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moonydustx · 4 months ago

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HEAR MY WISH! So, did you hear the new song from Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga? "Die with a smile" could you write something like that with Trafalgar Law x Reader (reader dies)

I'm not even going to talk about how late I am with this, I'm a shame. And yes, I've heard the song and I love it. Maybe I deviated a little from your request. I hope you still like it

Besides the music, completely based on the ending of Superman & Lois (I still cry about it)

Eternity

info: lots and I mean LOTS of angst, but with a fluff kinda happy ending. spoiler alert: everyone dies. Life after death (I don't really know how to define that).

Trigger warning: Implicit mentions of violence and suicide (We don’t have anything explicit or detailed.)

Law x F!Reader

Before his body met the icy water, the last thing he saw were your eyes.

Open, adorned by your hair. Two orbs that were full of love for him. Now they were outlined by blood and remained open without any shine.

The sounds of gunshots and exasperated screams became increasingly distant, increasingly muffled by the sea that embraced Law and took him away from all that. It no longer made sense to be there.

The idea of staying gained many meanings for Law throughout his not-so-long life. Staying at war and dragging everyone he could to his pre-defined tombstone; staying alive and avenging and honoring those who had been killed as a shield for him; staying by the side of the family he chose, as a source of protection and support. That included staying by your side, as a source of love, something he had recently discovered he was capable of.

But now, considering that the human brain developed until the age of 25, dying at 26 means that perhaps Law didn't know all the meanings of staying alive. Or that at the very least the knowledge was still new and fresh to him, as fresh as the smell of blood he had smelled not long ago. Your blood. His crewmates blood. In the end, he, for example, chose not to stay alive. And if he chose not to stay alive, why was he standing there, on the edge of the same port where he had chosen to sink into the salt water?

A few blinks and a few mumbles were enough, and little by little the smoke-filled scenery was replaced by a breathtaking sunset. That fast, just as he used his own powers to change places. His brain was still trying to understand what was happening. Why is the sky so beautiful, just like the grass so green at his feet?

"It's really strange to get here." A female voice caught his attention enough that he barely paid attention to what she was saying. Word by word.

Hair flowing, an almost anxious smile adorned the teenager's almost angelic face. He didn't know who it was, but it was so familiar and comforting to look at.

"…I mean, lucky mommy and daddy got here first, I'd be dead if I got here alone. Well, technically…" she continued with the barrage of information.

She was dead? Mommy and daddy got here first? A familiar face.

Mommy and daddy got here first.

Tripping over his own feet, it took a few seconds for Law to compute that the person he had trapped in his embrace was different from the last time he saw her. No more dark circles and the frightened look. The white spots seemed to have been left behind.

"Lami!" His voice came out as a relieved whisper, pulling back enough to be able to observe her. "You've grown up!"

"You too, little brother." The girl laughed, an almost impossible happiness to contain. "I'm just sad that you're already here."

"Here?"

"Well, here we are, mommy, daddy…"

"Me!" Bepo's voice arrived before he could even gather Lami and Law in a hug. "You're finally here, captain."

"It's good to see you, man." Law returned the gesture and quickly got away from the bear.

Looking into the distance, from where he had seen his furry friend running towards him, Law could barely contain a smile on his face. In front of the stunning sunset was him, who had long been what he called home and who now he imagined was at the bottom of the ocean. The Polar Tang in all its glory and around them, some distracted friends were talking.

However, what caught his attention were two people sitting side by side who seemed to be looking sideways in his direction. Even though they were still far away, Law could feel his heart pounding at the sight of such silhouettes.

"Go on, they're waiting for you." Lami's voice said in the background.

The previously fast paced steps were now almost unsteady. If he closed his eyes, Law could see the last time he saw them, it was as if the heat of the flames met his skin. However, now it was different. Still hesitant, he only felt the muscles in his body relax as he was pulled by his mother's arms, who hugged him as if he were still her little boy.

"Oh my sweet child, how long it's been!" She exclaimed, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes. With one hand, she touched his face and with the other, her husband's face. "Law, you're just like your father."

The three of them remained there for a few seconds - in fact, for almost an eternity and yet that was little compared to how much the pirate had missed (and felt guilty) for having lost those two.

"I'm proud of you." His father said, ruffling the dark strands on top of his hair.

"Me too." The woman added, but soon sulked. "I mean, you could have eased up on the tattoos and not gotten into so many fights…"

"Mom." Even with his scolding tone, the word sounded incredible on his lips.

"Besides, you weren't eating properly! Did you have to stay up late working? She was right."

She.

God, he didn't need to listen to her name to find out who the "she" was that his mother was referring to. Noticing the surprised face drawn on Law's face, the woman couldn't stop laughing, knowing that was exactly what he needed to hear.

"Go on, she's waiting for you." His father warned, nodding toward the submarine.

"You made a good choice, my son. My daughter-in-law seems like an incredible woman."

Still stunned by seeing those faces he loved so much and imagined how they would look in his head, Law headed toward the submarine. Familiar faces and smiles from his companions followed by shouts of "the captain is here" accompanied him with every step, with every wave he gave.

For a few seconds he wondered where you really were and, as I said, it was only seconds until he found out. Heading toward the submarine's infirmary - the place where he had gathered the courage he had gained over the years of partnership to finally kiss you - something interrupted him. A familiar smell of cigarette smoke, with something else burning.

Law took a few steps back and found him, hiding in one of the cracks, putting out the ashes of what had been a fire on his coat.

"Look who's here." Corazon's voice came out excited, accompanied by a laugh. "What a man you've become!"

"Cora, I… I" Law would be lying if he said it was easy to control the avalanche of emotions that were raging through him all at once. It was like being recognized as a man, like a mission completed. All of this behind the eyes of the scared and hopeless child he once was. "I -I became a pirate a-and I defeated Doflamingo, along with Luffy, but…"

"We can leave that for later." He stroked the younger man's dark hair. "You have an important meeting waiting for you."

Law just nodded and continued walking in the direction of the meeting point.

Did his hands make that much sweat when he had your first date? He couldn't say, but at that moment he was nervous. What if you were furious? What if you weren't there?

As if by magic, everything seemed to be ripped away from him. At least, all the fear and insecurity. There you were, standing there waiting for him. The same clothes you wore the first time you kissed, the same smile. God, how beautiful you were.

"You!" your voice came out excited, but soon your eyebrows lowered, in a melancholic tone. "Does that mean they got you too?"

Law just shook his head. It wasn't the time for him to remember what he had done, to pass on this burden that he knew would be an immense weight for him. When he got closer, the first thing he did was not hug or kiss you. He reached for your clothes, pulling them away enough to see the part of your body that covered one of your most important possessions, your heart. The smooth, immaculate skin drew a smile from him. The last time he had seen it, there had been a hole surrounded by blood there.

His tattooed fingers caressed your skin, an immense joy imprinted in each touch of seeing you whole, there. His fingers slid down your body until they found the freedom to pull you into a hug.

"It was a nightmare out there." he said, still buried against the skin of your neck, feeling your fingers tangle against his hair. "The world was ending, everyone was gone, you were there and then…" he sighed deeply, feeling your scent against him.

Law then pulled away just enough to put your forehead to his. The ring that you both wore on a necklace seemed to shine with the orange light that came in through the window.

"Do you remember that promise?" he picked up the ring that fell on your lap.

"We are one. If you fight, I fight; wherever you go, that's where I'll go."

"That implies that I couldn't leave you alone here, ever." he smiled broadly, a smile you hadn't seen in a long time.

"And how are you feeling?" At that moment, his hands held you like the most precious thing.

And maybe in the real world you two were still sinking in salty waters. Maybe the bastards who had hit you had taken your bodies. That no longer mattered to Law.

"I'm happy." He smiled once more, his lips almost touching the heavens. "I finally have everything I've ever wanted."

#fiction #reader insert #one piece #no use of y/n #trafalgar d law x reader #law x reader #law x you #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar law

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zosan-secondchances · 5 months ago

Text

The Pirate King of the North: Part 8

Main Themes: Villain Sanji, Alternate Universe, Zosan Ship

Warning: Long post ahead with One Piece spoilers. Contains strong language and explicit content.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 (Special) | 19

Sanji

Explain, Commander.

Commander 2

We’d been keeping tabs on Doflamingo like you wanted. But since your… performance… in Sabaody Archipelago, he’s disappeared from our radar completely.

Law didn't look too impressed hearing this.

Law

You've known where to find him all along?

Sanji

Of course I do. Or…I did.

Oh, don't give me that face, doctor. Remember, Doffy and I have an alliance. I only wanted to make sure that he doesn't know that I'm sneaking around with you until we find out more about Corazon. My intel on his whereabouts all but benefits you. However, please understand that it's all on a need-to-know basis. I still have a duty to protect his privacy.

The doctor glares at him, sneering especially after being reminded about the blonde's partnership with his sworn enemy. He's starting to have doubts about saving the man's life.

Zoro begins to wonder himself what this means about the recent development in his relationship with the blonde.

Sanji turns his attention back to the blue-haired commander.

Sanji

So there's nothing at all? Nothing in the usual countries and islands? …At home even? Are any of our agents compromised?

Commander 2

I have in good faith that the reports are accurate and untapped.

And… I really hope he’s not wandering somewhere in the castle. I don’t know if I can sleep like that.

Zoro crosses his arms and legs at the foot of Sanji’s bed, listening intently and observing the stranger. He notices that the blonde's relationship is somewhat domestic with this man, even with the formal titles.

Sanji

Hold on. How in the world did you find me?

Commander 2 pokes the side of his head.

Commander 2

Distress signal. Did you die?

Sanji

Uhm… no?

Law

He did.

Zoro looks at the doctor with a horrified expression but Sanji and the commander look unbothered by the news. Law picks up on the swordsman's concern so he follows up quickly.

Law

Relax. He's still alive, isn't he? We lost him for less than a minute. His heart stopped beating but we got it under control.

Commander 2

That would do it.

Sanji groans, his head falling back against the pillow that's propping him up.

Sanji

I forgot about that damned thing. The last time this happened was when the Marimo sliced off my arm.

Zoro frowns at the memory.

Zoro

You… died then?

Sanji

So I've been told. I only remember feeling like shit. They told me that I bled out from the fight, love. You got me good!

Zoro frowns at the comment as Sanji chuckles casually about it. To him, it’s starting to make sense how the blonde was able to slip away and survive certain arduous battles against him before.

While he can't see the commander's eyes, he could sense that the man is watching him like a hawk behind his thick goggles. Zoro returns the glare with just as much intensity.

Sanji

I think the signal still activates if we hit a critical condition.

Commander 2

Which wouldn’t have happened if you had your Raid Su–

Sanji

DON'T. Start.

The commander closes his mouth shut and tuts to himself, resisting to openly show any signs of disapproval in front of everyone.

Law

Mr. Prince-ya, is there something you want to tell us? We can't have a tracker on you while we're trying to stay under the radar ourselves.

Sanji and his commander share a look. After a brief pause, the blonde speaks.

Sanji

It's a bit complicated, doctor.

Commander, it’s okay to tell them. We need to prove that they can trust us, and that hasn’t changed. Even if the doctor and dear Doffy are enemies.

Commander 2

Fine. I hate that guy too anyway.

Law smirks at the commander’s comment. Sanji can't say that he's not glad to see that they have found common ground at the very least.

The commander turns his attention to Law, then proceeds to explain.

Commander 2

It's Germa tech–a safety precaution, nothing more. The signal isn't something that can be intercepted by anything, including black snails. It can only be sent and received by people who have undergone the procedure to install the proper modifications, and it’s tied to our genetics.

