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maripr · 9 months

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Ozcarnation merge musings from my twitter

I wrote these months ago and finally sharing them on tumblr.

Why I differentiate between Ozma and Ozpin, a 🧵

I disagree with the general interpretation of where the merge subplot is actually heading in canon: most people think it will actualize, I think it will be reversed, either stopping the merge for good or reversing it after it comes very briefly into reality.

Oscar's arc, paralleling Ruby (mainly, but other characters share the trait as well) has been about him trying to find his own place and his own story, but the shadow of supposed ego death is always looming on him and terrifying him.

Everytime he takes a step forward, he's reminded again of the expected fate for him, something that some characters actively want (like Ironwood).

Examples:

volume 6, after being treated as a stand-in for Ozpin, currently MIA, Oscar takes his own decision to forgive the team and be prepared for battle alongside them. While reconciling with tem, with his new combat gear, he still can't help but be haunted of "how much time he has left".

Volume 7 places him in a conundrum the entire volume: he's developing as a fighter, growing up as an adolescent and forging stronger relationship with his newfound friends. Jaune clearly comes to see him as a little brother and there's something interesting going on with Ruby that may or may not result in a romantic relationship down the line. The team actually worries about his opinion on stuff as well, and Ruby clearly values him as Oscar Pine. Meanwhile, the very person who's helping in his growth is James Ironwood, who cannot shut up about wishing Ozpin was there everytime they meet, and telling Oscar he will basically cease to exist to his face with a big shiny smile. It's unclear at this point if James knows or not about how terrified Oscar is of the merge, as the boy never voices this fear. I think he just wants not to think of it. So even at the end, where James finally says "fuck it, Oscar or Ozpin, i don't need either" and shoots him, Oscar starts coming onto his power, in a scene that's both powerful and bittersweet, paralleling Penny.

Both of them, for their qualities, were chosen by a magical destiny, one capable of beautiful and powerful magic, that they don't want, never wanted and will struggle with with the next volume. Penny's arc is a direct parallel and commentary to Oscar and the way it ends might comment on Oscar's arc. Not in death but that Penny could finally show everyone she was her own person who could choose for herself.

Coming back to volume 8, Oscar has his worst time yet, finally voices his fear of merging with Oz, and comes back from it scarred but stronger, having helped Ozpin trust himself and others and gaining a new ally in Emerald.

But, see where I'm getting at? This is no resolution.

Oscar has briefly shown his fear but at the end of the volume, much like Ruby has done for several seasons, swallows the literal torture he endured for half of it and the fear of imminent ego death due to reawakened magic, and chooses to focus on the positives.

Boy, if he had fallen into the ever after maybe he would have healed too. Or maybe we would have no plot at all bc Oscar and Ruby would have noticed each other's pain, which would have been nice as well, but sometimes therapy has to be brutal.

And also Oscar can't conclude his arc in the ever after because his own is complimentary to Ruby's but also a contrast to it. Ruby wants to emulate her mother and ideal of what a hero is and must learn that she is enough as she is already. Oscar does NOT want to emulate or be his father figure, whose og incarnation was basically THE ideal hero of fairytales. He wants to be enough but doesn't know who he is yet, since everyone keeps telling him to his face that Oscar Pine isn't enough.

SO anyway. If both Penny (a commentary on Oscar) and Ruby (a direct parallel)'s arcs end with them realizing their own individuality, I 100% believe Oscar's arc will end like this as well.

And when i say end i mean end is just a new beginning.

Before moving to my final argument, let me also briefly comment on how Jaune and Weiss' arcs are similar but different to Oscar and Ruby's. It's interesting because, by main character status, Jaune as the leader of team JNPR, is a lancer and a foil to RWBY and Ruby inside of team RWBY's dynamic, Weiss, as Ruby's partner, is the lancer and foil to Ruby and inside new JNPR/ORNJ, Oscar, as Jaune's new partner, is his lancer and foil.

And both Jaune and Weiss deal with identity but more in a role they want to play as expected to what their family might want, initially, and later as the knights they idealized in fairytales. This is way too long for this post, but again, fascinating. And also Whiteknight slays.

So, my final thesis:

Oscar's arc will end with him affirming his own individuality over the merge.

So why can't Ozpin also do the same?

The god of light's intention in bestowing Ozma with this method of reincarnation was the positive idea of him never being alone.

And this works, more or less, in different lifetimes. Even in the very first, the farmer who we initially assumed was completely eradicated, still voiced his opinion and reminded Ozma of the good path.

In later lives, the spirit and the host lived more comfortably, having estabilished an equal partnership.

But... They still end up as one person? They're literally so like-minded that their enormous guilt complex makes one believe he's responsible for everything the others did?

I feel like this is what the story is trying to say, much like what many characters say of Oscar, and it's framed as a bad thing.

And incorrect. Oscar is always "punished" for what his predecessors did because he will be Ozma eventually.

The voice still going by the name of Ozpin feels responsible for everything that happened since Ozma was brought back to life and literally agrees with his own torturer that yep, he deserves all the punishment and pain for it.

Every incarnation eventually reaches a point where they start to identify with their predecessors in such a way that contradicts what the god of light's intention was (then again, we have been shown time and time again that the god of light is not very good at his job).

Instead of a partnership where each soul helps the other moving forward and never los hope, we have a continuous cycle of guilt and self-abuse accumulating. Oscar is gnawing at it the entire time. Who's to say Ozpin, as the professor, also didn't?

And Oscar is going to break the cycle.

As he does that, I want Ozpin to also realize his own individuality.

This is why I want an happy ending for all the incarnates, not just Ozma. Merged they may be for now, in the physical realm, why should only Ozma move on to a peaceful afterlife? All the people who ended up clogs in the ever ticking clock and had no say in it were all people with their own lives, their own friends and families, their own name. And they deserve peace too.

#ozpin #oscar pine #ozma #ruby rose #jaune arc #penny polendina #weiss schnee #ozcarnations #rwby #rwby meta #professor ozpin #ozma rwby #headmaster ozpin #rosegarden #whiteknight #oz family #i wrote a thing #ozma 2.0

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noperopesaredope · 1 month

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SvtFoE Rhombulus Rewrite (Pt. 6)

Hey, it’s been a while since you saw my face-

All jokes aside, sorry for being gone for so long. In my defense, I was in college, then I had seasonal depression which made it hard to do much of anything creative-wise. This is admittedly one of my favorite fan projects, so I always feel bad about not updating it. But I have managed to get back into it again (finally) and wanted to release one of the easier parts to do. (@bawfulio @sagesilentfire tagging you since you guys have been following this AU since the beginning and have been waiting the longest for an update)

Anyways, Monsters and Mewmans, Crystals and Chimeras, welcome back to my Rhombulus Rewrite! Check out this post if you have no clue what the heck I’m talking about or you want to read the previous parts. As I said in Part 4, this part will be one of the two possible ends I have to this AU. Ya’ll can choose which one you prefer. This one is called the “Closest to Canon Ending” and is also sad. It will not focus on the problems with the ending as a whole and shall instead be more about fixing Rhombulus’ part. I’ll admit, though I prefer the second ending as a finale, I’m pretty proud of this one as well, as it has some stuff I’m pretty proud of writing wise. I did make myself sad though, so there’s that.

Closest to Canon Ending (AKA Ending 1):

- This ending is kinda if I switched Rhombulus and Hekapoo’s parts, but Rhombulus had a more proper and fitting redemption. Also, it might make some character choices make more sense.

- So, the first big changes happen in “Ready, Aim, Fire”. We overhear Rhombulus arguing with Hekapoo and Omni about how to handle the Mina situation, saying that even though they may not like it, they need to protect Eclipsa and her family since it’s the right thing to do and they can’t let Mina take over.

- This is when Hekapoo reveals that they have been backing Mina the whole time, which horrifies Rhombulus. He says that he is disappointed in them, and will go out to support Eclipsa and co, even if he has to fight Hekapoo and Omni. He then runs outside.

- We don’t see what happened to Rhombulus until “The Right Way,” where he jumps into the battle as things are looking dire. We get some pretty cool action stuff from him, which should be fun.

- He even helps out various monsters, using his crystals to protect them. It brings his arc full circle, showing him go from someone who fights monsters to someone who protects them like he would protect any other innocent civilian. It’s a good moment for him.

- But unfortunately, Rhombulus gets seriously hurt by the Solarian Blade multiple times, and since he and the rest of the MHC are basically monsters, the blades actually work on them. I think it’ll be the most shocking (and plot convenient) if Rhombulus loses his tails, as they are his main weapons and method of self defense.

- He’ll manage to play it off like he is fine, but will need help soon. Maybe he’ll convince them that he probably won’t die. He might not even realize the blades work so well on him, especially since his magic is making him more asymptomatic. He’s good at hiding how bad he is doing, mainly because he is still able to walk and run and other stuff. But he can’t fight and needs to sit down a lot, so he won’t be able to do much during the Moon reveal.

- Instead of that horrible first kiss scene between Star and Marco, I have decided to give them a platonic love scene in a way, since I want the ending to not seem too random but still keep things platonic.

- Star is clearly upset and overwhelmed by everything, even though she might not be able to express it properly. She eventually tensely says that she’s going to do [insert helpful yet distracting task], and Marco offers to help her. She agrees, and while they’re working, Marco says that he knows something is bothering her, and she can talk about it if she wants.

- Star confesses that she’s been feeling extremely alone and scared lately. Multiple of her friends are severely hurt and could easily die, and she can’t do anything about it. She fought so hard and is trying to stay strong, and even despite all that, she feels like she’s failed at keeping people safe.

- Marco says that she is the reason less people have been hurt, and that everyone chose to fight and stand up against Mina, knowing the risk they would be in. It’s not her fault this happened. He then assures her that no matter what, they will always be best friends, and he’ll be there for her no matter what.

- Pretend we’ve also had a lot more great friendship moments between them this season, so that the show clearly shows their dynamic as important to the plot.

- Anyways, back to everything else. This rewrite is called the Rhombulus Rewrite after all.

- “Pizza Party” will be renamed “Where the Blame Lies,” and instead of the MHC having a pizza party, we will see Hekapoo and Omni arguing over whether or not they made the right choice, and if they should go after Rhombulus. It’s a very short, tense scene, where Hekapoo believes that Rhombulus is wrong, but they should still go look for him to talk, and Omni believes that Rhombulus is “too far gone.”

- They decide to split up, with Hekapoo choosing to go after Rhombulus, and Omni choosing to do his own thing.

- Meanwhile, Rhombulus ends up fleeing with Star and co, pretending that he is fine, until he ends up collapsing while they are running. Mina declares Rhombulus a traitor, and attacks him, causing yet another major blow to his body, where many of the other scars have already spread far.

- As Eclipsa and Marco help him up and try to support him, Mina declares her plan to wipe out all monsters and monster-supporters. The group tries to escape, but are soon surrounded. Mina goes in for the kill, but a portal opens up under Star, Marco, Eclipsa, Moon, and Rhombulus, whisking them away. They find themselves in the middle of a forest, saved by Hekapoo.

- This is where “Tavern at the End of the Multiverse” starts. Hekapoo is horrified at Rhombulus’ condition, and after picking him up, she says that she knows a place where all of them can hide. And so she takes them to the Tavern at the End of the Multiverse. This space is also a bit of a safe zone for all different types of people, and has some private rooms if needed.

- Hekapoo takes Rhombulus into one of them to see if she can help him somehow. Star argues with Moon, but they are interrupted by Hekapoo, who says that she needs them to come over to where Rhombulus is. He’s in terrible condition, with the wounds having fully spread all over him.

