that means its time for your reward then. You’ve been such a good girl.”

You moaned. You were aching and your juices were actually dripping down your legs.

His hand slipped between your legs and he groaned at how wet you were. He gently began teasing your clit with his thumb while two of his fingers delved into your core.

He worked you like magic and you were a moaning mess. Begging for more. He knew exactly where to touch you and he quickly had you on the brink.

Suddenly he withdrew his fingers. You whined at the loss of contact. Your whole body ached for him.

“Uh-uh. Use your words baby girl” he tutted. “Tell Homelander what you want.”

“I want you to fuck me Homelander, sir” you begged. “Please, need your cock, Homelander”.

“Alright since my girl has been so good and she’s so pretty when she begs”.

You didn’t even have time to comprehend his words before he slammed you into the wall and filled you with his cock. He hoisted your leg over his hip to get a better angle and then he started thrusting mercilessly into your tight cunt.

He was brutal. His hands dig into your hips to the point of pain but his thrusts hit all the right places, making you putty in his arms.

“You’re such a fucking slut for some supe’s cock. You probably don’t even care who it is, you just want them to fuck you hard” he growled. “Would you rather have another supe’s cock right now? How about the deep? Do you want him to fuck you?”

“No, sir. Only want you. Only your cock” you moaned out.

“Good girl. Such a good little whore for me” Homelander hissed out. You could tell he was getting close. His thrusts were more erratic but he didn’t slow down the pace at all. Instead his fingers came down to work your clit in time with his thrusts. You were so close.

“Please sir may I come?” You begged wantonly. You flashed Homelander your big innocent eyes while desperately trying to keep from coming. He chuckled at your struggle.

“Come for me, come on daddy’s cock.”

You did. You threw back your head into the wall and your back arched perfectly as you moaned through your orgasm. Homelander didn’t stop fucking you, chasing his own orgasm even when you started to get over sensitive. He gave a finally thrust before filling you with his come. You moaned at the feeling of him painting your insides.

You tried to lower your leg and get down from his arms but he was already hard again. Fucking supe stamina, you cursed. He picked up the pace once more as he started fucking you brutally. He didn’t care that you were over sensitive and that your moans were a mixture of pain and overstimulation.

His fingers resumed their work on your clit and he rubbed it furiously. It was all too much. Tears brimmed your eyes.

But before you knew it you were coming again and it felt good and there was a certain relief that maybe it would be over now. No such luck.

Homelander refused to stop fucking you until he came a third time.

“Please sir, it’s too much. Can’t take another one” you begged. He ignored you and went back to working your clit. You hissed in pain.

“You know you love it. You’re such a fucking cockslut” he groaned. He slowed down and appeared to be reaching his peak. His hand not on your clit came up and tweaked your nipple hard. You cried out in pain but that pushed you over the edge and into your third orgasm. Your walls clamped down around Homelander’s cock and you felt his hot seed fill you once more. You were so full of his come it was leaking down around his cock.

He slowly pulled out of you, moaning at the sight of you dripping with his come.

He knelt down and connected his lips to your core. Kitten licking up his spent and moaning all the while. “You look so good full of daddy’s come”.

He continued to eat you out and clean up his own spent. You moaned as the pain of overstimulation became too much. His lips moved to suck your clit while his fingers fucked his come back into your sloppy hole.

It was all too much but you also didn’t want it to stop because you felt yourself approaching your climax again. You moaned as he sped up his finger fucking until you came one more time. He removed his mouth from your core and licked the mixture of your come and his from his lips.

You were completely boneless and just melted into his arms. Allowing him to scoop you up and carry you to bed.

“I knew you didn’t want me to leave,” he chuckled darkly as he looked down at your thoroughly fucked body.

[loruleanheart]

Desired Fate, Chapter 14

Read on ff.net

Read on AO3

Zelda and the others were transfixed as they looked up at the spirit of Calamity Ganon writhing around the castle. The anguish of all Hyrule hung stagnant in the air along with the ambient gurgling sound of malice.

"It's here…" Impa was the first one who managed to speak. "The Calamity has already begun…" She said, at a loss.

"No, No…." Zelda gasped when she noticed malice enter one of the nearby Guardians and became animate. It made a horrible mechanical sound as it turned its 'eye' towards the princess, a red laser appearing on Zelda's chest. Link immediately sprang into action, deflecting the Guardian's blast back at it in a brilliant flash of light.

"Calamity Ganon is taking control of the Guardians!" Zelda lamented. "It's going to turn them all against us!"

"It can do that?" Said Revali in surprise, realization starting to dawn on the Rito champion, as well as the three others. The Calamity was far more cunning than any of them had imagined.

"There are still more on the castle grounds. It's too dangerous. Everyone, protect the princess as we make our retreat!" Impa called.

"But…"

With that, Link grabbed Zelda's hand, pulling her roughly behind him as he ran down the brick path away from the Castle, which didn't go unnoticed by Astor, feeling an intense wave of sullenness he couldn't shake. They disappeared down the path and the Champions and Sheikah aide followed, no one paying him any mind in the frenzy the Calamity had created.

Astor remained, feeling out of sorts and alone, but determined to fully embrace his new destiny. Hyrule really was on its knees… Especially Zelda, who was being crushed under the weight of her duty. How had he ever been so blinded by Calamity Ganon to want this? To want to harm her? He had almost killed her for the sake of Calamity Ganon… HER! He was barely aware that his fists were clenched, wanting to make her his and spare her all this pain and suffering. The back of his neck was becoming sore as he glared up at the beast he'd once dedicated his life to serving. Calamity Ganon opened its maw to a right angle, and a thunderous roar of rage issued forth as if demanding the prophet make a blood sacrifice of himself to atone for his disloyalty.

Astor smiled up at the beast spitefully.

I wasted so many years of my life on you…. But serving you led me to her… I must thank you… I'm going to live on and create a legacy for myself, and you… You're going to be sealed away… Forever perhaps.

Astor's smile faded as he noticed King Rhoam emerge from the castle's sanctum.

"You're coming with me…" Rhoam said in a stern, matter-of-fact way., The King wielded a huge claymore single-handedly, flanked by three knight attendants.

Astor scowled at the older man, raising his hand to summon his orb, but then thought better of it, giving only a huff of defiance.

"I'm glad I have your cooperation, Astor," Rhoam said, coming close as he brandished his claymore in a vaguely threatening way. The sword was almost as big as he was.

Confident that Astor would not run or fight back, Rhoam nodded to his attendants. "Alright men, retreat!"

"Yes, Sire!" The three knight attendants said in unison. They were looking around wildly, in horror at the destruction the Guardians were bringing and a bit miffed that their king had apparently decided to take a prisoner at the worst time possible.

The five quickly, but carefully made their way down the path, Rhoam staggering a Guardian that blocked their path with a single swing of his sword. Astor could almost feel the brunt of that swing.

"Astor, I'm afraid we're going to get to know each other whether you like it or not. Had the Calamity not happened when it did, you would be in lockup now. However, since my castle is currently overrun with Guardians and all manner of Ganon's monsters, I will be keeping an eye on you myself. Suffice to say, I am not in a good mood."

Astor kept his gaze forward as they moved forward. The king's tone did not bode well for him. It wasn't lost on him that he was in a precarious situation. Still, this could be amusing.

"I know I'd rather not," King Rhoam continued, "but given that I fear you are encroaching on my daughter's divine duties, I must go above and beyond to perform mine as her father and as king." Rhoam noticed Astor's attention was elsewhere. "Look at your king when he's talking to you, you piece of filth!" Rhoam raised his voice, finding the younger man infuriating, despite knowing so little about him. The prophet had already left the worst impression on him, not that he stood a chance in hell of making a good first impression all things considered. Why would Zelda consort with this man, let alone trust him? He was scrawny, deathly pale, and dressed in rags. Everything about Astor was… off-putting. How had he and Zelda even met? Was the young knight he'd appointed to Zelda slacking off?

Astor turned his attention to the older man slowly, giving him a look of intense spite. He then saw the king's eyes widen, looking at something beyond him. Astor turned to come face to face with a Guardian's laser trained on him.

Rhoam and his men stood back, apparently obliging the Guardian to make short work of Astor.

The Guardian's laser rested on Astor for a moment, moving over the malice eye on his circlet before fading and readjusting to focus on the king.

Rhoam wasted no time in raising his claymore and bringing it down on the Guardian, giving a grunt of effort. Bolts and gears flew out of the busted machine, littering the brick pathway.

"Why did the Guardian disregard you?" Rhoam mused aloud. "How disappointing..."

"Thank you for looking out for me, Rhoam. Such a caring king and father, too… You're going to make a fine grandfather someday..." Astor said darkly, facetiously.

"How dare you!" Rhoam bellowed, giving the young man a ruthless slap across the face, causing Astor to stagger and fall. Astor simply returned a perverse smile despite the stinging sensation on his cheek. Astor began to laugh, chuckling at first and then breaking into an intense round of laughter, his yellow eyes going wide in a way that unsettled the old king - as if seeing beyond. "Yes, my children. Go harass King Rhoam and do not disappoint me!"

Rhoam was fuming. Astor was either very insane or intentionally provoking him, perhaps both. Either that or he had injured the prophet's mind when he struck him. Astor's antics were making it very difficult for the king to maintain his composure.

"You're very fortunate I am not a crass man, or I'd tell you what I think you deserve… Now tell me, how well do you know my daughter?"

"Well enough to know she is terribly lonely." Astor replied. "She despises you."

"What nonsense… Everything I've done has been for her! She was supposed to be Hyrule's pride, but it seems that the gossipmongers' words are coming true... Look around you. Hyrule is on fire. What sort of future does she have? 'Heir to a throne of nothing' if she does not awaken that power very soon. I can tell you're a lousy prophet by that alone."

"Bold words from a king who does not carry the blood of the Goddess."

"I may not carry the blood of the goddess, but I am still the rightful king of Hyrule in my late queen's stead. I was born into a noble family and my union with her was arranged by the former king and queen. The only thing I'm going to be arranging for you is an execution. Know your place, Prophet."

"An execution?" Astor almost laughed. He couldn't imagine what Rhoam's reaction might be when he learned he had formerly been trying to bring about Calamity Ganon's revival. "On what grounds?"

"Interfering with the Princess awakening her power to seal Calamity Ganon away for one. Also because it would bring me personal satisfaction. Now, get up, before I change my mind and grind my boot into your head. You're slowing down our escape."

Slowly Astor got up, dusting himself off, raising his chin to the older man in a testing manner.

"Wipe that smirk off your face. Move!" Rhoam said, giving Astor a shove with the side of his claymore.

oOo

Zelda looked back over her shoulder, her hair whipping in the wind as she ran. "Wait… Where are Astor and my father? We can't leave them behind…!"

Nobody seemed to acknowledge her question or nobody heard.

They ran through the chaotic town streets, witnessing horrifying scenes as the Guardians wrought havoc upon Hyrule's capital. Guardians were climbing the walls of houses and shops alike, some not being able to bear the weight of the mechanical wonders and the rooftops beginning to crumble.

They finally reached the main gate, crossing the threshold into Hyrule Field, as the Guardians had completely overtaken the castle and even the surrounding town. They stopped to look back, now a safe distance away. Zelda's eyes widened in horror when she realized more Guardians were appearing, being methodically ejected from the five columns that had suddenly risen out of the ground to surround Hyrule Castle. The same columns she had tried so hard to locate just days ago.

"Where did he go…?" Zelda said out of breath and sick at heart, but trying not to break down again. Hadn't she already cried all the tears she thought she had at the realization of her failure? She knew the Calamity was eventual, but experiencing it was beyond her worst nightmares.

"Little bird… How do you know he wasn't the one to summon the Calamity himself just by being present?" Said Urbosa.

"T-that can't be… " Zelda said, exasperated, not even willing to entertain the idea.

"His Majesty is missing as well… Did he remain behind on purpose?" Impa mused.

"The two are probably still bickering for all we know…" Revali quipped. "Hylian males…"

It would have been a humorous mental image in any other circumstances: Astor and her father too entrenched in their argument to notice as Guardians flooded into the Sanctum, but Zelda was vaguely aware that Astor had at least left the sanctum when the Calamity appeared.

Zelda turned her gaze elsewhere. Watching Castle Town burn was too much to bear. She happened to catch Link's eye, the boy wearing a severe expression.

You're fated to unlock your power because of him.

Zelda looked away from him and then at the back of her hand, giving an inaudible sigh, doubts about so many things clouding her mind.

This didn't go unnoticed by Urbosa, who came to stand behind Zelda, placing her hands on the princess's shoulders. "Don't give up! It's not too late."

"I know… We can't let the Calamity win. No matter what…" Zelda said, sounding downtrodden, but resolute.

"All is not lost. As long as I live I will fight. Just as you must." Impa reassured Zelda.

All the champions agreed one by one.

The group lifted their heads when they sensed others making their escape into Hyrule Field and out of Castle Town. Zelda's breath caught in her throat when she saw Astor standing in the shadow of her father's sword. He was unbound, yet it was clear from their expressions that he wasn't standing there on his own volition. Astor held her briefly in his gaze and then looked away, in shame. His face was more bruised than before.

"Champions, go to your Divine Beasts!" King Rhoam called in an official tone. "Astor will be coming with me, lest he interfere any further. Link… You are the knight to Princess Zelda. I trust you understand your duty." Rhoam said, shooting a disapproving look at Zelda.

There was a flicker in Zelda's eyes as they began to sting. "Where are you taking him?!"

Suddenly their hands held her back before she could rush forward. Zelda cried out for Astor as Rhoam and his attendants turned to leave, giving Astor another shove in the direction they were going.