Sanji

Our father had kindly ordered his scientists to open up our skulls when we were very young. It made sense at the time, what with softer heads and faster recovery rate. It’s useful, but we have no control of it.

The blue-haired man nods then follows up quickly.

Commander 2

It's similar to an automatic reflex.

Now that we’ve matured, I believe it will prove fatal to have the mods removed. We can’t do anything about it.

Zoro felt sick at the thought. He wonders what sort of monster Sanji had been raised by. Then he realises something.

Zoro

Curls… are you two brothers?

Sanji stares at him for a second, then laughs out loud, making him and Law look at each other in confusion.

Sanji

Yes! I forget that I haven’t told you anything about my family!

Marimo and doctor, this is my brother, Asshole. Asshole, this is Marimo and doctor.

The commander snarls at Sanji, gritting his teeth.

Commander 2

My name is Vinsmoke Niji, Prince and Commander of Germa.

—

Zoro was selfishly hoping to continue spending time with the recently woken up blonde but this prince commander, Niji, had completely taken over Sanji's time. The swordsman didn't fully understand the conversation that followed but it was a necessary one as it involved the blonde's health.

Niji had provided Law with what looks like a compact first aid kit specifically tailored for the Pirate King. He went on a detailed explanation about how their bodies differ from regular human bodies, pointing out that Sanji, while being one of the Vinsmoke children that had been modified to have superhuman capabilities, is especially unique compared to the rest of his siblings having the only one who retained his emotions.

Hearing the science behind it felt clinical and too much information for the swordsman to fully absorb. He felt like being in the room while Law and the commander spoke about Sanji's body the way they did was too personal and he shouldn't be there for it.

When Zoro tries to leave, he feels a hand wrap around his own. He looks down and finds that the blonde is holding onto him, as if asking him to stay. So he does.

To conclude, Niji proceeds to go through the contents of the kit. One of which is a tubed cream that he demonstrates with. He applies a small amount on the blonde's ripped tendons, miraculously sealing the open wound closed in an instant.

Sanji looked satisfied with the result. He wriggles and stretches his feet poking out of the blanket, smiling at it happily. Now there are scars where the gashes once were, adding to his ever growing collection. Niji's face looks unfazed, but he straightens up and puffs out his chest a bit like he's proud of his work.

To ensure Law's continued interest in working together, Sanji provides him with even more valuable information about himself and his kingdom, offering them as gifts in good faith. He reveals that his four most trusted commanders are actually his siblings, and should anything happen to him, one of them will take over to rule Germa. Their collective efforts ensure that the Pirate King’s reputation is upheld and his orders are enforced by each one of their varying specialties. It gives the illusion that the Sanji is in multiple places at once, and makes sure that his influence and power over the North remain unchallengeable.

Law

Why are you telling me all this?

Sanji

My dear, you haven't played this game much before, have you? I'm laying it all out for you. Don't waste it.

Niji

So you can use the information against him if he's being a dick. He's offering his trust to you for yours.

Maybe sharing a bit too much detail, if you ask me. A lot of people have lost their lives trying to learn what you just did in the last five minutes.

Sanji

Commander Niji, you ass! Let him figure it out! How else is he going to learn?

Niji

He's not a player. Look at him.

He's too soft.

Law

Sh–shut up! I'm not!

So, is this how you hide your whereabouts? By overwhelming everyone with information that is all technically true?

Sanji nods, smiling. He looks almost smug at his own cleverness.

Sanji

Carefully curated truth, doctor. I don't reveal everything, but I give away enough to keep people off my back, or you know, just for fun. I do prefer to work in the shadows.

Law

The Underworld?

Sanji

For the most part. If you're nice, I'll tell you more about it all later.

Sanji gives Law a cheeky flirtatious wink. Zoro rolls his eye in reaction.

Niji

This doesn't explain why you blew your own cover in Sabaody Archipelago with that charity show.

Sanji

Oh, it was all part of a heist but I’ve always wanted to show off my legs in those video shows. I completely didn't see the Celestial Dragon coming and I know that I should have known better. How hot did I look in those heels though?

Niji

Ugh….

Zoro quietly agreed about Sanji's appearance but he's not about to announce that.

Law

There's something I don't get….

Sanji

Ask away.

Law

I come from the North Blue myself. The Marines say that after you killed your own father, you enslaved your siblings, and they are never seen again.

Sanji

Ah.

Law observes Niji's features, taking notes of his curly eyebrows and similar facial structure.

Law

If what you say is true and this man is your brother, then the story from the Marines is false.

Sanji

Bunch of liars, those lot. They're worse than me.

Law

What's the real story?

Sanji glances at Niji then proceeds to explain. This time, his pace is slow, as if trying to make sure that he says the right word every time.

Sanji

Vinsmoke Judge was… there's no way around it–he’s an ass.

Niji

You can't deny all the scientific and military progress he'd made though.

Sanji

Yes, well…thank you, Commander.

Let's just say that I wasn't exactly his favourite. See, that, I could deal with.

But I killed him because he wouldn't let me visit our own mother's grave.

Zoro raised his eyebrows at that. He could tell that the doctor is intrigued by the story himself.

Sanji

I did force my siblings into custody at that time, but I only kept them under lock and key until I named myself ruler of Germa. Then I didn't need to.

Niji and my other siblings are hardwired to follow Germa’s current king or queen's demands so I made them my commanders. They didn't have to like it, but their loyalty is unquestionably clear. They physically can't disobey my orders. All thanks to dear father's hard work turning them into the perfect soldiers.

A lot of our father's faithful followers are against me being in the throne so to protect them, we had to hide their identities for a while. I guess it stuck.

Law

Figures your own father saw you as a threat.

Sanji

No…it's the opposite, actually. He locked me away when we were very young. He said I was uhm…

Sanji trails off at that and looks down. His grip on Zoro's hand tightens.

Niji

A failure. The word you're looking for is “failure”.

Sanji

Yeeees, yes. Thank you, Commander. Ah yes, how could I forget?

Niji

Don't mention it.

Niji is smirking with a broad grin.

Sanji's body trembles in anger for a moment, but it subsides when Zoro gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. He takes a deep breath then turns to Law again after composing himself.

Sanji

He kept me out of sight, to make sure that I didn't ruin his reputation. Until one day he didn't feel just as merciful and threw me away.

Which brings us to the topic of Doffy…. I know you've seen my mark by now. You must wonder why I'm closely allied with a Celestial Dragon–another slaver, for that matter.

Law leans against the far door, crossing his arms.

Law

On the contrary... I don't think Celestial Dragons are all bad. Doflamingo is a special case though.

Sanji

Hah! You can say that again.

Are you aware of his SMILE factory?

Law

All too well.

Sanji

Right. The entire span of its outer walls are lined with Seastones. I needed a steady supply of it and I knew Doffy had his sources.

The stone's unusual properties allow my siblings to feel emotions but they're… heavy and awkward. And with all the combat my brothers and sister go through on the regular…

Law

You constantly need them for maintenance… and Doflamingo is milking your every worth.

Sanji nods affirmingly.

Sanji

I need pure condensed ones to make something more compact and permanent but they're extremely rare. I'm not even sure if that Celestial Dragon in Sabaody knew what they were. We've been gathering everything we can find for years, and finally we may have enough after Sabaody.

Doffy said he'd help with the supply of the regular ones while I go find them but he's proven to be… demanding.

Niji

Demanding is an understatement. Also, he's a fuckin’ pervert.

Sanji

Hey, he's my fuckin’ pervert.

Zoro

Curls…

Sanji

Ah, shit. I'm sorry, love. This is going to take some getting used to….

Law

But the other Vinsmokes are already hardwired to obey your commands. That doesn't make sense. Why would you change that and give them emotions? Everything about it benefits you.

Sanji remains quiet. Law speaks after the sudden realisation.

Law

…Because that's not what you want.

Sanji

You're getting it now….

Law

You want them to have a choice.

You want to give them the freedom of will….

Law eyes the helmet tucked under Niji's arm.

Law

Why aren't you wearing it then? I assume it works whenever you put it on. This means you can choose to abandon your Pirate King anytime.

Niji

A tempting idea. Not that I already didn't think about it.

Law

You… choose to stay? You choose to wear it whenever you want, and you decide to stay by his side?

Niji shrugs, his mouth curls a scowl.

Niji

Don't put it like that. You make it sound gross.

I wear it to gain empathy. My brothers and sister wear it for their own reasons. It gives us better judgement when we need to make critical decisions.

Sanji

And Germa thrives for it–thanks to those decisions.

Niji doesn't look him in the eye, but that way he puffs his chest when he's proud of himself happens again very slightly.

Sanji

The helmet's not the prettiest. And it's heavy. They don't have a good quality of life dragging it around, being stuck with it.

Once this is over, I'll take all the condensed Seastones that we have see what we can make of it.

Speaking of, Marimo…please tell me you have them.

They all turn to the swordsman, who procures the bag that Sanji had given him from under his sleeve. The blonde sighs with relief at the sight and takes it, holding the bag close to his chest.

Sanji

Thank you…

Zoro nods in acknowledgement as Sanji secures the bag away in one of the drawers of the end tables next to his bed.

Law

Mr. Prince-ya…

Sanji

Yes...?

Law

You're… surprisingly... not unkind.

Sanji blushes up to his ear. He pulls his blanket up to cover his face.

Sanji

Yeah, well…what good does that do if they're stuck with those ugly things?

Zoro grabs the blonde's hand that's gripping the blanket and pulls it down. He smiles at him with a softened look in his eye, feeling touched by the story.

Zoro

So you are a decent man after all.

Sanji

NO–!

The blonde swings a leg and hits the swordsman at the back of his head. The momentum sends him to fall face first on the tiled floor. Zoro gets up with a furious expression on his face, a tear in his eye and a couple of large bumps on his head.

Zoro

WHAT WAS THAT FOR?! I WAS TRYING TO PAY YOU A COMPLIMENT!!!

Sanji gets on his feet, blanket dropping to the floor and begins yelling back while in full nude. A drip of blood flow down his nose.

Sanji

YOU CAN'T SAY SHIT LIKE THAT, YOU BASTARD!!

Zoro

WHY DIDN'T YOU HIT TRAFFY TOO?! HE STARTED IT!!!

Law

Don't bring me into this….

Niji

Tch.

Sanji

And what are you tutting about?!

Niji averts his gaze with an unimpressed frown on his face.

Niji

I just find it ironic that the person you decide to be with is a brute with green hair.

Sanji glares at him with a growl at the back of his throat. He stomps towards him, looking like he's about to throw a punch.

Zoro quickly gets up and hoists the naked blonde into his arms.

Sanji

Oi!

Zoro

Don't even think about it. Your feet are fine now but your heart isn't.

Sanji mimics Zoro's last line in a high pitched, mocking voice. The swordsman lays him gently back on his bed, ruffles his hair then proceeds to pick up the blanket to lay it over the blonde after dusting it off.

Niji watches the interaction between the two carefully. He notices their closeness and how they can't seem to let go of each other's hands again when Sanji finally settles in.

The commander reaches under his arm and with one smooth swing, he equips the heavy metal helmet over his head with a ding, covering the entirety of his face but the eyes behind his goggles.

Sanji's eyes widen in horror.

Sanji

That can't be good.

Commander, what are you up to?

Niji keeps his hands on his helmet, staying silent as he's processing information in his head.

Law notices a glint of his eyes behind the lens of his goggles. He thought that he saw a hint of concern on his face but it went as quickly as it came.