- It’s a really sad scene, especially when he begins telling Hekapoo that he can see Lekmet, and they are going to be reunited soon. Hekapoo is extremely distraught and basically in denial, while Rhombulus is basically accepting what is happening.

- He tells Hekapoo not to worry too much about it, and that their time is close to ending anyways, he just wishes he could have seen everyone win. He tells Star to do better than those who came before her, and that she will be able to fix the world. Then, my boy dies.

- While I still don’t like the whole “destroy all magic” plotline, I thought that something like this would be cool in helping explain the rationale for a few characters. In Star’s case, this is a bit of a breaking point for her. This is where she begins to have her “I hate magic” moment, because she just lost a close friend due to the damage magic can cause when in the wrong hands.

- And Hekapoo being chill with Star destroying magic makes a lot more sense. She too just lost someone important to her, basically her favorite sibling, and is in a more apathetic state. Hekapoo is mad and sees that the MHC has fallen down a bad path that has slowly destroyed them. Her attitude is less chill and carefree and more angry and resentful.

For Ending 1, I don’t really have any other changes, because all I really wanted to do for this ending is the scene where Rhombulus dies, so that’s the end of that. I think Ending 2 will be a much better ending as a whole, but I thought of Ending 1 first, and kind of liked aspects of it. It’s very bittersweet, and I wanted to make a version that stays faithful to the OG.

However, the OG is also terrible, so I decided to make another version anyways, especially since I wanted a version where Rhombulus can live. Stay tuned for Ending 2, which will hopefully be coming soon! Or at least, a special post before that giving extra context for Ending 2 (spoilers, I reworked Mina a bit).

Thanks for all your support, and I hope you like what I have in store, since I’ve been working on Ending 2 for a while now. Hopefully this will keep you company in the meantime.

#nr rhombulus rewrite #rhombulus rewrite #star vs #star vs the forces of evil #star vs the forces of evil season 4 #svtfoe #svtfoe season 4 #rewrite #canon rewrite #fix it fic #au #my au #rhombulus #svtfoe star #svtfoe mina #svtfoe hekapoo #svtfoe finale

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khorai · 10 months

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Same Anon as before. Do you have any unpopular opinions about certain characters?

A lot even but i will only talk about my opinions regarding the characters from the Naruto manga that I appreciate - if I expand, we'll be here tomorrow - .

Firstly, let's start with Sakura.

I don't understand why some—actually, many—of her own fans say she is poorly written.

She isn't...?

Sakura has issues concerning her character, but it has NOTHING to do with bad writing but more about her role in the story and how she was used. As for her character itself, she-is-not-poorly-written.

Honestly, I hate this claim because it gives the impression that her character is bad when that's not the case at all.

Coming from the antis, it's not surprising —they can't even understand the character of their own favorite, so understanding Sakura's character would be a miracle— but from her "stan"?

Just...no.

She is not poorly written, and that's my final word on it. I'm more than tired of hearing this nonsense. Yes, the narrative failed her many times— like many other characters, for that matter —but it's not the "bad writing" of her character to blame, but rather Kishimoto's inability to focus on characters other than Sasuke and Naruto.

Another unpopular opinion about her is that I HATE fanon versions of Sakura (and when I say fanon, I also mean popular headcanons about her circulating in the fandom).

It may sound extreme, but you'll quickly understand why:

Initially, it was actually the opposite. I loved it because I enjoyed seeing the different iterations of her that fans could create. It was always refreshing to read other versions of Sakura in fanfic—that admittedly had little to do with the original—growing and experiencing incredible things. I liked that.

And then things got worse.

For some reason, many of her fans —and antis as well— started confusing her canon version and her fanon version (some takes on her are so OC that I sometimes wonder if we're talking about the same person), while others began to claim that she should have had techniques like mokuton in the canon.

... What do they think Sakura is?

Naruto and Sasuke?

If they want their headcanon to be somewhat plausible in the context of canon, at least give her something that aligns with his philosophy of hard work.

Mokuton, from what I know, only manifests through the Senju lineage. If she had it in the canon, she would have to be descended from a Senju —naturally or artificially, it doesn't matter— and honestly... I disagree.

That's not Sakura.

This girl is a titan of her own making, partly thanks to her courage and hard work, and then thanks to Tsunade and Shizune -bless these ladies-

I would never want her to have power-ups like Naruto; it would negate everything she has done since the beginning of the manga, and that's just a big no.

I can understand her fans being upset about her treatment by Kishimoto —I am too, a lot— but that doesn't mean we should change her character to fit a shoddy female version of her male counterparts; that's just rude.

It wouldn't even be the same person anymore.

My last unpopular opinion about her (I have many more, but I'll just stop here) is that she deserved better.

... I classify this as an unpopular opinion because what I mean by that is not: "she deserved better than Sasuke" or "she deserved to be with Naruto" or AGAIN "she should have gotten over Sasuke" or some other thing like "she should have had some super powerful ability."

No, what I mean is that Sakura deserved her own arc.

An arc in which she wouldn't have to carry the weight of the shinobi world's guilt on her shoulders as usual - if Konoha is messed up, it's not her fault-

An arc in which we could see her actually experience her other skills, have other epic battles, build other relationships, break free from the grip of Team 7 in general.

She's supposed to be the heroine of the manga, but Kishimoto treated her like a supporting character with way too much screen time.

Damn, we don't even know what her home life is like.

We don't even really see her parents in the manga, and why is that?

Because she doesn't have an overly tragic background to make Hades pale?

Because she doesn't have balls?

Compared to her teammates, she doesn't matter, is that it?

The only thing we see her do again and again is blame herself for things beyond her control.

Like...why?!

Kishimoto made her some kind of martyr of pain, and it infuriates me every time I think about it.

The worst part is that many of her own fans sweep this under the rug and prefer to argue about who "deserves her."

Sasuke here, Naruto there... is she a piece of meat?

It's almost taboo to talk about the real problems surrounding her character in this fandom without someone mentioning how "Sasuke doesn't deserve her, and Naruto is much better" or how "Sakura is obsessed with Sasuke's dick."

...

Lol.

Next, Sasuke.

Sasuke deserved better...

and

Sasuke was wrong...

are notions that should more often go hand in hand.

His redemption journey was a good idea because, no matter what his most zealous fans say about it, Sasuke needed that journey.

Konoha hurt him, and it's easy to become an apologist for his character given all the crap he went through, mainly because of the incompetent authorities of this crappy village, but... that doesn't change the fact that he is not without blame and that he also did messed up things.

However... I don't like the resolution of his character arc.

Once again, Kishimoto reminded us in the cruelest way possible that Naruto is a classic Shounen, and the protagonist must always be right.

To the detriment of Sasuke.

Attention, I'm not saying that Naruto's view was wrong and Sasuke's was right because that's far from the case.

What annoyed me is the way the author handled it.

It seemed like Sasuke was almost wrong to think the way he did, when given his situation, his reaction was actually expected and normal. I really don't like how he put Naruto's opinions on a pedestal at the end of manga.

He gave Sasuke a completely independent story that didn't revolve around Naruto's sphere of influence -quite rare even today in the Shounen era- .

He endowed him with his own will.

Literally more than Naruto, it was Sasuke who led the dance in the manga, and why in the end?

So that everything would go in the direction of the protagonist?

And that, without even serious questioning of the Konoha system?

What was the point of Naruto knowing the truth about the Uchiha massacre then?

So yes, I don't like what Kishimoto did to Sasuke's character in the end; I find it unfair to him.

I classify this as an unpopular opinion because, even though I'm not a fan of the resolution of his character arc, that doesn't mean I'm "pro-revolution" or that I think Sasuke did nothing wrong, because he did.

This brings me to my second unpopular opinion about this character:

Sasuke is not a revolutionary.

He is not the character built to challenge the system that some of his fans think he is.

Like… since when did Sasuke become someone who could change Konoha's system in the first place?

That was never his goal; the only thing that led him to make that infamous statement was anger and betrayal he felt towards Konoha. It was his obsession with revenge that led to this thought, and nothing else.

Moreover, excuse me, but his plan was crappy.

Eliminate all Kage, okay.

Take the lead of all the villages, okay.

Launch a revolution and change the system...

As if the other shinobi of the alliance would just stare at him and do nothing -_-

His idea was doomed to fail from the start.

I'm theorizing a bit here, but basically, here's the deal:

Does he really think he can eliminate the entire Shinobi alliance? (because that's what he would have had to do to achieve his goal)

With what help?

That of Team Taka?

Lol.

Yes, Sasuke is powerful, but even he couldn't have pulled off this feat without becoming ridiculously overpowered (even more than at the end of the manga).

The only thing this plan would have brought if executed would have been to alienate all Shinobi nations against him (well, he already did it, but it would have been even worse).

And if, by some miracle, his plan had worked - if he had succeeded in his revolution - it would have just caused decades and decades of war between rebel factions - because there would be if we still follow the logic of the manga - wanting to return to the old times, others wanting power for themselves, and others simply refusing to let power go to an Uchiha (let's not forget the reputation of this clan).

Moreover, to change a system hundreds of years old in a world governed by the law of the strongest, it takes much more than violence and a strong desire for revenge.

He would need many brains at his disposal: tacticians, politicians, doctors, advisers...

In short, he would need allies he could trust and who would not betray him.

Unless he wants to be a bully, which honestly seems more likely to me.

He would need the help of countless geniuses in each field for this revolution to be successful, and from what the manga tells us, all these people are in the alliance.

... Who would want to work for him willingly after all he would have done?

And even if there are people willing to do so, it will always be with the fear of possible betrayal.

If even Madara and Hashirama - alias shinobi gods in their time - needed strong allies to create Konoha and make it a prosperous nation...

(even though it went to hell afterward, but still)

What will Sasuke do with a partially destroyed nation that he will have to rebuild with his own hands?

And let's not even talk about the fact that he was consumed by revenge and half-crazy when he talked about this revolution.

I still can't believe there are people who take these words seriously.

I really wonder what kind of revolution they expected with Sasuke in that state of mind?

If it had happened, it would have led to two possible situations:

The death of the last surviving Uchiha or an even more gruesome massacre than the one that wiped out his clan.

Although, considering those who support this pseudo-revolution among his fanbase, the latter option would have suited them just fine.

Another reason that honestly makes me think this thing is stupid is that it doesn't align with the manga's vision.

Kishimoto, despite the few innovative takes he has made several times regarding the plot and some characters, remains a staunch traditionalist. Sasuke would never have become a villain, and he would never have been killed either; that would go against Naruto's dream.

He would also never have become a "revolutionary" challenging the system.

It's not his role; he's not the protagonist.

The character of Sasuke - like all the others, in fact - exists within the limits of the plot; we cannot go beyond and make his character something it was never supposed to be.

Although, for me, it's a good thing that he isn't because his plan was just as bad as Naruto's flawed idealistic vision.

I still think that if Kishimoto had made them talk normally for once, without them having to almost kill each other, if he had made them come to a compromise that would have combined their two ideas, it wouldn't have been as half-baked in the end.

To choose between the plague and cholera, he should have just paired them together -_-

But no, he had to choose nardo's protagonist vision.

Another opinion about Sasuke is his relationship with Naruto, which I find... shaky? overestimated? poorly written?

They share a strong bond, that's an undeniable truth, and you'd have to be pretty stupid to deny that.

It's the main bond in the manga, after all.

But in terms of friendship... I have doubts.

For me, the only reason I believe Sasuke and Naruto are friends is that Kishimoto said so.

We hardly see it in the manga.

Their relationship literally built on years of objectification, selfishness, disdain, rivalry, misunderstanding, resentment, and a huge savior complex.