A million horrible possibilities rushed through her mind. She was under no delusion that her father would deal with Astor kindly, especially if he were to ascertain Astor's former ties to the Calamity.

"What are they going to do to him?! Please, Someone, do something... Don't let them take him away!" Zelda implored pitifully, despairing because she knew none of them were going to defy her Father. Zelda dropped her head. "He's all… He's all I have…"

It was very soft, but everyone heard. Her pleas sounded all too familiar.. Rhoam halted, just for a moment to look back in irritation instead of pity as he had when she was young.

"Dammit, Zelda, show some self-control!" Rhoam said, angrily. "Your whining didn't work back then, what makes you think it will work now?"

Zelda looked hurt by his response, her shoulders shaking. Rhoam wondered if she remembered when he had confiscated the little Guardian she had named Terrako in a bid to get her to focus on her training. A decision that regrettably hadn't borne any fruit. Rhoam had almost cursed the late queen. Damn her for instilling such a love for Sheikah technology and relics in her daughter, which only proved to be a distraction for Zelda in awakening her divine power. That had been the most grievous flaw Rhoam saw in his wife.

Astor knew this was his moment to act. While the king was distracted, Astor phased past Rhoam like a restless spirit, knocking Rhoam off balance for a moment.

Zelda looked up and exhaled in surprise.

Astor came to a stop in front of Zelda, making a show of pulling her close. She clutched tightly to his robes, and for a moment everything else ceased. She was his and he was hers. She would have given much to live in that moment forever, relieved tears cascading down her cheeks.

"Her Highness is mine now. Have fun fighting the Calamity, Rhoam. You don't deserve her."

"Hylia on her throne! Stop him!" Rhoam ordered his knight attendants.

The men hesitated, fearful of the prophet's magical abilities. And in the blink of an eye, Astor raised his orb high, vanishing with Zelda in tow. Those that remained looked on in silent disbelief.

A short distance away, the scene was reflected in the 'eye' of Harbinger Ganon. Ganon knew it was winning, though that did not satisfy the being's intense all-encompassing rage. Its plans had still been disrupted. The weak-minded, disaffected Hylian man it had chosen to do its bidding in this age had somehow seen beyond the illusion of importance and power it had engineered for him. High above, the spirit of Calamity Ganon gave a shattering roar of detest for the goddess it knew was at work. And because of that vile goddess, the foolish bag of flesh was stepping out on him, even after all the power it had bestowed upon him. Ganon would simply take the man's ability to wield malice away. It would make sure the seer suffered tenfold for betraying him and choosing the girl who bore the goddess's blood. That pathetic mortal was supposed to remain loyal until his dying breath at its hand, for Ganon hated all life and showed no partiality even towards those who swore allegiance to it. It had been over ten millennia since Ganon had been mortal, and any memory of its past humanity or semblance of understanding human emotions had long perished. Calamity Ganon's inhuman hatred burned against the Hylian seer, rivaling its hatred for the hero and the young woman who bore the blood of the goddess. And so, the corrupted Guardian began to plot.

[sleepymarmot]

Opinion: MAG 187 doesn’t invalidate Helen’s more sympathetic moments

It is possible to interpret the episode as retconning everything the Distortion has ever said and done into a manipulation targeted at Jon, which would undo the character’s complexity and make them revolve entirely around the protagonist. The key for this interpretation seems to lie in the following exchange: 

ARCHIVIST You worked to hurt us and help us, all with the same smile, until we can barely tell one from the other. Keeping us off-balance, constantly second-guessing our own opinions of you. Never quite crossing a line we could never forgive, but never putting yourself on the line either. And when one face finally stopped smiling, you just changed the face.

HELEN Fine. So if that’s all true… why? Why would I do any of that? What’s my actual motive?

ARCHIVIST I don’t think you even have one. It’s just what you are.

But I don’t think most of what was said here is new information.

Let’s go back to season 3. Here’s how the newborn Helen Distortion explains her identity:

HELEN Michael isn’t me. Not now.

ARCHIVIST What happened?

HELEN He got… distracted. Let feelings that shouldn’t have been his overwhelm me. Lost my way.

In other words, the Distortion’s modus operandi is a long, long game of cat and mouse (see also: MAG 146 Threshold). Michael got sidetracked by his (or Michael Shelley’s) revenge against the Archivist(s) and decided to actually kill the mouse. But it was unnatural for the Distortion, so it shook off the troublesome identity, and Helen was both an instrument to get rid of Michael and a continuation of what was started by him and worked so well.

ARCHIVIST A-are you still going to kill me?

HELEN No. That was Michael’s desire, not mine.

The Distortion doesn’t want to send the Archivist into its corridors. Why would it, when it’s so rewarding to misdirect and mess with him in other ways?

Now, for episode 115.

HELEN I… I’m not… I’m not entirely sure. I’m… having trouble. I don’t think I was meant to be Helen.

ARCHIVIST I’m – I don’t understand.

HELEN Neither do I. Michael was… pulling away. His anger was interfering. I don’t, I don’t think I have a choice but to be Helen. Self is difficult.

ARCHIVIST Michael, he, uh, he, he wasn’t meant to be you either, though, was he?

HELEN No.

There’s an internal conflict between Helen and the Distortion -- just like there was between Michael and the Distortion. I don’t think the new episode invalidates or undoes that. On the contrary: it restated that Michael strayed from the Distortion’s purpose, which means Helen could have done the same.

HELEN Something happened when I became ‘Helen’. She wasn’t right, she wasn’t ready.

ARCHIVIST I don’t…

HELEN Before, talking to you made Helen feel better.

ARCHIVIST You’re not that Helen!

HELEN I just want… I just want to feel better.

Helen was supposed to be a meal that replenished the Distortion’s energy. But it seems that the food was not as fully digested as the Distortion would prefer, and tried to bite back.

ARCHIVIST Wh-what? Why should I believe… a-a-any of this? You’ve told me over and over that you’re… what was the phrase? The ‘throat of delusion’? All of this is –

HELEN I have never told you a lie, Archivist. I wouldn’t dare. I, I just thought you might understand.

ARCHIVIST Uh… How could I possibly…

HELEN We’re both changing, Archivist. I had hoped, that together –

The Distortion has never lied (and now we know why). The Distortion has truly changed. Its new face genuinely wanted Jon’s company, just like the previous face had wanted him dead. But both faces interact with Jon in a way that leaves him confused and upset, because such is their nature.

In MAG 131, Helen insists that her identity is not a mask but a new but inseparable part of herself. As we now know, she is not lying: 

ARCHIVIST

You’re still wearing her face.

HELEN

Not this again. I’m not “wearing” anything, Archivist. I am at least as much ‘Helen Richardson’ as you are the ‘Jonathan Sims’ that first joined this Institute. Things change. People change. It happens.

We get a double confirmation that Helen is different from the Distortion’s previous incarnations in MAG 146, in the words of both Helen and her victim:

This wasn’t like before; there was no playfulness here, none of that malicious joy that I had always felt coming off it. Now there was just a cold hunger, a deep anger, as though I had no right to just stand there looking at it. The street was silent, but I could feel it screaming at me to open it.

HELEN (all business) Oh, well; the son, I was pursuing long before I was even Michael. And technically, I didn’t eat the old man. He passed away from terror long before I got a chance to open properly.

ARCHIVIST His son Marcus – he – he was fine when I read his father’s statement two years ago, but now, suddenly, I can’t get through to him.

HELEN No. I imagine not. I decided it was time to finish that game a few months ago.

ARCHIVIST You – Why?

HELEN Not sure. I suppose Helen didn’t have quite the same attachment to him as a project. I’m not quite as much for decades-long campaigns of subtle terror these days.

ARCHIVIST (soft) That’s horrible.

HELEN Is it? We do what we need to do when it comes to feeding, don’t we? (pointed) Don’t we, Archivist?

Helen Distortion doesn’t derive joy from terrorizing people for months or years with doors. That’s just food now. Now she gets the same joy from messing with people with the help of her humanlike appearance and personality.

An often-quoted line from MAG 152:

HELEN Even if it were capable of doing so, what possible reason would the Eye have to change how you feel, when it makes no difference to your actions? Helen was like you, at first. She felt such guilt over taking people. Until one day she realized she wasn’t going to stop doing it. So she chose to stop feeling guilty.

Again, the new episode confirms two things: 1) Helen wasn’t lying. 2) Helen was telling this to Jon to make him doubt his loyalties. And again, this is not new information! She laughs at his misery and confusion very openly!

Episode 157. Jon gets a shocking reminder that Helen is Just Here To Troll:

HELEN Because I have a good enough sense of what’s going on to know that it will be much more fun without my involvement! (begins laughing)

...

ARCHIVIST Just tell me what’s going on. Please.

HELEN (gleefully) Bad things, Archivist. Really bad things.

MAG 164, Helen’s first appearance in s5. There’s so much going on, let’s try to list at least some of it: she congratulates jonmartin on their relationship, immediately tries to play them against each other, cheerfully deflects all blame onto Jon and also Georgie and Melanie, admits to betrayal, announces she wants to be friends “again”, then expresses pity that Jon isn’t hostile to her enough. Absolutely everything she does is about creating relationship chaos.

MAG 166, second encounter with Helen post-Change, and she is delighted to see disagreement between Jon and Martin unprompted by her:

MARTIN Yeah, I, I, I think we should go for it, get our murder on!

ARCHIVIST (disbelief) Sorry, what?

HELEN (surprised delight) Yes, Martin!

In MAG 177, she moves the focus of ridiculously blatant manipulation and provocation onto Basira, and also doesn’t bother to hide she enjoys scaring her “friends”:

HELEN Not interrupting anything, Am I?

MARTIN Christ, Helen, you scared the life out of me.

HELEN [Insincere] Sorry, darling.

And finally, MAG 183. By now, everyone in the scene is aware that she’s here just to get a rise out of our heroes and metaphorically eat popcorn.

MARTIN Look. Listen, I’m getting really sick of all thi–

ARCHIVIST Leave it, Martin. She’s just trying to get under your skin.

MARTIN Yeah? Well, she’s really good at it!

HELEN Aww. Thanks, sweetie. But to be honest, I’m mainly just here to see which path you choose.

Which brings us to MAG 187. We already know that Helen isn’t Jon and Martin’s “friend” as in “ally” -- she hangs out with them to provoke strong responses and sow chaos. The plot twist is that she’s not just doing it for fun, like a human would -- it is her way of avatar feeding.

The Distortion has always been a trickster. I am glad that they died this way, instead of becoming either an over-the-top villain or a reluctant hero -- before the plot could corner them into becoming one. And as Jon said, the reason Helen had to die was not her trickster nature, but the side she picked on the “Eyepocalipse: keep or cancel?” issue. 

The reveal in 187 does not contradict the information we had before, and so it doesn’t retcon or undo the complexity or character development that the Distortion had. The fact that the Distortion fed on Jon (and others’) reaction to them does not mean that they never had any motivations or thoughts beyond that. Jon says it himself: “keeping us off-balance” is not the Distortion’s motivation, it’s “who they are”, it’s the natural, instinctive way they conduct themselves. We have learned that the Distortion's behavior was Eldritch Trolling instead of Regular Trolling, that's all.

[flovey-dovey]

I want to say something about Klaus

I’ve been waiting a very long time to see this movie, and when I finally could I loved it to pieces. But the ending broke my heart- in more ways than one.

There will be no “tldr” here because my feelings about this film are too strong to let me minimalize what I have to say about it (but I might have to make a part 2 since this is pretty big). If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine, it’s okay, I don’t blame you. I won’t tell you you’re wrong, because in your own life you’re as obligated as ever to have an opinion of your own, correct or not. One other thing I want to say before I start rambling is that this will be messy. Also I do not- nor have ever- claimed to be a critic, and this is not a review. This is just a single person on the internet expressing their opinion, and for the love of all that is holy let’s keep it at that.

Foreword over, on to my pure thoughts. Oh, and spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the movie yet. No matter what I think about it it’s definitely worth a watch, and going into this without seeing it will probably confuse some folks. Maybe.

Okay, since my main qualm is with the characters, let’s start with Alva. I like her. She’s not the generic “tough girl who don’t need no man” I was fully prepared to have shoved down my throat. She has some genuinely good moments on her own as well as funny and pleasant interactions with both Jesper and the children of the town and is a fine character. She is jaded and determined, though not to the point of that being her entire personality, and I loved watching her find happiness as the teacher she wanted to be. She is a victim of circumstance that eventually has her environment changed and finds herself changed with it for the better. Her design and personality were very pleasing (to me) to see as well.

However...

Why did she have to be the love interest? Just- why? What warranted her eventually desiring a relationship of any description when she was shown to be more devoted to her position as a teacher- and as a single woman- throughout 90% of the film? This is especially frustrating since it turns almost every scene with her into one that involves Jesper in some way rather than build her as a character outside of this perspective. It takes away from Alva “the character” and instead focuses more on her as Alva “the love interest”. In media stuffed to the rafters in heteronormative relationships, and from those that I’ve seen, as afraid as I was to see it happen I was also prepared to have this aspect of the movie gracelessly thrown into my face. So, as might be expected, I actually groaned out loud when I saw it come to pass. I’m not mad, just... actually that’s a lie I am rather irritated by it, but also just... sad. Very, very sad. Disappointed, you might say. She and Jesper don’t have a lot of interactions showing that this was the obvious outcome. The best I can think that people would draw this conclusion would be a) she’s a woman and he’s a guy and they looked at each other that one time, and b) when he was trying to be charming to wriggle out of her wrath. Also, same scene, I don’t buy that it’s further implied by the boat-guy (I forget his name and can’t find it on IMDB) teasing Jesper over “young love” after she leaves in a huff. He’s not a reliable look into any feelings Jesper might feel towards her since all he’s done up to that point is tease him. It’s not enough, it just isn’t. Not to me.