The blue-haired commander finally slides his hands off his headwear as he turns to face Sanji. The way he scrunches his face tells the blonde that he's grinning wide behind the metal plate that covered his lower face.

Niji

I think I'll stay, Your Highness.

Sanji

NO.

Zoro and Law

What?!

Niji

Due to recent events, I have come to the conclusion that the best course of action to ensure Our Majesty's survival is to remain at his side for the duration of his trip. At least until you reach Skypiea anyway.

Sanji

FUCK OFF, NIJI!

Law

I don't get a say in this, do I?

Zoro

Calm down, Curls. This isn't good for your heart.

Sanji

He's not good to my heart.

Take it off and go home, Niji.

Niji

Hmm… nah.

Sanji

Nah?!

Niji

You always did say we need to bond more like a proper family.

Niji opens his arms, as if challenging the blonde. Then he speaks mockingly.

Niji

Let's bond, brother.

—

Niji

What the hell is this?

Sanji has dragged Niji all the way to their shared bunk room where mountains of laundry are scattered throughout the floor, waiting to be folded. Zoro is trying his best not to snicker behind them while the blue-haired man stood still, too stunned at the sight.

Sanji

Bonding. This is bonding.

Niji

This is not–

The blonde pushes the blue-haired man into the room.

Sanji

If you're going to stay here, you have to make yourself useful.

Niji

This is servant stuff!

Sanji hurdles over a couple of piles to get to their wardrobe. When he does, he strips off his borrowed hospital gown and starts putting on his casual wear.

Sanji

Yes, you're right. And I hate to break it to you but… you are one.

Niji

I'm a prince!

Sanji smirks as he pats himself down, satisfied with his choice of clothing.

Sanji

And I'm a king and yet, here we are. Stay here, and get some headway.

Keep Penguin's stuff close to the door in case he runs in looking for clothes post-shower again, otherwise everything else gets wet. It's the one with the penguin doodle on the inside collar. Shachi’s ones have shorter sleeves than the rest. Ikkaku’s has a smaller cut overall but sometimes I get it mixed up with Hakugan’s….

To Zoro's amusement, Sanji goes on a long list of do’s and don'ts for each and every one of the Heart Pirates clothes, overwhelming the blue-haired commander.

Niji

This is bullshit. You're just making this up. There's no way you remember that for all twenty of them.

Zoro

No, he's actually pretty spot on. Also, there's twenty-one. Law's too shy to ask so he sneaks in his stuff in the middle of the night. It should be around here somewhere….

Sanji

Watch the feathers on one of his coats! Don't ruffle it up or it will lose its natural shape.

Let's go, Marimo.

Niji

Wait–where are you going?

Sanji quickly grabs Zoro's hand and rushes out the door.

Sanji

Uh–king business! Very busy. Don't follow!

Niji

Fuckin’ hell, San–

The door slams close behind them.

Little did Zoro know that he was about to have the best sex of his life.

—

Thanks to the collective power and experience of the passengers aboard the Polar Tang, the Heart Pirates and their guests are an unstoppable force. They travelled through the Grand Line and covered almost half of the world in the matter of weeks as opposed to years. They dove deep underwater for any potential threat that they wanted to avoid, and having Niji onboard meant that they had eyes and a driving force in the skies whenever they needed it.

There were a couple of reports from the blue-haired commander that Law had stowed away in his memory banks to worry about later. The first one being the sighting of Kaidou’s forces nearby. He wonders what business they possibly could have all the way in the Grand Line.

Secondly, something has upset the merfolk. Whatever it is, Niji reported that fleets of Prince Fukaboshi’s army can be seen on the move from afar. Law makes an effort to keep their sub at a distance so as to not get caught up in their affairs.

The doctor also noticed that the blonde especially took interest in the latter, asking if there's a sighting of the mermaid prince himself but his brother came back without good news for him.

—

They reach the boundaries of the island Jaya at high noon. The Pirate King insists not to step foot inside its village of Mock Town as Doflamingo is known to have men in the area. As per agreement of their alliance, Sanji is not allowed to send his own men or any one of his associates in his territory unless the tall Warlord is notified in advance. Naturally, the blonde didn't care much about it and tells everyone that they can get on the island if they want as long as they don't get seen.

With that information, Law decides to skirt the ship around and dock at the other more isolated side of the island, away from prying eyes, in the boundaries of South Grove.

Once settled, they stretch their legs and sunbathe on the deck for a while until Law orders his men to forage in the forest or fish in the waters to stock up ahead on food, warning them to stay away from the town that Sanji had mentioned earlier.

Law

And try not to show up in the news this time, will you?

Law singles out Sanji, looming over him as the blonde relaxed on his sun lounge chair in his swim trunks. Zoro is laid on the floor beside him.

Sanji

Don't tempt me, Traffy-kun.

Law

It's “Trafalgar.”

Zoro

Traffy, can you stop telling him what to do? This is how it started last time.

Niji

So you're to blame for that, huh?

Law

ACK–

The Heart Pirates all boo in unison, telling off their own captain–all demanding to be left alone, including their favourite Chore Boy, accusing him of overworking everyone and for being too strict.

Law throws a venomous glare at Sanji.

Law

This is mutiny! You've rallied my own men against me. Are you happy?

Sanji giggles, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving Law to walk off grumpily and scout ahead in the forest with a handful of his crew.

Zoro sits up from the floor and leans an arm on Sanji's lounge chair.

Zoro

I'm getting some beer. Need anything?

Sanji plays with his goatee, then smirks, placing his hands back behind his head and closing his eyes for a quick snooze.

Sanji

Would you be so kind as to get me a glass of Pina Colada? I premixed some earlier today. Should be in the fridge.

Zoro

Do you want just a glass for yourself?

…Or the whole jug?

The swordsman gives him a smirk, emphasizing the last word in that sentence.

Sanji snaps his eyes open at the idea, then gazes to the side and sees Penguin and Shachi already looking at them while they fish together by the railing. They grin widely and give them the shaka sign.

Sanji

Fuck yeah. Get the jug.

—

Zoro makes his way down to the kitchen to do exactly that. He knows that the blonde likes making stuff pretty, so he makes an extra effort to garnish the drink with a small umbrella and a slice of lime on the side of the glass. It takes a lot longer than he anticipated but he wanted to get this right to impress him.

There's a sudden nagging sensation somewhere behind him–he senses danger and it’s aiming for his head. In one smooth motion, he spins, safely placing the cocktail on the counter with one hand and whips Wado out from its sheath with the other, blocking the oncoming sword attack just in time.

Niji

You know, I’ve just had enough waiting for the right moment when you’re not snogging each other.

As the blue-haired man spoke, their blades shook and rattled from the constant push against one another. Zoro hovers his now free hand over one of his other swords, readying himself to deliver a counter attack.

Niji reads his movement ahead of him and swipes a low spinning kick against the swordsman's ankle. He doesn't realise that he misses until he sees a shadow above him where Zoro had flipped overhead with ease to dodge his attack.

Zoro

What's your problem?

He unsheathes a second blade at the moment he lands on the ground. He stands firm with a basic stance.

Niji

You are, Demon Warlord.

Bending low, Niji stomps on one leg, creating a powerful surge of electricity from the base of his foot. As it spreads up to his thigh, Zoro's hair on his entire body stands on end and the lights throughout the Polar Tang flicker.

When the room dims for a few milliseconds, the blue-haired man disappears from sight.

The swordsman crosses his swords over his chest to block, and receives a powerful electrical kick at the X of his blades, barely seeing the other man’s movements. Zoro holds his body firm but the momentum sends his feet sliding until his back hits the wall.

Niji jumps and raises his own sword high above his head to bring it down on him.

Before the blade collides with his head, Zoro pushes himself off the wall and uses his own forehead to hit Niji square on his face. The man’s thick helmet bends at the mouth plate then shatters from the stress. Zoro's direct hit fractures both lenses of his goggles and breaks his nose.

The blue-haired commander staggers back but manages to regain his balance. The two straighten up almost at the same time. Niji cracks his neck, then removes broken off pieces of his helmet from his face with his free hand. He grabs the broken bridge of his nose to force it back into place with a loud snap, then spits out leftover blood from his mouth.

Zoro stood expressionless as blood trickled down his face from his forehead.

Zoro

Tough one, aren't you?

Niji

And I thought you'd be stronger.

They exchange another round of hits. This time, it felt more methodical to the swordsman, like he was being studied.

At one point, the aftershock from one of Niji’s kicks nearly tips Sanji’s drink off the counter. As if they had an unspoken agreement, they pause the fight so the blue-haired commander can catch the glass just in time before it falls off. They continue their barrage of attacks then.

Zoro

Enough of this.

The swordsman bites down Wado, enabling him to unsheathe a third sword.

Niji

That's more like it–!

Before Niji could finish speaking his thoughts, Zoro is suddenly in front of him.

Niji

What the–

The swordsman disarms the commander with one sweep of his blades. Without giving the other man much of a chance to counter, Zoro brings his swords across all together to deliver a powerful push, sending the other man flying to the far end of the room, damaging kitchen furnishings along the way.

Niji crashes against the wall with a choked grunt but doesn't fall on the ground. Instead, he catches himself on his knees, wheezing after getting the wind from his lungs drawn out of him.

Zoro

Ready to use your words?

Zoro approaches the man and points the tip of one sword to his neck.

Zoro

Or are you going to give me a reason to kill you?

Niji smirks, then slaps Zoro's sword away from his face casually.

Niji

You couldn't, even if you tried.

Zoro

I would have sooner if you had ruined Curly’s drink.

Niji

Trust me, I'm not the one who ruined it.

Zoro

What the fuck are you talking about?

Niji pushes himself up, swiping a leg at Zoro's direction.

Not wanting to do any more damage to the kitchen than he already has, the swordsman jumps back to avoid the hit.

Zoro

Seriously?! What is your problem?

Niji

My sources are right. You're not that bright, are you?

Zoro

Excuse me?

Niji walks to pick up his sword from the floor. He gives it a suave swing in the air and points the tip at Zoro's direction.

Niji

You actively sought out to kill our king for more than twenty years. And the next thing I know, he's involved himself with you? What a fucking joke.

You may have seduced our brother, but I'm not buying that shit, Warlord. What's your game here?

Zoro's eyebrows furrow at that. Of course Sanji’s family is protective of him. He takes a moment to think about his next move, then finally he makes a decision. He eases his stance and throws down all of his swords between him and Niji.

Niji tips his head up slightly at the gesture. He takes a step forward, charging a ball of electricity in the claw of his hand, then lunges at Zoro.

The swordsman closes his eye and keeps his arms down.

The air suddenly stills. And everything was quiet.

When Zoro opens his eye, he sees the commander's hand hovering just an inch from his face, the electrical surge gone from it.

Niji

Tch. This is just boring now.

Niji puts his sword away then turns to walk to the kitchen sink. He digs through one of the broken cupboards and fishes out a dishtowel which he throws to Zoro who catches it.

The blue-haired commander runs his own towel through the water then cleans himself with it, including the blood off his face. Afterwards, he abandons the cloth on the floor. Without turning to face the other man, he speaks.

Niji

Tell me, swordsman, what are your intentions with my brother?

Zoro's eye narrows as he wipes the blood from his forehead with the cloth.

Zoro

We don't need your blessing to do what we want to do.

As they talk, Niji begins to open cupboards, taking out a chopping board and a knife. He begins to work on something that's out of Zoro's line of sight as his body is in the way.

Niji

Really now? Did he say that?

Zoro

Not exactly. But knowing him, he'll just do whatever the hell he wants to do.

Niji pauses his movements for a second, then continues with his work.