Naruto made Sasuke his priority not out of genuine concern but because he wanted to prove he was worthy of being Hokage, and for that, Sasuke had to come back at all costs.

That's not friendship; it's selfishness and objectification.

Oh, I don't doubt that he cared, but the problem is that the manga doesn't really show us that.

Moreover, this idea that "Naruto understands Sasuke" is, for me, a bunch of nonsense.

Maybe he does so at a superficial level because of their slightly similar experiences, but if we go deeper?

Naruto doesn't really understand him, and it showed particularly when he learned the truth about the Uchiha massacre.

For Sasuke, it's more complicated.

He has a lot of mitigating circumstances that actually explain his behavior (Itachi being alive, the curse of hatred).

But in general, he played the role of an antagonist for most of Shippuden, and the fact that his character arc didn't revolve around Naruto made him some kind of insensitive jerk to everyone - at least on the surface - .

If Sasuke wanted to take revenge on the world, Naruto wanted to save him.

And neither of them was willing to give in on that.

I'm not going to judge Naruto for not caring about Sasuke's goals after Itachi's death. Who in their right mind would support such a plan?

It was supporting a one-way ticket to self-destruction.

And I'm not going to judge Sasuke for the numerous attempts to kill Naruto because that would be unfair.

However, what I judge is how Kishimoto made their communication impossible.

When they start talking seriously, it always has to end with one of them almost dying at the last moment.

Even Vegeta and Goku had more civilized discussions than these two, and that says something.

I like their relationship, but I sometimes find it hard to label them as friends, let alone best friends.

There's a lot of things that haven't been well-managed in there.

Third opinion:

Sasuke is not evil.

He is not the cold, emotionless individual that more than half of this God-forsaken fandom wants him to be.

I never thought I'd classify this as an unpopular opinion, but considering the nonsense I've seen about him, I had to do it. According to this fandom, both among his stans and antis, Sasuke is abusive, sexist, possessive, indifferent, unfaithful, easily manipulable, selfish, a lousy father, and the list goes on.

Of course, he is none of that, but it's always amusing to see people forcing their fantasies onto his character. This guy has always marched to the beat of his own drum; he has no more official truth about him other than this, and that really irritates a lot of people.

Now, onto his big brother:

Itachi... is not a good person (I still can't believe I have to say this).

He is not even a martyr from my perspective.

I really dislike how his character is glorified in certain parts of the fandom. But at the same time, I don't like how he's demonized among the antis.

Itachi is not an angel, but he is not a demon either.

He's selfish and an unparalleled manipulator, but that doesn't make him evil. He can also be gentle, warm, and incredibly loving - though he has a peculiar way of showing it- .

He's a character with a messed-up mentality, and I love him for that. I hate seeing his character being destroyed by people trying to fit him into boxes he doesn't truly belong to; it annoys me.

In the end, Itachi is a tragic character who found himself forced to make horrible choices. His life was just immensely... torturous.

I love him, but given all the mess he caused, his death was both expected and deserved.

He was tired, disillusioned, sick, and with a list of Uchiha deaths as long as Tobirama's (not to mention what he did to his brother). So no, the idea that he shouldn't have died is truly ridiculous.

Please, let this tormented man find peace in his death.

I'll stop here because at this point, these are not even unpopular opinions but downright diatribes.

#ask #anon ask #I don't even know how to tag this #It’s pro and anti at the same time...?#sakura haruno #sasuke uchiha #itachi uchiha #anti naruto fandom #anti fanon sakura #anti fanon sasuke #I hope it's not crostagging I'm doing #please excuse any mistakes it's not my native language #sorry for the messy response anon #my thoughts were a bit of a mess when i wrote this

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masterdizzi · 11 months

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for a story named “my hero academia”, we don’t actually get to see a lot of hero academia?

THIS, THIS! ALLL OF THIS!

Take The Owl House. Imagine if once Luz got to the BI, the show decided to pivot and put full focus on Hexide or dive right into the action before expanding on the relationship between the trio (and Hooty) and "THE OWL HOUSE"

Well, that's what MHA is doing. The story goes right into training and battle trials once Izu gets into UA, no introductory section, no tour, no nothing. What Hori should have done is to get us familiar with UA because even as it is in canon, it IS our main setting and we need to be familiar with it and its characters.

Issue is that UA related characters, both teachers and students get no focus unless the plot demands it.

(Big 3, Hatsume and 13)

We could have at least gotten ONE school life episode to know how these kids' daily routine goes outside of hero training but the issue is that Hori has a habit of jumping from big fight to bigfight with very little breathing space for our characters.

And as the series gets closer to the end, the less time we have for this.Unpopular opinion but I rather have a show that wastes too much time on filler (Amphibia) than one that does not give us enough because although Amphibia falls flat is some places for the reason that Matt spends a ton of time on slice of life stories. At least Anne, Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop's found family dynamic feels real and not forced and moments that bring that to light feel rewarding.

MHA suffers from (for the most part) not having that. 1A as a class does not feel like Izu's found family. They feel like his acquaintances.Only a select few members of 1A have true bonds with Izu, namely lida, Ochako, Shoto, Tsu, Mineta and Tokoyami which is good but as a CLASS, their bond is not as strong as it is being let on and a few breathers would help that.

Most frustrating part is that Hori had SO MANY CHANCES for small breather arcs before things got too serious.

Before the USJ Attack

Before the sports festival

After the final exams

DORM LIFE, DORM LIFE DAMMIT

Before Shie Hassakal raid

School festival arc

(he tried yes, but Gentle and LaBrava still took up most of the arc's time)This is why I LOVE the training camp arc's outro. It has everything I am complaining about.

The kids chilling in NON hero related classes

Daily school life and Hatsume!

The kids goofing off, I especially love Mineta slealing Shoto and Ochako's donuts

AND THE RELAXING.

The outro gives the school more life than the rest of the show IMO

#mha critical #bnha critical #ua critical #amphibia #the owl house

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whinlatter · 1 year

Text

author's note | chapter 7: caged 🪽

thank you for reading chapter seven of Beasts! this chapter, we see the fallout from the controversial punch, watch harry and ginny go through about ninety bottles of ink writing precisely one bazillion letters to one another (my loves), and fret as the residents of grimmauld place fight a losing battle with pixies that may or may not be a metaphor for our characters’ own multiplying traumas, chasing everyone around and refusing to be contained. pray for our babies, for no-one is thriving - let's chat chapter seven! (plus a sneak peek of chapter eight, which includes a letter from a character yet to make his Beasts debut...) 👀

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

vibes: this chapter, i wanted the vibes to be claustrophobic, tedium, all hogwarts, real focus on ginny and her restlessness and over-it-ness, her starting to write a lot, both to harry and to others, and her starting to push the boundaries and rebel now she's lost her sense of purpose in returning. (@pocket-lilacs brought up pandemic-era uni vibes of 'what is the point of studying when all this is going on' and that is exactly the energy here). the politics is more a backdrop to ginny's arc in this chapter, though the thicknesse trial has uncomfortable echoes for gin's own set of experiences, and i'm having so much fun but also banging my head up against the wall/grappling with turning up/turning down the volume on the different macro/micro plots in different chapters to try and get different effects and to follow ginny's own engagement with the Big Questions of the postwar wizarding world. scale is hard, who knew!

quidditch: by far the hardest part of this chapter to write was the quidditch scene. it was 3000 words long originally, and i had to go at it with a sledgehammer to bash it into bits, dump most of it, and then just keep the most important parts to fold into this much quicker, punchier scene. the worst part of writing is spending days crafting a section and in doing so learn that you don't need it lmao. so yeah that's why this chapter was a week late. this one was a nightmare but we got there in the end lmao

the forest detention: our first flashback to the war year at hogwarts! why haven't we had more? answers on a postcard, all will be revealed, including the context for the silver trio's forest detention, but for now will just say the fact that snape sent the gang into the forest with hagrid for detention after stealing the sword has a) always had me in a chokehold because all of the endless ginny/forest foreshadowing but also because i've never been satisfied with the explanation that the detention was just an obvious easy option. can't wait to share more !!!

harry and ginny: all i want to do is write more letters for those two. 'sneaking out of grounds, booze, leather gangs' - that was how @madammalkins23 summed it up beautifully, getting at the vibes i keep coming back to with both of these characters: the sirius-black-shaped elephant in the room, basically. escaping from hogwarts with buckbeak? the risk being what makes it all fun? harry fixing up the motorbike? fighting a war against grimmauld place and getting on the whiskey? the looming shadow of molly weasley? it's truly giving padfoot. the idea of harry and ginny in cahoots, as partners in crime, really kept me going when writing this chapter - like, what if harry for the first time did have another person in his life who was of the 'fuck it' school of thought? (i even went back and read that jkr short story of sirius and james on the motorbike lol). basically, the sirius echoes just sort of ended up writing themselves, as they always seem to do in this fic. when it comes to the letters, it's striking to me that in canon harry is very preoccupied with who does or doesn’t write to him - at the dursleys', but also after sirius' death ('It’s just hard,' Harry said finally, in a low voice, 'to realise he won’t write to me again.' - HBP). i've never really got fics that have harry as a non-loquacious letter writer in the post-war period, especially to ginny - harry seeks huge comfort and reassurance in getting letters from people who care about him, and channels his worries about people he's close to into letters, especially people he views as family (sirius, ginny). that harry and ginny would become a bit emotionally codependent through letters seemed in some sense a natural choice, basically, and although they're still being very avoidant, in some ways, i think they're building a foundation towards becoming each other's person in ways that's important. (i am putting together a sirius and ginny parallels meta playing with these ideas and character-trait overlap that i'll share hopefully soon, so stay tuned on that one)

why won’t ginny open up? by far the question i've been asked most this week! i am really really excited and happy about the arc i’ve got in store for ginny on this question, so don't want to reveal too much, but there have been some beautiful insightful guesses in the comments section about why ginny is struggling to come clean with harry or her family. here we see harry begin to see through gin's defences, a little bit, but also show his own blindspots that come from him not having asked the right questions or always probed about her interior life before now. i'm always so grateful and blown away by the trust readers have put in me to deliver on all these protracted question marks but this week especially i felt v glad for readers' compassion towards these characters and especially for ginny and hermione, as they fuck up and get it wrong and struggle yet still get grace in the comment section. both are on a journey, but i know more impatient readers could be sick of waiting for them to get there, so just to say i am really glad everyone is getting it and seeing where both characters are at with empathy and kindness, because ofc what they’re both doing is frustrating (and, when it comes to gin, harry is beginning to think so, too)

plus thicknesse: had a long chat with @saintsenara about ol thicknesse, because he's kind of a baffling figure - ex-auror who gets successfully imperiused, becomes minister and then goes on to actively commit horrific war crimes while under yaxley's control. what's fun about the trials, though, is that you can use them as a conduit to raise these big moral questions for postwar wizarding society - in thicknesse's case, it's questions about agency, free will, and culpability, in ways that has real implications for ginny's reflections on her own experiences. so cheers pius love u

harry's patronus: i am salivating at all of your theories for this one - obviously i'm saying nothing for now, but keep them guesses coming, i live for em! and if you guess right, i'll come up with some kind of prize lmao

detention, career advice (and graves' apathy): back in the site of former detentions, ginny shows her remarkably sparse knowledge of wizarding careers in a scene that i hope shows her trying on for size different role models/authority figures and seeing which ones she feels most like. (i like the idea that ginny would actually be a bit interested in being an auror, if only she'd been in of age and able to benefit from kingsley's hiring amesty after the battle). having ginny hover over the idea of being an unspeakable was particularly important for me, because i like the idea of the dept of mysteries being quite a formative space for her (i feel like all i do is say 'wait and see!' but... i have things to do and say with this dimension i swear!) graves is like, do what you want, babe, i don't care. i'm here for the pension, frankly

