#but its fun to examine what actually considered canon

[maniacwatchestheworld]

We Need To Talk About Danny's Power Level.

I was hesitant to make this post, but the more I think about it and the more I see... We really HAVE to discuss this. Generally speaking, I really don't want to be seen as someone who is trying to ruin people's fun within this fandom. I want to inform, and while I have issues with some of the very prevalent ideas in this fandom, I don't want to tell people what they should or should not be making! I want people to follow what they find fun to create! But this power level thing...? I think that it has some rather concerning implications to it that need to be examined and discussed! This is an actual, decently serious problem, and after considering it for a time, it occurs to me that I may be one of the few people in this community that recognizes this issue as an actual issue and has the authority to speak on it...

You NEED to stop making Danny so incredibly overpowered in the DPxDC space.

Now please don't misunderstand me. I understand the value of a good fun power fantasy and making Danny more powerful than God can be fun and cathartic if you have a negative history with the Christian faith. But this insistence on the Ghost Zone being The Most Important Thing Ever and Danny being The Most Powerful Entity Within It is actually actively warping how people interpret and think about DC canon as well as certain characters within its canon to the point of unrecognizability as well as robbing characters of what makes them interesting, the point of their stories, and their agency within it. But most importantly of all, all of this is just... Generally, genuinely dismissive and shitty towards most religions, cultures, beliefs, and faiths that people practice, ESPECIALLY the faiths of POC and other minorities. And this is specifically an issue that DC does not have and that people within this space are making an issue by refusing to let the Ghost Zone and Danny have some limitations.

So that you understand where I'm coming from, please understand that I'm a person of color (I'm half Filipino) and that I'm Buddhist (a religion that I decided to convert to and embrace after a lot of thought and soul-searching, even if I'm not very good at practicing it). It also needs to be stated that in the DC universe, all religions and faiths are true and real at the same time, and they all have more or less equal footing as any other faith or religion or mythology explored in this multiverse. Christian heaven and hell are real. Reincarnation is canonical to the DCU. The Greek Pantheon is real and they are just as real and powerful as the Norse Pantheon. (By the by, just to let you know, yes, people in the real life modern day do actually actively worship both of these pantheons today.) Different alien planets have different faiths, and there is precedent for them being real as well. (Hey! Fun fact! Kryptonians are polytheistic!) It does seem that some form of animism is real within the DCU (within concepts of The Red and The Green)! And there is even representation for indigenous African faiths and beliefs within this shared universe! One of the genuinely wonderful things about the DC universe is that all of these faiths are real, they're all valid, and they are all more or less on equal footing to one another! If all the religions and afterlives and gods of each pantheon went to war with one another, it would genuinely be difficult to know who would win, or who would even stand a chance of coming out of this conflict alive!

In fact, a lot of characters and storylines within the DC universe are actually DEPENDENT on all of these faiths existing and being equally valid at the same time. Do you know where Billy Batson gets his powers from? The phrase "SHAZAM," if you didn't know, is actually an acronym for the names of the gods and heroes that he derives his powers from. (Solomon, Heracles, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.) And it's implied that each person with SHAZAM powers has different heroes and gods that they derive their power from! (Black Adam derives all of his powers from the Egyptian Pantheon. Mary Marvel derives all of her powers from female gods and heroic figures.) Many of Wonder Woman's stories involve her interacting with various different pantheons. Xanthe Zhou gets their powers from traditional Chinese folk ancestor-worshiping practices. Ragman is a Jewish character whose suit is a powerful Jewish artifact- a suit made out of the souls of sinners that was created to protect the Jewish community. Sun Wukong is an actual character in the DCU and he is JUST as overpowered and immortal ×500 as he should be! And there are like... At least 3 entirely different characters that either are iterations of, claim to be, or pull their powers/inspiration from Anansi! DC celebrates a lot of faiths and religions and are bringing in more beliefs and faiths into their universe all the time! TONS of characters derive their powers from their religions, faiths, and beliefs! And DC celebrates them all as being real and valid to all who practice them! ... And you want them all to be forced to be under the same umbrella and less important and powerful as Danny and the Ghost Zone...

Bringing up ideas of ghosts and afterlives are always going to be loaded subjects because they often inherently rub up against actual living people's practiced religions and beliefs. But a belief in ghosts and dimensions better suited for them is also a valid belief that real life people have. And there is precedent for these beliefs also being real within DC canon. But DC only manages to get away with crossing over as many faiths as it does by saying that they are all real, valid, and while you might see less of some pantheons and more of others, they all exist and are doing their own thing just like they do in real life, just off panel... Are you beginning to see what the problem is...?

In the DPxDC fandom's eagerness to incorporate Danny into the DC universe and to make him powerful enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Superman, it seems that most people immediately overcompensated and that no one has really thought to slow down, stop, and actually think about what they are implying. Because the most common headcanons that I have seen regarding the Ghost Zone and other afterlives and religions? It's that they are all parts of the Ghost Zone, but are all ultimately subordinate to it. And since Danny is the Most Powerful and Important Person in the Ghost Zone... This implies that all religions, faiths and beliefs are less important and are indeed subordinate to the Almighty Danny. That all deities and the people following them should just bow down to Danny's might. This is something that DC, in spite of all of its flaws, has managed to avoid. These religions are REAL religions! Actual faiths practiced by actual people! We are NOT talking about dead, irrelevant pantheons that no one alive worship anymore! We are talking about living, active faiths and religions, some of which colonizers have tried to eradicate from the world! Some of these faiths have been suppressed! Some of the people who practice these beliefs have faced genocide for them! And so saying that the Ghost Zone is bigger, better, and that Danny is more important than any single other faith and afterlife...? THAT'S A SHITTY THING TO DO! You are literally doing the shitty Christian missionary thing, but with a fictional afterlife that consists of fictional characters that you know are not actual religious beliefs! You're landing on the sandy polytheistic shores of the DCU and declaring that the Ghost Zone is actually vaster than every faith already in the DCU and that Danny is more powerful and has authority over your gods! That your beliefs and faith and religion should just take a backseat to the Danny power fantasy! That your real, lived religion is not more important nor should it be respected when Danny is in the room! Of course the Buddha should bow down to Danny! Of course the Jewish people should renounce their faith and worship Danny instead because he's better and more powerful than the Jewish God! Why should people pray to their ancestors when Danny ultimately gets to decide what happens to everyone's ancestors!? If they want good things to happen to their ancestors in the afterlife, they should pray to Danny instead! Not like any form of prayer works or matters in this universe anyway because Danny is Almighty! And he doesn't hear the prayers! By making all faiths subordinate to Danny within these stories, you are saying that anyone who practices these beliefs and faiths within these stories are not valid in their beliefs. The only belief that matters and is real in this universe is the Ghost Zone and whatever will appease Danny the most. And while the characters in these stories are not real, the religions, beliefs, and practices they engage in ARE. And so you are implying that real people's faiths and religions don't matter. You are just dismissing real faiths and beliefs as not something worth thinking about or respecting within your works! You are saying that this fictional American white teenage boy and his goopy green land is more important to you than just being respectful of real people's faiths, beliefs, and religions. That your power fantasy is more important than saying that a person is valid for holding on to their beliefs. That when it comes down to it, that you would rather people choose your Danny power fantasy over their religion being portrayed as important and valid. That is honestly insulting. And really alls that you've done is impose monotheism onto the DC universe. You're just enforcing monotheism on people with extra steps. But instead of it being the Christian God, you've put Danny in that position. THIS IS A SHITTY THING TO DO! THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE DEFAULT HEADCANON THAT PEOPLE HAVE IN THIS FANDOM! PLEASE STOP!

Please understand. I know that you didn't do this on purpose or mean to imply this intentionally. I know that you didn't realize that you were insulting and undermining actual faiths and religions by pushing these ideas on the fandom. If one or two people had these thoughts and headcanons and didn't think very much about what they are implying, this would not be a problem. But for this to be the default is VERY disconcerting! As a Buddhist, it does feel genuinely shitty and insulting to imply that Danny has authority over the Buddha and that he outranks and is more powerful than Sun Wukong. It's not fun to think that my beliefs matter to you less than continuing to play with your Danny power fantasy. That you don't think that the pursuit for enlightenment and inner peace is real or worthwhile. That you would find my pursuit of compassion over everything else to be silly, stupid, and laughable when stood next to Danny. I know that you don't mean it. I know that's not what you meant to imply. But it is what you imply by making every faith subordinate to the Ghost Zone. And as someone who has a faith that is so often seen as subordinate to others and just a silly little play fantasy that doesn't matter and isn't real, it's depressing and uncomfortable to see this community as a whole unknowingly echo these sentiments. People in real life don't think that my faith is valid. People don't believe me when I say that I'm Buddhist. And as someone who is Filipino on top of that, I can't help but to think about the utter tragedy of my ancestors being forced to convert to Christianity or die. To forget their beliefs, pretend they never mattered, and embrace Jesus. To be forced to believe that their indigenous beliefs didn't matter. And so many of those indigenous beliefs are now lost and forgotten to their living ancestors (including myself) for it because to the Christians, their belief in Jesus was ultimately more important to them than just letting the Filipino beliefs and religions peacefully exist as they were. It's uncomfortable to me that you would rather I just embrace this view of Danny and let him be more important than and be an authority over my religion. That I should just be comfortable in Danny being more important and better than every religion that people actually practice in real life. That I should just forget the insult to my and any other religion that you make by placing Danny as more important than, and to "just have fun." But I can't. And these ideas are everywhere in this fandom. Even in stories where it shouldn't matter or doesn't need to be present, it's there. This reminder that you don't take my faith seriously- these ideas that Danny is more important than my faith are ubiquitous to this community. An issue that wasn't present in either of the original source materials. Because they thought about it and so went out of their way to not imply it. But here, people are just not willing to make that courtesy for even a second.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You can do better! I know that you can do better. And it isn't even difficult to do! All that you need to do better is to simply... Just... Think about it. When you imply or say "all afterlives are part of the Ghost Zone" actually think about ALL afterlives! Christian and Atheist and Greek ones, yes. But also Asian and Native American and African and South American ones too! Is that kind of thought fair towards Native American faiths, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Palestinians, Hellenists, Animists, and every other person and group that practices a faith? Or does this have majorly fucked up implications towards some or all of these people? If the answer is yes, you can proceed, but you need to be mindful of that fact and just think about it, even if only a little. Even if it's just a small acknowledgement that you don't know what you're talking about or that you are choosing to ignore some of the fucked up implications you're making here for the sake of the story in the tags. I just want you to take a moment and think through the implications of what you are making, and to make a choice on whether you should proceed or reconsider things. If you choose to proceed with the fucked up implications, that's fine. It means that you can do so with other mindsets in mind and can possibly use these ideas in interesting ways! At least you made a stance to possibly be shitty towards some people for the sake of your fun. At least you made the choice to say that some people's beliefs just don't matter to your story. This is a neutral statement. Some works of art are just not made for some kinds of people. And that's fine. But it is always better to knowingly acknowledge and make that choice than to pretend that it isn't there. And if you didn't realize that's what you were doing? If you reconsider and choose to turn back on this idea? At least you made that choice and didn't just passively follow the rest of the crowd to get here. Hopefully, thinking about it will make you more mindful about your art in the future and therefore make it better! The only thing to do about it is to acknowledge that you weren't thinking about the implications, but that you changed your mind, and move forwards with your life.

Now just to be entirely clear, I'm not telling you that I want you to feel guilty about being inconsiderate towards other faiths. That doesn't really do anyone any good. I won't get any satisfaction from you feeling guilty about it or internally punishing yourself for it. Just actually give what you might be implying more thought in terms of religion next time and do better. It's alright to make mistakes. We are all just human and we all make mistakes. Sometimes we don't even realize when we've made a mistake. Just strive to do better next time, be more willing to let go of these ideas that you're so attached to, allow yourself to see things from another perspective, and move on. Sometimes, it's better to just leave things alone. Sometimes you shouldn't meddle and try to rework ideas that were perfectly good on their own to begin with. Sometimes nothing that you personally can add will be a positive contribution. Sometimes the only thing that interfering will do is over-complicate things and rob the idea of what made it so interesting and powerful in the first place. But it's okay to leave it alone. It's going to be okay. I'm not angry. Just disappointed and a little frustrated. But it's better if you are able to just drop these things and move forwards with mindfulness in the future.

As an alternative, I think that it would generally be better for the Ghost Zone to just be its own thing separate from the other afterlives. Equal to other afterlives and not all-encompassing of them. It can be connected or related to other afterlives, but being greater than them as a whole is just a very uncomfortable and cruel implication. You don't need the Ghost Zone to be the most important thing in the multiverse. And Danny does not need to be the most powerful thing in existence. Please. It's okay to have power fantasies. But the invincible overpowered stronger than all Gods Danny should not be the overwhelming norm here to the detriment of everything else. It's only when you let go of Danny NEEDING to be the MOST important thing in the multiverse can you start to really dive into some of the more interesting sides of characters on their own terms and not on yours! Like... Did you know that there is one ghost character in DC called The Spectre and that he's the literal personification of the wrath of God? Did you know that Xanthe Zhou as a spirit envoy is actually half dead and half alive? Did you know that The Wizard Shazam is actually, secretly an aboriginal god? Did you know that in the DC universe that Judas Iscariot still walks the Earth to this day, doing vigilante work to atone for his betrayal of Jesus? Did you know that Ra's Al Ghul's mom has met and hung out with some of the demons that Sun Wukong fought against in Journey to the West? Hell, did you know that Damian is Buddhist!? Imagine that. Danny coming in and telling Damian that he's more important and more powerful than Damian's entire religion. That the Buddha is just a lackey of his and that he rules over all afterlives, including nirvana and cycles of reincarnation. I'm certain that Damian would take that very well and accept it wholeheartedly! Don't you agree with me?!!?!???!

I personally think that all of this is better and more interesting if characters, their religions, and ideas in general are able to interact with Danny's world on their own terms without being forced to fit within Danny's box! You don't need to try to force everything within DC's universe to fit inside Danny's. DC wouldn't ask for Danny's universe to conform to theirs! They would just add everything that Danny's universe has to offer on top of everything else they already have! And trying to fit the entire DC multiverse within the scope of Danny's universe... It's too small a box for too large of a universe! Sometimes you can just let things not be deeply connected. And sometimes things don't need a complicated explanation and it can literally just be magic. There's nothing wrong with trying to tie everything together in a neat and succinct way. But sometimes you need to pull your view out a little and look at what you're doing and genuinely ask yourself if what you're doing actually adds depth, or if it does more harm than good and makes everything worse, make less sense, and more complicated or not. It's okay to fall down the rabbit hole sometimes. I completely understand that happening and do it all the time! Just remember to be mindful about it!

Either way, if you're going to insist on desperately clinging onto these ideas of Danny being the Most Important and Powerful Thing in the Multiverse to the detriment of literally everything else, that's fine. But just be honest with what you're doing and why. This isn't a Ghost King Danny AU. Kingdoms don't have unequivocal power over other and all kingdoms. It's a God Emperor over all Gods Danny AU. Nothing wrong with that concept in of itself. Just tag it properly as something like "God King Danny" so that I don't have to deal with it and the implications you're making about my religion with it. That would be enough! I would be happy with that! Just make your choice. Think about what you're doing, why you're doing it and choose. If you choose to keep going, that's fine! All the more power to you! Have fun! But be honest about what you're making. I may not like it and think that it's an overdone, overplayed idea at this point, but you're free to do it! So go forwards and make what will bring you joy! But now that you've thought about it a little, hopefully you'll continue with a little more knowledge and foresight. And hopefully that will make your work even more interesting and better for it! And if you decide to change course, I'm glad that I was able to sway you and get you to see things from my perspective and come to my side on this. At the very least, hopefully this will help to vary up ideas within the fandom a bit and you won't just take ideas that are happening in this space entirely for granted and as givens! I have so many ideas on interesting ways that these intersections can go and characters that you can use, and ways to look at this community that offer so so SO many interesting story directions! I'm so happy that you've decided to come with me on this journey! You're going to make something great, I'm certain of it! So let's make something wonderful together! I believe in you! There's a lot of fun to be had! ^.^

[charcubed]

Disneyland's Rogers: The Musical, propaganda that turns Steve Rogers into more myth than man, and revisionist history (possibly) to a purpose

Any of my thoughts in this post could just be me reading too far into things. I'm very aware of that, and please know that this post exists just because this sort of thing is fun for me! This is a thought exercise where we propose "What if we live in a world where the MCU is actually doing a cool and interesting thing as a longcon?" If you have anger at Marvel, that's valid and relatable, but please don't get angry at me or imply I'm an MCU stan who doesn't think critically about the mouse. Thanks!

Breaking news: I'm back on my bullshit!

A quick personal recap: I infamously hated Avengers: Endgame for a long list of reasons (and I even rewrote the movie). One of those reasons is that I've always taken issue with Steve's ending. But in the years since then, and as the MCU's phase 4 has evolved, my frustration at Steve's "ending" has turned into an ongoing and legitimate theory that the MCU could be slowly leading into a loosely adapted Secret Empire plot line. I know we've all been joking about Steve being trapped or about an imposter Steve since 2019, but uhhh, it's kind of not a joke to me anymore? It feels weirdly plausible at this point and so I enjoy discussing the potential.