Niji

Do you really think you know who he is and what he’s like?

Zoro

We have known each other for a long time, we've been travelling together for months since Law sought us out, and you know that we're… involved.

Niji

Yes… I am well aware.

Zoro

So what's your problem?

Zoro hears a bang and a squelch from the kitchen counter. Niji gives the knife a spin in his hand then stabs the chopping board with it, leaving the knife sticking out. He turns to face the swordsman.

Niji

If you truly know him that well, then tell me, Roronoa Zoro….

Niji emphasized his name as he pushed himself off the counter. He approaches Zoro slowly and stops just a step away from him.

Niji

What’s his name?

Zoro frowns at that question. He opens his mouth to respond immediately as if it has an obvious answer, but then he slowly realises that it doesn't. He digs through his memories–the blonde’s Marine file that he's read and made reports for a thousand times, their time spent together travelling, and all the instances when they've fought, fucked or both–and come out with nothing. He can’t recall a time when he’d used his first name or learned it. All he remembers is a list of nicknames and titles that he and other people have given him, and that his family name is Vinsmoke.

There and then, the swordsman starts questioning if that even is the case.

Niji tilts his head slightly, waiting for an answer. Zoro sees a glint of deep blue eyes glaring down on him. The other man looked unimpressed. With a lick of his lips, he finally breaks the silence.

Niji

Let’s reiterate what you said, shall we?

You have known each other for a long time. You have been travelling together for months since the doctor sought you out. And now, you’re apparently… “involved”.

Did you ask him even once about it? It seems like a simple question that you ask everyone.

Zoro

I…

Nothing. The swordsman had no good reason to justify why he hadn't asked the blonde for his name.

Niji

Your silence is reassuring.

Do you know why you don’t know his name?

Zoro remains quiet, already feeling berated and extremely guilty.

Niji takes another looming step closer, nearly closing the gap between them. He hovers his angry face in front of his.

Niji

Because, all these years, you either don’t care or he doesn’t trust you enough with it.

Which one is worse, do you think?

The swordsman doesn’t have any good answers to that question.

Niji takes a moment to read Zoro’s defeated face.

Niji

I think I’ve figured it out. It's both. You do care. But mostly, just for yourself.

The blue-haired man stomps to where Zoro had made Sanji’s cocktail. He grabs the drink and downs it in a couple of big gulps.

Zoro

Oi!

Niji wipes his mouth with the back of his hand then steals a fresh glass from the station. He begins to busy himself around the kitchen.

Niji

If he hasn’t given you his real name, then I wouldn’t bother too much, Warlord. You’re nothing but a phase to him. Eventually, he’ll get bored and find a new plaything. Unless you get lucky or have something more to offer like Doflamingo. Once he’s had his fill, he’s not going back for more.

When he turns around, he holds a fresh, more presentable Pina Colada in his hand garnished with pineapple fruit, its leaves and a single piece of cherry on top. It even has a matching straw that complemented the tiny umbrella. The drink has a nice amount of crushed ice in it too. Overall, it’s much better looking than the one that the swordsman made earlier. Niji approaches Zoro and hands it to him. Reluctantly, he takes it.

Niji

This is a warning for your own sake, Demon Warlord. I frankly don’t give a shit what he does to you. You could die in a hole for all I care. But if you hurt even a single strand of his hair, I will personally come down to your doorstep, pull each and every one of your fingernails and teeth, then shove your own balls into your mouth. That’s assuming you actually survive me beating the living shit out of you first.

At that, Niji walks off, leaving a stunned swordsman in the middle of the wrecked kitchen and a fancy drink in his hand.

After a moment of silence, Zoro takes a deep breath.

Zoro

…You can come out now, Bepo.

Bepo opens the pantry door where he had wedged himself in. He looks shaken.

Zoro

You uh… are you okay?

Bepo

You guys are scary when you fight….

—

Zoro finally re-emerges on the deck of the ship with a cocktail in his hand and a jug of premixed Pina Colada in another. Bepo followed closely behind him holding a bunch of glasses in a tray.

Sanji

Took you long enough! Did you get lost in the ship again, Marimo-kun?

Laughing, the blonde sits up and gives them a cheerful smile. When he sees Zoro and Bepo’s faces, his expression drops.

Sanji

What’s wrong? You two look like someone died.

Zoro sets the jug down under the shade of Sanji’s sun umbrella, following Bepo with the glasses. The swordsman bends down in front of the blonde, forcing a smile, offering him the drink that he could have made himself.

Zoro

Nothing happened. Just a little accident in the kitchen. It just took a bit longer to clean, that’s all.

Sanji

Wait, is that for me? How did you know to put it together exactly how I like it?! It looks perfect, thank you!

Sanji grabs the cocktail from Zoro’s hand and gives his cheek a long loud smooch. He returns to sunbathing in the sun lounge chair and happily drinks from the glass. He hums in satisfaction.

After seeing their arrival, the remaining Heart Pirates onboard cluster around them and start asking if they can have some. Sanji waves them to form a line and wait for the swordsman to prep the drinks.

Sanji

Well, whatever it is, if this what came out of there, I say it was worth the trouble.

Zoro works quietly as he tries to get his head back to how it was earlier that day, only to find that he can’t shake Niji’s words off his head. He busies his hands, but not before realising that the blue-haired commander is sitting on the roof of the upper levels of the sub. It looks like he's fixed his broken goggles but he's still sporting the heavy fractured helmet on his head as he watched them closely.

Sanji

Did you get your beer?

Zoro

…Shit.

—

Law stood in the middle of the Polar Tang’s wrecked kitchen, his eyes dark behind the shade of his spotted cap. His knuckles turn white from gripping the sheath of his sword too tight.

Everyone stood behind him near the door to make a quick escape should they need to. Zoro and Niji are at opposite sides of the room after seemingly having an unspoken agreement to keep things quiet after their fight. Bepo looked nervously left and right between them.

Law

I was only gone for an hour….

The tone of Law’s voice sends chills up the Heart Pirates’ spines.

Law turns abruptly and looks at Bepo face to face.

The polar bear freaks and screams. He jumps back to hide behind Sanji, who is the next victim of Law’s hard stare.

Law

I come back… to find everyone tipsy drunk… and my kitchen in disarray….

Sanji

Don’t look at me! I haven’t stepped foot in here since breakfast!

There was a moment of silence. Law takes a step forward. Bepo visibly shakes from fear.

Zoro

It was me.

Everyone turns to the swordsman who’s currently busy digging into his ear with his pinky. Niji watches him straight-faced.

Zoro flicks the dirt from his finger, crosses his arms then looks at Law properly.

Zoro

I tried to make Pina Colada for Curls.

All eyes bore on him. Some looked at him in confusion, some started snickering and Bepo felt relieved to not need to confess anything to his captain. Niji huffs quietly, looking away.

Sanji scans the room, trying to picture the scene that unfolded.

Sanji

Oh, Mellorine…. This is not how you make a drink….

Zoro is banned from the kitchen from that day on.

----------

I'm going through some design reiterations for the Vinsmoke helmets now that the story's more fleshed out and I have a better idea of how they serve the story. I'm thinking, if Sanji's is making them them and his siblings have a say about the heavy things, they'd actually put some effort in making it look cool, and potentially add some extra mods on them. The new designs are meant to really show that Sanji respects and trusts them as his best and highest ranking officers.

#pirate king of the north #villain sanji #vinsmoke niji #one piece #vinsmoke sanji #roronoa zoro #fanfic #trafalgar law #bepo one piece #opfanart #op fanfic #one piece fanart #one piece fanfiction #heart pirates #zosan #zosan fanfic #warlord zoro

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awinterrosesstuff · 1 month ago

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I recently reblogged a post about Naruto and Shikamaru. They aren't childhood friends or even best friends. Sasuke will always be Naruto's best friend, and Choji is Shikamaru's best friend. However, I'm fond of Naruto and Shikamaru's friendship.

Naruto is a character who has a strong bond with Sasuke, marked by rivalry, friendship, care, sadness, happiness, and obviously love. Even his bonds with Sakura and Sai aren't easy. But his friendship with Shikamaru is different ; it's calm, with no drama. They just happened to get along during the Chunin Exams after Shikamaru witnessed Naruto's worth. I think it's also important for a character like Naruto to have this type of bond. It's probably why their dynamic works so well with readers.

They both disliked each other at the beginning and thought of each other as idiots.

Naruto introduces Team 10 as "fools" and Shikamaru as a "whining fool." Except for the "fool" part, he isn't entirely wrong in his description. But let's continue. In the Forest of Death, there are several instances where you see Shikamaru's opinion of Naruto. He thinks of him as weak and an idiot, even saying, "Just watching you pisses me off!" However, during Naruto's match against Kiba, Shikamaru's perspective shifts. He goes from thinking "he can't win" to realizing "he isn't that stupid."

That's a key moment in Shikamaru's change of mind. He doesn't really need more than that. He sees Naruto winning against Kiba and that's it.

This scene has always fascinated me. Just a few days earlier, Shikamaru probably wouldn't have visited Naruto at the hospital. Yet, he not only visits but also waits for Naruto to wake up. What changed? Nothing monumental, really. I mean, how often do you visit someone at the hospital whom you don't particularly like and stay by their bedside reading? That's never happened to me, honestly. Maybe they had an interaction we didn't see, but either way, it works. They have a friendly conversation, and unlike their time in the forest, Shikamaru answers all of Naruto's questions. It's a clear development in their relationship, and to me, it feels natural.

There are also two other interesting things to notice about them. Twice, they encounter Gaara together. The first time, they saved Lee and listened to Gaara's story. . (Did you notice that Naruto basically revealed to Gaara and Shikamaru he is himself a jinchuriki ?) The second time, they witnessed Gaara killing two guys.

I think these shared experiences are part of why Naruto trusted Shikamaru to watch their backs when he and Sakura went after Sasuke with Pakkun.

Another thing I appreciate is how Shikamaru literally observed Naruto being a "fool for Sasuke" (yes, he is, and that's okay). Shikamaru is able to discern some of the nuances in Naruto's feelings for Sasuke.

There are so many instances I could mention (though I have a limit of ten pictures): Naruto trusting Shikamaru to watch their backs at the end of the Chunin Exams, their teamwork during the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, Shikamaru visiting Naruto again at the hospital, and even in Part 2, they still have friendly conversations. For example, during their reunion, they were very happy to see each other. Naruto immediately noticed there was something between Shikamaru and Temari.

The fact that Shikamaru was the one who reassured Naruto after Jiraiya died is significant. I couldn't help but include this panel. Shikaku decided to have faith in Naruto because of Shikamaru's words. Although Naruto had destroyed all of Pain's bodies, Shikaku, as the Jonin Commander who had gone through war, could have stopped Naruto from going to see Nagato on his own. However, Shikamaru's trust in Naruto was enough to convince Shikaku.

I believe Kishimoto was already setting up Shikamaru to be Naruto's advisor for when he becomes Hokage. These panels pretty much confirm that Naruto cares about Shikamaru and that Shikamaru is destined to be Naruto's advisor.

Looking at the manga as a whole, I feel their bond progressed quite naturally. I won't lie —if Shikamaru hadn't been so popular since his introduction, he might not have shone as much. But this allowed these two characters to develop their bond in a natural way.

#naruto #naruto manga #naruto thoughts #shikamaru nara #naruto uzumaki #naruto meta #i guess #for my tags it would be useful #i repeat but #sasuke is naruto's best friend #choji is shikamaru's best friend #naruto is a fool for sasuke #can't blame him

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marzzthehuman · 3 months ago

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Okay so for my ii gijinkas i have a really smart thought and texi said i should tell the world because i am just that smart (/silly)

Oh also ii17-18 spoilers

So. in ii17 when everyone died and COULD NOT be revived (this is important) i think that they would have all ‘reset.’