In regards to her feelings for Jesper, the most I see from her is gratitude. The scene when she’s showing Jesper what he unintentionally did for the town is just that, and as she’s looking at the townsfolk Jesper looks... distressed. This is because he is conflicted about what to do at this point in the story, not necessarily because of any feelings for Alva, but it doesn’t even look like he’s thinking of her- romantically- at all. They don’t share any additional conversation, either; not a single flirtatious joke or anything that would lead me to believe they were bonding. I feel horribly conditioned to see her as the love interest and nothing more because that’s all I’ve ever seen done with a man and woman who only share a single line of dialogue before some narrator is telling me “of course” they got together in the end. Oftentimes, that line of dialogue is in an unpleasant or downright aggressive scenario, and that’s not romance. Seeing it happen over and over and over and over in almost every piece of media I subject myself to makes me want to take a blowtorch to my brain. I’m literally at my wit’s end. If it was more built-up and actually there, then fine, I take it back, but the thing is I hardly saw anything at all in terms of either Jesper or Alva or both of them thinking about each other, wanting to be together as more than just friends, throughout the entire hour and a half of the movie. The most scenes I can say they shared (not counting the ending because I’ll get to that in a bit) are four, with each one being little more than a minute long, two of them being more on the aggressive side, the third being when Alva shows Jesper the new Smeerenburg. Pleasant and humorous, yes, but not inherently romantic (neither of them share more than a glance and Jesper looks pretty preoccupied internally). The fourth is of Alva helping Margu translate what she wants from Klaus for Jesper. When Margu hugs Jesper and he and Alva exchange silent looks, the expression on Alva’s face, to me, says something like “you’re not half bad” and a note of good humor for how he handles children. Just so we’re clear I’m not against her finding happiness with Jesper. I just want it to be warranted. Not narrated.

Oh, but their love for each other is obvious and clearly meant to be from the start, is it? Okay then, show me when Alva says or does something and makes Jesper laugh, or vice-versa. Show me when she thought of him OUTSIDE of simply showing him what he did for everyone and how their hands touched, their gazes met and shy or flirtatious smiles spread across their faces as they drew slightly closer, and how she felt something more than gratitude and impressment for him. Show me when Jesper wanted to do something for her OUTSIDE being the means to a letter-related end. Show me the parts when they pined for each other and how happy seeing the other’s smile made them and how they were happy for each other’s progress and encouraged each other. Show me the parts of the movie where Jesper visited as often as he could manage to squeeze into his busy schedule just to chat. Show me kisses, hand-holding, lingering looks and happy little half-smiles cast from across a crowded courtyard. Maybe they do share something more than friendship, but no matter what I can’t get over how little there was between them to give me the impression it was going to lead to romance. It’s not even subtext, in my opinion.

Do you remember when Jesper’s father came back and it all came out in a part known as “the liar revealed” (a trope I quite hate for the oftentimes needless forced drama it creates, but whatever, for now I’ll let it slide) that he had ulterior motives which, at that point, he no longer had? Alva was the FIRST to turn her back on him in spite of their “lovey-dovey” merry-go-round painting MOMENTS earlier. She didn’t even want to hear out Jesper, who was clearly upset, and jumped straight to accusing him without showing that she was just as upset by the revelation that he could’ve been using her and playing with her feelings. How romantic. Meanwhile, the last one to return inside was Klaus, who was far more saddened and disappointed, leaving slower and leaving Jesper looking the worst, like he was heartbroken by his words- an echo of his own- most of all.

In fact...

Speaking of Klaus, I’d say Jesper is far more attracted to him than to Alva. This movie, while nearly devoid of interactions serving to build romantic chemistry between Jesper and Alva (which it absolutely should’ve if they had the ending be what it was), is littered with moments, wordless and otherwise, between Klaus and Jesper. So let’s go over them. I mean, if you’ve left by now then like I said at the start, I don’t mind. But if it’s alright I’d like to talk about them anyway, because holy holly I love them.

The scenes in question are clearly shown to develop their friendship and only get more romantic from there, and I could run out of breath trying to ramble them off all at once and what it meant to me to see them portrayed in such a beautiful way- artistically as well as in terms of the story.

Fairly early on, we learn that the wind is kind of its own “character”, guiding both Jesper and Klaus to ultimately meet each other as well as bringing them together more than once afterwards, and later on with what we learn about him it’s heavily implied to be the spirit of Klaus’ dearly departed wife. I’d like to think she was trying to tell Klaus to move on and find new love in Jesper and for Jesper to find purpose by Klaus’ side. The instances involving the wind are scattered throughout the film, so this is going to be a bit out of order.

To start, Jesper, while trying to get Klaus to donate his toys to the children of Smeerenburg, doesn’t notice the wind swirling around behind him like it was telling Klaus to follow him even if at the time Jesper’s intentions were selfish. Because he changes. They change each other, and their dynamic progresses so much more naturally, directly and clearly than Jesper and Alva’s.

There’s another scene when it leads Klaus to his workshop, where he opens the door to see a silhouette distinctly meant to parallel his wife- the one he loved- and revealed when he pulls back the cloth to be Jesper- his potential new love.

It’s one of the most explicit scenes enforcing my idea that Klaus’ wife was trying to get him to love again. Anyway, Jesper then excitedly starts going on about his gift and trying to get his mojo back before making an unintentionally big mistake by revealing a painful reminder of Klaus’ wife. A mistake he deeply regrets, mind. Not too long later, Jesper tries working on his own to make Margu’s wish for a boat/sleigh come true. While he works, the shot fades to see Klaus back at his workshop. He sees the picture Jesper drew of them and sighs, giving in and going to see him at the post office [also not to mention the drawing fades with the family shelf thing Klaus made so that’s pretty neat; took me a year to edit this in but hey better late than never]. My favorite scene is Klaus showing up to work on Margu’s present, giving Jesper a tool as well and interrupting Jesper to wordlessly point at the task at hand as if to say “If we work, we work together”. And that spoke to me. More than anything else in the movie and more than I’ve heard from any movie I’ve seen that I can remember. Also, Jesper’s soft, shy, willing smile put the biggest grin on my face. It was the last nail in the sled that made me convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were forming a romantic bond from this moment forward.

Part 2 because this is long:

https://flovey-dovey.tumblr.com/post/189133807093/part-2-of-my-thoughts-on-klaus

[betweengenesisfrogs]

The Triumph of the Marginalia

Marginalia, n.:

1 : notes or embellishments in the margins (as in a book)

2 : nonessential items

-Troll OED

Is it just me, or is Nepeta and Equius’s arc the most slept-upon piece of brilliance in all of Homestuck?

A brilliance, might I add, that culminates in possibly the most triumphant, fulfilling emotional moment in the entire work:

https://www.homestuck.com/story/7928

*stands back and beholds its majesty while from the background comes the sound of James Roach brutally murdering ska*

No, but actually, I mean this 100% unironically, and by the end of this post, I think you’ll agree with me.

By now, I think we all understand the Act 6 double metaphor: the series of temporal loops and universes that Lord English commands is paralleled with, and in fact totally identical to, the narrative of Homestuck. Our characters’ lives exist within this context. They struggle to escape it, and are defined both by it and by the rejection of it.

Enter Nepeta.

The metaphorical meaning of Nepeta in Homestuck is irrelevance, and that’s why she’s the most relevant character in any discussion.

Nepeta was one of the characters killed off during the Murderstuck arc. Hussie argued that she was perfect for this role. In fact, I believe he said something like “Nepeta is sweet, but if you look up the dictionary definition of ‘expendable character,’ you’ll see a picture of Nepeta playing with a ball of yarn and looking very cute.” She’s an endearing combination of shipper girl and apex predator, but not one of your Vriskas or Terezis in being a driver of the plot. Hussie, it seems, created her just to round out the troll cast. He described one of his purposes in Murderstuck as being to axe some of the less necessary trolls to reduce the scope of his character list.

Except that didn’t really happen, did it?

Like a cat with nine lives, Nepeta just keeps coming back.

Equius is another addition to the troll cast who gets pushed away from the main action. He was a character-writing challenge: how do you make someone who’s gross, uncomfortable, and racist kind of likable anyway? I’d argue Hussie succeeded, in large part because of Equius’s relationship with Nepeta. By the time you finish with Hivebent, you’ll probably have a little fondness for their moraillegiance. And if that doesn’t do it, the conversation that serves as their swansong in Equius: Seek the Highblood will tear your heartstrings to shreds.

Because Equius dies, tragically clownmurdered. There was, at the time, some stink over this from Equius fans. Would he have really let himself be killed so easily? Hussie countered: yes, and it was the most in-character thing he could have done. He died doing what he loved: being asphyxiated erotically and horrifically by a superior. Truly, there could be no more fitting end to his character than that.

And yet.

No sooner did Hussie complete his self-appointed story cleanup challenge than he immediately began to undo his own work. It’s almost as if, in declaring his intention to own those who preferred more characters to narrative economy, he immediately had to own himself??

By the time we get even a little way into Act 6, we’re deep in the dreambubble landscape, meeting dead characters left and right. And who should show up there but Equius and Nepeta? Equius attempting to get it on with a bunch of Aradias, who dump him. And Nepeta, living out her romantic dreams as a representative of a timeline where she got together with Karkat. They both appear as symbols of this deadness, this irrelevance. Except that that brings them back into the story, into the spotlight – the opposite of where they’re supposed to be!

Like many bits of commentary, Hussie continues to incorporate the metaphor Nepeta=Irrelevance into Homestuck. Karkat’s remark on their journey that he would love to meet “FIFTY FUCKING NEPETAS” and embark on “NEPETAQUEST” alludes to formspring remarks to the effect that, no, Homestuck was not going to have much time for the minor characters. Except it clearly did.

Why couldn’t the narrative let the meowrails go? Was it that despite the economy of Murderstuck, something was still incomplete? After all, one of Equius’s charms was that he appeared to be growing into a less repressed, kinder person. In Seek the Highblood, we see him letting his guard down enough to roleplay with Nepeta for a change. Their love for each other: wasn’t that ultimately what could redeem Equius in our eyes? So his dying and thus failing to protect her–isn’t that something that should be addressed?

You could imagine many a Nepeta and Equius fan saying this to Hussie back in 2011.

But Hussie was already saying it to himself.

The duo come roaring back into the story in the Trickster mode arc, mid Act 6, thanks to Gamzee’s ridiculous resurrections. True, Nepeta is still reduced as part of Fefeta, the character formed from killed-off girls who never speaks onscreen. But doesn’t using that fact as a running gag kind of draw our attention to it? Doesn’t the fact that Fefeta talks to Roxy constantly offscreen inform us that once we get outside the frame of the narrative, Nepeta has a rich inner life and countless stories to tell?

And it’s here that Equius gets something he never got in his original “arc:” the chance to apologize to Nepeta. You’d be forgiven for missing it since there’s so much else going on at the time, but he does, while fused with AR. Here’s what you’d miss, though: he’s grown as a person in the afterlife. He’s come to regret that moment of weakness, where his fetish kept him from protecting his moirail. Impossible as it seems, he’s continuing his character arc.

The scene ends with Fefeta exploding (she’s also, after all, dealing with Eridan), but it leaves us with a tantalizing question:

Will Nepeta forgive Equius? Is there even a plausible time and space in that story when she could respond to his words?

Do you see what’s happening here? Instead of being erased, Nepeta and Equius are starting to slip the bounds of the story that killed them. They leap in and out of the frame, half-mythical figures. Marginalized, they write their own stories in the margins. They exist in complete defiance of the original logic of Homestuck.

Lord English is an alt-Author figure, a dark, brutal reflection of narrative control and narrative necessity. His world, in which horrible choices are necessary, in which the alpha timeline is a ticking clock leading inexorably to his manifestation, is one that beats down people not deemed important enough by his narrative. Which makes it identical to the one we’re reading. Throw all the unnecessary characters in the trash. Kill them off, if it suits my purposes. The world doesn’t need Nepeta.

Which is precisely why it does. Because isn’t defying Lord English the entire point? Isn’t it what Homestuck reveals as truly heroic?

What might Nepeta be capable of?

Let’s talk about two other victims of English’s forces of marginalization. Davesprite might be the most quintessential example. He teaches us what the alpha timeline is and how it works, by going back to fix a doomed timeline and submitting to being doomed himself. Except he merges with a bird and avoids that fate. Okay, but he clearly gets killed off fighting Jack in Jade: Enter. Except he comes back and hangs out with Jadesprite. Okay, but he dies in the planetsplode in the Retcon. Nope, he comes back from that, too. Huh. He keeps slipping the fate decreed for him by – who else? Lord English.

But it’s a struggle, clearly. He’s caught up in various cycles of guilt and shame. Over being “not the real Dave.” Over his feeling that he has to be a hero in the sense Bro demanded he be. Hussie describes Davesprite as fitting the “way of the unbroken sword:” his experiences have led him to believe in being strong and capable at the expense of all else, in contrast with the other Dave, whose belief in Bros’ toxic ideas is beginning to slip – the “way of the broken sword.” And where did Bro get his toxic ideas from? At least in part, the whispering voice of the soul of Lord English.