You can find a full elaboration on that here, where I wrote out my "Steve was snatched by HYDRA" theory in 2021.

In that post, one of the things I mentioned at the time was Rogers: The Musical being in the Hawkeye trailer.

[The musical's] very existence is an example of how in-universe the stories of the lives of the heroes are being commodified, especially (in terms of how they’re framing it) for Steve’s. The heroes are no longer seen as people, if they ever were. They are, as Kate Bishop says to Clint in a recently released clip, more about “branding.” Sam Wilson will be redefining the shield moving forward in a Cap context, but simultaneously, the world is still enamored by Steve Rogers as a symbol in his own right. And that is ripe for manipulation as a Trojan horse to control public opinion… whether in the context of things like this by themselves (is the musical portraying Steve accurately, or is it painting an inaccurate picture of him the world accepts as fact?) or in future (is this propaganda that makes the public see Steve a certain way and continue to love him, to set up a fake or brainwashed Steve coming on the scene later?).

Now a form of the musical exists in full, at Disneyland and all over Youtube. Considering some of its baffling content – which I will break down below – this perspective seems even more strongly worth considering.

I have two main reasons for why I'm defending examining this musical so closely:

1. It is (arguably) an in-universe piece of media that has bearing on the MCU canon. It isn't like any other typical Disneyland attraction; its very existence is meta and it was in canon first. Obviously it's seen in Hawkeye, but there are also posters for it in several different phase 4 properties. It's lurking in the background indefinitely. So what can this musical tell us about what the wider public within the MCU is being told about the life story of Steve Rogers?

2. This Secret Empire graphic – which is animated in the center of the stage of a prolonged period of time – feels like a literal sign to pay attention.

Granted, this is obviously still ancillary material. 99% of the MCU audience will never see this musical, whether in person or on YouTube. But just because it isn't a vital piece doesn't mean it's automatically an entirely irrelevant piece.

They've given me an inch with that sign and I'm taking a mile.

So if you're interested, please join me on this journey :)

For the record, let me just say that I salute the creative team behind this show. It's pretty fun and the songs are catchy, the sets and costuming are cool, and the cast is overall very talented.

It's also fucking maddening. LMAO.

Why? Firstly, because of the seemingly deliberate ahistorical inaccuracies. We all know Ant-Man is wrongly shown in the Battle of New York, which originally "came from [the Hawkeye showrunner] and Marvel, as something to further aggravate Hawkeye as he watched the show, and also as a comment on how movies and articles and people always get something wrong." It seems like they expanded those meta nods, but most inaccuracies are now in service of glorifying Steve and Peggy's "love story." Yes, romance objectively makes for good theater; but again, I feel that this is worth examining considering the full context.

And secondly, Steve's ending is framed as an offer presented to him, convincing him it's the happy ending he deserves because he's tired. In my mind, these two big elements go together, and I'll walk you through the details of what happens in the musical before I tie the thought threads back around into some theorizing.

For your reference, here's a list of the main songs and story beats:

• "U-S-Opening Night" - the Starkettes (who are basically a Greek chorus) frame the show's story, and then it turns into an ensemble that loosely takes place at the Stark Expo. • "I Want You" – Steve's "I want" song about trying to enlist in the army. • "Star-Spangled Man With A Plan" – Steve performing on the USO tour obviously, and then there's a reprise with an added voiceover that (very briefly) covers the Howling Commandos' rescue + the war via comic book imagery. • "What You Missed" – Fury and the Starkettes tell Steve some pop culture things he missed while he was frozen, + they tell him about the Avengers. Then Fury goes down a list of other hero characters, including the Guardians? Doctor Strange? Wanda?? It plays loose and fast with time, because many non-2012 characters are bafflingly mentioned in this nonlinear Avengers list – including the Winter Soldier (???). • "Save the City" – this is the song seen in Hawkeye, with the civilians + the Avengers all involved, but it's slightly different here and expanded to also reference other battles. • "End of the Line" – Old Steve presents main Steve with the time stone as an opportunity for his happy ending, and they reflect on things together. (Yes, this is insane.) • "Just One Dance" – Steve and Peggy reunite and sing about their love. • And then there's basically a reprise of "Save the City," with the Starkettes and the whole cast closing the finale out.

Right out of the gate, let's address this: the main reason you're going to see some fans pissed about this musical is not only that Steve and Peggy's ~epic romance~ is made a pillar of the story... but also that Bucky's importance/involvement in Steve's life is minimized as much as possible.

And they took Bucky-related elements from canon and made them center more around Peggy instead.

• For some weird reason, Peggy is in the Stark Expo scene. When a soldier is hitting on the Starkettes ("hey sweetheart, I wanna dance!"), Steve tells the soldier to show the ladies some respect. The soldier grabs Steve and throws him down, and then Peggy swoops in to yell "Pick on someone your own size!" and punches the guy before walking away. So she's given Bucky's TFA line verbatim, and she is given the role he had of saving Steve from bullies. There is blatantly no reason they couldn't have had Bucky still serve that function and be truer to "history," because he briefly enters this scene in uniform less than a minute later to announce he's shipping out to the 107th – and then he spins off with a date on his arm. (We don't see Bucky on stage again until the full cast comes out for the finale!)

• After the Star-Spangled Man show, Peggy rushes in to talk to Steve. Steve is excited about his USO performance (???) but she urgently tells him to listen as she says that the 107th has been captured. Peggy apparently knows it's Bucky's division, and she knows Steve is going to go, so she tells him that she's already arranged transport for him. This is a subtle twist from the truth of how it went down in TFA, in which Steve recognized 107 as the number of Bucky's division, and his dogged determination inspired Peggy to relent and help his rescue mission. Here, Peggy is given a stronger role in the Cap origin story. And before Steve rushes off, Peggy sings a short untitled ballad hoping for their dance, so Steve pauses before he leaves to ask her to go on a date with her when he returns. • The most egregious Bucky-to-Peggy change of all is the song "End of the Line," in which the infamous Steve and Bucky line/promise (that broke Bucky's brainwashing...) is re-contextualized to be about ???? Peggy waiting for Steve in the past??? Old Man Steve and regular Steve sing it together. But we'll go back to that in a minute.

Again, I get it, yeah? It's for theater. Whatever. But in reality, the obvious logical truth is that Peggy is centered (to the point of taking elements from Bucky's story, and in turn Bucky is downplayed) because they needed to convince the audience that Steve going back in time to be with her makes sense. Steve's time travel ending had to be justified, so the Peggy and Steve "love story" had to be a pillar in this with everything else being given lesser weight.

And the inherent selfishness of him doing something as big as going back in time also had to be justified... which is why they do their best to convince you Steve fought so much he deserved it.

Let me elaborate on that by describing the lead-up to the "End of the Line" song.

So, right before "End of the Line" is "Save the City" – which includes Steve belting "I can do this all day!" repeatedly, of course. It's the 2012 Battle of New York as the Avengers come together to win.

As they begin to disperse, the song then transitions to a voiceover alert mentioning Sokovia being under attack by artificial intelligence (a.k.a. Age of Ultron). The Avengers group rushes back to center stage to say "Save the city! Help us win!" together for battle again.

And then things get fucking weird.

Because the next voiceover threat is "Washington DC. Attack: the Winter Soldier." This is not accurate to the order of events! The Winter Soldier events were before Age of Ultron; the public of the MCU would also know this.

And suddenly on stage Steve is now in the center while everyone else gestures to him. Instead of singing with him, they're telling him "Save the city! Help us win!"

Then, another voiceover: "Wakanda, under attack" (Infinity War) and again, Steve is centered while everyone else points to him. The ensemble says, "Save the city, help us win! Save us all from the state we're in! Got to hear you, got to hear you, got to hear you say..." as Steve is buckling to his knees under their pointing. And as the lights go down to one spotlight on him and everyone else leaves, he says "I can do this all day" one last time, but now it's subdued.

The implication is that Steve has been fighting and fighting, people leave him or he loses them, and he's tired.

And then fucking Old Man Steve arrives.

He says "On your left," because yes, they gave him Sam Wilson's line. BATSHIT.

So now there's two Steves on stage! There has been no mention of Thanos or infinity stones or anything up to this point! (I can only assume that's because in the MCU universe no one would want to be reminded of the trauma of "the Blip" – though it's pretty wild that they're allowed to know about magical time travel?)

Steve is baffled by Old Man Steve's arrival. I, too, was baffled by Old Man Steve's arrival.

As Steve questions how this is possible, Old Man Steve shows him the time stone from his pocket – and only the time stone – which Steve recognizes.

OLD MAN: "You've got to remember where you've been to know where you're going." STEVE: "Where am I going?" OLD MAN: "A date with destiny." STEVE: “Destiny. So we’re the hero till the end?” OLD MAN: “That’s the thing about endings, Steven. They can be rewritten.”

Lmao???????

Steve starts singing about how he hopes this means they "win" and calls himself a "tired hero."

STEVE: "But sometimes I wonder, who will save the savior? Can we really do this all day? So here I am, now and also then. Just a man, looking back at where he's been." OLD MAN: "The road is rough but wounds are healed by a thing called time. You can't forget what's waiting at the end of the line."

Me, watching this: the fact that he says this out of the blue makes absolutely no sense.

There's a bit more singing, including "end of the line" repetition, and then Old Man Steve pulls out the time stone to essentially show visions of... I don't fucking know. Past, present, and future?

That's pre-serum Steve, Steve with Mjolnir, and Sam Wilson as the new Cap. This is the only reference to Sam in the whole thing.

More singing, and then: Peggy's silhouette.

OLD MAN: "Can't forget who's waiting..." STEVE: "I can't forget who's waiting..." BOTH: "Don't forget who's waiting..." STEVE: "At the end of the line."

At this point I'm like, what in the hell?

Did Old Man Steve just brainwash normal Steve into thinking "end of the line" is now about Peggy? Because uhhhh, sorry, that's what it feels like!

Then Steve uses the stone to go back in time, reunites with Peggy, etc. etc. finale.

It's truly some crazy shit.

[drags hands down face]

Look... there's a lot to unpack here, and there's a lot that gets me about it. I know this is dramatized for the stage! I KNOW! But the fact that Old Man Steve shows up to convince Steve he should go back in time makes me want to gnaw on furniture.

Another person essentially uses the lure of a life with Peggy to tempt Steve into doing this, dramatized or not. That is how it's framed.

It's a hell of a way to frame it, and it makes Steve's ending stand in even starker contrast to so many other things in phase 4. Desperately trying to go backwards when you shouldn't or to bring back a lost lover is an evil temptation, and it results in a trap or negative cosmic consequences for basically all of the other characters in the MCU.

• In Shang-Chi, Wenwu is tempted by the Soul Eaters beyond the Dark Gate. They use the voice of his deceased wife to convince him to set them free. • In "What If" episode 4, Doctor Strange becomes evil in a desperate bid to save Christine and he destroys his universe. Along the way, he tries to tempt/trap the good Strange who's fighting him by using visions of Christine, but good Strange knows she isn't real. • Wanda's grief and desire to bring back Vision leads to – well, you know. • In No Way Home, Peter trying to undo things is what causes the multiverse problems.

And the fact that they frame it as Steve being tired, so basically the argument is he deserves that time travel ending (just like MCU fans who defend Endgame say in real life)... Well.

There's no way to make it hold up, especially because in "What If" they explicitly subverted that and had Captain Carter not go back in time despite how she felt she'd "earned" it.

Lastly, in this musical as Steve decides to pursue time travel as his course of action, he basically has the meaning or memory of "end of the line" rewritten for him. I refuse to not think that is some nefarious shit. Yes, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it's just some general Disney erasing Steve and Bucky nonsense.

But... this is on another level to me. I do think that it's a blatant choice that they had to be aware even general MCU fans would call bullshit on. Everyone knows it's inaccurate. "End of the line" is embedded in pop culture consciousness as being connected to Bucky. It just is! Surely that means it's not a stretch to theorize it could be deliberate meta commentary.

How, in the MCU world, would the in-universe playwrights even know the phrase "end of the line"? How the fuck would it be accidentally applied to Steve and Peggy? Not to sound like a crazy person, but who the fuck was rooting around in Steve and/or Bucky's personal business or their brains in order to obtain that knowledge and then remix it, and why? Neither of them would flippantly mention it in the public eye or interviews ever. So where did its inclusion come from?

And in the finale ensemble, this is Bucky's line when he comes out on stage and salutes + points to Steve: "Don't forget who's waiting..." And Old Man Steve completes it with "...at the end of the line."

What on God's green earth am I meant to do with THAT?

Smh.

The vibes are fucked, folks.

The MCU public wouldn't know enough to say the vibes are fucked. The MCU public wouldn't know the origin of "end of the line" as a phrase. But us? The ones who know the "true story" via the movies? We can call bullshit.

Whether the creative team behind this musical did every aspect of this consciously or not, in my opinion the fact that they had to tweak canon "history" to A) make Peggy's involvement in Steve's life more central and B) emphasize Steve as a tired hero all works as commentary on and almost a condemnation of Endgame's frustrating ending. In a way, it's also what Endgame did with the compass and 1973 moment with Peggy as well.

Steve's ending had to be convincing.

It's theater.

And so, maybe the same is true for the in-narrative perspective of this musical in the context of the MCU world. What purpose would it serve to tell the MCU public a feel-good narrative about how all Steve Rogers wanted was to no longer be a tragic man out of time and get to make a life with his best girl? To frame it as being about how he fought so hard for years and so he earned a happy ending? To minimize and nearly erase Bucky's importance in his life?

Who would want to do that sort of propaganda, and why?

The MCU civilians are given this happy explanation and maybe don't widely question it. Who cares about the details or logistics if it makes a good story, I guess. It's a stretch, but maybe they mostly applaud it. Maybe they're happy for "America's favorite son" (not unlike people who uncritically liked Endgame). In a way, it's even a rehabilitation of his image (after the Accords) like putting the shield on the Statue of Liberty. And maybe they'd even be ready and waiting to applaud if Steve ever made a dramatically selfless and de-aged return to the spotlight or a position of authority.

But mostly, the public is being conditioned to not know or to forget that anyone else like Bucky Barnes or Sam Wilson would possibly know Steve Rogers the person well enough in the modern day to call bullshit on any of this – or on his hypothetical miraculous future return.

So. Sure, it's probably nothing.

But what if it's not?

-------

UPDATE: @faeriecap added to this post with some incredible information and further behind-the-scenes context about the MCU/Marvel stuff at Disney parks! Check it out here :)

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Day 7 - DBDA Week

Day 7 of Dead Boy Detectives Appreciation Week: 10th-16th June by @dbdcentral

A bit late but I did it! Thank you so much for organising this event, it's been a lot of fun! This is actually the first fic I wrote, then I got super self-conscious about it, but anyway here we are.

Also tagging @padfoot-lupin77 @jinchaeji and @lydiabop because they asked in the post.

Prompt: Memories

Relationships: Edwin Payne&Charles Rowland&Crystal Palace&Niko Sasaki

Tags:  Post-canon, Slice-of-life, Alive Niko Sasaki

TW: None

--

Edwin approached the package on his desk cautiously, memories of flames and the Night Nurse’s sudden appearance vivid in his mind. He relaxed when he saw his name in Niko’s pretty hand-writing on the wrapping paper. If she had anything to do with it, the package could not hurt him.

He examined the box, feeling its weight on his hands and turning it over with the care one would reserve for something fragile and precious.

Charles was not there, so he couldn’t extend his hand and wait for his best friend to put the letter opener in it like he would have on any other day. The thought was sudden, and it was discarded immediately, but it left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was still having some trouble in sharing Charles with the new members of their agency.

He noticed there was a pair of scissors on the desk, Niko’s doing as well for sure if the anime characters on the plastic handles were any indication.

Smiling the soft, affectionate smile he only reserved for the girl in question, he used one side of the scissors to open the package. 

There was a note inside, on a light blue card:

“A present for you, by Crystal and Niko”

There was a smiley face with heart eyes, and one with a funny scowl on the corner next to the names. It didn’t require a good detective to understand which one belonged to who.

Edwin tried to remember when was the last time he had received a present. Charles brought him books or interesting artefacts sometimes, but considering that they shared pretty much everything in their existence, none of them were entirely his.

Behind the card, he found a stiff envelope, from the weight and the size, he thought it probably contained a book. He tilted it to one side to let its content slide on his open hand.

When he saw what it was, a breath caught in his throat. There was a picture frame with a drawing of the office and the sign “Dead Boy Detectives Agency” behind the desk. The image of Charles leaning casually on the back of the chair with his charming smile, and his warm, beautiful eyes captured so perfectly that it could have almost been mistaken for a picture, if he didn’t know very well that ghosts didn’t appear in pictures. Sitting on the same chair, was a face he hadn’t seen in more than a hundred years, save for a fleeting moment, completely covered in blood in Hell. He barely recognized it.