Keep in mind that normal revival would not do this. As the contestants progress through the show, they change their appearance. (like clothes, hair, etc.) and since mephone is going through the show with them and seeing them as they compete he knows what their styles are and how they present themselves, so when he revives them they come back the way that they were right when they died. (with some altercations, for example if someone was injured when they are revived they wouldn't be injured)

But, in ii17-18 when mephone could NOT revive them, mephonex/cobs did something (like some kind of hacking) so that mephone could not revive them, basically causing a ‘factory reset’ for all the contestants. This means that however they looked before they died, they did not save. Meaning that they look exactly like mephone wanted them to. Their default. (aka what they looked like at the start of the show/when they joined)

What I mean is that they would look like what mephone imagined them to be (as we see in the scene where he is drawing the contestants.) their hair, clothes, makeup, whatever would be what mephone came up with when he came up with the show.

Obviously, it wasn't a total factory reset, because as we see all the contestants still retain character development and also the big thing, still exists.

Let me use my taco gijinka as an example.

At the start of the show, we see her with long sleeves (displaying she is armless) and messy hair. When she reveals her arms, she pulls her hands out from her sleeves to display that yes, she actually has arms. (long sleeves playing on the retractable arm thing).

In season 2, we see her appear more ‘villain’ like, and more businesslike and professional. We see her wearing nicer, more businesslike clothes. Her hair is very neat, and we see her roots have grown out. She also has heavy eyeshadow (showing she is a badass villain). When she gets the bowtie, it stays on her person until we see her die in ii17/her in mephone with everyone else in ii18.

In ii18/movie her design has changed from her s2. It is similar to her s1, but there are differences. Instead of a long sleeve shirt under her tacocat shirt, we see a tank top. Her hair is neater than we see it in s1, but still a bit messy.

You may be asking, “but Marzz, that's not what her s1 design looks like, and you said that everyone went back to their default!” Well that's just it! Since taco put on a front at the start of the show, she changed her appearance so she would fit the character she was playing. The reason her s1 outfit stayed was because that's how mephone saw her, his most recent memory of her was her wearing that outfit. That's why it was saved.

What mephonex/cobs did was basically a memory wipe or, as i said, factory reset. Everyone was reverted back to their true defaults. So, if, for example, salt and pepper were wearing late 2000s/early 2010s fashion at the start of the show (because that is when the show started), their fashion may have changed a bit as time went on, but when they are reset in ii18, they go back to their s1 hair and outfits. Contestants who changed their appearance to be more complicated (more accessories, more intricate hairstyles) would be reverted back to their more simple outfits from when they joined the show.

Okay i hope that made sense lol. Just wanted to get my thoughts out there haha

#guys what tacos outfits arent based off of mine what do you meaaann #hope this made some sort of sense #OH TEXI IS MY GF #BTW #FOR PEOPLE WHO DONT KNOW WHO THEY ARE #inanimate insanity #ii #ii mephone4 #osc #object shows #object show community #ii taco #mephone4 ii #inanimate insanity mephone4 #marzzz’s yappy yap yaps

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gold-pavilion · 3 months ago

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If Till and Hyuna died, how DO we go from Wiege to a happy ending?

A Happy End(s) ALNST theory post!

Just as Wiege met us with some potentially very unsatisfying deaths, it brought us two HUGE story elements in the teasers and video itself: cloning (VERY emphasized) and glimpses at AUs.

I'll regard those two first, then talk about the current phase of the story and finally how the new elements might tie in to the next part. BUT BEAR IN MIND THIS IS ONLY IN THE CASE that Till and Hyuna are indeed dead. And also, that it's just a theory that's been bouncing in my head.

Firstly: while we did get allusions to artificiality around Luka before, it was in the teaser phase for Wiege that we got the straight-up confirmation about cloning being involved. (Of course, if more is said about this and how it works "clones" may stop being the more adequate word, but for now it's what I'll be calling them.)

There was material of him and his clones in the MV as well, several shots actually. That + posting about it separately makes it feel to me like it was important for us to know.

For this part of the story, knowledge of this element was intentionally given and highlighted.

Secondly: Wiege is the first instance so far where AUs appear within the series itself. We were shown both HS AU and Actor AU (which COULD be one modified "modern world, normal life" AU anyway).

I'm not sure if there's a second purpose to this, I've got theories below, but at the very least, these glances are meant to evoke that "they did enjoy some happiness, they could've lived happily if their world wasn't like it is" feeling.

Now, about the current state of the story and where it left off:

I don't think anyone's wrong to feel that Till's death is kinda strange (as it left plenty of his inner journey unfinished, just as he was opening his eyes to things, specially about Ivan) and that Hyuna's was too sudden (from mismanaged rebel fire, no less!).

However, it might be because the story can AFFORD to be "careless" with such deaths.

Because at the same time, we're being told "cloning does exist in this world, remember?" as well as "think about other lives (AUs)".

I mean, look at the order of things at the end of Wiege:

We have THREE main characters who died VERY recently (Till and Hyuna, but also Ivan given the weirdly short time spanned between CURE and Blink Gone),

the protagonist who's next step is to rage against the system,

and the character who brought the cloning element to the story.

To expand on that: Mizi always being at the forefront of official content, being the first focus character (who also opened the story with her monologue on human history and the loss of her love), the one with the from-the-stage-to-rebellion line and the most change / development makes her the story-driving force of ALNST. In other words, Mizi is the slowly-delivered protagonist.

I think that much has been kinda visible for a while. And now, the spotlight is on her all the more.

She will doubtlessly want to do SOMETHING, after all this unfair death.

Hyuna's goodbye speech was aimed to inspire Luka to live on, embrace his humanity and "live with love", wishing for him the same medicine that Hyuna's life outside gave her.

It ought to make him switch out of his compliant, segyein-inclined ways to side with humankind; whether he does so genuinely or just for Hyuna is the same.

So we have Mizi, the protag who NEEDS to do something now. And Luka, the guy who MIGHT WANT to do something now... who just happens to know about the segyein's cloning methods. You see where I'm going?

It's pretty out-there! and doubtlessly kinda nutty!!

But to lay it down explicitly, here's my two Happy End theories:

Theory 1: willingly or not, Luka helps Mizi revive or restore the others in a way that involves the cloning tech he knows.

Till, Hyuna and Ivan's bodies are all at hand.

I thought it was really odd for CURE and Blink Gone to have such little time between them, but seeing now that this fact makes Ivan's death almost as recent, I have my suspicions about it being intentional. His body may be reachable. (I swear to god, if this revival theory turns true and they DON'T include Ivan I'll never recover.)

As for Sua, who died longer ago, I do believe she can also be brought back, just with more difficulty (tbh, fitting for Mizi's first loss to be the last recovery). But since this belief hinges on patreon paid content, I won't disclose it here. Moots n friends with patreon access can ask!

(There's also one patreon post that I have as support for this overall theory that's also paid content and won't be disclosed publicly, but again, go ahead and ask if interested and I'll provide both, so long as you prove you ARE supporting Vivinos' patreon. I don't distribute what I'm not allowed to distribute.)

But that's the first theory. Everyone is recovered, they fight back and live on.

Theory 2: just a vague idea. Instead of a revival route for the characters, the story might take a route that relies more on the AUs they showed us, which is why I said I'm unsure of their purpose.

Maybe it's a route where they DO stay frustratingly dead in the main story but we shift our focus to the AUs? Or a terrible ending is reached in the main story, but it turns out to have been Actor AU all along? I don't lean towards this a lot, but hey, it's another possibility.

(And of course, Theory 3: somehow Till and/or Hyuna survive, the segyein don't really have a good read on people's vitals so they were marked as dead when they're not, and the 4 tough it out the long way lmao.)

As things are now, I think the most about revivals. Cloning and bending life-death have been hinted for so long.

I would make sense both for Luka and Mizi's development to act towards that (Luka switching sides as well as touching upon his individuality trauma, Mizi becoming a bigger and more active force in the rebellion to fulfill her protagonist role against the system that subjected her to all this horror and loss), as well as making the happy ending Vivimeng talked about fully possible.

Let me know what you think!

Again, this is only a theory. But if you've read all of it, thank you!

#alien stage #alnst #alnst wiege #wiege #luka #mizi #ivan #sua #till #hyuna #alnst meta #thoughts and talk and so

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maxdibert · 2 months ago

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recently found ur acc and I agree with a lot of things (lol considering im a marauders fan/usually interact with snaters) i've always considered snape to be a v complex and well fleshed out character (i think alan rickman did wonders to jk's unpolished writing ngl, he was genuinely sm better in the movies because alan brought the depth to him that jk tried) and I only used to hate him when I was like 14-15. but i have to say, what makes you hate on lily sm (i get a hardcore snape fan would hate james, i dont because i recognize his flaws as what they are instead of making excuses for him)

but lily hate I genuinely dont get, like if we can praise snape for being a complex character why shame lily for being one as well? if you're gonna say its because lily is portrayed as a saint, I could argue that's what happens once one dies, people don't like to speak ill of the dead. that's what happened to severus as well, harry hated him all his life then he died and suddenly he was "the bravest man he ever knew."

i get that lily getting together with james is sad for sev but sev also basically bullied her by using a racial-slur equivalent for her? and we're told constantly james changed and grew anyways.

also i dont understand why a mother's sacrifice is downplayed because "shes supposed to do so"? it is equally heroic for a person to sacrifice themselves for someone else as it is for a mother to sacrifice herself for her child.

mothers are always put on this pedestal to be absolutely perfect but they ARE human beings and idk why we need to be told this in 2025 that it is extremely misogynistic to put women's and mother's efforts because "its their role"

anyways, my point is; when we can recognize severus as a grey character, what's wrong with recognizing lily as one (when shes honestly mostly good, was there for sev when no one was, only stopped after he verbally abused her infront of the whole school)

The root of the problem is not that Lily has flaws—every complex character should have them—but rather how the narrative presents her. It’s not about "Snape fans hating Lily because she chose James," but rather that the story forces us to see her as a saint, even when her actions are inconsistent with that image.

From a feminist perspective, the main issue with Lily’s portrayal is not just her lack of development but how her character is used to reinforce the myth of motherhood as the pinnacle of female virtue. Lily is not written as a complex person who makes decisions with nuanced consequences, but as an ideal: the "perfect woman" who is pure, good, just, and whose greatest achievement in life is being a mother and sacrificing herself for her child.

If we were allowed to see Lily with the same depth that male characters like Severus or even James are given, there would be no issue in recognizing that she had both virtues and flaws. But Rowling's narrative does not allow this. We are told that she was perfect—a loyal friend, a just person, incapable of doing anything wrong. However, in practice:

She is the most important person in Snape’s life for years, yet she abandons him without even attempting to understand his perspective after the "Mudblood" incident. It’s not that she wasn’t right to be hurt, but the break is drastic and absolute. She essentially demands that Severus put himself in her shoes, but she doesn’t even try to put herself in his. When he expresses his doubts about the Marauders, she implies that he is obsessive, tells him he should be grateful to his bully, and laughs at the state of his underwear. She knows Severus comes from a poor and abusive background, yet she engages in gaslighting and class shaming. Does this make her a bad person? No, but it does make us question whether she was truly the epitome of morality that the story sells us. And it would be great if the narrative highlighted these inconsistencies, but it doesn’t. Instead, it tells us that Lily is right in her judgments and that she has the right to be highly moralistic, even though she herself exhibits overwhelming double standards.