Now we turn to Dirk. Like Dave, Dirk has a marginalized, “less important” splinter self but it’s more of a pressing concern. AR shows Dirk’s darker side: exhibiting manipulative tendencies that human Dirk is trying to move away from. He’s also a copy removed from humanity, who feels an understandable amount of disillusionment about being removed from physical existence and his own identity. But as much as Dirk may splinter, like his dumb anime sword, he never breaks. What this means in the symbolic language of Homestuck is that Dirk lives fully, instinctually, in the way of the sword. He believe in a world of hard choices, masculine heroism, and necessity. Ultimately, this, too, is part of what makes Bro so harmful to Dave. In AR and Davesprite, we have a strange parallel: two splinter selves, both of whom are enmeshed in the logic of LE.

Except AR, unlike Davesprite…kind of is LE.

What is Lord English composed of? Well, there’s Caliborn, the most unrepentant shithead of all time. There’s Gamzee, embodiment of horrifying clownery. And then there’s AR, a version of Dirk even more removed from the person he wants to be.

And…Equius?

Allow me a moment to get really indulgent and take a big puff on my Homestuck scholar’s pipe.

The metaphorical meaning of Equius in Homestuck is: sort of growing out of being a creepy racist.

Or maybe let’s say: the opportunity to do that. We said that Equius was on the verge of being redeemed (even had been, in the eyes of many readers). What does it mean to stick him in with Lord English’s souls? It means two things:

1) Equius is a product of his society, which was shaped by Doc Scratch, aka by Lord English, both of whom are kind of him, but Scratch picks up on his traits especially. This is a recognition of that fact: the part of him that sucks is, itself, Lord English in a dizzying loop.

2) Equius’s story is a tragedy. It is the story of a kid who started to escape his society’s tendencies, but was sucked back in by the evil force behind them.

Although…maybe that’s not the whole story.

Because both Equius and AR aren’t really that bad. AR’s pretty understandable, and by no means beyond the possibility of goodness. And the combination of the two? Honestly, pretty harmless. They counter each other’s worst tendencies by devolving into a weird goofball. In fact, AR even says he wants to do something heroic: to sacrifice himself for something really important. He does, kind of, mustering a last-ditch robohorse assault on Caliborn. But at the same time, this is the substance of his tragedy. A hero whose defeat of a great evil forces him to become the substance of that evil. Which could not be a more fitting summary of how these characters function in their story.

But maybe that’s still not the whole story.

Enter Davepeta.

At first glance, the creation of Davepeta seems like Hussie’s most batshit troll move yet. I feel pretty confident in saying that even those who predicted either of these characters returning didn’t see that one coming. However, a few pages of Davepeta’s presence reveals a fundamental truth:

Davepeta is fucking amazing.

In them, Davesprite’s depressive moods are buoyed up by Nepeta’s upbeat optimism. Nepeta’s reclusive shyness is balanced by Dave’s tendency toward brash banter. Both of them gain confidence from being the new person they are. They quickly let go of ideas inherited from the world that kept them from self-knowledge and happiness. Dave, his toxic masculinity; Nepeta, her fear.

A great point I’ve seen made is how much Jasprose and Davepeta resemble fantasy selves for Rose and Dave: indulgent, technicolor manifestations of people they could be if they let go of inhibitions and limitations. But I think Davepeta is the most unambiguously positive of the two.

The metaphorical meaning of Davepeta in Homestuck?

Growth.

Not giving a fuck about what the world thinks. The world, aka Lord English. Because Lord English could never have predicted that his machinations would also spawn a confident, powerful fusion of two beings he had discarded as totally irrelevant.

They’re also a multicolored non-binary furry, so that’s even more points in the pissing off shitheads column.

They are someone Lord English never conceived of, never could have conceived of, but which lay as potential within his domain all along.

And if Lord English is a reflection of the author, of what Hussie feels one has to destroy or sacrifice, than Davepeta is an indulgence existing in defiance of all that.

And this makes Davepeta the most powerful person of all.

They are the light at the end of the tunnel. They are the person you could be, if you could get past your mental shackles and just grow. It may not be possible to ever get there as a mortal human, may only be for a godlike sprite, but striving to be like them matters, is purpose and fulfilment enough.

And they love ARquius.

Nepeta believed in Equius, believed he could grow, and was growing. So as much as ARquius traps himself in a Lord English loop of his own making – grown, perhaps, out of Dirk’s belief that there should be a loop, that importance is admirable—Davepeta pulls from him, in his last scene, his finest qualities. His love.

Equius asks forgiveness again, and this time, Nepeta’s able to give it. Davepeta easily accepts ARquius’s apology, an apology which never could have existed within the confines of a normal narrative. A reconciliation that both of them fought for by defying their narrative, by existing outside it. By being not the trolls who lived and died, but their broader, conceptual selves, who exist beyond lifetimes. Beyond the comic page. And they consummate that reconciliation with that most cherished and loving of gestures:

A hug.

And even as this is Equius and Nepeta’s reconciliation, it’s also Dirk and Dave’s. Which, I should mention, is also taking place, simultaneously and circumstantially simultaneously, just below. It’s a more difficult one, certainly, especially as filtered through the splinters of Davesprite and AR. Here forgiveness is not quite the right word. But – knowledge, and recognition, and a kind of peace. It’s Davesprite’s chance to reunite with the part of his brother he loved, while also being a person who’s grown beyond him. And it’s AR’s chance to be loved.

Oh, sure, the art is ridiculous, the pose absurd. But that’s what makes it sublime.

I mean, what did you think that Sbahj comic was really about?

A boy distancing himself from his feelings through irony, never acknowledging that the story he’s telling is about two bros who desperately want to hug each other, but don’t know how.

Here’s the hug.

I want to dip into Epilogues territory for a moment, but it’s territory which is fairly well implied by Davepeta’s statements and role in Collide. The Meat Epilogue, I think, only illuminates what was already there.

Lord English is uniquely vulnerable to Davepeta.

And why shouldn’t he be? They, like so much else in Homestuck, are a consequence of his actions spiraling far beyond his control. But it’s more than that. Davepeta is finally able to lay the unbroken sword to rest by following the “prophecy” about Dave defeating Lord English. On the one hand, that’s kind of what happened. But it’s also completely different from what English intended, antithetical to his desires and goals. Which makes the victory all the sweeter. But at the end of the day, Davepeta doesn’t fight for the reasons Davesprite did. They’re free of that, now. Instead, they fight from a place of genuine compassion. Because Davesprite, like Dave, knows the true meaning of being a hero: caring about one’s friends.

But the most important thing about Davepeta is that they know Lord English, on a level that perhaps neither he nor they recognize. Both AR and Equius are in there, and both are capable of redemption. It’s only Gamzee and Caliborn who are truly beyond it.

How does Davepeta defeat Lord English?

With a hug.

They wrap their claws around him, and carry him into the sun like a piece of garbage. It’s an aggressive hold, but it’s also effectively an embrace.

And I have to wonder: in those final moments, did they sense a connection there? Did Equius and Dirk stir somewhere within Lord English? Did they give him a moment’s pause? Resist him? Make it just the tiniest bit easier for Davepeta to do their work?

If so, then that, too, is heroism.

At the very least, it’s circumstantially simultaneous with the hug we see in Act 6, and so it carries the same message:

Redemption.

Not for the shitheads, but for those who wanted to be better.

And if this isn’t enough, there’s a third reconciliation here, too: between author and reader, or to put it in other terms, author and character.

If Lord English is a shadow of the author, what part of the author can be redeemed? Maybe not the destructive, antagonistic urges. But the part that plans and designs and philosophizes as Dirk does. That part of Hussie wanted Davepeta to be there, to strike that final blow, and made it happen.

Because, when you get right down to it, as much as Hussie pretends to be antagonistic toward his readers and the characters they enjoy, it’s the fans, the shippers, the furries, those whose hearts go out to a cute, shy cat girl that he most celebrates.

Hussie fucking loves Nepeta.

Nepeta and Equius are, sneakily, the best characters in Homestuck, because they understand its fundamental message: that to succeed in Homestuck is to defy Homestuck. They defy everything it throws at them, and somehow, improbably, come out on top.

All of this is there on that page, a whole edifice of storytelling culminating in that singular, grand, supremely indulgent expression, a feast of looping leitmotif and color and imagery and meme and sound. It’s all there, if you know where to look.

Nepeta and Equius love each other, and that’s pretty fucking great.

See? I told you.

<> Ari

[burningthemidnightcityoil]

STRANGE TAKE AWAYS FROM HS^2

I know, I know. This is one troll bug attracted to a plush plump ass that has gotten many a homestucker up in a tizzy.

But I am gonna dive head first into it, and brave the many many plump plush rumps.

Inception Mirroring. There is a strange amount of HS and HS^2 Mirroring going on, and the absolute biggest is with Jade. Lemme explain. A Witch’s Journey is about their Familiars, and taking power for or back from them. As a Witch of Space, Jade’s original “Familiar” was Becquerel, and she did take his power and even part of his looks. What started in the Epilogues and has continued further, is that a new (and very much unwanted) familiar has popped up: Calliope. And worse, this relationship between Alt Calliope and Jade mirrors the terrifying relationship of Doc Scratch / Lord English with Witch of Time, Damara / The Handmaid. Even right down to the Suicide Threat... Further Mirror occurs with my so far favorite new character: Yiffy. Or Ruby, if you don’t like the first name. ... Because Ruby and Jane mimics Jack and The Black Queen. And there’s already an Us vs Them war on...

Our new Players How much you wanna bet that Harry, Tavros, Vrissy and Ruby are our missing Human classpects? Thief, Mage, Sylph, Bard and Doom, Rage, Mind, Blood. (Though on the ropes about Vrissy) And I bet you, because of the controversy and contrivance of Ruby (Which is done on purpose), they’re the Rage Player. Harry’s association with creation marks him a Sylph. Vrissy as a Troll already holds the idea of Blood, and she’s already inherited quite a bit from our Vriska. And Tavros; poor sweet Precious Tavros... Holding the Moniker of Doom.

Event Horizons Where Homestuck proper had Doomed Timelines, we here now have “Doomed Spaces”. Which I have dubbed so far as Event Horizons, as these Doomed Spaces get sucked into the Black / White Hole when they “Stop being Canon”. We’re now exploring the opposite side of the Doomed Timeline, and its probably got something to do with Hope (the idea of Narrative Causality and Belief; and what Canon means here)

Messiahs and Wizards Karkat and his entire bloodline is associated with Messiah figures. As Trolls are foundationally Blood Aspected, it would make sense that the prime time chosen one is a Blood Player. This makes John Humanity’s prime time chosen one, as Humans are foundationally Breath Aspected; and better yet, we even have “sacred” Icons in the form of Wizard Statues anyway and everywhere. An Idea spread across the Human Unconscious, as opposed to the very real and legendary figures of Trolls. Mind, that lot of John’s Wizardly associations also bring him into contact with the one major wizardly figure in real world mythology and religion: Odin. (Via the Harlequinn). And our John is dead. Funny thing is... So was Odin, once. Me thinks it won’t stick.

Ultima Dirk Dude, this guy basically ate a lot of his alternative selves. One of which was Bro, one of which was the amalgamation that is Doc Scratch, and that means he definitely had a chunk of Cherub ass that is Lord English. But as Brain Ghost Dirk shows, not all Dirks are about that shit. We still got a chance to knock this doofus out of his dower power trip. If only we knew what the fine fillery fuckery he’s gonna do... Anyway. The Thing and Think about Ultimate selves... is that you gotta take a step back and see this in terms of Video Game Logic. This is what happens when Player Characters become actual Players themselves. Imagine if the dude you’ve RP’d as in Elder Scrolls decided to take a step up and control the narrative himself; and this comes with the caviate of remembering all the times you’ve fucked up and gotten him killed, all the times you’ve decided to just “see what happens”, or even broke character. And that also starts including every Fanfic you’ve written him in, every AU, that one time you put him in Fallout, that other time you threw him in Minecraft. Basically, the very Idea of the Character becomes your Equal. As the SCP foundation would put it... Dirk has started to rise to our Narrative Level, but is just not quite there yet.

Droog and Dad Oh come on, you knew this was gonna show up. We already know this is an alternate universe, and definitely not the intermission one (Especially with Slick’s death), and we now have confirmation that part of Snowman’s powers is to basically teleport across the Multiverse and change things with wild abandon. This... - Gives an explanation as to how and why the Felt can teleport Timelines without accidentally dooming themselves like our God Heroes can and do. - Means that Snowman can outright manipulate full timelines without having to touch the Alpha, and do so for as long as she possibly wants. - Further proves Snowman is a Sylph of Mind (Because only Mind Players go that deep into shit and have Multiverse powers) As for what’s going on in the background... - Droog left the Midnight Crew, because apparently Slick started to get majorly involved with Snowman (Possibly even romantically rather than hatredly). As there are plenty of Literary parallels between Snowman and Droog (For one thing, they both say “Hey Assholes”), this is almost like choosing your lover over your best friend. - Droog is a manifestation of Moiraillegence, which Alternia Trolls associate with Pity (Rather than, y’know, real empathy and support); Of Course the asshole is gonna be Self Pitying. - This story displays a reality of what would happen if Droog had left. As the HC’d Mage of Blood, and Blood being about Bonds, Attachments, and Promises: This would seriously fuck Droog up (Because he is all about that shit; and here his closest allies dumped on him hard). [ This is all likely purposely set up by Snowman; she put him in a position to leave; something we know that not even a genocide of Carapacians can force DD to do ]

 Roxy I’ve been nicknaming him Roxas

The Fear of Two Calliopes The reason Meat side Calliope is probably freaking out bad, is because the appearance of Alt Calliope in the same space is real bad news. Paradox Space doesn’t like Doubles, Triples, Quadrupals of anything; (See the major battle of Jack Noirs that ended in all but one Dead) Our Calliope runs a very real risk of dying horribly, because Alt Calliope as a fully realized Muse of Space is uber powerful and will absolutely trump her in the balance of Paradox Space “No two of the same thing will inhabit the same space”.