He touched the drawing with trembling fingers, the emotion so strong it was overwhelming him. Drawn-Edwin had a satisfied smirk on his face, green eyes happier than he had ever seen them in a mirror when he was alive, he wondered if that was really how he looked like from the outside, and wished he had a way to find out.

Tears started streaming down his face, and he clutched the picture frame to his chest, like he was afraid it would disappear if he let it go.

It was in that same position that the other three members of the agency found him some time later.

Niko immediately understood what was happening, and moved to hug him from behind, her eyes teary as well.

“Oi Edwin, are you crying? Is everything okay?” Charles asked, clueless. Edwin smiled at him, to say that there was nothing to be worried about.

“I knew you would like it,” interjected Crystal with a smirk, sitting on the couch. She didn’t come too close, even if Edwin thought that he could almost hug her too in that moment.

“I-” Edwin tried. He wanted to say thank you, but he didn’t seem to find words big enough to express his emotion.

“Don’t worry, we know,” said Niko, letting go of the embrace and taking place next to Crystal.

“We found this artist online who accepted commissions,” Crystal started to explain, to fill the silence and give Edwin some more time to recover, he had never realised that she knew him so well - now he was certain he would hug her too. “It’s not been easy to make it work, because we didn’t exactly have reference pictures to show her. We told her it was for the cover of a book we were writing, and we described everything as accurately as we could. It took so many attempts, but we think she did an incredible job in the end.”

“We also paid her well,” Niko added, feeling it was important to point it out to avoid him feeling guilty about inconveniencing a human in her daily job.

“Can someone please include me in this conversation?” Charles said from behind the couch. He was standing with his arms crossed, and it almost looked like he was pouting.

Edwin didn’t want to separate from the picture, but there were few things he could deny Charles, if any, so he extended his hands and let him take it.

He was rewarded by a blinding smile on his friend’s face, one which rapidly scaled Edwin’s personal ranking of his favourites.

“Mate, it really looks like you,” he said in a whisper, his eyes fixed on the Edwin in the drawing instead of the real one in front of him.

Of course Charles would know how to immediately answer the question that was burning inside him but that he didn’t know how to ask.

It started a new wave of strong emotions. Edwin knew, on some level, that he was happier in his afterlife than he had been in life, and certainly a lot more than he had been in Hell, but now he had in his hands a tangible, concrete proof to confirm it. Seeing himself from the outside next to Charles, in the office they created, looking so peaceful and serene, made him feel like he was exactly in the place where he was supposed to be. There was nothing more he could ask for.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Hello again, Ms. gender nerd anon here, re-sending my ask! Thanks for confirming it got lost!

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your stance on misogyny in BG3 fandom (those “shipping Astarion with women is conversion therapy” takes are wild).

Gender dynamics in your fics are also a breath of fresh air because of how full of default heterosexual sado-masochism* and female submission in general f/m Astarion fics are (nothing wrong with being submissive, but the tendency itself is not above criticism imo). I absolutely love Rosalie’s wit, intelligence, agency, initiative, insecurities and vulnerability, she’s such a deep and well-rounded character. She’s a badass but not in a stereotypical “strong woman” type way which just acts “masculine”, e.g. fights, is assertive and sure of herself, etc. I think you’re doing a great job at portraying more egalitarian f/m relationship and sexuality.

I also remember you saying something like (I’m paraphrasing here) the problem you see with “I can fix him” trope is heterosexism that often accompanies it.

Considering all this I wonder if gender dynamics and using a feminist lens is something you consciously think about when writing Rosalie/Astarion and if yes, how do you approach that?

Thank you!

* https://preview.redd.it/6ak4wpp4zimc1.jpeg?width=577&auto=webp&s=933cf03cb5cc08346d3dff9bfc4a3266a0b68651&app_web_view=ios

PS I also read Howl’s Moving Castle recently and really felt something of Howl and Sophie in your fics, it’s lovely!

PPS English in not my first language so sorry for any awkward phrases/mistakes

hi anon, thank you for coming back with the long-awaited question (also there is no need to stress about the English used here, it's all very high level lmao so please don't apologise!)

I'm not interested in commenting/speaking ill on other fics or trends within Astarion fic so I'm only going to discuss this question in relation to my own writing. [Beyond once more reiterating that the popularity of m/m ships in fandom has its roots in racism and misogyny (a preference for white male characters above any female characters, especially those of colour when they are the canon interest), and the belief that 'gay' ships are inherently more virtuous has its roots in um. radfem ideology. and again, misogyny. Fair enough if you like what you like but please examine your biases and plz stop hating women and dressing it up as queer positivity.]

This ended up being very, very long, so it's under the cut lads! I did promise I could talk about gender in fiction all day long.

So first off, anon - people like what they like. There's nothing wrong with that - most of what I write, it's not done with any virtue signalling in mind, it's just that I'm writing what I like, as well. That is, I'm going to be honest, in large part my answer to your question.

In all honesty, I do not write my bg3 with an inherently feminist lens or mindset held in my brain at the time of drafting, beyond the fact that I'm a feminist in my own day-to-day life. If I was to attribute it to anything... I would actually be really basic, and just be frank: I really like women. I find women hot. I like a lot of female characters, more than I like male ones.

I'm really touched you think Rosalie is a well-rounded character, as she is intended to be written that way, but honestly? I just find her hot. I give her good lines and fun moments equal to Astarion's, bc she's v sexy to me. I like giving her hot things to do, and at a very basic level, it's for me, lmao. I made her well-rounded, bc I like her and I find her entire character aspirational and attractive. Fic is, often, just for pleasure. In the same way other people write what they find hot, I write what I find hot, and if you were to examine my fics and my bookmark history (Sophie/Howl is up there honestly, but Jareth/Sarah from Labyrinth is the biggest giveaway lmao) you would know that I just find this kind of dynamic.... where there's a villain and a heroine who breaks him.... or a woman who reads a man for filth... hot.

But if you want an answer that goes deeper and more theoretical, there are two things that I can give you!

I find it both reassuring and funny that you bring up both heterosexism and not making Rose 'masculine', bc Rosalie is consciously one of my most femme OCs. The pink/purple colour scheme is a dead giveaway. I think this was because, in Early Access, all of the femme companions are gnc in some way, which was fucking awesome, but that meant there was a gap in the market for my funky pink tiefling!

Most of the characters were also quite edgy - I've talked about the Early Access disapproval, and the way it felt like you were being bullied by the pixels inside your gaming PC, and how this informed my choice of OC. At the time, I was also playing in a D&D game full of edgelords, and was getting quite bored (mid-pandemic) with this entire belief that playing 'good', or being idealistic, is naive/dumb, or boring, or trite, or overdone. A lot of my writing is triggered by a spite reflex, so in Rose, I doubled down. I put a lot of tropes about femininity that get a lot of hate in fandom into Rosalie, bc these often overlap with the idea that being emotional or naïve is undesirable bc (you guessed it!) misogyny. It's better to be jaded and cynical, bc that's a traditionally masculine view of the world. This idea that being 'good' is stupid is fed by many things, but it is gendered, and making Rosalie a high femme woman was a conscious decision.

BUT in her character, I also had this secondary question - in a group where everyone is berating you for being kind, if you're a rabid people pleaser and traditionally feminine caregiver, why are you refusing to back down? How are we getting to the 'lawful' part of lawful good - which I interpret as having an inflexible moral code? And this was where I bought in the idea that someone is trying to make up for lost time, and created the device of her agoraphobia, and the tadpole as anxiety medication.

I think this is perhaps what makes her feel well-rounded, but also takes her from 'passively' feminine to 'actively' feminine - she's had all the traditional femme upbringing BUT she then has a tadpole hijacking all her AFAB socialisation, everything that's told her to not to take up space or back down or defer to other people.

I'm not going to lie, this is something I am struggling with at the moment: an awareness of being raised and socialised as a woman, and as an autistic woman who's masking practices are inherently tied up into the codes of femininity and the behaviour expected of her. I didn't realise this at the time of writing. But I guess Rosalie gets access to a confidence she didn't before, through a magic cure, and this is something that alters the dynamics of her character in a way that allows her to have a more active role. She doesn't feel the need to mask much anymore (see! this is why I find her HOT!!!)

..

The other gendered lens I will admit to bringing to the table with Rosalie, and consciously employing, is the traditional gendered dichotomy between emotion (femininity)/intellect (masculinity) that was held in the 1800s-1900s. This is because this theory used to fascinate me, I've read/studied a lot about the idea of gendered modes of reading books and understanding the world - for instance, there was a moral panic that's reflected in books like Northanger Abbey and Madame Bovary where it was feared women couldn't read literature properly, and that the lines between fiction and reality became blurred for them, because literature incites emotions and women are inherently more emotional beings. It was believed that they couldn't differentiate between the emotions fiction made them feel, and their real life. This persists till today, in a derogatory approach to female fandom, to immersed readers, and the media products that girls like (e.g. the Twilight books, and associated derision of its readership). In this dichotomy and belief system, women are overly emotional and thus stupid/idealistic, and the admirable way to be is critical, detached, intellectual - ie. everything the man making these rules thinks he is.

This DOES come into play with Rosalie, in a big way, but that's kind of BG3's fault. The whole idea of a mindflayer, is someone who is intellect without any emotion, and this makes them threatening, and powerful. I coupled that with a woman who sees her depression (and thus her emotion) as a weakness, and who is using illithid tadpoles as medication. I've talked a few time in asks, about how the bad ending for Rosalie would be her turning into the mindflayer for the good of the group, becoming that ideal of intellectual detachment that she thinks will be all everyone wants from her. It would be: The Bleeding Heart, versus The Exalted Mind. I sat on that decision screen, CRYING, for a really long time, bc I knew she would turn illithid in a heartbeat, for all the wrong reasons. To me, it felt like a new version of suicidal ideation had been given to my mess of a character. (Thank god for Astarion in this instance, honestly).

As a wizard, Rosalie is operating in that intellectual paradigm that critical thinking = good. Being cold and analytic = good. She is not that, until she has the tadpole: she never aspired to power, she feels in thrall to her own emotional state, she feels like her emotions make her weak and have actively disadvantaged her progress. So she is facing this battle between what she thinks she should be - intellectually confident, certain, calculated and cool - and what she thinks she is - emotionally messy, easily manipulated, sad and weak - without realising it's a fake mutually exclusive binary, and she can in fact be both. This is a journey I hope to take her on in An Honest Lie, and she's already undergone in Pieces (although, there's a bit more emotional repression in this timeline, if she was actually well-adjusted i think she would've fucked the Ascendent at least once lol).

What I did bring to the table was a extreme frustration at traditionally feminine-coded traits (moral idealism, goodness, empathy, over-emotional modes of being in the world) being constantly derided or treated as stupid. I also wanted to write a wizard who wasn't a pinnacle of intellect, but was struggling with that fact, and I made her high femme for a reason!

So... yeah! TLDR, I write women with personalities bc I like and am attracted to women - the same way a lot of male characters get attention or become the most fully fleshed, complex beings in existence, bc their writers like and are attracted to them. I do not write consciously feminist attacks on other people's dynamics, what I write is the dynamics I find incredibly sexy instead.

So I guess... my advice on how to approach things???

write what you find hot

give attention to the characters you find hot

if there are any dynamics you find interesting in theory, you can explore them!

I did make a conscious choice to subvert some tropes in Pieces, but this was mostly to avoid writing noncon bc it's not my thing, I didn't have any interesting in doing that to my OC, and also, i don't think I could write it well. So I guess the other thing you can do is, if there's a trope that frustrates you or you don't like the gendered politics of something, think of a new interesting way to write it or flip that dynamic (....like a Power Word Kill!)

[mhaynoot]

[ joongdok - canon compliant - pure fluff ]

post epilogue, established couple joongdok having a vacation all to themselves for a week or two because they're the only two jobless adults who can get two weeks off in the middle of the year and the rest of the kim dokja's company nebulae can take a hint.

the hint is that they're hopeless and completely garbage at planing vacations. the two idiots are still "hmm"-ing and "mmm"-ing a week after yoo sangah had eagerly suggested they take a trip to relax.

"has either of them ever even had a vacation?" someone finally asks.

someone else asks, "do they, like, even know the concept of relaxing?"

not looking away from her console and executing a perfect combo, yoo mia says, "oppa never took a vacation, not even once."

"what about kim dokja?"

then they remember kim dokja and kim dokja's past and they sigh.

after arguing about romantic cliches and plans for a whole night before finally reaching a tentative accord, han sooyoung and yoo sangah intervene and slap down two tickets on the dining room table.

"you are going to jeju island," han sooyoung says.

"hmm, are we?" kim dokja says even as yoo joonghyuk swipes the tickets to examine the dates.

"yes," everyone replies and he only laughs.

lee hunsung becomes in charge of activities and he rounds all the kids to band up together into a brain storming session that rattles the roof with how loud and excited they become. they come up with a bunch of whacky romantic/fun/cool/badass ideas and activities to do. having come back from her recent trip and feeling extremely gleeful at having thats right up her expertise, jang hayoung compiles all their suggestions into a neat activity book and then makes the mistake of actually researching. hours and hours later, she's still trying to find all the best places and fun spots. she's interviewed four people already and they all give insane responses.

for example, jung heewon lists out all cool bars she went to during her college years but then strokes her chin and says, "they're probably all destroyed or gone now though. ah, just add it all anyways, im sure they'll find at least one of them or it'll give them a good goose chase."

by the end of it and the entire living room turned into a jeju guide collection dump. even han sooyoung reaches out to help format all the information into a giant printed travel guide. by the time its printed and bound, it's thick enough to break bone.

"would we even be able to do all of this?" kim dokja asks, tracing the list of activities and sights and vacation things to do. its a very long list.

"we can always go again," yoo joonghyuk points out.

kim dokja's eyes crinkles. they share a look over the word 'again'.

"oi," han sooyoung cuts in. "we're all going next time, you bastards. there's no way i would have helped make this stupid travel guide just for you two."

yoo joonghyuk and him share another look but he smiles when says, "if you say so, han sooyoung."

bumbling in with all the grace of a particularly snappy grand turtle, gong pildu huffs and finds them a lodge in the middle of nowhere so they don't destroy perfectly good land. even han myungoh comes by with his daughter to talk excitedly about all the places he'd visited and how they could totally hook them up with perfect deals. kim dokja's mothers come by as well, getting him travel bags and fancy dinner clothes.

uriel wails that she cant watch them on their honeymoon over video call. there's about a billion stage crew bustling and frantically speed walking around and behind her and kim dokja remembers she's on a world tour and probably about to head up on stage considering her pretty outfit. glancing over her shoulder on the screen, kim dokja can almost spy out abyssal black flame dragon and sun wukong fighting in the background using a thumb machine.

"how about you send me your schedule and we can go watch your next concert after my vacation," he says and she immediately lights up.

and, because he's pressed against his chest and tucked under his chin, kim dokja can feel it as yoo joonghyuk shakes his head. but he still writes it down in the little black journal he keeps on hand.

in the end, the only two who dont actually contribue to the vacation is kim dokja and yoo joonghyuk themselves who spend most of the week arguing over luggage and bickering over if bringing an entire spice rack is over kill (kdj: yes, yjh vehemently: i can bring the knives too, kim dokja give me the spices).

on the day of departure, they wake up predawn to the whole house bustling and three people already yelling, and loading up way more luggage than kim dokja remembers packing. making sure to fill up yoo mia's plate first, yoo joonghyuk eventually reveals a giant breakfast spread for the rest to eat and they all gobble up ten differently cooked eggs, kimchi yoo joonghyuk had been expertly fermenting like an elderly ahjumma, fluffy fried rice, kimchi, four pots of soup, perfectly cooked fish, more kimchi, and a whole table filled with a hundred different banchan.

as he closes his eyes around the heavenly flavour of yoo joonghyuk's hobakjuk, he quietly conceeds that bringing the spice rack wouldn't be too bad even if it ruined the authenticity of trying touristy food trap.

after inhaling the food and the grand procession of getting everyone into one vehicle, jung hewoon drives them to the airport in the gigantic wagon car they all loving call the company car. in kim dokja's opinion, its more bus than car.

the kids all cry as he rubs their head and kisses their forehead goodbye even though theyre all too old for that anymore but he does it anyway when they crowd around him like puppies about to be dropped off at puppycare. he can't begrudge them when even the adults are huddling around him too, holding onto him like he'd disappear. inside, he knows they're all acting like this why but only a soft tug pulls his heart into a gentle dance of indulgence.

kim dokja waves goodbye from the terminal, smiling widely. yoo joonghyuk gives a nod to the group, flipping through the Kim Dokja Company Approved Travel Guide for the sixth time since they got it. but even he smiles in the end when they all call out their last goodbye and rush into a giant hug.

"you better come back in one piece. yoo joonghyuk, look after him or else. you too kim dokja, you better not let this guy do anything stupid."

"dokja-ssi make sure not to get lost."

"ahjussi, have fun and remember us!"

"hyung! don't forget us! ugh, you sooty bastard, you better look after hyung."