michael corner: 'surprise bitch!' - michael corner, probably. do i think michael and ginny were mates after the breakup end of ootp? no i do not. but i have always been so struck that ginny and michael must have actually spent a lot of very intense time together during DH as die-hards in the DA (michael is the only character we hear whose torture by the carrows after attempting to rescue a younger student is described as particularly severe, which i think suggests his level of commitment to the cause). readers will recall my open disdain for michael corner up til this point - i have described him as the jack berger of hogwarts quidditch, for my satc fans - but i'm afraid to say i have now decided i quite like him and am excited for him to rock up in person real soon. i think he's a know it all softboi but with a goodie core. also as a writer there's something quite refreshing about bringing in a character who is an ex who probably can see through some of ginny's shit by virtue of having spent a lot of time with her but no longer needing to/caring about impressing her, placating her or keeping her on side lol

hermione: alaskanastro left a comment that summed this up: 'Man, Hermione is really just doubling down on the whole "I'm going to try desperately to control something in life to feel like I'm in control even if it's my friend's life" isn't she? Or at least trying to'. yep, that's what she's doing! we still don't know all that hermione's going through, but this hit the nail on the head fr. i feel bad that this fic is ginny pov at this stage in its arc, because i think ginny sees hermione in a particular way rn (their final conversation in this chapter really speaking to these tensions - ginny does not want to feel mothered, at least not by hermione...), but these two have a long way to go to get to a point of mutual understanding. wanna write a meta on their friendship soon, hopefully will get chance to before i finish chapter 8. but anyway - wonder what's going on with her and ron... hope we find out soon... hope someone tells us... :) :) :)

everything but the ghoul: the dumbest pun, but had to use this joke in a chapter where ginny skips school (everything but the girl's most famous song is called 'missing'... get it)

songs from the playlist for this chapter:

girls getting grouchy and teenage in their feelings is the big ol mood this week:

i did promise a sneak peek didn't i...

From the desk of the MINISTER OF MAGIC Whitehall, London Dear Ginny, I hope you’re well. I’d like to meet with you on Saturday the 12th of December at 11 o’clock. It’s important that we’re discreet. Please vanish this letter after reading. Sincerely, Kingsley

#beasts #author’s note #all of your theories give me endless life and for that i am very grateful #me at the beach this week kicking my legs and giggling at the sleuthing going on #obsessed!

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maybe-in-another-nice-life · 1 year

Text

Wizard with a Gun [analysis and theory]

Because this new fandom needs content.

Firstly, an analysis of the Riders:

One Eye

Creative name, I know.

I think the bard is singing while they appear on screen, so it makes sense for One Eye to be The Hunter. The old hat and the brown coat with the gun with a wide muzzle make it look that way, plus the aforementioned one eye makes them look badass.

Or rather, makes her look badass.

Because I’m pretty sure One Eye is Hilda, the inventor of Gunmancy and the first wizard you meet.

Same clothes. Same yellow light. Same one eye. She even has a Worldbuilder in the animation, the same weapon she teaches you to craft.

And even makes sense for her to be the last one standing in the battle against Chaos, being the most experienced of them all and a past user of The Tower. But alas, she still died having her soul ripped out of her.

Giant

Possibly The Maker. They have a belt full of tools, although it is hard to see, and the scarf on their hat reminds me of the “We Can Do It” poster, so there’s a probability of the Giant also being a woman.

They carry a two-barrel pistol and died being immobilized by chaos tentacles.

Not much to talk about them, but they also have blue/cyan eyes.

Gremlin

Quite small, covered in rags, has a little mushroom on their head… reveals a bunch of eyes and tentacles underneath. Yeah, I think Gremlin it’s the Wild Swamp's Own.

The Gremlin also, for some reason, carries a giant machine gun.

They have green eyes and die being overwhelmed by Chaos.

Something else that I noted, but could end up being nothing. When one of their companions died, they immediately became enraged. Could show a deep loyalty/connection to the other Riders, or a great hatred towards chaos (or both).

The last three sets of characters were more complicated, at least for me. :)

Barbarian

The Barbarian, the figure that doesn’t have much focus in the animation, it’s also much probably a woman, since we can see her chest and such.

They’re literally dressing as a barbarian, so my bet is in they being the Young Chief Risin’, but they also wear a boar on their head, with the tusks protruding a lot, but that’s the only thing that can make the Barbarian the Weaver of Bone, and it’s very weak evidence.

The Barbarian has pink eyes and carries a canon. They died with the Sharpshooter in a big chaos explosion.

Sharpshooter

The Weaver of Bone??? Maybe? Nothing in their design says anything about it maybe aside from the great style, but maybe this is something more in the story.

The Sharpshooter possess a wide hat with a red feather, and a red cloak to mach. Sometimes they have three eyes, sometimes four, sometimes more, but they are mostly yellow.

The fact that they have yellow eyes made me theorize that the Sharpshooter is Hilda’s brother, but it’s a pretty weak theory.

They died with the Barbarian in a big chaos explosion.

The thing to mention is: Sharpshooter appeared in the first trailer, for those that didn’t remember them.

And finally:

The theory that I saw being passed around by the community: We, the Player, are one of the Riders that appears in the animation at the beginning of the demo.

See, the bard only gave titles to 5 wizards, and he also sing “Remember, remember” in one part of the song.

Which brings us to...

Fancy

the wizard with purple eyes that (I think) wears fancy naval clothing.

Literally, the first one to die at the beginning of the battle, being disintegrated on the spot by a ray from the portal.

No wonder the Cryptomancer was so disappointed we were the one to survive if that’s the case.

- One thing to mention: The fact “we” are so bad in the animatic, plus how the Bard calls the player “Kid” may imply the player is the youngest/least experienced of the Riders, so that could be the reason as Hilda’s reaction towards the player.

Anyway, Fancy is the only one similar enough to the character we created in the game, with the exception of One Eye and Gremlin, but these seem to have names attached to them, plus we know One Eye is Hilda.

But then what? Fancy died, how did they come back to life next to a broken down ship without memory?

I have no idea :D

But there’s a thing...

Fancy has skeleton hands, while ALL the others wear gloces, so maybe there’s something to do with it?

That’s all I have. :)

#wizard with a gun #wwag #theory #a game theory #wizard with a gun spoilers #spoilers #wizard with a gun demo

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itsnothingofinterest · 1 year

Note

Hey 👋 how's it going?

I'm not sure if I've asked you before but can I ask what you like about togachako?

Also what you like most about their plotline?

And maybe fanfiction too, like what do you think would be the most interesting premise for a story about them?

Well as a ship, they’re cute. I have 0 thoughts as to whether they’ll be canon though, and I haven’t even been keeping up with MHA fanfiction. (Although my prediction posts are basically bare bones fanfiction so there you go.) But I very much appreciate the aesthetic, and with shipping that's like half the battle (I think. I'm not actually a big ship guy in general.)

But as a character dynamic they are fascinating; where to start. I like how Toga most presents the challenge that her hero Uraraka needs to save her from the heroes; no 'saving her from herself' shortcut with this one. I appreciate how Uraraka so very much wants to understand her opponent, even if she might understand her villain the least of our leading heroes, because she's that empathetic. I like how Toga demonstrates the potential worst case for Uraraka repressing her own feelings and putting everything else first. I like how, in the process of putting her own feelings for her crushes aside, Toga ends up becoming more like them in this arc.

There's a lot to like about them.

I will admit though, probably like 60% of why I like Uraraka is how she foils Toga, the actual best written woman in BNHA; But with luck she'll get more interesting scenes to fix that. Same for the Togachako plotline as a whole. They’re one of the 3 major plotlines of the ‘final arc’ and it feels like they’re getting less focus than the Todofamily or Deku vs Shigaraki. (Although maybe the real problem is how much time is given to AFO, the lamest villain of the 4.) As such, it feels like there’s less to talk about with these two, even though I very much want too.

But I'm sure their big climactic chapters for the arc are coming up that'll hopefully fix that for them and give them the page-time for satisfying interactions they deserve.

#I'd talk your ear off more on each of those topics but any that doesn't already have its own post deserves its own post.#ask & reply #bnha #toga himiko #uraraka ochako #midoriya izuku #dabi #shigaraki tomura #shoto todoroki #paranormal liberation front #PLF #league of villains #lov #class 1a

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giraffeter · 1 year

Note

Hello!

You just posted a lovely ArmKhun fic—they’re such a fun rarepair. Do you have any dearly-held headcanons for these two?

Hello!

I'm so happy you enjoyed my Arm/Tankhun fic — they are one of my favorite KinnPorsche rarepairs and the first one to really capture my heart while I was watching the show!

I'm thrilled that you asked this because I have SO many headcanons for these two, both separately and together. In no particular order, they include:

Tankhun picked out Pol and Arm to be his bodyguards because they are the tallest bodyguard and the shortest bodyguard respectively, and he finds their height disparity amusing. The fact that their personalities meshed well with his was a complete coincidence.

I have backstory headcanons for all the bodyguards that I have imagined so vividly at this point that sometimes I forget they're not canon. My headcanon for Arm is that he was in the military for a couple years before Chan recruited him to come work for Korn. That's where he got his weapons-handling training. It also means that Arm is a trained field medic, which you can see in the way he rushes in when Porsche has been drugged and when Big [rest of sentence lost in incoherent sobbing]. He has some experience helping people manage PTSD because of this, which gives him real empathy for Tankhun and makes him essential when Tankhun's in crisis.

After Kinn announces that he's in love with Porsche, Tankhun marches directly to the equipment office and is like ARM DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?? Arm, who has been catching them on the CCTV for weeks and is dying to talk about it with someone, already has a highlight reel of "Kinn and Porsche being unsubtle all over the house" edited together and ready to go (he's kept it PG-13 because he's classy like that and because he doesn't want Kinn to actually murder him). Arm and Tankhun watch the whole thing together with popcorn and much squealing in delight and horror, following which Tankhun storms up to Kinn's room like KINN! WE EAT ON THAT TABLE KINN!

Arm grew up watching lakorns with his mom and grandma and loves them. I mentioned this in Brave Enough for Everything but he's the only bodyguard who actually doesn't mind all the TV.

I also alluded to this in the fic, but Tankhun finds Arm's street clothes genuinely, painfully distressing. After they're together, they have a protracted battle about the degree to which Arm is willing to let Tankhun dress him, which results in Arm staying a lot more normcore than Tankhun would like but at least he's wearing some bright colors sometimes and his clothes fit him properly now.

Arm and Tankhun stayed up all night making the glitter-bomb robots from the finale. Tankhun thought his dad was dead and knew they were on the brink of war with the minor family, and Arm invented this Battle Craft basically on the fly to give him something to focus on and keep him from spiraling out.

Speaking of which — do you ever think about how in the finale, when Erika comes out with guns blazing, Arm and Tankhun are right there in the office behind her? They're in lockdown right behind that wall, listening to their friends and Tankhun's brother get shot at, watching on the CCTV. There's no universe where Arm isn't holding Tankhun tight for all of that.

I know there are more — I could talk about these good good boys all day — but this is getting long and those are the ones off the top of my head. What are your favorite ArmKhun headcanons?

#armtankhun #arm/tankhun #armkhun #tumblr asks

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catofadifferentcolor · 2 years

Text

Terrible Fic Ideas #22: LotR, but make it Second Age!Legolas

Although I'm rather attached to the idea of Legolas being born in the First Age, the idea of him being born sometime in the Second Age has its perks.