Fear of the Prince Ever wonder why Dirk is terrified of his quasi-Grandchild? Ruby is a Rage Player, and depending on her Class (probably a Thief?), she’s gonna be a major problem. After all, Dirk’s created Narrative is full of bullshit; and there’s no player better to handle narrative bullshit than a Rage Player (What is a God to a Nonbeliever?) Rage is perfect when you’re going up against hostile or bullshit narratives and their equally assholish narrators. Blood may be Reality, Doom maybe the Ultimate Reality, Void is the Physical Reality, Heart is the Emotional Reality... but Rage is Reality as it actually is-- random, not always having an explaination, and its never a straightforward story narrative; Rage is Real in the sense that we, the audience, naturally experience it and hate to see it written down (because natural experience as it is, never makes sense written down unless it plays out like a Story or Narrative) Life is confusing, its not fair, it doesn’t make sense. That is Rage (and is also the reason why Life is Rage’s reflection and vice versa). And Rage will pull that reality to the forefront.

[autumnblogs]

Day 13: Double Mobius Reacharound

https://homestuck.com/story/2073

Of all the characters in Homestuck, Sollux’s self-hatred is probably the most exaggerated, exacerbated no doubt by his role in the death of his girlfriend and his psychic brain. I like him, he’s an alright guy, and I wish I had more to say about him to be honest. I guess if there was one thing I was going to say about him, I think I said it already - Sollux serves as a mirror image of Dave, and Sollux’s decision to bow out early probably foreshadows the way that Dave will eventually decide that fighting is not for him.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/2082

How does Paradox Space know which angel to use? This is a bit of an odd moment. Maybe I’m missing the refrance, but I’ve never quite understood why Terezi reacts this way, with all of the additional periods. Sollux seems quizzical, but Terezi doesn’t react.

Also, this is the first in a serious of lines I’m going to be examining in relation to Aradia. Keep that on the back of your thinkpan.

https://homestuck.com/story/2085

Sollux and Aradia have a very sweet, tragic little relationship, and even though it doesn’t last into the longterm, I’ve always enjoyed these two together.

https://homestuck.com/story/2101

Whether retroactively, or intentionally, the sensual scantily clad fairies in Tavros’ room are a lot more noticeable on re-reads. Tavros has a pretty unassuming demeanor, and I’m not here to trash him pointlessly, but I think that Tavros has some pretty troubling patterns of behavior that can go unexamined because of the fact that he’s a victim. More on that as we go.

https://homestuck.com/story/2112

Far from a passing fancy, Tavros’ interest in animals does seem to be genuine. I wonder if he had a little farm with a bunch of these critters. We never get to see much of his other Fiduspawn if he has any.

https://homestuck.com/story/2114

Karkat and Tavros both do this, which I think is interesting because of the fact that they have opposite relationships with sleep and dreaming - Tavros spends most of his time in game asleep and dreaming of Prospit, Karkat has horrible insomnia.

https://homestuck.com/story/2122

Our very first conversation with Vriska has her tune in pretty much entirely to bully Tavros. The interesting thing is, while Vriska’s treatment of Tavros is pretty objectively bad, the way that she harasses him is actually pretty closely in line with the way that other trolls treat their friends, mutual aggression and nastiness. Vriska’s aggression isn’t addressed at someone who’s responding in kind though - Tavros is gentle where other trolls are vicious, deferential where other trolls are assertive. It’s this contrast that makes the shamefulness of Vriska’s behavior obvious to pretty much everyone but her.

https://homestuck.com/story/2123

Gamzee and Tavros are a ship tease that didn’t really end up going anywhere, but one of the things I think is interesting is the way Gamzee’s language goes from extremely lackadaisical and chill to kind of energetically violent around Tavros. Most of the time, Gamzee’s pretty laidback, but there’s a lot of language relating to murder in Gamzee’s enthusiasm here.

https://homestuck.com/story/2127

While Terezi’s Dragon doesn’t really have much of a choice in terms of its relative absence from her life, the sparse communication between the two and emotional distance is, I think, a parallel with Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/2128

Because of the fact that we don’t get as much of a look into the Trolls’ home lives, it’s less easy to narrow down what their “finer” anxieties are, but it’s clear that they follow the same pattern of having their sleeping selves wake up as a result of internal synthesis of some kind - confronting their subconscious anxieties, and consciously accepting a part of their reality that they’ve been deliberately shutting out.

There’s probably a number of things that were instrumental to waking up for Terezi, not the least of which is accepting that Vriska is not the friend that Terezi thought she was - waking up to the fact that she was being used by an abuser in a co-dependent relationship. Coming to terms with her blindness could represent growth into a healthier sense of self, one where she finds validation internally and in healthy friend and family relationships. All that being said, her relationship with Vriska is still her most important relationship, and realizing that a problem exists is only the first step in solving it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2134

Time to stop being cagey about it, I guess. I have long viewed Aradia’s story as being one that is about surviving depression, which I say as a depression survivor. I relate heavily to the language that Homestuck uses to describe Aradia’s lack of passion and lack of enjoyment of things that she used to enjoy - especially the way that she lashes out destructively to try and alleviate her boredom and frustration.

https://homestuck.com/story/2137

On an unrelated note, Aradia has the Crosbytop. I believe I’m starting to remember how it got into her hands.

https://homestuck.com/story/2139

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that Kanaya’s language directly mirrors Karkat’s from when he was harassing Jade, but their sentiment is almost precisely the opposite. She borrows another Karkatism almost immediately. So pretty much from the word go, we’re clued into the fact that Kanaya and Karkat have some relationship with each other that goes beyond the purely familiar, in the same way that Dave and John’s tendency to mirror each other’s language helps us to understand their friendship.

For a girl who doesn’t feel too many emotions, Aradia can be pretty sassy.

https://homestuck.com/story/2144

I have a friend who’s a bit of a Vriska kinnie (and feel like I’m pretty Vriska-esque myself), and one of the things that we both do that I’m seeing in Vriska here is fill dead air with chatter. I could be reading into it a little, but I think it should be a clue that Vriska is an intensely anxious kind of character.

https://homestuck.com/story/2145

In a parallel to Sollux’s introduction, we can’t immediately be Vriska. We couldn’t be Sollux because he was too busy stewing in his own self-criticism. There’s a push and pull going on between Vriska’s narcissism and her over-the-top self-deprecation.

https://homestuck.com/story/2150

I might be pulling this out of my ass, but I feel like there’s a case to be made for Aradia and Vriska actually being pretty strong parallels to each other - the only two trolls to get the tiger, faciliitators of destiny, devil-may-care grave-robbers. I don’t actually have a fully formed thought to really draw the two together, but I feel like there’s really something there. The way that Aradia puts Sollux to sleep here in order to ensure that the Right Disasters befall him is parallel to the way that Vriska puts people to sleep at clever points to make sure that Jack is created, and so on and so forth.

Maybe in the same way that Sollux serves as a parallel to Dave and helps us to understand what the right decision is for Dave, Aradia parallels Vriska and helps us to understand that roughly the same things are good for the two of them. Much later, (Vriska) basically chooses the same path of staying out of harm’s way and trying to enjoy the rest of her relatively eternal existence.

https://homestuck.com/story/2161

As soon as Karkat talks about Kanaya with anyone else, he further reinforces there is a friendship between the two of them.

Another quick note, as long as we’re here, I’ve kind of been putting this off, but I suppose with the one and only use of “autistic” as an insult in the comic, it’s finally time for me to bring this up:

Homestuck has a pretty problematic relationship with victims of abuse and people suffering from mental and physical disabilities. While on the one hand like, almost all of Homestuck’s main characters are disabled and abuse sufferers in some way or another, there are a lot of ways in which it’s not so charitable to them.

Some of it is stuff like this - early Homestuck uses the word retarded a lot as an insult, and has this single instance of autistic - all in all, that kind of language is problematic but in and of itself, not too egregious - Homestuck is a product of its time in that respect.

Stuff that I take issue with is more subtle - mostly stuff surrounding Jake and Tavros. I’ll have more to say on it later, but I wanted to find a good natural time to bring it up, and now seemed like a fine time.

https://homestuck.com/story/2162

Nepeta and Equius give us some information that helps grow our understanding of troll culture. We’ve already had some conversation about whose blood is better than whose from Sollux, but Equius starts to help us understand that some trolls take blood color extremely seriously.

These kids may not replicate the social anxieties of earthlings 1:1 but they still have plenty of things to be anxious about. The more I read Hiveswap the more I become convinced that most of these characters were never people we were meant to become terribly invested in - a lot of the function of the trolls, from a narrative perspective, is to give us parallels to the human main characters and insight into their lives, as well as to give us exposition on just how Sburb works exactly. And then most of them are pretty promptly killed off or put on a bus once their purpose is served (or in order to serve their purpose!)

Back to the subject of the social anxieties that the trolls have to deal with, Alternia is all about hierarchy baby.

https://homestuck.com/story/2173

Vriska may be a born cheater, but I’ve always sort of gotten the impression, based on the killer nature of FLARPING which is alluded to plenty in other situations, that if she’s cheating here, it may be the kind of cheating that is encouraged.

Between that and the way that Tavros and Aradia were discussing the “True Spirit of Flarping,” I can’t help but remember a description of the way propaganda works from some time ago. Propaganda doesn’t usually follow the story arc we are accustomed to, where we start with a character or characters who do not yet possess the tools or abilities they need to succeed, grow to overcome their weakness, and then overcome the problem that they couldn’t before.

Propaganda, instead, introduces us to characters who are already strong, facing enemies who are weak, or problems who are easy. They are strong because they are the heroes! Their enemies are weak. And the function of it is to intimidate the enemies of the person putting out the propaganda, and to rile up aggressive sentiment in those who are on the side of the propagandist.

We’ve already talked about how, in Homestuck “roleplaying” in both its more figurative and literal uses, is a way in which characters act out society’s expectations for them. In that way, I can’t help but view FLARPING as something of a propaganda tool itself, and one that’s pretty integral to Vriska’s way of thinking throughout the comic.

You’re either someone who is strong, or someone who is weak, and if you’re strong, you’re one of the victors, if you’re weak, you’re one of the losers, and you deserve whatever the victors decide what to do with you.

What I guess I’m building up to here is that there are real world societies that Troll Culture seems like an exaggerated parody of - particularly the more militaristic aspects of the Romans, and the Spartans. I’m going to wait for another time to write down all my thoughts about them, because this is turning into a bit of an essay, but suffice to say, it’s probably going to coincide with the one about Patriarchy whenever I get around to it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2175

There’s an interesting thing going on here between the way that Tavros is drawn (nearly identical to his imagine spot about flying around on Prospit), and the way that his erratic behavior isn’t actually all that different from the way characters normally do absurd and dangerous things here.

I’m by no means excusing what Vriska is doing here, but I think that between the fact that Tavros already wants to fly anyway, and the fact that again, characters do this kind of self-destructive thing in Homestuck all the time anyway, although to less of an exaggerated degree, Andrew is drawing a parallel between the narrative prompts from the Exiles, Vriska’s manipulations, and the intrusive thoughts that we already have on our own anyway.

Vriska manipulates Tavros the way that Doc Scratch manipulates her, although considerably clumsier, by getting him to do what he already wants to anyway.

https://homestuck.com/story/2177

That’s really all there is to say on the matter.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

In the same way that Bro manipulates Dave by imposing an idea of what it means to be a man on him - someone who can be beaten within an inch of his life, or beat someone else to within an inch of his life without batting an eye - Vriska tries to manipulate Tavros throughout his arc, and this kind of so-called “tough love” is just the start of it.

There’s a lot of supplementary material that delves deeper into Vriska’s rationale for her mistreatment of Tavros, but she makes it clear herself as we go through the comic that she at least justifies her mistreatment of Tavros by telling herself that the purpose of it is to toughen him up (so he can be one of the strong people, a winner who gets the girl.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2178

As he often is about what’s going on with other people when he’s distracted from thinking about himself by his own agitation, Karkat is probably right about Vriska - girls like her are a dime a dozen in the upper classes, and that’s the point. The point of troll society is to produce people like Vriska amongst the highbloods.

https://homestuck.com/story/2195

Let’s dig into Vriska’s self-stylization as an apocalypse buff for a second because it’s not something I think gets talked about a lot.

Apocalypticism is, in my estimation, kind of a form of generational narcissism. There are doomsayers in every generation, who claim that this is it - this new catastrophe, this new social situation, is the most important thing in the world to ever happen. The end is here. All of world history culminates in this.

I don’t mean to downplay the actual existential threats of our generation of course; climate change, late capitalism, that sort of thing. But I think Vriska’s Apocalypse Buffery fits pretty well into her need to be the most important person in Paradox Space all the time.

On another note, Luck in Homestuck is very closely related with a few concepts like Agency in Homestuck through the Aspect of Light. Terezi will later assert that luck doesn’t matter at all. What’s up with that?

Maybe Luck and Karma are two sides of the same coin (ha!) Both of them are pieces in the puzzle of Theodicy, that is to say, the metaphysics question of why there is bad in the world.

Someone like Vriska (at the beginning of her arc) would say that it’s happenstance - bad things and good things can happen to bad and good people, there’s no greater meaning behind it. Vriska has a hard time taking responsibility for her own actions - her locus of control is external, for the most part.

Terezi on the other hand mostly attributes everything to a person’s actions, hence the need to punish bad people, and reward good ones. Terezi would say that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Her locus of control is internal.