"look after master, ahjussi, and get us souvenirs!"

holding onto his hand, yoo sangah says "make sure to have fun."

jung heewon pulls him close and says into his shoulder, "come home soon."

kim dokja clings onto them for a moment longer. just a little longer. indulges in each second that ticks by. but the announcer says its time to depart and, as he pulls back, he watches as they gather around him, like planetary orbits, never leaving his solar system. refusing to leave his previously lonely starry world. after all, they were forever intertwinned in the gravity of each other. forever, they'll be here for him, to pull him back, and he'll be there too, reaching back to meet their open arms. even if they separated just for a little bit. they'll rotate back together. always.

"i promise, I'll be back," he says, a little watery, and swings an arm around yoo joonghyuk. he holds him steadily.

kim dokja thinks for a long moment. "you know, i dont think ive ever been in a plane."

silently, yoo joonghyuk holds out his hand. after all that he has gone through, after using wings to fly, a carriage through space, a car that rides on cosmic roads and after having thrown himself through the cosmos, kim dokja thinks wearily that something as mundane as a plane ride should definitely not even stir up even a sliver of fear but he grips onto yoo joonghyuk's large, warm hand as tight as possible as the plane shakes and rattles and the white tube bleeds around the edges of his eyes.

then they get the kdrama special montage of jeju island.

there had been plenty of bizarre, otherworldly and breathtaking sights of skies and cosmos, of death and destruction, of the haunting beauty in yoo joonghyuk's features during the scenarios. devastating but beautiful. something as mundane as jeju island and the wind in yoo joonghyuk's hair and a casual black turtleneck shouldn't take his breath away but it does.

the first day, they had decided not to do much. first, check into their lodge. a tiny cabin that looks about ready to collapse in the middle of nowhere. but its surprisingly cosy and cleaned up on the inside when they step in. yoo joonghyuk sets up his spice rack and the whole kitchen to his liking and kim dokja lounges around with a book. after putting things away and the sun still high in the afternoon, they go sightseeing.

kim dokja oohs and ahhs and takes thousands of dumb photos to send to the kkt. most of it is landscapes, and bad selfies, and a picture perfect yoo joonghyuk looking handsomely over the distance.

"so unfair," he says and then makes the photo his lockscreen.

they go to a cute cafe jang hayoung had circled several times for the pretty floral aesthetic and view overlooking the ocean. kim dokja admits it does look pretty nice and sends photos of it to jang hayoung with a thumbs up.

"hi, what would you like to order? by the way, our chef's special today is fish and chips!"

initially, he had been only about to order an ice americano (decaf because he was old) but kim dokja can't ever resist and orders lunch there too. loves watching as yoo joonghyuk makes a grouchy face at all the 'low quality' food he tries. it is pretty tasteless but kim dokja savours each bite.

the sun lazily winds through the sky, not a cloud in sight and its too perfect beach weather to pass up. using the extremely detailed map in the travel guide, they find the beach although kim dokja was pretty sure they would have found it easily even without it. just follow the sea salt.

at the edge before the sand, yoo joonghyuk quickly crouches down to take off his shoes and, before kim dokja could follow suit, he reaches out and takes hold of kim dokja's foot. his fingers quickly unlaces the sneaker and then he slips the shoe and sock off. his hands now cradling the bare sole into a gentle squeeze and half massage.

kim dokja laughs and reaches out to card a hand through the thick hair. the silver strands are shining in the golden jeju sunlight. they flutter in the sea wind they can feel from here. something in his stomach was fluttering too.

look at them, 30-something and over hundreds and thousands of years old. a bunch of old men they are to still get butterflies.

"you're so cute today, joonhyuk-ah."

"shut up and give me your other foot."

kim dokja does and yoo joonghyuk sets their shoes to the side. he also rolls up their pants and then gets up with a smooth rise.

they walk along the beach, hand in hand. kim dokja playfully kicks wet sand into yoo joonghyuk's legs and, without hesitation, yoo joonghyuk throws him into the ocean. or, at least tries to. immediately, having had the foresight, kim dokja latches onto him tightly, he twists, and they both tumble down into the sand.

kim dokja laughs, a little breathless from the fall but mostly because of the sight of yoo joonghyuk hovering over him and the ocean breeze stuck up his throat. he had even slipped a hand beneath kim dokja's head before it hit the sand. a small fall like that wouldn't have even hurt at all.

"so unfair," he says again, reaching up to trace the ocean drop kissing down yoo joonghyuk's devastating cheeks.

they're still mostly on the sandy area so the warm water only reaches about a finger width high. it pulls back kim dokja's hair just the slightest bit and the sand is already getting everywhere on him. the sunlight plays along the water's glittering surface.

kim dokja smiles and yoo joonghyuk watches as his eyes curl up into little crescents. as the world sparkles around him.

'unfair you say,' yoo joonghyuk thinks and leans down to kiss him.

they're both smiling too much. the gentle waves washes them close, again and again. it's salty.

[bambiraptorx]

I know you've just started Get Babied, Idiots! (a fun fic and title, LOVE IT), but I've got some questions!

What's going on in Draxum's and gargoyles' heads right now? If that's spoilers, I will settle for first reaction to finding the suddenly babied turtles.

(Both are okay, if you're willing? :) )

Thank you for writing, I also love your comics!

Funny enough, I actually wrote out the scenario of Draxum finding the turtles the other day for funsies. It's about 700 words or so, and may not end up being 100% canon to the fic itself, but it's a rough idea of what Draxum is thinking. It's also still a little janky, because it hasn't really been edited.

— — — —

Draxum inhales sharply as the spell violently activates, its energy signature audible even from several blocks away, the percussive blast rumbling in his chest as it disperses.  What could the Foot Clan possibly be using that kind of powerful magic for?  He huffs in irritation, shaking his head to clear the ringing from his ears.  They never tell him anything.  They barely even said what it was for, just off-handedly mentioned it to the recruit when he was preparing for tonight’s mission.  There’s so much they don’t even deign to tell him.

He glances off the edge of the rooftop—no sign of the turtles.  Or anyone, really, which makes him question why they assigned him to such a low traffic area in the first place.  He’s been a warrior since before their petty clan was even founded, yet they insist on wasting his talents.

He’s not staying here any longer.  Magic of that strength is going to draw the wrong kind of attention, and perhaps he wouldn’t admit it to them, but he’s rather intrigued that mere humans were able to produce that level of spell.  Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to see what happened?  At least before anyone else does.

—

He enters the alleyway carefully, making sure to avoid any and all casting lines.  The residue of spellwork hangs heavy in the air, and his ears twitch uncomfortably under his helmet.  More powerful than he’d thought at first, then.

His gaze sweeps the alley, and his heartbeat quickens as his eyes land on a prone figure just outside the concentrated area of white lines burned into the ground.

One of his turtles. 

The smallest, by the looks of it, although certainly far from the least powerful if their past encounters are anything to go by.  The turtle is curled on his side, his face twisted into a pained grimace.  Draxum rushes over and kneels, pressing his fingers to his mutant’s neck.

A steady rhythm pulses under his fingers.  Only unconscious, then.  A quick examination spell reveals no sign of head trauma, doubtless a good sign considering how long the lack of consciousness has lasted.  Draxum looks at the pale lines gouged in the alleyway around him, and back at the turtle.  He must have been caught near the epicenter of the spell, poor thi—

The Baron shakes his head again, his ears twitching sharply against his metal helm.  The others, where are the others?  They always seem to cling to each other with a ferocity that would have served him well had they not turned it against him.

He shuts his eyes and listens, tuning out the cars and traffic and hideous noises of the overcity to focus on the bubbling hum he’s come to associate with the presence of his creations.  Perhaps it’s simply their weapons, perhaps their innate mystic abilities, not that it matters as long as he finds them.

Hm.  They’re… nearby.  Their signatures overlap, feeding into each other in a way that can only indicate proximity.

He opens his eyes and looks around the alley again.  Perhaps he missed something?  One of the corners, perhaps, or those rocks—

Oh.  One of the rocks moves, a small protrusion that he soon recognizes as the creature’s head swiveling about in curiosity.  There are three forms in total, clustered in the center of the Foot Clan’s spell, and those are his turtles.

One of them lifts its tiny head and peeps with an intent that he cannot decipher, tiny and helpless, and so, so small.

He cannot leave them here.

He lifts the small—largest turtle into his arms, and isn’t sure if his creation is heavier or lighter than he was expecting.  The mutant, even unconscious, does not resist.  He isn’t sure if he’s grateful for that or not.

“Gargoyles.” He says, an odd bent to his voice that he wasn’t quite expecting.  “Carry the smaller ones for me.  And do not try to eat them.”

Perhaps he’s gotten something useful out of this miserable outing after all.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

Longwinded Anon (LWA)✨ gets their own special hotlink and dedicated masterpost✨mainly because im fed up of searching through my whole entire blog when i need to refer back to their asks:

oldest ones first:

ahhh, the first ever LWA ask, a golden post. i remember it fondly. my response as you can probably tell was just sheer incredulity that was sent to me, instant brain crush. anyway, talks about the influence of politico-moral dynamics on GO and how this extends to how we perceive crowley. i promise my responses get more intelligent after this.

more on crowley in terms of his arguably unreliable narrative and questioning the choices he makes as a result. in this i actually answer the first one as well as this.

see now im not 100% on this one but it sure does feel like it was LWA, maybe not... either way, full response/meta on who the second coming might be is linked within, as i elaborated on it more in a different ask.

this one gave me a cardiac arrest because LWA decided to spam me with everything they could possibly think of, it was so fun! so this time they talk about aziraphale and his own flaws as concerns his superiority complex and the damsel in distress nonsense, a bit about s3, the pre-fall scene and how this sets up the boys' dynamic, discussion on how long the boys have liked let alone loved each other, lucifer theory (sob), and who indeed the wider question on the angel that crowley was (AWCW) might have been. i responded with talk about aziraphale's insecurity, crowley's saviour complex, their love languages, aziraphale pre-fall, and (wails) lucifer theory.

talking about the apology dance and forgiveness between the two of them in general, and i added in a sprinkle of talking about manipulation.

here we discussed the whole business of crowley's temptation to get aziraphale to kill the antichrist (still a bugbear that crops up again later on in the LWA timeline), and more on crowley's tendency to push his protectiveness on aziraphale (and aziraphale laps it up). also talking about aziraphale's superiority complex again, and the nuclear miracle.

a little bit on the emerging topic of how GO looks at religiously allegorical literature, and a ✨challenge✨ to find where bits of the book may have been transposed or conceptualised into s2.

LWA kindly gave me their thoughts of where, if it does, the lockdown audio clip fits into the canon, and then more on the antichrist/aziraphale manipulation business and how the boys keep secrets from each other, as well as how it impacts on their individual morals. there's also, fair warning, a little bit of gentle but intelligent criticism on how this sometimes get mistranslated in fanfiction.

so here gets a little critical of the magic trick theory, but also similarly looks at some of the technical and narrative weaknesses of s2, as well as looking again at how lopsided the love-story element gets when we look at the boys' journey through history.

this looks at how GO is not a carbon copy of any one biblical text or piece of literature but is inspired by, and reimagines, a bit of everything.

a wee rant on the 'god ships it' trope and its moral implications. im sorry but it rubs me up the wrong way (but no shade at all meant to anyone who writes or likes it!), and i tried my best to explain why it does.

so this was following the startling (see: i was absolutely blindsided at 4am by this) confirmation that aziraphale did not in fact know about crowley living in his car. discussed why that might be, but also again a bit more on the antichrist shitstorm from s1 and its effect on the trust between them.

shorter one, once again examining the wider thought that the boys have loved each other since eden, and whether or not this actually has any validity when considering the narrative objectively as it's been given to us.

talking about the theme of rescuing, how crowley somewhat forces this on aziraphale and aziraphale plays into it, even though he can save himself - and what this might spell for their future

further ruminations on the holy water argument and what this spells for in 1941 and 1967

after a small absence, LWA came back!!! with analysis on aziraphale's willingness/disdain for forming human relationships, and a bit on the ethics of miracles too!

the one about 1650/aziraphale's stint as a bishop, about (as always) the boys' fumble with morality, and then about what will/should happen to heaven

LWA's ability to draw parallels absolutely everywhere is mind-boggling and im essentially that spiderverse meme pretending that i know what im talking about. this one was about aziraphale and his depiction with halos/aureola

this one was really difficult! talking about aziraphale and crowley's respective approaches to problem solving throughout the whole story, and how they both view the narrative of their relationship (such as it is) throughout history

they keep getting more challenging to respond to intelligently. getting into the nitty-gritty of how aziraphale and crowley operate in the grey, and what they ask from each other

it never ceases to amaze me that LWA actually reads any of my idiotic ramblings but here we are: some really fun (for me anyway) talk about shax and demon/angel abilities in general

talk about actions and consequences - and aziraphale and crowley's difficulty with understanding and accepting them - and subsequently the occasional fandom-blindness to this very thing ("Dead Whale Theory") (genius)

actually think this is my favourite one so far? talking about the extent to which crowley is content existing in the system, and how much he benefits from it, to the point that he doesn't model any resistant behaviour to aziraphale beyond malicious compliance and exploiting loopholes. lots more than that, and honestly i could have talked about this for a fortnight

LWA lurking in my walls again and choosing to haunt me by talking about, if there is trauma to be interpreted from crowley's fall, why would they have even talked about it? so goes into whether they were even friends for the majority of their association, plus some speculation on how crowley chooses to look back on their time together as having been in love for any great length of time.

wise words of comfort re: s3

okay so here is where LWA look closer at nina and maggie mirroring the boys, where their respective interactions are inappropriate (ie. nina's questioning of crowley and aziraphale's personal lives), how free will gets tampered with in their plotline, and where crowley in typical fashion ends up listening to the wrong part of the ep6 advice that they give him :(

AND THEY'RE BACK BABY✨ a long (lol like a month. calm yourself, rhi) awaited return, where LWA chooses to whack me over the head with questioning the power imbalance between heaven and hell, whether there is anything to say that heaven takes human souls in the first place, and why therefore aziraphale might even be told to do the things he does by heaven

and then on a lighter note; where and when would aziraphale have been a garden designer, as per furfur's little book? and if crowley actually indeed has a green thumb (open for debate)

LWA back to discuss a really good post that explored book vs tv canon, how far this extends into the book/tv characterisations, and then how s3 could resolve when the show has largely lost a lot of the political overtones

this one was really difficult but such a great point - compared to the book, aziraphale and crowley's 'issues' are divided up between them, and what results is that they do not understand or recognise how the other sees themselves, nor are they (imo) able to truly completely empathise with the other's position and beliefs (LWA tag was missing but they came back to confirm it was them!)

right i think ive captured all of them (sods law if i haven't, tough shit territory really), and this will be updated as they come in providing that LWA continues to haunt me. feel free to like or ignore, ill be linking this in my main masterpost anyway!!!✨

a spicy one that made me pace my living room a good few times - but an important one in that it goes further again into actions and consequences. love it love it love it

just a little one about how crowley - for all our thoughts on how he's got a finger on the pulse of fashion - might not really know how to dress himself properly

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

4 and 19 for the salty ask game

you didn't specify a fandom but im pretty sure you followed me for owl house stuff so i will assume you meant the owl house fandom.