Just imagine it:

I love the idea of Oropher, his wife, and Thranduil were apprentices of Melian before the Fall of Doriath - it would certainly explain how Thranduil held Mirkwood against the darkness without a ring of power - and the idea of Celeborn’s mother being Oropher’s sister, so that remains the same as in my First Age headcanon.

By pushing back Legolas' date of birth, however, we allow for the possibility that his mother was a Silvan elf and that her marriage to Thranduil was almost as big a scandal as Galadriel, a Noldo, marrying Celeborn, a Sinda.

Here I like the idea of giving him two older brothers, born sometime between 1000-2500 SA, with Legolas being born in 3319 SA as Númenor sank beneath the waves. He's very much the baby of the family.

When the War of the Last Alliance started in 3429, Legolas was left behind to rule the Greenwood as regent while his parents, grandparents, older brothers, and nearly every one else in the kingdom went to fight. Barely an adult by the standards of elves, he managed admirably, though he would be the first to admit that ruling a barely populated kingdom whose overriding mission was sending supplies to the front is much different from ruling that same in peacetime. (For some reason my mind montages this as an elvish Wartime Farm.)

Legolas loses his mother, grandparents, and eldest brother to the war. His father comes back king and grief-stricken. His middle brother, now heir, battles both grief and PTSD and, though he tries to stay in Arda for his remaining family, he sails for Aman no later than 1000 TA.

So Legolas and Thranduil are all that’s left of their family by 1050 TA, as darkness settles over the Greenwood.

Legolas here is not a the elvish veteran of many great battles, as in the First Age headcanon, but instead a veteran of the battles of the home front - there is something very WWII Britain about this take on Legolas' background in my mind. His battles are all of survival, of keeping the home fires burning so that others may march off to war, of defending the borders, of mend and make do, of keep calm and carry on; of loss and privation and the shadow of war, but not war itself.

The events of The Hobbit go according to canon - by which I mean instead of the movie nonsense Legolas was, IDK, left at home to rule again or on his way to Rivendell and missed crossing paths with the Company because they fell down the Goblin's front door. Anything but the movie canon.

The events of LotR go mostly according to canon as well, though a lot of the focus is on Legolas finally confronting war as much as death for the first time. This Legolas has seen war take much of his family and irrevocably change those who managed to come back. He knows all too well that even if he survives this, he may end up having to sail west like his middle brother because of what he sees, and has absolutely no idea how to cope with any of it.

Naturally there is Legolas/Gimli, because they are my original OTP. Here I imagine Legolas gets hit by a clue 2x4 fairly early on and it's Gimli that's hesitant because 1) he doesn't understand that elves only love once, 2) thinks its nothing more than an infatuation brought on by high emotions which will pass once they get home, and 3) even if the feelings are true, he doesn't want to tie an immortal elf to a mortal dwarfish lifespan.

Bonuses include: 1) at least one heart-wrenching conversation between Legolas and Eowyn, mostly involving Legolas sharing his own memories of being the person who has to remain behind while everyone he loves marches off to war and death; 2) exasperated but deeply invested Aragorn playing increasingly-less-reluctant yenta; and 3) a surprisingly supportive Thranduil, who doesn't care who or what Legolas loves so long as his son is happy and not taking any more road trips to Mordor.

As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you do anything with it.

Other Legolas Headcanons: First Age | Second Age | Third Age | Half-Maia | Half-Elven

More Terrible Fic Ideas

#plot bunny #fic ideas #lotr #lord of the rings #the lord of the rings #tolkien #the hobbit #legolas #legolas x gimli #tolkein #legolas headcanon #lotr headcanons

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vinjaryou · 7 months

Text

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @razerathane - thank you~!

1: How many works do you have on AO3/fanfiction.net?

On AO3: 57 I don't remember my ff.net login, it's been so long.

2: What's your total Ao3/fanfiction.net word count?

172,928 words

3: What fandoms do you write for?

Now I focus mainly on the Compilation of FFVII (again), but I have written for Legend of Zelda, Tekken, Sonic the Hedgehog, Yu-Gi-Oh, some FFIX, and some GetBackers and Higurashi.

4: What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

two guys and a gondola (Barret & Cloud)

reunions & new beginnings (a touch of VinVeld)

Control, or The Lack Thereof (written for Chaos Theory)

a nice, quiet country life (Zack/Aerith, hinted Zack/Aerith/Cloud)

a lost art (Sephiroth/Genesis)

5: Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I should, and I did for a bit before stopping. Mostly because I get shy, but I promise to try to get better about it.

6: What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably 'etched in glass,' since it centers around Vincent flashing back to an incident in Hojo's laboratory. There's also 'welcome to my nightmare,' which features Vincent losing control of Hellmasker in the midst of battle…

7: What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

'three little words.' Hands down. There's even a beautiful piece I commissioned to go with it~

8: Do you get hate on fics?

I think I got one comment that was just "uh, what," and I shrugged it off. I don't write popular enough pairings regularly enough to get hate, methinks.

9: Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. Mainly VinRei (my canon/OC pair), and it literally goes from sweet to racy. I've written sweet lovemaking, and Chaotic semi-monsterfucking.

10: Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I used to because I was in LJ roleplay communities years ago, and a lot of crackships were forged there. Vincent/Nabooru, Ban Midou/Rider (GetBackers/Fate Stay Night), angsty Dark Link & Aerith, a twisted father/daughter relationship between Akabane & Rena Ryuugu (GB and Higurashi), Kadaj and Rinoa were getting cute, and then there was the big sister/little brother dynamics of Cain and Nabooru (GodChild and Zelda: OoT)… I think I have a list somewhere of all the crackships and friendships between characters, lol

I do have an idea for a one-off crossover fight piece that I've discussed with a friend… stay tuned~

11: Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so, but now I'm feeling a little paranoid…

12: Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. Well, not that I know of.

13: Have you ever co-written a fic before?

My late best friend and I co-wrote Zelda and Yu-Gi-Oh crackfics all throughout high school and college; never published because we did it just for fun and for our friend group, and I still have it all, including a bunch of artwork she did for them.

14: What's your all time favorite ship?

Vincent/Reilena, my FFVII canon/OC ship.

15: What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Both 'Sands of Desire' (a YGO AE canon/OC fic I was writing, and suddenly dropped; to this day I still know exactly how I would end it) and 'Bleeding Angel' (Tekken, OCs, spanned Tekken 3, Tag, and 4, but I quit writing it when 5 came out).

'Sweet Lady Luck' is the Final Fantasy VII Casino AU that I keep posting little scenes for, that I swear I will get started posting actual chapters for THIS FUCKING YEAR, because I have so much planned for it, and I love it and them so much. So that is a WIP that I WILL finish, come hell or high water.

16: What are your writing strengths?

Characterization and emotion; I think I have a pretty good grip of character personalities.

17: What are your writing weaknesses?

Sometimes dialogue or just knowing when to END a scene.

18: Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I used to be super cheesy about it (think old-school fansubs lol), now I try not to do it altogether; if it happens, the dialogue will be put in brackets to designate it as being in another language. If you can get it to work though, that's awesome~

19: First fandom you wrote for?

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

20: Favorite fic you've written?

Honestly? Right now it's tied between 'three little words' and 'when chaos and passion collide.' Both VinRei pieces, one sweet and emotional, the other smutty and emotional.

Feel free to snag this if interested!

#thanks for the tag!#don't mind me #writing ref #writing meme

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secretgamergirl · 1 year

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StarCraft 2's story- Good or garbage?

I'm kind of lurking in the discord of a new RTS that's running a kickstarter right now. I don't know how strongly I want to endorse that because while what they have in the can looks darn good in terms of mechanics and gameplay polish and the people involved seem generally cool, I don't think anything at all is really pinned down otherwise. At the very least though it looks very "I'll make my own StarCraft 2! With blackjack! And hookers!" and I'm down for a game with that flavor of mechanics doing well when made by anyone other than, you know, Blizzard.

It's impossible not to draw comparisons when a game is pretty nakedly marketing itself as "we want to divorce the things we like about this one game from the monsters who made it" of course, and so now I'm thinking about just how powerfully terrible the writing was in StarCraft 2, but I'm not going to go off about it in some poor people who I don't know even have a writer yet's forums. I'm gonna ramble about it on my blog.

Now there's two ways to look at this one. We can look at the story of this game on its own, in a vacuum, or we can look at it as a continuation of the story of StarCraft. It's terrible by either standard, but let's start by looking at it as a continuation first.

Now, I'm not going to jump in here and just slap you with a novella long list of all the flagrant plot holes, direct contradictions, and unrecognizable characters if you actually go through these beat for beat. I've done so in the past. Might have done so on this blog. I mean when StarCraft 2 came out I was absolutely insufferable to everyone around me shouting about these things. Like... I don't even know how you can drop so many balls like that. Maybe they were doing that thing where they didn't even glance at the source material and were just poking around some fan wiki populated with random crap from tie-in novels and comics by people who were just going off on their own things... I do always have to mention though that whether by intent or incompetence they seem to have totally dropped the expansion's story from the canon, at least before 2's expansions came along years later.

But no, I want to focus on just basic themes and character arcs here. So the original base game of StarCraft breaks its story into three arcs, each from the POV of a character from one of the three playable factions in the game. This isn't the greatest structure for maintaining narrative cohesion throughout, especially when one of those factions is the communal hive mind of a big swarm of space bugs who at the end of the day just want to eat everything. And if I'm being brutally honest, there isn't a whole lot to write home about in the back third either. They kinda slipped back into old habits there and it's kinda just the sort of stock fantasy story you tend to get with games. Decadent ancient space elf empire ignores a big obvious problem due to hubris and a frankly incompetent leader, turns out their ancient traditions and prejudices are total BS, go quest for some magic rocks, have your big grand final battle where the hero self-sacrifices to blow up the monsters.

That first third though, and some threads that carry through the rest, have some good stuff going on. We've got a newly appointed magistrate (the unseen unvoiced player) and marshall (Jimmy) on some backwoodsy wild west sort of planet. They're pretty young and idealistic. Space bugs attack, they try to help, trying to help gets them in trouble with their higher ups who don't really buy the seriousness of this space bug invasion. Desperate for anyone to help fight the good fight, they fall in with a fringe militant cult leader (Mengsk) and his right-hand gal (Kerrigan) who he busted out of some government psychic supersoldier program. Jimmy immediately crushes on her, she doesn't reciprocate.

The gang goes along with all of Mengsk's plans, overthrowing the government to gain control of their armies and psychic experimentation programs to deal with these space bugs, and the level of moral compromise this involves gradually ratchets up until everyone finds themselves complicit in Mengsk killing the whole civilian population of the capital by having Kerrigan set up a psychic murderbug attractor and nobody bother's to evacuate her afterwards.

The other two realize they made a really bad choice of who to throw in with, smash up some major military hardware in the process of bailing on Mengsk as he's setting himself up as dictator for life, and eventually throw their lot in with the protagonists in the third arc, just kinda helping out while they do the whole deal of defying the orders of the ancient space elf council, learning the magic arts of the misunderstood outcasts, flying a big spaceship into the main brain controlling the space bugs. Kerrigan meanwhile gets converted into a space bug/human hybrid super soldier which... honestly feels like it's setting stuff up for a big showdown that just kinda never happens.

Still, we've got characters, they've got arcs. Mostly we have Jimmy (and the silent player character) learning the hard way that long-established power structures tend to be too inflexible to be helpful, and you should never trust anyone openly seeking personal power because they will just exploit everyone around them. It all even roughly follows the classic 3 act structure (and I mean, there's literally 3 acts mapping to that too, just that act 2 is all shown from a villain's perspective). In other media, this is sort of just the bare minimum, but games rarely bother with characters growing, changing, or having real setbacks that make them question things along their way.