Maybe the answer is both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/2202

Just as Vriska’s introduction is through a conversation with her victim, so Doc Scratch’s introduction is through a conversation with his victim. Or at least, his most immediate victim.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

https://homestuck.com/story/2204

Kanaya pretty well sums up here what I was getting at when talking about Terezi and Vriska’s different locuses of control.

There’s no real good or bad luck here. Good luck for someone is bad luck for someone else, often enough. What “good luck” means to Vriska is that events go down the way that she personally wants them to.

And so, by seizing control and power in situations where she is helpless, the Thief of Light ensures that she always has all the luck.

Kanaya might not be right, by the way, not 100%. I’m not a stoic. You can’t just magically wish away suffering by deciding that actually, you’re 0k with it, anymore than Aradia can. Like I said, the truth probably lies somewhere between Luck and Karma.

https://homestuck.com/story/2207

While the terrifying violent monitor and the emotionally abusive manipulator are bifurcated, Vriska has a lot of the same emotional responses to her guardians as Dave does to his singular guardian - notice the similar, self-soothing language that Vriska’s narrative employs compared to the way that Dave self-sooths when trying to convince himself that the way Bro treats him is just fine and normal.

https://homestuck.com/story/2211

Equius to me is a super interesting character, because on the one hand, he’s a joke character Andrew uses to antagonize the audience by being gross but Andrew also uses him to say the quiet part loud - Homestuck is already, to begin with, a pretty lewd webcomic full of horny characters whose emotional hangups and destructive relationships with societal norms sabotage their chances at happiness. That’s all Equius is. His entire function from start to finish, aside from a source of ribald humor, is to draw attention to the fact that everyone in this comic is looking for comfort in someone else’s body, comfort from the way that unrealistic societal expectations and their attempts to live up to them don’t match up to what’s inside of their heart. Equius is a parody of Homestuck inside of Homestuck. Absurdly overpowered, ridiculously horny, all twisted up inside.

https://homestuck.com/story/2220

The language here that Equius uses - degenerate - is evocative of the sorts of right-wing authoritarian hate mongers that Equius’ ideology stands in for. Equius, of course, has doubts about said ideology, which he starts to express through transgressive relationships pretty much as soon as we meet him, like the one with Aradia. The fact that he can’t make sense of the warring ideas inside of him almost literally kills him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2221

Except that what kills him literally is a shitty clown.

I think what’s going on here is interesting, because if you want to read Equius as like, Homestuck in a nutshell, Equius’ ideological hangups are co-morbid with his sexual hangups, and resolving one set would probably go a long way toward resolving the other set. Equius is, for lack of a better term, a deviant. The sorts of things that excite him (here, viscerally) don’t match up with his idea of how troll society is supposed to be.

Equius and Gamzee are confronting each other with a different vision for what Troll Society is supposed to be like.

https://homestuck.com/story/2222

In stark contrast to the shallow and insincere hostility of Trolls who are actually friends with each other, Vriska and Equius maintain a veneer of social grace as they mutually plan to backstab each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/2237

Vriska is pretty clearly projecting here, but she’s also 100% right. I guess when you know somebody, you know them. Or it could be happenstance.

Her view of redemption is also transactional. “I will make things the way they were before, and things can go back to being the way that they were,” she seems to say. It’s a very legalistic view of it, and while it might have a place in a justice system, even the extremely legalistic Terezi can tell that that wouldn’t actually fix anything. Maybe the physical and emotional damage could be repaired in theory, but if the actors in the situation don’t change themselves in fundamental ways, this is all just going to recur in the future.

Forgiveness isn’t something an abuser can earn - nobody has the right to claim that they have restored a relationship that they destroyed in the first place by demonstrating token repentance.

https://homestuck.com/story/2238

If Andrew already had in mind that Equius should in some way be a part of the gestalt of souls that is Lord English, he’s foreshadowing it early here by comparing Equius’ voyeuristic habits to Scratch’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/2244

I’ll lay my cards on the table and say I think that Doc Scratch can present the facts 100% and still be dishonest. I’m a compatibilist - I think that Free Will and Accountability are compatible with the idea of a deterministic universe. Doc Scratch doesn’t have to talk anyone into anything, but the material conditions that led everyone to the decisions that they chose to make were orchestrated by Lord English. Scratch may not be making any decisions here that effect the outcomes, sure, but the game was rigged in his favor from the start.

Again, I’m not excusing Vriska’s actions here. But for the same reason that we wouldn’t blame Tavros for jumping off of a cliff just because trying to fly is something he already wanted to do to begin with, I think it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Doc Scratch is at least partially responsible for creating this little monster.

Vriska’s complicated. Let’s move on so this whole post doesn’t turn into more Vriskourse. That’s the last thing anyone needs.

https://homestuck.com/story/2258

You know you’re going to anyway.

I guess what intrigues me so much about this section is the gradation between manipulation and coercion.

https://homestuck.com/story/2263

Vriska might be a born cheater, but Doc Scratch is a sore loser.

She’s pretty easy to root for when she’s against him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2269

Man, Act 5 Act 1 is just absolutely lousy with conversation about choice and luck.

https://homestuck.com/story/2276

Part of what creates ambiguity in terms of how much Vriska’s choices are her nature versus the conditions that shaped it is on display here in her conversation with Aradia.

Vriska doesn’t really know how to interact with people positively, like, at all. Nobody’s ever taught her. She doesn’t know what it means to be a friend to someone. She doesn’t know what it means to help someone. She doesn’t know how to be loved or forgiven.

Is this like the scorpion and the frog? Or does she have free will? (I’ll give you a hint, it’s the second one.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2280

This whole sequence is just a delight. The trolls are really just such disaster people, and if I can be excused, it’s easy to put more emotional distance between myself and say, Equius, than it is between myself and Vriska and Terezi. Like I said, Equius says the quiet part out loud, so there’s really nothing much to analyze there.

Aradia’s inability to control the ribbits is part of a general mood of a lack of control that she has as a character. Vriska’s lack of control causes her to rage at the heavens and lash out at the people around her. Aradia is just 0k with it, and neither is a healthy coping strategy. The result is that the two of them break a lot of shit.

https://homestuck.com/story/2305

For the first time in his life, Karkat is not alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/2319

I could really be mistaken here, but the way this whole sequence is presented here really feels, on an archival reread, to be telling me, “You do not need to care about these characters.” Certainly they serve a function in the story, but with the exception of a few of them (literally only a third of them), they serve as tools in an authorial toolbox to help flesh out the setting - not so unlike the Carapacians actually, but with a lot more personality.

https://homestuck.com/story/2323

Kanaya is threefold one of the few of her kind, making her extra special. While she is closest with Rose, she’s a clear parallel to Jade, who if memory serves, suffered frequent accustations of being a Mary Sue early on. Kanaya’s level of specialness (in terms of combined rare factors) outcompetes even Jade’s. Probably a part of the playfully antagonistic style of Homestuck in general.

https://homestuck.com/story/2338

It slipped my mind earlier that the honey on Sollux’s hands was being directly juxtaposed with Dave’s blood on his own hands, and here Kanaya’s.  All three of them are, to some extent or another, contemplating their mortality. As Kanaya said just a few panels ago though, death is confusing without the finality. Just another way that Homestuck plays with the nomenclature of endings and beginnings and intermissions and brings into question the usefulness of those categories.

https://homestuck.com/story/2343

I have always enjoyed the dynamic that Kanaya and Eridan share with each other, and I wish there were more conversations of her just dunking on him.

Also of note in this little conversation is the way that Kanaya and John mirror each other’s language. This is an example though where they could not possibly be mirroring it the way that Dave and John might be when they’re talking about Bec, or the way that she and Karkat might be. They have, it seems, the same penchant for mischief.

https://homestuck.com/story/2345

Like her counterparts from Universe B, Kanaya’s preoccupation with relationships and personal contact is made manifest through her Squiddle Lunchtop.

https://homestuck.com/story/2350

Both of the main Pages in Homestuck are characters whose primary usefulness is seen through their ability to make friends and broker alliances. I suspect that being a Page in Sburb is to some extent a bit like being an ADC in League of Legends.

The ADC or Attack Damage Carry, if you’re not familiar with the nomenclature, is a character who starts the game weak, and remains vulnerable throughout such that the whole team has to play babysitter. If you think that sounds unappealing to play, you’d be right - it can be pretty hard to find someone willing to play ADC, especially with the popularity of high-risk high-reward Asassins (not so unlike a thief!) who are their direct counter.

In spite of their relative vlunerability, the ADC has absolutely dominated the meta of League of Legends for the past ten years for the simple reason that there is absolutely no substitute when it comes to controlling objectives.

Maybe Pages are a little bit like that. Frustrating to be one, frustrating to have one around, but extremely rewarding to invest in. It’s too bad nobody can be arsed to give them the emotional support they need to flourish. Too bad they have such... intractible character flaws.

https://homestuck.com/story/2356

Kanaya’s inability to stop mothering people sabotages her chance at winning Vriska’s affection - no doubt because Vriska has misread the situation as Kanaya being her romantic rival for Tavros’s attention. For the better, I guess, since Rosemary is my shit.

Trolls sure are weird.

https://homestuck.com/story/2369

Vriska has already figured out the point of Sburb, and perhaps the ultimate riddle, although she clearly hasn’t figured out the ramifications of it yet.

In any case, it should be clear how she has interpreted Sburb’s directive - authenticate your own existence through reproduction.

Being a winner, having self-worth, being able to justify your own existence means being strong enough, smart enough, pretty enough to shape the rest of existence in your own image.

She’s missing a critical detail, and its absence means she has it completely backwards.

https://homestuck.com/story/2370

We already know what is on the other side of the portal. Vriska is making herself out to be the final boss.

The final boss and the treasure are the same thing, in her mind.

The struggle is the objective.

The fighting is the point.

https://homestuck.com/story/2374

Just wanted to take a second to say that this whole sequence is so unnerving and horrible that I was sure she was going to murder, violate, and/or eat him, not necessarily in that order, the first time I read through this.

The sad reality is, this is the fucked up courtship ritual of a girl who has no idea how to be intimate with other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2391

And that’s where we’ll pause for the night, having finished nearly 300 pages as promised.

Hope I wasn’t getting too lazy there at the end.

I’m enjoying my weekend.

Hope that yinz enjoy yours once it rolls around.

For now, Alive and Not Sober, Cam signing off.

[polandspringz]

Can you tell us something about the villain turned side character and your protagonist:0

First, thank you for sending an ask! I've been wanting to share stuff from my original work for so long, but there's a lot of context since the story is so big so for context to these characters I'll give a very brief overview. (If someone wants a more detailed version I'll give it!)

It's a fantasy story set mainly in the kingdom/country of Ruyzex that was founded only within the last thirty years or so, and the stories those who witnessed it's liberation say that it was led by one man who lead the "war campaign" but negotiated without anyone having to fight a single battle. This man was supposedly blessed with magical abilities and many of the people who knew he view him as God, but one day he became a nomad and abandoned everyone, including his son, who always resented him. As such, people believe a fight between the son is to blame for their "God's" departure.

The story ACTUALLY follows three women who are "amnesiac heroes", who wake up with no memory beyond the horrible conditions they are found in as victims of trafficking, before they are rescued. Each of these women have magical powers like the God who left, and while they do not know how to use them, many people believe that they are their God returned or at least can be turned into him or replace him... or be brainwashed into replacing someone else who was lost.

My protagonist is a young woman named Dreil Ruyzex, who not knowing her own name took the name of her "home" (the town and country she was rescued in). She wakes up with her first memory being bloodshed, finding her kidnappers murdered beyond recognition around her and is terrified. She is rescued by a mysterious man who brings her to someone named Seio, who is the son of the governor of the southern most city, and lives in a house for people who were rescued and displaced and brought to Ruyzex through trafficking. While gaining her bearings there and becoming close with the other victims, Dreil awakens her powers due to several stressful events, and she is terrified, because she realizes that she had been the one to transform into a blind rage and eviscerate her captors, but she also has the power to heal people. Dreil doesn't particularly want to use her powers because she's scared of losing it and hurting everyone she loves, and Seio tells her to keep it a secret anyway, lest the people who come and visit the town discover her powers and suspect she is "like Ruy". However, Dreil ends up having to use them and learn how to use them when the city gets raided by people who kill two of the children she was living with and kidnap one of her new friends, Mierre. Seio and the other characters want to get Mierre back, and while they've traced the possible route she was taken, they also decide it's time to confront the Queen on this matter to crackdown on the traffickers who should have been outlawed back when the kingdom was established. Dreil forces them to bring her along, insisting she would be useful as a healer, and as they journey from the south to the northern point of the country, she has to battle bandits, cults, actual demons, and eventually soldiers from the castle as she learns the history of the land she has found herself in and joins resistance efforts to uncover the corruption within the mysterious capital.

Again, I'm being VERY VERY brief and vague because there's so much so apologies if it sounds cliche/not super interesting right now. Dreil as a protagonist starts off as an amnesiac but very quickly she does remember things, like her homeland, but the place she is from is actually such a mysterious region itself. Because of her appearance, she has similar features to the God who left, Ruy, which adds to the fanatic people in the city wanting to try and "shape" her into a new Ruy, or viewing her as a gift sent by him to them. One of the original ideas that shaped this story was when I was in middle school I was reading a lot of dystopian fiction (although this isn't a dystopian society really, although we are fighting the government at one point it's not how you think, they're not the "evil" in the story), and I thought about what if there was a story where the main girl didn't really want to go on the journey that she was being called to, since normally in dystopian works something big happens or is lost and the protagonist is all "I must instantly seek my revenge." This idea has been changed quite a bit in my work, but when Dreil lives peacefully in the city for a complete year before the raid happens, and during that time she helps rescue two children from traffickers in a neighboring town- waking up one day and sensing the gaze of someone staring at her from miles away. Although they're not much younger than her (Dreil is around 19-20, the "children" are actually teenagers) they help each other heal and develop a life together.