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?*

lmao if youve followed me for any time at all you would know i fucking hate the huntlow ship. huntlow ship my beloathed <3< <3< <3< :333 at least how 90% of the fandom portrays them. ppl will see a white angsty boy and immediately find the one shippable girl and file down all her character and make her his emotional support decoration.

to be clear, huntlow in the actual show is fine. i don't think them getting together would add anything to their character arcs, and since the show is running on a tight schedule i think they should have just cut that subplot out. i think there are ways to make them interesting but the show doesn't have any time to do that. there's barely anything substantial about the ship in canon anyway so i think it's fine. it's ignorable if you dislike it and its enough to extrapolate into a funny post canon ship if you do. my opinion on huntlow in the show is like my opinion on gustholomule. it's fun to consider but it's obviously not important to the story i actually care about.

but the shippers??? hoooo the shippers. first of all while i don't like to think about most fandom stuff from the stance of representation it's really important that owl house is like. THE gay cartoon rn. the creator had to fight tooth and nail and write around a bunch of stuff to get queer couples on air and make the fandom more receptive to it outside of a fetishistic thing or a "cute background couple that everyone acknowledges is canon but no one actually explores" thing. and then the moment a blond boy looks at a girl everyone explodes. im not calling ppl bigoted for shipping it bc i dont know the exact reasons every single huntlow shipper likes the ship but the fact that they also try to use rep to justify it? even though 90% of them didn't give a shit about the non white boy half of the ship before the ship became a thing? not a great look for the average huntlow fan lmao.

also the mischaracterization of both characters, especially willow, is super annoying. it shouldn't be a hot take but characterizing willow to be a brute that tries to beat up everyone who looks at her wrong? and indicating that hunter, a survivor of child abuse, is attracted to her because of this? uhhhhh don't like that! its one thing to portray this and explore why its bad but that sure isn't what 90% of the shippers do! youre allowed to depict any dynamic you want but im allowed to say that depiction sucks shit! same with making willow to be either a 50s housewife or a manic pixie dream girl she isn't any of that? literally just make a self insert to ship hunter with if you want his ya love interest ass so bad.

anyway ive complained more about the huntlow ship and its place in fandom here, here, here, here, here, and here, among others. a lot of my points are in the tags lmao. that isn't to say all huntlow shippers are annoying some of them make genuinely good content thats in character for both of them! but the shipping community is. bad. and i already didn't care for the ship anyway so they haven't made my opinion better. it was a mistake for the show to put hunter's conventionally attractive angsty ass into a shippable position lmao.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

I think part of this phenomenon is because the fandom skews younger since at the end of the day toh is a disney show rated for kids. but there's a phenomenon ive seen with a lot of young skewing fandoms where fans assume just because the thing they like is diverse, that automatically exempts them from being bigoted or even having implicite biases. like "i cant be racist my friend is black!" but it's with fandoms so they have even less of a leg to stand on. ive been guilty of that too in the past and im trying to examine my biases both in fandom and more importantly in real life.

the fandom has a serious favouritism towards the white and/or male characters. just look at the disparity of opinions on the blight parents, even before clouds on the horizon. or even better, before s2 when all we had on them was just a background shot in lilith's flashback. people were already portraying odalia as a catty evil woman and alador as his uwu tortured husband whos scared of her, before we even knew their names.

same goes for other female villains compared to the male ones. all the villains are different so there isn't a one to one comparison but generally, the reactions to villains like darius (right after his first appearance in edas requiem) and graye were a lot more nuanced. most people who talked about them were trying to write meta about them or finding them sexy or thinking about a redemption arc.

and compared to female villains like terra or kikimora? i am serious about this they were objectively more compelling villains than darius or graye in their debut, if you discount kiki's minor appearances in s1 and just look at hunting palismen, her first episode as a major villain. and yet most people talking about terra and kiki after the fact were just calling them bitches or other more sexist stuff i won't say. and being mad at them for...doing bad things to the protagonists? bc they're villains? i get the lack of thirsting but no serious meta? ive grumped about it here. also i wasn't in the fandom during the week between agony of a witch and young blood old souls where everyone wanted lilith's head on a stick but from what ive heard? yyyyeah i don't think they were just mad at her for being a villain.

same thing with the white characters people always give so much more focus on the white characters compared to the poc. luz had a bunch of angst like amity in season 1 but 99% of lumity content focused entirely on amity angst. the hyperfocus on hunter is something to note too. i get that fans love angsty characters. i do too. but him being a white boy definitely didn't hurt his popularity lmao.

its a problem in the show too so not all the blame falls on fans. the show focuses on majority white characters as well. even though the show is very racially diverse, luz's most important relationships except her mom are eda, amity, and hunter, and gus and willow are pushed to the side. same thing with their portrayal of some female characters i love what they did with terra and kiki but their portrayal of odalia...oof. i've grumped about that here.

but yeah if you point this out a lot of fans get uncomfortable or even angry at you for accusing them of, in their eyes, being a Bad Person who likes Bad Things and have Bad Thoughts. so they argue back that there's no definitive proof that any biases are happening on a personal basis. and yeah i can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law that you're actually secretly racist or sexist but if you just look at general trends in the fandom? the bias is there. it's not a problem of individual people it's a problem of fandom culture.

anyway i don't want to say fans who do this are bad people because judging by the ages of some fans toh might be baby's first fandom for some of these kids. they haven't had enough life experience to really examine their biases or even determine their principles. it would be mean to condemn kids for having biases, especially since i also did that at their age and i'm still trying to deconstruct my biases now. these kids need to learn about nuance in media and also that fandom is not activism, but it's not my job to teach them this. this is annoying but it's a reasonable price for being in fandom. especially a fandom for a show targeted at kids.

[jaefman]

slimeslayers

It's been 4 years since I started DMing my current campaign with a group of good and close friends. The anniversary is few months past, as we hit it back sometime in October, but through circumstance of everyone being in their late 20s and early 30s at this point, the frequency of play is nowhere near what it was in the beginning. Just sharing some thoughts on what d&d and ttrpg's have meant to me and thoughts about my friends who put up with my stories.

Lately I've been really examining my relationship with tabletop roleplaying games and what they mean to me as a person. I've experienced some of my greatest moments of joy playing Dungeons and Dragons surrounded by friends, and have gotten closer to others just by virtue of having played a game that supports displaying raw performance and emotion, in a collaborative storytelling environment that not only welcomes someone being "extra" but actively encourages it.

I do not consider myself a "great" GM by any means, more than anyone I know this is a personal sense of hindrance, especially when comparing myself with people that I admire that get to do it for a paycheck, in an environment that necessitates a valuable performance. I know that every GM is different and all have different thoughts regarding their own personal style and what they glean from others.

The first time I GM'd a game, it was a quick little homebrew to give one of my closest friends a taste of what d&d was like,I GM'd for 2 people, my friend and his brother. It was really simple, nothing crazy, no huge amount of lore, just dice rolls and numbers to hit, with successes and failures and crazy amounts of flavor, a roleplaying game with numbers boiled down to its simplest formula. I definitely didn't do any game systems any justice, but I just wanted to show them what I loved about playing d&d with a group of friends. They both loved it, and so did I.

The next game I GM'd was for my little sister and her group of friends, I did maybe 3 or 4 sessions before it fell apart, through nobody's fault. They were all freshly graduated from high school and it was the summer before freshman year for them and I was on a break from school myself. I know from my sister that they still played d&d after that and she even had a short stint as a DM, asking me for advice.

Since then, I have run two campaigns, one for 9 months or so, maybe a little under a year and then one I've been running for nearly the past 4 years, since October of 2018?

The first fully homebrewed d&d 5e campaign I ran back in 2018, Symphony of Bones, was a HOT MESS. I let everyone make the characters they wanted without restriction and tailored the campaign with my limited experience to facilitate that, sometimes to great results, sometimes to middling ones. I have many regrets about the campaign, but I learned a hell of a lot of lessons I brought into my next one. I ultimately made the decision to end the campaign because 2 of us, myself and Shelby, my now partner, moved to Los Angeles and the time zone issue became flipped and more untenable. It was also during the most stressful moment of my life and I was using it for an escape but needed to prioritize other things in my life. I still hold the story and player characters in that world to high regard, and occasionally make reference to them, having my current campaign, which canonically takes place in an alternate universe, make reference  to some of the lore established in Symphony of Bones.

The current campaign I am running, titled the Wishing Star, felt like a reset, taking in a lot of the lessons I'd learned from DMing, from listening to actual play podcasts like The Adventure Zone and an episode or two of Critical Role, and applying them to another homebrew campaign with the intent that I wanted to build this fun little narrative playground for my friends to play as their wacky little characters in. Still a pretty nascent DM at the beginning, I was hit hard by a lot of new lessons that come with character conflict, and having a very very loose story. Story threads I introduced YEARS ago are just now coming into play, which is both fun and has its fair share of problems, and I feel self conscious about how much focus I give on individual characters, and worry so much about robbing their agency via railroading, I have felt time and again that I have failed my players. It's also really difficult because sometimes we will have bits of time where we are consistent in playing biweekly or pushing back a week, but since COVID-19 began, the consistency went out the window. Narratively, it is hard to keep the momentum going when there are months between sessions, and new influences and learnings prop up in the interim, which can change the flow of the story and cause new things to happen in the story that others don’t see coming but I at the time think in all of my mania, “Wow this is such a fucking good idea.” It can create a sense of whiplash amongst my players, and even myself. To say some of my narrative pitfalls are self-inflicted would be placing some of the blame on my players, which I am not, but I have learned how important it is to keep that momentum going, so I have to figure out ways to keep my own personal bad narrative habits in check in the long term and that’s a problem in and of itself. Another pitfall I have to leap over is during long breaks, I lose interest in my own work and my own game and it takes a pretty gnarly mental toll on me to try and get back to it. To this day it is still a sense of defeat that I contend with, but try to push through. So I’m writing this with the intent of sharing what I love about my current campaign in order to show off that spark of creativity and the wild storytelling my group and I have all been a part of.

To make sense of my thoughts on the campaign and some of the lessons I've learned I should introduce my friends' characters, all individually badass in their own way.

Firstly, I wouldn't have started the campaign without being hyped up by my partner Shelby and her character Chymes, a Milo Thatch + Kimihiro Watanuki and now Victor Frankenstein-esque Necromantic Wizard character archetype. He's a little whiny intellectual who has a lot of complicated biology and is on an eternal journey to unpack his relationship with his mother/maker. In the past few years, he has evolved from this incessant magical worm of a person to being well on his way to becoming one of the most powerful wizards the Arcane world of Orgaus has ever seen. One time Chymes did drugs with one of the potential Big Bads of the main story and saw god. Also one time Chymes got shot in the side and blacked out and saw an even stronger god. There's so much to explore with Chymes, but his rich backstory has provided me with a ton of potential lore to work with, and some vital lessons to player character creation in the future. I've got so many plans for the Slimeslayers' resident wizard academic that will be coming to great fruition, it's going to be exciting for everyone. I could write pages about things Chymes has done, but I think one of the most important things he's done has been betraying the biggest rebel anti-monarchy/anti-fascist group in the world (consequences unintended), which resulted in like 70% of their active forces being eradicated. Fun stuff! He has a couple of potential boyfriends in the mix, two are burly and one is a twink and that's all I will say about that.

Then we have Ayla Strimstar, played by Zach, a Air Genasi Paladin, a character that might be slightly overpowered at level 12 with some homebrewed items, but not a warrior who hasn't suffered her fair share of struggles. Strong as she is, one time, pretty recently, she tried to fight an Adult White Dragon alone and got swatted out of the sky and almost died. I love Ayla, the way that Zach plays her with his whole heart makes her a character I have grown so fondly attached to, the achievements under her belt really setting her up to be a hero cemented in the lore of the world should I do another campaign in the same setting (which I plan to! I want to play in this world til I'm 40). It was pretty early on that she and Drina, the next character I will gush about, became champions of the Eadrhi Arena, besting such warriors as Hyacinth the Brainwashed Aasimar Swordsman, a Tabaxi Rogue named "Light of Steps," and Big Daddy Goblin, a leather daddy goblin. He died. Light of Steps hasn't shown up again, but I haven't ruled out her return. There was a point where Ayla became a Grim Reaper for a Day, and there were benefits (that have yet to be realized) and consequences that were immediately enacted. Recently, Ayla got the finishing blow on the Adult White Dragon, Ragastat. It was a good button for the Genasi-Celestial War arc that had been going on for nearly a couple of years at this point, and we are at the point where we have begun to resolve it and move on to the final major Kingdom in the story. I honestly can't wait to see what kind of adventures Ayla will go on, and can't wait to explore her epilogue and see the mark she leaves on the world for future campaigns.

Golondrina Passerine, or Drina for short, is such a fun character, played by our friend Kat. A Fallen Aasimar, they fell from the celestial realm, not once, but twice over the course of the story. First to rebel from their family, and then once more to escape and be reunited with their friends, chased by their cocky, prideful brother who became humbled by his descent in pursuit of Drina, falling as a result of his chase. Drina is a bard, flavored to be that of a heavy metal rocker, spikes, deathhawk, black armor, blood red guitar, haunted (or partnered with) by the King of Hell, Ozymandius D. Dio. To get to this point however, Drina had to die in the story, a sacrifice that was facilitated by a close comrade who had bled in the sands of the Eadrhi Arena alongside them, Ayla who as previously stated, was the Grim Reaper for a day. Drina then spent the next hundred years in Hell, working for Dio as a guard, rebuilding their strength until they were collected by the celestials, which led to Drina rebelling once again, but buffed with hellfire, falling once more to the world below to be reunited with their comrades and in doing so, lit the flames of a different conflict altogether in the heavens above. Also Drina fucked the vampire queen.

Benji Zerahad, played by the baby of the group, Jamie, is a multiclass Kalashtar Monk / Cleric, born out of a desire to be a peaceful and intelligent type of being, chasing after a few things, knowledge, his own place in the world, and at one point, a star-crossed lover, the Quori spirit Novatari, an ancient spirit of battle and leadership, an old queen from thousands of solar revolutions past. The funniest part about Benji is how somehow it was pretty firmly established that Benji was a virgin, and this has become a recurring joke throughout the campaign. One day we'll get to fade to black on Benji. Recently, Benji got his ass kicked when his home monastery was overrun by evil monks, but it was a vital turning point in his story. He was able to get reunited with his mothers and learned that he doesn't have to fall into tradition and continue to be the head of the Monastery, and can leave that to his sister. Now he's faced with the choices that the potential of freedom affords him.

Griselda, played by our very own Abby, is a changeling Rogue. She has been more behind the scenes, a later addition to the campaign after Shelby and Abby moved in together, I was more than happy to include her in our campaign. I have not given Gris enough focus, which is something I feel guilt about, but a lot of her story will come into play in the final kingdom, where her underground influence will play a huge role in how the Slimeslayers proceed. I'm truly excited to shine an overdue spotlight on her character, her two dogs, and her FMA Alphonse-ass Shield Guardian, adorably named "Baby." Gris runs a brothel in the Kingdom of Ersatz, with long roots and untold influence, and is quick to make proper acquaintances and allies through her natural charisma, with a few close shaves revealing her true nature. If I remember correctly, there may only be one or two people in the party that even know that Gris is a changeling at all.

Keeping track of an ongoing collaborative story has been a challenge for sure, and it has challenged me in so many ways creatively. This campaign has been by my side throughout the past few years where I've felt like I have almost fully given up on creative endeavors, to still being here when I wanted to create new characters and draw fun scenes, though I am still a little reticent to share. I will one day spam the discord channel with sketches I've done of everyone's characters and half finished illustrations I should just vomit out into that void. I'm sure this campaign will be there when I feel the drive to go full-hog into creating once more and I will happily and patiently wait, as the milestones we experience in the campaign feel like milestones we have in real life to me.

The past four years with my friends have been great, I wouldn't trade any of the d&d sessions I've had with them for anything. I look forward to the many more adventures we will share together and the stories we'll craft together. From making cocktails based on made-up drinks ("GTM") to simply hanging out and roleplaying a battle of the bands to resurrect the vampire queen, I am truly excited for the things we will do together, and the more lessons I’ll learn along the way. Future stories I want to tell with this gang of misfits include but aren’t limited to, Fantasy Hero University Student Adventures, and a multiplanar romp through space to restore peace to the Greater Realms. I’m also looking forward to playing an adventure DM’d by one of them.

Here’s to more adventures, Slimeslayers. Love y’all.

[wetchickenbreast]

so jews often interpret it as being a pomegranate bc theyre a common fruit in western asia so would have been around during the time the torah was compiled; there's also a lot of ancient myths around pomegranates (like the persephone myth) and imo its just a prettier fruit that looks nicer in art than a boring apple and jews identify with it more as judaism began in the levant. there's not any textual basis; like i said, the hebrew of genesis just says "פרי" which just means fruit and not anything specific. there's nowhere in the tanakh, from my knowledge, where any specific fruit is mentioned. the apple, like i said, is due to a latin pun/homophone that popped up in the vulgate and lingered in the popular imagination.

in terms of other jewish interpretations, there were rabbis in the talmud who proposed that it could have been wheat, a fig, grapes, and apparently a banana. wheat is due to a couple of things including a pun in hebrew involving the word for sin, the fig was because of the fig leaves adam & eve covered themselves with and because figs are a common gynic symbol, the grape is bc of what i said in a previous ask, and the banana was bc of either maimonides thinking bananas were healthy (he was both a reknowned rabbi and a doctor for his community; he's probably the most well-known rabbi of all time as well) or because it was a popular belief in syrian & egyptian jewish communities, though i cant find a specific citation for an english translation (maimonides' more secular texts are far less easy to get in translation). i got all this info off the wikipedia page and from my previous coursework in jewish food traditions.

also as a note from what you said in your original post about canon-- you're right that just bc a text isn't considered canonical doesnt mean various traditions don't use it; there are many texts noncanonical to judaism and christianity that jews & christians use to discuss customs, histories, and translation. so looking into the book of enoch as a way to consider how previous generations of interpreters were looking at genesis actually makes a lot of sense, but in terms of a theological argument would be less significant than evidence from a canonical text, if that makes sense, though my understanding is even in the new testament there isn't any particular fruit considered to be the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so this is a pretty good place to examine past interpretations

(this is so fun! i love doing comparative studies)

can you imagine how difficult a pomegranate would have been if it was the fruit 💀 like did the serpent split it open or did eve like- 😭 and then they’d have to pick out the seeds to eat them. being serious though there really isn’t enough evidence to figure out what specific fruit it was. fun to discuss though, thank you for sharing your knowledge with me!