We are told that James changed, but we are never shown how and why Lily accepted him. We go from seeing her hate him to marrying him with no real transition, and the only explanation is "well, he matured." If a male character had such an abrupt arc, people would call it inconsistent, but in Lily’s case, we are supposed to accept it as normal—because women have traditionally been seen as maternal figures who exist to nurture and fix men. Because a woman’s task is to change and "fix" men. The narrative does not question what this great change in James actually was because simply having Lily choose him is considered enough. And it’s not. If you’ve spent years watching someone be abusive and violent, you don’t just wake up one day and decide that they’ve changed without any real reason. And besides, why should the burden of "fixing" a man or deciding whether he is good or bad fall on a woman? Why objectify women as moral compasses? If a woman chooses you, does that mean you’re good and have changed? Can women not have flaws and be morally questionable themselves—overlooking certain behaviors simply because they don’t care about them as much as they should from an ethical standpoint? Lily is not treated as a person; she is treated as an idol, an idea, a supreme entity. She is dehumanized.

Her sacrifice is presented as the ultimate demonstration of maternal love, but the story reinforces the idea that a mother must sacrifice herself as if that is her only form of heroism. It’s not just that any functional parent would be willing to die for their child because, on a purely biological level, there is an instinct to protect offspring for the survival of the species—it’s also that the narrative reinforces the idea that mothers, specifically, are the most elevated beings because their identity and individuality disappear once they have children. Tonks was Tonks—a character in her own right—but as soon as she gets with Lupin, she becomes an extension of him, and later, she is only defined by being a mother. Narcissa is "evil, evil, evil" until her role as a mother comes to the forefront, and then she is redeemed by the narrative. Molly Weasley is an obnoxious woman, but because she is a devoted mother to her seven children and nothing else, she is seen as the ultimate maternal figure in the saga. Lily is almost treated like a goddess for sacrificing herself for her child. And I ask—what exactly is exceptional about any of this? Isn’t the bare minimum we expect from a reasonably functional adult who chooses to bring life into the world actually taking care of that life? No, it’s not that women are obligated to be good mothers—it’s that J.K. Rowling is obsessed with motherhood and constantly implies that only through it can a woman attain absolute goodness. And I question that. I question whether being a mother is something extraordinary. I say that being a mother is a very normal, common thing, and that any mother or father would do the same as Lily—and if they didn’t, they’d be incredibly selfish people and terrible parents.

The fact that the story glorifies Lily’s death but barely mentions James’s in terms of sacrifice is a clear example of gender bias. James died fighting, but Lily died "as a mother," and that is why she is seen as more noble. Why? Is a father’s love any less valuable? No, but the narrative sells us the idea that a woman must sacrifice herself to be worthy of admiration.

This is a recurring problem in literature and film: mothers are "good" if they are self-sacrificing and devoted. They cannot be selfish, they cannot be ambiguous, they cannot make mistakes without being punished. If Lily had survived and raised Harry, would she have been just as revered? Probably not, because living mothers are judged, while dead mothers are turned into saints.

When the fandom (or even the canon) downplays the sacrifices of others but elevates Lily’s because "she was a mother," what is really being said is that women have no choice: they are no longer women—they are mothers, and the kind of mother they are determines whether they are worthy or not. That is why I like to demystify the idea that what she did was extraordinary—because it wasn’t. It was something any halfway decent mother would do, even if in her daily life she was a terrible person to everyone else. And I don’t like being sold the idea that Lily’s sacrifice excuses everything and makes her a moral and ethical reference point—because being a mother who loved her child does not mean she couldn’t have been an asshole. Women are three-dimensional and complete beings, not one-dimensional.

Recognizing Lily’s flaws is not hating her—it is giving her the same respect we give complex male characters. The problem is that Rowling does not treat her that way: she places Lily on a pedestal of unquestionable perfection and reduces her to just her motherhood. The fact that the story forces her to be a saint makes her actual character fade into the background, and that is both a narrative flaw and a reflection of how society treats women and mothers.

It’s not about "hating Lily" or saying that "her sacrifice was worthless"—it’s about questioning why the story tells us that this sacrifice is the only thing that defines her. If the narrative gave her the same depth as the other characters, this discussion wouldn’t even be necessary.

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harukapologist · 10 months ago

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Yesterday I was having lots of 09 thoughts & mainly talked about him, so today I'll talk about why I think Haruka will not die before T3.

First off, what is the point of leaving such an engaging mystery unsolved?

If you think about it, Haruka's death would add two things in the story: drama factor to test the fans' feelings, and a chance to learn more about the extraction system. For the drama/emotional factor, it would be more useful if he stayed alive in critical condition; the fans' feelings will change and that will affect how these fans vote for Haruka and the other prisoners. In the scenario that he dies, the other prisoners' character developments will get somewhat of a push but Haruka's case will remain unsolved forever; if he stayed alive, I think that would help him and everyone develop further. e.g we would see more tension with Muu as she seems to be spending less time with him, we would see how Haruka struggles to cope with his verdict, how he interacts with the other prisoners etc it is much more compelling that way in my opinion

There is a possibility the extraction system could work on a dead body but 1. there would be no VD and VDs are important because they force the prisoner to think about and focus on their crime before extraction, 2. I don't see it being worth killing off a character, there are other more effective ways to get a reaction out of the audience and keep all of the prisoners' fates tied. And if it doesn't work, then wasn't Haruka's death pointless? It is just such a fruitless way to seal his case. Him being dead has only one outcome, which is...well, being dead. But surviving his attempt may have many outcomes: he might not attempt at all and remain unscathed, he might get in critical condition, he might be punished for attempting to escape milgram's boundaries by dying; who knows?

Not only narrative-wise is Haruka important, but also Haruka is a fan favorite, at least in JP fandom. He is well-loved, a lot of fans are intrigued by his case and killing him off without even getting close to solving his deal—which I see as one of if not the most ambiguous in the prison for many reasons—will leave a lot of fans disappointed and some may quit milgram, so the sales and audience etc will drop.

You have to keep in mind that Jackalope is biased, loves messing with us and sometimes says or implies things that are not true (e.g implying Haruka and Muu's dynamic to be romantic "lovey-dovey" when they are just friends) so you should not take anything he says—much like most of the info we are presented in milgram generally—at surface level.

Something else to be considered but which I wouldn't rely on as heavily, is that minigrams have foreshadowed things before (e.g system Amane), and Haruka has been really in the spotlight in nearly every recent minigram. I take this as a sign that he might not only survive but also play an important role in T3.

#milgram #haruka sakurai #sakurai haruka #milgram project #milgram spoilers #repeat after me #HARUKA SAKURAI WILL LIVE #i also feel like a death in the prison may be too gruesome even for milgram #imagine the atmosphere in the timelines if theres just some dead body. imagine the sounds and stuff in the VD when they're trying to move #around a corpse #it's very boring really

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thesaltofcarthage · 3 months ago

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Benedict Cumberbatch Tells All on Doctor Strange’s Future, His New Sundance Film and Not Being Your Typical Movie Star: ‘I’m Not Brad, I’m Not Leo’

By Brent Lang Photographs by Zoe McConnell

Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t like to overshare, but sometimes he just can’t help himself.

Take the two hours we spend on a recent London afternoon discussing his new film, “The Thing With Feathers,” a dark drama about a father struggling to hold his family together after his wife dies suddenly. While the film paints an unvarnished portrait of a man in crisis, Cumberbatch feels awkward talking about how he channeled that kind of soul-eviscerating grief on-screen. “The Brit in me is a bit embarrassed about diving too deeply into what I do,” he admits.

There’s a polite reserve to Cumberbatch, as well as a discomfort with the trappings of stardom. Still, there are moments when his guard drops and suddenly he’s telling all. Cumberbatch is best known for playing Doctor Strange, the brilliant but arrogant Sorcerer Supreme in six Marvel movies. It’s the role that gave the 48-year-old actor box office cred and made him globally popular, his likeness adorning T-shirts and toys. And it’s a part he will continue to play as the Avengers keep battling existential threats. But Cumberbatch has just let something slip, and he seems momentarily horrified by his candor.

You see, he’s just told me that Doctor Strange is taking a hiatus in the next Marvel sequel, 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” “Is that a spoiler?” he asks. “Fuck it!”

Undeterred, he shares that things changed when Jonathan Majors — whose character, Kang, was intended to serve as the main antagonist of the next phase of the comic book film franchise — was fired in 2024 after being convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

Cumberbatch’s absence from “Doomsday” has to do with “the character not aligning with this part of the story.” And though he probably shouldn’t be saying this, he also reveals that Doctor Strange is “in a lot” of “Avengers: Secret Wars,” which will hit theaters in 2027.

“He’s quite central to where things might go,” Cumberbatch teases. And he hints that the character, last seen casting spells in 2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” will appear in a third stand-alone film, but is hesitant to say too much beyond praising Marvel for being collaborative.

“They are very open to discussing where we go next,” he says. “Who do you want to write and direct the next one? What part of the comic lore do you want to explore so that Strange can keep evolving? He’s a very rich character to play. He’s a complex, contradictory, troubled human who’s got these extraordinary abilities, so there’s potent stuff to mess about with.”

Avengers movies consume much of Cumberbatch’s time, but when he’s not busy being a superhero, he’s leveraging his stardom to finance smaller, riskier projects that allow him to keep growing as an actor. They include “Eric,” a Netflix miniseries where he played an alcoholic puppeteer whose son disappears; “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” a biopic about an eccentric painter obsessed with drawing cats; and the upcoming “Roses,” a reimagining of “The War of the Roses” with Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman clashing as a couple whose marriage is fraying. Most of them, like “Roses” and “The Thing With Feathers,” were developed and made through SunnyMarch, the production company Cumberbatch launched in 2013 with the goal of nurturing the kind of bespoke, offbeat fare that Hollywood doesn’t support.

“These are urgent stories that we feel a need to tell,” Cumberbatch says. “I tend to appear in many of them so we can finance something that’s either about a difficult subject or is really a niche piece of art-house cinema that deserves to be seen.”

When the actor meets with me in the stylishly dilapidated sitting room of a 300-year-old London home where he’s just completed a photo shoot, it’s two weeks before “The Thing With Feathers” will debut at Sundance. Cumberbatch’s performance, one of his rawest and most emotional, is sure to break hearts and should help the film land a distribution deal. It required him to play a man who is collapsing under the weight of despair and becoming increasingly untethered. There are points when his character, who has begun to imagine that he and his children are being terrorized by a monstrous crow, looks so frightened and unhinged that he seems to have stepped out of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”  

Cumberbatch says there aren’t any shortcuts to accessing the intense emotions he channels in “The Thing With Feathers.” There are techniques you can use, but no formula that’s guaranteed to work every time. In 2023, Tom Holland, who has appeared opposite Cumberbatch as Spider-Man to his Doctor Strange in assorted Marvel movies, publicly credited his co-star with teaching him how to cry on command. Holland said Cumberbatch told him that if he needed to tear up, he should breathe through his diaphragm while manipulating the muscles he uses to laugh.

“There is that method,” Cumberbatch says. “But it’s a mistake to think you can force it. That’s a dead end. You have to really put your mind somewhere so you can respond to the moment. And that can mean drawing from your own life story or just your imagination.” He adds, “It’s harder when you’re very young. I’m 48, so I’ve lived a bit of life. I’ve experienced loss, I’ve experienced pain, I’ve experienced some of the very worst, as well as the best.”