This goes into how characters changed and have been shaped across many years of working on this story actually. Many of my characters started off as villains or had more secretive goals and beyond Dreil originally were more gray than pure good. Seio is the deuteragonist and his goal is to rescue Mierre, but Dreil doesn't have a goal. The people she would rescue are dead, so what should she do? And now everyone she knows in the house she has lived in are leaving on a journey, and leaving her behind. In early versions of the story, the children did live and were captured, and Seio wanted Dreil to come along on the journey by telling her things like "maybe we can find them!" and not really tricking her but he was sort of working with the main enemy in needing her to come with him to the capital, therefore he tried to use the children as persuasion. In the more recent drafts of the story, Seio leaves Dreil behind, and due to him being distracted and angry at what has happened to his home he does not help much when Dreil is grieving. However, a conversation with someone else convinces Dreil to run after them and force them to take her along on the journey, citing she wants not necessarily revenge on those who took from her, but wants to help end the pain the traffickers have caused once and for all (and she doesn't want to be alone).

Now if I'm going to talk about my "villain turned side character" I have to get into the whole angels and demons thing I brushed over earlier, HAHA.

It does seem very "edgy middle school OC" to have angels and demons in a story, but I grew up reading a lot of Christian fantasy stories so this is where my writing stems from. Although I don't view my story as falling into this category, I've taken a lot of influence from them and the things I wish they did in those stories. For example, one of the things that always annoyed me was the Jesus-figure in those stories was always the obvious "King" who was a mysterious man who appeared like right before the big battle where you knew he was gonna die in the fight and then come back to life because he's the Jesus metaphor and that's it. He's never a main character or one with any real depth or character, so I wanted to change that. Hence, there's a WHOLE CAN OF WORMS surrounding what I can get into about my decisions when creating Ruy, but we're not here to talk about him right now, were here to talk about one of his friends, an angel named Orielle.

In original versions of the story, Dreil and Seio and her friends had to journey to the capital of the country and rescue their friend who had been taken and battle their way through several people at the ruins of the castle. Orielle was this figure who appeared every time there was a turn in their journey, taunting them, leaving them clues to get to the castle. He appeared in the fires of the raid, he appeared in the woods and challenged Dreil to a fight where she would have to use her murderous, uncontrollable power, he stood at the top of the castle before the final battle and revealed three "weapons" he had been making, several characters who were like Dreil in that they were blessed with powers but had been kidnapped and shaped into fighting for the wrong side. Orielle existed because I needed a villain and was still working things out. He was older originally, more middle aged and spoke in a booming deep voice and always looked down with his eyes narrowed as if passing judgement. But then as time went on I created more characters and the plot points filled themselves out (there was more than just the ending battle thought up) Orielle wasn't really needed anymore because a new villain had replaced him, but to be honest I still liked his name, so I just changed who he was.

Besides Ruy, who is the "God" figure in the story and his powers are for certain established to be from some higher power that he might well be (he's also an amnesiac hero as well, when you learn about him), and Dreil and the other two protagonists, whose powers are also from the same "good" source as Ruy (but for all intents and purposes we won't say it's "heavenly" or "celestial" in it's source), there are angels and demons. Angels are different than Ruy and Dreil, and Ruy and Dreil were people who when they were created their bodies always had power within them. They have one soul, and it is the one that is able to wield their power. Angels however are created more like vessels. There were certain people in the world who were made so their bodies could withstand the use of power beyond human means, so when on one fateful chaotic day (around 14 years before the start of the story, called "the Fall of Smokeflake") the souls or spirits of the angels descended and joined with the souls of their vessels, thus now these people had angelic power they could wield, and knowledge of the mission they must do, and knowledge of the past, present, and future. They do not have access to ALL of this information, as the souls are not fully one but they act as one when talking, although sometimes in the story there are points where a character must note that the "human" or the "angel" is speaking to them more and that might be unreliable. The angels know that if their vessels knew too much it would break them, especially if the future involves a massive battle where everyone is slaughtered at the end of the journey.

So, BACK TO ORIELLE. He has become an angel, really an archangel, and appears in the story mainly through the journals left behind by Ruy, which contain the history of Ruyzex and Dreil reads along her journey to understand her own power and the mysterious man that is like her. Orielle is Ruy's guidance, as he descends early in his true spiritual form to save his God from a landslide, but Ruy rejects him and sends him away because he doesn't understand what is going on. Orielle later becomes Ruy's only ally when Ruy is locked underground for three years and Orielle stays there, still not connected with his human vessel (because his vessel was not born yet), keeping Ruy alive and sane by putting him in a stasis-like sleep and giving him dreams and memories of the war that angels and demons fought, helping to clear up his confusion and his purpose in the human world, and who Ruy is going to meet. Years later, during the main story, Orielle is in the body of his vessel, a prince born to the kingdom to the north, Meltiux, who is campaigning for his right to the throne as it is a country of matriarchs, and for some reason the two princesses of Meltiux have been missing/no one remembers them...? Orielle is met at various points throughout the main story as he is visiting in Ruyzex and the Empire of Ker, Ruyzex's neighbor to the west, not only trying to build up his diplomatic relations and make himself "worthy" of the throne but also trying to meet up with the heroes and help them along the way. Of the seven angels, he is one of three who have actually met Ruy personally, which makes him very high ranking amongst the other angels hidden throughout the world, and because he was beside Ruy for every step of the journey and the war campaign, he is the leader in the absence of their real leader.

So, that's all I'll say for now! I apologize for the length, it was kind of impossible to explain my protagonist without going into the story somewhat. And I didn't want to just be like "she's nice, she's courageous" because I don't really view my characters in traits like that? I've just been so focused on their place in the plot that their characterization is so synonymous with the story for me that I can't really separate them, lol. Thank you for the ask! I'm willing to go into more detail in follow up posts about anything since there are WAY WAY more characters than even mentioned here.

[lov3nerdstuff]

I Found

*Loki x reader*

Part: 1/8

Words: 3.3k

Warnings: mention of blood, violence, slavery, sexual stuff

Summary: Loki finds himself stranded in Underworld, a kingdom hidden deep inside a desolate planet. In order to survive, he puts himself in the service of the tyrant king, who promises to give Loki his freedom back if he fulfills one simple task. Loki is to set out and bring the mad king his newest toy: You.

~A dangerous, forbidden love. Abduction. Slavery. Tortured conscience. A mad tyrant... Escape?~

Request: A song fic based on 'I found' by Amber Run, requested by @strawberrysandcream 💗 Hope no one minds that I'm making another mini series!

All Parts can be found on my Masterlist!

__________________________________

It had been weeks since Loki had last seen the sky. Weeks since he had felt the wind in his hair, chilling him in the most pleasant manner and tousling his raven locks even more than they had previously been. Weeks since he had felt the sun's warm rays on his skin, a calming comfort bearing the promise of a day yet to come. Weeks since he had crashed on this horrible planet, been stranded in this place that consisted only of ragged rock and stone. Weeks since he had been brought into the caves, the tunnels and catacombs winding through the entire planet like an anthill, the city underneath the surface of all that cold stone. Weeks since he had managed to gain the favor of the king, pledging his unyielding loyalty to yet another ruler. This was starting to become an infestation in his life, really… changing allegiance like others changed their garments.

Yet, Loki was a smart man, to say the least. He knew what it took to survive in a seemingly inescapable purgatory like this, hell, even profit off it if he went about it correctly. And as long as he sensed a personal advantage, he was all for it. At least until he would see a chance to escape this place without drawing any severe harm to himself.

Thus it was no surprise that after a few weeks of flattery, of strategically placed opportunities to prove himself valuable and of some minor felonies, Loki became a highly valued yet not fully trusted member of the royal court of Underworld. That's what they called their kingdom… Underworld. Not very creative, in Loki's eyes. But the king was a nuisance anyway, a brutal and cruel tyrant one shouldn't underestimate; Loki had learned that quite soon. When the king asked for something, or rather demanded for something to be done, one couldn't refuse. Not if they wanted to live to see another day.

And so it came the day – or night? – when Loki was summoned to the grand throne hall. Honestly, he had lost track of whether it was day or nighttime, for life down here went by different rules anyhow. As he strode through the many narrow, torch-lit tunnels leading from his assigned quarters (a rather small cave that at least was equipped with everything he deemed necessary) towards his place of summoning, he wondered what the king might want this time around. Someone to scratch his back maybe? Or to tell another story to keep him entertained while he dined? Loki snorted at his own thoughts.

Yes, life down here was rather easy for him. He had a bed and a fireplace against the insufferable cold of the eternally ongoing stone, food and fresh water in the plenty. But he knew that not everyone was as lucky. He had been outside of the area one could consider a palace a couple times, and he had returned deeply shaken. The people of Underworld suffered, very greatly so. Certainly, there were always some people in every kingdom who suffered, for that could hardly be prevented for a longer period of time. But here, it wasn't merely some people who suffered. It was THE people. Singular form.

Loki may be mostly concerned about himself and his own affairs and well-being, but he wasn't cruel. He still had a conscience, and a heart… even though he wished he didn't, for it made his life down here so much harder to bear. Yet, he knew that there was very little he could do about that and thus the knowledge that he was highly privileged weighed heavy on his conscience at all times. He just couldn't shake it off, couldn't become the cold and heartless man he pretended to be on the outside.

As he entered the large throne hall, he cringed internally. It was stuffed with prestige objects, valuables from other realms that might have excited him in a previous life, but that now only served to him the purpose of proving the king's vanity. Had Loki himself really wanted to be like that at some point…? That version of himself seemed more distant now than ever before.

"Loki, my friend!" The king's croaky tenor voice greeted him a moment later and Loki flashed his most charming, and most fake smile.

"You called for me, your majesty?" He replied politely, bowing ever so slightly while his stomach turned at the action.

"I did indeed. I need you to so something for me, god of trickery." The king started in his condescending, almost mocking manner that Loki had grown increasingly numb to. "It seems I have broken one of my toys. You are to fetch me a new one."

The words made Loki's blood freeze over and the bile rise in his throat. By the norns, why did it have to be him this time around? He had been able to close his eyes to this before, had been able to block it out of his mind… but now he couldn't any longer.

The truth came crashing down on him like a cave's contraction, crushing him between miles deep of stone. Loki felt sick to the stomach. The king's 'toys' were nothing he wanted to become affiliated with. Poor, innocent girls reaped from their families at any age the king saw fit. And now Loki would become the reaper, if he wished not to be tortured to death.

"You see…" The king continued to speak and drew Loki back out of his mind. "...this is a matter of trust. I trust you, Loki, to bring me the girl of my choice unharmed and untouched. If you accomplish your task you will be rewarded with certain… liberties, in this kingdom. Like the freedom to venture wherever you please. But if you fail to fulfill your task, I'm afraid you will breathe your last."

Loki flashed on of his brightest smiles once more, bowing yet again. "As you wish, your majesty." Then he turned around, trying to convince himself that he was NOT fleeing as he walked back towards the exit.

"And Loki?" The king called out to him again, upon which he turned around with as neutral an expression as he could manage. "My head of guards will see you to the destined girl's residence and detail some men for your protection."

Loki nodded once, then turned back around and his eyes fell upon the swarm of men waiting for him at the entrance. Surely they weren't detailed for his protection, but for his supervision indeed. Obviously he wasn't the first person assigned this task who considered choosing escape over obedience. Oh and Loki wanted to escape, now more than any time before. He needed to come up with a plan of how to get himself out of this mess, and off this planet. Underworld was no place for him to stay.

The first step always was to gather some more information. Thus he took the opportunity of the small army of guards leading him out of the palace and towards the city for some questions.

"May I ask, why does this… reaping require my presence?" He started off, hoping that some easier questions would loosen the tongues of the guards and make them warm up to him.

"He needs someone to take the blame." A guard in simple leather armor answered. "If the people have another face to hate, they won't know that we take the girls for the king. And he likes to play games."

"Charming." Loki sighed, frowning to himself. Of course, if someone to take the blame was needed it would always be him, no matter the realm he was in. How truly wonderful that at least some things never change. He rolled his eyes once he knew that no one was observing him too closely. "How often does he break his… toys?"

"Every couple weeks." Another guard shrugged. "Sometimes he does it on purpose though, when he grows bored of them. Or when they… fall ill."

A very much unwanted shiver ran down Loki's spine, but he kept his cool, knowing that he had to. But he wanted to know more, even if he wished he didn't have to. "What happens to them afterwards?"

"You don't want to know." The guard mumbled in return. "No one wants to know."

"And what happens once we… what are we doing again, officially? Once we reach the girl's home?"

"We escort her back to the palace."

"And then?" Loki inquired further, trying to squeeze as many questions into this unpleasant experience as possible.

"Then she won't be your concern anymore, and you'll be better off forgetting about her altogether. The king is very strict about that."

"Strict about what exactly?"

"Anyone who touches what is his, who lusts for what is his will not live to see any trial."

"A bit possessive, isn't it?" Loki commented sarcastically and one of the guards snorted, only to be nudged in the side by one of his fellows.

Loki sighed to himself. These men knew nothing of relevance and even less of importance.