[batmanego]

genuinely curious, because of all the different interpretations of characters that is bound to happen with comics, do you think its possible for comic characters to have a 'canon' sexuality across the board? would love to hear actual thoughts on this, i promise its not bait, im open to any answers really

oh, this is a really good question! i think the main thing here is what "canon" actually is, and what happens when current Maximum Canon supercedes former Maximum Canon.

let's take a pretty simple example -- sarah rainmaker from gen 13. she's been a lesbian since her introduction, but scott lobdell wrote her explicitly as bisexual. which of these is "correct"?

well, in this case, we have to examine the reason for this sexuality change. it was to give sarah a male romantic love interest -- why does she need one of those? she was a fully formed character as a lesbian. in fact, her lack of attraction to men was pretty important. in addition, no other comic refers to her as bisexual -- even ones that come afterwards. sarah's bisexuality is "canon", but it's superceded by the facts that it was made canon because of Bad Reasons, and no other canon acknowledges it.

tim drake, on the other hand, has been recently confirmed as bisexual. what were the reasons for that? marketing, maybe? but that doesn't change fundamental parts of his character - making tim drake bisexual is not changing anything that has been explicitly stated, it's adding onto existing canon -- and so far nothing has contradicted it. tim drake's bisexuality is currently Maximum Canon because 1. it was done to explore the character further, and 2. no other works have contradicted it. all tim drake comics where he is "straight" can easily be read as a man in the closet, or a bisexual man who happens to be dating a woman.

what about dick grayson, whose bisexuality has only been confirmed in gotham knights? well, unfortunately, it's not Maximum Canon, as gotham knights is not mainstream-canon in the comics. but it's still Canon, as it's still evident in the work it belongs to. therefore, saying dick grayson is canonically bisexual is... well, it's technically correct, if not a bit misleading about what we're defining canon as.

what about implied sexualities and the closet? cole cash is never stated outright to be bisexual -- in fact, he's pretty vocal about being straight -- but pretty much everyone around him has, uh. things to say about that:

and now we have cole saying shit like this:

and referring to getting punched by batman as "a date" and his "sex life".

or even metatextual references that are supported in the text, like james robinson saying the shade has a "sort of ambiguous sexuality" when he's canonically friends with oscar wilde, is called "baby" by other men, etc...

anyway, i guess my point is this: sexuality can be considered "canon" by, generally speaking, being referenced repeatedly in more than one work. but there's a bunch of nuance to it - characters may only be confirmed as lgbt through inference, through references to their repression, or through their authors being weird and mysterious in interviews. this is also how, generally speaking, any part of canon works. but really, have fun with it. we're never going to get bisexual batman confirmation, but that won't stop me from pointing out the textual evidence.

[mt-musings]

Bluebell

Chapter 25

After being abruptly transferred to the BAU at what she suspects was Gideon's request, Cassie Boann struggles to find her footing. Shy and solitary by nature, the transition is made all the more difficult when Dr. Spencer Reid seems to take an almost immediate dislike to her. Unfortunately for them both, their respective areas of expertise leave them paired off more often than not. But when Cassie's past literally starts hunting her, Spencer is forced to consider that he might, in fact, not hate her at all.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Spencer Reid x OC

Warnings: Canon typical violence, kidnapping, stalking, drug use, blood, injury, death, PTSD, eventual smut, more tags to be added

Series Masterlist

Read on AO3

25. Let Me Drown

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Spencer asked bitterly, watching as she returned with a glass of ice water. She pressed it into his palm, not letting go until he’d managed to grip it properly. She slid down to sit on the floor, back propped against the couch, shoulder pressing into the crook of his knee.

She answered dryly, letting her head flop back onto the couch cushion so she could stare up at him with those accusing eyes of hers. 

“Loads, Spence, but I’m just having so much fun.”

“Fuck you,” he spat, the satisfaction of the cruel words snatched away by the way she dramatically rolled her eyes.

“You wish.”

His response was an incoherent string of unrelated curses that failed to fully express his frustration at the situation. She just stared at him with those terrible, penetrating green eyes of hers and blew a stray curl out of her face, eyebrow raised. He glowered at her, its impact lessened by the way the Dilaudid made everything soft and hazy. She reached up and pushed a lock of hair behind his ear, brows pressed together in the terrible, awful way that meant she felt bad for him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Her voice was gentle, each word holding a fragile sense of hesitancy. She let her hand linger for a moment, fingers still buried in his hair before dropping it back to her side. Spencer wanted to reach out, to press that hand back to the side of his face, rethread her fingers through his hair, but when he looked down all he could see were those damn eyes.

 “You should just go home. I don’t need you here, I’m fine.”

“Tough shit buckaroo. You don’t get a vote tonight.”

“Why do you even care? It’s not like we’re friends, I just feel bad for you.” 

She recoiled at that, a flash of hurt crossing her face before she narrowed her eyes, glaring at him in her own right. 

“Because you’re not okay. Because I know what you’re going through—“

“Is that how you got all the scars? Because it makes more sense than self-harm with your disposition—”

“Eat shit, Reid.”

“You said you knew what I was going through.”

“You said we aren’t friends. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

He glowered at her as she shifted so she was no longer touching him. She pulled her sticker-encrusted laptop out of her backpack and booted it up, pulling up about twelve different files before starting to type furiously. 

“I don’t want you here.”

“Then call the cops. It’ll be a good look, considering you’re too high to stand.”

“I’m not—“ he retorted, pulling himself up only for his knees to give out. He tumbled to the carpet, Cassie watching him with an almost clinical sort of amusement. She turned back to her laptop, only to look up at his groan of frustration. 

“Is the carpet not where you intended to end up?”

“Just help me up.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Fuck—please help me up.”

She glared at him for a moment before sighing and putting her laptop to the side before she stooped to peal him off the floor, helping him lay back on the couch. She pulled a worn blanket off the back of the sofa and laid it over him, making sure to cover his face rather than his feet. He pulled it back only to find her back in her place on the floor, nose nearly touching the screen of her laptop and she examined a picture of a fragmented vertebrae. 

She noticed him staring but didn’t look up, her whole body stiffening under his gaze.

“Sleep it off, Reid. I’m not leaving until you sober up, no matter how mean you decide to be.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I hate sleeping.”

“I’ll pinch your toes if you start having a nightmare. You need sleep.”

“You never sleep.”

She laughed, the sound dark and absolutely devoid of humor. 

“I have more practice than you.”

---

She did, in fact, pinch his toes when he started having a nightmare. He’d barely slumped against the shovel in the Hankel family cemetery before he was awoken by a sharp pain in his left pinkie toe. 

She’d turned off all the lights except one of the table lamps, under which was her laptop. There was a second blanket tucked around him, this one much more substantial than the one he kept on the couch—she’d pulled it off the end of his bed sometime after he’d fallen asleep. 

He sat up, his heart hammering in his chest, breaths coming in shallow, rapid bursts. Cassie reappeared from the kitchen, carrying a ziplock bag full of ice. 

“Press it against the base of your skull, it’ll help stave off the panic attack.”

He did as she said, burying his head in his knees as he did so. It felt like his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his chest, like he couldn’t get any oxygen no matter how many breaths he took. 

“It’s okay, you’re safe, you’re at home, he can’t hurt you anymore.”

“Cass?”

“I’m here.”

“I can’t, I—“ he broke off, hyperventilating too much to get any words out. He felt the couch dip as she sat, felt her calloused hands take hold of his own. She started with the tip of his pinkie, pressing on each bone as she spoke.

“Distal, middle, proximal, metacarpal, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate, triquetral, pisiform, lunate, scaphoid, radius, ulna.”

She said it like a prayer, repeating the process with each finger until she reached his forefinger and he looked up, glassy-eyed, breathing steadied. He pulled his hand back, wrapping his arms around himself. She just sat there, staring as his breathing leveled, unconsciously mirroring his body language. 

“Stop staring at me. I’m fine.”

She sat back, searching his face for a moment before getting up and kneeling next to her laptop, saving a few tabs before shutting the lid. She tucked it back into her bag. 

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“What?”

“You’re not high anymore and there’s not enough time for you to get high again before work, and you don’t miss work.”

“Cass—“

“It’s fine, I’ll see you at Quantico.”

“Wait—just wait, Cass. The Metro’s not even running this late.”

“It’s only like three miles to my place, it’s nothing. Don’t worry, I’m the scariest thing out this time of night.”

“Cassie—“ he called, but she’d already turned on her heel and disappeared out the door, letting it slam behind her. 

---

Spencer had a pounding headache. He deserved it, he supposed, after the previous night, but that didn’t stop him from trying to medicate it with 800mg of ibuprofen and a large coffee that was a bit too sweet even for his tastes. He ordered a second cup, a black triple-espresso utterly devoid of any form of sweetness, in the hope that it would go towards the apology he needed to give Cassie when he saw her at work. He’d texted her to see if she’d made it back to her apartment that morning but she’d ignored him, that or she’d been murdered halfway through Dupont Circle. 

He assumed she was ignoring him. 

She had every right. He’d been an asshole, had gone out of his way to be in his irritation at her presence, at her implication that he needed help. 

Her correct implication. 

He took a deep breath before stepping into the bullpen, spotting Cassie already working at her desk. There was a large coffee tumbler at her elbow, a second cardboard cup next to it. 

He cleared his throat as he approached, hovering nervously between their two desks. She looked up long enough to note his presence before turning back to her laptop.

“Morning.”

“Morning, Cassie. I—I was an asshole. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“I got you coffee, I thought you’d be tired.”

“Thank you.”

“Cassie—“

“What, Reid?”

He paused, shoulders slumping. He hadn’t misremembered then, she had gone back to referring to him by his last name. He’d wanted nothing more than to push her away last night, to get her to leave him alone to wallow in his high. 

He he remembered the look of hurt on her face when he snapped at her, the raw moment before that mask she wore slipped back over her features. The mask she now stared out of.

“I’m sorry, really.”

“It’s fine.”

“I didn’t mean it. That we weren’t friends. I just wanted you to leave so I could be alone.”

She didn’t say anything, just nodded and turned back to her work. He hesitated another moment before setting the coffee down next to her and crossed to his desk, pulling out a stack of case files to bury himself in. 

The rest of the team filtered in, Derek stopping at their desk cluster to chat. He leaned over Cassie’s desk picking up one of the empty cups. 

“Late night, Boann? Or are you just trying to find out the lethal dose of caffeine?”

“Someone’s got to do it,” she replied, taking a swig as she stared at him, eyes uncomfortably wide. He laughed and she snorted into her cup, pleased with herself. Derek just shook his head. 

“We’re going to run out of coffee between the two of you.”

“Better not. I’ll quit.”

“I’ll be sure to let Hotch know.” 

The day passed in relative silence, silence Spencer had grown unaccustomed to. Derek and Emily chatted off and on across the aisle and JJ popped in and out to chat between trips from her office and the break room for coffee, but Cassie remained silent except for the rhythmic tapping of her keyboard. 

She packed up the same time as Derek and Emily, ducking out the the office before they’d finished saying saying goodbye to everyone. 

Previous Next

[silly-bean]

Lately, I've been really reading the FF7 timeline to copy it down for reference and I've found some *very* interesting details. Here's a list of stuff so far:

Bugenhagen is apparently born in 1877?? This means he's 130 years old in OG!!

Pres Shinra is born in 1940. Palmer is 3 years younger than him.

Hojo was born in 1945, making him around 35 when Sephiroth is born.

ShinRa was known as "ShinRa Manufacturing" before it was an electric company, and we apparently don't have a date for when it was founded but know it discovered Mako energy on September 23, 1959.

Heidegger is born in 1949, making him a year older than Vincent.

Both Vincent and Lucrecia are born in 1950.

Red XIII is born in 1959, which is apparently the same year the Gi attacked.

Grimoire dies ~1970, which means Lucrecia was around 20 when it happened. Can you imagine doing undergrad research trying to get ahead of the curve and you get your advisor killed by the equivalent of a minor deity cuz you wouldn't stop poking it? She wasn't even a grad student when it happened 😂

Barret and Reeve are the same age, having been born in 1972.

Cid is actually 3 years younger than both of them, having been born on Feb 22, 1975.

Construction on the Midgar plate starts in 1976, and ShinRa is known as an electric company by then, but we don't know when that actually changed.

Tseng, Rufus, and Rude are all the same age, having been born in 1977. SOLDIER is initiated in the same year to help bring an end to a long-running international war.

Oh, Jenova is also found in 1977, which means none of the trio can even be conceived until that year. The Jenova Project also starts up that year.

At some point between 1977 and 1982, Vincent is assigned to guard the scientists running Project S. Yeah, we have no concrete date for that.

Somewhere around 1980, the trio are all born. No actual birthdates for any of them.

Gast leaves Shinra in 1980, which means, that even if Sephiroth is born in late 1977, he literally never knew the guy. He apparently meets Ilfana at some point before 1985, but we have no date for that.

We also have no official date for Lucrecia going crazy and Vincent getting shot. Wiki says it's somewhere around 1984, which is fucking wild. Cuz it's stated that she goes crazy during pregnancy and Vincent confronts Hojo as a result of that, which gets him shot. And yet, Sephiroth is supposed to be born around 1980??? Which means there's no chance he was born that late? WHICH IS IT SQUARE???

Reno is born in '79, meaning he's conceivably older than Sephiroth??

We have no concrete date for Zack being born, just the "around 1984", except we know he's 16 in '00, which means he was born early '85 at the latest since he's canonically 2 years older than Cloud and CC starts in October of '00.

We have no idea how old Kunsel is! I usually place him as being born in '83 and a year older than Zack.

Aerith was born Feb 7, 1985 and Gast was killed 20 days later on Feb 27.

Cloud was born on August 11, 1986 and Tifa was born on May 3, 1987.

we have actual years for basically all the Tsviets being born and yet no date for Sephiroth.

Yuffie's mom is apparently named "Kasumi"??

The Wutai war begins "around" 1992, which means Sephiroth could conceivably be, at the youngest, like, 8 when it starts up and around 16 at the oldest. We also have no concrete date for when he gets deployed, but know he's apparently a 1st class already by then?

Tseng is also only, like, 15 when the war starts, which leads me to believe that he gets recruited by the Turks in the early days of the war. He's also a rookie Turk by 1997 when the whole thing that results in Kalm being bombed happens.

Cissnei is hailed as the youngest ever full Turk, and considering Tseng is one by the time he's 20, and Reno is one when he's late teens, she's gotta be as young or younger than Zack. I usually put her as being born in '85 and thus 15 when CC starts.

Before Crisis is fucking wild dudes. We have at least years for all the events and it gets the Turks involved in a huge number of events in the timeline.

Rufus isn't made VP until after Genesis deserts. Seriously. The mass desertion event happens in October of '00 and Rufus isn't VP until December.

The Wutai war ends in Feb of '01 and Avalanche starts being a problem almost instantly (hmmm, I wonder why?? It's almost like someone started giving the group funding to start up 🤔)

Cloud leaves Nibelheim somewhere between December of '00 (when he makes his promise to Tifa) and April of '01 (when he meets Zack on the Modeoheim mission).

Cloud successfully kills a RAVEN (an enhanced Avalanche soldier made by Fuhito, a cheap Hojo knock-off) with their own sword in June of '01 when he's 14.

Avalanche attacks the ShinRa building in June of '02 and apparently almost makes off with Hojo??

Avalanche learned of Aerith and actually try to kidnap her in August of '02.

Cloud, Zack, and Sephiroth arrive in Nibelheim on Sept 22 and are then there for a whole 9 days before Sephiroth snaps and burns the town to the ground on the 10th (October 1).

Marlene is born in late winter/early spring aka early '03, making her 4 at the time of OG.

Apparently, Avalanche and the Turks were involved in the failed Shinra No. 26 launch?? I actually refuse this specific thing as canon, but the failed launch happened on April 12 of '03. Cid is 28 at the time.

The Corel reactor is attacked on May 8, and the town is blamed for it and burned to the ground apparently the same day??

Red XIII is captured by Shinra on October 30 of '06. And apparently, Reno was one of the Turks who captured him??

Zack and Cloud escape the lab on Dec 18 of '06. It then takes him almost 3 months to make it to Gongaga (arrives in February).

Then, Zack doesn't make it to Banora until September?? And that's when he deals with Genesis. And then he's dead before the month is over.

An entire mess with a summon called Zirconiade happens in early October of '07, where Midgar is almost destroyed cuz Fuhito decided that killing all humans was the best way to save the planet and turns himself into the summon?? Idk BC is fucking wild. This marks the end of this incarnation of Avalanche.

Tifa also finds Cloud wandering the slums in October of '07 and then the reactor bombing doesn't happen until December. This gives us officially 2 months of time where his recovery was happening and zero details. I have fanfic ideas already.

It's incredibly funny to me that Avalanche as the Turks know it is done in October and then, 2 months later, another cell pops up and has the balls to bomb a reactor. Talk about the mother of all cockroaches.

Apparently, officially, OG takes place over around a month or so??

Edge is being built by the end of January '08 and the WRO is also founded very quickly. I don't know if I believe that, really.

Advent Children happens in '10, and we have very little knowledge about those 2 years other than some OVAs and light novels I think.

DoC happens in '11. The less said about that, the better.