This was followed up with the expansion, Brood War, which mirrors that same structure. One long story arc for each of three playable factions. Space elves largely doing standard fantasy beats, middle third switching to a villainous POV so radically different the main narrative gets largely put on hold, and some really good stuff with threads stretching through the whole thing.

Here the villain interlude is that it turns out Earth in this setting is run by full-on fascists, they caught wind of everything going on in this region where there'd previously been a big rebellion, and swing back in to clamp down again. They don't interact with the actual protagonists much (generally, they see the space nazis sweeping in and run off to lay low), so we mostly just have them swooping in and quickly mopping up Mengsk's little newfound dictatorship, with the actual story being the relationship dynamic between the guy in charge (DuGalle), his right hand man he's known forever (Stukov), and a local rebel welcoming them with open arms (Duran). Long story short, Duran's actually a double agent and very gradually pits the other two against each other. DuGalle eventually has Duran kill Stukov thinking he stabbed him in the back, realizes that's dumb, ultimately fails at his whole invasion, and in the epilogue kills himself, which if you read the relevant bit of my FF14 summaries, you know is how I like my stories about clear nazi analogues to end.

In the main narrative though, we pick right back up from the big heroic sacrifice with the bummer of a reveal that killing the primary brain of the psychic space bug collective didn't really get the job done, because some of its secondary brains (refreshingly not a concept pulled out of nowhere, these were firmly established to serve the dual purposes of having clear military targets for a giant pile of bugs, and a way to actually have enough characters for dialog exchanges in that third of the story) are trying to put the band back together. In their current disorganized state though, Kerrigan is no longer a semi-autonomous corrupted bug minion, but totally has her free will and sense of self restored, while still being all chitinous and at least somewhat capable of commanding the other bugs.

So as the whole expansion plays out, and the perspective shifts from the space elves doing some real desperate migration and defense because the plan to save their home world from the big bug invasion ultimately failed, through the nazi invasion, and ultimately to the POV of the secondary bug-brain you'd previously played as who'd been buggified Kerrigan's baby sitter essentially, now forced into taking orders from her, we are mostly dealing with this big hanging question of whether she's really good and trustworthy again, or secretly still under bug control, or if she's good for now but any minute that hivemind could properly come back online and take her over again. And of course, Jimmy's all angsty and pining because he never got over that one-sided crush.

While there's plenty of red flags about her being trustworthy over the course of things, the narrative actually manages to play things close to the chest well enough for the ultimate reveal to be a pretty fun twist. She absolutely 100% is fundamentally herself again, it's just that for a series of mostly pretty well-justified reasons, she absolutely hates every other character in the story. Either they've been trying to kill her, they abused and manipulated her, or they've totally objectified her. Or they're nazis who just showed up, who you don't really need a personal reason to want to kill, but just for good measure they're trying to revive and mind control the central bug mind, so, yeah, that's a threat. So at the last minute the whole thing just reveals itself as a big elaborate revenge story with a fairly strongly gendered theme about being denied agency and being othered, where the actually quite clear-headed just ruthless girl wins.

And then, a decade later, we get StarCraft 2. And what's the main narrative of StarCraft 2? We spend the whole time focused on Jimmy, who has somehow gone from this young idealistic biker/space cowboy with thinning hair, talking like a hippie and bouncing around getting in way over his head trying to rescue people from space bugs by just lending a hand to whoever else seems interested in doing that and crushing on this girl Kerrigan who couldn't be clearer about not liking him back to uh... some sort of gruff jaded old former military general with a bunch of old war buddies, a drinking problem, and a full head of hair, cruising around on his big personal battleship saving various worlds from the big space bug threat pretty much singlehandedly, and hoping to rescue his love interest Kerrigan from space bug mind control, with the help of some kind of prophesied magic space rocks you can build a big totem out of. It even completely de-buggifies her in the end, leaving a helpless little naked girl to chivalrously scoop off the ground and carry to safety. P.S. She's white now.

This isn't like, "oh whoops, we forgot the main character lost one of his boots at the end of last season" nitpicking. This is doing complete 180s on the character arcs and backstories of the central characters here. Kerrigan not needing to be rescued from zerg corruption is the ENTIRE point of Brood War's story. Which also establishes there's no longer really a zerg threat of any sort beyond what she personally wants to tell her mindless bug pals to do. And really, even if you want to de-canonize all of that for whatever reason, tacking a "hero saves the girl" ending onto the story we had in the base game of the original StarCraft still just does not work. You're taking a story whose whole theme is "putting faith in the wrong sort of person has serious consequences" and then turning around and going "actually no it doesn't."

And you know, speaking of Mengsk, it's a much lesser point, but StarCraft 2 depicts him like he's some sort of grandiose emperor from some ancient dynasty. Big imperial palace, little silver spoon in his mouth prince of a son who wants to break from his family's legacy, the whole nine yards. Again, this both fundamentally misunderstands his part in the whole central narrative, and everything that happened to him in the expansion (where not very long at all after his big power grab the UED showed up and completely took him apart, and would have executed him but Kerrigan prolonged that to watch him squirm). And when did he have this kid of his? With who? And where is Jimmy getting all these war buddies? He didn't have'em at the start of things or he wouldn't have had to join up with Mengsk. And his war buddies from that war would just be the magistrate and the surviving protoss characters who act like they barely know him here.

So, no. This does not hold up at all as a continuation. How about if we just look at it in a vacuum then?

Nope, still bad. It leans heavily on a backstory we don't get to see. And I don't mean we're missing a ton of StarCraft 1 flashbacks. I mean, we have all these "old buddy" characters, especially Tychus, but we don't get into how they became friends or do anything to show how they still are, so there's no real emotional stakes to where that ends up going. We start with him drinking his life away in a bar over how he misses this apparent old girlfriend, but we never get into the history between them and even the depressed drinking never comes up again past that shot. We vaguely establish some bitter history with this Mengsk guy, but that never really leads anywhere at all. We just kinda have these various vague and generic handwaves at Standard Protagonist Backstory Stuff. Then we actually dive into things, and it's this very episodic affair where you just hop around from planet to planet either showing up to rescue people or showing up to collect a magic rock to help build the magic Toblerone that cures being half-space-bug. And I mean, I already covered how this sort of simplistic no tension, hero always wins, collect all the treasures for victory sort of narrative is the general baseline for game writing, but other people have been trying to move things forward the last couple decades and this is just sitting at the starting line with a princess to rescue.

Now to be fair, the original StarCraft absolutely also had questing around for magic rocks. The protoss have a totally magic rock based electrical grid, the overmind wanted to eat their special magic rocks to make them more vulnerable, the last protoss mission even had a big ancient temple that did an energy blast, but that one just killed all life on the planet outside of its immediate vicinity, which feels like a more grounded thing for an ancient alien artifact to do than... vaporize/purify space bugs and leave everything else alone. And it wasn't scattered in little bits everywhere.

And then of course there's the expansions to StarCraft 2... well the good thing here is they're so divorced from anything in the original game, and even from the base game of StarCraft 2 that you don't have to worry about them messing with the legacy. I mean, OK, Heart of the Swarm has this whole weird reset where we have Kerrigan mostly human again, just so she can go on a big spirit journey and bug herself up again, so that she's strong enough for her ultimate goal of... showing up to take down Mengsk... again. And you somehow end up with a zergified version of Stukov which... OK that's just the weirdest possible way to double back and recanonize that expansion. I'm not sure that Kerrigan and Stukov were ever even really aware of each other's existence, and he died to a bullet through the head in a military base with no zerg anywhere near it. I mean, unless you remember that Duran was a double agent working for Kerrigan. Except the thing there is if you know the plot of the secret epilogue mission you'd know he was ACTUALLY one of the secret ancient aliens who created both the protoss and the zerg just pretending to a horrible bug monster spy for Kerrigan, in turn pretending to be a normal human. And that's a pretty obscure detail I'd forgive someone for missing except that literally in the mission where you're playing as Zerg-Stukov, the whole reason you're playing as Zerg-Stukov is that Kerrigan is busy doing one of those things where the two wizards fire big energy blasts at each other like some kind of tug-of-war with weird phallic overtones, and the big energy phallus she's trying to squish back is FROM Duran, in his revealed-himself-to-be-that-whole-mess glory. They remembered one thing only to get it wrong basically.

But yeah, otherwise that one's just so wild a departure I don't even know what to say. There's just... named zerg characters? They're all like bug centaurs? Because we need people to talk to and they just totally forgot they had cerebrates to get around that problem? Instead of the ancient ancestral zerg being like, psychic ringworms gradually specializing their hosts over generations, here they're like... talking dinosaur puppies who steal each other's "essence" to get huge? Past a point there's so little resemblance to the source material that I can't even be mad. And then the protoss expansion just kinda decides that the whole casting the dark templar out of their society over irreconcilable religious differences is something they've actually done like... 3 or 4 times? So we've got the outcast invisible jedi and the outcast robots and the outcast Darth Vader wannabes with some sort of society-wide ordered queue where there's exactly one person directly ahead of everyone they're allowed to kill to move up in the world. Oh and we're claiming this one robot centaur is Fenix somehow. Despite Fenix being very dead, and this robot centaur neither having that goofy muppet-y orc voice nor the overwhelmingly positive attitude. And he also somehow doesn't notice that he's a robot centaur and not a guy in a life support pod inside a robot spider. They also expect us to believe this little naked twink turned into this pile of steroids and shoulderpads somehow:

Oh! I almost forgot but also there's this thing called the Khala and it's unambiguously this set of religious teachings defining a caste system and such... but then here someone watched Avatar so we're retconning that into some sort of psychic spiritual network you connect to through your hair. You don't plug your hair in though it's just like a wifi antenna. Also it only works if you're part of the main society that keeps throwing other people out none of these other people have hair wifi. Also like the entire deal here is that protoss just are not psychic, it's their one flaw. There's this whole thing with them representing physical perfection but being held back by being a bunch of very religious idiots, while the zerg are mentally perfect what with the hive mind but physically just, like, a ringworm, so the ultimate life form their creators really wanted to create requires the zerg to take over the protoss, or just going screw it and hybridizing the two in a lab. Again, this is one of those really obscure details, it only comes up in the weird backstory in the manual that doesn't even get touched on in the game outside the one secret mission in the expansion... but here we have the same scene both acknowledging that deep lore and totally contradicting it.

But yeah, taken as their own independent stories... well... what stories? Kerrigan wants to be a big buff bug lady so she can depose a jerk she already deposed, and she does that. There are no complications or twists along the way. "Artanis" has to go collect all the protoss the in-group don't count as people, because Satan got into their hair wifi and anyone who didn't just get a haircut turned evil. So he goes and does that. Again, no complications of any sort along the way. Also no real ideological conflicts.

The deal with the robot protoss is some idiots went "hey what if we took all of our greatest most celebrated heroes and we copied their minds into robots in their entirety" and then got super confused that they still, you know, want to be treated as people with rights and such and not just mindless robots. So, you know, simple fix there. Then the... actually just evil ones are... lead by John DeLancey. Everyone likes him. So, problem resolved? And the dark templar are already befriended from before, so nothing's needed there besides going to their homeworld to pick them up. Their uh.... home world everyone already evacuated to and then that was compromised and their leader was replaced with puppet and then everyone maybe died? But yeah they're fine.