On set, it was difficult not to get swept up in what Cumberbatch was doing. “There’s a scene where Benedict finally folds and puts away his wife’s clothes, and at the end of the take, two of the crew members were crying,” Dylan Southern, the film’s writer and director, says. “We had to stop for a moment and make sure everyone was all right. It’s really loaded, powerful stuff because so many people have lost someone.” 

  Cumberbatch’s great gift as an actor is his willingness to go there — to push himself to the outer reaches of his emotional life. Getting to that place requires preparation and, in some cases, punishment. He lost 21 pounds to play an imprisoned spy in “The Courier,” wore dental prosthetics to mimic the speech patterns of mathematician Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game” (which gave him his first Oscar nomination) and stopped bathing and learned how to castrate a bull to portray a rancher in “The Power of the Dog” (his second Oscar nomination).  

“Everything he does is wholehearted,” says Jane Campion, director of “The Power of the Dog.” “He can be so vulnerable. He just opens himself up to you.”  

Campion thinks genetics are at play, noting that Cumberbatch’s parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton, both had long careers on stage and screen. “He’s the next evolution in performing,” she says. “He’s kind of a ‘super actor.’”  

Cumberbatch’s close friend Tom Cruise calls him “fearless in his choice of films.” He adds that Cumberbatch “is extremely talented and fun to watch — and fun to hang out with.”

J.J. Abrams, who directed Cumberbatch in “Star Trek Into Darkness,” praises him as “annoyingly limitless.” But he also stresses that “for such an intense thespian, he’s self-effacing and very funny.” 

And in person, Cumberbatch is indeed witty, even slightly silly, mixing self-deprecating anecdotes with spot-on impersonations of Michael Keaton as Batman and colleagues like James McAvoy and Benicio Del Toro. “He’s a scarily good mimic,” says Adam Ackland, his best friend and producing partner. “He can capture anyone.”

There’s a self-protectiveness to Cumberbatch too. He may allude to politics or to his home life with his wife, Sophie Hunter, and their three young sons, but he quickly steers the conversation to less complicated or personal subjects. “I long ago stopped treating interviews as therapy sessions,” he says.  

He knows how his comments can be taken out of context, then picked apart on social media (which he avoids, lacking any kind of presence on X and Instagram). He’s grown more resigned to it all. “The older I get, the less of a shit I give,” he says. “There’s this whole other audience that have these expectations of you, feelings about you, judgments of you. That’s theirs, and you can’t change that or shape it. I’m still discovering who I am. So how the fuck are they supposed to know me?” 

Incandescent stardom, which for Cumberbatch arrived in 2010 with the premiere of “Sherlock,” the BBC series in which he reinterpreted the legendary detective as a strutting, slightly sociopathic brainiac, was hard to accept. Particularly when the classically trained performer became an unlikely sex symbol, billed by the British tabloids as “the thinking woman’s crumpet.” Looking back, Cumberbatch struggles to explain it.  

“I’m not Brad, I’m not Leonardo, I’m not a typical movie star,” he says. “People were scrambling for ‘Why is he at all attractive to us?’ But for me to guess and try to understand that is so fucking weirdly navel-gazing. I’m not sitting around thinking, ‘Why am I sexy?’ I worry about myself in the mirror as I age, like every other fucker does.” 

And don’t get him started on the term “celebrity.” “It’s so derogatory, and just lumps anyone famous together,” he says. “Am I a ‘celebrated’ person? Well, for what? For selling cheese? For being on a reality show? For doing something outrageous? For being an actor?” 

But Cumberbatch gets it. He knows that his fame, despite the headaches, is the reason that “The Thing With Feathers” got made at all. Southern had labored for years to bring his adaptation of Max Porter’s 2015 novella “Grief Is the Thing With Feathers” to the screen before he connected with Cumberbatch. It was, Southern admits, “an unfilmable book,” one that spilled out in a jumble of poetry, drawings and dialogue. It’s also surreal — often terrifyingly so. As the crow enters the lives of the father and the boys, the story moves from a domestic drama to horror. Despite the fantastical elements, Cumberbatch believes the film tells a vital, deeply human story.  

“It shines a light on male grief,” Cumberbatch says. “I haven’t seen many things that do that. You have a man facing up to his limitations as he deals with the pressure of work, life, raising kids, all while his sense of self is just brutalized by grief. There were a great many challenges there. And I love a challenge.” 

Cumberbatch leans back in a leather chair, delivering that last line with the kind of dramatic zest that makes him such a magnetic performer. Every consonant is crisp; every vowel is perfectly rounded. And then there’s his supple baritone, once likened to a “jaguar hiding in a cello,” which makes even casual asides seem Shakespearean. When we meet, Cumberbatch is wearing a long blue coat, his wool scarf hanging loosely around his neck. It’s a brutally cold afternoon, and the insulation in the rambling house doesn’t appear to have been updated since the 18th century.    

Cumberbatch is proud of what “The Thing With Feathers” signals about his ambitions for SunnyMarch. Over the past decade and change, the company has backed and developed an impressive range of projects, from the Showtime series “Patrick Melrose” to “We Live in Time,” a romantic drama that became a box office hit last fall for A24. Its upcoming slate includes “How to Stop Time,” an adaptation of Matt Haig’s novel about a man with a rare condition that allows him to live for centuries. Ackland, who launched the company with Cumberbatch, says the actor was partly motivated to move into producing to demonstrate there was a better way of working after some bad experiences on film sets.  

“We want to make great TV and films but with a kindness that’s often missing,” Ackland says. “We want to make sure you look after actors and crews and have a workplace where there’s not so much unpleasantness. In the past, the business tolerated a lot of brashness and shouting and throwing things. It didn’t need to be like that.” 

Cumberbatch’s model for SunnyMarch is Plan B, the Oscar-winning production company that Brad Pitt runs with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, which has become synonymous with thoughtful, auteur-driven work. Like Plan B, SunnyMarch isn’t in the volume business and is selective about the projects it brings to screens. “We want to do more with less,” Cumberbatch says.  

Producing has also made Cumberbatch more aware of the business part of the entertainment industry. In the case of “The Thing With Feathers,” the film’s investors decided to abbreviate the title of the book to make the movie sound less grim. Cumberbatch disagreed with the change.  

“I wanted the name to stay the same,” he says. “It’s a marketing thing. You put ‘grief’ in a film’s title, and it’s off-putting for people. It’s frustrating. I’m sure it was one of those titles where it was tested and people went, ‘You can’t call a film something like that!’” 

Made for roughly $8 million, “The Thing With Feathers” marked a change of pace from the blockbusters that have dominated much of Cumberbatch’s time since he joined the MCU with 2016’s “Doctor Strange.”  

“‘Feathers’ offered a close-quarter, nuanced and nimble work that really appeals,” he says. “I’ve been in some very brilliant but monolithic kind of tentpole films. They’re great fun, but it can get stodgy. It can feel like you’re waiting a lot of the time to get called to the set.” 

It was initially difficult, Cumberbatch says, to figure out how to stay relaxed while working inside the Marvel machine, with its green screens and set-pieces and rewrites and reshoots. He confesses that his turn as Doctor Strange in that first film was “a bit stiff.”  Observing Robert Downey Jr. and Holland banter in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” made Cumberbatch realize he should take a looser approach to being a superhero. “I learned a lot by seeing how at ease and improvisatory they are,” he says. “It’s hard because you have this huge apparatus around you, but it’s so important.”  

That’s partly why he’s excited that Downey, who appeared to have closed the comic book chapter of his career after Iron Man died at the end of “Avengers: Endgame,” will rejoin the Marvel franchise. This time he’s playing Doctor Doom. It was a secret so tightly guarded that Cumberbatch only found out about it while watching the live coverage of Marvel’s 2024 Comic-Con presentation, where Downey’s return was the fan event’s final reveal. Cumberbatch immediately grabbed his phone and messaged Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige. “I texted, ‘What the fuck?’ and then quickly added, ‘Good what-the-fuck. I mean, good what-the-fuck.’” 

Cumberbatch says making these movies, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, comes with pressure, but Downey helped keep things light on set. He would rib Cumberbatch by referring to him as “Mr. Shakespeare,” and allude to their shared history portraying Sherlock Holmes.

“We had a gas about being the two Sherlocks on set,” Cumberbatch says. “But there was some line of dialogue where someone turns to us and says, ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ Well, we took out all that meta stuff. We just said, ‘No, no, no. Better to leave that for the fan fiction.’”

Cumberbatch, who has performed in “Hedda Gabler” and “Hamlet” onstage, doesn’t feel like he’s slumming by being a member of Earth’s mightiest heroes. He has a real passion for epic adventures that “transport” audiences to different worlds. And he’s in awe of what Marvel has built over the course of 34 films.

“It’s the modern myths of our times,” Cumberbatch says. “Yes, it’s huge and unwieldy, but Marvel is so committed to getting it right. Even when we make one of these Avengers films and it gets exponentially huger, we’re still just kids playing in the sand pit. We’re still just making shit up and having fun with it.”

Cumberbatch clearly isn’t ready to hang up Doctor Strange’s cloak of levitation, but he seems less inclined to revisit “Sherlock.” The detective series’ last episodes aired in 2017, and most fans have given up hope for a return to Baker Street. So what would it take for Cumberbatch to reprise his role as Holmes?  “A lot of money,” he says, joking, before adding, “It would take it to be better than it ever was. You leave them or yourselves wanting more. There’s always that itch to scratch, but I think it would have to be the superlative version of what we’ve already achieved.” 

Back when “Sherlock” took off, Cumberbatch attended a fan event in, he thinks it was Australia, though he can’t recall precisely, and issued a road map for where he hoped to take his career. “I went, ‘Guys, I know you really like “Sherlock,” but if you’re with me, I’m not going to always do the same thing,’” he remembers saying. “‘I’m not going to always be the Benedict that you expect. You might not like some of the stuff I do. I may be cute and cuddly to you at times, or ugly and untouchable. But I want to stretch myself and surprise myself and surprise you.’” 

The film business, however, likes to put performers in a box, and right now Cumberbatch feels like he’s not always being considered for a certain type of art-house fare because he’s spent so much time saving the world as Doctor Strange.  

“It’s a hard ask for directors and casting directors to go, ‘Oh yeah, the Marvel guy. He could be in this small film about, you know, French Foreign Legion service members returning to Paris or something,’” he says.  

He’s been trying to change that perception. “The flavor of work that I want to lean towards is a slightly European sort of world cinema, which I hadn’t really been considered for before,” he says.  

“The Thing With Feathers” is part of that shift, as is his budding partnership with Wes Anderson. The two first worked together on the Oscar-winning 2023 short film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” with Cumberbatch staying at Anderson’s house throughout the shoot as a pandemic protocol.  

“We needed to be in a COVID bubble, and I had a choice between being in a hotel or staying with him,” Cumberbatch says. “Being in someone else’s home could be awkward, but he immediately made it relaxed, and there was amazing food, and it was like being at fucking film school.” 

After working all day, they’d have movie nights, with Anderson turning Cumberbatch on to “Lawrence of Arabia” and screening Truffaut films that had been left out of the actor’s cinematic education. “For me, it felt more like we were doing our fifth movie together rather than our first,” Anderson says of the experience. “[There was] the excitement of a new collaboration, but the fun and comfort of working with old friends.” 

The two will reteam on the director’s next project, “The Phoenician Scheme,” and it sounds as though Anderson’s stock company — which includes frequent collaborators Bill Murray and Owen Wilson — has a new member. 

“I feel like, ‘Why hasn’t this been happening for years and years?’” Cumberbatch says. “I just wish I could build a time machine and go back and work on all those other films with him.” 