[0junemeatcleaver0]

(Re)Introduction

Clothing choices are so important in The Chronicles that Anne sometimes sounded a lot like Tara Gilesbie when describing her characters. And while cut and fabric remain fairly uniform over the series and cross-character, where the real intrigue lies is in color choice.

In this series, I will be examining the choices in wardrobe color for three of Anne's characters; Lestat, Marius, and Armand.

You may also have noticed that I did this already. The original version of this post was my return to writing meta after a very long break. I was clearly rusty, but too excited at having 'completed' a post to keep myself from posting it. This is the much improved version of this meta.

For this post, we will be moving through the books chronologically.

Lestat (Redux)

But you see, if a vampire leaves out details like clothes, the story doesn't make sense. Even the most grandiose mythic characters--if they are flesh and blood--do have to worry about the latchets on sandals. -Lestat in Memnoch the Devil (398)

Just as every cop is a criminal And all the sinners saints As heads is tails Just call me Lucifer 'Cause I'm in need of some restraint -The Rolling Stones || Sympathy for the Devil

While it is impossible to skip over Interview due to it being our introduction to many of our central characters, the book is so different from the rest of the series as to feel foreign to who Lestat would eventually become--or at least, who Anne later wanted us to believe he was.

Anne herself said in a Facebook post:

Characters do come to life on the page, the cliche is absolutely the truth. Lestat was born for me in that way, a character in Interview with the Vampire whom I did not think was all that important. He was born as the bad guy, the bully, the bad vampire who didn't appreciate the hero's sensitivity. Louis was the hero. Louis was me. Louis was the novel. And somehow or other, as one of my friends put it: Louis was drawn vividly in black ink, but Lestat came to life in blazing color. [x]

And so for the sake of both the literal and figurative blazing color of Lestat, we shall begin here in our quest to figure out how Anne tried to convince us that Lestat is the ultimate hero of the Chronicles.

Throughout all of Interview, we see Lestat in black.

From a newly turned Louis staring at the buttons on Lestat's coat (p. 21), to the white blanket Claudia was wrapped in contrasting starkly with his coat and cape (p. 90), to a haggard Lestat turning up to Claudia's "trial" in all black (p. 295), whenever we see him, he's in black.

This is not much of a revelation when we stop to consider this was a story poured forth out of grief which ended up accidentally reviving the vampire craze in popular culture. This is what makes the text stand out from its sequels--Interview was an emotional purge. TVL and QotD was Anne fleshing out her inner world. Every subsequent book was her having fun playing in that space.

The point is, from Nosferatu to the actual Count Dracula, vampires in popular culture up to that point wore black. It made sense to put Lestat (and Louis, and Armand) in black. It was a foregone conclusion.

Lestat in black does not start to feel interesting or in fact even important to me until later in the series.

What is interesting to me is how the color red came to be so closely tied to him. Many works of fan art feature him in red. Reading a fic? Better bet a hefty percentage of those authors are going to put him in red velvet. I know I cannot be the only person whose mind conjures up Lestat-in-red when picturing him. Even Marius gets salty about him wearing red when speaking to Thorne (Blood and Gold, p. 31) despite the fact that as far as canon goes, Lestat hasn't actually worn red that much.

As a matter of fact, save for the cloak he is gifted after killing the wolfs, Lestat doesn't wear much red in his own novel, either.

But another character does.

When we first meet Nicolas de Lenfent, he is wearing a shade of rose:

Dressed in a splendid brocade coat of rose and gold, he wore slippers with gold heels, and layers of Italian lace at his collar. [...] Parisian fashion, all this [...]. (TVL, p. 41-42)

Yes, I know that's a shade of pink and not a shade of red. But this first meeting of theirs is important to the topic at hand for the following reasons:

1). From a symbolism point of view, Nicki showing up in rose signals how Lestat's feelings for him will develop (rose signifying of romantic love).

2) Homeboy looks so good it makes Lestat feel self conscious:

And here I was to meet him in threadbare wool and scuffed leather boots and yellowed lace that had been seventeen times mended. -TVL (p. 42)

3) And he's here to gift Lestat his spiffy new identity cloak.

We bowed to each other, as he was apparently the spokesman for the town, and then he unwrapped from its modest covering of black serge a great red velvet cloak lined in fur. Gorgeous thing. His eyes were positively shining when he looked at me. You would have thought he was looking at a sovereign. -TVL (p. 42)

Let's put a pin in the cloak for now.

Instead, let's discuss the next time red shows up in The Vampire Lestat in an important way.

When we reached the stable, I saw the boy had been hideously murdered. His broken body lay twisted on the hay-strewn floor as if it had been flung there by a Titan. The back of his head was shattered. And to mock him, it seemed, or to mock me, they had dressed him in a gentleman's fancy velvet frock coat. Red velvet. (TVL p. 189)

This moment--or this coat, rather--vexes Lestat for the rest of the night.

I kept thinking over and over of the stable boy, mangled and thrown there in that fancy red velvet frock coat. I had seen that coat before and I couldn't remember where I had seen it. Had it been one of my own? Had they gotten into the tower? No, that was not possible, they couldn't have gotten in. -TVL (p. 190)

So perplexed, in fact, that Gabrielle had to be the one to clue him in:

"Lestat," she said soberly. "They put your stable boy in a gentleman's frock coat after they killed him. Did you see the coat? Hadn't you seen it before?" That damned red velvet coat... "I have seen it," she said. "I had looked at it for hours at my bedside in Paris. It was Nicolas de Lenfent's coat." -TVL (p. 195)

We'll put yet another pin in the matter of Nicolas's red coat for the moment.

For now, let's visit Lestat, the failed rock star.

At the beginning of TVL, he tells us he was roused from one of his long dirt naps by the murmurs of a culture changing around him and the music of a local garage band.

When he finally unearths himself and rejoins the world, this is the picture he paints for us:

But after the third night up, I was roaring around New Orleans on a big black Harley-Davidson motorcycles making plenty of noise myself. I was looking for more killers to feed on. I wore gorgeous black leather clothes that I’d taken from my victims, and I had a little Sony Walkman stereo in my pocket that fed Bach’s Art of the Fugue through tiny earphones right into my head as I blazed along. […] I was the vampire Lestat again. -TVL (p. 6-7)

The other two instances of Lestat relaying his outfits to us in Queen of the Damned (where the rock star story line continues), they read as costumes. The first is Lestat in his God-of-the-modern-world costume (all gray silk suit in a modern cut and silver jewelry, QotD p. 358) and his Normal-guy-nothing-to-see-here costume (denim jacket, white tee, QotD p. 473)

And while the costume-y nature of these outfits doesn't beg much attention from me, this won't be the only time the color gray shows up on Lestat when he's feeling conflicted or noncommittal towards a situation. (Note: The gray silk suit is worn when it becomes apparent Akasha is truly unhinged but Lestat's love of her holds him back from trying to make a decision on what to do about her plans for world domination, if anything.)

What we see here is that Lestat's color is at this point still black.

It's easy enough for the color black to make a quick change of sorts in the narrative. Black is a great color to dress your villain in, due to it being symbolically tied with evil and obfuscation. Flip side of that coin is the fact that black is also the color of sophistication and seduction. Of mystery. The exact attributes I would want my vampire anti-hero to have.

Tale of the Body Thief

Lestat is at a weird point in his existence when we meet him in TofBT. We again see him in a gray suit (p. 11). We watch him stalk a serial killer he plans on eating. Which he does, saving the life of an old lady in the process. An old lady he also drains of blood.

There's also the whole business of him going into the sun in a moment of emotional weakness.

Gray is the most neutral of colors. It is also a deeply pessimistic color, [x] signalling the state of mind Lestat is in--IE desperate enough to fall for Raglan James's bullshit.

Speaking of, Lestat goes to meet James for the body swap wearing a black velvet suit with antique buttons. A very Lestat 'fit. This signals to me Lestat's need to feel confident and in control of this exchange (for all the good that did him in the end).

Of course, once the swap is made, we don't get much intel on what Lestat is wearing--the mortal body itself being the uncomfortable costume this time. Once he is returned to his body, he dresses in a white turtle neck and khaki. (p. 360) According to designs.ai, khaki denotes trust and--more importantly--safety. An understandable emotion to experience after being put back into your body.

Memnoch

An interesting thing to note about Memnoch the Devil is that Lestat spends most of the story in dark blue. (p.4 and p. 399)

We'll revisit that in a moment. First, I want to make note that this novel is the first instance of Lestat wearing his sunglasses with violet lenses.

While fans of the Chronicles started voicing their complaints about the change in Lestat's character with TotBT, Memnoch is where those changes really lock into place. And I feel as though the glasses reflect this.

According to nixsensor.com, shades of purple are "often associated with royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition. Purple also represents meanings of wealth, extravagance, creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence, and magic."

This is indicative of the Lestat we get moving forward (when he's not in his comatose state). The sign that he's gone from the damnedest creature to The Brat Prince.

Now back to Lestat's stupid Brooks Brothers suits.

He begins this tale in a double breasted, dark blue BB suit (p. 4) and ends it in a double breasted blue BB suit (p. 399).

According to color-meanings.com, dark blue is associated with knowledge, power, and integrity.

Let's think about how Lestat chose to reintroduce himself to us in this book:

I know exactly who I am. I am rich. I am beautiful. I can see my reflection in mirrors. And in shop windows. I love to sing and dance. (MtD, p.2)

Sounds like a pretty hollow understanding of the self to me. Alexa, play Pretty Hurts by Beyonce.

Lestat begins the story a pretty but empty shell. Through his time with Dora and David and the weirdness with ghost!Rodger, God and the devil and the afterlife is on his mind. When he tells his loved ones that a spirit claiming to want to take him on a tour of hell keeps harassing him, they all tell him it would be a terrible idea to take him up on that off, Lestat obviously acquiesces because the quickest way to get a brat to do something is to tell them not to do it.

In summation, Lestat begins this tale knowing nothing and he ends it knowing even less. As uncertain of his place in the world he was before, he's now grappling with his place within the spirit realm as well. And the terror of that and the confusion of that puts his ass unresponsive on the floor for the span of two more books.

Merrick (& Blackwood Farm & Blood Canticle)

That is until Louis ends up in peril after changing Merrick. We don't know what exactly he was wearing when he laid down for his long slumber, only that he was coated in dust when he rose (p. 341).

In the scene following the revivification of Louis, we see that Lestat has chosen for himself dark brown velvet to wear (p. 345). According to verywellmind.com, "Brown is often seen as solid, much like the earth, and it's a color often associated with resilience, dependability, security, and safety". This color choice is indicative of one of the few times Lestat stepped up and took true responsibility for his fledgling.

A few pages later, having been conscious for a while and being as certain as he could be that Louis was safe and stable, we see Lestat back in black velvet (p. 357). As David states it:

With every passing hour, Lestat became more the old creature of action and impulse which I had loved for so long. (p. 357)

Lestat is once more himself, wearing the same black velvet coat with the cameo buttons he would wear during the beginning of Blackwood Farm (p. 22).

The motif of Lestat in black continues into the beginning of Blood Canticle as well (p. 17).

Red is the Color of Revisionism

The metatextualism of the Chronicles is a slippery thing. The books exist within the narrative of the books. Anne Rice exists only as a pseudonym chosen by Daniel in the novels. One book in the series will mention events that happened in an earlier installment. Characters contradict each other. Narrators will omits certain things while others will make it a point to retroactively mention something that happened 'off screen', so to speak.

And sometimes Anne just misremembered shit herself.

Which is how despite Lestat wearing mostly black throughout all of the first ten books of the Chronicles we still end up getting quotes like this:

Clad in red velvet it came, the very covering my old Master had so loved, the dream king, Marius. It came swaggering and camping through the lighted streets of Paris as though God had made it. -The Vampire Armand, p. 309

"It's my common way to wear red," Marius said to Thorne's unspoken interest. "You do as you like. Lestat, my sometime pupil, also loves it which annoys me mightily but I endure it. I think we appear to be Master and Apprentice when his shade of clear red comes so close to mine." -Blood and Gold, p. 31

It's also how we get Antoine remembering Lestat as a "shining Titan in his red velvet frock coat and lace" in Prince Lestat.

The motif of Lestat in red continues all throughout the final three books in the Chronicles.

In Prince Lestat, he wears a red velvet jacket and black boots to go to Avignon (p. 193). He obtains and wears a new red velvet coat to make his first speech as Prince (p. 387). His violet sunglasses even make an appearance on page 207.

In Realms of Atlantis, we see him in his "usual" red velvet and lace (p. 258) and again in his violet glasses (p. 114)

In Blood Communion, after killing Rhosh he exchanges his velvet coat (of a non-disclosed color) for a crimson-red velvet coat (p. 165) and again we see him in a red velvet frock coat and copious lace (p. 241) in the final ball scene.

In her final years, this was the version of Lestat that was crystalized in Anne's mind.

So how did we get here? How did Lestat’s color end up being red throughout the final books?

Anne runs us through a series of flash back scenes through Lestat’s POV in Prince Lestat. Through these scenes, she remembers—or perhaps recontextualizes—a more directionless Lestat, embittered by all he has been through.

He wanders, looking for meaning and finding some in care taking a young Rose from a distance.

But mostly, he’s just sad and angry. This is a deeply pessimistic Lestat she paints for us in PL. It is also the start of the most consistent use of the red motif for his character.

The most rational reading is that Lestat had by this point become Anne’s favorite character (her second favorite arguably being Marius). Anne was a fan of Renaissance art, paintings especially. The Great Masters of the Renaissance would have taught her that if you wish to draw the eye to the most important figure in any composition, you paint them in red—the color of power and authority.

But I’m a fic writer, a fangirl. I am not satisfied by readings that are merely rational. Let’s go a bit off the deep end, shall we? Let us take the pins out of the Nicki situation.

Lestat in his youth (pre-vampirism) wanted nothing more than a better life for himself. Renown and a comfortable life. Independence. He wanted, ultimately, to be taken seriously—his needs, his desires, his art.

He had failed to leave his dreary life behind him twice by the time he met Nicki—once at the monastery, and again with the actors. And he’d been punished cruelly both times—being locked in his rooms and being beaten, respectably.

He’s emotionally/spiritually beaten by these defeats as well. There is no sign of the Lestat we would come to later know—the swaggering, devil-may-care rogue, the Brat Prince who would have laughed in the face of anyone who dared try to stop him. Instead we have a sensitive hunter who must provide for his family as he secretly nurtures a spiteful desire for More Than This.

The real independent young man with talent and a comfortable life (and the love of his father no matter how much he disappointed him—another thing Lestat was lacking) was Nicki. The young man who while studying law said ‘fuck it’ and went to learn violin from fucking Mozart himself. The young man who sold all of his books to do this. The young man who even after having his father smash his violin and threaten to break his hands ran off to Clermont and sold his watch to buy another. Who plays his violin all over the goddamned village in spite of what his father or anyone else may think of him for it.

Lestat is ‘impossible’ in the way a toddler having a tantrum is impossible. Nicki, though, is quite literally impossible to control.

Nicki, the favorite son, the unstoppable force in his red velvet frock coat.

And as previously stated, Lestat did wear red in TVL. In the form of his cloak, gifted to him by Nicki and worn so frequently in the time of their Conversation.

We bowed to each other, as he was apparently the spokesman for the town, and then he unwrapped from its modest covering of black serge a great red velvet cloak lined in fur. Gorgeous thing. His eyes were positively shining when he looked at me. You would have thought he was looking at a sovereign. -TVL, p. 42

If you want to take this excerpt from TVL above Super Seriously, we see a red cloak emerging from black, wool fabric. An emblem of a more refined, flashy and lux version of Lestat rising out of a duller, more utilitarian version of himself. A thought that becomes more fun to play with when you begin to view the cloak as the first sign post on the Devil’s Road–becoming the Wolf Killer is what made Magnus believe Lestat would be strong enough to endure becoming his heir, after all.

The start of Lestat's new life and eventual hero's journey (of sorts) all begins with that red cloak.

Nicolas gets brought up quite a bit in the final books—seems to weigh pretty heavily on Lestat’s mind even while the Court is established, aliens visit, Amel plagues him.

It’s a funny accident, that (accident because I don’t think Anne was doing this on purpose).

It is difficult to be objective about those we love. Nicki’s exuberance for cruelty and taste for the destruction of himself and those around him are no secret to us the reader. But Lestat seems to keep the reality of who Nicki was—or at least, who he became in the Blood—at arm’s length from himself, as though blinded still by the love he feels/felt for his second fledgling.

And so, when needing to become the strongest version of himself for all of vampire kind, he dons red velvet—like impossible, indomitably stubborn Nicki, and his sometimes mentor Marius.

Cue donning a red velvet frock coat throughout most of the latter books.

That damned red velvet coat indeed.

[preemshots]

the definitive post of WHERE IN THE WORLD IS JOHNNY SILVERHAND’S BODY?