So then after all the racism is solved forever by just... deciding not to do that anymore, Kerrigan jumps in some kind of magic pool to transform into a giant naked golden angel, and she does this to become the embodiment of purity of essence we apparently need (which also purges all zerg-ness I guess?) and... look there's no easy way to say this. It turns into Homestuck. That whole convoluted thing from Homestuck where there's this eternal cycle of universes being created by light and dark themed people teaming up to create the next one and in theory kind of operate as it's gods but not if they don't feel like it... we're just ripping all that off wholesale for this complete asspull of an ending. And then everyone shoots space satan in the face. He's a big squid. And then Kerrigan turns back into a normal human girl so she can go on a date with Jimmy. Oh and then there's a third expansion recycling the scrapped plot from that action game they were going to do back on the N64 or whatever but I learned how awful the company was before getting curious enough on that one.

It's just bad. Even by game writing standards, it's bad. And I didn't even get into how bad it is with women in particular. We've got the big doe-eyed scientist who needs to be rescued from the scary bugs and then oh no it turns out she got bit by a bug and now she's turning into one and has to be put down (and no, this has never been how that worked). Then we've got Kerrigan who aside from needing rescuing and purifying and coming out naked has this whole expansion to herself where in theory she's totally in charge and self-directing every decision, but every time you click anywhere the confirmation is just her getting all pouty and whiny? Like a toddler you're telling to put shoes on so you can go to the doctor or something? Like, is it just me? Is it the direction? Is it the voice filter? Was the actress just miserable in the recording booth?

youtube

Then she's got this little bug girl assistant who hangs down from the ceiling, kinda like the adjutant from the original StarCraft, but instead of being all detatched and robotic she's all uwu pwecious? And the protoss campaign just kinda keeps turning women into mouthpieces for Satan. It's... a whole thing.

So yeah, badly written stories all throughout, no matter how you slice it. No continuity, no consistency, no character arcs or tension, just be the big cool action hero, do some getting the band back together stuff, collect some magic rocks and ritual circles, purify this girl here with the big magic circle (3 times no less) and then whatever there's space Satan. It's a mess... did I even have a larger point with this?

Probably not, but it was entertaining I hope? Maybe throw a little cash my way?

#Starcraft 2 #blizzard #terrible writing #game writing #People always object to me pointing out Kerrigan wasn't originally white but oh wow those people have nothing on the bald Jimmy deniers #like people come up and say OK he looks bald in his chat window animations but it's an old game and they couldn't do hair right back then #except no everyone else totally has hair and mostly it looks fine for real there was a conscious design choice to give him receding hair OK #Anyway Blizzard is terrible and nobody should support them in any way just boycott those monsters please

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chenziee · 1 year

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Ash

Attempt #idk-how-many to see if this finally shows up in the goddamned tags because I care about this verse and this fic okay

Once again, I bring you an offering of some extremely soft Lawlu with a dash of Law being embarrassingly in love (which really isn't any different from canon), feat. Law taking some romantic phrases and little bit too literally.

This is part 3 of the vivre card/Ashes of Life series but as usual, you absolutely don't need to have read the other two for this to make sense!

! Manga spoilers for chapters 1030 onward, mostly 1043 and 1044 ! Light angst with a happy ending and a lot of comfort :)

[ Read on AO3 | Full Series | Ko-Fi ]

—————

The Skull Dome of Onigashima was shaking, pieces of rubble and wood falling off the ceiling and walls. It was no wonder with all the fierce battles that were going on—really, in Law’s opinion it was more of a shock that the building was still standing after their fight with Kaido on the roof, the All Stars and Tobi Roppo going wild all over the place, not to mention the Straw Hats. They were probably doing more damage than all their enemies combined. Hell, Straw Hat himself came crashing through the goddamned floor only minutes earlier riding a pink fucking dragon.

How very Straw Hat-ya, Law thought to himself with some undeniable, if questionable, amusement.

“The fuck are you smiling about, Trafalgar?” Eustass asked with disgust.

Law scowled, quickly wiping the smile off his face as he looked at his tentative ally. “Speak for yourself,” Law shot back, eyeing the manic grin on Eustass’ lips.

Seriously.

He was surrounded by idiots.

First Straw Hat and Roronoa, now Eustass—all of them a bit too happy to pick fights with people for no reason for Law taste.

Although, Law didn’t have much room to talk.

Huffing to himself, Law stood up to his full height, leaning Kikoku’s long blade against his shoulder as he took in Big Mom’s large, threatening presence. She was staring down at them, hair aflame, sword in one hand, thunder cloud in the other. Random things brought to life were dancing at her feet, all of them laughing and taunting him and Eustass. A wide smile was plastered on her face, a smile that couldn’t be more different from the one Straw Hat always wore whenever facing a strong enemy. It was icy cold, born not of the thrill of battle but of pure bloodthirst, lacking any care for anything or anyone.

Law much preferred Straw Hat’s idiotic, excited grins even though they always gave him a headache in the end.

“You have that disgusting expression on your face again,” Eustass said with a click of his tongue.

“Fuck off, Eustass-ya. Focus on the enemy,” Law retorted but he schooled his expression back to neutral.

What was he even doing, thinking about Straw Hat while he had Big Mom raging and ready to kill right in front of him? How stupid. But somehow, he couldn’t help but feel lighter because of it. Because that’s what Luffy did, wasn’t it? Making people stop doubting themselves, giving them hope when there was none, pushing them forward when they saw no path ahead.

Even now, he was on the roof fighting Kaido after he was already defeated twice, stubbornly charging forward to show the way to all the warriors fighting inside the Skull Dome. He would beat Kaido no matter what it took, no matter how many times he got beat down—he would always bounce back like the rubbery idiot he was and finally bring dawn to Wano. And Law had no doubt that he would succeed.

Shaking his head to clear it, Law chased all these useless thoughts away. No matter how confident in their—and Luffy’s—victory he was, they were still facing two Emperors.

Really, having fought them both, he could describe them as nothing but monsters. And honestly… It was fun. And even if it meant he had to work with Eustass, he would make sure to drag Big Mom down from her perch, from the comfortable, untouchable seat of an Emperor of the Sea.

The Rocks’ era was over two years ago.

Now, it was their era to claim.

Flexing his hand, a smirk pulled on Law’s lips. How much would it take to dethrone two relics of a time long gone? How much to claim their seats?

He was sure they were going to find out soon.

“K-Room.”

He was going to bring Big Mom down right here, right now. And then he was going to watch Luffy as he tore the rest of the old world down.

—————

Gasping for breath, Law finally let himself drop to the floor, completely spent. For a moment, he wondered if he could just pass out and sleep for a week now—he deserved at least that after overusing his awakened powers and sending Big Mom who knows how far underground, right?

“Captain!!”

He heard his crew cheer from somewhere but he didn’t bother looking in that direction; he only closed his eyes, leaning his back against the rubble as he relaxed. Now the only things that remained was cleaning out the fodder, the All Stars, and Kaido.

Law took a deep breath, focusing his Observation Haki to gauge the situation. Honestly, it was near impossible to tell what was even going on inside the Dome but he couldn’t say he cared. It was enough that he couldn’t find either King’s, Queen’s or Jack’s presence. Beside that… the only thing that mattered to him was the roof.

“Straw Hat-ya,” Law muttered, finally opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling where he could sense Luffy’s and Kaido’s Voices.

They were both much weaker than they were at the start of this night but they were still raging to go… although Law could tell Straw Hat was about as exhausted as Law himself. It wouldn’t be long for that fight to be over as well.

“Captain! Are you okay?!” Bepo asked with urgency as he fell to his knees next to Law to check him over.

Law only hummed noncommittally, barely paying attention while he focused on the Voices above. Why were there three now?

And then… there were only two again.

And a split second later… only one.

A single Voice.

And it wasn’t Luffy.

Law’s eyes widened as he shot up, ignoring his protesting body that refused to move. He needed to make sure.

Law paid no attention to Bepo’s cry, the mink probably shocked from the speed and suddenness of his best friend’s movement, but Law just didn’t care. Not now.

“Room,” he growled, a tiny sphere appearing around his hand for a second before it flickered out of existence again. Law clicked his tongue impatiently, before trying again, "Fucking—Room.”

Finally, his power listened to him and a Room came to life, holding stable, and Law continued, turning his hand up to his chest. “Scalpel.”

“Captain, what are you doing?!” Bepo cried in alarm.

“Not now, Bepo,” Law snapped.

“Have you finally lost it, Trafalgar?” Eustass asked then, voice mocking.

“Shut up!” Law really didn’t have the patience for any of them right now. He could feel his heart being a mile per second as he took it out of his ribcage, his breathing shallow while his mind went completely blank, his vision narrowing until he could barely see anything. “Hold this,” he told Bepo absent-mindedly before he dropped his heart into Bepo’s lap.

He could hear Bepo fumbling to grab it, probably terrified something would happen to the organ with it being treated so carelessly by its owner.

Law, however, simply reached into the hole that was left in his chest, searching—searching for something that should be so easy to grab but that he simply couldn’t find. It couldn’t be gone, it simply couldn’t… Where is it? Please no no no—

Finally, his fingers touched something that didn’t belong in the crevice and Law quickly took it out, clenching it in his fist for a moment. He was scared to look at it. He could already feel it—he could feel the burn, feel the size, feel it falling apart. He didn’t want to look but there was nothing else for him, nothing to do, no way to avoid it. Fuck, he could hear it from his Voice anyway.

He was just so scared.

Taking a shaky breath, Law opened his hand to look at the piece of paper on his palm—or what was left of it.

“Did you seriously just pull a vivre card out of your fucking chest? Are you actually insane?” Eustass asked with his voice completely blank and Law could just imagine the weirded out expression he was probably wearing right then. But then, Eustass continued, “Wait. Don’t tell me that’s—”

“Straw Hat…” Bepo breathed quietly, carefully.

Law didn’t react to either of them. He only gulped heavily, watching as the tiny, oh so tiny piece of paper moved weakly across his palm, getting smaller with every second as the edges burned more and more. There was barely anything left. Barely enough to hang onto any hope.

“What are you doing?” Law growled, but he could barely hear himself. There was a hum in his ears, a white noise that didn’t mean anything, didn’t serve any purpose but to drive him even more mad.

He refused to believe this.

The paper had to be lying.

There was simply no way, no way that Luffy lost.

No way that his life was about to disappear, leaving behind nothing but a few specks of ash.

He had to do something. He blindly reached his free hand, searching for Kikoku, getting ready to get up but his legs weren’t listening to him. He didn’t have any strength left to even move, much less fight.

And then… it was too late anyway.

“No—” Law could barely let out before the last bits of paper scattered into the air, leaving behind nothing more than the ghost of the feeling of burning embers on his palm.

For a moment, it was like time had stopped. Law couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything. He only sat there motionlessly while Bepo panicked beside him, Eustass cursing somewhere so very far away. And still, the only thing running through his mind was no, this can’t be happening.

What kind of sick joke was this?

They had come so far; they brought all these people together, they pulled off this raid, they beat all the strongest enemies… The only one left was Kaido and up until this very moment, Law had no doubt he would witness yet another miracle of Straw Hat’s own making.

He never even considered this possibility. If he had known, he would have never—

He shouldn’t have left the roof.

He should have helped.

He should have been there.

But he didn’t and he wasn’t and now he was here; alone. Left with nothing but a hole in his chest and a few pieces of dust on his skin that were just a reminder of what used to be a solid chunk of paper—one full of life which was stronger than any other, with determination to pull through anything and still burn brightly like the sun.

So why? Why did this happen?

Law barely flinched when the ceiling came crashing down and Kaido’s booming voice demanded Momonosuke’s head, declaring Luffy’s death in the same breath.