The sky outside is fading to black as day shifts to night. “It’s getting dark in here,” Cumberbatch observes, tilting his head to the two naked light fixtures along one wall that are casting a soft glow across the room. Cumberbatch was in the middle of telling me that although he’s never written a fan letter to a director he’d like to work with, he’s thinking of breaking with tradition. 

“It’s all right to knock on some doors,” he rationalizes. “There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘I really want to try to craft something together.’ It’s all about perception. It’s about becoming comfortable saying, ‘I’m an artist rather than, you know, a bit of meat for hire.’ After all, time is running out.”  

Time. It’s a word that Cumberbatch keeps repeating, and a concept he returns to as we talk. It’s how he thinks about the projects he decides to do — is it something so irresistible he can justify spending months away from home? — as well as how he weighs the opportunities he may still explore artistically. Directing, for instance, appeals to him, though he’s not sure he can do something so all-consuming. It would take him away from producing and acting, and there’s so much he wants to accomplish there. Becoming a father has only accelerated this intense desire to get it all in before the clock stops ticking. 

“The minute you have kids this sense of time sinks in far more profoundly,” Cumberbatch says. “My youngest is turning 6 tomorrow, and I’m like, ‘I will be in my 60s when he’s 21,’ you know? It’s crazy. It’s gone so fast. So there’s a huge shift in priorities, and it makes you value what you do with your life in a very different way.”  

He pauses, then starts up again. “It does weigh on me,” he says. “When you become a parent, your thoughts turn more towards mortality.” 

Even before he got married and started a family, there were moments when the fragile nature of life came suddenly, violently into focus for Cumberbatch. In 2004, he was in his late 20s and shooting the BBC miniseries “To the Ends of the Earth” in South Africa when he went on a diving excursion with some friends. Driving home, their tire blew out. When they pulled over to the side of the road, they were robbed and abducted by six men. Cumberbatch and the others were forced into the car and driven around for hours. Eventually, the thieves let them out, tied them up and made them sit execution-style. Then the men fled. The experience changed Cumberbatch in fundamental ways.

“It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one,” he says, shifting in his seat. “It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience.” 

It also transformed him into an adrenaline junkie — someone who once went skydiving and engaged in extreme sports as a way to unwind. 

“The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that,” Cumberbatch says. “It made me go, ‘Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment.’ I was throwing myself out of planes, taking all sorts of risks. But apart from my parents, I didn’t have any real dependents at that point. Now that’s changed, and that sobers you. I’ve looked over the edge; it’s made me comfortable with what lies beneath it. And I’ve accepted that that’s the end of all our stories.”

Styling: Catherine Hayward; Grooming: Wakana Yoshihara/United Talent Agency; Production: Joel Gilgallon/Joon; Full looks: Prada

#benedict cumberbatch #doctor strange #sherlock #the thing with feathers

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nanawaffles · 6 months ago

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This ask is your chance to talk or rant about anything at all for as long as you want. Need inspiration? What is the nicest thing that happened to you today? What is your opinion about whatever media you've watched or read recently? Talk about your favorite character. Finish this sentence 'In a hole in the ground there lived...'

Hi darling! Thank you for sending this I've been saving it for a rainy day. And it's cloudy with a chance of salt today. I'm a little upset, fandom centric yet again ( because it's usually fandom that gets my goat ) based on shipping and the concept of new fans vs old fans. Is this about Tolkien and rings of power, yes... yes it is.

So in a hole in the ground there lived a 6 year old girl who fell in love with Lord of the Rings, and spent every December reading it for the next ten years. Then at 16 she found out this fantasy series had more content, she devoured it, then at 18 found another book in a secondhand shop and spent way too much money to get it because it was a book from this series and world she ( at that time ) could not find anywhere else. Bit by bit her library grew, at 21 she found the second part of that extra material, and added it to her collection. Now at 29, with two kids, a home based job, and a love of writing, this woman has a shelf dedicated to that piece of fiction, and is passing that love on to her niece, nephew, and children.

Now, as a result I've seen the fandom develop. At 6 I was equal parts enthralled and upset by the Peter Jackson trilogy because there were parts i wish he hadn't changed. Faramir being tempted, Samwise being tempted, the lack of Tom Bombadil and Glorfindel, the changes of Aragorns personality, the seriousness of elves, the omission of the entirety of the Scouring of the Shire. I grew to eventually see these things as different, the books were the books, the movies the movies, similar on many levels but different at certain core things that even now I gotta sigh and go "that isn't right". The Hobbit came out, even more changes occurred. Thranduil was painted with a brush so darkened that many of the fans hated him, Kili fell in love with an elf and instead of dying to defend Thorin he died defending her, Azog in his entirety-- but by now I'd learned that they are separate entities. No adaptation will ever measure up. There will always be creative liberties, there will always be bias and change, and there will always be fans that will tear it apart because they can't handle this reality. Ultimately all adaptations are a form of fanfiction. Is it ideal? No. It just is.

Now we get to the source of my contention. With every adaptation and form of media created off of something, there will inevitably be new fans. These fans do not have the same base, they don't know about obscure lore, they base their experience off the singular media that brought them in. This means their opinions will be very different. Their ships will be different, their canon will be different. And there's two ways to deal with this, and unfortunately I have seen both in the last few months. We either embrace them and attempt to bring them more into the world so they can share what we've been sharing for decades---or we are rude, obnoxious, harassing, attacking and all around unwelcoming, painting ourselves and our fellow fans as if we are these "canon nazis" who cannot bear to see another form of the story we love. How hypocritical we seem. Did we not accept the changes of Peter Jackson's versions? Did we not and do not still tout them as exemplary forms of media? Loyal to the book, right? Jackson missed crucial bits of Tolkiens themes, his own biases showing through. I could give lists with receipts on this if anyone is interested because as a die hard fan I watched the BTS interviews, and realized the reasons my favorite things were omitted.

So now we have Rings of Power, which lacks on finer details, and makes certain decisions which are questionable but it hits on key things. Is it loyal in a literal sense? No. But it's loyal in spirit in many ways. Elrond and Sauron are perfectly done, Celebrimbor is deep and compelling, and no younger casting could have done him with such perfect complexity. We have built so much of this fandom on scraps, sometimes I've realized there's stuff we see as canon that actually isn't because one beautiful thing about this world is how in many ways we have the ability to build it. There is canon, typically that was originally published in the appendices and then the Silmarillion, but there's so much conflicting "canon" that it's not completely wrong for Rings of Power to have made the decisions they did. So Gandalf is hanging with proto hobbits, and Tom Bombadil is there. Show me where it says that cannot happen. Is it fanfic? Yes in a way, but given Amazon has very few rights ( don't get me started on this I'm not happy about it ) it's not surprising.

But Tolkien Fandom... what -- and I mean this most sincerely -- the ever loving fuck.

For the older fans, you're letting the fandom down. Attacking those who were not interested in the movies or books but this is their gateway. I'll repeat that you're insulting and unwelcoming, and giving us who want new blood a horrific name. You've scared so many people do you realize that? So many who want to get into this world but are too afraid of you. Hate Rings of Power if you wish, but do not forget there's a person on the other side of those screens. Artists, writers-- you complain about lack of content and yet kill off anyone else who might be sparked in inspiration because they're new! You should embrace and encourage them to get as deeply into this world as you are not bash them because of what they don't know. Stay humble. Remember that once upon a time you didn't know a Finwe from a Finarfin, elves seemed eternally ethereal and not the absolute dumpster fires that they are. Remember the days, for those who began with the movies, that you thought Arwen saved Frodo not Glorfindel, an elf who you didn't even know his name. Imagine if there had been a hoard of angry fans ready to roast you on a spit because you dared to ship Legolas and Gimli ( for those of you who do ). So, respectfully, take a seat and think about it.

Now to you newbies I have this to say. You're welcome to be here, please don't get discouraged. However, keep humble yourselves, remember that there's a lot of canon you're ignorant of, canon that is precious to us OG fans. Canon like Celebrian and Celeborn, aaand yes I'm looking at you Elrondiel shippers. Ship what you want, but quit bashing those characters. Elrond is not some creep just because he loves Celebrian, he did not watch Celebrian grow up, he met her after she was well over a thousand years old. He loved her so deeply, keeping it to himself for a thousand years until the war was over, and her capture and eventual sailing was big to his character. He did not love Galadriel in that way, no matter what you ship, and Celebrian was not some kind of replacement.

Celeborn is not boring, he's a Sinda with a temper and a hatred of dwarves who loves his wife, is very giving, and is essential to supporting Galadriel to do what she does. Do not mistake PJ's sloooow talking "where is Gandalf for I much desire to speak with him" Celeborn for Celeborn. He married an elf who though welcome in the kingdom of Doriath was involved in the Kinslaying at Alqualondë. If anything she would have been a slightly forbidden character, who lied by the way to Melian regarding her involvement for years. He married in spite of that, and they built and built and survived and fought together.

Now I will say this version of Galadriel does bring up some questions mainly because they actually nerfed her true power. This elf is the most powerful elf to ever exist, save Fëanor himself. Galadriel is not a sword wielding badass in the second age because she learned at the hand of Melian the Maia, aka she was literally the apprentice to a demigod. The complaints you see about her and our view is because the eldritch horror witch who rules a forest and can literally speak in your mind and unsettle you with how much she knows, got demoted to a commander with a sword who cannot even perceive Sauron himself and leads him straight to Celebrimbor. This Galadriel perhaps would be true to the first age, haughty and arrogant and flipping the Vala off because she doesn't wish to be subject to anyone. The second age however... wellll... no. Sorry. No. Now I suspend my disbelief, and I let myself enjoy the show regardless, but do not think for one second that that's Galadriel. She isn't. Hate that as you will.

Moving on.

Celebrian is not useless but rather essential to the main plot in ways you do not yet understand. Without Celebrian, it's very possible that certain aspects of Rivendell would not be there. Additionally, there would be no Arwen who gives hope to Aragorn, no Elladan and Elrohir who although omitted from film play a major role in the Return of the King. Just because a character is supportive to other characters does not mean she's useless. She is the Lady of Imladris, her capture marked a beginning of Saurons return. Her sailing was tragic, but indicative of a future for Elrond and a reason for him to get through it all. Do not throw out a loveliness that even the actors of Rings of Power acknowledge for your presuppositions on characters you do not understand.

Now I shall quickly address Elrond x Galadriel and why there's so much pushback. Apart from aforementioned stuff it mainly exists in that these two characters have such glorious arcs on their own with their ships that to cut those arcs out seems as if we're gutting the characters for the future. There is now no Lorien, no Celebrian, no Celeborn. Elrond who is millennia younger than Galadriel ( for all you folks who want to bash him for a "canon creep factor" please remember she was hundreds of years old before he was born and according to show canon found him at sirion as a child ) who in canon has a kind of relationship that one would see among colleagues. He respects her, but that's as far as it goes. He marries her daughter which then would infer a mother/son relationship, not one of "he can't get Galadriel so he settles for her kid". Like please... no. So ship what you want but that's what I see in terms of us. The kiss was what pushed y'all over the edge on that score, which tbh is a shame. All that work Rob Aramayo put in, and that's what you got out. Even he said it was platonic and to distract. I'll digress though, I know you don't like hearing that.

And OG fans, quit attacking them. You're not helping us, you're just making things worse.

With that... I'll end this. Thank you for reading.

#the rings of power #celeborn #celebrian #elrond #Galadriel #elrondiel #elrond x Galadriel #celeborn x Galadriel #Tolkien #elrond x celebrian #trop season 2 #trop

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