AKA the post of HERE’S WHY I WANT TO BELIEVE WE ARE GONNA GET JOHNNY’S BODY BACK IN DLC. 

buckle up, gamers. it's time for some lore. this is a very long post. 

warning: this will contain a million spoilers. both for details of multiple game endings, a wee bit of the “where’s johnny” comic, and the cyberpunk RED book. if you want a sparknotes version this is the post for you. my main source here is the cyberpunk RED book as well as as some references to the cyberpunk 2077 world book to cross examine the lore. 

i have no idea if someone has made this post before or what anybody else has been finding in their own lore diving. this is just me documenting my own findings from the sources i’ve been using.

it would be disingenuous not to preface this with the ways in which cyberpunk 2077's telling of the arasaka assault differ from the version told in the TTRPG books. the books =/= the game. pondsmith acknowledges in the intro of RED that this is a bridge between the old cyberpunk world and the new world of cyberpunk 2077. 

we also know that johnny's an unreliable narrator and his memories presented to V are often different than real events. but on top of that we don't know if the reason why many elements are changed is simply CDPR editing/adjusting/condensing the storyline for their own canon, or if it's due to johnny's construct being manipulated by outside influences such as arasaka.

some of the main differences you need to know from cyberpunk RED canon:

in 2023 johnny doesn't bring the nukes to arasaka tower. he's solely there to free alt.

johnny and rogue and their team from the atlantis/the aldecaldos are actually hired by morgan blackhand. 

morgan blackhand is the one who plants the nuke, unbeknownst to many members of the team. 

morgan blackhand promptly disappears after this event and no one knows if he's alive or dead. (claire confirms this fact to jackie and v before the heist in 2077 canon)

johnny's silver cybernetic arm is its own character, separate from himself. it seems to have a mind of its own and johnny interacts with it and/or is influenced by it.

when he, spider murphy, rogue, thompson, shaitan, and a team of los lobos from the aldecaldos (who are there in place of santiago, as he’s busy as the leader of the aldecaldos at this point) are attacked by adam smasher, johnny and his arm actively choose to draw smasher's fire in a deliberately suicidal move. smasher downs him instantly, but the distraction is enough to also save his friends.

spider murphy shoves a mysterious chip in johnny's dying head as they escape that alt had downloaded to her a long time ago.

johnny's body is later "rumoured" to have been retrieved from the rubble by a full-body borg groupie that was a first responder to the ground zero of AHQ and then hidden away in a nearby garage.

here comes the political lore that makes my eyes cross, so hopefully this accurately summarizes it: the 4th corporate war begins to end. arasaka is ultimately blamed by the NUSA government to have nuked themselves in a political move to protect their secrets and promptly banished from the USA. arasaka denies this all the way back to japan, then eventually returns to “liberate” night city in the unification wars.

but what the public doesn't know is that kei, saburo's oldest son, had actually hidden an EVEN BIGGER MORE DEVASTATING NUKE at the bottom of the tower to, well, do exactly what they were being accused of doing, even though blackhand was the one who actually dropped the smaller nuke on them. and luckily the bigger one didn’t go off.

arasaka tries to find their nuke in the rubble so they don't get in even bigger trouble, only to discover that it was moved and hidden away to... surprise! a nearby garage.

to compare with 2077:

in RED: we have no johnny loading the nukes into the elevator. no johnny being carried off the premises. no meeting saburo. no johnny getting soulkilled.

in 2077: there's a parallel moment to RED's version of events right after johnny uploads "liberator" from alt's old cyberdeck with spider's help into the arasaka mainframe in saburo's office. adam smasher comes for him as he's trying to escape, knocking him off the second floor of the atrium into the rock garden below.

visually this is the same atrium we always meet alt in in cyberspace and also where V meets johnny for the first time. hmmm. meaningful, perhaps.

not unlike what happens in RED, johnny unloads a clip into smasher at that point, but from there the scene instantly cuts to him running to the roof attempting to board the AV with rogue, where smasher shoots him down again. it’s possible johnny actually died to smasher in the atrium and we have some fabricated memories going on. 

either way, in 2077, we lose the character beat of johnny dying for his friends, and the current-day general consensus from rogue and others is that he’s perpetually a selfish asshole with ulterior motives. 

and, just to wrap up the politics of it all: morgan blackhand is rumoured to have been secretly hired by the militech-backed NUSA government to help end the 4th corporate war by... you guessed it! nuking arasaka.

HERE'S WHERE JOHNNY'S BODY ENDS UP IN CYBERPUNK RED (SPARKNOTES VERSION):

RED ends with a story called "black dog" set in 2045. black dog is the last song johnny recorded right before the assault on arasaka tower, but the final copy is a bootleg copy of the song and only a fraction.

we're introduced to a fun group of cybernetic-enhanced characters that represent the classes in the TTRPG and based on/designed by real people in collaboration with CDPR.

this group includes trace santiago, santiago's son, who is a media that is curious about the mystery surrounding the circumstances around his father and the arasaka bombing. 

just connecting lore here: if you talk to saul at the aldecaldo camp in 2077, he confirms that santiago was killed for his involvement with johnny and the bombing, something that rogue and johnny reference when they talk about their now-dead crew from the afterlife, and in chippin in, santiago is a friend that johnny lists as someone he had disappointed.

the group sets off to find any info about black dog, and meet up with a full conversion chrome woman named samantha in a garage who is blatantly a johnny silverhand fangirl. trace discovers she has a history with johnny, having rescued him from a studio fire at some point in 2015 and speculates she could have been a groupie also.

she mysteriously has a more complete recording of black dog, though not perfect, and offers to trade it for a service: she wants the group to transport a large crate to a facility in new mexico, asking them not to open it.

shit goes down. evidently everyone in night city wants to kill them for this package once it starts moving. eventually they open it. it's the arasaka nuke that had been hidden and never went off, emblazoned with warnings.

trace inquires about the circumstances surrounding the arasaka assault with an older member of the lobos who had been present with rogue and johnny. the man mentions that it was weird, because morgan blackhand organized the whole thing and then ran off immediately with a mysterious bag that we now know contained the nuke. 

michiko arasaka intercepts the gang, explaining the situation around the bigger nuke, that other factions in arasaka want to utilize it for their own goals (presumably hanako and yorinobu) and her father's legacy, that she feels responsible for. she escorts them to new mexico so that the nuke can be dismantled once and for all.

they meet up with a woman named angel in new mexico that takes the crate from them, at a facility that specializes in nuclear material. she gives the group the full recording of "black dog". the group leaves successful.

this woman is also a johnny silverhand stan. once alone, she calls up samantha, who says, "i promised i would get him to you in the end" and reveals that she had already gutted/dismantled the original nuke and discarded the material into the bay.

angel opens the "nuke" to reveal a hidden cryochamber, and greets the face of the person inside with, "hello, my love."

i mean, holy shit. okay! so that’s DEFINITELY johnny’s body. cool!

now let’s go into all the references to this story in the actual game of cyberpunk 2077 that SUGGEST we are going to pursue this story AND johnny's body since it’s such a HOT FUCKING TOPIC. 

and i know many of the following can just be considered easter eggs. but my personal interpretation of this game is that it has a really delightful way of intentionally glossing over important story details—and not by ONLY putting them in shards (which people tend to dislike because lol reading) but by also hiding them in plain sight, constantly deferring to V's own ignorance, distracting us with shallower, shinier things, encouraging us to actually play as the fool hero of this story. 

so here's the fun list of “””evidence”””:

this one’s a reach, but fun. in the initial arasaka assault flashback in 2023: we can interact with the groupies at kerry's show as johnny. samantha doesn't appear to be present, but the first person and groupie you can encounter in the flashback has a passing resemblance to angel in that she has a cybernetic arm.

in chippin' in, where we go to johnny's "grave" in the oil fields: if we are to take the 2077 retelling of events as truth, the story could instead be pretty easily be changed that samantha procured his body from there.

mike pondsmith, who wrote these stories and created the TTRPG can be heard on the radio narrating various conspiracy theories. and sure, these can just be easter eggs, intended to reference the differences between the TTRPG lore and the game, so take it with a grain of salt:

johnny. bro. tell him it was morgan blackhand

to top it all off, mike also directly references the actual WORSE nuke arasaka had hid in another arasaka conspiracy: 

SPOILERS FOR GAME ENDINGS AHEAD.

in the rogue ending of the game we discover rogue has a son. it's possible her son is trace (edit: nvm NOT LIKELY, since in RED’s black dog story rogue is listed separately from santiago’s mom in conversation) OR possibly one of the other characters. she tells her son to "pull over and look at the stars" or something along those lines. maybe just details, so that screams nomad to me.

rogue also has a photo of herself and johnny with mike pondsmith in her apartment/office in the afterlife. i initially read this as a delightful cameo but it also can mean mike the CHARACTER knew johnny and rogue, and rogue therefore has some kind of relationship to him and these conspiracies on the radio. and why the fuck not make him a full on character? we have a smattering of streamers and personalities already integrated into quests in the game. the creator of all this should be no exception. fuck it! 

rogue and johnny constantly dance around this accusation of her “selling out”. it’s repeated over and over that she and adam smasher worked for "the same people". i'm beginning to wonder if this wasn't meant to imply only arasaka since smasher mysteriously disappeared after the AHQ assault in 2023 and returned to SOMETIMES take jobs from arasaka... but possibly morgan blackhand and/or by extension, the NUSA or any other greater influences. (like nightcorp? we still don’t know where all this shit with nightcorp/the peralezes/sandra dorsett’s discovery about their research into mind control is gonna go) this also doesn’t account for the multiple factions inside arasaka with VERY different motives. 

morgan blackhand and adam smasher are rivals in the TTRPG, a role that appears to be at least partially filled by johnny instead in 2077. in relation to the arasaka factions, it’s worth nothing that smasher specifically works for yorinobu as his bodyguard at the beginning of the game, in part i assume because yorinobu is avoiding working with arasaka security details as he stole the relic and is plotting against his father. he is then promoted to head of security by yorinobu when yorinobu assumes power. 

in the ending as you work your way through arasaka tower with rogue and shaitan and johnny, rogue remarks:

michiko at this point in 2077 is the leader of the more “liberal” faction within arasaka, so it’s possible we’re seeing that while rogue and smasher work for the same people/family, they couldn’t be more different. 

you can also encounter rogue more than once on the phone fighting with wakako, who has apparently crossed her. wakako also seems to have her own ulterior motives and works mainly with the arasaka-backed tyger claws. she notably gives v/takemura the parade security info for “play it safe” without asking for anything in return, enabling hanako’s kidnapping. my theory is that yorinobu intentionally leaked the parade info to her to give away to put hanako in danger or at least continue to destabilize arasaka. 

in the takemura/devil ending of the game, there is a point where violence breaks out at the arasaka board room meeting when yorinobu-allied security open fire on them. one of the only people that survives along with hanako is michiko arasaka, who was at odds with hanako’s decisions, but  very involved in the preceding discussion.

and now for is my favorite detail! in the afterlife AT ALL POINTS IN THE GAME (but it can only really be inspected in the rogue ending when we are allowed behind the bar), we can find a photo of the squad that transported johnny's body from samantha to angel on the shelf below johnny's tequila, of them hanging out in front of the afterlife sign:  

this implies rogue has some relationship with them, and sentimentality, if we're to judge by the placement. she maybe even took the picture. i don't know, it's charming, it could be all easter eggs. who fucking knows.

either way, rogue and these kids both have in common that they worked with or at least interacted with michiko arasaka. 

and you know what my final evidence is? more wishful thinking! black dog plays on the radio in game. we got a full recorded version of it by refused. if not an oversight, i go ahead and take it to mean the final version was finally released to the public by those kids that were looking for it. 

i haven’t the slightest idea how this is gonna wrap up in future DLC. who has johnny’s body now in 2077, decades after it was dropped off in mexico? what is the truth?? where the fuck is morgan blackhand?? from the devil ending, we know that arasaka stole jackie’s body and put his soul into mikoshi, so the idea that they would just toss johnny’s corpse has always been laughable. the “where’s johnny?” promotional comic was even about thompson unsuccessfully trying to find johnny’s body. i know i am biased here but i cannot fathom all this talk about johnny’s body ending off with us NOT finding it, whether it’s just to bury it, shove johnny’s engram back in it, make out with it, or WHATEVER.

if you made it through this slog, congrats. thanks for reading! 

[cow-smells]

You send them an anonymous love letter [Cobra Kai Headcanons]

Request: Hey! I’m a little new at this whole thing, sorry in advance! I really like your work and writings! It’s super awesome to read! You do a great job! I was wondering if you could do something like an imagine or head canon for Miguel, Robby, Demetri, and Hawk about each of them individually finding an anonymous love letter and trying to figure out who it is + their reaction to finding out it’s (y/n). That would be lovely and I would appreciate it a lot! You’re the best! ( @i-am-lost-and-need-a-map )

A/N: tysm!!! this warmed my heart!! i loved this request!!

 + to all those who’ve sent in requests, I do intend to get to those! tbh i’ve kind of been uninspired to write something lengthy (despite getting some requests i really love) and this headcanon request came just in time.

Words: 1119

Warnings: None

Miguel / Robby / Demetri / Hawk under the cut:

Miguel

His heart would simply implode

this boy is a massive romantic at heart; such a romantic gesture would be sure to captivate him

he'd spend literally his entire day thinking about the letter, about who you might be

he'd scan the girls (and even guys) at school wondering who's behind the letter

trying to see if he catches anyone looking at him other than the usual

he now puts in wayyy too much effort in to how he looks knowing someone has a crush on him

he gets a little discouraged when he doesn't find out who wrote the letter quickly enough

he fears you may have moved on from him, making former insecurities come to life

when you see him looking down you leave him an anonymous note cheering him up, and he does cheer up instantly knowing you're still there and care for him

one day he comes in early to school and sees you slipping a note in to his locker

that's when he knows

he doesn't hesitate to go right up to you to talk about it, even though he's stunned

he never knew he was even on your radar

so he was very happy to find out that he certainly was

he asks you out to golf n stuff right then and there for your first date

Robby

he would legit think it was a prank at first

to the point he'd crumple up your letter and throw it away right after reading it

its not that he didn't like it – it was just so hard for him to believe anyone cared for him that his first instinct would be to write it off as a joke

he'd confront his friends about it

when he noticed they really didn't seem to write it – or know what he was talking about - he was even more confused

they'd make fun of him for receiving a love letter

but he wouldn't care. He'd go find the crumpled up letter and take it home with him, re-examining it

he really didn't want to get his hopes up, but his heart would race at the thought that it might be from you

the next time you two would hang out he'd try to bring up the idea of a love letter to see your reaction

the knowing smile you wore said everything

he decided to take the plunge and kiss you

you (unintentionally) quoted something loving you wrote to him and he swooped on you again, hardly believing this fairy tale is his life

Demetri

oh boy, was he unprepared for this

Demetri struggles with the thought of literally anyone finding him attractive, so for someone to go as far as to write him something so full of affection and want the way you did? Astounding

Once the reality of the situation would sink in, his ego would inflate to dangerous extents

he would be constantly smirking

he wouldn't talk to Sam too much at school so that whoever his admirer is won't think there's anything going on between them

makes sure to find times in between classes and at lunch where he's alone so maybe you'll be able to gather up the courage to walk up to him and expose yourself

when that doesn't immediately happen his pessimistic tenancies come back full swing, thinking you'll never reveal yourself

despite that, he has your letter hung up in his bedroom

behind his door, so he sees it every morning when he wakes up (and so his parents don't)

when he kinda winds down from the whole love letter ordeal he goes to lab where you're partnered up with him

“So how's your week been?”

Thinking back to the letter, he can't hide his proud grin

“Pretty good. Actually, really good”

“Should I assume that's because of my letter?”

he's floored

he liked you, but never thought you could have been harboring such deep feelings for him

you were so out of his league

he wants to reply but he gets stuck in his stuttering, then the teacher walks in and class starts

which is lucky for him, because that gives him 45 minutes to get his shit together and collect the courage to ask you out, to which you happily agree

Hawk

he finds your letter when he opens his locker

coincidentally, his friends are with him and see it

he plays it off cool, like he's so unbothered/unsurprised because he has so many admirers

but, he doesn't show them the contents of the letter, putting it back in his locker to retrieve later when he's alone

his mind races all day, thinking about that letter and he hasn't even opened it yet

he wants to rip it open once he gets home but rather he takes gentle care opening the envelope, making sure not to rip anything

he reads the letter over three times, savoring every word

by the time he goes to bed he's unintentionally memorized half of it

Hawk just so happened to be nursing a massive crush on you

he didn't want to get his hopes up too high, hoping it was from you, because if it wasn't he would be devastated

he didn't even consider it being written by anyone else, he was so set on you

so despite his nerves he urged himself to go and find out who's behind the love letter

the next time he sees you is at a beach party

you're friends, so you talk for a while before he drops it on you:

you offer to go get drinks

“Nah, let me. I owe you at least that much after what you left in my locker, don't I?”

he makes sure not to be too specific in his wording in case it wasn't you

but you can't help but turn red

“How did you know it was me?”

“I didn't”

your jaw falls at his manipulation

so you start to ramble on what you were thinking when you wrote him that letter, trying to reason it-

he shuts you up with a kiss

you don't mind one bit

it's longggg in to your relationship when he admits he keeps that letter in a box under his bed