It wasn’t a surprise to him, after all. It didn’t fucking matter what Kaido said at this point.

“It was a short-lived dream…” Eustass muttered.

“Suppose it’s the cold, hard reality. We have nothing left,” Law replied, voice completely void of emotion. He still couldn’t tear his eyes away from charred, black remains of Luffy’s life-force still clinging to his skin.

“Fuck this. I’m going to fight, Trafalgar. I’m not surrendering just like that,” Eustass announced, slowly getting to his feet even though his movements were sluggish and wobbly.

And Law knew—he knew that was the right thing to do. He, too, was going to fight. This was no time to sit here and be completely useless…

But before he could so much as look up, something stopped him. “What the—”

Completely frozen, Law could only watch with wide eyes as specks of dust and ash gathered in his palm, swirling in place as if guided by a non-existent gust of wind. It took Law a long moment to realise what was happening; and how could he? It was ridiculous, completely unheard of, and if Law didn’t see it happening in real time, he would never have believed it.

But there it was, the very same vivre card that had burned down to nothing a mere minute ago, back in one piece as if nothing happened and only growing bigger each second.

The wave of powerful haki that followed seemed almost redundant then. And when the deafening beat of a drum started echoing in his mind, Law had no doubt what was happening anymore. Or well, he still had absolutely no idea what was even going on but he did know the most important thing.

“Fucking idiot,” Law sighed as his fingers curled into a fist around the full-sized, alive vivre card, clutching it close.

“What’s going on? What’s this sound?!” Bepo asked, paws on his ears as he looked around with confusion.

“Just Straw Hat-ya doing something ridiculous. Again. Don’t worry about it, he’s really going to finish it now.” Law let go of a tired breath, finally allowing himself to relax again. He felt so exhausted… As if the fight with Big Mom wasn’t enough, Straw Hat just had to go and make it worse.

He was going to have a word with this idiot when this was all over.

“Uhm, captain?”

Cracking one eye open, Law glanced at Bepo, humming questioningly.

Bepo fumbled for a moment, looking like he was trying to pick something up while absolutely terrified to touch it. Only when he managed to raise his paws up, did Law realise why. “Sorry. What—what about your heart?”

“Shit I completely forgot,” Law groaned, forcing himself to sit up again before he reached over to grab the organ from Bepo’s awkward hold to put it back in place. “Thanks.”

“Freak,” someone noted.

“Fuck off, Eustass-ya.”

—————

Whatever Law had expected to happen when Straw Hat had come back, it sure as hell wasn’t that. He still wasn’t sure what did actually happen but watching Luffy, with his hair and clothes pure white, jump and run around, change sizes however he wished, bend the very laws of nature to his own will, and laugh like a maniac the whole time… It was both completely surreal and perfectly Straw Hat at the same time.

And watching him now, having fun during the celebratory festival as if nothing happened…

Law just felt so tired.

“Captain? Are you okay?” Penguin asked when Law got up from the ground where he and his crew had been drinking at the sidelines of the heart of the festival.

No, Law's mind immediately supplied but he bit his tongue, refusing to let the word slip out.

“I need a break,” Law said without elaborating.

Penguin looked like he was about to press him but when their eyes met, he deflated and nodded, making Law sigh in relief. He really didn’t feel like explaining the frustration he felt right then—not to his crew, not to his friends, not to anyone. He was sure Penguin, Shachi and Bepo could understand what was on his mind either way, after all the time they’ve known each other.

Without another word, Law turned around and left, leaving the noise and energy of the festival behind. He didn’t even know where he was heading, he simply knew he needed to get away; get somewhere where he could breathe, where he didn’t have to put up a facade of being alright.

Because he wasn’t alright. Not after Onigashima; the fight with Kaido, Big Mom, and everything after… It was too much. And with everyone celebrating and all the stress falling away, it was getting impossible to hide.

He really didn’t want to see anyone but of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

“Torao!! Finally found you!”

Heaving a deep sigh, Law stopped in his tracks, rubbing at his forehead. He already felt a headache coming; he wasn’t ready for this conversation but he knew there would be no point in trying to run away from this stubborn idiot. He always had a way to find Law wherever he would try to hide.

“Straw Hat-ya. What is it?” he asked when the other captain stopped next to him, out breath but with a wide smile plastered on his face and Law hated how his heart skipped a beat at the sight.

“I just wanted to see you! Your friends said you went on a walk so I thought I’d join you!” he announced proudly.

Law didn’t respond, he only turned away and started walking again.

“Oi, Torao. Wait for me,” Straw Hat said, obviously taken aback by Law’s lack of communication.

“Then keep up,” Law shot back. He wasn’t even sure why he was being so short with him but he was just so annoyed.

They walked in silence for a moment and Law could feel Straw Hat’s gaze on the side of his head the entire time. He wanted to snap at him to stop staring, to just go away but somehow… he didn’t even care anymore.

He wasn’t surprised when Straw Hat finally spoke up, probably unable to bear the silence anymore, “Torao. What’s wrong?”

Law closed his eyes momentarily, praying for patience. He couldn’t say anyone was listening to him, however, and he felt his blood-pressure raising as he gritted his teeth. “Take a fucking guess,” he hissed.

Straw Hat tilted his head to the side, his eyebrows scrunching up into an adorable frown—one that only made Law even more annoyed. “I won’t know unless you talk to me, Torao…”

“Fine! You want to know what’s wrong? You’re what’s wrong!” Law finally snapped, running his hands through his hair in frustration, knocking his hat off in the process but he didn’t even care. “What the fuck were you thinking? You just let Kaido push you to that point without asking for help and without anyone even fucking knowing! And then what happened?!”

“Tora—” Straw Hat started before stopping himself. He quietly watched Law as he started pacing back and forth and continued ranting.

“Actually, I don’t even want to know what was running through that empty goddamned head of yours. Probably fucking nothing because you never think. You never stop to plan anything, never even wonder what might happen! Did the fact you already lost once and ended up in a fucking labour camp mean nothing? Why are you always so fucking reckless—”

“Law!” Straw Hat finally called before he grabbed Law’s arm, forcing him to stop in his tracks. “Law, look at me.”

“Fuck off, Straw Hat-ya. Let me go!” Law growled, trying to pry his arm out of Luffy’s vice grip without much success.

“No! Law, please. Look at me. We won. We’re both fine, all of us are fine. Nothing—”

“Don’t you dare say nothing happened!” Law interrupted as he finally yanked his arm free to instead point at Luffy’s chest, poking him hard just above his heart with every word that followed, “You. Fucking. Died.”

Silence followed his final statement. Luffy simply looked at him in silence, those large, honest eyes seemingly peering right into Law’s soul and taking him apart to the last atom while Law only stood there, glaring back at him as he panted lightly, out of breath after his tirade. He didn’t even care if he sounded pathetic and childish; he was just so angry. Angry and frustrated and tired and so scared.

It took a full minute before either of them moved but finally, Straw Hat opened his mouth, speaking quietly, “But I didn’t die, Law. I’m here now.”

Law clicked his tongue. “Luffy, you fucking died. Your vivre card burned to nothing in my fucking hand and I could do fuck all about it.”

And that was the entire heart of the matter, wasn’t it? That Law didn’t know until it was too late, that he couldn’t do anything about it, that he was completely and utterly helpless. Helpless in supporting him, helpless in protecting him, helpless in bringing him back.

It was only thanks to luck, the absolute ridiculousness of the Gum Gum Fruit, and Straw Hat’s endless willpower that he was even standing in front of Law right now. Law couldn’t do anything to support the love of his miserable fucking life when he most needed it.

He knew Luffy wouldn’t have wanted his help in the first place. He knew the best thing he could have done in that situation was to take care of Big Mom. He knew.

And yet…

“I’m sorry,” Luffy said finally, voice serious.

Law sighed heavily. “No, you’re not.”

“Well, I mean—” Straw Hat folded his hands behind his head, a small pout appearing on his lips— “I’m not sorry about picking a fight with Kaido, he deserved it!”

“See?” Law groaned while rubbing the bridge of his nose. Why was this idiot so—

“But I am sorry I scared you. Really.”

As soon as Law heard those words, it was like all energy drained from him and his shoulders sagged. He didn’t even care anymore; he just wanted to sleep and not have to think about any of this. Why was he even so angry in the first place? It was all done and over already. No what-ifs or alternatives could change what really happened and Luffy was right—they were okay now and everything worked out.

So what did it matter?

Clicking his tongue, Law turned away. He wanted to pick up his forgotten hat and just leave but before he could so much as lean down, Luffy’s fingers closed around his wrist, stopping him. He looked at him questioningly but before he could so much as say anything, Luffy shook his head, tugged at Law’s hand gently… and smiled.

“Come here,” he said quietly, opening his arms in invitation.

Law scowled, not moving a muscle but he didn’t protest when Luffy took a step closer, his arms snaking behind Law’s back and pulling him into a hug. It still took him a moment but soon, it became impossible to fight the warmth and security of Luffy’s embrace and he let himself relax, sinking into the feeling.

Letting go of a shaky breath, Law buried his face into the crook of Luffy’s neck, his arms coming to wrap around Luffy’s waist, pulling him closer. Suddenly, Law realised this was the first time he had touched Luffy since before the battle of Onigashima—really, when was the last time? Probably in the Amigasa village the morning before the raid, when they had exchanged a quick kiss before they each went their own way, to their own crews and their own ships.

After the battle, Luffy was unconscious for days and being cared for by Tony; there was no reason for Law to hang around. He really only got to see him earlier today once the festival started but Luffy being Luffy, he barely said hi to Law before he ran off to raid every stall he could get to.

Maybe… all Law needed was to feel his warmth, touch his skin, smell his hair—make sure he was real, solid, breathing.

That he was alive.

“I’m not going anywhere, Torao,” Luffy mumbled quietly as he slowly ran his fingers through Law’s hair.

“Back to stupid nicknames, are we?” Law asked instead of acknowledging his words.

Straw Hat snickered. “You love it!”

“Fuck off, Straw Hat-ya,” Law sighed.

At that, Luffy only laughed harder. “I love you, Torao.”

Law clicked his tongue, his fingers curling into the fabric of Luffy’s yukata. “Shut up.”

“No. I love you!” he sang, his voice shaking in amusement.

“Fine!” Law snapped. “I love you too. Happy?”

“Yep!” Straw Hat announced proudly and Law could just picture the impossibly bright, blinding smile that was undoubtedly plastered on his face. “Now I just need some of the meat Sanji was cooking before I left to chase you…”

Law groaned. And here he thought they were having a moment… “I take it back. I fucking hate you.”

“What?! But I was going to share with you!”

“I don’t want any,” Law said and despite himself, a smile pulled on his lips.

“But it looked so tasty,” Straw Hat whined.

With an amused huff, Law finally pulled away from Luffy, taking in the adorable pout that was adorning his lips. He didn’t resist the temptation to kiss it away.

But, even after they separated, the unhappy expression stayed in Luffy’s face and Law chuckled, shaking his head at the sight. “You can have the meat, I don’t care.”

Immediately, Luffy’s face split into that blinding grin that made Law fall in love in the first place and he cheered, grabbing Law’s hand to drag him back towards the festival. Law barely had the time to grab his hat off the ground before Luffy’s rubbery pull gave him no choice but to follow.

It was hours later—hours during which he was forced to literally wrestle a laughing Luffy away from the food stalls and their desperately crying owners, only to instead end up goaded into playing many of the available games with Luffy, the Straw Hats, his own crew, Kaido’s son, and Eustass of all people—that Law realised the weight he had been carrying around for days had lifted.

And he wasn’t tired anymore.

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