Thus, all he could do was to let the guards lead him through the maze of tunnels and the differently sized caves, until they halted all of a sudden in a rather narrow tunnel. Loki's brows furrowing in an instant, every fiber in his body on high alert. The dim torchlight danced across the stone walls and created deep shadows in the corners of the tunnel, casting illusions on the rough surfaces.

"You will wait here." The guard in the front spoke to Loki, who only lifted his brows in question. "We get the girl, then we're going back."

Before Loki could complain as for why he had to come all the way here just to wait in the shadows now, half of the guards hurried on into the next part of the tunnel while the rest remained watching him. Now… he could easily overpower them, sure, but he also knew that he wouldn't find his way out of the maze of tunnels alone. He only knew his way around the palace, vaguely, not all the way to the surface of the planet. And being lost down here in the tunnels was probably the only thing worse than being a royal prisoner.

Suddenly a loud scream echoed through the damp and chilled air, reflecting off the stone walls like the light of the torches and creating an eerie sound that made the remaining guards jump. It would've made Loki jump too, had he not spent centuries training his body to react visibly only at his will. Yet, he found the deep silence that followed upon the loud noise to be more sinister than the bone-chilling scream had been in the first place. Nothing good ever came out of a silence as looming as the one surrounding him and his guards at the very moment.

Then, finally the silence was broken by approaching footsteps, and Loki was almost glad that the guards were coming back at last. The first thing he saw was the glow of their torches at the curve of the tunnel, then they became visible as they approached quickly. One guard was carrying a limp body in his arms and Loki's eyes fixed on it immediately. The closer they got, the better he could see the outlines of your small form pressed awkwardly against the guard's feeble body. The poor guy looked like his legs might give out under your additional weight any second and Loki rose an eyebrow at them once they joined his guards in the tunnel. What he did not expect however was that the young man carrying you came straight towards him with a relieved expression.

"You will carry her back." He pressed out, looking like he might just drop you any second now.

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen." Loki replied with one of his signature breathy laughs reserved for internal moments of utter irritation, as he took a step backwards.

"Oh, you must. It's not up for discussion." Another guard said almost lightly.

"Why couldn't you just let her walk on her own legs?" Loki asked in what sounded more like snapping than he had intended. Luckily, the guards didn't seem to care much for his ways of conversing.

"They tend to make too much noise, and struggle more than necessary. It makes things easier to just knock them out for the way." The guard replied calmly. Loki had to realize that this must be a regular thing for them, a routine almost. The thought made his stomach drop and his head hurt.

"I'm going to drop her if you don't take her." The skimpy guard groaned and his legs started shaking dangerous, as did his arms.

"Fine, drop her then. Whatever. Not my problem." Loki commented coldly, looking at the guard in false indifference. He couldn't allow himself to care about anything but his goal of escaping as soon as possible. Everything, and everyone, else was a mere distraction to his own cause.

A few seconds later the guard's arms gave out indeed he dropped your body in an attempt to keep from breaking down himself. Loki watched you falling as if time had been slowed down just to torture him. Even in the dim light he could see your beautiful face, the dark bruise starting to form on your right cheekbone, the slightly parted lips… you looked so peaceful. So innocent. And for the first time in a decade his body didn't obey his reason as he caught you in his arms, only a broken second before you would have hit the ground. Time went back to moving at a normal speed, and he closed his eyes for a second as he stood upright once more, jaw clenching. Damn his conscience, and damn your stupid angelic face! This only made matters more complicated, and he hated it.

"Look who's not as tough as he always carries himself…" A guard to Loki's left laughed, only to find himself pressed against the wall of the tunnel a second later with a blade of pure ice pressed against his throat.

"Be careful who you speak to, and mindful of the ways in which they can kill you." Loki spoke in his most threatening voice as he tried to keep your body balanced on only one arm while holding the blade pressed against the man with the other. Yet, upon the beyond frightened face of the guard, he let the blade disappear again and hoisted you up higher against his chest with both arms. He wasn't particularly strong for a god, but in comparison to the people of Underworld he was Hercules himself, and thus he found no trouble at all in carrying you. What did trouble him a great deal on the other hand was not to stare down at you while they made their way back towards the palace. And not to let himself care.

"What's her name?" He finally couldn't resist asking, already blaming himself for the first signs of attachment forming in his mind. Gosh, he couldn't let himself get sucked into this.

"Y/n." One of the guards answered him. "She has been on the king's list for a very long time."

"And why has he waited until now to reap her? He does not seem like a man inclined to take pleasure in delayed gratification." Loki was beyond careful in wording this statement, for he knew that an insult to the king equalled a self-imposed death sentence.

"She's been hard to find and even harder to capture. Usually the girls he goes for aren't much of a challenge when it comes to their reaping. But this girl, Y/n… she's killed more guards than the beasts living in the caves below our feet!" The guard mumbled in disdain at the loss of his friends. Loki couldn't feel sympathy at all for the men who willingly stole innocent people away from their lives only for them to pleasure the mad tyrant on the throne. In his opinion, every single one of them deserved death more than most people he had killed himself in the past. But he couldn't be the one bringing them their end this time, for he needed to remain in the favor of the king a little while longer.

When he finally allowed himself to look at you, it left him wondering how a person could look so innocent while obviously being so lethal. Somehow, he felt a sense of pride in that, and a sense of very faint relief at the knowledge that you were a fighter. Maybe you could survive becoming the king's new plaything. He felt sick yet again at the thought, and even more so now that he was the one carrying you towards your doom. But he needed the reward he would get for accomplishing this task, he needed the freedom to roam the tunnels of Underworld to find a way to the surface. Maybe he could offer to take you along with him on his escape, if you lived to see that day. The prospect didn't make him feel any better. What he was doing here was wrong, very wrong indeed, and he was well aware of that.

"How did you knock her out?" He heard himself asking as his eyes remained fixed on the gentle curve of your jaw, the bruises and cuts, the dried blood just below your bottom lip.

"Poison." One man answered easily enough and Loki found himself shivering yet again. "So she doesn't run even when she wakes up. The only possible antidote is safely stored in the palace."

"Didn't you mean to say so that I don't run, with her?" Loki snapped before he could keep his mouth shut. How could these people do such cruel things with a smile on their face? Prior to his stay in Underworld Loki had believed himself to be a cruel man… oh how wrong he had been.

Since running with you wasn't an option, because of the poison, and neither was running without you, because of the tunnels, Loki found himself walking all the way back to the palace with you in his arms. He hoped dearly that he could just drop you off somewhere and forget about you for good, but if he was honest with himself, he knew that he wouldn't be able to forget. Not after spending forty minutes carrying you to the point of his arms going numb, after using his own precious magic and energy to keep you from shivering all too badly, after shielding you from the hungry gazes of the guards. Honestly, Loki didn't know why he was doing any of this… developing a weird sense of protectiveness over you only to hand you over like prey the next moment.

Finally, once they reached the gates of the palace, he realized that to him, you were a warning sign. Reminding him that this place was despicable, that he needed to flee as soon as possible, that the king was not to be messed with. Reminding him that if fate had played him any differently, it could very well be him on the throne. A mad tyrant caught up in an illusion and unaware of what he was doing to the people around him. And for once Loki found himself glad that he still had a conscience, still head a heart. Otherwise he would not be any better than the people bringing your doom upon you. Yet, if his conscience kept talking sense to him, he knew that he would lose his mind. Over you.

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If you would like to be tagged in this series or on the general tag list, tell me in the comments 💗✨ Hope everyone enjoyed this first part!!! Special thanks to @kthemarsian @beenthroughalot @strawberrysandcream

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[albatris]

Hello hope you're well on this Saturday may I ask what the deepest fears of each of the ATDAO cast members is, thank you and goodnight

oh you’re just gonna dive right in with the hard-hitting questions I see

thank you for the ask!!

under the cut because rambles, of course, I literally do not know how to be concise I’m so sorry, you probably already knew this was coming HAHAHA

Tris’s deepest fear aside from Literally Everything In The Universe would be uhhhhh....... being somehow responsible for harm coming to the people he cares about? either directly or indirectly. I think on a big scale the whole concept of the butterfly effect stresses him out hahaha. on a small scale, he spends a lot of time stressing about his friends and family, he has a lot of intrusive thoughts about what horrible things could potentially happen to them, he worries about accidentally hurting them, etc. etc.

n I haven’t really talked in depth all that much about the specifics of Tris’s psychosis, but there’s definitely aspects of it that become pretty intense and aggressive in terms of commands and orders and “some terrible and/or violent thing will happen to your friend / sister / neighbour if you don’t do this thing”, lots of prickly parts of it that like to make threats to his safety and the safety of the people around him if he attempts to ignore or resist them. so even on good days he’s got this constant background-hum anxiety that if he chooses to disobey something or if he misinterprets a sign or if he steps out of line, his loved ones are going to be punished for it, which is just.............. a lot

a fear of helplessness and a lack of control also factors into it, like, ever since he was very very very small he’s had this idea ingrained that you can do literally everything right and the universe can still squash you like a bug at any second, n he had absolutely no way to even begin processing that in a healthy way so it just manifested in the fact that he pretty much only ever feels safe when he’s accounted for every tiny detail and is following very specific routines and has left as little room as possible for anything unexpected to catch him off guard. he’s got these rules and systems and rituals he clings to ‘cause they offer him some illusion of safety and control even though they kind of........ won’t actually do anything to stop the universe fucking his shit up

Noa’s is................. I’m not sure if “being left behind” really covers it

if we’re talking in a real broad big scale sense, I think it’s a fear of being forgotten or brushed over or not being seen, or more, people refusing to see her? it’s a fear of, like, fighting her hardest to make noise and be seen and the world just completely and utterly turning its back on her. she’s spent a whole lot of her life trying to carve out a space for herself and make her voice heard, n between illness and financial difficulties and a piece of shit dad, she and her mum have struggled to stay afloat in systems that have just consistently, consistently failed them and whose best advice is “just try harder” and “we can’t help you if you don’t help yourself”

and, like, Noa’s very full of rage about it and has made some restless peace with the fact that she has to look out for herself and the people she cares about, because no one in any position of power is gonna throw them a stick, but it’s not something she’s comfortable with and it’s a horribly alienating and frightening experience

n I guess a fear of being left behind does play out on an interpersonal level too, though it’s not really in the same vein as the other stuff? I’ve talked a lot in the past about how she’s resistant to people getting close to her ‘cause she’s got a lot of paranoia and fear and doesn’t wanna be vulnerable, but there’s also just............ a whole lot of impostor syndrome in the friendships she already has, she’s always on some level convinced that she’s somehow tricked people into liking her and one day they’re gonna wake up and realise she’s not all that special or that nice or that fun to be around. I don’t think she really views herself as someone who’s allowed to be loved just for who she is, or that “who she is” is someone who already has value or anything to bring to the table in terms of friendship

Shara’s deepest fear is the idea that there really is Absolutely No Meaning To Any Of This

that the universe is all just chaos with no purpose and no direction, that there are no bigger forces at play, that there’s nothing good and right and loving at the centre of it all, that it’s all just chance and machinery and completely unfeeling

I think one of the main ways she processes the world and is able to feel safe given the collapsing nature of reality is her desperate and adamant belief that There Has To Be An Answer, that it’s all something that can be untangled and solved, and that if she can manage to figure it out then she’ll be able to make some peace with it and things will make sense again

there’s a lot of stuff from her past that she has no real closure for, particularly the loss of one of her close childhood friends as a result of some unfortunate interdimensional fuckery, and she’s still trying to sort out her feelings about it and find a way to live her life in relation to it, she’s still trying to find a way that something so cruel can make sense

Kai has............................ a lot of fear. many many fear. I will not talk about all of it. I will talk about two of it

one of the main ones is this idea that the only reason they try so hard to care so much and help people and have a positive impact on the people around them is because deep down they don’t actually care at all, that they’ve kind of just fooled everyone into thinking they’re a good person when in reality they’re the worst, they’re a liar and a fraud

which is just kind of......... I mean, they’re not really someone who’s ever considered their own mental health at length so they haven’t really got any point of reference for what’s happening to them post-time-loop, which is basically just. panic attacks, dissociative episodes, blacking out for days at a time, not recognising themself in the mirror, feeling completely numb, not even fully convinced that this is even real life. all very understandable reactions to what they’ve just been through

but definitely the thing that hits them the hardest is the fact that they can look at the people they’re supposed to love and care about and just not feel anything at all, which fuckin terrifies them. they spend a lot of time in crisis about it, feeling like they’re an actor trying to play the part of their own life, they’re doing what they think they’re supposed to but they’re just completely disconnected

(they eventually open up to Noa about it in a full breakdown and are like “I’m a terrible person” and she’s just like “you’re traumatised you fucking dumbass let’s get you some therapy”)

and on equal footing to this and one that deserves a mention is the fact that they’ve been psyching themself up to Go Back Home for the past year and then psyching themself out again, repeat x infinity. A Lot Fucking Changed in the years Kai was gone, and their family had a funeral for them and mourned them and had to deal with all the grief and the fallout of losing their sibling / child / family member and their mum broke down in a real bad way and they’ve all spent the past seven years trying to claw their way back to anything resembling a normal life

and Kai is kinda A) unsure whether it would be selfish of them to try and re-enter their lives now, whether it would be disruptive and confusing and more pain than it’s worth given how much work they’ve put into trying to move on and create a new normal and B) fucking terrified that they won’t even know these people anymore because they’ve all changed so much and Kai hasn’t, they’re not going to fit here or be welcome anymore, and that no matter how much they try to return to normal they’re never going to have a home again

and that is just

kind of a :( note to end on but here we are, at the end

thanks for coming to my ted talk?

!!! thank u for reading if you read this far in my rambling please have an excellent night